WFMU's Beware of the Blog

The Story of Xavier Cugat & Other Super-Friends

 


"A caressing, torchy voice that enchants even the most hardened theater-goer, plus an astonishing beauty, make gorgeous Lena Horne one of the most exciting blues singers of our time. Her haunting style of singing has lifted this Brooklyn girl to the top of the nation's outstanding entertainers."

We missed a post due to illness here at the WFMU Comic Supplement, but we're back with a vengeance this week with all true-life stories of famous music and entertainment stars of yesteryear, as depicted oh-so-realistically in comic books of their day.

We've got six whole life stories to learn about so let's get right down to it; come and join us for non-fictional fun right after the jump!

Women, In Power and In Peril; film highlights from my 2014 (plus a music list)

The Internet is full of lists; end-of-year, top 10s, top 20s and 25s, often just a collection of line items laid bare, sometimes hyperlinked, sometimes not, and it's often left to the reader to do their own research. The Internet is also full of opinions (and we know what gets said about those), and it's made it way too easy to surf in, say your bit, and beat a hasty retreat, without laying down any sufficient backup data.

With music, I get it, a list is a list is a list—you have the artist name, the release title, and if you like what I like in general, you may already know about it and agree, if not, you'll look it up when time allows. But with film, there's way too many "authorities" out there, who do little more than hand out a bare-bones plot description, call it a review, call it "writing," and I think it's a big part of the reason people say, "Another film list, great. Haven't seen one of those in 5 minutes!" There's a lot of crappy, tossed-off film commentary online, and in some cases it completely sidesteps what I think is the very critical element of WHY this writer liked this film. Film criticism is the place for opinion, a more-than-apropos venue to make it personal; but here in the USA, where we're used to getting a heavy slant in our news media, with maybe, if we're lucky, a side dish of factual information, it's all ass-backwards. I'll continue to work against this tide, with gratitude to those whose pay attention, read instead of skim, and have looked forward to these film lists of mine for however many years I've been doing them.

When I looked at my notes for this year, one common element became abruptly apparent—women. Almost all the films on my list featured a female protagonist, in many cases also an antagonist, and I found this striking, both for the indicated shift in cinematic storytelling (especially in genre and horror stories), as well as the impossible-to-ignore lack of a significant other in my own life, a void that becomes more gaping with time, which may have led me to "favorite" these excellent tales of the female—in power, in conflict, in subjugation and in madness.

King Kelly (2012) - This movie gets billed as a drama, but to me it's a thriller, as horrific as any genre film, and maybe that's because I remember a time before the online world filtered, dictated, and straight-up controlled our daily existence. It's an ultimate indictment of the look-at-me generation, where more than ever, women are worshipped solely for their appearance, for "hot pics," where Instragram likes matter infinitely more than the ability to make good conversation. Whether women are more, or less empowered by these circumstances is arguable, and a topic for a whole other post. King Kelly is a webcam girl—the focus of modern, straight-male idolatry—and in her self-crafted universe, which extends into the physical world almost immediately in this harrowing piece of hand-cam cinema, she's for sure empowered, if not in control; like a steamroller with no driver, Kelly creates havoc and destruction for all who hover near her flame. She's just trying to be the hot girl, get some shit done, while engaging in some moderate-to-severe manipulation, and it all flies horribly and tragically out of control. Some may laugh as this movie; I found it to be anxiety-inducing entertainment, loaded with a mounting paranoia. In the Cold War era, we had The Manchurian Candidate, in the Internet age, standards duly lowered, we have King Kelly, and her potential for casual, callous trampling on human life; for me, more frightening, and less comprehensible, than Frank Sinatra's hypnotized assassin. King Kelly is all too real, and just a click away.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006) - A bit older, but new to Netflix, this is going to seem at first like a very standard, teens-on-holiday-getting-picked-off-one-by-one B movie, but don't be fooled. The plot thickens rapidly, like social tar, and I'm perhaps giving away a minor spoiler to say that there is no outside killer, no masked, machete-wielding antagonist preying on innocents, but that's a change for the better. Mandy Lane and her "friends" are far from blameless cannon fodder, and again we find ourselves in the midst of a bitter, no-punches-pulled indictment of American youth, twisting and perverting their entitlement into scheming, murderous intent. What seems at first like some light competition over the girl voted most crushworthy, spins rapidly into a classic tragedy, with a body count to rival Hamlet. My own son is now just entering his teenage years, making this more-than-it-appears tale of twisty teen murder all the more palpable and provocative to me personally.

Alyce Kills (2011) - Get ready to leap forward a near-generation, as Alyce is Mandy Lane and King Kelly's big sister, a New York City girl of opportunity, who gets a taste for homicide. The city is unnerving, shaking to the core, even (or especially) for a pretty white girl—it's competitive, and riddled with constant temptation to bad behavior. In NYC, there are more reasons to spin deliciously and unrepentantly out of control than to maintain even the appearance of doing the right thing, and Alyce's fall is as grandiose and fascinating to watch as it is inspirational. Having not lived in the city since 1998, I'm now what film writer Thom Andersen would call a "low tourist," in that I delight in depictions of my former home's flaws and hypocrisies. Alyce kills, indeed she does, but she's also a heroine, a "fuck it" icon, for those who know firsthand how NYC can hammer any semblance of a moral code out of a person. One of my favorites on this list.

