Last night we watched a truly weird movie, dealing with hypnosis and reincarnation, called "The Search for Bridey Murphy"(1956). You might've heard that title sometime in the past, it was also the name of a bestselling book on which the movie was based. If I'm not mistaken, it got return publicity when "Audrey Rose" was released in 1977. Reincarnation was a "thing" in movies for a little while during the supernatural craze that hit after "The Exorcist", but anyway, "Bridey" is the real deal. It begins as a quasi-documentary, with lead actor Louis Hayward - playing real life author/hypnotist Morey Bernstein - explaining to the audience how the case came about. One night he had a party at his house, and one of the guests was an amateur hypnotist. At the time, Morrie was a skeptic until the man hypnotised his wife as a parlor trick. He became interested in hypnotism after that, and trained himself to do it. As an all-or-nothing person, he dove into the subject and got interested in the life and work of renowned psychic Edgar Cayce, who used self-hypnosis to cure people's illnesses. The story follows Bernstein's transition from hard-core skeptic to true believer, and when he starts to get results with his hypnotism, on volunteers, he wants to try age regression, as Edgar Cayce did, to see if reincarnation is real. The wife (Teresa Wright) of a friend volunteers to be his guinea pig, and when he regresses her to six months old, an unexpected thing happens; she begins speaking in a different voice.
The movie starts slow, and it's a long one by our current standards, 84 minutes. There isn't much action and most of what we see is Wright on Bernstein's couch, under hypnosis. But it's utterly gripping to watch because of the way Bridey's story unfolds and how she describes her life and the afterlife. The hypnotic effect on Wright at one point seems permanent, and this is downright eerie as depicted in her brilliant performance. As an aside, it's no secret that hypnosis, the use of which was under special study in the post-war era, can be used for many purposes, some nefarious, such as the erasure of memory. Hypnosis has even been used to create assassins. As for the subject of reincarnation, I'm not sure where I stand. The Buddhist and Hindu ideas I don't believe in one bit, if my understanding is correct. I could be wrong, but I believe they say you start as a mineral, then become a vegetable, then an animal, then a man. Phooey. That's a wispy, New Age idea, I don't care if it is ten thousand years old.
I believe You have always been You, and You always will be You. You weren't Napoleon or Queen Nefertiti. You weren't Joe Blow from 13th Century France. Einstein said matter cannot be created or destroyed, and neither can the human spirit, unless perhaps God destroys it. What happens to a Hitler or Mao, for instance? Do they come back? Or are their spirits dismantled forever? Too weird, I know, and I shant go further in that direction (for now, anyway), but I could go on the tirade to end all tirades about New Age Philosophy, and some Eastern precepts, like "we're all just a sea of consciousness." Baloney! I'm me, and you are you, and it's good that we are all individuals. I don't want to be a droplet in a Consciousness Soup, thank you very much.
However, and this is one of those long, drawn out how-ev-ers that we do on occasion, I do believe it's possible that some lost souls (and I do believe in lost souls, ghosts, i.e. wanderers) could, by mishap or mischief, become born again as a "tag-along" in a different person's body in a different country, and that's exactly what is shown in the movie. Bridey is an illiterate Irish girl in a 19th century caste system.
But the movie is really about hypnotism and how it shouldn't be fooled with. Just ask Sirhan Sirhan. Anyhow, I give it Two Huge Thumbs Up. The subject matter was right up my alley, so - for me - that might've helped mitigate the movie's lack of scene changes, but I think you'll find it riveting yourself and thus it's highly recommended. The picture is very good. ////
The previous night, we had a Hal Roach flick with an interesting history, "Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill"(1950). It's not entirely clear to me whether it was shot as an early TV movie or a feature film, though one reviewer at IMDB, who knew director Richard Bare, has a fascinating second-hand account of the circumstances surrounding it's release that I highly recommend reading (scroll down to the IMDB reviews). As for the picture itself, its not a Streamliner but could be in that category for its running time, 52 minutes, edited down from 60. Director Bare never even saw the finished product; it was filmed in 1949 but wasn''t released to theaters until 1953, by which time he thought it had been shelved. There is one scene which suggests it was made for television; a young lady and her fiance sit down on the couch in her living room and she says, "let me show you my new TV." It's like a product-placement promo for the new medium, which in 1949 was just becoming common in homes.
Anyhow, to the movie (or TV show) itself: an old geezer named "Sam Smedley" (Clem Bevans), who looks and talks like a classic Western Coot, is taking a train to the East Coast. He's got it in his head that his daughter (Virginia Grey) needs him, but really he's a Total Butinsky whose nickname is Bigmouth. Before he leaves, he encounters two Cigar Store Indians, sitting outside the train station. Though they speakum Pidgin English, it turns out they're the wealthiest guys in town, stock trading geniuses, ha ha ha. The only man nearly as rich is Smedley himself. This is all to set up the premise of "plain folks", when they become millionaires, as being on equal capitalist footing as folks of High Cultcha, ala The Beverly Hilbilllies. When Smedley arrives in the East (in an unspecified state) he meets his daughter and her stuffed-shirt attorney husband (David Bruce), who kowtows to his most prominent client, "Mr. Smith" (Cecil Kelloway), the richest man in town. But money doesn't impress or influence Sam Smedley because he's richer than all get out himself. So now, he's out to pop Mr. Smith's balloon, because he thinks he's a snob, and Smith won't let his daughter "Debbie" (Leslye Banning) marry young "Steve Terhune" (Robert Board) because he thinks Steve is beneath Debbies's station.
The main thing about this movie is that it's all about Clem Bevans' performance, which is like a live-action Yosemite Sam or even Foghorn Leghorn. One caveat: he never shuts up. The Indians call him Big Mouth for a reason and the nickname is appropriate. Depending on your tolerance, his yapping might get a little wearying, but if you watch in the right mood you will very much enjoy the movie, especially when the twist ending comes in the form of a hurricane. You also get the beautiful Virginia Grey and Cecil Kelloway, who 18 years later would appear in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" while looking not to have aged whatsoever. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill". Make sure and read the review with the Richard Bare story. I only wish they'd had more scenes with the stock-trading Indians, they're hilarious. The picture is a little bit soft. ////
That's all I know for tonight. Still super hot out. For me the problem is more the mugginess. I can do 110 degrees as long as it feels like an oven. But not a sauna. My blogging music is Colosseum II: "Electric Savage" and "Strange New Flesh". I'm reading Elvis, and you've gotta love The King, but you also gotta feel for Priscilla. It was just one woman after another for Elvis, and not only did he not care if she knew it, he (genuinely, it seems) didn't feel he was doing anything wrong. The author asks that the reader make no judgement calls on Elvis, and I don't, because in reading his life story it almost seems unreal, like he was living five lives at once, but every time a girl thought he was in love with her, going all the way back to 1954 when he first became famous at 19, he'd move on to the next girl before even breaking up with the one who came before. Many think Ann-Margaret was the love of his life, if he was capable of true love. One thing is certain: he sure loved his family, his friends and his fans. And he probably loved all those women, too, in his own Elvis Presley way, even if he wasn't truly "in love" with any of them.
I hope you are enjoying your weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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