CAPITALISM AT 24 FRAMES A SECOND

When MGM re-released Gone With the Wind for, I believe, its 30th anniversary run, prints were stretched to fit the wide screens that didn't exist in 1939. In addition to making the actors appear as if they had been flattened by a steamroller, the top and bottom of the image were lopped off, destroying the original 1.37:1 screen ratio in which it had been photographed. This was done, by the way, in the name of progress.

Roughly 45 years later and what has Hollywood learned? To make things more extreme. Next month, The Wizard of Oz, another 1939 classic, will be re-released in 3-D Imax --

He  has his own web page, so it must be true.

because there's nothing like seeing the Yellow Brick Road through dark glasses on a screen the size of a two-story Cape Cod house. If nothing else, this should settle once and for all the legend of the depressed Munchkin whose dead body can allegedly be seen swinging from a tree during the reprise of "We're Off to See the Wizard." After all, nobody would have seen him when they were filming it, right?

This was as good as it got in '39.

But this pizazz isn't enough for the promo happy studio. No less than 25 product tie-ins, from Amtrak to McDonald's Happy Meals to Gourmet Trading Company (which boasts of being "the leading distributor of fresh asparagus in North America") to Food Network's Cupcake Wars will make sure that if you haven't gotten sick of The Wizard of Oz by now, you will be by the end of the year -- just in time to gift the five-disc Collector's Edition of the movie that special Ray Bolger fan in your life. It seems that the studio bookkeepers remember that Oz didn't turn a profit until it was sold to CBS-TV in the '50s, and they don't want to make that same mistake again. 

If the Oz overkill is a success -- and if popular (bad) taste is any hint, the studio will probably be paving its driveway with yellow brick gold bars by Christmas -- we can expect similar tie-ins for classic movie re-releases.

The Diary of Anne Frank: In addition to Lufthansa's special "Airway to the Attic" trips, Martha Stewart Living will advise you on the proper way to host long-term guests. Armour Meats, in conjunction with Major League Baseball, will be selling "Anne Franks" at ballparks. Hallmark will offer a limited-edition diary with a pen that contains glow-in-the-dark ink -- just the thing when you need to turn off the lights at any moment.
 
The Birth of a Nation: Clorox celebrates D.W. Griffith's racist masterpiece by temporarily re-branding itself as Klorox: The Sheet Whitener. Enjoy Paula Deen's Angel Food Cake with Whipped Cream and White Chocolate Chips (no dark chocolate, please!). Knock back a non-alcoholic mint julep at Disney World's new "Plantation Land," as "Mouskeslaves" sing their stirring spirituals (specially re-written so as not to offend any religion, creed or denomination) while picking cotton, which can then be purchased at $75 a bushel.

JFK: Surprise your sweetheart with Zale's "Jack" ruby brooch before treating her to a jar of Planters Conspiracy Nuts. Hasbro will be selling a  "Presidential Edition" of their classic "Operation" board game, while Parker Bros. is readying a special "Monopoly: Dallas" with the familiar Atlantic City landmarks replaced by, among others, "Book Depository," "Grassy Knoll" and "Parkland Hospital." (Don't worry about any  "Go Directly to Jail" card, though -- nobody serves time for killing the President!) 

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

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "THE SHADOW STRIKES" (1937)

Like the previously-discussed I Love a Mystery, The Shadow was an enormously popular radio series that seemed ripe for the movies. Chronicling the adventures of a mysterious crime-fighter whose real identity was known only to his assistant, the program's catchphrase, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows..." remained legendary long after its demise.

The same, however, cannot be said about about The Shadow Strikes. (The title made wonder if the movie was about labor trouble among pulp fiction heroes.) Released by the short-lived independent studio Grand National Pictures, it mistakes "convoluted" for "mysterious," a factor typical of B-mysteries of its time. Ten minutes into it, there seemed to be three different plot threads going simultaneously:

1) An attempted burglary at the office of lawyer Chester Randall. 2) The murder of elderly tycoon Caleb Delthern. 3) The possible involvement in one or the other by a gambling boss named Brossett (no first name given). These threads are gradually pulled together with the finesse of a one-armed monkey doing crochet work. I toyed with the idea of actually explaining the story further, but my mind wandered so often that, even when taking notes, I'm unable to come with a cohesive description.

"Yo, it's me -- The Shadow. Wassup?"

