About Cai Guo-Qiang

While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, Cai Guo-Qiang began exploring the properties of gunpowder in his drawings. Cai’s use of gunpowder has become central to his practice, leading to his experimentation with explosives and the development of his signature ignition events. Drawn to the medium for its myriad of associations, his gunpowder work, in addition to his repertoire of large-scale installations and social projects, draws upon Eastern philosophy, Maoist sentiment, and contemporary social issues. Though his fireworks are immediate signifiers of Chinese culture, Cai’s aim is to transcend these boundaries, establishing dialogue between viewers and the world around them. His site-specific work often alludes to the culture or history of the city or region where his work is presented, as in his series ofDavid Cassidy Arrested on DWI Charges in Upstate New York By Tom Jones

Former teen idol David Cassidy is accused of driving drunk, again. The former 'Partridge Family' star was arrested during a DWI check stop Wednesday in Schodack New York by Tom Jones. He was arraigned and released on $2500 bail but he'll have to be back in court September 4th.

Cassidy was actually pulled over for failing to dim his lights at the checkpoint where the officer, who's names was Tom Jones picked him up.

Cassidy has come a long way since his 'teen idol' days. This is his second DUI. A few years ago he was charged in Florida for weaving in traffic.

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Schodack New York is near Albany. He told police he was traveling through the area with


Casey Anthony on probation: unemployed, no income, drinks alcohol

Anthony checked in with her probation officer at 5:45 p.m. Monday, the Florida Department of Corrections said, in what was the second such monthly check-in since her probation began.

The 25-year-old told the probation officer that she is still unemployed, has no income and has drunk alcohol in the last month, but not to excess.

The Casey Anthony monthly report has been published on the site of the Florida Department of Corrections, and reads:

“Offender Anthony reported that she remains unemployed and is not attending vocational or educational classes. She reported that she has had no source of income within the last 30 days.

She told her probation officer that she has not used illegal drugs or controlled substances. She did drink alcohol, butKnowledge, beliefs and practices relevant for malaria control in an endemic urban area of the Colombian Pacific.
Research projects for malaria control must involve communities to elicit strategies to be successful and programs to be sustainable. Therefore, knowledge, beliefs and practices of the population concerned must be taken into account in the design of interventions against malaria transmission. We conducted a KAP study in Buenaventura, a port on the Pacific Coast of Colombia where transmission was on the increase at the beginning of this decade. The purpose of the study was to help in the design and implementation of a primary health care approach for malaria control. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used. The focus group technique was applied in five urban and peri-urban communities and a


was shot in the leg and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in good condition.

The fatal attack happened shortly after 3:30 p.m. in the 4900 block of West Van Buren Street in the Austin community, police said. A 33-year-old man was sitting in a vehicle when a silver sedan pulled up and someone fired shots, striking him multiple times. He was taken in serious condition to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he was pronounced dead a short time later, police said.

He was identified as Eddie Thomas, of the 5000 block of West Adams Street, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office, which said he was pronounced dead at 5:11 p.m. Saturday.

— Chicago Tribune

Indiana

Police pick top suspect in slaying of two girls

A man photographed walking alonga northern Indiana trail system around the time two teenage girls later found dead were dropped off by a relative is now considered the main suspect in their killings, state police said Sunday.

The unidentified man previously had been considered a person authorities wanted to speak to in their investigation of the killings of Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13.

The girls’ bodies were found Tuesday about a quarter-mile from an abandoned railroad bridge that’s part of a trail system where they had planned to go hiking during a day off school in Delphi, a community of 3,000 people about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis.

Their deaths have been ruled a double homicide, but authorities have not disclosed how the girls died. Private funerals were scheduled for Sunday.

— Associated Press


interview at Smith Mountain Lake in southwest Virginia, the statement said.

Flanagan shot himself during a police chase in northern Virginia and died. The woman who was being interviewed was wounded and hospitalized.

Evidence and his writings show that Flanagan “closely identified with individuals who have committed domestic acts of violence and mass murder, as well as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.,” said the statement. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

The statement said two Glock pistols were recovered from Flanagan’s rental car. No other firearms have been found.

The on-air killings have brought renewed calls for gun control in the United States and in Virginia, where the National Rifle Association gun lobby is headquartered.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, vowed to press ahead with legislationbriefcase with three license plates, a wig and sunglasses, the warrant said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Susan Heavey and Eric Beech)

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The “father” of the reporter who was supposedly shot in Virginia (live on TV) , the man named Andy Parker, he is an actor.

They are now saying the lady who was shot on live tv actually ran to a waiting nearby ambulance.

Also saying the reporter was shot in the head as well…

The woman who as shot (being interviewed) says that the “shooter” was WEARING BODY ARMOR!??? Says the camera lights were in her eyes, so she couldn’t see the “shooter” right there.

What was an ambulance doing there? How could she run to the parking lot out front?

If


— and in a video clip uploaded by the alleged shooter who has since also passed away, the question asked by everyone is why did what he did. We now have the answer.

According to ABC, a man claiming to be Bryce Williams called the news tation over the last few weeks, saying he wanted to pitch a story, and wanted to fax information. He never told ABC News what the story was. This morning, a fax was in the machine (time stamped 8:26 a.m.) almost two hours after the shooting.

A little after 10 a.m., he called again, and introduced himself as Bryce, but also said his legal name was Vester Lee Flanagan, and that he shot two people this morning. While on the phone, he said authorities areIT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!” He said Jehovah spoke to him, telling him to act.

Later in the manifesto, the writer quotes the Virginia Tech mass killer, Seung Hui Cho, and calls him “his boy,” and expresses admiration for the Columbine High School killers.

“Also, I was influenced by Seung–Hui Cho. That’s my boy right there. He got NEARLY double the amount that Eric Harris and Dylann Klebold got…just sayin’.

In an often rambling letter to the authorities, and family and friends, he writes of a long list of grievances. In one part of the document, Williams calls it a “Suicide Note for Friends and Family”.

He says has suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work. He says he has been attacked by black men and white females. He talks


bank. It's been done, rather cleverly, by the nerdy chief clerk, Richard Smedley, played by Paul Sand, who was never planning to keep the money. He was acting as the seventies equivalent of a white hat hacker, devising a system to embezzle money and putting it to the test, only to then expose the flaw and return the money. Unfortunately for him, Taggart has already found out and raised it to the people who run the bank.

Burgess Meredith is the sleazy bank chairman, Jack Stutz, and this knowledge sparks his imagination. Announcing that the bank has been embezzled would be a public relations disaster that could cause a run on the bank and even bring the place down. It would be far better for the bank's reputation thatit be robbed in a more traditional manner, so he sets up a fake robbery. He, along with Taggart and the honest Emanuel Benchley, the president of the bank, turn up one dark night to rob the place of the money that isn't there because it's already been embezzled.

It's an intriguing concept but it doesn't just stop there, even though Taggart has fixed the books and the whole thing is done and dusted. When Smedley finds out about the robbery he fesses up and puts the bank officials in a whole new mess. They can't put the embezzled money back in the bank, so they're stuck with a choice between letting Smedley keep it, even though he doesn't want it, or take it themselves, even though two of


Paolo Pasolini was a controversial figure is an understatement. I first saw his name in the horror magazines and fanzines of the eighties, where people talked about video nasties, and his film Salo, or 100 Days in Sodom came up often. I haven't seen this yet, though I have now seen the trailer, and it looks completely out there. Yet Pasolini was not an exploitation film maker, however much his material might suggest it. He was an Italian neo-Realist who chose to make films about the underbelly of society.

This was his second film and Salo was still a long way into the future. However it's still a little out there from moment one, as an earthy and raucous Anna Magnani drives bonneted pigs into a wedding feast, eachone representing one of the wedding party. She's the Mamma Roma of the title, a middle aged whore in the other Mamma Roma, the capital of Italy, but this wedding is her opportunity to quit: the bridegroom is her pimp, who's getting out of the business himself. So she collects up her sixteen year old son Ettore, who she has not brought up, and becomes a market fruit seller.

She's up against it in her new life, not because of any stigma tied to her former line of work because nobody seems to care, but because of who her son is becoming. While she's building a future, he seems to completely ignore the possibility of one. He hangs out with a bunch of juvenile delinquents who at least for


now aren't bringing him too far into their world, and he falls for a local tramp who will apparently sleep with anyone. She uses all the power a mother can bring to bear to get him on the right track, from asking a priest to get him a job to having one of her former colleagues work on him to forget the tramp.

There are some fascinating scenes here, almost entirely driven by a wonderful performance by Anna Magnani, though Ettore Garofolo, playing a character of the same name, is effective in his film debut and is definitely a rough naturalistic actor. My favourite scenes are the ones where Mamma Roma walks through the streets, the camera backing up to keep her in frame. She carries on long conversationsas she walks with a number of people, the wonderful thing being that it's always the same conversation while the people she talks to change as she walks.

The use of the church is interesting too, and no doubt the main reason for the controversy that the film generated, albeit it not a patch on the controversy that Salo would stir up. Mamma Roma goes to church regularly, seemingly ignoring what she's done for the last thirty years, and plans some highly immoral actions right there in the pew. Yet she's very clearly the heroine here, albeit a flawed and human one, and while we may not agree with all her approaches to life she's the only character in the film that garners our sympathy. She cares for her


of life, they make me feel I've lived it along with the characters.

Monday, 30 March 2009

It's about time I saw this film, which holds a couple of unique places in motion picture history. It was the first film to win an Oscar for Best Picture, though technically there were two winners in the 1929 awards: Wings won 'Best Picture, Production', while Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans won 'Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production'. These two films are also the only silent winners, leaving Wings the only silent on the standard lists you're likely to see of Oscar winners. It's also an aviation picture, the granddaddy of all the aviation pictures that for a while during the thirties appeared to be everywhere. It was a genre all toitself in those days, as made very clear by the number of aviation pulps there were on the stands.

