Robert Wise directed Executive Suite (1954), a still-relevant portrait of cutthroat corporate shenanigans, starring Frederic March and William Holden (in a truly dazzling performance) as the sharks in the corner-office tank. Stanwyck plays an heiress with her trademark unflappability--and with possibly the steeliest business persona of them all. Extras include an enthusiastic commentary by Wall Street director Oliver Stone, as well as a vintage short and cartoon.

Annie Oakley (1935), the oldest film in this collection, went a long way toward cementing Stanwyck's tough-talking (and yes, straight-shooting) persona. Stanwyck is brassy and bold, and mighty fearless as the Old West legend. There's a fair amount of humor, too, in the screenplay and deft direction of George Stevens. Extras include a vintage short and cartoon.

Stanwyck stretches her acting wings in the soapy love story My Reputation (1946). It's hard to imagine the tough-dame Stanwyck worrying about anything so ephemeral as a reputation, but in this well-acted film, she's convincing as a young widow who cautiously tries to date again, only to set tongues wagging, and scandalizing even her own children. Extras include a great musical short featuring Jan Savitt and Band, and a vintage cartoon.

Mervyn LeRoy directs a fabulous cast in the film noirish thiller/melodrama East Side, West Side (1949), involving a bored married couple, past infidelities, and murder. Ava Gardner's a standout as the "other woman" who comes between Stanwyck's Jessie and James Mason's Brandon. The cinematography is atmospheric and taut. Even the supporting cast dazzles in its own right--Cyd Charisse, William Frawley, William Conrad, and a winsome Nancy Davis (the future First Lady). Extras include a short film and a fun Tex Avery cartoon, "Counterfeit Cat."

To Please a Lady (1950) may have one of the least appropriate film titles ever--it's a high-octane drama set around the world of early car racing, with a romance between Stanwyck and Clark Gable as the hook. But the film itself is a blast, especially for the well-shot, adrenaline-rush scenes of car racing, decades before the polish of NASCAR. Gable's a reckless driving champ and Stanwyck's the hard-nosed reporter who revs up his heart. Stanwyck's Regina catches racing fever: "It's like the Fourth of July and the heavyweight fight and the World Series all rolled into one." Amen, sister.

Jeopardy (1953) appears as a "double feature" on one disc with To Please a Lady. It's a fascinating psychological thriller that presages a whole genre of "ticking time-bomb" peril films, and also suggests a pivotal scene in Sometimes a Great Notion. Stanwyck plays a happily married wife, vacationing in Mexico with her husband (Barry Sullivan), who becomes trapped in the surf--and as the tide comes in, his luck may run out. A frantic Stanwyck has to make scary choices if her husband--and she--is to survive. The extra on this disc is an audio-only radio interview with Stanwyck. --A.T. Hurley

Barbara Stanwyck - The Signature Collection (Annie Oakley / East Side, West Side / My Reputation / Executive Suite / Jeopardy / To Please a Lady) is available at Amazon for $37.99. To Order click here
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• The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo / Torch Song)
• Daisy Kenyon (Fox Film Noir)
• The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 3 (The Old Maid / All This, And Heaven Too / The Great Lie / In This Our Life / Watch on the Rhine / Deception)
• Dangerous Crossing (Fox Film Noir)

THE BRIBE is a film I've long wanted to see, maybe partly because of those clips in DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID. Robert Z. Leonard's 1949 noir provides the footage of Charles Laughton, Vincent Price and bits of Ava Gardner, recycled into DEAD MEN's patchwork plot. The name "Carlotta", upon which the Steve Martin / Carl Reiner movie turns, also comes from THE BRIBE.

Ultimately, nostalgia for the spoof is much of the reason for watching Leonard's film -- it's a minor movie which rarely catches fire, despite an exotic, sultry setting and a lurid rogue's gallery of villains. Robert Taylor is too dull and earnest to seem in danger of corruption, even by Ava, and for added bore factor there's John Hodiak. At least the role of tortured drunk gives J.H. something to get his teeth into.

Apart from Gardner's singing and complaining about the heat (Ava Gardner complaining about the heat is a strangely erotic spectacle), the main point of interest comes right before the climax, where Leonard suddenly pulls out all the stops and produces a whole bunch of weird tropes.

A tiny, sweltering hotel room. Taylor has Vincent Price at gunpoint, even firing off a warning shot to stop Vinnie leaving. Charles Laughton, his face a sweaty pudding, watches anxiously, eyes darting from one combatant to the other. Leonard films Price from a low angle, emphasising his authority and weirdly graceless bulk.

With lupine cunning, Price swipes the light switch to OFF, and the room goes black. Taylor fires, and price fires back, muzzle-flare piercing the gloom in angry strobes.

Leonard's camera (actually, cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg's) swishes anxiously around, scanning the velvet darkness for signs of life and danger. It doesn't seem to be tied to anybody's P.O.V.

Madly, Laughton's eyes are still darting about, the only things perceptible in the all-encompassing night. We realise that Laughton has been got up in black-face just for this moment, so that his eyes can hover in the dark like a cartoon's.

Taylor glides into piecemeal visibility, his body criss-crossed by countless unmotivated diagonal shadows.

Laughton's disembodied orbs float silently back into obscurity.

BANG! Fireworks erupt outside (it's the Fiesta di Carlotta), visible through the window by virtue of rear projection, but because the cameraman who shot them had to pan about a bit to keep the flashes framed correctly, the bursts of Greek Fire seem to swim madly around, as if the hotel had come loose from its foundations and started drifting to and fro, like Dorothy's house on the way to Oz (Friends of Dorothy / Friends of Carlotta?)

Price, a perfect profile in silhouette, takes aim: he sees Taylor illuminated by the pyrotechnics. His shot shatters the dresser mirror -- it was only Taylor's reflection he saw. Having thus compressed the entire climax of Welles' LADY FROM SHANGHAI into one shot, Leonard relaxes slightly for the chase and fight climax, which is nevertheless photographically rather impressive:

REALITY, THIS IS BZ

“BZ has really lost it.”

Reality has me on the phone. “Call my answer service and listen for yourself,” he says, supplying me with his number and his access code. It seems that BZ is very disturbed by Reality’s method of making a living, which is recording heavy metal bands. BZ has devised a method of jamming Reality’s message service by filibustering for half an hour into the phone until all of his allocated time/memory is used up.

I call Reality’s service and punch in the access code.

*****

(beep) “Yes, Reality this is Jeffers. Give me a call at the studio.” (beep)

“Reality, this is BZ. What the fuck, uhhh? Hey listen, uhh, don’t be picking at your weenie, man. Just knock that shit off. All I’m trying to say is if you are trying to get a grip on making money and the metal thing, don’t be breaking bread with the Devil. The winds aren’t blowing that way, they’re not. You’re going to try to get a handle on what’s really going on and it’s not fucking heavy metal man, it’s just not. And you know that as well as I do. Y’know, with the money thing on it, fine. But I don’t think it is. I think you’re getting caught up in it. So uhh, clears throat, just uhh....” (beep)

“Phhhheewwwww.... Reality, this is BZ. Uhhh.... ‘The Xandria Collection is a very special collection of devices which can provide an entirely positive source of pleasure. It includes the finest and most (cough) effective products available... unique-three-way-guarantee...’ But anyway, what I’m, ummm, the thing about... ummm... where is it? ‘Black dudes and butt fucking are two erotic concepts at which many smut sirens draw the line...’ ‘Back Door Lambada,’ ‘The Girl’s Club,’ ‘Girls on Girls,’ y’know? ‘Where The Boys AREN’T.’ Y’know what I’m trying to say here? ‘Her tunnel turd tunnel.’ ‘Her turd tunnel takes a rough grind riding on and under Ray Victory’s reamer.’ ‘Ray Victory’s reamer.’ ‘A couple of girls want to get back at their boyfriends’ — this is a pitch. This is like a treatment. ‘A couple of girls want to get back at their boyfriends who have gone away for the weekend, so they decide to FUCK ANYTHING THAT ISN’T TIED DOWN,’ Reality. Christ, do you hear what I’m saying? Nawww, just don’t... don’t even bother at this point, but that’s going to Orion Pictures tomorrow. I’m over the top, Reality. I’ve got cash now, I can do things with it. Am I interesting you? Maybe not, I don’t know. Give me a call.” (beep)

THE SKI ROOM

Reality and I are in the Ski Room (Sunset and Bronson), telling Gary, the bartender, about my getting thrown in the pokey in Tipton, Iowa.

He says, "You know my Uncle's a judge a Cedar County, Iowa."

He then gives me a quarter to put in the jukebox and asks me to play his favorite song. I punch in A 34, “I’ve Been Everywhere,” by Hank Snow.

THIS HOLLYWOOD/EL MIRAGE/PALMDALE

Now that the tour is over, Maximum! Records reckons it is time  for the Braindead Soundmachine to shoot a rock video for “Walkin' After Midnight,” the second single off of the record. The theme will be JenJen in the role of our meta-Faye Greener heroine as she seeks substance and worth, and comes under the Spell and Wisdom of the Coyote God. Failing to find anything of worth, JenJen walks west, taking the advice of Horace Greeley to its logical end. She walks into the surf of the Pacific Ocean and drowns.

There is no discussion as to who should portray the Coyote God.  It must be Yoshi.

Reality and I go to Club Mugi to tell Yoshi he has been cast. He is elated and I ask for his information.

Amongst the din and clangor of the bar, Yoshi gives me his phone number. The bar breaks into spontaneous applause.

I realize this is because Yoshi is giving his phone number to a tall Caucasian man.

“No, no, no,” I tell the bar patrons. “We have just cast Yoshi to star in a rock video. You know: MTV.”

This explanation cuts no muster.

“This Hollywood,” a Japanese guy explains as the applause dovetails into catcalls. “We hear that arr the time.”

SEARCHING FOR YOU

The production is a three-day shoot. We dress JenJen in her Patsy Cline wig and her fallen Catholic girl skirt. She is seeking Enlightenment and will only find such in the wisdom of the Coyote God from Vietnam, portrayed by Yoshi.

In the video she walks west, all night through various boroughs of Los Angeles, meeting her destiny when she arrives at the Pacific Ocean, whereupon she walks into the sun and drowns.

The Soundmachine meanwhile, is driving east, through the Great Southwestern Desert. Los Angeles is in our rear view mirror.

HOT DIGGITY DOG

(beep) “Hot diggity dog. It’s me again. Listen, I got a little something on the ‘Back Door Lambada,’  the Power Play, the ‘Anal Alley’ thing I was referring to, the quick tease. And basically, you have to understand three things about the Randy Spears, uhh, proposition. ‘He’s playing a doctor in this one,’ okay? It’s not the usual Randy Spears thing, he’s playing a doctor who is ‘constantly being tempted by his libidinous patients, but he remains loyal to his wife, who happens to be Lynn LeMay. Not that he’s missing a wad... as the boffing of Brittany by Tom Byron proves... the boffing of Brittany by Tom Byron proves some serious tonsil tooling...’ that’s ‘tonsil tooling...’  ‘of Jillian Amour by Mike Horner... should pep up bored bone bashers...’ bored bone bashers... ‘but only LeMay registers any urge to purge peckers...’ purge peckers.... ‘in her two scenes of scintillating...’ scintillating lezzy lunch... ‘a lezzy lunch with Raven Richards featuring two battery operated dildoes crammed into each of Lemay’s holes while the luscious Lynn deep throats Spears and takes his dick up her ass. Not that those scenes are mostly anal at all...’

“I’ll go with that, Reality. That’s going straight to Orion pictures. I’m over the top, Reality. I have cash now, I can operate now. Before it was an existential fucking haze of depression. Now it’s like, heh heh heh, you just watch Reality. So let’s like, let’s  start companies, let’s file for corporate papers, let’s find sites for office space, and let’s get secretaries. Let’s open, uhhh, let’s take out space in the trades.

“Okay?

“‘Lisa... Lisa, Lisa... ffwhoooohhhh.... Lisa... hhhmmmmm ... Yeah, you know, I was talking to, uhhh, who was I talking to? I was talking to one of your friends, I don’t know which one. He had feathered blonde hair, kind of a rocker-type. He was a friend of yours from the studio. I kicked the fuck out him, Reality. I beat his fucking head in — for no reason. The guy was saying something about the Doors Movie and how it was ‘almost like being there’ — I just started to kick his head in. I don’t feel... I don’t feel any remorse. But he was your friend and I want you to... all right: Lisa. Okay. Here we go.... This is really the point of all of this right here: Ummm. ‘A steamy set of classics that will make your bookshelves smoke...’ You dig what I’m... you make it smoke, Reality. All right? And uhh, further to that, ummm, another pitch. This is now not Orion, this is Paramount. A Paramount pitch. And uhhh... It’s about the director Michael Carpenter. Carpenter is a fairly well known chap in the circles I run in. ‘... Has a renowned past among the universe of wad, sod and Kleenex and is a man whose FUCK UP loops ran circles around the jerk-of-the-mill pud- pull product. Carpenter took a little vacation from the trash treadmill, but he’s back. Bush League is probably indicative of anything of what to expect from him. Packages of featured anonymous sex. He’ll never transcend the crudities of crank-em-out cum flicks, with performers forgetting their dumbo dialogue, looking bored beyond stupidity with their tediously lame character setups. Indeed, production levels will never exceed those of a typical Ron Jeremy shoot until the flesh talent is stripped to skin and then it’s ‘stick it in, suck, fuck and good luck.’ Champagne and her husband Ric Daniels are the pivotal bush performers with cinnamon skinned sex monkey...’ that’s ‘sex monkey... Pia...’ make that “Mia ‘Sex Monkey’ Powers. ‘The cast is filled out with Randi West. It is half-assed trash without a good man behind the camera... potent erectile coercion... Wadd’s raunch resume includes shooting stints with John Stagliano...’

“That is Stagliano, as you well know Stagliano was the assistant A.D. on that thing I wrote for Jim Mitchells over there at the same studio where you work. And uhh, Gregory Dark, who has done some sound. You may have even run into him at the studios. Both of them. You may know Gregory better than John... Ummm... maybe you don’t, but it’s not important.

“That’s what I’m dealing with right now. Hang on, I’ve got to take another call.” (beep)

WALKIN’ AFTER MIDNIGHT/EL MIRAGE

JenJen walks west into the ocean at dawn and drowns. Concurrently, a chrysalis like re-birthing commences, as the core members of the Braindead Soundmachine drive east in a white 1961 Cutlass, in search of something that represents life. Out at El Mirage, some barren and forgotten salt flats in the Mojave Desert, the Soundmachine inexplicably encounters Yoshi, who is the process of disrobing. As the transvestite garb continues to come off, we drive the Cutlass in a series of tightening, concentric circles around Yoshi, as the circles represent a certain uroboros or the actual life cycle. The disrobing also represents a certain “shedding of skin,” and the whole endeavor is very chrysalis-like.

Once production wraps on the dry lakebed, we drive to a greasy spoon coffee shop in Palmdale. We look rather sandblasted and the multicolored hair and the leather jackets are a bit beyond typical Palmdale coffee shop couture.

I escort Yoshi — who is a warped permutation of a movie star with rouge, mascara and a my leather jacket draped over his shoulders and looks like a cross between James Dean, Tinkerbelle and Marcello Mastrioanni — into the restaurant, and we walk by the Director of Photography, who is using a pay phone to check his message machine in Hollywood.

The Director of Photography grabs me by the shoulders and whispers, “At least get Yoshi to wipe off the lipstick.”

We sit down and it is a scene out of Easy Rider or a western. There is silence except for the clinking of spoons as patrons at the counter swirl crème in the coffee.

The waitress is actually trembling, as Braindead is enough of a spectacle with the hair and leather jackets and Reality’s hair and bullet belt, but the Asian cross dresser is far beyond the local codes of decency.

She endures taking the orders and when she gets to Yoshi, Yoshi says, “ I would rike Denver Omerrette.” Just like Ava Gardner. Or Amberlyne.

SPIT IN MY MOUTH

Num-E-Num sets up his sampler and wants me to hear something. He hits a white key he has marked “Amberlyne” and it triggers a female voice uttering “Spit in My Mouth.” He begins triggering the sample of her voice rhythmically and I realize he has delivered a chorus for a song.

I have some lyrics that update Faye Greener’s stint as a prostitute in The Day of the Locust. In my vignette, she is a phone sex operator. “A stitch in time will save you nine, but baby if you drop a dime, I only give you Devotion... I’m not as free as I can be, but baby if you dial me, I only give you Devotion.”

I had the vamps, but I lacked a hook. A chorus. The refrain of “Spit in my mouth,” looped and repeated over a crunchy soaring repetitive, four bar guitar lick would work famously.

“This is fucking brilliant. Is that Amberlyne, the bimbo on those billboards? Where did you get this?”

“I was engineering some session for her.”

“I thought she was an actress.”

“Yeah, well she’s a singer too. I got this at some session her rich billboard magnate husband paid for. He forks over mounds of cash to keep her busy on her so-called career. It gets her out of the house.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah. So anyway I’m doing this session and we are trying to get a vocal level. So the producer says to her, ‘Amberlyne, we need you to test your mic. Can  you sing a little something for us.’ So she says to him, ‘I can’t sing right now. I have too much spit in my mouth.’”

“Let’s roll tape on this pig.”

MUSIC IS OVER

“Music is over,” Ikky says to me.

“Then why are we doing this?”

“You tell me.”

The last time he said that to me, I was sleeping with his sometimes girlfriend, The Girl With The Green Hair.

“You tell me.” It is his solution to any paradox in life and art.

WE DON’T HEAR  A HIT SINGLE

Maximum! Records flies out to Los Angeles to firm up some distribution deals with other players in the record business. Because of rampant drug use amongst the employees and horrible mismanagement, they are suffering from a severe cash crunch and are on the verge of bankruptcy.

They gather at the Wind Tunnels, beers are opened and I hit “play” on the DAT machine and we all listen to the new Braindead record, Give Me Something Hard I Can Take to My Grave. The record is more direct and more driving than the first one.

