A Movie Review + For Elizabeth

 I'm back at Pearl's.

Tonight's movie was called "Violent Saturday"(1955), a rather blunt, unimaginative title for what turned out to be a mix of melodrama and crime. It sets out to be a heist movie, but then as soon as the job is plotted by the bank robbers (which happens right off the bat), the story switches gears and we get several vignettes of "ordinary people in trouble". This is one of those movies that they used to make, where a bunch of people's lives collide during one big event. Remember "Smashup on Interstate 5"? It's like that, without the freeway. And in fact, wasn't "Crash" one of those movies? And it won Best Picture. So go figure.

Don't get me wrong, "V.S." is not a bad movie, in fact it's exceedingly watchable, with a fluid storyline, good characters, a good cast, solid direction from old pro Richard Fleischer, and those colliding plot threads. On top of all that, the whole thing looks fantastic. It was shot in Cinemascope in the mining town of Bisbee, Arizona. The town center looks straight out of the 1920s, and it's authentic, not a set. The desert landscape provides an arid, isolated backdrop. A key character is an Amish farmer who lives in the outskirts. He is played by Ernest Borgnine of all people, and quite well too. Lastly, concerning the look of the film, one phrase is all that's necessary : Color by Deluxe. The early 50s to the mid-60s was their absolute peak. What they did was to take the full saturation of Technicolor down a notch, refine the warm tones and give everything a touch of pastel. This is one good looking movie, thanks in part to the boys at the lab, and the print I saw on Youtube was Blu-ray all the way, baby.

But it's not quite the heist movie you may be expecting when you hit "play". Instead, much time is spent on the Mine Owner's unhappy marriage. His wife is cheating on him. He's an alcoholic. He spies a young Gold Digger at the local bar. She is Virginia Leith, from "The Brain That Wouldn't Die". He should know better than to mess with her, but he does anyway. Lucky for him she doesn't have that Potato Head Monster locked in his closet, but the results are almost as bad.

The bank's loan manager (Tommy Noonan, a dead ringer for MSNBC's Chris Hayes) is a Peeping Tom, spying on Virginia Leith. 1930s veteran Silvia Sidney is a librarian who owes the bank some dough. Mr. Peepers is putting the screws to her to pay it back, but she knows what he does at night, and is blackmailing him. And finally, the star of the movie is Victor Mature (though his screen time is equal to all others). Mature plays a mining company foreman whose eight year old son gets into fistfights because Dad was not a war hero like his best friend's Pa. There will be a a playout of this thread, and you can see it coming, but beyond all of these troubles, the bank robbers don't give a flip.

They continue to plan their caper, detail by meticulous detail, and Lee Marvin is one of their number. If you've ever seen Lee Marvin in any movie - and I have to reiterate : any movie - then you know that no one ever gets the better of him. It must be in his contract, due to that face and that voice.

So there you sort of have it. What do you think? To me it sounds like a good one, and it was. The ending culminates in the violent release indicated by the title, but don't worry, it isn't excessive, not by today's standards. You'll actually finish up by saying, "hmmm, that was a pretty original picture when you put it all together". Or if not exactly original then at least imaginative, and very good looking.

I give it Two Thumbs Up and a solid recommendation. Don't miss the Blu-ray print on Youtube.  ///////

And finally........for Elizabeth, what else can I say but congratulations? :) And it's from the heart. I see now what the situation is, and why the Facebook thing happened this Summer (though you needn't have worried about me). I'll refrain from posting any more comments or messages on Instagram, but I hope you won't mind if I am still a follower, just cause I've been with you in the artistic sense since 2012, and I'd like to remain so in that regard. You know that I think You Rule (I've long said so), and I've always kept my commentary strictly right here at the blog, where the choice is yours to click it or not.

Whatever you do, keep doing what You Do. And again, I hope you will seriously consider making an album of singer/songwriter material, along the lines of the songs and snippets you have posted in the past year.

I have to say yet again that the Red Dress series is one of the most ambitious and amazing photographic presentations I've seen. Even more importantly, it's original. So never forget that. And keep in mind that you've had a film that played on the screen at Staples Center. Don't give up on your dream, which really means don't give up on your plans and what you've already accomplished.

