Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Tuesday's Overlooked Films And/Or Other A/V: the links


As frequently, a few more reviews and citations, as at the links below, are likely to be added over the course of the day...and thanks to the contributors, and to you readers...please feel free to let me know in comments if I've overlooked your review, or someone else's.

Bill Crider: Frankie and Johnny (1991) [trailer]

Brent McKee: Emmy polls

Brian Arnold: Catwoman through the decades; The Wizard of Speed and Time

Dan Stumpf: Killer's Kiss

Ed Gorman: Crown International Pictures

Elizabeth Foxwell: Climax!: "An Error in Chemistry"

Evan Lewis: The Phantom (1943)

Jeff Flugel: Have Gun - Will Travel

George Kelley: Total Recall (1990) on Blu-ray

Iba Dawson: videos for The The's Infected (for Dawson pere)

Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.: Wednesday's checklist

Jack Seabrook: Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "Mother, May I Go Out To Swim?"

James Reasoner: Nevada Smith

Jerry House: Michael Shayne: "Shoot the Works"

John Charles: Cannibal Girls

Kate Laity: London Boulevard

Marty McKee: Twilight (1998)

Patti Abbott: Medical Center (CBS)

Prashant Trikannad: Greed (1924)

Randy Johnson: Big City (1937)

Richard Robinson: How the Olympics are covered in the US

Rod Lott: The Entity

Ron Scheer: The Horse Soldiers

Scott Cupp: Christmas with the Dead; Yellow Submarine

Sergio Angelini: Top 10 Film Noir

Stacia Jones: August Movies to Watch For; Adrienne Ames

Stephen Gallagher: CarNivorous

Steve Lewis: News is Made at Night

Walter Albert: Lemora, Lady Dracula (aka Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural)

Yvette Banek: Albert Nobbs; Charlie Chan at the Olympics

Zybahn: Night Gallery

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Saturday Music Club: some folk-rock

The Springfields "Silver Threads and Golden Needles"

The Byrds "The World Turns All Around Her"


The Turtles "You Showed Me" (partially live tv version [Smo Bros?] of their Byrds cover)


Simon and Garfunkel "A Most Peculiar Man"


Lucy Wainwright Roche and the Roches "America"


Fairport Convention "It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcraft"


Joni Mitchell "Urge For Going"


The Byrds "Here Without You"


Fairport Convention "Si Tu Dois Partir"

Jasmin Tabatabai (Bandits soundtrack) "All Along the Watchtower" (still plays despite grayed-out post image--9 Feb 2023)


Joni Mitchell: "The Way It Is" (on the CBC series of the same title)

The Band (and friends) "I Shall Be Released"


The Roches "Acadian Driftwood"


The Mamas and The Papas "Straight Shooter"


Love "Your Mind and We Belong Together"


Fairport Convention "Morning Glory"/"Time Will Show the Wiser"/"Reno, Nevada" (do read the poster's comments...)

Bob Dylan and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band: "Maggie's Farm"




Friday, July 27, 2012

FFB: BENNETT CERF'S HOUSEFUL OF LAUGHTER, edited by BC (Random House, 1963)


Gene Wolfe once wrote of "the book of gold"...a book, found early on, which launches a young reader into pursuing literature systematically...the gateway drug. I had a small library of gold (augmented with recordings of all sorts), but one of the key anthologies of my young reading was this best of Bennett Cerf's humorous books. Best because, unlike his collections of anecdotes, often secondhand (at best) or excerpted from others' longer work in the manner of The Reader's Digest and other magazines, this (while including a few aggregations of that sort of material for a few pages at a time) is a true anthology of humorous writing, including short stories, novel excerpts, memoir excerpts, poetry, examples of Roger Price's "droodles" (apparently "doodle/riddle" though I probably would've guessed as much out of "droll doodles" or "drawing/doodles"), and Walt Kelly's Pogo-cast version of "Chicken Little" for more elaborate graphic storytelling. It rather blew my doors off when I was eight, introducing me to nearly all of its contributors, and despite the kidsiness of some of Cerf's retold wit, it would stand up pretty well if I was to discover it today (see the index of contents below). A fair amount of chestnuts, then and now, such as the Tom Sawyer chapter, or the (admittedly then-newish) Norman Juster (without Jules Feiffer's illustrations but with Arnold Roth's added) or the O. Henry story; John Steinbeck's borderline horror story probably only occasionally has found its way into other anthologies aimed at children. And a fair amount of material, ranging from that of Stephen Leacock through Mac Hyman to Roger Price (and even Walt Kelly and Max Schulman and the latter's Dobie Gillis) which seems more obscure now than it seemed likely to become half a century ago when this book was assembled, or forty years ago when I first read it. (I borrowed it then from the Enfield [CT] Central Public Library; my new copy, bought used online, was due February 18, 1975, at the Brockway Memorial Library in Miami Shores, Florida.) There has been only one edition, this oversized hardcover (produced in the same dimensions and basic design as the young readers' Alfred Hitchcock's anthologies Random House was publishing at that time, almost all edited by Robert Arthur) was apparently never reprinted as a hardcover nor paperback. It's good to see some folks who would become more important to me in other contexts (Carolyn Wells, the light-verse poet and parodist, was also an early critic of crime fiction and an early annual best of the year anthologist in that field; I had yet to see a Marx Brothers film by the time I read this book, though I had seen syndicated repeats of You Bet Your Life; the films soon followed this reading), as well as to realize I went on to read more by almost everyone collected here (Billy Rose, not so much, even despite having a short story attributed to him in an early issue of Fantastic) very soon after reading this; another I didn't read much of, but experienced in other media, was of course Mac Hyman's character Will Stockdale, dramatized most famously by the recently late Andy Griffith. Access always helps; aside from the slight Mad Libs books, my major other exposure to Roger Price's work in the early 1970s was in the anthology from Mad comics he introduced, and perhaps one Droodles collection; Art Buchwald and Thurber and Twain and even Hildegard Dolson and Clarence Day were much more easily procured, the last two in Scholastic Book Services and similar (Bantam Pathfinder?) reprints of the books their contributions here were taken from.

