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busterkeatonfanfic · 4 years

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Note: Today is so beautiful, you all deserve this 8,000-word chapter a few days early. Thank Uncle Joe and Aunt Kamala. If you enjoy it, please leave me a little comment telling me what you liked best. They really keep me going!

Chapter 13

Nelly had never suffered stage fright in the theater, but as her taxi pulled up to the Villa, she felt like she was getting a year’s worth at once. Her taxi wasn’t the only vehicle in the front drive. A handsome red-and-black Packard was there, expelling a man in a seersucker suit and a fashionable woman who shimmered in a dress the color of a deep blue sapphire. She wished desperately for a drink. She wished that she hadn’t eaten a plate of scalloped ham and potatoes before leaving. She wished that she’d asked Buster what to wear, how to comport herself, what to say, but all she had to go on were her own acting skills and a small measure of courage. She wondered if he’d be surprised to see her show up, if he’d forgotten the invitation altogether.

She had rented her dress from Carmela’s for the handsome sum of $37. It was pale green like a luna moth and layered in silks and crepe de chine. Silver beading was stitched across the front in a design vaguely resembling a rising phoenix. She’d also purchased a white-feathered rhinestone headpiece for $12, but her necklace was her own and its green gemstones only glass. Her hair was waved, each side done up in a braided bun. For her lips she’d chosen a dark rose, and she’d applied some turquoise shadow to her lids above the kohl liner. She felt like a perfect imposter, albeit an elegant one.

Until they’d pulled up his drive and she’d sighted the Villa, she hadn’t really understood just how rich Buster Keaton was. The residence was white and enormous, a sort of boxcar shape with both ends bent inward, with a red clay-tile roof and another large house to the left as you were approaching the Villa from the back. A long paved drive wound up the back of the house where palm trees, Mediterranean cypresses, and a carpet bed of flowers studded the hills. Buster’s easy, humble manner on the few occasions she’d interacted with him in person had made her feel increasingly at ease with him. It had begun to feel like they were on the same level. Now she realized how incorrect that feeling had been. She’d been in a few stately houses back in Evanston—those belonging to her mother’s higher-society friends—but they were nothing to the sprawling grandeur of the Villa.

The jets of a stone fountain in the center of the front drive splashed pleasantly as Nelly stepped out of the car and tipped the driver, holding her door, with a five-dollar bill. She smiled and tried to look easy, like she belonged there and was in the habit of handing out handsome tips. Her only thought as she approached the tall arched doorway of the Villa was, I’m going to flub my lines.

It was a warm night and no one was wearing coats, but there was a maid in the foyer prepared to take them nonetheless. Just outside of the foyer, a beautiful young woman was smiling and clasping the hand of another beautiful young woman, who was accompanied by a beautiful young man. The beautiful young woman looked a whole lot like Norma Talmage and Nelly realized that she was none other than Natalie. Her heart went wild. Before she had time to think about what she would say, it was her turn to greet the hostess.

“How do you do?” she said.

“Very well. How do you do?” said Natalie, smiling. She was slim and petite, with a dark bob parted on the side and prettily waved.

“Very well. I’m Nelly. I worked with Bus—your husband—on Steamboat Bill.” She didn’t know what made her blurt it, only that Natalie was looking at her without a hint of recognition in her eyes and Nelly felt she owed an explanation for how a nobody like her ended up among the big names. She fancied that she saw something in Natalie’s expression change a little, but the smile didn’t waver.

“Very pleased to meet you. You’ll find refreshments just over there. Buster will be down in a little while. I’m sure he’ll be pleased you came.”

Nelly wanted to do something to soften Natalie’s impression of her, compliment the house or her dress, a costly-looking beaded yellow one that hit slightly above the knee, but she was already greeting the next guest.

Seven or so couples mingled in the space beyond the foyer. There were two square white columns supporting an upper level, a majestic stone staircase leading up to it on the right, and arched doorways to the left and right leading to unseen parts of the house. There were arched doorways everywhere, in fact, and a long table filled with an assortment of French hors d’oeuvre. A recessed area with white-streaked black marble steps stood at the rear of the open room, leading out to a loggia from which Nelly could just see the backyard. She itched to find the washroom so she could powder the sweat off her face.

A butler appeared at her elbow offering a cocktail and she took it at once. When she was sure no one was watching, she gulped it in one go and hid the glass on a nearby table. She had no business being here. She wondered whether she was meant to have invited somebody. All of the other couples seemed to know each other and were engrossed in conversation, and she was the only one without a partner. She stood on the checkerboard marble floor with her hands knit in front of her, smiling and trying her best to project an air of belonging.

