This was a departure from our usual Saturday pizza and bad movie fare, a Western with some supernatural flavor. Not to give too much away, but the bad guys got their comeuppance in spades. Or lead.
Plot:
In the beginning (not the last biblical reference to come), two things are happening. First, a group of men rides horses hell-for-leather. Second, another group of men pans for gold in a small stream someplace in California sometime after the Civil War. In the camp of the latter, a woman named Sarah Wheeler (Carrie Snodgress) hangs up laundry. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, Megan ((Sydney Penny), runs after her dog, calling, “Lindsey!” Megan wears long braids. A dog starts barking.
This will not end well.
The hell-for-leather group descends on the guys trying to mine and tears their camp apart. For good measure, one of them shoots and kills Lindsey in front of Megan. The only other fatality is Megan’s grandfather, whose heart gives out, so there’s no sense going to the law.
The raiders ride off.
Megan buries her dog and prays for a miracle. “If you don’t help us, we’re all gonna die,” she tells God.
The viewer then sees a tall man (Clint Eastwood) on a white mottled horse riding through the countryside.
After the raid, Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty), the claim owner, takes the wagon into town for supplies. A couple of people tell him he’s stupid. He ignores them.
In town, he picks up some supplies—the dry goods store owners generously extend him credit again—and loads up his wagon. Thugs from a mining concern that wants Barret’s land surround him and pick up wooden ax (?) handles propped up outside the store. One of them notices the same tall stranger on a white mottled horse at the end of the street, who quickly vanishes. They beat the daylights out of Barret. As one is about to set fire to the goods the poor man has just bought, someone douses the firebug with a barrel of water.
The man on the white horse tells him, “You shouldn’t play with matches.” He picks the last ax handle. The roughs descend on him but soon find themselves in a bleeding, moaning pile.
The stranger rides off. Barret follows him, expressing gratitude, and offers him hospitality—“three hots and a cot.”
Inside his room in Barret’s cabin, the stranger takes his shirt to wash his face. Barret catches a glimpse of his back, which bears six marks looking like gunshot wound scars. How did he survive this?
The stranger comes dressed for dinner in a preacher’s clothing. Everyone calls him “Preacher” after that. After a tour of the camp in the morning and assurances that Barret’s claim is legal, that the other miner is trying to run him off, he asks Barret to put him to work.
Thoughts:
The “pale rider” refers to one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, death. This is reinforced by Megan reading the Bible passage in question to her mother just as Barret brings the Preacher to the camp. “Now fetch me butter and syrup,” Mrs. Wheeler says.
The body count is quite high in this flick. Preacher barely works up a sweat. At times, he seems almost to teleport. In one scene, he sits atop his horse while a train passes between him and the viewer. Once the train passes from view, only empty plains remain.
Who is the Preacher? The viewer receives some answers by the end of the movie, but not all.
While the Preacher gets to utter some cute, pithy sayings, one of the best scenes goes to Megan. As she’s burying Lindsey, she recites Psalm 23 but adds her own thoughts along the way:
“’The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want’—But I do want. ‘He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul’—But they killed my dog. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil’—But I am afraid. ‘Thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me’—We need a miracle. ‘Thy loving kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life’—If you exist. ‘And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever’—But I’d like to get more of this life first. If you don’t help us, we’re all gonna die. Please. Just one miracle. Amen.”
This is a traditional Western. A hero comes by to help save a little guy from a rich guy who has corrupted all authority in town. The supernatural elements, which are never completely explained, are a new twist on an old story. Is Preacher the miracle Megan prayed for? Is he something else? Is he really a preacher? Maybe he’s a reformed gunslinger? Maybe he’s a ghost?
Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart ), the miner trying to run the group off their claim, is disappointed to hear there’s a man of faith with the “tin-pans,” as the bad guys contemptuously refer to our heroes. A man of faith can give them faith and bind them together. He tries to bribe, corrupt, and intimidate Preacher.
Preacher doesn’t save the day in the old-fashioned way. He has his own score to settle, one that perhaps involves the six scars on his back. He offers help, but it is up to the miners to take care of themselves.
Preacher tells him that a man can’t serve God and Mamon and adds, “Mamon being money.”
I don’t know why the line struck me so funny. I doubt anyone intended it such. It seemed so out of place, aimed more at an audience who hadn’t been to Sunday school in a while, if at all.