According to WordCat, 226 libraries have held onto their copies of this anthology for all these years, and I can see why (I wonder how it circulates); I hope Brockway Memorial doesn't think they still have theirs. I'm tempted to ask them.

Index by me, for submission to the Miscellaneous Anthologies index online among the Contento/Stephensen-Payne indices.

illustrations throughout by Arnold Roth

vii * Bennett Cerf * Foreword * in
3 * Richard Armour * It All Started with Columbus * ex (It All Started with Columbus, humor)
18 * Heywood Broun * The Fifty-First Dragon * ss
28 * Walt Kelly * The Story of Chicken Little * cs
38 * James Thurber * The Little Girl and the Wolf * vi
40 * O. Henry * The Ransom of Red Chief * ss
53 * Bennett Cerf * Riddle-de-Dee * riddles retold
57 * Hildegard Dolson * How Beautiful with Mud * ex (We Shook the Family Tree, memoir)
66 * John Steinbeck * The Affair at 7, Rue de M--- * ss (Harper's Bazaar, April 1955)
76 * Clarence Day * Father Opens My Mail * ex (Life with Father, memoir)
83 * Bennett Cerf * Child's Play: A Selection of Anecdotes (as told to BC) * hu (from Try and Stop Me and other Cerf anecdote collections)
92 * Stephen Leacock * How We Kept Mother's Day * ex (from Laugh with Leacock)
97 * Robert Benchley * Your Boy and His Dog * hu
101 * Roger Price * The Rich Sardine * cartoons with explication
107 * Mark Twain * Tom's Whitewash * ex (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
113 * Art Buchwald * Pay the Two Francs * hu
117 * Billy Rose * Learning to Drive * ex (from Wine, Women and Song)
120 * A Turn for the Verse * grouping
120 * Gelett Burgess * The Purple Cow * pm
120 * Anonymous * O I C * pm
121 * Hughes Mearns * The Little Man Who Wasn't There * pm
121 * Richard Armour * Miniature * pm
122 * Margaret Fishback * Infant Prodigy * pm
122 * [Julius] "Groucho" Marx * Note to a Persistent Pest * pm
123 * Arthur Guiterman * Habits of the Hippopotamus * pm
124 * Carolyn Wells * How to Tell the Wild Animals * pm
126 * Laura E. Richards * Eletelephony * pm
127 * Samuel Hoffenstein * Poems in Praise of Practically Nothing * pm
128 * Lewis Carroll * Father William * pm
129 * Morris Bishop * Song of the Pop-Bottlers * pm
130 * Six Poems by Ogden Nash * grouping
130 * Ogden Nash * Reflections on Babies * pm
130 * Ogden Nash * Song of the Open Road * pm
130 * Ogden Nash * The Eel * pm
130 * Ogden Nash * The Lama * pm
131 * Ogden Nash * The Fly * pm
131 * Ogden Nash * The Termite * pm
132 * Little Willie Poems * grouping
132 * Charles H. Clark * untitled * pm
132 * Anonymous/retold by Bennett Cerf * six untitled short poems * pm
133 * Two-Liners * grouping
133 * Strickland Gillian * On the Antiquity of Fleas * pm
133 * William Benet * Maid's Day Out * pm
133 * George Ade * "Last night at twelve I felt immense/But now I feel like thirty cents" [untitled] * pm
134 * Richard Armour * untitled * pm
134 * Anonymous (retold by Bennett Cerf) * four two-line untitled poems * pm
134 * Out on a Limerick * grouping (from Out on a Limerick, edited by Bennett Cerf)
134 * Anonymous (retold by Bennett Cerf) * twenty untitled limericks * pm
135 * Gelett Burgess * untitled limerick ["I wish my room had a floor;"...] * pm
135 * Edward Lear * untitled limerick ["There was an old man in a boat,"...] * pm
135 * Woodrow Wilson (misquoting Anthony Euwer) * untitled limerick ["As a beauty I am not a star."...] * pm
136 * Gelett Burgess * untitled limerick ["I'd rather have fingers than toes;"...] * pm
138 * Berton Braley * untitled limerick ["When twins came, their father, Dan Dunn,"...] * pm
139 * Carolyn Wells * untitled limerick ["A tutor who tooted a flute"...] * pm
140 * Norman Juster * The Word Market * ex (from The Phantom Tollbooth)
153 * James Thurber * The Night the Bed Fell * ex (from My Life and Hard Times, memoirs; originally published on its own in The New Yorker)
159 * Max Schulman * The Face is Familiar But-- * ex (from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, novel, Random House 1945)
172 * Mac Hyman * Practice Mission * ex (from No Time for Sergeants, novel, 1954)

(Roger Price's droodle, "The Frightened Mop"...or, possibly, "A Spider Doing a Handstand")

For more of today's books, please see Patti Abbott's blog. (Thanks to Phil Stephensen-Payne and Dennis Lien for some factual assistance with this post.)

