***In The Time Of The Time Of An Outlaw Country Music Moment- The Belfast Cowboy Rides Again Van Morrison’s “Pay The Devil”

A YouTube film clip of Van Morrison performing his pre-Belfast Cowboy Into The Mystic.

CD Review


Seth Garth

Pay The Devil, Van Morrison, Exile Productions, 2006


[One of the enduring things about the older writers here, the ones who were “present at the creation” of this publication in its hard copy days back in the mid-1970s when there was still something of an afterglow alive, if not well, from their 1960s countercultural is their love of music. Mainly back in that self-same 1960s rock and roll which most of them were also “present at the creation” at although it was left to older brothers and sister to partake of the full “jail-break” as Sam Lowell liked to call the early uprising. Of course rock and roll has gone through many incarnations, has suffered as has my favored music, jazz, its share of blossom times and barren periods. When that has happened in jazz I tend to go back to the blues, or better rhythm and blues from which a lot of modern jazz had emerged from to break out again.       

When Seth Garth, who knows more about music, about the American songbook that all the rest of his old-time cohort combined hits a dry spot he looks, feverishly at times from this review, for some other nuggets from the songbook. I know because of later he has been humming and low-voice singing the lyrics from a bunch of Cole Porter songs. But back in the 1980s he was working his way through the great American go west young man, young cowboy to be myth and what it meant to some songwriters who were tired of what passed for such music and brought some vigor into the genre. Not so strangely to my mind as that was something of an off period for modern jazz as well I went back to the blues, went back to the old country blues from down in the Delta. On this beat unlike our “dispute” over the merits of film noir we have some agreement if not of kind then of spirit. Greg Green]     


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Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and is funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.

And that brings us to the album under review, Pay The Devil, and another “outlaw” country music man, the Belfast cowboy Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. And hencethe Belfast cowboy.

If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on There Stands The Glass, a classic honky-tonk midnight sorrows tune; the Williams’ classic Your Cheatin’ Heart; the pathos of Back Street Affair; the title song Pay The Devil; and, something out of about 1952, and the number one example of his cowboyishness (whee!), Till I Gain Control Again. The Belfast cowboy, indeed, although I always thought that was in the North.

***Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Otto Preminger’s “Fallen Angel”- A Film Review

***Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Otto Preminger’s “Fallen Angel”- A Film Review

DVD Review


By Josh Breslin  

Fallen Angel, starring Dana Andrews, Alice Faye, Linda Darnell, directed by Otto Preminger, 1945

[Alright I have had my say about my less than utter devotion to the film noir genre in a recent introduction to Josh Breslin’s film review of the adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s short story The Killers (see, Archives, dated January 12, 2019). That still stands. What does not still stand though is the utterly crass response, a respond worthy of wounded elephants, when I mentioned that guys like Josh and Sam Lowell had ill-spent their youths in dark, popcorn-festered Saturday afternoon double feature matinees rather than breathing some innocent fresh air. Let me put it this way the kindest response was by Si Lannon (as usual) who speculated that as much as we are collectively opposed to capital punishment for criminal activities that offend against humankind that perhaps some exceptions should be made particularly egregious cases, mine. It went downhill from the gist of sentiment being that I never had been manly enough to understand the genre having been pampered in my youth up there in swank Hudson River digs        

That hurt whether it is true or not but remember that I am just enough younger and less poverty-driven conscious that those guys although having been through life none of these guys have to worry about where their next meal is coming from-very definitely don’t in some kind of survival of the fittest sense since they survived unlike some of the guys who as Seth Garth has said “laid down their heads in bloody Vietnam or like their icon Markin as a result of that experience.

Still on the face of it and I go with my having been involved with something like forty thousand reviews over the past few decades (not as a writer, Jesus no, not for a long time since that is such a perilous and cutthroat business depending on nothing but your last review and maybe not even that at some journals), the premise behind the noir is not something that ever wowed me, the photography, the black and white scene setting and sequel effects yes. The storyline and shabby treatment of women, even femmes leave a lot to be desired.

Yes, yes, I know we live in the #MeToo era and that has some effect even going back to the noirs but shabby is not too far a stretch that these films were only keeping the so-called feminine mystique alive. Take one example, and not the worse of the lot, Jane Greer’s role in Out Of The Past where she is treated by Robert Mitchum as so much eye candy to be looked up and down and back again. Treated by mobster Kirk Douglas and noting but an appendage. No wonder the woman had ot make her own way, her own space as best she could. If she had to get a little gun crazy, start shooting to keep herself going that was part of the overhead for her to stay alive. Hey, the guys knew what they were getting into and still came after her-and not just for her charms. It might be hard to make a feminist-friendly film, and maybe back then probably impossible but that is no reason for guys doing film reviews today to get all gushy about this genre. Touche. Greg Green]        

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As I have mentioned at the start of other reviews in this genre I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. There is nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background (one can tell without watching the beginning of the film, the credits, that a noir is on hand, or noir-influenced and those shadowy fugitive moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh yah, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Fallen Angel, is under that former category. This film is an example of what 1940s film noir was all about, maybe not the best but still more than passable.

Once you have started to get fixated on crime noir films a key question that inevitably comes up is the femme fatale, good or bad, although not every crime noir film had them. Fallen Angel does, although rather unusually this femme fatale (played by sultry big-lipped Linda Darnell) is working in a one-arm joint (come on now you know what that is right? A hash house, a diner, a road house, a dew-drop in and the person serving them off the arm, one arm see, is none other than Darnell as the magnet waitress, Stella). Now all femme fatales, at least the ones I have seen in film (and a few, okay more than a few, that I have been run over by in life), have some kind of shady past and/or have gone wrong by hooking up with a wrong gee. Some of them have put on high class- airs (like Gilda in the movie of the same name and The Lady From Shang-hai both played by sultry, very sultry, let me get my handkerchief out Rita Hayworth) and others, like the Stella role Ms. Darnell plays here, are just hard-boiled gold-diggers from the wrong side of the tracks.

And that little fact is what has all the boys crazy here, and also drives the plot line.
The Great Depression and World War II unhinged a lot of the certainties that earlier American society took for granted. Those mega-events left a lot of loose-end people struggling, struggling hard to find their place in the sun, or at least some dough to help find that place. And that notion goes a long way in explaining why down-at-the-heels Eric (played by Dana Andrews) find himself on the left coast (California before the post- World War II land’s end explosion westward, westward from any east) with no dough and no prospects. But that doesn’t stop him from drawing a bee-line to femme fatale Darnell when he was unceremoniously dropped off in some backwater California ocean town. But brother Eric, take a ticket, get in line, because every other guy on the left coast, including the very unglamorous hash house owner, has big ideas, or wants to have big ideas about setting up house with this two-timing brunette waitress. (Personally I don’t see it but I run to perky blondes and fire-haired red heads although, truth to tell, a few of those femmes I have been run over by, mentioned above, have been brunettes too.) But when a man, as men will do, is smitten well there it is. There are no hoops big enough that he will not roll through and that is where the plot thickens. See Stella, she from the wrong side of the tracks born, wants a home with a picket fence like all the other girls and if you don't have the cash, the cash in hand, then get lost, brother. Be a long gone daddy.  