That smile faltered when she saw who came through foyer next. It was Louise Brooks! She was wearing a low-cut black gown that revealed the cleavage of her small breasts and her lips were a deep cherry red. She was accompanied by a man that Nelly didn’t recognize. Nelly’s mouth began to go dry and she was keenly aware of how damp her underarms had become. She had nothing to anchor herself to for comfort or security. As the minutes ticked by and she remained unacknowledged by the other guests besides polite smiles and nods, she began to feel hot and dizzy. Her heart was beating rapidly. She needed to escape. She wondered if anyone would notice if she made a casual break for the loggia.

“Hey, Buster!” a man called. Some people pointed up and waved. Nelly followed their eyes and saw Buster on the second level above the loggia. He put up his hand gravely like a king recognizing his subjects and started down the stairs.

In the next horrifying moment, he lost his footing and took a hard tumble straight down. The room erupted in gasps and shouts. Buster had come to rest on his back at the foot of the stairs with his limbs splayed. His eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving. Some of the guests rushed toward him.

Then, with a mildly baffled expression, he stood up and brushed the dust off the arms of his suit jacket. Someone began clapping and pretty soon everyone joined in, laughing and cheering him. Only then did Nelly realize it had been a pratfall. She didn’t know if it was funny. The sight of him lying so still for those few heart-stopping moments had rattled her.

“A drink?” The butler was at her elbow again.

She looked away from Buster. “Please.”

He handed her a martini glass with a little orange wedge on the side and sugar on the rim and she sipped, the spell of her own panic broken somewhat, though not for very long. Still more guests were filtering into the room. She recognized Marion Davies and Norma Talmadge with another thudding of her heart in her throat. The room seemed to be getting famouser by the minute. Buster was greeting guests a few yards away, sober and unsmiling, unaware that she was there. She wondered if he’d forgotten that he’d invited her. It seemed quite possible.

It was too much; she gave into her impulse to steal off to the loggia. Trying not to draw attention to herself, she stepped down into the recessed area, through an arched doorway, and into the loggia. White wicker furniture, potted trees, and pink orchids adorned it. Sconces on its inner walls burned with real flames, while two hanging fixtures gave a stronger light.

It felt a few degrees cooler outside. The sun had by now fallen and only a few streaks of purple remained in the sky. Nelly’s cocktail tasted of citrus, and she licked some sugar off the rim. The glow of the drinks hadn’t yet hit her. Too much scalloped ham in her stomach, she supposed. She stood next to one of the columns beneath yet another arched doorway and looked down what seemed like one hundred white marble steps, illuminated by carefully concealed electric lights, leading to the huge sunken swimming pool. The green lawn seemed to go on for miles. She still couldn’t get her head around the sheer excess of Buster’s abode. She remembered a two-reeler in which a down-and-out Buster, looking pitiful, stood in a bread line but was denied a loaf at the last minute. How humble and sad he had seemed!

“Hello,” said Buster behind her.

She shuddered in surprise and turned around to see him walking toward her. “You always sneak up on me,” she said.

“Nelly.”

The split-second astonishment on his face told her two things. One, he hadn’t recognized her. Two, she looked as good as she thought she did. A sudden warm confidence renewed her.

“What are you doing out here?” he said, stopping a few paces from her. He raised his own cocktail to his lips.

She took another sip of hers, deciding there was no point in not being honest. “I realized I was out of place and wanted some air.”

Buster looked at her appraisingly. He was wearing a well-tailored navy-blue suit and the flowers on his matching silk tie were embroidered in bright gilt thread. It was the prettiest tie she’d ever seen. “Thought you wanted fame and fortune,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows. “I want a job as an extra. I never said anything about fame and fortune.”

“What about your starring role in Shakespeare’s big talkie?” he said. Although he wasn’t smiling, it was definitely a tease.

“I want the role. I hadn’t thought about what happens next,” she said, and it was true. She wanted to be an actress because she liked it. She wanted recognition for that acting, but it had never occurred to her, not seriously anyway, that recognition might lead to prominence or money. Now, among Hollywood’s elites in Buster Keaton’s extravagant mansion, anything seemed possible. Silence fell between them and she finished her cocktail.

Buster said, “So what do you think?”

“Of what?”

“My house. The Villa.” He came to her side.

She met his eyes and was alarmed to feel a sort of flutter in her middle as they regarded each other. She thought of Natalie greeting her in the foyer and was disgusted with herself. “It’s, uh …” she said, distracted.

“Vulgar?”

“No, that’s not what I was going to say. I think it’s wonderful. I’ve never seen anything like it.” “But it is vulgar. I think it’s wonderful as well, but it’s vulgar. You can say it.”

“If you insist,” she said, looking away from him. It was difficult to look him in the eyes now.

“You’re not being honest,” he said.

For a panicked second, she thought he was referring to her feelings. But no, they were talking about the house. “I never thought you lived like this,” she said. “I guess I don’t know what I thought. I’m not used to it.”

