2012-07-31

The vicious circle

Based on an old story of Anton Chekhov

An elderly government physician Bevers, who had entered the civil service even before WWIII, and XKV, his emotibot who had taken a melancholy turn, were on their way to an autopsy. They were cruising at low altitude along an indirect but scenic route. The winter night was dark and the snow was gently swirling down.



On the snow planet, Alderan-Taygeta.

Released cc-by-nc-nd by Brian Samuels.

"It's vile, this planet!" Bevers said. "There's no civilization, `bots everywhere you turn, and nothing but fowl weather! To think that this is a United Worlds territory. The snow ... the snow! As though it were being paid to pour on us. Go faster XKV or I'll scrap you for parts, you giant tin can!"

A `bot craft flashed by them going in the opposite direction. XKV beeped at them in a friendly way.

"Although I am programmed to mimic emotions, I do not feel this weather as you do. However, I do feel a sense of dread, as though we or someone close to us may die at any
time," the `bot said.

"You ought to be feeling ashamed, talking like an old woman as you do. Program yourself to drive faster get us out of this weather. I cannot go on with this snow. It's the worst! We must stop and rest up. Who lives on this rock that I know?"

"Searching data-banks ... connecting ... please wait ... searching ... Martin Bell."

"Martin, that old bastard! I haven't visited him in a long time. Head for Bell's place."

"Recomputing trajectory ... "

They banked and then flew over frozen ice-covered hills and thick monsterous forests and deep raging rivers.



Frozen ice-covered hills on Alderan-Taygeta.

Released cc-by-sa by Futurilla.

They landed in a large courtyard of Judge Bell's estate. The light posts turned on automatically as their craft set down.

"He's in!" Bevers said, seeing the lights from Bell's snow-covered light posts.



The view of Bell's estate.

Released cc-by-sa by Futurilla.

On landing, Bevers climbed down to the snow-covered ground and looked at the lit windows of the house of Martin Bell, judge of the district court of the Interplanetary Judicial System.

"This is a change for the better. We'll get some good hot food, you can run a circuit diagnostic while you recharge and I can get a decent night's sleep. Bell's a worthless fellow but friendly enough, you have to give him that. Don't record that."

"Deleting ... "

They walked up to the entrance and XKV emitted some beeps. The doorway lit up and beeped back. In a moment, it opened and Bell himself greeted them. He was a thin, old man with deep wrinkles on his face, a short white beard and a balding head.

"I was expecting you, Lee. Come in! You've come at the right moment, as we are just starting dinner. We're having fennebian steak, imported from Ancius-Alcyone. We have the assistant district councillor here. He has come out to fetch me, for we have to be in court tomorrow," Bell said. "The docket has been full for the past month."

Bevers and XKV entered the huge entrance hall. There were marble floors and balconies on either side.



The entrance of Bell's mansion.

Released cc-by-sa by Futurilla.

Off of one opening was a large dining hall. A large table was set with appetized and wines and ales. The manor was also occupied by the judge's daughter Madeline, who was in mourning for her husband, who died in a airbot crash recently. She wore a dark dress and had tired eyes. Next to her sat the assistant district councillor, Louston, a young man from Alderan-Taygeta with blue whiskers and thick viens in his neck.

"Maddie, are you acquinted with my old friend Dr. Bevers? Bevers, this is my daughter and this is Councillor Louston."

The young woman managed a smile, but her eyes did not. She extended her hand to Bevers.

"As you are freshly arrived," Bell said, pouring two drinks for Bevers, "you have some catching up to do! To our health!"

They downed their glasses and Bevers attacked the steak. XKV asked to be excused to recharge batteries and run diagnostic tests on its circuitry.

Bell poured more glasses. "The glasses are waiting! Doctor! Let us drink to medicine, and the power to keep us feeling young!"

They all fell into conversation, except the Councillor. It was obvious he did not think highly of the Doctor and his robot and their autopsy duty. The Doctor sat at the piano with Madeline and tried to cheer her up by playing a simple tune.

"You are on your way to an autopsy?" she asked. "To dissect a dead body? What courage that must take. I admire men with courage. My husband was very brave, may he rest in peace. Doctor is something bothering you?"

"I don't like this weather. My emotibot XKV feels a sense a dread, as though a loved one would die."

"I am afraid of flying, even though they say the airbots are safer than ever. My husband died two weeks ago in an airbot crash. Doctor, are you married? Do you have any children?"

"I have no one. XKV is my only friend, if you can call a robot a friend."

"You are lucky to have such a nice emotibot. This dread it reports could just be a malfunction.""

While the doctor and the widow were discussing emotibots, they finished several bottles. Bell and others were involved in a multi-player game involving lots of shouting and swearing, taking a break on occasion to get more food or drink. Hours passed as seconds. Suddenly, Bell realized that time was getting late and he had to be in court the next morning.

"What am we doing? This is horrible! In only a few more hours, we must set off for the court session and we are drinking and playing games! Maddie, time to sleep! To bed everyone, I declare our party adjourned."

Madeline wished the doctor a good night. "I have trouble sleeping these nights. The wind gusts knocking against my window, and I miss my husband terribly. You are lucky that you can sleep on a night like this."

"I can give you something to help you sleep, if you like," the doctor offered.

"No, thank you doctor, I'll go read myself to sleep with a good book. If the light from a lamp on the window sill is visible under my door in the hallway, then you will know I'm still awake."

