Our Friend Pat

I don't have any movies tonight, the reason being that a close friend passed away last night (or at least I got the news last night), and to even call him a close friend doesn't do him justice because he was such an ongoing, constant presence in my life, and in all of his friends' lives, that it's more accurate to call him just that, a constant part of my life. His name was (and still is) Pat. If you know me, you knew him. It's not many people one can say they've known for fifty years, let alone been friends with for all that time, but Pat was one such friend. One thing about Pat: he was For Real. Absolutely no pretense about him.

I met him in in the Summer of 1973, when I was playing pinball at Thrifty Drug Store near the corner of Reseda and Nordhoff in Northridge. David Bragen was probably with me at the time, possibly my brother, too. We were fixtures on the Circus pinball machine they had in the store, and one day, another guy came in wanting to play it. That was Pat, looking very stylish in his bell bottom jeans, '70s satin shirt (flowered?), shag haircut (slightly longish and feathered), and best of all, his zip-up platform shoes. He was taller than we were (even without the platforms), older than me by more than a year, but what made him really stand out was that he worked at College Records, across the Thrifty parking lot. He was only 14, but already had a job, and the fact that he worked at a music store made him cool. His look made him seem more sophisticated than we were, like he was 16 rather than 14, a big age difference to a kid.

We met at the Thrifty pinball game a few times, and I don't remember how it happened, but Pat probably told us to come check out the record store. I don't think I'd been inside it before. To say that College Records would go on to have a gigantic mega-influence on my life is an understatement, and very soon after meeting Pat, David Bragen and I were hanging out at College Records every day. By 1974, we spent almost every afternoon there, because not only were we getting the best rock and roll education available in the country, but 1974 just so happened to be The Greatest Year in Rock and Roll History, as noted by Homer Simpson.

One of the first records I recall hearing at College was "Selling England By The Pound" by Genesis. Who'd ever heard, or even imagined, music like that? Not 13 year old me. I think Pat already knew about Genesis, and he saw their tour for that album at The Roxy in Hollywood (which would've been right after The Roxy opened). My life was changed by that album, and I became a progressive rock aficionado, grabbing up anything that was suggested (or that I heard inside the store on its JBL speakers) to enhance my learning. I can still remember the day ELP's "Brain Salad Surgery" was released, in November of '73. The clerks, likely Pat and his boss Barry, unboxed it, put it on, and......holy jiminy christmas! Talk about "who ever heard music like that?" I remember it was about 7:30 in the evening. The store closed at 8. So I ran home, told my Mom and Dad I just had to have $2.99 to buy it, not tomorrow, but now, right now, before the store closed. Dad gave me the dough and I ran back just in time to purchase my copy, then went home, where Mom and Dad said, "Well, let's hear it." I remember that Mom liked the classical "trumpet" parts Emerson played on the Moog on Karn Evil 9 Third Impression. He copped that melody from a classical piece but I  can't remember which one.

This was the kind of music Pat was introducing me to. Before that, though I was a 60s pop expert, and knew every song ever on the radio from 1963 onwards, I'd never even heard of bands like PFM or King Crimson. All of them came to me through Pat. Other early recommendations were Yes and Camel. Such was his (and the store's) musical influence on my life.

And it wasn't only music he introduced. It was through Pat that I met Lillian, at the Capitol Records Swap Meet, one Saturday night in October 1980. He knew her from another record store, Moby Disc, where she and her friends went to shop, browse and hang out after school, just like David Bragen and I did at College.

I could write about the late 70s, and driving around in Pat's yellow Fiat (was it a Spider?). Late nights at Tommy's, eating triple cheeseburgers, driving through Box Canyon, pulling over because Pat spotted a tarantula. Or years of playing softball, on weekend afternoons, Over-The-Line in particular. He was known as The Commissioner then, because he organized the games. Pat had a big gym bag full of gloves and balls. He'd hand them out and we'd play. When The Commish says, "play ball," you do.

Then there were years of hanging out, first at Terry's, then in our garage at 9032, when Terry moved in there. Pat and Terry became close, and still talked on the phone when Terry moved to Washington state. He died earlier this year. Now Pat has joined him on The Other Side.

I am so grateful to have had the recent opportunities to spend time with him. He was undergoing some medical procedures recently, quite an ordeal, and designated me as his ride home from the hospital. I will always remember stopping at a 70s-era hamburger restaurant in Newhall called Jimmy Dean's. I love Newhall, and I know Pat did too. He'd only recently moved there, having gotten a HUD apartment in a beautiful,quiet neighborhood. He suggested we stop at Jimmy Dean's, and he bought me a double chili-cheeseburger and fries for driving him home from the hospital. The restaurant was next store to a small building advertised as "The School of Rock." I suggested we could open our own such school, being that he and I, between tthe two of us knew every freaking band that ever existed. Pat agreed, but said that we couldn't just speak extemporaneously. "We'd need a curriculum".

Man,  I wish he'd had more time to enjoy his new apartment. I was over there again only about ten days ago. What a beautiful and peaceful place, and named "Canterbury Village"! Couldn't be more perfect name for a progressive rock fanatic. No one understood progressive rock like Pat did (well, except me.) I will carry the torch now; I was never really the heavy-metaller everyone thought I was. Well, I was for a while, but it didn't have the staying power of Prog. We talked about the music for hours in long phone calls, and holy smokes, Pat, we got to see the 50th anniversary of "Days of Future Passed", performed by the Moody Blues at the Hollywood Bowl in 2017.

I remember in the early 90s when his green ten-speed was permanently parked in our back yard. He used to encourage my Black Lab Shemp to jump the fence. I can't say I loved that, haha, but I hope he's up there with Pat now. And his dog Boo, also.

I still can't believe it, because just two weeks ago we were watching TV as his new apartment. He gave me some shirts to take home that were now too small for him, and are slightly too large for me, but I'll wear 'em.

Man, I've lost a lot of friends over the last 15 years. Many of 'em didn't even make it to 50. Pat lived the longest. He made it to 64. I'll be 64 next year, and that's another thing I can't believe. If you hear me yammering about progressive rock for 90 minutes on end, and it looks like I'm talking to myself, don't worry; I'm not. I'm talking to Pat on The Other Side. We've gotta keep our friendship going. Can't let a little thing like death get in the way. ////

And that's all I know. Play some Genesis in Pat's honor tonight. And thank him for the friendship and the music. Thanks, Pat!  ////

John Ireland and Jane Randolph in "Open Secret", and "Captain America," a Republic Chapter Serial starring Dick Purcell and Lionel Atwill

Last night's movie was "Open Secret" a "message" Noir about post-War bigotry in America. As it opens, middle-aged "Larry Mitchell" (Morgan Farley) opens his apartment door with a lamp in hand, ready to clobber whoever's knocking. It's only his landlady, but he sure is scared, and he has good reason to be. He's trying to quit membership in a secret society of anti-Semites who are intent on running the "foreigners" out of the city. Larry wants nothing more to do with this group (we'll find out why later) but first, he's waiting to host his newly-married Army buddy "Paul Lester" (John Ireland), who's wife "Nancy" (Jane Randoph) will be coming along. Paul of course knows nothing about Larry's ties to the group, made up of neighborhood men who meet in the back of a bar called The 19th Hole. While waiting for Paul and Nancy, Larry gets a package delivered containing an old, ragged shirt, followed by a threatening phone call. These are unsubtle messages from his group, warning him not to walk away. He agrees to meet with the caller, and ducks out, telling his landlady, "I'll be right back. If my pal and his wife come by, let them in please." She does this, and Paul and Nancy wait for Larry to return. While in his apartment, looking to pour a drink, they discover some pamphlets in a cupboard with swastikas on  the covers and titles like "Was Hitler Right?" 

Larry never returns because he gets killed after leaving the meeting. 

The police then come to his apartment, led by "Detective Mike Frontelli" (Sheldon Leonard). He's already stopped a group of neighborhood kids from breaking the windows of a camera shop owned by "Harry Strauss" (George Tyne). From his interrogation of the kids, it's clear that the 'hood is full of anti-Semites, who don't like Italians, either. When Detective Frontelli informs Paul and Nancy that Larry is dead, Paul can't believe that Larry would have any part in spreading hatred. "I know the guy, we shared a foxhole during the war." But after finding a roll of film in Larry's sock drawer, and taking it to Strauss's Camera Shop, he discovers photos of different crimes in progress: arson, destruction of property, murder. Investigating now himself, Paul sees a drunken man assault his wife at The 19th Hole. Curious, he later knocks on her door. Without her husband present, she confesses, after some prompting, that he's a violent drunk who drove the car that killed another Jewish shopkeeper in the neighborhood. "That's when your friend Larry wanted out," she explains. It turns out that the torn and bloody shirt Larry received belonged to the hit-and-run victim. The shirt was a warning to Larry: "If you leave us, you're next." Now he's dead.

Paul Lester figures that Larry got mixed up in peer pressure. When wife Nancy asks, "Why do people hate?", he explains "Because some are stupid, some are vicious, and others because someone told them to." That about sums it up; Larry hated because someone told him to. But when a murder happened, he wanted out, but not before he documented the gang's crimes with his camera (Larry was an amateur photographer).

In the aftermath of his death, a reporter comes snooping around, asking for Larry's supposed "exclusive" pictures. "He promised me a scoop" the guy tells Paul, who won't give the pictures up just yet. He wants to show 'em to the cops, in order to bust up the gang. They find this out, and ambush Paul, then accost Harry Strauss (who also knows about the photos), and hold both men captive in the back room of The 19th Hole. The reporter returns to Larry's apartment while Nancy Lester is there alone, to ask her once again for the incriminating pictures. Arthur O'Connell, known for his folksy mien and mustache, plays the leader of the hate group.

Noirish in style, "Open Secret" exposes the subject of Nazi sympathizers right here in the USA, the country that helped defeat Hitler. But except for Larry Mitchell, it's doubtful that these guys in the group were patriotic soldiers. Rather, they're just a bunch of drunks at a bar, resentful at their own failures in life and looking for someone to blame. Two Big Thumbs Up, especially for the Noir aspect, which kept the story from being too preachy or obvious. We really like John Ireland and now Jane Randolph, too. The picture is very good. ////

The previous night, we began "Captain America"(1944), another chapter serial from Republic Pictures, and in fact their most expensive, clocking in at 243 minutes spread out over 15 chapters. Important men are dying all over the country, each after receiving a metallic scarab that has some kind of mystical power. It causes them to commit suicide by driving off cliffs, jumping out of windums, or walking into traffic. The big-city DA is overwhelmed, having no idea who is sending out these totems. The Mayor wishes Captain America would intervene again, as he did during the last organized crime wave, when he almost single-handedly shut down the bad guys' entire operation. "I wish he'd come back," says the Mayor. "The city really needs him now."