In any event, congrats once again, I wish you the absolute best, and I'll be right here if you ever wanna say hi.  :)

Tons of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :)

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! + Thanksgiving + The Path of Souls

Elizabeth, before I go any further I want to wish you a very Happy Birthday! I'm writing this shortly after midnight, so it's officially the 27th, and I hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow. Even though the circumstances make it difficult to celebrate in the ways you normally would, I hope you will do something fun for yourself, maybe go on an awesome hike or road trip, in addition to sharing your day with your family. It's been one heck of a tough year, but things are gonna get better, so just keep that in mind. You are an awesome lady, an Artist with a Capital A, and an exceptionally nice person, and I am always thinking of you.   :):) 

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, once again considering all the current factors. For me, this is the first Thanksgiving that I haven't spent at Pearl's since 2005, which is five years before I became her caregiver. As I'm sure I've mentioned, the family friendship goes back to 1953, when my parents moved to Reseda from Cincinnati in 1951. Almost simultaneously, Pearl and her late husband Roy were moving west from Minnesota. The Valley was founded, in large part, by Midwesterners! And in our case, my family and Pearl's family ended up just around the corner from one another in Reseda, a cool suburban town that still looks, in some respects, just as it did 70 years ago. We moved to Northridge in 1968, but always kept in touch, and the family Thanksgiving tradition at Pearl's house began sometime in the mid-to-late 80s. I didn't go in those days, because as a twentysomething I was doing my own thing, but many years later, in 2004 I accompanied my Mom to Pearl's on Thanksgiving Day. For me it was a reintroduction to friends I hadn't seen since I was seven years old! But my parents and sister Vickie had maintained contact all that time. Mom passed away just after Thanksgiving in 2005, so I didn't go to Pearl's that year, but I did go back with my sister and my Dad in 2006, and I've been part of the tradition ever since. Until tonight of course.

But we'll be back next year, and I'm confident the whole world will be back. Covid will probably still be with us, but will be weakened by then. Even the terrible Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed 50 million, only lasted two years.

I didn't do much today. We had Gale Force Winds which made a trip to Aliso unappealing. So I just camped out in my apartment, watched some football and finished my book : "Denisovan Origins" by Andrew Collins and Gregory Little. It's a mindboggling work, featuring extensive research into North American Mound Culture, and the history of it's cosmology. The observance and monitoring of the night sky was all-important to people of the post Ice Age, particularly those whose ancestors had lived through the Younger Dryas Impact Event. Very interesting to me was the revelation of The Path of Souls, based on the folklore of American Indian tribes in the Great Lakes area. It has to to with their belief in the spiritual journey, after death, to the next life, which is attained by following a specific path through the Milky Way, and finally up through the polar axis at the top of the night sky dome, around which the constellations turn.

I can't see any of this. I've never been able to, as I live in a major city that blots it out with electric light.

But that was their world, the world of the Denisovan ancestors, which also produced a race of giants, who stood between 7 and 8 feet tall, and sometimes 9. The "Tall Ones" became the elite of the American Adena Culture, and the Hopewell Culture, that lasted until somewhat recently, 500 AD. 

The importance of The Path of Souls was their idea of progress, to "progress" successfully into the next world. We in the modern era, having discovered the electron, have our own notion of progress, which has enabled us to travel into outer space and to blow things up. I won't go on a tirade about progress (and who could?), but it's worth asking the questions : "what exactly is progress"? and "what is it supposed to lead to"? Such are the vexations of the Human Condition, but in the case of the paleoancient Americans, they were looking to the sky as The Universe. Right now, we're staring at our gadgets. I know that's totally cliche to say so, but it's true, and so it's up to us who have the historical perspective to revert to at least some of the old ways.

Who is to say that the Denisovans of old saw nothing in the night sky of value? Not me. I wish I could see it myself.  //////

That's all I know for tonight. Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! Tomorrow I will be back at Pearl's until mid-December. See you in the morning.

