MOVIE OF THE DAY: "FEAR" (1946)

The best thing to have happened to movies in the last 30 years is the art of restoration. For the first time since their original releases, classic studio movies are being seen they way they were originally presented. At times, they have the appearance of live television, startling in their clarity.

Then there are the public domain movies -- orphans -- from Poverty Row studios no longer in existence. Low budget to begin with, these movies have been around the block more than once and show their age. Lacking a negative or a clean original print, these pictures still have the faded, battered look people were used to when TVs were connected to rabbit ears. Their overall cheapness takes on a dreamlike -- nightmarish, really -- quality not necessarily intended. Yet this often works when it comes to B-movies, film noir-wannabes in particular. Movies like Monogram's Fear.

It's difficult to picture what Fear looked like during its original 1946 run, with the clarity and contrast that even low-budget movies like this had. Every scene, from the protagonist's apartment to the diner where he eats to the stationhouse, looks grimy. Even the nighttime scene at an innocent city park takes on a foreboding look, like a set from one of Monogram's monster movies (which it probably was).

Prof. Stanley is about to grade his last paper.

The story certainly fits the atmosphere. College student Larry Crain, facing a cut-off of his scholarship, murders his professor, who doubles as the local pawnbroker. (Unusual extracurricular activities on both their parts.) Leaving before the next customer arrives, Larry forgets the dough he killed for. In an overload of irony typical of B-movies, the next day Larry receives $1000 for a magazine article and learns that his scholarship has returned. Sucker! 

Immediately coming under suspicion by Police Captain Burke, Larry plays it cool. But as Burke and his sidekick Detective Shaefer gradually turn the screws, Larry can find no comfort anywhere, even in the arms of  his waitress girlfriend Eileen. When a simpleminded house-painter confesses to the crime, Larry feels he's gotten off scot-free. Relaxed at last, Larry decides to lam it out of town. Spotting Eileen on the next corner, Larry crosses the street, not looking at the traffic light or the truck heading his way...

"Why are we suddenly speaking Russian?"

It's a credit to my intellect that it took me only 50 of Fear's 67-minute running time to realize I was watching a cheapjack update of Crime and Punishment. Not that I'm a scholar of Russian literature. It's just that I recently watched the 1935 movie version starring Peter Lorre and Edward Arnold in what you might call the title roles. It would be generous to regard Fear as Monogram's attempt at class; more likely, it was easier than coming up with an original story, the novel was out of copyright and Dostoyevsky couldn't sue.

Larry orders the leg of Eileen.

But he probably would have returned from the grave had he known that Fear pulls the cheapest stunt in the Hollywood book near the end when we learn that the whole thing was a goddamn dream. There was no police investigation because there was no murder! Instead of getting mowed down by a truck, Larry receives a loan from his professor, a scholarship from the college, and discovers that Eileen is moving into his apartment building. This inexplicable bullshit ending (to paraphrase the late Thomas Edison) had me booing out loud from my armchair. It completely negates the entire reason for the movie's existence. I mean, you know going in that Fear it isn't real. But when you learn it really isn't real, it's like slipping on a banana peel placed in front of you by a tour guide. Bull. Shit.

Not that Fear would have ever been considered a classic in the classic sense of the word. Peter Cookson plays Larry in the key of stiff, although that might have been the idea; he appears to be in a haze just walking up the two flights of stairs to the professor/pawnbroker. (It's really gratifying to know that teacher's standards were low even then.) It's difficult to understand what his sweetie, Eileen, sees in him -- especially when she's played by Anne Gwynne, a dish with dimples the size of Arizona's meteor crater.

Darren McGavin, on the far right, suffers the
 indignity of being upstaged by actors nowhere near
as good as him.

None of the actors playing Larry's college friends registered, until I suddenly recognized a very young, very blonde, uncredited Darren McGavin, known to me as the star of the lamentably short-lived
Kolchak TV series, and everyone else as the father from A Christmas Story. Of all the college kids, McGavin alone shows any kind of real expression; his brief moments preview great things to come for him.

Eileen informs Det. Shaefer her boyfriend
isn't on the menu.

