cinema history class: the black cat

Session: Beastly Black and White, Week 1
Movie 1: The Black Cat (1934)
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
Four travelers, stranded by a storm, are stuck in a house where evil is the norm. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
This was bait and switch, pure and simple. The movie was marketed as Edgar Allen Poe's The Black Cat, and the opening credits indicate that it was "suggested by" the Poe classic. Bullshit. Except for the fact that is has a black cat and some people in it, this movie really borrows nothing from Poe. They could have written the cat out of the script alltogether, and there would have been no material difference. I guess they would have had to come up with a different name. Something like War's Final Victim. Hey, that sounds pretty artsy, if I do say so myself.

Now, don't get me wrong; having spent this many years watching movies in Keith's basement, I've learned not to expect Poe adaptations to adhere perfectly to their Poespiration. But all the others we've seen incorporate at least an element of the original.

Having said that, I suppose it would be unfair to judge this movie by what it's not. So now I'll focus on what it is.

I'm of a bit of a mixed mind on this. In some ways this was your standard story of people trying to survive after being stranded in a monster's castle. The castle itself has a classic spooky castle layout, but the construction is all art deco, which kind of makes it disconcerting. And it was an interesting story, but very slow-moving at times.

I enjoyed recognizing more-recent things in it, and realizing how much it influenced future productions. In many ways it felt like either a really bad episode of Star Trek (note how Karloff looked like Ruk from "What are Little Girls Made of") or a really good episode of Space 1999. Yeah, that latter one for sure. The soulless way Karloff's character navigated his way through his role reminded me of S-1999 season 1.

In addition to the regular stuff, I found a couple of interesting aspects of this movie to appreciate-- places where it filled in some of my cultural knowledge.

The first is Boris Karloff's voice. Until seeing this, I wasn't aware of what Karloff sounded like when he spoke. Now, all those pop culture high-pitched lispy monsters from pop culture make sense to me. I thought of them as kind of generic monsters, without ever stopping to question why that voice is the iconic monster voice. Now I realize that they were all Karloff impressions. Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash." Frankenberry. Innumerable monster anthology narrators -- all of them were Karloff impressions.

My other "duh" moment was a bit of dialogue. At one point, Peter (played by David Manners) says "Sounds like a lot of supernatural baloney to me." To this, Vitus (Bela Lugosi) responds, "Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, perhaps not." The clip of this exchange is incorporated into The Monkees' movie Head (which I plan to bring to class next year for Bring Your Own Movie Month). I had always known that this clip was from some old movie, but I didn't know what movie Now I do. Yay!

Ratings:
Me: 8.5
Dave: 9.95
Ethan: 9
Rich: 7 to 8
Sean 3 out of 4

cinema history class: creature with the blue hand

Session: Krazy Krimis -- Get Your Krimi On, Week 4
Movie 1: Creature with the Blue Hand (1967)
Directed by Alfred Vohrer
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A homicidal maniac with a metal hand (which has built-in claws) is killing people, and Scotland Yard is having trouble solving the string of murders. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
There's stuff to like here.

First of all, there's Klaus Kinski who is always a treat. And here he plays a sane man, which is a bit of a stretch for him. There's the murder weapon, which can be seen as a primitive precursor to the whole Wolverine thing. And the portrayal of the various and sundry residents of the asylum was entertaining.

But I just couldn't really get into this.

Ratings:
Me: 7
Dave: 9.5-9.6
Ethan: 10
Joe: 10
Sean 3 out of 4

earworm wednesday: i

lids bbq 2018

Well, the weather cooperated. We had a beautiful day for the LIDS annual picnic.

A little auction excitement

Club President Chris Petersen, hosted (how many years in a row is this?). Not that I'm complaining -- the setting is perfect, just off the bay, with a nice breeze and beautiful scenery. Her husband, Steve, handled grill duties. Several members brought lots of daylilies to auction off, and to give away (both as door prizes and plain old giveaways.

I've come to really look forward to the annual picnic -- it's a time to schmooze with other LIDS members in a relaxed atmosphere, without an agenda. And schmooze, I did. Between bites of hamburgers, hotdogs and cake. Hmmm. Maybe that explains my waistline.

The only thing I didn't like was that Blair couldn't come. She was taking Sharon to some e-Sports event in Manhattan. Not to worry though -- I ate enough for both of us. Back to that whole waistline issue...

And speaking of eating, Can someone explain to me what kind of dog won't eat hamburger?

Anyway, I came away with some plants, so tomorrow I'll be digging in the yard (hopefully before the Jamaica Estates Association Gardening Club meeting). My bounty? Glad you asked. Pictures of the daylilies are below the list:

• War Horse: I bought this at auction. I love those reds. It reminds me of Spider Man, which is my favorite.
• Allen Watts: Also at auction. I love those Hanson cultivars with the halo pattern. Funny, I was thinking that it looked a lot like Alien Data Base, which is also a Hanson. And when I looked it up, lo, I found that it's one of Alien Data Base's children.
• Frame of Reference: Also at auction. Another haloed Hanson.
• Beyond 2000: This was a freebie. I'd heard a description, and it sounded pretty.
• Trish Herr: Another freebie. Same thing
  about hearing a description.
• Cherokee Star: Another freebie. Same thing about hearing a description.
• Black Ambrosia: Thanks, Toni& Doug! I forget how it came about, but at some point Toni had promised Blair and me that she would give us some of this. I think it's because I had expressed interest in the dark purples.
• A huge hosta (I don't know which cultivar): Thanks, Pam & Luanne! I don't know how this came about, but since Blair and I have a large section of shaded yard that we've been trying to turn into a hosta bed,* this will come in handy.

War Horse

Allen Watts

Frame of Reference

Beyond 2000

Trish Herr

Cherokee Star

Black Ambrosia

*The woman we bought the house from had pachysandra there. I hate pachysandra.

two tales of a city

Ethan and I were in Boston last weekend. It was part of our plan to go to Boston.

You may be rolling your eyes, anticipating that I'll bore you with all the details of the tour. Fear not. Instead I'll just be boring you with discussion of two things we did. At the advice of Keith (who runs our horror movie class) we went on a Boston Crime Tour and a Beacon Hill Crime Tour.

Both were walking tours in which our guide took us around the designated area, telling us a variety of stories about the history of crime in the area. Both were excellent experiences -- especially if you've had your fill of duckboat rides and Faneuil Hall. But they both required a lot of walking.

But they were very different from each other.

The Beacon Hill Crime Tour, led by David Phillips, focused on -- duh -- Beacon Hill, a very wealthy area of Boston. But while the geographic area was limited (it only involved one mile of walking, though that mile included some steep hills), the scope was pretty expansive -- covering crimes from colonial times up through the 1960s. Phillips  would walk the group to a location, and then tell us a crime-related story from the area's history. The stories were discrete and self-contained; none of them were really related to each other. I should note that Phillips threw a little twist in there -- one of the stories was made up, so it was a game to figure out which one was false.

The Boston Crime tour, by contrast, was a more-expansive experience, geographically speaking. We walked about three miles in all -- starting at the Downtown Waterfront, then going up through the North End, and the West End, before ending at the sight of the Boston Massacre. While our guide, Omar Doherty, did cover some crimes from Colonial times, he focused on organized crime from the mid to late 20th century. So we heard a lot about Whitey Bulger, Stephen Flemmi and John Martorano. Rather than focusing on discrete, self-contained stories, Doherty painted a picture of a phenomenon. His tour was more of a conversation -- though that also might have been a function of the fact that Ethan and I were the only ones taking that tour. With Phillips, we were two of maybe a dozen.

While Ethan and I did do some conventional touring in Boston, I really enjoyed these less-traditional activities, and can wholeheartedly recommend them -- unless, of course, you have low tolerance for icky stories.

In case you're interested:
Beacon Hill Crime Tour
Boston Crime Tour

Tell 'em Moish sent ya.