Tonight I am writing to you from home. I got a fresh supply of movies from the Libe, and I watched a new Criterion release called "Westfront 1918" (1930), directed by the great German Expressionist G.W. Pabst. You may recall that we saw a few of his films in late 2017 or thereabouts, including "Diary Of A Lost Girl", "Pandora's Box" (both starring Silent legend Louise Brooks) and "The Threepenny Opera". "Westfront 1918", as you may gather from the title, is a film about World War One, specifically about a group of German soldiers who are stationed in a wasteland in the French countryside, enduring the horrors of trench warfare as the French army relentlessly rains down artillery upon their position.
This movie started a little slowly, storywise, and had some of the stylistic conventions of a very early sound release; the slightly exaggerated facial expressions and face makeup, a holdover from the Silent era. Also, the tendency to under edit some of the non-war scenes, as if the director was unsure how to fuse his editing with all of the new "talking" dialogue he had available. For instance, the opening sequence of the film depicts the four principal soldiers horsing around in a house situated just shy of the trenches. There is a young French woman in the room. They take turns trying to impress her and force hugs and kisses, grab her in genial "wrestling holds". This is portrayed in a way that would be non-PC now, but in the film it is fairly good natured. The soldiers could be called to die in battle at any moment, so the woman understands, and anyway she is in love with one of them. My point is that Pabst carries this opening scene on for way too long, nearly six minutes, when the modern viewer gets the message within one or two. Such was the experimenting at the advent of sound. This tendency does not go overboard, though, and both the editing and acting are first rate once the war action gets underway.
By the midway point you will find yourself mesmerised by the reality of what you are seeing. It looks as if Pabst had actually been on the battlefield with his camera, and had captured the war in all of it's sudden violence and crushing monotony. The soldiers go from small talk in the trenches to hours on end of being shelled, all at the drop of a hat. There is also a 13 minute sequence of some bizarre downtime, where they are allowed some r&r in an off-field shack where vaudeville comedians have been hired to perform. Pabst, being a Surrealist in some of his earlier works, plays this contrast of comedy and prior war terror as an Absurdity of the lowest order. It is a truly off the wall scene.
The lead soldier (i.e the main character) gets a few days of leave, but when he gets home he finds his wife with a local butcher's boy. It seems that the conditions are awful for the civilians, too. His wife tearfully explains that it was the only way for her to get some food for the family table. The soldier is so disheartened that he cuts short his leave and heads straight back to the battlefield, where at least he knows what to expect.
As this movie develops, you become aware that you are watching one of the great anti-war statements in all of cinema, made in Germany only two years before Hitler took power. He banned the film and it was not seen for years. One can see why he was scared of it. It shows the truth of WW1, in which Hitler was a soldier himself. He was said to be fearless, and it is also said that his rise to power - his drive for power - was in part fueled by the shame Germany was made to face after they lost the war, and for the reparations the country was made to pay. Hitler hated that Germany had lost, and had been shown to have weakness.
G.W. Pabst indicts Germany in this uncompromising tale of insensible human violence, but he also includes everyone else, as you will see in the final scene. WW2 caused the greatest loss of life of any war in history, but it is said the WW1 was the most ruthless in terms of man-to-man fighting, with it's horrific trench warfare and the poison gas that was sprayed on both sides. I am gonna have to do some reading about World War One after seeing this film, which gets my highest possible recommendation.
It is worthy of being called one of the greatest war films ever made, an anti-war statement from 90 years ago at the birth of sound film, and warning the world just before the second go-round, this time with Hitler in charge. It is a must see, I think. ////
For tonight's classical music recommendation, I will list a favorite work from Felix Mendelssohn, one of my Top Ten Composers. I am gonna choose his "Songs Without Words" - the full compendium which checks in at over two hours. This is entirely piano music, and you may have noticed that most of my favorite pieces listed so far, from Bach, Chopin and Schubert, have by and large been compositions for the piano. Mendelssohn is mostly known for his violin concerto and his symphonies, which have familiar themes you have no doubt heard even if you do not listen to classical music. He was a musical genius who composed masterworks in his teens (and he died at 38). I like his other more well known music, too, but it is sometimes more fanciful (i.e less emotional, my complaint with Mozart too), than are his "Songs Without Words", which have the emotional depth I crave, especially from the piano.
So, for my favorite Mendelssohn work, I choose the whole two hours plus of "Songs Without Words". For the whole thing, I recommend the Youtube version by Daniel Barenboim.
But if you only have a few minutes to spare, my favorite of all the "Songs" is the very first one. Go to Youtube and enter "Mendelssohn Opus 19 #1". The first "Song Without Words" should come up, as played by Murray Perahia. Make sure you listen to his version. If you don't get goosebumps, your money will once again be refunded. ////
That's all for tonight. I will see you in the morning right here at The Tiny. Love until then.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
"Ghost Story" the TV Series, produced by William Castle
No movie tonight, but I did break out a new TV Series called "Ghost Story" (aka "Circle Of Fear") which premiered in 1972 on NBC. I became aware of this series about three years ago when it was mentioned by a friend. He knew I was a fan of horror and asked if I remembered this series, which had scared the bejeezus out of him as an adolescent. I replied that I had never heard of it. The show only ran one season. I don't know why it slipped beneath my radar, maybe I was busy with "Streets Of San Francisco" or one of the other police dramas I watched in those days. Anyhow, after my friend described the show I was intrigued. I planned to buy the complete series (22 episodes) at some point. The $45 dollar price tag was prohibitive for a while. A couple of years passed, but I kept checking Amazon every now and then. I never forgot about it, and then last October, when I watched all those William Castle horror movies, my interest in "Ghost Story" was rekindled, because the series was produced by the man himself.
I wasn't aware of how great he was until I saw his movies. Now I knew I needed to buy his television show also. Just before last Christmas, Amazon had a flash sale on dvds. "Ghost Story" was reduced to about 33 bucks, a substantial discount, so I bought it. I had planned on saving the series until Summer, which is prime time for Horror (leading up to Halloween, ya know). But, because I have run out of movies of late, and because I watched the final Durango Kid flick last night, I thought "what the heck" and decided to watch the first "Ghost Story" episode this evening.
The series is an anthology, like "Night Gallery", and like that show it also has a host, Sebastian Cabot. He runs an old manor hotel (with a gorgeous wood interior that at first had me thinking it was the Bradbury Building), and apparently a hotel "guest" is featured in each week's story. For the opening episode, the guests were a married couple (David Birney and Barbara Parkins of "Peyton Place" fame). She is pregnant, not a good state for a woman to be in during the era of "Rosemary's Baby". She and her husband move from Sebastian Cabot's hotel into a beautiful home on top of Pleasant Hill (state unspecified). Wife Barbara starts to hear sounds shortly after the move-in. Footsteps in the hallway. Tapping on the door. The power goes out during a rainstorm and she is scared witless. David Birney is the kind of husband who gives his wife "little woman" platitudes while he heads out to the office every morning. He makes light of her fear; "It's just your pregnancy", he tells her. That is what is causing her to "imagine" the sounds and visions". To him, she is his beloved little wife, having vapors because she's with child.
Boy does he ever find out different. Not that he has to go through any trauma himself; that all is reserved for his wife. She knows what she has seen and heard, so she seeks out some history of the town because she's been told that Pleasant Hill was once the site of a cemetery.
Holy smokes and shades of "Poltergiest"! Run for your lives before your swimming pool fills up with skeletons..... :)
She seeks out the town librarian, who informs her that Pleasant Hill was not the site of a cemetery, but of a gallows, during an era of persecution in the late 1700s.
Not of witch hunts but persecution of the poor. The librarian informs Parkins that a young woman was hung on the gallows at Pleasant Hill for stealing a loaf of bread. She makes the connection that it happened on the same spot where her house now stands.
Holy Smokes! Now you've got you a Ghost Story, and a pretty frightening one at that, thanks to the production skills of William Castle. If you recall from his films, we described him as a craftsman with a strong attention to visual detail. Here in the first episode of the series we see the striking color schemes of the 1970s - multi-color everywhere - but well coordinated so that all the colors do something to the eye and brain. Think of some of the early 70s horror films like "Arnold" or "Tales From The Crypt", where the color was maxed out in every object in the frame, but with a warm tinge, to give the characters a "boxed in" feeling, which increased the tension. A technical person could give you an exact description of what was being sought in the color scheme as it regarded the suspense, but the thing is that, if you remember horror films of the early 70s, before "The Exorcist" and later on the grit of "Texas Chainsaw", then you will know what I am talking about. The colors and warm interiors of early 70s horror. ///
It was a good episode and I look forward to more, though it might be a while until the next one. We finally have some movies coming from The Libe tomorrow, and on Thursday night we will head back to the CSUN Cinematheque for a little reunion of sorts. I also have a mini-series in the que, Steven Spielberg's "Taken", the UFO abduction saga that debuted in 2002. I never saw it, and as with "Ghost Story" I monitored the price of the dvd set until it was reasonable. Finally I bought the show for 20 bucks last week, instead of 50, which is what they wanted for many years. So we will start "Taken" pretty soon too.
Starting tomorrow night I will be off work for several days, so we will do more classical recommendations then.
And as I am sure you know, it will be imperative to watch at least some of Michael Cohen's testimony tomorrow. This time I have a feeling that Trump really will be toast. Let's hope so. :)
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo (love, love, love) :):)
I wasn't aware of how great he was until I saw his movies. Now I knew I needed to buy his television show also. Just before last Christmas, Amazon had a flash sale on dvds. "Ghost Story" was reduced to about 33 bucks, a substantial discount, so I bought it. I had planned on saving the series until Summer, which is prime time for Horror (leading up to Halloween, ya know). But, because I have run out of movies of late, and because I watched the final Durango Kid flick last night, I thought "what the heck" and decided to watch the first "Ghost Story" episode this evening.
The series is an anthology, like "Night Gallery", and like that show it also has a host, Sebastian Cabot. He runs an old manor hotel (with a gorgeous wood interior that at first had me thinking it was the Bradbury Building), and apparently a hotel "guest" is featured in each week's story. For the opening episode, the guests were a married couple (David Birney and Barbara Parkins of "Peyton Place" fame). She is pregnant, not a good state for a woman to be in during the era of "Rosemary's Baby". She and her husband move from Sebastian Cabot's hotel into a beautiful home on top of Pleasant Hill (state unspecified). Wife Barbara starts to hear sounds shortly after the move-in. Footsteps in the hallway. Tapping on the door. The power goes out during a rainstorm and she is scared witless. David Birney is the kind of husband who gives his wife "little woman" platitudes while he heads out to the office every morning. He makes light of her fear; "It's just your pregnancy", he tells her. That is what is causing her to "imagine" the sounds and visions". To him, she is his beloved little wife, having vapors because she's with child.
Boy does he ever find out different. Not that he has to go through any trauma himself; that all is reserved for his wife. She knows what she has seen and heard, so she seeks out some history of the town because she's been told that Pleasant Hill was once the site of a cemetery.
Holy smokes and shades of "Poltergiest"! Run for your lives before your swimming pool fills up with skeletons..... :)
She seeks out the town librarian, who informs her that Pleasant Hill was not the site of a cemetery, but of a gallows, during an era of persecution in the late 1700s.
Not of witch hunts but persecution of the poor. The librarian informs Parkins that a young woman was hung on the gallows at Pleasant Hill for stealing a loaf of bread. She makes the connection that it happened on the same spot where her house now stands.
Holy Smokes! Now you've got you a Ghost Story, and a pretty frightening one at that, thanks to the production skills of William Castle. If you recall from his films, we described him as a craftsman with a strong attention to visual detail. Here in the first episode of the series we see the striking color schemes of the 1970s - multi-color everywhere - but well coordinated so that all the colors do something to the eye and brain. Think of some of the early 70s horror films like "Arnold" or "Tales From The Crypt", where the color was maxed out in every object in the frame, but with a warm tinge, to give the characters a "boxed in" feeling, which increased the tension. A technical person could give you an exact description of what was being sought in the color scheme as it regarded the suspense, but the thing is that, if you remember horror films of the early 70s, before "The Exorcist" and later on the grit of "Texas Chainsaw", then you will know what I am talking about. The colors and warm interiors of early 70s horror. ///
It was a good episode and I look forward to more, though it might be a while until the next one. We finally have some movies coming from The Libe tomorrow, and on Thursday night we will head back to the CSUN Cinematheque for a little reunion of sorts. I also have a mini-series in the que, Steven Spielberg's "Taken", the UFO abduction saga that debuted in 2002. I never saw it, and as with "Ghost Story" I monitored the price of the dvd set until it was reasonable. Finally I bought the show for 20 bucks last week, instead of 50, which is what they wanted for many years. So we will start "Taken" pretty soon too.
Starting tomorrow night I will be off work for several days, so we will do more classical recommendations then.
And as I am sure you know, it will be imperative to watch at least some of Michael Cohen's testimony tomorrow. This time I have a feeling that Trump really will be toast. Let's hope so. :)
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo (love, love, love) :):)
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
The Final Durango Kid Movie (for now, anyway) + Favorite Schubert Pieces
Tonight I watched the tenth and final movie in my Durango Kid collection : "The Kid From Broken Gun" (1952). "The Kid" in the title did not refer to Durango this time, but instead to Jack Mahoney, who was playing a former prizefighter named "Jack Mahoney". Mahoney was a famous Hollywood stuntman who also did some acting, and in fact he was one of the later Tarzans in the mid-50s, under the name "Jock Mahoney". Somebody, either Mahoney himself or the screenwriters of his films, was pretty inventive in the Name Department. ;)
In "The Kid From Broken Gun", he is on trial for a murder he swears he didn't commit. The story is set in a Western courtroom. I think it would be awesome to have a Time Machine and go back to the Old West to see if it really looked like that. Because the Western Courtroom looks exactly as you'd expect it to look. We don't have a wide range of photos from old Western times, because photography only "got going", as it were, in the mid-1800s. What I find fascinating is that 1873 seems like ancient times to me, possibly because of the "dusty" imagery of the Old West, and the lack of technology (which developed so very rapidly).......but then, when I look back in my own life, the Moon landing was fifty years ago, Man's most advanced achievement, and it seems like yesterday that it happened.
So, fifty years ago for a rocket to the Moon, and only twice that much time, going backward from 1969, to take us back to the dusty Old West. The concept of time always blows my mind, as you know. It probably blows Jack Mahoney's mind as well, wherever he is.
This final "Kid" movie cheated a little in the story department, because the courtroom trial of Mahoney also had to do with the the theft of General Santa Anna's hidden gold stash that we dealt with in the very first Durango Kid movie we watched two weeks ago, "The Fighting Frontiersman". The plot in that film was all about the gold theft, and here in tonight's story the producers used a lot of footage from "Frontiersman" for flashback sequences, shown over the testimony of court witnesses.
So Columbia saved a few bucks by the screenwriter not having to think up a character name for Jack Mahoney, and then they saved a few more by inserting about 12 minutes worth of footage (in a 56 minute movie) from an earlier picture.
Smiley Burnett had some good gags in the courtroom, but there were no extra cowboy musicians this time, and as we have been accustomed to seeing them in the Durango movies, it was disappointing to miss these talented musicians this time around.
Still, get your thumbs up. Both of them, because it goes without saying as you know.
We have loved these Durango Kid movies, and they kind of grew on us over the last two weeks as we kept watching. I would say Charles Starrett is the main reason (as explained in other recent blogs); he is The Man as far as I am concerned, for this type of serial Western. I mean, it's like he's the Real Deal and not even acting. I am gonna have to make a trip up to Garden Of The Gods real soon, which is the small park off of the Santa Susana Pass. It's what's left of the old Iverson Movie Ranch, which must have been a real phenomenon in the early days of the movie business. So many Westerns were shot there, and from the get go I could see that it was the location of every "Kid" movie. There is a brass plaque secured to a Giant Boulder at the front of the park, which lists the names of many (if not all) of the stars whose films were shot there. When I go, I will be checking for Charles Starrett. ////
Continuing our discussion of favorite classical composers, tonight I will mention Franz Schubert and a couple of his works that stand out for me. Schubert was so prolific, and wrote so much beautiful piano music that he may have been the greatest of the Romantic composers for the piano. He died at only 31, and yet he wrote so many great and soul stirring pieces. The lives of great artists are something to consider; why they wrote what they did, how they were able to get it out from inside of themselves, and why some of them - like Schubert, or Mendelssohn or Mozart - all died before they turned 40 years old.
The music that was inside of these artists is something to consider, as is the brevity of their lives.
For Schubert, I am going to list two favorite pieces, both from his compositions for piano. The first is his Impromptu Op. 142, #2 "Alegretto". This piece has got to be heard as played by Vladimir Sofronitsky. He, Dinu Lipatti and Wilhelm Kempff were the Holy Trinity of piano, as I have mentioned in the past. The middle section of the Allegretto, with it's flowing lines- beginning at about 3:40 in the Youtube clip - is as tonally beautiful as any music you will ever hear. It has that "river of notes" silvery bell tones of the greatest piano music and is mesmeric to the listener.
The other Schubert piece I will mention is the Impromptu Op. 90, D899, #3. Youtube it in that order, and ask for the version by either Lipatti or Kempff. If it doesn't put a lump in your throat I'll give you your money back. For me, the Lipatti version is just about the last word in pianism. But listen to the Kempff, too. These guys were connected to God when they played.....and to Schubert. ////
That's all for tonight. See you in the morning. Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
In "The Kid From Broken Gun", he is on trial for a murder he swears he didn't commit. The story is set in a Western courtroom. I think it would be awesome to have a Time Machine and go back to the Old West to see if it really looked like that. Because the Western Courtroom looks exactly as you'd expect it to look. We don't have a wide range of photos from old Western times, because photography only "got going", as it were, in the mid-1800s. What I find fascinating is that 1873 seems like ancient times to me, possibly because of the "dusty" imagery of the Old West, and the lack of technology (which developed so very rapidly).......but then, when I look back in my own life, the Moon landing was fifty years ago, Man's most advanced achievement, and it seems like yesterday that it happened.
So, fifty years ago for a rocket to the Moon, and only twice that much time, going backward from 1969, to take us back to the dusty Old West. The concept of time always blows my mind, as you know. It probably blows Jack Mahoney's mind as well, wherever he is.