Nymph()maniac (2013) - Lars Von Trier has once again made a film I can sink my teeth into, after a few films where, as a fan of his work generally, he lost me, with stories too figurative, symbolic and esoteric to have much impact. I like Von Trier at his most gritty, critical and mean-spirited, and to call his films "sexist" is an oversimplification that entirely misses the point; the men come off no better, often worse, and Von Trier at his best is holding up an unflinching mirror, saying "this is how shitty we are, look at how we treat each other." In my view, the director must worship women, because he can't keep himself from telling obsessive stories about them. Charlotte Gainsbourg absolutely shines, as does Uma Thurman (in one brief but intense scene), while the male characters in Nymph()maniac, though crucial to the story flow, are scummy, transparent wallpaper, not worthy of the complexity and gut-wrenching humanity of Von Trier's women. If anything, the director hates MEN, and I felt shame, even horror, at my own fellows, while watching this epic of human degradation. And is Gainsbourg's sex maniac a victim by chance or a victim by choice? A bit of both, provocative enough to have the film scholars flapping about what this film "means" for decades.

Escape (Flukt) (2012) - The literal translation of this film's Norwegian title is Flight, and fly it does, an action / adventure depiction of the struggle between two women; one a teenage girl, grappling for survival after witnessing the barbaric slaughter of her parents and younger brother, the other a Norse warrior woman, brutal and possessed by forward movement and survival in its rawest form, with a tragic, dark past of her own. Capturing the teen, the warrior, fiercest in her band  (comprised otherwise of formidable males), intends to use the girl as breeding stock, and as one might imagine, the girl does anything and everything to escape her fate as the tribe baby maker. Such ensues a ragged pursuit through pre-industrial Norway, over land and water, arrows and rocks flying, bodies falling, and that's the movie. Simple, but not predictable, and raucously engaging.

The Machine (2013) - All films, genre / sci-fi stories especially, should inhabit their own, idiosyncratic world of production design, and The Machine does this with stunning accomplishment—the computers, comm systems, labs, and the titular android itself—all impressive, and quite second nature to the film's character inhabitants. I think of The Machine as a sister film to Beyond the Black Rainbow, if only for their shared moody framing, and roots in 70s sci-fi classics, all achieved with a comparatively small budget to the CGI-dominated blockbusters. In brief, a team of talented AI scientists is broken apart when the woman, a new hire, is assassinated by higher ups for spying; the man, in his grief and frustration with their cruel, crooked bosses at the MOD, designs a powerful AI android, The Machine, with the likeness and basic personality profile of his dead colleague. (He hadn't time to fall in love with her, though he almost certainly would have.) A struggle between the altruistic scientist, his machine, and the evil government ensues, a familiar theme for sure, but this story is done with incredibly meticulous camera work, script, and design; not a single shot is wasted, and the film is engrossing from scene one, and never stops to breathe. A remarkable accomplishment for a first-Internationally-distributed feature, and I can't wait to see what director Caradog James does next.

The Black Book: Spooky Opening Segments for an Unknown Program (Exploring My Reel-to-Reel Catacombs, Volume 47) (MP3)

Here's yet another weird, unexplained bit of reel to reel recording tape which migrated to my collection at some point. I have been unable to determine anything about the purpose for which this tape was recorded, and if it rings a bell with someone out there, by all means, say so. 

The tape contains a series of introductions for some sort of show which was likely titled "The Black Book". These are appropriately spooky, with tense music and scary sound effects, and a very effective narrator. That said, there is a somewhat amateur feel to the recordings. Weirdly, all that is here are what appear to be an  intro, followed by narration segments, seemingly meant to go between segments of a story - but what story, and what medium? The only hint is a notation in the upper right corner of the box cover (seen to the right) which indicates that the first section of narration belongs "over film". 

At first, I thought this might be related to an Old Time Radio show titled "The Black Book", hosted by Paul Frees. But the narrator sounds nothing like Frees, and there are multiple examples on line of that show,  none of which sound remotely like this tape. Also, the dates on the box make it clear that this couldn't have been recorded prior to 1962.

However, a bit more digging shows that the narrations do fit the plot of a 1949 film, "Reign of Terror", about an attempt to stop a man's bloodthirsty grab at power during the French Revolution. Again, though, this tape would have been made nearly 15 years after that film, and the production level is not at the level of a big budget film. 

The tape runs nine minutes or so. First up is an introduction that focuses first on Dr. Guillotine,before tying together a variety of images which seem to me recited almost at random. The second segment is a brief scene involving the Guillotine. The next section takes place on the night streets of Paris, which as in the description of the film, is about to be taken over by a dictator. The next narration specifically focuses on the importance of The Black Book, and how it needs to be destroyed. This section and the two that follow I find almost impossible to follow, not surprising given that these segments seem likely to have been meant for interludes between parts of the story, without the story itself to explain them.

See what you think! 

