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adventures in movie reviewing: Schatzberg's "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" (1979)
It's funny how some things stay with you. It was Thursday, August 23rd, 1979 and the call came in about three in the afternoon. I was reviewing for a Philadelphia daily and was rarely ever in the office, let alone at 3 o'clock.
I've no idea why I was there. Kismet perhaps? The call was from the projectionist at a cineplex in Marlton, New Jersey and had to do with "The Seduction of Joe Tynan," a film that I had reviewed the previous Friday.
I'm paraphrasing now but the voice on the phone said, "Joe, we have a print of 'The Seduction of Joe Tynan' that we're not supposed to have. Universal just had a replacement print delivered for the rest of the engagement. So, if you want to see this version, I suggest you get here tonight." Great. I drove there just in time for the 5 o'clock show.
The print that the theater was showing turned out to be a longer version of the film that I reviewed - a preview print containing footage that was supposed to be excised before it reached theaters for public viewing.
"The Seduction of Joe Tynan," a political drama a la Michael Ritchie's "The Candidate" (1972), is largely a forgotten movie now and, even when it first opened, was pretty much under the radar, despite compelling credentials.
It was directed by Jerry Schatzberg, a former fashon photographer who made a huge impression with his first three films - "Puzzle of a Downfall Child," "The Panic in Needlepark" and "Scarecrow." And it was written by its title star, Alan Alda, best known as a TV actor at the time ("M*A*S*H"), who would use the opportunity to pursue a modest career directing features ("The Four Seasons," the most noteworthy, and three others).
Alda's two co-stars in the film are the irresistible Barbara Harris, who was having a brief fling with films at the time, and an intimidating newcomer named Meryl Streep, who was taking movies by storm in the late '70s.
Harris plays the devoted yet independent wife of Alda's Joe Tynan, an ickily smooth liberal Senator with Presidential ambitions, and Streep is a labor attorney with whom he starts an affair and who is also married.
Then there's Melvyn Doulgas, as an aging senator and Joe Tynan's mentor whom Tynan will invariably disappoint. Douglas played a vaguely similar role in the aforementioned "The Candidate." Anyone who saw "The Candidate" will recognize it in "The Seduction of Joe Tynan." Alan Alda demonstrates that he saw the same Robert Redford movie that we all saw.
Douglas is a vital part of the movie but, when I reviewed it on August 17th, back in 1979, his character mysteriously disappears from the narrative, a situation that was left unquestioned by movie critics.
The mystery was solved when I saw a different version of the film - the version used for "producer's sneak" previews - for a second time a week later. Douglas disappears from the storyline because his character, distraught by the dubious actions of Tynan, commits suicide. The footage revealing this, if I recall, didn't add up to much but it definitely altered one's perception of the Tynan character who, up to that point, is all charisma and who, despite his infidelity and other shortcomings, asks us to see him as a good, sensitive man.
It's not the first or last time that a character was rehabilitated in the editing room. Ever since its release in 1984, rumors have swirled around Jonathan Demme's "Swing Shift" - that producer-star Goldie Hawn had the film re-edited to make her character less unappealing. Hawn plays a woman in the film who cheats on her seabee husband (Ed Harris) while he is off fighting World War II. Writer Nancy Dowd took her name off the film.
But back to Alan Alda and "Joe Tynan"... Two years later, I interviewed Alda over breakfast at the Bellvue-Stratford. He was doing publicity for "The Four Seasons," which he wrote and directed and also stars in.
It was an affable interview; Alda was charming and responsive. I brought up "Joe Tynan," with the intention of complementing Alda for creating a character with a negative side. But when I mentioned that I had seen an early version of the film that included the suicide, he turned pale and the smile left his face. "No one was supposed to see that," he said.
Our interview continued, although he now seemed distracted. In my head, I saw Alan Alda making a call to Universal afterwards. Just a guess.
~images~
~Meryl Streep and Alan Alda in a scene from "The Seduction of Joe Tynan"
~Alda with Melvyn Douglas in a scene from the film
~photography: Universal 1979©
indelible moment: "The Notorious Landlady"
"Some Like It Hot" (1959) is probably the one comedy classic for which Jack Lemmon is best remembered. It was directed by one of his mentors, Billy Wilder, and it predictably tops every Best Comedies film list.
But Jack had another collaborator for whom he starred in comedies that were equally great (and undeservedly neglected) - Richard Quine.
Together, at their home base at Columbia, they made the superior musical "My Sister Eileen" (1955), the scrappy service farce "Operation Mad Ball" (1957), the bewitching "Bell, Book and Candle" (1958), the it-gets-better-with-age "It Happened to Jane" (1959) and especially the sophisticated "The Notorious Landlady" (1962), a playful, clever take on Hitchcock.
"The Notorious Landlady" is my preferred Lemmon movie (hands-down) and one of my favorite films in general. Its titanic supporting structure is, of course, its sceenplay - an incredibly literate affair penned by no less than Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart, by way of British nutneggy Margery Sharp, who wrote the short story (originally published in the Saturday Even Post as "The Notorious Tenant") on which the script is based.
Quine's direction here is his most assured as he blends subtle comedy, snappy repartee and Hitchcock quotes with incredible, impressive ease.
One memorable scene follows another, the highlight of which is a comic chase staged at Penzance, the location of an elderly residence whose tenants are enjoying an open-air concert atop the forbidding cliffs.
Here is Jack in a selection of shots bounding through the air in the film's climatic and wonderful chase sequence, which Quine and composer George Duning set to selections from - what else? - "The Pirates of Penzance" and other Gilbert and Sullivan goodies. "Take me back before I miss "The Mikado!," the wheelchair-bound Estelle Winwood snaps at her nefarious caregiver, Phileppa Bevans, before Winwood is pushed down a rocky hill. The scene makes me want to jump, tumble and fly, too. Enjoy!
Note in Passing: Richard Quine directed Jack Lemmon's screen test when Jack was hired by Columbia and put under contract by Harry Cohn and, along with Wilder, Quine was a Best Man at Jack's wedding to Felicia Farr in Paris in 1962, the year "The Notorious Landlady" was released. Kim Novak, Jack's co-star in "The Notorious Landlady" and Quine's muse, also attended the wedding. Wilder and Lemmon were in Paris at the time, with Shirley MacLaine, filming exteriors for "Irma La Douce" (1963).
~Jack Be Nimble - Lemmon doing his own stunt work in "The Notorious Landlady"
~photography: Columbia Pictures, 1962©
People who are blissfully uninformed like to equate film criticism with movie snobbery. But I know precious few critics who are film snobs.
Quite the contrary, most movie critics are adventurous, with a need to see and understand anything filmic. On the other hand, it's your average moviegoers who are picky about what they see and what they like:
The latest comic-book franchise? "Do you even have to ask? I'm in!" A movie musical? "Are you kidding? I'm not gay!" A serious drama? "Sounds like a downer!" A "chick flick" (awful expression)? "Give me a break!"
And even worse is Hollywood, which likes to complain about movie critics and how they are sadly "out of touch" with the modern movie audience.
Hollywood produces disposable junk ten months out of the year and then, suddenly in November, wills itself into the big-screen Masterpiece Theater, producing films made to win awards exclusively (thereby making itself look legit) and, if enough average moviegoers can be convinced to see them, make a bit of money. By the time the summer movie season rolls around, no one remembers the tiles of these films. "Moonlight," anyone?
At awards time, Hollywood becomes even more self-conscious: The popular moneymakers are ostracized and faux art is rewarded. Also forgotten are the veterans who kept the ungrateful studios afloat. Doris Day, although nominated for an Oscar one time (for "Pillow Talk") has never been given a Lifetime Achievement Award (I can hear a few uninformed moviegoers giggling as I write this) by the same Academy that found the time to honor Peter O'Toole, an example of snobbery unbridled.
And then there's Jerry Lewis, arguably film's most polarizing figure but undeniably a comic artist who mastered performance, narrative and technology unlike anyone else in movie history - an actor-filmmaker on par with Chaplin and Welles and (dare I say it?) perhaps superior to them both. Arguably.
On the downside, he also influenced a lot of inferior-to-dubious film comics who appropriated from him without fully understanding what they were appropriating. Either way, for better or worse, he was influential. I've learned the hard way not to discuss Jerry Lewis with someone who thinks he/she has exquisite good taste and that Lewis just doesn't fit in.
Again, even worse is Hollywood. No Lifetime Achievement award for Jerry Lewis in his lifetime. The best that the club could do was give him the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2009 when he was 83 - not for his work as a filmmaker but for his charitable activities. "Charitable." Ironic, isn't it?
I suppose, at this point, that I should go into Lewis' life, career and amazing achievements but I'd rather point you in the direction of two friends who have done jaw-droppingly thorough jobs explaining what made Jerry Lewis great - the obits/appreciations written by Dave Kehr for The New York Times and Carrie Rickey for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Yes, two movie critics - well, make that former movie critics - and two of the best. Dave and Carrie have always been open-minded about film and bracingly unpredictable in their tastes. And there's no hint of snobbery.
I think Jerry Lewis would approve.
(from top)
~Jerry Lewis' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
on the North side of the 6800 block of Hollywood Boulevard
~installed in 2010
~Lewis in his prime in the 1960s
~photography: Kobal/REX/Shutterstock©
~Lewis in an atypically reflective pose
~photography: John Springer Collection/Corbis via Getty Images©
fake facts
I'm a sucker for Turner Classic Movies. It's become the filmic equivalent of White Noise in our home, always on. And, sometimes, I get to sit down and watch a movie (always when Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" or Mervyn LeRoy's "Gypsy" is aired). Its programming is beyond reproach.
