Last night we found an off-the-wall black comedy called "Smart Alec"(1951), starring the talented Peter Reynolds and directed by a young John Guillermin, who would go on to helm some very big motion pictures including "The Blue Max", "The Towering Inferno", and the 1976 "King Kong" remake. Those are big-budget Hollywood productions; here, he's making the kind of quirky English farce that would play best in art houses, and could be lampooned by SNL if it wasn't already lampooning itself.
Reynolds plays "Alec Albion", the Smart Alec of the title. He's headed to an upscale London apartment complex where his wealthy uncle lives. Alec plans to rent a flat there and kill him before uncle can remove him from his will. None of this is stated. We only learn his plan as it unfolds.
Because Alec is smart, he's good at fooling people and charming some, like the building's porter, and his new wife "Judith" (Mercy Haystead), who at first doesn't suspect he's got a bimbo on the side. Alec claims he's an artist (he isn't), stating that he needs a flat with a "northerly light" to paint by. Really, the necessary northern windum gives him a view of his uncle's balcony, an important part of the murder plot. Alec has all the details worked out, but at this point we are still in the dark.
He then fakes a fever, which he says has caused him to have a premonition of his uncle's death. When police "Inspector Ashley" (Edward Lexy) is called by the building's manager over his bizarre behavior, he puts on an album of classical music and blasts it while he leaves for 30 seconds to kill his uncle. Initially, the cops can't figure out how he did it. Inspector Ashley thinks he bludgeoned him while his assistant thinks he shot him. They find a rife under his floorboards that's recently been fired but an autopsy finds no bullet in the body. Alec grows more smug as his plan holds up, and when he's put on trial they can't prove he did it so he walks.
But then he gets too cocky and calls the coppers and the press to his flat, where he has the nerve to explain how he committed the murder. It's ingenious. "But you can't arrest me," he insists, "even though I'm admitting my guilt, because of the double jeopardy law in this country." The comic style could be described as High Dudgeon, as everyone except Reynolds yells their lines. Low-canted camera angles signify silly walks and determination. The English excel at such exaggerated characterizations, though the recipe is somewhat indefinable. I wasn't sure it was gonna work at first, and it took fifteen minutes to get going, but once it did, it was oddly compelling and amusing. We've now seen Peter Reynolds play everything from executives to playboys to this time a half-cracked murder genius. One heck of a good actor, he. Two Big Thumbs Up with a very high recommendation. The picture is very good. ////
The previous night, we got stuck with something called "Johnny on the Spot"(1954), and thank goodness for exposition, because if you can follow this one you must have written the script, for which you deserve to be flogged if you did. "Johnny Breakes" (Hugh McDermott) is just out of prison and walking on an English beach, looking for the man who framed him. It's got something to do with extortion or fraud involving a silver mine. Johnny wants payback for the time he spent in stir, but when he gets to the mine owner's mansion, which has a windmill out front, he finds the owner and a half-dressed young woman dead.
Panicking, he rifles the dead man's desk drawers, looking for a diary that will have the info on the frame-up, and the crooked bookkeeping at the silver mine. Johnny can't find the diary, but he does find loads of cash, a stack of which he pockets to make up for his time in the slam.
Then he hears piano music coming from downstairs. On tiptoes he investigates, to find a blind man playing Chopin. The blind man is the dead man's valet. He can't see, but he can hear like nobody's business, and he hears Johnny as he sidles up against a wall. The blind guy is old, but he's agile as heck, and he canes Johnny on the forehead, then knocks him down another flight of stairs.
Johnny high tails it after that, and at a nearby cafe, the cops come looking for him. He's already concocted an alibi for being an American in a British seaside town ("I'm on vacation"), but he's got a bloody scalp ("I went rock climbing"), and they know he's up to something. He then goes looking for a woman who entered the mansion right after he got his butt kicked by the blind man. Who is this woman? Better stick around til the end when the exposition kicks in.
You know a movie needs help when the great Paul Carpenter (he of the Canadian sweater and pompadour) is called in for only a cameo role, and his character is named "Paul" so he doesn't have to remember much.
Hugh McDermott talks out the roof of his mouth the entire film, which is different than talking out the side, but sounds similar. There is no regional American accent that could account for his tone of voice, so you know he's doing it deliberately. And now that I look him up, I see he was Skittish, born in Edinburgh, so we have the old John Lennon/Michael Brennan cheap attempt at an American accent again, with no recognizable regional basis. Nowadays, the Brits (and especially the Aussies) can do Americans perfectly, but back then, not so much. McDermott was also in "Devil Girl from Mars" (seen recently) and he was good in that movie, but he may have thrown in the towel here, because there's just no rhyme or reason to this plot. It just meanders around. To make up for it, read every one of the nine IMDB reviews, I insist! They are more "on the spot" than Johnny, and "in toto" (Man, do I hate that phrase) they make the perfect description of this movie. Two Bigs anyway, just for it's unique confusion value. When you've gotta call in Paul Carpenter for a cameo, you know you're in trouble. The picture is very good. ////
I mentioned Dr. Judy Wood's book "Where Did the Towers Go?" in a recent blog. Other incisive 9/11 books are "Black 9/11: Money, Motive & Technology" and "The 9/11 Mystery Plane and the Vanishing of America," both by Mark Gaffney, and also Webster Griffin Tarpley's "9/11 Synthetic Terror : Made in USA." Other important tomes in recent years are "Aberration in the Heartland of the Real : The Secret Lives of Timothy McVeigh" by Wendy S. Painting, "A Lie Too Big To Fail : The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy" by Lisa Pease, "Forbidden Archaeology : The Hidden History of the Human Race" by Michael Cremo, "Genesis, Creation and Early Man : The Orthodox Christian Vision" by Father Seraphim Rose, "Grid of the Gods : The Aftermath of the Cosmic War and the Physics of the Pyramid Peoples" by Dr. Joseph P. Farrell (and all books by Dr. Joe), "The Plot to Kill King (MLK)" by William Pepper, "LBJ : The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination" by Phillip F. Nelson, "Chaos : Charles Manson, The CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties" by Tom O'Neill, and "A Terrible Mistake : The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments" by H.P. Albarelli. I've got more, but that'll hold you over for now.
My blogging music tonight was "Fish Rising" by Steve Hillage. My late night is Handel's Oreste Opera. I wish you a nice Memorial Day Weekend and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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