The big fly in the ointment for me about the movie was women, including underage Megan Wheeler, throwing themselves at Preacher. To his credit, he declines all offers, but what on earth is the attraction—outside of novelty? ICK
There is a good deal of violence in this—some of it rather graphic—including a lot of death and an attempted rape. I’m guessing that the latter is responsible for the movie’s “R” rating. There is no sex, and if there is any nudity, it was too brief for me to notice.
The Western Writers of America awarded the 1986 Spur Award to the movie for Best Screenplay. I agree; this is one of the more intriguing movies I’ve seen in a long time. Sydney Penny received a 1986 Exceptional Performance by a Young Actress – Motion Picture for her portrayal of Megan Wheeler. The film was 1985 a nominee for Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
While I generally don’t like Westerns, I enjoyed this movie. It left a lot for the viewer to interpret, even with the “Mamon being money” line.
Title: Pale Rider (1985)
Directed by
Clint Eastwood
Writing Credits
Michael Butler…(written by) &
Dennis Shryack…(written by)
Cast (in credits order)
Clint Eastwood…Preacher
Michael Moriarty…Hull Barret
Carrie Snodgress…Sarah Wheeler
Chris Penn…Josh LaHood (as Christopher Penn)
Richard Dysart…Coy LaHood
Sydney Penny…Megan Wheeler
Released: 1985
Rated: R
Length: 1 hour, 55 minutes
Review of “The Roman Way” by Edith Hamilton
The Stuff: The author wishes to portray Roman culture and character based on the writings of Roman poets and playwrights. Despite her awareness that this strategy leaves out vast swaths of the Roman world, including women, slaves, artisans, and the disadvantaged, she confines her study to the lettered, leisured male.
Proceeding roughly chronologically, she begins with two early comedic playwrights, Plautus and Terence. Never heard of them? Never fear.
“The comedy of each age,” Hamilton writes, “holds up a mirror to the people of that age.”
I hope that two thousand years from now, sociologists/historians don’t watch sitcoms and think they have anything to do with the reality of the present day.
She discusses Cicero at length, Horace’s odes to the good life, the tortured love poetry of Catullus for his ”Lesbia,” and Juvenal’s biting Satires.
Of course, this is not everything, but these are the long poles in the tent.
Thoughts:
Using these, and other writings, particularly of the Stoics, Hamilton compares and contrasts the Roman character with the Greek. Both fought many wars. In Greek literature, no one wants to die—fair enough. Romans, on the other hand, are all too willing to die. No Greek would have written anything like “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (“Sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.”), but the Roman Horace did.
Another topic she discusses at length is the differences between the “classic” and the “romantic” Romans. The classic Romans adhere to facts and measurable things. The romantic Romans indulge in the poetic and the not-quite-so-literally-true.
Hamilton acknowledges that Rome was at war for most of its existence and indulged in the games, where condemned people or professionals were killed for public amusement. One of Rome’s great legacies is law and a sense of justice.
“The little town on the seven hills conquered the other little towns around because her citizens could obey orders,” Hamilton writes.
…maybe.
It is tough for me to recommend this or pitch against the wall. I enjoyed reading this. There is a lot of good information, and the quick survey of centuries of Latin literature was engaging. Still, I can’t get around Hamilton’s outdated thinking and conclusions.
So. A conditional recommendation. If you’re interested in classical literature, yes. And take Hamilton’s musings cum grānō salis (with a grain of salt).
Bio: Edith Hamilton (1867-1963) was an American classist and educator specializing in the teaching of Latin. Her books, especially The Greek Way and The Roman Way, popularized classical culture. They were written in a style easily accessible to the everyday reader.
Title: The Roman Way
Author: Edith Hamilton (1867-1963)
First published: 1932
Review of “The Uninvited” (1944)
This was an enjoyable Saturday night pizza and bad movie flick for more reasons than no ghoulies popped out of a toilet. It was an old-fashioned haunted house story about the ghosts of those who have taken the lifetime squabbles beyond the grave and aren’t too concerned about who gets hurt.
Plot:
While on vacation on the Devonshire Coast in 1937, brother and sister Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald (Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey) come across an empty house that reminds them of their childhood home. On the spur of the moment, they decide to buy it.