Buster nodded. “You thought I was that honest boy from the pictures.”

“Well that’s how you seem when you’re working. I mean, when you’re filming a picture.”

He sipped his cocktail. “It’s expected,” he said, sweeping his hand to indicate the house. “When in Rome, you know.”

“Well I suppose that tells you that I’m out of place, that I’m not used to it.”

“C’mon, I’ll help you find your place.” He held out his elbow and she found she couldn’t refuse. She linked her arm in his before she was properly aware of it. His arm was warm and the material of his jacket was soft against her bare arm. He smelled like cigarettes and aftershave. Her mind protested, Natalie, his wife Natalie. But she was powerless. They walked back up the steps to the recessed area, then up the other pair of steps to the checkerboard floor. The room was now noisy with conversation. A Victrola playing jazz could barely be heard.

Buster dropped her arm and stopped in front of Marion Davies and her male companion, who were near the hors d'oeuvre table sipping drinks. “Nelly, this is Marion and Dick. Marion and Dick, this is Nelly.”

“How do you do?” said Nelly, blushing.

With formalities out of the way, the lovely blonde-haired Marion asked with a polite smile, “And what do you do, Nelly?”

“I’m a theater actress. I worked with Buster on his last picture,” she said, the answer coming out just as smoothly as if she’d rehearsed it.

More polite conversation commenced, and Nelly began to relax. This was one of her mother’s garden parties when she was a teenager and she was practicing her charm and manners with the adults, that was all. Sure it was artificial, but that was okay.

As soon as there was a lull in the conversation with Marion and Dick, Buster spun her toward a nearby man looking to be about forty, slightly heavy with large, broad arms. “Clarence, Nelly. Nelly, Clarence.”

Clarence ended up being Clarence Brown, who had directed Norma Talmadge in Kiki. Nelly told him that she had liked it and Buster said in a whisper, his breath hot on her ear, “Careful you don’t charm him too much, he just got divorced.”

Next, Buster turned her toward Jack Conway and his wife Virginia. She didn’t recognize his name and kicked herself for not paying more attention to title credits when Buster explained that he was Jack Conway the director. She had seen Brown of Harvard, though, and was able to find common ground with him by telling him that she liked it. She was just starting to feel like she had established a good rapport with the Conways when Buster whisked her away again. She was now faced with Louise Brooks, sparkling like the dictionary definition of sex, and her date, a slim-mouthed man in a grey double-breasted suit who did not sparkle with anything.

“Louise and George, Nelly. Nelly, Louise and George.”

“Call him Wet Wash,” said Louise, giggling.

“She’s not his wife,” Buster whispered. Nelly swallowed at the feeling of his breath against her ear again.

Again, Buster’s butler approached her and again she accepted a cocktail. This one was bright green and mint-flavored. Nelly hadn’t seen Louise Brooks in any pictures, but she’d seen her in plenty of magazines, so she expressed her admiration for Louise’s sleek, dark-brown bob instead. Louise received the compliment good-humoredly and asked Nelly what she did. Buster placed his hand on the small of her back. The weight of it was exquisite, but brief. He leaned over to say, “You’re on your own now, kid. I have to mingle.” Then he was gone.

“I’m a theater actress,” said Nelly.

And Louise said, “Oh, what have you starred in?”

And pretty soon she was telling Louise about the humble Vista, the revues, and playing Helena and Maria like it was nothing. It was suicide to be seen paying more than momentary attention to a girl in the presence of Nate and the two warships that were his sisters-in-law, but from the minute Buster saw Nelly out on the loggia, a vision in green, he couldn’t seem to leave her alone. There was no reason why he should worry so much about whether she was having a good time or if she spoke to the right people, but now that she was here, he felt compelled to look out for her. Maybe it was how drunk she’d gotten at that speak-easy. Without guidance, she seemed liable to slip and be swallowed up. Or maybe it was her unspoiled Midwestern ways, which reminded him so much of folks he’d known in Muskegon.

He wondered that he’d never noticed that her eyes were blue.

His sense of duty toward her became more powerful with every drink. He knew he’d suffer the consequences in the form of one of Nate’s jealousy attacks, but that punishment seemed far removed as his guests got drunker and their sense of abandon greater. Morning was far off and the night was still young. Now was a time to be happy about it all, to stop tormenting himself about how to make Nate happy and thinking about being saddled with twenty M-G-M gag writers who wouldn’t know funny if it high-kicked them in the forehead like Joe Keaton. He was with his friends in his palace, there was a pretty girl to charm, and life was okay. Somewhere north of nine o’clock, Nelly was sitting in the family room on a settee opposite Louise and George, who were sharing a chair. Perched in George’s lap, Louise’s sparkle drew lots of men’s eyes, Nelly noticed. Of course, that sparkle had a lot to do with the shocking low cut of her dress and its promise to expose her breasts if she moved just a little this way or that. In spite of Louise’s glamor and unabashed provocativeness, Nelly liked her. She was down-to-earth, and they soon discovered a mutual love of books and music. Another citrus cocktail had been handed to Nelly by the butler at some point and the warm glow of spirits was finally upon her. She couldn’t remember why she’d been so worried about this party. She belonged perfectly.