We the viewers know that the culprit is a man who actually calls himself "The Scarab" (Lionel Atwill). With the help of his henchmen, he's invaded the laboratory of "Professor Lyman" (Frank Reicher), whose Dynamic Vibrator he covets. The Vibrator is a machine with advanced frequency technology that can knock down skyscrapers and potentially cause earthquakes. Working for the Treasury Deptartment but posing as the secretary for DA "Grant Gardner" (Dick Purcell), "Gail Richards" (Lorna Gray) first tries to uncover The Scarab's identity by staking out and serving an arrest warrant on a florist (LeRoy Mason), whose bouquets the scarabs are pinned to when delivered. But in trying to arrest Mason, she is overpowered and taken to the laboratory of Professor Lyman, where The Scarab awaits and turns on the Dynamic Vibrator. Will Captain America arrive in time to save her before the whole building crashes down with Gail in it? That's where Chapter One ends. As with all Republic serials, there are too many punchouts, each of which goes on too long, but other than that, we have no complaints. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Captain America", though I was surprised, due to it's prestige and popularity of the character (who still sells movie tickets today) that the picture was slightly degraded. I'd love to see a razor sharp print.  /////

And that's all for tonight, except.......drum roll please......I am happy to announce the completion of one of my two upcoming books. I began working on this one on October 7th, 2021. This first draft was completed four months later, but then in February of last year, I got the idea for my second book (a companion piece), and set the first one aside to begin working on it. The first draft of that one took seven months, until September 2022. At that point, I resumed work on the first one, beginning a second draft, and I've been working that way ever since, redrafting and refining one book at a time, then switching to the other one. The first one, as of today, is now finished (hooray). Though it's still in template form, I estimate it will run about 265 pages. What I need to do now is get it into a PDF format, which I know little about, and don't know if I can achieve with a Chromebook. If not, I'll have to either shell out for another computer or see if anyone more tech-savvy can help me. Once it's in PDF, I can start sending it out for submissions, to publishers willing to accept manuscripts from unknown (and un-agented) authors. I'll do that for up to six months (a time limit that isn't set in stone, we'll see how it goes), and if it doesn't get picked up, I'll go the self-publishing route, likely on Amazon. In any event, if all goes well, I hope it will be released no later than next Spring (and hopefully sooner). The counterpart book, which I'll be finishing up this Summer, will be released, again if all goes well, perhaps within six months of the first one, the better to keep the two books "connected".

I've been working very hard on them, writing and polishing, and I hope they will get an audience. Folks who know me might be surprised, because, as I've mentioned, they won't be what's expected. I can't give the titles out, or even a hint of the contents, because I want to do this full-time now, and I can't just "give it away" like I did when I wrote "What Happened in Northridge" online (in a series of Myspace blogs) back in 2006-7. This time it's professional, or it will be as soon as I sell the first copy. Anyway, I'm excited at having finished. Now, to finish the second one, which should be done by September. That'll make two books in slightly less than two years. I wanna proceed at that pace - a book a year - after that.

And I'll still keep writing the blog, of course. My blogging music tonight is "Relayer" by Yes, and my late night (from last night) is Handel's Alcina Opera. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

Paul Birch and Lorna Thayer in "The Beast with a Million Eyes", and "Outside the Wall" starring Richard Basehart

Last night we found a Sci-Fi flick with the Cormanesque title of "The Beast with a Million Eyes"(1955), and though Roger Corman co-wrote the screenplay that's where the similarities end, for it has none of the hallmarks of his work. Still, it was very interesting, though more a psychological drama than a typically cheap Rubber Suited Monster Movie. The Kelly family lives way out in the desert in Indio, California, running a date ranch. The movie is filmed on location; there's a big stack of date palms out in the middle of their property. Dad "Allan Kelly" (Paul Birch) runs the operation with just one helper, a big, mute "Mice and Men" guy known only as "Him" (Leonard Tarver). Dad Kelly explains: "We call him that because nobody knows his name, and he can't talk." Early on, we realize that the desert isolation is doing a number on Mom (Lorna Thayer). She's overwrought, in the most melodramatic sense of the word. She's jealous of her daughter Sandy's plans to go to college, which Dad wants for her. "She gets to escape this place," Mom says of "Sandy" (Dona Cole). "I've lost all my best years here. I hate her for it!" Sandy hears her say this, and Mom immediately regrets saying it. "I don't mean it, honey. It's only words." Mom is frustrated and preoccupied. She burns casseroles and cakes in the oven.

One day, when Dad is out in the date field, there's a high whine in the air. The Kellys' clapboard house is shaken like in an earthquake, knocking dishes out of cupboards. In the aftermath, Mom takes a turn for the worse. She thinks the noise was from a plane that buzzed the house. Actually, it's a UFO that's landed in the desert. For us, its appearance was never a secret. As the movie opened, we heard the alien pilot tell us, in a radio announcers voice, that he was coming to take over our planet. Now he's putting his money where his mouth is.

Duke, the family's German Shepherd is the first to be affected. He investigates the whining noise coming from the outlying scrub and turns into Cujo, attacking Mrs. Kelly so savagely that she tries to shoot him, and when that fails, she chops him up with an axe. Fortunately, we are only told about this, and not shown it.

Next come the birds. While out harvesting dates, Dad and Him are viciously attacked, and - listen folks, my theories about directors copying from other films is no joke - this movie came out 7 years before "The Birds", and you can see for yourself the comparisons, of how a seed for  Hitchcock's movie could be germinated.

Following that is an attack by a local farmer's cow, who also has to be shot dead. Him has been acting weird the entire time. He spies on young Sandy Kelly when she goes swimming in the irrigation pond. Mom has melted down by now, but when she reconciles with Sandy, she discovers the power of love, and their bond, and the end of their animosity, seems to have an adverse affect on the alien, who's camped out in his spaceship in the hills.

Dick Sargeant of "Bewitched" fame, looking skinny as a stick, plays the local sheriff's deputy. Him hitches a ride with Dick, then - having been irradiated by the UFO (which resembles a combination toaster/milkshake mixer) he clobbers him, steals his squad car, then comes back to the house and tries to kill Sandy, as programmed by the alien. Dad then reveals a secret. To coax Him away from Sandy, he says, "Carl.....Carl... it's me, Alan. Don't hurt my daughter." Him relents (and later dies from radiation sickness), but we learn that Dad knew him all along. His name was Carl. He was in Dad's troop during the war. Dad, the squad leader, made a bad call on patrol that cost Carl "part of his brain, which had to be removed. That's why he cant talk." Mom and Sandy never knew the truth about Carl and now he's dead.

Ultimately, the alien makes it known, through mental telepathy, that he wants Sandy Kelly to help repopulate his planet, which is dying for the usual sci-fi reasons. Dad and Mom realize that - though the family are fearful - they have a human quality the alien doesn't understand, and that will defeat him. It's love, of course. The movie gets super-metaphysical in the last ten minutes, with Broadway actors Paul Birch (Dad) and Lorna Thayer (Mom) emoting for all their worth to explain the meaning of life.

All told, it's a weird one. If the running time were 12 minutes shorter, I'd recommend "The Beast with a Million Eyes" for a Criterion restoration as an oddball classic. The (El) Indio date farm location, with it's old house and outbuildings is reason enough to restore (and recommend) it. The psychological effects on the family go on too long, and weigh on the viewer, but that's the crux of the movie: that the alien wants humans and animals, and all Earth creatures, to hate each other, so that they will kill one another and he can have the planet. In that respect, it's a prescient script. The acting is ultra sincere, and has a spiritual tint. If it had a Criterion restoration I guess I'd give it Two Huge Thumbs Up. Some IMDB reviewers say it's worse than an Ed Wood movie, a complaint I can almost understand, but it's way too intelligent for that. Let's settle for Two Bigs with a must-see recommendation, just because its so weird. One caveat: the picture ranges from good to okay to blurry, but it's very watchable. I wouldn't miss it if I were you. ////

The previous night, in "Outside the Wall"(1950), 30 year old "Larry Nelson" (Richard Basehart) is paroled from the grim and notorious Cherry Hill prison in Philadelphia, after spending half his young life behind bars for murder. He was 14 and in reform school when it happened; he slugged a guard who later died. In the Big House, Larry's been a model prisoner. Upon his release, the warden gives him his 600 hard-earned dollars, a suit of clothes, a bus ticket and wishes him well. Larry has admitted he's scared of living outside. "I don't even know the world. I've heard everything's all sped up."

On his first night out, he sees men fighting on the sidewalk. He almost gets run over by a car. Retreating to a flophouse, he's disillusioned yet again when a job the warden set him up with doesn't pan out. During a brief stint as a dishwasher, a stickup takes place at the cafe employing him, and Larry, having prison-quick reactions, beats up and disarms the assailants. By now, he wants no more of crazy city life and departs for rural Pennsylvania, where he gets a job as a medical lab assistant, based on his similar experience in the penitentiary.

He tries to keep to himself at the clinic, but a hottie blond nurse named "Charlotte" (Marilyn Maxwell) has taken notice of his buff physique, having given Larry his pre-employment physical (Basehart himself is all buffed-out). Charlotte starts coming on to him, but because he went into prison at 14, he knows nothing of women except what the older cons told him: "Listen kid, all they want is money or to run your life, or both." At first he's wary of Charlotte, and there's another nurse, "Ann" (Dorothy Hart) who's just as beautiful and nothing like what he's been told. She's honest, sincere, and likes him for who he is rather than for his body or any potential money he might eventually have (though she knows nothing about his prison past).

Then a monkey wrench is thrown in, to become the main part of the plot. Prior to getting his job, Larry has seen a newspaper headline about a million dollar Brinks robbery. He recognizes the name of the fugitive perpetrator, an older man named "Gus Wormser" (Joseph Pevney) who was once his mentor when he lived on the streets as a child. One day at the clinic, Larry is called on to prep a tuberculosis patient, and it's the same man, Gus the Brinks robber. He now wants Larry to take cash payments to his wife "Celia" (Signe Hasso), who's blackmailing him for one grand per week.  "I know you have all that money," she's told Gus, "and you'd better pay up or I'll tell the cops where you are". He's near death anyway, with TB, so it may not matter if he's caught, but he vows to recover. "I want to live to spend my million dollars. Listen Larry, I'll pay you to take my wife's payments to her." At first Larry wants no part of this, wanting to stay as far from criminality as he can get. But when Charlotte the nurse uses her sexual wiles on him, and says "I'm the kind of gal who likes nice things", he gets tempted. so he ends up taking Gus's offer, and he starts delivering the blackmail payments to his wife. But she has a bigger scheme that neither Gus nor Larry knows about. Abetted by three hoodlums, including Harry Morgan as a torturer, Celia Wormser plans to get hold of the entire million dollar Brinks loot, and has her henchmen follow Larry back to the clinic, where they kidnap Gus by slipping him out a windum.

