Spencer Teakle and Felicity Young in "The Gentle Trap", and "The Big Day" starring Donald Pleasance and Andree Melly

We're back on track, all caught up and on a regular movie schedule, and last night we watched "The Gentle Trap"(1960), another Butchers Film in which young "Johnny Ryan" (Spencer Teakle) a locksmith, is on his first safecracking job, accompanying "Sam" (Arthur Hewlett), an old robber out for one last heist. The movie opens with tracking shots of their car as it cruises through slick city streets toward its destination, a brick building in a warehouse district. They park, sneak in and know right where the safe is. No explanation is given to whom it belongs, or how they got their info on the diamonds inside, but that's not the plot. Instead it's about the aftermath: after Johnny and Sam steal the ice and leave, we see they've been watched the entire time. A shadowy figure signals a car across the alley, which runs over Sam. Two thugs then jump out and knock Johnny cold. They steal the diamonds from his getaway briefcase, or at least they think they've stolen them, until they bring the case back to the originator of the double cross, a nightclub owner named "Ricky Barnes" (Martin Benson). I have to cut in here to say that I love how nightclub owners are always villainous in b-Noirs. They're the equivalent of saloon owners in 60 minute westerns, who are also always portrayed as crooks. No British actor is more villainous than Martin Benson, whom we've seen many times now in these flicks, and he's furious when the briefcase turns out to be empty. His thugs got tricked by the amateur Johnny, who - as trained by old Sam - carried a decoy briefcase. The thugs know Sam is dead, but Johnny's gotten away by now. He still has the diamonds and might come back looking for revenge. Or, if he gets caught for the robbery, he could rat them out for Sam's murder.

In fact, when Johnny woke up from being cold cocked, he went straight to a lowbrow whorehouse run by "Mary" (Dorinda Stevens), a friend of Sam's. Mary is a tough hussy, but after some repartee bargaining, she lets Johnny stay the night. He's all beat up. Mary's innocent sister "Jean" (Felicity Young) is staying with her at the flophouse. She sees Johnny's bruised face, and wants to help him.

In the morning, Mary sees the paper, which describes the jewel robbery and murder of Sam. She puts two and two together and knows it's gotta be Johnny. After trying to blackmail the diamonds out of him, she threatens to tell Ricky Barnes, whom she knows. This leads to Johnny going on the run with Jean, Mary's sister, with the diamonds still in his possession. Mary then teams up with Ricky to chase Johnny down. They bring along a henchman, and "Sylvia" (Dawn Brooks), a treacherous nightclub singer who double crossed Johnny in the first place by tipping his diamond heist to Ricky. 

Trailing the bad guys are the coppers, who, by now, know Ricky is mixed up in a double cross. Johnny swears he's gonna make Sylvia pay. Jean talks him out of revenge and the cops pull Ricky's car over in a ruse, to set him up for arrest for the murder of Sam. This is The Butchers at their most well executed, even if there isn't much to digest along the way. Butcher Films are always well shot and have good locations, meaning their movies look good. The acting is usually competent, too, but their stories? Hit or miss. Plot development is their Achilles heel. But they hold your attention in the other ways, so you watch them. Would you rather sit through a Will Farrell movie at 82 minutes? I rest my case. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Gentle Trap". The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

The previous night, in "The Big Day"(1960), three middle-management types at a small automotive firm are selected as finalists for a directorship. Company president "Mr. Baker" (Colin Gordon) informs each man a week in advance, to give them time to prepare for the possible change in job status. The plot focuses on the company's accountant "Mr. Partridge" (Donald Pleasance), a quiet milquetoast (i.e. Donald Pleasance), who, it is revealed as the movie opens, is having an affair with his 19 year old secretary. Everyone at the firm would be shocked if they knew. Partridge of all people? And with a hottie less than half his age? We see them in her rented attic room, eating beans and toast. She loves him in the way only a 19 year old can, with great need and passion, wanting constant reaffirmations of his commitment: "do you really love me?" "Yes, dear. I do." She also wants to know, "if you get the directorship, will you keep me as your secretary? Everyone will eventually know about us. Do you care?"

What she really wants to know is "are you going to leave your wife?" Partridge does his best to placate her, but she's The Other Woman, and just a kid, with a young girl's nervous energy. She wants yes or no answers and can't stand Mr. Partridge's self pity (but it's in his contract because he's Donald Pleasance).

One of the other two candidates sees him and the girl, whose name is "Nina" (Andree Melly), at the local pub, holding hands. That's enough evidence for the guy to infer an affair, and he shows up at work the next day to nudge Partridge: "Saw ya with Miss Nina last night. Was ya workin' late?" Wink-nudge, yeah I might blackmail ya to the boss. The third candidate is "Mr. Selkirk" (William Franklyn), a brainy, handsome family man who's sure he's gonna be the chosen one because he's smarter than the other two, and better looking. He has an above-it-all attitude and doesn't participate in the office gossip about Partridge and Nina, except to report it to his wife.

Then there are the competing secretaries, three in all. One is Nina, another is the pretty, 35ish "Madge", who actually cares about Nina but scolds her in an attempt to set her straight about office affairs. The third is the frumpish "Mrs. Deeping" (Molly Urquhart), the executive secretary to Mr. Baker the president. Mrs. Deeping butts in on everyone else, thinking it her right as the boss's assistant . Madge puts her in her place, and it's all about office politics.

Mr. Baker, highly efficient as an expedient head man for the ownership, but not good at numbers or details, needs his underlings because they keep the ship running. He doesn't want a smart man like Selkirk competing with him for president, or an egomaniac like Jackson, the second candidate. He ends up choosing Mr. Partridge for the directorship, precisely because he's mediocre and a milquetoast. This presents Partridge with a problem: to accept the promotion and piggyback Nina his secretary (who by now everyone knows about), or to reject the directorship, quit the company, divorce his wife, and run off and marry Nina, knowing she'd eventually leave him anyway. She's 19, for cryin' out loud.

This one is all in the subtleties of life at the office, while wives wait at home making dinner. Two Big Thumbs verging on Two Huge. The acting stands out by every cast member. Pleasance, who would add psychos to his resume, is younger and thinner than usual, and he's always very good. Andree Melly is also good as Nina. But Colin Gordon as Mr. Baker is the best. The picture is razor sharp. //// 

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music was "A Curious Feeling" by Tony Banks, my late night is the Belshazzar Opera by Handel. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love as always.   xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Two British Thrillers : "The Hangman Waits" and "Delayed Action" (plus Victoria Horne)

Last night, the search for a trunk murderer was underway in "The Hangman Waits"(1947), a documentary-style thriller told from a sensationalist perspective. As the movie opens, a man wearing an overcoat follows a woman home, then silently strangles her. We only see him from behind. The next day, the body is found, which sends the press into a frenzy. The Linotype machines run furiously, newsboys shout the headlines, and I must say (cue Ed Grimley "I must say") that the production of a daily newspaper (as depicted in the film) is a fascinating, ingenious thing. Bring back newspapers! Screw internet news and phony, corporate cable networks.

Anyhow, Skeertlynd Yeeard discovers their first clue, that the murderer had a limp. Then, in the last twenty minutes, after they find their suspect, there's a Hitchcockian suspense segment in which he goes to a church where an organist is rehearsing. Being an organist himself, he asks to give it a try, and then, because the music drives him crazy, he has to murder the church organist, poor guy. So his motive wasn't all about killing women. Something about the organ makes him crazy.

The movie is good in its documentary way, showing how the news business drives all factors: the public panic, which in turn drives the police to solve the case, which makes the killer feel powerful from the publicity, which makes him more daring, which sells more newspapers. But the problem, because the focus is on the press aspect, is that we never find out much about the killer's life or motivations. Almost nil, in fact. The cinematic style makes up for some of that; it's another Butcher's Films film ("they butchered another one!"), and despite my facetious slogan for them, The Butchers are competent British B-movie mavens.

At 55 minutes though, you can't go wrong with "The Hangman Waits", especially since there are 8760 hours in a year, and ya gotta fill 365 of 'em with one hour movies, and I must say (cue Ed Grimley again) that I don't know if I can ever go back to movies longer than 90 minutes, unless I go on a Tarkovsky kick. (Just kidding. I love all kinds of movies at all kinds of lengths. It's just that I don't have the patience to sit through longer ones any more, because I'm preoccupied with other, more important stuff.)

I love 60 minute flicks because they get the job done. Just go boom-boom-boom and give me a movie. I don't have time to mess around. Two Bigs, picture: razor sharp. 

In "Delayed Action"(1954), viewed last week, we've got another plot you may have seen before. "Ned Ellison" (Robert Ayers) is suicidal. His wife left him two years ago, taking their daughter with her. Then the wife died, now the daughter can't be located. She's with in-laws somewhere in the English countryside. Ellison can't get a job cause he's an American in England, and he's ready to jump in the Thames. As the movie opens, he's sealing a letter to the coroner, explaining his demise. He then heads to the river, but before he can jump in, two men accost him and knock him cold.

When he comes to, at the house of the man in charge, he's pissed. "Why did you stop me?" "Because I need someone like you, to whom life means nothing. And in fact I have a proposition to make." Ahh, the old "I'll pay you handsomely to swap identities with me, but you'll have to die in the end" plot: "I'm sure you won't mind, because you were going to kill yourself anyway."

Didn't we see something similar in a Roger Corman film? Was it "Premature Burial"? Anyway, this one's more of a TV-type plot, the kind of thing you'd see in an episode of Mission Impossible or Name of the Game, when they're trying to psyche a guy out. Ellison agrees to take the gig, and he's supposed to pose as a businessman who's taken over the identity-swapper's company. The boss is supposed to have gone overseas. He's gradually warming up for the swap by getting a haircut, wearing glasses, and posing as the new underling at his own company, where he now works for Ellison. Later he will fake his death, and if the cops don't catch on, Ellison will be free to go. If it's confusing to you, it confused me ten times worse, because it's underwritten. We never know why the boss is in dutch with the law. Why does he need to switch identities in the first place? He insinuates a few things, and Ellison jumps in whole hog. From there, style takes over from substance, and I use the word style carefully because Robert Ayers acting style very quickly becomes something that sticks in your craw. His voice sounds like someone turned the volume up on the post-production looping. It's too loud compared to the other characters. But more than that, he's using an affected, Suave Guy diction, which sounds like he's deliberately talking off the roof of his mouth and bouncing it through his nose. Sorry, but it's annoying, and his physical reactions to other characters are as herky-jerky as can be. It's worth watching the movie for his unusual performance, even though it will bug you. It's like he's stiffening before your eyes while his voice is swallowing him up. Really weird indeed.

You kind of have to go with the plot: "Yeah, I agree to let you kill me at the end of this bargain, because I was gonna kill myself anyway, and at least now I'll have some money to leave to my daughter whom I can't find."

