Friday's Foreign Film Poster

The German poster for the film, FRENCHMAN'S CREEK starring Joan Fontaine and Arturo de Cordova. This is a terrific poster - especially the wonderful rendering of de Cordoba, not a very well known actor. He looks properly dashing.

Friday's Forgotten Book: SHE SHALL HAVE MURDER (1949) by Delano Ames

Kind of a beat-up old cover, but best I could find online of the cover I actually have.

Today it's a combo: SHE SHALL HAVE MURDER is my Friday Forgotten post as well as my entry in Bev's VINTAGE MYSTERY READING CHALLENGE.

Don't forget to check in at Patti Abbot's website, PATTINASE, to see what other forgotten books other bloggers are talking about today.

I was not familiar with this author, though his name rings some sort of bell - maybe it's just that the Delano part reminds me of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Anyway, I read a review of this book on one of the blogs (can't remember which one) and decided to take a look. I mean, how could I resist reading a book in which the hero's first name is Dagobert? And what's more, no one in the cast of characters seems to think this is a odd name. So maybe it wasn't - way back when.

I wonder how it's pronounced? I'm assuming - Dago-Bear. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Dagobert Brown is a guy who avoids work as best he can (one wonders how he pays his rent) and is currently determined to have his girlfriend Jane write a mystery set in her office, featuring characters similar to her work-mates. He would write the book himself but he's too busy (doing what - who knows?) and besides, someone has to think up the plot.

Jane Hamish is a very tolerant working girl - a law clerk in an office run by an elderly type named Playfair, an attorney who thinks nothing of postponing work in favor of crossword puzzles. In fact, he prefers to treat his employees as members of one happy family. He's kind of engaging, really. I have to say that of all the characters, Mr. Playfair won me over immediately.

Jane narrates the story and turns an almost blind eye to Dagobert's wilder inclinations and mental leaps of fancy.

Anyway, the law-office has its fair share of typicals with typical problems, including a Lothario named (for reasons I can't figure) Major Jimmy Stewart (no one appears to notice that the name is the same as a famous movie star, but perhaps it's  old news ) who's dated every woman on staff. Besides Jane there's Sarah, the young typist and Rosemary, the older chief clerk who has delusions of romance. There's also a six foot tall weisenheimer office boy who's not above chicanery and a spot of blackmail.

When Mr. Playfair's elderly client, Mrs. Robjohn - a muddle-headed eccentric - dies suddenly of natural causes after first having declared over and over that she was being stalked by killers, Dagobert Brown suspects murder. Though only the day before he'd stated that Mrs. Robjohn was hardly the type to get murdered, it would just be too obvious.

No one else suspects the old lady was done in, but Dagobert will have his way.

Working independently of the cops and with the not-so-willing Jane as his sleuthing partner, Dagobert begins the search for clues - anything that will involve anyone and everyone at the office. He also advises Jane to write every thing down as it happens - for their manuscript's sake.

That's the gist of the plot and the fun, I think, of this mystery is in the personalities of the various characters, as well as the often snappy dialogue. There's also the fun, I think, that Ames obviously had in writing this story.

I'm going to try and locate a couple more Delano Ames books just to see what's what with Dagobert and Jane.

To get a list of all Delano Ames titles, please use this link.

Quote/Unquote - a few curmudgeonly book quotes.

"I'm not saying all publishers have to be literary, but some interest in books would help."
A.N. Wilson, in Bookseller, July, 1996

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
Ray Bradbury,  1994

"Most of today's books have an air of having been written in one day from books read the night before."
Sebastian-Roch-Nicolas Chamfort, Maxims and Thoughts - 1796

"Take away the art of writing from this world, and you will probably take away its glory."
Francois Rene de Chateaubriand, 1816

"She is too fond of books and it has turned her brain."
Louisa May Alcott

Note: Try as I might I couldn't find any artist attribution for the top illustration. But I love it so much I had to use it. If you know who the artist is, please let me know. If you are the artist and would prefer I not use the image, I'll remove it immediately.

Award Season Hasn't Ended...

I'm happy to announce that I've been awarded the 7X7 Link Award not by one blogger, but by two! How cool is that?