Needless to say old Eric is ready to move heaven and earth to get the dough for that white picket-fenced house. And here is his scam. A scam that played right has worked since time immemorial. Go where the money is. In that one-horse town, ocean-fronted or not, the dough resides with two prominent sisters who have some dough left from their father’s estate. So Eric plays up to one sister, June, (the pretty one, of course, played by Alice Faye) and through a convoluted series of events they wind up married. Ms. Darnell was not pleased by this turn of event, as you can imagine.

Although Stella not being pleased was cut short by a little problem, she was murdered on the night of Eric’s honeymoon with June. And all signs lead to him as the stone-cold killer- the frame is on, no question. But also “no question” is that he is not that kind of guy. But just step back a minute and remember that point about having to take a ticket to line up for Stella's affections. Plenty of guys (and at least one woman) had motive. See the film and figure who that was. Like I say this not the best of the 1940s crime noirs for plot line but is interesting enough. And the film was directed by Otto Preminger so you know the black and white cinematography shadows and contrasts will be just fine.

The Old Man’s Old Sea- In Honor Of Our Homeland, The Ocean-From The Pen Of Old Time Acre Neighborhood Corner Boy Allan Jackson

The Old Man’s Old Sea- In Honor Of Our Homeland, The Ocean-From The Pen Of Old Time Acre Neighborhood Corner Boy Allan Jackson

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin 

[No, you are not seeing things in some weird way when you see a seeming disconnect between the named person in the title of this piece and the person who wrote it. They are one in the same person. Peter Paul Markin was the moniker that Allan used when he was the site manager, then called administrator, at this publication for many years both in its hard copy and current on-line forms. The demise of Allan Jackson, his removal by a vote of no confidence from among the younger writers, has been written unto death and need not detain us further.

What I do want to detain you about is the origin of the Markin moniker because that long-departed mad man, Allan’s words, still hovers over this publication, especially among the older writers who knew Markin, who in a funny way have almost made a cult out of his sordid memory. To make a long story short since along the way many of the older writers have written their remembrances of their long- fallen corner boy brother I will hurry along. (In fact young Zack James, at the request of his brother Alex, who knew and was best friends with Markin in high school, was commissioned to edit and see to hard copy publication a collective memoir dedicated to Markin’s memory which will be released for the general readership next year.) Markin, whatever happened to him later after his Vietnam War military service and the drug addiction which would lead to his downfall, was the recognized “intellectual” leader of the Tonio’s Pizza Parlor corner boys and while he could barely tie his shoes in practical matters was the guy who came up with all the ideas, good and bad, legal and illegal.

Allan, as he told me once we got him back on board as a contributing editor when things started going awry with some of the younger writers wo buckled under a few suggestions I tried to pass their way, took Markin’s murky death down in Mexico pretty hard since one of the he and a bunch of other writers looking for steady work and publication to avoid that cabdriver (now Uber or Lyft, that faced every unrequited writer, had put this operation together with Markin in mind. He was so bereft that he had to take Markin’s name if only to keep the bastard’s aura hang over the joint, and so it remains. I, frankly don’t like it, don’t like a two bit junkie with big dope-filled eyes hanging around overhead looking down at my every move. But that is just me and I know I will take a rash of nonsense for even mentioning Markin’s name without genuflecting my ass off. Sorry, guys. Greg Green]       

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It is dawn, or maybe just those few minutes before the dawn, those dark light minutes when the sun’s battle for the day is set. The waves splash, today not so innocently, today not tepidly like the past several days when the she sea sounds did not mercifully drown out traffics, construction hammers, or beach tractor clean-ups but swirling out from some hidden sea swells beyond the horizon against the defenseless waiting sand, sand beaten down since time immemorial. Or as long as anyone has been watching that feat, that seemingly endless feat.

This beach, this northern clime beach, the far end of Saco, Maine beach, is this day filled with empty clam shells from some timeless previous sea swirlings waiting sandification (is that right?), abandoned and mislaid lobster traps (and one up in lobster country had better know the difference, know the livelihood difference between the two conditions , just in case some irate boat craggy captain, aged liked sea, decides to reclaim one over your head), occasional oil slicks spilled from the trawlers (and hopefully only small working  residues and not some monster slick by some tiny horizon tanker heading to oil depot ports further up the coast), working trawlers nearby, the flotsam and jetsam streamed here of a thousand ships, cargoes, careless throwaways and conscious, very conscious dumpings, like the sea was just another land-fill wanting filling.

Today though I am ready, ready for the hundredth hundredth time to walk the walk, the ocean walk that has defined more parts of me than heaven will ever know. As I button up my yellow slicker against the April winds that come here more often than, and can come out of the blue against the Bay of Fundy confusions, one minute eighty degrees the next thirty five, I see, see faintly in the distance, a figure, a fellow traveler taking his, her or its (don’t laugh I have seen horses, unridden horses, trotting these beaches, although no sea monsters), maybe also hundredth hundredth walking along the ocean sidewalk, and maybe, just maybe, for the same reason.

Today, hundredth, hundredth walk or not, I am in a remembering mood, a high dudgeon remembering mood that always gets triggered by proximity, fifty mile proximity if the truth be known, to the ocean. I have just finished up a piece of work that reminded me of seas, sea-sides, sea walks, sea rocks, ocean-side carnival amusement parks placed as if to mock the intrinsic interest that one would have in the sea, our homeland the sea, and I need to sort this out, also for that now familiar ten-thousandth time. But I best begin at the beginning, or try to, so I will be finished in that hour or so that it will take me to walk this walk, this rambling ocean walk, and I will pass that solitary walker coming the other way and be obliged under some law of the sea to break my train of thought and remark on the nature of the day, the nature of the ocean, and the joys of ocean-ness brought forth by old King Neptune to that passing stranger.

Ah, memory, jesus, just the names, Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle, and the Snug Harbor Elementary School tell a story all on their own. Yes, those names, those seemingly misplaced, misbegotten names and places from the old housing project down in Adamsville, down in my old hometown, and where I came of age, sea-worthy age as well, surely evoke imagines of the sea, of long ago sailing ships, mast-strewn ships, and of desperate, high stakes battles fought off shrouded, mist-covered coasts by those hearty enough to seek fame and fortune. And agile enough to keep it. Almost from my first wobbly, halting baby steps down at “the projects” I have been physically drawn to the sea, a seductive, foam-flecked siren call that has never left me.

Needless to say, ever since I was a toddler my imagination, my sense of imagery, my sense of the nature of the world has been driven by the sea as well. Not so much of pirates and prizes, although those drove my youth a bit but of the power of nature, for good or evil. And on those long ago days, just like now, I dressed against the impending inclement weather with my mustard yellow rain slicker(French’s mustard color not Guiden’s, okay) complete with Gloucester fisherman’s rain floppy rain hat of the same color and rubber boots, black, knee-length boots that go squish, squish and have done so since before time immemorial.

Of course, anybody with any sense knows that anyone who had even a passing attachment to a place like Adamsville, tucked in a bay, an Atlantic bay, had to have an almost instinctual love of the sea; and, a fear of its furies when old Mother Nature turns her back on us. Yes, the endless sea, our homeland the sea, the mother we never knew, the sea... But, enough of those imaginings. If being determines consciousness, and if you love the ocean, then it does not hurt to have been brought up in Adamsiville with its ready access to the bay and water on three sides. That said, the focal point for any experience with the ocean in Adamsville centered, naturally, around its longest stretch of beach, Adamsville Central Beach. Puny by Saco beach far-as-the-eye-can-see standards, and Saco puny by Carlsbad (California Carlsbad) farther-than-the-eye-can-see standards but a place to learn the ropes of how to deal with the sea, with its pitfalls, its mysteries, it lure, and its lore.

For many of us of a certain age brought forth by the sea, including this writer, one cannot discuss Adamsville Central Beach properly without reference to such spots such as Howard Johnson's famous landmark ice cream stand (now a woe-begotten clam shack of no repute). For those who are clueless as to what I speak of, or have only heard about it in mythological terms from older relatives, or worst, have written it off as just another ice cream joint you can only dream of such heavens although someone, not me, not me today as I remembrance with a broad stroke and have no time for pretty descriptions, for literary flourishes, should really do themselves proud and write the history, yah, the child’s view history of that establishment. And make the theme, make the theme if you will, the bond between New England love of ice cream and of the sea (yes, it is true, other parts of the country, other ocean parts of the country as well, are, well, nonplussed by the ice cream idea, and it shows in their product).

Know this for now though: many a hot, muggy, sultry, sweaty summer evening was spent in line impatiently, and perhaps, on occasion, beyond impatience, waiting for one of those 27 (or was it 28?) flavors to cool off with. In those days the prize went to cherry vanilla in a sugar cone (backup: frozen pudding). I will not bore the reader with superlative terms and “they don’t make them like they used to”, especially for those who only know “HoJo’s” from the later, pale imitation franchise days out on some forsaken turnpike highway, but at that moment I was in very heaven.

Nor can one forget those stumbling, fumbling, fierce childish efforts, bare-footed against all motherly caution against the dreaded jellyfish (or motherly cautions against everything, everything even the slightest bit harmful in this dangerous old world), pail and shovel in hand, to dig for seemingly non-existent clams down toward the South Adamsville end of the beach at the, in those days, just slightly oil-slicked, sulfuric low tide (the days before dinosaur lament fossils fuels exploded the oceans). Or the smell of charcoal-flavored hot dogs on those occasional family barbecues (when one in a series of old jalopies, Nash Ramblers come to mind and disappear, that my father drove worked well enough to get us there) at the then just recently constructed old Treasure Island (now named after some fallen Marine) that were some of the too few times when my family acted like a family. Or, more vivid, the memory of roasted, really burnt, sticky marshmallows sticking to the roof of my mouth (and maybe still ancient wound stuck there).

But those thoughts and smells are not the only ones that interest me today. No trip down memory lane would be complete without at least a passing reference to high school Adamsville Central Beach. The sea brings out many emotions: humankind's struggle against nature ( a fitful and uneven struggle at best as a few over the top wave crashes have demonstrated to keep us on our toes, and humble), some Zen notions of oneness with the universe (and if not Zen then Kali, Misha or some Zoroastrian flaming fire god mad monk), the calming effect of the thundering waves (rule: speak no louder than the angriest wave in its presence, children under twelve excepted), thoughts of mortality (endless seas bring that notion to the fore and not just ancient wounds and sorrows), and so on. But it also brings out the primordial longings for companionship. And no one longs for companionship more than teenagers. So the draw of the ocean is not just in its cosmic appeal but hormonal, as well. Mind you, however, we, you and I, just in case a stray naive child of about eight is around, are not discussing the nighttime Adamsville Beach, the time of "parking" and the "submarine races.” Our thoughts are now pure as the driven snow. We will confine ourselves to the day time beach.

Virtually from the day we got out of school for the summer vacation I headed for the beach. And not just any section of that beach but the section directly between the John Adams and John Quincy Adams Yacht Clubs (yes, it was that kind of city touting ancient wise men long gone and not missed, not missed after the obligatory sixth grade crypt visit in the Center, not missed, hell, not even on the radar for heady 1960s teenagers. Now, I ask you, was situating myself in that spot done so that I could watch all the fine boats at anchor? Or was this the best swimming location on the beach? Hell no, this is where we heard (and here I include my old running pal and classmate, Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, the king of the North Adamsville corner boy night around Salducci’s Pizza Parlor of blessed memory and nothing but a flame-throwing lady-killer, uh, when his honey, Joanne Doyle was summering elsewhere) all the "babes" were. We were, apparently, under the influence of Beach Blanket Bingo or some such teenage beach film. (For those who are again clueless this was a grade B ‘boy meets girl’ saga the plot behind a thousand Hollywood films, except they exploded into song on the beach as well.)

Well, for those who expected a movie-like happy ending to this section of the remembrance piece, you know, where I meet a youthful "Ms. Right" to the strains of the song Sea of Love, forget it. (That is the original Sea of Love, by the way, not the one used in the movie of the same name sung by Tom Waits at the end, and a cover that you should listen to on YouTube.) I will keep the gory details short, though. As fate would have it there may have been "babes" aplenty down there but not for this lad. I don't know about you but I was just too socially awkward (read, tongue-tied) to get up the nerve to talk to girls (female readers substitute boys here). And on reflection, if the truth were to be known, I would not have known what to do about such a situation in any case. No job, no money and, most importantly, no car for a date to watch one of those legendary "submarine races" that we, you and I, have agreed that we will not discuss here. But we can hardly fault the sea for that, right?

But visions of nearly one-half century ago hardly exhaust the lure of the sea. And, speaking of visions, that fellow sea-seeker I mentioned a while ago, coming from the other end of the beach is starting to take shape, it is a he, I can tell by the walk, by the sea walk that men put on when they are alone with their thoughts, although beyond that he is too far away for me to determine age, class (this is a very democratic beach, in most spots, with few vulgar and almost universally disregarded no-trespassing-private property-keep out-beware-of-dogs-police-take-notice signs on some Mayfair swell properties), or physical description, as the suppressed light from the cloudy morning day gets a little brighter

Funny, some people I have known, including some I grew up with, grew up with breathing ocean air embedded in their inner beings and who started with a love of the sea much as I did, moved to Kansas, Omaha, Peoria, Winnemucca or some such place, some such distinctly non-ocean place and never looked back. Christ, as is well known by one and all who know me I get very nervous even now when, as a city boy, I go to the country and do not have the feel of city lights to comfort me. Not as well known is the fact, the hard fact that I get nervous, very nervous, when I am not within driving distance of some ocean, say that fifty miles mentioned above. So keep, please keep, your Kansas, your Omaha, your Peoria, and your damned Winnemucca (and that desolate bus station bench I slept on one night after giving up on the hitchhike road for the evening trying to head out of town to no avail, trying to head ocean west, and let me be, be in places like Bar Harbor, Maine, Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, Sanibel Island, Florida, Carlsbad, California (hell no, not the New Mexico one ), Mendocino, ditto California, Seattle, Washington just to name a few places on this continent, and there are many others, and on other continents, or the edges of other continents, as well. And stories, plenty of stories, which I don’t have time to tell you now except for one that will stand in as an exemplar for what I mean. By the way that form, that mannish form, coming toward me is looking more like a young man by the speed of his walk, and he too seems to have on a favored sea dog yellow rain jacket.

Taking The World Back From Being Out Of Joint-Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers- A Film Adaptation

Taking The World Back From Being Out Of Joint-Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers- A Film Adaptation

By Josh Breslin


DVD Review

The Killers, starring Edmond O’Brian, Burt Lancaster, and Ava Gardner, based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, 1946

[I have noted in a recent bracketed introduction (see, Archives January 11, 2019 Jenny Dolan Speaks Her Mind) that some of the material that former site manager, then called administrator, Allan Jackson had let his old cronies run wild with whatever they wanted to write about centered on the old days their old days. Write about under his direction, some of the younger non-crony writers at the time said under his command, their old Acre neighborhood corner boy days back in their youthful 1960s. And they did, and truth, did a pretty good job. That however at the expense of other materials that this publication has been noted for since its hard copy inception back in the mid-1970s.

My background is from many years at the American Film Gazette in both its hard copy and on-line forms, so I was somewhat appalled when I noted that films, current or classic, were being given short shrift, especially in that last period of Allan’s reign when he had them running through hoops to pay 24/7/365 homage to the Summer of Love, 1967. The writer here, Josh Breslin although not an old time Acre neighborhood corner boy did hitch up with these older writers under the guidance of one Peter Paul Markin after he met this crowd out on Russian Hill in San Francisco in that long, hot summer of 1967. Notwithstanding that long association Josh wrote the following short, short by the Jackson standard then that every film review had to be only a little short of a cinematic studies dissertation without the footnotes, about an adaptation of one of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories and did a good job of it. Thus the encore.

Although I have been in the film review business for many years going back to when Sam Lowell used to be at American Film Gazette as a stringer I have always had something of an ambivalent feeling about film noir, that 1940s mostly genre that turned hardboiled literary productions by guys like Ray Chandler and Dashiell Hammett into hard-boiled films complete with great black and white photography and some femme with a knife, no, better gun in her pocketbook for a little off-hand shooting if the occasion arose, and it did. Maybe I am just that half-generation removed from Sam, and Josh, who lived and died by this Saturday afternoon matinee double feature menu as they came of age but a recent review of this film under review has moved me a little in a positive direction. In any case watch out for that gal with the gun-simple eyes, yes, watch out. Greg Green]
    
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As I have mentioned before at the start of other reviews in this genre, I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they also have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh yah, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, femme fatale interest and sheer duplicity the film under review, The Killers, is under that former category.

Although the screen adaptation owes little, except the opening passages, to Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same name this is primo 1940s crime noir stuff. Here, although Hemingway left plenty of room for other possibilities in his plot line, the question is why did two professional killers, serious, bad-ass killers want to kill the seemingly harmless “Swede” (played by a young, rough-hewn Burt Lancaster). But come on now, wake up, you know as well as I do that it’s about a dame, a frill, a frail, a woman, and not just any woman, but a high roller femme fatale. In this case that would be Kitty Collins (played by sultry, very sultry, husky-voiced, dark-haired Ava Gardner) as just a poor colleen trying to get up from under and a femme fatale that has the boys, rich or poor, begging for more.

As I have noted recently in a review of the 1945 crime noir, Fallen Angel, femme fatales come in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. But, high or low, all want some dough, and man who has it or knows how to get it. This is no modernist, post-1970s concept but hard 1940s realities. And duplicity, big-time duplicity, is just one of the “feminine wiles” that will help get the dough. Now thoroughly modern Kitty is not all that choosy about the dough's source, any mug will do, but she has some kind of sixth sense that it is not the Swede, at least not in the long haul, and that notion will drive the action for a bit. And if you think about it, of course Kitty is going with the smart guy. And old Swede is nothing but a busted-up old palooka of a prize fighter past his prime and looking, just like every other past his prime guy, for some easy money. No, no way Kitty is going to wind up with him in some shoddy flea-bitten rooming house out in the sticks, just waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Let’s run through the plot a little and it will start to make more sense. You already know that other shoe dropped for Swede. And why he just waited for the fates to rush in on him. What you didn’t know is that to get some easy dough for another run at Ms. Kitty’s affections he, Swede, is involved along with Kitty’s current paramour, “Big Jim”, and a couple of other midnight grifters in a major hold-up of a hat factory (who would have guessed that is where the dough, real dough, was). The heist goes off like clockwork. Where it gets dicey is pay-off time. Kitty and Big Jim are dealing the others out, and dealing them out big time. And they get away with it for a while until an insurance investigator (yah, I know, what would such a guy want to get involved in this thing) trying to figure out why Swede just cast his fate to the wind starts to figure things out. And they lead naturally to the big double-cross. But double-crossing people, even simple midnight grifters, is not good criminal practice and so all hell breaks loose. Watch this film. And stay away from dark-haired Irish beauties with no heart, especially if you are just an average Joe. Okay.

Note: This is not the first Hemingway writing, or an idea for a writing, that has appeared in film totally different from the original idea. More famous, and rightly so, is his sea tale, To Have Or Have Not, that William Faulkner wrote the screenplay and that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall turned into a steamy (1940s steamy, okay) black and white film classic.

I Did It My Way-With Bob Dylan’s Frank Sinatra “Shadows In The Night” In Mind

I Did It My Way-With Bob Dylan’s Frank Sinatra “Shadows In The Night” In Mind

By Sam Lowell

If anybody has read the introduction to my review of an early part of these American Songbook series about the legendary Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band dated January 11, 2018 In The Beginning Was The Jug…in the archives you will already know that I have been given the task of writing the history of this site and it personnel as well as the internal in-fighting that roiled the publication over the last few months of 2017 in order to finally put an end to the turmoil. Below is one part of that history which I have decided I need to cut into parts or the whole project will overwhelm me. If you want to skip this and wait until the whole project is archived be my guest. I will let you know when the whole thing is complete.     

***********

The American Left History blog has been in cyberspace, on-line, for the past fifteen years or so and which readers can reference to any particular article via the ALF archives. What many people do not know is that there has been a much longer history to the ideas and purpose of the site going back to the 1970s and maybe even a little to the 1960s if you add in Peter Paul Markin’s work, the real Peter Paul Markin who I will talk about later when I explain why I used the word “real” before his name. In those days, the Summer of Love, 1967 days the 50^th anniversary last year of which started the firestorm that followed over the latter part of 2017 at this publication Markin worked on and off for The Eye and The East Bay Other two of what were called in those days alternative newspaper to distinguish them from the main stream media which gave short shrift to the political and cultural events that stirred us, you know the New York Times and Washington Post.  Sound familiar? Except those alternative publications did not deal with so-called alternative facts or carry on about conspiracy theories like today but other things of interest to young people, “hippies” for lack of a better word that the mainstream media were clueless about.           

That Peter Paul Markin that I mentioned above won a few awards for his articles, his series on his fellow Vietnam War veterans some who like him had a hard time adjusting to what they called the “real” world, the non-Vietnam world and set up camps and such along the rivers and railroad tracks out in Southern California where he joined them for a time because he himself had a hard time adjusting as well and told their stories. No, that is wrong, let them tell their stories. The series entitled The Embattled Brothers Of Westminster (one of the biggest railroad campsites) would from what I heard inspired Lenny Lawrence to write a very popular song about those lost souls using that title if I recall. So that was one early piece of what would follow over the next forty years or so.

Markin, everybody called him Scribe when he was growing up and that name stuck but I will use Markin here was not alone in working for those publications. After he got back from Vietnam he reunited with Josh Breslin, yes, Josh Breslin who writes for this blog even now so you can start to make the long drawn out connections, a guy from up in Olde Saco, Maine whom he met out in San Francisco during the Summer of Love, 1967 (you can also start to see how that event, how those times played a key role as well in what followed) and Allan Jackson whom he, we, had grown up with in North Adamsville and had followed Markin, as I did as well, out to the Summer of Love. The three of them were all crazy to write, write about the war, write about the counter-culture everything and The Eye and later The East Bay Other were ready-made for guys who wanted to look at the steamy, seamy side of life.          

Like most things in the 1960s when the hammer went down, when the war turned everybody sour, and then later in reaction the other side decided that things had gone too far and started a counter-offensive which more than one writer, young or old, in this space has noted has been going on for the past forty years or so things like grassroots, fly-by-the-seat-of –your-pants and woefully underfunded alternative newspapers were going to ground in droves. That was the fate of those two papers. Josh, Markin, Allan and I would join them as well in the mid-1970s after I had been roaming around the country “sowing my oats” as my grandfather used to say although he would have been mortified at my motto, our generational motto-“drugs, sex, and rock and roll” were crazy to continue writing, writing the kind of stuff they had been writing but with a little more of a political twist than those mainly culturally-oriented papers had been. That is where the idea for Progressive Nation came from in the beginning. The Progressive Nation that a number of us still write for on occasion although it had changed from our hands and from our brand of left-wing street politics many years ago.         

That idea though almost went stillborn for a while for one main reason-that real Peter Paul Markin who I have been alluding to. We had gathered some seed money from a few still extant “hippies” with trust funds to get the publication started mainly through Markin and Josh’s connections via The Eye and The East Bay Other. The rest of the financing would come from advertisers (we were totally naïve about the horrible influence that would have on what we were trying to do with our good idea. If you want a current day example of just how off the rails a good idea can go once the advertisers sink their claws in check out an early version of Rolling Stone and one today-Egad) and other “angels” and subscribers. Then Markin ran away with the money to buy dope, to buy the emerging cocaine that he would eventually become addicted to and which would cost him his life down in Sonora, Mexico over a busted drug deal when he was the loser, the six feet under in a potter’s field grave which still has unexplained parts to the story until this day.        

That obviously is the bad part about Markin, that “from hunger” part that he more than the rest of us never got over. And which Vietnam only accentuated. Not that the war did him in like many others but it did not help either the few times he would talk about his experiences, about what he had had to do, and had seen others do as well in that hell-hole. But the good part, the part that wanted the revolution to win, the world to be turned upside down is the part we knew and loved. Not all the guys we grew up with had those same feelings, the guys who had no dough like us and hung around street corners to get out of tumultuous home life, but a small crew did, a crew that was always led by Markin. Not a leader in the organizational sense that was Frankie Riley who has written a few things here about Markin, but in the spiritual sense is the best way I can put it.

That is what has bound Allan Jackson, Si Lannon, Jack Callahan, Bart Webber, Frank and me over the long years. That buying into Markin’s vision even though he personally could not go the distance, came up short. Funny before we lost track of him, or really Josh Breslin lost track of him since he was his housemate in Oakland in the days when they had a communal house there and he was the last person to see Markin alive in America Markin would always say that Progressive Nation would carry us into our old ages. That did not happen since I have already mentioned he flew the coop and later when we got some more dough and published for a while we sold that enterprise off when the political winds shifted dramatically in the 1980s and we had to cut our loses. What did happen and made Markin a prophet after all was that we then established the hard copy version of ALH and then went on-line I think in 2003. All from that original ideal spawned by the real Markin. So it was a no-brainer when we started the on-line version that Allan Jackson our site manager when it came time to take cyberspace necessary monikers would go back to the old days, to our growing up days and honor our fallen brother by using his moniker in this space. Hell, it just seemed right.

More next time

******

A couple of years ago when I was Senior Film Critic before I gained emeritus status and before Greg Green the new site manager abolished all titles which the previous site manager had bestowed on senior personnel, many his longtime friends and co-workers I did a review of Bob Dylan’s latest CD, Shadows In The Night, a tribute to the king of Tin Pan Alley Frank Sinatra. In that review I noted that such an effort was bound to happen if Dylan lived long enough. Strange as it may seem to a generation, the generation of ’68, the AARP generation, okay, baby-boomers who came of age with the clarion call put forth musically by Bob Dylan and others to dramatically break with the music of our parents’ pasts, the music that got them through the Great Depression and slogging through World War II, he has put out an album featuring the work of Mr. Frank Sinatra the king of that era in many our parents’ households. The music of the Broadway shows, Tin Pan Alley, Cole Porter/Irving Berlin/ the Gershwins and so on. That proposition though seems less strange if you are not totally mired in the Bob Dylan protest minute of the early 1960s when he, whether he wanted that designation or not, was the “voice of a generation,” catching the new breeze a lot of us felt coming through the land.

What Dylan has been about for the greater part of his career has been as an entertainer, a guy who sings his songs to the crowd and hopes they share his feelings for his songs however he is interpreting them at the time. Just like Frank when he was in high tide. What Dylan has also been about through it all has been a deep and abiding respect for the American songbook (look on YouTube to a clip from Don’t Look Back where he is singing Hank Williams stuff or a ton of country stuff from the Basement tapes). In the old days that was looking for roots, roots music from the mountains, the desolate oceans, the slave quarters, along the rivers and Dylan’s hero then was Woody Guthrie. But the American songbook is a “big tent” operation and the Tin Pan Alley that he broke from when he became his own songwriter is an important part of the overall tradition and now his hero is Frank Sinatra.

