#Jimmy Cagney impression

[theamazingstories]

TV REVIEW: THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS (2022), some spoilers

TV REVIEW: THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS (2022), some spoilers

Figure 1 – Midwich Cuckoos First Edition (British) Before I begin, let me congratulate our R. Graeme Cameron, who has won the Canadian Aurora Award for Fan Writing! Well done, Graeme! Back in the late 1950s, when I was a wee lad, I read everything in the library that was even vaguely science-fictional. That’s the reason I read Moonraker, by Ian Fleming, years before anyone ever heard of James…

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#“brood parasitism” #“Nope” #1957 #alien invasion by pregnancy #black and white #Bob Ball #Children of the Damned (1964) #Column 345 #Damon Knight review #Day of the Triffids #Dolores Reed #Edward G. Robinson impression #Frankie Ray Penelli #Ian Fleming #Invasion of the Star Creatures #James Bond #Jimmy Cagney impression #Joanne Arnold #John Wyndham #John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris #Jordan Peele #Keely Hawes #Lewis and Martin #Mark Ferris #Max Beesley #Moonraker #Out of the Deeps #pad out the movie #Panama City Florida #Peter Lorre impression

[zayaanhashistory]

The Mafia in Popular Culture

From Al Capone and Vito Corleone to John Gotti and Tony Soprano, real-life and fictional mafiosos have captured the public imagination since the 1920s. Ruthless and violent, these men are nonetheless often seen to maintain their own personal brand of honor and decency. In this way, they are modern-day versions of the outlaw heroes of the Wild West, such as Jesse and Frank James or Billy the Kid. Gangsters were only a tiny percentage of the huge migration of Italians, primarily from the south of Italy, to America in the early 20th century. Still, “The Mafia” has become the primary pop culture expression of the Italian American identity–much to the dismay of many Italian Americans. This is due largely to the enduring influence of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 Oscar-winning smash hit film “The Godfather” (based on Mario Puzo’s novel) and its reinvention of the gangster movie genre. 

As the era of Prohibition gave way to the Great Depression, the first wave of gangster movies mirrored the growing anger and frustration of many Americans at their worsening economic conditions. In movies like “Little Caesar” (1931) with Edward G. Robinson, “The Public Enemy” (1931) with Jimmy Cagney and “Scarface” (1932) with Paul Muni, the main characters–all Italian Americans, some based on real life mobsters such as Capone–suffered the consequences of their law-breaking, but many audiences still identified with their willingness to go outside the bounds of the traditional system to make a living. After 1942, gangsters largely disappeared from the screen, as Nazis and monsters took the place of mobsters as Hollywood’s preferred villains. This began to change after 1950, when a Senate committee set up to investigate organized crime began holding public hearings. Thanks to the new medium of television, millions of Americans watched the testimony of real-life mobsters like Frank Costello (or more accurately, they watched Costello’s shaky hands–the only part of him shown by the camera). In the early 1960s, Joseph Valachi, a soldier in the Luciano “family” organization, took a starring role in later televised hearings. It was Valachi who introduced the now-famous Mafia euphemism “La Cosa Nostra” (Our Thing), and his testimony revealed the evolution of Italian-American organized crime in America, especially in New York. “The Valachi Papers,” a book by Peter Maas, came out in 1969, the same year as the novel that would do more than any other to establish the mythology of the mafia in popular culture: Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather.” 

Puzo’s novel tells the story of Sicilian immigrant Vito Corleone and the family and “business” he built in New York, including the struggles of his son Michael, who will succeed him as the new “Don.” Paramount Pictures bought the film rights to the novel, and studio head Robert Evans turned to the young Italian-American director Francis Ford Coppola to direct. (Coppola also co-wrote the screenplay, with Puzo.) With Marlon Brando (Don Corleone) and Al Pacino (Michael) leading a stellar cast, “The Godfather” gave a fuller, more authentic and more sympathetic glimpse into the Italian-American experience than had been seen on screen before, even as it framed that glimpse through the lens of organized crime. It also painted an undeniably romantic portrait of the mafioso as a man of contradiction, who was ruthless toward his enemy but devoted to his family and friends above all else. Unlike previous gangster films, “The Godfather” looked at the Mafia from the inside out, instead of taking the perspective of law enforcement or of “regular” society. In this way, “The Godfather” reinvented the gangster movie, just as it would influence all those that came after it. “The Godfather, Part II” (1974) was darker and more violent than the first film, but both were box office smashes and multiple Oscar winners. (“The Godfather, Part III,” released 16 years after “Part II,” failed to impress critics or audiences.) Over the next three decades, Hollywood never lost its fascination with the Mafia. A partial list of related films includes dramas like “The Untouchables” (1987), “Donnie Brasco” (1997) and especially Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” (1990), which showed the underside of “The Godfather's romantic vision of Mafia life. Mafiosos also made their way into comedies: “Prizzi’s Honor” (1985), “Married to the Mob” (1988), “My Blue Heaven” (1990) and “Analyze This” (1999). From animated films to children’s cartoons, video games to “gangsta”-style hip-hop or rap music, the myth of the Mafia was everywhere, thanks in large part to the enduring legacy of “The Godfather.” On TV, of course, mobsters turned up regularly on crime shows like “NYPD Blue” and “Law and Order.” In 1999, however, came the debut of a cable TV show featuring a mafioso like none ever seen before. 

In Tony Soprano, David Chase, the creator of the HBO series “The Sopranos” and an Italian American from New Jersey, managed to create a new kind of gangster. Chase moved the action from the traditional urban environment to the New Jersey suburbs, where Tony (James Gandolfini) visits a psychiatrist to deal with the stresses of work and family (including wife Carmela, mother Livia and two teenage kids). In the world of “The Sopranos,” gangsters like Tony are simply trying to achieve the same kind of affluent lifestyle as their fellow suburbanites, all while struggling with a sense that something is missing, that things aren’t like what they used to be. “The Sopranos” ran for six seasons from 1999 to 2004, won more than 20 Emmy Awards and was hailed by some critics as the greatest show in TV history. In acknowledgement of Chase’s debt to other works of Mafia-related popular culture, the series continually referenced those works, including “Public Enemy,” “Goodfellas” and, especially, “The Godfather.” 

Like “The Godfather,” one of the most impressive aspects of “The Sopranos” was its richly detailed portrait of first- and second-generation Italian Americans, as seen through the experience of one extended family. The fact that both of those families were Mob families, however, means that many Italian Americans had mixed feelings toward these works. In 1970, the Italian American Civil Rights League held a rally to stop production of “The Godfather.” As for “The Sopranos,” the National Italian American Foundation has railed against the show as an offensive caricature, while organizers of New York City’s Columbus Day Parade refused to permit “Sopranos” cast members to march in the parade for several years running. Though pop culture’s fascination with the Mafia has undeniably fueled certain negative stereotypes about Italian Americans, acclaimed works like “The Godfather,” “Goodfellas,” and “The Sopranos” have also given many Italian Americans a sense of shared identity and experience. Despite its controversial nature, the myth of the Mafia–as created and nurtured by “The Godfather” and its many pop culture descendants–continues to enthrall the masses of Italian and non-Italians alike. 

[elflady]

Sammy Davis Jr. has me spoiled because I’m like “oh, you want to sing Rock-A-Bye Your Baby (With A Dixie Melody)? That’s cute, so you’ve perfected your Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Nat King Cole, Jimmy Cagney, and Dean Martin impressions then?”

#ok but also I saw a clip of Jimmy Cagney once and did not recognize him except for how he sounded like Sammy's impression of him #singing that song #sammy davis jr. #Rock-A-Bye Your Baby (With A Dixie Melody)

[papermoonloveslucy]

THE LUCILLE BALL BOMBER!

June 11, 1943

Second Lieutenant Donald A. Gaylord, a pilot of the 351st Bomb Group poses with the damaged fuselage of his B-17 Flying Fortress (serial number 42-3532) nicknamed "Lucille Ball". 

PILOT RISKS LIFE TO KEEP FLYING FORTRESS FROM CRASHING ON ENGLISH TOWN

It has just been disclosed that a 23-year-old American pilot 2nd Lt. Donald A Gaylord of Waterloo, IA, risked his life to keep his badly damaged Flying Fortress, "Lucille Ball" from crashing into the centre of Ipswich, England, as the bomber returned from an attack on Gelsenkirchen, on November 5. Crossing the coast of England the Fortress was flying on a single engine and at 3,000ft Gaylord ordered the crew to bail out. He then set the bomber on automatic pilot on a course which would take it out over the channel but the automatic pilot was unable to keep the ship in level flight and it started a dive for the centre of the city. Gaylord, however managed to pull the bomber out of its dive at 200ft and belly landed in a field on the outskirts of the city. 

In January 1944, a second B-17 Bomber was named for Lucille Ball - Lucille Ball II. It was scrapped due to a fire in August 1944. No  injuries were reported. 

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engine heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). The B-17 was primarily employed in the daylight strategic bombing campaign of World War II against German industrial, military and civilian targets. The B-17 dropped more bombs than any other U.S. aircraft in World War II.  As of October 2019, nine aircraft remain airworthy, though none of them was ever flown in combat. Dozens more are in storage or on static display. 

In “Lucy and Carol Burnett” (HL S3;E22) Kim Carter (Lucie Arnaz) pays tribute to Jimmy Cagney does her impression of Cagney saying “You dirty rat.” James Cagney (1899-1986, inset) was a singer, dancer and actor best known in Hollywood for playing tough guys. The only time he ever appeared with Lucille Ball was a 1950 episode of “The Bob Hope Show.” 

#Lucille Ball #B-17 #Flying Fortress #Jimmy Cagney #World War II #Airplanes #Bombers #Here's Lucy

[tcm]

Team or No Team: The Partnership of Joan Blondell and James Cagney by Kim Luperi

Thumbing through Hollywood’s Great Love Teams, I came across a chapter about James Cagney and Ann Sheridan. Figuring I missed out on a classic Hollywood partnership, I googled how many movies they co-starred in. The answer: Just three.

I expected to see Joan Blondell’s name next to Cagney’s, as they appeared in more than twice as many pictures together (an impressive seven), starting with SINNERS’ HOLIDAY (‘30) and ending with HE WAS HER MAN (‘34). Whether flinging wise cracks, landing slaps or locked in intense drama, Blondell and Cagney always drew me in. Her breezy broads and his tough yet charming chaps exuded a sense of vitality that makes them a joy to watch, even when they aren’t onscreen together. So, why don’t they earn more recognition as a duo? I’d never given that question much thought, so I decided to investigate.

Interestingly, Blondell and Cagney were regularly referred to as a team in 1930s publications. An ad for their fourth film, 1931’s BLONDE CRAZY, proclaimed: “Leading a cheer for the fastest and funniest team on the screen, Blondell and Cagney.” That same year, the Los Angeles Times revealed that Blondell replaced Dorothy Mackaill in THE CROWD ROARS (‘32) because “fans are demanding to see more pictures in which these two artists play opposite each other.” A few months later, another Los Angeles Times article confirmed “the Cagney-Blondell combination had been recognized by the production heads as a strong one.” By 1934, their rapport had become so recognizable that they both penned a two-page spread of articles for Screenland, “What I Think of Joan, As Told By James Cagney” and “What I Think of Jimmy, As Told By Joan Blondell.” (Intriguingly, they both call each other “moody as the devil”!)

In a prophetic move, the two were actually brought to Hollywood together. Blondell and Cagney co-starred on Broadway in Maggie the Magnificent, which had the luck of opening the week the stock market crashed. They made enough of an impression to get cast in Penny Arcade, which Al Jolson bought and sold to Warner Bros. with one big stipulation: Blondell and Cagney went with the sale. Both arrived in Hollywood for the film adaptation, released as SINNERS’ HOLIDAY, but not everyone was happy. “Well, we’re stuck with you for one picture,” WB production head Darryl F. Zanuck bemoaned. In no time, though, that displeasure turned to delight when Zanuck realized what talent he had on his hands. According to an interview with Blondell, “He cornered us along the back lot while we were working—no agents, no time to think—and signed us each to a five-year contract.” The rest is history.

