NEWS FROM PLANET FRIGIA

FRIGIA — (An outer space adventure fraught with imminent danger.)  Capt. Flash Zarkin reports that the expedition to the lost planet of Frigia had its anxious moments as the Electronic Stability Control (skid) light blinked wildly on the module of the Dodge space vehicle.  The air in the space capsule was quite “blue” as  Dr. Zarkor swore never to return to this remote planet lacking “any intelligent life.”   But that wasn’t entirely true since Frigia’s Princess Fria was hosting at Lund’s & Byerly’s deli on France Avenue.  The normally cheerful Princess muttered something about leaving this “frozen hell hole” for a more hospitable planet where icicles don’t hang from the eyebrows.  Could that be Mongo where the crazed Ming the Merciless rules until the third week of January?  Hello Mongo, goodbye Fria! (Next chapter: Zarkor Meets the Death Ray).

 

Weber Book As Related to Urban Renewal in 60s

The University of Minnesota Mapping Project which documented systematic racial segregation through racial covenants and redlining has been “‘the single most important recent gift to Minneapolis,” according to Tom Weber in his book “Minneapolis, an Urban Biography.”  Having been a student in a summer’s class on this eye opening topic, I agree.  Furthermore, before it was Minneapolis it was Dakota land and “we newcomers have generally been rotten guests,” he added.

Urban renewal here resulted in demolition of the historic Metropolitan Bldg.  Whereas, Boise enhanced it’s ethnic downtown diversity (Basque block) and didn’t demolish any businesses that made downtown attractive. Less is more in the case of Boise vs. Minneapolis. 

Minneapolis: White and Black neighbors didn’t “just happen,” but were the result of long standing processes carried out thousands of local residents and overseen “by exclusive leadership in the city.”

Pain & Glory, Bundle of Joy, Mpls Bio

 Spanish director Almodovar’s 2019 film “Pain and Glory” could be autobiographical about the life of a gay movie director growing up in rural Spain and then experiencing first love in Madrid.  What hit me hard was the vibrant interior colors; orange, red, purple and green.  Very Mediterranean.  It’s a tonic for the pandemic grey day winter blues. 

CINDERELLA. It’s Christmas Eve, a time honored tradition where I watch America’s cutest couple — Eddie and Debbie — in RKOScope’s “Bundle of Joy,” a lovely Cinderella story for the holiday.  Our Debbie, a newly minted mom, has been fired from her department store job but is saved by the handsome prince, Eddie, who’s the son of the boss.  Several catchy tunes carry the story including a jitterbug contest with Debbie, 7 months pregnant then, flying through the air of the RKO soundstage.

Kudos to Tom Weber for his recent book, “Minneapolis, an Urban Biography,” with a chapter on local discrimination, which was infamous.  White and Black neighbors didn’t “just happen,” but were the result of long standing processes carried out thousands of local residents and overseen “by exclusive leadership in the city.”

CITIZEN KANE, MANK

MANK. Income inequality and blatant disregard for the working class may have prompted Herman J. Mankiewicz (Mank) to write a screenplay in 1940 that Orson Welles crafted into the greatest movie ever made, “Citizen Kane.”   With Hearst’s fairy-tale lifestyle and conspicuous consumption exemplified by his monumental San Simeon Castle, Mank had the incentive to craft a compelling screenplay.

You don’t need to know the back story to appreciate the Netflix movie “Mank” where the writer’s angst builds around W. R. Hearst’s newspapers brutal propaganda against progressive author and gubernatorial candidate Upton Sinclair.  Fueling Mank’s fire is movie mogul L. B. Mayer, state GOP party chair, who produced phony “newsreel” interviews with “voters” that further destroy Sinclair’s chances. The specter of “socialism” is the dog whistle employed then as it is now by the Republicans.  

