Susan Shaw in "The Diplomatic Corpse", and "Faces in the Dark" starring John Gregory and John Ireland

Last night, we had another guy-and-gal reporter duo trying to solve a murder, this time of a diplomat who gets clobbered and thrown overboard on a docked ship. "The Diplomatic Corpse"(1958) is thus an apt title, as, at first, the body is unidentified. Then a young Persian woman visits Scotland Yard (pron.) asking about her missing fiance. He's got a phonetically unusual name, Shafhad Farhoud, and because this movie is super talky, it reminds one of another of the talkiest movies of all time, "A Few Good Men", in which the characters say "Santiago" about 100,000 times, and "Code Red" perhaps double that.

In this movie, for the first half hour it's "Shafhad Farhoud" this, and "Shafhad Farhoud" that. "Are you telling me the body IS Shafhad Farhoud, or is NOT Shafhad Farhoud?!"

Saniago! Code Red! Santiago! Code Red! Jack Nicholson was so obnoxious in that flick he should've been arrested for his performance.

The movie gets interesting when an eyewitness to the murder enters, a witty, small time, well-dressed Cockney crook (Harry Fowler), who just so happened to recover the briefcase that was thrown overboard with the dead man. The crook is willing to spill his info to the reporters (not the cops) but for a price, which is negotiable. He says that besides money, 1000 pounds, there was heroin in the case. "Junk, smack, you know - narcotics". The fact that it's a diplomatic courier case is a plot-thickener, even more so when a detective visits the embassy and is reminded that it is, by diplomatic treaty, foreign soil (sovereign to a fictional Middle Eastern country,) which is of course how Julian Assange and that Snowden commie were able to hide out until they busted them. 

It becomes pretty clear that the embassy chief is running drugs, even moreso when Shafhad Farhoud's fiance gets pushed under an oncoming subway train. But then, intrepid gal reporter "Jenny Drew" (Susan Shaw) gets too clever in competing with her would be boyfriend/male counterpart, and applies to be a replacement secretary for the dead fiance, who worked at the embassy. Jenny gets the job, posing as a "Miss Jones", but then the embassy chief traps her in a ruse, discovers she's from the press, and kidnaps her, again on the grounds that, even though he's in England, his embassy is technically his home country's soil. Now her boyfriend and the police chief have to figure a way to get her out before the dope dealing ambassadors murdalise her and toss her in the ocean like they did with Shafhad Farhoud. Their solution to the problem of embassy/foreign soil/immunity is very novel. The last half redeems the Sorkin-like phrase repetition of the first half.

Shafhad Farhoud! to you! Two Bigs, razor sharp.  ////

The previous night's movie was "Faces in the Dark", in which "Richard Hammond" (John Gregory), a brilliant inventor, has designed a new super powered light bulb that will set a new standard. He won't share it with the corporate powers, however, and they threaten to do a Jeff Bridges/Coppola trip on him. Before that can happen, he is blinded when a test bulb "brighter than the sun" explodes and blinds him. Now the movie becomes the study of a blind man's fear of everyone coveting his empire. His brother Max (John Ireland) shows up at the country mansion to which he's been moved by his wife (Mai Zetterling), and because she plays ice cold European blondes, you know shes up to no good. This is reinforced by her more-than-familiar acquaintance with "David Merton" (Michael Denison), Hammond's business partner, who's always felt like a useless second banana to the genius. This is their revenge, to steal his invention now that Hammond is blind, and they do a superb job of gaslighting him through and through. getting him to sign contracts he can't see, stealing everything he has. They encourage him to trust them, saying, "The doctors say your accident may have affected your mind as well as your eyes." In other words, "you're crazy as well as blind". Hammond has increased olfactory and aural sensations now, and hears bells where no bells should be heard, and smells pine where no pine trees should be.

His cat has no tail. a maid unknowingly says its a tabby, but his cat is black. Where is he? Has his wife and her boyfriend David Merton spirited him away to some unknown house and disguised it to seem like his own? The only man he trusts is his chauffeur, who's nervous about being trapped between warring rich people. Brother Max is an alcoholic, womanizing, cocktail lounge pianist, and we can't tell if he has Hammond's best interests in mind, or if he's jealous and in on the gaslighting, money-stealing plot. But then he turns up super-dooper dead, which answers that freaking question.

Ultimately, we see that the plot is not gonna have any twists (although I thought his sight might come back, like in a Gilligan's Island-type deal where he has one accident that takes away his sight, then another one that brings it back).

Wifey and David try poisoning him. Much of the movie is actor John Gregory portraying a blind man alone with evil-doers and trying to survive in their company. In this case, the doers are his wife and business partner, who have to work up the courage to finish him off, and they don't have the stones to just blow him off the map, so they try poison, but Hammond is on to them and says "I'm not hungry". Finally, they take him for a drive and he wakes up in a hospital in France (pron. Frawnce). and that's all I am going to tell you. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Faces in the Dark", though it could've been Two Huge with a little more plot twisting. Still very good, if long at 81 minutes. The picture is widescreen and razor sharp.  ////  

Now then, in considering the night of September 1st, 1989, we must put more stock in Dave Small's appearance at Northridge Hospital, in the parking lot, after Lillian was attacked by Howard Schaller. That was a first-generation memory, coming back to me in 1997, that Dave and his brother Gary had stood over Lillian and I on the pavement, and made an obscene gesture, as if they were acting out part of a game, like it was something they were told to do. To give context, Lillian had fainted after Howard Schaller slapped her. I was kneeling over her, and Dave and Gary Small walked up, though Gary's presence is not now important. The important point is that for years I never considered that memory as being crucial, but I now see that it is extremely crucial because it puts Dave Small among the first responders to the scene, on the very first night of The Event, just one to two hours after I was stun-gunned. It puts Dave there with Howard Schaller and Lillian, which means that Dave Small was one of the first people contacted, in phone calls that began from Terry's apartment. The first call might've been to paramedics. Lillian called Ann and may have called Lys (or Ann called Lys). I've always thought the Security Thug called Howard Schaller (or the apartment manager did). And someone called Dave Small. And it had to be either Howard or Lillian. As for Terry, the only person he would've called was his Mom. But someone called Dave Small, because he was at Northridge Hospital, in the parking lot shortly following Howard's attack. After 1997, and as the years went on, I didn't think much of Dave's presence that night because I had not yet connected him to Howard Schaller and Lillian. But now, the connections are popping up right and left, and I have re-examined his appearance. Dave was there at Northridge Hospital, he was one of the first responders, and that was because he was connected to Howard Schaller and Lillian, and one of the two of them called him. Straight up.

We must also consider how Dave Small, in May 1990, asked me if I wanted to work at Mr. B's Flowers over the Mother's Day weekend as a bookkeeper. I said yes, but he later let it slip that Lillian had called him to ask if he would help get me a job, even a temporary one. So there's another Lillian/Dave Small connection, and it happened at a time when I personally had little contact with Dave, who in 1990 was being reclusive with Kelly at the Burton Street house. But Lillian apparently did have contact with him. Prior to that, she took me in April 1990 to see a movie called "I Love You to Death", in which a wife tries repeatedly to kill her oblivious husband. We both found it amusing, and she even remarked, "what if I did that to you?" or something to that effect, to test the waters and see how my amnesia was holding up. 

She needn't have worried. My amnesia was Full Strength in those days. I was as oblivious as Kevin Kline in the movie.

Also interesting, concerning Dave and Lillian, is that Dave and Kelly turned up at an opening weekend screening of the first Batman movie, likely on June 24th, 1989, at the UA Theater in Granada Hills, located at Chatsworth and Zelzah streets. Let us give some background. Spring 1989 was a time of great mistrust, on my part, toward Lillian. I've mentioned some of her infamous Spring Break antics, and the Pool Party at Concord Square. There was also Lillian's CSUN graduation that she insisted Terry come to, and by June, I'd had enough. She was going to France, on a vacation as a graduation present from her Dad, and, on the night before she left, I said "have a nice f-king vacation" and got out of her car and slammed the door. Now, I immediately regretted it, and I spent the two weeks she was gone stewing and worrying, and when she got back, I called her. She said, "can I write you a letter instead?" I said yes, and she sent me what I'll call an ultimatum letter that is postmarked June 23, 1989 (I still have it, and it's crucial).

In that letter, she asked me to stop drinking. I agreed to stop and did so that very day, because I didn't want to lose her. In the letter, she also hinted at a potential breakup down the road, saying, "in time, I may want to see other people" (oh, the irony). What is most crucial in that letter, is that she acknowledged appearing "aloof or distant" at the time, but added, as a qualifier, "please just understand I'm scared of what's to come."

That's a straight-up admission that Lillian knew something scary was coming, and it did come two months later. That letter can be further dissected and we will do so when we write our book.

But as for Dave Small and his then-girlfriend Kelly, and the context of their attendance at "Batman" on June 24th, 1989, I had received Lillian's ultimatum letter just the day before, or maybe that day, because it was postmarked June 23rd. I called her immediately after reading it, and said "I've just quit drinking" (meaning "please don't leave me"), and at first she was nice, but non-committal. But then, a short while later (less than an hour) she called me back, very forgiving, and said, "Let's go to a movie". We always went to movies, they were our dates. Lilly chose Batman, which was new and had huge advance ratings. So we went, and after the movie, lo and behold! - there sat Dave and Kelly, directly behind us. Dave Small - who I hardly ever saw from 1988 to 1993, and the only places I ever saw him in those years (besides one brief visit to Burton Street on Halloween night 1988), was when I was with Lillian, either at Terry's apartment during the infamous Spring Break, or that June afternoon seeing "Batman" at the theater.

Add these things to the mix, and especially add his first-responder appearance at Northridge Hospital on the night of September 1st, and you've got a compendium of connections between Dave Small and Lillian, going all the way back to February 1982, and Lilly's notice of the loose glass at our rehearsal studio, just prior to the Zilch robbery.

Now, let's switch gears for a minute and look at the evil David Friedman. 

