#ben taggart

[ozu-teapot]

The Face Behind the Mask | Robert Florey | 1941

Peter Lorre, Ben Taggart, Mary Currier, Claire Rochelle, et al.

[mariocki]

Man-Made Monster (The Atomic Monster, 1941)

"Sometimes I think you're mad."

"I am! So was Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Pasteur, Lister, and all the others who dared to dream. Fifty years ago, a man was mad to think of anaesthesia; forty years ago, the idea of operating on the brain was madness. Today, we hold a human heart in our hands and watch it beat. Who can tell what tomorrow's madness may be?"

[fourorfivemovements]

Films Watched in 2023: 97. Man-Made Monster (1941) - Dir. George Waggner

[myobt]

Really Tiny Houses

[scotianostra]

The Scottish actor and director Kenny Ireland passed away ten years ago, on July 31st 2014.

Born as George Ian Kenneth Ireland in Paisley, Renfrewshire, the son of Ian, an RAF bomber pilot who was killed on a secret mission when Ireland was five months old, and Elizabeth (nee Cowie). On leaving Paisley grammar school, he worked as an apprentice at the town’s thread manufacturer, J&P Coats. However, his ambition was to act and he eventually left to train at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Then, as an actor and assistant director, he helped to establish the Lyceum Youth theatre in Edinburgh.

He made his West End acting debut in Mr Laurel and Mr Hardy (Mayfair theatre, 1976) after the Traverse theatre Company’s Edinburgh production transferred to London. He was then a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, before work at the National Theatre, where he was Apollo in Peter Hall’s production of The Oresteia, and the Old Major and Pilkington in Animal Farm. By then, he was himself directing at the Traverse theatre.Ireland first appeared on television as an Edinburgh bank manager in an episode of the police drama Strangers. In between many other one-off roles, he played Sammy, alongside Simon Cadell and Carol Royle, in the first series of the sitcom Life Without George and the thuggish American media tycoon Ben Landless in the political drama House of Cards. He was also one of the regular group of actors in Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, best remembered in blue dungarees and cap as the handyman Derek in the much-loved Acorn Antiques sketches, which lampooned the soap opera Crossroads. “

In the cinema, Ireland was in the Scottish film comedy Local Hero, directed by last week’s birthday boy, Bill Forsyth, other films included The Big Man, but it was TV that we mainly say Kenny in appearances in Dr. Finlay’s Casebook, Enemy at the Door, Taggart, Dempsey and Makepeace, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Rab C Nesbit, Hamish Macbeth and many more saw that he was kept busy and the bills were paid between many theatre appearances as well as at stint as artistic director of the Royal Lyceum theatre, Edinburgh from 1993 to 2003.

Of course Kenny is best remembered for is role in Derren Litten’s Benidorm, which became an instant hit. Alongside actress Janine Duvitski, the pair played a sex-mad couple who frequent the Solana hotel in the Spanish resort every year.

It wasn’t an easy role for the mild mannered Ireland, he recalled “Half the things I don’t understand, There was one episode where I had to say, ‘Jacqueline prefers the sausage in cider.’ I said, ‘What’s funny about that?’ and had to have it explained to me. I’ve always taken the line that they’re complete innocents.

Ireland’s first marriage, to the writer, producer and director Marilyn Imrie, ended in divorce. In 1980, he married the theatrical agent Meg Poole

Kenny Ireland passed away on this day 2014 a month after it was announced he had brain cancer.

[novumtimes]

Government admits misleading parliament over BBC ‘Triples’ report

11 minutes ago By Joel Gunter, BBC News • Hannah O’Grady, BBC Panorama • Rory Tinman, BBC Panorama Ben Taggart Afghan special forces units known as the ‘Triples’ worked closely with the SAS in Afghanistan The government has admitted misleading Parliament in its response to a BBC report about former Afghan special forces being denied entry to the UK. BBC Panorama reported in February that UK…

[tonin-terets]

o2 - The Snowgran from Joseph Mann on Vimeo.

