“I began in a world without time”

Horry Rose, sixty-one, saddler:

Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village (1969).

Also from Akenfield
Davie’s hand : Rubbish : “Just ‘music’” : “Caught in the old ways” : “The blue rode well in the corn”

Days

Betty Horak (Beverly Michaels) is being sarcastic. From Pickup (dir. Hugo Haas, 1951):

“Oh boy, another one of those exciting days.”

I’d counter with words from the OCA sidebar, from Harvey Pekar’s story “Alice Quinn”:

Every day is a new deal.

Salinger in Ohio

[Click either image for bigger news.]

I never thought I’d see more than one of these headlines. They’re real, and may be found here and here, at least until there’s a correction. But I don’t think a correction is coming.

QAnon fans take note: J.D. Salinger, too, is alive.

Related reading
All OCA Salinger posts (Pinboard)

Birx’s merch

Dr. Deborah Birx has a makeover and a book. As she makes the rounds of “the shows,” bear in mind what she said in March 2020. You already know who “he” is:

“He’s been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data. And I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues. Because in the end, data is data, and he understands the importance of the granularity.”

I called it intellectual prostration back then. It renders irrelevant anything Dr. Birx now has to say.

[“Merch, merch, merch along the highway”: a Van Dyke Parksism.]

Is it Christian nationalism yet?

Representative Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), or a staffer writing in her name, has responded to PolitiFact’s conclusion that Miller’s claims about gender-affirming care for trans and nonbinary children and adolescents are false. I won’t link to what Miller (or a staffer) wrote, but I’ll quote:

I am unashamed of our Judeo-Christian heritage and the values that most Americans hold to. God created us male and female — this [i.e., gender-affirming care] is nothing but rebellion against God.

And:

Why are we ashamed of our Judeo-Christian heritage and our values? We need to be loud and proud about them. They are the values that bring freedom and productivity to a country, to its communities, and that cause our families to thrive.

Samuel L. Perry, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma offers a helpful ten-point checklist: How can we spot #ChristianNationalism in the wild? I score Mary Miller as an eight, possibly nine, of ten.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

A pocket notebook sighting

[M (dir. Joseph Losey, 1951). Click for a larger view.]

I like seeing a notebook fill the screen. The pen looks like a Sheaffer to me. Maybe, maybe not. And yes, everything on the page appears to be in pencil.

More notebook sightings
All the King’s Men : Angels with Dirty Faces : The Bad and the Beautiful : Ball of Fire : The Big Clock : Bombshell : The Brasher Doubloon : The Case of the Howling Dog : Cat People : Caught : City Girl : Crossing Delancey : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dead End : Deep Valley : The Devil and Miss Jones : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : The Face Behind the Mask : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : I See a Dark Stranger : Journal d’un curé de campagne : Kid Glove Killer : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : Now, Voyager : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : The Racket : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : La roue : Route 66 : The Scarlet Claw : Sleeping Car to Trieste : The Small Back Room : The Sopranos : Spellbound : Stage Fright : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Stranger Things : Sweet Smell of Success : Time Table : T-Men : To the Ends of the Earth : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Vice Squad : Walk East on Beacon! : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window : You Only Live Once : Young and Innocent

An EXchange name sighting

[M (dir. Joseph Losey, 1951). Click for a larger view.] Perhaps the artist took inspiration from the IBEW logo. ST: in Los Angeles, it might signify STanley or STate.

More EXchange names on screen
Act of Violence : The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse : Armored Car Robbery : Baby Face : Black Widow : Blast of Silence : The Blue Dahlia : Blue Gardenia : Boardwalk Empire : Born Yesterday : The Brasher Doubloon : The Brothers Rico : The Case Against Brooklyn : Chinatown : Craig’s Wife : Danger Zone : The Dark Corner : Dark Passage : Deception : Deux hommes dans Manhattan : Dick Tracy’s Deception : Down Three Dark Streets : Dream House : East Side, West Side : Escape in the Fog : Fallen Angel : Framed : Hollywood Story : Kiss of Death : The Little Giant : Loophole : The Man Who Cheated Himself : Modern Marvels : Murder by Contract : Murder, My Sweet : My Week with Marilyn : Naked City (1) : Naked City (2) : Naked City (3) : Naked City (4) : Naked City (5) : Naked City (6) : Naked City (7) : Naked City (8) : Naked City (9) : Nightfall : Nightmare Alley : Nocturne : Old Acquaintance : Out of the Past : Perry Mason : Pitfall : The Public Enemy : Railroaded! : Red Light : Side Street : The Slender Thread : Slightly Scarlet : Stage Fright : Sweet Smell of Success (1) : Sweet Smell of Success (2) : Tension : Till the End of Time : This Gun for Hire : The Unfaithful : Vice Squad : Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Twelve movies

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, HBO Max, Hulu, Internet Archive, TCM, YouTube.]

