Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor, not my brother…) Pt. 1

In resurrecting many of the old regular columns on this blog, my favorite was often Recently Rated Movies, wherein I would shorthand my usual long-winded blathering and comment oh so very briefly on a series of films I had recently seen and rated on IMDb. To begin this column regularly again, I am tying it into a project in which I have been engaged for the past three weeks. I have been employing the Charts function on Flickchart to create lists that show me which films of one of my favorite actors I have yet to see. Because I have watched so many films overall (11,000+), for there to be films for someone like, say, Boris Karloff, they would either have to be films I have intentionally putting off for one reason or another, films that were harder to find in the past, or simply something I had little interest in viewing.

I began the project with Bela Lugosi, and quickly knocked out eleven of his films in short order (luckily most of them are barely over an hour long), including the infamously terrible (and justly so) Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla and Mother Riley Meets the Vampire. I then leaped over to the aforementioned Mr. Karloff (there was some slight crossover), and not only also took down eleven of his films, including three out of four of his late ‘60s Mexican flicks (where all of his scenes were directed at the same time by Jack Hill and then inserted into the films proper), but also four of his Mr. Wong films from the late ’30s and early ‘40s.

And now, I am on the chart for the recently departed Christopher Lee. He has 133 films listed on Flickchart (overall, he has 278 acting credits listed on IMDb), and of those 133 films, until the other day, I had seen ONLY 68 of them. That leaves a massive amount of his films left to see, and I doubt I have the time left or the energy to see them all. Lee himself had a quote he was fond of repeating where he is regularly told by fans, “I have seen all of your films!” His reply, “No, you haven’t.” Well, now I have ticked nine more films off that list over the last few days.

[Editor's note: All films are rated on a scale of 9.]

The Puzzle of the Red Orchid [German title: Edgar Wallace: Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee | Alt. English title: The Secret of the Red Orchid]

Dir: Helmut Ashley

TC4P Rating: 4

When is it called for to have the very British legend Christopher Lee, with his deep and memorable speaking voice, to have his dialogue dubbed into English? Specifically, an American accent? When he originally recorded his dialogue for this would-be thriller based on an Edgar Wallace story (as many European films were in the ‘60s), it was reportedly into what I have read in some places as some rather decent German. That aside, it is incongruous to say the least to watch Lee in numerous scenes while hearing a ridiculously square and far too rigidly pronounced American accent pour from his lips (and obviously not matching what he is really saying), especially given that there is no attempt at all to try and match the timbre of his famous voice. 

A minor plus is that this film moves pretty fast, though the characters are involved in a mystery I don’t really care about while Chicago gangsters are kidnapping people in London. There are some fairly stilted attempts at comic relief, but like everything else in this movie, the dubbing also kills the chance for any humor to translate properly for the viewer. It’s not as horrid as you think it will be going into it, but it’s still a bit of a chore to watch.

Hannie Caulder (1971)

Dir: Burt Kennedy

TC4P Rating: 6

Let’s not get carried away here. Sensei Tarantino loves this film and has pointed to it as an inspiration for Kill Bill. It is easy to see why he loves it, and it is also easy to see the inspiration it served. But this is not a great lost classic. It’s merely a fairly decent western with an excellent male lead in Robert Culp, and some good, disgusting supporting roles for Strother Martin, Ernest Borgnine, and especially Jack Elam. 

There is also a dandy small part for Christopher Lee as the expert gunsmith that Culp and female lead Raquel Welch call upon to customize pistols with which Welch’s title character can exact revenge on the raping and murdering trio played by Martin, Borgnine, and Elam. The movie has some wit to it, and is engaging from start to finish. Welch is hardly believable in her gunslinger role, especially in what she is allowed to wear during the era in which they purport to be, though I mark this up to the ‘70s and the need for the studio to sell her remarkable exterior (if only they knew how). 

I do have a complaint about the blood, which gushes forth from numerous bullet wounds throughout the movie, as being too obviously fake. It rather galls me about the third time it happens. Other than that, watch it for a prime example of just how assured and captivating Robert Culp can be in the right role.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

Dir: Does it even matter?