Director: Joseph Mann Producer: Rebecca Little Head of Production : Alex Halley Executive Producer : Josef Byrne Production Manager : Sandy Liddle

Agency: VCCP ECD : Jonny Parker ECD: Chris Birch Senior Creative: Simon Conner Senior Creative: Steve Cross Business Director: Alex Gluck Account Director: Tom Prideaux Senior Account Manager: Ella Gurdon Producer: Frankie Burwell

Director of Photography: Matthew Day 1st Assistant Director: Sam Le Page Runner: Tatiana Moody Runner: Khuê Tran Runner: Sidney Kwok Focus Puller: Toby Goodyear Video Playback Operator: Karl Taggart DIT: Jayson Hunte MoCo Operator: Dan Murphy MoCo Assistant: Max Halstead Gaffer: Aldo Camilleri Spark: Tim O'Connell

Production Designer: Gordon Allen Assistant Art Director: Ben Cote Model Maker: Areeya Bass Model Maker: Connor Chung Model Maker: Rosie Tonkin Model Maker: Beth Slater Model Maker: Beattie Hartley Art Assistant: Victoria Itibere Art Assistant: Jonny Harker Puppeteer: Jonny Sabbagh Puppeteer: Will Harper Assistant Puppeteer: Ashleigh Cheadle Puppet Costume: Rose Popham

3D Animation and compositing: Saurus Animation Saurus Animation director: Lars Ellingbø Lead CG artist: Sondre Nymoen Lead Compositor: Alex Wolf CG: Kasper Christensen Modeling/ CG: Marius Hatlelid Modeling/ CG: Lars-Ivar Stranden Modeling: Kjetil Birtles Modeling: Jimmy Levinsky Modeling: Joanna Szczepanska CG: Henrik Dahl Groom Artist: Thomas Rønning Rig/ Animation: Dino Figuera Animation: Anna Nowakowska Animation: Anders Brogaard Compositing: Jan Ivar Solås Compositing: Jóhannus Elias Johansen Compositing: Chris Hagfors Dahlmo Additional compositing: Otomat Compositor: Emre Aypar Compositor: Ayberk Ünlü Compositor: Sinan Güneşgörmez Compositor: Metin Sıralı Compositor: Sezin Kavasoğlu Compositor: Erkin Öztürk Compositor: Oğuzhan Özçelik Fx / CG: Ozan Doğan Clean Up / Grade / Online: ETC Producer: Oscar Wendt @ ETC Colourist: Luke Morrison @ ETC Edit House: Ten Three Editor: Nick Armstrong Edit producer: Rachel Goodger & Eppie Bowler

VFX Supervisor: Lars Ellingbø

VFX Supervisor: Sondre Nymoen Behind the Scenes: Joseph Eckworth Nurse: Nicola Gibbs Caterers: Salt & Pepper Clapham Road Studio Manager: Daisy Garside Assistant Studio Manager: Evie Shisler Character Design: Dan Lambert Character Design: Tom van Rheenen Concept Art: Clement Danveau 2D Art Director: (Lead): Olga Sokal Concept Art: Ewa Luczkow Concept Art: Robert Hunter Concept Art: Henry St Leger Animatic: Andrew Khosravani Storyboards: Oscar Wright, Mysie Pereira Clay sculptors: Nathan Flynn & Tom Astley Post Production Manager: Molly Turner Post Production Assistant: Charlotte Herbett

[letterboxd-loggd]

Before I Hang (1940) Nick Grinde

May 11th 2021

[screamscenepodcast]

Your deadicated hosts cover another sci fi horror flick starring Boris Karloff from director Nick Grinde: BEFORE I HANG (1940) features a unique take on the tried-and-true formula, but how much of it is original versus leftovers from other horror tropes?

Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 9:13; Discussion 18:40; Ranking 31:44

[outoftowninac]

COOKING HER GOOSE

1929

Cooking Her Goose is a comedy by H.H. Van Loan and Lolita Ann Westman. The play had its world premiere at the Alcazar Theatre in San Francisco, California. 

