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Sewing the Sea to the Sky

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It was a warm, salty, sunny day in the June of 1984, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

I lived then, and live now in Lexington, Kentucky, the largest US city with no major water element…or so I’ve been told. We have no ocean, no lake, no river. We do have the Town Branch of the Elkhorn Creek that runs through our downtown, or at least it formerly did. We (“we” being folks before my time) paved over the creek. Thus, it now runs under our downtown.

I’ve never seen it.

But I suspect many of us Lexingtonians, like divining rods, know it’s there, and I think we harbor a longing for it. A few years ago, an enterprising local artist ran an audio cable through a sidewalk that lies between a 20-story downtown bank building and its parking structure to a microphone near the underground waterway. Hidden speakers whispered the sounds of running water to the strollers on their way to make their mortgage payments. Not exactly ocean surf…more like trickles of desperation.

I love where I live, but I do long for big water…and a major league baseball team. It’s all that stands between Lexington and perfection in my book.

The first time I saw an ocean I was on a winery/vineyard business trip to California. One late afternoon, my colleagues and I drove our rental gondola of a car due west until our path ended on two tire tracks on the grass. We walked to the cliff overlooking the biggest water I’d ever seen.

A couple of days earlier, I had made my first hajj to City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco and now I was standing at the physical and logical end of Kerouac’s road. I was at the end of the western world, basking in that western light, gazing across to where nothing was visible, nothing was promised, nothing was assured, and nothing was finished. The possibilities of Diebenkorn’s and Seurat’s blank canvases were immediate and possible. What was on the other side? Stoppard advises; “I wouldn’t think about it if I were you, you’d only get depressed.” Tolkien is more hopeful, but just as final, and since I did not want to visit those Grey Havens while still in my 20’s, I reluctantly pulled myself away…changed more than a bit, to a more pedestrian search for Dr. David Bruce’s winery and some colossal chardonnays.

I have been mesmerized by big water ever since. Key West, Clearwater, Biloxi, New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, and the Outer Banks. Waves and tides, sunsets and sunrises, lakes, bays, rivers, marshes, herons, dolphins, pelicans…

Pelicans…

…ah yes-s-s-s, pelicans…

…back to 1984.

It had already been a long, full day and we still had a ways to go…but that was alright. By this time, I was pretty warm and salty myself, and still fairly sunny.

The Outer Banks are big water writ even bigger water. These fragile strips of sand are far enough out to sea that to the east you can’t see Africa though you’re told it’s there, and to the west you can’t see the mainland though you’re told…

Sunrise over the water inspiring your day.

Sunset over the water evaluating your day.

Promising to do better tomorrow…or perhaps, do nothing at all.

This day, the Queasy Rider and I had been covering ground all day.

We had left the third member of our expedition, P-Tom, back at the beach house, nursing his badly sunburned feet. P-Tom had camped out the previous afternoon on the deck of his uncle’s beach house, in the shade, with 800+ pages of light reading about Confederate naval fortifications. As sure as Martello walls must crumble before the onslaught of the modern cannonballs of 1861, it was just as inevitable that P-Tom’s page-turner was no match for the insidious onslaught of the warm ocean sun.

He fell asleep.

The shade moved, as fickle shade will.

His beach-appropriate bare feet were exposed.

He snored.

His feet simmered.

We’ll turn that inevitable page for him.

Queaser and I were sympathetic, but still ambulatory. Heartless and undeterred, we beat our un-fried feet down the road to adventure.

We checked out the site of the Chicamacomico Races. This is just fun to say out loud, and it was where the Blues and the Grays in the jolly 1860’s spent a jolly day chasing each other up and down a sandy stretch of beach that meant little to either side, to no discernible improvement to the strategic chances of either side. I forget who chased who first, but both factions got their turn to chase. It was like a re-enaction of something that had not yet been enacted. I dunno. It plumb evaded me. Maybe there was yelling and whooping and beer involved. Maybe it ended in a real nice clambake.

