The Semiquincentennial Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).
Week #17: Ohio -
Details about Ohio:
State bird: cardinal
State flower: scarlet carnation
State tree: buckeye
Additional historical trivia:
As pictured above, the Ohio state flag is the only state flag that is not in the traditional rectangular shape.
The capitol of Ohio, Columbus, has a bigger population than both Cleveland and Cincinnati combined, even those other two are more widely known by the rest of the nation.
"As Ohio goes, so goes the nation" is a popular phrase during Presidential elections. Only 9 Presidents since the admission of Ohio to the Union have been elected President without winning Ohio. (That's 35-9 if you want the tally).
1803? Or 1953? The official documentation to make Ohio a state was not actually signed until 1953. Meaning it was a "poser" for 150 years. (Although Eisenhower did make it a state retroactively...)
Ohio is the only state to have a State Rock Song. It's "Hang On Sloopy".
Superman was created by two Cleveland residents, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
The TV shows "Family Ties," "3rd Rock from the Sun," "Glee," "Clarissa Explains It All," "The Drew Carey Show" and "Hot in Cleveland" all are set in Ohio.
A favorite movie of your blogger, Howard the Duck, is set in Cleveland.
Famous people born in Ohio: LeBron James, Jack Nicklaus, Neil Armstrong, Steven Spielberg, Halle Berry, Charles Manson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and several U.S. Presidents: James A. Garfield, Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, both Benjamin and William Henry Harrison, William McKinley and William Howard Taft.
Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978):
Harper Valley P.T.A. began life as a song. It was written by Tom T. Hall (a personal childhood favorite country singer and songwriter of your blogger, by the way). It was recorded by Jeannie C. Riley and is one of the few country songs that managed to make it to #1 on both the country and pop charts in 1968. (It's happened 13 times in the last 25 years, but only 18 times in the previous 41 years.) The popularity of the song (eventually) led to a major film adaptation of the story. Sort of...
The movie is really what happens after the events of the song and, therefore, could conceivably have been titled Harper Valley P.T.A: Part II. Since the song itself is in the opening credits of the film, and the event of the song is played out in the first 15 minutes it seems relevant that I quote the song in it's entirety since what happens in the movie is as a result of what happens in the song.
The town, of course, doesn't think too highly of Stella Johnson (Barabara Eden) for her impertinence and several things happen. For one, her house gets toilet papered. Obviously the town is peopled by a bunch of former juvenile delinquents... (either that or maybe it really was the kids of the town who did it, but that means the parents aren't very observant of their own juvenile delinquents...) But for their part the "adults" of the town have their own tactics, such as threatening to expel Stella's daughter, Dee (Stella Smith).
Stella, not being one to take such tactics lying down, decides to exact some revenge. For one thing she lures Bobby Taylor (John Fielder) to a motel room, and after he has completely disrobed pushes him out into the hallway, locks the door to the room, and ditches his clothes.
With the help of a good friend, Alice (Nanette Fabray), who is a beautician, she puts some concoction in a hair tonic that causes the P.T.A. President Flora's (Audrey Christie) hair to fall out at her snobbish party.
She uses a camera to film Willamae (Fay DeWitt), the snotty biology teacher who secretly has rendezvous with the town mailman, Barney (Tobias Anderson), which is then spliced into a sex education film the teacher shows to her class of junior high girls. (OK, so that is a little questionable... surely Stella and her cohort knew the stag film would be shown to underage girls...)
Stella has a few allies in town, including town rich guy Willis (Ronny Cox), who is definitely not a fan of Flora and wants Stella to run against her for election in the new session of the P.T.A.
But, of course, the snobbish members of the P.T.A. are entirely opposed to having Stella put in her candidacy. Stella does have a few allies on her side, however, including Skeeter Duggan (Bob Hastings), who would be the deciding vote to allow Stella to run for President. So a plan is hatched to kidnap Skeeter long enough to keep him from appearing at the vote.
Such subterfuge involves hiring two bumbling hoodlums, Tex (J.J. Barry) {who doesn't wear a cowboy hat} and Dutch (Royce D. Applegate) {who does wear a cowboy hat, which causes a bit of confusion}. The pair take Skeeter and chain him up in a monastery. Meanwhile Stella's allies are on the lookout so they can find and rescue him.
The whole plot is convoluted and a series of misadventures are going to occur before the finale. It's probably not a spoiler that Stella and her cohorts succeed, however. The last scene involves Stella, having won the President position, and Willis taking off in a helicopter to get married... with a banner behind it that reads "Stella Johnson for Mayor".
It's relevant, I think, to note that social mores were a bit more accepting of independent women of Stella's type by 1978. When the original song came out ten years earlier America, and the world, were not quite ready to adjust to the concept, but the Summer of Love and the ensuing changes that came as a result had had 10 years to start adjusting. The attitudes of the townspeople in the film, watched today, may seem quaint, but I think they may have even started to feel a little quaint even in the context of the time of the film.
Once again, with the incident mentioned above about the edited sex education film included, some of Stella's tactics may not be all that acceptable, even today. One wonders about how fit a mother Stella may actually be. After all, she includes Dee in some of her tactics, including a scene where they kidnap a few elephants (elephant-nap?) and paint them pink and release them to basically demolish one of the P.T.A. member's house. Dee basically becomes a pawn in the conflict, and it's kind of hard not to feel sorry for her.
The film has only a 53% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes site, but it did manage to make a decent profit ($25 million ticket sales against a $1 million budget). Enough interest in the concept sparked a brief run as a TV series in 1981, which lasted two seasons, with Barbara Eden reprising her role as Stella.
Among the interesting credits in the film was a credit that said the horse manure used in one scene was courtesy of Seattle Slew. The same Seattle Slew that won the Triple Crown in horse racing in 1977. But, apparently, it was just a joke the film makers included, and not necessarily the real Seattle Slew who provided the manure...
Also, not credited in the movie, Woody Harrelson made his debut in the film. (Sorry, but even armed with this knowledge, I couldn't figure out where he appears in the film... Given that he was only 16 or 17 at the time, though, it stands to reason he is one of Dee's classmates. Good luck in picking him out if you choose to try to watch for him.)
The film was primarily shown in drive-in theaters upon it's release, which makes it one of the few movies I am doing for this project that actually fits for The Midnite Drive-In.
That's all for this week. Drive safely folks.
Quiggy
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