My Aunt,  Dede Allen

I’ve always been very proud of my aunt Dede Allen.  Movie buffs may know her as a stellar film editor and a pioneer in what had been a male-dominated craft.

Dede worked her way up in the film business,  starting as a production runner at Columbia Pictures,  then editing commercial and industrial films and eventually becoming a feature film editor where her unusual talent was recognized by other editors and directors.   And Dede pioneered the very effective use of audio overlaps where dialog or voice-over narrative continue after a scene change,    and also introduced emotional jump cuts to add energy and realism to a film’s characters.

Classic films edited by my aunt include The Hustler,  Bonnie and Clyde,  Dog Day Afternoon and Reds, and directors she worked with include Arthur Penn,  Sidney Lumet,  Robert Wise,  Elia Kazan and George Roy Hill.   And among other honors,  Dede served on the Board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Dede’s husband Stephen Fleischman was prominent in a related field as a writer and producer of documentary films,  and he and I shared a birthday!   (See Birthday Calendar)

And their son Tom Fleischman is an acclaimed sound editor.   Sadly Dede and Steve didn’t live to join their daughter Ramey Ward and the rest of our family to see Tom win the Oscar for his work on the 2012 film Hugo.  (See The Irishman)

But over the years we were all there to see Dede honored on both coasts for her achievements and her own Oscar nominations.   At those dinners it was fun to rub elbows with the likes of Warren Beatty and other celebs Dede had worked with.

But more thrilling was hearing Dede speak passionately about her craft and her role in the making of some great films!

– Dana Susan Lehrman

I never asked to be a movie critic. And yet it happened. People don’t believe me when I say this; they assume movie reviewing is such a plum job that I must have scrambled and hustled to get there. Not really.

In 1991 I’d been working at the San Francisco Chronicle seven years when the senior movie critic Judy Stone took a buyout offer and retired. In a crisp email, the assistant managing editor informed me I would forthwith be reporting full-time as a movie critic. There wasn’t any “Come in to my office to discuss…” conversation. No “How would you feel about doing this…?”

I was the logical choice, given that I’d been pinch-hitting for Judy when she was out sick or on vacation. Plus, I’d previously reviewed films for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, an alternative weekly. That job also came unbidden: I got it because my neighbor at the time was the arts editor and had a hunch I could do it.

Even though I had a lifelong love of movies, and a deep trove of cinema trivia in my head, I never thought I’d be a critic. I figured my take on movies was too idiosyncratic, too personal and off-the-mainstream. I later realized that every film critic is idiosyncratic — that taste and aesthetics are by definition deeply personal. If a critic writes safe, generalized pabulum that doesn’t spring from a strongly impassioned point of view, then you’ve got a problem.

For the next 12 years I reviewed movies full-time in addition to writing features and profiles on movie personalities. I saw between 200 and 250 movies per year, and wrote up to five reviews and feature stories per week. I got to meet Catherine Deneuve, Lillian Gish, Stephen Spielberg, Lucille Ball, Gregory Peck, Pedro Almodovar, Clint Eastwood, Laura Dern and hundreds more. I went to film festivals in Toronto, Sundance, Telluride, and Hong Kong. I had the privilege of championing artists like Krzysztof Kieslowski and Satyajit Ray, whose work might otherwise go unnoticed because their distributors had tiny advertising budgets; and I got to discover Oscar-winning filmmakers like Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants) and Steven Soderbergh (sex, lies, and videtape; Erin Brockovich) as their careers were just starting.

Being a movie critic brought me a minor level of fame in the Chronicle’s circulation area — at least among the people who read movie reviews — and a feel for the privileges and annoyances of being a public person. I was gratified when someone said, “You’re my favorite critic” or “I saw that movie you recommended and loved it.” It was fun to see my name quoted in a movie trailer, and then hear from a cousin back East or an old college friend who also saw the trailer. Who doesn’t like an ego boost? I enjoyed the dialogue with readers and the fringe benefits — like getting choice seats and not waiting in long lines; like getting comped for concerts and plays; like having my phone calls answered quickly. You can get spoiled that way, and I did.

Being semi-famous wasn’t always fun. When email became the standard communication mode in the early ‘90s, the feedback I received tripled or quadrupled. Some correspondents were kind and thoughtful; a lot were not. I learned that anger, not satisfaction or admiration, is the single greatest incentive when writing to a total stranger. Think about it: How often do you contact your utility company and enthuse, “Wow, the heat feels great on this blustery day. Thank you!”?

One day a fellow reviewer at the Chronicle asked me, “Are you getting a lot more hate mail now that everyone’s doing email?” I was. “You owe me the $10 I wasted on that piece of crap!” was a grumble I received more than once. Or, “Are you sure you saw the same movie I saw?” Or this lulu: “It is clear in the last analysis that the only thing coursing through the mind and pen of Edward Guthmann is viciousness of the lowest sort.” At least he could string a sentence together.

