The news that Ann Rand's Atlas Shrugged influenced generations of business leaders doesn't come as a surprise. That it really influenced Alan Greenspan doesn't come as a surprise. What really amazes is me is that she got picked up by Cecil B. DeMile as a groupie on the set of the original King of Kings.
"Rand’s free-market philosophy was hard won. She was born in 1905 in Russia. Her life changed overnight when the Bolsheviks broke into her father’s pharmacy and declared his livelihood the property of the state. She fled the Soviet Union in 1926 and arrived later that year in Hollywood, where she peered through a gate at the set where the director Cecil B. DeMille was filming a silent movie, “King of Kings.”He offered her a ride to the set, then a job as an extra on the film and later a position as a junior screenwriter."
Wiki summarizes the plot as follows...
"The film opens as Mary Magdalene prances about her home to the delight of the many men around her. Upon learning that Judas is with a carpenter she rides out on her chariot drawn by zebras to get him back. Peter is introduced as the Giant apostle, and we see the gospel writer Mark as a child who is healed by Jesus. Our first sight of Jesus is through the eyesight of a little girl, whom he has healed. He is surrounded by a halo. Mary arrives afterwards and talks to Judas, who reveals that he is only staying with Jesus in hopes of being made a king after Jesus becomes the king of kings, and the seven deadly sins are cast out of her in a multiple exposure sequence. Jesus is also shown resurrecting Lazarus and healing the little children. At the very end of the film Jesus is shown ascending inside a house, which then changes into the tops of modern skyscrapers. "I am with you always" appears on the screen. Nearly all of the film's intertitles are quotes (or paraphrases) from scripture."
There are some fun aspects of this. The best quote I could find was a line for Mary Magdalene, who learns that her boyfriend Judas has run off with this carpenter, stops the 32AD version of Britney that she was doing to a crowd of sleazy assholes, and commands, "Harness my Zebras!" The gal who played Mary went on to be a leading light in the John Birch Society. Hosanna. Then there's this real gem with a later soundtrack added, although the one on the theatrical release seems to have combined shlock and awe, including what appears to have been some Cathedral Choir moonlighting singing lame 19th century hymns in the background. This Christian New Wave accompaniment is equally silly. So, we owe the greed and self-centeredness of the Republican Right and the business world to a kind gesture by a grandiose vulgarian probably looking for a quick feel. I'm sure that this nonsense -- turgid prose, half-baked illusions, self-centered solipsism, and banality -- is the true bible of these guys. Joshua Ben Joseph gets it in the neck again...at least, I'm pretty sure the Twitshit didn't read it in college or grad school, although I guess he could have gobbled down the Cliff Notes. There are some positive things that come out of this nonsense. I love Open-Book companies, where there are no secrets and hidden agendas and every one knows what their contribution is and what their reward is. But, I don't think that's so much Ann Rand as it is an intelligent understanding of human dynamics.
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