Last night's movie was "River Beat"(1954), another John Bentley flick, though he's playing a cop this time instead of a reporter. While patrolling the Thames with his partner (Leonard White), they happen to spy a pretty lady on deck of the Prince Mohawk, a brand new cargo-carrier ship that also "has room for 20 passengers". We then see the lady preparing to go ashore; she's "Judy Roberts" (Phyllis Kirk), the Mohawk's radio operator. "Gordon" (Harold Ayer), the ship steward, asks her a favor, to take four packs of American cigarettes to his friend, who'll be waiting a block away in an alcove.
She doesn't wanna do it. The cigs are imported and taxable, so it's technically illegal, and if the Customs Police stop her, she could get in trouble, but Gordon says, "Aw c'mon, it's just four packs, even if they catch you, which they won't, they'll look the other way. It ain't worth their while." Judy acquiesces and hands the cigs off to the friend, who then makes a phone call to an associate, who's upset that the haul is only four packs. This is reported in turn to a man named "Mr. Hendrick" (Charles Lloyd Pack), a simpering-but-imperious big shot with a fawning, Amazonian girlfriend. Mr. Hendrick is more than a little peeved about the paltry take. He tells his henchman, a crooked pawnbroker, to let the cigarette supplier know that four packs is not nearly enough.
By now, "Inspector Dan Barker" (Bentley) has had a chance meeting with Judy in a riverside bar near the dock. This is to build a romance, and also a destined conflict of interest, as Judy has no idea she's being used in a diamond schmuggling operation. Inspector Barker knows nothing of it, the ring hasn't yet been exschposed, but then Gordon the steward talks Judy into one more cigarette delivery, and this time a Customs Policeman does ask to look in her purse. The cigarette packs seem to weigh too much, so he opens one, crushes the cigs, and out fall a whole bunch of diamonds.
Knowing she's going to identify Gordon, whomever is in charge above Mr. Hendrick has Gordon murdered so he won't be able to talk. He ends up floating in the Thames, which brings Inspector Barker into the case, with a personal interest, because the Customs Police think Judy is a willing accomplice. Their belief is reinforced when the mastermind hides some diamonds in her makeup kit, which are found when Scotland Yard (pron.) inspects her room. Now she looks guilty, and Barker has to prove her innocence. The only way to do that is to identify the man to whom she originally delivered the cigarettes in the alcove.
"Find him, and we'll find who murdered Gordon, and we'll then find Mr. Big."
But the real question is, who is supplying the diamonds? The casting director may have given us a clue if we've been paying attention to our Anglo-American Brit Flicks of the past year. These co-productions were common at the time, and here, actress Phyllis Kirk does a half-American, half-English accent, you cant tell what country she's from. Glynn Huston is excellent as a small-time criminal trying to go straight but needing money to support his new wife. Once again, the Thames plays a role with its tides. Two Bigs, one rung shy of Two Huge. The plot moves fast, on the side of the cops, whose investigation is relentless. This is how you direct a crime flick. The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night we watched another co-production, "Lady of Vengeance"(1957), a hard-boiled British Noir with an American director and star. Dennis O'Keefe plays "William Marshall", a much-feared newspaper publisher whose 20-year-old "ward", the beautiful "Melissa Collins" (Eileen Elton), commits suicide at the beginning of the movie by jumping in front of a train. Her story is then told in flashback, though it's never specified why she's his ward. Through adoption? Abandonment? We don't know. She has an English face like a China plate, and her accent is so over-tinged and oversexed that she's a bit much as played by actress Elton. But that might have been what director Burt Balaban (Bob's cousin) wanted.
Anyhow, Melissa is infatuated with "Larry Shaw" (Vernon Greeves), a jazz trombonist popular in the London clubs. He's an American too, and a sullen one, doing a Kirk Douglas/Ryan Gosling impersonation. Shaw is a punk, though a talented musician. He and Melissa are made for each other, and despite William Marshall's remonstrations against Shaw, she's gonna leave home to hit the road with him. Marshall tells her never to come back if she does, but it's no threat to Melissa, who smirks "you aren't my real father anyway." Then two years later, he receives the letter from her announcing that she's gonna kill herself, in which she admits, "you were right, I'm sorry. I won't ask for your forgiveness but I do ask for revenge". Despite his anger over her defiance, Marshall loved Melissa very much. He tried to protect her, and because he's a fearsome guy, he vows then and there to carry out her wishes: revenge against the man who dove her to suicide.
To deliver the goods, he inquires into the services of "Emile Karnak" (Anton Diffring), a renowned stamp collector with, it is hinted, a shady past.....was he perhaps a Nazi? Nobody played Nazis like Diffring, an incredible actor, but he's not a Nazi in this one, just a cold, calculating criminal. At first, he wants nothing to do with Marshall's plan of revenge murder, but as payment, Marshall - who has reach and power in addition to money - offers him the rarest stamp in the world. It's worth 100 Gees (which would be a million bucks now), but its real worth is its exclusivity. Karnak cannot resist. "What do you want me to do?"
Marshall wants him to come up with a plan, not just to kill Melissa's tormentor, but to torture him beforehand, to let him know he's gonna die, then kill him slowly, using his own fear against him.