They first meet the owner’s granddaughter, Stella Meredith (Gail Russell), who welcomes them until they tell her they want to buy the old house known as Windward. She assures them it’s not for sale and practically kicks them out.
The owner, Commander Beech (Donald Crisp), arrives and proves only too happy to sell them the house for well below what it’s worth. He mentions “disturbances” tenants have complained about.
Roderick and Pamela brush off the ghost stories.
Now that they have keys, Rod and Pam unlock a room at the top of the house and find a painter’s studio, with a skylight and large windows to a view of the sea below. Rod, a music critic, decides he can use the room to compose. Both he and Pam feel uncomfortable in the empty room, however, and leave.
Rod runs across Stella in town. She tells him that she’s now happy he and Pam are in the house. Her mother would not want her to resent them. Rod knows that Stella’s mother is long deceased. Stella clarified that she has a portrait of her mother. He invites her to go boating rather than run errands for her grandfather.
He is clearly infatuated with her and invites her to dinner in a few weeks once he returns from London and everything is settled at the house. She happily agrees.
When Rod returns with their maid Lizzie Flynn (Barbara Everest), he’s pleased with what his sister has done with the house, but their dog has run off. The dog wouldn’t stay in the place.
In the middle of the night, he hears a woman crying. He gets up. Pam meets him. She says it happens frequently and ends at dawn. She’s never been able to find anything.
After the goings-on, Lizzie Flynn packs her bags and her cat, Whiskey. She will not stay another night in the house.
Thoughts:
This was originally a novel written by Dorothy Macardle. It is moody, gothic, and also funny, with beautiful scenes of the coast. I don’t know how closely the movie adheres to the book.
The house itself is lovely. Anyone could see why an artist (Stella’s father) or a composer like Rod would like it. The studio is lit by natural light—which is good because the house has no electricity.
The commander wishes to protect Stella. He sees malignant forces in the house wishing her ill. Stella is not convinced, believing the house haunted by the presence of the mother who loved her and died by falling off a cliff when she herself was only three. She will not be frightened and goes to dinner at Windward with the Fitzgeralds.
Things are not quite as they seem, of course. While the mystery becomes easy enough to see through, this old-fashioned haunted house flick was engaging and fun. Not all of it made sense. The question of why the studio was such an uncomfortable place is never answered. Perhaps it is in the book.
I liked it.
The film was a 1945 Oscar Nominee for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.
I could not find it for free download. It is available on YouTube to rent or purchase.
There is a 2009 film by the same name, but is doesn’t appear to be anything like this one.
Title: The Uninvited (1944)
Directed by
Lewis Allen
Writing Credits
Dodie Smith…(screen play) and
Frank Partos…(screen play)
Dorothy Macardle…(novel)
Cast (in credits order)
Ray Milland…Roderick Fitzgerald
Ruth Hussey…Pamela Fitzgerald
Donald Crisp…Cmdr. Beech
Cornelia Otis Skinner…Miss Holloway
Dorothy Stickney…Miss Bird
Barbara Everest…Lizzie Flynn
Released: 1944
Length: 1 hour, 39 minutes
Review of ““And So It Goes”: Adventures in Television” by Linda Ellerbee
The Stuff:
This is a memoir/autobiography by American journalist Linda Ellerbee, covering her years in television up till the mid-80s. She describes her times as a Washington correspondent for NBC and an anchor on a late-news magazine program called Overnight, among other things.
She discusses little of her private life but focuses on the professional. Amusing and irreverent little vignettes fill the narrative. The opening lines set the tone for much of what follows:
I wouldn’t mind writing one of those books about the good old days—how I went out into the land and committed journalism, covering the important stories, every one of them, everywhere, better than anyone—but the thing about lying is that unless you’re a political candidate or a network vice president, you’ve got to set yourself some limits and hold fast.
She further states that the book isn’t about television news.
“All I mean to do here is to tell a few good stories.”
Thoughts:
This is the first of Ellerbee’s three memoirs/autobiographies. It takes place before she contracted breast cancer and became a patient advocate. She is about forty at the end of the book.
Ellerbee confesses to mistakes, some of which are amusing in themselves, even if she suffers rather drastic consequences for them. One that stands out early in the book is what she refers to as “the Letter.”
