Special Disneyland Report

Okay, so here's my Disneyland Report from yesterday, presented Jack Webb style with just the facts. I know it was initially promised last night, but there's a reason I didn't write when I got home. You'll see what it is at the end of the report. So, to paraphrase Peter Pan : "Are you ready everybody? Here we go"........

I left my apartment at 8:45 and arrived at Disneyland at 10:15. The traffic wasn't bad except for a slowdown on I5 in South Los Angeles that cost me maybe 20 minutes. But to be parked in the Mickey & Friends lot at that time was most excellent, as my goal had been to arrive by eleven. There wasn't even a line of cars in the payment lane, I just drove right up to the booth. So that was a shoot n' score to begin with. Parking at D-Land is 25 bucks, but I knew that beforehand. Spending some dough is part of the deal and I'm not complaining.

They don't have the trams running yet, so you've gotta walk from the lot to the front gates. It's about a half mile, maybe more. That was my warm up stroll for what would prove to be a marathon day. They send you through a quick metal detector check, and the ticket takers snap your picture before sending you through the turnstiles. Say "cheese" for Uncle Walt, and before you know it, you're inside The Happiest Place on Earth and standing in front of the famous flower marquee in front of the train station. I had a few minutes to kill because I was scheduled (pronounced shedge-yooled) to meet my sister at 11 am (we took separate cars). So I walked through the legendary stone archway that leads you to Main Street, and there I was, for the first time in almost 10 years, looking at the Disneyland Town Hall, the Fire Station and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. There was a scattering of people, the day was early and attendance would increase later, but for now it was relatively quiet. 

The first thing that struck me was that everything looked the same, which was just how I wanted it. Part of the magic of The Magic Kingdom is it's timelessness. They don't mess it up with constant changes, and in fact they do the opposite. As I've remarked in other blogs, there's comfort in tradition, and in remembering the past, and in harkening back to a simpler time. Walt Disney knew that, which is why he created Main Street. Well anyhow, to get back to the facts, I didn't have time to go on a ride, so I just walked around and took a few photos - got a great one of a horse-drawn trolley - then I walked into the Main Street Theater, where "Steamboat Willie" is always playing, in addition to other Mickey Mouse cartoons. It's a tradition of mine since about 2000 or so to begin the day with the Mouse who started it all, so I hung out and watched his Silly Symphonies, as they are known, until it was time to meet my sis. 

The first thing we did was head straight for the Jungle Cruise. It has just reopened after some changes to eliminate what was perceived as racial and/or cultural insensitivity. I just got done saying that they don't change things at Disneyland, but with Jungle Cruise they did, and in this case I suppose it was justified. If you know the ride, they used to show some African natives (pygmies) being chased up a pole by a rhinoceros. They also had a headhunter named Trader Sam who sold shrunken heads. These scenes were deemed improper for today's audiences and that's fine. Trader Sam is gone and the pygmies have been replaced by a safari group. The good news is that the ride is still awesome and still features the black humor of the boat captains, who maintain their cutting edge.

After Jungle Cruise, we walked straight over to Indiana Jones, in order to ride before the line got too long, which it always does as the day progresses. I've waited an hour for Indy in the past; this time our wait was only 20 minutes. As always, it's one of the most impressive attractions in the park. Following Indiana, we went to the Haunted Mansion. I was hoping they'd still have one hold-over from the pandemic. Right after Disneyland re-opened in April, social distancing protocols were still in place. The six foot rule was in effect and lines extended out into walkway areas as a result. To corral the line at Haunted Mansion, they were letting people in through a side door, which allowed a view of the interior never seen by park guests. That's what I was hoping, that we'd get to enter through that door, but the protocols are gone and the line was short. They let us in the regular way, but that was fine. Soon the walls were stretching and the body was hanging from the cupola. As you know, there's only one way outta there : the host's way (hahahahahahahahahaha!). Man, he's one evil dude. A few new effects have been added to the Haunted Mansion, just minor details but you'll notice 'em when you go, and again it was awesome as always. "Hurry ba-aack.....hurry baa-ack", says the scary small lady as you exit up the moving ramp.

Another re-vamped ride was "Snow White", which we went on next. Newspaper reports played this one up big, and I was worried that it was gonna be "woked" into insignificance. They deemed the witch holding the apple to be too scary for the little children of today, so they removed her. Woke reporters cheered, and in one article I read, some nitwit also disapproved of Prince Charming's kiss, decrying it as "non-consensual". I was worried the ride would be ruined, but I'm happy to report it hasn't been. Not only is The Kiss intact, but The Witch lives on too! Yes, the one that terrified the toddlers of my generation is gone (the one at the end), but she's still there in two other places earlier in the ride, so "take that"!, Wokesters, haha. The Ugly Witch is alive and well, and the added colors in the ride make it more beautiful than ever.

I have one more Woke reference to report on and then I'll shut up. I wanted to ride Splash Mountain and hoped that it wasn't closed down yet. As you probably know, they're gonna shut it because Uncle Remus is seen as a stereotype, and because "Song of the South" is considered a racist movie. That infuriates me no end, because I loved the Uncle Remus stories as a kid, and I also love "Song". It was Walt Disney's favorite of all the films he made, and if you think it's racist, you oughtta have your head examined, and your heart too. I think it's the opposite; one of the most beautiful, uplifting movies of all time. Check the final image in the film for proof. Well as promised, I'll shut up, but I'm happy to report that - for the time being - you can still ride Splash Mountain, and see B'rer Rabbit and all his friends, and you can still sing Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah just before you free fall 50 feet into the water. Don't forget to make a face before you plunge; your picture will be waiting for you at the exit, post ride.

Oh man, it's getting late and the blog's getting long, I'd better cut to the chase with the rides. We were trying to pound as many as possible, being as it was our first time at the park in a long while. So we went on Pirates, we went on Small World, we went on the Storybook Land Canal Boats, we went on the Matterhorn. That one was especially jarring. Vickie thinks they've sped it up since the old days. I dunno, but it rocks ya even more than the other coaster-type rides at D-Land. All of a sudden, The Abominable Snowman is in your face, then you're slamming against the rails in the other direction as you fly around a turn. It's still a blast and the line was just 15 minutes. We had good luck all day in that respect.

Let's see, we did Mr. Toad, then Pinocchio, then back to Frontierland for Big Thunder Railroad. That's one of our favorites. Vickie always screams her head off. I still call it The Mine Train, it's name in the 60s and 70s. Then all of a sudden it was 7pm. Vick planned to leave at that hour, which was why we took separate cars. I walked with her back down Main Street to the entrance/exit gates, then I was on my own at Disneyland, something I've never experienced. I wanted to stay til closing (10pm), so I was gonna be alone for three hours, or four if you count the extra hour they give you to shop and clear out of the park. I wanted to ride some of the attractions we missed, so I went first to Space Mountain, which Vickie never goes on. Too extreme for her but I love it (I won't do Magic Mountain type Super Roller Coasters, though). That was my longest line of the day, about 35 minutes. I went back to Fantasyland, my favorite land in the park, to hit Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, which was also about a half hour wait. I doubled up on Haunted Mansion and Snow White, and Big Thunder, too, all of which I just walked up and rode. There were virtually no lines by 9pm.

I asked about fireworks. "They'll begin at 9:30", said a Cast Member. That's what they call their employees. The fireworks show was incredible as always, accompanied by an animated extravaganza called "Mickey's Mix Magic", filled with lasers, lights and music. This is projected against the Sleeping Beauty Castle as the fireworks bloom in the background. It was a wonderful way to close out the night. But wait! I wasn't done yet - it was only 9:50. I still had ten minutes. I tried for a second ride on Mr. Toad's and I made it. Then I hustled over to Space Mountain for one last repeat.........but the chain was pulled over the entryway. "It's closed, sorry", said the Cast Member. My riding day was over, but I still had an hour to browse Main Street.

