"The Thin Man Goes Home" + Rice Canyon

Tonight, we finished off The Thin Man series with "The Thin Man Goes Home" (1944). Nick and Nora are on a train headed for Nick's hometown of Sycamore Springs (state unknown). They are on vacation, as usual, and are planning to visit Nick's parents. Asta the dog is along for the ride. The twelve minute opening scene aboard the overcrowded train is one of the funniest sequences in all the Thin Man movies. You'll have to see why for yourself. :)

Sycamore Springs looks like the kind of bucolic town that was depicted in many a 1940s film, like the town in "It's A Wonderful Life", with picket fences, shaded sidewalks and two story old fashioned homes. Classic Americana. William Powell is, for once, not drinking any alcohol. Part of the Thin Man charm in all the other movies is Powell & Myrna Loy's way with a martini. They are rarely without one, and yet they can always function no matter how many they imbibe. This too is part of the 40s fantasy, and it is played for fun in most of the Thin Man films. This time, the couple's sudden sobriety was apparently a studio decision corresponding to the liquor rationing that was in force during the war years. I had never heard of this rationing before, but perhaps the studio bosses thought it best not to rub a lot of celebratory drinking in their audience's collective face. At any rate, all Powell & Loy are sipping this time is cider. The "official reason" given in the script is that Nick's father does not approve of his son's drinking. The old man is a successful doctor. He thinks Nick is a lowly policeman, drunk usually, though he basically has no contact with him. What the father does not know is that Nick has turned himself into a Master Detective who the police themselves rely upon to help solve murder cases.

Nick wants to impress his Dad on this trip back home.....but, to be on the safe side, he is laying off the booze.

The town is populated by the kind of Quaint Eccentrics you might expect from a movie of this era. The Crazy Lady who lives in a cabin on the outskirts; the scrawny, paranoid maid with the bulging eyes and Margaret Hamilton nose; the beautiful but overdramatic young ingenue; the rich and powerful factory owner; the small, flustered art dealer; the shifty couple who don't fit in and seem to be crooks.

Once again a painting is the focus of the story. Wait a minute....are we in a Falcon movie, or The Thin Man? Let me get my bearings. I know we aren't watching Tarzan. :)

The plot begins to thicken when Loy goes into the art dealers shop to look for a birthday present for her husband. She settles on a painting by a local artist, a farming landscape that she believes Powell will love, as he has expressed fond memories of his boyhood in the countryside here.

For some reason, though, the art dealer doesn't want to sell her the painting. It is reserved for another woman. Loy insists, offers more money, and walks away with the canvas, which naturally sets up the mystery. Everybody seems to have an interest in the artist who painted it. He turns up dead of course.

And then classic mook Edward Brophy is seen hiding out in the bushes at the Charles family homestead. Now wait just a cotton-pickin' minute.....wasn't Brophy in all of the Falcon movies we just got through watching? What's going on here? Are Falcon and The Thin Man interchangeable?

Well, no. It's just that Edward Brophy was ubiquitous at the time. He could talk Bronx as good as a Three Stooge and he had the mug to match. He was a classic Hollywood mook, even appearing with Buster Keaton if I am not mistaken.

The real stars here are William Powell and Myrna Loy. She especially should be recognised as one of the most distinct actresses that ever came out of Hollywood. No other performer ever matched her combination of beauty, class, style, intelligence and comedic daffiness. In a way, you could call her a precursor to Lucille Ball, except that Loy also had a fashion model's grace and was much more understated than Lucy in her delivery. She also dressed to the nines (as per the studio's directive) and was the absolute perfect match, and foil, to William Powell in the Thin Man films.

Again, you'll have to see for yourself, but if you can find greater examples of Golden Era screen stardom than Myrna Loy and William Powell, you'll have to show them to me. These two were something special. And, they had one of the all time movie dogs at their side.

As with the Tarzan and Falcon movies, every Thin Man flick is a ton of fun. The Thin Man films, however, had bigger budgets and slightly more developed scripts. I give the entire series my highest recommendation for anyone interested in screwball comedy, or Golden Era studio magic. ////

This afternoon I drove out to Santa Clarita for a really nice hike in Rice Canyon. I had not been there in a while but was reminded how beautiful it looks in January after the first rains of the year. Today was my final day off, so tomorrow I will be back at Pearl's for a new work cycle.

I will see you there in the early afternoon, after our weekly visit to the hair salon.

Giant love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

'The Falcon In Mexico" + Polar Vortex

Tonight I watched the sixth and final Falcon movie from the two disc collection I purchased around Christmastime (and so that you won't worry, I can tell you that - just like with the recently viewed Tarzan collection - there is more than one volume available. Therefore more Falcon and Tarzan movies are in your future, and mine too. Now you can rest easy). But yeah, as far as this collection goes, we pounded all six Falcon movies in a matter of three weeks. This evening's entry was "The Falcon In Mexico" (1944).

He is down in old Mexico because while in New York, The Falcon caught a young woman trying to steal a valuable painting from an art gallery. The painting was a portrait of herself, painted by her late father, who died fifteen years earlier in 1929. But Conway, who is the Falcon with a capital F, is such an astute detective that he notices something right away about the lady that doesn't add up.

"Why do you look the same at this moment as you do in the portrait"?, he asks her. After all, if her father died in 1929, at least fifteen years had passed since the picture was painted. Yet she seems not to have aged even a day. Furthermore, why is she stealing the painting?

Conway will have to travel to Mexico to find out, not only because the woman escapes the New York museum without answering his questions, but also because the accuracy of the film's title must be fulfilled.  :)

"Goldie" Locke, The Falcon's goofy assistant, is not in this picture, but the series' standard comic relief and buddy hijinx are provided by a taxi driver named Manuel, who accosts Conway as soon as he steps off the plane, and offers - in Senor Wences -style mangled English - to show Conway the sights, and the ropes, in Mexico. He won't take no for an answer and seems to have an answer to the mystery behind the fleeing woman and the stolen painting. Though he presents himself as a dunce, somehow he drives the Falcon straight to a gallery owned by a woman who was in love with the deceased artist. By these early actions, he becomes the de facto sidekick of the movie, in place of the usual mook Goldie.

A rule of thumb in these types of films is that if you have a handsome, suave guy as the star, you must also have a pudgy, funny guy to pair him with. And so you have it here: the Taxi Driver will guide Falcon around town, he will speak pidgin English and do his whole "si, Senor" thing.....but you have a feeling that he has something else up his sleeve.

Once he takes the Falcon to the gallery in Mexico, it becomes clear that something fishy is going on regarding the death of the famous artist, as in maybe he isn't really dead, like Elvis Presley.

Once things get to this point, the plot becomes very convoluted and very Spanish, very melodramatic (while retaining the charm of a Falcon film). But you know what I mean. In Old Mexico, as in Spain, the female protagonists are fiery, the males are either macho and humorless or very kind and accommodating (like a restaurant owner).

I mean, think of dancing The Tango. It's a very serious dance, right? Romantic to be sure, but serious and fiery.

So to be The Falcon, and to go down to Mexico to solve a convoluted crime, you have to have writers who will surround you with the appropriate atmosphere. They have done so here. The proceedings are sufficiently fiery and serious, and even the daffy taxi sidekick might........(wait! stop!)

Don't reveal any more of the mystery, Ad. (Okay, sorry)

"The Falcon In Mexico" is one of the best of the six films we've seen, with great atmosphere and dark plotting, away from home in a foreign land. There are a few makeout scenes, not as many as in other Falcons, but enough to keep you from worrying.

Two Thumbs Up, then, is the verdict for "The Falcon In Mexico". We have thoroughly enjoyed this series, and we'll be ordering Volume One of the "Falcon" set, which has another seven films from the beginning of the franchise. The first three star George Sanders, but then the next four star his brother Tom Conway, which I was happy to discover because Conway is The Falcon, just like Johnny Weissmuller is Tarzan.  /////

I had a nice hike at Aliso this eve. Tomorrow is my last day off.

Elizabeth, I hope you are hanging in there with the polar vortex. Those temperatures seem so extreme to me that I wonder how anyone can stay warm even inside their houses. I know how tough you guys are in the Midwest, but I will be thinking about you nonetheless.

See you in the morn.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Attempted Tarzan, Then Falcon

Well, I hate to break the news to you, but I did not watch a Tarzan movie tonight. You are probably pretty disappointed. I know I am. It wasn't for lack of trying, I assure you. I had one movie left from the collection of six. I had successfully watched four; another had skipped and frozen so many times that I had to quit before the finish, as reported. But I still had one left, "Tarzan Triumphs", so I began to watch it this evening. By the five minute mark it was freezing and skipping constantly, so I reluctantly ejected it from the player while I still had time to complete a different film.

Once again, The Falcon to the rescue. Thank you Tom Conway.

"The Falcon In San Francisco" (1943) has one of the better plots from this series. Falcon and his sidekick "Goldie" Locke (played by classic mook Edward Brophy) are on a train to San Francisco. As always, they are on vacation. All Falcon movies start with the two heading out on vacation ala "The Thin Man". But like Powell & Loy, they always get drawn into solving a crime instead. A small dog runs down the aisle of their train car and jumps into Goldie's lap, followed shortly after by a cute moppett (played by child star Sharyn Moffett). She reclaims her doggie but doesn't want to leave, taking a shine to Tom Lawrence aka The Falcon and his rather uncouth pal Goldie, who is of course all heart.

The two gentlemen are curious as to why this child is not eager to return to her room on the train. She explains to them that she is in the care of a mean old nurse, and that she doesn't want to go home to San Francisco - where she lives in a Nob Hill manor - because she and her dog are being held prisoner there. Sharyn Moffett is precocious in the style of Margaret O'Brien, and her tale is halfway persuasive to the two detectives. Then - through the train car strides the cruel nursemaid, informing them that "the child has a vivid imagination and is full of made-up stories". She further tells them that it is none of their business. This of course only serves to fuel The Falcon's curiosity. A little while later, the cruel nurse turns up dead in her train car, and the vacation plans are officially over. The Falcon and Goldie decide on the spot to personally escort the little girl back to her palatial home, to deliver her safely and get to the bottom of the mystery if indeed there is one.

