George Raft - quicky film reviews

I don't currently have any of the more famous George Raft films handy at the moment, but thanks to Netflix's instant viewing capability, I was still able to indulge my current obsession. I watched a bunch of his later movies that nobody's probably ever heard of and probably doesn't want to! But George aged really well, as far as I'm concerned. He stays a fit, active, and very handsome man all through his life. These roles are, for the most part, quite undemanding, and George gets a lot of criticism for being wooden, but really... there's nothing truly interesting for him to do in these later third-rate films. Just run around dodging trouble and solving mysteries. Nobody else is going to do much with the roles either, and personally, I'd rather watch George over a lot of other actors.

Whistle Stop (1946) -- Okay, if you leave your brain at the door, this movie is rather entertaining. Otherwise, it makes no sense. Ava Gardner returns to her tiny home town where George is wasting his time unemployed, drinking, and playing cards. They had a thang in the past, and both wouldn't mind having a thang now. But George is now an idle layabout, and she wants more out of life, so there's the town rich guy -- but he's a rotten louse. And that's where it devolves into wacky plot land. Victor McLaglen's running around, stirring up trouble. He tries to get George to join him in a plot to steal Rich Guy's money, then there's this whole weird frame up for murder, and they're forced to run. There's also George's other girlfriend who naturally reacts badly to Ava Gardner's return, except her fate is... um... illogical. There's so much plot in this movie that simply doesn't add up. However, George Raft, Victor McLaglen, Ava Gardner -- they're all fun to watch, even if the story's dumb.

Would I watch it again? Probably, just for the cast.

(Oooh, and a personal highlight was watching George and Victor play Casino in this movie! Another card game, (like klaberjass or klobiyash, however the hell you want to spell it) from my youth. I love playing Casino, and I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone ever play it in a movie before! Speaking of klob (which is still the best two-person card game ever)... my parents caught a film with James Cagney where they were playing it! I need to get the name of that film and watch it. It was with great joy that I discovered Dana Andrews LOVED playing klob. Sigh. Oh, to go back in time, put some opera on, and play klobiyash with him. And catch a couple of fifties and set him and beat his pants... mwahhahhah. Sadly, the only people I know who play this game nowadays are my own family. I really am living in the wrong decade.)


The Man From Cairo (1953) -- Best parts of this movie are the bookends. I laughed outloud at the expected, but still delightful last 30 seconds of this movie. In this one, George is visiting Algiers and gets mistaken for an American detective who's being sent there to find out about a missing gold stash from the war. Oddly George doesn't protest this mistaken identity problem. No, instead he runs with it, particularly after getting drugged, accused of murder, and finding out there's a gorgeous dame involved (Gianna Maria Canale, who really is drop-dead gorgeous in this film). Naturally, he goes on to solve the problem of the missing gold. A straightforward, routine, but fast-paced sort of film. Amusing enough.

Would I watch again? If I was really bored and had nothing else to do.


Loan Shark (1952) -- Probably my favorite of the bunch. George gets out of prison (what, again? LOL!), and goes undercover hunting for the leader of a nasty bunch of loan sharks who are preying on the employees of a tire factory after they murder his sister's husband. He joins the bad guys and quickly makes himself indispensable. He has to reject his sister, friends, and a new girlfriend to do it. This one's got a bunch of character actors I like, the kind of guys who show up in everything back then: John Hoyt (I mostly know him from tv: " Star Trek," "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," "Big Valley," etc.) Paul Stewart (Kiss Me Deadly, King Creole, 12 O'Clock High), and Henry Slate (The Frogmen, Somebody Loves Me, Miss Sadie Thompson). Paul Stewart looks and acts just like he stepped out of Kiss Me Deadly. Same delightfully smirky expression. He should have that look patented. Love them all! This one is more lively than the others. It had a pretty tight script, pretty decent dialog, some nice fist fights (George sure throws a vicious punch), interesting bad guys, and a satisfying (if predictable) ending. Oh, speaking of the ending, I made the mistake of reading a couple reviews before watching the film that claimed there was a twist at the end... they LIE! I spent the movie second-guessing characters and motives, waiting for some kind of cool plot twist to spring up because there was so much room for one or even two... and there was absolutely nothing. Grrr. And this is precisely why I don't read reviews before I see a movie. Nothing worse than setting up false expectations.

Would I watch again? Oh yeah.