As usual, it's up to the police to clean things
up, both legally and, in this case, artistically. Nestor Paiva's Det. Shaefer is unsettling, a cop who turns up almost magically anywhere Larry happens to be, whether at home, the diner or the park. With an acting style as unusual as his name, Nestor Paiva looks like he should be in B-movies -- he doesn't have a face so much as a mug -- yet possesses the quality of an A-actor all the way. You notice him from the get-go, even start to look forward to his sudden, creepy appearances here. He completely outshines the rest of the major players in Fear...

"Hello, ladies! Like what you see?"

Except for Warren William. Stylish, well-dressed, polite yet a master of mind games, William gives Capt. Burke a manner alternating between respectful and menacing. Sounding almost British -- although born in Minnesota -- he seems too sophisticated for your typical B-movie cop, which isn't a surprise. In his glory days (1932-1935), William was the top leading man at Warner Brothers, the king of pre-code movies and enormously entertaining. He specialized in scoundrels, womanizers, cads and lotharios, ignoring young women's innocence and wedding vows with equal vigor. (I once referred to him as "the poor man's Barrymore" in the '80s. Now, you can't read a piece about William without seeing that phrase, once again proving my enormous power.) But when the censors started cracking down, it appears his type was no longer wanted. Over the years, like too many actors mentioned on this site, he gradually took a one-way ride to low-budget productions before dying two years after making Fear.

Don't get me wrong; there's plenty to enjoy in Fear. The atmosphere. The audacity of Monogram going all Dostoyevsky on its unsuspecting audience. Warren William and Nestor Paiva. (Why does his name look like it's spelled backwards?) You can deal with the so-so actors who hog most of the camera time, because, well, it's a Poverty Row production, and actors who started there tended to stay there for a reason (Darren McGavin excepted). But that ending! That lousy, good-for-nothing ending! For that alone, there's no way any self-respecting movie fan could watch Fear more than once. 

Just why the people involved thought this dream trope was a good idea is a mystery greater than any Monogram ever released. I keep hoping I'm dreaming it, and that I'll wake up to see Peter Cookson get mowed down by a truck, while Warren William heartlessly seduces and abandons Anne Gwynne before moving on to his next conquest. Now there's a movie worth re-watching.

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

SISTERS ARE DOING IT FOR SOMEBODY ELSE

The freakshow that is New York's current state of politics -- specifically, Spitzer and Weiner, a burlesque comedy team if there ever was one -- has filled me alternately with shame and sputtering rage. As you can imagine, I'm great fun to be around these days.

Yet what confuses me is many women's reaction to Huma Abedin, Weiner's long-suffering wife. Wait, check that. "Politician-to-be" wife is more like it. Apparently, her supporters are angling her to be the next Hillary Clinton and, in doing so, believe it's her duty to stick by her idiot husband. Apparently, a lot of women believe they're unable to achieve success without a man. 

So much for Republicans "turning back the clock on women's rights " as the cliche goes (and goes and goes). Back when Ms. magazine raised hackles with the idea that women were perfectly capable of leading a fulfilling life without kowtowing to a husband, the idea of sticking by a man who humiliated you in a very public way was tantamount to sedition. That was when the cliche was, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." It was probably amusing the first time, but by the time Cher got around to passing it off as her own creation, it had run its course.

But somewhere along the way -- around the time "I didn't have sex with that woman" entered public discourse -- women decided that it was OK to remain married to a serial cheater as long as you had a chance to get his job one day and, oh yeah, he endorsed certain cultural touchstones the "correct" way. Frankly, I would have admired Hillary Clinton had she divorced Bill, regained the name Rodham, and run for office on her own skills. I don't know that I'd have voted for her, but I'd have at least respected her for doing what any wife -- outside of politics and show business -- would have done. 

Apparently, I'm in the minority. These days, what many women would have once rightfully condemned as irresponsible behavior at best is now considered "a complex situation."  That is, if there's dough and power involved. MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, for one, regards Huma's reaction as "brave" -- easy talk from a woman married to Alan Greenspan.

Many women, it appears, have turned back the clock on themselves. Suddenly, the year is 1953, when girls graduating from school were told Marry a rich man. He cheats once in a while, so what. You'll live comfortably. And if the girls protested, the answer would be, What else are you going to do?

Well, ask Nancy Pelosi or Diane Feinstein. I'm no fan of theirs, but it seems they managed to get where they were by their own smarts and tenacity. They're the poster-women for Sisters are doing it for themselves. Now, maybe they've got well-to-do husbands stashed away at home, but I don't think those guys are political powerhouses. Or sexually-demented sickos like Anthony Weiner -- a guy whose immaturity led all the way to his nom-de-Twitter, Carlos Danger. 

