Octoberama! War of the Worlds on the Radio!

On October 30th, 1938, the Mercury Theater performed a radio show adaptation of HG Wells' War of the Worlds.  I expect that most of you will have heard of this presentation.

On the eve of Halloween, 1938 - war brimming over in Europe, Asia in chaos, science and engineering on the march despite a decade of financial instability - Americans tuned into the radio for their after dinner relaxation.  Sure, everyone knew Halloween was coming, but like the first April Fool's joke sprung on you each year, it may not be the first thing on your mind.

The broadcast was the one that supposedly set the nation into a panic and had people driving around, shooting at water towers and running from imaginary space men.  It also ended in folks calling for the head of Orson Welles - well before he decided not to sell any wine before its time or voice the monster planet in the Transformers Movie.

Octoberama! Sundays with The Bride - Happy Birthday, Elsa

Last week, JimD emailed me and asked if I planned on posting about Elsa Lanchester's 110th Birthday, which happens to fall on today, the day I'd planned the finale post for Sundays with The Bride.  Honestly, I had no idea the birthday was coming, so, everybuddy, take a moment and thank JimD and then take another moment and appreciate cosmic happenstance.

I had another post ready, and so you'll still see that today, later, but as it's Elsa's birthday, we need to give the lady her due.

We all grew up seeing clips from The Bride of Frankenstein, or saw the role of The Bride parodied in other films, in cartoons, or pop art.  The role passed into western iconography as much as the rest of the Universal Horror pack of monsters, but - oddly - The Bride appears for a total of one scene in this single film.  The Bride has no speaking lines, and, of all the Universal Horror "monsters", she is the only one which hurts nobody.

But that's only if you don't count breaking hearts.

Happy Birthday Theodore Roosevelt!

Jake's blog informs me that today is the birthday of Theodore Roosevelt, the most interesting president in the world.

Born this day, 1858, in New York City.

Who WOULDN'T vote for this guy?

Rather than sum up the man and his achievements I shall start by recommending some light reading:

• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
• Theodore Rex
• Colonel Roosevelt all by Edmund Morris.

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard
The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt by a former professor I had at UT, Lewis L. Gould (he was awesome.)

Happy Birthday, Pablo Picasso!

The artist was born this day in 1881.  He lived to the age of 93.  He is famed for his bullheaded nature.

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey

I do not travel much in a non-work-related capacity, but I hit London about a year and a half ago with The Admiral and my brother.

Jason and I were on a mad dash through the National Gallery, trying to see a Greatest Hits of the museum, and as we darted into one gallery I stopped cold in my tracks.

The picture at the far end of the gallery was The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833, Paul Delaroche).

When I considered doing a post, I was shocked to read that the painting is only 3 metres wide.  In my mind, it seemed twice that large.  Perhaps that's the impact of surprise.  Perhaps the website of the National Gallery is incorrect (it is not).  No matter the case, when I've tried to describe the painting, I am certain I have told people "that thing must have been 20 feet across".

Happy Birthday, Bela Lugosi

Today is Bela Lugosi's 130th Birthday.

Born Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó in Hungary, Lugosi arrived in America in the early 1920s. By 1927 he was cast as Count Dracula in a Broadway show.

Most famous for his role as Dracula in the 1931 film, Lugosi found himself typecast and caught in a strange whirlwind of the Hollywood system which kept him in spook pictures, more or less, his entire career.

It's the Halloween season.  Go out and get yourself a copy of Dracula if you've never seen the original movie.  He's pretty darn good.

Octoberama! "The Haunted Castle" (1896) from Melies!

From the artist we learned a bit about in Scorsese's Hugo.

Happy Birthday, Eddie Rickenbacker

No, he did not invent popcorn.  He has nothing to do with popcorn.

Eddie Rickenbacker was the leading WWI Ace of the United States Army Air Force.  In the deadly skies over Europe, in first a Nieuport 28 and then a Spad XIII, Rickenbacker has 27 confirmed air victories on record and flew more than 300 hours, the most of any American during the war.

