When Hammer Productions Pulled The Hammer Down-“The Snorkel” (1958)-A Film Review

When Hammer Productions Pulled The Hammer Down-“The Snorkel” (1958)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sarah Lemoyne

The Snorkel, Peter van Ecyk, Betta Saint John, Mandy Miller, Hammer Productions, 1958  

[Nobody ever said the life of a writer, make that a journalist to be closer to the nub of what is on my mind today, was easy, or was going to be easy. Take the example of Allan Jackson, the editor of this publication both in its original hard copy format and up until recently the on-line version who for years went under the moniker Peter Paul Markin but who got so wrapped up in some 1960s youth celebration fixation kind of thing that the younger writers staged a revolt and that was that. Gone, unceremoniously gone, and while he was permitted to return to write new introductions to an encore edition of the famous The Roots Is The Toots history of classic rock and roll series which he was instrumental in putting together now that that task is over he has gone back to oblivion. Some say he is running a whorehouse down in Buenos Aires and others have him once again begging at now enshrined Mitt Romney’s Republican bid to be the next U.S. Senator from Utah looking to do public relations work from his former nemesis.  

Such is the life at the top of the pyramid, the place where one mistake, which is after all the only one that Jackson made with that 1960s nostalgia business which would probably not have even been one at say Rolling Stone, puts you right back on cheap street. So you can imagine what the reality is like for a free-lancer, a stringer, taking assignments on consignment like they do with decent used clothing and having to haggle for every dime while old-time by-line writers have them do the heavy lifting while they go for long cocktail hours and spent long afternoon in hidden hotels rooms with companions not their spouses. One guy who shall remain nameless since I still like to use his services occasionally was notorious for grabbing whatever came off the AP wire and just putting his name on top. Worse, when he was doing film and book reviews he would do the same with the studio publicity department hand-outs and publishing blurbs. Christ and editors, including me, let the stuff go through were happy to have his name on the by-line.    

That brings us to the case today of young free-lancer, stringer if you like that term better Sarah LeMoyne who I had originally assigned the six-film Hammer Production thriller series from the 1950s so she could get her feet wet in the reviewing business by doing a short series connected to one studio. Then office politics, yes, I will admit office politics on this one, got in the way. Sam Lowell decided that he wanted to do the series since he had done the film noir end of what Hammer Productions had put out, and had done it well. So Sarah, all happy and such to have a nice assignment, as you can see from her short introduction to the film below, got short shrift because, well, because she is a stringer, a by the word stringer if it comes right down to it and Sam Lowell has a by-line respected in this cutthroat business where you are only as good as your by-line writers whatever talents your stringers might have. What got Sarah in a crazy mood, a kill crazy mood if you think about it was that Sam has asked her to do two things. First write the rough drafts for him of each of the six films and secondly to rewrite her own first two published reviews so they reflected his take on the material. In short to trash her own reviews to set up a fake controversy between two reviewers. Christ it was all I could do to talk Sarah out of leaving. I had to promise this introduction AND another series maybe Star Wars or the Marvel Comics studio productions. Yeah, Christ. Greg Green]            

********

[I am happy today since my first film review was recently published so the world is beautiful, and I will not bore the reader with long-winded gripes or go off on a tangent like some writers here seem to think is mandatory or else their reviews don’t measure up. Read on. Sarah Lemoyne]    

Having recently been given the assignment to do this six-film compilation produced by Hammer Productions of England and distributed by Columbia Pictures in the United States I agree with Seth Garth who has turned into something of a mentor to me of late that the term “low budget” certainly applies to this one, The Snorkel, as it did to the last. By that he meant, and this runs through the Hammer horror movie and film noir compilations as well which Sam Lowell had reviewed a couple of years ago, that they used mostly unknown British and American actors, didn’t leave much on the cutting room floor and spent about six dollars on set design.   

That is all true in this vehicle as well except somehow they got an interesting story line that helps the viewer forget that the actors were over-emotive and the scenery needed serious work. I don’t know how this one fits into the psychological thriller genre but the premise is not bad. Step-father Snorkel, let me call him that, apparently tired of his wife, or merely looking to get his hands on her dough unimpeded planned and executed the “perfect” murder, or at least he thought so, by drugging her up and gassing up her room sealed while he has fresh air via an air pump tied to his snorkel under the floorboards as she suffocated to death. His alibi complete with passport entry that he had been over the border in France working on a new book or some such baloney. The whole thing was written off as the suicide of a depressed and forlorn woman. Done. End of story.

No, no, no. Enter his step-daughter, a goof teenager which doesn’t help her credibility, accompanied by her nanny, who without any evidence but also knowing her man, knowing this guy was strictly a gold-digger was not buying any of the suicide story-and lets him, and the world know it. Problem about her theory which we already know is a serious one is that freaking sealed room and no evidence of somebody somehow doing the deed. Every time teen angel gathers up a bit of steam either nanny or dad squash the thing tight but teen angel knows that this guy is a bastard. Teen angel knows that she witnessed this guy murder her father in order to marry mother dear so this guy has a track record in her mind. Most of the rest of the film is spent in that tug of war between these deadly adversaries with the nanny pushing toward Snorkel’s side once he puts on the charm machine. But despite the perfect crimes Snorkel feels the heat from teen angel and so he makes what will be his fatal mistake and tries to kill her.

Still nobody is buying her story. This though is where a little rough justice in this wicked old world as Seth likes to say comes in. In one last effort to figure out how the murder of dear mother and then herself could have happened she has a guy from the consulate check a few spots, one of them behind the very heavy cabinet. No go. No go but that cabinet was left in place right over a trap door which had been place where Snorkel hid while he was doing his dastardly deeds. While he is now hiding as they inspect the premises. He can’t move the heavy cabinet from his tight position and he is doomed.  Doomed once teen angel comes for one last look and hears his pleas for life. She walks away leaving him to suffocate. Maybe. Maybe if her stop at the police station doesn’t get the coppers there in time. Beautiful rough justice. Interesting as a perfect murder tag but don’t try this at home, okay.               

The Star Wars Industry Churns Onward-Luke Skywalker aka Mark Hamill Cashes His Check-Director Rian Johnson’s “Star War: The Last Jedi-VIII (Sure, Sure) (2017)-A Film Review

The Star Wars Industry Churns Onward-Luke Skywalker aka Mark Hamill Cashes His Check-Director Rian Johnson’s “Star War: The Last Jedi-VIII (Sure, Sure) (2017)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Will Bradley      

Star Wars: The Last Jedi-VIII, starring the Mark Hamill (the late) Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, and an ensemble cast backing up the main actors, directed by Rian Johnson, 2017   

No question the Star Wars industry has spawned nothing but gold, more than faux Vegas Canto Bight shown in a sequence in VIII could ever dream of for creators, actors, directors and the thousands needed to keep the operation churning. No question either that from my perspective this thing had been played out, has lost plenty in the script department since this Last Of The Jedi has stuck pretty much to the action-filled and story-thin formula that has driven everything after the first trilogy. Frankly I don’t give a damn about IX although I know as sure as I am now writing that we will be besieged by such a production if for no other reason that to keep the gold coming in.

If all of this sounds a bit cynical then you are right on the money. I did not ask for this assignment, did not want it and hopefully have not dug myself into a hole by griping about my fate publicly. Here’s how this one has played out. Seth Garth and Johnny Callahan, the latter a serious financial angel for this publication, both desperately wanted to tackle this film. Seth had done a few of the earlier episodes and Johnny has actually done the review of the very first one for the hard copy edition of this publication back in 1977. Meaning this: both men have been aficionados since day one. Sensing that this golden operation was finally bringing this monster to a close both wanted to pay homage to, well, let’s call a thing by its right name-their youth. Greg Green, site manager and the guy who hands out the assignments, decided to make a Solomonic decision and pass them both by and look for somebody who was less involved emotionally and cinematically with this saga. Thus I got the call having not even been born when the series started and moreover as disinterested a party as could be about the whole business after falling asleep when my parents rented a tape for the VCR from the local video store  (showing my age at least against those who know only DVDs or streaming).           

Okay where to start. Darth Vader, oops, Kylo Ren, really   Benjy Solo, who turns out to be the late Mr. Vader’s grandson showing how if not incestuous in the direct sense at least in the storyline the whole thing was, is, played by Adam Driver, is up to his born to be bad self continuing from the last episode wreaking havoc on a sullen galaxy where he is acting as a discipline for the chief universal bad guy, a blob named Smoke, no, Snork, no, Snoke. For the good guys, good guys and gals as it turned out with a new generation of possible Jedi Knights coming from the female side of the sexual divide with Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, we have the same old same old leading the charge, leading the Resistance to the bad guys with General Leia, played by the late Carrie Fisher in her last film, and a few young bravos along side Rey and her friends Poe and Finn.             

What no Luke Skywalker? (Hans Solo, Benjy’s dad has passed beyond done in by Benjy’s hands as well although his ever-faithful companion Chewie is still going at it strong helping young Rey out of a couple of jams although he hasn’t improved his English much in the subsequent forty or so years). Yes, Luke is around but he is sulking on some desolate island having apparently given up the virtuous Jedi Knight job. The sulk  inherited from his reaction to his earlier attempts to tame an unruly universe. Half this film is spent with wanna-be Jedi Knight Rey trying might and main to get Luke back in the struggle, back into the resistance against bad boy Benjy, okay Kylo, and his handler Snoke. The other half is the usual fight to the death, yawn, between the good guys and the bad with the bad guys who vastly outnumber the good but who apparently were ill-trained by Snoke and his minions taking a pummeling before the end. Needless to say as things wind up, wind up for this episode anyway, the Resistance, the rebels are still holding on, still around in case the galaxy decides enough is enough with new head bad guy Kylo, okay, Benji and bring down a hell and damnation on his sorry butt.       

News Flash: before the end good old boy Luke does show up for one last hurrah holding off the bad guys to let the good guys and gals escape. That done one Luke Skywalker who Seth Garth and Johnny Callahan speak of in hushed tones cashed his check. What will happen next without his magic wand to protect the universe.   

When Ladies Lasted Last And Gentlemen Did Not Eve Span-David Niven’s “The Lady Says No” (1951)-A Film Review

When Ladies Lasted Last And Gentlemen Did Not Eve Span-David Niven’s “The Lady Says No” (1951)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Laura Perkins

The Lady Says No, starring David Niven, Joan Caulfield, 1951

One of the most fortunate things in my life, my professional career I should say which I am restarting here after a short hiatus at another publication, has been having Sam Lowell’s pithy comments and helpful hints along the way. (In the seemingly necessary to include interest of full disclosure these days Sam and I have been long, very long time, companions and he was the one who got me the lush long-time assignment at The Daily Literary Digest before luring me back to this publication where I had been a free-lance stinger when I was younger and when the publication was strictly hard-copy under Allan Jackson’s editorship now ended.) Two that apply to this review of 1950s The Lady Says No since there does not appear to be any other socially redeeming quality to recommend it is that, one, when all else fails for a “hook,” the hook being what you hang your hat on when reviewing films you can always use the old “slice of life” bit which I will invoke here. The other that applies is based on Sam’s old habit when he used to drink heavily and carouse with wicked women (before he met me and his match) was to just take whatever the studio publicity department put out, rip off the title and submit under your own by-line. And nobody complained. Of course today for old time films you have to cheap sheet Wikipedia and click and paste to do the same job. For the life of me I can’t figure out this silly film and so I was sorely tempted to just do that but no, this lady says no, I will trudge along trying to give the “skinny” as best I can.             

Of course if we are talking today, talking in today’s #MeToo whirlwind then something like the lady, or rather woman, says no that had a whole different and less menacing connotation back when this film was made for public consumption (although the overriding issues of male authority dominance and expectation and female subordinate resigned acceptance or flagrant abuse were I would argue not far from the surface then either). That is where blessed Sam’s “slice of life” snapshot theory comes into full force. It is extremely hard to see how a film like this, even a comedic film such as this would have any cache at all today. Certainly, the results, the ending could bear no weight today.