The title was suggest by its intended leading lady, whose sister co-wrote the play (over eight months) expressly for her. It was so named because the heroine’s decisions basically cook her own goose. Using that logic, the title might very well have been Makes Her Bed!

When the Hollywood Playhouse was booked, Duffy took the play to the Alcazar where it had its world premiere on August 4, 1929. 

Cooking Her Goose tells the story of Nancy Gray, daughter of a wealthy and prominent family who decides an elopement will give her a thrill. So she runs off to Atlantic City with Dick Mercer Jr., a youth she has known all her life. However, she finds she has changed her mind and while her husband-to-be is getting a license, she runs away for a second time turning up at the home of a wealthy bachelor to apply for a position as a cook. Owing to the prominence of the two families, the elopement becomes a front-page story and Nancy finds herself involved In any number of humorous complications. The shooting of a thief In the apartment In Atlantic City adds to the general excitement and Nancy extricates herself from one predicament only to find that she has plunged into another.

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE...

The play was produced by Henry Duffy and starred Nydia Westman, a Broadway star, up-and-coming movie actress, and (not coincidentally) sister of one of the authors.

MOTHER GOOSE...

Nydia had experience with farm animals like geese, having been seen on Broadway in John Golden’s Pigs. Her playwright sister was also an actress, having appeared on Broadway in 1922 with their brother, Theodore, who also was a writer. Needless to say, the Westman family was ‘born in a trunk’ to theatrical parents.  

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER...

Also in the cast was Jason Robards (Sr), who was dabbling in both stage and screen, but couldn’t decide which better suited him. 

In 1933, Robards and Westman both had small roles in the Maurice Chevalier film The Way To Love.

Most theatre fans known the story of how Cynthia Nixon appeared in two Broadway shows at the same time, The Real Thing and Hurlyburly, in 1984, but Ben Taggart did it first in 1929.

Actress Helen Kleeb played maid Mary Muldoon. Like Westman, Kleeb became one of television’s most popular character actors, best remembered for playing Mamie Baldwin on “The Waltons”. In 1969, Kleeb and Westman were re-united on an episode of “Mr. Deeds Goes To Town”. 

After a successful run at the Alcazar, Duffy moved the production to his Dufwin Theatre (named for its owners Duffy and Dale Winter) in Oakland, California starting September 13, 1929. The authors took the opportunity to make some changes to the script. Westman was joined by a new cast featuring Leo Llndhard, Irving Mitchell, Joseph de Stefanl, Dorothy Lammar, and Thomas Chatterton.

WILD GOOSE CHASE...

During the course of the play, the characters actually eat goose drumsticks. In Oakland, the property man told leading lady Westman that there were no geese to be found anywhere. She bet him that she could find a goose. After coming up goose-less, she happened on a poultry farm and decided to steal a goose and collect on the bet. She was discovered by a police officer and agreed to pay for the goose - and got him to pose for a photo!  

Coincidentally, in the alphabetical theatre listings of the Oakland Tribune, Cooking Her Goose was listed next to the comedy film The Cohens and Kellys in Atlantic City. The film was based on the 1921 play Two Blocks Away. 

In October, Duffy finally moved the play to his Hollywood Playhouse, which was planned from the start. 

Helen Kleeb rejoined the cast in Hollywood, still headlined by Westman. The play was always billed as a “jazz age comedy” that invoked “chuckles, laughs, and yells”. 

CARVING THE GOOSE...

Also planned from the start (at least after the play was ruled a success) was to head East and play New York - hopefully Broadway. But fate and filmdom had other plans. The Hollywood engagement ended a week early and the play headed to Seattle, where Duffy also had a theatre. 

GOOSE BUMPS...

On November 18th, it was reported that the Goose would make a stop on its migration to Broadway, setting up a nest in the Windy City. Instead of Seattle, Sacramento saw the first production of the play without Westman. Actor Roy Hiram Clair as the Detective was now above the title.  

CHRISTMAS GOOSE...

National City, California’s Savoy Theatre hosted the next production staring in Mid-December 1929.  

