6 Classic Movie Moments Made Possible By Dumb Mistakes
Saturday, May 28, 2016
No Duh
Why our brains get so tired in the afternoon: She adds the slump in the afternoon occurs because our bodies are effectively “programmed to nap” at that time.
Friday, May 27, 2016
The Digest Enthusiast #4 is here!
The Digest Enthusiast #4 is here! | Digest Magazines: The fourth edition of our book-length magazine celebrating yesterday’s and today’s digest magazine titles is now available in print and digital versions.
In That Case, Sir, You Are Free to Go
Utah County police cite man spotted running nude with ‘bells hanging from his genitals’: The suspect, 64-year-old Kenneth Allen Beck of Riverton, "told Deputies he just likes doing what witnesses described to see their reaction."
Jane Fawcett, R. I. P.
Jane Fawcett, Bletchley decoder: Jane Fawcett, who has died aged 95, played a key role at Bletchley Park in the sinking in May 1941 of Bismarck, and went on after the war to save St Pancras and its Gothic Midland Hotel from the modernisers of British Rail.
I Miss the Old Days
Watch This Nostalgic Footage From 1956 Of The First American Shopping Mall.: Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota, was America's first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall. Opened in 1956, this provided the original blueprint for all of the 1,100 or so similarly designed malls now standing across the United States.
O Brave New World . . . .
Daily Mail Online: Woman wins permission to remove her dead partner's testicles in the hope of using his sperm to get pregnant
FFB: The Carpetbaggers -- Harold Robbins
This is a slightly revised reprint from 2007. Max Allan Collins mentioned this novel in a mailing comment a couple of months ago, and I was reminded of how much I'd enjoyed rereading it.
When I read it in 1962, The Carpetbaggers was considered very hot stuff. I believe one reviewer said that it should have been written on a restroom wall rather than published between covers. And it is indeed full of sex: straight sex, gay sex, rough sex, near-incestuous sex, solitary sex, group sex, kinky sex, and probably other kinds of sex that I'm forgetting at the moment. None of it, however, is graphically described. I'm sure that Nightstand Books and others of the time were going farther in that regard than Robbins did.
The book is divided into sections named for the characters. Jonas Cord is the major figure, and he narrates his sections in the first person. Cord was based on Howard Hughes, a fact that was obvious to me even 45 years ago. I'd seen The Outlaw and knew the story about Jane Russell and the bra, which is fictionalized in the book.
The section I remembered best was devoted to Nevada Smith. I guess others liked it best, too, because it was made into a movie with Steve McQueen, and even into a TV movie with Cliff Potts. The section is under 100 pages long, but there's enough violence in it to fill a much longer book. No wonder I remembered it. It's the most vivid section in the novel. Smith seems to be about 90% fictional, but there are traces of Tom Mix and William Boyd in the character, for sure.
I enjoyed reading the book again. Since it was a historical novel, it's not nearly as dated as you might think. It's still pretty darned good popular entertainment if you like trashy books, which I do. Check it out.
Aside: The first book I read by Robbins was A Stone for Danny Fisher, which I checked out of the library after seeing King Creole and noticing that it was based on Robbins' novel, which it hardly resembles. After The Carpetbaggers, I never read another book by Robbins, and I didn't realize that he kept on cranking them out for so many years. In fact, the books have continued to appear right up to the present, even though Robbins died in 1997. Someone called Junius Podrugg is now sharing credit with Robbins on the covers. The same roman a clef formula seems to be working all these years later.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Joe Fleishaker, R. I. P.
Tom Holland's Terror Time: Joe Fleishaker, the actor who Troma fans adore has passed away at the age of 62. He starred in 3 ‘Toxic Avenger’ movies and ‘Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.’ for the fan favorite film company.
Former Yankee reinventing himself as a musician
Houston Chronicle: Williams won an American League batting title and four World Series in 16 seasons as an outfielder for the New York Yankees. He kept playing the guitar along the way and after leaving the game transitioned to becoming a professional jazz musician, releasing two albums and earning a Latin Grammy nomination.
Do Not Click on the Link
And if you do click on the link, do not look at the pictures. You've been warned.
Toilet terror as python bites man's penis while he sits on the loo before bloody battle ensues
Toilet terror as python bites man's penis while he sits on the loo before bloody battle ensues
Beth Howland, R. I. P.
Beth Howland, Accident-Prone Waitress From the Sitcom ‘Alice,’ Dies at 74: Beth Howland, who made high anxiety an art form as the ditsy, accident-prone waitress Vera Louise Gorman on the 1970s and ’80s sitcom “Alice,” died on Dec. 31, 2015, in Santa Monica, Calif., her husband said on Tuesday. He had refrained from announcing her death earlier in keeping with her wishes. She was 74.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Burt Kwouk, R. I. P.
