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 :):)
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