In 1972, the Dallas AP where she worked had just purchased some spiffy new word-processing equipment. Ellerbee wrote a “chatty” letter to a friend that contained juicy gossip. She did NOT hit “send,” which would have sent the potentially libelous letter out over the AP network. She printed it out to mail to her friend. However, she did not erase it but sent it to a holding queue.
The next morning, AP showed off its spiffy new word-processing equipment to people from NASA and other places. Someone saw her letter ready to send and sent it out over the AP network.
“I was fired,” Ellerbee writes, “only because the AP legal department told them it was absolutely against the law to shoot me no matter how good an idea it might be.”
What arises from these stories, however, is a profoundly cynical worldview. Ellerbee admits she got into journalism because, alone and with two children to care for, she needed money. There was no “calling,” per se. Needing money is a powerful motivator, IMHO, particularly if you have children depending on you. That doesn’t mean you view your job with any less professionalism.
Some of her stories are great. The book is entertaining. I wish it left me feeling a little less like I’d read a noir novel, however.
Title: “And So It Goes”: Adventures in Television
Author: Linda Ellerbee
First published: 1986
Flash Fiction Published: “Fae: Three Views”
It happens seldom enough that I have to brag about it.
An on-line magazine called Quail Bell published a flash fiction piece of mine titled “Fae: Three Views.”
It begins:
“She had a duty to warn—to let the family know. And sure, old Patrick was failing. His passing could be no surprise, yet, she had her duty.
Fae left her home in the hills, abandoning—for the moment—her work.”
The rest of it can be read here:
Review of “Ghoulies II” (1987)
We’re still on delayed viewing with Svengoolie because of our bout of Covid. I’m enjoying it—the delayed viewing. Covid was wretched. We zip through commercials and get to choose an earlier start time, which leads, of course, to an earlier bedtime. There is indeed a silver lining to every cloud.
And then there’s this movie…
Plot:
A priest (Anthony Dawson) runs through the woods carrying a bag with something squirming inside. Three men in red robes—could they be Satan-worshippers?—chase him. The priest breaks the glass on a door in a closed car repair place and ducks inside. The three Satan-worshippers run by, look in, and decide no one is around. He notices a frothing open barrel marked “TOXIC.” All the cool car repair places have them, so they say.
The priest thanks God for the opportunity to destroy demons and dumps his bag’s contents into the barrel. Out of nowhere, a flying demon knocks him into the barrel.
In the meantime, our hero Larry (Damon Martin) is driving with his soused Uncle Ned (Royal Dano). The radiator in their truck needs water. Larry uses the CB to call ahead to the carnival where they’re headed to let them know they’re having mechanical difficulties and may be late.
Uncle Ned and Larry run the “Satan’s Den” house of horrors at the carnival. Their truck has a banner to this effect, complete with drawings of horrors and some goofy-looking things that bear a striking resemblance to the ghoulies.
Of all the repair joints in all the towns in the world, Uncle Ned and Larry pull into the one where the demons are swimming in toxic waste. The hair on one demon is dry. A red-tinted human skull floated with them.
After ascertaining that the place is closed, Larry gets water. Uncle Ned walks around. The ghoulies/demons break the lock in the back of the truck and move in. They’re going to the carnivals.
The next day, little person Sir Nigel Penneyweight (Phil Fondacaro) works at the carnival gate as P. Hardin (J. Downing) drives up. Sir Nigel is an actor who quotes Shakespeare. Hardin is a member of the family who owns the carnival—and the business accountant. He wants to meet everyone and tell them that if they don’t start bringing in the receipts, he’s going to let them go, and that includes Satan’s Den.
Yeah, bad guy.
Thoughts:
This movie had nothing to do with the first in plot or characters. One could easily understand it without having watched part one. Or, one could easily go about the day without watching either.
As soon as they set up shop in Satan’s Den, the ghoulies murder one of the dancers, Patty (Ames Morton). Patty thinks she hears her lost cat, Muffy, meowing in Satan’s Den. It is a cat (?) ghoulie. The ghoulies dress Patty up to look like a prop mummy.
This follows one of the many tacky exchanges of dialogue.
Patty: Have you seen my little Muffy?
Zampano, the strong man (Romano Puppo): Who hasn’t?
Patty: I mean my kitten, musclehead!
Muffy’s fate is never discussed.