Louise was in the midst of a story about her first feature role which was to begin filming in Mexico the following month when Buster wandered over. It had been over an hour since Nelly had last seen him. She looked up expectantly, waiting for him to sit next to her on the settee. Instead, he moved closer and seated himself straight in her lap.

“Buster!” she cried, trying not to spill what remained of her drink.

He sprang up and looked at her lap, his brows knit in confusion. Then he sat next to her, folded his hands, and looked at Louise and George, as if unaware of his mistake. Louise laughed appreciatively and George smiled. Nelly tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it. He really was funny, playing the boyish Buster she knew from the screen.

“Oh. Nelly,” he said, as though noticing her for the first time.

“Buster,” she said dryly.

“I don’t suppose you like to dance,” he said. He searched her eyes and nodded slowly, as if coming to an answer. “No, I don’t think you do.”

“What?” she said. Her cheeks were warm and there was a joke she wasn’t understanding.

“Go dance with him!” said Louise, laughing. “That’s what he’s asking.”

Buster responded with a mock pained look and opened his hands, as if to say, Great, you just ruined it.

Silently, he offered his elbow to Nelly, looking straight ahead and not saying anything, back to acting like one of his characters again. She took it and cast Louise a helpless look as he led her away. As they headed back toward the room with the checkerboard floor, she kept her gaze straight ahead. She didn’t want to risk catching any of the Talmadges’ eyes if they were around.

A medium-tempo jazz number was playing on the Victrola. Buster wasted no time in placing an arm around her waist and taking her hand in his. He led her onto the checkerboard floor where a number of other couples were dancing. She smelled whiskey on him where she hadn’t earlier and wondered if he was drunk. Buster hummed along to the song, which wasn’t one she recognized, but she liked the jaunty saxophone. He was a good dancer, nimble and coordinated.

She looked into his eyes and what she thought she saw there made her certain that she was in over her head. She quickly glanced away. She was getting that gay happy feeling she had the night at the blind tiger and wished to squash it. Natalie might be somewhere in the room and Buster was dancing with a girl other than his wife, so she had to have all her wits about her.

Don’t you know who she is

Looking right at me is

Sugar

My sugar

She looked at Buster’s hand curled around hers. She’d never noticed how big his hands were for such a small man. Feeling the danger in it, she glanced back at his face. He was regarding her impassively. She dropped her eyes again.

Bees would not be buzzin’

‘Round her if she wasn’t

Sugar

My sugar

I declare that honey hasn’t got a thing on her,

No sir!

Buster hummed as he swanned her around the room. Nelly finally worked up the courage to look over his shoulder to see who else was in the room. To her relief, she saw none of the Talmadges, which could only mean that they were in the living room. She made a note to spend the rest of the night out here offering herself as a dance partner so she could avoid finding out how they felt about Buster inviting her to dance.

In conclusion therefore

That is why I care for

Sugar

She felt a little out of breath when the song ended. Part of her was relieved that they were no longer drawing attention to themselves and the other part was disappointed, especially when Buster released her hand and dropped his hand from her waist.

She started to thank Buster for the dance, but his attention was elsewhere. Her eyes followed his and fell on a man who wasn’t much taller than Buster, but seemed far bigger. Maybe it was the breadth of his most defining features: that distinctive cleft chin, the prominent nose and ears. Or maybe it was just the way he had loomed so large in her fantasies.

“Well there’s your Don Juan,” Buster said softly, breaking the spell. “Won’t you go to him?”

“Oh, I can’t,” she said, terror grabbing her.

Buster touched her chin and steered her face back to his. “Do you want to be in pictures?” He looked at her in an earnest way.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s meet him.” He placed his hand lightly in the center of her back and walked her to the object of so many of her torrid dreams.

“Jack, this is Nelly. Nelly, this is Jack,” he said.

To Nelly’s alarm, Buster melted off into the crowd and she was stuck staring up into John Barrymore’s face.“How do you do?” she said. Tremulous didn’t begin to describe how she felt.

He smiled. “How do you do?” His voice was deep and rich and aristocratic, exactly as she had imagined it. “Do you care to dance?”

She managed to nod and he pulled her close to him, guiding her in a waltz step as a slower number began. It was a new version of “In the Good Old Summertime” that she hadn’t heard before.

In the good old summertime

“And what’s your story, Nelly?” Barrymore asked.

Nelly felt like she might be drowning.

