Murphy's Craw

Where was I 40 years ago today?

2012-01-15T14:24:00.006-05:00

In a TV studio, with a broken ankle -- as this Murphy's Craw rerun explains:

Let the depositor beware

2012-01-04T15:43:00.003-05:00

A print ad for a local bank includes the following boast:

"Our tellers have been trained in identity theft."

40 years ago this month ...

2011-12-27T16:56:00.050-05:00

… I walked into the newsroom of the morning paper in my town and approached the copy desk.

It was early afternoon, so there was only one person there. The “desk” was actually a group of desks arranged in the shape of a right-angled horseshoe, and he sat in the center of it as the “slot,” or supervising copy editor.

When he saw me, he did a double take. To this day I don’t know whether it was a real double take or whether he was trying to be funny.

But given the ironic lack of communication among those who toil in the news business, I wouldn’t be surprised if no one had told Steve Mekeel that this high school student standing in front of him was supposed to spend an afternoon with him.

This had been arranged (or so I thought) by a guy named Dick Beaudet, who worked on the night desk of the evening paper, which was owned by the same company and had a separate staff that was literally walled off from their competitors on the morning paper. The company had recently launched a program in which young people with an interest in journalism could hang out at the papers to get an idea of what it was like.

Our group was part of the Exploring program, sponsored by the Boy Scouts, although I fortunately never had to wear a uniform and even more fortunately never had to try to cook anything over an open fire.

I’d joined after receiving a form letter from the publisher, inviting me aboard on the basis of a career questionnaire I’d filled out at school. The group met for the first time that fall and for the rest of the school year usually met every second Thursday night.

I’ll never forget our second meeting.

Dick had us all in the evening paper’s newsroom, seated at manual typewriters.

“All right,” I recall him saying with a bluster that would have done Perry White proud, “you’re all going to write a story tonight! You’re not going to have to do any reporting, because I’m going to give you the facts, and whoever writes the best story will get it in the paper!”

The “story” was about how, in the meeting room downstairs, someone from the local Boy Scout council was going to give a representative of the company the charter for our Explorer Post as our parents watched.

Dick rattled off the facts, and I put together a story. I’d never written a news story before, but I’d been reading the local papers for years – I was somehow able to read at a very early age and as a tot would sometimes beat my grandmother to the evening paper when it arrived – and I must have picked up the standard “inverted pyramid” newswriting format through some form of osmosis.

The next night when the paper arrived at my home, the top of the front of the second section featured a story “By Mark Murphy, Explorer Post Reporter.”

My first byline. (Nothing like it. Still have it somewhere.)

Some weeks later Dick tossed me a two- or three-page handout from a state senator and asked me to write a story from it.

Two weeks later, Dick, again in Perry White mode, came up to me. “You Mark Murphy?”

I indicated that I was.

“Here!” he said with no warmth whatsoever as he tossed a tearsheet at me. Then he walked away to handle some other onerous chore.

I looked at the tearsheet. It contained my rewrite of the handout. There was no byline on it, but it looked pretty much like what I’d written.

I realized I’d just been complimented.

I was less proud of my performance on another Thursday night, when there had been some local flooding and I was told to do a phone interview with one of the folks in charge of handling the disaster.

Nobody had warned me that the guy was going to talk so fast, and I struggled to keep up with him as I tried to jot down what he said. God knows what he thought of me.

(Well, actually, he probably thought I was a doofus the next day if he read the story and realized I’d gotten a minor fact wrong. Yes, that still stings a bit.)

As Christmas approached, Dick told us that we could come in during the holiday break and hang out with someone from one of the papers. I could have arranged to hang out with a reporter, but I’d been interested in what the folks on the evening paper’s copy desk were doing.

If Steve Mekeel was surprised by my appearance, he weathered the blow well. He had me sit down and gave me a few things to edit – harmless stuff, like a brief from the local museum or a military handout saying that Cpl. Whatsis, son of Mr. and Mrs. Whatsis of our fair city, had been promoted to something or other.

This was long before computers – hot type, though on its very last legs, was still the modus operandi – so I marked up the copy with a pen or pencil and tried to write the headlines to match the specifications on the copy.

At one point I proudly handed in the military handout, and Steve went over it.

“You did OK as far as you went,” I remember him saying, “but you didn’t really edit it.”

He handed it back, with all the changes he had made – tightening it, changing the wording to make it read better and conform to something called “style.”

Wow, I thought. I’d never thought to make those changes!

Yet I wasn’t dispirited. Somehow I knew two things:

1, I really liked this.

2. If I could learn to do it, I might have a real job someday – the very thought that was in my prayerful parents’ minds when they'd let me sign up for the program.

I did a few more stories and headlines. I think one of the headlines got in.

The Explorer meetings continued until the end of the school year. We’d started with a large group, but it had dwindled. I think the folks at the paper ran out of things for us to do. I once heard Dick grumble – well within earshot of me, though he plainly didn’t care – that his boss was supposed to be in charge of the program but had pretty much delegated it to Dick (not an uncommon occurrence, I was to learn years later), and how was Dick supposed to arrange things for us to do when he himself had his own work to do?

So a lot of kids lost interest. I especially remember one student who smoked a cigar in the meeting room and wanted to turn the program into a literary magazine. He walked out after Dick politely but firmly set him straight.

My high school career ended along with the program. I continued on to a hometown college where I worked three semesters as a “technical assistant” (typist and proofreader) on the paper, wrote freelance TV reviews for the alternative weekly and, in my last semester, worked as a PR intern.

During my college years I’d hoped to get summer work at the papers, but I didn’t know how to go about it. I’m sure that the fact that I misspelled Steve Mekeel’s last name in a letter to the managing editor didn’t help.

A few months before graduation, my PR boss, who’d worked for the morning paper, got me an interview with the managing editor.

Great, I thought, this is it!

It wasn’t. There were no openings.

I graduated and sat around like an idiot for several months before my PR boss called and said she’d heard of an opening at the morning paper. She said she hadn’t mentioned my name but that I should get down there ASAP.

Luckily for me, security at the papers was practically non-existent, so I was able to get into the newsroom and find the managing editor, who professed not to remember me. But I kept talking and, perhaps just to shut me up, he handed me an editing test.

I worked on it and handed it in.

He then told me to go to one of the electric typewriters and type up the test, which was two or three pages long.

I’d never used an electric typewriter.

I handed my work in about an hour later.

I’d raided the newsroom at 3 p.m. Now it was nearing 5, and the managing editor, having looked at my test and having sat me down, was telling me how there were a number of people in the newsroom who were around my age, and that he thought I might fit in well.

It occurred to me that without telling me he was hiring me, he was hiring me.

Oh my. (I’ve told a lot of people this story. They can hardly believe it. Years later, I just barely believe it myself.)

I started the next day, reporting to the managing editor, who escorted me to the copy desk and introduced me to the guy in the slot.

Steve Mekeel looked me over and said, "You've been here before, haven't you?"

I worked with him and learned from him -- and many others -- over the next few years and (in some cases) even beyond.

I spent 30 years there, mostly on the morning paper before it and the evening paper merged. If Dick Beaudet remembered me, he never mentioned it, though he always treated me as a fellow professional, and it was now obvious that his gruffness was (for the most part) a facade behind which lived a caring family man who over the years won the affection of those who worked for him.

I was too shy to bring up the Explorers with him until he retired some years later, and I sent him a card in which I mentioned my time with the group and thanked him.

I still remember him coming up to me at a company party and thanking me for the card; it had meant a lot to him.

That was the last time I saw him.

A few years ago I myself retired along with a few others, and the company threw us a little party.

Dick Beaudet wasn’t around to invite, but Steve Mekeel was.

During my farewell address, I mentioned that long-ago afternoon on the copy desk and introduced Steve to the staff, telling them he was the guy I was pretending to be all along.

I wasn’t looking, but a friend of mine told me Steve grinned from ear to ear when the room erupted in applause.

Within a few years, Steve, too, was gone.

There are others I could write about, and maybe I’ll do that someday, but this is long enough for now.

At the (old) movies: 'Dodsworth'

2011-12-19T01:18:00.007-05:00

Notes from another get-together of the local cinephile society…..

I first saw “Dodsworth” on cable TV some years ago.

I’d known nothing about it and hadn’t even read the Sinclair Lewis novel on which it was based. (Or any Sinclair Lewis novel, for that matter.)

But I knew that the 1936 film was directed by William Wyler and starred Walter Huston, so I suspected it might be worth watching.

Yet as I began watching it, I had a pretty good idea of where the plot was going.

It begins with Sam Dodsworth, a pioneer in the auto industry, selling his company and retiring – and planning to take a trip to Europe with his wife, who, unlike him, spent time overseas when she was younger.

Well, of course, I knew what was coming – a ham-handed satire in which Dodsworth, the American ignoramus, was going to make a fool of himself overseas and become an early embodiment of the Ugly American, or at least the Homely American.

So I sat back to watch this scenario play itself out.

But it never did.

Because I was wrong.

And when “The End” appeared on the screen and the picture faded to black, I was never so happy to be so wrong – once I was able to pick myself up off the floor.

If you’ve never seen the movie, I’m not going to discuss exactly how wrong I was because you should have the pleasure of seeing it for yourself.

But let’s just say that for its time, the movie is remarkably adult.

And by “adult” I don’t mean nudity or four-letter words.

I mean the kind of movie in which people behave and talk the way real people do.

So many of the older movie dramas, as wonderful as they are, had to make ridiculous compromises with the censors if they were to be released at all, and film buffs such as myself are used to just looking the other way.

But with “Dodsworth,” there’s no place to look but at the screen, at the performances: Huston, Ruth Chatterton as his wife, Mary Astor as a divorcee living overseas, and even David Niven, who was just starting out but who, even in a relatively small role, shows that he already deserves a place at the grown-ups’ table.

Huston, of course, is the standout – he’d played the role in the Broadway adaptation. He’s so good, you wish you could meet the guy and thank him afterward. (I rarely feel that way about performers; the only modern equivalent I can think of offhand is the late Jerry Orbach.)

But even though the whole film is wonderful, it’s the ending that knocked me out. It’s not the sort of ending you’d usually see in this kind of drama. Not that there’s anything censorable about it (although heaven knows the censors might have found some silly reason to object to it), but … well … without giving anything away, it’s the kind of ending that might well happen in real life as opposed to the way people usually behave in “domestic dramas.”

Then again, calling “Dodsworth” a domestic drama is like calling “Hamlet” a mere whodunit. (And as a card-carrying member of Mystery Writers of America, I feel obliged to add that there’s nothing wrong with that.)

It was obvious that many in the cinephile society’s audience had never seen the film, and it was great to see them paying such close attention to it. And afterward, after the lights came on, the audience members, who on other occasions usually get right up, put their coats on and leave, just sat in silence, almost an eerie silence, for a minute or two.

The president of the cinephile society later told me that some found the picture almost too intense and draining, comparing it to “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

I wouldn’t go that far; whenever I see "Dodsworth" I’m exhilarated, not enervated, by the total effect: the performances, the settings and camera work, and, perhaps most important, the writing.

Matter of fact, “Dodsworth” contains one of my favorite all-time lines of dialogue, spoken by Huston to Spring Byington, who is excellent as a family friend.

I believe the line is:

“That the way they write sevens in Europe.”

I know, I know – you’re scratching your head, wondering why this is such a great line.

Thing is, you have to hear it in context.

Which means you have to actually see the movie.

Which is something I hope you’ll want to do now.

Why I won't write about Harry Morgan

2011-12-12T17:43:00.004-05:00

Mind you, I was all set to write an appreciation of this fine character actor, whom I first saw as a kid on a sitcom called "December Bride," when I found that the Self-Styled Siren had already written the best possible tribute to him, which you can read here.

I added the Siren's blog to my blogroll a few weeks ago. Answer the Siren's call and you will easily see why.

Where have I been all her life?

Cover story

2011-11-26T01:02:00.010-05:00

A few years ago, in a bookstore, I saw a new paperback book about writing.

The author, a well-known writer whom I'd seen in person and whom I knew to be a good guy, had previously written a book about writing that I'd bought in hardcover and liked.

So I snapped up the paperback, got it home and -- you guessed it -- discovered it was the same book, with the original title mentioned (and not too conspicuously) on an inside page.

I suppose I should have taken the book back and asked for a refund, but I chalked it up to experience (does anything ever get "chalked down" to something else?) and I now figure that someday I'll give the book to another aspiring writer.

But this week the same thing darn near happened.

Different writer, but same subject -- writing. I looked at the hardcover in the store and even looked it up on my ebook reader.

(And by the way, have you noticed that traditional publishers are now being called legacy publishers? Or am I misunderstanding that term? Then again, I don't want to run too late here, as it's now well past 1 a.m. according to my analog watch.)

The only thing that tipped me off that it was the same book was when I realized -- on further inspection of the hardcover -- that it had the same famous-author blurb.

Of course, authors and publishers have a perfect right to call a book whatever they want to call it, from edition to edition, from format to format.

And this sort of thing has been done for years. A number of Agatha Christie's books have been known by more than one title. But I think in Christie's case, whenever a book is retitled, the original title is, in at least many cases, noted on the cover.

I'm not sure why authors and titles keep doing this. Or is it the doing of some graphic designer who thinks the extra type would make the cover "too busy"?

But by burying the original titles, legacy publishers -- and their authors -- aren't doing themselves (let alone you and me) any favor.

Memo to The Amazing Spider-Man:

2011-11-12T19:56:00.012-05:00

In Saturday's installment of your comic strip, you're confronting Serra Carson, who has secretly been framing you.

"I must know -- what made you suspect me?" she says.

"You insisted I was innocent despite all the evidence against me!" you reply. "And when something seems too good to be true -- it usually isn't!"

Um, sorry to break it to you, O great web slinger, but methinks you're saying the opposite of what you really mean -- namely that if something seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

Best wishes,
Your friendly neighborhood Syntax-Man

At the (old) movies: 'This Gun for Hire'

2011-10-14T17:01:00.029-04:00

Part of the fun of attending the local cinephile society’s get-togethers is seeing (and hearing) the audience’s reaction to the movie.

I should explain that these gatherings are held at a family restaurant, and although the folks who run the society are very knowledgeable about movies, they’re not highfalutin. (If anything, they’re lowfalutin.)

Many of the folks who come to have dinner and see the films often haven’t seen the movies before or haven’t seen them in a long time. And I’m also happy to note that quite a few audience members are very young.

I especially pay attention to the audience’s reactions when the film is a comedy. I enjoy seeing which gags work and which don’t.

The cinephile society’s latest offering was “This Gun for Hire” (Paramount, 1942). It’s definitely not a comedy, but the audience’s reaction to something that happened near the end provided a stark example of how one false note can screw up an entire cinematic symphony.

“This Gun for Hire,” directed by Frank Tuttle and based on a Graham Greene novel, catapulted Alan Ladd (below) to stardom – right over the head of Robert Preston, who was originally billed as the major star. Veronica Lake came along for the ride, and she and Ladd made a number of repeat journeys together.

Ladd plays Philip Raven, the kind of cold-blooded hit man who likes cats a lot more than he likes people. He’s hired to kill a blackmailer, but after the job, the guy who hired him (played by Laird Cregar) pays him off with hot money. After discovering the double cross, Raven tries to find him – and the mastermind behind him – to exact his revenge.

Along the way, he meets Ellen Graham (Lake), whose boyfriend, wouldn’t you know it, is the cop who’s leading the hunt for Raven. And shame on you if you haven’t figured out that the cop is played by Preston.

The mastermind is an ailing industrialist played by Tully Marshall, who was nearing the end of a 60-year career in show business. (According to the Internet Movie Database, he was born in 1864.) The industrialist has to use a wheelchair, and he’s assisted by a secretary/nurse played by Victor Kilian (left), whose most famous role came many years later – as the “Fernwood Flasher” in TV’s “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”

For most of the movie the audience was quiet: The story was strong and the suspense was plentiful, not to mention the all-but-palpable chemistry between Ladd and Lake.

The audience was with the movie until the scene where Ladd confronts Marshall at gunpoint.

Then Victor Kilian, as the long-suffering servant, had to go and spoil it all with a line that was something along these lines:

“For years I’ve changed his clothes for him, washed him, and taken his abuse! I can’t take it anymore! Shoot away!”

At which point many folks in audience erupted in laughter, to the point where they couldn’t take the rest of the film seriously. They were (as we writers say) “taken out of the story.”

Now to be fair to Mr. Kilian, it probably wasn’t all his fault. The line was melodramatic to begin with (W.R. Burnett – of “Little Caesar” and “Asphalt Jungle” fame – and Albert Maltz are credited with the script, but there’s always the possibility that one or more other writers – or even execs – fiddled with it), but Mr. Kilian’s delivery sure didn’t help.

If Alan Ladd had been in the audience, he probably would have gone after whoever was responsible. And given his menacing performance, I’d be deathly afraid if he broke down my front door.

And I have two cats.

Not coming soon to a TV near me

2011-10-03T00:21:00.010-04:00

My friendly out-of-neighborhood chain bookstore's DVD section now includes a set of three Charlie Chan films.

Unfortunately, the three films aren't among the best of the series; they were made near the end, after the series had moved from Fox, which was a major studio, to Monogram, which, um, wasn't.

Two of the films feature Sidney Toler in his declining years. The third, made after Toler's death, stars Roland Winters, who is generally considered the least of the movie Chans, although he was generally a good character actor who shows up in a lot of old movies and TV shows.

If I wanted to buy this DVD set, I'd have to pay $39.95.

That's too much for me, given the general quality of Monogram's Chan films.

But I can't help suspecting that this is the first time in entertainment history that the cost of a DVD set has equaled the combined budgets of the movies themselves....

As Freud would say, 'You hadda be there'

2011-09-15T20:23:00.005-04:00

I rarely remember my dreams, but here's one from last night:

Somehow I'm meeting Johnny Carson -- he's alive and well. Maybe it's just after his last show.

He's very pleasant to me.

At some point he says something.

I can't remember what.

What I DO remember is my response:

"I'll have my girl get in touch with your girl."

Somehow this makes him double up with laughter.

Wow, I think with unbounded joy, I made Johnny Carson laugh uproariously!

And that's it.

If anyone knows what this dream means, please keep it to yourself.

A joke for Steven Wright (if he wants it)

2011-09-12T23:36:00.007-04:00

One night when I was a kid, my father said he was going out and leaving us for good. Then he went to the store, bought a pack of cigarettes and came right back.

Today's travel tips

2011-09-12T20:56:00.018-04:00

"If a train doesn't stop at your station, then it's not your train."

-- author Marianne Williamson, on Facebook

If it's an Amtrak train, you'd be better off at the airport.

Another bright star in the blogosphere

2011-09-10T22:36:00.010-04:00

"At what point did the transition happen? The one where the child and parent trade places?"

In her new blog, my longtime friend Judy Berman writes about (and reflects on) a visit to her father.

Judy has been a schoolteacher for some years now, but for many years she was a radio and newspaper journalist.

You have to be good to make it as a radio or newspaper journalist.

You have to be damn good to make it as both.

And though it's been a while, it's clear that Judy still has it.

I hope you'll visit her blog. I know I'll be stopping by often.

Today I fly across cyberspace ...

2011-09-10T21:57:00.010-04:00

... and land on my friend Dan Valenti's website, Planet Valenti, where I discuss a certain recent incident involving a famed Claymation character.

I hope you'll drop by.

It's a small world (or at least a small backlot)

2011-09-09T01:14:00.007-04:00

I've gotten into the habit of watching DVDs on my computer, and I've found that I often notice more details that way.

Tonight, for example, I watched the 1946 version of "The Postman Always Rings Twice," with John Garfield, Lana Turner and Cecil Kellaway.

At one point, the exterior of the hospital where Nick (Kellaway) is treated after Cora (Turner) tries to kill him (though Nick doesn't know that) reveals that the name of the hospital is Blair General.

Ring a bell, trivia fans?

Blair General is where Dr. Kildare and Dr. Gillespie worked. (The Kildare movies and TV shows, like "Postman," were made at MGM.)

Which leads to (not "begs") this question: Where were Kildare and Gillespie while all this was going on?

Considering that in their own movies Kildare (played by Lew Ayres) and Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore) seemed to spend half their time playing detective, couldn't they have figured out that Cora and Frank (Garfield) were up to no good and put a stop to things, thus saving Nick's life and, ultimately, Cora's and Frank's?

This, at the very least, constitutes a dereliction of duty, if not flagrant malpractice.

And I know just the man to investigate. (Does anyone out there have Dr. Christian's number at RKO?)

Some housekeeping

2011-09-07T16:21:00.011-04:00

Sorry I haven't been around much lately; I've been trying to keep a number of balls, and possibly a chain saw or two, in the air.

In the meantime, I'd like to alert you to a couple of additions to my blogroll:

Lingua Franca, an offshoot of The Chronicle of Higher Education's website, features entries by author Lucy Ferriss, professor and author Allan Metcalf, linguistics professor Geoffrey K. Pullum, veteran editor Carol Fisher Saller and author Ben Yagoda.

If you're interested in words and writing, I'm sure you'll find plenty of food for thought, and if you're annoyed that I just used a cliche, you might enjoy Mr. Yagoda's latest essay. (He's also a very nice guy -- I met him after he gave the dinner speech at a conference I attended last year.)