And that history includes a lot of films. Given that Blondell and Cagney’s partnerships came early in their Hollywood days and they both enjoyed long careers, they had a lot more to account for than their movies together (not to mention, many of their early pairings were in supporting roles). Blondell’s reliability and versatility meant that Warners could put her in anything, and in one eight-year period, she churned out over 50 pictures for the studio, making it easy for those Cagney pictures to blend in. Meanwhile, the equally multifaceted Cagney skyrocketed to fame in THE PUBLIC ENEMY (‘31) and took home a Best Actor Oscar for 1942’s musical biopic YANKEE DOODLE DANDY. His later A-level stardom has a habit of sometimes overshadowing his earlier workmanlike roles.

I don’t think Blondell and Cagney are as well-remembered as a team because unlike Hepburn and Tracy, Astaire and Rogers and other famous classic duos, they weren’t pigeonholed in the public’s mind; though some traits remained constant, they portrayed different characters in their films together. Furthermore, we tend to think of male-female screen teams in a romantic sense, but Blondell and Cagney more often simply appeared as castmates. Cases in point: SINNERS’ HOLIDAY saw them attempt to go on a date; they briefly shared one scene in OTHER MEN’S WOMEN (1931), both out on the town with others; Cagney smashed that grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face in THE PUBLIC ENEMY and Blondell gets hitched to Cagney’s brother in THE CROWD ROARS. They fall in love, with hitmen hot on Cagney’s tail, in HE WAS HER MAN… but Blondell marries someone else.

That said, my favorite Blondell-Cagney entries are the two in which they end up together, BLONDE CRAZY and FOOTLIGHT PARADE (both ‘33), after working platonically alongside each other the whole time. The duo’s relationship is playful, acerbic and low-key sweet, showcasing a vivacious romantic chemistry that felt ahead of its time. One wishes they had been romantically paired more often, if only to savor exchanges like this from FOOTLIGHT PARADE:

Chester Kent (Cagney): Sometimes I get the feeling you don't like anybody.

Nan Prescott (Blondell): If you only knew.

#Joan Blondell #James Cagney #pre-Code #duo #screen team #Public Enemy #Footlight Parade #Blonde Crazy #Sinners Holiday

[dukereviewstv]

Duke Reviews TV: Batman: The Animated Series 1x10 And 1x11 Two-Face

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews TV, Where We Continue Our Look At Batman: The Animated Series By Talking About Episodes 10 And 11 Of Season 1, Two-Face...

This Episode Sees Harvey Dent Starting To Transform Into The Duality Obsessed Two-Face When He Expresses Anger Issues That Are Being Caused By Another Personality In Harvey's Subconscious Called "Big Bad Harv"...

Big Bad Harv...

Going To Get Psychiatric Help At Bruce's Behest, His Psych File Ends Up In The Hands Of Mobster Rupert Thorne (Played By Officer Mooney From Killer Klowns From Outer Space) Who Decides To Blackmail Him In Exchange For Favors In D.A'S Office...

Will Batman Be Able To Save Harvey From Thorne? Or Will Big Bad Harv Take Over Completely And Handle The Problem For The Bat?

Let's Find Out As We Watch Two-Face...

The Episode Starts With A Dream Sequence As Harvey Runs From A Disembodied Voice Saying "It's Time"...

Woken Up By His Secretary, Carlos, Who Tells Him That Gordon Called Saying That They Started A Raid On A Derelict Building Being Held By Rupert Thorne's Men...

With Batman's Help, The Men Are Captured As Harvey Congratulates Gordon And The Police But When One Of The Crooks Kicks Mud In Harvey's Face, Dent Goes Beserk On The Crook And Has To Be Pulled Off Him

Reverting Back To His Regular Self After That, Dent Has No Memory Of What Happened And Just Simply Says That Maybe The Criminal Hit The Right Button...

Back At His Headquarters, Rupert Thorne Tells His Hot Mole, Candice...

To Find Something Dirty About Dent's Past That Could Be Used In His Favor

Later At A Campaign Rally At Wayne Manor, Carlos Tells Harvey That The Judge Let Thorne's Men Go Because The Warrant Was "Incomplete" This Leads To Harvey Losing His Temper Again Because He Believes That The Judge Was Bought Off Like Everyone In Thorne's Employ...

Bruce Tries To Calm Harvey Down But All It Does Is Make Harvey Take His Anger Out On Him, It's Only When Harvey's Fiancee Grace Slaps Him...

With Bruce Advising Harvey To Get Psychiatric Help, Grace Tells Him That Harvey Already Is, Only For Harvey To Be Embarrassed, Despite Being Reluctant To Due To His Campaign...

Visiting His Doctor That Night, She Induces Hypno Therapy On Harvey, Where She Meets Harvey's Other Personality, Big Bad Harv...

And This Scene Frightens Me Every Time I See It....

(Start At 0:37, End At 2:26)

Asking If There's Any Other Way, The Doctor Suggests Increasing Their Sessions And Doing Less Campaigning Which Harvey Agrees To Do As Long As It's Kept Quiet, But Unfortunately, Thorne's Mole Candice Is Right Outside The Door And She Heard Everything...

Months Pass And Harvey Is About To Recieve A Landslide Victory In His Re-Election But When He Gets A Phone Call From Rupert Thorne Who Tells Harvey That He Knows About Big Bad Harv, And That If He Doesn't Get Into A Car Outside In The Alley, His Political Career Wont Be Intact For Much Longer...

Worried About His Friend, Bruce Suits Up And Follows Harvey To Thorne At A Chemical Plant Where He Tells Harvey That In Exchange For Keeping Quiet About Harvey's Psych Record, He'll Want A Few Favors From The D.A'S Office...

With Thorne Asking If They Have A Deal, Harvey Has A Psychotic Break And Attacks Thorne And His Men...

Harvey Smash!

Batman Tries To Stop Harvey Not Realizing That It's Not Harvey He's Dealing With But Big Bad Harv...

With Thorne's Men Fighting Both Harvey And Batman, Thorne Eventually Grabs The File And Bolts With Harvey Going After Him...

(Start At 2:26, End At 3:12)

I Usually Love Kevin Conroy But I Don't Like That No He Did There (Despite Knowing That Alot Of People Do) I'm Sorry But I Just Wish It Was Louder So I Could Feel His Anguish To The Situation Where Here I Just Don't Feel It...

Taking Harvey To The Hospital, Bruce Worries About The Mental Scars Than The Physical Scars While Candice Rejoices At Getting Rid Of Dent Despite Thorne Not Being So Convinced Harvey Is Gone..

Later At The Hospital, The Doctor Starts Removing The Bandages...

(Start At 1:29)

So, Yeah, That Ends Part 1, So, Now We Move On To Part 2...

A Few Months Have Passed And Harvey Is Now Full Two Face, Hitting Rupert Thorne's Joints, Humiliating Him Just As He Humiliated Harvey With The Help Of His Boys, Min And Max (Voiced By Micky Dolenz Of The Monkees)...

And He's Not Using James Cagney Impression Voice For The 2 Henchmen?...

(Start At 0:04, End At 0:10)

I Am So Over This Show!

I'm Kidding Of Course, That Would Make It Cartoony And God Knows We Can't Do That For 2 Seconds With This Show...

Infuriated That Harvey Took Him For $200,000, Candice Is Basically Like...

Because They Created Him While Rupert Places Out A Contract A Million A Face For Two Face...

Back In The Batcave, Bruce Has A Nightmare About Harvey...

(End At 1:09)

Finding A Picture Of Two Face, Bruce Vows To Save Harvey By Any Means Necessary...

Getting A Visit From A Detective Leopold Who Wants Her Help In Finding Harvey, Grace Is Given A Transmitter Which She's To Activate If Dent Contacts Her...

However It's Revealed To Us, That Leopold Is Really Candice In Disguise...

Going Over His Profits, Two Face Opens His Wallet Only To See A Picture Of Grace Which Causes Him To Freeze For A Second...

Min And Max Offer To Bring Grace To Him If He Misses Her So Much, But When He Gets His Coin Out And Flips It, It's Lands On The Bad Side So It'll Have To Wait While They Pull Off Their Big Plan Of Taking Down Thorne Once And For All..

Back In The Batcave, Batman Looks At Two Face's Previous Targets Realizes That Aside From The Fact That They All Have The Number 2 In Them, They're All Fronts For Thorne's Activities, This Leads Batman To Realize Where Harvey Is Headed Next...

(Start At 1:26)

Batman Is Woken Up By A Janitor Who Tells Him That Two Face Is Gone...

Driving By A Wedding Shop Where He Imagines Grace As The Bride On A Cake. Asking His Boys To Stop So He Can Flip His Coin...

And It Must Have Landed On Good Heads Because He Calls Grace And Says That He Wants To See Her...

Having Min And Max Outside Of The Apartment Waiting For Her, Grace Hangs Up Before Activating The Transmitter Giving Candice The Signal As Thorne Rages About The File Harvey Stole...

Arriving At The Abandoned Wild Deuce Club, Grace Sees Two Face Who Has A Cloth Over His Scared Side (Kind Of A la Phantom Of The Opera)...

As He Tells Her How He Is Now With Chance And She's Basically Unable To Accept It As It Wasn't Chance That Made Him D.A. Or Made Him Fall In Love With Her As He Removes The Cloth Telling Him That He Never Has To Be Afraid Of Her...

But It All Goes Down The Crapper When Thorne's Men Knock Out Min And Max And Thorne Enters With Candice, Who Tells Two Face What Grace Did Despite Thorne Saying That She Thought She Was Warning The Police...

Despite Thorne's Men Searching All Over, They Can't Find Thorne's File Which Forces Thorne To Go After Grace..,

(Start At 0:43, End At 3:32)

Alot Of People Have Said That Joel Schumacher Took The Last Couple Of Minutes Of This Part And Turned It Into This Part In Batman Forever...

(Start At 0:44, End At 0:59)

But Like The Part With Scarecrow In Nothing To Fear I See It As A Meer Coincidence...

With The Police Arresting Thorne And His Gang Along With Two Face Who Has Grace By His Side. Gordon Wonders If There's Hope For Harvey And Batman Replies Simply Where There's Love, There's Hope, Before He Tosses A Coin Into A Fountain For Harvey Ending Our Episode...

Now Before I Give My Opinion On The Episodes, I'd Like To Talk About Those Last Words Of The Episode...

"Where There's Love, There's Hope"

Those Lines Are Slightly Melancholy For Me...

Why?

Because After This Episode We Never See Grace With Harvey Again....

After This Episode And A Brief Cameo In Fear Of Victory, The Next Time We See Two Face Is In The Strange Secret Of Bruce Wayne Where He's Full On Two Face And Bidding On Bruce's Secret Alongside The Joker And The Penguin..

So, The Question Is What Happened To Grace? Did She Fall Off The Edge Of The DCAU Continuity?

Hi, Duke Here, The Following Was Going To Be A Long Winded Rant On Grace And What I Thought The Writers And Creators Did To Her, But After I Wrote That Rant, I Looked On DCAU Wiki And Discovered That They Moved Grace's Story With Harvey To The Comics...

Namely The Batman And Robin Adventures Comic, Where In Issues #1 And #2..

She Falls Victim To A Nefarious Plot By The Joker, Who Enrages Harvey By Suggesting That Grace And Bruce Wayne Are A Couple, This Leads Two Face To Kidnap Grace, Bruce And Dick, Threatening To Kill Them All...

But Realizing That He Has Succumbed To His Bad Side, Grace Stabs Two Face In The Face With His Coin Implicating That Their Relationship Is Over...

