Notes on a popcorn movie, Hollywood Boulevard.

Opening lines can be tough.

They have to hook you in, make you want to continue the journey, and imply that the time spent won't be a waste. That's a lot of value judgment riding on a few words. Then there's a philosophical question regarding what is, or isn't, of "value". Further complicating matters is that the concept of what is of 'value' shifts. A divertissement on a mildly stressful day may have enormous value, but try one's patience at other times.

This week's shared motion picture experience was 'Hollywood Boulevard'. It had been my entry in a friend's 'bad movie night' competition. It wasn't the movie chosen to be screened that evening, but it did intrigue my friend enough that he asked to come over to see it. Perhaps my description of its content as relying heavily on 'guns and naked female breasts' had something to do with it. That very description reflects upon my age. When I was a callow youth (as opposed to being a callow adult)(ba-dum-dum), gentlemen didn't use certain words in mixed company. There is a much better description of the movie within the movie itself. The premise is the old standby of 'young girl goes to Hollywood to become a star', but that's just the opening line. Most of the movie is a send up of the low budget bottom of the triple bill drive in passion pit school of filmmaking, made by a company which specialized in low budget bottom of the bill drive in passion pit movies. In one scene, the star of such a movie (Mary Woronov) tries to convince the director (Paul Bartel) to increase the size of her part by changing the script to eliminate the other female characters. Killing them off, she reasons, will further audience sympathy for her character, whose suffering will then illuminate the human condition. The director replies, "This is not a film about the human condition, this is a film about tits and ass!"

Once upon a time in Hollywood, there was a low budget studio known as American International Pictures (A.I.P.). It was created in 1954 to make inexpensive movies which would be sold as double bills. Enter a new film producer named Roger Corman, who had a picture called "The Fast and the Furious', filmed on a $50,000 budget in 10 days. Distribution rights went to AIP after they promised Corman enough money to make two more movies. 'The Fast and the Furious' became AIP's first release. AIP turned out a series of schlock sci-fi atomic bomb monster movies, teenage hot rod rock and roll movies, beach party movies, and a series based on Edgar Allen Poe stories. It was also a training ground for folks who would later become major industry talent. In 1970, Corman started his own company, New World Pictures. New World continued the AIP style, made schlock, and did it on the cheap. In the process, they provided a training ground for more folks who would become major industry talent (the late Jonathan Demme, Ron Howard, Joe Dante, etc.), and added a pick up distribution arm for films by European directors like Fellini and Bergman.

'Hollywood Boulevard' was made on a bet. In 1976, producer Jon Davison bet Roger Corman that he could still turn out a movie as cheaply, and in as little time, as anything Corman had done. Corman took the bet, and gave Davison 10 days and $50,000. Twenty years had passed since 'Fast and Furious', and that amount wasn't going to go as far. Davison knew he would need to reuse footage from other New World movies. He'd made the bet in cahoots with the two guys who had been editing New World's trailers: Joe Dante (Gremlins), and Alan Arkush (Rock and Roll High School). It became the first directing job for both. The movie was shot on what used to be known as 'short ends', film left over after a scene was shot. Such pieces were saved and sold to low budget filmmakers. They didn't just purloin footage from other movies by the way, they also made good use of costumes and props from low budget classics like 'Death Race 2000', 'Battle Beyond the Sun', 'Big Bad Mama' (a personal favorite), 'Night Call Nurses', and etc.

Miracle Pictures. If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle.

The film opens with a hand drawn logo for 'Miracle Pictures', which turns out to be on the side of a van at a movie shoot. Director Eric von Leppe is busy filming a sky diving scene. He is staring at a plane overhead. His star, Mary McQueen, wanders by while stating, "Things are looking up." The back of the van opens, and a movie producer, whose name is only given as 'PG', steps out, adjusting his zipper. He is followed by a half naked starlet. PG wanders over to the director, complains that the scene being filmed is costing him a fortune and could have been done cheaper if they had used miniatures. He follows that up with one of my favorite movie lines, "Listen, remind me, I wanna pump up some more laughs in that crucifixion scene. More sex." Which prompts von Leppe to ask, "Well, which is it going to be"? PG replies, "More sex. It's cheaper."

The director, played by low-budget director Paul Bartel ('Death Race 2000', 'Eating Raoul', 'Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills', and the wonderful but rarely seen 'Secret Cinema') just happens to have the name of Boris Karloff's character from a 1963 Corman cheapie, 'The Terror'. That movie, by the way, was filmed on sets left over from a previous AIP production. During the credits sequence, the name of Jeffrey Kramer, the actor playing Miracle Pictures' writer, is seen as our heroine walks past a poster advertising the movie, 'Jaws'. Mr. Kramer's first movie role was as a deputy in that picture. He plays Patrick Hobby, which is the name of a hack writer in a series of F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories. The script for 'Hollywood Boulevard', by the way, is credited to 'Patrick Hobby'. The actual author of the script was Dan Opatoshu, a member of the writer's guild who could not be credited for his work on a non-union movie. He was given credit as 'Assistant to Mr. Hobby'. It's that kind of movie.

The bad jokes, the funny jokes, and the 'in jokes' fly fast and furious. There are cameos tucked in here and there; at one party, Forrest J. Ackerman could be spotted off to one side. Mr. Ackerman was the editor of 'Famous Monsters of Filmland', a magazine to which many of my generation, including myself, were devoted. I have heard that in one particular scene, in which a familiar looking creature is seen reading the script for 'Atomic War Brides' before throwing it into a toilet, future director Jonathan Demme played 'Godzina'. By the way, in an interview segment, Bartel's director discusses his upcoming project, 'Atomic War Brides' and notes, “What we’re trying to do here is combine the legend of Romeo and Juliet with high speed car action and a sincere plea for international atomic controls in our time.”

In the film there a production assistant named 'Scotty', a blond guy with an easy smile. The part was played by Jonathan Kaplan, who had already directed a few exploitation titles for Corman, and who would soon get serious attention with one of my favorite independent titles of that era, 'Over the Edge'. He would go on to direct 'Heart Like a Wheel', and 'The Accused'. Just as a by the by, one of the jobs in the movie he seems to enjoy is turning a firehouse on a bevy of starlets in a wet t-shirt contest.

Paul Bartel as Director Eric von Leppe, and Jonathan Kaplan as Scotty.

There's also a musical performance from Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, performing a somewhat indecent song. Playing the saxophone is Weird Al Yankovic. The group disbanded after filming their scene.  

 

Perhaps my favorite moment takes place at a drive-in theatre where our heroine has gone with her agent, and her script writing boyfriend, to see their finished movie, "The Machete Maidens of Mora Tau".

 

                        

The agent, played by Dick Miller, is named Walter Paisley, which was the name of Mr. Miller's character in Corman's 1958 beatnik artist opus, 'Bucket of Blood'. As the trio waits for their movie's debut, a scene from 'The Terror' plays onscreen. In it, a young Dick Miller talks with Boris Karloff. Seeing Dick Miller 1976, watching Dick Miller 1963, is worth the price of the DVD in my book. If you can get one - it's out of print. There was a very limited edition BluRay made form the master negative. Copies can occasionally be found on eBay.

(Blogger is acting up - above is Dick Miller as the agent Walter Paisley. Below is our heroine from   Hollywood Boulevard, Candice Rialson as up and coming starlet Candy Wednesday.)

 

There are too many jokes, and too many connections to mention here. As a movie, the film is the equivalent of popcorn. Not terribly nutritious, but a hell of a lot of fun.
 





Notes regarding Heroes and movies.

There are several things I should be doing, so of course I'm going to ignore them and work on a blog post instead. The venomous expression of politics, with its accompanying slithering about, have made Facebook and Twitter a fly over zone for now. You know, I've never been fond of that 'fly over' expression, as it seems to me to be a bit of rhetoric that seeks to be divisive; it has a pejorative built in. I will note that the non 'fly over' portions of the country are those portions of the East and West coasts that are home to those awful liberal 'elites' (i.e. "blue" on a political map). They are almost magical areas where sanity still seems to prevail these days. Those areas fare better in everything from quality of life studies to education, health care, happiness, financial stability, and generate a sizeable portion of the country's income. Which explains why the Trump administration's budget and tax plans seem to target those very areas. I don't want to leave that statement unsupported, but I shall for now.

From 'Black Sheep' (2006)

There are plenty of other statements I'd like to make without posting voluminous notes to support my comments. I could, for instance, point out that two of our governments' agencies which heavily influence the daily life and future of our country are the Office of Management and Budget, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The two men in charge of those agencies were both politically active in their respective states. If one were to take an honest look at the financial health of those states, the status of education in those states, the tax burden, etc. ad infinitum, one of the first things one might notice, if one can look behind the curtain of tourist and relocation PR, is that both states are financially distressed to the point of being referred to economically as "sinkholes". Their people are largely poor. Their educational systems are in disaster mode. These states are the bottom of our country's barrel. These men are regarded by the current administration, and their enablers, as heroes.

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. More than a gal with a sword.

A recent discussion with a friend raised the issue of the Hero, and the Hero's place, in our entertainment culture. I had finally caught up with the 'Wonder Woman' movie, which was widely praised and a huge financial success. While it was delightful to have the super hero figure be a woman, there was little else to differentiate it from any other superhero movie, and I pointed out in discussion that the movie simply substituted a female lead for a male. Kind of like the change of sex for the role of Hildy between the stage play and movie of 'The Front Page' to the remake version known as 'His Girl Friday'. The hero role being female was simply a change, it didn't inform or impact the story. 'Wonder Woman' had the same tired tropes as any other superhero movie. I should point out that I'm just making observations; no judgement on the product is intended. It is product, and that statement isn't intended as a judgement either. I found it to be an enjoyable and entertaining movie. I'm not trying to impose my thoughts or vision on it. You know, I hate this. I hate having to qualify every statement; in this case to make it clear that I have no problem with female superheroes, lead roles, or action figures. I'd like to see more of them, and I'm delighted that young girls (or older girls, or women of any age) can have female fantasy figures which might inspire their dreams and persons.

Gal Gadot as Wonder woman,  her sword placed as if it were...
umm, nevermind.

The discussion veered to the first 'Star Wars' movie, which I rushed to see on opening day after reading a review which linked that movie's themes to Joseph Campbell's books, 'The Hero With a Thousand Faces', and 'Myths to Live By'. Such themes reflected some of my interests, and both books had been influences on my thinking. Thoughts of a hero's quest have been rambling around my brain due to the movies I've watched these last three nights.

Sunday afternoon was spent at a younger friend's home attending his monthly 'movie night'. The idea is that there is a stated theme; each person attending should (if so moved) bring a DVD of a movie reflecting that theme, and give a very quick pitch on its behalf. Those in attendance write on slips of paper the name of the movie which most appeals to them. The slips are put into a hat, from which one slip is selected, providing the selection to be viewed. The theme this time was 'really bad movies'. The winner was 'Black Sheep', a New Zealand indy effort in which a flock of sheep become ravenous flesh eating killers of humans. It's got blood, guts, a middling implied criticism of money making science, a zombie or two, and makes particularly good use of sheep flatulence. Science, in this case, was a substitute for magical forces. The male hero is a younger brother with a phobia about sheep, who has returned to the family ranch to sell his interest to his evil and deluded older brother. The boy, in his journey, must confront and overcome his phobia, confront and overcome his brother, and become action oriented enough to overcome his nelly attributes to fight off the marauding sheep for the survival of the main characters and all of mankind. The girl hero arrives to expose animal abuses at the ranch. Her journey moves her from babbling about new age mysticism to becoming an action figure fighting the sheep, helping the younger brother to survive, saving mankind, and, of course falling in love with the younger brother.

Experience (Danielle Mason) and Henry (Nathan Meister) in the midst of a long day fighting sheep. 

The sheep(le) are out to get you , you know. Be warned.

John Wayne as Ringo.

Monday night, a friend unexpectedly had free time and came over to watch one of the movies I wanted to see and delete from my digital video recorder. We settled on the 1939 'Stagecoach'. In it, the male hero escapes from jail in order to extract revenge on three bad guy brothers who killed his family and whose false testimony put him in prison in the first place. His journey includes fighting to save the stagecoach from Indian attack even though a sheriff has him in shackles. The girl hero is less action oriented, instead proving herself as a caring, nurturing goddess despite being thrown out of town by the uplifter ladies league for being of questionable moral character in her choice of employment. The movie took great pains not to use the word prostitute, and greater pains to not state that another female character was pregnant. The hero, named Ringo, was played by a youngish John Wayne. The good-bad girl was Clare Trevor, who had top billing. The rest of the cast was character actor heaven. It's the kind of movie which keeps things moving in an attempt to distract the viewer from questioning some sizeable holes in the story. I could, and should, go on at length about the movie, but that will have to be its own post in that great someday in the sky. I'll just note this about one iconic shot - Ringo is first seen, standing by the side of the road, his shotgun male appendage held akimbo. As he walked towards the stagecoach, I noticed was that he didn't fill out his jeans all that well. Simply put, John Wayne had a saggy female pear shaped ass. Otherwise, he was the slightly nelly butch straight shooter who treated the good-bad girl with the respect that no one else could muster, save perhaps for the drunken doctor who was really Scarlett O'Hara's father.

 

Last night, another friend came over on the spur of the moment. We watched the 1940 'Thief of Bagdad'. (Note to the Turner Classic Movies channel: the print quality was shameful.) Sabu, then 16, played the titular hero. He spends a portion of the movie as a dog, due to a spell by an evil wizard. He also helps a wronged Prince regain his throne, helps the Prince save the woman the Prince loves, copes with an ill tempered genie, fights off a giant spider without falling into an aqueous pit inhabited by octopi, visits magical places, and triumphs over other similar adversities while fulfilling prophecy. For his part, the Prince is cut from the same sort of slightly nelly English male cloth as an Ashley Wilkes or Sebastian Flyte. He must overcome magical blindness, find his Princess, and defeat the usurper of his throne, the very magician whose anti-education, pro-punishment, rule by fear, power mad greedy attitudes starves the population, and provides the evil which engulfs several kingdoms. In this, the oldest of the movies being noted, the hero journey for the Princess involves staying out of the clutches of the evil wizard, and falling instantly in love with the Prince who speaks in poetic phrases.

Two of the movies involved Princesses (Thief of Bagdad, and Wonder Woman whose journey includes learning that she is the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. She is out to kill Ares, the God of War. In classical Greek mythology, Hippolyta was Ares daughter. The movie's comic book mythology avoids the potential complications of that one. In Stagecoach, One might make a case for the woman traveling to meet her husband being a Princess stand-in. She was a Southern Lady, which figures slightly in the Grand Hotel on wagon wheels plot. The girl in Black Sheep starts as a satirical take on new age hippie throwbacks and could thus be said to be a Princess stand in, but was otherwise just a modern gal who proves to have some gumption.



Black Sheep (2006) Experience got a gun.  



In a sense, three of the movies had magical realms;  Black Sheep's was the New Zealand farm in the countryside which left me wondering when the hobbits were going to appear; Wonder Woman's realm was an island protected by Zeus' magic cloud cover, and Thief was set in ancient Iraq's mythical period. If there was a magical place in Stagecoach, it was Ringo's ranch in Mexico where he and the good-bad girl could live in blessed happy ever afterness if only they could reach it. It was only mentioned, never seen, and not integral to the story.

In all four stories, the heroes overcome obstacles, and fight for their happiness, as well as the common good. All of them must deal with the sacrifice of friends or relatives along their journeys' paths. In all but Stagecoach, the heroes save the world.

Of these four movies, the only one which didn't involve magical forces was Stagecoach. Well, unless you count too many bullets, or killing all of your enemies in an impossible situation (the main event occurs off screen). This American myth has a wronged hero, willing to suffer the penalty of 'doing what a man's gotta do'.



The Stagecoach about to depart a rest stop, even though they know Geronimo is out and about.
John Carradine (far left), Andy Devine (holding the reins), George Bancroft (riding shotgun), Chris Pin-Martin as the innkeeper, Louise Platt as the woman traveling to meet her husband, Donald Meek as the milquetoast liquor salesman, Clare Trevor as the good-bad girl, John Wayne as the Ringo Kid, Berton Churchill as the thieving bank manager. 
Thomas Mitchell, who won an Academy Award for his drunken doctor, is not in the picture.

Now, let's go back for a moment to those two erstwhile heroes of the right, the men in charge of the nation's budget, and the nation's environment. They present themselves as John Wayne he-men out to conquer a world gone mad due to the ideals of those annoying liberals who want to feed the hungry, house the homeless, educate the masses, and provide health care in a reasonable manner. Needless to say, these men do not fit the hero myth. Their 'common good' is what is good for the power brokers who pay them, those who steal people's money, food, kingdoms, and who unleash unholy forces in the name of profit.

Conrad Veidt, the evil wizard of Thief of Bagdad, plots how to cover up his orange hair.
No wait, that's not right... Mr. Veidt played Nazi Major Strasser in Casablanca, and
the murderous somnambulist in the silent German expressionist classic 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.'

What we need these days are honest nelly heroes, their butch helpers, angry women, and pissed off teenagers to work together to rid ourselves of the usurpers of power, who prefer their people uneducated, sent off to endless wars, fighting each other at home for scraps of food, so they can't unite to fight the evil taking over the kingdoms. But that would be the old school hero journey, and involve magical help. Even the American West loner hero living by a moral code seems decidedly old fashioned now. Folks are counting on the investigation being held by Mr. Mueller as magical help. In so many ways, it's the same old tropes.

Time. Again.

This morning I'm a little hung up on the concept of time. Again. Which means that we've monkeyed around once more with its perceived linear construct for the purpose of Daylight Savings. These days, it's about the only 'savings' most people have. I waited until this morning to set my clocks ahead. For a brief moment, I considered setting them so far ahead that I'd have to deal with the Morlocks rather than the Trump reality show.

For those who have forgotten, or for the uninitiated, the Morlocks are creatures who inhabit a utopian/dystopian future in the H. G. Wells novel, 'The Time Machine' and its various subsequent radio, film, and television adaptations. In its future epoch, long after nuclear wars have devastated our planet, humans have evolved into two distinct branches. The Eloi live on the planet's surface enjoying -without work- a strife free existence of idle play, lush vegetation, and meals of fruit provided for them. Their only task is reproduction. 'Eloi' is the Hebrew plural for 'lesser gods' in the Old Testament. Think idle rich. The workers of this future have lived in the dark underground for so many eons that they can no longer tolerate light. They are the Morlocks, who tend the machines, and collect and provide fruit as food for the Eloi. Central to the story is a giant sphinx. This is more of a Greek sphinx that an Egyptian one. In Greek legend, the Sphinx asks a riddle. Those who can not answer it are killed and eaten. And therein lies the relationship between the Eloi and the Morlocks, who are, as you might guess, meat eaters.

I have the 1960 George Pal film adaptation in my DVR. I saw it at the movies back when it was released, and I've never forgotten it. In the part of the pretty blonde girl in distress (there was always a pretty blonde girl in distress back then) was Yvette Mimieux, who would be emblazoned into my consciousness in 1964 as the epileptic surfer girl love interest for tv's Dr. Kildare, as personified by the sigh-worthy Richard Chamberlain. The first episode of the two parter was called "Tyger, Tyger", a reference to a poem. I searched it out, and that is how I began reading William Blake at the age of 13. Surfer girl had grand-mal seizures, which was my introduction to such crises and attendant terminology. Also in the movie, in the part of 'best friend', was Alan Young. Mr. Young was quite well known to me, as he had been appearing on tv since 1958 as Wilbur Post. My father's name was Wilbur, so of course I was amused by this coincidence of nomenclature, and a fan of the show. The show was 'Mr. Ed', whose hero was a talking horse. Considering the movies and tv shows I watched as a kid, (which included action heroes like Superman and Zorro, do-gooders who wore capes and extremely tight pants) no wonder I was/am so fucking weird. (Sorry for the language there. I had considered the euphemistic 'fugging', which Norman Mailer utilized in 'The Naked and the Dead'. That tome was written in an era in which such words could not be seen in print without risking some quality time in prison. When Mailer was introduced to Tallulah Bankhead, she immediately remarked, "Oh, Yes. The young man who can't spell." As I often engage in battle with various spell-check and auto-correct programs, I am loathe to be the old guy who can't spell. At least my time at the computer isn't in the basement where I won't have to deal with a biologically acquired aversion to bright light while indulging in carnivorous pursuits. No, I'd be the Time Machine's narrator, trying to help the poor thoughtless Eloi survive. In my version of the story, the Morlocks are led by Steve Bannon.

I first recorded The Time Machine when it was last on Turner Classic Movies a couple of years ago, and deleted it after watching. That was before I got the video projector. When it was shown again last month as part of their Academy Award films run-out, I recorded it again. (It won for Special Effects.)
It should be noted that the lengthy set of steps going to the dome under which the Eloi eat and sleep were originally built for the 1944 MGM version of Kismet, which detailed fun with Muslims in old Bagdad. They were used every now and again, most memorably (for me) as the steps to a library on the Twilight Zone. By the way, in the Time Machine novel, neither the narrator, nor the machine's inventor, are named. In the 1960 movie, the hero is referred to as 'George'. Which was the G in H. G. Wells. Furthermore, when George sits in his machine in the movie, we see an engraved plate on the console which states, 'Manufactured by H George Wells'. In need of space on the DVR, I thought I'd delete the movie, but as I had only watched the Victorian era part of it via the projector, I decided to catch the rest of it first, which I did a few days ago. Seeing the various future sets, and noticing how cheap some of them were, there was no way I could erase it yet. It was just too much fun.

As it happens, there is a fairly recent entertainment trend of the last couple of years with which I've been intending to catch up. I first noticed it with a Fox tv series in which Ichabod Crane wakes up to fight the Headless Horseman, as well as various minions of darkness, in present day Tarrytown, NY. There are now three or four shows whose heroes travel around in time to solve whatever existential crisis is featured that week. I find it interesting that as vampires returned to being a bit passé, as zombies began wearing thinner than their ragged clothing, and as superheroes became too numerous and oversaturated, the problems we face are now solved through time travel. I should point out that one of the new tv shows, based on a 1979 movie, has a plot in which H.G. Wells uses his time machine to visit the present to track down a time traveling Jack the Ripper. I suppose in my mental casting for the ripper, who is out to destroy whatever he can, the part will be played by Stephen Bannon. Or maybe Stephen Miller.

"I'm not crazy, my reality is just different from yours."

It has been difficult to return to writing here, even to just jot random notes about the movies I've watched. It's not that I don't want to do so, and it's not the laziness of older age; I think my reluctance has more to do with wanting to protect what has become my own little bubble of sanity and security. Movies, after all, have much value as escapism. As the ad campaign for 'That's Entertainment' put it, "Boy, do we need it now".

Ticket Booth, Times Square, 1954. Photo by Frank Oscar Larson.

Last night, the anchor of the CBS News program introduced a segment by saying, "It has been a busy day for presidential statements divorced from reality". My cable box has the capability to 'rewind' whatever has just been shown, kind of like a videotape could be rewound to replay something, or instant replay on a sports program. I had to go back and listen to that introduction again. At first, it was because I couldn't believe the anchor, Scott Pelley, had actually said it. Then I watched it again to savor the moment. And a third time to accurately note the wording of the quote. Frankly, I'm still amazed. It's not something I ever expected to hear on a news report. Certainly not on one of the major networks, and certainly not on CBS, once the center of great reporting by journalists like Edward R. Murrow, and Walter Cronkite, now fallen on the same hard times that beset most news departments under the purview of their networks' entertainment divisions. It would seem that even CBS News has had enough. The sad thing is that most people probably don't realize how important and unprecedented it was to make that statement.

 It is snowing at the moment. It is, as a voice somewhere in the back of my head would put it, "coming down at a pretty good clip". I don't have a particularly wonderful view; Putney Road gets a lot of traffic as it's the main artery going north to the land of shopping malls, empty stores, pizza joints, supermarkets, discount palaces, auto parts, and fast food. A couple of old mid 19th century mansions, once the homes of the local gentry, are in evidence peeking out from under trees, and from behind hedges of evergreen. Even with the traffic, it is still mesmerizing, calling forth the little boy still trapped somewhere within. It's probably the boy who is so entertained by the movies. Certainly the movies lead me to reading a number of books which became favorites. I often bemoan my books being in storage, but I suppose it's better that way. Just before they all got packed into boxes for the trip to a friend's early 18th century barn, I had to sell off quite a few of my best, my favorites, my - yes, friends. It was during a period of unemployment uncertainty and had to be done to raise the necessary emollient for modern life. I don't quite know what I still have left. I would be crushed to discover I sold my Compleat Sherlock Holmes, my annotated copies of Dickens, my reference edition (including manuscript) of 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking-Glass'. The Alice books have been on my mind a lot recently.

The quote which serves as the title for this post is from one of the Alice's. With the beauty of the falling snow visible before me, the image of falling down a rabbit hole into a world of nonsense seems a fit metaphor for the current political situation in these United States. I've occasionally railed against the present unpolitic politic on Facebook, which does not lend itself to writing of more than a few sentences. People seem to read a paragraph or so and move on. People post links to articles with wildly exaggerated headlines they think bolsters their reality, without having read the accompanying story. Only liberals and reporters seem to be bothered by statements which stress "alternative facts", as noted by one of President The Donald's hench spokespeople. I could go on and on, but I don't want to at the moment. I'm feeling peaceful while looking at falling snow, and such moments of peace are few and far between just now.

I'll try to force myself to come back later, or tomorrow, to make a few notes about some of the movies I'm already beginning to forget. After all, tomorrow is another day. (cue swelling music)

Harness My Zebras

"Harness my zebras - gift of the Nubian King."
So sayeth Mary of Magdala, who was a bit miffed that her fave hunk was off gallivanting around the countryside with some carpenter.
Oh, the shame.

Which means that the big old fashioned Hollywood epics have been showing again somewhere in the recesses of memory, as well as on the tv, and on my wall. That video projector I gave myself for Christmas has reignited my on again off again affair with one of my first loves, the Hollywood movie; as well as the offshoot subgenre, the Hollywood Movie Spectacular (usually with special effects for things like giant apes, cataclysms, flying carpets, various and sundry miracles, etc.).

A little over a week ago, my attempt to gain useable space in my DVR resulted in watching the 1924 silent version of 'The Thief of Bagdad'. I have the 1940 version waiting as well, he bragged with a happy feeling that found visible expression in a sly smile of delight. It's been years since I've seen either. The silent version is a sort of major Hollywood studio super colossal big budget auteur epic. Produced by its star, Douglas Fairbanks, the director's credit is given to Raoul Walsh but it was Fairbank's project all the way. (He wrote the script under a pseudonym.) The releasing studio was United Artists, which had been formed a few years earlier to give greater artistic control of its product (and, needless to say, financial participation) to its principals; Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford (Mrs. Fairbanks at the time), Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith.



How big is that set? See along the bottom area of the picture? Those little forms are actors.

The sets, among the largest ever built, were constructed for Fairbanks' 1922 production of 'Robin Hood', and said to be 10 stories in height. They were redesigned into an art nouveau Bagdad by William Cameron Menzies. The walls of old Bagdad were later re-used for the gate to King Kong's part of Skull Island. The set was ultimately burned to ashes as a stand in for Atlanta in 'Gone With the Wind'. Those scenes of that particular epic, by the way, were directed by William Camron Menzies. It is said that among the old sets burned for 'GWTW' were parts of a set used in the silent 'King of Kings'. I have not yet figured out if the silent movie Jerusalem was another redressed variation of Nottingham/Bagdad revisited or just how the 'King of Kings' (via DeMille and Paramount studios) got into that conflagration. When I was in my teens, I read that the Kong gates were originally from the Babylon set of the 1916 epic 'Intolerance'. I've since read that the Intolerance sets, which were left standing after filming ended (i.e. the money ran out) were taken down in 1919. I guess Hollywood history is a lot like Hollywood versions of history. A major shopping center, which includes an 'event' theatre (where tv shows like the Academy Awards are staged) now sits on the site that was once ancient Babylon (at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenues in Los Angeles), while Nottingham castle/Bagdad (and maybe Jerusalem) were at Santa Monica Blvd. and North Formosa Avenue, several blocks to the southwest. 


Nottingham Castle on the Pickford-Fairbanks lot.



Two years after the set was built for Robin Hood, it became Bagdad.

 

As a by the by kind of thing, Pickford and Fairbanks had purchased the former Jesse Hampton studio for their productions. It later became the United Artists lot. In the sound era, Joseph Schenck and Samuel Goldwyn filmed there, adding offices and sound stages for productions like 'Wuthering Heights'. The dual ownership status became a problem after the land and studio buildings were left to various inheritors. The courts, in settling the various claims and lawsuits, forced a sale. For a time it was owned by Warner Bros. An independent rental facility known as "The Lot" now occupies part of old Bagdad. Other parts of the former Pickford-Fairbanks studio are now used for an apartment house, a water processing plant, and various retail stores. Among the productions which filmed there are "The Best Years of Our Lives", "The Bishop's Wife", the Roy Rogers tv show, "Guys and Dolls", "Some Like It Hot", 'The Apartment",. "West Side Story", "Apocalypse Now", and in some odd turn of fate, "Robin Hood - Men in Tights".

 

The Fairbanks 'Thief' is a heck of a lot of fun, but it is definitely best seen on as big a screen as possible. Camera positions constantly shift from intimate close-ups of the principals to shots intended to show the enormity of the sets; human figures are so dwarfed in some shots that one might assume the humans were miniatures. They weren't - the sets were that big. It doesn't help that the aspect ratio is assumed to be 1.33:1 (which is what is listed on the Internet Movie Database). At the time, a 1:1 ratio was common. Printing the film (or showing it) using 1:33:1 thus cuts off a small portion of the frame. Usually, it is the top of the frame that goes missing in such situations. With the Fairbanks Thief, however, the height is kept for effect, while the bottom of the picture frame is impacted. For example - in the shot below the thief, while trying to become worthy of the hand of a Princess, is tempted by sirens in a scene of only a few seconds duration, part of a larger underwater sequence.

The set for this scene took months to build - the art nouveau seaweed and jellyfish were made of cut glass.

Sadly, the bottom of the picture is cut off - I assume due to the wrong aspect ratio being used.

The art nouveau design definitely creates a texture  and feel that is different from all other film versions of the tales. It's old Bagdad in context of a slightly fevered Maxfield Parrish dream. I have read that Fairbanks initially wanted to hire Parrish to do the design work. Here's one of William Cameron Menzies sketches, part of a set he produced in a weekend's time to persuade Fairbanks to hire him.

 

Fairbanks was around 40 when production work began, and while he still looked pretty good, and wore costumes that accented his (ahem) assets, he was getting a little long in the tooth for such roles. Still, he had a field day jumping and dancing around enemies and situations with the abandon of his younger self. Most of the time it's a most enjoyable and naturalistic performance, marred only on a couple of occasions by old silent film pantomime techniques such as scratching the palm or grasping at the air to denote the thief's desire to obtain something for his own. It's not that such actions spoil any of the proceedings, it's more that such things are so startling in otherwise fluid storytelling that they become minor distractions.

 

 

The storyline rambles all over the place in a most delightful fashion as our hero undergoes transformation and various quests. (Well what did you expect? What good are heroes without quests?) Along the way are rival suitors, a hiss-able villain (an evil Mongol prince), descents into brutality (the whipping of a man over a minor bit of thievery, and a later whipping of the titular thief), dragons and other monsters (my favorite being a giant underwater spider), valleys of fire, a crystal ball, flying horses, flying carpets, armies from grains of sand - so much in fact that viewers have a tendency to offer audible gasps of astonishment, and mutter "What now?" or "You gotta be kidin' me" in sympathy with our hero as he approaches his next challenge.

The whipping of a small time thief

 

 Taking on an attacking underwater spider (from an untinted print)

 

 

 The Mongol villain (boo- hiss) (the following inter-title gives an idea of his evil ways)

 

 

 

 

The print shown on the Turner Classic Movies channel was easily the best quality I've seen on this title, made up from two sources, from what I gather. The tints seem slightly strong when viewed television sized, but blown up in projection are subtle, lovely, and add much to the atmosphere. This version had an orchestral score which utilized themes from Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. From a quick look online I did a month or two ago, there are (I think) two versions out there on DVD/BluRay which have orchestral scores - one using a small orchestra in a reading of the original score sent to theatres (which used Rimsky-Korsakov) and the version I'm writing about which came form the Cohen group which has a Carl Davis score, which also utilizes the Rimsky-Korsakov themes.

When originally shown in the big city theatres, Fairbanks had the various movie palaces scented with perfumes, with extra atmospherics provided by performers who chanted the call to prayer, costumed to enhance an Oriental mood.

It was also fun to watch both the silent 'The King of Kings' (1927), and the sound 'King of Kings' (1961) later in the same week. I'd quite forgotten the physical brutality of the first part of the Nicholas Ray version. This time around, I kept noticing that playing Jesus Christ got a little iffy for the actors involved, as both productions are short on character development. Just the same, the silent version (as noted at the link above) opens with the zebra drawn chariot, and ends with the resurrection as the world explodes into two strip technicolor as though we have all landed in Oz. I saw the 1961 version in 70mm Super Technorama back when. (Super Technorama was an anamorphic widescreen process using film exposed to run through the projector in a vertical manner rather than horizontal - similar to Todd-AO. The idea was to provide widescreen without using lenses which could adversely affect the image. So of course they added anamorphic lenses to it.) When I first saw it, I thought it dwelled too much on the politics of the time, and wanted it to get on to miracles and stuff. Nowadays the political parts seem to go by rather quickly (Barabbas is a revolutionary plotting the overthrow of the Roman state in Judea). (There was, by the way, another movie released in 1961 with Anthony Quinn as "Barabbas". My memory of it is not clear, but clear enough that I no desire to refresh my memory of it.) Plus, the 1961 version has that glorious Miklós Rózsa score - one feels sanctified just by listening to it.

Last night I finally caught up with the Bing Crosby "Pennies From Heaven". I've got company coming, so I'll have to make reference notes later - along with notes on several other movies I've watched recently, either for the umpteenth time, or for the first, i.e. "Boyhood", "The Third Man", "Mark of the Vampire", the 1929 "Bulldog Drummond", "Dracula A.D. 1972" (and "Dracula, Prince of Darkness"), the 1933 "Alice in Wonderland", and a few others I am embarrassed to admit I can't think of at the moment. Hopefully, I'll remember what I wanted to note.

 

 

 


A little extra and the Bishop's wife

I pay a little extra to the cable company to have a cable box with DVR, digital video recording.

I could write more than a few posts deriving from that one sentence. The cable company's rate structure and business model makes me think of modern day pirates. The quality of digital recording is excellent, and it records in high definition if one has that service - I pay a little extra for that, too. Why I should have to pony up more money for high def in a world in which high def became the broadcast standard some years ago has not been explained. Did I use the word 'pirates' yet? There is a problem, of course. (Isn't there always?) The box fills up with recordings, at which point programs and movies have to be deleted to make way for new items of interest.

I record a lot of movies, mostly from the classic movie channel. You know, the one that I was fortunate to get when it was part of a special deal? Otherwise, I'd have had to pay a lot extra for an entire service level of sports channels which I would never watch in order to get the one non-sports channel in that package, i.e. the classic movies channel. Did I use the word 'pirates' yet?

Well, anyway, since I gave myself that relatively inexpensive video projector for Christmas, I've been watching a couple of movies just about every week. The way I currently have things set up, the old Hollywood style projected picture is about 5 feet wide, and a little under 4 feet in height. Widescreen, well at least the tv version of it, is over 6 feet in length. In my small-ish space, I could reorient things and get a much larger picture, but my current method allows for a guest or two without totally rearranging the furniture.

Last night, I finally caught up with "The Bishop's Wife". For some reason or other, I'd never seen it. It's another of those movies with a somewhat messy history. Produced by Samuel Goldwyn using facilities at MGM, it was distributed by RKO, and somehow ended up looking like it might have been filmed at Paramount. The story told of a somewhat fastidious Bishop who had become so focused on the task of raising money for a cathedral that he was ignoring his wife and daughter, as well as the needs of parishioners. Heavenly intervention arrives in the form of a rather rakish angel. Goldwyn became so dissatisfied with the dailies he called a halt to production, replaced the director, had changes made to the sets as well as the script, and changed one important bit of the casting. The role of the Bishop was played by Cary Grant, the Angel was played by David Niven. During the hiatus, the director and Goldwyn decided that the roles should be reversed. Grant was allegedly not very happy with this turn of events. The story has changed over the years, however, so that now it is said that the change in roles was Grant's idea and it was Niven who was unhappy. (Niven was at a low point during the filming. His wife was injured in a fall and died from ensuing complications leaving him with two young sons to raise.) However the change happened, both men gave excellent performances in their new roles. Loretta Young does a decent job as the Bishop's wife, suffering neglect with admirable restraint, but was not quite as inspired in her performance as her co-stars.


One of the stories from the set told of a day the director had trouble with both Mr. Grant and Ms. Young. They each insisted that for one particular scene, they be photographed from their "good side". The only problem was that they both favored the same side. The director filmed the scene with the two stars standing side by side looking out a window. Mr. Goldwyn was not happy. The next day he confronted the director and the stars on the set. After having the situation explained to him, he is said to have remarked that if he was only going to get a shot with a half of the stars faces, then they would only get half of their salaries. There were no further such demands.

The rest of the cast was rounded out with instantly recognizable character actors. Well, instantly recognizable for anyone of my age, or for inveterate moviegoers. I especially liked Monty Woolley in the role of a history professor, and Gladys Cooper as the rich widow funding the cathedral. Elsa Lancaster had been cast in a maid's role, but had to withdraw due to other commitments. During the production delay, she finished up her other role and ended up replacing her replacement who had to exit due to commitments of her own. Two of the young players in the previous year's holiday picture, "It's a Wonderful Like" are in the cast - the fellow who played the young George Bailey, and the young lady who played ZuZu of the petals.

Although the film got glowing reviews, it didn't do a lot of business at the box office. Under the theory that the title made people think it was a religious story, the advertising was changed (and in some markets the name of the picture as well) to read "Cary and the Bishop's Wife!" In those markets, the box-office increased 25%.



It's easy to see why it became a Holiday classic back in the days when movies were regularly shown on broadcast tv. A charming sort of romantic comedy, there's Christmas shopping, snow scenes, and a tad of religion. In once scene, Cary Grant plays a harp in the home of the rich widow. The melody became popular, acquired a set of lyrics, and became a minor hit for Nat King Cole as "Lost April".

Most of the movies currently on my DVR are old favorites which I haven't seen in many years. I'm running out of movies I've recorded that I haven't seen. Soon I'll be watching a number of old favorites which I haven't seen in a long, long time. I'm still surprised I spent the money for the projector (it cost about the same as my 16mm print of Casablanca, purchased in 1975 or so). All the little extras I've spent which used to make me feel slightly guilty over the expense incurred have made this possible; it has turned out to be more rewarding than I ever imagined.

Once more, Dear Friends, unto the Holiday breech

Yet another attempt at this post (my third)  - Blogger is misbehaving. Word wrap vanished into the sub-electronic ether. Certain words seem to be acting as control codes. Typing after the end of a sentence seems to produce no result. If this continues, Blogger will get a few lumps of coal in its Christmas stocking.

And now (drum roll) the paragraphs it took half an hour to produce, thanks to the magic of cut and paste (cymbals clash):

Well.

It's 55 degrees Fahrenheit outside on the day before Christmas. This is not the usual December weather for Vermont. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Vera Ellen, and Danny Kaye singing, "snow, it won't be long before....". Fat chance. The lyric, by the way, is from the movie "White Christmas". Not this year.

The egg nog, which takes about five hours to make, is now at the stage where it is 'resting' for about three hours in the refrigidaire. (It's the olde Joie de Cuisiner recipe I favour, and contains a somewhat Bibo Vocatus component.) (I am tempted to add a polite "heh, heh", but considering the season, that appellation should really be a "ho, ho, ho", which won't be quite accurate until I've had a few cups of
ye old recipe.)

Hooray, the blogger problem seems to be over. Perhaps there was a site update underway when I started writing. I just popped in to post last Saturday's radio show:

 

Holiday music is an interesting phenomenon. For the first thousand or so years, all the big songwriters did what anyone trying to make a living would do - they went where the money was. Which means that they wrote for the Church. My interest is in the American Pop Song form, which came along much later. While there were a couple of tunes making the rounds in the 1930's, songs like "Jingle Bells", and "Winter Wonderland", Christmas pop didn't really hit the big time until December of 1941. Oh, Irving Berlin had given the idea a shot in the late 1930's with "Hello Mr. Kringle", which was recorded by Kay Kyser, but there wasn't a lot out there unless you wanted to hear Bing's 1935 'Adeste Fideles', with 'Silent Night' on the flip side. (By the way, the Silent Night used an Irish men's chorus and is really quite lovely. Bing recorded the song several times, starting in 1928 with Paul Whiteman. The 1935 release was held up for awhile, as Bing did not wish to profit from a spiritually aligned piece of music. It was released after the label agreed to donate the proceeds to a charity. )

 

In 1940, Irving Berlin sold an idea to Paramount Pictures. As part of the package, he would write all the music for a story about an Inn (with a floorshow, naturally) which would only be open on holidays. Paramount assigned the leads to Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. Early in 1941, Berlin composed what would become the biggest selling single of all time. No one really recognized what they had at first, "Be Careful It's My Heart" was expected to be the big hit.

 

On December 7th, 1941, the United States was brought into the Second World War by the bombing of the US fleet at Pearl Harbor and Guam. That Christmas day, Bing introduced the song on the Kraft Music Hall radio program, which he hosted. 'Holiday Inn' was released in August of 1942. The almost mythical imagery of a New England winter struck a chord in a nation at war. By that October, "White Christmas" had become the most popular song on the charts, and it stayed there through January of 1943. It was so popular, Decca wore out the original masters and called all the parties back into the studio to recreate the recording five years later.

 

'Holiday Inn" would go on to inspire a chain of motels, and a remake released in 1954. That version, "White Christmas", was released in VistaVision and Technicolor. It almost didn't get made - after the death of his wife, Crosby withdrew to spend more time with his troubled sons. Fred Astaire was unhappy at Paramount and withdrew to go to MGM. When the project got back on track, Donald O'Connor was hired to replace Astaire, but illness intervened. Danny Kaye was brought in. When I worked in film distribution, one of the companies I worked for specialized in repertory and art product. They got the theatrical rights to Paramount Pictures (well, at least the ones that hadn't been sold to Universal). The rights to the "White Christmas" movie were another matter. From what I heard, Mr. Berlin, the Crosby  estate, and Mr. Kaye all had percentages, and all wanted One Million Dollars each. Upfront. And that cost would be on top of dealing with VistaVision, an early widescreen process which had a distortion free image by exposing a larger area of 35mm film and running it horizontally through projectors; i.e. equipment that no longer existed. Somehow it all got done. Truth be told, it's not a particularly good movie, but audiences love it. With a limited amount of time for a release window, it was the company's biggest grosser until they put the classic Warner Brothers cartoons back on screen.

 

At any rate, I digress. After 1942, pop Christmas songs began to fill the charts. Until recently it seemed like every performer who ever existed had to release a Christmas album. There are country Christmases, Hip Hop Christmases, Bebop, Jazz, Lounge, Accordion Christmases, drunks performing Christmas songs, and etc. - the variety is quite incredible and possibly worth some work as a study in mores and marketing.

 

My Holiday shows are comprised of (mostly) non-threatening secular pop songs which are gluten free as an added bonus.

 

 

 

As always, I hope any listeners enjoy the show.

With Bestest Wishes for an extravagantly Merrie Christmas

and a Most Excellent New Year

  

p.s. Dear Santa, if you take requests, please put some coal into the stockings of the folks responsible for spell check programs. They can be quite wonderful, but sometimes.....