You hold her hand and she holds yours

And that’s a very good sign

In a daze, her cheeks flushed, she found herself telling him not about being a theater actress or working with Buster, but of playing Kate in the first talkie adaptation of Taming of the Shrew. Unlike Buster, Barrymore knew Shakespeare back to front and she felt sure somehow that he would understand. He smiled and listened, the perfect gentleman. She explained that talkies were a natural fit for Shakespeare and would forever change the way audiences experienced him. All the while, the soft dreamy notes of the music carried them along. She had been gay and light-hearted before, but now she was overpowered by Barrymore’s sheer presence. He was strong, he was beautiful, he seemed a little dangerous. Maybe this was what real love felt like.

She was surprised when he released her hand and thanked her for the dance. The music had ended just like that. She felt as though she’d only been dancing for seconds.

Before she had time to do anything other than return his thanks for the dance, another man touched her shoulder. “May I have this dance?” he said in a refined English accent. He was about Buster’s size and quite handsome.

“Of course,” she said, taken aback. She was dizzy with the drinks and the encounter with Barrymore. She wanted nothing more than to retire to the washroom to touch up her face and memorize the details of her conversation with Barrymore, but it wouldn’t do to be rude to one of Buster’s guests.

The man grasped her waist and took her hand as a Dixieland jazz tune began. He smiled. He had full lips, blue eyes, and thick wavy hair that was turning white at his temples and forehead. In spite of that, he looked and sounded young. She tried to remember if she had ever danced with three such handsome men before in a single night.

“I’m Nelly,” she said. “A stage actress.”

“You probably don’t need me to introduce myself,” said the man. His voice was light and cheerful. He bore forward and she stepped back, left foot, right foot, to the side. A tango.

She didn’t recognize him at all, but guessed that he was a director. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are,” she confessed. “I’m pretty new to town.”

The man’s smile broadened. “You’ve really no idea?” He seemed delighted by this news.

Nelly smiled and shook her head. “Not in the faintest.”

“Shall I spoil it for you or do you like a mystery?” he said.

“I like one well enough,” she said, trying to remember her tango steps.

“I’ll give you a clue. Clue starts with C.”

Beautiful changes in different keys

Beautiful changes and harmonies

“You’re charming,” she said.

“That’s not my name, but it’s a good guess.”

Watch that, hear that minor strain!

The song changed tempo and they trotted across the floor. She was definitely out of breath now.

There’s so many babies that he can squeeze,

And he’s always changing those keys.

She studied his face and shook her head again after a few seconds. “I can’t place you. Are you a director?”

“The first four letters were right,” he said, winking. “When you said ‘charming.’”

She spelled them in her head, C-H-A-R, and the penny dropped, along with her jaw. “I can’t believe it!” she managed.

“It’s not often I get to surprise anybody,” he said, looking satisfied.

She searched his face for hints of the Little Tramp, but couldn’t find them. “I never knew your eyes were blue. I thought they were brown.”

“One of my many secrets.”

“Well, you are a director. I had that right!” she said, and that made him laugh.

When the dance ended, Charlie Chaplin kissed her hand before releasing her and she felt truly like she was walking on the moon as she sought out of the washroom. It didn’t seem possible that this was her life. She relieved herself, then appraised herself in the mirror. It was scalloped and gold, with the names of famous Italian cities stamped around the edges, FIRENZE, GENOVA, ROMA, MODENA, VENEZIA. She was happy to see that her makeup was mostly bearing up under the dancing, but she touched up her lipstick and powder. Although she was a little flushed, she felt far more in control of her faculties than she had been the night of the blind tiger. There was great irony, she supposed, in the fact that she had felt out of place that night too. Whether in low company or high company, Nelly Foster managed to stick out. Her head whirled with the encounters she’d had over the past few hours, Marion Davis, Louise, John Barrymore, and Charlie Chaplin.

And Buster, the architect of it all. As she left the washroom, she wondered where he’d gotten off to. She hesitated in the corridor, reluctant to rejoin the revelers on the checkerboard floor or face the Talmadge clan in the living room. Once again, the loggia seemed the logical solution. She crept off to it, wondering what time it was.

Unfortunately, the loggia was not a refuge. As soon as she stepped foot on it, she heard such blatant sounds of passion that sent her scurrying and blushing back to the room with the checkerboard floor. The front door seemed to beckon. There was a grandfather clock just outside the foyer that told her it was a quarter to eleven. The mere thought of the late hour made her yawn; she was accustomed to being asleep by nine-thirty each night. The night had been enjoyable and, all things considered, she had comported herself alright. It seemed wisest to call a taxi and quit while she was ahead.

“You’re not leaving?” said Buster behind her.

She startled again. “How do you manage to do that?” she said, turning around

“Do what?” He had a whiskey glass in each hand and was wearing a nonchalant expression.

