[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, Hulu, a theater, TCM, YouTube.]
Big House, U.S.A. (dir. Howard W. Koch, 1955). Wide open spaces (Royal Gorge, Colorado) and a claustrophobic cell are the settings for a tale of two crimes: a kidnapping and a jailbreak. Ralph Meeker plays the Iceman, whose ransom plot gone wrong lands him in a cell with a pimp (Lon Chaney Jr.), a “pervert” (Charles Bronson, reading muscle magazines), a psychokiller (William Talman), and a criminal mastermind (Broderick Crawford). Reed Hadley is the FBI man determined to bring the Iceman and company to justice. Several scenes of brutal violence and a unexpected plot twist add grimness and suspense to the proceedings. ★★★ (TCM)
*
The Turning Point (dir. William Dieterle, 1952).
A prosecutor (Edmond O’Brien) enlists a newspaper reporter (William Holden) in an effort to bring a businessman/crime boss (Ed Begley) to justice. Personal relationships complicate things: the reporter is attracted to the prosecutor’s significant other (Alexis Smith), and the prosecutor’s cop father (Tom Tully) might not be on the right side of the law. Many Los Angeles locations, including Angels Flight, and a long, harrowing scene with a hit man at the Olympic Auditorium. Any similarities between the businessman/crime boss and any other businessman/crime boss are purely coincidental. ★★★★ (YT)
*
Parallel Mothers (dir. Pedro Almodóvar, 2021). It’s an extraordinary movie, and to my mind the best Almodóvar ever, about motherhood, friendship, trust, betrayal, secrets, lies, memory, truth, and documentation. Almodóvar joins the emotional intensity of Douglas Sirk’s “women’s pictures” to an exploration of Spain’s brutal fascist past. It’s a women’s picture indeed, with just one significant male character (Israel Elejalde), and Penélope Cruz, Milena Smit, Rossy de Palma, and Julieta Serrano front and center. The final scene moved me to tears, and I can only imagine the effect on a Spanish audience. ★★★★ (T)
*
Cornered (dir. Edward Dmytryk, 1945). As confusing a movie as I think I’ve ever seen — it makes The Big Sleep seem coherent. Dick Powell plays a Canadian pilot and former POW trying to track down the killer of his wife, a member of the French Resistance. A lead takes him to Buenos Aires, where all kinds of deception and double-crossing take place. Walter Slezak does good work as a man in a white suit and Panama hat (Sidney Greenstreet-esque). At some point I gave up on trying to follow the plot and settled for the Harry J. Wild’s cinematography: shadows and more shadows. ★★★ (TCM)
*
The Woman on Pier 13 (dir. Robert Stevenson, 1949). It might be called an anti-Communist film noir (first titled I Married a Communist ). Robert Ryan plays Brad Collins, a just-married executive whose youthful dalliance with Commie Christine Norman (Janis Carter) and the Party comes back to haunt him. The plot is preposterous, with Thomas Gomez and William Talman adding some gangster flavor. What really adds some value: Nicholas Musuraca’s cinematography. ★★ (TCM)
*
Dark Days (dir. Marc Singer, 2000). A black-and-white documentary about a loose community of people living underground in a stretch of a Manhattan railroad tunnel. They go to extraordinary lengths to construct and maintain their houses, built with salvaged plywood, salvaged sheet metal, salvaged doors, and salvaged everything else. They light their living spaces with borrowed electricity, cook on hot plates and over open fires, scavenge the city’s garbage cans and dumpsters, and devote considerable attention to personal cleanliness, sweeping out spaces, showering under a broken water pipe, shaving with an electric hair trimmer and a piece from a broken mirror. Drug abuse (crack) and horrific backstories abound, and it would all be unbearable save for the film’s last minutes. ★★★★ (CC)
*
Stations of the Elevated (dir. Manfred Kircheimer, 1981). Forty-four minutes of (mostly) graffiti on trains, shot outdoors, in brilliant sunlight, with many great glimpses of whole cars painted by LEE, SLAVE, and other artists. Didactic juxtapositions of trains and billboards pose a question about urban blight: is it exuberant youthful self-expression, or hyper-realist images selling alcohol, cigarettes, and suntan lotion? There’s too much randomness in the movie: shots of kids, neighborhoods, green areas, and Attica State (I think), with no clear sequencing. Music by Aretha Franklin (“Amazing Grace,” briefly) and Charles Mingus, with no identification or pieces or musicians. ★★★ (CC)
*
Five seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns, 1970–1975)
One: Escape to a pandemic-free world of manual typewriters, tiny television sets, shag carpeting, and Scotch in the boss’s desk drawer. The writing is sharp, with almost every line still landing, in Mary’s apartment and in the third-tier newsroom. And such vividly drawn personalities: Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper), Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman), Lou Grant (Ed Asner), Ted Baxter (Ted Knight), and Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod). And Mary Richards, who is such a goody-goody: when she does something that’s plain wrong, like telling Rhoda that an open position at WJM-TV is already filled, it’s utterly shocking — and that doesn’t happen until season two. ★★★★ (H)
Two: Something that surprised both Elaine and me: Lars and Phyllis Lindstrom don’t own the house they and Mary and Rhoda live in. The Lindstroms are building managers. Who knew? Another surprise in season two: an episode that turns out to be about anti-Semitism. Its title: “Some of My Best Friends Are Rhoda.”