I may long for the old protest songs, the songs from the album pictured above, you know Blowin’ In The Wind, The Times Are A Changin’ stuff like that, the roots music and not just Woody but Hank, Tex-Mex, the Carters, the odd and unusual like Desolation Row or his cover of Lonnie Johnson’s Tomorrow Night but Dylan has sought to entertain and there is room in his tent for the king of Tin Pan Alley (as Billie Holiday was the queen). Having heard Dylan live and in concert over the past several years with his grating lost voice (it was always about the lyrics not the voice even when young but now that voice seems not to bad) I do wonder though how much production was needed to get the wrinkles out of that voice to sing as smoothly as the “Chairman of the boards.” What goes around comes around.             

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- With The Dubs Could This Be Magic In Mind- Jenny Dolan Speaks Her Mind, Circa 1962

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- With The Dubs Could This Be Magic In Mind- Jenny Dolan Speaks Her Mind, Circa 1962

By Si Lannon

[Some of the stories from the old Acre working-class neighborhood in deathless North Adamsville by some of the original “present at the creation” older writers which former site manager Allan Jackson (a former Acre denizen himself) let them do as they pleased seem worthy of an additional presentation. What Allan called an encore presentation when he did a re-run of a rock and roll series based on these same Acre corner boy experiences. With this proviso that I do some introductions and some updating if necessary.

I should point out that I am not of that Acre corner older boy generation which came of age in the 1960s (I came of age with guys like writers here Zack James and Lance Lawrence about a decade later although Zack’s oldest brother Alex had spoon-fed Zack on stories of the old days in their Acre neighborhood). Thus on some occasions when I reviewed these stories they set my teeth on edge since I came up in a fairly rich family in New York and had never brushed shoulders with poverty, with what that meant and never either had anything but a storybook knowledge of corner boy life except I steered very clear of the town toughs in Croton-on-Hudson where I grew up).

That said some stories are eternal like the one here where anybody, certainly any young woman, any high school young woman could relate to Jenny Dolan’s longings for some boy who seemingly didn’t know she existed-or so she thought. I personally never had a girl that was all that determined to get my attention, but I sure wish I had. When I asked Seth Garth what he knew about the Jenny Dolan-John O’Connor romance which sparked this remembrance he froze, froze in his tracks at the name. When he defrosted, he told me that he had had a crush, a very 1960s word from what I can gather on that same Jenny Nolan and even fifty years later he wished she had given him the looks she saved for her John. So Jenny’s story has the ring of truth to it although in my neighborhood no self-respecting guy, certainly no football player would expose himself to comradely ridicule by letting a girl sit on his lap and dare him to put her off.     

One of the things that I am interested in is what happened to the parties involved in these stories, if that is known. In this case, strangely, according to Si Lannon who wrote the original story after seeing Jenny at the 50^th anniversary class reunion and she gave him the details of the tryst she had with Johnny that Chrissie McNamara who was supposedly Jenny’s friend stole Johnny away from Jenny in senior year. The strange part is that Johnny and Chrissie, Mr. and Mrs. Toyota of Eastern Massachusetts to let you know their fates, are still married while Jenny, has been married four times and confided in Si that she never got over that “theft” of Johnny by Chrissie although she held no animosities. What she did say was that she thought he multiple marriages were a fruitless search for another Johnny or failure to keep Johnny, take your choice. Such is life. Greg Green]      

A YouTube film clip of The Dubs performing the classic, Could This Be Magic.

THE DUBS


"Could This Be Magic"

Could this be magic
My dear
My heart's all aglow
Could this be magic
Loving you so

Could this be magic
My dear
Having your love
My prayers were answered
So far from above

I thought it would be
Just a memory
To linger my heart in pain
But too much pride
I opened up my eyes
And I'm with you dear once again

Could this be magic
My dear
Having your love
If this is magic
Then magic is mine
Could this be magic
Then magic is mine

Jenny Dolan speaks from out of the 1960s night:

I suppose everybody in America knows, knows by heart now, that John O’Connor and I, Jenny Dolan, are an “item.” The poster boy and girl sweethearts of North Adamsville High according to one piece of gossip that I heard, or overheard, Joanne Doyle saying sarcastically in the girls’ lav at school one Monday morning when she was giving her weekend round-up report to all who would listen. What I couldn’t spread around about her and her lover boy, Frankie, but that was old Jenny, old miserable Jennie, before I got my John, and got him good. Of course, Joanne only retells what the pizza pie in your eye corner boy king, so-called, Frankie, Frankie Riley if you are one of the about three people in the Class of 1964 who doesn’t know him, has already started spreading around. The gist of tale is that he has lost his ace-in-the-hole (really just his bodyguard for when he makes the wrong move, Joanne Doyle not around wrong move, on some real tough guy's girl), Jumping John O’Connor (although I am putting a stop to calling him that name, and fast) to a frill (that’s me, or that’s me when Frankie does his 28 flavors of disrespect to girls thing, except to no-nonsense mistress Joanne, by calling them frills, molls, frails and everything else that he has picked up from watching too many 1930s gangster films, and reading too many Raymond Chandler crime novels). See John and Frankie go back to first grade together over at North Adamsville Elementary and somehow Frankie thought that was enough to keep the “twists” (girls again) at a distance so John could be his full-time “body-guard.”

And if Frankie hasn’t spread the news around about John and me then Peter Paul Markin, clueless Peter Paul when it comes to knowing anything about girls (and girls and guys who get together for more fun, Saturday night fun, than just some silly reading books at the library, or going to a debate about whether Red China should, or shouldn’t be admitted to the United Nations, or stuff like that) will, once Frankie unleashes him to spread it around. Now everybody respects Peter Paul for his knowledge, for his devotion to learning more about stuff, and for sticking up for the, as he calls them, the “fellow down-trodden” of the earth but he has been strictly blind-sided by Frankie ever since he came to North Adamsville. When I was lonely (lonely for my John, if you want to know) I went out with Peter Paul, once, but no thanks. So between Joanne (really Frankie), Frankie (really Joanne) and Peter Paul (really Frankie, and maybe Joanne) you’ve probably got the story all wrong. Like the why behind why John and I did not get together until just now, although we were made for each other and that’s the truth and has been the truth for a long time.

Let me tell the story, my side, and see if it is anything like you heard from Frankie, or Peter Paul. Although now that I think about it if you got it from Peter Paul then you haven’t finished reading the treatise on the subject of John O’Connor and Jennifer Dolan yet and I can save you some time and save your eyes too. See back in sixth grade when I was just starting to get a little shape but was still really just a “stick” I went to Chrissie McNamara’s twelfth birthday party. Now Chrissie and I had been friends for ages so I expected to be at the party but what really got my girl temperature up was that John was going to be there.

Now John was good-looking even then, kind of quiet, a good all-around athlete (a great football player-in-the-making even then, even then in little Pop Warner League), and, I think, shy around girls but I had eyes for him. Big eyes, and not just twelve- year old big eyes, but going way back to first communion at Sacred Heart where we were boy white suit and girl white dress paired together to walk down to the communion rail and I had to calm him down because he was scared of the idea of eating the wafer, the body and blood of Christ. No, I was not every day in every way crushed up on him but crushed up somewhere deep inside since then. In sixth grade time though when I started getting my shape a little, you know, I couldn’t keep from thinking of him. So at Chrissie’s party I was flying high in expectation. I had my best dress on, had taken a long soapy bath, and worn some of my mother’s perfume (don’t tell her, okay). And I wasn’t disappointed because he asked me to dance, dance close, dance airless close. I almost kissed him then, but I waited until the lights went out that signaled the time for some “petting” games to start and then ran over to the sofa and planted the biggest, hardest kiss I could on him. Boy, did I have my signals crossed because he pushed me aside (not hard but definitely aside) and ran out of the house. That’s how he got the name Jumping John O’Connor once Frankie got the story out. He hated the name, and I did too.