However, In Issue 22 Of Batman And Robin Adventures...

Two Face's Life Is Thrown Into Chaos When He Loses His Trademark Coin During A Breakout And Has Replaced It With A Quarter. Little Jonni Infantino, A Gangster Who Caused The Breakout..

And An Obvious Nod To Carmine Infantino, Comic Book Artist And Former Editor Of DC Comics...

Threatens To Kill Grace If Two Face Doesn't Provide Him Information On One Of Rupert Thorne's Thugs, Weird Tony Hendra, Who Was One Of Harvey's Last Cases As D.A....

Running To A Payphone, Two Face Calls Grace, Warning Her To Get Out Of Her Apartment Before Jonni Can Get To Her. Calling Bruce Afterwards To Tell Him That Harvey Saved Her Life, He Tells Her That He Will Send Alfred To Pick Her Up And Bring Her To The Mansion...

After That, That's The Last We See Of Grace, But It's Hinted That She Still Deeply Loves Harvey...

These Stories Are Good, But I Wish That #1 And #2 Were Portrayed On The Animated Series...

Mainly Because I Know There Are People Like Me Who Don't Go Out To Comic Book Stores And Get The Comics, So, In Turn People Like Me Are Confused About Where Characters Like Grace Are...

Not That There Are Anymore Characters That Leave The Show And Have Me Asking Where They Are, Like I Did With Grace But Still...

If Paul Dini Or Bruce Timm Are Looking At This I'd Like To Know Why They Went This Route With Grace And Didn't Explain Where She Was On The Animated Series For The People Who Didn't Read The Comic?

I Mean They Explained What Happened To Nora Fries After Sub Zero The Least They Can Do Is Explain What Happened To Grace After Two Face...

Anyway We Now Return You To Your Review Already In Progress....

God!

But Aside From My Problems With That These Two Episodes Are Very Good...

The Story And Characters Were Well Written And Their Take On The Character Of Two Face Is Brilliantly Written, Definite Props To Richard Moll For Amazingly Voicing Two Face In This And Many Episodes Of BTAS, All In All I Say See Them Both...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke, Signing Off...

#batman the animated series #BTAS #Kevin Conroy #Bob Hastings #efrem zimbalist jr. #richard moll #Mari Devon #John Vernon #micky dolenz #dc animated universe #DCAU

[silverlake-archive]

Old Hollywood Ask Meme

Jean Harlow: Do you have a garden? If so, what kind of plants do you have?

Humphrey Bogart: Do you travel a lot? Where have you been?

Myrna Loy: Do you like going to parties?

Spencer Tracy: What time do you wake up?

Grace Kelly: What do you do when you're bored?

Jimmy Stewart: Do you have a good sense of humor?

Veronica Lake: List some random facts about your physical appearance.

Gary Cooper: Do you talk a lot?

Jean Arthur: Do you have any siblings?

Clark Gable: Are you an introvert or an extrovert? A bit of both? Something else entirely?

Barbara Stanwyck: What are your hobbies?

Cary Grant: Do you have any pets? Have you ever had any?

Gene Tierney: What are three things you like about yourself?

Bing Crosby: Can you sing or play a musical instrument? Would you like to?

Katharine Hepburn: Who do you admire? Why?

Fred Astaire: What are your favorite sports?

Ginger Rogers: Is there anything you've said that you'd like to take back?

Gregory Peck: What is your dream job?

Audrey Hepburn: What are your favorite quotes?

Donald O'Connor: What is your favorite ice cream/sorbet flavor? Carole Lombard: What makes you laugh?

William Powell: Describe your hairstyle.

Bette Davis: Do you hold grudges?

Frank Sinatra: What countries would you like to visit?

Lauren Bacall: Do you like to read? If so, what are your favorite books?

James Cagney: What would you call your autobiography?

Rita Hayworth: What is your middle name?

Peter Lorre: How many languages do you speak?

Irene Dunne: What does your neutral face look like?

Lucille Ball: What are some of your favorite jokes?

Jack Lemmon: What is/was your favorite subject in school?

Marilyn Monroe: Do you like your name? Why or why not?

Gene Kelly: What color are your eyes?

Greta Garbo: Do you get sick easily or a lot?

Joel McCrea: Describe your laugh.

Debbie Reynolds: What are you afraid of?

Dick Powell: Are you a night owl or a morning person?

Elizabeth Taylor: What is your religion?

S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall: What was the best year of your life so far?

Joan Bennett: Do you worry much about your appearance?

Robert Taylor: Describe your family.

Eleanor Powell: Describe your bedroom and post a picture if you want.

Gracie Allen: What is your shoe size?

Montgomery Clift: How tall are you?

Lana Turner: What are you allergic to anything?

Paul Henreid: Are you a coffee person or a tea person?

Hedy Lamarr: As a child, did you have one article of clothing that you absolutely loved (like wouldn't take it off type of thing)? What was it?

Claude Rains: Do you wear makeup on a daily basis?

Cyd Charisse: If you had to describe yourself in only a few lines, what would you say?

Peter Lawford: What are your pet peeves?

Vera-Ellen: Who are you jealous of?

Buster Keaton: Are you easily offended?

Bob Hope: Do you have any dietary restrictions (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, Kosher, etc.)?

Charlie Chaplin: What kind of people get on your nerves?

Ruby Keeler: What are your gender and preferred set of pronouns?

Tyrone Power: Do you have any stuffed animals? What kind of animals are they? What are their names?

Joan Blondell: Are you at all nostalgic or sentimental?

Ronald Colman: Do you know any songs/poems/passages from novels or stories by heart? What are they?

Ingrid Bergman: Are you good at doing impressions of people?

Mickey Rooney: What book are you reading at the moment?

Judy Garland: Do you believe in an Afterlife?

Groucho Marx: Do you tend to be sarcastic/ironic?

Jeanette MacDonald: Do you prefer warm or cold weather?

Harpo Marx: Do you talk a lot? Too much?

Joan Crawford: Write a poem describing one or many of these three things: your eyebrows, a baked potato, a yellow tie-dye sock.

Chico Marx: Can you change your voice/fake accents?

Mary Martin: Can you cook/bake at all?

Zeppo Marx: Do you think you're funny?

Mary Tyler Moore: What are your parents' first names?

Edward G. Robinson: Draw a self portrait.

Doris Day: Who do you miss?

Dick Van Dyke: Can you sew/knit/crochet/etc.?

Janet Leigh: What are some things that you feel guilty being happy about?

Basil Rathbone: What is one belief/conviction you'll never give up?

#slaskmeme

[chiseler]

The Madness of Ken Russell

Critical thinking in Britain has always taken the view that Ken Russell was a wild, ill-disciplined talent who ultimately went artistically mad: this was also the view in the film industry. The only major disagreement was about when he went from being merely excessive to being balls-out crazy: different parties chose different tipping points.

(WAIT! WHO CARES ABOUT CRITICS?)

(Bear with me: in Russell’s case, the critical consensus serves as a valuable reverse barometer.)

Russell, a suburban boy, former merchant seaman and Catholic convert, made a few brilliant short films with his wife and fellow genius, costume designer Shirley Russell, before landing a job at the BBC’s flagship arts program, Monitor. His stint here taught him to fight, and placed him under the stern patronage of producer Huw Weldon, probably the only authority figure he ever respected. Many good fights were enjoyed. When Russell joined the program, there was an absolute ban on dramatization and re-enactment: the most he was allowed was to show a composer’s hands at the piano. By the time he finished up on the show, he’d managed to twist it out of shape to the point where he’d been allowed to make complete dramatic works in the guise of documentary. These TV plays are highly cinematic, kinetic and bold: like Kubrick, Russell had a love of both stark symmetry and dynamic movement. Control and its opposite.

Russell found actors he liked, including Oliver Reed, with whom he enjoyed a strange kinship: both were heavy drinkers, both affected a casual attitude to their work, though Russell was never ashamed to call himself an artist. Ollie became the John Wayne to Russell’s Ford (in a roiling, nightmare vision of classical cinema).

The point when Russell moved out of TV is the first moment his detractors choose to mark his decline into self-indulgent craziness. He made a modest, eccentric comedy, French Dressing (with mounds of inflatable girls piled up like Holocaust victims) and a wild, idiosyncratic spy movie, The Billion Dollar Brain, a Russophile anti-Bond movie full of flip humor and Eisenstein homages. Critics saw these films as work-for-hire, as perhaps they were, and largely discount them. They are quite brilliant.

Women in Love is counted by others as the last pre-madness film, and its relative sanity can be attributed to the control exerted by its writer-producer Larry Kramer. Russell’s excesses are held in check, it is argued, and the tension between its creators was productive. It’s a very good film, but I find it too sedate in places, though the vivid color and Shirley Russell’s bold designs, and some scenes of genuine wildness and invention stave off actual boredom.

The Music Lovers, his dream project, expanding the TV composer film to the big screen and color, is where a real case for craziness begins to be made: the choice to explore Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality now seems mature rather than lurid, but Ken is undeniably pushing the biopic into unfamiliar terrain: fantasies of decapitation by cannon-shot, a filthy madhouse, a demented honeymoon on a train rocking like the Starship Enterprise, complete with crotch shots. Maybe even worse, from the critics’ viewpoint, Russell, who had directed one TV commercial before walking away from that business in disgust, co-opted the visual language of the shampoo commercial to depict the images conjured by the composer’s music. Russell was in love with romanticism but saw through it too. Ironically, the filmmaker constantly castigated for unsubtlety injected an irony into the film that critics missed, taking the soppiness at face value and not seeing how the concealed satire blended perfectly with the overt caricature and phantasmagoric visions.

Still, the subject was respectable, but with The Devils, Russell managed a film maudit that took decades to be reappraised, and earned him criticism of a uniquely vociferous sort, admittedly in keeping with the hysteria of the film itself. An account – or channelling – of a 16th Century witchcraft trial in France, the movie didn’t so much push as cremate the envelope as far as sex, violence and blasphemy were concerned: Russell, who had converted to Catholicism in his youth, lost his faith while making this one, converting to an animist worship of the Lake District, a religion of his own devising. Well, he did have a substantial ego.

Russell was upsetting: apart from the torture, abuse and madness, the film threw in discordant tonal shifts, creative anachronisms and deployed all of his cinematic influences, which prominently featured Orson Welles, Fellini, Fritz Lang’s German silents, and the musicals of Busby Berkeley, which supplied the top-shots used to depict the rape of Christ on the cross, a scene cut by the censor and lovingly preserved by the director for a future restoration, still explicitly forbidden by the film’s backers, Warner Brothers.

Asides from his crisis of faith and crises in his marriage and his dealings with the studio, Russell was also knocking back the wine. “Better before lunch,” was his prop man’s characterization of the director. Production designer Derek Jarman recounted Russell asking him, “What can I do that’ll really offend the British public?” “Well you could kill a lot of people,” mused Jarman, “but if you really want to upset them you could kill some animals.” A plan was then devised to have King Louis with a musket blowing the heads off the peacocks on his lawn: the birds were to be fitted with explosives at the neck, like Snake Plissken, but Russell backed away from this extreme, even by his standards, approach, and instead had the target practice performed with a man dressed as a blackbird, and the King saying “Bye-bye, blackbird,” and Peter Maxwell-Davies’ remarkable score quoting the popular twenties song, and that infuriated the critics just as much as actual bird-blasting would have.

Less amusingly, Russell was also guilty of unsafe practices involving the naked girls and rowdy extras: the stories here get really dark. As does the film: a demented masterpiece that shows Russell for once engaging with the political: a film about corruption that uses physical disintegration alongside social and spiritual rot.