Carlos Danger! You'd think that alone would have sent Huma to the offices of Gloria Allred. Instead, the headline on the ABC News site said it all: Weiner's Wife Sought Hillary Clinton's Advice Amid Scandal. No, I don't see a divorce court in her future. Not as long as there's a pay-off down the line.

Many people admire the relationship my 17 year-old daughter enjoy. I've alluded to it from time to time here. There's been good-natured teasing on my part, oft-times deliberate attempts at hackle-raising. In return, she's been telling me off (when appropriate) since she learned to put together a simple sentence -- a skill that will come in handy when guys dish out crap as guys are wont to do. Along the way, I've been encouraging her independence; we're both looking forward to the day when she's away at college and, later, on her own in wherever she chooses to live. She's got a great sense of humor, too. I've often told her that many guys are threatened by funny girls. If they don't appreciate her wit, I've warned her, they're not worth her time.

In short, I want my daughter to be independent. To know that she doesn't have to land a husband to climb up the corporate ladder, or whatever other ladder she chooses. To remember that she doesn't have to settle for the first guy who makes goo-goo eyes at her, but to hold out for someone who truly loves and appreciates her. To know that self-respect trumps all the dodgy roads to security and power.

Boy, do I sound old-fashioned.
                                                    *********************
 
 

KILLER TV'S

If parents didn't have enough to deliberately worry about, this headline from the Huffington Post certainly must have given some of them pause:


         Falling TV Injuries A Growing Problem For Children

Doesn't that give you an image of Wile E. Coyote meeting his fate from the Acme Television Company? On the other hand, the headline could be taken to mean that kids aren't able to watch Spongebob Squarepants because of the injuries suffered by falling TVs.  


I hope the latter is the case. Otherwise, we can look forward to Congressional hearings allowing senators to show off for the voters back home by grilling representatives from Samsung: Shouldn't you make it impossible for TVs to fall down? 


This kind of non-news reminds when the news media were ginning up the possibility of a nuclear attack from North Korea a few months back. Remember when we were on the brink of annihilation? Then the Boston Marathon bombing happened, and phfft -- no more war!

 
If the falling TV story is true -- and since it's on the internet, it must be -- I can only put it down to mass attempted suicide from watching television news recently.


Reporters were lined up outside St. Mary's Hospital for three weeks before whatshername gave birth. Having a baby is an event that happens to roughly 360,000 other women a day, or 15,000 a second. Yet the world's news organizations wanted us to be fascinated this time because it happened to a very rich couple whose jobs mean less to the public good than the guy who picks up the garbage outside their gate. 


All this birth really meant was that for the first time William wasn't using a royal rubber when he and Kate were in the act of sexual congress -- or would that be sexual parliament? And while reporters were speculating on the sex of the caliph-to-be, I was hoping for twins, just to there'd be a 21st-century man in the iron mask to hide away in the Tower of London. 


The recent heatwave certainly gave reporters a chance to strut their stuff. Here in New York, following the obligatory shot of a digital outdoor thermometer, they all did their hard-hitting man on the street interviews:


REPORTER: What do you think of this weather?
PERSON: It's hot, man.
REPORTER: What do you do to beat the heat?
PERSON: Drink a lot of water. That's all you can do.


Cut to an interview with the Mr. Softee guy.


REPORTER: How's business?
MR. SOFTEE GUY: Busy. Always busy when it's hot.
REPORTER: What's the big seller?
MR. SOFTEE GUY: I dunno. Chocolate covered vanilla, maybe.


Cut to video of kids in the parks frolicking in the sprinklers.


REPORTER: Having fun?
SHY KID: Yeah...
REPORTER: Pretty hot, hunh?
SHY KID: Yeah... 


Cut to video of working stiffs on construction sites, operating jackhammers, followed by polar bears in the Central Park Zoo eating frozen fish. They could run the same video from last year or the year before or from 2003 and no one would notice the difference. Rinse and repeat for nine days straight. It's hot out here. Back to you, Liz.

The CBS News team decided to kill two stories with one stone. During an interview with a scientist on its morning network newscast, we learned that the jet stream had trapped the Northeast under what was described as "a giant dome" of heat. This was the perfect opportunity for the onscreen caption UNDER THE DOME -- which is also the title of CBS' big summer series created by two Steves named King and Spielberg. The crackerjack graphics people did the same thing on the evening news broadcast. 

