As our frau and ourselves boarded our gondola in the rising waters of the Venice(Italy)canals
the left handed oarsman guiding the boat toward Ben Hurs heroics at the Coliseum as portrayed by Charlton Heston in Willie Wylers madcap of a chariot chase...thousands of years ago when the Roman legions dominated our arid plains.
II
the left handed oarsman guiding the boat toward Ben Hurs heroics at the Coliseum as portrayed by Charlton Heston in Willie Wylers madcap of a chariot chase...thousands of years ago when the Roman legions dominated our arid plains.
II
Recapitulating those cinematic yesterdays, growing up in Hollywoods company town,, down aways from the Bel Air Hotel and Tiger Woods pretentious pars.....off Stone Canyon Road,... manicuring Sonny Tufts hilltop like loft in exchange for a Ucla freshmans think tank in his garage......private eye Michael Shaynes craft of a hack , Stanley Rauh, Monogram Studios sub lessor.
Mowing the lawn, trimming the bushes, maintaining the bathroom with spick and spunk,giving the premises a cyber space guest house warmth..... bringing out Sonnys angst and binges with Jack Daniels scotch rye brandy vodka as he did battle with his unconscious playing out on those croquet tennis putting court & greens on adjoining status seeking Bellagio Road estates.
Living South of Wilshire in Beverly Hills,screamed Danny Fuchs, screen writer extraordinaire, caught up in the Lonely Crowd of Hollywoods caste system.
The same Bellagio where Dutch and Nancy endured during his 8 year stint in his role of splendor and appearances at the White House and supply side economics.......later weapons of mass destruction by another White House occupant... ,cannon fodder au contraire, jetting on an aircraft carrier God is my co pilot, playing out.....
Dont jump to conclusions,cried Charlie Sheens press agent.Its all about reality and appearances, he scribbled on his web site Let the chips fall where they may, he said, putting a Randolph Scott frosting to his 21st century pronouncements of our dumbed down pop culture: drained out celebs with their significant insignificant gigs...
Where art thou Pat OBrien? Of entertainment tonight the Gippers coach at Notre Dame?
Win one for the Gipper. cried Pat OBrien (Knute Rockne) unhke Vince Lombardi a quarter of a century later at Green Bay. .....the Italian determinism in its Irish wake.
III
Living in one of those palatial Bellagio Road manors was Hitch...Alfred Hitchcock ,the filn auteur ....a genius way ahead of his breathen... those smart money boys whose thinking placed a cloud over our bailed out system in which Hitch his wife and daughter flourished during the 30's 40's 50's........into the sixties...Alfred Hitchcock presents at Universal Citys tee vee.,,,,,
IV
Stanley Rauh had floundered in the B studio tombs for what may have seemed like solitary confinement but his players of melodramatic plots eschewing the post depression food stamps and mickeys before World War 2 were Lloyd Nolan, Richard Denning Jeff Chandler as red haired Irish private eyes dealing in who dun its
Carole Landis Mary Beth Hughes Francis Langford (before Hope Hope Hope Vera Vague, Jerry Colonna)..Spring Byington Arlene Whelan Lynn Bari.,their male counterparts William Demerest the Cisco Kid Caesar Romero Dick Tracys Ralph Byrd Lew Ayres George Montgomery Paul Kelly...., a Laurel&Hardy chemistry whose test tube never bubbled..
Sol Wurtzel, a Daryl Zanuck alter ego at 20th century later, holding the air turbos afloat...temperaments needing a strong hand to churn out those black and white
cheapies under scene stealing inevitabilities, happy endings to be espoused
across town at Louis B Mayers Culver City lots......
Notwithstanding Mack Sennetts absurdity on the back lot, Felix Adler and Frank Capra cranking out their comedic capers.....
Meanwhile at Musso&Frank...a Hollywood Boulevard watering hole, Stanley Rose, the proprietor of the Satyr book store held high a check. Ten thousand big ones, peoples...Louie B. An option on Saroyans Human Comedy
An original named Sonny Tufts stepped up to the grill. Is there a part for me? Ill do whatever it takes.
Drinks on the house, he cried , the euphoia sweeping over his embattled Holy Grail coming to grips with his unconscious.
