Twelve movies

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, Netflix, TCM, YouTube.]

The Soul of a Monster (dir. Will Jason, 1944). It rivals The Seventh Victim for B-movie strangeness: it’s a Faustian story with striking camerawork (Burnett Guffey), bizarre dialogue, and long silent stretches. George Macready plays a surgeon saved from certain death by a mysterious woman (Rose Hobart) who seems to have claimed his soul for Satan. The movie cheats in the end and thus loses a star. Best moments: the cellar doors opening, the boy selling newspapers by a barrel fire on a deserted street, and a starring role for Rose Hobart, whom I knew only from Joseph Cornell’s film of that name. ★★★ (YT)

*

Devil at the Crossroads: A Robert Johnson Story (dir. Brian Oakes, 2019). A handful of musicians and scholars retrace the story of Johnson’s life. Outrageous claims about Johnson’s musicianship — it’s like Bach, it’s like three guitars — do him no service. Nor does the tired story of Johnson selling his soul to the devil, already discredited by the time of this documentary. But it’s remarkable to see Johnson’s son Claud Johnson (d. 2015) and grandson Michael Johnson: reminders that Robert Johnson was a human being, not a myth. ★★ (N)

*

The Dead Don’t Die (dir. Jim Jarmusch, 2019). I’m puzzled by negative responses to this movie: to my mind, it’s a delightful assemblage of tropes and meta moments. The premise: polar fracking has tilted the earth off its axis and created a zombie apocalypse in the small town of Centerville, and it seems, everywhere else. Bill Murray and Adam Driver star as small town police, exchanging deadpan commentary in their patrol car à la Joe Friday and Bill Gannon. With a bewilderingly deep cast: Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Selena Gomez, Carol Kane, Rosie Perez, Chloë Sevigny, Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits, and many, many more. ★★★★ (N)

*

The Wonderful World of Tupperware (dir. George Yarbrough, 1965). It’s an unironic presentation of the story behind, let’s admit it, some beautifully designed products. Much emphasis on materials (our friend petroleum) and engineering, less on what happens at Tupperware parties. The strangest sequence: scenes from a “jubilee,” a four-day gathering of Tupperware executives and successful saleswomen (and, of course, their husbands). Two terrifying jubilee moments: Anita Bryant singing a Tupperware-themed version of “Blues in the Night” and Johnny Desmond singing “Hello, Dolly” while kissing Tupperware ladies. ★★★ (TMC)

*

Tread Softly Stranger (dir. Gordon Parry, 1958). Two brothers, rogueish Johnny (George Baker) and dweebish Dave (Terence Morgan), the one on the run from London gambling debts, the other a clerk at a Yorkshire steel mill. And then there’s Calico (Diana Dors), Dave’s girlfriend, whose penchant for the finer things has led Dave to cook the company books, and whose penchant for Johnny and his penchant for her make a rift between the brothers. But a scheme to steal the company payroll before the books are audited will solve all problems, right? Great performances and several surprises, and it has to be said: Diana Dors, while a looker indeed, was also an actor of considerable talent. ★★★★ (YT)

*

A Bullet Is Waiting (dir. John Farrow, 1954). It’s a noirish triangle somewhere out west: lawman Frank Munson (Stephen McNally), badman Ed Stone (Rory Calhoun), and, living in a remote cabin, Cally Canham, the educated daughter (Jean Simmons) of an ex-Oxford professor (Brian Aherne) who’s away from the cabin for most of the picture. The three principals find themselves stuck at the Canhams’ place when the only route back to civilization is flooded. Can you guess which of the two men Cally will be drawn to? Many moments of high tension, though the ending is a letdown. ★★★★ (YT)

*

The Naked City (dir. Jules Dassin, 1948). Location, location, location: it’s filmed almost entirely on location, and it’s perhaps the greatest movie about New York City ever made. The plot is thin, and Barry Fitzgerald’s Irishisms wear on me, but the real point here is atmosphere, from Jimmy Halloran’s (Don Taylor) sunny Queens neighborhood to swank Fifth Avenue shops to a Lower East Side tenement. This time I watched with greater appreciation of two of the supporting players: David Opatoshu (Sgt. Dave Miller), always with his notebook, and Tom Pedi (Detective Perelli), who provides humor and uncovers evidence. A forever-unanswered question: why do bad guys climb upward when they’re trying to get away? (CC) ★★★★

*

Uncovering “The Naked City” (dir. Bruce Goldstein, 2020). One film lover’s exploration of the film’s locations and production. Bruce Goldstein is beyond knowledgable, about The Naked City and about Manhattan then and now. The detail that most amazed me: he tracked down the days for filming a scene from the changing titles on a theater marquee in the background. A Criterion Channel exclusive. ★★★★ [Sentences first posted in 2020.]

