Tonight I watched a cult classic entitled "Spider Baby" (1964). I had never heard of it until it turned up in a library search for Lon Chaney Jr, one of my favorite horror stars. It's October, so I need horror, and I figured I'd give the movie a try, even though it's title made it sound like one of those really bad exploitation flicks that someone like Roger Corman would have made in the early '60s. I didn't have high hopes when I put the disc into the player this evening, but almost as soon as the title sequence began my expectations rose. It had an inventive look right from the start and as the movie progressed, I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was.
"Spider Baby" is a horror comedy, but the comedy is implicit rather than explicit. There are no intended laughs, but instead the cast play their roles with an exaggerated sincerity and over the top weirdness that gives a wink to the audience, to let us in on the straight faced but subtle joke. The people in the movie are cannibals.
Lon Chaney Jr. (older and rubber faced) is the caretaker of three retarded children who live with him in a spooky old mansion that looks like the Psycho House at Universal Studios. It isn't, but it may be even creepier. I should mention, because of these PC times, that I am using the word "retarded" to describe the children in the film because that is the term used in the movie. To be clear, it was also a clinical term at the time. The children are in their mid-to-late teens, and they suffer from a malady that causes their brains to regress to a sub-human level, or pre-human, so that they think and act like savages.
The script centers around the most dangerous of the children : Virginia, who imagines herself to be a spider. She is played to great effect by a teenaged actress named Jill Banner, who unfortunately had a short life but made her mark in this film. Virginia has a sister named Elizabeth (sorry, SB!), a nervous waif with a giant bouffant hairdo. Elizabeth is the lesser of two nitwits and so is held in charge of her sister Virginia when Lon Chaney is not at home. Virginia is not easy to babysit, though, nor is the sisters' older brother, a silent, bald headed goon played by the legendary Sid Haig in one of his first horror roles. His character "Ralph" is a true nutcase and looks like the real thing. Imagine Zippy The Pinhead with a few less brain cells and you're on the right track.
The old house in which the siblings live with Chaney is such an authentic backdrop that it raises the caliber of this film all by itself. The house has a scary facade, but the interior (dressed in the manner of 1930s Universal Horror) should have won a special award for art direction on a budget. The entire film was made for 60,000 dollars, and to have an interior set that looks this good for that value is a testament to the creativity of the whole team but especially the set designer. The camera work is as good as you would find on a major Universal Horror film, making the most of the house interior, and it's basement, secret passageways, etc.
The plot involves outsiders coming to create conflict, a traditional horror scenario used in "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" and so many other movies. Here, we have the aunt and uncle of the crazy children. They have hired a lawyer, who is also en route to the house with his secretary, to take custody of the children from Lon Chaney, who is not a blood relation. He was only the chauffeur to the children's late father, to whom he made a pledge - to care for them to the end. The aunt and uncle don't care about the kids, what they want is the money from the estate. Little do they know what they are in for. :)
"Spider Baby" is not an out-and-out classic. The plot meanders at times, and the director seems to struggle to steer the film, but the camerawork is big league, as is the art direction. Those two factors, plus the chemistry of the cast (every actor is perfect), are more than enough to recommend the movie as a must-see as far as independent art films go. I am not talking about standard "indie" films here, which usually have backing and a budget, but rather a total DIY approach.
Director Jack Hill made this film for next to nothing, sixty thousand bucks. He was a UCLA film school graduate and a colleague of Francis Ford Coppola. His talent is clear in "Spider Baby", which might have been third or fourth rate in the hands of a lesser filmmaker. But he never could have pulled it off without his cast, his cameraman and his art director.
"Spider Baby" may not be high art, but it is one hell of a Halloween movie, and it shows what you can do, even with little money, when you have a motivated and creative group of people. ///
Highly recommended for it's uniqueness. Two Big Thumbs Up!
No other news today, except that I finished the Paul Tremblay book "Cabin At The End Of The World", which I found because it was recommended by Stephen King.
Tremblay is an excellent writer, with a poetic command of language. He wrote a book that was tight enough to wind you in it's coil. He didn't let up for a second, which kept you turning the pages.
Having said that, it's not a book for the squeamish. Tremblay may be a fan of "The Walking Dead", for there are scenes in the book that reminded me why I quit watching that show. These scenes are so horrific that I nearly put the book down as well. In the end, I persevered because the writing was so good, but I don't think I would recommend the book to any but the most hardened horror fans.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
"Key Largo"
Tonight I watched a classic that I'd never before seen: "Key Largo" (1948), directed by John Huston and starring Bogie & Bacall and Edward G. Robinson. It's such a famous film that you'd think I'd have seen it years ago, but for whatever reason I never did. I have a few more films like that, most notably "Gone With The Wind". "Casablanca" is another one. Can you believe it? - I've never seen "Casablanca". Not all the way through at any rate, though I have seen numerous snippets. "Singin' In The Rain" is yet another. If I started looking at lists of all time classic movies I'm sure I could find a few more, but the ones I named are the most prominent. And I will see them all at some point, I promise.
Maybe when I run out of Westerns and Horror films.
Well, I had never seen "Key Largo", either. I didn't know what it was about until I saw a few minutes of it on TCM the other night here at Pearl's. I didn't know it was a crime film, or that one of the stars was Edward G. in a tailor-made role. He plays a gangster on the lam named Johnny Rocco, who has rented out an old hotel on Key Largo, Florida for himself and a few "friends" (meaning thugs). The hotels in the Florida Keys close in the off-season, but Rocco made a generous offer to owner Lionel Barrymore, who seems to be in every movie these days, haha. Barrymore has rented the place out to Rocco and his boys for a week or so, ostensibly so they can go fishing. Yeah right. If you believe that, then I have some swampland in Florida I'd like to show you.
Now, of course you don't believe that, because you are watching the movie. But poor wheelchair bound Lionel Barrymore (who was confined to a wheelchair in real life for his later roles, including this one), does not know that Rocco is a hood who is renting his hotel in order to distribute counterfeit money. Barrymore is a folksy, patriotic American, who runs the hotel with his daughter-in-law Lauren Bacall. She was married to his son, who was killed in Italy in WW2. Both are unassuming and humble and would never guess that the men who have paid big money to rent their entire hotel are notorious criminals.
In walks Humphrey Bogart, just arrived by bus. He has been mustered out of the Army and has come to Key Largo to look for the family of one of his comrades. Bogie was the commanding officer of Bacall's husband; Barrymore's son. He wants to tell them about the young man's heroism, to leave them with some comfort and an honorable memory. But no sooner does he enter the hotel than things seem off to him. Oafish thugs sit at the bar, telling him to get lost. "The hotel is closed", they say. He explains why he is there, just to see the owner, and a girlfriend of the thugs - an alcoholic played by Claire Trevor - spills the beans that the owner is in the building.