“Oh, you know what,” she said. “And yes, I was thinking of it. It’s getting late.”

Buster cocked his head, indicating the front door.

“What?” she said.

He rolled his eyes in mock impatience and cocked his head again, wordless, playing his character. She followed him, her heart quickening as she followed him out the massive arched mahogany door and into the circle drive where the fountain splashed. She couldn’t imagine where they were going and why. He went left and led her past topiaries, then left around the corner of the house. Outside, it was dark and still. The leaves of palms waved above them and shrubs sheltered them from sight. Buster sank down in the lawn some feet from the marble steps of another loggia, this one with a squarish entrance.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

Instead of answering, he reached up and offered her one of the glasses. She took it and sniffed it. It was straight whiskey. Her stomach remembered the way it had felt coming back up that night in his hotel room in July and she hesitated.

“Did you get your break with Barrymore?” Buster said, looking up at the sky.

Nelly set the drink in the grass and lowered herself carefully next to him. She had to return the dress the following day and would be responsible for any damage, including grass stains. “I didn’t get a chance to bring it up.”

Buster tilted his glass to his lips. “I can talk to him if you’d like. Or Sam Taylor.”

Nelly frowned though he couldn’t see her face well in the diffuse light coming from the loggia. She picked up the glass and swirled it, then plugged up her nose before she took a drink. All the same, the whiskey still burned going down. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she said at last. The question had been growing on her ever since he invited her to the party and, influenced by the cocktails, she wanted to know.

Buster took another drink. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be?” He lowered his chin and looked off into the distance.

“Are you drunk?” she said. She didn’t have proof, but she was pretty sure she was more sober than him by miles.

“Does it matter?” he countered.

The conversation wasn’t getting anywhere. “All I mean to say,” she said, “is that you don’t have to introduce me to your friends. When I called you the other day, I wasn’t expecting this. In fact, now I don’t think I ought to have called you at all. I ought to have just found a way to ask Mr. Taylor myself.”

“Everyone has an angle,” said Buster, knocking back the last of the whiskey.

Nelly had not thought of herself as someone with an angle before, but there was some truth to his words, even though she didn’t like to admit it. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you doing these days?” he said. He pulled a flask from his jacket and refilled his glass.

The flask shocked Nelly a little bit, but she bit back a blunt remark and answered his question as if she didn’t notice. “Working on the United Artists lot. They put me in the prop department and I paint backdrops once and awhile. I’m hoping to get a part as an extra in the new D.W. Griffith. Anything they’ll let me do, really. It pays my rent fine.”

Buster hmmed. She saw that his hair was beginning to resist the lacquer he’d put in it and was coming loose, a curl here, a wave there. Likely it was the cocktails speaking, but she wanted to take the glass of whiskey away and stroke it.

She followed his gaze. The Villa looked down into the soft, firefly-like glow of Beverly Hills. The light from the distant mansions wasn’t enough to dampen the stars, which hung white and clear overhead, peeping through the palm leaves. The grass was dewy beneath her hands and goose pimples rose on her arms as a breeze stirred. It was decidedly cool now. Although October in California felt nothing like October in Illinois, there was something of autumn in the air. She shivered. It was like a scene out of a picture, Buster and his girl under the stars, dissatisfied because they hadn’t yet sorted out their misunderstanding. Then she gave herself a mental shake for being fanciful and romantic, reminding herself of how Natalie had welcomed her into the Villa earlier. This was her home just as much as it was Buster’s; she was Buster’s girl.

“Cold?” said Buster.

She protested, but he was already shrugging out of his jacket. He arranged it around her shoulders. “Thank you,” she said. His face was close as he tucked the jacket and she turned away. She reached for her glass and took another swallow of whiskey. She wasn’t ready to face her thoughts without more liquor on board.

“Pretty dress, by the way,” said Buster, leaning back on an elbow. “Might be the prettiest one here.”

“Thank you. I rented it,” she said, warmth rising in her cheeks.

“Why?”

She laughed. “Why? Why’d I rent it? Well to begin with, I’m not rich, and if you’re going to act, you need to look the part.”

“Are you acting?” said Buster.

She choked back another mouthful of whiskey and grimaced. “Sure I am.”

“What does your father do?”

It was an odd non-sequitur. “He’s in real estate,” she said. “Why?” The warm bloom of a proper drunkenness was settling on her.

“And he does pretty well for himself, I guess?” said Buster.

“I guess.” She rolled the glass between her hands.

“You didn’t want for anything growing up?”

“No.”

“Most of those people in there, they didn’t grow up so well. We all just got lucky, that’s all. Right place, right time kind of thing. We’re just kids with a bunch of money, buying toys and palaces. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of around them. Everyone’s pretending just as much as you.”