We moved on to see the lighthouse at Hatteras. This is the lighthouse that had been moved back from the encroaching sea. It was an impressive feat, but not speedy, and we had a ferry to catch. We were on our way to Ocracoke Island.

Ocracoke was pleasant and small—humps of sand, clumps of sea oats, and a squat lighthouse that was moving nowhere.  We had pretty well “done” the isle in about 20 minutes, but we had time to kill before the return ferry. We treated ourselves to a dark little restaurant and some dubious-looking, but tasty chowder.

Now we were returning on the ferry along the fringe of the Pamlico Sound to Hatteras. We were leaning on the rail looking toward the mainland we were assured by the maps was out there somewhere.

A line of ten or twelve pelicans flew sinuously past on a course parallel to our craft…above the horizon…then below the horizon…above again…then below again……repeatedly……………..sewing the sea to the sky.

I admire pelicans.

They look so ungainly on land and so commandingly graceful when they fly.

Sewing the sea to the sky, a beautiful unconscious act of nature, oblivious to and unconcerned with the fact that their stitches will never hold.

I have many friends who are stage actors and directors. They are pelicans. They create people and situations that stun and move real people. They sew the sea to the sky for the run of a show. Their stitches never hold. The show closes and the moment disappears except in the minds and hearts of those they stunned and moved…and later of course in their stories shared and expanded with other pelicans over omelets at Josie’s breakfast oasis.

These thespian pelicans are oblivious and unconcerned. They have new lines to learn. They have new, un-permanent stitches to sew.

They have new sowing to do, and new lies to tell.

I admire pelicans.

The Blue Carbuncle

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I know it’s early, but may suggest a Christmas movie?

If, like me, you’ve seen the standard yuletide fare the requisite three dozen times, and, like me, you have a pretty good idea of what to do with a general, and like me, you’ve avoided shooting your eye out, and like me, you really dread being forced to resort to the Hallmark Channel, you could clear your egg nog noggin with this.

I’ve begun an extended journey of revisiting the Sherlock Holmes canon as interpreted by Jeremy Brett.

To quote that jolly philosopher Joe Ferrell (who at least once shared a drink with Charles Dickens); “What a joy!”

And it is.

I first met Mr. Holmes as relentlessly portrayed by Basil Rathbone as a non-glamorous leading man in a drab 1940’s overcoat (there’s a reason why Errol Flynn got the girl in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD), dragging a befuddled Dr. Watson around a foggy, criminous London as he skewers the flagitious verbally before he claps ‘em in irons.

Subsequent Sherlocks were just as fun to follow.

Ian Richardson was commanding and thoughtful. That Baskerville mutt gave him no paws.

Benedict Cumberbatch rode the razor rail of sanity and brilliance to bravely butt heads with that Napoleon of Crime; Professor Moriarty.

But Jeremy Brett continues to be the Holmes for me. Fiercely intelligent and fiercely impatient. Knows everything about poisons and smokes like a chimney. A master of disguise and occasionally has the fashion sense of Lebowsky in his flat. uber-sensitive to every nuance of a client’s usually unlikely conundrum and then barges out of the flat, oblivious to Mrs. Hudson’s prideful cuisine under cover on the table;

Holmes; “Come Watson! The trail is hot!”

Hudson; “Which is more than the dinner will be.”

The Brett version of Sherlock is immeasurably enhanced by the passage of time. Brett covers many cases over a number of television seasons. Thus, as we do in Doyle’s stories…and in life, we see Brett’s and Sherlock’s athletic energies wane, stamina fade, wrinkles grow, hairline weaken, and wheeze lurk a little closer to the surface. For some reason…this resonates with me and makes me feel even closer to the still fabulous consulting detective. I’m even considering starting a bee hive. IYKYK.

My favorite Jeremy Brett Sherlock is probably THE BLUE CARBUNCLE.