Unknown: "The Black Book" Intros (MP3)   |   Tape Box (JPG)

2013 in Review; Film and Music

"Top tens," in music at least, are for me impossible. We're just going to have to build a bigger island. Films, I did manage to whittle down to a neat deck, though it was purely by accident, and probably more than a bit of forgetting. At least you can be sure that these celluloid selections are all wheat, no chaff—that is, if you've followed these posts of mine for the last few years and have gleaned something positive from them, and / or have an accentuated appreciation of the My Castle of Quiet radio show, and / or didn't buy into Ozzy singing "God Is Dead" this year, because um, "we know he was never alive in the first place" is the most metal response to that proposition.

Vampire Diary - (A feature from 2007, not at all related to the post-Twilight television-teen-romance vampire series; I even had a massive hurdle online just trying to find a presentable image of the film poster.) This Vampire Diary is a video one, originally conceived by our female protagonist as a minor exposé about "weekend vampires," playtime blood-drinkers who go clubbing on weekends and occasionally drink one another's blood for sport. Into this somewhat silly aggregation steps a real vampire, an alluring, mysterious, sexy woman, who not only doesn't eat, but must take out real victims in order to survive. I'm always on the lookout for effective employs of the handheld-camera subgenre, and this is yet another clever take on the "everyone has a camera" societal shift of the last decade plus, and the immediacy of handheld is smartly used to arresting effect, proving that are always new tricks, however worn the basket of the original idea. A romantic relationship develops between our heroine-filmmaker and the vampire woman, while the former's friends disappear one by one, somewhat unmysteriously. This is a colorful, sexy, but also very bleak film, while being a modern and comparatively cohesive narrative on what happens when you take in a flatmate who films you in your sleep. The metaphor of vampirism as addiction has never been more alive than in this story as well, and as the desperation escalates, the viewer gets sucked in to the ladies'  impossible situation. Though approx. six years old, I just viewed the film this year for the first time, then watched it twice more, and it seemed more than worthy of inclusion on this list, both in that a primary criteria for inclusion here is innovation, and also because of the way "Vicki the vampire" streaks the cityscape in a desperate search for victims, reminding me of a composite of women I dated and/or knew in the 80s and 90s all around NYC, holding up a somewhat bent mirror to my own life at one particular time.

Evil Dead (remake) - Everything horror coming out of Hollywood these days, barring the exceptional few, is a remake of a 70s or 80s genre title, and I find myself sore and decrying the sheer lack of anyone willing to "bank" a fresh horror concept in tinseltown (not to say it doesn't occasionally happen.) That said, with expectations on the floor, I saw the Evil Dead remake, endorsed by the original Tapert-Raimi creative team (obviously a plus), and found myself quite pleasantly thrilled and genuinely surprised. It's not only that it stands freshly on its own, but were the "new" Evil Dead developed in a vacuum, it would be many times more appreciable, and to a generation who did NOT grow up appreciating the original Evil Deads I and II, much like those who heard Bikini Kill with virgin ears never graced by an X Ray Spex record, this film delivers a pretty big boom, especially considering the utter formulaic crap that passes nowadays for a scary movie. There's a female protagonist, so the whole issue of replacing/recasting Bruce Campbell's Ash is cleverly skirted around and rendered irrelevant, and the whole piece is quite artfully shot, for maximum, colorful bursts of horror pleasure. I was impressed, and beyond the whole issue of exceeding low expectations, the new Evil Dead is actually just plain good fun, standing on its own as genuinely enjoyable, and chillingly inspired, with more than a few dynamite scenes.

"The Spell of the Hypnotic Chord" and "Syr-Darya's Death Song"

This week the Comic Supplement swings back into the horrific and scary aspects of music, as we look at two 1950s fright books; with a tale from The Beyond #30, dated January 1955, and Web of Mystery #13, from September 1952.

 Leading the way, from the last issue of The Beyond, we'll learn about the The Spell of the Hypnotic Chord, which sounds like a charming musical lesson, as stylishly illustrated by Louis Zansky, and penned by an unknown writer.

As a cheerful follow-up to that story, we'll wind things up with a wonderfully visual and strange tale drawn by Lin Streeter and scribed by another unknown writer, with a cover by Lou Cameron.

Oh, Boy!  Death songs and hypnotic chords await us right after the jump!

Andrzej Żuławski: A Man Possessed

by David Selden

Watch the whole film on Network Awesome

Andrzej Żuławski’s “intellectual horror film”, Possession begins with the protagonist’s return from an unspecified but apparently dangerous assignment. In an empty room at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, Mark’s employers plead with him to stay but he is adamant. His “subject” (and his pink socks) will elude them for now. Returning to his bland apartment in a 70’s housing complex, Mark (played somewhat woodenly by Sam Neil), finds his wife is leaving him for Heinrich, an intellectual martial arts expert with a wardrobe of silk shirts.

From there the film spirals into a queasy out of control psycho-drama, with acts of gratuitous violence appearing out of the blue with increasing frequency. Schlock is piled upon schlock until it almost becomes a bonfire of all the vanities of European art house cinema of this period, as well as being a cathartic scream and (perhaps) a pitch black comedy in the tradition of the Grande Guignol.

Żuławski, a protégé of Andrej Wadja, was never a director shy of overstatement. Here in Possession, his first and only English language film, scripted in the midst of a messy divorce case, he piles it on thick with

The Two Dimensional World of Three Dimension

The 3-D craze of nineteen fifties cinema was incredibly brief. 1953 was its banner year with at least thirty 3-D pictures released to the hordes. Although it quickly became associated with all-things juvenile and a ready replacement for the Saturday afternoon serials, the 3-D onslaught produced a few highly unlikely and decidedly mature little gems.

