Vicki Carlson in "Violated", and "Picture Brides" starring Alan Hale and Regis Toomey

Last night, we found a gritty crime thriller from New York called "Violated"(1953). There's a killer on the loose in Brooklyn. His trademark is to cut off a lock of his victim's hair. We don't see his face, just his hand and a pair of scissors. He strangles young women, prostitutes mostly. The cops keep pulling in every known sex offender for questioning, but they just can't find the right man.

The plot also follows "Susan Grant" (Vicki Carlson), a nice young woman who aspires to become a fashion model. While on the Manhattan ferry, she meets a professional photographer named "Jan Verbig" (William Holland). He offers her a sitting, and she takes him up, but when she gets to his studio the following week, there's a more experienced model being photographed. Verbig knows this gal personally and seems to have a thing for her, so Susan gets put on the back burner. Meanwhile, another young woman has been found murdered in Central Park, with her hair cut. Susan is not deterred. She tells her mom she wants to be a cover girl. Mom asks if she's "coming on" to Verbig. "Of course not, mama. Our relationship is strictly professional." She does idolize him, though; he's "Continental", sophisticated, and he takes excellent pictures. But he's got her on hold because he really wants to photograph the other model, whose name is "Lili Damar" (Lili Dawn). Verbig keeps asking Lili out. "I like ya but you can't afford me," she tells him. By night, she's an exotic dancer.

The cops detain an older man, a recently paroled sex offender, who claims he has nothing to with the murders. As part of his probation, he's under the care of a psychiatrist, but we still see him getting off the bus and following young girls all over town. The punchline becomes telegraphed after a certain point, but it's a well made film, despite the fact that there aren't any well known actors (or even semi well known). This appears to be an independently financed flick, maybe made with local actors - all of whom are good - and the director knows what he's doing and even gets in an Expressionistic scene, reminiscent of "M", when the murdalizer is being chased down. That sequence looks like it came from a 1920s German horror movie. The guy made an arty crime film, but he copped it from Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom", for certain. Its apparently a cult favorite, and we give it Two Bigs verging on Two Huge despite it's low budget. There's also lots of good location shooting in Brooklyn circa 1953. The picture is medium good.  //// 

The previous night, we watched a Poverty Row pre-Code adventure film hodgepodge entitled "Picture Brides"(1934). The Skipper's Dad stars as "Mr. Von Luden", the big Dutch owner of a diamond mine in the Amazon jungle. His mine workers are all wanted fugitives from other countries. Von Luden has an arrangement with them to keep the police away. "I control the riverboats. They can't get here." He even lets one guy (Outregis Toomey) buy a stake in the mine. Von Luden keeps his men happy (and makes extra money) by shipping over "picture brides", ladies who want to get married for legal reasons (I don't know what they are, maybe pregnancy, it isn't said). They get a marriage certificate without the hassle of having a husband. 

The picture brides are shipped over and assigned a mine worker fugitive, to whom they'll be legally married. The deal is that they they will then be taken back to their home countries. A native gal resents all the "white women". "What?", she complains, "Laoma not good enough for you?"

Toomey has a 5k reward out for him; a henchman has brought Von Luden the wanted poster. A gang of American bounty hunters are trying to get to the mine and find him, but the problem is that this is a 62 minute movie that should've been cut to 50 (okay, 51). Because in the early going, it looks improvised. There's a lot of short scenes of characters getting drunk in a nightclub and slurring their words for laughs. "Mame Smith" (Dorothy Mackaill) is the innocent girl among the brides, naive about what she's in for. In pre-Code shorthand - for the stuff they can't say in the dialogue - it's insinuated on the voyage over, by other more sophisticated gals, that Mame is gonna have to put out for the man she "marries". She was expecting to just get hitched and head home.

The movie gets serious around the 45 minute mark, meaning you get 17 minutes of actual plotting. This flick was directed by Phil Rosen, a notable helmsman of the era, and someone wrote a synopsis at IMDB that describes in detail what is happening as if it was taken from an adventure novel. He or she must've gotten their cliff notes from whatever studio produced this flick, because - from my vantage point - you couldn't have gleaned these details from what is being said and shown onscreen. Sometimes with these super cheapies, you only get the gist of what is going on, because of poorly articulated and underwritten dialogue, combined with poor editing, pacing, etcetera. This film was made to be cranked out and gotten into theaters, because in those days, movies were changed every Wednesday (according to my Mom, whose folks briefly owned a movie theater). Now, we love Poverty Row, because they usually have something to make a picture interesting, and this one does too toward the end. But it feels like they're goofing around for the first 45 minutes. You'll find yourself mostly looking at the beautiful picture brides, and that is probably what Rosen was intending, instead of trying to make something of the script.

The Skipper's Dad does a very good Dutch accent, therefore Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is soft but watchable.  ////

And that's all I've got for this evening.  Have you had enough rain yet? Bring back the drought already, good grief. My blogging music is John Mayall's Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, my late night is Handel's Scipione Oratorio. How about them Chargers? (not). I hope you are enjoying your weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

J. Edward Bromberg in PRC's "The Missing Corpse", and "Robot Pilot" starring Forrest Tucker and Evelyn Brent

Last night, we watched a top notch black comedy/mystery from PRC: "The Missing Corpse"(1945). Two rival big city publishers, "McDonald" (Paul Guilfoyle) and "Kruger" (J. Edward Bromberg), are trying to drive each other out of business. When McDonald  prints a front page story, with photo, of Kruger's daughter getting 86ed from a nightclub for brawling, Kruger threatens to kill him. This doesn't work out too well for Kruger, because McDonald does indeed wind up dead, killed by a henchman (Ben Welden) he was blackmailing. Welden knows about the death threat made by Mr. Kruger, so he stuffs McDonald's corpse in the trunk of Kruger's car. Kruger finds it one night while at his mountain cabin, where he's gone with his chauffer (Frank Jenks) to get away from his ingrate family.

Thinking that everyone's gonna blame him for what is clearly McDonald's murder, Kruger buys some quicklime at the mountainside general store, and pays the nosy owner lady five bucks to keep her mouth shut (without telling her about the dead body). "Just don't tell any one I'm up here. That's all I ask."

Well, he drives off with the intent of burying McDonald's body in the forest, and covering it with the quicklime so it will rapidly decompose. But on his way to do the deed, he gets pulled over by a motorcycle cop for schpeeding, and because he's acting jittery, the cop asks to search his car.

