An Influence on my Novel: Murder My Sweet

It's getting around to holiday card season again. Yes, we still do holiday cards in this little two-person family, and my ritual for some reason is to spread all the cards and envelopes and stamps and my list out around me on the bed and put a film noir on the TV, one that I know so well that it doesn't distract me, just runs in the background like some cozy accompaniment as I address my envelopes and write out my notes.

It's sort of like my version of Christmas music.

Sometimes I go with Scarlet Street, sometimes Too Late for Tears. I think this year, in honor of my book that just came out, I'll switch on Murder, My Sweet. 

I set out to write a novel through the lens of old-time radio detective shows, and I did, but I couldn't help but be influenced by film noir as well—and Murder, My Sweet in particular. It's based on the novel Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler, and Chandler was the master of the campy noir language that my favorite old-time radio detective shows are full of—and which I based my own novel's narrative voice on. 

It's also one of the few classic detective noirs out there. Most people, when they think of film noir, picture a detective alone in his office at night, a neon sign blinking in the window behind him, maybe a bottle of whisky in his top desk drawer. The door opens and in walks a seductive femme fatale.

There are actually very few film noirs that center around the classic detective scenario. But Murder, My Sweet is one. It even has one of those late-night office scenes with the neon light in the window and everything. Although the person who enters is no femme. 

Detective Philip Marlowe (played by Dick Powell) is hired by hulking hood "Moose" Malloy (played by Mike Mazurki) to track down his girl Velma, who disappeared while he was away on a stint in the big house. There are other subplots as well. The film is complicated and convoluted and zany and I love it. For too many reasons to go into now. What I came here to do was talk a little bit about how Murder, My Sweet influenced my novel, and to share a few easter eggs I put in there to celebrate one of my favorite films.

I should mention that my novel Who Killed One the Gun? is not just a classic old-time detective story. My detective, One the Gun, also happens to live in a world where people have numbers for names (Two the True Blue, Three the Goatee...), and he also happens to be stuck in a time loop and trying to solve his own murder. Which might give you an idea why I am in love with a movie that I call complicated and convoluted and zany. 

As I said, Murder, My Sweet was a big influence, because of its classic gumshoe vibe and the terrific Raymond Chandler language: the mid-century slang, the world-weary tone, the colorful metaphors:

She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who'd take a drink. If she had to knock you down to get the bottle.

Alright, this example isn't kind to its subject, and is pretty flippant about alcoholism, but I couldn't help but quote it, if only so that I could mention the great character turn of Jessie Florian, played by the fabulous Esther Howard. But it's also a good example of the language style I'm talking about.

But beyond the broader ways in which the film influenced the book, there are a few much more specific ways.

#1
Moose.

At a recent reading event, I was asked by someone in the audience who I thought would play my detective One the Gun in the theoretical movie of my book. I had to say that honestly I didn't know, but that I did know who would play one of my main suspects, the hulking doorman Four the Door.

When I wrote the part of Four the Door, I was thinking of two people, a radio actor named Tony Barrett, and, from Murder, My Sweet, Moose Malloy, played by Mike Mazurki.

The name's Moose. On account of I'm large.

You can't help but be drawn to the character of Moose Malloy. Huge, powerful, but childlike. There's an innocence to his demeanor—and then just as quickly as a child can turn from teddy bear to tantrum, Moose Malloy can get violent.

Four the Door's initial description in my novel:

Six and a half feet tall if he’s a day, a moose of a man who’s built more like a bouncer than a doorman. Even sitting down he’s a towering hulk, all chest and shoulders, but something in his face, some puppy-dog slant in the way he looks at you, makes it seem like he doesn’t at all notice his advantage.

One the Gun, who's drawn to using nicknames on people, calls Four the Door the moose throughout the book in an outright nod to the film.

#2
Language.

Alright, I already brought up language, but there are two places in the book where I use language that specifically references the movie.

