Another amazing Red Dress shot, Elizabeth. One of your best, certainly from a "set-up" standpoint, and by that I don't just mean the composition, which is excellent, but the actually planning of the shot : watching the Sun to make sure it was in alignment to go down just to the left of the rocks out to sea, and then getting yourself into position on the driftwood just in the nick of time, while it was still partially above the horizon. Now, you may have been standing on the driftwood for several minutes before that, clicking away via your phone app or however you trigger the cam. But still, that shot took some planning, because of the Sun. 2017 was The Year Of The Red Dress, and I must say that you created a series of truly remarkable photographs. You will look back on them years from now, and you will say to yourself, "I did this". :)
Today was January 2nd, and you know what that means.
It means that this time you can finish my annual joke for me, because you know that The Joke Must Be Repeated Each Year, and yet I feel I must pass the obligation, or opportunity (however you see it), on to someone else at this point, so that I myself will not be accused of hoarding the humor, or more probably running the joke into the ground. So now it's your turn to run it into the ground, but regardless of who does the running, whether it be you or me, the important thing is that The Joke Must Not Be Denied.
Therefore : "Wow! Can you believe it's January 2nd already"?
And here is your part : ("the year is just flying by")!
I put your line in parentheses to make it inaudible, so that no one will actually hear the punchline until you say it. Pretty nifty, eh?
I thought so. And thanks for keeping the tradition alive. There is nothing quite like the transition between January 1st and 2nd to make one aware of the passage of time. :)
Okay, so now that the business of the Annual January 2nd Joke has been taken care of, I can tell you about a really weird movie that I saw this evening.
It was called "The Red House" (1947), and it starred Edward G. Robinson, Dame Judith Anderson, Julie London, Rory Calhoun, and a newcomer named Allene Roberts.
Man, what a weird movie. I suppose you could call it a combination of Noir and psychological thriller. It's almost a horror movie, or even a ghost story.
Edward G.Robinson is a farmer who lives way out in the middle of nowhere in the hills of Northern California. Only a single dirt trail leads to his farm, where he lives and works with his sister (Dame Judith of "Rebecca" fame) and his adopted daughter (the young Miss Roberts). She is the only member of the family who enters into town, several miles away. She takes the schoolbus every morning, and is friendly with a Nice Young Man who attends the same school. Her dad Edward G. is getting on in years and needs a helping hand around his farm. His daughter suggests her school friend, who she also has eyes for. Edward G. reluctantly hires the kid, but then.....something weird happens.
The Noir Horror aspect of the movie makes a major appearance. The young man has to make a long walk through the woods to get from his house in town to his job at Edward G. Robinson's farm every day, so he decides to look for a shortcut.
And that is where all hell breaks loose and the plot begins, and it is also where Edward G. - who was a great actor indeed - begins to freak out and lose his sanity. He tries to talk the young man out of taking the shortcut in the woods, because.........he has a secret. A terrible secret.
Out in the woods beyond his farm, in a secluded area not easily discovered by trails, stands an extremely spooky looking barn, old and creaky and long abandoned. This is The Red House of the title. Next to it sits, squatted in mud and half-flooded by a stream, an old Ice House.
Both of the structures look, from a cinematic standpoint, like precursors to the Psycho House, and I would not be surprised if Hitchcock himself was a fan of this obscure seeming film.
It's really a minor classic in it's unique way. The story is all about suppression and repression, and the withholding of truth at all costs, which naturally strikes a chord in me. What also strikes a chord is the instinct of the daughter, once she discovers The Red House while trekking through the woods, to come to terms with her reality, which is dawning on her as something far removed from what she thought it was, as simply the adopted child of a fatherly farmer. The truth is terribly different.
But the movie itself is weird, weird, and more weird!
Think "Portrait Of Jenny", or "The Enchanted Cottage". The story of "The Red House" is not like those two films in any way, but all three share a surreal black and white strangeness, as if the viewer walked into a desperate fantasy world of traumatised souls searching and fighting for truth and closure against determined opposing forces.
There are Determined Opposing Forces in the world. Mostly they are psychic. The trick is to know them and see them coming. That is the message of the film, to fight the forces who would repress.
Beyond any considerations of message, it's just an excellent movie, a Dark Thriller that seems to take place in an enclosed little world up in the mountains in farm country.
It is very well directed (by Delmer Daves) and well acted, and photographed.
I am surprised that this movie is not well known. I had only heard about it because of a Library database search of Edward G. Freaking Robinson.
Those were my actual search terms, which was why "The Red House" was returned on them, and why I finally discovered this movie.
Aw c'mon.....they weren't my actual search terms. Were they?
I dunno. Hey, did you get the January 2nd Joke out into the World yet?
Sorry to harp on it. I know you'll get it done.
But see "The Red House" if you can reserve it from The Libe, wherever your Libe may be.
It is a strange and creeping little classic, and must definitely be seen.
Two Huge Thumbs Up, then, and I shall see you in the morn. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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