PLAGUE DIARY 21: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

The Thing from Another World (1951)
It’s Noel Coward meets Frankstein. Howard Hawkes produced the film — and wrote it along with Ben Hecht (they collaborated on His Girl Friday). A bunch of incredibly handsome military types with really sexy 50s haircuts fly up to the North Pole in a rickety 1950s plane, because they’ve got wind of a ‘tremendous disturbance.’ Fortunately they have a Noble-Prize-Winning scientist, Dr. Carrington,  who is so brilliant he can’t finish a sentence:“We can learn secrets that have been hidden from man since the beginning of -” or  “I won't allow you to destroy -” Thank heaven Hawkes and Hecht only interrupt this mental heavyweight when we are all absolutely clear about precisely what he is going to say next. This film is very much like COVID-19. Nothing ever happens — except at key moments, to a very select group of people —and the rest of us have to sit around, waiting and making conversation. But oh, that conversation. Some really talented people wrote some of these ancient bloated Hollywood monstrosities — probably because most of them were destitute alcoholics. (Did you know that Dorothy Parker wrote a scene in Hitchcock’s Saboteur? I figured out which one it is — where Robert Cummings and  Priscilla Lane are hiding on a train, and stumble on some stray circus performers — The Fat Lady, the Midget and the Siamese Twins —and have a surprising, poignant, existential chat). In this film everyone talks over each other, which is meant to be naturalistic, but has exactly the opposite effect — (it’s all very David Mamet when Mamet was barely born.) What I find fascinating is that this is masculine chat, and we are supposedly eavesdropping on the way real, masculine men talk when they are alone. A lot of the talk is about ‘dames’ of course: “You oughta know better than to fool him, only dames can do that,” and “Try Seattle, they got girls there without fur pants on” etc etc. I find this incredibly sexy. None of the men in my house when I was growing up were witty, or talked about ‘dames,’ or interrupted each other, they would sit in corners silently, and acted miffed if you tried to draw them out. I remember going to sleep listening to the gentle (but clear) murmur of my Nana and my mother gossiping in the kitchen.  I knew that someday I wanted to be like them, so funny, and nasty, and deliciously immoral, ripping people apart and never bothering to put them back together again. Well in The Thing from Another World I was fascinated, intimidated and turned on by the short, snappy, incredibly fast, incredibly macho repartee. Do real men talk like this? I doubt it, but it’s fun to imagine it. And the kicker is — even the women in this movie talk like these fantasy men. Margaret Sheridan —playing a woman with the unlikely name of Nikki Nicholson (proving Hawkes and Hecht kinda wouldn’t know a woman if they fell over one, which they probably often did) — has this gorgeous scene that comes out of nowhere. She and the luscious Kenneth Tobey (as Captain Patrick Hendry) are flirting in a hard nosed, smoking kind of way, about how he was a bit too ‘handy’ with her on their date. He says suddenly “You’d could tie my hands if you want to.” Cut. And the scene continues in another room, and the edible Kenneth Tobey has actually been tied up by the cocky Margaret Sheridan. “Well you suggested it” she quips. More banter. Then she is kissing him while he’s tied up, and giving him drags on a cigarette. This is outright kinky, and mirrors what Feste says about language in 12th Night; that it is wanton. Language is, in case you haven’t noticed, dangerous. Talking about being tied up can lead to being tied up. And then there’s ‘telegraph vines.’ Dr. Carrington is mansplaining about intelligent vegetables — comparing The Thing to a ‘super carrot.” And someone says “An intellectual carrot, the mind boggles!’ And then they all discuss intelligent plants. (The appearance of The Thing is very disappointing — like all the monsters in these 50s films — it’s just James Arness glimpsed vaguely through snow, with what looks like fake fingernails, and a bald cap, and wearing a Hazmat suit.) Then we are on to ‘telegraph vines.’ I googled them (’Codariocalyx motorius’) — and they do exist. Dr. Carrington claims telegraph vines can talk to each other by wiggling in the air. But that is a fancy (again) of Hawkes’ and Hecht’s magical verbiage. (Telegraph vines don’t talk — they wiggle about to catch the sun.) But it’s a nice thought. And why shouldn’t it be true? I want to live in a world in which everything we wish was true always is. and everyone talks like they do in a Howard Hawkes film, where the women talk like imaginary men, and flirt as if their life depended on it. It’s a feast of words, and when you see it, so unexpectedly—  in this tawdry horror flick — you realise that the rest of the time, we’re just munching on scraps.