Take for instance Inferno starring Robert Ryan and Rhonda Fleming in multiple dimensions (skip your Rhonda Fleming joke, please). The premise was not for the kiddies. Fleming and a virile new man enjoy a torrid affair behind husband Robert Ryan's back. They scheme a way to get rid of him. Rhonda and Robert take a jaunt to a remote desert. Rhonda abandons him when he isn't looking. Rhonda speeds off and poor Robert is left to fend for himself amid heat and vultures. The rest of this incredible movie consists of Ryan's struggle to get back, griping and plotting his revenge, a sweaty, agitated internal monologue that drives the rest of the picture. Along the way he breaks his leg, nurses an infection and watches as an old prospector's house burns down, burning him alive, a grisly scene of a charred codger's corpse. Oh, and it's all in eye-popping 3-D.

Inferno is just one of several films being screened this September at the World 3-D Expo. It is not an annual event. To the contrary, it is as rare an event as some of the films themselves. Sure, plenty of rep cinemas around the world have a week or two where they showcase House of Wax with its obvious overwrought paddle-board-flying-in-your-face 3-D sequence. And sure, you may have attended a midnight screening of Friday the 13th 3-D, in which a group of teenagers hand the joint they're smoking right to you through the screen. However, any 3-D film you may have seen in a theater before was not projected as they will be this September, unless of course you were there in the nineteen fifties to catch 'em the first time round.

It took more than a pair of flimsy cardboard glasses to make 3-D movies work. It took two simultaneous projectors beaming two simultaneous images to create that original 3-D look. The World 3-D Expo - September 6 through the 15th - is projecting the films with dual projectors. Sound insufferably nerdy? Sure, it is, but attendees gave up the prospect of getting laid a long, long time ago. It's a unique experience and among some typical 3-D films come many you had no idea were meant to be viewed with cardboard eyewear. There'll be plenty of robot monsters and creatures in lagoons, but there's also the comedy team Martin and Lewis 3-Ding their supperclub shtick and a number of Looney Tunes cartoons you had no idea were originally shown in theaters in 3-D.

For more information visit the website of the World 3-D Movie Expo.

"The Great Symphony" by Jim Tyer, 1944

Today we'll have a light and fun post for the WFMU Comic Supplement:  a very cute little five-pager illustrated by Jim Tyer, as published in Giggle Comics volume one, number 10, from July 1944.

The 'star' artist of the book was Dan Gordon, but this well-done series of animal funnybooks features many other fine cartoonists, such as Lynn Karp and Ken Hultgren.

Tyer's exuberant and frantic drawings in this story give a good idea of how his work would appear in full motion; sight gags abound and there is heavy character distortion and rubberiness, which I always enjoy. His wild and stylish work in animation is well known and spoken about here and here.

So let's join our pals from Giggle Comics at the premiere of The Great Symphony - right after the jump!

My Boss Is an Angel Cast out of Heaven, not a Jewish Carpenter; One Master LIVE on My Castle of Quiet, 4.26.2013

This session is a monster, black-metal fire that strafes the earth and then salts it for good measure. Fuckin' unbelievable.

Speaking very generally, black metal can be divided into two, distinct subgroups; the raw and the dirty, with its roots in punk, and the more "musicianly," with expert playing, and grander, more-"orchestrated" concepts. Either way, to pass my filter, the songwriting is key, and has to be there to bring the sound across.

Naturally, there's been significant cross-pollination of these two basic styles over the years, and One Master are perhaps the finest example of a band that has chops to spare, with longer, epic songs, but with not an ounce of grit sacrificed—in fact, the sheer gut-punch of this session, as well as One Master's two full-lengths and split cassette with Glass Coffin, will simply bowl you over like a life-affirming ass-kicking. Even as I listen now, after many a deep sit-down with the material, the ferocity of One Master's Castle session is staggering and the first thing your ears will notice—melodic riffs, deftly arranged and well-written songs, delivered with mighty, mighty force.

These guys were also great to hang with, and we had lots to jaw about off-air, with our shared obsessions for classic horror / exploitation film and the like. These are men you can have a beer with, and talk about Cannibal Ferox on into the night. I recall saying, "Is there any scene in Requiem for a Vampire other than the basement-torture scene? 'Cause if there is, I don't remember it...." hehe....

Thanks a fuck-ton to the band for bringing their exquisite black-metal art to WFMU, and to engineer Juan Aboites for creating a clean, solid and forceful mix for the broadcast. Thanks also to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting for re-crafting my shitty iPhone band captures.

Don't Free Pussy Riot

Last night I saw Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, and now I’m convinced that Pussy Riot should be in jail, which I think was not the filmmakers’ intent.