First of all, I did not see the evil David Friedman for many years, between June 1994 and about late Summer 1999. 1994 is of course the year my memories began coming back, albeit in fragmented, fragile form, which confused the hell out of me. Initially, I thought they had to do with the film Dave Small and I were making at the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, but that's a whole 'nuther story. In 1994, I called David Friedman a whole bunch of derogatory names, which, at the time, was my intuition talking, sensing he was a bad guy but not knowing exactly why, because in those early days I didn't yet remember what he'd done to me in September 1989 (for which he is now rightly dubbed "evil"). So, I called him names intuitively, and he didn't come over or call for several years. I basically didn't see him for five years.

By 1998, I'd discovered the Internet (in those days called the World Wide Web). I'd already started blogging, on the old Delphi site, and in one of my blogs I proposed a new game show which I called "Who Wants To Be a Zillionaire?" The actual show with Regis debuted in August 1999, so it's around that time I created my version. But what happened was that, in my blog, one of my hypothetical contestants was "David Greedman."

Well, howdy-doody and pass the apple pie, because who should call my Mom's apartment the very next day, but David Friedman himself? I hadn't heard from him for five years, hadn't spoken to him, yet he not only knew I was living with my Mom, but knew her number (which may have been in the phone book, but he still knew I lived there, and I hadn't told him). Now then, I'm not sure, but I think the mention of his Game Show Name did come up. He might've said "David Greedman, eh?" (not finding it funny), or I might've said "Hmm, you're not calling 'cause you read my blog, are you?" Either way, it was obvious he'd read it, and that's what prompted him to call. But in addition to never telling him I lived with Mom, or giving him her phone number, I also never gave him my blog URL. Which means that someone else did.

That call brought David Friedman back into my life, and he started calling so much that Mom and I even invented a game, called "Dad, Friedman, or Nobody." Whenever Mom's phone rang, it was only ever one of three people calling: My Dad, David Friedman, or a solicitor, and because we always screened the calls, and because solicitors never say anything unless you pick up, the solicitor calls became known as "Nobody." So, for our game, we had a piece of notebook paper, on which I'd drawn three columns, one each for "Dad," "Friedman," and "Nobody". And every time the phone rang, I'd call out to Mom, "Dad, Friedman or Nobody?" and she'd make her guess. I'd make mine, and when the answering machine picked up, the answer would be revealed. Then I'd make a check mark by the correct caller, under Mom's name or mine, and that's how we kept score. I think Mom won the game over the many months we played it.

But David Freidman was connected to Dave Small, and to Terry and Kelly. It's very interesting that, during the downtime when I didn't see him, David Friedman was the only one of the old Circle of Friends to attend Terry and Kelly's wedding. I believe it took place around 1998-99. David Friedman knew Terry, of course, but he rarely hung out at Concord Square. He and Terry never palled around and went to movies or concerts. They were acquaintances, at best, connected by a liking for marijuana. But out of the blue, there's David Friedman as the only friend at Terry's wedding. He also went to Disneyland with them, too.

David Friedman also worked at Mr. B's Flowers, briefly, around 1982-83, with Dave Small. And as we've already seen, David was a big-time cocaine user and the right-hand man of the demonic Gary Patterson. And Dave Small was connected to Howard Schaller, who lived around the corner from Mr. B's and came in on a regular basis.      

Terry, Dave Small, and Mr. Friedman are all dead now. All three have ties to Kelly (two by relationship), of whom Lillian once said, when I told her about Terry and Kelly, "It's funny who winds up with who."

Something is up with these connections. Then there is Shecky, who came to 9032 for that phony intervention the friends pulled on me in May 1994, when there was absolutely no reason for him to be there. We'll have to examine him more closely, as he is from Chicago, Lillian's favorite city. But for now, I'll leave you with a song Shecky used to sing when I was in his band, The In-Sect, from 1991-93. David Friedman was also in that band, on keyboards, and Shecky used to like to chide him. For some reason, he always seemed to want to irk "Freedy,"as David was known, and he had a song he used to sing, which was only one line long. It was a short little song, and it had a Tom Jones/Las Vegas feel. Shecky liked to sing it in a big, booming voice, and it went, "Mister Friedman!.....Whattaya know?!"

Let me try to play it out for you, with syllables. You'll have to imagine the melody, and while you're at it, imagine a Vegas-style orchestra, with lots of swingin' brass. And forget Tom Jones. Think of someone more slick. Jack Jones maybe. Ready? Here goes: "Miss-tah Freed-mannn!......What-a-ya-Knoww?!"

Shecky used to belt that self-penned song at David Friedman almost every time we rehearsed at Sheck's house, which we did three nights a week for three years. I'd chuckle or cringe, depending on the mood, because I didn't want a rift to develop between the other two, and at times, David Friedman got visibly irritated by the song, and no doubt by the volume at which Sheck sang it. Sometimes Freedy got vocal himself over his dislike of the song. Once or twice he threatened to quit the band.

Me? I never thought of it as anything but an innocuous little tune, less-than-five-seconds-long, sung brashly by Shecky to - for some reason - get David Friedman's goat, which it invariably did.

I never thought much of it, and after the band broke up I never thought about it at all, except in passing, for the next thirty years.

But now, with all of the 1989 work we're doing, and with the recent Enormous Discovery of the meaning of another little song, belonging to a different person, Shecky's song popped into my head the other day, and I reconsidered it's lyrics.

"Mister Friedman, whattaya know?"

Or, "Mister Friedman, what do you know?"

What do you know, Mr. Friedman? That, of course, is what Shecky was chiding him with. And, oh yes, Sheck knew much about 1989. We haven't yet delved into him, but we may.....

We can't sing Shecky's song to Mr. Friedman anymore, nor can we ask Freedy what he knows, but I used to ask him things, in those early days and months when he returned to my life after reading my David Greedman blog. I used to ask him, "Don't you remember when you and Dennis drove me up to Gary Patterson's house, up in the Tujunga hills, the night he wanted to kill me?" Mr. Friedman would claim he didn't remember, which was 100% unadulterated bullshit.

One time in Fall 1997, when I'd just moved in with Mom, I ran into Dennis and his then-wife Kim at the "Coffee Cup" - shaped snack bar on Reseda Boulevard, near Prairie Street. My memories were then freshly back, my amnesia was over (though total amnesia of a weeks-long period is very difficult to recover from), and when I saw Dennis that day, I confronted him: "Hey, do you remember the time you shot me in the back of the head with a starter pistol on the sidewalk at 9032, or the time you drove me to Gary Patterson's house in the Tujunga hills on the night he wanted to kill me?"

Dennis got very nervous and said, "why don't you ask David Friedman?" Then he said "let's go, Kim."

When I used to ask David Friedman about his actions, which included driving me to the Wilbur Wash house, and also to Howard Johnson's, he denied it, which was bullshit. And then one day he said: "If you keep talking about this stuff, I'll stop coming over."

I said, "why? What's the big deal? You say you didn't do it." And it must be noted that I never hassled him about any of it, I just mentioned it casually, and I'd drop it when he repeatedly denied it (even though I knew he was lying).

So I finally just flat-out asked him, "what's wrong with just talking about it?"

His answer was, "If I talk about it, I'll become part of it."

I thought: But you already are part of it, Mr. Friedman.

I've always found his answer very unusual: "If I talk about it, I'll become part of it." 

Cue Shecky: "Miss-tah Freed-mannn! What-a-ya-Knoww?!"  ////

And that's all I know, for this Friday night at any rate. My blogging music is Van der Graaf Generator "H to He", my late night is still Handel's Julius Caesar. I wish you a great weekend, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)     

Peter Reynolds in "A Question of Suspense", and "Where Has Poor Mickey Gone?" starring John Malcolm and Warren Mitchell

A "Sleuth"-like Chess Game of Death opened last night's "A Question of Suspense"(1961) as "Frank Brigstock" (Norman Rodway) walks into Jim Tellman Drew's office at Drew's namesake real estate development company. Brigstock, the company accountant tells Drew (Peter Reynolds) he won't be subordinate to him any more. "Here's why, " he says, throwing a newspaper on Drew's desk with a headline about the discovery of forged bonds at the company's bank. "Those were the bonds you gave me to deposit, right down to the serial numbers."

Brigstock, a weak man, has Drew by the you-know-whats. But Drew, a crafty man, reminds him they've been friends since childhood. "C'mon, Frank, you don't want to blackmail me. You've known me my entire life, Remember the time we".....Drew gives him a few examples of buddy-buddy memories from whatever the Brits call high school. They had the same girlfriend. "Remember her? Sister Rose, we called her." Ahh, yes, the fond memories, before Drew became Brigstock's boss.

"Okay", says Brigstock, "I won't blackmail you, but I'll call the police! I'll see you in prison for the way you've treated me all these years, as if I were gum on your shoe!" Drew tries another tack. "Alright then Frank, how about this offer? Ill make you a full partner in the company. And, I'll give back all the forged bond money. I'll make things right all around. What, still angry? Well, don't decide now. Lets have lunch at the beach house tomorrow. We'll discuss it then over a bottle of wine." Drew's beach house is where many of their teenage memories took place, with Sister Rose.

But by now, the beach house is weather beaten and run down, even worse than Burt Lahn-cahs-tah's pad in "The Swimmer". As in that film, the house is a metaphor for Times Gone By, ah yes, if only they were half as good as Drew would have Brigstock believe. He's called Brigstock out to the beach house not only to discuss a partnership, but to confess that he's buried a lot of other stolen bonds on the property. He's memorized a "footmap" with which to locate them : three steps past the stone wall, turn left, four more steps straight ahead, then start digging. It's like a treasure map, and he does dig, but then he keeps digging and Brigstock wonders why he's digging so deep (and so rectangular). "Where's the trunk with the bonds?" he asks. "Shouldn't be much deeper," says Drew, "how bout you take a turn digging?" We next see Drew adjusting his necktie and reaching into his coat. Then the scene is cut away, but it's obvious the the dig was for a grave, Brigstock's grave, so that Drew could be rid of his old, blackmailing childhood friend.