Watch “Mank” in tandem with “Citizen Kane” where in an interview with the reporter “Jed,” played by Joseph Cotton, the case against Hearst/Kane is candidly stated. (“He did brutal things.”)  “Mank” connects the dots on the CK puzzle that has entertained many for almost 80 years.  For more on Hollywood writers, watch “Trumbo” and “The Player.”https://www.netflix.com/title/81117189

Racism, The Crown, More

 CONSORTIUM TAKEAWAY:  Ellen Kennedy, World Without Genocide, said “terrible things are happening here…legal systems needed to protect vulnerable from harm with the  rollback of LGBT rights in US and murders of transgender people here.  We need to get involved.  Upper Midwest Consortium for Holocaust and Genocide Education and Research held this webinar Tuesday: The Holocaust: An Introduction From 4 Perspectives. http://worldwithoutgenocide.org/

 MUST SEE DOCUMENTARY, GRANITO:  Suggested by Paula Cuellar Cuellar in my U of Minn. OLLI class on human rights in Central America and available on DVD.   Where do US foreign aid checks go?  Under Reagan, the Guatemalan militay junta received USA tax dollars and practiced genocide against Mayan indigenous people in Guatemala.  A trial in Spain convicted several in the military of genocide.  The elites confiscated the Mayan farmers’ land.  Fearing that the Mayans would act to reclaim their property, the military murdered the natives.

Boston University humanities professor Ibram X. Kendi writes:  “If racism is eliminated, many White people in the top economic and political brackets fear that it would eliminate one of the most effective tools they have at their disposal to conquer and control and exploit not only non-Whites, but also both low-income and middle-income White people.”

Plan to read National Book Award winner “Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive Hisotry of Racist Ideas in America.”https://www.ibramxkendi.com/stamped

In the Netflix movie “Fruitvale Station” a Black man is ordered off a train in the Bay Area and then is shot by a cop.  No white people were asked to leave the train.  What would you have done if you were standing next to the deceased man?  To get a perspective, read George Yancy’s book, “Backlash: what happens when you talk honestly about racism in America.”  Take away:  we can’t continue to hide behind “white privilege.”http://georgeyancy.com/

MOMMIE DEAREST.  In the fourth season of  The Crown, all four of the royal adult children are summoned to the palace for separate audiences with the Queen who is sobered by their anger and frustration.  With three million British working class people jobless, the Queen is not in a charitable mood to entertain Prime Minister Thatcher when she comes to call.  Furthermore, Charles temperament regarding Princess Diana makes him a dubious choice for king and crown.https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/margaret-thatcher-queen-elizabeth-face-190357479.html

Sam G. Obit; Nightcrawler Review, Trump Call

IN WHICH WE SERVE.  Sam was a spry 96-year-old twice widowed World War Two veteran working out daily on his rowing machine, resurfacing the garage floor of his suburban home and tending the garden with the help of handyman Adrian.

Sam signed up as a teenager and served in the Pacific with the USN Construction Batallion (Seabees) where on a small island he would rendezvous with his cousins and fellow servicemen Louie Agranoff (Marine Corps) and my late uncle, Morrie Zarkin, a USN cook on a mine sweeper.

On the GI Bill he attended a business school where he graduated in accounting and worked for Minneapolis employers. The son of Russian immigrants, his mother and father were brother and sister to my father’s parents who moved from Minneapolis to Spokane, Wash., in the 1930s.  

Sam’s family remained in Minneapolis where he grew up in a Franklin Avenue neighborhood.

I first met Sam, his second wife Shirley and his two youngest children, Merryl and Arthur, in September 1969 when I arrived from Idaho and bunked with them for about three days before moving to a dorm at the University of Minnesota for graduate studies.  Sam and the kids gave me a tour of the Foshay Tower and Nicollet Mall and I went canoeing on Lake Harriet with Arthur on a perfect Indian summer’s day.

