A coverup of a coverup

Things I almost remember to forget.

But not quite.

And can't quite remember, would have paid more attention at the time, except that I didn't know it would DISAPPEAR and I would be left with an awful, aching, conspiracy-theory-type feeling.

I used to go to a lot of movies. This was before all the smaller, older theatres in downtown Vancouver closed. Believe me when I say, there are none of them left now. These weren't the height of elegance, they had old red carpets and smallish screens and smelled kind of musty, but they charged less than the garish Cineplexes that were already beginning to take over, and there was something kind of cosy about them. There was the Granville, the Capitol 6, the Fifth Avenue, and (one of my faves) the Caprice, which I used to think looked like Elvis' bathroom, all done up in flocked maroon wallpaper, cherry velvet seats, and a silver lame curtain that swung gracefully open as the show began.

But this isn't about that, or the massive bag of hot buttered popcorn (always leaking greasily out the bottom and ruining my jeans) that seemed to be my main reason for being there. It was about something. Something strange. Something that disappeared.

It was a preview for something, and I wasn't paying much attention to it because my face was down in my big, warm, butter-laden bag of popcorn and I was probably going, "Mmmmmmmmmmmm." But the preview - we'd call it a trailer now - it was sort of along the lines of All the President's Men, an action/thriller sort of thing about - what was it? Some sort of expose. Of the pharmaceutical industry.

We didn't say "Big Pharma" back then because this was (I think) still in the 1990s, and the expression hadn't been coined yet. But that's what it was about. I remember that much. And these reporters were talking urgently to each other - well, it was a bit like The China Syndrome, too, that sense of a disaster coming, of needing to stop something, some juggernaut. Or else the need to expose corruption of some kind, in some huge impersonal omnipotent/omnipresent corporation.

If only I remembered one of two things: the title; and the people in it, the actors. None of that will come to me. I am not even sure of the date, except it was WAY back in my movie-going history, the time of Elvis' bathroom and slightly pee-smelling theatres that always had one screen showing an arty film way the hell up at the top of the building, which meant you had to take an extra set of stairs to get there.

Yes, and there were stairs such as you'd see in the 1940s, big broad Loretta Young-style staircases, then a really really long flight of stairs that led to another side of the theatre altogether, but at least you could still get popcorn. That was the Granville, I think, a place which used to be quite grand. The grandeur in these places was as threadbare and faded as some disappointed spinster in a Tennessee Williams play.

And this went on and on for so many years, I can't even tell you how many. I did this once a week, I saw a movie in Vancouver, by myself. People thought I was a freak, but I absolutely loved it. No matter how bad the movie, it was like sinking into a warm bath.

Then it was all torn apart and ripped down. All of them were gone. It was over, and now all you get is huge Cineplex-type places. We're supposed to think these are Much Better because the screens are huge, there are no bad seats, the washrooms are usually clean (though just try to find the entrance without stumbling into the wrong one) and they have DEAFENING sound that leaves your ears ringing for a week. 

So. Back in 19-whatever, which now seems like the 1940s it was so long ago, there was this preview. After that, I did see ONE poster, a coming-attractions sort of thing, about the same movie. I know it was. And then -

And then, nothing.

Nothing.

All traces of this film simply disappeared.

It got stashed at the back of that messy closet of memories everyone has, or at least I assume everyone has, and every so often, but not often at all, the memory would stir or wink or something, a neuron devoted to that memory would get up and walk around, then lie down again, and I wondered - I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but this sudden and total disappearance of what looked like a mainstream feature film screamed "coverup".

Ironic, because the movie itself was about coverup, corruption, in the pharmaceutical industry. It's as if I can hear the dialogue echoing through my brain, but - you know when you can hear voices, but not what they're saying? When you can tell if it's a man or a woman, and if they're yelling or not? It's like that.

I've tried, oh how I've tried since the internet improved and search terms didn't need to be so exact. Back then, there was no internet. There was "something", but I didn't know much about it and certainly did not use it. I do remember a movie that had a sort of layabout deadbeat poet in it (I think he was Scottish - ?), and though he had never gotten anywhere with being published, suddenly he became world-famous "on the Internet". Probably they called it the World Wide Web. Nothing was explained about this, WHERE on the internet, or how. People were in awe enough, and just ignorant enough, that you didn't even need to explain it.

Did that movie actually exist, is it in a vault somewhere, has the negative been destroyed by Big Pharma, has some studio executive eaten it, will I some day find reference to it on one of those Top Ten YouTube videos that now proliferate so madly? I've seen videos about movies that were never released. All sorts of stuff has been covered up by mega-corporations. We can guess why. But we don't know about it because. . . it's been covered up.

I have this fantasy that some day I will find maybe just a title, and bang, the neurons will start firing and I'll remember more about that trailer and be able to look it up. But it was eerie, a weird unsettling feeling. The poster for Coming Attractions was up there, I saw it, I read it, and it was definitely about this movie. But the next time I walked by the place, all that was left there on the wall was a hole. 

TOTAL LOSS OF A FOLLOW-UP: I found these two movie posters. One is for a comedy (2005), which still seems too recent. The other one came out 3 years ago.

So it's not this, and it's not this. But what is it??

Hilda, Part two. . .

Hilda is something/someone I come back to again and again. I saw her a couple of years ago in one of those sappy internet posts about "America's Forgotten Plus-Size Pin-up Girl!", or words to that effect. I immediately loved the drawings, which were originally calendar art by Duane Bryers. I see her as a sort of antidote to the Playboy bunny/playmate of the '50s and '60s. No sophisticate, she's more of a country girl, usually shown in bucolic settings with farm animals, climbing mountains, straddling fences, bailing out boats, getting herself soaking wet. . . and though her "bikini" sometimes consists of nothing more than a mere string of flowers, she seems at home in her body in a way few women actually are.

People rhapsodize about her abundance and her curviness, her naturalness and goofy sense of fun, and the way she cares about small animals, birds' nests discovered while she's trying to paint the house, kittens stuck up on telephone poles, etc. She's always falling out of boats and trying to walk along fences and stubbing her toe. Childlike, she seems to have no fear. I'm not sure where the cartoonist got his inspiration, whether she was based on a real person, a composite, or just a wished-for, funny, joyous, life-loving gal (yes, Hilda is definitely a "gal") whose sexuality is so self-evident that it doesn't even need to be spelled out. 

It's kind of encouraging, and at the same time kind of depressing to see the internet reaction to Hilda, who became an overnight sensation again after decades of dormancy. See, gals, it's OK to be full-figured! Hilda enjoys herself hugely no matter what she is doing, so maybe WE can, too, so long as we bring our calorie-counter to the banquet and spend five hours at the gym the next day. Hilda is who we might be if we weren't so fucked up. 

But even if we are, we can still take pleasure in her delightful silliness, the way she spills out of her scanty clothing, and her ecstatic delight in nature and sensual pleasure. She's fun, she knows how to have a good time, and (best of all) she is the Zen-master of a totally-lost art: how to relax. Hilda's someone you'd like to know, if she existed. Some days, like today, like right now, I very much wish she did.

Did somebody mention ditzy redheads? The return of Hilda

 

Scary no more: here's Lucy, again

P

(From Entertainment Weekly)

Since 2009, “Scary Lucy” has terrorized the small village of Celoron, New York, with square teeth and bugged-out eyes that suggest that, were she not captured in 400 pounds of bronze, she would love to pair your brains with her bottle of intoxicating Vitameatavegamin. Now that statue — which is generously considered to be a depiction of comedy legend Lucille Ball — will be replaced with another bronze sculpture, which presumably will not cause nightmares.

EW reports that the new sculpture, by artist Carolyn Palmer, will debut in Celoron, Ball’s hometown, on August 6. Palmer spent months watching I Love Lucy and studying pictures for the bronze piece. “I not only wanted to portray the playful, animated, and spontaneous Lucy,” Palmer explained, “but also the glamorous Hollywood icon.” At that time, the town will retire the “Scary Lucy” sculpture — which its creator, David Poulin, once diplomatically referred to as “by far my most unsettling sculpture.” You can see it below, and then never un-see it.