Somewhere along the way, Ellison (now posing as the rich businessman's substitute) rescues a young lass from a car crash. This comes 100% out of the blue, in order to give him a love interest, which in turn gives him a reason to live, which again in turn makes him want out of the bargain, which makes the bossman angry. If you can hack Robert Ayers' performance, you might find this an interesting movie. You've heard overdubs like the one on his voice when they dub an overly loud New York voice on a physically mismatched Spanish outlaw in a spaghetti western. But with Ayers, they just made the looping too loud, and he does this schtick with his dialogue that's still bugging me. But Two Thumbs Up anyway. The picture is very good.  ////  

We're also having fun watching Victoria Horne in "Secret Agent X-9", the chapter serial starring Lloyd Bridges that we began a couple of weeks ago. Horne, an actress we'd never previously seen, plays "Nabura", a Japanese dragon lady working as an Axis-powers go-between on the privately owned Shadow Island in the Pacific. She arranges for secret transfers of information and weapons components between Japan and Germany, skirting the Allied naval presence in the area. Horne's performance intrigued me enough to look her up on IMDB, and I was surprised to find out that she was Jack Oakie's wife, and thus lived with him for decades in Oakridge, the Northridge mansion on Devonshire near Reseda Boulevard, that was built and originally owned by Barbara Stanwyck. Reading about Horne, I recalled a conversation I had with a docent at Oakridge, last October when they had an open house. She mentioned Victoria Horne and told me that after Jack Oakie died, Horne continued to live at Oakridge until her own death in 2003, after which the house and property were acquired by USC. The university held on to Oakridge for years, unsure what to do with it, and was about to sell it to a horrible real estate developer (a redundancy), when the City of Los Angeles stepped in, bought it, and preserved it as a historic site. Thank you, Los Angeles. But another thing the docent said that was cool, was that, as an old lady, Victoria Horne was seen once in a while in the Devonshire/Reseda Ralphs supermarket, when it was still in place. She said you could tell Miss Horne by her all-black clothing, complete with gloves and hat, a mysterious figure from Hollywood's (and Northridge's) days of yore, the Old Lady of Oakridge who lived "in that mansion behind the wall on the hill". Check out her performance as Nabura in "Secret Agent X-9" (the 1945 version). She's alluring in a cute-but-evil way. It's cool to have discovered Victoria Horne, who lived at Oakridge for 53 years. We'll have to find more of her movies.  ////  

And that's all for tonight. I think we're almost all caught up. My blogging music is Happy the Man (debut album), my late night is Handel's Belshazzar Opera. I've had enough rain and cold to last me several lifetimes, and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

Eric Johnson at The Saban Theater, and "Dead Man's Evidence" starring Conrad Phillips and Veronica Hurst

I did end up going to the Eric Johnson concert and I'm glad I did. EJ is unmissable, and for me, he's one of those artists who feel like family, like King's X, Van Halen or ELP. I can't describe it, it's just music that gets so deep into your blood that it feels like it was born in you, or you knew it before you heard it. Something like that. Anyway, I left for the Saban Theater at around 6:15pm. The night was doggone cold but the rain hadn't started, and there was very little traffic on the 405. I hadn't been down Wilshire Boulevard in ages, so it was fun to drive through the heart of Beverly Hills, with it's stylish white buildings. I found schtreet parking on La Cienega, saving me 15 bucks, and I was inside the Saban by 7:10. It's another one of those restored 1920s-era movie palaces, most of which are in Downtown L.A., but some, like this one, are on the outskirts. As mentioned in the last blog, I actually bought my ticket for this show in 2021, but the tour got canceled - twice. Eric Johnson's management said "tickets will be honored," so I held on to mine (gotta have a paper ticket; can't stand mobile ticketing), and lo and behold, they gave me an upgrade to the floor, an excellent seat about 20 rows back.

At first, nobody was in the joint, just a handful of people, and I wondered if Eric was gonna have to face a mere smattering of fans. "Maybe because of the weather," I thought. Folks slowly trickled in, but even by 7:50, just ten minutes before showtime, the place was half empty. Then all of a sudden the floodgates opened, and everyone arrived starting at about 7:55. It was the latest arriving audience I've ever seen. In the old days, fans would fill an arena an hour early, and would eventually be chanting for the band to hit the damn stage, already. The fans tonight were older. Many had white hair. I'd guess that I, at almost 63, was among the younger ones, though I did see sprinklings of 30 to 50 year-olds here and there, amidst the 1000 strong who finally filled every seat. But boy did they wait til the last minute. Maybe they were hanging in the lobby.

The show started at 8:06 with Eric and bassist extraordinaire Roscoe Beck playing an acoustic duet of 3 or 4 songs, with Roscoe on stand-up bass. Then the rest of the band (Wayne Salzmann II on drums, Dave Scher on keys, second guitar and percussion) joined in to complete the rest of the 42 minute acoustic set.

After a 25 minute intermission, the band returned for an electric set that lasted almost 90 minutes.

I'd like to tell you about the music but I can't because no words will suffice. And I'm not trying to do one of those OMG jaw-dropping things, but I just have no words. If you've ever seen Eric live, you'll know what I'm talking about, but then I've gotta add that he may have his best band ever, and that he himself just gets more advanced on guitar as the years and tours go by. Eric will be 69 this year, and the only one who can touch him on guitar is himself, and he keeps blowing himself off the stage with every tour. It's freaking unreal.

I was speechless during the show and I remain so. I first saw Eric on September 29, 1990 at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater when he opened for Joe Satriani. After that, I didn't see him until April 1997, at the Key Club on the Sunset Strip, when I went with the late, great Dave Small. We were living at the Howard Johnson motel at the time, with my Dad, on Reseda Boogalord. Dave and I went to both of EJ's shows at the Key Club, which were part of his Venus Isle tour. When you talk about music getting so far into your blood that it feels like you were born with it, "Venus Isle" is among my desert island albums. I first heard it when Dave and I were on our way to the air show at Edwards in 1996. It's top-ten all time for me, and Eric has recently re-scaled the Venusian heights with his most recent releases, the counterpart mini-albums "The Book of Making" and "Yesterday Meets Today". 

Staring around 2000, he began touring regularly, and I've seen him about every two years since then, many times at The Canyon in Agoura, but also at The Roxy, and The Grove of Anaheim. I'd have to go back to my journals and count, but I'd guess I've seen Eric Johnson at least a dozen times.  

I can't overstate the effect his music has had on my life, because the effect surpasses being only musical. And as powerful as music is, as a force (some have said it's the second greatest power after love), it's quite a statement to say that an artist's music is even surpassed by it's life-effect on a fan.....

And that's all I can really tell you. I'm glad I went, even though I probably won't be going to lots of concerts in the future, just because my life has taken a major-league turn, and I only have so much energy left to focus. But one concert I'll never miss is an Eric Johnson concert. If you've seen him live, you'll know why.  ////

So that's my EJ review, written when I got home last night. I should add that he played a total of 2 hours and ten minutes, and that the lengthy, improvised guitar intro to "Cliffs of Dover" was by itself worth the price of admission. One thing that stands out about Eric, besides the staggering dexterity and musicality of his lead runs, is his tonal palette. He gets more colors out of his guitar than any player I've heard. At any rate, I'm glad the concert was last night, because tonight's weather would've been no fun to drive in.

I have one movie review of a film watched several days ago, one heck of a good spy thriller from MGM England called "Dead Man's Evidence"(1962). You've gotta pay attention on this one, so bring your scorecard or notepad or whatever works best. As it opens, a man with binoculars looks out on a Dublin beach, watching two women who've just discovered a washed-up dead body. One covers it with her coat, and both run away to call the police. The man with the binoculars walks away, and we cut to the offices of Brrrrittish Intelligence, where the Chief is briefing Agent "David Baxter" (Conrad Phillips). BI has obtained coroner's photographs that show the dead man was wearing a scuba suit. "We think he was one of our frogmen," says the Chief, "and a probable double agent." He's deduced this by a signet ring on one hand of the body, which is otherwise unidentifiable from being in the water.

Agent Baxter thinks it was a man he once worked with on a significant case, and promises a return on the chief's investment : "I'll get to the bottom of this, sir, and if it's not him, I'll find him and bring him back."

Well, get ready. You'll wind up needing (and wanting) to watch it for yourself, because I'm never gonna be able to give you all the details. When agent Baxter arrives in Dublin, he goes straight to the morgue where the body was taken. The coroner's assistant accepts his bribe, but then won't let him view the body. "That's weird", you're thinking, and then the local police supervisor gives him back his bribe money, but still won't permit an inquiry. Possibly, it's because Baxter hasn't identified himself as British Intelligence. He's posing as an insurance investigator, and he's competing for the truth with a very dogged reporter named "Paul Kay" (Alex MacIntosh) who remembers him from an overseas case and does indeed know he's BI, but promises to keep it a secret.

Kay has a female photographer named "Gay Clifford" (Veronica Hurst), who - we learn early on - is a contact of the man with the binoculars from the start of the movie. But who is he? Some kind of crime boss, and she a corrupt newswoman? We don't know, but Agent Baxter is going to get to the bottom of the case, that much you can be sure of. He locates one of the women who discovered the body on the beach, again identifying himself as an insurance investigator. "I'm interested in a signet ring on the left hand of the body. Did you notice it?" She seems nervous and kind of airheaded. "I'm sorry, I don't recall a ring. I was in shock from the way the poor man looked."

At one point, Baxter sneaks into the morgue, still trying to have a look at the body, only to have Kay the reporter surprise him. In between all of this, there are party scenes and social gatherings in which - every single time - drinks are offered and shared. I challenge you to find a "drinkier" movie. This one could serve as an advertisement for Jameson's Irish Whisky.

We eventually find out more about the dead frogman on the beach, and we're gonna hear more from the man with the binoculars, as well as Gay Clifford the photog.  You've gotta be super-tight to write a schript with this much detail and fit it into 64 minutes. It's as good as a 007 flick, without the spectacular action scenes but it's got everything else, especially plot-upon-plot, and snappy, repartee dialogue from every character. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Dead Man's Evidence". The picture is razor sharp.  ////

That's all I've got for now. My blogging music is "Black Noise" by FM, my late night is the Tamerlane Opera by Handel. I'll be glad when Winter is over and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

One Chapter Serial : "Zombies of the Stratosphere", and Two Movies: "Devil's Bait" and "70 Deadly Pills"

Gonna try to get caught up here, though it might take a few days. Last night, we began another chapter serial, with the awesome title "Zombies of the Stratosphere"(1952). As the first chapter opens, they've landed in Chatsworth Park. Numerous witnesses have reported seeing an object in the sky, so "Special Agent Larry Martin" (Judd Holdren) dons his rocket-powered flight suit, complete with full-coverage helmet (like a knight in a jousting match) and flies, like Superman, across hills and valleys to get the to landing site. The zombies have already split the scene, though, stealing a car to drive over to a scientist's nearby mansion. Lead Zombie "Marex" (Lane Bradford) gives him a choice: "either help us build and deploy an H-bomb or we will report you to your Federal government for giving away atomic secrets." He's insinuating the scientist is a commie. "Why do you need an H- bomb?" the scientist asks Marex. "Because our planet, Mars, has a thin atmosphere and it is hard for us to breathe. Your planet Earth has a rich oxygen supply, but for it to move into our gravitational hold, Earth must be obliterated."

