“And now I am going to demonstrate to you the power of your own mind.”The Hypnotic Eye (George Blair, 1960)
Aug
29
National Lemon Juice Day
Suave hypnotist Desmond (Jacques Bergerac) and his lovely assistant Justine (Allison Hayes) using the magic of vitamin C to demonstrate to you, the viewer, how hypnotism works. DP: Archie R. Dalzell.
The Hypnotic Eye utilises what's called the movie gimmick. This one doesn't deploy anything hugely spectacular, no Percepto! seat vibrators (The Tingler (1959)) or Witchcraft (1964) witch deflectors or even a trained nurse on standby. There's a balloon. No spoilers here
– Desmond
There are also multiple moments where hypnotist Desmond (handsome future-Revlon-exec Jacques Bergerac) directly addresses you, the (wo)man in the audience. Because you too may laugh at that folly, that gimmick, that parlour trick. But who says it isn't real? Who says you really never went to see a hypnotism show…?
usa
“And now for the benefit of the folks who tuned in late, I should like to say that this is the most traumatic spectacle I have ever had the GOOD fortune to witness.”Dial 1119 [The Violent Hour] (Gerald Mayer, 1950)
Aug
28
Sherry Flips
Dr. John Faron (Sam Levene) and barfly Freddy (Virginia Field) drinking at the counter. Freddy is enjoying her sherry flip with what appear to be olives instead of cherries. Two more glasses are waiting for her. DP: Paul Vogel.
– TV announcer
“There are never enough hours in the days of a queen, and her nights have too many.” Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz + Rouben Mamoulian, 1963)
Aug
26
National Spark The World Day
Cleopatra's – Elizabeth Taylor, anachronistically dressed as the goddess Nekhbet – grande entrée in Rome. She sits on top of a black, basalt-like sphinx, pulled by numerous slaves and greeted by a cast of thousands. There are 20 000 Italian extras; there's no CGI. DPs: Leon Shamroy & Jack Hildyard.
Like Rome, Cleopatra wasn't built in a day. Joseph L. Mankiewicz's epic studio breaker took six years to make and, despite it being the highest-grossing film of 1963, didn't break even until 1973. Was it a #flop? A classic flop but a flop nevertheless?
– Cleopatra
The star – the Queen – Elizabeth Taylor demanded an unprecedented one million dollar fee, 10,3 million in 2023 US dollars. Liz's movie dressing table hold trinkets especially designed by luxury brand Bulgari, blink and you'll miss them. The Pharaoh's lavish costumes, all 65 of them (created by Irene Sharaff who would dress Taylor again as #Cleopatra's counterpart Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)), cost almost 195K dollar (ca. 2 million today), and of course those 20 000 extras, shipped from God-knows-where to Hollywood on the Tiber to shoot one scene, had to look like their 2000 year old counterparts, and be fed, and housed.
Is it all bad? Cleopatra is one of those movies that so many – and that includes obsessive cinephiles – will get around to watch. Eventually. All four hours of it. I'm still holding out, but ooh, the spectacle!
Glen or Glenda (1953)
In an intimate moment, Barbara (Dolores Fuller) hands Glen (Ed Wood) her angora sweater. DP: William C. Thompson.
August 25: someone wears another person's clothes on #NationalSecondhandWardrobeDay
Glen or Glenda [aka Male or Female aka Glen or Glenda, Which Is It? aka I Led 2 Lives] (Edward D. Wood Jr., 1953)
“Give this man satin undies, a dress, a sweater and a skirt, or even the lounging outfit he has on, and he's the happiest individual in the world. He can work better, think better, he can play better, and he can be more of a credit to his community and his government because he is happy.” —Dr. Alton, narrator
In 1953, Christine Jorgensen – who had widely reported sex reassignment surgery the year before – was approached by schlocky Z movie producer George G. Weiss to be in an exploitation movie about her voyage. She kindly thanked for the offer. Who did bite was the producer's pick to be the director, novice movie maker and transvestite Edward D. Wood Jr.. Wood reworked the script.
The resulting effort – Glen or Glenda – is not only an utterly unique autobiographic docudrama; it's a lovingly composed pamphlet in support of (heterosexual) transvestism – both fetish and lifestyle, not to be confused with drag – and transsexualism to boot. Rarely sex-related outsider lifestyles were discussed this frankly; Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male came out only five years prior and the volume about the human female in the year of this movie.
It's also pretty unique when it comes to the art of filmmaking. However contagiously enthusiastic, Wood didn't have the skill, weight, or budget to make movies. He'd pad story lines and plot holes with stock footage and long-winded dream sequences of the sexploitation kind. Like John Waters after him, Ed would cast friends and family – Dolores Fuller was his real-world girlfriend – and cinematic idols such as Bela Lugosi, who by 1953 was addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs.
Wood's life was wild and colourful. He once said that while serving in the US Marine Corps, he feared injury more than death, worried that the combat medic would discover the pink bra and panties under his uniform. It makes me wonder if the full colour promotional material for Psycho (1960) was #Hitchcock sending out a little wink to Ed.
Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) wearing pink undergarments on a lobby card for Psycho (1960). The movie itself is in black and white and the reveal of Marion wearing pink underwear came as a shock in early-60s prissy America. DP: John L. Russell.
#Bales2023FilmChallenge #EdwardDWoodJr #BelaLugosi #LyleTalbot #DoloresFuller #ConradBrooks #WilliamCThompson #fashion #angora #crossdressing #LGBT #fetishism #drag #docudrama #biography #USA #1950s
Hell Bound (William J. Hole Jr., 1957)
Aug
20
milk
Stanley Thomas (George E. Mather) and Daddy (Dehl Berti) in a sleazy nightclub. Daddy raises his glass of milk to someone offscreen. DP: Carl E. Guthrie.
Hell Bound (William J. Hole Jr., 1957)
Aug
20
International Day Of Medical Transporters
Paula (June Blair) and Eddie (Stuart Whitman) in nurses' uniforms taking care of an injured child on the street. Behind them, two cops unload a stretcher from an ambulance. DP: Carl E. Guthrie.
The boss' girlfriend falls for an ambulance driver, derailing her man's gang's carefully planned narcotics heist.
“You and I may dream of gold or grocery bills — but when a child slaps Morpheus on the back and says 'Hello, old man' — well it's a different story.”Moonland (William A. O'Connor, 1926)
Aug
15
Chant At The Moon Day
Mickey (Mickey McBan) and his dog looking up to the crescent moon from a perfectly round window with beaded curtains made of stars. Spot the Milky Way! DP: Edward Gheller.
A little boy and his dog are invited over by the Man in the Moon himself. The trip to the Moon is a big adventure for the drowsy duo and they meet peculiar flora, fauna and men along the way, lifted straight from the Great Moon Hoax.
– opening title card
Post-McCay's serial Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905) and pre-Fleming & Cukor's The Wizard of Oz (1939), William A. O'Connor is heavily indebted to both. Which doesn't make his short Art Deco-styled science fiction fantasy any less magical.
Tommy: Life is short. Alice: Yeah, well, so are you.Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Martin Scorsese, 1974)
Aug
12
National Garage Sale Day
Tommy (Alfred Lutter III), Harold (Jefferson Burstyn), Alice (Ellen Burstyn) and Bea (Lelia Goldoni) counting out Alice's yard sale earnings. DP: Kent L. Wakeford.
After her husband is gone, Alice (Ellen Burstyn) sells her stuff and the house, picks up her son Tommy (Alfred Lutter III) and embarks on fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a singer just like Alice Faye.
“The sun looks ghostly when there's a mist on a river and everything's quiet. I never knowed it before.”Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
Aug
7
Alberta Heritage Day
Bill (Richard Gere) and Abby (Brooke Adams) walking through golden fields towards a small pavilion. DP: Néstor Almendros.
Quintessential Americana. Filmed in Canada.
– Linda
“These children that come at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them. I didn't teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.” Manson (Robert Hendrickson + Laurence Merrick, 1973)
Aug
6
American Family Day
A large group of hippies somewhere outside in front of canopy. They appear to pose as if for a stage play. One of them wears a T-shirt with a Christ-like, bearded man on it. On closer inspection, some familiar faces. Captions reads “The Family”. DPs: Jack Beckett & Louie Lawless.
Everything America stood for – God, liberty and justice for all – fell apart in the 60s. A much-loved president and family man killed on live television. Teenagers shipped to a country many never heard of before, only to end up as cannon fodder. Peace loving middleclass white kids from well-to-do families gathering en masse in Haight-Ashbury, collectively fell to bum trips and bouts of gonorrhoea. What America needs is family. Someone who takes you in, understands you, sings you songs and feeds you. An older man with friendly eyes appears on the scene, doing just that.
– Charles Manson's testimony
What the press dubbed The Family was a microcosm of American society; a loose collective of lost kids. Taken in by charismatic peddling pimp #CharlieManson with a steady supply of #LSD and a place to be themselves, rootless kids like Lynette “#Squeaky” Fromme and Paul Watkins were finally part of a family again. The family grew too; besides more lost souls and the occasional Beach Boy visiting Spahn Ranch, babies were born at the Devil's Slide.
Hendrickson and Merrick's Manson offers a candid and by times surreal portrait of a few #MansonFamily members (Squeaky makes out with a riffle, purring about how killing is like having an orgasm while Atkins lays out her plans to murder Frank Sinatra) right in the middle of the spectacle [sic] court-case. It was even nominated for an Oscar – which went to that other charismatic 70s evangelist, Marjoe (1972), while Manson was banned after Fromme's botched assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford in '75 and was lost for decades.
Stylistically inspired by Woodstock (1970) and soundtracked by the Family themselves, Manson remains a fascinating curio in the undying output of #Mansonsploitation movies. However gruesome, the American family is forever cemented in that holy cornerstone of self-immolation.