The script itself seems to have been lying around a Grand National file cabinet when some genius got the idea to make the bland hero into The Shadow. That's the only explanation for two of its most egregious mistakes. First, it completely ignores The Shadow's main skill, that of "clouding men's minds," a trick he picked up from the (of course) mysterious Orient, allowing him to become de facto invisible. In The Shadow Strikes, he depends on a turned-up overcoat collar and slouch hat to disguise himself. Yes, that should do the trick.

From the New York Tymes.

Even more ridiculous is that the picture doesn't even get his real name right. In the radio series (and, previously, short stories), he's Lamont Cranston. Until the very end of The Shadow Strikes, he's pretending to be a lawyer named Chester Randall. That is, when he's not pretending to be Randall's assistant Mr. Harris. It's only in the final minute we hear the name "Lamont Cranston" spoken. Except in the credits -- and a newspaper clipping -- his last name is spelled with a "G" instead of a "C." Was anyone at Grand National sober when The Shadow Strikes was in production? And I'm not even mentioning having a British servant named Hendricks instead of a woman named Margo Lane as his sidekick. Well, yes I am mentioning it, so scratch that.

Anybody ever hear of casual Fridays
around here?

The Shadow Strikes is loaded with the usual business you find in B-mysteries. Pistols are handily available in the top drawer of every desk in town. Cops need the most obvious advice from a lawyer to do their jobs -- like running ballistic tests on aforementioned pistols. When approached by a bad guy with a gun, a woman asks, "What's the meaning of this?" (Would that be your first question in such a predicament?) Exterior nighttime shots are filmed in broad daylight. Rich people hang around the house in tuxes, silk gowns or silk robes and ascots. Cops openly insult everyone in earshot (the police captain refers to Cranston's assistant as "that pelican-faced stooge of yours," which I'm looking forward to

A shadow does not The Shadow make.

using in conversation one day.)

 Allegedly snappy dialogue which falls with delicacy of a marble coffee table. (Man to girlfriend following a disagreement: "I suppose after we're married, we'll live scrappily ever after.") A bugging device features a microphone in an office and the headphones three stories down in a car; because the car drives around with the device intact, the cord is apparently 20 miles long. Thank God the NSA figured out that little problem.

The Shadow Strikes is also rich with actors you wouldn't recognize if your life depended on it. The title character is portrayed by the man with a name straight out of (porn) movies, Rod La Rocque (real name: Roderick La Rocque de la Rou). Once a leading man in silents, La Rocque was by now -- stop me if you've heard this before -- slumming in movies like Beau Bandit and Hi, Gaucho! (In between, he sailed to Germany to star in S.O.S. Iceberg for Hitler's favorite director, Leni Riefenstahl.) La Rocque's delivery in The Shadow Strikes, often casual to the point of sounding improvised, falls somewhere between Bob Hope and Edward Everett Horton. Except when he's in disguise as The Shadow. Then he speaks like Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants. Some hero. (You think that sounds strange. Co-star Bill Kellogg looks like a cross between a young Humphrey Bogart and Ron Mael from the band Sparks.) Like people in general back then, La Rocque looks a good decade older than his 39 years (unless he fudged his birthdate). He sure was popular in his day, though: when he married actress Vilma Banky in 1927, 2,000 people attended the wedding reception. Pity the caterer!

I couldn't find a photo of co-star Bill Kellogg,
so just combine these two photos in your head and you'll get an idea of what he looks like. In a word, wow.

The studio that released The Shadow Strikes, Grand National, is marginally more interesting than the movie itself. Created in 1936 as just another low-budget indie, it had a shot at the big time when signing James Cagney -- currently on strike from Warner Bros. -- to appear in two movies, Tough Guy (guaranteed to be the only drama about the thrilling adventures of an agent from the Bureau of Weights & Measures) and the musical Something to Sing About. Despite Cagney's star power, the movies can't disguise their humble origins. Once Warners ordered Cagney back to work or else, it was only a matter of time before Grand National folded -- 1939, to be precise. Appropriately, PRC took over the studio complex. (Notice how everything comes back to PRC?) Grand National's art deco logo, featuring a giant clock whose sweeping hands reveal the studio name, still looks cool, though.

"Anybody know the wind chill factor
in here?"