The other contributor whose work I'm more familiar with is Ms. Saller, whose eminently sensible book, "The Subversive Copy Editor," is a must for anyone who handles words and deals with the people who write them.

Stu's Show is the successor to a previous link, Shokus Internet Radio. I wrote about Shokus here, but I'm sorry to report that after a long, heroic effort, proprietor Stu Shostak has had to pull the plug on this wonderful service.

However, "Stu's Show," the crown jewel of Shokus, will continue once a week, with new shows beginning Sept. 21. The first new show will feature Jay North, Gloria Henry and Jeannie Russell, and if you're of a certain age, namely mine, you won't have to be told that these three starred in the TV version of "Dennis the Menace," and you don't need to be told to tune in on that date.

But you don't have to wait until then to visit the site -- and download, for a mere 99 cents each, past episodes of "Stu's Show."

These two new links should be enough to keep you busy while I attend to other matters.

Now, where did I put those balls and chain saws....

How I get through life

2011-08-22T00:46:00.002-04:00

My last reality check bounced, but I'm going to pretend that it didn't happen.

It ain't exactly 'Remember the Alamo'

2011-08-22T00:17:00.010-04:00

From The Associated Press:

"Libyan rebels raced into Tripoli Sunday and met little resistance as Moammar Gadhafi's defenders melted away and his 42-year rule rapidly crumbled....

"'It's over, frizz-head,' chanted hundreds of jubilant men and women massed in Green Square, using a mocking nickname of the curly-haired Gadhafi."

A friend and former newsroom colleague has remarked that as a rallying cry, this lacks a certain something.

My guess is that they tried to come up with something better but couldn't agree on how to spell the guy's last name.

I liked her, didn't love her (Let me splain)

2011-08-07T01:37:00.021-04:00

A lot of fuss is being made about the 100th anniversary of Lucille Ball’s birth.

And I certainly can’t argue with that.

But I must confess – and please give me a second to duck after I say this:

I’ve never been a huge fan of hers.

But I also would never dispute that she deserved a lot of respect and still does.

I did enjoy watching “I Love Lucy” when I was a kid – especially the Hollywood episodes. Haven’t seen them in years, but I suspect they still hold up. After all, they were made when it was extremely rare to see movie stars appearing as themselves on TV. And doing a TV sitcom? Whoa!

Then, too, Ball had worked with a number of these people before in movies before she hit it big as Lucy Ricardo – people such as William Holden (“Miss Grant Takes Richmond”) and Harpo Marx (“Room Service”). And it's always a pleasure and a privilege to watch old show-biz pros work.

I'll also readily admit to shedding a tear whenever I see that nightclub scene where Lucy Ricardo tells Ricky she's pregnant. And I can laugh with everyone else at the Vitameatavegamin bit, and one or two of the other classic scenes.

But I somehow can't bring myself to rush to the TV set whenever an "I Love Lucy" repeat is airing.

Yet I respect the amount of work and dedication it took for Lucille Ball to get where she did.

She did have a substantial movie career before Lucy Ricardo came along, even getting top billing, but it took many years for lightning to strike, and when it did, she was ready.

And let’s not forget that she was no slouch as a dramatic actress. Her role as a callous showgirl in “The Big Street” seems to be the example most often cited, but in some ways I prefer her coolly understated work as the faithful secretary to Bradford Galt, the detective played by Mark Stevens in “The Dark Corner,” a movie that doesn’t seem to be much remembered today because Mark Stevens himself isn’t much remembered, but if you see it around give it a try – it also includes William Bendix and Clifton Webb, both of whom are usually worth watching.

When I was a kid I also enjoyed watching the “Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” on summer nights. It’s a tribute to the professionalism of Ball and Desi Arnaz that I had no way of suspecting that while they were making the “Comedy Hour” episodes their marriage was not only on the rocks but practically out to sea.

In later years, my family watched “The Lucy Show.” Arnaz and William Frawley were gone, but Vivian Vance stayed around for a while, and then came the great Gale Gordon as Mr. Mooney. Yet the “Lucy Show” I remember most is one I remember not because of Lucy but because of the guest star – Phil Harris, playing a once-great songwriter who is down on his luck. If you see the episode, you won’t be surprised to know that Lucy Carmichael helps him find his way again and reunites him with an old flame who still loves him. But you might be surprised by Harris’ humorous, understated performance – Ball lets him pretty much steal the episode.

Or at least that’s how I remember it.

Somehow I could never watch “Here’s Lucy.” In later years I think I watched the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton episode, but that’s it. (I was happy to read recently that Richard Burton was openly in awe of Gale Gordon, which says a lot about both of them.)

See, the problem I got into with Lucille Ball was the same problem I had with Bob Hope.

No one can ever dispute their brilliance or their work ethic.

But they both gained fame playing characters that didn’t age well – Ball as the ditzy schemer, Hope as the quick-witted coward who always tries to get the girl.

It was painful to watch them both in later years – Hope in his execrable TV specials and, even more painfully, Ball – and Gordon – trying to do slapstick in “Life With Lucy.” Very few older comics can get away with doing physical humor; it’s hard to laugh when you’re afraid that the folks you’re watching might actually injure themselves. (I think only Buster Keaton could get away with that sort of thing when he got older because he’d been doing acrobatic stuff since he was a kid and audiences somehow sensed that and knew he could take care of himself.)

Anyway, when all is said and done, I’m not a Lucille Ball fanatic and never will be. But she certainly deserves to be celebrated.

In the meantime I’ve been thinking about another performer who would have been 100 years old this year – born just six months before Ball.

And I hope to write about her soon.

That old doppleganger of mine

2011-07-29T21:43:00.015-04:00

So I’m walking down the street today, on my way to the local shopping center, when a sheriff’s department car, heading in the opposite direction, slows and turns in my direction.

Uh oh, I think.

But then again, I think (more than a little stupidly) that the young deputy driving the car is going to ask me for directions. After all, drivers do stop and ask me for directions every once in a while, and I am glad to oblige, though I sometimes worry that I haven’t give them the right directions and even now they’re still hopelessly wandering around somewhere.

The deputy says, “Louie?”

I tell him I’m not Louie.

He asks me to show him a photo ID.

I comply.

He thanks me and acknowledges that I am not Louie.

I tell him that my father’s name was Louie.

He smiles. A nice, polite kid. (And yes, I’ve reached the age where practically everyone in any kind of uniform is a kid.)

So I go to the shopping center, have some lunch, and am walking down to one of the stores when, out of the corner of my eye, I see another sheriff’s department car heading my way.

A woman’s voice says, “Louie?”

I turn.

The deputy again says, “Louie?”

I put on my very best polite smile and tell her that I am not Louie and that this is the second time I have been mistaken for him.

She doesn’t ask me for photo ID but instead laughs and tells me that I look a lot like Louie.

Too bad for Louie, I tell her, friendly smile still firmly in place.

I go to a store and buy some stuff. Then I decide I need to make a phone call and that I need to find a quiet place where I can make the call.

So I duck into a fairly quiet drugstore and make the call.

Then I leave the drugstore and head down to the shopping center’s bus stop.

As I’m heading there, a third sheriff’s car pulls up alongside me.

A guy says, “Louie?”

I turn and see another smiling young sheriff’s deputy.

Back goes the friendly, polite smile as I tell him that I am not Louie and that this is the third time I’ve been mistaken for him.

As I’m explaining this, a sheriff’s car pulls up alongside this car, driven by the first deputy, who, I presume, was going to tell this guy that I am definitely not Louie.

We all have a laugh over this, and I head to the bus stop.

I don’t know whether they found Louie. Given how relatively laid back they seemed about the matter, my guess is that Louie is some poor soul with a mental illness or some other disability who had wandered away from his home, and his relatives were worried.

If this is so, I really hope they’ve found him.

But then again, there’s always the possibility that Louie is a maniacal criminal mastermind and genius and that the deputies are only pretending to be laid back because they have been warned to be very circumspect because Louie is such a genius that he knows how to make miniature but very potent hand grenades and hide them in his armpits for use at a nanosecond’s notice.

If this is so, I really really hope they’ve found him.

Because as much as I might enjoy travel, I was planning on a quiet weekend.

I have no real desire to spend part of my weekend visiting Mount Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty, much less hanging off either of them while someone is trying to kill me.

And I find myself wishing that I could call up Cary Grant, Robert Cummings, Robert Donat and Henry Fonda so we could all get together and form a Mistaken Identity Support Group.

Thank you for letting me share.

Peter Falk

2011-06-27T00:02:00.017-04:00

My first substantial memory of Peter Falk – aside from TV guest spots or secondary movie roles – is from a series he did in the 1960s, “Trials of O’Brien,” in which he played a lawyer who got involved in criminal cases and was always behind on his alimony payments.

(At least that’s how I remember it – I was too young and unsophisticated to “get” the series, though I somehow knew it was good. I also suspect the show marked the first time I’d ever heard the word “alimony.”)

The only specific episode I recall was called “Dead End on Flugel Street” and featured Milton Berle.

According to the Internet Movie Database, only 22 episodes were shot. I don’t know who owns the rights, but I do know that if the show ever comes out on DVD, I’ll snap it up.

A few years after “O’Brien,” I became one of the millions of fans of “Columbo.” It was hands-down the best of the rotating “NBC Mystery Movie” series, though “McMillan and Wife” had its moments. (And remember that neat “Mystery Movie” opening, with the Henry Mancini music?)

I think all the “Columbo” episodes are available on DVD, including the later ones that aired on ABC, but the only ones I own are those from the first season. This isn’t to say that the other seasons’ episodes are bad, but the first season was produced by the series’ creators, Richard Levinson and William Link (somehow I feel whenever I type those two names, I should genuflect), Steven Bochco was one of the writers, and one of the directors was an up-and-comer by the name of Spielberg.

Levinson (now deceased) and Link were, for my money, the best TV writing team ever. Some of the occasional TV movies they wrote – “My Sweet Charlie,” “A Certain Summer” and “The Execution of Private Slovak” – tackled social issues with scripts that were dramatic and literate but never ponderous.

But even as kids, Levinson and Link had always loved the mystery genre, and their mystery scripts were as literate and intelligent as their more serious efforts. It was almost physically impossible for them to write down to an audience.

In addition to “Columbo,” I recommend their stand-alone TV mystery movies, including “Rehearsal for Murder” and “Murder by Natural Causes.” (Another “Mystery Movie” series they came up with, “Tenafly,” starring James McEachin as a detective who balanced his work with his duties as a family man, should have caught on but didn’t.)

Their Emmy-winning first-season “Columbo” script, “Death Lends a Hand,” is required viewing for any student of fiction writing. And like the other first-season shows, it’s 90 minutes long.

After the first season, some of the “Columbo” episodes (with Levinson and Link staying on as executive producers) were two hours long. Eventually, I think, almost all of them were. I think I read that this was at the network’s request, but most of the time the extended length hurt the show because the padding – no matter how well written – was evident.

But even when an episode was too long and sometimes tedious to the point where I, as the viewer, was almost tempted to confess just to get it over with, Falk was still interesting to watch. Even given the talents of Levinson and Link, I doubt the series and the character would have lasted as long if it hadn’t been for Falk.

(And I also think it’s about time that I bought the DVD of the original version of “The In-Laws,” starring Falk and Alan Arkin. Can anyone who saw it ever forget Falk yelling “Serpentine! Serpentine!” as he and Arkin flee gunfire?)

I remember being saddened a few years ago by the news that Falk had Alzheimer’s disease – a particularly tragic twist, I thought, for someone whose most famous character was known for being (apparently) forgetful.

Although he is gone, I’m happy to say his character lives on in book form. “The Columbo Collection,” a collection of 12 stories by William Link, is available. If you’re a Columbo fan, you’ll want to get it – but don’t read it too quickly; these stories are to be savored. Me, I have three more to go. I hope that by the time I finish them Mr. Link will have come out with a second collection.

When dialogue is way too ahead of its time

2011-06-24T00:43:00.009-04:00

About 10 years ago I was watching a new "major motion picture" that featured well-known actors and was set overseas in the 1950s.

At one point, one of the characters said, "Sounds like a plan."

Huh?

Now, mind you, it wasn't as jarring as it could have been if the guy had whipped out a cell phone, called his girlfriend and asked her to TiVo something for him.

And I suspect that the actor may have been ad-libbing.

But still.

Yesterday I was reading a short story set during the late 1930s in Hollywood and featuring some celebrities of the time along with other characters.

As an old-movie buff I know a lot about this era.

At one point, a character said, "Who's the Marx Brother wannabe?"

Wannabe?

A word whose first recorded use, according to Merriam-Webster, was in 1981?

Now it is true that the story was narrated by an anonymous character who wasn't there, who says this was the way he (or she, for all I know) heard it.

So maybe the author could argue that the narrator has a faulty memory or a tin ear.

But still.

I'm not trying to nitpick. But anachronisms like these "take me out" of the story, make me aware that I'm reading something, or watching a movie or TV show, instead of experiencing it.

And that's not where I wannabe.

At the (old) movies: 'Charley's Aunt'

2011-06-23T01:30:00.011-04:00

Some notes from a gathering of the local cinephile society….

“Charley’s Aunt” (Fox, 1941) is one of several movie versions of the Brendan Thomas farce that was first performed in England in 1892. Back then the star was W.S. Penley, portraying Lord Fancourt Babberly, an Oxford student whose friends Jack and Charley persuade him (with at least a dash of coercion) to pose as the title character, a rich widow from Brazil, “where the nuts come from.” (That line must have been a hoot back in 1892, and it still plays well with a receptive audience.)

Penley (that’s a drawing of him in character at left) was unavailable for the movie, having died in 1912, so Fox obtained the services of Jack Benny, who does his best to pose as a British undergrad. Since this kind of material requires audiences to cheerfully check their common sense at the door anyway, what’s another implausibility among friends? (And Benny’s best is, as usual, very very good.)

Director Archie Mayo expertly guides the actors through the plot’s permutations. (Even if you’ve never seen this or any other farce in your life, you just know somehow – it’s probably in our DNA – that these complications will include the appearance of Charley’s real aunt, here played by Kay Francis.)

I suppose you can give the cast extra points (or extra marks, considering that this is a British play) for being able to pull off such a carefree, lightweight piece of material during a particularly heavy time in the world’s history. It helps a lot to have Edmund Gwenn around; he practically came out of the womb performing stuff like this.

A few casting notes of interest:

Charley is played by Richard Haydn in his first feature film. Haydn made a career out of playing eccentric characters who talk through their noses. (In Haydn’s case, it sounded as if he had several noses.) It’s always nice to see him in this character, but it’s particularly interesting to see him in this film, where he drops that character (which perhaps he hadn’t really established in the U.S. anyway) to play something closer to a real human being, or as real as one can get in a farce.

Anne Baxter is around – very young, very pretty, very underused.

Laird Cregar plays Jack’s father, Sir Francis Chesney. Because Chesney’s title is about all he has left to his name, he is especially eager to meet Charley’s rich aunt. Cregar was noted for playing villains, but it’s always nice to see that he can do stuff like this (and Lubitsch’s “Heaven Can Wait”).

Perhaps the most shocking moment of the movie (and the one that got the biggest laugh from our crowd) comes as Cregar, brandishing a big walking stick, swaggers in to meet the aunt (who is really Benny). The fake aunt is hiding his/her face with a fan. When Benny removes the fan and reveals the “aunt’s” face, Cregar’s walking stick instantly shrinks.

Never mind the elephant in Captain Spaulding’s pajamas – how that gag got past the censors, I’ll truly never know....

Before the movie: “The Antique Shop,” a 1931 short featuring George Burns and Gracie Allen.

Burns sometimes said that the secret to Gracie’s success was that she wasn’t a comedian – she was an actress. I used to think this was a pretentious thing to say, but I eventually realized that Burns, whose self-deprecating gags hid the fact that he was one of the smartest folks in show business, was, as usual, right.

Gracie didn’t just say dumb and silly things. For one thing, they were usually dumb and silly and very funny – the duo generally had top-drawer material. More to the point, Gracie was playing someone who fervently believed she was right – and felt sorry for you because you just couldn’t understand. If that isn’t brilliance, I don’t know what is.

I’ve sometimes wondered how Gracie Allen would have fared in a serious part – no gags. Kind of a reverse of what Leslie Nielsen did late in his career.

I guess we’ll never really know the answer.

But somehow I think I do anyway.

For the outdoor chef who has a big appetite

2011-06-20T00:23:00.008-04:00

Posted on a telephone pole in my neighborhood

YARD SALE

MULTI-FAMILY

BBQ FOR SALE

Leonard Stern

2011-06-09T22:53:00.004-04:00

When I was a kid, I noticed that the credits of some of the better comedy shows included this man's name.

I'm thinking of "Get Smart," "The Governor and J.J." and "He and She," to name a few.

("He and She," by the way, was one of my family's favorite shows, featuring Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss as a young Manhattan couple and Jack Cassidy as the quintessential ham actor. It was funny and sophisticated, and when it was canceled we and many others -- though apparently not enough of us -- wrote to CBS, asking that it be kept on the air.)

In the early 1970s, this man's name (with a middle initial -- B. -- added) showed up on the credits of a mystery series, "McMillan and Wife."

By that time, I think I'd found out that Leonard Stern had also written for "The Honeymooners."

Leonard B. Stern died this week, and the obits I've seen so far play up the fact that he was one of the creators of the Mad Libs books, which were popular with my family for a time. The New York Times, I think, goes overboard with this angle in its obit, but I suppose Mr. Stern wouldn't mind; these books probably made him rich.

But I think he deserves to be remembered more for his fine comedic mind and sense of taste.

(And if you ever get a chance, read one of his lesser-known books, a collection of idiotic network memos -- yes, I know, some would say that's a redundancy -- titled "A Martian Wouldn't Say That.")

I positively don't know

2011-05-21T01:38:00.002-04:00

Exactly when did "absolutely" become the new "yes"?

She's a painter -- a boxer -- a fashion model!

2011-04-25T09:42:00.016-04:00

From Newsweek.com:

"Having observed her over the years, one senses that Couric feels liberated in leaving a job that utilized only part of her emotional palette. She’s a bit bruised by the experience, but ready to bandage her wounds and try on a brighter wardrobe."

Meanwhile, back at the (old) movies....

2011-04-23T18:53:00.015-04:00

Some notes from the local cinephile society’s recent western double feature….

“California Gold Rush,” directed by R.G. Springsteen and released by Republic Pictures in 1946, features a character who’s probably best known today for a movie he never actually appeared in – “A Christmas Story,” Bob Clark’s classic rendition of Jean Shepherd’s masterwork of nostalgic humor.

I’m talking, of course, about Red Ryder – he of the “Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!” that young Ralphie so desperately wants, despite the adult voices warning him that "You'll shoot your eye out!"

Red Ryder originated as a comic strip character. In the movies he was brought to life by several actors, including, in this film, “Wild Bill” Elliott, accompanied by Bobby Blake (at right, and later known as, yes, that Robert Blake) as his sidekick, Little Beaver.

I’d never seen Elliott before. As an actor he’s no threat to Laurence Olivier, but that’s OK because the part doesn’t call for that. For this kind of role you need a guy who knows his lines, can ride a horse and is very personable – kind of like the next-door neighbor who always says hi with a friendly smile, a guy you can trust; though he might well mostly keep to himself, you know in your heart that you could dig up his basement without finding any trace of a body.

Robert Blake’s charm as a child actor mostly eludes me – and I’m talking about not only this film, but also those Our Gang comedies he was in near the end of that series’ run. He has a nice smile, but when he’s not smiling he seems ill at ease, as if he has to go to the bathroom, or one or both of his parents are just out of camera range, ready to flog him if he blows a line.

And although, years later, I enjoyed “Baretta,” I sometimes feared that Blake’s career would evaporate if he ever lost his right arm – he always seemed to be pointing at he other performer while saying his lines. (“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time! And! That’s! The! Name! Of! That! Tune!”)

In “California Gold Rush,” Red’s services are requested after a series of stagecoach robberies led by a harmonica-playing smiler with a gun, named Chopin. (That pretty much clues you in to the level of humor here.)

Turns out that the real leader of the gang is the guy who runs the local hotel. Also turns out the guy’s name is Murphy. (A Murphy who’s a less-than-perfect human being? Talk about suspension of disbelief.)

Murphy finds out that Red is on his way, so he hires The Idaho Kid to ambush Red and ride into town accompanied by a kid posing as Little Beaver. (Why just killing Red wouldn’t be enough is never explained, unless I wasn't paying attention.)

Fortunately, Red foils the ambush, in the process killing The Idaho Kid, and comes to town as himself. (He knows The Kid is The Kid because while searching the body he finds a wanted poster of The Kid – and a little bag of money or grub or something that has “The Idaho Kid” written on it. Accommodating, eh what? Red does stop short of checking to see whether the dead bad guy’s mom sewed “The Idaho Kid” into his underwear.)

Eventually Murphy finds out that the guy posing as Red really is Red, then gets him framed for something or other. But eventually things turn out all right.

I realize I’ve been making fun of this movie, but it would be wrong to be too hard on it; I often like watching low-budget movies to see what they do within their limitations. Sometimes they do remarkably well.

In this case, I fear the pardners who rustled up this entertainment shot themselves in the foot by breaking two of the Commandments for Chief Bad Guys. (And I’m not talking about that silly Murphy name.)