Just before New Year 1930, the Goose was cooked for good. But that wasn’t the end of the story.  The February 1, 1930 it was announced that Cooking Her Goose would be Mary Astor’s next picture, and Astor’s first film for RKO. Astor would re-team with her silent film beau Lloyd Hughes in their first talkie together.

CRISPY GOOSE...

RKO handed the film over to director Donald Crisp. His only sound film, it would be the last of his directing projects for the actor / director, who later won an Oscar for acting in How Green Was My Valley (1941). The play was adapted for the screen by Jane Murfin and was released under the title of The Runaway Bride (aka Run Away Bride aka Runaway Bride aka Run-Away Bride) in May 1930. It is not related to the 1999 film Runaway Bride starring Julia Roberts. Like the play, the action took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Like the play, filming never left California.  

On August 30, 1930, Atlantic City finally got to see the play and the film that was set there when the talking picture Runaway Bride opened at the Royal Theatre on Atlantic and Ohio.  The theatre opened that same year, but was re-named the Hollywood Theatre a few years later. By the late 1970s its goose was cooked and it met a runaway demolition ball. 

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

Outlaws: The Legend of O.B. Taggart (1995) This was bad movie I watched over the weekend and the only reason I kept watching it was for j/o material.

Mickey Rooney (the title character), Ben Johnson, Ned Beatty, Ernest Borgnine and Brandon Maggart. All of whom I had a thing over the years.

[mariocki]

Before I Hang (1940)

"George, your old age is a disease and I can cure it. Believe me, there's nothing new in what I'm saying. In fifty years of desperate effort we've added perhaps, oh say, fifteen years to our life expectancy, and the fight will go on. Year by year, we'll make small gains - but slowly, painfully. I've found a shortcut. With one small inoculation I can add years to your life, now, at once! How can you even hesitate?"

"I've got a lot of respect for you, John, always have had. But you're asking too much."

"I'm not asking anything, I'm trying to give you something!"

[frankenpagie]

8.22.19

[pivsketch]

back in february i was inspired by @minacoleta 's count the lights to make a wrestlestory of my own. i spent the last five months narrowing down every single concept i like and melting them all down in a crucible to pour into a mold to craft THE MOST SELF INDULGENT OCs i could possibly come up with. i think its probably embarrassingly obvious where all their little components and dynamics came from but whatEVER! whatever!! it rules, actually!!! make the most insanely self indulgent ocs you can think of and live a little!!!! its liberating!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway i dont have the constitution or patience or focus to execute an entire graphic novel so i'm just going to post their character introductions / plot premise under a readmore. its 1.3k words (JEEZ) and thats about as condensed as i could get it while still relaying their individual motivations and setting up ~The Main Conflict~ for a story im not going to get around to telling properly (SORRY). i still will post drawings and comics from time to time of them all being cute though (i have a backlog i didn't want to post until i properly introduced them. i didnt realize it would take so long for me to do so however.)

anyway heres the tl;dr summary of the members of two tag teams who are in a tag team tournament:

[TAGCEN]

TAGCEN is a wrestling promotion so dedicated to tag teams that their name is twice as long as your typical three-letter acronym wrestling company. They've been around long enough that their seasonal tag team tournament (aka: the main setting for the story) has somehow acquired a lot of prestige, despite their comparatively humble level of production. TAGCEN is mostly ran by a husband and wife tag team that is too busy running the show to wrestle nowadays: Cedric (most neurotic man who has ever lived) and Arsha (who loves chaos).

[Taggart]

One passion (wrestling) and one brain cell (dedicated to wrestling). Taggart loves wrestling so much he pulls his punches just so he can wrestle against his opponents longer. That's... the kind of guy he is. His overwhelming enthusiasm and lack of ~grandiose ambitions~ does tend to limit how seriously people take him, but he isn't to be underestimated: just because he's a genuinely nice guy doesn't mean he can't hit hard, and it also doesn't mean he can't take the hard hits either. That title of "brick wall" is not for show!