So you can imagine my non-surprise when I caught a promo for this week's Under the Dome -- the series, not the caption -- featuring CBS News reporter and substitute anchor Jeff Glor in his dramatic debut. That's always the right move when you want to boost your journalistic credibility. 

Edward R. Murrow could show today's reporters how to conduct an interview.
A psychiatrist could go dizzy analyzing this photo.

Much has been made of Charlie Rose's anchor job on CBS' morning newscast. His baggy eyes certainly add gravitas, an increasingly-rare commodity these days. Yet the ad-lib chat he shares with co-anchor with Norah O'Donnell is as comfortable to watch as an actor who suddenly forgets his lines. Whether this is a product of waking up early or a side-effect of his 72 years is difficult to discern.

Charlie Rose suffers the effects from
another late night out.

Or maybe not. The other day, they had just run a home video of two divers who nearly played Jonah to two humpbacked whales jumping out of the ocean. Charlie's reaction was similar to that which would be made by your grandfather: "It's fortunate that there's... technology today... that photographs things like that." 


Yeah, Charlie, it's known as a CAMERA! You know, that thing you stare at for two hours every morning.

I've got to try knocking over my TV soon.

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "PLEASE MURDER ME!" (1956)

Contrary to what you might think, Please Murder Me! isn't my wife's reaction when I corral her into watching something like this. Nor is it even a completely unique idea in the film noir canon. A lawyer, Craig Carlson, is having an affair with Myra, who's married to Joe Leeds, his best friend. When Myra's arrested for murdering Joe, Craig successfully defends her, only to discover she's guilty after all.  With the number of similar movies I've watched, I'm genuinely surprised I trust any women at all.

For sheer clarity, the title Please Murder Me! sure beats Quantum of Solace. But there's got to be more to keep a viewer's interest. Fortunately, Please Murder Me! is a terrific movie, the kind with twists you don't see coming, and keeps getting better as it goes along. In other words, it's nothing like life.

Raymond Burr tells Dick Foran he's in love
with his wife. Foran responds the way they
always do in old movies, by talking in a
different direction.

                                                                         
An interesting bonus comes in the casting. Raymond Burr plays Craig Carlson as something of a screentest for his career-making role as Perry Mason, which was to debut one year later. Known primarily for bad guys up 'til Please Murder Me!, Burr gives Carlson a whiff of emotional depth not hinted before or after. 

Certainly Perry Mason never would have blackmailed a woman into killing him just so she'd serve time for somebody's murder -- and because he feels guilty for unwittingly helping her get away with shooting her husband. If only more lawyers were so conscience-stricken!

A rare photo of Raymond Burr
kissing a woman.

Then there's fellow-TV-icon-to-be Angela Lansbury as Myra, the two-faced, nasty, psychotic -- the type I immediately recognized from past relationships. Similar to her co-star's character, Myra could be considered to a predecessor to her turn as Laurence Harvey's manipulative mother in The Manchurian Candidate in 1962. And as with the latter, Lansbury appears older than her age. She's only 31 in Please Murder Me!, yet could easily match Burr's 39 years. Now that she's 88, she could pass for Paul McCartney's mother.

The usual film noir signatures are scattered throughout Please Murder Me! The lurid title, for one thing. Some nighttime location cinematography. People in half-shadows. Unusual camera angles. Hard-bitten dialogue: "You're a murderess, Myra. Anything that happens to you won't be enough!" 

Yet it's the courtroom scenes that

Take a good look; this is the only time you'll
see Raymond Burr doing this.

jump out at you simply because you keep thinking, That's Perry Mason up there. Only it isn't. And you know it isn't because this lawyer actually gets to address the jury. Perry Mason would have merely hectored Myra until she broke down and cried, "Yes! I admit it! I killed him!", thus cutting the trial short once more.

Background checks optional.

A couple of the location shots provide historic interest. In the pre-credit nighttime sequence, we follow Burr walking down an L.A. street until he enters a  pawnshop featuring a window display that would give Mike Bloomberg a heart attack: dozens of firearms of all kinds, piled up atop each other like puppies in a pet store, just looking for a good home. Shopping was so much easier then.