Two on Bunker Hill

Chicago Calling (dir. John Reinhardt, 1951). One of the bleakest films I’ve ever seen, with Dan Duryea, in what must be his finest performance, as Bill Callahan, a hard-drinking failed photographer living in Los Angeles’s impoverished Bunker Hill neighborhood. Bill’s wife gives up on him (with good reason) and leaves with their young daughter — and then things really go wrong. The element of contingency, signaled in an opening voiceover, is strong: Bill’s chance encounters with strangers, notably a telephone repairman and a boy with a bicycle (Gordon Gebert from Holiday Affair), shape his future. The movie seems influenced by the neo-realism of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1949), and our household wondered whether Chicago Calling might in turn have influenced De Sica’s Umberto D., released a year later. ★★★★ (IA)


Night Has a Thousand Eyes (dir. John Farrow, 1948). Not a horror movie (as it’s often described): I’d call it supernatural noir. Edward G. Robinson plays John Triton, the Great Triton, a stage mentalist (think Stanton Carlisle in Nightmare Alley) who discovers that his powers have suddenly become real. Thus Triton is able to foretell tragedies that are inevitable, however he might try to avert them. But try he must, even relocating to Bunker Hill to do so. Gail Russell is memorable as the young woman who may be doomed by the Great Triton’s prediction. ★★★★ (YT)

*

Two by Joseph Losey

M (1951). A remake, moving Fritz Lang’s movie to Los Angeles, where the police and the criminal underworld both seek the child killer who’s terrorizing the city. It’s a deep cast, with Luther Adler, Walter Burke, Raymond Burr, Howard Da Silva, Norman Lloyd, David Wayne (the agonized killer), and many other non-stars. The movie makes great use of the city, with a shot from inside Angels Flight as the story opens, and a long, long episode in the Bradbury Building, the movie’s Best Supporting Actor. Creepiest moment: the shoes. ★★★★ (YT)

The Intimate Stranger (dir. “Alec C. Snowden,” 1956). Losey, blacklisted in the States, makes a film about a blacklisted film editor, Reggie Wilson (Richard Basehart), who has moved to England from the States after an affair with his boss’s wife ends his Hollywood career. Reggie finds his new life undone by letters from one Evelyn Stewart (Mary Murphy), who hopes that Reggie can still make time for her even though he’s married. Who is this woman, and why, if Reggie doesn’t know her, does her have train tickets to Newcastle in his pocket? Basehart presents as a more capable William Shatner; Murphy and Constance Cummings (as a star abroad) are dazzling; and the meta ending, with a fight on a film set, is deeply satisfying. ★★★★ (YT)

*

Open Secret (dir. John Reinhardt, 1948). In town for a short stay with an old friend, newlywed couple Paul and Nancy (John Ireland and Jane Randolph) stumble onto the murderous doings of a gang of anti-Semites. A surprisingly good low-budget movie, taking place mostly in one small apartment where every knock on the door, every ring of the telephone, threatens danger. Reinhardt goes all in on film noir: we almost never see daylight, and even a little camera shop is open late into the night. The anti-Semites’ talking points about “foreigners” and a “movement” make this movie eerily contemporary. ★★★ (YT)

*

The Cocoanuts (dir. Robert Florey and Joseph Santley, 1929). We gave up on The Big Store a few nights before, so we tried the Marx Brothers’ first full-length movie, with much better results. The setting is Florida during a real-estate boom, with Groucho as a hotel manager, Chico and Harpo as casual thieves, and Zeppo as the manager’s assistant. Adapted from the stage musical (George S. Kaufman–Irving Berlin), with pre-Code innuendo, unnecessary song-and-dance interludes, Chico’s and Harpo’s instrumental interludes, the “why a duck” routine, a great bit with musical doors, and Margaret Dumont. ★★★★ (CC)

