Swan hassling

 As always in Michigan, after a period where it looked like Autumn had truly started (temperatures down in the 40s at night, 60s in the day) - what we like to call "False Fall", we get "Indian Summer" or "Surprise, motherfucker, you didn't think the sweating was over, did you?"
Up to 83 today.  However, Frederick is fully recovered from Covid, so we went for a trot in Holly Rec.  The Lake seems to have turned into grasslands (this is the lake that the rickety walkway goes across, so it was never deep).

Here's the walkway.  Frederick does NOT like it - I have to hold his hands as we walk across it, which requires coordination that neither of us really has.  And what's that in the distance to complicate matters still further?

Egads!  Swans!  Specifically what looks like a family, so extra likely to 'ave yer arm off.  I found a large stick in the mud next to the walkway and waved it at them (we literally could not go round them - they were on the walkway in the one place where there was water of any depth) as they hissed at us and resisted moving for the longest time.  However, they eventually flounced off and we were able to pass.

Cat and Mouse by Christianna Brand

I cannot believe I did not know this book existed until it arrived in the mail as part of my subscription to the British Library Crime Classics club.  Apparently (according to Martin Edwards who writes an introduction to each book published by British Library) it is a "lost classic" first published in 1950. To my shame, I assumed that anything that lost can't be that great, considering how famous Green for Danger is.  But I'll say it up front: in my opinion, this is her best book and I canNOT believe Alfred Hitchcock did not make this into a film.  It has all the elements that would appeal to him: the lead character is an independent modern woman, very much like the character played by Margaret Lockwood in The Lady Vanishes, a creepy collection of characters who are not what they seem and who are obviously keeping terrible evil secrets, a mysterious lord of the manor who is aloof and taciturn and all the sexier for it, and a charming Welshie (should be played by Michael Redgrave if he could do a decent Welsh accent) who makes it his business to irritate our heroine, whipping her into a frenzy of rightenous indignation.  Add to the mix the amazing character development that Brand does best: smart women who do silly things all while knowing they are doing silly things but can't stop themselves because they need to prove to everyone around them that they are not silly. Then, to cap it off, a whiz bang ending that has people "tripping" off cliffs onto jagged rocks below, a suicide motivated by unrequited love, a villian monologuing just long enough for the hero to shoot half his face off, and a heroine who staunchly refuses to fall in love with her rescuer only to fall head over heels in love with him.  Music swells.  Fade to black. 

Let's begin at the beginning: Our heroine, Katinka (yes, really) writes an agony aunt column for the magazine Girls Together.  Miss Friendly-wise, the BFF workmate of Katinka's, kicks her painful high heels off and pads down a hallway to tell Katinka (who writes under the name Miss Let's-be-Lovely) that another letter from "Amista" has arrived, only to find Katinka on the floor of her office, legs in the air, vigorously bicycle peddling. (Katinka advises all her readers to do so during dull moments at work.) Then the two sit together, reading over the latest missive from their mysterious letter writer who, once a week, writes asking for advice on how to get a man. "Amista" (they refuse to believe that is a real name) has spent the past year telling them about her love for a man, a Mr. Carlyon, who refuses to notice her. Each week, Katinka chivvies Amista along and provides valuable advice: use a mud mask to clear bad skin, get a fashionable hairdo, buy a bold color of lipstick, change up your nail polish color every few days. Amazingly, over the course of a few months, the letters become less morose and more optimistic: the gentleman in question has noticed Amista and is taking an interest--his hand brushed against the back of her hand once! Taking full credit for this positive turn of events, Katinka advises Amista on how to reel in her love and get a wedding band on that finger.  And, even more astonishingly, it seems to have worked as the letter that arrived today tells them that she and Mr. Carlyon are now engaged and the wedding date is set--all thanks to the wisdom of Miss Let's-be-Lovely!!  Katinka is pleased but not overly surprised--of course her advice worked--she's brilliant!  Yet, she secretly wonders, why then is she so miserably alone, only able to capture the attention of cads and roués who grope and paw her clumsily when she goes out evenings, hoping to find loving companionship?  It's a puzzle....Fed up with everything, Katinka decides she needs a holiday--a real one--that will get her far from London. Then she has a brainwave: Amista lives in Wales and Katinka is Welsh (in the sense that until she was five or six years old she spent summers there with distant relatives) and, get this, she has one distant relative (Great Uncle Joseph, known by locals as Jo Jo the Waterworks because he lives near a huge reservoir) who is still alive and lives on the outskirts of Swansea, a town not very far from where the letters from Amista get posted.  So...why not head out to Wales and hunt down this Amista and see if she can give further advice to Amista so that her wedding is all that it should be?  Off she trots.  

Katinka assumes she will blend right into the Welsh landscape but, to her amazement, everyone who looks at her laughs and takes joy in teasing her.  One man in particular rubs her wrong, a tall man who could be handsome if he didn't find such joy in giving her a hard time for not knowing where she was going or who anyone is. And to make matters worse he is wearing a suit that is "just too brown a brown." Eventually, she gets them to reveal that the house she can see perched  atop a huge craggy cliff (like a vulture--not a good omen) across a long inlet from the sea belongs to Carlyon.  But, they insist he lives alone and that he certainly is not engaged to be married nor ever was.  Katinka, wobbling on her fashionable high heels dismisses them as ignoramouses and sets out to walk to the house. It's one helluva walk and requires her to wade through 6" of fast running water that is quickly rising with the incoming tide.  Exhausted, bedraggled and dirtied, she finally manages to reach Carlyon's house.  And, surprising to no one but Katinka, he isn't thrilled to see her--indeed he's extremely rude--and insists that (a) there is no "Amista" and (b) he isn't engaged or recently married to anyone and (c) no, she can't come in to look around to see if he is lying. THEN, to her astonishment, up trots the man in the too brown suit who introduces himself as Mr. Clucky (a name too stupid to be real, Katinka concludes) who claims to be a police detective hired by Carlyon for protection against nosy journalists, which he assumes Katinka is!  Mystified, Katinka agrees to leave (she knows when she isn't wanted) but then notices there, right next to Carlyon on a small table by the door, a letter waiting to be posted .... from Amista!!!! Sputtering in shock, Katinka is hauled away when suddenly her ankle twists and down she goes, unable to walk another step. Of course Carlyon thinks she lying--using her "twisted ankle" to work her way into his house. But unable to be a complete cad, he allows her in to have tea, telling her that as soon as she is recovered, she has to go.  But her ankle really does swell up amazingly and the inlet tide is rising so it seems no one is going anywhere anytime soon. Feeling extremely pleased with herself, Katinka has succeed in getting an invitation to stay the night.

And what happens then?  A series of bizarre events that leave Katinka certain she is going mad: the household has a live in nurse who nurses no one and a helper named Dai Jones Trouble--another silly name--who runs various errands, many of which require him to lope across the crags doing God knows what. She is shown to her room, given a drink that sends her into a deep uneasy and delirious sleep and awoken at 3 in the morning by a someone wearing a featureless mask and a bloated white claw dripping with blood. Unable to move--from fright or because she's been tethered to her bed, she can't tell--she passes out.  The next day, finally freed from her room, she tells everyone her story and no one believes her: no one else lives in the house and no one looked at her or crept about her room while she slept.  Then things get really weird: while Mr. Carlyon is out on the hilltops walking off his endless rage, Mr Clucky grabs Katinka and drags her into the attic where he shows her stacks and stacks of boxes and suitcases, all filled with extrenmely expensive women's clothing as well as photos of him getting married not once, not twice, but three times!  Where are these women now?  Convinced that "Mr. Clucky" is (a) no policeman but a journalist and (b) Mr Carlyon is a victim of a terrible tragedy (well, maybe several terrible tragedies) and (c) Mr Carlyon is incredibly handsome and (d) she's madly in love with him and (e) Mr Clucky is a most annoying buttinski who keeps ruining every moment she finagles to get alone with Carlyon and (f) Mr Clucky can't decide on how thick his Welsh accent is and (g) keeps calling her "bach" and other sweet Welsh terms of endearment to cause her to sputter in indignation.

All this within just twenty four hours of arriving in Wales! Before another 24 are up there will be a murder, a suicide, an attempted murder and then a killing and all questions answered most satisfyingly.  There needs to be a new category of books invented for such a book: "comedy romance mystery psychological thriller farce" would almost capture it.   

The Judas Priest by Carter Dickson

 

Carter Dickson is actually John Dickson Carr, an American author (who is regarded as a brilliant honorary British murder mystery author) who wrote dozens of books, plays, short stories, and non-fiction books as John Dickson Carr, Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbain.  He's widely regarded as having written the absolute best "locked room" murder mysteries, setting the standard that no one since has matched.  And, The Judas Window is regarded as being the best of his best.

Dickson has four heroes: Henri Bencolin, Dr. Gideon Fell, Sir Henry Merrivale and Colonal March.  The Judas Window features Sir Henry Merrivale, a public criminal defender in London. And, for the benefit of his American readers, Carr explains the English system for assigning defense lawyers: those with money can hire a private "solicitor" who are expensive but (in theory) better as they will have more time for your case, and those eligible for legal aid (poor, in other words) will be assigned a legal aid solicitor through the Public Defender Service.  All this sounds like the system in the US. What's different is the distinction between solicitors and barristers: in the US, any attorney (an attorney is a  licensed lawyer) can go to court if that's where the case ends up but in England, a client has a soliciter who handles the "day-to-day" parts of your case (processing briefs, as far as I can tell) and a barrister if your case actually goes to court (that is, you don't admit guilt).  And barristers are considered a cut above ALL soliciters whether private or public, and are assigned randomly (yeah, I don't really believe that given what I've seen on Rumpole) and so (in theory) you could end up with the best barrister in the land arguing your case even if you don't have two pence to rub together--or, if you are stinking rich, which is what happens here. The client in question, James Answell, has been accused of killing his soon-to-be father-in-law, Avory Hume, when they met for the first time to discuss the upcoming wedding between James and Avory's daughter, Mary.  And, of course, they are in a room with windows locked on the inside and a door that has been bolted on the inside--and the only fingerprints on the murder weapon and the door bolt are James'.  And worst of all, James' version of events is ridiculous: he claims Hume drugged his drink and he was unconscious when Hume was being stabbed in the chest with an arrow taken off the wall of the room they are both locked in.  

On top of this implausible and impossible murder is a very cleverly written novel. The murder of Hume is described in a very brief prologue which ends with James losing consciousness.  Then chapter one begins with the start of James' trial.  His barrister is Sir Henry Merrivale who is famously crotchety and brilliant. His appearance isn't described, but I imagined him dressing and talking like a peevish Mark Twain, which is ridiculous because the book was written in 1938. Yet, it works.  Because Merrivale is so brilliant (and secretive) we (the reader) need someone to tell us what is going on. The people who do that are Ken and Evelyn Black, friends of Merrivale who have worked with him (or, more accurately, beside him, following his orders in his six other cases that have been novelized), who are attending the trial.  At all the right moments they ask each other questions and so thereby create a reason for the other to explain to us what is going on or why what just happened is important.  

The mystery is unraveled and then re-raveled over and over as each witness is called to testify and is then examined and cross-examined.  It's a great way to present information as it comes out out of order and so it's nearly impossible to keep track of the events in question.  So, blessedly, Carr has supplied us with: a map of the house showing us all the relevant rooms, windows, doors and paths outside; a minute-by-minute timeline leading up to the death of Hume and then a second minute-by-minute time line of everything that happens after Hume is dead but before the police show up and get into the study where the murder took place. In addition to James and (dead) Avory Hume, we have Spencer Hume, Avory's brother, who is a physician and has access to drugs that can sedate someone yet leave no trace; Reginald Answell, James' cousin who dated Mary last year and took some salacious photos of her and then used them to blackmail her father; Dyer, the butler/chauffer who let James into the house and overheard him "fight" with Hume; Amelia Jordan, Hume's personal secretary and busybody who "takes to bed" and spends the next few weeks heavily sedated after seeing her employer's dead body; and, finally, Fleming, a neighbor, who is told to visit exactly when James is in the study with Hume, thereby providing an excellent witness to testify that no one else arrived or left the house before or after the murder.    

If things aren't bad enough for James, after insisting he is innocent as a newborn babe, he suddenly does a 180, and announces (as he is being taken from the courtroom at the end of Day 1) that he did it all and he'd do it again!  Of course it turns out that he (wrongly) assumed that, if he isn't found guilty his bride to be, Mary, would be found guilty and he confessed to protect her. So, not only does our hero Merrivale has a terrible case, he now has to convince a jury that unanimously believes his client has confessed to the crime.  Yet, unsurprisingly, our hero comes through and James is acquitted.  This isn't giving anything away as we know he's innocent because we were there in the study with him when he lost consciousness and then, a mere five minutes later, woke up to find Hume dead and the murder weapon in his hand. 

This really is an excellent murder mystery which came out right smack in the middle of the "Golden Era" of British murder mysteries.  Not only is it a cracker story but the writing is wonderful: not a wasted word and it gallops at an incredible pace.  It really is unput-downable.  And best of all, as with all good fiction, the just are rewarded and the bad are punished. My only regret is that I read this book ahead of the six other Merrivale mysteries as Merrivale refers to his previous victories when gloating to Ken and Evelyn about how amazing he is. 

The Odd Flamingo by Nina Bawden

 

Nina Bawden published this book in 1954.  Bawden mainly wrote children's literature--around 50 books--so this cozy murder mystery is a big departure as the central theme in this novel is decidedly mature: a young woman using her child-like beauty to seduce and control older men whose mental and physical health were destroyed by the war so now crave to touch, perhaps to be purified by, someone innocent and chaste. Humphrey, a 30-something married man physically impaired from his time as a soldier teaches at a girls school.  He's recently ended a three-month-long tryst with a recently graduated student, Rose, who just informed him that she is pregnant with his child.  Unsurprisingly, he is upset. Surprisingly, he claims he is CERTAIN that the child cannot be his. He gives Rose £50 "get out of my life forever money" and convinces himself that the matter has been dealt with. But Rose isn't going to be bought off with £50 as she believes Humphrey is "rich." (Rose is "common." Her parents died when she was young and she is being raised by an angry Christian aunt ["There's no hate like Christian love" is a common saying now, and this applies to Rose's aunt very well.] who is convinced that Rose is a lying sneak capable of pure evil.  She also tells everyone who will listen that, despite her deep disapproval of Rose, she does her duty and puts food in Rose's mouth so no one can find fault with her. Consequently, Rose's yardstick for measuring wealth is not accurate.) Rose decides to find someone she believes will give her money--Humphrey's wife, Celia. Unfortunately for Rose, Celia is prone to faints (there's always one) and so Rose leaves that meeting empty handed. She did, however, get Celia's attention which is certainly going to get Rose results--just not the ones she wanted.

Celia runs top speed to our narrator, Will Hunt, an old flame (on his part, not hers) who is now a successful (bachelor) lawyer. Celia convinces Will--who used to be very close friends with Humphrey as they grew up together and spent countless hours as children getting up to all sorts of hijinks--to speak with Humphrey and give him solid legal advice. It's clear to everyone but Humphrey that Humphrey is going to be out a job very soon and Celia is worried that Humphrey will set bridge after bridge aflame after being booted out of their rooms at the school. Will begrudgingly accepts Humphrey as a client, though dealing with blackmailing mistresses isn't his expertise. (Though, thinking back, he never says what his expertise was--maybe contracts.  He spent a lot of time at a desk drafting papers.) He meets with Humphrey and is astonished at how insistent Humphrey is that the child is not his, given that the dates line up such that he and Rose were still meeting up every weekend for weeks after she became pregnant.  Will wonders, how can Humphrey be so certain?  I wondered, too: is he infertile? did he use contraceptives? did they not have sex during those last few visits? Humphrey never explained but just said, "It CAN'T be mine!" Will doesn't believe him and neither did I. Will concludes that Humphrey is delusional and needs to be counseled to do the right thing. (Though Will never specifies what the right thing is, exactly.) After, Celia meets up with Will to pump him for information about her husband and Will tells her everything, including the fact that he believes Humphrey is the father and is (legally) on the hook for caring for this child.  Celia is distraught, but blames herself.  She admits to Will that she has no sex drive whatsoever whereas Humphrey is, she hints, insatiable. She says that, in all fairness, she can't blame him.  All she wants is for him to admit he did it, give notice, and to move them far away--preferably to Scotland--where they can change their names and start life over.  

Not long after Celia leaves Will--who throws himself into his "regular work" (whatever that is)--Will finds out from his "friend," a police chief, that Rose has gone "missing," presumed dead, as a purse that looks like hers has been found tangled in weeds along a canal. Immediately Will assumes that Humphrey "did it" and he tears about town, telling everyone his suspicions--including Celia and Humphrey.  Unsurprisingly, Humphrey is angry and he goes into hiding without telling anyone where he's going. Celia, of course, thinks Humphrey killed Rose and spends the next several chapters crying, refusing food, growing thin and pale.  

Real legal work be damned, Will throws himself into this Rose mystery--not to clear Humphrey but to verify Humphrey's guilt. In the course of poking around and asking questions he has no right to ask, he finds out that Rose, despite her astonishingly innocent beauty (she is compared to a fresh, unopened pink rosebud way too many times), had been hanging around a pretty crazy group of friends in the past year: a gang of toughs ("Chavs") who drink a lot, use cocaine and heroin, and make their living by selling stolen stuff and pushing pills. These ruffians and Rose would meet up in a very unlikely place, a nightclub called Odd Flamingo (ok, so that's why the book is called that), which provides a meeting space for all sorts of dubious hook ups in the wee hours.  It's also where we meet Humphrey's unlikable brother, Piers, who isn't gay but should be given his tendency to drink fruity cocktails, make cutting quips, dress in bright silky clothes, sleep late, and hang out with handsome men less than half his age. It's not clear WHAT Piers' orientation is other than that he's insatiably greedy, sadistic and willing to exploit ANYONE if he can make money doing so.  

Round and round Will goes, tracking down people who do not want to talk to him, telling them Humphrey's problems and urging them--if they see Humphrey--to tell him to turn himself in to the police and admit he's killed Rose. By this time you are likely questioning Will's lawyering: at no point did Will actually give Humphrey useful legal advice and at every point he told every person he met--including his friend the police chief--everything he knew about Humphrey and his suspicions that Humphrey is guilty of murder. 

Finally, we get to the end that no one could have predicted. I won't describe any more plot points as doing so would give the whole shebang away, but I'll say this: (1) as seedy as the story was so far, it gets way seedier, and (2) Will establishes himself as the most unreliable narrator in the history of unreliable narrators.  

Is it a good book?  Well, it's a fast read and, though Will is a terrible amateur detective, he is good at exposing the vices of every person he meets.  But the best feature is his internal dialog, which is solely concerned with how much everyone annoys him and so is very entertaining.  So, yes, it's a good book.  But it's also nasty as it turns over a lot of society's rocks to expose the moral rot underneath. 

You'd have to be brave to use THAT toilet

 

Film review: Love Crazy (1941)

I thought that we'd exhausted every great classic screwball comedy, but I had literally never heard of this one, which popped up in HBO MAX, despite it having the Thin Man pairing of William Powell and Myrna Loy, so, you know, not exactly obscure.  Perhaps it's because it's from the early 40s, which I think of as Film Noir era, rather than the 30s heyday of the screwball, but for whatever reason, there it is, and it's great!  

Powell and Loy are Steve Ireland and his wife Susan.  As the film starts, Steven is just hopping out of a taxi at his apartment singing the praises of marriage, because it's his 4th anniversary.  

When he returns to his apartment (after some foreboding trouble in the elevator, with the elevator operator played by Elisha Cook Jr. in what must surely be the last small role he had before The Maltese Falcon made him widely known) and delivers his gift of a "portable" phonograph (I mean, it is portable, but it's also a full-sized record player) we learn from the back and forth between Steve and Susan that every year they re-create what they did on their wedding day, which requires a four mile walk to the registry office, followed by a long row on the river, followed by dinner at midnight.  This year, though, Steve suggests doing everything backwards, in part so they can start with dinner.  They've got as far as telling their cook that they don't want dinner at midnight as she was expecting, and furthermore they want dessert first, when the catalyst for all of the mayhem that is to follow arrives in the form of Susan's meddlesome mother.  She disrupts everything, including the backwards dinner, because she doesn't want her dinner like that, but is about to leave (to pick up her sister at the train station) finally when she slips on a rug (that I believe was her gift to the couple, and that causes many a pratfall throughout the film) and twists her ankle.  She resists Steve's (hopeful) suggestion that she go to hospital and camps out on their sofa.  However, she sends Steve out to put her insurance premium in the post, 

because apparently it will lapse unless it shows up on the regular.  After depositing the envelope in the mailbox in the building foyer, it's back in the troublesome elevator, only this time the third occupant is Isobel, the old flame from whom he separated on not-great-terms before his marriage to Susan.  She has since also married, to a painter called "Pinky," but this fact doesn't seem to deter her from aggressively coming on to him.  (Isobel is played by Gail Patrick, who certainly had a fascinating life, but apparently was good at playing husseys and harridans, although she just comes across as a modern woman who knows what she wants and isn't shy about pursuing it here.)  He is fighting her off when the elevator breaks down properly to the extent that Cook's operator suggests they climb out through a hatch in the ceiling of the elevator.  Steve gives boosts to both of them (and Isobel's little dog "Punkin") taking Isobel's high heels first, and Isobel happily steps all over his face laughing about how one of the things he said to her when they separated was that she walked all over him.  They are just a few feet below the floor they're trying to get to, so Steve pries open the doors and lets Punkin out.  But at that point, in a stunt that genuinely looks perilous, the doors slam shut on Steve's head just as the elevator suddenly starts a descent, leaving him dangling by his neck!  

Cook and Isobel manage to stop the elevator and bring it back up, but in so doing they overshoot and ram Steve's head against the top of the doorway (and this after the indignity of Punkin investigating his trapped face).  So he's pretty battered and stunned (and his tie is choking him) when they finally all get off the elevator, so Isobel ushers him into her apartment (they're practically neighbors) and plies him with strong liquor.  

Pinky isn't there, because he has an attic apartment as a studio and is apparently working on a portrait of a boring old man and won't be back for hours.  So Isobel chases Steve around until he makes his escape, unfortunately leaving his hat in the apartment.

Susan and her mother are unsurprisingly curious about what took him so long, so he gives a potted summary of the elevator mishap, albeit omitting to mention Isobel.  Isobel's name only comes up when the mother points out his missing hat and takes it upon herself to call up the front desk to ask about the hat.  Not only does the elevator operator say that the hat was in Isobel's apartment, he (or his emissary) mention that she wants her shoes back, and also Punkin, who has clearly wandered off in the building (he's never seen again in the film).  For some reason this last is taken as particularly shocking (was it slang for underwear?).  However, before everything is resolved, Susan has to go out to meet her aunt at the station now that her mother can't pick her up, what with the ankle.  This leaves Steve alone in the apartment with his obnoxious mother in law (collecting the cards after she's finished throwing the whole pack into a hat one by one), and he escapes briefly out on to the balcony.  There he is spotted by Isobel, whose own balcony below is palatial, and who again presses him to come down.  At first reluctant, Steve thinks to himself that going out to a bar for a drink would be harmless enough and suggests that she call up and he'll pretend it's a business thing and that'll give him an excuse.  Unluckily for him, the mother in law has been eavesdropping and makes a very smug face throughout the phone call and after Steve leaves to be with his "male" "business acquaintance".  

Well, Susan returns before Steve and her mother tells her the whole thing.  Determined to make Steve as jealous as she's feeling, she calls up Pinky, 

tells him that their spouses are out together, and arranges to meet and have Steve and Isobel see them smooching.  He's on board with the plan, but what Susan doesn't realize is that he's in his attic loft, whereas she thinks he's in the apartment on the floor below.  She heads down there and, in a second mistake, gets the wrong apartment and encounters a first bewildered and then eager Ward Willoughby, who is practicing archery in a skimpy (for the times) undershirt, because (he informs her) he's a world champion.  He gets a bit too fresh 

and after chasing round the apartment she escapes out the door, at the same time that Steve and Isobel are arriving.  Then Pinky shows up and there's a lot of shouting...