1. Thou shalt not surround your Chief Bad Guy with henchmen who are at least half a foot taller than he is.

2. Thou shalt not cast as your Chief Bad Guy an actor whose worst scowl provokes not abject fear but genuine concern that he hath gone far too long without a bowel movement….

“New Frontier” (also known as “Frontier Horizon”), directed by George Sherman and released by Republic in 1939.

The film is one of a series of pictures featuring “The Three Mesquiteers,” a trio of cowpokes who went around righting wrongs in complete compliance with The B-Movie Cowboy Code of Behavior.

According to Wikipedia, 12 actors appeared as Mesquiteers over the run of the series. In this film, the Mesquiteers are Ray Corrigan, Raymond Hatton and a young guy who would soon be going places via a legendary stagecoach captained by John Ford: John Wayne.

In this outing, the Mesquiteers come to the aid of settlers who’ve been swindled in a phony land deal. The chief settler’s daughter is played by a very attractive young woman named Phyllis Isley who, a few years later, would win an Oscar for “The Song of Bernadette” under the name Jennifer Jones.

Playing her brother Jason is Dave O’Brien, who never achieved Isley/Jones’ fame but is fondly remembered as the fall guy (often quite literally) in the Pete Smith shorts.

All in all, it was a mildly entertaining evening at the movies, and the company as always was good.

And none of us got shot in the eye.

The worst crossword puzzle clue ever?

2011-04-23T16:53:00.004-04:00

I'm sitting at the grocery store, killing time before my bus comes, and I decide to do the crossword puzzle in one of the local weekly newspapers.

If you've seen the movie "Wordplay," about the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, you might recall Jon Stewart saying that when the New York Times crossword is unavailable, he sometimes does the USA Today puzzle, "but I don't feel good about myself when I do it."

Imagine me with this puzzle, which includes two-word answers, which alone would make Will Shortz throw it back to the constructor with fearsome force.

At one point, I come to this clue: "About chronology."

The answer is 13 letters.

As I work my way around the puzzle, I begin to discern what the last seven letters are.

Naw, I think, couldn't be.

But the answer (I checked the solution on the back page) does indeed turn out to be:

CHRONOLOGICAL.

Madelyn Pugh Davis and Sol Saks

2011-04-23T01:47:00.006-04:00

Two writers who left their mark on classic TV comedy died within the past seven days.

If you've ever watched "I Love Lucy," you've almost certainly seen Madelyn Pugh Davis' name at the end. She also wrote for "Alice" and "The Mothers-In-Law."

Sol Saks created "Bewitched" and wrote that show's pilot episode. He also wrote for "Duffy's Tavern" and Ozzie and Harriet on radio and for Joan Davis on TV, and wrote the screenplay for "Walk, Don't Run," Cary Grant's last movie.

Some years ago Saks wrote a very good book, "Funny Business: The Craft of Comedy Writing." I haven't read it in years, but I hope to reread it soon.

Saks also is the author of one of my favorite quotes, which goes something like: "Never try to ad lib with professional comedians. They can remember faster than you can think."

Saks is among a number of veteran comedy writers interviewed in an excellent book, "The Laugh Crafters," by Jordan R. Young. Sadly, most of them are gone now; I think Hal Kanter might be the only one of them who is still around.

By coincidence, I "met" Mr. Young on Facebook this week after I discovered that he and I had a "friend" in common. He graciously accepted my compliments on his book.

If you're interested in show biz history, and particularly the history of TV and radio comedy, "The Laugh Crafters" is indispensable.

'Changes, changes....'

2011-04-20T12:48:00.013-04:00

A close friend of my family, an older lady named Agnes, often used to say that.

And as she said it, she'd always shake her head.

I thought of her a little while ago after I took a few minutes out to have a noontime snack in front of the TV.

I, who watched a lot of daytime TV when I was a kid in the 1960s -- especially game shows.

I, who remember seeing Jonathan Harris, who played Dr. Smith on "Lost in Space," as a celebrity player on "You Don't Say!" I particularly remember the day he screwed up something and said what must have been "Damn!"

Only I couldn't know for sure because the censors bleeped it.

Today, within less than five minutes, I saw:

A commercial for toilet paper featuring two cartoon bears, a mother and her little boy, trying to sell the idea that after you use their product, bits of it won't stick to your ass.

And a commercial for some kind of ointment, intended for couples who want to get, um, a little more out of life.

As for Agnes, I'm sure she is in heaven now.

I have no idea whether they have TVs there.

But if they do, and if Agnes has been watching, I can only imagine her saying "Changes changes" (or something stronger) and shaking her head even more.

I have no idea whether Agnes has an HMO in heaven.

But if she does, I hope it covers whiplash....

Hello again, Mary Lou

2011-04-17T20:06:00.024-04:00

On a beautiful afternoon 35 years ago this month, some fortunate souls at my college, myself included, gathered in the lounge of a campus building and listened to a genius.

Mary Lou Williams (that’s her on the right, from about 1946) was scheduled to perform in concert the next evening and at a Mass – which she had written, on a commission from the Vatican – the day after.

But on this Friday afternoon she was conducting what was billed as a “workshop” on jazz. That wasn’t quite accurate; it was more of a lecture and performance.

Not that I objected.

I'd taken a few years of piano lessons in grammar school. The nun who taught me figured out that I had a fairly good ear (my first “arrangement,” in the third grade, was a right-hand rendering of that notorious jingle, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” – even as an 8-year-old I was a sellout).

She also thought I had an above-average sense of rhythm. So she tried to steer me toward jazz. Which was fun but didn’t work out as well as it should have because I was such an uptight moron, afraid of making a mistake; and God forbid I should try to have fun at the piano.

After a few years the nun moved on and I decided to stop taking lessons. I didn’t touch the piano much over the next few years, but then I was introduced to – and immediately captivated by – the works of Scott Joplin (below); this was several years before “The Sting” made him a household name, more than 50 years after his death.

So I began to play the piano more often and even tried writing my own rags.

And now, on that Friday afternoon, under the impression that jazz and ragtime were the same thing (I told you I was a moron, didn’t I?), I was expecting Mary Lou Williams to play some Joplinesque stuff.

But in her opening remarks in this very informal setting, Ms. Williams almost immediately set me straight, saying that ragtime, Scott Joplin music, wasn’t what she was going to play. (Not that she despised it – I didn’t get that impression – but it wasn’t her thing, as we kids used to say way back then.)

The eerie thing, though, was that as she said this she looked directly – and pointedly – at me.

I suppose this could have been a coincidence. But, although Ms. Williams and I had never met and never did meet, I can’t help thinking that it wasn’t.

My theory: Just as some people supposedly have something called “gaydar,” which lets them know whether a certain person is homosexual, jazz musicians – especially ones as hip as Ms. Williams – have something called “square-dar,” which sets off internal alarms whenever the musician is anywhere near anyone who is tragically unhip. If that’s true, Ms. Williams’ interior alarms must have been buzzing like crazy; had we been in a David Cronenberg movie, her head surely would have exploded.

She went on to play – for the better part of an hour, as I recall – accompanied by a bassist. At one point, while she was deeply into one of her solos, she looked up at him, and the two of them grinned. They’d just struck the musical equivalent of pay dirt, a sort of musical intimacy that could perhaps be verbalized with only one word: joy.

And I think she also managed to work in some stride piano and boogie-woogie, which to me are at least first cousins to ragtime.

I've been thinking about Ms. Williams because over the weekend I found a DVD of a performance she gave a couple of years later at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

It’s very well done. For one thing, whenever I watch a TV performance of pianists like Ms. Williams, I look for the shots of their hands at the piano, to see how they do it. Whoever made the video not only did a good job of this but also added close-ups of her face. You see the concentration, eyes closed or just about closed, as she literally composes on the spot. Sometimes you see sweat. Once in a while, a lot of sweat. But that’s to be expected – although she obviously enjoys what’s she’s doing, it is, of course, damned hard work.

Then, after the number, a beatific smile. A smile of (here’s that word again) joy.

Put one hundred cats in a room, sit each of them at a typewriter, and they will produce a perfect transcript of “King Lear” several eons before I can achieve even one-fifth of Ms. Williams’ mastery.

I suppose this should depress me, but it doesn’t.

It doesn’t depress me because when I sit at the piano these days – I play much better now, with a fairly good amateur right hand balanced by a terminally hopeless left – I sometimes, in the heat of improvisation, surprise myself, at my own level, and it is then that I think I understand what Ms. Williams and the bassist were feeling that day.

And now, if I’ve been doing my job right, chances are you want me to shut up so you can go find some of Mary Lou Williams’ music.

I’m way ahead of you, with a selection from that video: “The Man I Love,” from YouTube. Especially watch what she does with her left hand. It fascinates me, even if my own left almost hurts as I watch it. Enjoy.

No room at the IHOP?

2011-04-17T15:47:00.003-04:00

The McDonald's in my neck of the woods has TV sets hanging in several corners of the dining room.

Under one of the screens is this message:

TO CHANGE CHANNEL OR VOLUME, PLEASE SEE A MANGER

A digital thumbs down

2011-04-15T00:45:00.023-04:00

Hmm. I suppose that headline might seem like a redundancy. After all, isn’t a thumb, pretty much by definition, already a digit?

Maybe “A doubly digital thumbs down” would be more appropriate.

Anyway, in days of yore (and, sad to say, I fear I’m finally old enough to be able to refer to my “days of yore,” even if I’m not sure exactly what “yore” is and I’m still young enough to be too lazy to look it up), if I wrote something I thought The New Yorker, or any other magazine, might be interested in, I’d stick it in an envelope, schlep it to the post office, and find out how much postage I needed to put both on that envelope and on the return envelope (in the of course unlikely event that the magazine would want to send it back to me).

This required a fair amount of effort, and of course the cost of postage never seems cheap.

Not to mention that I’d have to wait a few months for a yes or no.

Well, sir – and madam and all the kiddies – times have indeed changed.

Early this week I sent another humor piece to The New Yorker. But this time I sent it as a PDF attachment to an email – which is the way the magazine now wants it.

A couple of days later, I got a response.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of those “your email couldn’t be delivered” messages, accompanied by inscrutable sets of numbers and upsettingly mysterious words like “daemon.”

Nope. Turns out my piece was rejected.

In what may have been record time.

But you’ve got to hand it to whoever wrote what I take to be The New Yorker’s standard rejection message. (I guess we can’t say “rejection slip” anymore, can we? We poor mediocre scribes are even being denied the pleasure of papering our office walls with such slips – or at least bragging that we’ve been doing so.)

The message said my piece had been rejected despite its “evident merit.”

Although I don’t know who composed this message, I’m betting it was someone who was taught by Jesuits.

I say this because the phrase “evident merit” evokes (for me at least) the concept of “mental reservation.”

In theological terms (and I speak authoritatively as a non-theologian), “mental reservation” is Catholic-speak for “yes, it’s kind of a lie, but…”

One classic example given involves the issue of what to do when someone in your home is being pursued by a killer, and said killer comes to your door and asks, “Is so-and-so home?”

Under the theory of mental reservation, you would be allowed to say, “No he isn’t” when what you really mean is “No, he isn’t home to you, and he wouldn't be if you were the last homicidal maniac on earth!” It’s not the killer’s fault if he or she can’t figure out that you’ve only uttered part of what you really mean.

Then again, I’m not sure this really qualifies as a practical example; I’ve never known any killers, but I somehow doubt many of them spend much time studying, let alone observing, the niceties of etiquette. They’d be more likely to shoot you first, and then, at best, apologetically say, “Oh, please pardon my manners, but is so-and-so home?” as the maggots begin to congregate around your bleeding body.

And now you might ask (among many other questions), what does all this have to do with “evident merit”?

I mean simply that the clever New Yorker rejection message writer might really be saying: “It obviously seems evident to you that this piece has merit, but after looking at it, we had to fumigate our hard drive – twice, to make sure.”

Eventually, I suppose technology will get to the point where a magazine will be able to see what you’re planning to submit before you even submit it, at which point a pop-up will appear and say “Don’t even think of sending this! And if you do, we’ll send a murderous daemon to your home, asking for you -- and he won't take no for an answer!”

At the (old) movies: 'Shall We Dance'

2011-04-10T20:41:00.026-04:00

Some notes from a recent gathering of the local cinephile society….

Right off the bat, I suppose I should make something clear to any fellow copy editors who might be reading this: The title of this movie does not have a question mark. Don’t know why; the budget seems to have been lavish enough so that you’d think an extra piece of punctuation wouldn’t have sent RKO into bankruptcy.

There’s no question, however, that this 1937 film, directed by Mark Sandrich, is a typical Astaire-Rogers vehicle. Of course the plot is ridiculous – you were expecting maybe “Death of a Salesman”? (Come to think of it, one of the characters – an impresario played by Jerome Cowan – is named Arthur Miller.) But criticizing 1930s musicals for having silly plots is a little like criticizing a junkyard dog for having fleas – they do tend to come with the territory.

And to a great degree it’s mighty nice territory, and if you’re in the mood it’s a pleasantly familiar turf, what with the usual plot misunderstandings and secondary characters played by a couple of the best character actors of their time – and quite possibly of all time.

I must admit that for years I didn’t really appreciate Edward Everett Horton. I knew him mostly as the voice who narrated the Fractured Fairy Tales on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. But in the Astaire-Rogers films, he’s one of the ones who has to carry the burden of keeping the movie going while Fred and Ginger are resting. If Horton isn’t the fussiest of all the movie fussbudgets, he comes pretty close – and his arsenal includes some of the best double takes in the business.

If Horton weren’t enough (he plays Astaire’s manager, if you’re keeping score), you also have Eric Blore (below) as a hotel manager – lisping, blundering, easily frustrated. Horton and Blore have one brief scene together and a longer scene in which they’re kind of together – Blore in jail, talking to Horton on the phone. Both scenes are very funny (it’s hard to forget Blore, on the telephone, trying to spell “Susquehanna”), but when the two of them are physically together and trying to understand each other, the result is sublime, kind of a mutual stupefaction society.

Besides the musical numbers (the closing one, which also resolves the plot, is quite clever if a bit odd), perhaps “Shall We Dance” is best known for its songs, by George and Ira Gershwin.

True, you don’t hear “Slap That Bass” and “Beginner’s Luck” that much anymore, though the latter is kinda catchy. But then you have “They All Laughed,” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” I don’t know about you (obviously), but whenever I see the first performance of a song that was written for a movie and became a classic, I always get at least the beginnings of goose bumps. And I always wonder: Did the audiences at the time know right then and there that they were listening to an indelible part of the national culture?

Then I stop wondering and just sit back and enjoy a form of entertainment that will probably never be done as well.

Sidney Lumet

2011-04-10T00:48:00.005-04:00

Aside from his considerable achievements in movies, I think that Mr. Lumet might have been the last of the major movie directors to come from the era of live TV drama in the 1950s (sometimes referred to as TV's "Golden Age") -- including Franklin Schaffner, George Roy Hill, John Frankenheimer, Delbert Mann and Arthur Penn (who died just last year).

Or am I forgetting someone?

At the (old) movies: 'All Through the Night'

2011-04-07T21:01:00.029-04:00

Some notes from a recent gathering of the local cinephile society….

“All Through the Night” (Warner Bros., 1941) is the kind of film that is usually described as “Runyonesque” – a reference to journalist and author Damon Runyon, whose fiction features a lot of cutesy gangsters who say things like “The companionship of a doll is a pleasant thing even for a period of time running into months.” (Sky Masterson, “Guys and Dolls.”)

I generally run away from Runyon’s stuff; for me a little of his cuteness goes a long way. Oh, there are some exceptions: I can tolerate “Guys and Dolls” because of comedy genius Abe Burrows’ contributions to the script; Frank Capra’s “Lady for a Day” has its moments (Capra remade it almost 30 years later as his last film, “Pocketful of Miracles.” Capra, too, was a genius of sorts, but this was not his best idea – oops, pardon me, this Runyonesque syntax is catching); and Lucille Ball, with Henry Fonda, gives perhaps her best performance in “The Big Street” as a callous showgirl.

But although “All Through the Night,” directed by Vincent Sherman, has Runyonesque elements, Runyon (that's him at left) had nothing to do with it. Subtle it’s not, but it generally manages to steer clear of coyness.

Humphrey Bogart stars as Gloves Donahue, who is described as a “promoter.” Apparently the studio didn’t want to make him a full-fledged gangster, although we’re pretty much told several times that Gloves isn’t averse to giving orders and that those who don’t follow those orders are made to wish that they, um, had done so.

Gloves does not lack for sidekicks or gofers. Fortunately for us, they include William Demarest, Frank McHugh and two performers who would eventually fare better in another medium: Jackie Gleason (here Jackie C. Gleason and rather svelte) and Phil Silvers. Gleason and Silvers aren’t given much to do, but as usual they do their best.

A denizen of Manhattan, Gloves probably hasn’t heard of Casablanca, but oddly enough, he does have something in common with a prominent resident of that city and a character Bogart fans would come to know well: Rick Blaine.

Both characters don’t care a fig about world affairs until they’re personally affected. For Rick, the catalyst is the love of his life, Ilsa Lund, played, of course, by Ingrid Bergman. Gloves’ motivation is more visceral – quite literally, his gut: When the baker who makes Gloves’ favorite cheesecake is rubbed out, Gloves’ gloves come off. (Not necessarily a good thing, particularly when Gloves accidentally leaves one of his gloves next to the body of a murder victim and is then pursued by the cops as he pursues the real killers – almost becoming a classic Hitchcock “wrong man,” or as Gloves himself might put it, the “wrong mug.”)

There’s plenty of action and comedy – and, on the bad guys’ side, Peter Lorre and Conrad Veidt and that grande dame of sweetness and light, Judith Anderson – and the whole thing moves fast enough that you don’t question the logic of the plot, but then again, with a film like this, you weren’t exactly on the lookout for logic, were you? Nor should you be – and that’s as it should be.

Fun with the phone

2011-04-04T10:58:00.002-04:00

I get home and find a message on my answering machine: a recorded voice from a company I deal with, asking me to call an 877 number.

I notice that the Caller ID has a different number.

I sit down at the telephone table and call the 877 number, and a recorded voice begins to talk to me.

And that’s exactly the moment when the cat jumps on the telephone table, once again trying to prove he’s the boss.

The phone isn’t exactly a trendy model; it has a handset connected to a fair-size console that has big buttons – buttons that the cat has been known to step on, disconnecting me.

So I put the console on my lap as the voice tells me to punch in my home phone number.

I do this, and the voice says it’s sorry, but they can’t find a match, and could I try again?

I do this, and the voice says it’s sorry, but they can’t find a match, and could I call later when I’m at the number to which their call was placed.

On the theory that having the console on my knees might have screwed up my dialing (or rather punching in, if you want to be literal about it), I put the console back on the table, hang up, lift the cat, carry him out of the room and put up a barricade to keep him out.

I then dial the 877 number again and get the same prompt.

I punch in my number again.

I get the “we’re sorry” message again.

I punch in my number again.

I get the “we’re sorry and call back later, idiot” message again.

I haven’t erased the Caller ID.

I write down the number and call it.

This time, I’m immediately connected with another recorded voice, but this one knows my name, and I am finally able to conduct my business.

Milestone!

2011-03-24T18:16:00.004-04:00

A few minutes ago, this blog received its 5,000th hit.

I'd like to congratulate the lucky winner, except that a) the winner isn't really lucky or even a winner because I don't have a prize to give out, and b) the visitor is almost totally anonymous -- having left practically no tracks, or at least any tracks that a non-geek like me can use to solve this mystery.

However, he or she dropped by three hours ago, leading me to believe that Mr. or Ms. Shy is from the West Coast.

I'd also like to thank Will Shortz and the folks at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, who have been linking to the blog all this week, bringing a barrage of visitors that put it over the 5,000 mark.

And I of course thank all of you who've stopped by, especially the regulars. (And feel free to drop me a note sometime if you'd like.)

Sunday at the puzzle tournament

2011-03-24T17:36:00.021-04:00

(SPOILER ALERT: I was looking in your refrigerator, and although I’m not an expert on dairy products, I don’t think egg salad comes in plaid. Besides that, you shouldn’t read any more of this blog entry if you will be getting this year’s American Crossword Puzzle Tournament puzzles by mail.)

As I head toward the ballroom Sunday morning to do my last puzzle, #7, I notice that standings have been posted on one of the walls.

I’ve already been buoyed by the knowledge that as of last night I was 209, so imagine my reaction when I find that I am now at 221.

I guess I’m going to have to do even better with #7.

It’s “Kangaroo Phrases,” and the constructors are Ashish Vengsarkar and Narayan Venkatasubramanyan. The puzzle seems about the size of an NYT Sunday puzzle.

Normally #7 isn’t very hard, but this year’s is harder than usual, with the theme answers self-defined.

For example, the answer to 23 across, ISRAELI AIRLINE contains four circled letters: E, L, A and L – or EL AL.

Although I figure out the theme, this doesn’t make the puzzle much easier because I have to dope out each answer and clue by working out the rest of the puzzle, and this takes more time than I would like to take.

I run into two trouble spots, which, as usual, I leave to the end.

At 31 Down, the clue is “Big Sur retreat,” and I have “E_ALEN.” At 35 Across (the first letter of which is the second letter of 31 Down), the clue is “___ soda,” and I have “_AL.”

