This summer has brought a lot of changes, and I am not a person who adjusts well to changes.
Some of these changes I can’t write about because they aren’t my changes to talk about. One of them I can’t talk about because it hasn’t been made public in our area yet.
I can say that the changes and adjustments have involved employment situations, my aging parents’ health, and my own health.
Some of them are serious and scary, but I’m hopeful that my own health issues are something I can deal with by making even more adjustments to my diet and supplements.
One thing I do know with my health so far is that I do have some autoimmune issues going on. Doctors just aren’t sure which issues yet.
As for my parents, they are getting older and struggling with some issues, including whether they want to stay in their house or not. Their health and age is a big part of that decision.
As Summer draws to an end, though, I am looking forward to some cozy days this fall. I enjoy the weather when it is cooler. I function better physically and mentally on cooler days. I don’t function great on super cold days unless I am inside under a blanket with my warm rice packs.
I’m actually looking forward to those days. I get more writing done for my books in the fall and winter, which is probably why book four of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries is going so slow.
In the Summer I feel like I have to be busy and do things because “it’s nice out”. This Summer whatever autoimmune condition I had got worse, though, so I couldn’t do that as much as I wanted. The symptoms that go so bad were mainly the exhaustion and achy legs, the dizziness and the anxiety. I learned I have to put more salt on things, drink electrolyte drinks, and simply eat more regular meals. I have this tendency to eat a protein but not add carbs or veggies to it. By the afternoon I feel like a wet noodle.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve cut out gluten, reduced sugar, and added more vegetables, though I’m still not at the level of veggies I should be at.
I’m reaching for grapes or apples instead of chocolate, but still have a square or two of the Aldi brand chocolate, which tastes so much better to me than most of our American brands. I’m taking four supplements — Iron (with B12, b6, and vitamin c), garlic, probiotics, and an elderberry gummy with elderberry, vitamin D, and vitamin C.
I’m noticing small changes. I still don’t have a ton of energy, but I do have a little bit more. My weak legs aren’t quite as weak on some days. My achy legs are a bit less achy. The anxiety was still there and intense at the beginning of this week but by mid-week it had actually faded some and on Thursday when I had a doctor appointment to discuss all his it had actually gone away. Praise the Lord!
Even without knowing what autoimmune issue I have (pretty sure it is thyroid related since I already have hypothyroidism), the diet change is helping immensely.
Shifting gears a little….
Have you ever watched those reunion videos with mothers hugging their sons or grandparents with their grandchildren after not seeing them for a long time? It’s always a surprise and everyone is crying and then I’m crying.
Sometimes I’m crying because it is so sweet and sometimes I am crying because I think about how wonderful it would be to hug my grandmothers or aunts again.
I think about how wonderful that feeling must be for those people and how wonderful it would be to feel the same. I know why the relatives of the soldiers who return are crying so hard. They thought that soldier might not return alive. They don’t say it out loud, but it is tucked there in the back of their mind and then when they are finally holding them in their arms it all breaks loose. They aren’t injured. They aren’t dead. They are here in their arms and all those worries and fears just rush out in that moment.
Shifting gears again…
Did I mention that the weather is cold right now?
Like, for instance, while I am working on this post at 11:30 in the morning it is 61 degrees out! In August!
I know that summer weather isn’t done with us yet, though. Pennsylvania has been known to drop temps in the 80s on us right up until October and sometimes into October so we are going to enjoy these nice cooler temps but not plan on them staying.
I can tell you, though, I am already gearing up for hot cocoa, apple cider, leaves crunching under my feet after they’ve fallen off the trees. The leaves are actually already falling but they are just brown and dead, which makes me nervous that we won’t have pretty fall foliage. We will just have to wait and see but even without it we can have all the fall feelings.
I’m definitely an autumn person. I love the chill in the air, the smell of the leaves, hayrides (or watching others go on them at least), reading books under a blanket on the front porch while colorful leaves fall around me.
I’m not a fan of pumpkin spice anything or Halloween, however. I don’t hate either but they aren’t what I look forward to most. However, I might actually try something with pumpkin spice this year just for fun.
This next week Little Miss and I will be doing school every day after Monday, so while we were easing into it before we are fully immersing ourselves this week.
We are studying Paleontology for science for the first half of the year. In English, we are reading The Good Master and will be tackling parts of speech and sentence diagramming.
In History, we are reading about the early days of our country, but later will begin moving into some more modern history through historical fiction. I’m not sure which book we are reading first but there is a list of them that I am looking forward to.
Math is being studied through CTC Math, an online program out of Australia, for now. Art is going to be fun this year since I purchased Little Miss a huge art set with all types of paint and canvases. I hope we will be able to take a few online classes.
It looks like we might not be joining a co-op this year since the co-op that was local might have dissolved, but I am still looking into that and 4-H classes.
How have you been doing? Have you done anything exciting to finish out your summer if you are in the northern hemisphere? If you are in the southern hemisphere, are you planning anything exciting for your spring?
Let me know in the comments. I love catching up with you all.
Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
Now, let’s introduce our hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
Sue from Women Living Well After 50 started blogging in 2015 and writes about living an active and healthy lifestyle, fashion, book reviews and her podcast and enjoying life as a woman over 50. She invites you to join her living life in full bloom.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
A little about Sally: My life is a musical. And during this strange pandemic year, I am feeling more than ever like Alice in (my top 10 favorite movie) the 1951 Disney “Alice in Wonderland,” living in a world of my own. With so much time and attention devoted to my idiosyncratic obsessions and the analysis thereof (because there is no such thing as a good hobby that doesn’t involve building spreadsheets), I realized that the only missing piece was a written narrative.
I thought: “Oh sure, what the world needs now is another middle-aged fat lady blogging about clothing, outfits, capsules, and wardrobes. Not really. But also…maybe yes?” Because on reflection, it’s not as though there are so many of them already. And there certainly is not one that has enough rabbit content!
So here we are!
Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!
And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:
This week’s prompt was Non-bookish Freebie (The sky is the limit here. Make a top ten list on any topic of your choosing, bookish or not!)
So I decided to share ten movies I think all of you should watch at some point in your lives, but preferably right now. I have watched all of them and two of them are my favorites. Guess which two in the comments for fun!
The Third Man (1949)
Set in postwar Vienna, Austria, “The Third Man” stars Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, who arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to find him dead. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a “third man” present at the time of Harry’s death, running into interference from British officer Maj. Calloway (Trevor Howard) and falling head-over-heels for Harry’s grief-stricken lover, Anna (Alida Valli).
A swank family of swindlers that includes father “Sahib,” (Roland Young), wife Marmy, son Richard (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) and daughter George-Anne (Janet Gaynor), fall upon hard times in France and return home to London destitute. The family befriends a wealthy spinster, Miss Ellen Fortune, and after they rescue her when their train crashes, she invites them to stay with her. Initially planning to prey on Miss Ellen, the family is swayed by her goodness and begins to change in shocking ways.
3. The Quiet Man (1952)
Boxer Sean Thornton leaves America and returns to his native Ireland, hoping to buy his family’s homestead and live in peace. In doing so, he runs afoul of Will Danaher, who long coveted the property. Spitefully, Will objects when his fiery sister, Mary Kate, begins a romance with Sean, and refuses to hand over her dowry. Mary Kate refuses to consummate the marriage until Sean retrieves the money.
Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and, together with fellow soldier Allen Melvin (James Edwards), races to uncover a terrible plot.
5. The Thin Man (1934)
The story of a retired detective who, while spending much of his time managing his wife’s considerable fortune and consuming quantities of alcohol, is asked to follow the trail of a missing inventor. Although reluctant to interrupt his holiday in Manhattan, he is persuaded to investigate by his wife’s craving for adventure, and together they embark upon a case that leads to the disclosure of deception and murder.
Harried paleontologist David Huxley (Cary Grant) has to make a good impression on society matron Mrs. Random (May Robson), who is considering donating one million dollars to his museum. On the day before his wedding, Huxley meets Mrs. Random’s high-spirited young niece, Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), a madcap adventuress who immediately falls for the straitlaced scientist. The ever-growing chaos — including a missing dinosaur bone and a pet leopard — threatens to swallow him whole.
Charming scoundrel Johnnie Aysgarth (Cary Grant) woos wealthy but plain Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine), who runs away with him despite the warnings of her disapproving father (Cedric Hardwicke). After their marriage, Johnnie’s risky financial ventures cause Lina to suspect he’s becoming involved in unscrupulous dealings. When his dear friend and business partner, Beaky (Nigel Bruce), dies under suspicious circumstances on a business trip, she fears her husband might kill her for her inheritance.
8. Singing in the Rain (1952)
When the transition is being made from silent films to `talkies’, everyone has trouble adapting. Don and Lina have been cast repeatedly as a romantic couple, but when their latest film is remade into a musical, only Don has the voice for the new singing part. After a lot of practise with a diction coach, Lina still sounds terrible, and Kathy, a bright young aspiring actress, is hired to record over her voice.
After the death of her famous opera-singing aunt, Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is sent to study in Italy to become a great opera singer as well. While there, she falls in love with the charming Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). The two return to London, and Paula begins to notice strange goings-on: missing pictures, strange footsteps in the night and gaslights that dim without being touched. As she fights to retain her sanity, her new husband’s intentions come into question.
10. The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (1947)
Artist playboy Dickie Nugent (Cary Grant) appears before beautiful judge Margaret Turner (Myrna Loy) for fighting at a nightclub, and charms her into dismissing the charge. That same day, Dickie happens to lecture at a high school, where Margaret’s teenage sister, Susan (Shirley Temple), falls head-over-heels for him. Things get complicated when Susan sneaks away and is found in Dickie’s apartment, and downright zany when he is court ordered to date the teen as a way of easing her attraction.
Have you ever seen any of these movies? What did you think?
To find more movie suggestions or “reviews” click HERE.
Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.
You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you
Isaiah 46:4 NIV
I need this verse right now. There is a lot going on in my life these days but I’ll write about that in another post someday.
For now, I’ll share that Friday was a weird day. I spent it painting rocks with my daughter in our yard and that ended when a bumble bee took off after me and I mean took off. It had it in for me. It stung me twice in the stomach after climbing down my pants (yes, my pants) and then proceeded to come after me again when I brushed it off, climbing in my shirt under my arm and stinging me again right after it crawled all over my face.
And, yes, it was a bumble bee and not a yellow jacket. It was possessed.
Surprisingly, the stings actually didn’t hurt hardly at all. They were swollen and red and I was convinced I was going to have a reaction because I’m a hypochondriac freak but in the end I was okay.
What sucked was how I was being brave and pushing aside some of my weird physical symptoms I deal with on a daily basis and playing with Little Miss in the yard and this is what happened.
That’s sort of my life story. I’ve always been afraid to fly. One day I probably will, and — well … let’s not even go there, shall we?
The thing is, that little bumblebee was actually cute. When I looked down at my waistband he was peering up over it at me all fluffy and cute. Then I started screaming and he flew off and came back at me full force. Looks can truly be deceiving.
The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady and Carry On, Jeeves.
This week I will be reading But First, Murder by Bee Littlefield and A Nancy Drew Mystery, The Password to Larkspur Lane.
Little Miss and I are reading The Good Master by Karen Seredy and at night we are listening to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, but I’ve either been too tired or can’t hear it well, so I’ve missed the whole story. Luckily it is one of my planned fall reads.
The Husband is reading Hostage by Robert Crais.
The Boy is listening to Red Tide, a Warhammer book.
We got Netflix for a month and only a month. The price for that service is absolutely nuts to me. My daughter wanted to watch KPop Demon Hunters and my husband and I want to watch The Thursday Murder Club.
I did watch Find Me Falling, a movie with Harry Connick Jr. that I had heard about earlier this year. It was okay. It used a trope I totally hate, and there were parts that fell flat to me, but it was heartwarming and that was what I needed.
Last week, I also watched The Long Hot Summer for the Summer of Angela and then several Murder, She Wrote episodes. I was very disappointed in one, though, where Jessica let the murderer go because he was old and a friend, and the victim was a member of the mob.
I also watched another episode of Ludwig.
Tonight, we are watching the new Superman movie because The Husband and The Boy watched it and loved it. Little Miss saw it with them but wasn’t terribly impressed.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
This summer I am watching Angela Lansbury movies for the Summer of Angela.
This week I dropped the movie with Angela and Warren Beatty that seemed super dark and replaced it with The Long Hot Summer, which I actually watched in 2022 during my first ever movie marathon called The Summer of Paul (Newman that is). For the life of me, though, I could not find that I wrote a blog post about the movie, so I am starting from scratch here.
The Long Hot Summer is not an Angela Lansbury focused movie, but she is in it and fills the screen with her personality when she is on it. The main stars are, of course, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, but Angela provides some comic relief as Orson Welles’ mistress, Minnie Littlejohn.
First, a bit of background/description of the movie with the Google description:
Handsome vagabond Ben Quick (Paul Newman) returns to the Mississippi town his late father called home, but rumors of his dad’s pyromaniac tendencies follow him as soon as he sets foot there. The proud young man’s determination eventually wins over civic leader Will Varner (Orson Welles), who decides Ben might be just the man for his daughter, Clara (Joanne Woodward) — much to the displeasure of Will’s gutless son (Anthony Franciosa) and Clara’s society boyfriend (Richard Anderson).
The movie’s main focus is the sexual tension between Paul and Joan’s characters, which worked out fine since the two were having an affair before this and were on the cusp of being able to announce that since Paul Newman’s divorce was essentially final. Yes, I have always been a fan of Paul, but, no, I don’t like that part of his and Joanne’s story, and I have a feeling there were times they didn’t like it either.
Paul was always good at playing loners, sad men who don’t know who they are or what they want in life except the woman they set their sights on.
It’s the same in this movie, where Paul seems to want prestige but really just wants Clara to like him as much as he likes her. Clara is uptight, though. She does everything proper and never lets her guard down, especially around Ben Quick. She seems to have a feeling if she does let her guard down all of those feelings she’s been trying to protect all her life will spill out.
It’s no surprise since her daddy (Welles), is also pretty uptight and fights for control over everything in his life. That’s why he won’t marry Minnie, who desperately wants to be married.
The movie opens with Ben Quick being told to get out of a county because he is charged with burning a man’s barn because he got mad at the man. There was no proof, though, so instead of jailing him, the town tosses him out.
He rides a couple of steamers down the river to his family’s old town and when he’s hitch-hiking he’s picked up by sour Clara and her bubbly friend.
We find out how sour she is when he asks, “So you girls just take your fun wherever you can find it?” And Clara responds with, “Don’t jump to conclusions, young man, we’re giving you a ride and that’s all we’re giving you.”
The sparring between Clara and Ben kick off right from there and continue on in the movie.
The first sign we see is a welcome sign to Fishermen’s Bend, home to – well, everything owned by someone named Varner.
Ben tells the girls that it sounds like Varner is the man to see about work in that town and the bubbly girl says that he can see Mr. Varner every night at their house. He asks if they are connected to Varner and the girl giggles that they are indeed and then drive off and leave him there at the town hall.
Back at the Varner house, Eula, Clara’s sister-in-law, is gushing to her husband Jody about all the clothes she bought, and Clara is on the terrace sipping lemonade with her friend Agnes when Ben shows up again.
The ladies were talking about how they are single and lonely before Ben showed up. Agnes mentions how he might be an option and Clara quips that they haven’t gotten so desperate as to be turning to strangers.
Ben asks Jody about working one of the tenant farms to make some money off of. Jody agrees before running back upstairs to make out with Eula. The servant comments when he sees muddy footprints on the rug after Ben leaves, “Mister, you sure do leave your calling card.”
That’s a bit of foreshadowing and an understatement.
As the movie goes on Ben will work his way into the family in more ways than one, upsetting the apple cart, so to speak.
Clara walks the carpet back to Ben’s tenant house with a little black boy (yep, another servant down here in the South) and tells him you dirty it, you clean it.
What follows is some great dialogue, which continues throughout the movie.
“A lot of fuss to be making about a rug lady, if it’s the rug that’s bothering you.”
Clara tips her chin up. “What else would it be?”
Ben spits out a watermelon seed. “Well now you correct me if I’m wrong but I have a feeling I rile ya’. I mean me being so mean and dirty and all.”
“Mr. Quick, you being personal with me, I’ll be personal with you. I spent my whole life around men who push and shove and shout and think they can make anything happen just by being aggressive and I’m not anxious of ‘nother one around the place.”
Ben smirks. “Miss Clara, you slam a door in a man’s face before he even knocks on it.”
All Clara says is for him to have the rug at the house by 6.
It shows how bigger than life Varner is when he comes back into town in an ambulance or police car (not sure which ) with the sirens blaring. The people in town who watch him drive through talk about how he was in the hospital and had something cut out of him.
Then it’s time for Angela, the point of this here Summer marathon. She comes running out of the Littlejohn Boarding House and Hotel as soon as he pulls up, wearing a tight and tiny white dress, and throws her arms around him. Her Southern accent is so jarring being familiar with her original accent and the American one she ended up developing as the years went on.
He laughs and declares she seems to be getting fatter and blonder on him.
Oh yeah…Didn’t I mention what a charmer he is?
He tells her he will be back…later. *wink* *wink*
He greets his family at home, with a clear critical eye on his son who seems desperate to please his father. That will come to play in a big way in the movie.
Orson Welles’ color is so horrible in this film, and I don’t know if that is because he is supposed to look sick or if it was bad makeup or if Orson Wells was that color back then. Then again, a couple of the other men had that weird color to their skin too. Maybe it was just bad makeup or the film itself.
Despite his color, Minnie wants to marry Daddy Varner, and she lets him know that. He avoids her as much as possible, preferring to keep control of his world.
What Angela said about the movie:
Angela’s plays a playful flirt in this film, not a dark femme fatale like A Life At Stake and she credited the director, Martin Ritt, for bringing that playfulness out in her.
“Martin Ritt had a wonderful enthusiasm and earthy sexy quality himself,” she said. “He loved the idea of the dirtiness of the carryings on, and he certainly brought every bit of kind of naughty sexuality out of me in that role.”
As for Orson Welles, Angela agreed with others who said he was used to getting his own way because he normally had control of his own projects. This project wasn’t his though.
“He was always nudging and pushing for things and wanted to change lines,” said Angela. “But had to be carefully handled so that he didn’t always get his way because his way wasn’t necessarily the best way for everybody else in the scene.”
Welles would irritate his co-stars by overlapping his own lines with their dialogue, ad-libbing, and mumbling to the point where his lines were barely comprehensible, she added.
Despite him being annoying, Angela also said of him: “There was something you couldn’t resist about Orson.”
In a 2001 interview, quoted on TCM.com, Angela said of Paul and Joan: “They seemed to have such a total understanding of each other that they were able to work in scenes where they were at each other’s throats or falling under each other’s spell.”
My thoughts on the movie:
I like the Southern feel of this movie, the acting, the complex relationships. I love watching Ben try to break through Clara’s hard exterior. No matter how hard she tries to resists him or how many times she pushes him away he keeps trying.
I love how the women are very strong in the movie but not so strong that they are outright disrespectful, even though they probably should be in some cases.
Paul’s smirk works well in just about every movie he’s in but it really works in this one. It’s hard to read what his real motives are sometimes, but deep down I feel like he does want something better than what he’s had. I feel like he does want a family and to be successful on his own merit.
This movie has a Tennessee Williams feel to it even though it is based on one main story and other stories by William Faulkner. It did not have a Tennesse Williams’ ending, at least.
On a more shallow level, I don’t know what they were thinking with Joanne’s big eyebrows and those way too short bangs. Despite how much I didn’t like the look they went for, I really enjoyed watching her character develop and blossom and reveal herself to be different than who we think she is for the first half of the movie.