But then who should come to visit him at his office, but Sister Rose herself? My goodness gracious. Drew wasn't counting on that. She's just Rose Marples (Noelle Middleton) now, and lo and behold, she was living with Frank Brigstock as his common-law wife. Drew never knew this! His Amazonian secretary, with whom he's having an affair, eavesdrops on every meeting he has in his office, unless he's quick enough to turn off the intercom. After a friend of Rose's says she saw Drew and Brigstock in a Jag-You-Are (automobile, Brit. pron.) near the beach house, the coppers get involved and that's all I'll deign to tell you. Jim Tellman Drew is suave and courts Rose to keep her close, so she won't discover his true nature, but of course the meek shall inherit the earth, and everything under the sun shall be revealed, including dead bodies buried at rotting beach houses. Two Big Thumbs Up for this Hitchcockian little gem. The picture is razor sharp. //// 

The previous night, we had a bit of the old ultra-violence in "Where Has Poor Mickey Gone?"(1964), which opens with a title song sung torch style by Ottilie Patterson. Now, I know that A Clockwork Orange is adapted from the Anthony Burgess book, but if Kubrick didn't see this film I'll eat my hat. Four youths terrorize the London night, beginning at a jazz club. They start off as a trio who get bounced from the club for being obnoxious, and, after breaking windows in retaliation, they are joined by an unlikely straight man, the collegiate-looking "Kip" (Christopher Robbie), who was in the same club and just had a fight with his girlfriend. Though preppy, for some reason he's attracted to the punk gang, led by "Mick" (John Malcolm), who - 100% hands-down - has got to be the model for Alex in "Clockwork". MIck's got a regular hat instead of a derby, and a suit instead of a white jumper, but the mannerisms and speech are identical (minus the Burgess lingo), and later in the movie he even dons a top hat and cane. There's a 100% chance Kubrick borrowed all of this for Alex.

John Malcolm plays Mick as a thoroughly horrible person. His sidekick "Ginger" (Raymond Armstrong) isn't much better. The third punk, named "Tim" (John Challis), is a bit of a dummy and wuss compared to Mick and Ginger, but he does whatever Mick tells him. When Kip joins them, Mick has to size him up first, but Kip is big and self confident. There really isn't a reason to have him in the film, except to show that an average, non-criminal guy can be attracted to gang violence.

The first 34 minutes are just violence and torture. Remember that movie "The Incident" with Martin Sheen and Tony Musante, where we said they should've been thrown in prison for playing those roles because the characters were so sadistic and the movie looked like real life? The first 34 minutes of this film are like that, though not near as bad. The foursome eat fish and chips, then terrorize a couple making out in an alley. They hit the guy over the head with a brick and almost kill him, and even though it's a well-made film (good acting and not as street-level real as "The Incident") you're still going, "why am I watching this?"

But then, through a basement windum, the gang observe what appears to them to be an old man (Warren Mitchell) in his junk shop, counting the day's receipts. He's putting a fair chunk of money in his lockbox, so they decide to go in and rob him. But it turns out he's a seller of props and costumes for magicians, and a former magician himself. His shop is a magic prop warehouse. Emilio the Magnificent was his stage name. The fact that he's Italian infuriates the bigoted Mick, who torments and makes sport of Emilio to amuse his compadres. They tie Emilio up and gag him when he screams, and you think they're gonna eventually kill him when Mick, a short man who gets his way by aggression, gets tired of toying with him. They drink Emilio's wine. Then they discover an early 1964 version of a Foosball table that Emilio begs them not to destroy, so of course that's exactly what they do. That's when they find out that Emilio is a retired magician, and Mick forces him to do a performance.

I really shouldn't tell you anymore, but this is where the movie turns into a kind of Twilight Zone episode, which makes it worth watching and then some. Yow! Two Huge Thumbs Up. John Malcolm's performance, besides being the 100% guaranteed blueprint for Malcolm McDowell's Alex, also has dimension when the tables are turned on him and his hooligans. And I just can't tell you any more. But the picture is very good and it gets a high recommendation, a little flick with quite an influence.  ////

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is "Stranger in Us All" by Rainbow (featuring some of Ritchie's best playing ever), and my late night is Handel's Julius Caesar in Egypt Opera. I hope your week is going well and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Patrick Holt in "13 East Street", and "Two Wives at One Wedding" starring Gordon Jackson and Christina Gregg

We're continuing with British crime flicks, and last night in "13 East Street"(1952), Scotland Yard (pron.) detective "Gerald Blake" (Patrick Holt) is working undercover to catch a gang of fur thieves, but you'd never know it until about the 20 minute mark, because this is another film with a big chunk cut out, in this case 15 minutes, so when we first see Blake, he's robbing a jewelry store. Then he's sent to prison and stages a breakout on a train transfer to another slammer, with his American cellie "Joey Long" (Michael Balfour) in tow. The lackadaisical approach to security, by his guards, should be an indicator that we've seen this device before (i.e. the guards aid his escape) but because Blake's undercover assignment by the Yard chief is edited out, as is other stuff, we only ever him, early on, as a robber who gets sent to prison, then breaks out.

Then all of a sudden, he's a Yard Man undercover on a case, with absolutely no reference point in between. You just have to go, "oh yeah.....I guess so." I suspect that, while the editor knew the TV audience would eventually "get it", he (or the station owners) figured, "they'll be too tired or hammered or preoccupied to care". The writer was John Gilling, who, as we've seen, was no slouch (his "Plague of the Zombies" is one of the greatest horror films of all time). Gilling also wrote Noirs and crime flicks. But here, someone took 15 minutes of his initial 72 minute film and chucked it out the windum in the name of TV formatting.

Normally, we cheer short films, because we have learned over the years that 90% of movies are bloated, excepting the works of the great filmmakers and the movies from the Golden Era of cinema. But movies from the 70s onward? Cut em, cut em, cut em, or throw 'em out entirely. But don't cut pre-70s films that are already 75 minutes or less, and if you must cut for TV, don't cut in big chunks. Thanks, and happy editing.

Anyhow, by the time Inspector Blake infiltrates the fur gang, the boss's henchman (a big lug) dislikes him right off the bat. Its the old "he suspects the new guy is not legit" rigamarole. 

Then there's the bossman's blonde babe, who likes Blake better because he's handsome and gives her the time of day. The lug is the problem. He follows Blake around, certain he's up to something, and Blake has to dodge him as he secretly meets with his Yard contact, in libraries, bars, newspaper kiosks, wherever. The lug is always trailing him, hoping to expose him to the boss as a squealer, but in fact Blake's much more; he's a cop. But the lug doesn't catch on til the end, and that's probably because he's watching the same heavily edited print as we are. Two Big Thumbs Up for "13 East Street", which has some great location shooting on the Thames. The picture is widescreen and good.  ////

The previous night, in "Two Wives at One Wedding"(1961), everything is going fine for doctor "Tom" (Gordon Jackson) at his nuptials, that is, until his other wife shows up. Then it's yet another plot we've seen before, the old "I got:  a) drunk, b) conked on the head c) injured in the war, and I don't remember getting married" deal. In fact, we saw a plot like this in the last year, though I can't recall the title. In such a flick, the guy always remembers the ceremony-interrupting first wife, and he can always remember a whirlwind love affair, but he never has a memory of that marriage because - right after it - one of the a,b,or c choices happened, and he got amnesia. Then he left the country, went home, and married someone else.

In this plot formula, the other wife (the amnesia wife) always shows up after the fact, this time on Tom's wedding night, after he's already hitched to "Christine" (model Christina Gregg of "Don't Talk to Strange Men" fame). Tom's amnesia wife is a French gal named "Annette" (Lisa Daniely), whom he met during the war while fighting with the French Resistance. Tom was injured in a Gestapo shootout.

The difference in this version of the plot, and it's a good one, is that we get 20 minutes of a war movie inserted, as Tom tells his France story in flashback. A priest pulled him to safety. Annette lived at his house. They had a whirlwind love affair, then came another shootout with the Nazis in which Tom got shot in the head and woke up in the hospital with no memory.

When Annette shows up in London at his wedding to Christine, she's straight up about what she wants, which is money. She's a blackmailer. "I never loved him," she tells Christine, "so you don't have to worry." "But," she says to Tom, "I want 10,000 pounds, and if you don't give it to me, I'll tell the medical board you're a bigamist. You'll lose your licence." Ahh, the old Moralistic Medical Board ploy again. We've just seen that one recently as well.

Tom visits the French embassy in London to try and get some background on the people he remembers from his pre-amnesia time in France. One is "Paul" (Andre Maranne) another French Resistance fighter who helped him cross German lines to get back to the English side. He finds Paul, who is glad to see him. "But don't lets talk about the war," Paul says. Take it from yours truly, whenever someone says, "Don't let's talk about it," it means they have something to hide.

Now, the idea that Annette would blackmail Tom doesn't make much sense. After all, he helped her Resistance group fight - and survive - the Gestapo. So now he has a hidden manipulator to uncover, someone who's using Annette as a front woman. All in all, it's a very good version of the Amnesia Wife plot formula. Two Big Thumbs Up, directed by Montgomery Tully, who's helmed a lot of these British B flicks we've seen over the past few years. Gordon Jackson, who plays Tom, was married to our gal Rona Anderson. We'll have to blackmail him to divorce her so we can get her back. The picture is very good.  ////

That's all I know. No 1989 tonight (don't worry, we'll get back to it), but I am reading an interesting book: "Fly By Night: The Secret Story of Steven Spielberg, Warner Bros, and the Twilight Zone Deaths" by Steve Chain. If you want to read about the epitome of the kind of uber-egotistical and entitled Hollywood a-hole I can't stand - John Landis - this is the book for you. He's another guy who completely skated and escaped responsibility for destroying lives, because he was a studio big shot at the time. It just goes to show that, if you earn big money for the entertainment industry, you can get away with murder (at the very least voluntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment in Landis's case, and the a-holes he was working with). But what makes Landis even worse is his utter lack of remorse for what he caused, and what makes him scary (before his career half-collapsed), was that he was basically, per Chain's research into his personality, a sociopath operating beneath the classic Mask of Civility, which we have seen so many times (and have seen it over and over again in our own 1989 catastrophe). Sociopaths and psychotics operating under masks of civility, in Hollywood and Los Angeles in general. They're everywhere and it ain't no joke. Look at the B-word who ran down those kids while racing her boyfriend in the Malibu canyon area, or wherever it was, the cheating wife of Dr. Grossman of the Grossman Burn Center. She ran down two kids, then tried to drive away. A remorseless psycho with money and entitlement, operating under a mask of civility.  I highly recommend this book, though it has extremely graphic photos of the Twilight Zone movie crash scene, so be forewarned. 

