Sorry For The Omission

 

When I made mention, earlier this month, of the passing of actor Sean Connery at age 90, I had forgotten about the passing of one of Connery's co-stars in the film, Goldfinger - Honor Blackman. Blackman was age 95. Of course, Blackman played the part of Pussy Galore.

Although Blackman had done quite a lot of work in both television and films, I'm sorry to say that I don't recall seeing her in anything other than Goldfinger.

In 2012 Blackman publicly criticized Sean Connery for his status as a tax exile. 

 "I disapprove of him strongly now. Because I don't think you should accept a title from a country and then pay absolutely no tax towards it. He wants it both ways. I don't think his principles are very high."

In response to accusations that he was a tax exile, Connery released documents in 2003 showing he had paid £3.7 million in UK taxes between 1997 and 1998 and between 2002 and 2003. As for Connery's title - well, personally, I don't go in for all that knighthood baloney, but if someone can pay fewer taxes, more power to them.

Rest In Peace, Mr. Bond

I noted in February, that I had discovered the first four James Bond films at ok.ru. In addition to watching the four films, I also went to fadedpage.com to download copies of Ian Fleming's Bond novels. It had been my intention to read all 15 in the series, but so far, I've only read the first five.

It stands as a testament to Sean Connery that even when I read the Bond novels, I see him as James Bond.

Like millions of others, I've been a fan of Sean Connery for most of my life. I can remember the first time I saw a James Bond film. It was in 1965. Goldfinger had just recently been released, and I was almost 13. My oldest cousin, who was 18 at the time, took his younger brother, myself and my younger brother to a triple feature of the three Bond films being shown at a local drive-in theater in Atlanta.

The three films were shown in the order they were released - Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. This was my first time seeing a Bond film, and I was especially looking forward to seeing Goldfinger......it was the latest one at the time, so it had to be the best.

1965 was a long, long time ago and things have certainly changed. In those days, kids weren't allowed to stay up all hours of the night and by the time Goldfinger started, it was way past my normal bedtime. As near as I can recall from those fifty-five years ago, I fell asleep in the back of my cousin's car before the final movie started.

It would be years before I was finally able to watch Goldfinger.

From Russia With Love

Earlier this month, I noted that I had been watching the early James Bond films on the ok.ru website. Watching the films led me on a hunt for the Ian Fleming novels as e-books. I discovered that the books are in the public domain in Canada and thus available at fadedpage.com.

It was my original intention to read all 15 books in the series in the order they were published. My favorite of the early Bond films is From Russia With Love, and it turns out that it's also my favorite of the first five Bond books I've read. I like that the film and the novel are so similar - we all know that isn't always the case. The only difference between the two is the very different endings. I'm not the sort to do spoilers (even for 63 year old spy novels). I'll just say the endings are not the same.

I thought I'd be taking a break from James Bond after From Russia With Love, but I've gone back to my original plan, however, after reading it. Because of the ending, I wanted to go straight into book #6 - Dr. No.

The revised plan is to take a short break after Dr. No and read something unrelated. I'm thinking of reading a book recommended by Dr. Jordan Peterson - The Charterhouse of Parma.

Books and Movies

I mentioned in an earlier post that after having reread Albert Camus' The Stranger, I moved on to rereading H.G.Wells' The Invisible Man.

This must have been a "reread cycle". Following The Invisible Man, I took up Franz Kafka's The Castle. It's been years since I read - or more accurately - attempted to read The Castle and I was finally able to finish it. Years ago, I looked at the character, K as being a recreation of the character Joseph K from The Trial, but I no longer interpret him in that manner. It's obvious that in The Trial, Joseph K is in no way responsible for the persecution he faces. Looking at the main character in The Castle, I see a man who is a liar who uses people, and as someone who has no right to enter the castle, and as someone who should have left the village immediately after having spent his first night there.

While reading The Castle, I came upon an online discussion of the origins of the theme music used in the James Bond films. That led me to search for the earliest James Bond films online. I've found the first five films at ok.ru - Dr, No - From Russia With Love - Goldfinger - Thunderball  and You Only Live Twice. Unfortunately, the last one is dubbed into Russian and I haven't found an English version available.