Tons and tons of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxo  :):)  

"Les Miserables" (1934 Version), One Of The Greatest Films Ever Made

 Two years ago I was browsing Criterion releases and I came across an early version of "Les Miserables" on their Eclipse label. This version, made in 1934 by French director Raymond Bernard, was packaged as a double feature with Bernard's "Wooden Crosses"(1932), a WW1 saga. Having never heard of the director, I checked his IMDB. Both films had high ratings, with "Les Miserables" receiving a whopping 8.2, very rare for an older film. The price was right - about twenty bucks for the set - so I purchased it from Amazon. I proceeded to watch "Wooden Crosses" as soon as it arrived, and I was blown away. It was one of the greatest war films I've ever seen, and I surely must've reviewed it here at the blog. That would've been in early 2019. So why did it take me almost two more years to watch "Les Miserables"?

Simple. It's almost five hours long. I saw right away that it was broken into three parts, and spaced over two dvds, but I'm kind of a purist about some things, and I figured that Bernard meant it to be watched all in one go, so I wanted to do that. I had no idea how it was released in theaters, in parts or as a whole, but I wanted to watch the whole doggone thing, all 4hrs 41mins of it, all in one sitting. But as you can imagine, I kept putting it off. I obviously couldn't watch it on a work day, but even when I wasn't working I found myself making excuses for not watching, after planning to do so. "Well, I wanna work on my drawing tonight", or read my book.........and in my mind was the truth : ("it's a five hour movie, there's no way I can sit that long").

But I still didn't wanna break it up, even if Criterion had arranged it that way. So it lingered on my dvd shelf for 23 months until tonight, when I finally threw in the towel and decided to watch it in parts.

Up until now, my short list for Greatest French Films (prior to the New Wave), would include "Children of Paradise"(1945), directed by Marcel Carne, and "Diary of a Country Priest"(1951) by the great Robert Bresson. Both films are legendary and would make many "all-time" lists from critics or other directors ("Country Priest" is Scorcese's favorite film.) And now, after seeing only the first part of Raymond Bernard's "Les Miserables", I am ready to place it in the French Pantheon, or simply the Cinematic Pantheon of the greatest films ever made. And I've only seen Part One.

Update : It is now Tuesday November 24, and I have completed the film. I watched parts two and three today.

Now, you may be a "Les Miz" veteran for all I know. Not only have there been just shy of a million movie and tv versions made over the last 90 years, but the Broadway adaptation was one of the biggest hits in stage history, and is probably running on other planets by now. So yeah, you may have already seen it somewhere, in one version or another, on stage or on screen. You may have even read Victor Hugo's book, and if so, I'll ask you to please ignore my "newbie naivete" and my enthusiasm for the plot, which I only just discovered. It's not just Hugo's writing or his creation of indelible characters (as memorable as those of Shakespeare or Dickens), but his uncanny ability to weave together multiple plot threads to create dramatic crescendos in the story and give it an epic rhythm. I didn't watch it all at once (though I did watch it in a 24 hour period), but even though the film runs 281 minutes, it doesn't lag for a single one of them.

That alone has to be one of the greatest feats in filmmaking history.

Now, yourself probably already knowing much about Les Miz, you are aware that Jean Valjean is the main character, a man locked up for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread, and subsequent escape attempts. As the movie opens, he is finally set free, but he's so inured to prison life, and his self-image as a convict, that he robs the first man to help him : a priest (you could even call him a Country Priest, at that!). This circumstance will introduce the story's second main character, Inspector Javert, who collars Valjean shortly after he absconds with the priest's silverware. But at this point, only ten minutes into the film (and I assume, the book), the story takes a 180 degree turn. Instead of standing idly by as Valjean is taken back to prison, the priest lies for him, telling Javert that he gave the items to his visitor. Valjean is spared, but even this kindness doesn't set him on the right path. As he leaves the priest's home, it isn't until he stoops to stealing a coin from a small boy that he finally feels a pang of conscience.

The next we see him, years have passed. Valjean has transformed his life and is now the mayor of a small town. He's also amassed considerable wealth from his invention of a glass jewelry making process. Now, he has become a beloved benefactor, trusted by the townspeople, and especially the poorest among them, to do right. It has become his life's mission.

However, he is living under an assumed name, because his theft of the boy's coin eight years earlier is still on record with the police, and Inspector Javert is a man who never gives up. There will be many encounters between the two men throughout the film, which usually end with Valjean (under whatever name) giving Javert the slip.

