Columbo: And The Quirky Little Detective in The Shabby Raincoat Says!

From Season 3, Episode 4: Double Exposure

Original Air Date"”16 December 1973
Robert Culp plays Dr. Bart Keppel an opportunisticÂ “motivational research specialist guru” who uses subliminal cuts to commit murder. But Lt. Columbo is onto him right from the beginning as usual!

Starring Peter Falk as the inimitable & tenacious, underestimated and hyper perceptive Detective Columbo who always comes prepared with thoughtful anecdotes about his family and his ever present cigar. He’sÂ shabby “like an unmade bed” but always lovable. The episodes are rooted in class conflict as Lt Columbo often inhabits the role of David up against the entitlement ridden criminal who thinks they’re a Goliath yet are no match for such a subtle and agile minded wit.

Columbo – “I don’t think it’s proving anything Doc, as a matter of fact I don’t even know what it means. It’s just one of those things that gets in my head and keeps rolling around in there like a marble.”

Just a quick note about Peter Falk, one of my favorite actors who created one of the most memorable characters of all time.

On June 4 2009 wife Shera Danese released a press statement asking for Falk’s privacy after a very public battle over conservatorship by his daughter. He has since retired from the business, due to illness and Alzheimers. I write this blog quote in honor of my admiration for his past work over the years, and wish the man peace and contentment on his journey.

MonsterGirl

Elevator To The Gallows (1958): A film by Louis Malle

Starring Jean Moreau. The song Angels In Concrete appears on my album

Hunting Down The Ceremony Volume 1

MashUp includes trumpet by Marty Robinson who did the studio session for me. I left in Miles Davis’ sultry trumpet performance toward the mid to end as a tribute.

The song “Angels In Concrete” was slated to be in indie film maker Steve Balderson’sÂ Stuck released in 2010 a neo /cult woman in prison film starring Karen Black.

Director Steve Balderson wanted to use this piece for the shower scene. There were several really wonderful candidates for added music. Needless to say, only the musical director /composer’s work wound up in the film.

Most of all, I was truly disappointed that my work didn’t make it in there, so it could be graced with the presence of the great Karen Black.

So here it is inspired by Elevator To The Gallows and Miles Davis’ wandering dream state magic, combined with”Angels In Concrete”

MonsterGirl (jogabriel)

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) Fabulous Tura Satana “The point is of no return and you’ve reached it!”

FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! 1965

I had the honor of being the next person interviewed with Tura in Indie Filmmaker Steve Balderson’s experimental art film, Phone Sex. It was a thrill to come after the vivacious and wonderful Ms. Satana!

Three wild women, Tura Satana as Varla, Haji as Rosie, and Lori Williams as Billie, are strippers thrill-seeking cross paths with a young couple in the desert. Once they get rid of the boy, they take the girl hostage and set out to steal a crippled man’s stash of cash, that he’s supposedly hiding. The old man has two sons who they try to seduce in order to get at the old man’s money. But they don’t realize that they’re dealing with something a little more than a feeble man in a wheelchair. Exploitation at its best. Satana is a treasure to watch. She just plain kicks ass!

R.I.P you warrior woman! (July 10, 1938 "“ February 4, 2011).

Actress Tura Satana in a scene of the film “Irma la Douce’ at Hollywood, 1962. (Photo by Leo Fuchs/Getty Images)

The Killers 1946: Brutal Noir & A Cast Of Exciting Unknowns

The Killers directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, has one of the most powerful openings scenes to any film. Perhaps one of the greatest Noir films ever screened.

The song “A Cast Of Exciting Unknowns” appears on my album The Last Drive In

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part VI conclusion: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “Ruined finery…that’s all I have left”

THE VISUAL NARRATIVE “Ruined Finery”

Continue reading “Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part VI conclusion: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “Ruined finery…that’s all I have left”” →

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part V: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “You’re my favorite living mystery” “Have you ever solved me?”

Miriam is back on screen she’s looking around as if searching for something. The tinkling flutters of incorporeal music still tipping back and forth. We are suspended in some kind of time frame ourselves. Captive. Again as in Baby Jane we as spectators are being held within the constructs of the visual narrative as much as the characters themselves. Aldrich uses his shadows to constrict our visual movement. So much of the plot is drenched in the mysterious cloaking of shadow that it obliterates our senses. The shadows formulate the environment to feel obstructive.