I'll Get You (1952) -- Yeah, sure, and who came up with that brilliant title? Not even sure what the title has to do with the movie. This was the worst of the bunch, which is too bad, cuz the basic idea is sound: hunting for bad guys smuggling scientists through the Iron Curtain. It's just that they don't do anything with it and nobody really seems in danger and nothing personal's at stake. Sigh. However, this movie surprised me because it actually featured a capable female character played by Sally Gray. She plays a British Intelligence agent who seemed surprisingly realistic for a film made in the early 50's. She's cool-headed, she gets the drop on George, she's good at what she does, lies her way into wherever she needs to go, her boss trusts her, etc. -- and all without ever turning into some lame "kick-ass superwoman" caricature that she'd probably be nowadays. She's just a girl doing a job to the best of her ability. It was a very welcome surprise. Of course, the script requires she fall in love with George. And they were doing so well with her character up until then. Sigh. Does every story have to have a romantic element??

Would I watch again? Doubtful. Except maybe the part where he vaults over a high railing and lands lightly on his feet. At age 57. I like that part.

Those (im)Pervious Cars

You know how things always come in threes... Well, I've had a run on old-time car chases lately, and what I've noticed is that 30's and 40's cars seemed to provide little protection against someone shooting at you. (Warning... minor spoilers follow...)

In Invisible Stripes, Bogart gets his leg wounded by police bullets fired from behind that go right through the trunk and backseat. In Whistle Stop, George Raft gets nailed the same way -- and he's all the way up in the front seat. And in Scarface, as he moves up the gangland chain of command, one of the first things Tony Camonte does is get himself a car with bulletproof glass and a steel body which, sure enough, comes in handy during an assassination attempt on his life later. Clearly, cars provided little protection from all those flying bullets and he knew darn well to take some precautions up front.

Naturally, I dig this threat immensely. It increases the tension to know characters are hardly safe just because they made it to their car and are speeding away. In fact, Invisible Stripes and Whistle Stop caught me a bit off-guard, particularly the latter. I was not expecting anybody to get shot like that because I've been conditioned by current films to think that can't happen that way. And in both films, other characters actually have to ask the suddenly grimacing, wounded men, "you hit?" because it's not obvious what's happened; there's been no sound of shattering glass, no holes appearing in their rear view mirror panorama. And there's something a bit scary and cool about that.

So, what is up with modern cars? Are their chassis materials that much stronger? I swear the only time people get wounded in modern car chases is when they get shot through the windows. People are always ducking low beneath the windshield in movies, yelling, "Get down!" Like that's the only danger: bullets through the glass. There's probably some exceptions, but right now, I can't think of any. It seems like if you get in your modern vehicle and stay low, you're safe! (unless the shooters hit your gas tank and your car goes boom.) But those lovely old cars...? You'd better drive like a bat outta hell because you're still a hittable target.

The Perfect Henchman

That's how I'd define George Raft's character of Guino Rinaldo (what a great name!) in Scarface (1932). At least he's everything I'd want in my right-hand man were I a gangster. Unflappable, fearless, loyal, follows orders without question, will happily do the dirty work or guard the door while you do the dirty work, it's all the same to him. And most importantly - he's not ambitious. That sort of goes with the loyalty part, but it's important. You don't want your henchman getting ideas and bumping you off to take over, (like you're doing to your own bosses), and that's just never going to happen with Rinaldo. He has his place and he likes it. Also, he doesn't talk much, which I like in a henchman, though that ends up being his personal downfall. (There are just some occasions where standing there looking smug and flipping your gold coin is NOT a good idea. Speak up fast, you damned fool!) I'd also add good-looking as a quality, though I don't necessarily need that in a henchman, I just appreciate it from the comfort of my couch. (Why, is it spring? It must be! I'm definitely having a bit of a fling! :-D)

Alas, this movie isn't about Rinaldo, it's about Paul Muni's character, Tony Camonte, a colorful, ambitious lug whose rise up the gangster chain is as much a result of his own violent stupidity (ie: he's too dumb to realize what he's up against, therefore he doesn't fear it, therefore he actually succeeds where a smarter man might not) as his willingness to break all rules to get there. He's quite the amoral despicable character, and yet, Paul Muni plays the ugly mug with just enough naïveté and boyish enthusiasm that I actually grew to like him a bit. Not enough to want him to succeed or live (particularly after #*$(#*%# spoiler, grrrrrr), but enough to keep my interest when Rinaldo wasn't around.

This movie is chock full of colorful characters, and all of them leave a memorable impression. From Osgood Perkins (Anthony Perkins' father!) as Tony's not-ambitious-enough boss (all too briefly), to Vince Barnett as Angelo, the other faithful henchman who has some hilarious scenes when he attempts to function as Tony's secretary, to Boris Karloff as a rather refined (though bloodthirsty) Irish gangster, to beautiful Ann Dvorak playing Tony's free-spirited (understatement) sister. Her sexy dance (in public, no less) as she tries to get Rinaldo's attention -- Ay caramba! (The fact that she's unsuccessful just shows once again why Rinaldo is the absolute perfect henchman: the boss's sister is off-limits, and that's all there is to that.) One of my favorite screenwriters, the brilliant Ben Hecht, wrote the script, and Howard Hawks directs. It's a great combo all around and there's so many interesting things going on in this film, when I went back to watch just a few parts, it was difficult not to get sucked back into the movie and keep watching all of it. It's very well done.

Coolest shot: the tommy gun blowing away the calendar pages.

I intended to start a database at some point of opera used in movies, so I might as well start here... Tony likes to whistle the sextet from Lucia di Lamermoor before he's about to murder someone.

Invisible Stripes (1939)

How odd to see my first movie headlining George Raft, and he's mostly playing a good guy. Interestingly, I watched Black Widow not too long ago and did not even realize he played the detective in it... but that would make two "good guy" roles. I'm starting out all backwards! I rather like him, at least in this film. His character genuinely tries to make a go of a straight life, but those eponymous "invisible stripes" haunt everything he does. Employers won't keep him on, his girlfriend dumps him because she doesn't want to be seen with an ex-con. He can't win, and you know where that's eventually going to lead him.

George Raft filled this role very nicely. I don't have anything to compare him to, so I think I may have to check out a couple of his gangster flicks, but he had a suitable solid earnestness here that was very appealing. There are flashes of his gangster side, when he loses his temper or when he starts working the angles and slides into wary and clever. And boy, he can switch from a pleasant "yes, sir!" good son to calculating and cold at the snap of a fingers. Not someone you want to cross! (And a random aside: he has the most lovely eyes. They remind me very much of Rudolph Valentino's eyes. Same shape, very dark, very Italian-looking (even if he isn't). Mmmm.)

Then there's William Holden, playing Raft's younger brother. He mostly alternates between sincere and angry, with only a touch of the cynical bitterness he does so well later in life. This role's similar in flavor to his Golden Boy character (and made the same year, so once again he's super young and cute), but without the nuance or complexity. He wants to get ahead in the world, needs money to do it, seriously considers getting it the "easy way" by following in big brother's footsteps. Raft tries to dissuade him from those notions verbally several times, culminating in possibly my favorite scene, when Holden admits to starting down the wrong path. Raft listens to him silently, then locks the door so their mother and Holden's girlfriend can't intrude, and proceeds to knock some sense into him. Literally. Holden's all wild, uncoordinated anger; Raft is calm and precise. Holden doesn't stand a chance. LOL! As the older sibling in my family, I can't help but relate to Raft here. I don't think there's anything quite as frustrating as being older, having been there, done that, then watching a younger sibling ignore everything you tell them and start to make the same mistakes you did. Fortunately, none of my mistakes included anything criminal, but nonetheless! LOL!


The third star in this film is Humphrey Bogart, and while he's supposedly only a supporting actor here, he steals every scene he's in. I never appreciated him growing up, but he sure has been growing on me. In this film, he's the counterpoint to Raft. Raft wants to go straight; Bogart is completely unrepentant and can't wait to leap back into his previous life. Of course their paths inevitably tangle again, and the climax with the two of them is probably my second favorite scene. I do so love characters who give their word and keep it, no matter what.

I enjoyed this film a lot. It's nothing outstandingly special, but nicely diverting, with quite a bit of eye candy.

Serendipity and epiphanies

So just last night, I started a whiny, complaining email to one of my friends about writing. I got just one sentence typed in it before I decided it was rude to inflict my selfish woes on her and saved the email to draft instead of finishing and sending it. The sentence was:

I've probably said this before, but I do not appear to write well when I am not obsessing over someone.

And I thought nothing more of it. Just went to bed reading, as I usually do. My current novel is in PDF form, so I switched to a new book and read the first three chapters of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. Now, I'm not reading this book to learn how to draw (though I won't mind at all if my drawing abilities improve!), but this book is very highly recommended by Holly Lisle in her Think Sideways class. The lessons in the book are designed not so much to teach you how to draw as how to perceive things with the right half of your brain, so the drawing then comes naturally. Holly recommends this book for everyone, not just artists or even writers. I figured I'd better check it out, as I've really enjoyed the class and I respect Holly's opinion.

And right when I got ready to close the book for the night, that's when I realized (in a non-verbal right brain flash, LOL) that that's what "obsession" meant to me, and why I'd written that one sentence earlier. I've been using obsession to access the right half of my brain. It's my shortcut, my jumpstart. I mean, what happens when I obsess over some actor? I spend a lot of time daydreaming, a lot of time thinking in images not words. A lot of time letting the right half of my brain run completely and happily amuck while my left brain tries to tell me how completely silly I am, how useless it is to spend perfectly good hours lost daydreaming about dead actors, and to get back to reality. Right. This. Second. Every novel I've written has come during an obsession over one actor or another. From Sam Neill to Sean Bean to Vic Morrow to Dana Andrews to a little unknown actor no one has heard of named Fletcher Fist. I write very well when I can't get those actors out of my head.

So yes. My whining, complaining observation was actually valid: I haven't been writing well since November because I'm not obsessing over anyone anymore. Or in more logical words: I'm not accessing or listening to the right half of my brain as easily as I do when I'm gone over someone who appeals to me. And my left brain cannot write a novel without the right brain.

I guess this book has come along at a good time, as there appear to be no actor obsessions in my near future. I can use the book's techniques to get to the same place, and possibly in a better manner (though I can't see it as being quite as fun as my previous method.... :-D)

I am very interested now to finish reading this book and see where it takes me.

Hollywood Collector's Show

So, tootled down to Burbank on Saturday to attend this show. It was quite fun. There's two parts - the vendors selling lots of cool movie stuff, and then the actors attending. It's also quite pricey, and so I only got one autograph. That was Malcolm McDowell's. I've liked him since I first saw Time After Time when it came out in the theaters. Best part of meeting him? Listening to his voice... it is so much richer and lovely in person than in a movie. Mmmmm.

The two unexpected highlights of the day were talking with Garrett Wang (played Harry Kim on Star Trek: Voyager) and Kevin Sorbo of Hercules fame. Both were very nice, down-to-earth, non-ego-y, and super easy and fun to talk to. For someone who's pretty shy like me, that's a very welcome thing! I had good long conversations with both of them and it was just very very cool.

There were quite a few others I wouldn't have minded talking to, but I simply had no clue what to say to them, so contented myself with exchanging smiles and head nods. The one I really would like to have met was Debbie Reynolds. She was ADORABLE!! Looked absolutely fabulous, like she hasn't changed in forty years, and was all smiles. But she arrived late, and by the time my family returned from lunch, she had already departed. That's the way it goes.

Betty Hutton extravaganza

So, thanks to this really nice site, I've watched three Betty Hutton films I've never seen, each starring one of my favorite men:

The Fleet's In (1942) with William Holden
Somebody Loves Me (1952) with Ralph Meeker
Spring Reunion (1957) with Dana Andrews

Now, I have mixed feelings about Betty Hutton. Sometimes I really like her, and other times she's simply too loud and annoying for me. This goes for both her acting and her singing. My mileage definitely varies. For example, I don't particularly like Annie, Get Your Gun, but I do like The Stork Club. So, these three new films were an interesting mix.

My least favorite of the three... Spring Reunion. Sorry, Dana, but I did not like this film at all. This is like a chick flick from the 50's. I don't like current ones; I don't like old ones. Premise... the man and woman voted most likely to succeed in their senior year in high school meet again at their school's fifteen year reunion, find out they both have done nothing with their lives, and since neither's married, they fall in love in one day and run off immediately to get married because this will make their useless-to-date lives complete. *rolls eyes* Okay, now I'm not really arguing that a chick can't fall for and decide to marry Dana Andrews in one day, ahem, but really... it's just a completely nerve-grating movie where I want to slap all the characters at various points. Blech. But high points go to Jean Hagen -- always wonderful in whatever films she turns up in, and I loved Betty Hutton here. She's low key and very appealing, and she worked well with the material given. Dana... hm. His character was a very odd clash of opportunist and sincerity, with a bit of lonely desperation. Hard to get a fix on who he was really aiming to be here.