My blogging music is "Forse Le Lucciole" by Locanda Delle Fate, my late night is "The Choice of Hercules" Opera by Handel. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

William Lucas in "The Marked One", and "Recoil" starring Kieron Moore

Last night's movie was "The Marked One"(1963), a very tight "ex-con-trying to go-straight" type of deal. "Don Mason" (William Lucas) is just out of prison after a two year stint, having taken the fall for a gang of counterfeiters. Now paroled, he's got "Masie" (Laurie Leigh), a young bar babe, for a girlfriend. He's also married, but figures his wife "Kay" (Zena Walker) probably doesn't wanna see him. In fact, she does, however, because all of a sudden she's getting phone calls and notes through her mail slot telling her that her 5-year-old daughter is being watched, and will soon be kidnapped if Don doesn't contact the messenger.

This is where the plot device kicks in, and it's an old one: locating the whereabouts of pristine counterfeit printing plates. At his trial, Don kept his mouth shut for his cronies, but he's not about to let his daughter get nabbed, so he semi-reconciles with his wife, who has a sexually abusive bar manager she has to dodge at work. Can he be the man behind the threats? A police detective visits Don at his dock job. He's also tracking the counterfeit plates, and tells Don, "it's best to cooperate, lest your file be red-flagged for the rest of your life."

Other former members of the gang are contacted, by Don and the detective in turn. All want out permanently from the counterfeit business - too deadly. More blackmail calls are made to Don's wife. He conducts his own investigation, looking not unlike Liam Neeson protecting his own daughter in the "Taken" movies. It's good stuff and gets Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

The previous night, in "Recoil"(1953), "Nicholas Conway" (Kieron Moore), a black sheep criminal, is trolled by the daughter of an elderly jeweler he killed in a gang mugging. Conway is the cocky ne'er-do-well son of an elderly upper-middle class widow with a heart condition. His brother "Michael" (Edward Underoversidewaysdown), a straight arrow doctor, runs his practice out of Mom Conway's house. As the movie opens, Nicholas and his gang do the jewelry mugging, and the old man dies, but his daughter "Jean" (Elizabeth Sellars) is on scene and gets a look at him. Nicholas is injured in the subsequent fiery getaway accident that charbroils the rest of his gang. He goes to brother Michael to get patched up, and Michael also sets him up an alibi: "We'll say we were playing chess at home." This serves a dual purpose: to keep the police at bay, but also to prevent Mom from learning the truth about Nick's outlaw lifestyle and possibly having a heart attack (she thinks hes an insurance agent).

Jean, the dead jeweler's daughter, tries giving the cops Nick's description, but at first they don't take her seriously. "Let us handle it, we're CID." But she doesn't trust them and wants justice for her Dad, so she rents a room from Mom Conway at her mansion, where doctor Michael has his practice. Then she starts dating Michael, with a view toward getting close to Nicholas so she can get evidence against him in her Dad's murder. Nick's cockiness starts working against him when he threatens the big shot (Martin Benson) who set up the jewel robbery, and if there's one thing you don't do in a British B Heist flick, it's threaten Martin Benson. Nick should've known that before he signed on for the movie.

Everyone is converging on everyone else, but not in the Roadside Cafe sense. The layered plot is well unfurled this time. "Chief Inspector Trubridge" (John Horsley) is relentless in his hounding of suspects. He finally closes in on Nick Conway, but Jean is one step ahead of him, possibly with revenge on her mind. One implausibility is that Conway believes she's in love with him, and interested in fencing stolen jewels herself. She tricks him so he'll think she's got criminal tendencies. But a guy like Nick would never fall for it. He'd immediately be suspicious of such a chick because he'd trust no one. You've gotta suspend disbelief in this segment and say, "well, its his ego. He can't believe a gal would deceive him because he's too cunning and too irresistible." One guy who definitely can't be fooled is Martin Benson, who Nick was initially working for until he had the audacity to threaten him when the heist was over.

So by the end of the movie, Nick is on his own. He's got Jean against him (though he doesn't know it), and Benson's gonna kill him. The cops are closing in, and even his brother Michael won't protect him anymore, nor will Mom, even if she has a heart attack. It makes for the type of ending that would be perfect for John Garfield, where Nick, already shot, runs for his life on the waterfront, climbing wooden ladders in high-ceilinged warehouses.

It is imperative (and written into in Motion Picture Law) that you must climb ladders or catwalks or frameworks of some kind if you are a Cornered Desperado Who's Run Out of Time. Two Big Thumbs Up, and almost Two Huge, for "Recoil." Kieron Moore has Tom Jones looks, and an accent that's either hard Irish or Welsh, or Irish/Spanish. It varies throughout the movie. The picture is widescreen and razor sharp.  //// 

Now, in considering September 1989, we've mentioned Lillian and Howard Schaller, and for years we couldn't figure out their connection. At one point, desperate to figure it out, I even considered it had something to do with the closing of Metrocolor in August 1989, just weeks before the September Event.  That was implausible, however, and I continued to ponder it until it hit me around 2018, that Lillian's connection had to be Dave Small. I should've had a ball-peen hammer on hand, to tap myself on the head and say, "Duh, Ad. What the heck took you so long?" Because we knew, all along, that Howard was a drug dealer. And Dave was the only other person who knew him besides me (Howard used to come into Mr. B's Flowers), and we knew all along that drugs were involved in 1989 (Howard mostly sold speed but I would imagine he could've scored coke.)

On a side note, I have now begun to suspect that Howard was in some capacity involved in the amateur porn angle, too, because owed money (money Lillian owed him) doesn't fully explain his all-out rage at Northridge Hospital. He actually threw his body on the trunk of our car as he hit the back window with a tow-chain. He was nuclear-meltdown enraged, trying the door handles, pounding the side windows, and calling Lillian all kinds of names, including the C and B words. "Get out here, you little....". Owed money doesn't explain that level of fury. He could've waited until the dust settled, and gotten his money back later, and furthermore, I doubt Howard would front 10 Gees in coke. I do believe there was money owed, but I think his fury was about something else, the potential exposure of the porn ring.

But enough about Howard for now, because he wasn't the only drug dealer involved. There was one other that I know of, a guy named Gary Patterson. Gary Patterson is (or was, if he is wonderfully deceased), a Sociopath's Sociopath. He wasn't nicknamed "Skull" for nothing. He was thin and had blonde hair, and eyes that were deader than a doornail's. In the late 1970s, Gary worked at a health food store in Granada Hills. That's where he met the evil David Friedman, who worked there for a time, as well. Gary came into some money in the early 80s, from a car accident and also an inheritance. He used the money to buy a music studio in the North Hollywood area (or maybe Sunland or Burbank). Gary was a bass player, and a good one. I actually jammed with him once. In the early 80s, he sold pot. I think I bought a dime off him once or twice, but Gary always made me uncomfortable. He seemed like an unfriendly, paranoid guy. He was thin as a stick, but there was something scary about him. He had dead eyes. 

The evil David Friedman, however, became Gary's close friend, or at least close associate. By the late 80s (or maybe earlier), Gary had graduated to selling cocaine. He also had well-known musicians rehearsing at his studio, including Michael Schenker, and Glenn Hughes. Hughes was doing a lot of coke in those days. Mr. Friedman was present at some of his rehearsals in Gary's studio, and used to mimic Glenn saying, "Palp me, Bert!" - "palp" meaning "give me another line to make my heart palpitate." Now, I don't know who Bert was, and I love Glenn Hughes, who's been clean and sober for years and is a wonderful person, but I point this out to demonstrate that Gary Patterson was a well-known cocaine dealer in the NoHo rehearsal studio scene, and that David Friedman was, you could almost say, his right-hand man. He was certainly a constant presence around Gary. You see, for years, David was a major-league coke addict.

David used to tell me about carrying "bags of cash" (his words) on Gary's behalf. He also said that Gary was associated, at least peripherally, with the demonic (and wonderfully deceased) Eddie Nash, the monster behind the Wonderland murders. Eddie Nash was, of course, a cocaine kingpin.

Now, David Friedman was something of a sociopath himself. "Oh, yeah Ad? How's that?"

I'll tell you How's That. He's the guy who drove me to Gary's house so Gary could torture me. David's the guy who tied (or duct taped) my arms and legs to a chair. David also rode along, with the guy who masterminded the Zilch robbery driving, when the two of them drove me to Gary's house (a different house) up in the Sunland/Tujunga hills, so Gary could threaten to kill me. Luckily for me, the Zilch mastermind talked Gary out of it.

But why, you ask, would Gary give a hoot about me? I never bought coke from him (I didn't use cocaine). I never even saw him after about 1983, and I'd only ever seen him five or six times in my life, for mere minutes at a time, excepting the one time we jammed. For all intents and purposes, I did not know the SOB.

But he knew me, and it had something to do, once again, with drugs and Lillian. You see, she wasn't just connected to Howard Schaller through the late, great, but incredibly deceptive Dave Small. She was also connected to Gary Patterson, through the evil David Friedman, and possibly through the Zilch Mastermind also. And, in Gary's case, Lillian did owe him a lot of money. He appeared, at different places, at different times during the two-week-plus Event, asking about her whereabouts. And he had the evil David Friedman drive me (through deception) to a house at Wilbur and Valerio in Reseda, where they tied me up (or duct taped me) to a chair, and Gary threatened me with yet another stun-gun.