★★★★ (H)
Three: Sex finally enters the picture, with a date asking Mary if he can spend the night (no), Mary’s parents Dottie and Walter (Nanette Fabrey and Bill Quinn), who have relocated and live just around the corner, sussing out that Mary got home from a date at 8:27 in the morning, and both Mary and Dottie responding to Walter’s reminder: “Don’t forget to take your pill.” Georgette Franklin (Georgia Engel) enters the story, with Mary steering her to a more equal relationship with Ted. Rhoda wins a beauty contest at her department store, a brief respite before she returns to faux-frump. A gay character appears, briefly (Rhoda even uses the word gay ), and there are Nixon and Agnew jokes: the times were changing. ★★★★ (H)
Four: Mary has a new shorter hairstyle; her parents are never mentioned; and her apartment now has a bookcase, plant shelves, a larger writing desk, and a cute little table for two by the window. Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White) enters the story line and bags her first partner (Phyllis’s husband Lars) in the season’s first episode. Lou and Edie separate; Ted plagiarizes Mary’s creative-writing assignment; Henry Winkler shows up briefly as Rhoda’s fired co-worker; Rhoda disappears from the series; and Pete, a frequent figurant (J. Benjamin Chulay) gets a chance to speak a line. ★★★★ (H)
Five: With Rhoda gone (and we hear nothing about her until an episode in which Mary heads off to the wedding in New York), the series focuses almost entirely on the people of the workplace. Lou begins a relationship with an “experienced” lounge singer; Murray toys with the possibility of an affair; Sue Ann fends off an incursion by an All About Eve-style stand-in; and Mary becomes more assertive at work and at home: “Phyllis, you’re making me nauseous.” But the series weakens, with stunt episodes (Lou moving into Rhoda’s empty apartment) and endless recyclings of the same scenarios: Mary walking into Lou’s office; Lou talking to Mary and Murray while Ted begs to be included; people knocking on Mary’s door at all hours to talk about their problems. Best episodes: “Not a Christmas Story,” in which a grumpy newsroom has Christmas dinner in November on Sue Ann’s set, and “Ted Baxter’s Famous Broadcasters School,” which approaches the surrealism of Seinfeld. ★★★ (H)
Related reading
All OCA movie posts (Pinboard) : The last words of Parallel Mothers
Monday, February 28, 2022
Seven movies, five seasons
One Wordle
Wordle 254 3/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I find it tiresome when people post their Wordle result day after day after day. That’s why I’m posting mine just once.
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Outtakes (4)
*
Working from the film-roll number for the outtake, an incredibly assiduous reader tracked down the location for the first photograph: Abraham Zacharoff Plumbing & Heating, 103 Varet Street, Brooklyn. Thanks, Brian.
The City Record (June 9, 1933) lists Mr. Zacharoff as a registered master plumber at this address. His home address: 101 E. 53rd Street, Brooklyn.
More outtakes to come.
Related posts
Outtakes (1) : Outtakes (2) : Outtakes (3): More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives
Saturday, February 26, 2022
Zuckerberg and Beckett
Just when I thought I was done thinking about the Metaverse: there’s now a video of Mark Zuckerberg creating a world with his voice. Talk about playing God.
In this new video, Zuckerberg creates a scene at a beach, complete with drinks and “tropical music.” And talk about whiteness: there shall be clouds. As I wrote in my one and only post about the Metaverse, “Poverty of imagination, with everything at its disposal” — including clouds.
The partial on-screen bodies in this video began to remind me of Winnie and Willie, partly buried in a mound in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days. I regret that the Zuckerberg video doesn’t depict bodies partly buried in the sand itself. No matter — they’re already trapped.