I seem to recall, maybe sometime in the 1960s, hearing about a place called “Esalen” in California. Maybe surfers hung out there? Or druggies? Or druggie surfers?

Also, maybe the other answer is “SAL SODA.” I haven’t exactly heard of “Sal Soda,” but when I was a kid there were ads for something called Sal Hepatica, which (as my hazy memory recalls) was both an antacid and a laxative, if that’s possible. (Can you tell that my marks for my high school chem lab projects ranged from F to “Evacuate this building immediately”?)

So I go for ESALEN and SAL SODA and later find out I’m right.

Similarly, 87 Down’s clue is “German donkey” (?), for which I have “_SEL,” while 65 Across is “Randomizer” (??), for which I have “DI_.”

This is particularly treacherous because the first letter of 87 Down is the last letter of 65 Across.

At least I know that the first letter of 87 Down must be a vowel, considering that an S follows. I mean, German isn’t that convoluted a language, right? Hmm…. ASUL, ESUL, ISUL, OSUL, USUL. Those last three seem too absurd. ASUL has two of the letters of “Ass,” but then again a lot of German things begin with “Es,” right? Isn’t there a place there called Essen? That reasoning seems good enough for me, especially considering that the only letter I can come up with that would complete “DI_” in any sensible fashion is E, for “DIE.” I’ve never come across the word “randomizer,” but when you toss a die (as in dice) the result is random, right? (At least it is if you haven’t loaded the die right.)

So I decide it’s Do or Die with DIE and ESUL. And later I find out I’m right.

I finish the puzzle in about 27 minutes, which is par for my course these days with a Sunday NYT puzzle. I’d wanted to finish a lot sooner, but the theme and those last two clues slowed me up. I later find out that my score is 140 points less than what I scored for #7 last year, but I do notice as I leave the room that a lot of people haven’t finished.

After I leave the room, I notice that another set of rankings has been posted, this time in alphabetical order.

And this time I notice that I’m now somehow at 223.

So I’m apparently stupider when I’m alphabetical.

As we all await the beginning of the talent show that precedes the announcements of the winners and the finalists, I hear someone talking about one of the puzzle answers – which puzzle I can’t remember, but it involved UAR (United Arab Republic) and UAE (United Arab Emirates). Apparently a guy put down one when the correct answer was the other.

Somehow I bamboozle myself into thinking that a) this was in #7 and b) I might have screwed it up. Turns out it was in #4, which I aced. (I did tell you I’m not at my best when I’m in alphabetical order, right?)

The talent show, featuring contestants, is very amusing, with the standouts including two repeat performers from last year, Amanda Yesnowitz and Lorinne Lampert. I’m particularly indebted to Ms. Lampert (whose boundless energy could put Con Ed into receivership) for introducing me to a Harold Arlen song I hadn’t heard of, “You’re a Builder-Upper” (lyrics by Ira Gershwin and E.Y. Harburg). I’m particularly abashed because Mr. Arlen once lived in my hometown. (No, I didn’t know him. I’m not that old, as I keep telling the kids at the bus stop.)

The big finish of the tournament is supposed to be the Division A finals, featuring Anne Erdmann, Dan Feyer (last year’s winner) and Tyler Hinman (who didn’t make the Final Three last year but has won five previous tournaments). I’m particularly interested (probably along with everyone else) in seeing how Feyer and Hinman face off, but Feyer wins it by several minutes. The puzzle, "Well-Connected," is by Mike Nothnagel.

More suspenseful was the Division B playoff, in which David Plotkin beat Ken Stern by a whisker, a hair, an eyelash, or whichever cilium you prefer.

(For videos of the playoffs, the talent show, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast's announcement of the winners and Friday night's very entertaining show by magician David Kwong, go here.)

After the tournament, I have lunch with my niece, who looks up the standings on her phone, and we find out that I have – wonder or wonders – finished at No. 194!

This cheers me up considerably, and I figure on coming back next year.

However, the ACPT standings are subject to change, given that the officials often wind up checking and quite possibly rechecking stuff, so that later in the week I’m 195. For a few hours I was apparently 196 but managed to regain my itsy-bitsy piece of turf to stay at 195.

And as far as I’m concerned, I’m staying at 195.

That’s my score and I’m sticking to it. Shove bamboo shoots under my fingernails. Beat me within a half-inch of my life. Draw and quarter me and feed my body to the wolves. Force me to listen to 2,713 consecutive choruses of “Blue Tango” – I don’t care. I’m Number 195!

Unless Will Shortz tells me differently.

Saturday at the puzzle tournament

2011-03-22T21:32:00.009-04:00

(SPOILER ALERT: If you’re one of the folks who will be getting this year’s American Crossword Puzzle Tournament’s puzzles by mail, you should read no further. And by “you should read no further,” I do not, of course, mean that you should literally never read anything else ever again, but you knew I didn’t mean that, right? I mean, this is the Internet, and there are a lot of other things you can read until after you’ve done the puzzles. Whether you should read these things, of course, is something else again….)

For the past year or two, as I’ve headed to Brooklyn, I’ve wondered whether this will be my last visit to the tournament. I’m not talking about whether my plane will land safely, or whether the cabbie will get me from the airport to the hotel without mangling the car’s chassis, let alone my own chassis, though I’m always amused that I wind up spending more time in the cab than I do in the wild blue yonder.

I’m talking about my score, and whether it will improve enough to make it worthwhile to keep going to the tournament. This was my fourth year; in my first year, I finished at 262. The next year, I went up to 250. Last year, I was 213.

My mission this year was to not only beat 213 but to get somewhere between 100 and 200.

In analyzing my last performance, I decided that I’d been far too anal. I usually get perfect scores on each puzzle but #5, but although the folks who run the tournament recommend that you check your answers before turning in your puzzle, and although that’s a very good idea, I think I overdid it and that this affected my score.

One thing I’ve learned is that you should try for speed when doing #1, which is always an easy puzzle. So I breeze through “Blithe Spirit” by Kelly Clark but spend only a minute at most checking my work, reading only the across answers. Perhaps I’m taking a bit of a chance in not checking the down answers, but the risk seems worth it.

This strategy apparently works; my #1 score is 50 points more than last year’s. (Hmm. Maybe I should take even more risks in my life – skydiving, bungee jumping, doing my own taxes….)

Puzzle #2 is usually one of the two hardest ones. “Counter Offer,” by Pete Muller, seems harder than the usual #2. The theme answers are the kind that can be treacherous, where they’re all part of one long quote or connected in some other way. In this case, the whole thing turns out to be instructions for making a Brooklyn egg cream.

There are a couple of spots in the puzzle that I have to leave near the end; in general, my method is to read a clue, and if the answer doesn’t come to me in maybe three seconds, I move on and come back – “Keep it moving” is my philosophy.

“Notches on arrows” is one of them; I’d gotten to NOC_S, and it takes me probably longer than it should to figure out that “Gang leader?” was KOOL, and I remember that NOCKS is indeed what those notches are called.

I almost wipe out in the southwest quadrant: 77 Down is “Baseball scoreboard initials” (I’d gotten as far as RH_); 83 Across is “Like Washington, Adams or Madison: Abbr.” and for this I have _PIS.

But this problem is of my own making; in the first clue, I’ve misread “scorecard” for “scoreboard,” leading me to think in terms of RBIs, flying out, ground outs, etc.

Even worse, the “Abbr.” on the second clue doesn’t register, leading me to think that _PIS is a plural, and I am in a quagmire and a quandary (technically known as a quaggary) until I realize what I’ve done (or maybe haven’t done), and I wind up going with EPIS (short for “Episcopal”) which means that the other answer has to be “RHE.” I hand in the test with four minutes to spare and later realize that RHE is indeed right – I’ve seen it on scoreboards (not scorecards) for years. Anyway, my #2 score is 175 points less than last year’s. If I hadn’t been so dense, I might have picked up extra points for being earlier. (Then again, if wishes were horses, Jiminy Cricket would have sung “When You Clydesdale Upon a Star.”)

Puzzle #3, “Hooked on Homophonics,” is a Merl Reagle puzzle, and since he does a big weekly crossword that my local paper runs, I’m familiar with his style of puns. (“Collection of Hindu aphorisms on punctuation?” THE COMMA SUTRA.) Even so, my score for this year’s #3 turns out to be 15 points less than last year’s.

After lunch, Puzzle #4, “A U.N. Assembly” by Bonnie L. Gentry and Victor Fleming, goes fairly quickly, perhaps because I figure out the theme fairly early – familiar phrases that have the letters UN in them are changed by putting an A before the UN, so that POWER LUNCH becomes POWER LAUNCH. Even so, I pick up only five points compared with last year’s #4.

And now comes #5, which is known (and not very affectionately) as “the bastard puzzle.” The father of this particular bastard is Mike Shenk – one of the puzzle constructors whose names are wont to provoke a collective “Uh oh.” He’s the puzzle editor of The Wall Street Journal and did last year’s extremely tricky championship puzzle.

So already I’m intimidated.

The title is “Crossover Hits.”

As I work on the puzzle, I never do work out the theme. I do know that the theme clues pertain to pop music – not always my strong suit. But what’s more weird is that the answer to “1966 hit for the Monkees” would appear to be I’M A BELIEVER (yes, I used to watch “The Monkees,” yes, I’m an “old guy” – as kids at the bus stop insist on referring to me). But the answer has to be only nine letters.

What I didn’t figure out was that the clue across from it “1977 hit for Barbra Streisand” is supposed to mesh with it, so you’d have “IMABELIEV” and “ERGREEN” to combine “I’m a Believer” with “Evergreen.”

You do feel my pain, don’t you? Especially when you consider that there are three other sets of clues that work the same way.

Thing is, sometimes I can dope out a theme like this by filling in the other answers, but the clues to those answers are so tricky that I can only conclude that they were leftovers from last year’s championship puzzle. Example: “Ruby’s partner.” Hmm. Which Ruby? Didn’t Snow White have a sister or a cousin or a mother-in-law named Ruby Red? Or are we talking about Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald? Who was that Ruby’s partner? Is this some kind of conspiracy-theory thingy?

The answer? OSSIE. (“Ruby” is Ruby Dee, the actress who was married to the late actor Ossie Davis.)

And this is one of the answers I figured out.

Anyway, it turns out to be my worst showing ever for a #5, with only 34 answers out of 92.

I’m not very happy as I head into #6, “Future World,” by Maura Jacobson, the grande dame of crossword makers, even though it has a healthy supply of her charming puns, such as LEAVE IT TO BIEBER. However, I do score 115 more points than I did on her puzzle from last year.

But I’m figuring that I’m not going to meet my goal of beating 213 – far from it.

But a few hours later, a check of the standing shows I’m at 209. OK, I think, if I can really pick up speed Sunday morning with the last puzzle for all competitors, #7….

More to come.

Words, words and more words

2011-03-07T20:18:00.002-05:00

Those of you who read this blog regularly (OK, I know there’s at least one of you) might be wondering why I haven’t posted my annual account of my February trip to Brooklyn for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

There’s a very good reason for this.

The tournament has been moved from February to March – specifically, March 18 to 20 this year.

But it isn’t as if words didn’t keep me busy last month.

Early in the month, I survived another stint as a judge for my community’s annual spelling bee on live TV. Nothing major went wrong, though at the beginning the camera showed me while the other judge’s name was announced and vice versa. (Then again, I suppose the other misidentified judge might see that as a major problem….)

A couple of weeks later, I was a member of my former full-time employer’s team in a Scrabble tournament. We were supposed to collaborate in putting together high-scoring boards. We finished fifth out of 29 teams. One of the winning teams had help from a kid who has been in the spelling bee twice. I suppose there’s some significance to that, and perhaps one of these days I might spend one 40,000th of a second pondering it.

Finally, as I kind of warm-up for Brooklyn, I competed in a crossword event that raised money for a charity. There were three winners, not including me. The top guy has been a big finisher in the Brooklyn event; the woman who finished third is someone I have outscored at that event. I suppose there’s some significance to that, and perhaps one of these days I might spend one 100,000th of a nanosecond pondering it.

Freelance work for two clients also kept me busy.

In the weeks to come, I hope to report on my latest excursion into Brooklyn. Besides that, the local cinephile society comes out of hibernation for its spring season.

I hope you’ll stay tuned.

I'm so relieved -- gerbils miss so many typos

2011-02-02T20:15:00.017-05:00

Earlier today I looked up a book on my electronic reading device and found the following notice:

"This work has been previously published and carefully edited by humans to be read digitally on your eReader."

Parents of 'holy terrors' can stay home

2011-02-02T15:52:00.007-05:00

The folks in my neck of the woods were expecting a huge snowstorm today, but it didn't materialize.

(Not that I'm complaining.)

In anticipation of the storm that wasn't, many schools canceled classes and other events.

According to the list that one of the TV stations is running continuously at the bottom of the screen, these cancellations include an open house at

BLESSED SCAREMENT SCHOOL

It ain't the Red River Valley, kiddies

2011-01-27T00:55:00.009-05:00

In his excellent blog, The Laughorist, Paulie Kokonuts, my very good friend and staunch (not stanch) defender of the serial comma, wonders what John Steinbeck would say about bloggers.

Interesting question. I couldn't begin to speculate.

But I can try to imagine what Tom Joad would say in his farewell to his mother before venturing out into the Dust Bowl of cyberspace....

"I’ll be all around in the blogosphere. I’ll be ever’-where – wherever you can surf. Wherever there’s a flame war so witless goofballs can argue, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a troll beatin’ up a poster, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way needy nonentities brag when they’re cravin' attention – I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re anonymously dishing dirt on some helpless nerd. An’ when the people are loggin’ off their systems, and lookin' for an actual purpose to their lives – I’ll be there, too.”

A conundrum Darwin never considered

2011-01-24T16:14:00.005-05:00

Who has the shorter life span:

Any cop who gets partnered with Dirty Harry

Or

Any new girlfriend of any lead character in any TV medical show of the '60s and '70s?

Who says computers don't have feelings?

2011-01-23T13:27:00.006-05:00

When I got up today, the wind chill was minus 12.

As I write this, the temperature is 6 above with a wind child of minus 10.

Tonight temperatures might hit a record low.

Earlier today, I was playing my computer Scrabble game.

At one point, my virtual "opponent" placed this word:

BRRR.

Me vs. Technology (Hint: Don't bet on me)

2011-01-15T19:45:00.016-05:00

Two occurrences from this past week:

1. I was invited to volunteer my services for a local project that places locally designed posters – including locally written haiku – on downtown streets. I’ve agreed to interview some of the artists and poets by phone while recording the interviews, which I am to then transcribe and edit into blurbs that will appear on the back of the posters.

2. I opened the obituary pages and found that a local lawyer and professor, whom I’ll call Joe Farrelly, had died.

You will, of course, agree that this was an eerie coincidence.

Oh, you won’t?

I totally understand – you didn’t know me 36 years ago…..

(Cue the harp glissando as the special effects folks screw around with the picture to cleverly indicate a trip back in time.)

It was the fall of 1974, and I was a student in a Mass Media class. My big project, shared with another student, was to do the promotion for a career night that the instructor was putting together.

As part of this project, I set up an interview with Joe Farrelly and his wife, whom I’ll call Isabella, and who was also a lawyer. The interview was to run in the student newspaper, along with a photo of the couple, which was to be taken a couple of days after the interview.

I decided that the neat thing to do would be to record the interview.

So I signed out a cassette recorder from the college’s AV department and brought it to the interview, which took place on a Saturday afternoon at the house where the couple lived with their six children.

I cleverly set up the recorder somewhere near my chair and began asking questions.

Isabella, sitting on a couch perpendicular to my chair, gamely answered my lame queries while her youngest, who was maybe less than a year old, squirmed beside her. (Even at his young age, he was obviously reacting to the insipidity of my inquiries. I recall that at one point, when his mother picked him up, she and I both noticed a round, wet stain on the couch – as eloquent an editorial comment as I’ve ever seen.)

Joe Farrelly sat in a chair at the other end of the room. He was tall and very low-key (think Jason Robards on Quaaludes), and his voice was so soft that I decided I’d better try to write down some of his quotes in case the microphone didn’t pick him up.

After the interview, I went home and played the tape.

Nothing.

I’m not even sure you could hear dead air.

So quiet, you could hear my grade-point average drop.

Visions of the end of my college career came crashing down. (Can visions really crash? Oh well, it certainly felt that way.)

I imagined myself going to the registrar’s office on Monday to quit, dunce cap in hand.

But then I pulled what was left of myself together and decided to tough it out.

Luckily, I had a couple of things going for me:

1. The quotes from Joe that I’d written down, along with a quote from Isabella.

2. The Farrellys had provided a joint resume that uncluded everything except what the couple had for dinner on St. Swithin's Day, 1967. It made the average Thomas Pynchon novel look like a pamphlet.

I was able to somehow arm wrestle some of this stuff and the quotes into an article that the paper ran under a headline that referred to the Farrellys as “He-she barristers.” This was several years before I began writing headlines for a living, but even then that sounded weird to me, though I suppose that today it might be the springboard for another David E. Kelley show. (Coming to NBC: “Hermaphrodites at Law”!)

I attended the career night but was careful to avoid the Farrellys because somehow their picture was never taken; the student photographer said they weren’t home when he came by that night. Though it wasn’t my place to challenge him, my instincts told me he’d blown off the job (a family of eight away from home on a school night?), and I feared that the Farrellys would threaten to sue me over being stiffed….

This weekend I’ll get a start on my poster project work by trying to open the plastic package containing my new microcassette recorder. (Why do I always manage to cut my long fingernails a few days before they would have come in handy?)

Wish me luck.

Anne Francis

2011-01-10T00:43:00.005-05:00

Most of the obituaries for Anne Francis, who died last week, seemed to emphasize her most famous movie, “Forbidden Planet,” which belongs in the category of Cult Films I Never Have Gotten Around to Watching.

I guess I’m more partial to another film she made around that time at MGM: “Bad Day at Black Rock,” with a cast that also featured Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and John Ericson. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing a 1950s film that still holds up, though the basic setup has been copied to death and beyond: A stranger with a mission travels to a small town where he is made to feel violently unwelcome. The motive behind the antipathy (I’ll let you find out for yourself) certainly isn’t dated.

“Bad Day” can also be seen (by me, at least) as a confrontation between two generations of actors: young punks Marvin and Borgnine think they can beat the crap out of Tracy, who is much older and whose character has one arm. They find out they’re wrong.

Years before I saw “Bad Day” I saw Anne Francis in what might have been her most famous role, in the TV series “Honey West.” It ran only one season, but I always remembered it.

Some years ago a cable TV station ran a bunch of episodes. The bad news, I found, was that the episode themselves didn’t hold up that well. The plots weren’t much, and although Honey West was supposed to be a very independent, I-can-take-care-of-myself lady, it seemed that near the end her partner, Sam Bolt, who was played by John Ericson (who’d played her brother in “Black Rock”), was always coming to her rescue.

The good news was that despite these limitations, Francis came across very well as a woman who was tough-minded and refused to take crap from anybody. In one episode, I believe Honey was supposed to be a bodyguard for a little girl. Honey made it clear that she didn’t like kids. On another series, the lead character and the girl would have been buddies by the final commercial. I don’t think this was the case here. (It didn’t help that the girl, as I remember, wasn’t sweetness and light either.)

Honey West’s refusal to get all mushy at the end impressed me – I wondered whether her attitude influenced the great Sue Grafton when she created Kinsey Millhone, who also has professed a lack of fondness for kids.

For years Anne Francis had a website in which she would write sweet little essays. She was obviously a nice person, and I’m sorry I never met her. But she’ll always belong in that pantheon of 1960s actresses whom I always remember from my growing years, along with Elizabeth Montgomery, Paula Prentiss (of the too-short-lived series “He and She”) and Diana Rigg, whose “Avengers” character, Emma Peel, was at least as tough as Honey West – with the addition of cool wit.

A new AARP member? Of course, of course

2011-01-05T00:18:00.013-05:00

Mr. Ed made his TV debut 50 years ago this week.

Quick -- what was Ed's real name?

Bamboo Harvester.

You did know that, didn't you?

You didn't? Don't worry -- there is a consolation prize:

You apparently have a life.

A holiday memory lingers on....

2011-01-03T11:07:00.006-05:00

Christmas Eve 2011: At the local strip mall, Santa Claus merrily greets passing shoppers at midafternoon while enthroned on a folding chair -- in front of a pawn shop.

At the (old) movies: 'I Wake Up Screaming'

2011-01-03T00:59:00.012-05:00

Some notes from one of the local cinephile society’s screenings….

You’re probably not going to hear me say anything bad about “I Wake Up Screaming” (Fox, 1941). Perhaps the best compliment I can pay it is to say that I attended this screening even though a) I had seen the film once or twice on TV and b) I had some months ago bought it on DVD and watched it yet again.

Then again, I don’t want to oversell the movie. It’s not a mega-budget extravaganza, nor was it meant to be. But I think it holds up a lot better than a lot of the movies that the studios poured a lot more money into.

Before I explain further, let’s get the plot – or at least the setup – out of the way.

