Back in 1979, for a brief time, a new promotional tactic was used to advertise upcoming movies. Framed posters, of the size you see outside movie theatres, were set with metal clamps high up on streetlight posts. I don't know how widespread this campaign was, but we had the posters here in Northridge. One afternoon in May of that year, I was driving past Cupid's Hotdogs and I noticed a large rectangular object on the lamppost. Slowing the car, I saw it was a theatre sized poster for "Alien". I don't recall if I was already aware of it's upcoming release. No one had heard of Ridley Scott at the time, but perhaps I'd seen a trailer. All I remember is that I wanted that poster, and so, on a Sunday morning when no one would be around, I drove back to Cupid's in my Dad's BMW 2002, and I brought with me a long handled tree lopper that I hoped might do the job. It was about ten in the morning. No one was looking, so I climbed up onto the Beemer's roof and, holding the lopper high above my head, I reached for the closest metal clamp that held the poster in place. The lopper was designed to cut medium-width tree branches, so it took a bit of prying and tugging to slice it through the metal clamp, but once I got the first one, the other came quickly.
I was fairly well jazzed, because I was 19 and I'd just bagged me a totally cool, movie theater worthy, chromium framed poster for an upcoming movie called "Alien" that looked totally bitchen, whether I'd heard of it beforehand or not.
About a month later, I saw another poster, set high again on a lamppost. I can't be sure it was once again in front of Cupid's. Something tells me this one was located in the parking lot of Thrifty Drug Store at the intersection of Nordhoff and Reseda Boulevards. I used the same method to cut it down, climbing onto the roof of the 2002 on a Sunday morn. Again, I cannot recall if I'd heard of the film beforehand, but this poster looked especially impressive and I'd have definitely wanted it whether I knew of the movie or not, because I'd read the book it was based on.
That book was "The Amityville Horror". The poster I'd just cut down was for the film of the same name. Whoever did the layout was an advertising genius on the same level as the guy who created the poster for "Dracula Has Risen From The Grave". For the "Amityville" poster, the infamous house was shown in a reddish hue, at night, with it's "evil eye" windows glowing. In big letters over that image was printed the tagline, "For God's Sake, Get Out"!
Good Lordy Moses did that ever have an effect on me. I mean, it didn't terrify me the way the Dracula poster had in 1968, at the Reseda Theatre. I was now nineteen, and had come to love horror, not only in movies but in books as well. I'd discovered Stephen King in early 1977, and later that year, I picked up a best seller called "The Amityville Horror" by author Jay Anson. If I'm not mistaken, I read that book at Christmastime in 1977 and finished it straight through over the course of a couple nights.
My friends, I now must now solemnly tell you that in all my years as a Horror Fanatic, there have only been three things that have ever kept me awake at night. One was the first time I saw "The Exorcist". I was 13 years old and scared witless. The second was my first screening of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", which also occured in late '77. I'd never seen anything as horrific, yet realistic, as if there might be insane psychos living in the boondocks near you. I literally did not sleep a wink after seeing that film for the first time.
The third thing that scared me into sleeplessness was reading "The Amityville Horror". It was based on a true story, which always heightens the effect, and there is something about a book and the written word, the way in which words go directly into the brain to be immediately processed, that makes the absorption of a written story different from one that is watched on a movie screen. Movies can be incredibly terrifying because they are visual and therefore visceral. But a book can get into your subconscious, word by word and page by page.
I was genuinely shook up by "The Amityville Horror", and I didn't sleep at all on the night I finished it. It literally scared the stuffing out of me, and it took me a few days to recover. Seeing the tagline on the movie poster brought back all the fright I remembered (and by the way, you'll recall that I mentioned above that the Lamppost Movie Poster Campaign was short-lived. That was probably because guys like me were stealing them, haha. I noticed that other ones went missing also, so I wasn't alone in my thefts).
Anyway, now we'll fast forward again to June 1979, and I'm driving away with the poster in the back seat of the 2002. I'm "not skeered" of Amityville anymore, or at least not terrified, and I'm stoked to discover there's a movie coming out. I can't wait to see it. But I never did.
So what happened? Why did I end up not seeing the movie until tonight, over 40 years later? Why did I not see the "The Amityville Horror" until October 30, 2019?
I suppose the short answer to that question is movie reviews. Let me state right off the bat that I stopped years ago reading reviews prior to seeing a film. Part of this was because critics were starting to give too much away, but it was also that, half the time, they were full of crap about the movie. Nowdays I'll still skim over a review or two after seeing a movie, and I enjoy reading the comments of fellow moviegoers on IMDB, but I never read a word beforehand, because in the old days I either got exposed to spoilers or I was prejudiced against a movie by the critic's often wrongheaded judgement.
And that was what happened with "The Amityville Horror" in 1979. I believe it was a Summer release. I was hugely looking forward to it, but when the reviews came out, they were all lukewarm. I read the one in the L.A. Times and heard a couple on TV, and all of them said that, basically, the movie didn't deliver the goods. That it didn't live up to the book, etc., etc. I put a lot of stock in reviews in those days and so, disappointed, I skipped the movie to avoid a major letdown. In recent years, since the advent of dvds, I've seen the disc sitting on the racks at various libraries, but even so, I never checked it out. That's the effect those reviews had on me. The book was so incredibly scary that I couldn't go near the movie because it (supposedly) didn't live up to it's name.
I even rented the freakin' 2005 remake, for God's Sake! It was okay, but not very memorable (are any remakes?). But still, I avoided the original.
Until last night. And that was only because I needed a horror film to finish off our Halloween Horror Movie Season. Author's note : There won't be a movie tonight because I'll be handing out candy at Pearl's. But yeah, I couldn't find anything else on the shelf yesterday at Northridge Libe, and I didn't wanna do the public domain thing again, so I threw in the towel and said "what the hey", and I checked out "The Amityville Horror", original version.
I will never listen to a critic again. You should never listen to a critic again, either, unless the review is about "Friday the 13th Part 17", or the latest Schwarzanegger flick. But even then, you don't need a critic to tell you those movies are gonna suck. So basically - screw the critics. And wait a minute because I know what you're gonna say : "Hey Ad, what about you? Aren't you being a critic with all your movie reviews? Should we therefore say 'screw you, too'? ".
I reply that "no, you shouldn't. I am writing all my reviews from the standpoint of a fan. Professional critics often have agendas, sometimes political or cultural, that they - in part - may judge a film upon. They are also gonna throw "milieu" and "oeuvre" at you every chance they get, something I would only do when faced with no other option. Critics also use a thesaurus-worth of "film theory" terminology, which adds words to their column to help fill their contractual quota, but which read like a bunch of hogwash. I didn't take "film theory" (hell, I didn't even go to college!) so you are thankfully spared such nonsense from me. :) No, I am not a critic but just a gigantic fan of motion pictures.
And I say that "The Amityville Horror" was really good. Because it is now Halloween afternoon, and I have errands to run before heading back to Pearl's for Trick-Or-Treat, I may not have time to write as lengthy a summary as I usually do, but lemme give it a shot.
It is important to note that "Amityville" had a fairly well known director, a guy named Stuart Rosenberg, an all-purpose Hollywood craftsman of the old school who could make any kind of picture. He made "Cool Hand Luke" for instance, and later "The Pope of Greenwich Village". So he wasn't tied down to the horror genre, and therefore he could come in looking to simply make an interesting movie, rather than be tied down to a horror formula.
Though the picture was produced by our old pal Samuel Z. Arkoff and released by his American International Pictures, it looks like Rosenberg was given some money to work with. The late '70s was the era of Big Budget, Two Hour Horror Movies like "The Omen" and "The Fury". "Amityville" runs two hours, so Rosenberg is able to take his time to develop the story, and that is the focus of the film rather than a lot of shock-and-awe, jump scare moments . It's all about the history of the House and it's effect on the new occupants, the Lutz family, and mostly the father George Lutz, who begins to change in personality shortly after moving in. The beginning of the film depicts a gruesome multiple murder that took place a year earlier. This happened in real life. A young man named Ronald deFeo killed his entire family while they slept, and the way it is shown in the movie, in quick cuts, is both blessedly brief yet 100% shocking and terrifying. Right away, you know Rosenberg isn't fooling around.
George and Kathleen Lutz are aware of the murders, but purchase the house anyway. They are getting it at a discount, and it's a big property, perfect for their kids. Ronald deFeo claimed he heard voices coming from the walls, and it was "they" who caused him to kill his family. Within days, we can see something similar happening to George Lutz. James Brolin gives a powerful performance here, slowly breaking down as he is overtaken by the same influence. He struggles to hold onto his sanity but his eyes reveal a growing madness......(to be continued tonight at the Usual Time).
Happy Halloween! Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
"The Human Monster" starring Bela Lugosi
It wouldn't be Halloween without Bela Lugosi, and tonight I watched a grim little feature from his catalogue: "The Human Monster" (1939, originally titled "The Dark Eyes Of London"). This time I didn't find it at the library but on Youtube. My search at Northridge Libe proved fruitless and I needed something to view, so I Googled "Public Domain Horror Movies" as a last resort, and discovered the movie that way. I've used Youtube for public domain flicks before, and while I certainly don't prefer it to watching a proper dvd on a television set, sometimes it comes through in a pinch. And hey, at least I saw it full screen on my small-ish computer. Nowdays, many folks are content to stare down a postage-stamp representation of a film on their telephone screen. Now that's horrific!
As to the film, a series of bodies have been found floating on the Thames River. Scotland Yard had deemed them all suicides, as no evidence turned up to indicate otherwise. But the Yard captain, wanting to cover all the bases, assigns an inspector to the case to tie up any loose ends.
While examining the details concerning the most recent "suicide", the inspector (Hugh Williams) comes across an unusual bit of crumpled paper in the victim's pocket - a message written in Braille. Having no way to interpret it, he takes it to the local Home For The Blind, hoping someone there will be able to help.
Meanwhile, another body is recovered from the Thames. This one has an IOU in his wallet, made out to a local insurance broker named Dr. Orloff, who looks and sounds a bit like Count Dracula if he'd gone the clerical route. Of course it's Lugosi, haha. He explains to the inspector that he'd once been an MD, but turned to the insurance business after being ostracized by his peers for his "unorthodox ideas".
The Thames is a muddy river, but when the inspector goes to the coroner to inquire about the suicide victims, he is told that invariably it was clear water that was found in their lungs. My God Man! They were drowned somewhere else! It was murder in each case, not suicide.
The inspector, smelling a rat, now heads back to the insurance broker's office. When asked about the IOU in the dead man's pocket, Lugosi explains that the man was broke and had come to him for a loan. Yes, he was a client of Lugosi's, having taken out a life insurance policy, which in turn became collateral for the loan. In other words, until the loan was repaid, Lugosi was listed as the benefactor on the policy, should the man meet his demise during this period. Naturally, the inspector finds this information suspicious, but Lugosi pleads ignorance. He is all smiles, offering to help the investigation any way he can : "I thoughht yoou saaid it was a syoo-i-cide"?, he intones in his legendary accent. But the inspector is no longer certain of this conclusion.
He contacts the dead man's daughter to inform her that her father may have been murdered. Then he asks if she would be willing to work as an undercover operative to help lure information out of Lugosi, who has already met her in the aftermath of her father's death. Besides offering consolation, he'd promised to help get her a job at the Home For The Blind, where as it turns out, he is a volunteer.
Ahh yes. Not only was Lugosi once a "cutting-edge" doctor, haha, and now a successful insurance broker, on top of that he is also a philanthropist who gives all his free time to helping blind people. What a guy! The daughter accepts a dual-role job, becoming Lugosi's new secretary and also his assistant at the Blind Home. There, she will meet the kindly Professor Dearborn, for whom the home is named. He himself is blind, but very capable, and has an assistant of his own - an enormous, Frakenstinian man named Jake, who has a set of Hyde-like teeth and bulging, sightless eyes. Jake seems harmless enough, but you wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley.
It is becoming obvious to the inspector that Lugosi has something to do with the deaths, even if he is not himself the murderer. Yet Professor Dearborn speaks his favorably of his friend, calling Lugosi "the kindest most generous man" he's ever known. But of course! Who could ever be suspicious of old Bela? He always played the sweetest of characters..... :)
The daughter (now working at the Blind Home) will in due course make a startling discovery, and we may wonder why she hadn't noticed it sooner. This will be a breakthrough in the case, but that is all I am gonna tell you.
I loved "The Human Monster", a dark and creepy tale of one man's total amorality. It has the plot of a thriller or suspense film, but there is more than enough horror to qualify it in that genre. Particularly awesome is a Mad Scientist sequence near the end that I can also say nothing about due to spoilers, but it's as debased as anything in Lugosi's filmography. He's a real sicko in this one, lol.
The movie is was filmed in England with British actors except for Lugosi and an American gent who plays a detective from Chicago. He's in London to train with Scotland Yard, but seems thrown in as an afterthought, perhaps to help sell tickets in America. His pairing with the English inspector is used for comedic purposes that the film could've done without, but that's a minor complaint.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Human Monster", an obscure but degenerate little picture that is a must-see for Lugosi fanatics, and anyone else who likes a good scare. Also, the picture quality of the print on Youtube was surprisingly good. I don't know if it was taken from the Alpha Video dvd, but if so, they have made a step up in quality with this release. One can always hope. :)
That's all for now. I've got just enough time to stop at T. Joe's for a pumpkin. We've already got one on hand at Pearl's, but he needs a buddy. I always carve two for Halloween. Have a great afternoon and I'll see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
As to the film, a series of bodies have been found floating on the Thames River. Scotland Yard had deemed them all suicides, as no evidence turned up to indicate otherwise. But the Yard captain, wanting to cover all the bases, assigns an inspector to the case to tie up any loose ends.
While examining the details concerning the most recent "suicide", the inspector (Hugh Williams) comes across an unusual bit of crumpled paper in the victim's pocket - a message written in Braille. Having no way to interpret it, he takes it to the local Home For The Blind, hoping someone there will be able to help.
Meanwhile, another body is recovered from the Thames. This one has an IOU in his wallet, made out to a local insurance broker named Dr. Orloff, who looks and sounds a bit like Count Dracula if he'd gone the clerical route. Of course it's Lugosi, haha. He explains to the inspector that he'd once been an MD, but turned to the insurance business after being ostracized by his peers for his "unorthodox ideas".
The Thames is a muddy river, but when the inspector goes to the coroner to inquire about the suicide victims, he is told that invariably it was clear water that was found in their lungs. My God Man! They were drowned somewhere else! It was murder in each case, not suicide.
The inspector, smelling a rat, now heads back to the insurance broker's office. When asked about the IOU in the dead man's pocket, Lugosi explains that the man was broke and had come to him for a loan. Yes, he was a client of Lugosi's, having taken out a life insurance policy, which in turn became collateral for the loan. In other words, until the loan was repaid, Lugosi was listed as the benefactor on the policy, should the man meet his demise during this period. Naturally, the inspector finds this information suspicious, but Lugosi pleads ignorance. He is all smiles, offering to help the investigation any way he can : "I thoughht yoou saaid it was a syoo-i-cide"?, he intones in his legendary accent. But the inspector is no longer certain of this conclusion.
He contacts the dead man's daughter to inform her that her father may have been murdered. Then he asks if she would be willing to work as an undercover operative to help lure information out of Lugosi, who has already met her in the aftermath of her father's death. Besides offering consolation, he'd promised to help get her a job at the Home For The Blind, where as it turns out, he is a volunteer.
Ahh yes. Not only was Lugosi once a "cutting-edge" doctor, haha, and now a successful insurance broker, on top of that he is also a philanthropist who gives all his free time to helping blind people. What a guy! The daughter accepts a dual-role job, becoming Lugosi's new secretary and also his assistant at the Blind Home. There, she will meet the kindly Professor Dearborn, for whom the home is named. He himself is blind, but very capable, and has an assistant of his own - an enormous, Frakenstinian man named Jake, who has a set of Hyde-like teeth and bulging, sightless eyes. Jake seems harmless enough, but you wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley.
It is becoming obvious to the inspector that Lugosi has something to do with the deaths, even if he is not himself the murderer. Yet Professor Dearborn speaks his favorably of his friend, calling Lugosi "the kindest most generous man" he's ever known. But of course! Who could ever be suspicious of old Bela? He always played the sweetest of characters..... :)
The daughter (now working at the Blind Home) will in due course make a startling discovery, and we may wonder why she hadn't noticed it sooner. This will be a breakthrough in the case, but that is all I am gonna tell you.
I loved "The Human Monster", a dark and creepy tale of one man's total amorality. It has the plot of a thriller or suspense film, but there is more than enough horror to qualify it in that genre. Particularly awesome is a Mad Scientist sequence near the end that I can also say nothing about due to spoilers, but it's as debased as anything in Lugosi's filmography. He's a real sicko in this one, lol.
The movie is was filmed in England with British actors except for Lugosi and an American gent who plays a detective from Chicago. He's in London to train with Scotland Yard, but seems thrown in as an afterthought, perhaps to help sell tickets in America. His pairing with the English inspector is used for comedic purposes that the film could've done without, but that's a minor complaint.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Human Monster", an obscure but degenerate little picture that is a must-see for Lugosi fanatics, and anyone else who likes a good scare. Also, the picture quality of the print on Youtube was surprisingly good. I don't know if it was taken from the Alpha Video dvd, but if so, they have made a step up in quality with this release. One can always hope. :)
That's all for now. I've got just enough time to stop at T. Joe's for a pumpkin. We've already got one on hand at Pearl's, but he needs a buddy. I always carve two for Halloween. Have a great afternoon and I'll see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
"The Tomb Of Ligeia" starring Vincent Price
Tonight I watched "The Tomb Of Ligeia" (1965), another good one from Roger Corman that I found today at West Valley Libe. Vincent Price stars again in an adaptation from Edgar Allan Poe, and the combination of Price/Corman/Poe seems to be a successful one. Price plays an Egyptologist named Verden Fell (which sounds rife with symbolism if you ask me). As the movie opens, we are at a funeral service for his late wife Ligeia. The clergyman argues with Price over the burial site, at the ruins of an ancient church. A real place called Castle Acre Priory was used as the location, adding authenticity and a decidedly spooky atmosphere. The clergyman protests that it is wrong to bury Ligeia here, for it is consecrated ground. He is implying that her spirit is unclean. Price knows this and doesn't dispute it, he just wants Ligeia put into the ground as fast as possible. Her coffin has a glass window and we can see her face, which looks beautiful in repose, but......
......her eyes are open.
Price lifts the casket lid to close them, explaining that it was merely a postmortem reaction of the body's nervous system. Boy are we off to a good start.