The video shows three strong feminist women and their history of activism, culminating in their action in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The three who were arrested—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich— are not the only members of their political collective, although you wouldn’t know that from the film. They also are not “girls,” they are young women in their mid-20s and early 30s, they are wives and mothers, they are educated and intelligent enough to have devised an ideological basis for their political protest. Yet since their arrests, they’ve been portrayed as “girls” who “didn’t realize” that defiling a revered place of worship would offend anyone, which is complete bullshit: The whole point of the action was to offend as many people as possible. If people weren’t offended, they wouldn’t pay attention. Well, they’re paying attention now; they’re paying attention all over the world.

The women of Pussy Riot must have realized there were likely consequences for their actions. Just as Edward Snowden was prepared to accept the loss of his well-paid job, the end of his comfy life, and his possible extradition to the US to face treason charges, so Pussy Riot should have been prepared for arrest, trial, and conviction. They say they are feminists: Let them act like feminists. Their prison sentences are the proof of everything they’ve said about Russian repression. Let them take the consequence of their actions like strong feminist women, not disingenuous, apologetic little girls. In the words of Sammy Davis Jr. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Be punk, Pussy Riot: Be strong.

UPDATE 6/18: So what I was trying to say was unclear, and that is the fault of my writing. Mostly I was objecting to the documentary's portrayal of "girls," but also there's the rather alarming footage of the three prisoners apologizing and saying they "didn't mean to offend anyone." This is contrary to their otherwise strong statements--contrary, in fact, to their actions. The obvious injustice of two years in prison for their protest is what has called international attention to the very repression they were protesting. I have friends who participated in ACT UP's protest inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989; no one went to prison, but it brought international attention to the AIDS crisis and forced the government to begin dealing with it. I hope Pussy Riot's Punk Prayer will turn out to be as influential. Also, one week on, Edward Snowden looks less like a hero. -B.

 

 

“MAN GETS EATEN BY AN ALLIGATOR”: THE WILHELM SCREAM

BY CASEY DEWEY

Watch nearly all of the 200 uses of "The Wilhelm Scream" on Network Awesome

At some point in 1997 my friends and I were debating the merits of the remastered, souped-up re-releases of George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy. We discussed the issues of introducing Jabba the Hutt in the first film, how the CGI-enhanced added TIE-Fighters was a positive addition, and we lamented the loss of the Ewok’s “Yub-Yub” song at the end of Return of the Jedi. On Jedi, one of my friends said “With all of the stuff Lucas added visually, couldn’t they have at least changed Boba Fett’s pussy-ass scream when he died?” Little did we know at the time that the “pussy-ass scream” was in fact the legendary Wilhelm Scream.

What is the Wilhelm Scream? Trust me, you’ve heard this sound effect over a thousand times. You’ve heard it in every single Star Wars film, even the dreaded new trilogy. You’ve heard it in all of the Indiana Jones movies, you’ve heard it in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and also The Hobbit. You’ve heard it in most Quentin Tarantino movies. You’ve heard it when Harold and Kumar went to White Castle. You’ve heard it

WHO’S GOING TO BELIEVE A TALKING HEAD?” 1985’S UNDEAD CLASSIC RE-ANIMATOR

BY ANTHONY GALLI

Watch the whole film + more HP Lovecraft related video on Network Awesome

Okay, so maybe there’s something to be said for not raising the dead. History seems to show that nothing good ever comes from it. Exhibit A: 1985’s Re-Animator.

Based on H.P. Lovecraft’s 1922 short story “Herbert West: Reanimator,” Re-Animator tells the story of a mad, young scientist who kills his mentor, an old mad scientist,while trying to bring him back to life. Dr. Herbert West is then, unsurprisingly, exiled from the University of Zurich to the now infamous Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham, Massachusetts.

And yes, Lovecraft’s Arkham is the namesake of Batman’s notorious Arkham Asylum, home to such notorious reprobates as The Joker, The Riddler, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, and Bane. Small world.

Herbert West was convinced that animal life could be reanimated successfully after death because life is no more than merely a cellular reflex function; animals are nothing more than electrical machines. Dr. West was convinced that “the so-called ‘soul’ is a myth.”

West’s Promethean hubris will prove to have dire and fatal consequences. Or, as one famous margarine commercial from the 1970’s reminded us, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!”

“Herbert West: Reanimator” is a modern-day re-telling (or, re-animation, if you will) of Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic Gothic novel Frankenstein. Mary Shelley, 21-years-old when Frankenstein was originally

"Favorite Fiddler!" (May 1947)

In todays Comics Supplement we'll learn a bit about the early years of synchronized film sound and we'll find out about the USA's favorite fiddler (in 1947 at least).

About all that we know about the featured TRUE Comics is that they were produced as a subsidiary to Parents' Magazine, which was edited at the time by Clara Savage Littledale (about whom there is more information here, and also over here). The books themselves were edited by Harold C. Field, and art-directed by Ralph O. Ellsworth. Artists and writers were not credited (although a frequent writer for the series was Louis Wolfe, so he may well have scribed these two stories). They are fun books, and well-produced, though.

Let's check out excerpts from two issues of the 1940s right after the jump-!

KANETO SHINDO AND THE ATOMIC BOMB (KIND OF): ONIBABA

BY KOLLIN HOLTZ

Watch the whole film on Network Awesome

One word you should know when watching “Onibaba” is “bukufu.” The word is Japanese, but I promise if you search it you won’t have to clear your history. I’ll save you the trouble though (in case you’re afraid to look it up), and tell you that “bukufu” originally referred to the tent or housing of a military General or Shogunate. Later, during the Kamakura, very brief Kenmu and longer Muromachi period (the film takes place at the beginning of this period) “…it came to mean the seat of the Shogunal Military Government; later, all forms of military government.”

Hachi, one of the three main characters, returns as a warrior deserter. He references the two warring sides in the battle for land and power. Kusunoki Masahige fought for Emperor Go-Daigo and his Court against Shogunate Ashikaga, who fought for the (as he felt, “marginalized”) warrior class. Both sides seemed to be hard up for fighters as Hachi says he was offered the opportunity to live after capture as long as he

Irma Serrano AKA "La Tigresa"

I first read about Irma Serrano within the pages of The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky.  Better known as "La Tigresa", Serrano was an actor (in theater, soaps, and movies of the 60s), as well as a singer, and to some extent she was involved in politics.  She was a senator, I'm not sure what her exact role was, except that it was certainly to the extent that she was involved in political scandals.  She was arrested for publicly flirting with The President of Mexico, and they are rumored to have had an affair.  Her first film role was alongside a Mexican wrestler named Santo, in the pulp film Santo Contra los Zombies.  According to Jodorowsky, Serrano engaged in one conniving PR stunt after another, and practiced animal voodoo with the best of them.  She had a refridgerator full of animal parts and supposedly a goat buried underneath her living room floor. Serrano is considered to be an icon of the golden age of entertainment in Mexico. Below, the song title appropriately translates to "Calling The Devil", from Serrano's first self titled LP, and I'm also including a clip of the aforementioned Santo Zombie movie's ending.  

  

"A Bored Young Lawyer Makes the Nation Ring with His Tunes" ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hoagy Carmichael Bio from Picture News #1

"To Boys and Girls, Brothers and Sisters, Mothers and Dads: PICTURE NEWS looks the same as other books, but with appearance and method of presentation the likeness ends. PICTURE NEWS reports the news, the news with its endless appeal and its prophecy of things to come, in action and speaking and color pictures.

Drawn pictures in bright colors with balloons, which are comics, have thrilled, amused, informed and taught. The U.S. Army has used them, so have important advertisers, and schools are beginning to know their value.

Most of these comic books have their virtues. Their millions of eager readers devour the drawn stories of dramatic adventures and sudden success. And many a comic character has become better known and admired and more widely imitated than Cousin Jack or Aunt Tillie.

Why is this so? Because the leading comic book characters personify the energy, dash, unbeatable spirit and the pure motives of our American ideal. And it is this ideal and that spirit that will make America enduringly great.

Now PICTURE NEWS for the FIRST time uses this new medium of action pictures and color and dialogue to make life real on the printed page. And life, as we know, has its ups and downs. It is what it is - life. And we, being what we are, work and play, and sometimes suffer and die to make life more secure and better. Everything that happens is news. Reporting it, is an important job. To PICTURE NEWS, it is a challenge."     (from the "January 1, 1946" introduction to the first issue)

That is an excerpt from the long inside-front-cover mission statement for the new book, and in it, among other things, we'll learn about musician, composer and actor Hoagy Carmichael in a tidy little four-page tale. Come feast your eyes and glut your soul - right after the jump.

Father of Django Unchained: Don Pedro Colley talks about the Legend of Nigger Charley

Quentin Tarantino's hypnotic Django: Unchained, like all Tarantino films, makes one consider the movies that influence his work. Media attention has focused on spaghetti westerns like the film's namesake Djano (1966), but for those savvy with the seventies, it is the forgotten genre of slave vengeance films, an offshoot of the Blaxploitation craze, that comes to mind. Movies like Mandingo (1975) and Drum (1976) made enormous sums at the box office. For all the chatter about the liberal use of the N-word in Django: Unchained, it doesn't come close to the audaciousness of its motion picture brethren of the 1970s that used the word in the actual title.

Today we speak with the man who starred, alongside Fred Williamson and D'Urville Martin, in the 1973 slave vengeance western - The Legend of Nigger Charley. He is one of the most prolific African-American actors of the last forty-five years, Mr. Don Pedro Colley.

Kliph Nesteroff: You became a steady character actor pretty quick. You did so many western television shows early on.

Don Pedro Colley: If you’ve ever looked at photos of old cowboys, of any old group in a bunch, there's always a Black person or two in that group.

Kliph Nesteroff: Let's talk abut a western film you starred in... the Legend of - you know what - Charley.

Don Pedro Colley: Well, the Legend of Nigger Charley is an authentic piece of history. It was based on a real person, a real story, from real life. It was very hard because the people that put it together were not concentrating on the story. They were busy playing Hollywood producer. There were girls around everywhere. Five girls at a time (laughs). “Girls, you go over there and sit. I gotta get in front of the camera!” Well, we’re supposed to have been riding through the desert for days and days and days, escaping from a plantation, yet our star looks like he just stepped outside of a shower! “Yeah, of course. I’m me. I’m too pretty. All that dust and shit? Give that to Don Pedro. He can have it.”

Kliph Nesteroff: Clearly you're referring to your co-star Fred Williamson, who was a staple of 1970s Blaxploitation. I've heard there was some kind of issue about the contracts with this film. Things were being done in a shady way or slipshod manner...

