The intrepid webmaster of the most comprehensive website on Orson Welles' life and work, the great and good Lawrence French, has been reprinting a series of columns that Welles wrote for the New York Post in the '40s. In the tradition of Ben Franklin's venerable Poor Richard's Almanack he'd present a few thoughts about current events - plenty of those to write about then, with World War II winding down - leavened with bits of homemaking advice and historical factoids. He seems to have had fun knocking these out and his predilection for the essay form shines through brightly here.
Today's entry highlights, for the benefit of those who were unaware of it at the time, what is generally believed to be a singular turning point of the war, the Battle of Stalingrad. Welles speaks well of Uncle Joe Stalin here, as many did when he was our glorious ally in the fight to defeat the Nazis, and this would bite him in the backside in later years when he'd turn up on FBI lists of possible Communist sympathizers. It's never been proven whether or not his perceived Red fancying damaged his Hollywood career along with all his other problems, but it probably didn't help.
------
ORSON WELLES' ALMANAC
By Orson Welles – January 31, 1945
January 31, eleven years ago, we went off the gold standard. Franz Schubert was born 148 years ago, and Talullah Bankhead was born not so many years ago today.
Some of the smart money is saying that the coming meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin isn't going to solve any serious differences of opinion or move the world any closer to a decent or durable peace. But the smart money told us once that Britain wouldn't hold, and Britain held. The smart money told us again that the Germans would get to Moscow in six weeks, but now it looks as though the Russians might get to Berlin in six days. The smart money, it turns out, its betting on the wrong century.
I visited our State Department the other day—that former citadel of cynicism—and there they told me that hopes were high for this next meeting and they looked like they meant it.
They meant it at the British Embassy, too, where they told me the same things, and they meant it at the Soviet Embassy where they told me the same thing again. There's no reason for despair, they all said; there's every reason for hope.
It's too late for any nation to give up because it's made a mistake, or sit down and sulk because another nation is doing something it doesn't like. The next meeting won't solve all the puzzles of international politics, but its purpose is great and at least three great men that I know of are going to try to realize that purpose.
Here's an important story of the war. It's our good luck to be able to put it in print for the first time.
Back in 1935 it was decided to build a city where no city had been before. The plans were put before the man for whom the city was to be named. Stalin was looking at these plans while Hitler was making his Nuremberg speech. You'll remember that was quite a speech. We now have proof that it made a considerable impression on the Soviet leader. Because of it he changed the plans for the city.
These new plans called for the building of a colossal rat trap—a huge city with a standard civilian facade, but concealing tremendous armaments; they were rushed to completion. Buildings were reinforced with extra steel and concrete, they were bedded on solid rock and equipped to house anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns. Staid looking factories and respectable department stores had slots in their walls walls for long range artillery, and for mortars and rifles. The bridges and bridge approaches along the Volga were equipped with mining devices. Parks and playgroups in the suburbs were made into death traps for an unwary enemy whose identity, even in 1935 Russians knew well.
But all was purposely made peaceful looking, enticing to an unsuspecting attacker.
That's how the plans were changed and the city was built. No one outside of Russia knew about it—least of all Hitler. Hitler attacked, the city held, and the tide of the war changed.
Baby Care Department: If the baby cries during the night, see to it that the child is changed. If your wife refuses to do this, take a sleeping tablet.
------
The internet's thick with stuff about Stalingrad. In his introductory remarks to this column on Wellesnet, Lawrence French says that the story of the battle might make one hell of a movie. It's been done a time or two already, most recently and impressively by German director Joseph Vilsmaier in 1993....
I must give "Stalingrad" another look sometime. I checked out the DVD years ago and my impression is of a relentlessly grim and harrowing viewing experience, especially when winter sets in. *shudder!*
Jeez. I didn't mean to get all bleak and dreary, really. LOL! Here's a kitty....
He's like a British Rush Limbaugh without the mouth-foaming and prescription drug addiction. I found this, which answers a question or two. Interesting how in the U.K. the atheists are the loudmouths. I gotta say, his competition oughtta be making him quake in his boots....
Shame he can't run for President. The second guy, I mean - he'd win by a landslide. God Bless the Internet.
2:37 AM - A Mummy (or not), a Babe, and a Ruby the Size of a Golf Ball
Current mood: animated
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
I really oughtta be working, but I think I know where the show's going well enough to goof off a bit. We'll see if I'm right in a couple weeks....