TC4P Rating: 5

Let’s talk about product. Pure product. Yes, I am one of those original Star Wars kids from 1977. I read the paperback (with the purple cover and the pre-film character designs by McQuarrie) numerous times before the film was released that summer, and I bought the comics, toys, LPs, trading cards, posters, blueprints, t-shirts, puzzles, games, prints, and what have you without a second thought. Like any other religious convert, I gave up my allowance on a weekly basis to the Force reverently for a handful of years, and it never once struck me I was being manipulated at all as I followed the adventures of Luke, Han, Leia and their pals through the next couple of films. Nor would I have cared if I did realize the manipulation at hand. I was in my teens, I loved what I loved, and I didn’t want to hear otherwise.

Though George Lucas has crippled my opinion of his creation due to his obstinate mishandling of it in recent years, I still maintain a soft spot for the original films, enough so that I am like everyone else who can’t wait to see what J.J. Abrams will bring us come winter. Likewise, I am equally excited about Disney’s plans for a new Star Wars Land in the park. While that might further define me as a “sheeple” in regards to blindly going along with the rest of the flock, the quality of the product is likely to be so high that I couldn’t resist if I wanted, lest I be branded a curmudgeon, hipster, or troll or some unholy combination of the three.

But there is a difference between product of a remarkably high caliber and just mere product, rendered to the blandness of pabulum, still to be considered sustainable entertainment but absolutely lacking in real character or emotional depth. Even more interesting is when product of the second variety spews forth from the same factory creating the higher form. And thus, from that off-white void, crawls out Star Wars: The Clone Wars, animated to the far brink of what was accepted as popular animation in the year in which it was released (but no further), brightly colored, swift moving, and sporting the mind-numbing, political denseness that plagued the three most recent Lucas productions. However, it does have several presumably exciting battle sequences, mostly involving the younger Obi-Wan and Anakin, along with a young Padawan named Ahsoka (sadly, Lucas did not name an older brother for her as Supasoka, but I feel he would have), for those that have not already seen similar scenes in many, many other films. Therein lies the key to the film’s existence, both as product and as a part of Star Wars culture. It is also the same key that explains my reticence to embrace the later productions from my once beloved font of space opera entertainment.

I am no longer twelve years old. I might act like it at times. I may still adore most of the things I loved when I was that age. I may even still own most of the things I owned from that time (and I largely do). But I am no longer twelve. I am a 51-year-old man watching a film designed to attract actual twelve-year-olds to a possible entry point into the Star Wars universe, or to keep the kids already inclined to be inside that universe further entertained and to get them to buy the comics, toys, etc. that go along with it. Just like when I was that age.

So, I am no longer the target audience for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. In fact, I am about thirty years past it. But it does not mean that I can’t watch the film, have an understanding of it, nor speak my piece on it. But I can't embrace it like I did those earlier films. It’s just really no longer mine. I knew this when it was released, and so I put off seeing it. And I only watched it last week because it was film highest up on the Flickchart list of Christopher Lee films I had yet to see, and if there was going to be a Chris Lee flick I hadn’t watched, it was not going to be a Star Wars one. And so watch it I did. Mr. Lee voices his Count Dooku character from the later films, and he does his usual excellent job. He is barely in the film, and the rest is taken up by the politics, battle scenes, and Jedi nonsense I mentioned earlier. What the ads should have read is "Come for the Dooku. Stay for the product."

If A Store Can Sell A Thousand Loaves, Then Why Can’t I Buy You?

Lower right: Oroweat Potato Bread
Lower left: Udi's 24-oz Whole Grain Bread
Top: Udi's 12-oz Whole Grain Bread

As someone who recently found out that his allergy to wheat was a definite thing (and compounded by about two dozen other allergies to various plants, molds, and foods), the most positive aspect was that, with these discoveries, I wouldn’t have to change my diet one iota. I have never needed to actually avoid gluten (my difficulties are entirely in the esophageal area), but I have found that living gluten-free was the best path to follow in order to more easily dodge both wheat and rye. As a bonus, since I don’t eat either cod or shellfish (the other allergy-inducing comestibles on my list) in the first place, a steady course full-steam ahead using the current diet is a go.

However, I still have to do battle with the greed of one half of the marketplace in presenting gluten-free options at fairly exorbitant prices to a captive audience, and the reticence of the other half of the marketplace to even present gluten-free options AT ALL. For the moment, let’s discuss the greedy half. And let’s also discuss bread.

