Thursday, June 30, 2016

June's Underappreciated Music: the links to reviews, samples and more

The monthly assembly of undervalued and often nearly "lost" music, or simply music the blogger in question wants to remind you reader/listeners of...

Patricia Abbott: Music

Sergio Angelini: Bernard Herrmann film scores

Brian Arnold: The Shark Alley Hobos: Off the Deep End: A Musical Tribute to Jaws

Jayme Lynn Blaschke: Friday Night Videos

Paul Brazill: A Song for Saturday

Jim Cameron: Charles Sullivan: Re-Entry; Ray Charles at Newport, 1960

Gil Scott-Heron Band, Ohne Filter (March, 1984)


Sean Coleman: a half-century of Dylan

Bill Crider: Song of the Day; Forgotten Hits; Obits and more

Jeff Gemmill: Today’s Top 5: Saturday, 6/25/2016

Cara Giaimo: Ma Rainey (courtesy Bill Crider)

Jerry House: Music from the Past; Hymn Time; The Brothers Four

"Three Days with Doc Watson" (1976; presented on BBC's Omibus)


George Kelley: The Songs of Pomus & Schuman; Van Morrison: ...It's Too Late to Stop Now... (Volume 1)

Margot Kinberg: Murder songs

Kate Laity: Songs for a Saturday

B. V. Lawson: Your Sunday Music Treat

Steve Lewis: Music I'm Listening To

Todd Mason: some singers, mostly doing covers; Abbey Lincoln and Annie Ross; Rob Wasserman. RIP

Lucy Wainwright Roche and the Roches: "America"


Andrew Orley: Nobody's Listening (courtesy Paul Brazill)

Lawrence Person: Shoegazer Sunday

James Reasoner: Middle of the Night Music

Charlie Ricci: The Kinks: "Celluloid Heroes"

Bhob Stewart: Jeremiah McDonald

Anonymous-4: The Lily and the Lamb


Paul O'Dette: The Lute in the Italian Renaissance

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Rob Wasserman, 1952-2016: Saturday Music Club in memoriam

Rob Wasserman with the David Grisman Quartet: "14 Miles to Barstow"


Rob Wasserman Band: "Is Anyone There?"


Night Music, season 2, episode 15: Rob Wasserman & Bob Weir; The Modern Jazz Quartet; Nana Vasconcelos and John Lurie; Screamin' Jay Hawkins; Bongwater & the Fabulous Pussywillows; Artis the Spoon Man; archival footage of Dorothy Donegan, George Gershwin et al.

Rob Wasserman and Cheryl Bentyne: "Angel Eyes"


Rob Wasserman: "Ode to Casals"

Tuesday's Overlooked A/V: films, television, radio, museum exhibits and more: more links to reviews, interviews et al.

The weekly roundup of reviews, interviews, and other citations of (often, though not always) underappreciated examples of the dramatic and related arts; for the first time, not one but two citations of an auction, as well (and two defenses of Hallmark Channel programming; I don't disagree). As always, please let me know if I've missed your or anyone else's contribution this week in comments... thanks. 

Anne Billson: Godzilla (1998 film); Movietalk: "Blockbusters"
In a World...

Anonymous: Carnal Knowledge; In a World...; 4 films that all happen in a single location each (two Hitchcocks, neither Rope); Kid Brother (Harold Lloyd)

Benjamin Poole: Daemos Rising

Bhob Stewart: "The Monkey Business Illusion"; "Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg"; The Firesign Theater and I Think We're All Bozos on this Bus;  Stan Freberg on The Dick Cavett Show; Six Feet Under finale; Moebius painting

The Big Broadcast, 26 June 2016:
  • 7 p.m. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
    “The Callicles Matter” Parts 3 and 4 (CBS, Original airdates May 2 and May 3, 1956)
  • 7:30 p.m. Burns And Allen
    “George Wants To Kick Meredith Willson Out” (NBC, Original airdate January 24, 1946) 
  • 8 p.m. Gunsmoke
    “Bull” (CBS, Original airdate November 3, 1957)
  • 8:30 p.m. The Stan Freberg Show
    “The Musical Sheep” (CBS, Original airdate July 14, 1957)
  • 9 p.m. The Adventures of Philip Marlowe
    “The Red Wind” (NBC, Original airdate June 17, 1947)
  • 9:30 p.m. Suspense
    "A Friend To Alexander" (CBS, Original airdate June 15, 1944) 
  • 10 p.m. Lux Radio Theater
    “Captain Blood” (CBS, Original airdate February 22, 1937)





















Los tallos amargos










Sisters; apparently, the steambath opening for
every early episode was a clammy drag to film.






