John Litel in "The Boss of Big Town", and "Bad Boy" starring Johnny Downs and Rosalind Keith

Last night's movie was "The Boss of Big Town"(1942), a timely story of rising food prices. In fact I tuned in for that reason, to see how "inflation" really works. I won't go on a tirade, but I love how the "news" media tells us that "inflation" is up 8% or whatever arbitrary number they give us. Earlier this year, milk in L.A. went from it's longstanding price of 2.99 a gallon to 3.99. That price jump was not gradual, it took about two weeks. At one point it went up another buck, to 4.99 (around August), and when the price gougers realised that was too steep for anyone, they "lowered" it back "down" to 3.99. Maybe my math skills have slipped, but I always thought that when you added a dollar to three dollars, you made a jump of 33.3 %. Tomato sauce went from 33 cents for a six ounce can, to 79 cents, a jump of about 140%. But I'm glad we're only suffering from 8% "inflation". Gee, if it was actually a lot higher than that, like 33% or 140%, I don't know what we'd do.

In the movie, wartime rationing is in effect. Good guy Food Inspector John Litel is approached by a price fixing Mafioso (John Miljan), who tries to get him to give preference to certain wholesalers, to create a product-by-product warehousing monopoly and destroy pricing competition. Litel declines and reports Miljan to the local DA in Central California, but when no prosecution results, he starts to wonder why. To find out, he ultimately goes back to Miljan to tell him he wants in on the scheme after all. He infiltrates the crooked wholesaling operation, and Miljan actually explains how "inflation" works, similar to the above description in which product distribution is centrailzed so that outside competition disappears. It's greed, Gilligan, plain and simple. Just like the housing market's rule of supply and demand. "We only have a handful of houses for sale in Southern California, therefore, we must charge a million dollars for each one." Greed, Gilligan.

We love John Litel, a straight-shooting actor who plays Nancy Drew's even-tempered Dad. As the last guy on Earth who could ever be corrupted, he's a leavening agent in any out of control crime flick. The trouble here is that the 65 minute movie takes 40 minutes to get going, meandering around a script that feels improvised at times, with characters making small talk to one another. Tight it is not. When it finally gets into gear and develops a consistent thread, then it means business. It would've been very successful as a 30 minute movie. Jean Brooks, a unique-looking actress who starred in the cult horror classic "The 7th Victim", has a pivotal role as the daughter of the crooked DA. We're gonna be generous and give "The Boss of Big Town" Two Big Thumbs Up, for it's topical message and the last twenty minutes when the plot gels. However, it's not one of PRC's better releases. The picture is soft but watchable.  ////

The previous night, we watched a cautionary crime tale called "Bad Boy"(1939), in which a nice young man, out in the world on his own for the first time, is corrupted almost literally beyond redemption, at first by his own naivete and later by his resulting cynicism. "Johnny Fraser" (Johnny Downs) lives with his widowed mother but is about to leave for the city to take his first job as an architect. "I'll send for you as soon as I save a few paychecks," he tells Mom, "and we'll move into a nice new house." Johnny's an apple pie sort, a total Boy Scout, but he wants to buy that house for Mom as soon as possible, so when his colleague "Steve Carson" (Archie Robbins), suggests a little pony wager on payday, Johnny - at first reluctant - takes him up. "You'll be glad you did, Johnny old boy. Triple your money, I promise!" Steve's as good as his word on that first day. He knows his way around the track, and does indeed bring Johnny back three times his investment plus a few dollars more. The next payday, Johnny throws in again. Soon, he's raking in the dough from horse racing bets, and the next thing Steve does is take him to a nightclub to celebrate. Johnny says he's never been to a club before. He confesses that he's never even been out on a date.

"Wow, really?" says Steve, who sees Johnny as an easy mark. "Well, let me introduce you to a fabulous girl". She's "Madelon Kirby" (Rosalind Keith), the singer at the club. Madelon is nothing but a lure; she and Steve are working in tandem, a couple of swindlers who sucker gullible types like Johnny. Madelon seduces him (she's his first girl), and now he's head over heels and deep in debt to keep her in the high style she's accustomed to. Soon, Johnny is gambling away his winnings, taking advances on his paychecks, and when his debt threatens to bury him, Steve convinces him to embezzle some dough from the architectural firm. "It's the only way out of this jam, Johnny. Then your luck will turn around."

Johnny skims the dough out of the payroll office, gets caught, and goes to jail. His Mom sells her house to bail him out. Free for the time being, Johnny tries to go straight and get another job, and he and Mom live in an old apartment run by a kindly negro named "Terry" (Spencer Williams). But no one will hire Johnny because of his prison record, so he looks up Steve again. Steve is now working for a Mafia firm called "Business Engineering, Inc." Strong arm protection. The boss there likes Johnny's new prison-hardened attitude and hires him on the spot. Pretty soon, the boss is killed in a hit, and Johnny muscles in to take over the company, pushing Steve to the side. Madelon comes back and seduces him again. At first, Johnny tells her to shove it (as payback), but in a montage sequence, she wins him over and they're married.

Now he's flush again, as the head of a leg-breaking firm, but his wife's a tramp who's still loyal to Steve. Johnny has his innate good side intact, and he's loyal to his Mom and Terry in a Christian way. Terry is now Johnny's chauffeur and right-hand man, and he doesn't trust Madelon because he can see right through her deceptions. For her part, Madelon hates Johnny's Mom, because Mom knows all about her affair with Steve. Mom also doesn't trust where all of Johnny's money is coming from.

Suddenly Johnny wants to go completely straight. He plans to get out of Business Engineering, Inc. and go back to being a legitimate architect. He knows his wife is cheating with Steve, and catches them trying to steal his life savings out of his safe. That's all I can tell you, but man is it ever a brutal story. You'll be rooting for Johnny all the way through. The character of Madelon the wife is so awful, you'll be hoping she gets bubonic plague. Mostly, you'll be rooting for Mom and Spencer Williams (a great actor) as Terry, for without them, Johnny would never have a chance. We're gonna give "Bad Boy" Two Huge Thumbs Up, but man it's freakin' harsh, I kid you not so be ready. The picture is very good.  //// 

And that's all I know. I'm almost back to 100%, thank goodness, and tonight I did my first full walk since December 1st. I hope you had a nice weekend. My blogging music is Schubert's Piano Sonata D959 as played by Wilhelm Kempff. My late night is still "Die Meistersinger" by Wagner. Maybe during the week we can find some unseen Christmas movies. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)      

Frank Albertson and Joan Woodbury in "Man from Headquarters", and "The Pay Off" starring Lee Tracy

This time around we have two Wisecracking Reporter flicks, starting with last night's "Man from Headquarters"(1942) which stars Frank Albertson as crime scribe "Larry Doyle", who as the movie opens is being recognised for his work at a ceremony hosted by his editor "Mr. Jonas" (Dick Elliott). Doyle's doggedness has recently led to the arrest of a major Mob boss, adding to a career of similar successes, so as a symbol of honor, Mr. Jonas presents him with a police-issue, 38. caliber revolver. It's his way (and the city's), of saying that when it comes to fighting crime, the press are as important as the cops.