As with way too many Hollywood pictures then and now, The Shadow Strikes is a missed opportunity. As portrayed by several actors over the years (including 22 year-old Orson Welles), the radio version of The Shadow was a genuinely eerie ghost-like figure who appears out of nowhere to investigate a crime before vanishing when his job is finished. The guy here just goes into his coat closet to grab an alleged disguise that wouldn't look out of place on a winter's day in Plattsburgh. That the writers decided to drop the whole clouding of men's mind routine -- the one factor that set him apart from other crime-fighting heroes -- is a major mistake. Unless they mean clouding men's minds with excess characters, tedious dialogue and confusing plot points. 

"Hey, you really are the killer!"

However... the whole experience of making it through the 61 minutes it takes to watch The Shadow Strikes was worth it just to witness what may or may not be the birth of the most famous cliche in the annals of murder mysteries. After going through an endless parade of suspects, from the victim's son to his daughter's boyfriend to the guy who runs an illegal gambling parlor, we finally learn -- yes -- the butler did it. Who knew what evil lurked in the hearts of the hired help?

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

TRUMP U, BUDDY!

You'd think George could have worn
something other than a stained
t-shirt for such an occasion.

It's tough to choose what could be more shocking so far this week. The revelation that Bobby Riggs threw his 1973 tennis match with Billie Jean King to settle a 100-grand gambling debt to the Mob? That the New York Attorney General is suing Trump University for scamming its students? George Zimmerman's weekend meet & greet at the factory that manufactured the gun that killed Trayvon Martin? Or the morning news anchors still jabbering over Miley Cyrus' performance on MTV two days after the fact?

Being a self-centered New Yorker, I'm going with the kerfuffle involving the billionaire dean/bursar/cheerleader. USA Today reports:

As long as they don't teach hair-styling.

New York's attorney general sued Donald Trump for $40 million Saturday, saying the real estate mogul helped run a phony "Trump University" that promised to make students rich but instead steered them into expensive and mostly useless seminars, and even failed to deliver promised apprenticeships.

If that's the basis of the lawsuit, then Attorney General Eric Schneiderman should start lining up every institute of higher learning in the state. Having gone on college tours with my daughter, I can assure you every school makes that same pitch and, judging by the unemployment rates, it's all a bunch of balderdash. I was talking to someone whose niece graduated with a degree in history. Over a year later, she's a telemarketer. Lesson: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to make cold calls to people who don't want what they're selling.

I initially thought that Trump University was an online school that would turn you into the next big-mouth real estate mogul with self-esteem issues. Courses like:

THE RIGHT BEGINNING: Making sure your father is a real estate mogul so you can inherit  

"I've got a gown, so I know what I'm
talking about."

the business from him. 

THE NAME'S THE GAME: Take the easy way out by allowing any developer to slap your name on whatever he wants to build --for a fee!

SHINY IS GOOD: Brass and black marble -- the classy touch to any building.

BILLS? WHAT BILLS?: Saying "So sue me!" like you mean it.

As it turns out, there was no real Trump University, either on land, sea or cyberspace. It was, in fact, a three-day seminar. You know, the kind that self-styled gurus hold in hotel conference rooms where you can learn to realize any wish you have, as long as your credit card hasn't expired. Continuing from USA Today:

Schneiderman's lawsuit covers complaints dating to 2005 through 2011. Students paid between $1,495 and $35,000 to learn from the Manhattan mogul who wrote the best seller, "Art of the Deal" a decade ago followed by "How to Get Rich" and "Think Like a Billionaire."

Thirty-five thousand dollars! You can currently buy used copies of each of those books on Amazon for one cent each and get the same information. Thinking like a billionaire apparently means convincing suckers to outrageously overpay for what could have set them back three cents (plus postage). But wait, there's more!

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says many of the 5,000 students who paid up to $35,000 thought they would at least meet Trump but instead all they got was their picture taken in front of a life-size picture of "The Apprentice" TV star.

You can bet your last can of orange-spray tan that, for some of these people, meeting the great man himself was the whole raison d'etre for shelling out their life savings. Did these these genius-wannabes not know that their idol is repelled by hobnobbing with the hoi polloi unless they're waving TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT placards? 

Still, 35,000 bucks to get the lowdown from one of Trump's "handpicked" instructors -- guys who know the ins and outs of the real estate world -- that's gotta pay off big somewhere down the line, right? We turn to Business Insider for the answer:

The code being: Leave the
shareholders on the hook
for the dough.