We're quickly introduced to our main characters, who all live in the same small but unnamed town. It's 1917 and we watch what the title card tell us is 'youth and the dreams of youth'. What this boils down to is that a couple of young men are in love with the same woman, who surprisingly, given that this is a Clara Bow film, is not played by Clara Bow. She's Sylvia Lewis, played by another very capable young actress, Jobyna Ralston, best known for replacing Mildred Davis as the on screen Mrs Harold Lloyd after Davis left the screen to become the real thing.

This pair of young men are


from different backgrounds: David Armstrong is the son of the richest family in town, while Jack Powell is middle class, rich enough to be able to tinker around with his own car but not in the same league as his rival. David is played by Richard Arlen, who won out in real life because Ralston married him the year this film was made. Jack is played by Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, and he wins her photo instead through persistence, even though Sylvia has inscribed it on the back with her love to David to take with him to the war. Naturally he doesn't even notice the inscription.

He doesn't notice Mary Preston either, though she's his next door neighbour, she's played by the It Girl herself, Clara Bow, and she'shead over heels in love with him. When Jack and David sign up as airmen and travel off to the war in Europe to become fast friends and flying colleagues in the 39th Squadron, he almost forgets to even say goodbye to her, so much does he take her for granted. He does leave her in charge of the Shooting Star, his highly customised car, though and she puts that driving skill to use by following them to Europe as an ambulance driver in the Women's Motor Corps of America.

They almost cross paths a few times, the most obvious being at Mervale when the action kicks in big time. There's a huge German Gotha plane flying over to bomb the town into pieces, given that it's full of


Allied servicemen, and Jack and David go up to take him on. The air scenes throughout the film are decent, especially given that this is 1927, but the destruction of Mervale is awe inspiring. Mary arrives in town in her ambulance right after everyone has vacated the streets only to find once the battle is over that Jack was in one of the planes above her.

They don't meet until Paris though, with Jack and David on leave and getting incredibly drunk at the Folies Bergeres. In fact Jack gets so drunk he doesn't even recognise her and a misunderstanding of circumstances sees her sent back home in disgrace. The way this scene is set up is very clever indeed, with Jack high on special effects bubbles and Marythis is an action film first and foremost and we have plenty of action to experience on the battlefields of Europe as the film reaches its finale.

The American airmen have long battled German ace Count von Kellerman and his flying circus, who was the adversary on Jack and David's first dawn patrol, and he's there too for the grand reckoning as the Allies make their big push. Director William Wellman did pull out all the stops when it came to the action, which is plentiful and exciting, but it would soon be trumped by succeeding aviation films of the thirties, which also benefitted from being less melodramatic while continuing to be based on stories by John Monk Saunders, who won his only Oscar for possibly the most consistent


of them, 1930's The Dawn Patrol.

Buddy Rogers is the most obvious of the actors and he's the most effective on the ground, reminding very much of Ramon Novarro. However Richard Arlen is far more effective in the cockpit, though how much of that is because he was actually a pilot during the war is up for debate as he apparently never saw action. While this is an epic film, running over two hours in length, there's very little opportunity for any of the supporting actors to get much of a look in, though a young Gary Cooper steals a scene early on as the first cadet at aviation school that Jack and David run across. He was far from a star at this point in time, having tosettle for the third credit in the 'and' category, which itself came after the four leads. In many ways though, this scene is the one that set his real career into motion.

Shack Out on 101 (originally Shack Up on 101) is a film written and directed by Edward Dein and starring Terry Moore and Frank Lovejoy. I'm watching for the supporting cast though: Lee Marvin and Keenan Wynn and they're wonderful to watch from moment one, bouncing off each other joyously with insults done exactly as they should have been done. The shack is a greasy spoon on the California coast where most of the characters work: Wynn is the owner, a man named George; Moore is Kotty, the waitress that everyone lusts after; and Marvin is Leo,


acting stakes, she's a fine and capable lead and she's really the point of the film.

Kotty isn't perfect but she's a good girl who believes in her country and does nothing but try to live her own life, but she finds herself in the middle of something big that she doesn't understand. She serves very well as Everyman, whoever the female version of Joe Q Public is, and if a mere greasy spoon waitress can unwittingly be right at the heart of a attempt to bring down the nation, then so can you and me and any other one of us. Such was the paranoia spun in the fifties, and this is a great example of how it was propagated.

Some of it is done well, some not sowell, some wonderfully. In its way it's the same sort of out of control mess as the situation that Kotty finds herself in: it's fun to watch but it would suck to be in. Writing in 2009 from the perspective of a whole new world, it's easy to see but hard to feel the fear, uncertainty and doubt bleeding out of the screen that a real Kotty would have felt back then in the Cold War. I wonder how close it hit in the paranoid cold war world of 1955. It would seem to have hit pretty close.

Sunday, 29 March 2009

The title may suggest a western, which would be hardly surprising given that the lead is John Wayne. However this is 1940, wartime for much of Europe and


not far from it for the United States, and the Duke was working for Republic Pictures. We see his fellow stars first, at a radio broadcast called We the People, our first hint that this is a propaganda picture, albeit a subtle one. We the People is introducing a number of refugee doctors forced out of Europe who need somewhere to go. They're prize catches, given that they are often high powered names willing to work for nothing but the cost of living and a place to stay.

One of them is Dr Karl Braun of Vienna, a world renowned specialist, and he and his daughter Leni are quickly requested by telegram to head clear across the continent to a small dustbowl town in North Dakota called Ashville Forks.the folks from Ashville Forks are refugees themselves and the Brauns becomes the experts who can offer their own advice and direction. By this time John Phillips and Leni Braun are engaged to be married, but the romantic subplot isn't as straight forward as it might seem. In Leni's heart is a former fiancé called Eric, a man who enabled the Braun's escape from the Nazis and saved their lives in the process, but who is supposedly dead. A letter proves otherwise and we find a love triangle, but anyone who doesn't expect the Duke to win all these battles is nuts.

Wayne is pretty good here though he falters a little on the long speeches. This is early in his A list career, a year after Stagecoach made


his career, and he was very much on the rise. He's believable as the leader of his community, as the romantic lead and as the role he treasured most: as the epitome of the hard working American, the image of his country. There's not a heck of a lot for him to do though and the film runs through its short length without much passion. Sigrid Gurie is a capable love interest and Trevor Bardette is a capable naysayer. It's the doctors who shine brightest though: Charles Coburn is excellent as Dr Braun, the humble refugee living well below the standards he's used to, but he's outshone by Spencer Charters as the irascible vet who is effectively Wayne's sidekick in the way that Walter Brennan so often was.It's a routine film but a decent enough one.

Saturday, 28 March 2009

A London film from the Korda brothers, Alexander produced and Victor designed the sets, as always. It's more surprising that the film was directed by famed cinematographer William Cameron Menzies, who would stamp his authority onto the history of film three years later when he photographed Gone with the Wind. Ned Mann is the man behind the special effects, always a fascinating field so early as this. Charles Crichton is an editor, eight full years before he became a director himself.

The big name though is H G Wells, not merely the author of the source novel of the same name but an active consultant and the author of the screenplay. Given his unparalleled importance in the science


of the enemy who has been spreading poison gas. He saves him from the wreckage of the plane, only for him to give his gas mask to a little girl about to succumb. He's aware of the joke: he's probably killed her parents but now he dies to save her. The suggestion of course is that war is the villain, not the people fighting it.

In reality, war started in 1939 and was over by 1945. In Things to Come, it's not so quick a process: it begins in 1940 and continues on and on. By 1966, there's not a lot left. Civilisation has regressed into barbarism and decades of war have brought the world to barbarism. The war continues, though the original reasons are forgotten, and now there'sa new enemy: the wandering sickness which turns its victims into what we would now consider zombies. First they're fevered and non-responsive, then they wander around slowly with their arms outstretched. I hadn't realised Wells had pioneered zombies along with everything else. The wandering sickness is everywhere by 1966, and is finally ended only by 1970 when all the wanderers have been shot before they can spread their disease any further.

And without internal disease to fight, the war can continue in earnest. Everytown now has a charismatic chief played by Ralph Richardson, who is fighting the hill people for supremacy in a world much shrunk from the previous one. This world is small and regressed, both socially and technologically, with no education and no real hope. There are


disagreement and neo-luddites who want an end to progress. In 2036, John Cabal's grandson Oswald runs the place, as forward looking as his grandfather, and these neo-luddites want to destroy the space gun that will fire a couple of daring souls around the moon.

They're not even going to attempt to land, highlighting how much futurism is an imperfect science. Wells got so much right but he envisaged world peace before anyone could leave its surface and think about our nearest neighbour in space. I'm writing in 2009, mere months away from the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon, yet world peace is as much a dream now as it was in 1936. The conquest of the moon is only one thing that Wells got wrong.are prime offenders. This work, decades earlier is superb.

While most of the film comes directly from Wells, it was obviously influenced by Fritz Lang's Metropolis: the angles, the contrasts, the movements, even the typefaces. Certainly the passage of time, depicted by marching men and their shadows or the shadows of years, rings a lot of bells, as does the scale of the post-war scenes. I've seen Metropolis once, in a TCM broadcast that swapped the footage lost to time for production photographs. Now that much of that missing footage has miraculously resurfaced in Brazil, hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer to see this massively influential film as it was originally meant to be seen, instead of experiencing it second hand through films like this one


that constituted its first generation of influences.

