I'm writing once again from Pearl's, back at work for another cycle. I enjoyed my time off, especially my two Santa Clarita hikes (Placerita & Whitney Canyons), and I had a chance to work on my latest drawing too, in addition to reading a lot and watching a ton of movies, which I do anyway. :)
Tonight I watched a screwball comedy called "High Tension" (1936), starring Brian Donlevy, who we also saw in last night's "Brigham Young". I've only seen Donlevy in serious roles, usually playing macho characters, so I had no idea he was capable of the kind of fast talking repartee required for screwball. The setting was unusual : Donlevy plays a deep-sea cable engineer, responsible for the underwater telephone lines at the bottom of the ocean.
Now, I have to interject here to ask : "who the hell thought that up"? Meaning, who came up with the idea of putting 3000 miles worth of cable at the bottom of the ocean, which averages a depth of 2 1/2 miles, and furthermore, "how the hell did they go about laying it down"?
Well anyway, man - the massive engineering projects that were undertaken in the early 20th century are mindboggling.
But the thing is, whoever heard of a movie where the main character is a deep sea cable engineer? Donlevy is the guy who, whenever there is a break in the cable, has to go down to the ocean floor in a bathysphere to repair it. He then has to climb out of the iron ball wearing a deep sea diving suit, and try to fix the cable without getting crushed by a wall of shifting coral.
The first and only time I previously saw this subject matter presented onscreen was in an episode of "Gilligan's Island", in which a typhoon washes ashore an undersea telephone cable, and the Professor taps into it to call Hawaii so the Castaways can be rescued. But the operator who answers thinks the call is a prank, and hangs up on the Professor. Before seeing it on "Gilligan's Island" when I was about 7, I had no idea there was any such thing as a telephone cable that ran all the way under the ocean so that people could call folks in Europe.
Do they even still need that cable in the age of cell phones?
At any rate, it was a unique context to use as a frame for a romantic comedy, and in the 63 minute running length of the film a fair amount of ground was covered. The plot was not substantial but that wasn't the point. The story is all about Donlevy's diving exploits, and - when he is topside - his attempt to keep his fiance on ice while he woos the beautiful Helen Wood, a secretary in the company office.
"High Tension" is a fast little flick, with dialogue at times so rapid that I had to hit the rewind button. There are two or three over the top humorous punchout scenes, including one in which Donlevy and a romantic rival try to clobber one another with a piano. The best parts are the oceangoing trips to repair the telephone cable, where it looks like director Alan Dwan (an early Hollywood pioneer) went to great lengths to show the real thing or close to it. I give the film Two Regular Thumbs Up, with bonus points for the nimble interplay of dialogue between the cast members. Man, you had to be on your toes to not only talk that fast, but to maintain the timing necessary for the comedy to work.
Check out "High Tension" for an unusual take on the Screwball genre. /////
I am almost finished with Paul Tremblay's "Growing Things", a collection of his short stories. I know I have already raved about it, but tonight I read a story called "Notes From The Dog Walkers", which at 44 pages is the longest tale in the book, and when I finished it, I just had to say out loud (to Tremblay had he been here), "how in the world could you possibly have thought that up"? I was reading and thinking, "is Tremblay nuts"? And of course he isn't, but he may just have the most fertile imagination of any horror writer you have ever read. He goes off on tangents, shall we say....which makes him a man after my own heart, haha, but seriously, he may simply be insane. If you are a fan of great writing, horror or otherwise (but especially horror), I encourage you to check out "Growing Things" by Paul Tremblay, aka "The Trembler" as I have coined him. You can thank me later after reading the book.
This eve, back at Pearl's and watching CNN (which I can't watch at home cause I don't have cable), I heard for the first time about this "whistleblower" news item that has to do with Trump and a call he made to the president of Ukraine. Chris Cuomo did an interview with Rudolph Giuliani, and we already know Rudy is a nutjob, but I am here to tell you that he had his ultimate meltdown tonight during this interview. Check CNN online to see if you can watch it. Cuckoo bird Rudy's lengthy tirade against Cuomo and CNN may indicate that there is finally something tangible against Trump, this man who has tried to destroy America, that will be enough to remove him from office. I know we are skeptical after the failure of the Mueller Report that anything can be done to stop him, but from what I saw on MSNBC later in the evening, it looks like the stuff may just hit the fan this time.
Let's hope this is the real thing this time, and that Trump is not only forced from office but ends up in prison for the rest of his life, where he belongs.
God Bless America, and I wish you a peaceful evening. xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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