It is less oblique, and more up-tempo. It is a contrived attempt to crack the dance floor. Tracks 1,2 and 4 are potential singles.

Everybody is suitably pinned to the back of their chairs.

“Now, we hit ‘em with a ballad.” Ikky’s electronic opus, “Shadows of Compton” is cued up and everybody exhales.

Everything appears to be jake.

THE BURNING OF LOS ANGELES

Reality has this one riff that he wants to drive into the ground. It is this two-bar pedal the metal mondo metal riff. I’m looking for a title, and the inspiration is the painting featured in The Day of the Locust, “The Burning of Los Angeles.”

The lyrics go:

“First and Alameda/ Ventura to the Sunset Strip/All you little lemmings/Start your engines for the final trip...”

We are on tour of the West Coast and doing a show in San Francisco. Some kid comes up to me and asks, “Which song was it that had a guitar solo that could kill laboratory mice?”

I look puzzled. He sings the riff.

“It’s called ‘The Burning of Los Angeles.’”

“Los Angeles really is burning,” he says.

“What?”

He points to a teevee over the bar. I’ll be dipped in dog shit. Los Angeles is on fire. A jury in Simi Valley found the LAPD not guilty of excessive force while beating the shit out of Rodney King. In the ghettos and barrios of Los Angeles, the locals went apeshit.

It is a very disembodied experience, watching your hometown on fire on television.

VEGAS THREE, LET IT RIDE

(beep) “‘Vegas 3, Let It Ride. Vegas 3, Let It Ride. Bye Bye. Bye Bye. Bye Bye European. Bye Bye European Style. Back Door Lambada. Vegas 3, Let It Ride. Club Head. Sea of Love. Sea of Love. Vegas 3, Let It Ride. Hot Diggity Dog. Back Door Lambada, man. Anal Alley. Back Door Lambada, man. Anal Alley. House of Dreams. The Big Tease. Hot Diggity Dog. L.A. Stories. ‘Bye Bye. Bye Bye, Reality. Bye Bye. Bye Bye European Style. ‘I like sucking a cock, playing with it, sucking the balls and STUFF. I run my face all over dick. I love cum. The taste of it, the feel of it. Swallowing it, smearing it all over my face. It’s nasty and it’s fun.’ Bye Bye. ‘It’s a great turn on. The nastiest thing I’ve ever done was get in a frenzy.’ Bye Bye, Reality. ‘It was with five guys, they fucked me every which way.’ Back Door Lambada. Bye Bye. ‘At one time they all stuck their dicks in my face and I went from one to the other sucking them all off. I would ask the what they would want and they would just do it.’ Bye Bye. Vegas 3, Let It Ride.” (beep)

THE CITY REALLY IS ON FIRE THIS TIME

Five days later and Los Angeles is still on fire and it is on television.

Which is ironic, or some sort of electronic media meta-doppelganger, as the riots seem less about civil unrest and legitimate rage against Honky Imperialism and more about free home entertainment centers.

Which makes it easy to watch the Bread and Circuses presented by the Entertainment Industrial Complex, a private sector corollary to the public sector monster it replaced, the Military Industrial Complex.

It is real time variation of Supermarket Sweep, a game involving teams of suburbanites and housewives and husbands barreling down the aisles of a faux supermarket built into a sound stage and cramming their shopping carts with as many groceries, hygiene products, toiletries and appliances as they can stuff into it.

So yeah, they just took Supermarket Sweep and set it on the streets. And the disenfranchised are only disenfranchised because their television sets lack the maximum resolution that REALLY puts them in the shopping cart when they watch Supermarket Sweep. So when the whole  city of Los Angeles went “Lights! Camera! Action!,” the so-called disenfranchised took it upon themselves to cast themselves in the live-action version of Supermarket Sweep and win themselves a television set...

 PORTLAND

Los Angeles has been burning for a few days.  We continue to make our way north, up I-5. In Portland, we open the concert with “The Burning of Los Angeles.”  We are going over reasonably well, we motor through the rest of the set and then we close with “Dogvillasan.” JenJen walks off the stage — her work is done — and I start riffing on civil disobedience while Reality keeps pummeling his bass.

“The rioters are burning down the wrong buildings in Los Angeles,” I blather. The sentiments are greeted with a raucous response from the audience. “Aye. The rioters should stop burning down mini-malls in the ghetto and focus their attention on Capitol Records and the houses of whoever signed Nirvana to a record deal.”

It gets ugly. Afterwards, I am advised not to repeat those sentiments in Seattle. I guess Nirvana have a lot of friends there.

SEATTLE

Arriving in Seattle, we pull the van behind the theater and I step out of the passenger side and into human shit.

I am sure this is a symbol, a malleable, squishy, scatological talisman. I think back to Reality grabbing BZ’s legs and sticking them in the dual cesspools of film and music.

The tour of the West Coast is over. But stepping in human shit is a foreshadowing of how more than the tour is done.

*****

Coming back from Seattle is surreal in an Andromeda Strain type way. I-5 is barren and desolate, even as far north as Seattle.

We make it back in nineteen hours.

Los Angeles is under a curfew. It is in utter lockdown mode. I drop everybody off and take the equipment van to my house. I am the only vehicle on the freeway or the city streets.

As I load music gear into my garage, a police helicopter hovers and circles, and pans its searchlight onto the sidewalk at my feet.

I feel like the Boy in the Planetarium in Rebel without a Cause. I surreptitiously extend a middle finger towards this weird symbol of oppression. Then I wonder if I’ll get shot.

Rock and roll is not worth dying over.

But I am wrecked with regret in that they set Los Angeles on fire... and I missed it.

Just the ashes, the embers...

TRIGGER-HAPPY QUIM

(beep) “‘Through grueling surgery these women add huge chunks of flesh to their chest, stacking the decks nature dealt them.’

“Phhwwoooohhh. This is the weight of the world I have on my shoulders, Reality. Just the fucking whole thing. ‘Trigger-Happy Quim.’ Bye Bye. ‘I couldn’t stop squealing, Warden.’ That’s all right. ‘Squeal for some bacon, my little piglet.’ I said, ‘Squeal, squeal for some bacon, my little piglet.’ WHAT? “‘You’re milking me,’ Tom gasped. ‘You’re milking me.’” That’s just a figure of speech. ‘He didn’t want to cum yet. He didn’t WANT to cum yet. Aaahhh, he couldn’t help it.’ ‘Back Door Lambada.’

“‘A rush of cunt cum dribbled down the crack of my ass, puddling in the dimples of my asshole.’ ... ‘A rush of cunt cum... dribbling... trickling, even, down the crack of my ass, puddling in the dimples of my asshole. Tom backed away to watch me squirm.’” (beep)

DEATH  OF A CLOWN

After dinner and margaritas, JenJen and I are driving in my 1971 Pontiac. We are coming to terms with things that seem to be collapsing around us: most specifically, relationships and art, not to mention the city we live in, Los Angeles, which is still smoldering. For her, the collapse is intertwined.

She has had some of her womanly parts removed, her experimental relationship with a German cross dresser has gone kaput and her house was nearly burned down by rioters.

To me, the Soundmachine is nosing over. My affair with the Lebanese Lounge Singer has ended badly. We can’t be in the same rehearsal space together; that well is just too polluted. And coming back into Los Angeles, while the city was under curfew, I have nearly been arrested as a looter.

As the city smolders, JenJen and I find each other in my gas guzzler on a warm spring night that seems to promise every night will be like this; we are high on cheap tequila and Mexican food, city lights are an amber blur, smeared against the smoky dark azure of night and diffracted through the glass of my windshield into fractals of abstract expressionism.

The blackened streets of Los Angeles exist only for her and I to exploit. We are blissed out, intoxicated on an unknown drug the rest of the planet will never discover.

I have a cassette tape of “Something Else,” by the Kinks. It is the last album they recorded before their career took a horribly mismanaged turn.

As we drive we talk. Beauty and mismanaged genius is something I romanticize with her. Then “Death of a Clown” comes on and we listen to it over and over, four and then five times. Every time the song ends, there is silence and then I hit rewind and the machine whirrs while she leans back in the seat. After the fifth repeat I tell JenJen about how I felt like a minstrel one night on stage in Iowa City, when some smug collegiate hipster was wearing the same cowboy hat I wore. I too felt like a clown.

It was the first night I truly understood the futility of what I was doing, creatively, of how I put my entire being and creative energy into something and how I felt it was completely worthless.

“I sometimes think life is not only fraudulent, but it is also futile.”

She starts to cry. But she is also smiling. I reach over and touch her head and ask her not to weep, that I was sorry I made her cry.

“I’m not crying because of you,” she said as I awkwardly wiped her cheek.

I fall in love with her at that moment. We listen to “Death of a Clown” one more time.

I drive her home to her cottage in Silver Lake. I try to kiss her and intimate my way into her house. She deflects the gesture and walks in alone.

Her walking away alone makes me love her more. But I never get another chance to tell her I am in love with her.

IT’S A GREEN LIGHT

(beep) “Ummmm, just to know... just to know that it’s all been for shit, Reality. That’s what’s getting to me. Just to know that six years ago a semi-innocent,  semi-virginal man came to this town, had a cup of coffee at Denny’s, blinked and woke up six years later and looked down at the deflated balloon passing through his stomach and tried to make sense of it all and came up with an uncannidy... an uncanny, an uncanny ability, Reality, to suck his own penis is what it comes down to. Anyway, I got this film. It’s happening, it’s a green light. All right? This isn’t Hollywood-fucking shit — it’s a green light. Flashing green at the Winternationals, pal. Over at Cannon. It’s gonna star Chuck Norris. It’s got horror... it’s got horror overtones. At one point, Norris’s head — actually it’s a prosthetic recreation of Norris’s head about four inches in diameter —” (beep)

MUST KNOW RIGHT NOW

I am worried about BZ and what this town is doing to him. I meet BZ at Mugi. I ask him about his day. He says he just came here from the Clown Room.

Yoshi, who is within earshot, is mortified.

“Crown Room? Crown Room? Straight or gay? Straight or gay? Must know right now! Right now!”

We have been outed. Our run of free drinks is over.

GIVE ME SOMETHING HARD I CAN TAKE TO MY GRAVE

The label flies out to listen to tracks from the new album. Give Me Something Hard I can Take to my Grave.

“We don’t hear a hit single.”

When they get back to Chicago, they stop returning our phone calls.

Contrary to Lolita’s Mom’s Attorney’s advice, signing the contract was a mistake.

PESTILENT MAYHEM

Faxes go unanswered. Phone calls get routed into voicemail loops.

Maximum! Records won’t put out the record and they won’t release us out of our contract. Finally, Reality tells me of Geoff Armstrong, a music biz type whose specialty is getting people out of contracts.

“How does he do it?” I ask.

“Well, you know Joe Jones at Capitol Records?”

“Yeah, the guy that sits courtside at Laker games?”

“He’s the one. He is the CEO of Capitol.  They signed Pestilent Mayhem, this speed metal band I once recorded. The label wouldn’t release out of their deal. Same kind of shit we are up against. Capitol won’t put it out, and they won’t break ties with the band. So my man Geoff arranges for a gang of Hell’s Angels-types to ride out to Joe’s house at 3 in the morning. They come down Coldwater Canyon and go straight to Bel-Air. They crash this gated community, ride up to Jones’s mansion, do some donuts on his lawn and then park their choppers by some fountain.

They leave a note duct taped to the guy’s front door: ‘We are Pestilent Mayhem’s biggest fans. Fish or cut bait, Admiral.’”

“Fucking hell. Your man Geoff sounds perfect. How much to get out of our contract?”

“He says he can get us released for a fee of 500 dollars.”

Ikky chimes in. “Pay the man.”

A fax arrives at Maximum Records! office on Division Street in Chicago, which reads:

To whom it may concern:

My name is Geoff Davis and, as of this morning,  I now manage and represent the Braindead Soundmachine in all matters managerial, judicial and financial.

It has come to my attention that the Braindead Soundmachine hopes to sever all ties with Maximum! Record as we find the label in breach of contract.

If you will look outside your front glass windows , you will see a gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts who are have a apparent appreciation for architecture, as evidenced by the bricks they are carrying in both hands.

Coincidentally, these men and their old ladies are also huge fans of the Braindead Soundmachine, and cannot wait to hear the new record, which Maximum! Records has refused to release.

If a fax is not sent  to my business office in the next ten minutes releases the Braindead Soundmachine out of any further contractual, I will request that the music fans gathered outside your foyer windows take their appreciation for the deconstruction of architecture and their zeal to discuss the minutiae of the record contracts down the road to a local indoor bistro.

Regards,

Geoff Armstrong

Braindead Soundmachine

*****

Reality calls me the next day. “It’s handled. The deal is done,” he says.

REDONDO BEACH

Despite the strong-arming and ego battles with the record label, the Soundmachine soldiers forward. We have a show booked into an “industrial rave” club in Redondo Beach, California.

En route to the gig, we are stuck in traffic on the Harbor Freeway. It is after dark and the galaxy of brake lights are just stars on the event horizon of a black hole.

The Missing Eyebrow is telling me to get off of the freeway and take surface streets through the ghetto.

“Why do I want to take Vermont all the way down to the beach? With all the traffic signals and potential car jacking, it is smarter to just take our lumps in traffic. Besides, it’s basically equidistant.”

“Emmm, yeah, but down there you can stick your middle finger out the window and yell, ‘Fuck you,’ to all those honkies stuck in the freeway.”

“You fucking Irish hippie, there is no honky whiter than you.”

“Emmm, excuse me.”

“Only a soda cracker like you would read Joyce upside down — and romanticize driving through a ghetto that has just been set on fire by the very people who live there.”

*****

Earlier that afternoon, JenJen calls me and says she has laryngitis. I tell her not to sweat it, just drink tea and relax and we’ll make it through the gig by hook or by crook.

Immediately after hanging up on JenJen, I call Joan E. Jones. “Joan, put on your new wave wig that you use for Halloween.”

“What?”

“You have a show tonight.”

I explain the situation. Joan agrees to come by the Wind Tunnels and rehearse the set, with just me on guitar and the drum machine. It is dicey. I grace her with the following advice, de rigueur for singing with the Soundmachine: “Don’t worry; number one, there are no mistakes. Number two: If you get lost, just scat on the phrase, ‘Come Down from the Hills and Make My Baby.’”

“Ummm, elaborate please.”

“If there is a problem and you don’t know where you are, just start chanting ‘Come Down from the Hills and Make My Baby,’ ad infinitum and I’ll gesture to you when the drum machine is about to stop. At which point, you should probably stop chanting, but if you want to keep going, we’ll try and follow you.”

After slugging it out on the freeway, we arrive in Redondo Beach. The nightclub is packed with twenty somethings dressed in black. Everything is black: eye shadow, leather jackets, stockings, skirts, dyed hair.

“What is it with everybody in black?” I wonder.

“That’s just until they invent something darker,” Ikky says from underneath the brim of his cowboy hat. I ask to see the backstage and come to find we have no accommodations at the club. There is no backstage. Just smoke and strobe lights and thumping dance music. It is claustrophobic and stultifying. JenJen says she can sing, but her voice is a whisper divided by silence.

The club owner and I get into a pissing contest as to when the band is going onstage.

“There is no backstage, no place for us to relax, nor prepare. We want to go on as soon as possible.”

He wants us on a midnight. I leave his office.

“Joan, put on your wig. We’re going on now,” I say.  Reality, Ikky and the Missing Eyebrow shrug.

“Aren’t  we going to wait for the deejay to stop?”

“He’s not going to stop,” I say.

Ikky shrugs. “If these people want discordance, we’ll give ‘em discordance,” he says.

I start the drum machine. Reality and I hit quarter notes for ten minutes. BLANT...  BLANT...  BLANT...  Joan chants, “Come Down from the Hills and Make My Baby.” Ikky laughs. The Missing Eyebrow attempts to wrestle control of the p.a. console from the club’s deejays. It is a gesture-- and it is a failure. A debacle, really.

It is the Soundmachine’s last performance.

MR. ODD CALLS FROM LAX

Mr. Odd is at loose ends. He calls me from LAX. I am surprised to hear his voice.

He is going take a cab to my place. I say come on over.

He does not know that I am at loose ends also. Everything I have worked for is slipping between my fingers like so many granules of sand. The more I try to stem the vaporizing, the more I hasten and facilitate the disappearance of same.

I have brought in Sporty D to rap on some Soundmachine tracks. It isn’t working. Nothing is working. Every moment is merely walking on glass.

Mr. Odd can relate. Over beers, Mr. Odd reveals that he is lovesick, the short man out in a love triangle.

He sleeps on my couch. We try to record together. It isn’t our best work. We endeavor to go to kill time by going to bars, baseball games and driving up to Bakersfield to watch a nostalgia drag race.

“Never having been to a drag race, I don’t know quite what to feel nostalgic for, but I’ll give it a go.”

We are in the 71 Grand Prix. It’s blowing oil out of the tailpipe.

En route, we talk about love. I tell him that the Braindead vocalist I thought I was in love with was the one I slept with, but I come to find out the one I am really in love with is the one I didn’t sleep with.

“What about the other one, then? The one with the new wave wig?” He laughs.

“Ahhh Joan. I want her to put on her new wave wig. Then I want to take her to a Motel 6 in Buttonwillow. I want to tie her to the bed, after feeding her a nonfatal overdose of pleasure drugs.  Ecstasy, ketamine, whatever. Then I am going to order all the porn they have on closed-circuit teevee. I am then going to close the door behind me and go to the drag races in Bakersfield.”

“Well, never having tied anybody up, nonetheless I feeling warmer and more nostalgic anyway. I always knew you were a hopeless romantic, guv’nor.”

It is 105 degrees in Bakersfield. Mr. Odd is dressed like he is going to a cricket match.

“But she has to wear the new wave wig,” I reiterate.