It's traditional to buy a pin whenever you visit Disneyland. I've got about seven, been collecting 'em since 2005. I went into the Emporium, but it was jam packed with customers. As I mentioned, they give you an extra hour to shop, and many folks wait until closing time. So I decided to return when the cashier's line was shorter, and I went back to the Main Street Cinema to watch Steamboat Willie again. As I began the day, so I'd finish. It gave me a chance to rest my feet, too. I'd been standing or walking most of the time for 11 hours. Good thing I like to hike, but I was tired. Finally, at 10:30, the Emporium crowd had thinned out. I browsed the pins until I found a perfect one.

You guessed it : Steamboat Willie. A classic depiction of The Mouse in his original form. With him in my possession, I walked back through the legendary stone archway. Then I was through the exit and on my way back to the car. It was another half mile to the Mickey & Friends parking garage, and maybe more. I don't know how many miles I put in overall, but it had to be at least five, my daily average. My car was easy to find, one of the last in it's row and sitting in plain view. I drove out of Disneyland exhausted but elated after a 12 hour day and nineteen rides (15 plus four doubles). That place does something to you that cannot be described except to call it magic. It really is The Happiest Place on Earth and I had a blast. It was one of my best trips ever to Disneyland, but wait!...........

I still had one more ride to go on. I'll tell you about it briefly, cause I don't want it to reflect on the day, which was wonderful and as great as I'd hoped for. But what I'm talking about was my ride home, on Interstate 5. I left Disneyland at 11pm and figured I'd be home by midnight. Instead, it took twice that long - two full hours, because some genius decided to close down the freeway. Yep. First there was a slowdown around Buena Park because of some bridge work. That took about twenty minutes and was a bummer, but once we got past it we were crusin' and I figured "no problem, make it 12:20 for my ETA". I was sailing along until Glendale, and then........suddenly........there were those friggin' arrows again. The ones that flash, to direct you to move over. They were closing down several lanes once again.

This time it wasn't just a slowdown. I5 turned into a parking lot. And I could see the river of red brake lights stretching forward for a mile at least. "Oh joy", I thought. As we barely crawled along, I tried to Zen Out, using my Disneyland Day as a focus. And it worked pretty well, considering the situation. Finally after 40 minutes we'd been merged into just one lane, and a sign appeared : "Freeway Closed". A police car was parked behind a row of orange cones, and that was it. Freeway Closed. The single lane of cars was led to an off ramp by another row of cones, and I had to exit at Olive Avenue in Burbank, an unfamiliar area. Thank you, Freeway Genius. Shouldn't there be some notification, like maybe a headline, if they're gonna close a freakin' freeway in the middle of the doggone night?

Long story short, I had to pick my way home from Burbank using only surface streets. There is no grid system there, roads curve and slant and you don't know which direction you're going. Luckily there was an 18 wheeler in front of me. He'd been forced off the freeway too. "I'll follow him", I figured. "If there's anyone who knows what he's doing in this situation, it's gonna be a truck driver". That tactic worked, and got me to Victory and Cauhenga. From there I got home on my own. "It was my final ride at Disneyland", I laughed to myself as I pulled into my apartment parking space. That's sacrilege, I know. Walt Disney would never create anything so unmagical. But I needed some black humor to restore my good spirits, and I walked up to my pad feeling fine. Anyhow, that's the reason I didn't write this report last night. It was one a.m. when I got home and all I wanted to do was relax after the I5 debacle.

But it was one awesome day at The Land of Mr. Disney, and I won't wait ten years to go back. In fact, I'm sure I'll return very soon. If you're thinking of going yourself, now's a great time while there are still some capacity limits. It did get pretty full later on in the day, but nowhere near the elbow-room-only crowds I've seen in past Summer visits. My guess is that they're up to 50% capacity, maybe 65. As I say, we barely had to wait for most rides, and even the worst line was only 35 minutes. One last note : you may be wondering about Star Wars. They have a virtual queue to get on the new rides, and neither Vickie or I have the Disneyland App. For myself, I've never had anything but a Flip Phone, and I'm still learning to work my new Nokia. I've never downloaded an app before, so Star Wars will have to wait until next time. We did walk through Star Wars Land, however, and it was huge (pronounced Yooge), and as Mega as you can imagine. So again - go. You know how to do Apps, so you'll probably get on those rides for sure. 

I give Disneyland Two Gigantic Thumbs Up and highly recommend it. In the next blog we'll return to the movies. /////

That's all I know for now. Hope you had a great day. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

"Ski Troop Attack" by Roger Corman and "The Crime Doctor's Gamble"

Would you believe I found another Roger Corman movie? No no no........I mean, I understand what you're saying. Of course he's made over 400 films, so you're right : "How hard could it be to find another Corman movie, Ad"? What I meant was, another good Corman movie, one from his classic early period, before he turned into a non-stop exploitation film producing machine. I thought we'd used up all his good ones (and there were indeed a lot), last year when we had such a blast watching sci-fi and horror monster movies on Youtube. That's when I was forced to reassess the talent of Roger Corman and conclude that he was a very good filmmaker. But yeah yeah yeah, okay Ad, shut up. What was the Corman movie you found?

Wouldja believe it was a Roger Corman war movie? And a doggone good one, too. It was called "Ski Troop Attack"(1960), and the title tells the basic tale. In World War Two, a troop of American soldiers on skis are on a secret mission in the Ardennes mountains in Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge has just begun; Corman shows us stock footage of Panzers firing away in the snow. The ski troop has been cut off from it's regiment and is operating behind German lines. The troop's lieutenant decides to continue with the mission, which is to map the area (roads and bridges) and report back via wire about German troop movements.

The LT has a loudmouth sergeant he has to deal with, who's always complaining about not getting a chance to fight. The sarge is old school Army, he hates being second banana to a by-the-book lieutenant. "Is this how they teach things in Officer Candidate School"?, he asks snidely. The sarcasm doesn't play well with the LT. "Listen up, Sergeant - we're here to do a job and we'll do it until it's finished. I give the orders and I'll not have them challenged". "Okay", says the Sarge, "But I'm here to kill Krauts. That's how I was taught to win the war". The friction between the two will continue for a while, and you're expecting a confrontation. I won't tell you if one occurs or not, but for now "let's move out"! (that was the LT talking).

When they finish mapping the area, the troop commandeers the mountain home of a German woman, whose husband is off fighting the war. The sergeant verbally abuses her and she gives it right back. "You blame us for the war, but do you ever look at yourselves? And what about the Poles? They started it". It's a frank exchange that continues with the woman declaring victory. "No matter what you do to me, there'll be thousands of German soldiers waiting for you in the forest. You'll never get out alive and America and your allies will soon lose. Our fuhrer has developed secret weapons, you won't even know what hit you". The LT orders his men to kill her chickens so they'll have food. "Leave her two", he adds magnanimously. If you remember the scene from "Platoon" with Kevin Dillon (which was a Lt. Calley/Mai Lai reference), this is in a similar vein, albeit far less horrific. What's astonishing is that it's depicted in a low budget war film made in 1960, 25 years before "Platoon", when American GIs were rarely portrayed as anything less than heroic. It's a blunt political assessment, and while I'm not taking a position on it's veracity, it's worth noting that the script was written by the great Charles W Griffith, who wrote the best of Corman's films. You could say he's doing an Oliver Stone here, or a John Milius, in analyzing the morality of the situation. 

The troop ends up killing the German fraulein (I won't tell you why), then they leave and and hole up in Bronson Cave. Meanwhile, a German ski patrol discovers the fraulein's body. Their leader is none other than Roger Corman! Knowing some Americans must be in the area, they track them for the rest of the movie.

You know how we always say we love short movies? Well what about films that are models of simplicity? We often talk about scripts that include "everything but the kitchen sink", and we're especially impressed when that is pulled off in sixty minutes. But what about the opposite? "Ski Troop Attack" runs only an hour, and instead of giving us the proverbial "Ton of Stuff", Griffith focuses instead on just one event : the demolition of a bridge.