She considered him, his face deeply shadowed in the feeble light. There was something dark and melancholic in his mood.

“Anyway, I should have told you to bring someone,” said Buster. “You would have felt a little better I bet. Do you have a steady?”

She shook her head, wondering what it meant that he was asking her if there was a man in her life. “No steady. And I did feel a little better, after you introduced me.”

“Good.” He tossed back the rest of his glass and scooted closer. “How was Jack Barrymore? Did he live up to your dreams?”

She grew hot and took another swallow of the biting liquor before answering. It was the second time he’d brought up Barrymore. The truth was, events had moved so fast she hadn’t had a chance to think about her encounter with Barrymore in any depth. And now that Buster was so distracting and near, she found it hard to think of Barrymore at all. “What makes you think he has anything to do with my dreams?”

“ ‘Cause you said so, that night I picked you up from the speak-easy. It’s alright, I won’t tell his wife. They’re getting a divorce, anyway.”

The joke felt cruel, the barb of it directed more at her than Barrymore and his wife. It made her feel ridiculous and scheming, ashamed of the dazed way she’d looked up at that singular face she’d only seen on screen, imagining that this could be her break, that she might be captivating him or falling in love. The worst of it was that it might be true. She did have an angle, possibly more than one.

“That’s mean,” she said, looking out at the distant houses.

“Well, it’s true. And I suppose you heard about Chaplin’s scandal, how he got soaked for almost a million in that divorce of his,” he said.

She acknowledged that she had.

“I just hope Nate’s kinder to me when the time comes,” he said.

She looked at him quizzically. “What do you mean?”

His lips twisted in a bitter smile. “You can’t seriously think that we’re happy.”

“Nate?” she said.

“My wife. Natalie.”

“Oh.” The conversation had taken a dangerous turn and she finished her whiskey before saying, “I hadn’t thought about it.” Her heart thumped in her ears.

“Do you like me, Nelly?”

“Yes. Why?” She tried to sound casual, but wasn’t sure if she succeeded.

She hazarded a glance at him, fearing what she might find in his eyes, but he was looking straight ahead again. What she didn’t dare say was that she liked the profile in front of her—the aquiline nose, the soft lips, the dark brows, the heavy-lidded eyes—better than Barrymore’s. She had for a while now, she realized.

Buster shrugged and pulled the flask out of his jacket again. Nelly, by now feeling the whiskey’s full effects, did something shocking without a single thought. She snatched it from his hand, raised her arm as high as she could, and flung it down the hill.

“Hey!” said Buster, somewhat loudly.

“Shh,” she said. “We’ll be heard.”

“Don’t shush me, sweetheart, this is my party and I can drink as much as I like, you hear?”

He looked like such a mixture of things in that moment—bewildered, indignant, hurt—that she leaned in and kissed him.

He didn’t react.

For a split second, she was sure that she had misread all of the signs she thought she’d noticed and was about to be in serious trouble with him. Then his hand was at the back of her neck and he was pulling her into a deeper kiss, nothing at all like the chaste, brief pecks he gave on screen. She threaded her hand in the shorter hair at the back of his head to keep him where he was. His arm came around her shoulders and she braced her free hand against his chest. She was thrilled to find that his heart was pounding.

“You shouldn’t drink anymore tonight. You’ll have an awful headache in the morning,” she said in a whisper, when he pulled back for a moment.

He kissed her again. The heat in her cheeks was rapidly starting to spread to other regions of her body. Now that this was happening, she didn’t have a single thought for anything but Buster. Her entire world had come down to him, and he felt too right for her to worry about morals or consequences.

She leaned her forehead against his as they broke apart. His breath warmed her lips. He was looking at her silently and she looked back. Gradually, the world began to fade back in. She could hear a faint peal of laughter from within the Villa and she wondered how long it would be before someone would miss the host and go searching for him.

“I guess we should go in,” she said, after a few moments of silence.

Buster looked at her. His finger traced the bow of her upper lip, then the seam of her mouth. When she parted her lips in response, he captured them again. She closed her eyes and cupped his cheek as her world narrowed back down to the sound of their kisses and his soft, needy exhales. It might have been just seconds or whole minutes before Buster jolted her back to reality with the press of his tongue against hers. She drew back, feeling light-headed, and he followed, biting her neck, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to tell her that this could get out of control quickly. The base part of her wanted that—very much—but the rational part of her mind was waking up.

“We should go,” she said.

“We’re by my wing,” said Buster hoarsely. “There’s a staircase to my balcony. You could wait in my room for me until the party’s over. I’d get you out before morning.”

“We can’t,” she said, even as he was arguing against her neck with more gentle love-bites.

“Why not?” His head went lower and his tongue outlined her collarbone.

“It’s dangerous. I bet your guests are already looking for you.”