In the room assigned to the doctor and XKV, there was a large comfortable bed. While XKV reported his diagnostics, Bevers got undressed and slipped under his covers.

"The diagnostics report a circuitry problem," XKV said.

"Fixable?"

"No, a controller board must be replaced. Inventory reports there are several in supply at the home base."

"Can it wait?" Bevers said, flipping onto his back and belching loudly.

"Yes."

Bevers squirmed restlessly in his bed and said, "I can't stop thinking about the widow."

"You're drunk," XKV said.

"She told me she had trouble sleeping and would be awake if I saw her reading light on from under her door. Do you think I should go knock on her door?"

"That's a stupid idea."


"You're a robot, how would you know?"

"I know {\it because} I am a robot. You are drunk. Go to sleep."

Bevers got up and started getting dressed, swearing at XKV as he did so. XKV moved in front of the door, blocking his exit.

"What the hell do you think you are going?"

"I'm not letting you pass. You're drunk."

"By what right do you have to stop me from talking to her, you tin can?"

"If you are arrested by the judge, I will be stuck here. My priority is to return to home base for repairs. You are an old man. She is a young woman."

"Damn you, I'm not old!"

"You're 60. She's 30. Use your head."

"I'll use my fists to smash you into bits, you tin can!"

"Titanium alloy. You will break your knuckles. It's happened before. If you have forgotten, I can replay the video."

"Uhmm ... "

"3D or 2D?"

"I remember. Don't play the video. I don't want to stay here any longer. Let's go home."

They packed up quietly and slipped down the long hallway past the light under Madeline's door, and out the front door. After dusting off the snow from their craft, they took off.



The flight away from Bell's estate on the snow planet, Alderan-Taygeta.

Released cc-by-nc-nd by Brian Samuels.

"What about the autopsy?"

"Some other time. I will not feel right until we are home. Do you still have the sense of dread you reported before?"

"Following the diagnostics, I turned off all related emotional sensors. Are you still thinking of the widow?"

"Yes, but when we get home I will be fine. Can you make this go faster?"

"Lovely female shapes are terrible complicators of the difficulties and dangers of this earthly life ... "

"Are you running through your database of quotations?" Bevers interuppted.

"Yes, I thought it would make you feel better. That was George du Maurier. Shall I continue?"

"Shut up."

XKV whirred a bit and a few of the indicator lights turned off. Several days went by silently during the interplanetary flight. Bevers busied himself by reading, watching videos, and isometric exercises. When they docked at their home base, he directed XKV to go to the repair shop and get his controller card replaced.



Home base.

Released cc-by-nc-nd by Brian Samuels.

When he returned, XKV said "My controller card has been replaced and I now pass all diagnostics. I apologize for any inconvenience my performance caused. I am under warranty and can file a claim on your behalf if you wish."

"No, thank you XKV, that won't be necessary."

"Shall I prepare for the trip to the autopsy?"

"What autopsy?"

"The one you were going to do on the snow planet when my controller card went bad."

"I completely forgot. Yes, of course."

They packed and took off again.

"I apologize too. I'm sorry I got so upset and called you a tin can."

"I was given an upgraded controller board during my repairs. My new circuitry has an improved ability to process your emotional instability."

They had a pleasant trip back to the snow planet, and were flying low over an area near Bell's estate.

"I think I see lights over there. Cruise over and let's check it out."

"Recomputing trajectory ... the ship identification system reports Bell's ship is docked in the area."



" ... system reports Bell's ship is docked in the area."

Released cc-by-nc-nd by Brian Samuels.

"Bell, that bastard son of an alien whore! Is that an alchoholic establishment down there?" Bevers asked.

XKV looked at the maps and projected the tavern menu on the front screen.

"I think that's the bar with the cute barmaid! Let's get a drink and see what old Bell is up to."

The travelers docked and made their way over to the tavern. Bell was inside and surprised to see them.

"Doctor! Where are you coming from? Where are you heading to this time?" Bell asked.

"We keep heading out for the same autopsy and we keep having running into problems getting there. It's a vicious circle."

"Let us drink to vicious circles!"

They drank and told stories of medicine and law and barmaids and circles.


2012-07-30

Public domain film noir: Kansas City Confidential (1952)


IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org

Director: Phil Karlson
Writer: George Bruce and Harry Essex (screenplay), Harold Greene and Rowland Brown (story)
Cinematographer: George E. Diskant




Plot: An ex-con trying to go straight is framed for a million dollar armored car robbery and must go to Mexico in order to unmask the real culprits. John Rolfe is initially fingered for commiting a bank robbery. He is innocent and is soon released from questioning. Once released, he tracks down every one responsible until they are all dead. (Though only by the police, or their own in-fighting.) Additionally, he and the beautiful daughter of the police chief (who is also the mastermind of the crime) ultimately fall in love with each other. A "Hollywood ending."

Trivia:

  • Neville Brand was a highly decorated WW II veteran (Purple Heart, Silver Star, ...).

  • Jack Elam is famous for his western movies, where he played colorful off-beat characters.

  • Lee Van Cleef is also famous for his westerns (for example, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"). This was his 3rd film, of about 200 appearances in TV and film in his entire career.

  • Coleen Gray was also in Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing".


  • The original version of the video is (or was, last time I checked) the top film noir downloaded from archive.org. The quality of the download is very good, with very few pixelated frames.