For the first instance, we'll stick with the moose for a second. To set this up, in my book, my detective One the Gun is on the murder case of a dive owner named Five the No Longer Alive. (It's One the Gun's investigation of this case that leads to Gun's own murder, which naturally he would also like to solve.) Because Gun is in a time loop, every night at the same time, he goes to the dive, and there he's greeted at the entrance by the doorman Four the Door:

“Business good tonight?” he asks.

“Sure, sure,” Four the Door says, “folks been coming by to make with the respects. Look at all them flowers there in the corner.”

“Very nice,” One the Gun says.

“Prettier than pink ballerinas!” Four the Door says.

Fans of film noir may already know what I'm getting at with that last line. It's a twist on one of the most beloved lines in Murder, My Sweet. From Moose's description of his lost lady Velma.

She was cute as lace pants.

The second piece of dialogue that I reference from Murder, My Sweet, is longer. In my book, there's a detective radio show that comes on every Friday night (and since Gun is in a time loop, it comes on every night), called Who Is the Villain?. When I wrote the narration for that radio show, I slipped in an allusion to my personal favorite line in Murder, My Sweet. Here's the quotation from the film:

I'd been out peeking under old Sunday sections for a barber named Dominick whose wife wanted him back—I forget why. Only reason I took the job was because my bank account was trying to crawl under a duck.

And my own version, with more numbers and fewer names:

I’d just returned to the office after a day snooping under old garbage can lids for some zero named Fourteen who’d been eighty-sixed by his wife, who now suddenly wanted him back. Who could say why? It was a worthless job for a worthless client, but it was better than shining up the vacancy sign in my wallet.

I was proud of all the number-play I piled into that paragraph, but I'm well aware of the fact that nothing, but nothing, will ever be a better landing than the word duck.

#3
Philip Marlowe's shirt.

As a book designer, I was very lucky to be given the chance to design my own book cover. It also gave me the chance to hide one more Murder, My Sweet easter egg in my book.

Now, go with me on this one. It's a bit of a stretch. Or. It's not a stretch, but you have to use your imagination a little.

I devised a cover that would reference old pulp novels and film noir movie posters. At the center of it would be One the Gun lying dead (well, about to be dead—in that moment before the time loop takes him back to the beginning of his day) against a swirling clock. To build the figure in the position I wanted, I found images of bodies and started to piece them together to form one.

For the middle of the body, on impulse, I jumped onto YouTube and put on a scene from Murder, My Sweet, stopping and starting the scene and taking screen shots of Dick Powell's Philip Marlowe in spots where I thought the angle would work.

This is in a scene in which Marlowe has been abducted, taken to a sanatorium, and pumped full of drugs. His clothes are disheveled, perfect for my fallen, newly just-about-murdered detective. I took the screen shot I liked best and maneuvered it into place...

Then added Marlowe's shirt to my body-in-progress. There were more pieces and steps than this as I assembled my One the Gun, but you can see that as he came together, Marlowe's shirt came with him.

There are definitely references to other favorite noirs and radio shows in and on my book, but I'll leave it there. If you haven't seen it, seek out and watch Murder, My Sweet. It's a great film packed full of snappy dialogue, colorful characters, and terrific black and white chiaroscuro cinematography. It's well worth watching, whether you're addressing holiday cards or not.

two moments on airplanes

We're thirty thousand feet up. I'm kind of terrified of flying but I love all the parts that most people who fear flying fear: takeoff, touchdown, turbulence. Generally during the flight, I'm OK if I keep my mind on other things than the possibility of a fiery death: the movie playing on the little screen built into the back of the seat in front of me. The tiny bottle containing seven thimbles full of white wine. My nine dollar box of apple slices and cheese.

Down the right-hand aisle comes one of the flight attendants, who stops at the empty seat at the end of the row before mine. She leans in and asks the man at the other end, "Where's the man who was sitting here?"