Both Dorian at her blog, TALES OF THE EASILY DISTRACTED and Tracy at her blog, RANDOM RAMBLINGS OF A BROADWAY, FILM, & TV FAN very sweetly sent this award on to me after each received their very own. Thank you, ladies!

(I'm responding to both awards in this one post.)

Okay, so let's get cracking - here's my change to brag about my blog without anyone raising an eyebrow - TaDa!!

My responses to the seven questions asked as part of my award requirements:

1) Tell everyone something that no one else knows about:

Well, jeez, pretty soon I won't have any secrets left worth talking about.

Well, not quite like it was. But use your imagination. Vintage illustration by Maynard Dixon, 1913.

I was once stranded in Nevada without any food, water, or cold hard cash. I'd foolishly packed my travelling  money in my luggage (suitcases were packed in a compartment under the bus). All I had to eat were three cans of diet liquid food (brought along for emergency purposes - hey, I'd never travelled across country on a bus before). I didn't even have the dollar required to pay for a glass of water. Luckily, a fellow bus traveller, a cute sailor, came to my rescue. I was able to save the canned goopy-guck for another day.

This was in the long ago, eons ago, when I was young and comely and kindly, good-looking sailors still came to my rescue.

2)   As per instructions, I now reveal what I think was My Most Beautiful Piece:

Beautiful in what way? Hmmm....I'll just take the plunge and say that I consider my Review of one of my favorite motion pictures, BABE, to be quite beautiful primarily because of the beauty of the film itself and the way I think (I hope) I expressed my love for its kindly, gentle message delivered by a little pink pig. BABE is a film you never quite forget. I hope I did right by it.

3) What do I consider my Most Helpful Piece?

The Painter's Honeymoon by Lord Frederick Leighton

Well, I have to say that my Saturday Salon artists posts seem to me to be pretty helpful - at least in getting the artwork of many not-so-famous artists out there. Of course,  I do, occasionally go with some pretty famous names, but on the whole, I think it's the lesser-knowns who attract the most attention.

I love spreading the word on the work of artists who please me, personally. And what better way to do it than on my own personal blog?? Makes sense to me.

Simply scroll down a bit and look on my right hand sideboard for the above painting by Leighton. Under 'Favorite Paintings' it contains the link to all my Saturday Salon posts.

4) My Most Popular Piece:

As it's been for many who've responded to this question, so it has been for me - a total surprise, I mean. It's amazing sometimes how the blog post you think will be popular is eclipsed by something unexpected. Go figure.

Illustration by the inimitable Edward Gorey

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EDWARD GOREY appears to be my most popular piece, at least, according to the Blog Stats. I love Edward Gorey's rather sinister (but charming) pen and ink work and have done so for years. I was glad to find out (though not really surprised) that love for all things Gorey is as widespread as it appears to be.

5) My Most Surprisingly Successful Piece:

Well, next to the Edward Gorey surprise, I'd have to say that a piece I did on the news that Johnny Depp would be undertaking a THIN MAN re-do seemed to get a lot of attention. This is the post on which I took artistic license with Depp's upper lip - and had fun doing it, too.

6) My Most Underrated Post:

Absolutely one of my all time favorite paintings. The self-portrait of Marc-Aurele De Foy Suzer-Cote.  (1869 - 1937) Canadian painter and sculptor.

Off the top of my often head, I have to say that my Saturday Salon post, Men In Art, had a disappointing response. I thought for sure there would be some interesting comments - well, more than the four submitted - about the various ways men have been portrayed on canvas.

But maybe my approach was wrong.

At any rate, I liked the piece and it sure gave me a chance for some very intriguing research.

7) My Most Pride-Worthy Piece - A Cell Phone Rant:

I think the response to my rant about the use of cell phones in public made me feel pretty proud. I had no idea that so many people would agree with my ravings, so I guess what I felt was a kind of pride that I'd had the nerve to post about it in such a vivid way and pride in the fact that lots of other bloggers and civilians praised my gumption. Hey, I didn't think it needed all that much gumption (or praising), but maybe I was wrong.

The comments on that post sure made my day.

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

Okay, now I'm supposed to hand off the 7X7 award to 7 other bloggers, but I've decided that I'm no longer going to be passing on awards, no matter how delightful they might be.

I always feel that I can't do justice to all the blogs I enjoy visiting, so I'd rather demur on the side of caution. I hope everyone understands.

Review: VICTORY OF EAGLES by Naomi Novik

This is the 5th installment in one of the finest series of fantasies (set in an alternate reality) I've ever read. Okay, so I was not always a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, but I like to think I know what's well written enough so that genre doesn't really matter. Let's just say that this is one of the finest series of books I've ever read. My discovery of author Naomi Novik's writing expertise as well as her daunting imagination and inventive style has made me, over the course of her previous and current books, a very happy reader.

If you are denying yourself this wonderful reading experience because of the 'fantasy' angle, deny no more. Just know that you are doing yourself an injustice if you continue in your stubbornness.

To learn more about Temeraire and the work of Naomi Novik, you can check HIS MAJESTY'S DRAGON Wikipedia page here.  Or you can link to Naomi Novik's website here.

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

At the beginning of the series, the setting is England - though in later books, we travel to China, Africa, Australia and even South America. It is the early part of the 19th century. The French are out to conquer the world and Napoleon is on the march. His megalomania and ambition are even more enduring, more globally encompassing than in historical reality. (Though in reality they were extreme enough.)

Beginning with book number one, HIS MAJESTY'S DRAGON, we are immediately thrust onto a sailing ship at sea and the alternate universe in which everything exists as it did in our history books, except for the dragons. In this world, various nations employ aerial corps of dragons which help individual armies in battle over land and sea. Don't roll your eyes, Novik makes it all work beautifully. (There is a very handy three book omnibus available of the first three novels.)

The dragon aerial corps have their own branch of service with its own rules and regulations - adaptable as they must be where living, breathing, sentient beasts of the air are involved. The birthing of dragons  from eggs and the choosing of each beast's individual 'captain' are inventively shown us in the very first book when Temeraire is born aboard naval Captain Will Laurence's ship.

Laurence is strictly Navy and has no plans to join the aerial forces of which, in truth, he is unfamiliar.  But that is before the little newborn dragon decides that Laurence is the captain for him. It is up to the dragon in the first moments after birth to choose who he will tolerate or else he might turn feral and refuse to comply with the plans of men. So everything has to be handled very tactfully, procedure must be followed.

The dragons learn language from overhearing it while in the egg and once born, decide whether to speak or not. They are sentient beings with their own personalities, each suited, by size and breed to a different branch of the Aerial service. Each dragon carries a crew on its back, suited to the animal's size and strength. The smallest dragons are used as mail carriers and messengers and carry only one crew member. But the larger beasts are capable of carrying many men attached by leather harnesses.

Since some dragons will only carry a female captain, allowances are made in this branch of the service for women. The politics of it though, are unchanging. British Headquarters prefers to look the other way rather than admit women are serving in any section of their armed forces.

You'll be happy to know that Naomi Novik never makes any of this dragon business too precious or God forbid, cutesy. It all makes logical sense as this alternate world she has created, or rather, enhanced, is revealed.

I've always been interested in the history of the Napoleonic Wars and the reality of it all is intriguing enough, but Novik has made it even more exciting by adding this unexpected twist of war from the air. You don't have to be an expert though - I'm anything but. I'm simply assuming that everyone knows something about Napoleon and his quest for power in the 19th century.

In VICTORY OF EAGLES, Laurence has already been condemned as a traitor for events which occurred in the previous book - EMPIRE OF IVORY. By refusing to follow an inhuman and inhumane order, Laurence has turned his back on all he holds dear - family, fellow captains and servicemen, his own honor as an officer and a gentleman - to do what is right.

An outcast, he would normally have been hanged almost immediately except for one thing - Temeraire. Laurence is thrown in prison and the dragon sent to the breeding grounds in Scotland.The large warrior dragon cannot be controlled except by keeping Laurence alive and threatening his death if Temeraire doesn't comply. War is a dirty, heartless business.

Eventually, Temeraire and Laurence find their way back to each other and are allowed to join in the final assault against Napoleon's forces which have crossed the English Channel and occupied London.

Waterloo never happened and Napoleon's superior forces, land and aerial, have had extraordinary success. It is up to the British to stand and fight and prevent their country from being permanently  overrun by the French. The Brits have no allies in Europe.

