rubenbeagle wrote: 




If this song were written about the movie stars of today I would totally agree with your statement. But mr. Davies is referencing an era when the cinema inhabited a space far more influential and mythic. Movie stars of the 30s and 40s literally were heroes in the way they lifted the spirits of Americans and Europeans suffering through the Great Depression and the horrors of World War II. Many of them actually donated their talents to produce war fims for the U.S. government. Later, many of these same icons would be called before the House Comittee on UnAmerican Activities where their patriotism would be called into question by the demagogic senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy.

In the 1950s and 60s European and then American intellectuals wrote about American cinema as a great art form worthy of it's own kind of criticism. Their writings no doubt influenced war babies like Mr. Davies to think about popular entertainment in a new and exciting way.

It's from this context that mr. Davies offers his ballad to the cinema icons of his recent past. For many English war babies, American culture was a great respite from the often abusive treatment they received from an older generation that fought during the war and most likely suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. Pete Townsend has talked and written about this, and I think if you look closely at the work of most of the great British songwriters of this time, you'll find similar themes of longing and escape.

But In my humble opinion Ray Davies was one of the best at encapsulating a spirit of British repression, escape, and release. For a young boy looking to drown out the sad realities of post war England where are you going to go? To the movie theater or the dance hall. And once you get there the performers take on a mythic, almost heroic status.