Category Archives: The Morgue

The Dynasty That Keeps on Giving

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Last week, American Ancestors hosted a Zoom presentation about potential?? English ancestors—those lusty, murderous Tudors. I’ve been a fan of stage, screen, and tv interpretations of Tudorabilia starting with the BBCs The Six Wives of Henry VIII, now more than 50 years ago! and still memorable, on to Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett), up to the salacious (and highly inaccurate) The Tudors in 2007-2010, and the three volumes of the late Hilary Mantel’s prize-winning novels, which started with Wolf Hall, through their stage and television versions (Mark Rylance at his very best). So, of course I couldn’t miss this latest program, led by Curt Di Camillo, curator of Special Collections for the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Here are some tidbits.

Di Camillo started with a little background on what paved the way for the Tudors, and that was the War of the Roses, the Plantagenets—the longest running royal house in Britain—symbolized by the White Rose and the Lancasters (red rose). When Henry VII seized the throne from the reviled Richard III, he created the “Tudor Rose,” red and white a bit of transparent pandering.

(As an aside, if you missed last year’s film, The Lost King, the true story of a persistent English woman who went on a hunt for Richard III’s body, which scholars searched for fruitlessly for centuries, rent it!.)

But what I learned about the first Tudor, Henry VII, was less well known (to me at least). He was reviled as well, considered a usurper, and, possibly worst of all, he was Welch. He was under such threat he created a special bodyguard and designed their uniforms. You recognize them as the Beefeaters, who still wear Henry’s design today. For Britain, at least, Di Camillo says, Henry Tudor’s accession to the crown in 1485 represented the end of the Middle Ages.

He undertook a number of acts to establish his legitimacy. He introduced a gold coin, called a sovereign, that bore his image with the trappings of the monarchy, he married Elizabeth of York (who passed on her red-hair genes to her son and grandchildren). And he added the Henry VII Lady Chapel to Westminster Abbey, which now holds the remains of many English kings and queens. But it was up to his granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth I, daughter of Anne Boleyn, to employ England’s first spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, setting the stage for many great spy novels to come.

More information:
American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Lost King
Elizabeth’s Spy Master: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England (have not read this one)

“So you think THAT’s funny?!”

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You ever wonder what is the world’s funniest joke? You aren’t alone. In its 19 August issue devoted to stories about humor, The New Yorker resurrected Tad Friend’s 2002 coverage of the efforts of UK psychologist Richard Wiseman (not wiseguy, note) to identify the world’s funniest joke. (You can read about his team’s work here.) Not so easy, it turns out.

Tackling this conundrum led him to think about why we find certain things funny, or not. Friends have probably asked you to recommend a good movie, and you may have learned the hard way that your suggestions about dramas and crime stories work out pretty well, but it’s practically useless to recommend a comedy—people’s senses of humor are too different.

In fact, Friend notes the many unanswered questions about what makes us laugh. There are esoteric issues and basic ones, like “whether any woman, anywhere, ever, has appreciated the Three Stooges.” Friend’s line made me laugh, though, because I’m a charter member of the Three Stooges Unappreciators. Nor do I like Neil Simon-type comedy where I can see the next one-liner barreling my way. Duck! And, mean-spirited sitcoms, arrrgh!  

One thing the UK researchers did notice is that, if you tell the same joke about a talking animal, and switch out the animal, the funniest one will turn out to be a duck. Maybe it’s the letter “k” there, a reputedly sure-fire staple in comedy lore. Now, feel free to proceed with your day, having learned something, or two somethings, completely useless.

Apparently, our humor processing system is complicated. Electric stimulation of various parts of the brain can make a person smile or cry, but Wiseman says it’s very hard to make them laugh. A different set of researchers has learned that some types of humor (the kinds of stuff you need to think about) are processed on the left side of the brain, some on the right. It’s as if the left side sets up the joke, and the right side—the emotional side—“gets it.” Or, “While the left hemisphere might appreciate some of Groucho’s puns, and the right hemisphere might be entertained by the antics of Harpo, only the two hemispheres united can appreciate a whole Marx Brothers routine.” Says Friend, neither one, apparently, “thinks much of Chico.” (I laughed again.)