Jonas is justifiably proud of his accomplishments, and his award, but he lets it go to his head that night while out celebrating with his cronies. After a few drinks, he starts spouting off and one of the things he says concerns Mr. Jonas. "Some editor he is. I gotta be honest with ya, boys; over the years I've found most of those stories myself. Jonas is a big blowhard, a do-nothing who likes to take credit after I bring in the glory."

Well, who should be walking in the restaurant at that exact moment but Mr. Jonas. He overhears every word Doyle says and confronts him at his table. "So, I'm a blowhard, am I? And after I honored you today with that award. Some thanks, Doyle. Guess what? You're fired!"

Wow. From hero to goat in five movie minutes. Doyle is stunned by the turn of events and bids his pals goodnight, then heads out, wondering what hit him. To sober up, he stops for a cup of coffee at a cafe, and while he's sitting there, he overhears the young lady sitting down the counter arguing with the owner about her check. It's clear she doesn't have the money to pay her bill, so Doyle quietly pays it for her. When she leaves he follows her, just out of curiosity and because she's pretty. She's still in a huff about the disputed bill and when she distractedly crosses the street, Doyle saves her from being hit by a car. Now the movie becomes a rom-com crime thriller. She thanks him for saving her life and introduces herself as "Ann Weston" (Joan Woodbury). Doyle offers to walk her the rest of the way home, but what he doesn't know is that he's being followed by two henchmen of the Mob boss he helped put in jail. The mobster's trial is coming up, and he's ordered his men to "get rid of" Doyle so he won't be able to testify. It's bad timing for Ann; since she's with him, they abduct her too. The henchmens' original plan is to shoot the pair and dump 'em in the harbor, but Doyle starts fast-talking them. "Don't you boys know it's bad news to shoot a reporter? Yep. My publisher won't rest until you're caught, and then you'll be fast-tracked to The Chair, double-time if you shoot the lady, too." The henchmen consider this, and one says: "You know, da boss just said 'get rid of him'. He didn't actually say 'kill him'. How 'bout we take him at da letter of his word"? So, to avoid the electric chair, they knock Doyle out, put him on a train to St. Louis, and tell Ann to beat it and keep her mouth shut "uddawise we'll come back."

Scared, Ann leaves for St. Louis herself, to find Doyle because only he knows what she's mixed up in. This leads to ten minutes of hijinx with the manager of a swanky Saint Looie hotel, who - when Ann finds Doyle there - thinks the two of them are shacking up. In those days, it was unheard of for an unmarried couple to inhabit the same room, so he tries to throw them out. It leads to Doyle needing money, and all he has left is the police-issue gun he was given as an award. He pawns it, which gives him and Ann enough dough to stay another week, and while they're in town, the headlines report a serial armed robber is on the loose. "That's it!" Doyle tells her. "That case'll resurrect my career! C'mon, grab your coat. You're gonna help me solve it." He's able to sweet-talk his way into a gig with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at a moment's notice, but later, when the editor is unable to verify his identity, this leads to criminal complications, because, well, I can't tell ya. What happens is that the Mob boss awaiting trial shows up in St. Louis, and to get rid of Doyle once and for all, he decides to frame him as the uncaught St. Louis robber.

"Man from Headquarters" works on all levels, as a light comedy, a romance and a multi-layered crime caper. Frank Albertson is particularly good at slingin' the newsie slang. He keeps the tight script hopping with extra zip. I've gotta tell ya, this movie drove me nuts for a while this afternoon, because I had a growing feeling I'd seen it before. It started when the movie ended, but at that point it was only about 5%. "Yeah, maybe not." But then today, the more I thought about it, the more I was certain I saw it, and by this evening before I started to write the blog, the feeling was up to 95%. It was so strong that I got out the notebook where I keep my gigantic movie list, and I started scanning the Youtube years (since March 2020, when Covid started), to see if I could find this title. And I couldn't find it, and it was driving me nuts. "I know I've seen this movie!" My certainty was based on the fact that Doyle pawned his awarded gun, which was then used in a crime to frame him. Long story short, it was bothering me so much that I started Googling search terms, like "1940s crime movies" + "gun" + "pawn shop". It got pretty involved, but I still wasn't getting a satisfactory answer, and then it came to me: Chester Morris as "Boston Blackie". I don't know which movie it was, but one of the Blackies had almost an exact same plot twist as the one that happens here. I double-checked it to  make sure, and sure enough, that was the answer. So I hadn't seen "Man from Headquarters" after all.

Good Grief, Charlie Brown! Two Big Thumbs Up, then, and a very high recommendation. The picture is slightly soft.  ////

The previous night we had "The Pay Off"(1942), another crime story styled after its star, Lee Tracy, who may have created the prototype of the Wisecracking Reporter in the early '30s. We've seen him several times over the years. He's older here, and his repartee doesn't have the snap of his earlier films, but he's still fun even at half-speed. This time, while shooting the breeze in the press room (in an opening scene that has him imagining the perfect murder mystery), his publisher calls him in to report that the DA has just been murdered. "I'll get right on it," says Lee, which he does, after five minutes of his standard Southern-accented patter. The DA's murder is first blamed on a gambler named Moroni, but he has an alibi: he was playing cards with Tracy on the night in question. Tracy's publisher is trying to turn his son into a reporter, so he sends him to tag along with Lee, and the son soon returns with a third ally, "Phyllis Walker" (Tina Thayer), the daughter of the DA who was murdered.

Lee puts the screws to Moroni, cause he knows he's keeping a secret. "You sat at my card table to create yourself an alibi!" Moroni tells him that the DA was killed to keep him quiet, because he was corrupt, taking payoffs to keep Jack LaRue's money laundering organisation out of the courtroom. LaRue, as always, runs a nightclub. He's another actor we love, he looks like he should be in The Godfather, but actually he had a lot of range and could play a variety of ethnic types of the era.