Update, August 6: The new, six-foot-tall bronze sculpture has been unveiled — and it's the vast, vast improvement that the comedy legend deserves. Today would've been Ball's 105th birthday.

                                Photo: LDM/PR

OKAY! It's Monday morning, I have a bit of a headache (though not from what you're thinking - I never touch the stuff), and lo and behold, here's good news. They have finally replaced the horrific statue purported to be Lucille Ball which disgraced her home town for SEVEN years. One can only imagine the deep dismay of the crowd as it was unveiled - or perhaps they christened it by smashing a bottle of Vita-Meata-Vegamin over its head.

I've been sort of keeping track of this story, because it represents a certain kind of bizarre. It brings to mind another - shall we say - misportrait. A few years back, an old lady who was an amateur painter took it upon herself to "restore" a painting of Jesus called Ecce Homo in a tiny church in Spain. It was peeling badly, and at first she only dabbed paint on the robe, but then. . .

This was either genius (to some people), or disaster.

It looks about as much like Jesus as that first sculpture of Lucy. But then. . . do we really know what Jesus looked like?

Are we certain there WAS a Jesus? Having been a Christian for 15 years, then walked away in total disillusionment, I now believe he was a collection of stories half-based on truth, and the other half, hope. He was wished into being, which is maybe not such a bad thing unless you're expected to believe he literally existed.

In the United Church, they lowered the ante due to falling attendance, until the Moderator of the church admitted she didn't even believe in God, let alone Jesus. But she was still "spiritual" (though not "religious"). So baking brownies for the UCW was enough to make you a member, so long as you ponied up financially to the point of pain. If you didn't, guilt and accusations that you had no "commitment" would be laid on with a trowel.

It's enough to make you embrace the new, improved Ecce Homo. Some have called it "Icky Homo", and even worse things. For a while, it brought masses of tourists to the cathedral, a boon for the town. I think the crowds have likely fallen off by now. Fallen off the edge of the world, more like. The key chains, fridge magnets, tote bags, tshirts, water bottles and action figures are now moldering on the shelves, maybe in the bargain corner at the Vatican gift store.

Meantime, we have a new Lucy, and she is a big improvement, but I still don't think they got the face quite right. She had an unusual kind of beauty, and was one of the first glamorous women to do comedy. Phyllis Diller was more the norm. Women had to look hideous to be funny. When Ball first starred in I Love Lucy, she was 40 years old, which by the standards of the day was more like 60. Some years later, she had her first baby (Little Ricky!) - and was actually pregnant on the show. Kind of like the first reality TV.

She came back in various guises for years, not always successfully, but like the trooper she was, she kept on working 'til the end.

So the new statue: shall we call it a resurrection? Shall we melt down the bronze from Scary Lucy and make a Donald Trump, offering free rotten tomatoes to the crowd?

Just a thought.

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Sound the triumpets: it's William Shatner as Alexander the Great!

This is an unsold TV pilot from 1968. Took me A LONG time to find it on a free movie site. It has elements of greatness, as well as a side of cheese from Shatner's Desilu days. (More about Desilu-related issues in the next post!). The show boasts a strangely eclectic cast, from John Cassevetes (moody dark dramas, mostly) to Joseph Cotten (good journeyman actor meant to add credibility) to none other than Batman himself, Adam West.

It's worth seeing for the horsemanship alone. Shatner did all his own riding, a fact which makes more sense in light of the fact that at age 85, he STILL does all his own riding, competing at Saddlebred competitions all over the place. He's not exactly lean any more, but he does it. He's a natural horseman, and to see him thundering along bareback (no stirrups in Al's day!) with no bounce at all, as still as a feather on the horse's back. . . it's a sight to be seen.

The rest is pretty OK, though it's definitely a product of its time. Too bad it didn't make it, as this was the era - between Star Trek and T. J. Hooker, when Shatner was once again a star - that he had to live out of the back of his truck, with only the occasional Loblaws commercial to relieve the drought. But Shatner always had the ability to keep on keeping on, to be a working actor. Nowadays he does anything he wants - including riding horses.