Naturally, there is. The cops have the autopsy results on the nurse. She did not die of natural causes but was killed in a clever manner by a stickpin. Now the plot begins as Conway, Goldie and little Miss Moffett arrive at the estate of her.......(her parents?)......no. It isn't clear who owns the home or whom she is in the care of.

A well mannered but exceedingly rude butler gives Falcon the same line about the kid. "She tells a lot of fanciful stories". He then invites The Falcon to leave the premises, and when Conway refuses and tries to take Moffett with him, the butler calls the cops and has him arrested for kidnapping. He spends the night in jail but in the morning is bailed out by a Very Wealthy Woman who seems to be verry attracted to him.

He is used to this type of thing (he is Tom Conway, after all), but he is Way Too Suave to become distracted from his mission as he goes ahead and makes out with the woman anyway.

Boy, is he going to pay for that. ////

I feel that I have given you enough of the 66 minute plot to work with, so that - should you decide to watch the movie for yourself - you will have a sufficient overview to aid you in your involvement in the picture, so that you may play detective for yourself. I have given you a boost, you might say. A leg up.

I only have one Falcon movie left, starring Conway, and I shall hopefully save it for a little while. There are six others, made with Conway's brother George Sanders as the star, and he was in fact the original Falcon, his are the original Falcon movies and Sanders was by far the bigger Hollywood Star. I will probably order those movies from Amazon at some point, but I already know that, for me, the true Falcon will always be Tom Conway. Less famous than George Sanders but far more Suave.

And suaveness counts, does it not?  :):)

I had a nice twilight hike at O'Melveny this evening, still off work for a couple more days.

See you in the morning, and guess what? I have the first six MGM Tarzan movies ordered and on the way to Northridge Libe, so I know you are greatly relieved because we will have more Tarzan to come.

Man, you are wiping your brow......you are breathing a sigh of relief, you are saying "whew".....

You are saying "Thanks, Ad".

I say, "No problem", because I know how you feel about Tarzan.

See you in the morn. Love til then, then more. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

"Tarzan And The Amazons" + "A Lie Too Big To Fail" by Lisa Pease

Tonight's Tarzan was "Tarzan And The Amazons" (1945), and the title tells you, right off the bat, most of what you need to know about the story. Tarzan and Boy are getting ready for a rafting trip to the trading post downriver to buy supplies for the treehouse and also some presents for Jane, who is returning from another one of her trips to England. Before they can depart, they hear a commotion in the jungle. A young woman is running from a panther, hot on her heels. She carries a bow and arrow, and appears to be a warrior (warrioress?), but Tarzan sees she is no match for the charging cat and comes rapidly to her rescue.

As he and Boy tend to her, a bracelet falls from her wrist. Made of pure gold, it bears an embossed, overlapped symbol of a tree, Sun and snake. Boy is inquisitive and wants to know the meaning of the symbol, but the woman is mum. It is clear that Tarzan knows something, but he is silent as well. He changes the subject on Boy, but Boy will soon discover for himself the symbols' meaning, because Tarzan decides to help the stricken woman get back to Palmiyra, the hidden city behind the mountains at the edge of the jungle. This is where she is from, where her people live in secret. She is an Amazon, a tribe of Tall, Strong Women.

I was figuring that the producers must have hired the entire volleyball teams from USC and UCLA, gave 'em jungle skirts and headbands and set them loose.... :)

When Tarzan gets Athena the Amazon back to her tribe at Palmiyra, he is immediately excoriated by the Amazonian Queen, Maria Ouspenskaya (of "Wolfman" fame). She is a tiny person, and elderly, but her word is law. Lucky for Tarzan that she is his pal. The secret city of the Amazons is never to be compromised. Death awaits all intruders, but Tarzan is excepted this time - even though he has brought Boy and Cheeta with him - because he has known about Palmiyra forever, and he has kept it a secret, even from Boy and Jane.

The Amazons let him go and he returns to the jungle just as Jane is arriving by boat, with yet another retinue of scientists, microbiologists and a zoology professor. Tarzan has Had It Up To Here with these types, as seen in other films from the series, because he knows that all they want is to plunder.

Jane is once again the voice of moderation, trying to explain to Tarzan that the men are only there to study the land, not to exploit it. But Tarzan knows differently. He has jungle intuition. He can talk to and command the animals, after all. He is King Of The Jungle. He sees that the scientists have hired a local hunter to lead their anthropological expedition, a blustery, craven man interested not in science but only in profit.

This is when Cheeta gets into the act. She has been content to try her hand at fishing throughout the first half of the movie - with zero success - but by the time the safari gets underway she is back to her old tricks of stealing anything she can get ahold of. This time she swipes the Golden Bracelet. The master hunter who is leading the expedition discovers it, sees it is made of gold, and his own intuition, made of greed and envy, drives him to find out where the bracelet has come from.

Boy has been simmering at Tarzan from the beginning of the movie, because Tarzan won't tell him about Palmiyra, the secret city of the Amazons. Now, Boy has a chance to get back at Tarzan and prove himself to be a man, because he was with Tarzan when they went to Palmiyra to return the wounded woman at the start of the movie.

Boy knows the way there. He knows the route over the jagged mountains, and offers his services to the hunter and his clients, the scientists, who seem benign enough. Jane approves of them and Boy loves  and trusts Jane.

But Tarzan knows Hunter No Good. Boy in Bad Fix now. Can Tarzan straighten situation out?

The movie would more accurately have been called "Boy and The Amazons", because this is really Johnny Sheffield's movie more than Weissmuller's. Boy gets himself into a major league jam by leading the hunter and the scientists into the lofty netherworld of Palmiyra, where they find themselves suddenly surrounded and outgunned by the large tribe of fearless Amazonian archers acting at Queen Ouspenskayas' behest.

Boy would surely be Toast here, if not for his relationship to Tarzan.

The hunter doesn't fare as well, and the scientists.......hmmmm. Just watch for yourself.

The script is not quite up to par with last night's "Tarzan And The Huntress", but you still get all of your trademark elements of jungle animals romping, Tarzan & Boy bonding, family time with Jane, and Cheeta stealing the show (literally and figuratively).

Two Thumbs Up for "Tarzan And The Amazons", and hang on, because we still have some Tarzans left! I don't know if the final two movies will play; they are the ones that kept freezing and skipping, but I will try one tomorrow night. Maybe the glitch has worked itself out.

Good singing in church this morning. I am still off work. Went for an Aliso walk this aft, finished Lou Berney's "November Road" (most excellent), and began "A Lie Too Big To Fail" by Lisa Pease, said to be thee Magnum Opus on the Robert F. Kennedy assassination.

Very readable thus far, through 25 pages. She promises to come up with new information on the case. I've read many a book on the subject, so we will see if she can deliver on that promise. ////

The truth is so important in this world. Telling it is the hard part for those in the know. Discerning it is the hard part for researchers and writers.

Eyewitnesses hold the key.  :)

See you in the morning. Love always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

The Progressive Politics of "Tarzan And The Huntress"

Yeah, we're still doing Tarzan. But hey - we're having a blast! And tonight's Tarzan movie even had some moral clout : "Tarzan And The Huntress" (1947) was the most serious-minded of the three films we've seen so far. Patricia Morison co-stars as a zoologist who flies into the jungle, accompanied by a wealthy investor, to scout the area for animals. She has been extended a contract offer to supply zoos across America with as many exotic creatures as she can bring back. The investor is footing the bill for her safari. He knows a big-game hunter in the region who can be an intermediary with the natives and their King. They land their plane and begin making preparations to do business and extract as many wild beasts as possible.

But not so fast. There is an obstacle. The big-game hunter informs Morison that the King has imposed a limit on how many animals of a given species may be killed or trapped. Two of each, just as on Noah's Ark. She tries to explain that she and her team are not there to kill, but to take the animals to zoos in the United States, where children of another land will be able to see them. The King politely declines her request to exceed the trapping limit. He explains that if he makes an exception for her, he will have to grant the same to other hunters, which will lead to extinction of the species.

This is an early cinematic example of an awareness of, and concern for, the survival of wild animals. I had never seen such a topic ever addressed in a film, not that I can recall anyway.

Tarzan gets wind of Miss Morison and her plans, and takes things a step further :
"Animals belong in jungle, not in cages", he says.

Wow. An anti-Zoo statement, all the way back in 1947. When I was a schoolkid, we were taken to the Los Angeles Zoo in the third grade. Our Zoo was brand new then, and the concept of caring for zoo animals had changed for the better. In the movie, Jane - who has experience outside the jungle and has been to other countries - explains to Tarzan that the zoos are not all bad, that they care for the animals and help to promote breeding and welfare. Tarzan is having none of it.

"Hunters greedy", he says. This sends the script in an anti-hunting direction, astonishing for 1947.

Early in the movie, before the hunters have even arrived, Tarzan catches Boy pointing his bow and arrow at a macaw who is pecking away at a piece of fruit in a tree. Tarzan erupts.

"Boy!.......Never hunt for fun! Only for food"!

I know that in these vegan times, Tarzan's admonishment might seem half-baked. "Never hunt at all", you might hear them say, but meat eating vs. vegetarianism or veganism is a tricky topic and I'll not go there. I am not vegetarian nor vegan, though I might be some day (and Johnny Weissmuller was vegetarian), but what impressed me was Tarzan's emphatic statement against trophy hunting, which is a major topic these days. Here, he is saying it in a popular movie in 1947. "Never hunt for fun"!

There are many other lines of dialogue, too, against hunting. Late in the movie, Tarzan organizes a plan to take away all of the hunters' guns. "Hunters without guns like a bee without sting", he says.

Wow! Gun control in a Tarzan movie. For what is supposed to be a matinee popcorn flick, "Tarzan And The Huntress" is very socially conscious, and way ahead of it's time. I am liking these movies so much because besides being entertaining and well made, the scripts also promote good values, and with Weissmuller, Brenda Joyce ("Jane") and Johnny Sheffield ("Boy"), you have a perfectly wholesome cast. Tarzan movies make you feel good, and I can see why they earned a lot of money at the box office and made Weissmuller a screen icon.

The plot of the 72 minute "Huntress" has it's twists and turns. The kindly King has a sociopathic nephew eager to overthrow him, so he can exploit the African land and it's animal kingdom for his own gain. This nephew is in league with the greedy hunters. Patricia Morison, as the zooligist, is portrayed somewhere in the middle. She wants no trouble, and no killing of either man nor animal, but she won't back down from her stated mission of obtaining as many zoo animals as she can procure.