Because the troop is cut off and is now being pursued by the German ski troop, the LT decides on a do or die effort to blow up a bridge that is crucial to German transport. It crosses into Belgium and the Ardennes forest where the Battle of the Bulge is taking place. The troop is down to just four men. The LT directs one of them - the best marksman - to cover the other three, each of whom will climb one of the support columns and place explosive charges. In the course of this operation, the Sarge slips on an icy metal beam. He's hanging on for dear life from hundreds of feet in the air, but the LT -with whom he's had so much friction - scales the column just in time to save his life. From then on, the Sarge cooperates with every order, realizing that his lieutenant is more than just a pretty boy. The third member of the demolition team is a can-do G.I. who volunteers for all the toughest jobs. Just as he's placing his charge beneath the bridge, along comes a German troop train. On the far slope, the German ski patrol arrives simultaneously. The loyal marksman, a Southern boy who graduated from West Point, tries to hold them off, but they're shooting at him and the G.I. who's still on the bridge. Will either of them survive? Will they succeed in blowing the bridge? These are things I cannot reveal, but it's incredible how Griffith and director Corman take this single incident and make it the last half of the film, how they're able to maintain both suspense and surprise. 

The movie was surprisingly good, so good that it merits a restoration, in my opinion. Criterion, are you listening? The economy of filmmaking, breaking things down to their bare essentials, the way the actors invest in the material, even though it's clear they only had one take for most if not all of their lines. The LT and the Sarge were played by Michael Forest and Frank Wolff, both Corman regulars. I thought it was one of his very best pictures, a serious war film in which he (as usual) gets the most out of a very limited budget. If you're thinking of seeing it - and you should be - pay no attention to the rating on IMDB. I just checked it, and it's only a 3.5, a number usually reserved for the worst of the worst cheapies. The nitwits who gave it such a lowball oughta have their heads examined. You can take it from Your Dedicated Reviewer that "Ski Troop Attack" is a very good film, one which gets Two Big Thumbs Up and is highly recommended. ////  

The previous night we were back with the Crime Doctor, in "The Crime Doctor's Gamble"(1947). This time the Doc's on vacation in Paris. He's there to enjoy himself; he doesn't even wanna think about crime. He says as much to his host, the Prefect of Police, but then wait just a doggone minute : what's the Prefect of Police doing in this movie? Wasn't he just Claude Rains in "Casablanca"? Also, if the Crime Doc doesn't want to talk shop, why is he hanging out with the freakin' Chief of  the Paris Police? Well anyway, that's how the movie opens. They're inside a Parisian casino, watching a knife throwing act.

Then the Chief gets a phone call. "Sorry about this", he tells the Crime Doc after hanging up, "but a man has just confessed to a murder. I'm to meet him at the prefecture in ten minutes". So much for the Doctor's vacation.

At the prefecture, the suspect appears dazed. He repeats his confession of how he killed his own father because the father disapproved of his fiance - the girl in the knife-throwing act. After the Chief locks him in a holding cell, the Doc offers his analysis. "That man is innocent. He shows signs of hypnotic trance. The way he spoke was like a programmed recitation. He's not the killer, of that I'm certain".

"Well, you are the expert", replies the Chief. "Will you help me solve the case"?

The Doc nods in assent. His vacay may be ruined, but otherwise we wouldn't have a movie. The trouble is that it's very confusing. The Chief and Dr. Ordway are led to the studio of an artist who's a friend of the confessed killer and his fiancee. The artist feigns ignorance of any knowledge of the crime, but Ordway takes note of his ability as a copyist. "You paint copies of famous masterpieces"?, he asks. "Why yesss", comes the reply (said in French accent). "How ellse am I to make money.......withh theese"? (points to his own paintings).

Using his psychiatric powers of observation, The Doc suspects the artist of forgery. This leads to the discovery of an art theft ring : "They're stealing the originals from museums and replacing them with that man's copies. Then they sell the originals to collectors on the black market for millions of dollars". It's a brilliant deduction, but I'll be damned if I know what it has to do with the murder, or why someone did a Sirhan on the confessor, to get him to cop to the killing. It may be indicative that this was the ninth entry in the ten film Crime Doctor series, and it's possible the writers were being rushed or just plain out of gas. But I'll admit that I couldn't follow it, and I love the Crime Doc as you know. The script moves from one indecipherable plot point to another and then makes use of exposition between two characters to explain everything in the closing minutes. And even when they explained it, I still didn't understand. It wasn't one of the better Crime Doctor movies, not worth ruining his Paris vacation for at any rate, and much as I hate to do this, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to give it Two Thumbs Down, or One Down and One Sideways, just because we love the series. But yeah, unless you're a completist you can skip it.  /////

That's all for tonight. I'm writing from home, off work for a few days, and in a surprise announcement I'm going to Disneyland tomorrow (oh boy!). I haven't been there since October 2011, so you can bet I'm excited. It'll be late when I get home, but I'll try to give a report. See you then.

I send you tons and tons of love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Chames Mason in "The Upturned Glass", and "The Inner Circle" w/ Adele Mara

Last night I found a riveting Brrrittish thriller called "The Upturned Glass"(1947). Chames Mason stars as a brain surgeon who gets involved with the mother of a young patient. The movie uses a narration device that I've never seen before. As it opens, Mason is giving a lecture to a group of medical students. The subject is abnormal psychology as it relates to homicide. He goes through the casebook of convicted murderers with conditions ranging from schizophrenia to psychosis and tells the students why they kill. Then he switches gears and explains the mental processes of a perfectly sane killer who plans his crime using logic. To illustrate the example, he presents a hypothetical story of a man who murdered his lover. His lecture continues as narration and we see the story he is describing onscreen.

Though the students don't know it (but we do), the hypothetical "sane killer" is himself. It is his own story he is narrating. Mason goes back to the beginning to relate how it all unfolded.

One day, a woman - "Emma Wright" (Rosamund John) - brought her daughter to his office. She was injured in an air raid (this is wartime) and is going blind. Mason diagnoses the problem, a piece of shrapnel on her optic nerve. He operates and saves the little girl's eyesight. This brings him close to her mother and they fall in love as a result. The trouble is that both of them are married. Each is estranged from their spouse, yet they still feel it's wrong to cheat. Finally they break it off, but Emma has an evil sister-in-law named "Kate" (Pamela Mason, wife of Chames), who's found out about her affair with Mason and blackmails her. Emma then commits suicide by jumping from a windum in her house.

Mason is brokenhearted. His relationship with Emma was the only real love he's ever known, and at first he's unaware of the blackmail. But he's suspicious of the coroner's suicide ruling, so he goes to visit Kate to pry for information. Using his Masonic charm, he courts and pretends to fall in love with her. In getting to know Kate, he can see she had no feelings for Emma. She's totally self-absorbed. But one day he runs into Ann, the little girl he operated on. She's hiding a secret but Mason coaxes it out of her. "She made Mummy do it"!, Ann tells him, referring to Kate. "They had an argument right before she died. She said horrible things to Mummy and I know that's why she killed herself". Mason digs some more and discovers from other sources the specifics of Kate's blackmail scheme. He's so pissed that he decides to kill her, in a way that will never be discovered. He'll commit the perfect murder; the one he's lecturing his students about.

In the classroom, he tells the story in past tense, as if it's already happened. But it hasn't. Now we cut back to real time. The narration is over and Mason is leaving the lecture hall. It's as if he told the story to gear himself up, because now he's going to carry out his plan. He picks up Kate and drives her to Emma's house, now abandoned, using the excuse that he just wants to examine it. "I want to see the window she supposedly jumped from. I'm still having a hard time believing it was suicide".

"Oh, it was, I can assure you", Kate replies. "I don't know if you're aware of it, but Emma was seeing a married man. He broke it off and she became despondent".

"Is that so"?, says Chames Mason. Kate has no idea he's aware she just lied to him. She doesn't know he's the married man in question. Once inside Emma's house, he leads Kate upstairs, then to the room from which she jumped. He kills Kate by throwing her out the windum, and I'm sorry for the spoiler but that's not the end, and the ending must be given a disclaimer.   