*

Scotch: A Golden Dream (dir. Andrew Peat, 2018). A documentary that is at heart a long commercial for single malts, especially Bruichladdich. Much pontificating and promoting and storytelling from brand ambassadors and “master distillers” (a term one on-camera expert calls into question), but scant history, and no attention to basic matters: coloring vs. no coloring, single malts vs. blends. The location is the island of Islay, but there’s not a word about Laphroaig — did that distillery opt out? I take much pleasure in a couple of ounces of Bruichladdich or Glenmorangie or Cutty Sark, and I take no pleasure in writing these disappointed sentences. ★★ (H)

[And the director is named Andrew Peat? For reals?]

*

Shakedown (dir. Joseph Peveny, 1950). Howard Duff as Jack Early, a glib, cocky, manipulative newspaper photographer on the rise. Why, he manipulates more people than a chiropractor, even cueing a desperate woman when to jump from the window of a burning building so that he can get a good shot. But when Jack uses incriminating photos to shake down hoods (Brian Donlevy and Lawrence Tierney), there will be blood. I liked the scenes at the San Francisco newspaper, where we see Peggy Dow as a modern working woman (very modern: she goes away for weekends to see her boyfriend in Portland). ★★★★ (YT)

*

When We Were Bullies (dir. Jay Rosenblatt, 2021). The premise might be good for a segment of a This American Life episode: filmmaker recalls a fifty-years-ago incident in which he and fellow Brooklyn fifth-graders bullied a classmate (an incident he already made brief use of in a previous documentary) and now tries to work out what happened. But the ethics of this venture are a shambles: in undertaking the work of the film, Rosenblatt chooses not to contact his bullied classmate, whose childhood self becomes the subject of withering commentary by the classmates Rosenblatt tracked down for interviews. I’d call that Bullying 2.0, and there’s nothing in the letter Rosenblatt finally writes to his classmate (the movie’s not about you; it’s about us) or in the self-serving conclusion that “everyone carries pain” that moves me to change my mind. This exercise in self-congratulatory narcissism deserves no stars. (HBO)

*

Two by Hugo Haas

Strange Fascination (dir. Hugo Haas, 1952). The director’s name was familiar, and it turns out that we’d seen at least one of his films (Lizzie). This one is a variation on The Blue Angel, with director Haas as Paul Marvan, a European concert pianist making a career in the United States. Diana Fowler (Mona Barrie), a dignified older woman with eyes for Paul, happily becomes his patron. But Paul has eyes only for Margo (Cleo Moore), a much younger woman, a dancer, a bleached-blonde (she admits it), and you already know that none of this will turn out well. ★★★ (YT)

Pickup (1951). Here the director plays Jan Horak, a railroad dispatcher who meets and marries one Betty, a much younger (again blond) woman in need of money (Beverly Michaels). There’s a boyfriend, Steve, hanging around (Allan Nixon), and we’re soon headed toward a low-budget The Postman Always Rings Twice. Jan’s sudden deafness and the equally sudden return of his hearing contribute mightily to the plot. Worth watching for Haas’s pathos, for Michaels’s viciousness, and for the chance to wonder what made Haas repeatedly take up this theme. ★★★ (YT)

*

Good News (dir. Charles Walters, 1947). It’s college as recreation for mostly rich white kids, singing, dancing, playing football, and partaking in hijinks. In 1947, when the G.I. Bill was reshaping the idea of college (at least for some veterans), this movie must have looked like a picture of a lost world. June Allyson is a good singer (I had no idea); Mel Tormé is a great singer (I knew that); Peter Lawford speaks excellent French. And Joan McCracken is lit. ★★★★ (TCM)

[Joan McCracken is lit.]

Related reading
All OCA movie posts (Pinboard)

“My Dusty Mellow Self”

Jack Nicholson was making a music video for his song “My Dusty Mellow Self.” The storyline called for him to ring the bell of a church’s basement door. He rang and rang. No answer.

The ringing turned out to be the alarm clock going off this morning.

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)

Mutts rocks

[Mutts, April 24, 2022.]

In today’s Mutts, words from the Dalai Lama. And “some rocks.”

Related reading
All OCA “some rocks” posts (Pinboard)