Bill, a globe-trotting photographer, played by David Niven, is on assignment to photograph and do a story on best-selling author Dorinda Hatch, played by foxy Joan Caulfield who has created a whirlwind in the eternal male-female, no, female-male battle of the sexes-so-called by calling for her version of an unarmed insurrection against Neanderthal males and his publication wants the scoop. As it turned out, as expected in the twelve millionth rendition of the Hollywood boy meets girl story that has saved many a studio (and incidentally got Sam on the road to taking credit for studio copy once he realized that half the films in that cinematic land depended on this beautiful little trope), there is some chemistry between them. Despite Bill’s hunter-gatherer manner and Dorinda’s obvious Seven Sisters naivete rampant in those day about what was what in the sexual wars for inexperienced young women-and ask Sam men too. The whole theme hinges on whether Dorinda’s naïvete or Bill worldliness will out in the end.

If it was just a matter of that battle royal this would be a thin-and shorter-film but the thing gets rounded out when the two sides start crusading for their respective positions among the GIs and their wives at Fort Ord out in Big Sur-Carmel-Monterrey country in California. (A place where Sam and I have gone many times especially when he gets into his Jack Kerouac and the beats mood and insists we go back to Todo El Mundo south of Big Sur where he hung out in the old days.)   Dorinda starts her own little rebellion (with some push-back) among the Army wives womenfolk in her fight. And here is really where this is a 1950s time capsule (maybe before actually) as a film all the while despite Dorinda’s feminist convictions she is inexplicitly attracted to Bill, uses whatever wiles, female or otherwise to tamp that madness, those hormones, down. You already know the ending, know it if you have been in anyone of the twelve million girl meets boy efforts Hollywood has put out in its existence. Not surprisingly despite the film’s origin in 1951 there is nothing of the red scare Cold War night and atomic thunder coming hellishly down on the world in this one. Nothing either that would pass muster with today’s audiences except members of the lonely-hearts clubs. Nothing that would resolve the eternal conundrum since Adam and Eve times, maybe before.

      

From the Archives of Marxism-Friedrich Engels' “From the Kingdom of Necessity to the Kingdom of Freedom”

From the Archives of Marxism-Friedrich Engels' “From the Kingdom of Necessity to the Kingdom of Freedom” Workers Vanguard No. 1096	23 September 2016

From the Archives of Marxism-Friedrich Engels' “From the Kingdom of Necessity to the Kingdom of Freedom”

We publish below excerpts from Friedrich Engels’ 1880 work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. In explaining scientific socialism, Engels makes clear that only through the conquest of power by the working class and the expropriation of the capitalist class can the benefits of science, technology and education be available to all, laying the material basis for the full liberation of humanity. The excerpts below are taken from the Marx and Engels Selected Works (Progress Publishers, 1976).

The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in men’s better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange. They are to be sought not in the philosophy, but in the economics of each particular epoch. The growing perception that existing social institutions are unreasonable and unjust, that reason has become unreason and right wrong, is only proof that in the modes of production and exchange changes have silently taken place with which the social order, adapted to earlier economic conditions, is no longer in keeping. From this it also follows that the means of getting rid of the incongruities that have been brought to light must also be present, in a more or less developed condition, within the changed modes of production themselves. These means are not to be invented by deduction from fundamental principles, but are to be discovered in the stubborn facts of the existing system of production.

What is, then, the position of modern socialism in this connection?