Steve Lewis: Stop Me Before I Kill!

Television Obscurities: US Fall TV schedule, 2000

Theresa Brown: Devil's Doorway

Victoria Loomes: The Charge of the Light Brigade

Vienna: Sudden Fear; the ruby slippers of The Wizard of Oz (1939)


Bill's citation of Casino Royale got me thinking about the hodgepodge parody film of the mid 1960s, which has aspects that I enjoy, even if Tracy Reed is shockingly underused in the cuts I've seen (Joanna Pettit does what she can to make up for that, among the other cast). Which sent me down a web hole for (the British) Tracy Reed...best remembered, obviously, for Dr. Strangelove, where she was the only woman in the film, and as she noted in this brief interview, played all her role in a bikini (aside from a still of her as a Playboy centerfold draped with a copy of Foreign Affairs magazine, as multilevel if still blatant visual pun as one could want...hmmm. wonder if that's part of Terry Southern's contribution, or if Kubrick came up with that himself...).

























'Dr. Strangelove' and the Single Woman

July 10, 1994|ANNE BERGMAN (Los Angeles Times)

When asked if she has fond memories of working on Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," Tracy Reed emphatically responds, "Oh yes, lots!"

But Reed, who played "Miss Foreign Affairs," Gen. Buck Turgidson's comely secretary, concedes, in a phone call from London, that there were times on the set that were "very alarming."

"I was the only woman in it and I was wearing a bikini the whole time," Reed remembers, and when Kubrick decided to open the set to the press, "there were all these reporters staring at me. It was dreadful."

Reed landed the part after she met Kubrick with some friends at dinner. "We chatted," she says, "and he asked me to do it."

Despite overexposing her to the media, Reed says Kubrick was "wonderful." George C. Scott, who played Gen. Turgidson, was "a darling, absolutely sweet," and the film's star, Peter Sellers, was "a sad man who never quite knew who he really was."
Although just 22 when "Dr. Strangelove" was produced, Reed disputes original press material claiming the film is "introducing Tracy Reed as 'Miss Foreign Affairs.' "
"That's ridiculous," she says. "I've been in the movies all of my life!"
The stepdaughter of British director Sir Carol Reed and the daughter of actress Penelope Dudley Ward, Reed actually made her film debut at the age of 6 months, co-starring with her mother and Laurence Olivier in "The Demi-Paradise."
And after "Dr. Strangelove," Reed continued to appear in British comedies--"there were so many I can't remember"--working again with Sellers in "A Shot in the Dark," until she began turning down parts to raise a family.
Now 52, Reed has three daughters, ages 34, 21 and 20. She works as a broker for a British gourmet foods company, for whom she "travels the whole of Ireland," trying to encourage grocery stores to carry the company's products.
Reed got the job, she explains, by "pure chance," after deciding she wanted to remain in West Cork, Ireland, where she had recently bought a house. "I just rang them and asked if they needed someone to help them export to Ireland," she says. "They agreed and I had a job."
She says she's sometimes recognized as "Miss Foreign Affairs" when "Dr. Strangelove" has "just been on television," and is delighted to hear that the film is being re-released in the United States, where she hopes a lot of people see it.
But more important, she says with a laugh, "I hope we all get paid again."





















From the 1962-63 ITV television series Man of the World, Reed with Craig Stevens. from Wikipedia 

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Friday's Forgotten Books: the links to the reviews and more: more new links added



The weekly assembly of reviews and citations of books and related literature not yet or no longer given much attention, or at least usually less than they deserve. Hosted usually by founder Patti Abbott; this week and next hosted here. 

