Dear Canadian Open Net Salmon Farmers....

This is absolutely hilarious! It amazes me how this flew over people's heads. My husband said, "That William Shatner is nasty! He went on a 20-minute profanity-laced rant about FISH FARMS!" Then I actually watched it, and laughed all the way through it.

Shatner's my hero, and has been for a very long time. He's 92 years old, for God's sake, and if he can still get up and rant about anything, more power to him. I never miss his mystery series The UnXplained, nor is it lost on me that he has been a superb horseman and horse breeder all his life. Being a horsey person myself, I appreciate that.

But this is prime Shatnerian satire/parody, and like all good satire it has a very sharp point. He's not just randomly ranting, as is made plain by all the other people chiming in. And yet, as obvious as it seems, a lot of people are't getting it! I notice how seriously the news outlets are treating it, calling it a nasty rant when it's really a superb slice of prime Shatnerian satire.

Shatner has always had a sense of humor about himself, as in his "singing" career in which he was good-natured about it as people held their ears and howled. He has played parodies of himself on TV many times, and seems to enjoy it. With a 75-year acting career in stage, screen and TV behind you, I guess you can get away with it, no?

According to some people, no.

And according to the bitter, sour, dour folks in Canadian media, apparently not. BUT THAT'S JUST HIS POINT!  Canadians are afraid to speak out, afraid to be passionate about anything, so he's breaking all those old taboos in getting up and ranting about fish. But Canadians don't seem to get it. And news outlets only clipped out a few seconds here and there without giving it any context at all. 

It's both funny and dismaying to me  how my husband was just incensed with this, and said it was utterly disgraceful and even nonsensical for him to unleash a "20-minute rant laced with profanity", when if you actually watch it, it's set up as brilliantly as anything SCTV ever did. And he even changes his accent and re-instates the "hoose and aboot" of Canadian speech, even though his speech was thoroughly Americanized decades ago.

Anyway, hey, don't diss the Shat-man (or is that the Shaman?) - he has a point to make, and it's typical of him that he would use humor to make that point. It's just possible somebody hired him to make this speech, even possible he was reading from a script, but this makes it no less delicious to watch.

BUT EVERYBODY IS GETTING IT WRONG! Has the culture lost its sense of humor completely? Can't we laugh at anything anymore? Come on, Canada. WAKE UP. One of your famous sons is trying to tell you something - and not just about fish farms. Your total misinterpretation of this brilliant comic bit are only proving his point.

The actor: Harold Lloyd's reaction shots

A memorable Harold Lloyd reaction shot from Girl Shy. Harold plays a yokel whose book "How to Make Love" has just been rejected by a publisher as ridiculous and worthless. But his expression isn't a reaction to that humiliation. This was his one chance to win a very wealthy girl he has fallen in love with, and that dream has just turned to dust.  

This scene proves what Hal Roach famously said: "Harold Lloyd was not a comedian. But he was the best actor playing a comedian who ever lived." Any dramatic actor would be hard-pressed to sustain scenes of emotional distress with such skill. 

He himself didn't think he was very funny, but he could "do" funny superbly. His pathos never turned to bathos, as sometimes happened with Chaplin (whose films are much more dated than Harold's). And as Roach said, Harold was a plausible leading man whose romantic quests weren't vaguely creepy or driven by pity.

Harold didn't wear a clown suit or pull faces or do any of the things silent comics did to get a laugh. He was an ordinary person caught up in extraordinary circumstances, and his complete inability to cope brought the audience on-side like nothing else. But when he triumphed in the end, all of our own failed fantasies were brilliantly realized. 

And one more thing - he always got the girl.

Harold Lloyd: the lost tapes

I swear, I never thought I would get to see three seconds of the lost Harold Lloyd film, Professor Beware (1938). It was a movie that was shown maybe once on American TV, and then, for reasons unknown, buried.

Harold plays an Egyptologist who gets into all sorts of wacky situations, and the word is that he didn't like the movie very much and felt the gags were overly silly. Harold had a lot of pull with Howard Hughes in those days, not to mention William Randolph Hearst, the man who buried Citizen Kane, so if he wanted the movie pulled, it would be pulled.

That means that, in spite of a lot of promotional hoop-la, it was probably barely seen.

I have no idea where this snippet of video came from, and it seems to be part of a tribute to Sterling Holloway rather than Harold. It's a minute long, and doesn't tell me very much.

I've heard through the Rich Correll grapevine that Paramount owns Professor Beware now, but keeps it in a vault. Or maybe they destroyed it. I doubt I will ever get to see it, but then, a couple of years ago I came up completely dry, and now I have one minute of it!