It’s London at Christmastime. There’s snow, visible breath, top hats, mufflers, various carriages, pubs, a pint of yer finest, and a missing blue gem with a blood-red history. How Dickensian can you get?

Wait!

“Please sir, may I have some more?”

How about geese?

I have a thing about a Christmas goose. Janie, on a whim, cooked a goose for our Christmas years ago and it has become a holiday comfort food for me ever since.

Several geese figure prominently in this story. Whose geese are they? Whence did they come? Wither did they go? Why? What did they eat? Who ate them? Who should go to jail? Whose hat is it?

A well-cooked goose answers most queries and worries.

Goose bless us every one!

Hey! I Got Tickets!

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It woulda been in the late 1970’s.

A late weekday afternoon phone call at work.

“Hey! I got tickets for John Prine tonight. Wanna go?”

In the realm of stupid questions…

I know. I know. There are no stupid questions.

But Jesus!

“While out sailin’ on the ocean, while out sailin’ on the sea, I bumped into the Saviour and he said ‘Pardon me.’ I said, ‘Jesus, you look tired.’ And he said ‘Jesus, so do you.’” – John Prine.

It had been one of those livin’-too-near-the-abyss days. I had been berated by my customers (“This was cheaper last week”), berated by my employees (“I need the next three Saturdays off–I have a date/Why don’t you schedule more cashiers/The beer cooler is too cold to stock now”), and berated by my boss (Why is your payroll so high?). It had been a sweaty bike ride to work that morning, and promised to be a steamier ride home.

“He’s playin’ at the Idaho Round-Up tonight. First set’s at eight.”

The Idaho Round-Up was a local Lexington bar. It was about as far from Idaho as any place in Kentucky could be and the only “round-up” I could recall was when I was singing in a band a few years before in a bar in a nearby college town. The bar owner received a heads-up call from the local gendarmes to clear the room before the week-end patrol descended to check ID’s. As expected, they found none, and soon the crowd returned from the sidewalk across the street and no one was arrested. I, being the whitest and worst soul-singer in history probably shoulda been arrested, but there were still two hours to go in the gig and the bar owner still had drinks to sell. Pretty lame for a round-up…

Still, Idaho Round-Up sounded cowboyish and was easy to pronounce, even for the well-lubricated, and they managed to book some nice acts. Mr. Prine had played there with some regularity.

“The night club was burnin’ from the torch singer’s song and sweat was a’floodin’ her eyes. The catwalk creaked ‘neath the bartender’s feet and smoke was too heavy to rise.” – Prine.

The offer of tickets came from Richie Giallo, a wine salesman. I liked Richie. He was gaunt, red-headed, tightly-strung and…okay…if you watched yourself. When dealing with Richie, you needed to keep your store’s needs firmly fixed in mind before he babbled his blandishments. Then, give him half what he asked for, chat a bit about family matters, industry gossip, and the Reds’ chances. Then pull a reverse Columbo as he left; “Oh, by the way, here’s a few other things I need.”

I knew the dance.

He knew I knew the dance.

I knew he knew I knew…

All God’s children got music.

Of course I jumped at the chance to see Mr. Prine again.

“…I feel a storm all wet and warm not ten miles away…approaching…” – Prine.

It was an evening of many unknowns.

It turned out that Richie actually had several tickets. He was sitting at a table near the stage with a couple unknown to me and a date I’d never met, all drinking undetermined quantities of something unidentifiable from which emanated slowly spinning bits of spark and tabletop-searing ash…yes…probably unhealthy.

I was sitting a couple of rows back at a table with another couple I didn’t know and a date I’d met the day before. It was a different time then.

Then Mr. Prine hit the stage and I was basking in a glow of being home with a one-man family for Thanksgiving.

“Grandpa was a carpenter, built houses, cars, and banks, chained-smoked Camel cigarettes and hammered nails in planks. He was level on the level.” – Prine.