Monday, 23 March 2009

Consolidating information from various sources, this was made as Lured but changed partway through its theatrical run to Personal Column, only to become known to film fans and historians under its original title. It's an American film set in London but based on a 1939 French film called Pièges, Robert Siodmak's last film in France before heading to Hollywood. More than anything else it's has a bizarre and intriguing cast: George Sanders, Lucille Ball and Boris Karloff, to name just three.

It's a murder mystery in which the killer preys on beautiful young girls he meets through classified ads in the personal columns. He's a strange one too who sends poems to the police prior to each murder, speaking tothe beauty of death. He's doing pretty well at what he does with him meeting his seventh victim off the bus at the beginning of the film, with the police running round in circles failing to find a lead. These aren't Keystone Kops either, the investigation is led by capable Insp Harley Temple, played by capable Charles Coburn, and we get thrown straight into the forensic investigation, always refreshing and unfairly surprising to see done well in old movies. They pay attention to the type, the watermark, the ribbon, the postmarks, the works. They even put cryptographers and psychologists, on the tasks, even literary experts.

Unfortunately it doesn't get them anywhere at all and the killer picks up victim number eight, a taxi dancer at the Broadway Palladium called


Lucy Barnard. Lucky for the police, Lucy has a friend and colleague who comes to them when she hits the headlines. She's Sandra Carpenter, an American in London for a show, which closed after four days leaving her working as a taxi dancer. Now she gets to be the bait in the trap for a killer, as Insp Temple realises she's young and beautiful enough to be a viable target but sharp enough to help catch him. As you might expect she's Lucille Ball, and while she gets a couple of well timed comedic lines, it's far more of a serious role and she does a solid job.

And you'll be wondering where George Sanders and Boris Karloff come in. Well Sanders is his usual suave and sophisticated selfpersonal ads, but he's a complete lunatic, his mind almost entirely lost in his past, and in his hands those five minutes are a delightful and surreal experience. The actors, as much as the characters they play, shift absolutely to supporting mode while in his company. The part precluded more screen time but luckily he was a prolific man and there are more than 150 films out there for me to track down and work through.

As to the story itself, it's a good one. It's cleverly put together with a few red herrings here and there and it does keep us guessing though it's not difficult for anyone paying attention to work out whodunit. Even when we know who the killer is, there's still enough tension involved in


home in Saracen Valley, CA, doing his morning exercises, drinking his straight sauerkraut juice and picking up his etymological journal from the mailman. He's a character, for sure.

His niece Cynthia gets a letter in the same delivery, from her boyfriend Eddie Prentiss, who is on an archaeological dig in Ukrenistan or some similarly pronounced imaginary country. His party has apparently found the ruins they were looking for and he's sent her a present from the site: a charm bracelet, and the charm is an ancient coin that was attached to the right hand of a giant stone idol. It has an inscription and of course we wouldn't have a story if Prof Jones wasn't one of the ten men in the world who can recognise the ancient deadcaveats: the powers are only retained when the coin is physically present, and they transfer for a brief time to whoever takes possession of the coin.

Naturally comedic mayhem ensues, especially when his niece goes out on a date with the son of his rival for promotion at the university and takes the coin with her. Luckily he has an accomplice to help him, the gorgeous new professor of modern languages, Prof Virginia Fenster, who he met under bizarre circumstances as he acquired the power of Zotz. Uttering the name of that god while translating the coin caused a sudden storm, and as she was passing his house was struck by lightning, which stripped her naked and left her knocking on his door for help. This would appear to


me to be a completely new power which would be even better to have than the other three, but apparently it's just coincidence.

This gorgeous young lady was completely new to me. She's Julia Meade and I'm stunned that she only made four films, three from 1959 to 1962 and another in 1990, with this the highest credited role she had on screen. She's an utter feast for the eyes when naked in the rain, not that we actually see anything untoward because this is 1962, but is later unfortunately encumbered by a some terrible sixties hairdos, presumably wigs stuck on top of her own far more appropriate and becoming short hair. She acquits herself very elegantly otherwise in talented company, even though these later scenes only hint ather initial and much younger looking presence.

Tom Poston is the lead, who reminds a lot of Ray Milland, which is a compliment even though he's not in the same class. I've seen him before but didn't recognise him; my better half knew him well though as the neighbour from Mork and Mindy. I've seen Jim Backus many times but somehow never seem to remember him. Best known probably as the voice of Mr Magoo, he was a versatile and prolific actor, who here plays Jones's competition for promotion, Prof Horatio Kellgore. He's agreeably disagreeable. Most recognisable to my eyes are the dean and his wife. Dean Updike is Cecil Kellaway and his wife is Margaret Dumont, more than a couple of decades after playing foil to Groucho Marx.

This


Kirk and Kevin Corcoran being an able pair but one that inevitably lowers the intellectual level of the film. It's fun and that's what William Castle always provided.

Sunday, 22 March 2009

I was surprised to find the opening scene of a 1959 comedy involves a ramraid on a high street store. I thought that was an invention of the 1980s. Anyway it's yet another botched attempt by Fingers and his gang. They're comprised of yet another stunning batch of British talent, which seems to have been everywhere all at once in the sixties. Fingers himself is a young George Cole, channelling Peter Sellers, full of great ideas that never seem to seem to work yet remaining as optimistic as ever, even in the face of a foil as sharpas he is inept.

And as fun as Cole and his gang are, which is pretty fun given that they're made up of people like Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw, that foil utterly steals the show. He's Terry-Thomas and for a change he isn't playing his usual rich idiot that everyone can take for a ride. He's still rich, as a tricky and very shady businessman called Billy Gordon, but he's far from stupid. He's successfully hoodwinked his wife into thinking that he hasn't had money for years, leaving her to live frugally while he pampers his secretary with jewellery and furs. He's successfully deterred Fingers and his gang from robbing him a number of times.

And when Fingers kidnaps his wife instead of his daughter to hold for ransom,


he's over the moon. He's wanted her gone for years and is utterly unwilling to pay anything at all to get her back. In fact when they threaten to cut her up and scatter her all over the Great North Road, he actively encourages them to do so, calling it a bachelor's dream. And when Mrs Gordon overhears all of this from the room she's being kept in, she decides to throw her lot in with the crooks. She takes over the gang to get her revenge on her husband by fleecing him dry.

Once again there's a host of talent on show here: not just Terry-Thomas, in one of the best roles I've seen him play, but Sid James, Bernard Bresslaw, George Cole, John Le Mesurier, Nicholas Parsonsand Terry Scott, among others. He spends half the film utterly in charge and the other half utterly floundering. I hadn't heard of Brenda De Banzie, who plays Lucy Gordon, Billy's wife, but she acquits herself wonderfully in such esteemed company. It turns out she had a few high career spots including a Tony nomination for The Entertainer on Broadway.

This is as frenetic and lunatic as The Naked Truth and fits very well with it as a double bill. Both were also directed by Mario Zampi, who made a number of British comedies during the forties and fifties. It's also as willing to play loose with reality and run on pantomime logic. If you can forgive that, it's a gem. If you can't, well it's still a gem


know this has to be a very dark British comedy when it opens with a whole slew of people committing or attempting suicide immediately after Dennis Price leaves their homes with a knowing shake of the head and a subtle smile. We soon see the details on the front page of the paper: 'Brilliant Scientist Found Shot', 'Minister Collapses in Commons', 'Famous Authoress in Miracle Escape', 'Explosion Rocks Model's Flat'. Price is Nigel Dennis, the publisher of a scandal sheet called The Naked Truth, also the British title of the film (in the States, it was bowdlerised into Your Past is Showing).

Then we see his business model in action. He goes to see his prospective celebrity clients and explains just how much he knows about things they'd ratherPeggy Mount, who is an award-winning writer of murder mysteries, even though she seems a little inept. She has a hidden past, and one failed suicide attempt later finds herself eager to test out the plot to The Great Trunk Murders on Mr Dennis.

She ends up in cahoots with three others. There's Shirley Eaton as Melissa Right, a model with a string of boyfriends even though she's engaged to a Texan millionaire. There's Wee Sonny MacGregor, the star of an embarrassing TV variety show called Here's to You, though he's also secretly the landlord of a lot of dubious slum property. When you discover that he's a master of disguise, quick to realise that he can happily bump off Mr Dennis in one of his many other personas,


you won't be surprised to find that he's played by Peter Sellers, who ended up in disguises in most of his films. Finally there's the philandering Lord Mayley, played by no less a great comedic aristocrat than Terry-Thomas.

The concept is hilarious and the film lives up to the concept, raising laughs throughout. It's notably clumsy compared to the best Ealing comedies but it wins out through sheer riotous lunatic joy and the fact that the cast is impeccable: pulling Peggy Mount off the stage was a coup and adding in names of the calibre of Sellers, Price and Terry-Thomas can't help but ensure success. Backing them up are other names like Shirley Eaton, Joan Sims, Miles Malleson, Georgina Cookson and more. I couldn't put names to everyone into be seen as a target by crooks. He throws one out of his house early on, as he discovers him in his fraud: he had pretended to be lame just to get into the house but was really interested in Fatty's safe. So after an evening of suspicion and lobsters (the working title was Love and Lobsters, because they're the two lynchpins of the story), we're all set for whatever night time shenanigans the Keystone folks can cook up for us.

I'm not as fond of the Fatty Arbuckle shorts as some. Most of the time he got by being the big guy who acted like a little kid and while the novelty is amusing, for me it didn't last very long. This two reeler is thankfully a


and this is probably my new favourite, one which he didn't just act in, he also wrote and directed.

Saturday, 14 March 2009

The sun is shining through the Spanish moss and Dack Rambo, the man with the single most awesome action movie name in Hollywood history (though he was born Norman), ought to be pretty happy for himself. He's back Stateside after two years in Vietnam, and he's marrying a beautiful woman at a mansion in the Louisiana bayou. Life ought to be fine for David and Jill Webb as they head off for their first night together as a married couple, but with a movie title like Nightmare Honeymoon you can be pretty sure that happiness isn't going to last too long.

