Noir Watch: Gun Crazy (1950)

This is, I believe, the fourth time I've watched Gun Crazy (1950), a movie about a guy, a girl, their guns and how it all gets a smidge out of control.  It's a movie both entirely of its time, but points the way for movies that would come along within 20 years from studios who learned to take chances as the 60's steamed along (Bonnie and Clyde), and maybe reached it's wildest point with Natural Born Killers (1994).

I'd label the movie safely noir.  Two people that can't control themselves who, through their actions and inactions, get in way over their heads with no path out.  When Bart Tare (John Dall) meets Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins), it's the worst possible combination for both of them as their obsession with guns gets mixed up in greed, sex and an inability to find a groove in square living.

Blaze Starr Merges With The Infinite

Famed lady of Burlesque, Blaze Starr, has passed.

I have no idea how Blaze Starr first entered my consciousness, but no doubt it involved the internet.  She was of the era of Bettie Page, Tempest Storm, Lilli St. Cyr and Irving Klaw, but was more a part of the burlesque circuit than the "mail order photo" industry.  It's unlikely most of polite society in the 1950 and 60's either knew of her or would admit to knowing of her.  And that's with affairs with folks like Louisiana Governor Earl Long that led to a movie biopic containing her name (Blaze from 1989).

But the internet and public memory is a funny thing.  Despite having a path that would leave most folks an anonymous cypher, Blaze Starr has managed to permeate the edges of the American psyche for at least a half-century.  It takes all kinds (and we're all here - as my grandmother used to say).

Here's to a trailblazer of sorts, and an underground icon.

Thanks to Victoria for the link.

A Trip to Metropolis II - Adventures in Superman-Mania

Had a SUPER fun day palling around with Stuart at the Superman Celebration in sunny Metropolis, Illinois.

For a review of my participation in Day 1, here's a link.

I arrived around noonish, and stumbled Stuart without really having to try.  I should also mention that fellow Austinite Tim Gardner was here for his 23rd Superman celebration with the entire family in tow.  Very nice fellow with a great family.

I realized I had not shared any pictures of Stuart, so here he is, showing off his immunity to Kryptonite.

A Trip to Metropolis!

I wrapped my conference in Indianapolis on Thursday night, and, on Friday, jumped in a rental car to head down south to Metropolis, Illinois for the annual Superman Celebration.

I confess the conference left me a bit wiped out, so I grabbed a nap and didn't get down there until 6:00ish, where I met up with longtime internet pal, Stuart Ward.  Great guy.  More on that later.

The festival goes all weekend, but I'll only be in Metropolis on Saturday, really, and then drive back to Indianapolis to fly out Sunday.

Anyway, here are some sights:

I finally met the Man of Steel!

Yes, I am 6'5"

He was as swell in person as you would hope.

Friday Night, don't forget to catch "Gun Crazy" on TCM

I know I already pitched this at you, but one more time: Gun Crazy is on TCM on Friday, hosted by Eddie Muller.

A great movie.  Hugely influential and with some terrific cinematography, not to mention a tremendous performance by both Peggy Cummins and John Dall.

Check it out.

Christopher Lee Merges With The Infinite

This is a tough one.

Actor Christopher Lee passed away this week at the age of 93.

Christopher Lee is one of the first actor's names I remember, which is weird, because I knew him from a book I read and reread as a kid about movie monsters, but I didn't see his Dracula movies until fairly recently.  And, seriously, he's phenomenal.  Hammer Horror has it's own style, and at the heart of the best of those movies, you could often find Christopher Lee as a Dracula or Mummy or Frankenstein.

Set Your DVR's - "Gun Crazy" is on Turner Classic this Friday!

Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir, takes the captain's chair at TCM for several Fridays this summer.  You can read up on the program, dubbed "Summer of Darkness", and maybe learn a bit more about Noir and Muller himself.

He's recently released a book on the a cult favorite in Noir circles, the 1950 feature Gun Crazy, starring John Dall and the phenomenal Peggy Cummins.  

I'll go ahead and recommend this one.  I've seen it a few times, and I'll definitely watch it several more.  It's a remarkable movie.  Wonderfully shot, well acted and just extremely well put together story about two people who never should have met - a spiritual predecessor of the 1967 Bonnie and Clyde.

I really wanted to hit Noir City XI in San Francisco as Ms. Cummins was the guest of honor at a screening of the movie, and was present for an interview.  Our own J_Swift scored me a signed poster by Ms. Cummins, which is a prized item in my household.