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Cele Goldsmith Lalli, interviewed by Barry Malzberg

Cele Goldsmith, who married and took the name Cele Lalli, edited, as noted below, the magazines Fantastic and Amazing from 1959-1965 (having served as Assistant Editor since 1955, briefly with Howard Browne and then with Paul Fairman), until Ziff-Davis sold the titles to Sol Cohen's Ultimate Publications, at which time she moved over to the staff of ZD's Modern Bride, the latter half of her 33-year career there as editor-in-chief. In the wedding-consultancy industry there is a notable memorial award in her honor.

Barry Malzberg edited Fantastic and Amazing in 1968, after a short and much better-paid term at Escapade magazine; the new publisher had rid himself of the then-current Escapade staff, and the ridiculous lack of resources at Ultimate led in notable part to Malzberg's resignation, as it had for Harry Harrison before him; Ted White, who followed, was capable of getting by on the modest (to put it very kindly) stipend editing for Ultimate offered.

George Zebrowski originally commissioned this interview, as he notes below, while on staff at a later Amazing, during its game-company years.


Reprinted from Synergy SF: New Science Fiction, edited by George Zebrowski (Five Star, 2004), with the kind permission of Zebrowski, who wrote the italicized prefatory note, and Barry Malzberg, with further thanks to Pamela Sargent for her assistance. I might just transcribe this, but for now, the (relatively) Quick and (?)Easy (please click on images to enlarge):










    Cele Goldsmith Lalli, Michael Lalli, Barry Malzberg:

    Photo by and Copyright © Andrew Porter; all rights reserved

prefatory note Copyright © 2004 by George Zebrowski; interview copyright 2002 by the Science Fiction Foundation on behalf of Barry Malzberg; copyright © 2004 by Barry Malzberg; originally published in Foundation

Related: Cele Goldsmith Lalli: an obituary and photography by Andrew Porter

Women Editors in Fantasy and SF at Midcentury

Anthologies from Amazing

Barry Malzberg, co-editor: Neglected Visions

Fantastic and its peers (when I was first reading them)...

Cele Goldsmith/Lalli at the Internet SF Database

Judith Merril's Year's Best SF (speculative fiction, so fantasy, sf and more), the 10th Edition, covering Lalli's penultimate year at the fiction magazines...

A Disch/Goldsmith note.

Laurie Powers, who misidentifies Cele Goldsmith/Lalli as a pulp editor, but otherwise offers useful information in this post.















A Barry Malzberg-edited issue, the blue one featuring Fritz Leiber's "Richmond, Late September," below several Goldsmith/Lalli issues.




A very incomplete Cele Goldsmith/Lalli bibliography:

Editorial work at Ziff-Davis, as noted, on Fantastic Stories (which during her editorship, in 1960, became Fantastic: Stories of Imagination), Amazing Stories (which became Amazing: Fact and Science Fiction Stories), Dream World: Tales of Incredible Powers (a shortlived Fantastic spin-off), Pen Pals, Modern Bride

Anthologies from the fiction magazines particularly highlighting her years (courtesy the Contento and ISFDb indices):

The Best from Amazing Stories ed. Ted White (Manor, 1973, pb)
· No Charge for Alterations · Horace L. Gold · nv Amazing Apr/May ’53
· The Augmented Agent [“I-C-a-BeM”] · Jack Vance · nv Amazing Oct ’61
· The Misfit · Roger Zelazny · nv Amazing Oct ’63
· The Dowry of the Angyar [“The Dowry of Angyar”] · Ursula K. Le Guin · ss Amazing Sep ’64
· Placement Test · Keith Laumer · nv Amazing Jul ’64
· The Horn of Time the Hunter [“Homo Aquaticus”] · Poul Anderson · ss Amazing Sep ’63
· Phoenix · Ted White & Marion Zimmer Bradley · ss Amazing Feb ’63
· Rogue Psi · James H. Schmitz · nv Amazing Aug ’62

The Best from Fantastic ed. Ted White (Manor 95242, 1973, 95¢, 192pp, pb)
9 · Foreword · Ted White · fw
13 · I’m Looking for “Jeff” · Fritz Leiber · ss Fantastic Fll ’52
27 · Angels in the Jets · Jerome Bixby · ss Fantastic Fll ’52
40 · Paingod · Harlan Ellison · ss Fantastic Jun ’64
51 · The Malatesta Collection · Roger Zelazny · ss Fantastic Apr ’63
58 · Sally · Isaac Asimov · ss Fantastic May/Jun ’53
79 · The Roller Coaster · Alfred Bester · ss Fantastic May/Jun ’53
88 · Eve Times Four · Poul Anderson · nv Fantastic Apr ’60
125 · Final Exam · Chad Oliver · ss Fantastic Nov/Dec ’52
138 · April in Paris · Ursula K. Le Guin · ss Fantastic Sep ’62
151 · A Trip to the City [“It Could Be Anything”] · Keith Laumer · nv Amazing Jan ’63

[I'm not sure why White included an Amazing story in this Fantastic book.]