 ...many [instructors] came directly to Trump University from other seminar companies — where they worked as motivational speakers or sales representatives  -- or  employment having little if anything to do with real estate investment. Trump University was also aware that some of its instructors and mentors who had been  investing in real estate had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection shortly before coming to work at Trump University, belying any claims of success as real estate investors.

Since various Trump businesses have filed bankruptcy at least four times, it looks he hired the right people. So what's the problem, Mr. Attorney General?

What is the takeaway from this, the latest in The Zany Adventures of Donald Trump? You can run a questionable "school" while driving your students straight into the poorhouse, go bankrupt instead of paying your bills, show up to host a game show once a week, pretend to run for president in order to plug aforementioned TV show and -- this is the worst of it -- continue to be taken seriously by news anchors all over the dial. 

This guy rivals The Shadow for the ability to cloud men's minds. Forget the whole "financial genius" jazz." His next seminar should be "Fooling All of the People All of the Time for Fun and Profit." Now that I'll pay for. As long as I don't have to use that spray tan.

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

 

WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING

Pressure is building regarding what the United States' response will be to the alleged chemical gassing of Syrian rebels and civilians by strongman Bashar al-Assad. When asked about President Obama's "red line" comment of a year ago referring to the use of chemical weapons, White House spokesman Jay Carney replied, "We're studying the situation very closely. Right now, the line seems to be more magenta-ish, which, as you know, is really closer to pink. Some of the UN inspectors on the ground believe it to be more raspberry, which is definitely darker, but still not the 'red' we're looking for. We've had reports that, in some areas, things are looking more alizarin crimson, which is closer to the mark."

Carney was quick to disagree with a reporter's opinion that the White House was splitting hairs. "Look, we know what we're talking about. We've been consulting with experts in the art world. Plus, there's a large color wheel in the situation room. Next to each color is a word or phrase. For instance, next to rosewood is 'Dead bodies, looks hinky.' Fuchsia, on the other hand, is 'same ol', same ol'.' But vermilion is 'Suspicious. Let's take another look at the next round of video that comes in.' So yes, we're taking this very, very seriously."

Responding to the demand that the White House do something, Carney replied, "We are studying 'doing something' very carefully. We just don't want to go out half-cocked and do anything. We are looking into exactly what our options of 'something' are. The President has been consulting with Secretary of State Kerry regarding what those somethings are. We have at our disposal a whole list of somethings to do. I mean, you wouldn't believe how many somethings we have. We're sharing these somethings with our allies right now. And once we reach a consensus as to which something is the best, then we will do it, but not before then." When asked to give an example, Carney replied, "I'm not going into specifics, but when it happens -- it'll be something. And President Assad would be wise to heed our warning. Because when America says it's going to do something... it's going to do something. Or other."

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "LADY GANGSTER" (1942)

I've been saying it for years: by and large, the most entertaining B-movies were made by B-studios. That goes for double for anything crime-related. The grit and edginess necessary for the nasty atmosphere accompanying the stories came naturally to PRC, Monogram and the rest. Criminals tend to be lowlifes, anyway. Check out some real mugshots online sometime -- not a one comes within a mile of looking like Faye Emerson, the star of Warner Bros.' Lady Gangster.

At least they have the title character's name right: Dot Burton. That doesn't sound like a girl you'd introduce to mom, unless she was Ma Barker. Dot's been sent up the river after organizing a bank robbery, then hiding the money. The remaining members of her gang go underground. Thanks to the double-crossing of two other prison inmates,

"Me -- a lady gangster? Surely you jest!"

Dot is denied the parole arranged by her childhood friend Ken Phillips, the owner of a radio station. Convinced that Ken was actually behind the denial, Dot arranges to have him killed by her gang. When she learns that Ken had nothing to do with it, she escapes prison to save his life. Ken, in turn, arranges to have her released into his custody, so he can hire her as one of his station's announcers.

How to win parole and influence people.

That last sentence doesn't play as ridiculous as it sounds -- OK, maybe it does -- when you consider that Dot turned to crime only when her acting career didn't pan out, a move duplicated decades later by Lindsay Lohan. That Dot earned parole after making her escape by cracking the warden on the skull with a lamp makes for a very forgiving prison system indeed. (Read about Money Madness to get the real lowdown on what happens to woman who was actually innocent of committing a crime.)

"We're with the band."