The overall theme here is money-grubbing, which Larry knows nothing about, coming from a hard-scrabble background with no parents. Through bad luck, he ended up in prison at 14. Post-war society has indeed "sped up" during his time inside the joint, and has become materialistic to a degree he doesn't recognize. He can't understand why Charlotte cares so much about the platinum-coated watch he's bought her with Gus's money. "To me, it's just a shiny piece of junk" he says. But it's a status symbol, and that's enough for her to agree to marry him. But nurse Ann is genuine, and when Gus is kidnapped, she helps Larry escape from the clutches of Celia's gang. As much a drama as a Noir, with "the straight and simple life" as the moral, "Outside the Wall" earns Two Big Thumbs Up. Before he became a household TV star with "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", Richard Basehart always got the most dramatic Noir roles. The picture is razor sharp, and the opening scenes were actually shot at Cherry Hill Prison, which looks downright medieval. ////

That's all for tonight. My blogging music is "The Psychomodo" by Cockney Rebel. Shortly after I started hanging out at College Records in 1973, I started buying and reading Melody Maker, an English music weekly published in newspaper form. I swear, it seemed like every MM headline in 1974 was for Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel. Harley was their singer. None of the guys at College Records ever played Cockney Rebel, and I never bought any of their records. Their image was too Glam for me and seemed put-on, and the mere fact that Melody Maker kept trumpeting them was an additional turn-off ("If critics like it that much, it must suck"). Tonight is the first time I've ever heard their music, which I selected out of curiosity. "The Psychomodo" isn't too bad after all, though Steve Harley takes a little getting used to. He sounds like an exaggerated combination of David Bowie and Alex Harvey, with a touch of Bryan Ferry affectation thrown in. He's theatrical, in other words. But overall, the music's not too bad, and Cockney Rebel are decent musicians. Give 'em a shot if so inclined. My late night is Handel's Agrippina Opera. I hope you had a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)    

Darrell Howe in "Anatomy of a Psycho", and "Flame of Stamboul" starring Richard Denning and Lisa Ferraday

With a title like "Anatomy of a Psycho", and a release year of 1961, you might guess, going in, that it's a low-budget exploitation flick capitalizing on the title of Hitchcock's "Psycho", released the year before, but in fact, it turns out to be more of a juvenile delinquent film, and they didn't do too bad considering the script was co-written by Ed Wood. They even used some of his "Plan 9" music for the soundtrack. Young "Chet Marco" (Darrell Howe) broods as the execution of his older brother nears. "Duke Marco" (not shown) is a murderer who will soon be sitting in the gas chamber. Newspapers trumpet the headlines; it's all over the radio, too. Chet visits Duke at San Quentin in the final hours, then heads back home, but on his way, a gang of punks accosts him in an alley.

"So", says their leader, "what was it like in there, in the slammer, visiting your murderer brother who's about to die and go to hell?" This line of deliberately provocative questioning gets the desired response out of Chet, who not only starts a fight but beats the tar out of the gang leader. Back at his trailer park home, he argues with his sister "Pat" (Pamela Lincoln), saying "Duke didn't do it, he never killed anyone!" But the truth is the opposite. Pat knows this and accepts Duke's death sentence, which will be carried out at Midnight. Chet leaves to hang out with his buddies at his friend Moe's crash pad, where they play cards and drink. The next day, after Duke is gassed, Chet has "Moe" (Don Devlin) and his buddies join him is beating up the DA's son, whom they've staked out near their high school. Wearing burlap "Town That Dreaded Sundown" masks, Chet and the boys beat him to a pulp.

Local detective "Mac" (Michael Granger) is onto the gang, and Chet in particular, and visits them at their clubhouse to let them know it.

Meanwhile, the school nice guy, "Mickey" (Ronnie Burns, son of George and Gracie) is dating Chet's sister Pam, but coincidentally, Mickey's Dad was the key prosecution witness at Duke's murder trial, and was most responsible for his conviction. Chet doesn't yet know this, but he's gonna find out.

Trying to bring him out of his angry shell, Mickey invites Chet, at his sister Pam's behest, to a party at the swanky pad of the local judge, who just so happens to be the guy who presided over Duke's trial and sentenced him to death. The party is hosted by the judge's son, who's recently stolen Chet's girlfriend. As if he didn't have enough aggravation, now he's got a double-angry revenge motive to attend the party, which he does, and after punching the judge's son out, he burns the mansion down by dropping a lit cigabutt in a waste basket. Then he casually walks away, down the town's main drag, and no one gives him an afterthought. The burndown is never again mentioned, and - per Ed Wood's script - it was probably included just to show Chet's progression as a budding psycho. In any other movie, an arson of this magnitude would get some plot time, but not here, and that's fair enough, because it's not where the story is heading.

Chet wants to get back at all the people who caused his brother Duke to be executed, so when Mickey (who has no idea Chet burned down the judge's house) comes over to tell Chet he's gonna marry his sister, Chet first tries beating him up, but Mickey's a good fighter and holds his own. Moe, the owner of the crash pad, who was formerly a Marine, then steps in to stop Mickey from pounding Chet. Mickey grabs a knife and Moe gets stabbed and severely wounded.

He later dies, and Mickey is charged with first degree murder. Chet revels in this because it was Mickey's Dad who's testimony convicted his brother Duke. Now Mickey will be up for the gas chamber if found guilty. The movie turns into a courtroom drama at the 40 minute mark, but we the viewers know something the jury does not (and I can't tell you what it is). Detective Mac suspects the same thing. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Anatomy of a Psycho." Darrell Howe gives a rather untrained but somehow accurate and empathetic portrayal as "Chet". The other actors are more professional than he, but it's his performance that stands out in an interesting flick that covers a lot of bases. It's the kind of early '60s "troubled teen" movie that might've influenced someone like David Lynch, and comes highly recommended to you, as well. The picture is very good.  //// 

Now, anytime a plot involves the theft of Defense Department secrets, you know you're in for some convolution. Espionage tales are always complex, but in "Flame of Stamboul"(1951), the plot's so wound-up I'll have a hard time 'splaining it to ya. It was directed by Ray Nazarro, a veteran of B-Westerns who knows what he's doing, so it was easy to follow, but not easy to review. Anyway, here goes. Happy-Go-Lucky ladies' man "Larry Wilson" (Richard Denning) meets the fashionable Frenchwoman "Lynnette Garay" (Lisa Ferraday) on a cruise ship to Istanbul. She thinks he's a funny, if tipsy, American tourist. It's Richard Denning getting a chance to do his "charming undercover act" once again (like we saw him do the other night in "Insurance Investigator"). At any rate, she's bored with him now: "It was fun while it lasted Mr. Wilson. I'm going on to Cairo, it was nice knowing you.

We now follow her, and when she gets to Cairo, we find out she's the frontwoman for a gang of Egyptian jewel thieves, who plan to rip off the wealthy son of a Sheik. He's infatuated with a belly dancer billed as The Flame of Stamboul, who actually, like Miss Garay, is a French gal. Her act is huge in Cairo, and so, to get close to the Sheik's son, the thieves plan to do away with Miss Flame and substitute Garay in her place. They look enough alike that no one can tell, especially with her veil on, and she's an equally talented dancer.

Getting back to Larry Wilson, he's really a CIA agent trying to get close to someone known only as The Voice, an international spy who may be trying to steal the plans for the defense of the Suez Canal. Following Garay to Cairo, he meets his American contact "Joe Octavian" (Nestor Paiva) in a cafe run by "Hassan", an agreeable nabob who'd be "shocked, shocked! I tell you," to find gambling or thievery going on in his establishment. Because he's undercover as a tippler, Joe at first slips Larry a mickey as per Hassan's order, thinking him a Boorish American ("get that drunk out of here"). But after they establish each other's identities through a rapid exchange of passwords, Larry and Joe team up to topple the dominoes leading to The Voice, using a streetwise go-between criminal named "Louie Baracca" (Norman Lloyd), who, hoping for a passport to get back to America where he has family, agrees to help Joe and Larry uncover the elusive Voice.

All of these plot elements converge toward the end, when George Zucco appears as a lowly street vendor. But wait! What's that in his Trinket Box? A gun? A camera? A pea shooter? If ever an actor was stereotyped to play bad guys, it was Zucco. You can't trust him, especially when he's smiling. Overall, as noted, this is one movie that's better seen than described. Norman Lloyd, who lived to be 106, steals the show as the middleman Barraca and is reason enough to give "Flame of Stamboul" Two Bigs and a high recommendation. We also like Richard Denning, who of course starred in "Creature from the Black Lagoon," not to mention the Hatton Street cult-classic "Target Earth". The picture here is soft but watchable. ////

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music was the self-titled debut CD from The Electromagnets, released in 1975 and featuring a 21-year-old Eric Johnson on guitar. My late night is Handel's Serse Opera. I'm excited about the Cincinnati Reds, who've been on a tear of late. Of course, I love the Dodgers, too, and also the Angels, but the Reds were my team all through the '70s (The Big Red Machine years) and into the late 80s/early 90s when they won a World Series with Eric Davis and the Nasty Boys relief squad. Then Marge Schott sold the team and they went into the tank for about 30 years or so. But now they're back, with the just-called-up Elly de la Cruz hitting balls out of the freakin' park one after the other. And he's only 21! The Reds just won 11 games in a row. I hope they can keep up the pace; it'd be great to see them at least make the playoffs. After that, who knows? And put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame already!

I wish you a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Robert Lowery and Pamela Blake in "Highway 13", and "Insurance Investigator" starring Richard Denning and Audrey Long

Last night, in "Highway 13"(1948), the Norris Trucking Company is losing rigs at an alarming rate. They keep going over cliffs on the highway between Bishop and Mojave, six in the past month. As the movie got underway, I wondered if we'd seen it before, remembering a similar plot in which a criminal gang were running freight trucks off the road. It took about fifteen minutes for me to be sure this was a different film, when one of the drivers, a guy named "Hank Wilson" (Robert Lowery) goes to the management to tell them he thinks the accidents aren't accidental. "I drive that route, as you know, and every time I make a run, I stop at Pop's Cafe on Highway 13. You know the place?"  Hank's fiance "Doris Lacy" (Pamela Blake) works there as a waitress. He explains to the Norris co-owner "Frank Denton" (Michael Whalen) that the joint has a gas station and garage attached. It's a pit stop for Norris drivers to have their trucks filled and oiled, and the guy who owns the cafe and garage is an old malcontent named "Pop Lacy" (Clem Bevans), Doris's uncle. Pop's always in a bad mood. "I've asked around about him," Hank tells Mr. Denton, "and it turns out Pop was head of a Chicago gang in the 1920's."