Amazing Stories: 60 Years of the Best Science Fiction ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (TSR 0-88038-216-3, Jul ’85 [Aug ’85], $7.95, 255pp, pb); Anthology of 20 stories which originally appeared in Amazing, with a section of color illustrations showing magazine covers.
5 · Amazing Stories and I · Isaac Asimov · in
9 · The Revolt of the Pedestrians · David H. Keller, M.D. · nv Amazing Feb ’28
29 · The Gostak and the Doshes · Miles J. Breuer, M.D. · ss Amazing Mar ’30
43 · Pilgrimage [“The Priestess Who Rebelled”; Meg] · Nelson Bond · nv Amazing Oct ’39
57 · I, Robot [Adam Link] · Eando Binder · ss Amazing Jan ’39
67 · The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton · Robert Bloch · ss Amazing Mar ’39
75 · The Perfect Woman · Robert Sheckley · vi Amazing Dec ’53/Jan ’54
79 · Memento Homo [“Death of a Spaceman”] · Walter M. Miller, Jr. · ss Amazing Mar ’54
93 · What Is This Thing Called Love? [“Playboy and the Slime God”] · Isaac Asimov · ss Amazing Mar ’61
103 · Requiem · Edmond Hamilton · ss Amazing Apr ’62
115 · Hang Head, Vandal! · Mark Clifton · ss Amazing Apr ’62
125 · Drunkboat · Cordwainer Smith · nv Amazing Oct ’63
ins. · 60 Years of Amazing Stories’ Covers · Misc. Material · il
147 · The Days of Perky Pat · Philip K. Dick · nv Amazing Dec ’63; expanded to The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964
165 · Semley’s Necklace [“The Dowry of Angyar”] · Ursula K. Le Guin · ss Amazing Sep ’64
179 · Calling Dr. Clockwork · Ron Goulart · ss Amazing Mar ’65
187 · There’s No Vinism Like Chauvinism · John W. Jakes · nv Amazing Apr ’65
215 · The Oögenesis of Bird City · Philip José Farmer · ss Amazing Sep ’70
225 · The Man Who Walked Home · James Tiptree, Jr. · ss Amazing May ’72
237 · Manikins · John Varley · ss Amazing Jan ’76
247 · In the Islands · Pat Murphy · ss Amazing Mar ’83

Title: Fantastic Stories: Tales of the Weird & Wondrous
Editors: Martin H. Greenberg, Patrick L. Price
Year: 1987-05-00
ISBN-10: 0-88038-521-9 ISBN-13: 978-0-88038-521-3
Publisher: TSR
Contents
Fantastic Stories: Tales of the Weird & Wondrous • (1987) • interior artwork by Janet Aulisio
7 • Introduction (Fantastic Stories: Tales of the Weird & Wondrous) • (1987) • essay by James E. Gunn
11 • Double Whammy • (1970) • shortstory by Robert Bloch
21 • A Drink of Darkness • (1962) • shortstory by Robert F. Young
33 • A Question of Re-Entry • (1963) • novelette by J. G. Ballard
59 • The Exit to San Breta • (1972) • shortstory by George R. R. Martin
70 • The Shrine of Temptation • (1962) • shortstory by Judith Merril
85 • Dr. Birdmouse • (1962) • shortstory by Reginald Bretnor
97 • Eve Times Four • (1960) • novelette by Poul Anderson
126 • The Rule of Names • [Earthsea Cycle] • (1964) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin
135 • The Still Waters • (1955) • novelette by Lester del Rey
144 • A Small Miracle of Fishhooks and Straight Pins • (1961) • shortstory by David R. Bunch
148 • Novelty Act • (1964) • novelette by Philip K. Dick
174 • What If . . . • (1952) • shortstory by Isaac Asimov
186 • An Elixir for the Emperor • (1964) • novelette by John Brunner
202 • King Solomon's Ring • (1963) • novelette by Roger Zelazny
220 • Junior Partner • (1962) • shortstory by Ron Goulart
229 • Donor • [Dr. Russell Pearce] • (1960) • novelette by James E. Gunn

(citations courtesy WorldCat:)
Modern Bride-related books:

Modern bride wedding celebrations : the complete wedding planner for today's bride
Author: Cele Goldsmith Lalli; Stephanie H Dahl
Publisher: New York : J. Wiley & Sons, ©1992

Modern bride guide to etiquette : answers to the questions today's couple really ask
Author: Cele Goldsmith Lalli
Publisher: New York : J. Wiley & Sons, ©1993

Modern bride complete wedding planner : the #1 bridal magazine helps you create the wedding of your dreams
Author: Cele Goldsmith Lalli; Stephanie H Dahl
Publisher: New York : J. Wiley, ©1997

Selected video performances:
The Party of your life
Author: Cele Goldsmith Lalli; Tott's Champagne Cellars.
Publisher: Modesto, CA : Tott's Champagne Cellars, ©1992.