Is he just about to get busted, or what? Well, not exactly, because when the cop opens the trunk, it's empty! Kruger has no idea what has happened to the body, but he drives away a happy camper. Back at the cabin, Jenks tells him he found it too, when Kruger's doggie was sniffing around. Jenks took it from the trunk and hid it in the bathroom. This will be the plot device from here on out; Hide the Body, put it in another place every time someone claims they saw it.

The motorcycle cop comes to the cabin after hearing of the disappearance of McDonald. He tells his partner, "That guy I pulled over was acting kinda funny." By now, the body has been moved several times. Later on, Mr. Kruger's family - feeling bad about the way they've ignored him - decide to drive up to the cabin and visit him to apologize. When they get there, each one finds the body in turn, in different rooms, and by now, the henchman Ben Welden - the real murderer (and a professional numbskull) - has driven to the cabin also, and is hiding inside, because there is a blackmail letter in McDonald's coat that will point directly to him if the body is ever found. Welden's got to get that letter, and will kill any family member in his way (well, he would if he weren't the worlds biggest chowderhead). 

This flick is almost as good as "The Harassed Hero", as far as wind-ups go. For PRC, that's high praise. They rarely have a movie with this level of writing quality, and usually get by with the charm and improv skills of their stable of caricature actors. But this is very good stuff. Everyone contributes close to A-level farce. Frank Jenks is another notable comic actor who always plays a nitwit. He was "Eddie", the dopey bailbond salesman in "Shake Hands with Murder" (seen the other night). Ken Terrell as the motorcycle cop is the straight man; he's a riot too. But the movie belongs to J. Edward Bromberg (who I don't think we've seen before) as Mr. Kruger, who's being framed for murder but the body can't be found. "The Missing Corpse" gets Two Big Thumbs Up with a very high recommendation. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

Now, sometimes with PRC movies, the titles aren't representative of the content. Such is the case with "Robot Pilot"(1941), in which you get a smidgen of remote-controlled airplane suspense, bookending 50 minutes of romantic screwball comedy. If, like me, you were expecting a sci-fi flick or a WW2 arms race drama, it's kind of like biting into what you thought was a cheeseburger and getting a piece of cake. Or something like that.

"Doc Williams" (Emmett Vogan) has invented a remote control for model airplanes and he's already installed it in the Real Thing, a '30s-era fighter plane owned by his benefactor "George Lambert" (William Halligan). Doc's right hand man is "Jerry Barton" (Forrest Tucker), a pilot who doubles as a ranger. They operate out of Doc's private airfield in the Arizona desert. Jerry is competent but has the personality of an overgrown kid. Mr. Lambert has a spoiled brat for a daughter (Carol Hughes), who has "always gotten her way since she was four years old" according to her "Aunt Maude" (Evelyn Brent), Lambert's sister. Daughter Betty Lambert is now grown up and wants to leave for Hollywood to become a movie star. After about 7 or 8 minutes of remote control action, complete with model airplanes flying around (and Forrest Tucker making a test run in the fighter plane), we're switched to Betty's story, and we'll stay there until five minutes before the end of the film.

Now we're in the desert with Betty and Aunt Maude. They run out of gas, and the funniest scene in the movie results. A gentleman (Joaquin Edwards) riding a burro approaches and offers to give them directions to the nearest gas station. He's wearing a sombrero and his name is "Pedro", if that gives you any indication. But it's his way of directing them that is.....(hmm)....a little trying at first?....and then (when you give it time)....er, it's pretty funny after all. And, there's a line spoken by Aunt Maude around the 29 minute mark (give or take a minute), that absolutely would not be allowed in a movie today. Pedro and Aunt Maude make the movie. And, Forrest Tucker's "gee whiz" portrayal of Jerry is fun, if goofy. He's so adolescent that Betty tells him, "you should meet my nephew, he'd loan you his scooter." Most of the plot revolves around Betty and Aunt Maude's theft of gasoline from a government tank, located on Doc Williams's property. Jerry is so determined to enforce the law, in his role as a "federal agent" (ranger), that he puts the ladies under house arrest - at Doc's house, where, for most of the movie, they try to escape, and/or have bacon and egg breakfasts.

Don't ask. I mean, you can ask "who writes this stuff?" I think some of it is made up on the spot. But it works (cough, cough) because Evelyn Brent is funny. 

There is some conflict. A bad guy named "Karl" (played by I. Stanford Jolley, possessor of one of the most awesome names in motion picture history), is a mechanic for Mr. Lambert. He wants to steal the robot pilot device for his own nefarious purposes. But he's only gonna get one scene to do it. Two Big Thumbs Up. Ya gotta love it even if you don't get much robot piloting. The movie is also known as "Emergency Landing" and the picture is soft but watchable.  ////

Sad to hear about Jeff Beck, as much for the cause of his passing as the suddenness. He just played here two months ago, with Johnny Depp, and from the reviews was in fine form and vital, so this seems like a freak accident. From what I've read today, you can get meningitis from an infected person's cough, or picking up  the wrong drink at a party. Apparently, some people who are carriers of the bacteria never get sick and never know they have it. Beck might've caught it on this last tour, as Depp reports he was sick for several weeks. So God Bless the man, who desererved a much better exit from the stage, and far longer down the road.

My favorite Jeff Beck albums were the fusion ones, especially Blow by Blow. I'd be lying if I said I was a huge fan. Truth be told, I wasn't, because I am more into songs, and with JB, I don't think he was known as a composer as much as an instrumentalist who could add his own twist to most any style of popular music. That, I think, was the problem for me; there wasn't a consistency I could grab hold of. In concert, from what I've heard (from Grimsley) he'd play a Judy Garland song, then a fusion, then a dirty blues, and...it just wasn't my thing. But his talent was unquestionable. He was Ritchie Blackmore's favorite guitarist, and I think my own favorite JB playing was on Roger Waters' grim-but-good solo album "Amused to Death". Beck plays some very emotional fills on that record, using his whammy-bar style. Anyhow, I am the last guy who should speak about him, because I didn't know much of his music. Of the early '60s guitar heroes, I am a Clapton man. But Jeff Beck was considered #1 by so many people, he must've been one hell of a musician. And a nice man by all accounts. ////

And now we are hit by the death of Lisa Marie Presley. I just think the loss of her son was too much, and she had to be with him and her father.

My blogging music is Traffic again ("Mr. Fantasy"), my late night is the Alexander Balus Oratorio by Handel, but don't ask me who Alexander Balus is.

