Author: photog

October Viewing – 3

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , , , , , ,

And now a return to form.  Whereas Charles Laughton can make a “horror” movie into a semi-legitimate film, putting Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi into a movie ensures that the full Universal horror treatment will ensue.

The Black Cat was such a pairing.  Bela Lugosi is a German medical doctor who was taken prisoner by the Russians during the First World War and eighteen years later he is looking to take revenge on Karloff who was the German commander who sold his troops out before the battle.  Also, while Lugosi was in prison Karloff stole away his wife telling her that Lugosi was dead.  Lugosi comes back to the scene of the battle where strangely Karloff has built an art deco palace on the site of the fort that he had commanded.  Later on, we learn that the whole hill is still booby-trapped with dynamite.  Well, you never know when that might come in handy.

There is a young American couple honeymooning in this Hungarian locale (sure why not) and Lugosi befriends them and then because of a motor vehicle accident during a rain storm, Lugosi is forced to bring them both to Karloff’s house where the doctor performs minor medical procedures that require putting her under a powerful sedative that makes her somewhat prescient upon meeting Karloff.

While the Americans sleep that night Lugosi and Karloff have a conference and we find out that Lugosi’s wife died of “pneumonia” years before.  Unsurprisingly Karloff decided to have her embalmed and put on display in his basement.  Well, sure, who wouldn’t!  And if all that isn’t bad enough Karloff tells Lugosi that his young daughter also died.  Next, we find out that Karloff is a satanic priest and the next night is the new moon and he will be celebrating a black mass at which he wants to sacrifice the American girl to Satan or something.  Lugosi objects and Karloff offers to play a game of chess to see whether she will die.  And Lugosi loses.  Darn.  Meanwhile we discover that Lugosi’s daughter is not dead but is married to Karloff and living in the house they are in.  The American girl meets her but somehow Lugosi still hasn’t heard about her.

A lot of goofy stuff happens with Lugosi’s servant pretending to obey Karloff and the American man being trapped in a room that eventually he escapes by just opening the door.  And even though the satanic mass is quite crowded Lugosi somehow easily manages to rescue the American girl.  And then everyone heads down into the basement for the climax.

So, let’s see.  Lugosi stumbles on the dead body of his daughter.  Karloff and Lugosi get into a fight that ends when Lugosi’s fatally wounded servant helps him over power and chain up Karloff to a dungeon wall (yes dungeon).  Then Lugosi decides to finally revenge the deaths of his wife and daughter on Karloff by skinning him alive.  But when the American girl sees this going on she screams and her husband finds their location and mistaking Lugosi’s intention he shoots the doctor.    Lugosi calls him a fool but tells the American couple to rush out of the building and get away from the hill because he is about to set off the timer that will trigger the dynamite to blow up the satanists, Karloff and Lugosi.  And in the last scene the happy honeymooners continue their railway journey to Budapest.

This movie has so many hokey things going on.  Why would Karloff believe that Lugosi’s loyal servant would do his bidding instead of his master?  Why would Karloff still have the timer and detonator for the dynamite not only intact but on prominent display in his basement?  Why wouldn’t Lugosi have killed Karloff as soon as he saw his wife stuffed and mounted in Karloff’s basement?  Are all art deco architects, satanists?  Or are all satanists art deco devotees?  What did Lugosi’s morbid fear of black cats have to do with anything else in the movie except the title?  So many questions.

The strange thing is I enjoyed the movie.  Sure, it made no sense.  But there was a style and an energy to it that was fun.  You sort of knew the American couple would emerge unscathed so really, we were watching the duel between Lugosi and Karloff and we knew that some kind of justice would prevail.  And those lousy satanists would get blown up.

In a way, with its modernist architecture juxtaposed against the medieval stonework of the underground fort it was a perfect way for the modern (1930s) world to intrude on the gothic horror that is the stock in trade of the Universal horror movies.  Art deco horror.  Well done Bela and Boris.

Life in a Bubble

photog Current Events

Somewhat more than thirty years ago I worked as an engineer for a company that was very important in the petroleum and petrochemical industries.  They had an enormous amount of experience, technology and patents for extracting oil and gas from the earth and turning it into everything from gasoline to plastics to primary organic feed stocks.  They were heavy hitters.  Unsurprisingly they were very well represented in Venezuela.  They worked extensively with the companies that produced oil in that country.  And equally unsurprising they often employed Venezuelans on many different projects both in Venezuela and elsewhere.  But what was surprising to me was how many of these “Venezuelans” were Germans.  Apparently, at that time, there was a sizable ex-pat community of Germans living in Venezuela permanently and working in the petroleum industries.

I became friendly with one of them.  A younger guy named Karl who looked extremely German but who spoke English with a very odd accent.  It had hints of Spanish, German and British English.  I asked him about this and learned that he had been educated in an International German school in Venezuela.  I got the distinct impression that Karl considered himself a German not a Venezuelan.  But at the same time, he had never spent any considerable time in Europe in his life.  He was a cultural German who lived in South America.  And he was fairly well travelled in the various countries of South America and had very definite opinions about these countries.  In particular Karl was very vocal about the attractiveness of the women living in these various countries.  He seemed to favor the Argentinians most highly, liked the Venezuelans and was most uncomplimentary about the girls from Brazil.