If this had been a Kubrick movie,  critics
would claim the billboard was his ironic
comment on the story. Me, I know it's
because it was cheaper to shoot outdoors.

Then there's the scene when Burr gets out of a taxi. Across the street is a large billboard advertising Lucky Lager. I had to do some research to learn that it was once the largest selling beer in the Western states. (Its clever slogan:  "It's Lucky When You Live in California." Tell that to the people who live near the pawnshop that doubles as an armory.) Little moments like this are better than all the history classes I sat through in school. I should've become a teacher.

If I did this, my wife would yell,
"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Neither Burr nor Lansbury were what you'd consider "stars" in 1956, although they'd been around since the '40s. Having been used to Burr as a heavy in most movies, were audiences surprised that he could play sympathetic so believably, thus paving the way for Perry Mason? And Lansbury -- was this rare foray into evil what she needed to eventually land the role of a lifetime in The Manchurian Candidate? As my wife sighs when I bring up such philosophical questions, "I don't know, dear." Meaning, "Do I look like I care?"

Perry Mason never had lighting or
or camera angles like this.

I wouldn't be surprised if both actors considered a programmer like Please Murder Me! something of a step down from the bigger budget movies they'd become used to. (Just two years earlier, Burr played the key role of the wife killer in Hitchcock's Rear Window.) On the other hand, a movie was a movie, and as long as the check cleared, they could pay the rent for another few months. 

And as years went on, and those residuals for Perry Mason and Murder She Wrote arrived in the mailbox, they could afford to look back, bemused, when they appeared in a movie with a title like Please Murder Me! Add the credit featured on the poster -- A GROSS KRASNE PRODUCTION -- and you've got something that sounds like a bad joke. 

Fortunately, Please Murder Me! is one more movie waiting to be rediscovered by film noir fans. As with Double Indemnity, you know how it's going to end two minutes in, but it doesn't matter. It's how it got to that point that makes it a fascinating story -- and warning to men everywhere. Before you fall for a married woman, make sure she didn't marry her current husband for money. You never know if she wants to cash in the easy way.

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

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "RUBBER RACKETEERS" (1942)

World War II introduced a new breed of movie character: the unpatriotic gangster. Up 'til then, moviegoers watched Cagney, Bogart and their brothers-in-Tommy guns with a certain thrill. Sure, they were criminals -- but by and large they were just swindling and killing each other. And during Prohibition, they were selling the booze that everybody wanted. When you think about it, they were actually providing a public service far greater than today's hot-air politicians claim to be doing.

The Axis changed that equation. Everyone was expected to do their bit, and those that didn't were as bad as Adolf & company. By trafficking in rationed goods, hoodlums became really bad guys.

No joke, I swear I saw this same set
in another rubber racket movie.

Restrictions on rubber certainly provided an abundance of similarly-themed B-movies. The stories were all the same: criminals cash in on the shortage by manufacturing "new" tires out of old, worn-out ones. Fatal traffic accidents ensue. In Rubber Racketeers, the good guys are working stiffs from a munitions factory. This was another war-themed concept -- civilians putting their lives on the line instead of calling the cops. In fact, one newspaper headline in Rubber Racketeers screams FDR ASKS CITIZENS TO APPREHEND RACKETEERS! What the hell were we paying policemen to do, steal apples? 

If that were me, I'd apologize for getting
in his way, but that's the kind of a wimp
I am.

Don't try telling that to these Untouchables-wannabes. Now, say you were cut off in traffic by a guy who just got out of prison. And he's identified in the newspaper as FORMER PUBLIC ENEMY. Would you visit him to complain that his insurance company didn't offer enough of a payment on the damage your car incurred? I think not. Yet that's what Bill Barry does, thus setting off a chain of events that leads to his future brother-in-law getting killed in a car accident (those lousy tires again!), and his co-workers forming their own little vigilante group to bring down the rotten racket once and for all. Even when Bill's socked in the breadbasket by a couple of gunsels, he refuses to call the police, because, you know, this time it's personal. That's why I try not to take things personally. You never know when it might lead to a shootout at a makeshift tire factory.