"I don't know. He's been gone a really long time."

She picks up a small backpack from the seat. "He left his bag."

Well, there we go. It's a bomb.

I'll never see Atlanta and eat pimento cheese.

The flight attendant takes the bomb up and down the aisle, asking people if it's theirs. No, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. Well, of course it's not theirs. The man who left it has parachuted out of the back of the plane and we're all going down.

"Excuse me, is this yours?" There are two flight attendants now, checking with passengers. I wonder how much a bomb weighs. I wonder if time bombs actually tick.

The flight attendants come back up the aisle and finally stop just about where they began. "Excuse me, sir," to the man sitting in the seat in front of the empty one. He's an older man with white hair. I don't hear what he says, but he takes the bomb from the woman and apologizes. In a second I see his hand reach back into the seat pocket behind him, slowly pulling out the book he also left behind.

*

We're on the return trip from Atlanta. There are three in our row, Stephen, me, and the guy in the window seat who keeps getting up to use the bathroom. All three of us have our screens going and ear buds plugged into seat backs, watching movies. It's been a good trip, a whirlwind that included Stephen's two art events, visits to Martin Luther King's grave and the High Museum and the Madam C. J. Walker Museum and the Cyclorama and more and more and more. Fried green tomatoes. Pimento cheese.

Now, we're heading home.

I've been watching Fiddler On the Roof, and Tevye and Lazar Wolf are singing and dancing. It's a perfect distraction from the possibility of a fiery death to immerse yourself in musical joy.

As my eyes blink from one screen to another in front of me, I notice it's all music. A coincidence of timing that lets the song in my ears run through all three visuals. The guy to my right: a guitarist wailing away in a recording studio. Stephen to my left: Luciano Pavarotti belting an aria. It's a funny little montage. No matter what they're singing or playing, the music is mine. L'chaim, l'chaim, to life.

bad faith

Recently I watched the short film Bad Faith, written and directed by Jonah Barrett. I got to know Jonah when he became one of thirty writers contributing a short story to my anthology City of Weird, a few years ago. Jonah's story in the book has human-sized newt creatures and a secret underground biodome and a woman who controls crows with her mind, so yeah, I could have predicted his film was going to be super imaginative.

If you want to check it out, you can view it in its entirety on Jonah's artist website Malicious Wallydrags here.

The movie concerns Jeane on her first week of work in an office job, plagued with anxiety attacks and the loss of a best friend - but it also concerns a monster with a mouth full of teeth and a journey to the edge of the world.

Look at that creature! Can you see its trio of eyes? Look close. That's "Crystal the Puppet," which Jonah's crew constructed from PVC pipe and wire and papier-mâché - in fact, there's a cool clip on how they made it in the very cool "Making of" video you can also find on the Malicious Wallydrags website.

There's some beautiful film craft in Bad Faith. I don't like to give things away, so I won't say what it is, but there's a bit of artistry that happens right at the beginning that made me gasp out loud. I loved the worlds created by Jonah's camera, his eye, and his storyteller brain, both in the bright, sterile office and in the bleak landscape of Jeane's fantasies. Jonah weaves fantasy with reality throughout Bad Faith, making you ask the question: what is scarier, monsters or loneliness... monsters or the endless soul-sucking drone of the corporate working world.

OK, don't answer that.

The film has a great cast of characters, including Jonah himself, who shouldn't be allowed to have so many talents that, wait, yes, it suddenly occurs to me that he made a pact with the devil in which he was allowed to steal the talents of three other people (sorry, guys) and keep them all for himself. He's great as Paul, the best friend Jeane has lost, who we meet in Jeane's fantasies and who accompanies us to the edge of the world.

Sarah Robertson plays Jeane with wonderful range, and a sense of so much pent up emotion - terror, shame, loneliness, even hope - just below the surface.