That alone isn't enough to pin an insurance-murder rap on Pop, though the effort smacks of organization aligning with gang ties, but Pop's pushing 80 now and is dyspeptic. He wouldn't seem to have the energy or clout necessary to pull off such a job or head up a racket. In fact, Hank's announcement of his suspicion backfires. When Mr. Denton informs the police about Pop, they confer with the insurance company detective (Lyle Talbot), who thinks Hank himself is the culprit. "Why is he snoopin' around, askin' so many questions?" Talbot and the police think he's trying to frame someone else, so they throw him in the hoosegow for a while. Then, a subordinate insurance investigator gets him out, believing someone else at the Norris Company is responsible. He has Hank deliberately proposition the hottie who runs the personnel department. "Mary Hadley" (Maris Wrixon) has been coming on to him since he started working there. "Takes her on a few dates. see if she knows anything," the investigator tells him. Hank does this, much to the chagrin of Doris, his loyal girl at the cafe, who thinks he's cheating. Meanwhile the insurance investigator is killed when - while inspecting a truck for mechanical defects - someone releases the emergency brake on another truck and he is squashed. Is there any chance that Doris Lacy, a nice girl, is involved?

An early victim in the truck crashes is Mr. Denton's wife, who by unfortunate coincidence was run off the road in the course of one of the "accidents." Denton wants to get to the bottom of it all, but doesn't believe Hank's theory about Pop.

"Highway 13" is a solid crime flick with a gripping plot, but the best thing about it is all the road and cafe footage, featuring old-time Bishop, Mojave and Ventura County roads and locations in the late 1940s, when nothing was out there except for the lone cafe and the occasional barn. Old Pop is a character, wilier than you think, but his wife "Aunt Mert" (Mary Gordon) has a handle on him, throwing pies at his head from behind the cafe counter. Day-for-night photography is used to get that "Road Noir" look. Another good one from Lippert Pictures, Two Bigs, a minor classic. The picture is very good.  //// 

The previous night's movie was "Insurance Investigator"(1951), a tight 60 Minuter. At the realty corporation of Sullivan and Hammond, co-owner Mr. Sullivan is closing up for the night. Finding the elevator out of order, he uses the stairs and gets clobbered on his way to the ground floor. His shadowy assailant then breaks into Sullivan's office, pours a large whiskey and leaves the drink on his desk, to make it look like he'd been late-night boozing, hard at work, and fell down the stairs on his way out. Sullivan has a 100,000 dollar double indemnity insurance policy - a lot of dough - so the agency automatically sends out insurance investigator "Tom Davison" (Richard Denning), to make sure nothing is fishy.

But right away there is. The elevator has been declared non-defective. "It could not possibly have failed to operate," says the inspector. Sullivan's daughter "Nancy" (Audrey Long) adds fuel to the fire. When questioned by Tom Davison, she says, "My Dad never drank that much, and never drank whiskey at all."

Right off the bat, Davison has a suspect, Sullivan's business partner "John Hammond" (John Eldrege), who not only was the beneficiary on Sullivan's life insurance policy but stood to gain sole ownership of the company. Davison asks Nancy Sullivan to help him go undercover, figuring he'll have a better chance of finding the truth if he doesn't identify himself as an insurance investigator. She gets him a job as a real estate agent, posing as a Southern gent from Atlanta, complete with Colonel Sanders accent. He cozies up to the firm's secretary "Addie Wilson" (Hillary Brooke) and learns that she and John Hammond are secretly an item. With this revelation, Hammond is no longer merely a suspect. Davison is certain he's behind the death of Nancy's Dad.

But then Davison finds a stack of cancelled (i.e.bounced) checks in Hammond's desk, made out to a local casino owner. As we know from our 60 Minute Westerns last year, "Casino Owner" is right next to "Mob Boss" as the ultimate bad guy (except for Trump), and it turns out that Hammond was heavily in debt to this guy, "Chuck Malone" (Reed Hadley of "Zorro" fame).

We then see Malone shaking Hammond down, saying, "Where's that twenty thousand you owe me?" When Hammond says he doesn't have it, "But I will, as soon as the insurance claim comes through," Malone says, "Well, in the mean time, get rid of this guy," meaning Tom Davison. They've started to suspect he's not who he claims to be. To kill him off, Hammond "fixes" the elevator again, this time so the door will open to a 20 story fall. But it's not Davison who opens it; it's Hammond's secret lover Addie Wilson, who falls to her death. Now Hammond is devastated. Not only was he in love with Addie; they were gonna take the insurance payoff from Mr. Sullivan's death, and take over the company. But now she's dead, too, and he's in dutch to the real brains behind the insurance scam, casino owner Chuck Malone, who's been forcing other indebted gamblers to take out life insurance policies, then having his henchmen kill them and make it look like accidents. They do this to one such rich kid by running him off the road one night after he leaves Malone's club drunk. Davison discovers that the kid had a Malone-enforced life insurance policy and now draws a bead on him as the real culprit, the bossman above John Hammond. This sets up the final showdown, with a car chase down Mulholland Drive. Two Big Thumbs Up, especially for showing how the onion skin layers peel away to reveal the true kingpin behind a scam. You can always count on Republic Pictures for a solid crime flicks as well as chapter serials. One slight complaint here: the print of this movie is colorized. Look, folks: don't colorize movies. It just looks like bleached-out real color, and it doesn't mix well with the intended grey scale of the actual black-and-white photography. We like black-and-white movies best anyway, not that real color isn't good, but we've talked about how B&W removes the "real life" aspect from a film, leaving only the cinematic mystery, so the imagery becomes pure style, and the use of grey scale is all important. So, please don't colorize movies. But still Two Bigs and a high recommendation. The picture is slightly soft. ////

That's all for tonight. My blogging music is "Not the Weapon but the Hand," the excellent collaboration album from Steve Hogarth and Richard Barbieri, and also Richard Sinclair's "Caravan of Dreams". My late night is Handel's Jeptha Oratorio. I wish you a Happy Summer Soltice (and an awesome Summer in general), and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

Sean Lynch and Beth Rogan in "Innocent Meeting", and "Radar Patrol vs. Sky King" (a Chapter Serial), plus "Knock at the Cabin" (bonus movie)

Last night's movie was "Innocent Meeting"(1958), a British Crime Flick with an Angry Young Man theme that opens with "Johnny Brent" (Sean Lynch) on the run after robbing a store late one night. His subsequent flight is expertly choreographed. From a crane shot high above the London streets, we see Johnny outrun the beat cops chasing him through alleys and backyards, but he can't beat the police car. It's that Rolls Royce Thing again - "It's coming to get you!" - but at least they don't show the Menacing Grill this time.

Johnny winds up trapped in his fourth floor tenement flat, where - for now - he's keeping the cops at bay. With his pistol and enough ammo to hold out for a while, he has a temporary advantage as he can see the police coming up the stairs, so they can't approach without being shot at. The captain orders tear gas, but Johnny solves that problem by opening a window. While the captain then debates whether to call in a sharpshooter ("I don't want to kill the lad but he's leaving me no choice"), we hear Johnny's voice in his head: "How did it come to this? Everything was finally going well. How did I wind up trapped like a rat when I had my whole life in front of me?"

We then relive his story in flashback, beginning at a court proceeding. Johnny is the only one of his former gang of street punks who, after their conviction in another crime, is shown leniency by the judge. His three partners are all sentenced to prison or reform school, but Johnny, because it's his first offense, is given probation. At their initial meeting, his probation officer "Mr. Garside" (Ian Fleming)  tries to help him. "You are said to be an artistic young man, Johnny. You like to draw? What if I got you a job as a graphic artist?" Johnny declines because he's scared of the responsibility. He doesn't think he can make it in society, but Mr. Garside persists: "Okay, Johnny. have it your way. But I'm here any time you want to talk. And don't forget your appointment next month."

Johnny heads straight to his local HMV record store, where a gang of kids are playing jazz (it's a "listening store" like Wallach's Music City). Pretty "Connie Martin" (Beth Rogan) walks in and selects a Tchaikovsky record, saying "I'd like to play this next." The jazz kids say no: "That noise ain't got no beat." Though he doesn't know her, Johnny sticks up for Connie, demanding she get a chance play her record, even though he's never heard of Tchaikovsky. In gratitude, she takes him back to her house, a mansion complete with butler. Connie's Dad (Robert Raglan) is a textile manufacturer. She takes a liking to Johnny, and when she discovers he can draw, she gets him a job as one of her Dad's designers. All is now going well for Johnny. He keeps his probation appointments with Mr. Garside, who's impressed with his progress. He even shrugs off his former hoodlums at Uncle's Cafe, when Uncle (Denis Shaw of the Indomitable Hairline), a crook himself, suggests he should pull another "job". "I don't need that life no more" Johnny tells him. His former gang buddies sneer, "Oh look at 'im now, too big for 'is britches."

Johnny is ascending the ladder at Mr. Martin's company, and he and Connie are in love. But Johnny retains the psychological traces of his former life, and has little self-confidence, especially in the presence of Mr. Martin, and one day he's confronted with his past, when Martin's wallet goes missing from his coat pocket, and Martin reports it to the police. They run a check on all the firm's employees and discover that Johnny has a criminal record, a secret he's kept from Connie and her Dad. He's blamed for the wallet theft, though he swears he didn't do it. Mr. Martin declines to press charges, but fires Johnny, who now reverts to his former lifestyle, though his fall is a lot more layered than that, depicted in gradual plot points.

The final straw for Johnny comes when Mr. Garside won't loan him the money to elope to Scotland (pron.) with Connie. "I can't do it, Johnny. Not without the approval of her father. Connie's underage." That final disappointment leads Johnny to go back to his old ways and try robbing the store to gain the money for train fare. The final ten minutes resumes the standoff that began the movie. Two Big Thumbs Up and a high recommendation for "Innocent Meeting". The picture is good, not great.  ////

The previous night, we began "Radar Patrol vs. Sky King"(1949), another chapter serial from Republic Pictures, in which the newly formed Patrol, an offshoot of OSS, is trying to stop the takeover of the United States by the megalomaniacal foreign spy "Dr. Baroda" (John Merton), who has already succeeded in crashing planes, trains, and 18 wheel trucks, in the usual Mabusian manner. We see him in his laboratory, planning how to circumvent the radar ring being set up to  protect the country.

To get around it, he devises an opposing scanner that will detect the radar's Key Station, it's point of origin (hint, it's in Chatsworth Park). He installs his anti-radar scanner in his four engine airplane (his own personal AWACS) and proceeds to fly up and down the Chatsworth/Mulholland Drive border, looking for the Key Station. "Nitra" (Eve Whitney), his Amazonian assistant, finds it - "way out in the boondocks," she says, posing as an encyclopedia saleswoman.