Watching these old films led me to search for ebooks of the James Bond novels. These books are in the public domain in Canada and can be found at fadedpage.com. I decided to read all 15 in the series. I've finished the first, Casino Royale and have started on the second, Live and Let Die.

I haven't seen the 2006 version of Casino Royale and the 1967 film - which I saw in '67 - doesn't follow the novel in anyway. Prior to reading the book a day or so ago, the only thing I knew of the story was the famous "open seat - carpet beater" scene.

Live and Let Die has been full of surprises for me. I've been most surprised by the - how should I say it? - less than politically correct language in the book. I can't even write the title of Chapter Five  here.

Another of the more surprising elements of the James Bond novels, is Fleming's description of Bond's appearance as being similar to that of Hoagy Carmichael. Not exactly Sean Connery.

The Invisible Man - 2018

After I had posted The Invisible Man on Tuesday, a friend asked if I had seen a a 2018 version of the story on Youtube.

No, I hadn't. I'd have to take a look.

The movie claims to be based on the H.G.Wells novel. Other than giving the invisible man the same name as in the book, there is little resemblance.

Well, the main character does find the secret to invisibility, and like the character in the novel, he goes insane. I might have liked this version a little more if they had given one of the characters the name Kemp.

This version isn't absolutely horrible - there are entertaining portions, but I didn't care for the three main actors.

To me, the most interesting part of the movie was immediately following Griffin's having taken the drugs ...... and just prior to his becoming invisible. For just a few moments, he reminded me of comedian Bill Burr.

Celsius 233 - An Update

At the bottom of each blog post, you'll find the words "You might also like:" and displays of other posts which might appeal to the readers of this humble blog. From time to time, I'll click on one myself to return to the scene of the crime, as it were, to read something I wrote earlier.

Today, I re-read a post from February, 2017 - Celsius 233. In that post, I wrote of my having saved on Spotify the recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra performing the film scores of Bernard Herrmann. I've long been a fan of Hermann's work with Alfred Hitchcock, but I had not known at the time that Hermann had also written the musical score for the 1966 film, Fahrenheit 451.

In the earlier post, I wrote :

"Listening to the work this afternoon, my attention was drawn to Hermann's score for Fahrenheit 451. It had been years since I last watched the film - long before I knew the work of Bernard Hermann, and seeing the film listed on the LP, I thought of finding a way of watching it again. After doing an Internet search, and achieving less than satisfactory results, I was finally able to locate the entire film here."

I had included a link to the film on Youtube, but sadly the video has been removed. I'm sure there was a copyright issue. Today, when I discovered the video had been removed, I searched to see if the film could be found on ok.ru - a website which cares not one whit for copyright laws. Of course, I did find the film on the ok.ru site, but ironically, it has been dubbed into Russian.

I also wrote in 2017:

"As I say, it's been years since I've seen the film and I'm not at all certain that I ever got around to actually reading Ray Bradbury's novel. Being the cheapskate that I am, I searched for a copy as an e-book - free, of course. I've located a copy as a pdf here. At some point, I will convert the pdf to mobi for reading on Kindle. I can't say when that will be - I have a long list of novels in the queue".

It never made it into the queue.

The original pdf linked to in my post gives the page count as 77. That number looks suspiciously short to me, so I started a new search today.

I found a pdf on Project Gutenberg Self Publishing Press but at 108 pages, this seems to be an excerpt as well.

At 152 pages, the longest "free" copy is found at Internet Archive.

I suppose I could have saved all this work had I been inclined to buy the e-book from Amazon.

I'm not there yet.

Beau Geste

In a blog post from late December, I wrote of my habit of visiting ok.ru to watch old movies - usually made in the 30's and 40's. After watching Mr. Skeffington, starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains, I took a look at the film that made Marlene Dietrich an international star, The Blue Angel.

I had seen the film many years ago. The version I found on ok.ru had enough English in it to make the film understandable.

Immediately after watching The Blue Angel, I began watching the six Paramount films starring Dietrich with Josef von Sternberg as director. I'll have more about those films in a later post.