Bogie can see that something is wrong, and he soon finds himself in a hostage situation.
This is one of those movies that places a lot of disparate personalities into a claustrophobic, interior location and sets them in conflict to see who will break. Think "The Desperate Hours", also with Bogart, or "Dog Day Afternoon" or even "12 Angry Men". It's a crime film more than a Noir, though it has a Noir element of a ferocious hurricane developing outside, threatening to blow down the hotel and everyone inside it. The hurricane scares Johnny Rocco, revealing a weakness in his persona of ruthless bravado.
The majority of the 100 minute film plays out in this way, with Rocco stalking the lobby, threatening his hostages and jumping at each roar of thunder from the storm. Lionel Barrymore, though crippled, is defiant, as is his loyal daughter-in-law Bacall. They stand up to Edward G. Bogart does not, but neither does he cower. He is combat-scarred from the war and wants no part of further violence, but sees that he may have no choice.
At times the drama is just a tad heavy handed because of Edward G.'s scenery chewing close ups. That's a minor quibble, because he turns in a prototypical Robinson hoodlum performance. Lionel Barrymore and Lauren Bacall are excellent in their roles requiring expressions of passive rage. They'd like to clobber the criminals but they cannot because they have no guns and therefore no say. But the main accolades go to Humphrey Bogart, in my opinion a truly great actor and not just a movie star, who has to show a wide range of emotion in his role as the main target of the hoods because he knows how to drive a boat. They want to use him to escape the hotel. He has sworn off violence but now his back is against the wall.
Claire Trevor won an Oscar for her role as Robinson's tipsy girlfriend. She plays a role in the outcome and that is all I will say.
John Huston's direction is a little "in-your-face", like Orson Welles used to do with the constant use of close ups. He utilizes a lot of dialogue, too. Sometimes it rambles on and you wish an editor had tightened things up. But overall you still have a crime classic great dramatic performances from everyone in the cast, and especially Bogart.
Shot in stormy black and white. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Key Largo", with a special mention for a great supporting performance by noted method actor Thomas Gomez as one of Robinson's henchmen.
That's all for tonight. Elizabeth, if you still read this blog I hope all is well. I haven't seen you on FB for a long time, many weeks. I will send good thoughts your way. :):)
See you in the morning. Yay Dodgers. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Maybe when I run out of Westerns and Horror films.
Well, I had never seen "Key Largo", either. I didn't know what it was about until I saw a few minutes of it on TCM the other night here at Pearl's. I didn't know it was a crime film, or that one of the stars was Edward G. in a tailor-made role. He plays a gangster on the lam named Johnny Rocco, who has rented out an old hotel on Key Largo, Florida for himself and a few "friends" (meaning thugs). The hotels in the Florida Keys close in the off-season, but Rocco made a generous offer to owner Lionel Barrymore, who seems to be in every movie these days, haha. Barrymore has rented the place out to Rocco and his boys for a week or so, ostensibly so they can go fishing. Yeah right. If you believe that, then I have some swampland in Florida I'd like to show you.
Now, of course you don't believe that, because you are watching the movie. But poor wheelchair bound Lionel Barrymore (who was confined to a wheelchair in real life for his later roles, including this one), does not know that Rocco is a hood who is renting his hotel in order to distribute counterfeit money. Barrymore is a folksy, patriotic American, who runs the hotel with his daughter-in-law Lauren Bacall. She was married to his son, who was killed in Italy in WW2. Both are unassuming and humble and would never guess that the men who have paid big money to rent their entire hotel are notorious criminals.
In walks Humphrey Bogart, just arrived by bus. He has been mustered out of the Army and has come to Key Largo to look for the family of one of his comrades. Bogie was the commanding officer of Bacall's husband; Barrymore's son. He wants to tell them about the young man's heroism, to leave them with some comfort and an honorable memory. But no sooner does he enter the hotel than things seem off to him. Oafish thugs sit at the bar, telling him to get lost. "The hotel is closed", they say. He explains why he is there, just to see the owner, and a girlfriend of the thugs - an alcoholic played by Claire Trevor - spills the beans that the owner is in the building.
Bogie can see that something is wrong, and he soon finds himself in a hostage situation.
This is one of those movies that places a lot of disparate personalities into a claustrophobic, interior location and sets them in conflict to see who will break. Think "The Desperate Hours", also with Bogart, or "Dog Day Afternoon" or even "12 Angry Men". It's a crime film more than a Noir, though it has a Noir element of a ferocious hurricane developing outside, threatening to blow down the hotel and everyone inside it. The hurricane scares Johnny Rocco, revealing a weakness in his persona of ruthless bravado.
The majority of the 100 minute film plays out in this way, with Rocco stalking the lobby, threatening his hostages and jumping at each roar of thunder from the storm. Lionel Barrymore, though crippled, is defiant, as is his loyal daughter-in-law Bacall. They stand up to Edward G. Bogart does not, but neither does he cower. He is combat-scarred from the war and wants no part of further violence, but sees that he may have no choice.
At times the drama is just a tad heavy handed because of Edward G.'s scenery chewing close ups. That's a minor quibble, because he turns in a prototypical Robinson hoodlum performance. Lionel Barrymore and Lauren Bacall are excellent in their roles requiring expressions of passive rage. They'd like to clobber the criminals but they cannot because they have no guns and therefore no say. But the main accolades go to Humphrey Bogart, in my opinion a truly great actor and not just a movie star, who has to show a wide range of emotion in his role as the main target of the hoods because he knows how to drive a boat. They want to use him to escape the hotel. He has sworn off violence but now his back is against the wall.
Claire Trevor won an Oscar for her role as Robinson's tipsy girlfriend. She plays a role in the outcome and that is all I will say.
John Huston's direction is a little "in-your-face", like Orson Welles used to do with the constant use of close ups. He utilizes a lot of dialogue, too. Sometimes it rambles on and you wish an editor had tightened things up. But overall you still have a crime classic great dramatic performances from everyone in the cast, and especially Bogart.
Shot in stormy black and white. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Key Largo", with a special mention for a great supporting performance by noted method actor Thomas Gomez as one of Robinson's henchmen.
That's all for tonight. Elizabeth, if you still read this blog I hope all is well. I haven't seen you on FB for a long time, many weeks. I will send good thoughts your way. :):)
See you in the morning. Yay Dodgers. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Monday, October 8, 2018
"Sansho The Baliff" + SpaceX
Right off the bat I've gotta confess that I missed the SpaceX launch. I saw a notice about it yesterday morning, but today - after focusing first on church and choir and then on the Rams and Dodger games - it just slipped my mind. I came home this eve to watch another movie on my break, and I missed out on the spectacular show in the sky. Seeing the amazing footage on the news left me pretty disappointed, but then I thought "well, I still got to see it on TV", and more importantly there will be other launches from Vandenberg, and I did get to see that other really weird one about a year ago that they didn't announce. It made a big blue vector in the sky and everybody wondered what the heck it was.