The middle-rated movie was The Fleet's In. Oh sigh. William Holden is absolutely adorable, Dorothy Lamour is sassy and snarky, and the premise simple, but cute. Navy sailor Holden gets photographed kissing a movie star (an accident of location) and his shipmates plug the naïve sailor as top wolf of the boat. A bet gets made that he can't get famous night club singer Dorothy Lamour to kiss him in public. That's it... simple and cute. I loved everything with Holden and Lamour. But unfortunately they're not the whole movie. And the movie was sideswiped way off track in the last half hour by a variety show put on for the sailors... the story ground to a halt, and every act in their show either creeped me out or was so far gone into slapstick I couldn't deal. Cut all that extra stuff out, and this would have easily been my favorite film of the three. And alas, this was also Betty Hutton quite loud and obnoxious (though she did have some very funny scenes), so I had a hard time getting through the parts minus Holden and Lamour. And oddly, this was another film with an overnight romance leading to marriage, but at least this one had the benefit of a WWII setting when men and women did need to act quickly sometimes. Spring Reunion had no such excuse.

And my favorite of the three films was Somebody Loves Me. I really loved Betty Hutton in this one. There's no brash hollering, no craziness; she's soft-spoken, emotional, pretty, and her singing is beautiful. This one's the story of the rise and fame of a real vaudeville singer and her husband, from 1906 to somewhere in the 1920s. It had a lot (a LOT) of songs, most as performances on stage, but I think with only one exception, I enjoyed them all. Ralph Meeker is at the beginning of his career and very young here. He's playing a character type he does very well... the scheming heel who ultimately redeems himself. Betty Hutton falls for him almost instantly, but his character simply uses her, her wealth, and her fame to get ahead in the show biz world -- until he realizes he's really in love with her. It's sounds a bit corny, but they play it straight and it never falls into yucky pretentiousness baloney sandwich material like Spring Reunion (no, I really didn't like that movie!). Only lousy part of this movie? Whoever they picked to dub Ralph Meeker's singing voice. I mean the voice itself is very lovely, it's just that Meeker has such a distinctive speaking voice (one of the things I love about him), the filmmakers couldn't find any baritone a little closer in quality than this? I mean, really?? Cuz it was such a bad match it yanked me out of the movie and just made me giggle every time he started "singing."

Dreaming

I love dreams. I have always had weird, cool, crazy, memorable dreams and the ones of the past few days got me thinking about movie and book dream sequences. I tend to have issues with fiction's dreams, as they never seem anything like real life dreams. Dreams, particularly in books, always seem to have Import with a capital I. In fiction, dreams seem mostly contrived to further the plot. Dreams seem to always mean something. Characters follow dream portents to reach goals in their fictionalized lives. My dreams may be pretty darned awesome, but they've never led me on a quest or given me any great truths about life. Unfortunately. :-D I have gotten story ideas out of some of them, but that's the extent of it. And all those fictional dreams-with-meaning miss out on the sheer wild beauty of the reality of dreams.

Once upon a time, I read some article on one theory that dreams were simply the brain's way of clearing out the mental trash. A mental garbage dump, so to speak. That stuck with me as it always seemed to fit a little better than theories trying to give real meaning to dreams. I mean, if you look hard enough, you can assign meaning to just about anything. I prefer thinking my dreams are simply the product of my brain cleaning house at the end of the day. I also have my own pet fictional theory on dreams that I've been trying to turn into a novella but have yet to find the right story to go with the idea. One of these days!

I was trying to think of movie dream sequences and couldn't really come up with many, though I know there's really a lot out there. Most just don't stick in my head, because, again, they're not representative of the dreams I have. The ones I can think of off the top of my head are in Murder, My Sweet, though it's drug-induced, so I'm not sure it quite counts. The Marrying Kind has a really funny one that I rather like because it does display some of the sheer randomness of dreams. And I loved Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. I always wanted one of those dream recording devices!

But probably my favorite dream sequence of all is from Vertigo. Now, that one, to me, hits everything right. It's got the right sense of disconnect, hits some of the things that are bothering Jimmy Stewart's character at that time but doesn't try to make sense of them or Scotty, it just is. Add in Bernard Hermann's score and that makes it truly nightmarish.

20... er 10 Favorite Actors

So a 20 favorite actor meme is now making the rounds, and since I'm about to head out on a business trip, I thought this would be a good way to cheer myself up.