*

Stray Dog (dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1949). Dumb luck: we didn’t know when we chose this movie that Kurosawa cited The Naked City as an influence, but it’s unmistakable: a hot, sweaty metropolis (Tokyo), with two police detectives, rookie Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) and veteran Satō (Takashi Shimura), searching for the rookie’s Colt pistol, which was stolen from him on a crowded trolley. The search takes Murakami into a seedy section of the city, where he hopes to penetrate the black market in firearms. Hanging over the action is the catastrophe of the war, which figures heavily in the life of the yakuza who has been using the Colt in the commission of crimes. The ending is stunning, joining the pursuer and the pursued as children walk by singing, oblivious. ★★★★ (CC)

*

Drunken Angel (dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1948). “It’s like he’s sick to the core”: illness as tuberculosis, illness as metaphor. The story charts the relationship between a gifted, brusque, sometimes violent, alcoholic man of medicine, Doctor Sanada (Takashi Shimura), and a patient in denial, a tubercular yakuza, Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifune). The complications are noirish: a yakuza boss, released from prison, is looking to push Matsunaga out of the rackets, and that boss’s former girlfriend is now working as Sanada’s nurse. Like tuberculosis (notice all the garbarge-strewn pools of standing water), criminality is an illness that permeates the culture, and it leads to an ending of extraordinary tension and violence. ★★★★ (CC)

*

The Tattooed Stranger (dir. Edward Montagne, 1950). More dumb luck: it’s The Naked City in B-movie form (just sixty-four minutes). Here, as there, the plot is prosaic: in Central Park, a woman is found shot to death, and the only obvious clue to her identity is a tattoo. And here, as there, the city is a star: the American Museum of Natural History, the Bowery, a Brooklyn tattoo parlor, a Bronx monument company. A bonus for our household: the score is by Alan Shulman, whom Elaine met when she was a Juilliard student. ★★★★ (TCM)

*

The Woman in the Hall (dir. Jack Lee, 1947). Lorna Blake (Ursula Jeans) calls on rich people, pleading various hardships, picking up funds here and there, and eventually picking up a husband (Cecil Parker, perhaps best known as the philandering husband in The Lady Vanishes). Before that husband comes into the picture, Lorna’s daughter Jay (Jean Simmons) removes herself from her mother’s house to live a different kind of life but ends up committing her own non-violent crimes. The film weakens as it goes on: there’s nothing to prepare for the revelation that Jay is being charged with anything. I even wondered if I had fallen asleep and missed something (I hadn’t), but now I wonder if a scene might have been cut from the film. ★★ (YT)

Related reading
All OCA “twelve movies” posts (Pinboard)

Tupperware pencil

If this pencil could talk:

Girls Ladies, I hope that you have you’ve all enjoyed the chance this demonstration opportunity to try see for yourself get acquainted with the latest products from Tupperware. Each Every Tupperware product locks in flavor and preserves keeps your moist foods moist, crisp foods crisp. Yes, Tupperware keeps all your foods airtight fresh. I know that you’ll all want to . . . . Now wrap it up and start taking orders.

[This post is the twelfth in an occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real. Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The imaginary script borrows a bit of phrasing — “keeps moist foods moist, crisp foods crisp” — from a 1963 print ad.]

Also from the Museum of Supplies
Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27
Eagle Turquoise display case
Eagle Verithin display case
Fineline erasers
Illinois Central Railroad Pencil
A Mad Men sort of man, sort of
Mongol No. 2 3/8
Moore Metalhed Maptacks
Real Thin Leads
Rite-Rite Long Leads
Stanley carpenter’s rule

Cooper Hewitt Tupperware

Cooper Hewitt’s Object of the Day: a Tupperware Jel-N-Serve Food Mold.

A related post
Tupperware pencil

Definitions

Braggadoccio
Cardboard in its own juices.

*

Trailsides
There are many such to sleep through.

*

The Pollen Count
Another numbered breeze.

*

A Secret Referent
Have a good one.

*

Fine Garden
North of the sheds.

*

Refrain
“I’m not asleep.”

*

Tupperware
Bedrock.

*

Sincerely
Yours sincerely.

*

The 19th Century
Mainly yours.

*

Refrain (2)
“I’m not making this up.”

*

On a Little Street in Singapore
We’d meet beside a lotus-covered door.