Bread is the staff of life… blah, blah, blah. I didn’t really believe this until I had it pretty much wrested from my grip due to the allergies. Then I missed it a lot. But, then I discovered gluten-free bread… and I missed real bread all the more. Do you think I am kidding? I would vote a straight Republican ticket (is there any other kind... at least openly?) without hesitation or a single care if I were to be promised that I could eat warm brie and ham on a real, freshly baked French baguette again without a single negative consequence to my health. So, yeah… I really freakin' miss the good stuff.

Then I found Udi’s. After trying about a couple of dozen or more brands of bug taint flour this and millet fungus that, and trying to find something that equated the taste AND texture of real goddamned bread, I finally figured out that Udi’s — whether whole grain or white — was the closest I could find. Sure, you needed to heat up or even lightly toast the bread to get the closest approximation to the sponginess of “bread bread,” but it is worth it. Also, if you don’t heat or toast, the bread tends to crumble after it hits room temp, especially if you are buttering it or making a sandwich. But the taste is just fine, and after trying far more bland and even outright horrid brands (and to be fair, I did find a couple of other brands, such as Rudi’s — not sure if there is a relationship with Udi’s or if one copied the other — that I also didn’t mind), to finally find one that I could trust to be consistently OK was a huge relief.

But, even with finding a gluten-free bread that I mostly enjoy, there was one area in which ALL of the GF brands came up short, and that is, well… being short. Gluten-free breads, mostly due to the difficulties in baking larger loaves thanks to the lack of stretchy, expansive glutens, tend to look like they smoked cigarettes as kids and had their growth stunted. It has become routinely depressing to leave the grocery store with two loaves of bread in the bag: a normal loaf for Jen that was the usual size and shape of a loaf of bread, and a GF one for me that was about 2/3 the width and length of the other, but often cost twice as much as the normal one. GF bread tends more to relative squareness as well, and when Jen and I make grilled cheese sandwiches at home, I usually end up using four pieces of my bread to her two, creating two tiny sandwiches to get close to the normal size.

In 2014, I went to Idaho. Specifically, I went to Costco in Idaho with my wicked (and wonderful) stepmother Jo Ann, and found a 30 oz. loaf of Udi’s Whole Grain bread. Twice the length of a regular Udi’s loaf, weighing 1-1/2 times the normal weight, and — best of all — WIDE. Wide as an average slice of absolutely pedestrian bread… and I was so happy to find it. (Who knew that, for once in my life, normalcy would be looked at by me as a blessing?) Luckily, Jo Ann purchased two loaves, and I was able to bring most of the bread home with me to So Cal and be content on the baked goods front for a short while. It was astounding to eat sandwiches that looked like the size of a real sandwich again. I couldn’t believe my luck, and I figured that if a Costco in Idaho had these loaves, then surely a Costco in Southern California — home of the ultra-picky, modern diet whores — would cater to a growing gluten-free public.

And the answer was NO. After researching our local Costco (where we once had a membership), they not only lacked Udi’s in stock, but also didn’t carry any GF breads at all in their bakery area stocked with about thirty-plus brands (not counting their fresh varieties). We also discovered that of the GF brands, Udi’s and Rudi’s were ubiquitous, appearing the most in stores throughout Orange County. But while the bulk of those stores each carried the normal, tiny, square Udi’s loaf in the twelve-ounce size, not a single one offered a hint of the larger, thirty-ounce version. A visit to the Udi’s website, which features an online store promoting their full line of products, showed no trace of a bigger, 30-oz. loaf. 

I gave up. I was tired of running around trying to locate a decent sized loaf of bread. It was back to the itty bitty bread for me. 

When we moved from Orange County to Riverside County recently, we did get a new Costco membership, and one of the hopes would be that we would find the larger Udi’s loaves out here. Not so far. Both of the stores nearest us continue to have a serious lack of GF bread choices, though one of the boxers at the counter was kind enough (without our even asking) to go onto their computer system to check their inventory just in case we missed seeing any. We hadn’t, but she seemed, or at least acted, shocked to find Costco was almost entirely GF-deficient.