This final "Kid" movie cheated a little in the story department, because the courtroom trial of Mahoney also had to do with the the theft of General Santa Anna's hidden gold stash that we dealt with in the very first Durango Kid movie we watched two weeks ago, "The Fighting Frontiersman". The plot in that film was all about the gold theft, and here in tonight's story the producers used a lot of footage from "Frontiersman" for flashback sequences, shown over the testimony of court witnesses.
So Columbia saved a few bucks by the screenwriter not having to think up a character name for Jack Mahoney, and then they saved a few more by inserting about 12 minutes worth of footage (in a 56 minute movie) from an earlier picture.
Smiley Burnett had some good gags in the courtroom, but there were no extra cowboy musicians this time, and as we have been accustomed to seeing them in the Durango movies, it was disappointing to miss these talented musicians this time around.
Still, get your thumbs up. Both of them, because it goes without saying as you know.
We have loved these Durango Kid movies, and they kind of grew on us over the last two weeks as we kept watching. I would say Charles Starrett is the main reason (as explained in other recent blogs); he is The Man as far as I am concerned, for this type of serial Western. I mean, it's like he's the Real Deal and not even acting. I am gonna have to make a trip up to Garden Of The Gods real soon, which is the small park off of the Santa Susana Pass. It's what's left of the old Iverson Movie Ranch, which must have been a real phenomenon in the early days of the movie business. So many Westerns were shot there, and from the get go I could see that it was the location of every "Kid" movie. There is a brass plaque secured to a Giant Boulder at the front of the park, which lists the names of many (if not all) of the stars whose films were shot there. When I go, I will be checking for Charles Starrett. ////
Continuing our discussion of favorite classical composers, tonight I will mention Franz Schubert and a couple of his works that stand out for me. Schubert was so prolific, and wrote so much beautiful piano music that he may have been the greatest of the Romantic composers for the piano. He died at only 31, and yet he wrote so many great and soul stirring pieces. The lives of great artists are something to consider; why they wrote what they did, how they were able to get it out from inside of themselves, and why some of them - like Schubert, or Mendelssohn or Mozart - all died before they turned 40 years old.
The music that was inside of these artists is something to consider, as is the brevity of their lives.
For Schubert, I am going to list two favorite pieces, both from his compositions for piano. The first is his Impromptu Op. 142, #2 "Alegretto". This piece has got to be heard as played by Vladimir Sofronitsky. He, Dinu Lipatti and Wilhelm Kempff were the Holy Trinity of piano, as I have mentioned in the past. The middle section of the Allegretto, with it's flowing lines- beginning at about 3:40 in the Youtube clip - is as tonally beautiful as any music you will ever hear. It has that "river of notes" silvery bell tones of the greatest piano music and is mesmeric to the listener.
The other Schubert piece I will mention is the Impromptu Op. 90, D899, #3. Youtube it in that order, and ask for the version by either Lipatti or Kempff. If it doesn't put a lump in your throat I'll give you your money back. For me, the Lipatti version is just about the last word in pianism. But listen to the Kempff, too. These guys were connected to God when they played.....and to Schubert. ////
That's all for tonight. See you in the morning. Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Monday, February 25, 2019
The Oscars? Well....(sorry) + Another Solo In Church + O'Melveny + Chopin Sonata #3 "Largo"
No movie tonight, due to the Oscars, which I watched in their entirety here at Pearl's. In retrospect, I wish I had watched my final Durango Kid movie. Um.....I promise I won't go on a tirade because I don't wanna take the fun out of the ceremony for anyone who enjoyed it - and I have always been a die-hard Oscar fanatic myself as you know - but I've gotta be honest with you : I was really on the ropes with this one, starting at about a half-hour in. I surprised myself by making it through the telecast, but for me it was the worst Academy Awards show I have ever seen.
(sorry) :(
To be fair, and to put part of the blame on myself, I did not know any of these movies. Well, two of them : "First Man" and "Mary Poppins Returns", both of which I loved, and which won a single Oscar between them. Now, I do want to see "Bohemian Rhapsody", and perhaps "Green Book", "A Star Is Born" and "Roma"........but again, to be honest with you, I do not feel compelled to see any of them immediately. I mean...I will see them eventually, so don't count me a curmudgeon.
It's just that.......I dunno, I guess about five years ago or thereabouts, new movies began to grab me less and less. I just feel that The Movies, as they are now, are not the same as The Movies I have always known and loved. And you know how much I love Movies.
But I don't like CGI, because every CGI movie looks exactly the same (c'mon, admit it), and computer effects look lousy compared to model photography in a movie like "2001". And I don't wanna go see Marvel Comics movies. Yeah, I guess I'm an old geezer, but on my behalf, I have become accustomed to watching Criterion classics by directors like Mizoguchi. I know Cuaron is good, but......well you know.
I am used to classic cinema - or just plain "good movies", and I am in love with the Golden Era of Hollywood, and also with my old fashioned entertainment flicks, so many of which we have recently been reviewing.
But it's not entirely the lack, on my part, of "pictures I've seen" that prevented me from enjoying the Oscars tonight. There have been other years when I had not seen more than a few of the nominated films.
It's just that the Oscars have become generic, to put it bluntly. They might as well be the MTV Awards or some other of the ubiquitous crossover awards shows that have overpopulated the scene, crowded with disposable celebrities instead of actual Stars. I didn't recognise half the presenters on tonight's show, and the ones I did know - Daniel Craig, etc. - were not really what you would call Major Hollywood Stars. The Oscars used to really have some glamour. Not any more. It's just a politically correct celebrity feel-good show now.
Queen did a great job to open the show, but it's not suposed to be a rock concert. See what I mean about the comparison to the MTV Awards or American Idol. The Oscars need a host, like Johnny Carson or Billy Crystal, and there was none.
Well, I said I wouldn't go on a tirade, and I'm not mad about it anyway, just sad. The Oscars used to be a Big Deal. Now, it just generic with a capital G, and I will bet you that they got their lowest ratings ever this year. I'm not a curmudgeon, just someone who cares about the Academy Awards.
That's all I have to say. Next year I will stick with The Durango Kid. /////
I did get to sing another solo in church this morning, so that was a nice surprise because I wasn't expecting it. When Pearl and I got there, our choir director asked me if I'd like to sing the second verse of our anthem by myself, and I said yes because I have really enjoyed the other chances I've had. I've been trying to develop and improve my voice during the four years I've been in choir, and I will keep singing every chance they give me, so if you know me (or even if you don't), come on out and give a listen some Sunday. :)
Also today, the Sun came out and the weather was beautiful for a change, near 70 degrees. Our first semi-warm day in about six weeks. After church, I went to O'Melveny Park for a hike. The trail was jam packed, full of folks like me (California cold wimps, haha) who had been cooped up and were jonesin' to get out there. Man did it feel good. Spring can't come soon enough, and hopefully without the gale force wind of last year (I'm not just a cold wimp but an all around inclement weather wimp, lol). ////
Last night I mentioned some of my favorite pieces by Bach. Tonight I will mention one by Chopin. Please excuse if I make these choices out of order according to my Top Ten Composers list. I think I had Schubert in second place, but anyway, tonight I was thinking of the Sonata #3 by Frederic Chopin, especially the Largo section, and it has to be played by Dinu Lipatti, who - to me - was the Soul Of Pianists. If you like piano music, give it a listen. I think it is beyond beautiful.
Chopin Sonata #3 in B minor Op 58, part 3 "Largo", played by Dinu Lipatti. Available on Youtube.
Much love until morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
(sorry) :(
To be fair, and to put part of the blame on myself, I did not know any of these movies. Well, two of them : "First Man" and "Mary Poppins Returns", both of which I loved, and which won a single Oscar between them. Now, I do want to see "Bohemian Rhapsody", and perhaps "Green Book", "A Star Is Born" and "Roma"........but again, to be honest with you, I do not feel compelled to see any of them immediately. I mean...I will see them eventually, so don't count me a curmudgeon.
It's just that.......I dunno, I guess about five years ago or thereabouts, new movies began to grab me less and less. I just feel that The Movies, as they are now, are not the same as The Movies I have always known and loved. And you know how much I love Movies.
But I don't like CGI, because every CGI movie looks exactly the same (c'mon, admit it), and computer effects look lousy compared to model photography in a movie like "2001". And I don't wanna go see Marvel Comics movies. Yeah, I guess I'm an old geezer, but on my behalf, I have become accustomed to watching Criterion classics by directors like Mizoguchi. I know Cuaron is good, but......well you know.
I am used to classic cinema - or just plain "good movies", and I am in love with the Golden Era of Hollywood, and also with my old fashioned entertainment flicks, so many of which we have recently been reviewing.
But it's not entirely the lack, on my part, of "pictures I've seen" that prevented me from enjoying the Oscars tonight. There have been other years when I had not seen more than a few of the nominated films.
It's just that the Oscars have become generic, to put it bluntly. They might as well be the MTV Awards or some other of the ubiquitous crossover awards shows that have overpopulated the scene, crowded with disposable celebrities instead of actual Stars. I didn't recognise half the presenters on tonight's show, and the ones I did know - Daniel Craig, etc. - were not really what you would call Major Hollywood Stars. The Oscars used to really have some glamour. Not any more. It's just a politically correct celebrity feel-good show now.
Queen did a great job to open the show, but it's not suposed to be a rock concert. See what I mean about the comparison to the MTV Awards or American Idol. The Oscars need a host, like Johnny Carson or Billy Crystal, and there was none.
Well, I said I wouldn't go on a tirade, and I'm not mad about it anyway, just sad. The Oscars used to be a Big Deal. Now, it just generic with a capital G, and I will bet you that they got their lowest ratings ever this year. I'm not a curmudgeon, just someone who cares about the Academy Awards.
That's all I have to say. Next year I will stick with The Durango Kid. /////
I did get to sing another solo in church this morning, so that was a nice surprise because I wasn't expecting it. When Pearl and I got there, our choir director asked me if I'd like to sing the second verse of our anthem by myself, and I said yes because I have really enjoyed the other chances I've had. I've been trying to develop and improve my voice during the four years I've been in choir, and I will keep singing every chance they give me, so if you know me (or even if you don't), come on out and give a listen some Sunday. :)
Also today, the Sun came out and the weather was beautiful for a change, near 70 degrees. Our first semi-warm day in about six weeks. After church, I went to O'Melveny Park for a hike. The trail was jam packed, full of folks like me (California cold wimps, haha) who had been cooped up and were jonesin' to get out there. Man did it feel good. Spring can't come soon enough, and hopefully without the gale force wind of last year (I'm not just a cold wimp but an all around inclement weather wimp, lol). ////
Last night I mentioned some of my favorite pieces by Bach. Tonight I will mention one by Chopin. Please excuse if I make these choices out of order according to my Top Ten Composers list. I think I had Schubert in second place, but anyway, tonight I was thinking of the Sonata #3 by Frederic Chopin, especially the Largo section, and it has to be played by Dinu Lipatti, who - to me - was the Soul Of Pianists. If you like piano music, give it a listen. I think it is beyond beautiful.
Chopin Sonata #3 in B minor Op 58, part 3 "Largo", played by Dinu Lipatti. Available on Youtube.
Much love until morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Sunday, February 24, 2019
The Durango Kid in "The Hawk Of Wild River" + Baked Chips + Favorite Pieces by Bach
I am baking my own tortilla chips (from corn tortillas cut into triangles) as an experiment, just to try and cut down on some of the fat I consume. Yeah, I know monounsaturated fat is supposed to be good for you - and even a little bit of saturated fat, so they say - but I eat bags of tortilla chips, so I am probably getting too much even of the "good fats", because I also eat half an avocado every day and also a handful or two of almonds or other nuts. I mean, I don't eat a ton of red meat, really not much at all, and I drink non-fat milk, etc. My diet is at least 50% plant based, I am steady at between 157-160lbs for 20 years now, and I walk five miles a day. So I hope I am pretty healthy. But anyhow, just trying to cut down on the daily fat intake by baking a few chips. I'll letcha know if they are any good.....
Well, I figured I might as well ride along with The Durango Kid the rest of the way down the trail, since we had already watched eight of the ten flicks in the dvd collection. The last two will take us through the weekend, and then I'll be lookin' for more... :)
Tonight's Durango was "The Hawk Of Wild River", and was notable for having Clayton Moore as a co-star. If you are my age, and male, you probably recognize the name as that of the actor who played "The Lone Ranger" in the long-running TV series. Watching reruns of the show is one of my earliest memories, and of course Moore is an American icon for that role.
In tonight's film he was the bad guy, a half-Indian named Hawk who leads a gang of outlaws. They hide out in the hills of Chatsworth, um...I mean Arizona, and rob stagecoaches. They also have a man in town who does Hawk's bidding. I mean, by now, you know how these plots are structured. From the start, it's gonna be one of four or five scenarios. Every Durango movie that I've seen is written by a guy named Barry Shipman, so he had his formula down. The crew is all the same, too, so they had a production company up there at Iverson Ranch, cranking out these Durangos one after another, with a ready-made cast who all knew the drill.
And they succeeded by playing up the fun as much as the entertainment. Charles Starrett is as good natured as he is badass, and of course Smiley Burnette is a comic foil on par with the greats of the era. He could've held his own with Abbott and Costello or Buster Keaton or any of those guys, but because his movie character is a country bumpkin, he is perfect as the sidekick in these Westerns. But also, Starrett should be noted as one of the great Western cowboys. He is known to hard core fans, but again, he is as good as Wayne, Cooper or anyone from the genre. It's just that he worked in the Saturday Matinee format and so most of his films were 60 minutes or less, but they are no less effective as entertainment, and Starrett is an equal of the more well known Western stars, in my opinion. ///
To sum up, you love The Durango Kid, I love The Durango Kid, all of his movies get Two Thumbs Up, and we will be searching for more on dvd after we finish the present collection tomorrow night. ////
Since we brought up the topic of Favorite Composers last night, and I said that I'd mention some of my favorite pieces by each composer, tonight I will start with Bach. In his case, there is so much to choose from, but if I had to choose a few favorites I would go with the English Suite #5 (played by Glenn Gould, Wilhelm Kempff or Martha Argerich), Partita #3 for violin (played by Hilary Hahn), the St. Matthew Passion (by many great ensembles), the and the Mass In B Minor, a lengthy work for choir that some call his masterpiece. I don't think Bach can have a single masterpiece, or greatest work, because he was so prolific in so many formats, and really, I think what he did as a composer is so astounding that it will always be advanced of everything else, no matter how much time humans spend on Earth. If anyone ever tapped into God musically, it was Bach. Which is not to say that others have not done so, because of course many have. But Bach is Bach, and the above works are some of my favorites. Give a listen if you are so inclined, and in fact listen to all of the English Suites, and the French Suites too, for that matter. Man, they are some good stuff. ///
That is more or less all I know for tonight. Thank goodness the Sun came out today and it was about five degrees warmer than it has been. The data from weather.com suggests that we may be coming out of this California-style deep freeze.
Maybe we can even walk to church in the morning.
I will see you there, in any case. Much love in the meantime. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Well, I figured I might as well ride along with The Durango Kid the rest of the way down the trail, since we had already watched eight of the ten flicks in the dvd collection. The last two will take us through the weekend, and then I'll be lookin' for more... :)
Tonight's Durango was "The Hawk Of Wild River", and was notable for having Clayton Moore as a co-star. If you are my age, and male, you probably recognize the name as that of the actor who played "The Lone Ranger" in the long-running TV series. Watching reruns of the show is one of my earliest memories, and of course Moore is an American icon for that role.
In tonight's film he was the bad guy, a half-Indian named Hawk who leads a gang of outlaws. They hide out in the hills of Chatsworth, um...I mean Arizona, and rob stagecoaches. They also have a man in town who does Hawk's bidding. I mean, by now, you know how these plots are structured. From the start, it's gonna be one of four or five scenarios. Every Durango movie that I've seen is written by a guy named Barry Shipman, so he had his formula down. The crew is all the same, too, so they had a production company up there at Iverson Ranch, cranking out these Durangos one after another, with a ready-made cast who all knew the drill.
And they succeeded by playing up the fun as much as the entertainment. Charles Starrett is as good natured as he is badass, and of course Smiley Burnette is a comic foil on par with the greats of the era. He could've held his own with Abbott and Costello or Buster Keaton or any of those guys, but because his movie character is a country bumpkin, he is perfect as the sidekick in these Westerns. But also, Starrett should be noted as one of the great Western cowboys. He is known to hard core fans, but again, he is as good as Wayne, Cooper or anyone from the genre. It's just that he worked in the Saturday Matinee format and so most of his films were 60 minutes or less, but they are no less effective as entertainment, and Starrett is an equal of the more well known Western stars, in my opinion. ///
To sum up, you love The Durango Kid, I love The Durango Kid, all of his movies get Two Thumbs Up, and we will be searching for more on dvd after we finish the present collection tomorrow night. ////
Since we brought up the topic of Favorite Composers last night, and I said that I'd mention some of my favorite pieces by each composer, tonight I will start with Bach. In his case, there is so much to choose from, but if I had to choose a few favorites I would go with the English Suite #5 (played by Glenn Gould, Wilhelm Kempff or Martha Argerich), Partita #3 for violin (played by Hilary Hahn), the St. Matthew Passion (by many great ensembles), the and the Mass In B Minor, a lengthy work for choir that some call his masterpiece. I don't think Bach can have a single masterpiece, or greatest work, because he was so prolific in so many formats, and really, I think what he did as a composer is so astounding that it will always be advanced of everything else, no matter how much time humans spend on Earth. If anyone ever tapped into God musically, it was Bach. Which is not to say that others have not done so, because of course many have. But Bach is Bach, and the above works are some of my favorites. Give a listen if you are so inclined, and in fact listen to all of the English Suites, and the French Suites too, for that matter. Man, they are some good stuff. ///
That is more or less all I know for tonight. Thank goodness the Sun came out today and it was about five degrees warmer than it has been. The data from weather.com suggests that we may be coming out of this California-style deep freeze.
Maybe we can even walk to church in the morning.