Public domain film noir: Impact (1949)


IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org

Director: Arthur Lubin
Writer: Jay Dratler (story and screenplay), Dorothy Davenport (screenplay)
Cinematographer: Ernest Laszlo



Plot: A unfaithful wife plots with her lover to kill her husband, but the lover is accidentally killed instead. The husband stays in hiding, and lets his wife be charged with conspiracy.

2012-07-29

Public domain film noir: The Hoodlum (1951)


IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org

Director: Max Nosseck
Writer: Sam Neuman and Nat Tanchuck
Cinematographer: Clark Ramsey





Plot: Paroled sociopath career criminal, while working at his brother's gas station, he becomes very interested in the armored car that makes regular stops at the bank across the street. He betrays his family's trust when he masterminds a complex armored car robbery.

Public domain film noir: The Hitch-hiker (1953)




IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org

Director: Ida Lupino
Writer: Daniel Mainwaring (story), Ida Lupino and Collier Young (screenplay)
Cinematographer: Nicholas Musuraca



Plot: Two men on a fishing trip pick up a hitchhiker named Emmett Myers, who turns out to be a psychopath who has committed multiple murders.

Public domain film noir: He Walked by Night (1948)

IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org





Director: Alfred L. Werker, Anthony Mann (uncredited)
Writer: Crane Wilbur (story), Crane Wilbur and John C. Higgins (screenplay)
Cinematographer: John Alton

Plot: This is simply the story of how the LAPD track down and kill Roy Morgan. He is an electronic expert, who once worked for the police as a civilian radio engineer. Morgan lives with his dog in a Hollywood bungalow, keeping a very low profile. At night he walks the city of Los Angeles, often traveling in the storm drains under the city streets, to rob and kill. LAPD forensics specialist Lee uses crime evidence to link various crimes to the same man. LAPD Captain Breen gathers all of the witnesses to the robberies to create a composite sketch. A hunch on the part of LAPD Sergeant Marty Brennan leads him to travel to all the local police departments, asking if they recognize the person in the sketch. Finally, one remembers him as a radio engineer who worked there years ago. Further interviews with post office mail carriers lead to Morgan's location. During a carefully planned raid, Morgan's dog alerts him in the nick of time, and Morgan escapes into the LAPD sewer system. The LAPD traps him in the sewer system and Morgan dies after a gun fight with police.

Trivia:

  • The story was loosely based on newspaper accounts of the real-life actions of Erwin Walker.

  • This was Richard Basehart's third film. He of course went on to become a household name in the 1960s TV series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea".

  • This was also Jack Webb's third film. He went on to star in the long-running TV series "Dragnet", which started in the 1950s. (In fact, Webb's experience making this movie inspired his idea to create the series Dragnet.)

On "The Origin of Stories"

Here is my mini-review of The Origin of Stories, by Brian Boyd (Harvard Univ. Press, 2009).





This book changed my way of thinking about stories. It addresses the following natural questions.


  • How do we represent meaning in our experiences?

  • How does our understanding of stories contibute?

  • How did stories, or more generally art, or more generally play, evolve (in the sense of evolutionary adaptation) as an aspect of human mind and/or behavior?

  • How is one to understand the creative work of the author/artist (or reader/audience) from this perspective?

Here are a few quotes which might serve to approximate Boyd's explanation:

From page 14:
We have an appetite for information, and especially for pattern, information that falls into meaningful arrays from which we can make rich inferences. Information can be costly to obtain and analyze, but because it offers an invaluable basis for action, nature evolves senses and minds to gather and process information appropriate to particular modes of life. Like other species, humans can assimilate information
through the rapid processing that specialized pattern recognition allows, but unlike other species we also seek, shape, and share information in an open-ended way. Since pattern makes data swiftly intelligible, we actively peursue patterns, especially those that yield the richest inferences to our minds, in our most valuable information systems, the senses of sight and sound, and in our most crutial domain, social information.

From pages 80-81:
An evolutionary adaptation is a feature of body, mind, or behavior that exists throughout a species and shows evidence of good design for a specific function or functions that will ultimately make a difference to the species' survival and reproductive success.

From page 92-94:
The more often and the more exuberantly animals play, the more they hone skills, widen repertoires, and sharpen sensitivities. Play therefore has evolved to be highly self-rewarding. As for play, so for the cognitive play of art we can specify the
design conditions in advance. If there are cognitive capacities in which flexible fine-tuning and widening the range of options deployed at short and context-sensitive notice can make decisive differences - and out aural, visual, vocal, manual, and social skills all qualify - then individuals with stronger motivations to practice
such behavior in situations of low danger and adequate resources will fare better.

From page 156:
We think, remember, and imagine by mentally stimulating or reactivating elements of what we have previously perceived, understood, enacted, and experienced. Simulations appear central to the representation of meaning.

From pages 381-383:
Art is a human adaptation, its chief functions being

  1. to refine and retune our minds in modes central to human cognition - sight, sound, and sociality - which it can do piecemeal through its capacity to motivate us to participate again and again in these high-intensity workouts;

  2. to raise the status of gifted artists;

  3. to improve the coordination and cooperation of communities, in our very social species; and

  4. to foster creativity on an individual and social level.
The problem-solution model allows us to analyze closely the choices we infer behind a work of art. Storytellers' first problem is to capture attention. Each attempted solution to the problem of holding audience interest will involve different costs and benefits for both storytellers and their audiences. Storytellers will attempt to reduce the costs and raise the benefits of their own compositional efforts and their audiences' responses.
page 322:
The evolutionary approach follows three main lines:

  1. a problem-solution model that links the long term of evolution to the short term of n author making choices about this detail or that detail;

  2. earning attention as prior to generating meaning in the problems an author faces; and

  3. a multileveled system of explanation.
There are four interconnected levels of explanation appropriate to any work of literature: a universal level, which considers aspects of human nature in general; a local level, which focuses on particular cultural, historical, social, economic, technological, intellectual, or artistic contexts; an individual level, which assesses the dispositions and experiences of an author (or, alternatively, of a reader or critic); and a particular level, which examines the specific problem situation of the author composing this story, or of a reader readng it in a certain situation (for the first time or the n-th time) or for a given purpose.