Next, we cut to the verdant English countryside. A fox hunt is in progress. Do the English Aristocracy still engage in this monstrous and cruel practice? I hope not, but at any rate the movie is set in the early 19th century so we shall let it pass. One of the hunters, a spirited young woman named Lady Rowena, cuts into the lead and chases the fox onto the grounds of the aforementioned Castle Acre Priory. Suddenly she is thrown from her horse,and lands hard on a bed of red flowers, where she is found unconscious by Vincent Price, who is lurking about. He is wearing sidewall sunglasses to protect his eyes from the daylight, and explains to Lady Rowena's father, who arrives quickly on the scene, that she has fallen on the grave of Ligeia, his wife, but that she will be okay because the flowers have broken her fall. There is further symbolism in the flowers, but I will leave you to discover it.
Soon, Lady Rowena has healed, and has a desire to visit Price at his Old Decaying Mansion. I mean, c'mon......after all we've seen this Halloween season did you expect he'd live anywhere else? She shows up at his door , and Price is at first furious : "Never visit me unannounced"!, he exclaims. He softens after Lady Rowena shows a genuine interest in him. She asks about his life and career. Soon they are in love and plan to marry, but Price has some conditions Rowena must adhere to. She cannot be with him at night, for instance. That would be a deal killer in most marriages, but she adores him so much she agrees......for a time, anyway. It's the same old situation yet again, where if I tell you, "you must never enter that room"!, you are eventually going to enter it at some point. And eventually, Rowena will seek to find out what Price does at night.
But meanwhile, they are a happy couple. Price's whole demeanor has changed. He is feeling so good about life that he's decided to sell the Decrepit Old Mansion and move with Rowena to the city. She likes this idea, too, but there is a catch. In contacting his solicitor, Price discovers that he cannot sell the mansion because he isn't the legal owner. All the property is in Ligeia's name. "Well, where is her death certificate? We'll show that and the deed will be released to me", Price says. But the lawyer responds that there is no death certificate. Why this is isn't exactly clear, but it presents a problem for the couple's move.
Stepping in to the picture now is Christopher Gough (John Westbrook) a handsome young nobleman. He is a friend of Rowena's father, and treats her like a sister, but methinks he is secretly fond of her. When he hears about the non-existent death certificate for Ligeia, he becomes suspicious. He is already dubious of Price, whose unknown nighttime activities are a weird question mark to say the least. Gough does a little digging and discovers that Price, because of the absence of the death certificate, is still legally married to Ligeia. When he confronts Rowena with this news, her trust in Price begins to erode. Still, she loves him and wants him free of whatever monkey is riding his back.
In this case, it is a Black Cat, a lethal little beast who sprints around the mansion, running up and down cracked staircases and hiding in dark corners, to jump out at Price (and Rowena) at every opportunity.
What is the deal with this kitty, and why does it go down to the Priory to sit atop Ligeia's tombstone?
Price wants the animal destroyed, but his butler isn't able to catch it. I am an animal lover, and in every case but this one (and maybe Cujo's) I would vehemently protest such a wish, and indeed would try to protect the animal in question. But I've gotta confess, with this cat I might make an exception!
I doubt you'd disagree, if you were a character in this movie.
While Christopher Gough is attempting to pry Rowena away from Vincent Price, we are coming to know more about Ligeia, who believed in the power of the human will to triumph over death. She too was fascinated with the subject of Mesmerism (hypnosis), which seems to be a favorite topic of Poe's. Price turns out to be a skilled hypnotist himself, and he asks Rowena's permission to put her in trance. She agrees, if only to get to the bottom of whatever is going on, but Gough and the rest of the men on hand (the doctor, the Lord and the butler) are dead set against it. The session does take place, however. Price has his reasons for wanting to put Rowena under. I can't tell you what they are, but it will all lead to a thrilling, chilling climax.
"The Tomb Of Ligeia" was surprisingly good, with a script by the great Robert Towne. There are beautiful paintings which serve as title cards, and the look of the film is exquisite for what was likely a small budget. Price underplays Verden Fell, which is a good thing because his tendency toward histrionics could've changed the tone of the film and resulted in camp. Actress Elizabeth Shepherd is quite good herself as Lady Rowena, and the supporting cast is ably Brrrittissh and appropriately mannered. The production has the feel of a Hammer film, it's really well done, and I vow to stop denigrating Roger Corman from here on in. It must be that I saw all of his awful films first, before ever knowing there were good ones. But now I do know, and I will continue to look for more.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Tomb Of Ligeia", another Gothic winner for this team. ////
It is now time for the weekly ritual known as Tuesday Afternoon. You know the drill and I will leave you to it. I myself will now head out the door to go to Northridge Libe and Trader Josephus's. See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons and tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
......her eyes are open.
Price lifts the casket lid to close them, explaining that it was merely a postmortem reaction of the body's nervous system. Boy are we off to a good start.
Next, we cut to the verdant English countryside. A fox hunt is in progress. Do the English Aristocracy still engage in this monstrous and cruel practice? I hope not, but at any rate the movie is set in the early 19th century so we shall let it pass. One of the hunters, a spirited young woman named Lady Rowena, cuts into the lead and chases the fox onto the grounds of the aforementioned Castle Acre Priory. Suddenly she is thrown from her horse,and lands hard on a bed of red flowers, where she is found unconscious by Vincent Price, who is lurking about. He is wearing sidewall sunglasses to protect his eyes from the daylight, and explains to Lady Rowena's father, who arrives quickly on the scene, that she has fallen on the grave of Ligeia, his wife, but that she will be okay because the flowers have broken her fall. There is further symbolism in the flowers, but I will leave you to discover it.
Soon, Lady Rowena has healed, and has a desire to visit Price at his Old Decaying Mansion. I mean, c'mon......after all we've seen this Halloween season did you expect he'd live anywhere else? She shows up at his door , and Price is at first furious : "Never visit me unannounced"!, he exclaims. He softens after Lady Rowena shows a genuine interest in him. She asks about his life and career. Soon they are in love and plan to marry, but Price has some conditions Rowena must adhere to. She cannot be with him at night, for instance. That would be a deal killer in most marriages, but she adores him so much she agrees......for a time, anyway. It's the same old situation yet again, where if I tell you, "you must never enter that room"!, you are eventually going to enter it at some point. And eventually, Rowena will seek to find out what Price does at night.
But meanwhile, they are a happy couple. Price's whole demeanor has changed. He is feeling so good about life that he's decided to sell the Decrepit Old Mansion and move with Rowena to the city. She likes this idea, too, but there is a catch. In contacting his solicitor, Price discovers that he cannot sell the mansion because he isn't the legal owner. All the property is in Ligeia's name. "Well, where is her death certificate? We'll show that and the deed will be released to me", Price says. But the lawyer responds that there is no death certificate. Why this is isn't exactly clear, but it presents a problem for the couple's move.
Stepping in to the picture now is Christopher Gough (John Westbrook) a handsome young nobleman. He is a friend of Rowena's father, and treats her like a sister, but methinks he is secretly fond of her. When he hears about the non-existent death certificate for Ligeia, he becomes suspicious. He is already dubious of Price, whose unknown nighttime activities are a weird question mark to say the least. Gough does a little digging and discovers that Price, because of the absence of the death certificate, is still legally married to Ligeia. When he confronts Rowena with this news, her trust in Price begins to erode. Still, she loves him and wants him free of whatever monkey is riding his back.
In this case, it is a Black Cat, a lethal little beast who sprints around the mansion, running up and down cracked staircases and hiding in dark corners, to jump out at Price (and Rowena) at every opportunity.
What is the deal with this kitty, and why does it go down to the Priory to sit atop Ligeia's tombstone?
Price wants the animal destroyed, but his butler isn't able to catch it. I am an animal lover, and in every case but this one (and maybe Cujo's) I would vehemently protest such a wish, and indeed would try to protect the animal in question. But I've gotta confess, with this cat I might make an exception!
I doubt you'd disagree, if you were a character in this movie.
While Christopher Gough is attempting to pry Rowena away from Vincent Price, we are coming to know more about Ligeia, who believed in the power of the human will to triumph over death. She too was fascinated with the subject of Mesmerism (hypnosis), which seems to be a favorite topic of Poe's. Price turns out to be a skilled hypnotist himself, and he asks Rowena's permission to put her in trance. She agrees, if only to get to the bottom of whatever is going on, but Gough and the rest of the men on hand (the doctor, the Lord and the butler) are dead set against it. The session does take place, however. Price has his reasons for wanting to put Rowena under. I can't tell you what they are, but it will all lead to a thrilling, chilling climax.
"The Tomb Of Ligeia" was surprisingly good, with a script by the great Robert Towne. There are beautiful paintings which serve as title cards, and the look of the film is exquisite for what was likely a small budget. Price underplays Verden Fell, which is a good thing because his tendency toward histrionics could've changed the tone of the film and resulted in camp. Actress Elizabeth Shepherd is quite good herself as Lady Rowena, and the supporting cast is ably Brrrittissh and appropriately mannered. The production has the feel of a Hammer film, it's really well done, and I vow to stop denigrating Roger Corman from here on in. It must be that I saw all of his awful films first, before ever knowing there were good ones. But now I do know, and I will continue to look for more.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Tomb Of Ligeia", another Gothic winner for this team. ////
It is now time for the weekly ritual known as Tuesday Afternoon. You know the drill and I will leave you to it. I myself will now head out the door to go to Northridge Libe and Trader Josephus's. See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons and tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Monday, October 28, 2019
"Ghost Stories" by Director Andy Nyman
I ended up going to Mid-Valley Libe to look for movies. Like West Valley, Mid-Val is also open on Sundays and I hoped I might have a better chance there for some new finds, as I'd already scoured the racks at West Val several weeks running. They had a boatload of movies at Mid-Val, unfortunately not too many of 'em were horror. I did find one that looked promising, however, a recent film called "Ghost Stories" (2017), which I watched tonight. "Ghost Stories" is an independent production from England, distributed by IFC, which I believe is a cable TV channel. That is normally not a selling point for me, and I also avoid anything under the Sundance umbrella or any other film with connections to Indie Festivalia (a word I just coined). It's not that I wouldn't support independent films. Indeed when the movement began in the late 1970s, my friends and I were on the lookout for new and exciting filmmakers in the same way we sought out new bands. The great David Lynch was discovered and then nurtured by programs associated with independent filmmaking, AFI specifically.
The only problem was that film schools were later over-enrolled to a saturation point, and every Tom, Dick and Harry with a script or a Super-8 film to his credit assumed he was an auteur. It was the usual story. To paraphrase Jimmy Durante, "everybody wanted to get in on the act", but only a very few had the talent and skills to make a go of producing quality motion pictures. Therefore, for film fans like myself, the notion of Sundance and other film fests became anethema, things to be avoided or ignored entirely. As the years passed, I lost interest in new independent films, simply because they had become a dime a dozen by the late 1990s, and 99% of them were not of lasting quality.
Remember the lesson of Golden Era Hollywood : You have to tell a captivating story.
I say all of this as a prelude to what will be only a brief review of "Ghost Stories", a movie I really wanted to like, but wavered back and forth on throughout it's duration. Here's the setup : The lead character, a Professor Goodman, is a debunker of phony psychics and anything else paranormal. He has a TV show that exposes it all as a fraud, or superstition. Goodman's hero was another professor who predated him, who also used logic and science to discredit occult mythology.
But the thing is, that Goodman is only pretending to be a Professor. That's just his TV title, and the real professor whom he holds in high esteem has now contacted him and has asked for a meeting at his mobile home, near an isolated beach.
Goodman drives there, knocks on the door of the trailer, and is invited in to the professor's dingy abode, where he finds himself presented with a challenge. It seems that the professor had three cases in his career that he was not able to dismiss. They remain unexplained, and have caused him obvious grief. As Goodman meets with the man, he is hooked up to an IV drip, pictured in shadow and likely on his last legs. What could have caused such a brilliant and rational academic to come apart in this unforeseen way?
Could it have been an actual ghost? A real one?
That is the reason the professor has called Goodman to his home. "I need you to investigate these three cases and report back to me. I fear that all my work has been in vain. Come back when you are finished and tell me that there is nothing to these incidents that cannot be explained rationally. Ahh, but I think you'll not be able to explain them. You see, Mr. Goodman, it is not the superstitious who are wrong, but you and I! It is our work that has been fraudulent! Explain to me these cases if you can - and explain them to yourself as well".
Goodman politely scoffs, but accepts the challenge, then leaves the professor's trailer a bit miffed and disappointed. He'd expected a meeting with his hero, a robust and worthy skeptic, but instead had encountered a worn-out, weary man of self-doubt.
Goodman vows right then and there to expose the final three cases on the professor's agenda, the supposedly Unexplainable Ones. What follows is a horror anthology that in format is similar to films like "Tales of Terror" or "The House That Dripped Blood". British studios such as Hammer and Amicus were particularly good at such productions, and perhaps filmmaker Andy Nyman (who also stars as Professor Goodman) wanted to honor that tradition of English horror by creating a film in the anthology style. The problem is that he doesn't have a well-developed script. He's got most of everything else : excellent atmosphere, truly spooky camerawork, good locations for his haunts. His actors are perfect for their roles and his premise is an interesting one - what if the Supernatural isn't real after all, and can be entirely and rationally explained?
I was all over the map as I watched this movie. I wavered back and forth between enthusiasm and disappointment again and again, at first thinking "wow, this is gonna be really great"! as the premise gathered steam, and then feeling deflated after the first Ghost Story, which was built up well at first and had me prepared for a terrifying (or logically explained) conclusion, but then it just kind of....ended, like it was walking off a cliff. Or more likely, as if Nyman couldn't think of a better ending. The same was true of the second Ghost Story, and it was a shame because that one featured a young actor who really played his role to the hilt, as a neurotic young man whose car has broken down in the woods. This story had the potential to be enormously frightening, but again, the development just wasn't there. It's not enough just to write your script. You've gotta go over it many times in order to build it up, to give it dimension, to really flesh it out as far as you can. And the trouble with many of today's films is that the writers don't seem to be willing, or able, to do this.
Nyman has a lot going for his movie, including an ending that I'll say nothing about, except to reveal that, from what I read on IMDB, viewers either loved or hated it. I myself thought it was pretty creative, and at that point I was wavering back toward enthusiasm for my review. But in the end, after it was over and I had time to let the film settle in, I found that it didn't really stick with me for very long. Most of this was due to the lack of a proper story for any of the three Unsolvable Cases.
I am gonna go right down the middle with "Ghost Stories". I am only gonna give it one and one half thumbs up, but I am also gonna recommend you see it if you are a horror fanatic (but only if you are a fanatic). If you are just a casual fan, you'll surely be disappointed, however if you live and breathe horror movies, as I do, you might find something to like, and you might like it even better than I did. I noticed that most of the fan reviews were all-or-nothing. Most either loved or hated it. I thought it was really good in some ways, and but overall insubstantial. Nyman should try again with better writing. ///
That's all for now. Let's hope these awful winds will stop soon so the firefighters can get a handle on things in the Sepulveda Pass, and even more so in Northern California. No more wind! Besides being my most hated weather condition, they also create havoc and are very dangerous. So may they die down asap. I am gonna head out now to the store, for avocados and chips. I will see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
The only problem was that film schools were later over-enrolled to a saturation point, and every Tom, Dick and Harry with a script or a Super-8 film to his credit assumed he was an auteur. It was the usual story. To paraphrase Jimmy Durante, "everybody wanted to get in on the act", but only a very few had the talent and skills to make a go of producing quality motion pictures. Therefore, for film fans like myself, the notion of Sundance and other film fests became anethema, things to be avoided or ignored entirely. As the years passed, I lost interest in new independent films, simply because they had become a dime a dozen by the late 1990s, and 99% of them were not of lasting quality.
Remember the lesson of Golden Era Hollywood : You have to tell a captivating story.
I say all of this as a prelude to what will be only a brief review of "Ghost Stories", a movie I really wanted to like, but wavered back and forth on throughout it's duration. Here's the setup : The lead character, a Professor Goodman, is a debunker of phony psychics and anything else paranormal. He has a TV show that exposes it all as a fraud, or superstition. Goodman's hero was another professor who predated him, who also used logic and science to discredit occult mythology.
But the thing is, that Goodman is only pretending to be a Professor. That's just his TV title, and the real professor whom he holds in high esteem has now contacted him and has asked for a meeting at his mobile home, near an isolated beach.
Goodman drives there, knocks on the door of the trailer, and is invited in to the professor's dingy abode, where he finds himself presented with a challenge. It seems that the professor had three cases in his career that he was not able to dismiss. They remain unexplained, and have caused him obvious grief. As Goodman meets with the man, he is hooked up to an IV drip, pictured in shadow and likely on his last legs. What could have caused such a brilliant and rational academic to come apart in this unforeseen way?
Could it have been an actual ghost? A real one?
That is the reason the professor has called Goodman to his home. "I need you to investigate these three cases and report back to me. I fear that all my work has been in vain. Come back when you are finished and tell me that there is nothing to these incidents that cannot be explained rationally. Ahh, but I think you'll not be able to explain them. You see, Mr. Goodman, it is not the superstitious who are wrong, but you and I! It is our work that has been fraudulent! Explain to me these cases if you can - and explain them to yourself as well".
Goodman politely scoffs, but accepts the challenge, then leaves the professor's trailer a bit miffed and disappointed. He'd expected a meeting with his hero, a robust and worthy skeptic, but instead had encountered a worn-out, weary man of self-doubt.
Goodman vows right then and there to expose the final three cases on the professor's agenda, the supposedly Unexplainable Ones. What follows is a horror anthology that in format is similar to films like "Tales of Terror" or "The House That Dripped Blood". British studios such as Hammer and Amicus were particularly good at such productions, and perhaps filmmaker Andy Nyman (who also stars as Professor Goodman) wanted to honor that tradition of English horror by creating a film in the anthology style. The problem is that he doesn't have a well-developed script. He's got most of everything else : excellent atmosphere, truly spooky camerawork, good locations for his haunts. His actors are perfect for their roles and his premise is an interesting one - what if the Supernatural isn't real after all, and can be entirely and rationally explained?
I was all over the map as I watched this movie. I wavered back and forth between enthusiasm and disappointment again and again, at first thinking "wow, this is gonna be really great"! as the premise gathered steam, and then feeling deflated after the first Ghost Story, which was built up well at first and had me prepared for a terrifying (or logically explained) conclusion, but then it just kind of....ended, like it was walking off a cliff. Or more likely, as if Nyman couldn't think of a better ending. The same was true of the second Ghost Story, and it was a shame because that one featured a young actor who really played his role to the hilt, as a neurotic young man whose car has broken down in the woods. This story had the potential to be enormously frightening, but again, the development just wasn't there. It's not enough just to write your script. You've gotta go over it many times in order to build it up, to give it dimension, to really flesh it out as far as you can. And the trouble with many of today's films is that the writers don't seem to be willing, or able, to do this.