About five years ago I was reunited with Sam and Shirley for monthly dinners at nearby restaurants and then after Shirley passed away Sam and I lunched at the Jewish Community Center and Park Tavern.  I last saw him for lunch this past February and he called me most every Friday to wish me well for several months during the pandemic.

Words to live by from Sam:  Keep a step ahead of the grim reaper.  And he was successful doing that for 96 years. DAZ (Sam was my link to Uncle Morrie and the Greatest Generation and how the war influenced their lives.)

POWER. Get perspective on Trumpism,  See the 2014 film noir Nightcrawler wherein a sleazy photographer mouthing corporate jargon gains power in an LA TV newsroom by selling sensational crime news footage that can be marketed as suburban middle class families being victimized by inner city drug gangs, a distortion of the truth.   Viewership ratings that dictate news content are the catalyst to insure success for the this creepy photographer character played with conviction by Jake Gyllenhaal.   Well-schooled news gatekeepers who can see through his crude extortion attempts play his game, his way.  A nod to ethics and morality is given by a newsroom editor.  Hair-raising chase scenes in a red 2014 Dodge Challenger SRT are reminiscent of Steve McQueen in the “Bullet” Mustang.  

TRUMP CALL.  A rather hysterical Trump paced a robocall to me at 4:15 pm Tuesday with garbage about Biden and then a voice said if I wanted to make a donation, press 3 so I did.  I engaged the donation guy in idle chatter.  He said he was calling from DC, but not the White House.  He hung up on me when I offered to “donate to the defense fund for the tax evasion charge.”  Charles Koch’s group is supposed to know my voting record and social media leanings so Trump Inc. must be desperate.  I should have offered to send Stormy Daniels a check.

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has made global warming climate -change a taboo topic for Republicans because of the Koch network’s funding of candidates who favor fossil fuel industries.  Read more about this issue in Sen. Sheldon Wintehouse’s book, “Captured.”  Support Move to Amend to overturn Citizens United.

2020 PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

FIRST DEBATE.  Trump continued to slash and burn his way through the charred remains of what passes for US democracy with his subversive outbursts while VP Biden appealed to viewers directly that the future of health care insurance here hinges on their votes.  

Ignorance holds back Trump from making plans for the COVID pandemic and health insurance, Biden observed, but then we already knew that.

Some Facebook contributors hoped that Biden would be a no show for the debate, but that would have been a poor strategy.  One of the Brown Institute Mpls. technicians could install a remote off-on switch on Trump’s microphone that the director could activate to give these proceedings less of a “wrestle royal” ambience.  Chris Wallace was dysfunctional as the moderator, often contributing to the chaos.

Sixty years ago when I was but a frat boy at the Univ. of Wash. the takeaway from the Nixon-Kennedy debate was Nixon’s corpse-like appearance.  Trump seemed to take that to heart and was well marinated in his trademark orange gel and $70,000 hair stylings which I am sure the Two Harbors gang appreciated.  Bottom line the debate was unsettling like drinking strong coffee before going to bed. 

Bad Boys, Richard Crenna, more

LUST IN RED DUST.  “I’ve been with her kind since my voice changed,” says the rubber plantation Romeo in the 1932 Gable-Harlow classic film “Red Dust.”  I first saw this pre-code gem at a storefront retro theater in the UC Berkeley district in 1964. Memorable lines include: “What did you eat, cement,” Harlow queries a parrot as she cleans his cage. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023382/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

BAD BOY MAGNETS.  Lustful parks fly between Lana Turner and Robert Taylor in the 1941 classic “Johnny Eager” wherein the villian practices manipulation to unheard of heights.  A similar character was played by Lawrence Tierney as ‘The Hoodlum” in 1951 at Eagle Lion.  Loathsome anti-heroes generally meet an untimely demise but are magnets for the ladies in these films. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033774/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