It’s all fun and games, of course. The kids who go to the House of Horrors take the ghoulies for props and think they’re cool. They tell their friends. One spoilsport gets upset when a ghoulie breaks his boom box (“My tunes!”). The ghoulies vomit on people. I guess they must have seen The Exorcist.
I laughed once throughout the whole movie. A ghoulie was at the shooting gallery, shooting at two other ghoulies who were ducking between the various targets. It was just goofy. A shortened version is in the trailer, so if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen (IMHO) the best part of the movie.
The big improvement over the first movie is that the ghoulies appear for a while as stop-action figures in addition to puppets. The writers give the viewer some less-than-credible character development. And, of course, the evil green baby ghoulie crawls out of a toilet, much to the detriment of a deserving individual.
We get hints of a sequel—which I’m not going to watch.
Altogether, I can’t say I enjoyed this movie. It wasn’t as much mean-spirited—though there was a bit of that—as it was just empty.
I couldn’t find it available for free download. You have to pay to see this turkey. I advise buying yourself a cup of coffee and reading a book you enjoy.
Title: Ghoulies II (1987)
Directed by
Albert Band
Writing Credits
Charlie Dolan…(story)
Dennis Paoli…(screenplay)
Luca Bercovici…(characters) (uncredited)
Cast (in credits order)
Damon Martin…Larry
Royal Dano…Uncle Ned
Phil Fondacaro…Sir Nigel Penneyweight
J. Downing…P. Hardin
Kerry Remsen…Nicole
Released: 1987
Length: 1 hour, 29 minutes
Rated: PG-13
Review of “Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter”
The Stuff:
This is a biography of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a boxer who was wrongfully convicted along with his friend, John Artis, of a 1966 triple homicide in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. Carter and Artis were convicted twice and finally exonerated in 1985 in a federal court.
The book follows not only his legal but his personal and spiritual struggles.
Thoughts:
The book does not depict Carter as a saint. Author James Hirsch says in his epilogue that he told Carter he would write the book only if he could “walk through any door in his life and write” what he found “good or bad.” The book is frank about Carter’s violence and juvenile convictions for purse theft and mugging, as well as his later alcoholism. However, it shows him changing, learning, and growing.
Author James Hirsch writes like the journalist he is (Wall Street Journal and New York Times). The book begins with an incident that led Carter to get in touch with a group of people who helped him on his journey to freedom, then describes Paterson, New Jersey, where the crime occurred in the 1960s.
Hirsch tells a fascinating, sad, tragic, but ultimately triumphant story. No one can restore the years lost, the time away from family, the lost careers, the health problems, or anything else.
In prison, Carter began reading such authors as psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl and Hermann Hesse.
In an often-quoted passage from a press conference Carter gave after his final release, he sums his feelings up (in part):
“After all that’s been said and done—the fact that the most productive years of my life, between the ages of twenty-nine and fifty, have been stolen; the fact that I was deprived of seeing my children grow up—wouldn’t you think I would have a right to be bitter?… If I have learned nothing else in my life, I’ve learned that bitterness only consumes the vessel that contains it.”
He does not minimize the injury, nor does he forgive it. He gets on with life, becomes involved in projects for other wrongfully convicted people, and works as a motivational speaker.
This was an engaging and interesting read.
The book was published in 2000. Carter passed away in 2014 of prostate cancer.
Bio: According to the jacket blurb, author James S. Hirsch worked as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. This book above is his first book, but he has since written Riot and Remembrance about the Tulsa race riots and biographies of Ty Cobb and the Beach Boys.
Title: Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter
Author: James S. Hirsch
First published: 2000
Review of “Ghoulies” 1984
We’re still watching these a week behind schedule, catching up from our Covid sleep-in. It’s nice to watch these on delayed viewing, fast-forward through the commercials, and go to bed early. I don’t know if it’s the summer heat, the Covid hangover, native laziness, or a combination of the three, but staying awake is harder than when I was a month younger.
Plot:
The warlock Malcolm Graves (Michael Des Barres) performs a ritual in a basement before assembled followers. The ritual will culminate in the stabbing death of his son, Jonathan (Jamie Bronow), but—like Clytemnestra before her—the child’s mother (Victoria Catlin) objects. Unlike Clytemnestra, the mother is sacrificed in the child’s place, while a follower, Wolfgang (Jack Nance), takes the baby and leaves at the orders of Malcolm. Wolfgang tells the baby he is safe.
