Two Movies and A New Reality

A couple more movies for you : "I Became a Criminal"(1947), also known as "They Made Me a Fugitive" in America. Watching this film, I could've sworn I saw a remake starring James Cagney, but I can't find it on IMDB so I must be wrong. It must be this same film that I know I've seen before, and while it has it's moments, and a strong finale, and the photography is exceptional, it goes on way too long. You know how sometimes we suggest a cut of ten to twenty minutes on certain films, twenty being the extreme and rarely invoked? Well, meet the new champ. At an hour and forty minutes, "I Became" feels like an Age in geological time and needs a full half hour cut out. The story is good and so are the performances, but the direction has no snap, no tension. It's as if the editor took the day off, or several days, or maybe there wasn't an editor at all. For me, it just dragged and dragged and dragged, but interestingly, the fans love it. Everyone at IMDB gives it a stellar review, so don't listen to me, give it a watch. But brew a pot of coffee just in case. ////   

The other flick I have is called "Fear No More"(1961), a low budget psychological mystery starring Mala Powers as a former mental patient now working as a personal assistant to a millionaire. He wants to get rid of his wife and is planning to frame Powers, knowing that her background will make her the prime suspect in the murder. This movie has a "let's put on a show"! dramatic feel, as if a talented cast of Playhouse 90 veterans decided to pool their money to make a Hitchcock film. The script is full of implausibilities, but if you go with it you'll have fun, and once again the IMDB fans absolutely love it. For that reason, let's give it Two Big Thumbs Up.  ////

Yesterday I took several bagfuls of Pearl's Christmas decorations to Goodwill. There were wreaths and pine cone baskets and stockings and all kinds of things, most of them wired up with lights. Many were handmade (Pearl did a lot of crafting in years past) and all were in good condition and I'm so glad Goodwill accepted them because now, with Christmas approaching, maybe they'll be placed in the store and purchased, and wind up decorating mantelpieces and front doors of other people's homes, thereby carrying on a part of Pearl's spirit.

Mornings continue to be extremely difficult for me. I cope by reading and going slow. I'm in a Kafka-esque situation here in my building. If you've been reading over the years, you may recall that I've complained a few times about my noisy neighbors. Fellow apartment dwellers may know what it's like to be located next to The Apartment From Hell, and that's where mine is situated. I've lived in The Tiny Apartment for close to sixteen years and have had one nightmare neighbor after another. The last group (I say group because two guys lived there but always had their friends over) loved disco music. Disco from India to be precise, and while I'm not prejudiced against any race or culture, I'll just say that Indian Disco is not my favorite music and leave it at that. Especially when it's played through subwoofers, which in my opinion should be outlawed in apartment buildings. Even when the "music" is turned down, you still hear a thud....thudthud...thud....as if someone is throwing furniture around.

Well at any rate, while these guys had their quieter periods, they were more often the quintessential Obnoxious Neighbors With No Regard For Others. About a year ago, marveling at their longevity in this building (they moved in in 2015, most tenants are gone within two years), I said to myself, "They Will be Here Until The End of Time". 

Imagine my surprise then, when I came home from my last (and final as it turned out) work cycle at Pearl's, to see the Noisy Neighbors moving boxes, not into but out of their unit. "Could it be true"?, I wondered, hoping against hope. "No.....it can't be", came the reply from the Cynical Me, inured to living next to these fellas. "Remember Ad", I said to myself, "It's written in Freaking Stone, like an Eleventh Commandment : 'They Will Be Here Til The End of Time' ".

But Lo and Behold! They did move out. Thank You, Jesus! The torment was over. That was Friday night, September 10, 2021.

Then I went "Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire" as Franz Kafka moved in, 2 1/2 days later on the morning of September 13. He moved into my building in the form of construction workers, who began pounding and hammering and sawing and banging and drilling and pounding some more, beginning at 8:30am sharp every morning. Okay, once again if you're an apartment dweller, you know the process of refurbishing a unit after a long time tenant moves out. The painters come in, maybe the drywall guys before them, and perhaps the carpet crew too, if the unit is badly worn down. This has happened next door a couple of times in the sixteen years I've been here. And it usually takes two or three days to complete the job, four at the most.

But folks, this time they must be constructing the god almighty Empire State Building in there, or a channel-length subway tunnel, or both, because the pounding and the sawing and the drilling and the hammering and the banging have been going on for fifteen full days now, and there's No Sign That It's Gonna End Any Time Soon.

I kid you not. I have a theory, that if ever the world is destroyed by nuclear war (God Forbid), the only things to survive will be cockroaches, Keith Richards, and construction workers. The thing is, though, you'll never see them. You'll only hear them nearby, pounding and banging like something out of a Kafka novel, an existential absurdity in a time of monumental despair.

I did listen to the Rams game yesterday, which made me feel better. I say "listened" because my apartment doesn't get regular TV. You've gotta have cable, and I never bought it because I've been mostly living at Pearl's for the past 12 years. So the only thing I use my TV for is movies on dvd. But I don't mind listening to the game on the radio. It's how I followed sports as a kid, and there's something about listening to a game on the radio that engages your imagination and heightens your anticipation. Sports are always a good diversion in tough times, especially when your team is winning, and the Rams look like Super Bowl contenders this year. They destroyed Brady and the champion Bucs with ease.

I've been going up to Aliso Canyon, the only hike I've been doing of late, but I've been going there every day. It's just 2.5 miles from my apartment, in a ravine that looks like an old hollow from the 19th century (or the 9th, or 9 million BC), and whenever I go there, no matter how low I'm feeling it's Instant Peace of Mind. That's where I saw the bobcat. Today I saw a coyote, but they rarely hold still for a picture.

After my hike, I've been getting home about 6:30. Then I watch an episode of "The Avengers". When I was a boy I was transfixed by Mrs. Peel, but never understood the banter between her and Mr. Steed, nor the complex plots, so the show was somewhat beyond my reach. Now, though, I'm well versed in British witticisms as well as espionage, having finished the whole of Patrick McGoohan's "Secret Agent" series, and I'm enjoying "The Avengers" very much as a sort of counterpart to that show. Whereas "Secret Agent" was deadly serious, "Avengers" is irreverent. Both are now among my favorite TV shows of all time.

At nightfall I go on my CSUN walk, which helps me get my thoughts in order as the hustle of the daytime subsides. I have long been a night person. I can't do hustle-bustle, maybe I'm in my head too much I dunno. But I never understood the Rat Race anyway. What's the freakin' point? I've always thought it would be better to live in a continuous Steady State, free of economic emphasis, with a focus on nature, God and Spirit, much like the Indians did, and we could use all the best of our modern technology to enhance organic output, to produce bountiful harvests and live in harmony with Mother Earth, instead of paving over the entire planet and constructing skyscrapers and malls on top of the pavement. Sorry for being a wet blanket, but that's supposed to be "progress"?

There's no such thing as progress, except to cure disease and to make human life easier. That's something I learned as a caregiver, though I knew it instinctively since the age of 17.

Well, I'll shut up now. I'm in the midst of a terrible shock and feeling the loss of a special person who was with me for one fifth of my life. 

That's all I know for today. Thanks for reading. I'm in a new adventure and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

A Few Movies, and Cynthia Lennon

 I've got a few movies for you, all highly recommended, but just the titles and basic details for now. I've haven't got the energy or concentration to review 'em. Especially good was tonight's film, "The Brothers Rico", starring Richard Conte as a former accountant for the Mob, who's forced to track down his brother by a Miami Don. Directed by Phil Karlson, who brought us the excellent "99 River Street" a few weeks ago.

Last night I watched the also top notch "Human Desire" by Fritz Lang, starring Glenn Ford as a train engineer, who gets involved with a co-worker's wife, not knowing that the man has recently committed a murder. It's a lot more complicated than that, but make sure to see it. Broderick Crawford and Gloria Grahame co-star as the dangerous couple.

"Out of the Fog" was a British crime flick by the reliable Montgomery Tully. A young ex-con tries to go straight but is hassled by his parole officer, who suspects him in a series of murders in a local park. Solid lead work by David Sumner as the accused young man, and good suspense all around, leading to a twist ending that you'll never guess.

"Portrait of Alison" is an Anglo-American co-production that, like "Serena" a couple weeks ago, riffs on the popular "Laura" theme, of the idealized femme captured on canvas who then disappears, only to reappear in a different guise. This movie involves a jewel theft ring, and is more of a Scotland Yard procedural than a love triangle melodrama (ala "Laura"), but it still utilizes similar Noir elements of the "double" or returned girl.

And finally, "The Passing of the Third Floor Back", a parable of good and evil adapted from a stage play, starring the great Conrad Veidt as a mysterious stranger who comes to live at an English boarding house full of miserable tenants, He tries to change their lives for the better but is opposed by an unscrupulous man of wealth. This one has a marvelous scene in which Veidt gets all the tenants out of the house for boat ride on the Thames. They come to life in exhilaration, but later that night, when their day of fun has ended, the Wealthy Man corners Veidt. "You've had your say", he tells him, "but now it's my turn. Wait til they see the cold hard reality facing them in the morning". You'll have to see it in the context of the movie, but it's brilliant. "The Passing of the Third Floor Back" is an incredibly spiritual film that uplifted me in what has been a very difficult week. Conrad Veidt has become one of my favorite actors and I can't recommend it highly enough. ///// 

So there you have it, good flicks all, and not a one of 'em rating less than Two Bigs. "The Brothers Rico" gets Two Huge. ///

I went back to Pearl's this afternoon, to help her daughter sort her belongings. It was actually therapeutic, and I am managing my days right now by just taking one hour at a time, and doing what's right in front of me. Mornings are the hardest, as the Wealthy Man in "Third Floor Back" so aptly pointed out, but what I do is just read my book until "the cold hard reality" ebbs away, and then when early afternoon comes 'round, I start working on the magic. It's the only way out of such a situation.

Right now, I am reading "John" by Cynthia Lennon. Did I already mention that in a previous blog? Well anyway, her book is also helping me a lot. I always thought "Cyn", as she was known, was a lady of true class, who never got the credit she was due as John's loyal and supportive wife during the headiest years of Beatlemania. Yoko gets all the press, which says that she was John's true love, but I've always believed his true love was Cynthia, who he met at art college in 1957 when he was 17 and she a year older. He was with Cyn for 11 years. As far as The Beatles are concerned, she was there from the beginning, coming into John's life just a couple months after he met Paul McCartney. She was there at the table in a club or restaurant when John and Stu Sutcliffe chose "The Beatles" as a band name. She was there for almost the whole ride, under often trying circumstances, accepting the role of the traditional wife and mother.

Then John discovered LSD, and it basically destroyed their marriage, because he took it every day for years. Not everyone knows that about John, but it's also why Paul took over The Beatles. During that period, John left Cyn for Yoko, who still gets all the press but wasn't there when it mattered. Cynthia was the real John Lennon's wife, and as they say, "behind every successful man there is a strong woman".

Cyn got a raw deal out of the whole thing (ask Julian), but remained in love with John to the end. Nothing against Yoko, as she suffered through John's death, but in my opinion, she couldn't shine Cyn's shoes.

So I'll say God Bless Cynthia Lennon. Her book is helping me greatly this week. She tells an exciting tale from bygone days that turned into an emotional roller coaster, so it's a diversion that helps me get through my day. Cyn's gone now, in heaven, and I believe she and John are together again.  ///// 

That's all I know for now. See you tomorrow morning. I send you Tons and Tons of love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

Grief Diary (emotionally frank), plus One Movie

For the time being I suppose this is more of a diary than a typical movie blog. I hope you don't mind. Writing about my day will help me get through this difficult period. I've been experiencing some profound emotions and also what you might call a stream-of-consciousness of memories, of all the things Pearl and I did for the past 12 years (it was actually eleven and a half but it's easier to say twelve). That stream has a will of it's own, your mind races when a loved one dies, and you become removed from the logical order of an ordinary day and feel as if you've been put in a mixing bowl of grief, anxiety and disorientation.