ACTOR RICHARD CRENNA had a very long career starting in the 1940s as Walter Denton on CBS Radio’s Our Miss Brooks, then co-staring with Julie Andrews in the 60s in the ill-fated “The Star.”  Crenna’s character was the love interest for blonde bombshell Cleo Moore in “Over-Exposed” and finally in 1981 he was Kathleen Turner’s inconvenient and doomed husband in “Body Heat.”  Coincidentally he was the lead in the TV remake of “Double Indemnity.”  Miss Brooks or Osgood Conklin should have counseled him about dangerous women. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001077/bio 

SAD CLOWN — Writing this I listen to the theme from “Limelight” composed by Charlie Chaplin for the film of the same name.  Travel down that road with Robert Downey Jr. in the timeless film “Chaplin”.  His art was slapstick plus poliical commentary.  Chaplin didn’t have Trump to lampoon but he was pursued by another monster, his nemesis J. Edgar Hoover.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103939/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

CLASSIC GABLE. Director Frank Capra thumbs his nose at the censors with this “Persian walls” blanket on a clothes line scene.  Spoiled rich girl leaves home, meets an aggressive news hound and experiences dignities of the common folk. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025316/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

TRANSFORMATIONS.  In this ’56 blockbuster drama a character holding racist attitudes begrudgingly learns that brown-skinned people have the right to inhabit Texas alongside whites.  The female lead played by Elizabeth Taylor is the catalyst for this miraculous transformation in the Hollywood spin on the Edna Ferber novel.  Many viewers are attracted to the “Giant” DVD because it’s James Dean’s final film and the tea party scene with Ms. Taylor and Dean is memorable and shocking.

Director George Stevens shows how Texas is transformed from a beautiful prairie into an ugly mess of oil wells.  The Dean character is the catalyst for this giant change. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049261/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE.  Our Liz has a trunk full of stolen cash in her car and is headed for the border leaving LA littered with the corpses of 2 or 3 men she has murdered in recent days.  Here’s a delightful film noir with stalwarts of the gender, Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea. https://www.flickeralley.com/too-late-for-tears-lizabeth-scott-triumphs-in-an-underrated-noir-classic/

REBUILDING lives after tragedy including monsoon, earthquake and an epidemic is the theme of the 1939 epic drama The Rains Came with Tyrone Power and Myrna Loy.  Ty is the  go to guy in a storm, according to this movie.  Kind of a timely film.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031835/

DANCING HOODS.  Yes, teen hoodlums dance and very well in “West Side Story,” a tale of love, hate and tragedy.  After more than 50 years, it’s still amazing.  A remake is anticipated. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055614/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3

1944 was a big year for Hollywood noir with Double Indemnity and The Woman in the Window.  Both feature Edward G. Robinson who plays a professor who is fascinated with Joan Bennett in Window.  Dan Duryea recreates the creepy character that was his trademark. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037469/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2

“HISTORY is a commentary on the various incapabilities of men,” says a character played by Frances De La Tour in the engaging British comedy “History Boys.”  Centered around preparing for entrance exams to Oxford, the boys exchange lively banter.  Dominic Cooper, Richard Griffith and James Corday are part of the cast that appeared in this West End play before it was a movie. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464049/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1

TIMELY FILM.  James Edward Olmos gives a very nuanced performance as a high school math teacher in the outstanding American Playhouse film “Stand and Deliver.”  The racist dismissal of students of color is explored in “Stand and Deliver” (1988) wherein the students are taking tests in calculus for Advanced Placement college credits.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094027/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

British Realism in 60s & Carry On

FROM BRITAIN — A customer at HMV on Regal St. in London in ’98 advised me that “Carry on Matron” was a good choice.  I bought it (5.99 pounds) and transfered it to the US standard when I got home.  (At that time, VHS tapes of this series were not available in the US).  After more than 20 years the tape is OK (not in Hi Fi).

