Problems with plumbing in the basement, a broken cell phone that's going to take money out of my pocket with the holidays approaching and a business trip coming up this week that I have no desire whatsoever to participate in. And I've got to get a ton done at work on Monday before I leave for it on Tuesday. General feeling today: Defeated. Move over Glenda and Ruth, I need a beer too.
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From Heat Lightning, 1934, directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Yet another movie featured here not on DVD or VHS.
15 comments:
Can you imagine getting drunk with Glenda Farrell? I'm imagining it right now.
As I head to the hardware store to buy the necessary plumbing tools for the hell I'm dealing with in the basement I shall imagine it.
It's not often you find a pic of Farrell not looking energetic so it caught my eye. Maybe Donnelly brings her down.
Make that 3 beers, will you? I've got a tough week ahead, too. But then again, not as tough as some will have it. Great blog.
Thanks Tina. I'll have the bartender bring another round. Bill? Set 'em up.
I hope your week improves, Jonathan. Wish I could buy you a round. - Love the new layout, btw.
Am I the only one who thinks that Mervyn LeRoy is REALLY underrated? He's directed so many great movies, too many for it to be sheer coincidence. And yet almost all the film books I read either skip over him or give the old "pretty good all-arounder" line.
Thanks Marisa, it's already started. I worked on the pipes all day and worked out a makeshift solution that works, got the cell phone taken care of without too much money being spent and am at work early to get stuff done. Now if the trip could just be cancelled but of course it won't be.
Krauthammer, I think Leroy did a lot of great work and I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is one of my favorite movies of the thirties. From around the same period I also like Three on a Match, Gold Digger of 1933 & Little Caesar. I think a lot of directors who did their prime work in the early thirties are underrated because it's an era generally overlooked by film historians and cinephiles. There's the silent period, leading up to the great years of 26 through 28 and then it's like film history shuts down and doesn't pick back up until 1939. As if nothing happened in those intervening years.
Sounds like a bear of a week, Jonathan. Good luck ... and hoist one with Glenda for me.
And I'm not so sure cinephiles ignore the thirties so much as perhaps the Hollywood thirties ... hasn't there been quite a bit of work on European films of that period?
Rick, I don't see much discussion of Earth or Blood of a Poet either. Hollywood or European, it's a dead zone among cinephiles, to me at least. I understand 28 into 1930 as the industry was getting itself together after the emergence of sound but a lot of 31 through at least 34 (around the time of It Happened One Night and The Thin Man) does go generally unheralded.
I heard on the radio that master plumbers (I'm assuming that's the top tier in the plumbing world) make six figure salaries! When I heard that I told my wife I was thinking about becoming a plumber. Then she reminded me what kind of nastiness the plumbers have to encounter and I immediately tore up my application.
P.S. I like in the banner how you photoshopped your name on the spine and cover of a book. It's kind of a fantasy I have (to see MY name, that is...). It must be kind of pleasing to look at, yes?
Fox, I worked on that plumbing thing all day yesterday precisely because plumbers charge so damn much. In the end, it cost me several hours and about sixty bucks at the hardware store but I'll take that over a $500 charge any day of the week.
And that book, The Blog in Attack I wrote a couple of years ago and was pleased to see it move up the New York Times Bestseller list quickly. At least in my mind. So yes, it's pleasing. I'll have to work another book into a later banner with your name on it.
You should be proud of yourself. Not only for saving money, but for a red-blooded American man with those tools!
Were your pecs and washboard abs glistening in the sunlight that came through the basement window? Did you look somewhere in between Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke and Brando in Streetcar?
Yes, my wife kept me well oiled and lit during the work. She also took many photographs which will be submitted to Plumber in the House, the monthly adults only magazine for women who find plumbers sexy. I'm hoping for the centerfold but I don't want to set myself up for disappointment.
Still, it was quite sexy seeing me cut, bruise and batter myself repeatedly while screaming things like "Goddamn pipes! This is bullshit! Son of a bitch! Ow, shit! Goddamnit!!!!"
Speaking of plumbers and sexiness...
How come when a man bends over and shows the top of his butt it's crudely called "plumber's crack" and seen as a social faux pas? Yet when when a female shows her upper butt it's cutely termed a "coin slot". Is this reverse sexism???
Marilyn, since Jonathan has his head in his hands right now from reading that comment, can you field it for me???
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