I love Deane Shellman as Mrs. Vander the office manager. She's the perfect corporate office trope, whose enthusiasm for the job reminds you why existential angst is a thing and whose chirpy helpfulness, as Jeane keeps screwing up on the job, just creates more tension.

And Amber Atalaya is pretty delicious as Phillis, the conniving coworker out to step on anyone's nose she can to keep her beloved place in the hierarchy of the office.

But the heart of the film is Howard, played with lovely realness by Kela Kealakai. I love the subtlety Kela brings to their role as maybe the one truly grounded character in the whole story. With all the peril Jeane endures, from betrayals to failure to loneliness to encounters with ferocious prehistoric beasts, Howard  brings to the story what was, to me, the most unexpected thing of all.

No, I'm not going to tell you. Watch it here. The website also has info on Jonah's writings and photography and more. This profile I wrote about Jonah's contribution to City of Weird contains some more fun info about him and his projects.

birthday showoff

Stephen and I have a little tradition going where, for birthdays, anniversary and Valentine's Day, we get all creative with Photoshop in making cards for each other. I like noticing how often we come up with similar angles, similar themes, similar approaches while working separately on each other's cards. This year has been like that. At least with our birthday cards. First, we both went a little overboard. Second, we both went for a movie theme and multiple pages. Third, we both alluded to (this one's not surprising) Stephen's recent injury and recovery. Stephen's card to me (it was actually a second card - he made me two!) referenced With a Song in my Heart, one of his favorite movies. He cast himself as the suffering star Susan Hayward and me as her plucky nurse, Clancy, played by Thelma Ritter. You can check out his blog post about it here.

For my birthday card to him, which I'll be giving to him at dinner tonight, I chose one of my own favorite movies, one that I believe has become as much a favorite for him as With a Song in my Heart has become for me. Or anyway, I hope so. Here is Stephen's recovery from injury a la Metropolis. It's mostly just pictures. After all, it's a silent movie.

And one more small one for the back of the card:

swingin' down the lane

During the six weeks Stephen was laid up with his injury, I hardly wrote at all - too difficult to string together the amount of time my brain needs in order to get any good wordsmithing done - but I had just enough time to work on a graphic design project for a really cool indie CD cover. An album of show tunes performed on one of those great old Wurlitzer theater organs, the kind with a forest of pipes.

Not only pipes but instruments - trumpets, strings, xylophone, glockenspiel ... some instruments I'd never heard of like the unda maris and the vox humana, both of which sound like the names of evil overlords from 1950s alien movies. The Hardman Studio Wurlitzer started out on the Paramount Studios movie lot in 1929, had a stint in radio with KNBC in San Francisco and now lives in a huge barn in Virginia, where organ masters like Clark Wilson give live concerts. On Swingin' Down the Lane, Clark Wilson plays the music of composer Burton Lane, who you've likely never heard of but whose songs I'll bet you recognize.

I like New York in June / How about you?

On a clear day, you can see forever.

You know that famous clip of Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling? The movie is Royal Wedding and the tune is Burton Lane.


Literally the night before I first chatted with the producer about designing this cover, not knowing yet who the subject of the album was, Stephen and I watched the movie Babes on Broadway, for which Burton Lane got an Oscar nomination, for the song "How About You," sung in the film by Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. In fact, Burton Lane is credited with having discovered Judy Garland. Graphic design plus old movie musicals - this job was made for me.

One more lovely movie poster for Royal Wedding.

I decided to design the cover of the CD to look like one of those old movie posters. The kind with the couple dancing, he in tuxedo, she in a big gauzy gown. That was the hardest thing about this project - finding the dancing couple. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to find a good royalty-free stock photo of a dancing couple that doesn't look like it was shot at someone's wedding in the 1990s.

I finally found this, courtesy of GeekPhilosopher.com.

 It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but doing a little Photoshop work and adding some outside elements, I came up with a couple I liked. Her dress is pieces of my wedding dress. [Which Stephen designed and made, by the way.]