Dot's prison is really just a second-rate hotel. Sure, the rooms leave something to be desired -- like, oh, toilets and privacy -- but the dames get to hang out in a rec room where they listen to the radio, dance, knit and iron. My wife would find this perfectly acceptable way to spend her day. Except the ironing part. And unlike their male counterparts, their uniforms could get them into any hipster bar in Red Hook.

Lucy & Annie: nope, they're not gruntled at all.

Most of the inmates have standards, like the one who says, "I'd play ball with anyone but Hitler to get out of this hole." But there's always a bad apple or two, and here it's Lucy, a disgruntled stoolie, and Annie, a disgruntled deaf-mute. When Stew, one of Dot's cohorts, comes by on visiting day, Annie lipreads their conversation to discover that they were talking about what they were going to do with the stolen loot. 

Somebody should have thrown the writer
in prison.

This scene plays utterly ridiculous right down the line. Not only does Annie look like a Gilda Radner character, she'd need a telescope to successfully read their lips. Cranking up the Absurd-O-Meter a notch, Stew is disguised as a woman -- and nobody notices! This scene, by the way, seems to be played completely straight. No wonder why director Robert Florey changed his name to Florian Roberts on Lady Gangster's credits.

Three gunmen are no match for a
radio station owner with his back to them.

Equally outrageous is the climactic fist fight. Somehow, radio exec Ken Phillips (busy character actor Frank Wilcox), who doesn't appear to have lifted anything heavier than a cigarette lighter in his life, successfully takes on Dot's three menacing henchmen, even knocking them through stairway railings before being momentarily stopped by a bullet to the arm. And instead of hailing the nearest ambulance, he rides along with the cops -- in the front seat! -- as they chase the gang. If that's not enough, at the climax he appears to become the love object of Dot. This would be tough enough to swallow, but when Dot's played by the glamorous Faye Emerson, you fairly choke on the concept.

Eyebrows by Kiwi Shoe Polish.

Although only an hour long, I nearly turned off Lady Gangster a few minutes into it. As I alluded to earlier, B-movies from the majors are a little too glossy for my taste. The dialogue tends not be as gritty nor the actors as interesting. (Only RKO Radio really knew how to get its hands dirty.) But two cast members kept me watching, and that was only because of their later TV work. One was DeWolf Hopper as Ken's assistant. Fifteen years later, 20 pounds lighter, hair 100 shades grayer and using the name William Hopper, he began a long run as Raymond Burr's sidekick Paul Drake on Perry Mason.

And away we go (to rob a bank)!

Then there's Dot's milk-drinking getaway driver, Wilson, the only one of the gang who really cares for her. He's played by (as his name reads in the credits) Jackie C. Gleason. Only 26 years old, he's already coming into focus as an actor. The side of the mouth delivery, the gruff but sympathetic characterization, even the way he holds his cigarette between his fingers and thumb -- it's all there, just waiting for a different medium to transform him into one of the major show business icons of his time. It was an irony that would probably be lost on no one involved in the making of Lady Gangster, least of all Gleason himself.

Lady Gangster is one of those movies that should have made Warner Bros. think twice before cracking wise about studios like PRC. It takes more than bigger bucks, a decent score and a pretty face to put over a crime picture. A lower budget often allows for a more noirish atmosphere. A score that sounds like it was slapped on the soundtrack whether it was appropriate or not increases the already dreamlike quality of the production. And although Faye Emerson allows herself to go tough by greasing up her hair and laying off the mascara, B-movie queen Ann Savage could act the part better than any Oscar-winner. While many once-forgotten Poverty Row releases look better than ever today, Lady Gangster remains what it was meant to be: just another way to kill an hour with women in prison. 

Now that I think of it, that actually sounds pretty good. 

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

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "MONEY MADNESS" (1948)

At some point in their lives, kids are astonished to discover their parents once had lives before, well, being parents. Imagine what Theodore and Wally Cleaver would have thought if they discovered their father, Ward, used to be a sociopathic killer.

Well, not really, but that's Hugh Beaumont from Leave it to Beaver starring in Money Madness as career criminal Steve Clark. After hiding $200,000 from a bank robbery in a safe deposit box (thanks for the idea!), Steve worms his way into the life of innocent Julie Ferguson. Discovering that poor Julie lives with her nasty Aunt Cora, Steve comes up with a brilliant idea. After two dates, Steve marries Julie before poisoning the battleax. Fast worker, right? Julie inherits the house and suddenly finds a mysterious trunk with 200-grand in the attic. Hey, it could happen to anyone!