PLAGUE DIARY 20: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

Of Human Hearts (1938)
Beulah Bondi was nominated for an Academy Award for this movie. She is like her name; not very attractive, but full of warmth and stability. Sterling Holloway — a skinny, red-headed crookedly-smiling, comic actor, known for his odd, high voice, has a very small part. (That's not a pun. He went on to play Winnie-the-Pooh in the Disney cartoon. He never married, and Holloway said — and this is a quote— “because he felt lacking in nothing and did not wish to disturb his pattern of life.” But he also happened to be good friends with Spencer Tracey, who was —are you sitting down — gay. And Katherine Hepburn was a lesbian. Get ready, those are not the only bubbles I ‘m bursting in this crazy friggin’ blog!) Walter Huston plays the tyrannical father in Of Human Hearts, to perfection. And then there's James Stewart. He’s only 30 years old; and very believable as an overgrown boy. However, a real boy — Gene Reynolds (he later went on to produce the movie Mash) — plays James Stewart’s younger self for the first half of this movie. This was only Stewart’s 4th time cast in a leading role, and he bursts upon the screen.  Once Gene Reynolds is done being abused by his father, Stewart himself appears, and unleashes a fury that is so real that it made me cry. But today I’m having a bad day; I fell apart at the seams several times. I coughed too much this morning (Did I? or was it my imagination?). A friend called, clearly losing it somewhat, and we almost got into an argument. I keep almost getting into fights with my friends — they don’t want me to get angry about COVID-19 (obviously they haven’t read this blog).  So all this has nothing to do with being affected by father son flics. In fact I resented my father for never having existed — i.e., because he had so little effect on me. I frightened my father  because I was so much like my mother. And I think he was just bewildered that I was his son. The only time my father ever reminded me of Walter Huston in Of Human Hearts was when we were putting up the American flag on the 4th of July, and he suddenly went nuts. I let it touch the ground (Jesus, I didn’t know!) and he went ballistic: ‘Don’t you ever let The American Flag touch the ground! Never, never! Men fought and died for this flag!” I had never seen such anger, it came from nowhere. Walter Huston is a nightmare puritan father; he won’t let his son have pleasure. He and James Stewart are visiting the poor. As they sit down for grim meal of molasses and porridge, Walter Huston cheerily opines — ‘That’s mighty fine mush, Sister Clark’ and then — believe it or not — he eats a frog. Yes, there is a small frog in his porridge, and he explains: “It wasn’t easy, but I swallowed it. It’s my idea of courtesy.” And the old woman gives James Stewart her husband's old tattered coat (“he only wore it to church”) and James Stewart yells “I don’t want it! I won’t wear it!” And Walter Huston observes: “I’m sorry you mistake that cold frankness for courage.” But I wonder, is that what I’m doing here? I really don’t care. Huston wants his son to conquer his “rebellious spirit." Well I can’t conquer mine. Dr. Shingle, the drunken doctor, tells Gene Reynolds that “We can’t all do what’s right, or there wouldn’t be any work for your father.” It’s Foucault. Power structures feed on each other, perpetually. It’s the panopticon: surveillance, disobedience, and confession. So as we are being watched and reported on, someone else on TV is crying about the horrors of the fluid getting into your lungs, and about how death for all of us is just around the corner. But I’m finally beginning to feel tiny moments of fierce panic. Anthony Fauci said: “We might never get back to life pre-Corona virus.” And my friend phoned me and said: “I’m hearing this whole thing may last for three years.”  The climactic scene in Of Human Hearts? John Carradine as President Lincoln invites James Stewart into his office to get, Stewart thinks, a medal. Instead Carradine reveals he has received a letter from Beulah Bondi asking whether not her son is dead. Carradine lectures Stewart about what a horrible son he is. Well unlike James Stewart, I refuse to confront my own selfishness. Instead I’ll tell you three irrelevant stories (hold onto your hats, fellas!). My father was involved in a somewhat similar incident in World War II, with President Truman. He was 17 years old in 1945, and stationed in Tinian, building airfields with a tractor. One day he was looking at a Life magazine in the mess (is that what they call it?) and he saw a picture of his mother pinning a poppy on President Truman (my father’s mother was quite the impressive lady). My father wanted to keep the picture, so he ripped it out. When he was chewed out by the commanding officer, he told him “It’s a photo of my mother” but the officer didn’t believe him. So my father — being the privileged young white guy he was, wrote my grandmother and told her what happened. And sure enough, she wrote President Truman, and the order came down, and the officer apologised to my father. And the second irrelevant story is this. My connection with John Carradine is that my mother had emotional sex with his son David Carradine (which is somewhat similar to what she did with me for most of my life). Before she died, she met David Carradine in a bar (it was close to the end of his life too — soon after meeting her, he strangled himself accidentally while masturbating — I’m not saying it had anything to do with my mother, but if you knew my mother you might think it did). Anyway, my mother and David Carradine used to go out drinking together, and they got pretty rowdy, and one night he hit her. My mother, who was quite excited about her relationship with David Carradine, was also kind of proud of the whole thing. She was like me; such a mess she gave preachers a reason to preach. And here is the final irrelevant anecdote. (Again, are you sitting down?) My father placed the 'fat boy’ under the airplane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki.  He told my sister and I this story. I don’t know why. Did he want us to forgive him? I think he told us because it was a good story. He wanted to entertain us. So what are you supposed to do with that little tidbit of information? I could tell you that it’s not true. But, unfortunately, it is true. And I’m telling you now because I want you to know how it feels. I’m sick and tired of turning on the TV and hearing, or having my friends tell me quite gleefully, another bit of horrible news. Horrific news. People choking on their own lung fluids and not able to breathe. Why are you telling me this? Is it because you care about me? Or is it because it’s such a damn friggin’ good story?

