NEWS ARTICLES - Richard E. Rubin

THE BROOKLYN RECORD

Richard E. Rubin’s articles covered a wide variety of subjects including; Opera, Classical Music, Broadway, Musicals, Film, Literature, Travel and Popular Culture. Many of the articles began life at his favorite place to write, the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, New York.

“Life is a very tough proposition, culture is merely a compensation.”

March 1995

Winter Fire

Winter Fire is a novel by William R. Trotter that tells the story of a Nazi officer who is assigned to act as liaison with the bodyguards of the Finnish composer Sibelius. The Nazis consider the Finns to be reluctant allies against the Russians. The officer had been an orchestra conductor in Germany before the war. His career was just beginning to take off when World War II interrupted. He had scored a triumph in [...]

January 1995

A Savage War of Peace

A Savage War of Peace is subtitled Algeria 1954-1962. The book is authored by Alistair Horne. It is almost obscene to say that you enjoyed a book that described a war which brought death to an estimated one million Muslims, displaced approximately one million French "settlers," and drove almost all the Jews from the country either voluntarily or by coercion. French armed forces casualties were high as well. Yet "enjoy" is the only correct word. [...]

December 1994

Portuguese Literature

When I write about opera, Broadway, the movies or mystery books; I may be right, I may be wrong, but at least I have some forty years' experience for each. It is fair to say that I was not conscious of a specific Portuguese literature until one month ago and then I cannot even find all the books I want (in translation, naturally) as I write this article. Why Portugal? Well, I fell in love [...]

November 1994

K.C. Constantine

K.C. Constantine is the pseudonym of an author of Police Procedurals/Detective Stories involving a police chief, Mario Balzic, who heads a small town police force. The town is the fictional Rocksbmg somewhere in western Pennsylvania. Writing about Constantine gives me a chance to both praise a series of mysteries I have enjoyed and to rail against pseudonyms. I believe there are nine novels in all. As to pseudonyms, they are usually to protect the author's [...]

El Cid

This column was inspired by watching the four-hour version of Anthony Mann's movie El Cid on television. I remember seeing the original in the theatre and that version was shorter. As a matter of fact, I remember liking the tighter version better. However, the mind has a way of playing tricks on us and sometimes memory enhances the good feelings that we have for a work of art that we have not seen in a [...]

October 1994

The Great Waltz

The Great Waltz is a film I happened to catch on Channel 13 at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning. It is a fun film which purports to be a biography of Johann Strauss II In it, young Strauss is unhappily working in a bank. Of course, be has no head for figures and constantly doodles waltzes on bank paper. He is fired, forms a band, falls in love with an opera singer, is jilted [...]

The Million Dollar Quartet and The Million Gulden Quartet

If you go to 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee, you will see Sun Studios. It is remodeled and modernized for state-of-the-art recordings, but the ghost of Elvis Presley still hovers over the place. On December 4, 1956, Elvis, who had already achieved national prominence, returned to attend a recording session of Carl Perkins for old times sake. Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash, who were also Sun artists were there. Jerry Lee Lewis had just [...]

April 1994

The Man Who Wrote the Music for Psycho.

When Vera Miles (Lila Crane) goes into the cellar in search of Mrs. Bates I remember wanting to hide under m y seat! However, I had a date that was out of the question. Fear was created not just by Hitchcock's marvelous technique(s), but by those screeching strings. The man who wrote the music, and made the decision to eliminate brass and percussion was Bernard Herrmann. That decision served Psycho well and made the film [...]

January 1994

Joan of Arc

City University of New York (CUNY) TV has been showing a five film series of East German movies. The last and most emotionally involving is entitled The Actress. This tells the story of an actress on the verge of becoming Nazi Germany's greatest actress. There's only one problem! She is in love with a Jewish actor. How does she solve her problem? You'll have to ask CUNY to show the film again! However, within the [...]

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This image shows a small portion of the extensive collection of articles in the Richard E. Rubin archive. In 2021 conversion of the archive to digital assets was begun with the goal of preserving and organizing the articles.

“In black and white, light and shadow abound.”

From 1994 through 1999 Mr. Rubin wrote articles for several Brooklyn newspapers, including The Brooklyn Record and The Phoenix. His articles covered a wide variety of subjects including; Opera, Classical Music, Broadway, Musicals, Film and Star Trek. Many of the articles began life at his favorite place to write, the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza.