This blog has been established to provide space for stories, comments, and reflections on old North Quincy, your thoughts or mine. And for all those who have bled Raider red.
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir Border Incident
DVD Review
Border Incident, starring Ricardo Montaban, George Murphy, directed by Anthony Mann, M-G-M, 1949
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me for their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review, which deals with the American and Mexican governments’ attempts to curb illegal immigration and those who benefit from it, the 1940s black and white B-film Border Incident, offers very little of either.
It is not for lack of interesting subject matter- the question of illegal Mexican immigrant migration is still very much with us as the news headlines scream out almost daily. Certainly the “coyotes” (illegal alien smugglers) and other social relationships (complicit farm owners, governmental agents, etc.) featured in this film are very much with us as the periodic finding of clots of dead illegal immigrants in some woe begotten deserts testifies to. It is also not for lack of trying to draw attention to the importance of the issue but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way.
Probably the biggest problem, however, and one which is seemingly endemic to the police procedural crime noir B-movie genre, is that in the attempt to earnestly portray a living social problem involving governmental action takes the life out of the film and becomes mere propaganda. I would contrast this one with, let us say, Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil, another border town-centered film and you will in one minute both get my point and get the different. If you insist on seeing this one then it is because of the great black and white gritty cinematography of the great American West landscape and some tense character-shot moments. But again Touch has all that, and more.
***Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-From Rags To Riches- John Garfield’s Blues- “Force Of Evil”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir film, Force Of Evil. DVD Review
Force Of Evil, starring John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, M-G-M, 1948
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me their plot lines stand on their own merits, although I will make some comment here. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from the late 1940s starring John Garfield, Force of Evil, offers very little of either. It is not for lack of trying but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way. And it is certainly not that John Garfield can not carry off a crime noir film. Hell, he and femme fatale Lana Turner burned up the screen in the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, a film that I will review in the near future in this series. The plot line and dialogue just got in the way here. It is as simple as that.
Here is the scoop. John Garfield, through his brother’s Great Depression-era sacrifice went to law school and became a high-priced lawyer (silly brother, right?), made the New York City big time. A Wall Street lawyer big time. Well, almost big time, because the way he got there was through a very lucrative association with a crime boss who was looking to control the numbers racket in 1940s New York City (the numbers racket, now called the lottery, is now respectably controlled by the state, whatever state) and make it a legal business like any other self-respecting capitalist adventure. The trouble is said sacrificing brother is running a numbers “bank” slated for the dustbin as part of the crime boss’s consolidation plan. Capitalism 101, okay. This makes Brother Garfield queasy and filled with self-doubts and regrets (in between bouts of greed fueled by the dough to be made by a poor boy New York City slum corner boy). The tension between those two forces (ah, good and evil, got it) aided by a “girl next store-type (good force, right?) gnawing at his innards forces dear John to come clean at the end. Especially when said crime boss, through another criminal associate, offs his brother. Like I said, a little thin in the story line.
What is not thin though, and as is usually the case when New York City is the locale, is the black and white cinematography that gives some very interesting footage to the dramatic tension here- the good versus evil thing mentioned above. Additionally “the girl next store” character almost breaks out and becomes something of a human we can recognize when money, wealth and fame enter the picture. Although she never quite does break out of the good angel stuff. Still it is always good to hear John Garfield struggling with some cosmic message in his corner boy heart. But wait and see him in Postman if you want really gritty, attention-getting performance. This one is just very, very average.
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir classic, The Maltese Falcon.
DVD Review
The Maltese Falcon, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorrie, based on the crime novel by Dashiell Hammett, directed by John Huston, Warner Brothers, 1941
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me their plot lines stand on their own merits, although I will make some comment here. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from the early 1940s, The Maltese Falcon, offer parts of both.
Generously offer parts of both here as an exemplar of the genre with one of the classic detectives of the age, Sam Spade. The plot line works because it is a prima facie, hard-boiled example of the lengths that humankind will go in pursuit of “the stuff of dreams.” As for femme fatale energy, although my personal 1940s favorite is Rita Hayworth, it is provide by the fetchingly wicked Mary Astor. Yes, I can see where old Sam Spade will jump through a few hoops, hell, many hoops, to get next to that one once she starts making her moves. Watch out Sam.
Although every serious crime noir aficionado should know the plot to this one by heart I will give a short summary for those three people in the classic crime noir world who have not seen (or read) this one-yet. It is, frankly, about a bird, and not just any bird but a historically significant gem –ladened statue of a one, and one moreover that will bring a good price on the black market where such things are traded as a matter of course. That is where the “stuff of dreams” gets everyone evolved in trouble. Who has it (or doesn’t have it), for how long, and what they will do in order to get it (and keep it) provides the driving force of this film as it did with classic noir detective writer Dashiell Hammett when he wrote it. The film is fairly true to the spirit of the novel, including much of the dialogue. Of course, along the way certain alliances are made (and unmade) as Sam Spade tries to maneuver among the parties interested in the object, including the aforementioned Mary Astor, a band of high- end brigands led by Sidney Greenstreet, and maybe others who have fallen by the wayside in pursuit.
Dashiell Hammett was known, correctly known, along with Raymond Chandler, for taking the crime detective out of the police procedural/ society amateur detective milieu and permitting their detectives to take a few punches, give a few punches, flirt with the femme fatales, and use the sparse language of the streets to bring some rough justice to this sorry old world. Sam Spade here takes more than his fair share of hits in order to make sense out of the mess that Ms. Astor brings to his door (and initially his partner, the late Miles Archer). And that is the rub. The various characters here are willing, more than willing, to murder and maim to get the damn bird and so Sam has to, on more occasions that he probably wished, weigh what to do about it. See that is where the femme fatale to muddy the waters part comes in, that damn perfume and that dangerous sassy manner that will drive a man, even a rough justice seeking man a little too close to the edge. But in the end the code of honor, or just an idea of it, drives Sam away from the perfume and back on the straight and narrow. Later when he thinks about that perfume he still will be wondering if he did the thing the right way. Ya, dames will do that to you, tough detectives or just regular joes. I know I was ready to throw my lot in with her, share of the bird or not.
Note: This will not be the last time that Humphrey Bogart played the classic noir detective. Or work with Lorrie and Greenstreet. He got his shots at playing Phillip Marlow in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. In a sense Bogart as an actor, a strange sense since he was not “beautiful,” defined that kind of detective- the “tilting at windmills” guy not too fragile to take a punch, give a dame the once over, and bring a little of that “rough justice” to the world, especially a world where the stuff of dreams went awry more often than not.
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Johnny Ace performing his classic Pledging My Love.
CD Review
The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll; Volume 6, various artists, Ace Records, 1996
Scene: Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which grace each CD in this The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The golden age of the automobile meets the golden age of al fresco dining, okay, okay pre-Big Mac dining. Sorry, I got carried away. And once I have put automobile and teen dining out together all that needs to be added is that Eddie is out, out once again, with his ever lovin’ Ginny in the Clintondale 1950s be-bop teen night, having a little something to eat after a hard teen dance and a bout of down in the Adamsville beach “submarine race” watching night.
“Two hamburgers, all the trimmings, two fries, two Cokes, Sissy,” rasped half-whispering Eddie Connell to Adventure Car Hop primo car hop (and ex-Eddie girlfriend back in junior high days when he learned a thing or two about girls, about girl charms and girl bewilderments), Sissy Jordan. For those who know not of Adventure Car Hops or car hops in general here is a quick primer. Adventure Car Hop is nothing but a old time drive-in restaurant where the car hop takes your order from you while you are sitting in your “boss” car (hopefully boss car, although the lot this night is filled with dads’ borrowed cars, strictly not boss, not boss at all) with your “boss” girl ( you had better call her that or next week she will be somebody else’s boss honey) personally and returns after, well, depends on how busy it is, and right now this in Adventure Car Hop busy time, with your order.
Now Sissy, a little older than most Clintondale car hops at twenty-two, is really nothing but a career waitress, a foxy one still, but a career waitress which is all a car hop really is. Except most are "slumming” through senior-hood at Clintondale High or some local college and are just trying to make some extra money for this and that while being beautiful. Because, and there is no scientific proof for this, but none is needed in any case, at Adventure Car Hop in the year 1962 every car hop is a fox (that beautiful just mentioned), a double fox on some nights, in their short shorts, tight blouses, and funny-shaped box hats.
And in the 1962 teen be-bop night, the teen be-bop Friday or Saturday night those foxes are magnets for every guy with a car, fathers’ car or not, without girls hoping against hope for a moment with one said car hop, and guys with girls who are looking to show off their girls, foxier even than the car hops if that is possible and usually isn’t although do not under any conditions let them know that, and, more importantly, their boss cars. And playing, playing loudly for all to hear their souped-up car radio complexes, turned nightly in rock heaven’s WJDA, the radio station choice of every teen under the age of twenty-one. And right now on Eddie's super-duplex speaker combo The Dell-Vikings are singing their hit, Black Slacks and some walkers (yes, some guys and girls, some lame guys and girls, walk to Adventure to grab something to eat after the Clintondale Majestic Theater lets out. They, of course, eat at the thoughtfully provided picnic tables although their orders are still taken by Sissy’s brigade) are crooning along to the tune. Nicely, although they are still nothing but lamos in the teen night social order.
But, getting back to Eddie and Ginny, see Sissy knows something that you and I don’t know just by the way Eddie placed his order as The Falcon’s doo wop serenade, Your So Fine, blares away from his radio in the Clintondale teen night. Sissy knows because, being a fox she has had plenty of experience (including with Eddie in the days, the junior high days when she and Eddie were nothing but walkers) that Eddie and Ginny (who was nothing but a stick when Eddie and she were an item, a stick being a girl, a twelve or thirteen year old junior high school girl with no shape, unlike say Sissy who did have a shape, although no question, no question even to Sissy Ginny has a shape now, not as good as her’s but a shape good enough to keep Eddie snagged) have been "doing it” after the spending the early evening at the Surf, the lock rock dance hall for those over twenty-one (and where is liquor is served). The tip-off: Eddie’s request for all the trimmings on his hamburgers. All the trimmings in this case being mustard, ketchup, pickles, lettuce, and here is the clincher, onions. Yes, Eddie and Ginny are done with love’s chores for the evening and can now revert to primal culinary needs without rancor, or concern.
Sissy had to laugh at how ritualized (although she would never use such a word herself to describe what was going on) the teen night life was in Clintondale (and really just slightly older teens like the clients of the Surf rock club, Eddie and Ginny, who learned the ropes at Adventure Car Hop way back when). If a couple came early, say eight o’clock they never ordered onions, no way, the night still held too much promise. The walkers, well, the walkers you couldn’t tell, especially the young walkers like she and Eddie in the old days, but usually they didn’t have enough sense to say “no onions.” And then there were the Eddies and Ginnys floating in around two, or three in the morning, done (and you know what done is now), starving, maybe a little drunk and ready to devour Benny’s (the owner of Adventure) cardboard hamburgers, deep-fried, fat-saturated French fries, and diluted soda (known locally as tonic, go figure) as long as those burgers had onions, many onions on them. And as we turn off this scene to the strains of Johnny Ace crooning Pledging My Love on Eddie’s car radio competing just now with a car further over with The Elegants’ Little Star Sissy has just place the car tray on Eddie’s side of the car and brought the order and placed it on the tray, with all the trimmings.
A YouTube film clip of the Olympics performing their classic My Baby Loves The Western Movies.
The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll: Volume 11, various artists, Ace Records, 2007
Scene: Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which grace each CD in this The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll series. This time the golden age of the automobile meets the golden age of al fresco movie watching meets teenage ingenuity. Here Fred Jackson, riding low in his father’s borrowed Plymouth is taking Betty Sue, his best friend, Zack Smith and his girl, Penny Parker, to the movies. Ya, right. In teen world this is just another name for “parking,” parking with a cardboard hamburger, stale popcorn, and ice-diluted soda intermission. But here is where the teen ingenuity part comes in. Not shown in this picture are Bud, Cindy, Lenny, and Laura who are just this minute uncomfortably lying low in the trunk of car as Freddie prepares to pay for the car-full five dollar price. Neat, right?
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“Hey, Zack come on over a little early and help me clean out the trunk of my father’s car, will you so we can fit everybody in there tonight,” Freddie yelled the into telephone on a sunny June 1960 Saturday afternoon over the blare of Lavern Baker’s be-bop Jim Dandy playing on the local rock station, the only station that matter in 1960 teen Clintondale. And as Carl Mann’s Pretend started up Zack yelled back just as loudly that he would be there, and Penny would be too. Now is this ritualistic telephone conversation the beginning of some big-time illegal criminal enterprise like using dad’s car, dad Jackson’s “boss” Plymouth to kidnap some kids for ransom and be on easy street. Well, not a bad idea but no not this night. This night is dedicated to a little party down at the Clintondale Drive-In outdoor theater. And the reason that the boss Plymouth needs to be cleaned out is that not only are Freddie and his best girl, Betty Sue, well, best girl this night, Zack and Penny going but so are Bud, Cindy, Lenny and Laura. Going courtesy of the Plymouth trunk.
As for Freddie and Betty Sue, they have been going through what Freddie calls a “rough patch” and Betty Sue only agreed to come because Freddie, promised, promised, promised on his word of honor not to try any stuff, you know boy grappling with girl stuff AND permit her when she came to his house to hear his copy of smooth Sammy Turner’s Lavender Blue which she is crazy for ever since she heard it last week on WJDA. He almost had to promise her a million listen peek at Jivin’ Gene’s Breaking Up Is Hard To Do but Freddie negotiated his way out of that one by reference to that rough patch and “let’s not stir that up again, okay?”
Now this four-in-a-trunk gag has been around since, well since teens have had access to cars, there have been outside drive-in theaters to go parking in, and most drive-ins have had a policy of charging admission by the car-full. Forever maybe, but if you ask anybody how they coped to the idea they probably could go back no farther than some older brother or sister getting them “hip.” And what of the morality, the corruption of morality, and the corruption of youth’s morality done irreparable harm to by gypping the theater owner of his due? Well, the argument back is that he makes plenty on the cardboard steamed hamburgers, the desiccated hot dogs, the stale, barely-buttered pop corn and the heavily-diluted soda (known in Clintondale as tonic, why is anybody’s guess).
But we will move alone right now because Freddie and Zack trunk cleared out, Penny and Betty Sue clipping their fingernails or something, watching, are ready to pick up the others down at Big Ben’s Pizza Parlor where they will have some real pizza and soda (tonic) to tide them over until movie time intermission. So as they drive off to Big Ben’s we see Betty Sue fidgeting with father Jackson’s radio dials trying to get that awful news hour stuff off and some real gone music, rock music on. Finally, although ready to punch the radio for not cooperating, Betty Sue finally gets ‘JDA as dreamy Matilda by Cookie and His Cupcakes comes on. Free, at last.
The details of the arrangements of the various stow-way couples need not detain us here, in any case that information is not for the prying eyes of the public, the parent public, the authorities public. Let them find there own way into the drive-in, hell they will probably pay full price. We will pick up Freddie, et. al as they are waiting in line to pay their admission, acting cool and listening to ‘JDA tunes. Just then Penny and Betty Sue, as if in some secret girl pact of their own design, beyond boy comprehension, start singing along with Mickey& Sylvia on their Love Is Strange coming over the airwaves. Freddie and Zack look at each other as if to say, this night was not made in heaven.
What was made in heaven though was the ease with which after paying the five bucks admission Freddie guided his car to the back of the drive-in, the unofficially designated “teen night area” (no parent, especially not parent with minor children would go within fifty yards of that place), unloaded his refugees, and made conversation with drivers unloading other trunks in the be-bop Clintondale teen night. Easy stuff, very easy. And the rating of the movies? What movies?
Note: For those who are barely unable to contain themselves about the fate of Freddie and Betty Sue. Well that Mickey& Sylvia sing-along must have had some therapeutic effect because at intermission, or just after consuming one of those desiccated hot dogs Betty Sue hearing Collay and the Satellites sing Last Chance on the car radio turned around to Zack and Penny in the back seats and said, defiantly, “let’s switch.” And that night the solemnly imposed and sworn to "no boy grappling girl" rule went out the window.
Click on the headline to link to an earlier entry from the American Left History blog on the condition of 1960s folk revival singer Jesse Winchester.
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I'm sorry to announce that I'm cancelling my shows for the rest of this year. I have been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, and will have to undergo treatment for the next couple of months. I'm very sorry if any plans have been disrupted; I do hope to see you again soon, and we'll pick up where we left off.
Update: The other day my doctor asked how I was feeling. "Pretty rough, Doctor. But it's a funny thing - I have these strange moments of euphoria."
"Well, it's not from anything I've been doing." He has a very fine, wry sense of humor.
The truth is, it is what he and you have been doing. Your messages of love and support have been more touching than I can possibly tell you. You are causing my feelings of euphoria. Thank you - I love you so much.
I have cross-posted this message to the Caring Bridge web site.
A YouTube film clip of Iris Dement performing After You're Gone.
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
“’Cause I’ve memorized each line in your face, and not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me”-a line from the folksinger/songwriter Iris DeMent’s hauntingly beautiful song, After You’re Gone. (You can Google for the rest of the lyrics. Some of her music is on YouTube but I could not find this one.)
Well, of course, those hard-wire lyrics only apply to our male classmates. After all Iris is singing about her gone man. He long gone but not forgotten man. I do not, this age of sexual equality notwithstanding, want to extend their application to our sister classmates because I do not need to have every cyber-stone in the universe thrown at me. But those same lyrics do bring me to the purpose for today’s comment. As part of getting a 'feel' for writing about our days at old North Adamsville High I have perused some of the class profiles this infernal 1964 class committee that keeps badgering me for ever more information has provided me. Apparently once you answer a couple of off-hand questions about your doings (or not-doings) over the past half century you are fair game for every possible form of interrogation. Interrogations that would shame even the most hardened CIA or NSA bureaucrat. I don’t know about you but I am thinking of hiring a lawyer and putting a stop to this maddening harassment, and possible constitutional violation. But that is a subject for another day. For now, forward.
A number of you have placed your current photos on the profile pages thoughtfully provided by said committee, although a number of people, including myself, are apparently camera-shy. I admit to not being particularly camera-shy but rather to being something of a technological luddite (look that word up on Wikipedia if you do not know it) in that I do not own the digital camera required to upload a snappy photo, have no immediate intention of owning one, and would, moreover be helpless to do such a tortuous task as uploading a photo. Truth. Some, however, like the Chase brothers are not. Not camera shy or apparently luddites that is. (By the way, Jim and John, and others as well, what is up with wearing hats these days? We are Kennedy-era boys and hats most definitely were not part of our uniform.) Or like born again "muscle man" (read: huge) Bill Bailey, the star cross country runner and track man our class, whom I have has previously written about in this space as slender-strided and gracefully-gaited. That photo-readiness on the part of some classmates forms the basis for my comment. Those who are photo-less can breathe a sigh of relief-for now.
I have to admit that I have been startled by some of the photos. Many of them seem to have been taken by your grandchildren just before their naps. Or maybe by you just before your naps, or some combinations of the two especially for those who are performing grandparental (is their such a word?) duty as “babysitters” in a world where both parents are forced by hard-time circumstances to work to make ends meet these days. Isn’t the digital age supposed to have made the camera instantly user-friendly? Why all the out-of-focus, soft-focus, looking through a fish tank or a looking- glass kind of shots. And why does everyone seem to be have been photographed down the far end of some dark corridor or by someone about six miles away? Nobody expects Bachrach-quality photos but something is amiss here [ Bachrach’s was the photograph studio that took our individual class pictures for those who don’t remember or didn’t otherwise know-Markin]
In contrast, a new arrival on this class committee profile page interrogation wall (sorry), Robert Flatley, has found just the right approach. Initially, Robert placed a recent shot of himself on his profile page. Frankly, the old codger looked like he was wanted in about six states for “kiting” checks, or maybe had done a little “time” in some far-off county farm or state prison for armed robbery. More recently, however, his page has been graced with a stock photo provided by the site, a tastefully-shot, resplendent wide old oak tree. Automatically I now associate Robert with the tree of life, with oneness with the universe, with solidity, with the root of matter in him, and with bending but not breaking. Wise choice, Brother Flatley. Now, moreover, I do not have to suppress a need to dial 911, but rather can think of Robert as one who walks with kings, as a sage for the ages. And nothing can ever erase the story that tells to me.
Artist: Dement Iris
Song: After You're Gone
Album: Infamous Angel Iris Dement Sheet Music
There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons to face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorised each line in your face,
And not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me.
I'll miss you.
Oh, how I'll miss you.
I'll dream of you,
And I'll cry a million tears.
But the sorrow will pass.
And the one thing that will last,
Is the love that you've given to me.
There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons and I'll face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorized each line in your face,
And not even death could ever erase the story they tell to me.
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