This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
T For Texas, Texas Blues-Willie Nelson’s Milk Cow Blues (2000)-A CD Review
CD Review
By Zack James
Milk Cow Blues, Willie Nelson and others, 2000
My old high school friend Greg Garret whom I am still in close touch with reminded me the other day when he was over at my house and I had the CD under review playing in the background, Willie Nelson’s Milk Cow Blues, that back in the early 1980s he recalled that I had had what he called my “outlaw country cowboy moment.” I didn’t recall that I uttered that particular expression although I did recall that I had for a brief period been drawn to the likes of Willie, Waylon Jennings, Townes Van Zandt and a number of other singer-songwriters who broke out of the traditional stylized Nashville formula mold epitomized then by guys like George Jones and gals like Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. Just then rock and roll was taking one of its various detours which I could not follow, folk music, the social protest kind anyway that had attracted me in my youth was fading fast even among aficionados and the blues was losing its star performers by the day and the younger crowd was heading to what would become the hip-hop tradition so I was up for listening to something different. Willie, not clean-shaven, pony-tailed, not shining sparkly suit Willie filled the bill.
Yeah, Willie filled the bill with songs about two-timing men, women too, lost love, the heartache of love relationships, getting out from under some rock that was weighting him down but down in soulful, thoughtful way with a bit of a gravelly voice, a kind of voice that always had the ability to draw me in, to make me stop what I was doing and listen up. Of course I had remembered back then that Willie had written a song that Patsy Cline whom I had always liked had made famous in the late 1950s, Crazy, which I had learned about when I was at Cheapo Records over in Cambridge looking for some bluesy stuff back in the 1960s.
Fast forward to 2000 and this CD. I had expected that Willie, now ancient Willie if he had written Crazy back in the 1950s, would still be grinding out in his twangy way the old classics which fill out this album. Would put his Texas touch on these standards. Guess what-he switched up on me, made an album of well-known covers made hits by some very famous like Cline, Bessie Smith, B.B. King (who is featured on a couple of songs here), Jerry Lee but changed the tempo. Put everything in a bluesy frame, and let the beat go on. Let the music carry the day with whoever was singing along with him on each cut. Not a recognizable cowboy sound in the house. Now part of that switch-up represented the hard fact that age had like with Bob Dylan rusted up his voice and so he no longer tried, or was capable of , hitting the high white notes. Part of it was to let the other singers or the musicians carry the force of the songs. But guess what if you, and Greg agreed with me on this, need some nice jazzy, bluesy background music this one fills the bill. Yeah, we all have come a long way from that old “outlaw country cowboy moment” Greg claimed I was in thrall to. Enough said.
Gene Kelly And Fred Astaire Go Mano a Mano, Part 2 - Astaire’s “Shall We Dance” (1937)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon
Shall We Dance, starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rodgers, music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, 1937
Those of you who saw my recent review of song and dance man Gene Kelly’s performance in An American In Paris know that that review had come about after a dispute I had had with the general editor of this space, one Pete Markin, over who was the better popular music male dancer Kelly or Fred Astaire. (Neither party disputes the proposition that nobody today, maybe nobody since their respective times, is even close to this pair so don’t bother to bring up any other contenders if that is what you are thinking about). Markin, after years, decades of honorable service to the memory of Mister Astaire’s talents was swayed by Kelly’s performance in that above-mentioned and corralled me by the water cooler one office morning and laid that dead-ass bombshell on me. Naturally I had to upbraid him for his treason, there is no other way to put it even though I would be hard-pressed to have him prosecuted and tried on the charge since I lack a second witness to the travesty and whether it is wartime, declared by Congress wartime, currently is disputable, and error. Now I am reviewing Mister Astaire’s stellar efforts in a second string song and dance genre classic, Shall We Dance, (the seventh of ten in which he shared the dance floor with Ms. Rogers the earlier ones being usually better so here the dancing really shows his superiority) a vehicle like An American In Paris for the music and lyrics of super talented composer and lyrist George and Ira Gershwin.
I mentioned in the lead-up to the Kelly review that someday I would give you the long suffering reader the complete story of how a film critic gets his or her assignments from “upstairs,” from the general editor, from a guy just like Markin (unless of course that person is hard road free-lancing and is just submitting pieces to publications “on spec”). I noted then that I should know the ropes of that slippery slope after some thirty plus years of doing this type of work recently here and for many years at the American Film Gazette (where I still do on-line reviews and where I started out as that free-lancer submitting pieces “on spec” when the publication was strictly hard copy before I was taken on as a staff member). A reader, a thoughtful reader I assumed, wrote in to ask for a specific example of such behavior, of an odd-ball experience in assignment world to give her an inside view of the madhouse. I immediately explained the genesis of this current review (and the Kelly review) as nothing but hubris from Markin. I explained that the only reason that I was on a “run” was I got this assignment to review first Gene Kelly’s An American In Paris and now this film because Markin had grabbed these two films via Amazon for one purpose and one purpose only-to see who was the better dancer back in the day -Kelly or Astaire.
Here is another one, another prime example of odd-ball assignments out of the blue. A few months ago Markin was all hopped up on some exhibition out at the de Young Museum in San Francisco that one of his growing up childhood friends had told him about after viewing what was called The Summer Of Love Experience (from 1967 so they were commemorating the 50th anniversary of the events in style) he had me and my associate film critic Alden Riley working like seven whirling dervishes to write up a ton of stuff on the music (deemed “acid” rock for its connection with LSD), films and documentaries of the times. After I had reviewed a break-through documentary by D.A. Pennebaker chronicling the first Monterey International Pops Festival held that same 1967 year where Janis Joplin (and others like Otis Redding and Ravi Shankar) made her big splash in the rock icono-sphere I asked Alden, a much younger man than I, what he thought of Janis Joplin. He stated to me that he had never heard of her. Somehow Markin heard about that remark and being very much connected with that whole Summer of Love, 1967 scene (having actually gone out there from his growing up home in North Adamsville, Massachusetts hitchhiking out with a couple of friends) told Alden, by-passing me, that his next assignment would be a biopic about Janis Joplin titled Little Girl Blues. That will give you just a rather current example of the inside the pressure cooker atmosphere we work under.