The stills are magnificent, however. They are all I have.

(Nobody does dismay better than Harold Lloyd, and I notice in the stills that he's often slapping himself on the forehead, gasping and ducking his head. God, how I'd love to see this!)

Writers have their hearts ripped out

Since I finally figured out how to use the video camera, mainly to photograph all the wildlife in the back yard, I'm experimenting with other stuff, mainly ads for my doomed novel, The Glass Character. Maybe I'll have fun with it; maybe I won't. I like the idea of the screen beside me, and the fact these are silents means I can blather on as much as I want. I know what it is to be rejected (stomped into the ground a few hundred times?), so this scene spoke to me in particular.

A tribute to Gene Wilder: Young Frankenstein gifs!

We lost Gene Wilder today, and I am pretty much inconsolable. This is all I can think of to do.

These are just a few of my hundred or so fave moments from Young Frankenstein. Everything about this movie worked, and as funny as it is, it's also more romantic than Casablanca ("Taffeta, darling"). But the main reason it worked was its leading man.

Best spit-take in history. 

Masculine in mascara.

"Give my creation. . . LIFE!"

"Three syllables. . . sounds like. . . "

"SED-A-GIVE??"

"No matter what happens. . . don't open that door!"

"Abby somebody.  Abby. . .  Normal."

"I love him"

"Put. . . the candle. . . back."

"IT!. . . COULD! . . . WORK!!"

His face at first just ghostly (or, the unknown Harold Lloyd)

In HER PAINTED HERO, Lloyd plays a minister who arrives at a mansion (in reality A.G. Schlosser’s Castle San Souci, the same location used in TILLIE’S PUNCTURED ROMANCE and several other Sennett films) to preside over a wedding. This was actually the second time Lloyd had played a minister at Keystone—the first time had been in THEIR SOCIAL SPLASH, made the previous month.

From Mack Sennett: A Celebration of the King of Comedy and his Studio, Films and Comedians

Whew.

I never in a million years thought I'd find anything like this. Goes to show that no matter how many times I go to the well, I always seem to dredge up something of interest about the elusive, enigmatic Harold Lloyd.

And this time, it's a bucket of gold.

I'd heard the story - heard Harold tell it in an archival clip on the bonus disc in the Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection DVD set - but never thought I'd find any evidence. Back in 1915 - 1915! - Lloyd had a little disagreement with his director Hal Roach about pay. He was getting paid something like $5.00 a week to run around and play any and ever part necessary, but when he found out this other guy (who? Who cares) was getting $10.00 a week, he "walked". I don't for a minute think this is true - he was probably butting heads with Roach in his typical temperamental (some say childish) way, and went stomping off to Mack Sennett for spite.

I don't think Sennett had to think very hard about hiring Harold Lloyd. He had talent shooting out of his fingertips and charisma oozing out of his pores. So for a year Harold went to comedy boot camp, and probably learned a lot of skills (the pratfall being one of them) that he would take back with him when he and Roach kissed and made up.

This is one of many examples of how and why Lloyd became so famous: he made gravy out of everything, squeezed advantage out of disadvantage, learned like crazy, and had the kind of determination it was impossible to knock down. And there was another factor: Fate just kissed him on the forehead and said, "Mein boy." The rest is history.

But look at this! There are actual photos here from one of his Sennett films. He plays a minister in this, which is weird because Muriel in The Glass Character describes him as being "more like a minister than a comedian". I think he may have been slotted into straight-man roles mainly because he just wasn't funny-looking enough for Keystone, though he did an inevitable stint as a cop running frantically around and waving a nightstick.

These photos are ghostly, out of focus, dreamlike, almost unreal - and Lloyd was only 21 or 22, a mere stripling. But take a look at these and tell me they AREN'T Harold Lloyd. Stripling he may be (or strip loin, whichever), but in some ways he is full-blown, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus. (I try to work that phrase in whenever I can.) His body posture, his face, even the way he wears the costume - all are Lloyd in embryo, a man who had no idea how famous he was going to be, or what it would cost him.

(But can you tell me, please - is he wearing glasses here? There are so many conflicting stories of the provenance of the glasses that one wonders. Too blurry to tell, but I'd say not. Wait a couple more years for the lightning-stroke.)