Watching the jealousy unfold in Jody as he desperately tried to be what his father wanted him to be was difficult to see. The poor guy has no idea how to be a man of his own and is always trying to be what he thinks his daddy wants him to be.
Orson really wasn’t good in this movie. He really wasn’t. I don’t know what happened to him or why he performed so awful but from what I read online it was flat out jealousy over his younger counterparts who were associated with the Actor’s Studio. I also read he was only 10 years older than Paul in this film – 42 years old – but he looks terrible! He wore a prosthetic nose which I can not figure out the point of.
As for Angela, she pulled off her part well and it was fun to watch her with a thick Louisiana accent. Every time I see her in one of her early movies, I really do find myself forgetting she was Jessica Fletcher. She would have been so much better in this one if she hadn’t had to act across from Orson who was way over acting.
Trivia and Facts:
Orson Welles always wore a fake nose when he worked, so when he would sweat on this film, his fake nose would slip. Make-up people had to keep applying material to keep the fake nose from falling. (source TCM.com)
The director was Marty Ritt and Paul filmed five other films with him including Hombre, Paris Blues, The Outrage, Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man, and Hud. (source, excerpt from Paul Newman biography on Lit Hub)
In his biography Paul Newman wrote of Orson: “Orson couldn’t understand screen generosity, where one actor allows another player in his scene to deservedly get the best camera shots. Screen generosity was not part of Orson’s vocabulary. After a number of retakes on a scene he did with me, Orson asked Marty if he could have a private word with him. They stepped away together, and seemed to be discussing something rather serious. When they came back, we did another take, and afterwards, I asked Marty what was going on.
“Orson thought you were submarining him,” he said; it was an actor’s way of saying someone was stealing his screen time.” (source, excerpt from Paul Newman biography on Lit Hub)
The director, ‘Martin Ritt’ , was forever known after this movie as the man who tamed Orson Welles. During filming Ritt drove Wells into the middle of a swamp, kicked him out of the car and forced him to find his own way back in the hot Louisiana heat. (various/several sources)
Joan and Paul were married in January 1958 and the movie released in March. (TCM.com)
When the movie was complete, the director and others watched it and noticed they could barely here Orson at times. The director felt sure Orson had purposely mumbled his lines to make the sound more difficult because he was unhappy with not having control.
From TCM.com: “The success of The Long, Hot Summer helped Martin Ritt reestablish himself as a major director following his 5-year blacklisting from Hollywood. It also showcased the talents of young up-and-comers Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, who won Best Actor that year at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Ben Quick. It marked both the beginning of long and distinguished careers for the talented couple as well as the beginning of one of Hollywood’s longest and happiest marriages.”
The Long, Hot Summer was based on the works of southern writer William Faulkner, most notably his 1940 novel The Hamlet. (source: TCM.com)
The movie was turned into a television series in 1965. It starred Roy Thinnes as Ben Quick, Nancy Malone as Clara, and Edmond O’Brien as Will Varner. O’Brien eventually left the show and was replaced with Dan O’Herlihy. Legendary director Robert Altman directed the pilot. (source: TCM.com)
Copied directly from TCM.com’s article because I thought it was interesting and I didn’t want to summarize it: Although William Faulkner was best known as a novelist and short story writer, he did work as a screenwriter in Hollywood for 20th-Century-Fox during the thirties and forties. A good deal of his work went uncredited and he was never successful in adapting any of his own work for the screen (although he did do a screen treatment for “Barn Burning” but it was never produced). He did, however, receive credit for the screenplay adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not (1944), Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (1946) and a few other scripts such as Submarine Patrol (1938) for director John Ford and The Road to Glory (1936) for director Howard Hawks.
Other William Faulkner film adaptations include The Story of Temple Drake (1933, based on his novel Sanctuary), Intruder in the Dust (1949), The Tarnished Angels (1958, based on his novel Pylon), The Sound and the Fury (1959), Sanctuary (1961), The Reivers (1969), Tomorrow (1972, based on his story), and an uncredited Russian adaptation of Sanctuary entitled Cargo 200 (2007, aka Gruz 200).
Have you ever seen this one?
My last Angela movie will be Something for Everyone. I don’t know anything about it so I’m going into it blind.
If you want to read about some of the other movies I watched, you can find them here:
Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
Let’s get right to it and introduce our hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
Sue from Women Living Well After 50 started blogging in 2015 and writes about living an active and healthy lifestyle, fashion, book reviews and her podcast and enjoying life as a woman over 50. She invites you to join her living life in full bloom.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
A little about Nancy: Colors 4 Health, the place where colors and a healthy lifestyle intersect. I’m a Health and Lifestyle Writer and Wellness Blogger, and Author of “Colors of Joy: A Woman’s Guide for Self-Discovery, Balance, and Bliss.”
Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!
And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:
Last week I finished the book The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy.
I enjoyed the book so much that I looked forward to a couple chapters each night before bed just like I used to read books before there were all these devices and social media sites and everything else to distract me. Losing myself in the story completely forgetting about everything around me going on was exactly what I needed. Yes, the book could be a bit dramatic at times, but, come on, it was written in 1905!
I loved the hardcover copy I found too. It was printed about 30 years ago by Reader’s Digest but I love how it had a vintage feel to it.
Even though I’ve seen the 1982 TV serial movie with Jane Seymour, Anthony Andrews, and Ian McKellen and therefore knew the story, I still wanted to read the book because I wanted to see if the book was different or the same.
The baroness (yes, she actually was one) wrote the play, The Scarlet Pimpernel, before she wrote the book. There are also several sequels to the book, and some don’t focus on the same characters.
First, a little description of the book and movie for those who might not be familiar with it.
Armed with only his wits and his cunning, one man recklessly defies the French revolutionaries and rescues scores of innocent men, women, and children from the deadly guillotine. His friends and foes know him only as the Scarlet Pimpernel. But the ruthless French agent Chauvelin is sworn to discover his identity and to hunt him down.
I first watched the movie version of The Scarlet Pimpernel years ago and then watched it again about a month ago. It was a CBS production with all British actors that ran three hours, maybe over a couple of nights, but I’m not sure.
After I watched the movie, I remembered I had found a hardcopy of the book by Baroness Orczy last year at a used book sale.
I couldn’t figure out how to write this without giving spoilers so … there will be spoilers. You have been warned.
First, let’s go to the book which begins with a French family being rescued from the guillotine. They’ve been brought to an inn in England by the band of men who work with The Scarlet Pimpernel. They’re exhausted but grateful. The mother in the family, referred to by the author as The Comtesse is also worried because her husband has remained in France and could be next to have his head cut off. While talking about who is who in England that she will be able to rub elbows with now that she is there, the name Lady Blakeny, formerly known as Marguerite St. Just comes up and the Comtesse balks. She doesn’t want to meet that woman because that woman turned in the Marquis de St. Cyr to the revolutionists and he and his entire family were guillotined.