Wellesley (not yet made Duke of Wellington) is in charge of all British land and aerial forces, he uses his tactical brilliance to try and defeat Napoleon as the French army marches north from London to meet the British who have massed their forces some miles from the city. With Nelson (still alive after Trafalgar) in charge at sea, the superiority of the English navy must count for something. It is an awe-inspiring battle with an unexpected ending which leads us into the next book, TONGUES OF SERPENTS.

A sample of Novik's writing, to give you the flavor of how she handles a brief action sequence:

The fog was thinning now a little, blowing away from the land, and far to the rear of the French lines, dragons were leaping into the air, one after another. And now the advantage would tell: none of the French dragons, with their short and frequent rests, were withdrawing. There would be no rest for Temeraire, or any of the British dragons who had been aloft and fighting since first light.

Temeraire pulled up very short, abruptly, so Laurence was flung against his leather straps. A determined crowd of six little Garde-de-Lyons pouring fresh into the field had charged him in a body, and now began shrieking in exaggerated voices and belaboring his head and neck wildly, batting with wings and claws.

Temeraire backwinged with two mighty strokes and roared to scatter them, the tremor of the divine wind knocking them back, but in those few moments, the enormous Grand Chevalier they had seen earlier came crashing past, and threw herself down at the square of Coldstream Guards.

The pikes and bayonets were stiffened, but she did not come down upon them directly. Instead she struck the ground directly before the front ranks, so heavily many of the men were flung off their feet, and turning around roared full in all their faces. It was a moral assault only, but a dragon the size of a large barn roaring less than ten paces away might make the bravest man blanch. Bayonets wavered and dipped, then twenty riflemen stood up on her back and fired a terrible and concentrated volley into the stunned ranks.

A knot of men fell all together, opening a vulnerable gap in the wall of the square [of soldiers], and she thrust her massive foreleg into that open space and swept it along the line, all the way to the corner of the square, crushing and knocking down men and pikes like so many blades of grass. Temeraire roared furiously and dived towards her, but one of the Garde-de-Lyons flung itself in his path.

....He seized the little dragon's neck in his jaws, and with a jerk of his head broke it, a single dreadful snap. He let the beast go falling out of the sky, a little scrap of scarlet and blue, the small handful of crewmen scattering like falling leaves through the air behind.

Naomi Novik has a brilliant knack for writing all this as if it actually happened, she writes battle sequences exactly as you might imagine them happening. The clever way she has worked out how dragons of differing breeds would be used in battle is exceptionally rational and real.

You say to yourself, well, yes, yes, this is exactly how it would be if such and such had actually existed. Novik makes the incredible totally credible.

She gives Temeraire his own engaging personality - so much so that you dread anything happening to him, though you know he is a creature of war.

"Novik's influences run the gamut from Jane Austen to Patrick O'Brian, with a side trip through Anne McCaffrey. Her books are completely involving and probably addictive, their central conceit explored in clever detail with a deal of wit and historical insight."  San Francisco Chronicle.

"These are beautifully written novels: not only fresh, original, and fast-paced, but full of wonderful characters with real heart."  Peter Jackson ( Oscar winning director of the Lord of the Rings films, who has optioned the Temeraire books.)

I am currently reading MASTER AND COMMANDER by Patrick O'Brian and am hard-pressed not to look to the skies for Temeraire and his fellow dragons swooping down upon the enemies of England.

Couldn't find an artist attribution.

Note: The books in this series should be read in order to get the full effect of the times and the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire and the other characters which inhabit Naomi Novik's world. Check here for a full listing of the Temeraire books.

Gorgeous fan art by Daniel Govar. There is a huge Temeraire online community.

Watch the trailer for the new Temeraire book CRUCIBLE OF GOLD, out this month in the U.S.

A Favorite Painting...or Two....or Three!

I wasn't planning on posting about another contemporary artist but when I discovered Mark Briscoe's work, I really had no choice in the matter. How could I not share these wonderful paintings?

Briscoe was born in England in 1964 - he's a relatively young artist with plenty of experience in several artistic disciplines. He paints in egg tempera with oil (as did Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh, Andrew Wyeth and Sandro Botticelli, to name just a few). It is a medium in use by artists for over a thousand years.

He studied art in the U.K. worked as an art restorer and traveled to India where he learned the art of miniature painting. Concentrating for awhile on the restoration and painting of antique chinoiserie lacquer furniture, he later moved to Spain (where he now lives) and began experimenting with egg tempera on panels.

