Category Archives: The Morgue

It’s Magic!

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We celebrated a recent family birthday with a Zoom event, as all things are these days, hosted by the Chicago Magic Lounge. Every Friday evening at 6:30 Central Time, the Lounge’s (virtual) Cocktail Hour, sponsors a new performance every Friday night. In an hour and a half four magicians, two men and two women, did excerpts from their magic acts that lend themselves to the not-in-person format. It was a fully-produced, live show.

The Chicago Magic Lounge is “dedicated to the art of sleight of hand, prestidigitation, and Chicago’s contribution to the magical arts,” and, as they say, it’s a brief escape from the real world “because we could all use a little misdirection in our lives.

From an audience member’s point of view, it was great, because the camera took you in so close. Three of them did table magic, and the fourth was standing. They performed a variety of card tricks, coin tricks, and “science” tricks. One of the magicians is a science teacher, in real life. It was fun, low-key, and a great way to celebrate together, but separately.

There was even audience participation and, as a special bonus, the club’s bartender demonstrated how to make the cocktail of the evening.

There’s a modest per household/screen charge. Have an event coming up? In search of something novel? If this sounds like fun, find out more here!

Movies That Matter

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New Plaza Cinema last week hosted one of its popular Zoom presentations with film historian Max Alvarez. The theme this time: The Cinema Seeks Justice, and the examples included courtroom dramas and other stories in which the law was used to achieve greater fairness or to redress wrongs.

Filmmakers wanting to make an “issue movie” face a number of challenges. Perhaps the first challenge is to move past Samuel Goldwyn’s famous admonition: “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.” If their story based on real life, as all of Alvarez’s examples were, situations probably don’t work out as quickly or neatly as the film portrays. Real life is messy; a film has to be selective about the size of the cast of characters (too many are confusing and require too much backstory) and they may simplify complex stories. Nevertheless, they can be powerful emotional touchstones. Alvarez illustrated a half-dozen issues with the films that portrayed them. This type of film must be popular in my family, because we’d seen most of them.

The issue of human rights emerged in a 2006 film from the late Michael Apted, Amazing Grace, set in 1787 England, in which William Wilberforce struggled to persuade Parliament to abolish Britain’s transatlantic slave trade. While the movie ends on an uplifting note, it wasn’t until 1833 that the practice officially ended. A young Benedict Cumberbatch appears as William Pitt on the anti-slavery side.

The quest for racial justice has any number of strong films, and Alvarez selected the 2017 movie Marshall, set in 1941, in which young NAACP lawyer and later Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (played by the late Chadwick Boseman) defends a young Black man on a false charge of raping a white woman. His second example was Loving, from 2016, the story of a mixed-race couple who lived in a Virginia county where such marriages were illegal. Their case, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, led to the elimination of laws banning miscegenation.

In the environmental justice category, the 2019 film Dark Waters dealt with a DuPont chemical disaster (with Mark Ruffalo and Tim Robbins) in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and the company’s practice of deny, deny, deny. I especially admired Tim Robbins’s performance as the conservative head of Ruffalo’s Cincinnati law firm. In 1998’s A Civil Action, lawyer John Travolta takes on the W.R. Grace Company and Beatrice Foods also for contaminating the local water supply of Woburn, Massachusetts. The film is a good example of the long tail of these cases. The lawyers lost this one, but the EPA took it up and, years later, the environmental cleanup in Woburn finally began.

Several noteworthy films have been made about justice for Holocaust victims, including, most memorably, Judgment at Nuremberg, with its all-star cast (Burt Lancaster pictured). Alvarez also highlighted Denial, about the 2000 British trial of David Irving, an infamous Holocaust denier, played by the always excellent Timothy Spall. Playwright David Hare took much of the dialog verbatim from the trial transcript. Glues you to your seat.

The legal system itself can perpetuate injustices, which Alvarez illustrated with the 1993 film, In the Name of the Father, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Gerry Conlon, one of the Guildford Four—young men wrongfully convicted of a 1974 London bombing. Police lies resulted in life sentences for them men. After 15 years in prison,  they were exonerated and released.