Nyman has a lot going for his movie, including an ending that I'll say nothing about, except to reveal that, from what I read on IMDB, viewers either loved or hated it. I myself thought it was pretty creative, and at that point I was wavering back toward enthusiasm for my review. But in the end, after it was over and I had time to let the film settle in, I found that it didn't really stick with me for very long. Most of this was due to the lack of a proper story for any of the three Unsolvable Cases.
I am gonna go right down the middle with "Ghost Stories". I am only gonna give it one and one half thumbs up, but I am also gonna recommend you see it if you are a horror fanatic (but only if you are a fanatic). If you are just a casual fan, you'll surely be disappointed, however if you live and breathe horror movies, as I do, you might find something to like, and you might like it even better than I did. I noticed that most of the fan reviews were all-or-nothing. Most either loved or hated it. I thought it was really good in some ways, and but overall insubstantial. Nyman should try again with better writing. ///
That's all for now. Let's hope these awful winds will stop soon so the firefighters can get a handle on things in the Sepulveda Pass, and even more so in Northern California. No more wind! Besides being my most hated weather condition, they also create havoc and are very dangerous. So may they die down asap. I am gonna head out now to the store, for avocados and chips. I will see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Sunday, October 27, 2019
"Tales Of Terror" starring Vincent Price
We're on a pretty good roll with our Horror Movies, wouldn't you say? We've discovered a lot of lesser known films this Halloween season, and tonight we continued in that vein with a picture called "Tales Of Terror" (1962), which was directed, lo and behold, by none other than Roger Corman. If you follow this blog, you're aware that I've trashed Corman on several occasions, using him as a punching bag to make various points about bad low budget directors. And make no mistake - when Corman's bad, he's really really bad - the worst of the bunch. He directed "The Terror", starring Jack Nicholson, and "Little Shop Of Horrors", "The Wild Angels" and "The Wasp Woman". I defy you to sit through any of those masterpieces, and those are only among the most famous of his 56 directorial efforts. Imagine trying to endure "Attack Of The Crab Monsters" or "Teenage Cave Man". Could you sit through either of those without suffering a breakdown?
I didn't think so. And despite what a lot of revisionist critics now say, Roger Corman generally specialised in bad movies. But in fairness, we must add that we've seen two of his films this year that turned out to be pretty good. One was the psychedelic adventure "The Trip", which examined the negative potentials of LSD use, and the other was tonight's feature, "Tales Of Terror", which starred Vincent Price in a trilogy of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, written for the screen by the legendary Richard Matheson.
Corman must've been given a decent budget for this one, and maybe that's all he requires to make a watchable movie, who knows? At any rate, "Tales" was similar to last night's "Kill Baby, Kill" in that it looked great right from the start. The production design was fantastic, very Gothic once again, with liberal use of lurid coloring to bring out the grim grandeur. As mentioned, this is an anthology; there are three Tales, each starring Vincent Price. The first is a melodramatic yarn called "Morella". Price is a woebegone widower who spends his days drinking and wallowing in melancholy, much to his daughter's dismay. Her name is Lenora, she has only now returned from Boston after a lifetime away, and only because her father (Price) has called, claiming to be on his deathbed. She can't bear to be near him, nor he to her. Price says it's Lenora's fault her mother died. "You killed her in childbirth"!, he roars. What's worse, he's never gotten over losing his wife, and Holy Moley and Great Googley Moogeley! - he still keeps her corpse lying in state in a cobwebbed bedroom! C'mon, Vincent.....get a grip. Someone's gonna "get a grip", and it might be on someone else's throat. This particular Tale got the movie off to a gruesome (if maudlin) start.
The second Tale was based on two Poe stories that writer Matheson mashed together. One is "The Cask of Amontillado", the other is "The Black Cat", for which the Tale is named. Peter Lorre is the actual star of this one, Price's part being secondary. Lorre plays an alcoholic ne'er do well from whom his wife must hide their savings, lest he spend it all on wine. All he ever wants is a drink, and one day he heads out in frustration, penniless at the moment, and stumbles into a bar, hoping for the kindness of a stranger to buy him a glass. To his good fortune, a wine tasting exhibition is underway. The town's reigning Sommelier is holding court, correctly identifying vintage after vintage in a blind test, as the patrons look on in admiration. Lorre gets an idea that may net him some free drinks. "I can do what you're doing, and I've never even been trained for it"!, he announces in a slurred voice. Price finds this challenge amusing enough to take Lorre up on it. Soon they are trading sips (or gulps, on Lorre's part), and going toe to toe in their oneophilic analyses. Price is duly impressed, despite Lorre's vulgarian manner, and offers to walk him home when the contest has concluded. Soon the men become fast friends. But Lorre's wife takes a shine to Price also. What might happen if Price should return her attentions? Have you read "The Cask of Amontillado"? If so, then you are aware of the consequences. I wish I could say that I enjoyed this segment, and it was okay, but it could've been a lot better had Peter Lorre not played the whole thing for laughs. Maybe that was what Corman wanted, I don't know, but Lorre - who looked pretty beat up and was way past his expiration date here - had a "Jack Nicholson" effect on the Tale, turning it into a farce when it could've been truly sinister. It wasn't awful, but it would've been better with someone less blowsy in the lead role.
The third Tale is the best one of all. "The Facts In The Case of M.Valdemar" stars Price as an elderly gentleman in poor health who has agreed to let a Mesmerist, played by a cadaverous Basil Rathbone, hypnotise him just before the moment of death. This is to be an experiment of mind control, to see what will happen to a hypnotised subject whose body has passed away. Can he be brought back to life? His doctor, who is also present, is very much against this idea, which he rightly considers barbaric. But Price has agreed to it, and he asks the doctor to take care of his daughter (Debra Paget), should he not come out of the experiment alive. The doctor is horrified, but agrees to Price's request. However, Rathbone the Mesmerist also has designs on Paget, and I have to jump in here to say that you, I, or anyone else would have had a similar plan, for Debra Paget may have been the most beautiful woman ever to appear in motion pictures. She tries to stop the experiment by offering to marry Rathbone, even though he's ancient and she does not love him. Her father (Price) says "No, I want you to marry the doctor"! Lucky doctor...... :) Price is determined to proceed with the hypnosis which takes place as he breathes his dying breath. I shall tell you no more about this scary, spooky Tale, which has some terrifying ramifications for Price's soul, not to mention Basil Rathbone's finely tailored suit, which he's gonna need to take to the cleaners.
All in all, you have one very good Tale ("Morella"), one so-so ("The Black Cat") and one that is terrific in both the figurative and literal senses of the word : "(The Facts In The Case of M.Valdemar). For me, that constitutes a Solid Two Thumbs Up. Good on Roger Corman, also, for turning out a quality picture. Maybe I shouldn't automatically write him off anymore. /////
That is all for the moment. I must head over to West Valley Libe immediately because I need more Horror Movies! Thank goodness they are open on Sunday, hooray! I shall find something for us to watch this evening, and then I will right back here later at the Usual Time. See you then!
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
I didn't think so. And despite what a lot of revisionist critics now say, Roger Corman generally specialised in bad movies. But in fairness, we must add that we've seen two of his films this year that turned out to be pretty good. One was the psychedelic adventure "The Trip", which examined the negative potentials of LSD use, and the other was tonight's feature, "Tales Of Terror", which starred Vincent Price in a trilogy of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, written for the screen by the legendary Richard Matheson.
Corman must've been given a decent budget for this one, and maybe that's all he requires to make a watchable movie, who knows? At any rate, "Tales" was similar to last night's "Kill Baby, Kill" in that it looked great right from the start. The production design was fantastic, very Gothic once again, with liberal use of lurid coloring to bring out the grim grandeur. As mentioned, this is an anthology; there are three Tales, each starring Vincent Price. The first is a melodramatic yarn called "Morella". Price is a woebegone widower who spends his days drinking and wallowing in melancholy, much to his daughter's dismay. Her name is Lenora, she has only now returned from Boston after a lifetime away, and only because her father (Price) has called, claiming to be on his deathbed. She can't bear to be near him, nor he to her. Price says it's Lenora's fault her mother died. "You killed her in childbirth"!, he roars. What's worse, he's never gotten over losing his wife, and Holy Moley and Great Googley Moogeley! - he still keeps her corpse lying in state in a cobwebbed bedroom! C'mon, Vincent.....get a grip. Someone's gonna "get a grip", and it might be on someone else's throat. This particular Tale got the movie off to a gruesome (if maudlin) start.
The second Tale was based on two Poe stories that writer Matheson mashed together. One is "The Cask of Amontillado", the other is "The Black Cat", for which the Tale is named. Peter Lorre is the actual star of this one, Price's part being secondary. Lorre plays an alcoholic ne'er do well from whom his wife must hide their savings, lest he spend it all on wine. All he ever wants is a drink, and one day he heads out in frustration, penniless at the moment, and stumbles into a bar, hoping for the kindness of a stranger to buy him a glass. To his good fortune, a wine tasting exhibition is underway. The town's reigning Sommelier is holding court, correctly identifying vintage after vintage in a blind test, as the patrons look on in admiration. Lorre gets an idea that may net him some free drinks. "I can do what you're doing, and I've never even been trained for it"!, he announces in a slurred voice. Price finds this challenge amusing enough to take Lorre up on it. Soon they are trading sips (or gulps, on Lorre's part), and going toe to toe in their oneophilic analyses. Price is duly impressed, despite Lorre's vulgarian manner, and offers to walk him home when the contest has concluded. Soon the men become fast friends. But Lorre's wife takes a shine to Price also. What might happen if Price should return her attentions? Have you read "The Cask of Amontillado"? If so, then you are aware of the consequences. I wish I could say that I enjoyed this segment, and it was okay, but it could've been a lot better had Peter Lorre not played the whole thing for laughs. Maybe that was what Corman wanted, I don't know, but Lorre - who looked pretty beat up and was way past his expiration date here - had a "Jack Nicholson" effect on the Tale, turning it into a farce when it could've been truly sinister. It wasn't awful, but it would've been better with someone less blowsy in the lead role.
The third Tale is the best one of all. "The Facts In The Case of M.Valdemar" stars Price as an elderly gentleman in poor health who has agreed to let a Mesmerist, played by a cadaverous Basil Rathbone, hypnotise him just before the moment of death. This is to be an experiment of mind control, to see what will happen to a hypnotised subject whose body has passed away. Can he be brought back to life? His doctor, who is also present, is very much against this idea, which he rightly considers barbaric. But Price has agreed to it, and he asks the doctor to take care of his daughter (Debra Paget), should he not come out of the experiment alive. The doctor is horrified, but agrees to Price's request. However, Rathbone the Mesmerist also has designs on Paget, and I have to jump in here to say that you, I, or anyone else would have had a similar plan, for Debra Paget may have been the most beautiful woman ever to appear in motion pictures. She tries to stop the experiment by offering to marry Rathbone, even though he's ancient and she does not love him. Her father (Price) says "No, I want you to marry the doctor"! Lucky doctor...... :) Price is determined to proceed with the hypnosis which takes place as he breathes his dying breath. I shall tell you no more about this scary, spooky Tale, which has some terrifying ramifications for Price's soul, not to mention Basil Rathbone's finely tailored suit, which he's gonna need to take to the cleaners.
All in all, you have one very good Tale ("Morella"), one so-so ("The Black Cat") and one that is terrific in both the figurative and literal senses of the word : "(The Facts In The Case of M.Valdemar). For me, that constitutes a Solid Two Thumbs Up. Good on Roger Corman, also, for turning out a quality picture. Maybe I shouldn't automatically write him off anymore. /////
That is all for the moment. I must head over to West Valley Libe immediately because I need more Horror Movies! Thank goodness they are open on Sunday, hooray! I shall find something for us to watch this evening, and then I will right back here later at the Usual Time. See you then!
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Saturday, October 26, 2019
"Kill Baby, Kill" by Director Mario Bava
Tonight's movie was "Kill Baby, Kill" (1966) directed by Italian Horrormeister Mario Bava, whose other noteworthy pictures include "Black Sunday" (with Barbara Steele) and "Black Sabbath", from which the legendary band took it's name. The title here is a bit unfortunate : "Kill Baby, Kill" sounds like something Russ Meyer might've made, a trashy exploitation flick with heaving bosoms. But it's only the title for the American release. The original title was "Operazione Paura", or "Operation Fear" for us Anglos, which in either language is much more appropriate for the subject at hand.
This was my first foray into the cinema of Bava, of whom I didn't know much about except for the two famous films mentioned above. Right off the bat, though, I was taken by his artistic approach. From the get go, this film looks like a moving pastel painting. Bava must have coordinated with his set designer, his cinematographer and his key grip to create this ultra-Gothic look, which as it will turn out, is the star of the show.
The story is promising to begin with : The time is late 19th century. A coroner is called to a remote European village at the behest of it's police inspector, who wants an autopsy performed on a young maid whose body was found impaled on the spikes of an iron gate. I must pause here to add "autopsy" to our list of horrifying words. I mean, who the hell came up with that one?
But in continuing the plot, the reason the inspector has requested the autopsy (ick!), is that he doesn't believe the lady committed suicide.
As the coroner arrives in the village, which is comprised of old stone buildings, many of them crumbling, we see a team of cemetery workers in the background, rapidly carrying a casket to it's burial site. What movie are we in, anyway? This graveyard skullduggery is reminiscent of Dwight Frye's late night Coffin Switcheroos in "Dead Men Walk", which we saw just the other night. Here, in "Kill Baby, Kill", the gravediggers are in a hurry to bury the same woman the coroner was summoned to examine! What is their hurry to get her in the ground?
The villagers feel there is a curse upon their town, cast upon them by the ghost of a little girl who died under tragic circumstances. She was the daughter of the local Baroness, an elderly woman who lives as a recluse in her cobwebbed mansion. I must also pause here to state once again the importance of Mansions in the Horror Milieu.
The coroner requires a witness to be present at the autopsy. The only person available with anything resembling medical training is a young woman with a degree in natural science. She has only recently arrived back in the village. Though it is her birthplace, she left it as a child for mysterious reasons. She and the coroner make a startling discovery during the autopsy; a special coin has been inserted into the dead woman's heart! How in the world did it get there, and what is it's purpose?
Better ask the local Sorceress, or Witch if you prefer. The coroner, being a Man Of Science, naturally doesn't believe in witchery and other such hocus pocus, so when the Sorceress explains the reason for the coin-in-the-heart, he scoffs. She also tells him that it would be better if he left town immediately. All this does is make him more determined to learn the real cause of the young woman's death, but then the police inspector turns up dead, and now he's got his hands full. He's now on the case all alone, and his female assistant is having nightmares about her childhood, that take place in the decrepit mansion of the Baroness. She hears terrible, cackling laughter. A rubber ball bounces down a stairway. A child's ashen face appears in a window.......and then disappears again into darkness.
The assistant tells the coroner that she must get inside the mansion. She must see for herself if it resembles the place of her nightmares. Though he scoffs yet again, he agrees to help her because he needs her for his investigation. Then the Sorceress appears to warn them once more : "Do not go into that house! The Baroness is a dangerous woman! You do not know what you are dealing with, and even I will not be able to protect you"!
If it were me, I'd have listened to the Sorceress, but then the movie would've ended on the spot, without much fanfare. Good thing for us that the coroner is a skeptic. Bava cranks up the art direction for a dazzling finale.
If I rated movies on production design alone, "Kill Baby, Kill" would get a 10/10 and Two Gigantic Thumbs Up. I'm not sure I've ever seen a motion picture that looks like this one, a ghoulishly colorful pastiche of grim imagery that reminded me of the cover of the first Black Sabbath album. There seems to be a Hieronymous Bosch influence as well. I think that Bava also must've been a big influence on Dario Argento of "Suspiria" fame, with his much earlier use of luridly colored spotlighting effects.
The film looks incredible, and the slow-tracking camerawork is hypnotizing. The story, as noted earlier, starts out with great promise, and as the intrigue builds, we are really sucked in to what seems like a Grand Guignolian Mystery. Unfortunately, the script thins out, or maybe Bava didn't know what to do with it, because he isn't able to sustain the tension through the last half hour of the film, when the movie so depends on it for a frightening finish. It's still scary, but it could've been major league, and Bava could've had an all-timer on his hands.
Instead, "Kill Baby, Kill" gets Two Regular Thumbs Up. It is without a doubt worth seeing, and I recommend it for it's look alone, but from Bava's reputation, he may have better films up his sleeve. I'll be checking the database for more. ////
That's all for now. I'm gonna head out to GNC to get some vitamins, then to the Libe if I have time. I have just begun reading "America Before" by Graham Hancock, the study of a possible Lost Civilization that existed here in antiquity, long before the Indians even arrived and prior to the Ice Age. As usual, it's mind blowing stuff. That's the only kind of stuff I read, haha. :):)
Have a great afternoon and I will see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
This was my first foray into the cinema of Bava, of whom I didn't know much about except for the two famous films mentioned above. Right off the bat, though, I was taken by his artistic approach. From the get go, this film looks like a moving pastel painting. Bava must have coordinated with his set designer, his cinematographer and his key grip to create this ultra-Gothic look, which as it will turn out, is the star of the show.
The story is promising to begin with : The time is late 19th century. A coroner is called to a remote European village at the behest of it's police inspector, who wants an autopsy performed on a young maid whose body was found impaled on the spikes of an iron gate. I must pause here to add "autopsy" to our list of horrifying words. I mean, who the hell came up with that one?
But in continuing the plot, the reason the inspector has requested the autopsy (ick!), is that he doesn't believe the lady committed suicide.
As the coroner arrives in the village, which is comprised of old stone buildings, many of them crumbling, we see a team of cemetery workers in the background, rapidly carrying a casket to it's burial site. What movie are we in, anyway? This graveyard skullduggery is reminiscent of Dwight Frye's late night Coffin Switcheroos in "Dead Men Walk", which we saw just the other night. Here, in "Kill Baby, Kill", the gravediggers are in a hurry to bury the same woman the coroner was summoned to examine! What is their hurry to get her in the ground?
The villagers feel there is a curse upon their town, cast upon them by the ghost of a little girl who died under tragic circumstances. She was the daughter of the local Baroness, an elderly woman who lives as a recluse in her cobwebbed mansion. I must also pause here to state once again the importance of Mansions in the Horror Milieu.