Some years later, Jonathan Graves (Peter Liapis), all grown up now, inherits the old house and moves in with his girlfriend, Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan). The house is in shambles, with cobwebs, dust, and peeling paint. Wolfgang, who raised Jonathan, is the groundskeeper or something.
While cleaning up, Jonathan finds a suitcase in the basement with robes and books of magic. He gets curious.
He decides they should have a party. After dinner, Jonathan entertains their guests by summoning a spirit in the basement. It’s a bust. He calls after the departing partygoers, “Wait! I have to dismiss the spirit.”
Mist gathers around the triangle where the spirit was supposed to appear. A rat-like being stands in the triangle, then takes off to cause mayhem.
Jonathan gets better at the demon-summoning thing. He wants his demons to remain invisible to his friends and Rebecca. Something stirs in the grave he and Rebecca noticed when they first arrived.
Thoughts:
The demons are not frightening but misbehaved and ugly, taking baths in soups while Jonathan and Rebecca’s guests eat dinner, for instance. The claim to fame of this flick is a green-skinned evil baby demon crawling out of the toilet with the tagline, “They’ll get you in the end.”
The humor is juvenile. I can accept juvenile humor, but the are so many places in this flick that logic takes a lunch break, I couldn’t buy it.
When Jonathan tells Rebecca he’s going to drop out of school to work on the house, she’s nearly reached her limit. After Jonathan neglects everything for magic and his eyes start glowing green, she leaves.
What does a budding warlock do? He summons demons to bring her back, whether she wants to come or not.
But set all that aside. In the meantime, the demons, now answering to resurrected zombie Malcolm, are happy to create terror and mayhem throughout the house.
Malcolm supposedly wanted to sacrifice baby Jonathan to obtain his youth, soooo, Malcolm wanted to become a baby initially? Wasn’t the youth of Jonathan’s mother enough? She wasn’t much older than Jonathan is now, and Malcolm has been dead for a while. So how much is he gaining by killing Jonathan now? Wouldn’t he be better off killing another baby? Or maybe getting a mani-pedi?
There are some amusing scenes with the stoner partygoers, but these are all window dressing. This is a silly, puerile movie. To borrow a phrase, mostly harmless.
Title: Ghoulies (1984)
Directed by
Luca Bercovici
Writing Credits
Luca Bercovici…(written by) &
Jefery Levy…(written by)
Cast (in credits order)
Peter Liapis…Jonathan Graves
Lisa Pelikan…Rebecca
Michael Des Barres…Malcolm Graves
Jack Nance…Wolfgang
Peter Risch…Grizzel
Tamara De Treaux…Greedigut
Released: 1984
Length: 1 hour, 21 minutes
Rated: PG-13
Review of “The Car” 1977
Recovering from “mild” cases of Covid, the dearly beloved and I watched this silly movie last night. We’re doing a lot better, mostly coughing up an occasional lung and sleepy. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, though.
Plot:
The film opens with a reworked “Dies Irae,” “Day of Wrath” perhaps by Thomas of Celano, according to IMDB. There is also a quote by Church of Satan founder, Anton Lavey, “Oh great brothers of the night who rideth upon the hot winds of hell, who dwelleth in the Devil’s lair; move and appear.”
Other than sounding spooky, the quote has nearly nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Is the car driven by one of the great brothers of the night, riding on the hot winds of hell? It spooks around hallowed ground. Someone ought to have filled the local car washes will holy water. Maybe dropped a Eucharist into the radiator fluid. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Two innocent, wholesome young people (Joshua Davis and Melody Thomas Scott) ride bikes in the desert outside Santa Ynez. Out of nowhere, a sinister-looking black car, resembling a Lincoln Continental chases them, toying with them and terrorizing them before killing them.
Later, a hitchhiker (John Rubinstein) plays Grieg’s “Morning” on his French horn, much to the annoyance of homeowner Amos Clements (R.G. Armstrong) who is in the middle of thumping on his hapless wife, Bertha (Doris Dowling) and throwing her out of the house. A truck marked “Chekhov’s Gun”—I mean, “Explosives”—is parked in their driveway.