THE BICYCLE CLUB IN VAN NUYS

“Pheewwww....pheww....phheww... Reality, this is BZ. Listen, uhhh, let me think of the right way to phrase this before I speak. All right, I got it. Sarah just told me to fuck off. Finally. Thank the gods. What that means is that you and I can now go to the Bicycle Club in Van Nuys. The Bicycle Club is a nightclub, Reality. It is a place that you and I should definitely frequent. The reason being that Yoshi  has a floorshow there. And the floorshow involves little cadets —military cadets — who march in formation. Wing formation, if you want details. What they are all about is basically they have matching lavender suits, pink baseball caps... they do drills. They do little fucking drills and then they drill each other, Reality. Then they like spill their semen on the floor, and it spontaneously forms into Little Realitys that walk along... Little Realitys that look suspiciously like Chihuahuas with their hands on little fucking control pedals — wah wah pedals, console boards. And these Little Realitys — this army of little spontaneously generated, homunculus Realitys march across the floor like little wind up toys that you may have seen in that Christmas special that used to play when you were a kid. And a strange song permeates through the club and the lyrics sound suspiciously like an old Boston song — and I quote right now, ‘Don’t Look Back.’” (beep)

ALL THAT SHIT

I tell Ikky and Reality that we have a new manager. His name is Terry Hindenburg. He manages a musical group of new wave Nancy boys whose singer died unexpectedly and who have a music video in light to medium rotation on MTV. That is his calling card. The fact that the singer just bit it is the reason the clip is getting airplay, but I don’t have the heart nor the desire to tell Terry that.

So Terry feels the Soundmachine is his next meal ticket. He comes over to the Wind Tunnels to meet Ikky and Reality and to sign paper. His goal, he tells me, is “to take Braindead to the next level.” I try not to giggle.

The four of us are in my living room. Ikky is wearing his Sig Erson Cams cowboy hat. Reality is wearing his bullet belt. Terry is a big man. Break-your-furniture-just-by-sitting-down big. But this Baby Huey figure vainly tries to give the appearance that he belongs in the music business by his choice of suits, which is a seersucker.

It is 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Los Angeles, and this guy is dressed in a suit. He sweats like Yves Montand in The Wages of Fear.

I introduce everybody. We watch the video of his foppish, lame duck new wave act.

Terry begins ruminating on the musical genius of the fallen songwriter, and expounds on the song’s minor key chord structure and the reverb-enhanced drum sound.

Reality interrupts him. It is more than he can take.

“Look,” he begins. “We’ll sign paper with you and we’ll talk about anything you want to talk about — except music. If you insist upon talking about music the deal is off.”

Terry looks hurt. “I, I don’t really get what you mean,” he stammers. “What do you musicians talk about if you don’t talk about music?”

Reality takes a beat and then leans into Terry’s personal space. “Look. Do you understand that we hate music? Snare drums? All of that shit?”

IT GETS WORSE

It gets worse.

It is time to begin recording basic tracks for the next album. Ikky’s material has gotten entirely discordant and atonal.  It is on the verge of being one big, fuzzy square wave, or a Rorschach test where the entire blotter is black ink. To make matters worse, this white noize is in 9/8 time. It is impossible to dance to.

I don’t know what to do with this stuff. It is becoming increasingly difficult to shoehorn a melody into Ikky’s synthesized aural splatter paintings.

Ikky understands. He tells me he has begun his solo project because the Braindead Soundmachine has gotten “too commercial.”

“What are you calling it?”

“The Miami Deathmachine.” he says.

He means it.

ONE NOTE

I tell Reality it is time for us to collaborate on material for the third album. He says he’ll be right over with his bass.

As I set up the studio and begin to show him some compositions I have been working on, he says that’s great, but he has some new stuff that he wants to show me.

“I’ve got this new approach to song writing,” he says.

“What’s that?”

“One note.”

“What?”

“One note. Every song I write is now made up of one note. But I wrote one new song that I am particularly proud of.”

“Well, let’s hear it,” I say as he plugs into his bass guitar and fuzz boxes.  He begins to play.  BBLLLAAANNT .... BBLLLAAANNT ... ... BBLLLAAANNT ...

“Well, that’s pretty cool,” I tell him.

“Let’s record it,” he says. I start the drum machine and hit record on the multi-track. BBLLLAAANNT .... BBLLLAAANNT ... ... BBLLLAAANNT ... ... BBLLLAAANNT .... BBLLLAAANNT ... ... BBLLLAAANNT ...

I roll tape for about three and a half minutes. I play it back and we listen. BBLLLAAANNT .... BBLLLAAANNT ... ... BBLLLAAANNT ...

“Okay,” I say about 32 bars into Reality’s new “song.” “What about if, say right about here, we go to another note.”

“No. We can’t do that. It has to be one note.”

“It will be one note. It will just be a different one note.”

“No. It has to be the same one note.”

WASH MY CAR

Reality has had it. He can no longer tolerate music. He is down to one note. He has stopped making records altogether. Instead, he is mixing sound on location for porn films. Somehow the notion of recording the sounds of people mounting and licking each other is preferable to  — and less psychologically damaging than — making another rock and roll record.

Porn films rarely have a budget for a boom microphone operator, the person who is supposed to stick the microphone in the general vicinity of the pie hole of the so-called “talent.” They generally take a lowly “p.a” or “production assistant” and make them do it, after the p.a. has made sure there is mustard and mayonnaise for the crew’s sandwiches or something. Coincidentally, in this instance, the production assistant schlepped off as Reality’s boom man is the former drummer from the Baby Skulls, the band who, years earlier, fired him as their engineer and me as their guitar player.

Reality is unimpressed at the synchronicity.

“After you’re done sticking your boom mic up and recording these girls licking each other, I have a couple of projects for you.”

“What's that?”

“First, I need you to bring me a sandwich. Then I need you get some soap and water from the prop department and go outside and wash my car.”

“Fuck you man. I’m not washing your car.”

“Wash my car or you’re fucking fired, you peasant. And don’t leave any streak marks.”

He does it. Then Reality has him fired.

Robert Wise directed Executive Suite (1954), a still-relevant portrait of cutthroat corporate shenanigans, starring Frederic March and William Holden (in a truly dazzling performance) as the sharks in the corner-office tank. Stanwyck plays an heiress with her trademark unflappability--and with possibly the steeliest business persona of them all. Extras include an enthusiastic commentary by Wall Street director Oliver Stone, as well as a vintage short and cartoon.

Annie Oakley (1935), the oldest film in this collection, went a long way toward cementing Stanwyck's tough-talking (and yes, straight-shooting) persona. Stanwyck is brassy and bold, and mighty fearless as the Old West legend. There's a fair amount of humor, too, in the screenplay and deft direction of George Stevens. Extras include a vintage short and cartoon.

Stanwyck stretches her acting wings in the soapy love story My Reputation (1946). It's hard to imagine the tough-dame Stanwyck worrying about anything so ephemeral as a reputation, but in this well-acted film, she's convincing as a young widow who cautiously tries to date again, only to set tongues wagging, and scandalizing even her own children. Extras include a great musical short featuring Jan Savitt and Band, and a vintage cartoon.

Mervyn LeRoy directs a fabulous cast in the film noirish thiller/melodrama East Side, West Side (1949), involving a bored married couple, past infidelities, and murder. Ava Gardner's a standout as the "other woman" who comes between Stanwyck's Jessie and James Mason's Brandon. The cinematography is atmospheric and taut. Even the supporting cast dazzles in its own right--Cyd Charisse, William Frawley, William Conrad, and a winsome Nancy Davis (the future First Lady). Extras include a short film and a fun Tex Avery cartoon, "Counterfeit Cat."

To Please a Lady (1950) may have one of the least appropriate film titles ever--it's a high-octane drama set around the world of early car racing, with a romance between Stanwyck and Clark Gable as the hook. But the film itself is a blast, especially for the well-shot, adrenaline-rush scenes of car racing, decades before the polish of NASCAR. Gable's a reckless driving champ and Stanwyck's the hard-nosed reporter who revs up his heart. Stanwyck's Regina catches racing fever: "It's like the Fourth of July and the heavyweight fight and the World Series all rolled into one." Amen, sister.