I first “met” John Prine on the floor of a barren, hippie-and-flea-infested house near the University of Kentucky campus. There was little furniture, but there was a turntable and four long-playing vinyl discs (that’s what “lp” means for you whippersnappers out there). Three of the records were by Prine, the fourth was disc one (of four) of Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung” (one of the current residents was beginning to take German). I was not taking German. I spun the Prine discs, first heard “Muhlenberg County” and was instantly hooked on Prine’s vocabulary.

“Onomatopoeia. I don’t wanna see ya speakin’ in a foreign tongue.” – Prine.

Then I saw him on stage for the first time in Centre College’s concert hall in Danville. It was a big, dark space. I was sitting in the upper level of the audience. Prine walked out with his guitar and a cigarette. It was just him, and a mike, and a wooden stool with a glass of water. He bobbed and weaved and shuffled his leg in a puzzling way. He drawled and sang and giggled for over two hours about a life I never lived…and made it mine.

“…and the sky is black and still now on the hill where the angels sing. Ain’t it funny how an old broken bottle looks just like a diamond ring?” – Prine.

No dammit, it wasn’t funny. And no, I’ve never been on that particular hill. But Mr. Prine put me there…forever…and I thank him for it.

After that concert in Danville, I followed him through his records and local appearances. I saw him in concert venues and night clubs about a dozen times.

Tonight he was jes’ fine as usual, but I was distracted.

My friend and host was in apparent distress. His head was drooping and his eyes were closed. His tablemates were laughing and pushing his floppiness around as if he were a Muppet until he was left sitting back in his seat, eyes still closed, and his head fully extended back with his Adam’s Apple pointing to the sky. It didn’t auger well for my friend’s well-being and I was, as usual, over-thinking the situation as to what, if anything, to do about it. Not so the other male component of our table. He swiftly and calmly moved and knelt behind my friend’s chair, straightened his head to a normal concert-watching position by cradling it in his arms. I followed him and assumed a similar posture on the other side of my friend’s chair. The other jolly’s at the table were at first dismayed by our intrusion, but still barely coherent enough to figure the odds of resisting. They ultimately sat subdued and the six of us finished the performance in our new positions.

“That’s the way that the world goes ‘round. Yer up one day and then yer down. It’s a happy enchilada and you think yer gonna drown…” – Prine…interpreted by a well-lubricated fan.

When the show was finished, I learned that my tablemate was an EMT. Under his instruction, we fastened my friend to his chair and conveyed him to the car. We drove him home, jimmied a large window on his porch, secured him to one of his own kitchen chairs and achieved putting him safely to bed. The EMT stayed with him through the night.

My friend was OK.

I never saw the EMT, his date, my date, or any of the other participants again…and that’s OK too, I guess. It was a different time then.

“I been brought down to zero, brought up and put back there. I sat on the park bench, kissed the girl with the black hair and my head hollered out to my heart; ‘Better look out below!’” –Prine.

I woulda liked to have helped more.

I woulda liked to have helped better.

But I lacked the knowledge and the skill.

“Before I took on anything too big, I’d wanna be sure I had a purty good cut man in my corner.” – John Steinbeck.

“I have always relied on the kindness of strangers” – Tennessee Williams.

Me too.

Ask Me About My Shirt

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“…conversational silences, even when motivated by the mere necessity of drawing breath, must out of ordinary courtesy be bridged somehow.” — Bruce Montgomery (aka Edmund Crispin).

“Ask me about my shirt.”

Out of nowhere and pertinent to nothing that had been said before, that was Queezer’s contribution to the afternoon’s tale-spinning.

I suppose it would qualify as a bewildering example of strategic chitchat…maybe not in normal company, but this was a group of theatre types. Conversational gambits gambol freely in such flocks.