I wish you a happy (and lucky) Friday the 13, and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard in "The Cat and the Canary", and "The Spider's Web" (A Chapter Serial)

Last night's motion picture was "The Cat and the Canary"(1939), an old dark house mystery featuring the standard setup: a disparate group of relatives gather at a creepy old mansion in a remote location to hear the reading of their patriarch's will. Why else would they go to such a joint, right? This time, the mansion is down in the Looz-e-anna Bayou, so they have to take swamp boats to get there. Top-billed Bob Hope arrives last, after five others: his "Aunt Susan" (Elizabeth Patterson), her companion "Cicily Young" (Nydia Westman), a twice removed cousin; handsome grandnephews "Charles Wilder" (Douglass Montgomery) and "Fred Blythe" (John Beal), and grandniece "Joyce Norman" (Paulette Goddard), all of whom hope to inherit the decedent's fortune. George Zucco is the probate lawyer. Right away, you're thinking he's gonna be the movie's culprit, after all, it was in Zucco's contract to be Evil Personified.

But he's actually the first guy who gets knocked off. After the reading of the the will, in which niece Joyce is named the sole heir (with a second heir named in a sealed envelope in case she dies), Zucco is eliminated after being pulled through a secret wall panel by an outstretched, long-nailed hand. This happens early on, and while the entire 74 minute film features grade-A productions values, steady pacing, above average "dark house" acting ("Someone just tried to murder me!" "Eek, there's a shadow on the wall"!) and plentiful Bob Hope one liners, in the middle 40 minutes there isn't much plot development to speak of. Bob and Paulette Goddard find a necklace and that's about it. There is a sexual undercurrent motif, played for laughs. The two old ladies (Aunt Susan and Cousin Cicily), frightened by a report of a murderer in the house, decide they should stay close for the rest of the night. "I think we need to sleep together," says one. This theme builds as the nights go on, to include a three way sleep-in with young nephew Charlie. Only 'cause they're spooked, dontchaknow.

We mostly remember Bob Hope as an older man, from his USO trips and his gig as an Academy Award host. Along with Johnny Carson, Hope was the best host Oscar ever had (and Billy Crystal). But what about Hope as a young man? What made him such a big schtar? For one thing, the guy was beyond smooth. You can see it in this movie. He's got a walk that's like a glide, and even the way he turns his shoulders is graceful as he utters a throwaway line. But his lines only seem throwaway; they're delayed reaction jokes, they hit you after Hope has walked (or glided) out of the room. We think of him as the ultimate one-liner stand up comic, but he was also a very good actor. Gail Sondergaard plays "Miss Lu", the caretaker of the dead patriarch's estate. She's a Morticia-esque spiritualist who talks to the ghosts in the house. They tell her what's going to happen next. If they'd tell us, too, it would make the plot a tad more interesting. 

I wish it didn't drag with all that mid-film ensemble interaction. Where's the doggone murderer, already? When he (or she) does show up, it's worth the wait, but you might find your thumbs twiddling on their own in the interim. It's still an entertaining flick. Hope chimes in with witticisms that revive you. I've wanted to see the original version of this movie (based on a play) for a long time, because it was directed by Paul Leni of "Man Who Laughs" fame. His version was Silent, made in '27, but if I'm not mistaken, the horror is more accentuated.

Having said all of that, because the acting is so good, anchored by Paulette Goddard and Old Ski Nose, I've gotta give it Two Big Thumbs Up. In all other aspects except plot development it rates Two Huge. Maybe it should've been edited down to an hour, like most movies should be. Overall, it's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night, our pal Warren Hull was back, in the first episode of a major-league chapter serial, "The Spider's Web"(1938). Why major league? Because it inspired 16 year-old Stan Lee to create Spiderman. Hull stars in triplicate, as "Richard Wentworth", a Bruce Wayne type rich guy crime fighter, whose alter ego is "The Spider", and who also makes use of a third personality, "Blinky McQuade", a one-eyed, black toothed all-purpose criminal, which allows him to infiltrate organised gangs. 

There's trouble in the city, big trouble, because a megalomaniac who wears a Stay Puft all-white walrus suit and calls himself "The Octopus" (actor unrevealed), is pulling a Dr. Mabuse trip. He's trying to overthrow the government by starting an all-out crime war. His strategery is to destroy the transportation capability of the nation first, by blowing up bridges, crashing trains and planes, and bombing trucking warehouses, and he's sparing no expense on the gunpowder.

He also has a seemingly endless supply of henchmen, too. Donald Trump should be so lucky. The Octopus talks into a small circular microphone, to make his voice sound ominous. This was de rigueur for the madman in these movies.

Richard Wentworth is newly engaged when he hears about The Octopus's destruction of a train station. Wentworth was planning to retire as The Spider in honor of his pending marriage. He and his fiancee are flying home from vacation and he wants his old crime fighting life behind him, but right! at! that! moment! - OMG! Someone has put a trip wire on the runway! It damages the undercarriage of their plane, and Wentworth is forced to abort the landing. Back in the air, the plane falls apart and the two of them have to bail out. They parachute to the ground, and now all of Wentworth's plans to discontinue The Spider are put on hold. He can't allow The Octopus to take over Gotham City.

The Spider then appears in public in the middle of a warehouse takeover by the Octopi's henchmen. A humongous shootout rages as he jumps onto a high-story overhang. His entrance is striking and especially cinematic for 1938. Some effort went into this production, it's one of the best looking chapter serials we've seen so far, and we're only in the first episode. It's the '38 equivalent of today's Marvel Superhero blockbusters, and so far, we've gotta give it Two Huge Thumbs Up. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

That's all for tonight. My blogging music is Traffic's debut album and "John Barleycorn Must Die". As happened with Cream a couple weeks ago, I am rediscovering Traffic, and in their case I'm kind of discovering them in depth for the first time. I had "Shootout at the Fantasy Factory" when I was 14, and played it a few times (and who wasn't drawn in by that album cover?), and I knew all their FM staple hits, but I think they were too mellow for my teenage self, or too jazzy/bluesy, but holy smokes, I started to appreciate how great Steve Winwood was when I watched that Blind Faith concert I posted, and now I am immersing myself in Traffic (live shows as well as studio albums) and my verdict is............they're as great as it gets. It took til I was almost 63 to appreciate them, but man....watch their concert from Santa Monica 1972. What a band. And Winwood shreds on guitar, which was something I didn't know. Ya learns something new every day.