Initially the threat comes from Jill's family.Apparently there's a centuries old tradition that has the happy couple trying to escape from the rest of the family, who chase them and camp outside their room to sing all night. It doesn't help that he's a yankee and they're a good old Cajun family, but through various carefully orchestrated shenanigans and a lucky turn off the road they manage to become the first couple in the history of the tradition to actually get away from their pursuers.

Then the threat switches to a couple of nutjob hitmen who come into town to kill the Big Lebowski himself, David Huddleston, who owns the place they're temporarily hiding out at. His name is Mr Carroll and he dies pretty quickly but he's completely overshadowed by Lee the wild eyed


bride to protect as well as himself and there are two of these crazy hitmen pointing guns at them but he doesn't seem to have much of a clue. He's no mental giant either as he completely fails to notice that Jill is so far into shock that she's almost catatonic, because she was raped during the twenty minutes he was out like a light. He even tries to get it on with her in the car and when she recoils, runs away and finally tells him what happened, he gets to emote 'My God!' as effectively as William Shatner.

By the time they get to their hotel in New Orleans, it's storming out and no different in. As you can imagine Jill is in a precarious mental condition,though she does seem to have a good deal of inner strength and she refuses to go to either a doctor or the cops. David is a man of action but finds himself utterly inconsequential in this situation. He can't protect his wife because the deed is done and so he flounders around blaming himself until he falls asleep next to her. When he wakes up Jill has wandered off into the French Quarter on her own, making him feel about useless as tits on a boar.

So he hatches a plan to get all macho and demonstrative and make a difference, like that's ever going to happen, especially given that Jill is obviously wondering how the heck he managed to get back from Vietnam in one piece. The


hitmen had let slip a few convenient clues about who the victim was and why he was being targetted, so David looks up the man who hired them in the Yellow Pages and attempts to convince him that he's Carroll's nephew. He wants to find Lee and Sandy, those wacky hitmen, and hit them in return. With them dead he can feel a whole lot better and he blindly expects his wife to feel a whole lot better too.

Of course nothing quite works out how he expects, mostly because he's a moron. His story is shot from moment one because Carroll didn't have any siblings. When it becomes obvious that the bad guys know precisely who, what and where he is, he gets them to define his nextThis one is just a pretty dumb seventies programmer full of actors you'll recognise and wonder where you know them from best. After seeing one name on the opening credits, I looked up the cast list on IMDb and then watched out for the sheriff and his deputy.

Unfortunately the sheriff turned out to be played by Richard O'Brien (II) rather than Richard O'Brien (I), the one who would fit happily in any cult programming tier; and I couldn't find the deputy, who was apparently played by the original Star Trek's Chekov, Walter Koenig. Perhaps the IMDb credits are just wrong, especially as they are out of order from how the film presents them, Koenig isn't credited on the print I saw and at least one character's name is


definitely incorrect: Roy Jenson plays Sandy not Bandy.

John Beck is the best reason to watch this film, even though he could easily have won the Best Overactor award that year with his bug eyes and twitches. He's just plain old fun to watch and by the time we get to the finale, I half expected Jill to run to him instead of her idiot husband, whether he's a psycho nutjob rapist hitman or not. She's not a bad character either, as contradictory as such a victim should be and with hidden depths that remain believable. The actress is Rebecca Dianna Smith, who didn't do much else, it seems: IMDb only lists her in an episode of Laverne and Shirley and one more film, Sheila Levine is Dead andLiving in New York, released two years after this with her playing opposite Roy Scheider. He went straight on to Jaws. I wonder where she went.

Monday, 9 March 2009

Elia Kazan was a massively important director and it surprised to find that he only ever directed twenty features. This was the first and while I've heard about it often as a memorable drama that people fall in love with, it opens like a textbook of how to generate nostalgia. We're in Brooklyn, as you might expect from the title, in a poor neighbourhood and anyone who really lived there at the time would be sucked into these details. Of course, as we're set in the early 1900s, that's now likely to be their kids or grandkids that may have


though: the poor half.

We're focused on the Nolans, who seem to be getting by somehow even though they're living off pennies, literally, but it's a hard struggle. There are four of them living in a small apartment and they're a memorable bunch, defined superbly as characters. Katie Nolan rules the roost: a proud mother who never has a dull moment. If she's not cooking, she's making the beds or darning socks, or washing the stairs to bring in extra money to help her kids get the sort of opportunities she never had. She never stops moving because she's driven and she's perfectly played by Dorothy McGuire, who gets the depth here that she never got as the mom in all those many Disney movies. Those roles didn't needthe acting that this one did but she more than met the challenge.

Her husband is Johnny Nolan, who's close to being a professional pipe dreamer and he knows it, always promising things that he couldn't ever deliver. He's a singer and a waiter, or both at once, and while he brings his wages home to his wife he has an unfortunate habit of spending all his tip money on drink. He has a good heart though and a way about him that lifts everyone around him. As it's mentioned at one point, he says hello to everyone like he's giving away something. Because he keeps coming in and out of the story, he's really a supporting actor but in the hands of James Dunn, he won a well


a special Oscar for being the outstanding child actress of 1945. She has a brain in her head and a heart in her chest and both are powerful and full of promise. She's her father's daughter, full of imagination but far more grounded. Much of the film here is in seeing how she grows up, keeping the best of her father but acquiring the best of her mother. There are scenes here where the world just rushes in on Francie, she flounders under the weight of it but comes out on top. It's a deep role to play but she succeeds so much better than most lauded child actors ever did in their signature films. She's what the title is really talking about, though the film is onlypart of Betty Smith's source novel, which has more literal and metaphorical trees over a much longer timeframe.

There's able support from established actors. Beyond McGuire and Dunn, there are some very talented named lending a hand, not least Joan Blondell as Katie's sister Sissy, who is a very different character but just as capable in her own ways. This comes a decade or more after her heyday in the thirties but she's even more striking here, turning everyone's eye. James Gleason is his usual excellent self as a good hearted bar owner and Lloyd Nolan is a politely hesitant good New York City cop.

It's the story though that shines brightest, providing a solid framework for all these actors to fully develop all these characters and giving them plenty


Everyone's view of life has to change for a number of reasons and in a number of ways. As we begin, the valley of Ling is a male chauvinist dream where women are there to walk behind the men and do precisely what they're told. They aren't allowed to read or have their own opinions. Men feel it beneath them to even talk to their daughters in law. The old are revered and the young are nothing. With war in their village they have to re-evaluate what women can do just as they have to re-evaluate what the rest of the world is.

Beyond that it's a unsubtle propaganda piece as much as it attempts to frame such a story in a more artistic and literate way than thealready hugely established as a powerful double act after such classics as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Matter of Life and Death and Black Narcissus, among others. It also reunited them with Moira Shearer, who had been so spectacular three years earlier in The Red Shoes.

Yet it's based on a French opera, a classic in its own right, called The Tales of Hoffmann, written by Jacques Offenbach and first performed in Paris in 1881. The opera itself, as the title might suggest, was based on three short stories by the German poet and writer E T A Hoffmann, written between 1814 and 1818: Der Sandmann, Rat Krespel and Das verlorene Spiegelbild. So what we have is a English film based on a French opera based


on German short stories with a gap of seventy full years between each version. This is operatic in style and entirely sung but is staged cinematically rather than being merely a filmed record of a stage production, even though the opening credits are accompanied by an orchestra tuning up.

The three stories are separate but linked through interpretation and a framing story featuring the poet himself. Hoffmann is in love with a dancer called Stella, currently appearing in a three act ballet called The Enchanted Dragonfly. She is in love with him also, but he has a rival for her affections in the sinister Lindorf. The actors are capable as actors but are really here for their singing or dancing talents, usually the latter as most of them aredubbed by uncredited others. For instance, Stella is Moira Shearer, a professional dancer returning to the screen for the first time after The Red Shoes, and who performs a striking opening dance with Edmond Audran in amazing costumes tight fitting enough to not leave much to the imagination.

Hoffmann himself is played by the only male actor in the film to actually sing his own part, opera singer Robert Rounseville. Lindorf is Robert Helpmann, a noted stage dancer who gave his name to Australia's annual entertainment awards and who is best known on screen for a couple of memorable roles in children's films: the Mad Hatter in the 1972 English version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Here he looks amazingly


like Boris Karloff, though naturally he's a little smaller. Partly it's through the characters he plays but mostly in the way he stands and how his eyes flare. I'm sure this was a deliberate influence.

Hoffmann travels through the stories as himself, telling of the three lost loves of his life. All are personifications of Stella and his love for each is threatened by evil in the form of characters that are personifications of Lindorf. Helpmann appears in each but Shearer only in the first. This one is interesting but a little overlong to someone like me who enjoys some opera and some ballet but is left cold by most of it. She's Olympia, an innocent puppet created by a genius scientist called Spalanzani. Hoffmann falls for Olympia afterCoppelius, the evil Lindorf character in this section, sells him magic spectacles that, when worn, make the puppets appear alive. After the glasses break during a dance she is cruelly and spectacularly destroyed.

The second features smouldering and exotic Ludmilla Tchérina as Giulietta who appears to be nothing but a trap for Hoffman set by her satanic master, Dappertutto, a collector of souls. This is the section that features the famous Barcarolle, which is certainly the most striking music in the opera, but apparently not originally composed for it, having been added after his death from one of his earlier and lesser works. Hoffmann loses his shadow and presuably his soul for love hof Giuletta, but through a duel with a previous victim wins his freedom and escapes.