"Hands off the threads, lady."

The first inkling you get that Steve's three grains short of a granola bar -- besides poisoning Aunt Cora, I mean -- is when he confesses the crime to Julie. Concerned that Cora's taken a turn for the worse, Julie tries calling a doctor. From out of nowhere, Steve quietly appears and hangs up the receiver. In the quiet, measured tones one would use when describing swatting a fly, Steve explains:

You said I was different. And I am. I don't figure things the way most people do. Now take Aunt Cora for instance. She's old. She's no good to anyone in the world. She's unhappy and she's made you unhappy. There's no reason for her to live. So I -- well, I... fixed her tea last night and her grapefruit juice this morning.

If you look carefully, you can see a smile cross his lips, the kind a child would offer his mother after successfully tying his own shoes for the first time. It's at this point his performance crosses the line from eerie to terrifying, staying on that track for the rest of the picture.

"That'll be a buck and a half. Or I'll cut
you up into little pieces and throw you
to the badgers."

Steve tries to blend in by driving a taxi, which, if you're a New Yorker, sounds like a typical job for an escapee from an institution for the criminally insane. Soon, he starts showing up everywhere Julie happens to be, making a line like, "Your ride's waiting, miss" sound like a disturbing threat. So terrified is Julie that she can't confide the truth of the situation to her own lawyer (who's in love with her). Steve, you see, pointed out that it was she who actually served the spiked drinks to Cora. Their marriage, as Steve calmly explains, is predicated on neither of them testifying against the other in a court of law. Which is as good as any other reason most people come up with.

Money Madness appears to have the happy ending most American movies indulge

in: bad guy killed, girl safe in the arms of the man who loves her. That is, until you remember the entire movie was told in flashback -- and that, in the first scene, Julie was sentenced to prison for ten years for being Steve's accomplice even though she was entirely innocent. Man, talk about cynical!  I guess the moral the moviemakers were trying to get across was Don't talk to men. It's bad for your health.

A familiar sight in my home.

If you still can't wrap your head around the idea of Ward Cleaver as a killer, then one viewing of Money Madness will set you straight. Something of a Poverty Row-Fred MacMurray in looks and style, Beaumont is far more intense here. And, if I haven't made it clear enough, capital-C Crazy, more believable than, say, the grandstanding Jack Nicholson in The Shining. 

As with other actors discussed on this blog, Beaumont's performance would be considered classic had Money Madness been a major studio release instead of getting lost in the B-movie shuffle. That Beaumont is totally convincing in such an evil role is more astonishing when you consider that he was, at the time, a Methodist minister who took acting gigs to raise money for his church. God and Hollywood work in mysterious ways. 


Despite the idea I might have given you, not every B-movie is a classic in hiding. Most don't even pass the threshold of mediocre. Often, I've despaired that I might have seen all the ones worth watching. Then along comes something like Money Madness, a solid, well-made thriller that comes alive in the very first scene, then keeps ratcheting things up during its 72-minute running time. (Why do most filmmakers today seem to think "The longer, the better"?) I found it almost difficult to describe because it should be seen, as I did, unfamiliar with the story or the plot twists. Some rainy day -- or better, night -- swing over to YouTube and give it a shot. If nothing else, you'll never watch Leave it to Beaver the same way again.

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

SHOWDOWN ON THE UPPER EAST SIDE

Monday through Friday we receive phone calls with nobody on the other end. They're all scam companies making several thousand calls simultaneously. When one person

"Hope I interrupted your
dinner!"

picks up, the other calls are immediately terminated. This used to be known as "harassment." Now it's claimed to be "freedom of speech" -- ironic, since 99% of the time they never speak -- and, therefore, doesn't pertain to the federal government's "Do Not Call" website. When the 1% do get through, it's always a recording of a woman offering to lower our electric, phone or gas bills. She always tells us to push 3 to opt out of future calls, which, I've read, only increases the number of calls. Man, when it comes to irony, these guys make Gawker look like Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

If our phone displays an unidentified number, it goes to the answering machine. Ditto "Out of area" or unfamiliar name. These crooks have tried to pull the occasional fast one. A call ID's as FOOD BANK NY -- again, going straight to the answering machine -- was an offer to give our home a free security system in exchange for putting the company's sign on our lawn. The latter would be particularly useless to us, because our co-op's garden is too crowded with foxgloves and the like already. 