A promoter named Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature) makes a bet that he can transform waitress Vicky Lynn (Carole Landis) into a celebrity. He pulls this off, but the plan backfires after she is murdered and he’s suspected of the crime. Meanwhile, Vicky’s sister, Jill, played by Betty Grable, has come to town, and she and Frankie eventually forge an alliance that promises to blossom into more than just an alliance. But can Frankie clear himself – particularly considering that the lead cop on the case, “Big Ed” Cornell, is pursuing Frankie with a doggedness that would make Rin Tin Tin hang his furry head in shame?

The movie was directed by H. Bruce Humberstone from a script by veteran pulp writer Steve Fisher, who must have had a thing about the name “Christopher”; in the 1954 comedy “Susan Slept Here,” based on a play Fisher wrote, the lead character is Mark Christopher.

“I Wake Up Screaming” is a perfect example of a dramatic film that succeeds although its two stars aren’t really dramatic actors but personalities. Which is by no means meant as a dig against Mature and Grable; it’s just that when you put two likable performers in the right kind of material, written and produced by people who know just what to do with them, the results can hold up a lot better than some of the films featuring “master thespians.” (I’m particularly thinking of people like Paul Muni and – at times – Fredric March.)

Of course, the studio was smart enough to surround Mature and Grable with some old pros, including Allyn Joslyn and Alan Mowbray as the guys on the other end of Frankie’s bet. Mowbray, best known as a comic actor, plays a faded “master thespian,” with all the comic touches – and, at one point, some unexpected pathos, in a scene that one again shows that the best comic actors are usually no slouches when it comes to drama.

Overshadowing everybody else – quite literally – is Laird Cregar as Cornell. It’s a performance you won’t easily forget. And let’s not forget the indispensable Elisha Cook Jr., who played the gunsel in “The Maltese Falcon,” another hapless character in “The Big Sleep” and who knows how many more similar specimens over the years. (Did any of his characters ever make it to the last reel?)

If you've seen enough movies of this type, you probably won't be too worried about whether Victor Mature will beat the rap. But don't get complacent: There's a great plot twist near the end.

Fox liked the movie enough to remake it in the 1950s as “Vicki,” with Elliott Reid in the Victor Mature part. The fact that you’re probably now saying “Who’s Elliott Reid?” should give you a pretty good idea of how well the movie stood up to its predecessor, though it did feature Richard Boone as Cornell and, in the Cook role, an actor who went on to much bigger stuff, though not as an actor: Aaron Spelling.

One thing I’ve always wondered about “I Wake Up Screaming”: The song “Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz” is featured on the sound track, even though MGM must have owned the rights. How did Fox get permission? It was common practice for studios to trade actors once in a while; did they do the same thing with songs?

If any of you know the answer, feel free to let me know. And even if you don’t, I hope you’ll look up “I Wake Up Screaming.”

'It's been quite a night'

2011-01-02T00:04:00.013-05:00

The 2011 People’s Choice Awards will be presented next Wednesday on CBS.

I won’t be watching.

There are several reasons why I won’t be watching.

1. Although I used to watch award shows, particularly the Emmys and the Oscars, I now find them particularly tedious, although I might tune in for a bit if someone who is receiving a special award is someone who I think should be receiving a special award.

2. In my former life as a newspaper copy editor, I was sometimes in charge of handling these awards – Emmys, Oscars and Grammys, too – on deadline for the next day’s paper. We had several editions, and I was supposed to get as many of the awards in each edition as possible.

This meant monitoring the wire service and the wirephoto machines while keeping an eye on the ceremonies as they unfolded on a newsroom TV. It meant impatiently waiting for some musical number to finish, or for someone to get an already announced special award and finish the obligatory acceptance speech, so that I could (I hoped) get one or two of the next awards into the next edition before the production folks began breathing down my neck.

(Which is why, as peaceable as I like to think I am most of the time, even now, years later, you might be risking considerable bodily harm by even whispering the words “Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award” in my presence. Mr. Hersholt himself is lucky to be dead because, were he still alive, I fear I might do him in. And don’t get me started on Irving Thalberg.)

3. But the reason I won’t be watching the next People’s Choice ceremony is that I remember the first one, back in 1975, and to my mind there’s no way the People’s Choice folks could top it.

The hosts were actor Richard Crenna and Variety columnist Army Archerd, and for the most part the telecast went well if unspectacularly. But after Bob Hope got up to receive his all-time award, I got a hint that all was not well.

I remember the exact moment when I realized this – when Hope, thinking he was finished, was asked (much to his consternation) to “stretch.”

The show was running short.

Yes, you read that right: A major, televised entertainment awards ceremony was running short. To say this was a freak of nature is an understatement; this was like seeing a square circle, or rain falling up.

Hope did his best, but his was the last award, and the hosts then had about three and a half minutes to fill.

Crenna and Archerd did their best. They basically recapped all the awards – in no particular hurry – and gamely ad libbed their way out of it otherwise. (You know for sure that an awards show is running short when one of the hosts mentions that one of the winners was “Mary … Tyler … Moore.”)

I suppose the two hosts deserved their own awards – Crenna, I suspect, would have been a shoo-in for Actor Mostly Likely to Kill His Agent, Right After He Disembowels the Producers.

You think I’m making all this up? You can watch the two of them here.

You might notice that the People’s Choice website lists the co-host’s name – twice – as Richard Brenna. Elsewhere on the site you might find a mention of actress Raquel Welsh. Then again, it isn’t the People’s Spelling Awards.

You’ll also notice one thing on the video that didn’t help the two co-hosts: The director positioned them in front of the table occupied by the folks from Carol Burnett’s show, who are merrily chatting, which is at least a little distracting.*

But I must admit that in once case my memory was faulty: I thought I remembered Tim Conway, grinning at the camera in the background during Crenna and Archerd’s ordeal. Which, of course, makes me wonder what else I’ve misremembered through the years….

*In all fairness, this wasn’t the Worst TV Camera Setup of All Time. That honor belongs to one of the stations in my town, which back in the 1970s aired a Christmas special, which featured the local Roman Catholic bishop and the monsignor who was the diocese’s PR guy sitting and talking in front of a fireplace. Unfortunately for the good monsignor, the doodads on the mantel included a white, cone-shaped ornament, and the shot of the monsignor was framed so that he seemed to be wearing a miniature dunce cap. (Or auditioning for the "Saturday Night Live" Coneheads.)

Snows of yesterday

2010-12-28T16:13:00.008-05:00

Yes, I’m still here.

Sorry to be away for so long.

Things have been busy. For one thing, earlier this month the town where I live set a record for snowfall in December, with more than 70 inches of what a city editor I once knew used to forbid calling “the white stuff.”

About 45 inches of it fell within several days.

I experienced all this in the house I grew up in – and which I now own and live in.

And I got to thinking of another big snowfall, from my youth, which dumped about 42 inches in four days, an event forever known hereabouts as the “Blizzard of 1966.”

And then I got to thinking about how I react differently to such events now that I’m an alleged adult – and a more-than-alleged homeowner.

Forty-four years ago I wasn’t concerned about what might happen to the roof – or what might happen to the basement if there was a really big thaw.

Nope. Back then the main issue on the minds of us kids was: Would we have a snow day?

Owners of Powerball tickets can’t possibly experience the anticipation that I, and surely other kids, felt while listening to the list of school closings on the radio. The jackpot consisted not of numerals but of seven simple, magic words:

“City public and parochial schools are closed.”

As I recall, we had the whole week off, and my family was pretty much snowed in. A trip to the corner store was an expedition worthy of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.

And for no good reason I seem to recall that the spoils of this expedition included some Milkshake candy bars. My God, they were good – better than anything the folks at the Mars candy company ever came up with. I can taste them now.

The other main thing I remember from the Blizzard of 1966 was the fun we kids had jumping off the front porch. At that time the porch was not enclosed, and this enabled us to jump off it and into a huge pile of snow.

(One weekend some years later my father had the porch enclosed without consulting with my mother, who was off visiting her sister. This did not do wonders for my parents’ relationship, though their union ultimately survived.)

About a week after the Storm of 2010 a slight thaw got rid of some of the snow. Then we got some more. The next few days promise above-freezing temperatures. We might even ring in the New Year while basking in a balmy 50 degrees.

And maybe I’ll search eBay for any surviving Milkshake bars. (Who knows – maybe a cache of them has been hidden in someone’s freezer for lo these many years….)

Happy New Year.

At the (old) movies: 'Thanks a Million'

2010-11-17T16:07:00.002-05:00

Some notes from a recent gathering of the local cinephile society….

Perhaps the best way to describe “Thanks a Million” is to say that it’s the best Warner Bros. musical ever made by Fox.

The 1935 film borrows a number of ingredients from Warners films: singer (and later tough-guy actor) Dick Powell, leading lady Ann Dvorak, director Roy Del Ruth and producer Darryl F. Zanuck, who had been the production chief at Warners (in charge of such films as “42nd Street” and “The Public Enemy”) before jumping ship and co-founding a new company, Twentieth Century Pictures, which soon merged with the financially challenged Fox Film Co.

(Please don’t write in to tell me you’ve seen those two movies and gone over them with a fine-toothed laser but can’t find Zanuck’s name. He simply didn’t get screen credit, which I suspect, just suspect, is one reason he set up his own shop, as Hal Wallis, who did get screen credit, did years later after Jack Warner grabbed the credit – and the Oscar – for “Casablanca.”)

The songs, one or two of which I wouldn’t mind hearing again, are by Gus Kahn and Arthur Johnston instead of Warners’ Harry Warren and Al Dubin.

One character Fox borrowed – and improved on – is the smartass press agent or sidekick, a role that Ned Sparks had a lock on at Warners.

Nothing against Sparks (well, not that much against him), but in “Thanks a Million” the press agent is played by Fred Allen, who belongs in my very limited pantheon of Entertainers Who Can Do No Wrong.

This was Allen’s first feature film appearance after years of stage and radio work, and it’s obvious that he furnished some of his own lines; when a blowhard proclaims himself to be a self-made man, Allen says that points up the perils of unskilled labor. (A Google search I just did indicates that Allen wasn’t the first to say this, but I’m willing to bet that if he did “borrow” it, he would have gotten around to thinking of it on his own.)

One major difference between this movie and the Warners output is the quality and sophistication of the screenplay, which is about a traveling show whose star (Mr. Powell) is stranded in a small town. The star, through a series of developments that are indigenous only to 1930s musicals, winds up running for governor.

The main scriptwriter was Nunnally Johnson, whose name on almost any screenplay is the cinematic equivalent of “USDA Approved.” (Matter of fact, if you have one of those ebook thingies and search for his name, you might find and be able to download the text of a long interview he gave near the end of his life. Even with the multiple – to put it mildly -- transcription errors, it’s fascinating stuff for Hollywood-history buffs.)

“Thanks a Million” doesn’t appear to be available on video, which is too bad. Though it’s not a must-see film, if you have a taste for this sort of thing, your time wouldn’t be wasted.

Tom Bosley, RIP

2010-10-22T00:15:00.007-04:00

I suppose he'll always be best known for playing Howard Cunningham, the father on "Happy Days." And I suppose there's nothing bad about that, though "Happy Days" lost me after Fonzie took over the show and the studio audiences began going crazy over everything he did.

And because Mr. Bosley seemed like a pleasant fellow, I had nothing against him making more money playing Father Dowling, even if I don't remember sitting through an entire episode of that show.

But I prefer to remember his more interesting roles.

Coincidentally, the night before I heard of his death, I saw watched him in an episode of "Route 66," doing a nicely shaded job as a sleazy, small-town businessman (with a mustache yet -- an adornment that made him look a little like William Conrad). The episode's characters also included a doctor, a small part featuring a young actor who didn't make much of an impression on me until the credits revealed he was Alan Alda, a light year or two away from Hawkeye. You can watch that episode here.

And I've always remembered him as Sidney Resnick, the hapless, hopeless, desperate guy who sells his eyesight to a rich, blind woman played by Joan Crawford in the pilot movie for "Night Gallery," written, of course, by Rod Serling. (The segment, one of several in the film, was directed by Steven Spielberg.)

He was, I suppose, among the last of an endangered species known as The Character Actor -- the kind of performer who never gets the girl (or guy) but who often captures the audience's affection (though they might not remember the name), along with a deservedly steady paycheck.

Sic 'em, Asta!

2010-10-22T00:08:00.003-04:00

From The Hollywood Reporter:

"Johnny Depp and Rob Marshall, now in production on the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, are teaming up to develop a remake of classic private eye movie The Thin Man for Warner Bros.

"The project is out to writers for a take that would give a Sherlock Holmes treatment (meaning to contemporize the attitude but retain the period setting) to the classic Dashiell Hammett novel...."

Barbara Billingsley, RIP

2010-10-17T01:33:00.005-04:00

I hear the sound of vacuuming above
As aromas from fresh cookies swirl.
I look up, toward the skies,
And then find a surprise
Resting in my closed hand:
One stray pearl.

At the (old) movies: 'Innocents in Paris'

2010-10-12T11:57:00.009-04:00

Some notes from a recent meeting of the local cinephile society:

I’d never heard of “Innocents in Paris” (Romulus Films, 1953), but given that it’s a British film (with location footage in France) and featuring folks such as Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford, I figured it was going to be one of those eccentric Ealing-type comedies, kind of like an old Alec Guinness film without Alec Guinness.

Turns out I was wrong, but as much as I enjoy the Ealing films, I certainly wasn’t displeased by “Innocents in Paris.”

The plot is the kind of setup you’ve seen many times before and will probably see many times again: A bunch of people (of various types, of course) go on a journey that will Change All of Their Lives.

Not that there’s anything particularly philosophical or dramatic going on here; it’s a gentle comedy about people who behave a lot like people in real life, with some exaggeration. The script is by Anatole de Grunwald, and Gordon Parry is the director.

Alastair Sim is a diplomat who has a bad stomach and does crossword puzzles during boring international meetings. Margaret Rutherford is an amateur artist. Claire Bloom, in one of her earliest roles, is a young woman (natch) going to Paris for the first time. Monique Gerard is the girlfriend of an apparently well-to-do businessman who’s too busy to catch the plane with her but says he’ll join her at the hotel.

Laurence Harvey, in one of his earliest roles, plays a room service waiter at the girlfriend’s hotel. When he hears that her boyfriend still can't get away to join her, the waiter is determined to give her, shall we say, service deluxe.

James Copeland is a naïve Scottish man who is taken aback when young women in Paris follow him, laughing at his kilts. Jimmy Edwards is a blowhard who doesn’t seem to sense how ironic it is that, once in Paris, he retreats to a British-style pub where he seems to spend most of his time.

Ronald Shiner is a drummer in a military marching band that’s set to perform.

The various plots work themselves out in ways that pretty much wouldn’t surprise you, but they do so with a mostly understated charm. Sim and Rutherford have roles that they could easily make a 10-course meal out of, but they’re wise enough not to overact – at least not too much. Or maybe the director was reining them in.

For me (and quite possibly this is because I’d never seen him before), the standout performer is Shiner, who looks like a somewhat more refined Shemp Howard (no disrespect meant there, Shemp), with a beaklike nose added on. Or, if you want another comparison, imagine a Victor McLaglen who can underact. Shiner’s character, the infelicitously named Dicky Bird, is hilariously impudent and, ultimately, a bit touching.

I doubt this film is shown very often, and apparently the only DVD version is, for no discernible good reason, a Spanish one that can't be played on a DVD player in the U.S. Too bad, because perhaps the highest compliment I can give the film is that I wouldn’t mind taking this trip again sometime.

Two new links in (or is it on?) the blogroll

2010-10-11T10:44:00.009-04:00

Submitted for your consideration....

Planet Valenti is the new website of my longtime friend and former colleague Dan Valenti.

A newspaper columnist and former radio talk-show host in the Pittsfield, Mass., area (he's interviewed such great icons of my youth as Betsy Palmer and June "Rocky the Flying Squirrel" Foray), Dan offers his thoughts on local politics. And although chances are you won't know the names, there's a good chance that some of his trenchantly pungent (or is it pungently trenchant?) observations will apply to folks with other names who live in your area.

His site also contains links to two of his news enterprises: Europolis Management ("involved in artist representation and production") and Planet Media Books, which just published its first offering, "Spring's Third Day," a collection of poems by Laura Gross....

If you grew up watching TV in the 1950s and 1960s, Classic Television Showbiz is a must. It's run by Kliph Nesteroff, who finds great, obscure videos from those days and occasionally posts outstanding interviews from people of that era. If, for example, you want to know what master malapropper Norm Crosby has been up to lately, this is the site for you.

My only regret about posting a link to Classic Television Showbiz now is that I didn't do it sooner.

I hope you will enjoy these sites.

Physicians, hear thyselves

2010-10-09T00:24:00.006-04:00

My primary-care physician recently referred me to a specialist.

In yesterday's mail I received something from that practice -- the usual instructions and forms to fill out.

The envelope, however, was addressed to "Mark Humphrey."

I called the specialist's practice, gave my primary care doctor's name and said they'd put the wrong name on the envelope.

The woman who answered the phone asked for my date of birth.

I gave it.

Then she asked for my name.

I said, "Do you want what you think is my name or my real name?"

"Yes," she replied.

I got things straightened out anyway, but all this doesn't seem to bode well, given the nature of the practice.

It's an EAR, nose and throat place....

At the (old) movies with The Lone Wolf

2010-10-03T00:50:00.009-04:00

Some notes from a recent meeting of the local cinephile society:

The title character in “The Lone Wolf Takes a Chance” (Columbia, 1941) got his start in a series of novels by Louis Joseph Vance. “The Lone Wolf” was the alias of Michael Lanyard, a gentleman jewel thief.

The character was featured in silent movies and talkies, and in this entry from Columbia’s B-movie series about the character, the Lone Wolf is a reformed jewel thief who now solves crimes, even though the cops are always more than willing to think the worst of him. This setup is similar to the Boston Blackie movies – also made by Columbia.

In this film, directed by Sidney Salkow, the character is played by Warren William, who had been an A-movie actor in the 1930s. The Columbia series also gave Lanyard a valet named Jamison, played by the great British comic actor Eric Blore.

When he’s unjustly accused of murder, Lanyard has to try to both clear himself and solve the kidnapping of a young man who has invented some much-coveted printing plates for the government.

A newsreel-within-the-movie shows that the inventor, Johnny Baker, has been keeping the plates in a special railroad car that he’s come up with. The car has a lock with a combination, and if you try to get into the car and get the combination wrong, you’re trapped by poison gas.

Of course, as Anton Chekhov once said, if you have a railroad car with poison gas in the first reel, then someone must be gassed by it – or in danger of being gassed by it – in the last reel.

(OK, OK, I know he said something like that somewhere. Can I help it if my knowledge of the Russian language is spotty? OK, OK, make that non-existent.)

If Warren William was disheartened by his drop in status from A’s to B’s, his performance doesn’t show it. He seems to be having a good time and seems livelier than he does in some of his A pictures.

The young inventor is played by a newcomer named Lloyd Bridges, many years before his “Sea Hunt” days and decades before he became better known in some circles as the daddy of Beau and Jeff. Lloyd made a number of Columbia B pictures in this era; he can be seen as a college student in a Blondie movie, and I once spotted him as a bus driver in a Boston Blackie film.

Although it’s a B movie, “The Lone Wolf Takes a Chance” seems to have been made with extra care, and although you might not remember much of it long after you’ve seen it, you’ll probably remember it as a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

(Footnote: The fake newsreel is narrated by Art Gilmore, the master radio announcer who also did a lot of movie voiceover work, perhaps most memorably as the narrator of the Joe McDoakes shorts, which starred George O’Hanlon, who later became the voice of George Jetson. I’d thought Mr. Gilmore had died some years ago, but he actually died a few days after I saw this movie. He was 98. By all accounts he was quite a gentleman, and he might well have been the last of the great living radio announcers.)

I'll have to remember to stop saying this

2010-09-27T10:49:00.003-04:00

According to a search I just did, the phrase "as I recall" has appeared in "Murphy's Craw" about 17 times in the last two and a half years.

The woman who loved Hopalong Cassidy

2010-09-27T00:50:00.008-04:00

During the summer I bought a DVD that featured three of the films made by George Burns and Gracie Allen.

Although I much admire Burns and Allen, my main reason for buying the DVD was “Six of a Kind,” a 1934 film from Paramount that also featured W.C. Fields and Charlie Ruggles and was directed by the legendary Leo McCarey.

After watching and enjoying “Six of a Kind” (which is perhaps most notable for the scene in which a sheriff portrayed by Fields plays a game of pool while recounting the story of how he became known as, um, “Honest John”), I consulted the indispensable Internet Movie Database to look up some of the film’s other, lesser-known actors.

A character named Goldie – the girlfriend of an embezzler – was played by someone named Grace Bradley. I looked up her bio and found that I had indeed seen her before.

And she turned up again earlier this month in “The Gilded Lily,” a 1935 Paramount film I wrote about earlier this month.

Grace Bradley died last week. Her married name was Grace Boyd.

I’d first seen her some years ago while I was flipping channels, killing time before going out somewhere.

I stumbled upon an Encore Westerns documentary titled “Hopalong Cassidy: Public Hero #1.”

Hopalong Cassidy was a big deal back in the 1950s, when I was growing up, though I don’t believe I’d ever seen a Hopalong Cassidy movie. But what the heck, I thought, this is as good a way as any to kill some time.

Turned out I was right, to put it mildly.