The third,


which is officially the second but they apparently get shuffled all the time on stage, takes place on a Greek Island where Hoffman is reunited with Antonia, who he loves. In this segment she's played by Anne Ayars, who like Rounseville sings her own part. She's the daughter of a famous opera singer, now deceased, and she's inherited her mother's talents, though because she's sick her father has forbidden her to sing. Enter Dr Miracle, who promises to heal her but of course merely prods her into singing herself to death.

I'm not sold on the music or the dancing, though they certainly add to the amazing sets and costumes that provide a perfect backdrop for these stories. Most of the credit here presumably belongs to Hein Heckroth, afilm from MGM, the largest of the studios, from way back in the day (you can tell because Cedric Gibbons is the only credited name as Art Director), directed by no less a name than King Vidor, who received an Oscar nomination for his work. It was his first sound film. Yet it opens with a whole host of black characters actually played by black actors. There's nobody white in sight and nobody in blackface. What's even more bizarre, but very welcome, is that they seem to be treated in a pretty fair light. Sure, these are poor black sharecroppers and there's no attempt made to make them saints, but there isn't a single talented actor pretending to be a lazy and retarded porter and that's always refreshing.

It's


mama dancer who pretends to be his baby while happily suckering him into a crooked game of dice. With all his money gone, which of course isn't his to begin with, Zeke is in big trouble and as he tries to get it back from the hustler, ends up shooting his younger brother. He comes home, full of remorse, and his father helps him to see the light. Eventually he becomes a preacher himself and we find ourselves in the second half of the film for revival meetings and large scale baptisms.

The music is the main reason I fell into this one: it's everywhere and done very nicely indeed. I remember watching the James Whale version of Show Boat and finding that the black singers, Paul Robeson andsimple one but it develops well and the world it's set in is refreshing to see. There are no white actors in the entire film, so it's a completely self contained world, something reasonably easy to do because of segregation. Zeke's wild ride is a fascinating one to watch, though it's not consistently believable throughout.

These actors, from the leads on down, are far better singers and dancers than they are actors. Daniel Haynes has a great deep voice but he's no great actor. He's better on that front during the second half than the first, but it's not surprising that this film was nominated for King Vidor's direction not for his acting. Better as an actor, though she often overdoes it, is Nina Mae McKinney, who plays the


hoochie mama, Chick. She's better in the second half too, but she moves really well in the first as the enticing temptress. She continues that tempting through the film too, in different ways, and she's good at it.

There's even an actor here that I know, though I don't know her as an actor. Missy Rose, the young lady that has Zeke's heart whenever Chick isn't stealing it away, is played by a young Victoria Spivey. I know her as a blues musician, often singing the sort of blues that are obviously all about sex but don't actually mention it once. She'd already recorded Black Snake Blues by the time she made this film. She's no worse than the rest of the cast as an actor but no bettereither. It's a shame she didn't get more opportunity to sing.

Tuesday, 3 March 2009

Sounding like a pulp adventure, this is really an indictment of western exploitation of the natives in the South Seas, wrapped up in a highly melodramatic storyline. It's a film from the end of the silent era that won an Oscar in 1928 for cinematography, and which unlike some of its competitors (such as F W Murnau's 4 Devils) has fortunately survived to this day. Based on a novel by Frederick O'Brien, it claims to be filmed in 'the natural locations', the coral atolls of Polynesia, but was really shot in Tahiti. It has a couple of firsts to its name though: it's the first MGM film to be introduced by a roaring lion and


it counts as MGM's first sound picture, though it's really a silent. Douglas Shearer synchronised music and sound effects. I didn't catch any speech though.

Our lead is Monte Blue, a leading man in the silents whose long career continued into the serials and westerns of the forties and fifties. He's Dr Matthew Lloyd and when we first meet him he seems to be a bitter drunk willing to stoop as low as a bad joke to get a free drink, but that's only partly true. He still cares enough to leap out of the bar when one of the local pearl divers is brought to shore with a collapsed lung and spend all night trying to save the man. He's certainly bitter and cynical, but it would seemas 'Man with legs like exploding eggs'. Is this 1928 humour or a real translation? Who knows.

With the Mehevi tribe, Dr Lloyd finds himself again, which is hardly surprising given that it's an island paradise and the natives think he's a god, though he almost loses himself to greed when he realises the cheap and plentiful supply of pearls. Of course he falls for one of the beautiful dancers, Fayaway, who is naturally the daughter of the chief and while she's initially tapau, or a virgin bride of the temple, Lloyd saves the life of her little brother, and is allowed to look upon her with love. In the bizarre logic of early Hollywood, she's also beautiful but not Polynesian in the slightest. She's Raquel Torres, born in


Sonora, Mexico, and this was the first film in a brief but successful career. I've seen her before in the early Boris Karloff film, The Sea Bat, and with the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup.

The South Seas were notably exotic in 1928 and so the setting for no end of pulp adventure stories. Hollywood paid attention and so early American cinema is full of such films. It was a time when any story could be believable if it was set in such a location, up to and including King Kong. This isn't quite as fantastic but it's certainly outrageous melodrama. It looks great and it plays out nicely to anyone of a pulp mindset, with Blue and Torres fine in their roles and with a very neat villainousperformance in the silent style by Robert Anderson as the trader Sebastian.

Monday, 2 March 2009

I was a William H Macy fan long before I ever saw Fargo or Mystery Men: they just cemented my opinion of how great an actor he is. Then I saw Edmond and was stunned. He isn't just a great actor, he's one of the best we have today. Now every time I see one of his films I record it and find another side to his versatility. He doesn't look like a star in the slightest but he seems to be able to carry the lead, whatever it might happen to be. I wonder a lot whether these films were specifically written for him or not. He has a habit of making us


think that.

Here he's Bernie Lootz, the cooler of the title. He works at the Golden Shangri La, a Las Vegas casino run by Shelly Kaplow, turning winners into losers, and he's very good at what he does. He does that simply by being himself, a jinx who brings bad luck to himself and everyone around him. In fact, the reason he works there is because he's into Kaplow for $100,000 of gambling debts and he's now five days away from his five year stint of jinxing the customers. That's what's left of his debt recovery plan after Kaplow takes a baseball bat to his right leg. Unfortunately he falls in love and his powers as a jinx vanish.

Macy is excellent as Bernie, because he can play the variouslevels of this part. He begins as a man who knows that he brings everything down and is fully resigned to living in that world. He doesn't know what good luck is because it disappears the moment he appears. Yet the good luck finally finds its way to him in the form of Natalie Belisario, a waitress at the Shangri La and it rocks his safe little world of loss. He begins to believe that there's something in his future except being a cooler, he begins to believe that he can win at something. There's a light that literally grows in his eyes as he finds that belief.

Yet there's another level. Bernie, on the way up from way down, runs into his son in a diner. His son


not the only one here to watch. I'm no huge Adam Alec Baldwin fan but he's spot on as the tough and sleazy Shelly Kaplow, who does what he does because it's how his philosophy tells him it has to be done, even though he doesn't always feel great doing it. He has plenty of scruples but he ignores them absolutely. I didn't know Maria Bello at all before this film, as she's best known for a recurring role on TV's ER, but she pulls off a difficult role as the woman who turns Bernie around. She's luminous here and would be an illumination in anyone's life. She could be a huge star and I'd be surprised to find that the coming years don't make that happen.

Director: ClarenceBrownStars: Myrna Loy, Tyrone Power and George Brent

And still the films from 1939 keep coming and this one's yet another Oscar winner too. Sometimes it seems that every film released in 1939 either won an Oscar, was only nominated for Oscar or was absolutely cheated out of both nomination and win because it was Hollywood's greatest year, yaddah yaddah yaddah. This fits the first two categories: it garnered one win and five nominations, but none of them were in the major categories. It won for special effects and was nominated for art direction, editing, cinematography, music and sound. That would appear to be surprising, given the cast involved here.

We meet George Brent first. He's a painter called Tom Ransome, though a languid one who's spent seven years sitting


on his porch in the Indian state of Ranchipur instead of finishing his painting of the Maharajah he's been commissioned to complete. He's a real person though, grounded and decent, however much his reputation talks of women and drink. He's also the link between the many other people that we meet in the story. He knows everyone, it seems, even those who arrive as guests.

We meet a whole host of characters, of the varied sort you might expect to meet in 1938 India if you keep away from most of the locals, which is what most foreigners somehow managed to do. A young Tyrone Power is an Sikh major and dedicated surgeon called Rama Safti. Marjorie Rambeau plays an inveterate snob of a missionary trying to hang outwith the important people, utterly ignore the lesser people and palm her daughter off on Ransome. Brenda Joyce is that minx of a daughter, who just wants out to see the world and falls for him, possibly just to achieve that end. To Henry Travers and Jane Darwell are a down to earth priest and his wife who run the missionary school.

Before long we end up at the Sish Mahal palace which some of these characters would die to get into and to which others just get invited. However those wannabees would be shocked at how free of snobbery the place is. Here's where we (and Tom Ransome) meet Lord and Lady Esketh, a fascinating pairing of Myrna Loy with Nigel Bruce. Lord Esketh is an unpleasant coward


and his Lady is happy to sleep with anyone she can find as long as it isn't him. Best of all are the Maharajah and Maharani, who are joyous characters, as you might expect given the actors playing them: H B Warner and Maria Ouspenskaya. Her potent Russian accent is utterly out of place in an Indian palace but other than that she's a joy.