The coroner requires a witness to be present at the autopsy. The only person available with anything resembling medical training is a young woman with a degree in natural science. She has only recently arrived back in the village. Though it is her birthplace, she left it as a child for mysterious reasons. She and the coroner make a startling discovery during the autopsy; a special coin has been inserted into the dead woman's heart! How in the world did it get there, and what is it's purpose?
Better ask the local Sorceress, or Witch if you prefer. The coroner, being a Man Of Science, naturally doesn't believe in witchery and other such hocus pocus, so when the Sorceress explains the reason for the coin-in-the-heart, he scoffs. She also tells him that it would be better if he left town immediately. All this does is make him more determined to learn the real cause of the young woman's death, but then the police inspector turns up dead, and now he's got his hands full. He's now on the case all alone, and his female assistant is having nightmares about her childhood, that take place in the decrepit mansion of the Baroness. She hears terrible, cackling laughter. A rubber ball bounces down a stairway. A child's ashen face appears in a window.......and then disappears again into darkness.
The assistant tells the coroner that she must get inside the mansion. She must see for herself if it resembles the place of her nightmares. Though he scoffs yet again, he agrees to help her because he needs her for his investigation. Then the Sorceress appears to warn them once more : "Do not go into that house! The Baroness is a dangerous woman! You do not know what you are dealing with, and even I will not be able to protect you"!
If it were me, I'd have listened to the Sorceress, but then the movie would've ended on the spot, without much fanfare. Good thing for us that the coroner is a skeptic. Bava cranks up the art direction for a dazzling finale.
If I rated movies on production design alone, "Kill Baby, Kill" would get a 10/10 and Two Gigantic Thumbs Up. I'm not sure I've ever seen a motion picture that looks like this one, a ghoulishly colorful pastiche of grim imagery that reminded me of the cover of the first Black Sabbath album. There seems to be a Hieronymous Bosch influence as well. I think that Bava also must've been a big influence on Dario Argento of "Suspiria" fame, with his much earlier use of luridly colored spotlighting effects.
The film looks incredible, and the slow-tracking camerawork is hypnotizing. The story, as noted earlier, starts out with great promise, and as the intrigue builds, we are really sucked in to what seems like a Grand Guignolian Mystery. Unfortunately, the script thins out, or maybe Bava didn't know what to do with it, because he isn't able to sustain the tension through the last half hour of the film, when the movie so depends on it for a frightening finish. It's still scary, but it could've been major league, and Bava could've had an all-timer on his hands.
Instead, "Kill Baby, Kill" gets Two Regular Thumbs Up. It is without a doubt worth seeing, and I recommend it for it's look alone, but from Bava's reputation, he may have better films up his sleeve. I'll be checking the database for more. ////
That's all for now. I'm gonna head out to GNC to get some vitamins, then to the Libe if I have time. I have just begun reading "America Before" by Graham Hancock, the study of a possible Lost Civilization that existed here in antiquity, long before the Indians even arrived and prior to the Ice Age. As usual, it's mind blowing stuff. That's the only kind of stuff I read, haha. :):)
Have a great afternoon and I will see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Friday, October 25, 2019
"The Satanic Rites of Dracula" starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing
Tonight I watched "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" (1973), starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. This is the real deal, people. The title alone is enough to terrify you. I've remarked in the past that I've long considered Lee as the scariest Dracula. I remember seeing him for the first time as The Count, not in a movie but in a framed poster at the Reseda Theater, for "Dracula Has Risen From The Grave". Talk about a Title That Terrifies You : that one's the all-timer. But even more than the title was Lee's image - a maniacal Count, eyes red and blazing, rising up from his coffin (another terrifying word), despite having a wooden stake through his chest. The tag line on the poster read "You Can't Keep A Good Man Down".
I was eight years old when I saw that poster, and boy oh boy did it ever make an impression on me.
I mean, Bela Lugosi was scary enough. I was already frightened to death of him, and I famously ran out of the Hollywood Wax Museum as a six year old in 1966, when I encountered Lugosi's Dracula as my Dad and a family friend escorted me through the place. I was so scared of Count Dracula in the Wax Museum that I ran right out of there. My Dad had to come outside to get me.
So you can imagine the effect Christopher Lee had on me when I saw his poster at the Reseda Theater two years later. By then I was a little less timorous as far as Monsters went, but I still wanted no part of a Dracula that could not only Rise From The Grave despite a stake through his heart, but who was also so wild-eyed and unrelentingly violent. That was how Christopher Lee portrayed Count Dracula, and though Lugosi will always be the Definitive Drac, for me it is Lee who is the scariest. He would never bid you "good eeve-ening" because he'd be too ready to tear you a new one the moment he saw you.
In "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", a team of detectives from Scotland Yard is conducting a surveillance operation on a countryside manor, which ostensibly is a house of psychic research, headed up by a Chinese woman of long standing residency. However, the detectives have evidence that one of their own has been witnessed entering the premises - and not just another detective but their Head Inspector! He is not the only high-powered gentleman who has been photographed entering the house, either. Also involved are a major industrialist, a General, and a wealthy landowner. But it is their own Boss they are most interested in, for if - like William Barr - he is in reality an arch criminal entwined in a nefarious scheme, they will have no choice but to raid the place and arrest him, along with everyone else on hand.
They have a detective who has infiltrated the manor, but he has been caught by the Chinese woman's security team. When we meet him, he has been tortured within an inch of his life and is tied to a cot in the mansion's basement. Against all odds, he manages to escape, and when he gets back to Yard headquarters, he has a tale to tell that will shock the living daylights out of his fellow inspectors.
You see, it isn't psychic research that is being conducted inside the manor, nor is it political subterfuge. The escaped detective tells his superiors that what he witnessed was a Satanic Ritual, complete with a Virgin Sacrifice and invocation of Dark Forces. He says there was a Pentagram Altar, black candles, red curtains and the whole works, and when you see the movie you will know he wasn't kidding.
The one thing he wasn't able to learn was the identity of whomever was behind this elaborate ritual. Certainly is was not the Chinese woman, a person of no real means. No, there must be someone higher up on the ladder of Evil Intent who is using this Manor House and these corporate and government bigwigs to conduct Satanic Rites for his own benefit.
Now who could that be?
We won't know until we consult Professor Van Helsing, or Peter Cushing to you and me. He is an expert on the subject of Satanism, and is also the last person to have seen Count Dracula alive, though that was in a prior Hammer Studios Dracula Movie, so Van Helsing has kept that information to himself until now.
He informs the detectives that he had killed the Count by driving a stake through his heart, but then adds the bad news that Ol' Drac could be revived, if the proper ritual was followed to the letter by Satanic devotees.
Aha! So that is what is going on, eh? The high-powered men seen entering the Manor are engaged in a plan to bring Dracula back to life! I shudder to think what horrors could result if they are successful....
The men from Scotland Yard hatch a plan to sneak into the place, bringing along Van Helsing's granddaughter for two reasons : 1) Being a Van Helsing, she has a thoroughgoing fascination with all things Vampiric, and 2) She is being played by Joyce Lumley, an English Horror Hottie of the type whose presence is required in Hammer films. The three find their way inside the house, and discover that the goings-on are even worse than they suspected. Down in the basement, they find the former secretary of their Boss, who disappeared a while back. There seems to be something different about her now.........she's gotten a bit Toothy shall we say.
Other females are chained down there as well, and some lay inside coffins (ooh, there's that awful word again!)
I'll not reveal any more of the plot, except to say that when the detectives get the hell out of the building, they go to visit a scientist who had a known connection to the manor when it was thought to be just a simple psychic research center. He is now a broken man, working on an experiment that has made him a nervous wreck. I cannot tell you any more about it, except to say that he may have been in Someone's employ, and that Someone may have an apocalyptic plan for the product of the experiment.
It's a doggone good thing that Professor Van Helsing is still around. As he tells the detectives, "there is more than one way to kill a Vampire". But when the Vampire is Christopher Lee, can you keep him killed? That's the real question.
You may find the answer if you watch "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", which I most "heart"ily recommend you do! You may want to leave the lights on while you watch, and you'll probably sleep with a ring of garlic around your neck afterwards, but what the hey. You've gotta have your scares at this time of year, and - trust me - you'll get 'em in this movie. Big time.
I think it will make my list of All-Time Horror Films. It's certainly one of the most terrifying Dracula movies I've ever seen, and it has a unique plot, too - Ol' Drac being investigated by the Cops.
Two Huge Thumbs Up for "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", a classic from Hammer Studios at the peak of their great run of horror films in the early 1970s. ///
That's all for now. It's Friday afternoon, the heat is still on (92 degrees) and the wind is still blowing, but there is no more smoke in the air, and it looks like the fires have been put out, thank goodness. Have a great afternoon and I will see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
I was eight years old when I saw that poster, and boy oh boy did it ever make an impression on me.
I mean, Bela Lugosi was scary enough. I was already frightened to death of him, and I famously ran out of the Hollywood Wax Museum as a six year old in 1966, when I encountered Lugosi's Dracula as my Dad and a family friend escorted me through the place. I was so scared of Count Dracula in the Wax Museum that I ran right out of there. My Dad had to come outside to get me.
So you can imagine the effect Christopher Lee had on me when I saw his poster at the Reseda Theater two years later. By then I was a little less timorous as far as Monsters went, but I still wanted no part of a Dracula that could not only Rise From The Grave despite a stake through his heart, but who was also so wild-eyed and unrelentingly violent. That was how Christopher Lee portrayed Count Dracula, and though Lugosi will always be the Definitive Drac, for me it is Lee who is the scariest. He would never bid you "good eeve-ening" because he'd be too ready to tear you a new one the moment he saw you.
In "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", a team of detectives from Scotland Yard is conducting a surveillance operation on a countryside manor, which ostensibly is a house of psychic research, headed up by a Chinese woman of long standing residency. However, the detectives have evidence that one of their own has been witnessed entering the premises - and not just another detective but their Head Inspector! He is not the only high-powered gentleman who has been photographed entering the house, either. Also involved are a major industrialist, a General, and a wealthy landowner. But it is their own Boss they are most interested in, for if - like William Barr - he is in reality an arch criminal entwined in a nefarious scheme, they will have no choice but to raid the place and arrest him, along with everyone else on hand.
They have a detective who has infiltrated the manor, but he has been caught by the Chinese woman's security team. When we meet him, he has been tortured within an inch of his life and is tied to a cot in the mansion's basement. Against all odds, he manages to escape, and when he gets back to Yard headquarters, he has a tale to tell that will shock the living daylights out of his fellow inspectors.
You see, it isn't psychic research that is being conducted inside the manor, nor is it political subterfuge. The escaped detective tells his superiors that what he witnessed was a Satanic Ritual, complete with a Virgin Sacrifice and invocation of Dark Forces. He says there was a Pentagram Altar, black candles, red curtains and the whole works, and when you see the movie you will know he wasn't kidding.
The one thing he wasn't able to learn was the identity of whomever was behind this elaborate ritual. Certainly is was not the Chinese woman, a person of no real means. No, there must be someone higher up on the ladder of Evil Intent who is using this Manor House and these corporate and government bigwigs to conduct Satanic Rites for his own benefit.
Now who could that be?
We won't know until we consult Professor Van Helsing, or Peter Cushing to you and me. He is an expert on the subject of Satanism, and is also the last person to have seen Count Dracula alive, though that was in a prior Hammer Studios Dracula Movie, so Van Helsing has kept that information to himself until now.
He informs the detectives that he had killed the Count by driving a stake through his heart, but then adds the bad news that Ol' Drac could be revived, if the proper ritual was followed to the letter by Satanic devotees.
Aha! So that is what is going on, eh? The high-powered men seen entering the Manor are engaged in a plan to bring Dracula back to life! I shudder to think what horrors could result if they are successful....
The men from Scotland Yard hatch a plan to sneak into the place, bringing along Van Helsing's granddaughter for two reasons : 1) Being a Van Helsing, she has a thoroughgoing fascination with all things Vampiric, and 2) She is being played by Joyce Lumley, an English Horror Hottie of the type whose presence is required in Hammer films. The three find their way inside the house, and discover that the goings-on are even worse than they suspected. Down in the basement, they find the former secretary of their Boss, who disappeared a while back. There seems to be something different about her now.........she's gotten a bit Toothy shall we say.
Other females are chained down there as well, and some lay inside coffins (ooh, there's that awful word again!)
I'll not reveal any more of the plot, except to say that when the detectives get the hell out of the building, they go to visit a scientist who had a known connection to the manor when it was thought to be just a simple psychic research center. He is now a broken man, working on an experiment that has made him a nervous wreck. I cannot tell you any more about it, except to say that he may have been in Someone's employ, and that Someone may have an apocalyptic plan for the product of the experiment.
It's a doggone good thing that Professor Van Helsing is still around. As he tells the detectives, "there is more than one way to kill a Vampire". But when the Vampire is Christopher Lee, can you keep him killed? That's the real question.
You may find the answer if you watch "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", which I most "heart"ily recommend you do! You may want to leave the lights on while you watch, and you'll probably sleep with a ring of garlic around your neck afterwards, but what the hey. You've gotta have your scares at this time of year, and - trust me - you'll get 'em in this movie. Big time.
I think it will make my list of All-Time Horror Films. It's certainly one of the most terrifying Dracula movies I've ever seen, and it has a unique plot, too - Ol' Drac being investigated by the Cops.
Two Huge Thumbs Up for "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", a classic from Hammer Studios at the peak of their great run of horror films in the early 1970s. ///
That's all for now. It's Friday afternoon, the heat is still on (92 degrees) and the wind is still blowing, but there is no more smoke in the air, and it looks like the fires have been put out, thank goodness. Have a great afternoon and I will see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, October 24, 2019
"Dead Men Walk" starring George Zucco and Dwight Frye
Tonight I watched a twisted little picture from a studio called Producers Releasing Corporation, or PRC for short. PRC is listed in Wikipedia as a "prime example of what was called a Poverty Row studio", and as far as this film is concerned, the description is accurate. The budget is ultra low, but as we are aware, art is more about creativity than money, and we've gotten good results before from Poverty Row. This time, the result was surprisingly good.
The movie was called "Dead Men Walk", which sounds more like a crime story, but it's actually about a Vampire. Our old friend George Zucco stars in a dual role as twin brothers - one good, the other evil. The movie begins with an oration by an unknown but imposing gentleman, a creepy, gaunt looking guy whose face is obscured by flames. He lectures us on the folly of disbelief in matters concerning the Underworld. He tells us that our skepticism will lead us to our doom. "Hey wait a minute, buddy"!, I was thinking. "Don't include me with the skeptics. I believe in all that stuff"! :)
I just didn't wanna be condemned by this dude before the movie even started. He looked like he meant business.
Following the Dire Warning was a funeral scene, at which a priest is eulogizing George Zucco's twin brother. Zucco is a small town doctor. His late brother (also played by Zucco) was.....well, there's no other way to put it : he was a Satanist. I told you this was a twisted movie. At the funeral, the priest is about to consign the brother's body to the grave, when who should speak up but Dwight Frye!
Frye, as you probably know, played a weirdo in both "Frankenstein" and "Dracula", so his horror bonafides are set in stone. Also, the Alice Cooper group wrote a song about him for their "Love It To Death" album in 1971, but back to the movie :
As George Zucco's brother is being lowered into the ground, Frye suddenly exclaims that he was murdered. He points an accusing finger at the good George Zucco, the brother still living, who responds that he "had to do it - it wasn't murder and you wouldn't understand". The funeral proceeds, however, and no one further questions the outburst between Frye and Dr. Zucco.
Later that night, Dwight Frye goes to the cemetery, removes the casket of the Evil Zucco brother from it's crypt, and carts it to another location on the grounds. It's obvious why he is doing this.
Evil Zucco is Undead.
Meanwhile, back at the house, Dr. Zucco is on a mission. He's ridding the place of his brother's presence, throwing out his belongings and burning all his books, which were all about Satanic rituals and Witchcraft. But while he is in the middle of this purging, who should appear in the window but the evil brother himself! Remember, he's Undead. Therefore it is no problem for him to materialise right through the glass and into the room itself. He grins diabolically at his brother.
"Did you really think you could stop me with a few bullets"?
Man, is George Zucco ever spooky as the Evil Brother! You've gotta see him for yourself, :)
Evil Zucco swears right there on the spot that he will get his revenge against his brother. He will start by attacking their neice on this very night. She lives in the house with her fiance, a straightforward young man who doesn't believe in Vampires. I guess he didn't listen to the warning at the beginning of the movie, but anyway, Evil Zucco is going to slowly drain the niece of her blood over a period of many nights. His victory will then be twofold : First, he will cause his brother to go to prison, because the doctor is already under suspicion for Evil Zucco's death, and when the niece dies in his house, he will certainly be blamed again. Evil Zucco will stage it to look like she was poisoned, and because the fiance doesn't believe in vampires, he will accuse the doctor. Evil Zucco's second triumph will be turning the niece into a Vampire, after which her soul will forever belong to him.
Listen folks, this is one really weird movie. There was a period in the 1940s when Hollywood delved into the subject of Devil Worship, in movies like "The Seventh Victim", which will scare the bejabbers out of you. "Dead Men Walk" doesn't have the budget or story development of that film, but it has everything else. Zucco as the Vampire isn't just a scary-but-suave Count (and I'm not knocking Dracula here), he's downright malevolent and mean-spirited. He's cruel and takes great pleasure in causing his good brother's downfall. Mostly, he is dedicated to his Master, The Devil. The script goes all the way in that respect.
The atmosphere is Vintage Foggy Graveyard, with Dwight Frye sneaking around to move Evil Zucco's body yet again, whenever the doctor gets close to discovering it. Good Zucco knows the only way to stop Evil Zucco is to expose him to daylight, and he is willing to pull him from his casket to do so. But he just can't seem to find him.....
Meanwhile, a mob is gathering at the Sheriff's station. They know about the niece. She is near death and they want Dr. Zucco arrested. Can the Sheriff hold them at bay? Can Dr. Zucco convince the fiance that Vampires are real? Can Dwight Frye keep Evil Zucco hidden?
You will be finding out all of these things for yourself, because there is no way you are gonna want to miss "Dead Men Walk", which is packed full of fiendish frights in it's 64 minute running time. I was lucky to have discovered it at Northridge Libe, as part of a four movie/single dvd collection of "Horror Classics", released on an obscure label. Usually those collections are pretty bad, or filled with movies you've already seen, but this time I uncovered a gem.