The men in the inn are taken aback by this charge but don’t seem surprised the woman says it. What they are nervous about is that Lady Blakeny is currently on her way to the inn with her husband Sir Percy Blakeny, who is known as a lazy “fop”. He’s rich and simply putters his days away by hobnobbing with the Prince of Wales and other elites. He’s also terribly obnoxious. He met his wife in France and brought her back with him to live in England.
Unfortunately, the Comtesse sees Lady Blakeny and lets the woman know she wants nothing to do with her because of how she turned in the de St. Cyr family.
Lady Blakeny is confused by the charge and laughs it off.
It isn’t long before we learn that Marguerite did turn the family in but not on purpose. She dropped a hint that the Marquis was a traitor after the Marquis beat her brother Armand St. Just because he was in love with the Marquis’s daughter. She told her husband shortly after they were married and had returned to England what happened and it was after that he became very cold toward her and barely spoke to her in private, making their marriage more of a show than anything else.
The main plot of the book is a romantic one involving the misunderstandings between Marguerite and her husband.
Early on, Marguerite is approached by Citizen Chauvelin, an agent of the revolutionists in France, and he requests her to spy on those she associates with in England to see if she can find out who The Scarlet Pimpernel is.
The revolutionists want him stopped so he can no longer smuggle out aristocrats that the revolutionists want to murder.
Marguerite refuses but later in the book Chauvelin and his men find a letter that reveals her brother Armand is involved with The Scarlet Pimpernel and his men. In fact, Armand is on his way to France to set up arrangements to save another aristocrat family.
Chauvelin blackmails her, forcing her to help find out The Scarlet Pimpernel’s identity or he will have Armand killed.
She and Armand are very close because they lost their parents, and he helped to raise her so she reluctantly agrees to this plan.
Secretly Marguerite admires The Scarlet Pimpernel and his daring escapades to rescue aristocrats who are about to be killed. She harbors a ton of guilt for what happened to the Marquis and wants others to be rescued. Despite not wanting to stop The Scarlet Pimpernel, she agrees to spy in her husband’s circle of friends to see if she can learn anything about The Pimpernel’s identity, simply so Armand is not killed.
She does learn something at a future ball that the Prince of Wales is attending when she finds out that The Scarlet Pimpernel will be meeting with his men in the supper room at 1 a.m. that night. She tells Chauvelin this but when Chauvelin goes to wait all he finds is lazy, silly Sir Percy asleep on the couch.
Now in the book, Marguerite goes back to her home with Sir Percy and confronts him over how he’s been treating her. Sir Percy fights his emotions because he truly loves her despite what she did in France and believes it must have been a misunderstanding.
There is one big reason Sir Percy can’t show his love to her though. He can’t trust her and he needs to trust her because SPOILER ALERT!!!! Do not read further if you don’t want to know the truth ——
.
.
.
.
.
.
Sir Percy is actually The Scarlet Pimpernel!!! WHAT?! Now, when we watch the movie, we already know this and it makes the sexual tension even more heightened between Marguerite (Seymour) and Sir Percy (Andrews), especially after the scene where Chauvelin (McKellen) thinks he’s going to find The Pimpernel but instead only finds Sir Percy.
In the movie Marguerite runs to the dining room instead of home. The room is dark and she hears someone behind her, but she doesn’t turn around. She assumes it must be The Pimpernel so she tells him that Chauvelin is after him and trying to trap him.
This warning lets Sir Percy know that Marguerite truly supports the mission of The Scarlet Pimpernel and his band and his heart begins to melt. He steps forward, almost puts his hand on her shoulder, clearly wants to kiss her neck, but he steps back again. He doesn’t tell her who he is, preferring to protect her from any interrogation from Chauvelin.
In the book, Marguerite figures out who Sir Percy is after he leaves for France and the daughter of a man who could be killed says she heard that The Scarlet Pimpernel had left that very morning to rescue her father.
I feel like the TV movie actually fleshed some things out a bit better and added another layer which would have made the book even better.
In the movie, we see more of Lady and Sir Percy’s romance and then their marriage about halfway through. The coldness comes when Sir Percy finds out her involvement in the Marquis’s murder from someone else at their wedding reception. The person tells Sir Percy that her name was on the warrant for the Marquis’s arrest, but really we viewers know that it it is the villain Chauvelin who put her name on the arrest warrant.
Another difference between the book and the movie is that in the movie there is an underlying story of the Scarlet Pimpernel and his men trying to rescue Prince Louise XVII before he is killed in the tower, which is what happened in real life. Their goal is to smuggle the prince out of France to England and keep him there until he is older and can come back to France and take over the throne again.
There is no mention of the prince in the book and that would have been a fun layer to add.
In both the book and the movie, Marguerite sets off to rescue Percy when she learns who he is. She learns who he is the same way in the book and the movie — she runs into Percy’s office and notices there are pimpernels along the molding of the room and in other places, which helps her to put the pieces together. In the movie, though, Sir Percy leaves a note for her in his office/study, which indicates he hoped she’d figure it out. I didn’t get that in the book, but maybe I just missed that part.
Marguerite can’t bear the thought of Percy being captured and killed by Chauvelin. I liked that she went off to rescue him, which she sort of did in the movie but not in the same way.
In the book she was sneaking around and risking her life much more than she did in the movie.
I liked the show own in the movie, which didn’t happen in the book. In the book Sir Percy uses the many disguises he used to help smuggle aristocrats out to disguise himself and keep him from being discovered by Chauvelin. He disguises himself as a Jew, which seems to be a popular thing for the English to do back then. Jews were always looked down on as disgusting and dirty at that time so they were easily overlooked.
Disguised as a Jew, Percy tells Chauvelin he saw the man that might be the Scarlet Pimpernel and leads him on a wild goose chase so that his men have enough time to escae to Sir Percy’s ship.
Chauvelin believes The Scarlet Pimpernel is leaving on his ship so he leaves a bruised and beat up Marguerite behind with the bruised and beat up Jew. Of course, Sir Percy reveals himself to Marguerite once Chauvelin and his men are gone and they have a romantic reunion.
In the movie, Sir Percy is captured when Armand goes back to his lover to rescue her. In the book Armand didn’t have a lover to go back to. Chauvelin says he will only release Sir Percy if he gives the prince back, so Sir Percy leads him to a castle near the ocean. By then, though, the prince has been released.