[Guest lecturer, Cele Lalli]
Author: Cele Goldsmith Lalli; Fashion Institute of Technology (New York, N.Y.)
Series: CL 111 lecture series, v. 92.









new content: Tuesday's Overlooked Films And/Or Other A/V: the links


As is often the case, a few of today's probable contributions haven't been posted yet, and will be added over the course of the day, as they appear...thanks to all the contributors, and to you readers of these reviews and citations at the links below. And, as always, if I've missed your or someone else's review, please let me know in comments. Thanks again!

Bill Crider: Panic in the Year Zero (trailer)

Brian Arnold: Cruel Jaws

Chuck Esola: King of the Ants

Dan Stumpf: Dead Reckoning (1947)

Ed Gorman: Brett Yates: W. R. Burnett and the Crime Writers of Hollywood

Elizabeth Foxwell: Man in the Attic

Evan Lewis: The Bold Caballero, a Zorro film

George Kelley: Too Big to Fail

Iba Dawson: The Jesse Owens Story (1984)

Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.: The Jack Benny Program: The Lost Episodes, Harry O, and other DVD news

Jeff Flugel: Jonny Quest

James Reasoner: Big Bad Mama

Jerry House: The Mad Monster

John Charles: Newspaper ads for exploitation films: The Tuesday Ten

Juri Nummelin: Maniac (1980)

Kate Laity: The Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival [sic]

Marty McKee: Madmen of Mandoras; They Saved Hitler's Brain

Michael Shonk: Harry O (first season, continued)

Mike Toomey: Maigret: "Maigret et l’affaire Saint-Fiacre" (aka "Maigret Goes Home")

Patti Abbott: That Cold Day in the Park

Prashant Trikannad: "Roundup on Sherman's Ranch"

Randy Johnson: The Mummy (1958); The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb

Rod Lott: Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s

Ron Scheer: Escape from Fort Bravo


Scott Cupp: Millennium Actress


Sergio Angelini: Curse of the Twisted Candle

Stacia Jones: The Phantom Creeps

Steve Lewis: Chasing Danger (1939)

Yvette Banek: My 50 Favorite Mystery and/or Thriller Films

"Zybahn": Night Gallery: Season Two, Episode Two

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Saturday Music Club: 10 jazz albums


"Hora Decubitus"



"Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise"



"Blue Shadows in the Street"



"Hackensack"



"News from Blueport"



"African Village"



"Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise"



"Four"



"Angelica"



"Event IV; Event VIII"


And a bonus track:
Toshiko Akiyoshi and her trio-mates not long after her emigration to the US, in 1958:

Friday, July 20, 2012

FFB: Simenon week; Fredric Brown, Robert Arthur, Saki






As with my non-review of Margaret Millar in Millar week, I am undone by the the dispersed and partially packed-up nature of my library...my Georges Simenon works are in boxes somewhere, and even my backup plan, on this week full of work and health distractions, hitting The Title Page for something new to me, a fine if jumbled store on the edge of Villanova and Bryn Mawr, was foiled by rather worse things for them, as a water-main break flooded their large space and the smaller collectibles store behind it (which I wasn't aware of)...the Mercury and Bestseller Mystery issues I'd been judiciously going through the last several times I was in, including a Simenon or two I'd thought I'd purchased, were among the lowest-shelf victims. (Actually, they were on a little display shelf on the floor in front of the crime-fiction shelves...I fear most of what survived from that shelf is what I'd bought over the last several months.)

So, I can currently only point to the fine, small US public television network MHz Worldview's continuing International Mysteries wheel, which still offers at least one Maigret film, from the series of adaptations starring Bruno Cremer, every month...unfortunately, as of this hour, it looks as if the "live stream" webcast of the channel programming is dark...but potentially, those without access to the network in the 30+ television markets it currently broadcasts/cablecasts in can watch the Cremer films and the diverse other programming there (webcast at the first link above).

Meanwhile, at at the ReaderCon, Fredric Brown was cited as the 2012 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award writer, to help draw attention to the overlooked in the sf and fantasy field...at least one juror for that award has noted that while Brown is certainly eligible on grounds of literary quality and influence, he's vastly less forgotten or overlooked than most of the previous recipients of the award, with at least a fair amount of Brown's crime and fantastic fiction still in print and his reputation secure.

Which nudges me into further consideration of the collections I read as a youngster, including what might still be Brown's career best-selling, rather eclectic collection Nightmares and Geezenstacks, and Brown's collaborator Robert Arthur's somewhat more focused (both in content and audience) Ghosts and More Ghosts, and their inspiration Saki's three collections, the first two I owned (a Scholastic Book Services item first published in 1974, and the 1970s edition of the Dell Laurel Leaf item below) and his first one-volume Complete Works, a public library-borrowing favorite back when and since added to my library (the small pleasures of adulthood often include being able to spoil one's self thus, at least some of the time)...Noel Coward introduction and all.