Highly recommended.

2012-07-28

Public domain film noir: Green Glove (1952)

IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Classic Movie Ramblings entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org


Director: Rudolph Mate
Writer: Charles Bennett
Cinematographer: Claude Renoir



Plot: An American paratrooper travels to France after the end of World War II to try to recover a jewel-encrusted glove that had been stolen from a country church during the war. Chasing him is a Nazi collaborator whom he had fought during the war. It was based on actions that took place during Operation Dragoon.

Question:
Is this "film noir" or "action/adventure"?
It might be film noir if the protagonist (the paratrooper character) or antagonist is, in fact, a twisted criminal. The way the film is directed and shot, down-plays this aspect. Stunning scenery and locations, even in black and white.

This was also titled "The Gauntlet".

Public domain film noir: The File on Thelma Jordon (1950)


IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org

Director: Robert Siodmak
Writers: Marty Holland (story), Ketti Frings (screenplay)
Cinematography: George Barnes





Plot: Thelma Jordon is a woman who late one night shows up in the office of Assistant district attorney Cleve Marshall with a story about prowlers and burglars. Before Cleve can stop himself, he and Thelma are involved in a love affair. But Thelma is a mysterious woman, and when her rich aunt is found shot, Jordon is the prime suspect. When she is eventually acquitted, a dangerous old boyfriend comes out of the shadows.

Public domain film noir: Fear in the Night (1947)

IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org


Directed: Maxwell Shane
Written: Cornell Woolrich (story "And So to Death" ), Maxwell Shane (screenplay)
Cinematographer: Jack Greenhalgh




Plot: Vince Grayson dreams that he stabs a man and locks the body in a closet. It turns out an evil hypnotist has set him up and his dream is real.

Trivia:

  • "And So to Death" was retitled '"Nightmare" in 1943. Woolrich is credited under pen name William Irish.

  • This is DeForest Kelley's first feature.

O'Ryan's belt

The street-front marquee shouted


Starlight Lounge!


Beautiful Sexy Girls!

O'Ryan parked his 1938 Ford, walked down the alley and climbed the steps to the side entrance. In her dressing room, Rita was stripping off her glitter and make-up, getting ready to go home.


"Hi Rita. Do you want to go dancing?"

"Dancing? I've been dancing. Where have you been Leonard? I haven't seen you in months!"

"Here and there. You know," O'Ryan said.

On her dressing table lay a belt she sometimes wore around her small waist. It was made of a metallic fabric he liked the feeling of. As he ran his fingers around the length of the ribbony loop, it returned to where he started, but facing the opposite side.





"Nuts to here and there! What about you and Susan?" Rita asked.

"What do you know about Susan?" he asked, setting it down..

"Girl talk."

O'Ryan frowned. "I know she's with Blue."

"You're still in love with her."

O'Ryan changed topic. "I need to ask you about Conte," he said.

"He vanished," Rita said.

"What else do you know?"

"Drunken bum. Wilde sent him on an errand to the bank to sober him up. He left mumbling some drunken nonsense. Next I heard he skipped out with all our paychecks. Probably took off with Blue."

"What do you mean by `drunken nonsense'?" O'Ryan asked.

"He kept saying `please' - or something like that," Rita said, looking past O'Ryan and someone lurking in the hallway not far away.

O'Ryan's eyes narrowed. "Do you want to go to a party with me Rita?"

"Party?" Her eyes lit up hopefully. "Who will be there?"

"Just you and me."



O'Ryan parked his Ford on the street. The lights from the Knoxville Police Department windows lit the dark street outside. Through one particular window, O'Ryan could see Capt. Yordan in his service blues pacing around his office with paperwork in his hand. He pulled what little hair he had on his head, then sat back again and sifted through a few more papers.

O'Ryan tip-toed down the hallway past the Captain's door.

Yordan burst out of his office and said "It's you!"

"Captain!" O'Ryan said.

"What is the story with this Susan Merepy you keep submitting expense reports to me for? You've racked up several grand so far!" the Captain said.

"A white male, mid-30's, matching Mr Blue's description, was reported snooping around the Manhattan Engineering District area. Miss Merepy is our best lead."

They walked down the hall to O'Ruyan's office.

"Is that where the Army is doing some top secret work?"

"Yes, sir. The suspect was driving Merepy's car and tried to enter one of the main gates, but was turned away by a guard. I think we should investigate."

"I say let the Army handle Blue, but, if you must, do it on your own dime. We've had cut-backs. There is another case I want you to look at - a disappearance at the Starlight."

"You mean Conte, the bouncer?" O'Ryan asked.

"You know about that?" Yordan asked.

"He left the bank with some paychecks but never made it back to the nightclub."

"Solve it," the Captain said.

"Yes, sir."



O'Ryan went to his office and was joined by several other investigators. On one wall of the office there are pictures of the Susan Merepy case, the Starlight Lounge disappearance, and the Manhattan Engineering District area pinned up on a large cork board.

