The Greatest Reviews I've Ever Read

By Carol Hoenig

John Barbour isn't beholden to any network or its advertisers, so he can hate or love anything he pleases and tell you why. He's one of the wittiest critics whose reviews sometimes got him in hot water; however, having had an abusive mother and absentee father, being a high school dropout, and deported back to Canada at 17 years old, angering st

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Barbour Productions
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578990248

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The Greatest Reviews I’ve Ever Read

by Carol Hoenig

Copyright @2021 John Barbour and Carol Hoenig

Published by Three Ws

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-0-578-99023-1

eBook: 978-0-578-99024-8

Introduction

Call it kismet, serendipity or just dumb luck, but years ago when a mutual friend in the publishing industry recommended John Barbour contact me for help with his numerous endeavors, including promoting his documentary The American Media & the 2nd Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, editing his memoir Your Mother’s Not a Virgin: The Bumpy Life and Times of the Canadian Dropout Who Changed the Face of American TV, and his latest book, The Wittiest Man in America (…is a Canadian), I had no idea of the friendship and mutual respect that would follow. I appreciate the many traits that John has, including perseverance and passion for so many topics. I also appreciate how he never sold out, which is quite apparent in that aforementioned memoir. (While editing it, I’d find myself laughing out loud or sometimes even gasping at some of what he’d said and did without apology.)

But then something occurred to me over time while I would often check Turner Classic Movies to see what was being aired. Sometimes a movie would come on, one that I remembered John had reviewed for LA Magazine or when he was Critic-at-Large for five years, at KTTV for less than a year. John also reviewed more recent movies for his YouTube channel, https://johnbarboursworld.com/, but I started to think viewers would appreciate John’s thoughts and honesty regarding these movies, whether they are decades-old or newer releases. See, John isn’t beholden to any network or its advertisers so he can hate or love anything he pleases and tell you why. I dare say he’s one of the wittiest critics whose reviews sometimes got him in hot water; however, having had an abusive mother and absentee father, being a high school dropout, and deported back to Canada at 17 years-old, angering studio heads didn’t concern John, which you’ll soon discover.

But what happened to all those reviews? I asked John as much and he went into the trunk in his garage to see if he could find any. Well, folks, it was pay dirt on the day he opened that trunk. He had forgotten about all those issues with his byline where he informed readers about classics such as Network, Grease, The Sting and so many others.

As it happened, the timing couldn’t have been better since we began working on this book during the pandemic when movie studios were in limbo and movie theaters empty. That left viewers resorting to watching old movies while waiting for new ones. That said, it is my hope when you happen upon one of the classic movies that John and I will be discussing in these pages, you’ll be brought back to a time when they weren’t classic but seeking positive reviews and, in turn, viewers. John was one of the few critics that could be trusted with his opinion as you will see once you begin reading.

Now, on with the show!

John Barbour with one of his Emmys from his reviews at KNBC

I. What Makes a Critic?

The first movie I recall going to was Lilies of the Field starring Sidney Poitier. I had to be about eight years old. It was at a drive-in theater about twenty miles from my home. I grew up in rural Upstate New York so going anywhere was a big deal. Apparently, my mother wanted to see this movie and she never asked for much so when my father came home from work one night and had us, us being my three siblings, mother and me, climb into the car, along with a big bowl of popcorn and a thermos of Kool-Aid, it was all rather exciting.

Later, after the credits were rolling, the drive home had us all singing Amen, just as Poitier and the nuns had sung in the movie. What I wonder, though, was how did my mother know about this movie and what made her want to see it? The only newspaper we got was a weekly local paper and we had just three TV stations, but somehow my mom heard about the movie. Now, whenever Lilies of the Field airs on Turner Classic Movies, I am reminded of that night so long ago. That’s what movies do: they help stir memories, whether good or bad. Mine of being cramped in the car with my family while staring at the larger-than-life movie screen in the outdoors stirs a good memory.