Just to confuse us even more, Russell made The Boy Friend the same year, an epic music and a miniature at the same time, allowing him to recreate Busby Berkeley’s pixilated fantasias in a seedy English theater. It’s light and charming, but Russell’s version of these qualities was not recognized by the critics, and it’s true that his wit is clodhopping, his whimsy grotesque, everything is overplayed, in your face: but you have to climb aboard the film, get into its spirit, and then it really is a very lovely reversal of the usual nightmare.

The seventies brought more composer films, Mahler and Lisztomania, and also the rock opera Tommy, which earned Russell slightly better reviews as his boisterousness was judged more in keeping with the material (critics, it seemed, could not stand the idea of a filmmaker responding to classical music for its passion and energy, its rock ‘n’ roll qualities, rather than for its assumed civilising effect). Russell got away with showing Ann-Margret humping her cushions while slathered in feculent chocolate sauce, shot Tina Turner with a 6mm lens to uglify her as she thrashed around a steel sarcophagus studded with hypos, and put Elton John on ten-foot platform shoes.

Lisztomania is another movie that’s seen as marking the decline into lunacy: its producer, David Puttnam, hugely impressed by Russell’s flare and his ability to shoot Mahler after half the budget fell through, felt that ultimately the relentless negative press knocked his enfant terrible off-balance. Instead of rolling over in submission, Russell perversely doubled down on the excess and became a parody of himself. And he had already been a parody to begin with (but a parody without an original, unless we take him as a combined burlesque of all his cinematic influences). I’ve always adored Lisztomania, which knows it’s going too far, knows its japes and conceits are ludicrous and indefensible, knows it can’t get away with Roger Daltrey as Liszt and Ringo Starr as the Pope. And just. Doesn’t. Care.

Valentino, which marked the end of the Russell marriage (there would be a bunch more), was dismissed by Russell as the fag-end of his first British period, “everything about it was bored and boring, including me,” but it’s actually rather good. Nureyev as Valentino (well, he was used to being called Rudolph), Russell as Rex Ingram wielding a megaphone the size of a cannon. The twenties, as lived by Rambova, Dorothy Arzner, Fatty Arbuckle, or as dreamt by Mad Ken.

Russell had made his career in Britain at a time when the industry was in collapse: he largely missed the explosion of energy that marked Swinging London, the British new wave, and the only kitchen sink he liked was the one he was always throwing in. Now, the domestic business seemed to have expired of ennui, senile dementia and blood poisoning, but Hollywood beckoned. Russell was bottom of a long list of directors who all turned down Paddy Chayefsky’s Altered States, a late-mid-life crisis film about sensory deprivation tanks and psychedelics which takes John C. Lilley and fuses him with Dr. Jekyll. Russell took it on despite being forbidden from changing a line of dialogue, but got his revenge by having his actors speak fast -- like Jimmy Cagney fast, not so much throwing away their lines as firing them like tennis balls. And by having them eat at the same time. And by expanding the hallucination sequences until they took over the movie, so that they were all anyone talked about. Druggie audiences would hang out into the lobby, Russell gleefully reported, posting a sentry in the auditorium who would yell “Hallucination!” whenever one was starting, and everyone would rush back in to get a hit of audiovisual delirium.

A bit like Women in Love, Altered States benefited from the creative clash between director and writer (who took his name off the script in protest at Russell’s backhanded fidelity), but the reaction among respectable types was mainly a theatrical eye-roll: the maniac was up to his old tricks. Crimes of Passion, starring Kathleen Turner and Anthony Perkins, was next, with she as a Belle de Jour career girl by day, working girl by night, he as an insane sex-obsessed preacher, some forgettable soap opera type as leading man, the whole thing soaked in neon colors and spliced full of Bearsley and Hokusai, whom the American censor duly deleted in horror. “They cut out anything to do with art,” observed the filmmaker.

And that was it for America, save occasional pieces for HBO, progressively more televisual, the locked-off symmetrical winning out over the kinetic. Russell returned to the UK to make theatrical features, and again you heard the cry off “Whatever happened? He used to be good!” Gothic dealt with Byron and the Shelleys and the birth of Frankenstein, and was fruity, literate, dirty good fun. The Rainbow was a return to Women in Love territory, on a lower budget and with less energy and star wattage: Russell declared it his best film since that imagined zenith, and a few critics wanly agreed. The Lair of the White Worm was another journey beyond the pale, thrusting some of the same actors into a ludicrous vampire and snake goddess phallic farrago with Hugh Grant and a kilted Peter Capaldi attempting to snakecharm with bagpipes. A vampirized policeman gets his head impaled on a deco sundial. Marvelous. And the sequence was rounded out with Salome’s Last Dance, which stages Oscar Wilde’s biblical wet dream in a Victorian brothel, an inspired no-budget solution and a film which, unlike Altered States, really respects its words, lingering over them, rolling them salaciously over its tongue. Add in also Ken’s episode of Aria, in which he stages Nessun Dorma as an accident victim’s operating room hallucination, with porn mag model Linzi Drew, a new Russell favorite, in the lead.

Time was running out, the budgets shrinking like a Fu Manchu death chamber, the ceiling pressing down and clearly constraining what Russell could achieve, despite his continuing ambition. Lady Chatterley’s Lover for the BBC scored huge ratings, and he was never asked back. Commercial television’s top arts programme, The South Bank Show, run by Russell’s old screenwriter from Women in Love, Melvyn Bragg, kept him going with more-or-less annual commissions: he’d come full circle, or did when he moved back to home movies, shot in his garden or in his favorite Soho pub, which he hoped to “flog on the internet.” The symmetry of the career, its ourobousness, is more pleasing to contemplate than it must have been to live, though the last marriage lasted and was happy, and the ever-moving critical pendulum had reached the place where people were starting to say that The Devils and some of the other seventies work was really good, actually.

I can admire everything up until the final home movies, and maybe I’ll come round to them: Russell was right to admire all his earlier films. He spent decades more or less brushing off French Dressing, then saw it on TV and thought, “This is a masterpiece!” which it is. But only a minor one compared to what was those around it. Seaside-postcard humor, musical comedy performances, pop art imagery, Wagnerian and Stravinskian soundtracks, a defiant rejection of subtlety. “I don’t believe there’s any value in understatement […] This is the age of kicking people in the balls and telling them something and getting a reaction […] Picasso was not restrained, Mahler was not restrained!’” His detractors thought he should be, possibly in a straitjacket and with megadoses of Thorazine, but Russell was a volcanic eruption in cinematic form, a purple-faced tyrant of the Stroheim school, a demonic force driven to possess reels of celluloid and make them glow in the dark with a sugar rush radiation that has yet to decay. He was too big, too vulgar, too beautiful, too nasty and too beautiful for a national cinema mired in lethargic literary-theatrical respectability. “The visual arts have never had a foothold in England,” he sneered.

Ken!

Life is not a Ken Loach movie. It is a Ken Russell movie.

by David Cairns

#David Cairns #The Chiseler #Ken Russell

[naturalbornworldshakers]

“My childhood was surrounded by trouble, illness, and my dad's alcoholism, but as I said, we just didn't have the time to be impressed by all those misfortunes. I have an idea that the Irish possess a built-in don't-give-a-damn that helps them through all the stress.” ~James Cagney. One of the most talented, spirited, stylish men of Hollywood. My first hero as a child, I watched his films whenever I could find them on TV. “Angels with Dirty Faces” was a favorite of mine, and I never saw a movie of his I didn’t love. When he was old and knew his time was up, he publicly tapped a young Michael J. Fox to play him in a biopic. This was 30+ yrs ago. My immediate reaction was, WTF— this kid does not have the grit, gravity, or gusto to carry Cagney’s story. Fox ducked out and never honored Cagney’s request. I believe he also new he couldn’t fill Jimmy Cagney’s shoes, and in a way paid him a bigger honor (and did himself a favor) by walking away. Cagney is untouchable in my book, never been anyone else like him. He could sing, dance, play piano and guitar, steal your girl, charm your socks off, make you laugh, put the fear of God in you, and beat your ass. And damn, he had style. https://www.instagram.com/p/BpEw6e1lb2B/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=qcocbdwtpijq

[rattanachronicles-blog]

Dedicated to my sweet family

SET THE SCENE

I’ve been on my fair share of cruises – Hawaii, Caribbean, and another Alaskan cruise by Holland Cruise lines – and thus, I think I can safely say that I have had enough comparison to write a pretty good review on a cruise ship. The Bliss is the newest and biggest ship to sail the Alaskan waters and I will say it definitely lives up to its ship name. But before I go into the ship, let me give you a snapshot of beautiful Alaska.

Cerulean blue waters with hints of green flow around the gorgeous state of Alaska. The skies alternate between clear blue and a light gray and there is a chill in the air that is a profound welcomed relief from the humid heat of Texas (where I’m from). The air is devoid of heavy pollution and car traffic fumes and every city has its quiet charm. Salmon in every shape and color climb the salmon ladders while bald eagles dominate the skies.

The cold air is contrasted by a hot cup of chowder in chilled hands. One of the little things in life is having your insides immediately warmed by sip of a hot latte. Or being in the middle of a forest surrounded by trees connected together by fairy lights while roasting marshmallows over a large fire.

The most brilliant sharp icy blue glaciers and its pieces float enchantingly and menacingly in the waters. Whales swim by, peaking their heads and showing off their tails as cruisers lean over, awed, with binoculars. Waterfalls bloom out of the sides of mountains with the force of the water creating a thunderous sound.

This state is so breathtaking in every way.

THE BASICS

Time of Travel: July Type of Travel: Family

THE SHIP

Size: While Bliss is definitely not the biggest cruise ship in the world, it definitely appears like the biggest ship on the Alaskan waters when all the ships are parked next to each other at the ports. It’s impressive to see from afar and to walk up to when returning from the city.

We saw so many whales from our cruise ship windows! Not the best photo but I got too excited and eventually put away my camera to just enjoy the magnificent sights

Exterior Décor: The front of the ship is beautifully decorated and my brother and I joked that the artwork definitely invited all the whales to swim up near our ship. I was honestly so surprised by how many whales I saw on the cruise – definitely more than the last time I was in Alaska. The front of the ship is illustrated with the wildlife of the ocean – whales, turtles, and rays. It’s the perfect artwork for a cruise ship.

Interior Décor: The inside of the ship is also tastefully ornamented. In the center of the ship is a gorgeous glass-appearing staircase that wraps around and glitters in the light. The hot tubs are purposefully placed at the tail end of the ship and on the sides so there is a clear view of the ocean. Every room is carefully constructed to its theme.

Service: The staff on the ship is 5/5 stars. They are so incredibly friendly and accommodating and always willing to strike up a good conversation with you but they also know when to leave you alone as well. They always have a smile for you and their response to everything is quick. They all come from different countries around the world and it is fascinating to hear their stories and everywhere they have traveled!

THINGS TO DO ON THE SHIP

Observation Lounge: Located at the front of the ship, this area was one of my favorite areas on the ship. Decked out in large windows showcasing the beauty of Alaska, the lounge is full of comfy arm chairs and the best part? The bar in the middle as well as two buffets of tea time food fully stocked with finger sandwiches, salads, and desserts. On the days at sea, it’s the perfect area to chill with family and friends, play cards, and observe the Alaskan magnificence without being in the cold.

The Pool and Aqua Park: On one of the top decks of the ship is the pool and the incredible water slides on the ship. There is one water slide where you slide down in rafts and there is one thrilling slide that literally hangs over the ocean! There is a fun area where the kids congregate and hot tubs that dot the sides of the ship as well as the rear end. I highly recommend chilling in the hot tubs at the rear so you can see the full view of the ocean behind you as the ship sails.

Race Track: Yes, this ship has a whole level dedicated to a race track where you can race your family and friends either in a single cart or a double seater cart.

TIP: Book your reservations before you get onto the ship! My family and I did not realize that seats were limited so we did not get to try out this part of the cruise.