Lately I've been following a column over on Aint-It-Cool in which the redoubtable Quint endeavors to fill in the gaps of his cinematic experience by watching "A Movie A Day". Amid furious speculation on where the hell I can get a job like this, I found myself enjoying his reactions to films I've long been on more than a nodding acquaintance with such as "In Harm's Way", "The Skull", "Barry Lyndon", "Start the Revolution Without Me", "Torn Curtain", "Kingdom of Heaven", "The Cowboys", "Robinson Crusoe on Mars", "The Asphalt Jungle", "Point Blank", "Papillon".... Well, you get the idea. Something for everyone.
Lately he's been diving into some of the more obscure Hammer productions - ones that didn't necessarily star Christopher Lee as Dracula or Peter Cushing as Dr. Frankenstein. This motivated me to revisit an early '70s entry in their little-celebrated late filmography called "Blood From the Mummy's Tomb". The film has a checkered reputation having more to do with its production history than anything that ended up on the screen. Peter Cushing was meant to star in it but his wife suddenly became ill and died after he'd completed only a day's work so he was quickly replaced by one of my favorite character actors, Andrew Keir who can be seen at the center of this poster from another damn' good Hammer flick he starred in a few years before.
The director was a man called Seth Holt, a damn' talented fellow in my opinion. His work typically exhibits an uncommon flair for atmosphere, stunningly effective camera-work, and the sort of hushed suspense that M. Night Shyamalan wishes he could accomplish with the tiny budgets Holt had to work with. He came up from the editorial department to direct some of the best episodes of Patrick McGoohan's "Danger Man" (aka "Secret Agent") among other shows as well as the much-praised but damn' near un-see-able Bette Davis-starring Hammer film, "The Nanny".
Somehow I missed that this came out on DVD earlier this year. Woohoooo!!! I've had a "thing" for Pamela Franklin ever since I can remember and Jill Bennett's always fun. But I digress.
Hammer had a talent for casting hot chicks in their movies. Gets the dads in, ya see. The most delightfully visible star of "Blood From the Mummy's Tomb" was to be the breathtakingly, stunningly, delightfully-figuredly, tall Valerie Leon. She'd done all sorts of TV and theatre work as well as a clutch of "Carry On" films when she was cast in this. She would go on to appear in "The Spy Who Loved Me" with Roger Moore and in "Never Say Never Again" with Sean Connery, thereby achieving the rare distinction (apart from series regulars like Lois Maxwell, of course) of acting with two James Bonds.
"Blood From the Mummy's Tomb" was an adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel "Jewel of Seven Stars" which I remember as being as agreeably batshit and compelling as "Dracula" when I read it years ago. The story deals with an evil ancient Egyptian queen's reincarnation in the present day. Naturally, this is the sort of Egyptian muckety-muck whose name has been ERADICATED from ALL written history to EXPUNGE their EVIL for ALL TIME! Gotta love that shit! :)
Hammer latched onto it because at the time they were running out of ways to recycle the old horror warhorses. They'd had a long-running series of Mummy films but the bandaged, decaying "star attraction" was looking more decrepit and less scary as the years went by. The attraction of this treatment of the mummy thing was that there would be no awkward, shuffling, shambling bad guy to deal with; at the end of the day it IS just a guy in a suit, after all. Much better to have a hot chick than a clumsy dude in bandages, right?
So apart from the hiccup of re-casting Peter Cushing - which would've been MUCH more of a nightmare had it happened any later than the first day of production - things seemed to be going well until Seth Holt dropped dead of a heart attack with about a week left to go. Seth was well-liked by the cast and crew but the show must go on, right? Hammer executive and sometime-director Michael Carreras stepped in and shouldered the unenviable task of finishing the thing. Now, Michael was the son of Sir James Carreras, grand high exalted mystic ruler of Hammer since the Stone Age, and while he seems to have been a great guy to party with by all accounts, his talents lay more with the producing end of things than the directing end. Not that he didn't try, but there's nothing in his filmography that I've seen that suggests that he'd be capable of filling a void as large as the one left by Holt's passing.
Carreras watched everything Holt had shot over the weekend and studied the script before taking over on Monday morning. Holt having been an editor, some of his coverage baffled Carreras and the Hammer brass - having limited resources, Holt would only shoot what he knew he'd use which was very sensible but with him gone, nobody knew how some of the stuff was supposed to go together. To cover his bets and safeguard the studio's investment, Carreras ended up shooting linking bits and pieces to glue together scenes Seth had finished with as well as finishing up what the dead director hadn't shot yet. In later years, after some of the bad taste that surrounded the production in the wake of Cushing and Holt's personal tragedies had subsided, Carreras would say that he felt he was somehow being guided by... something as he completed the film. He doesn't seem to have been much of a believer in this sort of thing but it was as though Holt's departed spirit had stayed behind to attend to unfinished business. To be sure, there are a couple scenes where the inclusion of the odd insert or master shot are blindingly out of place with the surrounding material but on the whole but it's damn' difficult to tell where Holt's work ended and Carreras' work began. Good on Michael, I say.