I'm really tired right now. My world has been upended. I've lost my best friend, my second family, and my livelihood all in one. I've also lost my second home, in the Reseda neighborhood I was born in, a neighborhood I've come to feel at peace in, far more than in the Northridge of 2021 (a hectic place nowdays, better suited for young people). I mean, don't get me wrong - I love Northridge and always will, and it still retains a lot of it's old time charm. But it's populated by millions of CSUN students, each with their own high powered car. Everyone's revved-up to the maxx on highly caffeinated beverages, gadget mentality, video screen lock-on, and the resultant Constant Tailgating. Life in Northridge, once you get out on the street, is Somebody On Your Ass At Every Turn. When I drive here, I wish I were out in the desert.

I've come to prefer Reseda over Northridge. Especially my old neighborhood, which is where Pearl lived for 68 years in the same house. It's peaceful there, and at 61, I just want to live in peace. I'm not an old geezer, but neither do I want to live amongst aggroed-out noise merchants whose whole life is tailgating.

So yeah, I'm struggling, because all of a sudden I've lost all of that, and especially my best friend Pearl, and it might be hard for non-caregivers to understand how close you can feel to a person you are caring for. There are links you can Google if you want to read about it. I'm destroyed right now, and I was absolutely unprepared for how devastating this was gonna be, and how that emotional devastation controls you. It dictates your day from the moment you wake up. I'm sitting in my tiny box of an apartment, which was only my clubhouse for the past dozen years, because I basically worked and lived at Pearl's house. But now I'm back here with nowhere to go, no routine to follow, no partner to care for and spend the day with, and it's scary. I know I'm gonna have to get out of this building, and soon or it'll kill me. So yeah, the mind races with all of this stuff, when you lose your whole life at once. I feel like I've been ripped to shreds. Sorry for the depression, but I've always tried to be honest with you.

I do have a movie, however, and I'll just give you a basic description.

Last night I found a futuristic Sci-Fi from 1932, written by Curt Siodmak, called "The Secret of F.P. 1". A naval engineer has designed a giant, floating platform (the "FP" of the title) to be used in the mid-Atlantic as a landing and refueling strip for airlines. Keep in mind that transatlantic flight had only been accomplished five years earlier by Charles Lindbergh, and was at this point anything but routine. The engineer enlists a test pilot (Conrad Viedt) to help win funding for the project, and Viedt. a dashing daredevil, wins the heart of the construction magnate's daughter. Not everyone wants the floating platform to be built however, and when it is, inevitably someone tries to sink it.

The film makes excellent use of models, the design is art deco, like "Things to Come". F.P. 1 is a floating city, like a seaborne version of SoFi stadium.

The direction is a little staid, which makes the rollout of the plot a bit stiff and lumbering, but there's more than enough thrills to go around, and Veidt gives an eccentric semi-villainous performance as the tempestuous pilot.

I loved "The Secret of F.P.1" despite it's early 30s faults, which lie mainly in the rote recitation of some of the dialogue.

The print looks brand new. the movie was shot simultaneously in three separate languages, which may have small plot differences between them according to Wiki. You can't beat Conrad Veidt in a role like this, however, and for an early and very different kind of Sci-Fi, "F.P.1" is terrific.

Two Big Thumbs up. Hooray for Curt Siodmak and Reseda! ////

I've just finished Joel Selvin's excellent and thoroughly researched book about the Altamont concert, and I've started Cynthia Lennon's "John" in it's wake. Just rock 'n' roll stuff for now, easy to digest page turners that help pass the time. In the past sixteen years, I've dealt with a lot of death, of both my parents, a whole host of my friends, and now Pearl, who I just spent one fifth of my life with.

It's been really hard, but with some magic I'll make it.

Thanks for reading. I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

My Friend Pearl

 Hi everyone,

I'm afraid I have some sad news to report. Pearl, the lady I was caregiving for the past eleven and a half years, passed away yesterday at the age of 97. It happened all of a sudden, and even though at that age it can't be unexpected, on Saturday night she was fine but woke up not feeling well on Sunday morning and by afternoon she was gone. Her daughter was there with me, and we were blessed beyond measure to be with Pearl, holding her hands when she died.

Blessed also was that the last thing we did together was watch an online church service, broadcast from Pearl's home state of Minnesota, and ministered by Pearl's niece, the pastor of that church. It was beautiful, in that we watched the entire 45 minute service, and within two minutes of it's ending, Pearl closed her eyes and was gone, with the faint trace of a smile on her lips. In that respect it could not have been more beautiful, and she suffered no pain or agony.

Needless to say, though, I am devastated. When you caregive for an elderly person, you become close in all kinds of ways because you are helping the person do a lot of things they can't do by themself. Pearl was 85 when I started working for her way back in the Spring of 2010. Even though she was just coming off a hip replacement operation (the reason I was initially hired), she was still pretty robust and ambulatory, and remained that way for several years. We did a ton of stuff together, along with her dog (and my great pal) Kobi, and until the end of 2014 I was only with her part time, from 4 to 6 hours a day. But around Thanksgiving of that year, it was clear she needed more help, and I began to stay the night, going home to my apartment only for short breaks in the afternoon and evening. I also joined the choir that Winter, at Reseda Methodist Church, and sat right next to Pearl in the tenor section, so she could remain on stage too. We rarely missed a Sunday, and had the highest attendance in the five-plus years before Covid.

Pearl had dementia, fortunately the slow-progressing kind, but it did get worse, and after Covid hit, we decided she needed 24 hour care. I was more or less round-the-clock with her by that point, though I had a substitute come and spell me for an afternoon break. By then, Pearl's daughter had retired, and was coming down from her house in Northern California for two weeks at a time, so she could be with her Mom also, so since Covid I was only with Pearl 17 days a month, but for 21 hours a day when I was on.

Truth be told, I could've done without having the two weeks off. If it were any other job, I would've welcomed the free time, but this was never a "job" to me. I would've gladly done it every day. I loved taking care of Pearl, and over the years she became my best friend. We did everything together, and made sure to enjoy all the moments of our days, and to appreciate all the Little Things, like stopping to see our doggie friends behind the fences of the various houses on our walks, or counting the cats prowling Newcastle Street. I called this The Summer of Green Parrots because we would see a flock of them in and around the trees at the local elementary school, squawking and making a racket. We always looked forward to seeing the Green Parrots every evening at twilight, sometimes with a gorgeously colored sunset in the background. And that's just one of the Little Things we enjoyed every day. If I were to list them all, this would be the longest blog I ever wrote.

It's so hard to lose somebody you love, even when they live to be 97, and maybe especially then, because they start to seem eternal. Other than her cognitive impairment, Pearl had been in reasonably good health all these years, and remained so right up until a few hours before her passing. On my work break this past week, I was already gearing up for our next round of walks, shows, music, meals and everything else we did every day, during what I assumed would be a fun and pleasant 17 days together into mid-October.

Now it isn't to be. I'm numb right now, because again, Pearl was not only my best friend but the person I was with, almost all the time, for the past dozen years. I've known her since I was born (our families were neighbors), and believe it or not, Pearl was also my Godmother, which means she presented me for my baptism.

I have no idea what I'm gonna do next, and right now I don't wanna know (and don't even wanna think about it), because I was so attuned to taking care of Pearl. So that's what I'll do, I'll stay with her spiritually, and I know she'll do the same for me. We really "get" each other.

Therefore, "super good work, Pearl"! She'll know what I mean. That, and "what a day"! "Can you believe the sky tonight"? "Get ready for the green parrots"!

"My Goodness, Pearl...........can you even believe it"?

Pearl could. She was a wonderful lady. I loved her dearly and will miss her more than words can say.

If you love someone, please tell them, and don't forget to take in all the Little Things together, every day.

I love you, Pearl. Thanks for being my friend. I'll see you again one day, without a doubt. ////

God bless you all and thanks for reading. Hang in there and I'll be back soon with some movies and maybe just some musings as I process this change in my life.

Of course, I send you Tons and Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)  

More Robert Siodmak : "Cry of the City" starring Richard Conte, and "Cosh Boy", a British Juvenile Delinquent Flick

Last night, we found another Noir by Robert Siodmak : "Cry of the City"(1948). Set in New York's Little Italy, it's got crime, family drama, doomed love. It's the kind of New York story where two childhood friends take separate paths in life; one becoming a police officer, the other a criminal. Richard Conte stars as"Martin Rome", a thug who's just killed a cop. He's in a hospital jail ward, recovering from a gunshot wound himself, when he's visited by a tearful young woman (Debra Paget). "Why'd you have to do it, Marty"?, she asks. We assume she's his girlfriend, but Martin only remembers her as a "dream angel", having been high on painkillers at the time. When police come to question him about the cop killing, he won't talk. Then a lawyer visits him to coerce a false confession for another murder - the torture of a lady for her jewelry. Martin didn't do that one , but the lawyer - a crook himself - offers him ten grand to take the fall. "You're going to The Chair anyway. Might as well take the money to provide for your family. It'll get my client off and you can go to hell with a clean conscience". He's outraged at the shyster's offer and tries to strangle him. Hospital staff break it up. These three visits, by his girlfriend, the police and the lawyer, will serve to set the plot threads for the film.

A jail trustee (Walter Baldwin) is the custodian for Martin's hospital wing. When no one's around, he shows him how to pick the lock on his room. In a terrific sequence, director Siodmak ups the tension as Martin dons street clothes to make his escape, then is forced to pass though several security checks to reach the street. Once out, he heads straight for home, where his mother welcomes him with open arms. She's a traditional Italian Catholic, family is family and besides, Marty always sends her money to help support the household. She knows he's dishonest; any more than that she's doesn't want to know. "Mama, it's so good to see you", he tells her. "I just need a meal and a good night's sleep, then I'll be gone".

The next day, after he leaves, she's visited by "Lt. Candella" (Victor Mature). He's known Mama Rome and her family all his life. He was a boyhood pal of Martin's, and now he has to tell Mama the bitter truth. "He's wanted for killing a policeman, I'm sorry Mama Rome". Martin's teenage brother "Tony" (Tommy Cook) is also present. He idolises Martin and thus hates Candella as the bearer of bad news.

Martin's next stop is the office of the crooked lawyer (Berry Niles). Through jail scuttlebutt, he knows about the torture murder, attributed to the lawyer's client. He also knows about the jewelry that was taken, and figures the lawyer might have it. He's right; it's in a safe. Martin pulls a knife and demands the jewels. He also makes the lawyer reveal the name of the accomplice in the murder, a woman who works as a masseuse.

Martin then stabs the lawyer and heads out again, in search of the home of the accomplice. He plans to offer her the jewels she helped steal in exchange for five grand so he can leave the country. He's not fully recovered from his gunshot wound, however, and he's getting feverish and weak. He also doesn't realise - because he doesn't know her - that the masseuse (Hope Emerson) is a veteran criminal herself and no pushover. She's also 6'2" and strong as an ox. He'll find all this out when he meets her.  

