“…I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, 10th October 1842
The view from my backdoor yesterday morning
I am with Hawthorne all the way. Unfortunately I do not have the option of staying outside all day. I will, however, take a walk around the block if work allows. Yesterday I had a meeting on my flyover campus and so I got to walk around. It was nice. I mean look at that sky!
And when I get home today I will attack some more vines–strenuous yard work which bears visible results is good for the soul, right? But sometimes I feel like Shane and that stump.
And, yes…
We won the NLDS! Just look at the wing span on old Adam Wainwright! Onward and upward, Cardinals! Bring on the Dodgers!
I love October, although this year so far it has been an extension of summer. It was 90 degrees for the Playoff opener yesterday! But the weather will change; it always does.
There is a lot to be done in October.
It is time to buy pumpkins.
And get my black tights out.
It is time to take longer walks and to leave the windows open at night.
And, oh, Vincent Price–flyover hometowner–is the Star of the Month on TCM.
Last night I DVR’d The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), a Warner Brothers classic starring Bette Davis and Errol FLynn, directed by the fabulous Michael Curtiz and based on a play by Maxwell Anderson. It also stars Olivia de Haviland, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale, and Price as Sir Walter Raleigh. So check out Thursday nights on TCM for lots of VIncent Price.
Recently I was reading Child Star by Shirley Temple Black, which she wrote back in 1988. She is, of course, the amazing film and television actress, singer and dancer, who became the U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia as well as the White House Chief of Protocol for Gerald Ford. She began her film career in 1932 at the age of three, and in 1934 found international fame in Bright Eyes.
Inspired by her autobiography and the description of the behind-the-scenes goings on of Little Miss Marker (1934), I decided to watch it last week. Also, I had never seen this particular Shirley Temple movie.
Shirley Temple Black’s favorite picture of herself from her movie career (from “Little Miss Marker”)
Based on a story by Damon Runyon (of “Guys and Dolls” fame), it is about a little girl left with a bookmaker named Sorrowful Jones by her father as his “marker” to cover a bet on a horserace. He never returns, so Sorrowful reluctantly takes her in. His motley crew of fellow bookies takes to her and their cynical ways start to rub off on her. Hilarity ensues.
Watch this scene where the guys are passing the 5-year old Shirley around trying to guess her weight. It is classic. Notice when Shirley says, “I like it!” (at 4:12)–it is a key to the mystery of her amazing success.
Shirley Temple was a kid who liked what she was doing. She was having a good time most of the time and that comes across to the audience in spades. Smart as a whip, very few people could fool her and she did not suffer fools gladly. She also had a mother who kept an eagle eye on her at all times and stood up to the studio bosses as her daughter’s staunch advocate. They were a pretty awesome pair.
Anyway, I suggest you get ahold of a copy of Little Miss Marker and watch it tonight. It is a gem. And it is not a children’s movie. It was made for an adult audience. I remember my mother telling the story of how her parents came home from the movies one night and they had seen a film with an adorable little girl in it. My grandmother was over the moon–for Shirley Temple. I bet it was Little Miss Marker. The supporting cast includes Adolphe Menjou, Dorothy Dell, Charles Bickford, and a wonderful cadre of character actors. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.
It is a commonly held superstition that Friday the 13th is an unlucky day.
According to Wikipedia, the number twelve, in numerology, is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock, twelve gods of Olympus, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, the 12 successors of Muhammad in Shia Islam, twelve signs of the Zodiac, etc., whereas the number thirteen is considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table results in the death of one of the diners.
Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century’s The Canterbury Tales, and many have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Friday is also the day when Jesus Christ was crucified, adding to its unpopularity.
Well, you may be thinking that I am going to pick a movie from the Friday the Thirteenth film franchise (there are 12) to watch tonight, but I have not seen any of them. Horror movies are not my bag. I saw Halloween once on TV. Please. I recently saw Psycho (1960) and, despite the actors’ best efforts, it was really very silly.
The best scary movies are the ones that could actually really happen–like Jaws (1975) or Rear Window (1954). But I have to admit that I like the early M. Night Shyamalan movies, especially The Sixth Sense (1999) and Signs (2002). They kept me guessing and were very creepy when I first saw them. I even liked Lady in the Water (2006) which features a favorite actor of mine, Paul Giamatti. The horror in these movies is all based on the personal heartbreak and loss experienced by the hero in each story. The story lines may be far-fetched, but the human loss is real and relatable.
Clasped Hands of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning by Harriet Goodhue Hosmer
On this day in 1846 Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning eloped! You know the famous story of their love. Six years her junior, the poet Robert Browning exchanged 574 letters with Elizabeth Barrett over a twenty-month period. Immortalized in the 1930 play The Barretts of Wimpole Street, by Rudolf Besier, their romance was bitterly opposed by her father, who did not want any of his children to marry. After they married, her father never spoke to her again. Gee whiz.
Anyway, she was a darn good poet, mostly known today for her famous How Do I Love Thee sonnet. But she wrote a lot more than that. Here is the beginning of Aurora Leigh (1850) and a link so you can read the whole thing.
OF writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others’ uses, will write now for mine,–
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.
This picture was taken over 10 years ago backstage at the high school during the production of Girl Crazy. The boy is in the middle flanked by his two best friends. He was in 10th grade in his long flowing hair phase. He and two upperclassmen (not pictured) were the “cowboy trio” who got to sing “I’m Bidin’ My Time” at various times during the musical. They were adorable.
This is the time period when some people got the idea that the boy looked like Andy Samberg.
I can see it. But it drove the boy crazy.
People do this all the time. Sometimes they are on target; sometimes not so much. Something strikes them as similar. People are always looking for a connection, aren’t they? I wonder why that is?
I do it myself. People frequently remind me of my father and also my father-in-law. The classic example of this is Grumpy Old Men (1993), starring Jack Lemmon (my father) and Walter Matthau (my father-in-law).
Jack Lemmon IS my father–the fair-haired skinny wasp in khaki pants right down to the Brooks Brothers porkpie hat. I think he even says, “GodDAMit!”. And Walter Matthau is Bob. They were the quintessential grumpy old men in real life–how wonderful that they made a movie about them.
And a sequel.
As for why we do this, I guess it gives us comfort and makes the world less strange and intimidating. Makes sense to me.
Lucky Julie Harris. Laughing it up with these guys:
Julie Harris with Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando and James Dean in 1955
Julie Harris died last month. She was, of course, an American stage, screen, and television actress of the first rank. She won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame and received the 2002 Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award.
I remember watching my mother watch Julie play Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst on television back in the 1976. My mother wept pretty much uncontrollably, which was quite unnerving to me. But Julie Harris was one of those actresses that loses herself in the part–she became Emily Dickinson. Awesome.
I haven’t had a Friday movie pick in some time, so I suggest we all watch Julie Harris in East of Eden, which introduced James Dean to the world. It was Julie’s second film. It only covers a small part of Steinbeck’s great novel, but it is a good movie taken on its own. James Dean’s performance is spectacular and he is ably supported by Raymond Massey, Jo Van FLeet, Burl Ives, and–of course–Julie Harris.
Today is also the birthday of Elia Kazan (September 7, 1909 – September 28, 2003)–American director, producer, writer, actor, founder of the Actors Studio, and Williams College graduate. The New York Times described him as “one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history”. He was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for East of Eden, but lost to Delbert Mann, who won that year for Marty. C’est la vie.
Elmore Leonard (October 11, 1925 – August 20, 2013) died last week at the age of 87. He was an American novelist and screenwriter. His earliest novels, published in the 1950s, were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into popular films.
None of these literary genres is a particular favorite of mine, but I have always appreciated Leonard as a better writer than most in his chosen field. And, of course, he wrote the novel Hombre in 1961 on which the 1967 movie was based. It is one of my favorite westerns.
In this film Paul Newman plays John Russell, a white man brought up as an Apache. It is a classic tale of strangers on a stagecoach, journeying through hostile territory. The ‘bad guys’ are led by the scary Richard Boone. Unfortunately, the ‘good guys’ aren’t much better. As Boone says to Frederick March (who has billed the government for food for the Indians and then kept the money while the Indians starve to death), “Looks like you did good and we did better…You know, the thing is; [you] ought to be over here with us instead of standin’ over there.” That, indeed, is the crux of the story. Russell/Hombre wants no part of the others on the stage, but they look to him to get them out of their predicament. And as much as he doesn’t want to, he is forced by circumstances (and Diane Cilento) to do “the right thing”.
Hombre is also my favorite Paul Newman movie, along with Cool Hand Luke, which amazingly was made the same year. He is just over 40 and at the peak of his powers. Awesome.
It would be a worthy tribute to watch Hombre in memory of Elmore Leonard. It is an underrated film–I don’t know why–and classic Leonard before he became famous.
You could also watch an episode or two of Justified, an FX show which is based on Elmore Leonard’s novels Pronto and Riding the Rap and his short story “Fire in the Hole.” An evening with U.S. Marshall Raylen Givens would not be a bad idea either.
Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that I take advantage of any opportunity to feature a picture of Steve McQueen. Well, today it’s Steve McQueen day on TCM all day–12 movies!
So quick, set your DVRs! They’re not showing The Great Escape (1963), but they are showing The Magnificent Seven (1960), which stars many of the same actors and is also directed by John Sturges. It’s the classic re-make of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai–a great idea which they actually pulled off pretty well. In this version embattled Mexican peasants hire seven American gunfighters to protect their village from Eli Wallach and his army of bandits. The seven include Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, and the German Horst Buchholtz as “Chico”. What a line-up! It also features the famous score by Elmer Bernstein.
Bonus points to anyone who can explain to me what Vin means when he says: “It took me a long, long time to learn my elbow from a hot rock.”
P.S. I just got my pillow back from the finisher.
Isn’t it adorable? It is a present for someone. Lucky, eh?
Happiness is a care package from your dual personality!
After a hard day at the salt mines, I was thrilled to find a wee package waiting for me at home yesterday. Inside were two books (a hardback copy of one of my favorites–Gilead by Marilynne Robinson–and The Bishop’s Mantle by Agnes Sligh Turnbull, which I have not read) and a small Spode votive candle holder.
Wasn’t that thoughtful?
In other news, I read on the Habitually Chic blog about the new documentary “Salinger” coming out next month:
I will hope for the best, but, as always, I’ll expect the worst*. Very few people understood old J.D.S. back in the day and that is why he went into seclusion and chose not to publish anymore. He’d had enough. Why is that hard to understand?
*I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering what the origin of that expression is. Well, I don’t know, but I always think of Mel Brooks! So here are the lyrics to the classic song by Mel Brooks from his movie The Twelve Chairs:
Hope for the best, expect the worst
Some drink champagne, some die of thirst
No way of knowing
Which way it’s going
Hope for the best, expect the worst!
Hope for the best, expect the worst
The world’s a stage, we’re unrehearsed
Some reach the top, friends, while others drop, friends
Hope for the best, expect the worst!
I knew a man who saved a fortune that was splendid
Then he died the day he’d planned to go and spend it
Shouting “Live while you’re alive! No one will survive!”
Life is sorrow – – here today and gone tomorrow
Live while you’re alive, no one will survive – – there’s no guarantee
Hope for the best, expect the worst
You could be Tolstoy or Fannie Hurst
You take your chances, there are no answers
Hope for the best expect the worst!
I knew a man who saved a fortune that was splendid
Then he died the day he’d planned to go and spend it
Shouting “Live while you’re alive! No one will survive!”
Life is funny – – Spend your money! Spend your money!
Live while you’re alive, no one will survive – – there’s no guarantee
Hope for the best, expect the worst
The rich are blessed, the poor are cursed
That is a fact, friends, the deck is stacked, friends
Hope for the best, expect the – –
(even with a good beginning, it’s not certain that you’re winning,
even with the best of chances, they can kick you in the pantses)
Look out for the – – watch out for the worst!
Hey!
I tried to watch The Twelve Chairs recently and didn’t make it through. Not that funny. But the song is classic.
dual personalities 