Hattie Jacques as the hospital matron stole the film from Sidney James and the rest of the Carry On cast with their naughty, slapstick, low brow humor.  Carry On is an acquired taste and I am sure many viewers are repulsed with their over the top gags.  I got the bug while a student at  the U of Wash. seeing “Carry on Nurse” at a University District theater.

Sixties British films often dealt with working class struggles and “Leather Boys” is a prime example with Rita Tushingham as the romantic lead.  This is worth a look as is Georgy Girl and Alfie (original with Michael Caine.)  UK films vs Hollywood comdies — realism vs fantasy. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068339/ 

DARK CITY, MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM

FINDING SHELL BEACH.  “Dark City” (1998) got mixed reviews and tanked at the box office, but then so did Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent classic “Metropolis.”  Dark City director/producer Alex Proyas has given moviegoers a mind-bending neo-expressionist classic that could prompt nightmares for a week of Sundays.  A real trip, I was swept along by this gem in wide screen and surround sound DVD that I found in early March for $1.50 at McCarron Lake’s thrift store.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrGSLMl1XFs

Yet another restoration for the 1933 horror classic “Mystery of the Wax Museum,” Tom Weaver reports in the July 2020 edition of Classic Images magazine.  The new blu-ray avoids the blue night scenes and garish pink skin tones seen in the 2000 restoration by Turner Video, which I scored at Brand Name Deals liquidation store several years ago.  Wax Museum is very neo-expressionist with dark street scenes.  The 50s remake House of Wax featured Vincent Price in 3-D which I saw at the Walker a few years ago.

LUNCH WITH JANE POWELL.

  I should have said, “Keith Andes would have been a better choice over Cliff Robertson in your ’58 RKO Radio musical “The Girl Most Likely” but I kept still.  We dined at the same picnic table — me, Jane and comedian Louis Nye in the summer of ’63 in the alley between the Burbank NBC studios on Buena Visa Blvd.  I was an “editorial assistant” at NBC KNBC News then.

Jane and Louis were apparently at NBC to rehearse a nightclub act and were deep in discussion.  Food service at NBC was meager—a food truck with bad sandwiches and a picnic table, but it was a hot spot for gossip from technicians who would gab about Judy and June being drunk during taping of Judy’s CBS show recently.  Who was Dinah sleeping with now?

In “the girl” movie, Andes was a knockout in a song and dance Tijuana number with Jane, Kay Ballard and dancer Kelly Browne.  He also was the co-star with Lucille Ball in the Broadway musical “Wildcat,” was the romantic interest with Linda Darnell in RKO’s “Blackbeard the Pirate” and was the boyfriend of Marilyn Monroe in RKO’s “Clash by Night” drama.  The man was talented. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050438/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1

Growing Up Absurd with Bernie Chantecleer

YOU’RE A BIG BOY NOW.  Coppola’s first big budget movie defined me in 1967 wherein a suburban nebish escapes a clininging mother (Geraldine Page) to sample the temptations of New York City.  With the Lovin’ Spoonful (John Sebastian) on the soundtrack it had a subversive counter culture tone. Peter Kastner is the big boy.   

Big Boy Bernie is introduced to drugs by his shallow, poet co-worker (Tony Bill) and promptly falls for a man-hating actress/go go dancer (Elizabeth Hartman).  Memorable scenes:  a quick tour of sleazy sex shops in Time Square, flying a kite in Central Park on a sunny day and the off-Broadway risque play “The Department Store.”  

Memorable line:  Bernie learned from his parents “self loathing and self doubt.”

I ordered the VHS tape from Sun Coast Video in 1992 at Southdale and bought the soundtrack LP at a Woolworth’s in 1972.  

Big Boy was overshadowed a few months after it debuted by another coming of age comedy, The Graduate, which was dark LA while Big Boy is whimsical NYC.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_a_Big_Boy_Now

Shock Corridor, Long Voyage Home, East Side Kids, KBOI

WHAT WAS playing at the Bijou on the day you were born?   

