Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to a cello concerto by Shostakovich, played by Yo Yo Ma and conducted by – drum roll – Mr. Ormandy, the second to last disc in the big Ormandy box. This was long after he left Columbia and went to RCA – but there were to be two more on Columbia, this and the New World Symphony, not with the Philadelphia Orchestra but the London Symphony Orchestra. But enough about Shostakovich. I had a little trip down memory lane last night, watching a Blu and Ray of a motion picture entitled The Beast with Five Fingers – there isn’t really a beast but there are five fingers and they’re pretty creepy. The movie came out in 1946 – I missed it back then, mostly due to the fact that I was not born yet, and, in fact, I did not see it until a little year I like to call 1960 on Channel 9. They had the Million Dollar Movie, where the same movie would be shown for an entire week two or three times a day. But they also had the Channel 9 Movie Theater with the same deal – three or four times a day for a week, following the Million Dollar Movie. Well, I must have watched this thing about twelve times during that week. I couldn’t get enough. I mean, what could be better than the severed hand of a pianist playing a piano all by its lonesome, and then trying to choke Peter Lorre all by its lonesome. Even after Lorre nails it to a table or something, it’s not there when he returns. For that entire year, I walked around my junior high school doing a rather perfect Peter Lorre imitation, saying “The hand – the hand,” and then trying to choke myself. I’d only seen it once after that, on laserdisc, and I couldn’t really get past the merry villagers of the opening ten minutes – I didn’t remember that stuff at all. But last night, I watched it in its entirety and it’s so much fun once the hand runs amok. There was never an actor like Peter Lorre – before or since. Completely unique and one-off, with his odd very easy to imitate voice and his huge eyes and strange demeanor. Who could forget him in Fritz Lang’s M or especially in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca? The direction by Robert Florey is excellent – he never quite had an “A” career, but he was a wonderful director with a distinct visual style – his films really ran the gamut – from the Marx Brothers’ first movie, The Cocoanuts to the horror classic, Murders in the Rue Morgue, did a lot of “B” movies at Warner Bros., did the same for Paramount, then back to Warners and then acted as associate director on Charlie Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux. He did musicals, adventure films, mysteries, noir, all of it.
Then like so many, he went into television, directing tons of shows during the 1950s – most of the weekly anthology series, M Squad, Wagon Train, The Untouchables, Checkmate, and two of my all-time favorite Twilight Zone episodes – The Fever (which plays a small part in Vegas Can Be Murder) and Perchance to Dream. If you’ve never seen The Beast with Five Fingers, you might want to check it out.
Earlier, I got six hours of sleep, had breakfast with Robert Yacko, did some errands and whatnot and a quickie Gelson’s run, then came home and had what has to be one of the vilest text exchanges ever. How it will ultimately play out who knows, but hopefully things will calm down. If not, I will get really nasty and make it all public. I do not react well to bullying and harassment, and especially when it’s done to purposely inflict emotional damage. I’ll just leave it at that for now. Breakfast was huevos chili – very good – and then later at home I had some shrimp cocktail shrimp – also very good and almost calorie-free, and a bagel. Much later, I had two chicken strips and some coleslaw. And here we are. Shostakovich and Kabelesky cellos concertos are done, and I think I’ll save the New World Symphony for today after I get up. Oh, and I also booked the two Kritzerland shows – one in June and one in July.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I really need a modern major miracle, I’ll go to the mail place, I’ll have tuna sandwiches for food, and then at some point I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow is more of the same and then we’re back to do the last three performances of Drat! The Cat!
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, pray hard for a modern major miracle, go to the mail place, have tuna sandwiches for food, 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, as I try to choke myself whilst saying, “The hand – the hand.”