Karnak then affixes the perfect death plan for Shaw the trombonist, even meeting him impromptu in a bar to attempt an interview, posing as a music reporter. Every time we see Shaw he's got a different half-dressed groupie. He's a slimeball who can shred on trombone, and the sluttier chicks can't resist him. Now he's about to be deported for having an underage one. Cue Jimmy Page. But Karnak still has time to carry out his plan.
Meanwhile, William Marshall, in his older age, has fallen in love with his faithful secretary "Katie" (Ann Sears), who's secretly loved him all the while. When he sends the butler away on vacation, she knows he's planning something terrible and tries talking him out of it. There's a lot of construction going on around his fortresslike mansion. Karnak arrives there on the planned night, ready to dispose of Larry Shaw, and that's all I can tell you without giving the surprises away. "Lady of Vengeance" features eccentric characters, almost like a Welles Noir (except he'd have made them exaggerated and crude). You've got a publisher who inspires fear, you've got a stamp collector who is also a master criminal, and you've got a smirking punk of a trombonist, who's tromboning Marshall's ward/daughter, who herself is too-precious and oversexed to the point of inducing vomiting. But it works, and you can't beat Anton Diffring, one hell of an actor. He's the main draw here, and the photography is also quite good. Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is razor sharp. ////
Now, I've recently been trying to focus on the end of September 1989, to determine the specific date, and day of the week, that I was released from Northridge Hospital. I am guessing it was around September 22, a Friday. Lillian would've come over eight days later to see "Sea of Love", the legendary screening for us that once marked the first post-Event memory I could recall. By now, I have snippets of recollection before that, such as asking my Mom, after I got out of the hospital, "am I going to be able to see Lillian this weekend?" or possibly, "when am I going to be able to see Lillian?" I can very specifically recall Mom answering, "not this weekend, but next". That indicates there was coordination between the two of them, or perhaps with a go-between, a third party. I also remember asking Mom, "did something happen to me? Did I go somewhere?" Then adding, bemusedly, "because it feels like something happened, like I missed something really big." Mom (who was certainly told not to say anything), answered: "No, you haven't missed anything. You've just been right here, as always." Later on, I asked her again, "Are you sure I didn't miss anything?" Since 1997, I've had very specific, visceral memories of leaving Northridge Hospital, after being pushed through the lobby in a wheelchair by Lys V.
I'm now trying to determine when I got home, and how. I want to be able to remember actually walking in the door. Other stuff happened directly upon my leaving the hospital, but it qualifies, right now, as stuff that will have to wait for the book. I believe that when I got home (or was taken home) that I was home alone for at least the first 24 hours. I don't know when Mom came home, but it was probably the next day. She might've stayed at Dad's apartment in the interim. I don't remember anyone else around at that time. Chris probably was at his girlfriend's house, and would've wanted nothing to do with any kind of post-Event intrigue, or having to maintain secrecy around me, so it all came down to Mom. She had to handle my return, which couldn't have been easy. I think Dad came over one afternoon also, but it was mostly just Mom and me, and I asked her (in addition to "are you sure nothing happened?") "am I gonna be able to see Lillian?" And she answered, "not this weekend but the next". That means it was all worked out in advance, with everyone aware of how to proceed around me, to maintain the secret that I'd been hospitalized.
One thing is absolutely certain, that - just like Mom - Lillian knew I'd been hospitalized, and that my memory had been medically erased. She knew it for certain, or she wouldn't have come over in a million years to go to "Sea of Love." If she thought I remembered what happened in Terry's apartment, or if she thought there was even a chance I remembered it, she would not have come over.
Therefore, she had to have been given 100% assurance that the treatment had worked, and she had to believe that assurance. They (the people in charge) wanted her to come over, so that it would indeed look like, as Mom was saying, that "nothing had happened", and that life was just going on as usual. The most recent film we'd seen before that was "The Package" starring Gene Hackman, which we saw at the Pacific Theater on Parthenia on August 26th, 6 days before the Event began on September 1st. When we went to "Sea of Love", I had not a shred of memory of that night, nor of our awful Summer, nor anything about Lillian and Terry. I knew she worked at Priority Records now, and I guess I was programmed not to think about the year. I don't know how they did it, though I am remembering what I will call deep-sleep coma state therapy, with hypnotic drugs, headphones, and possibly ice baths to lower body temperature. All I remember from coming home is having this "bemused feeling", like I was sure of two things: One, that "something big happened" and two, that I had missed it, or missed out on it. I even asked Lilly, or said to her, "It feels like something happened to me." Anyhow, she knew - for certain - that I'd been in the hospital, and that my memory had been taken away. I can't think of a bigger human rights violation than to do to someone what was done to me.
Lillian came over almost weekly for the rest of that year and through the Summer of 1990. We went to a ton of movies, I can list them, and she came over knowing what had happened to me. My whole family also knew. Terry of course knew. There is no way they could not have known. What was done to me is so outrageous that I haven't the words to explain how I feel, but it will go down in history as the ultimate attempt at depersonalizing and dehumanizing someone. Anyhow, that's all for now. I'm gonna keep working on nailing down that return date. All of this is homework for the book. ////
And that's all for tonight. My blogging music was "Little Red Record" by Matching Mole, and "Present From Nancy"by Supersister. My late night is Handel's Saul Oratorio. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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