A stunning feat, and certainly laurels enough upon which one could rest.  But after WWI, Rickenbacker first promoted Liberty Bonds, then started his own automobile company (that didn't make it), but went on to get involved with Eastern Air Transport and then Eastern Airlines, which he ran successfully during the golden age of air transport.

He would be 122 today.

Octoberama! See the 1910 "Frankenstein" from Edison Studios!

I'll be honest with you cats. I thought this film was lost until I stumbled across it this week while doing something completely unrelated. Apparently, totally not lost.

So, spend 12 minutes with a movies made 110 years ago, why don't you?

Happy 117th to Buster Keaton

Happy Birthday to the great genius of cinema.

Getting Your Hands on Louise Brooks

Despite my more than occasional posting of images of silent-era actress Louise Brooks, I haven't seen that many movies in which she appears or stars.  The DVD and Blu-Ray market never found the conversion of silent films profitable, and the legal streaming market hasn't caught up with the massive backlog of what has been preserved (Netflix currently has four Brooks films, one of them is streaming - and that fifth one is a doc, not a Brooks movie).

Why this is, I don't know.  I don't know how Netflix and other companies make the decision to stream films, but I am familiar with the incurred cost that comes with taking up bandwidth, at least when it comes to AWS.   I assume the math is complex.

TV.  Why you no stream this at me?

Groucho Marx - 122 years young today

Happy Birthday to a great American, Groucho Marx.

Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me?

                                               -Groucho Marx

If I need to say anything else about Groucho, you need to go back to the beginning and start over.

Today is the 60th Birthday of Christopher Reeve

Today would have been the 60th Birthday of actor and activist Christopher Reeve.

Like most people, I am most familiar with Reeve thanks to his work in the four Superman movies and then his work around spinal cord injuries following the equestrian accident which paralyzed him.

If you've ever discussed Superman media with me, you know the esteem with which I hold Reeve's performance in the Superman movies.  I still find his take to be my touchstone for how I think of the alien who finds the joy in putting on the suit and helping others and who can never understand the forces that drive men like Lex Luthor.  I could go on, but suffice it to say, I'm a fan.

Reeve passed in 2004 after a valiant battle with his paralysis and associated ailments.  He became the premier voice for spinal cord research in the United States and his foundation is still active today.  Reeve had a dream of walking again, and I don't  think I was alone in believing he might just pull it off because he so believed it was possible.

For all of us who grew up thinking of Reeve as Superman, to see him take on the challenges dealt to him was an awe inspiring sight, and while you always know that's just an actor wearing the cape, it was a Superman who turned adversity into inspiration.

You can donate to The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation and help keep the memory of our own Man of Steel alive.

In addition to his work as Superman, I quite like:

Somewhere In Time (1980)
Noises Off (1992)
The Remains of the Day (1993)
Village of the Damned (1995)
and his role as Dr. Virgil Swann on TV's Smallville.

You can see my comments on the day of his death in 2004 here.

Today is the Birthday of World War II Ace Major Richard Bong

Today, Richard Bong would have been 92 years old.

Richard Bong does not have time for your awards.  He has planes to shoot down.

World War II was an odd time for air combat.  The mechanized age had come into full swing, and the planes were far superior to the bi-winged aircraft of WWI.  Today's pilots are sitting behind 10's of millions of dollars in equipment and tend to get recruited from top universities.  During World War II, some airplanes were being assembled out of boxes on the tarmac and flown by anyone with stones enough to get behind the stick.

Richard Bong was one of nine children from a small town in Wisconsin.  He was attending a teacher's college when, in 1938, he signed up for the Civilian Pilot Training program (that's age 18) where he trained under Barry Goldwater of all people.