Then, just three weeks ago, on a random trip to the Target just down the street, I decided to check their tiny GF frozen section, even though I didn’t need bread. There on the top shelf, above the regular 12-oz. loaves were much bigger Udi’s loaves! They were only 24 ounces, not thirty, but it was the same width bread as that from Idaho. I was astounded! Best of all… a sign: CLEARANCE SALE. This had me confused, because I was at this very Target just a week before, and there were no 24-ounce loaves of Udi’s bread. How can it be a clearance item so quick? The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t matter. Stores do this all the time to push pricing and sales or even introduce items. It just sounds like they are getting rid of something, but I have seen furniture stores have clearance sales non-stop for years (and even going out of business sales). The main thing is that the price of a 24-ounce loaf was $5.99, not much more than a 12-oz. loaf ($5.29). I grabbed a loaf of white and a loaf of whole grain and made off like a bandit.

Cut to today. I was down to just a few pieces of bread in the second loaf, and I had been wondering if Target was still carrying the much larger loaf. Naturally, I was concerned because it is the only place in Southern California that I have seen it. If they still carried it, I wanted to make sure to buy more so that they knew there is an audience for the brand here, even if it is just one guy. My mother-in-law, Sande, announced she wanted to go to Target today, and I jumped at the chance to go with her. When we finally hit the frozen GF section, I saw the 24-ounce bags of bread and grabbed one of each style in a snap. [And now, for the slow twisting of the knife…]

I discovered to my horror that the clearance sale was no more, and that the regular price for a 24-ounce loaf of Udi’s Gluten Free Bread was $14.99. That is correct: $14.99! Mother pus buckets! That works out to just under a dollar per slice of bread. And in comparing it to the 12-oz. bag, yes, the 24-oz. is twice as big, but the price is almost triple the price of the regular loaf (once again, $5.29 a bag).

As much as I wanted that bread in my life, I couldn’t justify it this time, especially given that I am out of work right now and that Jen’s mom was buying the groceries. It would have been entirely too frivolous of me, and besides, I didn’t want Target to win this one. I did not want to give in to this impulse. And I really did not want to fall victim to such obvious price gouging. I guess it would have balanced out given that we had gotten an excellent deal on it the last time around, but that is a most dangerous way to go shopping. But mostly, I was just pissed that yet another thing in my world had just come crashing down. Believe it or not, my general happiness three weeks ago was balanced on finding the right bread at the exact right time, and now even that has been shattered for me. Discovering larger slices of gluten free toast has apparently been propping me up over the last couple of very rough years, and now, losing confidence in this obsession has made me just a little bit grimmer. 

And once you finally discover that bread really is the staff of life, in more ways than one, then you have learned everything this world can possible teach you.

Haunted Until Only Quite Recently: The Slight Return of “Poltergeist”

Of all the films released in theatres in 1982 during the year of my 18th birthday, the one of which I am most ashamed of not seeing at that time is the original Tobe Hooper/Steven Spielberg version of Poltergeist. I have made up for it in spades since then. A viewing of Poltergeist is a pretty regular affair for me, whether by throwing in a disc, catching ⅔ of it on television by accident or, as I jumped at each chance to do it, seeing it four different times on actual movie screens both large and small over the years since its release.

But the first time I saw it, the following year, I was in an entirely comfortable setting, in a room full of my (still) closest friends at my pal Tony’s parents' house, during one of our regular movie marathon festivals that actually meant something back in the time when no one really owned very many prerecorded videocassettes personally. Let me explain… in the early '80s, while each of our homes had a VCR or two, the homeownership market for prerecorded VHS (and Beta) tapes was really just for techno-geeks who wanted to pay anywhere from $50 to well over $100 for an individual tape so they could play them while showing off their nascent home video theatres and sound systems.

For a movie marathon party for regular, non-wealthy kids just out of high school to work at the time, you had to rely on two things: 1) videotapes of things you recorded off television and cable, and 2) video rental stores. You could buy used videotapes at your local video store at the time, but they usually had beat up boxes, had pictures that were possibly quite jumpy, and often had one or two spots where you weren’t sure whether the tape was going to go all wonky inside the machine. You couldn’t walk into a store at that time and just buy a fresh, brand spanking new copy of Poltergeist to take home. The store owners would not have a huge display of $19.95 copies of the latest film released onto tape by Hollywood. This would happen soon enough, but not in 1982-1983.