The scientist considers his options. On the one hand, he doesn't really wanna participate in blowing the Earth to smithereens, but on the other, he wants even less to spend the rest of his life in prison, and it appears that the Zombies (who wear Plan 9-style space suits) do indeed have the blackmail goods on him for espionage. In the end he agrees to help them blow up Earth.

Having landed, Agent Martin has now found the scientist's mansion, but discovers that the Zombies have left for Morongo to obtain a shipment of uranium, so he goes to the Chatsworth train depot and asks the station master to derail their train. When that proves to be too time consuming, he commandeers a miniature (and very speedy) one-man tank that just so happens to be parked by the tracks, and races across country to chase the train down. Can he catch it in time to board, and stop the uranium from being delivered? The Zombies (who are not undead; "Zombie" means something different on Mars) have henchmen who wear suits and hats, and no, I did not make any of this stuff up. This is as goofy as a '50s sci-fi serial can get, but one chapter in, and we're loving it. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Zombies of the Stratosphere". The picture is very good.

The reviews might be a little shorter until we get back on track. 

The previous night, we had a strange little film called "Devil's Bait"(1959), about the search for a poisoned loaf of bread. I'm not sure what to call it. There's an undercurrent of black comedy; the Hitchcockian string swells and quirky "duck waddle" oboes suggest as much, indicating scenes that are meant to be taken as "deliciously macabre", or to indicate eccentricity. A baker has rats in his flour storage room and calls the owner of his building, who arranges for an exterminator to come out. A ratcatcher named "Mr. Love" (Dermot Kelly) lobbies for the job, and though he's a known alcoholic, he gets hired based on his self-professed expertise. His landlady sees him preparing beforehand and is appalled that he has a bottle of potassium cyanide (illegal in England) but he tells her not to worry, "I've been using it for twenty years and I'm the best in the business."

The owner of the bakery leaves Mr. Love to his work. He's a little squeamish about the poison, but he just wants the rats gone. While Mr. Love is mixing up his cyanide with other special ingredients, a bell rings in the front of the bakery, causing him to drop and shatter his mixing bowl. Needing a substitute, he grabs an old and seemingly out-of-use bread tin, sitting rusty on the shelf. After making the poison, he dips the bread bait, then stuffs it in the ratholes and washes up to take a break. It's 5 o clock, which means Time for a Drink, so he heads to the pub for a large scotch but he's just getting warmed up. Forgetting that he still has to clean up the sink area at the bakery, at which he mixed the cyanide, he drinks until he passes out. When he's awakened at closing time, he stumbles out of the pub and down a hill. Then he slips and breaks his neck and dies.

The police investigate, and trace Mr. Love's movements back to the bakery, where the owner hides the poison bottle and bag, so he won't go out of business (because its illegal) but his wife has already used the bread tin the poison was mixed in to bake bread. She grabbed it, off hand, without thinking. The resulting loaf was sold to a customer that evening, so the baker and his wife, having already lied to the police about the rat problem, now attempt to find the loaf themselves. They go to the customers house and climb through her window, but the loaf in her kitchen is half eaten. Is she dead? Is it even the right loaf?

For the audience, there's is no deadly urgency and only mild suspense because of the aforementioned "quirky" soundtrack and character reactions. The police have been following the bakers, suspecting they've been covering something up, and they catch them red-handed in the window of the customer's house, but it turns out she gave the poisoned loaf to her daughter, who is off picnicking with a friend and her baby. Who will eat the poisoned bread? Will it be the new-born baby?

A strange plot, eh? And whisker-thin. It must've had a 20 page script, but the film succeeds in it's conviction of acting, and the canted directorial style. Everyone is invested, which always makes a difference when your story isn't fleshed out. Watching it, you kind of go "huh?" when it's over, but you'll like it all the way through, so Two Bigs. The picture is razor sharp. ////

Shall we do one more? Yeah, let's.

How about another Find the Poison flick? In "70 Deadly Pills"(1964), five Cockney kids, all around 12 years old, have a clubhouse in an old condemned slum building. They furnish it with discarded treasures found in the street, like an old gramophone and a stack of 78rpm records. They've also got a hog's head (not of real fire, though). They call themselves The Rockets, and one day, a younger boy sneaks into their club when they're away and pokes around, admiring their collection of cast-offs, but while he's up there, two robbers pull into the driveway after nicking a doctor's car. The kid watches as they throw out his medical bag and leave, making plans to come back and re-paint the car later. He goes downstairs to see what's in the bag, and finds a tin of sweets among all the stethoscopes, syringes, and thermometers. The candies were post-exam treats for the doctor's young patients, but mixed in with them, inadvertently by the robbers, is a pack of strychnine pills, 70 of 'em just like in the movie's title. The pills are mixed with the candy and they look just like M&Ms. Now The Rockets have the tin and a discussion begins: how should the sweets be divided? Should the finder get the lion's share, or should it be equal between the lot? Therefore, the plot theme is the same as in "Devil's Bait": find the poisoned food item before it kills. The best part of this movie, however, is The Rockets gang themselves, how they interact and their rituals inside the clubhouse. They're like a miniature Skull and Bones, with their oaths and sacred rules, or maybe Lord of the Flies is a better example. Watching them hash things out is fun, otherwise, from the cops' point of view, it's all "Find the sweets before the kids eat them"! And of course, to build suspense, we see every Rocket almost put one in his or her mouth, only to be interrupted "just in the nick of time!" by someone else, before they're poisoned.  One girl finally does eat one of the pills, and I'll leave it up to you to see what happens. Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is very good. ////

We still have a couple more movies to clear, but we'll get to 'em on another night. Tomorrow night, I may or may not be going to see Eric Johnson in Beverly Hills at the Saban Theater. I have a ticket that I bought almost two years ago (!) when this tour was first scheduled, but Covid was still raging and it was canceled. The weather will decide if I end up going. If it's pouring rain, I'll probably stay home and eat the ticket. I'd hate to miss EJ (one of my Top Ten artists of all time, and Top Three on guitar), but I'm a bit worn out of late, and to be honest I'm long since tired of going to concerts by myself. However, simply because it is Eric Johnson, I'll probably drag myself down there if the weather isn't totally lousy. And if I go, I'll include a Concert Report in the next blog, along with the remainder of our backed-up movies.

My blogging music tonight is Van der Graaf Generator "Still Life", my late night is Handel's Tamerlane Opera. I hope your week is going well, and did you see the Moon tonight, with Jupiter and Venus aligned below it? T'was amazing to behold, like jewels in the night sky. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

In Memory of T

I'm a day late, due to some sudden and sad news. One of my long time circle of friends has passed away, and while it wasn't entirely unexpected because he had been in poor health for many years, it is nonetheless a shock, especially given the revelations I've had this week, which have already left me reeling. In his case, the words "long ago" should be added to "long time" friend because I hadn't had any contact with "T" for almost 29 years. Thus he was a long time but also long ago friend.

The reason for this was that he was one of the three people in the room - his apartment - when the events of September 1989 began. If you know me, you already know all about that story, which has been made clearer to me - and more devastating - this week, even before I got the news of his passing.

T was a difficult figure in my life because of 1989, but he was a friend before that, and - surprisingly, even to me, I never held a grudge against him for what happened in his apartment. He always seemed like a side character in the whole thing, and after about six months to a year (when my memories came back), I was no longer angry about what happened in his apartment, because - when you get right down to it - an affair in which you are the jilted party isn't worth getting worked up over. Affairs are childish things (anyone can have one, it's no great accomplishment) and regarding T, while I no longer considered him a friend after my memory returned in 1994, he never registered as adversarial toward me, the way that some other parties did.

One of the great ironies of the aftermath of September 1989, is that after T got evicted from his apartment the following month, I actually invited him to live in my family's garage. Because I had amnesia of what took place in his apartment only eight weeks earlier, and I had no idea I'd almost died in that room on the night of September 1st, I felt sorry that he was losing his place to live. You can't let a friend become homeless if you are in a position to help, and I was, so I offered him our garage as a place to stay, and he lived there for the next 4 years and 8 months, until my memory began to return. Then he moved out in a hurry. But yeah, that's one of the great ironies of the mind-boggling September 1989 event, is that I invited T to come live in our garage, just eight weeks after what happened in his apartment (and if you don't already know the details, you'll have to ask someone because I don't want to repeat them right now). Just for the record, he moved into our garage on Halloween day, 1989. I even helped him move. The reason he gave for being evicted was that his Mom refused to pay any more of his rent, however, knowing what took place there on the night of September 1st, I have a feeling that was not the real reason.

But the thing is, before my memory returned (and amnesia is the damnedest thing), he and I were friends and hung out on a daily basis. That's ironic, right? We hung out and watched TV, played basketball, smoked pot (one of my great regrets is smoking pot for 19 years, a very bad drug in my opinion), and had a lot of fun. Looking back, he seemed depressed a lot of the time he lived at my house, and I can imagine why; always wondering if - and when - I'd remember September 1st, 1989. But I never did, for almost five years, so maybe he felt like the coast was clear. And the thing was, the coast would always have been clear, if someone would've just told me the truth. As I say, for me, getting cheated on upset me for about six months to a year after I remembered it. I wasn't the world's best boyfriend to that particular person who, for now, shall remain nameless, and I would've left me long before she did. So the cheating was never the big deal.

But, what we do know about September 1989, is exactly that: the cheating was never, and is not, the Big Deal. The Big Deal is that it sparked a National Security event that remains the biggest secret in America to this day. Maybe T was aware of this, maybe he was not. But he began drinking and smoking at an early age anyway. His lifestyle was not conducive to good health.

In remembering him today, I'm thinking of the fun times, like taking the bus to Hollywood with T and my brother to buy movie memorabilia at the Hollywood Book & Poster shop on Hollywood Boulevard. That would've been around 1977. Or taking the bus to Dodger games. Playing baseball, basketball and football (every Sunday!), well into our 30s. His Mom took us many places also, like to Disneyland and to see "The Exorcist", back in the 1970s. His Mom was a very nice lady.

I'll sum up to say, that, though I hadn't seen him for 30 years, and our friendship was without a doubt long since over, he was my friend once, and that's what counts today. I know he's in a better place. He has to be.

God Bless You, T.

I'll be back with more movies either tonight or tomorrow.  ////              

Dermot Walsh in "The Frightened Man", and "Snowball" starring Dennis Waterman

Last night, in "The Frightened Man", angry young "Julius Rosselli" (Dermot Walsh) comes home to his father's London antique shop after flunking out of Oxford, which Dad scraped to pay for. Julius is self centered and surly. "Dad Rosselli" (Charles Victor) wants to make him co-owner of the shop, but Dad's fussy & flaming assistant "Cornelius" (Michael Ward) thinks Julius isn't temperamentally equipped to run a business. Julius doesn't want it anyway, he wants easy money so he can marry "Amanda" (Barbara Murray), the girlfriend of an older, strait-laced gent who he's stealing her from with no compunction. She flaunts it in the man's face and marries Julius soon after, but on the side, we see that Julius is hanging around a used car salesman who pulls robberies at night. Soon, he's the driver on these jobs, but Amanda doesn't know about it.