My late night is Mendelssohn's Elias Oratorio. I love that kind of singing (my gig in the next life). I hope your week is going well and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)      

Guy Middleton in "The Harassed Hero", and "Shake Hands with Murder" starring Iris Adrian and Douglas Fowley (plus A Special Book)

Last night we had a Veddy Brrrittish (and hilarious) crime farce called "The Harassed Hero"(1954), starring Guy Middleton as "Murray Selwyn", a man with a nervous condition. He's been diagnosed with "acute apprehension", so as the movie opens, he and his valet "Twigg" (Harold Goodwin) are preparing for his stay in a nursing home. They've just returned from the doctor's office in a taxi, so Twigg starts organizing Mr. Selwyn's belongings and notices a satchel he doesn't recognize. "Sir, is this case yours?" "No, I've never seen it before". Twigg opens it to find thousands of Veddy Brittish bank notes. Man, they've got some giant-sized money in England. How do they ever fit it into their wallets? 

Selwyn figures  the satchel - and the money - must have been left behind by a previous passenger in the taxi. "He must've been a bank robber," says Twigg, and they make a note to turn the dough in. But then, there's a knock at the door; it's a man with a gun. He's the passenger from the cab and he wants his satchel back. Twigg gives it to him. "No funny business," says the man. But that's exactly what we're in for, for the next 50 minutes, as the plot winds and winds in the kind of send-up the English excel at. I may not be able do it justice.

The gunman takes his bag and departs. Selwyn and Twigg ruminate on what to do next. Call the police? Return to preparing for the nursing home? They decide on the latter. Twigg opens the front door to take a suitcase to the car, and finds the gunman's body smack dab on the doorstep! We know what happened to him, but Twigg and Selwyn do not, and I can't tell you either. But the last thing they need is a corpse on the doorsill, so they move the body to a back room of Mr. Selwyn's spacious townhouse. Then they resume packing for the nursing home.

Before they leave, Twigg makes a final check to make sure the body is secure. But OMG, it's gone! The windum is open; could someone have stolen it? But who and why? They haven't time to figure it out. Selwyn is scheduled (pronounced shed-jooled) for his nursing home check-in within the hour. He has an attractive nurse (Joan Winmill Brown), whom he soon falls in love with. He tells her his story of a runaway corpse and she thinks he's a nutter, but she humors him. Then, she finds a small metal box with some engraved copper plates inside. Selwyn says they aren't his. "Maybe they're works of art, or deguerrotypes or something". Neither of them know where they came from. It turns out that Twigg took the box from the pocket of the gunman/corpse when he was still on the porch. But they don't put two and two together: copper plates and thousands of British pounds.

The money isn't from a bank robbery after all. It's counterfeit. In a crosscut scene, the counterfeiters are discussing how to get their plates back. 

You'll just have to watch the movie, because I'd be here all day describing the plot changes. We talk a lot about screenwriting around here. This movie is an example of A-plus plotting. Every line of dialogue is worked out like math, and every actor knows just how to react in character. Confusion builds more confusion, and each new addition is a puzzle piece. What's amazing is that this is a one hour film that was likely released as the opener on a double bill, and it's far better than anything passing for comedy in movies today. The movie turns into a search for the copper plates. To recover them, the head counterfeiter poses as a nursing home doctor. Trust me, just watch it. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "The Harassed Hero". The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The night before, we watched Iris Adrian in "Shake Hands with Murder"(1944), a PRC screwball mystery. Iris plays "Patsy Brent", owner of a struggling bail bonds company. In search of a client, her not-too-bright partner "Eddie" (Frank Jenks) chooses embezzler "Steve Morgan" (Douglas Fowley), who's in jail for filching a hundred gees from his bank. Eddie figures Morgan is good publicity for the firm. Patsy is angry because he's obviously guilty as heck, and they'll lose the bail money if Morgan leaves the country.

She goes in search of him (Eddie failed to schedule a meeting), and finds him sitting at a cafe. It's not easy to discern what's going on at this point, because Iris Adrian is talking a blue streak. According to her bio, she was quite the comedienne, with a sizable fan base, and she runs off so many words it'll knock you sideways. The gist you catch is that Morgan may not be guilty. He's not skipping out on his bail after all; he even invites Iris over to his place, where she tries to steal a package he picked up from the post office. She thinks it's the money from the bank.

Eddie disappears from the movie at this time. He's only in the beginning and the end, and the writer added expository dialogue in all the right places because he knew you'd lose track of what's going on. That's because Iris Adrian is doing her thing, and Douglas Fowley becomes her co-star, playing a good guy for once. Fowley was adept at these roles, and I am liking him more than I liked his son Kim, who in interviews denounced his Dad as a womaniser and an absent father (and maybe there was truth in what he said). But on screen you can't help but like Douglas Fowley, whereas Kim Fowley was a degenerate any which way you looked at him. 

Anyhow, once Morgan (Fowley) convinces Patsy (Adrian) that he's innocent of embezzelment, the obvious next question is "who did it?" Morgan says it was an executive at the bank, but he's dead. It's gonna be tough collecting evidence against him. But - wait a minute, he's not dead after all. Now he kidnaps Morgan and Patsy, the oldest trick in the PRC book, and all they have is Eddie the dumbbell to rescue them.

Iris Adrian is cute, and sweet, so if you can handle her non-stop talking, you should enjoy the movie. I liked it, I thought she made a good team with Fowley, so it gets Two Big Thumbs Up despite it flaws. The picture is just a tad soft.  ////

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is a live concert by Traffic (Santa Monica 1972) on Youtube. Watch it, it's really good. My late night is Handel's Jeptha Oratorio. Man, this weekend I had something amazing happen. For years, at least the past ten, I've been searching for a favorite book from childhood. My quest started back in 2008 or thereabouts, when I found a copy of "Hamid of Aleppo." It might have been the passing of my parents that inspired this desire. They were big on books. Dad introduced me to "Hamid". I never thought about it til he died, then I remembered it as one of my favorites from childhood, and I had to track down a copy. I was successful (though it took a while), and when I got it in the mail and read it again, it reminded me of another obscure book. I couldn't remember the title of that one; all I recalled was that it was about a little hunchbacked boy who was shunned, and left home to become a cook. I seemed to remember it didn't come from the library, but from London or Belgium when Dad went to Europe on business in the late 1960s.