The present structure of society—this is now pretty generally conceded—is the creation of the ruling class of today, of the bourgeoisie. The mode of production peculiar to the bourgeoisie, known, since Marx, as the capitalist mode of production, was incompatible with the feudal system, with the privileges it conferred upon individuals, entire social ranks and local corporations, as well as with the hereditary ties of subordination which constituted the framework of its social organisation. The bourgeoisie broke up the feudal system and built upon its ruins the capitalist order of society, the kingdom of free competition, of personal liberty, of the equality, before the law, of all commodity owners, of all the rest of the capitalist blessings. Thenceforward the capitalist mode of production could develop in freedom. Since steam, machinery, and the making of machines by machinery transformed the older manufacture into modern industry, the productive forces evolved under the guidance of the bourgeoisie developed with a rapidity and in degree unheard of before. But just as the older manufacture, in its time, and handicraft, becoming more developed under its influence, had come into collision with the feudal trammels of the guilds, so now modern industry, in its more complete development, comes into collision with the bounds within which the capitalistic mode of production holds it confined. The new productive forces have already outgrown the capitalistic mode of using them. And this conflict between productive forces and modes of production is not a conflict engendered in the mind of man, like that between original sin and divine justice. It exists, in fact, objectively, outside us, independently of the will and actions even of the men that have brought it on. Modern socialism is nothing but the reflex, in thought, of this conflict in fact; its ideal reflection in the minds, first, of the class directly suffering under it, the working class....

The perfecting of machinery is making human labour superfluous. If the introduction and increase of machinery means the displacement of millions of manual by a few machine-workers, improvement in machinery means the displacement of more and more of the machine-workers themselves. It means, in the last instance, the production of a number of available wage-workers in excess of the average needs of capital, the formation of a complete industrial reserve army, as I called it in 1845, available at the times when industry is working at high pressure, to be cast out upon the street when the inevitable crash comes, a constant dead weight upon the limbs of the working class in its struggle for existence with capital, a regulator for the keeping of wages down to the low level that suits the interests of capital. Thus it comes about, to quote Marx, that machinery becomes the most powerful weapon in the war of capital against the working class; that the instruments of labour constantly tear the means of subsistence out of the hands of the labourer; that the very product of the worker is turned into an instrument for his subjugation. Thus it comes about that the economising of the instruments of labour becomes at the same time, from the outset, the most reckless waste of labour power, and robbery based upon the normal conditions under which labour functions; that machinery, the most powerful instrument for shortening labour time, becomes the most unfailing means for placing every moment of the labourer’s time and that of his family at the disposal of the capitalist for the purpose of expanding the value of his capital. Thus it comes about that the overwork of some becomes the preliminary condition for the idleness of others, and that modern industry, which hunts after new consumers over the whole world, forces the consumption of the masses at home down to a starvation minimum, and in doing thus destroys its own home market. “The law that always equilibrates the relative surplus population, or industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the labourer to capital more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time, accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.” (Marx’s Capital, p. 671)....

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers—proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.

This solution can only consist in the practical recognition of the social nature of the modern forces of production, and therefore in the harmonising of the modes of production, appropriation, and exchange with the socialised character of the means of production. And this can only come about by society openly and directly taking possession of the productive forces which have outgrown all control except that of society as a whole. The social character of the means of production and of the products today reacts against the producers, periodically disrupts all production and exchange, acts only like a law of Nature working blindly, forcibly, destructively. But with the taking over by society of the productive forces, the social character of the means of production and of the products will be utilised by the producers with a perfect understanding of its nature, and instead of being a source of disturbance and periodical collapse, will become the most powerful lever of production itself....

Since the historical appearance of the capitalist mode of production, the appropriation by society of all the means of production has often been dreamed of, more or less vaguely, by individuals, as well as by sects, as the ideal of the future. But it could become possible, could become a historical necessity, only when the actual conditions for its realisation were there. Like every other social advance, it becomes practicable, not by men understanding that the existence of classes is in contradiction to justice, equality, etc., not by the mere willingness to abolish these classes, but by virtue of certain new economic conditions. The separation of society into an exploiting and an exploited class, a ruling and an oppressed class, was the necessary consequence of the deficient and restricted development of production in former times....