And her hair is the wig I wear when Stephen and I play Madeleine and Penny.

Changed-up shoes, changed-up tuxedo, added lapel flower, added color...

Whoops, that was before I added the flower. But close to the final product.


Actually, the hardest thing about the project was building the swirling keyboard for my couple to dance on. Somehow I thought I could just play with warp and distort tools and twist the Hardman Wurlitzer into the shape I wanted. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to do this before I gave up and got out a pencil to finish the job. Once I had my organ "lane" curving the way I wanted it to curve, I went back in and photoshopped it together.

I was fairly obsessed with the project for much of the time Stephen was laid up with his injury. Tinkering between work and physical therapy and doctors appointments and trips to the store was a way for me to have a little respite from the stress of worrying about Stephen's pains and frustrations and the long healing process. It occurred to me, at some point in the month, that this design project was doing for me what those old movie musicals did for the moviegoers of the time. I was creating a magical, little fantasy and it was the perfect escape.


Check out the Hardman Wurlitzer here.

Check out Clark Wilson the organist here.

For some great stock photos, check out GeekPhilosopher here.

a moment in the day: movie star

The camera is aimed at the back of my head. I stand next to Stephen, posed casually, or what I hope looks casually, staring at the cellists while the crew rolls film. The location is the Blue Sky Gallery, and Stephen and I are working as extras for Northern Flicker Films' first full length feature, The Black Sea.

It's scene seventy. I know this because every time the woman claps that clapper thing she says it's scene seventy.

Stephen and I were the first extras called into the scene, a fact that to me feels very important. Our job has been to step across the gallery with the camera following us and then stop here and watch the cellists while the camera continues on. Between takes, Stephen lifts the back of my hair out from where it's fallen down the neck of my jacket.

Does every kid want to be a movie star?

I was eleven and on a camping trip at a place called Campland on the Bay, and a small film crew was taking shots of the beach for a commercial. I guess we kids were bugging the film crew a little too much, because they gave us a job building a pile of sand for "Friendly the Wolf" to sit on. I was so excited. People watching the commercial were going to see a mound of sand touched and shaped by my own hands. My life was complete. I was a TV star. A little.

I was thirteen and I received an envelope in the mail addressed to me by Steven Spielberg. I was so excited. I'd written a fan letter in hopes of starting up a dialogue with the famous director since I was writing a script for the sequel to the film E.T. When Mr. Spielberg accepted my query, I hoped to star in the film. Inside the envelope was a form response and an invitation to join the E. T. fan club.

I was twenty-two and in Tokyo, Japan, performing as a clown with the circus - well, sort of performing. We were supposed to do a firehouse gag, but the little fire truck hadn't arrived, so Tim was doing a clown number with his trumpet and I was mostly selling programs in the seats and then joining the cast in the ring for finale. I wanted to be in the trumpet number too, but Tim said he didn't need me. After a while, the director of the show came to our little dressing room and asked, hey, why isn't she working? The director spoke to Tim and not to me. My face went hot with shame and hope. So Tim agreed to put me in his trumpet number, where I tromped around the ring and clapped my hands as he played. At some point during the month-long Tokyo run, the entire program was filmed for Japanese television. I was so excited. When we watched the show, I saw a tiny glimpse of myself taking a bow during finale.

The camera is on my back as I pose, staring at the cellists. What is my motivation in this scene? Are my hands clasped behind my back in a way that conveys just the right amount of art-patron-enjoying-music? Has my hair fallen back inside the neck of my jacket? I act casual and pretend I'm not excited. In front of me, facing the camera, the cellists pantomime playing a piece that will be dubbed in later, the touch of their bows soft against the strings, making only a whisper of music.

*

Find out more about The Black Sea movie and Northern Flicker Films here. 