So that's my SpaceX bummer/rationalization, but I promise I will see the next one.
Meanwhile, I did watch a movie, and a masterpiece at that, so all was not lost. I screened another installment in our Mizoguchi Retrospective at The Tiny Apartment : "Sansho The Baliff" (1954). I had seen this film once before, probably around 2007, and I knew it was profound, but had forgotten why. After my second viewing I will never again forget.
The film takes place once again in feudal Japan. A local governor has angered his superiors by undercutting the orders of a military general to impose a rice tax on the impoverished workers of his province. The governor is then exiled, far away from his wife and children, a young son and daughter. They must now go it alone, and so the mother seeks to maintain some kind of stable existence for the three of them. They stay with an in-law for a few years (described in expository dialogue), but when we first see them they are on the road, homeless. They walk through a forest, looking for a place to camp for the night. As they are gathering branches and fronds to make a shelter, an old woman approaches. She says she is a priestess, and offers to take them in at her church if they will keep it a secret. Taking in the homeless is a crime, because bandits often pose themselves in this way, and when they are taken into charity they attack and kill the homeowner. So says the priestess, and the travelers, grateful for a place to stay, agree to keep her assistance a secret.
She takes the mother and her two children to a waiting boat. Her church is on another island, she says (Japan being an island nation). Two boatmen await, but once the mother is aboard, her two children are absconded with by men who appear from the bushes. She herself is rowed away, out to sea. The whole thing has been a trick by the phony "priestess". The woman's children are going to be sold into slavery and she will be forced into prostitution. Such was feudal Japan.
At the beginning of the movie, before their father is sent off into exile, he takes his son and daughter aside and gives them his credo, his words to live by which he makes them promise to adhere to. He tells them that the world is a cruel place, but "no matter how hard you are on yourself, always show mercy to others. A person is not human without mercy". The children promise to live by this principle.
What follows, after the treachery by the fake "priestess", is harrowing, a story of man's inhumanity to man. The mother disappears, rumored to be living in a brothel on another island. The children are ultimately sold to a wealthy plantation owner known as "Sansho The Baliff". He has some clout with the head of the district, and doesn't care that the two children are the son and daughter of the former governor. Now they are merely displaced slaves in his estimation. He sets them to work immediately on their arrival, and their lives grow worse from that point on.
I will not reveal any more of the story because there is a plot that kicks in. It is taken from a Japanese fable, and like all fables it is a moral tale. Keep in mind the father's final words to his children and you will have an idea of where the story is headed.
If you are going to watch "Sansho The Baliff", you will need to be prepared for a very sad and cruel depiction of the way humans are capable of treating one another. Mizoguchi made misery his milieu, but because he felt it, and not out of any dramatic concern. He knew the history of Japan, which wasn't opened to the West in modern times until Admiral Perry's visit in 1853. The feudal system there was particularly horrible. Women and children were chattel.
Mizoguchi shows the strength of these downtrodden souls, however, and that is the power of this tremendous movie, their determination to overcome an insurmountable situation.
The black and white photography in "Sansho The Baliff" is painterly and as good as can be had. The pacing of the film is slow, and so two hours feels longer, but if you can sit and pay attention, it will gradually envelop you.
While it could be said that "Sansho The Baliff" is depressing, with a dour outlook on the nature of mankind, the opposite could also be said. Watch to the end to see what I mean.
What is certain is that it is one of the greatest films ever made, and could be considered for anyone's Top Ten List as far as I am concerned.
Two Thumbs Up at the highest level. A film that must be seen, when you are ready. ////
Rams win! Dodgers lose (oy). Yeah, sports.....I know. Sports are temporary, but somehow semi-important. No, wait a minute......who put that "semi" in there?
See you in the morning. The singing was good in church today, in case you were wondering.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
So that's my SpaceX bummer/rationalization, but I promise I will see the next one.
Meanwhile, I did watch a movie, and a masterpiece at that, so all was not lost. I screened another installment in our Mizoguchi Retrospective at The Tiny Apartment : "Sansho The Baliff" (1954). I had seen this film once before, probably around 2007, and I knew it was profound, but had forgotten why. After my second viewing I will never again forget.
The film takes place once again in feudal Japan. A local governor has angered his superiors by undercutting the orders of a military general to impose a rice tax on the impoverished workers of his province. The governor is then exiled, far away from his wife and children, a young son and daughter. They must now go it alone, and so the mother seeks to maintain some kind of stable existence for the three of them. They stay with an in-law for a few years (described in expository dialogue), but when we first see them they are on the road, homeless. They walk through a forest, looking for a place to camp for the night. As they are gathering branches and fronds to make a shelter, an old woman approaches. She says she is a priestess, and offers to take them in at her church if they will keep it a secret. Taking in the homeless is a crime, because bandits often pose themselves in this way, and when they are taken into charity they attack and kill the homeowner. So says the priestess, and the travelers, grateful for a place to stay, agree to keep her assistance a secret.
She takes the mother and her two children to a waiting boat. Her church is on another island, she says (Japan being an island nation). Two boatmen await, but once the mother is aboard, her two children are absconded with by men who appear from the bushes. She herself is rowed away, out to sea. The whole thing has been a trick by the phony "priestess". The woman's children are going to be sold into slavery and she will be forced into prostitution. Such was feudal Japan.
At the beginning of the movie, before their father is sent off into exile, he takes his son and daughter aside and gives them his credo, his words to live by which he makes them promise to adhere to. He tells them that the world is a cruel place, but "no matter how hard you are on yourself, always show mercy to others. A person is not human without mercy". The children promise to live by this principle.
What follows, after the treachery by the fake "priestess", is harrowing, a story of man's inhumanity to man. The mother disappears, rumored to be living in a brothel on another island. The children are ultimately sold to a wealthy plantation owner known as "Sansho The Baliff". He has some clout with the head of the district, and doesn't care that the two children are the son and daughter of the former governor. Now they are merely displaced slaves in his estimation. He sets them to work immediately on their arrival, and their lives grow worse from that point on.
I will not reveal any more of the story because there is a plot that kicks in. It is taken from a Japanese fable, and like all fables it is a moral tale. Keep in mind the father's final words to his children and you will have an idea of where the story is headed.