I will see you there, in any case. Much love in the meantime. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Saturday, February 23, 2019
The Durango Kid in "Bonanza Town" + Favorite Composers
Tonight's "Durango Kid" movie was called "Bonanza Town" (1951). The complex plot made up for last night's rather lightweight story, and involved the brother of a local judge who is leading a criminal gang from behind the scenes. The control of land is another big theme in Western movies, right up there with Indian wars and cattle rustling, so in the plot, the town's land office administrator throws his weight around to enforce the silence of the citizens as he covers up stage robberies and real estate ripoffs. The land office guy, a macho sort, is working for the judge's brother, who in turn has his bro the judge securely in his pocket through blackmail for an earlier crime the judge himself covered for.
Now you can understand the complexity I was referring to. These crooks have a nice little scheme going, running the town the way Trump would run America if he were competent enough to do so. You could picture Brett Cavanaugh as the judge and Matt Whitaker as the thug town boss. Durango could be a substitute for Bob Mueller, as he learns of the land scheme, discovers the hidden crime boss, and methodically works his way through the underlings until he nails the main man.
Smiley Burnette is running a barbershop this time, and besides having his musical duties restored (cause last night he didn't sing much), he also commits a major comic gaffe when he accidentally shaves off the ZZ Toppian beard of a customer who only wanted a trim. The man is justifiably pissed and gets revenge on Smiley by shaving his head. At the end of the film, we see Smiley experimenting with combinations of various hair tonics, and voila! - his hair is thoroughly restored......though not the way it was, and it is actually quite funny because it might remind you of someone you know. :)
There was also a funny moment during an action sequence in the last fifteen minutes. It wasn't meant to be funny, because the reason for the humor had yet to exist when the movie was made. But here I was, watching it in 2019, and......
"Steve" (Charles Starrett) is chasing down the judge's henchmen, and he yells at Smiley to "go get Bob Dillon", meaning go get him and tell him what is happening.
This was a minor character in the story up to this point. He had only been called "Bob" in the few scenes he'd been in. This moment near the end was the first and only time I heard his full name spoken, and I had to do a double take. I had to rewind and replay the scene to make sure I had heard it correctly.
"Go get Bob Dylan"!
That's the way I heard it, and it turned out that my hearing was right. When I IMDBed the cast to double check, I saw the correct spelling was Dillon. But the pronunciation was the same.
I wonder if young Robert Zimmerman ever saw this movie. He would've been ten years old when it came out. Of course the the story goes that he took his stage name from Dylan Thomas the poet.
But it would be interesting to know if he's heard of this Durango Kid reference, and if he hasn't, it would be funny to show it to him. :) /////
I think we need to do a list, just cause we haven't done one in a while, and for tonight's list we are gonna name our Ten Favorite Classical Composers. I was inspired to make such a list while listening to KUSC this afternoon. They are having a fund raising drive, and Brian the DJ was mentioning some of the great works of various composers as a come-on for the station, and it got me to thinking, "who are my favorite composers"?
We've all done Top Tens of our favorite rock bands, so this time we will do classical composers, just because half the music I've been listening to since about 2003 or so has been classical.
In a future blog I will list a favorite piece by each composer (tonight I am too tired), but for my Top Ten, here goes:
1) J.S. Bach
2) Schubert
3) Chopin
4) Mendelssohn
5) Beethoven
6) Tchaikovsky
7) Mozart
8) Scarlatti
9) Rameau
10) Wagner
That's a rough draft, because of Rachmaninov and Couperin, and Poulenc and Faure and Debussy and a few others, but I imagine these ten would hold up as my favorites.
There is so much great classical music. Who are your favorites, and are you a fan? Maybe you have a few pieces that you like, at the very least.
Well, that's enough for tonight. Next time I will list a favorite work by each composer.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Now you can understand the complexity I was referring to. These crooks have a nice little scheme going, running the town the way Trump would run America if he were competent enough to do so. You could picture Brett Cavanaugh as the judge and Matt Whitaker as the thug town boss. Durango could be a substitute for Bob Mueller, as he learns of the land scheme, discovers the hidden crime boss, and methodically works his way through the underlings until he nails the main man.
Smiley Burnette is running a barbershop this time, and besides having his musical duties restored (cause last night he didn't sing much), he also commits a major comic gaffe when he accidentally shaves off the ZZ Toppian beard of a customer who only wanted a trim. The man is justifiably pissed and gets revenge on Smiley by shaving his head. At the end of the film, we see Smiley experimenting with combinations of various hair tonics, and voila! - his hair is thoroughly restored......though not the way it was, and it is actually quite funny because it might remind you of someone you know. :)
There was also a funny moment during an action sequence in the last fifteen minutes. It wasn't meant to be funny, because the reason for the humor had yet to exist when the movie was made. But here I was, watching it in 2019, and......
"Steve" (Charles Starrett) is chasing down the judge's henchmen, and he yells at Smiley to "go get Bob Dillon", meaning go get him and tell him what is happening.
This was a minor character in the story up to this point. He had only been called "Bob" in the few scenes he'd been in. This moment near the end was the first and only time I heard his full name spoken, and I had to do a double take. I had to rewind and replay the scene to make sure I had heard it correctly.
"Go get Bob Dylan"!
That's the way I heard it, and it turned out that my hearing was right. When I IMDBed the cast to double check, I saw the correct spelling was Dillon. But the pronunciation was the same.
I wonder if young Robert Zimmerman ever saw this movie. He would've been ten years old when it came out. Of course the the story goes that he took his stage name from Dylan Thomas the poet.
But it would be interesting to know if he's heard of this Durango Kid reference, and if he hasn't, it would be funny to show it to him. :) /////
I think we need to do a list, just cause we haven't done one in a while, and for tonight's list we are gonna name our Ten Favorite Classical Composers. I was inspired to make such a list while listening to KUSC this afternoon. They are having a fund raising drive, and Brian the DJ was mentioning some of the great works of various composers as a come-on for the station, and it got me to thinking, "who are my favorite composers"?
We've all done Top Tens of our favorite rock bands, so this time we will do classical composers, just because half the music I've been listening to since about 2003 or so has been classical.
In a future blog I will list a favorite piece by each composer (tonight I am too tired), but for my Top Ten, here goes:
1) J.S. Bach
2) Schubert
3) Chopin
4) Mendelssohn
5) Beethoven
6) Tchaikovsky
7) Mozart
8) Scarlatti
9) Rameau
10) Wagner
That's a rough draft, because of Rachmaninov and Couperin, and Poulenc and Faure and Debussy and a few others, but I imagine these ten would hold up as my favorites.
There is so much great classical music. Who are your favorites, and are you a fan? Maybe you have a few pieces that you like, at the very least.
Well, that's enough for tonight. Next time I will list a favorite work by each composer.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Friday, February 22, 2019
The Durango Kid in "Snake River Desperadoes" + Snow + Peter Tork
Tonight The Durango Kid was back yet again in "Snake River Desperadoes" (1951). The plot is a familiar one, and was even used in another Durango movie that we recently watched, lol, so stop me if you've heard it before (or don't stop me and I'll tell you all about it).
Let's see.....a town businessman is scheming to sell rifles to the local Indian tribe. He poses as their friend and confidante, telling their Chief that the white settlers of the town are preparing to attack his village, in order to rid the area of Indians.
Hmmm......mightn't they want to buy a large supply of guns to defend themselves?
Chief say "yes". White businessman then deliver guns at remote location, which is discovered accidentally by ten year old TV Tommy Ivo, back for another stint in a Kid movie. Meanwhile, the businessman has another element to his nefarious plan. He has his henchmen (the town rowdies) dress up as Indians to stage their own attacks on the white settlers!
If nothing else, the repeated use of this plot serves to describe how major wars are started, by arms merchants selling weapons to either side and using false flag operations to trigger a conflict. This knowledge is old hat in the modern era, but here we see it offered in the Saturday Afternoon Matinee material of a Durango Kid movie. It is interesting to see how socially aware these stories were. You would expect a cowboy movie to at least be marginally right wing, but in these films Charles Starrett, as the dual character of "Steve"and Durango, sides against the big shots every single time. And he will not tolerate racism from anyone. This was in 1951.
Now, the message was excellent, as it always is in these Kid movies. I am running low in my collection (only have three more) and would gladly purchase another dvd set if one were available. But this was not one of the better Durango Kid flicks from my set, only because the plot was rehashed and the story seemed a bit rushed. There was a lot of ridin' and shootin' - and a ton of great Iverson Ranch footage, out near Rocky Peak - but there was not as much "villain building", i.e. developing of the bad guy and his motives as there was in prior DK films. And, most of all, there wasn't much for Smiley Burnette to do. His comic relief is a key element in every story, but here Smiley was shuffled off to the side, and what's more, there were no song vignettes by any cowboy music stars, a treat we had come to expect, having seen a different band in every movie so far.
I still give "Snake River Desperadoes" two thumbs up, even though there was no Snake River, and it was never mentioned once. The title was chosen because it sounds good, haha. As reported before, these movies get an automatic Two Thumbs because they were created in a time of different values, a time not of innocence but maybe one that was still somewhat free of cynicism. A time of open possibilities.
I love old fashioned Westerns because I like it when the Good Guys win, and when the Bad Guys are exposed for exactly who they are. And in the Durango Kid movies, the Good Guys always win and are inherently good. ////
It actually snowed today in parts of the Valley, not in snowflakes but in small droplets. We didn't get any here in Northridge, but the folks in slightly higher elevations did, and I mention it because it's a pretty rare thing.
Me, I'd hibernate if I could. And I do happen to know of a cave out in Simi Valley. If we don't warm up soon, you may find me there. :)
R.I.P. to Peter Tork of The Monkees. For a brief flash in my life, they were my favorite band, when I was seven years old. In the Summer of '67, I had all their albums and played them even more than The Beatles, and I am sure there were thousands if not millions of kids like me. Peter was the Funny Monkee, kind of like George in the early Beatles, before George got serious.
The Monkees became big enough to have played The Forum in Los Angeles, with the mighty Jimi Hendrix opening for them. They were pretty cool and have many songs that still hold up today.
1967 was The Summer Of Love, and Flower Power and Paisley Shirts.
See you in the morning with a ton of love sent til then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Let's see.....a town businessman is scheming to sell rifles to the local Indian tribe. He poses as their friend and confidante, telling their Chief that the white settlers of the town are preparing to attack his village, in order to rid the area of Indians.
Hmmm......mightn't they want to buy a large supply of guns to defend themselves?
Chief say "yes". White businessman then deliver guns at remote location, which is discovered accidentally by ten year old TV Tommy Ivo, back for another stint in a Kid movie. Meanwhile, the businessman has another element to his nefarious plan. He has his henchmen (the town rowdies) dress up as Indians to stage their own attacks on the white settlers!
If nothing else, the repeated use of this plot serves to describe how major wars are started, by arms merchants selling weapons to either side and using false flag operations to trigger a conflict. This knowledge is old hat in the modern era, but here we see it offered in the Saturday Afternoon Matinee material of a Durango Kid movie. It is interesting to see how socially aware these stories were. You would expect a cowboy movie to at least be marginally right wing, but in these films Charles Starrett, as the dual character of "Steve"and Durango, sides against the big shots every single time. And he will not tolerate racism from anyone. This was in 1951.
Now, the message was excellent, as it always is in these Kid movies. I am running low in my collection (only have three more) and would gladly purchase another dvd set if one were available. But this was not one of the better Durango Kid flicks from my set, only because the plot was rehashed and the story seemed a bit rushed. There was a lot of ridin' and shootin' - and a ton of great Iverson Ranch footage, out near Rocky Peak - but there was not as much "villain building", i.e. developing of the bad guy and his motives as there was in prior DK films. And, most of all, there wasn't much for Smiley Burnette to do. His comic relief is a key element in every story, but here Smiley was shuffled off to the side, and what's more, there were no song vignettes by any cowboy music stars, a treat we had come to expect, having seen a different band in every movie so far.
I still give "Snake River Desperadoes" two thumbs up, even though there was no Snake River, and it was never mentioned once. The title was chosen because it sounds good, haha. As reported before, these movies get an automatic Two Thumbs because they were created in a time of different values, a time not of innocence but maybe one that was still somewhat free of cynicism. A time of open possibilities.
I love old fashioned Westerns because I like it when the Good Guys win, and when the Bad Guys are exposed for exactly who they are. And in the Durango Kid movies, the Good Guys always win and are inherently good. ////
It actually snowed today in parts of the Valley, not in snowflakes but in small droplets. We didn't get any here in Northridge, but the folks in slightly higher elevations did, and I mention it because it's a pretty rare thing.
Me, I'd hibernate if I could. And I do happen to know of a cave out in Simi Valley. If we don't warm up soon, you may find me there. :)
R.I.P. to Peter Tork of The Monkees. For a brief flash in my life, they were my favorite band, when I was seven years old. In the Summer of '67, I had all their albums and played them even more than The Beatles, and I am sure there were thousands if not millions of kids like me. Peter was the Funny Monkee, kind of like George in the early Beatles, before George got serious.
The Monkees became big enough to have played The Forum in Los Angeles, with the mighty Jimi Hendrix opening for them. They were pretty cool and have many songs that still hold up today.
1967 was The Summer Of Love, and Flower Power and Paisley Shirts.
See you in the morning with a ton of love sent til then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, February 21, 2019
"Payment On Demand" starring Bette Davis
Tonight I watched a film called "Payment On Demand" (1951), starring Bette Davis as the ambitious, domineering wife of a corporate lawyer who breaks the news to her shortly after the movie begins that he wants a divorce. I found this title in a library search for actor Barry Sullivan, who we recently saw in "Forty Guns", and who plays the husband in this case. The opening credits roll with saturated black and white photography on an exterior shot of a beautiful East Coast home, not quite a mansion but close. A sleek, rounded automobile from the style of the early 1950s comes up the long driveway as lush, sweeping string music plays to set the emotional tone.
Once again, it seems we are going to be in Douglas Sirk territory, and we will be, but the story - directed by Curtis Bernhardt - will play out with a blunt show of cruelty that Sirk would never have included because of the spiritual nature of his themes.
As the movie opens, Davis and Sullivan are getting ready to go out for the evening. She had arrived home early to meet her daughter's boyfriend, who she disapproves of. This is Bette Davis at her highfalutin' bitchiest. By the time her husband Sullivan gets home, she is hurrying him to get ready for the party they are scheduled to attend. She nags him on every detail as he gets dressed, and it is clear something is bothering him.
Finally he lets go. This is an excellent performance by Barry Sullivan, and he doesn't blow his top but releases his frustration in a way that suggests he is somewhere in between a complete wimp and a man in control of himself and his household. Slowly, as Davis pulls on his bow tie to get it finished so they can leave for the business-oriented party, Sullivan deflates, but as he does so he gains confidence, blurting out his hidden truth to Davis that he wants out of the marriage.
She is Absolutely Shocked, in classic and haughty Bette Davis fashion.
How could this man, who she pushed to the top, want to leave her?
Much of the story is thereafter told in flashback sequences. We see that Davis and Sullivan were once poor farm kids. She was raised by an Aunt who detested her own boyfriend (Sullivan), just as she later would detest her daughter's beau. At the beginning of their marriage, while they were still establishing themselves, they truly were in love, but then Bette Davis' materialism took over. No amount of money or accomplishment was enough. Barry Sullivan is happy with being a well regarded lawyer and doesn't need, nor want, any more money or acknowledgement. What he wants is a happy family life that includes their two young adult daughters.
Bette Davis keeps pushing for more "success", until he ultimately breaks the news of his desire for a divorce. The news comes down hard and cold, and the plot takes off from there.
I must say that it gets brutal. This is Sirk with the gloves off.
The story is very well written and includes a subplot where Bette Davis hires a Private Eye to track Sullivan's moves with a suspected girlfriend. Davis wants to trap him into a situation where she can prove marital infidelity, and even though it is clear that Sullivan is a harried husband and a good man, and has been driven to his current condition, he is shown no mercy by his wife.
She feels that she made him as a businessman. When they got married, he was a talented lawyer but had no acumen nor desire for riches. She wanted it all, though, and pushed him to go for the heights. And when they got there, it ruined their relationship, because it was all based on her unconscious drive for stature, as she had begun life as a poverty stricken orphan. ////
Sounds pretty depressing, right? And as I said, it is a brutal story. It is told in a very elegant way, however, which is why I have compared it to the films made by Douglas Sirk, who directed what might be called "heavenly tragedies".
Now, you know that Bette Davis the actress was never going to let herself be cast in that way. She could be a tragedienne, but not without asserting herself and getting in the last word, which she does here, after a long drawn out final act where she discovers what it is like to be alone and to no longer have power over her husband.////
I am not an expert on her career, but I am surprised that "Payment On Demand" is not mentioned when critics review Davis' work. Actually, I had never even heard of this film until I did my search on Barry Sullivan. I find this somewhat inexplicable, as the movie has a 7.4 rating on IMDB, and is a first rate melodrama on all fronts. The storyline includes many other relationships between characters I haven't mentioned, including a lot of catty ladies who try to falsely commiserate with Davis after they gleefully learn of her bad news.
This script is one of those I have talked about in the past when I mention the high level of writing in the Golden Era. To write in such detail and to tie all the ends together and do it with depth takes a very big talent, and this is what Bruce Manning and director Bernhardt did here.
Great actors need great writing to work from. In "Payment On Demand", they had it.
It isn't a pretty story, and you may not feel uplifted when you watch it (and you may need a Martini).
But boy is it ever powerful, and also a cautionary tale as well.
Two Very Big Thumbs Up, with a special nod to underappreciated actor Barry Sullivan, who turns in a low key performance that has high impact. ////
Before I sign off, a shout out to Elizabeth. I saw your post on Instagram and am glad to hear that you are making another film. I had thought you were gone from social media because you hadn't posted since last Fall, but at any rate, I know it will be a success. I hope you will post more updates, if you can. :)
That's all I know for tonight. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Once again, it seems we are going to be in Douglas Sirk territory, and we will be, but the story - directed by Curtis Bernhardt - will play out with a blunt show of cruelty that Sirk would never have included because of the spiritual nature of his themes.
As the movie opens, Davis and Sullivan are getting ready to go out for the evening. She had arrived home early to meet her daughter's boyfriend, who she disapproves of. This is Bette Davis at her highfalutin' bitchiest. By the time her husband Sullivan gets home, she is hurrying him to get ready for the party they are scheduled to attend. She nags him on every detail as he gets dressed, and it is clear something is bothering him.