There's a funny article about the marketing of Friendly the Wolf here. 

a little noir flash fiction

Recently, I had the honor of learning that writer / professor Robert Arellano was including my story "Shanghaied," along with some other Portland Noir pieces, in his Noir Lit class at Southern Oregon University. When I remarked to him that it would be fun to be a fly on the wall as the students discuss the story, I threw out some comment like, "Don't look now, Bradley, but the author's hiding under your desk," and Robert said, "If you were in my class right now, I'd say run with that."

pretty gal discussing the story

So, I did. Now that the class has indeed read and discussed the story, I thought I'd honor the moment by posting the little flash fiction piece that came out of that impromptu prompt.

*

Noir Master Class

Good morning, students, and welcome to this semester’s Master Class in Noir Fiction. We’ll be starting off with the modern noir short story, “The Black Before” by Willem Morray.

In fact, the author is local, and he was quite pleased when I contacted him to say I’d be including his piece. In fact, he said he would love to be a fly on the wall and listen in on our discussion. In fact, don’t look now, Bradley, but he’s hiding under your desk. Please try not to kick him.

I guess you could say Mr. Morray got a little more than excited when I contacted him. He claims he doesn’t get out much, which I find surprising since his story is full of sizzling descriptions of the city at night and gripping interactions between cool people, which you wouldn’t expect from a man who supposedly “has no friends”—a fact that he has asked that I tell you. He says he hopes you enjoy his story and that if you do, he’d like to invite you all out for drinks afterward. He says to tell the class he does not like to drink in public but would love to have you back to his house where, in his study, he has a desk with a hidden bottle of whiskey and a library of every film Bogart ever made. He also has a neon motel sign strategically bolted to his study window so that the light blinks through the slats of Venetian blinds and creates a nice noir pattern on the floor.

Now, Bradley, didn’t I say “Don’t look now?” You’ve gone and looked. Please try to refrain, as the author isn’t fond of being looked at. Although he has asked me to tell you students who may be interested in that drink that he is, however, fine with being looked at if you’re wearing a fedora—or, ladies, a hairdo similar to Claire Trevor’s in the film Murder My Sweet. Preferably blond.

Don’t look now, Bradley—and I mean that, please don’t look—but Mr. Morray has found your lunch bag and is eating your corn chips.

For the love of god, Bradley, didn’t I say, “Don’t look now?” Alright, you’d better put your hands up. That gun in Mr. Morray’s hand isn’t only a replica from the 1950 film Gun Crazy—it’s also loaded. Hands up. Good. Now, keep your eyes front—and everyone act like nothing’s going on, and no one will get hurt.

Ah! This is refreshing, isn’t it, having an author sit in on class! In fact, I was so pleased with the idea that I’ve decided to book an appearance with every author whose work we read. I apologize for the manner in which we must conduct these little sit-ins. I know it gets crowded when you have an author under your desk, but there just aren’t enough chairs.

Now, let’s get started, shall we? This morning we’ll be comparing and contrasting “The Black Before” by Willem Morray with the short story “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot” by the classic noir author Raymond Chandler.

Of course, Mr. Chandler died back in 1959, so he’ll be a bit less engaging as a guest—but, Andrea, may I at least ask that you stop using his pelvis as a footrest?

*

Robert Arellano is the Edgar-nominated author of Havana Lunar. His most recent book is the incredibly taut thriller Curse the Names. You can check it out here.

new year's picture

And one more picture, to finish up my last post. Actually, this doesn't completely belong, as it was taken after midnight on January first.

We spent New Year's just the two of us, doing what we like to do. Champagne and good food and a movie. For me, the food was cheese. For me the food is always cheese. A bit of delice de Bourgogne, (more than a bit) (and then more), a bit of mimolette, a bit of morbier. Stephen had two things. The first was bacon-wrapped steak. The second was bacon. Oh, and plantain chips. The champagne was two kinds. Cava, actually, for most of the watching of the movie and Veuve Clicquot for the New Year's toast. We opened the Veuve Clicquot at the start of the movie to be ceremonious, had a toast and a glass, and then saved another glass for the end. [hmm, that sounds like we drank two bottles. i want to go on record saying we didn't finish either.]