It's pretty incredible how they put together these films, with so much animal footage that looks like it is taking place in an actual jungle. The scenes with Cheeta the trained chimp are amazing enough. I know that monkeys are very intelligent, but to get one to do exactly what you want, and put it on film, in scenes of intricate action, is very impressive and I would love to know how they did this.

Some scenes - of giraffe herds running across plains, or elephants stampeding - are stock footage, but there are also numerous scenes with lions and other cats that must have taken a lot of effort. How to you get these animals to hit their marks?

At any rate, if you are an animal lover, this is your best Tarzan movie yet. And, you get your anti-hunting stance too, stated strongly by Tarzan himself.

"Tarzan And The Huntress" gets Two Very Big Thumbs Up, and you get all the usual antics from Cheeta throughout the movie, as she fixates on the comely Miss Morison's use of lipstick and makeup, and then steals her purse to try the cosmetics on herself. Cheeta can't keep her hands off of other people's belongings, no matter which movie you are watching, haha. I Googled her and discovered that there has been a campaign to get her a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. So far it's been denied, but Go Cheeta! Watch these movies and see for yourself how great she is.  :)  /////

Today was another day off, and I had a nice hike out at Santa Susana. Reading "November Road" by Lou Berney, a recommendation from Stephen King on FB.

Tomorrow morning is church. I will see you there. Constant love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Elizabeth + "Tarzan's Desert Mystery" + "The Polka Dot File" by Fernando Faura

Elizabeth, that was a great photo of your friend Anna, the one on Instagram. You really got the color scheme down, and you mentioned going for a midcentury modern look - you sure got it with the warm tones. And of course, the drapes are classic MCM, the lamp too. Pearl lives in a mid century modern house, in a tract full of homes that were designed by Edward Fickett. We had one too when I was a kid, when my family lived around the corner from Pearl and her family in the early 1960s. I remember things in our house like Eames chairs and lamp "trees", that had several conical chrome lamps spaced vertically on a chrome or steel pole. The lamps pointed in different directions for soft spot lighting. You can probably picture what I am talking about. We had cool drapes, too, and wallpaper. Rotary phones and sofas, coffee tables.... :)

I am always glad to see your photos. I hope you are still shooting every chance you get, and writing and playing music, too. I hope your job is not taking up all of your time. Congrats to Anna for playing at NAMM.

Post more pics if you get the chance. I miss the days when you posted on a regular basis, and as always, I must "egg you on", to keep working toward your true goal, which I know you are certainly doing anyway. But yeah......keep posting if you can.  :):)

I was off today, as mentioned, so I went up to Aliso for a full length hike of 3.75 miles. I have long since covered the place pictorially, so I just re-shoot things I have already shot, like water in the creek, which is a rare sight. Because today was a day off, I would have gone out to Santa Clarita to visit a trail like Rice Canyon or Towsley Canyon that I rarely get to see anymore, but the wind was blowing pretty hard so I decided to wait until tomorrow or Monday. Sunday will be church and then I am gonna take my sister shopping. ////

Well, guess what? Tonight, Tarzan worked! I tried another one of the six movies in the collection, and to my surprise it played all the way through without a single skip. Yippee! The movie was "Tarzan's Desert Mystery" (1943). This time, Jane was offscreen in England, working as a nurse in WW2. I think the producers did this because Maureen O'Sullivan, the original Jane, had opted out of her contract and so the series was without a Jane, temporarily. So, because a Tarzan movie needs a female counterpart, the writers created the character of Connie (Nancy Kelly) , a circus performer and sometime Broadway actress, who Tarzan, Boy and Cheeta run into while crossing the desert in search of plant medicine to send to Jane in England, that she can use on wounded troops.

I shall not enter into a lengthy plot description (unless you suddenly declare yourself a Tarzan fanatic, in which case you would likely know the plot already), but to be brief, a former Nazi-turned-businessman is running the village at the edge of the desert, by manipulating the local sheik. Connie the circus woman had been traveling to meet with her Arabic friend Prince Amir, who was to get her a performing contract in Africa, but along the way she is passed a secret message that informs her about "Paul Hendrix", the Nazi, and his plans to make war between the sheikdoms, to divide and conquer them and leave himself in charge.

Who else to save the day but Tarzan?

Weissmuller could give Superman a run for his money, especially with sidekicks like Boy and Cheeta. On a side note, I was previously spelling Cheeta wrong, as Cheetah. Checking the film's IMDB, I discovered there is no "h" at the end of her name, and yes - Cheeta is a girl. I had thought she was a boy.

She steals her scenes once again in "Tarzan's Desert Mystery", where she performs an impressive tightrope act as part of an impromptu circus organized by Connie. Cheeta also has an extended scene where she must sneak into the village bazaar to steal as many turbans as she can get get hands on, in order to bring them back to Tarzan and Boy, who are jailed, so that they can unspool the turbans and make a lengthy rope, from which to escape from the high jail tower where they are imprisoned.

I will have do do some research on Cheeta, because she is an amazing movie performer.

"Tarzan's Desert Mystery" naturally gets Two Thumbs Up, not only because it was thoroughly entertaining but also because the dvd didn't freeze, thank goodness. ////

I have finished Fernando Faura's book "The Polka Dot File", about the Robert F. Kennedy assassination. It is his own day-by-day account of his experience as a newspaper reporter in the aftermath of the shooting, to attempt to track down the Girl In The Polka Dot Dress, who was seen by multiple witnesses with Sirhan prior to the assassination. She was also seen running from the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel and out of the building by several credible witnesses. Faura's book describes the strenuous efforts of the LAPD and the FBI to discredit and intimidate the witnesses who saw the girl in the polka dot dress.

There is no doubt that Sirhan was not a lone shooter, but rather part of a conspiracy, and in fact there is as much proof of it as there is proof of the JFK conspiracy.

I think it was the same bunch of people who killed JFK, MLK and RFK, all in a row, bang bang bang, just because they had the power to do it. LAPD helped cover up RFK because they were corrupt at the time and because it was in their jurisdiction and they were ordered to do so.

All of those assassinations happened in the first 8 years of my life, and then right after that, we got Richard Nixon for president, and he was a crook who would have been impeached has he not resigned.

We have got to fix America, because this is not what my Dad, and so many thousands of young men like him, fought for in World War Two in the effort to stop Hitler, whose rise led to the deaths of 60 million people.

Did 60 million die just so that we could end up with LBJ, Nixon and Donald Trump?

Please God let it not be so. Please help us in America. /////

Much love til the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

"Tarzan" Fizzle Out + "The Falcon" To The Rescue

Tonight's movie started out to be "Tarzan And The Leopard Woman", and it was really good, too. Tarzan was foiling a scheme hatched by The High Priestess of Zambesi, to have her followers kill all travelers on the road to their jungle village, in order to prevent it from being "civilized" by the English Commissioner of the region, who wishes to modernize Africa and turn the villages into shopping bazaars. She sends the members of her cult out on their mission, clothed in leopard skins. This will make it look like leopards are responsible for the kills, and will frighten away the businessmen.

Tarzan, though, isn't buying it. He inspects the bodies of the initial victims.

"Leopards not kill", he declares. He explains, in his Pidgin English, that leopards use their teeth to kill. On these victims there are only claw marks.

Man, I was watchin' the movie and really enjoying it. If you thought we were only gonna watch one Tarzan movie, you were dead wrong, lol. I had so much fun watching last night's "Tarzan And The Mermaids", that I knew I had to see another one. However, there was a slight problem with the viewing of "Mermaids". Every so often, the picture would freeze for a second or two and then resume playing. This happened just under the limit of being annoying, but it was close. But alas, with tonight's Tarzan, the gosh darned thing just kept sticking and sticking. Tonight's movie was on a different disc, too, and neither disc looked to be all scratched up. Sometimes, with library dvds, it looks like somebody either washed their car with the disc or made a peanut butter sandwich on it, but the three dvds in the Tarzan set all look pretty good, maybe a few minor scratches. They are those purple-dye discs that a lot of folks complain about, but I've played a lot of those and have never had a problem. I guess these Tarzan discs are defective though, unfortunately.

Doggonnit! I tried to hang in there because "Tarzan And The Leopard Woman" was jam packed with adventure. Cheetah had even stolen a snake charmer's oboe, or whatever the instrument is that those guys play. But yeah, Cheetah had swiped it and run off, and he was providing the movie's hijinx, trying to charm snakes on his own, with less than successful results. But the disc kept freezing. I ejected it two or three times and wiped it off, but that wasn't the problem. Finally, at the 53 minute mark, I had to throw in the towel. The darned thing was skipping every two seconds by that point. I had almost made it to the finish; the movie was only 72 minutes long, but the disc was not going to cooperate.

So, I saw about 5/7ths of "Tarzan And The Leopard Woman", and I will have to return to it another day. On a positive note - and I hope you are ready for this - we are gonna be watching a lot of Tarzan movies this year. As reported last night, I was skeptical at first, but after watching the first one, I changed my mind. These films are a blast, so get ready for an on again/off again Tarzan fest, sporadically throughout the year. Maybe I will just buy the collections. ////

Thank God, then, for "The Falcon". I had already sat though almost an hour's worth of freeze framing Tarzan, and had the rug pulled out from under me. I needed something to watch, so that the evening's motion picture viewing would not be in vain, and......it had to be short, because the hour was getting late.

"The Falcon's Alibi" was the answer. I am telling you, these 63 minute movies rule. Check some out for yourself (if you like old movies, that is). But if you do, try some of the short ones in the 63 to 72 minute range. Maybe start with Mr. Moto, my favorite of the bunch.

I have already written a ton, so I won't go into great detail about the plot of "The Falcon's Alibi". It involves jewel thievery, and is a bit slow to develop until midway through, when Elisha Cook Jr. and Jane Greer show up. They play a married couple, he a radio dj, she a popular local singer with a nightclub band. If you know Elisha Cook, he always played a Weasel or a Squealer, sometimes even a Psycho, but always a bad guy, so when he shows up you know something is about to go wrong. Ditto with Jane Greer. She was one of the 40s great beauties, and a good actress too, but was always cast as the troubled girl who can't choose good from bad. She could sing, too, and has a nice number in this movie. Jane Greer........wow.