Finally he lets go. This is an excellent performance by Barry Sullivan, and he doesn't blow his top but releases his frustration in a way that suggests he is somewhere in between a complete wimp and a man in control of himself and his household. Slowly, as Davis pulls on his bow tie to get it finished so they can leave for the business-oriented party, Sullivan deflates, but as he does so he gains confidence, blurting out his hidden truth to Davis that he wants out of the marriage.
She is Absolutely Shocked, in classic and haughty Bette Davis fashion.
How could this man, who she pushed to the top, want to leave her?
Much of the story is thereafter told in flashback sequences. We see that Davis and Sullivan were once poor farm kids. She was raised by an Aunt who detested her own boyfriend (Sullivan), just as she later would detest her daughter's beau. At the beginning of their marriage, while they were still establishing themselves, they truly were in love, but then Bette Davis' materialism took over. No amount of money or accomplishment was enough. Barry Sullivan is happy with being a well regarded lawyer and doesn't need, nor want, any more money or acknowledgement. What he wants is a happy family life that includes their two young adult daughters.
Bette Davis keeps pushing for more "success", until he ultimately breaks the news of his desire for a divorce. The news comes down hard and cold, and the plot takes off from there.
I must say that it gets brutal. This is Sirk with the gloves off.
The story is very well written and includes a subplot where Bette Davis hires a Private Eye to track Sullivan's moves with a suspected girlfriend. Davis wants to trap him into a situation where she can prove marital infidelity, and even though it is clear that Sullivan is a harried husband and a good man, and has been driven to his current condition, he is shown no mercy by his wife.
She feels that she made him as a businessman. When they got married, he was a talented lawyer but had no acumen nor desire for riches. She wanted it all, though, and pushed him to go for the heights. And when they got there, it ruined their relationship, because it was all based on her unconscious drive for stature, as she had begun life as a poverty stricken orphan. ////
Sounds pretty depressing, right? And as I said, it is a brutal story. It is told in a very elegant way, however, which is why I have compared it to the films made by Douglas Sirk, who directed what might be called "heavenly tragedies".
Now, you know that Bette Davis the actress was never going to let herself be cast in that way. She could be a tragedienne, but not without asserting herself and getting in the last word, which she does here, after a long drawn out final act where she discovers what it is like to be alone and to no longer have power over her husband.////
I am not an expert on her career, but I am surprised that "Payment On Demand" is not mentioned when critics review Davis' work. Actually, I had never even heard of this film until I did my search on Barry Sullivan. I find this somewhat inexplicable, as the movie has a 7.4 rating on IMDB, and is a first rate melodrama on all fronts. The storyline includes many other relationships between characters I haven't mentioned, including a lot of catty ladies who try to falsely commiserate with Davis after they gleefully learn of her bad news.
This script is one of those I have talked about in the past when I mention the high level of writing in the Golden Era. To write in such detail and to tie all the ends together and do it with depth takes a very big talent, and this is what Bruce Manning and director Bernhardt did here.
Great actors need great writing to work from. In "Payment On Demand", they had it.
It isn't a pretty story, and you may not feel uplifted when you watch it (and you may need a Martini).
But boy is it ever powerful, and also a cautionary tale as well.
Two Very Big Thumbs Up, with a special nod to underappreciated actor Barry Sullivan, who turns in a low key performance that has high impact. ////
Before I sign off, a shout out to Elizabeth. I saw your post on Instagram and am glad to hear that you are making another film. I had thought you were gone from social media because you hadn't posted since last Fall, but at any rate, I know it will be a success. I hope you will post more updates, if you can. :)
That's all I know for tonight. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
The Durango Kid in "Lightning Guns" (1950) + Freezing
Tonight, following our brief return to the high art and emotional depth of Kenji Mizoguchi, we welcomed back The Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) in "Lightning Guns" (1950). The Kid's movies may never qualify as cinematic masterworks; they may never be released on Criterion, but they are always a lot of fun, and what's more - they deliver the Western goods, every time.
Here we have Smiley Burnette riding into town in Piute County, having remade himself as a bathtub salesman. Smiley is a born huckster to begin with, and he always has a song or two to promote whatever enterprise he is engaged in, which always changes with every movie. He may also have an advance copy of the script, because his bathtub business just so happens to coincide with a water war that is taking place between the two biggest landowners in the county, over the construction of a dam that is being built and financed by Landowner #1. A river runs through his property and that of Landowner #2, and #1 wants to build the dam to benefit all of the other ranchers and ordinary citizens of the valley, who don't have the benefit of a consistent water supply.
Landowner #2 objects because he feels the dam construction is being forced upon him, like an eminent domain type of deal. He comes across as a right winger at first, and there are some masked bad guys who are trying to dynamite the construction process who seem to work for him. At first, the entire issue is only a one-on-one conflict between the two ranchers. But then the "hired hands" kill a young man who was working at the dam site.
That's when "Steve" shows up, with yet another different surname (see other Durango Kid blogs about the "Steve" character). He attempts to persuade Landowner #2 of the dam's benefit for himself, and for the entire citizenry, but to no avail. The old coot is in a feud with #1. No amount of reason is gonna change his mind. What he doesn't realize, though, is that three of his employees (the "hired hands"), are plotting against him on behalf of a secret conspirator, who wishes to defeat both Landowners by causing a war of attrition between them, causing them to be killed or end up in jail so that he can wind up with all the land for himself.
A pretty good plot for a one hour film, eh? And that's what I mean by saying that these Kid movies really entertain from start to finish. There is a difference in scene length from standard releases running the normal 90 to 120 minutes. In a 60 minute film, every scene is based on action, meaning that the story is constantly being moved forward through short sequences based on investigative revelations.
A man is killed? Well, who did it?
The Durango Kid is already on scene, like a police detective, except that he is not constrained by organizational rules. He rides alone, though he is never unjust.
"Steve" is his everyday life alter ego, the Good Guy who relates to the public, and who also fires a fast gun. The Black Suited Durango does the dirty work of getting rid of the bad guys, but he does it in a clean way. And in the Durango Kid movies, as I have said before, you always get the comic relief and musical interludes of Smiley Burnette, who in this movie is paired with a fantastic cowboy singer named Ken Houchins. As a music fan, I must reiterate that - while I might not have this music in my cd player - I nevertheless think that these Western musicians and singers are fantastic musicians.....
As for the plot, in the past, in the movies, it was taken for granted that The Good Guys Always Won.
Every kid from my generation knew that, because we watched so many cowboy movies and cop shows and war films. And despite all the ambiguities that have cropped up philosophically in the decades since I was a kid, I think it is a hopeful thing to say, or wish for, that The Good Guys Always Win, just like they do in old Western movies.
I watched the interview of Andrew McCabe tonight, on the Lawrence O'Donnell show, and I think that The Good Guys will win this one, too, and when they do, the Bad Guy will end up in jail where he belongs. ////
I don't know about you, but I am done with this freezing cold weather. This has been the coldest winter for us cold wimps in recent memory, though I do recall one of similar horribility in 2007. Tonight it will supposedly go down to 32.
I do hope it ends soon, and I see a hopeful sign in the ten day forecast, of a possible 68 degree day in early March. Now, that doesn't exactly cut it. We used to have 80 degree days in January. But I'll take anything I can get at this point, because I am just not made for cold temperatures. Even 60 degrees would be a respite, lol.
Reading books, doing my job and waiting for Spring. :)
See you in the morning. Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Here we have Smiley Burnette riding into town in Piute County, having remade himself as a bathtub salesman. Smiley is a born huckster to begin with, and he always has a song or two to promote whatever enterprise he is engaged in, which always changes with every movie. He may also have an advance copy of the script, because his bathtub business just so happens to coincide with a water war that is taking place between the two biggest landowners in the county, over the construction of a dam that is being built and financed by Landowner #1. A river runs through his property and that of Landowner #2, and #1 wants to build the dam to benefit all of the other ranchers and ordinary citizens of the valley, who don't have the benefit of a consistent water supply.
Landowner #2 objects because he feels the dam construction is being forced upon him, like an eminent domain type of deal. He comes across as a right winger at first, and there are some masked bad guys who are trying to dynamite the construction process who seem to work for him. At first, the entire issue is only a one-on-one conflict between the two ranchers. But then the "hired hands" kill a young man who was working at the dam site.
That's when "Steve" shows up, with yet another different surname (see other Durango Kid blogs about the "Steve" character). He attempts to persuade Landowner #2 of the dam's benefit for himself, and for the entire citizenry, but to no avail. The old coot is in a feud with #1. No amount of reason is gonna change his mind. What he doesn't realize, though, is that three of his employees (the "hired hands"), are plotting against him on behalf of a secret conspirator, who wishes to defeat both Landowners by causing a war of attrition between them, causing them to be killed or end up in jail so that he can wind up with all the land for himself.
A pretty good plot for a one hour film, eh? And that's what I mean by saying that these Kid movies really entertain from start to finish. There is a difference in scene length from standard releases running the normal 90 to 120 minutes. In a 60 minute film, every scene is based on action, meaning that the story is constantly being moved forward through short sequences based on investigative revelations.
A man is killed? Well, who did it?
The Durango Kid is already on scene, like a police detective, except that he is not constrained by organizational rules. He rides alone, though he is never unjust.
"Steve" is his everyday life alter ego, the Good Guy who relates to the public, and who also fires a fast gun. The Black Suited Durango does the dirty work of getting rid of the bad guys, but he does it in a clean way. And in the Durango Kid movies, as I have said before, you always get the comic relief and musical interludes of Smiley Burnette, who in this movie is paired with a fantastic cowboy singer named Ken Houchins. As a music fan, I must reiterate that - while I might not have this music in my cd player - I nevertheless think that these Western musicians and singers are fantastic musicians.....
As for the plot, in the past, in the movies, it was taken for granted that The Good Guys Always Won.
Every kid from my generation knew that, because we watched so many cowboy movies and cop shows and war films. And despite all the ambiguities that have cropped up philosophically in the decades since I was a kid, I think it is a hopeful thing to say, or wish for, that The Good Guys Always Win, just like they do in old Western movies.
I watched the interview of Andrew McCabe tonight, on the Lawrence O'Donnell show, and I think that The Good Guys will win this one, too, and when they do, the Bad Guy will end up in jail where he belongs. ////
I don't know about you, but I am done with this freezing cold weather. This has been the coldest winter for us cold wimps in recent memory, though I do recall one of similar horribility in 2007. Tonight it will supposedly go down to 32.
I do hope it ends soon, and I see a hopeful sign in the ten day forecast, of a possible 68 degree day in early March. Now, that doesn't exactly cut it. We used to have 80 degree days in January. But I'll take anything I can get at this point, because I am just not made for cold temperatures. Even 60 degrees would be a respite, lol.
Reading books, doing my job and waiting for Spring. :)
See you in the morning. Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
"A Story From Chikamatsu", another Mizoguchi Masterpiece
Tonight I watched another film from director Kenji Mizoguchi, "A Story From Chikamatsu" (1954), recently released on Criterion and discovered in a library database search. You will recall that I had completed an eight film mini-retrospective on Mizoguchi around mid-December or so. At the time, those eight films were all that were available to me (four from the Libe and four that I bought), so it was a bonus to all of a sudden find "Chikamatsu". It turned out to be another Mizoguchi Masterpiece.
In 17th Century feudal Japan, Mohei is a skilled printer of scrolls and calendars, working as a top assistant to the wealthy owner of the print shop, who is known as the Grand Master. This man's name is Ishun, and he also owns a great deal of land and has influence in his prefecture. Ishun is a blowhard and a hypocrite, however, because although he has a beautiful and faithful wife (thirty years his junior), he is shown sneaking into a servant girl's bedroom at night to request her attentions. He promises to buy the girl a house, but she begs him to leave her alone. Thinking of a quick excuse not to comply with the Master's wishes, she tells him that she is planning to marry Mohei, his star employee. Though he doesn't really believe her, he backs off for the time being.
Meanwhile, Osan - the Grand Master's wife - has approached the decent and honorable Mohei for a loan. Though she is married to a very rich man, she cannot ask him for money because he won't give her any. He is solicitous to her and treats her as an equal when company is present, but really he considers her his property, as she was "given" to him in an arranged marriage.
This is Mizoguchi Territory, an examination and exposure of the terrible misogyny that was part of the foundation of patriarchal Japanese culture for hundreds of years.
Osan, the wife, has come to Mohei, her husband's assistant, because her brother needs money to pay a business debt. Without immediate payment, he will go to jail and the family shop, owned by their mother, will be closed down. As mentioned above, Osan cannot go to Ishun, her wealthy husband, for the money, because he has no care for her family. He has given them funds in the past, to be sure, but he is like Scrooge in that every cent given and every cent loaned is written down and accounted for. He is a usurer who extorts his debtors for payment.
Mohei, though, is a kind soul who is sympathetic to Osan's plight. He addresses her with respect, as "Madame", and promises to deliver the loan the next day. The only problem is that he doesn't have the money. So he forges a note, based on a false payment slip, in order to embezzle the funds from the cashbox for the loan to Madame.
But then a co-worker sees him, and Mohei is busted. All his years of good apprenticeship now count for nothing, because he has met in secret with the owner's wife. Never mind that he only meant to help her out of a financial jam, and that the loan would've amounted to peanuts - he, and Ishun's wife, are now accused of adultery.
We have seen earlier in the film a lurid procession in the town's streets of other adulterers who have been caught and are now being paraded on their way to being crucified.
Yes indeed, this is Mizoguchi saying that Japan, in the 17th century, used crucifixion as the means to deal with adulterers, who were seen as a scourge who caused trouble not only for their families, but for the surrounding community, because of the shame that was brought.
But there was no shame, nor crucifixion, for powerful men such as the print shop owner Ishun, who is shown openly propositioning young women in the streets.
The plot, as described here, may seem very convoluted, but onscreen it flows. The plans of Ishun to prosecute his wife must be tempered by a desire to protect his business and his position. After all, adultery affects the entire community; if a wife is caught, her husband's shop or factory must be closed as well. Shame is the major factor, and we in the modern world are aware of the concept of "saving face".
What Kenji Mizoguchi shows us is the overwhelming hypocrisy at work, how many of the men at the top were phonies (hey, nothing is new!), and how many other men in the upper regions of the labor force would plot against their corrupt bosses in order to take their place.
Love is the main theme here, however, because as Mohei and Madame escape through the mountains from the Shogun police investigators, he confesses to her that he has always been in love with her.
But in Mizoguchi's ancient Japan (and almost up to the early 20th century), the concept of "love" was given a far backseat to "arranged tradition". If you were a woman, or even a decent man, nobody in power gave a damn about who you loved. They arranged things so that you married who you were told to marry.
And so real love affairs were carried out in secret, against the threat of crucifixion.
Love is only played out in the context of tragedy because it gets in the way of making money, and women, if they do not acquiesce to men, are made to pay the price, as are any good men who come to their rescue. ////
There is quite a bit of plot beyond what I have described, as Mohei and Madame try to escape their persecutors, and as Ishun the Grand Master attempts to hide his wife's involvement so as not to have his printing business shut down.
The black and white photography is magnificent, and as a final thought I will again say that Mizoguchi must be considered among the top directors of all time, and I mean at the very top.
He goes to the heart of the matter of life, and I urge you to watch his movies for yourself, and see.
That's all for tonight. Much love until the morning, then more all day tomorrow.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
In 17th Century feudal Japan, Mohei is a skilled printer of scrolls and calendars, working as a top assistant to the wealthy owner of the print shop, who is known as the Grand Master. This man's name is Ishun, and he also owns a great deal of land and has influence in his prefecture. Ishun is a blowhard and a hypocrite, however, because although he has a beautiful and faithful wife (thirty years his junior), he is shown sneaking into a servant girl's bedroom at night to request her attentions. He promises to buy the girl a house, but she begs him to leave her alone. Thinking of a quick excuse not to comply with the Master's wishes, she tells him that she is planning to marry Mohei, his star employee. Though he doesn't really believe her, he backs off for the time being.
Meanwhile, Osan - the Grand Master's wife - has approached the decent and honorable Mohei for a loan. Though she is married to a very rich man, she cannot ask him for money because he won't give her any. He is solicitous to her and treats her as an equal when company is present, but really he considers her his property, as she was "given" to him in an arranged marriage.
This is Mizoguchi Territory, an examination and exposure of the terrible misogyny that was part of the foundation of patriarchal Japanese culture for hundreds of years.
Osan, the wife, has come to Mohei, her husband's assistant, because her brother needs money to pay a business debt. Without immediate payment, he will go to jail and the family shop, owned by their mother, will be closed down. As mentioned above, Osan cannot go to Ishun, her wealthy husband, for the money, because he has no care for her family. He has given them funds in the past, to be sure, but he is like Scrooge in that every cent given and every cent loaned is written down and accounted for. He is a usurer who extorts his debtors for payment.
Mohei, though, is a kind soul who is sympathetic to Osan's plight. He addresses her with respect, as "Madame", and promises to deliver the loan the next day. The only problem is that he doesn't have the money. So he forges a note, based on a false payment slip, in order to embezzle the funds from the cashbox for the loan to Madame.
But then a co-worker sees him, and Mohei is busted. All his years of good apprenticeship now count for nothing, because he has met in secret with the owner's wife. Never mind that he only meant to help her out of a financial jam, and that the loan would've amounted to peanuts - he, and Ishun's wife, are now accused of adultery.
We have seen earlier in the film a lurid procession in the town's streets of other adulterers who have been caught and are now being paraded on their way to being crucified.
Yes indeed, this is Mizoguchi saying that Japan, in the 17th century, used crucifixion as the means to deal with adulterers, who were seen as a scourge who caused trouble not only for their families, but for the surrounding community, because of the shame that was brought.
But there was no shame, nor crucifixion, for powerful men such as the print shop owner Ishun, who is shown openly propositioning young women in the streets.
The plot, as described here, may seem very convoluted, but onscreen it flows. The plans of Ishun to prosecute his wife must be tempered by a desire to protect his business and his position. After all, adultery affects the entire community; if a wife is caught, her husband's shop or factory must be closed as well. Shame is the major factor, and we in the modern world are aware of the concept of "saving face".
What Kenji Mizoguchi shows us is the overwhelming hypocrisy at work, how many of the men at the top were phonies (hey, nothing is new!), and how many other men in the upper regions of the labor force would plot against their corrupt bosses in order to take their place.