The movie was Yankee Doodle Dandy, the James Cagney biopic of George M. Cohan. Maybe it seems like a better movie for the Fourth of July, but the pageantry of musicals is always good for New Year's Eve, and there's nothing like ringing out the old year with James Cagney tap-dancing down the White House steps.

I like to play a game where the image that's on the screen when we clink glasses for a New Year's kiss is going to represent the coming year. I did it last year and got Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing cheek to cheek. [wrote about it here.] This year, this is what Stephen and I got.

If you look close, in the foreground are two glasses of the good stuff, and in the background are Cagney and costar Joan Leslie as an old couple drinking tea.

Two toasts for 2012. If you wanted to interpret this image, you might look at the whole film and note that in this moment this couple is looking back on a lifetime of accomplishments and about to embark on their greatest accomplishment of all. Or you might note that they're two old people drinking tea. Either way, it's cozy.

waiting...

Things to do after work when you're [impatiently] awaiting word on adopting a new dog.

Step one. Call Mom and talk about dogs. Have her turn the phone over to Dad. Talk to him about computers. And dogs.

Step two. Get on the internet and read about dogs.

Step three. Try for about three minutes to work on writing.

Step four. Give up and get on the internet and read about dogs.

Step five. Make frozen pizza and watch a movie. Look through your collection for something that might be about dogs or at least heartwarming. Select White Heat.



Step six. Think, hmm, Cagney would make a great name for a Chihuahua.

dame

What better for your birthday morning than chocolate croissants and strawberries in champagne and dames? Or Dames, anyway. Busby Berkeley dance numbers, Dick Powell making wise cracks, Ruby Keeler faces everywhere.

The card Stephen made was Berkeley too, although from a different movie. Here's "By a Waterfall" from Footlight Parade...





And since I've always wanted to be a Berkeley girl...

...

Another thing I've realized, which doesn't matter.


In the movie Flamingo Road (whose premise is all about place) Joan Crawford's character's name is Lane and Zachary Scott's character's name is Field.

Sydney Greenstreet's character's name isn't about place in any way, but after all, his name is Sydney Greenstreet.

thumbnail celebration

Stephen and I are consummate celebraters. And particularly, each art show or publication must come with a celebration to honor it. Usually this means food and/or a movie. The night after Stephen's symposium in Tacoma, it was The Leopard, a film so influential he'd spoken about it and shown images in his presentation. When Portland Noir came out, we had dinner at Everett Street Bistro, and Stephen had them make me a blue drink even though they didn't have one on the menu, since a blue drink (and subsequent blue teeth) make an appearance in my story.

Saturday night was a little celebration in honor of the publication of the April 2011 issue of Thumbnail Magazine, and my essay "Mariel at the Tent Flaps." [Which is just out - you can check it out and order print or e-copies here. Just saying.] The unique thing about Thumbnail is that everything in it is small. Flash fiction, tiny essays, short poetry. I told Stephen we should have a tiny celebration. Everything small. He not only indulged my whim, he went a little hog wild at the store while I was still at work.



Tiny pizzas. Tiny spanakopitas. Mushroom pockets that looked like little pasties. Grape tomatoes. Other little hors d'oeuvres. Stephen had mini chicken tacos.

[full disclosure: after we took the pictures, we dumped everything from the small plates into something more manageable.]

Tiny bottle of champagne (why it's blue, i don't know - you could also buy one whose bottle was pink like pepto bismol).

[full disclosure: after the tiny champagne, we opened a full-sized bottle.]



Tiny dessert.

And the movie? Time Bandits. A childhood favorite - one we had on video and watched over and over when I was a kid. It also happens to have a cast of small people.





