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I stay under glass
Rabbit, rabbit! I saw a small pink-flowering tree when I left the house this afternoon to run my errands. I will return for it on a less overcast day.
It seems unfair that treating the infection which has been blurring the vision in one of my eyes should require repeated applications of glop which makes my vision even blurrier. I blame Rosemary Sutcliff and Mary Stewart for the persistent feeling that if I am going to put a medicinal salve in my eye, it should have been prescribed by a traveling oculist and an initiate of Mithras ideally.
Despite hearing their cover before the original—I brought a secondhand CD of Through the Looking Glass (1987) home from the Book Trader Café in New Haven and incidentally discovered Television and Sparks—I had never seen the video for Siouxsie and the Banshees' "The Passenger" (1987). It registers as '80's beyond belief and I seem to love it. It's something about the mix of sfnal images which give me vague vibes of Tanith Lee with the band goofing around. Not to be confused with the version filmed in Portmeirion for The Laughing Prisoner (1987).
Again I had to find out from an obituary, but I love that Christopher Hobbs whose contributions as sculptor, illustrator, and costume and production designer were essential to the films of Derek Jarman from Sebastiane (1976) through Edward II (1991) started his career with Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) and finished it with the BBC Gormenghast (2000). Criterion did a Top 10 with him in 2014. He wrote as wonderfully about movies as he dressed them.
Being particularly biased toward a couple of examples from 1949, I may not agree with the conceit of the Criterion Channel's 1950: Peak Noir, but I am delighted to see that the collection includes The File on Thelma Jordon (1950), which I loved so much when it came around last year on TCM's Noir Alley. Maybe it's experiencing a rediscovery. I have meant to write about Caged (1950) for something like six years now.
The hero of Appointment with Danger (1950) is a hard-edged postal inspector who defines a love affair as "what goes on between a man and a .45 pistol that won't jam." The heroine is a nun who trusts serenely in her "guardian angel" and has the street smarts not to confuse a drunk and a corpse. The action ends with road flares and machine guns and starts when a hitman is too polite not to open a nun's stuck umbrella in the rain. I had no idea Phyllis Calvert had ever made a movie in America, much less a film noir in which she was teamed non-romantically with Alan Ladd. I don't know if Paramount had some kind of bet on with RKO as to who could come up with the pulpiest, most lurid set pieces, but I have now watched Jack Webb beat Harry Morgan to death with a pair of bronzed baby booties, for God's sake. I am incapable of evaluating whether this film should be considered good or just extant, but the whacky-smacky levels its investigation against the clock of a heist ramped up to were not predictable from its opening civic paean to the United States Post Office. By the end, it's more "You can rob Fort Knox and live. But steal a dime and kill a post office man and they'll spend a million and a lifetime looking for you." Next thing you know, you'll be answering to the Coca-Cola Company. The location shooting of various urban vistas of Illinois and Indiana is impossible to reproach.
It seems unfair that treating the infection which has been blurring the vision in one of my eyes should require repeated applications of glop which makes my vision even blurrier. I blame Rosemary Sutcliff and Mary Stewart for the persistent feeling that if I am going to put a medicinal salve in my eye, it should have been prescribed by a traveling oculist and an initiate of Mithras ideally.
Despite hearing their cover before the original—I brought a secondhand CD of Through the Looking Glass (1987) home from the Book Trader Café in New Haven and incidentally discovered Television and Sparks—I had never seen the video for Siouxsie and the Banshees' "The Passenger" (1987). It registers as '80's beyond belief and I seem to love it. It's something about the mix of sfnal images which give me vague vibes of Tanith Lee with the band goofing around. Not to be confused with the version filmed in Portmeirion for The Laughing Prisoner (1987).
Again I had to find out from an obituary, but I love that Christopher Hobbs whose contributions as sculptor, illustrator, and costume and production designer were essential to the films of Derek Jarman from Sebastiane (1976) through Edward II (1991) started his career with Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) and finished it with the BBC Gormenghast (2000). Criterion did a Top 10 with him in 2014. He wrote as wonderfully about movies as he dressed them.