"Dead Men Walk" gets Two Gigantic Thumbs Up. It's not a big money production, but for what it is, it's top quality and unique in it's rendition of the Vampire Tale. See it, see it, see it! ////
That's all for now. It's Thursday afternoon, 95 degrees outside with Santa Ana winds blowing and smoke in the air. I'm gonna go to Super King (aka the produce market) to a Truckload Of Veggies, and then head back to Pearl's. See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
The movie was called "Dead Men Walk", which sounds more like a crime story, but it's actually about a Vampire. Our old friend George Zucco stars in a dual role as twin brothers - one good, the other evil. The movie begins with an oration by an unknown but imposing gentleman, a creepy, gaunt looking guy whose face is obscured by flames. He lectures us on the folly of disbelief in matters concerning the Underworld. He tells us that our skepticism will lead us to our doom. "Hey wait a minute, buddy"!, I was thinking. "Don't include me with the skeptics. I believe in all that stuff"! :)
I just didn't wanna be condemned by this dude before the movie even started. He looked like he meant business.
Following the Dire Warning was a funeral scene, at which a priest is eulogizing George Zucco's twin brother. Zucco is a small town doctor. His late brother (also played by Zucco) was.....well, there's no other way to put it : he was a Satanist. I told you this was a twisted movie. At the funeral, the priest is about to consign the brother's body to the grave, when who should speak up but Dwight Frye!
Frye, as you probably know, played a weirdo in both "Frankenstein" and "Dracula", so his horror bonafides are set in stone. Also, the Alice Cooper group wrote a song about him for their "Love It To Death" album in 1971, but back to the movie :
As George Zucco's brother is being lowered into the ground, Frye suddenly exclaims that he was murdered. He points an accusing finger at the good George Zucco, the brother still living, who responds that he "had to do it - it wasn't murder and you wouldn't understand". The funeral proceeds, however, and no one further questions the outburst between Frye and Dr. Zucco.
Later that night, Dwight Frye goes to the cemetery, removes the casket of the Evil Zucco brother from it's crypt, and carts it to another location on the grounds. It's obvious why he is doing this.
Evil Zucco is Undead.
Meanwhile, back at the house, Dr. Zucco is on a mission. He's ridding the place of his brother's presence, throwing out his belongings and burning all his books, which were all about Satanic rituals and Witchcraft. But while he is in the middle of this purging, who should appear in the window but the evil brother himself! Remember, he's Undead. Therefore it is no problem for him to materialise right through the glass and into the room itself. He grins diabolically at his brother.
"Did you really think you could stop me with a few bullets"?
Man, is George Zucco ever spooky as the Evil Brother! You've gotta see him for yourself, :)
Evil Zucco swears right there on the spot that he will get his revenge against his brother. He will start by attacking their neice on this very night. She lives in the house with her fiance, a straightforward young man who doesn't believe in Vampires. I guess he didn't listen to the warning at the beginning of the movie, but anyway, Evil Zucco is going to slowly drain the niece of her blood over a period of many nights. His victory will then be twofold : First, he will cause his brother to go to prison, because the doctor is already under suspicion for Evil Zucco's death, and when the niece dies in his house, he will certainly be blamed again. Evil Zucco will stage it to look like she was poisoned, and because the fiance doesn't believe in vampires, he will accuse the doctor. Evil Zucco's second triumph will be turning the niece into a Vampire, after which her soul will forever belong to him.
Listen folks, this is one really weird movie. There was a period in the 1940s when Hollywood delved into the subject of Devil Worship, in movies like "The Seventh Victim", which will scare the bejabbers out of you. "Dead Men Walk" doesn't have the budget or story development of that film, but it has everything else. Zucco as the Vampire isn't just a scary-but-suave Count (and I'm not knocking Dracula here), he's downright malevolent and mean-spirited. He's cruel and takes great pleasure in causing his good brother's downfall. Mostly, he is dedicated to his Master, The Devil. The script goes all the way in that respect.
The atmosphere is Vintage Foggy Graveyard, with Dwight Frye sneaking around to move Evil Zucco's body yet again, whenever the doctor gets close to discovering it. Good Zucco knows the only way to stop Evil Zucco is to expose him to daylight, and he is willing to pull him from his casket to do so. But he just can't seem to find him.....
Meanwhile, a mob is gathering at the Sheriff's station. They know about the niece. She is near death and they want Dr. Zucco arrested. Can the Sheriff hold them at bay? Can Dr. Zucco convince the fiance that Vampires are real? Can Dwight Frye keep Evil Zucco hidden?
You will be finding out all of these things for yourself, because there is no way you are gonna want to miss "Dead Men Walk", which is packed full of fiendish frights in it's 64 minute running time. I was lucky to have discovered it at Northridge Libe, as part of a four movie/single dvd collection of "Horror Classics", released on an obscure label. Usually those collections are pretty bad, or filled with movies you've already seen, but this time I uncovered a gem.
"Dead Men Walk" gets Two Gigantic Thumbs Up. It's not a big money production, but for what it is, it's top quality and unique in it's rendition of the Vampire Tale. See it, see it, see it! ////
That's all for now. It's Thursday afternoon, 95 degrees outside with Santa Ana winds blowing and smoke in the air. I'm gonna go to Super King (aka the produce market) to a Truckload Of Veggies, and then head back to Pearl's. See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Rick Wakeman at The Theatre at Ace Hotel
Tonight I went downtown to see Rick Wakeman in concert at The Theatre at Ace Hotel. I must issue a brief correction here, because I had earlier listed the venue as "The Theatre at The Ace Hotel", but as I later discovered, that's not the name. It's "The Theater at Ace Hotel", without the second "The" I included previously. To me, the official name sounds clumsy, like a Cave Man is saying it.
"Hey Mr. Cave Man, could you tell me where Rick Wakeman is performing tonight"?
"Ugg, yes. He play at The Theater at Ace Hotel".
"Okay, thanks very much for the information".
"No probba-lem".
So - it's me again - and I have to say that I like my version better: "The Theatre at The Ace Hotel". It sounds more civilized. Then there's the whole issue of "Theatre" versus "Theater". I suppose the latter is the vulgar, Americanised version of the former, which is likely be the proper English word. Who else but the English would spell Theater as Theatre........but in this case I've been going with Theatre for a while now myself, because it just plain looks cooler than the other spelling.
Finally, and this will be my last grammatical gripe (for this blog at least), I have to go back to the English removal of the "The" in other situations. Why do they say, for instance, that a person is "in hospital" rather than "in the hospital"? Is it really too much trouble to add the "the"?
Or when they are talking about college.
"Where's your son"?
"Oh, he's away attending University".
To me that's only one step above Cave Man speak: "Son at University, first son in Cave Family to attend".
What's the deal with the Brits and the "The" in certain situations? I mean, they have no problem calling a TV "The Telly". That is one situation where we Americans drop the "The". We say we are "watching television" while the English say they watch "The Telly".
So it's all messed up, and I'll refrain from further comment on the subject for now, but I just thought it important to correct the name of the venue at which I saw Rick Wakeman perform this evening. No one is more English than Rick, and yet he - being a man of great humor - might understand what I am getting at. :)
I left for the concert at 5:30pm. The day had been blast furnace hot, 97 degrees but with very little humidity and a low Sun, so it felt more like 102. Now, as you know I love the heat, but not as much when the Santa Ana winds are blowing and the air is bone dry. At any rate, I got to the North Hollywood Metro Station at 6:20. Grimsley was already there. We got on the Red Line subway train and arrived downtown a a half hour later, with plenty of time to walk the 3/4 of a mile from the 7th Street Station to Ace Hotel (notice how I didn't call it "The" Ace Hotel). It was still early, so we hung out in front for a while. Our friend Dennis arrived suddenly on his motorcycle, parking right in front of the box office. We hadn't known he was going, so it was a nice surprise to see him. Dennis didn't have a ticket, though; he was hoping to score one on the spur of the moment, maybe at a discount from an overstocked scalper. So, because it was getting closer to showtime, Grim and I went inside. I hope Dennis got in, too. If he did, he saw an incredible show.
Rick Wakeman came onstage at 8:15pm. The last time I saw him perform a solo show was in September 1974 at the Hollywood Bowl, 45 years ago. I know I've mentioned that before, but it never fails to blow my mind. Rick was only 25 then. Now he's 70. Life, and time, are such a trip.
There was only a grand piano on stage, no other instruments or amplifiers. But that's all Rick needs. His mastery of the piano is so complete that he can take any piece and turn it inside out to develop every bit of melody therein. The evening consisted of Rick's interpretations of songs by The Beatles, David Bowie and Cat Stevens. Many will know that he played the piano part on the original recording of Stevens' "Morning Has Broken", as well as the Mellotron on Bowie's "Space Oddity". Rick has played on dozens of other people's records as well as his own. He's also been a member of Yes for almost 40 years, and he was in The Strawbs as well. If all of that doesn't make him the King Of Prog, I don't know who else to nominate.
Besides the aforementioned hits, he also played selections from his classic 1974 album "The Six Wives Of Henry the 8th", and a beautiful 15 minute medley of Yes music. There are so many harmonic threads running through every piece, because Rick plays every voicing. You can hear the bass part, the vocal melody, the main chord progressions, the counterpoint, and all the little embellishments he adds to make a song into a piece for piano. His playing is liquid. The notes sparkle from his fingers, and as Grim and I remarked later, it's astonishing that his technique is still so fluid at age 70. He's never had carpal tunnel or any of the hand and arm injuries that plague keyboardists, and it is no stretch to say that he could hold his own with many classical pianists.
But - music is not all you get at a Rick Wakeman show. The other thing is stories, all of them humorous (some are laugh-out-loud funny), many are risque. Rick Wakeman could very nearly make a career of being a stand up comedian if he chose, so good is his timing and delivery. So, before every musical piece, he told a funny story that applied to the piece or was in some way related to the making of it. He paced back and forth, dropping bombshell punchlines that had the audience in stitches. When's the last time you laughed your ass off at a concert? Maybe never, right? Because you don't go to concerts to laugh, you go to hear music. But at a Rick Wakeman show, you do both.
It was so incredible to see him again after all these years. I mean, I've seen him with ARW (a version of Yes) two times in the last four years, but never solo since I was 14 years old. Holy smokes and my goodness, y'know? And not only has he still got it, but he was better than ever.
Ace Hotel is a beautiful venue, too, perhaps the most ornate of all the old Downtown Theatres. The show was undersold, so they very courteously moved all the balcony fans (including me) down to the floor level. I was given a new seat about 15 rows back and dead center, 30 feet from the stage. Thank you Ace Hotel!
And thank you Rick Wakeman for a truly magical evening. I hope I don't have to wait 45 years for the next one, haha. :)
Well, that's all I know for now. I am back at work again, settling in at Pearl's for a new cycle. I am gonna head over to the Libe in a minute, though, and I should have a movie for you tonight, so have a great afternoon and I'll see you at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
"Hey Mr. Cave Man, could you tell me where Rick Wakeman is performing tonight"?
"Ugg, yes. He play at The Theater at Ace Hotel".
"Okay, thanks very much for the information".
"No probba-lem".
So - it's me again - and I have to say that I like my version better: "The Theatre at The Ace Hotel". It sounds more civilized. Then there's the whole issue of "Theatre" versus "Theater". I suppose the latter is the vulgar, Americanised version of the former, which is likely be the proper English word. Who else but the English would spell Theater as Theatre........but in this case I've been going with Theatre for a while now myself, because it just plain looks cooler than the other spelling.
Finally, and this will be my last grammatical gripe (for this blog at least), I have to go back to the English removal of the "The" in other situations. Why do they say, for instance, that a person is "in hospital" rather than "in the hospital"? Is it really too much trouble to add the "the"?
Or when they are talking about college.
"Where's your son"?
"Oh, he's away attending University".
To me that's only one step above Cave Man speak: "Son at University, first son in Cave Family to attend".
What's the deal with the Brits and the "The" in certain situations? I mean, they have no problem calling a TV "The Telly". That is one situation where we Americans drop the "The". We say we are "watching television" while the English say they watch "The Telly".
So it's all messed up, and I'll refrain from further comment on the subject for now, but I just thought it important to correct the name of the venue at which I saw Rick Wakeman perform this evening. No one is more English than Rick, and yet he - being a man of great humor - might understand what I am getting at. :)
I left for the concert at 5:30pm. The day had been blast furnace hot, 97 degrees but with very little humidity and a low Sun, so it felt more like 102. Now, as you know I love the heat, but not as much when the Santa Ana winds are blowing and the air is bone dry. At any rate, I got to the North Hollywood Metro Station at 6:20. Grimsley was already there. We got on the Red Line subway train and arrived downtown a a half hour later, with plenty of time to walk the 3/4 of a mile from the 7th Street Station to Ace Hotel (notice how I didn't call it "The" Ace Hotel). It was still early, so we hung out in front for a while. Our friend Dennis arrived suddenly on his motorcycle, parking right in front of the box office. We hadn't known he was going, so it was a nice surprise to see him. Dennis didn't have a ticket, though; he was hoping to score one on the spur of the moment, maybe at a discount from an overstocked scalper. So, because it was getting closer to showtime, Grim and I went inside. I hope Dennis got in, too. If he did, he saw an incredible show.
Rick Wakeman came onstage at 8:15pm. The last time I saw him perform a solo show was in September 1974 at the Hollywood Bowl, 45 years ago. I know I've mentioned that before, but it never fails to blow my mind. Rick was only 25 then. Now he's 70. Life, and time, are such a trip.
There was only a grand piano on stage, no other instruments or amplifiers. But that's all Rick needs. His mastery of the piano is so complete that he can take any piece and turn it inside out to develop every bit of melody therein. The evening consisted of Rick's interpretations of songs by The Beatles, David Bowie and Cat Stevens. Many will know that he played the piano part on the original recording of Stevens' "Morning Has Broken", as well as the Mellotron on Bowie's "Space Oddity". Rick has played on dozens of other people's records as well as his own. He's also been a member of Yes for almost 40 years, and he was in The Strawbs as well. If all of that doesn't make him the King Of Prog, I don't know who else to nominate.
Besides the aforementioned hits, he also played selections from his classic 1974 album "The Six Wives Of Henry the 8th", and a beautiful 15 minute medley of Yes music. There are so many harmonic threads running through every piece, because Rick plays every voicing. You can hear the bass part, the vocal melody, the main chord progressions, the counterpoint, and all the little embellishments he adds to make a song into a piece for piano. His playing is liquid. The notes sparkle from his fingers, and as Grim and I remarked later, it's astonishing that his technique is still so fluid at age 70. He's never had carpal tunnel or any of the hand and arm injuries that plague keyboardists, and it is no stretch to say that he could hold his own with many classical pianists.
But - music is not all you get at a Rick Wakeman show. The other thing is stories, all of them humorous (some are laugh-out-loud funny), many are risque. Rick Wakeman could very nearly make a career of being a stand up comedian if he chose, so good is his timing and delivery. So, before every musical piece, he told a funny story that applied to the piece or was in some way related to the making of it. He paced back and forth, dropping bombshell punchlines that had the audience in stitches. When's the last time you laughed your ass off at a concert? Maybe never, right? Because you don't go to concerts to laugh, you go to hear music. But at a Rick Wakeman show, you do both.
It was so incredible to see him again after all these years. I mean, I've seen him with ARW (a version of Yes) two times in the last four years, but never solo since I was 14 years old. Holy smokes and my goodness, y'know? And not only has he still got it, but he was better than ever.
Ace Hotel is a beautiful venue, too, perhaps the most ornate of all the old Downtown Theatres. The show was undersold, so they very courteously moved all the balcony fans (including me) down to the floor level. I was given a new seat about 15 rows back and dead center, 30 feet from the stage. Thank you Ace Hotel!
And thank you Rick Wakeman for a truly magical evening. I hope I don't have to wait 45 years for the next one, haha. :)
Well, that's all I know for now. I am back at work again, settling in at Pearl's for a new cycle. I am gonna head over to the Libe in a minute, though, and I should have a movie for you tonight, so have a great afternoon and I'll see you at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
"31" + Ticket To Ride + "Son Of Kong"
(this blog was begun Sunday night, October 20 2019)
Tonight I began to watch a movie called "31" but only made it to the 25 minute mark before pulling the plug. I don't know what I was thinking : it's a Rob Zombie movie, and even though I (sort-of) liked "House Of 1000 Corpses", it was still trash. Fun trash, maybe, but not worth a repeat view. I gave Zombie another chance with "The Devil's Rejects", and I shoulda rejected it too. The Devil was onto something there because that movie just plain sucked. So again, I really don't know what moved me to check out "31" from the Chatsworth Libe, unless it was the movie's Halloween setting. That's what the numerical title refers to, October "31". Maybe I thought Zombie could do a decent Halloween movie, or at least couldn't mess it up, but boy was I wrong. "31" is so bad that in retrospect I don't know how I lasted 25 minutes. Trashy voyeuristic violence porn is what I would call it, set in a freak show context with a garbage mouthed script. I shant dignify it with a review, except to say that the final straw for me was a neverending sequence taking place inside an old warehouse, where an effeminate but murderous midget dressed up as Hitler torments and kills a bunch of hillbillies from a traveling carnival.
That about sums up the "talent" of Rob Zombie in a single sentence. The joke was on me for even giving it a try. ////
I did have fun earlier in the evening up at Our Lady Of Lourdes. That's the church across the street from me, and as mentioned in yesterday's blog, tonight they had Ticket To Ride as the band to close out their annual Fall Festival. As I also noted, I've seen those guys at least a dozen times over the years, but tonight they were extra good. They had a new "George Harrison", a guy from the Los Angeles cast of "Beatlemania", and he was fantastic. As good as the Georges of years past have been, this guy was even better. He threw in all the "in between" phrasings and lead notes that the real George played in the course of every song, and he did it with an almost duplicate sense of the real George's style, which was quite a bit more complicated than he gets credit for. To me, George was one of the greatest guitarists in rock history. His playing was very musical. /////
I know I've been neglecting to follow up on my Rappaport story, but I haven't forgotten it and will be starting Part Two shortly. What is difficult for me is that, in writing about this event, once I am inside his house, I have to go back to that place in my mind when I actually was in his house. If I am going to write about it - and I am - I want to try and get to the heart of what it felt like. When you are in a state of extreme fear, it is different than anything you've ever experienced. All of your senses come alive and are super acute, but at the same time you shut down and go inside yourself. Your "everyday Self" goes into hiding for self protection, and your "terrified Self" takes over. But you have never experienced your "terrified Self" before, and so it has the weird effect of seeming like someone else has taken control of your reactions, this terrified version of yourself that you've never known before. They say there is a self-defense "animal" in all of us, and I can testify that it is true. In my case, I didn't get the chance to react like a cornered animal to the violence Mr. Rappaport directed at me. He had me handcuffed and tethered by my leg to a table or some other anchor to keep me stationary. But I reacted in other ways, and it is that feeling of abject terror, how a person reacts by instinct alone when their life is on the line, that I want to try and capture.