Today Would Have Been the 100th Birthday of Chuck Jones

If you have to ask who Chuck Jones was, I pity you, for you were not born into a world in which Looney Tunes seemed to be on the air 24 hours per day.

I can't really state how much impact Bugs may have had on me and my occasionally completely inappropriate responses to thuggishness.

this is my manifesto

I contend that Warner Bros. and the cartoons made at the studio under the eyes of huge talents like Fritz Freleng (an extraordinary talent), Tex Avery (who would go on to do his own work) and Hanna & Barbera (also - left to do their own work), were a huge cultural touchstone for folks who grew up in multiple decades from the 60's - 80's, when one could pretty much count on the likes of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck to teach them important lessons about not taking things all that seriously, even when faced with dynamite or a falling anvil.

Signal Reads: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

I was born into the Cold War, and I often wonder if The Kids whose sense of awareness crested after 1992 really understand what it was like.  As far back as 2001, I was taking a martial arts class where the "adult" class meant high school and up.  After class we were putting on our shoes and chatting and somehow I managed to ask one of the kids if they even knew what The Cold War was.  Long story short, he knew it had something to do with Russia, but he didn't know why we may have been in conflict with The Russkies.

It's now been more than 20 years since I sat in class and watched video of Germans dancing on the wall, and I still don't really understand how one day we had An Evil Empire with whom we were locked in the world's worst staring contest, and the next, we had Eastern-block countries cut loose from Mother Russia and spiraling into fresh, new problems (see: Sarajevo) and Russia deciding that a government based on something that looks an awful lot like gangsterism should take the place of the death-mask Stalinist taskmasters.*

Happy B-Day to Sophia Loren

I haven't seen as many Sophia Loren movies as I'd like, but she's pretty terrific (in many, many ways).

Loren has had no small amount of cross-cultural success, appearing in a large number of American films as well as her prolific career in her native Italy.

Her image is also a major fixture at Italian-stereotype kitsch palace/ restaurant "Buca di Beppo".  So while you're gorging yourself on meatballs, you can look in wonder upon framed pics of Loren next to Italian flags and pictures of old Italian grocers and whatnot.

ah, Venice.

Happy 78th to Ms. Loren.

and this picture of Loren and Jayne Mansfield never fails to crack me up.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Adam West

Happy Birthday to Mr. Adam West, most famous for his role in the 1966 movie and TV series, Batman. he was born this day in 1928.

Mr. West as Batman inspired me to my first word: "Batman", and fueled me with a deep desire to both do what's right and say ridiculous things in a completely earnest tone. I continue to enjoy the TV show, lo' these many years later.

Patsy Cline's 80th Birthday

Patsy Cline was born on this day in Virginia in 1932.

Perhaps most famous for her performance of "Crazy" (written by a young Willie Nelson), Patsy's voice and mid-century country stylings are still very much in vogue and end up in more movies, TV shows and commercials than you want to think about.  She's very much a part of the American soundtrack.

She retains a following among Austinites in no small part thanks to the nigh-nightly tribute to Patsy that's done at Austin's own Esther's Follies, a sort of comedy/ variety show that's had the Patsy Cline bit going since it debuted.  Maybe.  I don't know.  Patsy's music seems to fit lazy, hot evenings pretty well, so maybe she's still this popular across the south.

Cline was part of a great era of American Country before "popular" Country music became watered down pop-rock in the 80's and settled there in the 90's when the big money rolled in.  She was a performed at the Grand Ole Opry and a major talent.  Had she not died in a plane crash in 1963, there's really no telling where she would have ended up.  I suspect she would have continued performing for a long, long time.

Happy Birthday, Patsy.

Rave On! It's Buddy Holly's Birthday!

Today in 1936, Buddy Holly was born in Lubbock, Texas.

At some point in 7th grade a Buddy Holly tape found it's way into my possession (I think KareBear gave it to me for Christmas) - and 23 two-and-half-minute songs later, I was a fan.  I still consider Rave On to be one of the best pop songs ever written.