While I was working my way down the birth canal, New Yorkers were queing up at United Artists’ Rivoli Theater to see the much acclaimed premier of “The Long Voyage Home,” adapted from a Eugene O’Neil short story.  Aqui es la vida!

No use crying of spilled popcorn.  So I said to myself:   “Relax kid.  You can catch it on VHS in 40 years.”  

Truth be told, ’40 may have not been such a great movie year in the shadow of 1939 with Gone With the Wind, The Hunchback of Norte Dame and more.  It was somewhat reminiscent of now.  War was raging in Europe and it would soon engulf us, sending Dad to Japan with the Allied Occupation Forces.

(Ironic that the movie “Childbirth” was also playing in NYC.  I am sure that was a gas!)

EAST SIDE KIDS — The character Muggs Malone played by Leo Gorcey in the East Side Kids comedies bears a striking resemblance to the contemporary Gorilla and Chief in DC.  

Muggs was the ad hoc leader of the hooligans in these 1940s Monogram films and considered himself an “expert” on most everything.  Of course he was a dunce like his pals.  

Muggs was famous for malaprops, like “It’s a lovely sediment.”  Typically his leadership resulted in out of control anarchy and confusion.  Sound familiar?

Their best film featured Bela Lugosi — “Spooks Run Wild” — (1941) with lots of slapstick comedy in a “haunted” house.  A sequel, “Ghosts on the Loose,” featured lovely Ava Gardner and Lugosi and is less hilarous. The “kids” kept Monogram Pictures afloat until the mid-40s when it became Allied Artists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Gorcey

HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND.  Where did you first see this? Who were you with and what did you think about it?  What was your favorite line?  The Vietnam war was playing in the background.

I first saw it at the Vista on the Boise Bench by myself which wasn’t unusual then.  Memorable line:  Dad to Ben: “What are you doing?”   Ben:  “Drifting, just drifting.”  This defined that moment in my life — doing rewrites on Little Britches Rodeo, fender benders and obits.  (In later years I saw the Statesman as the defining time in my life.)

That summer I saw this movie again at the Tops in downtown Caldwell and then again in ’69 at the Midway in St. Paul.  Bought the VHS and then the DVD, which has an insightful interview with Hoffman.

BOISE WAKEUP MAN.  Marty Holtman was the fast talking morning wakeup DJ on KBOI (950 CBS)  when I lived and worked in Boise in the 60s.  Holtman was a standout in flyover land.  Hub Warner, very low key, did afternoon drive.  Lon Dunne did mornings on KIDO (NBC) and recorded a soundtrack to a pollution slide show I did for the Capitol Jaycess.  

Holtman is featured in a photo in a VW Beattle doing a promotion for the movie “Love Bug.”  The photo is in “History in the Headlines,” the Idaho Statesman story.

By 1969 KBOI moved to about 670 on the dial and 50,000 watts, continuing with MOR music.  Holtman is featured in a November 2019 featured in the impressive Idaho Press. 

SCHOCKER.  When I was a flunky at NBC News in 1963, I got a lot of press preview passes for movies and I went to all of them.  I remember little about most except Allied Artists’ “Shock Corridor” which doesn’t fit neatly in any a catagory, film noir or horror? I saw it in a suburban bank auditorium, possibly in Glendale.   I have seen this Samuel Fuller epic several times since and it is crazy wonderful.

Casablanca, Hollywood, Citizen Kane, K-tel, The Oscar

HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, KID.  It feels like we’re in a war so why not immerse myself in war-time movies and music.  Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains were a good place to start since they are outstanding in “Notorious” and “Casablanca.”  These two classics form a super double feature.  

WORKOUT MUSIC.  Hit after Hit Today’s Top Tracks audio casette from K-Tel (1986) is an ideal soundtrack for aerobics videos like those from YMCA 360.  If you like REO’s “Can’t Fight the Feeling,” Patti Labell’s “New Attitude” and more then you are on your way to wonderland.