The results are these incredible paintings which combine a modern aesthetic with a mix of impressionistic fervor. There is a great sense of movement in his work - the density and brushwork made me suddenly feel as if I'd tipped over the edge into some new world. It is almost impossible to resist lingering over Mark Briscoe's creations and I hope you'll want to do the same.

To learn more about Mark Briscoe, please use this link to his website and this link to his gallery. Here's also a link to a terrific post on Briscoe (from 2010) which appeared online at Fine Art, Business and the World.

Mark Briscoe at work in his studio.

Foreign Film Poster Friday

 Italian poster for a Bette Davis classic, DARK VICTORY.

Friday's Forgotten Book: DEATH'S BRIGHT DART by V.C. Clinton-Baddeley

Friday is Forgotten Book Day, a weekly meme usually hosted by Patti Abbott, but today she's on assignment so Todd Mason is doing hosting duties at his blog, SWEET FREEDOM. Don't forget to check in and see what other forgotten books other bloggers are talking about today. Link.

Can't remember who first recommended V.C. Clinton-Baddeley to me, I just know I'd never read him before - hadn't heard of him either. I think his name is one I might have remembered, even if it is a bit of a tongue-twister.

His complete name (according to Steve at Mystery File) was Victor Vaughn Reynolds Geraint Clinton-Baddeley, so perhaps he was wise to shorten it for publication purposes. 

...his mystery writing career consisted of five detective stories that came out between 1967 and 1972, all featuring Dr. R.V. Davie as his continuing series character.

Baddeley's style of writing is a bit different from any of my other favorites of the period - just slightly  enough to impress me, but not so much that it interfered with my enjoyment of the book. He is obviously erudite, his characters think nothing of spouting all sorts of learned quotes and phrasings, some relatively obscure enough to add a bit of additional mystery to the proceedings.

Dr. Davie's choice of reading - in this case, Magyar Terror, a non-fiction account of the anonymous author's turbulent life in Hungary adds to his understanding of the current on campus crisis as well, especially when he deduces who the author is.

Baddeley has a kind of sideways angle approach to the crime which, in this case, is murder at a fictitious college at England's Cambridge University. He really is rather clever though. Can't think who he reminds me of, so maybe he is unique unto himself.

But his books are hard to find, so we'll see how it goes. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out. I'm always thrilled when I make a new mystery discovery. So thanks to whoever it was who first brought this author to my attention.

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

Baddeley's main protagonist, Dr. R.V. Davie falls under the heading of the amateur detective who sticks his nose in where the cops have already tread or failed to. He is some sort of college don who doesn't really have many duties except to go poking about in peoples' business. (The story takes place in and around a university conference at a holiday break.)

It's very well Davies does a bit of clever snooping too or the truth of the murder of Dr. Brauer, an ambitious, hard-working professor, lecturer and writer, might never have come to light.

While at the podium, Dr. Brauer is felled by a poisoned dart in front of a packed audience. All the events then leading up to his demise come slowly into focus. Turns out Dr. Brauer had a deadly past - a truly heavyweight secret which alters not only the ending of the book, but the good Dr. Davie's handling of it.

There are plenty of suspects, both at the college and attending the conference, as Dr. Brauer's success was resented by some and his personality was such that he had no time to suffer fools, especially undergraduates. But he was a handsome ladies' man so emotions were churning in that area as well.

There are some red herrings too, very cleverly inserted. So cleverly, that I though I'd picked out the murderer early on, but was proved wrong in the end.

Baddeley has a slightly Dickensian gift for names - just the lovely sort of thing I like to find in my English mysteries. There is Ada Trott, Mrs. Pilsworthy, Dr. Willow, Dr. Zinty and Miss Ramble and best of all, two undergraduates - one named Baggs and the other, Mostyn-Humphries. Mostyn-Humphries has some peripheral involvement with the plot, but I just liked reading his name and saying it out loud.

Though the murder happens in front of us, DEATH'S BRIGHT DART would still be considered a cozy, I suppose. Lately I seem to be reading several of these types of mysteries taking place at or near universities - happenstance.