Finally, Alvarez illustrated the issue of what he called global justice with the 1969 Costa-Gavras political thriller Z (in French), a slightly fictionalized depiction of the assassination of a democratic Greek politician. It received Academy Award nominations for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film, winning the latter. (Costa-Gavras, never one to shun controversy, also was responsible for the terrific film Missing, about an American father and wife trying to learn the fate of their son and husband in the aftermath of the U.S.-backed Chilean coup of 1973 that brought dictator Augusto Pinochet to power. Here, the U.S. legal system was no help.)

“The Most Expensive TV Series Ever Made” – Part II

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Last week, Part I of this post described the several British sites that stand in for the (reportedly much less elegant) Buckingham Palace in the Netflix tv series, The Crown. In addition to the three properties mentioned, Lancaster House, built in the 19th century for the Duke of York, offers the Picture Gallery where Diana roller-skated. It also was used in Young Victoria, The King’s Speech, and the episode of Downton Abbey where the Crawleys are presented to the King and Queen.

Interiors of the French chateau in Buckinghamshire called Waddesdon Manor (pictured above)—the only one of the forty-some properties once owned by the Rothschilds that remains intact—also are used and have appeared in The Queen, An Ideal Husband, and the Lovejoy series. Goldsmith’s Hall, much fancier I trust than U.S. union halls, is where Diana’s grandmother began schooling her on being part of the royal family.

Windsor Castle

Windsor is the largest occupied castle in the world. It’s portrayed by a number of locations: Audley End in Essex (especially the great hall with heraldry in the coffered ceiling, pictured); Burghley House in Lincolnshire (seen in Bleak House, The Buccaneers, and Pride and Prejudice); and Belvoir Castle, in Lincolnshire, which belongs to the Dukes of Rutland. Viewers of The Crown saw Princess Margaret there. Also filmed at Belvoir Castle: Young Sherlock Holmes, The Da Vinci Code, and The Golden Bowl.

Kensington Palace

The one requirement for stand-ins for Kensington Palace is that they display a lot of red brick. IRL Princess Margaret and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Kate and William) have lived there. 

Kensington’s stand-ins have included Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, which is a popular location for shooting ballroom scenes, and has appeared in The Scarlet Pimpernel, Love in a Cold Climate and an Inspector Morse episode. When Princesses Margaret and Diana meet in a courtyard, they are actually at Wellington College in Berkshire. Another Hertfordshire shooting location is Wrotham Park, location of the room where Queen Elizabeth meets with her Prime Ministers. Its exteriors, staircase, and several rooms were used in Gosford Park.

Balmoral Castle

This is the only royal residence that uses only one filming location. The Ardverikie Estate in the Scottish Highlands (pictured above). Balmoral was constructed under the direction of Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert in the Scottish Baronial style. It also was used in the filming of Mrs. Brown and No Time to Die, the new James Bond movie whose release has been postponed, yet again.

See the sites used to give us a more glamorous Buckingham Palace here.

“The Most Expensive TV Series Ever Made” – Part I

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The Netflix series “The Crown” reportedly costs more to produce than any other television series in history. Its four seasons so far have cost an estimated $260 million. The largest contributor to the hefty pricetag is location shooting, accounting for some 75 percent of the show’s costs. Last Friday, I took a virtual tour of the locations intended to simulate Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Windsor Castle, and Balmoral.

Led by Curt Di Camillo, curator of special collections for American Ancestors, we zoomers saw interiors of the many grand houses and other buildings where The Crown is filmed. Ironically, according to Di Camillo, many of these interiors are far nicer than anything in the actual palaces, especially so since only the very best room (or two) is used from each. When an actor exits from one room into another or into a spacious hallway, the first room may be in one grand old house and the hallway in another. That’s the magic of continuity.

One “economy” the filmmakers employ is to film everything they can in Britain or nearby. When Diana visited “New York,” for example, that was Manchester. When Diana and Charles visited “Australia,” that was Spain.