What's become enervating, however, are the introductions and banter that provide misinformation. I've developed a penchant here for quibbling about them - a habit picked up, no doubt, from decades as a critic.
Too often opinions and gossip are presented as facts - and likely to be accepted as facts by the blindly loyal film buffs who make up TCM's core audience. I mean, if a filmmaker of some stature states a "fact" about a film during an on-air chat, that filmmaker surely knows what he/she is talking about, right? Well, not really. Often, it's just another opinion.
And opinions are like you-know-what: Everyone has one.
Also, an opinion posing as a fact is something easily researched - and invalidated - these days. It's foolhardy to pass one off as a fact.
The internet, you know.
The latest case in point is Saturday's segment of The Essentials, which included conversations between host Alec Baldwin and filmmaker William Friedkin prior to and following a screening of "The Manchurian Candidate."
Friedkin, of course, was one of the young filmmakers who, back in the 1970s, ushered in the New Wave in American filmmaking, along with Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, Brian DePalma, Paul Mazursky, Bob Rafelson and Hal Ashby. Back in the day, in the space of three years, William Friedkin directed "The Night They Raided Minsky's," "The Boys in the Band" and "The French Connection." Then came "The Exorcist."
His satisfying second act has included excellent films based on two Tracy Letts' plays - "Bug" and "Killer Joe." That aside, Friedkin was on The Essentials because he is an enthusiastic fan of "The Manchurian Candidate" in general and its director, John Frankenheimer, in particular. He has referred to Frankenheimer as "my idol," as well as "the most important" and "the most innovative" filmmaker, admiring the documentary feel the director brought to his work, particularly "The Manchurian Candidate."
Friedkin's comments are documented on the "A Little Solitaire" featurette on the "Candidate" DVD, an extra produced and directed by Michael Arick and edited by Glenn Erickson, author of the invaluable DVD Savant site.
Much of what Friedkin says on "A Little Solitaire" he repeated on The Essentials. But, at one point, he went off script. This was the jaw-dropping moment when Friedkin casually debunked the fact that "The Manchurian Candidate" was taken out of circulation a few years after its 1962 debut and made unavailable for decades for either theatrical or TV screenings. Never happened, he flatly stated. And he spoke with utmost authority.
His logic?
Well, Friedkin pointed out that all films that were two or three years old at that time routinely had limited or no showings in theaters or on TV after their first-run engagements, not just "The Manchurian Candidate."
Not really. It's true that the three major TV networks and local stations discontinued telecasting feature films during the late 1970s - although "The Manchurian Candidate" did have one screening on NBC before its suppression and before commercial TV stopped airing movies regularly.
But, by then, cable had picked up the slack, airing films 24/7.
And it's true that second-runs and return engagements in mainstream movie theaters had become a thing of the past, but the other films that Friedkin claimed were never seen again in theaters actually found a second life in rep houses and on cable and home entertainment.
John Frankenheimer, for example, made two other films in 1962 in addition to "Candidate" - "All Fall Down" and "Birdman of Alcatraz," both of which were readily available either on cable or home entertainment and, in the case of "Birdman," in art houses. But not "The Manchurian Candidate."
It was simply ... gone.
OK, now for the facts...
The history of "The Manchurian Candidate" is as twisted, twisty and fascinating as its plot, which deals with elaborate brainwashing and a planned political assassination. It was Frank Sinatra, one of the film's stars and its executive producer, who posed the idea to United Artists head Arthur Krim to film Richard Condon's book. Krim was the finance chairman of the Democratic Party in those days and the material scared him.
But a call from Sinatra's friend, John F. Kennedy, sealed the deal.
The film was made in 1961 and released in '62 - and a year later, in 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated. And Sinatra, who owned both "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Suddenly" (a 1954 film also about a planned political assassination), reportedly became disturbed by how life had suddenly imitated art. And so, the two films disappeared. In tandem.
The film's screenwriter George Axelrod, interviewed by the Washington Post, confirmed that Sinatra felt that "having assassination pictures floating around (in this climate) seemed to be in grotesque bad taste."
The suppression of "The Manchurian Candidate" didn't come overnight but in stages. First, all 35mm theatrical prints were removed from circulation. There would be no more showings in movie theaters. Then, the television versions, both complete and edited, were deleted from United Artists' syndication package. The film was available for a while in 16mm for non-theatrical rental (for showings on college campuses and the such) but those prints eventually were deleted from U.A.'s programming guide.
The decades-long absence of "The Manchurian Candidate" was the result of a very methodical process, as various studio departments got the word.
Films are suppressed for any number of reasons, most usually personal, and they can be placed in limbo by either the studio that made and released them or, in rare cases, by their filmmakers/owners. Both Otto Preminger and Alfred Hitchcock, for example, owned most of their films. In the case of "The Manchurian Candidate," it was owned by Sinatra, plain and simple. And if one goes on the internet to do research - or, the old-fashioned way, to a library - one will find reports that point to Sinatra.
So, the popular explanation is that "The Manchurian Candidate" was pulled by Frank Sinatra, its executive producer, for politically correct reasons.
Sounds good. The stuff of excellent press.
But a second reason has also been advanced - that "The Manchurian Candidate" (along with other titles) disappeared because of a financial dispute involving discrepancies and disagreements about profits between the film's producers and United Artists. This is the version that John Frankenheimer himself had often corroborated in interviews.
Whatever the story, the movie was indeed unavailable for years.
It wasn't until home entertainment created a new market for films that the financial issues were finally resolved and "The Manchurian Candidate" was - ta-da! - suddenly released from limbo and free to be seen again.
But, first, a Big Comeback... Prior to its release on VHS, "The Manchurian Candidate" was screened at the 1987 New York Film Festival, with the spin being that the festival's selection committee had successfully coaxed Sinatra to comply. But it was all part of the planned re-release.
"The Manchurian Candidate" was restored for the occasion and became the hit of the festival. It eventually had a limited release in select theaters (read: art houses) in May of 1988 and was reviewed anew by critics.
The subsequent home entertainment included a seven-minute taped interview (produced by David Fein and Eytan Kella) with Frankenheimer, Axelrod and Sinatra discussing the making and controversy of "The Manchurian Candidate" - everything, but nothing about its disappearance.
Note in Passing: During his chat with Friedkin, Baldwin elicited surprise that the screenplay for the film was penned by Axelrod, a writer who was noted for light comedies ("The Seven Year Itch," "Phffft!" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's"). No surprise, Friedkin responded, because in his view, "The Manchurian Candidate" is a satire. Huh? True, there are a few humorous moments in "The Manchurian Candidate" but these largely revolve around the broad performance of James Gregory as a buffoonish (but decidedly dangerous) Senator with serious pretensions of becoming President.
Still, calling "The Manchurian Candidate" a satire is a bit of a stretch. John Frankenheimer's film has always worked as a compelling and often harrowing experience - even more so these days when its once-outrageous premise seems downright prescient. Now, Jonathan Demme's wildly misguided 2004 remake of the material, that's a funny film.
~image~
~John Frankenheimer rehearses a scene with Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey on the set of "The Manchurian Candidate"
~United Artists 1962 ©
cinema obscura: Costa-Gavras' "Betrayed" (1988), unfortunately it's time has come
Given that racism and racists in this country have been emboldened in the past few days, it seems an apt time to revisit a Costa-Gavras cautionary tale of real-life horror. "Betrayed," made nearly 20 years ago, deals head-on with the white supremacist movement but at the time of its release, the neo-Nazis of the film seemed like a distant fringe group, whose activities were far, far away from your local cineplex - not so uncomfortably close.
The screenplay was written by Joe Eszterhas, who was hot at the time (the era's Aaron Sorkin), specializing in heavy-handed incendiary topics, and who perhaps was prematurely dismissed by easily annoyed movie critics.
Eszterhas, to his credit, knew how to take what might be unsettling and even perverse on paper and turn it into material for a popular movie. And he usually placed a woman - his heroine - in a situation that in earlier movies was for-men-only. (Back in the day, Eszterhas was labeled a sexist, but from the current vantage point, he really wasn't.) In this case, the game Debra Winger plays an FBI agent named Cathy who changes her name to Katie when she goes undercover to entrap a supremacist-farmer named Gary, played by an equally game, eerily effective Tom Berenger.
To accomplish this, Cathy ingratiates her with Gary with the idea of starting a faux romance. She lets him conveniently pick her up in a rural bar, gets to know his children and his mother and pretty much becomes a fixture in his life, initially much to her displeasure. Gary has a penchant for making such comments as ''We have to return America to real Americans'' (sound familiar?), while another hate-monger declares that "people should be able say what they want, regardless of how ugly it may be.''
The shrewd Eszterhas then does something jaw-dropping: He has Cathy actually fall for Gary, in spite of herself and in spite of his hateful behavior. By now, he has an emotional grip on her that she hardly expected.
Cathy is understandably conflicted, inspiring the ever-resourceful Winger to turn in another masterful performance of quiet intelligence.
At the time, I remember her (and Berenger) being better than the film itself. But with the passing of time, perhaps we've caught up, however grudgingly, with the film's relentless creepiness. Certainly, Costa-Gavras doesn't hesitate to "showcase" (for lack of a better word) the obscene viciousness of Gary and his all-white, all-male friends, his "buddies," who casually praise Nazis while reviling Jews, Blacks and homosexuals.
No, the filmmaker doesn't hedge. Back in '88, he and Eszterhas were accused of lacking subtlety, of rubbing our faces in the ugliness. Which seems pathetically naive these days. I've no idea who now owns "Betrayed," which was made by United Artists, but some resourceful art-house programmer or DVD decision-maker should do something with it.
Like right now.
Note in Passing: Turner Classic Movies will screen the ever prescient "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) - produced by Frank Sinatra, directed by John Frankenheimer and penned by George Axelrod - tomorrow night (Saturday, August 19th) @ 8 (est). A must watch.
~the original poster art for "Betrayed"
~Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1988 ©
~a scene from "Betrayed"
not a major motion picture!
Once upon a time, in a place now far, far away, the major movie studios would aggressively bid for the rights to a best-selling book or a hit Broadway play, hauling out the ubiquitous and over-heated advertising slogan, "Now a major motion picture!," for the finished product.
But with the advent of CGI, the Marvel/D.C. Comics franchises and saturation booking, Hollywood no longer cares about the prestige of filming a play or book. Strike that. If it's a book pitched to Young Adult readers or a crime thriller, it's chances of becoming a movie are actually very good.
But Broadway plays and musicals are another matter. Quick! Name the last major movie you saw that was based on a Broadway play. Time's up! I could remember only David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole," Yasmina Reza's "Carnage" (né "God of Carnage") and Tracy Letts' "August: Osage County," and none of these is very recent. More to the point, although all three were very good, not one was much of a success on screen.
Broadway musicals have it much worse, given that Hollywood has been willfully ignoring them for several decades now. The last great run of filmed stage musicals came between 1955 and 1965. These were movies based on must-see shows that flourished in New York from the late 1940s through the 1950s, arguably the peak of the "musical comedy" form.
"The Pajama Game," "Carousel," "Damn Yankees," "The King and I," "Bells Are Ringing," "Oklahoma!," "Li'l Abner," "Flower Drum Song," "Pal Joey," "South Pacific," "Hit the Deck," "The Music Man," "Guys and Dolls," "Silk Stockings," "Gypsy," "Bye Bye Birdie,""Porgy and Bess," "Funny Face," "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," "Can-Can" and "My Fair Lady" all made it to the screen during the aforementioned ten-year span. And, of course, there were "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music." Neither one could accurately be called a "musical comedy" - both are way too serious in intent - but, in tandem with "Oklahoma!" and "My Fair Lady," they are representative of what is inarguably the richest period for stage-to-film transferals.
At one time, the "film version" of a stage musical was a validation of the show in question, much to the chagrin of Broadway types who would invariably complain about the "bastardization" of one of their own by crass Hollywood. Now they can complain - and with good reason - about the studios' utter lack of interest. In other works, with theater people, "(You're damned it you do and you're damned if you don't."
And I'm sure exacerbating matters is the fact that certain bona fide hit musicals somehow fell through the cracks, never making it to the screen and, thereby, also inciting the Broadway community. Case in point: Rodgers and Hammerstein. Yes, films of their musicals were all major releases but, hey, where are "Allegro," "Pipe Dream" and "Me and Juliet"? Seems that not all Rodgers and Hammerstein shows were worth filming.
During the period when "West Side Story," "Gypsy" and "Bye Bye Birdie" were all Broadway hits, there were titles that were equally successful, popular with both critics and theatergoers but that are now forgotten, largely because there was no drive to commit the to film. In recent years, there have been rumors of remakes of "Carousel" (with Hugh Jackman), "Gypsy" (with Barbra Streisand in charge), "My Fair Lady" (with an Emma Thompson rewrite) and even "Oliver!" But why rehash material that's been done, while worthy shows from the distant past continue to be ignored?
Like these:
"Take Me Along," produced in 1959 by David Merrick and directed by Peter Glenville, comes immediately to mind. A musical adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness" (with music and lyrics by Bob Merrill), it starred Jackie Gleason, Walter Pigeon, Eileen Herlie, Una Merkle, Robert Morse, Zeme North, Susan Lockey and Arlene Golonka. It was a monster hit in its time, along the lines of the current Bette Midler/"Hello, Dolly!" revival.
There's something of a crazy folk legend attached to the show: Broadway musicals were so hot in the late '50s that Gleason wanted to be in one - and he was perfectly cast here as Uncle Sid, an incorrigible charmer. But, once the show opened, Gleason got bored with it and started calling in sick. He also wanted to annoy the combative Merrick.
But Merrick didn't bite. He didn't care because he had apparently taken out an insurance policy, so he got paid every time Gleason didn't work. This never made any sense to me - it could have been a P.R. stunt - but it was rich fodder for the gossip columns at the time (think Dorothy Kilgallen and Walter Winchell).
Once Gleason got wind of this, presto! He was back on the job with regularity.
Bob Merrill's hummable title song was extremely popular (again, much like the song "Hello, Dolly!") but the pick of the score for me is the haunting "Staying Young" and Pigeon's soulful rendition of it. This is one show should have been a movie.It's a natural.
It should be noted here that, years before, MGM filmed its own musical version of "Ah, Wilderness" - the 1948 "Summer Holiday," directed by Rouben Mamoulian and with original songs by Harry Warren and Ralph Blane. Mickey Rooney starred in the role played in "Take Me Along" by Robert Morse, Walter Huston (in the Walter Pidgeon role) as his father and Frank Morgan as the affable drunk, Uncle Sid.
"The Most Happy Fella," a major hit in 1956, was also composer Frank Loesser's most ambitious undertaking - a three-act musical adaptation of the Sidney Howard play, "They Knew What They Wanted," about the "love affair" between a middle-aged Italian immigrant, who operates a vineyard in Napa, and a younger woman who has agreed to be his mail-order bride (even though she is eventually sexually attracted to the vineyard's young foreman).
The material is highly cinematic and screamed to be filmed.
Loesser came up with a commanding hybrid here - a musical comedy with the contours of an opera. There are about 40 songs in the show, not including the overture, the two entre'acts and a few reprises. It took four years for Loesser to complete. He not only composed all the songs but he also wrote the script, a huge undertaking which involved omitting the political, labor, and religious material originally in Howard's play. Joseph Anthony directed the production, which was so intimidating that Columbia released two original cast albums of the show's score - one a three-record set that included the entire libretto and one a single recording of selected songs.
And then there's the marvelous "Fiorello," which was staged in 1959 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for its authors - Jerome Weidman and George Abbot (book), Jerry Bock (music) and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics). It won the Pulitzer but was never filmed. It opened the same year as "Gypsy" and was just as popular - and yet it has never been filmed. There was such excitement about this show that Capitol recorded the cast album six days after "Fiorello" opened.
And yet is was never filmed.
Directed by Abbott (with choreography by Peter Gennaro), "Fiorello" introduced Tom Bosley as the legendary New York City major Fiorello H. LaGuardia, a reform Republican who challenged the Tammany Hall political machine.
The show was a personal hit for Bosley who quickly moved on to do films ("The World of Henry Orient," "Love with the Proper Stranger" and "Divorce American Style") and, of course, television ("Happy Days").
There have been occasional revivals of "Fiorello" since its Broadway opening, most notably one for the Reprise! productions in 1999 that starred Tony Danza, which had a limited run but which Danza took to the Freud Playhouse in Los Angeles for a longer engagement.
Also, it was rumored that prior to his death in 1973, singer Bobby Darin expressed a desire to produce and star in a film version of "Fiorello," that it was a dream project for him. And he would have been great in the role.
But ... it was never filmed.
There have been other Broadway musicals that, although not filmed, came very close to being movies. Producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were once so committed to filming the musical of "Zorba," with the star of the original non-musical film, Anthony Quinn, that they took out one of those "production about to begin" ads in Variety. John Travolta was listed in the ad as Quinn's co-star, presumably in the role Alan Bates played on film.
The idea ended with that Variety ad.
And getting back to David Merrick, in the early 1970s, he decided to expand his horizons and produce movies. His first was Sidney Lumet's 1972 film version of the Robert Marasco play "Child's Play" that he had produced on Broadway two years earlier. The stars were James Mason, Robert Preston and Beau Bridges (in the roles created on stage by Fritz Weaver, Pat Hingle and Ken Howard). His next planned film was of another one of his stage hits, the Burt Bacarach-Hal David musical, "Promises, Promises," with a Neil Simon script based on Billy Wilder's "The Apartment."
Merrick wanted a potentially well-cast Bridges for the role played on stage by Jerry Orbach (by way of Jack Lemmon), but decided to "temporarily" place "Promises, Promises" aside for something way bigger - the Robert Redford-Mia Farrow version of "The Great Gatsby." Merrick produced two more films, both with Burt Reynolds" - "Semi-Tough" and "Rough Cut" - but never returned to "Promises, Promises" and Beau Bridges.
Another musical with a Neil Simon script, "They're Playing Our Song" (with music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Carol Bayer Sager), was also momentarily considered for the movies - with Gilda Radner and Bill Murray (more good casting) in the roles played by Lucie Arnaz and Robert Klein.
Again, it never happened.
Much more compelling was Twentieth Century-Fox's plans to film Stephen Sondheim's iconic "Follies" with a dream cast - Doris Day in the role created on stage by Alexis Smith and Debbie Reynolds in the Dorothy Collins part. The idea was referenced in a gossip column - where else? - but nothing came of it. Too good to be true. Another missed opportunity, an unfortunate one.
Finally, there's the case of "She Loves Me," another Harnick-Bock musical that opened on Broadway in 1963 as an era was coming to a close. This irrisistible musical confection was one of many adaptations of a Hungarian play titled "Parfumerie," by Miklós László. It was predated by the films "The Shop Around the Corner" (a straight comedy by Ernst Lubitsch) and "In the Good Old Summer Time" (also a musical by Robert Z. Leonard) and succeeded by "You've Got Mail" (another straight comedy by Nora Ephron).
"She Loves Me" was directed by Harold Prince and choreographed by Carol Haney and its cast was led by Barbara Cook (a few years after she played Marian the Librarian in "The Music Man") and Daniel Massey, son of Raymond and anticipated at the time as the next big thing (given his role as Noël Coward opposite Julie Andrews as Gertrude Lawrence in "Star!").
And in support ... Barbara Baxley and Jack Cassidy.
Enter Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews who wanted to film "She Loves Me" in the early 1980s, after having scored a big success with "Victor/Victoria."
Andrews was perfect for the Cook role and the plan was for it to be an MGM film, which makes sense as Metro always fancied itself the movie-musical factory and that's where both "The Shop Around the Corner" and "In the Good Old Summer Time" were made.
Again, never made.
But in 2016, the Roundabout Theater Company staged an excellent revival starring the fabulous Laura Benanti and which, according to Wikipedia, was presented via BroadwayHD live stream on June 30, 2016, marking the first time a Broadway show had ever been broadcast live. The same performance was screened in movie theaters on December 1, 2016.
Notes in Passing: Recently, there have been shows that finally made it to the screen after a long delay (and long after fans had given up hope) - "Chicago," "The Phantom of the Opera," "Dreamgirls," "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," "Into the Woods" and "Les Misérables." And there are four that became movies in a more timely manner - "Mamma Mia!," "Hairspray," "The Producers" and "Rent," although the latter two tanked on screen big time which seems odd, given that each had a huge, loyal Broadway fan base. Which didn't turn out for either one. Go figure.
In his posted response, Kevin Deany reminded me of the stage musical version of "La Cage aux Folles," jogging my memory. The late Allan Carr ("Grease") had wanted to film it with Jack Lemmon in the role of Albin and Frank Sinatra as Renato. When Frank decided to stay retired from acting, Tony Curtis's name was mentioned as a possible co-star with Lemmon.
Another missed opportunity.
As for the future of stage musicals on screen, Universal already owns the rights to the popular "Wicked" and Trey Parker and Matt Stone plan to produce their own film version of their hit musical, "The Book of Mormon."
And is there any doubt that Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton" will be filmed?
~images / from top~
~Poster art for "Mister Roberts" and "Gypsy"
~Poster art for "Take Me Along" and Jackie Gleason in a scene from the production
~Poster art for "The Most Happy Fella" and Robert Weede and Jo Sullivan in a scene from the productiion
~Poster art for "Fiorello" and Tom Bosley as the title character, and Tony Danza, and Bobby Darin, both with "Fiorello" connections
~Beau Bridges, on the set of "The Landlord," was considered for a planned film version of "Promises, Promises"
~Doris Day and Debbie Reynolds at a studio event in the 1950s; they were once considered for a film version of "Follies"
~Time magazine cover of Alexis Smith in "Follies"
~Barbara Cook and Daniel Massey in a scene from the original production of "She Loves Me" and the cover art for the cast album of the show
~Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews; they never got to film "She Loves Me"
~Laura Benanti in the 2016 revival of "She Loves Me"
~photography: Sara Krulwich / The New York Times 2016 ©
indelible moment: DaCosta's "Auntie Mame"
That incorrigible Liberal, Mame Dennis, trapped by arch Conservatives (and close talkers) Doris and Claude Upson who threaten to turn her beloved nephew Patrick into "an Aryan from Darien"
For my money, there are any number of memorable moments in Morton DaCosta's hugely entertaining film of his Broadway hit, "Auntie Mame."
Armed with a terrific script by Betty Comdon and Adolph Green (working from the stage original by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee) and abetted by his Broadway star, Rosalind Russell (plus the divine Coral Browne), DaCosta breezily swept his audience from one richly comic scene to another. There are umpteen of them in "Auntie Mame" and singling out one is near-impossible, but my hands-down favorite arrives late in the film when Russell's Mame Dennis pays a visit to her nephew Patrick's future in-laws, Claude and Doris Upson, at their Colonial-style manse in Mountebank (their signpost reads "Upson Downs"), described as being "right above Darien and completely exclusive and restricted."
"Exclusive to what and restricted to whom?," asks an annoyed, impatient Mame. Mame Dennis, you see, has zero tolerance of intolerance.
Claude and Doris, played to the hilt by Willard Waterman and Lee Patrick, are Conservative to the max, terribly unctuous and given to talking up close. Mame, on the other hand, is a Liberal and decidedly a provocateur.
The Upsons' flagstone patio is decorated to reflect "authentic Colonial Americana" (Doris' words), replete with assorted chachkes and a spinning wheel. (Robert Hanley and George James Hopkins collaborated on the witty set decorations for the film.) While plying Mame with "daiquiris made with honey" and canapes made of "strained tuna fish, clam juice and peanut butter" (a recipe from the Ladies Home Journal), the Upsons announce that they plan for Mame to go in with them and buy the adjoining property as a wedding gift for Patrick and their daughter, Gloria.
The phonograph in the background is playing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," as Claude shakes his daiquiri mixture in time to the rhythm.
"But we have to move fast," Claude intones. "Some people are bidding on that property. The wrong kind. Fella named Epstein. A-bra-ham Epstein."
"This section is restricted only to our property line," Doris adds. "So we feel we have an obligation to make sure that - well - you know."
Exactly how Mame upends the Upsons' plans provides the film with the perfect punchline/comeuppance - and me with an indelible moment.
Made more than five decades ago, DaCosta's "Auntie Mame" remains a bracing, ever-modern cheer for the left that the right can enjoy.
~Lee Patrick, Rosalind Russell and Willard Waterman in a scene from "Auntie Mame"
~Warner Bros. 1958 ©
marilyn and the bullies
In my hazy dreams, I see Marilyn Monroe playing Mrs. Robinson to Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin Braddock.
That's if she had survived, of course.
Tomorrow - August 5th - is the anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death. She passed 55 years ago when she was 36. Fifty-five years. Unbelievable.
When I contemplate people who are no longer with us, I generally think of all the events in life that they've missed. For example, critic Pauline Kael. She died in 2001. I wonder what she'd make of the movies since then.
But in Marilyn's case, I think of what we've missed. I fantasize about all the possible roles she could have played if she survived into middle and old age - and the new breed of filmmakers with whom she might have worked. She would be 91, but a couple decades earlier, I'd like to think that such directors as Robert Altman, Bob Fosse, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen would have all wanted to work with her, even in spite of her well-publicized issues and insecurities.
Mike Nichols originally wanted a veteran movie star for the role of Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate" (1967) and his first choice was Doris Day. A missed opportunity when Day turned down the role. In my dreams, I see Monroe seducing Dustin Hoffman in that film. And a year earlier, and deglamorized for the occasion, she would have made a compelling Martha in Nichols' adaptation of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
Other characters and movies cloud my dreams:
Marilyn in the Ellen Burstyn role in Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show."
Marilyn working with John Cassavetes on "A Woman Under the Influence."
Marilyn as Lady Pearl in Altman's "Nashville."
Marilyn singing Sondheim in Harold Prince's "A Little Night Music."
Marilyn making her foreign-film debut in François Truffaut's "The Last Metro."
And, finally winding down before retirement, Marilyn in the Jessica Tandy roles in "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Fried Green Tomatoes."
One more: Think of her trademark whisper if Steven Spielberg used her as the voice of the title alien in "E.T. - The Extra-Terrestial." I could well imagine that. Hey, a guy can dream.
My fascination with Monroe clearly dates back to my childhood. As a kid, she was my first movie-star crush. I was not alone. I remember other kids in my neighborhood - little girls, as well as little boys - who were crazy for her. My theory is that we all sensed a kindred spirit in her.
While Monroe was viewed by adults largely as a brazen sex symbol, children responded, perhaps only subconsciously, to her undeniable child-like quality. True, she was a grown woman, hugely attractive to men, but we all sensed that, somehow, she was also one of us, another kid.
And, as her career progressed, there was something else that made her affecting. It was the irony that she remained an underdog even as her importance soared. She had become a major star but that didn't stop her studio from exploiting and bullying her. Twentieth Century-Fox, the studio that groomed her for stardom, clearly underestimated Monroe. She was no longer the silly dumb blonde who Darryl F. Zanuck had signed. Frankly, she probably never was. She had opinions. And that was unacceptable.
Of all the roles that Monroe played, I've a hunch that the character closest to her own personality is Vicky Parker from Walter Lang's "There's No Business Like Show Business" (1954). Vicky, whose voluptuous good looks and overall blondness camouflage her drive and ambition, has pretensions of being a major star - and nothing and nobody will stop her. She goes after what she wants and becomes a star - and she makes enemies.
There was no way that Monroe would have had the clout to move on to such films as Joshua Logan's "Bus Stop" (1956) and John Huston's "The Misfits" (1961) if she continued to "know her place."
She took a break from Fox and all the rampant bullying and went East to New York, where she fell in with ... more parasitic bullies. While they may have considered themselves less vulgar than Hollywood denizens, the New York elite who befriended Marilyn - her Actor's Studio mentor Lee Strasberg, her personal acting coach Paula Strasberg, photographer Milton Green and husband Arthur Miller - could also be called out for exploiting her (but in an altogether different way).
The bullying hasn't ceased. Even 55 years after her death, Marilyn Monroe remains the subject of adulation, as well as exploitation and criticism.
For TCM's recent screening of Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot" (1959) - the July 29th edition of The Essentials - host Alec Baldwin and his guest Tina Fey engaged in the usual Monroe negativity. A huge disappointment.
Baldwin commented (rather gratuitously) that he never found Monroe attractive. I smiled and thought to myself, "I think the feeling would be mutual, Alec." Fey was a tad more generous, I guess, when she commented that, over the years, she's "warmed up" to Monroe.
When they inevitably brought up Monroe's reputation for being disruptive and troublesome on movie sets, my jaw dropped. Really? I squirmed for Alec Baldwin, the last person who should toss a stone in that direction.
OK, full disclosure: Baldwin is a terrific, versatile actor and Fey has a brilliant mind and winning personality. I like and admire them both. But in another 55 years, as the Monroe obsession continues, they'll be footnotes.
Note in Passing: "Sleep well, sweet girl. You have left more of a legacy than most, if all you ever left was a handful of photographs of one of the loveliest women who ever walked the earth."
-columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, August 1962.
This group shot of young starlets new to Hollywood, taken for an issue of Life magazine, illustrates what made Monroe so special. In a picture involving seven other actress, the camera and our eyes are drawn instinctively to her.
~additional images~
(middle)
~Marilyn as the not-so-dumb Lorelie Lee in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"
~Twentieth Century-Fox 1953 ©
~Marilyn reading!
~photography: Bert Stern 1954 ©
~Marilyn with co-stars Mitzi Gaynor (left) and Ethel Merman on the set of "There's No Business Like Show Business"
adventures in movie reviewing: Schatzberg's "The ...
cinema obscura: Costa-Gavras' "Betrayed" (1988), u...


Curse The Son's Isolator starts off with something really special. The five-minute title track that opens the album feels like a masterclass in subtle, menacing doom that evokes the old masters without mimicking them. The jazzy, classy first half-minute of the song undeniably invokes the first few minutes of Electric Wizard's "Funeralopolis" but is done by Curse The Son with a degree of tact and subtlety that's never been one among Jus Oborn's many talents.
"Callous Unemotional Traits" stomps through with a bluesy, desert-baked riff and world-worn vocals that ooze a rusting, harsh old-world American vibe that can be damn hard to fake. The Connecticut trio trade in the sort of riffs whose sheer weight and force can only be rivaled by elephants and jumbo jets; and the group excel at juxtaposing these dirty, furious riffs with melodic, howled vocals that imbue the band with a certain bluesy flavour I've not heard in a full-on doom band for a long time.
Largely the group eschews the more lysergic tendencies of the stoner doom style they operate in for a straighter approach; but the phased guitars and ominous atmosphere of "Hull Crush Depth" throw the group headlong down a very strange rabbit hole. An excellent rhythm section holds down the whole thing throughout and, often, the music is stripped right back to the bare bones of drums and bass. An excellent drum solo in "Sleepwalker Wakes" highlights the quality of the stick work on this album.
Isolator is an excellent album and one that ticks all the applicable boxes for the style. Curse The Son play their brand of idiosyncratically American stoner doom with precision and also real style. Vocal harmonies and a real sense of vivid dynamics throughout the album suggest a band that places far more value in song-craft and originality than many of their peers, and it has paid off with Isolator.


text:
Defund the Louisville Police by $12 Million
The police won't have to pay a dime of the historic settlement to Breonna Taylor's family.
By Aviva Shen
Sept 16, 20203:41 PM
Tamika Palmer, mother of Breonna Taylor, looks over a memorial dedicated to her daughter. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
After months of protests and calls for justice, Breonna Taylor's family will receive the largest settlement for police misconduct ever paid by the city of Louisville, Kentucky. The city announced Tuesday that it will settle the family's wrongful death lawsuit for $12 million and also commit to instituting several reforms to policing practices.
"I hope this agreement is the next step in bringing a more just Louisville," said Jefferson County Attorney Mike O'Connell. "A more just Louisville is the medicine we need to heal."
Taylor's family will receive $12 million, yes. But the Louisville police officers who busted into the 26-year-old ER technician's house and killed her will not pay a penny. Nor will the police department that sent them. The money for the settlement is coming, as these things always do, from taxpayers. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, $5 million is coming from the city's risk management fund, while the rest will be paid via the city's self-insurance fund.
The settlement comes a couple months after the police department successfully fended off demands for its defunding. In June, Louisville's metro government actually increased the police budget from $189.8 million to $190.5 million. Some of that money will be used to recruit a more diverse force, implement additional training, and explore co-responder models to bring trained behavioral health specialists on calls with police officers. They have also allocated funding for a civilian review board to oversee the police and increased money for youth programs and affordable housing. Still, 49 percent of the city's entire budget is devoted to police and corrections, according to BLM Louisville.
Taylor's settlement may be the largest, but it is far from the only payout the city is making this year on behalf of police officers. Louisville is still facing a pile of lawsuits over a scandal where officers sexually abused teenage boys through a mentorship program for years. Two former officers implicated in that abuse pleaded guilty and are now in prison. The city is still picking up the tab for them.
It matters that the bill for brutality falls on taxpayers. These taxpayers include the very communities who endure constant harassment and abuse from the police. Part of the point of a civil rights lawsuit is to deter future violations—but that doesn't work when the agency that keeps churning out violations is completely insulated from the consequences. Many have pointed out this accountability problem with qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that makes it much harder to sue officers for constitutional rights violations. But even when lawsuits do manage to clear that hurdle, the wrongdoers are almost always exempt from having to actually pay for what they've done.
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Individual police officers almost never contribute their own money to city settlements with their victims, UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz found in a 2013 analysis of data from 44 of the nation's largest police departments and 37 midsize departments. Even when a court requires them to pay punitive damages, which is a doctrine specifically meant to punish abusive cops if they acted with "reckless or callous indifference," the government tends to pay for them. Schwartz has noted that it's unlikely officers would be able to afford multimillion-dollar payments themselves, so forcing them to pay the entire amount could shortchange the families of their victims. But police departments are good for the money. Police budgets have steadily ballooned even while the agencies are racking up millions of dollars a year in civil rights complaints that are then passed off to taxpayers.
With municipal budgets strained by the pandemic, it will become harder for city services to absorb the costs of these enormous settlements. Some cities have already started borrowing money to pay for police brutality, as CityLab's Brentin Mock reported. But there's one source of funding that's thus far gone untapped. What if city governments finally got sick of paying millions both to the police and the people they've abused? Some commentators have claimed "Defund the Police" is a confusing or misleading slogan. Here's a clearer option: "Defund the Police by the Amount They Owe Their Victims."
Police Shootings

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
Interview with TCM 3D director
Check out the link below for an interview with the new TCM 3D director. It actually got me a little more excited to see it. I like the bit where he referenced Leatherface's leg wound from the original. There has been a lot of negative buzz about this one from the typical lot of internet "smartest man in the room" fanboy whiners chumps, but I'm not letting that stop my hype for a fraction of a second. I cannot wait for next Friday to roll around, hopefully I can get a small group of ghouls to join me for some 3D chainsaw roaring action.
http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2012/12/27/director-john-luessenhop-carves-out-niche-in-texas-chainsaw-3d/
I love that poster :).
The Burning on blu ray - Scream Factory!
Some news on The Burning blu ray, looks like Scream Factory is set to produce it. Hopefully it will be of the same quality as their other fine releases with some nice bonus material and art. No distribution date, but I'm excited none the less.
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/3645/burning.html
Leslie Vernon toy - Behind the Mask
I loved Behind the Mask, and wish the best to their "jumpstart" campaign for the sequel. It boggles my mind to think how much other crap gets out there yet a sequel to a cult hit like Behind the Mask can't find financial support.
Check out the new Leslie Vernon toy, just in time for Christmas:
http://www.decontefiguresandcollectibles.com/behind-the-mask.html
Cropsy Christmas Cookie
Hey ghouls, hope all you sewer sucking urchins are having a splendid holiday season. I got a Cropsy Christmas cookie the other day from a great fan which tickled me silly, and like a good kindergardener I thought I'd share before devouring it post haste.
Upcoming movie reviews should include the rare 80's Christmas slasher gem Blood Beat! I just got the VHS rip in the mail and cannot wait to unwrap it for Chrismas time!
If anybody was following my Facebook page I didn't suddenly decide to "unfriend" or block you, just thought I would take it off line for a bit until I have more material for the fanzine. That's right, next year another fantabulous fanzine will hit the rack at your local curios shop. This year was kind of hectic with the crypt move and other things so it took a brief hiatus, but by the next fall season expect another issue of the slasher fanzine that refuses to die, where the bodycount will never end, tentavely titled CROPSY'S CRYPT: CROPSY LIVES!
The Collection - first impression review
The Collection is a mad dash of gore, brutality, and grotesquery; a mish mash of Saw-esque traps and stalk and slash mayhem through a hotel funhouse of horror. It's a movie that panders to the sensibilities of gorehounds and flesh freaks while playing ode to the slasher sequels of yesteryear. Like the slasher sequels that dominated the VHS shelves during the 80's there is a sense of one up-ism with The Collection, where everything seems badder and radder than its predecessor. The bodycount is bigger, the traps are bolder, and the "Collector" is as fiendish as ever, so shut down that bothersome cerebral cortex for a while, plop a cold beer in your hand, and get ready for some finger licking fun with The Collection.
The movie kicks off with some quick news footage detailing how the Collector is terrorizing the city, kidnapping unsuspecting citizens without any pattern or limits to his monstrous fetish, causing city wide panic and an irrational fear of traveling luggage. The Collector is apparently on his "A" game, so he decides to stage a night club attack with a barrage of exotic traps including running a hay bailer over a crowd of people and crushing a cage full of sappy party people with an industrial press. This first blood bath really sets the stage for the kind of crazy carnage to come. It's silly and over -the-top but it's just what the ghouls who are watching this movie are looking for. The Collection isn't trying to make a point out of anything but entertaining the viewer with a sick, brutal ass horror film and it makes its intentions known at nearly every turn. From decapitated dogs, to grotesquely sown together bodies this movie really tries playing every card it has to get the gag reflex. Heck it even has zombies in it.
The anti-hero from the original, Arkin, is back and this one really solidifies his anti-hero, tough as nails final guy status. I really enjoyed the way they built up the rivalry between him and the "Collector" and the exponentially growing animosity they share for each other all the way to the end. It isn't long before Arkin is back on the scene licking his wounds from the first movie in a hospital bed before he has mercenaries holding guns to his head, forcing him to lead the mutts to the Collector's hideout in search of a missing rich person's daughter. The Collection really isn't concerned with table setting as it is with getting to the gore, bless its black heart. Arkin leads them to the out skirts of town explaining how he ingeniously tracked the Collector's movements after getting captured by marking his arm for distance and the turns. The hotel is aptly named "Hotel Argento", a name horror affectiandos will recognize immediately, and like the famous director's giallo films the hotel is lit with a combination of atmospheric green, red, and black lights, giving it a funhouse kind of feel where some morbid mechanization lurks around every corner.
Most of the film takes place inside the abandoned hotel "where even rats avoid shitting", with the cast evading one trap after another while trying to locate their missing party girl. Traps rank from terrifying to preposterous to out right impossible, but that doesn't really hurt the proceedings as much as it is a reminder to relax, tap a sip, and not over think the blood bath stoopid. The kills come quickly; the film leaves little room for breather from one set piece to the next, and the fate of many of the "collected" are revealed. It appears that the Collector fancies himself as a bit of an artist, creating macabre displays of distorted flesh by sewing dead body parts back together and displaying them from behind a pristine glass case, and it's apparent he's been running this operation for a while. He must use a lot of Windex because those aquariums full of body parts are crystal clear, and dare I say kind of beautiful in a twisted way. While they do reveal a little more about the Collector during this round the film makers are careful to maintain an aura of mystery about him, which is great. Deconstructing slasher villains is so faux pas.
The performances are wide ranging and kind of what you'd expect from a high polished b-movie. Motivations are sometimes a bit sticky, and the characters caught in the Collector's maze make some moronic moves, but again that's par for the course. If these mercenaries were really that smart they wouldn't have been so eager to run into the Collector's hotel of horror with little to no plan other than "kick ass, find the girl". This crew was born to be meat for the proverbial grinder. There was one plot hole I noted, where Atkin's wife transforms from the frigid soul sucking hag from the first movie to a caring, loving spouse. They never mention the loan sharks coming after her which seemed to be the main plot driver of the original, and Atkin's daughter is completely absent, but that really has little impact on the plot in this one.
I've heard that if this one does well in the theater there is a strong possibility for a third installment, which I would absolutely love to see. The ending could wrap things up nicely if they stop here, but they left themselves enough wiggle room to make a few more sequels as well. I would have to say that this is one of the best slashers I have ever seen in the theater, demonstrating a tenacity to entertain and cater to my gorehound tastes with a pinch of original ideas and concepts that seem to work well with this franchise builder, all good stuff. So I implore for everybody to check this one out, especially if you liked the original. I don't think you'll be disappointed, and hopefully someday I will be sitting here reviewing "The Collected" in the near future.
Silent Night, Deadly Night review
After watching Silent Night, Deadly Night last Friday for the fiftieth time I've come once again to the conclusion that it is a film that exists in a bizarre parallel dimension somewhat like our own, but with enough minute differences to know that it just isn't Kansas anymore Toto. People sing Christmas tunes that I've never heard before, or repeat weird Christmas rituals I've never heard of or seen. It's the kind of place where functional bows and arrows are sold in toy stores and people feel perfectly comfortable leaving their kids alone with catatonic psychopaths. In light of these facts I can't help but give the movie a little leeway; after all, tis the season and all that muck.
At the core of the story is the tragic tale of Billy, who witnesses his mother and father brutally murdered by a man dressed as Santa on Christmas Eve, or maybe it was the real Santa, the movie really isn't clear about that and in this dimension, who knows. His crazy ass grandpa actually predicts the event giving Billy adequate enough proof that Santa is really an evil bastard that punishes naughty people on Christmas. To the surprise of nobody but a few bitter nuns Billy develops a pathological fear of Santa Claus. On top of being orphaned by Saint Nick poor Billy suffers from mental and psychological abuse at the orphanage he is assigned to by the state under the harsh rule of Mother Superior. This will not end well for Billy.
Speaking of Mother Superior, what a bull faced cunt of a woman. I reserve the "c" word for special cases because I know how upset it makes people, but if anyone deserved the label Mother Superior "pain in the ass" is it. The way she deals with children is the way my old drill instructor dealt with new trainees, except maybe he was a little less abrasive. Mother Superior is the villain of the movie, and for all her self righteous bullshit and callous treatment of the orphans she never gets her just reward. That really breaks my heart every time I watch this movie. Spoiler alert folks, Billy does not get his revenge.
Billy gets a job at the local toy store where he ends up working for an alcoholic boss and jerky supervisor, but everything is as copasetic as it can be until the Christmas season. And because pretty much everybody is an asshole to some degree in this world Billy soon gets roped in to being the store Santa Claus. I didn't think this was so strange or mean to Billy until the manager actually reveals that he knew about the nature of his parent's deaths. So you knew that his parents were slayed by a man dressed as Santa but you still make him dress as Santa for your crummy store? These people are just asking for it, and by "it" I mean a hammer to the forehead, or maybe just getting strangled to death with Christmas lights, or disemboweled with a utility knife, or even shot through the chest with an arrow.
After heaps of tragedy is reigned down on Billy's head like visions of sugar plumbs, he totally snaps and starts killing everybody for being "naughty", although his rules for naughtiness are rather loose and free wheeling. He kills one guy for looking for his girlfriend. He impales some broad on antlers for answering her door without a top on, not to mention a cop and pretty much anyone that crosses his path that isn't a child. Even one snowman totally minding his own snowman business gets hastily decapitated. Billy really goes berserk.
In the end Billy doesn't quite get the revenge he was looking for, but what a ride. Silent Night, Deadly Night might have some serious anti-religious message buried under all the deep fried cheese but I highly doubt it. If anything it was just table setting the tragedy of a boy who hated Christmas, or really I think Christmas hated him. Recently I discovered that there is a kind of anti-Santa Claus type figure recognized by many religions and Christmas traditions around the world, a Santa Claus that punishes naughty children, but I think that whatever name they gave that deity should be swapped for Billy Chapman. He's really what I think of when I think of Christmas punishment….it is good…it is necessary….so maybe Billy was really on to something the rest of Western civilization was missing out on. Billy really was on the cutting edge of Christmas tradition, haha, get it, cutting edge, he's a slasher, hehehe, hahaha, and ho,ho,ho? Anyways Silent Night, Deadly Night should be a staple in your holiday movie diet, more so than that lame ass Charlie Brown, he's naaaauughtyyyy…..
This vet will be staying home, watching The Prowler.
Silent Night, Deadly Night - remake trailer
Posted by CROPSY'S CRYPTKEEPER at 2:22 PM 0 comments
Murderous musing - Black Christmas
Black Christmas is my go-to movie for the holiday feel good hibbidy jibbidies and holy jollies. I love Black Christmas, from the set design to the characters, to the 70's fashion, to Barb talking about turtles screwing; it never fails to capture my attention and imagination. It's a shame that so many people forget about Bob Clark's black holiday flick in favor of Christmas Story, but if I had my way it'd play 24 hours a day like how they play Christmas Story on cable around that most wonderful time of the year. Black Christmas is up there in the higher echelons of slasherdom with the likes of Psycho and Halloween….trooth! So pull up a warm seat next to the funeral pyre as we talk about Black Christmas for a bit.
Black Christmas is the anti-Christmas flick. At its core it's a film about communication deteriorating and relationships breaking down to the point of being irreparable. Right from the beginning we get Barb talking to her mother on the phone and having a difficult time with it. She asks the operator to clear up the signal, then when she can hear clearly she's shocked and disappointed to learn her mother has canceled Christmas plans with her to spend it with her boyfriend. Already we get the sense that this is not going to be a warm and cuddly family Christmas flick; immediately after we get the first phone call from "Billy", the film's main antagonist, who screams obscenities and gibberish at the woman of the sorority house, again calling attention to the idea of communication breaking down. Throughout the movie the motif of mixed communication and unraveling relationships is revisited time and time again, most notably with the main protagonist Jess and her boyfriend Peter. During the film they quibble back and forth about Jess's decision to abort their unplanned pregnancy. As they argue they drive each other further away from one another, to the point where Jess no longer trusts Peter and suspects him as the murderer of her sorority sisters late in the film.
The crux of their argument, about whether or not Jess should get an abortion, represents a different and rather ironic motif to a film about Christmas. If Christmas is the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus, then Black Christmas is an examination of the emotional and psychological fallout from the death of a child on Christmas. Jess's assertive decision to abort the baby without consulting her boyfriend Peter is something that unhinges him and deeply distresses him throughout the movie, leading him to act in a suspicious manner. If the birth of Jesus brings families together, then the death of a baby during the Christmas holiday does the exact opposite, and pushes families apart to the point of not trusting each other, and even suspecting each other of murder. Outside of the sorority house a little girl is found murdered in the snow, launching a massive man hunt for the killer. We have another example of how a child's death during the Christmas season disrupts the entire community, causing them to look into their own homes or neighbor's homes for the killer. The ironic bit here is that while the manhunt proceeds outside of the sorority, the real danger lurks inside with the girls.
All of these aspects of the film, the deteriorating relationships, abortion during the holiday season, the death of a child, mass miscommunication; all stand in profane juxtaposition to the sanctity of Christmas. After the first kill of the film there is a shot of the victim's plastic smothered face that slowly dissolves to reveal a giant church, the background music is a choir singing Christmas tunes. Later Christmas carolers sing to a house while a woman inside is stabbed to death with an ornament, setting graphic violence along the back drop of Christmas cheer. Clearly underlining the movie is an attack on Christian iconography and the sanctity of the holiday of Christmas.
And we can't get through any honest evaluation of Black Christmas without identifying the fact that most; if not all the victims in the film are sexually active, independent, assertive women who do things that displease their male counterparts. The first victim's father seems disappointed in her and how she has been spending her time in college, Barb earns his displeasure by being intoxicated, and Jess is the focus of Peter's rage over the abortion issue. Even the nerdy girl gets on her boyfriend's bad side by agreeing to go on a ski trip with her friends instead of spending the winter break with him. Based on these facts it could be surmised that one motif of Black Christmas is really male aggression towards female liberation.
In the end Black Christmas boils down to a claustrophobic tale of sorority sisters being stalked and taunted by an unseen killer. Even without considering everything else in the story, the film works as a taut thriller and template maker for stalk and slash films for years to come. "Billy" may not be as enigmatic of a slasher as Freddy or Jason, but for my dough the idea of Billy is much more terrifying than what Jason and Freddy have been lampooned to be through the years. Billy still remains the seminal unknown killer, the crazy at the other end of the phone, the home intruder that is never discovered, the unseen horror in the attic, and that idea fills me with oodles of Black Christmas cheer.
Murderous musings about Maniac (1980)
Maniac is a gritty, surreal, and often disturbing plunge into the mind of a serial killer loose on the streets of NYC; a modernized Jack the Ripper holding the city in a grip of terror. I'm sure if you roamed into Cropsy's Crypt you at least have a passing familiarity with the film, so I was just going to muse over the movie in kind of a stream of conscious kind of way, as if we were discussing this like beer buddies while digging a fresh grave. The crypt is rather informal like that.
Frank Zito, the movies protagonist and maniac, wears a casual demeanor, a disguise for the formality of every day living, but underneath the façade lays a hurt child perpetually suffering from the mental anguish of abuse at the hands of his mother. Although Frank's mother is deceased he still hears her voice and bears the mental issues associated with traumatic child abuse. If we were to compare Norman Bates and Frank Zito, I'd say Frank was certainly the spiritual successor of Norman with more severe and apparent abuse issues living in a more urban setting. Norman developed a loving attachment to his mother tempered by her strict authoritarian rule of the house hold, where as with Frank Zito I get the sense that his mother was more active in her role of abusing the boy during his youth, something that stiffened his natural mental progression into adulthood (reflected by the moments in the film where he is playing with a toy gun, or hugging a teddy bear). Both Norman and Frank have a child like quality to them, where they act boyish, and are still under the specter wing of their respected mothers long after they've departed this world. I feel like these similarities are something that goes beyond mere coincidence; as if the director of Maniac, William Lustig, wanted to bring the story of Psycho into a modern setting, with a more severe psychosis. And of course both Norman and Frank owe some of their personality quirks to infamous mama's boy Ed Gein.
However I believe that Frank's psychosis slightly differs from Norman's in some discrete ways. The biggest difference between Frank and Norman, from what I can ascertain from Maniac, is that Frank wants to own women and possess them so they can never leave him. Norman merely wanted to be as close to his mother as possible, or rather, become so enraptured with the thought of his mother that her spirit possesses him. Frank and Norman both suffer separation anxiety, they have a fear of people leaving them, but in Norman's case it is much more fixated on his mother. When he kills it is because he perceives his mother to be jealous of the would-be victim; thus the murder is an act of removing temptation from Norman. However with Frank he never lets his mother's personality possess him in the way Norman lets his mother's persona possess him. She's always nipping at the fringes of his conscious mind, where he can have conversations with himself as if it were his mother speaking directly to him, but Frank never switches roles between mother and son and so forth. Frank clearly knows his mother is dead (as demonstrated by him inviting a date to her grave to pay respects), where Norman doesn't seem to be aware of his own mother's passing. This also explains why Norman does not feel alone in his hotel, because he believes he always has the company of his mother. Frank's life however is dominated by loneliness. To combat these feelings of solitude Frank seeks to possess and surround himself with beautiful women, as if to fill the void in his life left by his mother's passing. And because his mother was so domineering and oppressive he wishes to seek out women that he can dominate and control; thus fabricating the illusion that his mannequins are in fact real women and the scalps that he extracts from his victims carries their spirits, endowing his plastic people with the personality of the recently deceased. In this way he also reduces women to being mere objects, like dolls.
Unlike Norman, Frank often uses his victims to redirect the anger and hatred he felt for his biological mother. Frank has a love/hate relationship with his mother, where he seems to have loved and cherished her memory but hated her gender and loathed her profession as a hooker. Norman seemed to fear women as being evil, but Frank outright hates all women and would like to see them possessed or utterly destroyed. Frank's approach to women is much more volatile than Norman's in this regard.
I also believe Frank viewed killing as more of an art form. Norman was instantly ashamed of his act of murder, covering it up as quickly as possible, carefully cleaning the shower immediately after that famous scene. Some of that regret exists with Frank, where he bemoans his inability to control his murderous impulse, as if he was burdened with this horrible task of which he has no escape from, but Frank also relishes the "art" he makes out of his victims. He seems to hate that his impulse is to kill, often apologizing to his victims moments after life has left them, but is proud of his gallery of the macabre in his cramped NYC apartment, which seems to be his only source of joy in the film outside of dating the photographer. His appreciation and attitude towards art gives me the sense that Frank views himself as a climbing socialite and struggling artist. Later in Maniac when he begins to fall in with the artsy fartsy crowd I can't help but amuse myself with the irony of this serial killer talking about his approach to art to people who have no clue about the real "art" Frank is creating, but it's obvious that he takes himself very seriously in this respect.
The best moments in the movie for me aren't the head explosions or graphic violence, it's whenever Frank is dealing with normal people or portraying himself as a n art connoisseur interested with high fashion and hip pop culture. The irony cuts deep to the bone and its fun seeing Frank acting all smooth, and even a bit goofy, when we know he's absolutely out of his banana tree.
The ending of the movie is oft criticized for the way the police detectives simply leave the apartment with Frank's body laying in a bloody heap on his bed, but I think it's another hallucinatory illusion of Frank, much like the mannequins that come alive to extract revenge on him. I believe the entire end sequence is Frank shedding whatever sanity he had left, an act resulting in his surreal fantasy and cold reality colliding together and coalescing to the point that neither is distinguishable from the other for Frank or the viewer. The end is nonsensical, but it was meant to be as loony as Frank's own outlook on the nature of reality, so people shouldn't read much into why the detectives would walk out on Frank without checking his pulse or anything and just scratch it up to one more chance for a jump scare.
New Maniac trailer/poster
The new Aja produced Maniac flick actually looks slick, sick, and disturbing to the hilt, which is of course what we like here at the crypt of the neverending body count. I enjoyed P2 and found it sufficiently suspenseful and engaging, this looks like the director really stepped up his game from there for the new Maniac. I love the old one; certainly one of the most insane and disturbing movies ever committed to celluloid , and this new one looks like it's going for that same gusto.
Black Christmas - from Fright-Rags
Fright-Rags has pretty much dominated my t-shirt selection for the better part of a few years now, leaving my wallet cobwebbed, cold, and lifeless, and I couldn't thank them more. Check out their new Black X-Mas shirt, one of the best artistic representations of the immortal Black Christmas I've ever oggled. I hope someone has one of these under the tree for me this Santa slay day:
Fright-Rags Black Christmas tease
And in unrelated news I hope everyone had or is having a scary Hallow's Eve! With the crypt move complete I am happy to say that this year should see another release of Cropsy's Crypt fanzine with all new articles and shitty art by yours truly. Hopefully I can stuff enough slasher goodness into this next jam to sate all your annual ghoulish desires. Until next time...stay scared!
Zero more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween....consider me a Season of the Witch fan. More coverage and musings about this bastard child of the Halloween franchise to come...
Mondo Halloween posters
Michael Myers learns to drive...
The Burning 2?
GHOSTKEEPER
High in the snow capped mountains of the Canadian wilderness lives an old Indian legend frozen in time; the legend of the viscous man eating Wendigo. These cannibalistic flesh eating fiends of terrible strength and disposition were said to have a keeper, usually female, that sated the giant monster with blood sacrifice and protected the tribe from its ravenous hunger for human flesh. Wendigos were said to exist in places of great isolation, up in the highest mountain peaks, where they'd be safe from the prying curiosity of wayward travelers. That sanctity is about to be broken….
Ghostkeeper is a rare frozen treat; a Canadian snowbound slasher that borrows equal parts from The Shining and Psycho and maybe even a dash of Humongous on a basement budget. The movie lumbers forward like a yak in waist high snow, building atmosphere and dread like a slowly rolling snowball gaining mass; but sometimes the snow melts and the suspense withers. Hardly a crowd pleasing creature feature or bodycount flick, the movie spends a gob of time examining the three main characters relationships, where they mull over ideas of cheating on each other and sleepily analyze their own fears and aspirations while being snowed in on New Years at an abandoned hotel deep in the wintery tundra of the Canadian Rockies. Trade New Years for Easter Day and Canadians for Swedes and you have a less exciting or polished version of Cold Prey, but we won't hold that against it.