For more reviews, of actual Simenon works (and Prashant Trikannad's search for same in the market in India) and of other books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

Courtesy the Locus Index:
Fredric Brown, Nightmares and Geezenstacks (pagination from the omnibus And the Gods Laughed, Phantasia Press 0-932096-47-6, Oct ’87
260 · Imagine, a Proem · pp F&SF May ’55
261 · Nasty · vi Playboy Apr ’59
263 · Abominable · vi Dude Mar ’60; Portfolio, gp
266 · Rebound [“The Power”] · vi Galaxy Apr ’60
269 · Nightmare in Gray · vi Dude May ’61; Five Nightmares, gp
271 · Nightmare in Green · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961
273 · Nightmare in White · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961
275 · Nightmare in Blue · vi Dude May ’61; Five Nightmares, gp
277 · Nightmare in Yellow · vi Dude May ’61; Five Nightmares, gp
279 · Nightmare in Red · vi Dude May ’61; Five Nightmares, gp
281 · Unfortunately · vi F&SF Oct ’58
283 · Granny’s Birthday · vi AHMM Jun ’60
286 · Cat Burglar · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961
288 · The House · vi Fantastic Aug ’60
291 · Second Chance · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961
293 · Great Lost Discoveries I - Invisibility · vi Gent Feb ’61; Three Part Invention, gp
295 · Great Lost Discoveries II - Invulnerability · vi Gent Feb ’61; Three Part Invention, gp
297 · Great Lost Discoveries III - Immortality · vi Gent Feb ’61; Three Part Invention, gp
299 · Dead Letter [“The Letter”] · vi EQMM Jul ’55; Killers Three, gp
301 · Recessional · vi Dude Mar ’60; Portfolio, gp
303 · Hobbyist · vi Playboy May ’61
305 · The Ring of Hans Carvel · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961; retold and somewhat modernized from the works of Rabelais
307 · Vengeance Fleet [“Vengeance, Unlimited”] · vi Super Science Stories Jul ’50
310 · Rope Trick · vi Adam May ’59
312 · Fatal Error [“The Perfect Crime”] · vi EQMM Jun ’55; Killers Three, gp
314 · The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver I, II, & III [“Of Time and Eustace Weaver”] · ss EQMM Jun ’61
320 · Expedition · vi F&SF Feb ’57
322 · Bright Beard · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961
324 · Jaycee · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961; this story is given as being from F&SF 1955 in The Best of Fredric Brown and from F&SF Oct ’58 in bibliographies, but has not been found in F&SF.
326 · Contact [“Earthmen Bearing Gifts”] · vi Galaxy Jun ’60
329 · Horse Race · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961
332 · Death on the Mountain · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961
335 · Bear Possibility · vi Dude Mar ’60; Portfolio, gp
337 · Not Yet the End · vi Captain Future Win ’41
340 · Fish Story · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961
343 · Three Little Owls (A Fable) · vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961
346 · Runaround [“Starvation”] · ss Astounding Sep ’42
351 · Murder in Ten Easy Lessons [“Ten Tickets to Hades”] · ss Ten Detective Aces May ’45
360 · Dark Interlude · Fredric Brown & Mack Reynolds · ss Galaxy Jan ’51
368 · Entity Trap [“From These Ashes”] · ss Amazing Aug ’50
384 · The Little Lamb · ss Manhunt Aug ’53
396 · Me and Flapjack and the Martians · Fredric Brown & Mack Reynolds · ss Astounding Dec ’52
404 · The Joke [“If Looks Could Kill”] · ss Detective Tales Oct ’48
413 · Cartoonist [“Garrigan’s Bems”] · Fredric Brown & Mack Reynolds · ss Planet Stories May ’51
421 · The Geezenstacks · ss Weird Tales Sep ’43
431 · The End [“Nightmare in Time”] · vi Dude May ’61; Five Nightmares, gp


Courtesy: WorldCat
and ISFDb:
Ghosts and more ghosts.
Author: Robert Arthur; Irv Docktor (illustrator)
Publisher: New York, Random House [1963]
Contents
Footsteps Invisible • (1940) • shortstory by Robert Arthur
Mr. Milton's Gift • [Murchison Morks] • (1953) • shortstory by Robert Arthur (aka The Man with the Golden Hand)
The Rose-Crystal Bell • (1954) • shortstory by Robert Arthur (aka Ring Once for Death)
The Stamps of El Dorado • [Murchison Morks] • shortfiction by Robert Arthur (aka Postpaid to Paradise 1940 )
The Wonderful Day • (1940) • novelette by Robert Arthur
Don't Be a Goose • [Murchison Morks] • (1941) • shortstory by Robert Arthur (aka Don't Be a Goose!)
Obstinate Uncle Otis • [Murchison Morks] • (1941) • shortstory by Robert Arthur
Do You Believe in Ghosts? • (1941) • shortfiction by Robert Arthur (aka The Believers)
Mr. Dexter's Dragon • (1943) • shortfiction by Robert Arthur (aka The Book and the Beast)
Hank Garvey's Daytime Ghost • (1962) • shortfiction by Robert Arthur (aka Garvey's Ghost)


Courtesy: Fantastic Fiction:

Incredible Tales A collection of stories by Saki (Dell Laurel Leaf, 1966)
contents:
Sredni Vashtar,
The Boar-Pig,
The Schwarz-Metterklume Method,
The Story-Teller,
The Lumber Room,
The Toys of Peace,
The Reticence of Lady Anne,
Mrs Packletide's Tiger.
The Unrest-Cure,
The Quest,
The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope,
The Seventh Pullet,
The Hen,
The Brogue,
The She-Wolf,
The Holiday Task,
The Blind Spot,
Louise,
Fibroid Studge,
Gabriel-Ernest,
Tobermory,
The Mouse,
The Lost Sanjak,
The Background,
The Easter Egg,
The Peace of Mowsle Barton,
Laura,
Dusk,
The Interlopers,
The Open Window,
The Image of the Lost Soul.

