Manya Lodge (Mady Christians) is happy that the house of women she’s moved into is to be run as a democracy. Helen Stacey (Patricia Collinge) tries to help her finish a sentence. From Tender Comrade ( dir. Edward Dmytryk, 1943):
“Once in Germany we had a democracy, but we —”Another of those moments from 1940s movies that feel so relevant to our time.
“You lost it.”
“Nein. We did not lose it. We let it be murdered — like a little child.”
Trump’s “bing” It turns out that Goodfellas is among Donald Trump’s favorite movies.
[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Classic Film Time, Criterion Channel, DVD, Max, a theater (imagine!), YouTube.]
The House of Fear (dir. Roy William Neill, 1945). Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Doctor Watson (Nigel Bruce) are off to Scotland to investigate the strange doings at Drearcliffe House, the castle home of seven unmarried men who call themselves the Good Comrades. One by one they’re being killed, each receiving an envelope containing orange seeds — seven, then six, and so on. I always find the logic at work in a Holmes story hilariously improbable. And I must wonder how useful Holmes is anyway: his presence at Drearcliffe does nothing to prevent the Comrades from being knocked off one by one though no one seems to have a problem with that. ★★ (YT)
*
He Who Dances on Wood (dir. Jessica Beshir, 2016). A short portrait of Fred Nelson, a man who tap dances on a wooden slab under a Central Park bridge. (He likes the sound.) A lovely portrait of a man for all seasons (literally, dancing in all weathers), doing what he does for the happiness of it, no money invited. Here is the Manhattan I’d like to visit again. ★★★★ (CC)
*
Hair Wolf (dir. Mariama Diallo, 2018). A satiric commentary on cultural appropriation, with white women coming to a Black salon in search of dreads. The twist: the women are quasi-zombies, sucking the life out of Black culture. What’s a stylist to do? Another of the many short, easy-to-overlook movies at the Criterion Channel, and one that won a host of awards. ★★★★ (CC)
*
Daughter of Darkness (dir. Lance Comfort, 1948). Emily (Siobhan McKenna) is a meek, virginal Irish servant-girl working on an English family’s farm. But she has a past — and when that past shows up in England, murder is in the air. A spectacularly creepy Gothic story, with a burning barn, a church organ playing in the middle of the night, and a vicious dog wandering in the rain. Look for Honor Blackman (Goldfinger ) as a farm daughter. (CFT) ★★★★
*
The Man in Grey (dir. Leslie Arliss, 1943). It’s a Gainsborough melodrama, beginning in a London auction house in 1943 and moving back to the nineteenth century to tell the story of two girlhood friends, Hesther and Clarissa (Margaret Lockwood and Phyllis Calvert), the first of whom runs away from school for love, the second of whom enters into a loveless marriage with “the man in grey” (as a portrait will depict him), the Marquess of Rohan (James Mason), who was seeking a partner to serve as his “brood sow.” A fortune teller warned Clarissa in girlhood not to trust in the friendship of women, but when she and Hesther cross paths in adulthood at a performance of Othello (Hesther playing Desdemona to Stewart Granger’s Othello), the friendship is rekindled, with complications to follow. A lavish production that moves awfully slowly. Hint: look closely at the actors in the opening auction-house scene. ★★★ (CC)
*
The Violent Years (dir. William Morgan, 1956). A quartet of high-school girls start by robbing gas stations, and things get much worse from there. The screenplay is by Ed Wood, which helps explain the heavyhanded screenplay (a judge lecturing parents) and general weirdness (the scene with the couple in the car). As a movie, it’s hilariously bad, so bad that as trash cinema, it deserves four stars, one for each villainess. My favorite line: “These aren’t kids; these are morons.” ★★★★ (YT)
*
Tender Comrade (dir. Edward Dmytryk, 1943). Four defense-plant workers with husbands and a son in military service pool their resources to rent a house and pay a live-in housekeeper (a German immigrant whose husband, too, is also fighting the Nazis). Ginger Rogers and Robert Ryan star, with Madys Christians, Patricia Collinge, Kim Hunter, and Ruth Hussey as the house’s other occupants. Highly uneven, with hokey dialogue, stretches of dismal propaganda, and moments of utter pathos — and I shudder to think how the moments of pathos must have struck audiences in 1943. Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, with a title not from Communism but from Robert Louis Stevenson. ★★★ (TCM)
*
Song of Love (dir. Clarence Brown, 1947). A love triangle with music: Robert Schumann (Paul Henreid), Clara Schumann (Katharine Hepburn), and Johannes Brahms (Robert Walker). Great music (with Arthur Rubinstein filling in at the piano), great costumes and sets. It’s difficult for me to imagine the emotions on display here making the right impression on at least some 2024 moviegoers (I recall some of my students laughing during the Homer-Wilma bedroom scene in The Best Years of Our Lives.) A great thing about this movie: it manages to suggest — on film — the magic that sometimes happens with live performance, as when Clara plays a final “Träumerei.” ★★★★ (TCM)
*
