I’ve added an impressive blog on pop culture written by a frequent Thrilling Days commenter—the illustrious Vince Keenan—to the blogroll; I got the opportunity to poke through it between movies this a.m. and I thoroughly enjoyed what I read, particularly his take on Out of the Past (1947). He also directed me to an interesting column by Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere; a list of 20 movies not available on DVD that should be. I don’t agree with the entire list—which is why some folks likes vanilla and some likes chocolate—but I wouldn’t have any difficulties in seeing releases for Bringing Up Baby (1938), Charley Varrick (1973), The Conformist (1970), Gunga Din (1939), if… (1968), Lifeboat (1944), Petulia (1968, and one of my very favorites) and Point Blank (1967). (Wells also lists The High and the Mighty among his twenty; I had heard that the problems in getting this in circulation have to do with the Wayne estate wanting some studio to pony up for the film’s restoration and not getting any takers. You mean to tell me these people couldn’t hold a bake sale or something?)

Also, I got a CD in the mail from one of OTR's crème de la crème of dealers—Pennsylvania’s own Ed “Truck” Carr. Ed located an ET of a previously uncirculated episode of The Adventures of Sam Spade sometime back in January, and has since made it available: “The Chargogagogmanchogagogchabunamungamog Caper,” originally heard over CBS Radio September 25, 1949. That’s right, brethren and sistern—no AFRS disc here, it’s got the Wildroot Cream Oil (“Hiya baldy!”) commercials and everything. Sam Spade is, of course, one of my favorite OTR shows—and listening to it this morning was like enjoying a hot fudge sundae…with whipped cream and nuts, even.

I’ve been buying CDs from Ed for about two years now, and I just want to say that if there’s anyone more conscientious about quality OTR than Ed, I have yet to meet that individual. Ed is a stickler for the best sound possible; he once asked me not to pay him for one of many Judy Canova Show CDs I bought from him because he felt the sound on the disc could have been better. Also, he is that rare dealer who insists that you take the merchandise out for a spin before sending payment—I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve e-mailed him asking what the damage is going to be, only to get his reply: “don’t send me any money until you get the discs.” (That’s another reason why I think Ed is a prince among men; he types in lowercase in tribute to my comedy idol, Fred Allen.) If you’re looking for some great-sounding old-time radio at an incredibly reasonable price, check Ed out here—I promise you, you will not be sorry that you did.
9:34:59 AM    comment []  trackback []  

“Because I can cut it, lady.”

My mother is cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs for certain movies; Dirty Dancing (1987) being a good example. (Yeah, I don’t understand it either.) She’s also ga-ga for Jaws (1975)—this one I do understand—but she also loves Jaws 2 (1978), and the third and fourth sequels (which I’m not going to mention here, for fear you might go out and rent them). Around our house, any Jaws film is referred to as “the fish movie,” and so to stave off the threat of her putting on Jaws 2 (which was playing on AMC) I suggested something from the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear DVD archives. Since she’s also a Sherlock Holmes aficionado, it wasn’t too difficult to sell her on a viewing of The Scarlet Claw (1944).

Among those fans of the one dozen Universal B-movies featuring the adventures of 221-B Baker Street’s famous sleuthing resident, Claw ranks pretty highly—some have even gone as far to tab it the best of the bunch. I don’t necessarily agree with this sentiment (my personal preference is for 1944’s The Pearl of Death), but it’s still a superior entry in the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce series. We find Holmes and Watson attending an occult conference in Quebec when the featured speaker, Lord William Penrose (Paul Cavanaugh), gets a telegram informing him that wife Lady Penrose has had her throat slashed—apparently the work of a supernatural apparition wreaking havoc in the small Canadian village of La Morte Rouge. Holmes naturally pooh-poohs this superstitious bushwah, and soon proves that the killings are being carried out by a revenge-crazed actor with a penchant for disguise.

The Universal Holmes series was pretty much standard B-movie product, but the films themselves have an impressive A-picture sheen to them, masterminded by director Roy William Neill—generally acknowledged to be a master of low-budget filmmaking. As always, Claw features an equally remarkable supporting cast of fine character actors, including Gerald Hamer, Arthur Kohl, Miles Mander, Ian Wolfe and Kay Harding.

After the ‘rents called it a night, I pressed on with my movie watching and my next choice probably needs a little explanation. I awoke from a strange dream yesterday, one that featured myself and some college friends traveling an unknown back road in West Virginia—only to stop at some sort of orphanage whereupon we helped Robert Redford and Paul Newman unload furniture and canned goods from a rental van. (You know, I used to have these weird dreams only after eating hot pastrami. Go figure.) So I decided to dust off my copy of Hombre, a 1967 Western (based on the 1961 novel by the great Elmore Leonard) that reunited star Newman with his Hud compatriots, director Martin Ritt and screenwriters Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr.

White man John Russell (Newman) has been living among the Apaches, having been kidnapped by them as a small child. Having inherited property, he finds himself on a stagecoach—where he is shunned by some of the passengers who have distinctly negative views on the subject of Indians. The stage is held up by bandits, the leader being one Cicero Grimes (Richard Boone) who was traveling incognito, and Russell kills a few of the gang’s members while they’re attempting to escape. The others realize that he’s the only one who can rescue them from their stranded predicament, but Russell sees no need in helping a group of people who have made no bones about their hatred of Indians, particularly Dr. Alex Favor (Fredric March), an Indian reservation agent who’s absconded with $12,000 (obtained by skimming funds allocated to the Apaches). A stand-off soon results between the passengers and bandits, who are holding Favor’s wife (Barbara Rush) hostage.

Hombre is probably not a movie that would come up in a discussion of classic Western films, but I’ve always admired this hard-hitting, uncompromising oater—a movie that works both as a clever twist on John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939) (it also shares a similarity with the ending of 1950s Broken Arrow) and a powerful indictment of racial prejudice. I also have a strong affinity for the films of Martin Ritt (Edge of the City, The Front), plus the acting in this film is absolutely superb; Newman is dead-on as the icily controlled Russell, and Boone—a graduate from the Richard Widmark School of Cinematic Bastards—is a treat as the no-account Grimes (sort of an older, meaner variation of his character Usher from 1957’s The Tall T, which was also based on a Leonard story). The film also features superlative camerawork from the legendary James Wong Howe (set against an impressive background of Death Valley locations), with fine support from the likes of Diane Cliento, Cameron Mitchell and Martin Balsam. (Boone gets one of my favorite movie lines—“My mama taught me to remove my hat and my cigar in the presence of a lady. Whatever else I take off depends on how lucky I get.”)
9:16:50 AM    comment []  trackback []