Each Dawn I Die

So my dad's got this thing called Warners Archives, which streams movies on the television machine. He shells out ten dollars a month for it, so he feels like he has to watch a lot of movies to get his money's worth. And I watch a lot of movies with him, 'cause it's better than sleeping or doing homework.

So I get to see a lot of old black-and-white Hollywood Warner Bros. movies, where they say things like "You dirty rat" and "Take a powder", sometimes even in the same sentence. Like in this movie called Each Dawn I Die, with a very cool and energetic actor called James Cagney and a not-so-cool and greasy actor called George Raft, two mugs doing hard time in the Big House. The warden is portrayed by George Bancroft, because Barton MacLane was probably busy that week.

See, I told you I've seen a lot of old Warner Bros. movies.

The movie's pretty action-packed, and pretty good when it's not preaching to us about the brutality of prison life. These mugs get what they deserve, if you ask me.

However, the one thing that's missing is that scene in a smoky nightclub with a throaty chanteuse in a spangly dress, in front of a thirty-piece orchestra, followed by a lone spotlight, warbling the title song. A little something I imagine going something like this:

Each dawn I die,
Each night I cry.
Each day I pray
The day away.
Zoobie zoobie wah wah.

Of course that final line is open to interpretation, so long as it's sung with sincerity.

What's Up With That? 2

Why isn't phonetics spelled with an f ?

The Girl of My Dreams

My old psychotherapist, Dr. Skruleus, who used to twitch a lot, decided to retire to a farm in Montana and raise Sea-Monkeys. My new psychotherapist, Dr. Headcase, who keeps wanting me to call her by her first name, Yura, is real big on interpreting dreams and the like. Me, not so much, but then I'm not the one with the diploma from the University of Paducah nailed to the wall, right next to a poster of that little kitty hanging in there.

But here's a dream I need some help with. Maybe I could have discussed it with Dr. Skruleus, since he never really listened anyway. He was always too preoccupied with his knitting. But I think it's way too personal to talk about it with my current therapist, who always seems to be paying attention to what I say, and goes so far as to even take notes. Makes me nervioso. I'd much rather share it with my gazillion readers.

I'm sixteen, and I've been driving a convertible for years, as the most awesome people do. I stop to get gas, and I see this pretty girl, cuter than a salamander.  She tells me her name is Sue. We chat, and I must say in all modesty, she seems pretty overwhelmed by my charm, wit, and dashing good looks. So far, nothing unusual, right? When it's time to say goodbye, I point my finger like a pistol and say, "Sue ya later." She jumps out of her car, all excited, and says, "Oh, my God. Wow. You're so awesome. I just have to kiss you." But she says it real fast, like it's one word. Omigodwowyouresoawesomeijusthavetokissyou. Like that.

She runs to my car, and instead of the little friendly peck I'm expecting, she leans in to give me a big, sloppy open-mouth smackeroo. And drops her gum in my mouth.

I chew it twice. Grape. My favorite. As I'm about to give it back to her, thinking this is the start of something beautiful, I wake up.

What can this dream possibly mean? Readers, if you have any ideas, please leave them in the comments below. Dr. Skruleus, if they have Internet in Montana, and you're out there, a little help, please.



The girl I dreamt of.

What's Up With That?

The theme song for "Gilligan's Island" is called "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle".

What's up with that?

Rage

I'm here to say right now, and I don't care who knows it, that I like actors who yell. Big, loud, gut-bustin', ear-bendin' yelling. I feel like I'm getting my money's worth that way.

I've seen my share of old movies, being something of a Renaissance Man and all, and I've seen my share of actors who yell. I guess it all started with Marlon Brando in that movie A Streetcar Named Desire, whatever that means. He yells real good in it. Then there's Lee J. Cobb who's quite a yeller, unless he puts on his wavy toupee, smokes a pipe, and starts acting all avuncular. And then there's Rod Steiger, who not only yells, but gets all sweaty, and twitchy, and studdery, and talks real fast. Very cool. But the best of them all, in my opinion, is George C. Scott.

Boy, can this guy yell. Sure, he does other things, like acting and such, too, but he sure is good at yelling. The best ever. He could make you pee in your pants, just a little. And yell he does in Rage, a movie he also directed in 1972. He doesn't yell much in Rage, but when he does, you sit up and take notice, and maybe pee your pants, just a little.

Without too many spoilers, Rage is a story about a gentle sheepfarmer (with awesome caterpillar-like eyebrows) and his son who are accidentally contaminated by Government nerve gas. The dose is fatal to the son, and the sheepfarmer (George C. Scott) ain't none too well. Of course, seeing how it's George C. Scott, his first reaction in finding out about it is to yell. Awesome. Then he decides to wreak some serious havoc. And wreak it he does.

Well, here's where things get a little twisty thematically, as my English teacher might say. Although, as actor and director, George C. Scott delivers on the violence, it's not emotionally satisfying, as we all know violence should be. To use a word that my psychotherapist is very fond of, it's not cathartic. We're all set up for this emotional release through violence, the best way if you ask me, and we don't get it, because he kills mostly innocent people, and although he destroys the facility where the nerve gas tests are conducted, the nerve gas survives. Bummer. And a rip-off.

Or is it? The violence seems pointless because none of the guilty parties are punished. But maybe that's the point? The pointlessness of violence, especially against an all-powerful enemy? Maybe having no point is the point? All I can say is I don't like my pizza deep-dish.

So shame on George C. Scott for promising to deliver a movie where a man gets a little justice and satisfaction from an irresponsible and unfeeling government, and instead gives us a movie that asks us to think. It's not fair.