Don Pedro Colley: Well, it is a big challenge when you want to put out a project and Paramount is backing you and the project is named The Legend of Nigger Charley. It’s based on a real story. Even today people get a mouthful of gumballs and don’t know how to deal with the title, which is quite interesting. We were preparing to leave Hollywood and one of their representatives shows up at my house with a contract. Quickly scanning through it – it didn’t feel right. It didn’t look right. It wasn’t a type union contract, which was standard fare. I said, “Listen, my agents need to see it first before I sign it.” “God, you’re going to hold up production? Just sign the damn thing.” I said, “Man, I can’t. These are the people that get me work, my agents. All you have to do is send it to their office! I’ve never heard of a representative coming to my house with a contract.” That’s not the way show business is done and I was the bad guy because I was playing it straight. We get to New York and I’m there to participate in the casting of the film. I was already getting queasy feelings. I do not like to be associated with junk. It puts extra strain to overcome the junk around me and still salvage something. We were in New York, finished casting the rest of the people and I meet the director for the first time and the full nine yards. “Okay! We’re leaving by train to go shoot in Richmond, Virginia. Hurry up and sign this piece of paper. It’s your new contract.” "New contract? Send a copy to my agents.” “We don’t have time for that!” I said, “I can’t do that, man!” This was Paramount Pictures! We get to Richmond, Virginia and we go out to the plantation in Chester, Virginia. We get two whole days of film in the can. I’m in almost every scene. They come storming to my motel room. “Now you either sign this contract or we’re going to replace you.” This was the producer. He was in the hallway yelling at me. Larry Spangler. Jesus Christ, I can’t believe it. He’s trying to showboat me on the set and I was the only one there with motion picture experience on the bloody thing. Cast and crew had only done commercials in New York City. Making a motion picture is a whole different story. So he’s screaming at me that they’re going to fire me. He realizes in his bluff that he can’t because they’ve already spent so much of the budget in those first few days on location. It’s already in the can and can’t be redone. Paramount is queasy about the budget.

Kliph Nesteroff: And the title? It blows me away that Paramount was okay with the title.

Don Pedro Colley: Well, in the interim the local newspaper gets a hold of the title of our movie. Agents from the NAACP came down to our location – to shut us down – because we were making this “totally offensive movie.” I finally got away from this idiot and I’m in my motel room and I can relax for a little bit. Phone rings. “Don Pedro. We need you down in the lobby! Quick! Hurry! The NAACP is down here and they’re trying to shut us down!” I thought, “What? This is a historical piece of Americana that we’re trying to get down on film! How dare these people?” I went storming down to the lounge where there were a group of these people with their briefcases and their goggle glasses. Black folks. I stormed into the room and said, “What the hell is this all about?” Their eyeballs pop. I said, “How dare you! This is a piece of American history. We don’t have to be proud of it, but we should support it so that we don’t ever have to go back there again! How dare you try to shut us down?” They said, “We felt this is Hollywood trying to exploit. We want to make sure…” I said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got it under control.” It was about that time that the Paramount Pictures front office called me in my motel room and said, “Don Pedro Colley. Listen. You will be our eyes and our ears on the set until we get our financial officer over there. Okay?” I said, “Thank you, sir. I will do that for you.” About three or four days later, by that time we were in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I remember he had red hair, the financial officer representative from Paramount Pictures. He had two secretaries with him. I had more trouble before the fella showed up with our assistant director from New York. This hot shot crew. It wasn’t a class A crew. None of them had shot anything more than commercials. So they were moaning and groaning when we were in Virginia about everything. “We gotta film in this fuckin’ jungle, blah, blah.” Typical New York crap. We flew to Santa Fe, New Mexico – wide open spaces. Within thirty seconds everyone of them had cowboy shirts and cowboy hats and cowboy boots and chrome tips on the end. It was pitiful. So two-faced. I was watching all this shit happen. This assistant director who wanted to prove he knew more than anyone else… he can’t call the shots, but that’s what he was attempting to do. He was trying to take it over from Marty the director. Marty would look kind of puzzled because he wrote this script. He wasn’t sure how to step up, while this assistant director is getting more and more powerful he thinks. It became disruptive. He had a group of cronies patting him on the back for being so bold in doing what he was doing. He had the audacity to shout at me one day to hurry it up because I’m holding it up. I’m on my horse, ready for this scene and nobody knows what the fuck is going on. I had just had it with him. I called him out by name. “You will never disrupt this set again. You are not the director. You are the assistant director. Please assist the project or get the hell off of it.” The star and the producer stopped cold and looked at me. This was what needed to happen because it was harming the production. "Damn that Don Pedro!" It just pissed me off beyond belief to work with these rank amateurs who were trying to look for quick glory. None of them earned it.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was writer - director Marty Goldman like?

Don Pedro Colley: A very nice fella. He was a writer and he had some director’s ability and ideas that worked very well. He was kind of easily persuaded by outside forces that a director shouldn’t allow.

Kliph Nesteroff: And working with Fred Williamson and D’Urville Martin?