Then, after gleaning info on the jeweler she works for, he tells his partner-in-crime about a bag of diamonds Amanda's boss is holding in his safe, and the movie turns into a heist flick. Julius and his partner are breaking through an office wall to cut through the back of the safe with an acetylene torch. Well, it turns out that the strait-laced gent Amanda was seeing is an undercover cop who's been tailing Julius's partner for months, and the partner has been selling stolen antiques to Dad for years. It's how he paid for Julius's Oxford education. Julius has long sensed his Dad was a crook; it's why he's so resentful. John Gilling, of "Plague of the Zombies" fame, directed. Other than the twists mentioned, the plot isn't that complex, but Gilling keeps the suspense tight during the heist, and the way he peels back the onion skin layers, with the late-in-the-game undercover cop revelation, and Julius's Dad being a fence for stolen antiques, is very effective. Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is wide screen and razor sharp.  ////

The previous night, we found a British parable on truth telling called "Snowball"(1960), which begins when ten year old "Mickey Donvan" (Dennis Waterman) is two hours late from school. His mother is worried. Did he miss his bus? Was he kept after school? His Dad says the kid needs discipline, "or he'll wind up like I was at 18. We've gotta straighten him out now." But Mickey arrives home in time for supper, and all is forgiven. His story is that he lost his shilling through a hole in his pocket, thus had no bus money and the driver threw him off. "You mean you had to walk four miles home?" says Mom. Dad shrugs it off. "Every lad should walk four miles every now and then." Dad's a man's man, and wants Mickey to be the same. Still, Mom feels it was a little heartless for the driver to kick him off: "He could've let him bring twice the fare the next day."

It's forgotten about until their neighbor, a busybody, pops in to borrow a stick of butter. She overhears the tail end of the discussion, pries the rest of it out of Mom, and becomes outraged. "That driver should be drawn and quartered. If it were my child I'd have called the bus company and reported him." But she doesn't have children and is always butting into other people's business. This time, she goes so far as to call the local paper and report the incident, completely unsolicited by the Donovans. Dad is pissed off. "How dare she make an issue out of this without asking us!" The woman protests that she was just trying to help. "I make lots of complaints about all kinds of things people tell me. I believe in justice." Yeah, and she's also a nosy parker.

The title of the movie tells you what happens next. The miniscule incident snowballs. Pretty soon, the newspaper's publisher smells a story with legs. He sends a cub reporter out to grill the bus company's dispatcher, to find out which driver kicked the boy off. At first, the company protects the driver, saying he's got a clean record and would never treat a child like that, but when the reporter keeps pushing, the owner agrees to do a "lineup" to have Mickey identify the driver, which he does. The driver (Kenneth Griffith) swears he didn't kick Mickey off. "I don't even recall him riding that day." The trouble is, the driver was tortured in a German pow camp during the war and has had trouble with his memory ever since. His fellow drivers faux-sympathize with him, while talking behind his back and looking at him askance because they think he's "touched" in the head, and therefore, he may have indeed kicked Mickey off and forgotten it. The driver has a supportive wife who believes him, but the accusation is getting to him because he doesn't trust his memory himself. Still, he's sure he didn't kick Mickey off. Meanwhile, Mr. Donovan wants the busybody neighbor banished from the house. "Look at all the trouble she's caused!"

And it's gonna get worse. One night, while out for a walk to de-stress, the driver sees a dog walking on the railroad tracks, unaware that a train is bearing down. He scrambles down the hill to save it, but slips and slides and winds up on the tracks himself. I'll leave you to find out what happens next, but the film is about telling the truth, and minding your own business. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Snowball". The picture is very good. ////

I need to report that my life has changed greatly this week, as I have learned of an incident, quite profound, that was part of the September 1989 experience, and may have come at the very end. In all this time, over 33 years at this point, I have never known about this, never remembered it, and I'm not going to provide details except to say that it involved me, and it happened on Rathburn Avenue in broad daylight. What it was, was a reaction to two weeks of being tortured. Learning of this, and realizing that it indeed happened, has had a powerful effect on me this week. When the incident was over, I ended up lying in the street and was taken to Northridge Hospital, and that's all I wish to say for now. The thing is, is that there is no way my family couldn't have known about this. For certain my parents would have known, as would the neighbors up and down the street. There is no way they could not have known. And so, it has been kept from me for over 33 years, kept from me by by family, and everyone involved in 1989. My life was then stage-managed in the aftermath. 

Of course, I wrote an 800-page book about September 1989 that included 1001 extreme details. But this incident is the most personal to me, especially because I haven't previously been aware of it, and as I said, it's also the most emotionally profound. It's an overwhelming thing to know that I've experienced pure evil in my life, evil beyond measure, and have survived it. I am proud of myself for surviving.

My new hero is Lys V., and I hope I get to talk to her someday.

And that's all I know. I wish you a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Ray McAnally and Catherine Feller in "Murder in Eden", and "Boy of the Streets" starring Jackie Cooper

Last night's movie was the fun-but-formulaic "Murder in Eden"(1961),  a one-hour Britflick that traces the murdalization of an art critic who is killed after spotting a forgery. Skeeeartlynd Yeeeearrd sends in "Inspector Sharkey" (Ray McAnally), whose chief suspect is the owner of the gallery where the forged painting was to be displayed. The investigation is interrupted by "Genevieve Beaujean" (Catherine Feller), a cute French reporter who's determined to get a scoop for her paper. "She won't take no for an answer," says "Vicki Woolf" (Yvonne Buckingham), the gallery owner's buxom wife, who's having an affair with an art restorer who specialises in the works of the Old Masters. By sheer persistence, Miss Beaujean - who drives a cute French 3-wheeled car - attracts the attention of Sharkey the inspector, who asks her to politely step out of the way, then doubles his request when her hotel room is booglarised by a knife-wielding man, who's seeking the info she's gathered on the killing.

Then the booglar turns up dead, and the inspector asks for Genevieve's help, but too much time is schpent in the middle of the film on repartee and cuteness. There isn't enough suspense, but Genevieve finds out about the affair of Vicki Woolf and the art restorer, and the movie gets good around the 42 minute mark (out of 60). Suddenly, we're in an expensive beach house/art studio, with secret rooms, one way mirrors, and false walls with trap doors leading to the ocean. Then we get a major league curveball, which in this case leads not to a satisfying but bewildering and inconclusive ending, at least I thought so. Good stuff but thin on script, teased out by competent directing and the pouty face of Catherine Feller, and the inspector's reaction to her pouts. We'll give it Two Bigs for style, but it's not that compelling. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night, we watched "Boy of the Streets"(1937), a Depression-era drama starring Jackie Cooper as a 16 year old street tough in Hell's Kitchen. "Chuck Brennan" isn't a bad kid, though his sweater is torn from fighting. He's only ever home for dinner; the rest of the time, he's hanging out in the local pool hall with his pals, of whom he's the ringleader. Tonight is Halloween, they're planning tricks rather than treats, and "Spike" (Paul White), the black kid in the gang, is eager to participate in whatever Chuck has up his sleeve. Spike is a good boy who actually has a job (he owns a shoeshine stand), and the neighborhood beat cop is always trying to talk him out of gang life: "Whattaya wanna hang around them mugs for, Spike? You gotta brain in your head." But Spike wants to be accepted by Chuck, who is idolised by the rest of the kids, so he spends his free time running errands for the gang and offers to join in their fights. Chuck says, "no Spike, you're too small." Chuck's Dad (Guy Usher) isn't the best example for his son, telling him "only chumps work for a living". He's proud of Chuck's fighting ability. Dad, an ex-boxer, has big ideas for get-rich-quick schemes, though we only ever see him sitting at the dinner table with his cousin "Flannel-Mouth Farley" (George Cleveland), a freeloader who eats all the Brennan's food. "Mrs. Brennan" (Marjorie Main) is worn to a frazzle. She berates Flannel Mouth in that sassy Midwestern drawl Main was famous for.

Chuck and the gang get called before a judge on Halloween night, but the judge knows all of them and believes they are good kids at heart, so he lets them go with a warning. In a nearby tenement lives "Nora" (Maureen O'Connor), an orphan girl staying with her aunt, until they get evicted and have nowhere to go. Chuck likes Nora, and tries to get her a job as a singer in a small cafe, but two women patrons from a social reform league find out she's only fifteen, and threaten to take her away to live in a home for juvenile delinquents. Chuck and his parents hide her, and a kindly doctor (played by Wild Bill Elliott), who tends to the tenement residents free of charge, takes Nora and her aunt under his wing and protects them. Together, they organize for tenement reform.

Meanwhile, Chuck and his friends are getting into rumbles. At home, freeloader Flannel Mouth and Dad sit around all day playing cards, driving Marjorie Main nuts. At the pool hall, Chuck plans a big fight with a neighboring gang. Little Spike, the good boy, wants to rumble too, but as usual Chuck won't let him. "I told ya, Spike, you're too small. You don't belong fighting, go home." Dejected, Spike leaves, only to get hit by a car. When Spike dies in the hospital, the boys are all sad, and Chuck wants out of gang life. He tries joining the Navy, but the recruiter says "come back on your 17th birthday". With his luck running out, he goes down to the courthouse to talk to his friend the judge, and sees his Dad in there begging for money. Embarassed, Chuck storms out and goes back to the pool hall, where a mobster named Blackie is negotiating to buy the place, to use it as a headquarters for his strong-arm collection "business". Rebellious now at seeing his Dad humiliated, and feeling he's got nothing left to lose, Chuck approaches Blackie to offer his services as a street fighter. This leads to the climax of the movie: will Chuck wind up a Mafia hood, or will his parents and the beat cop be able to rescue him?

This type of film is what you'd call a saga, or cultural drama, of a typical Irish/American family struggling in 1930's New York City with cinematic blarney and pride. You've got the fighting, the singing, an orphan girl, card playing, big dreams/unemployment, and Irish cops, judges, and a gentleman doctor. Wild Bill Elliott is in suit and tie mode again (we like him like this), and Jackie Cooper shows why he was a top teenage star. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Boy of the City". The picture is razor sharp.  ////

That's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "Pawn Hearts" by Van Der Graaf Generator, my late night is the Solomon Opera by Handel, I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

Shirley Ann Fields and Sir Robert Stephens in "Lunch Hour", and "Earthworm Tractors" starring Joe E. Brown

Last night's movie was "Lunch Hour"(1961), an interesting, Coca-Cola Generation film with an early '60s soundtrack that's laid out almost like a Godard flick at first. or maybe a Truffaut. A married, 30-something executive at a graphic arts arts firm in London is having an affair with a pretty young designer. She's 24, flirty but innocent. They take the train at lunch to hotels away from the business district. How they have time to do any affair-ing after the train ride both ways on their lunch hour is a mystery, but then so is the whole movie. Or maybe it's supposed to be whimsical and surreal, ala experimental theater. We'll find out as we go along, but for now, it's defintely Godard-like, if Godard was coherent. For the first ten minutes, all the couple does is make small talk. Neither of their names are ever stated, in keeping with the secrecy of their affair. The Girl (as she is known in the credits, played by Shirley Ann Field) is all Eyes, Dimples and Smile. In the early going, you even think Field is a first-time actress for how conscious she is of the camera. The Man (Robert Stephens) is attentive to her, with his deferential manner. He's not leading man material in the looks department, but she likes him and he loves her.