It's Lee Tracy's movie all the way, which earlier in his career would've been a good thing. Here, it's a mixed bag. 80 percent of the screentime and lines are his (for real), and when he starts doing his shtick it's almost like a solo performance, like he's a stand up comic or vaudevillian playing to the audience instead of to the other actors in the scene. When he was firing on all cylinders as a younger man, this worked well. Here, it makes the movie lag when it goes on too long, or when it distracts from the plot. The way it's done in "Man from Headquarters" is perfect. I actually chose "The Pay Off" for Jack LaRue, who I think is one of the best character actors of the genre. But LaRue's role turned out to be a lot smaller than I anticipated. I'm still gonna give "The Pay Off" Two Big Thumbs Up, for a very nice twist at the end, and because ya gotta love Lee Tracy no matter what. Tonight's flicks would make a great double bill, but if you choose only one, make it "Man from Headquarters." "The Pay Off" is still recommended, however, and the picture is very good.  ////

That's all for tonight. I'm feeling better, thank goodness, after a full week of getting knocked sideways by this respiratory illness. I went for a half-walk, just to get back out there. Maybe tomorrow I can do the whole thing. How about that Baker Mayfield comeback drive for the Rams last night? Incredibly inspiring. My blogging music is Kempff playing Beethoven. Late night is "Die Meistersinger" by Wagner. Stay well and have a great weekend. I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Damian O'Flynn and Helen Parrish in "X Marks the Spot", and The East Side Kids in "Bowery Blitzkrieg"

Last night's movie was "X Marks the Spot"(1942), a 55 minute early Noir that packs enough plot for a movie twice its length. America has entered WW2. "Eddie Delaney" (Damian O'Flynn), having completed officer's training school with the rank of lieutenant, has some downtime while waiting to be shipped overseas. He's been hanging out at a local cafe in town, getting friendly with the "record girl" on the other end of what I'll call a live action jukebox. There's a phone on it that you use to call and request your song. Eddie's Dad is a beat cop in the neighborhood. One day he comes into the cafe and the two have a chat over a cup of coffee. Eddie tells him that he's thinking about becoming a private eye when the war is over. "What, the police force ain't good enough for ya?" Dad jokes. They share a few more laughs, then Dad heads back out on his beat. Down the block, he comes across a group of men hanging out in front of a brewery warehouse. Several trucks have just driven in and the roll-up doors closed quickly. Dad recognises "Marty Clark" (Jack LaRue), a former bootlegger gone "legit" since the 18th amendment was repealed. Observing the haste with which the trucks entered, he figures Clark is up to  something. Once a smuggler always a smuggler. Dad sees the name of a tire manufacturer on the side of the trucks and thinks Clark may have moved onto a new racket, one that is even more profitable than running booze. Rubber was a precious commodity during the war; tires were rationed and brought more on the black market than alcohol during Prohibition.

Dad starts to enter the warehouse. "I think I'll just have a look inside those trucks, if you boys don't mind." Marty Clark shoots him in the back and he dies.

Eddie hears about his Dad's murder and storms down to the police station, vowing revenge. "Lt. Decker" (Dick Purcell) is sympathetic but tells him, "Let us handle it, Eddie." Then he says, "Hey, you're planning to be a private eye when you get out of the service. Why don't we work together? We'll catch whoever killed your Dad."

Eddie then gets a call from "John J. Underwood" (Neil Hamilton), the man who owns the trucking company. He's also heard that Eddie's an aspiring PI, and wants to hire him for his first case. "But I only have a few days before I'm shipped out," Eddie says. Underwood offers him a thousand dollars which convinces him. "I want you to find out who stole my trucks the other night. I know it was the same night your father was killed, and I think there might be a connection." Now, Marty Clark and his men got away unidentified in the murder of Eddie's Dad, but Clark, being a former bootlegger, is one suspect who comes to mind with the police concerning the tire robbery.

After okaying it with Lt. Decker, Eddie goes to Clark's nightclub "The One Spot". He's supposed to lay low, just observe who comes and goes, but he becomes furious at the sight of Clark dancing with a blonde bimbo as if he hadn't a care in the world. He's sure that Clark is not only behind the tire theft but is also responsible for his Dad's murder. He can't control his anger, but just when he's about to approach and accost Clark, the jukebox phone rings. These live jukeboxes are popular, apparently. The bartender picks it up, listens for a minute to the gal on the other end, then he announces a war-mandated blackout. "Do it, Joe. Hit the lights," Clark says, and all goes dark in the club. Next we hear gunshots and screaming, and when Joe turns the lights back on, Marty Clark has been shot dead. Joe happens to glance out the window and sees lights on in nearby buildings. "Hey, there ain't no blackout! That call was a fake!" Lt. Decker arrives and Eddie is unfortunately his one and only suspect. "I asked you not to pick any fights. Looks like ya went a lot further than that, Eddie. You shoulda let us build our case." Eddie has once chance to get out of this predicament, so he decks Lt. Decker and in the ongoing confusion, he runs out the back door of the nightclub. Now he's on the lam, and his detective instinct tells him to go straight to the building that houses the jukebox service. After all, the fake blackout call came from the gal on the other end. It was obviously a setup to kill Marty Clark. It he can find her, it can lead to the real killer which will clear his name. And all of it may lead to Mr. Big, whoever Marty Clark was working for in the tire smuggling operation. 

I told ya it was a good plot, and this ain't the half of it, because, once Eddie locates the jukebox gal "Linda" (Helen Parrish), the movie takes a romantic turn as they become a dynamic duo to solve the case. Linda tells Eddie that she had no part in planning the fake blackout call. "Some man said he was from the government, and I was to announce it over all our lines." She swears to Eddie that she'd recognise the man's voice again, and the last twenty minutes becomes a wild ride as they drive helter skelter all over town to find out who it belongs to.

"X Marks the Spot" has the kind of top-drawer script we rave about when we talk about packing A Ton of Stuff into an hour or less. It moves like a freight train with no downtime and never a dull moment, so once again we have Two Huge Thumbs Up and a very high recommendation. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

The previous night, we had a serious East Side Kids movie, "Bowery Blitzkrieg"(1941), in which a kindly police officer tries to turn a delinquent "Muggs" (Leo Gorcey) into a boxer to get him off the street. Muggs' pal "Danny" (Bobby Jordan) is already on the straight and narrow, going to school and living with his sister. But then Danny is knocked off course by a sweet talking hoodlum who drives a fancy car. He tricks Danny into being the getaway driver on his robberies. Now, Danny has a connection with Muggs' police sponsor, "Tom Brady" (Warren Hull). Officer Brady is engaged to Danny's sister (Charlotte Henry).

"Monk" (Bobby Stone), the slick-suited hood with the fancy car, puts a wedge between Danny and Muggs by implying that Muggs said some uncalled for things about Danny's sister, that she was pregnant by Tom Brady before marriage. Danny believes the gossip (which is false) and this leads him to confront Muggs and challenge him to a fistfight, which Muggs wins because he's an amateur boxer. But he also pays the price for beating Danny up by getting sent away to reform school. Monk has thus achieved his aim; he's gotten Muggs out of the way as Danny's old and trusted friend, and he's gotten Danny to hate the cops for arresting Muggs. So now he hates and doesn't trust Tom Brady (lol), the cop who's engaged to his sister. This leaves the door wide open for Monk to walk through and fill the void. Now he's the leader in Danny's life. He lets Danny drive his car while he rides along, but Danny has no idea, until his sister shows him a newspaper headline, that there have been a string of assault robberies at the exact date and time of those drives. Danny finds out too late that Monk is bad news, and Monk has him over a barrel as an accomplice in his robberies. It's the usual deal: "If I go down, so do you". 

Suddenly, the once straight-arrow schoolboy Danny is headed for a life of crime, seduced by Monk, while Muggs the former street punk, who's been released from reform school and is living with Tom Brady and his mother, is headed in an uphill direction, training for the amateur lightweight boxing championship, sponsored by the policeman's association. Muggs works his way up the ladder, winning his bouts, and then one day a low level mob goon sees him in the gym (Huntz Hall is his trainer) and offers him a thousand bucks to throw the championship match. Muggs tells him to stick it, but this guy "Slats" (Eddie Foster), is in debt to local Mafiosi "Dorgan" (Dennis Moore). Dorgan doesn't fool around; he's the kind of guy who'll "put ya in a bag and float ya down the East River." Slats knows this, so he tricks Muggs into throwing the fight. Or so he thinks.

Then a crisis happens on Monk's final strong arm robbery. Danny is driving the car, as usual, but right as Monk is leaving the store, Tom Brady happens to be across the street. He stops their car with the help of a delivery truck driver, then chases the two on foot. Monk tries to shoot Officer Brady but Danny yanks his arm away, and ends up taking a bullet in the process. Tom Brady shoots Monk dead, but Danny is near death, in the hospital needing a transfusion. Word gets back to Muggs that his old friend Danny has been shot and may not make it, and even though Muggs has a championship fight coming up in three hours, with the mob on his back to throw it, he stops everything to visit Danny in the hospital, then he volunteers to be his blood donor. It turns out he's the right blood type, and he finishes the transfusion with 30 minutes to go.

Then he heads straight back to the boxing arena, to go through with the fight even though it's dangerous for him to do so, as he's missing a pint of blood. But now that he's saved Danny's life, he also wants to show the mob that he can't be pushed around as he's sponsored by the police league. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Bowery Blitzkrieg". There's next to no funny business in this one, and the other Kids, including Huntz Hall and Sunshine Sammy Morrison (Scruno) play minimal roles. It's all Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan and their dual plot threads, tied together by Tom Brady who stages a two-minute drill in the fourth quarter, as usual. The East Side Kids take a dramatic turn and it's highly recommended. The picture is very good.  ////

That's all for tonight. I'm still dealing with the aftereffects of whatever that was, flu or Covid. It began last Friday afternoon, and as of now (five and a half days later), I've still got some respiratory tightness, congestion, and (worse), some dizziness. I haven't been on a walk since Friday, which is major for me. Don't know the last time in 25 years that I've missed five days in a row (maybe never), but this thing was very powerful and godawful. It does feel like it's coming to an end, though it's taking its doggone time. I can't wait to feel like myself again. My blogging music was Gong's "Flying Teapot". Late night is more Sofronitsky, playing Schubert. I hope your week is going well. Take no chances and mask up when you're out and about this crowded Christmas season. I send you Tons of Love, as always.  

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Bonita Granville and Frankie Thomas in "Nancy Drew, Detective", and "The Devil's Party" starring Victor McLaglen and William Gargan

Last night we were back with Bonita Granville in "Nancy Drew, Detective"(1938), the first film in the series. This time, as the movie opens, Nancy is hosting a meeting at her finishing school, to announce the charitable donation of a quarter of a million dollars from "Mary Eldredge" (Helena Phillips Evans), an eccentric old lady alumni. Miss Eldredge suggests some things the money could be used for: "A library, a new science wing, a scholarship endowment". The girls want to use it to build a swimming pool. 

The next day, it's announced that Miss Eldredge in the hospital with a dislocated shoulder. Nancy and her Dad (John Litel) find that very strange. Did she fall? If not, how else could it have happened? When they try to locate her they come up empty. Her business manager tells them she's in St. Louis. But how and why would she have been transferred out of town? Nancy isn't buying it, and when "Police Captain Tweedy" (Frank Orn) won't investigate ("'it's an old lady wit a broken shoulda!"), she takes it on herself. On her way home from school the next day, she sees "Ted Nickerson" (Frankie Thomas) and two of his younger friends practicing tackling drills in her yard. Ted, as always, is getting ready for football season and he's set up a tacking dummy in Nancy's flower garden. Needless to say, her flowers get trampled. She's furious, and Ted's signed on for another investigation as penance. While they are talking about the disappearance of Miss Eldredge, another neighborhood kid shows up holding a pigeon with a broken wing. Nancy and Ted take it in to care for it, and notice the little tube on it's leg. It's a carrier pigeon, and the tube has a message inside: "Bluebell".

After nursing it back to health, they look up the number on it's leg tag. Ted checks that number with the local carrier pigeon society and they turn it loose and decide to follow it in her car, on the off chance it might have something to do with the case. Of course, it does. The pigeon flies to the house of Miss Eldredge's business manager, out in the countryside. He makes an excuse that he's renting the house and the owner keeps pigeons. "I know nothing about it, sorry". But then Ted surmises that, because carrier pigeons are two-way, it must have a return destination from which it originated before it broke it's wing. Ted tells Nancy that pigeons fly in a straight line, and with a map, they select the general area from which it must have come. Then they rent an airplane (with pilot) and photograph an aerial map that shows a lone, large estate, set near a lake. Driving out there, they find an old, gated mansion. It's a sanitarium. Nancy and Ted get past the guard by using the message from the pigeon, "Bluebell", which they correctly assumed was a password. Looking in the front windows, they see that Miss Eldredge is indeed there, being held against her will. Her broken shoulder was the result of an escape attempt. It turns out that her business manager owed money to the sanitarium owner, who has a scam running where he tricks wealthy old ladies into moving into his "care home" (i.e. his nuthouse), then he drugs them and forces them to sign all their money over to him. When the business manager learned of Miss Eldredge's plans for the donation to Nancy's school, he made his own plan to have her kidnapped and taken to the asylum, so he could clear his debt. Then the asylum owner tried to take all her money and have her committed. Nancy and Ted come to her rescue and, as always, end up in more trouble than they bargained for. This time, they're held at gunpoint by the owner's henchman, who wants to shoot them "because they can rat us out". Nancy, thinking quickly as always, looks for and finds a way out of the situation (these always involve Ted getting clobbered). Another part of the formula is that Dad always arrives in the immediate aftermath, as a reinforcement along with Police Captain Tweedy, who Nancy has proved wrong once again. He always has to eat a plateful of crow while taking the bad guys off to jail. This entry has a very quick-witted script, even more so than usual, with many references to the number 2380. it keeps tuning up in lines like "I'll betcha 23.80 that...". I had to look it up and discovered that $23.80 was the weekly salary paid to WPA workers during the Depression. I also discovered that they made four Nancy Drew movies in all, which is disappointing because they should've made at least ten. But the good news is that we still have one more to watch. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Nancy Drew, Detective". It's very highly recommended, though the picture is quite soft. Hopefully there will one day be a restoration of all four films.  ////

The previous night's movie was "The Devil's Party"(1938), a top-notch crime flick set in Hell's Kitchen. Five street urchins have a gang called The Death Avenue Club, named for the end-of-the line environs of 11th Avenue. The club is led by adolescent Marty Malone, who organises thefts from fruit warehouses - strictly big time stuff, donchaknow. Hey, street kids gotta eat. The other members of the club are younger, ranging from about 7 to 10. Little Helen McCoy wants to join them. She's about 6. They tell her "no girls allowed" but she stands them all down. Now she's an official member of the club. Their next big fruit robbery is set up by Marty, but it goes down wrong. A night watchman is on the premises. Marty accidentally sets a fire that causes major damage. The other four kids escape, but the watchman hauls Marty in. A kindly police captain tries to get him to name his conspirators but Marty won't snitch. Thus, he is sent to a children's reformatory and, without their leader, the Death Avenue Club breaks up.

Now we jump ahead twenty five years. The adult "Marty Malone" (Victor McLaglen) has made something of himself. He owns a snazzy nightclub. But he hasn't entirely changed his ways. He runs a gambling racket out of his upstairs office, and he sells bootleg liquor to other club owners. On the night we meet him as an adult, he's about to host a reunion at his club for all his old friends from the kid's gang. "Helen McCoy" (Beatrice Roberts), all grown up and beautiful, is now the singer at Marty's club. The "O'Mara" brothers (John Gallaudet and William Gargan) are both cops now, and "Jerry Donovan" (Paul Kelly) has become a priest. Hey, what'd ya expect from an Irish Hell's Kitchen movie? Anyhow, the old gang are all successful in their respective professions, and - to the others - Marty is still their leader at their reunions, and he's the biggest success story of them all, the reform school kid who owns a nightclub. They don't know about his dealings on the side, and in truth, he's not a major criminal, certainly not part of organised crime. But on the night of the gang's reunion, he gets a phone call from a liquor client who bounced a check for 13 Gees. That's a lotta semolians. Marty asks the guy to please pay up, and when he tells Marty to shove it ("that booze you sold me was rancid"), Marty sends two henchmen to "persuade" the guy to pay. "But no real rough stuff," he asserts. "You fellas know how to do it." Marty is insinuating intimidation techniques (arm-twisting, maybe a broken knuckle or two), but the thugs wind up killing the guy.

Now Marty's in a jam, because the NYPD Emergency Squad is assigned to the case, and guess who's on that squad? The O'Mara brothers, Mike and Joe, and when they get to the crime scene, signs point back to Marty's nightclub. Marty chews out the two hoods who killed the welcher, but one of them is a sociopath. He isn't afraid of Marty and turns the tables on him, making demands to cover up the murder: "If I go down, so do you." Marty now knows this guy's a stone cold killer, which Marty is not. He never should've hired him for the check-bounce "persuasion" job. And now, Joe O'Mara the emergency squad cop, has evidence that could nail the unknown killers, which - if it happens - will lead back to his childhood friend Marty.

Even as adults, the gang has held onto their vows of lifetime blood brothership. It's one for all and all for one, but their loyalties are severely tested when policeman Joe O'Mara is tossed off a hotel roof by the psycho. The more his brother Mike investigates, the more he thinks Marty is hiding something, and the more Marty covers up his involvement, the guiltier he feels. Finally, he confesses to Jerry the priest, who wants to clear the air for his old gang once and for all. But when they find themselves cornered, the thugs that caused the problem in the first place kidnap Helen McCoy, to pressure Marty into denying everything. The onion skin plot ends up with a major robbery pulled off by the thugs, who force Marty to participate in order to blacken him. The robbery harkens back to a "play for keeps" version of the fruit robberies the kids' gang used to pull, only now it's deadly. The psycho is gonna rob a chemical factory and set off ammonia gas as a diversion. He's gonna use a gas mask to make his escape, but at the last minute he doesn't provide one for Marty, who never bargained for any of this. He should've just eaten the liquor debt.

Expert filmmaking all around, writing, acting and directing. John Ford favorite McLaglen gives humanity to the street kid delinquent turned financial success gone wrong. It doesn't get any more NYC Irish than this. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "The Devil's Party", and we've been having a fair amount of Two Huges lately. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

That's all for tonight. I hope your week is off to a good start. I was severely under the weather this weekend with what was either one of the worst flu bugs I've ever had, or medium-level Covid partially ameliorated by the original vaccine (I didn't have the boosters). I didn't have myself tested (couldn't get out of bed!), but whatever it was, it was no fun. And it's still going but slowly tapering off. It wasn't life threatening, so no worries, and the fact that I'm even able to sit up and write this is fortunate, because, since Saturday morning, it's been hard just to focus on anything but getting better, which I hope to continue to do, tomorrow and as the week wears on. Sigh. I guess I'll start wearing a mask again, in public, at least through the winter. Getting sick sucks! And with these new bugs that're being cooked up, or escaping, or both, man do they ever work a doozy on ya. I can't even imagine what the hard-core Covid victims go through. God Bless 'em, and let's beat this dadburned thing.

My blogging music was "Scriabin Recital" by Vladimir Sofronitsky (One of the three Gods of the Piano, the other two being Dinu Lipatti and Wilhelm Kempff). No late night music this time, but it'll return soon, I trust. I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

A New Chapter Serial: "Batman and Robin"(1949), and "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase" starring Bonita Granville and Frankie Thomas

Last night we began a new chapter serial, "Batman and Robin"(1949). I didn't know it going in, but this is what the TV Batman was based on. They wear the exact same costumes, they have Alfred the butler, they have a bat cave beneath Bruce Wayne's mansion, but it doesn't have an outdoor opening and they don't have a Batmobile. Instead, they drive a Mercury coupe that they park on the street! But there is a Commissioner Gordon and he does flash a bat signal in the sky. We even see the searchlight machine he has in his office. The sets are deluxe for a Sam Katzman production. The villain is some unidentified person called The Wizard. He wears a counterpart costume to Batman's tights and cape, which makes him look like a Satanist at an Anton LaVey meeting, and  he's plenty evil. In the first episode, his henchmen have stolen the invention of "Professor Hammil", a crabby genius in a wheelchair. He's developed a remote control radio device that enables the user to manipulate any moving vehicle within a fifty mile radius, be it planes, trains or automobiles. After The Wizard's henchmen steal the device, which has a mainframe about the size of Robert Fripp's effects rack, they bring it back - by miniature submarine! - to his mansion, where The Wizard discovers that it's powered by industrial diamonds. Because he's in short supply of those (in fact he has none),  the next job for the henchmen is to break into a diamond supply house and steal a lifetime's worth of industrials.

By now, Batman and Robin have interviewed Professor Hammil. One step ahead of them is ace reporter "Vickie Vale" (Jane Adams), who hangs out at the mansion. She likes Bruce, but wonders why he's always "tired" whenever she invites him out. "Bruce? Will you accompany me to the diamond robbery scene? I'd like to interview any witnesses." "Oh, Vickie, I'd rather not. All that excitement exhausts me. I'm going to take my vitamins and go to sleep." It's like he's using the old "headache" excuse every time. He has to do this because he's Batman, of course, and he can't be hanging out with her if he gets a call. But on this one occasion, they both are at Professor Hammil's place to question him about the theft. Bruce is there as Batman, along with Robin, so of course Vicky Vale has no idea who they are. After the three of them leave, we see that Professor Hammil has another invention, an electric chair with some kind of wavelength that reinvigorates his neuromuscular system. When he sits in that chair and turns on the juice, he becomes strong and can walk again. That should make him a probable suspect in our search for The Wizard, but somehow I think that's too easy, and the filmmakers wouldn't give us such a clue so early on, except to throw us off.

That's the end of Chapter One, and man is it ever good stuff, especially if you prefer the 1960s TV show over the current "Dark Knight" version, with its ultra bleak scenarios (psychotic violence; "The Joker" was garbage), and the thing is, the violent modern version may not be authentic at all. The filmmakers (those who came after Tim Burton) claim it is the original vision of Bob Kane's comic book series. If that is so, how come this 1949 Batman looks exactly like the TV version? And what about calling him "The Batman", as in the title of the most recent movie? Can you find one early reference to that? I can't. Well, screw it. I like Old Hollywood, not all the new stuff which is cynical, violent and disgusting. Have you seen the bus stop posters for a piece of garbage called "Violent Night", featuring a close-up of an ugly maniac grinning obscenely in a Santa suit? Yeah, that's just what we need in the world right now, advertisements that any kid can see that deliberately drag Christmas into the evil muck. So no thanks. Hollywood promotes cheap, immoral garbage now. But it used to be the greatest.  

Two Big Thumbs Up for the 1949 chapter serial version of "Batman and Robin." Sorry for the tirade but I couldn't help it and it needed to be said. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

On the lighter side, the previous night we had Nancy Drew again in "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase"(1939). We've been meaning to revisit her, ever since we saw "Nancy Drew, Reporter" last summer. Bonita Granville is so perfect in the role; she's the right combination of smart, exuberant, plucky, frightened and vulnerable, and she makes the perfect centerpiece to the supporting team of John Litel as her high-powered but ever-patient lawyer Dad, and her guy pal "Ted Nickerson" (Frankie Thomas), who acted as her photographer in "Reporter". Here he has a summer job as an ice truck driver while he's getting ready for high school football season. That doesn't stop Nancy from enlisting him in her latest caper, and of course she gives him the brunt of the grunt work.

Two old lady sisters are set to inherit their family mansion, which they want to donate to a hospital foundation. By a stipulation in the will, they've had to reside in it for the last twenty years before they could legally give it away, but they've only got two more weeks to go. Someone doesn't want this to happen, however, because the sisters' chauffeur is found dead next door at their lawyer's house. The snarky shrimp police chief calls it a suicide. The DA says murder. Any time Nancy hears the word "murder", her ears perk up and she puts on her detective hat, especially this time because she wants to save the old ladies' house for the hospital.

The first thing she does is break into the lawyer's house, where she finds a slug from the supposed suicide. It's from a German Luger. Ted's Dad happens to have a Luger souvenir from WW1, with extra bullets, so Nancy makes a scam call to his ice company, to lure him to a remote location (looks like Malibu when it was entirely undeveloped). There she test fires the Luger, to make a pre-CSI ballistics comparison with the slug from the crime scene, and she proves, by the trajectory of the bullet casing, that the chauffeur's death could not have been suicide. Now she and Ted are hot on the case. Once Bonita Granville gets going, she's like a runaway train. She's breaking and entering, sleeping overnight in basements, and anytime there's a risk of getting caught, she delegates the job to Ted. Her dad catches her at the elderly sisters' mansion after its been roped off by the police, and hurries her home, but Ted is still trapped in the basement!

Early on, a man storms into the Drew house and tries to steal the affidavits to the will. Nancy gets out of it by summoning Ted with an Ice Delivery request sign in the windum. Late in the film, she and Ted discover blueprints hidden in a secret cupboard in the basement in the mansion that show an opposing plan for the property. This reveals why the chauffeur was killed, and that's all I'm going to tell ya. But the fun is in how they make that discovery, through forensic trial and error. Nancy and Ted are a great team, and they got just the right actors to play them. Ditto John Litel as her Dad. We love Nancy Drew, and it's no wonder the character has endured through the decades, even with a remake as recently as 2019. One day we will have to check out the Pamela Sue Martin series from the 70s (or was it 80s?). With Jameson Parker Stevenson as The Hardy Boys. Great stuff and Two Bigs for "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase". It's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp.  ////

And that's all I know for this evening. I hope you're enjoying your weekend. I'm in between books, so I'm browsing a copy of the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas that I found at the library many years ago. Man, talk about some hair-splitting arguments! All kidding aside, the degree to which his reasoning ability is developed is astounding, and it's fascinating to read (very slowly) his deliberations on the theological proofs of God and other subjects.

My blogging music is the complete preludes of Alexander Scriabin by Dimitri Alexeev, my late night is still "Siegfried" by Wagner. I wish you an awesome day tomorrow and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)    

Alan Baxter and Barbara Shelly in "The End of the Line", and "The Phantom of 42nd Street" starring Dave O'Brien

Remember Alan Baxter, the actor who starred in "Submarine Base", which we saw and reviewed a week ago? We said he redefined woodenness, but there was something about him that made it good. We added that he took being wooden to it's ultimate level, and because of that, he was highly watchable. Well, guess what? He was back last night, and we may have ourselves a new Ron Foster, one of those actors you get hooked on for some idiosyncratic quality they alone possess. With Foster, it was initially his standout banality on "Highway Patrol". He took vanilla to it's highest level. Then, when we found him in movies, we discovered he could act, and he had a whole new set of qualities that made him watchable. Well, now we've got Alan Baxter. I had a feeling he might hook us, and now we're gonna have to go on a binge.

He was almost literally reading cue-cards in "Submarine Base", but last night in "The End of the Line"(1957), a Veddy Brrrrittish Noir in the style of Dubble Indemnity or The Freakin' Postman Rings Twice, he's really good, in an Alan Baxter way (which we're still figuring out what that is). He's droll, that's one thing. He's low key, but he's a ladies man. Here, he's an American playwright working in England, and he's got not one but two beautiful English Roses after him, one being the stunning Barbara Shelly. Baxter is kind of dorky, but handsome in an athletic, 1950's crew-cut way. He's not conventionally handsome, but he has a smile that the gals like. Even the beautiful English hat check girl at his hotel is checking him out.

Baxter's problem is that the hotel owner's wife (Shelly) is his old flame. Hello, Mr. Screenwriter! Thanks for the co-incidence! Shelly seems to want him back, but she's married to Mr. Moneybags, twenty years her senior, who treats her as his property. He's got a jewelry-fencing business on the side. Luring him with lust, she enlists Baxter, at first, to help her steal the jewels so they can abscond and be together.  Why the hell he isn't working on the play he signed on for is a real question. We never see him writing a single word! Also chasing him is "Ann" (Jennifer Jayne), a nice-girl stunner who's the daughter of the play's producer. She's young and naive and keeps turning up at inopportune moments for schemer Shelly, who has her jewelry theft all planned out, and of course she's got Baxter wrapped around her finger agreeing to do it. Move over Lana Turner and Barbara Stanwyck as chicks that get chumps to murder their husbands.

Well, Baxter pulls the jewel robbery, but he conks Shelly's hotel-owning hubby on the head in the process. The next day, Skeartland Yard does a murdalization investgation, and he is suspect #1, because he can't account for his whereabouts at the time of the killing. A private detective who's been following Baxter tries to blackmail him. The private eye was hired by the murder victim, who thought Baxter might be cheating with his wife Barbara Shelly. And, he was right! Now the P.I. wants a payoff to keep his trap shut, but then the Yard reports that the victim died by gunshot. Baxter didn't shoot him, he conked him! That means someone else did the shooting! (great googley moogley and Holy Joseph)

Baxter finds out, from Ann the play producer's daughter (who fancies him), that he's not the only extramarital guy in Barbara Shelly's life. Turns out she's got another lover, and she's only been using Baxter the whole time, to get rid of her husband. Barbara Shelly plays it gorgeous but ice cold. Nice guy dork Baxter wins in the end, and he does something weird throughout: he narrates the film like he's talking to himself in the mirror. "You could've just finished the play you were hired for. But no, you had to get mixed up with a girl who'd already dumped you once. Maybe now you'll learn your lesson." What kind of reference is that? Third person reflected? Hell, I don't know.

I can't tell you any more about the plot, once the Baxter blackmail attempt is set forth, but Two Big Thumbs Up for "The End of the Line." It's got style and a late-50s Be Bop Jazz score, and it's got Alan Baxter, our new Ron Foster. The picture is full screen and razor sharp.  ////

The previous night we had a clever Shakespearean murder mystery, "The Phantom of 42nd Street"(1945), starring Dave O'Brien of 60 minute Western fame as a Broadway drama critic who turns detective after finding a body in a dressing room. An actor has been shot backstage. At first, O'Brien mentions it only in passing to his editor, who excoriates him for ignoring what would've been a major story. "But I'm a theater critic, I'm not on the crime beat," he says in his defense. "Besides, it was only a murder. Those happen every day." As punishment, the editor makes him solve the case. The first thing he does is to go back to the theater where the murder occurred and ask about the guns in the production, one of which he suspects was the murder weapon. "Could any of them have been loaded with live ammunition?" No, assures the stage manager. "We only use blanks." "Yes, but is it possible that a live bullet could be substituted?" "Yes, it's possible." "Who handles the guns before they are handed to the actors?" "My assistant."

Remind you of anything? If you said "Rust" and Alec Baldwin, give yourself a gold star. In the above paragraph, I am paraphrasing verbatim dialogue from a 78 year old movie. What I want to know is: why would there ever be a time when live ammo is necessary on a movie set? Can anyone answer that question? Why aren't blanks used on every occasion (and blanks are dangerous enough, ask John Erik Hexum). Well, at any rate, live bullets certainly wouldn't be used on a thee-a-tah stage, so O'Brien knows he's got a murder here, rather than an accidental death. The stage manager offers a theory about the dead actor's niece (Kay Aldridge) and why she may have wanted him dead. O'Brien interviews her; she swears she didn't do it (but the cops think she did), and they team up to solve her uncle's murder. Then the killer strikes again, and this time it's looking like there's a Shakespearean connection. The clues are in the lines of his plays. English actor (and actual Shakespearean) Alan Mowbray plays the leader of the acting troupe. The lead detective wants O'Brien out of the way because he thinks theater critics are overarticulate Fancy Dans, and O'Brien shows that, as an actor, he may have some Shakespeare in his past (at least in high school). Most of the movie gigs he got were 60 minute Westerns, as noted, but he has more range than that.

The main problem with this flick, which is deft for a PRC mystery, is the ending. I won't tell you why. Just be prepared to hit the rewind button several times. However, Two Big Thumbs Up for the elan with which it's pulled off, and the nitwit blonde who shows up mid-way to add comedic touches. It's got suave, it's got Shakespeare, it's got thee-a-tah, it's got muh-dah, and the picture is very good. /// 

And that's all I know. My blogging music tonight is Mike Oldfield's "Hergest Ridge" and "Amarok". My late night is "Siegfried" by Wagner. I hope you had a nice day and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo   :):)   

Sidney Toler and Robert Armstrong in "Radio Patrol", and "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters" starring Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall (plus Jude Kessler's John Lennon books)

Last night we watched "Radio Patrol"(1932) a pre-code cop movie that follows a group of recruits through the police academy, where they are whipped into shape by their no-nonsense trainer "Sgt. Tom Keogh" (Sidney Toler). A very young Andy Devine, tall and reasonably thin, plays the big-hearted but dumb rookie "Pete Wiley". Early on, Sgt. Keogh recognises a recruit named "Kloskey" (Harry Woods) as a henchman for an out-of-town Mafioso. Kloskey is trying to join the force as a plant so the Mob boss can use him as a corrupting influence. Keogh roots him out and tells him his gang is toast, but they move in anyway, with a plan to take over the stockyard unions and the local protection rackets in the meat business. The street cops are encouraged to take a payoff and look the other way.

"Patrolman Bill Kennedy" (Robert Arrmstrong) does this. His partner "Pat Bourke" (Russell Hopton) won't touch it. He suspects Kennedy is on the take, but drops the matter when Bill keeps denying it. Then one night during a burglary call, Pete Wiley is shot and killed. It was a setup, but nobody can figure how the Mob was tipped off. Now his fiance is alone, and Officer Bourke is furious. The couple were, to him, like family. Sgt. Keogh, at the academy, has already laid down his Thin Blue Line spiel, telling the recruits the pubic hates them. "Even the honest citizens don't trust you! All we've got is ourselves, gentlemen." So, this theory didn't begin with Chief Ed Davis or even Chief Parker. It goes back to at least the 1930s, and probably to the beginning of policing. But Sgt. Keogh does insist that, no matter how stressed an officer is feeling, he must treat all suspects and arrestees with courtesy. 

Now the Mafia is getting bolder, and they're planning a late night break- in and robbery of the stockyard payroll office, which is loaded with cash. Unbeknownst to his partner Pat Bourke, Bill Kennedy has taken a two thousand dollar payoff to make a phone call to the Mob boss when the coast is clear for the caper. When it's in progress, he drives the other way, out of town, when he's supposed to be responding to the robbery call. "Smoky Johnson" (John Lester Johnson), a black officer, is knifed by a Mob hood in the stockyard. Now Kennedy feels guilty about being a paid-off cop. He confesses his sins to Bourke, and they go after the Mob boss and his henchmen. Prior to the ensuing shootout, Kennedy gets a radio call to go to the hospital. His wife is having a baby. I can't tell you any more than that, but this is a good one, super hard boiled for 1932, showing that crime was really bad in the early Mob days. There wasn't as much of the random psychotic stuff that we experience nowdays, and in that sense, crime is way worse now, but in those days, it was like a street war between the cops and organised crime. By now, organised crime has been corporatized and is committed at the legal level. There is no Mafia to speak of, or if there is, there are completely legit now, on peer level with the politicians and CEOs. The Mafia ain't John Gotti anymore. Trump is the last remaining holdout. The film is very talky, and the first 25 minutes veers between police academy training and domestic scenes with the rookies and their wives/fiances that show the stresses of being a cop's wife. But once the Mob plot develops, it's hard core, a raw look at policing in the 1930s. Brutal. Two Big Thumbs Up verging on Two Huge for "Radio Patrol". It's highly recommended and the picture is very good.  //// 

The previous night, we had more Bowery Boys (just Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall this time), in "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters"(1954). Leo and Huntz are hangin' out at Louie's Sweet Shop again, shootin' da breeze, when a baseball comes crashin' through da windum, conkin' Louie on the head. A cop hauls the kid in who belted it. He's about eight, and talks a faster Brooklyn blue streak than even Leo can handle. Louie is absolutely dumbfounded by the lingo and just wants the kid out of his sight. He forgives him for the broken windum and doesn't ask for money cause he knows the kid's parents are broke. Louie's a good egg at heart; he's got a soft spot for the folks in da ney-ba-hood.

This leads to a discussion about where the local kids can play ball widout breakin' any windums. Leo suggests a vacant lot on the edge of town. "It's owned by that family what owns the key-mih-cull factry. What's dere name? Da Gravesites, yeah, dat's it."

Louie corrects him. "Their name is Gravesend, but it's still too creepy for me. I've heard they're a bunch of kooks, but if you wanna go talk to them, be my guest." Leo and Huntz drive over to the Gravesend mansion in Leo's old jalopy. The door is answered by a tall, dour butler named "Grissom" (Paul Wexler) who Leo mispronounces as Gruesome. Grissom shows them in and they wait in the anteroom for "Dr. Derek Gravesend" (John Dehner) and his brother "Anton" (Lloyd Corrigan) to finish a meeting in their secret laboratory. The brothers Gravesend are Mad Scientists, working on an assortment of creations. Anton has an Iron Man, a remote control robot in which he hopes to install a human brain. Derek, the leader, has an ape in a cage named Cosmos. If they can procure a brain, Derek wants it for Cosmos, not only so he can perform the first human/ape brain transplant, but so that Cosmos will be able to think, and thus kill, faster.

When they are called out of their meeting by Grissom, who announces Leo and Huntz, the brothers take one look at the pair of knuckleheads before them and realize: "voila! The gods have spoken! Two brains at our disposal!" Now, they aren't good brains, mind you. When tested in a converted electric chair, Huntz registers a zero on the sub-normal intelligence meter. But Dr. Derek takes him anyway, to put his brain in Cosmos. "Maybe it'll make him stupider, with abilities we haven't thought of."

The Gravesend family has two other members, "Auntie Amelia" (Ellen Corby), who has a man-eating tree in the house that she keeps as a pet, and cousin "Francine Gravesend" (Laura Mason),) a sexy vampire who can't wait to sink her teeth into Hall's neck. Now remember, the boys have only gone over to talk about the use of the Gravesend's vacant lot, so when they don't return, Louie and two of the neighborhood hooligans drive to the mansion to look for them. But Anton Gravesend has developed a potion that turns Grissom into a wild, Rasputin-like maniac, and now it looks like no one is gettin' outta the place alive. The movie is thicker on Monster activity than it is on plot, but the Monsters themselves, and the sibling Mad Scientists are so well realized that it makes for another classic Bowery Boys spook show. It's fun to see John Dehner playing an erudite (but nutty) anthropologist and showing comedic range, as he mostly played Western bad guys. Ellen Corby is fiendish (and handy with a knife), as the carnivorous plant-keeping Auntie. She feeds it dog food when she runs out of people. The whole Gravesend gang is crazy, making the Addams Family look like the Bradys. A ten minute cut, removing snippets here and there, would'v made the movie perfect, but it still gets Two Huge Thumbs Up, because it's in widescreen, the picture is razor sharp and you can't beat Gorcey and Hall. Don't miss "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters". It's highly recommended.  //// 

And dat's all......(excuse me).....that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "The Songs of Distant Earth" by Mike Oldfield, one of the best albums of the '90s and one of Mike's best also. I finished "Shoulda Been There", Book One in the ten-volume John Lennon series by Jude Southerland Kessler. I checked it out from the Libe not knowing what to expect; a novelized version of Lennon's childhood and the early Beatles? But not only did it work as a novel, Jude Kessler knocked it as far out of the park as a Dave Kingman home run. Boy, can she write! You feel like you're right there in Liverpool, hanging out at The Grapes watching John drink Black-and-Tans. Now I wanna read every book in the series, but many of 'em are sold out and are expensive collectors' items, or are only available in Kindle, which isn't my thing. I've gotta have a real book in my hands, and I need these John Lennon books! The Libe only has the first one. Maybe Ms. Kessler will print up another run.

My late night music is "Die Feen" by Richard Wagner, conducted by von Karajan. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)