This leads to the kidnapping of "Joan Hughes" (Jean Kent), the Radar Patrol agent assisting lead agent "Chris Calvert" (Kirk Alyn). An excessively long punchout ensues before the chase to try and find her, but you get some great old-time Chatsworth road footage once it begins. This is only the first chapter, but we can tell we're gonna love it. Republic seems to be the go-to studio for serials, though Universal made some good ones, too, but most that we've seen have been Republic. Two Bigs for "Radar Patrol vs. Sky King." The picture is razor sharp.  ////

This time we have a bonus movie, "Knock at the Cabin"(2023), though I won't give you any plot detail because it's brand new. Like you, I'm an M. Night Shyamalan fan, though I admit he's been hit or miss over the years. To me, his best movies are "The Sixth Sense", "Unbreakable", "The Village", and "Signs", and now "Knock", which I was especially interested to see because I read the book it was based on, called "The Cabin at the End of the World", about 5 years ago, when I heard about an author named Paul Tremblay. His name came to me somewhere online from an endorsement by Stephen King, who recommended the book which was good enough for me. I got it from the Libe, it scared the beejeezus out of me, then I got Tremblay's other books ("A Head Full of Ghosts", "Disappearance at Devil's Rock") and became a huge (pronounced yooge) fan. He's now one of my favorite writers. I also follow Tremblay on Facebook, so I've seen his responses to how the movie turned out, and while his overall review was positive, he wasn't happy with some of the changes made by Shyamalan. Tremblay, not having Stephen King clout, was cut out of the writing of the script. M. Night bought the rights and made it his own deal, and while he kept the overall framework of the story intact, he changed several of the major plot points.

The bottom line: the movie is scary as all get-out, but more than that, it's disturbing. The lead performance by David Bautista is one of the creepiest but most genuine in recent horror. All told, it's one of the top Shyamalan flicks. But I can understand Tremblay's complaints, because it changes major things about the book.

But if you haven't read the book - which The Shamster was banking on because Tremblay isn't a famous author (he still teaches high school math!), then the movie changes won't bug you (and they didn't bug me even though I've read the book). In short, they're two different entities, book and movie, but companion pieces all the same. One thing's for sure: Shyamalan couldn't have made this film without the genius of Paul Tremblay. Sham didn't come up with this story out of nowhere on his own. I do feel he could've given Tremblay more credit in the "making of" interview he did (available in the DVD extras), but that's a small quibble.

Anyhow, creative differences aside between writer and director, it's one weird and disturbing movie. Two Huge Thumbs Up, though not for the squeamish.  ////

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is "The Roaring Silence" by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. My late night is Handel's Rodrigo Opera. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

John Carroll and Martin Spellman in "I Am a Criminal", and "The Crime of the Century" starring Jean Hersholt, Stuart Erwin and Frances Dee

Last night we had a buddy movie of a different kind in "I Am A Criminal"(1938), the misleading title of which suggests bank jobs and prison breaks, but instead is an ironic play on words for a racketeer who's trying to change his image. "Brad McArthur" (John Carroll), is a big shot casino owner in an unspecified Midwestern city. He's so arrogant he introduces himself to the town's new DA, offering a handshake and, of all things, assistance, saying "If there's anything I can do for you, just let me know." The DA replies by telling him, "Yeah, there's something you can do - leave town. Because I'm gonna put you out of business." McArthur scoffs. Then, in a six minute opening scene, he opens a dialogue with the DA, asking him, "What's so bad about what I do, anyway? I'm not forcing anyone to come to my clubs and gamble. I give them music and entertainment. If people want to risk their hard-earned money, that's their business." "Yeah, says the DA, "but it's a business the voters don't want in this town."

McArthur scoffs again and leaves, saying, "Listen bub, many DAs before you have tried and failed to close me down. I pay my lawyer more in a week than you make in a year." "The DA says, "I know what else you're doing in the back rooms of your joints. One day you'll slip up, and when you do, Ill put you away."

He soon gets his chance when a drunken rich kid starts a fight in Brad's main club. The bouncers try to throw him out, but because he's a judge's son, he can potentially make trouble. Brad tries to talk him down, but the kid's an entitled punk. He tries to throw a punch but slips, then falls out a windum to his death. A whole roomful of people have seen it was an accident, and that the drunken kid was the aggressor, but Brad knows the DA's gonna pin the death on him, and he does: a charge of manslaughter.

This is where the plot changes from crime film to buddy movie, and in hindsight, you could see it going in this direction because of the casting choice of John Carroll, a likable, handsome and distinguished actor with a radio announcer's voice. As Brad McArthur, he's not rotten enough to be a true mobster, so his redemption is the theme. We've seen he was not at fault in the death of the rich kid, but he's still facing a potential ten year prison sentence. His lawyer suggests hiring a publicist, to sway public opinion before the trial: "It'll rig a jury in your favor." Under the publicist's direction, he donates to charities, makes headlines for helping the poor, and finally he "adopts" a street urchin paper boy, all to make it look like he's a wealthy do-gooder, like when a Mafioso buys an apartment house for disabled people or old ladies.

But when Brad "adopts" Bobby the paperboy (played by Martin Spellman, a real-life paperboy who worked at the MGM lot, hooray!), the whole movie changes, in a Shirley Temple "isn't the kid cute" way. Bobby is older than Shirley was, about 8 or 9, but he's got the same moxie, and in 1938, that kind of Kid Stuff was still selling tickets at the end of the Depression era. The scruffy-but-wise waif. It must be noted that Bobby's got one heck of a head of hair. Brad McArthur's 6-foot-tall vixen of a girlfriend (Kay Linaker) can't stand Bobby and starts a rivalry with him that she loses. She's two-timing Brad with the publicist, so he kicks both of them out of his mansion, then decides to run from the law as his case goes to trial. He takes Bobby in his maid's old jalopy to a lodge up in the mountains (filmed at Lake Malibou in Agoura). There, he signs in as John Smith and son, and meets "Alice", the pretty counter girl (Mary Kornman). The rural atmosphere brings out the better side of Brad's nature, and we see that he really isn't a criminal, just a guy with a big heart who took the wrong path. Thus it's a Buddy Flick plus Redemption, with a "Bad Guy Saves Kid from Drowning" motif thrown in. The whole thing works on the chemistry of John Carroll and Martin Spellman, who could've taken their act on the road. The DA tracks them down at Lake Malibou (which is supposed to be in Ohio), but by now, Brad has found his true calling, playing father to Bobby as he falls in love with Alice and forms his own little family. He makes one last attempt to escape when the DA closes in, but then gets shoulder-shot and resigns himself to his fate, with Alice and Bobby promising to stand by him no matter what happens. It's a heartwarming ending; the only problem with the trial aspect of the story is that it's clear from the start that Brad is not at fault in the death of the judge's son, so the manslaughter charge against him seems bogus. Other than that, Two Big Thumbs Up and a high recommendation. The picture is very good.  ////

The previous night's movie was "The Crime of the Century"(1933), a classic murder mystery from Paramount, thus with better production values than a similar Poverty Row whodunit from the same era. Jean Hersholt (of the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award fame) heads a solid cast, playing "Dr. Emil Brandt", a hypnotist, who turns himself into the police one night, saying "Please, you've gotta lock me up. I'm about to commit a murder!" It's a slow night at the precinct. "Police Captain Riley" (Robert Elliott) is playing cribbage with his lieutenant (David Landau) and a crime reporter named "Dan McKee" (Stuart Erwin) when Dr. Brandt walks in. The three men listen to his tale, which involves Brandt's hypnotism of a bank clerk, who he's programmed to steal one hundred thousand dollars.

"I can't believe I did this, Captain. I am supposed to be a healer, and I'm normally an honest man, but I was temped by the fact that my patient works for a bank. He's going to bring me the money tomorrow night, after which I'm going to kill him to eliminate him as a witness, if you don't help me by putting me in jail. Please, you've got to believe me!"

Captain Riley, the LT and reporter McKee are somewhat bemused by Dr. Brandt's claim, though he sounds serious and doesn't seem to be a nutjob. "Dr. Brandt", the Captain finally says, "I can't arrest you for something you haven't yet done, but what I can do is have the lieutenant here spend the evening with you at your house. He'll be there to prevent any trouble before it starts. I'll visit myself later on, to make sure you're okay." With that assurance, Brandt is driven home by the LT, and later, the captain does visit. But by now, Brandt's wife "Freda" (Wynne Gibson) has come home, so he tells the Captain that no further police protection is necessary. What Brandt doesn't know, is that Freda has a boyfriend and the two of them know about Brandt's hypnosis/bank robbery plan. They, in turn, plan to steal the money from him as soon as it's delivered.

Dan McKee, being an aggressive, scoop-oriented reporter, stakes out the Brandt house without telling the police. He's eyeing he proceedings from the sidewalk, watching the comings and goings of the LT, the Captain, and Freda. He then enters the house through the back door after seeing Freda's boyfriend climb through the front windum at almost the same time as the hyp!-no!-tized! bank clerk arrives with the stolen money. McKee is trying to catch everyone "in the act", to solve the case before the cops do, so he can show them up. Then the lights go out, in classic Ten Little Indians fashion, and when they come back on, the hypnotised bank clerk is dead, murdered. Dr. Brandt catches wife Freda trying to sneak out of the house with the money. He phones Captain Riley to come back: "I'm sorry, Captain, now I do need you after all. I think my wife just killed the bank clerk."

But Dan McKee, who was in the room when the lights went out, thinks different. That same night, he tracks down Dr. Brandt's daughter "Doris" (Frances Dee) at her apartment, and she agrees to help him solve the murder. We've already seen that she can't stand Freda, her stepmother, who wears a skin-tight gold lame dress as all wives did in these kinds of movies. The cops are now back on scene, and color is added by the Brandt's German immigrant cooks, who argue over how much schnitzengruben und cabbage was eaten at supper. Then, at the one-hour mark, the Fourth Wall is broken when the scene fades to black and we cut to a spotlit theater stage, where an MC informs us that we are watching a movie, not reading a book or attending a play, and therefore the plot is rushing past us: "Unlike those mediums, which can be paused (a book) or have intermissions (a play) a movie gives you no time to solve the mystery, yet you've been given all the same clues the police have. You'll now have one minute to guess the perpetrator before the movie resumes." I thought this was cool; a novel gimmick we've never before seen. But I didn't guess correctly.

After the minute is up, we cut back to the Brandt house, where the lights go out again, followed by another murder, which eliminates a major suspect. I shant tell you anymore, except to say that a heretofore unidentified character is introduced at the last minute who you'll think "just has to be" the murderer. But the cops have already arrested Dr. Brandt, who they say had a motive, and has already admitted he was going to kill someone. It's called "The Crime of the Century" because it's supposed to be the perfect, unsolvable murder. Two Big Thumbs Up, and once again a very high recommendation. A textbook example of how to do a "puzzle" mystery. The picture is razor sharp.  ////  

That's all I've got for tonight. I was saddened yesterday to see on Facebook (from Valley Relics) that The Great Wall Chinese restaurant on Sherman Way has gone out of business. During my 11 1/2 years with Pearl, The Great Wall was one of our favorite restaurants, for birthdays, Mothers Days, or just any old day for the lunch special. As Valley Relics pointed out, many movies, shows and TV commercials used The Great Wall as a location, my favorite being "Drive" with Ryan Gosling, in which there's a scene where Albert Brooks calls him in his car and actually says, "Meet me at The Great Wall." Then Gosling drives there and parks in the back parking lot! Man, it was a great place. I love Sherman Way and Reseda.