But that's only half the story, or really only a third. Part two introduces us to little Cosette, a waif who is under the care of a decrepit innkeeper and his witch of a wife. She's been entrusted to them by her indigent mother, a penniless woman who's been forced into prostitution as a last resort after selling her hair and front teeth. Les Miserables, indeed. But the inkeepers treat Cosette as a virtual slave, the wife in particular constantly hounding the tiny girl into chores of labor that are only suited to an adult. Such were the ways in which poor children were treated in Europe in the 19th century, as noted by Charles Dickens.

At any rate, Cosette becomes the film's third main character. Jean Valjean will rescue her from her plight, when - in his new persona - he happens to stop at the Inn.

So much happens in this movie that to call it an epic is an understatement. Part three deals with the Second French Revolution of 1830, which was really no more than a street battle, yet a brutal one at that. By this time Jean Valjean has taken up another guise, and Cosette - whom he has unofficially adopted - is now 16 and ready to be married. All of this is set against her fiancee's commitment to the revolution, and a host of other dramatic concerns. As noted, "Les Miserables" is one of the greatest stories ever written. I am new to it, but it's easy to see why it keeps being told over and over again.

This version also looks incredible, and features sets and photography reminiscent of German Expressionism. The orchestral score is tremendous, nuanced in all the right places. But most exceptional of all is the acting. Harry Baur, whom I'd never heard of until this film, is amazing as Jean Valjean. He exudes a quiet strength and resolve, as well as enormous physical strength simply as a man. Some of his feats have to be seen to be believed, as when he carries a very tall young man through the sewers of Paris, over his shoulder and even up and down ladders. For me, Baur's performance is one of the greatest in motion picture history, and the other lead characters and supporting cast do equal justice to Bernard's impeccable direction.

I'm all out of words for this film, it's simply one of the greatest movies ever made. All you have to do is check out it's IMDB reviews, pretty much everyone gives it a 10/10.

Supposedly, the 1935 version with Fredric March and Charles Laughton is also tremendous, so I'll have to check that one out too. But I am certain that this is the definitive version. You couldn't make a better film than this, in any genre, in any era. See it whatever you do.  /////

That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. Tons and tons of love!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox :):)

"The Steel Jungle" + A Brief Political Rant

Tonight's movie was "The Steel Jungle"(1956), a rough and tumble prison flick starring Perry Lopez as "Eddie Novak", a bookie in what looks to be Los Angeles. Eddie's at a crossroads in his young life. On the one hand, he's got a pregnant wife (Beverly Garland), to whom he swears he'll get a job and go straight once their child is born. He's not a thug; he pays his rent on time, buys Garland nice things, and never stiffs a bettor. But on the other hand, even though his heart's in the right place, he's not making an honest living, and to make matters worse, he's tied in with a syndicate.

As the movie opens, Eddie is running from the cops. When they catch him, he's not too worried because the operation he works for has gamed the system. They've got everyone paid off, cops, lawyers, judges. Eddie tells the arresting officers : "I'll be out within an hour". They inform him that his mob boss is doing a prison stretch. "Don't be too sure you won't be sharing a cell". But Eddie is confident because the get-out-of-jail system has always worked like a charm for him. Except this time is doesn't. The Judge (played by "The Chief" from Get Smart) is a straight arrow. He offers Eddie a choice - to rat on his colleagues or face a year in the penitentiary. Eddie is shocked, then angry. But he's no snitch. He'll take the year in prison, even if it means missing the birth of his first born child. He swears to his wife he'll get out anyway; "I'll talk to Marlin" (i.e the Boss who's already locked up). Marlin will surely grease the right palms leading to Eddie's early release. But that doesn't happen either. Marlin doesn't give two shakes about Eddie Novak.

At this point, the story moves from the courthouse to the Big House, and the filmmakers clearly shot inside a real prison, though unfortunately no locations are listed on IMDB. But Eddie is about to get an education into the rules of life behind bars, courtesy of Mr. Marlin the syndicate boss, and his hoodlums, including his enforcer Leo Gordon. I have to take an aside to talk about Gordon for a moment. If you're a fan of old Westerns, you've surely seen him. He's a big man, physically fit with a hard face and a gravel voice. He always played a menacing "heavy", and he was a good actor too. But what's most fascinating about Leo Gordon is that before he became an actor, he was a real life criminal who did five years in San Quentin for armed robbery.