This began the Wilbur Wash Event, which is too detailed now to go into.

But that is the partial story of the evil David Friedman, and Gary Patterson, a Sociopath's Sociopath.  ////

And that's all I know for the moment. I hope you are enjoying your Sunday. My blogging music is Mozart's Piano Concerto K467, my late night is Handel's Florindo Opera. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxooxooxoxoxoxoxoooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

Paul French in "One Jump Ahead", and "Col. March Investigates" starring Boris Karloff

Last night's movie was "One Jump Ahead"(1955), another reporter-and-his-girlfriend murder mystery, this time about a child killer, that starts off very intense (and twisted), then bogs down in the jaded reporter's over-complicated love life. I mean, to be fair, he can't help it if he's a chick magnet, one of those guys who loosens his tie a lot and needs a shave and a drink, but even then, the script drops barely an occasional clue to keep you interested. By the 45 minute mark, you've got a pretty good idea who the killer is, and at the end you just go wtf (or "what the hey?", because we try not to swear at the blog). It's yet another expositional ending, where the screenwriter either didn't have the talent or was too lazy to weave the plot details throughout the film, and so he "tacked on an ending" as we used to say, like pinning the tail on a donkey. Okay, so we've had expositional endings before, where the main characters "explain" what happened to each other, as if they are just now making sense of it. And we can deal with those kinds of endings on occasion. But in this movie, the director gives them only one minute to do the explaining, and before that, when the the killer is found, the actor looks different than in previous scenes, for a very specific reason, and at first, you're going "who the H is this character?" 

It makes you wonder if they edited out 10 minutes of the movie for television (and it is a British TV print, you can tell by the channel logo at the beginning). I'd guess it was majorly edited, with likely a big, single chunk taken out to make it one hour for TV, because even though you guess who the murderer is, the explanation given when the murderer is caught is so nonsensical that no filmmaker - not even Ed Wood - would expect you to understand it. Then there's the one minute exposition at the end.

Still, it gets Two Big Thumbs Up because of the solid beginning and premise. A 10 year old schoolboy is found dead in an old bombed-out church where the kids go to play. Later, the body of a local beautician is also found in there. She turns out to have been a blackmailer, but who was she blackmailing? Several red herrings are presented in the form of English caricature actors. All of this is entertaining in a mystery-plot-driven way because the Brits are good at being characters. It's a good movie until the double romance slows things down and pulls it apart. Again, it may have been longer and made more sense in unedited form, and Paul French, another American in London actor from the late 50s/early 60s, is good as the necktie-pulling, martini-needing reporter who's receding like David Jansen but can't help it if babes can't resist him. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night, we found a Boris Karloff flick we'd never heard of, pretty lucky at this late date; we thought we'd seen all of Karloff's later work. Truth be told, this one wasn't made as a motion picture but slapped together from TV episodes of a British Boris series called "Col. March of Scotland Yard" (pronun.) The movie is called "Col. March Investigates"(1953). It consists of the three first episodes of his show, which I hadn't heard of. Karloff of course plays Col. March. He's in charge of the Yard's Department of Queer Complaints (when that word meant "weird"), and has a curio cabinet of unusual items taken as souvenirs from various cases; a witches mask, an incense skull, a Polynesian voodoo dagger. Each will tie in to one of the three 20 minute stories that make up the film. Boris is in TV mode here, he was slowing down by 1953, but he's still very good, and he delights in showing up the not-quite-inept-but-always-wrong "Chief Inspector Ames" (Ewan Roberts), who follows the most blockheaded leads. It's excellent stuff and we're now looking for the entire TV series, which ran for one season. The picture is good, not great.  ////

Again a short review for the Karloff. I'm trying to keep a balance and maintain the quality and length of the movie reviews, while working on my second book in the afternoons and also trying to develop the new information I've received in the past month about September 1989, which has been groundbreaking as you know. It's amazing that I had no new info to work with for much of the past 12 years (during all the time I was with Pearl), and thus had the case on the back-burner, but now all this new stuff has come out, and re-invigorated the investigation.

To give you an idea of the attention to detail and the thoroughness we'll be striving for when we do get to writing this new 1989 book, it is interesting to go all the way back to February 1982, when my band and I (Disturbing the Peace) were moving out of our rehearsal studio. The building had changed ownership, and all the bands had to move out. This was, of course, when the infamous Zilch robbery took place. I won't go into an over-long description of that crime at the moment, except to note that it was planned in advance. It was also no simple "grab-n-go." It was a break-and-enter, jimmy-the lock deal, with built-in deceptions included, to make it look as if the robbers entered through the front door, which we all know they did not.

They entered through a window in our studio. The studio Disturbing the Peace rehearsed in. The building had previously housed a real estate company, and the window (which was now insulated and papered-up), had likely been a between-office divider. And that's how the crafty burglars entered Zilch's studio, through the dividing window between our studio and theirs.

But the thing is (and this is the kind of detail we'll be striving for in our book), I was moving my own musical equipment out of our studio that day. If I remember the date correctly it would've been January 31st, 1982. I was moving my guitar and amp. And Lillian was helping me (we'd been together for about 7 1/2 months by that time). And as we were moving my stuff, she said to me, "Hey, look at this. The glass is loose."

She was pointing at, and talking about, the glass in the dividing window between our studio and Zilch's. The window the robbers later used to gain entry. If I remember correctly, the glass - indeed loose - was loose because the molding frame around the glass was also loose, or pried-up just a smidge.

I thought nothing of it at the time. The next morning, a detective was at my door, asking me about the robbery because my name was on the studio lease. Of course, we all know how that turned out. I took the detective to Dave Small's house, to show him Dave had nothing to do with it. But when I saw Dave's face that morning, I knew the opposite was true.

Regarding Lillian, I never thought about her mention of the loose glass until recently. It wasn't until I began really studying the genesis of her deceptions that I realised how early in our relationship they started (and btw, I still say God Bless Her despite the incredibly destructive effect she has had on my life). At any rate, in considering all the lies, I began wondering, "how and when did it all start?" And something caused me to think of her mention of the loose window glass in our rehearsal studio.

And when I thought about it, I thought, "there's no reason she would mention that." Why would you mention a loose piece of glass when you're moving stuff out of a studio? It would be like saying, "look, the paint is chipped." Or, "Look, the door hinge is rusty." It would be like, "so what?" There's no reason a person would mention that, even as small talk.  Even if the window molding was noticeably loose or pried away (and I don't remember it being so, the robbers wouldn't have been that careless), it still wasn't something a person would mention. It might be something you'd notice, but again, like chipped paint, you wouldn't think to mention it because it's not worth mentioning: the studio was old and not exactly The Ritz to begin with. But Lillian not only noticed it, she felt the need to mention it to me. "Look, this glass is loose".

It's obvious what the implication is, though it never hit me until I began thinking about her deceptions, and when they began. The implication is that she knew the robbery was going to take place. I know she wasn't part of it, but we have seen demonstrated over and over by now, she was connected to the late, great Dave Small, who was extremely deceptive himself, and has many 1989 connections to Lillian. The guy who planned the robbery - the mastermind - was a major player in September 1989, and also connected to Lillian by a sociopathic drug dealer named Gary Patterson, and also by the evil David Friedman. But those guys are another story. I'm not saying the Zilch robbery was connected to 1989 (it wasn't), but Dave Small was one of the robbers, and he was connected to Lillian.

Is it then possible that Dave, feeling nervous beforehand, told Lillian what he and the other guy were planning to do? And is it possible that Lillian, feeling nervous about that knowledge, tried to give me a hint by showing me the loose window glass, which otherwise wasn't worth mentioning (or even really taking notice of)?

I think it's not only possible, but probable. Lillian probably knew about the Zilch robbery in advance, and was showing me the loose window glass to test the waters, to get my attention, to see how I'd react and to see, by my reaction, if I had anything to do with it.

What we are demonstrating here is not that Lillian is a robber (she isn't), but that she kept secrets from me from very early in our relationship. This is the kind of intricate and "fine-point" detail we'll be striving for in our book. And that's all I know for the moment.  ////

My blogging music is "Mirage" by Camel, my late night is Handel's Florindo Opera. I hope you have a great weekend (I'll be posting again tomorrow to catch up), and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

Francis Matthews and Jill Ireland in "The Battleaxe", and "Highway Hell" starring Charles Maurice

Last night's movie was "The Battleaxe"(1962), a very entertaining rom/com in which the wealthy, 6-times-married harridan of the title tries to keep her daughter from wedding a playboy. The three of them meet on a plane returning to England from France. The backstory is told in court, after the playboy "Tony Evers" (Francis Matthews) sues the daughter, "Audrey Page" (Jill Ireland) for breach of engagement. Usually it's the other way around, his lawyer tells him. The court has little sympathy for a jilted man.

We see how they meet on the flight, and how Audrey's mother doesn't trust Tony from the get-go. She's one of those rich-but-unhappy, many-times-divorced women who complain in 5-star restaurants. No man is good enough for her daughter. Audrey will end up alone like her if she has her way, but back in England after a few dates, Tony wants to marry Audrey.

Mom hires an investigator to look into his background. It seems he's indigent. The PI concludes that he lives off wealthy women and is now trying to get his hands on Audrey's inheritance. "It's not true", he tells the court. "I have a company called Chet-Locks, a specialised lock company for security-risk businesses like banks, jewelers, etc."

Chet-Locks is named after a guy named "Chet Whiley" (Neil Hallett), a former safecracker who knows what makes a good lock, nudge-nudge. That's why Tony partnered with him. Chet designs an unbreakable, uncrackable lock that Tony says will sell big and will also revolutionize the business, but the entire staff of Chet-Locks (five men one woman) are all ex-cons, including Chet. "Excuse me, Your Honor," says Tony, "but they know more about locks than anyone and they've served their time. We can't hold their pasts against them." But the investigator also testifies that he observed Tony, through a window from a nearby rooftop, making love to another woman, and strangling a third! "He's not just a grifter but a murderer as well!"