But back to the Astaire-Kelly controversy what I called a tempest in a teapot in that Kelly review. A remark that I now wish to publicly apologize to Mister Markin for making in the heat of a writing a review under deadline. Of course in a world going to hell in a handbasket with rightwing movements sprouting up all over the world, with bare-faced nuclear war threats on the table, with climate change dramatic weather and natural disasters on the rise and with the social fabric coming undone in this American society (what the political commentator Frank Jackman has rightly I think called the first stages of a “cold civil war” likely to get hot) there is no question that the presses (or cyberspace) should stop while we haggle over which of two long dead popular culture dancers was the max daddy of the genre. But to the lists once again to right a minor wrong in this crooked little orb of a planet.
I noted in that review of An American In Paris with its paper thin plotline that it might not be the best place to critique Mister Kelly’s dancing (or acting efforts which whatever faults I find in his dancing they do not compare to his wooden glad hand acting in that role) but I did not throw down the gauntlet this time. Frankly although Shall We Dance has a plotline a bit superior to the Kelly vehicle it would not be out of place to call that paper thin as well. Apparently in the song and dance genre all the dough goes for staging and about three dollars to screenwriters to come up with a plausible scenario to justify all the sprouting out to sing and dance at the drop of a hat.
As with An American in Paris I do not utter that term “paper thin” lightly here. Here’s the play as my predecessor and friend in this department Sam Lowell always liked to say in his reviews. Astaire whose character is called Petrov is actually an American ballet dancer working in Paris whose most fervent desire is to blend that youthful ballet training with modern jazz that is running rampart in the land and hence the need for the services of the Gershwin brothers to do the music and lyrics in this film. But I am getting ahead of myself. Petrov spies this dishy tap-dancer, Linda, Ginger Roger’s role, and immediately makes a play for her for love (and maybe, just maybe as a dance partner who might have the moves to jazz dance). She of course gives him the cold shoulder-sees him as some Russian stupe. Naturally there has to be a nefarious plan hatched by others to get them together. Bingo a rumor is started that the “lovebirds” are married, which they are not at first, and to make this thing go away they do get married with Linda intending to get a divorce ASAP.
Get this though. She starts falling for the big Russian turned American cuckoo until she finds that he is playing footsies with another dame. Then the big freeze is on. But you know the thaw is on the wings and they will be lovebird back together again before twelve more song and dances are completed. Like I said with the Kelly plotline watch the song and dance stuff and go numb in between.
Of course this whole dispute, this tempest in a teapot, no I already said I apologized for my indiscretion on that score so forget I said that expression, brewed up by Mister Markin is not about the qualities of the storyline but about Kelly’s dancing superiority. I have already conceded that on the question of pure physical energy and verve Kelly is not bad reflecting I think the hopped up (maybe drugged up) post-World War II period when everybody who had slogged through the war was in a rush to get to wherever they thought they should be going. But Fred did the Gershwins proud in all the numbers that he performed with Rogers despite the silly plotline. Catch classic Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off and They Can’t Take That Away From Me and you will get my drift. He had his own sense of controlled athleticism and looking at any one number like his tap dance in the ship’s hull with a black ship’s crew for support shows his physical prowess. But where Astaire had it all over Kelly was his grace, his long reaches and close insteps. Notice in contrast that Kelly never did much pair dancing with Caron and Astaire waltzed and two-stepped Ginger right out of her shoes. Like I said in the Kelly review how the usually level-headed Markin could have turned traitor on a dime tells a lot. Tells me he, he Mister fancy general editor has maybe really has been at the hash pipe too long of late. Touché-again.
On The 80th Anniversary Of The Entry Of The International Brigades Into The Spanish Civil War All Honor To The Memory Of The "Premature" Anti-Fascist Fighters
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the International Brigades and their role in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39. ****** Saturday, May 20, 2006
"Viva La Quince Brigada"- The Abraham Lincoln Battalion In The Spanish Civil War BOOK REVIEW
THE ODYSSEY OF THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE: AMERICANS IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, Peter N. Carroll, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1994. AS WE HEAD INTO THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY IN JULY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR MILITANTS NEED TO STUDY THIS IMPORTANT EVENT OF INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS HISTORY. THE WRITER WILL BE REVIEWING AND COMMENTING ON SEVERAL ASPECTS OF THAT FIGHT FOR MILITANTS TODAY. I have been interested, as a pro-Republican partisan, in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 since I was a teenager. My first term paper was on this subject. What initially perked my interest, and remains of interest, is the passionate struggle of the Spanish working class to create its own political organization of society, its leadership of the struggle against Spanish fascism and the romance surrounding the entry of the International Brigades, particularly the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the 15th Brigade, into the struggle. Underlying my interests has always been a nagging question of how that struggle could have been won by the working class. The Spanish proletariat certainly was capable of both heroic action and the ability to create organizations that reflected its own class interests i.e. the worker militias and factory committees. Of all modern working class uprisings after the Russian revolution Spain showed the most promise of success. Russian Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky noted in one of his writings on Spain that the Spanish proletariat at the start of its revolutionary period had a higher political consciousness than the Russian proletariat in 1917. That calls into question the strategies put forth by the parties of the Popular Front, including the Spanish Communist Party- defeat Franco first, and then make the social transformation of society. Mr. Carroll’s book while not directly addressing that issue nevertheless demonstrates through the story of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion how the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and through it the policy of the Communist International in calling for international brigades to fight in Spain aided in the defeat of that promising revolution. Mr. Carroll chronicles anecdotally how individual militants were recruited, transported, fought and died as ‘premature anti-fascists’ in that struggle. No militant today, or ever, can deny the heroic qualities of the volunteers and their commitment to defeat fascism- the number one issue for militants of that generation-despite the fatal policy of the the various party leaderships. Such individuals were desperately needed then, as now, if revolutionary struggle is to succeed. However, to truly honor their sacrifice we must learn the lessons of that defeat through mistaken strategy as we fight today. Interestingly, as chronicled here, and elsewhere in the memoirs of some veterans, many of the surviving militants of that struggle continued to believe that it was necessary to defeat Franco first, and then fight for socialism. This was most dramatically evoked by the Lincolns' negative response to the Barcelona uprising of 1937-the last time a flat out fight for leadership of the revolution could have galvanized the demoralized workers and peasants for a desperate struggle against Franco. Probably the most important part of Mr. Carroll’s book is tracing the trials and tribulations of the volunteers after their withdrawal from Spain in late 1938. Their organization-the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade- was constantly harassed and monitored by the United States government for many years as a