The movie meanders around the two of them at work - where a human resources exec tries to steal her away from The Man on a coffee break - and at a park where couples go to make out. There's zero plot thus far, and we're at the twenty minute mark of a one hour film. You're settled in, going, "okay, I signed on for the duration, I won't turn it off"; it's a Camelot-era, British New Wave-type of deal, made in the brief period of "breezy" international cinematic optimism that preceded the arrival of The Beatles in the midst of the Cold War. Think "Umbrellas of Cherbourg", "Breathless", movies like that, when Pan-Am was the only way to fly.

Well, anyhow. The Man is infatuated with The Girl. She's charmed by him, and flattered that a 37 year old man would give her 100% of his attention over his wife.

Then, in order to find a new hotel where no one will recognize them, The Man travels a bit further on the train, and finds a joint where the owner, a nosy woman, allows the couple to stay because he's told her they're married. "My wife will be arriving from York tomorrow to join me," he adds. It's hard to tell if the owner really believes this or if she's playing along. This was in the days, at least in England,when you couldn't rent a room together unless you were married, but when The Girl does show up, the nosy hotel woman won't leave the two alone. She knocks on their door every five minutes, and seems to want The Man for herself. She insinuates that The Girl is an office tramp (as if she knows their secret), and when she finally leaves them alone, at The Man's request, the movie changes abruptly - you'll know it by a quick change of The Girl's shirt from one frame to the next. Now, all of a sudden they are a married couple, just because The Man concocted that story for the nosy hotel owner.

At first, you're wondering: are they role-playing a fantasy, or are they really married? Have they been married all along, and are just pretending to have an affair, to liven up their marriage? Suddenly, they have two children, just because The Man told the hotel owner so. His fabricated tale has become the couple's reality. Now, The Girl is no longer all eyelashes and winsomeness. She's acquired an edge, that of a married woman with children and housework, and a husband who may be having an affair! The whole story has been turned on its head, and it all happens in the same hotel with the nosy owner.

You start off going, homina-homina-homina because the first ten minutes meanders, going nowhere ala Godard, who filmed pretty, young French people "being French circa 1960". That was his trip, and people said he was a genius. In truth he was a pretty good filmmaker (and original), but not great like Antonioni-oni. But Shirley Ann Fields holds your eye, and when the movie does a 180, she startles you with her talent. "Wow, she can act after all". You'll wind up thinking the movie is a gem of its era. It's important to know that, in the 1960s, a decade like no other, each year had a vibe of its own, so 1963 was different from '64, which was different from '65, et al, and each year felt like five years, because so much happened in that decade. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Lunch Hour", and almost Two Huge, though in the first ten minutes, you're wondering if you should turn it off. But you wind up glad you didn't - good stuff that takes a little while to develop, and very highly recommended. The picture is razor sharp. //// 

The previous night, we had our first Joe E. Brown movie, "Earthworm Tractors"(1936). In addition to his comedic talent, Brown was famous for his look, with a flat face, high cheekbones, slit-glinting eyes, a rangy-boned body and most of all a big, wide mouth with a top lip that covered his teeth when he talked. He had a short, slicked-tight haircut and there was nobody who looked like him. Though his image is somewhat geeky, I'll bet you a nickel he influenced Jim Carrey. Brown comes off as part Carrey, and part Keaton, especially when he starts driving tractors through hot dog stands and towing houses to other locations.

As the movie opens, he's a self-described "born salesman" who's nevertheless only selling silly gadgets, like glorified pea-shooter/bubble-blower tubes. His girlfriend's Dad thinks he's not a worthy suitor, so Brown vows to show him, saying "You'll see, Mr. Blair! I'm a born salesman, and Ill come back with a job to support your daughter". He sees an ad in the paper for "salesman wanted" at Earthworm Tractors, and goes in and fibs to the boss about his background, saying he drove tractors in the Army. Really, he was a cook, but here's where Brown invented Jim Carrey, when he's talking 100 miles an hour in an overly schticky voice, like a cartoon character. He moves like Carrey also, and does outrageous pratfalls. The company owner throws him out, but then he immediately sells eight tractors to "Sam Johnson" (Guy Kibbee), owner of the Johnson Lumber Co., whose daughter "Mabel" (June Travis) is taken with Brown and vice versa. Its the Johnson's house he ends up towing when they move. "I saved your Dad 500 dollars", he says, after putting them through what feels like an 8.0 earthquake. 

But he still longs for his old girlfriend "Sally Blair" (Carol Hughes), and tries to win her back after he's become successful, while destroying numerous cars and buildings in the process. When he does see Sally after a long time away, she's married to another man. So, he turns back to Mabel Johnson, but now she's humiliated, thinking she's his second choice.

Depressed, he almost drives off his tractor off a rickety bridge between two mountains in what's supposed to be a stand-in for Tibet, or "Tibbet" as Mr. Johnson pronounces it, where a gigantic earthquake has taken place. Joe E. Brown was nuts, in a good way, and like Jim Carrey, he always gets the last laugh. I'd guess Carrey studied him and then turned it into his own thing. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Earthworm Tractors". Joe E. Brown was an original and we'll have to keep watching him. The girls in the movie play his foils, with SNL timing and precision. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

And that's all I know. My blogging music is Van Der Graaf Generator "The Quiet Zone/Pleasure Dome", my late night is Handel's Amadis of the Gali opera. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)       

Paul Muni in Joseph Losey's "Stranger on the Prowl", and "Special Agent X-9", a Chapter Serial starring Lloyd Bridges

Last night's movie was 'Stranger on the Prowl"(1952), by Joseph Losey, a director whose films we've liked, even if we aren't sure about his politics. Losey was blacklisted and spent most of his career in Europe, where he did good work, making melodramatic pictures high in style and technique, and commercially sound. He's kind of the Douglas Sirk of Film Noir, though his range is wider than one genre. The reason we've got a bug about Losey is because he swore he wasn't a Commie and we'd like to believe him. Not that we support the blacklist, the opposite is true, but we also don't like to see Communist principles romanticized in motion pictures, or made precious by manipulative filmmakers.

What does all of that have to do with "Stranger on the Prowl"? Not a doggone thing. It's another very good Losey production, his "go" at Italian postwar Neorealism, but with a non-Cinema Verite touch. Remember, Losey's a studio guy all the way, and very polished. Paul Muni, one of the true acting greats (and the best Scarface, i.e. non-hambone) stars as a nameless Stranger who, as the movie opens, is trying to stow away on a boat, to get out of Italy. But he hasn't got any money and the captain kicks him off. Losey is now going to separately introduce the other main characters, all of whom have their own storylines. Lives will converge, of course, not like in a roadside diner on a dark and stormy night (there aren't enough characters for that), but in order to build plot as with bricks of a foundation. So after Muni comes little "Giacomo" (Vittorio Manunta), a ten year old boy whose young mother is a washerwoman. They live in a bombed-out building in what might be Sicily (ultra poor) and they can barely make their rent. Mamma wants Giacomo and his younger sister to earn money any way they can, or by helping with her washing orders, but Giacomo would rather play marbles in the street, for money to go see the circus. He loves animals, especially horses. One in particular will serve as the film's metaphor.

Take one part "Bicycle Thief", one part "Les Miserables", and a genius Paul Muni performance, and you've got yourself a compelling, gritty movie, with deliberate (but not overly demonstrative) commentary about the plight of the poor and the hungry. Now, in Italy cica 1952, such commentary was legit, but no more, which is why we don't care for filmmakers who are still railing about the proletariat who doesn't exist anymore. Directors like that just wanna seem cool, like they've read Marx, and their stance has nothing to do with jobs or culture. It's part of a political hive mentality, so in that sense, Joseph Losey was positively neutral.

Anyhow, Paul Muni wants money to pay the boat captain so he can ship out of the country, but all he has is a pistol to sell. It's hinted that he got it in the war, but no one knows. He tries several fences and pawn shops but no one will buy the gun. Hungry, he walks into a pastry shop, takes a bun off the rack and starts eating. The owner tries throwing him out, and he kills her, not on purpose but by putting a powerful hand over her mouth to stop her from yelling, because he doesn't wanna get arrested for stealing. That's your Les Miz reference. Prior to the accidental murder, little Giacomo had just been in the shop and had sneakily stolen some milk, because he lost his mother's milk money in a marble game. Muni sees Giacomo as he's fleeing the scene. He wonders if Giacomo saw him too, and orders him to "follow me down to the dock". They become pals in the Two Outcasts mode, one old, and street-wise-yet-fatherly, the other precocious and adventure-seeking: "Take me with you, please take me with you," the archetype of The Articulate, Emotionally-Aware Moppet. Giacomo's wisdom is a device, of course, because no kid is that world-weary, but don't worry because the movie is mostly a Noir at this point. What we do like about Losey is that he never shoves politics in your face, just little bits and pieces of comments. The other main character is a beautiful shop girl (Joan Lorring) who lives in the same building as Giacomo and his family. She gets caught stealing dresses at work, and is now at the mercy of her big slug of a boss, who insinuates that if she sleeps with him, he'll forget about the thefts. "Let me walk you home," he leers. "Okay," she answers, but she has no choice.

Of course, her storyline will converge with that of Muni and Giacomo. who now sees Muni as a cohort/peer: ("Take me with you! I love horses and the circus!") Muni tells him about his days as a Strongman (a La Strada reference). There's a lot of metaphor and it's well done. There's also dubbed Italian-to-English dialogue that's better synced than in most such films. This upload is from an Olive Films dvd, so it's razor sharp. The movie is really good, its just that, well......you kind of already know the deal. It's as if Losey signed a contract saying "I wanna work within the system, so I won't rebel too much, because I wanna make studio-quality films". Or something like that. He's one of the few directors we examine this closely. He is a top caliber filmmaker, and he got a great performance out of Muni and the kid, so Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Stranger on the Prowl". Very highly recommended and the picture, as noted, is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night we found a new chapter serial from Universal called "Secret Agent X-9. Lloyd Bridges stars as "Federal Agent Phil Corrigan", aka X-9, who is charged with stopping the shipment, to Japan, of package containing a synthetic fuel formula. A dragon lady named "Nabura" (Victoria Horne) serves as a go-between for the Axis powers, operating from an island in the Pacific run as a private company by Mafioso Cy Kendall, who claims sovereignty: "We are not affiliated with any nation". Nabura has henchmen-soldiers who are forcing a scientist, as the movie opens, to produce a synthetic fuel which will help Japan win the war. The Japanese and German navies have teamed up to keep open a Japanese shipping lane in order to deliver the aforementioned package. Two previous Secret Agents have been shot dead in their attempts to stop the transfer. That's when Phil Corrigan is called in, and the Germans find out he's no pushover. All of this takes place in the first 20 minute chapter, and because it's from Universal Studios, the production values are high. X-9 is on a ship that gets torpedoed, which serves as the first cliff-hanger ending. It would've been fun to be a kid when these chapter serials were in theaters, wondering what was gonna happen each week, and reading the comic book it was based on. This one was written by Hashiel Dammit, er, I mean Dashiel Hammett. It's a total popcorn flick and a good one. Two Bigs and the picture is widescreen razor sharp.  ////

And that's all I know for this evening. My blogging music is a live Rockpalast concert by Wishbone Ash from 1976. I may have mentioned this gig before, but check it out. The lead playing is great (of course) by both Andy Powell and Laurie Wisefield, but Wisefield's Strat tone has to be heard to be believed. My late night is Handel's Solomon Opera. Who d'ya like in the Super Bowl tomorrow? My gut says KC but my head says Philly. I like that I don't care who wins and don't have a dog in the hunt, like last year's Rams; it means I can actually enjoy the game without white-knuckling it, ha-ha. 

