Madeline Kripke 1943-2020

The Bad Seed 1956

Seeing the film the other night for the first time in years, the first thing I thought was that time did not improve this stage bound adaptation that was high pitched and hysterical. It’s a camp delight for sure with all the performances over the top and delicious. Shot on the back lot of Warner Bros in black and and directed by Mervyn LeRoy whose film career goes back to 1927 and who made many classics including “Little Caesar”, “I Am A Fugitive From A chain Gang” & “Gold Diggers of 1933”. He was also a producer at M.G.M during its hey day in the 30’s and 40’s  and is most famous for producing and uncredited for directing The Wizard of Oz.   Mervyn directed right up to the mid 60’s making Esther Williams musicals along with big budget biblical epics and Gypsy. An impressive Hollywood character for sure.  

The plot is remarkable in its pushiness and craziness and is filled with pop psychology, ideas about heredity, DNA, adoption and murdering serial moms along with this little 10 year old brat with pigtails knocking off anyone who gets in her way with what she wants. Played by our Patty with scary goodness, and get a load of the looks she gives with those eyes. Nancy Kelly who plays her mother had a minor film career early on doing mostly B movies including “Murder In The Music Hall”, “Song of The Sarong” and “Tarzan’s Desert Mystery” and spent most of her acting time in television and the Theatre. Her most famous role was in The Bad Seed  which she won a Tony award for and also got herself an Oscar nomination for repeating her performance for the film.  She had a nice voice and was attractive in the role in which she pretty much bounces off the walls and works her way up to a nervous breakdown. No one can blame her, after all her daughter is a serial killer. This was serious stuff back in the 50’s and it can still  send shock waves up and down an audience’s spine.  Most of the cast from the play repeated their performances including Henry Jones as the hapless and annoying handy man, Evelyn Varden as the landlady of the apartment house where Nancy, Patty and her often missing army husband live, and Eileen Heckart as the mother of one of Patty’s victims. She is startling from the minute she makes her impressive clumsy drunken entrance and has only two taking no prisoner scenes, which got her a supporting actress Oscar nomination. The ending is appropriate for 50’s audiences considering all of the shock and awe that came before it, but the tacked on cast taking bows is very tacky and the spanking of McCormick by Kelly is embarrassing, and is a cop out that was meant to assure movie goers that it was only a movie.  With a score by by Alex North and cinematography by Hal Rosson who received an Oscar nomination in the black and white cinematography category.

New Piece. Collage, paint and clay on paper April 2020

Shirley Knight 1936-2020

Tina Girouard 1946-2020

William Bailey 1930-2020 a favorite painter of mine

marvelous Peter Beard has passed 1938-2020

The Narrow Margin 1952

Hard and fast. In black and white and black and blue all over and without a music score. This little snot is bruised all over. Set mostly on a cramped fast moving train going from Chicago to L.A. with tough as nails police detective Charles McGraw bringing a late gangster’s wife to the west to testify against the head of a mob. In tight spaces and rough as a new piece of sandpaper Marie Windsor as the wife was never better with her big dark eyes, black shinny hair and cigarette smoke pouring out of her mouth and nostrils like a brick smoke stack she taunts and teasers McGraw with her nasty but funny cracks. This is a fast moving 71 minute noir blast of B movie making with sharp edges and no nonsense direction by Richard Fleischer, the good no frills director and son of the great innovative animator Max. It’s all done on a dime with lots of tight close-ups and a set that moves and shuttles like a real train, this was a big money maker for R.K.O. and fits nicely into the sub-genre of thrillers and mysteries that take place on trains. I’ve seen this little hard nut several times and it always pleases and surprises me, and some of the surprises will be left unsaid by me. With a good supporting cast and one of the worst kid actors I have ever encountered in a movie, but a small price to pay for this top notch thriller.