Once again the blackest bar of shadow cuts across Miriam’s figure, casting an ominous 2nd Miriam luring behind herself. Throughout Charlotte, the camera/shadows have aggressively dissected the woman’s bodies in various parts. In advertising, there has been criticism aimed at Ads depicting women’s body parts being cut off as if to dehumanize them. I don’t think Aldrich’s intention was to dehumanize these female characters, but rather to show the fracturing of their ambivalent personalities.

The Manifest meaning behind the shadows could be as simple as framing these female characters in mystery, the ultimate question is one of the Latent meanings, in which we might as spectators come to understand the characters’ principal personalities and the underlying motivating forces that drive them.

And I’d like to think that the camera lens didn’t develop a bit of Acrotomophilia, the amputee fetish that sadly some people suffer from. Still, I found that it is something of worthy note to observe how these shadows frame the female body in both films.

Even the plant seems to cut across Miriam’s torso

Miriam knocks on Charlotte’s door. There is a quick jump cut, Charlotte is on the other side of the door. Miriam knocks once more and then walks away. She shuts the lights out and throws us into yet even more darkness than before. She walks over to the silky lace-covered windows. The dog is still barking outside near the graveyard.

A flute flutters the scales in an almost Middle Eastern mixed Phrygian mode, an exotic mysterious motif, as Miriam peers through the curtains yet look back behind her. She turns away and walks back into the room.

We hear a creaking door. It’s the large Armour as the door swings open to show that Miriam’s sequined dress has been slashed. With the use of an inner monologue we hear Miriam say, “My dress, somebody’s slashed my dress.” She stares at it. Again we see her in profile. the little pipe flutterings play again as she walks toward the shredded dress. Slowly ever so slowly build the tension.

The fluttering is now almost childlike. Is this to represent that a regressive childish acting out is responsible for this destructive behavior? Miriam’s head is in complete shadow surrounded by the shiny sequins, dangling like torn fish gills and silk. She begins to handle the ruined fabric, the music still with us. The strings come in strident. Finally, we see Miriam in full face. She looks contained but shocked at the same time. Continue reading “Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part V: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “You’re my favorite living mystery” “Have you ever solved me?”” →

Boris Karloff’s Thriller: The Ordeal of Dr Cordell: “I know that science and ego make lousy chemistry”

Boris Karloff’s Thriller The Ordeal of Dr. Cordell Episode release date: March 7, 1961

Directed by Lazlo Benedek, Written by Donald S. Sanford and music scored by Morton Stevens. Starring Robert Vaughn as Dr. Frank Cordell and Kathleen Crowley as Dr. Lois Walker.

There are obvious elements ofÂ Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with more of a neo-realism that displaces the Gothic romanticist nature of the story of dualities of the mind/soul connection transplanting it in a modern setting, making it almost hyper eerier. This episode is also one of the few in the series that is an integration of post-world War II science-fiction mystery with the reoccurring themes of crime drama and Gothic horror that most of the other episodes pivoted on in this timeless hybrid television show. Not only are there traces of Neo-Noir realism of the 60s, but it also flirted with good science vs bad science. I find a correlation with the original novella published by Stevenson in the late 1800s.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the original title of a novella written by author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in London on JanÂ 5th, 1886. The work is commonly known today as simply Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Dr Henry Jekyll has unleashed a bestial alter ego Edward Hyde, a violent misanthrope. A fracturing of the self, into two clashing and opposing natures. It is the ultimate parable of good vs evil where 2 vastly different personalities within the same person battle over their moral character and the question of right and wrong.

Continue reading “Boris Karloff’s Thriller: The Ordeal of Dr Cordell: “I know that science and ego make lousy chemistry”” →

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Aldrich’s Hag Cinema: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 Part IV “Murder starts in the heart and it’s first weapon is a vicious tongue”

HUSH…HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964) – Continued

Charlotte is sipping her coffee and hears a car pull up. She’s holding her shotgun. She sets the china cup down and starts to get up, moving toward the door, we hear a small bird chirping, then the police vehicle coming up the drive encircled by glorious oak trees. Charlotte closes the door and runs to the great hall calling “Velma!” Velma comes to the top of the banister looking through the wooden slats down at Charlotte. She hangs over the edge “What?” in a long drawn-out suspension of the word.