Another wonderful memory I have is like so many others, the one movie I looked forward to each year was The Wizard of Oz. Unlike now, when one can watch it several times a year or more, depending on whether they own the DVD, it was a yearly event that I would prepare myself for by claiming the best seat on the living room couch a good hour prior to the movie airing. God forbid I’d need to get up to use the bathroom or get a drink of water since my younger brother was at the ready to steal that coveted spot. No one told us about how Russell Maloney’s review in the August 19, 1939 issue of The New Yorker butchered this movie, but I don’t think it would have mattered. Yes, for the very young, there were frightening scenes and John Barbour tells me that he was so scared by those angry trees throwing apples at Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Man that he ducked under his seat. However, that experience certainly didn’t stop him from watching movies.

Unlike my limited experience in going to the theater as a child, John, who was living in Toronto, told me that movies were a major part of his childhood.

They absolutely were, he said. In the ‘30s and ‘40s they were a major part of everyone’s life because movies were the most powerful and popular form of entertainment.

I asked, As a child did you often go as a family?

I had no family, John replied. I went by myself. I lived on the streets, on a skating rink, in police stations, libraries, but mostly in theaters. To this day I can remember scores of names of bit players. I loved movies.

I wondered what ones had the most impact on him.

"There was Broderick Crawford in All the King’s Men. Even at 12 years-old, I was impressed that movies could tell a meaningful political story. Also, Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips. I bawled like a baby. I still watch it today and get teary."

Did you read as much as you saw films, John? And did you have a preference?

Because books were more available to me than movies, I read more. And I read everyone. O. Henry, Twain, Maugham, de Maupassant, Upton Sinclair. But I preferred movies. They are the laziest art form. With a book, you have to turn a page. In a theater, you just sit there and are sucked up into the screen and become wrapped up in larger-than-life characters.

Point taken: the movies were an escape for that young boy. Therefore, I thought it made sense then that John eventually became a movie critic and asked him when was it that he decided to become one, if one can just decide to be one. His answer surprised me.

I never decided or wanted to become one. My only dream as a kid was to become an American.

John details this desire in his delightful memoir, Your Mother’s Not a Virgin! The Bumpy Life and Times of the Canadian Dropout Who Changed the Face of American TV. But he went on to explain:

Like everything great in my life, it all happened by accident. Funny enough, my hero wasn’t a movie star or director. My heroes were Jack Paar, the greatest late-night TV host ever, and Ed Murrow, our one and only great TV journalist. But Jack made me laugh with his perfect entertaining, intelligent talk show. I wanted to be him, so I became a standup comic. (Research shows that Jack Paar appeared as a comic in the early 1950s on The Ed Sullivan Show.) As such, I studied all the comics.

Who were your favorites?

"Lenny Bruce and Jonathon Winters. Both did great movie spoofs, especially Lenny’s Count Dracula."

Jonathan Winters was also one of my favorites but I wasn’t aware of John’s success as a comic until I worked with him on his memoir. As it happens, he made two albums, It’s Tough to Be White and I Met A Man I Didn’t Like. I asked him how that led to him becoming a paid critic on TV for years and then at LA Magazine.

"In 1970, when KABC TV had their license challenged, they canceled their morning cartoons. As a suck up to the FCC they started a live news information show. Mario Machado, a television and radio broadcaster and actor who all thought would get the show, suggested that I audition for a young producer named Brad Lachman. On a lark, I did and got the gig. I suggested taking live phone calls from our viewers, which we did. And, here is where being a critic comes in, I suggested doing film reviews and did so three times a week.

At the time, the GM, John McMahon, told me he didn’t want me to do movie reviews because viewers only cared about what was on TV. I told him I had strong antiwar views and pro-civil rights views that I couldn’t express because of The Fairness Doctrine but I wanted people to know there was somebody with half a brain. So every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I did a movie review.

Anyone who has known John, knows that he does not suffer fools gladly and has strong opinions and doesn’t cower under authority. Since it was the GM of the station who didn’t want him doing movie reviews, I asked how he got away with doing them.

