Nolte: Blacklisted Frank Langella Blasts ‘Madness’ of ‘Cancel Culture’

The #MeToo Terror has recently taken out two legends: Frank Langella and Bill Murray. In response, Murray groveled, but the 84-year-old Langella is standing up for himself.

Last month Netflix fired the screen legend over a minor complaint. At the time, Langella was three months into shooting the streamer’s adaption of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Reportedly, there were only three weeks of shooting remaining. Nonetheless, all his scenes will still be re-shot.

We were told Langella made an inappropriate joke and that was that… Time’s up, Old White Dude! You are blacklisted, canceled, smeared, destroyed, annihilated, and disgraced because We Have The Power Now and We Hate You and it’s not Mrs. Joe McCarthy, it’s Ms. Joe McCarthy.

In a statement released Thursday to far-left Deadline (one of the primary Hollywood publications that have embraced this latest form of McCarthyism), Langella told his side of the story. According to him:

On March 25 of this year, I was performing a love scene with the actress playing my young wife. Both of us were fully clothed. I was sitting on a couch, she was standing in front of me. The director called “cut.” “He touched my leg,” said the actress. “That was not in the blocking.” She then turned and walked off the set, followed by the director and the intimacy coordinator. I attempted to follow but was asked to “give her some space.” I waited for approximately one hour and was then told she was not returning to set and we were wrapped.

Not long after, an investigation began. Approximately one week later, Human Resources asked to speak to me by phone. “Before the love scene began on March 25,” said the questioner, “our intimacy coordinator suggested where you both should put your hands. It has been brought to our attention that you said, ‘This is absurd!’” “Yes,” I said, “I did. And I still think so.” It was a love scene on camera. Legislating the placement of hands, to my mind, is ludicrous. It undermines instinct and spontaneity. Toward the end of our conversation, she suggested that I not contact the young lady, the intimacy coordinator, or anyone else in the company. “We don’t want to risk retaliation,” she said. When I mentioned that it was certainly not my intention to … she cut me off politely and said: “Intention is not our concern. Netflix deals only with impact.”

Additional allegations included, “He told an off-color joke,” “Sometimes he called me ‘baby’ or ‘honey,’” and “He’d give me a hug or touch my shoulder.”

Langella says the producer told him, “You cannot do that, Frank. You can’t joke. You can’t compliment. You can’t touch. It’s a new order.”

Pure Kafka.

Langella adds, “Cancel culture is the antithesis of democracy. It inhibits conversation and debate. It limits our ability to listen, mediate, and exchange opposing views. Most tragically,” he says, “it annihilates moral judgment.”

He closes with, “This is not fair. This is not just. This is not American.”

Let me start with this… He should not have touched this woman’s leg. While I understand the leg is not an erogenous zone, love scenes are intensely awkward and uncomfortable. They are blocked out in advance for good reason and improvising in this way is inappropriate. You ask first.

But because I’m a reasonable human being, I can say that without calling for the man’s head.

I don’t know who this asshole actress is, and I’m not going to speculate, but if what Langella says is true, she is an asshole, not to mention a weak little tattletale baby.

How hard is it to say, “Knock it off!” Well, if you’re a strong, independent woman and not a brittle, weak, neurotic, shrill bully, it’s not hard at all.

Just because you can in these McCarthyite times, that doesn’t mean you should destroy a man’s career and reputation over something like this. As human beings, we’ve all faced situations where the moral high ground handed us the opportunity to stomp on someone’s face. In those situations, you are the one being tested. Are you going to be forgiving and gracious, or a bully?

Frank Langella has been around for 60 years, and while his reputation as a swordsman is well known, I’m unaware of a single allegation of impropriety. But here he is, as he admits in his statement, at the end of his career, and this is how the fascists at Netflix end him.

As always, I reserve the right to change my opinion with the release of new information.