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (dir. Wes Ball, 2024). An extended struggle between rival ape clans, with the occasional human being to complicate matters. So many overtones: from the Iliad, with the cry “For Caesar” echoing “For Patroclus,” to On the Waterfront, with a hero battered as his comrades look on. Visually stunning, incoherent at times, far too long, and screaming sequel as it ends. The best scene, for me: not one of the many spectacular chases or fights but the discovery of the reading primer. ★★★ (T)
*
The Walls Came Tumbling Down (dir. Lothar Mendes, 1946). It’s The Maltese Falcon on the cheap. A priest dies, and a newspaper columnist (Lee Bowman), a semi-mysterious woman (Marguerite Chapman), and several bad guys (George Macready) search for the Bibles that hold the answer to the whereabouts of a missing Leonardo painting of Joshua at the battle of Jericho. Yet another movie billed as film noir in which everything is bright as day. One surprising plus: the use of a dictionary to disarm a gunman. ★★★ (YT)
*
Mind Over Murder (dir. Nanfu Wang, 2022). A six-part documentary series about the Beatrice (Nebraska) Six, three men and three women wrongly convicted in 1989 of the rape and murder of an elderly widow, Helen Wilson. Five of the six charged believed that they had participated. The story that unfolds features a self-styled local hero, a sheriff’s department psychologist, a craven district attorney, a shoddy laboratory analyst, the six men and women convicted, and family members of the victim. What most struck me: a dramatization of the case, staged by a community theater group with a script drawn from official transcripts, seems at first an unnecessary distraction, but it proves to be the emotional high point of the movie, a living lesson in the power of tragic drama to produce catharsis. ★★★★ (M)
*
Crashout (dir. Lewis R. Foster, 1955). An ensemble movie, with a motley group of escaped convicts, the six of thirty-eight who have survived a prison break: an autocratic leader (William Bendix), a wise guy (Arthur Kennedy), a religious fanatic (William Talman), a self-styled ladies’ man (Luther Adler), a basic brute (Gene Evans), and a younger man convicted of murder for what he says was an accident (Marshall Thompson). Their travels — away from prison, but never to true freedom — bring them into contact with a country doctor (Percy Helton), roadhouse denizens, cops, a railroad conductor, and two women who complicate their lives, a failed music student (Gloria Talbott), and a farm woman (Barbara Michaels) with a child out of wedlock. It’s a brutal movie, even by modern standards, and never less than compelling. My favorite scene: the train, with sandwiches. ★★★★ (YT)
Related reading
All OCA “twelve movies” posts (Pinboard)
I saw Wal-Mart’s madeleines again and had to try some. (This time they had a future expiration date.) These madeleines are not bad. In fact, they’re surprisingly good.
Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard) : Madeleine (With the beginning of the key Proust passage)
[I prefer the traditional hyphenated spelling: Wal-Mart.]
For this day, a joke in the traditional manner: i.e., a dad joke. My dad, James Leddy, was making them before anyone called them dad jokes. (Merriam-Webster’s first known use: 1987).
Why was the car going so slowly?
The punchline is in the comments. Happy Father’s Day to all.
More jokes in the traditional manner
The Autobahn : Did you hear about the cow coloratura? : Did you hear about the new insect hybrid? : Did you hear about the shape-shifting car? : Did you hear about the thieving produce clerk? : Elementary school : A Golden Retriever : How did Bela Lugosi know what to expect? : How did Samuel Clemens do all his long-distance traveling? : How do amoebas communicate? : How do birds communicate with distant family and friends? : How do ghosts hide their wrinkles? : How do worms get to the supermarket? : Of all the songs in the Great American Songbook, which is the favorite of pirates? : What did the doctor tell his forgetful patient to do? : What did the one snowman say to the other? : What did the plumber do when embarrassed? : What do cows like to watch on TV? : What do dogs always insist on when they buy a car? : What do ducks like to eat? : What happens when a senior citizen visits a podiatrist? : What is the favorite toy of philosophers’ children? : What kind of pasta do swimmers like? : What’s the name of the Illinois town where dentists want to live? : What’s the worst thing about owning nine houses? : What was the shepherd doing in the garden? : Where do amoebas golf? : Where does Paul Drake keep his hot tips? : Which member of the orchestra was best at handling money? : Who’s the lead administrator in a school of fish? : Why are supervillains good at staying warm in the winter? : Why did the doctor spend his time helping injured squirrels? : Why did Oliver Hardy attempt a solo career in movies? : Why did the ophthalmologist and his wife split up? : Why does Marie Kondo never win at poker? : Why is the Fonz so cool? : Why sharpen your pencil to write a Dad joke? : Why was Santa Claus wandering the East Side of Manhattan?
And from very young joke tellers: a joke in a neo-traditional manner and a joke in a non-traditional manner.
[My dad gets credit for the Autobahn, the elementary school, the Golden Retriever, Bela Lugosi, Samuel Clemens, the doctor, the plumber, the senior citizen, Oliver Hardy, and the ophthalmologist. Elaine gets credit for the birds and the Illinois town. Ben gets credit for the supervillains in winter. The snowman joke is by an unknown hand.]