Communist 'front' group. Individuals also faced prosecution and discrimination for their past association with the Brigades. He also traces the aging and death of that cadre. In short, this book is a labor of love for the subjects of his treatment. Whatever else this writer certainly does not disagree with that purpose. If you want to read about what a heroic part of the vanguard of the international working class looked like in the 1930’s, look here. Viva la Quince Brigada!! Labels: abraham lincoln brigade, AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY, international brigades, SPAIN 1936, spanish civil war posted by Markin at 7:53 AM 2 Comments: markin said... Two Songs Of The Spanish Civil War: "Viva La Quince Brigada" And "El Paso Del Ebro" By Thomas Keyes Apr. 16, 2005 “¡Viva La Quince Brigada!” (Long Live the Fifteenth Brigade!) and “El Paso del Ebro” (Crossing the Ebro) are two songs of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) sung to the same melody. The original version of the song goes back to the time of the Napoleonic Wars, but I haven’t found the lyrics for that version. The lyrics of these two songs both pertain to the later war, since both mention aircraft. “¡Viva La Quince Brigada!” is also called “¡Ay, Manuela!”, while “El Paso del Ebro” is also called “¡Ay, Carmela!” “Manuela” and “Carmela” are women’s names. Unfortunately, the two audible versions that I was able to find on the Web are somewhat different from the song as I know it, and not as good in my opinion, but perhaps they are more authentic. I have known “¡Viva La Quince Brigada!” since the 1960’s, but to date have not learned “El Paso del Ebro”. I just like the music for its own sake and for its value as a souvenir of Spanish culture. I don’t take sides on the Spanish Civil War, because I don’t know much about it. Incidentally, the Ebro is a major river in the north of Spain. The Jarama, mentioned in the first song, is another river. I have provided my own translations, for those who cannot manage the very easy Spanish lyrics. Below are the URL’s for the music: http://idd003x0.eresmas.net/mp3/El%20Paso%20Del%20Ebro.mp3 http://personales.ya.com/altavoz/midis/elpasodelebro.mid VIVA LA QUINCE BRIGADA (Spanish Lyrics) Viva la quince brigada, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Viva la quince brigada, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Que se ha cubierto de gloria. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Que se ha cubierto de gloria. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Luchamos contra los moros, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Luchamos contra los moros, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Mercenarios y fascistas. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Mercenarios y fascistas. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Solo es nuestro deseo, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Solo es nuestro deseo, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Acabar con el fascismo. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Acabar con el fascismo. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! En los frentes de Jarama, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, En los frentes de Jarama, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, No tenemos ni aviones, Ni tanques, ti cañones. No tenemos ni aviones, Ni tanques, ti cañones. Ya salimos de España, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Ya salimos de España, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, A luchar en otros frentes, ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! A luchar en otros frentes, ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! EL PASO DEL EBRO (Spanish Lyrics) El ejército del Ebro, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, El ejército del Ebro, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Una noche el río paso. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Una noche el río paso. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Y a las tropas invasoras, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Y a las tropas invasoras, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Buena paliza les dio, ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Buena paliza les dio, ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! El furor de los traidores, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, El furor de los traidores, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Lo descarga su aviación. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Lo descarga su aviación. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Pero nada pueden bombas, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Pero nada pueden bombas, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Donde sobra corazón. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Donde sobra corazón. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Contraataques muy rabiosos, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Contraataques muy rabiosos, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Deberemos resistir. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Deberemos resistir. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Pero igual que combatimos, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Pero igual que combatimos, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Prometemos combatir. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Prometemos combatir. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! VIVA LA QUINCE BRIGADA (English Translation) Long live the fifteenth brigade, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Long live the fifteenth brigade, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Which has covered itself with glory. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Which has covered itself with glory. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! We are fighting against the Moors, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, We are fighting against the Moors, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Mercenaries and fascists. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Mercenaries and fascists. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! It’s our sole desire, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, It’s our sole desire, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, To be done with fascism. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! To be done with fascism. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! On the front lines of the Jarama, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, On the front lines of the Jarama, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, We have neither airplanes, Tanks nor cannon. We have neither airplanes, Tanks nor cannon. We’re already leaving Spain, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, We’re already leaving Spain, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, To fight on other fronts. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! To fight on other fronts. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! EL PASO DEL EBRO (English Lyrics) The army of the Ebro, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, The army of the Ebro, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Crossed the river one night. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Crossed the river one night. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! And to the invading troops. Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, And to the invading troops. Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, It gave a sound beating. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! It gave a sound beating. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! The fury of the traitors, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, The fury of the traitors, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, They discharge with their airplanes. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! They discharge with their airplanes. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! But bombs can do nothing, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, But bombs can do nothing, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Where there’s a lot of heart. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Where there’s a lot of heart. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Very rabid counterattacks, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Very rabid counterattacks, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, We will owe it to resist. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! We will owe it to resist. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! But as we have fought, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, But as we have fought, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, We promise to fight. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! We promise to fight. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! 2:30 PM markin said... Lyrics to Jarama Valley : by Woody Guthrie There’s a valley in Spain called Jarama It’s a place that we all know so well It was there that we fought against the Fascists We saw a peacful valley turn to hell From this valley they say we are going But don’t hasten to bid us adieu Even though we lost the battle at Jarama We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through We were men of the Lincoln Battalion We’re proud of the fight that we made We know that you people of the valley Will remember our Lincoln Brigade From this valley they say we are going But don’t hasten to bid us adieu Even though we lost the battle at Jarama We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through You will never find peace with these Fascists You’ll never find friends such as we So remember that valley of Jarama And the people that’ll set that valley free From this valley they say we are going Don’t hasten to bid us adieu Even though we lost the battle at Jarama We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through All this world is like this valley called Jarama So green and so bright and so fair No fascists can dwell in our valley Nor breathe in our new freedom’s air From this valley they say we are going Do not hasten to bid us adieu Even though we lost the battle at Jarama We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through [ Jarama Valley Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/
Gene Kelly And Fred Astaire Go Mano a Mano- Kelly’s “An American In Paris” ( 1951 )-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon
An American In Paris, starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, music by George and Ira Gershwin, 1951
Someday let me give you the complete story of how a film critic gets his or her assignments from “upstairs” (unless of course that person is hard road free-lancing and is just submitting pieces to publications “on spec”). I should know after some thirty plus years of doing this type of work recently here and from many years at the American Film Gazette (where I still do on-line reviews and where I started out as that free-lancer submitting pieces “on spec” when the publication was strictly hard copy before I was taken on as a staff member). For now though since I am on a “run” so let me say that the reason I got this assignment to review Gene Kelly’s An American In Paris (and the next one which will be on Fred Astaire’s, and Ginger Roger’s, Shall We Dance) is that the editor here, Pete Markin, had grabbed these two films via Amazon for one purpose and one purpose only-to see who was the better dancer back in the day -Kelly or Astaire. (There is not even a question of anybody today touching the hem of either’s skirt since dance kings are a rare breed and one would be hard pressed to name one male popular dancer who is even close. Whatever else our disagreements as will be noted below we agree on that point-to our collective sorrows.)
This no academic question because not only did Pete go out of his way to view both film he engaged me in a heated argument one morning in front of the water cooler when he casually laid a bombshell on me. The bombshell? After years of assuming that Fred Astaire had the title of king hell king popular dancer wrapped up he had switched his allegiance to Kelly on the sole basis of this film under review. Needless to say I had to upbraid him for both his treason and his error. And hence this “run.” So you see here is a prime example of the odd-ball ways of those high and mighty general editors in doling out the work. But to the lists.
Maybe An American In Paris with its paper thin plotline is not the best place to critique Mister Kelly’s dancing (or acting efforts which whatever faults I find in his dancer they do not compare to his wooden glad hand acting in this role) but I did not throw down the gauntlet this time. I do not utter that term “paper thin” lightly here. Here’s the play as my predecessor and friend in this department Sam Lowell always liked to say. Kelly finds himself in Paris after the war, after World War II of which he was some of veteran of although it was probably work in a Special Services unit entertaining entertainment-starved G.I.s fresh off the front lines with his song and dance routine. Empathically not after World War I when Paris was the center of the F. Scott Fitzgerald-dubbed Jazz Age and the period when the Gershwins, George and Ira, wrote the music and lyrics for the origin concept and which given the playlist here would have been a better time frame for Kelly’s character, a guy, a regular guy, named Gerry Mulligan stew to have strutted his stuff. In gay Paree (gay in the old-fashioned sense of happy, light, and so on not today’s sexual identity usage) Gerry was doing his best to be a mediocre artist, a painter (already you can see there is a problem since the transition to dancer in each routine seems bizarre or his being an artist seems bizarre when he was at least a better dancer than artist - take your pick). He is getting nowhere fast in his humble little garret imitation of how he thinks his heroes the Impressionists suffered for their art. Finally some moneybags “art patroness” takes up his cause and easy street and high society (which is really a ruse for trying to get him to fall for her-no dice-no nice dice)
What or rather who he does fall for, falls hard for, is a little French twist with a turned up nose and who we will find out quickly is as light on her feet as Gerry is on his on the dance floor. She gives him the cold shoulder for a while mainly because she is trying to do the honorable thing for her benefactor and fiancé (and to boot Gerry’s friend too). As Gerry pulls the hammer down on the romance she softens a bit. But still no sale until the end when after this serious imaginary dance Gerry has worked himself up over recreating various paintings by his max daddy artist Impressionist artists heroes (and a couple of guys from early trends in French art) where he and Leslie trip the light fantastic she relents. Or rather her lover-benefactor seeing the writing on the wall brings her to Gerry’s doorstep. Nice guy. So you can see no way that even the best song and dance man could overcome these disservices to the Gershwins 1920s be-bop Jazz Age pieces.
Of course this whole dispute, this tempest in a teapot, brewed up by Mister Markin is not about the qualities of the storyline but about Kelly’s dancing (and singing too but dancing is enough to chew on). On the question of pure physical energy and verve Kelly is not bad reflecting I think the hopped up (maybe drugged up) post-World War II period when everybody who had slogged through the war was in a rush to get to wherever they thought they should be going. He has all the moves if not all the grace that Fred Astaire had in his own prime. And that is really the sticking point here, the point that became clear during that seventeen minute interlude where Gerry imagined those painterly scenes from the works of his favored artists. Kelly was all arms and legs and odd-ball twists and turned but only for a few seconds during that whole “why the hell is this long scene in this film anyway except to prolong the film” did he exhibit any grace and that was when he was doing yeoman’s work lifting Ms. Caron in balletic style. How the usually level-headed Markin could have called that one of the best dance scenes he had ever seen tells a lot. Tells me he, he Mister fancy general editor has maybe been at the hash pipe too long of late. Touché
When Women Played Rock And Roll For Keeps- The Music Of Bonnie Raiit
[The world of on-line editors and named bloggers is actually rather small when you consider what cyberspace can allow the average ingenious citizen to do. I have been highlighting some of the conversations between long-time music critic Seth Garth and some of his growing up in Riverdale (that is in Massachusetts west of Boston) friends as he/they discuss a various older CDs which reflect a certain period in their then youth lives growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Part of this latest series of sketches by me is based on information that Seth has provided comes under the sign of the Summer of Love, 1967 out on the West Coast, especially in the San Francisco and Bay area.