My blogging music tonight was "Caravan and the New Symphonia" by Caravan, my late night is Handel's Amadis of the Gali Opera. I hope you had a nice Saturday, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Bill Williams and Georgia Lee in "Wiretapper", and "Blind Corner" starring William Sylvester and Barbara Shelley

Last night, in "Wiretapper"(1955), pretty "Alice Vaus" (Georgia Lee), runs out her front door every day to meet the postman before he can put the mail in the box. He often has a letter for her from her husband "Jim" (Bill  Williams), an Army captain who's being moved to bases all around the country for his expertise in electronics. Jim is a communications specialist. The war is on and he's needed domestically more than overseas, and just this month he's sent letters home from Maryland, Hawaii, New York and Kentucky. Alice is so proud to be his girl, and later that day her little sister calls her to the radio, where news of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima signals that the war will soon be over: Jim will be coming home.

What we know, but Alice doesn't, is that - while Jim will indeed be returning - it won't be from any Army base. He's actually been in prison for the past two years, court martialed for stealing government property (it isn't specified what was stolen). The letters he's been sending have been false accounts of non-existent exploits, mailed as favors to Jim by fellow inmates who've been paroled to their home states, hence the various, wide-ranging postmarks.

But with the war over, Jim too is set free. The prison chaplain wishes him well and he comes home, where he continues to keep his incarceration a secret from Alice, fearing he'll lose her if he spills the beans. Hoping to support their marriage, he sets up shop as an appliance repairman: TV, radio, vacuum cleaners, etc., though knowing that his talent is so much greater than that. In the Army he was in charge of wiring radar and base-wide communications systems. Then he gets lucky when a chauffeur for high-powered L.A. lawyer "Charles Rumsden" (Douglas Kennedy) brings a radio in for repair. When Jim later delivers it to Rumsden's Bel Air house, he's invited to stay for a drink, and in the course of talking, he discovers a bug in Rumsden's wall. "Someone's been listening to your conversations, sir." Rumsden takes a liking to Jim after that, and hires him as a personal security expert. In snippets of backstory, we learn that Jim has had dishonest temptations dating way back to high school, and through an illegal wiretapping job, his first assignment for Rumsden, he helps the lawyer expose a rival: a female crime boss who's running heroin and prostitutes, whom the police are trying to nail.

Jim's wife Alice reads about the woman's arrest in the newspaper. He lies to Alice and says that he was working undercover with the cops, when actually he was a blind middleman, and this segment shows how the police work with wealthy shysters to catch other criminals. It's all dog-eat-dog: cops, criminals, lawyers, and big money. Jim is just an ex-con Army officer, who - because of his military training - has expertise that even the Mob envies. Jim wants to provide for Alice, who is now pregnant, so he gets caught up in taking jobs for lawyer Rumsden, who, because of his police connections and wealth, is semi-legitimate but evil all the same. Then, Jim takes a further step into the devil's den and hooks up with "Nick Castro" (Ric Roman), an L.A. mobster and Rumsden's top client. Now, he's setting up security systems at Nick's mansion in Beverly Hills. Nick is a tailor by trade. A Legitimate Businessman, donchaknow.

Jim is so busy working for these crooks that he misses the delivery of his first child, and Alice is ready to leave him. She's a good woman who places family over material wealth. "As long as we have each other, we'll be all right." Jim has by now confessed his prison time in the military, but tells her, "I want to give you the world. That's why I'm working for Nick". And he's got the West Side house, the high-styling 1950's sedans and a house full of expensive furniture to show for it.

Then Nick wants Jim to devise a scam for winning at the race track, and he comes up with a teletype gimmick that's exactly like the one in "The Sting", where guys in a back room have tapped into the teletype feed, in this case coming from Santa Anita, and they use their own teletype machine to delay the results to local bookmakers waiting on the race results. By doing this, an associate can run in to a bookmaking establishment and place a last minute bet on a long shot horse, and win gigantic dough. But Jim decides to shut Nick out of the operation so he can clean up and keep all the money for himself. He's now pocketing big cash, along with a subordinate of Nick's who Jim has chosen to assist him. But of course Nick finds out, and it obviously doesn't sit well with him and lawyer Rumsden, that Jim and his buddy have been making bank without telling them. Normally, they'd kill a guy who screwed them over, but they still need Jim for his electronic wizardry. Rumsden gives him a choice: "You either come with me to St. Louis (to set up a huge, regional teletype scheme), or I'll ruin you and you'll go back to prison where you came from."

Jim is terrified and can't believe the turns his life has taken. He's got a beautiful, adoring wife, and now two children, and yet his material success - which he's yearned for since high school - is all provided by the Los Angeles Criminal Fraternity. And he can't leave Rumsden, Nick and company because he's a valuable commodity to them, thus they feel they own him. What is he to do?

On the eve of his departure to St. Louis, he tells Alice she's got to take the children and go stay with her mother. While he's driving them there, they pass a venue with a sign proclaiming a personal appearance by a very famous person, whose identity I'm not going to reveal because it comes out of left field and changes everything you thought you knew about this movie. I thought it was a tremendous twist, however. If the surprise involved anyone but this person, associated with his particular field (in which he's an icon), it would have less, or no impact, or possibly even a negative one, but because he's the real deal, it blows the movie out of the water. Two Huge Thumbs for the guts to pull this off, and an excellent crime plot in all respects. The picture is razor sharp.  ////  

The previous night, in "Blind Corner"(1964), William Sylvester of "2001" fame is "Paul Gregory", a blind pianist/composer whose wife is cheating on him. Gregory is talented enough for jazz or Tchaikovsky, "but pop is where the money is" he tells his prim, blonde secretary "Joan" (Elizabeth Shepherd), who adores him. His wife "Anne" (Barbara Shelly), on the other hand, can't wait to leave their high rise London apartment so she can be with her younger boyfriend "Rickie Seldon" (Alexander Davion), a painter without a dime to his name. Anne tells Rickie, "Don't worry, my husband will continue to pay for our lunches." Not that Paul knows it, and Anne isn't about to leave him. "I'm too accustomed to caviar and champagne." Indeed, Paul has just written another #1 hit for crooner Ronnie Carroll (playing himself), who has his own featured musical scenes and is quite good in a "Blue Velvet" way. Several scenes are set in a recording studio, with sessions being run by "Mike Williams" (Mark Eden), Paul's manager. Mike can't stand Anne, who he suspects of being a bimbo, and he also thinks she's taking advantage of Paul's money. Every time Mike comes over to talk business, he clashes with Anne, who mutually abhors him.

Then, one afternoon, Mike takes Paul aside to report some distressing news: "I'm sorry to tell you this, Paul, but I was at Ricardo's restaurant last night, and Anne and that painter fellow were at another table. They were acting 'overly familiar' if you know what I mean."

Paul thanks him, but won't believe Anne's cheating until he asks her himself. He still chooses to believe she's faithful and loves him, despite all evidence to the contrary. Anne, an actress before she met Paul, knows just how to play it when confronted with the restaurant news. She gives him The Breezy Brushoff: "Oh, that's nothing, Paul. Yes, I was there with Rickie, but just to celebrate the completion of my portrait" (which Paul had earlier commissioned).

With that, he's satisfied. Nothing will convince him she's unfaithful, even though it's been made clear now by his secretary, also, who tells him she saw Anne kissing Rickie in their house, and right in front of him (which he couldn't see because he's blind).

What we gather, because Paul is stoic and holding his cards to the vest, is that he probably already knows all of this stuff, and is just waiting for the right moment to reveal it. Anne, a witch's witch, can't take the tension anymore and pulls a Double Indemnity/Postman trip on Rickie: "If you want me, you've gotta kill my husband". Any man worth his salt would say, "See ya later" (and wouldn't have been with her in the first place). Newsflash: it ain't worth it, fellas. Wham, bam and it's over, and all you've got to show for it is a murder rap. Why any guy would go for a married woman is beyond me. Anyhow, the camera angles they use to depict Paul, staring blindly-but-knowingly into the distance, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, gives the impression, metaphorically, that he really can see, like he's looking through the walls of the Universe. William Sylvester plays it broad, like a combination of William Shatner and William Petersen from "CSI", both of whom he resembles.

Rickie the painter is a dweeb underneath his boy-toy usefulness for the viper Anne, so even though he, at first, says murdalization is where he draws the line (and it always has to be "draw the line"), he reconsiders when he realizes he'll go back to being destitute without Anne, and Paul's money. So he agrees to push Paul over the apartment's balcony, which will look like an accident because everyone who knows him knows that Paul's been a drunk ever since losing his eyesight two years ago (which is not explained). "He drinks out on the balcony. No one will question that he fell," Anne tells Rickie, who finally goes over to the pad to perform the deadly deed.

This is a Blind Person in Peril movie without the peril, because we see early on that Paul can navigate his surroundings for himself. But unlike Audrey Hepburn in "Wait Until Dark", he's not intimidated when an intruder breaks in. Like her, he can hear every sound, even feet sliding cautiously, inch by inch on a smooth, tiled floor (stuff that no one should be able to hear, in other words). "Sounds are like paintings to me," he tells Rickie at one point during their confrontation. So we get all the usual blind person/sensory detail, and this movie was actually made before "Wait Until Dark". Paul's self-assurance and physical confidence scares Rickie as he tries to murder him, and a major-league twist is presented that you will 100% not see coming. Two Big Thumbs Up and a very high recommendation for "Blind Corner". The picture is razor sharp and in Cinemascope. Barbara Shelly, known for Hammer Horror, was a great actress and no doubt a nice lady, but boy could she play the world's worst women, lol.  //// 

And  that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "Initiation" by Todd Rundgren. My late night is Handel's Alcina Opera. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Dorothy Revier and Marceline Day in "The King Murder", and "Night Was Our Friend" starring Michael Gough, Elizabeth Sellars and Ronald Howard

Last night's movie was "The King Murder"(1932), an excellent pre-Code whodunit from Universal in which a young female blackmailer gets more than she bargained for. "Miriam King" (Dorothy Revier) is one step up from a prostitute. She's smart and preys on wealthy, older married men, getting them to propose to her through ultimatums. Once they do propose, she turns around and blackmails them for big money or jewelry, saying she'll tell their wives. She's got two men on the hook right now as the movie opens. No one can say she's not a hard worker. But she's also got someone blackmailing her, a male criminal associate who appears to be her former pimp. His name is "Phillip Scott" (Maurice Black). Scott shows up at Miriam's apartment demanding five grand so he can pay a gambling debt and avoid getting his legs broken. In shaking down Miriam, he uses the same tactic she does, saying he's gonna expose her schemes to her rich victims. She tries getting rid of Scott but he won't take no for an answer, so she pays him in jewelry she's accrued over the years in her dealings. 

