This blog was begun Saturday night May 30th and completed the following evening :
Elizabeth, your picture and video clips made my day. With all the chaos going on, how nice it was to see the peaceful lake and waterfall. The sound was awesome, too. I asked for rushing water, this time I really got it, wow. That is some view from the top! I am guessing you are at Porcupine Mountains again, am I right? What an incredible place. Maybe one day I can see it for myself. :):)
I got my Bobby Fuller cd in the mail today and had a chance to listen to half of it. He had a big hit in 1965 with "I Fought The Law", which is an ironic title given the events of the past couple of evenings. But he was much more than a one-hit wonder. I sought out more of his music about five years ago, after seeing live videos of his band on Youtube, filmed at Gazarri's on the the Sunset Strip. The Bobby Fuller Four played in the style of early rock, similar to Buddy Holly, but they played it souped up with the energy of The Beatles. What struck me right away upon seeing the video clips was his musical ability. The guy played the hell out of the guitar, and I recently thought to myself, "you know, there are parallels to Van Halen in Bobby Fuller". Even though the music is entirely different, there are similarities in the guitar-driven sound of both bands, and especially in the pop structures and big, bright vocal harmonies. Fuller played mostly rhythm, but he was a master of chord voicings and tonal color. He was a monster guitarist and it would have been interesting to see how he would have evolved had he lived into the 1970s, when the era of advanced lead playing began.
He was murdered over a payola scandal in 1966, when he was only 23 years old. One day the truth will be told about his death, and he will get his due musically. The cd I bought is called "Bobby Fuller: El Paso Rock - Early Recordings Volume 3". It features homemade demos, live stuff from clubs and cover versions of songs like "Summertime Blues" and "Wine, Wine, Wine". What you notice is how tight his band is for the early 60s, and how dynamic. I think he would have been huge, playing The Forum, had he lived. /////
Well, it's now Sunday evening, the second night of curfew in Los Angeles. I got all my miles in before 8pm, then watched a movie called "Mutiny In Outer Space"(1965). I'm a little tired because I've got an expiring smoke alarm in my apartment. It started chirping at 3:30 am last night and I didn't get much sleep as a result. It took me a while to get it silenced. Tomorrow I will have the manager change it. Anyway, if my review is a little shorter than usual, that's the reason. There's not a whole lot to say about this film in any event. It deals with a fungus brought back from the Moon by a pair of astronauts sent to study the Lunar Ice Caves. The problem is that you can't do a whole lot with fungus. It grows and spreads rapidly, but it doesn't have arms and legs to get around with, and it's not wearing a rubber suit like most of the creatures we've been watching. A fungus is kind of dull, so the filmmakers focus on the mutiny instead. What happens is that before returning to Earth, the Moon Crew dock with Space Station X-7 to drop off ice samples for the scientists onboard to study. It is there that the fungus is discovered. I am trying to work in a sentence with "fungus amongus", just so you know I'm not slackin'.
One Moon Astronaut is consumed very quickly by the fungi. His body is put in quarantine and many apt references are made in the dialogue that could apply to our current situation. But what starts all the trouble is that the Space Station Commander, "Col. Cromwell" (Richard Garland), orders a false report sent back to Air Force headquarters at Vandenberg. He doesn't want the cause of death revealed because he believes it will make them all expendable. "They won't take any chances of letting that fungus get back to Earth! Odds are we'll be obliterated by a missile before re-entry. No, I want that report to read that he died of a pressure overload in the spacelock. Don't you dare - any of you! - to let them know of this"!
The rest of the crew aren't happy with the Colonel's decision because no one knows what this stuff is, or if it's gonna infect the rest of them. The silence order also prevents a rescue ship from being sent up. The surviving Moon Astronaut (William Leslie) thinks the Colonel is paranoid and abusing his authority, so he pulls a Spock and organises a mutiny behind the Colonel's back. Remember the Star Trek formula? Every episode had to have one of the following ingredients : a Spock Mutiny, a Chekov Rebellion, or a Sulu Subterfuge. Spock Mutinies were the most frequently used, and that's what's going on here : the second in command decides the Captain's gone crazy and takes over. Leslie tries to get a message to General Knowland on the ground, but at first no one will help him. Lt. Engstrom (Pamela Curran), the communications officer, is the crazy Colonel's girlfriend. She pretends to send out Leslie's fungus SOS, but really it's just a simple "a-ok" acknowledgement that all is well aboard the station. In the meantime, Leslie's own gal - biologist "Faith Montaine" (Dolores Faith) - is trapped in the lab by the fungus, which fills up the rest of the joint in short order. The only mystery left is whether Leslie will gain control of the space station. Will he be able to overpower the mentally deteriorating Colonel? And if so, will he be able to get a message to Vandenberg in time for them to launch a rescue mission?
It's a very talky film, though not without dramatic tension. There just isn't much action, even on the part of the fungus, which stops after killing it's only victim, the first Moon Astronaut. It does eventually drape itself all over the outside of Space Station X-7, requiring the crew to brainstorm a way to remove it. I would've suggested a Giant Sized Tube of Lotrimin, which is supposed to work well on athlete's foot. Hey, it's worth a try. Actually, though, Leslie and the crew come up with a better idea, which I won't reveal except to say it's a lot less goopy.
The hardware in "Mutiny In Space" is pretty good. The rotating silver space station looks better than the film's 90K budget would indicate. The Moon Rocket effects are less successful, jittery and crudely pasted. The whole thing has the feel of an extended television episode, which isn't a bad thing either. Both Star Trek and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea had their share of Fungus Episodes. Also, the interior of the space station has that "tv show look", with lots of Curving Hallways and Rounded Doors that Slide Open Seamlessly. But the acting is passable and the script moves the story along (though once again, we can do without the romance angle in these movies). I'm gonna give it a flat but fair rating of Two Regular Thumbs Up. You might like it better than I did; a lot of fans at IMDB seem fond of it. It's definitely worth a view, however, and is recommended on that basis. //////
That's all I've got for ya tonight. Tomorrow I will try to get this pesky smoke alarm replaced, then I can enjoy my time off and go for a hike. Let's also pray for an end to the trouble and violence. See you at the Usual Time.
Tons of peace and love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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