I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Duncan Lamont and Jane Hylton in "Burnt Evidence", and "Private Information" starring Jill Esmond

Last night's film "Burnt Evidence"(1954), is about a man with a cheating wife who is pushed to the brink of suicide. "Jack Taylor" (Duncan Lamont) runs an electrical workshop in a small English town. As the movie opens, he arrives at work looking downcast, for the news isn't good. He's a month behind on his rent and can't collect on the jobs he's contracted for because hes too "soft" a man, in his wife's words, to put his foot down with clients. He does the work and they never pay, or they string him along. He's a good man and an Army vet, but people take advantage of him. The landlord of his shop wants his rent, and Jack and his wife are two weeks behind at home. He has to let his young assistant go: "Sorry, Johnny. You'd better start looking for something else."

At home, his wife "Diana" (Jane Hylton) has his best friend over. "Look" says the friend, whose name is "Jimmy Thompson" (Donald Gray), "we've got to tell Jack about us. it's only right." Jimmy was in the Army with Jack, and has just enough loyalty to want to inform him that he's sleeping with his wife. She, on the other hand, doesn't want to tell Jack. Not that she loves him, but "he's a good man and tries so hard...."

When Jack comes home that evening, Diana has his dinner ready. She is fond of him (fond being different than still attracted) and she has an attachment to their marriage but she loves Jimmy, or rather she lusts after him - huge difference. But all is well at dinner until Jack finds Jimmy's left-behind cigarette case (and no, it's not the sterling silver anti-radiation cigarette case from "Mark of the Phoenix"). Now he knows that Jimmy and Diana are fooling around behind his back, and later that night, after confronting Jimmy and socking him on the jaw, he writes a suicide note. Then he takes his gun out of a sock in his drawer and heads back to his shop to get the deed done. But Jimmy shows up to stop him, and a schtruggle ensues, which is filmed in a sudden change to chiaroscuro, so you know someone is about to die. Remember, Jack brought his gun to commit suicide, and now BANG!

Someone just got shot.

Just after that, a cigarette that was left burning on a workbench falls into some straw and whummo! A full-on conflagration burns the joint down. The fire brigade puts it out and discovers the charred-beyond-recog body of whomever was shot. Diana is sure it has to be Jack, because she just got his suicide note in the mail, but the cops aren't so sure, and a plot that begins as a romantic-triangle-turned-tragic becomes a police procedural at the 25 minute mark. New boy detective "Bob Edwards" (Meredith Edwards) is overly ambitious in his theories, jumping to unwarranted conclusions concerning the identity of the dead man. Bob's a sharp cookie, but he doesn't wait for the medical examiner's evidence. Who is the deceased, anyway? The Taylors have a boarder named "Mrs. Raymond" (Irene Handl), who serves as a gossipy, overly-nice-on-purpose source of info for the police. 

The plot leads you to believe in a certain type of conclusion and you may or may not be surprised, disappointed, or otherwise, but the message of the flick is the sanctity of marriage and the decency of the working man. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Burnt Evidence" and a high recommendation, especially for the excellent black and white photography. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

The previous night we had yet another British movie, "Private Information"(1952), about a woman who stands up to the mayor of her village and the head of the archi-textural firm who built her council house. It all starts when "Charlotte" (Jill Esmond) and her daughter notice shoddy workmanship in their home: windows that won't open, doorknobs falling off, and walls that are so thin "you could put a finger through them." But that's not the half of it. Charlotte's son, who works for the firm as an in-schpector, has filed a report on a number of similar complaints, and has turned up evidence of faulty plumbing and sinking foundations. Drainage is a particular problem. He shows his findings to his boss, "Mr. Freemantle" (Norman Shelly), who is also his girlfriend's father, but Freemantle says the whole thing is overblown. "Nothing to worry about. Those things can be repaired, and aren't a result of our construction. Lets keep the report confidential, shall we?" Translation: "if we don't announce the findings, we can't be held responsible, and there's no reason for a tempest in a Veddy Brrrittish teapot." But Charlotte thinks there is, and when the mayor calls a town meeting to discuss the problem, she speaks up.

Having inside information on the findings of her son, because her daughter got a look at the report, she stands in front of the mayor at the hearing and declares what she knows, concluding by saying it was probably the result of a bribe. "No one does shoddy work on purpose, and these council houses were payed for with public funds."

The mayor gets up in arms, though we know he's guilty. (I didn't get  harrumph outta that guy!) He ends the meeting abruptly, then sends his haughty wife over to Charlotte's house to demand a signed apology, to be read at another public meeting. They want to humiliate her for telling the truth. At first, she's so intimidated by the wife's unannounced visit, and her threats, that she agrees to sign the apology. But then she gets a second visit from a German expatriate newsman, who - having fled Nazism - urges her not to sign the fallacious document. "I will stand by you and print the truth in my paper". Charlotte still isn't sure if she can go through with it, and her son is caught in the middle as a member of the building firm. He's also the guy who filed the report. But the mayor and Mr. Freemantle have formed a wall, and it's hard to get the truth out when people with more power than you want to keep it silent. But Charlotte, now supported by her newspaper friend, decides not to sign the apology after all. At the second meeting, she explains how she was coerced, and now the townsfolk, who've experienced problems in their own shoddy houses but were too shy to speak up, are championing her. Emboldened, Charlotte stands her ground, even when threatened with libel. 

Her daughter, a budding writer, has been suffering from headaches for a while. The two of them think it's from too much reading and typing, but her pain gets so bad she has to go to the hospital. At the same time, a typhoid outbreak is discovered in the council row. The drainage problem (i.e. sewage in the water) is found to be the culprit. Charlotte's daughter gets so sick it looks like she might die. The mayor and Mr. Freemantle are now exposed in their cover-up, but will typhoid kill all the homeowners? The  movie is from a play and exceptionally well done, though simple in plot. It's all about standing your ground in the face of corrupt power, which few do. Two Big Thumbs Up, and a fine performance from Jill Esmond, who was Lawrence Olivier's second wife. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

And that's all for this evening. My blogging music is Steve Hackett's "Voyage of the Acolyte", my late night is Handel's Solomon Opera, I hope you are having a good week and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

Two Sheldon Lawrence Specials : "Mark of the Phoenix" and "Black Tide"

We're on a Brit flick kick of late, and we've got two good ones starring the same guy, an American named Sheldon Lawrence, who sort of strolls his way through these pictures - genial even when he's pissed off. He's smiling all the time because he feels obligated to share his handsomeness with you, and in "Mark of the Phoenix", he's a jewel thief named "Chuck Martin", who comes into possession of a cigarette case made out of an experimental metal that is resistant to radiation, and therefore invaluable in atomic warfare. As the movie opens, three grim-faced hoodlums are driving down a dirt road in the Belgian countryside, on their way to the home of a scientist. When they get there, they force him to mold the liquid metal that is bubbling away in his lab. The hoods, wearing suits and gloves (of course), instruct the scientist to make plates that will become the cigarette cases, which they have him coat in sterling silver. Then they shoot him and make it look like suicide.

Martin the thief comes into possession of one of the cases, through his fence, a jeweler. The hoodlums' boss, a Belgian big shot, wants to get his hands on it for political blackmail, but so does a Russian secret agent and also the Belgian IBCurly.

The big shot's girl, half his age, is tired of being treated like an afterthought. He gives her plenty of stolen trinkets, but she thinks he's cheap: "You get them at a discount, just like everything in your life." She wants a "real man" and falls for Chuck Martin, though it can't last. You just can't smile all the time at a romantic Belgian chick. This one is good because the director keeps the action moving, and because it has a cold war stealth-metal premise. Sheldon Lawrence holds his own against well-known European actors like Anton Diffring, and there are brief subplots, like the kidnap and torture of the Russian agent by the hoodlums. It would've been nice (as usual) if they'd developed the importance of the experimental metal, and spent less time on the handsomeness and the romance, but then they'd have had to fork over for a better screenwriter and we might not have been treated to Sheldon Lawrence. 

The movie was made by a group called Butcher's Films, which - I mean, you're taking a chance calling your company Butcher's Films, aren't you? Think of the critics waiting to pounce: "they've butchered yet another one!" But this flick is good, and it's all shot on location in late '50s Belgium, not a place that would top your vacation bucket list, perhaps, but interesting to look at onscreen.. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Mark of the Phoenix", the picture is widescreen and very good.  //// 

The previous night, we had our other Sheldon Lawrence feature, "Black Tide"(1958), with an atypical set-up: two swimmers are competing to cross the English Channel. One, "Danny Parker" (Lawrence), is professional, though he's making his first Channel swim. Ditto for the other swimmer, "Kitty Tyndall" (Joy Webster), an amateur. John Ireland plays Danny's brother "Griff" and is also his trainer. Danny likes Kitty and takes her under his wing. They do a 2 mile practice sprint together, and she flirts with him but seems nervous. Her British trainer is worried that she's distracted from her goal. Danny is falling for her and asks her to come to America when the Channel swim is over. Then, the day before, she disappears for several hours. Her trainer is now quite concerned. Griff tells him not to worry. "With athletes you've gotta give 'em some rope, gotta know when to lay back on the discipline."

Kitty returns late in the day, happier than before and ready to take on the Channel. We know where she went and why she's happy. Now comes the morning of the swim, and it's good stuff cinematically, because they're really swimming the Channel, all greased up and the works. The starting point is Butlin's Channel Camp (you've probably heard of England's series of Butlin's Holiday Camps. All English families have summered at a Butlin's, and Ringo was playing at one while in Rory Storm's band when he was hired to be in The Beatles). The water in the Channel is heaving and choppy, the fog thick as pea soup. No wonder England ruled the waves and the world. You've gotta be a tough people to live up against the frigid North Atlantic.

What's the deal with the Pacific ocean? The non-violent ocean? No wonder Hawaiians are so mellow. Anyhow, when they do swim the Channel, it's the best part of the movie. Their trainers are following them in rowboats, and there's a larger monitor boat making it official. A swimmer is disqualified if he or she touches any boat. They must be careful in the fog so they don't get lost. The current can pull them five miles off course. Something happens whilst the two (david) schwimmers are making the crossing. I shant tell you what, but it leads one of them to quit before they finish. This is the kind of plot I usually describe in detail, but because I like the Channel swim so much, I'm gonna leave it for you to see for yourself.