If you are going to watch "Sansho The Baliff", you will need to be prepared for a very sad and cruel depiction of the way humans are capable of treating one another. Mizoguchi made misery his milieu, but because he felt it, and not out of any dramatic concern. He knew the history of Japan, which wasn't opened to the West in modern times until Admiral Perry's visit in 1853. The feudal system there was particularly horrible. Women and children were chattel.
Mizoguchi shows the strength of these downtrodden souls, however, and that is the power of this tremendous movie, their determination to overcome an insurmountable situation.
The black and white photography in "Sansho The Baliff" is painterly and as good as can be had. The pacing of the film is slow, and so two hours feels longer, but if you can sit and pay attention, it will gradually envelop you.
While it could be said that "Sansho The Baliff" is depressing, with a dour outlook on the nature of mankind, the opposite could also be said. Watch to the end to see what I mean.
What is certain is that it is one of the greatest films ever made, and could be considered for anyone's Top Ten List as far as I am concerned.
Two Thumbs Up at the highest level. A film that must be seen, when you are ready. ////
Rams win! Dodgers lose (oy). Yeah, sports.....I know. Sports are temporary, but somehow semi-important. No, wait a minute......who put that "semi" in there?
See you in the morning. The singing was good in church today, in case you were wondering.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Sunday, October 7, 2018
"Masterson Of Kansas" + Doc Holliday & Wyatt Earp
Tonight I watched another Western from my William Castle collection : "Masterson Of Kansas" (1954). The title refers to the legendary lawman Bat Masterson, who should also go down in history as having one of the coolest names ever. Here, he is played with authority by George Montgomery, who is becoming one of my favorite Western stars, right up there with Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea. Montgomery is tall and lean, with a handsome but lined face, all required qualities for a gunslinger. Can you imagine if Clint Eastwood had a paunch? It wouldn't have worked. You've gotta be a little on the gaunt side to be a Western hero.
Like Doc Holliday. He is just as legendary a character as Masterson, and he was skinny as a stick because he had tuberculosis. If you know him from movies it may be from Val Kimer's iconic performance in "Tombstone", but I must say that in this movie tonight, James Griffith gave what I think was an equally compelling performance. Less theatrical and more inward, but you couldn't stop watching him because everything he did was total Doc Holliday.
As the movie begins, Holliday has just arrived in Dodge City. This is another instance of coolness that must be mentioned because now, about 140 years later, getting "out of Dodge" has become a universal phrase. Even Martians say it when they are stuck in horrible traffic or in a similarly unpleasant situation from which they seek to remove themselves. So that makes Dodge City super cool as well, as the namesake of that phrase.
Okay, so Doc Holliday has just arrived in Dodge. He isn't interested in Getting Out because he's a badass. Sheriff Bat Masterson is bad too, in a good way, and he wants Doc out. Doc has a bad rep for shooting people, but it's unfair because he's never shot anyone who didn't deserve it. It turns out that Doc Holliday does have a set of ethics, and that he is a pretty loyal dude. After threatening to kill each other, Masterson and Holliday become allies.
A dangerous situation is at hand, because an older local man has been accused of killing his former commanding officer, an Army Colonel who was trying to break a peace treaty in order to steal land from the Indians. The Indians revere this man, who they see as a brother. But a local rancher, who also wants to steal the land for himself, leads a conspiracy to make sure the older man is found guilty of the Colonel's murder, so that he will be hanged. Then the Indian's last protector will be out of the way and the land will belong to the rancher.
Doc Holliday has come to town to gamble and to carry out his vendetta against Masterson, but when he sees what Bat is up against - the rancher and his thugs trying to break a peace treaty - his noble inner nature gets the better of his vengeful instincts, and he teams up with Masterson and Federal Marshall Wyatt Earp to shut the bad guys down.
Now, that's as Western as it gets, when you have Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday all on the same team, and in Dodge City to boot.
You can guess how things are gonna go down for the bad guys, and what's cool about the good guys is that they were all real people. You can Google 'em all. Wyatt Earp wound up right here in Los Angeles later in life. Bat Masterson went east and passed away in 1921. Doc Holliday didn't make it to the 20th century because of his illness. He died in 1887 at 36 years of age, just as the west was being won, which as we know was not not fair to the Indians and which is pointed out in this film and in many other Westerns I have seen. But there were good guys who stood up for what was right, and in the Old West they became legends. "Masterson Of Kansas" was one of the better B-Westerns I have seen, with never a dull moment in the direction, a standard of excellence performance from George Montgomery, and a special notice for James Griffith's potrayal of Doc Holliday. In reading about the Doc tonight on Wiki, I think Griffith's may be the most realistic performance of them all. ////
Two Big Thumbs Up for "Masterson Of Kansas", shot at Iverson Ranch, Griffith Park and Corriganville.
I had a nice hike at Aliso today and saw the coyote again. I posted a pic on FB, but he always runs away...
See you in church in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Like Doc Holliday. He is just as legendary a character as Masterson, and he was skinny as a stick because he had tuberculosis. If you know him from movies it may be from Val Kimer's iconic performance in "Tombstone", but I must say that in this movie tonight, James Griffith gave what I think was an equally compelling performance. Less theatrical and more inward, but you couldn't stop watching him because everything he did was total Doc Holliday.
As the movie begins, Holliday has just arrived in Dodge City. This is another instance of coolness that must be mentioned because now, about 140 years later, getting "out of Dodge" has become a universal phrase. Even Martians say it when they are stuck in horrible traffic or in a similarly unpleasant situation from which they seek to remove themselves. So that makes Dodge City super cool as well, as the namesake of that phrase.
Okay, so Doc Holliday has just arrived in Dodge. He isn't interested in Getting Out because he's a badass. Sheriff Bat Masterson is bad too, in a good way, and he wants Doc out. Doc has a bad rep for shooting people, but it's unfair because he's never shot anyone who didn't deserve it. It turns out that Doc Holliday does have a set of ethics, and that he is a pretty loyal dude. After threatening to kill each other, Masterson and Holliday become allies.
A dangerous situation is at hand, because an older local man has been accused of killing his former commanding officer, an Army Colonel who was trying to break a peace treaty in order to steal land from the Indians. The Indians revere this man, who they see as a brother. But a local rancher, who also wants to steal the land for himself, leads a conspiracy to make sure the older man is found guilty of the Colonel's murder, so that he will be hanged. Then the Indian's last protector will be out of the way and the land will belong to the rancher.
Doc Holliday has come to town to gamble and to carry out his vendetta against Masterson, but when he sees what Bat is up against - the rancher and his thugs trying to break a peace treaty - his noble inner nature gets the better of his vengeful instincts, and he teams up with Masterson and Federal Marshall Wyatt Earp to shut the bad guys down.