Queen Victoria was the first monarch to live in Buckingham Palace, still referred to as the “new palace.” It replaced St. James Palace as the sovereign’s primary residence, and you’ll recall that the U.S. Ambassador is still referred to as the ambassador to the Court of St. James. Sites where Buckingham Palace scenes are filmed include:

The Old Royal Naval College, which derives more money from renting itself out for filming than most (or was it all?) other sources. (The Painted Hall is pictured above.) Also partly filmed there: Patriot Games, The King’s Speech, The Madness of King George.

Osterley House—You may recall when Prince Philip’s mother came to live in the Palace, there was a particular staircase he climbed in order to visit her. This was Osterley House’s Robert Adam’s staircase (pictured). The house is situated in Osterley Park, one of the largest open spaces in London. Also filmed there: Mansfield Park, Young Victoria, Great Expectations.

Wilton House in Wiltshire is the home of the Earls of Pembroke; an early one was the patron of William Shakespeare. The Smoking Room serves as the Queen’s office; its dining room as the Palace dining room, and the Double Cube Room (30 by 30 by 60 feet in length) has appeared several times. It’s where JFK and Jackie meet Elizabeth and Philip. It’s where Diana practices dance. The Double Cube Room and the Single Cube Room next door, between them, display a large collection of paintings, notably 14 van Dykes.

You may recognize these rooms (pictured below) from Bridgerton, as well, and as some of the interiors of Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice—alas, the horrible 2005 version with Kiera Knightley, not the 1995 TV series with Colin Firth. Of much greater significance, in World War II, these rooms were the headquarters for D-Day planning.

Next Week: Part II on 1/26

Now THAT Was Good!

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Ten months of stay-at-home entertainment means we’ve watched a lotta movies we’d never have seen otherwise, old and newish. We liked most, hated a few (I don’t care if Barack Obama did like it, Martin Eden is a serious drag), and I thought these might interest you:

Blow the Man Down – An oddball crime story set in a Maine fishing village. Anything with Margo Martindale is OK by me. I especially liked the breaks in which sea shanties are sung by a male chorus garbed up as Maine fishermen (Amazon). (trailer)

North Country – pushes all those “solitary outsider against Greater Economic Forces” buttons, like Norma Rae or Erin Brockovich. This story, based loosely on real events, pits Charlize Theron against Big Coal and a retrograde male workforce in northern Minnesota. At least she has Frances McDormand as her friend and Woody Harrelson as her lawyer. (trailer)

The Trial of the Chicago Seven – excellent. Sasha Baron Cohen is perfectly cast as Abby Hoffman. This brings back all that angst of that remarkable era. (trailer)

The Personal History of David Copperfield – you can’t fault any of this, certainly not the acting, but the book—at more than 700 pages—is necessarily so much richer. Dev Patel is David and Hugh Laurie is Mr. Dick. (trailer)

The 40-Year Old Version – a Black woman (Radha Blank) playwright down on her luck is desperate to have a success before her 40th birthday and reinvents herself as a hip-hop artist. Some really funny stuff about success in the creative arts. (trailer)

Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President – who knew? I didn’t, and I remember his Administration very well. He’s a big fan, especially of the Allman Brothers, but others too, and this documentary shows him rocking out. Great music too! (MHz channel for a short while yet; longer; it may be elsewhere too.)(trailer)

Precious Metals

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Gold, silver, platinum. These tempting elements have brought more than their share of joy and woe to people over millennia. The final session of my gemstones class covered the precious metals in which those beautiful stones are set. The fictional criminal I have in mind picked up a few good tips in this session too.

Gold’s purity is measured in karats, with 24K gold 100 percent pure. 18K gold is 75 percent gold and 25 percent alloy, and so on. Pure gold is much too soft to be made into jewelry. In the United States, 14K (58.3 percent gold) is common in fine jewelry. In other countries—notably, India and the Near East—18K gold is more typical.

Not only are gold alloys more durable for jewelry, having less gold makes them less expensive than pure gold would be and allows for a change in the color. Our instructor emphasized that gold is yellow. White gold, rose gold, and green gold are all possible because of the alloys used. Pink gold is produced through the addition of copper; green gold by adding silver; and white gold includes palladium (expensive) or nickel (cheap), for example. An opportunity for a scam there, it seems.