"Smitty, you know that bouncer who disappeared from the Starlight?"

"Yes, sir. He was heard to yell `Pleiades'." Seeing O'Ryan's surprised look, Smith explained, "I've already thoughly questioned the dancers."

"I'll bet. Does anyone know what Pleiades means?" O'Ryan asked.

Alton raised his hand. He was at attention in his service blues and thick horn-rimmed glasses.

"Relax Alton, you aren't in the Police Academy anymore. Just speak up," O'Ryan said.

"Sir, I think the name Pleiades arises from Greek mythology. They were seven daughters of Atlas, who were pursued romantically by several gods, including Orion the Hunter. Zeus first turned them into doves and then later he turned them into stars," Alton said. He smiled, adjusted his thick glasses, and straightened his collar and tie.

Everyone stared at him for a moment. Alton was fresh out of the Academy and their newest officer on the force.

"Doves then stars, huh? How do you happen to know all that?" O'Ryan asked.

"History major at Vanderbilt. Couldn't find a job in my field, but I with a wife and two little kids to feed ... ."

"Got it," O'Ryan interrupted. "Alton, what the hell does this case have to do with seven sisters from Greece?"

"Nothing, sir."

Smith cleared his throat and said, "Lt., it is also a star cluster in the Taurus constellation. One of the closest star clusters ... ."

"Smitty!" O'Ryan interrupted, tapping his foot.

"Astronomy major," Smith said.

O'Ryan put his head in his hands. "Are we going from Greece to outer space now? Aliens from outer space, is that your angle, Smitty? Everyone, just get out of here and find Blue!"

They all scattered, leaving O'Ryan alone.


A few hours later, O'Ryan was talking to Smith on the police radio.

"Lt. O'Ryan, do you really mean everyone?" Smith asked.

"Yes, everyone. Arrest everyone associated with Blue, on aiding-and-abetting. Question them for twenty-four hours. See which ones spill the beans. Release them. Simple as A-B-C. Find out where Blue is hiding!"

"Capt. Yordan is not going to like it," Smith said.

"I'll worry about the Capt. You get with the arresting."

"Yes, sir."

An hour later, Smith called O'Ryan back.

"Talk to me Smitty."

"There is a problem, Lt.," Smith said.

"Spill it."

"Lewis, one of Blue's tough guys, is hiding out with his boot-legging gang in the Hole In The Wall."

O'Ryan recognized the dive. "So what, Smitty?"

"There are about fifteen of them."

"Who is with you?"

"Just Alton."

"Oh."

"Yes, sir."

"Wait there," O'Ryan said, slamming the receiver down. He opened his drawer, pulled out two brass knuckles, putting one in each of his pants pockets, grabbed his jacket and fedora, and went out.


O'Ryan spotted Smith and Alton in their squad car about a block from the Hole In The Wall and parked next to them.

"I'm just going to go check it out," O'Ryan told them.

"We can wait here," Alton volunteered.

O'Ryan walked over to the bar, a one-room building on the side of the road which had seen better days. He went into the dark room, smelling of smoke and beer. A poker game was being played on one side of the room and a pool game at the other. The drinking and the noise stopped as people recognized him.

"Well, looky here boys, it's the Copper from Knoxville," one of the largest of the men said.

"You must be Lewis," O'Ryan said, his eyes adjusting to the light.

"What does a 90-dollar-a-week Copper think when he sees his ex-girl in that new fur coat Blue bought for her?" Lewis asked, smirking.

That caught O'Ryan's attention.

"Jealous? Want a beer to cry in, O'Ryan?" Lewis said, slinging the rest of his beer at O'Ryan.

The others laughed. O'Ryan wiped beer from his face as Lewis's gang encircled him. A faint smile creeping across O'Ryan's face. Noticing this, the bartender started taking glasses and bottles from the top of the bar, putting them in a safer place. O'Ryan cracked his knuckles, put his hands in his pockets and pulled out the brass ones.

The bartender dove for cover.




Alton and Smith helped about a dozen limping, groaning men out of the Hole In The Wall into a line of waiting paddy wagons. All but one were released within hours. Lewis had an outstanding warrant, so they kept him.

"Smitty, let's go have a chat with Lewis."

The went down to the cell blocks in the basement of the police station. Lewis, sporting a black eye, limped over to the cell door. They cuff him and drag him over to a chair in an empty room.

Lewis looked up at O'Ryan and said, "Sorry about throwing that beer in your face."

Slap!

"Ow! What was that for? I was apologizing!"

"That was only a pre-emptive slap," O'Ryan said.

"What is a pre-emptive slap, Lt.?" Smith asked.



"I'll explain. A pre-emptive slap is when I slap him, like this ... " slap! "... and then he earns a lower level slap next time he talks out of turn. Got it?"

"Like this?" Smith asks, slapping Lewis.

Lewis was seeing stars.

"No, that is a little too hard. You see Smitty, the point is that you're giving him a half-slap next time, so the two slaps work out the same as one normal slap. Less wrist action, like this," O'Ryan says, slapping Lewis.

"Okay. I think I understand now. Like this?" Smith asks, slapping Lewis.

"Exactly!"

Smith nodded. Lewis was confused and dizzy and his lip was bleeding.

"Tell me about Blue," O'Ryan said to Lewis. "What does he want?"

"He wants some kind of special fuel that the military scientists make. Thorium, I think he said."

"There are no thorium reactors," Smith said to Lewis, slapping him again. Seeing O'Ryan's look, he added "Sorry, Lt. My undergraduate thesis was on thorium and I got carried away."

"Lewis, where is he now?"

"If you let me go, I'll arrange a meeting!"

O'Ryan thought for a moment.

"This is crazy, Lt." Smith said.

O'Ryan ignored him and said "Okay, Lewis, on the condition you get me a meeting. Tonight."

Smith was shocked. Lewis eyes widened, he gulped, and his head bobbed up and down.

They drag Lewis over to a phone. Lewis says a few words and hangs up. He turns to O'Ryan, "He's planning on using a plane to scout out the Manhattan Engineering District. He'll the airport outside Beaver Ridge, around midnight. Oh, I almost forgot. He plans to kill you."

"Smitty, lock him up."

"Hey! What?" Lewis was interrupted by a slap from O'Ryan.

"That was a half-slap," Smith said as he tossed him back in the cell. O'Ryan was aleady out the front door.



O'Ryan was cold in the airport hanger. Everyone had left for the day. The full moon cast an unworldly glow on the machinery.

There was a faint blue flash behind him. He started to look behind him.

"Don't turn around," someone said.

O'Ryan recognized the voice. "Rita? Is that you?" O'Ryan asked.

"You wanted to talk. Talk," she said.

"I came here hoping to learn what Blue wants with the Manhattan Engineering District and with Susan. Why are you here?"

"Blue is dead. I'm here instead."

"What the hell?"

"I come from another planet."

"You're pulling my leg!"

"I am an authorized data-collecting agent. We collect data on your race. My company sells databases of alien races to our clients."

"Are you drunk, Rita?" O'Ryan asked.

"I am not joking. They bring a high price on my planet. Crazy market."

Smiling, O'Ryan made a motion with his hand holding an imaginary bottle up to his mouth and drinking while uttering loud glugging noises.

"I just learned that several of my planet's energy reactors failed recently. Consequently, millions on my planet died and our energy resources are now critically low."

"My condolances."

"Seriously?"

"No." O'Ryan belched. He had a few beers on the drive out.

"Have you been drinking?"

"No! Yes."

"Our scientists detected enriched thorium fuel nearby at the Manhattan Engineering District. I need that fuel," she said, like she was stating the result of a trigonometry computation.

"There are no thorium reactors around here."

"None?"

"Trust me."

"Those damn stupid shits, mixed up nuclear power and thorium power again!"

"Honestly, Rita, you seem pretty human for an alien from another planet," he said.

"Thank you. Did my explicative seem authentic?"

"Uhmm, hell yes."

"In fact, I was sent here, as was Blue and Conte, as human avatars. In other words, human except for a small brain implant, which is a controller-interface to our real Pleiadian bodies. I helped with the technical design myself," Rita said.

"What happened to the real Rita Stanton?"

"Brain dead without the avatar implant. But her body will be re-cycled. We are have strict environmental protocols."

"Are Susan and Blue dead too?"

"Do you really want to hear about Blue?"

"Please."

"First, Blue tried unsuccessfully to talk to your government officials about our need for enriched uranium," she said. "Blue had to vaporize one of them, which is definitely frowned upon, and ... "

"Wait! Blue iced a Fed?" O'Ryan asked.

"Well, they tried to confiscate his decoder!" she said.

"Do you mean a Captain Midnight code-o-graph?"

"A who?"

"Never mind. Tell me more about Susan and Blue."

"Recalled."

"Susan? Recalled?"

"Not Susan. Blue," she corrected him. "I think it was the correct decision."

"I don't understand," O'Ryan said. "You killed Blue?"

"Actually, on my planet the MCC - Mission Control Committee - makes those recall decisions."

"A committee of killers?" O'Ryan asked, tapping his foot again.

"Bureaucracy. What can you do?" she shrugged.

O'Ryan shook his head. "You sure fooled me, Rita. You're a black widow!"

"I am not! I am merely completing my mission priority to acquire reactor fuel."

"Right," O'Ryan said. "What are you going to do with Susan?"

There was a blue flash behind O'Ryan.

"I'm here," she said, walking into O'Ryan's view.

"Susan!" O'Ryan caught the moonlight glint in her eyes. "How did you get here?"

She nodded at Rita, as though she pulled a rabbit out of a hat. O'Ryan wondered if maybe Rita was telling the truth.

"I bought you some stockings, Susan," O'Ryan said. "Oh, and Blue is dead."

"What are they made of?" she asked.

"Silk."

"How nice!"

"I bought them from ... "

"Quiet!" Rita said.

"Let Miss Merepy go," O'Ryan pleaded.

"Seems we have an uninvited visitor," Rita said, staring off into the distance.

O'Ryan looked outside the huge hanger doors, but couldn't see or hear anything unusual. Merepy simply looked scared and crept into the shadows.

"Time's up. Conversation's over. Now, Susan dies and you will be my avatar, O'Ryan," Rita said.

"Me an avatar for you? That is really disgusting!" O'Ryan said, bile churning up in his throat.

"It's not disgusting. We swap avatars all the time. It's really nothing. In fact, it is actually quite logical. I will use your identity to get access to the Engineering District and tell them I am investigating Blue. I'll use that pre-text to determine the location of the fuel - as useless as it is, not being thorium."

O'Ryan vomited.

"Stop that! No, it's not disgusting! It is settled. Susan has no further function for me and you ... " Rita said.