Just to give you an idea of the flavor of the writing, here's a snippet from a few moments after Dr. Davie has had to confront an unsavory bookseller (straight out of Dickens) named, Mr. Stumpf. Books are not the only thing Stumpf is selling or buying.

In the small office the weedy young man was on guard by the tray of photographs and a respectable looking middle-aged man was endeavoring to pretend that he was only standing there by accident. Unfortunately the young man would not take a hint.

..."Good morning," said Davie on his way through.

"Morning," said the young man. "Did you get what you wanted?"

"Unfortunately no."

"Thought you wouldn't."

Outside Davie paused in the dazzling sunlight, watching a military pigeon strutting in the road tirelessly engaged on the quest for provender. He was not aware that he, in his turn, was being inspected by Mr. Stumpf from the window above the shop.

In view of what happened later it was a good thing that Davie turned left into Great Russell Street. At least he had not given Mr. Stumpf the impression that he was staying at the Gainsborough Hotel. He was in fact bound for L'Etoile in Charlotte Street, where he proposed to treat himself to an admirable luncheon.

The line about the pigeon's 'quest for provender' is perfection.

All in all, a pleasant concoction (with very dark undertones and several deaths) - perfect for when you're in a literary mystery sort of mood.

To read a review of one of V.C. Baddeley's other books and to get a list of all five titles, please link here to Mystery File.

March 15th - The Ides of March

The Death of Caesar by Jean Leon Gerome (1824 - 1904)

Caesar, beware the Ides of March!

Well, we know that Julius Caesar didn't 'beware', didn't heed the old soothsayer. The Roman Emperor went forward to meet his death seemingly unconscious of the fact that the men around him all had daggers up their sleeves.

Maybe if the old man had been more specific in his warning.

But then, Shakespeare wouldn't have had fodder for a play and wouldn't have written the speech that Marc Anthony delivers - with the opening line that we all remember from school, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears..."

Here's a link to Marlon Brando's stirring rendition of the speech from the 1953, Joseph L Mankiewicz film. Perhaps not done as in classic Shakespearean precedent, but I've always found it very effective.

Brando puts heart and soul into the words, something occasionally left out in the quest to get the words across rather than their meaning. Link.

Marlon Brando as Marc Anthony

Mustaches We Have Seen and Loved (or not, as the case may be). Or - everything you might have always wanted to know about mustaches, but were afraid to ask.

 by Travis Louie

Recently ran across a delightful post on 19th century mustaches which appeared online a couple of years ago and still has the power to make me shake my head and laugh outright. Here's the link.

(The name of the blog is: Mustaches of the 19th Century - Your One Stop Blog Spot for Your 19th Century Mustache Needs.)

I'm telling you, you can find just about ANYTHING on online - even when you're not looking. In fact, I forgot what I was originally looking for after I spotted this post. Isn't that always the way?

Then, of course, I immediately ran into another wonderful mustache post over at Grand Old Movies: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; or, Movie Mustache Musings.

Anyway, these posts reminded me that I haven't written about one of my favorite manly accoutrement in quite a while - well, ever since my infamous Ode to A Pencil Thin Mustache.

Time for another - don't you think? Ready to talk facial hair?

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

The truth is, there's very little I could say about mustaches that the extraordinary artist Travis Louie doesn't already know and understand, so I'm going to let his paintings enlighten us. The language of the mustache is writ clear in this incredible phantasmagoria of facial hair.

Louie has the gift of making the fantastic look a bit 'matter of fact' - it's as if the Victorian era had suddenly revealed a secret stash of portraits - characters who'd actually lived but remained hidden from view until Travis Louie set them free.

Take a look, see what you think:

See what can happen when facial hair ia allowed to run amok?

To view more ofTravis Louie's amazing creations, please link to his blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Film: THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1939) starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard.

Tuesday is Overlooked (or Forgotten) Films day, a weekly meme hosted by Todd Mason at his blog, SWEET FREEDOM. Check in with Todd to see what other overlooked movies other bloggers are talking about today.Now, here's my entry:

Watched THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1939) for the first time the other night. Yes, strange as it may seem I've never seen this film before. Though I am very familiar with the 'companion' film to this one (at least in people's memories) THE GHOSTBREAKERS, starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard in the second of three pictures, they made together.

