Patrick Murtha

…someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

Joe Orton shares a LOT with Joe Meek and Brian Epstein, including all dying under depressing circumstances in 1967. I am pretty sure that their paths all crossed at some points.

Tim Dorsey and Carl Hiaasen might make departers glad to be leaving the state 😳

This is quite nice, bravo 👏

Related: The Milwaukee airport, to its immense credit, actually has an excellent used bookstore.

www.wpr.org/economy/unli...

Sheer ego, triumph of the auteur theory, or both.

Sheer ego, triumph of the auteur theory, or both.

Now this is the Connie Stevens I prefer! I love Hawaiian Eye and the rest of its Warner Bros. backlot brethren, although obviously they never got within a thousand miles of Hawaii.

Surprisingly good as an adaptation of Conrad’s The Secret Agent, although it can’t capture the intense literary excitements of the novel.

Since Shelley Winters was a good friend of Marilyn Monroe, she should have given this dreadfully embarrassing take (obviously so from the script) a pass. 🙄

I wonder if the makers of “CHiPs” were aware of the great Pedro Infante’s motorcycle cop films, which everyone in Mexico knows by heart?

Larry Wilcox (BOTD 1947): As a young man I had a resemblance to Larry Wilcox if you put me in a CHP uniform, and yes, I have had a chance to test this. 😏

My thoughts on Flight to Hong Kong:

areadingretirement.wordpress.com/2024/08/08/f...

I love that era of British film and even took a course in it once, taught by the great scholar Donald Crafton at Yale. Crafton was ahead of the curve on noir and everything else.

Peter Gibbons: I can't believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We're looking up "money laundering" in a dictionary.

Very typical “wacky” Sixties comedy in the wake of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

Possbly more on point: Who’s Minding the Mint? (1967).

Yet another movie of that era based on a beefy bestseller. I like business fiction and should try Hawley.

Kind of crazy. But overall, I do like the film; it has stayed with me.

William Hurt in Body Heat is an incompetent lawyer, targeted by Kathleen Turner for that reason, and proves to be an incompetent criminal as well.

My thoughts on Violent Saturday, a mixed bag:

areadingretirement.wordpress.com/2023/10/19/4...

I always feel drunk just looking at Behan 😳

The Duke and I are 100% in accord here.

Poconos Resorts I am haunted by the specters of abandoned Poconos resorts. The TV commercials in the New York area were ubiquitous during the late 70s and early 80s. “If you’re in love, you’ll love Penn Hills&hell…

My thoughts on the abandoned resorts of the Poconos, which are kind of a cult thing:

areadingretirement.wordpress.com/2023/06/05/i...

That is hilarious. Apparently Archer of the animated series is also a Carvel fan.

I quite liked Carvel ice cream cakes (a New York area thing). I wish I could find the TV commercial where Tom Carvel, CEO and voiceover artist, inexplicably riffs, “We’re not French. We’re not Alsace-Lorraine. We’re American!”

In Progress: Edgar Mittelholzer, A Morning at the Office (1950). The title is exactly descriptive, with 14 characters of varying backgrounds in a Trinidadian office. Wonderful Altman-esque stuff, neglected like virtually all Caribbean literature.

The two Dobie Gillis sequels, Whatever Happened to DG? and Bring Me the Head of DG, share a continuity and represent, as a Twitter friend of mine once put it, “total defeat” for the character. He has married Zelda and become his father, running the same store.

Harris refuses to talk about it. Mastrantonio puts out distress signals when asked. Altogether one of the most brutal and horrible production experiences of which we have record. It does taint Cameron somewhat in my eyes.