It does cost a small fee per drive

Mini Golf

Laser Tag: a small fee

Bliss Casino

Video Arcade

Bowling Alley: a small two lane bowling alley. It gets busy really fast! A small fee

Entourage Teen Club: a haven away from the parents – this place has video games, music, movies!

Fitness Center: this fitness center is legit. There is a running track outside and every machine and weight you could possibly need for a week long cruise.

Guppies: A great area for parents and their kids. Many interactive activities

Hair Salon

Plenty of Spas

Mandara Spa and Salon

Spa Salt Room – natural salt caves – halotherapy

Spa Snow Room – an ice cold arctic environment

Spa Thermal Suite

SHOWS

My favorite thing about cruises is the kind of night time entertainment the ship provides meaning the evening shows. I would say my review for this ship’s shows is probably a 4/5 stars in comparison to the other ships I’ve been on. The best shows I’ve seen on a ship still goes to Allure of the Seas, but this ship definitely provides a great entertainment and truly hats off to the hard working actresses and actors!

Happy Hour Prohibition: The Musical – $30 per person. This musical is set in a speakeasy and set in the Prohibition Era. My family and I chose not to see this one just because there was a fee and plenty of other free shows to see

Jersey Boys – such a great show about Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons

Havana – set at The Palace of Lights, this show brings you the beat and culture of Cuba (takes me back to my time in the Cuban capital!)

The great bands on the ship that play across different bars and lounges

Plenty of comedy shows – make sure you book when you get on the ship!

SHIP ROOM

My family of four booked two separate rooms without ocean views. I always encourage people that if you go on a cruise, try to book rooms with ocean views but obviously if it’s not affordable or available, then it is definitely not the end of the world. I only encourage ocean views for two reasons. One, I think it really helps with orientation to time and feeling as though you are not holed up on the ship. A window or a balcony brings light, views, and a breath of fresh air.

But like I said before, if you can’t get a room with ocean views, then it is completely okay too! My family got non-ocean view rooms and we were completely satisfied. The rooms were on the smaller side (but to be expected with cruise ships), but they were clean. The beds were super comfortable and could be put together or turned into two beds. The TV has a huge list of movies to buy but also a great select of TV channels that plays a cycle of movies depending on genre (action, romance, drama).

Nothing better than opening the door to your room and finding complimentary champagne!

BARS AND LOUNGES

There are so many bars and lounges on the ship and they are all excellent. So many options to choose from that I didn’t even get a chance to make it to all of them

Atrium Bar: This is the center of the ship and where a lot of the main ship’s entertainment occurs. There is a stage area and a movie screen where there are nightly movies and hilarious game shows.

Horizon Lounge

Humidor Cigar Lounge

Maltings Whiskey Bar

Mixx Bar

Skyline Bar

Social Comedy and Night Club

Spice H2O – the pool bar

Sugarcane Mojito Bar

The A-List Bar

The Cavern Club

The District Brew House

Vide Beach Club

THE FOOD

The Local: The 24hr pub experience! The two pros of this place is that it is open 24 hrs, the food is free, and there is a great view of the Atrium Bar stage meaning you can eat and watch entertainment one floor below

The Dining Rooms: There are three dining rooms on the ship that you can eat lunch and dinner at. Unlike the other cruises I’ve been on where you had to make reservations ahead of time and to eat at an assigned time, this cruise gives you the liberty to go whenever you would like. Because there are several dining rooms, there is always plenty of space at any time and thus you can dine on your own schedule.

Every day, there is a menu posted outside the dining rooms. You don’t have to look at each of the dining rooms’ menus because they are all the same. The menu does change for lunch and dinner every day

My mom was a bit disappointed that there was no true formal night with a lobster dish as we have found on other cruise ships

The Garden Café Buffet: I have to say that usually I am not a fan of the cruise buffets. The food usually is sub-par, but I have to say I was mildly impressed with the menu at this buffet. My family and I actually ended up eating here more than the dining rooms because of the expansive options and the ever changing menu.

There are hamburger/hot dog stations, Indian food station, a hot food station that changes every day according to the theme, Italian station, cold cuts station, Asian food station, salad station, and a huge dessert station

For drinks, there is a bar and non-alcoholic beverages such as tea, coffee, and different flavored waters

Room Service: This is complimentary and 24hrs a day but there is a service fee!

Restaurants (not complementary)

Ocean Blue – Seafood

Los Lobos – Mexican

Food Republic – Fusion

Cagney’s Steakhouse

Coco’s – Chocolate, Crepes

Dolce Gelato

Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville at Sea

La Cucina – Italian

Le Bistro – French

Q – Texas BBQ

Teppanyaki

The Bake Shop

Starbucks

Tea Time Snacks

Room service juice with my champagne to make mimosas

PROS AND CONS

Pros

The last Alaskan cruise I went on seemed catered to adults, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that this cruise really catered to family and the young kids.

Flexible dining room schedule

Plenty of activities on the ship

Friendly staff

Entertaining game shows that allows most of the ship guests to interact with each other

The buffet food is better than the other cruise ships I’ve sailed with

They have a package that every room gets on the ship – meaning that your price of the cruise comes with every ship getting a certain amount off at each excursion per port or a drinking ticket in which all the alcoholic beverages were free

They were also very big on hygiene and sanitizers

Cons

No main lobster dish

Not a true formal night on the ship (this is a pro or con depending on what your opinion of this is)

Most of the activities on the ship came with a small fee

The room service food was definitely not as good in quality as the rest of the food on the ship

ITINERARY

Detailed itineraries on how to do each port coming soon!

Seattle, Washington

Ketchikan, Alaska

Juneau, Alaska

Skagway, Alaska

Victoria, BC

Basically, I highly recommend this cruise as your first way of exploring Alaska!

Happy Traveling!

— Monica

The Bliss Alaskan Cruise by Norwegian Cruise Line – The Full Review: Following the Whales #travel #travelblog #wander #travelblogger #alaska #alaskancruise #ncl Dedicated to my sweet family SET THE SCENE I’ve been on my fair share of cruises – Hawaii, Caribbean, and another Alaskan cruise by Holland Cruise lines – and thus, I think I can safely say that I have had enough comparison to write a pretty good review on a cruise ship.

#alaska #alaskan cruise #cruise life #dallas blogger #itinerary #ncl #norwegian cruise line #the bliss #Travel #travel blog #travel blogger #travel bug #travel guide #wander #wanderlust

[kinetic-empathy]

At The Pleasure of the President

I did it. I wrote the Oval Office Nine-Nine AU. 

If I’m being honest, I wrote this really quickly and haven’t actually read through it, so there is a chance that its trash and out of character, but hey, I wrote it, and that’s what counts.

This is really just supposed to serve as the introduction to the AU; hopefully, if I’m actually motivated to continue, I can work more with the characters and make them more, well... in character.

Well, with no further ado, I give you all the first entry of the Brooklyn Nine-Nine West Wing AU that literally nobody asked for.

It was the yogurt. That was the only explanation. The day could have been great had it started with a cup of yogurt.

             But no, Terry Jeffords, Chief of Staff to the President of the United States of America, had no yogurt to start out the day with, and really, it all went downhill from there. Between trying to get Cagney and Lacey to school, making sure Sharon had her coffee before she had the opportunity to kill anyone, trying to ignore whatever mess his deputy had gotten himself into, and not having any damn yogurt, there was one thing that really set the ball rolling on this downhill, horrible day.

             Terry’s pager, which had to have been out just to mock him, went off, giving one horrible, dreaded message:

 Velvet Thunder in fencing accident. Come to office.

               “Jake, Jake, Jake,” the woman said, walking up to the counter at Starbucks. “You need more finesse. You need more pizzazz. You need to give the press the ol’ Razzle Dazzle to really get them on your good side. And as much as I love you, you just don’t have that Ol’ Razzle Dazzle. Grande Iced Latte with extra whip for me and a venti black coffee with five sugars for this sad sack of boring,” she finished to the barista.

             Jake opened his mouth to respond, but the woman cut him off. “Jakey-poo, you may try and dazzle everyone, but you just haven’t learned how yet. And that’s why you’re just the Deputy Chief of Staff, and I’m Gina Linetti, Press Secretary extraordinaire.”

             “Just the Deputy Chief of Staff?” Jake exclaimed, taking his coffee from the barista. “Well excuse me, Miss Linetti, lets not forget who got you the job as Press Secretary extraordinaire. Just the Deputy Chief of Staff,” he pouted.

             Gina took it all in stride. “Hon, you got me a job on the campaign trail for a nobody Senator from New York. Without me, you all were nothing.”

             For a moment, Jake stuttered over an attempted response (“Lacking the Razzle-Dazzle, there,” Gina commented), but both were interrupted by the shrill beeps of their pagers.

             “Well, it looks like it’s time for me to give the press the Ol’ Razzle Dazzle,” Gina said, taking off ahead of Jake, destination set. When she was on a mission, there was no stopping her.

             Jake, taking longer to read, process, and react than Gina, was left behind, spluttering out responses to three different statements.

             “He’s not – I did – I do too have Razzle Dazzle! I can definitely Razzle Dazzle them! I can Razzle Dazzle them ALL!”

               A typo.

             There was a typo. In the New York Times.

             And it wasn’t just an article in the New York Times, no.

             It was a typo in the crossword puzzle of the New York Times.

             And Amy Santiago was not having it.

             “Do you know who you’re talking to? Do you know who I am? I don’t care if you’re ‘just a receptionist,’ I don’t care if you have nothing to do with the editing of the paper, I am the Deputy Communications Director of the White House, yes, that White House, and I assure you, mister, I can track you down, and I will make sure you never – oh, please hang on one second.”

Amy groaned as she read the message that was just sent to her pager.

Picking up the phone again, she stated, “I apologize for my inability to finish this phone call right now, as I have to go deal with an emergency at The White House, where I work, with the President of the United States, but I assure you, this is not the last you will be hearing from me. Thank you for your time.”

Velvet Thunder was in a fencing accident, and that, for the moment, was more important than a typo in the New York Times crossword puzzle.

               Rosa’s not sure if it’s the nature of her job, or if it’s just her as a human being, but whatever it is that makes everyone leap out of her way in fear as she strides through the hallways of the White House, she’s very grateful for it. Moving forward at a pace much faster than anyone who didn’t work for the Federal Government would consider walking, she makes her way up to her target.

             “A fencing accident?” She asks. “Really?”

             Terry just sighs, falling into step alongside his Communications Director.

             “That’s what he’s saying it is, but after all, it is Holt.”

             “Yeah, he could’ve been stabbed through the wrist with a machete and still be referring to it as a ‘fencing accident’,” another voice chimed in as Jake met up with Terry and Rosa. “What’s our official statement on this, anyway?”

             The group turned the corner into Rosa’s office, where she immediately sat down and started typing.

             “Well first of all, it’s not our statement,” she said, “it’s mine and Gina’s, and you’re not allowed anywhere near it, less you decide that you need to punch someone in the face again. Don’t even try to defend yourself,” she added as Jake opened his mouth to do just that. Terry’s face was saying that same thing that Rosa’s words were.

             “Gina’s going to brief the Press in about 2 minutes. Amy’s going to be in with meetings all morning to fix your mess with Brogan and the rest of his people,” Terry shot at Jake, “You get to go figure out why the FDA is taking so long to get the new food pyramid drafted, and Terry is going to go clean up all of the messes that you crazy kids keep getting yourself into!”

             For his part, Jake at least had the notion to look vaguely embarrassed at that, even if Jimmy Brogan had deserved what he got.

             “Everyone, get to work. Try not to punch any other important committee leaders in the face until the President gets back.”

               Gina Linetti is great at a lot of things, and she’s definitely not afraid to say that. And the White House Press Room? That is her jam. She has great hair, and she loves spinning the truth in her favor; she was made for this job. For all of the work, all of the scandals, all of the general insanity that a job at the White House entails, there is nothing that any woman could love more than getting up behind that podium and giving the Press Corps the most important quality for any Press Secretary to have: the ol’ Razzle Dazzle.

             “The President, while at his home in New York, was doing a routine fencing practice in which he just so happened to twist his wrist. After a brief visit to the Doctor’s, I can tell you that it is no more than a sprain, and President Holt will be back to blow your minds faster than you can write your little articles on how long he’ll be out. Questions? Yes, Diane.”

             “Will the President’s injury interfere with his ability to do his job?”

             “Well Diane, seeing as the President is ambidextrous, and we have these wonderful inventions called computers, I do believe that, barring any more epees coming in his direction, he will still be able to do his job far better than you’re able to do yours. Next question?”

               Razzle Dazzle ‘em.

 “Jake! Jake! Did you hear about the President? Is he okay? Oh, I hope he’s okay, because if he’s not that would make everyone’s jobs a whole lot harder, especially yours. And then the country would fall into a state of ruin and we’ll be invaded by Canada and I’ll have to sell my dogs in order to afford maple syrup and-”

             “Charles. Chill.”

             Jake Peralta and Charles Boyle went way back. They really were best friends, and there was no one else that Jake would trust to be his “Deputy’s Deputy.” But sometimes, it was a little much.

             “Obviously, the President got his head stuck in a guillotine and the entire country is in a state of panic. It’s why everyone is freaking out so much,” Jake said, gesturing to the surprisingly calm bullpen.

             Charles nodded in understanding.

             “Right, you’re right, I’m overreacting. But a fencing accident? President Holt seems far too well-toned and agile to do something so silly as to twist his wrist while fencing.”

             As Jake nodded in agreement, Charles added, “by the way, Amy was looking for you. Something about a meeting with Jimmy Brogan?”

               Jimmy Brogan was about as much of a racist, homophobic, xenophobic, any other type of phobic, gun-toting, capitalism-loving, women-hating, antisemitic Republican as you could get.

             It never ceased to impress the Staff that this man was the Chair of the House Ethics Committee.

             And Amy was dealing with the aftermath of him having been punched in the face by none other than the Deputy Chief of Staff himself.

             The incident had, for the most part, been taken care of. At this point, Amy was just trying to clear up any final misconceptions, which was turning out to be a lot more difficult than it should have been as she was facing stubborn pig-headedness from both sides of the argument.

             “You know, Peralta” Amy said, “had you been able to get your head out of your ass just this once, you could have avoided a whole slough of problems for The President. And myself, for that matter. But no, you just had to overreact, and now we’re trying to convince the entire Right Wing that we’re not a bunch of hot-headed idiots who think with our fists instead of our heads.”

             “Pssh, says the girl who traumatized the receptionist and the New York Times this morning,” Jake responded.

             “There was a typo! It was unprofessional, unacceptable, and irredeemable!”

             “Unprofessional, unacceptable, and irredeemable, title of your sex tape.”

             “JAKE!”

             “Yes, okay, coolcoolcool, I get it. Punching the guy was a bad move.”

             “A bad move? You’re lucky you still have a job, Jake!”

             “And I am incredibly grateful towards Terry for not firing me, Amy, I really am, but do I really have to work out a compromise with this guy? He used about four different slurs in one statement.”

             Amy sank back into her desk chair and put her head in her hands.

             “I wanted a job at the White House, and instead I’m working with infants,” she muttered. “Yes Jake, you have to work out a compromise with this guy. He’s not pressing charges, you still have a job, and really, it’s not even a compromise, you just have to apologize to him. I have a binder for the entire process right here.”

             “A binder?” Jake laughed. “You have a binder, that you already had prepared, for what the hypothetical process would be if a member of the President’s Senior Staff was to punch an asshole Republican in the face.”

             “It never hurts to be prepared,” Amy replied. “I like binders. And if the President has binders for everything, why can’t I?”

               “Yo, Charles, where’s Jake?”

             Charles jumped in surprise, but quickly pulled himself together as he responded, “Oh hi, Rosa! I was so busy organizing Jake’s messages that I didn’t see you coming!”

             “Yeah, that doesn’t answer my question,” Rosa replied. “Where is he?”

             “He’s in a meeting with Amy. Something about Jimmy Brogan, I guess they’re still going on with that? They must have a meeting with him later today, I bet Jake’s going to… okay, bye Rosa!”

               “He punched me in the face!”

             Amy tried to repress another sigh; Jake wasn’t even trying to stop looking smug.

             “Yes, Mr. Brogan, he did do that,” Amy said, “but he, as well as every member of the President’s Senior Staff, has apologized multiple times, and we will continue to express just how sorry we are for Mr. Peralta’s actions. However, as you were spewing profanities about the President at the time, your office already agreed not to press charges of any sort.”

             Jake snorted. “Spewing profanities is a bit of an understatement, is it not?”

             This, of course, just made Brogan angrier than he was before.

             “I’m being punished for speaking my mind?” he shouted, spit spewing across the room. Jake couldn’t help but think that this is the kind of man who existed purely to help political cartoonists make a living. “I don’t know what your mamby-pamby, soft-hearted, safe-space needing President has taught you, but we have this little thing called the First Amendment. Do you know what that says?”

“’Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” a new, powerful voice said, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’ Unless, of course, my 8th grade Social Studies teacher taught me incorrectly, in which case, I believe we need to place more emphasis on our country’s education. Do you agree, Amy?”

As the President walked into the room, the entire atmosphere changed. Raymond Holt was a man who could command a room before saying a word. He was a leader in all possible ways, and even with his arm in a sling, he emanated more power than any average man could even imagine to behold.

As Amy nodded in response to his question, Holt continued.

“Now, Mr. Brogan, if I’m correct, you’re referring to the Freedom of Speech part of this amendment. A great addition, if I do say so myself. It is nice to know that neither I nor you can be imprisoned due to something that we say, no matter how vile or insulting it may be. Now, it is an insult to this beautiful amendment to paint it in the sort of light that it allows someone to, for lack of a better term, be as ass to another person. Freedom of Speech does not excuse the offensive verbiage that flows out of your mouth, it only makes it so you cannot be imprisoned for it.

Now, as far as I’m concerned Mr. Peralta and Ms. Santiago have already apologized profusely on not just their own behalves, but on mine as well. And if you want to avoid the President of the United States filing a lawsuit for slander, I believe it would be in your best interest to accept the apology and leave it at that. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Mr. President, sir,” Brogan responded.

“Well,” Jake said, not even attempting to disguise the look of joy on his face, “I do believe that everyone here is a-okay good to go, so uh… see you never, Jimbo!”

“Jacob,” Holt reprimanded.

“Yeah, sorry again. Have a good day!”

After quite literally showing Brogan and his people the door, Holt took a seat and addressed the two staffers in the room.

“Amy, thank you for seeing this through. If you would please let Terry know that the situation has been taken care of, that would be appreciated.”

Amy jumped to her feet, proclaiming, “Sir, yes sir!”

“Unnecessary, Santiago.”

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” Amy responded, tripping over her feet as she ran out of the room, leaving Jake and the President behind, one laughing, and the other merely watching her leave with a blank expression on his face.

As Jake finished laughing, the President prepared himself for what he was going to say next. He had always admired Jake’s ability to have fun and still get the job done incredibly well, but sometimes, his lack of professionalism severely damaged the image that those who may not know him as well have of him.

As Raymond was just about to start speaking, Jake beat him to the punch.

“Sir, I really am sorry about what went down. I was very wrong to hit him like that, I just…I don’t know. The way he was talking about you like you were just some gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe, and then the slurs he was using, I just… I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m sorry, sir.”

For as goofy as laid back as Jake Peralta could be, Holt also knew that he was one of the most emotional people he had ever met. And as draining as that could be, it was something that he would always appreciate about his Deputy Chief of Staff.

“Jake,” he said, “you don’t need to apologize to me. I want to thank you for doing what you did. It’s people like you who are going to spark the change that this country needs.”

“Well sir,” Jake said, “that’s how we do it in the West Wing. Make the country a better place, and look good doing it.”

               “Jacob, one more thing.”

             “Yes, sir?”

             “Do you want to know how I really hurt my wrist?”

             “Sir?”

             “I was hula-hooping. The First Gentleman and I attend a class for fitness and for fun.”

             “Oh my God.”

             “I’ve mastered all the moves. The pizza toss, the tornado, the scorpion, the oopsie-doodle.”

             “Why are you telling me this?”

             “Because no one will ever believe you.”

             “…you sick son of a bitch.”

             “That’s President Sick Son of a Bitch to you.”

#i just need to do the world building and have someone else do the writing for me #but hey I did it #oval office nine nine #west wing au #b99 west wing AU #brooklyn nine nine #whats next? #nerds in the nine nine

[murderballadeer]

Send me an Old Hollywood actor

Jean Harlow: Do you have a garden? If so, what kind of plants do you have?

Humphrey Bogart: Do you travel a lot? Where have you been?

Myrna Loy: Do you like going to parties?

Spencer Tracy: What time do you wake up?

Grace Kelly: What do you do when you're bored?

Jimmy Stewart: Do you have a good sense of humor?

Veronica Lake: List some random facts about your physical appearance.

Gary Cooper: Do you talk a lot?

Jean Arthur: Do you have any siblings?

Clark Gable: Are you an introvert or an extrovert? A bit of both? Something else entirely?

Barbara Stanwyck: What are your hobbies?

Cary Grant: Do you have any pets? Have you ever had any?

Gene Tierney: What are three things you like about yourself?

Bing Crosby: Can you sing or play a musical instrument? Would you like to?

Katharine Hepburn: Who do you admire? Why?

Fred Astaire: What are your favorite sports?

Ginger Rogers: Is there anything you've said that you'd like to take back?

Gregory Peck: What is your dream job?

Audrey Hepburn: What are your favorite quotes?

Donald O'Connor: What is your favorite ice cream/sorbet flavor?

Carole Lombard: What makes you laugh?

William Powell: Describe your hairstyle.

Bette Davis: Do you hold grudges?

Frank Sinatra: What countries would you like to visit?

Lauren Bacall: Do you like to read? If so, what are your favorite books?

James Cagney: What would you call your autobiography?

Rita Hayworth: What is your middle name?

Peter Lorre: How many languages do you speak?

Irene Dunne: What does your neutral face look like?

Henry Fonda: If you could do anything for anyone, what would you do?

Lucille Ball: What are some of your favorite jokes?

Jack Lemmon: What is/was your favorite subject in school?

Marilyn Monroe: Do you like your name? Why or why not?

Gene Kelly: What color are your eyes?

Greta Garbo: Do you get sick easily or a lot?

Joel McCrea: Describe your laugh.

Debbie Reynolds: What are you afraid of?

Dick Powell: Are you a night owl or a morning person?

Elizabeth Taylor: What is your religion?

S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall: What was the best year of your life so far?

Joan Bennett: Do you worry much about your appearance?

Robert Taylor: Describe your family.

Eleanor Powell: Describe your bedroom and post a picture if you want.

George Burns: List some random facts about yourself in general.

Gracie Allen: What is your shoe size?

Montgomery Clift: How tall are you?

Lana Turner: What are you allergic to anything?

Paul Henreid: Are you a coffee person or a tea person?

Hedy Lamarr: As a child, did you have one article of clothing that you absolutely loved (like wouldn't take it off type of thing)? What was it?

Claude Rains: Do you wear makeup on a daily basis?

Cyd Charisse: If you had to describe yourself in only a few lines, what would you say?

Peter Lawford: What are your pet peeves?

Vera-Ellen: Who are you jealous of?

Buster Keaton: Are you easily offended?

Paulette Goddard: Give a sample of your handwriting.

Bob Hope: Do you have any dietary restrictions (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, Kosher, etc.)?

Dorothy Lamour: Say what are you live in, but be broad (e.g.: American Southwest, Maritimes, Central Europe, North America…)

Charlie Chaplin: What kind of people get on your nerves?

Ruby Keeler: What are your gender and preferred set of pronouns?

Tyrone Power: Do you have any stuffed animals? What kind of animals are they? What are their names?

Joan Blondell: Are you at all nostalgic or sentimental?

Ronald Colman: Do you know any songs/poems/passages from novels or stories by heart? What are they?

Ingrid Bergman: Are you good at doing impressions of people?

Mickey Rooney: What book are you reading at the moment?

Judy Garland:Do you believe in an Afterlife?

Groucho Marx: Do you tend to be sarcastic/ironic?

Jeanette MacDonald: Do you prefer warm or cold weather?

Harpo Marx: Do you talk a lot? Too much?

Joan Crawford: Write a poem describing one or many of these three things: your eyebrows, a baked potato, a yellow tie-dye sock.

Chico Marx: Can you change your voice/fake accents?

Mary Martin: Can you cook/bake at all?

Zeppo Marx: Do you think you're funny?

Mary Tyler Moore: What are your parents' first names?

Edward G. Robinson:Draw a self portrait.

Doris Day: Who do you miss?

Dick Van Dyke: Can you sew/knit/crochet/etc.?

Janet Leigh: What are some things that you feel guilty being happy about?

Basil Rathbone: What is one belief/conviction you'll never give up?

#asks #send me asks

[papermoonloveslucy]

LUCY AND CAROL BURNETT (aka THE HOLLYWOOD UNEMPLOYMENT FOLLIES)

S3;E22 ~ February 8, 1971

Directed by Jack Carter ~ Written by Ray Singer and Al Schwartz

Synopsis

Harry has fired Lucy again, so she visits the unemployment office where she reunites with secretary turned actress Carol Krausmeyer (Carol Burnett) and meets other out of work show biz folk.  They decide to put on a show in order to make some dough!  

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carter), Gale Gordon (Harrison Otis Carter), Lucie Arnaz (Kim Carter)

Desi Arnaz Jr. (Craig Carter) does not appear in this episode, but is given opening title credit.

Guest Cast

Carol Burnett (Carol Krausmeyer) got her first big break on “The Paul Winchell Show” in 1955. A years later she was a regular on “The Garry Moore Show.” In 1959 she made her Broadway debut in Once Upon a Mattress, which she also appeared in on television three times. From 1960 to 1965 she did a number of TV specials, and often appeared with Julie Andrews. Her second Broadway musical was Fade Out – Fade In which ran for more than 270 performances. From 1967 to 1978 she hosted her own highly successful variety show, “The Carol Burnett Show.” Lucille Ball made several appearances on “The Carol Burnett Show.” Burnett guest starred in four episodes of “The Lucy Show” and three episodes of “Here’s Lucy,” only once playing herself. After Lucille Ball’s passing, Burnett was hailed as the natural heir to Lucy’s title of ‘The Queen of TV Comedy.’

Krausmeyer is the same last name as the music teacher played by Hans Conried on Lucille Ball’s radio show “My Favorite Husband.” 

Richard Deacon (Harvey Hoople) is probably best remembered as Mel Cooley on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (1961-66). He appeared as Tallulah Bankhead's butler in “The Celebrity Next Door,” a 1957 episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.”  He was employed again by Desi Sr. as a regular on "The Mothers-in-Law” (1968). This is the first of his two appearances on "Here’s Lucy.”

Harvey Hoople is a clerk at the Unemployment Office, although his name is never spoken aloud.  

Clarence Landry and Vernord Bradley (“The Highhatters”) were a tap dance duo who both appeared in in the Vitaphone 1941 short Minstrel Days.

Landry and Bradley are a introduced to Lucy by Carol using their real first names. 

Jack Benny (Himself) was born on Valentine’s day 1894. He had a successful vaudeville career, and an even greater career on radio with “The Jack Benny Program” which also became a successful television show. His screen persona was known for being a penny-pincher and playing the violin. Benny was a Beverly Hills neighbor of Lucille Ball’s and the two were off-screen friends. Benny previously appeared on “The Lucy Show” as Harry Tuttle (a Jack Benny doppelganger) in “Lucy and the Plumber” (TLS S3;E2), did a voice over cameo as himself in “Lucy With George Burns” (TLS S5;E1), and played himself in “Lucy Gets Jack Benny’s Account” (TLS S6;E6). This is the third of his four  episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”  Benny and Ball appeared on many TV variety and award shows together. He died in 1974.

Although Benny plays into his 'tightwad' personae, he is never identified by name or recognized as a celebrity.  

Vanda Barra (Unemployment Cashier) was married to Sid Gould so is Lucille Ball’s cousin-in-law. This is just one of her over two dozen appearances on “Here’s Lucy” as well as appearing in Ball’s two 1975 TV movies “Lucy Gets Lucky” (with Dean Martin) and “Three for Two” (with Jackie Gleason). She was seen in half a dozen episodes of “The Lucy Show.”

Unusually, Barra is nothing more than a background performer in this episode, but still gets end credit billing. She has no dialogue.

The 'Canadian Mounties' are played by:

Sid Gould (left) made more than 45 appearances on “The Lucy Show,” and nearly as many on “Here’s Lucy.” Gould (born Sydney Greenfader) was Lucille Ball’s cousin by marriage to Gary Morton. He was married to Vanda Barra (Cashier).  

Johnny Silver (center right) was a busy Hollywood character actor who was seen with Richard Deacon (Harvey Hoople) on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and with Jack Benny (Himself) on “The Jack Benny Show.”  He will do one more episode of “Here's Lucy.”  

Mike Wagner (right) makes his only appearance on “Here's Lucy.”

Kay Kuter (center left) was a character actor who made an appearance in the 1970 TV movie Swing Out, Sweet Land with Jack Benny and Lucille Ball as the voice of the Statue of Liberty.  

Carol identifies Kuter as “Chuck Walters, a fantastic singer” when they are the unemployment office. This character was named in honor of Charles Walters, director of the previous episode, “Lucy and Aladdin’s Lamp” (S3;E21). Carol probably should have said “fantastic dancer” since the real Walters was known as dance director of MGM musicals, six of which featured Lucille Ball. 

Others at the unemployment office, including two male acrobats and various clerks, are played by uncredited background performers.

This episode is sometimes known as “The Hollywood Unemployment Follies” to distinguish it from previous episodes also titled “Lucy and Carol Burnett.”  

Interestingly, although “The Carol Burnett Show” usually followed “Here's Lucy” at 10pm on CBS, there was no new episode the night this “Here's Lucy” first aired.  

On the series DVD this episode is introduced by Carole Cook, who says that Lucille Ball did her own signing on this episode, despite the fact that Cook had previously dubbed Lucy in other musical episodes.  

In a previous episode, Kim reminds Lucy that Harry has fired her 14 times.  This makes 15.

Kim tells Lucy that in California she could get as much as $65 a week in unemployment insurance. As of this writing (late 2017) the maximum was $450 a week for 26 weeks.

Carol jokingly tells Lucy that 'Carol Krausmeyer' isn't her professional name when acting – it's Raquel Welch.  She looks down at her bosom and says “Ok, someone let the air out.” Raquel Welch was a voluptuous movie star who was previously mentioned on “Lucy and Johnny Carson” (S2;E11), “Lucy, the American Mother” (S3;E7) in which she was mentioned alongside Burnett, and as Jack Benny’s Palm Spring neighbor in the second episode of the series. Carol also used Welch's name as a punchline in “Lucy Competes With Carol Burnett” (S2;E24).  

When Harvey Hoople decides to join up with the unemployed performers to write and direct their show he says “Governor Reagan, I quit!  You can keep your old job!  I'm back in show biz, Ronnie!  Don't you wish you were?” Former Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan had been elected Governor of California in 1967, a position he held until 1975. He was later elected 40th President of the United States and served until 1989. He was previously mentioned in the second episode of the series, “Lucy Visits Jack Benny” (S1;E2) and more recently in “Lucy and the Raffle” (S3;E19).

To flatter him into being a backer of their show, Carol says that Harry looks like Cary Grant. He dryly replies “So do you!” Harry was compared to Cary Grant (and others) by Kim (disguised as new secretary Shirley Shoppenhauer) in “Lucy Protects Her Job” (S2;E14, above). Grant was often mentioned on all of Lucille Ball's sitcoms, although the two never acted together.  

The subtitle of the “Hollywood Unemployment Follies” is “How to Starve in Show Business Without Really Trying.”  This is a variation on the title of Frank Loesser's 1961 Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which was made into a film in 1967.

The ensemble sings “Hooray for Hollywood” a song by Johnny Mercer and Richard A. Whiting that was first sung in the 1937 movie Hollywood Hotel. This song is the only one to features specially written lyrics to fit the episode's theme. This version mentions Henry Fonda and his children Jane and Peter.  Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda starred in the film Yours, Mine and Ours together in 1968.

Stumbling onto a Hollywood soundstage, Lucy, Carol and Kim discover a mannequin of Humphrey Bogart.  Kim had a poster of Humphrey Bogart (inset) on her wall in “Lucy and the Andrews Sisters” (S2;E6). In “Lucy and the Bogie Affair” (S2;E13) Kim and Craig name a lost dog Bogie because it has the same sad look as Bogart did at the end of 1942’s Casablanca. Ogling the mannequin adoringly, Carol references the famous line “If you want anything, just whistle,” Lauren Bacall’s parting words to Humphrey Bogart in the film To Have and Have Not (1944). This line was also referenced in “Lucy and the Bogie Affair” (S2;E13).  

They then admire a larger than life photo portrait of Jean Harlow. Jean Harlow (1911-37) was Hollywood's original wisecracking blonde bombshell. Only five months older than Lucille Ball, Harlow died of uremic poisoning at age 26 just as Lucy's career was getting started.

They move to a mannequin of Jimmy Cagney dressed in prison stripes.  Kim does her impression of Cagney saying “You dirty rat.” Cagney never actually said the famously mis-quoted dialogue but a line in his 1932 film Taxi! probably came closest, calling a philandering man “You dirty, yellow-bellied rat!” James Cagney (1899-1986, inset) was a singer, dancer and actor best known in Hollywood for playing tough guys.

They then encounter mannequins of Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh dressed in costumes from Gone With the Wind (1939). Carol, using a high pitched Southern accent, imitates Scarlet O'Hara. Coincidentally, Carol will play Scarlet (re-named Starlet) in a one of her most famous sketches from “The Carol Burnett Show” in 1976 (above right).  

Lucille Ball herself was short-listed for the role of Scarlet O'Hara and even did a screen test for the part. Ball will play Scarlet O'Hara in “Lucy and Flip Go Legit” (S4;E1) with Flip Wilson as Prissy. 

Lucy imitates Butterfly McQueen, who played Prissy, Scarlet's maid, using the famous lines “I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' babies.”  After Lucy's imitation of Butterfly McQueen, Carol sarcastically says “it sounded more like Steve.” Steve McQueen (1930-80) was an actor who would receive an Oscar nomination for The Sand Pebbles in 1966, the same year that he was mentioned in “Lucy Goes to a Hollywood Premiere” (TLS S4;E20).  

The final mannequin on the 'soundstage' is of Judy Garland (inset) in The Wizard of Oz wearing her famous blue gingham dress and ruby slippers. Kim does a high-pitched imitation of the Munchkins. Two of the Singer Munchkins, Jerry Maren and Billy Curtis, appeared in “Lucy and Ma Parker” (S3;E15) and Shep Houghton, one of the Winkie Guards, was a background performer on “Here's Lucy.”  

Lucy, Kim and Carol launch into “We're Off to See the Wizard,” written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg for The Wizard of Oz, which brings them to a wardrobe rack conspicuously labeled COSTUMES WORN BY BETTY GRABLE AND ALICE FAYE. Faye and Grable did two films together, Tin Pan Alley (1940) and Four Jills in a Jeep (1944).  Betty Grable (1916-73) made two films with Lucille Ball when they were both at RKO in the mid-1930s. She then guest-starred as herself with her second husband bandleader Harry James in “Lucy Wins a Racehorse,” a 1958 episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.”  Alice Faye (1915-98) often played gritty, non-nonsense women in films. She was married to Phil Harris, who will play himself on a 1974 episode of “Here's Lucy.” 

In a magical reveal (aka editing) Lucy and Carol become blondes singing “Chicago (That Toddlin' Town”) a song written by Fred Fisher and published in 1922. 

After a quick costume change (editing again), they sing “Alexander's Ragtime Band” which was composer Irving Berlin's first hit in 1911, the same year Lucille Ball was born.

After a commercial break, Lucy and Carol discover “the derby worn by the one and only Bill Robinson.” Bill Robinson (1878-1949) was the preeminent tap dancer of his day. He is best remembered for his appearances with young Shirley Temple in four of her 1930s films. Robinson worked with Lucille Ball on the 1935 musical film Hooray for Love. 

 After some camera trickery (more editing), Kim is wearing the derby and introducing (through song) one of the Highhatters as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (inset) doing a tap routine which she then joins in.

Next up, four comical Canadian Mounties sing “Stout-hearted Men,” a song by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II for the operetta New Moon in 1927 with film versions in 1930 and 1940.  Richard Deacon (also dressed as a Mountie) and Carol Burnett sing “Indian Love Call” by Rudolf Friml, Herbert Stothart, Otto Harbach, and Oscar Hammerstein II written for the 1924 operetta Rose-Marie. The melody was used for the mating call of the wild Gorboona in “Lucy's Safari” (S1;E22) which guest-starred Howard Keel, who was in the 1954 film version of Rose Marie. 

Dressed as Marlene Dietrich, Lucy sings “Falling in Love Again (Never Wanted To)” from the 1930 German film The Blue Angel. Harry plays a World War I German soldier. Marlene Dietrich (1901-92) was born in Berlin, but came to Hollywood to make films in 1930.  She was nominated for an Oscar in 1931. 

The Highhatters introduce Carol as Miss Ruby Keeler and they sing “Shuffle Off To Buffalo” by Al Dubin and Hugh Warren, originally written for the 1933 film 42nd Street. They then do a dance challenge to the title song from the film. Ruby Keeler (1910-93) was a singer, dancer and actress most famous for her pairing with Dick Powell in a series of movie musicals, including 42nd Street. Like Lucille Ball and (now) Lucie Arnaz, Keeler had a home in Palm Springs, California.

As the finale, the entire ensemble is dressed in rain slickers and performs “Singin' in the Rain” written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown in 1931.  It was most famously featured in the film Singin' in the Rain in 1952.

Many of the movie posters decorating the 'soundstage' were from Paramount Pictures, to which Lucille Ball sold Desilu / RKO and where they filmed “Here's Lucy”:

Hollywood or Bust (1956) starring Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin

Samson and Delilah (1949) starring Hedy Lamarr and Victor Mature

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) starring Charleton Heston, Betty Hutton, and Gloria Grahame, who replaced Lucille Ball when Lucy became pregnant with Lucie

Short Cut to Hell (1957) directed by James Cagney

Gone With the Wind (1939) starring Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh

Under Two Flags (1936) starring Claudette Colbert and Ronald Colman

“The Lucy Show” established Lucy Carmichael as a film fanatic in the Hollywood-themed episode “Lucy Goes To A Hollywood Premiere” (TLS S4;E20).  

The Scarlet O'Hara dress is the same one Lucy Carmichael wore in 1965 as Lucybelle in “The Founding of Danfield,” a community theatre play featured in “Lucy and Arthur Godfrey” (TLS S3;E23). 

The vaudeville backdrop curtain during “Chicago” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” was also used in “Lucy and Jack Benny’s Biography” (S3;E11). 

Props! The wardrobe rack of costumes worn by Betty Grable and Alice Faye also contains Gale Gordon's silver space suit from “Lucy and the Generation Gap” (S2;E12).  It is hard to imagine either woman wearing that!  

Who Am I? One mannequin on the 'soundstage' doesn't get identified.  It is dressed in Roman armor. It may have been Charleton Heston in Ben Hur, but was cut for time.  

Spell-Check! The end credits miss-spell 'Mountie' as 'Mounty'.  The word is an informal reference to The Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

“Lucy and Carol Burnett” or “The Hollywood Unemployment Follies” rates 4 Paper Hearts out of 5 

This episode seems more like “The Carol Burnett Show” than “Here's Lucy” - especially when Lucille Ball is off-screen. A Hollywood revue is a great idea, but the 'book scenes' (in between the songs) are played in such a naturalistic way that they don't really seem any different than the actual show.  It is almost as if the trio actually walked into a Hollywood Hall of Fame and had musical dreams.  It all feels very much like the old Judy Garland / Mickey Rooney 'let's put on a show in a barn' genre.  Gale Gordon has very little to do (not even a cartwheel!) and Desi Jr. is completely absent.  Not unenjoyable but not the best of these musical comedy episodes either.

#Here's Lucy #Lucille Ball #Gale Gordon #Lucie Arnaz #Jack Benny #Richard Deacon #Vernord Bradley #Clarence Landry #Sid Gould #Johnny Silver #Kay Kuter #Mike Wagner #Carole Cook #Unemployment Office #Raquel Welch #Carol Burnett #Ronald Reagan #Cary Grant #How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying #Alexander's Ragtime Band #The Wizard of Oz #Judy Garland #Humphrey Bogart #Casalbanca #Gone With the Wind #Vivian Leigh #Clark Gable #Singin in the Rain #Ruby Keeler #Jean Harlow

[kartiavelino]

What to watch during the July Fourth holiday

The Fourth of July is a time to chill, loosen up and, as soon as the solar goes down, possibly watch a spectacular fireworks show. This yr, the holiday falls midweek, with climate anticipated to be oppressively sizzling and swampy — the optimum time to hunker down in entrance of your TV display screen in the consolation of an air-conditioned dwelling. Hey, there’s no disgrace in a low-key celebration — and right here’s a number of what to watch for as the Large Day unfolds. “Macy’s 4th of July Firework Spectacular” When you don’t need to stand exterior in the warmth and crowds, craning your neck to see the fireworks obscured by tall buildings, you may watch them from the consolation of your sofa. It begins at Eight p.m. on NBC with two hours that includes Kelly Clarkson, Ricky Martin, Blake Shelton and Keith City. “Rod, White & Blue: A Twilight Zone Celebration” Oldies community Many years TV will air a marathon of traditional “Twilight Zone” episode, beginning at 7 a.m. Wednesday via 6:30 a.m. Thursday — that includes 46 episodes of the traditional sci-fi present created by Rod Serling (which initially aired from 1959-1964 on CBS). Episodes will embody all-time greats “The Eye of the Beholder” and the alien-centric, mob-mentality episode “The Monsters are Due on Maple Road.” “Nationwide Treasure” What’s extra American than Nicholas Cage enjoying a personality named Benjamin Franklin Gates? The traditional 2004 heist film brims with Americana, from the Declaration of Independence to the Liberty Bell. It’s presently streaming on Netflix. “American Chopper: Make the Yankee Nice Once more” The TLC collection (Eight p.m. on Discovery) following father-son duo Paul Teutul, Sr. and Junior constructing customized bikes has had a tumultuous run since 2003, hopping between Discovery and TLC earlier than making a triumphant comeback on Discovery in Could. This episode is a rerun of the fifth and sixth episodes of Season 11 (retitled for the holiday) which entails constructing a motorcycle impressed by a 1965 GTO. “Yankee Doodle Dandy” The traditional 1942 musical, airing at Eight p.m. on TCM, stars James Cagney as Ceorge M. Cohan, the real-life actor and producer who was dubbed “The person who owned Broadway.” “Independence Day” Apart from the reality that you simply’re obligated to watch a film that shares a title with the holiday, there’s nothing extra American than Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum saving the White Home from aliens. The 1996 motion movie is presently out there on Netflix or Starz on Demand. “American Vandal” When you missed the 8-episode collection when it first aired in September on Netflix, binge it earlier than Season 2 comes out (there’s no formal date but, however Netflix says will probably be someday this yr). It’s a spoof of crime documentary-style reveals like Netflix’s “Making a Assassin” and HBO’s “The Jinx” that follows a teen boy (Jimmy Tatro) who could or could not have desecrated his faculty school’s automobiles with phallic graffiti. Share this: https://nypost.com/2018/07/03/what-to-watch-during-the-july-fourth-holiday/ The post What to watch during the July Fourth holiday appeared first on My style by Kartia. https://www.kartiavelino.com/2018/07/what-to-watch-during-the-july-fourth-holiday.html

[chiseler]

“A Tough Guy, Eh?”

We tolerate Chester Morris. I don’t know that we love him.

Part of the problem is that the golden age of pre-code cinema for Morris is also the golden age for Jimmy Cagney, William Powell, Warren William, actors who sparkle with wit, agility, charm, energy, qualities poor Chester can approximate but never truly own. At this time, Clark Gable is not yet King of Hollywood, but he’s got something: a kind of gangling, lupine, on-the-make gusto. Bogart’s glory days are still ahead of him too, but at least they arrived: Morris sank further into B-movie territory, and not even good B’s, mostly. Have you ever tried to watch one of those Boston Blackie films? They had Robert Florey, Edward Dmytryk, and Budd Boetticher as directors, but any charm or personality those luminaries channelled towards the films got sucked down the Morris charisma funnel. Latterly, Boston Blackie was all that Morris did, and he wasn’t even very good at it.

Studio boss Jack Warner coveted Gable’s macho suavity and thought maybe C.M. could achieve it: maybe with the right moustache. But the material just wasn’t there, and maybe that was the problem: as rats and shitheels, which he played frequently, Morris had some conviction and suited the part. As leading man, he looked like he would lead you somewhere you didn’t particularly want to go. A moustache would’ve presented the real possibility of Morris being upstaged by his own upper lip.

Should we blame the physiognomy? Morris has a big beachball face, a couple sizes too big for his head, so it seems like roundness is the platonic ideal it’s aiming for, but he also has a little sharp hooked beak of a nose, and a jutting chin. Like somebody tried to make a noble, heroic Mr Potato Head by substituting those two features. His narrow eyes should convey steely determination, but in fact it’s much more credible seeing him twirled around Jean Harlow’s pinky in Red Headed Woman than as ex-crook turned detective Boston Blackie. More interesting, anyway. Maybe the role of a real leading man is to make us forget that the role he’s playing isn’t as interesting as the character parts and villains. Whereas Morris needed something interesting to do, preferably something appalling.

He makes a decent neurotic gangster in Blind Alley (1939), a Freudian hostage drama where he can stagger about in German expressionist nightmare sequences, but it’s still tempting to run the movie in your head with Bogart subbed in. Morris only has one role, or one scene, really, where he stamps a unique and indispensable impression on screen history.

In The Bat Whispers (1930) – spoiler alert! but really, the plot isn’t the point of this one, and anyway, it’s eighty-two years old, how come you haven’t seen it yet? – Morris is unmasked as the titular caped criminal, and delivers a defiant piece to camera before being led away in chains. Lit from below like a kid with a flashlight telling a ghost story at camp, Morris musters a performance style so far over the top it pierces the stratosphere and finds itself suspended in a zero-gravity realm of Total Possibility. “The Bat ALWAYS flies at NIGHT – and always in a Straight Line!” he insists, stressing every syllable as if it were his last. In terms of making an impression, this really was his last shot, though why he never went for broke like that again is a mystery. Maybe he hated what that performance looked like onscreen. It’s easier to hate something interesting than something dull.

We tolerate Chester Morris: we don’t hate him.

by David Cairns