The Black Cat

"This is a tricky house," says the honeymooning husband, Peter, no apostle, but a mystery writer (or should I say "writer of mysteries"?) hunkered down in Hungary in the house redesigned, rebuilt, upon the remains of a fortress lost in great battle and the thousands of bodies given up their lives in the loss -- a stage manufactured in all senses by the Bauhausian engineer Hjalmar Poelzig. Peter comes to his tricky conclusion without having yet experienced the lower levels of the tower. Before the aforementioned battle the tower served as gun turret, now it holds the strange scene you see at the top of this posting.

What for the huge piece of graph paper attached to the wall – used in guiding the missiles? How floats the woman? Why does Bela (call him here “Dr. Vitus Wedergast” though you could never pronounce it in just the same perfect way the former count can when first we meet him in this film) Lugosi recoil in horror? Is it the woman? The shadow of the cat? Or, is the reaction no acting but a real revulsion toward Karloff, who plays Poelzig, who gets top billing though he’s only the heavy. (“Here comes the heavy,” he reportedly would say during the filming before he made each entrance.)


The scene always lingers somewhere in my mind, in the place reserved for favorites: My favorite Bela Lugosi vs. Boris Karloff film, possibly because it was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer -- who had a scary story of his own, which I will relate some time soon. To view the entire film above in a larger frame, go to the Internet Archive where this admittedly-murky print is housed.

Nothing really here to see of Edgar Allen Poe's original story, except perhaps for the spirit of perverseness... or in honor of Poe and this particular story I should most definitely type PERVERSENESS.

"Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart -- one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself -- to offer violence to its own nature -- to do wrong for the wrong's sake only -- that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree -- hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart -- hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence -- hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin -- a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it -- if such a thing were possible -- even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God."

Click this here underlined phrase to hear "The Raven" album by Lou Reed -- a peculiar and sometimes-difficult piece of work, Reed putting to music his interpretations and sometimes rewritings of Poe. Much of the blocked quote above is used in "I Wanna Know (The Pit and the Pendulum)" and the spirit of PERVERSENESS made more convincing with backing vocals by the Blind Boys of Alabama. Listen to it at the link above and come back when you can.

While you are gone: What you've seen so far in this posting remains rough and I will keep coming back in your absence with additions, with new thoughts to smooth out the inconsistencies. A new way of doing things here, but perhaps just another example of what we call PERVERSENESS.

As long as you live...

"Remember this as long as you live: whenever you meet up with anyone who is trying to cause trouble between people...anyone who tries to tell you that a man can't be a good American because he's a Catholic or a Jew, a Protestant or whatever: you can be pretty sure he's a rotten American himself. Not only a rotten American, but a rotten human being! Don't ever forget that!"

So spoke Superman, warning youngsters about the so-called "Guardians of America" in a story entitled "The Hate Mongers Organization", from the Superman radio show in 1946, as quoted in the excellent new book "Flights of Fantasy -- The Unauthorized but True Story of Radio & TV's Adventures of Superman" by Michael J. Hayde.

Harmony out of Memory Land

Woke up to the refrain of Ted Lewis singing his hit from the 1920s, "Walking Around In A Dream", and though I can't yet find a legally-shareable clip of the song itself, I ran across a 1929 clip of Lewis and his band which you may view below.

Yes, that's Noah Beery as the Big Pirate in the scene. It was part of Warner Brothers 1929 revue "The Show of Shows" reportedly largely lost, except for clips like this. I'll have to see what else I can find of it on the YouTube.

If we were to call for help...

A few years ago someone got in trouble over a fight at school. He was only five years old or so. The school asked him to write a short essay on what he did, why he did what he did and why he was sorry for what he did. So he did. And he signed the essay: Mothra.

Happy birthday to you, young Mothra! May you continue to fearlessly flap your wings towards the future...

Although it's not the birthday of the -original- Divine Moth, still in his egg in the picture above, now's as good a time as any to celebrate.