Among many other attractions, this issue of the magazine also has nostalgic short bits about Robin Williams and Richard Pryor early in their stand-up careers, and a lovely reminiscence by Zadie Smith. Pieces that make you smile and sigh at the same time.

Last week, our local movie theater showed 1942’s The Palm Beach Story, a classic screwball comedy starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, and Rudy Vallee. Princeton English professor Maria DiBattista gave a short pre-film talk. Her book Fast Talking Dames is about a type of cinematic character she calls an American original. The Palm Beach Story has two of them and, DiBattista says, every kind of comedy imaginable—slapstick, one liners, mistaken identities, double entendre. We loved it!

If you can tolerate a little ethnic humor, here’s a quick joke, courtesy of the entertaining Netflix program, Somebody Feed Phil:

A nine-year old boy rushes home from school, calling, “Mom! Mom! I got a part in the school play!”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, darling! What part did you get?”
“I play the Jewish husband!”
Waving him away, she says, “Go back and ask for a speaking part.”

To end on contemporary note, Emma Allen a New Yorker cartoon editor, reports that “One of the few things A.I. can’t do well is write a joke—a fact that we can all cling to when we’re sent into the mines by our robot overlords.”

Looking for a Weekend Movie?

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Here are brief takes on four films we’ve seen lately. All have good points. The one I enjoyed most is first.

The Cowboy and the Queen
You may have seen previous coverage of horse whisperer Monty Roberts. Now you see him in a reflective mood, looking back over the shape of his career. Son of an abusive dad, he was determined not to follow that path (trailer). By watching horses in the wild, he began to understand how they communicated, and he adopted their approach in his training. “Breaking horses,” he says, amounts to breaking their spirit; they’re abused until they give up. He doesn’t do it that way. So, where does the Queen come in? We’re talking about Elizabeth II, late monarch of Britain, who read articles about Roberts and wanted him to coach some of her equerries in his methods. Like most traditional U.S. horsemen, they were skeptical. They relied on using their aggressive techniques for a week or two until the horse would accept a saddle and, ultimately, a rider. Roberts could achieve this in less than twenty minutes. The Queen comes across beautifully, and so does the cowboy! A real feel-good film. For a fictional take on humane horse-training, there’s the wonderful 2018 film, The Rider.

The Critic
You can’t fault Ian McKellan’s portrayal of an odious 1930s theater critic for a dying London newspaper (trailer). He delights in skewering the shows and performers he reviews, and, although at first I found him a nice contrast to the starchy newspaper publisher, when he roped an ambitious female lead into his manipulative schemes, I gave up on him. The performances are all good, but he’s no hero.
Rotten Tomatoes Critics’ Rating: 47%; Audiences: 73%.

Between the Temples
Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) is the nebbishy cantor of a synagogue with a transparently ambitious rabbi (trailer). Through stress and anxiety, he’s lost his voice and is near suicide. Coming to his rescue (in more ways than one) is Mrs. Kessler (Carol Kane), his elementary school choral teacher. No one in their families is sure what the relationship is, exactly, they just know they don’t like it. Some good jokes, some outlandish family behavior. A pleasant film with a few slow spots.
Rotten Tomatoes Critics’ Rating: 85%; Audiences: 41%.

Skincare
This thriller loosely inspired by a true story, centers on a Hollywood entrepreneur who has developed her own line of facial products, using European (fancy!) ingredients (trailer). Her struggling business faces an existential crisis when a competitor moves in across the street. Violence ensues (nothing too graphic). Entertaining, and Elizabeth Banks is perfect as the increasingly frantic beauty maven. Coincidentally, I recently read a short piece about her in The New Yorker, where she talked about difficulty getting parts in her early career, in part because “I wasn’t pretty enough.” In this film, she’s a knockout!
Rotten Tomatoes Critics’ Rating: 65%; Audiences: 64%.