This film has almost everything : great acting, multiple plot lines, heavy 1950s melodrama. It has the sociopathic son (Martin), who disappoints his Italian mama. It's got the little brother who worships him, the cop from the same neighborhood who's now out to catch him. It's got great supporting characters, like Shelly Winters as a broad from the bars who helps Martin locate the massage lady. She also finds him a shady doctor who performs a stitch-up on Martin's leg in the back of a cab. There's also a middle-aged nurse who plays a key role, helping Martin when she doesn't have to, and shouldn't. But she's a spinster, and it's a way to have a man in her life. She's also dedicated to her profession and sees Martin as her patient for better or worse. The movie has story to spare. The one thing it lacks is tension, save the aforementioned escape scene in the hospital. Too much time is spent playing out the Stanislavsky-esque melodramas, the tortured interrelationships between Martin, his family, Lt. Candella, and - at the end of the movie - his girlfriend "Tina" (Paget) when we finally see her again. These scenes tend to drag out, not ad infinitum, but long enough where we could've been following Martin while he's on the run. Siodmak should've cut the family scenes shorter in service of a tighter film.

The fans love it, however, and it's got a 7.2 IMDB rating, very high for an older, mostly unknown film noir. It's the kind of movie Scorsese would've made if he was working back then, and I'll bet he knows and loves it too.

All in all, I'm still gonna give "Cry of the City" Two Big Thumbs Up, just for overall content and that Siodmak Style. The black-and-white photography is great, with fantastic Manhattan locations. It would've worked better at 80 minutes instead of 95, but it's still very highly recommended. /////

The previous night we saw "Cosh Boy"(1953), a British juvenile delinquent flick that follows the exploits of "Walshy" (James Kenny), a punk who lives with his mother in a lower middle class flat in London. He's 18 and leads a small gang of street toughs who specialize in purse snatching. The one difference with this lot is their use of a "cosh", a pocket sized bludgeon they knock their victims on the head with before ripping them off and running. When we first see Walshy, he's making his flunky do all the dirty work. "Alfie" (Ian Whittaker) is a half wit, but even he is smart enough to know that Walshy is getting the better of the deal - half the money and little of the risk. "Yeah, but I plan the jobs", Walshy tells him. He's a real manipulator, that boy.  

At home, Walshy's mother believes her son is a good lad, even when he and Alfie are busted for the initial purse snatching. They're given a year's probation. Both boys promise to go straight, but Walshy has no intention of doing so and he controls Alfie, so soon they are back in business, this time with associates "Skinny" (Johnny Briggs) and "Pete" (Stanley Escane).

Walshy's mom is about to remarry, to a Canadian businessman named "Bob" (Robert Ayers), an authoritarian type that Walshy can't stand. "I'll kill him", he swears to his mother, who tries to soothe him.

His roiled emotions are flung in the opposite direction by "Rene" (Joan Collins), Alfie's teenaged sister who frequents the local youth center. Rene has a boyfriend and a job, but as a typical Cockney girl, she's sure of herself and up to the challenge when Walshy puts his tone deaf moves on her. Soon she falls in love with him, and for Rene it really is love, because she believes Walshy when he says those three little words, much as his mum believed him when he promised to go straight. He's a helluva con man, but when Rene gets pregnant he shows his true colors and wants nothing more to do with her. She attempts suicide by jumping in the Thames, but fortunately doesn't succeed. 

Meanwhile, Walshy is plotting the robbery of a boxing match that will net him a lot of dough. His nemesis Bob is the promoter and will be carrying the box office revenue to the safe. Walshy plans to steal it and kill Bob in the process if necessary. He's got Skinny and Pete helping him, but Rene's mother is out to get him, ready to strike him dead for what he's done to her daughter, and Alfie too. He's also making a huge mistake going up against Bob, a physically fit World War 2 vet who could easily kick young Walshy's ass.

But Walshy has graduated, from the "cosh" to a gun. Is he really willing to use it? We know he hates Bob, who beats him with a belt. But is Bob worth going to prison for, maybe for the rest of his life?

You could call "Cosh Boy", an exploitation movie, in the sense that it's out to shock and warn. You can almost picture a potential tag line : "This Could Be Your Son"! The script is written from a birds-eye-view as we watch Walshy's behavior degenerate. He's the Bad Influence all the neighborhood parents are afraid of, and so we take the high moral ground when his deeds finally catch up with him. He isn't James Dean in "Rebel", who cries "You're tearing me apart"! With Walshy there are no tears, no anguish, only threats, crimes and more threats. It's a little one dimensional and he's more or less unsympathetic, but again, it's a "warning"! movie - "The Teenagers Are Running Wild"! - and viewed from that perspective, it's very well done, especially the acting which is excellent for such a one note film. James Kenny and a very young Joan Collins stand out as Walshy and Rene, and Ian Whittaker is excellent as the harebrained Alfie, whose voice sounds like an East End chipmunk.

It's quite good for what it is, and so we're gonna give it a split verdict : Two Solid Thumbs Up overall but Two Bigs for the acting. Give "Cosh Boy" a shot, the print is razor sharp. ////

That's all for tonight. I hope you had a great day and I send you Tons of Love as always!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

A Siodmak Story, and Two of Robert's Movies : "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" and "The Suspect"

A couple of weeks ago, my sister and I were talking about Reseda and she asked me, "do you remember someone named Siodmak"? I did, actually. Ever since I went to work for Pearl in 2010, memories of our neighborhood began to come back, along with the names of the families who lived there in the early 1960s. "The Siodmaks lived in the tract back then. Mom and Dad used to mention them a lot. 'We're going over to the Siodmaks' tonight', they'd say, meaning maybe for cards, or just a get-together. Neighbors visited each other a lot in those days".

"But I know why you're asking me", I continued. It was because we'd also been talking about the little group of show business folks on our corner, Bill Raynor and Mr. Reeves and Dad, who I mentioned in a recent blog and also to Vickie during our conversation. "There were two Siodmaks in the movie business. I Googled them years ago, because like you, I remembered that name when I came back to Reseda". Siodmak is an unusual name, one that sticks with you, and what I also recalled had something to do with science-fiction. "Mr. Siodmak is a writer", I remember Mom or Dad saying, There was also a vague memory of him having written something famous, and maybe for the movies.

The two Siodmaks I Googled, around ten years ago I'd guess, are Robert and Curt Siodmak. One thing that was interesting right off the bat, was that the Wiki for Robert said "he insisted his name be pronounced 'See-odd-mack' ", suggesting there was another, more common pronunciation, and that perhaps Robert had Americanised his last name for career purposes. This served to assure me that I had the right Siodmak, though I was pretty certain already.

If you've been reading recently, you know that I mentioned Robert Siodmak as the director of "Fly By Night", the romantic comedy spy thriller we watched last week. That was his second feature film in Hollywood; before that he worked in Germany where both he and his brother Curt were born. When I first remembered the Siodmaks, and recalled my parents' comments about one of them being a sci-fi writer, I assumed it was Robert, simply because his name seemed to ring a bell. This notion was reinforced when I Googled him and saw he was a director. Many directors write, and so I thought he had been the Siodmak who lived up the block from us all those years ago.

But then I said to Vickie, "You know, it must've been his brother Curt". I'd rechecked the Wiki of both brothers, and it turns out that Curt was the novelist. He also wrote screenplays, and in fact, he wrote "The Wolf Man", the legendary Universal horror film from 1941 starring Lon Chaney Jr. But I considered it and said, "would he be living in Reseda if he was that famous"? "But screenwriters are rarely famous", Vickie replied. "They don't get paid that well either". So we were left with a conundrum; Curt Siodmak was the sci-fi novelist who one of my parents referred to, yet Robert was the director, the more well-known of the two, and it was his first name I seemed to recall as being attached to the Siodmak of my childhood memory. Which was the one who lived in Reseda?

Well, I just did some more Googling the other night, and I did come up with a link to Siodmak and Reseda. It referred me to an old newspaper article, at a site you have to subscribe to in order to read. There was a cache of first names, however, yet they were female Siodmaks. The article was from 1965, and it did list the exact name of another neighbor also mentioned in the article. This proved that the Siodmaks lived close by, just around the block. Curt passed away in central California in 2000 at the age of 98, meaning that he'd have been in his mid-60s during the Reseda time-frame. Brother Robert (born in 1900) left Hollywood to return to Europe in the mid-50s, but came back here in 1967 to make two more films before retiring. He died in Switzerland in 1973. All this led me to believe that it must've been Curt who lived up the street. "Or perhaps he was a Grandpa or Uncle who came to visit", I suggested to Vickie. I can't say for sure, but he was certainly of the same Siodmaks, and he definitely was in the Reseda house, either as a resident or a relative. So that's my Siodmak Story, and while it doesn't change the price of tea in China, I include it just for fun, and because Vic and I were discussing the subject. It also adds to our little "neighborhood show biz group" that was kinda cool even if not made up of major names.

Finally, it's a preface to our latest movies, because all the Siodmak Talk led me to Youtube search Robert. Over the last two nights I watched a pair of his films, which I present to you now for your consideration.

First up is "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry"(1945), starring the inimitable George Sanders as a man dominated by his sickly sister. In reality, "Letty" (Geraldine Fitzgerald) is a hypochondriac who uses her "illness" to keep "Harry" (Sanders) at her beck and call. He has no life outside work and home, and truth be told, Letty's need for Harry's attention borders on the inappropriate if you get my drift. By day he's a designer at a textile mill. One afternoon, a sales rep comes to the factory to see the latest fabrics. She's young and pretty. Her name is "Deborah Brown" (Ella Raines). Harry shows her around, they hit it off, and soon they are seeing each other for dates.

Harry has another sister at home named Hester. The siblings come from a once-wealthy family now on hard times. All they have left is their house, and each other, but Hester is thrilled for Harry that he finally has a girlfriend. Even if it eventually means losing his support, she'd be happy to see him get married. Letty on the other hand pretends to be happy for him, but it's an act. She's so obvious anyhow, always "feeling ill" whenever Deborah's around, energetic when she's gone.

The siblings have a faithful dog named "Weary", who's grown old and feeble and may need to be put down. On a side note, George Sanders has a line of dialogue here that dog lovers will relate to : "People who love dogs should never own one, because they only live a short while then they die and break your heart". So true, and I know a lady who lives a few doors down from Pearl who was so devastated by her dog's death that she swore she'd never get another one. "I just couldn't go through that again", she said. I understand the sentiment, believe me, though I'd love to have another dog if I could. Ah, maybe some day soon. Well, let's get back to the movie. Weary is near the end of his life. Letty feels he should be euthanized and has bought some poison, specially concocted by their pharmacist to painlessly put him to sleep. Harry believes they should let Weary live out his final days. "After all, he's not in any pain", he reasons. Letty always has the last word, however, and the next we see of Weary, he's being lowered into the ground in a doggie coffin. Letty poisoned him after all. This of course is a foreshadowing of what will happen later. 

Deborah Brown has another suitor, a man her own age who has business opportunities in Europe. She uses his proposals as a lever to make Harry jealous and force him to marry her. She knows that only an ultimatum will break him away from the psychosexual hold of Letty, who's manipulated Harry his entire adult life. Harry agrees to marry Deborah, then summons all his courage to break the news to Letty, who becomes quietly furious. On the day before the wedding, Letty fakes an illness in church. She's carried away in an ambulance, and all of Harry's marriage plans fall by the wayside. Old habits die hard and he follows Letty to the hospital like a trained servant. "She needs me", he tells Deborah, who breaks off their engagement soon after.

With Deborah now gone for good, Letty miraculously recovers. At home, she fawns over Harry, talking about all the fun they'll have together, "just like we used to do". Before Deborah came along, she means. It hits Harry that Letty's driven away the only love he's ever known. Hester stuns both of them by saying this out loud, denouncing her sister in front of Harry. He's embarrassed but knows Hester's right, and.......remembering the batch of dog poison.......he gets an idea.