An amazing casette from a company that was located in a nearby suburb. 

(K-tel was far more than a record label. Sure, the brand made its name selling disco compilations and Hooked on Classics tapes through television ads, but K-tel also pushed a plethora of quirky products. It was a true pioneer of the "As Seen on TV" phenomenon.)

WHAT IF …. In 1947 a Hollywood studio was run by a woman and produced a film with an interracial love affair and Anna May Wong won an Oscar?  That’s the story line on Ryan Murphy’s most provocative series, “Hollywood” on Netflix.  (I binged on the comings and goings of Jack Costello, Rock Hudson and more this weekend.  Call me crazy!)

THE OSCAR.  The lead character Frankie Fane in this 1966 movie is actually a thinly veiled Sinatra.  It took me two viewings of this frothy drama to figure it out, but the ironic ending when real life Sinatra accepts an Oscar is a device to divert us from the inspiration for this melodrama. It’s Sinatra, of course, in his Rat Pack days, punching out guys and being unfaithful to his wife. 

WHAT IF Orson Welles hadn’t portrayed Marion Davies as a lush in “Citizen Kane”?  Might Hearst have ignored the indulgence of a 24-year-old and not declared war against Welles?

By the 1950s the world had rediscovered CK through re-releases with the realization that this was a cinematic masterpiece. 

 And by 2011 Warner released a two-DVD set with a 4K restoration of CK and a super documentary, “The Battle Over Citizen Kane,” from PBS,

In retrospect, Welles, with his career ruined, wished he had left Hollywood after CK and pursued his writing, theater and politics.

Hearst, after destroying Welles, was remembered as Welles portrayed the “fictional” character Charles Foster Kane — an angry tyrant.  Susan assembling the pieces of a puzzle is symbolic in that the Kane story is a puzzle.

PALM SPRINGS PARTY

FABULOUS PARTY.  I was lucky enough to be Cousin Jan’s guest in about 2003 to the 80th birthday party of the Fabulous Ruth.  Performing were Frankie Randall (at the piano) and legendary folk singer from the 60s Trini Lopez (left).  

Fabulous Ruth belted out a rendition of a saucy cabaret number as well at this event in the fabulous Ritz Hotel, Palm Springs.

Frankie sounded much like that other Frankie on this 1966 RCA Victor album and Randall may have been part of the Rat Pack in better days.  Randall headlined an unfortunate low budget movie, Wild on the Beach, with Sherry Jackson and Sonny and Cher.  He also was a DJ on the network radio broadcast Music of Your Life that was heard on KLBB, Twin Cities.  

I had originally heard Randall perform in 1963 at a Sunset Blvd. bar in LA with my roomie John Miller when we lived in Glendale and I was working at NBC News.

Did I say this was “fabulous”?

GLEASON AS RILEY WORTH VIEWING

Although SLP mode, very viewable.

GLEASON.  Before he became Mr. Saturday Night on CBS, Jackie Gleason was very effective in 1949 in the Life of Riley on the Dumont Network.  The “Tonsils” episode where he seeks out a stranger for advice prior to his tonsilectomy is hilarious. 

Gleason underplays in every one of these filmed (not kinescope) episodes, unlike the boisterous personna of his more famous self. (Much of the nation never saw these episoldes because they lacked a Dumont affiliate or more importantly a TV set.)

New York City's WPIX, Channel 11, resurrected THE LIFE OF RILEY series in February 1977 and played it only on weekends during the 11 p.m. to midnight time slot, following Gleason's ever popular THE HONEYMOONERS. It remained on that channel for the next few years before being moved to 5 a.m. and disappearing from TV land once again by 1986.  If you didn’t live in NYC, you missed it.