Dark Streets and Dark Deeds

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The last two films in our class on neo-noir were A Simple Plan and the remake of the classic noir, Nightmare Alley (which I’d seen in a movie theater and was NOT looking forward to!).

A Simple Plan
I guess we should have learned from previously seeing the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple that, when it comes to murderous intent, nothing is simple. And it sure isn’t in Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan, written by Scott B. Smith, author of the novel the film is based on (trailer).

Straight-arrow Hank Mitchell (played by Bill Paxton), his slower-witted brother Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton), and Jacob’s friend Lou (Brent Briscoe) discover a small plane that has crashed in the snowy woods of rural Minnesota. They check on the pilot, who’s dead, of course, and discover a duffel stuffed with more than $4 million. Whose is it? What to do with it?

As you will anticipate, this stash brings out all the characters’ worst instincts. Even Hank and his wife (Bridget Fonda in her last film before retiring from the screen), who start out wanting to be on the up-and-up, are at risk of succumbing to the lure of unexpected wealth. This makes the film on one hand an exploration of ethical behavior and on another a thriller full of menace and surprise. While I couldn’t warm up to any of the characters, Thornton’s performance alone makes it worth a viewing

Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating: 90%; audiences: 81%.

Nightmare Alley
Guillermo Del Toro’s 2021 remake of the 1947 noir classic, which starred Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, and Colleen Gray, was the sixth and final film in our neo-noir class (trailer). The acting in the new version can’t be faulted, with stars Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett [wearing a LOT of red lipstick], Toni Collette, and Rooney Mara, along with Willem Dafoe, David Strathairn, and Richard Jenkins. They all do a great job.

\Cooper plays charming, ambitious Stanton Carlisle, who’s apparently just killed his father and is looking for a fresh start in life. He finds work doing odd jobs for a seedy traveling carnival. The movie is set in 1939, and the carnival includes all the cheesy acts and mysterious biological specimens in jars that you can imagine.

Carlisle observes the system that the show’s mentalist uses to “read the minds” of the patrons and eventually goes on the road with his partner Molly to do the same work wearing a tuxedo at high-class nightclubs. Disaster is inevitable.

The remake (2h, 30 m) adds all the content about the father, whereas the 1947 version (1h, 51m) added an upbeat closing scene to assuage producer Darryl F. Zanuck’s concerns about commercial potential. Both versions were based on a 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham.

Rotten Tomatoes critics rating: 80%; audiences 68%.

Our Class
The neo-noir film class was a Princeton Adult School program, taught by Mark Schwartzberg, who holds a PhD in English literature from NYU, and much of his research has been in film studies. He’s taught at the high school and college levels in New York and New Jersey, and many film classes at the Adult School. His—and several of our fellow students’—knowledge about film, including the gossipy bits, is encyclopedic. A real pleasure!

Sense and Sensibility: See it!

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Congratulate The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey for producing a version of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility that lives up to its title! It showcases both a fine theatrical sense and the complicated interpersonal sensibilities of the classic story. Adapted by British playwright, theatre director, and screenwriter Jessica Swale and directed for STNJ by Nisi Sturgis, it opened September 7 and closes September 22.

It’s in 1797 England that we find the Dashwood family, comprising a widow (played by Lynette R. Freeman) and her three daughters—Elinor (Mandi Masden), a model of good sense, Marianne of heightened feelings (Billie Wyatt), and inquisitive, adolescent Margaret (Terra Chaney). A conniving sister-in-law (Kayla Ryan Walsh) deprives them of their inheritance, and they must retire to a modest country life. The two older girls are of marriageable age, and Elinor falls for Edward Ferrars (Patrick Andrew Jones), previously engaged in secret and seemingly unattainable; Marianne falls for the dashing Willoughby (Christian Frost) who returns her affection, and she is also adored by mature, reliable—and therefore unappealing—Colonel Brandon (Sean Mahan).