Michael Leddy
September 1995

[Elaine found this sequence of tiny poems in a folder full of cards. I made a single copy, for her, side-stapled, one poem to a page, under the imaginary imprint of One One Books. I just figured out the “One One”: we were celebrating our eleventh anniversary. I’m sharing the poems here with her permission. The nineteenth century is still mainly hers.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Lars G. Doubleday, aka Doug Peterson and Brad Wilber, whose last Stumper appeared in October 2023. (The alias is an anagram of the names Bradley and Douglas.) I expected great difficulty, and at first, that’s what I found: clue after clue to which I said, “No clue.” And then I saw 40-D, six letters, “He’s heard in Mambo Kings.” That had to be [redacted], no? And then 45-A, four letters, “Decantation sound.” And I worked my way up from the bottom of the puzzle in just nineteen minutes.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, six letters, “Book bought by Barnes & Noble.” I got it, but I don’t get it.

4-D, five letters, “Small diamond.” Kinda arbitrary.

6-D, three letters, “Band with Japanese CDs.” I learned something.

9-D, nine letters, “Attire first allowed on the Senate floor in the 1990s.” That late — I’m surprised but not surprised.

14-A, fifteen letters, “Currently deprioritized.” Yes, fifteen letters, but a couple of crosses might give it away.

17-A, fifteen letters, “Long-term irritant.” See 14-A.

26-A, five letters, “On-screen ‘Super’ man.” Cute.

29-A, five letters, “Hollywood icon whom Johnny (nearly uniquely) visited in his Tonight Show dressing room.” Some power greater than my own guided my hand, and I wrote in the correct answer, no crosses, no hesitation. Also no idea if it was correct.

49-A, fifteen letters, “‘Distinguished and de luxe’ newsstand debut of 1930.” Well, it sure ain’t POPULARMECHANIC.

52-A, fifteen letters, “Literary thriftiness.” The Stumpery spanner in this puzzle.

53-A, five letters, “Stores like Tupperware.” I just watched the movie.

My favorite in this puzzle: 30-D, eight letters, “Stock market purchase.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is a tough one. I gave up last night after struggling over the bottom quarter of the puzzle, where I was 52-A, fifteen letters, “In great difficulty.” When I went back to the puzzle this morning, everything fell into place. But I still have to vent about three items.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

3-D, ten letters, “Tour for church music fans.” New to me.

12-D, four letters, “They’re no competition.” I always like clues that add value to a familiar answer.

17-A, four letters, “Course force.” Clever.

20-A, fifteen letters, “Partial submissions.” Nicely clued.

24-A, thirteen letters, “Manifesto motif.”Seeing this answer broke open much of the puzzle for me.

32-D, four letters, “She’s asked, ‘Do You Want to Build a Snowman?’” It recalls a fambly story: “We can build a snowman. Look! See?”

35-A, five letters, “‘NO PROB _____’(beastly T-shirt phrase).” I have never seen it in the wild, but I guessed, correctly.

50-D, five letters, “What some of the earliest Tupperware stored.” Ick.

58-A, ten letters, “Whence gain without strain.” Or pain, thanks to the rhyme.

My favorite in this puzzle: 44-A, thirteen letters, “Country music subgenre.” I had no idea.

And now the vents are opening:

25-A, five letters, “Flight connection.” Really oddly clued.

33-A, four letters, “Pakistan and China share it.” Yes, they do, but it’s not known by this name. It’s just not.

26-A, five letters, “Protagonist of French literature (in Guinness’ longest novel).” No, this character is not the protagonist. Not the protagonist. Not.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Hitting the sauce

As a half-Italian kid, I regarded sauce as a mystery. (It was always “sauce,” never “gravy.”) My grandma made sauce in her kitchen. We took large amounts home with us in Tupperware. End of story.

Now, with a little help from my wife Elaine, I’ve started making sauce. It is ridiculously easy to do. Sauce from a jar? Not in my kitchen, as a commercial once said. Here’s my recipe:

1 28 oz. can Cento Tomato Puree
olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped
2 tsp. dried basil
2 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp. sea salt¹
20 turns of a McCormick Black Peppercorn grinder (between 1/8 and 1/4 tsp.)
20 turns of a McCormick Italian Seasoning grinder (between 1/8 and 1/4 tsp.)²
1 tbsp. sugar
3 oz. red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, says I)

Brown onions in oil. Add garlic. Add basil, oregano, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and sugar, and stir. Add wine and stir.³ Add the tomato puree and stir. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for one hour, or two, or more.

Thank you, Elaine, for encouraging me in this adventure in cooking (and for everything else). Yes, today would be a good day to hit the sauce.

[January 2023: I’ve made minor revisions, doubling the salt and adding optional hours to the cooking time.]

¹ This recipe has a fraction of the salt found in jarred sauces. You won’t miss the extra salt. Promise.

² If you choose a different brand of Italian seasoning, make it one without basil and oregano. The McCormick grinder is mostly rosemary, black pepper, and red pepper.

³ It’s Elaine who suggests adding the wine after adding the spices, for maximum distribution of flavor.