The music for this celebration comes from the same source as this posting's title: the Mothra song, originally performed by the Peanuts in 1961. Not many know the lyrics were in Malayan rather than Japanese.

Hear the songs here.

Stills from Mothra's first battle with Godzilla (along with the original Japanese trailer) reside here. Of course, there's the 90s version of the song from the Rebirth of Mothra trilogy, put together with some of the big moth's greatest hits below...

Ten years later they redid the song again...check it out below. Still trying to find the first 1961 version, but you can enjoy it yourself if you will only give -in- to the song and see the movies.

Mothra is something you’re not really supposed to think about. It's something you just believe in -- a giant Tinkerbell who, in this case, can shoot rays from her antennae.

Let yourself go and fly away to a place where large graceful things can bring beauty and Armageddon-time destruction at once.

Yes, I believe a giant moth can fly, that it can fight off fierce fiery attacks from giant radioactive creatures of the deep, as well, and that somehow it finds time to save the planet and its children. If you’re lucky you can get a ride when the day is done. If you don’t believe, well, you might be too old. Too bad...

What Have You Done?

Twenty-eight years ago, when I heard a voice on the radio say "John Lennon is dead" ...

Instinctively I steered directly to my old job, to the student newspaper office at Illinois State, to see what I could find on the UPI wire machine and to help with whatever the staff was planning to run. There I met another friend who had the same idea. We were both townies, both still lived near after our respective college "careers," still kept in touch with the newspaper staff. Both of us puzzled at the emptiness of the front offices and the lack of activity in the production room, until the new editor came in. He guessed what we were there for, saying, "Yeah, we heard the news, but wanted to meet the printer's deadline."

1980 and things had changed before our eyes, those who came after had already chosen a new and unexpected path from our own. We would have run a special issue, "deadlines be damned," but these "kids" (three or four years our junior) were too young by birth to carry any unconditional love for Beatles. That's how it was in the those days: you were either old enough to remember seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan's show or you thought Paul McCartney was just the guy who had a band called Wings.

1980: To most of the disaffected youth we knew, Jimmy Carter gave peace a bad name in his failure to deal with pretty much everything, while Reagan picked up enough of those who still felt they had to care about something, coloring the campus world in hues far different from the post 60s era we tried fruitlessly to keep flowering. Hindsight shows a view of us being too busy with a culture we were too young for, that we never got around to making one pure of the past and unquestionably our own. What kind of youth movement revels in the past, instead of rejecting it? Or, is that the way it always appears to be from the outside?

Whatever the past, our future would be one without Lennon the man. His works, his words, his thoughts would continue and we could use whatever time was left to make some sense, something good with them.

So this is Christmas and what have you done?

Not done yet, John...

Leave your own memories here.


WAR IS OVER! (If You Want It) from Yoko Ono on Vimeo.

Royal Reflections

Elvis surrounded by adoring autograph-seeking fans and glossy still-unadorned photos of his own pensively smiling head shot makes for a good general picture of his life, as if he finds himself trapped in a hall of mirrors, in a place where reflections can be questions. Which Elvis is the real Elvis? Is Elvis all of these Elvises?

Of the fans, themselves: all we see are hands, all kinds of hands undoubtedly – hands to shake in fellowship, clawing greedy hands, hands to wipe a tired brow -- no faces to call their own here either, except the face on the photos of Elvis about which they can say in many ways “This face belongs to us.”

How many faceless, faceful fans will leave him if he stops being the Elvis they want him to be? Is that the only way out of his hall of mirrors: to disappoint enough fans, to make enough of them disappear to allow him an opening and new path to exit himself?

Thirty-one years ago, he accidentally found an exit from the hall, leaving even more Elvises behind, casting new reflections and asking new questions still unanswered.

If you find yourself doubtful where you stand on these questions and answers, refresh yourself with a listen to what he left behind, and then make up your own mind.

Absence Makes the Mind Grow Fonder, Too

Woke up late on Saturday to find that not only was Fred MacMurray having a birthday, but also Turner Classic Movies scheduled in celebration a whole day of his films.