Patricia Abbott: Step Gently Out by Helen Frost and Rick Lieder

Sergio Angelini:  He Won't Need It Now and The Dead Stay Dumb by James Hadley Chase; The Madman's Room by Paul Halter

Mark Baker: Murder on Astor Place by Victoria Thompson

Yvette Banek: The House of the Four Winds by John Buchan

Les Blatt: Silence in Court by Patricia Wentworth

Brian Busby: Return to Rainbow Country by William Davidson

Bill Crider: She Got What She Wanted by Orrie Hitt

Scott A. Cupp: The Lost Continent (aka Beyond 30) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

William F. Deeck: Too Many Doctors by Holly Roth

Martin Edwards: Vintage Murder by Ngaio Marsh; Robert Barnard reissues; Murder Intended by Francis Beeding; The Link by Anthony Gethryn

Barry Ergang (hosted by Kevin Tipple): The Twisted Ones by "Vin Packer" (Marijane Meaker)

Will Errickson: Ammie, Come Home by "Barbara Michaels" (Barbara Mertz)

Curt Evans: Death Brings a Storke and Cradled in Fear by Anita Boutell; Murder in the Closet and other guides to LGBTQ+ crime fiction

Fred Fitch: The Grifters by Jim Thompson

Paul Fraser: Science Fantasy (#69, January-February 1965) edited by Kyril Bonfiglioli (with Keith Roberts)

Ed Gorman: Zigzag by Bill Pronzini

John Grant: Before the Poison by Peter Robinson

Rich Horton: The City of Lilies by Anthony Pryde and R. K. Weekes

Jerry House: Isaac Asimov Presents: The Best Science Fiction of the 19th Century edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh

Tracy K.: The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie

George Kelley: The Dying Earth by Jack Vance; Our Kind of Traitor by "John le Carré"

Margot Kinberg: Bad Country by C. B. McKenzie

Rob Kitchin: The Man from Beijing by Hanning Mankell

Richard Krauss: (Bestseller Mystery #40:) $106,000 Blood Money by Dashiell Hammett

B. V. Lawson: The Singing Spider by Angus MacVicar

Evan Lewis: The Earp Curse by Glenn G. Boyer

Jonathan Lewis: "The New Catacomb" by Arthur Conan Doyle; "Three Steps Back" by Robert Weinberg

Steve Lewis: Murder is My Business by "Brett Halliday"

Todd Mason: Seon Manley and Gogo Lewis, Helen Hoke, Hugh Lamb, Michael Parry, and other anthology editors of the '60s and '70s

John F. Norris: Death and the Professors by Kathleen Sproul; Here's Blood in Your Eye by Manning Long

John O'Neill: Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis

Mildred Perkins: Rise Again by Ben Tripp

James Reasoner: Pistol Passport by Eugene Cunningham

Richard Robinson: Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction edited by Jeff Prucher 

Gerard Saylor: The Driftless Area by Tom Drury; A Sleeping Life by Ruth Rendell

Steve Scott: "Game for Blondes" by John D. MacDonald

Jack Seabrook: "Mrs. Herman and Mrs. Kenmore" by Donald Honig

Kerrie Smith: Treachery in Bordeaux by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noel Balen

Prashant Trikannad: Killing Floor by Lee Child

David Vineyard: The Man from the Norlands by John Buchan




Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Overlooked A/V: Films, Television, Radio and More: the links to reviews, interviews, and more

The weekly roundup of reviews, interviews, and other citations of (often, though not always) underappreciated examples of the dramatic and related arts. As always, please let me know if I've missed your or anyone else's contribution this week in comments... thanks. 
Layer Cake
Anne Billson: 10 Underrated Crime Drama Films from the 1990s

Anonymous: Speedy; Please Give; After the Wedding

Bhob Stewart: "22G"

The Big Broadcast: Juneteenth, 2016
  • 7 p.m. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
    “The Callicles Matter” Parts 1 and 2 (CBS, Original Airdates April 30th and May 1st, 1956)
  • 7:30 p.m. My Favorite Husband
    “Knitting Baby Booties” (CBS, Original airdate September 24, 1948)
  • 8 p.m. Gunsmoke
    “Man and Boy” (CBS, Original airdate October 27, 1957)
  • 8:30 p.m. The Great Gilder sleeve
    “Father's Day Chair” (NBC, Original airdate June 21, 1942)
  • 9 p.m. Dragnet
    "Red Light Bandit” (NBC, Original airdate July 14, 1949)
  • 9:30 p.m. The Adventures of Father Brown
    “The Three Tools of Death” (Mutual/MBS, Original airdate July 22, 1945)
  • 10 p.m. Lux Radio Theater
    “SORELL AND SON” (CBS, Original airdate January 01, 1940)
Bill Crider: Layer Cake [trailer]