So set that DVR for this Friday.  Or, better yet, make a date and watch it.  It's a hell of a movie.

Signal Maintenance: Headed for Indiana

not that Indiana

For work related reasons I am flying out Sunday morning for Indianapolis, Indiana.  I know!  One year it's Prince Edward Island, Canada and another it's Helsinki (it was, trust me), and the next, I'm off to the American mid-west for...  whatever happens in Indiana.

This conference tends to be pretty action-packed and can be social.  The Americans pretend we care what the Europeans are doing, and the Europeans acknowledge, partially, that the Americans are in the room.  Coffee will be consumed.  Then booze.  I'm just being honest.

So, the only movies I'm likely to see will be on cable in my room, but I have a few books I threw in my bag and I'm ready to go.  Not so sure about the posting.  Sometimes I spend a lot of time in my room, sometimes I only get a chance to walk in the door and flop.  We'll see which one this is.

At the end of the week I have a side-trip planned.  But I'll report out on that as events warrant.

Signal Re-Watch: Mad Max - Fury Road

Man that is one hell of a movie.

I can't tell you how pleased I was to watch this movie a second time and see things I hadn't seen before.  Dialog, character beats, things like that.  Always the mark of a good movie.

There's not all that much to mention other than that on a second go-round I got to enjoy more of what was going on in the movie and not just desperately hang on with both hands and try to keep up.  But everything you've been reading about the old-school expertise filmmaking in a 2015-era film is right, right down to the use of "fade to black" as transitions between acts.  And, really, no mainstream movie has done more to show rather than tell in years.

And you can't really say enough about George Miller's sense of world building.  If anything fell apart in the 1980's cheap post-apocalyptic knock-offs, it was pretty much every single detail, but it started at the lack of thought put into the world - what was it like living in a world where the grid had fallen apart?  Everything is built with motivation in mind, and not all of that motivation says much good about humanity.  But it drives everything from vehicle design to the mythologies and modes of survival.  It's what some of the best movies do on screen, sci-fi or otherwise, and Miller has been living in this world a long, long time.

Anyway, likely I'll watch this one again and again for some time to come.

Cap Watch: Captain America (1990)

Some time in 1989, with the success of Tim Burton's Batman now making the idea of superhero movies an attractive financial reality, I remember walking out of a movie and into the lobby of a local theater here in sunny Austin, Texas (Great Hills 8 then, The Arbor 8 now), and seeing the poster below:

While I was aware this was Marvel running to catch up with their own non-flying, non-laser slinging superhero, I was also pretty jazzed.  Captain America seemed pretty attainable as far as superheroes went.  I had vague memories of the 1979 movies, I'd been reading a little Cap here and there, and I really wanted to see someone smack bad guys with that shield.

Then, Spring and summer 1990 came and went, and no Cap movie materialized.  I was a bit of a showbiz follower, and I knew what it meant when a movie was delayed or shelved (it rarely meant they were holding onto the movie because they just forgot to release it).

Flash-forward to on evening after June 2002.  I had moved to Phoenix and was already up a little late,when the TV told me they were going to air the 1990 Captain America movie.  Rather than just set the DVR and go to bed, I sat up with the movie until the bitter end.

The film was grainy and desaturated, and I remember that slow sinking feeling of despair setting in that was once so common when it came to portrayals of superheroes on TV or in movies.

Honestly, if you didn't try to watch everything with a superhero in it prior to Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and Singer's X-Men, you will never really understand what it was like to be grateful for anything with a superhero in it somewhere outside of comics.  And if you came into superheroes with the Avengers movies, you are living in a very magical time, indeed.

Because for a long time, it seemed like a point of pride for movie makers to take the source material of a comic book superhero and obliterate it in favor of whatever the director felt like doing.  Sometimes this worked - and both the Burton and Nolan Batman movies work as movies even if they're not exactly Dark Knight Detective movies.  Prior to that, I'll admit that Superman had completely ignored much of the comics in favor of doing their own thing, but they did keep core elements in place enough that they managed to make the movie clearly a Superman flick.  Even Wonder Woman, which you guys know I think is the bees knees, rarely featured super-bad-guys and never any of her established villains.  It just hung tight to being a good show with a solid lead character.  And, it's safe to say, Lynda Carter and Christopher Reeve's takes on the characters wound up deeply impacting the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DCU.