Pricing of videotapes was largely set by the design of the rental market. If you wanted to own a new personal copy of a film, you could purchase it, but it was going to be at the price that the store paid for a copy (if you knew an avenue through which you could get it at the wholesale cost), but more than likely, if you really wanted a copy, you were going to be paying an even greater mark-up on that cost. Thus, not a lot of people wanted to pay well over $100 for a mere videotape (though the price I remember being quoted most of the time was $99.95). But, I digress…

We were basically poor kids, only a couple of us had regular jobs, most of the gang were going to college, and so money was tight. But we each had a video store membership. You could generally only rent (depending on the store) anywhere from 1-3 videotapes at a time in those days (two was the average, it seems). So, to pull off any sort of marathon, we each needed to pitch in. We were determined to hit as many genres as possible: comedy, thriller, action, sci-fi… even porn (the XXX film at this particular video marathon would be The Erotic Adventures of Candy). And while only a couple of us were full-on ragin' horror fans, most everyone in the gang liked ghost movies, and so Poltergeist stood up for the horror genre.

I am not sure how the original Poltergeist escaped a visit from me upon its theatrical release. I do remember the television commercials, which in retrospect, were pretty damned effective, in much the same way that the film continues to be. I know that I had wanted to see it, but just didn’t. It might have something to do with the fact it was released a week apart from Spielberg’s own E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, so maybe in those pre-employment, cash-poor days (in June 1982, I was still dependent on allowance), I opted for seeing a film directed by Mr. Spielberg rather than one simply produced and written by him. [Note: I am most definitely not a member of the “Spielberg actually directed Poltergeist” cabal.]

And so, there I was in a room full of my nearest and dearest pals, in the early days of the video revolution, watching movie after movie through a long Saturday afternoon and evening (which would eventually turn into a Sunday morning tableaux showing most of our crowd passed out and barely cognizant that someone was still changing tapes on the VCR). In the middle of the showing of films was Poltergeist. And I was watching it with vested interest. And I was... levitating?

That is the only word I can possibly use to describe the feeling from that evening. I don’t know if it was because I was kneeling through much of the film with my legs underneath me (in a way I couldn’t possibly sit now with the middle-aged knee problems), but it is likely I just couldn’t feel them any longer as I sat on the floor of Tony’s parents’ living room getting sucked into an otherworldly realm. Or was it the thrill I was receiving from the early Spielbergian chutzpah, before he came to rely too much on giving the audience what they expected, and was instead doing what he thought was exhilarating or entertaining? Or maybe I still thought the supernatural might be a real thing, and got caught up in the fervor with my friends. Or maybe I was just in the mood for a good time.

Whatever it was, I remember feeling as if I was squarely pitched about three to four inches above the carpet of the living room, and with every spook popping out of a closet or every tree branch grabbing a kid’s leg or every clown with an evil leer not being under the bed when expected (or every bra-less JoBeth Williams), I seemed to move about a quarter inch upward. The only other film where I can recall being so out of body was when I fought back urination for the last 133 minutes of the 153-minute Empire of the Sun (hey, maybe it is a Spielberg thing), digging my legs farther and farther underneath my theatre seat with all my might in order to not break my movie code, never mind my bladder. [Kids, when saddled with a ridiculous set of rules that do not allow you to leave a movie theatre during the running of a film for any reason short of natural disaster, always plan what you are drinking, and when you are drinking it, while preparing to see a film of any great length. At least Lawrence of Arabia -- which I have seen in a theatre six times -- has an intermission break…]

Apart from Dominique Dunne’s murder late in 1982, which made national news, the supposed “curse” of the film was really not a part of common film lore at the time we watched the film, as most of the elements that make up the curse had not occurred yet. But the film had so much up its sleeve that was, at the time, so unthinkable and out of left field, that the added threat of a curse was unnecessary. Even though Poltergeist is one of the few films that can truly be described with the title of being a “rollercoaster thrill ride,” I don’t remember coming back down to the floor for the run of it, possibly due to the ramped up anticipation of the next jolt of excitement. A steak crawling across a kitchen counter, a little girl conversing with people inside the television, someone’s face falling off in the mirror, coffins popping up in the front yard, skeletons in the swimming pool, a house folding in on itself, a rope going through a wall and coming out from the ceiling in another room, a giant closet vagina… a one-stop shop of fun and absurdity, but done with knowledge of how to get under one’s skin with the right amount of creepiness.