But Elisha Cook........wow, he's a nutjob (and isn't he always?)

You know, I could go on a tirade about certain actors. And hey!, I haven't gone on a tirade in a while, eh? But I have always thought that there are a handful of actors who are probably psychos in real life, and should be locked up if they weren't making movies. Anthony Hopkins comes to mind, haha.

And Elisha Cook.

You can name your own personal psychos, but yeah......watch you some sixty minute films.  ////

I am writing from home tonight, off work for several days. I'm beyond mega-tired, but I am having fun drawing and reading my books. Maybe a hike tomorrow if the godforsaken wind stops blowing.

I will take anything over wind. I despise wind.  :)

See you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

"Tarzan And The Mermaids" starring Johnny Weissmuller and Brenda Joyce

Okay, take a guess what I watched tonight. You can actually have three guesses and I bet you still won't get it. Take a minute or two to think about it, and I'll even give you a hint : look at the title of this blog.

Aww shucks, now I've probably given it away, so I might as well just tell you (though I'll bet you never would have guessed it) : Tonight's movie was "Tarzan And The Mermaids" (1948), starring Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan and Brenda Joyce as Jane. How did I come to watch a Tarzan movie, you ask? I can't remember exactly, because I ordered an entire three disc Tarzan collection from the Libe back around Christmastime, and it just arrived yesterday. I think I ordered it because of a library database search for Brenda Joyce, who I may have seen in a recently viewed Noir. At any rate, I am sure that it resulted from a search for either an actor, actress, or director, and among the cast, Brenda Joyce is the one that comes to mind.

Once I got my Tarzan discs from Northridge Library, I wasn't sure I was even gonna watch them. It was one of those "what was I thinkin"? situations. However, I had already used up three of the five flicks from my "Forbidden Hollywood" set, and three of my six "Falcons". I wanted to save the remainders of both collections, so as not to just run through them at warp speed. Therefore, why not give Tarzan a chance? I'd ordered him, after all, and to stretch the point, he does have a town named after him - Tarzana (named because Edgar Rice Burroughs lived there) - that is located just south of the town of Reseda, from where I am writing.....

So.......Tarzan it was. The title is misleading because there is only one Mermaid, not plural, and even so, she is a Mermaid in name only, or maybe in spirit. Lemme tell you why, and please bear with me.

On an island downriver from the jungle home of Tarzan, Jane and Cheetah, there lives a group of natives known as the Aquatanians. They worship a pagan God called Balu, who lives on the island as a gold statue, but can be brought to life through the mediation of the tribe's High Priest (played by the slightly sinister George Zucco of 1940s monster movie fame). The High Priest tells the Aquatainians that Balu wants a wife. He has chosen the most beautiful maiden Mara (Linda Christian). She wants nothing to do with marrying Balu, and seems to know something about him that isn't palatable, so at the last minute, she runs away from the ceremony and dives off a cliff into the ocean. All of the natives are excellent cliff divers, as we shall see later in the picture.

Mara never becomes a Mermaid in the physical sense, because she maintains a 100% human body, with no fish bottom half. But she must have been swimming undersea for all the time after her escape, because she isn't seen again until days later, when Tarzan casts his fishing net and pulls her in.

He brings her back to his hut, where he and Jane feed her and listen to her tale of woe. Meanwhile, a Merry Troubadour (John Laurenz) wanders in and out of the movie. His name is Benji, and you never know when he will show up, lute in hand, to sing an inspirational song or two. This time, while Tarzan and Jane are nursing Mara back to health, Benji has his lute stolen by Cheetah, who subsequently climbs a tree and strums a few chords himself, for comic relief.

Yes, there is a Ton Of Plot happening in this 68 minute motion picture.  :)

I'm not kidding, either. Because what happens is that the Pagan God turns out to be a fake. He's just a businessman in a Gold Plated God Suit, and he is there on the island to secure a foothold for his company to recover the massive undersea load of pearls that had been a secret of the natives until he arrived. Now, abetted by the Slightly Sinister George Zucco as "The High Priest", he is pulling a fast one on the natives in order to steal their pearls and take over the island.

But, now that Tarzan has rescued Mara, will he be able to stop this scheme? I would not bet against him, as he swims through Gigantic Sea Caves in order to spy on Zucco and the businessman and uncover their nefarious plans.

I wonder where this movie was filmed? I was thinking Catalina. Could it be Hawaii? I dunno, but wherever it is, it's got some Humongous Sea Caves.

To sum up, "Tarzan And The Mermaids" (misleading title and all), was not only better than I was expecting, but it was very entertaining, well plotted and a lot of fun, in a Saturday Matinee kind of way.

Because of the viewing success of this Tarzan film, which gets Two Thumbs Up for sheer popcorn value, I will most likely be watching another Tarzan movie in the next several days, so prepare yourself.

Tomorrow night I may watch something a bit heavier, since I will be off work and at home for the next several days, but we shall see........because I am loving my One Hour Movies, they leave me time to draw, and I am enjoying my Prismacolor pencils very much.

Once upon a time, back in the late 1970s and early '80s, there was a nearby theater called Thee Movies Of Tarzana. It was located on Ventura Boulevard just west of Reseda Bl, about six miles south of Northridge. Once in a while my friends and I saw a movie there.

It would have been really cool to see Tarzan in Tarzana, though we were way past that era by then.  /////

See you in the morning. Hope your day was good.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)

"Three On A Match", Pre-Code 1932 starring Ann Dvorak, Joan Blondell and Bette Davis

Tonight I watched another pre-code selection from my "Forbidden Hollywood" set : "Three On A Match" (1932), starring Ann Dvorak (of "Scarface" fame), Joan Blondell (who seems to be in every one of these movies), and a very young Bette Davis. They are the "Three" referred to in the title. As the movie begins, we see them as schoolmates. The year is 1919. The girls are about 12 years old. Vivian (played later as an adult by Dvorak) is the class valedictorian, also voted most popular by her peers. She looks down upon her rival Mary, also very popular, mostly with the boys. Vivian is the school Good Girl, Mary the Bad, though early on we can see that she has a kind heart. Bette Davis is Ruth, the friend in between the two rivals. Ruth as a schoolgirl sides with Vivian, though she likes Mary as well. But Ruth is basically a Good Girl, too. She and Vivian knowingly predict that Mary will not graduate with them but will end up in Reform School, and their prediction of course comes true.

Next, we fast forward about fifteen years. Vivian has married a wealthy lawyer and seems to Have It All - a mansion with servants, society friends, and a child, a little boy who adores her. Her husband, big shot though he is, really loves her too. But she feels empty inside. Her life is full and luxurious, and stifling.

One night at a party, she runs into her old rival classmate Mary, the girl who wound up in reform school. Mary (now played as an adult by Joan Blondell) has completely transformed her life and is now an actress on her way up the ladder of success. She has remained close all of this time to Ruth (Bette Davis), and so the Three Friends, now adults, are reacquainted after all this time.

Also at the party is a sharply dressed man (Lyle Talbot, who acted for eons, into the 1980s). He hits on Dvorak immediately, knowing she is married and has a child (whom she has brought with her to the party), but he is the type of guy who doesn't care. This is where your Pre-Code kicks in, this time with a Morality Play. "Three On A Match" is more a Crime Story than an exercise in titillation ala last night's "Night Nurse", though there are scenes early on of former figure model Bette Davis changing her clothes. The lingerie scenes must have been written into the contracts of these actresses, because they are de rigeur in pre-code films.

The plot begins when Ann Dvorak, an exceptionally good actress for her time, runs off with suave skunk Lyle Talbot, forsaking her loyal husband and taking her little boy along for the ride. The former Good Girl of the private school has gone totally off the rails and is now drinking and partying to beat the band. In a shocking scene, she leaves her little son neglected and hungry in an adjoining room while she makes drunken love to Talbot on the couch. Again, this is pictorially tame by today's standards, but the impact of the message is just as great if not greater because of the early 1932 time frame.

Wanton behavior and child endangerment, shown on the big screen all the way back in 1932.

But then, as I remind you (and myself), that this movie was released only 28 years before I was born. Not long at all, though cinematically it seems much longer. And, when Hollywood enacted The Hays Code in 1934, this style of film making was curtailed. I mean, it's not fair to say that movies made after 1934 did not confront hardcore moral issues or deal with sexuality. Of course they did, and often in formidable ways. It's just that the frankness wasn't there anymore, the in-your-face confrontations and call-outs of evil and hypocracy, of the type we saw Barbara Stanwyck unleash last night against more child abusers in "Night Nurse".

So again tonight, with "Three On A Match", we have a very moral tale, an ironic one this time, where roles are reversed. The Good Girl becomes the Bad One, and vice versa, with the third friend in the middle remaining loyal to both girls throughout.

Joan Blondell tonight takes on the same role we saw Barbara Stanwyck assume last night, that of Crusader for The Children. Blondell lets it be known that, as a former Bad Girl, she is not a prude. She has no judgement against her former schoolchum Dvorak, who has now thrown her privileged life away. But she draws the line when she sees the extent to which Dvorak has neglected her child.

"Three On A Match" runs 63 minutes, which we love because short movies rule, and every single minute of the film is packed with story development. I have only presented the highlights. The plot as a whole has much more nuance and interaction of the characters.

It's a classic of the Pre-Code era, and so I must give it Two Very Big Thumbs Up, due to the tightly woven script, the performances by all three ladies, and the direction by Mervyn LeRoy. See it if you have the chance and the inclination. /////

I am super tired and will sign off now, but not before sending you many xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo's.

See you in the morning.  :):)

"Night Nurse" (1931 Pre-Code) starring Barbara Stanwyck

Tonight's movie was "Night Nurse" (1931), starring Barbara Stanwyck, coming again from my recently acquired "Forbidden Hollywood Vol.2" collection. You might have noticed that a lot of these pre-code movies have titles that refer in a suggestive manner to women, such as "Night Nurse", or last night's "Female", or "Baby Face" and "Red Headed Woman" from the Vol.1 collection. There are many others named in this way. The reasoning was simple and had to do with the "racy" nature of the pictures. If you had a title like "Night Nurse" and a fiery star like Stanwyck, who was only 24 here, you'd have a built-in audience who'd know, in general, what to expect for their 25 cent admission price.

