Vautrin

If I recall it correctly he also played Natalie Wood's dad in Rebel Without a Cause and the dad of the lethal brat in The Bad Seed. I had forgotten about the tobacco companies sponsoring many TV show back then. Perry would light up occasionally too, but I don't remember Della smoking. Yeah, Perry really kept him on his toes. Paul, I'd like you to fly down to Antarctica and see if you can get a footprint of big foot. Okay. From what I recall, in the first few seasons of the TV program they were a little bit on the shady side if that was needed. After that they seemed to be more strict in obeying the letter of the law. Perry and Della were even more hands off than Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty.

I put that down to the show itself and not any lack of success with the opposite sex. Paul Drake was a supporting character and the focus was on the murder and the court dramatics around it, so there wasn't much time to delve into Drake's love life. I imagine there were at least a few shows where Drake escorted a pretty thing on a date during the finale.

I always enjoyed William Hopper as Paul Drake. A little hip, cool threads, nonchalant manner, might be a party animal when not working 24/6 for Perry. Only drawback was he often had a cig in his mouth.

Sort of like a hairball.

I've just starting watching Perry Mason on DirecTV 323. It's now the 1962-1963 season where Perry sits alone in the courtroom at the defense table and has that smile on his face. Who can blame him. He knows he's going to beat ol' Hamilton for the umpteenth time.

However difficult, I think I can learn to live with that fact.

I haven't seen it in decades and have forgotten most of the details, including that Stefano wrote it, and that Eleanor Parker was in it, doing the Bette Davis horror movie thing. The movie is not available on YT, but the trailer is and it gives a good idea of what it is about. White cat with blood all around its mouth and this ain't mouse blood, my fellow humans. Too bad it's too late for an Eye of the Cat vs. Willard movie. A rat is a cat is a movie.

Safe at home. My favorite is The Bank Dick. I always get a kick out of the bank president extending Fields a hearty handclasp, which is really neither. But I still wouldn't purchase shares in the Beefsteak Mine.

Strangely enough, I still recall the word ailurophobia from the 1969 thriller Eye of the *a* which as far as quantity goes has more cats than most other movies. Cave Girl, I think you would be wise to stay away from this movie, especially the version shot in Purr-O-Vision.

Even with the awful wig I find her fairly sexy. Maybe it's the anklet that Walter hones in on. And stepdaughter Lola was easy on the eyes. I always got a laugh out of her boyfriend's name, Nino Zachetti. Mobbed up? No way.

Just like everybody else, Fields started life as a foetus.

Yeah, despite trying so hard, Powell never made much of an impression on me as a tough guy, mainly because he looks like a medium wind could knock him over. He's okay, but no big deal. This isn't because of the contrast between his noir roles and his earlier persona as the grinning boy next door in musicals since I've never seen many of the latter. There is likely a noir fantasy where instead of being the handsome good guy with a lot of spending dough, it's one of lowlifes who swill booze, crack wise, and slap the women around just for fun. Hey, whatever gets your motor running. I think Fred is a bit more sexy than Powell if only because Barbara Stanwyck can't help but lend him a little bit of hers. Right to the end of the line. I think Eddie was talking about this Saturday's movie where Jane Wyatt plays a femme fatale. We'll see. IMHO dishwater is duller than ditchwater. You can never be sure what you'll find in ditchwater, whereas you pretty well know about the contents of cold dishwater.

Yes, judging from the final scenes of the film, he will be getting the cold shoulder treatment for quite some time. Can't blame Jane Wyatt for doing so. Walter was more of a planner, though his plan didn't work out. Dick winged things. I really don't make much of the characters in most films, but Dick Powell's character didn't have many redeeming features.

Dick Powell beating the **** out of Raymond Burr? C'mon man. The suburban setting is an agreeable change from the usual big city locations and the lowlifes who live there. I think Burr stopped being subtle when he met Dickie in front of his garage and beat the **** out of him. That I could believe. I found the Powell character to be just as tiresome and dull as the other middle class folks he disdains. And then after all that tumult, it's back to the salt mines. Tough break for the non-thinking man's Walter Neff.

I did a little checking on the net and it was T&W, standing for the guys that owned it, Terwilliger and Wakefield. Smart move to go with T&W. Local brands are probably more likely to go out of business or to merge with bigger firms.

Maybe Friendly's is more of a regional brand, just in the East Coast, than I thought. I remember as a kid there was a delicious chocolate chip ice cream made by a company called T&W or F&W. Instead of having rather large chunks of chips scattered in the ice cream, it has little pieces "pulverized" throughout the ice cream. Oh, was that delicious. I agree that it takes a fair amount of guts to kill oneself or even to try to kill oneself.

John Mitchell. Just off the top of my head, with a little makeup, the late Broderick Crawford could play the part. Whoever did would have to be not allergic to pipe smoke.

The music was secondary to me. It was those endless moon shots. Okay, we get it. Too bad Moonlight Becomes You wasn't written until after The Letter.

Quicksand is a pretty good little flick. What I had to laugh at were some of the shots of Rooney walking side by side with Jeanne Cagney. It looked like she might have been his babysitter.

Or, "Want to see my new samovar? We'll go in the troika to my place. It's only ten versts from here." Sort of a luxury hotel with a TB clinic attached. There were quite a few patients whose health seemed to be fairly good, but they stayed there on and on and on. I can see it as a rather enjoyable experience, minus the TB and the trips to that creepy basement for X rays. And there is the suspicion that there was an effort being made to keep the clients there as long as possible, though Herr Behrens was a jolly old soul. And yes, the concerns of those who might be near death are more profound than those who aren't. I think Hans gradually became addicted to that way of life and left somewhat reluctantly. A stay at the sanatorium sure beats being killed in World War One.

I've never seen Old Yeller. I'm not that big on dog movies. I remember we had a little coat for our dog that we put on in winter, but that was a purely practical selection, not a moral one.

The only drawback is, how often does one get the use the word samovar, not to mention verst or troika, in everyday conversation? Not very often. Don't forget that little pencil. The Magic Mountain is one of my favorite novels. If I was truly in good health I wouldn't mind staying for a time at the International Sanatorium Berghof surrounded by my high end do dads and accessories, though I imagine the daily routine would pale after a few years.

To borrow a phrase from the wine club, Conflict is a modest little product. Entertaining but no great shakes. I don't know if it would have saved her life or not, but Rose Hobart should have lost that skunk do and slapped on the black shoe polish. PU. This is a minor point, but I wondered about the ethics of a psychiatrist not helping a disturbed person, but conniving with the police to catch him. Seems a bit on the shady side, not that Greenstreet wasn't used to that sort of thing and usually on a much larger scale. And then one has to wonder about all the resources expended just to make Bogie believe his wife might still be alive. It sure took a lot of time and trouble to do it, not to mention how unbelievable some of the ruses were.

I like Friendly's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, though I've never made a milkshake with it. Very tasty.

I don't think Fyodor D. would have found it funny, but Fyodor K. might have. Then again, it's hard to judge how a hockey joke would have gone over in 19th century Russia.