PLAGUE DIARY 19: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

The Set Up (1949)
Robert Ryan plays Stoker, a small time prizefighter past his prime. He’s still got hope though. His girlfriend Julie played by Audrey Totter (a poor man’s Lana Turner) begs him to quit. "Don’t you see that you’ll always be — just ‘one punch’ away?” But Ryan says quietly (cuz he’s a simple, straightforward, lean and handsome guy) “If you’re a fighter, you gotta fight.” But he knows “in this business you’re an old man when you’re 35.”(It’s all very gay, as 35 is when most gay men realise they are really old). One time when Robert Ryan gets knocked down — the fight in this film lasts for a third of it — that’s 25 minutes  — and it’s a friggin’ amazing fight) as he’s struggling to his feet under a countdown he sees a sign that says “Are you 35? Try Vim.” And when Ryan is introduced in the ring — instead of applause — someone shouts “Hey pop! Where’s your wheelchair?” Done at 35, like so many of us. The audience is brutal, and it’s one of the two clumsy things in this film (the other being Audrey Totter’s performance). The director, Robert Wise (he also directed The Sound of Music) depicts the fight audience as ugly, bloodthirsty, louts, yelling “Kill him, Kill him!” And even worse: “Cut him to pieces!” And they smoke fat cigars, rocking back and forth, with crazed looks in their frenzied eyes, one fat man is eating everything in sight — and a woman in a pretty hat is yelling loudest for over-the-hill Robert Ryan to die. It’s a bit overdone, I mean I know we are all beasts but also we’re just human, give us a break. And Audrey Totter is so bad. But it doesn’t matter because Robert Wise has given her a gorgeous film noir landscape to act in front of; neon signs like The Cozy Hotel, Rooms-Beds-Hot-and-Cold-Weather, Penny Arcade, Tattoos, Chop Suey, King’s Ale,  Paradise City, Dreamland, a fire escape with swirling coloured lights and a girl laughing, and finally — another fat man virtually eating a cigar and reading a magazine called Thrilling Love — it’s all just so juicy you could eat it. This is my world, It is the world I was born into. I was staying at my grandmother’s — she was my favourite “Nana.’ (My father’s mother scared me. When I went to visit my father’s mother once she said, ‘oh you’re getting so fat we’ll have to buy you fat boy’s pants’ — it totally traumatised me for a year. Did she have no idea what such a statement could do to a young fag?) But my mother’s mother, Nana, read Dorothy Parker and rhapsodised about Barbra Streisand (‘Don’t you just love her’ — she used to say to me about all the gay icons— she said that about Carol Channing too). And looking back on it now perhaps she knew my secret, and perhaps that’s why she left that magazine in her living room for me to find. It was a copy of Life magazine — June 26, 1964 (I was 12). I opened it, thinking there would be pictures of movie stars, and there was the terrifying headline ‘Rejected by the Straight World, Homosexuals build a society of their own.” It went on to say “in big cities, homosexuals are discarding their furtive ways, and openly admitting, even flaunting their deviation.” I can’t remember whether I even read the article — but the pictures, oh the pictures. It was the sleazy, smokey, film noir world of The Setup — men in leather jackets in dark bars, men in suits smoking under street lamps, limp-wristed men laughing, talking, drinking and yes flirting with each other, openly brazenly, without any shame. These were ‘The Homosexuals.’ Well, I instinctively knew that I was one of them, and that their world was also mine. I was  sitting in my Nana’s living room in Norwich Connecticut — a yellow, clapboard, one-story, ranch house, that she owned with my step-grandfather (he was a Bell telephone repairman). Though New York City was only a 45 minute drive away, it might as well have been on another planet. But Life magazine transported me there. Was it comforting to meet ‘my people’ for the first time (and simultaneously discover my identity)? It was a nightmare. I had had ‘feelings; ever since I met Tad — Thaddeus Aloysius Popcorn Crohn (Tad’s grandfather discovered Crohn’s disease, we met when our bikes collided in Buffalo). Tad and I fooled around when we were 9 years old. And Tad started it — which was a betrayal, He convinced me to get naked with him one Saturday morning after a sleepover. My father opened the door on us once and I was terrified. But he just said ‘how are you two bathing beauties doing?’ Which was oddly, both confusing and calming at the same time. Our sleepovers were the centre of my life until Tad suddenly decided we couldn’t fool around anymore. “But why?” “I don’t know, I just don’t think we should.” “But why?”  No answer. I remember when Tad said this, he was lying in bed with me, with his pyjamas on, holding a tin of ‘Twinkle’ silver polish “Do you think this stuff really works?” All I could think of was — you started this thing Tad, you made me go crazy for you — and now you care more about some damn silver polish than me? But always those idyllic sun-drenched Saturday mornings after sleepovers with Tad would not leave my mind. And when I saw the magazine — how did I know there was a connection between nine year old boys getting naked and ‘this social disorder, which society tries to suppress’ so clearly catalogued in Life?  Since I ‘came out’ my life has centred around alcohol, bath houses, strip clubs, and of course gay bars. Cavafy — the greatest gay poet of them all (except for Frank O’Hara) — lived above a bath house in Egypt. So, well, I live above a bath house in my mind. I cannot imagine the attraction of being normal; all normalcy repels me, my identity is a film noir movie, and the dingy streets of The Set Up transported me there. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a middle class gay man and I live in a nice house.  And oh, the dialogue! Robert Ryan, desperate, in an alley, beaten by the crooked fight-fixers who wanted him to throw the fight, but he wouldn’t because he just had to win: “They wanted me to lay down” he says ‘but I was takin’ that kid.’ Then he realizes — in literally the last minute of the movie — “I can’t fight no more.”  And he says: “I won tonite,” meaning that he won the fight — but the greater win is that he’s come to terms with the fact that he’s just too old, and has to quit. Audrey Totter kind of ruins it by acting too much when she coos, breathlessly ‘We both won tonight” her eyes filling with tears (glycerin?). But hey, you need bad acting in a movie like this. It’s corny theme is that you have to learn to retire when your time comes.  Duh. Well, I haven’t quite learned that lesson. I’m going down with this sinking ship; meaning the vision of myself as outsider in some demented alley, hell-bent on getting piss-drunk and struggling up that wall. I know you’re probably thinking — ‘Hey that’s you’re world and you’re  welcome to it!’ And it’s kinda not real. But it is real. That is, in my mind.