I know that if I start writing about it and I am in the wrong mood, say a blase everyday workday kind of mood, I probably won't be able to dig up the feeling of first hand experience I am striving for. I don't want to write about what it felt like to be in that psychopath's house unless I can nail the feeling. But I will try to do so in the next few days, and once I get into it, I will write the remainder of the story in fairly rapid fashion. ////
Well, it's now Tuesday Afternoon, and you've got your Moody Blues disc at the ready. Last night, I went to Pearl's for dinner and then Grimsley came over after that, so I didn't watch a movie, but I made up for it just now by watching an afternoon flick : "Son Of Kong" (1933), in which Robert Armstrong reprises his role as the entrepreneur Carl Denham, the man who brought King Kong to New York with disastrous results. As the movie begins, Denham is a prisoner in his own apartment, trapped there by the newsmen who want a story about the Kong catastrophe, and also by the creditors and process servers who intend to sue him for all the damage he has wrought. He is looking at a long stretch in prison as well. He needs a way out, and he finds it in his old friend Charlie (Victor Wong), the cook who was part of the first adventure. Charlie sneaks into his building to inform Denham of a cargo ship that will soon be sailing to points east. He gets Denham aboard and they are off.
The ship just so happens to be skippered by Captain Englehorn (Frank Reicher), the same man who helmed the original Kong expedition. Denham and the Captain talk of old times. They both regret everything that happened with Kong. "I should have just left him alone", says Denham.
At an Indonesian port, the two men happen upon a small entertainment show, set up in a canvas tent. A ringmaster is leading a trio of trained monkeys through their paces. When they finish, he introduces the next act, "La Belle Helene", who sings and plays guitar. She is his daughter (Helen Mack), a cutie who will stow away on board the cargo ship after her father is killed in a drunken argument with a Dutch captain of questionable honor.
Now the protagonists are set in place, all aboard for a return trip to Skull Island. They are going back because the Dutch captain claims to have a map of the reputed treasure that escaped Denham the first time. Denham and Captain Englehorn hope to locate the treasure : Englehorn so he can pay his men (who are on the verge of mutiny), and Denham so he can settle with his creditors back in New York.
But there may be deception in the works. Keep in mind that the Dutch captain is a murderer. Denham and Englehorn don't know this, but sweet Helen Mack is hiding below deck. When she is revealed, she will confront the Dutchman with his evil deed, and all heck will break out on the ship.
Our core characters will still make it to Skull Island, or we wouldn't have a movie, but I'll leave it to you to discover how they get there, and what happens when they do.
"Son Of Kong" - which I found yesterday at Porter Ranch Library - is a highly enjoyable and tightly composed adventure story that still qualifies as a Halloween movie because of the monsters involved. It's played mostly in a lighthearted way, and the movie's center is the budding yet innocent romance between Carl Denham and the much younger Helen Mack. Still, you've got giant serpents and bears fighting it out with each other, and with Baby Kong. You've got a four-story Triceratops trying to make a snack out of our heroes, all in the same high-quality stop motion effects that were used in the first film. "Son Of Kong" doesn't have the story development of "King Kong", nor it's budget, but it was once again directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, who packs a lot of plot and action into the 69 minute running time. "Baby" Kong is a sympathetic figure like his Pa, but is only a third his size.
In true Kong fashion, he tries to be helpful to Denham and the others, who will need the (comparatively) little guy on their side if they are ever to escape the island.
Robert Armstrong and Frank Reicher are steady on their feet once again as "Carl Denham" and "Captain Englehown", and Helen Mack shines in the Fay Wray role, even though she is not in Kong's grip this time around. I loved "Son Of Kong" and give it Two Very Big Thumbs Up. If you are a fan of the original classic, and who isn't?, make sure to see this follow-up so you'll know the rest of the story.
Well, that's all for now. I'm gonna be heading downtown in a few hours to see Rick Wakeman tonight at The Theater at The Ace Hotel. I haven't seen him do a solo show since 1974! OMG, that's 45 years ago. So it should be an Absolute Blast. Right now I'm gonna see if I can sneak in a quick hike before I go. I'll see you back here tonight at the Usual Time. Have a great afternoon!
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tonight I began to watch a movie called "31" but only made it to the 25 minute mark before pulling the plug. I don't know what I was thinking : it's a Rob Zombie movie, and even though I (sort-of) liked "House Of 1000 Corpses", it was still trash. Fun trash, maybe, but not worth a repeat view. I gave Zombie another chance with "The Devil's Rejects", and I shoulda rejected it too. The Devil was onto something there because that movie just plain sucked. So again, I really don't know what moved me to check out "31" from the Chatsworth Libe, unless it was the movie's Halloween setting. That's what the numerical title refers to, October "31". Maybe I thought Zombie could do a decent Halloween movie, or at least couldn't mess it up, but boy was I wrong. "31" is so bad that in retrospect I don't know how I lasted 25 minutes. Trashy voyeuristic violence porn is what I would call it, set in a freak show context with a garbage mouthed script. I shant dignify it with a review, except to say that the final straw for me was a neverending sequence taking place inside an old warehouse, where an effeminate but murderous midget dressed up as Hitler torments and kills a bunch of hillbillies from a traveling carnival.
That about sums up the "talent" of Rob Zombie in a single sentence. The joke was on me for even giving it a try. ////
I did have fun earlier in the evening up at Our Lady Of Lourdes. That's the church across the street from me, and as mentioned in yesterday's blog, tonight they had Ticket To Ride as the band to close out their annual Fall Festival. As I also noted, I've seen those guys at least a dozen times over the years, but tonight they were extra good. They had a new "George Harrison", a guy from the Los Angeles cast of "Beatlemania", and he was fantastic. As good as the Georges of years past have been, this guy was even better. He threw in all the "in between" phrasings and lead notes that the real George played in the course of every song, and he did it with an almost duplicate sense of the real George's style, which was quite a bit more complicated than he gets credit for. To me, George was one of the greatest guitarists in rock history. His playing was very musical. /////
I know I've been neglecting to follow up on my Rappaport story, but I haven't forgotten it and will be starting Part Two shortly. What is difficult for me is that, in writing about this event, once I am inside his house, I have to go back to that place in my mind when I actually was in his house. If I am going to write about it - and I am - I want to try and get to the heart of what it felt like. When you are in a state of extreme fear, it is different than anything you've ever experienced. All of your senses come alive and are super acute, but at the same time you shut down and go inside yourself. Your "everyday Self" goes into hiding for self protection, and your "terrified Self" takes over. But you have never experienced your "terrified Self" before, and so it has the weird effect of seeming like someone else has taken control of your reactions, this terrified version of yourself that you've never known before. They say there is a self-defense "animal" in all of us, and I can testify that it is true. In my case, I didn't get the chance to react like a cornered animal to the violence Mr. Rappaport directed at me. He had me handcuffed and tethered by my leg to a table or some other anchor to keep me stationary. But I reacted in other ways, and it is that feeling of abject terror, how a person reacts by instinct alone when their life is on the line, that I want to try and capture.
I know that if I start writing about it and I am in the wrong mood, say a blase everyday workday kind of mood, I probably won't be able to dig up the feeling of first hand experience I am striving for. I don't want to write about what it felt like to be in that psychopath's house unless I can nail the feeling. But I will try to do so in the next few days, and once I get into it, I will write the remainder of the story in fairly rapid fashion. ////
Well, it's now Tuesday Afternoon, and you've got your Moody Blues disc at the ready. Last night, I went to Pearl's for dinner and then Grimsley came over after that, so I didn't watch a movie, but I made up for it just now by watching an afternoon flick : "Son Of Kong" (1933), in which Robert Armstrong reprises his role as the entrepreneur Carl Denham, the man who brought King Kong to New York with disastrous results. As the movie begins, Denham is a prisoner in his own apartment, trapped there by the newsmen who want a story about the Kong catastrophe, and also by the creditors and process servers who intend to sue him for all the damage he has wrought. He is looking at a long stretch in prison as well. He needs a way out, and he finds it in his old friend Charlie (Victor Wong), the cook who was part of the first adventure. Charlie sneaks into his building to inform Denham of a cargo ship that will soon be sailing to points east. He gets Denham aboard and they are off.
The ship just so happens to be skippered by Captain Englehorn (Frank Reicher), the same man who helmed the original Kong expedition. Denham and the Captain talk of old times. They both regret everything that happened with Kong. "I should have just left him alone", says Denham.
At an Indonesian port, the two men happen upon a small entertainment show, set up in a canvas tent. A ringmaster is leading a trio of trained monkeys through their paces. When they finish, he introduces the next act, "La Belle Helene", who sings and plays guitar. She is his daughter (Helen Mack), a cutie who will stow away on board the cargo ship after her father is killed in a drunken argument with a Dutch captain of questionable honor.
Now the protagonists are set in place, all aboard for a return trip to Skull Island. They are going back because the Dutch captain claims to have a map of the reputed treasure that escaped Denham the first time. Denham and Captain Englehorn hope to locate the treasure : Englehorn so he can pay his men (who are on the verge of mutiny), and Denham so he can settle with his creditors back in New York.
But there may be deception in the works. Keep in mind that the Dutch captain is a murderer. Denham and Englehorn don't know this, but sweet Helen Mack is hiding below deck. When she is revealed, she will confront the Dutchman with his evil deed, and all heck will break out on the ship.
Our core characters will still make it to Skull Island, or we wouldn't have a movie, but I'll leave it to you to discover how they get there, and what happens when they do.
"Son Of Kong" - which I found yesterday at Porter Ranch Library - is a highly enjoyable and tightly composed adventure story that still qualifies as a Halloween movie because of the monsters involved. It's played mostly in a lighthearted way, and the movie's center is the budding yet innocent romance between Carl Denham and the much younger Helen Mack. Still, you've got giant serpents and bears fighting it out with each other, and with Baby Kong. You've got a four-story Triceratops trying to make a snack out of our heroes, all in the same high-quality stop motion effects that were used in the first film. "Son Of Kong" doesn't have the story development of "King Kong", nor it's budget, but it was once again directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, who packs a lot of plot and action into the 69 minute running time. "Baby" Kong is a sympathetic figure like his Pa, but is only a third his size.
In true Kong fashion, he tries to be helpful to Denham and the others, who will need the (comparatively) little guy on their side if they are ever to escape the island.
Robert Armstrong and Frank Reicher are steady on their feet once again as "Carl Denham" and "Captain Englehown", and Helen Mack shines in the Fay Wray role, even though she is not in Kong's grip this time around. I loved "Son Of Kong" and give it Two Very Big Thumbs Up. If you are a fan of the original classic, and who isn't?, make sure to see this follow-up so you'll know the rest of the story.
Well, that's all for now. I'm gonna be heading downtown in a few hours to see Rick Wakeman tonight at The Theater at The Ace Hotel. I haven't seen him do a solo show since 1974! OMG, that's 45 years ago. So it should be an Absolute Blast. Right now I'm gonna see if I can sneak in a quick hike before I go. I'll see you back here tonight at the Usual Time. Have a great afternoon!
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Aliso Has Reopened + "The Mothman Prophecies" starring Richard Gere and Laura Linney
I'm happy to report that Aliso Canyon Park has reopened. I'm guessing that the temporary closure was related to Fire Department protocol, making sure all "hot spots" were extinguished, dangerous debris removed from the trail, etc. Grim was the one who broke the news, so I went up there at 4pm to see for myself, and sure enough, there were cars in the parking lot and some folks at the picnic tables. It was heartening to see. I went for my full 2.75 mile hike, the fire be damned. I know it's gonna take a long time, and things may not look the same, but nature will restore itself once the rains come. Man, it was good to be up there again. I was worried that the closure was gonna last weeks or even months.
One weird thing I noticed was the hawks circling overhead in the completely charred back half of the park. Before the fire, it was not unusual to see a hawk at Aliso or at any of the wilderness parks I frequent. You'd see one soaring around on the air currents in what looked like random patterns. But today, there were a bunch of them, maybe four or five, and they were circling like buzzards. There are no dead animals down there for them to eat, and they must know this, so what are they looking for?
Probably the poor little bunnies who might be hiding in their holes, even after eight days since the fire.
The hawks can see that there is no remaining ground cover and thus they may think the bunnies are easy pickings, but I say they are wasting their time. Stupid hawks. I mean, I love them too, and I know they need to eat, but they will never catch the goofy bunnies of Aliso Canyon! :)
But yeah, it was weird to see them circling. It looked like a scene from a Western movie. And I don't think that hawks are carrion birds anyhow, which means that they were waiting for live animals (i.e bunnies) to surface. Grim also reported that he saw not one but two coyotes up on the ridge at the top of the canyon. So perhaps they are still around, no doubt stunned by the loss of their home but maybe scanning the grounds to look for another one. Bring on the rains and renewal. /////
I did watch a movie tonight : "The Mothman Prophecies" (2002), which I have previously seen several times and which I think is one of the scariest movies ever made. I'd put it in my all time Top Twenty, or maybe even higher. You've probably seen it, but even if you haven't, I'm not sure how much I wanna tell you about the story, which is said to be true. "Mothman" scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I saw it - in part because it is true - and because of that factor I sought out all the information I could find about the actual series of events that took place in Point Pleasant, West Virginia in 1966-67.
It's the kind of supernatural event that is extremely malevolent, and rates as being demonic. For folks who don't believe in such things, good luck to you after you see this movie.
Richard Gere stars as "John Klein", a reporter for the Washington Post, who suffers a double tragedy when his wife (Debra Messing) is diagnosed with a brain tumor following a car wreck, in which Gere was the passenger. Messing saw a dark figure in the windshield just before the crash, and now from her hospital bed she draws pictures of it, over and over again.
After she dies, something really weird happens to Richard Gere. This is one of those plot points I'm debating telling you about, because this movie is so weird and so scary that anything I give away will ruin the surprise. But I will tell you this much : Gere is driving on a rural highway. Suddenly his car dies and won't restart. So he walks down the pitch dark road until he comes to a house. The time is 2:30 in the morning. He hates to knock because it's so late, but he has no choice - he's stranded.
So, he does knock and........I'm sorry but I just can't tell you because it's too weird. If you've ever experienced the phenomena of "missing time", you'll understand.
Let's fast forward a little bit. Following what happens after Gere knocks on the door, the police are called. In this case it is one policewoman, the town constable played by Laura Linney. After Gere explains himself (or tries to - he's pretty freaked out), she gives him a ride back to his motel. On the way, she tells him about other things the townsfolk have reported recently, that tie in with what has just happened. When Linney sees Gere still hanging around the next day, she becomes interested in what he is still doing there. Why is a big city reporter skulking around Point Pleasant, West Virginia?
When he tells her the answer, you can feel the goosebumps rising on your skin.
I mean - look - you are just gonna have to see "The Mothman Prophecies" for yourself. It was directed by a guy named Mark Pellington, who has eschewed big, startling "Boo!" moments in favor of low level unease that slowly builds to dread and finally to out and out terror. Less is definitely more for Pellington, who uses the story to scare you, along with some spooky nighttime photography along the roads of small town West Virginia. We see houses from another century, old abandoned factories stained with soot, their walls crumbling. We see a one block business district whose heyday was decades in the past. Pellington contrasts all of this old Americana, pictured mostly at night in dark browns and burnt orange, with the bright colors of automotive lights, lots of liquid reds and yellows. He matches everything to a softly disturbing electronic score, working slowly to build the tale of the Mothman, to give it credibility. It's rare to see a two hour horror movie, but this is a big league effort with money and an excellent script behind it. The result is an eerie movie that gets under your skin.
I'm surprised that Pellington only has one other movie to his name, the paranoid thriller "Arlington Road", which is almost equally weird in it's own way. He's got a unique visual style and is expert at moving a story forward. "Mothman" is his masterpiece, and though you've probably seen it, watch it again to re-frighten yourself. Do it before Halloween. I first saw it in 2002, then again around 2006. My most recent viewing before tonight was probably around 2012. So I see it about every 4-6 years, and it still scares me just as bad as it did the first time.
Obviously it gets my highest recommendation and Two Gigantic Thumbs Up. But don't say I didn't warn ya. /////
It's now Sunday afternoon and I am back from Burbank, having gone there to take my sister shopping. Earlier, we had a nice party at church for our departing choir director, whose last service with us was this morning. We sang extra good, and we are really gonna miss Bob. He was the best.
Well hey! The Rams finally won a ballgame, too, so things are back on track in Sportsland. I have just enough daylight for a possible trip up to Aliso (not sure if I'm gonna go) and then tonight, Ticket To Ride, the Beatles tribute band, are playing over at Our Lady Of Lourdes Catholic Church across the street from me. I've seen 'em a bunch of time, they always play the OLL Fall festival, but they're really good so I'll go over and catch at least some of their show.
See you later tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
One weird thing I noticed was the hawks circling overhead in the completely charred back half of the park. Before the fire, it was not unusual to see a hawk at Aliso or at any of the wilderness parks I frequent. You'd see one soaring around on the air currents in what looked like random patterns. But today, there were a bunch of them, maybe four or five, and they were circling like buzzards. There are no dead animals down there for them to eat, and they must know this, so what are they looking for?
Probably the poor little bunnies who might be hiding in their holes, even after eight days since the fire.
The hawks can see that there is no remaining ground cover and thus they may think the bunnies are easy pickings, but I say they are wasting their time. Stupid hawks. I mean, I love them too, and I know they need to eat, but they will never catch the goofy bunnies of Aliso Canyon! :)
But yeah, it was weird to see them circling. It looked like a scene from a Western movie. And I don't think that hawks are carrion birds anyhow, which means that they were waiting for live animals (i.e bunnies) to surface. Grim also reported that he saw not one but two coyotes up on the ridge at the top of the canyon. So perhaps they are still around, no doubt stunned by the loss of their home but maybe scanning the grounds to look for another one. Bring on the rains and renewal. /////
I did watch a movie tonight : "The Mothman Prophecies" (2002), which I have previously seen several times and which I think is one of the scariest movies ever made. I'd put it in my all time Top Twenty, or maybe even higher. You've probably seen it, but even if you haven't, I'm not sure how much I wanna tell you about the story, which is said to be true. "Mothman" scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I saw it - in part because it is true - and because of that factor I sought out all the information I could find about the actual series of events that took place in Point Pleasant, West Virginia in 1966-67.