I am a bit too young by about a decade to have had anything but a nodding acquaintance with the Summer of Love experience. That era’s music did not form the basis for my musical interests although I heard it around the house from older siblings but rather the music of the 1970s which when I get a little bored with book reviews or general cultural pieces I write about for various publications including this one I write some music reviews. Knowing that let me take a step back so that you will understand why I made that statement about the review world is really a small place.
As I said earlier I was a little too young to appreciate the music of the Summer of Love first hand but my eldest brother Alex was not. Had in fact gone out to the West Coast from our growing up neighborhood the Acre section of North Adamsville that summer along with a bunch of other guys that he had hung around with since highs school. He wound up staying in that area, delving into every imaginable cultural experience from drugs to sex to music, for a couple of years before heading back to his big career expectations-the law, being a lawyer. The original idea to head west that summer was not his but that of his closest friend, the late Peter Paul Markin forever known in town and by me as the Scribe (how he got that is a long story and not germane to the Seth sage). The Scribe had dropped out of college in Boston earlier in 1967 when he sensed that what Alex said he had been yakking about weekly for years that a “new breeze,” his, the Scribe’s term, was going to take youth nation (and maybe the whole nation) by a storm and headed west. A couple of months later he came back and dragged Alex and about six others back west with him. And the rest is history.
I mean that “rest is history” part literally since earlier this year (2017) Alex, now for many years a big high-priced lawyer after sowing his wild oats and get “smartened up” as he called it once the bloom of the counter-culture they were trying to create faded had gone to a business conference out in San Francisco and while there had seen on a passing bus an advertisement for something called the Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. He flipped out, maybe some latent recoil from those long ago drugs, and spend one “hooky” afternoon mesmerized by the exhibit of poster art, hippie clothing, photographs and music. That was not all though. When he got back to Boston he contacted all the old neighborhood guys still standing who had gone out there in 1967 to put a small memoir book together. One night they all agreed to do the project, do the project in honor of the late Scribe who had pushed them out there in some cases kicking and screaming (not Alex at the time). That is when Alex, knowing that I have had plenty of experience doing such projects contacted me to edit and get the thing published. Which I did without too much trouble.
The publication and distribution of that book while not extensive got around to plenty of people who were involved in the Summer of Love, or who knew the Scribe. And that is where Seth Garth comes in. While he was not part of the Summer of Love experience he did drift out west after college to break with his Riverdale growing up home in the early 1970s. As a writer he looked for work among the various alternative presses out there and wound up working first as a free-lancer and then as staff as a music critic for the now long defunct The Eye which operated out of Oakland then. Guess who also was working as a free-lancer there as well after he got out of the Army. Yes, the Scribe who was doing a series of articles on guys like him who had come back from Vietnam and couldn’t relate to the “real world” and had established what amounted to alternative communities along the railroad tracks and under the bridges of Southern California. So yeah it is a small world in the writing for money racket. Here is what Seth has to say right now. Zack James]
CD Review
The Best Of Bonnie Raiit
By Zack James
Seth Garth and Jack Callahan who had been friends since highs school down in Riverdale after they returned from a whirlwind few months on the road on a magical mystery tour yellow brick road merry pranksters adventure out in California during the Summer of Love, 1967, were sitting in Jack’s, the local hang-out bar in Cambridge where the drinks were cheap and the conversation interesting, when a young woman stepped up to the small stage preparing to sing. Jack mentioned to Seth that she looked familiar, that flaming red hair a giveaway, and asked him if he could place the face. Seth who was beginning his long career as a music critic just then for The Eye whom he had contracted with when he was out in California blurted out that didn’t Jack remember seeing her, seeing Bonnie Raitt, on the Boston Common before they had taken off for California where she blew away the crowd with a cover of Down Highway 61. Jack laughed and said that he was so stoned that night that he wasn’t sure who he had heard (Seth reminding him that it had been an afternoon concert).
Of course Seth, as a budding music critic, expecting to ride the wave from folk to folk rock to what was now being called “acid” rock with all the strobe lights and dipping into the drug bag to bring out the right mood had done some basic research on Bonnie as an up and coming star who was riding her own wave of the new trend in having female singers lead the bands they were in. Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Amy Kline, Nicky Adams and then her. He had found out that Bonnie had dropped out of Radcliffe a little earlier in order to pursue her musical career as a result of the success of the Boston Common concert. He also had found out that her budding virtuosity with the slide guitar had come from sitting at the feet of country blues legend Mississippi Fred McDowell. So she had a pedigree. Still she a was only starting out and grateful that Jack’s had allowed her up on the stage a couple of years earlier where she had begun to hone her skills both at presenting a professional musical veneer and connecting with the audience. So the night Seth and Jack were sitting there at the bar drinking and talking about everything under the sun Bonnie was doing “pay back.” Performing for the old crowd, performing for Jack.
She started her first set with Hound Dog Taylor’s The Sky Is Crying and McDowell’s Highway 61 and the rest would be history. A history which is well documented in this compilation from those classics to Fairport Convention member Richard Thompson’s The Dimming of the Day.