Now, that's as Western as it gets, when you have Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday all on the same team, and in Dodge City to boot.
You can guess how things are gonna go down for the bad guys, and what's cool about the good guys is that they were all real people. You can Google 'em all. Wyatt Earp wound up right here in Los Angeles later in life. Bat Masterson went east and passed away in 1921. Doc Holliday didn't make it to the 20th century because of his illness. He died in 1887 at 36 years of age, just as the west was being won, which as we know was not not fair to the Indians and which is pointed out in this film and in many other Westerns I have seen. But there were good guys who stood up for what was right, and in the Old West they became legends. "Masterson Of Kansas" was one of the better B-Westerns I have seen, with never a dull moment in the direction, a standard of excellence performance from George Montgomery, and a special notice for James Griffith's potrayal of Doc Holliday. In reading about the Doc tonight on Wiki, I think Griffith's may be the most realistic performance of them all. ////
Two Big Thumbs Up for "Masterson Of Kansas", shot at Iverson Ranch, Griffith Park and Corriganville.
I had a nice hike at Aliso today and saw the coyote again. I posted a pic on FB, but he always runs away...
See you in church in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Saturday, October 6, 2018
The Devil Is Toast + "Mark Of The Vampire"
Last night Grimsley came over, which is why there was no blog. I began writing one, but because I had no topic it just turned into another Trump screed, and after I got halfway through it I thought, "why bother"? I wasn't saying anything I hadn't already said, and we all agree anyway on every aspect of the subject. Though no one detests Trump more than I, I don't wanna just run off at the mouth about him, unless the news warrants it, because the world is too big and there are too many other things to think and write about. So last night I deleted everything I wrote and felt better.
The news sucked today, and we are resigned for the inevitable tomorrow, but I just wanted to share something that occurred to me maybe about a year ago, that has been helpful to me in this era we are living through. I have a deep faith in God and Jesus Christ, but I also believe that there is a dark force in the world. You can call it by whatever name you choose, but I have always called it the Devil.
Some days the news can be overwhelming, and it seems like a neverending stream of bad things are happening. I always remind myself that "bad things", if you take away natural disasters, almost always involve the actions of people, and people who are involved in bad things are almost always in some sort of emotional distress involving aggression or jealousy, or avarice or some variation or combination of sins that motivates them to do "the bad thing", which is often violence. I believe that violence is the Devil's greatest weapon. By "Devil" I don't mean a big red guy with a pitchfork any more than I mean God to be an old man with a white beard. "Devil" just means a dark force. I don't know what it is, or if it has an embodiment. I just know that it is.
And I hear the news every day, just like you do, and it stresses me out, but I also always think, the best the Devil can do is to antagonise people. That's all he's got, is to try and pit people against each other, by tempting them with greed, and illusions of power. He can cause a lot of misery that way, if people buy into his temptations.
But what I wanted to tell you is that one day about a year ago it hit me. I was outside, and looking at the sky, and I thought "the Devil didn't create that". Then I looked at the Santa Susana mountains and I thought, "he didn't create that either". The rest followed : "he didn't create the ocean, or the Earth, or the Sun or the Universe".
He didn't create anything.
God did. He created everything. If you want, you can call it nature or whatever, but then you'd still have to explain where nature came from, and ultimately we would be back at the Topological Metaphor which proves that, at some point, "something" must come from "nothing". There must, at some point be an Uncaused Cause for anything at all to exist. And that Uncaused Cause is God.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you, that no matter how bad the news is (and it's been a lot worse, think World War Two), just remember two things : 1) That the Devil has no real power, even though he causes a lot of chaos and misery, that is the best he can do. He can't knock down a mountain or empty the sea or take down the sky. And he can only get you if you let him.
More importantly, for #2), remember that the Devil never created anything. Look at the Universe, stare up at the night sky, look at the mountains or the ocean or a flower or an animal.
There is no way a bad guy created any of that. All that guy can do is create chaos, because he is able to stir up humans and pit them against one another. And while I am against Trump with everything I stand for, and against all of his cronies and associates, I will not let it become an emotional turmoil inside myself. Trump is merely someone who must be removed, and as soon as possible, but we should resist getting caught up in his chaos. He is a prime agent of the Devil, but if we don't react emotionally to everything he does (which he does by design), we will have deprived him of a large part of his power. The yahoos who go to his rallies will support him regardless, but both he and his fans thrive on knee jerk opposition.
Let's not give it to him, and instead concentrate tooth and nail on putting him in prison where he belongs. /////
Well, tonight I did watch a movie : "Mark Of The Vampire" (1935), starring Lionel Barrymore, Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill. I figured the time was right to start the annual Halloween Horror-thon, even though it's still early in October. This movie was the final selection in my six-movie dvd set called "Legends Of Hollywood Horror", the other five of which I watched and reviewed during the Summer. I deliberately saved "Mark Of The Vampire" for Halloweentime, because I had seen a few minutes of it on TCM, and the visuals were incredible. It looked like a classic Vampire movie, and now I can report that it's one of the best I have ever seen. This is mostly because of the atmosphere and art direction, but also because of the eccentric lead performance by Lionel Barrymore as a doctor who is trying to rid an old castle of vampires. At the beginning of the movie, the lord of the manor is found dead at his desk. His loyal servant swears it was vampires, known to lurk in the area (some undisclosed Transylvanian type location). A detective (Lionel Atwill) is called in, but he doesn't go for any of that hogwash. He doesn't believe in vampires.
But then we see Bela Lugosi lurking at night outside the windows of the castle, along with his spooky long haired daughter, all dressed in white and looking like she recently passed away. Soon enough, the daughter of the manor lord, and her young husband, are both attacked late at night - seperately - and are found to have tooth marks on their necks.
Holy smokes. It's not a good situation. Meanwhile, we can see the creepy crawler daughter staring into the windows, trying to hypnotise the young couple. Her name is Luna, played by an actress named Carol Borland, and she is one of the great characters in horror history. Lugosi doesn't have as much to do, but in his brief scenes he projects his infamous persona for all it's worth. Mostly he is directing his daughter's dirty work, while the very weird Lionel Barrymore tries to stop them.
But wait!
There may be another element at work.
I think I will say no more, because to do so would be to reveal too much.
"Mark Of The Vampire" goes by quickly at only 60 minutes in length, and while I love one hour movies, this one is so good that I wish it had gone for a while longer.
It's more like an "Old Dark House" investigation movie than a Dracula film. Lugosi is not a central character, but his daughter is, and the scenes with her are some of the greatest I have seen from the classic horror era of the 1930s. But don't get me wrong, Bela is great too. Overall, it's Lionel Barrymore's movie, and he plays it to the max. Director Tod Browning, who made the original "Dracula", gives you the vampire world of your dreams, the one you would envision at your horror Disneyland.