PLAGUE DIARY 18: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

The Kennel Murder Case (1933)
I’ve never felt so alone. I’ve done it to myself really, I’ve done it all my life. Where does it come from? This need to not think the way everyone else does? Am I actually an independent thinker or just seriously nuts? When I was in junior high I came here from the U.S.A and I was the loudmouth in class, who always knew everything, and nobody liked me — because I got 100% in geography. I was the outspoken American, I got it from my mother. She encouraged me. Was it her fault? I used to carry a briefcase to school, and I played the ‘cello. I was in love with Tom Underwood — even though I didn’t know it — who lived across from me in the town houses on Cassandra Boulevard. He was always trying to get me to hit balls with a hockey stick. Tom’s father was the hero of the neighbourhood; when some sort of giant machinery (was it a tractor?) got out of control — he hopped on it and stopped it. Apparently lives were saved. To me Tom’s dad looked like a skinny old alcoholic loser. Tom’s mother was a big blowsy brunette who always wore too little. I think she was onto me. I still have pictures of Tom in my basement, sitting with my guitar, lanky, with thick juicy lips and a great shock of brown hair over his eyes. He was always outgrowing his clothes. When I got into high school I decided that I was going to get lower marks and become social. It didn’t work. In high school I was still an outcast despite my efforts to fit in, so I discovered Ayn Rand. That was a huge mistake, it only isolated me further. I knew from my mother that I was special — ergo I was Howard Roark in The Fountainhead. Yeah, it was her fault. I fell in love with the lifeguard at our town house pool, his name was Rick, and he let me watch things (I was taking swimming lessons, earning my bronze) while he screwed all the sexually frustrated housewives in our neighbourhood. He was always trying to get me to kiss girls, and I was terrified. Rick sat with me in the cabana at the pool one day with the door shut, and made me listen to all the dirty lyrics from ‘Louie Louie.’ ‘You’ve got to go to the CNE and kiss a girl ,’ he said. I didn’t want to, but I loved it when he gave me advice. ‘Just go up to some girl at a party and feel her tits. Just cup both of them in your hands.’ He would say. “They say they don’t like it, but they do.”When I finally went to the CNE with Tom and two girls, I lost them in the crowd, and ended up walking up the half finished Don Valley Parkway alone. Later on in high school I started dating Alison Knowles, whose father worked for Elwy Yost, and who used to wear stockings that matched her dresses. ‘A girl always matches’ she said. So she wore orange dresses and orange stockings, and green dresses and green stockings, etc.. (But that’s the way it was in the 60s.) We used to lie on her bed in the basement and neck to 'Scarborough Fair.' I used to get erections. Now and then when we were necking she would say ‘Uh oh, not that’ as if I was a masher who was going to rape her. But honestly, I had no idea what she was talking about. I can’t remember much about the rest of my high school years. When I got into the York University acting program I put all my energy into theatre; it was the only thing that made me happy. I had a girlfriend when I was at University, her name was Paula. She was very cute and very nice but I only had sex with her out of obligation. When I got involved with theatre I stopped feeling so much like an outsider, but inside I knew I was gay. Groups of New York actors were always coming to York University to  workshop with us. I remember once Gorden Masten told me that one of the male New York acting teachers had said I was ‘a real cutie.’ It was disconcerting. Ron Francis (an acting student) came to my room in residence and tried to kiss me. I said ‘No no!” He said ‘I just assumed..…’ It seems to me now that all during that time when I was desperately unhappy with my girlfriend Paula, and I only had the theatre, I was trying to fit in and be not gay but normal. So maybe I achieved that for awhile. Then I came out of the closet, and suddenly I was a bit of a star, and I did gay plays. All of a sudden I guess I had achieved what my mother had predicted, and what I had wanted all along — I was special, and the more friends I had, the more plays I put on, and visa-versa. But then I started speaking out again, and it was just like back in junior high. I was the loud American with the briefcase, only this time I was a drag queen and talking about being promiscuous. Jane my alter ego was taking people on walks through the gay village and talking about where she had sex. My picture was on the front of newspapers and magazines — I was intoxicated. More and more I was a polarising figure, and I was aware that people in my own community didn’t like me, but I kind of couldn’t stop. I was infamous — and it made me very insecure to be a bad boy that so many people hated. But on the other hand, it was kind of fun. People were always talking about me, it seemed. Was I doing it all just to get attention? Is that what the problem is now? Why I need so much to go out to bars and go see plays when everyone else seems perfectly happy — even inspired — to stay at home? And why I am writing a blog that just pisses everybody off? Is it because I want to be the centre of attention again? Do I actually believe everything I say I believe? I’ve written a book about Edward de Vere being the real Shakespeare. It makes me an outcast in the academic community. I do believe Edward de Vere was Shakespeare, (I’m sorry) but am I