Gilin, the titular rubber racketeer, is a first-class villain, but hits a real low near the climax. His Chinese-American servant, Tom (Tom?), had earlier joined the Army only to return on a 24-hour leave to serve him coffee. (I don't know about you, but if I were on leave, that wouldn't be the first thing I'd think of doing.) Now Tom was cool when Gilin was in the bathtub gin racket or hijacking other gangsters' goods -- that was business. But when he gets wind of Gilin's new operation, he tries playing to his boss' patriotism. In return, Gilin shoots him dead. That's right, an American citizen kills an American soldier. If you listen carefully, you can still hear 1942 audiences hissing. By then, even Gilin's moll Nikki starts waving the flag; at the fadeout, she's taken a job at the munitions factory where Bill works. Yup, another dame taking work away from a man. (I kid!)

"Stop! Or I'll shoot the ceiling!"

History lessons abound in Rubber Racketeers. We learn, for instance, that the only way you could get tires in waritme was to buy a whole damn car. Now that's a racket! (What do you think the odds were a cheapskate like Bob Hope couldn't get his hands on a couple of Goodyears on the QT?) You want slang? Rubber Racketeers is a veritable dictionary. "Don't let anyone get hep." "If anything goes wrong, I know from nothing." "What goes?" (The actor who spoke that last line might have misspoken, since in context of the conversation, what he means is, "What gives?" When you were shooting B-movies on tight budgets, retakes were necessary only when necessary.) Just to remind audiences what they were watching -- as if they didn't hear the word "rubber" in every line of dialogue -- radio announcers are forever reminding listeners of the shortage, and to drive under 40 MPH to make their tires last longer. You try telling that to commuters on the 405 today, see the look they give you.

As with many B-movies of the time, Rubber Racketeers makes use of location shots in downtown L.A., always a pleasure for a guy like me still waiting for that time-travel machine to become available at Costco. Minimal traffic, big mountains, tall palm trees, clear skies, no smog -- this was heaven, with or without ration cards. One scene takes place on the corner of Hazelhurst and Findlay -- two honest-to-gosh Los Angeles streets. Gilin and Nikki stop off for a nightcap at the Club Tally Ho, which appears to be authentic, and orders a round of French 75s. That's what I'm asking for the next time my moll and I bend elbows at our favorite watering hole. I just want to see how quickly we get thrown out. 

Rubber Racketeers showcases two actors on the way down, with two others biding their time before gaining TV immortality. For reasons unknown, Ricardo Cortez (the star of the original Maltese Falcon) had gone from starring in A's to coasting in B's by 1942. Still, his thin, sneering lips and dark eyes made him perfect for a hood like Gilin. Perhaps it's just my perception, but he seems to be fully aware he's better than the material he's given here, while giving it his all anyway. That's a pro.

As for Rochelle Hudson (Nikki), she should have gone on to big things after co-starring with W.C. Fields in Poppy six years earlier. Instead, movies with titles like She Had to Eat, Babies for Sale and The Stork Pays Off were in her future. Yet these are exactly the kind of pictures I'd watch anytime; in fact, I've seen Babies for Sale, so I know from whence I speak. I'm sure Ms. Hudson is looking down gratefully at me from that big soundstage in the sky.

Then there's Gilin's henchman Angel, played by Milburn Stone (left). Stone was just a journeyman actor until landing a 20 year-gig as Doc on Gunsmoke. Alan Hale, Jr., son of the great Warner Brothers character actor (both pictured right), and who plays Bill's friend Red, had a similar CV by the time he signed on to play the Skipper on Gilligan's Island. (Note to all aspiring actors: Stone and Hale had been making movies a combined total of 45 years before landing their hit series.)

But without doubt the most arresting supporting actor of the bunch is John Abbott as the, er, mentally-slow henchman who answers to the name Dumbo. Actually, he doesn't answer at all, since he seems incapable of speech. Looking like Pat Paulson's deranged great-uncle, Abbott spends most of the time twisting rubber around his fingers while his eyes appear to stare in two different directions simultaneously. Suffice it to say, he's a striking presence, although I don't know what good he'd be as a gangster's sidekick. And talk about bad luck -- the actor was blacklisted for a spell because fellow-blacklistee Dalton Trumbo used the name "John Abbott" as a pseudonym. Sorry 'bout that, John!

I'd been waiting for Rubber Racketeers to turn up since buying the poster back in my more carefree days. I can't say it lived up to my expectations, since I'm not sure I had any to begin with.  But from the clever opening credits, divided by rolling tires, to the finale when Nikki machineguns a V (for Victory) around a caricature of Hitler, Rubber Racketeers proved a fine hour's entertainment, and a reminder that when the rubber meets the road, it better be real. 