At the time I thought all of this very odd but I assumed it had to do with the lack of opportunities in Germany after the war.  But now that I reflect on it maybe it’s more of a cosmopolitan strategy to avoid being at the whim of the economy of just one country.  After all, maybe Germany has always produced more chemists and engineers than it can employ locally and so emigration may be a common choice for Germans.

I haven’t thought about Karl for at least thirty years but I was thinking about what it would be like to live in America after the addition of a hundred million third world immigrants.  How would people whose families have lived here for generations and grew up as Americans cope with an “America” that more resembled Brazil or South Africa?

Well, maybe the strategy to consider is creating the equivalent of ex-pat communities in this country.  We could build enclaves where we speak standard English and the kids go to “American” school and are taught our history and culture and cultural events are planned and there would be churches and cultural organizations that catered to the ex-pat population exclusively.  And a network could be built between these communities across the country and they would serve as a larger community to help preserve the American culture and way of life.

It seems a little sad and pathetic.  Being a stranger in your own land.  But maybe it’s better than the alternative.  Currently the public schools in all the big cities and lots of smaller places are becoming useless as far as the education they provide.  In fact, many of them are now dangerous for non-immigrants who are victimized because of the popular culture stigmatizing them as racists.  And the culture that will emerge in these “melting pots” will be antithetical and hostile to the culture we recognize.  Unless you want your children indoctrinated into this third world ghetto culture you will be forced to send them to private school.

So that’s my thought.  We will live in this country because we were born here.  But if we want to keep our culture and identity, we might have to build ex-pat enclaves and be strangers in our own land.

Update

War Pig commented:

Given the democrats’ inclination to oppose school choice, they will go after such schools. They want all youth indoctrinated by their lackeys in teacher’s unions. A no-politics school opened in Colorado after lots of fights in the courts. The school is now producing test scores outstripping public schools by a wide margin. Don’t think the left is done with them, either. ANY resistance to Marxism must be crushed. No school which opposes leftist ideology can be allowed to flourish and embarrass Karl’s teachings.

Painting Myself into a Corner

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner ,

Last month I whined about an insanely expensive critical repair project going on at the Compound.  Well, my contractor performed flawlessly and after a month or so of staged demolition and construction we ended up with the end of the house restored to its former functionality only with the ground floor consisting of a poured slab instead of a pier supported wooden floor.  The only hitch was that the slab needed to cure another two weeks before staining it.  And since this contractor has moved onto his next big project, getting him back to stain the floor isn’t possible.  No problem, I promised Camera Girl that I would take care of the painting myself after the requisite two-week delay.

Well, last night she reminded me of my lightly given promise and that by her reckoning Friday was the end of the two weeks.  Like a trapped creature I looked around for a sliver of daylight that I could run through.  But as I’ve said, the middle of October will be a tragically busy time for me when I won’t be able to do anything significant like painting rooms and moving furniture.  Checkmate.

So early today (11am) we went to the big box store and I bought the stain and all the accoutrements.  And after lunch (the condemned man had a hearty meal) I performed the ritual first coat.  Tomorrow, I’ll purchase a paint brush (I thought I had one lying around), do the detail work in the tight spots and put on the final coat.  Then, Sunday I’ll be toting barges and lifting bales for several hours restoring the contents of the room to their original positions and thereby fulfilling my promise to Camera Girl.  Such is the life of a modern husband.  When his wife has the effrontery of quoting his own words back at him, wife beating is no longer a convenient option.  In fact, it’s positively frowned on in some circles.  O tempora, O mores.  I really need to bring Camera Girl to a showing of Shakespeare’s, “The Taming of the Shrew.”  Kate saw the light.  Camera Girl should follow her good example.

But when all was said and done, I rather enjoyed the event.  Well, all except taping the moldings.  That really should be done by someone young and spry.  But rolling on the stain was fun.  Painting a floor is easier than painting walls and a lot easier than ceilings.  No drop cloths, no crick in the neck.  So, I acquiesced semi-gracefully and pretended that I was completely on board with finishing the room this weekend.  Mental agility (or self-deception) is an important survival trait.

I was thinking today about the kind of world that the information age is creating.  Specifically, with the monopoly of advertising being in the hands of Amazon and Google, there is an incredible need (opportunity) for alternate information flow paths.  Google has been declared a monopoly by the federal government but no action seems in the offing.  Since that is the case, it seems more important than ever that some private resource step in and provide an alternative.  Elon Musk has hinted that X is that alternative.  But will it be?  Does he have the vision to provide an unfettered electronic agora where both commerce and information can flow unimpeded by ideology?  So far, I haven’t seen that realized.  Maybe he’s waiting to see if Trump wins the election.  After all the federal government is the biggest customer for his batteries and his rocket ships.  If the Democrats are ensconced in power maybe he’ll just give up his free speech and populist efforts and concentrate on making money.

So much seems to depend on an election that probably won’t be honest.  Maybe I’m the one who is looking at everything all wrong.  Possibly the important lesson to be learned is not how to have free speech but rather how to have hidden speech.  Now that’s a thought.