After that I didn’t run into him enough to get nervous because at school we were in different classes and, obviously, I wasn’t hanging around shabby, two-bit, greasy pizza parlors wasting my good time and energy listening to Frankie (and his lap dog, Peter Paul) play his lordship and chamberlain. Besides Joanne, Joanne Doyle, Frankie’s plain jane, so-called girlfriend, and I never got along ever since I told her that Frankie was calling me up on the telephone anytime they had a “misunderstanding.” She flat-out didn’t believe me but ask Peter Paul, he knows, he knows everything about Frankie Riley and his “love” life.

This year though, sophomore year, John and I have our daily last period study class together and a couple weeks into the class I noticed that he kept looking (for a second anyway) in my direction. More than once. And I started looking in his direction (for a second anyway, and more than once). As we found out later everybody in the class, including the study class monitor, Miss Wilmot, the old dyke, knew we were “making eyes” at each other. Except, of course, maybe Peter Paul who was also in the study hall down front and reading. Still, naturally, that will not stop him from claiming in his treatise that he was the key to introducing John and me.

Believe me I didn’t know what to do at first. I was “gun-shy” from that sixth- grade fiasco party so I was afraid to think that he might be interested in me. But, and I admit it, I was miserable, and had been pretty miserable since John’s rebuff that Chrissie’s party night, even though I went out with lots of boys. Then one day I figured out (and talked to Chrissie about it, and she agreed) that John, shy, quiet John wasn’t going to do anything about me unless I started the ball rolling. And here is what I figured out to do (on my own, no Chrissie help). I was going to go into the lion’s den, the holy of holies, Salducci’s Pizza Parlor where Frankie and his boys, including John, hung out a lot and just flop myself in John’s lap and dare him, no double- dare him, to throw me off in a public place. And I was going to do it too, once I got my courage up, or was miserable enough to try anything.

Well, one Friday night, one October Friday night, a few weeks ago I got so miserable at home that I decided to go for broke. I walked up the Downs and entered Salducci’s, fearful, very fearful, but then I saw John sitting on the outside of the booth with the boys (Frankie, Peter Paul, Fingers Kelly, John and a couple of other denizens) and saw my chance. I quickly walked over and flopped myself on John lap. And you know what he said. “I’m sorry” as he gently, very gently, broke my fall with his strong arms. My heart went crazy with fear. I thought that I had once again misinterpreted his looks at me in study class just like at the party and started to get up. But as I started to get up John held me close, held me close like maybe it was going to take the whole football team, both offense and defense, and scrubs and water boys thrown in, to get me off his lap before he finished his red-faced say.

And this is what he said and said in a way that he had been thinking about it for a while. “I’m sorry, real sorry, that I pushed you away at Chrissie’s birthday party and ran out and never apologized. I just didn’t know what to do then.” And he added, “Will you forgive me?” Frankie and the boys were flabbergasted but John, red-faced and all, maybe more so after saying his piece, held his ground. I wanted to say all kinds of witty, smart things but all I could blurt out was, “yes.” I started to get up but he would not let me up (and truthfully I wasn’t trying very hard anyway) until he asked to walk me home. You know the answer so I will not be coy. As we walked and talked it seemed like an instant until we got to my house. The lights were out but John said he wanted to talk a little, and we did, boy and girl things that you don’t need to know about. And while we were talking, he reached out and held my hand. And I got all red-faced, especially when every once in a while, he would loosen up his grip and then gently squeeze my hand again like he was afraid to let go. And I was afraid to let him let it go. I will tell you that night, I swear, John could have done anything he wanted with me, anything, but we just held hands, tight hands. Okay, you have the story straight now.

The Vagaries Of Art At The Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston -The Mexican Muralist And Political Assassin David Alfaro Siqueiros

The Vagaries Of Art At The Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston -The Mexican Muralist And Political Assassin David Alfaro Siqueiros

A link to a WBUR (NPR) "Morning Edition" report on the installation of Mexican Muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros work of art after a long absence.     

http://www.wbur.org/artery/2018/01/10/mfa-siqueiros-painting

By Frank Jackman

We live in weird times. Not just the Age of Trump madness which is getting a bit tiresome although Donald J. represents the best possible “recruiting sergeant” of our side, for the left possible (hell maybe even for the middling muddle and rational right too). No today in light of the sexual harassment and sexual crimes committed by Hollywood power broker, Washington wizard fixer men fisting power, media stars tumbling to stuff twelve year olds would think twice about, and don’t forget a few guys next door who can take the fall too although it will not reach the 24/7/365 news cycle I want to mention, once again, the dilemma of trying to separate out, if that is even possible, the horrible actions and crimes of these creative types and their works.     

What got me going on this question was a recent revelation by actress Tippi Hendron who starred in one of Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s classis suspense films The Birds that he relentlessly pursued her against her very strong wishes to the contrary. Worse he basically ruined her future promising career by using his authority as a great film director to bad-mouth her in the film industry when she wouldn’t respond to his brutish behavior. That brought the vexing question to a head. It still has not been fully answered as yet but for myself I have a diminished regard for Sir Alfred’s work when I have to think about reviewing anything of his as I did recently with a review of his classic The 39 Steps.

Now comes another version of that same question although it does not involve sexual harassment or crimes but the more serious one of political assassination. As the link above indicates the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is after a long absence displaying a major work by Mexican muralist and political activist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Fair enough as far as it goes. Although the MFA representative gusted forth about Siqueiros’ combination of artistic mastery and left-wing political activist she left out one little point. David Alfaro Siqueiros led a group of political thugs on the compound of exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico and attempted, and failed, to murder that world-historic figure. Although not for trying it was only a miracle he was not murdered then.      

Now we all know of the checkered careers of all kinds of culturati-bandits from Villon to Bellini to modern day and we cherish some of their cultural achievements but even if we recognize, and we should at some level, the great artistry of Siqueiros can we really sweep his criminal political activity under the rug. Or ignore it as the MFA representative did. Shame on her.   

Will The Real Bond, James Bond Stand Up- Sean Connery’s “You Only Live Twice” (1967)-A Film Review

Will The Real Bond, James Bond Stand Up- Sean Connery’s “You Only Live Twice” (1967)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sandy Salmon  

I am not sure what to say right now after reading Leslie Dumont’s scathing polemic cum review of one in the apparently never-ending series of James Bond films which new manager Greg Green went out of his way to have her write even though young Alden Riley and I have been running the rack on this series. The film, Tomorrow Never Dies with the lovely delicious Pierce Brosnan going through the paces of the legendary indestructible MI6 agent in the 1990s. That “apparently never-ending” no joke despite the fact that the original creator of the character Ian Fleming has long passed the shades (they were diddling with the plots when he was alive in any case including on the film I will attempt to review). James Bond, although I am not sure either party will like the comparison, now joins Bob Dylan in the never-ending category (for concerts still performed and Bootleg CD series never finished).