The French horn player protests the woman’s treatment but doesn’t get far. The couple goes back into the house. In the meantime, a wind kicks up, and the sinister black car comes barreling down the road. Thinking he has a ride, the hitchhiker sticks out his thumb. After the car drives by, he sticks out a different finger and hurls verbal abuse.
The car stops. It backs up—into and over the hapless hitchhiker several times.
Amos the wifebeater sees the goings-on and calls the police, like a good citizen.
In yet another part of town, police officer Wade Parent (James Brolin) is rising and saying goodbye to his girlfriend, school teacher Lauren Humphries (Kathleen Lloyd) before his two daughter Lynn Marie (Kim Richards) and Debbie (Kyle Richards ) get up. Little does he know, they’re both standing outside his door, listening to them.
On his way to the office, he’s summoned to the scene at the house of Amos, the wifebeater. Amos swears he saw the whole thing, but all he can tell them about the car is that it’s black.
Thoughts:
It’s hard for one who spent Saturday mornings watching cartoons back in the days of yore to watch a rising trail of dust on a desert road and not hear BEEP BEEP or see a humiliated coyote falling off a cliff edge holding up a sign that says MOTHER.
Duel obviously influenced this movie. There is never any reason for this car to be out killing people. (It’s evil, and that’s what evil cars do? Yeah, that makes sense.) The one exception is a person who taunted it, calling it, among other things, “chicken shit” and revealing its one weakness. This person pissed it off.
The taunting is one of the best scenes in the movie.
But the bicyclists? The hitchhiker? Nah, they were just there and vulnerable.
The viewer sees the car’s worldview when the screen is tinted orange.
The credits roll over a hint at a sequel. Or the need to fear the evil car out there hunting us all down.
This was silly. There was some intended comic relief. A fellow teacher shows Lauren a nude picture one of her students drew of her. She discusses the student’s perspective.
Not an awful movie, but not something I’d watch again soon.
This movie can be watched for free here:
Title: The Car (1977)
Directed by
Elliot Silverstein
Writing Credits
Dennis Shryack…(screenplay) &
Michael Butler…(screenplay) and
Lane Slate…(screenplay)
Dennis Shryack…(story) &
Michael Butler…(story)
Cast (in credits order)
James Brolin…Wade Parent
Kathleen Lloyd…Lauren Humphries
John Marley…Everett Peck
R.G. Armstrong…Amos Clements (as R. G. Armstrong)
John Rubinstein…John Morris
Released: 1977
Length: 1 hour, 36 minutes
Rated: PG
Review of “Reading Like a Writer” by Francine Prose
In discussing writing workshops and classes, author Francine Prose writes, “But that class, as helpful as it was, was not where I learned to write. Like most—maybe all—writers, I learned to write by writing and by example, by reading books.” (p .2)
But using what the author calls “close reading,” a writer can learn various techniques to translate the author’s imagination into words and images that capture the reader’s attention.
Prose uses a wide variety of examples of mostly classic but some modern books, such as Scott Spencer (b. 1945). The chapters are arranged by topic: sentences, paragraphs, narration, character, dialogue, details, gesture, learning from Chekhov, and reading for courage.
The author offers a list of “Books to be Read Immediately.” These include the expected: Alcott’s Little Women and Austin’s Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. It also includes a few I didn’t expect, like Tolstaya’s Sleepwalker in a Fog. One that came out of left field (IMHO) is Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. To be charitable, it makes War and Peace look like a beach read. One might start it immediately, but finishing would take a while. Maybe it was there to see if people were paying attention.
Thoughts:
While her selections and descriptions are short, this was like talking to a fellow book nerd from page one. Not all the samples were ones I enjoyed—The Great Gatsby? EWW—but several of them I had read. It was like talking to old friends again. Reading the ones I didn’t know was like being introduced to new friends.
She chose illustrations well.
At the same time, the author shows her vulnerability in the chapter “Learning from Chekhov.” At a time when she’s teaching a class on writing, she’s reading Chekhov’s short stories that seem to prove her wrong. Are there rules to writing? In any event, she doesn’t take herself too seriously.
I won’t say there weren’t dull bits in this book, but overall, I enjoyed it and would recommend it to any book nerd interested in learning to write or to write better.
Title: Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Them
Author: Francine Prose
First published: 2006
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