Five years in San Quentin is no joke, and would ruin most men for life. But somehow, Leo Gordon managed to transform himself. According to IMDB, he went on to study at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts, and in his acting career he amassed 198 credits. What's more, he became a screenwriter. I am a fan of TV westerns, like "Tombstone Territory", and on that show I saw his name pop up several times in the credits. He wrote for a lot of other series, too. So to sum up about Leo Gordon, his role in this movie as a vicious lieutenant for mob boss Mr. Marlin is not only well played, it's realistic. He lived the prison life prior to becoming an actor. 

Kenneth Tobey, another veteran presence from the 50s, co-stars as the prison psychiatrist who tries to get Eddie Novak to talk, to open up and name names. If he will do that, the warden has promised him an early release. He can be back with his wife. But Eddie won't take the deal, so fearful is he of the inner prison workings of Mr. Marlin and the gang he controls, which includes the guards. 

Also appearing is Allison Hayes (aka The 50 Foot Woman) in a small role as Eddie's neighbor, so overall you've got a good cast. Even Bob Steele, early star of countless Westerns, shows up for a split second.

I came to "The Steel Jungle" though a recommendation by my brother Chris, who posted it on Facebook this morning. It's a good one, especially for the subtheme between the prison warden and psychiatrist Tobey, which highlights the need for balance between law enforcement and prison as punishment, and rehabilitation of those who can still be rehabilitated. Good script, good movie. Highly recommended. ////

 I'm in the second week of my time off, before I begin my next work cycle. I've just been doing The Usual, which is reading my books, going on my hikes and watching my movies,

I've got to finish with a brief political statement to say that I'm sorry I voted for Gavin Newsom. He's one of the worst governors we've ever had, and you can't just say "well he's a Democrat, therefore he's gotta be cool". No he is not cool. He's as Corporate America as you can get, and what's worse, he's a phony baloney prick. Witness his dictatorial attitude and his visit to The French Laundry. He's a snide, elitist dude, really not far removed from Trump (though smarter), and I'm sorry I voted for him. He's no Jerry Brown, and in fact he's the absolute worst, a self-satisfied power monger. That goes double for our corporate-owned mayor Eric Garcetti, the king of overdevelopment, passive-aggressive covid response, and letting the homeless situation grow unchecked. It's been hard to do a worse job than Antonio Villaraigosa, but Garcetti has left him in the dust.

I'll never vote for him, or Newsom, ever again. You couldn't have a worse twosome running our state, and I don't care if they're democrats. They suck, and not only that, they're the absolute worst, just like Trump. ////

Sorry about the politics, but I had to say it.

Tons of love, see you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Elizabeth + The Denisovans + Thunderbird Cave + Two Very Good Movies

 Elizabeth, I loved your post of your memory of Japan. The clip of the young deer eating out of your hand, with the little antler buds on his head, was "off-the-charts" cute, and your smile in the "happiness level" picture accurately reflects the experience! Every time you've traveled over the years, I've always had fun too, just by seeing your posts. And I know that Japan was your favorite trip ever, so as I said in my note, I know you'll return. Not only that, but you'll soon be back out there, traveling far and wide, back and forth across America, in the air and on the road, doing what you love to do and what you are so good at. The current situation won't last forever, and maybe by Spring we'll be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Then your Happiness Meter will be pinned in the red zone. :):)

I am glad you posted and I trust that you're hanging in there and all is well. In my current book, "Denisovan Origins" by Andrew Collins, I'm reading about the migration, over millennia, of the Denisovan people, a recently discovered ancestor to modern humans, who - it is coming to be understood - lived concurrently with Neanderthals but likely predated them. According to Collins, the two groups interbred, but what is most interesting is where the last surviving modern ancestors with Denisovan dna ended up. The Denisovans originated, it is thought, in Northern China and Siberia, perhaps 250,000 years ago. They were around a long time, but perhaps before the Ice Age, maybe 25 thousand years ago, they crossed into North America. In the United States, the people with the highest percentage of Denisovan dna are the Ojibwa, who as you probably know live in the Great Lakes area including Wisconsin. There is a petroglyph, reproduced in the book, of a mythical Thunderbird of Native American lore (likely Ojibwa), that was found in a cave in Juneau, Wisconsin. One day you should check it out, or get as close as you can to the site since it's probably not open to the public.