Honest to God, right as I finished the last paragraph, I received a call on my cell phone from "Heather from credit services," letting me know there was "no problem with my account but" -- well, I don't know what, because I hung up. It's bad enough that they call on the landline, but the cell phone is worse because there's no way I can block them. (I have an old school flip phone which probably looked way impressive in 1997.) Our landline can block only 30 numbers at a time, so I'm constantly deleting old numbers to add new ones. Consider it a hobby.

Those calls are bad enough, but at least I can kind of avoid them. What I've been facing this summer, though -- and every summer for the last several years -- are earnest young people working for earnest young causes. They're all different, yet the pitch is always done the same way. A man and woman stand about 15 yards apart, facing each other as if recreating the climax of a 1940s western. They're fresh-faced, wear bright clean t-shirts advertising their cause, and always hold petitions. And they always plant themselves on the busiest streets or outside grocery stores where you can't help but run into them.

At least it keeps the tourists away.

There have been times when I've crossed the street to avoid them, just to make a statement. I don't know what the statement is, but I'm sure it's a pretty good one. But this becomes difficult on 86th Street, where various construction jobs, especially for the Second Avenue Subway, makes even just walking on your side of the street an adventure. 

Their pitches are meant to guilt-trip you into signing their petitions. "Hello, can you spare five minutes to help save the planet?" (I always get a kick out of answering, "No!"). Or, "Can you help save Planned Parenthood?" If I deigned to answer them with more than one word in the negative, I would say, "There's about as much chance of Planned Parenthood going under as Dunkin Donuts." But they want to believe the worse, so who am I to begrudge their little dreams? When you pass them by without stopping, they squeak, "Have a wonderful day!" with just a hint of Fuck you, mister. Because, you know, they care so much.


Other times I've seen both the men and women wearing pink t-shirts reading I AM A GIRL. Uh, no you're not, bub. I've Googled that phrase and came up with plan-international.org: "Plan's campaign to fight gender inequality, promote girls' rights and lift millions out of poverty." Well, that's a worthy thing, but guys wearing those t-shirts makes us think it's about folks with severe identity crises.

Because there's nothing like a house party
to save the world.

These people hogging the streets are innocent enough to be all starry-eyed about what they're doing and how it's going to change the world. Bless their hearts, they believe that petitions actually get kids through high schools, out of slums and into good jobs. And if they think Islamic governments really quake in their boots at the sight of pieces of paper signed by residents of the Upper East Side -- well, this is cuter than a group of baby pandas drinking milk out of bottles while wearing diapers.


Here's a good way to promote girls' rights: teach your daughters to be strong and independent. Be a good parent. Listen to them. And while you're at it, tell them not to get in my way when I'm carrying three bags of groceries. 

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "SUCKER MONEY" (1933)

When my wife and discuss the great movie producers of the past -- wait, let me correct that. When I wish my wife and I would discuss the great movie producers of the past, the name Willis Kent would never come up. Although most of his releases were westerns, he's known today for his low-budget melodramas about the "social issues" of the day. Something of a Darryl Zanuck of "adults only" exploitation pictures, Kent appeared to have gotten the idea for his movies from the less polite newspapers of the day. Cocaine addiction (The Pace that Kills), marijuana (The Road to Ruin), abortion (Race Suicide), prostitution (The Wages of Sin) -- you get the idea. Controversial subject + outlandish title = boffo box office.

 
Kent's Sucker Money, released by Invincible Pictures (which went out of business three years later), sets its mood immediately. Following the sound of a gong, a bizarrely-dressed person of indeterminate sexual origin pulls back a curtain in a psychic's parlor to introduce the opening credits.  In case audiences didn't know what they were in for, the capitalization-challenged subtitle reads:  

 an expose of the 

PSYCHIC RACKET 

a True Life Photoplay 

    
Yeah, if "True Life" means "Utterly Bogus." But I'm not looking for realism with movies like this  -- I mean, that's what I'm trying to escape on a daily, nay, hourly basis. And when I'm craving 60 minutes of strange entertainment with at least one good actor -- in this case, Mischa Auer -- a picture like Sucker Money does the trick.