There had been the slightest of pauses in the last boozy speculation of Montana Joe’s wistful reminiscence of a non-existent girls softball team in the Missoula of his youth; a softball dream team immediately and rudely dubbed; “The Humping Heifers of Montana” by the mis-enlightened ribald listeners of this day. Those listeners and their raconteur were only slightly embarrassed by their own crass-itude, and that embarrassment was overwhelmed by the self-pleased, wheezy guffaws from this gaggle of geezers. Said guffaws depleted the reservoir of oxygen in the geezers, thus creating a gap in the chinwag.

This was the gap Queezer sought to bridge with his sartorial demand; “Ask me about my shirt.”

He’d been politely waiting, enduring, besides the admiration for the softball team, the afternoon’s other discussions ranging from;

  • frank reverence for the scat singing of Cyrill Aimeé,
  • the value of singing lessons for young actors,
  • the remarkable competence of past local newspaper reviewers who had once said nice things about us,
  • incredulity about the amazing odds against our dogs being the best good dogs on the planet which clearly they were,
  • the stark drop in attendance and support for live theatre,
  • and the profound beneficial effect of the new pitch clock in major league baseball.

Burning issues all certainly, but lacking somewhat in focus and priority.

Queezer filled the lack and the gap; “Ask me about my shirt.”

Breath and drinks replenished, wary eyes queried sideways. Was this a trick question? Like; “How many fingers am I holding up?” or “How many colors of blue make up the sky?”

Junesboy finally sighed and took one for the team; “OK, where’d ya get that shirt?”

Queezer proceeded to rattle off the provenance of his very nice camp garment to an audience that in the soporific summer sun soon resembled William Powell’s post-prandial cigar-and-brandy old boys nodding and snoring in their New Year’s tuxedos in AFTER THE THIN MAN.

“I ordered it from L. L. Bean. It’s the shirt Roman Polanski wore when he sliced Jake’s nose in CHINATOWN. He got it from Lebowski’s laundry basket. It was one of the bowling shirts in scene three. Before that it was worn by Elliot Gould in the Japan golfing scene in M.A.S.H. Gould borrowed it from Hunter Thompson’s Samoan lawyer – that’s where the beer stains came from. Isn’t it great?”

This went on for a good 20 minutes or so.

Then I woke up from my doze.

But it is a real nice shirt and I really like camp shirts and Hawaiian shirts, whether they’re Tommy Bahama or off the $5.99 spinning wire rack down at Walgreen’s. One of the glories (and there are many) of retirement and hermitude is the possibility of wearing outrageous, voluminous shirts every day. After thirty plus years of a coat-and-tie career, it’s a possibility I strive to realize each morning.

My all-time favorite shirt was a flimsy camp shirt I bought in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It was made in Japan, cost $8.99 and featured not one, not two, but three full dragons in livid color set against a cream background.

It was a quality piece.

Mel Gibson wore it while prowling the treacherous streets of Jakarta with Linda Hunt in THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY. Before that, John Saxon wore it while getting his ass kicked by Bruce Lee in ENTER THE DRAGON. He borrowed it from Sean Connery who wore it while sipping tea with Tetsuro Tanba before jumping in the bath with Akiko Wakabashi in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE.

I wore it in “The Fifth of July,” directed by my friend Montana Joe on the Guignol Theatre stage in 1983.

It was a helluva shirt.

I’m glad you asked about it.

Hey!

Wake up!!

Hazardous Doin’s

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The cicadas are droning.

The frogs are singing an ominous bass line.

In the distance a tree toad is trilling for attention to be paid.

The fountain in the (black) lagoon is gurgling.

I might as well be in the jungles of India.

And, I am.

I am avidly lost in Gordon Casserley’s 1921 adventure tale; THE ELEPHANT GOD. The protagonist has just been attacked by a strategically-placed cobra, his slippers have been deliberately baited with a krait, his breakfast has been poisoned, and he’s now trapped in a courtyard with a mad elephant. He has eluded every threat thus far, but what might be next?