From the “Ithaca” episode of Ulysses. In the early hours of June 17, 1904, Leopold Bloom washes his hands and invites Stephen Dedalus to do the same. The catechetical narrator of this episode reports Stephen’s response: no, he is hydrophobic. He hates “partial contact by immersion or total by submersion in cold water” and last took a bath in October. He distrusts “the aqueous substances of glass and crystal” and “aquacities of thought and language.”
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).
Related reading
All OCA Joyce posts (Pinboard)
[Bloomsday : “the 16th of June 1904. Also: the 16th of June of any year, on which celebrations take place, esp. in Ireland, to mark the anniversary of the events in Joyce’s Ulysses” (Oxford English Dictionary ).]
[135 Lawrence Street, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]
If you click for the much larger view, you’ll see that this photograph is huge. Many signs to read. And there’s a guy up at the window. I’m most drawn to the painted sign and the signboard on the side of the building. That wall, now blank, remains. Half Moon Hotel, or the infamous Half Moon Hotel, built in 1927, was a Coney Island attraction. In November 1941 — most likely after this photograph was taken — the Half Moon was the site of what seems to have been a defenestration. I’m sure though that the chef would have still been offer post-defenestration shore dinners.
Davega was the name of a New York City retail chain. If you look closely, you can see that the nearest Davega outlet was at 360 Something. That would have been 360 Fulton Street, a three-minute walk away.
[Click for a larger view.]
Many signs here, too, but no sign of swim suits, at least not that I can see. There is a reflection of a Thom McAn sign in the Davega window.
If you’re wondering about the large building behind the Lawrence Street storefront, that was the headquarters of the New York Telephone Company. Today it’s the BellTel Lofts, a condo building. No sign of the NYTC.
Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)
It's a small thing, but I think I've discovered the source for Trump's strange "bing" habit. Here is a compilation or Trump moments. And here — wait for it — is Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.
In each case, we see a storytelling entertainer, the center of attention for all those around him, able to intimidate and mess with people, and capable of sudden surprising violence.
I haven't seen Goodfellas (dir. Martin Scorsese, 1990) in years, and I'm not really sure that the resemblance to Pesci's Tommy DeVito would play out in a coherent way. But who needs coherence when it comes to Trump? I saw this brief scene by chance and immediately thought of him.
I do know that Tommy comes to a bad end (whacked), which might click with Trump’s penchant to see himself as a victim. At any rate, it's not surprising that Trump would identify with a mob figure.
Am I seeing things here? Your thoughts, reader, are welcome.
*
June 17: Several reputable sources, e.g. this one, from 2012, and this one, citing a 2016 source, name Goodfellas as one of Trump’s favorite movies. Elaine and I watched it last night, for the first time in many years. The picture of outer-borough guys who are able to do or get anything they want is telling.
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by Kate Chin Park, whose last (and first?) Stumper appeared on April 6, and prompted me to write “Please, more KCP Stumpers.” And now that I’m quoting myself, I’ll add that this puzzle, like that one, is “a solid sender, difficult, misdirective, punny, and blessedly free of trivia and strain.” I looked around for a place to start and hit on 45-D, five letters, “Mes después de Navidad .” And then jumped around, here and there. 1-A, which felt like an impediment to any chance of succeeding with the puzzle, was the last answer I filled in.
Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:
1-D, four letters, “Malfunction message.” A recent puzzle helped here.
5-D, six letters, “Bowls, for instance.” Nicely misdirective.
9-D, eight letters, “Ultimately plain?” NOFRILLS fits but isn’t it.
14-A, nine letters, “Campus coveralls?” An answer that I didn’t understand even after finishing the puzzle. My only excuse is that I’d call them something else. Elaine explained it to me.
23-D, eleven letters, “Deactivating but preserving.” A wild answer.
24-D, seven letters, “Candy striper?” The ones I thought of appeared in young-adult novels.
35-A, fifteen letters, “Cap wearer’s sassy slogan.” I thought first of what might be written atop a mortarboard. Highly unexpected.
43-A, five letters, “Puzz to crack.” An easy anse.
47-D, five letters, “Storms with precipitation.” It’s a trick.
49-D, four letters, “It’s from the Greek for ‘pie.’” I did not know that.
57-A, five letters, “Be a bumbler?” Groan.
58-A, nine letters, “Waiting periods.” The answer made me smile out loud.
My favorite in this puzzle is that initial impediment: 1-A, eight letters, “Outpay, but not outearn.”
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
Why, our household wondered, are those things on cars and trucks and bicycles called tires?
The Oxford English Dictionary answered our question, or nearly did. It’s probably because the tire was originally regarded as “the ‘attire,’ ‘clothing,’ or ‘accoutrement’ of the wheel.” The first tires were, of course, metal rims. The OED definition of the modern tire begins on a startling, beautiful note: “an endless cushion of rubber, solid, hollow, or tubular.”
The dictionary would appreciate my adding that tires are also found tricycles, prams, wheelchairs, light horse vehicles, &c.