Cut to Steve and Susan alone in their apartment getting ready for bed and Susan is still fuming.  However, Steve has just managed to talk her round and they've turned out the light, when Susan answers the phone to a very irate taxi who's been waiting for hours.  This is the taxi that Steve ordered purportedly to go see his business acquaintance.  The reason he didn't use it was because he and Isobel just walked to a nearby bar, but Susan assumes it's because they stayed at the apartment and, well, you know.  (Although looking back, why would they be getting off the elevator then?)  This is the final straw, and the next thing we see is Steve arriving at his own lawyer's office where Susan is asking for a divorce.  A date is set for a divorce hearing for a month or so and then... Susan vanishes.  A distraught Steve is seen calling round detective agencies in every city in the country (and Tijuana) to no avail, until she shows up at a party of some acquaintances the night before the hearing (we find out she'd been in Arizona with her mother, and pursued by Ward Willoughby, who has obviously become besotted).  Steve shows up and after Susan makes it clear that she's going through with it, Steve's lawyer (who was the one who alerted him to Susan's presence at the party) gets the idea that the hearing can be postponed if Steve shows evidence of insanity.  And thus the second word of the title of the film, and the basis for the second half, for Steve is going to jump in with both feet.  However, his stunts at the party (including checking out all the hats and floating them in the pond) 

only convince the other party goers that he's drunk (which is why a jovial party-goer pushes him in too).  Well, except for one older gentleman, who seems genuinely convinced.  Although Steve's case is helped when he's drying off from the pond upstairs at the party and wrapped just in a sheet 

then chases a cockatiel that has stolen his watch out on to a balcony, and a tree branch whisks away his sheet to the sound of shrieks from the party goers below.  At the hearing the next day the judge seems convinced enough by Steve's antics, but the outraged Susan thinks of a counter-move: to have a hearing before the city "Lunacy Commission" (they didn't mince words back then).  Steve and his lawyer work out that it doesn't matter what they say, he's still succeeded in stalling the hearing (Steve is convinced that he can win back Susan if he can only talk to her), so actually doesn't want to convince the Lunacy Commission that he's crazy.  But as bad luck would have it, the head of the commission turns out to be the old man from the party, Dr. Klugle.

There then follows some shenanigans at the asylum, the funniest part of which is when Ward comes to deliver a message (and gloat) 

but while he's waiting for Steve to come back to the fence (he's parked outside) he practices his bowmanship by doing ludicrous air-shooting.  This give Steve the idea to tell the staff that the fellow inmate he was playing Indians with has got over the fence, so they haul Ward in.  However, Ward gets his revenge by escaping by getting Steve to hold a tennis net while he uses it as a ladder to climb a tree that's by the fence, and then yanking Steve up by his feet and leaving him hanging there.  However, this gives Steve the idea to pull the same stunt on the warden of the asylum and he makes good his escape.  

For the final act of the movie (the best part) we're back at the apartment building with Steve scrambling around avoiding the cops with Isobel's help (despite Pinky's presence - the shower scene is particularly good) and finally disguising himself as his own sister (rather well - this requires shaving off the famous Powell pencil mustache and he's surprisingly unrecognizable without it), 

fooling everyone but Susan, who simultaneously finds out from her mother that she saw Steve and Isobel walking on the street to a bar that fateful evening, confirming that they were not canoodling in Isobel's apartment.  The denouement of the movie is a bit hurried but let's just say Ward runs into the asylum guards again, and this time they think he's Steve.

Top entertainment, and while quite long for the era (nearly 100 minutes) there's never a dull moment.  And one has to be impressed at essentially the whole cast, but especially Powell, as there are many quite painful looking pratfalls (that rug!) in this one that certainly look as if they're performed by the actual actors.  How had this one escaped our notice for so long?

Film review: Jewel Robbery (1932)

This is a snappy little number (68 minutes!) starring Kay Francis (who, in 1935, was Warner Bros.'s highest-paid actress, out-earning Bette Davis $115K to 18K) as the bored gold-digger wife of an older (55!) rich man and William "Thin Man" Powell as the titular robber (which he prefers to "thief" he tells us).  It's based on a play by the Hungarian writer Ladislas Fodor, and it just occurs to me that there were a lot of American films around that time that seemed to be based on Hungarian plays (most famously, The Shop Around the Corner) and the interesting thing is that they never seemed to move them to American locations.  They just had American actors playing characters with names like Baroness Teri von Horhenfels (Francis's character in this one).  Perhaps that's because a common feature of these stories is rather shocking behavior and attitudes (in this one, for example, Teri and her friend openly joke about just marrying for money and having men on the side) that the American producers assumed their audience would not forgive in American characters, but would be par for the course for Eurotrash.  Anyway, there really isn't much to this one: it opens with Teri having her morning bath (yes, this is definitely pre-code - you don't see anything but you almost do) and talking about how bored she is (at one point she is describing her day to somebody and when asked what she does at the end of the day she says "Veronal," which was the name of a barbiturate -I had to look it up).  The only thing that gets her excited is knowing that her rich husband is going to buy her a fabulous ring that she's had her eye one (there have been a rash of jewel robberies in the Vienna in which this is set, and when her friend tells her about the latest, she anxiously checks to see if it's the particular jewelry store where she has the ring reserved - it isn't).  She and her friend go there ahead of the husband, who is a government bigwig, and brings along a younger colleague with whom, it becomes clear as her husband goes with the jeweler to a back room to haggle the ring price down from $50,000 (in 1932!) she has been having an affair.  However she lets him down gently as apparently he bores her.  (He is none too pleased.  He is a war hero, after all!)  At this point William Powell (who is never named, I now realize) shows up with his gang and very politely robs the store.  The Baron tries to hide a ring in his mouth but Powell's robber finds it - however when he sees that it is a gift from Teri, he lets him keep it.  However, he takes the ring that Teri had her eye on.  Then he offers a "cigarette" to the jeweler which makes him first very giggly and then fall asleep (and Powell says that it's harmless but he will have a marvelous appetite in the morning.  As the "cigarettes" proliferate throughout this film it began to feel like we were watching a Cheech and Chong movie), before herding Teri's husband and ex-lover into a vault.  Teri keeps evading being shoved in the other one, however, and eventually the robber, who has clearly fallen for her, gives up and takes her at her word that she will give him a head start and not alert the police.  (The security for the store, a character called "Lenz" has already helped load the loot into the waiting getaway car under the impression that he's helping a customer.  Then he's rewarded with a tip and the rest of the doobies, which he goes on to share with his at-first-surly superiors later.)  

