Tourism poster. Poland.
Tag Archives: 1938
“The artists who wish to mature late, who feel too old to die …”
It is by a blend of lively curiosity and intelligent selfishness that the artists who wish to mature late, who feel too old to die, the Goethes, Tolstoys, Voltaires, Titians and Verdis, reach a fruitful senescence. They cannot afford to associate with those who are burning themselves up or preparing for a tragedy or whom melancholy has marked for her own. Not for them the accident-prone, the friend in whom the desire for self-destruction keeps blistering out in broken legs or threatening them in anxiety-neuroses. Not for them the drumming finger, the close-cropt nail, the chewed glasses, the pause on the threshold, the wandering eye, or the repeated “um” and “er.”
— Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise, 1938
“Failure on the other hand is infectious.”
Failure on the other hand is infectious. The world is full of charming failures (for all charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others) and unless the writer is quite ruthless with these amiable footlers, they will drag him down with them.
— Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise, 1938
“Human Contentments,” Edgard Farasijn, circa 1938
More old-time radio — 47 hours of science fiction classics
What a find! A poet I admire passed this along to me, and it was too good not to share — 47 hours of science fiction radio classics that Open Culture recently added to its Spotify page. You’ve got to be a Spotify member to hear these, but signing up is free and easy. (Spotify also makes it easy to reset your password if you’ve forgotten it, as I did.)
Right at the top of the list is Orson Welles’ famous/infamous 1938 broadcast of his radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.” (Yes, this the show that made people believe that martians were actually invading. How’s that for “fake news?”)
Welles’ broadcast was actually the first classic radio I’d ever heard, when I was a kid in the 1980’s. I’d gotten it on a pair of cassette tapes for either Christmas or my birthday, along with an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” If those strike you as weird presents, I was a weird kid.
I loved those tapes — the Poe recording was so good it genuinely scared me. (The narrator really nailed it.) If I happen across that online, I’ll be sure to post it here.
A very short review of “Rebecca” (1940)
Scratch one thing off the bucket list — I finally got around to watching Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca.” (A cinephilic uncle introduced me to a handful of the director’s better known classics when I was an adolescent — “Rebecca” was one that we never got around to.) Based on my own enjoyment of it, I’d rate this film an 8 out of 10.
Please bear in mind that this is one of the slower Hitchcock films. Until its plot accelerates toward its end, it spends much of its running length as a methodically paced, brooding Gothic romance and mystery. It’s also a psychological thriller, and you can tell that Hitchcock is working to translate onto the screen its character-focused source novel. (I haven’t read Daphne du Maurier’s eponymous 1938 book.)
“Rebecca’s” final act brings the viewer into familiar Hitchcock territory with some interesting surprises. What I liked best about seeing the director’s style, however, was his trademark sharp characters and dialogue — with both heroes and villains sparring in a dry-witted and rapid-fire fashion. It’s something you don’t often see today. I don’t think all old movies are like this — some of the “classics” I’ve been recommended are absolutely vapid. But Hitchcock treated his viewer as intelligent adults, and I think it’s part of the reason why people love him.
Cover to “Weird Tales,” Margaret Brundage, March 1938
My take on the ambiguous ending for John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” (Major spoilers.)
John Carpenter’s 1982 tour-de-force, “The Thing,” is arguably the best horror movie of the decade. It paid little attention to the movie it ostensibly remakes, the standard, boilerplate, flying-saucer Saturday-matinee of “The Thing From Another World” (1951). It presumably paid greater attention to its real and far darker source material, “Who Goes There?,” John W. Campbell Jr.’s 1938 horror-sci-fi novella.
One of the things the movie’s fans still debate heatedly is its bleak ending — I think it goes beyond ambiguous to downright mysterious. Viewers actually are given no certainty whatsoever about who or what are actually pictured onscreen in the film’s Antarctic setting, after a fiery climax for this gory, special-effects-heavy actioner. (Only people who have seen the film know what I am talking about.)
My own interpretation is a little less popular than the others you hear about. To conceal spoilers, I’m sharing it after the poster image below. [IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE, STOP READING NOW!]
Continue reading My take on the ambiguous ending for John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” (Major spoilers.)
Oh! Just one more Thing tonight!!
You’re glad I reminded you, aren’t you?
I told Pete Harrison the other night that I watched the 2011 prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece, “The Thing.”
He simply responded, “Why?”
To me and undoubtedly many others, the 80’s classic will always be the paradigmatic horror – science fiction movie. Because I admire a well made house as much as anyone, but AIN’T NO CARPENTER LIKE JOHN CARPENTER. (Nobody repeat that, I want to copyright it and sell bumper stickers at horror conventions.)
Yes, the recent prequel inexplicably has the exact same title as the 1982 movie, and I have no frikkin’ idea why. That just seems … deliberately stupid. Nor is that the 2011 film’s only flaw … it’s universally maligned.
Does the 2011 outing really deserve all its bad press? I say no. Among other things, it delivered some fine goopity-gloppity monster goodness, delivered by an archetypal flying saucer, no less. That’s something that I find refreshing in a horror movie marketplace that just seems inundated with demons and ghosts. (I loved “Insidious,” but enough already.)
C’mon, Hollywood. There are plenty of horror fans out there who grew up loving giant ants, Marine-baiting “Aliens,” werewolves, swarms of spiders troubling William Shatner, and the adversaries of Godzilla. It’s why I gave a positive review to this year’s “Jurassic World,” despite a script of the same quality as that of “Gilligan’s Island.” I want to see velociraptors chase a speeding truck. I will ALWAYS want to see velociraptors chase a speeding truck.
And … I liked the 2011 movie’s protagonist! Trying to mimic MacReady’s cunning anti-hero would have redundant! This story featured a smart, young lady scientist who turned out to be tough under pressure. That kinda worked for me.
I actually have seen 1951’s “The Thing From Another World,” but that was 30 years ago on VHS, with my “Movie Uncle,” John Muth. I have NOT read “Who Goes There?,” John W. Campbell, Jr.’s 1938 novella upon which all of these films were based. But I’m planning to. (Last time I checked, it was floating around online somewhere.)
I’m just waiting for the first big blizzard to hit next winter. Because ATMOSPHERE.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 