Jeopardy (1953) appears as a "double feature" on one disc with To Please a Lady. It's a fascinating psychological thriller that presages a whole genre of "ticking time-bomb" peril films, and also suggests a pivotal scene in Sometimes a Great Notion. Stanwyck plays a happily married wife, vacationing in Mexico with her husband (Barry Sullivan), who becomes trapped in the surf--and as the tide comes in, his luck may run out. A frantic Stanwyck has to make scary choices if her husband--and she--is to survive. The extra on this disc is an audio-only radio interview with Stanwyck. --A.T. Hurley

Barbara Stanwyck - The Signature Collection (Annie Oakley / East Side, West Side / My Reputation / Executive Suite / Jeopardy / To Please a Lady) is available at Amazon for $37.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

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Other Products of Interest

• TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 (The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse / Three on a Match / Female)
• The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo / Torch Song)
• Daisy Kenyon (Fox Film Noir)
• The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 3 (The Old Maid / All This, And Heaven Too / The Great Lie / In This Our Life / Watch on the Rhine / Deception)
• Dangerous Crossing (Fox Film Noir)

The Killers (1946)
Directed By: Robert Siodmak
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien
Rating:

B&W...√
Femme Fatale...√
Cigarettes...√
Dutch Angles...√
Suspense...√
Murder...√
Caper...√
Flashbacks...√
Narration...√

The Killers definitely fits well within the film noir genre. The story is convoluted, but was surprisingly easy to follow. Jim Reardon (Edmond O'Brien) works for an insurance company and is sent to look into the death of a man who was killed by two unknown gunmen. The Killers, based off of Ernest Hemingway's short story of the same name, takes us on a suspenseful, intriguing murder mystery. It's told mostly through the aid of flashbacks, and I have to wonder if the creators of the film were inspired by Citizen Kane. I love the way we're dropped into the middle of the story and left to fill in the blanks. J.J. Abrams would have loved this film. :)

Burt Lancaster stars in his screen debut as The Swede, one of the main characters. I caught the end of Field of Dreams on TV the other night, which was his final film, so I find it fitfully ironic that I watched The Killers shortly after. Lancaster was by no means perfect in The Killers, but as his first role, he did a good job. He really pulls through with his raw emotionality in certain scenes.

And Ava Gardner is great as femme fatale Kitty Collins. She really brings a lot to her character. As a noir film I was pleasantly surprised at how the characters in the film had that rough and tough personality that we're used to in the genre, but their sensitive, more fragile sides are also shown in different scenes as well. The Killers truly is a character driven story and it's what makes it a great film. It's about people that we learn to care about over time and we want to know the outcome. That said, I would have liked to see more motivation and development for certain characters.

The Killers also has some very impressive cinematography from Elwood Bredell. The overall atmosphere fits throughout the film, both light and dark. I really liked what he did with the opening title sequence. It starts with two characters driving in a car. Cut to a town street late at night with the credits. Part way through the credits the two mean walk towards the camera with some awesome lighting and rising tension. The following scene where the killing takes place is an amazing piece of camerawork and lighting. You can read Rick's thoughts on the scene and watch the clip HERE. (Be warned that it does contain spoilers) There's another scene involving a heist that is almost as good.

It really is a great film. At times it seems to think it's more suspenseful than it really is, but dangit I was hooked. I was invested in the characters and generally interested in the story as a whole.

This review was written for...

Ava Lavinia Gardner, la que fuera considerada como “el animal más bello del mundo”, nació en Brogden, un pequeño pueblo rural situado en el estado de Carolina del Norte (USA), el 24 de diciembre de 1922.

Hija menor de los seis hijos (algunas biografías citan siete) habidos en el matrimonio entre Jonas Bailey Gardner, un católico de ascendencia irlando-americana, e indoamericana, y Molly, de fé baptista, de orígenes irlandeses, creció en un ambiente rural. Su familia, muy pobre, vivía del cultivo de tabaco y algodón.

Los hijos todavía eran pequeños cuando perdieron la propiedad que cultivaban, y el padre tuvo que trabajar como aserrador. Su madre se empleó como ama de llaves y cocinera en el Colegio Mayor de Brogden.

Cuando Ava tenía 13 años, la familia al completo se trasladó a Newport News, en el estado de Virginia, para tratar de mejorar sus perspectivas laborales, pero las dificultades para hallar empleo, les obligaron a un nuevo traslado. Esta vez se instalaron en Rock Ridge, suburbio de Wilson, en Carolina del Norte.

Al poco tiempo (1935), el padre murió a causa de la tuberculosis. Despues de su muerte, Ava y alguno de sus hermanos, tomaron la decisión de inscribirse en la escuela de Rock Ridge, para, al menos, conseguir el graduado. Una vez obtenido, Ava se matriculó en el Atlantic City Christian Collage para recibir clases de secretariado. 

A los 18 años, Ava era toda una belleza de ojos verdes, y frondosa melena castaña.

En 1941, visitó a una de sus hermanas mayores, Beatriz, que se había casado y residía en Nueva York. Su cuñado, que tenía un pequeño Estudio Fotográfico, le pidió que le dejara hacerle unas cuantas fotos, y colgó una de ellas en el escaparate de su tienda de la Quinta Avenida.

Barnard "Barney" Duhan, un cazatalentos de los estudios Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, la vió y quiso ponerse en contacto con la joven que había posado para aquellas fotografías. En la tienda, pidió su número de teléfono, pero al no conseguirlo se fue fustrado, comentando: “Alguien tiene que enviar información de ella a la M.G.M”. Fue su hermana quien se puso en contacto, y poco tiempo después Ava viajó nuevamente a N. York para mantener una entrevista con los directivos de la productora allí destacados. De aquella primera entrevista, se gestó que posteriormente se le ofreciera un contrato de siete años con la compañía.

En 1941 abandonó Carolina del Norte, sus clases de secretariado, y se trasladó Hollywood acompañada de su hermana Beatriz.

Tuvo que matricularse en arte dramático, para recibir clases de interpretación. También recibió clases de dicción, para corregir su marcado acento norteño.

Al año siguiente, 1942, comenzó a trabajar para el cine en fugaces apariciones sin diálogo, en breves papeles, y más adelante como protagonista en producciones de bajo presupuesto. A esa época pertenece “Ghosts on the Loose” (“La casa encantada”), dirigida por William Beaudine en 1943. Era una comedia de terror en la que participaba Bela Lugosi ya en plena decadencia.

En lo relacionado con su vida personal, se había casado en 1942 con Mickey Rooney (antigua estrella infantil), al que había conocido el primer día de su llegada a los estudios de la MGM, pero su matrimonio apenas había durado un año. Mantuvo después de su divorcio un retorcido romance con el singular director Howard Hughes, que le pidió en repetidas ocasiones que se casara con el, lo que Ava no aceptó.  A pesar de sus enfrentamientos verbales, e incluso físicos, con Hughes, siempre mantuvo una relación, amor-odio-amistad, que perduró hasta la muerte de él, en 1976. En 1945 volvió a casarse, esta vez con el clarinetista de jazz Artie Shaw, y se divorció de el en 1946.

Ese mismo año rodó dos films que le dieron su gran oportunidad para convertirse en estrella de la pantalla: “Whistle stop”, un thriller que dirigió Léonide Moguy, en el que tuvo un papel protagonista junto a George Raft, y un drama negro basado en un relato de Ernest Hemingway, “Forajidos”, de Robert Siodmak en donde compartía cartel con un joven Burt Lancaster. Fue sobre todo esta película, la que la situó en Hollywood.

Trabaja con Clark Gable en “The hucksters” (1947), de Jack Conway, en “Venus era mujer”, rodada en 1948 (una comedia intrascendente, pero que sirvió para que los espectadores se quedaran con su maravilloso físico) y en “Soborno” (1949), de Robert Z. Leonard, un excelente thriller dramático en donde da estupenda réplica a su pareja, Robert Taylor, con quien se sigue afirmando, mantuvo una relación durante el rodaje.

Convertida ya en estrella, rueda producciones de elevado presupuesto para los grandes estudios, y realiza sobresalientes interpretaciones. “El gran pecador” (1949), dirigida por Robert Siodmak, “Mundos opuestos”, también del año 1949, y dirigida por Mervyn LeRoy, o “Pandora y el holandés errante”, producción de 1951, dirigida por Albert Lewin, en donde Ava compartía cartel con James Mason, y una de sus sonadas conquistas, el torero-actor Mario Cabré. Rodó esta película parcialmente en España (concretamente en Tossa de mar, provincia de Gerona), y fue el inicio de una sucesión de largas visitas a nuestro país, (de hecho, se puede decir que vivió en España, en un piso que había comprado en Madrid, hasta 1968, año en el que el fisco le reclamó un millón de pesetas) siendo también muy aireada su relación sentimental con otro torero, Luis Miguel Dominguín.

El mismo año 1951, se había casado con Frank Sinatra, quien al tener noticia en Hollywood de los devaneos amorosos de su mujer, voló a Madrid para ponerles veto. Su matrimonio con Sinatra fue el más duradero de Ava. Lo mantuvieron hasta 1957, pero plagado de tempestuosas peleas y tortuosas reconciliaciones.

En España se convirtió en la reina de la noche.  Ya durante su relación y posterior matrimonio con Rooney, se había habituado a llevar ese tipo de vida, aquí, mas fácil de seguir, al estar lejos de la tutela de su estudio cinematográfico. Era habitual verla en tablaos flamencos, ingiriendo alcohol, y rodeada de hombres, muchos de los cuales se convertían para ella en amantes efímeros de una sola noche. Su amistad con el escritor Ernest Hemingway, gran amante de las corridas de toros, y de España, la llevó a aficonarse también a ellas.

Con “Pandora y el holandés errante”, se había iniciado la mejor etapa profesional de Ava, que abarcaría hasta los últimos años de la década de los 50.

Trabajó en esa época con reconocidos directores y actores de gran talla. Robert Stevenson, Henry King o Jhon Ford, serían un ejemplo. Como actores lo serían, Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, o Robert Mitchum, con quien trabajo en 1951 en “Mi pasado prohibido”, y que se convirtió en otro de sus amantes.