And the recipe for a French 75, according to Esquire magazine:

• 2 ounces London dry gin
• 1 teaspoon superfine sugar
• 1/2 ounce lemon juice
• 5 ounces Brut champagne

Shake well with cracked ice in a chilled cocktail shaker, then strain into a Collins glass half-full of cracked ice and top off with champagne. 

See you at the bar, Gilin -- and don't forget the tires!

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

For more about Ricardo Cortez and his original version of The Maltese Falcon, click here.

For more about my ridiculous movie poster collection, click here. 

For more B-movies, click the B-MOVIES label below. 

SPITZING AGAINST THE WIND

There are some things in life demonstrably true yet unbelievable nonetheless. 
Softball-sized hail, for instance. Double rainbows. Adam Sandler's movie career. But then there was a little news headline on the bottom of the TV screen today that made me doubt even my own existence: ELIOT SPITZER WRITES LIFE-ADVICE BOOK.  

Wow. Was this from the same publisher that brought you George Zimmerman's Guide to Race Relations? Modesty Tips by Kim Kardashian? Gaining Respect from Your Fellow Americans by Eric Holder?

No, it had to have been a Nutella-induced hallucination. I Googled "ELIOT SPITZER LIFE-ADVICE BOOK" -- my fingers could barely type the words, they were so bizarre -- to confirm I was indeed seeing things right. Eliot Spitzer, the former Luv-Gov, now candidate for Comptroller,  who gave new meaning to political phrase "unwavering positions," had indeed entered the world of Dr. Phil. The local CBS affiliate's website had the lowdown:

The book titled ‘Protecting Capitalism, Case By Case’ offers, among other things, a series of rules for life which include placing a premium on loyalty and financial duty.

Loyalty to whom? Certainly not his wife. And financial duty, I presume, means paying your hookers extra when you talk her into giving you a blumpkin. (I'd rather you look it up than have me explain it.)

But there had to be more than that. The Wall Street Journal quotes from his book, "Even on the darkest day, it is better to have a spring in one's step, and a sense of adventure in one's mind, than to be overcome by the gloom and darkness of cynicism and doubt." I'm certain he thought that same thing a year and a half ago, on a gloomy winter's afternoon on an Upper East Side street off Central Park, when I responded to his uninvited hand wave and shit-eating grin by giving him the finger. It was the most satisfying, yet unfortunately fruitless, political move I'd made since contributing 20 bucks to Jerry Brown's presidential campaign in 1992.

Eliot Spitzer shares his favorite escort service numbers.

The Wall Street Journal piece unintentionally leaves the door open for plenty of ridicule on my part. For instance, the other Spitzer quote, "It is better to go down fighting than not to fight at all." I bet you Spitzer's black socks that his "dates" sure as hell went down fighting. We also learn Spitzer "eschewed traditional publishers" -- yeah, she eschewed, too, heh heh! Just the website of his publisher, Rosetta Books, offers further opportunity for juvenile derision. Its authors' names are listed alphabetically in two columns. To the direct left of Eliot Spitzer is Phillip K. Dick. Can. Not. Make. This. Up.

There must be something behind Sanford's
dopey face for him to land a hot tamale like that.

Luckily for Spitzer and especially his fellow sex maniac and mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, Democrats are revved up for a sweep after 20 years of Republican rule (or, technically, 16 if you take into account Mike Bloomberg's switch to Independent in his final term). If one of their candidates was a can of turpentine, it'd be invited to the debates and featured in the New York Times Sunday magazine. Too, Spitzer can take comfort in Republican Mark Sanford's unexpected comeback after his week-long  "hike along the Appalachian Trail" somewhere in Argentina in 2009. A gay cabarello, he definitely wasn't. Just ask Maria Belen Chapur, his amante-turned-esposa.

"There was a man from
Nantucket..."

Sometimes it just comes down to name recognition. People will often go for the familiar over the new, the same way you probably brush with Crest instead of Tom's of Maine. Name recognition didn't help Caroline Kennedy's nutty, half-assed run for Senator in 2008, however, having believed that she could coast into office by her name alone. On the other hand, she's just been named Ambassador to Japan, presumably on her knowledge of the best East Side sushi joints. Be sure to take it easy on the saké, Caroline! You know how you Kennedys are when it comes to liquor.