Gold is also hypoallergenic, so if someone has an allergic reaction to their gold jewelry, they are actually sensitive to whatever metal the gold was alloyed with. Many people (including me!) get an itchy rash when there’s nickel in their jewelry (the backs of inexpensive earrings, for example), so sticking to yellow gold is best for them. Of course, such a dermatologic reaction might raise a buyer’s suspicions. Interestingly, and of potential benefit to our fictional jewelry scammer, the Federal Trade Commission does not regulate the alloys used in jewelry manufacture, just the percentage of gold present.

While nickel is inexpensive, palladium is very expensive, so to achieve the desirable level of whiteness in white gold, it may be plated with some other metal—typically rhodium. White gold today is so expensive, “you might as well buy platinum,” our instructor said. My thief is pondering that in planning his next smash-and-grab.

Prices of the precious metals are high, because of high demand, and can rise quickly when people are nervous about other investments or in the midst of various national or international crises. And some of the countries gold is mined in are not the most stable or as subject to environmental or purity standards as is the United States or European Union. (Foreign intrigue afoot.)

Like gold, most silver is an alloy. Sterling silver is 92.5 percent silver and the remainder copper, which provides strength. It’s not as hard or as tough as gold.

Previous posts in this series:
Diamonds and Pearls
Colored Gemstones

Photo: PhotoMIX-Company for Pixabay

What’s Your Birthstone?

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Garnet brooch, gemstone

Before the holidays, inspired by my gemology class, I posted about diamonds and pearls (for any last-minute shoppers among my readers), but of course, there’s much more to gemstones.

The majority of gems in the jewelry industry (including at least 95 percent of the diamonds) are “enhanced” to some degree, the class leader—an expert gemologist—explained. Enhancements and treatments can change or remove color; improve clarity, luster, or durability; fill fractures; or, in the case of star rubies or star sapphires, accentuate their stars (“asterism”). Sellers are “required” to disclose such treatments, especially if the stone needs special handling as a result, and the most reputable jewelers do. We crime writers are more interested in the disreputable ones.

Treatments typically include heating the stone (with sometimes unpredictable results), filling fractures (emeralds, especially), bleaching (pearls), irradiation, and exposing the stones to a chemical vapor. Sometimes these enhancements are merely superficial and the results may not last. Another opportunity for shady dealing!

Birthstones

Many of us have a fondness for our birthstones. My January birthstone is garnet, a semiprecious stone (a nesosilicate) that comes in a lot of colors besides the deep red the Victorians loved (as in the brooch above). The green version, for example, is called tsavorite. Different families of garnet are of different chemical compositions, including trace amounts of other elements that affect the color. Tsavorite has a bit of vanadium or chromium.

If you were born in February, your birthstone is amethyst, a type of quartz. The best ones are a deep, rich purple and the ancient Greeks believed amethysts protected their wearers from intoxication. That would be a property well worth fictional exploitation. If an amethyst is heated, it turns yellow, in which case it’s called citrine.

gemstone, aquamarine

The March birthstone in centuries past was bloodstone, an opaque dark green stone with red flecks. Its replacement, aquamarine (pictured), is a type of beryl, as is the May birthstone, emerald. Emeralds are much rarer (and therefore, more valuable), but full of inclusions (flaws) that make them brittle. A candid jeweler may recommend an emerald as “a Sunday stone,” too prone to breakage for a ring you plan to wear every day.

You might think diamonds would be the June birthstone—all those brides–but no, they’re the stone for April, and June’s birthstone is pearls. Both covered in a previous post.

gemstone, sapphire

July (ruby), pinker than garnet, and September (sapphire, pictured) are closely related. They’re both forms of the mineral corundum (aluminum oxide). The red color comes from chromium; traces of a variety of other minerals produce “sapphires” that can be yellow, green, or other colors, or the iconic deep blue. Only the red version is called a ruby.

The August birthstone also has changed over the years. To my mother, born August 1, her birthstone was carnelian (sardonyx), a type of chalcedony, and she wore a beautiful carved carnelian ring. But at some point, the marketing wizards decided more birthstones should be “fancier” transparent gems, and the August stone was changed to the pale, yellow-green peridot. It’s one of the few gemstones that comes in only one color.