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

I'm turning Japanese (I really think so)

I've got your picture of me and you

You wrote "I love you" I wrote "me too" 

I sit there staring and there's nothing else to do 

Oh it's in color 

Your hair is brown

Your eyes are hazel

And soft as clouds

I often kiss you when there's no one else around

I've got your picture, I've got your picture

I'd like a million of you all 'round myself

I want a doctor to take your picture

So I can look at you from inside as well

You've got me turning up and turning down

I'm turning in I'm turning 'round

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

I've got your picture, I've got your picture

I'd like a million of them all 'round myself

I want a doctor to take your picture

So I can look at you from inside as well

You've got me turning up I'm turning down

I'm turning in I'm turning 'round

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women

No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark

Everyone around me is a total stranger

Everyone avoids me like a cyclone Ranger

Everyone...

That's why I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

[guitar]

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so, think so, think so

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

How Woody Allen stole Manhattan, Part 2

Can you see T. C. and the gang strolling down the street?

I love Lucy in the chocolate factory

 

 

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Micro-phonies!

I don't think I've laughed like this in years. Guess I have a primitive sense of humour.

Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!!

My life would not be the same without the Stooges. Every afternoon after the rigours of school, I'd flop down with my bag of Oreo cookies and go glassy-eyed. Next to the "bee-bye-bicky-bo" episode (which I'll post sometime, it's a classic), Curly's dancing was the best. If you can call lying down on the floor and spinning around in circles dancing. And what about "Moe! Larry! Cheese!" I thought I had hallucinated that, until I dredged it up on YouTube.

Stylin'.

An Ethiopian in the fuel supply

I don’t know what got me onto this. My Dad used to sit at the dinner table, soused, and monologue by the hour. As his captive audience, we were expected to listen. If we didn’t, we risked his wrath.

We listened.

He kept talking about a comedian from the 1930s, his favourite, who spoke in a nasal drawl and made the English language do back-flips and double-twists. He was constantly hooking his top hat on his cane behind his head. He juggled. He had some negative traits that my Dad loved, and was known to mutter, “Can’t stand kids and dogs.”

Along with maxims like “never give a sucker an even break” and “you can’t cheat an honest man,” his legend included bizarre pool routines (in which the cue somehow ended up twisted like a corkscrew) and card games where he held five aces. But most of all, this man drank. And drank. Until at age 68, heart, liver, lungs and even mind gave way, and he died of rampant alcoholism.

W. C. Fields had a Dickensian childhood, which was perhaps why he was so superb at playing Wilkins Micawber in the movie version of David Copperfield. (I saw this just the other day on TCN. The potential for semi-dramatic acting in this role was almost heartbreaking. He could have been so much more than a crabby old drunk who knew how to juggle.) Fields ran away from his drunken lout of a father (do drunken louts run in families, I wonder?) at age eleven. Cadged his way through the slums of Philadelphia like the Artful Dodger, until one day when he attended a sleazy circus and saw someone throw so many balls in the air – and catch them – that they blurred together.

So the lad started practicing. First with two lemons, probably stolen. Then other fruits (casaba melons? Let’s not get too literal here). He would balance a large stick (like a pool cue) on the end of his toe, toss it up in the air, and attempt to catch it on his toe, raking his shins open in the process.

Oh all right, let’s skip all this garbage and go on to his spectacular career as a master juggler at the Ziegfeld Follies, where someone “discovered” him for the movies. His silents weren’t much, just displays of dexterity and tomfoolery. But in his first talkie, audiences sat up. No one had ever spoken like that before, and never would again.

Fields kept a mistress for fourteen years, one Carlotta Monti, a “dusky beauty” (in his words) whom he nicknamed Chinamen for her vivid style of dress. He was constantly derailing her infant career as a singer and actress, foreshadowing I Love Lucy by decades. Monti was as dependent on Fields as he was on her, but for different reasons.

She left behind a ghostwritten memoir which has no sense of her voice, but which is packed with anecdotes, some of which might even be true. This was later made into a movie with Rod Steiger and Valerie Perrine called W. C. Fields and Me.

I can only serve up a slice of Monti, before sharing my own rather eccentric Best of Fields list.:

“Woody (her name for him: rhymes with ‘moody’) didn’t drive too many women to distraction, but among those he did were the script girls – through his ad libbing. The script for one scene in Poppy called for him to say, ‘I will now play the Moonlight Sonata.’ It was a simple line, but, instead of delivering it, he mumbled, ‘I will now render the allegro movement from the Duggi Jig Schreckensnack opera of Gilka Kimmel, an opus Piptitone.’

The script girl gasped, and asked how to spell the words. Sutherland (the director) wanted an interpretation. Woody shrugged, and admitted, ‘I don’t know myself what it means. To tell you the truth, it just popped out. But leave it in, Eddie, it’s got a nice lilt to it.”

Eddie left it in.”