Don Pedro Colley: I hate to talk against people, but they make me so mad sometimes. You have to give certain people that they’re whole growing environment was in a closed society. If you don’t develop certain strengths for surviving – then you don’t survive. Then when you get out into the world with all kinds of different people and a different atmosphere, your survival skills are left… you don’t know what to do. I don’t act like you or talk like you because I’m not from the ghetto, never been to the ghetto, I don’t know your common colloquial idioms. They say, “What is that?” I was on the outs. Blacks don’t like me, whites don’t like me… well, okay, fine. I don’t care. I’ll just put out good work and try bring tears to your eyes. That’s always been my situation. As an actor you work off the energies that come at you. It was them against me. They all wanted me fired. They couldn’t get away with shit. They were planning to jack up Paramount Pictures. I’m saying, “No, you can’t. This is our chance in history and you’re going to leave this stain on it by being cheap thugs?” In those days we had a kind of community of African-American folks and we met at some of the restaurants here and there and what’s going on and back and forth. Everybody knew everybody, but when it came to jobs they’d get very jealous if you got something bigger than they had. It lead to a lot of disruption and bad feelings. So I had bad blood with D’Urville Martin and Fred Williamson. He plays The Hammer and “I’m a star!” at all costs. Of course I know he’s full of shit. You know? Having worked with him and taught him literally how to act. When we got on this train to go on location in Richmond, Virginia, I schooled him for hours and hours and hours. How to do the lines, how to find the character, how to feel internals that make the wheels work. I don’t need you to be standing around with your shirt open to your navel saying, “I’m pretty!” Which is what you do Fred Williamson – just because you know you got this animal magnetism. And you piss me off. He always has five girls around him. Always. Plucking the hair in his armpit. Obscene.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was the reaction to the title of the film at the time?

Don Pedro Colley: Well, I researched it and in doing so found it was a real story. In reading the real story I saw that it was a mismatch of several other stories that came out of the same period. I wanted to bring as much realism as possible, so I was personally fine with the title. It actually wasn't as controversial as you might think.

"Santa Claus" the 1959 Film by Rene Cardona

I just can't resist pointing to this film today; I'm hoping I can get a few more unsuspecting people to watch this charming, scary and bizarre little gem (although I suspect a lot of regular WFMU people already know it - it's worth another viewing). 

Like a lot of folks, I discovered it via the controversial show Mystery Science Theater 3000, where it became one of my favorite episodes. It stands on its own very well, however, and even though it is sluggish at the beginning, with a long sequence showing "children from around the world" in separate little musical numbers, if you stick with it it rewards with many nightmarish props and scenes that must have warped the minds of lots of matinee-going youth. It holds the distinction of being one of the few Christmastime movies to contain some genuinely creepy images without perhaps meaning to.

I think it qualifies as an essential holiday film, for those who like such things. See the video link below, after the jump.

Cheers, and I'll see you here next year!

The Films and Music That Made My Year

The films listed below could all be considered "horror," the great bulk in the genre sense, with a significant few in the true-to-life, human-drama sense. Entries are by no means intended to be up-to-date or contemporary, though many are. A dozen-plus gems near-guaranteed to rock any cinéaste's watch list and/or Netflix queue.

Attenberg - A Greek drama, with a minimum of quirk and a lot of (tortured) soul; an alternately heartbreaking and humorous drama about two female friends, one who's deeply socially and sexually repressed (her closest connection being with her dying Father), while her girlfriend is basically the town tramp, continuously attempting to school her in the ways of love and men. Their stories arc, collide and intertwine, to a thoughtfully employed, rousing score of classic Suicide songs. Great, inspiring, slice-of-life stuff.

V / H / S - My favorite horror film of the year, with Kill List coming in at a very close second. V / H / S churns the handheld-shaky-cam technique to its most clever heights, with what's barely seen, or seen in a peripheral blur, to be the scariest material therein. The premise is also terrific, such that this collection of shorts are all presumed to be on unlabeled VHS tapes, found by some thieves in the house of a man who has either expired, or been rendered unconscious, in an easy chair, faced by a stack of snowy televisions. I love ideas; that's what keeps me coming back again and again to horror films, and V / H / S is simply overflowing. The film was a collaboration, a mash-up of sorts by some upper-echelon undergorund-horror writing and directing talent, people like Oren Peli, Ti West and Joe Swanberg. A tense and harrowing ride throughout. Don't try too hard to figure it out, or apply conventional narrative sense to the proceedings; just let it wash over, and prepare to be genuinely scared.

Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout

I happened to meet Linnea Quigley at a movie marathon the other night.   She's known as the "Scream Queen", and she's been in over 100 low budget horror movies, including Creepozoids, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Night of The Demons, Sorority Babes In Slime Bowl-O-Rama, Silent Night Deadly Night, Don't Go Near The Park, and Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings.    Return of the Living Dead is one of my favorite horror movies, and I saw it when I was 4 or 5 years old.  She happened to be the first woman I ever saw naked, when in the movie, she spontaneously starts getting nude and dancing around in a cemetery, after fantasizing about how she wants to die in an awkward punk rock candor.  My grandmother came running into the room, covering up the screen and saying "This is filth!  This is terrible!"  Linnea was a very good natured and upbeat person.  She also does music (Horror Workout includes her singing a punk song) and film production these days, so I'm told.   This highly educational film is going to be reissued, and it's not safe for work..