Well, dear readers, this month is flying by, like a gazelle watching YouTube videos of people eating in their cars. I have breaking bombshell news for you – I actually watched a motion picture in the early evening hours, entitled Flamarion the Great, starring Erich von Stroheim, Mary Beth Hughes, and Dan Duryea. I’d heard of the film but never seen it and I had no idea it was directed by Anthony Mann, who would go on to become a favorite film director of mine. I enjoyed it for the cheapie it was. Very well directed by Mann, von Stroheim being von Stroheim, and Mary Beth Hughes being one of the baddest of bad girls. I always enjoy Dan Duryea and he’s very good in it. The film is in the public domain and so the transfer Amazon Prime has is rough. It’s a bit wacky, and Mann would soon hit his stride with two great film noirs, T-Men and Raw Deal. Then came his series of classic westerns with James Stewart, including Winchester 73, That Man from Laramie, The Naked Spur, and others, and they also did The Glenn Miller Story and Strategic Air Command together. He began directing Spartacus but was fired by Kirk Douglas who brought in Stanley Kubrick to finish. There are still sequences wholly directed by Mann in the finished film. Then he began his roadshow phase, directing El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire. He did a couple of films after that, neither very good. He died at the young age of 60. Otherwise, I did a lot of listening throughout the day and evening, slowly going through the Ormandy stereo box. My favorites of those I heard were the Dello Joio Air Power soundtrack – it’s been out on CD from a label that had once licensed it for a certain number of years but just kept putting it out there. It sounded okay while this new mastering is hugely better, and the score is glorious – a shame Dello Joio didn’t write more movie music. The two Carmen suites sound amazing in early stereo, and there’s a delightful version of Peter and the Wolf with Cyril Ritchard narrating. Great disc of the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn violin concertos with Isaac Stern, an excellent Brahms first and variation and fugue on a theme of Handel, and then a disc I didn’t care for – nothing to do with Mr. Ormandy – just a disc of religious music with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir – just not my cuppa. But then right back to great with a superb Franck Symphonic Variations and the now playing D’Indy’s gorgeous Symphony on a French Mountain Air. That’s disc 14. I’ve got thirty discs loaded so far, so almost halfway through those, but I keep loading as I go and go as I keep loading. The Columbia stereo sound is breathtaking.
I had a tostada with chicken for food and that was very good and pretty calorie friendly at around seven hundred calories. I had no telephonic calls. People who’ve recently ordered Follies have been posting about it and raving. Such lovely comments and one gal even e-mailed me saying how much she loved it. I posted another vocal track to Facebook. Around eight-thirty I ordered some boneless wings from a local jernt – that got me up to 1000 calories – only four of ‘em – they were very good. I might eat a bigger meal from there one of these days. And that was pretty much it.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll keep loading CDs, at least another ten, maybe twenty. I’ll shave and shower and then I’ll be picked up by the Pearls and we’ll dine. Then I can watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is writing, making an eye doctor appointment, listening, and doing whatever needs doing.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, load CDs, shave and shower, dine, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have finally seen an early Mann made movie.