A sentimental favorite

Of course. . . of course!

Mister Ed

Original name: Bamboo Harvester

Birth:

1949

El Monte

Los Angeles County

California, USA

Death:

Feb. 22, 1979

Burbank

Los Angeles County

California, USA

Animal Actor. Mister Ed, a Palomino horse officially named Bamboo Harvester, was a show and parade horse who was foaled in 1949 in El Monte, California. His parents were The Harvester (Sire), a Saddlebred owned by Edna and Jim Fagan; and Zetna, (Dam) who was sired by Antez, an Arabian imported from Poland. Bamboo Harvester was trained by Lester Hilton. Lester "Les" Hilton had been apprenticed under Will Rogers, and also worked with the mules in the "Francis the Talking Mule" movies. Due to old-age ailments, Bamboo Harvester was put to sleep in 1970. The producer of the Mister Ed series never would answer the question of how the horse's lips were made to move. There have been many theories over the years, including the use of peanut butter, but none have been authenticated. (bio by: Ronald Leon)

Cause of death: Euthanized

Burial:

Snodgrass Farm

Tahlequah

Cherokee County

Oklahoma, USA

Maintained by: Find A Grave

Record added: Jan 01, 2001

Find A Grave Memorial# 1551

This is a cobbling-together of a post I spent about four hours on this morning. Trying to fix the formatting, which I do for nearly every post, it suddenly disappeared.

ALL of it. It was just a blank.

I mean, no backup. Didn't even go into a recycle bin or anything.

I feel stabbed, ripped off and as if something has been snatched away from me (like four hours that I can never get back).  I don't know, all I can do to salvage this is put up some of the photos and whatever I remember of the text, though there were also three or four videos that were VERY hard to find, not to mention a gif that I can't recover.

Jesus.

Anyway, what I was GOING to say before the finished and polished post was ripped out of my hands, was something like this: as a little girl, I adored Mr. Ed, and I can see why. He was a character actor with a sweet face, and he was also a handsome palomino, a former parade horse, his shiny coat coming across well even in grainy black-and-white.

The show we saw on TV wasn't the original. There was a failed pilot starring the same horse, but a different Wilbur. This Wilbur was a clinker, and it didn't fly. But there was something about Ed. Network execs must have decided to give him another try.

(Now that I think of it, black lines kept appearing at the sides. Did that mean something? This version is awful, but I feel I must continue, damn it.)

Oh, what else? I wrote something about My Friend Flicka, a 1950s series which is now posted in its entirety on YouTube. At one point, I would have killed to see even one episode, but now I find I can't stomach Johnny Washbrook and the way he's always crying. He's a fairly good horseman, and the horse is beautiful (of course, of course!). But it was mainly that theme song I loved as a kid. It began with a little harp-stroke which isn't in most of the YouTube vids. It's cut off, probably because most people didn't notice it. But to me, it meant magic was about to begin. This video may or may not have it, because I don't remember which one I posted originally. Took me a while to find it, too.

There were others, National Velvet, Fury. . . Fury was, I have to admit, the best horse actor, and the handsomest of all. In fact, he was simply stunning. But the show involved a lot of shrill whistling and irritating yelling: "Fuuuuuuuuuu-reeeeeeeee!" . And NOWHERE in the YouTube videos does the announcer ever say, "Fury. The story of a horse. . . and the boy who loved him."It's probably something like "Play it again, Sam", a TV myth.

This is from one of those very old-format TV sites set up in about the year 2000:

But the true star of the show was Fury himself. Known as Highland Dale when he lived on a farm in Missouri, he was 18 months old when he was discovered by well-known movie horse trainer Ralph McCutcheon who first used him in “Return of Wildfire” in ‘48. Series producer Leon Fromkess hired McCutcheon to deliver a horse for the series. By this time, McCutcheon had changed the horse’s name to Beauty (often called Beaut) and had worked him in “Lone Star” (‘52), “Johnny Guitar” (‘54) and “Gypsy Colt” (‘54). He was cast as the black stallion in “Giant” (‘56); and several other shows after “Fury” ended.