Then we see Tony conferring with his lawyer, who makes a final cross examination of the investigator, then Tony's own testimony delivers a coup-de-gras to Audrey's defense and destroy's the battleaxe's plan. Although her private investigator's eyewitness testimony is accurate, there's an alternative, legitimate explanation that provides one heck of a good plot twist. "The Battleaxe"  moves well; Francis Matthews and a young Jill Ireland are good farceurs. The title is a bit misleading, as Audrey's mother starts off a main character but fades as the Chet-Locks story takes over, but Two Decidedly Big Thumbs Up (just shy of Two Huge) and a high recommendation. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night, in "Highway Hell"(1941), "Pop Bartlett" (Charles Maurice), a retired sheriff, runs a dive bar in the middle of nowhere. He rents an upstairs room to "Billie" (Diane Winthrop), a sweet-faced hooker, but he's getting tired of her pimp "Slavick" (Julian Harris) always coming over. As the movie opens, he's physically throwing Slavick out. Slavick has six girls in all, who he teaches to properly "hitchhike": hip cocked, leg showing, thumb out - "Going my way, mister?" This is as exploitative as exploitation flicks get, but it has a good message that applies today (and how). Fathers watch your daughters. Not because girls are bad (though some are, with no apparent cause), but because there are predators everywhere, with their eye on young girls. I'll tell ya, as far as criminals are concerned, you won't find anyone more right-wing than me, not even close, and you can try looking. But back to the movie, Pop wants all the pimps and hookers out of his drinking establishment, but Slavick wants it as a headquarters for his Highway Girl business. He stands them out on the highway, "two to three hundred yards apart", in his words, "and if they can't get picked up, I cut 'em loose and get someone else".

With Pop's bar for a hideaway, he figures he can make a killing. But Pop is a straight arrow who hates lowlife scum like Slavick, who laughs at him. "Pop, you're an old, outdated geezer. The world has moved on. People are pleasure-seeking by nature and I'm gonna get rich off it." Silent movie music plays in the background. Slavick (who is alternately scared of Pop and has contempt for him) uses Pop's good-kid son "Bob" (Don Hirst), and Bob's nice-girl girlfriend "Barbara" (Margaret Weiner) as wedges to separate Pop from his bar. Slavick first entices Bob by showing him a good time with Billie the hooker. But she falls in love with Bob because he's decent, a quality she's never known in a man. Her life has been tarnished from the get-go. Bob falls for Slavick's pitch and tells Pop, "Dad, I agree with what he says. You're old fashioned. Whats with the six-shooter on the wall? People use automatics now."

But Pop sticks to his guns (literally and figuratively), and tells Slavick, "You corrupt my son and I'll kill you." Next, Slavick, playing the aw-shucks genial guy, tries tricking Bob's girl Barbara by inviting her to a dance. Sound familiar? I thought so. His wedge plans having failed, Slavick takes Bob and Barbara out to dinner, drugs both their drinks (slips 'em a Rohypnol) then has his henchmen place them together in a motel room bed, en flagrante. He has a photographer take a posed picture of them while they're unconscious, then uses it to blackmail Pop: "You'll lose your liquor licence if I show this around."

This brings about a confrontation that leads to the end of the movie. Pop is a guardian of decency. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Highway Hell", even though the acting is C-grade (almost deliberately), and the production values are low. The message is sincere, that's what's important, and the direction (for what it is) keeps you waiting to see what happens next. The picture is so-so but watchable.  //// 

In thinking about 1989, there has got to be money involved somewhere along the line. There is sex, and there is drugs, and there is ritual, and perhaps deliberate, ritual risk-taking. Lillian liked the challenge of risk. There seem to be games, also. After I saw "Eyes Wide Shut", I described it that way to my Mom, like it was a secret-society thing, and at the time I believed it involved Hollywood people - people with money - because Hollywood people were involved in The Overall September 1989 Event, Sean Young, for one. And Sean Young was on-scene at Concord Square within one to two hours of my getting stun-gunned (closer to one hour). Her appearance that night was as weird to me as it is to you, and I still haven't been able to figure it out. But she was there. As I was being wheeled out of Terry's apartment on an ambulance gurney, we passed by the Concord Square pool, then approached the front gate. Mary has a distinctive voice, and I heard her before I saw her. She was arguing with a man in a suit (it could've been two men), and when the paramedics rolled me past them, I was hearing their argument, and I looked up and couldn't believe it.

"Sean Young?" I actually said that to myself. I didn't think of her as Mary back then. But you can be sure I thought it was as weird as you do now. Why the hell would Sean Young be there? All I knew was that I was glad to still be alive after getting deep-sixed electrocuted by Terry and Lillian. I did know something strange was up, because of the Security Thug who came to Terry's door instead of police. He was obviously there (sent by the manager) to  keep a drug/and-or/sex-and-porno situation "in-house". You can't call the police when you're in charge of a shady-ass building. But when I saw Sean Young, who later drove me to Northridge Hospital (accompanied by Lillian's sister Ann and Lys V.), I just plain didn't understand why she was there. And she seemed to be trying to get into Terry's apartment. I can remember her exact quote, as the paramedics wheeled me past her. She was very upset, and said, "What? Do I have to f-k that guy, too?" Probably meaning Terry, and her quote is verbatim. If you still think I'm nuts or imagined it, more fool you and good luck to you in the long run. It was Mary Sean Young who said that, she was there and she drove me to the hospital at Ann's direction, with Ann and Lys riding along. The reason Mary drove is because Ann's car wasn't big enough. She only had a little hatchback, and Ann or Lys thought I needed more room to lie down.

So Mary did the driving, but let's back up a little. Along with Ann and Lys, and the paramedics (and the guys out front in the suits) Mary was one the first people on scene. The first thing we must ask is "why"? Why would she know, or care, about some anonymous guy getting stun-gunned in an anonymous apartment complex in Reseda? Well, because she was obviously connected to the situation in some way. The reason she was there is the same reason the whole thing blew up - because I almost died.

I almost died.

That must've freaked Lillian and Terry out big-time, and Lillian must've started making phone calls. Certainly to the paramedics. Certainly to Ann (a nurse as well as her sister). Maybe to Lys, but as I've said, she didn't seem to be friends with Lys after about 1983 or so. Maybe she still was, and it's not super important who called Lys, but Lys did have a quote of her own. When she got there and entered Terry's apartment, she said to Lillian, "Girl, you've really done it this time." Meaning she knew Lillian was walking the razor's edge with her lifestyle.

And they were freaked out because I almost died. And so somebody must've called Mary Sean Young to come over. She probably needed directions to Reseda. Or maybe not. It's important to note, because we are being being exact in our investigation, that she referred to Terry as "that guy", not using his name. And because her argument with the suit-men was spontaneous and heated, and we can assume her words were also spontaneous (not thought out), we can conclude that she didn't know Terry. Why would she? She was a movie star. And, she was being sarcastic when she uttered her question, "What? Do I have to f-k that guy, too?" Meaning, "is that what I have to do so you'll let me into the building?" She needed to get to Terry's apartment because somebody called her, and that somebody - in my mind - could've only been Ann or Lillian. And both of them were still in Terry's apartment while I was being taken to the ambulance. Mary wanted in so she could talk to one or both of them. I don't believe it could've been The Suits who called her, because then they'd have let her in.

So, either Lillian or Ann called Mary Sean Young, and if I had to guess, I'd say Ann. Here's why, two reasons: 1) Because Ann, definitely Lys, and Mary, represent, one could say, The Good Guys. They took me to the hospital, the reason being that Ann, a nurse, wanted me to get fully checked-out. Now, this isn't to say she was a saint. She was also protecting her sister, and she's never contacted me since. But at the time, she didn't want me to die (because Lillian would go down for murder) and she probably wasn't satisfied with just a paramedic examination, and Ann was at the ambulance, by my side, while I was being examined by the medic (he took my BP, asked me who the President was, what day it was, etc.) But Ann thought I needed to go to the hospital also, and told the paramedic, "I'm a nurse, I'll take responsibility for him." That led to the discussion of whose car to take, and they decided on Mary's. So, we'll call those three ladies The Good Guys (or Gals), and we'll assume Ann called Mary, not Lillian, though we still don't know why Ann called her (i.e. we don't know Mary's involvement). The other reason we think it was Ann who called her, and not Lillian, is because when Lillian got into our car at Northridge Hospital, there was no indication from my perspective that Mary knew Lillian or vice-versa. I'm not saying they didn't know each other, they might've. And they might've been deliberately ignoring each other to avoid suspicion. But Lillian was only with us in Mary's car for about two minutes before we were attacked by Howard Schaller, so there isn't a lot of evidence to go on, to see if Mary and Lillian knew each other. Lillian didn't even want to get into our car. What happened was that we were about to leave, and Lillian rode up in a car driven by Mrs. Meissner (her dark blue Mercedes). Terry was in that car, too. Obviously he wasn't gonna get in our car, not with me in there, but Ann and Lys were calling out to Lillian, who'd rolled down her window, "Get in! Get in!". Ann wanted her sister with her.

Lillian very reluctantly got into our car. She didn't want to get in, because I was in there. But she did get in, and she sat in the back, by the window. I was in the middle, with Lys on the other side of me. Ann was up front in the passenger seat next to Mary, who was about to drive us away, but we were partially blocked in by another car. That's when Howard Schaller attacked us, and Lillian (inexplicably to me at the time) got out, and he accosted her. Then I got out to defend her. It's not inexplicable any more.

But as for Mary, there are only so many reasons she would be there, and willing to drive a guy she didn't know (me, just a shmoe) to the hospital. I would guess she didn't know Lys, either. She and Ann didn't talk as familiars, but neither did they seem like strangers to one another, and the thing is, it wasn't a small-talk kind of evening. First, it was about getting me to Northridge Hospital. Then Ann went in, to see if they would take me without insurance. Then Ann came back (they wouldn't take me), then Mrs. Meissner drove up with Lillian and Terry, then Lillian got into our car and we tried to leave but we got attacked by Howard Schaller. So it was a crazy, scary evening, fast-paced, without time for casual conversation.