The story follows a trio of ill fated amateur snowmobilers who refuse to listen to the advice of a grumpy inn keeper at a mountain lodge. The group does some of their own trail blazing and they end up at the decadent Deer Lodge; a secluded mountain resort long out of business but oddly enough warm and well kept. They poke around the dark for a bit proving that three is a crowd when the two women in the group, Chrissie and Jenny, get catty with each other over boy toy Marty, who knows what fills bikinis and entertains ideas about a life of doing whatever hole he wants. Jenny is Marty's beau, but they find themselves coming at odds with each other when Marty expresses his own swinger desires to her. She is the virginal, sensitive, innocuous woman of the group and is an absolute bore. Chrissie is more of the flirtatious sassy chick that never wears a bra, which instantly garners Marty's attention. Jenny pleas with the others to heed the inn keepers warning about going off exploring during a snow storm, but what fun would that be?
They find themselves snowed in and trading stories in the dark with an old eccentric woman who has been acting as caretaker to the lodge even after it went out of business. It soon becomes apparent that she is hiding something and they aren't alone when Chrissies is plucked from her bath by an unknown assailant (the old hag's son) and brought to feed the "wendigo" (who is really just a big burly guy covered in three shades of slime mold and mung, like he just deep dived through a septic tank) that lives in the basement of the hotel in a prison made out of ice bricks. Her throat is slit, the beast is fed, and the slasher game is set in motion. Soon Marty and Jenny find themselves stalked through the dark corridors of the lodge by the old lady and her son. Marty covers his face in motor grease and loses his cool, eventually wandering off into the woods and dying of exposure while Jenny wards off the old hag with a shotgun blast to the gut and impales her son on a fence. At the end Jenny takes over as the new "ghostkeeper" and caretaker of Deer Lodge for reasons we can only speculate.
The VHS cover of GHOSTKEEPER in the UK had a giant demon chicken. I still have no idea why, but that chicken is pissed!
Ghostkeeper didn't exactly curl my frost bitten tail, but it is competent enough to spend a cozy warm evening with, sipping on cocoa, thinking about what fills them bikinis. The movie struts forth at a slow melt pace, but the characters weren't silly or dumb enough for me to completely write off after the first act, but by the end of the second act I really wanted the snow soaked in blood. Still there is something odd about it that I can see myself crawling back to; be it the snot covered "abominable snowman" that looks like the dude from Slaughterhouse, the eccentric hag who claims she has her fill of companionship with the moon and the mountains, or the deeply isolated and beautifully shot snow laden setting, this movie does have its own brand of charm that only a crypt dwelling cadaver consumer like yours truly can truly appreciate. Beware the indoor igloo!
Halloween returns to the silver screen
Check here for a listing of theaters showing the immortal classic:
http://www.screenvision.com/cinema-events/halloween/
Halloween animated pitch
Bloody-Disgusting.com scooped up a Halloween animated pitch done for Dimension a while back that never bloomed. None the less this is a tasty treat for Halloweenies like the ole cryptkeeper. Slither your eyes over the short below or watch it on youtube as well as associated art with the pitch. Oh what could have been....
http://youtu.be/9ZECC-f1CKU
TCM 3-D trailer
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/texaschainsaw3d/
I'm revved up for the new TCM in January!
NOES - Thai posters
New Friday final girl poster - Fright Rags
The Collection - Official poster
I'm so there.
Silly tagline, grim poster! TCM 3-D!
A round of applause for not making a totally lackluster uninspired poster; the next Massacre looks like it will have some meat and merit. I'm turning in my grave in anticipation to see the chainsaw in all it's 3-dimensional glory!
Curse of the Thorn comic covers
Here are some covers to the planned "Thorn" Halloween series to get you in the mood for the season of rot from the defunct DevilsDue comics that never saw the light of day...
I can't wait to get my Michael Myers Halloween 2 "blood tears" mask in the mail!


It is recommended that the Cutters on most Cross-Cut Shredders are oiled daily to maintain their effectiveness.
The machine will LAST MUCH LONGER and won't need REPLACING with a new model, which can be very expensive.
Cleaning the cutter chambers and removing all compacted shredded material.
Clean the motor and electrical system to eliminate the possibility of dust contaminating the electrical relays, circuit boards, or switches.
All gears and chains are cleaned and re-greased to eliminate binding, rust, or dragging on the drive system.
Cabinet doors are inspected, and hinges repaired, adjusted, or replaced where required so the cabinet opens and closes without excess wear, and so that door open and close switches contact correctly.
Checking of all safety interlocks, trip switches and sensors.
Thorough testing, cleaning of machine and vacuuming of surrounding area.
Advice as to the general condition of the machine, and the long term wear and condition of the shredder's cutters.
Please note that the prices quoted for do NOT include any Spare Parts, additional Congestion Charges and Parking Costs incurred during the visit which will be invoiced separately. Prices quoted and charged for, or orders received directly from the www.ShreddingMachines.co.uk website are 'Base' prices for Machines situated UK Mainland only. Outlaying areas will incur additional Charges which will be agreed prior to acceptance. You will be contacted prior to the Engineers visit to organise an appropriate time so it is the responsibility of the User to report any changes of Machine locations. Any subsequent visits where machines are not available will be chargeable. *Whilst the Engineer will endeavour to repair any faults found if additional parts and a return visit are required, this will be chargeable extra. Any PM orders received will be re-invoiced prior to the annual renewal date at the appropriate rate and if you do not wish to cancel the following year's visits please notify us within 2 weeks of receipt of the renewal notice/invoice. Prices quoted are discounted to allow for several planned local visits to reduce costs and are not available for one off Service Call Outs. Special Prices and Quantity Discounts are available for more than 1 machine situated in the same location.
To facilitate the longevity of all types of shredding machines we recommend that they are placed under a suitable Maintenance Agreement which long term saves Time, Money and Downtime on unnecessary Machine Breakdowns. If you have an existing machine and would like to place it under a maintenance contract then please call us on 0845 5555 007 for a quotation.


text:
African Queen Mines secures plan approval for Yellowjacket Gold Mine in British Columbia
22 October 2015	(Last Updated October 22nd, 2015 18:30)
The government of British Columbia in Canada has issued a major permit to African Queen Mines for approval of the plan and reclamation programme for the Yellowjacket Gold Mine.
The Major Mine Permit No: M-235 contains various terms and conditions applicable to work programmes and mine operations that would be carried out in future.
Covering an area of 79.56km² of strategic ground 9km east of Atlin, the project includes hard rock, as well as placer gold prospects.
Previous operators suspended mining at Yellowjacket Gold due to various reasons including engineering and equipment problems, as well as financial issues that cropped up from the recession in the industry.
"Much of the ground covered by the project remains underexplored and appears to be on strike."
African Queen Mines CEO Irwin Olian said: "We are very gratified to have been issued our mining permit for Yellowjacket by the BC Mines Branch so expeditiously and look forward to moving ahead with our plans to explore, redevelop and potentially recommence mining operations in the future.
"Much of the ground covered by the project remains underexplored and appears to be on strike, suggesting the potential for highly prospective exploration targets."
Initially, African Queen plans to develop a new geologic model for the project through exploration.
Simultaneously, the company is also assessing the utility of plant and equipment on-site, in addition to performing engineering studies designed to optimise results from future mining operations.
Recently, African Queen acquired four additional mineral claims under the BC Mineral Tenure Act aggregating 2,411.38ha adjacent to its Yellowjacket Gold Project.
The company is also exploring its Rongo (Odundu) Gold project consisting of about 97km² in Kenya for gold and other metals under a joint venture with a Kenyan company.
Advanced Fleet Signs
LED ID Signs for Mining Vehicles


text:
Sample Paper 1 – Maths Class 8
Linear Equations in One Variable
Understanding Quadrilaterals
Squares & Square Root
Cubes and Cube Roots
Algebraic Expressions and Identities
Exponents and Powers
Direct and Inverse Proportions
Introduction to Graphs
MCQ Practical Geometry, Chapter 4 Class 8 Maths
MCQ's For All Chapters – Maths Class 8th
1. A simple closed curve made up of only _____________ is called a polygon.
(a) curves
(b) line segments
(c) lines
(d) closed curves
2. A polygon with minimum number of sides is
(a) Pentagon
(b) Square
(c) triangle
(d) angle
3. Polygons that have no portions of their diagonals in their exteriors are called
(a) Squares
(b) triangles
(d) concave
4. Polygons that have any portions of their diagonals in their exteriors are called
5. All the sides of a regular polygon are _________________.
(a) Parallel
(b) equal in length
(c) not parallel
(d) not equal
6. Maximum number of right angles in a right angled triangle are
7. A parallelogram whose all sides are equal is called
(a) square
(b) rhombus
(c) rectangle
(d) trapezium
8. Diagonals of a rectangle:
(a) equal to each other
(b) not equal
(c) one is double of the other
9. The diagonals of a rhombus bisect each other at _________ angles.
(a) acute
(b) right
(c) obtuse
(d) reflex
10. The diagonals of a square bisect each other at _________ angle.
11. How many sides does a heptagon have ?
12. Name the closed figure with 4 sides ?
(a) Hexagon
(b) Triangle
(c) Pentagon
(d) Quadrilateral
13. How many diagonals does a regular Hexagon has ?
14. What is the number of sides in Hexagon ?
15. The opposite angles of a parallelogram are __________________.
(a) Unequal
(b) equal
(c) complementary
(d) supplementary
16. The diagonals of a square are ________________ each other .
(a) equal to
(b) unequal to
(c) perpendicular bisectors of
17. A parallelogram with sides of equal length is called______________.
(a) trapezium
(d) rhombus
18. How many measurements can determine a quadrilateral uniquely?
19. Diagonals of a parallelogram _______________ each other.
(a) bisect
(b) equal to
(c) perpendicular to
20. How many sides does decagon has?


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