Division into classes has a certain historical justification, it has this only for a given period, only under given social conditions. It was based upon the insufficiency of production. It will be swept away by the complete development of modern productive forces. And, in fact, the abolition of classes in society presupposes a degree of historical evolution at which the existence, not simply of this or that particular ruling class, but of any ruling class at all, and, therefore, the existence of class distinction itself has become an obsolete anachronism. It presupposes, therefore, the development of production carried out to a degree at which appropriation of the means of production and of the products, and, with this, of political domination, of the monopoly of culture, and of intellectual leadership by a particular class of society, has become not only superfluous but economically, politically, intellectually, a hindrance to development.

This point is now reached. Their political and intellectual bankruptcy is scarcely any longer a secret to the bourgeoisie themselves. Their economic bankruptcy recurs regularly every ten years. In every crisis, society is suffocated beneath the weight of its own productive forces and products, which it cannot use, and stands helpless, face to face with the absurd contradiction that the producers have nothing to consume, because consumers are wanting. The expansive force of the means of production bursts the bonds that the capitalist mode of production had imposed upon them. Their deliverance from these bonds is the one precondition for an unbroken, constantly accelerated development of the productive forces, and therewith for a practically unlimited increase of production itself. Nor is this all. The socialised appropriation of the means of production does away, not only with the present artificial restrictions upon production, but also with the positive waste and devastation of productive forces and products that are at the present time the inevitable concomitants of production, and that reach their height in the crises. Further, it sets free for the community at large a mass of means of production and of products, by doing away with the senseless extravagance of the ruling classes of today and their political representatives. The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialised production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day by day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties—this possibility is now for the first time here, but it is here.

With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then for the first time man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of Nature, because he has now become master of his own social organisation. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face to face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man’s own social organisation, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have hitherto governed history pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history—only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom....

To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific socialism.

On The 60th Anniversary Of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road"(1957)- "A Confederate General From Big Sur"-A Book Review

On The 60th Anniversary Of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road"(1957)- "A Confederate General From Big Sur"-A Book Review

Book Review

A Confederate General From Big Sur, Richard Brautigan, Grove Press, 1964

Recently, in reviewing another more well-known book, “Trout Fishing In America”, by the 1960s counterculture writer, Richard Brautigan, I wrote the following paragraph that applies to the book under review here, “A Confederate General From Big Sur”, as well:

“I noted in a recent review of a film documentary about the literary exploits and influences of the “beat” generation of the 1950s on my generation, the “Generation of ‘68”, that we were a less literary generation. That was one of the things that drew me to the beat literary figures like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, among others. Our generation was driven more by the sound of music and fury. Although I believe that statement holds up over time it is not true that there were no literary figures who tried to express for us what the landscape of mainstream American was like, and why it desperately needed to be changed. Enter one Richard Brautigan and his exploration on that theme, “Trout Fishing In America”.”

As I also pointed out there I was drawn to “Trout Fishing” originally based on the photograph on the cover, of all things. Once inside, however, it was clear that Brautigan had the “gift”, the madman’s gift for telling some truths about mainstream American society that the “beat” writers also tried to make us “hip” to. And, as is my wont, once I have “discovered” a writer I tend to want read everything else of value that they have written. This brings us to “Confederate General”.

The plot here centers on one Lee Mellon who is searching, in this case literally, for a Confederate general form Big Sur who may be a forbear. Along the way he has a series of adventures trying to get to the truth of the matter and also finds that others are interested in seeking the truth surrounding this figure. The hard truth is that no real records exist for this general, although then, as now, that is hardly cause for disqualification. This one is quirkier than “Trout Fishing” and in the end less satisfying. Sometimes a writer “speaks” to me more than once with his work, and sometimes not. The latter applies here.

For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"The Children Of The Coal"-The Music Of Kathy Mattea

For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"The Children Of The Coal"-The Music Of Kathy Mattea

The Children Of The Coal- The Music Of Kathy Mattea

CD REVIEW

By Fritz Taylor


Coal, Kathy Mattea, Captain Potato Records, 2008

Several time over the past year or so I have mentioned in this space, as part of my remembrances of my youth and of my political and familial background, that my father was a coal miner and the son of a coal miner in the hills of Hazard, Kentucky in the heart of Appalachia. I have also mentioned that he was a child of the Great Depression and of World War II. He often joked that in a choice between digging the coal and taking his chances in war he much preferred the latter. Thus, it was no accident that when war came he volunteered for the Marines and, as fate would have it despite a hard, hard life after the war, he never looked back to the mines.