I am a true “Jeffty” who will always be five years old (100 points if you know that reference). I’m goggle-eyed and slack-jawed, unaware as my wife Janie pads in silently and whispers like thunder; “Are you awake?”

I gasp…..

….oh no……

…I shriek and suck all the air out of this quiet Hollywood/Mt. Vernon neighborhood in Central Kentucky.

My head snaps up out of the book and out of India, whiplashing my life before my eyes (that’s gonna ache…where’s the Naproxen?)

Reading is dangerous!

Who’d a’thunk?

Reading is dangerous. I’ve lived in that perilous valley since Dick and Jane, since Doctor Dolittle, since Bartholomew Cubbins’ Oobleck. At least, that’s what the news cycle and the Kentucky State Legislature has been telling me.

Oobleck…sounds like something that might have escaped from a Chinese wet market. Hugh Lofting’s colonial depictions of non-white races are clearly offensive in the 21st century, though the kindness and respect he grants animals, and his objections to fox-hunting ameliorate my frown a mite. Dick and Jane’s relationship with Spot…grooming for bestiality? Cultivating a species prejudice against cats?

Dangerous stuff indeed.

I don’t know how I survived all this indoctrination.

I’ve read voraciously my whole life. Hell, I read at red lights.

I’ve read Jack Kerouac, Herbert Huncke, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Hunter Thompson, Paul Bowles, and Abby Hoffman. I’ve never done drugs, been drunk at the Derby, been arrested, or shot my wife. I have thought freely and fiercely, questioned authority, and sought the next right thing to do.

I’ve read Harper Lee and learned the value of standing on another man’s porch and looking out at the world as he sees it…and sought the next right thing to do.

I’ve read H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe and learned that behind some doors lie madness…which is clearly not the next right thing to do.

I’ve read Clair Bee and Wilfred McCormick and still cannot hit a curve ball…but I have a better idea of the next right thing to do.

I’ve read Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, Dylan Thomas, and Davis Grubb. I know that so many of us with widely varying competences are most often searching for the next right thing to do.

…the next right thing to do…

Surely that’s a worthy quest. Yes?

Even at the cost of a rude misstep or two, or an awkward or offensive moment, or a challenge to our beliefs…

…or even a hair-whitening scare from a stealthy-footed Janie.

El Vampiro Negro

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It sounds like a horror flick made in Mexico in the early 60’s and reworked by K. Gordon Murray, inexplicably but plangently dubbed by radio announcers in Coral Bay, Florida, and released as a third feature lagniappe on a Santo-driven Saturday all-night Southern California neighborhood screen.

But it’s not……any of it.

Instead, it’s a gripping, non-supernatural 1953 reworking of Fritz Lang’s 1931 jewel “M” that’s actually scarier than the original.

Director Román Viñoly Barreto replaces Peter Lorre’s remarkable performance in the original with a gang of sterling actors from a larger portion of the planet’s population (women in the key roles – whatta concept!)

  • Olga Zubarry is earthy and anxious, vulnerable, but fierce, and she does what the police cannot.
  • Nathán Pinzón is pathetic and pitiless and readily tearful.
  • Nelly Panizza is energetic, hot in her lingerie, and fears neither the authorities nor repercussions…and near to her is not a safe place to be.
  • Roberto Escalarda is cool, cruel, perfectly groomed, and perfectly hypocritical. He also gets my laugh-out-loud line of the film as the prosecutor; “Round up the usual suspects.”

I believe film-makers watch other films……duh.

It would not be a surprise to me to find out Barreto was impressed by Tod Browning’s FREAKS (1932). There were moments during the stalking of the killer when I almost started chanting; “Gobbo-geebo, Gobbo-geebo, now we make you one of us.” And the final corralling of the villain in the sewers smelled much like the demise of Orson Welles in Carol Reed’s brilliant THE THIRD MAN (1949).

It also would not surprise me to learn that the West German 1960’s film interpreters of the Edgar Wallace canon had been exposed to this film. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that homeless blind match-seller before and I was expecting Klaus Kinski to jump out of the shadows at every turn.