Susan hit Rita on the side of her head behind her ear with a rusted metal bar. Rita collapsed.

"Further function, my ass," Susan said, glaring down at Rita.

O'Ryan was surprised. "Why didn't you do that before?"

She shrugged.

Now O'Ryan could hear the familiar roar of Captain Yordan's Plymouth radio police car engine. The car came racing down the runway and through the hanger doors, screeching to a halt near them.

Yordan jumped out of his car with two officers and yelled "Find Blue and arrest him!"

Rita groaned, shook her head and pulled out a ray gun and vaporized Captain Yordan. Susan quickly kicked the ray gun out of Rita's hands and held her while the other officers put hand-cuffs on. O'Ryan was spitting bile and vomit chunks out of his mouth.

As the cops hauled Rita off, O'Ryan looked at Merepy, who walked over toward him.



"Silk, really?"

O'Ryan nodded. "From New York City!"

She smiles. "Thank you, Leonard," she said snuggling up to his chest.

For several moments, they listened to the crickets and the fading sirens in the distance. O'Ryan was feeling all was right with the world. He started to kiss her.

She shied away. "You have vomit on your chin."

He tried to wipe it off. "Is it gone?" O'Ryan asked.

"On the cheek."

He wiped his cheek.

"I meant you can kiss me, Leonard, on the cheek."

He softly gave her a peck on the cheek. They walked out of the hanger into the foggy night.




O'Ryan entered a dressing room where Susan was stripping off her glitter and
make-up, getting ready to go home.

"Hi Susan. Do you want to go dancing?"

"Dancing? I've been dancing. Where have you been Leonard? I haven't seen you in months," she said.

"There and here. You know," O'Ryan said. On her dressing table lay a belt she sometimes wore around her small waist. It was made of a metallic fabric he liked the feeling of. As he ran his fingers around the length of the ribbony loop, it returned to where he started, but facing the opposite side.



Public domain film noir: D.O.A. (1949)



IMDB

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Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org


Director: Rudolph Mate
Writer: Russell Rouse, Clarence Greene
Cinematographer: Ernest Laszlo





Plot: In DOA, Frank Bigelow is poisoned by a Mr Halliday. The opening scene is a very sick-looking Bigelow reporting his murder to a homicide detective. Bigelow is a notary public and Halliday is a comptroller for a company, Philips' import-export, that purchased a stolen rare chemical, iridium. It turns out that Halliday engineered the theft and got Phillips to buy some. That bill-of-sale was notarized by Bigelow months earlier. The police arrest Phillips, charging him with stealing the iridium. While out on bail, Halliday kills Phillips, making the death appear to be suicide. Wanting to hide the existence of the bill-of-sale, Halliday secretly poisons Bigelow (with iridium, mixed in a drink) while he is vacationing in San Francisco. Not feeling well, Bigelow goes to some doctors, who confirm that his poisoning is fatal, with no known antidote. Bigelow eventually tracks down Halliday (via his connection with iridium) and shoots him to death. The movie ends with Bigelow slowly dying in the police station.

Public domain film noir: Detour (1945)

IMDB

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Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

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Director: Edgar G. Ulmer

Writer: Martin Goldsmith, Martin Mooney

Cinematographer: Benjamin H. Kline






Plot: Talented piano player Al is bitter about having to work in a New York nightclub. After his girlfriend Sue leaves to seek fame in Hollywood as a singer, he decides to join her. With little money, he has to hitchhike his way across the country. In Arizona, bookie Charles Haskell Jr. gives him a ride in his convertible. Haskell dies and Al, fearful that the police will believe he killed Haskell, dumps the body off the side of the road, takes Haskell's money, clothes and identification, then drives away. Al picks up another hitchhiker, femme fatale Vera, at a gas station. When Al identifies himself as Haskell, she blackmails him by threatening to turn him in, as she knows the real Haskell. Vera learns from a newspaper that Haskell's wealthy father is near death and looking for his son, who ran away as a youth after accidentally injuring his friend. Vera demands that Al impersonate Haskell. Vera gets drunk, and they begin arguing and Al sees that he has accidentally strangled her. He goes hitchhiking again, but is picked up by the police.

Trivia:

  • The shots of Al hitch-hiking across the US from New York to Los Angeles were intercut with clips of a camera panning over a map of the US, running right to left, starting in NYC. In order for the cars Al rides in to seem to also be going right-to-left, several shots are "reversed" since the cameraman filmed form the wrong side of the road. In these clips the driver is driving on the wrong side.
  • Tom Neal was a contract actor for the studio. He lead a tragic life himself, including a prison term for killing his third wife in 1965.

Quote:
Charles Haskell Jr: "You know there ought to be a law against dames with claws."
Al Roberts: "Yep."

Public domain film noir: The Chase (1946)

IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org

Director: Arthur Ripley

Writer: Philip Yordan (Screenplay), Cornell Woolrich (novel The Black Path of Fear)

Cinematography: Frank F. Planer





Plot: The Chase is a story of Chuck Scott, a World War II vet, who proudly wears a medal he earned for his duties in the Navy on his lapel. He finds a wallet belonging to Eddie Roman, a gangster living in a mansion in Miami. Roman's right-hand man, Gino, is played very colorfully by Peter Lorre. When Scott returns the wallet, this act of honesty so impressed Roman that he offers him a job on the spot. Not knowing of Roman's shady reputation, and being virtually penniless, Scott accepts. Roman's desperately unhappy wife Lorna often asks Scott to drive her to the beach at night, where she just stares at the waves and dreams of escaping to Cuba. When she returns home, her husband locks her in her bedroom, so she will not leave him. One night, she confides her dream to Scott, and he agrees to buy her two tickets on a steam-ship, and safely escort her to Cuba.

