Hello, folks, and Happy New Year. We have four movies to report, the first a Noir called "Spoilers of the North"(1947) with a backdrop of commercial salmon fishing, starring Paul Kelly and the beautiful Evelyn Ankers of Universal monster movie fame. The salmon context is very interesting, involving poaching and Indian water rights, though the main plot is your basic love quadrangle. We also have "Five Golden Hours"(1961), a British-Italian co-production from the era of the United Nations and Pan Am airlines. Ernie Kovacs stars as a professional pall-bearer who preys of the grief of wealthy widows, to relieve them of their money and hopefully "have some fun" in the bargain. But then he meets his match in Cyd Charisse, who's gamemanship outplays his own.
Comedy ensues, and it was instructive to watch Kovacs, who died tragically at the height of his fame in an auto accident not long after this film was made. He was only 43 years old. But in this movie, you can see his influence on so many comedians, especially - in one scene - John Belushi, for whom Kovacs must've been an idol. I'd say John Candy, too, and it's likely that every male actor from the early casts of SNL took bits and pieces from his style. In this flick, Kovacs is low key. He just wants easy money, and has to put up with the hijinx of the other, loaded broads while chasing the ultra-alluring Charisse, who lives in a castle but is broke. What to do? Choose money or the goddess? Being a genius manipulator, he concocts a scheme to save Cyd's castle (and hopefully win her heart in the process) whilst bilking a woman in New York through an investment scheme that involves transatlantic time zones.
I was only 75% present while watching, and only that much because of Cyd Charisse, a long time favorite. Kovacs was great too, and a surprise because we'd never seen him before. Overall, the movie is a classic jet setting, European-location co-production from the Camelot era. The early '60s were the best, when JFK was riding high.
Ernie Kovacs died in a Corvair. Those cars were notorious for their rear-mounted engines - in the freakin' trunk, the trunk was the hood! - and due to their rear-heavy balance, they swayed around turns, especially at speed. Many Corvairs wiped out. In 1975, I was with Grimsley in a Corvair owned by one of his early landlords. We got stuck on a lawn in Beverly Hills when Grim tried to cross through someone's circular driveway as a prank. The Corvair's engine got stuck in the soft soil of the lawn and we had to lift/dig the car out. Luckily, we didn't get caught, or have the hard-core Beverly Hills police called on us. But I never rode in a Corvair again, and they stopped making 'em because folks were getting killed.
Our third movie is "Actors and Sin"(1952). I wanted to like it because it starred Edward G. Robinson, Marsha Hunt and Eddie Albert, but I could tell within the first five minutes that it was gonna be a trial to sit through. It was written by Ben Hecht, who we've commented on before. Hecht wrote many classics, his resume is hard to beat, but he was also a provocateur, a total commie and a pot-stirrer. What we are learning about commies is that they very often have a lot to hide, and their so-called politics are often just a front to cover something shady. It's like when you find out that far-left democrats are embezzlers, and drug running crooks. You're shocked, right? Because they're supposed to be the great crusaders against corruption. So it's the same deal with commies when you find out that they aren't for "the people" but are strictly in business for themselves.
They use all kinds of tricks, and a guy like Ben Hecht knows the language. Part of that language is non-stop irony, and it's what's on display in this film. I noticed something in my mid-twenties, coming out of the half-generation behind me, the one I call the "H.R. Pufinstuff Generation". Nothing against H.R. Pufinstuff, the show's just a reference point, but the kids of this era grew up in SWAS, a communist school system, where they sat on couches instead of at desks. They called their teachers by their first names instead of Mr. Jones and Mrs. Smith.
And thus they had no discipline, and grew up thinking everything was ironic. Nothing was serious, it was hip to be jaded. There was no right or wrong, all was subjective, and it was all about getting what you want out of life by setting your own rules. And very dangerously, a new version of history was being taught, in which the good guys were now the bad guys. America was bad. H.R. Pufinstuff grew up scorning his own country, as I did, too, when I was far left in my 20s.
But the bottom line was nihilism, and I was never nihilistic, then or now. H.R. Pufinstuff was nihilistic, however, and for him, nothing meant anything because everything was ironic. Life was all play-acting, and there was no such thing as God. The teacher was the same as the student. It would be like going to a concert where the band expected the audience to play the songs. The audience would think, "who's in charge here?" Well, no one is, because everything's ironic. It's communism! It's all good!
Remember that one? "It's all good!" That was a big one about 20 to 25 years ago, coming out of the New Age movement. It was "all good", because there was no right and wrong. They had to hedge a bit on the moral relativism because (cough cough) well....ahem...."okay, children, you shouldn't murder anyone"....but other than that? It was All Good!
