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Ben Stein's Diary
Magic City Limits
When the STARZ don’t come out in Malibu.
Tuesday
The only bad parts of being out
here in Malibu are that I don’t have a swimming pool (lot is too
small and hilly) and I don’t get STARZ on TV, just because my local
cable company likes to make working with them as hard as humanly
possible.
Let me explain. I am deeply interested in what makes us Jews tick. What makes us such successes and such failures, so ambitious and achieving, and also laid so low by ourselves and by others. I see this all around me in my own family. There have been some spectacular successes, especially my father. But there have also been financial disasters and lives lived in old age penury.
For us Jewish men in particular, our reach far too often exceeds our grasp. Jewish women are more practical.
There have been some amazing novels and short stories about this. By far the best — BY FAR! — was The Great Gatsby. It was my dear pal, Al Burton, who explained to me that Jay Gatz, obviously originally Jay Katz, was the real Gatsby. I even once knew a lawyer who had changed his name to Gatsby from Katz. But it was Gatsby’s extraordinary combination of street level realism — seller of phony bonds and bootlegger — and total fantasy delusions that allowed him pass himself off as an heir with Oxford credentials and thereby win the heart of a dopey little chatterbox named Daisy — that was the real sign of the Jew — a heart breaking romanticism.
Anyway, there is also “Dangling Man,” a great long short story by Bellow, about a pitiful young speculator facing ruin, and also “The Old Way,” also by Bellow, about a Jewish real estate developer bribing a seemingly upright but really corrupt country club manager, that evokes the burden of so much ambition and so much fantasy. (I will also suggest that you try to find an out of print edition of my best book, ‘Ludes, about the same subject. It will break your heart. My father cried for three straight days when he read it. I miss my father so much it’s almost unbearable.)
But in TV, nothing has ever come out that is so razor sharply etched on the subject of the longing of the Jewish human being as Magic City on STARZ. I told you about it recently, but its season is now over and I miss it desperately. It starts again in 2013. That’s too long to wait. I’ll watch the reruns. The main character, “Ike” Evans (changed name, of course) owns most of a magnificent hotel in Miami Beach in 1959. He wants to be a king, but his loans are being called. He wants to be an Emperor but the remnants of the Purple Gang want him to do their bidding and that means co-operation with murder.
He wants to be a good guy, but he also wants to be rich.
How many of us recall The Untouchables? It’s on a network called METV that shows in Rancho Mirage. The dramas, almost always about Jews, are about men torn in half by their longings to fly, to be eagles, but held down by the chains of money and competition from men far tougher than they are. The Untouchables was by far the most well-written dramatic series of the fifties and early sixties. It was about conflict not between cops and robbers — but about conflict within men and women. It must have been written by geniuses like Clifford Odets (who used to own the house we have in Beverly Hills — I’m selling all of my houses and moving to an apartment, by the way… too much trouble dealing with maintenance) and Paddy Chayefsky.
Magic City is even better — and has truly beautiful sets and cars and women. As a study of how men — really just coincidentally Jewish men or not — adjust and cope with conflict, that is to say, as a drama, it sets my teeth on edge in every episode as “Ike” (clever naming there) gets tougher and tougher as his war with reality progresses and he gets set back much more often than he triumphs. His enemy is reality and it’s as tough as the Wehrmacht. “Ike” will win but many men and women will die.
I will have to get ready to fight to get my cable company out here to install it. It’s worth it. Magic City is in a class of its own. It’s called Magic City but it might as well be called Our Town.
About the Author
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (14) | Leave a comment
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R Martin| 5.31.12 @ 7:08AM
I certainly recall the old “Untouchables” TV series from the 1960s starring Robert Stack as Elliott Ness. What I don’t recall is that it was mostly about Jews. It was about Italians—Chicago criminals in the 1930s.
If Mr. Stein really wants to know what makes Jews tick perhaps he should study why they voted for Obama is such huge numbers and will likely do so again.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.31.12 @ 9:07AM
Frank Nitti and (of course) Al Capone were Italian, but I seem to recall some characters like Jake Guzik, "Legs" Diamond who were likely or possibly sons of Abraham, plus some Greeks, Irish and indeterminate Eastern Europeans consistent with the ethnic makeup of Chicago, its citizens and gangsters. Likewise, from the Untouchables team, Agent Rossman may have been of the Jewish faith.