The first of those six Paramount films was Morocco with Gary Cooper as Dietrich's love interest. Seeing Cooper in the role of a soldier in the French Foreign Legion reminded of another movie starring Cooper, Beau Geste. I vaguely remember seeing the film on TV as a boy and I'm sure I'll be watching it again soon. Before that, though, I want to read the novel of the same name, which I've downloaded from fadedpage.com and uploaded to my new Kindle.

I'm 25% into Beau Geste and I'm loving it. It's quite the page turner.

Mr. Skeffington - the Film

Having finished reading Mr. Skeffington by Elizabeth von Arnim, I made plans to watch the 1944 film version starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains. I'd been looking forward to watching the film - one, because I loved von Armin's novel and two, because Davis and Rains were both wonderful actors.

Unfortunately, the film doesn't live up to the novel. I had trouble seeing Bette Davis being the "renowned beauty with many suitors" as the young Fanny Skellington. She was certainly more believable as the fifty year old Fanny who had lost her beauty due to having grown older and having had diphtheria.

Of course, short cuts were taken in the story and I didn't much see the point of giving the Skeffington's a daughter not found in the novel.

After watching the film, I understand why this film hasn't received the "classic film" status you would expect of a movie starring these two actors.

Another Damaged Kindle

Back in 2014, I had somehow managed to damage my Kindle while flying to Dumaguete from Manila. Fortunately, I had purchased a Kindle for my son, and as he has never taken to reading, I've been able to use his these past five years.

As I mentioned in the last blog post of 2019, I transferred a copy of Mr. Skeffington by Elizabeth von Arnim onto the Kindle and planned to read it as the first novel of 2020. All was going well. I was enjoying von Armin's last novel as much as I had enjoyed everything else I read of hers.

If one looks at the photo used in my first blog post of this year, you'll see my Kindle opened to the page of Mr. Skeffington where I had read up to that point. I'm sure it is a coincidence, but after taking that photo and publishing that post, I began to have problems with the Kindle. As one can see in the photo accompanying this post, there is a black speck - a dot of sorts - under the words "in England" in the center of the photo. Immediately below the speck, the sentence is distorted. The page distortion was even worse while I was reading Mr. Skeffington. I had to finish reading the novel on an ebook reader on my PC.

Sadly, this is my least favorite way of reading an ebook. I've since then downloaded an ebook reader onto my phone. I haven't used it yet. This may be preferable to reading an ebook on the PC, although my phone's battery is terrible at holding a charge.

I had planned on reading In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu. I'll postpone that until I've taken a look at the new reader on my phone - or better yet, there's the chance that my Kindle will magically repair itself.

In the mean time, I'll watch the 1944 film version of Mr. Skeffington starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains.

Mr. Skeffington

Three years ago, in December of 2016, I discovered the work of Elizabeth von Arnim. I had been reading E. Phillips Oppenheim's memoir, The Pool of Memory,- in it, he drops the name of a writer, Countess Elizabeth Russell, a number of times. An internet search told me that this was the name used by Elizabeth von Arnim after her second marriage. Finding copies of her novels was easy enough once I had the proper name.

Von Arnim's 1921 novel, Vera, was the last novel I read in 2016. Her first novel, Elizabeth and Her German Garden was the first thing I read in 2017. I would go on to read 12 of Von Arnim's novels . At the time, there was only one other available for download at Project Gutenberg - The April Baby's Book of Tunes. I had decided to skip that one as it had been described as a children's book.

I've recently learned that Von Arnim's novel, Mr. Skeffington is available at Project Gutenberg Australia. Having been written in 1940, the book is still under copyright in certain areas but the novel is in the public domain in Australia.

I'm currently reading Mr. Skeffington and it will be the first book I'll have read in 2020. I've also given The April Baby's Book of Tunes another look and will be reading it soon.

In 1944, Mr. Skeffington was made into a film, starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains. I'll be watching it at ok.ru, when I've finished reading the novel.

Some Old Films are OK By Me.

In two posts, written in March of 2018 [The Maltese Falcon (Novel) and Calling a Spade a Spade ] I wrote of my fondness for the classic 1941 film starring Humphrey Bogart, The Maltese Falcon and how the movie had lead me to hunt up the novel, which I located at a Canadian website - fadedpage.com.