Chauvelin is pissed off and sends Sir Percy out to be shot. Unfortunately for him, Sir Percy has managed to switch Chauvelin’s men for his own and that means Sir Percy returns to the castle unscathed, has a dual with Chauvelin and wins, and then they leave Chauvelin stranded at the castle before escaping on Sir Percy’s ship to England.
The ending to the movie was a lot more exciting to me with that added dual. I’m sure it was easier to have a dual than having to explain why the French thought Jews were so gross that they would have ignored Sir Percy who was dressed up as one. Not to mention the stereotypical description of Sir Percy’s makeup, etc. would have been — well…insensitive to say the least.
The bottom line is that while I loved the book, I also loved that the movie flushed the book out even more for me.
I do hope to read the other books in the series, even if I don’t get my satisfaction of the full story of Sir Percy and Lady Blakeny.
A bit of trivia/facts about the movie taken from various sources around the web, including articles, interviews, and IMdB:
This movie was produced by London Films and directed by Clive Donner.
Filming took place at various eighteenth century sites in England, including Blenheim Palace, Ragley Hall, Broughton Castle, and Milton Manor; also Lindisfarne.
The subplot with the Dauphin was taken from another one of Orczy’s novels, Eldorado, which was what the screenplay for the 1982 TV adaptation of The Scarlet Pimpernel was based on.
Timothy Carlton, who played the Count De Beaulieu, is the father of actor Benedict Cumberbatch and ironically, McKellen would appear with Benedict in the Hobbit trilogy – or at least was in the same movies that Benedict did the voice of Smaug for. Seems Timothy felt he’d better change that last name while Benedict knew his first and last name would be an attention getter, I guess.
Jane Seymour sometimes took her infant daughter with her to the set and had never seen the original movie from 1934 starring Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, and Raymond Massey. (I hope to watch this in the fall or winter and compare it to the TV movie since many sources online say it is still considered the best adaptation. I saw part of it years ago, but do not remember finishing it.).
Julian Fellowes (Prince Regent) also played the Prince Regent (the future George IV) in Sharpe’s Regiment (1996)
London Films hoped that Andrews would one day star in a Scarlet Pimpernel series in the US, but this never occurred.
In his 2006 work Stage Combat Resource Materials: A Selected And Annotated Bibliography, author J. Michael Kirkland referred to the sword fight between Percy and Chauvelin as “nicely staged, if somewhat repetitious … but still entertaining.” Kirkland also observed that the weapons used were in fact German sabres, which were not used during the Napoleonic era. (source Wikipedia).
A little about the Baroness herself summarized from the back of the book:
She was born…get ready for this one! Baroness Emmuska Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josepha Barbara Orczy on Sept. 23 1865 in Tarna-Ors, Hungary. Her father was a notable composer and a nobleman and in 1868 the family was chased from Hungary during a peasant uprising, eventually settling in London when the Baroness was 15. Before that she attended schools in Paris and Brussels. She was once quoted as saying that London was her “spiritual birthplace.”
Emmuska learned to speak English quickly, fell in love with art and writing and eventually married illustrator Montaque Barstow. They had one son.
She and her husband wrote the play about Sir Percy Blakeny in 1903 based on a short story Emmuska had written. The play ran in London. Emmuska wrote the novelization and released it in 1905. The book was a huge success and she went on to write other stories about Sir Percy Blakeny and his friends, but she also wrote more plays, mystery fiction, and adventure romances.
Have you read the book and/or seen the movie of The Scarlet Pimpernel? If so, what did you think of them?
How about the Baroness’s other books – have you read any of them?
I found this movie for free on YouTube, but it is streaming on various other services, including Amazon, Sling TV, Roku, and Apple.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
This past week was a tame week for the most part. Things picked up Friday when I picked up a friend of Little Miss’s and they had a sleepover before we all went to visit an old-school mall near Scranton, Pa. yesterday morning.
The mall has a small selection of stores still left but like many malls of today there are a lot of empty store spaces.
I didn’t walk as far as anyone else but one of the most exciting things for Little Miss was finding an escalator to ride up and down on.
That’s the main reason she wanted to go to a mall. She’d heard me tell stories about going on an escalator at the mall we used to go to when I was growing up and wanted to experience it herself.
Her brother and dad were able to visit the mall about two weeks ago but that was the first day of a two-week illness for her and me (which would have been over sooner if it hadn’t been for that stinking sinus drainage she got! Poor kid!). I had never visited that mall. The one we used to go to was in New York State and the other one was an hour south but has since closed.
If you’re new here, we live in a very rural area that requires us to drive about an hour in any direction to find larger stores/malls/movie theaters, etc.
We don’t have a lot of buildings with escalators or elevators near us, so it is quite a treat when we get to visit one. I can’t believe it’s taken us until Little Miss is almost 11 to take her somewhere she could ride an escalator!
Yesterday there was a mechanical horse ride at the mall, but The Husband couldn’t get the change machine to work so Little Miss simply announced she wanted to go back on the escalator again. That was just as exciting to her and her friend as a mechanical horse ride.
The escalator was in a JC Penny Store. Yes, this mall still had a JC Penny and it has two stories.
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs knows that I don’t have much of a social life or get out much so she challenged me to go into a store and buy one thing I wouldn’t normally buy — like lipstick (she knows I don’t wear makeup so that’s probably why she suggested that. Ha!) I went into the first store I came to, which was Claire’s and grabbed a planner, some hairbands that were on sale, and tinted lip balm (when I originally wrote this I accidentally typed “tainted lip balm”. Well, that definitely would be something I don’t normally buy!). It shows how long it has been since I’ve been at a mall because when that woman with her black lipstick and black hair, wearing a Halloween costume in August, said to me, “That will be $42,” I went all old lady on her.
“I’m sorry? How much? What in the world did I buy?”
Turns out the lip gloss was $10 each and I had grabbed an extra one for Little Miss because she likes to pretend to do makeup with her friends. The planner was $15 and I do not think that they gave me the sales price on the hairbands.
Live and learn! And what I learned is I really don’t miss malls as much as I thought I d.
The kids had a lot of fun though and we even found a Barnes and Noble down the road to visit for a little while. Each girl picked out a book to read.
They also came home with a candle, a mug, a small stuffed animal, and friendship necklaces each. I loved how excited they were with those little things, but they did try for $10 little hamsters at Barnes and Noble which I turned down because we were there for books and not toys and had already gotten a couple of stuffed animals.
That’s one change from when we used to visit Barnes and Noble back in the day (20-some years ago) — there wasn’t a whole toy section, that I remember anyhow. I am sure bookstores are simply trying to diversify, but I like my bookstores to mainly carry books.
We only grabbed one book while we were there because I just ordered several books from Thriftbooks and I couldn’t think of any books I wanted that were new. The Husband picked up an Erle Stanley Gardner that we will share since we both like his books (or some of them anyhow).