When we popped the tiny champagne, I told Stephen we had to have a toast.

"A small toast," I said.

I raised my [shamefully regular-sized] glass. "To," I said.

And drank.

Stephen laughed the way you laugh when you're being sweet and indulging your wife's sense of humor.

He raised his glass. He said, "You."

the last film i saw

A new episode of The Last Film I Saw podcast is here!

Stephen was the special guest this time, and he is obviously a much better on-the-spot speaker on the subject of film than I. Spoilers if you haven't yet seen Rome, Open City.

Plus, Brian Padian is hilarious.

Plus, I want to watch The Shining again.

marching

Recently, I was part of a podcast in a cool, wacky series called The Last Film I Saw, produced by writer/filmmaker Brian Padian of Northern Flicker Films.

You can check it out here.

I was the special guest and for a few moments I talked about the last film I saw. What I thought was really interesting was that he didn't ask me to analyze the film. He asked me why I watched it.

I was excited to truly have a why for this movie. However inarticulately I might have talked about it, I had a pretty strong why. The film was Gold Diggers of 1933. It's a crazy movie - part big Busby Berkeley dance spectacle, part crackpot comedy, part tear your heart out. I'm not sure these different parts all fit together, but I don't care. It's part of what I love about it.

Another thing I love about it is that, as I mentioned in the podcast, it's about the Depression and it was made during the Depression. All the screwball comedy, the sparkly musical production numbers - they're about this very serious, very scary time in American history. Which was going on at the time.















The film opens with Ginger Rogers singing We're In the Money in pig latin. How weird is that? And scores of dancing girls dressed in giant coins. Singing, "You'll never see a headline / About a breadline today." What must audiences have thought, having passed breadlines to get to the theater and watch girls dance under towers of giant money? It's a triumphant declaration of the awful irony of it all. Plus pig latin.

My why was that I was afraid of losing my job and afraid for friends losing their jobs during a big layoff at work. Which of course was happening partly because of the recession we're in - which we call a recession, only a recession, but I'm sure the word depression felt innocuous enough before people had lived in it long enough.

It was the first day of the layoffs, and I'd spent all day in such worry that by the end of it, I came home and was too mind-exhausted to write or do much of anything. There was something about the strange combination of real and unreal of that film that made it the perfect escape that night. That stylized reality of 1930s films, the artifice of the stage, and the Depression right there in the middle of it all. During the podcast, I told Brian I might have to watch it again. The layoff process was not finished, and I wasn't sure if I'd be watching the film in celebration or defeat, but I figured I'd be watching it again.

It took a week but I finally knew neither Stephen nor I were losing our jobs. That night it was me again in front of the TV, Ginger Rogers in extreme closeup--that one crooked tooth--singing E're-way in-ay the oney-may.

The other reason I watched it a second time is that, the first time, I'd had to stop the movie before the end of the final musical number, to go pick Stephen up. And that's my favorite part, that number. After a whole lot of plot kookiness, here comes this surprise heart-wrenching anthem:

Remember my forgotten man.

You put a rifle in his hand.

You sent him far away,

You shouted: Hip-hooray!

But look at him today.



It's really an amazing number. Again, the artifice of the stage and of 1930s Hollywood, but a heavy truth at the bottom of it all. This was how America was feeling at that time. Betrayed. And they put it on the screen in this triumphant tableau.

Somewhere mid-point in the film when play producer Barney Hopkins (who is putting on a musical about the Depression during the Depression - in this movie made during the Depression) hears the music for the song for the first time, he's transfixed by the sound and the rhythm alone: "Men marching! Marching in the rain!" he shouts over the piano. "Marching, marching! Doughnuts and crullers! Jobs, jobs, marching, marching, marching in the rain..."

Brian Padian describes his The Last Film I Saw Podcast as:

A weekly and/or biweekly investigation of cinematic undertaking w/a minimum of fancy-pants language.

You can check them all out here.