All of this is by way of an introduction to this unusual tribute album. Of all the subjects that one could think of in the year 2008 fit for a full exposition the unsung life, trials and tribulations, and grit of those who, for generations, mined the coal (and other minerals) and passed unnoticed in the hollows and hills of Appalachia (and the West) does not readily come to mind. Even for this long time labor militant. But Ms. Mattea, who has her own roots to the coal, has done a great service here. Kudos are in order.

Now politically the coal story is today a very disturbing one. For one, the strip-mining of significant portions of places like Kentucky and West Virginia goes on unabated and essentially unchecked. For another, the number of miners has dwindled to a very few and are getting fewer. As a labor militant I have feasted on the heroics of the Harlan and Hazard miners, the exploits of Big Big Haywood and the Western Federation of Miners, and the class-war battles from any number of isolated locales where men (mainly) dug the coal and fought for some sense of dignity. The dignity and sense of social solidarity may still remain but the virtues of the lessons of the class struggle- picket lines mean don’t cross and class solidarity is essential- have clearly been eroded. That is the political part that cannot be separated from the musical part of this story. Why?

The songs selected for inclusion here spell out the condition of life for the miners, in short, as the English political theorist Thomas Hobbes put it centuries ago- life is "short, nasty and brutish" in the mines and the mining communities. The songs like You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive and the choice of material by well-known mountain music songwriters Jean Ritchie, Billy Edd Wheeler, and Hazel Dickens reflect that. Theses simple mountain tunes, as performed by Ms. Mattea and her fellow musicians, spell out the story with soft guitar, fiddle, mandolin and other instruments that create the proper mood. Probably it is very hard for those not familiar with the coal, the isolated communities, and the sorrow of the mountains to listen to this compilation in one sitting. For that it probably takes the children of the coal. For the rest please bear with it and learn about an important part of American history and music.

“You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive”

In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
You will never leave Harlan alive

Oh, my granddad's dad walked down
Katahrins Mountain
And he asked Tillie Helton to be his bride
Said, won't you walk with me out of the mouth
Of this holler
Or we'll never leave Harlan alive

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away

No one ever knew there was coal in them mountains
'Til a man from the Northeast arrived
Waving hundred dollar bills he said I'll pay ya for your minerals
But he never left Harlan alive

Granny sold out cheap and they moved out west
Of Pineville
To a farm where big Richland River winds
I bet they danced them a jig, laughed and sang a new song
Who said we'd never leave Harlan alive

But the times got hard and tobacco wasn't selling
And ole granddad knew what he'd do to survive
He went and dug for Harlan coal
And sent the money back to granny
But he never left Harlan alive

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life digging coal from the bottom of your grave

In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
You will never leave Harlan alive

"The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore"

When I was a curly headed baby
My daddy sat me down on his knee
He said, "son, go to school and get your letters,
Don't you be a dusty coal miner, boy, like me."

[Chorus:]
I was born and raised at the mouth of hazard hollow
The coal cars rolled and rumbled past my door
But now they stand in a rusty row all empty
Because the l & n don't stop here anymore

I used to think my daddy was a black man
With script enough to buy the company store
But now he goes to town with empty pockets
And his face is white as a February snow

[Chorus]

I never thought I'd learn to love the coal dust
I never thought I'd pray to hear that whistle roar
Oh, god, I wish the grass would turn to money
And those green backs would fill my pockets once more

[Chorus]

Last night I dreamed I went down to the office
To get my pay like a had done before
But them ol' kudzu vines were coverin' the door
And there were leaves and grass growin' right up through the floor

[Chorus]
Labels: Big Bill Haywood, COALMINERS, HarLan County, Hazel Dickens, IWW, mountain music, United Mine Workers, UTAH PHILLIPS