MacMurray’s career contained two genuine classics -- “The Apartment” and “Double Indemnity” – along with a long list of pretty-good-but-not-great work including “Murder He Says” and “The Caine Mutiny.” Reviewing a list of his jobs it surprised me how many films he made with director Mitchell Leisen, though I was always especially fond of the screwball comedy work he and Leisen put together with Carole Lombard like “Hands Across the Table” and “The Princess Comes Across.”

The part of his career usually ignored by critics is the Disney stuff from the late 50s - early 60s. Had not seen any of that in years – for some reason I have never seen “The Shaggy Dog” or “The Absent-Minded Professor.” Of course, the only one I had seen at the theaters appeared when I turned on the television: the “Absent-Minded” sequel “Son of Flubber”.

It is probably best to judge a person when they are at their lowest. What choices do they make then? How do they behave to others? If “Son of Flubber” was MacMurray’s nadir, then using those basics of judgment he must have been one heck of a human being.

My one memory of the film: MacMurray’s absent-minded Professor Brainard -- wearing a Twenties-style college prep gear complete with coonskin coat and school pennant -- follows in flying flivver the ratty rival for his wife’s affections. His faithful dog sits by his side through the trip.

What I had almost forgotten: He aims his Flubber Gas gun at the rival’s car, causing a rain cloud to form and a thunderstorm to commence inside the car causing a wreck. (Quite a fine line between comedy and drama…)

What I had completely forgotten: The crazed joyful look on MacMurray’s face while he stalks his prey.

That’s entertainment!

Most importantly I had also forgotten this: Near the end of the film, after being hauled to court when one of his creations breaks all the glass in a particular area of town, the district attorney asks him if he is found innocent and set free will he continue to teach. Professor Brainard answers the question:

Well, it seems to me a lot of people are going around these days selling fear – all kinds of fear. Fear of bombs, bugs, smog, surpluses, fall-out, falling hair…we find ourselves apologizing, hiding our heads, jumping at shadows. I remember when Groundhog Day only came once a year in this country.

I see a lot of students from my science class (here) in the courtroom. They may not be the most studious group of young people in college today, but I’ll say this for them: so far they are unafraid.

They have good will, enthusiasm and an infinite capacity for making mistakes. I have high hopes for them. The road to genius is paved with fumble footing and bumbling and anyone who falls flat on his face is at least moving in the right direction – forward. And the fellow who makes the most mistakes may be the one who’ll save the neck of the whole wide world some day.

Finding no transcripts of this on the Internet I later unexpectedly found a cheap copy of the film at a local shop (5.99!) and made a transcription of my own – apologies if I have misheard some of the above. Screenplay writers Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi – longtime Disney drones – despite the tremendous bit quoted above missed the mark here for the most part, along with another long-time Disneyite, director Robert Stevenson. This is not a great classic film, though the crazy stuff I mentioned above keeps happening enough that I am surprisingly looking forward to watching it again.

Even without the craziness, the courtroom finale and its words showed a worthwhile theme that if explored more by the rest of the film might well have moved it closer to the upper-levels of MacMurray’s credits. Regardless of the fine quality of the words, it is difficult to imagine them spoken more convincingly than how Fred MacMurray speaks them.

Since Fred spoke them, they become just another reason to celebrate his birthday. Thanks, Fred!

UPDATE: Apparently this was TCM’s “Summer Under the Stars” celebration of MacMurray – his birthday, not until August 30. So… happy –early- birthday, Fred!

Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

“Almost 30 years since Dr. Hunter S. Thompson spoke to a crowd at the U of I in Champaign-Urbana, an unruly crowd of stoners and drunks and miscellaneously adjective-deprived states far removed from what society back then deemed normal. They followed the bouncing beach ball to whatever beat bellowed from the PA, but what they followed to find themselves there I never knew -- which was too bad because at the time I was a reporter. I carried a pad.”

I wrote that on the Blackberry while waiting for the documentary “Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson” to begin. A memory of the last time I saw Thompson -- renowned "new journalist" -- writing the words brought back some truths maintained in my mind all these years and by the time the end credits rolled on the movie I saw the lack of those truths became the problem with the film itself.