Director William Wellman delivers on the racy quotient, by having nurse trainee Stanwyck and her roomie Joan Blondell doff their nursing duds over and over again during the first half of the 72 minute movie. The gals keep undressing, down to their skivvies, in order to change from their uniforms to street clothes, and in the morning they change back again. The first half hour is devoted to this aspect (and nominally to the training of Barbara and Joan, at the hands of a Nurse Ratched type of housemistress), but mostly they just keep changing their clothes. Being that the year was 1931, the undergarments the ladies are wearing contain much more fabric than you would see nowdays, but still......

For early 30s audiences, it was all about the titillation. Ergo, the time devoted in the first act to constant wardrobe change.

One male character, a tall, thin orderly - a wise guy who likes to shock the nurses - keeps knocking on the door of their dorm room just as these "changes" are occurring. He always has a wisecrack to offer, slightly sexual in nature, and this too adds to the racy formula that a movie of this type was striving for.

Pre-code movies are fun, and though the sexual content is very mild in comparison to anything that was released after 1967 or so, they still present the sensation that the 1930s were a pretty swinging time. As I have previously remarked, it is the innuendo in these films that is so effective.

Most of the pre-code flicks I've seen also have a plot. At first I was worried that "Night Nurse" wasn't going to develop one, but by the 35 minute mark, a story began to form. After completing her training, Barbara Stanwyck goes to work as a private duty nurse for two little girls whom she had previously attended to at the hospital. Now she is on night duty, caring for them at the palatial home of their wealthy mother, who is plastered drunk much of the time. Stanwyck notices that the girls have gotten worse, not better, since they left the hospital. It looks like they are being starved. Their mother is drunk and partying with gowned and tuxedoed guests at what seems to be an Endless Party inside the mansion. Night Nurse Stanwyck tries to sort some order out of this chaos and finds a doctor who is supposed to be in charge of the daughters care.

Pretty quickly, however, she sees that he is ineffective at best. Worse, he might be complicit in an attempt to slowly kill the two young girls, who are heirs to a trust fund left to them by their deceased father.

Nurse Barbara uncovers the plot, but then runs into the family chauffeur, Clark Gable, tall, lean and scary in this role, bedecked in a form-fitting, flared black drivers uniform. He looks like an assassin, and he is, though he hides behind the scenes. His size and threatening manner would suggest that Nurse Barbara Stanwyck would be no match for him......but then she is the Night Nurse, dedicated to her charges, the two children, and she will stop at nothing to save them from the evil scheme of Gable and the family doctor.

The movie goes from frilly/racy in the first half to a crime thriller conclusion in the second, with a little girly-girl and nerd male comedy thrown in for good measure. Nurses and Orderlies, you know....

The director was William Wellman, who won the first Best Picture Oscar ever with "Wings" in 1929. He sure knew how to draw a performance out of young Stanwyck, who lets loose her anger in a very realistic way at the children's mother and their phoney doctor, both of whom will do nothing to save the little girls. Her performance is quite a social statement for it's time, considering that it has to do with extreme child abuse, and she gives it the force and urgency the situation demands. Her effort to save the girls is relentless and fearless, even coming up against the cold and frightening Clark Gable in his black chauffeur's uniform. In this way the movie is ultimately of great substance, after a trivial start.

Because of the last half, in which the story is fully developed, and because of the lead performance of Barbara Stanwyck (and also her supporting cast, which includes many great characters I have not mentioned), I will give "Night Nurse" Two Thumbs Up.

See it for Barbara's performance, and for it's 1930s style, and for the changing of the lingerie...

And for the plot, which, in a movie only two years into the advent of sound is not as technically proficient as would be a movie made decades later, but which tackles a subject that would likewise not be taken on for years to come, and does so without flinching.

Here's to the Pre-Code once again, in all it's raciness and truth-telling glory (and it's pure entertainment value).

That's all I know for tonight. My day was otherwise routine. I hope yours was good.

Much love until tomorrow, then more to come.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Lunar Eclipse + Rams Game Evaluation + "Female" starring Ruth Chatterton (Pre-Code)

Did you see the Lunar Eclipse this evening? I didn't see the entire thing (and didn't know it was gonna be hours long), but I did see about 30 minutes worth and I couldn't take my eyes off it. The moon before the eclipse was as bright as I've ever seen it - I mean, wow!, it looked like a jewel in the sky.  And when the shadow began to cross over it, it looked like the dark side of the moon (cue Pink Floyd). I thought it was really amazing to see. Usually the eclipses, solar or lunar, that we get here in Los Angeles aren't that great, but this one was spectacular, especially with the wispy clouds passing overhead that gave it a ghostly effect. I hope you got to see it, too. :)

I usually only mention sports in passing, here at the blog, but tonight I feel the need to comment on the terrible non-call of pass interference against the Rams which, it is said, cost the Saints a trip to the Super Bowl. As a Rams fan, I readily admit - as do we all - that pass interference was definitely committed and should have been called. But I think that even more important than that issue, was the question of why Saints coach Sean Payton did not simply run the clock down prior to that play. He had his team first-and-ten on the Rams 13 yard line with 1:58 to play. He could have run a truckload of time off the clock without ever having to have faced that game changing non-call by the refs. If he had called for Drew Brees just to take a knee for three downs, instead of trying to force passes, he could have almost run out the clock in the first place, which is what everyone was bitching about when the pass interference was not called a few plays later. But if you really look at it, Coach Sean Payton is the one who cost the Saints the Super Bowl. And even so, one blown call does not a game make. Just ask Brady, who will be going to his ninth Super Bowl, even though he benefited himself from many controversial calls over the years to get to play in so many.

So there you have it. Yeah, it was a terrible mistake by the ref, and it could have cost the Saints the game (although it may not have been a catchable ball, either). But the bottom line is that the Saints could have iced the game anyway, if Coach Sean Peyton had just run the clock out in the first place, with first down and 1:58 left. He failed to do that, and he cost his team the game. End of story.

Sorry, but I had to mention all of that because some pundits and fans are trying to bag on the Rams for getting into the Super Bowl because of that one non-call, and I wanted to point out that there was a lot more to the game than that. So there you have it, and now Rams will beat Brady in two weeks and we will come full circle since 2002, in the football scheme of things at any rate. ///

I am super tired, but I will briefly tell you about tonight's movie : "Female" (1932), starring an early Hollywood actress I had heard of but had never seen, named Ruth Chatterton. She was born in 1892, and starred in Broadway plays before making the transition to film. Boy was she a good actress, at least in this one movie, which was part of the five film dvd set of "Forbidden Hollywood Volume Two" that I recently received from Amazon (I don't like to give Bezos any publicity, but I've gotta give ya some background).

With "Female", we are talking serious Pre-Code sexual feminism. Ruth Chatterton is the CEO of the Drake Automobile Corporation, which she inherited from her late father. She is a dynamo who can multi-task with the best of them, chairing company meetings, handling endless phone calls and delegating manufacturing matters to subordinate executives, all from behind her desk. There is no doubt she is in charge of the company. The all-male board of directors fear her.

But she has another side, her "off work" side, which she indulges by choosing attractive male employees to invite to her house for dinner, on the pretense of talking about innovative plans for the company.

But when the gentlemen arrive, they discover that Miss Drake has other plans in mind.

In short, she is a man-eater. The problem for the guys is that they think, once they have spent the night with her, that she will thereafter treat them as equals. Back at work, however, she is The CEO and doesn't even want to hear from them. She only invited them to her house for one purpose. The guys all make the mistake of falling in love with her. She eats them up and shuts them down, exiling one guy to a company dealership in Hawaii because he got too mushy.

I have thought, through my viewing of pre-code films, that the 1930s were a time of early women's lib, and that it was a decade ahead of it's time in many ways. If you were to watch "Female", you would see a character that the powerful women of today would champion, and would see as not only a predecessor, but also a contemporary. In the movie, she is a Corporate Powerhouse who you could substitute for any woman in the news today, almost 90 years later.

The movie itself, as a dramatic story, is almost played as a comedy, but not quite because Chatterton really means business. I will have to look for more movies in which she stars.

The ending of the film might not be considered PC today, but I loved it, and it figured into my choice to give the film Two Big Thumbs Up. I don't wanna tell you any more, of course, but the ending arises out of a conflict between this woman's natural brilliance as a company CEO and what her role in society is considered to be. The ending is up for grabs, so see it for yourself.

Pre-Code Hollywood went to the heart of these matters, in the battle of the sexes at that time. ///

That's all I know for tonight. We had good singing in church this morning. I hope you had a great day, too.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Mueller's Got Nothing (?) + Trump Is A Criminal + "The Falcon's Adventure" + Prismacolors

I'm back. Last night Grimsley came over, so you know the drill. No movie no blog. He wanted to go for a CSUN walk and then show me some Seth Myers/Trump stuff which was pretty funny I must admit. I have to add, though, that I was extremely disheartened by Mueller's rebuke of the Buzzfeed story. My immediate reaction was to think that after nearly two years of thinking "Trump is toast", that I was now forced to conclude that Mueller has no proof of what we all know Trump did, which was to conspire with his Russian pals to steal the election. We all know it. Mueller knows it too, but apparently he cannot prove it, which is just so depressing that I'd better stop writing about it because I'll end up depressing myself.

I feel like I've been on a roller coaster ride, because here at Pearl's we watch MSNBC every weeknight, where Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow nail Trump to the Wall (pun intended) every night, and they always have on panels full of high level former national security experts, former CIA directors and expert reporters, and each night they report a new development that is certain to see Trump impeached.

But then it never happens.

It never happens, and this terrible man who is destroying our country and it's Constitution and it's values, skates away yet again.

Any other man who had done what this man has done would have long ago been removed from office and put in prison.

So what is it with this person, that he is able to get away with his deeds unceasingly without having to face the music?

I don't have the answer to that question, but after the Mueller denial of Buzzfeed, I will watch MSNBC with a more cynical eye. Also, on a side note for anyone who has closely followed left wing news reporting in recent years, the name of reporter Jason Leopold on the Buzzfeed byline should have been a Red Flag from the beginning, when the story was first reported. He is a hack journalist who has been called out previously for rushing to publish stories that later turned out to be unconfirmed (i.e. meaning unproveable).