“Las nieves del Kilimanjaro” (1952), de Henry King, fue otro de sus grandes éxitos de la década de los 50, junto con “Mogambo” (remake de la película "Tierra de pasiones", de 1932, dirigida por Víctor Fleming, y protagonizada también por Clark Gable), del año 1953, y dirigida por el gran John Ford. En nuestro país, España, la película, amén de su reconocida calidad, sigue siendo famosa porque la censura de aquellos tiempos, trastocó la relación de la pareja co-protagonista, prestándose a equívocos "mucho más censurables".  Por “Mogambo”, Ava fue nominada al Oscar a la mejor actriz, aunque no lo consiguió, porque aquel año fué para Audrey Hepburn por su papel en "Vacaciones en Roma".

Sus devaneos amorosos, sus problemas matrimoniales y su afición al alcohol, comenzaron a pasarle factura, y su salud se fue resintiendo en esos años.

Rueda con Mankiewicz en 1954, “La condesa descalza”, cuyo guión se dijo, estaba basado en la vida de Rita Hayworth. Como compañero protagonista tenía a Humphrey Bogart. Ava hizo una gran interpretación de su personaje.

En sus siguientes films se aprecia una cierta decadencia de su estrella. Tiene algunos buenos papeles, pero ya no se le ofertan como unos años antes. Ava siempre había sido “vendida” por su extraordinaria belleza, pero va cumpliendo años…

Aún así, exhibe su físico en “La cabaña” (1957), de Mark Robson, junto a David Niven y Stewart Granger.

“Fiesta”, de Henry King, basada en una novela de Hemingway, la rodó en 1957, y cerró la década de los 50 con uno de los mejores títulos que han tratado el tema del fin del mundo: “La hora final” (1959), de Stanley Kramer, basada en la novela "La playa", de Nevil Shute. En ella tenía como compañeros de reparto a Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, y a Anthony Perkins, tan sólo a un año de interpretar el papel de su vida (Norman Bates en “Psicosis”).

En los sesenta, de las películas que rodó, se pueden destacar tres títulos: “55 días en Pekín” (1963), de Nicholas Ray , al lado Charlton Heston y David Niven, “Siete días de mayo” (1964), de John Frankenheimer, una excelente película de trasfondo político, en la que también actuaban Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas y Fredric March. La tercera fue “La noche de la iguana” (1964), dirigida por John Huston, basada en una obra de Tennessee Williams, y compartiendo cartel con Richard Burton y Deborah Kerr.

En aquellos años rechazó varios guiones que le hubieran aportado la oportunidad de seguir demostrando que era una buena actriz. Algunos de ellos: “Dulce pájaro de juventud”, “La pantera rosa”, o “El graduado”.

Aparece en uno de los episodios de “La Biblia”, de 1966, una superproducción dirigida por John Huston, interpretando a Sarah, la esposa de Abraham, papel interpretado por George C. Scott, y en Mayerling (1968), en la que trabajó con Omar Sharif, Catherine Deneuve, y James Mason.

En 1969 se afinca en Londres.

Su carrera profesional entra en los años 70 en franco declive, y tiene que aprender a aceptar para sobrevivir, papeles inferiores en películas de poca importancia, pequeñas colaboraciones, o interpretaciones en series de televisión.

Aún así hay algún título destacable en su filmografía de aquellos años. “El juez de la horca” (1972), de John Huston, (una digna película, pero infravalorada dentro de la filmografía de su director), en donde interpretaba al amor platónico del protagonista (Paul Newman-Juez Roy Bean), la actriz Lily Langtry, y en donde con tan sólo una breve aparición al final de la película llena la pantalla. “Terremoto”, de 1974, dirigida por Mark Robson, en la línea del cine de catástrofes, tan prolífico en aquella década, en la que interpretaba a la mujer del personaje interpretado por Charlton Heston. En ella también participaban George Kennedy, Geneviève Bujold, y Lorne Greene, el que tan sólo con siete años por encima de la edad de Ava, interpretaba el papel de su padre. “El puente de Casandra”, del año 77, dirigido por George P. Cosmatos, fue otro film de los que se apuntaron al género catastrófico, y en el que también tuvo un papel.

No mucho más hay que reseñar de sus trabajos siguientes para la gran pantalla. El último fue en “Regina Roma”, rodada en 1982, y dirigida por Jean-Yves Prate, que no llegó a estrenarse en los cines.

Hasta 1986, trabajó exclusivamente para televisión.

Una de las series en las que participó, fue en “Anno Domini”(1985), interpretando a Agripina, madre del emperador Nerón.

En octubre de 1986 sufrió una apoplegía, de la que se recuperó sin dificultad.  Dos años mas tarde, en 1988, tuvo una segunda, mas fuerte, que le dejó inmovilizado el lado izquierdo del cuerpo. Frank Sinatra se trasladó a Londres al tener noticia de su estado.  La llevó consigo al mejor hospital de California para que la sometieran a tratamiento de rehabilitación, corriendo el con todos los gastos.

Falleció en Londres a causa de una pulmonía, a la edad de 67 años. Era el 25 de enero de 1990.

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Pequeña galería de fotos en la que podemos apreciar la belleza y fotogenia de Ava Garder

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Para ver su filmografía completa, pinchad aquí

Swanson 

"Nick was trying hard to battle a long alcohol dependency, but his approach struck me as weird and unproductive. He didn't allow himself any wine or liquor but kept a bottle of an Italian digestif, Fernet Branca, at hand. Almost every bar had this drink in stock, ready for patrons who'd eaten too much and were suffering from acid indigestion. Ergo, digestif. I tried it myself. It worked much better than Alka Seltzer, but it was a vile-tasting concoction made from something like fermented artichoke hearts; sipping it was only slightly less unpleasant than suffering from heartburn. It was actually a strong alcoholic drink. From the taste, I suspected it was about a hundred proof. Keeping to his vow and his promise to stay off the sauce, Nick sat all evening, sipping his digestif, consuming almost the entire bottle. Toward the end of the shooting on PEKING, Nick became seriously ill. I blamed that corrosive drink."

~ From Hollywood Exile, or How I Learned to Stop Worryng and Love the Blacklist.

Gordon's stories from this one shoot are incredible. With an alcoholic director, and an alcoholic star (Ava Gardner, who walked off the film partway, necessitating an offscreen death for her character), the film was what you might call troubled. When David Niven, who had cheerfully signed up without reading a page of script, protested that his character wasn't active enough, an English writer was brought in to help Gordon flesh out the role. Robert Hamer, the most serious alcoholic of the bunch. It was said at Ealing Studios, latterly Hamer's home, that if by some freak of chance, endurance or depravity you managed to misbehave more appallingly than Hamer on a night out, he would be unable to face you the next day for shame of having been outperformed in the degeneracy stakes.

Gordon found Hamer charming, but completely unproductive.

He reports that Philip Yordan, handling the production for Samuel Bronston, was an eccentric sort of chap (Yordan, a writer himself, was a "front" for many blacklisted scribes. When all the blacklisted writers names were being restored to the credits of films they'd worked on, Yordan provided information about who had done what -- except where he'd had a falling-out with the writer. Then they could go unnamed forever as far as he was concerned). Returning to their hotel from a late meal, Gordon saw Yordan purchase a stack of astrology magazines.

"You don't believe in that stuff, do you?" asked Gordon, amazed.

"Do you know of a better way to predict the future?"

Parece mentira que haya pasado ya un año desde aquella entrada aún en Fotolog.com sobre Jesús Gil con la que nacía CelebrityDeath, ¿verdad? Pues sí, señoras, señores y Sento, hoy 14 de Mayo CelebrityDeath cumple un año. ¡Ah, sí! Además Frank Sinatra lleva muerto 10 años, pero bueno, eso es secundario...

Francis Alberto Sinatra, Frank para los colegas, nacido en 1915 y de origen italiano, el señor Sinatra es considerado una de las estrellas más importantes en la música del siglo XX. Apodado La Voz, Sinatra triunfó sobre todo en las décadas de los 40 y los 50, grabando para la compañía Capitol. Canciones como "My way" o "The best is yet to come" se convirtieron en algunas de las piezas más conocidas a nivel mundial.

Además Sinatra triunfó como actor, ganando un Óscar en 1953 como mejor actor secundario por "De aquí a la eternidad". También participó en infinidad de películas y además hizo teatro.

Se le relacionó, entre otras, con Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe y Barbara Marx, ex de Zeppo Marx. También se le emparentó con la señorita Mafia. Además le secuestraron a su hijo, y se cuenta que una vez, hablando con los secuestradores desde una cabina telefónica, se quedó sin dinero y no pudo terminar la conversación. Desde entonces siempre llevaba suelto el hombre, que se lo podía permitir creo yo.

Murió de un infarto y está enterrado cerca de su propio rancho, en la carretera Frank Sinatra Drive, California. Sin pasta, me han comentado...

[audio=http://www.goear.com/files/sst/b86be89ed1b2511f064a051f9d873222.mp3]

Frank Sinatra - My Way

Frank Sinatra, R.I.P.

- Frank Sinatra en Wikipedia.

- Frank Sinatra en IMDB.

- Foto de la tumba de Sinatra en Find A Grave.