truly an original thinker, or am I just drawn to outlier ideas because I’m still that loud American being egged on by his crazy mother who was oddly obsessed with her ‘special’ son? I watched an old movie today and it made me feel absolutely nothing. Maybe art doesn’t really affect me anymore, maybe all these blogs are just stupid attempts at attention. The movie was called The Kennel Murder Case, starring William Powell — who I never really liked much. He plays a detective who is only concerned with the facts. Should I be more concerned with the facts? I honestly don’t believe that the government’s plan to deal with COVID-19 is the best one. (Sorry again!) I wish William Powell was around to get to the bottom of this mystery. At one point he thinks it’s the Chinese Cook, but then we realise this isn’t a racist movie, that Loki just looks like a villain because he’s different. I guess I look like a villain because I’m different. I’m really traumatised when people move away from me on the street because of COVID-19 — and it’s only because people have done that to me in the past because I’m gay. So maybe I should just buy a face mask — as that’s clearly what separates the good people from the bad now. The good people wear masks, the bad people don’t. Maybe I should go buy some toilet pepper and hurry home like a zombie wearing my mask, eager to get out of the public square, eager to hide at home so that old people like me will continue to live. Then people would love me at least. Mary Astor was so beautiful in The Kennel Murder Case. Sorry I said that. I don’t know why I’m so seduced by beauty, I don’t know why I care about beauty, I don’t know why I want this blog to be beautiful. Because it can’t be — not today — because I’m so depressed. No one cares about old movies or beauty anymore — except me — and no one is interested in outliers anymore. It’s best to just give In.  I was going to suggest in this blog, originally — are you sitting down?— that logic is not the best way to solve anything — even murder mysteries — because logic is fallible. In fact that’s what I planned my next Shakespeare book to be about, the fallibility of logic vs. the truth of art. Because in art — ‘ A is not A.’ That's what a metaphor is; when something is something else.  A lie that is true. Maybe that’s what I’ve written here today.  Something that’s not true. Maybe I’ve given you a lot of little facts from my life — all of which are true, but then put them all together to concoct a giant untruth (which is what science sometimes is too often, really) — out of a desperate compunction to get your attention. Maybe I’m not depressed. Maybe I’ve been leading you on. Oh look - another person wearing a mask! I really must consider doing that.

PLAGUE DIARY 17: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

Bachelor Mother 1939
I’ve never understood heterosexuality, so I don’t understand the popularity of this dull movie.  Ginger Rogers and David Niven are very attractive; Ginger Rogers is more so. David Niven is too effeminate for me —I like effeminate men, but I like them to be just a little bit dirty, and David Niven is just so, well, annoyingly clean. The film ends with a lie, and Rogers is winking at the audience as she kisses him, and perhaps that’s the key. She’s tricked the playboy into marriage, I mean, what could be more appealing than that? Isn’t that the essence of the heterosexual dilemma, the basis of all Bernard Shaw’s plays, the woman is seen as hell-bent on taming the man — and ultimately proves (surprise!) to have the mysterious power to do so — due to some primal urge to mate and procreate.  And the man, unbeknownst to himself after all, wants to be tamed, no matter how unfettered his previous promiscuity. Ginger Rogers finds a baby on a doorstep, and through comic mischance, is mistaken for the mother. Her boss David Niven thinks she is an unwed mother. This is the joke that seduced audiences then, and perhaps would still do so now. I find this sort of innocent-yet-oh-so-naughty comedy repellently coy. We're supposed to love this movie because it's not the much nastier movie that just beneath the surface. For with high Victorian nonchalance this movie endlessly flirts with the notion that Ginger Rogers (unimaginable!) is an irresponsible unwed mother. When Rogers drops the baby off with David Niven she says ‘He got me into this and he can get me out,’ merely meaning that he fired her and left her destitute, not meaning that he made her pregnant. When Rogers enters a dancing contest (well she has to dance in the damned movie, this is Ginger Rogers after all) David Niven scolds her:“Why — a mother who has just abandoned her child going to the Blue Slipper!” But the cozy middle class audience is merely titillated by being just this close to being scandalized. I do hate that. So let’s pretend this is another movie. The movie Ladybird — directed by Ken Loach — is the real movie behind this one, it’s the story of a working class woman who abuses her children. You have perhaps never heard of Ken Loach, but you have heard of Ginger Rogers (I would imagine) and this is just a symptom of what is wrong with nearly everything. Loach is one of the best directors in the world, but his films are deep, dark, political examinations of working class life. Loach loves working class people but presents them as appalling figures, warts and all. Watching Ladybird is like watching an autopsy or a slow motion vomit; she is a one woman suicide/murder machine. Yes she’s alcoholic and a druggie and yes each of her (I can’t remember is it 5 or is it 6?) roustabout, layabout, no-good rotten boyfriends is as sexy as hell. The