The details in my mind of that evening too many decades ago:

-Thompson had no speech; he answered questions from the audience.

-Arriving late, he showed up shortly after the bottle of Wild Turkey and a glass with some ice appeared.

-Most important: After the audience ran out of questions about drugs and wild life, he began to get questions about writing and journalism. The more of these types of questions, which brought out more emotional and detailed answers instead of one-liners, the more of the unruly crowd slipped out of the auditorium into the night.

So to what did my wondering eyes appear when I dug up the old article, my first-hand account at the time of these memories above? Only the first two details appeared. I left-out the good stuff in the third detail, the stuff that really mattered.

The best way to experience the life of Thompson is to read his works, most especially “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972” and “Fear and Loathing in Last Vegas” and I will admit the film could potentially steer people towards Thompson’s writings but it also steers away from the truth of the matter at hand. The same truth I left out of my own long-ago report…

Thompson at his best would write about what we needed to hear, not what we wanted to hear. “Gonzo” fails in that it concentrates on celebrating the crowd-pleasing upside of his madness, the fun of feeding a fantastic appetite for booze and pills, but barely touches the inevitable downside and cost of such a lifestyle. Sure is cool to see somebody get fucked-up and shooting off guns, yessirreebob! But what happened to the last twenty years of his life? How did his thoughts and writing deteriorate until the most radical reaction he could muster was blowing his head off with a gun?

Roger Ebert’s review contains a much clearer description of what I'm trying to get here:

In all the memories gathered together in "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," there was one subject I found conspicuously missing: The fact of the man's misery. Did he never have a hangover? The film finds extraordinary access to the people in his life, but not even from his two wives do we get a description I would dearly love to read, on what he was like in the first hour or two after he woke up. He was clearly, deeply, addicted to drugs and alcohol, and after a stupor-induced sleep he would have awakened in a state of withdrawal. He must have administered therapeutic dozes of booze or pills or something to quiet the tremors and the dread. What did he say at those times? How did he behave? Are the words "fear and loathing" autobiographical?

Most importantly to me, vividly and emotionally, is the scene narrated by his wife who tries to describe what he was like while he was writing. We see him typing away in his personally peculiar fashion, not attacking the keyboard as you would imagine by the tenor of his words, but instead his fingers dance across the keyboard as if they’re doing the old soft-shoe to Whispering Jack Smith singing his 1927 hit tune “Me and My Shadow”. Thompson has a smile on his face, in heaven as the thoughts of his mind and actions of his body synch together in perfect rhythm.

Now I have a hankering to hear Warren Zevon sing “The Hula Hula Boys” and you need to read Thompson’s “The Curse of Lono” to find out why.

Thinking of Anything Else

ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930)
Starring Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo Marx, with Margaret Dumont
Directed by Victor Heerman
(97 minutes) B&W

Searching the middle for a beginning or an end…

Chico Marx noodles around on the piano during the party celebrating not only the return of Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding (three chairs for him) but also the unveiling of Bogarde's famous painting, "After the Hunt." Chico, going here as musician Senor Ravelli (if we don't show up you can't afford us), and his fingers continue drinking in the sounds of the same bars over and over and over.

"I can't think of a finish," he finally says, though that does not stop his fingering the keys. "Funny, I can't think of anything else," says Groucho.

Butlers, ingénues, and other characters tell jokes, but the Marx Brothers live the jokes. Punch lines are not the point for them, in their repertoire they use fishing lines, instead -- casting out for bigger and better fish.

When Groucho cannot think of anything else, it is not a punch line it’s a clue to their humor: (supposedly not comedy attractive to women -- like the Three Stooges, or Abbot & Costello, it's a guy thing). And yes, there we find ourselves off on a different tangent but that is what makes the Marx Brothers to me.

Tangents, atypical roads take us unexpectedly to places for which we usually are not quite prepared; unexpected, yet also usually ingenious as is revealed upon multiple viewings of their work. You do not always know how they will finish, and often there is no satisfactory end, either because “The End” winds up a bust or because you do not want them to leave quite yet.