Teri is taken in for questioning and reports that the robber was "short and fat" but gives nothing away.  The police manage to capture one of the gang (I think he was the lookout) but can't pin anything on him.  Later at Teri's house she is recounting everything to her friend when she gets the impression somebody has broken in.  There is a huge vase of flowers on display that her housekeeper (who seems a bit simple) knows nothing about and the door to her safe is cracked open.  However, there's nothing missing - in fact, there's something new: the ring has been added!  This is a mixed blessing, however, as the ring was reported missing and if she wears it, it will look like she's in cahoots.  Then Powell shows up and reveals that in the back of the safe he's hidden all the diamonds from the store.  They get to chatting but then the police show up, specifically a very nosy Detective "Fritz" who is instantly suspicious and in fact finds all the stolen jewels.  He's about to haul Teri away when Powell comes out from hiding and takes the jewels at gunpoint and is about to escape when Fritz's men burst in and capture him.  Teri and Powell are then both dragged off to what Teri thinks is the police station... but turns out to be Powell's house ("in the suburbs") - Fritz is one of the gang!  So Powell has managed to get Teri to his house for a romantic meal.  At her request he shows her all the jewels he has stolen (she is dazzled, and runs her hands through some "like a boy running his hands through sand at the beach") 

while he says that he needs to get out of town for a while, maybe to go to Nice.  She says she'll meet him there and heads out.  As he's getting ready to leave, he realizes she's made off with the leather bag that had all the diamonds that he'd stored in her safe.  By this point she's only managed to get to his front door (it's a big house and they were three stories up) where she sees cops arriving.  She goes back up to warn him but refuses to escape over the roof with him.  So instead he ties her up so she won't be accused of collaboration.  There is some excitement involving a chase across the roofs (obviously a set, but a good one) and Lenz falling down a well, but we end up back at the Baron's house, where it is clear that Teri is no longer under suspicion.  "I feel exhausted from all the ordeal" she says "I think I need a break.  Somewhere like... Nice..." and she turns, locks eyes with the camera, and walking towards us makes the finger-on-the-lips "shh!" sign.  

A fun little diversion, with the usual pacing oddities that you find in early 30s films (it feels longer than the hour length because of all the talking).  Definitely a must watch for pre-code aficionados, with some very good badinage between the two principles. Apparently Kay Francis acquired a reputation of always wearing the most divine outfits and she wears a backless number throughout most of this one where it's a mystery how it stays up.

Au-gust-tumn

What a weird Summer it's been.  Michigan is one of the very few states that didn't make it to 100 degrees (F).  We had a couple of spells of suffocatingly humid and hot weather (one of which ended only a couple of weeks ago)...  And now all of a sudden it feels like October.  And it's not even September yet!  Normally September feels like August.  But the past week the temperatures at night have fallen into the 40s.  Now, as everyone knows in Michigan there's no smooth transition between seasons - instead you get wild swings back and forth between Winter and Summer (there's about 3 "false Falls" normally), but this one has lasted a while.  If only we weren't all still wiped out from Covid, we might enjoy it.

COVID!

 

Jami was feeling distinctly peaky last week so ordered a COVID test and tested positive.  As far as we know, this is the first time anyone in our household has had it.  And now we've all got it and are feeling like death warmed over.  Sylvester has not volunteered to pamper us, alas.

East to Lake Huron

Bored of all the swimming available near Flint I was jonesing for some WAVES. Remembering the waves on Lake Huron when we stayed at that A-Frame house between Christmas and New Year a couple of years ago, I plotted a course East along I-69 to just North of Port Huron. We didn't find what we were supposed to find (it turned out to be a campground without a beach) but just down the road was a local beach. It was a lot like the A-Frame beach (which is a lot further North) except that you couldn't walk anywhere either side of it, because it was privately owned. Boo! However, Frederick and I spent a happy hour just bobbing around in the waves of startlingly clear blue water (with nice sandy bottom and NO POND WEED).

I don't know if you could rent these adorable little houses and I didn't know whom to ask...

Smoke vs. Steam

Truly the dog days are upon us.  For a while there it was actually fairly pleasant temperatures (high 70s) but that was because the heat was being blocked by smoke from the uncontrolled Canadian wildfires.  It was like being back in LA again with the haze on the horizon.  However, that's now gone away and we have the worst kind of headache weather - squinty and cloudy, hot and oh-so-humid.  It looked like the bugs were dying off at least, but then we had a sudden massive downpour yesterday and today I was savagely bitten by one of those nasty triangular little black flies that proliferate in Michigan summers.  Roll on Autumn, say I.  Still Frederick and I continue to swim, although not in such a diverse range of places as in days of yore as neither of us has the patience for plowing through pondweed in the way we used to (plus Big Seven lake has been closed because of "bacteria" since mid July, and apparently Bluebell Beach has PFAS or some such), so it's mostly Sand Lake (next to the campsite in Seven Lakes park) or Holly Rec, with occasional visits to Metamora Hadley.  No pictures, though, because I haven't been inspired recently.

Film review: Picture Snatcher (1933)

 

We're always up for a Jimmy Cagney in our house, and this is pretty much the archetypal early-30s Cagney.  You can tell it's early 30s because it begins with a section where it introduces the main actors with the names over snippets of the film that feature them, something that seems to have been common in that era.  (I wonder when they stopped doing that?  It seems very sitcom-y.)  Anyway, the film proper begins with Cagney's Danny Kean being discharged from prison. Apparently he was a model prisoner, because everyone there is very chummy, until, that is, he walks out the door and bumps into a chunky Irish (and not Irish American, actual Irish, like all the cops are in Warner Brothers cartoons) cop who was apparently the one who put him away in the first place (and shot him, it emerges six times!  And the "slugs" are still in him!  And this becomes even more incredible as the events of the film unfold, as you will see), who sneers at him that he'll put him back inside again soon (to which Danny, who has a fine line in archaic-sounding slang, calls him "vinegar puss").  Danny is picked up by a huge fancy car and (in a phenomenon that is repeated often) a woman in the car throws herself at him.  