That's all I'm going to reveal about Harry's plan, but doesn't go as he expects. The last 15 minutes of the film has two major twists and turns, and this time you'll have to discover them for yourself, but I do want to warn you that there's what I'll call a "second ending" to the movie that was apparently added due to censorship. I don't know what had to be censored, but according to Wiki it caused the producer to quit the movie! When I saw this "second ending", I was absolutely baffled, because it appeared to make no sense, and it seemed render the first ending moot. I was going, "what was that all about"? Then I rewound it and watched again, and I said "ohhhhh.......now I get it", even though I agree with the producer that it's totally ridiculous. My caveat, therefore, is please don't let this second ending spoil an excellent movie. Just pretend it's not there, and that the movie ends when you initially think it does, when it should end. That's all.

Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry", featuring exceptional performances from George Sanders and especially Geraldine Fitzgerald as the manipulative Letty. It's highly recommended and the print is razor sharp. ////

Our other Robert Siodmak picture is "The Suspect"(1944), which can be considered a companion piece to "Uncle Harry". Once again, we have a middle-aged man thoroughly dominated by a woman, in this case his wife, and once again the man finds true love, which is thwarted by his tormentor. If you ever want to see great acting, watch Charles Laughton. Every role he plays is finely nuanced, and he does so much with subtle expression changes on that fleshy face of his that you always feel you're watching a real person, a fictional character brought to life. I know many actors are capable of this, but with Laughton there's an extra dimension, and of course he could play anything, from The Hunchback of Notre Dame to Captain Bligh to King Henry VIII. Here, he's "Phillip Marshall", a tobacco shop manager in Victorian-era London. He's married to "Cora" (Rosalind Ivan) a shrew so awful that she's driven their son out of the house. He's moving to Canada, and with the nest now empty, Phillip asks her for a divorce. Being a harpy, she naturally won't grant him one. Phillip thus spends as much time avoiding her as possible.

One day, a young woman named "Mary Gray" (Ella Raines again) comes into the shop. She's looking for work, but Phillip has to send her away, noting that his boss would never hire her. "He wouldn't have a woman around tobacco". They weren't even allowed to smoke in 1902.

Later, on his way home he sees Mary crying on a bench. He stops to ask what's wrong and she explains she's nearly broke. Phillip takes her out to dinner and they become fast friends. Though he's heavy set and older, she finds his kindness attractive and even boasts about him at her new place of work, a job he arranges for her through a friend. By now they're seeing one another every night, going to dinner, to the opera, even the circus. Their relationship is still platonic at this point, but it's heading toward love.

Of course, Phillip's busybody wife finds out about it. She considers it cheating, even though he's asked her for a divorce, and she threatens to drag Mary's name through the mud. A young single woman seeing a married man in Victorian England was likely to be run out of town, so Cora's threat is potentially enough to ruin Mary's life if she carries it out. Phillip loves Mary and doesn't want to take that chance, so he spontaneously concocts a plan to kill Cora, making it look like she fell down the staircase.

All is well and good, until an Inspector from Scotland Yard starts nosing around. He examines the staircase, and suggests it wasn't an accident but murder. He can't prove it, though, so he continues to hound Phillip at various points throughout the movie, always "dropping in for a few questions" like Columbo, but really trying to catch him in a lie.

Far worse is his neighbor, a drunken wife beater who decides to blackmail Phillip. As we saw in "Dangerous Afternoon", blackmail doesn't always work, sometimes it's deadly for the blackmailer, and in this case the neighbor winds up poisoned and deceased behind Phillip's couch.

With Cora and the neighbor now out of the way, and Mary believing he's innocent, Phillip proposes a move to Canada. "We can join my son. He can get us both work at his firm". Mary agrees, and with their ship set to sail Phillip will soon be free of all suspicion. But wait! The Inspector boards the ship at the very last minute. Is he there to finally arrest Phillip? On the contrary! He's come to inform him that the case has now been closed. "We've caught the person who did it", he says. "It's an open and shut case, for which she'll surely hang". Wait another minute. She? "For which she'll surely hang"? What in the world's going on here?!

Watch "The Suspect" to find out. Like it's counterpart "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry", it's a grade-A mystery from which Robert Siodmak wrings every bit of suspense. In doing so, he reminds one of an early Alfred Hitchcock, and he's every bit as sophisticated as The Master. He also gets terrific performances out of Charles Laughton and the beautiful Ella Raines in both films. There's no troublesome second ending in "The Suspect", just one hell of a twist, so no caveat is needed this time, just Two More Big Thumbs Up.

So there you have it. Robert Siodmak knocks two pics out of the park. Let's look for more from him, and screenplays by his brother Curt as well. It's a Reseda thang. /////

I'm finishing up "From a Buick 8", definitely one of SK's best, and I've been listening to Bruckner symphonies from my Naxos box set. Give him a try, he's heavy metal.

That's all I know for now. I hope you had a nice day, and I send you Tons of Love as always!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Two Musical Biopics : "Born to Be Blue" (Chet Baker) starring Ethan Hawke, and "The Buddy Holly Story" starring Gary Busey

Seeing Chet Baker as an actor recently, in "Hell's Horizon" (in which he played a member of a B-29 flight crew), made me check to see if he appeared in any other films. He didn't, but what did pop up on the library database was a movie about him, "Born to Be Blue"(2015), starring none other than Ethan Hawke, who we raved about in "First Reformed" a couple weeks ago. That cinched it for me - Hawke is one of my favorite actors - and I was intrigued at what he would do with his portrayal because the legend of Chet Baker is that of a waste case, a once-hypertalented trumpeter who created a new style of jazz but burnt out quickly after discovering heroin in the late 1950s.

But there was a lot more to him than that. In reading the IMDB notes afterwards, I learned that the movie combined fact and fiction to create a dramatic story, so I cannot vouch for the truth of particular scenes or anecdotes, but I'm gonna assume that the basis of the plot - Baker's attempt to resurrect his career in the late 60s following the loss of his front teeth - is legitimate. One other note : Wiki states that the character of "Jane Azuka" (Carmen Ejogo), who becomes his girlfriend, is a composite of several women in Baker's life. With these things acknowledged, we can move on to our review.

We first see Baker at the height of his fame, playing at a nightclub in New York. This is in the mid-1950s, so he would've been around 26, and he still looks sharp in his suit, shades and slick haircut. Several Jazz luminaries are in the audience, including Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, who've come to see what all the fuss is about, this White cat stepping on their turf, playing so called "West Coast Swing". Baker knocks 'em dead, the mostly black audience goes wild......all except for Miles, who asks to meet Baker after the show. "Hey man", he says to Chet, "that's a real sweet sound you got there. Sweet like candy. It's too pretty, you know what I'm sayin'? Why don't you go home to California and play at the beach, then come back here when you've lived a little". Dizzy tries to placate Baker after Miles walks away, "Aww, don't pay him no  mind, he's just jealous", but Chet is clearly miffed by the snub.

The nightclub scene is intercut with a film project from the mid-60s, a movie-within-a-movie. By then, Baker was heavily addicted to junk. A director bails him out of jail in Italy, so he can play himself in the biopic. This is where he first meets Jane Azuka, the lead actress in the film. She's playing his previous girlfriend "Elaine". At first she's put off by his subpar acting technique, and his constant attempts to hit on her. But eventually she falls for him, and soon they're inseparable. One night, however, he's jumped by his drug dealer after leaving the set. The dealer beats Baker to a pulp for non-payment, knocking out his front teeth. The movie shoot is then cancelled and all of Baker's gigs are put on hold. The doctor tells him he'll never play the trumpet again, after all, front teeth are needed to brace the lips against the mouthpiece. This is called the embouchere, the way the mouth fits the instrument.

"What if I got dentures"?, Baker asks.

"Well, I don't want to tell you your business, because I don't play the trumpet and anyway, it's your life, but I imagine that even with false teeth, you'd still have to spend months if not years relearning how to play. In simple terms, it'll never be the same and you likely won't sound like you did". This then, is the crux of the plot, Baker's motivation to relearn his horn, and to regain not merely his livelihood but his raison d'etre. It's a slow, painful process but he guts it out and we're proud of him, because - again - his real-life reputation is sketchy. We didn't know he possessed such determination and strength of character. Without money coming in from concerts, Baker knows he'll have to get a regular job, and he does, pumping gas in Oklahoma where he's gone home to live with his parents. Jane goes with him, but their stay isn't long due to Chet's conflicts with his father.

Back in California, he tries hustling some gigs, but the club owners want nothing to do with him. Even his old manager refuses to help. After ten years of addiction he's considered untrustworthy. Making the situation even more precarious is his parole officer, breathing down his neck about a "real job". One of the conditions for staying out of prison is that he be "gainfully employed", but he hasn't tried to find work because he feels his playing has recovered to the point where he can earn his living that way. "Music is my life, man", he tells the parole officer. "I was a star once, sold a whole lot of records". The officer is not unsympathetic, but doubts Chet can climb the mountain again, or even earn enough to meet his parole requirements. One person he can lean on for emotional support is Jane, who sticks with him through thick and thin, even when they're reduced to living in her van down by the river (no not really, it's the ocean). Through it all he practices and practices his trumpet, learning not one but three new enboucheres. His mouth hurts like hell but he keeps playing, and again we're impressed because we didn't know he had it in him. What we find out about Chet Baker is that he may have been irresponsible in many areas of his life, but when it came to music, he'd do whatever it took to play his best.

He gives Jane a trumpet valve ring as a symbol of their engagement ("it's from the very first horn my dad bought me"), and she agrees to marry him on one condition : that he go on the methadone program and stay off heroin forever. Chet agrees, and it works. Soon he gets a simple gig playing with amateurs at a pizza parlor. Then he convinces his manager to come see him. His musicianship has improved enough for the manager to line up a recording session, and all of a sudden - Chet Baker is back! This leads us to the dramatic climax, the one the movie's been leading up to. Baker has never forgotten the insults Miles Davis hurled at him all those years ago. "Sounds pretty..... real sweet like candy. Come back when you've lived a little".

"Well, I have", he thinks to himself. "I've been through hell. So get ready, Miles, because this White cat is coming back to New York, and he's gonna eat you up". He contacts his old friend Dizzy Gillespie, who agrees he sounds good, but wonders if Chet can handle the pressure. "Are you sure you're ready for New York? I mean, this is the big time Chettie. You know all the heaviest cats are gonna be there, wonderin' if the White boy's still got it. Miles, especially".

"That's what I'm hopin' for", says Baker. Unspoken but even more worrisome to Dizzy, however, is the temptation that will also be present. Drugs saturate the jazz scene, especially "H". With the help of Jane, who he leans on for strength, Baker has already turned down one offer of a fix, made by a groupie. But now -  and here's the pivot point - she says she can't accompany him to New York. "I've just landed an audition, Chet. The biggest one of my career". She's trying to make it in show business too, and she wants him to appreciate her ambition. "It's only for three days", she tells him. "You can make it through on your own".

But can he? Will he make it through the gig - the biggest show of his life - without going back on the needle?

Watch and see for yourself. It's an excellent film, very moving, and you'll gain a whole new perspective on Chet Baker if you've followed his life story at all. Two Big Thumbs Up, and another stellar performance from Ethan Hawke. Highly recommended! //////  

It was a Double Musical Biopic Weekend, and our other feature was "The Buddy Holly Story", which was a surprise hit upon it's release in 1978, and relaunched the legend of another musical genius, one who's hardest habit was Coke, as in Coca-Cola. I remember reading the reviews when the movie came out. The critics raved about it, and about Gary Busey's performance which was mildly controversial in some circles because of his age (35 playing the 22 year old Buddy), and the fact that he barely resembled Buddy Holly. Overall, though, both Busey and the movie went down a storm. But I had no intention of seeing it, because at 18, I knew what was cool and what wasn't, and rock stars from the '50s - especially geeky ones who wore glasses -were decidedly not cool. They weren't Judas Priest, in other words.