I was also arrested by the long shots of shoes walking the rain-shiny nighttime cobblestone streets. A similar sequence opened Koreyoshi Kurahara’s excellent flick; I AM WAITING (1957).

Film-makers watch other films.

Two other odd thoughts…

This film, according to the always thoughtful analysis of Eddie Muller, was part of a golden period of Argentine film-making in the early 50’s. That productive time was truncated by government turmoil and the strangling sunami of films from Hollywood. Argentine films continued to be shown and win awards in Europe, but few made it to the States. This economic imperialism was replicated in other parts of the film world. While I’m pleased that the US product was so well-done and well-received, I ponder if the price of losing variety and diversity was awfully high.

<< sigh >>

Something we’ll never know…

Also…

There’s a scene on a roller coaster; usually a happy choice for me.

I love roller coasters and wish to ride them all…but I didn’t care for this one. It was a coaster that only held two people in each gondola for each ride and only one gondola for each ride. The two riders were genuinely terrified, as I would be. It’s one thing to be hurled to destruction doing a foolish thing along with a crowd of brave fools. It’s quite another to be a solo fool.

Perhaps that explains lemmings.

Perhaps that explains political rallies.

I need to cipher on that a bit.

The film is quite fine. If you get a chance to see it…lucky you.

Frankenstein 1970

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There are few verities in this world, but I know of some; death, taxes, and there’ll always be a Frankenstein film I haven’t seen.

This is one.

Tonight I remedied that omission.

Ugh.

Many think Boris Karloff played Frankenstein in the best known film of Mary Shelley’s amazing story. Not true. Mr. Karloff played the monster created by Baron Frankenstein. It was not until this 1958 film that he actually played someone in the Frankenstein family, a descendant of the baron, facing a future of dwindling funds, who rents out the stark Frankenstein manse to a documentary film crew that resembles the film crew in ED WOOD.

I usually enjoy Mr. Karloff’s performances, but in this case Messiers Clive and Cushing did it better.

Having consistently watched more than the recommended daily dose of mad scientist flicks, I’ve acquired a dubious expertise in movie laboratory sets. This film’s iteration features bank after bank of consoles of dials and switches and gauges…very like a low-budget version of Dr. No’s lab. It lacks one of those lightning producing orbs that are dear to my heart, but it does have some dripping tubing in various places that suggest that somewhere there’s some fine bourbon bein’ born. There’s also a contraption that looks like a cross between an MRI and a crematorium…and an EZ-Bake oven… smokin’ up the joint. All-in-all, I’d give the lab an 85. It was easy to dance to.

Oh. On the audio side of production, the lab has the capability of disposing of human bodies. When it’s employed, it does so with the distinct sound effect of a toilet being flushed. I can only imagine how that was received in 1950’s movie houses. I can only imagine the glee of the movie critics of the day.

On the positive side…

There’s a moment early in the film that shows us three members of the film crew framed in front of a large, gothic fireplace. It recalled to me the opening scene in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN with the Shelleys and mad, bad Lord Byron. It may have been accidental, but I prefer to think the director and writers were paying homage.

Eventually we arrive in a ludicrous confrontation between a mummyishly-bandaged monster and a beret-wearing cameraman in a cave with a perfectly flat Hollywood cave floor (are there any other kind?)

I simply wouldn’t have it any other way.

My Horrors Have Always Been Cowboys?

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An in-depth viewing of BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA is on the slate for tonight.

I like horror movies.

I like cowboy movies.

I don’t like this.

That’s probably about as much in-depth analysis as the flick deserves but here are a few stray thoughts.

1. The film is directed by William Beaudine, whose nickname was “One-Shot Bill”. I’m thinkin’ that moniker is not complimentary to anyone involved with directing a film unless he happens to have a hot date waiting in the wings. This flick goes far in validating my thinking.