That group of actors makes up most of the cast, except for utility infielder Patrick Toon, who appears in many guises and has dozens of offstage costume changes, portraying each character to perfection. In fact, except for the two older sisters (Masden and Wyatt), all cast members play multiple roles, including that of stagehand. It was a particular pleasure to see Chaney move so convincingly from little sister and budding naturalist to sly fiancée to a street gossip. These multiple personas all work, except when Mrs. Dashwood reappears as Willoughby’s fiancée. The age difference was insurmountable, but all the other female cast members were otherwise engaged, one might say. Masden and Wyatt’s strong performances make you yearn for the happiness of these young women. Lovely costumes too, thanks to Sophie S. Schneider.

Swale’s adaptation is faithful to the novel and some of the judicious cuts Emma Thompson made for the 1995 screenplay. Fidelity to material and memory produces deep associations, even if act one does become rather long. The versatile set by Brittany Vasta nicely accommodates, with some well-choreographed rearrangements of furniture, the various houses, rooms, and outdoor settings where the story takes place, leaving much to the imagination except for lovely verdure.

Austen’s works, including this one, continue to capture audiences by their fundamental emotional truths. The characters in Sense and Sensibility are trapped in the conventions of their time—women didn’t work or inherit, honorable men lived up to their marital commitments—yet most find their way to happiness in ways that satisfy them and the audiences of today. Modern constraints may be different, but they nevertheless exist. STNJ productions are hosted at Drew University in Madison, N.J. (easily reachable from NYC by train). For tickets, call the box office at 973-408-5600 or visit the Box Office online.

The Dark Side of The Movies

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It’s week four in our six-week zoom course on neo-noir cinema, a tour through a half-dozen of the best/most interesting/groundbreaking films in this genre, and we’re leaving bloody footprints in our wake. Having to watch a movie for “homework” is the best! So, you may wonder, what distinguishes neo-noir from plain old noir?

A few things, but as in all classification schemes involving creative endeavors, the edges blur a bit. The original noir genre includes black and white films produced mostly in the 1940s and 1950s. They involved a femme fatale, some mystery or crime or double-dealing, a hard-to-impress detective trying to work it out, and a lonely, jazzy trumpet. In fact, the sound track alone could send shivers up your back. If that didn’t, the cynicism would. Often urban. The top 5, says Rotten Tomatoes? Laura, Shadow of a Doubt, The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, and Sunset Boulevard.

Neo-noir, then, is number one, more recent. These films are in living color, they often still involve a femme fatale, crime, a jaded detective/investigator, and some thematic music that may branch out a bit. The cynicism and double-dealing are still there, of course, and the violence is heightened.

So far we’ve seen The Conversation (1974), which was both more and less than I remembered. Gene Hackman is a professional eavesdropper who doesn’t like what he hears. You may mis-identify the femme fatale, and I could have done without the toilet that explodes in a bloodbath worthy of The Shining. I think that was a hallucination. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola with a fine, understated performance by John Cazale—reason enough to see it again. Not to mention a young Harrison Ford.

Next: Body Heat (1981).No question that Kathleen Turner is the femme fatale here or that the double-dealing involves her lover (William Hurt) and husband (Richard Crenna). Sexy stuff directed by Lawrence Kasdan.

The Coen Brothers first feature film, Blood Simple (1984) was next. Frances McDormand as the put-upon wife never realizes she’s a femme fatale, despite the body count evidence. The extent to which the characters misunderstand what’s going on has definite comic moments.

Last night we did our homework and watched L.A. Confidential (1997). It has it all, FF, crime, double-dealing, rampant cynicism, and appreciably more violence than the others. Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, and Guy Pearce are great as cops trying to figure out what side of the law they’re on. Directed by Curtis Hanson.

Two more to go!

Weekend Movie Pick: Coup!

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My ideal moviegoing situation is to know nothing, literally not one thing, about a movie before I see it. Too often, previews either show all best jokes (Thelma, a case in point) or set up impressions that don’t fit the actual film. Sadly, my preferred state of blissful ignorance is hard to achieve.