Look, here's the bottom line : we all know that Trump is the biggest a-hole who ever came down the pike. We all know that he is guilty of every single thing he's been accused of. He belongs in prison, in my opinion for the remainder of his life, because he tried to take down an American presidential election, and he succeeded.

But apparently Mueller cannot prove it, and that, my friends, is pretty sad. I find myself wondering what George Washington would think......

Let us pray for America tonight before we continue on with other subjects, and I will again make a note not to get too excited about anything reported by MSNBC and the liberal news media. And on the other side, it goes without saying that Fox News is pure unadulterated BS. ////

Well.......other than that bit of unpleasantry, I did watch a movie tonight : "The Falcon's Adventure" (1946), in which Tom Conway as "The Falcon" finds himself down in Miami trying to untangle a web of intrigue involving a scientist's formula for making "industrial diamonds". No mention is made as to whether or not these diamonds are jewels or if they are used in manufacturing (i.e. for cutting), but at any rate, the formula for making them is so valuable that several parties are trying to get hold of an envelope containing the written down formula. The scientist himself is deceased. His niece, the B-Movie Beauty Madge Meredith, recruits The Falcon to help her deliver the secret, formula containing envelope to a legitimate investor in Miami, knowing that many crooked players will attempt to derail the delivery. Much of the action takes place on a sleek 1940s art deco looking choo-choo train.

The Falcon's sidekick, "Goldie" Locke (played by classic Hollywood "Mook" Edward Brophy) began the movie preparing to go on a fishing trip with his buddy the suave detective. He went so far as to make The Falcon promise that he would not try to pick up on any women during their male-bonding vacation. But at the train station, Conway - looking very Errol Flynn like - cannot help but come to the rescue of Miss Meredith, and so there you have it - another Falcon movie, only 63 minutes long, but exactly what you need when you are short on time.

I did some good time management today, because I took Pearl for a neighborhood w/chair push on a sunny afternoon, and this eve in addition to watching the movie I managed to work on my latest drawing for 45 minutes. I am loving my set of colored pencils from Prismacolor, and I am attempting to make representative drawings this year instead of abstract.

I'll tell ya later what I'm drawing, but you can probably guess it's gonna be Something Weird rather than a bowl of fruit or an otherwise typical still life.....(not that I could draw a bowl of fruit anyhow).

Gotta get up early for church so I'd better sign off. See you there.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

"Cheaper By The Dozen" with Clifton Webb and Jeanne Crain

Tonight I wrapped up my Clifton Webb mini-marathon with "Cheaper By The Dozen" (1950), in which Webb stars as an efficiency expert for a major corporation. His specialty is the study of time and motion, and though he is never shown at his workplace, he studies every detail of the domestic tasks at home also, so that he can improve the efficiency of his family, consisting of his wife Myrna Loy and their twelve children (hence the title). Webb is a bit of a prig, he has a stopwatch and times his children on how long it takes them all to come downstairs for dinner. He also times himself on things like buttoning his sweater. This obsession with time management is a carryover from his job, but his kids love him anyway because he is more or less a jolly sort.

His eldest daughters (Jeanne Crain, one of my favorites, and the lovely but tragic Barbara Bates) do not love that he insists upon keeping them old fashioned and out of style. The year is 1921. The Bob haircut is all the rage. Flappers are daring girls to show their knees. Older teenage girls are wearing makeup. Dad Webb will have none of this. He wants his daughters to remain as they were, with long Victorian hair, faces "unpainted" (his term), and black bathing suits for the beach that look almost like a full set of clothes. The daughters have a crush on one of the young lifeguards (we are in Montclair, New Jersey), but he doesn't notice them in their 19th century swim trunks. He is busy serenading three girls who are up to date in form fitting one piece suits, legs showing (but still a far cry from bikinis, lol).

The crush of Jeanne Crain for the lifeguard leads her to rebel and cut her hair into a fashionably short "do". She also goes out and spends her own money to buy high heels, makeup and a negligee. Dad is horrified at first, but he comes around quickly because this movie is not about dramatic conflict, really, or even plot. It's about this slightly eccentric and very large family and their day to day life. It's really Clifton Webb's show. As the uptight but jovial father, his word is law. His kids are exasperated by him but can't wait for him to get home because he is so much fun. Wife Myrna Loy wears no makeup as per her husband's wishes, but gives him little extra ground where the children are concerned. She loves having a million kids (so does Webb), and one of the prime comedic scenes in the movie arrives when a prim-and-proper early feminist organiser visits their home. This woman is from the local branch of Planned Parenthood (I did not know they existed in 1921), and when Webb calls his brood downstairs, stopwatch in hand, she sees that she has come to the wrong house.

"Cheaper By The Dozen" is all about spending time with this family, the older daughters with their crushes and hopeful desires, the littler kids with their goofy reasoning at "family council meetings" : "Hey Dad, why should I have to wash my hands? They're just gonna get dirty again"!

It's all very 1920s America, when the country was first becoming modern with the inventions of the automobile, the airplane, radio, refrigeration, etc. Clifton Webb wants to be at the forefront of all of this modernization, at least in his professional life, and he is one step ahead of the competition with his well developed techniques for saving time in the manufacturing process. But at home, he is still stuck in the 1890s, and his daughters have to pull him out of that era.

This happens at a local dance for the teenagers (although it must be noted that there was no such thing as "teenagers", officially, until Elvis Presley came along)....but we'll call them teenagers anyway. His two eldest daughters want to attend the high school prom dance. At this point, Webb can't stop them from dressing modern, but he can and does insist on being their chaperone. And wouldn't you know it, because of Hollywood screenwriting, and because Clifton Webb was a versatile star, he winds up being a big hit at the dance with all the schoolgirls, who think he is cute.

In real life, Clifton Webb (born 1889) got his start in showbiz as a ballroom dancer, so the director of the movie made use of his ability in this penultimate scene.

"Cheaper By The Dozen" is a tale of a bygone America that you wish you could revisit, because things were less crude and more genteel.

Now, it turns out that the story of this family is a real one. The father's name was Frank Bunker Gilbreth, he really was an engineer and a motion study experimenter, and he and his wife really did have twelve children. In it's old fashioned way it is an entertaining and enjoyable movie. You can't go wrong with Webb, he is like Bogey (our other recent marathoner) in that regard. Both of those guys are "money" in whatever they do. Ditto Myrna Loy, who was so far ahead of her time in portraying today's woman. She is more traditional in this film, but you can see that she still holds the reins in the family.

"Cheaper By The Dozen" could be described as a light family film with comedic elements, a slice of 1920s America as seen through the lens of this offbeat family.

I am a sucker for films of this nature, so you know I am gonna give it Two Big Thumbs Up.

I don't mean to place a downer on things, but America sucks right now - really, really badly! - and we've got to fix it. And the way to fix it is just to return to our roots, of being nice people.

You can see examples of this in so many of the old movies.

See you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Earthquake Memories, A Quarter Century Ago

No movie tonight. Grim came over to hang out, we went on a CSUN walk, but it was rainy and cold so we only made it halfway before heading back to the pad. Just around the corner from my apartment, on Reseda Boulevard there was an NBC news van parked in front of the building where The Meadows used to be. In just a few hours, at 4:31 this morning, it will be twenty five years since we were hit by the Northridge Earthquake.

A quarter century has gone by, can you even believe it?

Three days before on January 14, 1994 - it would have been a Friday evening - it was Chris' 30th birthday. I remember him sitting at a table that night, playing cards with two of his friends. Just a memory that has stuck with me in retrospect. One's 30th is a fairly big deal, and so I remember the guys playing cards...... but who knew what was coming?

Saturday the 15th of January holds no memories, but Sunday the 16th does. My friends and I had a tradition in the early 1990s of playing football on Sunday afternoons. This day, however, only Ryan, John B. and myself showed up at the CSUN front lawn, which is now the location of the Valley Performing Arts Center. The lawn was our football field. Usually, at the very least we had enough friends to play a three-on-three game of touch. On this day, though, we only had three total, so we had to recruit some kids we saw who were riding their bikes nearby. We played a three-on-three with those kids for an hour or so. This would have been sometime between 2 and 4 o'clock. We loved our Sunday football in those days.

There was a weird vibe in the air, though, and later we would remark on it. It was like an ozone smell or an almost imperceptible charge. Just a strange tension, noticeable but not something to remark on until afterward, because the next day that physical tension in the air became a tangible thing.

I remember that after the football game, John B. went home, and Ryan and I walked back to 9032 Rathburn, the house my family and I had lived in since 1970. There's a weird time trip for you. We know how elastic time can be; the quake was 25 years ago but it feels like it was yesterday. But in 1994, the twenty four years that had passed since my family moved into 9032 in 1970 would have seemed like an eternity. Time moves much slower when you are young, of course, so a quarter century between the ages of 10 and 35 feels different than a quarter century between 35 and 60.

But yeah, we had lived at 9032 since June 1970, and over the years it had become the hangout house for all of our friends.

That afternoon, Ryan and I walked back to the house. In January the sun goes down by 5:30 or so. My next memory is of walking with Ryan over to Taco Bell on Nordhoff Street, right next to my beloved Northridge Libe (which I wasn't to frequent until many years later). Ryan was headed home. He had asked me to walk with him to the bus stop at Reseda and Nordhoff, and we stopped at Taco Bell on the way. Perhaps he only bought a drink. I know that we didn't stay there or sit down.

I waited with Ryan for the bus, and then he was gone, on his way home. That was the end of our football afternoon, so I walked back home myself, just a couple of blocks away. By now it was around 6 o'clock in the evening.

My next memory is that Pat came by the house around 9 o'clock. This memory is a big one, because he had an advance copy of the new King's X album "Dogman". KX was the greatest band in the world in those days (check out their first six albums to see why), so a new advance listen, courtesy of Pat who worked at Sony, was a Big Deal.

We went out to the garage of 9032 to listen. At the time, Terry and his girlfriend (now wife) Kelly were living in our garage. Terry had his stereo out there, so we played Pat's record company copy of "Dogman" as loud as we could. Right off the bat it sounded different from their other meticulous releases. Beyond heavy, tuned way down. Determined and driven. On first listen, Pat and Terry didn't care for it. Me, I loved it. Every song sounded incredible (and to this day it is a Top Five All Time Album for me).