Well, McMahon hated me, but Brad, the FCC commissioner, who guested on the show, and most importantly, the audience, loved me. It turns out that the reviews were so popular, Bob Irvine, the news director, wanted them rerun on his 6 p.m. news program. Truth is, I wasn’t getting paid for these reviews and McMahon would have probably paid me not to do them because, against his will, he had to constantly defend me to the studios who threatened to cancel their movie advertising.

It caught my attention when John mentioned that he wasn’t getting paid to do the reviews so when I asked him about it he said that he started getting paid after he got fired from the news program. He went on to explain:

"I booked Jim Garrison to talk about his book A Heritage of Stone and his investigation into John F. Kennedy’s assassination."

John’s memoir goes into detail about this event but the short version is that John didn’t have the opportunity to interview Jim Garrison, who was being sabotaged by the powers that be, because he was fired.

But Bob Irvine still wanted the reviews on his news. I suggested to McMahon to please the viewers that I would still do them, but he responded, Fuck the public. They don’t hire you. I do."

Fortunately, Geoff Miller, a founder and Editor-in-Chief of LA Magazine called and asked John if he would consider replacing Burt Prelutsky as their new film critic. Prelutsky was moving to the LA Times. At the time, John was still hoping to get offered a job as a TV host since he could see himself as being the next Jack Paar. However, he decided to take Miller’s offer and was there for ten years where he made only $150.00 a month for a column he wrote.

Not one raise in five years, John said. I was barely getting $24,000.00 and yet research showed that I was responsible for ten percent of the audience. Also, I never signed a contract that they offered for five years because they would have owned my material. I did not want anyone owning it. It was not much, but it was mine.

I knew John earned a Golden Mike Award and first asked him to provide some background on what led to it. He explained, "Before I got the AM Show, Chuck Young, the GM at Metromedia’s channel 11, KTTV, had given me a Saturday Night ninety-minute poor man’s Tonight Show. I had just lost replacing Merv Griffin at Westinghouse to David Frost. Chuck thought Frost would bomb immediately and wanted me as a standby. Chuck was also the GM who created angry loud talkback TV by giving Joe Pyne the first such TV show. By the way, on this show, I gave Redd Foxx his first entertainment show appearances. Anyway, since I was now in print, I called Chuck to see if I could do the reviews on his news. I got to. I already had an Emmy for the AM Show, but here I won my one and only Golden Mike for Outstanding Commentary."

So, wait, I said, the Golden Mike wasn’t for a film review then?

No, John replied. It was a commentary about the 1972 massacre of Israel athletes at the Munich Olympics. I was so upset after watching Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show immediately afterwards and saying nothing, except for his bad jokes about Doc Severson’s jacket and Ed McMahon’s boozing that I wrote a piece about what it must be like to be Jewish in today’s world. For two years, I raised thirty-five million for the UJA-Federation. Neil Simon called to ask me to host his event at The Hilton and Tom Brokaw recommended me to the news director at KNBC, and I was hired.

But what I wanted to know was, what makes one a critic? Or, more pointedly, what made John Barbour, who never graduated from high school, let alone college, with no training or formal education, a critic?

We are all critics, John replied. Critics of what we like and don’t like. Carol, every major fucking war, excuse me for saying ‘war’ in front of you, but every major fucking war and financial disaster or corporate fraud in America is caused by someone with a fucking college degree or PhD.

So, what was his process in how he reviewed a movie, I wanted to know. Was it with his mind, his heart, what?

With my ass, he said. If my ass doesn’t move from the seat, it’s a good film. But I try to use my mind to interpret what my ass is telling me. When I accidentally first became a critic, the two things I looked for in films were excellence in storytelling and a sense of reality. When I found them, I applauded lustily; when I did not, I attacked just as lustily. But applauding made me happier. I preferred that feeling!"

I pushed John further, asking if there were times that he was on the fence