Starting about 2010 or so, give or take a couple years, I started Googling about this book, but it was hard because I didn't have a title. I'd put in search terms like "Belgian children's book" + "hunchback boy" + cook," but nothing ever came back. I remembered he learned to make soup, so I added that, and I thought there was a character called "The Major Domo", so I put him in the search terms, too. Still, I got nothing. I slowly slacked off on my search for this book, but I never gave up. In recent years I searched about every six months, whenever something caused me to think of it. Well, on Friday night, that's exactly what happened. I was sitting here listening to music, and all of a sudden for some reason The Major Domo came into my head. You know how the mind is, you never know what's gonna pop up. I got an inspiration then, to Google some search terms then and there. And for some reason I added a new detail. My search went like this: "Belgian children's book about a boy with a long nose who becomes a cook." I pressed "enter" and bingo: there was the cover of the book! "Dwarf Long Nose," it is called. It was written as "Dwarf Nose" by William Hauff in 1826, and later translated into English. The copy I remember had the cover I was looking at, drawn by Maurice Sendak of "Where the Wild Things Are" fame. He did all the illustrations for "Dwarf Long Nose," and I remember looking at the drawings at reading the book over and over when I was about 8. Who didn't love Maurice Sendak at that time, am I right? But the other thing is, that I'm not sure it was the copy Dad brought back from Europe, because I seem to recall a version with small, pencil-sketch illustrations. It's a very famous German fairy tale originally, no doubt it was published many times over the decades, in different countries. Maybe my European copy was in English, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure Dad brought it back from his trip. Maybe I lost it and Mom found the Sendak version at the library.

The important thing is that I found it after all these years and all that Googling, and ten minutes after I rediscovered "Dwarf Long Nose", I found a copy of the Sendak version at an online used book store. Do you think I ordered it as fast as I could? It was only ten bucks, and it should arrive in the mail very soon.

I think it was the "long nose" that did the trick. I'd never remembered that detail before. Hooray for "Dwarf Long Nose"! Nothing is ever lost. I wish you a nice week, and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)       

George Raft in "I'll Get You", and "Tomorrow's Youth" starring Dickie Moore, Martha Sleeper and John Miljan (plus Top Ten Movies of 2022)

Last night's movie was "I'll Get You", an espionage film similar in content to "Night People" (reviewed a few days ago). It takes place in London instead of Berlin, in 1953 instead of '45, but we're at the height of the Cold War and someone is kidnapping scientists (instead of soldiers). Once again, the kidnappers are likely Nazis or Russians. George Raft stars as "Steve Rossi", an American aerospace engineer who, for some reason known only to the screenwriter, flies across the pond to investigate. What - he's never heard of Scotland Yard? 

In London, he goes in search of a man named "Mr. Grand". After asking around, he finally obtains an address, but when he gets there, he finds only Grand's wife (Sally Gray), who informs him that Grand is out of the country. "This apartment is only temporary. Can't you tell? It's furnished."

By now, we've been watching for about 20 minutes, waiting for things to gel, but we're about to get sidetracked with a romance that goes flat before it ever carbonates. Part of the problem is that, because Raft doesn't believe Mr. Grand is away, he starts engaging the wife in banter, only it isn't the usual back-and-forth repartee, with inflection and body language. Instead, it's as cue-card as could possibly be. Remember Alan Baxter, the actor from "Submarine Base"? We said he was reading cue-cards in that movie. Well, in this sequence to set up a romantic duo, George Raft makes Baxter look like Al Pacino. Whoo-ah! He might as well be reading his lines at the rehearsal table (or in the morgue). His monotone makes it hard to follow the plot because it's very distracting.

However, the story gets back up to speed once Raft and Gray get out and about in London. Before they depart, she pulls a gun, he wrestles it away, then she gets him in a hammerlock because Raft is a shrimp. Now they are almost in love. Gray admits she isn't Grand's wife, which Raft suspected all along. Okay, fine. Then who is she? 

Trying to find out, Raft goes on his own to a beauty salon, to talk to "Irma Brooks" (Patricia Laffan), owner of the apartment building. She claims to have no information on anyone named Grand, and as soon as Raft leaves, she makes a phone call. Is he being set up to be kidnapped? So far, everything at least looks great, with non-stop London action. The actors (except Raft) couldn't be more Brrrittish, but the plot is just kind of treading water. Okay already; who the heck is Mr. Grand and why can't you find him? The movie's 35 minutes old, get with it! Up to now, it's been an uninspired but well-shot spy flick, centered on Raft's own awareness of his suaveness, which is so far under the radar that he might as well be acting from a bunker.

Finally, at the 56 minute mark, there's a major league reveal. Had the film been written by a more talented screenwriter, he'd have worked this information in gradually, and we wouldn't have had to twiddle our thumbs for an hour. Or maybe it was the director's fault, but I don't think so. He's saddled with an aging George Raft, who is still stylish enough to carry his own water, but he ain't what he once was.

The reveal, which I cannot remotely tell you about, sets the climax in motion, and if the whole thing had this much energy we'd be talking a Two Huge Thumbs Up picture. One ridiculous thing at the end; having Raft appear to perform stunts like jumping off of a freight elevator to tackle a much younger bad guy, then winning a karate-style punchout. Get real. Still, because we like Raft, and because we hung out with his grandson in 1986, and went to a Celtic Frost concert with him and Sean, the movie gets Two Big Thumbs. If it had anything resembling a big league schcript, we'd be talking Two Huge. But then Raft wouldn't have phoned it in in the first place. I'll give you a hint - there's kind of a "Third Man" deal at the end. Definitely recommended, the picture is DVD quality.  ////

The previous night, we saw a movie about the effects of divorce on a child. In "Tomorrow's Youth"(1934), 8 year-old Dickie Moore plays "Tommy Hall", the son of a corporate executive. As the movie opens, "Thomas Hall Sr." (John Miljan) is in his penthouse office when a call comes in summoning him to Florida. His secretary scowls. She knows that "a meeting in Florida" is code for "your bimbo is coming to pick you up." Indeed, Hall's bimbo is waiting in her car by the curb when he exits the building. They leave for a weekend at his retreat.

Now, it just so happens that "Mrs. Hall" (Martha Sleeper) and little Tommy drive up just after Dad and the bimbo leave. The secretary gives Mom the Florida routine, but she's not stupid and files for divorce the next day. While waiting for the case to go to trial (because Dad has contested the divorce), Mom has custody of Tommy. In her company, he's an upright boy. He gets assigned to be a playground monitor at school, in charge of stopping fights. Tommy has a Boy Scout mentality, instilled by his momma, who leads him in prayer every night before bed.