Velma is unpretentious and could be perceived as a crude woman. She’s like an unmade bed or someone who looks like she just rolled out of one, and she doesn’t throw away her words. She strong, sensible and reliable. Velma, disheveled, unkempt by the years of working as a caretaker to her Miss Charlotte, is misleadingly simple yet she is sturdy and obviously faithful to her mistress. Continue reading “Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Aldrich’s Hag Cinema: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 Part IV “Murder starts in the heart and it’s first weapon is a vicious tongue”” →

Boris Karloff’s Thrilling: Another Visit with Boris Karloff’s Cinematic Television Masterpiece

When I first started blogging on The Last Drive In, I chose one of my most beloved memories, a thing of nostalgia for me, and what I consider to be one of the greatest television programs that contained not only the classic crime mystery drama, but Gothic horrors based on some of the most prolific writers of these genres back then, such as Cornell Woolrich , Robert Bloch and August Derleth.

I recently covered episodes like The Hungry Glass, The Hollow Watcher, The Grim Reaper, The Cheaters, The Incredible Doktor Markesan and Pigeons From Hell.

This time I will be blogging about a few more interesting tales such as The Ordeal of Dr Cordell starring Robert Vaughn. The Remarkable Mrs. Hawk starring Jo Van Fleet and John Carradine, The Premature Burial starring Sidney Blackmer (the piercing Roman Casstavette in Rosemary’s Baby) and Boris himself as Dr. Thorne. And finally Rose’s Last Summer starring Mary Astor since I’m on a Mary Astor kick what with working on my Aldrich series and Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte post that’s giving me an infarction, it’s so detailed, yet I don’t know how to write any other way.

I’ll be periodically choosing other great episodes from the series,but these were the ones I thought would be really interesting to cover right now.

I am talking about Boris Karloff’s television series that ran from 1960-1962: Thriller: The Complete Series.

Also the contributions by directors like John Brahm, Ida Lupino , Herschel Daugherty, Arthur Hiller and Paul Henreid who had a unique visual perspective that created creepy landscapes and lighting that would fit the noir canon very well.Also very notable for me as a musician are the musical scores by Mort Stevens, Pete Rugolo and Jerry Goldsmith that were nothing short of stunning, evocative melodies that tore at your soul and fit the mood of each episode,adding another vivid dimension to the atmospherics.

I have written earlier about some of my favorite episodes from Boris Karloff’s anthology series Thriller, which was an unusual collection of mixed genres. The series seems to be a very popular one here at The Drive In, so I’ve decided to write about a few more that have stayed with me over time, not that I didn’t absolutely love every single episode, all 67 of them. I only wish there had been more, or that someone would discover lost episodes that were never released. I have virtually watched each episode hundreds of times, not only catching little details for the first time with each reviewing, but never do I grow tired of them. That is the sign of something timeless, and masterful. And the more time goes by, I realize even further how preeminent this body of work truly is.

I can only imagine how excited fans like me were when they finally released the box set.I cried, I am not even kidding you. I, like many other devotees, waited a very long time for them to release this masterpiece on DVD. I used to have to wait up until 3am back in the day so that I could set my VCR to record when the Sci-Fi Channel had the good sense to run the episodes. Although I’d always get hocked off that the commercials were ads with nude girls telling me to “pick up the phone” while they were sliding up and down a pole. I know that boys and men love sci-fi and horror, but news flash! girls and women actually can have an avid appreciation for all things scary, thrilling and wondrous like the marvels of science, just as much. We can have a visceral passion for action and frightmares just like anyone else. So having to endure the “babes” of late night Sci-Fi Channel commercial land was irksome. Now I can watch Boris with some undisturbed dignity and I don’t have to be told to “pick up the phone” by some bimbo jutting her tongue over her shiny lip gloss, as if that were sexy to me. I’d rather watch Marisa Mell or Barbara Steele sitting under a tree reading a book. But again I digress as by now you know I am apt to do. Forgive MonsterGirl her little occasional rants.

So anyway, not only was there unmistakable atmosphere to each of Thriller’s episodes, but the stories themselves were lensed in a unique way that was very ahead of it’s time. The actors brought a serious attitude to their characters and the plot development, and didn’t treat them as merely short pulp stories as fodder for the tv masses. This was an intelligent show, and the presence of Boris Karloff only added a charming sage fabulist narration that was like being tucked in by your remarkable grandfather who loved to tell a good spooky tale to you right before bedtime. I’ve said this plenty, I wish Boris Karloff had been my grandfather.

MonsterGirl