What an effect time has on one's perspective.

I think I've mentioned this before, but as the years went by, I'd hear "Peggy Sue" or "It's So Easy" or "Oh Boy" somewhere. Not on the radio, because I was only listening to KMET or KLOS, hard rock stations donchaknow. But I'd hear Buddy's songs in a movie, or on TV (maybe in a commercial), or even in the supermarket, and slowly but surely, I'd find myself humming the hooks. Still, even in my twenties, if you'd asked me my opinion, I'd have said "Buddy Holly? Sorry, not my thing". I'd leave out "geek" by then (I'd advanced that much from my teen years), but he still wasn't Judas Priest or Motorhead, and he certainly wasn't Emerson, Lake and Palmer. 

Greatness has a way of impressing itself upon you, however, if you're really a fan of something and you stick around long enough. For me, it took about 30 years. In my mid-40s, I finally began to appreciate early rock music. I bought a copy of Elvis' Greatest Hits and his gospel compilation. When Youtube came along I started watching videos of classic 50s performers like Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent. And about ten years ago, I started really listening to Buddy Holly. And it hit me : "This guy's freakin' great". Great in every respect, as a songwriter, as a singer, and as a fantastic guitar player. No less than Ritchie Blackmore has mentioned him as an influence, which gives you some idea, but the point is, even though it took me decades to appreciate it, his music was great from the start, and that's what is demonstrated in the movie. Buddy Holly was an originator who more or less invented the guitar-based rock band. Oh yeah, there was Bill Haley and Chuck Berry who came a year earlier, and Elvis too, but they were promoted as solo stars. With Buddy it was "Buddy Holly and The Crickets" (from which The Beatles took their name), and the music had a guitar-bass-and drums drive to it that exceeded even the pulse in Berry's songs. Simply stated, Buddy Holly rocked, and this is what the movie shows more than anything. He straight-up rocked like it was in his blood, like he couldn't help it, and he also knew the value of a Killer Hook, of which his songs were filled.

"The Buddy Holly Story" plays like a standard rock n' roll biography, focusing on the moment he and The Crickets were discovered, playing in a roller rink. It tells the story more or less in chronological order, right up to his final show in Clearlake, Iowa, just two and a half years later. Along the way, he meets Maria Elena Santiago, who was working for his first record label, and they fall in love. This is the most touching part of the story, because she only spent 18 months with Buddy before he died, but became his wife and soul mate during that time. I had to Google her after the movie to see if she was still alive, and she is. She remarried eventually, but later divorced. Perhaps her heart was always with Buddy because today, at 88 years of age, she still administers all the rights to his music and has even created a charity called The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation to help aspiring musicians.

At the beginning of this blog we mentioned Chet Baker's notoriety as a drug addict. Gary Busey acquired a similar rep over the years, and went through a period of craziness in which he almost lost his life in a motorcycle accident. But he's proven quite resilient and is not only still alive but still a working actor at age 77, and truth be told he's damn good when he wants to be. In "The Buddy Holly Story" he knocks the ball clean out of the park, not only capturing the energy of Buddy in concert but actually singing the songs himself for the movie. It'll make you feel good about life, and music, and it'll make you a fan of Buddy Holly if you weren't to begin with. To me, he's the real King of Rock n' Roll.

Two Huge Thumbs Up, it's a must see. /////

That's all I know for the moment. I hope you had a nice day. I send you Tons and Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Jabbering Away with "Murder on the Campus", and "Fly By Night" starring Richard Carlson and Nancy Kelly

We've talked about short films and we've even seen some that should be shorter, for instance a 70 minute flick that could do with a ten minute cut. But what about a movie that tries to cram 90 minutes worth of plot into an hour long framework? Have we seen that yet? I don't think so. I guess it would be considered the opposite of dragging your movie on too long. In "Murder on the Campus"(1961), everyone's talking so fast, and explaining so much in volumes of expository dialogue that you'll be lucky to pick up half of it. It's as if the producer handed director Michael Winner a 90 page script and said "here, make a 60 minute movie".

"Okayyy........places everybody, annnnnd......action!........oh no, wait a minute cut cut cut! Look everyone, I'm gonna need you all to read it ten times faster. Do you think you can do that? Okay then, places everybody, annnnd......action"!

Winner went on to direct the "Death Wish" films of the mid-70s. It would've been nice if he'd brought in Charles Bronson to kill off this movie before it got annoying.

Here's the plot : a college student is accosted in his dorm room by a burglar, who knocks him out of the upper story windum in the ensuing punchout.  We are the only ones who see this. When his reporter brother investigates, the administration won't cooperate, telling him "this is a quiet town and we don't want bad publicity. Furthermore, the cause of your brother's death is inconclusive. It may have been an accident". An American CIA type he meets in a cafe insinuates it was suicide. "Happens all the time with students, the pressure to get good grades can overwhelm them".

The reporter, "Mark Kingston" (Terrence Longdon), knows it's all B.S. , so he starts talking faster and faster in search of an answer. Then there's another murder, of a student who was the last person to see his brother. This too is brushed off as an accident by the university brass, but the young man's girlfriend (Diane Clare) steps in to help. She too believes something fishy is taking place, and in her, Kingston has an ally. She can talk as fast as he can, so they team up to find out what the hell is going on. They go to an antique shop, where the shifty owner throws them some double talk, but he's strictly an amateur. He is selling stolen goods however, which leads us to something vaguely resembling a clue, and in fact it just might be one, if we weren't being given the speed reader treatment, or the cliff notes, or something.

If you hang on till the end (and God Bless your perseverance if you do), you'll be rewarded with the discovery of a scheme to smuggle stolen World War Two artifacts, or is it armaments? I'm frankly not certain, though I'd go with the former if anyone asks. Maybe you can press start-stop-rewind to make sure, repeating this process as much as necessary.  

While we love short movies, the same can't be said for short movie impostors, i.e. ones that should've run full length but were sped up to match a quota (see British Quota Quickies for details). Therefore, this is gonna be a short review, simply because I couldn't follow the dialogue. The continuous, noisy jazz score didn't help.

Winner makes a loser, Two Thumbs Down. Nice location shots of Cambridge, however. //// 

We fared much better with the previous night's film, though even there we still didn't get what we bargained for. "Fly By Night"(1942) sounded good in it's IMDB synopsis : "After being charged with the murder of a scientist, a young doctor must track down a Nazi spy ring to clear his name". Scientists, Nazis and Murder? You can't go wrong, right? And all of those ingredients are present; it's the context that's deceptive, because instead of the expected espionage, it's delivered as a War-era Rom-Com, when the style was to have guy and gal live through a do-or-die adventure, like Mr. and Mrs. Indiana Jones. Of course, they must Detest One Another At First, with mismatched oil and water personalities, and there must be a Marriage Motif, as in "at one point they will face a situation where they must pretend to be man and wife, in order to survive". In this case, they have to actually get married.

The movie opens on a rainy night. "George Taylor" (Martin Kosleck) escapes from an asylum after being wrongly detained for insanity. His keepers chase him down a winding country road but he eludes them by running into a forest. When he emerges, his pursuers are nowhere in sight. Lucky for him, a car happens by at that moment, being driven by "Dr. Jeff Burton" (Richard Carlson). Taylor pulls a gun and carjacks him. He's not a criminal by nature, though, and wants Burton to know he's not insane. "I'm not going to hurt you. Just drive me away from here and I'll get out". But when Burton stops at a hotel, the hospital staff have picked up their trail. Taylor sees them pull up a moment later. "I'm sorry, but I have to go in with you", he says to Dr. Burton. They run up the stairs to Burton's room, where Taylor turns over his gun. "There. Now you can see I'm not insane, or I never would have given it to you". The phone rings and Taylor gets spooked. He runs from the room, and while Burton is talking on the phone (it's a wrong number), he gets stabbed by one of the bad guys. He manages to stagger back to Burton's room before collapsing.

Being a doctor, Burton knows the man is near death, so he tries to get more information out of Taylor while he can. "You say you escaped from an asylum? What was it's name? Why were you there? How did you get out"?

All Taylor can say by this time is that he knows the formula for something called G32. "That is why they put me there, because I was going to go public. G32 is evil. I wanted the world to know about it. Here, give me a pencil and paper". With the last of his energy, Taylor writes down the name and address of "Professor Langner" (Miles Minter), a scientist he claims to have worked with. Then he dies. Suddenly there's a knock at the door. It's the police. All they see is a dead man on the bed, who appears to have been murdered. They're playing hardball and don't believe a word of Dr. Burton's story : "You say you just met him, and he escaped from an institution? Sounds like you're making it up on the spot". 

When it looks like they're gonna arrest him for murder, Burton pulls the gun Taylor gave him. "Now just back off", he orders the coppers. Then he jumps out the window and uses the fire escape to climb into another room. That's where he meets "Pat Lindsey" (Nancy Kelly), the occupant, who's getting ready for bed and is dressed accordingly. Lindsey, a spunky, intelligent gal in her early 20s, wonders what the hell Dr. Burton thinks he's doing, surprising her in her nightgown like that. "Please....don't scream", he whispers, and she's not about to, but still......the nerve of this man. "What do you want and why didn't you come to the door"?, she demands.

"Because the police are after me. They think I killed a man. I didn't, but they don't believe me. Please, you've got to hide me. If they knock, say you haven't seen me".

Maybe because of his aww-shucks demeanor, and his resemblance to Phil Hartman in a Saturday Night Live skit, Miss Lindsey - though displeased with the interruption - is even more exasperated by the cops when they knock, and she does give in to Dr. Burton's request. "Uhh....no, I can't say that I have", she replies, when asked if she's seen a man of his description. And with that, the escapade is on.   

It plays well, but you can see how far away from a traditional Nazi spy movie we've drifted. I figured "what the heck, might as well go with it", and with that reasoning I enjoyed myself. The chemistry between Richard Carlson and Nancy Kelly is very good. They have the sparkle of a classic screwball duo, and Kelly has the elan of someone like Evelyn Keyes, who always seemed more modern than her era. 

After Kelly helps Dr. Burton avoid the police, the pair drive away in her car to try and locate the address of "Professor Langner" the mysterious scientist. "This G32, whatever it is, it must be some deadly stuff", Dr. Burton surmises. It is, and it turns out to be a chemical weapon that could kill off civilization. Hijinx have taken over by this point, however, so the end of the world must take a back seat to romantic friction as our intrepid duo reluctantly come to realise they need each other if they're to survive the night. 

After going to the Professor's house and discovering he's an impostor, they find out that the real Professor Langner has been committed to the same asylum George Taylor escaped from. Nancy Kelly gets an idea : "We can go there and I'll say your my husband. I'll tell them you haven't been yourself lately and I'd like you to be taken in for observation. Then, while you're there you can find the Professor and ask him about this G32. We'll find a way to free him and get this story out to the press".

"Gee, would you really do that for me", he responds. "Pretend you're my wife, I mean".

"Yes, but only if you buy me a new dress. I'm not going in there in my nightgown". This leads to a trip to a clothing store, and some very risque dialogue when the saleslady tries to interest Kelly in lingerie to go with her dress.