The first hour of "The Upturned Glass" is as tight and involving a murder mystery as you could ask for. It's got that brilliant narrative device explained above, and the plot leads you down a convoluted path via Mason's romantic defrauding of Kate. But after he kills her - whoa nelly - the screenwriter decided to create the last act out of whole cloth. It's so absurd and has so little relation - as far as making sense - to what has gone before, that you'll have to have a PhD in Disbelief Suspension to accept it.

Now then : having said that, the Final Absurdity (which runs 20 minutes), doesn't ruin the movie. At least it didn't for me. Yes, it's ridiculous, but the director was able to maintain the suspenseful tone that led to this point. The scenario calls for a drive in the fog, with Kate's body in Mason's car, so you at least have a continuation of the dark, sinister mood. Then it turns into the writer's Fantasyland, with some postulating on what constitutes sanity by Mason and another character. I won't tell you who he is, but good grief gimme a break. The ending is a downer, too. But again! (and this is important), it does not ruin the movie.

It makes it pretty kooky, but doesn't ruin it. So I just wanted you to be aware of what's coming when you watch, and I hope you do because I'm giving the movie Two Big Thumbs Up. Chames Mason is great as always, playing yet another Man In Emotional Turmoil. The Youtube print is excellent so give it a shot. Despite my caveat, I nonetheless highly recommend it. ////    

The previous night we watched another Paul Shortino called "The Inner Circle"(1946). How short is short? In this case only 56 minutes, which is stretching the limits of calling it a movie (and have we ever determined a cutoff point)? How bout 55? We can drive 55 - anything less and we'll have to pull over. At that point we won't consider it an Official Movie, but using that standard, 56 minutes qualifies.

Anyhow, it was a fun flick, a crime film with screwball timing. Adele Mara is an assertive dame who "hires herself" as the secretary for Johnny Strange, private detective. She just walks in to his office and tells him she's got the job. "Saved you the money for an ad", she adds. As his new Gal Friday, she takes her first call, then steers Johnny to a red hot crime scene. A gossip columnist has been murdered. The cops haven't even been there yet. Johnny meets a woman in front of the dead man's apartment. She was the caller. She wears a veil and has an accent. "It was I who discovered the body" she tells him. Johnny enters the apartment, only to be knocked unconscious by the veiled woman. She stages the crime scene to make it look like Johnny did it.

Fred Mertz (William Frawley) is the head of homicide down at police headquarters. Johnny's got a lot of 'splainin to do to get Mertz off his case (wait a minute, that's Lucy and Ricky.....get with it, Ad). Gal Friday's got an alibi ready for her boss. She's way ahead of Johnny Strange on this, her first case. 

Speaking of endings and narration like we did with the first film, 'The Inner Circle" also uses a nifty device to reveal the culprit at the end. Johnny enlists a pal down at the local radio station to broadcast a show featuring himself, Gal Friday and all of the major suspects (and Fred Mertz too), re-creating the crime on air. If you recall just a couple of blogs ago, we were talking about "Account Rendered", the English film with dialogue so tight that it could have been a radio drama. Well how bout a movie that turns into one? That's "The Inner Circle", a slam-bang sparkler of a crime flick that gets Two Big Thumbs for being fun. 

And since we're on Strange Detail tonight, what with Johnny Strange and that ending in "The Upturned Glass", I have to ask a question : What's the deal with Will Writght? He's an actor in "The Inner Circle" and I'm sure you've seen him. He's tall, gaunt and ancient, with a hayseed curmudgeon persona. He's been in a million movies. But he's listed as being born in 1894, which would make him 52 in this film. Now, we've talked about actors whose appearances changed, including Richard Boone whom we wrote about recently. He appeared to age drastically and looked extremely run down late in his career, which was likely due to boozing and cigarettes. But with Will Wright it's like he's 52 going on 90. I looked him up on IMDB for the specific reason of expecting him to break our record for the earliest motion picture actor yet seen. I kid you not, I thought he was at least 85 years old, which would've made his birth year around 1860. So I was shocked to discover he was only 52, almost a decade younger than Tom Cruise is now.

The thing is, it's not a Keith Richards trip I'm talking about (or a Richard Boone). Will Wright doesn't look beat up as a result of hard living, he just looks and sounds old. And not just old but elderly, like 85 or 90. Unless he was lying about his age and year of birth, then he was 52 when he made "The Inner Circle", and he died at 68 in 1962. It's one of the weirdest physical appearances I've seen on any actor, and it's not from makeup, either. It's just some "weird, wild stuff, Ed". 

"You, are correct, sir"! (slaps knee and guffaws).  

That's all for tonight. Hope you had a nice weekend. I send you tons of love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Finally, "Casablanca" (plus a Veddy Brrrittissh Murder Mystery)

Well, you can give me my diploma now, I've graduated from Movie University. Yep, I finally saw "Casablanca", and I must say it certainly lives up to it's reputation. It's a Noir, a war film and a classic romance all rolled into one, a multifaceted story that works on every level. There are very few perfect motion pictures in the world, but Casablanca is one of them. I feel a little silly writing about it because of it's iconic status, but I'll give you a plot synopsis in case you're like me and haven't seen it (but wait a minute - now I have!)   

"Rick Blaine" (Humphrey Bogart) runs the Cafe Americain in Casablanca. It's a hotbed of intrigue, as Morocco is a colony of unoccupied France but still under the thumb of the Nazis and overseen by the collaborating Vichy government. One night, Peter Lorre enters and asks for Rick's help. Lorre's got some transit letters that were stolen from German couriers. The letters are certificates that guarantee safe passage out of the country. He wants Rick to hide them because he expects to be arrested. The couriers were also murdered and Lorre's the likely suspect. He dies in a shootout with the Gestapo. Rick hides the letters as requested.

There are many Europeans in Casablanca, expatriates and others who are fleeing the Germans. Some are desperate to escape to America. The regional Gestapo chief - a "Major Strasser" (Conrad Veidt) - has put a hold on one would-be emigre, a man named "Victor Laszlo" (Paul Henried). Laszlo is the leader of the Czech underground. Strasser's in Casablanca specifically to prevent him from leaving. He tells "Captain Louis Renault" (Claude Rains) to refuse Laszlo a visa. Renault is the Prefect of French Police. He puts on a happy face for everyone and is noncommittal in his politics, but when push comes to shove he's likely to side with the Nazis, to avoid trouble.

As for Rick himself, he's just trying to run his club. He was once a freedom fighter who assisted in Ethiopia, but he got arrested and now prefers to stay neutral. "The only side I take is my own", he tells people. It might as well be his motto.

But one night Victor Laszlo does come in. On his arm is Ingrid Bergman. "Of all the gin joints in the world, she has to walk into mine", says Rick. It's just one of the many lines of dialogue in this film that have become part of the cinematic lexicon. Seeing Bergman knocks Rick off balance because they were once lovers in Paris. That was in 1940. But in rolled the Nazi juggernaut and they got split up. Now suddenly she's here, in Rick's very own cafe. But she's with another man. "Of all the gin joints" indeed.   

The crux of the plot hinges on the hidden transit letters. Rick's got 'em stashed away; Laszlo and Bergman need two, so they can leave Morocco. Legally speaking, even Major Strasser can't prevent them from flying out if they have signed transit letters in their possession. But Bogie won't give them any. He's still mad at Ingrid Bergman for ditching him in Paris. They were madly in love, but she left him at the train station. Getting her out of his heart took everything he had, and he's become cynical in the process. Bergman had a reason for leaving Paris without him (which I can't tell you) but Bogie doesn't care to hear it. "If you loved me you'd have been there", he says. She does love him though. Man what a heartbreaker. Laszlo's between them, yet he's a good man. It's gotta be the all-time romantic triangle in movies.