I think you are correct that Ben exaggerates the frequency of Jewish characters, and a review of the Cast of Characters from IMDB bears that out. Writing credits for the series reflect neither Paddy Chayefsky or Clifford Odets, either.
I think one of the problems with Ben's stream of semi-consciousness style of writing these days is he doesn't feel bound to back up his feelings with facts. In that regard, he may be finding too much in common with the left.
Crassus| 5.31.12 @ 10:47AM
There were quite a few Jewish gangsters in The Untouchables. Besides the aforementioned Guzik (not sure if Legs Diamond was a Jew), there was Waxy Gordon and Joe Kulak (who was based on the still alive Meyer Lansky). Plus there was another episode where an Italian father and son were terrorized by a Jewish gangster named Nick Moses. The Jewish gangster was indeed alive and well on The Untouchables although he appeared with less frequency than his Italian counterpart (who himself would be cut back because of protests and political correctness).
Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.31.12 @ 11:18AM
Ironically, the actor who portrays Joe Kulak in several episodes of the Untouchables is Oscar Beregi Jr., whose career was spent primarily playing Nazi or Russian heavies. He appeared in a few episodes of the Twilight Zone, one in which he portrays the concentration camp commandant driven mad by the ghost (s) of those internees he murdered.
Occam's Tool| 5.31.12 @ 2:31PM
Legs Diamond: Irish.
Jack in Wi| 5.31.12 @ 7:13PM
My favorite Jewish gangster was Dutch Schultz. He begged for priest when he was shot up and converted to Catholicism on his death bed. Who knows maybe I will see him in heaven?
Occam's Tool| 6.1.12 @ 3:36PM
Jack: you aren't going there.
CJW| 5.31.12 @ 9:56PM
Albert
Maybe Stein is thinking of Bruce Gordon who played Frank Nitti. I have watched the Untouchables on re-runs and it is not well written. Kind of silly. Especially with the Walter Winchell voice moving the action.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.31.12 @ 10:57PM
I don't think I've seen an episode in nearly 40 years, but I recall enjoying it then (though, to be fair, my life experience was running a paper route at that point so I didn't have a lot to compare it to then). I think Ben is just meandering, to tell the truth.
Crassus| 5.31.12 @ 11:50PM
This is the ignorant post of the day. You're probably a CSI fan who thinks that crap is well-written.
C. Vernon Crisler | 5.31.12 @ 11:10AM
For some reason I just don't sit around thinking about my whiteness and why whites are a success or failure. I guess I believe too much in the imago dei, that at bottom we're all the same (Madison Grant to the contrary).
Occam's Tool| 5.31.12 @ 2:36PM
At least he's selling his houses. Perhaps he was paying too much in taxes, which I guess weren't high enough. (Stein Logic)
Mr. Crisler: there have been some interesting articles about Ashkenazi intelligence written. Me, I think a lot of it has to do with this: competition to do well intellectually still runs high in the Jewish community, and there's still a "drive" installed by Jewish mothers in their sons. Plus, Jewish chicks tend to like smart guys (even if they have no clue often on how to be wives to them---my fantastic wife is not Jewish, and although I have quite a few ex girlfriends that are not Jewish that I like as people, I can think of maybe one ex-Jewish girlfriend I can think of who I like, looking back.) and women set the tone for the qualities in men they wish to bring out.
But I have no idea where Ben is going with this. More Jews are professionals than gangsters today.
Occam's Tool| 5.31.12 @ 2:40PM
Magic City can be ordered on DVD (entire first season) for about $45.00 on Amazon. Cheaper than Cable, senor.
SteveHC1| 6.29.12 @ 2:37PM
"The Untouchables" was in no way dominated by Jewish characters or even storylines surrounding such characters, and for Mr. Stein to even suggest otherwise is pure hogwash. It was always nothing more than a semi-historical drama series loosely based on a book of memoirs written by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, and in fact was very heavily criticized for being overly-focused on Italian-Americans and their involvement in organized crime even in its fictional storylines.
I am Jewish, quite proud of the role of Jewish Americans in the history of the American entertainment industry, love Mr. Stein (and generally his musings as well) and can fully understand his tendency to want to highlight this history (and present-day manifestations) in his writings. But over time, in his writings Mr. Stein sees to be going more and more "overboard" in this regard, even to the point of attributing "Jewish" underpinnings or other attributes even when in fact none exist.
PLEASE "come back to Earth," Ben! Our reach most certainly exceeds our grasp no more or less so than it does regarding anyone else, "Jewish" or otherwise.