I did want to look at journals, but I’ve gotten used to buying $5 dollar store journals and couldn’t bring myself to spend $18 or more on one. They had a huge 50 percent off cart of journals, but I didn’t see that until we were getting ready to leave so I left that for another day.
The mall and other stores aren’t super far away so we could definitely visit again someday soon.
I do feel like I’ve gotten old, though. The visit to B&N didn’t excite me as much as I thought it would. Maybe it was because I was having a bit of a stinky autoimmune day or maybe it’s because I’ve discovered I like little stores with used books more than I like big stores full of new books. Plus, there are so many books that I just wouldn’t read — like all those BookTok books — out in prominent places which means I would have had to hunt for any books I would really want to read.
Overall, it was a really nice trip, and I would love to go again when I am having a better health day and had had a little more sleep the night before. One of the nicest things about the trip was seeing the beautiful green hills of Pennsylvania. Summer is winding down and some trees are changing already, but for the most part green is dominating our views and I’m fine with that. I am, however, looking forward to the cooler temps of this week.
This morning as I got ready to cast my Sunday morning episode of Just A Few Acres Farm to the TV, I saw a notice that Bob from the Bob and Brad Physical Therapy YouTube Channel had passed away. It hit me very hard as I have watched this channel for years and gone there numerous times over the years to get ideas on how to help the various cricks and pains I get in my neck and muscles.
Bob was diagnosed with cerebral ataxia a few years ago, and it affected how he spoke and walked. I had no idea it would take his life, but apparently, it caused a cardiac event the week before last, and he passed suddenly. Brad and their new host (he stepped in a few years ago) and Bob’s son spoke about Brad during the episode announcing his death and I was a sobbing mess.
I was happy Bob donated his organs and saved at least three more lives, if not more, but it was so depressing for me to hear about I was glad I had not made plans to do anything today.
Right before I was about to post this today, I noticed my blog stats had gone crazy. I usually get 200-250 views a day, and yesterday I had over 5,00,0 but with no comments to match that I can see. The visitors are actually lower than I get too. And all the views are from the Netherlands. That’s all I know! Does anyone know where to find out where these views are coming from? All I can find is “Google search” and I don’t even see a ton of views on any one post. I am beginning to think something is wrong with WordPress’s stats.
I have a monthly book-related link party if you are interested. You can find the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea link party at the top of my page or here. It is for posts about books that you are reading, have read, book reviews — just anything book-related really. So even posts about book collections, authors etc. etc.
We will be holding another one next Sunday, August 24th from 1 to around 3 p.m.
The Crafternoons are events where we gather on Zoom and craft at our respective homes and chat while we work on various projects. We are calling them drop-in crafternoons because you can drop in and out during the time we are on (usually from about 1 to 3 p.m. EST US time). No need to stay the whole time if you can’t. Come late if you want or leave early.
If you want to join in, email Erin at crackcrumblife@gmail.com and she will add you to the mailing list.
This past week I finished Dave Barry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down by Dave Barry (humor columnist for the Miami Herald). It was very funny! It was a collection of his columns from 2000.
Right now I am reading Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse and will probably finish it this week.
I am also reading But First, Murder (A Betti Bryant Mystery) by Bee Littlefield and Nancy Drew Mystery: Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene (I’m sure I’ll finish it this week. These books are so short.).
I’ll be reading Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan next. This is an autobiographical book by Agatha Christie about some of her travels with her second husband, who was an archaeologist. I read the first couple of pages already, and her humor really comes through. I am looking forward to getting into it more.
Little Miss and I are reading The Good Master by Kate Seredy.
This weekend The Husband and I watched an episode of Rizzoli and Isles, a show I’d totally forgotten about. I watched a Murder, She Wrote episode and a coupe of Quantum Leap episodes. I also watched a couple episodes of my favorite farmer’s YouTube Channel — Just A Few Acres.
For my Summer of Angela feature, I watched A Life At Stake.
I made some progress on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School this past week and hope to make a lot more during this upcoming week. I am shooting for a November release. We will see how that goes!
I hope to finish up The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady by Sharon J. Mondagon this week. I hadn’t been listening to it consistently so it’s taken a bit for me to finish it. This week I plan to find some time during dishwashing, etc. to listen.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
This summer I am watching Angela Lansbury movies for the Summer of Angela.
Up this week was A Life At Stake, another crime noir “B-movie” and another chance for Angela to show her evil side. Honestly, she’s been evil in a lot of the movies I watched with her throughout this summer, which cracks me up since a lot of people associate her with being sweet in kind from things like Murder She Wrote and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
This movie was not the best I’ve ever seen plot-wise but the dialogue was actually very well written and the sexual tension was something I didn’t expect for a 1954 movie.
The movie is essentially about a man who is very paranoid and thinks everyone is out to get him. Or, as Google describes it: “After an out of work architect accepts a business proposition from a married woman, he soon begins to suspect her motives, and fear for his life.”
Edward Shaw, portrayed by Keith Andes had a business failing and now he’s been approached by a lawyer with the prospect of a new business.
Edward tells the lawyer he really doesn’t really want to get involved. He keeps a $1000 bill framed on his wall to remind him of his failures and encourage him to try again. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a $1,000 bill by the way.
Anyhow, I digress, the lawyer puts him in contact with Doris Hillman (Angela), wife of Gus Hillman (Douglass Dumbrille). Edward goes to Doris’s home and the housekeeper says he needs to call out before he goes to the pool because Doris has been known to swim in the nude. Edward quips back, “That’s okay. I’ve been known to swim in the nude too.”
Doris isn’t naked but she does tell Edward he should have called out. From their first meeting the flirting begins in earnest. Doris even covers herself with a towel but removes the top of her swim suit underneath it because she says it’s uncomfortable.
Eventually they get to business talks and Doris says Gus wants Edward to run the company, buying up property with money Gus will give him and for Doris to sell the property using her past real estate experience.
Edward is agreeable but feels suspicious about it all, especially when Doris says they will need to take an insurance policy out on him for half a mil. He doesn’t, however, seem to feel suspicious about Doris and later that night at home when he gets a call, he asks his land lady if it is a woman calling. It is clear he’s hopeful Doris will be calling soon and about a lot more than business.
Doris does call another day and asks him to meet her a hotel room. From there he’s laying it on heavy, flirting all over the place, but she lets him know she’s not interested. She’s only interested in business. Edward (sort of a horny jerk if you ask me) leaves but later that night Doris pulls up outside his apartment.
She says something flirty and then before we know it, he’s in the car practically shoving his tongue own her throat.