His tag team partner unexpectedly had to leave in the middle of the season, which left Taggart in a bit of a bind as he isn't allowed to work the rest of his matches all by himself (it is a TAG TEAM CENTRIC WRESTLING PROMOTION after all). Due to this, he manages to convince his ex-wrestler friend/roommate Basil to stand in as his tag team partner so he can finish out the season. Basil doesn't want to wrestle anymore and Taggart wouldn't want to force his friend to anyway, so Taggart just never tags him in and fights the matches 1v2. He loses, but its fine, with the time left in the season there's mathematically no way for them to get that much further than last place anyway.

Taggart's just glad to be wrestling, and he's especially happy that he (finally…) managed to draw his friend Basil back into the ring under the public eye. With a little more time Taggart thinks he can coax Basil into wrestling proper again, so long as… nothing comes up during this TAGCEN season… ha ha ha HA HA HA

[Basil]

Officially billed as "Ben Basil" with the title of "some guy", he is apparently some rando that Taggart got to fill in as his tag partner. Taggart never tags him in, so he usually just spends the entire time hanging out on the corner in a t-shirt and hat nonchalantly watching the match. Nobody's ever heard of him, and anyone who has seen him around just knows him as Taggart's weird friend that hangs out with him all the time. But! He is not just some guy Taggart found off the street:

Basil met Taggart back in wrestleschool after he had ditched his entire existing group of friends for reasons too elaborate to get into right now. Basil didn't know anything about wrestling and Taggart loves to talk about wrestling, so they ended up becoming extremely good friends.

Back then Basil was a copycat/mimic heel wrestler named Afterburner and really leaned into being kind of a dick! With nothing else to do, he just got really good at wrestling. This didn't last too long though, he eventually got caught up in his own head about being a bad guy (oops!) and retired comically early in his career.

Usually this is where Basil would pack up and go start a new life somewhere for the third time or so, but he MYSTERIOUSLY changed his mind this time around and decided to stick around instead. It's been like X years now and he still lives in the room he rents in Taggart's house, idly supporting Taggart's career by training with him and sparring with him and helping him do work at the wrestleschool and occasionally driving him to wrestling matches whenever he needs a ride.

For a guy who adamantly quit wrestling he sure still wrestles a lot.

Anyway…

[Samson]

a charismatic, mildly sardonic well-known top-tier veteran good guy. Samson is legit skilled and has been in wrestling for so long, everything has become a bit of a game to him. Things get boring if you win all the time, yeah? Effectively, this has (over the years) turned him into a bit of a wet blanket and low-key control freak about meta things like "narrative", whatever THAT means. He gets away with it, though, as he's usually raining on the parades of heels who deserve it, and is a generally entertaining guy.

Previously, Samson was the longest running title holder of the region's definitely not cursed and/or haunted solo Interstate Championship, which he eventually lost in a very exciting (but normal) wrestling match. His legendarily long title run had him being his usual Samson self the whole time, proving once and for all that there is nothing weird about the title. Wanting a fresh new challenge, preferably away from the definitely not cursed and/or haunted Interstate Championship, Samson set his sights on the tag team world.

Unfortunately while still in the process of deciding who to team with, he unexpectedly(!) lost a stipulation match to insufferable young upstart jackass Chip and now is obligated to tag with him. Samson is crafty enough that he doesnt lose unless he chooses to, so this… is… an unusual thing to happen to him. He's taking it in stride (or at least appearing to) though, as Chip is a pretty good wrestler himself so its not like its too bad of an arrangement. Besides, he's a man of his word. :)

In any case, the two of them actually get along, weirdly enough! Maybe Samson's just used to dealing with annoying heels. It's anyone's guess as to whether Samson is going to reform Chip into a good guy, or if Chip is going to do what holding on the Interstate Championship Title didnt do and finally tip Samson over into being a bad guy. There's a lot of people keeping an eye on the TAGCEN tournament to find out.

Of course that's how it was supposed to be going…

[Chip]

Competitive topcard rising star asshole guy who plagues every promotion you can think of. Talks a big game, and the worst part is, he can back it up. He really is some sort of insane wrestling prodigy, or something.