Love is the main theme here, however, because as Mohei and Madame escape through the mountains from the Shogun police investigators, he confesses to her that he has always been in love with her.
But in Mizoguchi's ancient Japan (and almost up to the early 20th century), the concept of "love" was given a far backseat to "arranged tradition". If you were a woman, or even a decent man, nobody in power gave a damn about who you loved. They arranged things so that you married who you were told to marry.
And so real love affairs were carried out in secret, against the threat of crucifixion.
Love is only played out in the context of tragedy because it gets in the way of making money, and women, if they do not acquiesce to men, are made to pay the price, as are any good men who come to their rescue. ////
There is quite a bit of plot beyond what I have described, as Mohei and Madame try to escape their persecutors, and as Ishun the Grand Master attempts to hide his wife's involvement so as not to have his printing business shut down.
The black and white photography is magnificent, and as a final thought I will again say that Mizoguchi must be considered among the top directors of all time, and I mean at the very top.
He goes to the heart of the matter of life, and I urge you to watch his movies for yourself, and see.
That's all for tonight. Much love until the morning, then more all day tomorrow.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Monday, February 18, 2019
"Voyage" + Hedison + "Fly" + "Decoy" + Frozen
I didn't watch a movie tonight, but I did watch an episode of "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea", so the evening wasn't a total loss. A computer genius has designed a system to fully automate the Seaview. The onboard "superbrain", as it is referred to, will run every operation on the sub, from the engine room to the navigation deck. It will even fire missiles at an enemy, should that be necessary. This supercomputer makes human command and control obsolete. It makes the Seaview the world's first "driverless" submarine, 55 years in advance of all of these dangerous cars that are being proposed.
You'll never get me in a driverless car, that's for sure, but in the case of the Seaview, a provision in Maritime Law states that any ship has to have at least one passenger to avoid being classified as "abandoned", and therefore open to being towed away and claimed by any vessel that should happen upon it.
Captain Crane (David Hedison of "The Fly" fame) is therefore assigned as the tag-along rider. The computer scientist is so sure of his system that he tells Crane he will literally need to do nothing to run the ship. The computer will do it all (even in 1964). A test run of the modified Seaview is scheduled for immediate launch. Captain Crane wryly promises not to "touch any buttons".
But there is one contingency that no one has contemplated, except for maybe Donald Trump.
The Russians already know about this advanced supercomputer. In Cold War era sci-fi television and movies, they are always the evil masterminds. So : a diabolical Russian General sends a Super Spy to stow away aboard the ship. He does so, wearing a velour zip up suit, moving stealthily with pistol in 90 degree cocked right arm. The Russkie proceeds to sabotage the wiring system of the ship's communications, so that David Hedison is now isolated, cut off from his command.
You know how I wrote about cattle stampedes, and how one might be appropriate at a certain time in any given movie?
Well in this case we have a different situation, because if David Hedison was "The Fly" here, instead of being Captain Crane, this Russian agent - and the time-reversed Donald Trump who sent him in 1964 - would both have thought twice about trying to take over the Seaview.
Because, I mean........the spy is gonna disable the submarine, so his comrades can tow it back to Mother Russia.....but what if all of a sudden The Fly jumped out at him from behind one of those raised submarine doorways?
What if it was The Fly, instead of Captain Crane?
I will tell you what would've happened; that Russkie would've jumped ship and Trump would've nev...
wait a minute.......would he never have been elected president in this set of circumstances?
You might be able to determine the answer better than I, as you are reading this on a Monday morning after a good night's sleep, whilst I am writing it on a Sunday night with eyes held open by toothpicks.
We had good singing in church this morning. Besides our anthem we had two gospel hymns, some of my favorites to sing because you can let loose with the inspiration.
I also watched a 30 minute episode of a show from 1957 called "Decoy", that stars Beverly Garland as a New York City policewoman. This show was recommended to me by Amazon, and I had a purchase credit on Best Buy, so I got the entire series on dvd for six bucks. It's really good. I've watched five eps so far, every one a hard-boiled crime story, and you get incredible Eisenhower era location footage from NYC in every episode, so you can see the city as it was. I've never been to New York but Dad spent a lot of time there, and I would love to see it someday. I feel as if I know the neighborhoods just a little bit, from the movies and TV.
I don't know about you, but I am really on the ropes with this freezing weather. This has been the coldest February I can recall in at least a decade. If there were such a thing as a Microwave Freezer (as opposed to a Microwave Oven), I would feel as if I had been frozen in one, starting from the inside, because microwaves cook you from the inside out. And that's how I am frozen, from my bones outward. :)
I am officially a Popsicle.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
You'll never get me in a driverless car, that's for sure, but in the case of the Seaview, a provision in Maritime Law states that any ship has to have at least one passenger to avoid being classified as "abandoned", and therefore open to being towed away and claimed by any vessel that should happen upon it.
Captain Crane (David Hedison of "The Fly" fame) is therefore assigned as the tag-along rider. The computer scientist is so sure of his system that he tells Crane he will literally need to do nothing to run the ship. The computer will do it all (even in 1964). A test run of the modified Seaview is scheduled for immediate launch. Captain Crane wryly promises not to "touch any buttons".
But there is one contingency that no one has contemplated, except for maybe Donald Trump.
The Russians already know about this advanced supercomputer. In Cold War era sci-fi television and movies, they are always the evil masterminds. So : a diabolical Russian General sends a Super Spy to stow away aboard the ship. He does so, wearing a velour zip up suit, moving stealthily with pistol in 90 degree cocked right arm. The Russkie proceeds to sabotage the wiring system of the ship's communications, so that David Hedison is now isolated, cut off from his command.
You know how I wrote about cattle stampedes, and how one might be appropriate at a certain time in any given movie?
Well in this case we have a different situation, because if David Hedison was "The Fly" here, instead of being Captain Crane, this Russian agent - and the time-reversed Donald Trump who sent him in 1964 - would both have thought twice about trying to take over the Seaview.
Because, I mean........the spy is gonna disable the submarine, so his comrades can tow it back to Mother Russia.....but what if all of a sudden The Fly jumped out at him from behind one of those raised submarine doorways?
What if it was The Fly, instead of Captain Crane?
I will tell you what would've happened; that Russkie would've jumped ship and Trump would've nev...
wait a minute.......would he never have been elected president in this set of circumstances?
You might be able to determine the answer better than I, as you are reading this on a Monday morning after a good night's sleep, whilst I am writing it on a Sunday night with eyes held open by toothpicks.
We had good singing in church this morning. Besides our anthem we had two gospel hymns, some of my favorites to sing because you can let loose with the inspiration.
I also watched a 30 minute episode of a show from 1957 called "Decoy", that stars Beverly Garland as a New York City policewoman. This show was recommended to me by Amazon, and I had a purchase credit on Best Buy, so I got the entire series on dvd for six bucks. It's really good. I've watched five eps so far, every one a hard-boiled crime story, and you get incredible Eisenhower era location footage from NYC in every episode, so you can see the city as it was. I've never been to New York but Dad spent a lot of time there, and I would love to see it someday. I feel as if I know the neighborhoods just a little bit, from the movies and TV.
I don't know about you, but I am really on the ropes with this freezing weather. This has been the coldest February I can recall in at least a decade. If there were such a thing as a Microwave Freezer (as opposed to a Microwave Oven), I would feel as if I had been frozen in one, starting from the inside, because microwaves cook you from the inside out. And that's how I am frozen, from my bones outward. :)
I am officially a Popsicle.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Sunday, February 17, 2019
"Design For Living", directed by Ernst Lubitsch, with Gary Cooper, Frederic March and Miriam Hopkins
Tonight's movie was "Design For Living" (1933), a highly entertaining pre-Code relationship comedy directed by the legendary Ernst Lubitsch, whose equally sophisticated "Trouble In Paradise" we saw a while back. Lubitsch' style is similar to classic screwball comedy, but without the rapid fire repartee. He also had a look to his pictures that was very elegant, with the blacks and whites (and grey scale) of his Art Deco interiors all perfectly saturated, and every person and object in the frame lined up and squared away. I mentioned before that his visuals flow like liquid and this was evident again tonight.
Gary Cooper and Frederic March are two Americans in France, taking a train to Paris. They are half asleep when Miriam Hopkins walks into their compartment and sits across from them. She is a sketch artist for an advertising agency, and also a saucy free spirit, as we see that many of the female protagonists are in these pre-Code movies. Hopkins was tailor made for such a role, and no sooner does she sit down here in the train compartment, then she starts to draw a caricature of the two sleeping men, who just so happen to be very handsome. She, of course, is pretty and vivacious.
Cooper and March awaken and are startled to see a woman in their room. This is followed by their being briefly incensed, for about ten seconds, at the goofy drawing she has made of them, which is in turn followed by each man attempting to outdo the other in their introductions to her. This is stylised comedy from the opening lines, every sentence and every gesture has been timed and worked out.
Both men are artists themselves, not in the commercial sense like Hopkins, but as "true to self" Bohemians. March is an aspiring playwright. Cooper is a painter. Neither has a dime to his name, but both are smitten with Miriam from the start and seek to woo her in a not unfriendly competition of one-upsmanship. She's got the goods on these guys because she is a Bohemian at heart herself. She is also carrying the sex appeal. She sees their desire and calls a truce, as the trio arrive in Paris and settle into their lives and apartments.
Hopkins professes a "fondness" for both March and Cooper. They hate this wimpy term (because she exudes quite a bit more feeling for each), but she is not one for settling down. So the truce is to be a platonic relationship between the three, with Hopkins obviously holding the reins. The men are aware of her power over them and conspire to reject her........but neither can go through with it.
Meanwhile, there is a Third Rail (or is it a Fifth Wheel?) in the relationship. Miriam Hopkins has a boss at her agency, played by Edward Everett Horton of "Fractured Flickers" fame, who is a no-sex-appeal fussbudget, and also has a crush on her. He is loaded with money, and aspires to make more, and he tells the two artistic "hooligans", as he calls them, that there is something to be said for what he can provide to the lady, namely security. He is the proverbial millionaire seeking a trophy wife.
At first, his attempts to shoo the two suitors away come to nothing. First she falls in love with Gary Cooper, and the platonic pact is broken, in a very suggestive yet discrete pre-Code way. Feeling guilty, Hopkins uses her society connections to promote the neglected March's latest play, which he has been working on since the start of the movie.
Through her promotion, his play is sold to a major promoter, and it takes off.
The next we see of them, she has married the penniless painter Cooper; March has become a major light in the world of theater, highly successful, and the Fifth Wheel (Horton), still looms in the background.
Hopkins is like a Muse of sorts. Whomever she turns her favor toward will have success in their chosen endeavor. They only fall when they try to possess her, and again here in the pre-Code era we have a portrayal, 80 years in advance, of the model of the Modern Independent Woman.
The man is always depicted as being dependent, romantically speaking, in these movies.
In real life, it is probably about equal.
The best is when no one is made to feel dependent when a couple is on equal terms emotionally.
But this is a Lubitsch comedy from the 1930s, when women were first coming into their own, culturally.
In real life, women have always run the show in their own way. It's a delicate balance between the sexes.
There are many relationship changes in "Design For Living". It's almost like a game of Musical Chairs, and you know that eventually every man is going to feel himself excluded (and then included).
Hopkins is in no way a tramp. In fact, she elaborates on how it seems to be okay for men to audition any number of women for marriage, but the same doesn't seem to be true for women.
There is a lot of sexual commentary going on here - advanced for it's time - and as the movie was made from a Noel Coward play, I can see why he was considered such a wit in his day, on the level of Oscar Wilde.
As played by the talented cast, "Design For Living" is subtle but pushing the sexual boundaries for the time, but most of all it is very funny and stylish in the way of the classic studio films of the 1930s.
I have only seen two or three of Ernst Lubitsch's films, but each one has been excellent and worthy of Two Very Big Thumbs Up, as is this one.
It took a high level of talent on every level - from the writers to the set designers to the carpenters to the camera men, to the lighting crew, to the director and actors.....really the whole studio, to make these movies as great as they were in the Golden Era. You have to see them to appreciate them, and I recommend that you do. They were the cream of the crop back then.
I am gonna get some sleep now as we have church in the morning.
I will see you there. Love all night long in the meantime. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Gary Cooper and Frederic March are two Americans in France, taking a train to Paris. They are half asleep when Miriam Hopkins walks into their compartment and sits across from them. She is a sketch artist for an advertising agency, and also a saucy free spirit, as we see that many of the female protagonists are in these pre-Code movies. Hopkins was tailor made for such a role, and no sooner does she sit down here in the train compartment, then she starts to draw a caricature of the two sleeping men, who just so happen to be very handsome. She, of course, is pretty and vivacious.
Cooper and March awaken and are startled to see a woman in their room. This is followed by their being briefly incensed, for about ten seconds, at the goofy drawing she has made of them, which is in turn followed by each man attempting to outdo the other in their introductions to her. This is stylised comedy from the opening lines, every sentence and every gesture has been timed and worked out.
Both men are artists themselves, not in the commercial sense like Hopkins, but as "true to self" Bohemians. March is an aspiring playwright. Cooper is a painter. Neither has a dime to his name, but both are smitten with Miriam from the start and seek to woo her in a not unfriendly competition of one-upsmanship. She's got the goods on these guys because she is a Bohemian at heart herself. She is also carrying the sex appeal. She sees their desire and calls a truce, as the trio arrive in Paris and settle into their lives and apartments.
Hopkins professes a "fondness" for both March and Cooper. They hate this wimpy term (because she exudes quite a bit more feeling for each), but she is not one for settling down. So the truce is to be a platonic relationship between the three, with Hopkins obviously holding the reins. The men are aware of her power over them and conspire to reject her........but neither can go through with it.
Meanwhile, there is a Third Rail (or is it a Fifth Wheel?) in the relationship. Miriam Hopkins has a boss at her agency, played by Edward Everett Horton of "Fractured Flickers" fame, who is a no-sex-appeal fussbudget, and also has a crush on her. He is loaded with money, and aspires to make more, and he tells the two artistic "hooligans", as he calls them, that there is something to be said for what he can provide to the lady, namely security. He is the proverbial millionaire seeking a trophy wife.
At first, his attempts to shoo the two suitors away come to nothing. First she falls in love with Gary Cooper, and the platonic pact is broken, in a very suggestive yet discrete pre-Code way. Feeling guilty, Hopkins uses her society connections to promote the neglected March's latest play, which he has been working on since the start of the movie.
Through her promotion, his play is sold to a major promoter, and it takes off.
The next we see of them, she has married the penniless painter Cooper; March has become a major light in the world of theater, highly successful, and the Fifth Wheel (Horton), still looms in the background.
Hopkins is like a Muse of sorts. Whomever she turns her favor toward will have success in their chosen endeavor. They only fall when they try to possess her, and again here in the pre-Code era we have a portrayal, 80 years in advance, of the model of the Modern Independent Woman.
The man is always depicted as being dependent, romantically speaking, in these movies.
In real life, it is probably about equal.
The best is when no one is made to feel dependent when a couple is on equal terms emotionally.
But this is a Lubitsch comedy from the 1930s, when women were first coming into their own, culturally.
In real life, women have always run the show in their own way. It's a delicate balance between the sexes.
There are many relationship changes in "Design For Living". It's almost like a game of Musical Chairs, and you know that eventually every man is going to feel himself excluded (and then included).
Hopkins is in no way a tramp. In fact, she elaborates on how it seems to be okay for men to audition any number of women for marriage, but the same doesn't seem to be true for women.
There is a lot of sexual commentary going on here - advanced for it's time - and as the movie was made from a Noel Coward play, I can see why he was considered such a wit in his day, on the level of Oscar Wilde.
As played by the talented cast, "Design For Living" is subtle but pushing the sexual boundaries for the time, but most of all it is very funny and stylish in the way of the classic studio films of the 1930s.
I have only seen two or three of Ernst Lubitsch's films, but each one has been excellent and worthy of Two Very Big Thumbs Up, as is this one.
It took a high level of talent on every level - from the writers to the set designers to the carpenters to the camera men, to the lighting crew, to the director and actors.....really the whole studio, to make these movies as great as they were in the Golden Era. You have to see them to appreciate them, and I recommend that you do. They were the cream of the crop back then.
I am gonna get some sleep now as we have church in the morning.
I will see you there. Love all night long in the meantime. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Saturday, February 16, 2019
"Bigger Than Life" w/ Chames Mason (totally over the top)
My goodness. Remember that I mentioned that I was gonna have some new movies from the Libe, and that they might provide a change of pace after the several Durango Kid flicks we watched this week? Boy, I wasn't kidding! Cue Monty Python : "And now for something completely different".....
I had found some new Criterion releases in my library search. One of them was called "Bigger Than Life" (1956), directed by Nicholas Ray of "Rebel Without A Cause" fame. This is what I watched tonight, and man was it ever a nerve-wracker. :)
The movie stars James Mason, and before we go any further I must request that you pronounce his first name as "Chames", as in "Chames Mason", because with his perfect yet slightly stilted English accent, that is how he himself would pronounce it, were he ever to say his own name.
I thank you for your cooperation in this and in all pronunciation matters.
Back to the movie, Mason is a schoolteacher, a little strict but reasonable. Very early in, we see that he is suffering from occasional attacks of what looks to be sharp pain in his back, or his side. He is doubled over near the drinking fountain or the coatroom. He tries to hide this affliction from his students and fellow teachers because he is stoic, but some of them notice.
His wife notices something else, that Mason seems to be busy with school meetings three or four nights a week. This seems unusual, so she questions him about it. He chalks it up to school politics, but she silently believes he is having an affair. This notion is dispensed with quickly, because he is not seeing anyone. He is a loving husband, but he does have a secret; he has been working a second job, as a taxi dispatcher in the evenings, to help make ends meet. His teachers' salary doesn't cut it, as all teachers are aware. Now his wife (Barbara Rush) knows the truth, and she loves him even more for it. Her fears were unwarranted, and they have an emotional 1950s-style melodramatic reconciliation that is actually very genuine. At first, this is like a movie directed by Douglas Sirk, if Nicholas Ray took over midway through to "up" the emotionalism to the breaking point.
Barbara Rush notices her husband's physical spasms, too. He tries to hide his pain, but finally he collapses in the kitchen and she convinces him to see a doctor.