Tied into all this is a second subplot, involving a couple who live the next apartment building over. "Pearl Hope" (Marceline Day) is Miriam's ex-roommate. They had a falling out (not explained) and subsequently parted ways, but Pearl knows about Miriam's lifestyle, knows she's got a lot of expensive jewelry, and when her boyfriend "Jose Moreno" (Don Alvarado) hears about it, he makes plans to steal Miriam's jewels, which she keeps in a bedroom drawer. Living in close proximity, they can see Miriam's apartment from their living room, and they spy on her with binoculars. Jose makes an elaborate plan to create an alibi before breaking into and entering her apartment, which includes being seen by the doorman, but when he enters to rob her, he finds her stone cold dead.

Even so, he steals the jewels he came for, knowing that if he's caught as the burglar, the murder will also be blamed on him. He then concocts a story he tells Pearl to memorize and stick to. This is good writing - complex but not convoluted, and entirely understandable by the viewer without effort, which is how these kinds of plots should be. After all, we're watching so the filmmaker can tell us a story. If he can't tell it in a way that makes sense, why should we watch? But this one does, and it keeps you guessing because of the different interconnected threads. The now-deceased Miriam was blackmailing rich married men. Her small-time crime pimp was blackmailing her. He, in turn, sold her payoff jewels to a shyster pawnbroker (who actually says "Oy Vaysmere"), and Miriam was also being preyed upon, unbeknownst to her, by Pearl Hope and Jose Moreno (who was secretly sleeping with Miriam also). Super pre-Code alert: There's a line of dialogue precisely at the 8 minute mark that I'll leave you to discover for yourself, but I'll comment that I didn't know this phrase existed in 1932, or that they could use it in a movie.

The cops get into the act once Miriam is found dead by her middle-aged French maid, who is not above suspicion in her murder. The lead detective is best friends with stockbroker "Van Kempen" (Robert Frazer), one of the wealthy men Miriam was blackmailing. Kempen thought he was the only one; soon, he finds out that another sucker was also engaged to her, as the detective takes him on a round of suspect interviews.

The success of the mystery lies, as always, in the writing, and this time it's well-woven to keep the secret of Miriam's murder hidden until the very end. Two Big Thumbs. The picture is razor sharp.  ////   

The previous night, in "Night Was Our Friend"(1951), taken from a play of the same name, Elizabeth Sellars stars as "Sally Raynor", a woman on trial for the murder of her husband. The jury is divided on her guilt; one woman holds out against the majority voting to acquit, saying, "She must've done it! She was having an affair." But when they return to court and the judge asks for their verdict, it's not guilty. Sally is set free and goes home with her friend "Dr. John Harper" (Ronald Howard), who is also her lover. "It's over, you can let it go now," he tells her. But we can see she's still holding onto something that's preventing her from moving on. Dr. Harper wants to marry her but she's pushing him away. He demands to know why, and she tells him: "Because I did it,  John. I killed him. Now you know, and I've gotten away with it." Dr. Harper leaves, stunned at Sally's admission. Her dead husband was his friend. Now we relive their story in flashback.

Hubby "Martin Raynor" (Michael Gough) was a pilot flying his plane over Africa, accompanied by four male passengers. No details are given as to why they were flying there. Was Martin an adventurer? A hunter? A businessman? Some detail would've helped, but I suppose it wasn't the point. What happened is that his plane went down in a schtorm and Martin and his men were captured by savages, who marched them back to a village and, having never seen a white man, imprisoned them in dugout pits. We learn all of this from Sally. Then she reveals that, having thought Martin dead for two years, he suddenly returned to England, having escaped his captors and fled through the jungle to safety. We then see Martin return home and his ordeal is further described in brief monologues.

Now that he's back home (in flashback), Sally - a good wife - tells Dr. Harper she can't see him anymore. "Yes, we thought Martin was dead but he isn't, and he needs me. I'm sorry, John." But the problem is that Martin isn't well. He's been through the equivalent of a Vietnam bamboo-pit torture experience, only with cannibals, and he's slowly going crazy with PTSD. He can't sleep, goes for long walks in the middle of the night. Dr. Harper continues to come over, not as Sally's lover but as Martin's friend. Harper is a doctor and prescribes him some sleeping pills, which he puts under lock and key in Sally's care so that Martin won't gobble 'em all up and overdose. But the midnight walks continue. One night a local man is assaulted in his garden. Sally knows Martin did it but tells John, "He can't help himself, he's losing his mind." Indeed he is, and Michael Gough plays him like a lunatic. Gough is great actor known best as Alfred the Butler in the "Batman" films.

Doctor Harper and Sally's lawyer are doing all they can to keep Martin from being sent to the nuthouse. By now, he's talking to himself in stilted tones and even puts his hands on Sally's throat one night, when recalling how he and his men escaped from their African captors, only to get bit by poisonous jungle snakes. "I was the only one who made it, Sally," he tells her, apologizing for the stranglehold.

He's not a bad man, just out of his freaking mind, and one night, Sally decides to put him out of his misery. That's her secret, that she dissolved all of his sleeping pills in a glass of water and gave it to him. But as it turns out, he saw her do this and didn't drink it. That was the big question at her murder trial: was it a possible suicide? At the beginning of the movie, she's admitted to John Harper that she overdosed him on purpose. But is there an alternative, in-between answer? Is Sally protecting someone else?

This is a total Actor's Movie (cue Jon Lovitz: "Acting!). As mentioned, Michael Gough is unnerving as the slowly unraveling Martin. Elizabeth Sellars is vulnerable but resilient as Sally, and Ronald Howard is as dignified and forthright as always. The lawyer (Edward Lexy) drinks a lot of whiskey for tension relief. Two Big Thumbs Up and a high recommendation for "Night Was Our Friend". The picture is razor sharp.  ////  

And that's all for tonight. More Sixpence for my blogging music, this time their debut album from 1998. I liked a lot of '90s female vocal guitar pop and was also a fan of Belly (Tanya Donelly), 10,000 Maniacs, Julianna Hatfield, The Cranberries, Mazzy Star and Lush, my favorites along with Sixpence None the Richer. My late night is Handel's Joshua Oratorio. I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)

Pat O'Brien and Richard Denning in "Okinawa", and "Blonde Bait" starring Beverly Michaels and Thora Hird

Last night's recommendation was "Okinawa"(1952), a war film we'd never heard of. We've been getting lucky that way lately, though this flick was better than "The Flying Saucer". It's short by war movie standards, only 66 minutes, and half of that is spent below decks watching banter between the usual various ethnic and character types mandated by War Film Law. You've got your Romantic Spanish Guy from the Rio Grande, your Nerdy Intellectual Bookworm, your Filipino cook who yearns to man an ant-aircraft gun, to get back at the Japanese who've invaded his country. You've got the Old Man in charge of the gun deck, who everyone calls Grandpa (he's 47). Then you've got the East Coast Jokester, usually specified as a short, dark-haired Brooklynite, but who this time is a a tall, thin, wiry guy with a pulled-down Gilligan hat ala Donald Sutherland in "Mash", whom he somewhat resembles with his handlebar mustache.

This guy is the star of the movie, and when I found out who the actor was, I was impressed. The non-stop bantering is because the crew are nervous. They've heard the scuttlebutt, that the Japanese are down to their last offensive strategy, the use of Kamikazes. The sailors know all about Kamikaze pilots, and can't believe that any soldier - no matter his country - would willingly commit suicide, but they understand better when The Intellectual explains it to the dumber guys.

Because the Kamikazis never seem to arrive, the guys go stir crazy waiting, as their Naval squadron forms a ring around the island of Okinawa to protect American ground troops. To allay his fear, The Jokester makes bets on when the Japanese will attack. He tries to gibe his way around the almost certain eventual sinking of their ship, claiming that he owns half the beer on board through gambling winnings and wants to drink it before it ends up on the bottom of the ocean. He's got a death-grip handshake he uses on everyone but the new Captain (Pat O'Brien), who strategizes on the executive deck with his distinguished first mate (Richard Denning of sci-fi fame), using toy boats to simulate the blockade.

The Spanish Guy strums his guitar and shows off pictures of his Senorita while The Intellectual tries to figure out the Japanese battle plan. When a boiler explodes, anonymous wounded men look forward to being shipped home, then that hope is dashed when their rescue ship is torpedoed and sunk. Amazing stock footage is featured in the first ten minutes, and then again in the final 20 when the Kamikaze attack begins, and man, is it hair raising. More stock footage of guys firing those huge turret guns, trying to shoot the Zeros out of the sky before they can crash into the ship like a guided missile. We see many of the Kamikaze planes burst into flame, spin out of control and hit the water full force.This is the real thing, so you're actually watching a pilot's death, though he's just an anonymous enemy from 80 years ago. But such was the war, and the Captain actually remarks on the random mayhem of it all toward the end, when he philosophically remarks to Richard Denning that kids should run the world instead of adults. It's quite a statement in such a film, which usually features a more stoic, fatalistic outlook from a Captain or General. Pat O'Brien is the perfect choice for the role.

Cameron Mitchell is the actor playing "Grip", the mustachioed East Coast wise guy. I've always liked Mitchell, way back since "High Chaparral", my favorite TV Western in the 1960s. Later, of course, likely needing a paycheck, he starred in the notorious "Toolbox Murders"(1978), now considered a classic of the '70s B-horror genre. We saw it at the Parthenia Theater and when it was over, Grimsley drove us past the Canoga Park apartment building it was filmed at. Cameron Mitchell was actually good as the psycho in that movie, and he was a very good actor overall, as evidenced here, though you'd never recognise him. It's only 1952, and he's still a Skeeny Keedo, just 32 years old. He would get bulkier and more grizzled on "High Chaparral", but he always had that outsized persona, and in "Okinawa" his character represents the "whistling-past-the-graveyeard" black humor soldiers engage in when any moment could be their last. Two Big Thumbs Up for a compact war movie that distills the famous naval battle down to its essence. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night we had an unusual women's prison film, featuring one of the best prison breaks we've seen. In "Blonde Bait", the plot revolves around a covert Federal operation to nail a hoodlum who's killed a government agent. To entrap him, they plan to enlist his girlfriend, American nightclub singer "Angie Booth" (Beverly Michaels), who's become a sensation in London. Angie doesn't know much about "Nick Randall" (Jim Davis), only that she loves him. Nick's got a hold on her, even though he's gone for three months at a time, without explaining the absences. This one, he promises, will be the last. "Meet me three months from tonight, on New Years Eve, at the Old Owl Inn. This time I'm gonna marry you, baby."

Angie has no idea he's a criminal. She's lonely in England and glad to have an American boyfriend. But the US has chased Nick across the Atlantic and are looking for anything they can pin on him now that he's gone into hiding. They get a break when Angie goes to jail for six months after bopping her British manager with a brick. The movie turns into a Women's Prison Flick after that, and remains so until the breakout fifteen minutes from the end.