The Bank Job, starring Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, 2008
Recently I did a short review of the film adaptation of writer con-artist’s Clifford Irving’s The Hoax about his take (remember he was a con artist and so his fast-talking-writing should be taken for what it is worth) on his con of a major publishing company over an “autobiography” of the reclusive eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes back in the early 1970s and mentioned that everybody loves a con. Everybody except the person con of course. That notion can be extended, was extended in my old working-class growing up Acre section of North Adamsville, to include high profile bank robberies. In those days the big deal was the then never solved great Brink armored car robbery of the early 1950s where it turned out one of the participants had lived in the neighborhood at one time. So when Pete Markin tagged me to do a short piece on the film under review The Bank Job about an equally famous bank robbery in London in the early 1970 I was all in.
Usually the genesis of a bank robbery (aside from the famous bank robber Willie Sutton’s response to the question of why he robbed banks for a living- because that was where the money was) is to grab some quick dough and split. Average stuff. In this film, based on a true story, although it is hard to separate fact from fiction according to the historical record, the motives are a little bit trickier. Oh sure the guys who are touched for the job have that motivation-have that wanting habits hunger but this one has a catch to it. See the robbery is just supposed to be a front for getting some very juicy photographs of a member of the royal family, a royal princess acting the slut. (According to my sources that part is make-believe courtesy of the thriller-crazed producers and not a bad motive at that if you hold any republican sympathies. In any case given the batch of whores, whore-mongers, homos and lesbians when that was not cool, dope fiends, junkies, sex addicts, lunatics, mad men, philanders and the like who have made up the royal family and nobility that would not be so far-fetched. And those are from the good side of the families the others’ depravity starts from there.) Maybe nowadays with 24/7/365 celebrity exposure that would be nothing for royals to bother with but back then it was enough to get certain secretive governmental agencies on the move to cover the damn thing up-to bury it deep. That was the story then anyway make of it what you will.
The whole play came about because one neighborhood working class woman, Martine, played by Saffron Burrows, who took a turn at modeling had been stopped with a hell-broth of drugs in her suitcase at the airport. So she needed to get out from under any way she could since female prison life would quickly turn her into somebody’s honey and she would not have looked good in prison garb anyway. Fortunately she had a lover-boyfriend from MI5 who was in need of a favor. Seems that a sneaky fiery black nationalist leader, Michael X, had the vaunted photographs in question in a safety deposit box for further use-blackmail, trade for freedom, you know the rest. Also in need of a favor was Terry, played by Jason Statham, a hard-pressed auto body shop owner and small time hood. The man, men, he needed a few confederates for this caper, and the moment meet. Martine cons Terry into this fantastical notion of robbing a bank (naturally the Baker Street branch bank where the safety deposit box is located) to get out from under-to get him and his family on easy street. At first he balks but then facing a blank wall future he bites.
In a funny way the bank job is actually not only clever planned but despite a couple of glitches and close-calls a relatively easy job done by creating a tunnel from an adjoining shop to the vaults. Beautiful. Then all hell breaks loose once the job is done and the photographs secured. See everybody and there aunt and uncle has something to hide from all that hidden cash and jewels to a listing of all the crooked cops on a local mobsters pay-roll. Between the governmental agents, the mobsters, the cops and who knows who else Terry and his comrades are led a merry chase. But in the end the resourceful Terry works his way out of danger and is allowed to keep the ill-gotten goods and seek a new life somewhere out of fetid London. Martine blows town with her cut. The royals dodge yet another scandal and the mobster and the crooked cops take a fall, a hard fall. But the hard criminal life is not for everybody and not everybody made the grade. One gang member got wasted for not giving up his comrades. That’s the way it is down on the edge. Whatever its closeness to what really happened before, during and after this caper on Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes’ street-right) the movie was well-done
Everybody Loves A Con Man (Or Woman)-With Richard Gere’s “The Hoax” In Mind
DVD Review
By Book Critic Zack James
The Hoax, starring Richard Gere
Everybody loves a con man (or at the headline states con woman as well although there tend to be fewer of them in the deep rich history of this art form). Everybody that is except the guy (or gal) being conned. That egg on the face person most definitely does not love a con although he or she gets what they deserve in my book. I have seen some beautiful work in my time. The time when Eddie Murray took some hungry greedy stockbroker for a cool million when a million was something on non-existent stock, nada. Or that time when Conrad Vedt a seemingly mild mannered non-entity took the local syndicate for five mil and got away with it (although he did spent some serious time looking over his shoulder before the coast was clear). The big one though at least the one I was close to, knew some of the players, was when Jack Kiley took down a couple of high-end Las Vegas gamblers for something like ten million all by himself. The stuff of legends. And that brings us to the film under review the rough film adaptation of writer Clifford Irving’s book about his big time literary scam of the so-called billionaire when a billion was serious money Howard Hughes “autobiography” The Hoax. (Although the thought occurs to me why would you believe what a con artist has written about himself-oh well.)
Clifford Irving, played by Richard Gere, understood the first rule of the con-go big or don’t go at all. It is not worth the time or energy to do the con for chicken feed although I have known back in the old Acre section of my growing up town North Adamsville guys to do cons for chicken feed. A serious con like the one Irving tried to pull for a million bucks and maybe more if things had worked out on a well-known if reclusive public figure working the literary scam which meant bucking a high-end publishing company also meant possible jail time if the thing went south on him. Which in the end as everybody now knows it did dragging his wife and his closest collaborator down with him in the gutter-into jail time.
Still you have to like the brass of the guy taking a shot at immortality in the con artist pantheon-a place not for the faint-hearted. First he had to get a big enough target for his appetites which seemed to narrow down to Howard Hughes for no better reason than he saw his name on a magazine cover and figured he could use that notorious reclusiveness of Hughes’ to work his magic. Of course the second rule of the con is to talk fast on your feet and be plausible which Irving did with relish starting with his agent and working up the food chain to the big-time publishing company executives. The dicey part or one of the dicey parts was that the potential publishers advised by their platoon of lawyers were going to be looking for some proof and a lot of the film dealt with working around that problem. But see the third rule of the con or maybe it really is the first rule once you get a bead on human nature as it has evolved over the last few millennia is to understand how to play to a little greed or some vanity advantage over your competitors. Bingo here.