I wrote about THE GHOSTBREAKERS on the blog sometime ago - it's one of my all time favorite movies - the perfect combo of comedy, mystery, murder and voo-doo. There's even a haunted castle and a zombie. What more could you want?

For years now I've been wondering if I'd ever get a chance to see THE CAT AND THE CANARY which everyone told me was better than THE GHOSTBREAKERS - being that they have similar plots. But for whatever reason, C&C has never been shown on television - at least not when I've been around, plus Netflix doesn't have it and neither does Amazon rentals. So I finally decided enough was enough, and bought the dvd.

Now after having watched both, I'd say the THE GHOSTBREAKERS is still the better picture but THE CAT AND THE CANARY has the creepy quotient down pat. There were a couple of moments in the film when I was actually frightened.When was the last time anyone was frightened by a Bob Hope movie? Frightened in the regular way, I mean.  C&C is also a lot of fun, maybe not as much fun as I expected, but still quite good enough.

The plot:

Which, by the way, is based on an earlier silent version (1927) of the film which is based on the play by John Willard. Obviously, this is a pretty popular plot, variations of which have been used again and again in books and films. It never loses its strange allure.

Old man Norman has died in his creepy-crawly, shadowy, mysterious house deep in the Bayou outside New Orleans. The house is only approachable by boat (sound familiar?) though the lawyer (George Zucco) arrives by dug-out canoe, or at least, that's what it looks like. You'd think a motor boat would have been more convenient and/or comfortable. But I digress.

An aside: you really do have to wonder how the house-keeping, cooking, food purchasing and general up-keep of the mansion is handled, since there are no servants and only a housekeeper. I'm sorry but these are the sorts of things that distract me.

Okay, back to the story. Old man Norman was a rich, cantankerous old coot who is already dead and buried ten years by the time the heirs gather at the house for the reading of the will. (I know, it made no sense to me either.) Why the ten year wait? Who knows? Maybe old man Norman wanted to make good and sure that he was truly dead before the will was read. PLOT DEVICE! An old man's whim must be strictly followed. Is it legal? Probably not, but that's the movies for you. (In the earlier movie, they had to wait 20 years which made even less sense.)

So, are we to assume that the housekeeper has been living all alone in the house for ten years? Why?
In hopes of inheriting something? Well, if so, she's in for a bit of a disappointment.

The housekeeper is played by the wonderfully sinister Gale Sondergaard - she of the perpetually snarling lip. Even when there's no mystery, she makes sure there's a mystery. Her very presence makes mystery. That's just the way of it. Oh, and she claims that the strange noises we hear in the house are ghosts telling her when someone will die. Why not? It makes as much sense as anything else that goes on.

Okay, so the heirs (all of them cousins, near and far) show up by means of various boats on this dark and spooky night to find out if they're any richer than they were that morning.

There's Aunt Susan, an elderly woman with snippy delusions of grandeur though it's obvious she's seen better days. She is played perfectly by Elizabeth Patterson, a familiar actress who played this same part in about a hundred movies over the years. Her ditzy companion Cicily (a cousin, I believe)  is played by the wonderful Nydia Westman.

Then there are two men who, for vague reasons, are at odds with each other from the getgo. Something to do with one of them getting and then losing the girl (he cheated on her) and the other wanting the girl for himself. Result: the other behaves like a boorish ass for the entire movie and you wish someone would kick him down the flight of stairs into the dark dungeon of a basement. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Charles Wilder (Douglass Montgomery) is the unreliable swain who is supposed to be something of a playboy and n'er do well. He has the kind of glossy looks that give me the creeps, but maybe that's just me. The boorish ass is Fred Blythe played in the most annoying way by the perpetually scowling
John Beal.

But wait, there's yet another man who shows up hoping for his share of the loot, Wally Campbell (Bob Hope), who appears never to have met any of the other heirs except...wait for it, wait for it, Joyce Norman (Paulette Goddard) who is the last to arrive.

Yes, Joyce and Wally were childhood pals though they haven't seen each other in years. And yes, she's the 'girl' that Wilder is wild about though they broke up some time back. She's also the 'girl' who makes Fred behave like a truculent fool.

Will you be my housekeeper too, Miss Lu?

Okay, so long story short, once the will is read, it turns out that Joyce is the only heir. But the will has a very strange proviso. If Joyce dies or goes mad within the next 30 days, then a second person becomes the heir which is practically an invitation for that second heir to commit murder.

