SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast

In Morocco, a gay man hears the Islamic call to prayer and writes a song for his lover. In China, an American soldier watches the same film five times in one day. On a flight from Suva to Sydney, an Australian journalist works up the courage to approach Frank Sinatra. This week we learn all these stories and more while exploring Cole Porter's classic song "Night and Day", as performed by Sinatra in REVEILLE WITH BEVERLY (1943) - a film based on the fascinating true story of Jean Ruth Hay, one of the first ever female DJs in the US. We also cover Sinatra's legendary 1959 concert at the Festival Hall in Melbourne with the Red Norvo Quintet, which he performed for Ava Gardner in the front row... before all these themes come crashing together at the climax of this sprawling 2.5 hour episode. Also, we discuss what we can learn from World War II to survive the pandemic, and finally get to the bottom of war bonds.

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Add up the marginalised voices and they become the mainstream. A 19th century Hawaiian prince writing a song about a couple frolicking in gentle rain, a pioneering Korean actor in Hollywood taking archetypal Japanese villain roles during the war - all this and more, just beneath the surface of SHIP AHOY (1942). Plus, we review Shaggy's new Sinatra tribute album COM FLY WID MI and a run-in on a dating app leads Rabia to write the Suddenly Manifesto. The Virginia O'Brien Archive: INSTAGRAM: http://instagr.am/virginiaobriens TWITTER: http://twitter.com/virginiaobriens

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The early months of 1941 in Las Vegas were unique in history, a setting that most have forgotten. While still a small town of 8,500 people, this specific period saw the city on the verge of a tinderbox of circumstances - legalised gambling, an army base nearby, sex work, visiting movie stars, permissive divorce laws, organised crime, the end of prohibition and the end of the Depression - that were about to quickly escalate it to the place more familiar to us today. In amongst all this came LAS VEGAS NIGHTS (1941), released two weeks before the first resort opened on the Strip. This was a tourism ad masquerading as a film, and it tried to sell Vegas both ways at once: a thriving city of nightlife and neon casinos, but also, a folksy little town where everybody knows your name and nobody locks their doors. Bizarre, fascinating and dreary all at once, this film also happened to be Frank Sinatra's first. Special thanks to KCLV and the Commission for the Las Vegas Centennial for the documentary VEGAS IN THE 40s (2022), released just this year, which was a hugely helpful resource in putting this together. The film is on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7edD3d0ATw

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The sound quality will finally improve from next week onwards as the Reversoscope Trilogy, recorded in one marathon session, comes to an end. We tackle the highly problematic Oscar-winning short THE HOUSE I LIVE IN (1945) and wonder what could possibly be so "communist" about it as one Shocking Twist follows another. Then we're learning a LOT about cigarettes in LUCKY STRIKE SALESMAN'S MOVIE 48-A (1948) and are blown away by a transcendentally beautiful Sinatra performance of "Stardust", jarringly embedded in its entirety amongst a tobacco sales pitch. Rabia wraps things up with a reflection on the discussions about racism we've had throughout these episodes. Take the online virtual tour of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia here: https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/index.htm

CONTACT: SUDDENLYPOD AT GMAIL DOT COM @SUDDENLYPOD on TWITTER / INSTAGRAM / MYSPACE / ODNOKLASSNIKI / YOUTUBE

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Time marches on as Felix draws a connection between SHOW BUSINESS AT WAR (1943) and the Zendaya & Andrew Garfield interview that just popped up on his TikTok feed. Then we're back to high-pressure war bond sales tactics again in THE ALL-STAR BOND RALLY (1945). We learn the phrase "in the chips", Bing Crosby becomes a non-binary icon, Sinatra sings a spectacular version of "Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week" and Carol Landis sighs. Meanwhile, another serious discussion of blackface and racism arises from Al Jolson's infamous performance of "My Mammy", the use of the song "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers", the musical 'Yip Yip Yaphank' and a tangent about PT Barnum.

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It's still raining as we begin our odyssey through the Sinatra filmography with the first of a three-part series exploring shorts he appeared in between 1935 and 1948. First up is MAJOR BOWES AMATEUR THEATRE OF THE AIR (1935), in which he wore blackface - a topic we attempt to cover sensitively, diving into the complicated history of the song "Shine" and the legacy of this form of racism today. Then we're off on THE ROAD TO VICTORY (1944), also known as THE SHINING FUTURE (1944) in its extended Canadian cut - a WW2-era infomercial for war bonds in the form of a sci-fi film set in the not-too-distant future of 1954, or 1960 in Canada. We learn about "Shoo Shoo Baby", The Great Gildersleeve and the term "rusty dusty" before finally explaining what war bonds are.

CONTACT: SUDDENLYPOD AT GMAIL DOT COM @SUDDENLYPOD on TWITTER / INSTAGRAM / MYSPACE / ODNOKLASSNIKI / YOUTUBE

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In this first episode, we set out what this is, what we're about to do and why we, as two transgender millennials in the 2020s, are so excited to rediscover Frank Sinatra. We detour into the Frank Sinatra/CATS connection and the abandoned Scorcese biopic - plus a heartfelt reading from a 1998 transgender community newsletter, and more. Also, it starts raining.

CONTACT: SUDDENLYPOD AT GMAIL DOT COM @SUDDENLYPOD on TWITTER / INSTAGRAM / MYSPACE / ODNOKLASSNIKI / YOUTUBE

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