A group of grifters led by Swami Yomurda ("Yo murder" -- get it?!) is infiltrated by actor-turned-cub reporter Jimmy Reeves. Yomurda and his cohorts (I think that's a hip-hop band my daughter listens to) are currently trying to fleece businessman John Walton. Walton's daughter, Clare, falls in love with Jimmy, whose real identity is soon found out. While Reeves is subsequently held captive, Yomurda kidnaps and hypnotizes Clare and holds her for ransom. You don't need to be a psychic to know happiness will eventually prevail. 

You think this is a crime -- you should see the
price of a theater ticket these days.

This Yomurda guy isn't as smart as he thinks he is. Instead of hiring a henchman in the usual ways -- which, in old movies, tends to be waterfront dives -- he takes out a classified ad in Reeves' newspaper looking for a "character man adept at makeup." (Strangely, he also asks for a child impersonator, a subplot never explored, but ideal for a Willis Kent production in itself.) Reeves' editor is suspicious by the ad's promise of "No traveling," but a real actor would immediately smell a rat at the other comment in the ad, "Good pay." But they're not kidding about that. Yomurda offers Reeves $75 a week -- the equivalent of $1,339 today. If that's the kind of dough you can make as a phony-baloney table-tapper, you can cut me in. I'll save my scruples for when I can afford them. 

Yomurda giving Clare the ol' "you are
getting sleepy" routine, which never worked
for me when I was dating.

And Yomurda's crew really is raking it in. They've got enough people to start their own stock company version of Henry V. Their business is more wired than an Apple store, with secret buzzers, light boards, dimmers, dry ice and trapdoors. They even create phony materializations during seances by secretly filming their suckers around town from a truck. (Talk about psychic -- this was 80 years before Google Streets!) It probably never occurred to audiences in 1933 that these people must have looked like a damn circus parade going from town to town with all this gear. Inconspicuous they're not.

"You haven't lived 'til you've seen
my crystal balls."

Yomurda makes sure everything looks spiritual, even if there are conflicts of a sort. A statue of Buddha graces the "materialization" screen, yet the visits from the dead are said to be provided by Vishnu. Make up your mind, swami! The earthly go-between for here and the afterlife is Princess Karami -- described as "a former hooch dancer" -- whom Yomurda has hypnotized to do his bidding... and whom he plans to replace with the equally-spellbound Clare. (The name of the actress playing Princes Karami is Mona Lisa. She doesn't smile demurely once in Sucker Money, so I don't see the connection.)

Although an indie production, Sucker Money was shot at Republic Studios, kind of the M-G-M of Poverty Row, so it probably looks a cut above Willis Kent's more outre releases. Still, you

Efficiency at work: six people crammed into
a two-shot.

can't help wonder why it took two people, Dorothy Davenport and Melville Shyer, to direct this thing. As with other low budget indies of its time, long takes are interrupted by jarring edits. A high angle shot of a corpse in a basement is the closest thing to an interesting framing device. And while nobody blows their lines, I can't help but think that 95% of what's on screen is a first take. Off-screen actors are never properly miked, often giving it the feel of a filmed rehearsal. 

While all this would take most people out of the story, it makes me feel that I'm actually there, watching how a movie with a budget probably hovering in the low five figures, actually got made. (Co-director Davenport was the widow of silent screen star Wallace Reid, whose 1923 death due to morphine addiction made headlines. Davenport spent the next ten years writing, directing or starring in low-budget "warning" pictures, often under the name Mrs. Wallace Reid. Nothing like cashing in on a tragedy.)

Gunned down by cops at the film's
climax, Auer pops his eyes one last time.

Swami Yomurda must have been pretty popular with audiences, since character actor Mischa Auer originated the role -- or at least the name -- in Sinister Hands the year before. Although Russian-born, Auer managed to make his way around several onscreen nationalities, never associating with the word "subtle" over his 40-year career. In his early days, he specialized in pop-eyed madmen in thrillers like The Monster Walks, then branched out as pop-eyed goofballs in comedies. 


Willis Kent's final drama, Confessions of a Vice Baron, was released in 1940. His CV goes blank until 1950. Then, over the next eight years his output was limited to stag movies featuring strippers with names like Justa Dream, Satalyte and Patti Waggin. (What, no Moaner Lisa?)  These movies, like many of his '30s shockers, would run in urban grindhouses under different titles for years afterward, making a mint for him and his distributors. Had a psychic told Kent that his movies would one day be widely available to everyone everywhere online for free, he'd have felt like the sucker.

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