It's the kind of supernatural event that is extremely malevolent, and rates as being demonic. For folks who don't believe in such things, good luck to you after you see this movie.
Richard Gere stars as "John Klein", a reporter for the Washington Post, who suffers a double tragedy when his wife (Debra Messing) is diagnosed with a brain tumor following a car wreck, in which Gere was the passenger. Messing saw a dark figure in the windshield just before the crash, and now from her hospital bed she draws pictures of it, over and over again.
After she dies, something really weird happens to Richard Gere. This is one of those plot points I'm debating telling you about, because this movie is so weird and so scary that anything I give away will ruin the surprise. But I will tell you this much : Gere is driving on a rural highway. Suddenly his car dies and won't restart. So he walks down the pitch dark road until he comes to a house. The time is 2:30 in the morning. He hates to knock because it's so late, but he has no choice - he's stranded.
So, he does knock and........I'm sorry but I just can't tell you because it's too weird. If you've ever experienced the phenomena of "missing time", you'll understand.
Let's fast forward a little bit. Following what happens after Gere knocks on the door, the police are called. In this case it is one policewoman, the town constable played by Laura Linney. After Gere explains himself (or tries to - he's pretty freaked out), she gives him a ride back to his motel. On the way, she tells him about other things the townsfolk have reported recently, that tie in with what has just happened. When Linney sees Gere still hanging around the next day, she becomes interested in what he is still doing there. Why is a big city reporter skulking around Point Pleasant, West Virginia?
When he tells her the answer, you can feel the goosebumps rising on your skin.
I mean - look - you are just gonna have to see "The Mothman Prophecies" for yourself. It was directed by a guy named Mark Pellington, who has eschewed big, startling "Boo!" moments in favor of low level unease that slowly builds to dread and finally to out and out terror. Less is definitely more for Pellington, who uses the story to scare you, along with some spooky nighttime photography along the roads of small town West Virginia. We see houses from another century, old abandoned factories stained with soot, their walls crumbling. We see a one block business district whose heyday was decades in the past. Pellington contrasts all of this old Americana, pictured mostly at night in dark browns and burnt orange, with the bright colors of automotive lights, lots of liquid reds and yellows. He matches everything to a softly disturbing electronic score, working slowly to build the tale of the Mothman, to give it credibility. It's rare to see a two hour horror movie, but this is a big league effort with money and an excellent script behind it. The result is an eerie movie that gets under your skin.
I'm surprised that Pellington only has one other movie to his name, the paranoid thriller "Arlington Road", which is almost equally weird in it's own way. He's got a unique visual style and is expert at moving a story forward. "Mothman" is his masterpiece, and though you've probably seen it, watch it again to re-frighten yourself. Do it before Halloween. I first saw it in 2002, then again around 2006. My most recent viewing before tonight was probably around 2012. So I see it about every 4-6 years, and it still scares me just as bad as it did the first time.
Obviously it gets my highest recommendation and Two Gigantic Thumbs Up. But don't say I didn't warn ya. /////
It's now Sunday afternoon and I am back from Burbank, having gone there to take my sister shopping. Earlier, we had a nice party at church for our departing choir director, whose last service with us was this morning. We sang extra good, and we are really gonna miss Bob. He was the best.
Well hey! The Rams finally won a ballgame, too, so things are back on track in Sportsland. I have just enough daylight for a possible trip up to Aliso (not sure if I'm gonna go) and then tonight, Ticket To Ride, the Beatles tribute band, are playing over at Our Lady Of Lourdes Catholic Church across the street from me. I've seen 'em a bunch of time, they always play the OLL Fall festival, but they're really good so I'll go over and catch at least some of their show.
See you later tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Saturday, October 19, 2019
"The Nanny" starring Bette Davis
Tonight I watched a creepy little film from Hammer Studios called "The Nanny" (1965), starring Bette Davis in the title role, and a brilliant child actor named William Dix as the boy in her care. Dix plays "Joey" (referred to by Davis as "Master Joey"), the son of a proper English diplomat, a true stiff upper lipper with a modulated London accent. He's the kind of guy Monty Python would've parodied, but in this movie he's no joke; a man's man who leaves the child rearing to The Nanny. He ignores his wife (Wendy Craig), who is emotionally childlike herself, and he is rarely home anyway. His job takes him constantly to other countries. Hence, the only adults in the house are all women : The Fragile Wife and the ever courteous but subtly dominant Nanny. Often there is a third female present, the wife's sister Penelope, aka "Pen" for short. She is mentally strong and emotionally assertive, but physically frail with a bad heart, the result of rheumatic fever as a child. So there are a lot of issues on the table as we begin to describe the plot.
As the movie gets underway, Joey is about to be released from a mental institution, where he was placed following the death of his younger sister, a three year old who drowned mysteriously in the bathtub. The Nanny was on hand when this happened, and while she didn't implicate Joey directly, her testimony of his alleged involvement was enough for the father to send Joey to the asylum. The girl's death is ruled an accident, but there is suspicion surrounding the boy, and when we first see him he is playing a mean-spirited trick on the institute staff - pretending to hang himself with a length of rope he has acquired and made into a well knotted noose.
At first glance, Joey looks every bit the demonic child he is purported to be. A comparison with Patty McCormack comes to mind, of her classic character in "The Bad Seed". At the very least, Joey seems like an incorrigible brat - of the snobbily Brrittish type - and at worst he may well be a little killer.
Or is he? The Nanny appears unimpeachable, professional toward the parents and forever patient with Joey despite his ongoing disdain for her and everything she tries to do for him. He won't eat the food she cooks, won't allow her in his room, and orders her away from the bathroom when he is taking a bath. Why is he acting this way? His mother loves The Nanny, and indeed was in her charge when she was a child. The Nanny helped raise her and her sister Penelope. She was never unkind to them, and we never once see her even raising her voice to the petulant Joey, who is rude and abusive to her in every way. Surely he is the disturbed child he is reported to be. Even his psychiatrists think so.
Once Joey comes home, he makes a friend. He has an upstairs neighbor who he spies one day through his window. She is Pamela Franklin (who became a horror "scream queen" in the 1970s). Franklin is older than Joey - fourteen to his ten - and is sophisticated in the ways of the adult world as only a teen girl can be. Franklin was an excellent actress and was also very cute. Here she is ultra Mod, with a perfect mid-60s sculpted hairdo, reading rock magazines in her bedroom. Joey escapes through his window and climbs the fire escape to visit her unseen by the adults. He confides in Franklin and tells her that he had nothing to do with his sister's death. He says it was The Nanny who did it!
Franklin, being the Jaded Teenager she is, is non-commital. She won't take sides at first, but agrees to help Joey by bringing her father into the matter. He is a doctor. Pamela introduces him to Joey and asks him to check up on Joey's mother, who is now bedridden with stomach pain. Joey explains to the man that he suspects The Nanny of trying to poison his mum. That's why he won't eat her cooking, he says. "Then she'd poison me, too".
The doctor does examine Joey's mother and sends her off to hospital (you'll notice I left out the "the", in true English fashion), but as with the other adults, he too will not cast suspicion on The Nanny, who is unfailingly kind to everyone. With mumsie away, Aunt Pen comes to stay with Joey. She is more level headed than her sister (Joey's mum), and not as easily swayed by The Nanny's patronising attitude. Joey thinks he might be able to convince Aunt Pen of his side of the story, but even if she believes him, will she be able to help? After all, she is a semi-invalid herself - ambulatory but with a failing ticker. She is under doctor's orders to avoid excitement and exertion.
The Nanny is aware of this, too. Remember that she cared for Aunt Pen and Joey's Mum when they were children.
What will become of Master Joey? Will he be sent back to the asylum, as his absent father is contemplating? Will Aunt Pen believe him, that The Nanny is not who she seems to be? And is this even true? After all, The Nanny has never demonstrated an ounce of cruelty toward anyone in the household.
But then, she is being played by Bette Davis, in her post-glamour era, when she started making movies like "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane". On a side note, Davis aged quite dramatically in the 1960s, and I was surprised to discover that she was only 57 when she made "The Nanny". She looks to be in her 70s, and it's not all because of makeup. Actors smoked and drank a lot in those days, which I suppose must account for it, but anyhow, she made a second career out of playing elderly delusional psychotics - although I am not saying she is the villain here, it could be little Joey! - and she is perfect as the caring Nanny, who believes that all children need looking after and that it is her mission in life to do so. In that way she's just like Mary Poppins! :)
You know "The Nanny" is gonna be a Good One from the opening scene at the asylum. In addition to the complex plot, the black and white photography is sharp, full-toned, and it adds to the drama by framing the characters in tension-enhancing ways. The director switches from angular close ups to full interior wide shots, to keep us inside the heads of the protagonists while also giving us hints of what is going on behind their backs. It's a very effective mise-en-scene (a term I learned from Professor Tim), and it is, in part, the eerie camerawork that qualifies "The Nanny", in my opinion, as a horror movie. Hammer stepped out of their Monster Box on occasion to make suspense thrillers, and "The Nanny" falls into that category as well, but really it's a spooky and weird little "Psycho"-drama with Hitchcockian flavor. The only question is Who's The Psycho? Or is anyone?
Two Very Big Thumbs Up for "The Nanny", which also has a plot twist that I forgot to mention and am not going to describe. I am surprised that this minor gem of English horror isn't well known. Perhaps it has a cult following, but make sure you see it in any event. Highly recommended, and you also get that great mid-60s cultural vibe in the bargain. /////
Here I am again, and it's now Saturday noon time. I'm gonna finish my coffee and straighten up the joint, then head out to the market and later on to some hiking spot or another. Maybe I will drive up to Newhall or Santa Clarita via The Old Road to check up on the parks out there. It'll depend on the traffic. Have a great day and I'll see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
As the movie gets underway, Joey is about to be released from a mental institution, where he was placed following the death of his younger sister, a three year old who drowned mysteriously in the bathtub. The Nanny was on hand when this happened, and while she didn't implicate Joey directly, her testimony of his alleged involvement was enough for the father to send Joey to the asylum. The girl's death is ruled an accident, but there is suspicion surrounding the boy, and when we first see him he is playing a mean-spirited trick on the institute staff - pretending to hang himself with a length of rope he has acquired and made into a well knotted noose.
At first glance, Joey looks every bit the demonic child he is purported to be. A comparison with Patty McCormack comes to mind, of her classic character in "The Bad Seed". At the very least, Joey seems like an incorrigible brat - of the snobbily Brrittish type - and at worst he may well be a little killer.
Or is he? The Nanny appears unimpeachable, professional toward the parents and forever patient with Joey despite his ongoing disdain for her and everything she tries to do for him. He won't eat the food she cooks, won't allow her in his room, and orders her away from the bathroom when he is taking a bath. Why is he acting this way? His mother loves The Nanny, and indeed was in her charge when she was a child. The Nanny helped raise her and her sister Penelope. She was never unkind to them, and we never once see her even raising her voice to the petulant Joey, who is rude and abusive to her in every way. Surely he is the disturbed child he is reported to be. Even his psychiatrists think so.
Once Joey comes home, he makes a friend. He has an upstairs neighbor who he spies one day through his window. She is Pamela Franklin (who became a horror "scream queen" in the 1970s). Franklin is older than Joey - fourteen to his ten - and is sophisticated in the ways of the adult world as only a teen girl can be. Franklin was an excellent actress and was also very cute. Here she is ultra Mod, with a perfect mid-60s sculpted hairdo, reading rock magazines in her bedroom. Joey escapes through his window and climbs the fire escape to visit her unseen by the adults. He confides in Franklin and tells her that he had nothing to do with his sister's death. He says it was The Nanny who did it!
Franklin, being the Jaded Teenager she is, is non-commital. She won't take sides at first, but agrees to help Joey by bringing her father into the matter. He is a doctor. Pamela introduces him to Joey and asks him to check up on Joey's mother, who is now bedridden with stomach pain. Joey explains to the man that he suspects The Nanny of trying to poison his mum. That's why he won't eat her cooking, he says. "Then she'd poison me, too".
The doctor does examine Joey's mother and sends her off to hospital (you'll notice I left out the "the", in true English fashion), but as with the other adults, he too will not cast suspicion on The Nanny, who is unfailingly kind to everyone. With mumsie away, Aunt Pen comes to stay with Joey. She is more level headed than her sister (Joey's mum), and not as easily swayed by The Nanny's patronising attitude. Joey thinks he might be able to convince Aunt Pen of his side of the story, but even if she believes him, will she be able to help? After all, she is a semi-invalid herself - ambulatory but with a failing ticker. She is under doctor's orders to avoid excitement and exertion.
The Nanny is aware of this, too. Remember that she cared for Aunt Pen and Joey's Mum when they were children.
What will become of Master Joey? Will he be sent back to the asylum, as his absent father is contemplating? Will Aunt Pen believe him, that The Nanny is not who she seems to be? And is this even true? After all, The Nanny has never demonstrated an ounce of cruelty toward anyone in the household.
But then, she is being played by Bette Davis, in her post-glamour era, when she started making movies like "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane". On a side note, Davis aged quite dramatically in the 1960s, and I was surprised to discover that she was only 57 when she made "The Nanny". She looks to be in her 70s, and it's not all because of makeup. Actors smoked and drank a lot in those days, which I suppose must account for it, but anyhow, she made a second career out of playing elderly delusional psychotics - although I am not saying she is the villain here, it could be little Joey! - and she is perfect as the caring Nanny, who believes that all children need looking after and that it is her mission in life to do so. In that way she's just like Mary Poppins! :)
You know "The Nanny" is gonna be a Good One from the opening scene at the asylum. In addition to the complex plot, the black and white photography is sharp, full-toned, and it adds to the drama by framing the characters in tension-enhancing ways. The director switches from angular close ups to full interior wide shots, to keep us inside the heads of the protagonists while also giving us hints of what is going on behind their backs. It's a very effective mise-en-scene (a term I learned from Professor Tim), and it is, in part, the eerie camerawork that qualifies "The Nanny", in my opinion, as a horror movie. Hammer stepped out of their Monster Box on occasion to make suspense thrillers, and "The Nanny" falls into that category as well, but really it's a spooky and weird little "Psycho"-drama with Hitchcockian flavor. The only question is Who's The Psycho? Or is anyone?
Two Very Big Thumbs Up for "The Nanny", which also has a plot twist that I forgot to mention and am not going to describe. I am surprised that this minor gem of English horror isn't well known. Perhaps it has a cult following, but make sure you see it in any event. Highly recommended, and you also get that great mid-60s cultural vibe in the bargain. /////
Here I am again, and it's now Saturday noon time. I'm gonna finish my coffee and straighten up the joint, then head out to the market and later on to some hiking spot or another. Maybe I will drive up to Newhall or Santa Clarita via The Old Road to check up on the parks out there. It'll depend on the traffic. Have a great day and I'll see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Friday, October 18, 2019
Massive Police Search on Reseda Bl. + "The Intruder" starring Dennis Quaid
This afternoon at around 1:30pm I had started to watch an episode of "Rawhide" when I heard the sound of a helicopter circling overhead. It was pretty loud, so I figured it was close. The sound made it hard to concentrate on the show, but I persevered. Later on, the noise got even louder and it sounded like a second copter had joined in whatever action was taking place outside. This continued throughout the 50 minute duration of the show, so when it was over I went out to see what was going on.
There were cops standing across the street, in front of the building that replaced the Northridge Meadows. Down on Plummer Street, there was yellow tape covering all sides of the intersection. News vans were down there too, with cameras on the sidewalk. I walked back home, just a block away, to Google KTLA News, and I discovered that the police were searching the area for a pursuit suspect who had abandoned his car on Baird Street and escaped on foot into an apartment complex. From where the choppers were circling, this appeared to be somewhere behind the location of the Meadows.
My own street was blocked off at Reseda Boulevard, which had a massive traffic jam of it's own due to the closure of the Plummer intersection, so in continuing our series of Traffic Jams this week, we can add this one to the list. It didn't help that CSUN was letting out (that never helps), and so, figuring that any chance for a hike was lost, I stuck around to watch the action. There wasn't much to see until it was over at 4pm, almost three hours after it began. Then, cop car after cop car began leaving the scene, and I have never seen so many police cars in my life. I saw regular LAPD cruisers, plainslothes squad cars, big white K-9 SUVS, cars that looked like they held SWAT members, and a few unmarked white trucks with extended beds, which were covered and had metal cabinets on the side, almost like construction trucks. God only knows what those are for. I also saw several CHP cars. The pursuit may have started with CHP, I am not sure of all the details, but they were there too. In all, there must have been between 25 and 40 law enforcement vehicles on scene, plus two LAPD choppers. Another news copter hovered in the distance, a mile or so down.
But they finally caught the guy, and from what I saw - woe to any bad guys who try to run from the cops. I am a huge supporter of LAPD, and am grateful for what they do to maintain order in our often chaotic city. Like our firefighters, they are the best in the world at their jobs, and if you saw what happened today, you would see what I mean. /////
So that was today's excitement, and we kept up our streak of traffic jams.
By 4:15, they took down all the yellow tape and the traffic began to thin out a little bit. I was now free to exit from my street, so I took a drive out to Porter Ranch, to check on the status of Limekiln Canyon Park. As you know, it is another of my local hiking spots. After parking just off Rinaldi I walked to the trailhead, but the gate had been pulled across the entrance and yet another sign read "Park Is Closed".
So that makes all three of the Rinaldi-area parks that are closed : Aliso, O'Melveny and Limekiln. Three of my favorite trails. Que sera sera, I suppose, but man this is so sad to see. All I can do is trust in The Lord and Mother Nature to restore these beautiful, wonderful places.
I did watch a movie tonight : "The Intruder" (2019), starring Dennis Quaid. It was recommended to me by Grimsley. Usually I don't seek out new movies, but on his word I gave this one a try, having found a copy at Chatsworth Libe. Quaid plays a psycho who sells his Napa Valley mansion to a young couple, only to stalk them after the purchase. He is very attached to the house and has trouble relinquishing possession. At first, the movie reminded me of the kind of thrillers they made in the late 80s and early 90s, like "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle", or more specifically a movie with Michael Keaton called "Pacific Heights". The premise of "Intruder" had a lot of possibility to take the stalker/psycho genre down new roads, and Quaid was great, at least in the first half of the film. He and Meagan Good, the actress who plays the wife of the young couple, are the reasons to see it, but unfortunately the director doesn't seem to know what to do with his script, as all the early options of where to take the plot go unexplored. He was given a fair amount of ideas to work with, and a great first half performance from Dennis Quaid (who is a frightening nut-job), but he just seems content to let things play out in a cliched and time worn fashion. It's too bad because he could've had something here.