V
Across town at Pershing Square Park ....two stalwarts of the starry eyed industry without breaking a syllable and their unlisted phone numbers long before the digital age and computer printed animation took hold, the former film editor from across the pond, Alfred Hitchcock strode in his storied flow with the likes of his Bellagio Road neighbor, Archie Leach aka Cary Grant.
What they were pursuing in their flow neither was capricious nor dynamic, their quiet minds into capturing four scenarios down the road.
First, Suspicion Archie or the sophisticated Mr. Grant beholden to his wife Joan Fontaine.a match made not in Heaven but in the ulteriors of her unconscious
Second, Notorious wtih Archie oh my goodness hes no longer on the Coney Island boardwalk. Walking on stilts, the flaps adveretising a keg of beer for fifty cents, the other placard Hebrew National knishes and franks a nickel a pickle, the delicatesn adjoining Jimmy Durantes saloon, he thumping the eighty eight keys while his partner in suds... Eddie Jackson.. stood at the cash register.
Third, Notorious, with the stately Ingrid Bergman and the cool quiet minded Claude Rains pitted against the suave Archie now become fixed in his psyche as Randolph Scotts Bellagio Road roommate, the two larger than life noir actors sharing the same space.
Finally North by Northwest, the debonair Cary Grant suspected of being a Ben Laden in disguise, machined gunned at a cross roads in the desert, his moving target ratcheted down by the ammo,... hunkered down. awaiting a Holy Grail rescue from Eva Marie Saint.
Princess Grace, still a commoner named Grace Kelly arriving on the scene To catch a thief
VI
Who could imagine the portly film editor Hitch become a man of accomplishment in four decades...as an urchin raised in those Jesuit schools, a victim of his sadist like father sending him off to jail, the constables heeding the old mans charges that Alfy had committed some offence that merited jail time, those miscues appearing in the suspenseful concoctions he and his collaborators served up
Knowing he was an auteur with his own creative vision as charactered by Francois Trauffaut , he and his scribes Ernest Lehman and John Michael Hayes ... orchestrated by Bernard Hermann..Duke Wayne having Elmer Bernstein, Jack L preoccupied with Max Steiner, Charlie Chaplin with David Raksin.....
VII
Getting a break in film advertising, he was hired in runaway German films in Munich, No splash in the wind, his next role as a film editor for the silent Lodger(a Laird Cregar 20th century flick) directing Secret agent with Peter Lorre.
Those scenarios didnt blow anyone away....but his quiet presence of mind attracted notice. Whether it was J. Arthur Rank, he was given ...The Lady Vanishes, Dame May Witty in the third class compartment who vanishes during the European cross country trip, a planted Macguffin of a clue, giving rise to phoney suspicions, among the non speaking English passengers..
And our favorite the 39 steps where Hitch with his fetish of spiked heels, employed Madelaine Carrol as the sultry Mata Hari: ... handcuffed to Robert Donat, the suspenseful chase across the Scottish moors.... the pinky finger missing spys manor.
Earlier on a West End music hall stage..... Tell us Mister Memory, where are the secrets to the bomb? asked a dialect fused tongue from the orchestra, a shot ringing out...Mister Memory falling.
VII
David Selznick got wind of Hitchs suspenseful adventures, brought him and his wife to Hollywood, he never embracing the assembly line of scenarios.... the once abused student at the hands of his dominating Dad, went his own way.
Rebecca Jamaica Inn Shadow of a doubt Lifeboat..Foreign Correspondent, a favorite with Joel McCrea Rope Dial M for Murder Rear Window Psycho Torn Curtain Birds Spellbound The Paradine Case
Vertigo Strangers on a train Topaz The mas who knew too much Trouble with Harry Stage Fright To Catch a Thief
The scenarios feeding the audience with just so much information, as an Agatha Christie mystery, mirrowed by bridge openings and spread points...Would you like some more tea,, my Lady? asked Jack the Ripper as the genteel Lodger, his unsuspecting victim(s) to kingdom done..
******
The left handed oarsman leaped from the gondola, the boat swerving in those Venetian waters, two spies coming in from the cold .... swallowed up by its swirling waves........
......glub.....glub....glub..........
Venice, Italy, December 28, 2009.....