This man practiced a form of spontaneous, convoluted verbal jazz, almost impossible to reproduce here. One of the first Fields movies I ever saw was a little-known classic called Mississippi, ostensibly starring a very young Bing Crosby in magnificent voice. But Fields, as the riverboat captain, easily stole every scene he was in.

The movie not only included one of his best card game scenes ever (including the astonishing statement “the man who holds the first four aces wins”), but featured rambling, probably mostly improvised reminiscences about his youth as a dauntless Indian fighter.

“Grabbing my bowie knife, I cut a path through a solid wall of human flesh. . . dragging my canoe behind me!” In another version, he has “my canoe under one arm and a Rocky Mountain goat under the other.” By the end of the movie he’s scared to death by a cigar store Indian, and quickly recants: “I would no more think of harming a hair on a redskin’s head than sticking a fork in my mother’s back.”

My other favorite, which I watched on late-night TV in 1965, was The Big Broadcast of 1938, one of a series of mediocre, wildly popular “Big Broadcast” films. There was something of a Fields revival going on then, and I saw most of the better-known ones like The Bank Dick and My Little Chickadee (in which he and Mae West outdrawled each other). But there was something that grabbed me about this movie, in which Bob Hope played his first starring role as an insecure host on a cruise ship. Just witnessing Bob Hope fumble and fail, all his lame jokes falling flat, was gratifying enough, but he also sang Thanks for the Memory (NOT “memories”) with the delightful Shirley Ross (NOT DorothyLamour, who played one of his several ex-wives).

But Fields, oh, Fields! Before he lands on the deck of the ship in a flying golf cart, he plays a round in which the ball behaves like one of his juggled objects. When he pours sand out of his golf shoe at the end of the scene, various objects like live frogs drop out (“Hmmmm, so that's what happened to that tongue sandwich”). It’s the humming and muttering and fiddling and “drat”s and "Godfrey Daniels" that make this scene, and I swear I can’t begin to reproduce them. Then, delight of delights, he does his infamous poolroom scene, once again dominating a picture which has such dismal clangers as a performance of Wagner by Nazi sympathizer Kierstan Flagstad (wearing horns and a breastplate and brandishing a spear), and an awful love song called Don’t Tell a Secret to a Rose by a clearly-gay non-Latino called Tito Guizarre.

My brother, who was drunk at the time, came in halfway through the movie and we guffawed through the rest of it. I recorded the soundtrack on our old Webcor reel-to-reel with the five-pound microphone, and listened to it endlessly. I had become a Fields fan for life.

Then I promptly forgot all about him.

I started to think he was kind of offputting, which he was. I had read a couple of biographies, and his self-destructive drinking and the horrifying collapse of his once-athletic body at the end of his life was beyond disturbing. His “friends” sneaked alcohol into the sanitarium as he lay dying, hallucinating that vultures were coming to get him. Carlotta Monti, aware that the sound of rain was one of the only things that helped him sleep, stood outside his room with a hose and kept up a continual light patter on the roof.

So he died, passed into legend, and – what? What got me onto this bizarre topic? One day I tried to get a DVD of Mississippi, and found that it had disappeared. It was never shown on TV, perhaps due to cringe-inducing black stereotypes. After much sleuthing, I found a crummy bootleg copy on eBay. Someone must have held a movie camera in front of a TV or something. But it was barely watchable, and I began to understand my fascination.

This tough, lonely, cynical, oversensitive, supremely gifted man, this curmudgeon whose friends didn’t understand him but still loved him lavishly, was one of a kind. No one could have invented him: he would have been completely implausible. But my favourite thing about Fields is this: in Robert Lewis Taylor’s early Fields bio, he tells this heartwarming story.

“Many supporters of Chaplin have long resented Fields’ notoriety. Perhaps the best testimonial to Chaplin’s greatness is the fact that Fields was incapable of watching him perform for more than a few minutes. The virtuosity of the little fellow’s pantomime caused Fields to suffer horribly. One evening, a few years before Fields’ death, he was persuaded to attend a showing of early Chaplin two-reelers. At a point in the action where Chaplin suffocated a 300-pound villain by pulling a gas street lamp down over his head, the laughter rose in deafening crescendo, and Fields was heard to cough desperately.

‘Hot in here,’ he muttered to his companion, who was fortified against the cooling system with a heavy tweed jacket. ‘I need air.’ Fields left the theatre and waited outside in his Lincoln. Later, asked what he thought of Chaplin’s work, he said, ‘The son of a bitch is a ballet dancer.’

‘He’s pretty funny, don’t you think?’ his companion went on doggedly.

‘He’s the best ballet dancer that ever lived,’ said Fields, ‘and if I get a good chance I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”

 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

    It took me years to write, will you take a look

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