All of that though is not the beef today since Leslie whom I knew for a short time when she was a stringer for the American Film Gazette after she left her stringer job on this site and before she finally, finally landed a by-line at New York Today has thrown down the gauntlet. Leslie in that review of hers took on the whole James Bond male chauvinism bullshit mystique. (Although the fact that he is never really scratched despite an armada of weaponry thrown his way by every bad ass in the world, male or female, apparently does not bother her or the not so veiled battles between the good British Empire and the heathen commies of whatever designation.) But what has me in dither is that she went after the little pseudo-battle that Alden Riley, the former Associate Film Critic under the previous management and I, the former Senior Film Critic under that same management about who was the epitome of the James Bond character. When the deal went down it came down to two contestants-subtly handsome Connery or pretty boy Brosnan. She took us apart for not dwelling on the obvious 1950s sense of the male-female relationship. Seemingly the woman that I knew, even if slightly, with the wicked sense of irony has ditched that persona for the crusading third-wave feminist.

And Leslie might be right. No, not right about Alden and my little fisticuff but in light of the sexual harassment and sexual crimes of Harvey Weinstein and a now long trial of powerful Hollywood power brokers, Washington heavies, media hotshots, and hell the guys next door against women maybe this is a time to shed some light on the way business was done in the old days. Maybe the way the female eye candy in the various Bond films are portrayed aids and abets those real life situations but I believe that is Leslie’s place to speak about. And she did.

Look I have spent a zillion years doing freaking film reviews here and at American Film Gazette (according to the new site manager here Greg Green who also came over from that publication it has racked up forty thousand plus reviews in its long hard copy and on-line history). The angle I was looking at, Alden too except he wanted to look at it from the view of the more recent Bond films, was in the context of the silly plotlines, the improbable escapes and the silly concept of sexual allure developed in those films. It would have been false, and maybe that is wrong but that is the way it comes down, for me, Alden can speak for himself, if I started going on and on about the sexploitation inherent in the romanticizing of what after all in real life is a pretty dull and unrewarding profession-covert spying.  This is probable not the last of the dispute between Leslie and me on the social issues as she called thet but let’s fight that out on more serious looks at what is wrong with the still prevalent sexually unequal society that we live in. As we have found very graphically in the immediate past we do not live in a post-racial society and now we know we have been living in a “bubble” as well about living in a post-sexual inequality world.        

It almost seems silly to go through the plot now except there is no heavy lifting once you have seen a few of these formula films and can do a quick, very quick, summary since we have already hit Leslie’s male chauvinist pig aspect, my hero unscathed aspect, and that anti-communist angle as well. All we really have left is whether Sean Connery is the real Bond, James Bond or is that sniveling pretty boy the champ.   

An American spaceship is dragooned in space whereabouts unknown except it was probably brought down somewhere near Japan. Naturally in anti-communist, pre-Soviet meltdown times that country would be the number one fall guy. But the Bolsheviks don’t figure although not for trying since before long a second space almost goes missing and the POTUS (you know what that means today in text-speak) is ready to rain hell and damnation on Moscow and Leningrad if the caper goes off. Not to worry because not only is WWIII avoided but private citizen bad guys are put to the screws (although not forever since, as usual, the mastermind bad guy makes his escape to fight another inevitable day).

The whole caper was an outsourced job by the infamous SPECTRE organization that knows no limits, no boundaries and will do whatever is necessary for the highest bidder. Here the Reds, Red China, People’s Republic. After ten million kicks, about six millions rounds of ammo fired his way, a few new techno-toys driven escapes, some cavorting with women after a hard day’s work Bond, James Bond, once again saves the world. As Leslie quoting mad monk Phil Larkin, another wild man writer here, WFT. And maybe that is really what we should all take out of this stuff.      

The Con Is The Con-Is On-Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen’s “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1968)-A Film Review

The Con Is The Con-Is On-Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen’s “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1968)-A Film Review   

By William Bradley, Junior

[This review is not under the “in the pipeline” truce negotiated with the site manager here so is free from any mention of the previous site as per the agreement. Moreover this is William Bradley’s very first review and so he is unaware of, and had not been part of the previous turmoil. Greg Green]   

The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Faye Dunaway, Steve McQueen, 1968    

In my old growing up neighborhood back in the 1980 of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the Sacred Heart Parish part if anybody knows Pawtucket which is what we always called it although the city called it The Heights every guy around, some girls too but not too many and mainly the ones who hung around with the guys who cared about such things, loved the con. Loved the con artist above all others, the local favorites being Ben Jeffrey and Ralph Morris who pulled some serious capers (and later did serious time but that was when they got in coke and smack and lost their bearings and not in the days when they were on a roll). In the days when barely out of high school they clipped a society guy for fifteen thousand big ones in a time and place where that number meant something. So don’t think I am blowing smoke at you. Think I am a small time rube who gets all starry-eyed over criminals and bad asses.

Of course there was a corollary to the high regard that con artists were held in over mere bank robbers and burglars, people like that who had no style, unlike that possessed by the legendary Thomas Crown, played to cool hand perfection by dare-devil Steve McQueen in the film under review The Thomas Crowne Affair (the 1968 one not, as Bart Webber a helpful writer here told me, the re-make with pretty boy Pierce Brosnan in the 1990s). Everybody loves a con except when he or she is the victim. That is when the “ouch” comes in as it will to the supposedly inured to con artistry Vicki the very successful insurance investigator who runs up against our boy Thomas. And is overmatched, way overmatched  

Perfection itself is how the whole thing went. Poor little rich boy Tommy has a yen for the dark side, for stretching the limits just for the hell of it to tweak society or to prove something to himself. So he hires five guys all unknown to each other (four for the heist and then the weak link getaway car guy whom you should never trust sine they usually get the short end of the stick money) and him to them to pull the biggest Boston bank job since the Brink’s job. Two mil in small bills which he quickly ships over to Geneva in a couple of suitcases. Of course if for no other reason than the insurance companies do not like to take such hits, raises premiums there is blowback, big blowback. In the form of a beautiful ruthless and smart woman investigator Vicki, played by then new star Faye Dunaway. She will play a cat and mouse game with Tommy while the public coppers diddle and dandle. No problem except one big problem not for Tommy but for Vicki she falls for the guy while getting his chains ready for him, ready for the big step-off. As she closes in he proposes a way out-do the robbery again. She buys into the thing. But who had the last laugh. A classic double con-beautiful as he flies the coop and so Brother Crown will go into the Hall of Fame, become a legend for public coppers and private snoops alike.             

And whoever is left back in Sacred Heart Parish to sing the praises.