Allen Daviau 1942-2020 The Great Cinematographer

work on paper mixed with clay april 2020

Brian Dennehy 1938-2020

Suellen Rocca 1943-2020

Giri/Haji Duty/Shame 2019 Netflix

This is a one season stunning 8 part intimate epic about the trials and tribulations of a Japanese detective in London who is looking for his Yakuza hit man brother who is hiding out. The series is bold and beautiful to look at and searing in parts as it takes apart the intricacies of failed relationships especially the ones involving families. The series focuses in on a Japanese family living within a cluttered and small apartment where the dad played wonderfully by Takehiro Hira is trying to balance a complicated life as a detective with his failing marriage, and also trying to give comfort to his dying father and demanding mother who also live with them. Oh yes there is also a precious and precocious late teen daughter who is demanding and trouble in his mind. And on top of all this there is also the beloved dead brother, who isn’t really dead but is a fierce hit man for one of the Yakuza tribes who as I said is hiding out in London, and that’s where Takehiro is sent in order to arrest him and bring him back to Japan. Good luck Takehiro.

In London he is put up in a somewhat crummy hostel and told to enroll in police procedural classes taught by a female Jewish detective played by the great Kelly MacDonald who also has a lot on her cracked plate. The series is overboard and brilliant, richly designed and photographed and superbly writtten by Joe Barton and co-directed by Ben Chessell and Julian Farino who fill their big canvas with stunning performances including one hell of a job by Will Sharpe as a mixed race (Japanese and Caucasian)  male prostitute and junkie who is wild, sassy and is befriended by Takehiro and Kelly. He is necessary. There is plenty of blood and violence as the scene shifts between Tokyo and London with many flashbacks that are done in different screen ratios along with touches of animation and drawings. Is this all needed, I don’t know but I went with it. Things are also shaken up when his above mentioned troubled daughter arrives in London and soon is introduced and takes up with a young hair dresser lesbian and no arm twisting is needed to lure Aoi Okuyama who plays Taki the daughter into her bed. Sultry. The focus of course is on the tortured and tormented brother relationship between Takehiro and his brother Yuto acted with great charm and force by Yosuke Kubozuka who is a major headache and pushes the series to its dramatic conclusion. There are kidnappings, Yakuza killings, car chases, explosive combats, lots of blood but also gentle touches, laugh out loud humor and lots of surprises along with twists and turns and turns and twists along with a drop dead stunning Yakuza hood played by Yoshiki Minato who as I said is gorgeous. The climax on a roof in black and white is marvelous and unexpected and the final shot of two possible lovers sitting in a cafe as Barbara Lewis sings “Hello Stranger” on the juke box as a sudden rain falls is breathtaking and memorable.  This is of course not for everyone but for those who like tart and tangy this is one series to settle down with and one of the best things I’ve seen.

Knives Out 2019

A bore with a few bits and pieces that are mildly amusing. I don't even know why I'm wasting my time reviewing this dumbbell of a movie except that it was licked, kissed and fawned over last year by critics and audiences alike. Its as if they had never seen a good who done it and instead are content to watch this ghastly Angela Lansbury style tv murder something, which gets a little plug along with practically every other mystery crime movie that was ever made. Daniel Craig who is embarrassing to watch with his tacky southern accent plays a detective out to solve the murder of a world renowned mystery writer and the solving is there right from the get go. Ludicrous plot twists that make no sense and characters who have no sense litter this old dark house that is cluttered with things and stuff along with a lot of nonsense. The cast is a mish mash of a, b and c actors including Christopher Plummer as the head of the usual nasty and dull family of vipers and greedy low lives. Also included is Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Jamie Lee Curtis (the best one in the mess) and the pretty Chris Evans. To show how hip and clever the film makers are some anti-trump politics are thrown into the stew without mentioning the creeps name, so we know what side of the fence this film and its makers are on. Great like I need groovy Hollywood to enlighten me on our dark present. The great M. Emmet Walsh makes a welcomed cameo and made me want to see Blood Simple again, which this little discarded latex glove is definitely not.

mort drucker 1929-2020

new oddball magazine. april 2020

https://oddballmagazine.com/poem-by-yejin-suh/

Alan Garfield 1939-2020

Honor Blackman 1925-2020

New Work on paper. clay and mixed april 2020