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 :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment