| (no subject) |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|08:31 am] |
Did the Fam tour yesterday. I did finally receive an email from Tim telling me that the tour was rescheduled for Tuesday. Better late than never. Also talked to Craig and Bruce and some of the other guides. Yes, they did go down on Monday and apparently found out what I had – that there just wasn’t going to be no damn tour. I guess I am somewhat heartened that I was not the only one who made the trip for nothing, although I still don’t appreciate being on that list.
Lee was there to conduct the tour himself and he was saying that we were going to take the tour on an open bus. It looked warmish to start, but I was glad I was bundled up in layers. They sent us a very special bus indeed and it had the half bubble top but by the end of the evening we were plenty cold. There was Craig (who I ran into later and exchanged pleasantries with at the Grand Central Market - he is a nice guy) -
Bruce, JB, the Norwegian guy who gives tours in French, the Bulgarian guy, and two people who had not been there Friday, a guy in a City Sights shirt, so he must have gotten at least one day on the bus, and Chloe, my old study friend. We didn’t have much to talk about, as I didn’t feel like mentioning, “remember that time you suggested we meet in your neighborhood, which wasn’t convenient to any of the rest of us, and then you stood me up?” and she still didn’t feel like apologizing. We took the tour, Lee did his usual good job, got off the bus at Lord and Taylor, where he pointed out another place to let the tourists go to the bathroom next door. I asked the question once we got back on the bus, which he brushed off kind of quickly, “What if people do want to go to the bathroom? Isn’t it going to take a while for them to get into Lord and Taylor, find and use the bathroom and come out again?” He brushed me off, with a, “Well, we can’t just leave them behind,” but I think that might be a real issue. I’m not going to tell them to use the bathroom there. It could literally take half an hour. Otherwise, things went fine..until we got to Grand Central Terminal. We then got off the bus again and went inside, and discovered after some time killing that the holiday laser show hadn’t started yet. So we’d kind of went inside for nothing. Then, we went out to the bus to go on the last leg of the tour and.. the busdriver, whom Lee had been raving about throughout, came up and informed us that the battery was dead. This was the end of our tour. I guess it could have been worse. We could have taken the Holiday Ice Floes tour and been pushed out to sea, but still.. If there was a message to be taken from this about our standing in the company,
it was not a pleasant message. Kind of like Felix Ungar’s message to Oscar Madison in ODD COUPLE, also unappreciated, “We’re all out of cornflakes. FU.” In the play the next line is “It took me two days to figure out, FU meant Felix Unger.” Here, I think the meaning is a little easier to figure out.
SAMURAI REINCARNATION
A bizarre film, surprisingly modern although a 1980’s film, kind of a kung fu film, kind of a horror film. The movie starts off with a slaughter, I guess during Samurai times, although none of this is ever clear in the movie, and then the movie seems to flash forward maybe to other times, and frequently to hell (at least that’s what it says in the subtitles). Either the VICTIMS of samurais are appearing as sinister ghosts to random future people and fucking them up and recruiting them into their um, dead samurai league, or perhaps they are going back in time and screwing up people who will later slaughter them, or perhaps they are screwing with descendants of samurai or perhaps they are screwing around with samurai who have been reincarnated. I really don’t know. There are a lot of somewhat operatic sequences, with devils and ghosts in Guy Fawkes masks and strange hats and some confusing fantasy within fantasy sequences, and Sonny Chiba has a sword and an eyepatch and there are some interesting outdoor sequences, on what looks like TV sets which is different from the other kung fu movies if nothing else.
DUEL OF THE IRON FISTS
No iron fists, although certainly I would not have liked to have been cut by the knifes and hatchets in those Asian fists. Another odd movie in that what seems to be a battle between kung fu lodges is almost entirely reliant on weapons of some kind, mostly knives, and goofy food hatchets, and later poles and even guns (I guess this is where John Woo got his inspiration), it’s essentially a Mafia movie, with a little government stuff thrown in – the tubercular second lead David Chiang (the actual star of the film, although oddly playing this secondary part) is a somewhat undercover government agent, I guess. He claims this to be the case anyway. Anyway, the real lead of the movie, a hunky Chow Fat type, pointlessly invades a funeral of a rival gang with his father and brothers, they win, go back home to celebrate, and the guys in white (they’re the guys in blue) come back for vengeance and Dad is slain. For some reason the blues need someone to take responsibility for killing Dad, and although the carpets are bestrewn with dead guys in white who seem ripe for framing, the brothers decide that this Chow type, whom we’ll call tattoo chest, will go away for a year and they will tell the cops he did it. His tattoo is to honor his girlfriend Butterfly, whom he will now leave. Tattoo Chest works on the docks in the south until some group tries to kill him and then he comes home. He is ambushed again near the train by the white suit guys, who now are apparently in league with the blue suit guys, and finds he basically has been sold out by his family and now his only friend is a guy with allergies, who keeps itching his nose. He finds his favorite uncle has been disgraced and is a drunk, Butterfly is disgraced and a whore, and the smart brother is in charge of everything. Butterfly commits hari kiri, Tattoo Chest is beaten, and Chiang as Rover helps out, although he admits that he was the one who helped the bad brother gain power, by assassinating Tattoo Chest’s father. Much bloodshed ensues, right down to the weird ending (in the rain and mud a la SEVEN SAMURAI) where basically everybody dies. Another kitchen sink kung fu movie, where they throw in three or four genres, weapon styles (doubtless some are using the ‘iron fist’ style) and two different leads, one with a name, one without, but it’s entertaining enough in its way. Chiang was the prototype for the modern day Kung Fu fighter, not the intense little skill guys like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, but the handsome, pop model, japanese soap guys, who dress exquisitely, wear makeup and have some cute little illness, like TB to make them vulnerable. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|08:19 am] |
There didn’t seem to be any point to giving Lee a hard time, so I just thanked him. I guess he’s giving the tour tonight. I don’t know, maybe he’s not up for it, and Rodney is giving it. In any case, I’ll go down again tonight, fortunately I don’t have TSP tonight and hope it works out, but obviously everytime this happens, it not only discourages me for working for the blue bus people who obviously don’t care much if at all about their employees, but worse, I just don’t want to keep having to show up for events or meetings which don’t take place, and end up with me making sacrifices to be somewhere uncomfortable in uncomfortable circumstances, and then not get paid or any further ahead. I’ll do what I have to do to make a buck and pay my bills, but to jump through hoops and then not get a damn thing for it, is discouraging.TARZAN’S REVENGE
Back to the inarticulate brute of the Weismuller years, and Glenn ‘Harpo’ Morris is the least articulate Tarzan yet, capable of little more than saying his own name. This is a much mocked Tarzan, and it failed, causing Morris to more or less retire from show business after this, but actually it kind of worked on its own level. Morris was a track and field athlete and looked good running around and swinging on vines and such. Eleanor Holm was a swimmer who played ‘Eleanor’ and had some good swimming sequences with Tarzan. Joe Sawyer was an effective great white hunter baddie and the rest of the crew were decent in support. There wasn’t much plot, here was a case of the ‘good’ hunters wanting to take home some big game animals to USA, while a schmucky guy just wanted to kill things, and the villains were basically trying to get them in dutch with the local natives so they would just go home. An easy enough plot to pull off, and they did so. There were some decent sequences on a rope bridge, and when they did the lion sequence this time, it made sense. At some point, probably after this picture, the Tarzan people (and this was the first Sol Lesser film) decided it would be cute for the Jane prototype to find some lion cubs, take them home, and then later mama would come looking for them and Tarzan would wrestle Mama but she would end up with her cubs. This was done in several later Tarzan movies in a perfunctory way, here you actually got to see the whole sequence and it more or less made sense. Also Morris, like Bennett has his own Tarzan yell, and like Buster Crabbe outswims a croc rather than wrassling with him, which even if faked is impressive in its way. This would be the future for Tarzan movies. Every few years, a nice looking young man, usually a former athlete of some kind, would be cast as Tarzan, a story would be concocted that took good people and usually an eligible young lady into the jungle and Tarzan, who nobody had heard of, would appear at some point to romance the woman and save the duffers from whatever fate they had stumbled into. Lex Barker was the next Tarzan. I’ve only seen one of his movies, and not the first one, but he was effective by being a kind of bad boy Tarzan, but from here on in, the Janes were negligible and the Tarzan movies worked, generally speaking, only when there were effective villains, like Acquanetta, Raymond Burr and company. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|08:04 am] |
The third in the series of flapper movies (sort of) I’ve watched recently. Louise Brooks, like Clara Bow and Sally Rand makes the most of her role. She plays, in the tradition of the Cozy murders, where a victim is often so mean she’s almost begging for it, a kind Evelyn Nesbit, right down to the red velvet swing, playing off various lovers and setting her sights on a young rich man about town. She is instead exterminated. William Powell, very good indeed here as Philo Vance, sorts it all out, with the odd device of having a poker game at the police headquarters, with all the suspects. Later, there is the device of the voice on the phonograph record and some less probable devices employed by the murderer. The supporting cast, mostly of b movie and serial villains is adequate, and Eugene Pallette employs his froggy baritone to add some support as a policeman. Here he comes off as opportunistic and scheming and a little stupid, which is entirely believable instead of as a complete ass or hero as is usual in cases like this. Powell didn’t play the book Philo, instead just playing himself, which worked perfectly. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 24th, 2009|09:54 pm] |
|
Things may be looking up. Heard from Lee G yesterday. I’m finally on the stand by list, which I guess is a step up from whatever list I was on before. Training tonight at the Blue Bus place. Finally. This means I’ll miss HETTY PEPPER, tonight. C’est la guerre. Heard from Harvey S and he said he intended to return after the holidays, which would be great. PLEASE MURDER ME
Excellent little B movie. Although in feel and appearance little better than a deluxe version of a Perry Mason episode, Burr has a few surprises in this one. He’s looking fit and trim and nails the character of a lawyer he plays, in and out of the courtroom. He gets to have a little romance, with Angela Lansbury who is his client, his lover, and ultimately his.. well downfall. John Dehner, Dick Foran and Paul Guilfoyleare all good in support. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 24th, 2009|09:37 am] |
Clara Bow saves a pretty poor effort. The flying sequences are well done, of course, and there are certainly some striking sequences – but I find that the annoying sequences are SO ANNOYING it was hard to enjoy the long film. HATED the beginning, with the inane college hijinks out of some Harry Langdon film. HATED the extended animated champagne bubbles scene, which if it had not existed, or had been limited to a momentary sight gag, which was all it was, would have been a decent sequence with a somewhat realistic look at a French club in WWI France, including a mannish looking lesbian couple, which were not made fun of (for a change). HATED the ridiculous ending. Really, you have your co-star, escape in a German plane, not realice that as he approached his own lines, he should somehow try to make his position clear and then die in his pal’s arms. Really? Despite these mawkish sequences, and the presence of the hateful ‘Swedish comedian’ who was neither, the movie had its moments. Clara Bow was so effective she made you forget her ridiculous girl next door part and as a Clara vehicle it was almost bearable. Almost, but not quite.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 23rd, 2009|08:49 am] |
Sad. Maria F passed away finally. She was very ill and this day was inevitable, but still sad when it did come, after a steep decline relatively recently. Allison A said there will be a memorial in December, hopefully some of us can participate.
Still nothing from the Blue Bus people. Dan seemed to think that there wasn’t any training going on, so apparently if I missed it, I wasn’t the only one. Thank goodness the unemployment is coming in. I guess I’ll just have to keep looking around and ride it out until something comes up.JUNGLE MAN
And here is the third part, I guess. This time back in Africa with Buster Crabbe playing Junga the Jungleman. I guess as in Hong Kong, the franchise continues no matter what. Buster is good in one of his first roles. He sort of outswims some sharks at one point. They deal with Malaccca fever, which is actually interesting, as bugs and microbes kill more Africans than snakes and lions and in this case, an Indonesian tiger. Vince Barnett is moderately amusing as a villain, Charles Middleton is effective in the unusual role as a warm and supporting good guy father. The rest, are pretty forgettable, and while there is still the City of the Dead, there is no real treasure this time, except I guess the vaccine for the disease which Crabbe finally fishes up from the briny deep. The plot in all three of the City of the Dead features was pretty meager and hard to follow, but this last film was more believable than the usual Tarzan nonsense, and I enjoyed a somewhat articulate Tarzan in all three, showing he could at least talk and handle real concepts, rather than the pidgeon English talker/brute of the Weismuller years.
 |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 22nd, 2009|01:21 pm] |
Yesterday I worked at Sotheby’s with Sharlene and David L, Dawn, Ange, Dan M and others for the Tibetans. It’s a fun place to work, although a little stuffy, and a good physical workout. I don’t do that much for charity, so it’s good to do something like this on occasion, and of course, I do it to help out Sharlene who has done so much for me. Some talk about extra work places, which I keep trying to gird myself to do. It’s tough, though, and NO ONE can really figure out how all these different places work.
 TARZAN’S NEW ADVENTURE
Pretty good. Some of the same material as in TARZAN AND GREEN GODDESS. Lots and lots of pretty interesting documentary footage, I don’t know whether or not it was done specifically for this feature, or borrowed from other stuff, but it did give the movie a real feel in an era when most films were shot on the backlot. There is the usual goofiness with footage of African animals showing up in this ‘Guatemala’ location, and at one time they even throw in some footage of a Komodo dragon, who must be wondering, aren’t there impressive animals enough in the actual rain forest to have to keep from throwing him into the mix. A little more goofiness with a monkey this time (not cheetah, Tequila, or some such thing), a little best supporting cast, with a pretty perfunctory Jane substitute. Again, the appeal is Bruce Bennett (then Herman Brix) who is fit and pretty good in his acting scenes. The former shot putter does what he can with murky material. They essentially try to foil baddies from taking a Green Goddess tablet from the City of the Dead, with mixed success, and at the end of the day, we need the sequel to find out what happened.
 |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 22nd, 2009|12:26 am] |
The reading of SPORTS PAGE went well enough. Jeff Scott G couldn’t make it. He got stuck in Pa, doing a delivery, so I played Zinc and David Lo played Red. Mike J did make it back from Canada, although he apparently went through hell to do so, and Dan M, Scott W. Sharlene H, and Larry F were all good. Simple Studios worked out well enough and we had a decent turnout of TSP people, lots of good comments, from Norman W and company. It’s a good play, and getting better. Larry H has done a good job, I’ve made comments and suggestions where I can, and it’s a fun process. I always enjoy getting under the hood in these situations and trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t and why. In some ways, that’s what it’s all about.DRACULA
Seized with a powerful thirst, the Lord of the Undead stirs from his bed of Transylvanian dirt... Marc Warren is a dreadful mumbler but mostly effective as a sexy vampire of power.
David Suchet stars as vampire scholar Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, an authority on the powers of garlic, crucifixes, and wooden stakes to combat these bloodsucking monsters. I like that in this version he too is an early victim of Dracula, although he got better. Also appearing are Sophia Myles whom I liked in Art School Confidential, as Lucy Westenra, who is needy and therefore made to suffer, Stephanie Leonidas is okay as Mina, who seems certain to follow her friend Lucy into the realm of the undead. Rafe Spall plays Mina's fiancé, Jonathan Harker; Dan Stevens is Lucy's new husband, Arthur Holmwood a pretty effective second villain; and Tom Burke of cleft palate scar fame plays Dr. John Seward, Lucy's failed suitor and the attending physician during her horrible descent into vampirism. For my liking he pretty much steals the piece from the stars. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 21st, 2009|01:49 am] |
Milton Moses Ginsberg is the next in my series of absolutely miserable directors. Another director with profound psychiatric issues, Ginsberg is apparently aware that he’s a little crazy, and often does films about people who are or are seeing psychiatrists. There’s not too much of that in this film. Instead the film is a more or less faithful updating of the classic Universal WOLFMAN with Dean Stockwell, Roddy McDowell’s heir, in almost all ways, a reporter turned White House newsspokesman who goes to Hungary (more or less) to get out his relationship with the President’s daughter played by Katalin Kallay. He meets a werewolf, clubs him to death with a silver topped cane, meets its mother, this generation’s Maria Ouespenskaya, and is right and properly cursed. Stockwell comes back to Washington as a man whom turns into a werewolf every couple of days, where he meets his former girlfriend’s new fiancee, a psychiatrist, who doubtlessly resembles director Ginsberg, Henry Ferrentino. From this point on, the movie becomes more or less an unfunny satire vaguely hitting on the Nixon administration. Biff McGuire a wonderful actor, says a few phrases made famous by Nixon, but otherwise makes no real effort to be the former President, Clifton James is on hand to be a sort of FBI agent in charge of ridding Washington of werewolves, Thayer David has a great cameo as a Hungarian Inspector, James Tolkan plays a bald guy with sunglasses and Thurman Scott, my old friend from the flower district, plays a tragic victim of the ww. Glad to see that he, unlike me, despite his promises, got work. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|01:52 am] |
Did the reading for the Welsh Women’s Club. I always doing things for that group, they pay a little something and have Welsh tea and cakes for us after. Played a kind of near to retirement Thomas Mitchell type in Laurel L’s play, and thought it went well enough. Jim N was nice enough to send me a very nice note afterward which was much appreciated. He was in another piece on the same program and very good, and Colleen who organized, did very good work in her several scenes. Overall, the plays went well, the other actors ranged from adequate to good, and the audience seemed to like it well enough, which is the important thing. Unfortunately there was a bit of a pall over the event since we heard one of our playwright friends, Maria, is very sick and may be close to the end. She’s been battling cancer, after years of various health problems, and it’s all very sad.
 SNAKE CRANE SECRET
Another ‘Kung Fu’ film with the snake crane connection being unclear. Maybe that’s why it’s called Snake Crane Secret, but if so, they KEPT the secret and you are never quite sure. There’s sort of a war between two Kung Fu clubs as in the golden days of Run Run Shaw AND a sort of rebels against the evil government a la the golden age of ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA, and there are the usual one female fighter into two. In this case both are more or less good ‘guys’. One only fights with a sword, the other only with nunchakus. It’s good to specialize I guess, but more so in say medicine, than kung fu fighting where the guys you are fighting are using both hands and feet, both nunchakus and swords and well, shields and rocks and all kinds of good stuff. There’s an old white haired fighter, a la Chang Chen, and two brothers separated when young and growing up without knowing of each other, a la I guess The Corsican Brothers and a little ENTER THE DRAGON action. These movies seldom slow up for any kind of romance, so it’s basically, young people go up against older evil people, and exactly half of each team are killed, so as to push the other to be even more committed (this time it’s personal). While I appreciate the kitchen sink approach, I’m not impressed by it. Please, sir. One story. Told well. If you can tell more than one story well, go for it, but really an hour and a half film isn’t really enough for more than two stories, so please don’t bother. It’s not like you’re not going to make another kung fu movie next week, where you can put the rest of the massive plot you’ve come up with in that. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 17th, 2009|11:56 am] |
Still nothing from the blue bus people. Since this was a busy week for me, I’m not going to push or complain too much, but obviously everytime they tell me that they’re going to call me or email me on a certain date or by a certain time and they don’t do it, it’s frustrating and ultimately worrying that this is going to work out. Guess I’ll have to check with them after the reading if I still haven’t heard, and then start considering other options more seriously.
THE SUNSET MURDER CASE
Sally Rand, the famous fan dancer did a shit load of films. You’d think a gimmick performer like this would do a handful of films at most. She did close to 30 including a Cecil B. Demille picture (SIGN OF THE CROSS). This was her last released film, although more explicit films, ‘soundies’, showing more of her dance and body were filmed and released earlier. Hard to believe, but this film was held up for 3 years by censors, although there is no nudity and very little salacious material in the film. As usual, she was playing more or less herself, although not called Sally Rand, and with Candy Kane, another amusing stripper, who was a far better actress, she gets embroiled in a murder (of a fellow dancer and her policeman father) and sort of solves it, with the help of cop Reed Hadley and others. She dances in a tennis outfit, and sort of does her bubble and fan dance, but again, doesn’t take off a thing, or even have a diaphanous outfit (actually theres a moment at the end of some of the dances where it appears she is nude/in a skin colored tights for a moment). Sally seemed like a sweet girl, no hardboiled Barbara Stanwyck type she, and Candy Kane was sweet too, so if you like nice, generally ineffective women who more or less solve crimes, kind of attract men, sort of get in and out of jeopardy (Vince Barnett did his usual effective job as the secondary villain), and look pretty much alike, well then this movie is for you. This movie was not, however, for me. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 15th, 2009|03:23 am] |
Went to see SIMPLE STUDIOS with Mike J. It was Halloween night, so we were the only ones there (they gave us tootsie rolls) and the miserable wet weather and streets full of costumed partiers made it hard to get around. Poor Mike is having dental troubles with an oversized bridge (A Bridge Too Far, we’re calling it) and hopefully will not be affected on Monday at our podcast for SPARROW, Alexandria’s play. He is also going to Canada and hopefully will get back without incident for Larry’s reading. I have Doug more or less lined up, just in case.MAN WITH THE GUN
Another good Mitchum performance. A low-budget movie with Mitchum against Dave Barry as a Kingpin like villain trying to take over a valley and every farm and town in it. Claude Akins, Leo Gordon and others are minor villains. Jan Sterling is the love interest, John Lupton and Karen Lawrence the young couple, Emile Meyer a pretty good blacksmith. No surprises but well executed.
 |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|03:33 pm] |
Norman has good news though, his truffle play is being done in North Carolina, and it sounds like they’re going to do well by him, and so even though our recording didn’t really come out, I’m very happy that it all seems to have worked out
. Things are looking up a little. Finally got my unemployment check and was able to send some money to the landlord. Weird exchange with a city agency who somehow thought I owed the city a lot of money for unpaid taxes. I guess they somehow got me confused with my former landlords. Another Tuesday tonight where it looks like no one is coming. Larry H got to town and he said he’ll be there, so we can just do his and my stuff if nothing else. Things are on track for Thursday. Larry F can do it, and if he shows up without incident we should be okay. Doug S is rehearsing and can’t be there to backstop Mike J if he has trouble getting back in time from Winnipeg. I guess at that point, Scott W and I who both have smallish parts will just have to pitch in, unless David L or someone can come as an audience and fill in in a pinch.
LOVE FROM A STRANGER
A pretty good play like movie with Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone which was well acted, and generally worked. It was simply done, a TV series like SUSPENSE or THRILLER would have done something like this later on, possibly with the same actors, but here they are both fairly young and good looking and work well together in Frank Vosper’s adaptation of an Agatha Christie play about a serial murderer who marries a ‘lucky’ lottery winner.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|04:36 pm] |
A murky print, and with some pretty obscure supporting actors, but this film is actually a lot better than I thought it would be. Bruce Bennett, then known as Herman Brix is a surprisingly effective Tarzan. He has the physique (Brix, like Weismuller and Crabbe was a champion swimmer) and intensity for the role. Also he plays it more believably, no pidgeon english (Tarzan is afterall supposed to be well educated, albeit more or less home schooled) no goofy lepoard skins (again, Tarzan has access to clothes, and after he starts going home to his ancestral Graystoke home, has not only regular clothes but access to any kind of clothes he could possibly need) so he travels around in khakis and swings through the trees in shorts, which works MUCH better for me. There is no Jane, although a South American proto-Jane is on hand, and thankfully the animal stuff is kept to a minimum. I have no objection to Tarzan petting a cute spider monkey on the head or grooming him for fleas, but Cheetah in an apron pouring him tea from a pot, no thank you. Basically Tarzan’s villains in the last adventure (which I didn’t see) took an idol called THE GREEN GODDESS from the City of the Dead and now Tarzan and company have to get it back before the Dead people revolt and I guess there’s some kind of Mickey Spillane implication that the device contains an atomic explosive which if the goddess pandora box is not opened just right will explode. So there’s a tussle over the combination that opens this pandora’s box and they fight all over South America, here mysteriously populated by African animals like Lions, Elephants and Rhinoceri, and in the end things work out well enough for Tarzan that the sequels can continue. Again Bennett is believable throughout and does the usual Tarzan things like inflating his chest to snap ropes, wrassle lions and swing through the trees as well as the others. The proto-Jane gets to shoot the croc so we don’t have to see the underwater fight again (I guess we wouldn’t see the usual one, since this was not an MGM picture and they couldn’t reuse Weismuller footage). Basically the Tarzan oeuvre is dotted with oddities like this, because of certain rights issues. MGM did not buy all the rights to all the Edgar Rice Burroughs properties. Like future studios, they assumed they had them exclusively and could throw in bits from books or properties they hadn’t in fact optioned, but found out that this was not really the case. So while MGM more or less adapted the stories they had optioned, Burroughs kept writing more, and in partnership with relatives and friends (or in this case con men like Ashton Dierholt) kept doing their own versions of the Tarzan story, on radio, in the comics, and here in this series in South America instead of Africa. Plus, while there were two groups turning out ‘Tarzan’ films legitimately, sort of, there were other groups who were turning out Tarzan or Tarzan like films illegitimately, some in pulps and some otherwise. Other writers would write Tarzan like characters for a pulp magazine. Producers would option this other character, and then put out a movie with that character being essentially Tarzan, same loin cloth, in some cases, same actor who had earlier (or later) played Tarzan. Finally Burroughs wrote other characters, which were also optioned for the movies, like THE LION MAN, whom Buster Crabbe played, more or less as Tarzan. This gave producers the idea to cast him as Tarzan in the 1933 Tarzan serial, then other producers to cast him as Tarzan like characters in KING OF THE JUNGLE and KING OF THE CONGO. And so it went.Of course Weismuller would go on after Tarzan to play JUNGLE JIM than JOHNNY WEISMULLER as an aging Tarzan in plain clothes, and other actors followed similar routes. Plus, as long as there was footage around, it was other producers’ choices to re-edit it into ‘new’ features. So this movie, THE GREEN GODDESS is actually edited together from footage from the New Adventures of Tarzan which was started as a movie in Guatemala and finished as a serial in Hollywood. Crabbe’s efforts would show up reedited again and again, to the early days of TV and so on. So, for a Tarzan more like the silent film version, again, more or less Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan, this is the one to see.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 7th, 2009|07:56 pm] |
KUNG FU: :PUNCH OF DEATH/DRAGON PRINCESS
Starting to watch some of my Dad’s DVD’s, so in at least some cases, I can pass them on to people who might enjoy them. I’m watching some of his Martial Arts Collection, which frankly he liked better than I did. Dad was in Korea twice, once in the Army and then later again in the Air Force. He was up to that point a John Wayne western man, but he got into martial arts film, mostly the kind of stuff the Shaw Brothers were doing, and enjoyed them, I guess as more or less mindless entertainment. I’m not going to give you a blow by blow of these, as I can’t be bothered to sort out the large casts’ actors, their character names and their acting names, which often changed from film to film. By the time this particular group of group of films were made, the 1970’s and 1980’s, ‘kung fu’ films were changing. Originally it was all one Kung Fu club against another, or historicals with traditional Chinese heroes fighting the government. By this time, they were popular enough with an international audience and the Chinese had dropped enough of the importation restrictions, that Hong Kong filmmakers were familiar with what was happening in the rest of the film world, and was starting to incorporate more Western themes and character types, although still, for the most part, using Eastern actors.You get the feeling with these films that like James Nicholson or George Weiss these filmmakers came up with a title and made a poster and didn’t give a damn that the film had nothing to do with the title. And these didn’t. There is no punch of death in KUNG FU. A Kung Fu club kills an old man, more or less randomly, and his wife, a Kung Fu fighter in her own right, trains her headstrong son to revenge him. He gets the shit kicked out of him a couple of times after breaking training, and finally, he gives in, does it Mom’s way (and his girlfriend’s) and is able to kick the brother villains, and their surpise sword wielding pal’s asses. As in many Asian films, they split one character in two, in this case one of the brothers fights exclusively with his hands, the other exclusively with his feet. This seems rather pointless. There’s some interesting training stuff, with big balloon (I guess sand-filled, in the movie, although clearly it wasn’t as filmed) figures and a log which Mom wants to swing into Sonny’s legs to toughen them up. You can see why he’d want to break training.
There is no Dragon Princess in the second film. I guess there’s an American Japanese princess, as Sonny Chiba’s film daughter is the star of this one. By this time, the early 80’s, Hong Kong films were now experimenting with the idea of making star features, although sometimes, as in this case, the star, was peripheral or was killed off early. Daughter and some random guy, whose story is shoe-horned in mid way through the picture, presumably because Sonny Chiba was off to bigger and better things, fight a kung fu club who want to win some competition so that they’ll get all the best high paying students. This was plenty of plot for me, but they threw in some goofy espionage stuff, where four of the club, older guys, including the leader are Quentin Tarantino Kill Bill type assassins, although far less featured or in focus. They at one point eliminate their ‘international’ competition, but the filmmakers, instead of hiring low price international talent like Jim Kelley or some Bruce Lee clone, instead just change up the lighting, a little and use a soupcon of makeup to make believe that their guys are ‘Cuban’ or ‘Malaysian’. This sequence is pretty bad and almost peripheral to the film. There’s one little fight with a guy who has his wife along and his baby in a baby carriage. If they were looking for a Wolf Cub reference, they did a helluva lousy job.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 6th, 2009|06:49 pm] |
Morton DaCosta, known widely as ‘Tec’ because that was his real name, was one of the worst directors in the world. This was one of his films. I like Rosalind Russell, her voice, her enunciation. She did the best she could in this and was more amusing than not. The rest of the cast – well, they comically ran in place a lot, there was mugging, mumbling, doubletakes, and a lot of scenes ended with the lights going out in the scene, leaving the stars in a spot which slowly faded to black. A theatrical trick perhaps more effective in the 50’s than now. On film, this trick was NEVER effective.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|04:57 pm] |
HANG ‘EM HIGH
Pretty good Clint Eastwood movie. They used the techniques of better movies, a good supporting cast, a woman who more or less rubs off the raw edges and he helps her over her trauma, some fairly effective fight scenes. At the end, I was still left a little blah, but I liked Pat Hingle as the judge, Ed Begley Sr. Is always a good villain, Inger Stevens does what she can with a pretty traditional role, Bruce Dern, LQ Jones and Joe Sirola are their usual obvious but effective selves as secondary villains. There are a few fun cameos, James Westervelt, Ned Romero, Michael O’Sullivan, James MacArthur and Mark Lenard stop by briefly. Alan Hale Jr. And Ben Johnson also have flashy little roles, but obviously did this en route to other things as both their characters disappear rather unbelievably midway through the picture. Bob Steele is wonderful as the one lynch party member with a conscience and Dennis Hopper has fun in a part people love to see him play. Compared to the spaghetti westerns where the supporters were usually awful, this film sort of works, but there is entirely too much mugging by Eastwood in lieu of acting, and the movie tends to do the same bits over and over so the movie could have probably been a half hour shorter. The problem with Eastwood films like this is you don’t really need to spend a lot of time making his character sympathetic. He is who he is, you either feel bad he gets the stuffing kicked out of him, or you don’t, you don’t have him carry the humor, but the ‘comic’ stuff needs to come out of character and within the context of the movie, not just drop in Don Rickles or some Las Vegas or Nashville comic to be part of his team. Have more head to head scenes with the villains, and let them do the ranting and raving and just let Eastwood behave naturally. This film kind of marked the transition from Eastwood TV second banana to movie lead and as such it wasn’t spectacular but you get to see what Eastwood’s appeal is and respond accordingly.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 1st, 2009|11:07 am] |
Tuesday workshop again went well with many defections. Jerry and Martin were back with their plays which went well. I did Jerrys scene with Mike, and Martin’s scene with Ange and both went pretty well, and were a little more nuanced for my character than is often the case, which I appreciated. Late in the session I got to ply Churchill in Frank Ra’s piece. I can do a passable Churchill, but all the speechifying took its toll on my voice and I was almost hoarse by the end. Getting out of shape, vocally, I guess. Sean brought in a good anti war piece, which had good acting from Co’Relous, Dan M, Doug S (as a Viking), Richard C and Scott W. We finished out Ellwoodson’s screenplay, which despite some plot twist complaints from Richard C went well, with Co’Relous, Scott W, Alice, Colleen, David L and Doug playing the parts, went well. Laurel had a piece in two scenes, with the first scene with David L and Ange working excellently the second piece, same actors, being harder to follow. Jane P brought in a new scene from her piece, which Diane N, Dan M, and Colleen did a good job with. The Westies with Dan M, Elaine and Colleen also went very well. I was happy with the night and the way Elaine and Colleen and others covered for those who weren’t there, it was good to have Co’Relous and Scott back and we had some good Chinese food afterward. NOT AS A STRANGER
Really enjoyed this hospital picture from the 50’s. There was some complaints at the time that the leads were long in the tooth for their roles. I suppose this is true, but I just pretended that Lee Marvin, Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum et al were vets going to medical school on the GI bill, which they should really have incorporated in the picture. Mitchum is a highly focussed would be doctor, not going to school to make money, like Marvin and Sinatra but to save lives, who has to scramble when Daddy Lon Chaney drinks up all the tuition money his late mother scraped together for him. He tries to borrow money from Sinatra and one of the doctors on the faculty Broderick Crawford, in probably his best character role (he plays a lone Jew on the faculty) and then reluctantly decides to marry ‘old maid’ Olivia DeHavilland (here blonde), a ‘Swedish’ maid who lives at home (with parents Harry Morgan and Virginia Christine) and has a considerable bank account. Despite their somewhat loveless marriage, they make it through, move to a small town, where Mitchum works with Doctor Charles Bickford, and eventually Mitchum, despite a dalliance with brunette Gloria Grahame, finds that he does love DeHavilland and starts finally to drop his shields and act like a human being.
 People compare this with Douglas Sirk, which I think is complimentary, like it or not, Sirk was effective in his day, turning out the kind of films we now associate with popular television, stuff like ER and House and so on, pieces meant to be serious, which occasionally veered into melodrama, even camp, but generally well-acted, and well-written. There was seldom much of a controversial point to the story, these were time tested successful plots of sacrifice, unrequited love, ambition, life and death diseases or accidents, friends giving friends some really good intervention type advice, kindly older advisers acting like the fathers or mothers, the leads didn’t really have, etc.
 What distinguishes this film, Stanley Kramer’s first, from Sirk’s stuff, is that Kramer tended to cast new faces (at that time) and didn’t go as much for pretty leads and glamour as Sirk did. And throughout his career, Kramer usually saved his films, which were not that great, in my opinion, with casting, often casting a veteran actor who was a second line star, or later a former TV star in a more demanding, or out of type lead, and with his first wife Ann, who was his ‘dialogue’ coach, getting a better than average performance out of them.
Here Kramer got really impressive performances out of Mitchum and DeHavilland. Most people say this is a Kirk Douglas role rather than Mitchum, kind of a good looking bastard who will do anything to get what he likes, and not caring whom he hurt. But that’s not really the character. The point is Mitchum does care and shows it throughout the movie, but in a low key believable way. He gets mad at his father for fucking him over, but does show that he realices Chaney can’t help it, and essentially when Chaney says, Mitchum is so cold and blames him for his mother’s death and has left him all alone, we see Mitchum does hear that (although he ultimately leaves all the same). He does hear Broderick Crawford’s hard advice, he has a brief affair with Grahame, but feels bad about doing it, and breaks it off fairly quickly, and he does hear the advice of his friend, Sinatra and Bickford and when the inevitable breakdown comes, it’s believable. Frankly, I think Mitchum does this all well, again, a little like HOUSE (a show I enjoy) and is a lot better in the role than a genuine cold hearted heel like the kind Douglas used to play.
 DeHavilland plays the kind of roles Bette Davis or Joan Crawford used to try to play, a long suffering good hearted old maid who is nice to others and good at her job, very well. Indeed I think she is better suited for roles like this, than when she plays twins, one good one evil in DARK MIRROR or semi horror villains, like HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE (that’s Bette Davis and Joan Crawford territory). No her best serious stuff was believable martyrs like Melanie GONE WITH THE WIND or SNAKE PIT or this film and along with Jane Wyman and June Allyson, she helped in the 50’s the movies make the transition from what movies had been in the 40’s which ran from the sublime to the mundane (the serials looked more like TV than TV did) to what they would eventually be, stuff that was either TV with the volume turned up, stuff that took advantage of the bigger canvas, stuff that could employ more high powered stars, or stuff that could use new and ever improving special effects. While she’s a bit of a cold fish, DeHavilland (like Jane Wyman and arguably Loretta Young) she consistently pulled it off, even in roles like this, which would seem to be a drag queen’s dream role, a bottle blonde with Swedish accent.
 The two leads were also more than adequately supported, unlike say, the Rock Hudson June Allyson pictures of this period, where garish perfances and oddball casting made their deficits stand out even further. NOT AS A STRANGER features Sinatra, who is surprisingly touching and real in this picture (and thankfully sparingly used), Crawford again in a bravura performance, he should have been nominated for a supporting Oscar, Lee Marvin, Jerry Paris, and Paul Guilfoyle and others as fellow med students (and again, mercifully, they and the ‘comic’ antics were briefly used), Frank Jenks, Nancy Kulp, Carl Switzer, King Donovan and Will Wright as patients, Mae Clarke, Stafford Repp, Jack Raine and John Dierkes as hospital staffers. Whit Bissell is amazing (and like Crawford, cast against type) as a cold blooded hospital administrator who Mitchum has to apologize to when he criticizes him (when Bissell was clearly wrong). Myron McCormick is equally good as his counterpart, a nice guy who is clearly in over his head as administrator of the suburban hospital. Both men made a career playing just the opposite of their characterizations in this film. Juanita Moore, Harry Lauter, Frank Orth and the ubiquitous 50’s drama actor Herb Vigran were all good as small town types, and Jesse White was superb as a cynical lawyer dating Gloria Grahame and knocking the beloved medical profession. Bickford and Grahame had played these parts before, but both were excellent in this, and funnily enough Grahame seeing that DeHavilland was going blonde, went brunette and looked good, like a Lauren Bacall or Gene Tierney or Ava Gardner from this era. Bickford got a good death scene and Virginia Christine (soon to be an icon on comercials selling Folger’s coffee) was excellent as Olivia’s mom (although as usual in these cases both she and the actor playing the father were younger than Miss D). Harry Morgan was a little over the top as the stepfather, but that was more the way it was written (by the Anhalts, who were a pretty good writing team), as Morgan is certainly capable of more subtle acting.
 Not a perfect movie by any stretch, but very well done, and for Kramer who continued making films into the 80’s (I met him when living in Seattle, and trying to launch a daughter from a second marriage into films in the sadly prophetic THE RUNNER STUMBLES) this film was certainly one of his best.
 |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 31st, 2009|07:24 pm] |
Pretty good low budget movie with Neil Hamilton as a kind of Anton LeVay character and Robert Alda, Linda Christian and her sister, Mexican scream queen, Ariadna Welter are all adequate although unexciting, and Bruno VeSota has a nice cameo. Basically, Alda is enticed into Christian and Hamilton’s devil worshipping cult, and Alda and girlfriend Welter eventually come out in one piece. VeSota plays a reporter who doesn’t fair as well, and the voodoo doll nonsense works about as well as it could under the circumstances. Hamilton, whom I HATED as a silent film actor became a decent deadpan supporting actor, and he’s very effective in this. Similar to any Roger Corman film, but more believable and better acted.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|04:02 pm] |
Have been working up a letter for unemployment talking about what I’ve done so far and that I’m in a training program, which I more or less am for City Sites. It’s a lot of paperwork, but have finished a lot of it and will send it this week.Screwed up my courage and went down to CS and talked to Tim the dispatcher who I had kept missing. He said I might be notified via email about the training for the Holiday Lights tour, a new night tour on 11/9. Hopefully so. He said they were surprised because no one had been quitting to go back to school or whatever. Things have been very tight. It would be great if I finally started making some money.THE DAMNED DON’T CRY
Excellent film, rushing to the top of my pantheon of Joan Crawford. MILDRED PIERCE and FLAMINGO ROAD and the two POSSESSION films are both still in there, but DAMNED is excellent.It avoids the pitfalls of most post MGM era movies in that Joan is not implausibly nice, or going on and on about how she is at least twenty years younger than she is. While she is supposed to be a little younger in this, when say she starts out as a young wife with a toddler, for most of the movie, she is a handsome woman of a certain age, which works fine. Obviously this is well within her range and believable as to the character she is playing. For once, and this was a problem with other strong actresses such as Ida Lupino, Bette Davis and Ava Gardner she has strong male leads to play opposite. This is why in my opinion actresses like Greer Garson and Katherine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor, who were no stronger in the acting department than those mentioned had much better, less campy careers than the others (with the possible exception of very late Liz Taylor and Kate Hepburn) and why actresses like Loretta Young, Gene Tierney and Cyd Charisse had careers at all. Lightweight actresses can pair up with lightweight actors and be fine. Judy Holiday, Betty Hutton, Lucille Ball, Ginger Rogers, and so on, all did fine even with overaged juveniles opposite. None of the actors I’ve mentioned above were primarily comediennes and to play the heavy, often melodramatically heavy parts they often played, they needed some serious male actors to play opposite and some decent supporters to add gravitas. In this case Joan got everything she needed. Obviously there are better actors in the world than Richard Egan, Steve Cochran, Kent Smith and David Brian. There are better supporters than Morris Ankrum, Selena Royle, Hugh Sanders and Edith Evanson, but they were all superb in this. I’ve never seen Cochran or Smith so sympathetic (and Kent Smith so resembles the modern day actor Robert Sean Leonard, I kept waiting for Dr. House to show up and play a trick on him). Ankrum, who played a generation of capable straight up generals in mostly sci fi monster movies was a prick of applaudable dimensions in this as her father. Brian, who was also good in FLAMINGO road played the mostly sympathetic villain, and Richard Egan, played the mostly villainous unsympathetic husband and all struck exactly the right note. I always like Hugh Sanders and Edith Evanson, two supporters who never got much attention although they were always good, and Selena Royle whose career basically consisted of this movie and ROBOT MONSTER due to her blacklisting got to go from the ridiculous to the sublime in this. She is terrific as Crawford’s high society, bad girl coach. Usually in a movie like this, particularly at Warner Brothers they would give Joan Blondell, Thelma Ritter or Ann Sothern or someone this part, and she would play it sympathetically, and you kind of wondered why a nice girl like that, however raunchy or trashy was helping out a mean thug like Brian. Also, as they made a career of playing opposite dumb blondes mostly, they would always act their wards under the table. In this case, Ms. Royle did seem like the sort who would be filling this role, and while she held her own with Ms. Crawford she didn’t outshine her, so it worked very well. Basically this is Crawford’s specialty, a woman from the wrong side of the tracks who pulls herself up by her own bootstraps and is outdone in the end by her soft heart. This is where the Crawford heroine differed from Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck in her BABY DOLL phase. Those ladies were tough and mean from beginning to end. Obviously when Crawford could pull it off, which in many cases, due to casting or script, or poor direction (Joanie like Bette Davis really needed direction, or she’d go off like a bad female impersonator and make a travesty of a designed to be serious film), it worked for everyone, and she could have it both ways, bad girl and good girl at the end. In this, the movie, given the limitations of Hollywood of that time, who were not particularly into realistic films, worked from beginning to end. There were melodramatic choices aplenty and this was, despite the non noir lighting, basically a noir film, but somehow it always seemed believable. Kent Smith, the nice guy, did basically go over to the dark side. When Joan fell for Steve Cochran who usually in the movies played a caracatured hood, he did seem like a rough mug who in addition to being handsome, really did seem like the kind of guy a woman like Joan would want to shape up. Brian’s schtick really did come off like a tough turned businessman who was not a black hearted villain, but really felt he had to be a certain way to succeed, and when poked, his street side came out. The dreary Oklahoman parents and husband really did make you want to flee for California. Really a fun film from beginning to end, again, arguably the best Joan Crawford film I’ve ever seen, and I think I’ve seen most of them.
|
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