That's as basic a synopsis as I can give you, because there are many other characters and minor plot threads. There's always something buzzing at Rick's. There's Sidney Greenstreet, owner of a rival cafe. Greenstreet's always asking to buy Rick out. He's happy in Casablanca and knows how to play the game. As a black market specialist, he keeps a low profile. Greenstreet represents suave diplomacy as does Claude Rains. Both know how to go along and get along, and how to profit along the way. But Greenstreet doesn't have to deal much with the Nazis, unlike Rains. So he's the picture's smoothest operator.

Bogart on the other hand, is a cool cucumber but only until Bergman arrives. Then he turns cold and hard. He projects icy stoicism and resentment. She's the flame that wants to melt him. Love takes center stage for a while, but don't forget "Casablanca" is a war film. In war, which looms larger, love or duty? I can't reveal that, either (and I know you've probably seen the film a dozen times so you don't need me to!), but let's just say that "Here's lookin' at you, kid" is the most romantic line ever uttered in motion picture history, and also the most tearjerking.

You know how so many catch phrases originate from Shakespeare or the Bible? "Casablanca" is like that, in a cinematic way, beginning with "Play it, Sam" (not "play it again"), and ending with "This could be the start of a beautiful friendship". And let's not forget "Sam" (Dooley Wilson", the piano player. He maintains the mood with multiple renditions of "As Time Goes By". Paul Henreid provides the class and honor, Conrad Veidt the pervasive threat. He plays Major Strasser as a sneering, smiling Nazi boss who knows he's hated yet still remains polite. Nazis in the movies are always wanting to be liked, to not be seen as evil.

I'll leave my review there, but hey! do I get a pat on the back? I mean for finally seeing the movie after all this time. Excuse me?........what's that you're saying?...........oh yeah, well you're right : I still have yet to see "Gone With the Wind". Maybe you'd better hold off on that diploma. /////

The previous night we enjoyed a veddy Brrrittisssh murder mystery, "Account Rendered"(1957), starring Ursula Howells as "Lucille Ainsworth", the self-indulgent wife of a banking executive. She revels in luxury and lives to spend money, which is easy when you've got a rich husband. But she spends more than he brings in. Where are the extra trinkets coming from, that gold necklace for example? Is there another man in her life?

In fact there are several. They aren't all romances, but when Lucille turns up dead, each one becomes a suspect. It's a Ten Little Indians plot, tightened up to fit the 59 minute running time. The Brits don't fool around when it comes to solving murders. 

After an unpleasant dinner with a bickering married couple, the Ainsworths return home to their mansion. Later on, Lucille sneaks out thinking hubby is asleep, but he isn't. He follows her to the heath (a grassy area), where he sees her with another man. But worse, he watches as the man kills her and runs away. Terrified, he hurries back to his car but falls and bumps his head, resulting in a large bruise. This will make him the prime suspect when the police inspector comes calling, which he does in the middle of the night. "I didn't do it", says Mr. Ainsworth, but aren't those famous last words?

In addition to Ainsworth, there's another main suspect - an artist with whom the wife was having an affair. It began when she hired him to paint her portrait, which turned out gaudy and salacious. "I was bringing out the Inner You", he explained. She didn't find that amusing. Did an argument with the artist lead to her death? We don't know yet. The Inspector is still running through the clues.

There's also the bickering couple, an adversarial man and wife. He hates her because she's always complaining; she hates him because he constantly fools around, and she's sure one of his conquests was Mrs. Ainsworth. 

You can take your pick : there's also the Ainsworth's lawyer, who warned that a bankruptcy was coming. Did he kill Mrs. Ainsworth, to stop her maniacal spending and save his job? I guarantee you'll guess back and forth, like I did. One thing you'll appreciate is the English efficiency with dialogue. One fan at IMDB mentioned that it's like a radio drama; it's so well written you could listen without watching the screen and still understand what is going on. Though it uses the Ten Little Indians format, it's not as simplistic as those films often are. It's not limited to a single location, for one thing. The characters have depth because of strong acting, almost a given in British pictures. 

I give "Account Rendered" Two Big Thumbs Up. It's short (which we love) but plays like a full length crime film. And, the Youtube print is razor sharp so you can't go wrong. /////

That's all I know for tonight. Today's prog album was "Civilian" by Gentle Giant. I also snuck in Matching Mole as a bonus. I'm reading "The Little Sleep" by Paul Tremblay and waiting on the new Bill Clinton/James Patterson thriller, "The President's Daughter", which should arrive soon at the library.

Hope you had a great day. I send you Tons of Love as always!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Glenn Ford and Gene Tierney in "The Secret of Convict Lake", plus "Secret of the Whistler" (hey, that's two "Secrets"!

Last night I watched a Western with an interesting premise. In 1871, six escaped convicts survive a harrowing climb over the Sierra Nevada mountains during a blizzard, to arrive in a small valley near Owens Lake. Night has fallen and they see the light from a community of log cabins. Their leader (Glenn Ford) suggests they play it safe by posing as miners. They're hungry and need shelter from the storm. But when they reach the cabin village, they see that only women are present. One convict (Zachary Scott, the most cunning of the bunch) tries to take advantage but finds out quickly that the ladies are handy with guns. Gene Tierny points a rifle at Scott and threatens to blow his head off.

The movie was called "The Secret of Convict Lake"(1951), and it's something of a women's picture, as the ladies in the village have to fend for themselves throughout this encounter. Their husbands are all away in the silver mines. 

During the initial standoff, Tierney notices a leg iron on one of the men. Their cover is blown and the women become even more fearful. Ethyl Barrymore, the eldest and most resolute of the ladies, joins Tierney and trains her pistol on the convicts. "I realise the weather's not conducive to traveling, so we'll let you bunk down here for the night. But it's gonna be in the empty cabin way down at the end of this row. One of us'll bring you something to eat later on. In the morning I want you out of here. If you try anything you'll find out how good we are with these guns".

Ford sizes up the situation, tells Scott to back down, and orders the group to do as they've been told. "We'll figure something out once we're alone", he mutters. But secretly, he already has a plan worked out in his head. The convicts haven't arrived at the cabins by chance. Ford led them there deliberately, without telling them he wants revenge on a man he believes lives there : the man who framed him for murder.

Now, Zach Scott has a hunch that Ford knows something he's not telling. "What about that forty thousand you've got hidden? Is it here"? Prisoners share stories, so Scott's aware of Ford's crime and conviction. In addition to murder, Ford was sentenced for a bank robbery that netted 40 Gees. "You'd better fess up", Scott tells him, "cause if I find you're holdin' out on me I'll kill ya". Scott's a loose cannon who challenges Ford for group leadership. On his side is a tough thug named "Matt" (Jack Lambert). Of course, nobody threatens Glenn Ford and gets away with it, even if they're bigger and crazier. Ford swears he knows nothing about what happened to the money. "I didn't hide it and I have no idea where it is". That turns out to be the truth. The only reason Ford's here is to get even.

The next morning, Ford questions Tierney. "Does a man named Rudy live here by any chance"?

"Why do you ask that"?, she wonders.

"I heard one of you mention it last night". That's not true; nobody mentioned it. He already knows Rudy, who helped Ford commit the bank robbery. Rudy was given immunity for testifying against Ford, and framed him for the murder he committed. Rudy is also Gene Tierney's fiance. "There's no one here by that name", she replies. Ford suspects different, and has another card to play to buy the men more time in the village. The youngest of the convicts has a fever. "He won't last long in the mountains if you throw us out today", Ford says to Ethyl Barrymore. She agrees to let them stay until the kid's fever breaks. "But the same rules apply", she advises. "As soon as he's better, you're gone".

Meanwhile, Zach Scott's getting uppity. He wants to try and take away the women's guns. He's also hot for one of them, the spinsterish Ann Dvorak. On the second night he gets her alone and pins her up against a wall, saying more or less "you know you want me". She's terrified and slaps his face. It's a sexually threatening scene that leads to what comes next. Dvorak becomes so nervous that she accidentally starts a fire in the barn. The convicts come running, to man the water buckets. They also pull the horses to safety. This wins them sympathy from Barrymore, who lightens up a little and allows them to stay for the time being.