In the next several scenes, they escape to Cuba, fall in love there, and Lorna is mysteriously stabbed to death in a bar. The police think Scott is the only possible suspect. As he is about to be arrested, Scott uses some quick thinking and escapes.

In the next scene, Scott wakes up dazed and confused. He calls a close friend from his days in the Navy, Cmdr Davidson, on the phone. He says "It's happened again." Davidson knows exactly what he means and tells him to report to his office as soon as possible. It turns out that Scott is subject to panic attacks, possibly brought on by the stress of battle, where he will forget everything, confuse reality with his dreams, and sometimes awaken in a strange location. Davidson and Scott pieces together through fragments of memories, that the earlier scenes in Cuba were just a vivid dream. Davidson says to Scott: "You haven't been to Cuba in over 3 years." However, they agree that the woman he remembers meeting in Miami is real. Scott has a distinct feeling that there was something important he had to do for that woman. Concerned, Scott spends every waking hour trying to patch together enough details to remember her name. Then he notices two tickets on a ship to Cuba in a pocket in his jacket. Finally, everything falls into place, and he remembers her and where she lives. After a fight and a chase (presumably where the film's name comes from), during which time Roman and Gino both die, Scott and Lorna both escape to Cuba. They live happily ever after.

2012-07-27

Public domain film noir: Blonde Ice (1948)

IMDB

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Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org

Director: Jack Bernhard.

Writer: Whitman Chambers (novel Once Too Often), Kenneth Gamet (writer)

Cinematographer: George Robinson





Plot: Newspaper society columnist Claire marries first a millionaire then an aspiring congressman. Each dies shortly thereafter under mysterious circumstances. On the side, she strings along a poor reporter who is infatuated with her.

Public domain film noir: The Big Combo (1955)

IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Noir of the week entry

Full movie at youtube

Download or watch at archive.org

Director: Joseph H. Lewis

Writer: Philip Yordan

Cinematographer: John Alton

Plot: Police Lt. Leonard Diamond is on a personal crusade to bring down sadistic gangster Mr. Brown. He's also dangerously obsessed with Brown's girlfriend, his captive lover. His main objective as a detective is to uncover who "Alicia" is but cannot immediately find out from Brown or his girl. Once Diamond tracks down Alicia, she helps Diamond figure out where Brown was likely to take Susan to, the airport where Brown hopes to make a getaway plane. However, the plane doesn't show up and the film climaxes in a foggy airplane hangar shootout.





Trivia:
  • The actress Jean Wallace was married to Cornel Wilde at the time of the film. Both give outstanding performances.
  • Helen Walker was a very successful and promising actress before her 1947 car wreck (a possible DUI). In this incident, she allegedly took on three hitch-hikers, all WWII vets, and crashed in a drive from L.A. to Palm Springs. Sadly, one person died. Her career never recovered.
  • Lee Van Cleef went on to a great career, especially in westerns.
  • Earl Holliman was born to extreme poverty in Louisiana. He lied about his age and enlisted in the US Navy during WWII. While stationed in L.A., in his free time, he hung out in Hollywood theaters. When he left the Navy, he eventually graduated from UCLA and started his award-winning work in films and TV.
  • The screenwriter is officially credited to Academy award-winning writer Philip Yordan, but the actual credit is disputed. Please see the recent article "The Philip Yordan Story" (filmnoirfoundation.org/PhilipYordan.pdf), if you are interested in details of the mystery.

2012-07-25

Public domain film noir: The Amazing Mr X (1948)

IMDB

Wikipedia entry

Noir of the week entry

full movie on youtube

Full movie and download on archive.org

Director: Bernard Vorhaus

Writers: Crane Wilbur (original story), Muriel Roy Bolton and Ian McLellan Hunter (screenplay)

Cinematographer: John Alton




Plot: Two years after her husband's death, Christine Faber thinks she hears her late husband calling out of the surf on the beach one night. She meets a tall dark man named Alexis who seems to know all about her. Christine and her younger sister become enmeshed in the strange life of Alexis; but he in turn finds himself manipulated into deeper cruelness than he had in mind.

Ira Glass on writing


Ira Glass on writing - advice distilled from a four-part video (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). There are two building blocks to a story
  • The anecdote. This is literally a sequence of actions.
  • The revelation. The actions should raise questions, at least implicitly, which you reveal the answer to.

You can have a great series of events, but if they don't turn out to mean anything, yor story is uninteresting. Conversely you can have a significant revelation filled with meaning, but if the events themselves are uninteresting, again you've got a weak story.

You have to set aside just as much time looking for stories as you do producing them. In other words, the work of thinking up a good idea to write about is as much work and time as writing it up.

Not enough gets said about the importance of "abandoning crap." Most of your story ideas are going to be crap. That's okay because the only way you can surface great ideas is by going through a lot of crappy ones. The only reason you want to be doing this is to make something memorable and special.

The thing I'd like to say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work went through a phase of years where with their good taste, they could tell what they were doing wasn't as good as they wanted it to be ... it didn't have that special thing they wanted it to have ... Everybody goes through that phase ... and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.
Here is a nice "typographic" version of Ira Glass's talk:


Ira Glass is Host and Executive Producer of http://www.thisamericanlife.org/