At the end of the day, "Blood From the Mummy's Tomb" plays just fine as a wonderfully atmospheric horror thriller - with a few well-judged, squirmy, gory bits - even without prior knowledge of the behind-the-scenes drama that plagued its production. In addition to Keir and Leon *sigh* the film features a cast of kick-ass character actors of the type that one could pick up in London for beer money back then: Aubrey Morris plays one of the slimiest, creepiest doctors I've ever seen in a flick like this; Rosalie Crutchley makes the most of her limited screen time as a crystal ball-gazing member of Keir's expedition; James Villiers does his sneering, snarky thing as only he could; George Coulouris who acted with Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane" makes an impression in his lunatic asylum scenes - surely an actor's dream if ever there was one, apart from repeated takes of a love scene with an actress like Valerie Leon *sigh*.
*ahem* Where was I? Ah, yes - "Blood From the Mummy's Tomb" is well worth a look on a dark and creepy night. Ideally with a mournful breeze wafting through the treetops....
The same source novel was adapted again in 1980 as "The Awakening" with the great Charlton Heston who dives into the creepy/psychotic implications of the thing better than Keir was required to do in "Blood From the Mummy's Tomb" and a young Stephanie Zimbalist who certainly is an eyeful but can't touch Valerie for mouth-drying, hand-shaking sexiness. Well, to me, anyway. The film was the first feature of Mike Newell who would go on to direct "Four Wedding and a Funeral", "Donnie Brasco", and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".
This version is universally crapped on by the legitimate critical establishment but because this is the internet I can say what I like about it and I think it's great fun. If they remake it again, I think they should cast Carla Gugino. :)
A couple times over the past few months I've come home to find that stuff's been moved around a little. Not much, just enough for me to almost notice and then write it off to a fading memory. Then one day when looking down from my loft I saw kitty prints in the dust on top of some cabinets and figured it out. I was being surreptitiously vetted by a neighborhood kitty!
One day about a month ago I surprised kitty on one of her stealth fact-checking missions. I was in the spare room looking for something or other and when I came out into the living room I saw kitty on the stairs. Obviously she didn't know I was home and I startled her - she froze for an instant then in a whirl of fur and feet she was up the stairs and out the door to the roof. If I were in a movie there'd have been a cool stereo WHOOOSH noise but I'm not so there wasn't.
A couple weeks ago I was walking up the stairs to my bedroom and passed the door out to the roof, which I usually keep slightly cracked open for the crossbreeze. Before I knew what was happening I was transfixed by kitty's hypnotizing stare! She was sitting out on the roof a good ten feet from the door just on the far side of the railing that fences in my rooftop patio. No idea how long she'd been sitting there waiting but she was obviously keeping an eye on me. *shudder!* I opened the door and made to step out on the roof and with an equally graceful and soundless WHOOOSH she was away out of sight back to wherever she came from.
Things came to a head last night. I got home around 10-ish, put my stuff down and turned on the light to discover kitty sitting halfway up the stairs as though she'd fully expected me to walk in at that precise moment. She had an air of, "Mmmmm, yes - right on schedule," about her that I find somewhat offputting every time I encounter it in a kitty. All I could think of to say was, "O hai," at which point kitty made her way majestically down the stairs to give my shins a condescendingly affectionate rub. After allowing me to gently scratch her lower back she proceeded on her tour of inspection of my apartment. There's lots of stuff to check out in my place so kitty was some time making sure all was up to snuff.
Kitty seems to be a cross between a siamese and a ginger with the coloring of the former and tail markings of the latter. Fur isn't as soft and lustrous as a siamese, more coarse like a ginger. No collar, but she was obviously being well taken care of by somebody. Very pretty creature - wouldn't sit still long enough for me to dig out my camera or I wouldn't have to LOLCat all over the place; she's a bit like the mouse-nomming kitteh above, but more exotically siamese.
Anyway, kitty completed her rounds, favored me with another lower-leg-rub, and took her leave for the evening. I haven't found any unpleasant kitty surprises in my shoes or sock drawer so presumably I'm "in". I've never been adopted by a kitty before. Kinda cool. :)
Currently
listening
:
The Last Samurai
By
Hans Zimmer
Release date: 2003-11-25
Some cunning and ruthless Ain't-It-Cool-esque spy-type dude has leaked the title sequence for the upcoming James Bond film "The Quantum of Solace". Looks fucking BRILLIANT!!! Have a gander....