Instead he and his movie get one and one half thumbs up - written in lower case - with a positive nod to dennis quaid and meagan good. "The Intruder" is one of those movies that begin with a lot of promise and then let you down, not because they turn bad all of a sudden, but because they turn average. ////
It's me again and it's now Friday afternoon. I'm gonna have a snack and then maybe drive out to Corriganville or Santa Susana. It looks like on our hikes we may be limited to West Valley and Simi parks for a while.
See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
There were cops standing across the street, in front of the building that replaced the Northridge Meadows. Down on Plummer Street, there was yellow tape covering all sides of the intersection. News vans were down there too, with cameras on the sidewalk. I walked back home, just a block away, to Google KTLA News, and I discovered that the police were searching the area for a pursuit suspect who had abandoned his car on Baird Street and escaped on foot into an apartment complex. From where the choppers were circling, this appeared to be somewhere behind the location of the Meadows.
My own street was blocked off at Reseda Boulevard, which had a massive traffic jam of it's own due to the closure of the Plummer intersection, so in continuing our series of Traffic Jams this week, we can add this one to the list. It didn't help that CSUN was letting out (that never helps), and so, figuring that any chance for a hike was lost, I stuck around to watch the action. There wasn't much to see until it was over at 4pm, almost three hours after it began. Then, cop car after cop car began leaving the scene, and I have never seen so many police cars in my life. I saw regular LAPD cruisers, plainslothes squad cars, big white K-9 SUVS, cars that looked like they held SWAT members, and a few unmarked white trucks with extended beds, which were covered and had metal cabinets on the side, almost like construction trucks. God only knows what those are for. I also saw several CHP cars. The pursuit may have started with CHP, I am not sure of all the details, but they were there too. In all, there must have been between 25 and 40 law enforcement vehicles on scene, plus two LAPD choppers. Another news copter hovered in the distance, a mile or so down.
But they finally caught the guy, and from what I saw - woe to any bad guys who try to run from the cops. I am a huge supporter of LAPD, and am grateful for what they do to maintain order in our often chaotic city. Like our firefighters, they are the best in the world at their jobs, and if you saw what happened today, you would see what I mean. /////
So that was today's excitement, and we kept up our streak of traffic jams.
By 4:15, they took down all the yellow tape and the traffic began to thin out a little bit. I was now free to exit from my street, so I took a drive out to Porter Ranch, to check on the status of Limekiln Canyon Park. As you know, it is another of my local hiking spots. After parking just off Rinaldi I walked to the trailhead, but the gate had been pulled across the entrance and yet another sign read "Park Is Closed".
So that makes all three of the Rinaldi-area parks that are closed : Aliso, O'Melveny and Limekiln. Three of my favorite trails. Que sera sera, I suppose, but man this is so sad to see. All I can do is trust in The Lord and Mother Nature to restore these beautiful, wonderful places.
I did watch a movie tonight : "The Intruder" (2019), starring Dennis Quaid. It was recommended to me by Grimsley. Usually I don't seek out new movies, but on his word I gave this one a try, having found a copy at Chatsworth Libe. Quaid plays a psycho who sells his Napa Valley mansion to a young couple, only to stalk them after the purchase. He is very attached to the house and has trouble relinquishing possession. At first, the movie reminded me of the kind of thrillers they made in the late 80s and early 90s, like "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle", or more specifically a movie with Michael Keaton called "Pacific Heights". The premise of "Intruder" had a lot of possibility to take the stalker/psycho genre down new roads, and Quaid was great, at least in the first half of the film. He and Meagan Good, the actress who plays the wife of the young couple, are the reasons to see it, but unfortunately the director doesn't seem to know what to do with his script, as all the early options of where to take the plot go unexplored. He was given a fair amount of ideas to work with, and a great first half performance from Dennis Quaid (who is a frightening nut-job), but he just seems content to let things play out in a cliched and time worn fashion. It's too bad because he could've had something here.
Instead he and his movie get one and one half thumbs up - written in lower case - with a positive nod to dennis quaid and meagan good. "The Intruder" is one of those movies that begin with a lot of promise and then let you down, not because they turn bad all of a sudden, but because they turn average. ////
It's me again and it's now Friday afternoon. I'm gonna have a snack and then maybe drive out to Corriganville or Santa Susana. It looks like on our hikes we may be limited to West Valley and Simi parks for a while.
See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, October 17, 2019
O'Melveny Park Is Closed + "UFO" The Movie
I'm writing from home, off work for the next few days. This afternoon, after I left Pearl's, I drove up to Granada Hills to check on O'Melveny Park. As you go north on Balboa Bl., you get closer to the fire zone, and once you pass Rinaldi you can see how throughly charred the entire hillside is. Mission Peak is burned black. The Three Trees appear to be standing, and I think they are oaks, but no matter how resilient they are, it will be a miracle if they survived the fire. The mountains above Granada Hills got the worst of it, and it looks horrible.
There was a massive traffic jam on Balboa once you passed Jollette Avenue. That is the residential street on which several homes burned down. I imagine that there were street closures around (and maybe including) Jollette, and that a detour was causing the backup, which stretched on out of sight. It had to be at least a mile long. I took other side streets to escape the jam, only to arrive at Sesnon Boulevard, across from O'Melveny Park, and encounter another traffic jam that looked just as bad as the first. It looked like an awful situation for the residents up there.
I found a parking space on a side street adjacent to O'Melveny and walked across, only to discover what I'd more or less been expecting : the parking lot was empty; a sawhorse at the entrance held a sign that read "Park Is Closed". I crossed back over Sesnon, through the endless line of cars, and drove home.
This has got to be the worst fire that has hit the North Valley in recent memory. I know we've had even worse in the West Valley, such as last year's Woolsey Fire which destroyed many more homes and acreage. Woolsey was one of the worst fires in all of California history, let alone the Valley. But as far as the North Valley and the area around the Santa Susana Mountains is concerned, the Saddleridge Fire is the worst in my lifetime.
The websites for O'Melveny and Aliso Canyon Parks say that they are "temporarily" closed. I hope this is true, and that they will not be shut down for years, as was Placerita Canyon.
On my way back from O'Melveny Park, I stopped off at G.Hills Libe to look for movies. They didn't have a great selection of horror, but I did find a few flicks that border on that category. One of them I watched this evening, a movie entitled "UFO" (2018). Ordinarily, I might have passed this movie by, because I don't remember it being in theaters, and it had a straight-to-video look, but interestingly enough I'd heard of it before, and very recently in fact. In "The Rendlesham Enigma", the film was mentioned by co-author Gary Osbourn as having in it's plotline a thread that has to do with a mathematical number called The Fine Structure Constant. Osborn goes into great detail in the book about the importance of the Constant in physics and, really, to the fact that it is a frequency that holds the atomic structure of the Universe together. I'll not go into great detail here. Google the number 137 and see what you get.
I had never heard of The Fine Structure Constant before reading "The Rendlesham Enigma", although in an interesting aside, I had heard a version of that phrase before. If Elizabeth is reading, she will know what I am referring to. Her friend Sarah has (or had) a band called The Fine Constant. They were based in Madison, Wisconsin and Elizabeth knew Sarah for years and has done videos for her. I always thought that band name was an intriguing one, but past that, I never thought much about it. Now though, after reading "Rendlesham" and learning about the Fine Structure Constant, I see that Sara's band was named after the same thing, only with the word "Structure" removed to make it roll off the tongue more easily.
I don't think Elizabeth reads this blog anymore, but if she does : Hey Elizabeth! I finally "got" Sara's band name. :):) Must be a bunch of math wizards in that group.
And that's what "UFO" the movie is about, the use of the Fine Structure Constant as a means of communication between aliens and human beings. It's a very intelligent film, and though limited by budget and thus having more of a cable movie feel, it is still thoroughly captivating.
A young actor named Alex Sharp stars as a college student at the University of Cincinnati. I must just in here to say that the location was extra cool. My Dad graduated from the U of C in 1946, so it was really neat to be able to see the campus, on which much of the film was shot. Alex Sharp's character is a math genius and also a UFO buff. When a sighting at the Cincinnati airport make the news, Sharp becomes intrigued. There were many witnesses, including employees in the control tower. Being a genius, Sharp knows how to do things like find obscure air traffic websites and look up unlisted cell phone numbers. He locates a recording of a conversation between controllers in the tower who were on shift when the UFO appeared. Then he calls a local anchorman on his cell to report what he has heard, which is clear evidence of a large flying saucer.
Unbeknownst to Sharp, a secret group inside the FBI has also been following not only the airport sighting but also other recent flaps in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. They are aware that he has used the air traffic control website, and now he is on their radar. Actor David Strahairn plays the head Fed who is now secretly monitoring young Sharp.
Sharp, meanwhile, is incensed when he hears on the news that the whole affair has been dismissed as a case of misidentification. The news anchor is reporting that the FBI has solved the case. It was not a UFO that everyone saw but only a Gulfstream jet.
Sharp becomes so obsessed with proving the sighting that he puts his considerable math skills to work, using trigonometry to work out the size and precise location of where the UFO would have been. In listening to the recording from the control tower, he discovers a previously unnoticed band of interference. He uses a computer program to isolate this sound, and discovers a pattern in the frequency.
This will lead him to conclude, eventually, that it is a communication from the UFO, having to do with The Fine Structure Constant. There is a ton of math in this movie, so you've gotta have your thinking cap on and listen closely. The math is so complex that it finally becomes too difficult for Sharp to solve alone, so he enlists the help of his Professor - Gillian Anderson! Yep, good old Scully herself. True to form, she is a bit skeptical of the whole story, but comes around after Sharp presents all his evidence. They work together to figure out what the Constant could mean, as a message.
Meanwhile, David Strathairn - the Secret FBI Man - is monitoring Sharp's every move, watching him through the camera lens on his home computer. I've gotta step in here to say : "see, I told you so"! Haha. That's why I tape a square of paper over my own computer lenses, lol. I'm not gonna be Skyping with anyone anyway, and I don't want my pals in the FBI mysteriously Skyping me, either! :):)
For some reason, Alex Sharp - genius though he is - never thinks to tape his computer lenses, so Strathairn is able to continue following his progress on the UFO case. This will all come to a head at the end of the movie, but Strathairn may not turn out to be the Evil Secret Agent we think he is.
That why, in my case, I always champion the Feds. I consider them my friends because we're all on the same side in this.......whatever it is, lol. :)
"UFO" is a thought-provoking little movie that is extremely well made. It was written and directed by a guy named Ryan Eslinger, who shows a lot of talent. He moves the complicated story along with the swift pace of a thriller, and without ever bogging you down in the difficult math talk. The nighttime photography on the UC campus is artful, emphasizing the architectural beauty of the buildings. Alex Sharpe and the other young actors who play his fellow students are all good, and the longtimers Strathairn and Anderson add some veteran gravitas.
Two Thumbs Way Up for "UFO", a movie I'd probably never have seen had I not read "The Rendlesham Enigma". This is one movie that, rather than needing to be shortened, could actually have benefited from an extra fifteen minutes of plot development. I won't get into the reason for this, except to say that they could have explored the meaning of The Fine Constant a little further.
That's a minor quibble, however, and I strongly recommend the movie for all viewers, even if you don't believe in UFOs. /////
That is all for now. It's a day off for me, so I may go on a hike if I can find a park that's open. I know Santa Susana is okay, but I may drive to check up on Rice Canyon in Santa Clarita. Or maybe I can find some info on the web before going all the way out there and getting in another traffic jam. In any event, I hope you have a great day. Please keep Jerry Gaskill of King's X in your prayers, as it was announced this morning that he will be undergoing a heart procedure very soon.
Thanks so much, and I will see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons and tons of love.
There was a massive traffic jam on Balboa once you passed Jollette Avenue. That is the residential street on which several homes burned down. I imagine that there were street closures around (and maybe including) Jollette, and that a detour was causing the backup, which stretched on out of sight. It had to be at least a mile long. I took other side streets to escape the jam, only to arrive at Sesnon Boulevard, across from O'Melveny Park, and encounter another traffic jam that looked just as bad as the first. It looked like an awful situation for the residents up there.
I found a parking space on a side street adjacent to O'Melveny and walked across, only to discover what I'd more or less been expecting : the parking lot was empty; a sawhorse at the entrance held a sign that read "Park Is Closed". I crossed back over Sesnon, through the endless line of cars, and drove home.
This has got to be the worst fire that has hit the North Valley in recent memory. I know we've had even worse in the West Valley, such as last year's Woolsey Fire which destroyed many more homes and acreage. Woolsey was one of the worst fires in all of California history, let alone the Valley. But as far as the North Valley and the area around the Santa Susana Mountains is concerned, the Saddleridge Fire is the worst in my lifetime.
The websites for O'Melveny and Aliso Canyon Parks say that they are "temporarily" closed. I hope this is true, and that they will not be shut down for years, as was Placerita Canyon.
On my way back from O'Melveny Park, I stopped off at G.Hills Libe to look for movies. They didn't have a great selection of horror, but I did find a few flicks that border on that category. One of them I watched this evening, a movie entitled "UFO" (2018). Ordinarily, I might have passed this movie by, because I don't remember it being in theaters, and it had a straight-to-video look, but interestingly enough I'd heard of it before, and very recently in fact. In "The Rendlesham Enigma", the film was mentioned by co-author Gary Osbourn as having in it's plotline a thread that has to do with a mathematical number called The Fine Structure Constant. Osborn goes into great detail in the book about the importance of the Constant in physics and, really, to the fact that it is a frequency that holds the atomic structure of the Universe together. I'll not go into great detail here. Google the number 137 and see what you get.
I had never heard of The Fine Structure Constant before reading "The Rendlesham Enigma", although in an interesting aside, I had heard a version of that phrase before. If Elizabeth is reading, she will know what I am referring to. Her friend Sarah has (or had) a band called The Fine Constant. They were based in Madison, Wisconsin and Elizabeth knew Sarah for years and has done videos for her. I always thought that band name was an intriguing one, but past that, I never thought much about it. Now though, after reading "Rendlesham" and learning about the Fine Structure Constant, I see that Sara's band was named after the same thing, only with the word "Structure" removed to make it roll off the tongue more easily.
I don't think Elizabeth reads this blog anymore, but if she does : Hey Elizabeth! I finally "got" Sara's band name. :):) Must be a bunch of math wizards in that group.
And that's what "UFO" the movie is about, the use of the Fine Structure Constant as a means of communication between aliens and human beings. It's a very intelligent film, and though limited by budget and thus having more of a cable movie feel, it is still thoroughly captivating.
A young actor named Alex Sharp stars as a college student at the University of Cincinnati. I must just in here to say that the location was extra cool. My Dad graduated from the U of C in 1946, so it was really neat to be able to see the campus, on which much of the film was shot. Alex Sharp's character is a math genius and also a UFO buff. When a sighting at the Cincinnati airport make the news, Sharp becomes intrigued. There were many witnesses, including employees in the control tower. Being a genius, Sharp knows how to do things like find obscure air traffic websites and look up unlisted cell phone numbers. He locates a recording of a conversation between controllers in the tower who were on shift when the UFO appeared. Then he calls a local anchorman on his cell to report what he has heard, which is clear evidence of a large flying saucer.
Unbeknownst to Sharp, a secret group inside the FBI has also been following not only the airport sighting but also other recent flaps in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. They are aware that he has used the air traffic control website, and now he is on their radar. Actor David Strahairn plays the head Fed who is now secretly monitoring young Sharp.
Sharp, meanwhile, is incensed when he hears on the news that the whole affair has been dismissed as a case of misidentification. The news anchor is reporting that the FBI has solved the case. It was not a UFO that everyone saw but only a Gulfstream jet.
Sharp becomes so obsessed with proving the sighting that he puts his considerable math skills to work, using trigonometry to work out the size and precise location of where the UFO would have been. In listening to the recording from the control tower, he discovers a previously unnoticed band of interference. He uses a computer program to isolate this sound, and discovers a pattern in the frequency.
This will lead him to conclude, eventually, that it is a communication from the UFO, having to do with The Fine Structure Constant. There is a ton of math in this movie, so you've gotta have your thinking cap on and listen closely. The math is so complex that it finally becomes too difficult for Sharp to solve alone, so he enlists the help of his Professor - Gillian Anderson! Yep, good old Scully herself. True to form, she is a bit skeptical of the whole story, but comes around after Sharp presents all his evidence. They work together to figure out what the Constant could mean, as a message.
Meanwhile, David Strathairn - the Secret FBI Man - is monitoring Sharp's every move, watching him through the camera lens on his home computer. I've gotta step in here to say : "see, I told you so"! Haha. That's why I tape a square of paper over my own computer lenses, lol. I'm not gonna be Skyping with anyone anyway, and I don't want my pals in the FBI mysteriously Skyping me, either! :):)
For some reason, Alex Sharp - genius though he is - never thinks to tape his computer lenses, so Strathairn is able to continue following his progress on the UFO case. This will all come to a head at the end of the movie, but Strathairn may not turn out to be the Evil Secret Agent we think he is.
That why, in my case, I always champion the Feds. I consider them my friends because we're all on the same side in this.......whatever it is, lol. :)
"UFO" is a thought-provoking little movie that is extremely well made. It was written and directed by a guy named Ryan Eslinger, who shows a lot of talent. He moves the complicated story along with the swift pace of a thriller, and without ever bogging you down in the difficult math talk. The nighttime photography on the UC campus is artful, emphasizing the architectural beauty of the buildings. Alex Sharpe and the other young actors who play his fellow students are all good, and the longtimers Strathairn and Anderson add some veteran gravitas.
Two Thumbs Way Up for "UFO", a movie I'd probably never have seen had I not read "The Rendlesham Enigma". This is one movie that, rather than needing to be shortened, could actually have benefited from an extra fifteen minutes of plot development. I won't get into the reason for this, except to say that they could have explored the meaning of The Fine Constant a little further.
That's a minor quibble, however, and I strongly recommend the movie for all viewers, even if you don't believe in UFOs. /////
That is all for now. It's a day off for me, so I may go on a hike if I can find a park that's open. I know Santa Susana is okay, but I may drive to check up on Rice Canyon in Santa Clarita. Or maybe I can find some info on the web before going all the way out there and getting in another traffic jam. In any event, I hope you have a great day. Please keep Jerry Gaskill of King's X in your prayers, as it was announced this morning that he will be undergoing a heart procedure very soon.
Thanks so much, and I will see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons and tons of love.
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