Danny seems wary of the attention he's getting, and it emerges that this is his gang, in that he was their leader before he was incarcerated, and they are keen to have him back running things again.  But (after being treated to a nice bath complete with perfumed bath salts) 

he is not so keen.  It turns out that he has seen the light in jail and, after giving his former second-in-command (Jerry "the Mug") 

what for for allowing him to take the fall, and scooping up the huge wodge of cash that they say was "his share" of the last job they did before he got arrested "plus interest," he exits, to their frank amazement.  Apparently he has always wanted to be a journalist, and was visited while in prison by J.R. "Al" or "Mac" McLean (played by Ralph Bellamy, who towers over Cagney, although he was only 6'1", so that illustrates just how tiny Cagney was - apparently the actor that Cagney thought would be best suited to play him in a biopic was Michael J. Fox, so that tracks) who, he discovers, is now editor at the disreputable tabloid rag Graphic News.  McLean doesn't think Danny should get a job there (he's only there himself because he's been kicked out of every reputable paper in town, presumably because he's a raging alcoholic, as we see early on) and is trying to let him down gently when the paper's owner or executive editor, who lacks any moral qualms at all demands that a picture be got of the fireman who is currently holding police at bay in the charred wreck of his own house that he came to save only to discover his wife in bed with another man, and the aforementioned wife (hard to do, you'd think, given she's a cinder).  Danny, seeing his "in", volunteers, and manages to steal in the back window, convinced the shotgun-wielding fireman that he's an insurance appraiser who's out to get him the most money he can ($3000, he arrives at) and when the fireman's back is turned, steals a picture of the fireman and his wife (in happier times) that is framed on the wall.  The big boss is delighted, and Danny is hired (at $20 a week).  (Once the picture is used as the cover of the Graphic News, the fireman storms into the office intending to shoot Danny (how is he allowed to walk around? with a gun?) and Danny hides in the women's toilets.  In general, Danny comes across as pretty much a lowlife, and if he was played by anyone other than Cagney it would be hard to root for him in any way.  

He does seem to feel sorry, but claims not to have seen the harm in what he was doing (because it was part of him earning "an honest living") which is hard to give credence to.  While he is in there, the second woman to throw himself at him does so, Allison, 

the most interesting female actor in the movie (Alice White) who is a blonde who knows what she is and what she wants and will take it, even though she's officially Mac's girl, something that seems to mean a lot more to Danny than it does to her.)

So Danny settles in, but is still the low guy on the totem pole when the newsroom gets its annual visit from a group of students from the local university keen to be shown the ropes.  Nobody else wants the job, but because 3 out of the 4 are attractive young women (the other is a very young Sterling "Winnie the Pooh" Holloway, 

playing an insufferable nerd) Danny doesn't mind.  In fact, he is particularly drawn to one young woman - Pat Nolan - 

and, in a clever little scene, asks her out while in the deafening room where the type is set by two older gents by yelling in the ear of one, so he types on his special keyboard and the type drops into a little tray, whence it can be removed and, when pressed onto an ink pad, used to proposition the girl.  She is amused and responds "why not tonight?"  Cut to him taking her home at 3 AM where she is nervous because her father is coming home soon.  And come home he does, and... he's the cop who shot Danny -  Lieutenant Casey Nolan!  Danny has to leg it, and the cop shoots after him!  This is clearly a trigger-happy policeman (plus ça change)!  Pat is still interested, but Nolan sr. will have none of it, and even seeks Danny out at the newsroom.  Mac tells Danny to hide (men's toilets this time) and sweet talks Nolan to such an extent (calling a more reputable newspaper and urging them to do a flattering portrait of Nolan, that ends up getting him promoted to Captain) that Nolan shakes hands happily with Danny, and Danny and Pat are allowed to court.  However, Danny feels a little stuck at the Graphic News and wants his big break.  The chance at this arrives when a woman is being given the chair and a select group of newsmen (none from the Graphic News) are invited to witness it.  Nobody is allowed to photograph it, however, and the top dog at the News says he'd give his eye and $1000 for a picture.  So, of course, Danny contrives to get the photo.  Again this does not reflect well on Danny's character - all the other newsmen dread this part of the job and flinch and turn away, but Danny is only nervous that his ankle camera will be found.  Also, he is happy to have Nolan vouch for him to get him into the prison and is somehow amazed that this ends up getting Nolan demoted back down to Lieutenant.  Also there is a general hunt out for Danny (it starts right after he walks out of the prison and drops the camera for all to see which leads to a car chase and then a train chase) 

so he has to lie low in Allison's apartment.  She's supposed to be off on a story at Niagara Falls, but comes home to try to seduce him.  

He is fighting her off when Mac arrives (drunk) and sees them and a massive fight breaks out and Danny realizes his journalistic career is over, as well as any chance with Pat (a point that she hammers home when he visits her, leading to him tearing up the marriage certificate he had prepared).  So, when next we see him, he is a drunken shell of his former self at a dive bar.  However, Mac has sobered up, realized that it was all Allison and quit the Graphic News, and seeks out Danny to forge a new journalistic path.  

But what will be the big story that breaks it for them?  The answer is provided when it comes across the wires that Danny's old frenemy Jerry "the Mug" has killed two cops and has gone to ground.  Danny knows that the woman who was all over him in the limo that picked him up from the prison is the key, and the final stretch of the movie is him finding Jerry and desperately trying to avoid dying in the hail of bullets as Jerry fights it out with the cops.  Will the cops think he was in cahoots with "the Mug"?  Will Nolan forgive him?  Will Pat forgive him?  Will Allison show up to screw up his chance of happiness again?  Well, it's on HBO Max, so go there and find out for yourself.  You can also watch this (very Canadian) review, which I have just discovered.

Film review: Irma la Douce (1963)

To my knowledge the first Billy Wilder film in color, and the reuniting of The Apartment stars Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine.  Based on a French farce, and Wilder didn't change the setting, but its stars don't attempt accents (well, Lemmon does an egregious English accent at one point, but for good reason).  Unquestionably a lesser Wilder, although certainly charming, and although over two hours long, it doesn't drag (mainly because there are definite "acts" to the plot and each act requires a minimum amount of time to present, so the movie never seems stuck in the mud).  My main complaint is that I rarely find farces funny (let alone French farces), closely followed by the fact that I think MacLaine is miscast as the titular Irma, who is supposed to be a good hearted prostitute (that's not a cliché), with a fondness for the color green, who is irresistible to all, and she just doesn't exude the right earthy charms.  Marilyn Monroe would have been perfect, but (a) probably Wilder wouldn't've wanted to work with her again, and (b) she died in 1962.  The Judy Holliday of Born Yesterday would also have been perfect, and I can't imagine why Holliday never worked with Wilder (although she did with Lemmon), but there you are, life is flawed.  Anyway, here are the basic "acts."

1. Nestor the policeman
Jack Lemmon is Nestor Patou, a rather naive policeman (flic), 

used to patrolling children's playgrounds, who has been promoted to patrolling the bustling market district and the red light Casanova Street that abuts it.  It takes him a while to twig that it is a red light district, 

and it only happens after he's had a pleasant chat with Irma (whom we've been introduced to as someone who always manages to milk her johns (if The Apartment must have been scandalizing for the USA of 1960, I can't imagine what this film did) of extra francs by telling fibs about various misfortunes (although the fact that her little dog has kidney stones is repeated often enough throughout the film for one to assume it to be true).  