social worker keeps warning her that her children will be taken away. And the viewer begins, despite him or herself, begins to ask the unaskable question; should some women be sterilised? But no one could do that to Ladybird. You just have to love her, you really do, she’s vulnerable and she loves her children to death -- just sometimes well, leaves them alone all night, and forgets to feed them. So what to do? As with life —- we don’t know what to do with Ladybird, because life is intolerable, because people are intolerable. But we just carry on, don’t we? We must carry on (Why? Not sure.) Well I’ll tell you a secret. I only carry on because of this, because of being able to watch a movie, even a bad one like this. One of the reasons I’m writing endlessly these endless movie reviews is because I can’t stand my life or myself. I mean I should be looking inward, shouldn’t I? Like my yoga addicted friends? (I can go on about them because none of them will ever read this — after all, they are so bloody content with themselves where do they have the time?!)  I can’t look inside myself because all I will see is a very selfish petulant old, fairy, who can’t get hard-ons anymore, and who is only loved by one or two people (God bless them) who can somehow manage to put up with him (we mustn’t ask why he is loved, therein lies the danger). So if I can’t look inward, I can instead watch old movies like this and create -- whatever this is -- I guess an attempt at writing. Because even this very bad movie has its moments. Like when Ginger Rogers and David Niven go out on New Years Eve. They are just beginning to fall in love; we’ve all been there, it’s a place we want to return to again and again. She is wearing one of those hats by ‘ Irene.’ Irene’s hats seem to save all these bad movies at the climax, when the director realises how bad his creation is, so he calls up Irene. It’s hardly a hat really — much like the feathered concoction in Three Daring Daughters — it’s  — a kind of shawl made out of veil material, so, well — it is a veil,  one that seems to sparkle on it’s own, and she wears it with a gold lamay dress, and when surrounding her head, it frames her face like a shimmering shroud, thus making Ginger Rogers resemble a kind of glamorous madonna. This is precisely what she plays in this film, as she is not a mother at all, but a movie star pretending to be someone who is not really a mother. And finally why can’t I stop writing these reviews? Why can’t I stop writing this particular review? Even when it’s stopped being a review I ramble on (it’s going to be very long, I see that now). Because the one thing I fear in life is boredom. It’s terribly bourgeois of me but I can’t imagine anything more fatal than that. That’s why I have anxiety issues actually, I prefer them. There are three kinds of octopi, apparently: depressed octopuses, angry octopuses and frightened octopuses. (Which one are you?) And I am a frightened octopus. I would rather be frightened to death — which I am all the time really — than bored. So I make up stories to relieve the boredom. But they frighten me too, and also they get me into trouble.  I went by Buddies in Bad Times Theatre today — the theatre I founded many years ago. It was after a woman almost slugged me on the street. She was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, with a huge backpack, which is, in my view -- especially these days -- an aggressive act. I was walking angrily with my earphones on and brushed her, or let’s say, to be completely accurate, yes I bumped her backpack slightly. She started yelling at me, and her friends were like ‘pay attention to her’ and I did, that is I turned around and said '-- Well, I said I was sorry’ (which I had, but it might have been under my breath -- or it might as well have been very loud because I was wearing headphones). Well she was a Ladybird kind of character, which just proves I may rhapsodise about someone in a movie  but I am terrified to meet them in real life. Because this woman was more of a fierce bird than she was a lady, and she really wanted to knock my block off. But I continued on to Buddies, thinking that I would look at the street sign that has my name on it — because yes, a few years ago they named a street after me in Toronto, and I’m very of proud of that -- and ashamed to be proud of it -- at the same time. I always imagine the street sign with my name on it will be torn down because so many people hate me. I saw that it wasn’t, and gaily approached it — only to discover that someone had painted me out of the mural on the wall. Yes there is a mural on the back wall of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre that someone painted a long time ago, and it’s a painting of a photograph of me and some other people. I was in drag in the painting. Well someone has left the other figures alone but deliberately painted over me, and put someone else there, someone they think is more suitable. (I can still see the faint shadow of my blonde wig slightly above the figure that now replaces me.) This isn't  about posterity — god no, after all, I’m probably the only one who knows the painting was there (except for the person who decided to paint over it). And when I see that kind of  naked nastiness and hate I turn into a very depressed octopus — but only for a moment really, and then I just pick myself up, brush myself off -- as the song says -- and start all over again. There’s a story for you. Perhaps it will take your mind of things, if only for a moment. Maybe you’ll see yourself in it, Maybe you won’t, As long as you don’t find a moral lesson in it. Because there isn’t any. I promise.