Two Huge Thumbs Up, see it this Halloween season. :)
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
The news sucked today, and we are resigned for the inevitable tomorrow, but I just wanted to share something that occurred to me maybe about a year ago, that has been helpful to me in this era we are living through. I have a deep faith in God and Jesus Christ, but I also believe that there is a dark force in the world. You can call it by whatever name you choose, but I have always called it the Devil.
Some days the news can be overwhelming, and it seems like a neverending stream of bad things are happening. I always remind myself that "bad things", if you take away natural disasters, almost always involve the actions of people, and people who are involved in bad things are almost always in some sort of emotional distress involving aggression or jealousy, or avarice or some variation or combination of sins that motivates them to do "the bad thing", which is often violence. I believe that violence is the Devil's greatest weapon. By "Devil" I don't mean a big red guy with a pitchfork any more than I mean God to be an old man with a white beard. "Devil" just means a dark force. I don't know what it is, or if it has an embodiment. I just know that it is.
And I hear the news every day, just like you do, and it stresses me out, but I also always think, the best the Devil can do is to antagonise people. That's all he's got, is to try and pit people against each other, by tempting them with greed, and illusions of power. He can cause a lot of misery that way, if people buy into his temptations.
But what I wanted to tell you is that one day about a year ago it hit me. I was outside, and looking at the sky, and I thought "the Devil didn't create that". Then I looked at the Santa Susana mountains and I thought, "he didn't create that either". The rest followed : "he didn't create the ocean, or the Earth, or the Sun or the Universe".
He didn't create anything.
God did. He created everything. If you want, you can call it nature or whatever, but then you'd still have to explain where nature came from, and ultimately we would be back at the Topological Metaphor which proves that, at some point, "something" must come from "nothing". There must, at some point be an Uncaused Cause for anything at all to exist. And that Uncaused Cause is God.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you, that no matter how bad the news is (and it's been a lot worse, think World War Two), just remember two things : 1) That the Devil has no real power, even though he causes a lot of chaos and misery, that is the best he can do. He can't knock down a mountain or empty the sea or take down the sky. And he can only get you if you let him.
More importantly, for #2), remember that the Devil never created anything. Look at the Universe, stare up at the night sky, look at the mountains or the ocean or a flower or an animal.
There is no way a bad guy created any of that. All that guy can do is create chaos, because he is able to stir up humans and pit them against one another. And while I am against Trump with everything I stand for, and against all of his cronies and associates, I will not let it become an emotional turmoil inside myself. Trump is merely someone who must be removed, and as soon as possible, but we should resist getting caught up in his chaos. He is a prime agent of the Devil, but if we don't react emotionally to everything he does (which he does by design), we will have deprived him of a large part of his power. The yahoos who go to his rallies will support him regardless, but both he and his fans thrive on knee jerk opposition.
Let's not give it to him, and instead concentrate tooth and nail on putting him in prison where he belongs. /////
Well, tonight I did watch a movie : "Mark Of The Vampire" (1935), starring Lionel Barrymore, Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill. I figured the time was right to start the annual Halloween Horror-thon, even though it's still early in October. This movie was the final selection in my six-movie dvd set called "Legends Of Hollywood Horror", the other five of which I watched and reviewed during the Summer. I deliberately saved "Mark Of The Vampire" for Halloweentime, because I had seen a few minutes of it on TCM, and the visuals were incredible. It looked like a classic Vampire movie, and now I can report that it's one of the best I have ever seen. This is mostly because of the atmosphere and art direction, but also because of the eccentric lead performance by Lionel Barrymore as a doctor who is trying to rid an old castle of vampires. At the beginning of the movie, the lord of the manor is found dead at his desk. His loyal servant swears it was vampires, known to lurk in the area (some undisclosed Transylvanian type location). A detective (Lionel Atwill) is called in, but he doesn't go for any of that hogwash. He doesn't believe in vampires.
But then we see Bela Lugosi lurking at night outside the windows of the castle, along with his spooky long haired daughter, all dressed in white and looking like she recently passed away. Soon enough, the daughter of the manor lord, and her young husband, are both attacked late at night - seperately - and are found to have tooth marks on their necks.
Holy smokes. It's not a good situation. Meanwhile, we can see the creepy crawler daughter staring into the windows, trying to hypnotise the young couple. Her name is Luna, played by an actress named Carol Borland, and she is one of the great characters in horror history. Lugosi doesn't have as much to do, but in his brief scenes he projects his infamous persona for all it's worth. Mostly he is directing his daughter's dirty work, while the very weird Lionel Barrymore tries to stop them.
But wait!
There may be another element at work.
I think I will say no more, because to do so would be to reveal too much.
"Mark Of The Vampire" goes by quickly at only 60 minutes in length, and while I love one hour movies, this one is so good that I wish it had gone for a while longer.
It's more like an "Old Dark House" investigation movie than a Dracula film. Lugosi is not a central character, but his daughter is, and the scenes with her are some of the greatest I have seen from the classic horror era of the 1930s. But don't get me wrong, Bela is great too. Overall, it's Lionel Barrymore's movie, and he plays it to the max. Director Tod Browning, who made the original "Dracula", gives you the vampire world of your dreams, the one you would envision at your horror Disneyland.
Two Huge Thumbs Up, see it this Halloween season. :)
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, October 4, 2018
"La Pointe Courte" by Agnes Varda at CSUN
Tonight I went back to the CSUN Cinematheque (the new version) to see a film by French director Agnes Varda called "La Pointe Courte" (1955). Varda's name is well known to cinephiles, but I for one had never seen any of her work and I finally had a chance to remedy that. Professor Frances informed us beforehand that Varda was considered by critics as notable as Roger Ebert, among others, to be the originator of the French New Wave movement of the late 50s through the early 70s. She may not have set out to create a new style of artistic filmmaking because she went on to become known mainly as a documentarian, but it seems that "La Pointe", her debut film, did indeed influence the vanguards of the New Wave such as Godard and Truffaut, et al.