When the centime finally drops, Nestor turns out to be surprisingly a man of resourcefulness: he activates the fire alarm at the hotel that all the girls (Lolita (Hope Holiday, whom we met in The Apartment), Amazon Annie, Kiki the Cossack, The Zebra Twins, Suzette Wong (played by Tura Satana before she was immortalized as the star of Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!), Carmen, and Mimi the Mau Mau) 

use for their liaisons and separates prostitutes and clients into two groups, arresting only the former.  He has strong words with an irascible john, whom he later meets back at the station as his chief inspector (Lefevre).  Unknown to Nestor, when he was in the local café talking to its proprietor "Moustache" (a serial fabulist of uncertain nationality, who cuts off each outrageous story with "but that's another story" and is really the star of the film), the local pimps (mecs) assumed his upturned cap on a stool beside him was left there to deposit bribes in (because it always has been for the previous cops on the beat) and when he takes off his hat in the Chief Inspector's office, all the money flutters out.  Fade to black.

2. Nestor becomes Irma's mec
Nestor shows up back at the café with nowhere to stay and witnesses Irma's pimp Hippolyte The Ox mistreat her.  

He challenges him to a fight and somehow manages to defeat the much larger man, which effectively makes him top dog and Irma rewards him by taking him back to her place (which isn't the hotel - as she explains, that's her "office") but is instead a rather nice second floor apartment nearby, and her bed (as she explains, she sleeps naked, and we catch several glimpses of naked back to confirm it).  Irma appoints Nestor her mec and that becomes his new job.  Cut to soon afterwards and we see him appropriately sharply dressed, hanging out in the café explaining to a bewildered Moustache why he is so miserable.  While Irma earns more than any two of the other girls, Nestor doesn't want her to be a prostitute.

 

3. Enter Lord X
Moustache recalls that there was a time when Irma had a client who was so wealthy that she didn't need to sleep with anyone else, but that ended when his wife left him (French humor there).  This gives Nestor an idea: he will borrow 500 francs from Moustache, pose as rich eccentric Brit Lord X who desires only companionship (they play "double solitaire" together) from Irma but pays 500 francs a visit twice a week, enabling Irma to swear off sleeping with anybody.  Cue Jack Lemmon's egregious English accent and shameless mugging of the sort that makes his antics in Some Like It Hot look like subtle minimalism.  

But his disguise is pretty effective, I will concede, although he does forget which eye the eye patch goes over.  However, this of course means that Nestor has to find an alternative source of income to pay back Moustache (particularly as he has other expenses, like paying for champagne when he gets elected King of the mecs, and also to replace the entire day's wages that Irma has to contribute to the new mecs' retirement fund) and this he finds in working all night in the next door market, lugging entire sides of cow around among other thankless tasks.  This means that the situations are reversed: where previously Nestor's complaint was that Irma was always too tired, now Nestor (who creeps out of bed after Irma drops off (wearing nothing but her sleep mask) and crawls back in at dawn) is perpetually exhausted and irritable, and Irma, who now has time on her hands, becomes disgruntled (to the extent that she reneges on her promise to give up smoking (MacLaine is as unconvincing a smoker as she is a sexpot)).

4. Exit Lord X
Finally Irma wakes up before Nestor returns and, on catching him, becomes convinced he's having an affair with "Lolita" (there are constant references to all kinds of movies released around this time - not only does Lolita wear the iconic heart-shaped sunglasses, Lord X makes references to films like Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai) and resolves to run away with Lord X.  In fact she seduces Lord X disproving his claimed impotence, a fact that outrages Nestor, who rants to the bemused Moustache about how Irma is being unfaithful to him.  So Nestor decides to get rid of Lord X and, dressed as Lord X, walks to the River Seine, changes to himself and dumps the costume in the river, yelling invectives after it.  Unbeknownst to him, however, Hippolyte had been following Lord X intending to rob him, was momentarily distracted by a cop and so missed the change of clothes, but witnessed Nestor leaving and Lord X's eyepatch and stick float to the surface.  Of course he has always hated Nestor, so is happy to have him arrested.  Nestor is about to explain everything to the cops when Moustache appoints himself Nestor's lawyer, takes him aside and tells him that the actual story sounds insane and no jury would believe it, so he should instead plead guilty and explain it as motivated by lover's jealousy.  While this wins over Irma, it does not win over the jury, and it's off to prison for Nestor.

5. Lord X lives!
Cut to the prison yard nine months later and a guard collects Nestor because he has a visitor.  Nestor is none too pleased to see Moustache (given his bad advice), but Moustache tells him that Irma is about to give birth and gives him enough of her ribbons to make an escape rope.  Escape he does and reunites with Irma, 

only for Inspector Lefevre and a bunch of cops to show up looking for him.  He avoids capture by donning his old police uniform and joining with them pretending to look for Nestor.  

This is a well-executed farcical scene, I will concede.  But even after they leave, Nestor knows he can't dodge them for long.  Nonetheless he promises Irma a big wedding so that the child is not born illegitimate.  How is this going to be possible?  Cut to the café where Moustache is revealing to Hippolyte that Nestor is hiding out at the scene of the crime, under the bridge, but that he Hippolyte must not reveal this.  So of course Hippolyte runs to a phone and we see him and Lefevre and a bunch of cops show up by the Seine looking for Nestor.  What they instead witness, however, is Lord X emerging from the Seine with no memory of how he got there.  So, with no victim, Nestor can't be a murderer, and is free to get married.  This he manages to do just in time before Irma has to be rushed to a back room of the cathedral where Moustache reveals his midwifery skills (but that's another story) and a daughter is born.  Irma tearfully reveals that it is not really Nestor's child, it is Lord X's, but he promises to raise it as his own.  And Lefevre gives him his old job back, because he wants him to help solve the mystery of Lord X, but Nestor demands he be allowed the children's playground beat again.  Moustache leaves and wanders into the cathedral, where one guest remains sitting in the pews.  It is... Lord X!

As you can see, it doesn't lack for plot or for set pieces, it's just all a bit more-smiley-than-laughy, like watching a panto or something.  Still, everyone is game, you can't lose with Jack Lemmon, and if you pay very close attention, you will spot a young James Caan as a soldier listening to baseball on the radio.