Courtesy: Paperback Swap:
Humor, Horror, and the Supernatural: 22 Stories Author: H. H. Munro (Writing as Saki) Scholastic 1974
Contents: Gabriel-Ernest --
The bag --
Tobermory --
Mrs. Packletide's tiger --
Sredni Vashtar --
The Easter egg --
Filboid Studge --
Laura --
The open window --
The Schartz-Matterklume method --
A holiday task --
The storyteller --
The name day --
The lumber room --
The disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh --
The wolves of Cernogratz --
The guests --
The penance --
The interlopers --
The mappined life --
The seven cream jugs --
The gala programme.

Courtesy Evergreen/PALibrary:
The complete works of Saki (introduction by Noel Coward) New York: Doubleday, 1975
Table of Contents:
The unbearable Bassington
When William came
The Westminster Alice
The death-trap
Karl-Ludwig's window
The watched pot.Reginald : on Christmas presents
on the academy
at the theatre
peace poem
choir treat
worries
House-parties
Carlton
Besetting sins
drama
tariffs
Christmas revel
Rubaiyat
The innocence of Reginald
Reginal in Russia
The reticence of Lady Anne
The lost Sanjak
The sex that doesn't shop
The blood feud of Toad-water
A young Turkish catastrophe
Judkin of the parcels
Gabriel-Ernest
The saint and the goblin
The soul of Laploshka
The bag
The strategist
Cross currents
The baker's dozen
The mouse
The chronicles of Clovis : Esme
The match-maker
Tobermory
Mrs. Packletide's tiger
The stampeding of Lady Bastable
The background
Hermann the irascible : a story of the great weep
The unrest cure
The jesting of Arlington Stringham
Sredni Vashtar
Adrian
The chaplet
The quest
Wratislav
The Easter egg
Filboid Studge, the story of a mouse that helped
The music on the hill...The story of St. Vespaluus
The way to the dairy
The peace offering
The peace of Mowsle Barton
The talking-out of Tarrington
The hounds of fate
The recessional
A matter of sentiment
The secret sin of Septimus Brope
"Ministers of Grace"
The remoulding of Groby Lington
The she-wolf
Laura
The boar-pig
The brogue
The hen
The open window
The treasure-ship
The cobweb
The lull
The unkindest blow
The romancers
The Schartz-Metterklume method
The seventh pullet
The blind spot
Dusk
A touch of realism
Cousin Teresa
The Yarkand manner
The Byzantine omelette - The feast of nemesis
The dreamer
The quince tree
The forbidden buzzards
The stake
Clovis on parental responsiblities
A holiday task
The stalled ox
The story-teller
A defensive diamond
The elk
"Down pens"
The name-day
The lumber-room
Fur
The philanthropist and the happy cat
On approval
The toys of peace
Louise
Tea...The disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh
The wolves of Cernogratz
Louis
The guests
The penance
The phantom luncheon
A bread and butter miss
Bertie's Christmas eve
Forewarned
The interlopers
Quail seed
Canossa
The threat
Excerpting Mrs. Pentherby
Mark
The hedgehog
The mappined life
Fate
The bull
Morlvera
Shock tactics
The seven cream jugs
The occasional garden
The sheep
The oversight
Hyacinth
The image of the lost soul
The purple of the Balkan kings
The cupboard of the yesterdays
For the duration of the war
The square egg
Birds on the Western Front
The gala programme
The infernal parliament
The achievement of the cat
The old town of Pskoff
Clovis on the alleged romance of business
The comments of Moung Ka
The unbearable Bassington
When William came
The Westminster Alice
The death trap
Karl-Ludwig's window
The watched pot.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

10 actors.













Michelle Yeoh.
Irene Bedard.
Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon.
Rachel Weisz.
Sela Ward.
Sarita Choudhury.
Mary Louise Parker.
Julianna Margulies.
Angela Bassett.
Sandrine Holt.

added content: Tuesday's Overlooked Films And/Or Other A/V: the links

As always, thanks to all of today's contributors, of reviews and citations at the links below, and to you readers...as frequently, there will be a few more additions to this list as they become available today, and if I've overlooked your item, or someone else's, please feel free to let me know in comments. Thanks again.

