Wildlife: Big Mama Deer and her large spotty fawn have been cruising my neighborhood in broad daylight. I know because I was sick all weekend, and the first part of this week.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: No rain since that long dark spell a couple of weeks back..

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Just click to help a lot.

Media Watch: Being sick enabled me to watch a lotta TV!
Grand Hotel (1932) with Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Berry, and Joan Crawford on TCM -- fantabulous movie! Garbo was right about John Barrymore being a generous actor. His character is the catylist for most of the character interactions in the film. The flick was directed by Edmund Goulding. Vicki Baum wrote the novel and play of the same name. I have a nice edition of the novel from the 1930's, but I've packed it away somewhere.
Point Blank (1967) with Lee Marvin, Angie Dickenson, and Carroll O'Connor -- during the wee wee hours of one sleepless, painful night. It's an nasty, violent movie, kind of like a US version of a "Spaghetti Western" set in contemporary Los Angeles, but it boasts a remarkably intelligent visual style. The director was John Boorman who would later direct the even more horrifying Deliverance in 1972. Lovely but often too-detached Angie Dickenson turns in a memorable performance as a call girl who joins Lee Marvin in his mission of vengence.
I was still in high school when this movie was in the theaters. The gratuitous violence was a big draw, as were reported glimpses of Dickenson's naked body, but Boorman turned these scenes back on the audience, so they were were anything but cheap thrills -- the revulsion was palpable in the drive-in when I saw it.
On a tangent to this -- one of my favorite comic book artists, Gil Kane (1926-2000) struck out on his own after twenty-plus years at DC Comics at the same time. His first publication was a large B&W magazine called His Name Is Savage (1968). There was a painting of Lee Marvin on the cover holding a gun, and any associations with Point Blank were obvious, intentional, and NOT coincidental. I have no idea if anybody was sued or not, but the second issue was never circulated, possibly because the interior story of the first lacked any originality or excitement (except for a couple of extremely violent panels) and very few people bought it. Kane returned to mainstream comics after a year or two, but real creative fire was missing from his work for the rest of his long career. (His peak was from 1956-66)


Gil Kane's most famous creation:
Hal Jordan, the "Silver Age" Green Lantern
as pencilled by Kane, and inked by Joe Giella in 1999
Green Lantern c)DC Publications

A few years later I aquired another ultra-violent comic book from the 50's called Johnny Dynamite, published by the long-forgotten Comics Media company to exploit the success of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. The overall look and feel was very similar to Savage -- in fact Kane had unapologetically "swiped" many features of that grim comic book from halcyon days prior to the Comics Code Authority. Dynamite's artist was Pete Morisi who drew a superhero named Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt for Charlton Comics in the late 60's. By then he used his initials only, and his name was kept out of all publicity because he worked full-time for the New York City Police Dept.