As I did for the 20 fave actresses meme, I'm actually only listing 10. Not that there's a shortage of actors I adore. Quite the contrary, I could ramble on for hours on all my favorite men, but I'd rather keep it focused on the ones at the top, the ones who are little more special than the others. Of course, the word "favorite" can mean so many things, so what I did for this particular meme was list thirty or so actors that I really really loved, then I ranked them accordingly to how loudly I'd whoop and how widely I'd grin if they turned up unexpectedly as a guest star in a "Route 66" ep, then I picked the ten at the top. Seemed a fair enough way to figure out who was important to me. The results surprised me a little, as some I thought for sure would be on this list, when I put 'em to this particular test, I found I didn't care quite as much as I thought I would. And vice versa.

So...

1. William Holden -- said it all already :-D

2. Lee Marvin - Yep, Lee Marvin beats out everyone else for second place. Like William Holden, I've loved him for as long as I can remember. Nobody, but nobody can play mean quite like he can, or play a good guy, or do comedy, or sing -- all while keeping that wonderful sexy swagger, and with that wonderful voice. He elevates every movie he's in, and if he's around, he always has my full attention.

3. Dana Andrews - Ah, Dana. It's hard to articulate what he means to me. There are some people who change your life, even if you haven't met them, and he's one of them. He conveys so much with those handsome eyes of his, and he has that smooth voice that never fails to melt me. He gets my full admiration and respect like no one else. More than anything in the world, I wish I could have heard him sing opera. I don't even know which opera roles he studied and sang, which opera was his favorite. His daughter told me that at the end, when he was suffering Alzheimer's and couldn't remember anything else, he was still singing opera in Italian. That makes me cry from both sadness and a strange sort of joy, that he still had that. Because love of opera is something I understand with every fiber of my being.

4. Ralph Meeker - Yeah, he's way higher on the list than I thought he might be, but man oh man, do I love him. I've seen him play pretty much all types of roles, and I like him best when he's playing morally ambivalent characters. He does Grey oh so very well, and as we well know, I'm a huge fan of Grey!

5. Sam Neill - Sam Neill was actually my first true actor crush as an adult. The first time I saw The Hunt for Red October, he completely stole my heart. There's very few movies he's made I haven't seen.

6. Ewan McGregor - He simply can play any role and make you believe in him. I can't think of any current actor I love quite as much as him.

7. Joel McCrea - four things I've learned to appreciate from watching McCrea: 1 - How well some men can wear clothes. I used to think Dana Andrews was the best dressed man in a suit. Nope, I'm afraid McCrea cleanly stole that award away. I almost never pay attention to clothes, or how well a suit or tux actually fits a guy... until McCrea made me notice without even trying. 2 - How good a guy looks after getting dunked in a river. 3 - How important romance is. 4 - And how there's nothing quite as attractive as a truly good man.

8. Aldo Ray - I think he's my all-time physical ideal. If I was ranking actors solely by how lustworthy they were, he gets top slot. Love his brawny build, love his raspy voice, love how easily he laughs, love how often filmmakers get him out of his shirt...

9. Richard Boone - I was a little surprised at first to see him beat out so many of the others to make this list, but really, it's no surprise. I've adored him since the first time I saw Big Jake. Paladin is one of the coolest characters ever put on television, but he'd be nothing if he wasn't played to perfection by Boone. Richard Boone is a great combo of intelligence, honor, swagger, and meanness (when he wants to be). He intimidates the hell out of me, but there's nobody I'd rather have at my side in a confrontation. Like all the guys on this list, I think a movie is better if he's in it.

10. Vic Morrow - A good-looking, fine actor, but more than that... from watching him in films and on television, I've learned so much about how to write a story. That sounds odd, but it's true. There's a lot of acting in writing (at least for me), and Vic Morrow is one of those actors who, for whatever reason, I feel on a visceral level, and the things I've learned about acting from studying how he says his dialog, how he physically carries himself in different roles... he taught me, more than anyone else, how to completely become (and believe in) something I'm not, and that carries into my fiction writing every single day.

"M Squad"

I've been watching the first disc of the 1957 - 1960 "M Squad" series and, I have to admit, despite the awesomeness of Lee Marvin, it's not keeping my interest. It also made me realize something else about what I need in my entertainment, because why doesn't this show work for me? Very simply: it's too straightforward.

How's that for an odd criticism? Those who know me well, who know my writing, who know my likes and dislikes are probably just nodding and going, "yeah, wanna tell us something new there?" Cop gets case, solves case. Sure there's some twists, people aren't what they seem, people lie and try to lead Frank Ballinger on a merry chase, there's action and shoot outs and some nice fisticuffs... but it hasn't yet engaged me.