Buildings I Have Known

RELEVANT BUILDINGS, WEST COAST.  KCET (TV) used to be the Los Angeles PBS station and was housed in the old Monogram Pictures lot and soundstages.  I learned to love Monogram movies: King of the Zombies, The Corpse Vanishes, Charlie Chan, Gale Storm and the East Side Kids.  This site, where Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi worked, was also the Mack Sennett studios in the silent era and now is owned by Scientology.

I learned how to be a news reporter while working in the KXLY Bldg. which was was a dump compared to this structure north of the river.  Working with Bobbi Ulrich, we would cover murder trials, Idaho forest fires and routine stuff for UPI in a cubicle buried in the old KXLY studios near the Realty Bldg.

Hello Frisco, Goodbye.  (lower right corner)  I had arrived in Idaho at the Statesman, 6th and Bannock, across from a park and City Hall, starting as a night copy editor, headline writer and reporter before graduating to local government reporter where I won a national award for environmental reporting.  I was living in a boarding house a short distance away near what now is the hospital.  I still have a couple of friends in Boise.

Carnival of Souls

ZOMBIE CITY

On a trip to Salt Lake City a few years ago, I convinced Mike that we needed to see Saltair, the site of the 1962 cult classic movie, “Carnival of Souls.”  Here I am at the rebuilt palladium and below is the historic building that burned down sometime after the film was released.  

I was pumped up about this destination from an article in Ford Times that I read when I was working at The Statesman in Boise.  The SLC library has a book on Saltair’s history.  Herk Harvey (producer-director) was sufficiently inspired seeing the deserted amusement park that he enterprised a movie based on the total spookiness of the site. I bought the Image DVD in SLC but Criterion may also market a DVD on COS.

ALOHA FROM KAWIKA

I didn’t get it right at the ’91 party in Honolulu so I did a week long refresher in 2017 aboard the Pride of America where I was given a Hawaiian name, Kawika.

The Star Advertiser reports today:  Hawaii recorded its third death from the virus “on Friday as state officials activated up to 250 troops from the Hawaii National Guard to help with airport screenings and other tasks in the battle against the growing pandemic that has topped 300 cases in the islands.”

JAZZ SINGER CINCOTTI

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PETER CINCOTTI?  I was excited as a teenager in August 2003 at The Dakota in St. Paul when I got Cincotti to autograph my CD, which I bought in Montreal that summer.  Catch Pete at NYC’s Birdland April 21 or in France in June and mellow out with the Pete. He was in the House of Cards TV series.

SILLY SUMMER JOB CONFESSION

    In the summer of 1959 behind the wheel of my dad’s conspicuous red and white Olds I would stalk the Erie Dairy home delivery truck in Spokane and write down every address where the driver stopped to deliver milk.

Suprisingly, I was never arrested for loitering.  Along with four other college students on summer break and an older adult leader, we were hired by the giant Carnation Co. to run Erie out of business, a bit of good old preditaroy capitalism.  Our leader was a goofy man reminiscent of Gillis on Life of Riley who would tell ribald jokes when we lunched in a neighborhood park.

Rightfully, the Erie driver was angry.  He probably was an independent contractor and we would be taking money out of his pocket.

A “bright” young man at Carnation hired us for this crazy scheme that was doomed from the get-go.  One could assume that Carnation was falling behind in home delivery sales so why not target the weakest competition rather than Darigold or Arden Farms.  I am happy to say that this predatory captalism marketing initiative failed and we were terminated after a few weeks of stalking Erie.  This effort must have alienated Spokane consumers from the Carnation brand.

Acting on a referral from the state emploment agency I took the job because it seemed like a good alternative to the misery of selling shoes at Leed’s downtown, manual labor at Alaska Junk or delivering for Miller & Felt drugs — all jobs that I hated.  

Although I became friends with one of the other students in the group, I am not proud of a short-lived Carnation career.  Summers in Spokane were uneventful and I longed to get from behind the wheel of my dad’s Olds and back to Seattle, the University of Washington and frat house comradery.