Can't find where I got this info, but Highland Dale was an American Saddlebred, long and rangy compared to the rather dinky Ed. Flicka was somewhere in the middle. William Shatner breeds Saddlebreds. Lesson for the day.

Elizabeth Taylor on Highland Dale/Fury was a sight to behold. His size can be gauged by how tiny she looks on him, almost like a girl. She was a magnificent horsewoman who did not need a double, not even in National Velvet when she was 13. I've tried to make a gif of my favorite scene from Giant, very poorly cropped for some reason (to avoid a letterbox effect, no doubt).

And that's all I can salvage of this post. I'm sorry, but I'll bet I feel a whole lot worse about it than you do.

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I've been goosed: it's Kids and Company!

Incredibly, I just got this AVI file from an internet source to post on YouTube! Call me a techie genius. All right then, don't. But here it is, Kids and Company, one of the most surreal things I've ever seen on the internet.

How did this happen? I started off with one of MattTheSaiyan's old DuMont videos. I found the intro for this incredible kids' show from 1951, made three gifs of it, then wondered if I could find any more.

Kids and Company

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kids and Company
Presented by Johnny Olson
Ham Fisher
Country of origin United States
No. of episodes 39
Production
Running time 24 mins.
Release
Original network DuMont
Picture format Black-and-white
Audio format Monaural
Original release September 1, 1951 – June 1, 1952

Kids and Company is an American children's TV show that aired on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network on Saturday mornings from September 1, 1951 to June 1, 1952, and was hosted by Johnny Olson and Ham Fisher. The series was primarily sponsored by Red Goose Shoes.

This was Olson's third series for DuMont, previously hosting the talent show Doorway to Fame and daytime variety series Johnny Olson's Rumpus Room. Rumpus Room shared the schedule with Kids for the latter's entire run, and ended a month after Kids did.

The 1952 finale (stated by Olson as being the last before a ten-week hiatus; despite this, the crew appears onstage to sing "Auld Lang Syne") is held by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Two or three episodes, including March 25 and the finale, are held by the Paley Center for Media. One is held by the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

This Wiki entry has more links in it than text. By today's standards, the show ended almost before it began. But back then, they actually had weekly episodes that were weekly, period! So 39 episodes wasn't bad for a nine-month run.

The show is execrable. The goose, a horrible puppet that reminds me of the deformed bird-woman at the end of Freaks, flails around in one spot. It can't walk around or even hop or move at all except to flap and bounce. Its whole purpose is to be a shill for Red Goose shoes (which is why it's called Red Goose!) This ranks as one of the worst puppets I've ever seen, though Howdy Doody is right up there. The goose has a horrible kidlike voice that sounds like it's on the wrong speed, and also makes a rasping noise something like a death-rattle.

I had a weird feeling about this show. It reminds me very strangely of an SCTV feature called Happy Hour, with Happy Marsden introducing episodes of Six Gun Justice (A Republic Serial) from a bar. He had a strange puppet with him called. . . Sammy the Goose. The goose snapped its bill together in an alarming way, but didn't talk. Only its head and neck showed.

I did wonder, just now, if Sammy the Goose was based on one of those infinitely fuzzy embryonic memories, a first-childhood-memory thing all blurred in your consciousness, but, hauntingly, still there. When the writers at SCTV came up with Happy Hour and that bloody goose puppet, was there some faint echo of something they'd seen on Dumont Network in 1951?

It's possible.

This is before my time, but the SCTV crew are a few years older than me. I don't remember Dumont at all, but how could a 2-year-old remember Dumont? I just remembered that TV scared me half to death.

This was something I felt ashamed of - I was sure I was the only one - until I began to find HUNDREDS of YouTube videos of "scary", "terrifying" TV logos, most of them very old. Some of the comments mentioned very early childhood memories, and being scared shitless of these things.

So maybe people DO remember? But not consciously. For who'd drag this creature from hell out of his or her memory bank?

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Zeroes in my brain: time rolling backwards

It might be food: from Happy Living, A Guide for Brides (1970)