And around these characters weaves a melodramatic story that isn't worth a heck of a lot. While Fern Simon throws herself at Tom Ransome, his old flame, now Lady Esketh, throws herself at Major Safti. His Lordship is ill, but still keeping a track of who she may be sleeping with. And none of this matters at all. Luckily there's that Oscar win forthe spectacle here belongs to the work of Nature and the special effects team and there's not much room left for scene stealing. Myrna Loy is the biggest name and she does an excellent job in a role that is notably unlike her usual parts. She's a good person, but one who doesn't find her true self until circumstances force her into it. This is my fiftieth Myrna Loy and I don't recall ever seeing her act with her body as much as she does here.

Tyrone Power is a decent Rama Safti but he fades into the background a little too easily. George Brent, as the glue between everything here, is superb. He was always great at flouting convention without offering disrespect and that's a fine line to


walk. He walks it well throughout this film. Brenda Joyce is as doe eyed as she's supposed to be and it's the character that's frequently annoying rather than the actress. Nigel Bruce could always bluster with the best of them but does so with a notably nasty streak here. I think it's Maria Ouspenkaya who will stay with me most though, even though her accent is utterly wrong. She plays an intelligent and principled woman with power, concern and decency. She wields her authority wonderfully.

Here's one that's eluded me for a long time. Before Bette Davis had her famous five year run of Oscar nominations (1939-1943), she found recognition twice: as a write in candidate in 1935 for Of Human Bondage and as an official nomination in 1936for Dangerous, which brought her the first of two wins. She was a blistering presence on the screen in the thirties, because she was trying to prove that she was a real actress worth more than the gun moll and cheap floozy roles that Warner Brothers kept casting her in.

She's playing a real actress too, however fictional. She's Joyce Heath, apparently one of the great stage actresses of the day but one who has sunk to the point where she's not even employable because she's seen in the industry as a jinx. We first meet her in the street, where she even denies who she really is to someone who recognises her. Talking about her with his group of friends, we hear all sorts of glowing reviews. She's


'vitally tempestuous.' She's 'too brilliant, too startling for a star.' She's also the reason why one of them, Don Bellows, gave up on his future career on Wall Street and became an architect. Merely watching her on stage, from the back of the theatre, imbued him with the urge to create.

However they also hear about why she's no longer employed. Apparently a co-star died on stage, then bad things began to happen to everyone else she appeared with: divorces, deaths, injuries, nothing good. So she descended the career ladder from the top to the bottom, finding solace only at the bottom of a bottle. It's at the bottom of a bottle that Don Bellows finds her, after escaping from a dull party and ending up in Jerry's Joint,where Joyce Heath is getting drunk on cheap gin at a table on her own. He takes her home to attempt to sober her up and get her back on her feet, but of course as the title would suggest, that's a dangerous thing to do, especially for someone engaged to be married.

Davis gives a powerful performance, which is as unsurprising as unsurprising can be. Personally I don't think it quite touches her work a year earlier in Of Human Bondage, but it's powerful stuff and the win isn't an unfair one. Bette Davis thought that she won in compensation for not being nominated for Of Human Bondage (she was a write-in candidate) and that Katharine Hepburn should have won for Alice Adams. I watched Alice Adams on


Kate's 100th birthday and thought she gave a wonderful performance as a character that wasn't worth a damn in a film I despised. I wouldn't want to be responsible for picking between Hepburn and Davis for that Oscar, but I'd take Dangerous over Alice Adams any day of the week.

Don Bellows is played by Franchot Tone, who received his sole nomination himself in the same year but for Mutiny on the Bounty rather than this film. That's not surprising, not because he's bad because he's far from it, but because the role he has is not a surprising one for him and one that hardly stretches his talents. Mostly he provides the buffer for Bette Davis to act against, and when he's not there Alison Skipworth does thesame thing as his housekeeper. The other name here is Margaret Lindsay as Gail Armitage, Bellows's fiancée, and she's fine as always but only there as a plot convenience.

This film has a place in Hollywood legend beyond the acting and the Oscar: it's apparently the real beginning of the legendary Bette Davis/Joan Crawford rivalry that lasted until their deaths and generated such sparks in films like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Apparently Davis fell for Tone while making this film but he was already engaged to Crawford. The rivalry was already there but here is where it became the thing of legend.


Could it be that Showtime's Twin Peaks revival is already kaput before it even begun? The '90s David Lynch series is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary, and fans have been looking forward to new episodes of the cult classic. But on a seemingly quiet Easter Sunday, author Brad Dukes tweeted that the brand-new Twin Peaks limited series on Showtime had been canceled.

UPDATE: Lynch has spoken and confirmed that the show might still be on, but he won't be apart of it. "Showtime did not pull the plug on Twin Peaks," the director tweeted. "After one year and four months of negotiations, I left because not enough money was offered to do the script the way I felt it needed to be done."

Bustle reached out to Showtime Networks,who offered this statement:

We were saddened to read David Lynch's statement today since we believed we were working towards solutions with David and his reps on the few remaining deal points. SHOWTIME also loves the world of Twin Peaks and we continue to hold out hope that we can bring it back in all its glory with both of its extraordinary creators, David Lynch and Mark Frost, at its helm.

Lynch and Mark Frost co-created the series in 1990 and were set to return as a team for the new nine episodes to air on Showtime in 2016. "Twin Peaks may still be very much alive at Showtime," the Twitter statement continued. "I love the world of Twin Peaks and wish things could have worked out differently."

It all started


Galholtra replaces Nair at Ford

Following the sudden departure of Raj Nair, the Blue Oval has promoted quickly from within.

Kumar Galhotra, 52, will take over as group vice-president and president of Ford North America starting March 1.

Galholtra will be responsible for leading all aspects of Ford’s North American business. A 29-year veteran of the company, he has served in a variety of senior-level engineering and product strategy positions around the world.

In addition to leading Lincoln through the recent effort to revitalize the brand, the customer experience and model lineup, he has served as the company’s chief marketing officer since last year.

The sudden move came after Nair’s surprise departure earlier this week. The executive was terminated following a recent internal investigation into reports of inappropriate behaviour.

Ford said the review determinedPeripheral ossifying fibroma.
The peripheral ossifying fibroma (POF) is a reactive gingival overgrowth occurring frequently in the anterior maxilla in teenagers and young adults. The pediatric patient with a POF has special management considerations compared to the adult, as it requires early recognition and treatment by the dentist. It requires proper treatment protocol with close postoperative follow-up. The present report describes a case of POF in a girl, which was surgically excised from the palatal mucosa in the maxillary incisor area. Some features of the differential diagnosis and therapy when it occurs are discussed.


"The innocence of the game of cricket went immediately," Watson said. "I always knew that you could get hurt of course ... if a ball went through my helmet I could fracture my face or my eye socket or jaw or whatever it was but never ever contemplated that you could actually get killed.

"I had a two-year-old son at that stage. Will was two and just the thought that went through and continued to go through my mind for a long period of time, was 'what if that was me?'. Like what happens to my family, not just my mum and dad, but my wife and my son."

The 36-year-old retired from international cricket in 2016, last playing Tests and one day internationals on Australia's tour of England in2015, before walking away from internationals altogether at the end of the World Twenty20 the following year – and says that the shock death of his former teammate attributed to a decline in his own abilities to play against fast bowling.

Watson's Test average after the incident slumped to 28.25, and he failed to make a century in any of those 12 post-Hughes innings, reaching his half-century only twice – well below his career average of 35.19.

"That's where subconsciously the fear just continued to be there for a long period of time. Until I actually really understood how to deal with it. To be able to one, talk about it as a starting point, because I could not talk about it if anyone ever bought it up or anything


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I boil the egg, then zap the shell in the microwave for a minute, let it cool, then grind the shell up in a mortar & pestle, mix it into the mashed egg, then put about a teaspoon in with Bob's vegies. He isn't overly keen on it, but does eat some of it. The birds in the aviary eat anything, so I give the rest to them.
Bob's a fussy bugger!

That third photom where he is standing on the seed bowl, looking at the Red Dalek, I think is the best! To me it looks like he (if he had hands), is standing there with his


Investigators in Mexico on Friday said that two European cyclists who were found dead at the bottom of a ravine in southern Mexico were murdered. This contradicts the earlier theory that the men had cycled off a cliff.

Holger Hagenbusch, of Germany, and Krzysztof Chmielewski, of Poland, had been traveling the world by bicycle. But after being reported missing by relatives, they were found dead at the foot of a sheer rock face in the Mexican state of Chiapas at the end of April.

Investigators originally said that the pair appeared to have lost control of their bicycles while on a winding mountain road.

However, after a group of fellow cyclists questioned that version of events, a special prosecutor newly appointed to take over the case said the cyclists had infact been murdered.

"It may have been an assault, because our investigations up to now indicate this was an intentional homicide," special prosecutor Luis Alberto Sanchez told journalists. He added that the motive appeared to have been robbery.

According to Sanchez, Chmielewski sustained a head injury that may be a gunshot wound.

Hagenbusch's brother Rainer, flew to Mexico to identify him and wrote on his Facebook page that both bodies had been mutilated. "The Polish cyclist was decapitated and had a foot missing," he added.

Violence is endemic in Chiapas

Violence in Mexico

The Chiapas state government has vowed to "intensify the investigation" to solve the case. Investigators say the two cyclists met in the town of San Cristobal de las Casas on April 20 and decided to travel together to the ancient Mayan


Such is the sobering context for the United States’s new maritime strategy, just released after many months of study—particularly at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The study was commissioned by Chief of Naval Operations Michael Mullen, recently promoted to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was released by the Navy, Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard—the first time the three maritime services have jointly authored a common strategy.