Amiri Baraka

Nat Hentoff

Stanley Crouch

Wynton Marsalis

of the ubiquitous None of the Above?

Yes, it's my friend Mr. None . . . but the answer is - - - - Dave Frishberg.

"Dave Frishberg?" I can hear you saying (or I pretend I can hear it). Yes, when he was playing piano in Ben's last New York band, and Dave impressed Malcolm X with his knowledge of baseball arcana. Now, everyone knows Frishberg as a wondrous pianist with quirky ways -- a style that comes out of the Thirties with its own lopsided modernisms; a great accompanist; a dry, drawling singer of his own often hilarious and sometimes poignant songs. What you probably didn't know is that Dave is a fine, poised, understated writer -- of prose. I found this out on his website, www.davefrishberg.net., which has beautifully-written memories of Benny Goodman (of course), Scatman Crothers, Webster, Johnny Windhurst, Jimmy Rushing, Jimmy Rowles, Carmen McRae, Igor Stravinsky, Katharine Hepburn, Kenny Davern, George Wettling relieving himself, Ava Gardner, Johnny Mercer . . . and on. The site is mildly stagnant: the most recent entry is an elegy for pianist Ross Tompkins, which suggests that Dave has had other concerns. But it suggests, to steal from Lorenz Hart, that if you asked him, he could write a book. And an extraordinary book it would be, too.

Tell us another story, Dave, please.

Légende d'Hollywood dans les années 1950 et 1960 avec de grandes fresques comme «Les dix Commandements» et «Ben-Hur» que j'ai récemment écouté lors de la semaine pascale, qui lui avait valu un Oscar en 1959, l'acteur américain au physique imposant était un fervent militant du port d'armes aux États-Unis.

Définitivement après le manège militaire de Québec qui brûle et la mort de Heston, c'est un week-end militaire dans les nouvelles au Québec.

En 2002, Heston avait révélé à l'âge de 78 ans qu'il souffrait probablement de la maladie d'Alzheimer. 

Sa carrure athlétique, son visage carré, sa voix sonore et son charisme l'avaient imposé dans un cinéma à l'époque avide de fresques historiques et religieuses.

Repéré à la télévision dans «Les Hauts de Hurlevent» en 1950, il s'était initialement destiné au théâtre et au petit écran mais accepta le contrat que lui offrait le producteur de «Casablanca» Hal B. Wallis.

Il incarna ainsi au fil de sa carrière Buffalo Bill dans «Le Triomphe de Buffalo Bill» (1953), le général Andrew Jackson du «Général invincible» (1958) ou des «Boucaniers» (1958), mais obtint la consécration grâce au Moïse des «Dix Commandements» (1956) de Cecil B. DeMille. Son rôle mythique reste toutefois celui du conducteur de chars dans «Ben-Hur» (1959) de William Wyler. Le film remporta onze Oscars.

Il fut aussi le «Cid» pour Anthony Mann en 1961, saint Jean Baptiste dans «La plus grande Histoire jamais contée» (1964), Michel-Ange dans «L'Extase et l'agonie» (1965), Marc Antoine dans «Jules César» (1970) et «Antoine et Cléopâtre» (1971), Richelieu dans «Les trois Mousquetaires» (1973) ou Henri VIII dans «Le Prince et le pauvre» (1977).

Les grands films sont de la carrière de Heston, qui partage l'affiche avec Ava Gardner et David Niven dans «Les Cinquante-cinq jours de Pékin» (1962), Roddy McDowall dans «La Planète des singes» (1969), Arnold Schwarzenegger et Jamie Lee Curtis dans «True Lies» (1993), Max von Sydow et Martin Landau dans «La plus grande Histoire jamais contée», Janet Leigh et Orson Welles dans «La Soif du mal» (1957).

Charlton Heston s'est également illustré hors champ en tant que leader. Il a présidé le syndicat des acteurs, la Screen Actors Guild, et l'American Film Institute, a milité pour les droits civiques dans les années 50 et participé en 1963 à la marche sur Washington du pasteur noir Martin Luther King, assassiné en 1968.

Avec l'âge, l'acteur est devenu de plus en plus conservateur, faisant campagne aux côtés des candidats politiques conservateurs.

En juin 1998, Helston militait pour les armes à feu en se faisant élire à la présidence de la NRA. L'engagement politique avait quasiment éclipsé l'acteur.

En avril 2003, il quittait son poste en déclarant en avoir «aimé chaque minute». Le réalisateur controversé  Michael Moore l'avait sévèrement varlopé dans son film «Bowling for Columbine» (2001).

En 2003, Helston avait reçu la Médaille présidentielle de la liberté, la plus haute distinction civile aux Etats-Unis, des mains du président George W. Bush.

D'après le site de la Chatterie Black & Tan Siamese, il s'agirait du (des) chat(s) siamois d'Artie Shaw, son second mari, un clarinettiste et musicien de jazz.

A pesar de que en muchas biografías “no oficiales” se empeñan en ponerle  ”Matuschanskayasky” como verdadero apellido del genial actor, el correcto era “Matthow”.

This photo was taken on April 22, 1955 and it shows American actress Ava Gardner at Lahore Railway Station. She was in Lahore for the filming of Hollywood Movie ‘Bhowani Junction‘. When Ava came to Lahore, there was only one reasonable hotel in Lahore. It is still there - Falletis. The suite in which Ava stayed has been named after her - "The Ava Gardner suite". In it's lounge one could see a beautiful large size, black & white portrait of Ava Gardner smiling.

And a comment by someone who was there when the movie was being shot:

I was in Lahore when it was filmed and many of my college friends got hired as extras. One was Iftikhar Bhatti the Captain of our Rowing Club, who laid across the Tracks.

Yes the Duo stayed at the only high class Hotel in Lahore then - The Fallettis. We used to play Badminton at night in flood lights at 23 Cooper Road, at the back of the Hotel. One evening we saw a european couple at the gate watching us play so we invited them in. They were Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger and they had a good game with us. We invited them to come again the next evening and they said: Oh No. You will have 500 people here tomorrow.

More:

I figured now would be a good time to profess my love for Mr. Astaire since he's one of the stars in Stanley Kramer's On the Beach--which is showing February 27 at 8 pm on TCM. Nuclear war has broken out across the nation and Australia is one of the last places where people are still alive. Before we go any further, I should warn you that it's an extremely depressing movie. It's not good to watch if:

1. You've had a terrible day. You've lost your job. Your dog or cat died.
2. You are a woman who's currently going through PMS.
3. You spent the entire afternoon searching through myspace, checking out your old classmates profiles, only to find out that a good majority of them are all married with kids and now you realize that yes, you are going to die alone. If you were cast in a classic movie, you'd be the "Spinster." And since you're terrified of cats, even the title of 'crazy cat lady' is now out of your future.

Ahem.

Not only is On the Beach depressing, but it's a bit draggy at times. It's a good solid story though, which should be more than enough reason to tune in and at least give it a chance. The other members of the cast include Gregory Peck as Towers, the commander of the USS Sawfish and Ava Gardner as Moria Davidson, who (of course) fall in love with each other. Rounding out the cast are Donna Anderson and Anthony Perkins (when he could still be viewed as a sweet and innocent actor instead of a nutjob) as a young married couple.

And of course there's Fred Astaire. Legend has it that Astaire got the part of the scientist, Julian Osborne, because of Mrs. Stanley Kramer. She happened to be watching an Astaire movie on the late show and knowing her husband's search for an actor to play the scientist, she turned to him, pointed at the tv and said, "There's your scientist." Kramer was dismissive at first, but he soon realized that she was right. When they met, Astaire was curious to why he was chosen for such a role. Kramer answered, "You've got something most actors don't have, Fred. Integrity. It shines out of you." And Astaire accepted the part.

It's seems like a bit of stunt casting at first. Fred Astaire in a non-dancing role! But he's absolutely wonderful. It's because of this movie that I became a huge Fred Astaire fan. Kramer was right on the money when he said Astaire had "integrity." That's why his characterization of Julian is so terrific. We first see him at a local get together, where he's downing drinks and feverently discussing the nuclear war with another partygoer. Since he's a scientist, he feels that people are blaming him for the mass destruction and ends his drunken rant by concluding that everyone is doomed. He's not exactly the kind of guy you want at your party, but Astaire's acting ability is a revelation. Anyone thinking that he was strictly a song-and-dance man is proven wrong. There's none of that lighthearted joy that's so prevalent in his musicals. Something is seriously bothering Julian Osborne. There's a bitterness that he's trying to mask by consuming alcohol. You want to know what's going on his mind and why he's like this.

Another pivotal scene for Astaire takes place later in the film. By this time, Cmdr. Towns has asked Julian aboard the USS Sawfish, hoping to find out who (or what) is sending a mysterious morse code signal that's based in San Francisco. When all the crew members are sitting around and joking with one another, one of them asks Julian who started the war, to which he sarcastically answers, "Albert Einstein." He then delivers a guilt-ridden monologue which explains where his mind is at: "Everyone had a bomb, an atomic bomb, a counterbomb, countercounterbombs--the devices outgrew us, we could