The other dicey part which in the end did Irving and his compadres in was the blow-back from the super security conscious Hughes empire. Irving almost had it made but just couldn’t work out that last kink about how to grab the dough-the fatal check-which needed to be cashed with Hughes’ name on it. Tough break. Yeah, everybody loves a con. Conrad Vedt, Jack Riley and Eddie Murray would have been proud.
Spanish Is The Loving Tongue-Those Sparkling Eyes Of Hers-From The World War II Rationing Vaults- Armida’s “The Girl From Monterrey” (1943)-A Film Review
By Lance Lawrence
The Girl From Monterrey, starring Armida, 1943
WTF. (This is a family-friendly publication for what it is worth although we have learned from recent experience that the demographic the new site manager Greg Green, more on him ina minute as the source of “WTF,” was trying to reach with his silly experiment of, for example, having grown women and men review cinematic portrayals of Marvel/DC comic characters like Captain America to draw the young in a cohort that doesn’t give a, ah, fig for on-line blogger-induced publications. Try Instagram brother, try Instagram as my eight-year old granddaughter could have told Greg and avoided a near civil war among the writers, young and old, and a revolt by the real readership base-the remnants, the best part of the Generation of ’68 past its flower. So WTF it is although that same eight-year old granddaughter was hip to that expression about two years ago and so we are not protecting virgin ears.) I recently reviewed a boxing film from the 1930s starring a triad of classic stars from that period like Bette Davis, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart who went through their paces in Kid Galahad (not to be confused with the later Elvis 1960s production under the same title) with Edward G. trying finally get a champ but who if he lived would have gotten a brother-in-law plus champ despite his being overly protective of his younger sister who was crazy for the big guy.
I made a big point there of detailing my own street-fighting episodes cut short by the realization that if anything I was more a lover than a fighter but in any case not a fighter, not even a street fighter much less getting in the ring with anybody. I made the even bigger point that despite that youthful folly I never was much of a fan of boxing, of the art of the fist, of pugilism. Yet our own illustrious site manager (the same one who made me go on and on with the “dirty language” disclaimer so you know what I was up against) forced me to do the honors.
That was then but on the basis of that review, the perverse basis if you ask me of that light-headed experience he decided that I was to be at least temporarily the in-house “boxing expert” and review the film of the headline-The Girl From Monterrey. The “how” of that particular choice bears some explanation. Apparently Greg was going through the archives or had remembered from his days as editor at American Film Gazette that during World War II Hollywood, then the sole world capital for film production spewed out as much patriotic war material as was possible without destroying every film produced in that period. Somehow he latched onto this short war-induce film which featured a couple of boxers who would before the end of the film wind up in uniform and so there you have it, why I am reviewing this essentially propaganda piece.
But hold on there is a back story to that as well. This year, 2018, commemorates on November 11th the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, the day when the bloody slaughter, the bloody destruction of the flower of the European youth ended (the supposed “war to end all wars” was the tag to get guys to fight the freaking thing-another WTF). A couple of stringers here, a couple of Vietnam veterans, Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris have been spear-heading the efforts, via their memberships in the anti-war Veterans for Peace group to publicize the commemoration of that event in this space. Greg’s “find” dove-tails with that commemoration since this production was a “talkie” and because few World War I film productions still exist I am the messenger.
Well I have stalled enough I might as well get to this short sad tale of a film which at least had the mercy of being short probably due to the rationing of chemicals for the war effort. This one started out south of the border, started in Mexico when that was not a dirty word and immigrants were welcome- to harvest the fields. Started with a spitfire, sparking eyes, Spanish is the loving tongue dancer-singer in an up-scale cantina named Lita, played by never heard of before but well-known then Armida. This feisty and short, unbelievably short so that say Alan Ladd would feel tall next to her had made it clear to management that she was not available to sit with the customers after doing her stage chores- and got bounced, or quit depending on whose story you believe, once the manager made one too many demands on her in that department. What is a girl to do though when she is bounced.Enter younger brother Baby, a good=looking middleweight, who had quit college to enter the ring, to become a pugilist and who was raring to go in that ill-sought profession. Lita decided against all good judgment to “manage” him after a few gringo boxing promoters sitting in that cantina watching Lita go through her paces saw Baby flatten the Mexican contender who made one too many advances on Lita.
Shift scenes to New York (presumably with all papers in order and not having creeped in via a borderless wall) where Baby got some early cream puff fights working his way up the food chain. But Lita is a singer and dancer, remember that spitfire and sparkling eyes in that profession and so she found work in a nightclub where she and Baby and those nefarious promoters went go for entertainment. Lita did a number and got hired. Baby got all hung up on a gringa torch singer who probably was too big for him-too cutthroat, too wise for this sap despite his pugilistic prowess. Lita in her turn gravitated toward another good-looking middleweight, the champ, a guy named Jerry does it really matter his last name since he was nothing but a “bicycle-rider anyway, a dancer in the ring tiring out his opponent before the knock-down on canvas.
Baby was making time with this Flossie the floosy and Lita with the chump champ while Baby worked his way up. As you can guess two good-looking middleweights are bound to crash into each other and so it goes when an American promoter gives the high sign to Flossie to get Baby to sign the contact to fight Jerry. Lita is torn but things work out well since Baby knocked Jerry on his ass for the championship and then both men show up in the uniforms of their respective countries. Ho hum. What was not ho hum was Lita’s stage presence where she sang some songs I had never heard were in the American Songbook. Check these out on YouTube the jumping Jive, Brother, Jive, Last Night’s All Over and the title The Girl From Monterey. Yeah check those sparkling eyes as Armida goes through her paces.
