I'm writing to you a little earlier than usual because in a couple hours it will be later than usual........or something like that. Did you set your clocks back, or are ya gonna wait until 2am? Here at Pearl's, I set ours back at dinnertime, to allow myself a little time to get adjusted to the switch. I've gotta get up early for church to begin with. "Spring Forward" costs me another hour of sleep on an already low-sleep night, so I was determined to make the transition as smooth as possible. Ahhh, but it's more than worth it, because we love the extra daylight and the gradually lengthening evenings, which peak in June and steady out through July, bringing with them the warm, velvety air that we crave.
Especially now, because we have been cold for an unusually prolonged period. I mean, it's almost mid-March and we're still doing the 55 degree thing all day, with constant overcast and chilly nights.
But as of tomorrow, those nights will at least get shorter and the days longer, so thank goodness for that, even though it feels like the year-round summery days in SoCal are a thing of the past.
I was fortunate to find a movie today, and it happened in the old fashioned way, with an in person visit to the Chatsworth Libe, rapidly scanning the racks for titles I haven't seen and that might interest me. This is the way I always used to look for movies, from about 2000 until maybe 2015-16, when the library system was updated to provide computer searches throughout the various branches. I think there are 63 separate neighborhood libes overall, and when you could finally search all of the branches online, in one search, and order a hold from any branch, I no longer had to drive to different libraries and scan the racks for flicks, as I used to do back when I lived with Mom. She was the one who started my appreciation for old movies, to which I have since become hooked as you are well aware. :)
I was in Chatsworth not for a hike but just to shop at Trader Joe's, and because I was once again out of dvds I decided to make a stop at the libe there on DeSoto Street. And lo and behold, almost as soon as I began to look at the dvd rack, I found a movie for tonight :
"Charlie Chan At The Opera" (1936), starring Warner Toland as Charlie instead of Sidney Toler, who played CC in the other Chan movies we saw in 2017. Co-starring and playing the villain was none other than Boris Karloff, so that was a bonus right away.
The movie begins with Boris ensconced in a mental institution (no big surprise there, right?). He plays the piano in the facility's rec room, and sings opera arias in a booming baritone voice, which drives the orderlies nuts. But he has amnesia. He doesn't know who he is and neither do they. Finally he kills an abusive orderly and escapes. Now, how "Boris Karloff" is that, I ask you? I mean the Whole Deal, the Nuthouse, the Opera Singing, the Amnesia and the Escape. I will tell you how Boris Karloff it is.
It is Total Boris Karloff.
Now, when he escapes he still seems to be a lunatic, but his amnesia has broken to the point where he at least has a focus. He returns to an Opera House (in some big city unnamed, probably NY) and begins to skulk around. He is seeking revenge on a man and woman in the opera company, the lead baritone and soprano, who tried to kill him in a fire years before.
The two singers are locked into a deceptive lover's scenario that would take paragraphs to describe, but I'll try to give you the general idea. This is an Opera Company, where everyone is ultra dramatic and egotistical. They don't call 'em Divas for nothing. Charlie Chan is not impressed, and goes about his business in an orderly Chinese way, with requisite Chan humor, but all around him affairs are being concealed. Karloff wound up in an insane asylum after an attempt on his life by a rival suitor to the star soprano, who in turn is cheating on her husband, a wealthy big shot. The rival suitor is a second star baritone who seeks to steal the spotlight from Karloff, and to steal the rich man's wife from him as well.
It's a mess, folks, but Charlie Chan and his Number One Son have a grip on the matter and will figure it out, with the help of a young William Demarest, a mookish and slightly racist cop. We know him better as the curmudgeonly "Uncle Charlie" of "My Three Sons Fame", but he is instantly recognizable.
There are three or four intramarital affairs taking place, there is Boris Karloff infiltrating the opera production to take the stage bemasked - Phantom-style - to ultimately shock both the audience and his fellow players, who all thought he was dead.
Charlie Chan has to keep a grip on all of this while remaining inscrutable. /////
Warner Toland was the original Charlie Chan and at the very least he is as good as his successor Sidney Toler. "Charlie Chan At The Opera" is one of the best Chans yet, so Two Big Thumbs Up are in order.
Gotta hit the hay so I don't oversleep and miss church, but I will see you there in the morning.
Tons of love through the night as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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