It would be the first of many, many viewings of Poltergeist for me, and it has stood (along with The Changeling, The Uninvited, The Haunting, The Innocents, The Legend of Hell House... I won't name them all, but perhaps a couple of others… oh, yeah… The Others) as one of the few haunted house/haunting movies that really worked for me. And because the film, at least as I see it, took the genre perhaps to the height of what could be done with such material at a summer movie, blockbuster level, I never considered the notion that someone would have the cojones to remake it over thirty years later. Well, having balls made out of brass doesn’t mean you aren’t a stupid idiot… it just means you have brass balls.

The Creeping Revenge of "Recorded Live" (1975)

Amongst the films, albeit short ones, that I have seen the most times in my life, there is the seeming trifle, Recorded Live. As much as I like to recount the scores of times I watched the likes of Alien and Mad Max over and over in the early HBO days in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s (shown on Anchorage, Alaska’s single cable network titled Visions), I saw this goofy short, animated by S.S. Wilson, even more. Wilson created this film as a student at USC in 1975, and he would eventually go on to write (with his partner and fellow USC alum Brent Maddock) the Short Circuit films, *batteries not included, Heart and Souls, and, most importantly for me, the Tremors film series. (I will mention, purposefully parenthetically, that they also wrote the screenplays for Ghost Dad and Wild Wild West, and the less said of this, the better.)

I stated that Recorded Live is seemingly nothing but a trifle, but its influence over my behavior has been longstanding, and proves that the film is anything but that in my memory. This is because this movie, as fun and silly as it seems, scared the crap out of me in those days, even as an adult. Maybe it was because I was constantly surrounded by videotape, but I often imagined coming home and finding out that my entire collection of tapes had banded together, decided they were hungry for blood, had quite enough of my shenanigans, and had elected me as the entree for dinner. And while the film may not look scary to today’s jolt-scare and Ghost Hunters-influenced crowd (both so goddamned stupid), but to me, sometimes the silliest of images can dig under your skin and get to you in ways you never expected. Often, and to this day, it is the very sense of the absurdly out of place that worked my psyche far more than the mere intended scare. It spoke of a universe seriously out of whack, and there is nothing worse to combat than a universe that refuses to play by the rules.

This is why the Land Shark on Saturday Night Live scared me far more than Bruce the Shark on the movie screen. This is why I had a serious problem with a simple clothing advertising campaign back in the day which would show a men’s suit in a closet, but which was being worn by a sheep standing within that closet, with an uncaring, thousand-yard stare plastered on its woolly face (the way sheep do). It did not take much more to fuck me up than a simultaneous listen to Pink Floyd’s song, “Sheep,” wherein the titular creatures rise up against their masters (in this case, the dogs prevalent throughout the storyline of the rest of the Floyd's Animals album, who are clearly a stand-in for the men who are their true oppressors) and exact their revenge. (“Have you heard the news? / The dogs are dead!”) The fact that I did not wear suits had nothing to do with it. I was scared of opening closet doors for a good while after that, and also triggered a similar response any time I saw images of animals dressed in human clothing. (But, strangely, team mascots have never scared me but always amused me, though I will say I mostly enjoy it when they screw up or get injured on the field, or engage in multi-mascot slapstick violence or pranksterism, like in ESPN commercials.)

Back to Recorded Live, placing aside the obvious link to the first two Blob films, another connection that stayed with me through the years is the distorted, growling voice of the mass of videotape, which itself I found as frightening as the images of renegade videotape hunting down and devouring an entire human being. I remember distinctly being reminded of the videotape’s voice when the reel-to-reel machine is found in the basement in the original version of The Evil Dead. I have no idea if Recorded Live had any pull over Mr. Raimi and his pals, but it is not hard to imagine they might have seen this film when they were also beginning to make their own early slapstick shorts (somewhat famously inspired by The Three Stooges).