PLAGUE DIARY 16: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

You Can’t Get Away with Murder (1937)
I’m not so sure about that. But this is a melodrama pure and simple, so right means right, and wrong goes to solitary. It’s interesting that Humphrey Bogart was quite young and attractive in 1937.  He was always a ‘real man' (come on, we all know what that means!) but quite a pretty one. Apparently he was very cultured and sophisticated, nothing at all like the thugs he routinely portrays. Bogart brings to his thugs the opposite of a Marlon Brandoish realism; you can feel his intelligence looming over his impersonations. It doesn’t feel right for thugs to be so intelligent; they are supposed to be merely bad. Henry Travers — the angel from It’s A Wonderful Life — is back again, pretty much playing another angel, and he says of Bogart’s character: “I know your sort, a man who’s so crooked he would crack if he was straightened out.” Bogart races through lines like -- “Let this sink in, once you start going, you to got to keep going. It’s a one way street, no turns. So don’t try anything — because if you do, the screws will drill ya. And if they don’t, I will.” But to race through such film noir drivel is absolutely right; if such lines were said slowly, and too wildly or vehemently, they would be unconvincing. By the time he’s done spilling his guts in one of those bad guy tantrums you’re just left gasping for air; you want to go back and watch it again. His criminal partner in You Can’t Get Away with Murder is Billy Halop, who plays a very handsome, slender and confused young man (my favourite kind). The two of them together are somewhat sexually arousing. This isn’t just my idea— the sexual innuendo is in the film — when a cop hauls in Bogart in front of Halop to arrest the two of them for a robbery, he leers: “Here’s your boyfriend.” Ergo, the cop noticed also that Bogart is too old to be hanging out with such a kid (Halop was 17 when he played this role — much later he went on to play Archie Bunker’s cab driver friend in All in the Family). Halop looks up to Bogart, and who wouldn’t? When Halop is crying in the prison yard and Bogart puts his arm around him —“Okay, I’ll help you, leave it to me, kid” — one can’t stop recalling Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca — ‘Here’s looking at you, kid.” (I nurture the impossible fantasy that Humphrey Bogart might someday call me, ‘kid.') The plot of this movie is so complex, and comes at you so quickly (and preposterously) -- that there’s little point in recounting it. One moment Bogart and Halop are robbing a gas station, Bogart shoots somebody, switches guns — he’s framing Halop's brother-in-law (yes, I know, TMI already) — the next thing you know they’re all in Sing Sing (this movie was based on a play by Lewis E. Laws, a warden at Sing Sing) and let’s just say complications ensue. The penultimate conflict is between Bogart and Travers, and it’s over Halop’s soul. Henry Travers knows Halop is a good kid “You ain't the kind that can dodge things so easy. You still got to live with yourself the rest of your life.” Will he save his brother-in-law from the electric chair, and betray his mentor(/lover) Humphrey Bogart? Of course Halop does finally betray Bogart, when dying, and it’s the very pinnacle of bathos. Bogart protests: “He’s crazy Warden, he’s dying, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” (What a play this must have been — I say with tongue firmly in cheek!) But we do need these good guys and bad guys, don’t we? Why? I’m particularly addicted for making up stories about people, and by that I mean — imagining their stories, concocting for them a dark past, present, and future. I was obsessed with this guy at the gym once - I was soooooo jealous of him. He looked like a kind of skinny, slimy, older predator and yet despite this he was always chatting happily with all these beautiful young guys who  seemed to idolise him. How did this grizzled greasy coot manage to get these young studs under his spell? I was gossiping away nastily about him and someone said — 'No no, he’s a nice guy, he’s the nicest guy in the world. He’s straight and he’s an ex-drug addict, and he wants to start working as a trainer, and he’s just a sweet person trying to change his life." Oh. Sorry about that. But I don’t think I’m the only one. We are all more than ready to demonise our neighbours. My friend was talking with two other friends on the street and standing, I guess, too close together in a time of social distancing, An uncalled, for, unwanted, unofficial member of the new volunteer police force (now dedicated to enforcing social distancing at any cost)  i.e. a woman in a car — leaned out of the window and waved her finger at them in a scolding way. My friend was livid. People are reporting their neighbours for having  parties. What is this, communist Russia? Is Anne Frank going to end up in the attic? Am I exaggerating? No. It’s exactly the same impulse. It’s called the greed of self-righteousness, the hypnotic sensuality, the orgasmic thrill of knowing for sure that you are better than someone else. The thrill of self righteousness is way better than sex; and since it’s getting a lot harder for people to have sex these days — when you have to stay six feet away from everyone (although let me tell you there are some innovative ways to do that!)  — I feel obligated to participate in this frenzied, judgemental orgy in order to get myself off. I hate to bring him up — but let me tell you, Shakespeare would not have approved. Shakespeare had a soul (as Billy Halop finally proves he has also). Shakespeare made Shylock into the first unreliable narrator, the first anti-hero, i.e. the first character we have deeply mixed feelings about. Shylock moans “Hath not a Jew eyes?” — and at the same time he wants his pound of flesh. Is Shylock a good character or a bad character? Oh, you think he’s a anti-semitic stereotype? No, sorry, he’s simply human. Because that’s what human beings are. A consistent mess. We need melodrama, because we are allowed to judge people harshly in a way that should not be allowed to in real life. It’s kind of hard to hate Bogart — because he’s Bogart — but that’s what this film wants you to do. And that’s the goal of every melodrama. When will we look into our souls and figure out why we so desperately need to feel that we are better than other people? So much so that we will not only stop gossiping  about them (I won’t ever be capable of that!) but also stop wagging our fingers at them for not social distancing, and putting them in jail for having a party, or killing them for being a Jew? Because we all love doing this -- just to congratulate ourselves on what good people we are for ridding the world of Jews and social distancers, because we love believing -- in our heart of hearts -- that we are oh so much better than them. Social distance all you want. But please stop taking so much pleasure in it --  and in how much more virtuous you are than I. And if you say all this virtue signalling doesn’t  give you pleasure you’re lying. I’m admitting everything here. Everything. I think it’s about time you admitted something too.