The Golden Age Of The B-Film Noir- Lloyd Bridges’ “The Big Deadly Game” (1954)
DVD Review
By Film Editor Emeritus Sam Lowell
The Big Deadly Game, starring Lloyd Bridges (Jeff’s father okay when he needed dough I guess and hit the bricks in London and Spain), Simone Silva, Hammer Productions, 1954
Recently in a review of the British film Terror Street (distributed in Britain as 36 Hours) and subsequently another British entry The Black Glove (distributed in Britain as Face The Music probably a better title since it involved a well-known trumpet player turning from searching for that high white note everybody in his profession is looking for to amateur private detective once a lady friend is murdered and he looked for all the world like the natural fall guy) I noted that long time readers of this space know, or should be presumed to know, of my long-standing love affair with film noir. Since any attentive reader will note this is my third such review of B-film noirs in the last period I still have the bug.
I went on to mention some of the details to my introduction to the classic age of film noir in this country in the age of black and white film in the 1940s and 1950s when I would sneak over to the now long gone and replaced by condos Strand Theater in growing up town North Adamsville and spent a long double feature Saturday afternoon watching complete with a stretched out bag of popcorn (or I think it is safe to say it now since the statute of limitation on the “crime” must surely have passed snuck in candy bars bought at Harold’s Variety Store on the way to the theater) some then current production from Hollywood or some throwback from the 1940s which Mister Cadger, the affable owner who readily saw that I was an aficionado who would pepper him with questions about when such and such a noir was to be featured would let me sneak in for kid’s ticket prices long after I reached the adult price stage at twelve I think it was, would show in retrospective to cut down on expenses in tough times by avoiding having to pay for first –run movies all the time. (And once told me to my embarrassment that he made more money on the re-runs than first runs and even more money on the captive audience buying popcorn and candy bars-I wonder if he knew my scam.
I mentioned in passing as well that on infrequent occasions I would attend a nighttime showing (paying full price after age twelve since parents were presumed to have the money to spring for full prices) with my parents if my strict Irish Catholic mother (strict on the mortal sin punishment for what turned out to have been minor or venial sins after letting my older brothers, four count them, four get away with murder and assorted acts of mayhem) thought the film passed the Legion of Decency standard that we had to stand up and take a yearly vow to uphold and I could under the plotline without fainting (or getting “aroused” by the fetching femmes).
What I did not mention although long time readers should be aware of this as well was that when I found some run of films that had a similar background I would “run the table” on the efforts. Say a run of Raymond Chandler film adaptations of his Phillip Marlowe crime novels or Dashiell Hammett’s seemingly endless The Thin Man series. That “run the table” idea is the case with a recently obtained cache of British-centered 1950s film noirs put out by the Hammer Production Company as they tried to cash in on the popularity of the genre for the British market (and the relatively cheap price of production in England). That Terror Street mentioned at the beginning had been the first review in this series (each DVD by the way contains two films the second film Danger On The Wings in that DVD not worthy of review) and now the film under review under review the overblown if ominously titled The Big Deadly Game (distributed in England, Britain, Great Britain, United Kingdom or whatever that isle calls itself these Brexit days as the innocuous Third Party Risk is the third such effort. On the basis of these four viewings (remember one didn’t make the film noir aficionado cut so that tells you something right away) I will have to admit they are clearly B-productions none of them would make anything but a second or third tier rating.
After all as mentioned before in that first review look what they were up against. For example who could forget up on that big screen for all the candid world to see a sadder but wiser seen it all, heard it all Humphrey Bogart at the end of TheMaltese Falcon telling all who would listen that he, he Sam Spade, no stranger to the seamy side and cutting corners, had had to send femme fatale Mary Astor his snow white flame over, sent her to the big step-off once she spilled too much blood, left a trail of corpses, for the stuff of dreams over some damn bird. Or cleft-chinned barrel-chested Robert Mitchum keeping himself out of trouble in some dink town as a respectable citizen including snagging a girl next door sweetie but knowing he was doomed, out of luck, and had cashed his check for his seedy past taking a few odd bullets from his former femme fatale trigger-happy girlfriend Jane Greer once she knew he had double-crossed her to the coppers in Out Of The Past. Ditto watching the horror on smart guy gangster Eddie Mars face after being outsmarted because he had sent a small time grafter to his doom when prime private detective Phillip Marlowe, spending the whole film trying to do the right thing for an old man with a couple of wild daughters, ordered him out the door to face the rooty-toot-toot of his own gunsels who expected Marlowe to be coming out in The Big Sleep. How about song and dance man Dick Powell turning Raymond Chandler private eye helping big galoot Moose Malone trying to find his Velma and getting nothing but grief and a few stray conks on the head chasing Claire Trevor down when she didn’t want to be found having moved uptown with the swells in Murder, My Sweet. Those were some of the beautiful and still beautiful classics whose lines you can almost hear anytime you mention the words film noir.
In the old days before I retired I always liked to sketch out a film’s plotline to give the reader the “skinny” on what the action was so that he or she could see where I was leading them. I will continue that old tradition here (as I did with Terror Street and The Black Glove and will do in future Hammer Production vehicles to be reviewed over the coming period) to make my point about the lesser production values of the Hammer products. Lloyd Bridges is a music guy (not a trumpeter which might have given him some juices but some kind of second-string composer) who is in Spain on holiday as they say in England, Britain, the United Kingdom, or whatever when he runs into an old war buddy who seems to be in trouble. And he is since he winds up dead, very dead, for some unknown transgression. Seems that this war buddy had run afoul of an international smuggling ring centered in Spain and run by some mal hombres from the look of them and had to pay the price for his treason. Naturally clean-cut good guy Lloyd figures out what was what and the bad guys fell down, fell down hard once he put the hammer to them. Vaya con dios mal hombres.
That is the gist of the main crime story but what this one really was about if you looked at time spent on the subject was his romance with this Spanish senorita, played by Simone Silva, who was running a dance school, a folkloric dance school teaching the ninas how to do the old time dances and doing a pretty good job of it. So between bouts of fighting crime Lloyd was keeping company with his coy mistress.
Better that Terror Street but not as good as The Black Glove although it can’t get pass that Blue Gardenia second tier in the film noir pantheon. Sorry Hammer.