October’s birthstone is opal, which is becoming increasingly rare and, therefore valuable. “Precious opal” displays “play-of-color” across its surface, caused by minute spheres and voids within the stone that break up white light and reflect back colors. Wrap one in a bay leaf, and become invisible, people in the Middle Ages believed, something an opal thief would be happy to know about, if it works. Our instructor said she’s often asked, “Should I buy an opal?” and her answer is, “Yes! Twenty years ago.”

The birthstone for November is topaz—another stone that comes in a variety of colors, depending on trace minerals. It can be yellow, golden brown, pale gray (smoky topaz) or a variety of other colors. Mentions of topaz can be found in the Bible, and in ancient times,  it was considered a protective stone. Blue topaz is sometimes passed off as a more valuable stone.

turquoise, silver, jewelry, earrings

Finally, the December birthstone, bucking the penchant for transparent stones, is turquoise in the vintage earrings shown. If you admire the turquoise jewelry from the American Southwest, you know there is a range of shades from green to blue, and you may also know about the booming market in fake turquoise. Turquoise is a form of copper and aluminum and gained its name from the French word for “Turkish,” Turkey being the initial source of the mineral for Europeans.

Whenever your birthday falls in 2021, I hope it’s a good one. Celebrate by decorating yourself with your own special birthstone!

Movie Titles as Mood Creators

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Years ago, because I arrived late for a showing of The Three Musketeers, I missed the opening credits. I wanted to see them, though, so when the film ended I stayed in my seat. They were so good, I watched the film a second time. (As a result, I learned what every stage actor knows: No two audiences are alike. Not one laugh was in the same place the second time around!)

Last Friday, we watched an entertaining Zoom program on “The Art of Film Titles,” presented by genial film historian, critic, and mega-fan Max Alvarez, sponsored by New Plaza Cinema in conjunction with New York’s Museum of Arts and Design. It was a fun excursion through the ways in which film titles have evolved over the years and how effective they can be in establishing a film’s mood and tone.

A good example is the beautiful and compelling main title sequence from the 2010 HBO miniseries, The Pacific, created by Imaginary Forces. Combined with the score by Hans Zimmer, you learn—and feel—a lot before the story even begins. Likewise, M & Co NY’s titles for Silence of the Lambs show FBI agent Clarice Starling training alone on a foggy and demanding obstacle course—a metaphor for what she will face (also alone) and the grit she will need when she is assigned to interview Hannibal Lector. A gentler example is the sensuous title sequence by Elaine and Saul Bass for the 1993 film, The Age of Innocence. She cut the sequence to the music of Charles Gounod’s opera Faust, which opens the film. Elmer Bernstein, who was slated to score the titles, said the Faust was so perfect, “keep it!”

In the early days of film, the opening title was a simple affair—one or two static slides, with a lot of facts crammed in. The slide for the 1931 Academy-Award-winning Bad Girl above,, for example, includes not just the film title, but the director (Borzage), the studio (Fox), and the leading cast members. Nothing about it hints what’s coming or how audience members should feel about it. So much data, no information.

Up until the 1990s, film titles and animations were hand-produced. Today, of course, they are mostly computer-generated. That doesn’t automatically mean they are more complex. Alvarez cited one of the masters of film title creation, Kyle Cooper, who has produced more than 350 visual effects and main title sequences. He created his jarring, multi-layered titles for the 1995 movie Se7en without computers, in what Alvarez dubs “serial killer font,” complete with real scratches on the film. You can revisit a great many film title sequences at Cooper’s website, The Art of the Title. You may even find some titles you liked better than the actual movie. I hate when that happens!

What a Gem!

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In case I ever write the fine jewelry thriller (that is, a thriller about fine jewelry) that I have in mind, I signed up for a Zoom class on “gems,” taught by a registered gemologist. Now I really have to write that story! Our instructor, Hillary Spector, was fantastic, and here are some of the pearls I gleaned.