But it's a whole different kettle with his Dad. When Dad wins a temporary injunction, giving him shared custody while the divorce is pending, Tommy goes to live with him at his countryside mansion and his behavior changes drastically. Now, he's rebellious and running from the cops. He has a manservant (Franklin Pangborn at his most flaming) who calls him "little man" and treats him like an irritant in his underwear. There's a great scene where Tommy runs away and organizes a football game with the kids from the wrong side of the tracks. The police try to nab him but are left holding his football flag and a shoe. Eventually he's returned to Dad, but Dad's bimbo is a problem. She claims she wants to bond with Tommy, by reading to him and taking him to the movies, but really she's a gold digger who's after Dad's money. When alone, she strikes classic smoking poses. 

When Dad's custody is up, Mom comes to claim Tommy, and the marriage is almost rekindled with the encouragement of the family's long time cook (Jane Darwell). Mr. and Mrs. Hall share a patio breakfast, but then the bimbo walks in and insinuates that she's Tommy's mom from now on. That ruins everything; the divorce is back on with a vengeance, and now it's going to trial. Mrs. Hall is concerned with Tommy's welfare; she doesn't want him living around the bimbo and is demanding sole custody. That's all I'm going to tell you, but Two Huge Thumbs Up. Dickie Moore was a tremendous child actor. Here, he's at the top of his tearjerking game, and only four years into the sound era. Amazing. His big scene in the last five minutes makes the movie. The picture is very good.  ////

Okay, we've been meaning to do a Top Ten for 2022, so here it is, though it might not be a typical ten film format. For instance, because we saw at least 100 60 Minute Westerns, we'll probably include them as a whole genre. Let's do it, then, in no particular order.

Ten Great Films From 2022:

1) "Elvis"

2) "Top Gun: Maverick"

3) Our Sixty Minute Westerns with Johnny Mack Brown, Tim McCoy, Tom Tyler, et al.

4) "That Hamilton Woman" (1941)

5) The Original Disney Animated Films ("Snow White", "Pinocchio", "Sleeping Beauty", "Peter Pan", "Cinderella", "Alice in Wonderland")

6) "Hobson's Choice" (1954)

7) "The Thief of Baghdad" (1940)

8) "Romeo and Juliet" (1968)

9) "Samson and Delilah" (1949)

10) "The Fighting Sullivans" (1944)

Honorable Mention : "The Fabelmans"

There were many good ones, so maybe we'll do some more in the next blog. My music tonight is ELP Live at Nassau Colosseum in 1978 (on Youtube). I've been immersed in The Nice this week, and of course ELP is in our DNA, but even though we've always known how great they were, it's really sinking in the last couple of days that they were giants, really, in a league of their own, and Keith may have been the greatest rock musician of all-time. Even though I'd be unable to name one single "favorite" band, if anyone asked me who the "greatest" band was, I'd have to say Emerson, Lake and Palmer. They were in another universe.

My late night music is Handel's "Deborah" oratorio. He did a whole bunch of 'em based on Biblical characters. I wish you a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

    

Warren Hull and Isabel Jewell in "Desert Escape", and "Should a Girl Marry?" starring Warren Hull and Anne Nagel (plus The Nice)

We're on a mini-Warren Hull kick lately, he being the handsome chap who co-starred with Anne Nagel in our last two films. Tonight he's got top billing in a prison break movie called "Desert Escape"(1940), in which he plays "Bill Carver", a convict with two more months on his sentence who is nevertheless forced to escape with a gang of convicted bank robbers. The prison must be pretty lax, because three of the gang walk into a storage room where their leader "Mallon" (Paul Bryan) and Bill are taking a cigarette break. The three are dressed in suits and carrying packages like they just returned from an afternoon of shopping. I guess the guards are asleep and they left the cells unlocked. We don't even see the escape, but that's okay because it's a Sam Newfield flick and he's gotta save time (and money) by keeping the running time close to one hour (66 mins). But the boys have made their breakout, and we see Bill alone in the desert, walking and walking. He seems to know his way out of there, and he has an unexplained bedroll. I guess he must've taken it from the joint.

He sleeps under the desert stars, and awakens to a frightful howling sound. As the sun is coming up, he sees a pack of wolves keeping vigil on the hillside. They know he's alone and are waiting to strike. Somehow, they resemble German Shepherds, haha, so it must be a canine actors union thing, playing a different ethnic group, like Boris Karloff playing Mr. Wong. Luckily for Bill Carver, one of the "wolves" really is a German Shepherd, who somehow found himself tagging along with the pack. But by nature he's man's best friend, so when the "wolves" stalk Bill that morning, he rebels and fights them off. Bill is grateful and takes the dog on as a sidekick, naming him "Wolf." Now they are traveling buddies, and they make their way to Tempe, Arizona. While strolling down a sidewalk, they randomly bump into "Linda Harkness" (Isabel Jewell), who is walking her small dog Hercules. He and Wolf become instant pals, and Wolf follows Hercules as he breaks leash and runs back home, close by, to have a bite of dog food for lunch, which he shares with his new buddy Wolf.

All of this is a romantic bonding exercise for the humans, Linda and Bill. Because their dogs have buddied up, they will fall in love, and they do, after having lunch themselves at her house. She offers Bill a job as her Dad's assistant, mowing the lawn, running errands. Dad is the town doctor, and all the locals like the new guy Bill "Grey" (as he calls himself), because they love Linda and have been waiting for her to find a boyfriend. You know how small towns are; everyone fixates on the pretty lass. The trouble for Bill - a genuinely nice guy - is that he doesn't want any attention. He's a prison escapee, for cryin' out loud. When the Shurff (i.e. Sheriff) sees him on the schtreet and calls him over, he's nervous as heck. But it's no big deal. The Shurff just tells him he needs to get Wolf a dog licence.

However, in the Shurff's office, Bill notices a wanted poster...for himself! Lordy Moses. And the Shurff keeps saying, "I could swear I've seen you somewhere before."