They're successful in getting Burton admitted to the asylum, but while he's in there trying to locate Professor Langner, Nancy Kelly is accosted by the cops, who've once again tracked down our fearless fugitives. By now, the monkey business is in overdrive, and after the cops have Burton removed from the nuthouse, they drive the couple away, ostensibly to jail. But the patrolmen assigned to the task are yokels, and when they hear of Kelly and Burton's long night, and the trials and tribulations they've endured, they take pity on them. "This should never happen to a nice man and wife", they agree.

"Uhh, we aren't really married", confesses Kelly. Well, there just so happens to be a Justice of the Peace in the little podunk town they're driving through, so you can guess the rest. The cops insist they get hitched for real, and it looks like they live happily ever after.

Though it's far more convoluted than I've described (or I'd have had you here all night), I think you'll like "Fly By Night" for the reasons described, mainly the onscreen chemistry of Carlson and Kelly and their zippy repartee as they dash through their unscheduled nightmare. I do wish the filmmakers had kept Martin Kosleck around for more of the ride. We usually see him playing officious little Nazis. Here, he's finally a good guy, and he gets bumped off near the beginning. But I guess it had to be that way if we were gonna focus on the romance. Two Solid Thumbs Up overall for "Fly By Night", but Two Bigs for it's eagerness to please. It's the second feature of director Robert Siodmak, who went on to helm many a well-known thriller. Give it a look for good fun. /////  

And that's all I've got for the time being. Tomorrow is the first Sunday of the NFL season, which means Go Rams! They're playing Da Bearss, so it should be an easy one.....(Bearss, Bearss, Bearss....Ditka....Bearss, Bearss, Bearss....Ditka....oh man, Farley's having another heart attack).

See you in the morning. I send you Tons of Love as always!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)    

Lex Barker and Merle Oberon in "The Price of Fear", and "The Drums of Jeopardy" with Warner Oland

Last night's movie had an inventive setup. In "The Price of Fear"(1956), Lex Barker stars as "Dave Barrett", the owner of an L.A. dog track. Mobster "Frankie Edare" (Warren Stevens) wants in on the action and has bought out Lex's partner (by coersion), but Lex tells him to stick it. "I run an honest operation, I'll never let you take over. Even if you were to force me out, the cops would close this place down in a second. They know all about you, Frankie".

Frankie isn't used to being told no and doesn't take kindly to Barker's rebuff. After Lex leaves the meeting, he has two of his henchmen tail the former Tarzan. Lex gets in a cab. He sees the henchmen following. The cab driver tells him he "don't want no trouble", so Lex gives him twenty bucks to pull over. He's gotta high tail it cause the men are gonna kill him, so he jumps in a car, parked by a phone booth. The keys are inside (the car's owner is using the phone), so Lex steals the car and drives off to safety, leaving the henchmen in the dust.

What he doesn't know is that the car was just involved in a hit-and-run, and the woman in the phone booth was the driver. She was calling to report the accident - after her conscience finally got to her - but when she sees Lex steal her car, she immediately knows she has an alibi. So instead of reporting the accident, she just reports a stolen car, knowing that when they catch Lex Barker, he will be blamed for the hit and run.

When Barker escapes the henchmen, it really pisses off Frankie, who then sets up the murder of Lex's dog track partner to make it look like Lex did it.

Barker is now on the hook for two crimes he didn't commit - a hit and run (leaving an old man dead) and the murder of his dog track partner. Pretty clever stuff, Mr. Screenwriter.

At his arraignment, he meets "Jessica Warren" (Merle Oberon). She's the car's owner, and while we know she did the hit and run, the police don't and neither does Lex. He's in a real jam, being accused of the two crimes, but then his detective pal "Sgt. Pete Carroll" (Charles Drake) comes in with the news that Lex couldn't have done both the hit and run and the murder, because they happened at the same time. This is proven by forensic evidence - the accident victim's watch stopped when he was hit.

So which is it? Is the DA gonna prosecute him for the hit and run, or the murder, and if they think he did one of the crimes, who did the other? We know the answers to both of these questions, and Sgt. Carroll is trying to help clear Lex entirely, but in the meantime he decides to get friendly with Oberon. At first we can't understand why. She's the hit and run driver, and it looks like Lex at least suspects her of it; he insinuates as much by telling her he's got an ace card up his sleeve in case the prosecutor tries pinning any of the crimes on him. So to the audience, it looks like Lex is playing her.

But then he begins to fall for Oberon, and this is where I had a hard time suspending disbelief, because she's got guilt written all over her face and body language. She's an investment banker with an elite clientele, and has a lot to lose if caught. But she's not good at hiding it, and it's implausible in the highest that Barker - a sharp cookie - doesn't also see this, even though he didn't see her when he stole her car.

Their developing love affair will prove problematic to the flow of the movie, because it adds unnecessary melodrama to what began as a tight crime flick, but I can see what the writer was trying for. He wanted to isolate Frankie the mobster, to pit the innocent (Lex Barker) and the cowardly (Merle Oberon) against the evil character. When Barker and Oberon fall in love, Lex stops contesting the hit-and-run, choosing instead to defend himself against the murder charge which was framed up by Frankie. The hit-and-run could get him a manslaughter conviction, but we're supposed to believe that he thinks that charge will sort itself out, or that he's waiting for Oberon to confess to it, or something. What happens is that Frankie, believing the two are now allied against him, tries to turn Oberon against Lex, first by bribing her, then by threats. He seems aware she's guilty of the hit and run, but nothing is ever stated outright and it's all very convoluted.

It's still a good movie, with a lot of twists and turns, and tense finale on a train. There are red herrings too, including a major plot thread about the search for the missing taxi driver who can prove Lex's innocence in the hit-and-run. The search involves three parties : Lex, the pairing of Frankie and Oberon, and Sgt. Carroll. Everyone wants to find this guy, and it takes 15 minutes (which is long in movie time), but when it's resolved it means nothing in the big picture.

Man alive, this is where directors are of huge importance. I mean, in "99 River Street" which we saw and reviewed a couple weeks ago, we mentioned the high implausibility of much of the plot, but at least director Phil Karlson didn't throw in any dead ends, stuff that may seem noteworthy on an emotional level, but goes nowhere in the story. It's not enough just to shuffle your puzzle pieces. You've also gotta know in what order to reassemble them, and not to cram in ones that don't belong there. Still, we loved the premise to "The Price of Fear", and we appreciate what director Abner Biberman was trying to do by emphasizing Merle Oberon's guilty conscience. He doesn't paint her as villainous but as a weakling, a word she uses to describe herself at one point. Remember, her trouble begins with an accident, which isn't her fault. It's only when she runs from that accident that she gets herself in hot water, legally and morally. Then she makes a brief attempt to do the right thing by calling the police, but gives that up too when she sees she has an out in Lex Barker. So she's not evil, just spineless. Her decisions ultimately drive her to the depths of despair, and yet she still can't bring herself to tell the truth, because she's too scared of going to prison, which she wouldn't have faced if she'd stayed at the accident scene to begin with. This is what Biberman is really exploring, what it must be like for such a person and what must go through that person's heart and mind. 

Lex Barker is also good. He's the Thinking Man's (and Woman's) Hunk, usually playing intelligent characters and never seeming overly impressed with himself. Warren Stevens was often cast as authority figures, be they Generals or executives, but he's great here as the smirking Frankie, who always manages to stay one step ahead of the law. Finally, the tragic Gia Scala makes an appearance as the daughter of the accident victim.

Two Solid Thumbs Up for "The Price of Fear". It's recommended. /////   

Now then, in regards to the previous night's film, to paraphrase the old proverb : be careful what you search for, you just might get it. For the heck of it, I thought I'd get a jump on Halloween season. In the past, I've always waited till October 1st to begin pounding horror movies and tv shows, and of course they can (and should!) be watched at any time of the year (and I do that), but I'm speaking of really bearing down on them, giving them full preference toward the goal of making Halloweentime a horror spectacular.

But I went to the 99 Cent Store yesterday, to pick up a AA battery for my Atomic Wall Clock (which spins around like crazy when you recharge it), and I saw the Halloween costumes and decorations on display as they always are by September 1st, and I thought "if the stores can start early, so can I". In short, I thought a little preview couldn't hurt.

Now, I've seen every horror movie I can think of (except the "ironic" ones from the turn of the Millenium, and the awful torture-oriented ones), including the B-Grade horror flicks of the Golden Age, which are some of the best of the bunch. Because of this, I've had trouble finding something new, so this time I searched for "Poverty Row Horror", thinking of our success with "The Last Alarm" from Monogram Studios just the other day. I thought "well, if the Row can make a top notch crime film, maybe they did the same with horror".

I should've considered "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" before I went any further.

"The Drums of Jeopardy"(1931) sounded promising. A Mad Scientist (Warner Oland) seeks revenge on an aristocratic Russian family, who he believes killed his daughter with a cursed Indian necklace. Good stuff, right? Anything with a Mad Scientist has got to be good, it's in the rule book. On a side note, the movie is adapted from a 1920 novel of the same name by Harold McGrath. There was also a silent version produced in 1923. Coincidentally or not, the scientist is named "Dr. Boris Karlov". Of course, the real Boris, born William Henry Pratt, rose to fame with "Frankenstein" in 1931, the same year "Drums of Jeopardy" was released. But he'd been appearing in films since 1918, and according to Wiki he began using his stage name in 1911, when he was performing in Canadian theater. There's no indication that author McGrath was aware, in 1920, of an obscure actor named Boris Karloff, so it's all very strange as to how that name, in two slightly different spellings, came to be used twice. In any event, in the movie "Dr. Karlov"'s daughter "Anya" (Florence Lake) is engaged to "Prince Nicholas Petroff" (Lloyd Hughes), whose San Fernando Valley accent belies his Russian heritage. Wanting to impress her, he gives Anya an old Petroff family heirloom as a gift, a necklace that was locked away in a closet. The necklace was brought back from India by great-grandpa Petroff, a nobleman, and holy Jeff Spicoli, the doggone thing is cursed!

It's known as The Drums of Jeopardy, and whoever wears it, dies.

As you can imagine, Dr. Karlov is none too happy when his daughter keels over. But the thing is, Prince Nicholas didn't mean for Anya to die, he's just a nitwit who didn't know what he was messing with. He wasn't aware of the necklace's deadly power, but this serves as no excuse to Boris Karlov, who vows not only to do away with the Prince, but to kill his entire family in the bargain.

To facilitate his revenge, he heads down to the basement, where his Mad Scientist lab is housed. There he concocts a special poison gas, which he weaponizes into hand-size capsules, like grenades. One by one, he tracks the Petroff family down, then traps them in a cubby hole he's created beneath the floorboards of his home. "Poof"! - in goes the gas capsule, goodbye Petroff family member. They try everything, from defiance to fleeing and finally to pleading with crazy Dr. Karlov, but it does no good. His mind is set on killing 'em all, even the cops can't talk him out of it.

Sounds good on paper. And to be fair, it could've been just me. I was tired when I watched it, and the print was pretty bad. But I mean, c'mon - Warner Oland looks like he's trying to stifle a laugh throughout the entire movie, and those supposed "Russian" accents are a joke. Also, it would've helped if they had more laboratory scenes. The lab, and Karlov in his goggles, look great at the beginning of the movie, with beakers bubbling and Tesla coils sparking away. But then they turn him loose to chase down the Petroffs and we don't get to see him at work very much after that.

Maybe I'll watch it again at some point in the future, as I say, I was nodding off and many fans give it an A+ despite the print quality. But for now, I'm still gonna trust my first instinct, which was that it sucked.