We finished our King's X "Dogman" listening party at around 10 pm, and I guess we might have hung out and chatted for an hour or so after that.

My final memory is of watching an old episode of "Dragnet" on TV. I had an old black and white television set up in my bedroom that I had slept in since I was ten years old. It was a small, portable tv, on the floor next to my bed. I have been a late night person since adulthood, and I recall watching Jack Webb bust some criminals or hippies or whomever. I was watching "Dragnet", a rerun on one of the local channels, and then I went to bed. If I remember correctly, I left the tv on, with the sound low. The time was probably around 2am.

One last thing : I got up to go to the bathroom at around 4am, maybe 4:15.

And then a few minutes later, I was back in bed, half asleep, and WHAMMO!!!

It felt like a giant fist was pounding the floor beneath me. There were two sonic booms a split second before the quake hit, and then the sound of a nuclear powered freight train running right through the house. I wound up on the floor of my bedroom, holding on to the foot of my bed with one hand, and pinning the other against my bookcase to keep it from toppling upon me. Framed photographs on the wall flew about the room. Glass broke. Outside my window I saw an electrical drum on a power pole arc and emit blue sparks, then blow out. The house and street went pitch black. The shaking felt like an atomic bomb had gone off, no joke. We were near the epicenter and it was horrendous.

The immediate aftermath of the Northridge Earthquake was chaotic, but soon, with the help of friends and neighbors, we got organized and settled in to our new mode of emergency. FEMA services and the Red Cross were incredible, and we made it though.

For me, the quake and the year 1994 were only the beginning of an odyssey that has lasted to this day, for reasons that have to do with the year 1989. You know a lot about that year, too, because I have reported it to you.

It is important to remember things, I think, and just just to brush the past aside. Many people I have known have taken that approach, and have just breezed past unpleasant events and in some cases have pretended that something unpleasant never happened.

Me, I have remembered everything. And I have written down everything I can remember.

The earthquake changed my life, not only by shaking my house and my town, but by shaking up my spirit, in a manner of speaking.

My soul came alive, and I remembered my life. It took a few years afterwards, but eventually I remembered what had happened to me, and I have never forgotten it. /////

That's all I know for tonight. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Elizabeth + Great Pictures + "Woman's World" with Clifton Webb

Elizabeth, I really liked your snow photos today! You can feel the Winter in those pics, just through the texture of the snow and the way it envelops everything, like the old house. In one of the photos there is a walkway or bridge that I think I've seen before, maybe from one of your parks.

Well, I am glad as always to see your photographs. I take it that they were shot sometime in the past (?), because in your comments you are lamenting the lack of current snow. So, I wish you more snow so that you can take more snow pictures.....  :):)

I hope you are able to find time for your real life during your working hours and days. Man, it must have been a shock for you to have such a change all of a sudden. I hope you are hanging in there, and as always I urge you to keep your mind focused on your artistry - your music, your photography, your filmmaking. They are separate arts, but all one entity as far as your life path is concerned.

Please keep posting. Don't let anything stop you or get you down. If you stick to your guns you will prevail, and I remind you once again of Your Name that was projected repeatedly for several weeks, less than six months ago, on the giant L.A. Live video screen, as part of Your Film.

Your Name, Your Film. Huge video screen over Staples Center.

Stay focused, 2019 is early yet. //// 

This evening I gave The Falcon the night off, and went with another Clifton Webb movie I had reserved at the Libe. We've seen quite a few Webbs by now, almost enough for a Bogey-like mini marathon. The picture was called "Woman's World" (1954), and in it's own way it was kind of unique, or at least unusual, because of the script and subject matter. I guess you could call it an "issues" film, based on current events of the time, and the title gives away a little bit of what the issue was, in this case, the role of a middle class wife in a modernizing American society of the mid-1950s.

Clifton Webb is this time the owner and CEO of an independent automobile manufacturing company. This is pre-General Motors domination, so you still had companies like Studebaker, etc. Webb's company makes expensive, streamlined cars with a futuristic look. He is very successful, though his long time general manager has just passed away. So, he invites his top three regional managers to New York on the premise of a vacation getaway with The Boss, but in reality he will be scrutinizing each of them before choosing one man to become his new general manager. Each man must bring his wife, as wives were evaluated too. In the corporate scheme of things, a wife must fit a certain image in relation to her up-and-coming husband. She must know etiquette, how to entertain at parties, and how to dress for any occasion. She must know what to say and what not to say in polite company.

But it's all a sham, as the older sister of Clifton Webb lets these wives know. The wives only want  marital happiness. They are tuned in to their hearts (well, two of them are). They really don't care if their husbands get the Big Promotion or not, and in fact they are rooting against it because it will mean that his job will become his entire life.

So this was quite a message to be delivering in a 1954 script, not anti-corporate America exactly, but certainly a denouncement of corporate ladder climbing ambition being more important than love and marriage.

While big chief Webb is hosting dinner parties and slyly evaluating the three men on his list (Van Heflin, Cornell Wilde and Fred McMurray), he is even more interested in the women, but not for the reason you might think.

One wife, Van Heflin's woman Arlene Dahl, spends the entire time in New York trying to impress Clifton Webb with her "assets". The other wives (Lauren Bacall and June Allyson) are less "forward" and more traditional. Allyson is her usual goofy self, and Bacall is tall, elegant and standoffish as always, but she warms up to the situation. She and Allyson become friends because neither one wants her husband to get the general manager job, because of the stress it entails, and more importantly, because the Company will become more important than the wife and family.

The third wife, statuesque Arlene Dahl, does not care about any of this. She has no children, only cares about her husband as a vehicle, so she tries to seduce Clifton Webb in order to secure Van Heflin the job. The actress Dahl, well suited for the part, portrays this type of bimbo to a tee.

I must leave the plot details here for the time being, while you see the film for yourself.

It's really a woman's lib picture, for it's time, because it shows how these wives (two of them), with their knowledge of the heart and what really matters in life (love and family) are ahead of their husbands, who are already successful in their careers but are still being drawn in by meaningless ambition, when they already have all the material success they will ever need. The wives know what is best, both for their husbands and for their marriages. One husband is on the beam from the start. He will not compromise his life for his job. One wife, as noted, is going the other way. All she cares about is status and materialism. She tries to seduce her way to the top, by fronting for her low-key hubby, but Clifton Webb sees through her, and finally he must make his choice for the new GM of his company.

As I say, it is an unusual story for Hollywood, in that it does not feature much major drama or conflict. The story is all about the pressure that was put on couples in this situation. My own parents faced a similar dilemma in that Dad was expected to attend all the Hollywood functions and parties when he became an executive, and Mom was expected to be The Wife At The Party. And Mom really hated it.

When I was little, I was aware of the difficulty this presented in my parents' marriage. Neither one of my folks could stand the phoneyness of some aspects of Hollywood Show Business, but my Dad went ahead with his ambition because he loved his career, and Hollywood also had it's good aspects and people. But "Woman's World" was about the female perspective in corporate America of the postwar era, and my Mom did not like being a Hollywood wife, and by 1970, she didn't have to be one any longer.

Ambition, based on status and material aspirations, is a naive prospect. That is what "Woman's World" is all about. Though these wives are not the fully liberated women of today, there is something to be said for the film's message of Love and Family First. A message that the women know in their heart because it is the most obvious and important thing.

It has always been my message, too.

See you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

"The Falcon In Hollywood" with Tom Conway + 1940s Cool

I went with Tom Conway again tonight, in "The Falcon In Hollywood" (1944). This picture was made in the same year as last night's "The Falcon Out West", which took place almost entirely in Chatsworth, so maybe when The Falcon finished his Western caper, he took a taxi to Hollywood and the film crew followed.

The movie opens at Hollywood Park, the Inglewood horse racing track (actually fifteen miles from Hollywood), where The Falcon is approached by a well dressed damsel who asks him for betting advice. He obliges, but she seems to have an ulterior motive, because when his lady friend arrives to sit with him, the damsel does a quick switcheroo with their purses (which just so happen to be identical). She absconds with the girl's purse, and Conway is forced to leave the racetrack to chase the woman down.

In a "Thin Man" movie, or an equivalent big budget mystery, this would be a plot point. Here, it is just a red herring, a device to get Conway into a taxi (just as I predicted above) that will take him on a chase to Hollywood, where he will track the purse thief down to a movie studio.

So, to recap : the scenes at Hollywood Park serve only to get The Falcon to Hollywood. The purse snatching is of no consequence thereafter. Conway's ride in the taxi is of consequence, though, because the gal who is driving doubles as a stunt driver for the movies. Conway sure can pick 'em. This blonde wisecracker not only takes him on a white knuckle ride to the studio where the purse thief has pulled in, but she chooses him for an Instant Boyfriend. Played by an actress named Veda Ann Borg, the Taxi Driver steals every scene she is in. She knows the ropes in Hollywood, and gets Conway past the security guard at "Sunset Studios" where she sometimes works.

Now he is inside a real live Hollywood Movie Studio, with his Taxi Girl sidekick in tow. She is a mile-a-minute type of gal, one with all the answers, and the jokes. Having recovered the stolen purse from the woman at the racetrack (Barbara Hale), who just so happens to also be an actress working at the studio, Conway and Borg discover a dead body as they wander through a nearby sound stage.

This sets the plot in motion (such as it is), and you have to be an attentive listener to keep up. The mystery is only half the fun, however. The other half is the locations (last night in rural Chatsworth and tonight on Hollywood Boulevard in 1944), and the charisma of Tom Conway and his B-Girls, all of whom seem to me to have been capable of working in A-List pictures, especially Barbara Hale.

These short 65 minute movies are all about 1940s persona. The high heeled rapid fire women and the laid back but highly focused Falcon, handsome in his pin-striped suit.

It makes you wish you had lived in the 1940s, which is why I watch so many movies from that era.

Of course, I love all decades........well, maybe not so much the current one......but you know what I mean.

I must make a quick correction to a detail in last night's post. Concerning Tom Conway and his brother George Sanders, I wrote that they were "Russian boys who grew up in England" and then became stars in Hollywood, and I had the first two facts mixed up. They were actually English boys who grew up in Russia, and then became stars in Hollywood. So there is the correction, in the name of accuracy.