The documentary, narrated by Dennis Weaver, told the story of William Boyd, who played Cassidy. In the 1920s Boyd had been a big star, and off screen he was at least somewhat of a playboy with a taste for the high life.

Then his career went off course, through no fault of his own: An actor with the same name had gotten into some well-publicized trouble, and the confusion caused by this coincidence all but killed Boyd’s career.

He was eventually able to pick up the pieces when he got the part of Cassidy, and he also decided to clean up his personal life, too.

Eventually he met a young actress who’d had a crush on him ever since she was a 12-year-old moviegoer who’d seen him on the screen. According to The Orange County Register, he proposed three days after their first date, and they were together until he died in 1972.

That woman was, of course, Grace Bradley.

Boyd played Cassidy in a slew of movies, then took a big financial risk and bought the rights to the character so he could make his own movies. When TV came in, he cashed in big time.

The image of Boyd as Hoppy appeared on a lot of products – but it’s said that Boyd was very careful about which products he endorsed. For although he and Grace never had any children of their own, he felt a responsibility toward Hoppy’s fans.

I especially remember Grace because of her appearance in the documentary. She must have been at least in her late eighties.

The main reason I remember her and that documentary, and one of the reasons I highly recommend it if Encore Westerns ever repeats it, is one sequence in which she recalls the first time she and Boyd ever dated. In recounting this, she suddenly tears up.

I defy anyone to watch that sequence without getting teary-eyed along with her.

And although I still feel no great compulsion to seek out any Hopalong Cassidy movies, I can’t help wishing I’d known Grace and Bill, two classy people who lived an exemplary life of quiet dignity, unblemished by scandal or sanctimony.

If that isn't a winning scenario, I don't know what is.

Kevin McCarthy and Harold Gould, RIP

2010-09-15T00:08:00.010-04:00

It hasn't been a good week for character actors -- or for those of us who really appreciate them.

When I was growing up, Kevin McCarthy was seemingly everywhere -- movies and particularly TV. He's apparently best known for his role in the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," but I remember him primarily for two "Twilight Zone" roles.

In the original series, he played the title role in "Long Live Walter Jameson" -- a history professor who's lectures are particularly vivid because he literally knows whereof he lectures: He's literally been around for centuries. It was one of the show's better episodes, but though I don't want to play down the quality of the script (by Charles Beaumont), it probably would have been only half as good without McCarthy.

Many years later, I saw "Twilight Zone: The Movie" when it came out. Yes, that's the one where Vic Morrow and two children were killed during the filming of the scene, and I remember feeling maybe a little creepy, and even maybe a little complicit, in going to the movie.

As I recall, the film as a whole didn't have that much to recommend it except for Joe Dante's remake of "It's a Good Life," the story about the kid (originally played by the quintessential kid actor of my generation, Billy Mumy) who could "wish away" things -- and people -- he didn't like.

In Dante's hands, the material became an exaggerated, creepy comedy, material in which character actors (people for whom Dante obviously has much respect) could have a field day, especially William "Patty Duke's Father" Schallert and McCarthy, who played the most hilariously scared-to-death geezer in the history of films. McCarthy later said he based his portrayal on another fine character actor, Frank Morgan....

I suppose Harold Gould was best-known for playing Rhoda Morgenstern's father, but he was another guy who was everywhere on TV in the 1960s and 1970s. Movies, too.

He appeared in my town one weekend within the last few years, touring with a comedy about older people and Viagra. I'm sorry I didn't see it -- or, rather, I'm sorry I didn't see him.

Two movie memories of him:

In "Harper," he plays a sheriff who is hassling the title character, a detective played by Paul Newman. (It's faithfully based by William Goldman on "The Moving Target," Ross Macdonald's first Lew Archer novel.)

Gould's sheriff says, "I don't want to get ugly!"

"You ARE ugly!" Harper says.

In a sadly much less well known movie, "The Big Bus," a satire of disaster films, he plays a scientist. As I recall (I only saw this movie once, on TV; I've never seen it on video), there's an explosion, which leaves him lying on the floor of a parking lot. A phone happens to be next to him.

The phone rings.

He picks it up and cheerfully answers: "Parking lot!"

Jackson Gillis

2010-08-29T00:32:00.011-04:00

Recognize that name?

I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't. But if you watched a lot of TV from the '50s to the '70s, you might remember seeing his writing credits attached to some of your favorite shows.

You might especially remember it if, growing up, you were the kind of pesky kid who insisted that your siblings or parents not change the channel after a program until after you had seen the credits.

More particularly, if you were a pesky kid like me.

Mr. Gillis, who was 93, died earlier this month.

I think I first remember seeing his name on "Perry Mason," where he adapted some of the Erle Stanley Gardner books in addition to writing very good original scripts for the series.

In 1963, when the series finally got around to doing the first Mason novel, "The Case of the Velvet Claws," Gillis wrote the script, providing a textbook example of how to adapt a novel from the 1930s for the 1960s and even, if I may say so, improve on it.

Then I saw his name on "Mickey Mouse Club" repeats. ("Hey, that guy whose name is on the 'Perry Mason' show also wrote for the Hardy Boys and Spin and Marty!")

I learned early on that anything written by Jackson Gillis was worth watching.

Although he wasn't basically a book writer (though his hometown paper, the Moscow Pullman Daily News in Idaho, mentions two mystery novels he wrote, which I'm sorry to say I haven't read -- yet), I think his best work can stand up with the best of the classic mystery authors.

Apparently the Emmy folks thought so, too. He was nominated for that award for writing "Suitable for Framing," one of the best "Columbo" episodes, starring Ross Martin as a murderous art critic. I watched it again on DVD earlier this year. It still holds up -- and it perhaps has the best "Columbo" ending ever. I still remember what an impact it had on me when I saw the episode the first time it was aired, in the early '70s.

He deserves to be remembered.

For The New York Times' obit -- which, curiously, doesn't mention his novels -- go here.

The sky queen (or was she a sky princess?)

2010-08-28T19:10:00.010-04:00

You might have already heard that Gloria Winters, who played Penny on the "Sky King" television series, died the other day.

Unless you're above a certain age (50, maybe) you might well shrug this off.
But to those of us who grew up in the earlier days of Saturday morning television (I'll leave it to others to determine whether it was a Golden Era), the thought of Gloria Winters brings back memories of a more innocent time.

"Sky King" was about a rancher named Schuyler (or maybe Skyler) King who also wore a hat and flew a plane called the Songbird and caught crooks or helped rescue people. Penny, his niece, helped him.

I don't particularly remember any of the plots -- I strongly suspect the plots were never meant to be memorable -- but I remember watching it at noon on Saturdays.

I suppose we boys and girls were supposed to identify with young Penny. I didn't exactly identify with her; she was too much older than I. But I'm pretty sure there were some young men, not that much older than I, who didn't identify with Penny as much as they wanted to transport her into the wide blue yonder, if you get my drift, and if you do, you should be ashamed of yourself and hit the showers -- the cold ones -- right now.

Sky himself was played by a guy named Kirby Grant, who died in 1985.

I think the name "Kirby" struck me as uniquely neat, and I got the impression that Grant was as nice a fella off screen as he was airborne.

I suspect "Sky King" was the high point (figuratively and literally) of Grant's career. I do remember watching an Abbott & Costello movie, "In Society" (1944), and seeing him in it when I was a kid. I think he even sang. From what I've read, he was a child prodigy violinist, too, but in "In Society," he, like practically every other supporting actor in an Abbott and Costello movie, had to play second fiddle (actually it was probably fourth fiddle, at least) to A&C's interpolated vaudeville bits.

It wasn't until some years after "Sky King" left the airwaves that I found out that the show had originated as a radio program, without Kirby and Gloria.

I've since heard at least one of those shows. But what I remember of it isn't the plot, but the commercials, for Peter Pan Peanut Butter.

And when it came to smoothness, the announcer who did those commercials outdid his product.

Boy, did he want those kids to get their moms to buy that stuff. He was so enthusiastic, and in those days his enthusiasm might well have been contagious. I myself am not allergic to peanuts, but as I listened to his pitch I darn near broke into a rash.

That announcer's name?

Mike Wallace.

Yes, that Mike Wallace.

A fremd (indeed!) is a fremd I don't need

2010-08-12T00:08:00.004-04:00

What does it take to be a writer?

Well, let's see.

You need to have an affinity for words and the ability to use them well.

You need to be widely read and appreciative of the great literary works that have gone before you.

And if you aim to write fiction, an ear for dialogue is certainly a must.

But there's one thing that separates the real writers from the wannabes, a certain skill without which you might as well take up clam digging or yo-yo tricks.

And that one skill, the skill that's implanted in the DNA of every dyed-in-the-wool scribe, is:

The ability to find all sorts of other things to do to put off writing.

One thing I do (you are taking notes, aren't you?) is play computer Scrabble.

And at the risk of being branded as anti-social, I will admit for the record, your honor, that I don't play computer Scrabble with other people.

I play it against the software that came with the game.

I lose more often than not (OK, OK, way more often than not), but lately I've been putting up a good fight.

But not too long ago, during the course of a game, my computerized opponent came up with the word "fremd."

Whereupon I myself came up with a few words that are not to be used in polite company, let alone on this blog.

And I began to get a mite scared.

Because I know that in some real-life Scrabble games, some players try to bluff the other players with fake words.

Was my computer foe trying to do this? And if so, if his or her mind was that devious, could he or she be trying to take over my computer? My life? The world?

If it spoke, would he/she sound like Hal from "2001"?

Just to reassure myself, I looked the word up.

And darned if I didn't find it in Merriam-Webster's unabridged dictionary, which says "fremd" means "strange, belonging to someone else, alienated." Its etymology cites Middle English and Old English roots, with a nod to Old High German.

Now you'll notice I said this was in the unabridged dictionary; M-W's regular dictionary doesn't list it at all.

Yet the Scrabble dictionary that's built into the computer Scrabble game's software -- a dictionary that won't allow "ade" (meaning, of course, as every crossword fan knows, a fruit drink, as even M-W unabridged admits) -- thinks it's fine.

The Scrabble dictionary also seems to have an affinity for Scottish words, such as "wae" and "eme." Ay, laddie, 't would surprise me none to find out that the editor of yon dictionary goeth by the name of Laird Angus Blinkbonny.

Oh well. I guess I'm going to have to give in and accept the existence of "fremd."

But I'm not a wee bit happy about it.

Memories of Mitch

2010-08-03T19:14:00.007-04:00

The album. I can’t remember whether it was in the late fifties or the early sixties, but I somehow know it was a Friday evening when my parents brought home the original “Sing Along With Mitch” LP. We played it right away, of course.

The cover was divided into two horizontal sections. At bottom was Smiling Mitch. Above him, in various colors, was a list of the songs contained therein. I remember listening to, and liking, “Sweet Violets.” Who knows why? And we all thought “Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends” was a scream.

The TV show. This was a Friday night staple. Wildly popular. I know we watched it every week. Even now when I think of Leslie Uggams, I think of Mitch; she was pretty much a regular on the show, as I recall. Years later, a show named “Sesame Street” debuted and was a big hit. I looked at it and thought, “Hey, isn’t that guy with the Muppets none other than Bob McGrath from the Mitch Miller show?” Sure it was.

At some point in the show’s run, the producers came up with a cute gimmick. Sometimes during a song, as the camera would pan among the member’s of Mitch’s all-male troupe, all of a sudden we’d see that someone famous had been slipped into the group. Once it was Joe E. Ross, in costume as Gunther Toody from “Car 54, Where Are You?"

Creative “repurposing.” My younger brother had a 45 rpm record of “The Woody Woodpecker Song.” On the B side was something called “The Woodpecker Dance,” performed by “Mitchell Miller and the Orchestra.” Same guy? Almost certainly. The dance was a sprightly tune; I listened to it a number of times myself. Years later, listening to the classical radio station, I heard it again – it was actually part of a piece of classical music. Can’t remember the composer, though I suspect the person was credited on the 45. Mitch had obviously breathed new life (or at least a different life) into an old piece of classical music. Clever – and cost-effective, since the selection was in the public domain.

The bottom line. Was Mitch Miller a schlockmeister? Of course. But some people say that word in the same tone of voice that they normally reserve for “child molester.” Yep, Mitch’s stuff was corny all right, but it was the type of stuff that a family could enjoy together. And although many of the songs performed were very old standards that could be performed free, it was through Mitch and his gang that I learned songs like “That Old Gang of Mine.”

I also remember the night that Mitch featured a young classical pianist, only a few years older than I was, and I was about 10. As we watched, my parents turned to me and asked me if I’d like to take piano lessons. As I recall, I was noncommittal, but despite this they signed me up and I took lessons for five years. Forty years later, I still play and I’m still grateful for the lessons, as much of a pain as they sometimes were – not because of the teacher but because for so long I was such a tight-assed, nervous, inhibited student.

Did my parents have this idea before this episode was shown? Quite possibly. Or maybe they had the idea right then and there. They’re not around to ask now.

But if Mitch did give them the idea, I hope that he is now in a very pleasant place with that old gang of his.

Grace under stupidity

2010-07-19T00:19:00.005-04:00

In my town we have a Triple-A baseball team that’s been having a pretty good season. (Ken Levine, whose indispensably hilarious blog can be found in the list at right, used to be a team announcer.)

Every so often some friends and I go out to a game.

On Saturday night, we’re sitting in the second row, way down the first-base line, where relief pitchers from the opposing teams often warm up.

It’s the top of the ninth, and the opposing team is enough runs behind so that it seems doubtful that it’ll catch up to our team. And by this time a bunch of players have congregated on the bench below us.

They’re probably not having a lot of fun.

Just below us, a guy and his young son have a pretty good chunk of the first row all to themselves and plainly are having a lot of fun, in a nice, wholesome, father-and-son way that’s always nice to see.

When along comes this drunk, maybe in his twenties.

The drunk plops himself down right next to the father, who looks at him.

For a moment I wonder whether the two know each other.

It’s clear from the way the father looks the guy over that the two aren’t friends and aren’t going to be friends any time soon.

The drunk doesn’t say anything to the father or the kid.

But he does decide it would be a great idea to begin heckling the players who are sitting on the bench.

I realize things could get ugly.

I leave it to behavioral scientists to determine exactly how stupid one has to be to get almost literally in the face of a group of men who are doubtless in better shape than at least most of the people in the stands, and who probably have at least a great deal of dexterity when it comes to wielding a baseball bat, and who could probably without undue exertion track down someone in a parking lot and beat that person to any of at least several degrees of pulpiness.

All I know is, professional athletes these days aren’t routinely touted as top prospects for openings in the diplomatic corps.

At one point, the drunk says, “Hey, what are you guys doing after the game? Gonna go out to the grocery store and bag some groceries?”

At which point, one of the players turns and calmly says, “Why should I go after your job?”

According to the people scoring the game that night, that player’s team lost.

According to me, the guys on that bench scored a more important type of victory, without laying a hand on anyone.

Good save.

If you want a really big thrill, try 'The Waste Land' and '99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall'

2010-07-17T17:41:00.019-04:00

As I was trolling the Web while I probably had better things to do, I learned that other people who probably had better things to do have discovered that the poems of Emily Dickinson can be sung to the tune of the theme of "Gilligan's Island."

And "The Yellow Rose of Texas."

A travel tip you won't find in Fodor's

2010-07-09T20:55:00.015-04:00

When you're overseas, avoid countries whose exchange rate is dollars to doughnuts.

I'm almost sorry I solved it

2010-06-22T00:27:00.006-04:00

A few weeks ago, the local cable TV company announced plans to upgrade everyone’s service by downloading new software to everyone’s boxes.

Fearing the worst (a not unreasonable strategy to adopt when any company announces plans to “improve” anything), I got on the company’s website and printed out the manual that goes with the new software.

With all these preparations, it only follows naturally that the downloading went off without a hitch and as yet there have been no “issues.”

So I put the manual aside.

And then, yesterday, I began to wonder where it was.

And I couldn’t find it.

I was sure it was around my work area somewhere, so I spent a few minutes looking for it in case I might need it sometime.

It was then that I came across a mysterious receipt.

No company’s name was printed on the receipt. No order number, either. Just the date, last March 26; a scrawled word that I took to mean “Kim”; the initials “NW”; and the abbreviation “Pd.”

Apparently I “Pd” a total of $40 for two items at $20 each.

What were these items?

According to the handwriting, I am now the proud possessor of a “Doll” and an “Oyster.”

Problem is, I didn’t remembering buying a “Doll” or an “Oyster.” I have a niece who’s still young enough to play with dolls, but last I heard, she didn’t play with oysters.

Heck, I myself don’t play with oysters. I can’t recall ever eating one. Or seeing one in real life.

Besides, what kind of a place sells dolls and oysters?

And who is “NW”? Nero Wolfe was my first thought, but he’s a fictional character, though he’s so corpulent that he’s probably seen more oysters than anyone has a right to see.

I finally consulted my desk calendar, and the answer came to me.

On March 26 I was attending a film festival run by the local cinephile society, and in the dealer’s room I bought DVDs of two silent films Ernst Lubitsch made while he was still in his native Germany: “The Doll” and “The Oyster Princess.” “Kim” was actually Kino, the company that made the videos.

“NW” must have been the guy who sold them to me.

So the mystery is solved, though the solution is something of a letdown, as sometimes happens with mysteries and magic tricks.

Then again, it’s not as if this was one of life’s bigger mysteries.

Such as, is there a God? Is there life after death?

And what the hell happened to that cable TV manual?

At the (old) movies: 'The Bank Dick'

2010-06-16T20:24:00.013-04:00

Some notes from a recent presentation by the local cinephile society:

Agatha Sousé and her little daughter, Elsie Mae Adele Brunch Sousé, are watching Egbert Sousé make a fool of himself in public.

Elsie Mae: Shall I bounce a rock off his head?
Agatha: Respect your father, darling. (Pause.) What kind of a rock?

W.C. Fields' movie characters tend to fall into one of two categories: the incorrigible, smooth-talking con man (The Great McGonigle in "The Old-Fashioned Way" and Eustace McGargle in "Poppy" are prime examples) and the family man who can't get a break from anyone, including (and sometimes especially) his family, although his older daughter might be on his side, especially if she's from a previous marriage.

"The Bank Dick" (Universal, 1940) is kind of a hybrid. Egbert Sousé doesn't get respect from anyone in his family, and he doesn't necessarily deserve it, because as lovable as he is (at least to Fields fans), he's a little bit like the other kind of Fields character.

Although Edward F. Cline directed the movie, Fields wrote it under the name of Mahatma Kane Jeeves.

I won't go as far as to say that the plot defies description, but I will say that it defies common sense, and, given the star, I might be sorely disappointed if it didn't. Let's just say that Egbert accidentally foils a bank robbery, is hired as a guard at the bank (where his older daughter's boyfriend works), becomes the target of a conman selling shares in a "beefsteak mine," talks the boyfriend into embezzling money to buy shares, and then the bank examiner comes to town.

But, again, in this kind of movie the plot plays second fiddle to the memorable (perhaps even immortal) bits and set pieces.

Who, after having seen "The Bank Dick," will ever forget the bank president's "hearty handclasp"? Or Shemp Howard as the bartender?

My favorite scenes involve Franklin Pangborn as J. Pinkerton Snoopington, the bank examiner. Pangborn appeared in scores of movies, always playing basically the same fussy, officious character. In terms of range, he was about as one-note as an actor could be. But nobody played that one note better, and his scenes with Fields are quite possibly the best work he ever did.

I have no understanding of the art of ballet, but, at the risk of sounding blasphemous to any balletomanes out there, I can't help suspecting that watching Fields and Pangborn work together makes me feel the way dance fans felt when they watched Nureyev and Fonteyn.

My mouth almost waters as I think of Shemp drugging Pangborn's drink; Fields trying to get Pangborn into his hotel room; Fields telling the severely nauseated Pangborn that he could arrange for him to have a coconut cream pie -- and Pangborn's reaction; later, at the bank, Fields trying to fend off Pangborn's audit by smashing Pangborn's hand and breaking his glasses.

With all the logic of the kind of dream that you yourself might have if Shemp were your mixologist, the Pangborn subplot (and Pangborn himself) go by the wayside as the bank is robbed again, leading to the endearingly hokey climax and the last scene, in which Egbert (like Fields fathers before him) is vindicated.

It's true that Fields is an acquired taste -- several people walked out at intermission -- and I wouldn't want to watch one Fields film after another. But an occasional visit can be at least as restorative as anything Eustace McGargle ever peddled.

Ode to The Chicago Manual of Style

2010-06-10T11:36:00.015-04:00

(To the tune of -- what else? -- the 1922 song by Fred Fisher)

Chicago! Chicago!
A heck of a book!
For wannabe wordsmiths,
It's well worth a look!

Bet your bottom dollar you'll soon get lost in its pages --
What sages!
The book that Billy Sunday liked second best!

Chicago! Chicago!
Nirvana for nerds!
Hawaii? Tahiti? Who needs them?
Word geeks and mavens flock there and roam!
Serial commas call it their home!
Oh, Chicago!
How I really like your style!

Hmm ... should I have it shaken or stirred?

2010-06-03T20:08:00.005-04:00

Baltimore Sun language guru John McIntyre recently ran a contest in which contestants had to come up with a food-related book title that includes a literary allusion and write a one-sentence jacket description of it.