At a town picnic, Bill becomes a hero when he rescues a girl from the lake. He saves her from drowning and makes the front page of the paper. That's when the Shurff realises he's the guy in the wanted poster. He calls Bill in again, and Bill cops to the truth: "yes, I escaped, but I was forced to. And I didn't shoot that bank guard, and I was also tricked into driving for Mallon's gang." The Shurff (pronouced ala Gabby Johnson) believes him, but still has to turn him in. "I'll give you 24 hours to go see Linda and explain it to her. Then you've gotta come back here and surrender." Bill agrees to those terms, but has a plan. With Wolf the dog assisting him, he sends a message to Linda, telling her to meet him on the Tempe highway with her car. Then he locates and tracks the Mallon gang in the desert. Recall that they were his fellow escapees. He tricks Mallon into thinking he's still on their side. "I was always gonna catch up with you guys." He also tells Mallon he knows a way to the Mexican border, so Mallon takes him on, but Bill's actual plan is to lead the gang back to the highway, where Linda and the cops will await. Then, Mallon and the gang will be sent back to prison and Bill will have proved his innocence. "Desert Escape" is one of the better Sam Newfield movies, with actual location shooting in Tempe. That's big budget stuff for Newfield. His Western regulars Al St. John and Budd Buster both make appearances. Two Big Thumbs Up, then, and a high recommendation. The movie is also known as "Marked Men", so keep that in mind when searching it. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

The previous night, Anne Nagel was back, this time in a crime film called "Should a Girl Marry?"(1939). Given the title, I thought it was another comedy. Also, she was teamed with Warren Hull again, though she didn't have as much to do as she did in "A Bride for Henry". Here, Nagle is "Margaret Wilson", who lives with her kind older parents. She's engaged to "Dr. Robert Benson" (Hull), a brilliant up-and-coming surgeon at a prestigious hospital. The movie opens in a woman's prison, where "Betty Gilbert" (Mayo Methot) is about to be paroled. Before she leaves, she visits a friend in the infirmary, an inmate named "Mary Winters" (Helen Brown). Winters was on Death Row, but now she's very ill and will soon die a natural death. She reveals to Betty, her only friend in prison, that she had a daughter she gave up for adoption. The daughter was born in the prison, but the secret can never be told because it would ruin her life. "Look out for her if you can. I've seen in the newspaper that she's getting married." Mary gives Betty some news clippings she's saved on her daughter's impending marriage. "But never tell her about me."

Betty takes the clippings with her as she leaves prison and goes to the apartment of her husband "Harry" (Weldon Heyburn), a small-time crook who has no intention of going straight. Betty wants to do just that; she's had enough of prison life. They argue, and the clippings fall out of her pocket. "What're these?" Harry asks. When she won't tell him, he does some research on his own. Then he finds out who Margaret Wilson is, and he goes to her house to blackmail her adoptive parents. He threatens to tell Margaret's doctor fiance that her mother was a convict and she was born in prison. In 1939, that would be a scandal that would derail the doctor's promising career. After chiseling a few thousand bucks out of "Mr. Wilson" (Gordon Hart), Harry tries to force Wilson to mortgage his house for even bigger money. But then Harry is injured in a car accident, and lo and behold, it is Dr. Robert Benson who is called to operate on him, the very object of his blackmail!

Now then: Dr. Benson is in a subplot of his own, and it's a major one. At the hospital, Benson is up for a promotion to become Chief of Surgery. But a long-time surgical staffer is jealous and feels he should get the nod. So, when Benson operates on Betty's husband - Harry the blackmailer - and Harry dies due to extensive injuries, the jealous older doctor then tries to blackmail Dr. Benson! "You let him die on purpose because he was blackmailing you. he knew your fiancee's secret!" Now there's a double blackmail plot going on, and all because the town would be shocked if they found out Margaret was born in prison. For her part, Margaret couldn't care less what anyone thinks. When her parents tell her she was adopted, and that her birth mother was a criminal, she says "You two are my parents." They all wish the birth mother well, though she's going to die soon. But what to do about all these blackmailers? Harry Gilbert is now dead, but the jealous surgeon is blackmailing Dr. Benson, threatening to expose his "motive" for "botching" Harry's surgery. But Benson didn't botch it, deliberately or otherwise. Harry would have died anyway, his injuries were too severe. Betty Gilbert feels guilty about all the trouble Harry caused, so she visits the jealous surgeon, to ask him to back off. "Dr. Benson has suffered enough, and so has Margaret". The surgeon has robbed her of her newspaper clippings and is threatening to expose the prison secret, so she pulls a gun, they struggle, and he gets shot in the head. Now he faces brain surgery, with the slimmest chance to survive. Well, who should be his surgeon, but Dr. Benson, the very guy he was blackmailing because he wanted Benson's promotion. Benson, taking the noble high road, operates on the surgeon. But does he save his life? You'll have to discover that part. I've told you enough as it is.

As for Anne Nagel, though the movie is about her character "Margaret", she has only half the screen time of the male stars, and half as much as she did in "Bride for Henry." She's still very good, but for the first 35 minutes, Harry the blackmailer is the star. Then Dr. Benson. The movie gets Two Big Thumbs Up, however, for an excellent, jam-packed script. The picture is very good.  ////

That's the whole shootin' match for tonight. Have you noticed that David Lynch has stopped doing his daily Weather Reports? It took me a few days to realize. Then, during the week before Christmas, I went, "what happened to David Lynch?" I checked his Youtube channel, and his last report was December 16th. It was a couple days after Angelo Badalamenti died, so maybe that had something to do with it. He also stopped "Today's Number", so you won't be able to Swirl the Numbers anymore, unless he starts it up again. I've been watching the Weather Report most days since the beginning of the pandemic (ditto the numbers) so I'm gonna miss DL if he doesn't come back. His videos were a substitute for his lack of recent movies.

My blogging music tonight is two albums from The Nice: "Five Bridges" and "Ars Longa Vita Brevis". Confession: I had never heard "Five Bridges". Tonight was the first time. You may not have heard it either, but H.O.L.Y. S.M.O.K.E......it's like the long-lost ELP album. Man, is it great, especially the orchestral Five Bridges Suite, which Keith scored and also added some jazz inflections. He's all over this record, and his Hammond playing is as good as it ever was with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. That's also true of the "Ars Longa" album, which I hadn't heard in eons, but now I need to buy both. Go back and listen to 'em. I had no idea The Nice were this great.

My late night music is the "Belshazzar" oratorio by Handel. I hope your New Year is going well. Can you believe it's January 4th already? (here it comes, oh no........) : Man, the year is just flying by.