Bitter that he wasn't able to win the Interstate Championship off of Samson, Chip figured he could get his vengeance (and a tag team championship, eventually) by roping Samson into a tag team with him. Together, they've been wrestling tag matches all over to get enough clout to qualify for the big prestigious semi-invitational continental tag team championship. They were on track to win the (fairly notable) TAGCEN tournament to further these aims, but one day Chip realized who Taggart's new partner was, and, uh, well…

Chip also went to wrestleschool with Taggart and Basil, but was still trying to do something with his college degree at the time and gradually fell behind as a result. After they graduated, Chip hounded Afterburner (Basil) for a while in a rather one-sided feud and took some things Burner flippantly said to him extremely personally (like... he changed his ring name to Chip about it...). After a string of (frankly, embarrassing) defeats from him, Chip took a brief step back from wresting matches to reinvent himself. He buckled down to become extremely tough and cool, then came back ready as ever to finally kick Burner's ass once and for all.

…So imagine how furious he was when he found out the guy quit and disappeared from the scene while he was gone. Welp!!

Chip kept wrestling in the years since and became the insane jerk wrestleguy we know today. He moved on. Except not really. Seeing Afterburner (well… sort of) at TAGCEN after all these years has rekindled every single inch of fury all over again. Everyone else may not know or care about some wrestler dropout from X years ago, but destroying this guy (on equal terms) is everything Chip ever wanted. He just needs to figure out how to get Basil to fight him for realsies.

Of course, Chip being obsessed with fighting some jobber team instead of ranking up is not good for their tag team's prospects, and while Samson is a good guy, he does want to win…

[scotianostra]

Birthday Scottish actress Siobhan Redmond, born in Glasgow on August 27th 1959.

Please note wiki give her d.o.b as July 27th, but two other sources say August.

Redmond was educated at Park School for Girls in Glasgow’s West End. She then studied English at St Andrews University, it is here she started acting in student productions and is said to have been discovered by oor Makar Liz Lochhead. She went on to complete a one-year postgraduate year at the Bristol Old Vic.

Siobhan might not be a household name, but she has some pretty impressive credentials to her portfolio, her first roles were in comedy shows, the most famous being Alfresco in 1983/84 alongside an impressive line up that included, Robbie Coltrane, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Ben Elton, as seen in the first photo.

She went on to become a regular character in the 80’s series Bulman, as Lucy McGinty. Perhaps her biggest TV role was in the 90’s cop show Between the Lines as Det. Sgt. Maureen Connell, after this she appeared with Alan Cummings in the underrated sitcom The High Life, a link to another post today, in 1997 we saw her onscreen with Billy Connolly in an adaptation of Deacon Brodie!

Redmond took on a role in the Hospital-soap type series Holby City as consultant paediatrician and clinical lead of Otter Ward, Janice Taylor. Since then Siobhan seems to have reverted to playing the role of a cop again, in The Bill, crime scene examiner Lorna Hart in 14 episodes in 2007 and in Taggart in 2010 she was Chief Supt Karen Campbell in 6 episodes. Redmond has also provided the voice of Ollie in the popular bairns animated show Nina and the Neurons. More up to date shows include, Queens of Mystery, Amazon Prime series Dark Sense and the Excellent mini series Unforgotten. We last saw Siobhan last year in The Nest and Grantchester, while she returned to Queens of Mystery this year, which also starred the excellent Julie Graham. Prior to that, there was a BBC Scotland comedy pilot, Beep, which aired earlier this year, and the opening episode of the latest series of Midsomer Murders, one of the first shows to return to filming last summer.

Siobhan Redmond has also been very busy treading the boards, as a regular member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, playing among others Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing"a nd in a play called ‘The Trick is to Keep Breathing’ which debuted at The Tron Theatre Glasgow, before touring all over the country and in Canada. She also starred in "Look Back in Anger” that followed a world tour in 1990 with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson.

Siobhan recently appeared in the omedy-drama series Rain Dogs , she also turnedup in the sitcom Two Doors Down, whicha new series is in production just now.

[terdazaly]

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