The verdict : a rare inflammation of the arteries, fatal within a year, in the few cases the doctors have seen.
But! There is a new Miracle Drug which holds promise. Will Mason consent to try it?
Of course he will, or we would have a movie that was only thirty minutes long.
The new drug is Cortisone. The doctors call it a hormone; nowdays it is called a steroid. You know it mostly from the shots athletes get in an elbow or knee, to keep 'em in a game. Here in the movie, the drug is brand new, and it is being used to save Mason's life.
But there are side effects to the prolonged use of Cortisone, and this is what the movie is about.
Holy Smokes, I thought I was gonna have to go meditate in the Himalayas when this one was over.
Talk about 'Roid Rage. The day after he is released from the hospital after being given his first dosage of Cortisone, Chames Mason is feeling on top of the world. His pain is gone and he is playing football with his ten year old son (Mason throws a pretty tight spiral, not bad for a middle aged Englishman). Football is a side theme, as he was once a high school hero, another aspect of his disciplined, driven personality, which he tries to impart to both his students and his family. Wife Barbara Rush is the Perfect Acquiescent Spouse of the era. "Yes Dear", is her motto. But she grows increasingly alarmed as Mason's behavior grows more and more erratic. He becomes pumped up with confidence, and - as if drunk - his inner views come out and are exaggerated in public. At a PTA meeting, he declares his students, and all children by nature, to be imbeciles in need of strict guidance. The kids' parents aren't thrilled with his speech, but.....
after he pops a few more Cortisone pills, he is Absolutely Enthused to take his wife on a shopping spree to buy her some very expensive new dresses that they cannot afford. He insists on it, making a show of being cheerful.
Barbara Rush and their son can see something is very wrong, and I must say that - if you have ever seen any manic behavior by a parent due to drugs or alcohol - then you will recognise it too.
Mason becomes so unhinged due to his dependence on Cortisone, that he resorts to impersonating a doctor in order to forge prescriptions. He dominates his wife and son in bizarre ways that seem to reflect a desire to ride them all down the tubes.
Mason's portrayal of drug-induced manic depression is so eerily nuanced, so right on the money, that if you have ever witnessed it in your own life, it will give you the willies.
He tries to hold himself together, but he just keeps getting worse as he swallows double the amount of pills he has been prescribed.
Now, he and the family are at church, and he is loathing the preacher's sermon. He is sure he can do better, and so he goes home to study the bible. People are know-nothings, even the preacher.
What happens after this is so over the top that I might have needed a Martini when the movie was over, if I drank Martinis.
The ending has to do with the Biblical Abraham and his son, and is a full on psychodrama.
"Bigger Than Life" is one Gut Wrenching Movie, pretty weird and very dysfunctional. The acting is perfect all around (Mason going above and beyond), and you also get the sharp and varied pastel Color By Deluxe that set the standard for color motion pictures beginning in the late 1950s through the mid-60s. Deluxe took over where Technicolor left off, and defined the rest of the palette in between the rich primaries. /////
Two Thumbs Up for "Bigger Than Life", but you will be put through the wringer if you watch it.
Maybe we should bring back The Durango Kid?
We will, but not just yet, because we have a couple more movies from the libe to watch first.
See you in the morning, with much love to hold you until then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
I had found some new Criterion releases in my library search. One of them was called "Bigger Than Life" (1956), directed by Nicholas Ray of "Rebel Without A Cause" fame. This is what I watched tonight, and man was it ever a nerve-wracker. :)
The movie stars James Mason, and before we go any further I must request that you pronounce his first name as "Chames", as in "Chames Mason", because with his perfect yet slightly stilted English accent, that is how he himself would pronounce it, were he ever to say his own name.
I thank you for your cooperation in this and in all pronunciation matters.
Back to the movie, Mason is a schoolteacher, a little strict but reasonable. Very early in, we see that he is suffering from occasional attacks of what looks to be sharp pain in his back, or his side. He is doubled over near the drinking fountain or the coatroom. He tries to hide this affliction from his students and fellow teachers because he is stoic, but some of them notice.
His wife notices something else, that Mason seems to be busy with school meetings three or four nights a week. This seems unusual, so she questions him about it. He chalks it up to school politics, but she silently believes he is having an affair. This notion is dispensed with quickly, because he is not seeing anyone. He is a loving husband, but he does have a secret; he has been working a second job, as a taxi dispatcher in the evenings, to help make ends meet. His teachers' salary doesn't cut it, as all teachers are aware. Now his wife (Barbara Rush) knows the truth, and she loves him even more for it. Her fears were unwarranted, and they have an emotional 1950s-style melodramatic reconciliation that is actually very genuine. At first, this is like a movie directed by Douglas Sirk, if Nicholas Ray took over midway through to "up" the emotionalism to the breaking point.
Barbara Rush notices her husband's physical spasms, too. He tries to hide his pain, but finally he collapses in the kitchen and she convinces him to see a doctor.
The verdict : a rare inflammation of the arteries, fatal within a year, in the few cases the doctors have seen.
But! There is a new Miracle Drug which holds promise. Will Mason consent to try it?
Of course he will, or we would have a movie that was only thirty minutes long.
The new drug is Cortisone. The doctors call it a hormone; nowdays it is called a steroid. You know it mostly from the shots athletes get in an elbow or knee, to keep 'em in a game. Here in the movie, the drug is brand new, and it is being used to save Mason's life.
But there are side effects to the prolonged use of Cortisone, and this is what the movie is about.
Holy Smokes, I thought I was gonna have to go meditate in the Himalayas when this one was over.
Talk about 'Roid Rage. The day after he is released from the hospital after being given his first dosage of Cortisone, Chames Mason is feeling on top of the world. His pain is gone and he is playing football with his ten year old son (Mason throws a pretty tight spiral, not bad for a middle aged Englishman). Football is a side theme, as he was once a high school hero, another aspect of his disciplined, driven personality, which he tries to impart to both his students and his family. Wife Barbara Rush is the Perfect Acquiescent Spouse of the era. "Yes Dear", is her motto. But she grows increasingly alarmed as Mason's behavior grows more and more erratic. He becomes pumped up with confidence, and - as if drunk - his inner views come out and are exaggerated in public. At a PTA meeting, he declares his students, and all children by nature, to be imbeciles in need of strict guidance. The kids' parents aren't thrilled with his speech, but.....
after he pops a few more Cortisone pills, he is Absolutely Enthused to take his wife on a shopping spree to buy her some very expensive new dresses that they cannot afford. He insists on it, making a show of being cheerful.
Barbara Rush and their son can see something is very wrong, and I must say that - if you have ever seen any manic behavior by a parent due to drugs or alcohol - then you will recognise it too.
Mason becomes so unhinged due to his dependence on Cortisone, that he resorts to impersonating a doctor in order to forge prescriptions. He dominates his wife and son in bizarre ways that seem to reflect a desire to ride them all down the tubes.
Mason's portrayal of drug-induced manic depression is so eerily nuanced, so right on the money, that if you have ever witnessed it in your own life, it will give you the willies.
He tries to hold himself together, but he just keeps getting worse as he swallows double the amount of pills he has been prescribed.
Now, he and the family are at church, and he is loathing the preacher's sermon. He is sure he can do better, and so he goes home to study the bible. People are know-nothings, even the preacher.
What happens after this is so over the top that I might have needed a Martini when the movie was over, if I drank Martinis.
The ending has to do with the Biblical Abraham and his son, and is a full on psychodrama.
"Bigger Than Life" is one Gut Wrenching Movie, pretty weird and very dysfunctional. The acting is perfect all around (Mason going above and beyond), and you also get the sharp and varied pastel Color By Deluxe that set the standard for color motion pictures beginning in the late 1950s through the mid-60s. Deluxe took over where Technicolor left off, and defined the rest of the palette in between the rich primaries. /////
Two Thumbs Up for "Bigger Than Life", but you will be put through the wringer if you watch it.
Maybe we should bring back The Durango Kid?
We will, but not just yet, because we have a couple more movies from the libe to watch first.
See you in the morning, with much love to hold you until then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Friday, February 15, 2019
The Durango Kid & The Possibility Of Using Cattle Stampedes In Other Movies
Tonight's Durango Kid movie was called "Streets Of Ghost Town" (1950). As it begins, "Steve" (with yet another different surname) is arriving in a deserted town called Shadeville, with Smiley Burnette and the town sheriff in tow. The sheriff is explaining why Shadeville has become a ghost town : it's residents have all run off because a gang of outlaws who formerly controlled the area have been rumored to return, to take the land back. The outlaws once used the territory as a hideout. No other folks lived within miles of them, until the US Government offered free land there for homesteaders. After a land rush (literally a race to stake out a claim), the entire area, formerly empty save for the bad guys, was now fully populated.
The gang had used their hideout for years to rob folks who passed through on their way to other towns and cities. In doing so, they amassed a huge stash of money, jewelry and other valuables worth over a million dollars, which in 1880 was a very large sum.
The gang had to bail out when the land was settled. They took their stolen loot with them and have stashed it in an abandoned mine that they are sure no one knows about. But one of the gang gets greedy. He locks his partners in the mine and makes off with the treasure by himself.
Back in Shadeville, the Ghost Town, Smiley Burnette is playing with a Ouija Board, hoping the Spirits will reveal to him the location of the stolen money. Night falls, and as he and Steve try to get some sleep, a real live ghost is seen creeping down the empty street. It is one of the former bandits, long thought to be dead. The hunt is on now to verify the reality of the ghost, and to locate the the hidden loot. Smiley is scared silly, but still manages to sing a couple of songs, backed this time by Ozie Waters and The Colorado Rangers. I must say, even though it is not my main type of music, boy can these cowboy singers harmonise. And play, too. All of the bands and singers seen in the Durango films thus far have been top notch musicians. Smiley himself is said on his IMDB to have had the ability to play any instrument.
"Streets Of Ghost Town" does not have the same development of story as the other "Kid" movies we have seen this week. The plot is largely told in flashback by Steve, after the trio have settled into the ghost town for the night at the beginning of the film. And there is liberal usage of stock footage from other Westerns where chase scenes are concerned, including a major league Cattle Stampede, which does boost the value somewhat, I must say.
Maybe they should start putting Cattle Stampedes into all kinds of other movies. Whattaya think?
A Stampede in the middle of a romance? A tragedy? A crime caper? How about a Marvel Comic flick? How would one of today's computer generated superheros deal with a real time cattle stampede?
How about a whimsical independent Euro Flick, the kind that plays at a Laemmle Theater. What if the story of an quirky ethnic family was playing out, with all kinds of goofy in-laws in comedic conflict with one another, or even in a serious Swedish film..........what would happen if all of a sudden a Cattle Stampede ran though the picture?
I am just pondering the possibilities, which seem at first glance to be endless.
Anyhow, two regular thumbs up for "Streets Of Ghost Town". Not as involving as the other Durango Kid movies we have seen this week, but entertaining for the Ouija Board sequences and as always, Smiley Burnette and his music routines. /////
Starting tomorrow night, we may have some new movies arrived from Northridge Libe, and if they do arrive, they will be of a higher dramatic value, shall we say.
We had yet more rain today, and it seems as though this cold, grey weather pattern is endless.
Thank goodness for books, and study.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
The gang had used their hideout for years to rob folks who passed through on their way to other towns and cities. In doing so, they amassed a huge stash of money, jewelry and other valuables worth over a million dollars, which in 1880 was a very large sum.
The gang had to bail out when the land was settled. They took their stolen loot with them and have stashed it in an abandoned mine that they are sure no one knows about. But one of the gang gets greedy. He locks his partners in the mine and makes off with the treasure by himself.
Back in Shadeville, the Ghost Town, Smiley Burnette is playing with a Ouija Board, hoping the Spirits will reveal to him the location of the stolen money. Night falls, and as he and Steve try to get some sleep, a real live ghost is seen creeping down the empty street. It is one of the former bandits, long thought to be dead. The hunt is on now to verify the reality of the ghost, and to locate the the hidden loot. Smiley is scared silly, but still manages to sing a couple of songs, backed this time by Ozie Waters and The Colorado Rangers. I must say, even though it is not my main type of music, boy can these cowboy singers harmonise. And play, too. All of the bands and singers seen in the Durango films thus far have been top notch musicians. Smiley himself is said on his IMDB to have had the ability to play any instrument.
"Streets Of Ghost Town" does not have the same development of story as the other "Kid" movies we have seen this week. The plot is largely told in flashback by Steve, after the trio have settled into the ghost town for the night at the beginning of the film. And there is liberal usage of stock footage from other Westerns where chase scenes are concerned, including a major league Cattle Stampede, which does boost the value somewhat, I must say.
Maybe they should start putting Cattle Stampedes into all kinds of other movies. Whattaya think?
A Stampede in the middle of a romance? A tragedy? A crime caper? How about a Marvel Comic flick? How would one of today's computer generated superheros deal with a real time cattle stampede?
How about a whimsical independent Euro Flick, the kind that plays at a Laemmle Theater. What if the story of an quirky ethnic family was playing out, with all kinds of goofy in-laws in comedic conflict with one another, or even in a serious Swedish film..........what would happen if all of a sudden a Cattle Stampede ran though the picture?
I am just pondering the possibilities, which seem at first glance to be endless.
Anyhow, two regular thumbs up for "Streets Of Ghost Town". Not as involving as the other Durango Kid movies we have seen this week, but entertaining for the Ouija Board sequences and as always, Smiley Burnette and his music routines. /////
Starting tomorrow night, we may have some new movies arrived from Northridge Libe, and if they do arrive, they will be of a higher dramatic value, shall we say.
We had yet more rain today, and it seems as though this cold, grey weather pattern is endless.
Thank goodness for books, and study.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Durango Kid + TV Tommy Ivo + "Tombstone Territory" + Mr. Reeves + Love
Tonight's Durango Kid movie was called "Trail Of The Rustlers" (1950). Now there's a Western staple for ya : cattle rustlin'. Stampedes are a good one, too, and in this movie you get both rustlin' and a stampede. That alone is worth a thumbs up. The title of the movie is misleading, however, because the plot is really about an attempted land grab. The Mahoney brothers and their Ma (another Western cliche, the tough Ma) want to acquire all the land in the Texas river valley where they own a ranch. Their biggest obstacle is a rival rancher and landowner who will never sell, so the brothers raid his ranch and kill him, with the eldest brother in charge dressed all in black and wearing a mask.
They want to make it look like The Durango Kid led the raid.
Pretty soon Smiley Burnette is singing a hillbilly comedy song, backed this time by Eddie Cletro and The Roundup Boys. Somebody oughta round up all of Smiley's songs from these movies and make a highlight reel, because he is really great.
Good Guy "Steve" shows up in town soon thereafter. See last night's blog re: Steve, the alter ego of The Durango Kid. He never lets on that is is The Kid, of course, even though he himself is known as an expert gunfighter. Steve meets Tommy Ivo, an actual kid, who had idolised Durango but now hates him, because the news in town is that Durango is really a Bad Guy. He led the raid that killed the rancher. Steve knows the truth, as he is the real Durango, but he keeps quiet about it while little Tommy tells his story. Steve is learning everything he can about the land grab scheme by being nonchalant and asking indirect questions. When he knows enough, he will don the Black Bandanna (offscreen, of course) an ride as The Durango Kid, bad guys watch out.
It is funny - and interesting - what the mind retains. I hadn't heard the name Tommy Ivo in 50 years, and never knew he was a child actor. In fact, I would never have thought of him at all had I not seen him in these movies. His name would have just been one of those "in one ear and out the other" pieces of information that we process by the millions in our lifetimes, a name, or phrase or sentence perhaps, that flashes by for some reason or another.
But it's interesting what the mind retains, and when I saw the name "Tommy Ivo" in the credits, immediately my brain said "TV Tommy Ivo". I knew I'd heard that before, and within two minutes, while still watching the movie, I knew it was from an old radio commercial for Irwindale Raceway, a dragstrip in Orange County that was famous in the 60s and early 70s. I used to listen to radio station 93 KHJ as a kid, every day, and they would have commercials for Irwindale Raceway, during which they would announce the names of the drag racing drivers who were gonna compete that week.
I was a big Drag Racing fan for about a year or two between the ages of seven and nine. My favorite was Big Daddy Don Garlits, and also Don "The Snake" Prudhomme. Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen.
But in those commercials, they would also regularly mention "TV Tommy Ivo".
I never gave him a second thought, because those other guys were my favorites.
But then here I see him, fifty years later, as a twelve year old kid in a Western movie, and his name rings a bell in my mind. According to his IMDB, he also did a lot of television work, hence his adult moniker as a race driver.
"TV Tommy Ivo". It's interesting what the mind retains, which I am finding is just about everything. :)
At any rate, Two Thumbs Up for "Trail Of The Rustlers", because you can't go wrong with The Durango Kid and Smiley Burnette, and the Iverson Ranch locations in Chatsworth. /////
Because the movie was only an hour long, I also had time to watch an episode of "Tombstone Territory", a 30 minute Western series that ran from 1957-1960. I bought the complete series from Amazon a couple of years ago and have watched some of the 91 episodes from time to time. Pat Conway is great as the Sheriff, and you also occasionally get some Chatsworth or Simi footage. But tonight I was watching, and the plot revolved around a band of Confederate Rebel soldiers who had joined together after the war to raid and rob unsuspecting frontier towns.
I was watching a scene where the leader of the rebels is addressing his men, and my memory kicked in again and said, "that's Richard Reeves". In this case, the reference and recollection did not come from as "out of the blue" as did TV Tommy Ivo, because I have seen Richard Reeves a few times, say, over the last twenty years, in an occasional old TV show or B-Western, always in a small or brief part. In my life, I would guess I have seen maybe six or seven of his performances.
But the thing is, when I was a little kid, from 1960 when I was born, to 1967 when we were getting ready to move to Northridge, Richard Reeves lived directly across the street from us in Reseda, right around the corner from where I am writing to you tonight at Pearl's. All the kids on the street knew him as "Mr. Reeves". This was during the Baby Boom with a million kids around. But the kids knew that Mr. Reeves house was off limits. He rarely came out, and never turned his lights on at night. One thing that was cool was that he drove a Metropolitan. Google that car and check it out, it's really pretty neat.
Mr. Reeves kept entirely to himself, while this explosion of Kid Life was taking place outside on Hatton Street.