When I wrote those two posts, I was able to get my old movie fix from watching TCM on my television. Sadly, my cable company has ceased having TCM in their programing. Fortunately. I have since discovered a website which has a gazillion old movies from the 1930's and 1940's for viewing - ok.ru.

To watch movies on the website, you have to go about it in a slightly indirect way. I discovered the website serendipitously while searching for an old movie. I soon discovered that going to the ok.ru home page was not for me. It's in Russian and I can't make heads or tails of it. However, it didn't take me long to figure out that if you wanted to locate a particular old movie (Duck Soup, for example) you simply go to Google and type in duck soup ok ru and if the movie is on the site you'll find a link to it in the search results.

Last night, I thought I might want to watch The Maltese Falcon again. It was there, of course, but I changed my mind. I was aware of two earlier film versions and I went in search of those two.

The earliest version was made in 1931 - two years after the novel was published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.. I located it by searching for The Maltese Falcon 1931 ok ru.

Like the later Bogart film, this one sticks fairly close to the novel. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two films is that in the 1931 version, Kasper Gutman is killed by his flunky Wilmer Cook. I especially liked seeing Thelma Todd as Iva Archer and Dwight Frye as Wilmer Cook.

In 1936, Warner Bros. remade the film as Satan Met a Lady . The studio still owned the rights and thought they could make a few bucks by changing the story a bit.

They shouldn't have.

This version is absolutely dreadful. Bette Davis thought the rewrite to be "junk" and refused to show up on the set. She was suspended by Warner Bros. but returned to work in order to cover living expenses for her mother and medical care for her sister.

For some reason, Warren William, who I had previously seen in The Gracie Allen Murder Case, wears the most ridiculously God-awful hat throughout the film.

I'd only recommend Satan Met a Lady for the curiosity seekers, and not those in search of a great film.

Yukio Mishima - or Getting From Point A to Point B

I'm very often surprised whenever I examine the path I've taken to reach point B from point A. One case in point is how I've come to read the novel I have currently on my Kindle.

A few days ago, I was watching a collection of films starring (or featuring) James Cagney. One such film was the 1931 comedy, The Millionaire in which Cagney had a brief appearance. I was unfamiliar with most of the actors in the film, and curiosity lead me to search the Internet for information about them. One of the stars of the film was Canadian-American actor, David Manners who played John Harker in the 1931 horror classic Dracula, which starred Bela Lugosi in the title role.

Learning that Manners was in Dracula led me to hunt for that film on the Internet. It had been ages since I've watched this classic movie, and luckily I was able to locate it at vimeo.com.

In 1999, Lugosi's Dracula was released for home video, with an updated soundtrack composed by Philip Glass and performed by the Kronos Quartet. I was so impressed by Glass' composition that I had to search for more work by the composer.

One of the works composed by Glass that I found on Spotify, was the film score for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters - a film based on the life and work of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. Of course, now I had to learn more about Yukio Mishima.

According to Wikipedia, Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. His tetralogy of novels, The Sea of Fertility is considered his masterpiece.

Twelve works written by Mishima are available as mobi files at archive.org. My first choice was to download all four novels from the tetralogy. After beginning the first novel, Spring Snow, I returned to archive.org to download the entire Mishima collection.

Superman

A few days ago, I came upon a five minute video clip, posted onto Facebook, from the first episode of a 1948 movie serial, Superman. The serial starred Kirk Alyn as Superman/Clark Kent, Noel Neill as Lois Lane, and Tommy Bond as Jimmy Olsen. Neill would later be cast as Lois Lane in the T.V. series, Adventures of Superman. As a child, Bond was best known for his work as Butch in the Our Gang (Little Rascals) comedies.

After watching the short video clip, I went in search for the entire 15 episode serial online. The serial isn't available on Youtube, but it is available on the dailymotion.com website. A link to episode one is found here.

In 1950, another 15 part serial, starring the same characters was released. This serial, Atom Man vs Superman also starred Lyle Talbot as Lex Luthor. This serial can be found on dailymotion.com as well.

I've watched the entire 30 episodes and found the serials entertaining in their own way. The only negative I can say, is that special effects being what they were during the late 40's - early 50's, animation was used to show Superman in flight and the effect is a bit cheesy.

After watching the two serials, I searched for videos of the Adventures of Superman TV series. Season one is the only season available online, and unfortunately, not all the original 26 episodes are to be found.

In season one, Phyllis Coates played the part of Lois Lane, Noel Neill taking over beginning with season two.

 I want to make special mention of episode 13 from season one of the TV series, The Stolen Costume. The early episodes of the TV series were unusual in that characters were seen dying on screen. In The Stolen Costume, Superman is actually responsible for the deaths of two characters who had discovered his identity as Clark Kent.

The African Queen

As I mentioned in an earlier post, watching a clip recently from the classic Bogart/Hepburn film, The African Queen, lead me to download the original novel as an e-book - along with a few other novels by C. S. Forester.

Before reading The African Queen, I read Forester's first crime novel, Payment Deferred and went onto it just after.

Much to my surprise, the film and the novel had a number of differences. Obviously, a film produced in 1951 could not have the two main characters having sexual relations, but that didn't stop Forester from including sex in his 1935 novel. Not graphic by today's standards, but I was certainly surprised.

I was expecting the novel to end the way the film ended - with the German ship, Königin Luise being sunk by the submerged African Queen. It doesn't.

Download Deferred

Earlier this year, after watching The Maltese Falcon, I searched the Internet to find information about the novel on which the film was based. I was able to find a copy of the novel as an e-book on a Canadian website, fadedpage.com. Several of Dashiell Hammett's works are no longer under copyright in Canada and are aslo available for download at that website.

A few nights ago, after watching a documentary film on Humphrey Bogart, I did a similar search for the novel that inspired Bogart's film, The African Queen. Like the Dashiell Hammett novel, I discovered The African Queen, written by C.S. Forester, is also out of copyright in Canada and available for download as an e-book at fadedpage.com. Before beginning the novel, I downloaded (and began reading) Forester's first novel, Payment Deferred.

I was so impressed with the crime novel, I immediately downloaded two more novels by Forester, Plain Murder and The Peacemaker.

Unfortunately, I was unable to transfer The Peacemaker mobi onto my Kindle. I tried transferring the e-book directly via a usb cable, as well as attempting to send it to my Kindle by email. I'm assuming that the file I have has been corrupted, although it can be read on the Kindle app on my computer. I don't like reading ebooks on my pc, so I made one more attempt at getting a copy of the novel to my Kindle.

Thinking the mobi file from fadedpage might be corrupted, I download the novel as a pdf. which I converted to mobi by going to online-convert.com. This converted file can now be read on my Kindle.

Where there's a Will, there's a Way.

The Maltese Falcon (Novel)

Back when I was a kid - you know, when dinosaurs still walked the Earth - we were only able to get 3 channels on our television. Now, many years later, we're able to get more that 100 stations; and we're in a third world country. Imagine the number of channels available in a first world nation.

Still, even with more than 100 channels to choose from, there are only a handful of stations that I care to watch regularly.

One of those channels is TCM - which, at one time, stood for Turner Classic Movies. I enjoy watching the old films - most in black and white. For good or bad, the TCM channel available here in Philippines will repeat movies several times through out the month. This month, I'm given plenty of opportunities to watch one of my favorite oldies - The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart. After watching the movie again last night, I thought I'd look online for information about the novel on which the movie is based.

The novel was published in 1930, and I discovered that the book is in the public domain in Canada and available for download at a Canadian website, fadedpage.com.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm currently reading volume one (Swann's Way) of Proust's multi-volume, In Search of Lost Time. I'll finish reading this volume before beginning The Maltese Falcon, but I won't wait to finish the other six volumes. I'll go on to volume two of Proust's work after I've read the Dashiell Hammett crime novel.

Urbain Grandier

In was in the early 1980s that I first learned of Urbain Grandier, a 17th century French Catholic priest who was burned at the stake, after being found guilty of witchcraft in a case involving "demonic possession" of nuns in the town of Loudun, France. One of the cable movie channels (Showtime, Cinemax, or HBO) was running the 1971 Ken Russell film, The Devils. The film was based on the 1952 non-fiction novel by Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun.

Being curious, I went on a search for Huxley's book. A copy of the book was supposed to be available at my local public library, but I was told that the book was frequently stolen when placed on the shelf. There was a copy available behind the main desk, but it could not be checked out. The book could only be read in the library.

Fortunately for me, there was a very nice used book store in town. The owner could find any book - for a price, of course. I purchased a copy from her. I cannot say what became of the book.

I bring this up now because the story of Grandier is told in volume four of Alexandre Dumas' Celebrated Crimes. Sadly, the series could have been entitled Celebrated Crimes by Christians. A good many of the crimes described by Dumas illustrate the horrors committed by some using God's name.

According to a Wikipedia article, the French historian Jules Michelet discussed Grandier in a chapter of La Sorcière. An English translation of La Sorcière is available at Project Gutenberg. That book is now on my list of books to read in 2018.

The Polish composer, Krzysztof Penderecki wrote an opera, Die Teufel von Loudun based on the story. I was unable to find a copy of the opera on Spotify - although many of Penderecki's works are - but a TV version of the opera can be found on Youtube.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

In yesterday's post [The Snow Job of Kilimanjaro] I wrote of the impossibility of my being able to watch the 1952 movie, The Snows of Kilimanjaro on Youtube, due to this dismally slow Internet I'm forced to deal with. As I write this on WordPad, I am having a difficult time reaching the blog site.

Strangely enough, however, I was able to view the movie yesterday afternoon. I had absolutely no problem streaming the video.

After watching the video, I have to say that the movie was enjoyable - if one over looks the fact that it does not follow Hemingway's short story. Forget that it's supposed to be Hemingway and view it as 1950s era movie and there are merits to be found in it. Viewing it as a Hemingway story, I'd give the movie a 3 1/2, but as a non-Hemingway story, I'd give the film a 7 1/2 or even an 8.

The Snow Job of Kilimanjaro

It was through his work with Alfred Hitchcock [Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo] that I first became a fan of composer Bernard Hermann. Recently, I'm been listening to one of Hermann's scores for a film I haven't seen - The Snows of Kilimanjaro, starring Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward and Ava Gardner.

The film is in the public domain and available for viewing on Youtube, but sadly with the dismally slow Internet that I have to live with here, it is impossible for me to watch it. It seems a bit odd to me that I can stream music via Spotify (including the original soundtrack to The Snows of Kilimanjaro) but not videos.

With the film being in the public domain, it's unlikely that it will be shown on TCM. Someone has to make money, after all. So, it's unlikely that I'll see the movie any time in the near future.

After looking for an image to include with this post, the one I've chosen to use has an odd statement regarding the film - "Ernest Hemingway's Greatest Love Story!".

What a bunch of B.S.

Although I haven't seen the film, I know that the short story, as written by Hemingway can hardly be called a love story - great or otherwise. Ava Gardner's character isn't even in Hemingway's story. We know that Hollywood can't let artistic accuracy stand in the way of making a buck. Maybe the poster should say The Snow Job of Kilimanjaro.

Celsius 233

One of the musical works saved by me on Spotify is of Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra performing the film scores of Bernard Herrmann. (the recording on Youtube can be found here. My favorite film score on the album is Herrmann's score for Hitchcock's Psycho.

Listening to the work this afternoon, my attention was drawn to Hermann's score for Fahrenheit 451. It had been years since I last watched the film - long before I knew the work of Bernard Hermann, and seeing the film listed on the LP, I thought of finding a way of watching it again. After doing an Internet search, and achieving less than satisfactory results, I was finally able to locate the entire film here.

As I say, it's been years since I've seen the film and I'm not at all certain that I ever got around to actually reading Ray Bradbury's novel. Being the cheapskate that I am, I searched for a copy as an e-book - free, of course. I've located a copy as a pdf here. At some point, I will convert the pdf to mobi for reading on Kindle. I can't say when that will be - I have a long list of novels in the queue.