Well, dear readers, it is late and therefore I must write these here notes in a hurry because, well, because one simply must. First things first – no earthquakes or aftershocks to report, at least not that I felt – knock wood. I’d intended to sleep in but that went out the window with the relentless ringing of every telephonic device in the house, followed by the relentless ringing of the doorbell – at 9:15. Since I’d gotten to bed at four this did not thrill me. It was Grant, who forgot to mention that people were coming to cart off his late mom’s furniture and I needed to move my car so they’d have room to do so. I did, groggily, read e-mails, and was back in bed by ten and fell right asleep and slept until one – so I did get eight hours of sleep, although it most assuredly did not feel like eight hours of sleep.
Once up, I answered e-mails, did a few things on the computer, then went and picked up one package, then went to Jerry’s Deli for a chili, cheese, and onion hot dog and side Caesar salad, my current favorite there – it was excellent. After that, I came right home, did some more work on the computer, including writing a new set of liner notes – that took two hours and the rest of the afternoon. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched two count them two motion pictures. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled Dementia, a rather infamous “cult” film made in 1953 but not released until 1955. Certainly it’s a one-off and completely outré motion picture, all fifty-five minutes of it. There is no dialogue and only a few sound effects, and it has a wall-to-wall score by George Antheil, a composer I am fond of. The score is conducted by Ernest Gold, another composer I am fond of, and it has a female wordless vocal part sung by Mr. Gold’s then-wife, Miss Marni Nixon. It’s the director’s one and only film. After it bombed, it was bought by Jack H. Harris, who added portentous narration to it (spoken portentously by Ed McMahon), and retitled it Daughter of Horror. That version was released in 1957 and bombed. Fun fact – in Jack H. Harris’s film from the following year, The Blob, it’s Daughter of Horror that’s playing at the movie theater where the blob attacks. These things do tend to develop cults and a cult it has.
I then watched another motion picture, this one on a German Blu and Ray, entitled These Are the Damned. The last time I watched it was in 2007 on a DVD. It’s really quite an interesting film – it seems to be about Teddy Boys behaving poorly in England and beating up innocent people and being bad boys in their black leather jackets, but then it’s not about that at all, it’s really about a secret enclave where radioactive children are kept. In fact, this movie came out a year after Village of the Damned and the ads make it seem like the kids in this one have the weird eyes, which they do not. It’s a cautionary tale, beautifully directed by Joseph Losey, and featuring a terrific cast of players, including MacDonald Carey, Oliver Reed, Shirley Anne Field, Alexander Knox, Viveca Lindfors and some excellent Brit character actors. It also has a wonderful score by James Bernard. The transfer is certainly not new, probably done for the Sony hi-def channel a decade ago. It looks quite nice most of the time but could look stunning with a new transfer.
After that, I ate some crackers, listened to music, and relaxed.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven, then I’m lunching with friend Marshall Harvey, probably in the Bank of Bur. After that, I’ll prepare our new release announcements – not sure if they’ll happen tonight at midnight or tomorrow at midnight, although tomorrow is probably more likely. I’m also not sure if it will be one or two titles. After that, I’m not doing anything.
Tomorrow, I have a work session for the Kritzerland show, then the rest of the week is meetings and meals, then on Friday, Diana Canova arrives, and we’ll probably sup over the weekend, then on Monday we begin recording GEE. We should wrap that up on Tuesday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, lunch, maybe pick up a package, prepare new release announcements, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a day without an earthquake.