Being particularly biased toward a couple of examples from 1949, I may not agree with the conceit of the Criterion Channel's 1950: Peak Noir, but I am delighted to see that the collection includes The File on Thelma Jordon (1950), which I loved so much when it came around last year on TCM's Noir Alley. Maybe it's experiencing a rediscovery. I have meant to write about Caged (1950) for something like six years now.
The hero of Appointment with Danger (1950) is a hard-edged postal inspector who defines a love affair as "what goes on between a man and a .45 pistol that won't jam." The heroine is a nun who trusts serenely in her "guardian angel" and has the street smarts not to confuse a drunk and a corpse. The action ends with road flares and machine guns and starts when a hitman is too polite not to open a nun's stuck umbrella in the rain. I had no idea Phyllis Calvert had ever made a movie in America, much less a film noir in which she was teamed non-romantically with Alan Ladd. I don't know if Paramount had some kind of bet on with RKO as to who could come up with the pulpiest, most lurid set pieces, but I have now watched Jack Webb beat Harry Morgan to death with a pair of bronzed baby booties, for God's sake. I am incapable of evaluating whether this film should be considered good or just extant, but the whacky-smacky levels its investigation against the clock of a heist ramped up to were not predictable from its opening civic paean to the United States Post Office. By the end, it's more "You can rob Fort Knox and live. But steal a dime and kill a post office man and they'll spend a million and a lifetime looking for you." Next thing you know, you'll be answering to the Coca-Cola Company. The location shooting of various urban vistas of Illinois and Indiana is impossible to reproach.
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So hard to find one of those these days! Sorry about that, though. Counter-intuitive treatment and persisting through it is very tiresome and I hope you get to the bit with unimpeded vision again soon. <3
Btw, talking of music videos, this seems like so much the sort of thing you will have seen (and probably indeed, already logged somewhere), but I have to mention it in case not - YT randomly threw a Florence + the Machine video that somehow contains a stray Bill Nighy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui8kUKuLBaU
beat Harry Morgan to death with a pair of bronzed baby booties, for God's sake. I am incapable of evaluating whether this film should be considered good or just extant
I mean, all baby booties I have ever seen have been knitted or fabric, so, er, what? idk seems a reasonable conclusion, although excellent old time location work is indeed always a big compensation.
Being particularly biased toward a couple of examples from 1949, I may not agree with the conceit of the Criterion Channel's 1950: Peak Noir
Fair, I mean,
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Right? What are they teaching people?
Btw, talking of music videos, this seems like so much the sort of thing you will have seen (and probably indeed, already logged somewhere), but I have to mention it in case not - YT randomly threw a Florence + the Machine video that somehow contains a stray Bill Nighy
I had one hundred percent not seen it and I am delighted to have now done so! Directed by Autumn de Wilde, too. (And that postscript.)
Between Bill Nighy and Ben Mendelsohn, Anxiety is getting pretty good representation these days.
I mean, all baby booties I have ever seen have been knitted or fabric, so, er, what? idk seems a reasonable conclusion, although excellent old time location work is indeed always a big compensation.
I am now wondering if the tradition of bronzing baby shoes is specifically American thing. No one in my family ever did it, but I've seen examples my entire life, often in storefronts and movies, occasionally in other people's homes.
Fair, I mean, liadtbunny and I have decided categorically that the peak year of quintessential 1970sishness is 1974 and we will not be gainsayed! 1949 it is. (My knowledge of Noir, as you know, is so lacking I can absolutely agree with you! :-D)
Your support is recognized and appreciated!
So what makes 1974 Peak 1970's?
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Yay, the vagaries of the Great Algorithm are good for something! :D (I was just, wait, is that Bill Nighy in that thumbnail??? And pretty much as soon as I'd watched it, then... does
I am now wondering if the tradition of bronzing baby shoes is specifically American thing. No one in my family ever did it, but I've seen examples my entire life, often in storefronts and movies, occasionally in other people's homes.
Oh, I have never seen that before at all! I can't speak for the rest of the UK, of course, but never once in my experience. I suppose you could do someone some damage with those. It's certainly more plausible than knitted or soft felt-like booties.
So what makes 1974 Peak 1970's?
Zodiac, mainly! But after
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I should hope it was the sort of thing that didn't happen often. It is extremely memorable when it occurs here.