I found that plausible, because even though the men are escaped convicts, Ford has been speaking for the gang in a quiet, respectful way for the most part. But after the barn scene, what I found difficult to believe was the abruptness of the change of heart by two of the ladies, primarily Ann Dvorak. Her character is mistrustful of men, never having had a relationship. When Zachary Scott confronts her, he uses macho charm rather than physical violence, but he's still acting as a sexual aggressor. He doesn't hurt Dvorak, but scares her nevertheless. In the 1950s-style melodramatic plot, the unspoken undercurrent is that she's "turned on" by this, and the next thing you know, a day later, she throws herself at Scott. Suddenly they're in a classic Motion Picture Makeout Clinch, an she's ready to run away with him. To me, that just didn't add up, but as I say the film's a melodrama. Less questionable but still stretching credibility is Gene Tierney's about-face on the issue of the absent Rudy. Glenn Ford may be polite, but he's still a convicted killer. Tierney knows this by now, and though Ford tells her he was framed by Rudy (and isn't aware of Tierney's engagement to him), she slowly begins to believe him. Okay fine; Ford's story sounds legit. But like Ann Dvorak with Zach Scott, suddenly Tierney falls head over heels for Glenn Ford. It's asking too much, even in a '50s drama, for us to buy into these turnarounds.

I must stress, however, that that's a minor complaint. It doesn't adversely affect the quality of the film, which features a stellar cast and great acting from everyone mentioned. Dvorak in particular is very good. Her career goes back to the Silent era. You might remember her as Paul Muni's sister in the original "Scarface", and she's excellent here in a completely different role. Gene Tierney is good as well. She was underrated as an actress, I think, because of her beauty, but here she's without makeup and playing a frontier woman. It was one of her last roles before her nervous breakdown, which ultimately led to a diagnosis of manic depression and the decline of her career. But I digress...

I won't reveal what happens with Glenn Ford and Rudy, or if Zach Scott ever finds the truth about the hidden forty thousand dollars, but "The Secret of Convict Lake" is an engrossing film with well developed characters. This is heavy drama in the guise of a Western. Interestingly enough, it's based on a true story and there really is a Convict Lake in Northern California. I give the movie Two Big Thumbs Up and highly recommend it. Barring the implausible (yet dramatically understandable) romances, it's a story of strong independent women. ////

The previous night I saw "Secret of the Whistler"(1946). This time Richard Dix is an abstract painter married to a wealthy older woman who's also his patron. The other artists in his circle attend his parties but talk behind his back. They think he's a no-talent dullard and resent that he doesn't have to struggle financially.

His wife has a heart condition and cannot leave her bed. Dix sits by her side but longs to be among the In Crowd, so after consoling her he leaves for another party. There he approaches a model (Leslie Brooks, a blonde bombshell) to ask if she'll pose for him. Brooks accepts and, over the course of the painting, finds out about his wife's poor health. She uses her charms to snake her way close to him, and Dix - thrilled by her attention - falls for it. Brooks only wants him for his money. She's banking on becoming his wife after the current one dies, knowing Dix will inherit the woman's fortune.

Hey, didn't we just review a similar plot in another Whistler or Crime Doctor? Well anyhow, the thing with Richard Dix in these movies is that, anytime chicks start playing him, they never realise that he's playing them too. And this time he's having it both ways, because he's telling his wife how much he loves her and then saying the same thing to Leslie Brooks. And the wife is getting better, because of all the love! Soon she's well enough to leave the house, and you can guess what happens next : she goes to Dix's studio saying "I just wanted to surprise you, my darling". And of course he's there with his girlfriend Leslie Brooks, who tells him "it's me or her". So Dix decides to get rid of his wife.

Cue our pal The Whistler, who tells him he's making a big mistake.

You'll have to watch the film to see why, and it's up to the standards of previous Whistlers. I give it Two Big Thumbs Up, but man does Dix ever screw up in this one. /////

That's all I've got for the moment. My prog album for the day was "Caravan and the New Symphonia". I also found out about a second album from Arch/Matheos called "Winter Ethereal", released in 2019. Jim Matheos is the guitarist and main writer for a band called Fates Warning. I'm not a huge fan, but they made an all-time classic metal album in 1986 called "Awaken the Guardian" with John Arch on lead vocals. His voice is what grabbed me the most about the music, it's high pitched and eccentric - the way he phrases his lyrics and jumps around from pitch to pitch. Arch quit Fates in the 1990s and retired from the music business, but in 2011 he made a comeback with Jim Matheos. I have the first first album by those guys and it's pretty good, though not a classic like "Awaken the Guardian". But the new one sounds awesome, so I'm gonna order it on CD. I love me some John Arch! He's a one-of-a-kind singer, check him out on "Awaken" to see what I mean.

Have a great evening. I send you tons of love as always!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

"State Fair" and "The Kiss of the Vampire"

I wanted some Americana this Fourth of July, and what could be more Red, White and Blue than "State Fair"(1945)? I've seen the movie umpteen times, going back to when I lived with Mom, so by now I break it out for tradition. But it's also great as romantic wish fulfillment, and it represents the rural American Dream we all long for. And yeah - you got me - it stars Jeanne Crain, who appears in the film at her loveliest. 

The Frakes are a farm family in Iowa. The State Fair is coming up and all of them are excited about going. Dad (Charles Winninger) is preparing to enter his hog Blue Boy in the swine competition. Mom is making mincemeat for the cook-off. Dad does a taste test. "Say, it doesn't have any brandy. You can't have mincemeat without brandy, the judges expect it".

Mom : "I don't believe in it".

Dad : "You can plan to lose, then". When Mom is out of the room, Dad grabs some  brandy from the cupboard and pours half the bottle into the mixture. Mom re-enters and considers Dad's advice. He's gone, so she pours in the rest. The double-strength mincemeat is now ready for the judges. Later on, Mom will be awarded first prize. 

The Frakes have two grown children, Margy and Wayne (Crain and Dick Haymes). Margy's looking forward to the fair just for something to do. She's at that restless age where romance preoccupies a girl's heart. If nothing else, maybe she'll meet a boy there. Whoever he might be, he'll be a lot more exciting than "Harry Ware", her supposed fiance, a science nerd who's duller than dishwater. Harry is the only guy Margy has ever known. Their "engagement" was arranged by her mother. As for Wayne, he's looking for revenge on a carny (Harry Morgan) who cheated him on the ring-toss a year earlier. He's been practicing with Mom's embroidery hoops. He's gonna get his eight bucks back, guaranteed.

Margy meets "Pat Gilbert" (Dana Andrews) by accident, when he's seated in her cabin on the Ferris Wheel. The next thing you know, he's talking her up. "Hey, whattaya say we spend the rest of the fair together? We can decide if we like each other's company, and if we don't, no harm done. We'll go our separate ways and be no worse off than we started". Gilbert is a newspaper reporter from Chicago. He's handsome, charming and seems worldly to Margy, who agrees to his proposal. But his editor is there, too, and presses him for a story. "You came here to work".  Gilbert is distracted. He and Margy separate for a while.

Meanwhile, on the midway, brother Wayne is acing the ring-toss. Harry Morgan is pulling his usual schtick, i.e. making trouble (I think it's in his contract). He doesn't wanna give Wayne his prize money. "I know you came back here to try and show me up". Wayne : "The rules say you've gotta let me keep playing". Then a pretty redhead steps forth from the crowd. "My father's the police chief in this town", she tells Morgan. "He's here tonight, so if you want to stay open you better pay this man what you owe him". Morgan reluctantly hands Wayne his winnings, grumbling "here ya go, now we're even. Don't come back ever again".

It turns out the gal is a singer at the fair, the star attraction actually, with her band. She's "Emily Edwards" (Vivian Blaine), a vivacious dame with a thousand watt smile. Her Dad's not really the police chief; she was just making that up. "I don't like that guy (Harry Morgan) and I wanted to get you your money". Like Margy and Pat, Wayne and Emily hit it off. Each sibling has a budding romance in the works.