Thus, I was delighted to see Coup!, a dark comedy about which I knew nothing and had not detected any buzz, written and directed by Joseph Schuman and Austin Stark (trailer). The anxiety I felt in the first half-hour or so was strictly the result of the puzzling situation the characters were in, not any trailer-review-celluloid mismatch. So, in case you’re spoiler-averse like me, I should stop here, except to say, see it!

In case you do like a little info, however, I’ll say that it’s set on an island near New York City during the deadly 1919 Spanish Influenza pandemic. A wealthy family living in isolation on the island is determined that they won’t be among its victims. They’re living in perfect isolation. But hey, nothing’s perfect, is it? And, they need a new cook.

The man they hire we know is not who or what they think he is. Still, times are hard, the island is isolated (the ferries stop!) and there aren’t a lot of choices. The wealthy homeowner is a muckracking journalist and a hypocrite, sending editorial salvos toward President Wilson for not taking more drastic anti-influenza measures. He pretends to be facing the peril shoulder-to-shoulder with his brethren in the City, when really, he’s safely in his mansion, miles away. He, his lovely wife, and children are going it alone—that is, with their three servants and new cook. They’re vegetarian, its nearly winter, and when the markets close . . . well, life is hard and getting harder by the meal.

There’s a lightheartedness to their dire situation and the infectious smile of Peter Sarsgaard (the iconoclast cook) somehow makes everything better. Great acting all around The journalist is played by Billy Magnusson, and Sarah Gadon plays his wife. The maid (Skye P. Marshall) and chauffeur (Faran Tahir) gradually (and charmingly) get drawn into the cook’s schemes, and only the housekeeper (Kristine Nielsen) is onto him. Now, how to get rid of her? Hmmm.

I thought it was a lot of fun and, in light of our recent covid trials, provides some food for thought, too.

Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating: 78%; audiences: 94%.

Weekend Movies? Fun, but not Must-Sees

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The Widow Clicquot

We liked the movie The Widow Clicquot, because, well—France, champagne, why not? You know, the orange label (trailer). The scenery was beautiful, and the film was directed by Thomas Q. Napper. Though the predictable plot didn’t break any new ground, it lulls you into a deep sense of enjoyment. In the early 1800s, the unexpectedly widowed Barbe-Nicole Clicquot (Haley Bennett) can either give up or resolve to implement the vision of her late, adored husband (Tom Sturridge) as to how a champagne winery should operate. The odds are against her.

Rotten Tomatoes critics rating: 85%; audiences: 85%.

Thelma

It’s exhilarating to see June Squibb, as an irrepressible 93-year-old woman doing her thing, not to mention the last performance of the late Richard Roundtree (trailer). Both of them made the film worthwhile, though it was a little disappointing that director Josh Margolin didn’t stretch them beyond the predictable. In the story, grandma Thelma is bilked out of $10,000 by a scammer pretending to be her grandson (Fred Hechinger). How she resolves to get her money back and becomes a superannuated action hero to try, is the plot. I must say that, although there are comic moments, having seen most of them in multiple viewings of the film’s trailer, not much was left to discover! Parker Posey, as Thelma’s daughter, is a terrifying helicopter mom. But, if you’re feeling old and cranky, it’s a good one.

Rotten Tomatoes critics rating: 99%; audiences: 83%.

What’s Up(state)?

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Our recent trip to Glens Falls, New York, included a number of interesting stops. We’d never visited West Point, perched high above the Hudson River and embracing more than 200 years of history. Not only was it picturesque, it was crammed with interesting monuments and memorabilia. The photo shows part of the Great Chain, which the Continental Army strung across the Hudson to keep British ships from sailing upriver from New York during the Revolutionary War.

West Point was strategic then, located above a spot where the river narrows and bends sharply, forcing ships to slow down—better targets! And it’s strategic now, ever since the US Military Academy was established there in 1802. Even as far north as West Point, the Hudson is a tidal river and the shifting tides made that stretch of water all the more difficult to navigate. The 65-ton chain forced them to do more than slow. They had to stop.

With Fort Ticonderoga situated at the foot of Lake Champlain (visited last year) and Fort William Henry, which we visited this month, at the foot of Lake George (named for the King—we were still British subjects when the fort was built, of course. The builders were “managing up,” the guide said), the strategic value of these several waterways was certainly recognized by the early colonists.

Fort William Henry is best known for its role in the French and Indian War. It was besieged by French general Louis-Joseph Montcalm. Despite being well provisioned, after a certain point the fort, commanded by Lt. Col. George Monro could not hold out. It surrendered, and Montcalm let the several thousand British troops, their families, and hangers-on walk out, destined for Fort Edward downstream. Denied the plunder they’d been promised, the native tribes who were allied with the French attacked the retreating columns, killing and wounding about 200 of them.

If this all sounds familiar, it may be because you’re recalling James Fenimore Cooper’s novel, The Last of the Mohicans, which centers on this episode. I must have thrilled to the movie version featuring Daniel Day-Lewis at least a dozen times!

Our third notable history pilgrimage was to the cottage where Ulysses S. Grant died in the hills above Wilton, New York. Dying of throat cancer, his doctors wanted him out of New York City in the summer heat, and Grant wanted the chance to finish his memoirs (considered by historians one of the best books written by a former President, and one of the best-selling books of the 19th century). Having surrendered his military pension on becoming President, he hoped the book would create income for his family to live on after he died. It did. He finished the memoir, The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, on July 18, 1885, eight days before his death. His friend Mark Twain, who had a publishing company, published it and hit upon a novel marketing scheme: he had veterans of the Civil War sell it door-to-door. His funeral train pictured below.

Traveling to Upstate New York

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If you’re on I-87 or I-90 skirting Albany, you might want to think twice about not stopping. A visit to New York’s state capitol building is well worth a visit. And there are tours. Here are some fun facts we learned. 1. Construction delays and cost overruns are nothing new. (Huh!) When it was finally finished in 1899, 32 years in the making, the Empire State’s new building had cost more than the US capitol in Washington, D.C. It sounds as if Governor Teddy Roosevelt gave up and finally declared it finished. 2. The Senate Chamber is so acoustically well designed that a state senator cannot speak to a colleague sotto voce without risking being heard. To have a quiet conversation, Senators duck into one of the chamber’s two massive (solely decorative) fireplaces. Talk about a fireside chat! Oh, and 3. It was the first public building in the US to have electric lights.

The results of lengthy refurbishment are spectacular. The assembly chamber is now being reconstructed, so we couldn’t visit it, but the other refurbished areas, including the Senate Chamber (pictured in part, above), are truly impressive. Most inspiring are the grand staircases (pictured below).

The stonemasons came mostly from the UK. They did their carving on the stone after it was in place, by the way, often working many stories up on scaffolding or ladders—not in a workshop on the ground which sounds so much safer. “No OSHA back then,” our guide said. The architect didn’t care what they carved on the column capitals and other large areas—faces, plants, animals, abstract designs—“just don’t carve the same thing twice.” As a result, the carvings are a feast of diversity. Recognizable faces and objects—Lincoln, Frederick Douglass—and imaginary ones surround you.

Capitol buildings become mini-history lessons too. Albany’s Flag Room houses military exhibits and battle flags from conflicts from the War of 1812 to the Gulf War. The Hall of New York features landscape paintings of various state regions—a reminder of what the legislative branch is there to represent. The Hall of Governors gallery displays portraits of 53 of the state’s 57 governors, each with a brief biography. It’s fun to walk that hall saying, “I remember that one!” and noting the governors who became US Presidents and Vice-Presidents. We didn’t see any of those who departed office under a cloud, though at some future point, perhaps they will be “rehabilitated.”

The capitol is located at Washington and State Street in Albany (518-474-2418). Open Mondays through Fridays, 7-7. Free tours weekdays at 10, 12, and 2. Meet at the information desk in the State Street Lobby. To find out about any special tours being offered, visit the Capitol’s website.

Enjoy!