I know that I recorded Recorded Live at some point (actually, at multiple points), but somehow, even with the number of early tapes I still possess, one with a copy of Recorded Live has not made it to the present, and it had been many, many years since I had seen the film. Watching it again on YouTube this morning, everything rushed back to me immediately: the way I felt when I first saw it, instances where I watched it in conjunction with other films, the chill I used to feel from the violence in the film even while I was laughing at it, and the uneasiness I would get from the sound of the voice of the videotape. 

It also made me think of other short films I used to watch all the time back then, such as Hardware Wars, Vicious Cycles, The 2000-Year Old Man, Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind, etc, and how much I used to enjoy the live-action short film format, though I would rarely make time for them in my frantic feature film-watching schedule. I recently spent a couple of days playing catch up with a few dozen Oscar-nominated and/or Oscar-winning shorts (some of them also documentaries and animated films), so I have already begun to delve back into this format. But I am really hoping to make them a far more regular occurrence in my viewing life. Seeing a truly enjoyable film like Recorded Alive again is a good way to get started on this course.

Thor’s Day Flashback: The Avengers #239

There is no trace of the Mighty Thor (or Tony Stark or the good Captain) in Avengers #239 from January 1984. But, who is that on the front cover surrounded by Hawkeye, Black Widow, Wonder Man, the Black Panther, and an upside-down Beast? Why, none other than your pal and mine, Mr. David Letterman, early on in his original late night run on NBC.

Letterman made several cameo appearances in Marvel Comics over the past thirty years, but this one was the first, and the only appearance where he was actively involved fully in the plot of the comic. In 1984, Marvel held an event called “Assistant Editors’ Month,” in which many, if not all, of their regularly published monthly titles had a certain amount of weirdness going on in the pages due, supposedly, to the fact that Stan Lee, Jim Shooter and Mark Gruenwald (Marvel’s normal editors in those days) were off at some comic convention on the West Coast, and thus unable to oversee the people working for them at Marvel’s offices in New York.

Thus, presumed chaos ensued. We see the backs of the Avengers heads in the corner box instead of their faces (and since none of these characters -- bonus points if you can name all six of them -- appear in this issue, it seems appropriate). In the opposite upper corner, there is a circular Marvel Comics logo that bears an "MC," which is meant to be reminiscent of the old DC logo from the Silver Age. And there is a rubber-stamped box stating "Beware: It's Assistant Editors' Month! Don't say we didn't warn you!" Oh, horrors...

David Letterman ends up accidentally teaming up with the Avengers to stop some nebbish named Fabian Stankowicz, one of the lamest characters ever perpetrated upon the comic buying public. Early on, he was known as the Mechano-Marauder, and had already annoyed the Avengers twice before in the preceding two years. A mechanical genius and a lottery winner, he is obsessed with getting famous by testing his creations against Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and uses his winnings to support this goal.

Wonder Man is trying to get his foot in the door in Hollywood, and scores an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman. Not confident enough to appear on the show by himself, he convinces the Vision (who has “shut down” and only appears in holographic form -- I won’t explain) to contact several reserve members to appear with him, as the regular team are all away for a variety of reasons. The only active Avenger in the book -- Hawkeye -- opens the story with a nice splash page by carrying his new bride, Bobbi “Mockingbird” Morse (whom you might know from the S.H.I.E.L.D. tv show, though her character dates back to 1971), across the threshold of Avengers Mansion, having been married recently in the Hawkeye 4-issue limited series that Marvel released. Hawkeye’s hearing has become impaired during his recent adventures, and this provides some very clumsy comedy during the Letterman show after Hawkeye secures the list of questions Dave will ask the team so he can prepare his answers.

Marvel does a fairly decent job of detailing the stage atmosphere of the show, and Letterman gets to come across as clever and heroic but still remains a smart-ass, staying true to his basic character. While the Avengers battle Fabian's machines, Dave figures out Fabian’s game, tricks him into revealing a key weakness, and then bashes Fabian over the head with the giant doorknob Dave famously used to keep on his desk back in the day.