All of this high-faluting nonsense is to say, I find them very funny people. I hope you do, too.

Special note: Some of the Brothers' best words came from the mind of George S. Kaufman, whose website supplied the picture up top, and of whom you should read more about here.

Inevitable Alterations

The mind searches furiously for a key to it all. What is it? What went wrong? Why? How? The body meanwhile does what it must to survive! Escape is not sought nor desired nor even possible. The alteration, subtle at first, then mounting in intensity, growing bolder, more visible, more disruptive as time went on -- the alteration was inevitable.

For the chaos, the tumult raging all about this last of his superior breed could only be the product of the pain and the passion and the fire to which he alone remains heir. The energy -- the creative force -- could be disciplined only so strictly, held seething in check only so long, before it burst forth ravaging, mindless uncontrollable. That's the answer! So obvious in retrospect! An organism ceases to live when it ceases to grow. The element of change, which loomed so terrifying -- was in fact the only hope of salvation.

To resist, to dam the flow, to go rigid...was to abandon all hope.

Steve Gerber wrote that (or at least co-wrote that) in the first issue of the comic book Omega the Unknown. Gerber and co-creator Mary Skrenes have always closely held the book and its mysteries to the vest, so we probably will never really know who did what. Just another mystery of life without an answer. What is it?

We feel most comforted by stories with answers, with endings, where there is a chance to frame everything into one picture. All the answers we need in a glance. Steve Gerber will not be ending any more stories. Dead at 60. Why? How?

It is common in the world of comic books for the artist to have a unique style. Uncommon is the comic book writer with an irreproducible personal voice and viewpoint in his work. Steve’s work is uncommon in this vein. …Could only be the product of the pain and the passion and the fire…

One of my favorite Gerber stories, the revival of the Metal Men. The overall theme of the story tells us of the sometimes-hard-to-find good in everyone, but now I am seeing something else in the background. Doc Magnus overcomes his madness in the story because of his work – not only in that he creates, but also that his Metal Men creations save his day by the end, by bringing him clarity and peace at last. I hope Steve too had peace at the end and that he recognized the outstanding quality of his work.

I hope other generations of writers and artists can continue to wrestle with the lessons of his works and their quality. For those of us who bought his stuff off the stands, his stories will continue in re-readings. The sadness, as always, is in the stories he never got the chance to tell us or to finish.

It is another element of change, and to do right by ourselves we must make the best of it we can. As we could often find something good in the baddest of Steve's villains, we could also heed the card left by his anti-hero, the Foolkiller, which said: Today is the last day of the rest of your life. Use it wisely, or die a fool.

Good night, Steve…we're a much wiser bunch because of you.

The basic nuts and bolts of Steve's life can be found here.

More information from a personal perspective may be found at the site of his friend Mark Evanier. Donations may be made in his name at Hero Initiative.

I've Still Got A Secret

More reasons to smile...

It’s pretty much still a secret, but the program “I’ve Got A Secret” – which ran on the CBS television network from 1952 to 1967 – began again in re-runs on Game Show Network (GSN) at the beginning of the year, at the primo time of 2:30 a.m. CST. If your Tivo is tired of the more modern re-runs and if you are looking for old-school entertainment packed with unexpected and occasionally poignant moments from history, you could do worse than getting some of these into your digital memory for future viewing.

No one thought of future viewers when these first aired. They probably did not think much beyond the show for the following week. “I’ve Got A Secret” after all, was not a game show in the standard sense. Generally played for laughs, the draw was more for those seeking a variety show. The contestants brought a unique secret for the panel to guess, and if the panel was unsuccessful, then the contestant won eighty dollars. In the first few years of the show, they also won a carton of Winston cigarettes courtesy of the program’s then-sponsor.