Try telling that to victims of violence.
But the bottom line for people who got fooled by this schtick, was that they ended up with No There There. Once there was a hippie chick; at least on the surface, you would take her for a total hippie. She wore peasant dresses, combat boots (because she was also a little bit punk), and she had the whole New Age thing down. She likely wouldn't be caught dead in a church, and you could bet she voted a straight far-left democrat ticket. She was a woman of the people, right?
Wrong. She turned out to be nothing but a prostitute, selling her body for money. In other words, she was a total phony.
So the whole left-wing commie thing is a joke. Commies don't care about any "people" but themselves. And they often have a boatload of hidden money.
The Pufinstuff/SWAS thing was a brainwash. I was fortunate to attend a real school, which taught real history and the values of the Greatest Generation. But anyhow, I'll shut up, because Happy New Year and God Bless.
Our fourth film was a gem, perfect for New Year's Eve. "I Was an Adventuress"(1940) stars a lady named Vera Zorina, who I'd neither seen nor heard of, but who turns out to be not only stunningly beautiful but accomplished in more ways than one. First and foremost she was a ballerina, which - if you didn't know it going in - you won't find out until well into the film. She was married to the legendary choreographer George Balanchine, aka "Mr. B", and was a noted dance teacher herself. But as the movie opens, and for the first half hour, you don't know this. Your introduction is to a gorgeous comedienne in the exotic, quasi-Russian/Nordic mold that was popular in the Grand Staircase pictures of the 1930s. Zorina (she goes by one name in the credits) is always dressed to the hilt. She holds her own with co-stars Peter Lorre and Erich Von Stroheim, no easy task, and she's only 23. She grabs you from the first frame of the movie.
The trio are con artists who team up to sell the same piece of worthless jewelry (a brooch, "not 'broach', Gilligan!") to gullible men who are taken with and mesmerized by Zorina, who poses as a countess. Peter Lorre is a pickpocket who steals the brooch back, so the gang can sell it again on another ocean cruise. Ocean liners were also a big thing in stylish 1930s movies.
What happens is that Zorina scams a handsome gent who is especially susceptible. He loses his shirt and can't afford the loss, unlike the gang's other wealthy marks, and she feels bad for tricking him. Romance ensues, but because she's still in the gang, he gets his heart broken by Zorina repeatedly. Finally, Lorre and Von Stroheim set it up to put them together in marriage.
It's rare for Erich Von Stroheim to take a back seat to anyone. Normally, he is chewing the scenery in that unusual Midwestern-with-a-touch-of-Boston German accent of his. Here, he lets Zorina steal the show, and it's her movie all the way, including how she is photographed to look perfect from every angle. Boy, did those '30s cinematographers know profiles and portrait lighting, and which side of the face looked best in what light. They were Glamour Scientists, and the actresses knew their own best sides, too. You can't take your eyes off Zorina, with her cute accent and overbite. She gets to show off her ballet skills, too, and finishes the movie by starring in Swan Lake. According to IMDB, her Hollywood career didn't take off as expected. I can't imagine why, unless she wouldn't play the game, because she has talent in every way and would have been box office gold.
These were our final films of the strange year of 2023. I have no idea what '24 will look like, blogwise. I was struggling to keep it going in the last months of '23, because my life became a torrent of information. I will try hard to keep writing every other day. I might miss a few days here and there, because I am doing so much writing on Other Things, and as I examine my life, its just one shocker after another.
I've mentioned that I'm working on my new book, and have had a nice time writing about the year 1981, and I also mentioned Lillian, saying I had some very good memories from that year.
Today, I remembered something from July 1989, at a harrowing time in our relationship. And what I remembered was so profound that I want to apologize again to her, on the one-in-a-million chance she's reading, for any hurtful names I have used in these blogs or any hurtful things I have said about her. I said what I said because I didn't know the whole story, and I didn't know the whole story because there were things I didn't remember until just now, literally until just the past few days. I'd prefer to tell her in person or in a letter, but that mode of communication hasn't been possible for many years (though I wish it was), and the reason I'd prefer it is because it's nobody else's business. But all I have is this blog, where other people can read my apology to her (to you, Lillian). I have a feeling you will know what I am referring to regarding July '89.
Anyway, I'm sorry, Lilly, for saying those things in recent blogs. I've been seeking the truth about what happened for many years, for more than a third of a century. I've never given up, because I've always known that the truth matters. I hope you are doing well, and I hope we can say hello one day. ////
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