Back in the Swine Shed, Dad is prepping Blue Boy, who suddenly lies down. It's the worst time for him to quit, the championship is about to be awarded . Luckily for Dad, another farmer brings in his hog at that moment. She's "Esmeralda", a female Hampshire. Blue Boy is back on his feet in an instant. In "State Fair", everyone wants romance. As long as Esmeralda is in the next pen, Blue Boy is raring to go. 

The fair is a backdrop for escape from everyday life, but it's also a celebration of small town simplicity. And isn't that what we yearn for nowdays in America? I mean, who gives a hoot about "progress" anymore? The only real progress is fixing what progress has led to. Well, I shant go on a tirade, but there's too many electrons coursing through every fiber of modern life. That's why State Fair has such an appeal. It could be a David Lynch movie without the DL dark side.

The romance plays out in the typical dramatic arc. Margy and Wayne find their Dream Dates, then lose them, then.........get them back? Of course I can't tell you cause that would spoil the fun, but it's interesting that both Pat the reporter and Emily the big band singer are city people. They represent an even bigger escape for the siblings. Pat wants Margy to move to Chicago and Emily asks Wayne to go on the road with her. As mentioned, Wayne is played by Dick Haymes, a top crooner in real life. He gets to show off his pipes in a song or two, but that doesn't mean he wants to leave the farm.

"State Fair" has several Rogers & Hammerstein production numbers, but I wouldn't say it qualifies as a musical. It kind of exists in it's own realm as an All American Fantasy, and in that sense it's a 10 in every way. Deserving of a mention is Donald Meek as the cook-off judge who gets hammered on Mom's mincemeat and awards her the Blue Ribbon in return. Mom, Dad and Meek provide comic relief amidst the romance (oh, and let's not forget Blue Boy and Esmeralda, too).

It's a classic in the same way as "Meet Me in St. Louis" or "Showboat", giving us an America we wish still existed. If you've never seen it, Summer is the perfect time. It's one of my favorite movies.  /////

The previous night I watched "The Kiss of the Vampire"(1963), a spooker from Hammer Studios. This sumptuous looking film turned out to be hidden classic, at least for me. I'd never even heard of it, but it's as good as anything Hammer has done. It begins with a couple driving through the English countryside in their old fashioned motorcar, just past the turn of the century. They run out of gas and the man goes to look for help. "Wait here til I return", he tells his fiance. I paused for a moment to wonder "have I seen this film before"? I was pretty sure I had, because I remembered a similar scenario. I let the movie run to make sure this was different, and it turned out that it was; I hadn't seen this film, but I checked my movie list to discover the discrepancy, and found that the movie in question - with almost the exact same scene - was "The Ghoul"(1975) starring Peter Cushing and John Hurt, which we watched about a year ago when we started doing Youtube. The folks at Hammer must've thought "running out of petrol......that's a great opening"!, and used it again for good measure.

In "Kiss", the woman's boyfriend returns with a tow truck, in the form of an ox and his driver. They tow the couple to an old hotel that appears in the middle of nowhere. It looks closed down. "You can stay here until the petrol arrives", the driver informs them. The owners, an older man and wife, aren't expecting guests, but offer a room to the travelers anyway. They act put-upon, scared of something. The wife seems close to tears. But why?

Could it be that there's a Vampire nearby, living in the castle on the hill? Yes indeed, and he's a suave son-of-a-bee, handsome and and well mannered. But aren't they all? Vampires, I mean. Aren't all of them courtly until they get their teeth in you? Well yes, but this one's a little different. For one thing, he's got a Liberace hairdo piled high on his head. For another, he's got a son who's a pianist. 

That evening, at the desolate hotel, the young couple receive an invitation to a dinner, being hosted by Liberace himself. "But how did you know we were staying there", asks the young man. "I see everything with my telescope", comes the answer. Lib is constantly peering down the road through his spyglass, looking for potential victims. At the dinner, the young lady is transfixed by sonny's pianism. The son is a grim sort, but fluent in Chopin and Brahms. Soon a ruse is put forth, to separate the lady from the man. Once Lib gets her locked away upstairs, he breaks out the fangs. Now she's one of his minions.

It turns out that old Liberace has a basement full of junior Vampires that he calls his "family". Really they're the daughters of neighboring townsfolk. One was taken from the hoteliers. Another from a certain Professor Zimmer. She's now deceased (you'll see how and why) and her death has turned the Professor into a Vampire Hunter.

No one does vampire movies better than Hammer Horror, and that's because they usually add satanism to the mix. Silver bullets and garlic won't do the trick on English Vamps, apparently, so in this case the Professor breaks out the full ritual : pentagrams, candles, incense and an incantation. The white robed Liberace huddles in his basement, exhorting his "children" to resist, but an army of bats are materialised. They crash the windows and swarm through the castle, draining the Vampires of their blood.

Of all the irony, right? It's an undiscovered Hammer classic. 

And in all seriousness, it's that good. On production design alone, it ranks with "The Devil Rides Out" and "Plague of the Zombies". The story's a little thinner than the ones in those films, but there's more than enough weirdness to go around (not to mention sharp teeth). "The Kiss of the Vampire" gets Two Big Thumbs Up. The Youtube print is widescreen Bluray. Don't wait til Halloween to see it. ////

That's all for the moment. Hope you had a great day. I send you tons of love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

"Cujo" and "The Thirteenth Hour" starring Richard Dix

What about Dog Movies? Everyone loves 'em, right? Lassie Come Home, Old Yeller, 101 Dalmatians, Benji.......The list is long and as endearing as the four-legged tail waggers who star in those films.

But what about Cujo? He's adorable too, isn't he? "Heeeeere, Cujo! C'mon, boy. Niiiiiice doggie".....

Hang on a sec - are you out of your freakin' mind? If there was ever a Hound from Hell it's Stephen King's rabid St. Bernard, big as a Grizzly and angry as a nest of murder hornets. He might be a nice boy for the first three minutes of the movie, but once he gets bitten by a bat - after sticking his head in a rabbit hole - he turns into a frothing, unstoppable death machine. Good Dog he isn't, and he may be the only canine in cinematic history to hold that distinction. Cujo belongs to "Joe Camber" (Ed Lauter), a shade tree mechanic in Castle Rock, Maine. We'll get to Joe in a moment, but first let's begin with our protagonists, "Vic" and "Donna Trenton" (Daniel Hugh Kelly and Dee Wallace). The Trentons have a son named "Tad" (Danny Pintauro). He's four and is terribly frightened of monsters, whom he's certain are lurking in every available hiding place in his bedroom.

Were you afraid of monsters as a child? I was, but not for very long. And it was really only The Boogeyman who scared me. I remember having my Dad check the closet for him when I was around Tad's age, and I slept with a night light for a while. But Tad's got a serious case of the heebie jeebies concerning monsters, so his father has created a ritual to reassure him. Every night at bedtime, Vic carries Tad on his hip, and they go around the bedroom reciting from a tract called The Monster Words, written by Vic as a spell. "Monsters stay out of this room, you have no business here"!, it begins. The Monster Words expel monsters from under the bed, from the closet, and those who look in through the window. 

But they don't cover psychological monsters like lust and infidelity, and that's really what King was getting at in his book : the rot that can develop in a marriage. Not that a little boy would understand such a thing, however.

You see, Tad's Mommy loves him too,  but she's sleeping with Steve the local handyman (Christopher Stone), who she refers to as "the town stud". He acts nonchalant around Vic and pretends to be his friend, but when Vic's at work he's in bed with his wife. Donna feels guilty but that doesn't stop her from continuing to see Steve..........for a while.