Bill Crider: W. W. and the Dixie Dancekings [opening credits]

Brian Arnold: The Hat Squad; Muppet Camera Tests; "Everyday Hulk"

Chuck Esola: Surf II

Ed Gorman: ...and the Movie Morlocks: Body Double

Elizabeth Foxwell: Arthur Conan Doyle, 1927

Evan Lewis: the "Saddle Up Saturdays" tv westerns bloc on the Inspiration Channel

George Kelley: The Neil Simon Collection

Ian Covell: Battle of the Worlds

Iba Dawson: The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)

Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.: The Green Hornet (1940 film serial)

Jack Seabrook: "The Glass Eye" (Alfred Hitchcock Presents:)

Jackie Kashian: Abraham Lincoln: Trailer Hunter

Jake Hinson: Mysterypod

James Reasoner: Beach Party

Jeff Flugel: Mirage (1965)

Jerry House: Celeste Holm and Cinderella (1965)

John Charles: The Deadly Sword; The Last Duel; The Shaolin Brothers

Juri Nummelin: Ridley Scott films

Kate Laity: Wise Blood

Marty McKee: Sh! The Octopus

Michael Shonk: Banyon (pilot for tv series; aka Banyon: Walk Up and Die)

Patti Abbott: Ruby in Paradise

Prashant Trikannad: The Beast (1988)

Randy Johnson: Dallas (1950 film)

Rod Lott: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Ron Scheer: The Indian Fighter (1955)

Scott Cupp: Oversexed Rugsuckers from Mars

Sergio Angelini: Hickey and Boggs

Stacia Jones: The Lodger (films of 1927; 1944)

Steve Lewis: No Man of Her Own; Sweet and Low-Down (1944)

Todd Mason: A L'Aventure (please see below)

Yvette Banek: Endeavour; Suspect (1987)

"Zybahn": Night Gallery, Season 2, Episodes 1 and 2




A L'Aventure is not an extraordinary film, but for a film attempting to shock the easily-shocked viewer, it's remarkably amiable; for a goofily manful film about women's sexual self-discovery (very much in, say, Henry Miller mode), it gains more credit on first viewing than it probably deserves by its openness to varieties of sexual experience and its support of its protagonist's attempts to get a truer sense of her own sexual desire and fulfillment. It's also a latter-day child of the New Wave of French cinema, alternating scenes of sexual tension and activity with relatively Platonic chats between Sadrine (Carole Brana) and a much older, anonymous philosophical seeker and retired physics teacher (Etienne Chicot)...he mostly keeps his physics facts straight, in the dialog by writer/director Jean-Claude Brisseau, though also suggests that reptiles have been on the Earth for 1-2 billion years, rather a bad estimate (bacteria, yes). However, more ridiculous as played out is the dependence of the film on the psychiatric uses of hypnosis, as Greg (Arnaud Binard) the young male med student or perhaps resident (if this is made clear, I missed it), for whom Sadrine leaves her closed-off husband, proves capable of hypnotizing Sadrine, a woman Sadrine knows, and a female friend and sex-buddy of that woman-friend at little more than the drop of a hat...and the sex-buddy friend, a lifestyle submissive married to a generous, wealthy male architect (you can see how Sundance Channel might've cheerfully thought to run this film in the midst of 50 Shades of Grey's current fad) soon engages with the other two women in a bit of a hypno-orgy, with Sadrine the first to shake off the trance...only to see that her new boyfriend is growing fascinated with the submissive, Mina (Nadia Chibani). Mina seems to have a psychic link with 14th Century nuns who famously explored forbidden levels of engagement with physical and spiritual ecstasy...this, and, it's suggested rather clearly, a bit of a sadistic streak in the hypnotist cause him to profess his Need to be with Mina instead of Sadrine...and Mina starts to have a bit of supernatural episode while Sadrine and Greg discuss their impending breakup.

This film is the most recent in a trilogy put together by Brisseau about women being helped along/pushed by the men in their lives to explore their sexual and philosophical limits, apparently, but I've yet to see either of the others, or any of his other films...this one was rather random catch on Sundance Channel, which seems to be picking up all the slack as this IFC Film is unlikely to run on the former Independent Film Channel, now (like its corporate cousin AMC) mostly devoted to series tv and rather more crowd-pleasing films interrupted by commercial breaks. While it's (as one of the two IMDb reviews notes) rather shallow but very prettily shot, its relatively healthy attitude toward sexual exploration (even as portrayed in very Hefner-friendly ways) tends to separate it from most of our "art-porn" or sexually-adventurous art films, where the characters are almost always in the grip of anomie or at least pervasive malaise, with their sex if anything at least illustrating if not furthering their misery...and this is as true of European, A/NZ and Asian films as it is of films from the Americas. This films steps away from that, at least to the extent that the sexuality here is at least indicative of much of the best of these characters' lives, of generosity of spirit when intimacy isn't quite present...thus, for example, the opposite of what goes on in the ridiculously overpraised films of Bertolucci, and something if not less fraught then less doomed than the sexual desire in the films of Paul Schrader nor even as tied up with misery as the sexual component usually is in even the least-damned of neo-noir situations (say, for example, the new couple at the center of Bound). The supernatural element, particularly as employed, also reminds me of how this film can be seen as the chirpy, largely comic alternative to the utterly tragic, literally deadly-serious film Martyrs, another film that (vastly more sure-footedly) brings a feminist, humanist critique to the kind of film which is almost by default particularly misogynist in its misanthropy.

So, not a great film, but a very prettily-shot qualified failure at worst, and with more to offer than similarly foolish but less ambitious or at least less generous films by the likes of, say, Brian DePalma or Oliver Stone.