The variety of the show came from the different types of secrets and guest stars: on one night, a couple revealed they themselves had just found out NASA picked their son for the new astronaut program. An Indian in full authentic regalia, who, it turned out, was the man who posed for the so-called Indian head nickel followed them the same evening. On another night, a lady came from Michigan with the secret her house and all its furnishings were made entirely of paper. Or on another, a group of people in various forms of injury – one with a black eye, another with a cast on their leg, someone else with their fingers wrapped and another with a broken nose showed up with the secret that they had all injured themselves doing The Twist.

If you'd like to check them out before setting your Tivo timer, here's a You Tube clip of a typical 1962 episode (it's only Part One, but it should also offer you the chance at Part Two and Three at the end):

The panel here is my favorite of their various regular groupings: Bill Cullen, Betsy Palmer, Henry Morgan, and Bess Myerson...

Bill Cullen should be familiar to fans of game shows in general given his long-running hosting job for thirty-some years. He was the original host of the Price Is Right, back when it was successful enough to have not only a daytime, but also a regular nighttime version. Its popularity even gave it a spot as a plot on the Flintstones.

Betsy Palmer, delightfully daffy, an aspiring actress who got her best-remembered role years after IGAS was over -- as the mother of psycho serial slaughterer Jason, in the original Friday the 13th movie.

Henry Morgan was one of those wits you used to see a lot of, not really an author, a comedian, star, he just ... was. His curmudgeonly-wit did not endear him long with sponsors, so his solo-efforts on radio and television never lasted long.

Bess Myerson, the first Jewish Miss America, but she was also quite intelligent and stylish and later went on to the anti-war movement and regular work with various New York City government administrations.

Panel moderator Garry Moore, like Henry Morgan, is something you do not really see much of these days -- not really a star of any sort, but whose easygoing charm made him welcome in American homes via the airwaves for years. Moore is famous today for discovering and nurturing the talents of Carol Burnett, though to Bullwinkle fans his fame is for his having a partner/sidekick named Durwood Kirby.

I am not sure why, but until viewing these re-runs I had forgotten how much of a crush I must have had on Betsy Palmer. There is something about her still uniquely appealing to me. You can read more about her, and “I’ve Got A Secret” in this article from T.V. Guide, from 1962. (The picture up top was taken from this same article.) Look out there for the fellow with the carrots in his ears…

Of the couple mentioned above, whose son NASA chose for the astronaut program, they were Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong, and you can read about their experience on IGAS here in an excerpt from "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong."

Game Show Network will hopefully go back further to earlier re-runs than 1962 of the show, but at times they've been squeemish about playing episodes with such a prominent sponsor as Winston was in those days. Some time you may get to see David Niven (who's secret was that he was sitting on a block of ice while answering questions), the entire United States Air Force of the early 1900s (back when it was only one guy), and a man who witnessed Abraham Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theatre.

Don't keep this a secret...

Shine On

The first in an irregular series remembering 20th century cultural icons...

Laurel and Hardy were probably not popular entertainment’s first Odd Couple, but due to their large volume of quality comedic work in film, they were among the most influential. One of the better pieces about them on the Internet is Mark Evanier’s article here.

When first encountering their screen antics I preferred the mild-mannered put-upon Stanley – the skinny Bow to the ever-exasperated know-it-all roundness of Ollie the Fiddle – but over the years, as I get older, I see more the perfection of their pairing. They’re like the Baby New Year and the Old Year Past figures seen every December 31: Stanley is the baby with Innocence we wish we still had, while Ollie is the adult of Experience who thinks he’s seen it all. His pride is ours, and we know he will at some point fall – in a “prat”, of course.

Woody Allen’s “Reasons to Live” from “Manhattan” could well have included the following clip. It’s from the marvelous The Flying Deuces, which you should rent or own, and though the two minutes offered here does not display their usual comedy shtick, it makes the case for our keeping the pair forever in mind.

All you need to know: The dead-head duo decides to quit the Foreign Legion, making a leisurely exit from the fort. Unaware they are about to be put away for desertion they take the time to dawdle when a familiar tune wings into their ears.

One of the most charming moments ever put to film and, at the very least, it’s a “Reason to Smile”…