BBC News: Burt Kwouk, who was best known for playing Inspector Clouseau's manservant Cato in the Pink Panther films, has died aged 85.
I'm Sure You'll All Agree
The Definitive Ranking of Bob Dylan Studio Albums, From Worst to Best: There’s no better way to celebrate the greatest American songwriter’s 75th birthday than to stoke reader outrage by attempting to rank his work, album by album.
Jeanne Parr, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: Parr was one of the first female news correspondents for CBS.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
First It Was the Thin Mint Melee
FDNY, NYPD Get Into Bloody Brawl During Charity Football Game: A charity football game between New York's Finest and New York's Bravest ended with fists flying
Overlooked Movies: Charade
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "How could a movie with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn be overlooked?" I agree, but maybe there's somebody reading this who hasn't see the movie. It's a lot of fun.To begin with you have the leads, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. Hepburn is about to divorce her husband, and Grant is the suave, mysterious stranger. Hepburn returns to Paris to find her husband murdered and herself mixed up in a plot to recover $250,000 in stolen Nazi gold. Three men are after it, and they believe Hepburn has it. They are bad guys, indeed (George Kennedy, James Coburn, Ned Glass). Somehow Grant is mixed up in it, too, and he's clearly not to be trusted. He's very inventive, however, and every time Hepburn discovers that he's not who he says he is, he very plausibly claims to be someone else. This happens often. The CIA, represented by Walter Matthau, is also in on the game.
Hepburn doesn't have the stolen gold and has no idea where it is. That doesn't matter to the bad guys. They're going to keep after her. And they they start getting killed. Is someone else is in on the game, too? And who the hell is Cary Grant, really?
There's plenty of scenery, witty banter, action, and mystery here. Plus music by Henry Mancini. If you're looking for topnotch light entertainment, this is it.
Peter Stone, who wrote the screenplay, also published the novel version. It's a Gold Medal book, and I read it 50 years or so ago. I'm pretty sure I liked it.
Monday, May 23, 2016
The Big Showdown -- Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins
The Big Showdown is a direct sequel to Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins' The Legend of Caleb York, which I wrote about here. You might recall that the book was a novelization of a screenplay that Spillane wrote for John Wayne's Batjac productions. Collins tells us in his introduction to the sequel that it's based on "various drafts of the screenplay and notes in Mickey's files." The result is a thoroughly entertaining traditional western.In the first book, Caleb York has cleaned up the little town of Trinidad, New Mexico, and now he's ready to move on to San Diego, California, where he's looking forward to testing his crime-solving skills in the big city. He's set up his old friend Ben Wade as the sheriff, and the town is in good hands. But wouldn't you know it? Just as Caleb is saying his final goodbye to Willa Cullen, three men rob the local bank and kill Wade. It's bad enough that the town is about to be bankrupt, but when you kill a man's friend, well, it's not the time to leave.
The bank problem seems to be solved almost immediately when Zachary Gauge shows up. He's a slick Easterner, the relative of the previous book's villain, and he's inherited the property belonging to that unworthy soul. Now he's deposited a big sum in the bank, enough to make up for what was stolen. Not only that, but he's going to make things right with everyone that his cousin cheated.
If any of that makes you suspicious of him, well, it should. Before long people are being murdered, Zachary is courting Willa, planning a big merger between his ranch and hers and her father's, and generally acting like he owns the town. York investigates the murders, using some early CSI techniques, and he meets a lovely saloon owner who's obviously going to complicate his life.
Without saying more about the plot, I can assure you that when the big showdown comes, it's a really good one, a cinematic gunfight that would make a terrific scene in a movie.
There's a lot of Caleb York's story yet to be told, of adventures both before and after his stay in Trinidad. Here's hoping we get a chance to read them.
The Rise of the Toughest Texas Ranger
The Rise of the Toughest Texas Ranger: The Texas Hill Country Life that shaped Frank Hamer into the greatest American lawman of the 20th century.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Dustbin of History: $am Upham
Dustbin of History: $am Upham: During the U.S. Civil War, New York printer $am Upham crippled the Confederacy’s economy and hindered its ability to fight the war. Yet he was never officially honored, and is all but forgotten now.
I Miss the Old Days
Strange, Upbeat Ads From a Different Era: Vintage ads can give us a big dose of nostalgia, but they also remind us how much the advertising game has changed. In the 1950s and ’60s, ads were simpler and more direct, filled with upbeat jingles and beaming actors delivering their lines right into the camera. You can practically see the twinkle of the prepackaged American dream in their eyes.
Bill Herz, R. I. P.
The New York Times: Bill Herz, the last surviving crew member of Orson Welles’s mock “War of the Worlds” newscast, which terrified American radio listeners in 1938 with vivid bulletins warning Newark residents to evacuate as invading Martians incinerated central New Jersey, died on May 10 in Manhattan. He was 99.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
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