I couldn't help comparing "M Squad" to "Peter Gunn," both half hour shows, both made late 50's, both dealing with crime. But "Peter Gunn" sucked me in immediately, particularly the first half of the first season. It wasn't straightforward at all, though on the surface, it's no different from "M Squad": detective takes on case, detective solves case. So what's the difference? "Peter Gunn" swings right away into noir territory and the Land of Grey, where "M Squad" is very black/white so far. It also gives me characters I care about, emotion, and the most important: things at stake for the leads. Peter Gunn, Edie, Mother, and my favorite Lt. Jacoby - they lead lives outside the case that draw me in. They make promises to each other that they can't always keep, or that get interrupted, that make me worry. They make me invest in what happens to them.

And that's what's missing from "M Squad" so far... something at stake. Something that makes me care whether Ballinger succeeds or fails. Something personal. There's nothing that takes it beyond a cop doing his job. Now, really, that's an unfair desire by me for a show like this, because I doubt it was created to be anything other than what it is: a nice straightforward cop show. But that doesn't stop me from being a little disappointed anyway.

On the other hand... Lee Marvin. Watching him brings a grin on my face a mile wide, and really, if he wanted to swagger around reading the phone book, I'm in. So I'll happily keep watching, even if the eps don't quite glue me to the set and maybe, just maybe, it'll develop into something more down the line.

Books read in 2008

Following Rachel's entry (since she's the one who got me logging my reading habits two years ago), 2008 was not a particularly big reading year for me, though I was pretty much reading steadily throughout.

January

• Scardown - Elizabeth Bear
• Worldwired - Elizabeth Bear (These two comprise the rest of the trilogy following the first book, Hammered, which I read in Dec 2007. I enjoyed this trilogy a lot; they're my favorite Bear books so far, particularly the first book, Hammered, as it was the most personal of the three. The two sequels were a little more far-reaching in scope, a little less intimate-feeling, so what happened to characters didn't hit home quite as hard as it did in the first book. But all in all a fine, exciting trilogy. A very fast read.)

February

• Giacomo Puccini - Conrad Wilson

March

• The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer (this book, as I said before, took me months to read, cuz it was heavy wading through each character's section. I've read several books this year that really helped me pinpoint what I like and don't like in books. This was one of them.)
• Dust - Elizabeth Bear (based on the back cover's description, this novel sounded right up my alley... only it simply didn't work for me. There's a few reasons for this. 1) I don't think I'm the right audience for this book, 2) I think a lot of references that might have helped me understand things went right over my head due to my own ignorance, 3) the main characters never engaged me, and I think I need to read it again to figure out why, cuz I liked them, I just couldn't feel them or feel with them. I felt the entire book was telling me what to think, but not letting me truly feel along with the characters, which is an odd reaction to a Bear book; and 4) I'm told (there we go again with the telling) who the main villain is, and I'm told she did bad things, but I never actually saw them firsthand (other than briefly in the beginning, but while she did rather gruesome things, she didn't seem evil), so the entire end didn't work for me because I couldn't buy why I was supposed to be rooting for one team over another. Now, secretly, I'm hoping the assumptions the main characters make with their second-hand knowledge about the villain's supposed evil deeds is going to play into some greater plan (because this is the first book of a trilogy after all), but that could be wishful thinking on my part. This whole book was a surreal reading experience, like I was outside looking in at where all the good stuff happened, and I could see it and hear it, but not feel it, not get it. It was supremely frustrating because I like her work. I will read the rest of the trilogy when she finishes it and it comes out and hope the second two books work better for me.)

April

• The Satan Bug - Alistair MacLean (A re-read. While MacLean is the author of my all-time favorite book, I'd only ever read Satan Bug once before, back in high school. I should have known there was a very good reason for that. This book just makes me angry. It's a prime example of how not to write a book, particularly in showing authors what information they should never keep from their readers.)

July

• South by Java Head - Alistair MacLean (A re-read - This one got rid of the bad taste left by Satan Bug. This is one of the best by him. Personally, it gives me everything I want out of book. Very satisfying.)
• A Darkness Forged in Fire - Chris R. Evans (loved it! If Sharpe was an elf and had to fight the evilest of magic and his own past, that would be this book. I was mildly disappointed that one of the characters seemed headed towards the predictable, and I'm really hoping that's authorial deception and the next book will prove me wrong! But still a quick exciting read and I can't wait for the next book!)
• Atonement - Ian McEwan (Ugh, not even worth going into again)

August

• Foot Soldier: A Combat Infantryman's War in Europe - Roscoe C. Blunt, Jr.
  