I always IMDB the movies I watch, because I love the actors and want to know their history, and I am often saddened to discover that many of them did not live long lives. So many actors and actresses from the 1940s ended up dying relatively young, in their 50s and 60s. Some even in their 40s. I guess this was from rampant smoking and drinking, which is seen and promoted in many films of the era.

You don't see nearly as many people smoking nowdays, and the phenomenon known as "chain smoking" seems almost to be a thing of the past. Does anyone smoke three packs a day anymore? I hope not. I mean, I am not anti-cigarette because my Mom smoked and she enjoyed it, but my point is that, in the 40s and 50s you see people in the movies smoking and smoking. And in those days, "chain smoking" was common. My parents knew Rod Serling of "Twilight Zone" fame, and Mom said he would have five cigarettes going at the same time in five different ashtrays.

I only mention all of this because of IMDBing actors and actresses and discovering that so many of them died young. Read about Humphrey Bogart, who - for all his fame and stardom - had a hard life, healthwise. Tom Conway only lived to be 62 himself.

Sorry to be grim, but the bigger point is the enjoyment these artists provided with their tireless creative work. I love the Movie Stars and I feel that they are like an extended family to me. They make me happy with their films that I like, and so in that way, because I am just one of millions of fans, they succeeded enormously.

Hooray for Hollywood.  /////

Rain all day today, supposed to rain through Thursday. Reading books, working on a drawing.

See you in the morning, hope you had a good day.

Tons of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

"The Falcon Out West" with Tom Conway

Tonight I unwrapped a new dvd set that I bought from Amazon around Christmastime, "The Falcon Mystery Movie Collection Volume 2", featuring six movies with the debonair Tom Conway in the starring role as "The Falcon", a detective with a knack for solving murders while looking and acting suave (hmm, have we seen this type of guy before, by any chance?). :)

I discovered "The Falcon" movie series via an Amazon recommendation. I purchased Volume 2 instead of Volume 1 just because I like Tom Conway, who starred in "Cat People" and a couple of other Val Lewton films. His more famous brother George Sanders was the original "Falcon", from the first movies of the series released in Volume 1. In the words of Ray Davies, "If you covered him in garbage, George Sanders would still have style", but as stylish as he is, his brother may just have the edge. They were a couple of wealthy Russian boys who grew up in England and became big stars in Hollywood. Now that, is Suave, as I'm sure you'll agree.

I didn't know what to expect with the "Falcon" series, I bought it on a whim. Tonight I watched the first movie on disc one, "The Falcon Out West" (1944), which ran about 65 minutes, as do all the films. I think that films of this duration were produced to fill out double features in the 1940s, or possibly as Saturday Matinee Serials. I love short movies, as you know, because I am on a tight shedge-yule. I've got books to read, drawings to attempt, walks to complete, football games to predict, and a 24/7 job.

So I love to find "programmers", as I think they were called (meant to "fill out a program", as it were), that run a little over an hour. Last year's "Mr. Moto" series was a case in point, the best one of this 65 minute type that I've seen so far.

"The Falcon Out West" was a good start to this series. He is heading out west (meaning The Valley) to attend a pre-wedding bash at the ranch of an old cowboy friend who is engaged to a blonde babe half his age. The old cowboy turns up dead at the party (and sumbliminal message rams beat cowboys), and wouldn't you know it, "The Falcon" is there on scene to solve the crime, which he proceeds to do with no hesitation because he's only got 50 minutes left.

You know how these short scripts go, however. They pack a Truckload Of Stuff into a short time frame. I think a lower budget prevented "The Falcon" from being as polished as were the "Moto" films, and it was not nearly as developed a story as are any of "The Thin Man" movies that it clearly emulates. Still, the presence of Tom Conway goes a long way toward making up for any minor shortcomings, and you also have the bombshell Carole Gallagher and a young Barbara Hale to hold your interest. And if those three aren't enough, you've got the endless scenery of Corriganville to look at. Nearly the entire film was shot there. And for a brief moment you even get to see Stoney Point in Chatsworth. The locations in the rural Valley of 1944, before it was massively subdivided, are worth the price of admission alone.

So there you have it, my first "Falcon" movie. You can file it in the "just for fun" category, but it gets two lower case thumbs up anyhow, just because it was indeed a lot of fun, with great Chatsworth footage. //////

We had good singing in church this morning, but we also said farewell to out excellent pianist of the last three years, who - having graduated CSUN with a master's degree - has been hired as a full time instructor at Los Angeles City College. Leon is a fantastic musician. We were lucky to have him, and we'll be fortunate if we find someone even half as good as his replacement. Wow.........

Pats beat Chargers, Saints beat Eagles, which means Rams will meet Saints for the NFC Championship next Sunday. I know the Saints are considered unbeatable, especially after the way they came back against the Eagles today. But I think the Rams are gonna win that game and go to the Super Bowl, where they will play - and defeat! Brady and the Patriots (who will beat the Chiefs next week), in revenge for the stolen Super Bowl from 2001, when Kurt Warner and company had the game locked up.........until the rookie Brady ran his first ever clutch two minute drill to set up the winning field goal. I lived with Mom then, and she could attest......I didn't sleep too well that night.

That Super Bowl against the Rams began the Brady legend, but - if the same two teams play in this SB - the Rams will end it. Brady is closing in on 100 years old. It will be a fitting end to his storied career.

But if the Chiefs end up playing The Saints, I'll probably go to Disneyland. I can't stand those two teams.

Yeah, sports......etc., etc., the usual disclaimer.

Supposed to rain all week but I will try to get in a hike and take some pics before next Friday.

See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo (big love)  :):)

"Song Of The Thin Man" + Rams

Tonight I watched "Song Of The Thin Man" (1947), the sixth and final film in the series starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as classy crime sleuths "Nick and Nora Charles" (a side note : I screwed up and ordered the wrong film from the Libe. I had thought "Song" was the fifth one, and "The Thin Man Goes Home" was the last, but I got it backwards). In any event, the film opens on the water, aboard a luxury casino ship. The first thing you notice about Nick and Nora is how much older they look, thirteen years since the original "Thin Man" was released in 1934. But as the movie progresses, you notice this less and less, and they seem to be as they always were. Whether that is a result of makeup or acclimation on the part of the viewer is unknown, but unquestioned is that once the plot begins to unfurl - which in a "Thin Man" movie is right from the get-go - the audience slips into the company of Nick and Nora as if into a pair of comfortable satin pajamas. They are older, so are you, and.....wait a minute.

You haven't even been born yet. I myself wasn't born for another 13 years after the series ended. But you know what I mean. We love Nick and Nora, they define Hollywood Class and Style of the Golden Era, and as we watch them throughout the series of six films, we become comfortable in their presence, so real are they to us.

So there you have it.

In another aside, there was an article today in the Daily News, a full page review of the life of Wyatt Earp, who died 90 years ago today, in Los Angeles. You know how I have been talking lately about how close in time I suddenly am realizing I am to such "ancient" things as Silent Film, and the birth of radio, or the advent of TV (only a decade before I was born).

Well here is a weird one, because we associate Wyatt Earp with the Wild West, and yet he wound up living out his life in Los Angeles, semi-wealthy and as an advisor to Silent Movies of the Western variety. And he lived until 1929, just 31 years before I was born.

I am amazed at how, at almost 60 years of age, I am feeling myself closer in time to things of the past that seemed like ancient history when I was a kid. When I was little, the Wild West might as well have been from a different eon. Ditto Silent Film. But now we see how close these things are.

And the 80 Million Year Old Rocks out at Santa Susana have been sitting there the whole time.

So all of this stuff makes me pause and contemplate, just for a moment.

I won't get any more philosophical on ya, but the Wyatt Earp article got me started this morning.

As for the movie, it is another successful entry in the "Thin Man" franchise. This time the theme is jazz music. A stylin' combo is playing in the ship's main room, featuring a shredding clarinetist with a strong female following. His popularity with one girl in particular has caused a rift with the bandleader, himself a ladies man with an ego to match. But the bandleader has another more pressing problem. He owes a Ton Of Dough to a sociopathic mobster. A concert promoter is onboard the ship, so the bandleader goes to him for a loan. Soon after that, he winds up dead.

Bring on Nick and Nora, who as usual would rather be partying in high style that solving murders (Nick, anyway, Nora likes crime solving). They, along with co-star dog Asta, and child Nick Jr., played by a ten year old Dean Stockwell (of "Blue Velvet" fame), proceed to jump into the world of jazz to try and solve the killing of "the reedman" (the clarinetist). They have to wade their way through a thick swamp of lingo to begin to formulate some clues. Helping as a hip translator is jazzbo Keenan Wynn, a fellow reedman from the same band, who knows all the players and clientele, and who can talk a blue streak of hepcat phraseology.

The plot in this sequel is one of the best, sticking to the formula of course, but with rapid plot development and lived-in performances by Powell and Loy, who have become the Charles by this point. They are one of the greatest of screen pairings, right up there with Astaire and Rogers, and really surpassing them because of their deft comedic ability.

The only thing I found deficient in "Song Of The Thin Man" was the ending. As noted previously, I always try to guess "whodunit", choosing from the standard number of potential culprits in the "Ten Little Indians" format. I was wrong in my guess this time, but the ending and the "reveal" seemed a little bit too quick, not as thoroughly developed and well written to expose the killer as they usually do.

Still, the too-quick ending was not enough to detract from the film, and as a result I give "Song of The Thin Man" my usual Two Thumbs Up, my standard for the entire series. I mean, you could have William Powell and Myrna Loy just standing there mixing drinks and reciting marital dialogue for 90 minutes and it would be a winner, as long as Asta the dog was running around behind them, and as long as he got in the last word, which he does in every "Thin Man" film. /////

Watch the whole series, every movie is classic.

Man, it was cold today. I wore two sweatshirts and a flannel, but if this keeps up I am gonna switch to three sweatshirts......and a flannel.

Rams beat 'Boys, big time. Tomorrow morn, Chargers will beat Pats, and Saints will beat Philly in the afternoon.

I think Rams are Super Bowl bound. Maybe Chargers, too.

See you tomorrow after church. Thank you for singing.

Tons of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)