One hater used to cut my reviews from the paper, deface them with a large rubber stamp saying “BULLSHIT” and mail them back to me. (He did that with other critics, I learned.) People take movies personally and if you criticize something that touched them or reinforced their identity, they feel you’ve violated their entire being. Occasionally I got nasty phone calls at home — always anonymous. A colleague introduced me to a friend once who said, “I always know I won’t like a movie if you do.” How the hell do you answer that?

Once you’re semi-famous, you’re fair game. At a preview screening I was photographed kamikaze-style from three feet away by the since-deposed editor of a San Francisco literary journal. He hated something I’d written. “You might ask first before you photograph someone,” I said. “Ohhh, would the Chronicle?” he sneered. The next day, he posted the photo online and claimed I “lashed out” at him when he took the picture.

In October 2003 I wrote my last review, asked to be reassigned, and started writing author interviews and a variety of profiles. I bailed because my assignment editor was intolerable (a very long story), but as soon as I quit I realized how much I’d come to dislike the reviewer grind itself. Had the movies all been stellar, I might not have minded, but many were awful — and often in the same way that movies from the previous week were awful. I sometimes felt like I was justifying the stinkers by giving them any attention at all.

Suddenly my evenings were free. Slowly, I could recapture the original love of movies I developed as a 7-year-old watching Fred Astaire and The Wizard of Oz on TV. In that first year after quitting, I saw only one or two movies a month instead of four or five a week I didn’t have to sit through soul-destroying bilge to the bitter end. I only saw the movies I wanted to see, and if I was bored I got up and walked out. I was liberated! Like a frog in a pot of water that slowly comes to a boil, I hadn’t realized how accustomed I’d become to stress, discomfort and a begrudging sense of duty.

At the same time, I knew I was surrendering a kind of cachet and name recognition, that I would miss the communication with my readers and the cushy, glamorous aspects of the job. I felt a pang of regret that my 12-year-old nephew, who liked having a movie critic for an uncle, would lose his bragging rights and be disappointed for himself and for me. But I don’t regret my decision: I regained an ease and comfort in my life.

Most of the writing I do now is personal, and my relationship with movies has never been better. During Covid, I watched Turner Classic Movies and streamed new titles regularly. I found that old favorites have a new dimension, a new fascination. Having lived more, I appreciate them on different and deeper levels. I’m falling in love all over again.

Ghostwriting in the Family 

When I was in high school I don’t remember anyone making a big fuss over college admissions.  In fact what I remember most about senior year was shopping for my college wardrobe with my mother,  walking around Greenwich Village with my friends,  and slow dancing to 50s rock ‘n’ roll in friends’ houses when their parents weren’t  home.   And I certainly don’t remember writing my college essay,  because in fact my father wrote it for me.

I don’t remember why he did,  I guess I was too busy trying on clothes at Loehmann’s,  wandering around the Village,  or dancing to the Platters.

My dad went to NYU Heights and loved it,  and he was sure I would too,   and so he sat down one night and wrote my essay.   I think the gist of the essay was,  “My dad went to NYU Heights and loved it,  and I’m sure I will too.”

Well,  it must have done the trick because I got in,  and of course I did love it,  and not for a minute did I feel guilty about that ghost-written essay.

In 1973,  nine years after I graduated,  New York University closed its arts and engineering schools at the Heights and sold the buildings and grounds to CUNY.   And so my old alma mater became the new leafy campus of Bronx Community College.

I guess some things must change.

Years later when my son was too busy studying his own Torah portion,   my husband sat down one night and ghost-wrote the kid’s bar mitzvah speech.

I guess some things never change.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

I’d heard how tough and intimidating Lucille Ball could be, but on the day I interviewed her at her home in Beverly Hills she was warm, unguarded and down-to-earth. It felt like hanging out with a favorite aunt.

Lucy picked up quickly on the fact that I was a fan, and since I was young and eager I think she liked me. She was promoting Stone Pillow, a CBS TV-movie in which she played a homeless bag lady named Florabelle. The movie was ill-conceived and Lucy was badly miscast, but it gave me the good fortune to meet a childhood idol.

Arranging our tete-a-tete was easy. One morning I called a veteran publicist at CBS and asked, “Do you think Lucy would do a one-on-one for Stone Pillow? I could fly down to Los Angeles.” With a big star like Lucy, you’d normally get a noncommittal response: “Let me look into it.” Instead, he asked to put me on hold. Within five minutes he was back. “Lucy wants to do it.” That kind of thing never happens.

I flew into Burbank on the morning of Oct. 23, 1985, rented a car and picked up a large, exotic floral bouquet en route to Lucy’s house. I rang the doorbell at 1000 N. Roxbury Dr. in Beverly Hills, an assistant answered and within seconds Lucy entered the foyer behind him. “Thank you,” she said, nodding her head in a slightly regal manner, “that’s a lovely bouquet.”  The assistant guided us into a section of the living room where Lucy and I sat and talked for nearly two hours. She wore white pants, a pleated white blouse and turquoise-blue jacket. Tinted, oversized eyeglasses. Her hair was the same, familiar henna-red I knew from television. She was 74.