The first thing you notice, from the opening shot of the movie, is that Varda is an excellent photographer. The camerawork in this film is imaginitive throughout, full of fluid motion, unexpected angles and stark close ups inside the cramped shacks in which the villagers of the French coastal town of La Pointe Courte live. The people are as poor as church mice. A family with seven children resides in a space not much bigger than my own Tiny Apartment. Fortunately, the sea is their front yard. The women spend much of their time outside, hanging the wash and talking as their children play. The men all work as fishermen, casting a wide ring of nets each day to trap shellfish. The poverty stricken town, however, lies next to a polluted section of the ocean (as poverty and pollution often go together, see Flint, Michigan), and the local Health Department inspectors are always after the fishermen for breaking the rules of fishing in the wrong lagoon. Their catches are inspected for bacteria. One man is taken to jail for five days. All of this is meant to show a way of life rather than to serve as a plot, and in this way Varda's style resembles that of the earlier cinematic art form of Italian Neo-Realism, which developed in the aftermath of WW2, headed up by directors like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio Di Sica. The bulk of her cast is made up of non-actors, who play the seaside villagers to great effect, as that is probably who they were in real life.
Only two professional actors are listed in the credits for the film on IMDB : the great French star Phillipe Noiret, a big man with a hang dog face in later years who appeared in many classic Chabrol films and other French flicks of the 70s. Here he is a young man with a Julius Caesar haircut, married to a beautiful and sophisticated Parisian woman played by an actress named Sylvia Monfort. The couple act out an alternate, philosophical storyline set against the daily life of the fishermen. Noiret hails from the village but has been living in Paris with his wife for the past four years. They return to La Pointe Courte so that Noiret can show Monfort his roots. He is from poverty, and though he escaped it, he retains a simple, non-ambitious philosophy of life. She is from Paris, a worldly city of ideas and accomplishment. Their marriage is on the rocks when they arrive at the village. Monfort tells Noiret that she wants a separation. Slowly, though, he talks her out of it, using logic to examine the nature of their love and also to explain to her the nature of her restless neuroses.
If you have ever seen a parody of European Art House Existentialist Love Scenes, maybe from Saturday Night Live, and maybe based on Bergman's films, with a couple's heads filmed close up and at right angles to one another (or variations of such a shot), while they spout dry readings of lines of dialogue on the meaning of love, well.....it seems that all those perpendicular camera angles on those heads, and all of that existentialism came from this film by Agnes Varda, before it ever came from Ingmar Bergman. He made films prior to 1955, but none had this signature two-shot, which later became famous enough for satire. I did not know that Varda invented it, but she did.
So, as the fishermen and their families battle the health inspectors and sort their scallops, and dance and party as poor people do on the weekends, the couple Noiret and Monfort wander through the village engaged in a neverending discussion of love and it's meaning, and who loves who more, and why, and why not. Their expressions are flat throughout by design. Varda wanted a flat reading of the ultimate emotional subject and it became a style of it's own for later filmmakers.
"La Pointe Courte" is a unique film combining neorealism, an idea for discontinuous story structure that begat the French New Wave, a theme of emotional existentialism, and tremendous photography. Varda was also a talented still photographer, known almost as much for her work in that field as for her films.
I give it Two Big Thumbs Up. It's a quirky film with an off-kilter clarinet score accentuating the action throughout, and it has no big storyline or plot or payoff......but it is a film that combined different elements began a style of Pure Cinema, literally filming stuff that just plain looked good and worked well onscreen. Jean-Luc Godard took Pure Cinema to an extreme, but Agnes Varda introduced it here in her first film. She is now 89 years old and still working.
That's all for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
The first thing you notice, from the opening shot of the movie, is that Varda is an excellent photographer. The camerawork in this film is imaginitive throughout, full of fluid motion, unexpected angles and stark close ups inside the cramped shacks in which the villagers of the French coastal town of La Pointe Courte live. The people are as poor as church mice. A family with seven children resides in a space not much bigger than my own Tiny Apartment. Fortunately, the sea is their front yard. The women spend much of their time outside, hanging the wash and talking as their children play. The men all work as fishermen, casting a wide ring of nets each day to trap shellfish. The poverty stricken town, however, lies next to a polluted section of the ocean (as poverty and pollution often go together, see Flint, Michigan), and the local Health Department inspectors are always after the fishermen for breaking the rules of fishing in the wrong lagoon. Their catches are inspected for bacteria. One man is taken to jail for five days. All of this is meant to show a way of life rather than to serve as a plot, and in this way Varda's style resembles that of the earlier cinematic art form of Italian Neo-Realism, which developed in the aftermath of WW2, headed up by directors like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio Di Sica. The bulk of her cast is made up of non-actors, who play the seaside villagers to great effect, as that is probably who they were in real life.
Only two professional actors are listed in the credits for the film on IMDB : the great French star Phillipe Noiret, a big man with a hang dog face in later years who appeared in many classic Chabrol films and other French flicks of the 70s. Here he is a young man with a Julius Caesar haircut, married to a beautiful and sophisticated Parisian woman played by an actress named Sylvia Monfort. The couple act out an alternate, philosophical storyline set against the daily life of the fishermen. Noiret hails from the village but has been living in Paris with his wife for the past four years. They return to La Pointe Courte so that Noiret can show Monfort his roots. He is from poverty, and though he escaped it, he retains a simple, non-ambitious philosophy of life. She is from Paris, a worldly city of ideas and accomplishment. Their marriage is on the rocks when they arrive at the village. Monfort tells Noiret that she wants a separation. Slowly, though, he talks her out of it, using logic to examine the nature of their love and also to explain to her the nature of her restless neuroses.
If you have ever seen a parody of European Art House Existentialist Love Scenes, maybe from Saturday Night Live, and maybe based on Bergman's films, with a couple's heads filmed close up and at right angles to one another (or variations of such a shot), while they spout dry readings of lines of dialogue on the meaning of love, well.....it seems that all those perpendicular camera angles on those heads, and all of that existentialism came from this film by Agnes Varda, before it ever came from Ingmar Bergman. He made films prior to 1955, but none had this signature two-shot, which later became famous enough for satire. I did not know that Varda invented it, but she did.
So, as the fishermen and their families battle the health inspectors and sort their scallops, and dance and party as poor people do on the weekends, the couple Noiret and Monfort wander through the village engaged in a neverending discussion of love and it's meaning, and who loves who more, and why, and why not. Their expressions are flat throughout by design. Varda wanted a flat reading of the ultimate emotional subject and it became a style of it's own for later filmmakers.
"La Pointe Courte" is a unique film combining neorealism, an idea for discontinuous story structure that begat the French New Wave, a theme of emotional existentialism, and tremendous photography. Varda was also a talented still photographer, known almost as much for her work in that field as for her films.
I give it Two Big Thumbs Up. It's a quirky film with an off-kilter clarinet score accentuating the action throughout, and it has no big storyline or plot or payoff......but it is a film that combined different elements began a style of Pure Cinema, literally filming stuff that just plain looked good and worked well onscreen. Jean-Luc Godard took Pure Cinema to an extreme, but Agnes Varda introduced it here in her first film. She is now 89 years old and still working.