But then things begin to go downhill. Vic's an advertising agent who's created a wildly successful TV campaign with his partner. They've designed a popular series of commercials for Sharp Cereals, featuring a character known as The Professor, who eats a spoonful of whatever cereal is being promoted, then delivers the testimonial tag line : "Nope! Nothing wrong here"! But in reality there's a lot wrong. Besides Vic's yet-to-be-discovered marital trouble, the account with Sharp gets cancelled when a whole bunch of kids spit up "blood" after eating one of their products. It turns out it was only the red dye in the cereal, but the damage is done. Sharp pulls the plug and Vic's agency takes a huge hit. Then his sporty red Jaguar needs repairing, so he takes it to Joe Camber, who lives way out in the sticks. Joe's a great mechanic, but also an abusive a-hole. His marriage is in the tank too; his wife has just won the lottery and is gonna use the money to leave him, though he doesn't know it yet. On the way home from Camber's, Vic sees Donna standing out on the sidewalk with Steve the handyman, in front of his house. Right away he knows what's going on. The irony is that Donna and Steve have just had an argument. She's finally told him she can't see him anymore. "Why the hell not"?, he wants to know. "Because I've got a terrific husband and a sweet little boy", she answers.

Back home, Vic confronts his wife. She admits the affair but swears it's over. Vic tells her he needs to get away for a few days to think about the future of their marriage. "Before you go", Donna mentions, "I should tell you that the Pinto's been having engine trouble. I know that's probably not important to you right now, but while you're gone I'll need it to get to the store".

"Take it to Joe Camber", Vic tells Donna, giving her directions to Joe's place before he drives away. Donna takes Tad with her to get the old car looked at. They barely make it to Camber's place before the engine quits for good.

By now, Cujo's really sick. His eyes are dripping pus, his jowls are spilling slobber, and his fur is matted with something slimy. I'd tell you that he's "sicker than a dog" if it wouldn't get me banned from the Punner's Round Table, but yeah.......that's how rabid he's become. And that slime on his coat? I might as well tell you it's blood; you're gonna find out anyway. He's already killed two people : his master Joe Camber, and Joe's beer-swilling buddy, who was to accompany him on a trip to Las Vegas. So when Donna and Tad arrive in their now stalled-out Pinto, there's no one alive to help them. And Cujo's diseased dog brain is on fire.      

When I first saw the movie in the theater in 1983, I was slightly disappointed because I was comparing it to the book, which goes into great detail about the various dysfunctional relationships, including Joe Camber's alcoholism and abuse of his wife. As I mentioned, that's what King was really examining, using Cujo as a metaphor. But in viewing it a second time nearly 40 years later, I was much more impressed. The movie works on it's own as a horror film and is extremely intense. The scenes in the car with Dee Wallace and Danny Pintauro are excruciating.

Director Lewis Teague gives us just a sketch of the deeper problems in the book to focus instead on Cujo's seige of the Pinto and it's trapped occupants. In addition to the psychotic animal, Donna and Tad have to battle the heat. Sitting in the car with the windows rolled up, they eventually become dehydrated and little Tad starts to hyperventilate. Cujo is relentless; driven crazier than he already is by a ringing telephone, he throws himself against the driver's side door of the small car. Angry at not breaking through, he does it again, and again, his messy bulk hitting the ground undaunted, each time.  

This section of the film is brutal and takes up most of it's second half. The photography by Jan de Bont is one of the picture's main strengths, along with the editing in the attack scenes. The dog himself must be given a lot of credit for creating a memorable character. Of course, they always use a number of animals in any film like this, to get the desired results (and because of long hours, attention spans, etc.) But whoever the Principal Cujo was, he was "doggone good" at creating a sense of terror. Perhaps he was a Method Actor and imagined himself with rabies, I dunno, but he deserves kudos as the film's dominant performer.

In reassessing "Cujo", I give it Two Big Thumbs Up. It helps to have read the book so that you're aware of the movie's shortcuts, but even if you haven't read it, and you just want a straight-up white knuckle fright fest, with some adulterous behavior thrown in as a backdrop, "Cujo" will do ya.

Sit, Cujo, sit!......now stay.........good boy. Niiiiiice Cujo.......   /////

Okey dokey, now let's do another Whistler. This time, Richard Dix stars as "Steve Reynolds", the owner of a trucking company in "The Thirteenth Guest"(1947). This is the final Whistler movie Dix appeared in, and one of only two that don't have it's namesake in the title. As it opens, Dix is in a roadside diner celebrating the birthday of it's proprietor, "Eileen Blair" (Karen Morley), who's also his girlfriend. Dix surprises the guests by announcing their engagement. Then he drives home in his company truck, after the party is over.

Cue the freakin' Whistler : "Ahh yes, Steve. That fateful drive. It changed your whole life, didn't it? What if you'd left five minutes earlier, or later? Then you might've missed that driver swerving on the road. Do you ever think about that? I'm sure you must. Just five minutes, one way or the other. Funny how fate's always on time".

You see, Steve's about to encounter a reckless driver who's trying to impress his girlfriend. The guy's hauling major league bootation. He crosses the yellow line then fishtails around a corner, running Steve into a ditch. His truck overturns and he's knocked unconscious. When he comes to, a cop is standing over him. He accuses Steve of drunk driving.

"But Don, I only had one drink at the party". Dix knows the officer, who was once his romantic rival. "I swear there was another car involved. It almost ran into me. The guy was driving at least 90 miles per hour".

"That's just your word", says the copper, who's got it in for Dix. "There aren't any witnesses to back up your story. I'm gonna have to take you to the station".

But then Dix remembers something : "Wait a minute. There's a passenger in my truck! I picked up a hitchhiker a few miles back. He can vouch for everything I'm saying". 

Now didn't we just say, in the last blog or so, that you should never pick up hitchhikers? Well, there's an exception to every rule, and this is it. Dix's hitcher is gonna provide him an alibi, except for one thing :

The cop opens the truck's door and he's not there.

"A hitchhiker you say"?, asks Officer Don.

"I swear he was in there! I just picked him up! He must've run off for some reason".

"Sure, Steve, sure. Or maybe you had more than one drink. Let's go. I've gotta take you in. You can tell it to the judge in the morning".

So Steve does just that. In court, he testifies to the reckless driver and his witness/hitchhiker. The judge doesn't believe him and suspends his trucking licence. But then Steve discovers an item of interest. In the wreckage of his truck is a glove.

"This must've belonged to the hitchhiker"!, he tells Eileen excitedly. The glove has an interesting property. It's owner has stuffed the thumb with a metal plug. "We need to look for a man with a missing thumb", Dix concludes. "When we find him I can get my licence back". Meanwhile, there are still routes to be run. Steve's short on drivers and is prohibited from driving himself. "My company's gonna go under", he worries. And then one night, an important shipment cannot wait. "I've gotta take it myself", he decides, "even at the risk of going to jail". He sets out to make the delivery, staying off the main highway to avoid the police. But someone has stowed away in the back of his truck - a masked gunman who suddenly climbs into the cab.

He knocks Dix out, takes over behind the wheel, and detours back to the highway, where he deliberately exceeds the speed limit to attract attention. Here comes Officer Don, signalling for Dix to pull over. He assumes it's Dix; we know it isn't. Dix is knocked out. The masked driver does as ordered and pulls to the side of the road. Then, as Officer Don is parking his motorcycle, the bandit starts the truck and throws it in reverse. He runs over the officer, killing him. Guess who's gonna take the blame for that?

Cue the freakin' Whistler.

The remainder of the plot finds Steve in and out of jail, trying to prove he didn't kill Officer Don. Motive weighs against him. It's well known that he and Don were rivals for Eileen's hand. A tipster clues Steve in on the existence of a stolen car ring, that Don may have had a hand in covering. But then Eileen makes an even bigger discovery, hidden in the glove's metal plug.

That's all I'm gonna tell ya about this very complex Whistler. It plays like a traditional Noir and doesn't have as many Sneering Observations by our host, but it's one of the best of the series. Richard Dix passed away two years later at the age of 56. He looks unhealthy in the film but gives his all. There are some great roadside locations, including Eileen's diner and an old gas station I believe is on Sierra Highway near Newhall. It's still sitting there today, abandoned for decades. 

Well, so there you have it. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Thirteenth Hour". I hope you're enjoying your Fourth of July weekend. I love the holiday and I'll bet you do too. Have a great rest of the day.

Tons and tons (and tons) of love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)