As much as I like Daniel Craig's take on the part, compared to Sean Connery he's still a little girl. You never saw Connery take out bad guys with an AK47, did you?
Speaking of little girls, I stumbled across this bit of cinematic brilliance while re-watching "Death Race 2000" the other night. Why the hell doesn't someone remake THIS with a $140 squillion budget and CGI stuff? Hmmm?
Video games are Thee Thinngggg I suppose and that's fine for those with hyper-developed digits, but think of the proper feature film sequel possibilities suggested by THIS....
Shame to fuck it up by having Ivan Reitman direct, though. Is Mel Gibson doing anything now?
I got this from my Mom today. Good for a giggle, as well as serving as a nice prelude to an upcoming blog I'm pondering about Christan Pro-Wrestling and other fun stuff. Enjoy!
The following is from a lady in Oregon . It is priceless! The Bible explained by kids - truth has been redefined!
One of our favorite jobs has been leading junior church. We try to do more than baby-sit our church's beloved little ankle-biters during their time in our special junior church facility. We aim to give them a solid background in Biblical history. At the end of each year, we give them pencils and paper and ask them to chronicle what they have learned. This assignment never fails to elicit some intriguing responses. In case you're a little foggy on your Biblical history, let our junior church students help you with this complete overview of the Bible, compiled from their essays:
In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, Darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is one,' but I think He must be a lot older than that. Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and someone did. Then God made the world. He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden. Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars.
Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel. Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.
One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.
After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.
Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable. God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then He gave them His top ten commandments. These include don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor's bottom (the Bible uses a bad word for bottom that I'm not supposed to say But my Dad uses it sometimes when he talks about the President). Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother.
One of Moses' best helpers was Joshua, who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town. After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 Porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn't sound very wise to me.
After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore. There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don't have to worry about them.
After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of the New Testament. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn, too, because my mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you born in a barn?' It would be nice to say, 'As a matter of fact, I was.')
During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Republicans. Jesus also had twelve opossums. The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.
Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount. But the Republicans and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead. Anyway, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven, but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.
6:32 PM - Wednesday
Current mood: awake
Category: Life
Friday night I bought a bottle of tequila at the little grocery shop on the corner and the guy behind the counter ringing me up was giving me some kind of "look". It's the wrong part of town for him to be coming on to me so I returned his "look" mustering all the quizzicalness I could. The fellow informed me that I had bought that particular brand of tequila before at a shop over by USC where he sometimes worked. He was surprised to see me in this part of town, actually, and had I moved? *shudder!* I now know that my double drinks Corzo silver, poor guy. I really must take steps to try and meet him, if for no other reason than to introduce him to a better brand. Yum!
Last weekend I went and saw the new "X-Files" film and liked it just fine. Not that it bothers me at all, but nobody else cares for it much. I can only think it's because during the middle years of the show's run when I watched it I always got more of a charge out of the Mulder/Scully scenes than any monsters or aliens or black oil or creepy cigarette smoking guys lurking in the shadows. There's a scene in the "Loch Ness"-inspired episode (can't remember the title) when Mulder and Scully are stranded on a rock out in the middle of a lake in the middle of the night. They kinda riff about the case, Moby Dick, all kinds of stuff. That's how I remember it, anyway, and while the episode had lots of fun stuff in it - as did the show, at it's best - it's the Mulder/Scully stuff that has lingered in my brain ten years later. Anyway, if your idea of a great "X-Files" episode is more to do with that than gigantic spaceships buried in the Arctic, you might dig the new movie. Or not - I dunno.
Apropos of nothing at all, this bit of Chas. Addams' is fucking brilliant!
Evening, all. My friend Leontine recently blogged about a particularly keen art auction that's due to take place later this year. Those of you with stacks of disposable income that you're not gonna give to me should contribute. 'tis truly a worthy cause. Whether you're going to pay up or not, some of the artwork's damn' cool - very much worth a browse, especially if you're interested in what's inside the heads of some of the guiding lights behind Pixar.
While you're in a browsing mood, you might consider ambling over to Leontine's flickr page and give her stuff a look. She's always been rather clever.
Currently
listening
:
Lonesome Dove Release date: 1998-10-20
creative
bummed
animated
blessed
catalyzed
excited
busy
awake
chipper
okay