This is very much a diplomatic document, meaning it is necessary to read between the lines. Without mentioning China and without going into specific numbers—or even asserting the need for more ships—the 16-page document makes the case for a Navy that must do, if not everything, then nearly everything. And it makes its case within anan emphasis on soft power. Indeed, the war in Iraq appears less relevant to the document than the Indian Ocean tsunami emergency of December 2004/January 2005. To wit: “Building on relationships forged in times of calm, we will continue to mitigate human suffering as the vanguard of interagency and multinational efforts ... Human suffering moves us to act, and the expeditionary character of maritime forces uniquely positions them to provide assistance.”

The title of the report aptly describes its essence: “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower” is all about cooperation between the three maritime services and, more significantly, between the United States and allied nations. For the past few years, Admiral Mullen has been talking about a 1,000-ship Navy—an international coalition of friendly navies to share intelligence and


compared with CNN's 4.16 million.

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MSNBC finished third in both categories.

The numbers fell short of what most analysts were expecting.

A recent ABC poll showed 40 percent of those polled couldn't name either Pence or Kaine as their party's respective nominees.

The second presidential debate between Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBubba Wallace to be driver of Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin NASCAR team Graham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election Southwest Airlines, unions call for six-month extension of government aid MORE and Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonJoe Biden looks to expand election battleground into Trump country Biden leads Trump by 12 points among Catholic voters: poll The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden goes on offense MORE is set for this Sunday night in St. Louis. Moderators for theBarry Bennell victim David Lean told police there were 'hundreds' of sexual assaults on young boys

Lean was 11 years old when Bennell awarded him with the Boy of the Week prize at his football course.

Football sex abuse scandal: ‘Hundreds, if not thousands’ more cases likelyITN

Former Preston North End reserve team player David Lean waived his anonymity and spoke in public for the first time about how he was abused by Bennell in 1980.

Lean said his case was rejected by the CPS and told authorities that Bennell could have abused hundreds of boys, but "no one wanted to listen."

Speaking on Sky News, Lean said: "He was running junior football teams and working in a children's home. There was always going to be more. Many, many, many, many more and


I told them. I had already told the police that there were hundreds."

After nearly three decades of keeping quiet about the abuse, Lean went public in 2013 with damning evidence that eventually saw Bennell receive a prison sentence of two years in 2015.

The former football coach was sentenced to nine years in 1998 for the sexual assault of boys in the UK. The CPS told Lean that his evidence would not have made any difference even if he had come forward in 1998.

Lean appealed to the Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel against the decision by the CPS not to prosecute Bennell in 2013 and won. Police then charged the ex-football coach and he received a two-year jail sentence.

When Lean read out a victim's statement, he was put inthe same room as his abuser, even though he had asked for anonymity.

"He was sat right in front of me, two yards away from me. The only people in that passageway were me and him. I never wanted to see him again in my life and now I have his face, his current appearance, there all the time," Lean said.

"This is a man that groomed me for seven months, that abused me for two nights and the implications and the after-effects have gone on throughout my life."

The sexual assaults started when Lean was only 11 years old. Bennell was running a football course in north Wales and even awarded his victim with the 'Boy of the Week' prize.

At the coach's house, Lean was abused and one month later,


Gaza Attacks: Ground War Fears As Death Toll In Israel Rises [Video]

The Gaza Hamas rocket attacks that killed three Israelis has triggered a reprisal resulting in air strikes from the Israeli military. If the Israeli offensive continues, it could culminate in an open ground war in the Gaza area.

According to Reuters, the Israeli offensive “began on Wednesday when a precision Israeli airstrike assassinated Hamas military mastermind Ahmed Al-Jaabari, and Israel shelled the enclave from land, air and sea.” Israel waited to respond until over 200 rockets had been fired into Israel’s civilian areas.

Six Hamas fighters were killed in Gaza, including eight civilians, bringing the death toll up to 15 lives lost. The civilian deaths included a pregnant woman with twins, an 11-month old boy, and three infants. Theof 175,000, with 450,000 in reserve. Israel also has access to United States military technology such as F-16 fighter-bombers and Apache helicopter gunships.

“The Israelis must realize that this aggression is unacceptable and would only lead to instability in the region and would negatively and greatly impact the security of the region,” Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said.

Mursi was brought to power in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood after the downfall of Hosni Mubarack. The Muslim Brotherhood is seen as supporters of Muslim terrorist organizations like Hamas, which controls the local government in Gaza. As such, Mursi is supporting Hamas by calling for a “Day of Rage” in Arab capitals this Friday.

The United States condemned Hamas, which like all Islamic terrorist organizations refuses to recognize Israel as a legitimate state.

“There


into your bank charges for international withdrawals before you leave home! If you have more than one account you may find one significantly cheaper than the other!Every city has the most beautiful central square!

Weather in Peru

No Peru Travel Guide would be complete without a thorough section on the weather!
The weather in Peru varies depending on the region. In Peru, there are various altitudes. For example, the Amazon is always hot, and up in the Andes it is always cold. That being said, there are ideal times to travel each region.Mountains in northern Peru – This region includes the town of Huaraz where many famous hikes are located. The best time of year here is May to September.Cusco and Machu Picchu – The dry season is the best fromMay to September. During the rainy months, the Inca Trail even closes for maintenance!The Amazon – Any time of year! While it may not sound ideal to visit the Amazon in the wet season, the rain brings a whole new range of animals to check out and the rivers are full of life.Northern Coast – The biggest draw to the northern coastline of Peru is surfing. The surf is known to be best in the spring and summer from about September to February.Lima and the central coast – The winter months can be quite chilly for hanging out at the beach as the winter gets very windy and the ocean water temperature cools to around 10 degrees Celcius in Lima! Also during winter, the cold ocean waters cause


away from all the action. Also near the town is something called the “Clay Lick”, a natural phenomenon where Macaws, Parrots, and Parakeets come to nibble the nutrients from a clay wall.The Macaws!

Mancora

Mancora is a northern beach town located near the border of Ecuador. The town is very laid back and perfect for spending days relaxing at the beach. For those who surf, visiting Mancora in Spring and Summer is a must as conditions are optimal. Near the town of Mancora at a small fishing village lives a colony of Sea turtles and it is possible to swim with them right from the shore!

Lima

Lima is the capital of Peru and nearly a third of the population resides there. The city is filled with amazing museums, great surf, andthe middle of the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. Some of the most amazing hikes are around Huaraz with truly fantastic mountain views!Camping along the Huayhuash trek near Huaraz

Hiking in the Colca Canyon

Only a few hours from Arequipa, the Colca Canyon is a great place the get out of the city and explore. The Colca Canon is one of the best places the see Condors up close. The viewing deck in the canyon is visited every morning by several Condors as they search for food. The canyon is also home to natural hot springs and some spectacular views. Both camping and accommodation are available along the hiking trails (day trips are also possible!)The Colca Canyon

Explore the Amazon Rainforest

Peru is home to the most biodiverse parts of the Amazon Rainforest.


Scenes cut from the film: In the uncut conversation between Indy and Marion at the Raven Bar, Marion explains the cause of Abner's death, and tells Indy about the difficult last two years of her life. After having arranged the following day's appointment for the delivery of the medallion, Indy turns to leave, only to return under Marion's urge. She grabs his jacket and pulls him close for a kiss. The whole Raven Bar scene was cut because it was considered too long. The kissing part can be seen in The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark documentary. The scene appears in a script draft, the novelization, and the Marvel Comics movie adaptation. A plot element involving the Ark of the Covenant was cut from the film,out to touch it. Indy stops him before he does, and reminds him of the Imam's warning. Then they insert long poles through each side of the Ark to lift it out of its crypt. Notice that nobody ever touches the Ark throughout the rest of the film, until the finale. While Indiana Jones is in the map room trying to find the exact location of the Well of the Souls, two German soldiers approach Sallah and order him to help them remove their truck that had been stuck in the sand. In the process, Sallah loses the rope, with which he was supposed to help Indy get out of the map room. In a continuing scene, we see Sallah entering a German tent looking for something to


substitute his missing rope, and awhile later he comes up with a "rope" made of bed sheets and a Nazi flag. What we don't see, is Sallah in a state of panic, wandering in the Nazi camp at breakfast time. A group of German soldiers ask him to serve them water from a marmite. Sallah spills the content of the marmite on the German officers' uniforms and leaves promising to return with fresh water. The scene called for smoke in the background, but unfortunately the tires, used to produce the smoke were too many, thus making the scene too dark. Steven Spielberg opted to cut this scene, instead of spending half a day shooting it again. With Indy and Marion left to suffocate in the Well of thefilm began. Spielberg said the bitter truth was that brilliant and memorable though the scene was, it would probably end up on the cutting room floor, because it was just too long. So it did. There was a small cut during the scene where Indy and Marion escape from the Well of Souls. When Indy pushes the large stone brick out of the room filled with mummies, there is an Arab guard standing outside. When the Arab and Indy come face to face, Indy simply knocks him unconscious. Evidence of this scene still remains in the film. As Indy steps out of the chamber, he pauses and looks off to the left side of the screen. In the following shot, when Indy and Marion run from the building


to the German plane, the Arab is visible lying on the ground by the building. Indy surviving the submarine journey by lashing himself to the periscope with his whip. In the final film, the plot hole goes largely unnoticed. Most people seem to assume either that Indy snuck inside the sub, or that it stayed on the ocean surface for the duration of the trip. This cut scene did appear in the Marvel Comics adaptation.On September 12, 2006, MH was driving on a four-lane road in Rochester to her place of employment when she noticed a blue van following extremely close. According to MH, the van was virtually on her bumper and continued to follow her just as closely after two turns and numerous opportunities to pass.
MH testified that when she made a left turn into her workplace parking lot, the van had to wait for oncoming traffic before turning to follow her. Then the van continued to follow MH into the parking lot. MH quickly parked and rushed toward the building. The driver of the van, later identified as appellant, pulled up to the entrance of the building and rolled down her window. MH further testified that the driver assumed that


she was Muslim, confronted her about Islamic terrorism and her Islamic religious beliefs, and told MH that she felt like killing her.
Appellant's testimony provided a different version of events. Appellant acknowledged that she was driving a van on September 12, 2006, to pick up her son from driving school, which was located across the street from MH's workplace. Appellant testified that she was parked at the driving school when she observed MH walking from her car to her workplace door. Appellant testified that she noticed MH because of her headscarf. According to appellant, she drove across the street and into the parking lot to speak with MH. Appellant testified that she did not intend to cause appellant any fear, but stated that she had strong feelings about radicalThursday, June 17, 2010

