Now Playing Black Panther - Softcover

What happens when the hottest movie from 2018 mysteriously takes over a small town theater in 1954? It explodes on the family friendly fifties with disruptive force. Disneyland, the rise of TV, the decline of movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon, McCarthyism, the Red Scare, the Lavender Scare, young love, forbidden love, the Catholic Legion of Decency, the ambitions of Richard M. Nixon, the suffering of Pat Nixon, the suffering of Paul Robeson, the Bush dynasty, the Dulles Brothers, the fever dreams of J. Edgar Hoover, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Edward R. Murrow, Ike, the Kefauver hearings and the depravity of comic books, the Superman complex...all the familiar signposts of the era confront a new signpost up ahead known as Black Panther. It plays on a continuous loop, creating a panic that spreads from small town America to the White House. President Eisenhower forms a special task force to get to the bottom of the subversive film. Under the direction of ever-vigilant Vice President Richard M. Nixon, the investigation disrupts the lives of two young lovers and sparks murder, racial tensions and H-Bomb anxieties. Black Panther’s journey back to the past has the cultural impact of a meteor hitting earth and burying a large, hot vein of Vibranium-strength truth beneath the United States, forcing a heart-to-heart dialog between the 20th and 21st centuries. An excerpt: The Archbishop and his priest made a beeline for the theater manager’s office. “Your holiness, this has to be quick,” Leo said in greeting as they walked in. “I have to help with the next wave.”“The waves have to stop,” O’Brien told him. “You can’t keep showing this film. What’s the count?” he asked O’Boyle.O’Boyle pulled out a small pad and read from it: “One extremely vulgar gesture...two swear words...I think...ahm....”“Nipples,” declared O’Brien, cutting O’Boyle off. “Female nipples. The screen is full of them.”“But they’re Colored girls,” Leo protested. “They’re obscene,” O’Brien countered. “The Legion of Decency won’t stand for it. Do you remember your oath?” O’Brien cast a sharp, commanding look at O’Boyle who immediately recited the oath: “I condemn all indecent and immoral motion pictures, and those which glorify crime or criminals. I promise to do all that I can to strengthen public opinion against the production of indecent and immoral films, and to unite with all who protest against them. I acknowledge my obligation to form a right conscience about pictures that are dangerous to my moral life. I pledge myself to remain away from them. I promise, further, to stay away altogether from places of amusement, which show them as a matter of policy.“Places of amusement, Mr. D’Aleo,” repeated O’Brien, underscoring the point once O’Boyle finished. “This theater...your theater. You know what I think, Mr. D’Aleo? I think the devil has taken over your theater. The devil trying to strike back at the Church for Fátima, where the Virgin appeared and which has now been sanctified by his Holy Father in Rome. Satan has turned the Strand into his own perversion of Fátima. Those images on your movie screen are satanic apparitions.”“Dad,” said Rosemary, popping her head through his door. “All hell’s breaking loose.”“Figure of speech,” Leo assures the clerics. “I’ll be right there,” he tells his daughter. Then he looked around his office in befuddlement until his eyes landed on the sacks of money in the corner. He picked one up and handed it to Archbishop O’Brien, who at that moment was placing an expensive fur and felt black fedora on his head.“What’s this?” asked the startled celibate.“A donation to the Archdiocese,” said Leo, heading out the door. As they watched Leo exit, O’Brien turned to O’Boyle and said solemnly, “This may call for an exorcist.”