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i wonder if we saw the same tree?
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I hope so!
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Counterintuitive though the goopy treatment may feel, I hope your eye is getting better!
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I would consider the novelty factor entirely worth it! I can't think of another example of nun noir and I don't think I even knew about this one until I dialed it up. (Cross-referencing Harry Morgan's filmography with other cast/crew/genres of interest has been working out for me.) Jan Sterling doesn't have much to do in the plot, but I am always glad to see her. I really think the production should have gone with one of its original titles of Dead Letter.
(Also, Dragnet nostalgia with Webb and Morgan, even if they're playing very different characters here.)
I find it inappropriately hilarious that in both films in which I've seen Webb and Morgan pre-Dragnet—this one and Dark City (1950)—their characters don't even like each other.
Counterintuitive though the goopy treatment may feel, I hope your eye is getting better!
Thank you!
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"The Passenger" is SO 1980s I'm overcome with nostalgia! The lead-in riff, the eye makeup! The costumes! Just awesome. Thanks for that.
Ooh, Appointment with Danger is free to watch--excellent. I did not know that hard-edged postal inspectors were a Thing, but maybe they are? Because we watched the entertaining (though B-grade) Queenpins (2021) on Netflix recently, and it featured a hard-edged postal inspector! (You might enjoy that some night when you can't brain much and aren't feeling super critical...)
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I'm so happy to know this.
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If you see the celestial Bull, please report back.
"The Passenger" is SO 1980s I'm overcome with nostalgia! The lead-in riff, the eye makeup! The costumes! Just awesome. Thanks for that.
You're welcome! I almost never remember to look for music videos of songs I just heard first and sometimes the results are equivocal, but sometimes they are amazing.
Ooh, Appointment with Danger is free to watch--excellent.
It has burned-in subtitles, but the quality is not awful and the story is . . . all of that.
[edit] *cough*
I did not know that hard-edged postal inspectors were a Thing, but maybe they are? Because we watched the entertaining (though B-grade) Queenpins (2021) on Netflix recently, and it featured a hard-edged postal inspector! (You might enjoy that some night when you can't brain much and aren't feeling super critical...)
I love the idea of the hard-edged postal inspector being an archetype! Thanks for the recommendation.
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Thanks for the updated reply ;-)
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Appointment With Danger sounds fun!
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Thank you!
Appointment With Danger sounds fun!
I regret nothing about trying it!
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The first blossom has just appeared on my cherry, I'm annoyed I'm going to miss most of it. I saw at least one cherry already in full bloom while driving around town, another on the next road over, but most don't seem to be out yet. Several different species of white-blossomed trees are currently in full bloom.
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I'm glad you at least aren't missing the season. I miss the cherries we used to have on our old street.
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Medicinal salve in the eye is a very mythically-significant sort of treatment... I hope it works well and quickly and you are freed from all the blurred vision!
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My family's always done it! I have no idea where the custom actually comes from.
Medicinal salve in the eye is a very mythically-significant sort of treatment... I hope it works well and quickly and you are freed from all the blurred vision!
Thank you! I will of course tell absolutely no one if I develop the ability to see fairies out of one eye.
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Would an Anglo-Saxon recipe made from Cropleek and bull's gall work?
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Hit me up!
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--Dude who spent like an hour trying to work out what cropleac* could have been, when he should have been working.
* Or possibly "crofleac": at least in the facsimile, the letter looks like it could also be an F. Assuming Cropleac, possibly chives (Allium schoenoprasum) or field garlic (A. oleraceum): crop apparently has a range of meanings including "green shoot", "flowers", "bunch", "cluster", and "berry".
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I saw the researchers tested a variant made with onion against one with leek, but has anyone tried the species you mention just to check the effect?
(That is etymologically neat and unhelpful a millennium after the fact.)
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Wow, that is an Elisha Cook Jr.-level death.
I am incapable of evaluating whether this film should be considered good or just extant
This made me laugh.
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It really is! Jeez.
This made me laugh.
Thank you!
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That one is absolutely on my list to watch!
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I hope your eye and vision improve very soon! <3
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I never had to put ointment in my cats' eyes!