Lucy’s ranch-style house was grand on the outside, comfortable and tidy on the inside. No major art pieces; just a painting of her husband Gary Morton swinging a golf club. In a corner of the room I spied a backgammon table, where Lucy probably spent hundreds of lively and competitive hours — backgammon being her favorite game. We weren’t alone as we confabulated. Joining us was a very old man, a minder I guess you’d call him, who CBS had sent to monitor Lucy’s remarks and make sure she said nothing too reckless or off-color.

Lucy was fascinated by my name. “Ed Guthmann! That’s such an old man’s name for a young kid like you,” she said with gusto. “Lucy, I’ll be 35 in three days,” I said, thinking I was practically middle-aged. “Big deal!” she harrumphed. “Big deal!”

She reminisced about the I Love Lucy days, praised her ex-husband Desi Arnaz for his professional acumen (“Innovation after innovation”) but slammed his gambling,  drinking and womanizing (“We had five homes but to him they were just houses”); gave excellent marks to her current husband, comic-turned-manager Gary Morton (“On a scale of 1 to 10 we’re a 12”); and said she didn’t act for five years after her beloved I Love Lucy sidekick Vivian Vance died in 1979. When I asked how it felt to be at leisure after shooting Stone Pillow, she frowned. “To tell ya the truth, it’s been kinda boring around here lately!”

She didn’t mince words. Lucy was at a point in her life when she had nothing to lose by telling the unvarnished truth – which is precisely why the ancient minder was warming up his end of the sofa.

Lucy told me she got that low, husky voice by yelling from her car on the Pacific Coast Highway — a method recommended by movie maker Howard Hawks. She grew nostalgic talking about her friend Clark Gable. “We used to tool around in his jeep,” she said, remembering when San Fernando Valley was all farms and ranches and open land. “Oh boy,” she sighed, shaking her head and looking off to one side. The memory seemed to stir thoughts of distant youth, of time passing swiftly and few friends left to share her memories.

I asked about Elizabeth Patterson, the fragile-looking character actress who played the babysitter Mrs. Trumbull on “I Love Lucy,” and Lucy told me she used to go home on the public bus after a day of taping at Desilu Studios. Patterson never accepted Lucy’s invitations to socialize — not from disinterest, but from feeling she didn’t belong. She was just as timid as the characters she played.

I told Lucy I’d admired Patterson in vintage movies, and described a poignant scene from the 1938 classic Remember the Night where Patterson plays the old-maid aunt of Fred MacMurray. When MacMurray brings Barbara Stanwyck home for Christmas, Stanwyck accidentally discovers an old, unused wedding dress in Patterson’s trunk. She’s startled. “But I thought you never –,” Stanwyck begins to say. Patterson cuts her off: “Oh well. That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

“Boy, you’re really a buff!” Lucy said when I finished the story. “You should meet my friend Robert Osborne. He knows the old ones like you do.”

For show business fans, the block that Lucy lived on was famous. At one time or another, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Oscar Levant, Agnes Moorehead, Ira Gershwin, Peter Falk and Rosemary Clooney all lived on Roxbury. In 1985 Jimmy Stewart and his wife Gloria were still across the street from Lucy. I don’t remember how it came up, but she started grumbling about a spate of neighborhood burglaries. “Jimmy and Gloria are worried,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “We’re worried! Oh, it’s awful. But I don’t trust the Beverly Hills police as far as I can spit!”

The old chaperone’s hand reached out pleadingly, and tapped me on the arm. “Oh, you’re not going to put that in the story, are you?”

Same thing a few minutes later when I asked Lucy about her recovering son, Desi Jr., a recovering alcoholic, and the inspirational lectures he delivered on the virtues of sobriety. “Yeah, he’s still doing that,” Lucy groaned with a roll of her eyes. “But at least he’s not so boring about it now.” The hand tapped my arm and the ancient minder whispered, “Oh, you won’t use that, will you?”

And a third time. While filming Stone Pillow on location in New York City, Lucy confided, she was so weak from long hours and from wearing a heavy costume in the oppressive New York heat, that she contracted amoebic dysentery. When she flew home to Los Angeles, 23 pounds lighter and suffering from dehydration, she fell out of her limo into the gutter at LAX. “I was really sick!” she exclaimed with big eyes and that froggy, bottom-of-the-well voice. Once again the weathered hand reached out and the old man looked stricken: “Please don’t mention amoebic dysentery in your story,” he implored.

I asked Lucy to grade herself, A to F, in several categories.

Mother: “B minus. I was deterred in many a way by working; I couldn’t complete the scene at home.”

Comedian: “Should I say A? I guess I can because of the I Love Lucy reruns and the longevity still proving itself.”

Dramatic actress: “I don’t know, especially when my idol is Bette Davis. I haven’t given it that much of a whack.”

Business executive: “F. I hated it and I depended solely on honest and loyal men.”

Late in the interview Lucy’s husband Gary Morton walked in, looking very Beverly Hills in an alpaca cardigan and slacks. Nice guy. Lucy greeted him and said, “Gary, say ‘Hello’ to Old Ed Guthmann!” Gary grinned, took my camera and shot the photo you see at the top of this page. She was absolutely terrific. Adorable. I’m sorry it was the only time I got to spend with her.