2. Virginia Christine appears in the film. Most of you know Ms. Christine, if you know her at all, as Mrs. Olsen in the Folger’s Coffee commercials of the 1790’s (feelin’ a little old this evening). But Ms. Christine had an acting career beyond coffee hucksterism, though frankly, this performance is probably not the best testimony to that fact. It’s certainly not “the richest kind.”

3. The costume budget musta been real tight. The two title characters never – I mean never – change clothes. One costume each for the whole movie. (One-Shot Bill = One-Shirt Bill?) I know that sounds picky, but it jars my suspension of disbelief. I can’t believe I just said that about a movie featuring a vampire fighting an American gunslinger.

4. Putting Billy the Kid in a sea-foam green chamois over-shirt might…just might…lessen his credibility as a tough guy.

5. Casting a thirty-plus year old actor as Billy the “Kid” more than likely damaged the film’s box-office appeal to teens. Perhaps if he had played a guitar and crooned a little cowboy/vampire/surfer ditty it coulda been redeemed.

I doubt it.

Shakespeare in 5/4 Time?

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Movie night!

Wanna hear Othello play the piano?

Wanna hear Desdemona croon the blues?

Wanna see Iago rattlin’ a hot drum solo?

It’s all in All Night Long, Basil Dearden’s 1962 jazz retelling of Shakespeare’s OTHELLO.

Set in Richard Attenborough’s swingin’ two story Mayfair apartment, top jazz performers gather to celebrate Rex and Delia’s one-year anniversary with an all-night jam. Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, Johnny Dankworth, and Tubby Hayes are playing guests. Even Cleo Laine gets a shout-out as the guests arrive. Patrick McGoohan schemes and plays drums. Henry VIII (Keith Michell) blows weed and sax.

The acting in the film is generally sub-standard. The story is convoluted and implausible. It may be neither iambic nor pentameter, but the music is hot.

The movie is mostly a curiosity, but it looks great and the music makes up for considerable mediocrity.

There’s even bongos!

“Don’t worry man…everything’s co-o-o-o-o-l.”

Here Comes the Bride

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Sometime after my twenties, it occurred to me that I didn’t have all the answers to everything. It was another ten years before I realized I actually didn’t have the answer to much at all. Still don’t.

However, I did and do retain the notion that those answers are still out there for me to find.

Except…

There are issues and questions I suspect we’ll never answer fully nor resolve to the non-MAGA world’s satisfaction.

Following the guidance of that profound philosopher W. S. Gilbert, I’ve made a little list;

  • What is the exact value of Pi?
  • Ginger or Mary Anne?
  • Pluto – planet or errant rock?
  • To be or not to be?
  • Designated hitter – yea or nay?
  • Elsa Lanchester’s make-up in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN – is it more outré as the Bride or as Mary Shelley?

I am an unabashed fan of Ms. Lanchester; especially in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. I have previously extolled the screaming talents of Fay Wray in KING KONG and DOCTOR X. But it doesn’t hold a candle to Lanchester’s hissing in THE BRIDE. It’s an audible lightning stroke from her amazing hair-do through her imperious eyes to her voice and snarl that lances the horny monster’s heart. I cannot fathom how Boris Karloff could even continue with the show after that blow.

But Ms. Lanchester was more than a movie monster-ess.

Before her movie career, she was a cabaret performer. I have recordings.

To hear her saucily warble about “Fiji Fanny”, or the potential salacious adventures “At the Drive In,” or to widen your eyes to the double entendres of “My New York Slip” and “I’m Glad to See Your Back” is…shall we say in that Old English way; monsterful.

She gives cheeky invitations; “If You Peek in My Gazebo” and “When a Lady Has a Piazza.” But be aware of her advice; “Never Go Walking Out Without Your Hat Pin.”

Yes, Ms. Lanchester implies she is imminently osculable, but her Cockney kiss may be followed by her knock-you-to-your-knees hiss.