The one thing I will say, concerning what happens, is that there's no guesswork involved. John Ireland, whose character avoids women because "they're bad for athletes, they make you lose your focus", ends up with the beautiful hotel concierge (Maureen Connell), and they team up to solve the mystery of why the crossing wasn't completed. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Black Tide". Sheldon Lawrence is more serious in this one, but still smiles at every opportunity and the picture is also widescreen and very good.  ////

That's all for the moment. I apologise for the less-detailed-than-normal reviews this time, but I've been working very hard on one of my two upcoming books (due later this year or early next year), and I'm a little short on time and somewhat bleary-eyed. My blogging music is still Van Der Graaf - "H to He" again, and my late night is still Handel's Aetsi. Talk about your binges: I can't stop listening to Handel Operas. He's the Wagner of 2023. I hope you had a nice day and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

Edward Underdown and Natasha Perry in "The Dark Man", and "Night of the Prowler" starring Patrick Holt and Bill Nagy

Last night's film was "The Dark Man (1951), a Veddy Brrrittish thrill-ah about a kill-ah stalking his only witness. This is the kind of villain the Brits loved to depict in the 50s and early 60s: a tall, handsome but expressionless killer in a tailored black suit, wearing gloves and sometimes black plastic Michael Caine glasses from National Health, who drives a black sedan and uses a small automatic pistol, the kind with a retractable loader. It's an "efficient" gun and therefore (say it with me) Veddy Brrrittish, rather than a big-barrelled, John Wayne Colt 45 revolver. That would be way too vulgar. and the thing is, the British killer is always far more ruthless, determined and unstoppable than the one in an American movie, who is most often a cowboy or a psycho. The British guy is sometimes an assassin, but regardless of his professional status, he usually just wants money (probably to buy more suits, or he's saving up for a yacht), but he'll kill anyone in his way and in cold blood, dispassionately, whereas the American Colt 45 guy is always gonna rage and give a self-righteous speech. The killer in question tonight, as the movie opens, has taken a taxi to a remote country lane, one of those dirt roads out in the English boondocks from Robin Hood times. He has the driver stop at an old house, then he goes inside and robs an old guy of a ton of dough in his safe. Then he shoots him with his efficient, non-vulgar gun.

One of the dead man's friends goes to the police with some info. "He was a 'sepia' market (not black market) pork dealer." (there's a new one for ya, sepia market pork, get it cheap!). Well, that's a good tip, but Skeertlynd Yeeerd has a better one: a witness, a young lady who was riding by on her bike when the killer left the scene. She saw him shoot the taxi driver to eliminate him as a witness, but he saw her too, and now he's trying to track her down. The witness is a stage actress. She doesn't seem too worried about the man finding her. "He couldn't have seen my face, just as I didn't see his. we were too far apart." But the inspector on the case insists on protecting her anyway, and all of a sudden, they're going to the beach together, then smooching. It's not the smoothest romantic transition ever, and it feels like the filmmakers threw it in for I-don't-know-why, because thriller-fan butts were already in seats. No reason to toss in a romance if you didn't need it.

But it does set up the damsel-in-distress motif, even if it isn't well developed. The killer finally locates the actress in a boarding house and knocks her unconcho, then he pulls the gas line on the stove to make it look like a suicide. But a dog out back is barking up a storm, and the cops arrive just before she succumbs to the gas.

By now, several bystanders have seen the killer leave the house. They point the inspector in his direction, and the chase is on for the last 20 minutes. He runs out of real estate on - of all places - a Veddy Brrrittish Army artillery range. Howitzer squads are blasting away at targets and the killer, normally unflappable (and always besuited), is momentarily thrown for a loss. He does get his mojo back, but by now, the inspector has enlisted the Howitzer men, and the whole brigade, in a lengthwise arm-to-arm search for the killer. A shootout on the beach ends the movie.

It's good, but why the romance? Could've been tighter, and they could've given the killer at least a little more personality. He's a cipher in a suit. Still, Two Bigs for the excellent English location scenes and the ominous, in-your-face Rolls Royce grill shots coming at you on the highway that the Brits also love : the menacing auto, it's going to run you down! They love their giant grills, do the Brits. "The Dark Man" isn't classic but it's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night, we had a murder mystery set against a race car test drive background that unfortunately wasn't high octane. I can find something to like like in almost any movie, as long as it's in black-and-white and runs no more than 95 minutes (60 is best). But, while I tried, there just wasn't much happening in "Night of the Prowler"(1962), a title that led me to expect a break-'n-enter plot, not a romantic triangle amid the attempted takeover of a race car company. See if you like it better than I did:

"Robert Langton" (Patrick Holt) owns the company. His top test driver is "Paul Conrad" (Bill Nagy). Langton and his wife are separated, she's seeing Conrad now, but it's amicable on all sides. There's a big test run of a new race car coming up, that, if successful, will mean a huge payoff for the company, a contract with an engine builder. But prior to the test, the chairman of the board is shot dead. Who did it and why? A note arrives from a guy named Layton, who used to work at the company as a mechanic but went to prison for embezzlement. Layton claims he's the killer, and he's just been paroled, so he could be. He says that the chairman was only the first victim; he's gonna get everyone at the company who testified against him. Paul Conrad is supposed to be next. Layton fixes the brakes on Conrad's test car, but Conrad has another appointment that day and gives the test to another driver, who is almost killed when the brakes fail.

Conrad and Langton are on alert now. We never see Layton, only a figure in a trench coat who runs around shooting at people, then runs off again, unexposed. An inspector is on the case, querying all and sundry, including Langton's wife and Conrad , who for a while you think have set something up with Layton to get rid of Robert Langton, the owner. He, in turn, also has a sometime girlfriend, much younger than him, who - in an obvious red herring move - he dumps unceremoniously and with maximum cynicism, totally out of character and of plot. Please Mr. Custer, I don't wanna go. 

Listen; I just tried to make it sound interesting, and that is the basic plot. But the direction is phoned in. Much of the movie is about this lukewarm romantic triangle that isn't romantic nor triangular. There's a scene where Langton's separated wife and her boyfriend Conrad the test driver are kissing, and you can see that either the actors are uncomfortable with each other or the entire crew just wanted to get the shoot overwith. Seriously, watch that kiss. How many times have you seen a movie kiss that awkward? Well, anyhow.

Hey! How often do we have a movie we didn't care for? Less than 1% of the time? And I didn't dislike this flick, but there wasn't anything to hold me to it either. The whole thing felt phoned, as mentioned, and the schcript couldn't have been weaker. Grand Prix racing was a big deal in 1962, maybe someone thought it would make a good backdrop for some "hit your markers" performances by the "just put the check in the mail" cast. I want to, but I just can't give it Two Big Thumbs Up. Maybe you can, that's why I'm asking you to watch it, because this rarely happens. The picture is very good.  ////

And that's all I know. Tonight's blogging music was "Still Life" by VDGG, my late night is again Handel's Aetsi Opera. I hope you had a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

Cyril Shaps in "The Pursuers", and "Discarded Lovers" starring Natalie Moorehead and Jason Robards (plus Van Der Graaf Generator)

Last night, we watched "The Pursuers"(1961), a Veddy Brrrittsh Nazi Hunter movie made the year they captured Eichmann. As it opens, a team of male Auschwitz survivors meets in secret in London. Their leader has called them together on a tip that a commandant from the death camp named "Karl Brochmann" (Cyril Shaps) is living and working in the city under an assumed name. They aren't certain it's him; no one has actually seen the man now calling himself Karl Luther. He has an office and secretary, though it isn't specified what he does. The group leader says they won't be able to apprehend and extradite him, as was done with Eichmann in Argentina: "The English won't allow it, they'd try him themselves, and we can't kidnap and sneak him out, too risky with MI5 around. Still, we must believe in justice if it is indeed Herr Brochmann."

He's insinuating they'll have to liquidate him and then hightail it out of the country. The first order of business is to get a look at Luther and decide if he is Brochmann. A team member named "David" (Francis Matthews) volunteers for the job, having been a prisoner at Auschwitz when Brochmann was commandant. He goes to Luther's business, observes him and believes he is Brochmann, then he breaks into his apartment, trashes it to spook him, and draws swastikas on Luther's mirrors and windums to spook him even more.When Luther gets home and sees this, he calls the cops, who show up, inspect the scene (Luther has wiped away the swastikas) but write it off as nothing more than a run of the mill burglary. But Luther/Brochmann knows otherwise. Eichmann has just been caught. Nazi hunters are in the news. When the cops won't provide him a 24 hour guard ("for a burglary? I can't spare an officer", says the captain) Luther appeals to several of his compatriots, other ex-Nazis who are hiding in plaint sight in London under new identities. One owns a restaurant. another has a business, a third is a TV director, but none of them will help or hide him. In fact, they want no association with Luther because they aren't the ones being hunted. Luther is on his own.

Scared, he ditches his car in a lumberyard and goes to a club for a few drinks to calm his nerves. There he meets the club's singer "Jenny" (Susan Denny), who at first appears to be a prostitute on the side. Luther offers her money if she will take him home, and when they get there she starts taking her clothes off. In older movies, "nightclub singer" usually signifies "prostitute", so that's the insinuation, but Luther tells her he just wants to talk. "I'm on the run. I can't tell you all the details, but some men are trying to kill me."

Jenny can sympathize and there's the rub: "I know what that feels like. I am Jewish and was in Auschwitz during the war. I will gladly help hide you." And she does, right up til the end of the movie. It's an hour long. and very well done, the only problem being that it's all about the pursuit, hence the title. There's little mystery about the identity of Luther, if he is or is not Commandant Brochmann, and we never see the other team members again, only David. The movie starts by saying "we aren't sure if it's Brochmann", which leads you to ex-schpect a mystery element: "is it him, or isn't it?" But then we go straight to "it IS him" when David ransacks his home. After that, it's just a matter of time til he is caught by his pursuer, so the movie is all about the character being on the run, and the irony of a Jewish lady hiding him.

But it's really good in that way, and the paranoia level is high, so Two Big Thumbs Up for those attributes. An Elstree Studio production, technically sound and with an early '60s jazz score, it's recommended and the picture is very good.  //// 

The previous night, we found a good pre-Coder called "Discarded Lovers"(1932), starring Natalie Moorhead as a movie star who goes through men like wardrobe changes. As the movie opens, she's making a movie (isn't that nifty?). Her co-star is her current husband, a former leading man who's become a drunken shadow of himself after years of Natalie's cheating. On set, the director admonishes him following several flubbed takes. He finally gets his lines right, but then slaps Natalie after the scene is over. "Now you all know why I'm getting a divorce!", she announces to the crew and storms off. But when you see what she's like, you feel for her husband. Boy is she a tramp, and an arrogant one, too.