PLAGUE DIARY 15: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

Seven Samurai (1954)
(This is not technically a bad film — in fact it is considered one of the greatest films ever made — but TCM had scheduled a day of Japanese films so I cheated and decided to watch it; it’s almost  3 and a half hours long, hence the lateness of this post.) Seven Samurai is on the face of it incredibly relevant to COVID-19. It is a classic Japanese movie that concerns residents of a small village in 1586 that must defend themselves against bandits. and thus enlist 7 Samurai to defend them. It’s in the Criterion Collection which means its a ‘classic’ film experience like Les Enfants du Paradis — all about the shots,  the framing. and the beautiful rhythm of the scenes. The only really awful thing about this film is all the men wear clearly visible fake grotesque bald caps (someone had to say it, so it might as well be me) because apparently men’s hairstyles in Japan in 1586 required a shaved cranium. The situation in the film is analogous to our own, COVID-19 has been called a war, and the virus is a kind of invader. At a crucial moment the villagers who live in 3 huts just beyond the river are asked to vacate their huts with a threat of a stiff penalty if they disobey. There is much crying and wailing until Takasha Shimura, the lead Samurai, decrees: “Three houses must be sacrificed to save 20. Is that clear? This is the nature of war. By protecting others you protect yourself. If you destroy others, you destroy yourself.” This is the screed of COVID-19. Other lines from the film also seem seem prescient of our specific situation today: “Everyone thinks the bandits won’t come. It’s a tempting thought. When you think you are safe is precisely when you are more vulnerable,” and “No one knows what the future holds.” This is precisely my own personal terror right now; and the terror of for so many; there is no certainty, I have no idea if I will get this disease or if someone close to me will, and though I am old and susceptible to COVID-19, it is really not so much the death and suffering, as the chaos and inhumanity that would face me if I became ill in any way that terrorises me. Apparently the hospitals are filled with exploited workers who fear for their own lives (that’s what TV tells us) and are are afraid to touch or talk to patients, there is not enough equipment to treat COVID-19 patents, and in fact if we are not supposed to go to the hospital if we fill ill — only if we are dying.  Our relatives will not be allowed to see us and we may die alone. This monumental uncertainty of course extends to our jobs and to our financial futures. And on TV they tell us “this may last up to two years; no one can say.” Yes, death is frightening and yes, illness very difficult. But it is a special brand of uncertainty that marks COVID-19 — as there is no end in sight and officials seem affronted when asked to provide one. In this respect Seven Samurai could be viewed as an admirable moral lesson for those who find it difficult to knuckle down and do their ‘civic duty as Canadians;’ as the Seven Samurai seems to demand stoicism in the face of uncertainty. But does it, really? After intermission one of the samurai says to a silent, brooding farmer: “I think talking is a good thing. Whatever your burden may be, talking can ease it. You for instance, seem particularly tight lipped. But if you’re suffering, you shouldn’t bottle it up. Letting out your feelings bit by bit can work wonders.” Here Kurosawa proves beyond a doubt that he is an artist. Artists are not stoics; they represent the opposite human impulse — the need to wallow in pain, in pity and fear — to wail, and rhapsodise, and beat their chests in anger, but most importantly, the need for intimate, live communion with another soul. It is perhaps no accident that in the climax of the film stoicism is vehemently denied, nay, denounced. The beautiful young samurai Isao Kimura has fallen in love with enigmatic Keiko Tsushima. For some reason he can’t seem to make love to her. Their scenes routinely take place on a lush bed of flowers that is singularly and ironically contrasted to the ugly muddy village. Isao’s reluctance infuriates the lusty Keiko who at one point exhorts him: “Coward, act like a samurai!” meaning she is lusting after consensual rape.  But at the end of the film, when the final monumental invasion of the bandits is only hours away, she throws herself on Isao saying : “Are we all going to die tomorrow?” They make love. Her father is inconsolably angry and beats her, calling her a ‘slut.’ But her behaviour is explained to him: “Don’t be angry. When the dawn threatens our lives the weight of it all makes us a bit reckless. On the eve of decisive battles this often happens, even inside castles.” The last image of the film is Isao flirting with Keiko. I know two friends who are going out for a walk today. He is diabetic and she is immune suppressed. They will wash their hands before and after and they will not hug or kiss, but will respect ‘social distance.’ The catch is, she is starting to show some of what could be symptoms of COVID-19. Am I afraid for them? I am as afraid for them as I am afraid for all of us who get up in the morning knowing that anything could happen to our lives at any time. Am I afraid for other people? I expect other people to take similar precautions against illness in this 'trying time.' Will I call the police to arrest them? Defiantly no.  Should I? Well I don’t care, because as Seven Samurai tells us -- such things happen even in (or outside) great castles; that even for the rich, and movie stars, and yoga-practicing hipster mothers -- as well as for the beaten poor with beds separated just a little more slightly in homeless shelters -- "I think talking is a good thing," and “when the dawn threatens our lives the weight of it all makes us a bit reckless.”