Alas, I cannot find an appropriate free-to-share photograph of a production of Happy Days. But the link above and an image search should suffice. There’s also this (imaginary) Beckett–Bushmiller collaboration:
[“Oh this is a happy day!”]
I assume that if any Metamates have recognized the Beckettian overtones in the Zuckerbeach scenario, they were smart enough (or dumb enough?) to keep their mouths shut.
Thanks, Ben.
Mary Miller stands alone
The Chicago Tribune reports that Mary Miller (our household’s representative in Congress) is the only member of the Illinois congressional delegation not to denounce Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine:
Freshman U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, a Republican who has embraced the far-right elements of the national GOP and is backed for reelection by former President Donald Trump, issued a statement that neither condemned Putin’s actions nor backed U.S.-led sanctions to his regime.Mary Miller is a disgrace, locally, nationally, internationally — cosmically, even. Mary is also in a spot of trouble with the Federal Election Commission.
Instead, she praised Trump for using a “peace through strength” strategy and achieving energy independence during his tenure in the White House as she delivered a litany of what she considered national security failures of Democratic President Joe Biden “and radical leftists in Congress.” She also warned that “gas prices are about to skyrocket even higher.”
“None of this would be happening if President Trump was still in the White House,” Miller’s statement concluded. “I will continue to pray that God watches over the people of Ukraine.”
Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is an easier puzzle by “Lester Ruff,” or Stan Newman, but I found it challenging in unexpected ways — three-letter-word ways, like 36-D, “Tank filler” and 39-A, “End of Bill Gates’ full name.” What? Oh! Or in three-letter words, HUH and AHA.
Some other clue-and-answer pairs of interest:
7-D, fifteen letters, “As luck would have it.” As luck would have it, I saw this answer straight off.
10-D, five letters, “‘I could’ve got more out’ speaker in a ’93 film.” Strange to see this clue in light of current events.
24-A, five letters, “Turned, in a phrase.” Oddly appealing to see this word standing alone.
25-A, seven letters, “Reference note for a certain sitter.” I was thinking of info for childcare — bedtime, phone numbers, prohibited treats, &c.
28-D, four letters, “Apt rhyme for ‘praise.’” Is the answer as un-obvious as I think it is?
30-D, nine letters, “Pleasantly reminiscent.” And let’s keep it that way.
35-A, fifteen letters, “‘You’re welcome’ alternative.” YOUBETNOWORRIES?
51-D, four letters, “Word from the Dutch for ‘eye.’” The clue improves an often-seen answer.
60-A, five letters, “Parisian pen.” I like this word, which I can’t recall ever noticing in a puzzle.
My favorite: 55-A, ten letters, “‘Magnificent __________’ (what Aldrin called the moon).” It’s new to me, and it’s memorable.
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
Friday, February 25, 2022
Another Lumbly
Very strange: PBS is re-airing a documentary tonight, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool. The narrator is the actor Carl Lumbly. “Lum-blee” was my toddler pronunciation of Columbia, Miles’s record label.
[I’ve been listening to Miles Davis, or “Meel Day-da,” since toddler days. Thanks, Dad.]
At a kitchen table
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Supreme Court nominee, in her remarks this afternoon:
“My father made the fateful decision to transition from his job as a public high-school history teacher and go to law school. Some of my earliest memories are of him sitting at the kitchen table reading his law books. I watched him study, and he became my first professional role model.”I like seeing the kitchen table in her story. Kitchen tables can make good desks.
You can watch and listen at C-SPAN. Judge Jackson’s remarks begin at 12:49.
A wine–whine merger
I had a hearing test yesterday (aftermath of an ear infection). I did good on the test. Yes, I felt like a schoolkid.
Part of the test had a recorded voice asking the testee to repeat a word: “Say the word ______.” I was amused to hear the voice say “Say the word wheat,” pronouncing wheat /hwēt/. I said /wēt/. The doctor was amused when I pointed out, post-test, the difference. I trust I received full credit for my answer.
The shift from /hwēt/ to /wēt/ is an instance of what’s called the wine-whine merger, aka glide cluster reduction. An undated map from UPenn shows the /hw~w/ distinction as “completely absent from New York State.” It was certainly absent from Brooklyn, /wich/ is /wer/ I learned to /tawk/.
No cookies
“Are those fresh candy-cane cookies I smell?”
No, because that’s a line from a Hallmark movie that I wrote down on a scrap of paper in December, and the time for candy-cane cookies is long gone — if ever there was such a time. At any rate, there’s no time for them now.