The prize: a martini mixed by Mr. McIntyre, whose blog, "You Don't Say," can be found on the blogroll at right.

The results can be found here.

At the (old) movies: 'The Glass Key'

2010-05-10T01:06:00.002-04:00

Some notes from a recent gathering of the local cinephile society….

“The Glass Key” (1942) was based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett. The novel was Hammett’s favorite among all his books. (There were five, not including short story collections.)

The book is about Ned Beaumont’s efforts to keep his friend and employer, political boss Paul Madvig, from being arrested for the murder of a senator’s son. Complicating matters is both men’s attraction to the senator’s daughter, Janet Henry.

I read the book some years ago and reread parts of it after I saw this movie. I’m afraid I don’t share Hammett’s affection for it, though the book is certainly respectable and enjoyable. But I much prefer Hammett’s first-person stuff – his Continental Op stories and “The Thin Man.”

In “The Glass Key,” Hammett seems to be aiming for a Hemingwayesque objectivity, never outright telling us how anyone feels about anything, apparently feeling that describing what they do and say is enough, and the readers can form their own conclusions. This type of writing can work really well or it can seem really mannered; it doesn’t help that Ned Beaumont is always referred to as Ned Beaumont, never as Ned or Beaumont. (Erle Stanley Gardner treated Della Street the same way. Maybe Ned Beaumont and Della Street should have paired up.)

Stuart Heisler’s movie pretty much sticks to the book, which was adapted by another mystery writer (and a very capable one, too), Jonathan Latimer. Latimer, who later adapted several of Gardner’s books for the “Perry Mason” show in addition to writing original scripts for that program, does a good job of shepherding Hammett’s work to the screen -- knowing when, for example, to combine characters for the sake of cinematic economy.

Then again, I’d be interested to know why a couple of the characters’ names were changed. Shad O’Rory, the villain in the book, becomes Nick Varna. Was Paramount afraid of offending the Irish, or had the actor – Joseph Calleia – already been cast and someone decided he didn’t look like an O’Rory? And why does Ned Beaumont become Ed Beaumont while Paul Madvig gets to keep his name?

Not that this really matters; the movie still works today, and for two reasons.

The first is the casting. Alan Ladd (Beaumont) and Veronica Lake (Janet) had already set off sparks in “This Gun for Hire.” True, the two of them have a limited range – perhaps a very limited range – but for the purposes of the film they’re perfect. William Bendix, as Varna’s chief henchman, is exactly what you’d find if the Yellow Pages had a listing for “vicious” or “brutal.” He probably could have taught Quentin Tarantino’s thugs a few things.

But Brian Donlevy, as Madvig, is perhaps the standout. He’s playing a guy who’s corrupt, who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty or violent, but who is also likable – and sympathetically clueless and vulnerable when it comes to romance. That’s a tall order to fill, but Donlevy does it with little if any apparent effort. Never mind Willy Loman – if you want to take the movies of the 1930s and 1940s seriously, attention must be paid to Brian Donlevy.

The second reason the movie still works is that it seems to take it for granted that politics is, at best, a slightly tainted business, to say the least; Frank Capra’s heroes need not apply. Whether or not you agree with this philosophy, it does make for good movies, and today’s jaded audiences can probably go along with it.

Me, I’m still wondering how this kind of world view got past the Hays Office. But for the sake of enduring movie entertainment, I’m glad it did.

At the (old) movies: 'Waikiki Wedding'

2010-05-02T20:53:00.015-04:00

Some notes from a recent gathering of the local cinephile society….

Paramount Pictures, like 20th Century Fox, had its own stable of performers who were perfectly suited for various permutations of whatever musical formula hadn’t been used lately. (And “lately” sometimes seemed to mean “in the last three months.”)

So, in “Waikiki Wedding” (1937), directed by Frank Tuttle, we have Bing Crosby (who, to be fair, was First Among Equals in the pecking order, unlike, say, Fox’s Don Ameche and John Payne, neither of whom had Bing’s status) along with Shirley Ross, Martha Raye and Bob Burns.

Shirley Ross is perhaps most famous for introducing two songs, both with Bob Hope – “Thanks for the Memory” and “Two Sleepy People” – in a couple of other Paramount films.

Martha Raye made 14 Paramount movies in the 1930s alone, beginning in 1936. Talk about overexposure – if moviegoers didn’t see her on the screen, they probably figured she was elsewhere in the building, making the popcorn.

Bob Burns, an Arkansas native, was a comedian who specialized in hillbilly characters – kind of a more mature version of Goober Pyle, which isn’t saying much, though I prefer George Lindsey. Burns was famous for a weird musical instrument he invented, called a bazooka – and yes, that’s where the military got its name for its handheld anti-tank rocket launchers during World War II.

In “Waikiki Wedding,” Burns is Bing’s sidekick. Bing, in turn, plays a PR guy for a Hawaii-based pineapple company. His latest bright idea is to have a Miss Pineapple contest, the winner of which gets a trip to Hawaii, during which Bing will ghostwrite syndicated newspaper pieces for her, extolling the island’s charms.

Problem is, the contest winner (Ross), who has arrived at the island with Raye, isn’t all that charmed. In fact, she’s bored. Which means Bing’s in hot water (or maybe even hot lava) if he can’t get her to change her attitude.

Actually, it’s hard to imagine why Ross would be bored by Hawaii, considering that her fiancé, back at home, is a stolid and humorless dentist played by a singularly stolid and humorless actor, Leif Erickson.

A not-yet-famous Anthony Quinn is also around, playing a native.

The movie goes down relatively easily – a sly plot twist involving a volcano helps – and although the songs written for the movie by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger are OK, most of them aren’t the types of tunes that you whistle on the way out, even subconsciously. (Your subconscious’ subconscious won’t even remember them.)

One possible exception: “Blue Hawaii.” (Though I haven't found myself whistling or humming it lately.)

Another song was added as an afterthought. (Specifically Bing’s afterthought, and at that point in his career Bing’s afterthoughts carried enough clout to make the amendments to the Constitution look like mere suggestions scribbled on a cocktail napkin.)

That composition, “Sweet Leilani,” by Harry Owens, won the Academy Award for best song and became Crosby's first gold record. But like the previous year's Oscar winner, Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields’ immortal “The Way You Look Tonight” from “Swing Time,” it doesn’t seem to get much screen time.

Then again, in the long run, I doubt that Mr. Owens, and his heirs, minded very much.

When dress codes and penal codes collide

2010-05-01T18:33:00.010-04:00

Sign at the entrance to a clothing store:

Must Have
SHORTS
50%
OFF

I hear Floyd the Barber is packing heat

2010-04-30T13:12:00.024-04:00

The actress who played Thelma Lou on “The Andy Griffith Show” was robbed this week.

According to The Associated Press, Betty Lynn was robbed in Mount Airy, the North Carolina city that is the birthplace of Mr. Griffith and was the inspiration for the show’s setting, the fictional town of Mayberry.

Ironically, Ms. Lynn, whose character was the girlfriend of Deputy Barney Fife, had moved to Mount Airy because she’d been robbed several times in Los Angeles.

This is indeed disquieting news for those of us who grew up watching TV in the 1950s and 1960s and enjoyed the comedies that were set in a pleasant, much more innocent world – such as “The Real McCoys,” "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and “The Lucy Show.”

But if reality continues to intrude on our fond memories, we baby boomers should perhaps steel ourselves for headlines like these:

THIEVES FROM METH LAB TARGET McCOYS' FARM

NELSONS LOSE HOME OVER SUBPRIME MORTGAGE
Fed Official 'Can't Believe Bank Approved Application
From Guy Who Apparently Hasn't Held a Job in Years!'

MR. MOONEY ACCUSED OF MASTERMINDING PONZI SCHEME;
SECRETARY, IN AFFIDAVIT, SAYS 'WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!'

At the (old) movies: 'Captain Blood'

2010-04-25T16:44:00.009-04:00

Some notes from a recent gathering of the local cinephile society:

I hadn’t seen “Captain Blood” (Warner Bros., 1935) in many years.

I think the last time I’d seen it might have been when I was a kid, watching a local show called “Hollywood Matinee.”

Actually, that might not be exactly right, if you consider that the host, Ed Murphy, always seemed to pronounce this as “Hollywood Mmmmmmmmmmmatinee!”

The show ran Mondays through Fridays, 1 to 2:30 p.m. Into those 90 minutes the station would shoehorn Ed’s opening and closing, a bunch of commercial breaks and, oh yes, a movie.

I’m guessing that most of the movies Ed showed had a running time of 90 minutes, tops, or an hour and 45 minutes.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that most of the time, the movies were not presented in full. They’d show the opening credits, then jump to the second reel, or maybe the third.

Surprisingly, as I recall, this didn’t hurt that many movies, especially as a good number seemed to be Universal B pictures.

Occasionally a movie would be so long that the traditional “Hollywood Mmmmmmmmmmmatinee!” treatment wouldn’t work. So they’d make it a two-parter.

I especially remember that they did this for Frank Capra’s “Arsenic and Old Lace.” I don’t know why, but they always seemed to show this while I was home sick from school.

As the years went by, I suspect the ratings began to slip, because the station decided to add something in an attempt to perk things up (though it cut into the movies even more):

Dialing for Dollars.

Remember that? And remember Bowling for Dollars, which the same station aired at 7 p.m.? I’ve sometimes wondered why they didn’t combine the two, for a show called Dialing for Bowlers. But then again, I don’t have the brains to be a network executive and come up with red-hot show ideas like “Minute to Win It.” (Which I never enjoyed all that much years ago when it was called “Beat the Clock.”)

Oh, I’m supposed to be talking about “Captain Blood”?

OK, if you insist.

“Captain Blood” was one of those two-part “Hollywood Mmmmmmmmmmmatinee!” movies. I remember enjoying it when I was a kid, and I’m happy to report that years later it seems to hold up quite well.

The hero, played by Errol Flynn in his first big role, is about a pirate named, quite conveniently, Peter Blood. Actually, Blood doesn’t start out as a pirate but as a doctor (go ahead, write your own joke here, I'll wait), and when he gets called away one night to attend to a patient and tells his housekeeper that he’ll surely be back in time for breakfast, well, even audiences in 1935 knew that the housekeeper’s next paycheck would be a long time coming.

Blood gets into trouble for treating someone who is unpopular with the kind of folks who can, if they want, have Blood deported and made a slave somewhere in the Caribbean. And of course it turns out that this is exactly what they want to do.

So Blood winds up being sold to Olivia De Havilland, who’s the niece of perennial bad guy Lionel Atwill, here wearing a wig that makes him look like a demented Buster Brown.

Blood gets revenge – and Ms. De Havilland – all to the strains of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s score and under the expert directorial supervision of Michael Curtiz.

On the one hand there is something triumphant about the picture – not only Blood’s triumph but the triumph of a studio that was gambling that Flynn could become a major star. It was a gamble that paid off big-time, and I can only imagine the thrill that the audiences felt as they realized they were seeing a major star become a major star before their eyes.

And there’s something about Flynn’s boyishness and inexperience that works in his favor, and you do root for his character.

But, 75 years after the film’s first release, the sense of triumph and the thrills are offset by what we know now: that as the years pass, Flynn and his characters will gradually grow more cynical and dissolute; only eight years after this film came out, Flynn was parodying himself during a number in the Warner variety film “Thank Your Lucky Stars.” He was quite amusing as he parodied himself, but still.

And he was only 50 when he died.

But I suppose his diehard fans can take comfort in knowing that the young, promising Flynn, on a fast and seemingly inevitable track to stardom and good fortune beyond a Powerball player’s dreams, will always be with us as long as “Captain Blood” survives.

Elizabeth Montgomery

2010-04-20T20:13:00.006-04:00

There are some concepts that are beyond imagination.

I cannot imagine a square circle.

Or the total immensity of the universe.

Or an insurance policy that's easy to understand.

And there is at least one concept that is way way beyond imagination.

I cannot imagine being a growing boy in the 1960s and not having a crush on Elizabeth Montgomery.

And neither, apparently, can Ken Levine, whose name you might have noticed on my blogroll.

I suppose I would have gotten around to writing about her sooner or later.

And I also suppose that as a former journalist, I should resent being scooped.

But when the scooper is as eloquent as Ken is, and when, after all, he has saved me some work, what's there to resent?

Read this, and see if you don't agree.

At the (old) movies: 'Murder at the Vanities'

2010-04-20T11:22:00.009-04:00

Some notes from the local cinephile society’s first presentation of the new spring season….

I don’t know what modern-day critics think of “Murder at the Vanities” (Paramount, 1934), but the Federal Trade Commission would probably approve of it, and why not? It’s a perfect example of truth in advertising. You have a murder (actually, more than one), and the story takes place at a Broadway show called “Earl Carroll’s Vanities.”

And of course, and as you’ve probably already figured, it takes place on the show’s opening night. (As much as we might yearn for a more original approach, I suppose you do have to grudgingly admit that “Murder During the 13,517th Performance of ‘Cats’” doesn’t exactly evoke a frisson of excitement.)

But if you’re hard up to find an actor who’s name rhymes with frisson (or at least seems to), there’s Carl Brisson, who plays Eric Lander. Brisson comes across as a combination of Laurence Harvey and Allan Jones, but that’s not as gruesome as it might sound because he does have some charm, or at least enough of it to attract Kitty Carlisle, as Ann Ware. Unfortunately, as Mitchell Leisen’s film gets under way, we find that although Carl has fallen for Kitty, heavy objects – such as a sandbag or two – have been falling for but just missing Kitty.

The plot thickens (“congeals” might be a better word) when a Private Detective Who Knows Something is murdered. (The dick – or dickette? – is played by Gail Patrick, years before she produced the “Perry Mason” series.)

This leads Jack Oakie, who is running the show, to reluctantly call in a police lieutenant, played by Victor McLaglen, who spends a lot of the movie trying to lose his Scottish accent.

And then, wouldn’t you know it, the show’s diva gets her just deserts.

Along the way we meet a number of 1930s character actors, a couple of whom seem a bit out of character – Donald Meek, as a police doctor, plays the role without any of his usual fussy, jittery mannerisms, and Jessie Ralph, whom I’ve most often seen in aristocratic roles (I’m particularly thinking of “After the Thin Man”), plays a Wardrobe Mistress Who Has a Secret.

The always welcome Duke Ellington is also on hand.

Although a real-life, honest-to-goodness mystery writer had a hand in the plot (Rufus King, pretty much forgotten today), if you ever see “Murder at the Vanities,” don’t waste your time trying to figure out whodunit, because the plot is resolved by a sort of deus ex murderer who, near the end, confesses to keep the chief suspect from being arrested.

Perhaps “Murder at the Vanities” is best known for two of its songs – “Cocktails for Two,” still a nice standard and often the object (some might say “victim” is a better word) of parodies, most notably the one perpetrated by Spike Jones. My own favorite send-up of it features Steve Allen and his old gang – Don Knotts, Pat Harrington Jr., Louis Nye and Gabe Dell, with assists from Jo Stafford and Tony Randall. You can find it here.

The other famous song – well, maybe not that famous, and maybe “notorious” would be a better word – is “Sweet Marijuana,” which is performed by Gertrude Michael and has to be seen and heard to be believed. And as luck (I’ll let you decide whether it’s good or bad) would have it, you can see and hear it here.

Robert Culp and John Forsythe

2010-04-03T00:51:00.016-04:00

The last couple of weeks have brought sad news to those of us who grew up watching TV in the fifties and sixties.

Last week, Robert Culp died. I first remember him from “Trackdown,” in which he played Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman. I don’t remember any of the episodes. I’m not sure I even watched any; I was quite young. But Culp’s sullen presence made an impression on me.

In the early sixties he was an occasional visitor to my family’s TV screen, kind of like a cousin who drops by while he’s just passing through town, guest-starring on what was available.

Then there came “I Spy,” and who can forget those images of him in the opening montage: first, that horizontal split screen during the show’s opening, in which his eyes, at top, reacted to the scenes below, and then that shot of him looking at the camera, then throwing a bomb at it? And his easy camaraderie with Bill Cosby, the type of relationship you can’t force. I sometimes wondered whether they were, to some extent, improvising. Were they? Then again, did it really matter?

After “I Spy,” more guest shots, most notably on “Columbo.” Not only did Culp play three murderers in the original series (one of them wearing a moustache; I suppose this was to prevent the lieutenant from saying, “Oh, just one more thing: Haven’t I arrested you before?”), but in the ABC revival of the show years later he played the father of two murderous college students.

Culp was such a perfect “Columbo” villain (perhaps in a dead heat with Jack Cassidy) that when Mad magazine published its satire of the show, called “Clodumbo,” the murder looked remarkably like Culp and, of course, was named “Robert Culpable.”

Perhaps his best role in more recent years was that of FBI agent Bill Maxwell in "The Greatest American Hero," where he was over the top (and perhaps a little sideways) in a part that called for exactly that kind of approach.

Would I have wanted to know him in real life? I dunno. I remember seeing him on an episode of “The $10,000 Pyramid,” where, as I recall, he got way too intense; at one point, after one of the rounds, they even had to bleep his reaction to the news that his team hadn’t done as well as he wanted. I also have a pretty good idea that he didn’t suffer fools gladly, if at all. But I’ve also heard that he was a great guy, one you definitely wanted to have on your side, and I’d prefer to think of him that way….

John Forsythe, who died this week, was one of those guys who probably would have never really made it as a big-screen star but who was more at home on the little screen – and we viewers were always comfortable with him there, too.

I never watched “Dynasty” – shows like that and “Dallas” rarely interested me, even if I appreciated the talent that went into making them. I mostly remember Forsythe from his “Bachelor Father” series of the fifties and sixties, in which he played carefree Bentley Gregg, who winds up taking care of a niece.

It was a pleasant enough, forgettable show. Some years ago a cable station showed reruns of it. I watched maybe a couple all the way through, and parts of other episodes. Not exactly must-see TV; it was more the type of thing Universal/Revue churned out. And as a kid I remember hearing that Sammee Tong, who played Gregg’s servant, had killed himself. And I’ve sometimes wondered what happened to Noreen Corcoran, who played the niece, and whether she was related to Kevin “Moochie” Corcoran of the Walt Disney TV show.

Anyway. John Forsythe was a classy guy who, by all accounts, never blew his own horn but seemed content to sit on the roadside of superstardom -- one of those lucky people who not only march to the beat of a different drummer but come up with the arrangements as well.

“Bachelor Father” was part of an era of TV history in which the stars often thanked the viewers “for inviting me into your home.”

Given Mr. Forsythe’s professionalism and self-deprecatory charm, we should have been thanking him.

Somehow I suspect she won't appeal this

2010-03-20T00:19:00.004-04:00

Court: Anna Nicole Smith gets none of oil fortune

(AP headline)

Taking 'niche marketing' a bit too far?

2010-03-18T00:14:00.004-04:00

Sign seen at a mall store that is holding a going-out-of-business sale:

MUST SELL TO BARE WALLS

Peter Graves

2010-03-15T20:27:00.004-04:00

I know, I know -- everyone remembers him from "Mission: Impossible," as Jim Phelps, who replaced Dan Briggs (played by Steven Hill).

Fair enough.

But I first knew him from "Fury" -- "the story of a horse and a boy who loved him."

Or something like that.

Whatever it was, NBC used to run it at 11 a.m. Saturdays when I was a kid.

I don't remember any specific episodes of the show. I do recall that besides Graves it featured an older kid played by Bobby Diamond, a younger kid played by Roger Mobley and an old geezer played by old geezer William Fawcett. (I'm guessing the first-string old geezer of all time, William Demarest, was unavailable.)

Graves also played a key role in "Stalag 17," which I bought some months ago on DVD but have yet to get around to watching.

And, of course, all the obits are mentioning his role in "Airplane" and his Geico commercial, and rightly so.

But I also remember him as Lew Archer in a TV adaptation of Ross Macdonald's "The Underground Man."

As I recall, it was a pretty faithful adaptation of the book, though somehow it didn't quite come off, though Graves did his best, which at the time I thought was pretty damn good.

Lew Archer later had his own series, titled, oddly enough, "Archer," and starring Brian Keith. That didn't quite come off either. Most of the episodes didn't seem to be in the spirit of the books, but even if they had been, I'm not sure that would have helped, because after a point (the late 1950s, I think) the Archer books became quite similar, usually involving a present-day murder with links -- physical and psychological -- to a past crime.

That's not to put the books down -- I read all the Archer books, and if Macdonald were still alive and still active, I'd still be buying them in hardcover, because even though he kept plowing the same field, nobody plowed it better, and besides, I'm a sucker for stories of current crimes that are rooted in past ones.

But you can't make a weekly TV series out of that sort of thing. Not only would it be repetitive, but the Archer books didn't tend to have endings that would make you jump for joy at the wonderfulness of the world and its inhabitants.

Oh -- I'm supposed to be talking about Peter Graves? Oh, all right.

Let's just say (at least I'm about to say it) that Peter Graves seemed like a nice, classy guy, kind of like a friendly, helpful neighbor who also happened to be a fine actor, though you'd never hear him talk about it much, much less brag about it.

The type of guy who would always know his lines -- and always bring the lawnmower back as soon as he could after borrowing it.

Not a bad legacy.