But what's equally mindblowing - at least to me because I love this stuff - is that the "Thunder People" (i.e. the ancient Denisovans and Denisovan/Neanderthal hybrids) had their own cosmology, based on the Milky Way and the Great Rift at it's center, where it splits into two forks, or arms. To the Thunder People, as they've come to be known in Ojibwa folklore, the Milky Way was The Path of Souls in the afterlife, and to attain the next world, a soul had to reach the constellation of Cygnus (the Swan), which was located 40,000 years ago at the center of the Great Rift.  

All of this is especially cool, because of the Thunderbird cave in Juneau and also because of your awesome photo of the Milky Way last Summer, in which the Great Rift was visible. So you can imagine the early Ojibwa in their cave, thousands of years ago, one of them painting the Thunderbird on the wall, perhaps in accordance with a ceremony of some sort, or after an evening of watching the Milky Way turn in the night sky.

I love this stuff, and I'm really enjoying this book. It's just as good as Collins' "Gobekli Tepe", which I read earlier this year. Next I'm gonna order a book called "The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America : The Missing Skeletons and the Great Smithsonian Cover-Up" by Richard J. Dewhurst. I've already read ample evidence, in the massive tome "Forbidden Archaeology" by Michael Cremo, about nine foot skeletons that were found in burial mounds in the South and Midwest during the peak years of excavation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And for whatever reason, the Smithsonian Institution, once it got hold of the bones, either shut them away or destroyed them. No one knows. But several books have been written about the giants, and this one is said to be the best. We'll tackle it soon, maybe next month or in January.

The Denisovans were said to be huge as well. Collins compares them to "the largest American wrestlers", which leads me to think of Andre the Giant. 

The bottom line is that I love ancient history, even though much of it is based on supposition. But we have their bones, their cave art, and their stone tools, and from that we can tell a lot. For a final image, I will leave you with the Denisovan Bracelet. Google it, and you will blow your mind at what someone created 70,000 years ago. ////

Two quick movies, both having to do with men working undercover for the Federal government. The better of the two, which I watched last night, was "I Was A Communist For The F.B.I." (1951). Frank Lovejoy plays real life agent Matt Svetic, who for nine years pretended to be a Communist in order to infiltrate the Pittsburgh steel industry, whose leadership was being taken over by the Commies. This is an incredible film, important still today, as it shows the methods the Soviets (now the Russians) have used to try to destabilise our government. They're using the exact same tactics now, except they're working on our elections instead of our industries. I'm no right wing reactionary - far from it - but this film gets my highest recommendation. 

Almost as good, but more formulaic and melodramatic, was "Johnny Allegro"(1949), where George Raft plays Johnny, a florist who used to be a criminal. He's a complicated guy; he did part of a ten year stretch in prison, then escaped and enlisted in the Air Force, where he became a war hero. He turned his life around, but the Feds are still looking for him due to his prison escape. When they catch up to him (led by Will Geer playing a Treasury Agent), they offer him a deal : go undercover to help nail a counterfeit ring, and all is forgiven. It's good stuff, with Raft at his best in one of his "gentlemanly tough guy" roles. Nina Foch is the love interest, and the suave George McCready is the bad guy. But it's Geer who steals the show. Before he became a counterculture grandpa in the 1970s, while starring in "The Waltons", he was in a lot of film noirs in the 40s and 50s, often playing a G-Man. His height made him an intimidating character, and he is especially good in this movie as George Raft's handler. "Johnny Allegro" is also highly recommended. /////

That's all I've got for tonight. Thanks for reading, I know it was long but I could go on and on forever about ancient history, archaeology, etc. See you in the morning. :)

Tons of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Mickey Rooney + "The Thing With Two Heads"

 Last night's movie was "Quicksand"(1950), a Noir starring Mickey Rooney in which The Mick plays an auto mechanic who dumps nice girl Helen (Barbara Bates) for the more dangerous Vera (Jeanne Cagney), a tough broad who works at a local cafe. Mickey is looking for excitement; Vera provides it, but to take her out, he needs money. Instead of waiting til payday. he sneaks a twenty spot out of the auto shop's cash register, vowing to himself that he'll put it back once he gets his check. Unfortunately, his boss calls in an accountant to do a random audit of the books, and Rooney is in the hot seat. To avoid being busted, he runs down to the jewelry store, buys a $100 watch on credit, then sprints down to the pawn shop to hock it for 30 bucks. He puts twenty back into the register, which saves him from his boss, and then - relieved - he heads over to the cafe to take Vera out for a night on the town.