B. V. Lawson: Media Murder

Colin McGuigan: Ice Cold in Alex

Comedy Film Nerds: Paul F. Tompkins

Cult TV: The Avengers: "Brought to Book" (mildly NSFW image at top of post)

Cynthia Fuchs: Human Rights Watch Film Festival: Starless Dreams; The Crossing

Dan Stumpf: The White Gorilla

David Cramner: Four Faces West; Monte Walsh; The Grave of Marcus Pauly
Person of Interest

Elizabeth Foxwell: Detective Kitty O'Day; Mike Chomko on PulpFest and Argosy artists/illustrators

Eric Hillis: Woman on the Run


George Kelley: Maggie's Plan

Gilbert Colon: Person of Interest

"Gilligan Newton-John": Satan's Blood; Nuda per Satana (NSFW imagery)

Iba Dawson: films v. the books they adapt

Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.: Let Freedom Ring; Crime Classics

Jackie Kashian: Sarah Urling, private detective

Urling a Miss Fisher's fan...

Jackie Kashian and Laurie Kilmartin: The Jackie and Laurie Show

Jacqueline T. Lynch: Titanic (1953 film)
The Forbidden Kingdom

James Clark: Life (2015 film)

James Reasoner: The Forbidden Kingdom

Janet Varney: Gary Anthony Williams

Jerry House: The Trail Beyond

Joe Yanick: River's Edge and other underrated films of 1986

John Grant: The Phantom in the House; Key Largo; Salvare la faccia

Jonathan Lewis: Skyjacked

K. A. Laity: Much Ado About Nothing (Dundee Rep, stage)
Key Largo

Karen Hannsberry: Stalag 17

Ken Levine: Difficult People; multi-camera sitcoms; writer credits

Kliph Nesteroff: Rose Marie

Kristina Dijan: The Underworld Story; The Sound of Fury; The Rains Came

Laura G.: Prairie Law; Stage to Chino; James A. FitzPatrick TravelTalks shorts (Volume 1); Key Largo
Carnival of Souls

Lesley Gaspar: Laura

Lindsey: Carnival of Souls; A Woman's Secrets

Lucy Brown: Best of Men

Marty McKee: The Girl Next Door (1978 film); (The FBI:) Cosa Nostra: An Arch Enemy of the FBI

Mildred Perkins: The Jungle Book

Mitchell Hadley: The Rebel; TV Guide, 20 June 1959

Noel Vera: Heneral Luna; 100 Best Filipino Films

Patricia Abbott: Kate and Allie; Weiner

Patricia Nolan-Hall: Dreamboat; Woman's World; The Winslow Boy

Paul D. Brazill: Kes

Rachel Stecher: The Bride Walks Out

Rick: Pride and Prejudice (1940 film)

Rod Lott: The Last Slumber Party; Careful What You Wish For; Natural Born Pranksters (ugly sort of possibly NSFW image)

"Rupert Pupkin": SutureReturn of the Killer Tomatoes

Ruth Kerr: The Conquest of Everest; Reel Infatuation

Salome Wilde: She Couldn't Take It; Scarlet Street

Scott A. Cupp: Wild in the Streets

Sergio Angelini: Campion: "Police at the Funeral"

Stacia Jones: If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium; Gold

Stacie Ponder: The House That Dripped Blood; The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave

Stephen Bowie: Leonard Heideman, murderer, Mission: Impossible producer

Steve Lewis: Calling Dr. Death; Trancers [Bill Crider on Trancers]

Steve Scott: John D. MacDonald on the film industry, 1948 (courtesy Bill Crider)

Theresa Brown: Send Me No Flowers

TV Obscurities: The Mike Wallace Interview

Victoria Loomes: Boccaccio '70

Vienna: Finger of Guilt