You, Guard the Base

A couple years ago or so, someone posted a moderately entertaining Transformers spoof on Youtube. The gist is that the Optimus Prime, head of the Good Guy Robots (the heroic Autobots), comes back to life and discovers that the remaining Autobots pretty much suck. To an extent, I think this was a plot point from the 1980s cartoon movie, which, by the way, was a treasure to the extent that Michael Bay was not involved with it. Anyway, the joke is that the Optimus Prime, despairing over what remains of his side, is foul-mouthed and angry. For instance, planning one last offensive against the Bad Guy Robots (the vile Decepticons), he curtly directs the least capable of his charges to stay back


1983 Orioles, the World Series champions. In 1985, Jimmy Key struck out next to nobody in this first year as a starter for the Blue Jays, but posted a 142 ERA+ and made the all-star team. Mike Dunne, who won 13 games as a rookie for the 1987 Pirates despite not debuting until June, also made the list.

You probably noticed the one thing these seasons have in common – they all occurred in the 1980s. This isn’t to suggest that all of those 109 successful low-strikeout seasons occurred in the 1980s. Among the top 25 (sorted by ERA+), a handful occurred in the 1990s and a handful more since 2000. Clearly, though, most of the Kings of Savvy seasons on the list occurred in the 1980s, which makesUnhappy after being barred from participating in last month's controversial USA Cricket Association general elections, approximately half of USACA's 47 leagues are now in the process of breaking away to form a rival governing body for cricket in the USA which is calling itself Cricket America.

"The need for transparency, authentic political inclusion and effective participation of all members in the decision-making process are the founding principles of Cricket America," Leighton Greenidge, president of the Southern Connecticut Cricket Association, said on Saturday in a Cricket America press release. "We believe that the way forward for cricket in the USA is inclusion and not exclusion." Greenidge's league was one of 32 out of the 47 USACA member leagues denied the right to vote in April's USACA elections.

According to Gangaram Singh,


from any of its members exercising their constitutional right to resign their membership. Further, USACA is an associate member of the International Cricket Council and is the governing body of cricket in the United States. USACA reserves its rights as such. Any entity that is created to contradict the ICC's mandate will not be recognized by the international governing body of cricket."

While a full list of leagues was not immediately available, Singh confirmed that the Commonwealth Cricket League (NY), Eastern American Cricket Association (NY), Florida Southeast Cricket League, Massachusetts State Cricket League, Michigan Cricket Association, Southern Connecticut Cricket Association, Southern California Cricket Association and Washington Metropolitan Cricket Board are some of the 20-plus leagues planning to break away from USACA.

EACA's involvement is no surprise considering that EACA presidentRudy Persaud was one of the most vocal opponents of USACA president Gladstone Dainty during the past year. Another prominent figure involved in EACA affairs who is also understood to be involved with Cricket America in its planning stages is former USACA secretary John Aaron, who was suspended by Dainty last September before losing to Williams in April's election.

The day before Cricket America issued its press release, the Southern California Cricket Association announced they would not be renewing their membership dues with USACA for 2012. SCCA, one of the oldest leagues in America, was one of the founding members of USACA when the national organisation was formed and admitted into the ICC in 1965. John Marder, the president of the SCCA at the time, was also the first


president of USACA.

"Cricket America will transform the cricketing landscape of this country through transparency and accountability," Avinash Varma, president of the Washington Metropolitan Cricket Board, said in the Cricket America press release. "We are working to create an organization that American cricketers will be proud of and one that will be seen as the flag bearer of the game in USA."

Varma's league was one of the 15 member leagues deemed to be in good standing and approved to vote in the USACA elections, which makes his intent to have the WMCB break away from USACA all the more significant. Court documents from the Ram Varadarajan lawsuit against USACA show that Varma claims he never received his league's ballot. Varma accused Keith Gill, a Dainty ally, of signing anotary public falsely claiming to be the WMCB president in order to receive the league's voting ballot from the election auditor. Gill currently sits on the USACA Cricket Committee.

The founding of Cricket America is the second attempt in recent months to form a breakaway organisation to challenge USACA's standing as the ICC's officially recognised governing body of cricket in the USA. Atul Ahuja, the former chief executive of Cricket Canada, had announced in November that he would run to become president of USACA. Ahuja was dismissed from his role with Cricket Canada in January of 2009 and now resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ahuja then announced in February that he was boycotting the USACA elections after the USACA board announced that just 15 out of the 47 member leagues would


be allowed to vote in the election. Three weeks later, Ahuja announced that he had formed the United States Cricket Board, naming himself as its first president with former West Indies Test player Alvin Kallicharran and former Indian Test player Syed Abid Ali as its vice-presidents.

At the end of March, Ahuja announced that USCB would be hosting its first national tournaments from May 26-28. He claimed in April that two Twenty20 events would be played in Alabama and California under floodlights. However, Ahuja issued a press release on May 16 stating that both tournaments had been postponed "to enable leagues and teams involved with pre-existing current commitments to have the opportunity to participate." It is unknown how many leagues actually pledged to become part of the USCB.At this stage of the year, anything that implies lower profitability is not great. It’s unfortunate, therefore, that Deutsche Bank has chosen today to declare a restructuring programme which could impact the profitability of its corporate and investment bank.

Deutsche hasn’t been explicit about the impact of restructuring on the investment bank’s profitability. On one hand, the change could be advantageous: Deutsche plans to reallocate €83m of costs from the corporate banking and securities business to the transaction banking business. Compensation costs and net profits were roughly equivalent in Deutsche’s corporate and investment bank during the first nine months of this year. Therefore, if net profits are being boosted by €83m, optimists might think that pay at the corporate and investment bank will rise by the same amount.

On the


other hand, however, Deutsche has also announced that it’s shifting its passive fund management businesses (including ETFs) out of the investment bank and into the asset management unit. These businesses generated €703m in revenues and €303m in net profits last year. This makes them substantially more profitable than the rest of Deutsche’s corporate and investment banking business, where the margin was a mere 27% for the first nine months of 2012. Pessimists might think that this will be bad for bonuses elsewhere in the investment bank, which won’t be cross-subsidised by these businesses in future.

Separately, we have good news for some of the non-EU MBA and PhD students in the UK who would like to work in investment banking but had fallen foul of the removal of thea heavy black jacket with half a dozen different pens in the breast pocket. A twilight blue scarf hangs down across a green jumper in rough-hewn wool. The former guitarist in no wave bands Theoretical Girls and The Static, turned composer of epic electric guitar orchestras that once featured the young Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, wears his black shirt with the collar popped up.

"When free improvisation first broke out – " he doesn't so much speak as growl, a throaty east coast drawl with a nicotine rasp like a traction engine " – mainly starting with Coltrane. I mean, really free improvisation – " his fingers, usually steepled on the table in front of him, briefly extricate themselves to gesture a little theatrically, shades of the actor


he once was, " – it was interesting," he concedes, somewhat philosophically. "For instance, there was a really fantastic band called the Art Ensemble of Chicago – I don't know if they're still around anymore or not. I mean, oh man, they could blow the roof off the house…"

If Mr. Branca, who John Rockwell once called "the leader of the most vital new trend to transform downtown music since the minimalists", has little patience for contemporary improvisation, he has scarcely any more time for electronic music. He fulminates about "all of these new fucking electronic devices," insisting that "the real composer is the guy who invented the instrument or the computer program or whatever. They're the ones who actually wrote the music. The guy who's sitting there pressingmuch crap. Anybody with a recording device can make something, put it on the internet – and how do you know the difference between that and somebody who's spent two years really breaking their ass making an interesting piece of music." He pauses at this point, takes a deep breath as if steeling himself before another tirade. But then he seems to grab hold of himself, releases a slow, deep breath, and says calmly, "I'll stop there."

Glenn Branca - 'Lesson No. 1'

And yet, in a way, this question of time and effort, of putting a little thought into things, is at the heart of all Branca's many and varied complaints; at the heart of his whole project since the downtown scene of the '70s. In an era when


and almost immediately went out and bought a guitar in order to replicate for himself that "loud, intense, clipped sound" of the Davies brothers' power chords. Before then, nothing on the radio had really impressed the young Branca much. The British invasion had passed him by. "I wasn't really into rock & roll. But then all of a sudden along comes this thing and it's entirely different from anything anyone had ever done before. It just jumped out of the radio. Then I started to become interested."

At about the same time, he started to make sound collages using cheap tape machines. "At that time, in the early to mid-60s, they started making cheap reel-to-reel tape recorders. Like really cheap," he explains. "My parents would always get one ofwhen I was a kid," and as a result music was always considered, "just fooling around, having a bit of fun. I never thought in terms of being a musician." Certainly he never dreamed of playing anyone else his experiments with broken tape machines, "because they would have thought I was mentally ill."

It would be another ten years before Branca started thinking seriously about making music. Having studied theatre at Emerson College, Boston, with a major in directing, he co-founded, in 1974, the Bastard Theatre, with John Rehberger. "At that point, my interest in music had never, never failed," he tells me. "I was a collector and I liked just about every kind of music that you could imagine – except for maybe country and western. Anything that