Two Thumbs Down then, unless you wanna deem it "so bad it's good". In that case, I'll settle for Two Regular Thumbs Up, in the name of Boris Karlov (or Karloff, whichever you prefer).

And that is truly all I know at the moment. I hope you had a nice day and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

What's in a Name? "Meet Simon Cherry" w/Hugh Moxey, and "Dangerous Afternoon", starring Ruth Dunning

One day, we're gonna have to examine the subject of movie titles. I realise it will likely be a brief study, after all, most do a decent job of conveying a movie's contents, even the stylized ones of the Golden Era, when gimmicks like Statement Titles were sometimes used ("They Made Me a Murderer"!) ("They did"?, the potential ticket buyer. "Man, I guess I'd better go find our why"!).

Well anyhow, the discussion is still worthwhile, because there's still the occasional title that makes you go "huh"? Take "Great Guy" for instance. We saw that movie the other night, and it was passable, but what the heck does "Great Guy" have to do with a crime flick involving the Bureau of Weights and Measures?

Likely it was tacked on after the production wrapped. Maybe they had a working title, maybe not, but my guess is that the producer or a studio exec had a last minute "brainstorm" : "Hey, here's a title...'Great Guy', whatcha think"?

Uhh......not much. I mean, "Laserblast"(1978) might be in the Top Ten Worst Movies Ever Made, but it at least has a title that gives some indication as to what the movie is about. Ditto "Beast of Yucca Flats", another bottom dweller made for pocket change. 

So why would a major studio call their crime movie "Great Guy"? I don't know, except for my above mentioned guess. But it's why we're one day going to have to make a list of aberrant titles, just for something to talk about. As of tonight, I have another one we can add : "Meet Simon Cherry"(1949), a title I've been staring at for much of the current Summer as I've conducted my nightly Youtube searches. Due to stored data that records your viewing preferences, "Simon Cherry" has come up as a recommendation again and again, but because of the title I've never thought to watch it. I mean, "Meet Simon Cherry" sounds less like a film noir and more like a happy little British flick about a revered schoolmaster or some such. And when you add in the olde-tyme lettering used for the title card (which is displayed in the Youtube recommendation), you're thinking of something like "Little Lord Fauntleroy".

To sum up, then, "Meet Simon Cherry", as a title, does not invite thoughts of hard-boiled crime, or even, in this case, a murder mystery. So what then caused me to watch it, after all this time? Well, you know. That old, last-minute rush to the (cyber) ticket window. "I need a movie and I need it now! Whattaya got that's an hour long and uh.......doesn't suck"?

"Well sir, there's 'Meet Simon Cherry' ".

Me : "Oh, that one again, eh"?

"Yes sir. It's been playing all Summer long. I'm surprised you haven't seen it yet. In fact we've been holding it for you".

"Isn't it some Little Lord Fauntleroy knockoff"?

"Why no sir. It's about a Reverend who solves crimes".

"Ohhh.......you mean like the Crime Doctor"?

"Yes, exactly. He's very good sir, a regular Sherlock Holmes".

"Well why didn't you say so? Who the hell titles these things anyway? 'Meet Simon Cherry' ....he sounds like freakin' Mr. Chips! Oh all right......gimme a ticket". 

And that is how I came to finally see the movie, after months worth of nightly reminders. Forthwith is my review.

It starts off slow, although it must be noted that the film is true to it's title. We do meet Simon Cherry (Hugh Moxey), right from the get go, at a Boy's Home where he's refereeing a boxing match in the gym. Ahh, just like Pat O'Brien in one of those Irish Priest movies of the 1930s. He stays for about five minutes then dresses in his frock coat and collar and heads off in his car, driving home through narrow country lanes. He never gets there because his car breaks down, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. A nor'easter is a-blowin' and it's getting dark outside, so after opening the hood and discovering it's overheated, he leaves the car to sit while he goes in search of the nearest house.

Of course, he comes to an isolated mansion, because that's where rich people build their homes, in the off-track boondocks. "Excuse me", he says to the old woman who answers the door, "but my car's broken down. Could you direct me to the nearest gare-ahge"? She invites him in before responding. "Oh, you're a Reverend! Let's get you out of that cold wind". Now in the foyer, he repeats his question. "Thank you very much, but I'm afraid I must be on my way. I'm looking for a gare-ahge to repair my car".

"A gare-ahge? At this time of night? I shant think you'd find one open. Here, have a seat why don't you. Let me bring you a hot cup of tea".

The Rev's a little fidgety at this point but regroups when he sees a younger gentleman descending the staircase. "Oh, hello. I say, my car's broken down up the road and I'm wondering if there's a gare-ahge in the vicinity"?

The gentleman considers this for a moment. "A gare-ahge? Why yes there is. He might be able to tow you but I doubt he'd wish to fix your car at this hour. Probably you'd have to wait until morning".

"It's settled then", says the lady. "You're staying the night". And with that, we have the set-up for our mystery (and a new record for "gare-ahges" in the process).        

Ar first it looks like it's gonna be a typical Ten Little Indians. We meet The Butler (Alan Lovegrove) and The Man of the House, "Alan Colville" (Anthony Forwood), who isn't a family member but holds sway by sheer force of personality. Alan is the boyfriend the old lady's daughter "Lisa" (the stunning Zena Marshall), an invalid who lives upstairs according to The Rules of Gothic Mysteries. The other man we met earlier is "Henry Dantry" (John Bailey), another boyfriend who's in love with Lisa's sister "Monica". Alan and Henry clearly don't like each other. Their animosity then explodes when Lisa is found dead the next morning. Good thing the Rev is there to ask questions, because the men are accusing each other of murder.

We discover, through flashback scenes, in testimony given by Alan and Henry to Reverend Cherry, that once upon a time, each man was in love with the other sister, in other words, Alan was originally in love with Monica, and Henry with Lisa. Henry believes Alan stole Lisa from him. He ended up then with a sympathetic Monica, the shy sister, who felt similarly dumped by Alan. But as the Reverend continues to question them, we discover it's not all that simple. Other factors were involved in the break-up, including drunkenness and nymphomania. What began as a seemingly quaint whodunit turns frankly adult when the chickens come home to roost. It's as if the director is saying, "So, you thought this was gonna be a Father Brown Mystery, did you"? At any rate, once the plot kicks into high gear, the twists come one after the other. It's a pleasant surprise, and we still have to solve the riddle of Lisa's death. Who killed her? And how was she left bedridden in the first place? You may have to wait literally until the last minute to find out.

The moral of the story is that you can't judge a film by it's title. I enjoyed "Meet Simon Cherry" very much, though if they'd called it "The Crime Reverend" or "Reverend Detective" I probably would've watched it a lot sooner. And who knows, with a more fitting title, they might've had a franchise on their hands. It turns out that the movie was based on a BBC radio serial called "Meet the Rev" (not the greatest title either), but had the producers given some indication that he's a crime solver, the movie might've produced some sequels. As it is, there was only the one film. It does get Two Big Thumbs Up, however. Meet Simon Cherry yourself. ////  

The previous night we watched "Dangerous Afternoon"(1961), a British Crime Film of a different stripe, set in a home for elderly women, all of whom happen to be former criminals. The proprietor, "Letty Frost" (Ruth Dunning) is herself an ex-jewel thief, left paralysed after falling from a wall during a "job". She's confined to a wheelchair and has since gone straight, wanting to help other women in her profession who are old and out of prison with nowhere else to go.

Old habits die hard for some of the ladies, and as the movie opens, we begin with a funny scene involving the shoplifting exploits of "Louisa Sprule" (Nora Nicholson), a kleptomaniac who steals from every store she enters. The shopkeepers all know her and are aware of her compulsion. They don't even bother to stop her, instead they simply call Miss Letty and present her with the bill.

One fan at IMDB remarked that this is a strangely plotted film, and he's correct in that Louisa's shoplifting has nothing to do with the story but serves as flavor for the film, call it quirkiness or character development or comic relief or what have you. In fact, the first half of the 62 minute movie is devoted largely to such antics, by Louisa and the other "criminal women", and while they're amusing and endearing, the viewer does wonder when a plot, if any, might develop.

Not to worry. If you don't mind the Miss Marple eccentricity, there is actually a pretty clever plot that arises at about the 30 minute mark.

Through the grapevine, Letty receives word that another potential ward has just been released from prison. But instead of preparing to welcome her, Letty is apprehensive because this woman is her former partner in crime. She blames Letty for her time in prison and is out for revenge, by way of blackmail. "You left me holding the bag and now you're going to pay. I want half interest in this establishment, and your savings, or I'm going to reveal your secret". Letty has a daughter who believes she's her Aunt. The daughter knows nothing of Letty's past, and that's the blackmail. The woman is pushing her luck, however, because beneath her virtuous veneer, Letty is tough as nails. The blackmailer might be sorry, and there might be a twist that allows Letty to get away with murder. 

'Dangerous Afternoon" is character driven and has the structure of a stage play. I enjoyed it but this is the rare time that I wish a film had been longer. By the time the plot was up and running the movie was nearly over. Once again, however, the fans at IMDB love it, so give it a shot. You'll certainly enjoy the Englishness of it, and there are some good surprises in the final 20 minutes.

Two Solid Thumbs up (the fans would give it Two Bigs). ////

That's all I know for today. I hope you are having a nice afternoon. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

Of Weirdos and Wicked Stepmums : "The Last Alarm" with George Pembroke, and "Shadow of Fear" starring Jean Kent

Last night I needed something in a pinch and didn't have time for a lot of searching, so I went to a Youtube channel called Classic Hollywood Movies. I've watched a couple of their films previously, and while they aren't my go-to channel and don't have razor sharp prints like Kino Domain, they do have a fairly large selection of films from the 30s and 40s, obscure stuff mostly, but a wide variety. They've got Westerns and Horror, Musicals and Sci-Fi, Film Noir and Slapstick, just all kinds of stuff. A lot of it is low budget, some is Poverty Row (i.e. Monogram, PRC, et al), but I was hoping they'd come through for me tonight, because I needed a movie, a short one, and now!

Without bothering to IMDB it, I selected a picture called "The Last Alarm"(1940) from their Film Noir section. It ran 61 minutes - perfect! - so I pressed play, and.......at first I was gonna turn it off. The movie began at a dinner for a retiring fire captain. The fire chief makes a speech, lauding the man's career and wishing him many happy fishing trips as he sends him out to pasture.

The captain then goes home, to sit down to dinner with his wife (Scottish actress Mary Gordon, who was in a million movies). And instead of any forward motion of the plot or story, nothing really happens except a lot of what I'll call "regular conversation". It doesn't even sound like movie dialogue. Instead, it looks and feels as if the director just ad-libbed this dinner scene, and I was going "what kind of Film Noir is this, anyway"? It looked like Ma and Pa Kettle at home, making small talk. Basically, the captain is depressed at being forced to retire at 65 (actor J. Farrell McDonald looks 80, but everyone looked older than they were back then). 

Okay, so in the first 5 minutes, it looked like it was gonna be a family drama, and a bad one at that. But then...

but then!

Boy am I glad I kept watching. The next day, the now-retired captain, whose name is Jim Hadley, goes down to the firehouse to hang out and shoot the breeze. He doesn't know what else to do. He didn't want to retire, doesn't wanna sit at home, so he goes to see the guys and play cards. It feels like old times, in fact it feels like just last week, and when the firebell rings and the crew jumps down the firepole, Jim wishes he could go along with 'em. He knows he could still contribute, if only the brass would let him.