What it boils down to, though, is that Mary knew Ann or Lillian, or both. She was there either because she was part of the sex ring, which, in that case, means it wasn't limited to Northridge but extended into Hollywood (and thus to money and the Eyes Wide Shut connection I mentioned at the beginning of the blog), or she was there as a friend of Ann's, a friend who knew about all the rotten porno people, and was there because Ann called her for moral support. It's interesting to consider Mary's role, because her once-promising career began going down the tubes, in......what year was it? Oh yeah, that's right it was 1988. That's when James Woods sued her for stalking, after the making of "The Boost," which Lillian and I saw on Valentine's Day, 1989.

Mary won that lawsuit by James Woods, a major-league POS, and she's gone on to say that Ridley Scott (an asshole), Harrison Ford, Warren Beatty (low-talent major league scum), Harvey Weinstein, and others, all tried to hit on her and force her to sleep with them, using their industry power as a prod. Steven Spielberg tried to shut her down, and he of course was attached to the Twilight Zone movie tragedy and walked away unscathed, and so did the movie's producer. Charlie Sheen once taped a piece of paper to Mary's back, on a movie set (unbeknownst to Mary) that had the C-word written in Sharpie. So Mary wasn't liked by big-shot men in the movie business, and her career was destroyed because of it. Yes, she was eccentric, and there was the Batman audition incident. But that's not why Mary got blackballed. The only other explanation is that she was part of the sex ring. But we don't know how far that extended. We don't know if Northridge connected to Hollywood (or if Lillian was connected to Hollywood as well as Northridge), but as we have seen, Lillian not only skated for her participation in the whole thing, she got promoted and has done quite well in life since then. Without a doubt she has worked hard, so that must be noted. But she also skated and got promoted for things you would think most people would get blackballed for, and Mary was the one who got blackballed, and she knew Lillian and Ann.  

And I know both of them.  //// 

That's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is Camel's first album. My late night is Handel's Rodeilio Opera. I hope your week is off to a good start, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

Tim Turner and Christopher Lee in "Police Dog", and "Mrs. Pym of Scotland Yard" starring Mary Clare

We're trying to get caught up again. Any time there's a concert, like this week with Hilary Hahn, the schedule gets thrown out of whack, which is why I'm posting two days in a row. On a side note, can you believe I used to write over 300 blogs a year? In 2018 it was 349! Ever since it became a Movie Blog, I've been doing them every other day, but anyhow, on with the show:  last night, we watched "Police Dog"(1955), produced with the approval of the London Metropolitan Police Department. Two foot-patrol officers are on break in the warehouse district of Kentish town, chatting about their college days. One notes that the other was a track star and says, "did ya good for for catching bad guys. Me, I'm a half-pack-a-day man. That's why I'm always trailin' ya." Just then, they notice a factory gate ajar. Inspecting inside the high-walled industrial block, they discover a burglar and the sprinter cop takes off after him. The slower guy pursues in an opposite direction, hoping to encircle the bad guy, but he gets there too late; his partner has been shot. The burglar escapes.

Bemoaning this at the station, the officer laments that he wasn't fast enough. "If I was, I could've prevented him getting shot". "You should take one of our dogs," his sergeant suggests. Post WW2, police dogs became widely used after the Nazis had success with their training. Paul McCartney's childhood house was next to a police dog training field. One just like it is shown in this movie, with the training officers putting the dogs through their paces. The officer in question agrees to become a dog handler and chooses Rex, a bright-eyed German Shepherd. He has a double purpose in mind, thinking Rex will also make his fiance feel safe at home. She doesn't like him being a policeman, but Rex takes to her and calms her down. Then the couple start arguing because she wants to baby Rex, and he says, "That dog is not a pet!" His fiance treats him like one, feeding him treats, letting him sit on the couch. "He'll lick the hand of the first criminal he sees!" This causes friction between the couple, who live with an older lady who calls the officer "my adopted son." Their relationship isn't clear, but it's not important.

Throughout the movie, the officer keeps asking for news about the burglar who shot his partner, who later dies in the hospital. The sarge tells him "let CID handle it" (the special investigative division). They don't want him in angry revenge mode. A subthread features a young Christopher Lee, hairline already receding (and he must have some Spanish heritage, he's quite dark), as a cop who scoffs at the usefulness of dogs. "We don't need 'em, those of us who are capable, that is." He insinuates dogs are for wimp coppers, but really he's worried about becoming obsolete. Christopher Lee used as comic relief! Ultimately, you know there will be face off with the burglar partner-killer from the beginning of the movie. He reenters the plot at about the 35 minute mark, living in a hovel flat with his platinum bimbo girlfriend, who drinks up his "last mouthful" of gin. She's pissed he ain't got no more. He swears he's got another heist he can pull, but she begs him not to: "Them's lookin' all over town for ya, searchin' every cornah. Just get you a job, why don't ya?"

He finally has to get a casual labor job or they won't be able to eat, but the cops come asking at the job site. When a criminal kills a cop, no stone goes unturned. Now the robber cop-killer is paranoid. He walks off his job, goes back to his flat, and immediately plans a safecracking caper so he and his bimbo can leave the country.

Rex the Police Dog will have the final say in that, but not before his handler corners the robber during his final heist, after a beat cop notices, once again, a sidewalk gate left open. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Police Dog", more or less a promotional film. If you like German Shepherds, this is the movie for you. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night's Brit Cop Flick was "Mrs. Pym of Skeertlynd Yearrrd"..... oops, I mean "Scotland Yard"(1940), in which "Mrs. Pym" (Mary Clare) is called in as a specialist, like a Lady Colombo, when the London police can't solve the murders of two women in a psychic group. The Green Room Seance Company is popular with the gentry in the city. Mrs. Pym, a tall, large lady (she looks strong) is 50ish, very smart and witty. She suspects fraud first of all. She does believe in spiritualism, but knows it's full of charlatans. The policeman assigned to her is a male chauvinist who can't believe he's second to a woman. A reporter and his girlfriend (a tried-and-true part of the formula) are trying to solve the case on their own. It's all very Agatha Christie, except Mrs. Pym is a no-nonsense bruiser. Just a short review for the lady, but her movie gets Two Big Thumbs Up. It's one I'll re-watch when I don't have so much on my mind. The picture is very good. ////

Now, in analyzing September 1989 once again, what we are dealing with, in part, is a twisted neighborhood sex group, based out of two houses (that we know of): Marshal Lester's house on Rathburn Ave, and Jared Rappaport's house on Etiwanda. Their houses sandwiched mine in, as mentioned, and we've been trying to figure how Lillian could've become involved. I'll guess that it was not entirely voluntary. Here's why: even if Lillian had an overdriven libido, combined with a psychological condition resulting from abuse, she would not have selected a guy like Marshal Lester. She called him a "bodybuilder." He wasn't exactly that. He looked, from a distance, to be in good shape, physically fit like he worked out with weights, but "bodybuilder" is stretching it. Okay, let's say that Lillian liked guys who were in good shape. But she really was attracted to "cute" guys, rock stars like Tom Petersson. Thin guys, 20-30, with shag haircuts. Marshal Lester, at the time, was closing in on 40. He was stocky, had short-cropped hair, cut military style (I believe he was in the Navy), and - most importantly, though one could say he was somewhat handsome, he was also a bit of a nerd. I'm not just saying that because he was an asshole who preyed on my at-the-time girlfriend. I'm saying that because, if you were Lillian, or me, or anyone in our group, you would've said - at best - "this guy is no rock star". And Lillian liked rock stars, especially cute ones. That's who she was attracted to, not blocky, older workout buffs like Marshal Lester,  dorks with short hair.

Lillian was a great beauty, with charisma to light up the sky. She could've had any man she wanted. She would not choose Marshal Lester, and we know he was a predator. Kim told us: "he hits on girls at CSUN."

Now, in examining the other Swinger House, that of Jared Rappaport on Etiwanda (located apprx. 75 yards from Marshal's house), we know that David Birke was initiated into the swinger lifestyle when Jared Rappaport invited him to a party, right around the time David was making his UCLA student movie at our house at 9032 Rathburn. We know that he went to at least one party, and we believe he discussed at least one party at a matinee showing of "Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child", which opened on August 11, 1989, just before the stuffing hit the fan. At that movie, one of the friends asked him, "did you ever go to that party"? David was being teased about it, because of its sexual nature. We believe he responded by laughing it off, "Oh, nothing happened. We just talked. They talked about their lifestyle (Rappaport and his brain-dead wife). We ate potato chips and drank Cokes. But I'm invited back if I wanna go, ha-ha." All of that is paraphrased, but that conversation definitely took place at the screening of Nightmare 5.

Okay, so what we are seeing here are two swinger couples, Marshal and his girlfriend, and Rappaport and the brain-dead Lynne, looking to add to their number. And we know Marshal is a predator. And we know David Birke was involved with the Rappaports.

Now let's see what else we know.

We know, because Jared Rappaport told me, when I was captive in his house, that - besides being a psychotic, infantile demon - he was also a "gigolo" (his term) for some of the neighborhood women.

We know that the late, great (but extremely deceptive) Dave Small had his hands in many aspects of the case. Dave Small was Lillian's direct link to the drug dealer Howard Schaller. Dave Small was at the infamous Pool Party at Concord Square, along with Lillian, Terry, and at least one other young woman. Gee, I wonder who she could've been?

Now, we are beginning to suspect that Dave Small's immediate family (I believe all deceased now, including Dave) may have had a few pecadillos. We know, for a fact, that his stepmom Pat, once called my Mom to ask, regarding me, "don't you think a 25-year-old man should be working?" And we know, because Dave told me, that his stepmom Pat once asked him a question: "What's she doing with him?" regarding me and Lillian. So it seems that Pat Small had at least a minor obsession with me, or at least a problem, and it connects to Jared Rappaport, who was very pissed off that, as he put it, "a guy who doesn't work" had caused his sexual lifestyle fun to come to an end (inadvertently on my part, as I have noted).