But, the aforementioned clumsiness defines the rest of the book. Fabian is exceedingly grating (oh, the voice I put on him in my head while reading his lines) and his motivations are pouty and ridiculous (nowadays, he would just trick someone into giving him a reality show). A series of Fabian’s poorly conceived contraptions attack the Avengers during the show and give them barely any trouble at all (as they should, given that they are created by such a clod). Paul Shaffer, wearing a Captain America jersey, gets to say the word “nutty” while he tries to divert the audience’s attention with music. Don’t even get me started on the Black Widow sunbathing scene. And the artwork by Al Milgrom, apart from that splash page, has that “Marvel in the mid-’80s rush job” feel, that proved especially disappointing to me back in the day when I got suckered into the Avengers with back-to-back runs by George Perez and John Byrne, and then was stuck with lesser lights on pencils for a long, long time (with occasional highlights from the likes of Don Newton and Michael Golden, for example). (Luckily, “Big” John Buscema was on his way back not far down the road.)

The worst part? Through 1999, Fabian Stankowicz made somewhere around 50 appearances in Marvel Comics titles, mostly The Avengers and Captain America. He keeps kicking around, sometimes being villainous, then appearing to reform, trying out for but getting turned down by the Avengers, then getting a serious drug problem, cleaning up his act again, etc., etc. To be sure, I have not read some of these issues, as I no longer collect comics, so I cannot speak to their overall quality. But, based solely on his early appearances in the Avengers (and another couple dozen issues I do own which feature him), please, please, please, Marvel: do let me know if you plan to do a 35th anniversary "The Death of Fabian Stankowicz" issue (2017 by my estimate). Because I not only want to buy 300 copies of that issue and read each and every one of those copies, one after the other. I want to write that fucker into his grave.

Thor's Day Flashback: The Avengers #1

This is the big one. This is the best present I have ever received from anyone. Period. Stop trying!! (Well, don't stop trying to give me presents... but you simply can't, within the bounds of natural, earthbound processes, possibly top this...)

This is the front cover of my copy of The Avengers #1 from September 1963, which basically means the comic is just over one year older than I am (please recall that the dates on the front cover of most comics are projected by a couple of months, sometimes several).

Sure, it isn't the prettiest cover. As you can see, the back of the cover can be seen lightly through the front, which is how it has looked since it was bestowed upon me by the wonderful Mr. Tony D. Batres over 30 years ago or so.

Tony can correct the details in the comments, but I believe he purchased it -- the price of $100 springs to my mind -- from a real pain-in-the-ass dive called Comic Book Cosmos, which served as the first comic book shop in Anchorage, Alaska (or at least the first one of which we were aware at the time). Cosmos had really odd hours, and half the time we went all the way across the city to Mountain View, it would be closed even if you went according to the posted schedule. My recollection of the place was that you pretty much had to deal with what they had at hand (I was never successful at having the owner order anything for me that I wanted), but when Marvel went "direct market" with some of their titles in 1981-1982 (thereby skipping newsstand circulation), Cosmos briefly became the only game in town for us (at least until the still-thriving Bosco's Comics & Cards opened up in mid-1984 in Spenard).

The comic itself? I have only read it by hand thrice: once when I first got it, once when I first bagged and boarded it a couple of years later, and the third time just the other day, when I switched it to new mylar and a protective case. Surprisingly, for a cover that has always looked like it was hand-dipped in Wesson oil personally by Florence Henderson, the inside pages and the color on them are still holding up quite well.

What is it worth now? Why haven't I graded it? How did I get so lucky to have a lifelong pal like Tony? The answers: 1) Don't care, because I will never sell it; 2) Because of the answer to the first question; and 3) Don't know. I guess you had to be there.

Thor's Day Flashback: The Avengers #67

Another Thursday, another Avengers cover from my collection. This one is from August 1967, when I was not yet three years old (technically, the comic actually came out a couple of months before that, so I was even younger).

The issue has the team in combat with that Ultron guy. Some of you may have now heard of him, or at least the version from the movies. The one in the comics was actually created initially by Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym (the original Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, etc.)

Of course, I did not own or even read this issue until many, many years later when I picked it up at the regular flea markets that were held in the old Anchorage Sports Arena. Got this comic for $3, which seemed exorbitant at that time (but only because I was buying about 50 other comics off the guy for the same price). I would really like to go back in time with about a thousand bucks and clean that booth out. The person who owned that booth would probably like it too.