But Vera is trouble, which he should have known, being that she's James Cagney's sister. Like her older brother, Jeanne/Vera knows all the local hoodlums, in particular Peter Lorre, an arcade owner who also runs numbers for a gang.

Mickey is soon being dogged by a fraud inspector, sicced on him by the owner of the jewelry store, who found out that Mick pawned a watch he didn't own (you can't sell something you haven't paid off, at least in the movie). Finally, in order to get everyone off his back, Vera persuades Mickey to rob Peter Lorre, who has a loaded cashbox hidden in the back room of his pinball joint. She knows where it's located, they can use the dough to skip town. But as anyone knows, it's a mistake to mess with Peter Lorre. His voice alone is lethal, and Rooney is no master criminal. He's just a guy who lifted twenty bucks from the till in order to impress a new date. Now he's in over his head in "Quicksand", which is the title of the movie and so we're right back where we started.

Can you believe that Mickey Rooney, who was short of stature and not classically handsome, was the #1 male box office star in America for the years 1939 - 1941? Yes indeed, it was The Mick who ruled the theaters during that period, not Clark Gable, Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart, and the reason - so far as I am able to see - was his energy, his force of personality, and his wide range of talent. No less than Sir Laurence Olivier called him "the best there has ever been" (I got that from Wiki). Now, I myself have not seen a great deal of Rooney's work. I haven't seen any of the Andy Hardy pictures that made him famous. But I have seen him in roles as diverse as the horse trainer in the wonderful film "Black Stallion", which he made in late middle age, and "Puck", in William Dieterle's adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", which was filmed when he was 14. So Rooney could do Shakespeare even as a kid. He could also dance and sing, and in that way he was multitalented like Judy Garland and James Cagney. Anyhow, read his bio on Wikipedia if you're interested. People my age may remember him as being in the news in his later years for all the wrong reasons, and there is no doubt he was a victim of his own excess. He was married eight times, but one of them was to Ava Gardner. To sum up, although I've only seen a few of his movies, there is no doubt that he was a very good actor, a Hollywood megastar, and a crash-and-burn celebrity all in one.

Read his Wiki just for the hell of it. As for "Quicksand", it was a solid noir with good acting and a nice plot twist involving Mick's two girlfriends (the good girl and the bad girl), but the gimmick of him getting in deeper and deeper trouble after stealing that first twenty began to wear thin. Still, it's recommended, and it has some great location footage from Santa Monica circa 1950.  /////  

Tonight's movie was "The Thing With Two Heads"(1972), starring former Oscar winner Ray Milland, who obviously needed a paycheck, and Los Angeles Rams star Rosey Grier, who at the time was also famous for his book about macrame. And he subdued Sirhan Sirhan, who didn't kill Robert F. Kennedy but was only a Manchurian Candidate. That picture would've been a much better selection than this one, which started out as a decent Cormanesque monster flick ala "The Manster", but then devolved into a Burt Reynolds chase movie, with the Rosey/Ray "doubleheader" riding around on a motorcycle for half an hour, in the hills of Agoura, the two heads jabbering at one another in a blaxploitation motif. About two dozen cop cars were destroyed in the chase, parts of which must still be embedded in the landscape. The viewer was left thinking that a two-headed director must've helmed this film, and it would've been nice if Sirhan showed up to end it early. But no such luck, avoid at all costs.  ////

See you in the morning. Tons and tons of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

"Cell 2455, Death Row" : The Caryl Chessman Story

Tonight I watched a true crime thriller called "Cell 2455, Death Row", an intriguing title that turned out to be the life story of Caryl Chessman, adapted from a book he wrote while in prison awaiting execution. Chessman's was a famous case, which was also made into a well-regarded TV movie in 1977 called "Kill Me If You Can", starring Alan Alda. Having developed a True Crime fascination in my teens, I knew of Caryl Chessman even though he was before my time. He was known as the infamous "Red Light Bandit" who haunted Lovers' Lanes in the L.A. area in 1948. When he was finally caught, and convicted on 17 counts of rape, assault and kidnapping, he was sentenced to death even though he never killed anyone, due to the prosecution's invocation of something called The Little Lindbergh Law (Google it).

But what made the Chessman case so interesting from a true crime standpoint was what happened in the aftermath of his conviction. Though he was a career criminal who had done time in San Quentin and Folsom prisons, mostly for armed robbery, at his trial Chessman swore he was not the Red Light Bandit. He acted as his own attorney, and though he lost his case, he learned a lot about law in the process. As a result, he was able, through appeals, to forestall his execution for twelve years, using only the law books and other legal materials provided him by the prison, in accordance with state law. He apparently was highly intelligent, which made him such a successful criminal in the first place. In addition, he wrote "Cell 2455" while on Death Row, and it became a best seller.

As a crime reader I only knew of him marginally. I never read his book and only knew the overview of his story. But the movie gives you the full picture (Hollywood-ized of course), starting in Chessman's childhood. He went off the rails as an adolescent, after his family sank into poverty during the Depression. His father attempted suicide and his mother was left a paraplegic following a car accident. With hardly any food in the house, he began stealing from grocery trucks. From there, he progressed to auto theft, and after that to armed robbery, which landed him in prison for much of his early adulthood. He has all the hallmarks of a career criminal, and as the movie begins, with the Chessman character's narration, we see that he wrote his book to try and understand how he got this way. "How did I end up here, on Death Row"?

The plot takes you through those steps, as Chessman looks back on his life on the eve of his execution. What you see - and what he discovers for himself - is that it was no one's fault but his own. If the movie is even remotely accurate, Caryl Chessman was a classic sociopath. Something was wrong with him from the get-go, and his crimes cannot be blamed on poverty or anything else. He comes to this conclusion himself, though to the very end he still insists he was not The Red Light Bandit. To admit that would have been admitting that he was capable of rape and extreme violence, and as a sociopath he wasn't able to admit it, though by the testimony of multiple victims he was clearly guilty. He was indeed The Red Light Bandit, and was a textbook example of an unrepentant, incorrigible violent criminal. The controversy in his case came from the fact that he was sentenced to death, even though he never killed anyone. He lingered on Death Row for a dozen years - a record at the time - and after using up all his appeals, he was finally executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin in May 1960. Governor Pat Brown had previously issued him a stay of execution, and his case made it to the Supreme Court of California. Later on, it was a major force in the anti-death penalty movement in California, which resulted in the abolition of capital punishment in 1972. The death penalty was reinstated five years later.

I used to have a viewpoint on capital punishment, but as time went by and I examined my thoughts and feelings, I came to the conclusion that it's not for me to say. As a young man (as far to the Left as you could get), I was adamantly anti-death penalty. Then I got older, and there came along a much publicized and horrible case in the early 1990s, the Polly Klass case. The accused in that case was clearly guilty, and I thought, "good riddance". I mean, I thought that about many horrible criminals, even when I was a Commie, but this guy tipped the scales, and it got me to thinking past the point of choosing a side based on my political position at the time.

Over the years, I've thought about it from time to time, though it is not something I dwell on. It's just that as I go along in life, I want to try and refine my thoughts, my feelings about things, to understand what I actually feel about something, rather than what society and the media would program into me.

And what I came to understand about myself, is that I cannot have a meaningful opinion on the death penalty. My opinion does not count, except maybe on the periphery, because I have never experienced the pain, which is beyond our comprehension, of having a loved one murdered. God forbid.

And not just the pain, but the sense of psychic dislocation, the horrific otherworldliness, of "this can't be happening"........and yet it has.

So I've come to the conclusion, even though as a Christian I'd prefer there be no more executions, that it isn't for me to say. Because it's never happened to me, though I know how I'd feel if I were in the shoes of the folks on the other side.

Which is to say, I don't know how I'd feel at all, except horrible beyond imagination, which is why I don't judge, nor have an opinion that I don't feel entitled to, on the cases of other people. 

Sorry for the grim report, but I felt the need to extrapolate due to the content of the film, which is highly recommended. The Youtube print is Blu-ray and razor sharp. //////   

That's all I know for tonight. Stay safe and well. Tons of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)