Now then, Jared Rappaport bragged about being a "gigolo" to some of the neighborhood women. Could Pat Small have been one of them? Just asking.

And is it possible that Lillian was blackmailed into joining Marshal Lester's group, because Pat knew about her and Terry, through her deceptive stepson Dave? Just asking.

It seems a stretch. It's hard to imagine Pat, an attractive but 60-ish woman at the time, confronting Lillian and saying "I'll tell Adam about you and Terry", or Marshal Lester confronting her at CSUN and saying "the neighborhood knows all about you and that Terry guy", and Lillian just sitting there and tolerating it.

However - and this is one of those Howevers that must be dragged out, like Howww-evv-er - on the night of September 1st, 1989, she was being questioned by the "Security" thug who reported to Terry's apartment. You remember the Security Thug; he held a knife to my stomach. But after I explained myself, and told him why I was yelling in the courtyard, he questioned Lillian and Terry, and she said - and this is crucial - she said (exact words): "I've been f-ing Terry Meissner for six months and I don't care who knows it."

"I don't care who knows it." Not, "I don't care if Adam knows it", or "I don't care if you know it" (meaning the thug himself, who was there to keep the problem in-house). Think about what she said. "I don't care who knows it."

Hmm, like maybe Dave and Pat Small, and Jared Rappaport, and Marshal Lester? Marshal Lester, who may have seen a beautiful girl coming and going from my house for years, who may have had his eye on her and coveted her?

Is that who Lillian meant when she said "I don't care who knows it" (in addition to my friends and relatives knowing it.) Could she have meant extreme weirdos like Marshal Lester, Jared Rappaport and Howard Schaller? Could she have been blackmailed into joining their "lifestyle"?

We know David Birke got into the "lifestyle" (and others later joined him) out of curiosity, after an invite from Rappaport himself.

But Lillian? She could've had any guy she wanted. She also could've left me, years earlier, and didn't. I think she hung on to me for emotional stability while being preyed upon from all sides, even if her own behavior, in some respects, caused her predators to select her.

Because Marshal Lester wasn't her type. Her type was Tom Petersson of the rock band Cheap Trick. Not a blocky, dorky-but handsome pervert like Marshal Lester.

Something was going on in the underbelly of the CSUN/Rathburn/Etiwanda nexus that included other college professors, like Ray Tippo (now wonderfully deceased, high five on that), and the despicable Eugene Carpenter. It had likely been going on at CSUN for quite some time, before Lillian even went there.

And all of this is only the "local" part of the story. Oh yes, they made their stupid little porno movies, too, and I know who's in them. But it's only the tip of the iceberg.  ////

That's all I've got for tonight. My blogging music is "Zeit" by Tangerine Dream. My late night is Handel's Alcina Opera. I hope your weekend has been good, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Laurence Payne and Zena Marshall in "Crosstrap", and "Strictly for the Birds" starring Tony Tanner

Last night's movie was "Crosstrap"(1962), a hostage drama that begins with aspiring writer "Geoff" (Gary Cockrell) and "Sally" (Jill Adams) driving out to the English countryside to stay in a rented cottage. Geoff plans to finish his first novel there. Their dirt road ends, and they have to walk half a mile to the cottage, through woods and over a plowed field. Once there, they unlock the door and seem to be all set, until Sally finds a body in the bathtub. No sooner does she finish screaming, than a big lug comes out of the bedroom. He's got a gun and is part of a jewelry theft gang run by "Duke" (Laurence Payne), a suave, cold and calculating gent. Handsome, too. He's got a Spanish girlfriend with him, named "Rina" (Zena Marshall). Duke starts eyeing Sally and hot blooded Rina tells him, "I'll kill you if I ever catch you with another woman". Duke has a partner named "Joe" (Robert Cawdron), who warns him about intruders outside in the woods. The jewel thieves are being preyed upon by former cohorts, who know about their heist, worth 125 thousand pounds, and plan to take it from them by force. Now Geoff the writer and Sally his gal are in a double-trouble jam. First they walked into a hostage situation, and now their captors are in jeopardy from the other, even more deadly, gangsters outside in the woods.

Its a cross trap, and Geoff tries fighting his way out, figuring it's do or die. For his trouble he gets bound and gagged, but then Duke leaves him alone to ingratiate himself with Sally in an attempt at inducing Stockholm Syndrome. In turn, Geoff is now being watched by Duke's girl Rina, and from there, an interesting theme develops. The innocent Geoff and Sally have been split apart by the evil crime couple, and a new set of couples are paired, consisting of a criminal and a hostage in each. Will antagonistic passions develop? Remember, in the Patty Hearst case, Steven Weed (her pre-kidnap boyfriend) got the raw end of the deal. Patty indeed developed Stockholm Syndrome for Willie Wolfe and the SLA (at least temporarily), and when she was freed, she never saw Steven Weed again. Could the same thing happen in the movie? It's the Old Switcheroo at work.

The bad guys from the woods are closing in, so Duke sends Sally out there as bait, to get them to fire and give away their positions. Duke's partner Joe has already been shot dead while outside keeping watch. Sally is let go to run, but she runs in the opposite direction to get away. Duke chases after her, risking a bullet, but he's mad for Sally by now: Stockholm Syndrome in reverse.

The Woods Bad Guys now have the upper hand, and Rina and Geoff are still inside the cottage. Other things happen in the meantime. Sally gets hold of Duke's gun when he screws up by setting it aside, figuring she's too wimpy to pick it up and shoot him. Now she's about to, but has to keep thinking her way out of his attempts to gaslight or sweet-talk her down. "C'mon Sally, you know you can't fire that thing".

The Woods Bad Guys don't care about any of this stuff. They just want the jewels, and they are laser focused.

Duke has a plane coming for him and the rest of his gang to get away. By now, Joe is dead, so only Duke, the big lug and Rina are left. But now Duke wants to take Sally with them. It's a Bambi in the Headlights thing, he wants her because she's an innocent. The escape plane lands, and it looks like Duke and the gang will get away, with Sally. But then Rina comes running after the taxiing plane, some stock footage aviation footage is inserted, and that's all I can tell you.

It all sounds good on paper , but for some reason, the filmmakers added a shuffle-beat jazzbo score, which makes the tension feel slightly comic, or lackadaisical at best. With a better director, "Crosstrap" could've been a classic, with it's Bad Guys in the Woods Hostage Scenes. It definitely gets Two Big Thumbs Up, but easily could've been Two Huge. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night we had a very funny happenstance comedy, "Strictly for the Birds"(1964), starring a very funny actor named Tony Tanner. I hadn't heard of him; IMDB says he worked mostly in theater where he was also an award winning director. He is hugely talented, and in the movie he plays "Terry Blessing", a 29-year-old bloke who lives in a Cockney boarding house with his sister and her layabout husband. Sis brings him breakfast (mushrooms on toast), just to get him to wake up. When he does, he has a hunch it's gonna be his lucky day. Terry in an eternal optimist, and when he looks out his window and a pigeon splats him in the eye, he takes it as a sign that the day couldn't possibly get better.

Everyone in his building is struggling. The girls in the flat next to his have had their electricity turned off. They ask Terry to take half the bill money down to the payment office on his way to work. A gentleman who earns a paltry living as a one-man-band bumps into him as he makes his way down the stairs.

In the lobby, a bill collector asks him, "Excuse me, but does a Terry Blessing live 'ere?" He worms his way outta that one by claiming he's an inspector and the building has yellow fever. The bill collector high tails it but will return later at a different location.

Terry works at a magazine shop. The owner, a "Mr. Mendoza" (Bernard Goldman), is a frustrated-but-tolerant type with a big cigar. Terry gives him fits cause he's rarely on time, or always off running an errand for someone, or chancing his luck with the horses or the lottery. Mr. Mendoza puts up with Terry's antics because it's that kind of whimsical, ironic British working-class movie. Terry's hunch about an awesome day starts gaining traction when he hits the jackpot on a slot machine, giving him enough Veddy Brrrittish quarters to bet the ponies, where he wins big, too. Then he heads to a casino, intent on continuing his run of luck. A buxom blonde tags along, hoping to attach to his karma. Even Terry can't believe his extra good fortune in landing such a bird, but that's when his luck starts to run out. She was (of course) only waiting to get him back to her apartment, where she conks him on the head, and she and her older, devious boyfriend take all of his winnings and run.

Along the way, throughout his amazing day, Terry has acquired an orphan boy/street urchin. No one knows where the kid came from. He looks clean enough, however. He's about nine, and like the blonde babe, he just attached himself to Terry. Now he calls him Dad. Terry tries pawning him off on the One-Man Band guy, but ultimately has to take him home because the kid's getting hungry. Mr. Mendoza shakes his head bemusedly: "When will you be back, Terry? And for how long? Will you stay at least one hour next time, without running off?"

The genre here is of the British "upbeat in the face of East End tenement-living, "I'm all right, Jack, have you seen the weather? It's gonna be a great day after all" variety. Think of the Artful Dodger in "Oliver". Two Big Thumbs Up with a very high recommendation. Tony Tanner steals the show, but the other actors count for 50% of the laughs in this madcap, Beatlemania-era comedy, a minor classic. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

I have nothing to say about 1989 tonight. This past month has taken so much out of me that I'm dog tired and my stomach is tied up in knots. That doesn't mean I'm done writing about it, because the very act of doing so helps me put the puzzle pieces together, and I must say that, in just the last couple of weeks, I have learned more about the structure behind what happened than I knew for all of the past 25 years. The whole thing has been almost pulled out of the water by now, and for that reason alone, I cannot and will not let it go. When I do write about it (and in the blog it's more like I'm taking notes for my book), I will try not to write with anger, but just with facts, however atrocious they may be. Just last night, I learned something enormous that has vexed me since 1997. So yeah, we're pulling it out of the water now, like we're landing the biggest fish of all-time. There's no more chance it's gonna get away from us, as long as we remain diligent, so let's keep at it.

And that's all I know. My blogging music is "Nightingales and Bombers" by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, my late night is Handel's Alcina Opera. I hope you had a nice Saturday and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)