It's amazing what the mind retains, and I always remember my Mom telling us kids : "Don't bother Mr. Reeves". That sentence sticks out just as much as the announcement of "TV Tommy Ivo"! on the radio.
"Don't bother Mr. Reeves".
Mr. Reeves, I saw long ago on IMDB, was a prolific actor, mostly working in television, who specialised in playing "heavies" in shows like "Tombstone" or any of the other popular Western and police dramas that made up the rosters of broadcast television in the 1950s and very early 60s.
We kids knew he was an actor, but we also knew there was something wrong. Mr. Reeves suffered from severe alcoholism. His house was dark at night, though he would sometimes come out during the daytime to drive his Metropolitan.
I see on IMDB that he passed away at Northridge Hospital in 1967, shortly before my family moved to Northridge. I was seven years old at the time.
I love all the old movies and all the old tv shows, and I love all of the actors and actresses. I have probably only seen Richard Reeves twenty five times in my life, if that, onscreen and as he got into his Metropolitan. But I recognised him in tonight's episode of "Tombstone Territory", and so I mention him because it is amazing what the mind retains, and also because I love the actors.
God Bless Mr. Reeves, who did not have an easy life. ////
Tonight is also the early hours of Valentine's Day, and so I wish all of you Valentines a happy day of love tomorrow. I am single myself. and I hate it, but it seems to be the fix I am in. That doesn't stop me from sending all of you all the love in the world, however, and that is exactly what I do.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo to The Highest. :):)
See you in the morn.
They want to make it look like The Durango Kid led the raid.
Pretty soon Smiley Burnette is singing a hillbilly comedy song, backed this time by Eddie Cletro and The Roundup Boys. Somebody oughta round up all of Smiley's songs from these movies and make a highlight reel, because he is really great.
Good Guy "Steve" shows up in town soon thereafter. See last night's blog re: Steve, the alter ego of The Durango Kid. He never lets on that is is The Kid, of course, even though he himself is known as an expert gunfighter. Steve meets Tommy Ivo, an actual kid, who had idolised Durango but now hates him, because the news in town is that Durango is really a Bad Guy. He led the raid that killed the rancher. Steve knows the truth, as he is the real Durango, but he keeps quiet about it while little Tommy tells his story. Steve is learning everything he can about the land grab scheme by being nonchalant and asking indirect questions. When he knows enough, he will don the Black Bandanna (offscreen, of course) an ride as The Durango Kid, bad guys watch out.
It is funny - and interesting - what the mind retains. I hadn't heard the name Tommy Ivo in 50 years, and never knew he was a child actor. In fact, I would never have thought of him at all had I not seen him in these movies. His name would have just been one of those "in one ear and out the other" pieces of information that we process by the millions in our lifetimes, a name, or phrase or sentence perhaps, that flashes by for some reason or another.
But it's interesting what the mind retains, and when I saw the name "Tommy Ivo" in the credits, immediately my brain said "TV Tommy Ivo". I knew I'd heard that before, and within two minutes, while still watching the movie, I knew it was from an old radio commercial for Irwindale Raceway, a dragstrip in Orange County that was famous in the 60s and early 70s. I used to listen to radio station 93 KHJ as a kid, every day, and they would have commercials for Irwindale Raceway, during which they would announce the names of the drag racing drivers who were gonna compete that week.
I was a big Drag Racing fan for about a year or two between the ages of seven and nine. My favorite was Big Daddy Don Garlits, and also Don "The Snake" Prudhomme. Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen.
But in those commercials, they would also regularly mention "TV Tommy Ivo".
I never gave him a second thought, because those other guys were my favorites.
But then here I see him, fifty years later, as a twelve year old kid in a Western movie, and his name rings a bell in my mind. According to his IMDB, he also did a lot of television work, hence his adult moniker as a race driver.
"TV Tommy Ivo". It's interesting what the mind retains, which I am finding is just about everything. :)
At any rate, Two Thumbs Up for "Trail Of The Rustlers", because you can't go wrong with The Durango Kid and Smiley Burnette, and the Iverson Ranch locations in Chatsworth. /////
Because the movie was only an hour long, I also had time to watch an episode of "Tombstone Territory", a 30 minute Western series that ran from 1957-1960. I bought the complete series from Amazon a couple of years ago and have watched some of the 91 episodes from time to time. Pat Conway is great as the Sheriff, and you also occasionally get some Chatsworth or Simi footage. But tonight I was watching, and the plot revolved around a band of Confederate Rebel soldiers who had joined together after the war to raid and rob unsuspecting frontier towns.
I was watching a scene where the leader of the rebels is addressing his men, and my memory kicked in again and said, "that's Richard Reeves". In this case, the reference and recollection did not come from as "out of the blue" as did TV Tommy Ivo, because I have seen Richard Reeves a few times, say, over the last twenty years, in an occasional old TV show or B-Western, always in a small or brief part. In my life, I would guess I have seen maybe six or seven of his performances.
But the thing is, when I was a little kid, from 1960 when I was born, to 1967 when we were getting ready to move to Northridge, Richard Reeves lived directly across the street from us in Reseda, right around the corner from where I am writing to you tonight at Pearl's. All the kids on the street knew him as "Mr. Reeves". This was during the Baby Boom with a million kids around. But the kids knew that Mr. Reeves house was off limits. He rarely came out, and never turned his lights on at night. One thing that was cool was that he drove a Metropolitan. Google that car and check it out, it's really pretty neat.
Mr. Reeves kept entirely to himself, while this explosion of Kid Life was taking place outside on Hatton Street.
It's amazing what the mind retains, and I always remember my Mom telling us kids : "Don't bother Mr. Reeves". That sentence sticks out just as much as the announcement of "TV Tommy Ivo"! on the radio.
"Don't bother Mr. Reeves".
Mr. Reeves, I saw long ago on IMDB, was a prolific actor, mostly working in television, who specialised in playing "heavies" in shows like "Tombstone" or any of the other popular Western and police dramas that made up the rosters of broadcast television in the 1950s and very early 60s.
We kids knew he was an actor, but we also knew there was something wrong. Mr. Reeves suffered from severe alcoholism. His house was dark at night, though he would sometimes come out during the daytime to drive his Metropolitan.
I see on IMDB that he passed away at Northridge Hospital in 1967, shortly before my family moved to Northridge. I was seven years old at the time.
I love all the old movies and all the old tv shows, and I love all of the actors and actresses. I have probably only seen Richard Reeves twenty five times in my life, if that, onscreen and as he got into his Metropolitan. But I recognised him in tonight's episode of "Tombstone Territory", and so I mention him because it is amazing what the mind retains, and also because I love the actors.
God Bless Mr. Reeves, who did not have an easy life. ////
Tonight is also the early hours of Valentine's Day, and so I wish all of you Valentines a happy day of love tomorrow. I am single myself. and I hate it, but it seems to be the fix I am in. That doesn't stop me from sending all of you all the love in the world, however, and that is exactly what I do.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo to The Highest. :):)
See you in the morn.
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
"Laramie" w/ The Durango Kid + Still Freezing, Rain Coming
Tonight we were back with The Durango Kid again, in a film called "Laramie" (1949). This one was directed by a guy named Ray Nazarro, a veteran of many B-Westerns, and it was actually very well done for what it was. Now, stop me if you've heard this plot before : The Colonel at an Army outpost in Wyoming territory is set to host a local Indian chief and his delegation to discuss a peace treaty that has been proposed by the United States government. Army-Indian relations are shaky at best, but the Chief considers the Colonel his friend. There is a frontier scout who operates from the outpost who will play the "Iago" role here, pretending to be a confidante and adviser to each side, while ramping up the divisive rhetoric between them. The Scout tells the Colonel he is a fool to trust the Indian Chief, and then he rides to the Chief's camp to tell him the same about the Colonel.
The Scout is an arms merchant, in league with the town assayer. Peace is bad for their business. They want to continue the Indian Wars against the US Army in order to sell the Indians a large supply of rifles. They are trying to provoke a conflict to ignite tensions, and the Scout hits a bullseye when he manages to gun down the Indian Chief at the Peace Treaty meeting, from his sniper position outside the Army headquarters.
The Scout escapes to safety, then shits into Iago mode, riding to tell the Indians it was the Colonel who killed their chief, then riding back to tell the Colonel that the Indians are preparing for war. It is just at this time that good guy Steve Holden shows up in camp. "Steve" is Charles Starrett's "Clark Kent" persona in all of the Durango Kid movies. He always plays a guy named Steve (the last name varies), who is either the town marshal as in last night's movie or in this case an ex-Army officer who is a friend of the Colonel's. As the proverbial "Steve", he is always known as a fast gun and a straight arrow. But what no one knows - not even his sidekick Smiley Burnette - is that Steve is also The Durango Kid.
I explained that situation to you last night. You remember - Durango Kid, secret identity, wears all black including black bandanna mask, goes after bad guys ala The Lone Ranger.
So the deal is that, basically, once The black-clad Durango Kid shows up, the Bad Guys are Toast, although they don't go down without a battle. I mentioned that you may have seen this exact plot before, as you watch or imagine these movies with me, and I am sure of it. I can't name the exact Western, but we saw and reviewed it last Fall, and it featured the same story of a buckskin-clad Army scout who sabotages a peace treaty.
In "Laramie", we get an entire movie's worth of great Chatsworth location shots, and also a few from Corriganville in Simi Valley. In some places I am wondering, "have I walked on that trail"?
It must have been great to make movies in Chatsworth in that era, in the 1940s when the development of the Valley had not yet begun. It was still half-empty (undeveloped) when I was a kid in the early 1960s....
They had a different Singing Cowboy in this movie. This time he was an Army Sergeant and a Hillbilly Yodeler named Elton Britt. Check him out on Youtube. He was really good, as were The Georgia Crackers last night. And you always get a lot of Smiley Burnette songs and schtick in every "Kid" movie, so you definitely get your hour's worth, and every "Kid" movie gets two automatic thumbs up, as mentioned last night, just because of the Saturday Afternoon factor. ////
Tomorrow we are supposed to begin a major rainstorm, lasting until Thursday evening. This Winter we have had almost as much rain as in an El Nino year, which (cue the cliche) is "good, cause we need the water".
And I do love to see it flowing in the creeks on my hikes and such. And I love the green hills.
But man.......enough already. Bring on the Sun. ;)
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
The Scout is an arms merchant, in league with the town assayer. Peace is bad for their business. They want to continue the Indian Wars against the US Army in order to sell the Indians a large supply of rifles. They are trying to provoke a conflict to ignite tensions, and the Scout hits a bullseye when he manages to gun down the Indian Chief at the Peace Treaty meeting, from his sniper position outside the Army headquarters.
The Scout escapes to safety, then shits into Iago mode, riding to tell the Indians it was the Colonel who killed their chief, then riding back to tell the Colonel that the Indians are preparing for war. It is just at this time that good guy Steve Holden shows up in camp. "Steve" is Charles Starrett's "Clark Kent" persona in all of the Durango Kid movies. He always plays a guy named Steve (the last name varies), who is either the town marshal as in last night's movie or in this case an ex-Army officer who is a friend of the Colonel's. As the proverbial "Steve", he is always known as a fast gun and a straight arrow. But what no one knows - not even his sidekick Smiley Burnette - is that Steve is also The Durango Kid.
I explained that situation to you last night. You remember - Durango Kid, secret identity, wears all black including black bandanna mask, goes after bad guys ala The Lone Ranger.
So the deal is that, basically, once The black-clad Durango Kid shows up, the Bad Guys are Toast, although they don't go down without a battle. I mentioned that you may have seen this exact plot before, as you watch or imagine these movies with me, and I am sure of it. I can't name the exact Western, but we saw and reviewed it last Fall, and it featured the same story of a buckskin-clad Army scout who sabotages a peace treaty.
In "Laramie", we get an entire movie's worth of great Chatsworth location shots, and also a few from Corriganville in Simi Valley. In some places I am wondering, "have I walked on that trail"?
It must have been great to make movies in Chatsworth in that era, in the 1940s when the development of the Valley had not yet begun. It was still half-empty (undeveloped) when I was a kid in the early 1960s....
They had a different Singing Cowboy in this movie. This time he was an Army Sergeant and a Hillbilly Yodeler named Elton Britt. Check him out on Youtube. He was really good, as were The Georgia Crackers last night. And you always get a lot of Smiley Burnette songs and schtick in every "Kid" movie, so you definitely get your hour's worth, and every "Kid" movie gets two automatic thumbs up, as mentioned last night, just because of the Saturday Afternoon factor. ////
Tomorrow we are supposed to begin a major rainstorm, lasting until Thursday evening. This Winter we have had almost as much rain as in an El Nino year, which (cue the cliche) is "good, cause we need the water".
And I do love to see it flowing in the creeks on my hikes and such. And I love the green hills.
But man.......enough already. Bring on the Sun. ;)
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
"The Durango Kid" + Lisa Pease
Tonight I watched a Western called "The Fighting Frontiersman" (1946), starring Charles Starrett, whose bio claims him to be the most prolific cowboy actor of them all. He made a lot of movies portraying a character called The Durango Kid. You might remember my mention of him many months ago, when I watched another Starrett/Kid movie, my first, which prompted me to buy a ten-film "Durango Kid" dvd collection because I enjoyed it so much. These movies are pure entertainment of the Saturday Matinee variety. They clock in at about an hour apiece, which alone is a selling point for me as I love short movies.
I've had my "Durango Kid" dvd set sitting unopened on the shelf since about last Halloween or so. I hadn't yet peeled off the cellophane because I had a lot of other movies to watch (as I almost always do), but finally, after the Horror Marathon of October, the various dramas of November, the annual classics of the Christmas season and the several series we have watched since then, including all the Thin Mans, Falcons, Forbidden Hollywoods and Tarzans (among others), I finally ran out of movies.
Therefore it was time to break out The Durango Kid set, which is no knock on The Kid. It's just that these movies, while very much fun, are strictly low budget and can solidly be classified in the "B" section.
A bonus is that the two I have seen so far have been shot in Chatsworth, at the Iverson Ranch, so these are Santa Susana movies in every respect, and you can recognise many shots from Garden Of The Gods and a few of Stoney Point (aka "The Point Of All Things Stonelike").
The plots are simple, short and sweet. Tonight, a grizzled old prospector has discovered a treasure chest of gold coins in a cave off one of the trails. It turns out to be the cache of gold that General Santa Anna stashed during the Mexican-American war, worth an untold fortune. The prospector tells only one person of his find, a slinky local chanteuse who sings in a saloon in town. He trusts her because she has been the only person to have treated him kindly in the past. Soon, he will be disappointed, though, because she is beholden to the saloon owner and his henchmen. They hear about the discovery of the Santa Anna gold, long rumored to be hidden in the region, and they kidnap the old prospector and take him to a hideaway shack in the Chatsworth mountains. There, they tie him up & deny him food and water until he decides to talk, which he refuses to do.
The lady singer can't be all bad, however, because she sends a letter to Charles Starrett, the Marshall in town, to inform him that the prospector is being held hostage.
Suddenly, The Durango Kid shows up, all dressed in black, with a bandanna mask to match.
Could the Marshall and The Kid be one and the same?
No one in the cast will ever guess. In this way, you can think of this series as akin to "The Lone Ranger", or even "Batman" or "Superman". No one ever knows the Masked Man's true identity, no matter the character.
You don't need a lot of description to enjoy a "Durango Kid" movie. You just need to be a bit of a kid yourself. Fortunately, I fit the bill in that regard, haha. The films are well made, and you also get Smiley Burnette as Starrett's sidekick. He was a very talented comic actor who was also a singer who performed in these movies with a tight Western band called The Georgia Crackers. The two Durango Kid movies I've seen both feature a couple of songs by Smiley, in which he acts out the lyrics with a co-star, or goofs through the scene by himself. Smiley Burnette is a Hollywood legend from the early days. I learned about him by Googling after seeing him in the first "Kid" movie last September.
If I can find a Youtube of one of his song performances in tonight's movie, I will post it, because he is really an Original, I think. ////
Any "Durango Kid" movie is gonna be worth Two Lighthearted Thumbs Up, for the reasons described above. Watch for fun and to see old Chatsworth. ////
I am also reading my RFK book by Lisa Pease. She is very thorough and has done the most extensive analysis of the evidence so far, at least through the 300 pages I have read, out of 500 total for the entire book. It is very, very important not to forget the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, and of Martin Luther King, all of which happened in a five year period, and all of which have decimated the cumulative hope of millions of Americans that we will ever have a political system we can trust.
Keep these things in mind, because this history is so very important.
Nothing is more important than the Truth, for without it, life becomes a lie.
And we can't just go through the motions, now, can we?
See you in the morning, with constant love in between. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
I've had my "Durango Kid" dvd set sitting unopened on the shelf since about last Halloween or so. I hadn't yet peeled off the cellophane because I had a lot of other movies to watch (as I almost always do), but finally, after the Horror Marathon of October, the various dramas of November, the annual classics of the Christmas season and the several series we have watched since then, including all the Thin Mans, Falcons, Forbidden Hollywoods and Tarzans (among others), I finally ran out of movies.
Therefore it was time to break out The Durango Kid set, which is no knock on The Kid. It's just that these movies, while very much fun, are strictly low budget and can solidly be classified in the "B" section.
A bonus is that the two I have seen so far have been shot in Chatsworth, at the Iverson Ranch, so these are Santa Susana movies in every respect, and you can recognise many shots from Garden Of The Gods and a few of Stoney Point (aka "The Point Of All Things Stonelike").
The plots are simple, short and sweet. Tonight, a grizzled old prospector has discovered a treasure chest of gold coins in a cave off one of the trails. It turns out to be the cache of gold that General Santa Anna stashed during the Mexican-American war, worth an untold fortune. The prospector tells only one person of his find, a slinky local chanteuse who sings in a saloon in town. He trusts her because she has been the only person to have treated him kindly in the past. Soon, he will be disappointed, though, because she is beholden to the saloon owner and his henchmen. They hear about the discovery of the Santa Anna gold, long rumored to be hidden in the region, and they kidnap the old prospector and take him to a hideaway shack in the Chatsworth mountains. There, they tie him up & deny him food and water until he decides to talk, which he refuses to do.