Diamonds

Diamonds form in the earth’s mantle, in the presence of intense heat and pressure, plus their constituent element, carbon. They were formed up to 3.3 billion years ago and carried up closer to earth’s surface through volcanic action as “recently” as 20 million years ago. They may be a girl’s best friend, but they are an old friend.

Diamonds are at the top of the scale in terms of hardness, but they can break or chip. The toughest stone used in jewelry is jade. Hardness and toughness aren’t the same.

Look for the four C’s when assessing a diamond: cut (the sparkle), color, clarity, and carat (how much it weighs, not how big it looks); these are all measurable attributes. If my fictional jewelry seller is pushing a stone’s beauty, that’s irrelevant to value and, therefore, the asking price, which depends on rarity.

Lab-grown “synthetic” diamonds are chemically and anatomically the same as a mined diamond. Sellers are required to make it clear to purchasers that the diamond was not mined (opportunities for fraud?).

Pearls

Pearl jewelry is having a renaissance, and pearls are even appearing in engagement rings (not a good idea; they are neither hard nor tough enough for daily wear). In London, I saw the unfortunately termed pearl choker of Mary Queen of Scots, which was so small it looked the size of a bracelet.

Forget the old distinction between “natural” and “cultured” pearls. All pearls on the market today are cultured. The commercial prospects for natural pearls have been lost to ocean pollution and global warming (increasing the temptation to steal vintage natural pearls?).

Once one or more mother-of-pearl beads is inserted into a pearl oyster, growers give the pearl at least ten months to form, but 24 months is optimal. All Akoya pearls are bleached and may be further colored with dye or irradiation. By law, this must be disclosed to the buyer, which opens up possibilities for scamming!

Freshwater pears form in freshwater mussels, primarily cultivated in China (international intrigue)!

The value of a pearl is always related to rarity. Like the four C’s of evaluating diamonds, the actors that rate pearls are measurable, independent, and must all be present: size, shape, color, luster (shine), surface quality, enough layers of nacre, and, if they are supposed to be “matching,” must match on all those characteristics. (“Their beauty justifies the ‘investment,’” says the deceptive salesperson.)

Must Re-watch!
Diamonds are Forever
The Hot Rock
Return of the Pink Panther
Girl with a Pearl Earring

Rekindling a Love Affair with Television

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Somebody Feed Phil

Thanks to quarantines and streaming services, I’ve been watched more television these last few months than I have in years. Here are series our family found especially entertaining, ICYMT:

Somebody Feed Phil – In each episode, comedy writer Phil Rosenthal (pictured) visits a city somewhere in the world and, accompanied by local restaurateurs and food critics, drops in on local markets and farms, seven or eight restaurants of multiple types and price points, and a few of the unique sights. Phil loves everything he tries (almost), and he tries everything. The humor is broad—OK, it’s corny. A foodie website dissed the show because Phil isn’t a “real” food expert, which shows the reviewer totally missed the point. What he’s demonstrating is that anyone can have a wonderful time when they have an open mind—and mouth. He has fun, and we do too! Plus, I’ll bet he knows a lot more about food than he lets on.(Netflix)

The Americans – about Soviet citizens embedded in American life and carrying out spy things. Based on a real-life Russian program (that was apparently remarkably unsuccessful), the series was every bit as good as all my spy/thriller writing friends have said. It was brilliant to set the series during the 1980s, as the Soviet Union was imploding. But I did wonder why Philip and Elizabeth never seemed to worry much about fingerprints. (Amazon Prime)

Call My Agent – Three seasons of this French comedy series are available, with subtitles, about a quartet of Parisian talent agents. Although they all work for the same firm, they are competitors, and their colleagues better not forget it! The strange deals they get involved in always misfire in some awkward, barely salvageable way. Adding to the fun is having real French movie stars play their clients. There they are, without their makeup or their game face on. Playing themselves, sort of. (Netflix)

The Crown – Now showing: The Diana Years. We especially like Josh O’Connor as Prince Charles. O’Connor played author Lawrence Durrell in PBS’s The Durrells in Corfu, which was a charming series. If flint-hearted Margaret Thatcher (superbly played by Gillian Anderson) mentions her father one more time . . . (Netflix)