Let's Have A Party- The Year 1957

Let's Have A Party- The Year 1957

At one time I spilled much ink memory covering, extensively covering, many CD compilations from a Rock ‘N’ Rock Era series (that would be, ouch, a classic rock and roll series now, damn). A highlight of that series, and the one thing that clearly peaked my interest beyond the songs, or some of the songs, the ones that were able to defy age, and are lyric remembrance etched in my brain, had been the cover artwork that had evoked, and evoked strongly, the themes that dominated our lives, our hubristic teenage lives, in the classic age of rock, say from about the mid-1950s to about the mid-1960s (after that things went all over the place, the music and the times both) as we watched it unfold. Things like last dance school dances (and dreams of she and dreads of not she for that last one, god it better be a slow one to make my pitch), lovers’ lanes (down by the seaside sifting sand, against the cold ocean night, against the Seal Rock night, in the back seat of Jimmy’s car, and, well let’s leave it at and, okay), dancing the night away to the latest rock music, drive-in movies (alternative spot for that “and” mentioned above), drive-in restaurants (a night cap of burgers and fries after that “and,” hopefully) , summer beach life (watching, intensely watching, those long-legged college girls home for the summer and restless, but just watching high school odd-ball watching between the two yacht clubs where they were preening themselves) and on and on. One part of the series, the one I am thinking of here, driven by year dates, at least as observed through the cover work, seemed to be less concerned with strong old time evocations by flashy artwork but rather used old time photos (Kodak, of ancient memory, of course). Nevertheless sometimes just a simple photograph as appears on the 1957 cover evokes those memories in a more subtle way.

And what does that photograph picture. Well, Johnny (we’ll just call him that for our purposes here, okay), hair slicked back as was the Elvis-want-to-be style, no facial hair, jesus, no facial hair , we are not dealing with those low-life reefer mad beat beasts here in the Amityville night, no way, that is music for the future, suited up in sports coat, white shirt, and tie (pants not observed although they had to be black chinos, uncool cuffed or cool uncuffed, and shoes, well, loafers for sure, no silly pennies inserted that was strictly for nerds, thank you, serious nerds) and Susie (ditto Johnny on the name thing), pulled back pony-tail to keep that long hair out of her eyes while fast-dancing with Eddy, Billy and Teddy before lemming on Johnny , dressed up in her best frilly party dress, long, and not black, not black as night anything for the same reason, the same non-beat in Amityville reason Johnny has not facial hair, (no bobby socks or nylons showing so I cannot discuss that issue here nor will I venture into the girl shoe night any more than I would today into the woman’s shoe night) are comparing notes on the latest 45s. Nice wholesome kids, white kids just so you know who the record companies were appealing too although most of the best music was black, black and beautiful as the darkest night (like the songs from YouTube that accompanies this sketch). No mad dog hopheads, or dipsos and no nerds either. Let them go use the library or something.

For those not long in the tooth who may have wandered into this space and are not sure why that 45RPM was the size record we played on our old time record players (no not wind-up Victrolas, wise guys) when we wanted to drown out ma, pa, and sibling noises about homework, chores, or just the stuff of everyday life. Each record had a one song A side (the hit) and a one song B side, each side a little over two minutes long. That idea didn’t last too long before responding to the crush of the market they started making LPs, records with several songs on each side. Oh, I forgot, for those who don’t know what a record is, long or short, look it up on Wikipedia. I have given enough time to the subject.

And in the year 1957 what musical chooses might the pair be comparing on this night, this house party night (or on other school dance nights) shown here. As usual another round in the “battle of the sexes” will be played out just like from teen time immemorial. At least records and record player time immemorial. While Buddy Holly, Patsy Kline, Rickey Nelson, and the Everly Brothers have some spin in the early going the real fight, the real important fight, school dance or house party, is what song will be played for the last dance. Yes, the key last dance to see whether the evening continues when they hold each other tight after a night of apart self-expression fast rock and roll dancing. So the battle really boils down to Could This Be Magic? by The Dubs or Happy Happy Birthday Baby by the Tune Weavers and if Johnny does not want to be lonely tonight he better make the right choice. Good luck, brother Johnny.

Out In Film Noir Night-With Kit Parker’s “Portland Expose” In Mind

DVD Review

Portland Expose, 1957

…he, let’s call him Dave just in case he is not out of the witness protection program yet or maybe he doesn’t want his name used in public after what happened, did what he had to do, did what he had to do especially when they tried to come after his family, tried to molest his virginal daughter, did what any stand- up guy would do if he had any guts when the deal went down, went down when the wise guys came calling. Yah, Dave the stand-up guy, captain of the Eugene High School football team , Class of 1936, did his time in the Pacific islands and atolls, came back married his high school sweetheart , Betty, from over in Corvallis, Class of 1937 (met at a dance the night of the big cross state high school football rivalry between the two towns but that is another story) , left the dust of the sticks behind and moved to big chance Portland , and had a couple of kids, Tommy and Janie, that Janie a looker even at just eighteen and plenty of cause for getting protective about when guys came around, especially when they wanted to try any funny stuff, as they would.

That Portland by the way is out in Oregon, the trees everywhere place, the big time mountain place, the rain place, the big rose place, a place strictly for squares, squares cubes, a place where you would not think the wise guys, you know, the pimp daddies, the numbers guys, liquor guys, hopheads, B-girls (quaint, right), gambling, every vice, every profitable vice known to humankind would bother to fuss with. But there you would be wrong since the wise guys figured out long ago with Vegas that throw that stuff, the whores, the booze, the slots, the bright lights and glitter, even cheap glitter, and you have a magnet, any place, any place you can get to by car or other easy conveyance. So Portland got zeroed in on. And Dave, besides being a stand-up guy in almost every respect, just happened to have a nice little resort, nothing fancy, just outside of town, all cozy like, just waiting for wise guy partners to come along. And they did, and they moved in fast, and kept moving in, kept adding their amusements.

Dave, once the wise guys showed him a little reason, showed him a little billy club and hot acid to the face reason if he didn’t fall down for the action, showed him that they were not afraid to ruin his family, and especially that cute little Janie if need be, went along, went along for a while, just a while. And things, if not good and respectable like before, at least had the dough come rolling in. Still Dave had qualms, qualms because he was essentially a guy wanted to run his own non-wise guy show, qualms because he was still a stand –up guy, so when one of the wise guys’ hired help tried to molest Janie he had his “straw that broke the camel’s back” reason. So he turned stoolie, stoolie for the feds looking into racketeering, especially racketeering in unions and other locales a big deal back in the 1950s.

And Dave, well, Dave like in a lot of things that an A-One stand-up guy can do once he puts his mind to it, was able to get very high up in the mob organization, right up to Mr. Big, and carrying a wire grab all sorts of information about this and that as he walked around the operation. Of course the tough guys didn’t get where they were in high society by being chumped to righteous citizens so Dave, and Janie too, have to endure a few scares (Dave facing that damn hot acid a gain, jesus) before some rough justice comes out of his efforts. And then, after the wise guys got their just dessert, Dave and family and Portland, when back to prized obscurity.

When The Blues Was Dues- A Short Song For Woody- “Ashes Strewn On The Sea”

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman:

…he came out of the prairies like the fire that was an ever present threat, like the wind that came howling of the Dakotas, came howling showing no mercy no mercy recognized by humankind, no mercy as it blew a generation or two’s sinewy, sweaty hard labor across the land like so many sticks.. And like the wind no prairie could hold him long, hold him from the doing he planned to be doing, planned to be making, hell, planned, just planned. So if anybody asks you, or worse, anybody tries to tell you that his plainsong adventure was all ad lib, was put together helter-skelter with scissors and paste (real scissors and paste for those too young to remember such ancient ways of fitting a thing up, making it right against mankind imperfections, or maybe were too young to remember him except through parents, or grandparents ,or now maybe even ancient thickset, hard of hearing angel great-grandparents) , all mirrors and mirages like some snake oil salesman or carny barker, don’t believe them, just don’t.

Yah, like the wind he roamed out of those okie cowboy hills, all threadbare, all morning dust, all noon dust, all evening dust, all dust broke, all dust finished, and like a million okies before him he lit out for the angel-infested west and more space (east, east then had no appeal, had no sex appeal for him but was like some worked- out barren mine, a place to pass by, or die in. Only later, sickness later, did he head east, and had people following him east too), mountains, canyons, arroyos, rios strewn every which way, then to the flatlands past the Sierras on down to the sea, the pacific sea, the big swirl white foamed, white-capped sea, land’s end. And there in the valley camps, there in the wicked miserable okie/arkie/ bracero fields, sweated, back-breaking labor not fit for man nor woman (although not as miserable as those played-out barren okie fields, now bank repossessed, repossessed forever ) he got his voice. Got the rhythm of his people not turning back (where would they go, and why, why with all hell playing out on those dusty prairies), of taking one final land’s end stand before Jehovah himself. And he sang like some latter-day poet Whitman, and they listened, listened to their okie bard, as he sang of their trials and tribulations, and maybe his own.

Oh yah, as if anybody would let me forget, sure he loved women, jesus, everybody wants to know about that even if they can’t remember the complete lyrics to his plainsong, except may This Land Is Your Land, loved every woman who gave him an eye, a shy eye, a bold eye, maybe even one-eye but that look, or maybe just the thought of that look, got him into many a bed, wedded bed mate (she wedded) or not. Until, until he got that okie dust feeling, that old Tom Joad, Dove Linkhorn feeling that possessed his kind, that eternal moving on down the line feeling when thing started crashing in on him, or maybe she thought twice about leaving Hank, or Jimmy, or Bill when he, seeing another eye cast his way, a shy, eye, a bold eye, maybe even one-eye, caught the glance and saved him the bother of sneaking out that third floor back window, half naked, rucksack in hand, and catching that Southern Pacific to parts unknown, yah, to parts unknown and a fresh start, as long as he could get that okie dust out of his throat and some pacific waters, foam-flecked, white-capped to wash him clean.

And then, well then, roaming and bumming, and bumming and roaming (and smoking and drinking and whoring, alright) took their toll, he lost his voice, not the physical voice but that voice that drove his plainsong, and he took to bed, took himself back east (that east that had no sex appeal, that was to be passed by, or was a place to die), and he collapsed in on himself, turned to a monster of himself before the end, the feeble end. But just before then, just that minute when that lost voice was ready to give out for good, he asked, no he begged, no he ordered, no he commanded, in one last fit of okie hubris that under no conditions, was he to be buried out in that throat-clogging okie wasteland. Nah, just throw his silly (his term) ashes over some blue-green high-flying, white wave ocean and be done with it…

***Out Of The Swing And Sway 1920s Jazz Night- F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Basil And Josephine Stories”

Book Review

The Basil and Josephine Stories, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Scribner’s, New York, 1973

The name F. Scott Fitzgerald is no stranger here as the master writer of one of the great American novels of the 20th century, The Great Gatsby. Additionally, as well, he was one of the key players (many of them spending time in self-imposed European exile, mainly in post- World War I Paris café society) in American literature in the so-called Jazz Age. For this writer he formed, along with Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, and a little, Dorothy Parker and Gertrude Stein the foundation for modern American writing. But that recognition by me of the who’s who in modern American literature was a later development, much later, because I knew of Fitzgerald’s work long before I had read any of his (or the others, for that matter) better known works. I knew the Basil and Josephine stories well before that.

As a kid in the 1950s the library that I spent many an hour in was divided, as they are in most libraries even today, into children’s and adults’ sections. At that time there was something of a Chinese Wall between the two sections in the form of a stern old librarian who made sure that kids, sneaky kids like me, didn’t go into that forbidden adult section until the proper time (after sixth grade as I recall). The Basil and Josephine stories were, fortunately, in the kid’s section (although I have seen them in adult sections of libraries as well). And while the literary merits of the stories are adult worthy of mention for the clarity of Fitzgerald’s language, the thoughtful plots (mainly, although a couple are kind of similar reflecting the mass magazine adult audience they were addressed to), and the evocative style (of that “age of innocence” just before World War I, after which the world changed dramatically. No more innocent when you dream notions, not after the mustard gas and the trench warfare) for me on that long ago first reading what intrigued me was the idea of how the other half-the rich (well less than half, much less as it turns out) lived.

This was fascinating for a poor boy, a poor "projects" boy like me, who was clueless about half the stuff Basil got to do (riding trains, going to boarding school, checking out colleges, playing some football, and seriously, very seriously checking out the girls at exotic-sounding dances, definitely not our 1950s plebeian school sock hops). And I was clueless, almost totally clueless, about what haughty, serenely beautiful, guy-crazy Josephine was up to. So this little set of short stories was something like my introduction to class, the upper class, in literature.

Of course when I talk about the 1950s in the old projects, especially the later part of that decade when I used to hang around with one Billie (not Billy, like he used to say, not like some billy-goat, not if you didn’t want more grief, more knuckle grief, than you thought possible, and that old Basil Lee certainly would have thought possible), William James Bradley, self-proclaimed king of the be-bop night at our old elementary school (well, not exactly self-proclaimed, I helped the legend along a little, maybe more than a little) I have to give Billie's take on the matter. His first reaction was why I was reading this stuff, this stuff that was not required school reading stuff anyway. Then when I kept going on and on about the stories, and trying to get him to read them, he exploded one day and shouted out “how is reading those stories going to get you or me out of these damn projects?”

Good point now that I think about it but I would not let it go at that. I started in on a little tidbit about how one of the stories was rejected by the magazine publishers because they thought the subject of ten or eleven year olds being into “petting parties” was crazy. That got Billie’s attention as he wailed about how those guys obviously had never been to the projects where everyone learned (or half-learned) about sex sometimes even earlier than that, innocent as it might have been. He said he might actually read the stuff now that he saw that rich kids, anyway, were up against the same stuff we were. He never did. But the themes of teen alienation, teen angst, teen vanity, teen love are all thereon full display. And while the rich are different from you and I, and the very rich are very different from you and I, and life, including young life, plays out differently for them those themes seem genetically embedded in youth culture and have been ever since teenage-hood because a separate social category. Read on.

***In The Time Of The Hard Motorcycle Boys- With Marlon Brando’s “The Wild One” In Mind

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin:

Okay here is the book of genesis, the motorcycle book of genesis, or at least my motorcycle book of genesis. Let’s connect the dots first though. A couple of years ago, and maybe more, as part of a trip down memory lane, old working- class town high school memory lane the details of which do not need detain us here, I did a series of articles on various world-shaking, earth-shattering subjects like high school romances (those that lasted five minutes, those that still last, and those that were wistful dreams never consummated I did not discriminate, except maybe put a little more emphasis on those virginal dream ones), high school odd- ball hi-jinx (all the way from down low spray painting or gluing something or someone this or that up to ritual Monday morning boys and girls “lav” talk about who did or did not do what to whom on that Friday or Saturday night date), high school dances (and endless twaddle about wall-flowers and desperate last dance chances), high school Saturday nights, and most importantly of all, high school how to impress the girls( or boys, for girls, or whatever sexual combinations fit these days, but you can speak for yourselves, I am standing on this ground). In short, high school sub-culture, American-style, early 1960s branch, although the emphasis there, as it will be here, was on that social phenomena as filtered through the lenses of a working-class town, a seen better days town at that, my growing up wild-like-the-weeds town.

One of the subjects worked over in that series was the search, the eternal search I might add, for the great working class love song. Not the Teen Angel, Earth Angel, Johnny Angel generic mush that could play in Levittown, Shaker Heights or La Jolla as well as North Adamsville, Youngstown or Moline. No, a song that, without blushing, one could call one’s own, our working- class own, one that the middle and upper classes might like but would not put on their dance cards. As my offering to this high-brow debate I offered a song written by Englishman Richard Thompson (who folkies, and folk rockers, might know from his Fairport Convention days, very good days, by the way), Vincent Black Lightning, 1952. Without belaboring the point the gist of this song was the biker romance, British version, between outlaw biker James and black-leathered, red-headed Molly looking for bike kicks, or just kicks, and rightly so out in the dark British hinterlands. That jail break-out we were all thirsting for then, and maybe still are. Needless to say such a tenuous lumpen existence as James led, with an off-hand robbery or two into keep himself in coffee and cakes, and the old beauty bike sharp, in order to keep himself “biked" cuts short any long term “little white house with picket fence” ending for the pair. And we do not need such a boring finish. For James, after losing the inevitable running battle with the police, on his death bed bequeathed his bike, his precious “Vincent Black Lightning”, to said Molly. His BIKE, man. His BIKE. Is there any greater love story, working class love story, around? No, this makes West Side Story lyrics and a whole bunch of other such songs seem like so much cornball nonsense. His BIKE, man. Wow! Kudos, Brother Thompson.

Needless to say that exploration was not the end, but rather the beginning of thinking through the great American night bike experience. And, of course, for this writer that means going to the books, the films and the memory bank to find every seemingly relevant “biker” experience. Thus, readers were treated to reviews of such classic motorcycle sagas as “gonzo” journalist, Doctor Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels and his other, later Rolling Stonemagazine printed “biker” stories and Tom Wolfe’ Hell Angel’s-sketched Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (and other articles about California subset youth culture that drove Wolfe’s work in the old days). And to the hellish Rolling Stones (band) Hell’s Angels “policed” Altamont concert in 1969. And, as fate would have it, with the passing of actor/director Dennis Hooper at that time, the 1960s classic biker/freedom/ seeking the great American night film, Easy Rider. And from Easy Rider to the “max daddy” of them all, tight-jeaned, thick leather-belted, tee-shirted, engineer-booted, leather-jacketed, taxi-driver-capped (hey, that’s what it reminds me of), side-burned, chain-link wielding, hard-living, alienated, but in the end really just merely misunderstood, Johnny, aka, Marlon Brando, in The Wild One.

Okay, we will cut to the chase on the plot here. Old Johnny and his fellow“outlaw” motorcycle club members were out for some weekend “kicks” after a hard week’s non-work (as far as we can figure out, work, nine to five work, was marginal for many reasons, as Hunter Thompson in Hell’s Angels noted, to biker existence, the pursue of jack-rolling, armed robbery or grand theft auto careers probably running a little ahead) out in the sunny California small town hinterlands.(The bikers are still heading out there today, the last time I noticed, at least in the Southern California high desert, places like Twenty-Nine Palms and Joshua Tree.)

And naturally, when the boys (and they were all boys here, except for couple of “mamas”, one spurned by Johnny, in a break-away club led by jack-in-the-box jokester, Lee Marvin as Chino) hit one small town they, after sizing up the local law, headed for the local café (and bar). And once one mentions cafes in small towns in California (or Larry McMurtry’s West Texas, for that matter), then hard-working (yes, and hard-working, it’s tough dealing them off the arm in these kind of joints, or elsewhere), trying to make it through the shift, got to get out of this small town and see the world, dreamy-eyed, naïve (yes, naive) sheriff-daughtered young waitress, Kathy, nothing but a Johnny trap though when the deal when down came into play. Okay, now you know, even alienated, misunderstood, misanthropic, cop-hating (an additional obstacle given said waitress’s kinships) boy Johnny needs, needs cinematically at least, to meet a girl who understands him.

The development of that young hope, although hopeless, boy meets girl romance relationship, hither and yon, drives the plot. Oh, and along the way the boys, after a few thousand beers, as boys, especially girl-starved biker boys, will, at the drop of a hat start to systematically tear down the town, for fun. Needless to say, staid local burghers (aka “squares”) seeing what amounts to them is their worst 1950s “communist” invasion nightmare, complete with murder, mayhem and rapine, (although that “C” word was not used in the film, nor should it have been) are determined to “take back” their little town. A few fights, forages, casualties, fatalities, and forgivenesses later though, still smitten but unquenched and chaste Johnny (and his rowdy crowd) and said waitress part, wistfully. The lesson here, for the kids in the theater audience, is that biker love outside biker-dom is doomed. For the adults, the real audience, the lesson: nip the “terrorists” in the bud (call in the state cops, the national guard, the militia, the 82nd Airborne, The Strategic Air Command, NATO, hell, even the hey, weren't we buddies in the war Red Army) , but nip it, fast when they come roaming through Amityville, Archer City, or your small town).

After that summary you can see what we are up against. This is pure fantasy Hollywood cautionary tale on a very real 1950s phenomena, “outlaw” biker clubs, mainly in California, but elsewhere as well. Hunter Thompson did yeoman’s work in his Hell’s Angels to “discover” who these guys were and what drove them, beyond drugs, sex, rock and roll (and, yah, murder and mayhem, the California prison system was a “home away from home”). In a sense the “bikers”were the obverse of the boys (again, mainly) whom Tom Wolfe, in many of his 1960s essays, was writing about and who were (a) forming the core of the surfers on the beaches from Malibu to La Jolla and, (b) driving the custom car/hot rod/drive-in centered (later mall-centered) cool, teenage girl–impressing, car craze night in the immediate post-World War II great American Western sunny skies and pleasant dream drift (physically and culturally). Except those Wolfe guys were the “winners”. The “bikers” were Nelson Algren’s “losers,” the dead-enders who didn’t hit the gold rush, the Dove Linkhorns (aka the Arkies and Okies who in the 1930s populated John Steinbeck’s Joad saga, The Grapes Of Wrath). Not cool, iconic Marlin-Johnny but hell-bend then-Hell Angels leader, Sonny Barger.

And that is why in the end, as beautifully sullen and misunderstood the alienated Johnny was, and as wholesomely rowdy as his gang was before demon rum took over, this was not the real “biker: scene, West or East. Now I lived, as a teenager in a working class, really marginally working poor, neighborhood in North Adamsville that I have previously mentioned was the leavings of those who were moving up in post-war society. That neighborhood was no more than a mile from the central headquarters of Boston's local Hell’s Angels (although they were not called that, I think it was Death-heads, or something like that). I got to see these guys up close as they rallied at various spots on our local beach or “ran” in tandem through our neighborhood on their way to some crazed action. The leader of the pack had all of the charisma of Marlon Brando’s thick leather belt. His face, as did most of the faces, spoke of small-minded cruelties (and old prison pallors) not of misunderstood youth. And their collective prison records (as Hunter Thompson also noted about the Angels) spoke of “high” lumpenism. And that takes us back to the beginning about who, and what, forms one of the core cohorts for a fascist movement in this country, the sons of Sonny Barger. Then we will need to rely on our instinct for survival against the raging hordes, and other such weapons.

***The Lessons Of The Spanish Revolution-1936-1939- Felix Morrow’s “Revolution And Counter-Revolution In Spain (1938)

 

Book Review

Revolution and Counter-Revolution In Spain, Second Edition, Felix Morrow, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1974

AS WE APPROACH THE 77 ^TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SPANISH  CIVIL WAR MILITANTS NEED TO DRAW THE LESSONS FOR THE DEFEAT OF THAT REVOLUTION.

In honor of the tragically too few Bolshevik-Leninists who fought for socialist revolution in the Spanish Civil War.

I have been interested, initially as a pro-Republican partisan, in the Spanish Civil War since I was a teenager back in the early days of the Kennedy Administration when a fresh breeze was blowing over the land and stuff like what happened in Spain and elsewhere became important to understand if we were to change the way the world’s business was conducted. Those lessons went for naught, mainly, as we of that next generation, the generation that went out to “seek a newer world” were consumed by our own hubris, angst, and other failings. A story that I have told elsewhere and need not detain us in referring back to 1930s Spain.
 What initially perked my interest, and remains of interest, was the passionate struggle of the Spanish working class to create its own political and economic 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 15^th 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, as then U.S. Socialist Workers Party leader and author of this tract under review, Felix Morrow, noted, 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 that sprang up in 1936 after Franco’s insurrection.  Of all modern working class revolutions after the Russian revolution Spain showed the most promise of success. Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky, in his own more general works written during this period, noted that the political class consciousness of the Spanish proletariat was higher than that of the Russian proletariat in 1917. Yet it failed in Spain.  Trotsky's writings on this period represented a provocative and thoughtful approach to an understanding of the causes of that failure. Felix Morrow’s work fills in the more specific terms and details and provides more hands-on account of ebb and flow of the struggles of the period. In short he names names, from the vapid “shadow of the bourgeoisie’ to the various anarchist configurations including the heroic Friends of Durutti to the POUM to the fledgling Bolshevik-Leninists, the few adherents of Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International in Spain. Moreover, with all proper historical proportions considered, his analysis has continuing value as the international working class struggles against the seemingly one-sided class war being waged by the international bourgeoisies today.

The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 has been the subject of innumerable works from every possible political and military perspective possible. A fair number of such treatises, especially from those responsible for the military and political policies on the Republican side, are merely alibis for the disastrous policies that led to defeat. Morrow, like Trotsky, was actively trying to intervene in the unfolding events in order to present a program of socialist revolution that most of the active forces on the Republican side were fighting, or believed they were fighting for. Thus, again like Trotsky, Morrow’s analysis brings a breath of fresh air to the historical debate. That in the end Trotsky and his followers could not organize the necessary cadres to carry out his program or meaningfully impact the unfolding events in Spain is one of the ultimate tragedies of that revolution. Nevertheless, Morrow had a damn good idea of what forces were acting as a roadblock to revolution. He also had a strategic conception of the road to victory. And that most definitely was not through the Popular Front which he patiently and mercilessly subjects to his close analysis.

The central question Morrow addressed throughout the whole period under review here was the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the proletarian forces. That premise entailed, in short, a view that the objective conditions for the success of a socialist program for society had ripened. Nevertheless, until that time, despite several revolutionary upheavals elsewhere, the international working class had not been successful anywhere except in backward Russia. Morrow, like Trotsky, thus argued that it was necessary to focus on the question of forging the missing element of revolutionary leadership, subjecting the various claimants to leadership, various social-democratic contingents most forcefully a look at the Caballero government, the perfidious and treacherous role of the Stalinists as active agents of counter-revolution, the know-nothingness of the anarchists and there main organization, the FAI, and, most tellingly the insularity of the POUM and its leadership, especially Nin and Andrade, that would assure victory or at least put up a fight to the finish. One came almost see the withering away of the revolutionary élan after the failure of the Barcelona uprising of May 1937, a key event in this period and a serious test for all parties, which he subjects to close analysis. For that and other events in Spain during this period read this book. And then you, like I did, will have a much clearer idea of what went wrong in that troubled land.    

THE LESSONS OF THE SPANISH REVOLUTION-1936-39

THE LESSONS OF THE SPANISH REVOLUTION

In honor of the tragically too few Bolshevik-Leninists who fought for socialist revolution in the Spanish Civil War. Below is a customer review I wrote on Leon Trotsky’s The Spanish Revolution, 1931-39 for Amazon.com which can serve as a tribute to their efforts.

AS WE APPROACH THE 77^TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR MILITANTS NEED TO DRAW THE LESSONS FOR THE DEFEAT OF THAT REVOLUTION.

I have been interested, as a pro-Republican partisan, in the Spanish Civil War since I was a teenager. 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 15^th 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 revolutions after the Russian revolution Spainshowed the most promise of success. Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky noted that the political class consciousness of the Spanish proletariat was higher than that of the Russian proletariat in 1917. Yet it failed in Spain. Trotsky's writings on this period represent a provocative and thoughtful approach to an understanding of the causes of that failure. Moreover, with all proper historical proportions considered, his analysis has continuing value as the international working class struggles against the seemingly one-sided class war being waged by the international bourgeoisies today.

The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 has been the subject of innumerable works from every possible political and military perspective possible. A fair number of such treatises, especially from those responsible for the military and political policies on the Republican side, are merely alibis for the disastrous policies that led to defeat. Trotsky's complication of articles, letters, pamphlets, etc. which make up the volume reviewed here is an exception. Trotsky was actively trying to intervene in the unfolding events in order to present a program of socialist revolution that most of the active forces on the Republican side were fighting, or believed they were fighting for. Thus, Trotsky's analysis brings a breath of fresh air to the historical debate. That in the end Trotsky could not organize the necessary cadres to carry out his program or meaningfully impact the unfolding events in Spainis one of the ultimate tragedies of that revolution. Nevertheless, Trotsky had a damn good idea of what forces were acting as a roadblock to revolution. He also had a strategic conception of the road to victory. And that most definitely was not through the Popular Front.

The central question Trotsky addresses throughout the whole period under review here was the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the proletarian forces. That premise entailed, in short, a view that the objective conditions for the success of a socialist program for society had ripened. Nevertheless, until that time, despite several revolutionary upheavals elsewhere, the international working class had not been successful anywhere except in backward Russia. Trotsky thus argued that it was necessary to focus on the question of forging the missing element of revolutionary leadership that would assure victory or at least put up a fight to the finish.

This underlying premise was the continuation of an analysis that Trotsky developed in earnest in his struggle to fight the Stalinist degeneration of the Russian Revolution in the mid-1920's. The need to learn the lessons of the Russian Revolution and to extend that revolution internationally was thus not a merely a theoretical question for Trotsky. Spain, moreover, represented a struggle where the best of the various leftist forces were in confusion about how to move forward. Those forces could have profitable heeded Trotsky's advice. Moreover, the question of the crisis of revolutionary leadership still remains to be resolved by the international working class.

Trotsky's polemics in this volume are highlighted by the article ‘The Lessons of Spain-Last Warning’, his definitive assessment of the Spanish situation in the wake of the defeat of the Barcelonauprising in May 1937. Those polemics center on the failure of the Party of Marxist Unification (hereafter, POUM) to provide revolutionary leadership. That party, partially created by cadre formerly associated with Trotsky in the Spanish Left Opposition, failed on virtually every count. Those conscious mistakes included, but were not limited to, the creation of an unprincipled bloc between the former Left Oppositionists and the former Right Oppositionists (Bukharinites) of Maurin to form the POUM in 1935; political support to the Popular Front including entry into the government coalition by its leader; creation of its own small trade union federation instead of entry in the anarchist led-CNT; creation of its own militia units reflecting a hands-off attitude toward political struggle with other parties; and, fatally, an at best equivocal role in the Barcelona uprising of 1937.

Trotsky had no illusions about the roadblock to revolution of the policies carried out by the old-time Anarchist, Socialist and Communist Parties. Unfortunately the POUM did. Moreover, despite being the most honest revolutionary party in Spainit failed to keep up an intransigent struggle to push the revolution forward. The Trotsky - Andreas Nin (key leader of the POUM and former Left Oppositionist) correspondence in the Appendix makes that problem painfully clear.

The most compelling example of this failure -As a result of the failure of the Communist Party of Germany to oppose the rise of Hitler in 1933 and the subsequent decapitation and the defeat of the Austrian working class in 1934 the European workers especially the younger workers of the traditional Socialist Parties started to move left. Trotsky observed this situation and told his supporters to intersect that development by an entry, called the ‘French turn’, into those parties. Nin and the Spanish Left Opposition, and later the POUM failed to do that. As a result the Socialist Party youth were recruited to the Communist Party en masse. This accretion formed the basic for its expansion as a party and key cadre of its notorious security apparatus that would, after the Barcelonauprising, suppress the more left ward organizations. For more such examples of the results of the crisis of leadership in the Spanish Revolution read this book.

Down And Out In Love Town- With David Bromberg’s “Try Me One More Time” In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman:

…he could hear her cry for liquor even before she knocked at his four in the morning door, even before she came into his walk up flat apartment building where they had started their, what did she called it, their “love town love,” he could sense it in the walls or windows or something. He too could almost smell that gardenia perfume smell that meant she was coming back (and that always lingered a little in some corner of the apartment air, her air), coming back for the he no longer could count how many times, assured, always assured that she would have entrance and his bed when she came back. Maybe, as many times as he had tried to spill the damn stuff down the toilet, that is why he kept a flask for her, their, favorite scotch, Haig &Haig Royal Bonded, in the back kitchen cupboard. So she would come back, he did not know. One time he did spill it down the kitchen sink thinking to exorcise the demons but ten minutes later he was down the street at Mel’s Liquor buying another quart. Holding that thought sure enough a couple of minutes later he heard the knock, knock three times, their knock, and her patented purr, “Daddy, Daddy, let me in, your Laura’s back home, back home for good.”

He opened the door and there she was, a little drunk as always at that hour if she was up, and she usually was, a slight whiff of reefer, low-grade reefer so he knew she was flat-busted, coming off her clothes, and that sweet mama smile, the one that assured (and she knew assured) that she had not knocked on the wrong door. He thought “here we go again” with that here we go again feeling but he was glad this time to see her, it had been a few months, maybe four. He noticed that her clothes, her low- cut blouse, low-cut that he had insisted one time did not help enhance her small breasts, and her skirt, her short skirt that did, no argument, highlighted by her well-turned legs and ankles, were a little disheveled, a little back seat of some car, back room of some gin mill, or of some flophouse room quickie disheveled that meant she had either been working her butt or some pick-up guy had gotten angry at some foolish stunt of hers and kicked her out early. Probably the former since she liked, with every guy she tangled with non-professionally anyway, to what she called“do the do” in the morning then take a shower right after and wash that love sweat and jimson off.

Yah, as he had looked more closely, he could tell that she had been doing a trick or two of late to keep her in liquor and dope. Like he said he was glad to see her and although she looked a little the worst for wear this time she still had that Anne Hathaway-like girlish look that had attracted her to him when they first met at Jimmy’s Pony Lounge almost four years before. He thought too though that at the rate she was going, as he noticed small etched crow’s’ feet forming around her eyes, eyes puffy from lack of sleep, too much liquor, high-shelf or not, and a little too many off-beat bed tumbles as well, that she would not age well, not age well at all. And still be attractive to him.

There she was though in all her Madonna angel child street whore persona and as he invited her in (as if she needed an invitation) she gave him that long wet kiss, a french kiss, that meant she was back, back for a little while anyway. He noticed too while they were kissing that she had something on her tongue. He asked her about it and she showed him a pierced tongue ring, a fad among some women in the new multiple piercing world after having seen Rosanna Arquette wearing one as a sexual stimulant in the film Pulp Fiction. She also said, if he was good, she would show him how she used it. Yah, Laura was her old self; ever inventive in every field she put her mind too. After that introduction he went out to the kitchen to perform step one of being good. As he went to that kitchen cabinet to get her a drink he also thought back, as he always did when she came back, about their stormy history right from the beginning.

That first night, a Monday night, as usual a kind of slow Monday, at Jimmy’s he had heard her singing, singing the blues, singing Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie –style barrelhouse blues. Stuff like Me And My Gin, Bedbug Blues, and Bumble Bee in front of a pick-up blues band, a pretty good band and her with a pretty good voice. Stuff that had plenty of double entendre meaning with the crowd who came to Jimmy’s looking to pick up a stray this or that, nothing serious, and known around town as a spot for just that purpose. And that was the attraction for him then, and her too. She with that doe-like sweet Madonna home to mother look and belting out those very sexually suggestive lyrics with a look like maybe you could spend a lifetime trying to figure out whether she was an angel or a whore. And not mind the effort. He ordered her a drink, a scotch, after asking the waitress what she drank, and had it sent over to her table at break. She came over and said thank you but Haig &Haig was all she drank. He ordered the drink, and was hooked.

Hooked bad, hooked bad even when about a fifteen minutes later as she went back the bandstand to do the last set she said while leaving that if he waited she would go home with him but that the band thing was just a guest gig and that she only did it that night because work was slow. Work being, as she explained straight out, working the bar for tricks. She said if he wanted a good time, and she knew how to give a guy a good time, he would have to show his appreciation with some dough. They could negotiate that later. Like he said he was hooked and so he waited for her, waited to take the ticket and take the ride. Later, early that next morning, after they had done the “do the do” (and she had taken her shower) as she was leaving she threw the money he gave her back on the bed. She said her asking for money was her way to be her own boss, in control of her own life, and if she liked a guy, and she liked him, then that was that. A few weeks later she moved in for the first time, and stayed, stayed until she found the next guy on whose bed she threw the money back. But thereafter she always came back, came back to walking daddy,her walking daddy who knew his sweet mama, and she always would.

And he thought as he passed her the scotch that he always would take her back, take her back just like that first time. What was guy to do. And just then as if to weld that thought into his brain she said, “daddy, walking daddy, the sun is almost up and I am sleepy, let sweet mama show you what that tongue ring is all about. Ah, Laura…

***In The Time Of The Hard Motorcycle Boys- “The Wild One” A Film Review-And More

DVD Review

The Wild One, Marlon Brando, Lee Marvin, produced by Stanley Kramer, 1954

Okay here is the book of genesis, the motorcycle book of genesis, or at least my motorcycle book of genesis. But, before I get to that let me make about seventy–six disclaimers. First, the whys and wherefores of the motorcycle culture, except on those occasions when they become subject to governmental investigation or impact some cultural phenomena, is outside the purview of the leftist politics that dominate my commentaries. There is no Marxoid political line, as a rule, on such activity, nor should there be. Those exceptions include when motorcyclists, usually under the rubric of “bad actor” motorcycle clubs, like the famous (or infamous) Oakland, California-based Hell’s Angels are generally harassed by the cops and we have to defend their right to be left alone (you know, those "helmet laws", and the never-failing pull-over for "driving while biker") or, like when the Angels were used by the Rolling Stones at Altamont and that ill-advised decision represented a watershed in the 1960s counter-cultural movement. Or, more ominously, from another angle when such lumpen formations form the core hell-raisers of anti-immigrant, anti-communist, anti-gay, anti-women, anti-black liberation fascistic demonstrations and we are compelled, and rightly so, to go toe to toe with them. Scary yes, necessary yes, bikes or no bikes.

Second, in the interest of full disclosure I own no stock, or have any other interest, in Harley-Davidson, or any other motorcycle company. Third, I do not now, or have I ever belonged to a motorcycle club or owned a motorcycle, although I have driven them, or, more often, on back of them on occasion. Fourth, I do not now, knowingly or unknowingly, although I grew up in working class neighborhoods where bikes and bikers were plentiful, hang with such types. Fifth, the damn things and their riders are too noisy, despite the glamour and “freedom” of the road associated with them. Sixth, and here is the“kicker”, I have been, endlessly, fascinated by bikes and bike culture as least since early high school, if not before, and had several friends who “rode”.Well that is not seventy-six but that is enough for disclaimers.

Okay, as to genesis, motorcycle genesis. Let’s connect the dots. A couple of years ago, and maybe more, as part of a trip down memory lane, the details of which do not need detain us here, I did a series of articles on various world-shaking, earth-shattering subjects like high school romances, high school hi-jinx, high school dances, high school Saturday nights, and most importantly of all, high school how to impress the girls( or boys, for girls, or whatever sexual combinations fit these days, but you can speak for yourselves, I am standing on this ground). In short, high school sub-culture, American-style, early 1960s branch, although the emphasis there, as it will be here, is on that social phenomena as filtered through the lenses of a working- class town, a seen better days town at that, my growing up wild-like-the-weeds town.

One of the subjects worked over in that series was the search, the eternal search I might add, for the great working class love song. Not the Teen Angel, Earth Angel, Johnny Angel generic mush that could play in Levittown, Shaker Heights or La Jolla as well as Youngstown or Moline. No, a song that, without blushing, one could call one’s own, our working- class own, one that the middle and upper classes might like but would not put on their dance cards. As my offering to this high-brow debate I offered a song by written by Englishman Richard Thompson (who folkies, and folk rockers, might know from his Fairport Convention days, very good days, by the way), Vincent Black Lightning, 1952. (See lyrics below.) Without belaboring the point the gist of this song is the biker romance, British version, between outlaw biker James and black-leathered, red-headed Molly. Needless to say such a tenuous lumpen existence as James leads to keep himself “biked" cuts short any long term“little white house with picket fence” ending for the pair. And we do not need such a boring finish. For James, after losing the inevitable running battle with the police, on his death bed bequeaths his bike, his precious “Vincent Black Lightning”, to said Molly. His BIKE, man. His BIKE. Is there any greater love story, working class love story, around? No, this makes West Side Story lyrics and a whole bunch of other such songs seem like so much cornball nonsense. His BIKE, man. Wow! Kudos, Brother Thompson.

Needless to say that exploration was not the end, but rather the beginning of thinking through the great American night bike experience. And, of course, for this writer that means going to the books, the films and the memory bank to find every seemingly relevant “biker” experience. Thus, readers were treated to reviews of such classic motorcycle sagas as “gonzo” journalist, Doctor Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels and other, later Rolling Stonemagazine printed “biker” stories and Tom Wolfe’ Hell Angel’s-sketched Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (and other articles about California subset youth culture that drove Wolfe’s work in the old days). And to the hellish Rolling Stones (band) Hell’s Angels “policed” Altamont concert in 1969. And, as fate would have it, with the passing of actor/director Dennis Hooper, the 1960s classic biker/freedom/ seeking the great American night film, Easy Rider. And from Easy Rider to the “max daddy” of them all, tight-jeaned, thick leather-belted, tee-shirted, engineer-booted, leather-jacketed, taxi-driver-capped (hey, that’s what it reminds me of), side-burned, chain-linked wielding, hard-living, alienated, but in the end really just misunderstood, Johnny, aka, Marlon Brando, in The Wild One.

Okay, we will cut to the chase on the plot. Old Johnny and his fellow“outlaw” motorcycle club members are out for some weekend “kicks” after a hard week’s non-work (as far as we can figure out, work was marginal for many reasons, as Hunter Thompson in Hell’s Angels noted, to biker existence, the pursue of jack-rolling, armed robbery or grand theft auto careers probably running a little ahead) out in the sunny California small town hinterlands.(They are still heading out there today, the last time I noticed, in the Southern California high desert, places like Twenty-Nine Palms and Joshua Tree.)

And naturally, when the boys (and they are all boys here, except for couple of “mamas”, one spurned by Johnny, in a break-away club led by jack-in-the-box jokester, Lee Marvin as Chino) hit one small town they, naturally, after sizing up the local law, head for the local café (and bar). And once one mentions cafes in small towns in California (or Larry McMurtry’s West Texas, for that matter), then hard-working, trying to make it through the shift, got to get out of this small town and see the world, dreamy-eyed, naïve (yes, naive) sheriff-daughtered young waitress, Kathy, (yes, and hard-working, it’s tough dealing them off the arm in these kind of joints, or elsewhere) Johnny trap comes into play. Okay, now you know, even alienated, misunderstood, misanthropic, cop-hating (an additional obstacle given said waitress’s kinships) boy Johnny needs, needs cinematically at least, to meet a girl who understands him.

The development of that young hope, although hopeless, boy meets girl romance relationship, hither and yon, drives the plot. Natch. Oh, and along the way the boys, after a few thousand beers, as boys, especially girl-starved biker boys, will, at the drop of a hat start to systematically tear down the town, for fun. Needless to say, staid local burghers (aka “squares”) seeing what amount to them is their worst 1950s “communist” invasion nightmare, complete with murder, mayhem and rapine, (although that “C” word was not used in the film, nor should it have been) are determined to “take back” their little town. A few fights, forages, casualties, fatalities, and forgivenesses later though, still smitten but unquenched and chaste Johnny (and his rowdy crowd) and said waitress part, wistfully. The lesson here, for the kids in the theater audience, is that biker love outside biker-dom is doomed. For the adults, the real audience, the lesson: nip the “terrorists” in the bud (call in the state cops, the national guard, the militia, the 82nd Airborne, The Strategic Air Command, NATO, hell, even the weren't we buddies in the war Red Army , but nip it, fast when they come roaming through Amityville, Archer City, or your small town).