                                                    George C. Scott fixin' to get all rage-y and such.

Nobody Lives Forever

So I sits myself down in my favorite Morris chair, takes off my two-toned stompers so as to give my dogs a rest, fixes myself a Spam sangwich and a nice cold Moxie, and I watches this Warner Brothers classic from 1946: Nobody Lives Forever, starring John Garfield, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Walter Brennan, and George Tobias. Boy, this looks to be a real killer-diller, a humdinger, what with that cast, and it also being penned by W. R. Burnett, a literary mug who can really make with the participles.

John Garfield plays this soldier who's sent stateside when his mitt is smooshed by a German Firefly. To you cats who ain't so hep, his hand was shot. He recoups, you bet, and comes out fine as frog's  hair. With the help of his pal (George Tobias), who's a Likeable Larry, but something of a gamook, he goes to retrieve fifty thou in greenbacks he left with his doll, who's a rather nifty, laquered-up dish, if you asks me. But this doll is tempted to hang on to the dough, because fifty big ones is a lot of lettuce, and this much scratch could keep her in nylons and open-toed shoes for a long time to come.

But John Garfield ain't having none of this, see? So he has to make with the fisticuffs and serve up the knuckle sangwiches to retrive his moolah, and retrieve it he does. Then it's off to California, with his pal along for the ride, to take it easy with a little relaxation in the sun and surf in Los angeles and its various confines.

But John Garfield has something of a past, see, and but natch this past has to catch up to him. 'Cause before the war, Johnny was a top-drawer con man. Not one of those two-bit chiselers with frayed cuffs and no pocket kerchiefs, but a real Swell Sam, the best in the biz. So sweet and smooth, Hoover's boys could never lay a pinky on him, much less a glove. But Johnny just wants to lay low and lie on the beach, drinking only the best hooch and soaking up the sun's healthful vitamins.

Word gets to him that there's this rich dame in town, just rolling in currency and ripe for the pickin's, if only he'll give her a tickle so's she'll let loose with the bankroll. Against  the magilla at first, John reverses field and agrees to the con, as long as there's no back-sass, see? because two million in greenbacks is a heap of verdancy.

Turns out this wealthy widow (Geraldine Fitzgerald) is something of a dreamboat, with sparkling peepers, not the kind of hairy tugboat that John Garfield envisaged.

Does John Garfield have a change of heart and actually fall for this delicious dish? Watch the movie to find out. Ya get me?

                                      "I'm just a mug, see? No good for a high-class tomato like you." Or something like that.

The Constant Nymph

So I get up late one night, not being able to sleep after eating all those sardines in mustard sauce I stole from the pantry, and I see my Dad's preparing to watch a movie called The Constant Nymph. Later he tells me he's confused it with a drive-in movie he saw in the 90s*, but this turned out to be a pretty good picture anyway.

 The Constant Nymph was made in 1943 and the main actors are Charles Boyer (pronounced "boy-YAY", 'cause he's French, don'tcha know), Joan Fontaine, and Alexis Smith. They make up what we in the literary world call a love triangle.

Without revealing any spoilers (that's something you should only do when movies suck), let's just say that Joan Fontaine, an adorable little scamp of fourteen, who adorably runs around indoors like an ungainly colt, is devotedly in love - she's the "Constant Nymph" referred to in the title, unless there was a baby insect I'm forgetting about - with struggling composer Charles Boyer. But Chuck up and marries rich girl Alexis Smith. Emotional fireworks and gloopy romantic scenes ensue.

The gloopy romantic scenes were okay, if you like that kind of thing. At least they saved them toward the end of the movie, but I wouldn't recommend watching them on a stomach full of sardines in mustard sauce.

Two questions I have: what does this delightful young girl (who should be going out with someone like me) see in this old geezer, what with his bulbous forehead, his cigarette breath, and his pudgy Gallic hands? Gosh, Boyer is like my dad, if my dad smoked a lot and wore a bad toupee. And is anyone else creeped out by the fact that someone of Boyer's age, and married, to boot, wants to gallivant across Europe with a fourteen-year old girl? It's like my dad wanting to run off with one of my sister's friends. Yuk. Maybe that kind of thing was not frowned upon in Europe in the 40s, but today I think he might just end up in the pokey, in a cell next to my uncle Elmo. And the less said about my uncle Elmo, the better.

Charles Boyer is good in the movie, in a land bereft of desirable males, appealing if you happen to find yourself susceptible to his Pepe LePew voice and his particular brand of oily charm. Alexis Smith is good too, a real trooper in a role that's not very flattering, having to be all jealous and mean to adorable Joan Fontaine. And I think Alexis is talking with the wrong accent, as are a lot of people, so I guess it's no big deal. But Joan Fontaine! Wow!

Joan Fontaine is so good as the fourteen-year old capable of loving and feeling well beyond her years, with a heart full of unconditional love and understanding. Like a puppy. She made me completely forget that she really wasn't fourteen, but an old broad of twenty-five. And I also forgot that she spoke with a British accent, although she grew up in an European mountain village somewhere. But I guess that's what great acting is all about.

Giving a great screen performance is all well and good, but more importantly, she reminds me of this girl who sits next to me in most of my classes and copies from me. And I gladly let her, because that's what true love is all about. True, eternal, hopeless love.

Perhaps we all have our own Constant Nymph.


* The Constant Nympho (1992), starring Tawny Porte and Brad Nailer.

                                                     The girl who sits next to me.