Signal Watch (Finally) Watches: Some Like It Hot (1959)

While your faithful blogger has seen many, many movies and some movies many, many times, we also have huge holes in our mental inventory of flicks.  Not the least of these areas I need to take care of is pretty much everything directed by Billy Wilder.  No, I don't know why.

I especially don't know how I missed something starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon.  Anyhoo, I finally watched Wilder's Some Like it Hot.

Yes, this is the one where Lemmon and Curtis (in terms of the film) successfully pass as women for an extended amount of time, and which spawned a million knock-offs like Bosom Buddies or Tootsie.

The pair play down on their luck musicians in 1929 Chicago who become accidental witnesses to (spoiler alert) the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (/spoiler alert).  Fleeing Chicago to avoid the mob, the two find work in disguise in an all-girl band.

Of course Monroe is the ukulele player/ vocalist in the band, and that's just going to be a problem when you're trying to keep anyone from figuring out that you're a dude.

The movie more than earns its reputation, and I can see why its a favorite.  I suspect that when this hit, it pushed as many buttons and was as "edgy" as current comedies like The Hangover that play with social mores and steps just enough outside of the expectations of an audience that the laughs come from the sheer surprise.  Of course, some of that's dated now (there's a bit about "why would a man want to marry a man?"), but actually very little, which is part of why I think the movie holds up well.  Its also plenty risque.

I suspect most of you have seen the movie, but I said I'd talk about every movie I watched in 2012.   I won't go on too long, but if you haven't seen it, I recommend.  Lots of great performances, and an oddball of a happy ending.  Frankly, Tony Curtis isn't someone whose work I know terribly well, mostly just a few viewings of Spartacus, so it was great to see him in top form here, and I'll be trying to learn his accent (you know the one) just to annoy Jamie.  And special props to Joe E. Brown.  He is terrific in this movie.

Monroe is particularly hilarious in this movie, and you can see how (aside from the visual cues) she was at the top of her game in this movie.  But, man, some of the dresses...  I don't know how they pulled that off.  Billy Wilder, you mad, mad genius.

Great movie.

Late edit:  San Diego's famous Coronado hotel does exteriors for a good part of the film, doubling for Florida.  J__Swift reminded me of this.  If in San Diego, I highly recommend a visit out there. 

Hey, let's talk about that whole Ghost Rider thing and how comics rely of the Gray Market

I've never understood exactly how the comics convention industry works.  But more than that, I haven't understood how, the past few years, its become increasingly popular for folks to take to Etsy or to some other place on the web and sell non-licensed images of licensed characters.  Heck, I'm not clear that some of the published material in a few artists' sketch books I've bought were reproduced and sold to me legally in the strictest sense.

What seems to have brought all of this to a head is that former comics artist Gary Friedrich, the man who (sort of, maybe not) invented the motorcycle-riding, flame-skulled character Ghost Rider for Marvel has sued Marvel (now owned by Disney) for one reason or another, and Disney counter-sued with a $17,000 lawsuit at Friedrich for the proceeds he's earned by attending cons and selling sketches of Ghost Rider.  (See the very clever Ty Templeton cartoon for a rebuttal).

I point you to this article, because it echoes a lot of what I'd always wondered about how the industry has been  more or less ignoring the very real problem at the center of the Con and Commission Sketch sub-industry in comics.

Dames Going Straight For the Heart

Don't worry, lonelyhearts. Some of our favorite Dames here at The Signal watch are here to wish you a happy Valentine's Day.

the always effervescent Ann Miller

Ms. Cyd Charisse and cellophane

perhaps Clara Bow needed a running start

Monroe takes the direct (and AMERICAN) approach

St. Valentine's Day (Massacre)

It ain't all roses, hearts and chocolates.

On February 14th, 1929, 7 men of the "Bugs" Moran Gang were brutally murdered by what is now believed to have been possibly Capone's gang dressed up as cops. Prior to the Massacre, Chicago had been a bit loose with their gangsters, treating them a bit like celebrities who provided jobs and booze in the era of the Volstead Act.

A bizarre but telling detail of the incident:  One victim (with 14 bullets in him) was still alive when found. Asked by the cops who had done the deed, he said "Nobody shot me".

Wikipedia has a phenomenal amount of info on the gruesome crime.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to my best girl and our dog(s).

this probably captures our situation a bit better

So, I went to a big, splashy Broadway musical (Wicked)

I don't remember not liking The Wizard of Oz.  The movie, anyway.  I've never read the book.  I don't know that we watched it every year when it came on TV as kids, but I've seen it often enough, including in film school and then several times afterward.  We've got it floating around on DVD here somewhere.

That said, I didn't make it through the Fairuza Balk starring Return to Oz, nor a recent SyFy Channel attempt at an update.  

And while I don't talk about it much, I more or less grew up going to the theater all the time, going to see musicals, drama, comedy, what-have-you, in venues from college campuses to community playhouses to the bigger venues in Houston (no, we didn't fly to New York to see shows).  In addition, I did a bit of my own "acting" back in high school, but wasn't actually any good.  In general, though, all that left me with a soft spot for live performance.  

Here's the deal:  going to see plays is @#$%ing expensive.  I tip my hat to my folks, because I only understood in the abstract what a big deal it was to include their stupid kid in outings to what had to have been pretty pricey shows.  Most of which I very much enjoyed, but, still.  Now that I'm paying for it, I better see a flying monkey or two for my dollar, and I'm not going to wind up going all that often.

I was a bit torn about going to see Wicked as I'm never really sure what I'm getting with a touring Broadway Show in the era where Lion King is a big draw (I am the one person in America who was sort of non-plussed with the magic of Julie Taymor's puppets when I saw the show in Arizona) and Spider-Man with a soundtrack by U2 seemed like a good way to fill seats.  Basically, I sort of think of musicals as a showy stage production more than I think of them as a particularly powerful way to communicate a narrative.  There's a hell of a lot of difference between a revival of The Music Man and By the Skin of Our Teeth.  But it can work.

Boy, can I relate

The early 90's were a difficult period for yours truly...

don't worry, kid.  A little Retin-A will clear that right up

Just a quick note... the woman who played Lois Lane on Season 1 of The Adventures of Superman, Phyllis Coates, appears in this movie.  As much as I am on record regarding my love for Noel Neill, Ms. Coates was pretty great, too.

Action Comics #593 just makes me really uncomfortable

I don't dislike the 80's Superman comics.  The Byrne/ Wolfman-era relaunch was something that maybe didn't need to happen, but it gave the Superman books an escape hatch from a corner they had painted themselves into somewhat methodically during the 1970's as Julie Schwartz also modernized the Man of Steel.

I love the Schwartz stuff for one reason, I love the 80's era relaunch for another.  Its part of why, in the DC relaunch, I feel quite zen about the Superman reboot.

Because it makes me terribly, terribly uncomfortable, I have never spoken about Action Comics #593.

yurgh...

In the early days of the post-COIE relaunch, much as they're doing now, DC began inserting Kirby's New Gods into the DCU.  For a while there, Mister Miracle and Big Barda were sort of the stepping stone into the New Gods franchise.  The push led to at least two New Gods titles, a couple of mini's, a Mister Miracle ongoing and, eventually, Walt Simonson's kick-ass Orion series right about when I was graduating college.

But then there's Action 593, which features the time Superman was mind-controlled into making a dirty movie with Kirby-character-fave Big Barda.  Comics Alliance discusses the issue here, if'n you're interested in details of what happens in the issue and Superman's near-miss with Peter North-styled glory.  I should mention the issue also gets covered about once a year as someone accidentally discovers the issue in a back issue bin and goes ape-@#$%, which is not the incorrect response as...  seriously, DC.

Signal Watch Watches: My Cousin Vinny (1992)

Preamble:  So, a short while ago our own JimD suggested I watch the 1992 film My Cousin Vinny and review it in honor the film's 20th anniversary.  I had never seen the movie, and declined.  Not a week later, the movie came on cable and I recorded it.  Over about 2.25 workouts on the elliptical, I watched the movie.  JimD is free to use this any way he pleases.

I had never seen My Cousin Vinny prior to the suggestion that I participate in a 20th Anniversary retrospective of the film.  My primary memory of the movie is that it was part of three separate waves moving through American movie-going at the time.  (1)  In the wake of 1990's Goodfellas, America had very much embraced actor Joe Pesci.  It would be another 2-3 years and I would suffer through With Honors (1994) before he would sort of disappear once again.  (2)  There was also a small trend in the manner of Doc Hollywood to show city folk as fish-out-of-water in the country and (3) since the 1980's, people from highly urban areas with New York accents were often presented as having special powers that helped them navigate in the city and bamboozled people in the country or suburbs (see any movie from the 1980's).  Country folk (or Australians) also had super powers.  Only suburbanites were not imbued with special skills or powers from their environment.

The movie is now most famous for the, as memory serves, surprise nomination and win of Marisa Tomei as Mona Lisa Vito, the titular Vinny's long-suffering and unlikely fiance.  It is also famous for being the last place anyone of my generation remembers seeing Karate Kid star Ralph Macchio show up in a movie.

Happy Belated Birthday, AmyD

Amy is the one on the right

Happy B-Day, AmyD.  I was in Lubbock, so I did not call, so, hey: blog post!

AmyD is the very special ladyfriend of my brother.  She's a renaissance woman: law student, future librarian, chef, gourmand, juggalo.

She's a heck of a dame, and we're glad to have her on Team Steans.  I hope she was showered with gifts on her birthday, because I totally have not bought her one yet, and I'm hoping she's too busy with her other gifts to notice.

Thanks for putting up with my brother, and all of us.

Merry Birthday.