However, no one except the lawyer is supposed to know who that second heir is. Wanna' bet?

As if things aren't interesting enough, there's a loud knock on the door at midnight and who should it be but a guard (carrying a shotgun) from the local insane asylum (I know, I know, what can you do - it's the way of these things) who tells them that a homicidal maniac has escaped and been spotted near the house. Turns out the man is called 'the cat' because of his claw-like hands and his strange habit of creeping about on all fours like a....well, like a cat - just before he pounces on his victim. (I'm not making this up, I promise.)

The large house, of course, is loaded with secret passageways and panels that swing open when, for instance, one is trying to get some sleep in a dark and gloomy bedroom. Yikes!

Before too much time passes there is murder most foul and we realize the escaped lunatic must be hiding out in the house, using the secret passageways to get around. One of reasons we know this is that the large portrait (of old man Norman) in the library has cut-outs for eyes and when Joyce is in the room, the eyes are watching her. Yes, the old hackneyed real eyes behind the fake eyes routine. When I saw it I let out a laugh. It's just such a deliciously fiendish joke. Works every time.

But there are a couple of truly spooky scenes and you can't beat the setting, an isolated old house full of dark comings and goings, not to mention clanging clocks and strange music. Paulette Goddard and Bob Hope work together to solve the mystery like a pair of old relaxed hands who are fond of each other.

Some say that this is Bob Hope's best picture, but I give the nod to THE GHOSTBUSTERS. Still, he's pretty damn good in this and what's more, he's not encumbered by a lot of the annoying silliness which make some of his films almost unwatchable.

Now if only the plot and the denouement made a bit more sense, but maybe that's expecting too much. I'm happy enough with what I got, glad finally to have had the chance to see a movie which had eluded me for so many years.

200,000 Hits and Counting!

Art by the incomparable J.C. Leyendecker.

(Jeez, I feel like a hitman keeping score.)

I checked my blog stats today and was amazed to see that in so many words... has amassed over 200,000 page views. Now this seems incredible to me since I've only been blogging for a little under two years. I began mid-2010. (Though the google overseer thinks I began in Jan. Not so.)

I'm thinking maybe google blogger is counting my own views, the fussing I do every day on my blog. I pressed the button on the stats page to stop my views being counted, but, you never know. I can hardly believe that 200,000 people across the world are that interested in anything I have to say about anything. I mean, really.

But they count the mistaken hits too, so the crop of them are probably people on google searching for who knows what and stumbling across me by accident. Hopefully those who do, look around and stay awhile.

Be that as it may, I am very pleased.

And who am I to thank for all this?

Why you, of course. It is a verifiable truth that I could not have done it without you. A goopy cliche but that doesn't make it not true. It's your encouragement that keeps me going even on days when I feel like the hangiest dog that ever hanged. Even when I'm down in the dumps or feeling out of sorts with the universe, you guys cheer me up.

Your comments, emails and just general neighborly-ness make me feel there's a reason to keep going on with this blogging thing. Here's the secret: blogging can be a lot of fun - if you don't let it take over your life. When I start feeling the pressure, I take a step back and slow down. I always said that when blogging stopped being fun, I'd stop. Well, it hasn't, so I haven't.

You guys make me keep on keeping on. So for that and for many other things, I thank you today with all my heart.

Saturday Salon: A Favorite Painting...or Two.....or Three!

This is the one that made me gasp out loud.

I don't usually feature contemporary artists on Saturday Salon, but today I'm making an exception. Christine Lafuente's paintings bowled me over at first glance. I mean, I gasped. That's the way certain art affects me sometimes. I love when that happens.

 Lafuente's technique is astonishingly good. How she manages to control it, I can't guess. But the mystery of it is part of the charm. The way she handles her brush strokes, paint so thickly applied and vivacious. It looks random but I know it can't be. The depth and intensity of her color choices dazzle me. There's nothing about her still life work I don't like.

If I could I would collect the originals. Yes, I am definitely smitten. This is contemporary art that speaks to me.

Christine Lafuente is an American painter who studied at Bryn Mawr College, The Bradford Foundation and the Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts. To learn more about this talented artist, please use this link which, in turn, will lead you to other links.

Christine Lafuente