The lady singer can't be all bad, however, because she sends a letter to Charles Starrett, the Marshall in town, to inform him that the prospector is being held hostage.
Suddenly, The Durango Kid shows up, all dressed in black, with a bandanna mask to match.
Could the Marshall and The Kid be one and the same?
No one in the cast will ever guess. In this way, you can think of this series as akin to "The Lone Ranger", or even "Batman" or "Superman". No one ever knows the Masked Man's true identity, no matter the character.
You don't need a lot of description to enjoy a "Durango Kid" movie. You just need to be a bit of a kid yourself. Fortunately, I fit the bill in that regard, haha. The films are well made, and you also get Smiley Burnette as Starrett's sidekick. He was a very talented comic actor who was also a singer who performed in these movies with a tight Western band called The Georgia Crackers. The two Durango Kid movies I've seen both feature a couple of songs by Smiley, in which he acts out the lyrics with a co-star, or goofs through the scene by himself. Smiley Burnette is a Hollywood legend from the early days. I learned about him by Googling after seeing him in the first "Kid" movie last September.
If I can find a Youtube of one of his song performances in tonight's movie, I will post it, because he is really an Original, I think. ////
Any "Durango Kid" movie is gonna be worth Two Lighthearted Thumbs Up, for the reasons described above. Watch for fun and to see old Chatsworth. ////
I am also reading my RFK book by Lisa Pease. She is very thorough and has done the most extensive analysis of the evidence so far, at least through the 300 pages I have read, out of 500 total for the entire book. It is very, very important not to forget the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, and of Martin Luther King, all of which happened in a five year period, and all of which have decimated the cumulative hope of millions of Americans that we will ever have a political system we can trust.
Keep these things in mind, because this history is so very important.
Nothing is more important than the Truth, for without it, life becomes a lie.
And we can't just go through the motions, now, can we?
See you in the morning, with constant love in between. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Monday, February 11, 2019
"A Free Soul", starring Norma Shearer, Lionel Barrymore and Clark Gable + Singing + Love
Tonight I watched the fifth and last film from my "Forbidden Hollywood Volume Two" collection, "A Free Soul" (1931), starring Norma Shearer, Lionel Barrymore and Clark Gable. Barrymore and Shearer are a father and daughter who are estranged from their wealthy society family. His wife died in childbirth, so Barrymore has raised Norma on his own, to be a free spirit and to look life square in the face and play by her own rules. This method of child-rearing might have worked better if Lionel were not a total alcoholic. His addiction has severely impaired his ability to function and has affected his daughter, too, leaving her emotionally unstable and therefore easy prey for a predator.
Still, she loves her Dad very much, calls him "darling" (I have seen this in many films from the 30s, daughters calling Dad "darling" and catering to him in an innocent romantic way. I wonder if it was a common endearment from the era or just a Hollywood movie invention?).
Anyway, Shearer's bond with her Dad is so strong that she overlooks his drinking and hopes it will go away. And he is not just a lush, but is also a top notch defense lawyer. As the movie is getting underway he is about to present his final argument to the jury on behalf of his client (Gable), a gambling hall owner accused of murder. Using a Johnny Cochrane technique, he produces a hat taken as evidence from the murder scene, has Gable try it on, and it is way too small.
"If the hat don't fit, you must acquit".
O.J. got away with murder, and so does Clark Gable, but worse than that - for Barrymore - is that his Free Spirit daughter has now met the charming thug Gable in the courtroom. She is immediately enthralled, and though she is already engaged to staid, plain-vanilla Leslie Howard, a champion polo player, she quickly runs off with mobster Gable, to live with him in the penthouse apartment above his casino.
There is all sorts of pre-code stuff going on here, besides the sheer negligees and nightgowns Shearer walks around in. I mean, even today a girl breaking an engagement to run off with a gambler is the stuff of scandal. But back in the 1930s? Such a woman would have been ostracized.
Lionel Barrymore finds out about his daughter's illicit arrangement, and - dependent as he is on booze - he still musters the strength to show up at the casino to try and bring her back home. He tells Clark Gable in so many words : "You are scum. Just because I defended you doesn't mean I like you".
And he sure doesn't want his daughter anywhere near the guy. Gable, naturally, sees it the other way.
Shearer willingly ran off with him, therefore she must be crazy about him. He is gonna try and force her to stay.
But she is just a kid. She doesn't know what she is doing.
Meanwhile, generic good-guy boyfriend and erstwhile fiancee Leslie Howard, a loyal chap in reality, is hanging tough behind the scenes. Dad Barrymore likes him and hopes Norma will come to her senses.
"A Free Soul" is a very early Talkie, so you have some remnants of Silent Movie acting histrionics with Norma Shearer, but mostly she is very good in another of her Modern Woman roles. And later in the movie, when she has to get serious and face the music for the bad choices she has made, she really turns on the drama and shows why she was considered such a great early motion picture actress. Her style is so natural that you feel you are watching a real person onscreen.
As for Lionel Barrymore, I have always felt that he was the best of the Barrymore clan of actors, and though he certainly chewed his fair share of scenery over the years, his performance here as the debilitated, negligent father is worthy of the Best Actor Oscar he won for the role.
As in many early Hollywood scripts, there is a final courtroom scene in this film, where Barrymore lets it all hang out. It is one of his few non-wheelchair roles, as he was still ambulatory at this point in his life, and he knocks the scene out of the ballpark.
This is also a film that brought notice to a young Clark Gable, who seemed to be cast as bad guys in his early roles. He is tough as nails here, a total misogynist, who ultimately meets his match in encountering "The Free Soul".
Two Big Thumbs Up. This is a major league drama, quite competent for 1931 as an Oscar worthy film, and totally involving on an emotional level, for any era. The themes presented are the themes of today, nearly 90 years later. ////
That was the last film from my second Forbidden Hollywood collection, so now I'll have to get Volume Three. Every movie I have seen in the two collections I own has been very good. I am a champion of Golden Era Hollywood because the movies told great stories, with great style. ////
We had great singing in church this morning. Our anthem was called "Soon And Very Soon", a gospel song by Andrae Crouch, who was a multiple Grammy winner and also a pastor nearby in Pacoima. His song is one of my favorite types to sing, because it is so full of emotion and you can belt it. Our choir director told us to sing as loud as we could, so I did. I love singing in choir. ////
I am hoping we will have some warmer temperatures soon, but until then, much warmth is sent your way.
And love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
See you in the morning.
Still, she loves her Dad very much, calls him "darling" (I have seen this in many films from the 30s, daughters calling Dad "darling" and catering to him in an innocent romantic way. I wonder if it was a common endearment from the era or just a Hollywood movie invention?).
Anyway, Shearer's bond with her Dad is so strong that she overlooks his drinking and hopes it will go away. And he is not just a lush, but is also a top notch defense lawyer. As the movie is getting underway he is about to present his final argument to the jury on behalf of his client (Gable), a gambling hall owner accused of murder. Using a Johnny Cochrane technique, he produces a hat taken as evidence from the murder scene, has Gable try it on, and it is way too small.
"If the hat don't fit, you must acquit".
O.J. got away with murder, and so does Clark Gable, but worse than that - for Barrymore - is that his Free Spirit daughter has now met the charming thug Gable in the courtroom. She is immediately enthralled, and though she is already engaged to staid, plain-vanilla Leslie Howard, a champion polo player, she quickly runs off with mobster Gable, to live with him in the penthouse apartment above his casino.
There is all sorts of pre-code stuff going on here, besides the sheer negligees and nightgowns Shearer walks around in. I mean, even today a girl breaking an engagement to run off with a gambler is the stuff of scandal. But back in the 1930s? Such a woman would have been ostracized.
Lionel Barrymore finds out about his daughter's illicit arrangement, and - dependent as he is on booze - he still musters the strength to show up at the casino to try and bring her back home. He tells Clark Gable in so many words : "You are scum. Just because I defended you doesn't mean I like you".
And he sure doesn't want his daughter anywhere near the guy. Gable, naturally, sees it the other way.
Shearer willingly ran off with him, therefore she must be crazy about him. He is gonna try and force her to stay.
But she is just a kid. She doesn't know what she is doing.
Meanwhile, generic good-guy boyfriend and erstwhile fiancee Leslie Howard, a loyal chap in reality, is hanging tough behind the scenes. Dad Barrymore likes him and hopes Norma will come to her senses.
"A Free Soul" is a very early Talkie, so you have some remnants of Silent Movie acting histrionics with Norma Shearer, but mostly she is very good in another of her Modern Woman roles. And later in the movie, when she has to get serious and face the music for the bad choices she has made, she really turns on the drama and shows why she was considered such a great early motion picture actress. Her style is so natural that you feel you are watching a real person onscreen.
As for Lionel Barrymore, I have always felt that he was the best of the Barrymore clan of actors, and though he certainly chewed his fair share of scenery over the years, his performance here as the debilitated, negligent father is worthy of the Best Actor Oscar he won for the role.
As in many early Hollywood scripts, there is a final courtroom scene in this film, where Barrymore lets it all hang out. It is one of his few non-wheelchair roles, as he was still ambulatory at this point in his life, and he knocks the scene out of the ballpark.
This is also a film that brought notice to a young Clark Gable, who seemed to be cast as bad guys in his early roles. He is tough as nails here, a total misogynist, who ultimately meets his match in encountering "The Free Soul".
Two Big Thumbs Up. This is a major league drama, quite competent for 1931 as an Oscar worthy film, and totally involving on an emotional level, for any era. The themes presented are the themes of today, nearly 90 years later. ////
That was the last film from my second Forbidden Hollywood collection, so now I'll have to get Volume Three. Every movie I have seen in the two collections I own has been very good. I am a champion of Golden Era Hollywood because the movies told great stories, with great style. ////
We had great singing in church this morning. Our anthem was called "Soon And Very Soon", a gospel song by Andrae Crouch, who was a multiple Grammy winner and also a pastor nearby in Pacoima. His song is one of my favorite types to sing, because it is so full of emotion and you can belt it. Our choir director told us to sing as loud as we could, so I did. I love singing in choir. ////
I am hoping we will have some warmer temperatures soon, but until then, much warmth is sent your way.
And love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
See you in the morning.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
"Forty Guns" w/ Stanwyck & Fuller + Absence of Tarzan + Freezing
I'm back. Last night Grim came over, so no movie. You know the drill. Tonight I did watch one though, and Holy Smokes and My Goodness......it wasn't a Tarzan. Man, I can't believe I am all done with my Tarzans. What am I gonna do? :( The good news is that I still have two to watch from the original Weissmuller movies, because of those defective discs that wouldn't play. I suppose I'll have to buy my own copies of the Tarzan Collections just to get the two unseen films, but that's okay because then we can re-run all the other Tarzan movies, too. Oh boy! (or should I say Oh "Boy"?).
In the meantime, I may purchase some of the other collections, starring Gordon Scott and/or Lex Barker, just to get my Tarzan fix. But then again I may not, because there is only one true Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller. Accept no substitutes, unless you absolutely have to watch a new Tarzan movie and have already seen the originals.
But yeah, as I was saying, I did watch a movie tonight, called "Forty Guns" (1957), starring Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Samuel Fuller. This is a brand new Criterion release, so the black and white Cinemascope photography by Joseph Biroc looks incredible. Stanwyck is a Tough Broad of the type she played in "The Big Valley" TV series, except she is more cynical here. Director Fuller was notoriously macho and hard boiled, and this film comes across as a Noir Western.
She owns a ranch and half the land in Cochise County, Arizona. She also owns the Sheriff, and has forty ranch hands who also ride with her as gunmen, in case of trouble, so there is your movie title.
As the movie starts, three brothers have just ridden into town. Fuller has clearly modeled them on the Earps - Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil - but these men have a character all their own, led by the high-cheekboned Barry Sullivan as "Griff", a mercenary gunman paid to capture - or kill - bad guys. He is a very fast shot, and has come to town to arrest the crooked Sheriff's deputy, who has been robbing U.S. Mail stages.
Being that Barbara Stanwyck owns the Sheriff, his criminal deputy figures that Babs can get him cleared, too. To top it off, Stanwyck has a reckless, hothead kid brother, twelve years her junior, who takes out his jealousy of big sister's power by getting drunk and shooting up the town.
"Griff" the hired gun is intimidated by none of this because he has seen it all. He and his two brothers have a system for handling lawless bigshots in these frontier towns.....
But the problem is that the year is 1881, and according to the script (also written by Fuller), the way of the gunfighter is almost over, to be replaced by organized police forces in developing towns and cities.
Griff is hoping he doesn't have to kill anyone, but several of Stanwyck's forty guns are not cooperating, and her brother is a constant thorn. More than any of this, Barbara - tired herself of being a strong woman overseeing subservient men ( a woman alone, in other words) - sees Griff as a match, the strong man she has been waiting for. So even though he has come to arrest one of her employees, she sides with him because she has fallen in love, and within a short time the feeling becomes mutual.
Still, Griff and his brothers have a job to carry out - the arrest of the mail robber - and there are some in the town who like things the way they are, with Barbara making the rules and protecting her criminals, and these guys set up an ambush on Griff.
Samuel Fuller was a tough guy director from the East Coast who was also a WW2 vet. He made independent films with dialogue that was meant to forward his ideas about things. I've seen maybe five or six of his films, and while I can't call him one of my favorites, he is surely a skilled motion picture craftsman. In "Forty Guns" he is as his best, clocking in the picture at 80 minutes with a tight script that wastes no scenes. There is one involving a massive tornado that is a tour-de-force of staging and cinematography. I think Fuller could have been a big time director, had he played the studio's game, because his technical ability is beyond question.
I cannot possibly tell you anymore about this film, except to say that it is an exceptional Western, with some of the best B&W camerawork you have seen for a while.
We are all out of Tarzans for the moment, but Westerns aren't such a bad substitute, are they?
I mean - c'mon! - there was a time when all we watched was Westerns.....(and Sci-Fi, and Horror).
So now we will re-adjust for a Tarzanless future, but only for the time being.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "Forty Guns". I have ordered some other new Criterion releases from the Libe, so we will watch them as soon as they arrive.
I am getting a little bored...(ahem)....with the Freezing Cold Weather (I mean, it's almost mid-February, c'mom already), but there seems to be no end in sight. According to weather.com, t'wll be chilly through the next ten days, and into a deep freeze tomorrow night. 32 degrees! Now that is some serious L.A. Cold.
My revenge will be 118 degrees come July. I seriously can't wait. :)
I need a French Organ Music fix, so I will find it on Youtube, post it on FB, and then I will see you in the morning, in church. Gigantic love until then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
In the meantime, I may purchase some of the other collections, starring Gordon Scott and/or Lex Barker, just to get my Tarzan fix. But then again I may not, because there is only one true Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller. Accept no substitutes, unless you absolutely have to watch a new Tarzan movie and have already seen the originals.
But yeah, as I was saying, I did watch a movie tonight, called "Forty Guns" (1957), starring Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Samuel Fuller. This is a brand new Criterion release, so the black and white Cinemascope photography by Joseph Biroc looks incredible. Stanwyck is a Tough Broad of the type she played in "The Big Valley" TV series, except she is more cynical here. Director Fuller was notoriously macho and hard boiled, and this film comes across as a Noir Western.
She owns a ranch and half the land in Cochise County, Arizona. She also owns the Sheriff, and has forty ranch hands who also ride with her as gunmen, in case of trouble, so there is your movie title.
As the movie starts, three brothers have just ridden into town. Fuller has clearly modeled them on the Earps - Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil - but these men have a character all their own, led by the high-cheekboned Barry Sullivan as "Griff", a mercenary gunman paid to capture - or kill - bad guys. He is a very fast shot, and has come to town to arrest the crooked Sheriff's deputy, who has been robbing U.S. Mail stages.
Being that Barbara Stanwyck owns the Sheriff, his criminal deputy figures that Babs can get him cleared, too. To top it off, Stanwyck has a reckless, hothead kid brother, twelve years her junior, who takes out his jealousy of big sister's power by getting drunk and shooting up the town.
"Griff" the hired gun is intimidated by none of this because he has seen it all. He and his two brothers have a system for handling lawless bigshots in these frontier towns.....
But the problem is that the year is 1881, and according to the script (also written by Fuller), the way of the gunfighter is almost over, to be replaced by organized police forces in developing towns and cities.
Griff is hoping he doesn't have to kill anyone, but several of Stanwyck's forty guns are not cooperating, and her brother is a constant thorn. More than any of this, Barbara - tired herself of being a strong woman overseeing subservient men ( a woman alone, in other words) - sees Griff as a match, the strong man she has been waiting for. So even though he has come to arrest one of her employees, she sides with him because she has fallen in love, and within a short time the feeling becomes mutual.
Still, Griff and his brothers have a job to carry out - the arrest of the mail robber - and there are some in the town who like things the way they are, with Barbara making the rules and protecting her criminals, and these guys set up an ambush on Griff.
Samuel Fuller was a tough guy director from the East Coast who was also a WW2 vet. He made independent films with dialogue that was meant to forward his ideas about things. I've seen maybe five or six of his films, and while I can't call him one of my favorites, he is surely a skilled motion picture craftsman. In "Forty Guns" he is as his best, clocking in the picture at 80 minutes with a tight script that wastes no scenes. There is one involving a massive tornado that is a tour-de-force of staging and cinematography. I think Fuller could have been a big time director, had he played the studio's game, because his technical ability is beyond question.
I cannot possibly tell you anymore about this film, except to say that it is an exceptional Western, with some of the best B&W camerawork you have seen for a while.
We are all out of Tarzans for the moment, but Westerns aren't such a bad substitute, are they?
I mean - c'mon! - there was a time when all we watched was Westerns.....(and Sci-Fi, and Horror).
So now we will re-adjust for a Tarzanless future, but only for the time being.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "Forty Guns". I have ordered some other new Criterion releases from the Libe, so we will watch them as soon as they arrive.
I am getting a little bored...(ahem)....with the Freezing Cold Weather (I mean, it's almost mid-February, c'mom already), but there seems to be no end in sight. According to weather.com, t'wll be chilly through the next ten days, and into a deep freeze tomorrow night. 32 degrees! Now that is some serious L.A. Cold.
My revenge will be 118 degrees come July. I seriously can't wait. :)
I need a French Organ Music fix, so I will find it on Youtube, post it on FB, and then I will see you in the morning, in church. Gigantic love until then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)