Regular Osprey sightings over Middle Foy's Lake -- there HAS to be a nest nearby this year. Two late nights at the end of last week -- the upside was that I got to see the deer grazing in the neighborhood on my way home. It isn't really getting dark until after 9 PM.

Funk Master Bernie Worrell at: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

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Webmaster's Notes: I did a serious upgrade at Theater X-Net this weekend -- not only finished my saga Adventures On The ONE, but added dozens of pictures and links to the index page of Theatrical Daze & Nights -- a Webpage which acts as my "Artistic Biography." (No, it isn't a padded political resume, or lies about love -- it outlines my involvement with Art in general, and Theater in particular.)

Media Watch: I have no idea why it happened, but there were THREE Edgar Allan Poe movies from the early 60's playing on Saturday morning, all starring Vincent Price -- Masque of Red Death (1964), with Jane Asher, known in America as Paul McCartney's girlfriend at the time. It wasn't a very good movie, but I AM talking about American International Pictures here, with Roger "get the shot" Corman as producer and director. Masque had it's moments of humor and wit, but 'way too few of them. The fire at the end of the drama sure was welcome; The Haunted Castle (1963) used Poe's title, with a quote from his great poem at the end of the movie, but the bulk of the film was lifted from various stories by H.P. Lovecraft. There were foul netherworld demons, a reincarnated acolyte, a beleaguered New England village, and A BIG BLAZING FIRE at the end!
I watched this film as part of a quadruple feature at the Highland Drive-In around 1969, when I first started reading Lovecraft. British writers like Colin Wilson and Brian W. Aldiss called him an "atrocious writer" during the late 60's, but they also borrowed his ideas for books of their own, with full acknowledgements, of course. I don't think either of them summoned up the strange magic which Lovecraft achieved at his quirky best.
Whatever was the case in literature, Roger Corman missed Lovecraft's distinctive atmospherics by the proverbial mile in THIS movie -- he tried again, and got closer to Arkham's neighborhood, when he made The Dunwich Horror (which was topping the bill at the drive-in the same night I saw Palace.) These two movies had a couple of other things in common -- perverted sexual imagery, substituting for suspense and imagination, and BIG BLAZING FIRES at the end (do you see a trend developing here?) -- the latter movie is better, I say without irony;
The Raven (1963) was one of Corman's best -- laugh if you want to, but he made over 400 movies without losing a dime, and -- oh yeah, almost all of them were second, third, or fourth rate. Raven was a COMEDY, with a screenplay by Richard Mathesson, and a high-powered cast that included Peter Lorre, the great Boris Karloff, young Jack Nicholson, and Hammer Films' fabulous leading lady Hazel Court -- delightfully sending-up the roles which made her famous in the Horror Movie genre. There was a fun spirit in this movie, and even though the laughs could be a little more frequent, there was enough suspense to keep the frail plot moving along. THERE WAS ALSO A BIG BLAZING FIRE AT THE END!


A resurrected print ad for Roger Corman's The Raven, with Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and Peter Lorre piled on top of each other to the left. I matted a promotional photo of Hazel Court (as Lenore) inside the porticulus, as she appeared in this deliberate, upscale parody of genre films. Check out Hazel's Fan Site, or buy her autobiography, Hazel Court; Horror Queen, once it is published.