Now, an ex-friend of Hubby's is her sideline boyfriend. This guy is so enamored with Natalie that he puts up with her teasing promise to "enjoy" as many men as possible when she goes on her next publicity tour. Man, is this ever some super pre-Code stuff. The new boyfriend doesn't care who she sleeps with, just as long as she comes back to him, which she does not promise to do. Then there's the screenwriter of her current film. She's got him on the hook too. He tailors her dialogue, gives her all the best lines, and she throws him crumbs of attention. 

An entertainment reporter is also on the set. He doesn't fall for Natalie but for her pretty secretary "Valerie" (Barbara Weeks), a nice gal who serves as a witness when Natalie turns up dead in her car about halfway through the film. She cheated on so many guys, and was so haughty to everyone she worked with, that anyone in the movie could be the killer. A big, brutish Keystone Cop takes over the investigation. He seems to be channeling Curly Howard, but is even dumber. When the killer is finally revealed, you'll think "it made sense all along". Featuring Jason Robards Sr. as the boyfriend, "Discarded Lovers" gets Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is very good.  ////  

And that's all for this Friday evening. I'm on a big Van Der Graaf/Peter Hammill kick for the past couple of weeks. I've had four such "immersions" this year, beginning with Cream. Then it was The Nice, then Traffic. That one was major league, and turned Traffic into one of my favorite bands. Now it's VDGG, who have been one of my favorite bands since I heard "Godbluff" in 1975. I'll always remember taking the bus to Moby Disc in Van Nuys to buy a copy of that album. Me and the late, great Mike B. thought "The Undercover Man" was just about the greatest song ever made. I bought "Still Life" the following year, and that was a great album, too. Somewhere in between or afterward, I bought "H to He: Who Am the Only One", another Van Der Graaf classic. But after 1977, progressive rock started to die out, due to punk and the commercialization of the music industry. ELP broke up. I got into Rush and Van Halen, then metal in the 80s, and 90s music in the 90s. But something about Van Der Graaf Generator always stuck with me, even though I barely listened to progressive rock for twenty years. In about 2000 or so, when I got back into it, one of the first things I did was re-acquire the three VDGG albums I mentioned. Then, needing more, I took a chance and bought "Pawn Hearts." Would it be as good as the others? Holy smokes.

When I originally got into the band, I stopped at the three albums I mentioned. Don't know why, but it was probably that I wasn't aware of their other albums and there were so many groups in those days and limited funds to buy albums. And "Godbluff" was so great, maybe I was worried they couldn't match it, I don't know. But anyhow, I bought "Pawn Hearts" in 2000, then "The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other", and finally "The Aerosol Grey Machine", the band's first album, made in 1969, when Peter Hammill was 20 years old. David Jackson was the band's old man at 22. Those early albums are so freakin' great. Not only do they match the band's best work, they hold up 50-plus years later and I can't stop listening to 'em this week. It's safe to say that Hammill and Co. have six certified masterpieces under their belts, and there's just something about the VDGG sound (even besides Hammill's incredible voice and lyrics) that stays with me. I never get tired of listening to them. The same goes for Peter Hammill's solo work. And it all goes back to that first time of hearing "Godbluff" and "The Undercover Man", and being gobsmacked, as the Veddy Brrrittish say, by the Shakespearean-ness of it all. 

My blogging music tonight is "The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other" (especially the song "White Hammer"), my late night is Handel's Aetsi Opera, I wish you a good weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

Preston Foster and Frank Jenks in "The Lady in the Morgue", and "Get That Man" starring Wallace Ford (plus Brady and Ozzy)

Last night we had Preston Foster in "The Lady in the Morgue"(1938). I'm trying to think who we can compare him to. He's big, with a manly face and wavy hair. He's got clear, wide set eyes and a radio announcer's voice, and a devil-may-care attitude. He can take or leave the ladies, and they feel the same way about him, even though you'd assume it would be the opposite in both cases. He always plays a private eye, and he's quick with a wisecrack. Any comparisons? I wanna say Tom Selleck, but Selleck has a high voice and that mustache, and isn't as laid back as Foster. In fact, Selleck is a lousy comparison. Try to think of someone while you're reading the review. Well anyhow, on to the movie. It's a plot heavy (maybe too heavy) murder mystery involving a missing woman.

First off, there's a female body in the morgue, as yet unidentified. A chiseler named "Steve Collins" (Joe Downing) has been told his wife committed suicide. "She could be the broad in the morgue" says his associate. "Yeah, maybe," says Collins. He knows she was cheating on him, but doesn't think she killed herself. He thinks her boyfriend killed her and made it look like suicide. But is she the lady in the morgue? "Go down there and find out", he tells the associate.

Meanwhile, at the offices of Strom Investigations, bossman "Strom" (Thomas E. Jackson) is drilling Private Eye "Bill Crane" (Foster) on the same set of circumstances. "There's a lady in the morgue, and our client (who's name is kept private), wants to know if it's her daughter. They're society people and can't be associated with a suicide, and the client can't be seen at a morgue, so you go down there. The daughter was a blonde, but it could be peroxide."

Crane goes to the morgue, and two other men are there: Steve Collins' buddy, and a reporter who's out for a scoop.Then a fourth man shows up, a cabbie named "Courtland" (played by our Western pal Wild Bill Elliott, hooray!). All of them ask to see the body, but then the morgue assistant is found dead. Man, this is gonna get so convoluted I don't know if I can continue. It was the second entry in Universal's Crime Club series, and while the plot is very good, you've gotta be a chess player to stay on top of it. For one thing, the personalities are gonna distract you, especially that of Foster (have you figured out who he reminds you of yet?) and perpetual wisenheimer Frank Jenks, of whom we've seen a lot lately. Jenks plays another private eye from Strom's agency who teams up with Foster to solve the case.

Wild Bill Elliott is my favorite guy in the movie. We loved him in the Red Ryder westerns we saw last year, and it took me a minute to recognise him here because we've never seen him in a suit. It was his deadpan delivery that gave him away, and those smilin' Chinese eyes. All the best cowboys have 'em, according to Pete Townshend, and Wild Bill Elliott is definitely one of the best. But it's Preston Foster's movie. A few pre-Code babes appear, some are red herrings, one is a prime clue.

Watch it for the style and odd pacing which is forward moving but casual at the same time, making room for repartee over crime solving where necessary. Nothing gets in the way of Frank Jenks, not murder nor extraneous brain cells. Two Bigs. Bonus points if you follow the plot all the way through, but only you will know if you actually did it, so be honest with yourself and don't cheat. The picture is very good.  ////

The previous night belonged to early '30s good guy Wallace Ford in a dual role crime-up called "Get That Man"(1935). A private eye named "Malone" (E. Alyn Warren) runs a workshop for victims, including live identification lineups behind two-way glass. Dunno how he has the same power as the cops, (maybe he's working with them), but anyway, at one of the lineups, an ex-con bank robber (Ford) is serving as a decoy. When he's let go by Malone, he drives himself, his wife, and a friend (Leon Ames) all the way to a cabin camp resort for a short vacation. "450 miles is a lot of driving" he says when they arrive, then gets ready to take a nap. But just before he falls asleep, he sees Ames and his wife making out. "I should've known," he says, and starts a punchout that ends in his death.

Now the wife and Ames are on the run. He adopts a new look and identity as "Mr. Macdonald", a college professor. As we know, college professors are often psychos under their rweed coats, and Ames is no different. Meanwhile, we find out that "Malone" the private eye is crooked. As a side business, he chases down missing heirs to inform them of their inheritance, for which he charges a finder's fee. One of the heirs on his list has turned up dead, and he looked exactly like Wallace Ford. Remembering Wallace Ford the taxi driver/ex-bank robber from his line-up, he calls him to come back to the office, then blackmails him into helping with his scheme to collect the inheritance money, because Ford the cabbie is a dead ringer for Ford the deceased heir. This one might be even more convoluted than "The Lady in the Morgue."

Anyhow, with cabbie Ford now towing the line, Malone sets his scheme in motion. Cabbie Ford poses as the missing heir, who's dead so there's no possibility of him messing up their plan. Everything is going fine and dandy when cabbie Ford introduces himself at the family mansion. His aunt welcomes him, and the real heir's half-sister is thrilled to meet him: "It's so wonderful to finally meet my brother." These rich people are so nice that cabbie Ford feels guilty about stealing a faked inheritance, but private eye Malone has no such scruples. Meanwhile, Leon Ames and dead Ford's wife are back in the game. After hearing about cabbie Ford trying to collect the inheritance, they show up at the mansion and try blackmailing Malone, who's there as cabbie Ford's "lawyer" to make sure the inheritance goes smoothly. But he blackmails them in return by telling them he knows about a certain murder. It gets more than a tad confusing because the two Fords are not clearly delineated in the beginning, but it makes sense as it goes along, then it gets damn good.

There are some location scenes that are definitely Valley (as determined by the mountains), and the road they are driving has gotta be Burbank Boogalord going through what is now the wilderness basin, and it's awesome because there's nothing out there but trees. I love seeing locations from 90 years ago, but yeah - this film has a good plot, once Leon Ames (a big mofo who we know better as Judy Garland's Dad in "Meet Me in St. Louis.") starts blackmailing people. Two Bigs and a high recommendation, but eat your Wheaties before watching so you don't lose the plot. The picture is very good.  ////  

That's all for tonight. I was sorry to see two of the greats retire on the same day today, Tom Brady and Ozzy Osbourne. For years, I was one of the biggest Brady haters (because he beat the Rams in the 2002 Super Bowl), but as time went by, it could no longer be denied that he was indeed the greatest quarterback of all time, and in recent years I rooted for him to win Super Bowls. I thought he was gonna give it at least one more year and try to go out on top with one final SB victory, but 45 is 45, and time even catches up with Tom Brady. There will never be another one like him, and the same goes for Ozzy, who announced his retirement from touring today. I was fortunate to see him six times with Black Sabbath (including at the California Jam, my first concert), and about the same amount of times with his solo band, including twice with Randy Rhoads. I also went out to lunch with Ozzy in Beverly Hills in January 1983, for an interview with Jon S. (I was Jon's photographer). That was such a great day. Ozzy had short hair then, having cut it all off after Randy died. He had just gotten his large "demon" tattoo on his chest and wanted to show it off. I took pictures. I kind of lost track of his music after Jake E. Lee was fired. I saw the Zack Wilde version of the band once, and wasn't as big of a fan. It was too "metal" and not as melodic, but I've liked the songs I've heard from Ozzy's recent album. I do wish they'd never made a cartoon character out of him twenty years ago with "The Osbournes" (and I think Ozzy regrets it, too), because he's a very intelligent guy behind all the goofy stunts. And the drugs and alcohol, which he finally defeated, thank goodness. Mostly, he was one hell of a singer, and no one who heard him on his records or live will ever forget his voice, it was - and is - one of a kind. So God Bless Ozzy, and let's hope he lives on, even without touring, for a long time to come, and in as good of health as possible given his various ailments.  ////

My blogging music tonight is "World Record" by Van Der Graaf Generator, and my late night is Handel's Siroy, King of Persia opera. I hope your week is going well and I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)