That's all for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
"Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story"
Tonight we were back with Hedy Lamarr, watching "Bombshell", the recent documentary on her life. It's quite a story, of triumph and tragedy, of the advantages and disadvantages of beauty, of intellect and invention, and of having your intelligence questioned and ignored because you are a woman.
Hedy Lamarr was brought up by a strong father, a wealthy banker who encouraged her childhood interest in mechanical things. He showed her how Vienna's electrical system worked, how radios tuned in their signals. She took apart a child's music box when she was five, and put it back together, gears and everything. But she had an independent streak and wanted to break free. By the time she was 15, she was aware of the power of her looks. Men and women both would stop and stare as she walked through a room. That kind of power can have detrimental effects. She decided she wanted to be in movies and by the time she was 19 she signed to a contract with an Austro-Hungarian producer who cast her in what was basically a soft-core porn film of the era, 1933. Think "pre-Code", but European style, and exploitative. Hedy was directed to run around nude in the film and to simulate sex scenes.
This was in 1933, when she was just 19. It was her introduction to the movie business. She was a free spirit and it didn't seem to faze her, but who knows what lasting effects exploitation can have? Maybe we will see. By the late '30s, she had broken through in Hollywood, though Louie B. Mayer wasn't giving her any good scripts. She had to fight for any good roles she got. This was because of "Extase", the notorious film she made in Austria. She had been labeled from the start because of it.
But she didn't need the movies and could always retreat into her inventions. She had a scientific mind, even though she had no training. One day in 1940, she saw in the newspaper that German U-Boats were sinking British ships by the dozen. She hated Hitler for what he had done to Austria and all of Europe, and she began to think about how the U-Boats could be defeated.
She came up with an idea for torpedo guidance that came to be called "frequency hopping", and with her friend the composer George Antheil, they developed the idea around the patterns used in player piano scrolls. This was good enough to get them a patent which they then took to the United States Navy, who promptly laughed Lamarr out of their offices. They suggested she do something more constructive like sell war bonds. So she did that, too, with great success. Meanwhile, her patent lingered in a top secret Navy file cabinet. Her friend Antheil eventually gave up on his part of the quest and she was left alone, divorced from her husband and caring for two children. So she returned to movies.
I don't want to tell you everything about "Bombshell", and I've probably told you too much, but I wanted to get your interest because you should see this film. If you only see one documentary in the next year, make it this one.
Hedy Lamarr lived a complex and troubled life due to the conflict between her beauty and her intelligence. She wanted to be known for the latter, but had to use the former to get there. She told friends, "no one knows the real me".
Later in life she became addicted to methamphetamine, a story I know myself. She had also begun to use plastic surgery as a means to maintain her looks, because she was conditioned to think that her face was all anyone wanted from her.
The repeated surgeries had disastrous results. I'll say no more, but from footage seen in the film, you almost get the impression that she was just as much trying to destroy her beauty as to maintain it.
But in the end, she sounded happy. An extended audiotape interview provides the basis for the story. She tells it herself, with few regrets. All she really wanted was acknowledgement for her invention, which went on to be developed by the military under the patent they legally took from her when she let it lapse. But it had still been her idea, and it took years for her to gain credit.
The movie ends with a recitation by Hedy of some words she had found helpful in her own life, from an undisclosed source (maybe a poem or an inspirational writing). It is about giving your best in life, no matter what.
Hearing her speak these words, after what you have seen and heard of her life, will put a tear in your eye........of sadness for sure, but also of astonishment.
You never know what is inside a person, underneath their skin.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Hedy Lamarr was brought up by a strong father, a wealthy banker who encouraged her childhood interest in mechanical things. He showed her how Vienna's electrical system worked, how radios tuned in their signals. She took apart a child's music box when she was five, and put it back together, gears and everything. But she had an independent streak and wanted to break free. By the time she was 15, she was aware of the power of her looks. Men and women both would stop and stare as she walked through a room. That kind of power can have detrimental effects. She decided she wanted to be in movies and by the time she was 19 she signed to a contract with an Austro-Hungarian producer who cast her in what was basically a soft-core porn film of the era, 1933. Think "pre-Code", but European style, and exploitative. Hedy was directed to run around nude in the film and to simulate sex scenes.
This was in 1933, when she was just 19. It was her introduction to the movie business. She was a free spirit and it didn't seem to faze her, but who knows what lasting effects exploitation can have? Maybe we will see. By the late '30s, she had broken through in Hollywood, though Louie B. Mayer wasn't giving her any good scripts. She had to fight for any good roles she got. This was because of "Extase", the notorious film she made in Austria. She had been labeled from the start because of it.
But she didn't need the movies and could always retreat into her inventions. She had a scientific mind, even though she had no training. One day in 1940, she saw in the newspaper that German U-Boats were sinking British ships by the dozen. She hated Hitler for what he had done to Austria and all of Europe, and she began to think about how the U-Boats could be defeated.
She came up with an idea for torpedo guidance that came to be called "frequency hopping", and with her friend the composer George Antheil, they developed the idea around the patterns used in player piano scrolls. This was good enough to get them a patent which they then took to the United States Navy, who promptly laughed Lamarr out of their offices. They suggested she do something more constructive like sell war bonds. So she did that, too, with great success. Meanwhile, her patent lingered in a top secret Navy file cabinet. Her friend Antheil eventually gave up on his part of the quest and she was left alone, divorced from her husband and caring for two children. So she returned to movies.
I don't want to tell you everything about "Bombshell", and I've probably told you too much, but I wanted to get your interest because you should see this film. If you only see one documentary in the next year, make it this one.
Hedy Lamarr lived a complex and troubled life due to the conflict between her beauty and her intelligence. She wanted to be known for the latter, but had to use the former to get there. She told friends, "no one knows the real me".
Later in life she became addicted to methamphetamine, a story I know myself. She had also begun to use plastic surgery as a means to maintain her looks, because she was conditioned to think that her face was all anyone wanted from her.
The repeated surgeries had disastrous results. I'll say no more, but from footage seen in the film, you almost get the impression that she was just as much trying to destroy her beauty as to maintain it.
But in the end, she sounded happy. An extended audiotape interview provides the basis for the story. She tells it herself, with few regrets. All she really wanted was acknowledgement for her invention, which went on to be developed by the military under the patent they legally took from her when she let it lapse. But it had still been her idea, and it took years for her to gain credit.
The movie ends with a recitation by Hedy of some words she had found helpful in her own life, from an undisclosed source (maybe a poem or an inspirational writing). It is about giving your best in life, no matter what.
Hearing her speak these words, after what you have seen and heard of her life, will put a tear in your eye........of sadness for sure, but also of astonishment.
You never know what is inside a person, underneath their skin.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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