Maybe Spitzer will escape the Caroline's fate. Stranger things have happened -- like anybody taking Spitzer seriously again. Let's not completely write him off. Just the other day, he assured Charlie Rose that he hadn't used a hooker in five whole years! And he admitted that, yes, prostitution is exploitative, and no, it shouldn't be legalized. I'm sure the people who ran the other prostitution rings -- that is, the ones he didn't use -- whom he threw in jail will be interested to hear that. Especially since they served time in prison while his punishment was hosting a talk show on MSNBC. 

Come to think of it, I'm not sure who got the better deal.

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AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 KILOBYTES

Before my daughter posts anything on Facebook, my wife repeats her favorite maxim about never writing anything you wouldn’t want to see published on the front page of the New York Times. She never warned me, however, that anything I’d written would eventually appear on an anti-Semitic website without my knowing it.

While putting together an online résumé, I needed to find the links of some newspaper pieces I’d written. During a Google search, I was shocked to find my name on an unfamiliar site with the foreboding name of Jew Watch. Knowing full well the rabbit warren of craziness that the internet can be, I nevertheless couldn’t resist clicking the link to find out how I wound up at a place whose tolerance level puts the "mini" in "miniscule."

It took only a second – just long enough to notice the hammer and sickle in place of the “c” in the Jew Watch banner – to confirm my all too-obvious hunch. This discovery, however, lead to further questions. The page I was directed to was devoted to a lengthy biography of Al Jolson -- real name, we’re warned, Asa Yoelson, just so we don’t forget who we’re dealing with. What was a biography of a Jewish entertainer doing on an anti-Semitic site, and what did it have to do with me?

It was only when I scrolled down the page I realized the biography excerpted a couple of sentences from a 2008 magazine piece I’d written on celebrity endorsements in politics. Jolson, I had mentioned, appeared to be the first 20^th-century show business figure to actively campaign for a presidential candidate – in this case, Warren Harding. While factually accurate, the entire article was clearly written tongue-in-cheek, something you wouldn’t have realized from the way it was selectively quoted here. I doubt anyone was really “enthralled” by a song called “Harding, You’re the Man for Us” – outside of the candidate’s mistress, that is.

More disturbing, of course, was my name appearing anywhere near a site that claimed to be a “Scholarly Library of Facts about Domestic & Worldwide Zionist Criminality” – the capitalization of adjectives and nouns being the province of scholars, apparently. In addition to its predictable theories regarding 9/11, Hollywood, “banksters,” etc., there was a photo section called “Jewish Faces.” Debra Winger receives something of a pass here, with a caption under her photo informing us that she “looks like a mix, but we have no source.” Let’s be grateful they’re not passing along uncorroborated information!

Still, the comprehensive work put in by someone who asks “Where have all the Aryans gone?” was almost impressive. The cognitive dissonance necessary to write objective biographies of people you loathe – presumably in the spirit of “Know Your Enemy” -- while remaining true to your beliefs must be pretty agonizing.

Well, maybe not so much. It soon became clear that most of the biographies were copied word for word from Wikipedia, footnotes and all, without attribution. The rest were simply linked to their source –- again, Wikipedia. What’s the world coming to when you can’t trust a paranoid anti-Semite for original reporting?

Returning to Google, I discovered Wikipedia’s Jolson article, including my name in the footnotes, had been republished on several other sites unknown to me, including Radio Swiss Jazz, The Super Click, Darwin Central and something called My Greasy. Remind me to update my Linked In account.

It's a strange thing to find your name on sites you’ve never heard of. Stranger still when it's attached to one controlled by a fellow who, in another lifetime, would have been happy to use my relatives for target practice at Auschwitz. If there’s any consolation to be had, it’s that he has, last I checked, only 92 Facebook friends from a possible worldwide audience of 1.1 billion users. Justin Beiber, he isn’t.

As for the chance of my being quoted in some more outré sites in the future… well, as Al Jolson might have told me, “You ain't seen nothin' yet.” I just hope people Googling my name – if there are any – don’t come to some spurious conclusions by the company I appear to keep online. Like they say, you can’t choose your family or your cyberlinks.

Oh, and if Jew Watch’s creator is reading this – my father was Jewish but my mother was Catholic. Technically, this should be put me in the clear. I’d hate to see my photo on your “Jewish Faces” page unnecessarily. 

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