All is going well with their little liaisons and business dealings until Edward meets Doris’s sister, Madge (Claudia Barrett). Madge thinks he’s just lovely and starts hitting on him. She invites him to dinner in front of Doris and Gus and because he doesn’t want Gus to know about his affair with Doris, he agrees.
During dinner Madge drops a bombshell and says that Gus is Doris’s second husband because her first husband died a few years ago in an accident. What’s weird is that Doris and Gus were in a business with him too and when he died Gus and Doris got the insurance money since they’d taken out a policy on each of them for the business.
Edward is incensed. He had a feeling Doris and Gus were up to something and now he knows what it is. They really do want to kill him and get the money for the insurance policy they took out in his name.
He’s still thinking about this when Doris calls and says she wants to show him something.
He reluctantly agrees and she drives him up on a hill. She shows him some property she says will be great for development but when she goes to park, the brake slips and the car keeps rolling. She gets it in park and says she’s going to go get the property owner because he said he would show them around.
After she leaves, though, with Edward sitting in the passenger side, the car starts to roll toward a bank with a long drop and Edward just barely stops it.
That cinches it for him. Doris and Gus are in on this together and they are going to kill him.
I won’t give away the ending but most of the rest of the 70 minute movie (yes, it’s that short) will be Edward waffling back and forth between suspecting the couple and being in love with Doris while Madge is in love with Edward and knows all about the affair. Later she also knows about Edward’s suspicions.
This is a dark movie and it took the path I thought it might but I did think there might be more of a plot twist toward the end. Actually, there did seem to be a bit of a plot twist based on something said by a character right at the end but I wasn’t sure if I was reading too much into it or not.
I will share that I did read Cat’s review (found on her blog Cat’s Wire) before finishing this post up and I have to agree that I did not really connect with or like the main character.
I don’t think I would have cried much if he had been murdered (okay, so I gave a little away here…..he isn’t murdered). He was very unlikable and rude. He wanted to have his little fling with Doris but also keep her and her husband from killing him. He was sort of ruled by his privates to me and it severely affected his judgment. And though there were some good lines in this one – the writing overall was just not very strong.
I’m sure this is just motion blur in the image, but all I can think of when I see Angela’s hand in this photo is that episode of Seinfeld when Jerry dates a woman with “man hands.”
I liked Angela’s performance and thought she succeeded once again in pulling off playing someone evil and making it hard for the viewer to figure out if she was really in love with Edward or not.
I listened to an interview with Angela last week when writing about The Picture of Dorian Gray, and she said she made a lot of not-so-great movies over the years. This may be one of them she was referring to.
The movie was directed by Paul Guilfoyle, for those who care about such things. The film was restored in 2021 and resulted in a few noir crime movie buffs blogging about it.
One of those, Michael Barrett from the site Pop Matters, wrote: “You’d have to know me to understand how unlikely it is that I’d never heard of this picture, but the commentary by scholar Jason A. Ney points out that this film is so obscure, it’s not listed in most noir references, despite the presence of a major star. So this might count as more of a rediscovery than restoration.”
About the acting and plot he writes, “The film runs only 76 minutes, but a bunch of stuff happens at a nice clip, sometimes too quickly for us to analyze how much adds up, with some elements more obvious than others. In a sense, everyone is clumsy and transparent, and that feels reasonably credible. The story mixes common sense (e.g., going to the cops and the insurance company) with devious cupidity and lust amongst tawdry, small-minded people.”
Glenn Erickson on Trailers from Hell wrote: “Filmed in 1954, producer Hank McCune’s A Life at Stake is notable for its fairly competent production and a decent if somewhat thrill-challenged screenplay — and the fact that it stars an actress one wouldn’t think would be associated with an 11-day cheapie thriller. The great Angela Lansbury is the odd star out on a list of creatives that reads like a call sheet for ambitious Hollywood underachievers, all thirsting for the right show to get their career in motion.”
I have to agree with Erickson when he writes: “The movie generates some tension but can’t quite convince us that Ed Shaw is as helpless as presented.”
I enjoyed Erickson’s entire review and background so if you would like to know even more about the film and Angela’s role in it, please check it out.
Some facts and trivia:
“The unusual convertible Doris Hillman (Dame Angela Lansbury) drove was a Kaiser Darrin. Only 435 production Darrins and six prototypes were built. Its entry doors slid on tracks into the front fender wells behind the front wheels, which was patented in 1946, had no side windows and a three-position Landau top. The car’s only criticism by enthusiasts was the front grill, which looked like it “wanted to give you a kiss.” (Source: imdb)
This was an independent feature produced by Hank McCune, who briefly starred in his own free-wheeling TV sitcom, The Hank McCune Show. (source: Pop Matters)
McCune created the story and hired people from his television series, including writer Russ Bender and supporting actor Frank Maxwell. (source: Pop Matters)
The director’s wife, Kathleen Mulqueen, plays Shaw’s mom-like secretary. (source: Pop Matters)
Directly from imbd.com: “In the first scene, Edward Shaw (Keith Andes) roams about his room in the boarding house wearing only form-fitting pajama bottoms and stripped to the waist, giving audiences ample chance to view his impressive musculature from every conceivable angle. In a comic twist, an attorney enters the room, and one of his first lines of dialogue to Edward is “Come now, you’re not the first man to lose his shirt!””
In order to please the Italian music unions, an agreed number of American films had to be re-scored by Italian composers for release in Italy. A bit of irony is that Les Baxter had his original music replaced by Costantino Ferri, Baxter himself would later join AIP and re-score over a dozen movies previously done by Italian composers. (Source: imbd)
When Edward Shaw (Keith Andes) gets into a taxi after leaving his office, in the background, the old Sunset Theatre is seen, which was located on Western Avenue just north of Sunset Boulevard; the double feature shown on the marquee is Da Vinci also Julius Caesar (with Marlon Brando) , which dates the shot as May 1954. The theatre no longer exists. The intersection has been redeveloped.
Left on my Summer of Angela list for August are:
August 22 – I’ve decided to substitute A Long Hot Summer for All Fall Down for a couple reasons — I’ve watched A Long Hot Summer before and it will allow me to admire Paul (Newman) again and I watched a preview for the film and this annoying kid kept calling the main character Barry-Barry and that just seemed super, super annoying. Plus, I’ve heard it is a dark film. I originally wanted to watch it because I’ve never seen a Warren Beatty film (don’t you dare ever remind me of Dick Tracy! Never! Ever! I would like to burn that memory out of my brain with the end of a cigarette! My brother and I walked out of that film and I have never attempted to watch it again and I still have PTSD!). I can always watch another Warren Beatty film instead.
August 29 – Something for Everyone
If you want to read about some of the other movies I watched, you can find them here:
