Tonight's film was called "Time Without Pity" (1957), an edgy and slightly eccentric English Noir about an alcoholic writer (played by the great Michael Redgrave) who returns to England from Canada to visit the son he had forsaken long ago. That son is now on Death Row in an English prison, and is scheduled to be executed in twenty four hours.
I must make an interjection here, as I sometimes do in these matters, to specify that the word "scheduled", as written above, will be pronounced "shedge-ooled", in the British manner. If we are clear on that point - and I trust that we are - then we may proceed.
Michael Redgrave has not seen his son in years. He has neglected him really, but he has returned to England because his son has only hours to live, and Redgrave - a good man on the inside - is feeling the weight of the guilt of his neglect. He does love his son, and he is sure the son is innocent. It is demonstrated in the film that the son is a fragile character, unlikely to have committed the murder of his girlfriend.
As it turns out (and give me a moment while I switch off the italics).....and as it turns out, both the son and his girl had been involved with another couple, a racing car industrialist played by the Explosive Leo McKern, and his wife, who seems to have a lot of sympathy for the young man who is about to be executed.
Yes, it's a convoluted plot, and I've probably described the basis of it in an equally convoluted fashion. I never know how my sentences are gonna come out until I re-read them the next day, haha, but the thing is that - in movies - casting plays a huge role. Just as you know that, when you go to see a Tom Cruise movie, that he is not gonna die even if he is scaling a 127 story skyscraper, then you also should know that if you have an actor like Leo McKern in your film, he is not there to play happy-go-lucky.
Here, I think the director realized that, and he indicates who the real murderer is at the beginning of the film and then allows the characters to unravel the mystery by proxy. We in the audience have the answer from the start, but we don't know the puzzle.
"Time Without Pity" classifies as a Noir but plays more as a psychological thriller I think. As the plot progressed toward a conclusion, and the viewer is wondering if an answer will be provided to free the imprisoned son, I was slightly disappointed in the lack of clues that one would find in an American Noir of the same period, when there was always a detective on the scene to bust up the scam or uncover the deception. Michael Redgrave is relentless in his effort to free his son, and he hasn't much time because his son is gonna be executed the next day, but as the film nears it's end, we see that the story was more about the father and his relationship to his son, than it was a whodunit with all the clues laid out and solved, ala Hitchcock, or in an American Noir. In "Time Without Pity", it's more about the characters and their English eccentricities.
Still a very good film though, and I give it a solid Thumbs Up. The black and white location shooting in 1950s England is by itself enough to recommend it. And the eminence of Sir Michael Redgrave.
Well, I am Dog Tired, but I did say we were gonna explore the role of "K" in the 1989 chronicles. "K", as you will remember, was the teenaged girlfriend of Mr. D in 1988/89. And at that time, they had moved to the Burton Street house in Reseda. When they moved to that house, I more or less did not see Mr. D, or hear from him, for about five years. There was a phone call or two, and one very important phone call which I detailed in my book, but basically, when our band broke up in early 1988, I really did not see Mr. D until mid-1993. He had become a hermit, along with his girl "K", and that was that.
In the meantime, the Events Of September 1989 took place, and monumental they were.
I had no memory of those events, as you know, until October 1993, when my first memory came back.
Prior to that, by four months, there had been an acrimonious breakup in the "K" / Mr. D relationship. Mr. D had kicked "K" out of his house on Burton Street. This was in June '93. Suddenly, out of the blue, "K" showed up at my house at 9032 Rathburn Ave. in Northridge. You can Google Street View it for authenticity. But when "K" showed up at my house - by which I mean my family's house - she did not come to the front door. Instead, when I got home that day, I discovered that she was in our garage, with her brother, visiting "T", the guy who helped bring about the entire 1989 escapade. "T" was once a close friend of mine, and he wound up getting evicted from his apartment at the end of October 1989, the apartment in which the entire 1989 scenario began two months earlier. I know this sounds even more convoluted than the plot for tonight's movie, but the main thing to remember about "K" is that she was initially the girlfriend of Mr. D, who we have ascertained was the conduit between "X" and Howard Schaller in a drug deal. Read recent blogs to know the story.
"K" then went from being with Mr. D to getting kicked out of his house in June 1993, after which she relocated by her own initiative to my house. Only she did not do this by way of asking me or my family. No, she went directly to a guy who lived in our garage at the time : "T", in whose apartment the whole 1989 affair began.
This is gonna have to be a two part blog about "K", because I am tired and have gotta get to sleep, but as you can see, there were subterranean connections between "K" and her two boyfriends, Mr. D (her former) and "T" (her current as of June 1993). Those connections held deep secrets, which led "K" to try and bypass me and my family, in order that she could move into our garage with "T" when she was kicked out of Mr. D's house.
"T" was the guy whose deceit and false friendship precipitated the events of 1989, which began in his apartment on the night of September 1st of that year. Mr. D was my best friend, who had a big-time secret he was hiding about his connection to Howard Schaller, as referenced in recent blogs, and how - though that connection to Schaller - he introduced "X" to Schaller for the purpose of what was likely a big time drug deal, which wound up in disaster on September 1st, 1989.
And "K" was the 19 year old girl who was not directly involved in the events of 1989, but who knew all about the connections between "T", Mr. D, and "X", because she had been the girfriend of both "T" and Mr. D.
When "K" moved into my garage to live with "T", I approved it because for one thing, my family needed the rent money. And for another thing, I had no memory of 1989.
I had total 100% amnesia. But that would break in June 1994. And at that time, before "K" and "T" moved out of my garage in a big hurry, "K" would reveal to me something very important, which I will reveal to you tomorrow.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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