Back from Brooklyn, Part 4

2010-02-27T18:18:00.007-05:00

(SPOILER ALERT: If you’re one of the people who will be solving the 2010 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament’s puzzles after getting them in the mail, you shouldn’t read the following until after you’ve finished the puzzles.)

As I head down to the tournament room Sunday morning to do Puzzle No. 7 – the last puzzle for everyone except the finalists – I’m not feeling totally up to snuff. I’m even wondering whether I did indeed catch something from the woman on the plane who’d left a sick kid at home, or the guy on the elevator the night before whose wife asked him if he’d thrown up yet.

Of course, and not for the first time, I’m psyching myself out, because I feel a lot better for the rest of the day when I see the newly posted scores (in hard copy this time), showing that after the last two puzzles of the previous day I have risen from No. 231 to No. 221.

Puzzle No. 7, by Merl Reagle, is not unusually hard, at least for me. It is a big puzzle, the size of a Sunday puzzle, which, given what day it is, is entirely fitting.

And Mr. Reagle – who is prominently featured in the documentary “Wordplay,” which I recommend if you haven’t seen it – makes a living (or at least part of one) by designing Sunday puzzles with clever themes.

“Heads of State” is no exception. The theme consists of postal state abbreviations that have been attached to familiar phrases.

Thus “Like some political scandals?” translates as “MISTRESS RELATED” (MI + STRESS RELATED).

For the most part, the trip through the puzzle is an easy one, though I occasionally run into a section with one or two clues I can’t answer and sweat a bit until I find one or two nearby easier clues that help me solve the harder ones.

My worst problem is self-inflicted: 16 down, “Some bow ties,” seems to be coming out as “PASTS.” I try hard but can’t see any direct or even indirect connections between the past – or any pasts – and bow ties.

It takes way too long for me to discover that I’m getting “PASTS” because of a typo in my 33 across answer, which reads: MISTRESS RELSTED. Oops. Change the errant S to an A and I get “PASTA,” which makes a lot more sense. Whew.

Even with this, I finish well ahead of the deadline and go upstairs to finish packing, check out and check my luggage.

I get all this done in plenty of time to watch the finals, in which the top three contestants in three divisions (A, B and C) compete by doing the same puzzle on huge boards set up in front of the audience.

One major piece of news this year for Division A, the top division: Tyler Hinman, the young man who has won the division – and, in effect, the entire tournament – for five years in a row has just missed being one of the three finalists.

Instead, the top contestants going into the last round are, in alphabetical order, Howard Barkin, Anne Erdmann and Dan Feyer.

If you’re interested in how things went, with running commentary by Merl Reagle and NPR’s Neal Conan, click here.

The excitement, for me, at least, doesn’t end with the naming of the winner.

For as I leave, I discover that for the first time since I’ve been coming to the tournament, the final scores – taking into account all of the seven pre-final puzzles – have been posted. (This is due to advances made in the electronic scoring system and overseen, I gather, by Will Shortz and Doug Heller.)

And it turns out that I am no longer No. 221.

I am now No. 213 – out of 643 – in the top 33 percent.

And I immediately begin to wonder how long I’ll be able to hold this position; in the past, in the week following the tournament, my score has changed (and not for the better) as tournament officials make adjustments for newly reported scoring errors.

But right now, almost a week after the tournament ended, I’m still at 213, probably because the improvements brought forth by Shortz, Heller and their helpers have enabled the contestants to spot scoring errors earlier, during the tournament itself.

I’d considered making this year my last one at the tournament out of a concern that my score wouldn’t change much from year to year. But the latest score changes my mind.

Which leaves me with this to-do list for the 2011 tournament:

1. Crack the 10,000-point level (my point score this year was 9775).

2. Correctly finish a bastard/bitch mother puzzle well ahead of deadline.

3. Marinate myself in Lysol before boarding any public conveyance.

Back from Brooklyn, Part 3

2010-02-25T21:02:00.005-05:00

(SPOILER ALERT: If you’re one of the people who will be solving the 2010 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament's puzzles after getting them in the mail, you shouldn’t read the following until after you’ve finished the puzzles.)

It’s Saturday afternoon and time for the fourth of the seven puzzles designed for all the contestants in this year’s American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

And this time I get a surprise:

The fourth puzzle is constructed by Mike Nothnagel, the guy who’d handed me my registration folder the night before.

This is a surprise because a) in the previous two years the person who handed me the folder has turned out to be the person who constructed Puzzle No. 5, traditionally the tournament’s most difficult puzzle, and b) Mr. Nothnagel certainly has the chops to construct such a puzzle.

So I guess the streak (if two years in a row can be called a “streak”) is broken.

The puzzle, “Without Fail,” is pegged to words that can be used to form phrases when combined with the word “pass.” It’s an entertaining, pleasant puzzle, and I finish it perfectly, with nine minutes to spare.

The puzzle – as so many puzzles these days do – reflects a kind of generation gap. Some present-day puzzles contain modern references that I’m too old to get. This one, however, contains an answer that leaves a young woman two seats away from me clueless: Wavy Gravy (“Woodstock emcee who had a Ben & Jerry’s flavor named after him”). This charming young woman also mentioned earlier in the day that she’d had a dream in which she was on a car trip with Will Shortz, during which Will challenged her with this crossword clue: “The Opposite of Mexico.”

Yeah, I can see where that would be an odd dream, if not an out-and-out bad one.

And speaking of bad dreams, here comes Puzzle No. 5.

And it’s by Brendan Emmett Quigley.

I’ve written about Mr. Quigley before – he’s one of the most ingenious of the newest crop of constructors. And in the world of crossword terminology, “most ingenious” generally means “You’ll never get out of this alive.”

And if a puzzle sets my heart a-palpitatin’, it’s this Puzzle No. 5.

I don’t think I panic much when it comes to doing a puzzle – unless I’m having trouble finding a clue that I know the answer to, something that can give me a foothold or a toehold.

In this case, I’ll settle for a toenailhold, for at first glance none of these clues seems to mean anything to me. Heck, I’d even settle for “the opposite of Mexico.”

Finally – finally – I find something I can grab on to, and bit by bit I start filling in the grid. It’s a slow process, and the fact that I can’t seem to figure out the theme doesn’t help. Eventually I get part of the theme figured out, but that doesn’t help much.

And I once again find that, as with the other fifth puzzles I have done, there comes a point where you look at the clock, see you have only a few minutes left, realize you’re probably not going to get the theme (or the bonus for finishing the puzzle) and try to fill in as many answers as you can.

As the clock runs out, I realize I am one of many, many people who haven’t finished the puzzle. I later find out that I got 76 out of 94 answers right, for a total of 760 points.

Saturday ends, as it usually does, with a tension-relieving, amusing puzzle by longtime constructor Maura B. Jacobson, called “MISFILINGS: Seemingly the new library assistant hasn’t a clue.” (“Ivanhoe,” for example, has been filed “under Soviet Farming.”)

Cute idea.

Since last year, the folks at the tournament have been fine-tuning their electronic scoring system, so that at the end of this day the scores for the first four puzzles – and preliminary standings – are now online, along with scans of the actual completed and corrected puzzles.

In other words, I can call up these scans and see if there have been any scoring errors and, if so, report them.

That is, I could do that if I had a computer or fancy cell phone with me. I have neither. (My cell phone can supposedly surf the Web, but somehow I can’t figure out how to do it.)

Fortunately, I’m scheduled to get together for dinner with a niece who is a local college student and who is far more advanced than I, and she uses her super-duper Swiss Army phone to determine that with the scores from the first four puzzles in, I’m at No. 231 out of about 643. I’m quite happy about this, considering that I finished at 250 last year.

If that won’t give me a good appetite, nothing will.

Next: The Rousing Finish. (Assuming you’re easily roused.)

Back from Brooklyn, Part 2

2010-02-23T21:07:00.006-05:00

(SPOILER ALERT: If you’re one of the people who will be solving the 2010 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament's puzzles after getting them in the mail, you shouldn’t read the following until after you’ve finished the puzzles.)

Once again it’s time for me to pick up my tournament folder at the registration desk.

This is my third year at the tournament, and in past years my folder has been handed to me by two nice fellows: David J. Kahn in 2008 and Patrick Merrell in 2009.

Or at least they seemed nice – until I got to each year’s Puzzle No. 5.

For the unitiated: The tournament consists of seven puzzles for everyone: three on Saturday morning, three on Saturday afternoon and one on Sunday morning. An eighth puzzle, the championship puzzle, is done only by finalists.

During my first two years at the tournament, Will Shortz, in announcing Puzzle No. 5, mentioned that the fifth puzzle is known as “the bastard puzzle.”

This year, he will describe the puzzle as the “bitch mother.”

I’m curious to know what he calls it when he’s not anywhere near a live microphone.

Anyway, this year’s folder is handed to me by a very nice gent named Mike Nothnagel.

Uh oh.

I know that name.

I know I’ve done some of his puzzles.

But I can’t remember exactly how many of those puzzles I have actually finished.

I can only conclude that he is the father of the bitch mother.

But Puzzle No. 5 will have to wait. In the meantime, this year I’m smart enough to get into the puzzle room early enough to get a good seat. I like to do these puzzles with my glasses off, and I like to be close enough to the clock to be able to read it without squinting too much.

In 2008, I finished in 262nd place. In 2009, I was No. 250. I’m hoping to better my score, especially considering that were it not for a stupid mistake I made last year, on a puzzle by Brendan Emmett Quigley, I think I would have placed somewhere around 223.

Puzzle No. 1 is by Stanley Newman, a veteran crossword compositor and editor, and the author of a good book on crosswords, “Cruciverbalism.”

The first tournament puzzle is always supposed to be easy, and this one is no exception.

Almost.

We have 15 minutes. I get stuck near the bottom, with this downward clue: “Aptly named journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union.” Given the surrounding words, it seems as if this can only be “The Auk.” Which kind of makes sense, as I know an auk is a bird. But I can’t help thinking that the journal would have a more clever name. Eventually I come to think that I’m overthinking this, and I let it be.

Which turns out to be a good thing, because “The Auk” is correct and I’ve completed the puzzle perfectly, with five minutes to spare. I get 25 points for each of those minutes. I would have had more if I hadn’t spent so much time on that clue, and it also occurs to me that I might be taking too much time in proofreading my solution before handing it in, maybe taking two minutes instead of one. But a perfect solution means a 150-point bonus, which I really want.

Puzzle No. 2 – 25 minutes –is by Elizabeth C. Gorski, another name I know, respect and, most of all, fear. For the most part, there’s not much to be afraid of here, though when I get to “Feldman and Robbins” I write in “Corey.” After all, I know there’s a young actor named Corey Feldman (or at least I remember him when he was young), and maybe there’s another young thespian named Corey Robbins.

But the surrounding answers indicate that I’m wrong, and I eventually curse myself for, once again, overthinking, because although I don’t know how old Ms. Gorski is, she’s been doing puzzles long enough so that she’s probably around my age and remembers – as I should have remembered – comedian Marty Feldman and singer Marty Robbins. (I wonder how many of the younger contestants had heard of Marty Feldman, who died in 1982.)

But then I meet the vampire – or at least the clue for 33 Across, which is “vampire.”

The answers going down indicate that the answer to 33 Across is “lamia.”

Lamia? I’ve never heard of that. I’ve seen “Dracula” a couple of times and “Nosferatu” once, and I don’t remember hearing anyone say “lamia.” (Then again, “Nosferatu” was a silent picture.)

I have a brother back home who spends much of his time watching horror movies and TV shows. When it comes to loyalty, no one is truer to “True Blood” than he. If only he were here! Or if only those movies and TV shows had taught him to read my mind and transmit the answer to me!

I double-check the down answers: Yes, a leaf (L) is something a caterpillar would eat; abr (A) is indeed an abbreviated synonym for “condensed”; an amateur (M) is a hobbyist; Tiny Tim (I) was a “blesser at Christmas”; and that actress’ name is Virginia Madsen (A), not Medsen, Midsen, Modsen or Mudsen. Or at least I think it is; I do know she was on the last episode of “Monk” and that’s how here name was spelled. Right?

So I leave it, and I turn out to be (whew) right – a perfect solution, again handed in early.

We have 30 minutes to do Puzzle No. 3, by Patrick Berry, which has a punny theme that’s built around sports terms. This is worrisome to me, considering that on a good day I’m barely able to distinguish between the Final Four and the Fab Four. But it turns out that I’ve heard a lot of the terms mentioned, and what I don’t know I can figure out from the other clues. Another perfect solution, with 11 minutes to spare.

And time for a lunch break.

More to come, if all of you can stand the suspense.

Back from Brooklyn, Part 1

2010-02-23T00:50:00.012-05:00

Oh, the suspense! The uncertainty! The nervous fears!

Am I talking about the 2010 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament?

Well, yes, I suppose I am – a little bit, at least – come to think of it.

But I’m mainly referring to the harrowing fear that I wouldn’t be physically able to get through it.

Scene one:

I’m on the plane to Brooklyn, looking out the window. The seat between me and the guy on the aisle is empty -- but not for long.

A woman whose assigned seat is somewhere else on the plane plops down between us and buckles the seat belt. She’s a colleague of the guy on the aisle seat and hates sitting alone.

Apparently she hates sitting alone because she also hates not talking, and she’s such a flannel mouth that during the flight, representatives of several pajama manufacturers drop by and place bids on the rights to her upper palate.

But this is OK with me. I often like to listen to people’s unguarded public conversations. (Especially if they’re talking on cell phones. One of Murphy’s Rules of Nature: the loudness of a cell phone conversation held on a public conveyance is directly proportional to the privacy – not to mention indictability – of the matter being discussed, and inversely proportional to the percentage of space in the caller’s brain that is not occupied by seaweed.)

But to give these two other passengers some privacy, I make sure to keep my head turned to the window.

Near the end of the trip, she talks about how her boy needed a sitter and that one problem she faced was that the boy has had some kind of intestinal flu, and she didn’t want the kid’s regular sitter to catch it.

I now make doubly, tripley, quadrupely sure that my head is facing the window for most of the rest of the flight….

Scene two:

It’s Saturday night, and I’m on one of the hotel's elevators, headed toward the lobby.

There are two other passengers, including a man and a woman who appear to be a couple.

The dialogue goes something like this:

She: “Have you thrown up?”

He shakes his head, not happily.

She: “You might be better off if you did.”

I keep my eyes straight ahead and thank the gods and the ghost of J. Willard Marriott that the lobby is only one floor away.

More to come.

Across and down to Brooklyn, yet again

2010-02-18T18:26:00.003-05:00

This weekend I will once again be a contestant in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

I've competed twice before, both times pretty much winding up in the upper 37 percent overall.

Do I have any real hope of winning the thing? Not really, though you never know. It's not that I can't solve the puzzles -- I think I solved six out of seven perfectly the first year and five out of seven last year -- but I doubt I can do it fast enough to beat the likes of Tyler Hinman, Trip Payne, Ellen Ripstein and all the others.

My guess is that in addition to brains (and, um, yes, I'm willing to concede that the above three -- and others -- might be at least a little smarter than yours truly), the true crossword champs have perfect hand-and-eye coordination.

Me, I never could learn how to ride a bike.

But one big selling point of the ACPT -- for me, at least -- is that unlike competitive mind games, the tournament has champs that are likable, real people.

Matter of fact, everyone there is nice.

If you've see the documentary film "Wordplay," filmed at the 2005 tournament, what you see is what you'll get if you compete or even hang out at the tournament.

And the players have a sense of humor about themselves; when Amy Reynaldo (who might be the queen of the crossword bloggers) was kind enough to link to my wrap-up of the ACPT last year, this blog received many hits, some of them, I suspect, from the higher-profile players.

Fortunately for me, these hits weren't physical.

And, of course, I hope things stay that way.

Matter of fact, if the only thing I suffer this weekend is a bruised ego, I'll figure I will have come out ahead.

See you soon.

There's no business like Shokus' business

2010-02-16T00:57:00.007-05:00

For a long time now I’ve been regularly listening to something called Shokus Internet Radio, and although I rarely plug other Web stuff (aside from what’s in my blogroll), I finally realized that you might also enjoy listening to it, especially if you’re interested in old movies and old TV shows.

Shokus calls itself “TV on the radio for baby boomers,” and I’m glad it describes itself that way because it sure saves me a lot of time and effort.

I will, however, add that Shokus offers an entertaining mix of music and interview programs.

The hosts and disc jockeys remind me of what local TV and radio stations used to be in the days before two or three media companies seemed to own everything, the days when local broadcasting featured charming, distinctive personalities whose programs weren’t canned and homogenized and playing on who knows how many other stations nationwide.

Although I enjoy listening to the music, the real drawing card is the interviews. The crown jewel of the station is “Stu’s Show,” hosted by Stu Shostak, who is the Sho in the Shokus.

If the prospect of listening to in-depth interviews with people like Peter Marshall, June Foray and Jack Narz (among many others) makes you drool to the point where you put Pavlov’s pets to shame, this is the station for you.

But it’s one thing to have guests like these; it’s another to have a host who knows what to ask them and how to treat them. Shostak knows his stuff (he himself spent many years working with Lucille Ball), and he not only shows his guests the proper respect but also extends this respect to the folks who call into his show and to listeners who write in.

I suppose it’s an oxymoron to say that Shokus is a high-tech mom-and-pop-type station, but I can’t think of a better way to describe it, or a better compliment.

And if you’re still drooling, get a napkin, wipe your mouth off (and your keyboard, too, if necessary), and go here to find out more.

Headlines that are ridiculously padded and coy drive this blogger up a vertical brick structure

2010-02-15T00:19:00.037-05:00

From The New York Times' Web site:

Fred Morrison, Creator of a Popular Flying Plate, Dies at 90

Why St. Peter is shopping for a blow dryer

2010-02-13T13:15:00.018-05:00

"Frank N. Magid, a marketing consultant who was widely credited, for good or ill, with standardizing the face of local television news, introducing the fast-paced, user-friendly 'Action News' format in markets nationwide," has passed away, The New York Times reports.

Services are Monday on his roof

2010-02-13T13:03:00.003-05:00

Walter Fredrick Morrison, who has been credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died at the age of 90, The Associated Press reports.

With no mononey down

2010-02-10T20:02:00.004-05:00

A local car dealership's commercial proclaims: "FINANCINING AVAILABLE."

That dry cappuccino looks so natural....

2010-02-04T13:16:00.002-05:00

USA Today reports that cemeteries and funeral homes across the nation are offering “environmentally friendly burials” that include “biodegradable caskets made of pine, wicker or even cardboard.”

Not a bad idea, but the paper quotes one Georgia man who might be a mite too enthusiastic:

“I’m trying to be more green in my everyday; why not be more green in eternity? I’ve actually thought about buying my casket and using it as a coffee table.”

Haven't I read this before?

2010-02-01T20:47:00.005-05:00

Zelda Rubinstein, who played the psychic in “Poltergeist” (“This house is clean!”) died last week.

Sir Clement Freud, grandson of Sigmund Freud and a noted broadcaster in his own right (I remember seeing him with Jack Paar many years ago), died last April.

You might be hard put to come up with two people who have less in common than these two, but there is one bond that they indubitably share.

When I saw each one’s obituary, I had the same reaction:

I thought they’d already died. I was sure I’d heard they’d died.

But nope. To paraphrase Mr. Twain (who must be getting sick of being paraphrased, especially because, as far as I know, he doesn’t get paid for being paraphrased), my memories of their deaths are premature.

But how to explain it?

Is it some subcategory of déjà vu?

(Hey, look, my word-processing software automatically added those accents – both up and down! How cool! And yes, I’m a sucker for card tricks, too.)

How about “deja deceased”?

(Hey, wait a minute. Where are the accents this time? Does this software give only one set of accents to a customer? Or does it happen only when you type “déjà vu”? Ah, yes, that’s the answer.)

It’s quite possible – and quite possibly more than possible – that I’m the only one who thought these two were dead. (And it’s happened to me with other celebs, too.)

But am I the only one who has ever prematurely buried a celeb? (Come to think of it, with some of the celebs around today, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea.)

Has this ever happened to you?

Or, to pose an even scarier question:

Are there people out there who think I’m already dead?

And do they know something I don’t?

This could explain a lot

2010-01-27T01:16:00.004-05:00

When I want to take money out of the bank, I usually use ATMs. But when it comes to depositing checks, I’m still neurotic enough to want to deal with a live human being.

Not too long ago I went to a branch of my bank with a check and was waited on by a person identified by her nameplate as (name uncreatively changed to protect the innocent):

JANE DOE
PROFESSIONAL TELLER

I’ve been out of the daily journalism biz for some time now, but it seems to me that the biz news biz may be missing out on a big story here.

If the bank is taking pains to identify Ms. Doe this way, does that mean that (unbeknown to us all) the bank has been allowing amateur tellers to handle our money?

And if so, have these people been doing the job without pay and just for the “love” of handling money?

Does the bank have “pro-am” events, where the amateurs team up with the pros to process our transactions? Is there a banquet afterward? Is a trophy awarded to the amateur who has improved the most? (“This year Joe caused only three banks to fail, down from 16 in 2009!”)

Is it easy to tell amateur tellers from professional ones? I should think there would be some telltale signs:

They say things like: “Wow! I didn’t realize Benjamin Franklin invented $100 bills, too!”

They ask for your driver’s license and your high school graduation picture “because I always like to see how people change over the years!”

They count out your money and ask if you want fries with it.