In jail, Angie is sullen, wanting to escape so bad it's all she thinks about, so she can be at the Old Owl Inn on New Years Eve to meet Nick, as promised. Never has a gal been so desperate. The prison matron tries to bring her out of herself, encouraging her to go to chapel and the library. Slowly, Angie makes friends with old "Gran" (Thora Hird), a lifer, and "Marguerite" (April Olrich), a Spanish inmate with a baby that's about to be taken from her and placed in an orphanage. For comic relief, there's also "Cleo" (Joan Rice), a bubbly gal who's in jail for bigamy. She sees nothing wrong with having two husbands and loves to talk about them, "It gives me variety. I wouldn't mind marrying a third." With Angie locked up, MI5, who are working with the US State Department, gets an idea that will lead them to Nick: a deliberate breakout, abetted by the warden and led by "insider" inmate Gran, who will be in on the plot. Her end of the bargain is to get outside for a few days and have an adventure, in addition to helping the cops, which will earn her some in-house privileges. The middle 30 minutes is devoted to the goings-on in a women's prison, including the cooperation between inmates and matrons to make the joint a more livable place. The chaplain plans a Christmas variety show, to be put on by the inmates, and the US agents decide this is when the assisted breakout will take place. Through the warden and the matron, they've informed Gran just what to do to escape, and what routes to take and who to meet once she's outside prison walls with Angie. The objective is to deliver Angie to the Old Owl Inn at Midnight, as per her desire to meet her beloved Nick so the agents can arrest him. But a complication arises when Marguerite, the Spanish gal, escapes with them in order to save her baby. Angie, who's all heart, is compassionate toward Marguerite, as is old Gran, even though Marguerite's presence has screwed up the escape mission. But they decide not to turn her away even though she's slowing them down. Angie swears she's gonna help save Marguerite's baby before she saves herself, and this leads to a diversion in the undercover escape plan to capture Nick.

The gals hide out at the home of "Bessie" (Avril Angers) Gran's former partner in crime. But Bessie's a biddy who wants to turn them in to the police, who haven't been told of the plot and will surely send Angie back to jail. From there, things twist to a deadly conclusion, as Gran does her best to follow through with the escape as originally planned, while still trying to accommodate Marguerite and her baby. Gran knows she's going back to prison, but any good deed she can do will help her overall karma and also inside the joint where the matron respects her.

Beverly Michaels, who plays Angie, was a fashion model-turned-actress and a good one at that, with striking Scandinavian features and looking much taller than her listed 5' 9" height. She's another performer (like George Nader the other night) where I wondered, "why wasn't she a bigger star?" At any rate, we talk a lot about atmosphere, and this movie is chock full. The breakout is the best part, featuring a wild car chase with an old drunken guy shooting off bottle rockets and roman candles on New Years Eve as old Gran drives the getaway car. Great stuff, verging on Two Huge Thumbs. Beverly Michaels is a woman you can't take your eyes off of, even if she's unconventionally attractive. The picture is good, not great.  //// 

And that's all for this evening. I had a nice hike in full sweatshirt on a drizzly, 61 degree day in mid-June. This is getting weird! Aliso is beautiful right now, though, overgrown with wildflowers and more lush and green than I've ever seen it. My blogging music was "Divine Discontent" by Sixpence None the Richer, one of my favorite '90s bands. I love their guitar sound and (of course) Leigh Nash's voice. My late night is Handel's Alcina Opera. I hope your weekend was a good one and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Tom Conway and Eva Bartok in "Park Plaza 605", and "The Flying Saucer" starring Mikael Conrad

In last night's "Park Plaza 605"(1953), it's best to go with the flow, rather than burst precious brain cells trying to concentrate on an increasingly opaque plot. In any Tom Conway picture it's more about suaveness than story anyhow, and this time, though there actually is a plot, it's so convoluted, half-explained and left for you to figure out on your own, that you're better off not bothering, and instead just allowing the ambiguity and madcap humor to lead you to it's illogical conclusion. Conway stars as "Norman Conquest", haha - get it? That's also the alternate title of the movie. Conquest (the other characters love to say his last name) has no discernible profession. He lives in a building bearing his name, Conquest Towers, a deluxe high rise. He's rich, that's all we know for sure, and he likes to play detective as a hobby, which he gets a chance to do when, shortly after the movie opens, he's golfing with his secretary "Pixie" (Joy Shelton), and his drive hits a bird and kills it. Wouldn't you know it, the bird just happens to be a carrier pigeon with a note tied to it's leg, which reads, "You are to meet us at Park Plaza 605 at 8 pm tonight to arrange the transfer. Be on time."

Not one to pass up an intrigue, Conquest keeps the appointment, even though it isn't meant for him. He figures the intended recipient never got the message anyway, because the pigeon died, so he's going in that person's place. Keep in mind that we know little about Conquest at this point, ten minutes in. All we've seen is that he's a suave golfer. When he gets to 605 Park Plaza, he's early for the 8 pm appointment, so he breaks in and is surprised by another interloper, femme fatale "Nadina Rodin" (Eva Bartok), wearing a form-fitting ball gown and blonde wig. She points a gun at him that shoots knockout power instead of bullets. Conquest breathes the stuff in and passes out. While he's lying on the floor, Nadina meets with some male comrades of East European or Russian extraction, her gang of crooks. A knock comes on the door and it's Anton Diffring as "Gregor", a government agent from their country, come to arrest them. Nadina conks him with a brass statuette, knocking him out. The gang escapes, and Gregor later awakens to trail them, but he's really after their leader, a former Nazi war criminal named "Baron Von Henschel" (Robert Adair), who soon suprises Gregor and strangles him, thus we lose Anton Diffring very early in the movie. Why hire a great actor for such a minimal role?

At about 17 minutes in, the British cops get involved. "Inspector Bill Williams" (Sid James) comes to #605, where Gregor's strangled body has been thrown out the windum. Williams, an irritable sort who yells his dialogue, wants to blame the murder on Norman Conquest, whom he doesn't like because Conquest is always playing the Rich Guy Detective, interrupting his cases, and Conquest was in the room unconcho when the murder occurred. But the Inspector can't pin it on him because Conquest was passed out from the powder gun. This is called "too much to follow" for the viewer. That's why you take a cue from Frank Booth and focus instead on the suaveness. Soon, Eva Bartok will take your mind off what turns out to be an international jewel schmuggling plot with a Nazi as it's figurehead.

There's a scene at about the 52 minute mark that I'm gonna let you discover for yourself. To say it would never be allowed today is to state the obvious, but in 1950, given that there was no ratings system at the time, you'd think they'd omit it for being too kinky for a family audience.

It must also be reiterated that the Brits sure do love that Grill Shot, that "police car, Rolls or Bentley, driving hell-for-leather down curving roads, POV on the car's mean-spirited, threatening brass grill" shot. Youknow which one I mean, camera very slightly tilted, the message being "You can't outrun the Grill, it's coming to get you!" Man do they love that shot, and they use it umpteen times in this movie, which gets Two Big Thumbs Up. If you ignore the plot, it's quite entertaining and Eva Bartok is a good screwball comedienne. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night, I was excited to get a recommendation for a movie called "The Flying Saucer"(1950), billed by the uploader as "classic science fiction". I thought I'd seen all the 1950s flying saucer flicks: "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers", "Invasion of the Saucermen," "This Island Earth," "The Thing from Another World," etc., but I apparently had missed one, so I pushed play, thinking it could be a real find, though the question: "Why haven't I heard of it?" did occur to me. I found out why, after about a half hour in. The plot follows a government agent, likely OSS or CIA (it isn't specified), who is sent up to Alaska after citizen and military reports of a flying saucer over the West Coast. The agent, whose name is "Trent" (Mikael Conrad), doesn't believe in flying saucers and begs off this assignment until his boss tells him he'll be undercover as a playboy millionaire, suffering from a nervous breakdown and requiring a nurse, who happens to be a beautiful fellow agent. Now Trent agrees to go, but he still thinks flying saucers are ridiculous.

Alaska is the choice of locale because the CIA think the Russians, and not Martians, are behind the saucer, if indeed there is one. They think the Russkies will be using it to deliver atomic bombs across America. Alaska is thus the logical vantage point for Russian spies in the U.S., but when Trent gets up there with his "nurse", the movie turns into a National Geographic special, with endless shots of admittedly wondrous (though remote) Alaskan scenery. A romance is attempted between Trent and his nurse, who is actually overseeing him for the Agency. Watching them, in turn, is "Hans" (Hantz von Teuffen), their house man at the Agency's lodge. They don't know he's a spy, and it's never explained how a foreign agent has taken over from the legit CIA houseboy. Hans listens in on the conversations of Trent and his nurse, and later, he tries but fails to kill the nurse in the forest.

Trent gets frustrated in the wilderness because there's no flying saucer action happening, so without telling the nurse (because she's his overlord), he commandeers a boat and goes to Juneau, where he grew up, to look for "Matt Mitchell" (Frank Darien), a legendary Old Hand who would know the local gossip about any flying saucer.

In Juneau, the Russian agents, with perfect American accents (much better than Hugh McDermottt's), stake Trent out in a bar. Man, the bar scene in Juneau must rival the ones in New York and Tokyo for neon and proliferation. The joint is Bar City. Much time is spent there as Trent gets hammered, wanting to quit the investigation, but when Matt Mitchell shows up, he does indeed know of a flying saucer, manufactured by a mad scientist whose lab lies "beyond the ice cap". I hadn't heard of the Alaskan ice cap, but it's a foreboding thing, like a mountainous, mini-North Pole. Mitchell tells Trent, "It's too dangerous to fly over," but Trent tries anyway, his plane nearly stalling several times. He finally finds the one-man flying saucer operation in a wooden building on the side of a mountain. The Russians are right behind him, however. Punchouts ensue, followed by a bizarre, extended shot in which Hans tries to choke Trent while forcing his head into the airplane's spinning propeller.

If this sounds like a lot of action, it's not. As mentioned,  the movie is mostly an advertisement for the beauty of the Alaskan frontier. The romance between Trent and his nurse goes nowhere. The running time, 69 minutes) is fifteen minutes too long, and the direction is flaccid, but believe it or not, it's still a good flick, just because of the saucer itself, a single-seat job about 15 feet in diameter. It looks pretty cool, kind of like the Canadian Avrocar saucer of the early '50s. As shown, it looks like it could indeed deliver nuclear weapons, a pretty original (and spooky) concept for 1950, when most flying saucer films were about Green Men from Mars. If you go in expecting an Alaska travelogue instead of a full-on sci-fi movie, you'll do alright, so Two Bigs. The picture is soft but watchable.  ////

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is "Still Life" by Van Der Graaf Generator and "Magnification" by Yes, their last (and highly underrated) album with Jon Anderson. My late night is Handel's Julius Caesar in Egypt Opera. I wish you an awesome weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)