The firemen are on their way to a huge conflagration. An oil refinery is ablaze, the flames shooting hundreds of feet in the air. Black smoke billows in enormous clouds. This is depicted from stock footage of the real thing, and holy smokes it looks cataclysmic. Firefighters on old hook and ladders shoot long jets of high pressure water at the fire, in a valiant effort to quell it, but by now it's become an inferno, driven outward by it's own thermal energy. One stock shot shows onlookers watching from the roof of a nearby building. A fireball explodes and appears to consume them, before they can run away. The editor cuts quickly to another angle, but you get the general idea. The director had little money but wanted to create a powerful setup, so he got ahold of the most intense firefighting footage he could find.

When the fire is put out, an inspector sifts through the debris, looking for indications of arson. He finds the ignition point and reports back to the chief. "The chemical analysis shows a gasoline signature". Jim Hadley, who's still hanging out at the station on a daily basis, is reminded of another recent incident. "Hey, that's the same thing we found at that warehouse fire last month".

"We could be looking at a firebug", says the Fire Chief. He goes on to explain the psychology of a serial arsonist, adding that they're the hardest kind of criminal to catch. On a side note, I should mention an interesting book on this subject : "Fire Lover" by Joseph Wambaugh. It's the true story of former Glendale fire captain John Leonard Orr, who in 1990-91 set over two dozen fires at retail establishments and big box stores. You may recall the terrible and deadly fire at Ole's home center in Pasadena during that period. He also burned down an entire neighborhood in the same area. Orr, at the time, was the most prolific arsonist in American history, and he may still hold that distinction, but the point is that he was very hard to catch, because who would've ever suspected a fire captain as the culprit? What finally gave Orr away was his need to play the hero. He kept arriving first at these fire scenes and finally someone got suspicious. It's an engrossing book (of course, it's by Wambaugh) and is highly recommended if you're a reader of True Crime.

Getting back to the movie, after it's established that arson is the cause, and gasoline the igniter, more clues are searched for. The fire inspector discovers a burned and twisted alarm clock face in the wreckage at the oil refinery. "Whoever it is, he's skilled at making time bombs".

During this time, Jim Hadley is wracking his brain, trying to think of any possible missing clue, something traceable that might connect the warehouse fire to the refinery. His daughter Joan (Polly Ann Young) asks him to be careful. She loves her Dad and wants him to take it easy, but Jim can't bear to be cut off from the case. Joan is engaged to "Frank Rogers" (Warren Hull), an insurance executive whose company happens to handle the refinery account. One night, they're out strolling in the city and happen upon an old antique store. Joan admires the silverware in the window, particularly a set of decorative salt and pepper shakers. "If I were getting married"......("and you are" chimes in fiancee Fred)......I'd like something like those as a wedding present".

An entirely different object catches Fred's eye. "Well looky there. They've got a statue of Vulcan!", he says to Joan, pointing at a footlong clay figure. "Know how I knew that? A full year of ancient religion in college. Whoever owns this shop must be well versed in Roman myth. Vulcan is their Fire God".

They walk on, but Joan keeps in mind the shakers, which she intends to inquire about the next morning. Meanwhile, her father Jim has remembered a piece of rare wood that was found in the rubble of the warehouse fire. He asks the inspector if anything similar was discovered at the refinery. "We didn't find anything like that, but I'll go back and look again". 

Meanwhile, Joan goes back to the antique shop in the morning. I must cut in here to say that I've been debating whether to give you a spoiler, and I know I usually do (and I hope you don't mind), but in this case, because the identity of the arsonist is a huge deal, I at first thought I shouldn't reveal it. But then I decided I had to, or I wouldn't be able to go forward with the review. In addition, the plot is more about how they catch him, rather than who he is. So I'm gonna give you the spoiler, and here it is : the arsonist is the owner of the antique shop.

You were gonna find it out anyway, because while Joan is on her way to the shop, we cut inside, to the back room, where the owner is shown at a worktable. He's sawing a piece of wood to make another bomb box. He's got a wicked leer on his face, and he's talking to the statue of Vulcan, sitting beside him on the table. "Oh, Great Fire God, I hope my work is pleasing you. Everything I am doing is in service to you, and I pledge my fidelity as your servant. Ahh, great Vulcan, I shall make you bigger and better fires. Those fools will never catch me and I'll grow stronger and more powerful with your blessing. Together we'll set the world on fire".  

Okay, so we've gotta talk about this antique shop guy, because he's a Looney Tune of the Highest Order. There are movie villains and then there are Movie Villains, and then there are straight-up nut job creepy crawlers like Dwight Frye or Anthony Hopkins, where you think "this guy's really like that"! Where you think they hired a psycho right off the street to play the part. That's what's going on here with George Pembroke, the actor playing the shop owner. It's a spooky portrayal, and I'll tell you no more about it so you can discover it for yourself.

Joan enters his shop and asks about the shaker set. Told it's only ten dollars, she looks in her purse but hasn't enough cash on hand. "Could you deliver it to my house? I could pay you then". "I'd be glad to", says the owner, in a voice that'll make your skin crawl. It's when he delivers the salt and pepper shakers that he makes his first mistake. I won't tell you what it is, because again, catching him is the main mystery. When he knocks on Joan's door, she's there with her father, her fiancee and the fire chief. They're mourning the loss of a fireman, who's succumbed to burns suffered in the refinery fire. The headline is on a newspaper sitting on the kitchen table. Looks like the antique shop guy picked the wrong time to deliver the shakers. He tries to play it cool, "Oh.....I'm sorry for intruding. May I offer you my deepest sympathy"? But he can't keep that maniacal grin off his face. They think he's weird, but they're occupied with the tragic news and take no further notice........until he gives himself away in the way I can't reveal. But even this doesn't prove he's the arsonist. The fire chief needs conclusive evidence. The search for matching wood at the refinery yielded nothing, so the chief obtains a warrant to search the antique shop itself. 

For a bottom-dollar programmer, the filmmakers went to a lot of trouble to make it authentic. Besides the incredible stock footage of horrendous fires, they also included the mention of a spectroscope to analyse the wood, and the use of a chemical by the arsonist that causes the fire to rapidly expand. But the main draw is George Pembroke, a heebie-jeebie inducing weirdo if there ever was one, making Ted Kaczynski look downright level headed. 

Despite it's low budget and un-razor sharp print, "The Last Alarm" gets Two Huge Thumbs Up. It's highly recommended, and whatever you do, don't miss it. Three final notes : 1) J. Farrell McDonald, who plays retired Fire Captain "Jim Hadley", was born in 1875, making him one of our earliest actors (the record is still 1859, by I-Can't-Remember-Who). 2) Polly Ann Young, who plays "Joan", is the older sister of Loretta Young, one of our favorite actresses here at the blog. The resemblance between the sisters is striking. 3) At one point near the end of the movie, when George Pembroke is raving in ecstasy, having set what turns out to be his final fire, he's overcome by his omnipotence. In his mind he's supplanted Vulcan, who he's carried along with him to the fire scene. Holding the statue in his hands, he brags : "Now I am the God of Fire"!

I wondered to myself if Arthur Brown had seen the movie. ////   

The previous night we watched a British mystery called "Shadow of Fear"(1955), in which "April Haddon" (Mona Freeman), a college student, returns home to England from UC Berkeley, following the death of her father. When she arrives, she finds that her stepmother Florence (Jean Kent) has overturned the place, giving away all the old furniture ("dust collectors"!) and replacing the old, homey decorations with modernist art. I'd be alright with some de Kooning or Kandinsky, but the paintings she's chosen are downright spooky.

April's mother also died while she was away at school, which led to the marriage of her father and Florence, who was previously his nurse. The father was an elderly man who perished in a mysterious boating accident. According to Florence, he fell overboard and drowned. "It's tragic, but he had no business trying to sail at his age", she tells April. She doesn't seem too upset, however, perhaps because Mr. Haddon's death has left her in charge of the entire estate, and with both of April's natural parents now gone, Florence is her legal guardian. "Yes, but I'll be 21 in three weeks". April reminds her. Already she cannot stand the woman.

It's easy to see why. Florence is a complete witch, disapproving of everything April enjoys. "There'll be no smoking and no drinking in this house". She's even put April's childhood dolls in a drawer ("they're dust collectors, my dear"!). She makes April feel guilty for complaining about all the new rules of the house, which not only weren't in place before she went to college, but shouldn't be there now. Who is this woman, who thinks she can just come in and turn the family's traditions and values on their heads? And yet Florence is stern, but cagey. She knows just when to pull back to gain April's sympathy. "Oh I'm so sorry my dear, for being such a harpy. I don't know what comes over me. I've been heartsick over your father's death". But of course it's an act.

Florence gaslights April from the get go, confusing her by twisting her emotions. Early on, and knowing of April's fondness for a drink, she makes it look like April drank a whole bottle of brandy, which causes her to miss her father's funeral. In reality, she only took a sip for a nightcap. Florence drugged her for the desired effect, which caused April to pass out and be hung over upon awakening. Even the local doctor believes Florence's trained opinion that April's an alcoholic, just like her late mother.

But one day, while walking down by the family's private pier, April stops to look at her father's boat, and notices a dent in the bow. Hmmm, how did that get there? She mentions it to Florence, who coolly responds : "Are you certain, my dear? I know of no dents. Maybe what you saw was worn paint". April also tells her neighbor "Michael Elder" (Maxwell Reed), a handsome young man she had a crush on as a teenager. Michael agrees to look at the boat with April, but when they go back to check it, the dent is gone. It's obvious Florence has had it repaired but she denies it. "It's as I told you, April. There never was a dent".

A meeting is called for the reading of Mr. Haddon's will. It doesn't turn out quite as Florence expected. She learns that April will inherit the estate as soon as she turns 21, which is just on the horizon. You can see her eyes harden as the lawyer reads the words; April sees this too, and asks : "but what if I should die before that time? What would happen to the estate in that case".

Florence's expression changes like a chameleon, from steely to sweet. "Oh, but my dear, you're a healthy young woman! Nothing's going to happen to you, you're going to live a long long life".

April looks directly at the lawyer and repeats her question : "Yes......but what if I were to die? "Who would inherit the estate"?

"It would go to your stepmother Florence", says the lawyer.

This sets the stage for the final 30 minutes of the 76 minute picture, as April tries to avoid being killed in her sleep until she can be legally rid of Florence, a stone cold Broom Jockey if there ever was one. Jane Kent is excellent in the role, and Mona Freeman - a Howard Hughes contract girl - is very good as April. The story progresses well after the opening set-up, the only problem - and it's significant - is that the mystery is telegraphed. The whole idea behind Florence is whether she's telling the truth about Mr. Haddon's death. Yes, we know she's a harridan, but the townspeople think she's a saint ("caring for that old man all these years, and now he's gone, poor woman"), and Florence is a genius at presenting two separate faces to the world. She's nuanced, sometimes her grief seems real. So for a while, the "whodunit" aspect is gripping : was Mr. Haddon's death an accident on not? "Maybe it was"! - the viewer. But the director doesn't do a good job with his sleight-of-hand. In fact he throws you back at Florence, time and time again, as if to say : "don't get any false ideas about what happened. It's this bitch who did it, and now I'm gonna show you again"!

So the only mystery left is if April will survive, but we know the answer to that because she's on to Florence (and there's a ridiculous scene involving a car with no brakes). The first half is great, and the conclusion is satisfying, so I'm gonna be generous and give "Shadow of Fear" Two Solid Thumbs Up. It could've been a whole lot better with a more talented director, but it's still recommended and has good acting. ////

That's all for tonight. I hope you're having a nice holiday weekend and listening to some Steve Hillage or National Health. Beach Boys you say? Great choice! I send you tons of love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)