• Odalisque - Fiona McIntosh (One of my favorite fantasy authors. This was the first book in the Goddess series, and I devoured it in one day. Fiona McIntosh's one of those author's whose books I start only when I know I don't need to do something else, because I will not stop until the book is done. So far, I have loved every book of hers I've read. They are exciting, adventurous, violent, scary, heart-breaking, never boring, characters grow and change, no one is safe, no one is spared. They always leave me satisfied and remind me that yes, I still really do love books, and not to be discouraged by the bad ones. I think I've bawled my eyes out somewhere in every trilogy of hers.)
• Emissary - Fiona McIntosh (book 2 of the Goddess series, finished the very next day. Unfortunately, I didn't have book 3 then, can't remember why, now, and I got left hanging but good! I was just able to get the concluding book a couple weeks ago, and Goddess was the first book I read of 2009. Again in one day, all 550 pages of it, because there was no way I was stopping until I found out exactly what happened to everyone.)

September

• Casino Royale - Ian Fleming (quick, easy read)
• Diplomacy of Wolves - Holly Lisle (a good exciting read... again, I got left hanging because I don't own the next books in the series. Grrr.)

October

• The Road - Cormac McCarthy
• The Cellist of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway
• The Crazy Man - Pamela Porter
• Cairo Kelly and the Mann - Kristin Butcher
• I, Coriander - Sally Gardner
• Silk - Alessandro Baricco
• Catalyst - Laurie Halse Anderson
• The Foreshadowing - Marcus Sedgwick

My, but October was the month, wasn't it? The first three I read over my birthday weekend, while visiting a friend. All these books were picked for me by my friend, and all these books were fantastic. Favorites were: The Road, a post-apocalyptic setting, very dark, very affecting, very sparse and yet so vivid. It'll stay with me a long time. Catalyst - wow, powerful book. The Foreshadowing - great combo of WWI, family, and what one can do with the ability to see the future.

December

• Vellum (This book took me forever to read. I started it a year and a half ago, gave up, then started re-reading in earnest back in September. It took me the full four months to get through it. And it is another book, like Dust, definitely not written for me. I like the writing, I like the characters, but honestly? This book made me work too hard for too little payoff. It's told in multiple little circles that all interconnect and swirl and re-tell each other's little mini-stories to produce the big picture. And that's cool and rather beautiful, but I prefer a straightforward narrative, it's that simple. I stuck with it, got to the end, and came away still not knowing what the hell it was really all about or what I should carry away with me when I closed the book. I know a lot of this one referenced things that went right over my head, although, because of following the wonderful journal of writer Catherynne M. Valente, I actually knew the story of Inanna. Loved the WWI bits, and everything with Finnan, but... ultimately Vellum is not for me.)

First impressions

I'm down with the latest incarnation of illness that keep circling through the family, so I've spent the day either sleeping or on the couch watching two Route 66 eps and Key Largo (cuz I was still in a Humphrey Bogart mood after High Sierra). And while half out of it, I had a scene stuck in my head that I could not, for the life of me, place. It finally came to me.

It was from ffolkes (1979), a highly underrated, wonderful Roger Moore action film that my family used to watch all the time. Which made me realize that this movie gave me my first, rather against-type, impression of Anthony Perkins, and it wasn't as the twitchy, nervous, self-conscious character he often played in other films. No, my first impression of Anthony Perkins was as a cold-blooded, intelligent, scary murderer/hijacker. That's still the image I get when you mention his name and I realized I've never really shaken it. I've learned to accept the nervous version, but I still expect to see that cold calculating look appear any second, no matter who else he's playing.

The only other against-type first impression I can think of off the top of my head is Stewart Granger in The Wild Geese (1978). That was the first thing I saw him in, and I have never, ever been able to see him in anything else without distrusting him and waiting for him to doublecross somebody. I just can't shake that first impression.

And now I'm really in the mood to watch ffolkes, except, alas, I don't own it. Great cast (Roger Moore, Anthony Perkins, James Mason, David Hedison!), cool action, "Cigarette, Kramer?", and cats and more cats! I used to want three little white kittens, just so I could name them Esther, Ruth, and Jennifer.