I'm supposed to make that joke on January 2nd. Sorry for the delay. I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

Anne Nagel in "A Bride for Henry", and "Night People" starring Gregory Peck and Broderick Crawford

Last night we discovered a fantastic comedic actress named Anne Nagel. Have you heard  of her? Looking at her credits on IMDB, we've seen her in a few movies over the years, but never in a starring role. Anyhow, she was so great in "A Bride for Henry"(1937), that I'm surprised she wasn't a major star. She's hilarious as "Sheila Curtis", a socialite who's been stood up on her wedding day by her nitwit fiance "Eric" (Henry Mollison), who chose that morning to go to a movie. Because the press are going to be covering the wedding (they follow Sheila's every move), she needs a groom to go through with it. She can't be seen as being left at the altar; it would be humiliating.

But by now it's the last minute. What to do? Thinking quickly, she calls her lawyer, "Henry Tuttle" (Warren Hull). "Henry, get over here!" When he arrives, she tells him what she needs. "What?!" He's flabbergasted. Then she explains that the marriage will only be temporary. "Until I find Eric and give him what for." Sheila and Tuttle go through with the "replacement" marriage, and the press follows them back to their honeymoon suite. Soon after they arrive, her fiance shows up. He's found out she married another man and is ready to fight him. "But Eric, you went to the movies!" "Yes," agrees Tuttle "and what kind of man goes to a movie in the morning anyway?" Let alone on the morning he's getting married. But behind his pompous exterior, Eric is kind of a numbskull. Sheila diffuses the situation by telling Eric that the marriage to Tuttle was only for show, to placate the press and avoid bad publicity. "We're going to get a divorce tomorrow. Then I can marry you. That is, if you stay away from the movie theater." Tuttle then departs, saying "I've done my job. I'll leave you two lovebirds to yourselves."

Sheila and Eric leave their hotel room and are accosted by reporters snapping pictures. "That isn't the man we saw her marry!" says one. To escape, they steal two nearby bicycles and ride off into the woods. But Eric is a clumsy rider. They crash in some scrub brush and are discovered by a man and his two daughters. "I'll thank you to give those bikes back" says the man. 

Now they have to walk back to their hotel. On the way, they trespass over a farmer's pasture, ending up penned with his cows. A cop arrests them and they wind up in jail. Meanwhile, Henry Tuttle (who's secretly in love with Sheila), has remained at the same hotel, and has taken up with a blonde bombshell (Claudia Dell) with the intent to make Sheila jealous. He's betting she likes him more than the doofus Eric. The whole screwball show is a showcase for Anne Nagel, who has a 1980s look and comedic sensibility, with the voice, hairdo and body language of an SNL comedienne. I was wondering, "why wasn't this woman huge?", and then I read her IMDB bio, and.........her life was tragic. It's a shame, because you'd never guess it from her performance. Two Big Thumbs Up for "A Bride for Henry", a perfect movie to start the year. The picture is very good.  //// 

The previous night, on New Year's Eve, we had a Technicolor widescreen spy film called "Night People"(1954), starring Gruggery Puck as "Col. Steve Van Dyke", an MP officer stationed in Berlin during the Allied occupation. He's got a problem on his hands, because bad guys from the Russian sector are sneaking over and kidnapping soldiers. No one knows exactly who they are. Are they mobsters? Independent criminals? Or perhaps Nazis who've so far escaped capture? As the movie opens, they nab an American corporal who's out for a date with his German girlfriend.  

Back home in the good ol' USA, "Charles Leatherby" (Broderick Crawford) gets the news while playing golf. "Your son's been been abducted". Leatherby's a big-time corporate honcho who names Senators among his friends. He hops on a plane and flies straight to Germany to get his boy back. He's gonna do it his way and call the shots, because he thinks the Army are a bunch of idiots while he's a self made millionaire. He goes over there and demands to see Gregory Peck, assuming Peck will receive him with all due honor and respect. He's stunned when Peck shines him on. After a lengthy meeting in which Peck cuts Leatherby down to size, he lifts him up again because Peck knows he's just scared for his son. Leatherby then becomes an observer, mostly, as Peck and his team, which includes German informers, tries to get his boy back. The Brittney Griner trade is pertinent here, because that is what the Germans (or is it the Russians?) want: a trade. In exchange for Corporal Leatherby, they want a married couple - a middle-aged cabaret pianist and her elderly husband. Peck can't understand why until he talks to his female German go-between, who tells him that during the war, the couple were double agents abetting the English.

The go-between is an absinthe drinker, which will lead to complications later on. The important point midway through, is that when Broderick Crawford learns what will happen to the couple if they are traded for his son, and sent to the Russian sector (where the Nazi kidnappers are hiding), he backs off and asks to stop the trade. "I think we should let Johnny work it out for himself", he says of his son. "Even is it takes him a few years to get free, it'll save that couples' lives." Indeed, the old man has already been tortured during the war. Peck describes it to Crawford in graphic detail.

Two things must be noted here. First of all, Gregory Peck is one of the greatest actors of all time. Secondly, screenwriter Nunnally Johnson invented Aaron Sorkin. Watch this movie and see. The espionage confusion combined with idiosyncratic, bantering characters, and minor attempts at humor. You can't handle the truth, Aaron Sorkin! Nunnally Johnson invented you.

Man, we've talked about some convoluted plots lately. This one takes the cake, but you just have to go with it. Peck knows whats going on, but you and Broderick Crawford do not. Buddy Ebsen is Peck's assistant, tagging along for the ride. He's constantly sneaking off to a barracks office to listen to the World Series on the radium. He's got money on the Yankees. Is it Sorkin enough for you yet?

It's a really good movie that would like to be great, but the best part is Peck's performance. The absinthe stuff is overplayed. We get it already: it's cool to mention absinthe, because no one knows exactly what it is, though everyone will say they do, because it sounds hip. So forget the absinthe, already. It would've been better if Johnson concentrated as much on the kidnap as he does on the rescue, but this is the guy who wrote "Three Faces of Eve" and "The Grapes of Wrath" (among others), so maybe this was an afterthought script. Still, Two Huge Thumbs Up based on Peck's performance, but we could've done without the full-length confusion. The picture is dvd quality.  ////

And that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack" by The Nice. Some of it sounds like early Pink Floyd. My late night is Handel's "Joshua" oratorio. I know we were gonna do a Top Ten for last year's movies, but - like all of us tonight - I'm distracted by Damar Hamlin's injury. We'll get to the list in our next blog. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)