After that summary you can see what we are up against. This is pure fantasy Hollywood cautionary tale on a very real 1950s phenomena, “outlaw” biker clubs, mainly in California, but elsewhere as well. Hunter Thompson did yeoman’s work in his Hell’s Angels to “discover” who these guys were and what drove them, beyond drugs, sex, rock and roll (and, yah, murder and mayhem, the California prison system was a “home away from home”). In a sense the “bikers”were the obverse of the boys (again, mainly) whom Tom Wolfe, in many of his early essays, was writing about and who were (a) forming the core of the surfers on the beaches from Malibu to La Jolla and, (b) driving the custom car/hot rod/drive-in centered (later mall-centered) cool, teenage girl–impressing, car craze night in the immediate post-World War II great American Western sunny skies and pleasant dream drift (physically and culturally). Except those Wolfe guys were the “winners”. The “bikers” were Nelson Algren’s “losers”, the dead-enders who didn’t hit the gold rush, the Dove Linkhorns (aka the Arkies and Okies who in the 1930s populated John Steinbeck’s Joad saga, The Grapes Of Wrath). Not cool, iconic Marlin-Johnny but hell-bend then-Hell Angels leader, Sonny Barger.

And that is why in the end, as beautifully sullen and misunderstood the alienated Johnny was, and as wholesomely rowdy as his gang was before demon rum took over, this was not the real “biker: scene, West or East. Now I lived, as a teenager in a working class, really marginally working poor, neighborhood that I have previously mentioned was the leavings of those who were moving up in post-war society. That neighborhood was no more than a mile from the central headquarters of Boston's local Hell’s Angels (although they were not called that, I think it was Deathheads, or something like that). I got to see these guys up close as they rallied at various spots on our local beach or “ran”through our neighborhood on their way to some crazed action. The leader had all of the charisma of Marlon Brando’s thick leather belt. His face, as did most of the faces, spoke of small-minded cruelties (and old prison pallors) not of misunderstood youth. And their collective prison records (as Hunter Thompson also noted about the Angels) spoke of “high” lumpenism. And that takes us back to the beginning about who, and what, forms one of the core cohorts for a fascist movement in this country, the sons of Sonny Barger. Then we will need to rely on our Marxist politics, and other such weapons.

*************


ARTIST: Richard Thompson
TITLE: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Lyrics and Chords

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike

A girl could feel special on any such like

Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you

It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952

And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems

Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme

And he pulled her on behind

And down to Box Hill they did ride

/ A - - - D - / - - - - A - / : / E - D A /

/ E - D A - / Bm - D - / - - - - A - - - /

Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand

But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man

I've fought with the law since I was seventeen

I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine

Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22

And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you

And if fate should break my stride

Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae

For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery

Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside

Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside

When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left

He was running out of road, he was running out of breath

But he smiled to see her cry

And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world

Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl

Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do

They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52

He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys

He said I've got no further use for these

I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome

Swooping down from heaven to carry me home

And he gave her one last kiss and died

And he gave her his Vincent to ride

His Kind Of Woman , Indeed –Howard Hughes’ “His Kind Of Woman”

 

DVD Review

His Kind Of Woman .starring Robert Mitchum, Jan Russell, Vincent Price, Raymond Burr, produced by Howard Hughes, RKO Radio Pictures, 1951

 …he, Howard Hughes, he, of the flamboyant personality, the take charge guy, the ever forward guy, whether it was stocks, inventions, planes, films, or women, particularly those last two in his heyday before he began to fear the world, fear some microbe madness, and went into splendid hiding, decided that he needed to get his, uh, prodigy, his woman, Jane Russell before the cameras. And since she, luscious brunette with a drop- dead body (drop dead in those days, those 1940s and early 1950s days, being, uh, large bosom, small waist, and wide hips, say 36-32-36 or something like that, don’t quote me on the numbers, please I could be way off, way off like I am about a lot of things with women), luscious hair, luscious eyes, luscious big ruby red lips (imagined in this black and white vehicle), luscious, looked good, could sing a little (although not enough to make a living at , unless she had some walking daddy, a walking daddy like, say, Howard Hughes who could buy the cabaret, or a string of them ), keep her lines straight a little, and could get the guys (in the movie and in the audience) thinking about those luscious things this film popped out. A comedy noir, comedy of errors for the comedy part, noir for the spiffy language and those languid looks between Jane and Robert Mitchum (Dan and Lenore in the film), if you will.

So here the skinny on the plot here and you can decide whether this thing was just a very expensive present for a wayward girlfriend looking to keep busy when not busy with Brother Hughes or something more. Now remember, as I go through the numbers, that Robert Mitchum is already in the film noir hall of fame for his little misbegotten tryst with Jane Greer in Out Of The Past so the big brawny guy with the line of patter around the woman, and the body that was built to take a beating or seven, and so he ain’t brittle, has some pretty big shoes to fill for his part. Jane, well, Jane just had to look into his eye, and well, let’s leave it as just had to look into his eyes and guys, including Mitchum, would be reaching for their sweaty handkerchiefs

Dan (Mitchum) is a professional gambler, and as such, has a seedy past, maybe has done some small jail time but mainly has to keep low, deal high and keep moving. So he hasn’t got any grieving wife or worried friends into the world. Thus a perfect guy for the caper exiled crime boss Nick has in mind (played by Raymond Burr before he got, uh, religion and started working the other side of the street as television’s Perry Mason series) who is desperate to get back into Estados Unidos to make, well, to make some big easy dough again, and to be the king hell king of the gangster night. And so Nick has an idea, an illegal idea, to be sure, but an idea. Get some stooge, give him some dough, or promise of dough, ship him off to Mexico to hide-out and use his, the stooge’s, identification to get back on jump street in the old U.S. of A. Simple. And if things don’t work out with the stooge, or he gets on his high horse well Nick has that covered, the big sleep, naturally. So that explains why Dan is down south of the border. Lenore (Russell),well, she is in sunny Mexico (Mexico before the cartels and high density shoot ‘em ups for real obviously) because, uh, she is from hunger and is ready to lay it on the line if a certain famous movie star (played by Vincent Price) is on the level and will divorce his wife. Got it.

Of course as Dan and Lenore start to steam up the screen, that certain actor’s Mrs. hit south of the border and as Dan starts to get wise to his real fate then the fireworks begin with plenty of mishaps, a few dead bodies, and the problem of Nick and his needs (or wants) get all bundled up. But know this, or know these two things. No way, no way on this good green earth is a hulk, is a street smart guy like Robert Mitchum going to go under to some cheap jack hood’s odd-ball scheme. And no way, no way in hell, are those steamy languid looks between Dan and Lenore going to go to waste by that pair not surviving whatever rotten deal was going down. So Howard you did okay, okay indeed.