Well, dear readers, the proofing is done, the book is on its way to the publishers and the next step is proofing the galley when it arrives. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
Last night I finished watching An Affair to Remember. What a lovely motion picture entertainment it is. Very funny, touching and beautifully done. The new DVD has a beautiful transfer (a bit soft at times, but otherwise top-notch), and some extras. I watched the AMC Backstory extra, but I just abhor those things – they have no style, they’re all surface and I can’t stand the voice that narrates them. Other than that, I suppose it was okay. I then watched a motion picture I’d never seen, Pennies from Heaven, starring Mr. Bing Crosby. It’s a peculiar film, a musical (or a film with lots of songs) which opens with a death-row execution, but it’s quite enjoyable. Mr. Bing Crosby croons his way through five or six songs, and Madge Evans is beautiful as a social worker. Louis Armstrong is wonderful in one of his earliest appearances, but for me the revelation of the film was the eleven-year-old girl who played Patsy Smith, Edith Fellows. The film was made at a time when most child stars were trying to be Shirley Temple, but Miss Fellows is herself – real, funny, affecting and natural. In fact, I’d say it’s one of the best performances by a child actress from that era that I’ve seen. I’d never even heard of her before, so I looked her up on the imdb and astonishingly she’s still working – she did a film two years ago, at the ripe old age of seventy-eight. The title song is, of course, a classic, but there’s another song, the title of which I can’t remember (something about following you or wherever you are) that’s just as good.
Tonight I shall be supping with Miss Cissy Wechter, and I think I’ll bookmark this here site and maybe then she’ll pay us a visit. The cleaning lady will be here very soon, so I say we all click on the Unseemly Button below so I can finish these here notes before getting the evil eye.
I made an interesting discover yesterday – did you know that our beloved Leslie Parrish acted under her real name prior to becoming Leslie Parrish? Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, Leslie Parrish did films under another name. I couldn’t believe it when I saw that on the imdb, but one of the films they listed happened to be sitting on my shelf, a real stinker low-budget sci-fi movie from 1959 called Missile to the Moon. Well, there, in the credits, was the name Marjorie Hellen, which was supposedly Miss Parrish’s real name. I fast forwarded to the scene where the moon-women enter. None of the blondes resembled Leslie Parrish at all, so I began to think that the imdb had it wrong once again. Suddenly, this James Dean wannabe has a scene with a black-haired moon-woman – it cuts to a close-up of her and by gum and by golly if it wasn’t Leslie Parrish. Even with that ugly black Carol Haney wig on she was beautiful and instantly recognizable, with that honey-voice of hers. She even made the horrendous dialogue sound real and good. Missile to the Moon must have been her last film under her old name, because Li’l Abner followed it. For those who adore Miss Leslie Parrish as much as I do, you will be happy to know that she and the movie Li’l Abner play a small but important role in Kritzerland. I shall say no more.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must run errands and I must also walk errands. Errands hasn’t been getting nearly enough exercise, so I shall both run and walk errands and then all will be well in the errand world. What the hell am I talking about? Don’t forget – we put up a brand spanking new interview with Mr. Doug Storm, he of Dance of the Vampires, and he’s quite outspoken about many things and it’s a very entertaining bit of business, so check it out. Today’s topic of discussion: If you were running a Hollywood Studio and saw that Chicago was doing well, what musical film would you rush into production and who would be in it?