Almost on cue, laughter echoed out from the area of the drive and the fountain. Aware that it could be the Talmadge sisters, Nelly took the opportunity to stand up and brush herself off before he could persuade her—and he was perhaps too close to persuading her. She’d lost track of the whiskey glass and whether she had finished what was in it. She was decidedly intoxicated. “C’mon,” she said. She stuck out her hand for Buster. He let her pull him up and swayed beside her for a moment, wincing and rubbing his forehead.

“Will you call a taxi for me?” she said.

He reached out and touched her cheek, looking at her for a long quiet moment as if to memorize her. She noticed that his mouth was smudged in lipstick.

“Oh dear. I got lipstick all over you,” she said. “Do you have a handkerchief? I don’t have mine on me. My handbag’s inside.”

“You and that damn bag, always leaving it behind.” He reached out and fished in the breast pocket of his jacket on her shoulders.

She dampened the handkerchief with a little saliva and scrubbed at his lips. “Ow!” he said, frowning.

“Don’t be a baby, it’s almost off,” she said, wiping at the corner of his mouth. She stood back. It was hard to tell because of the shadows, but she thought that she’d gotten most of it. “How do I look?”

Buster smirked, the first real smile she’d seen on him the whole night. “Defiled,” he said. “Better stay out here while I call that taxi.” He pressed her hand before he left, and she was alone with the most impossible tangle of thoughts, the foremost of which was that she wanted him to come back as soon as possible so that they could finish what they’d started.

She stepped into the loggia and sat down in the nearest chair. Stunned didn’t begin to describe her feelings. Buster’s jacket around her shoulders enveloped her in the smell of him, cigarettes and his own unique scent. Drunk, she was buoyed on a comfortable wave of happiness. She and Buster had done something daring, it was true, but in her heart’s core it was what she had wanted and she didn’t regret it a single bit. She’d only stopped it because she was afraid of being caught. Under normal circumstances, that thought would have alarmed her, but inebriated she could be honest with herself. It wasn’t to say that she didn’t get the thrill of a lifetime when she thought of her dance with Barrymore or even handsome Charlie Chaplin; she did. It seemed, though, that she had fallen for Buster without even knowing it. She shivered and not because of the chill in the air.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she said, standing up and catching his hand when he reappeared a few minutes later.

He gave her hand a squeeze and passed over her bag, which he was holding. “I did you one better. Caruthers said he’d take you home. He’ll have the car ready in five.”

“Five minutes is a long time,” she said suggestively.

“Even I can’t finish that quick, honey,” he said, and she was glad he couldn’t see how brightly her face burned.

“I didn’t mean that you goose, I meant this.” She leaned in and kissed him again.

“Oh. Yeah, that,” he said. He pulled her against his chest and gave her a long, searching kiss.

This time, Nelly didn’t pull away at the touch of his tongue; she met it and Buster groaned. With one hand, she stroked the fallen strands of hair at his forehead. “Thank you,” she said, when they broke apart. “Thank you for inviting me tonight.”

“Sure you won’t stay the night?” Buster said, kissing the corner of her lips.

“I’m not crazy,” she said.

“If you were, would you?” he said, drawing back to look in the eyes.

Her heart pounded. “Yes,” she said, after considering it. “I guess I would.”

He pulled her close and embraced her. She rested her cheek against his shoulder, thinking that she could stay here in his arms all night. Another burst of laughter and conversation came from the direction of the fountain. Car tires crunched on the gravel.

“We better behave,” Buster said.

“You’re probably right.”

He released her and sat down in one of the chairs, and she followed his lead. He took her hand between both of his and they fell into silence. She wanted to tell him what the night meant to her, but couldn’t find the words. She looked out at the distant houses and up the stars, wondering if she’d ever get the chance to kiss him again or if she was just a passing fancy for a starry, booze-filled night. Too soon, there was the honk of a horn and Buster let go of her hand, standing up. “I think that’s your ride,” he said. They walked back to the drive, Nelly a few paces ahead of Buster, where a dark-colored Packard was waiting. Buster approached it and opened the nearest backseat door. He took her hand and helped her into the car. “Thanks for coming,” he said, after regarding her for a quiet moment.

She wanted to give him a parting kiss on the cheek, but couldn’t with his butler for an audience. “I had a beautiful night,” she said. “Thank you so much.” He gave her hand another quick squeeze and went around to the driver’s window, where he said to Caruthers, “Get her home safe.”

As the butler pulled away, she watched Buster walk back to the Villa. He didn’t turn around once, but continued until he reached the mahogany front door and slipped inside. Only then did she realize she was still wearing his jacket and had forgotten to check him for lipstick again. Soundtrack: Red Nichols’ Stompers - “Sugar” Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra - “In the Good Old Summertime” Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra - “Changes” You don’t know how many times I’ve listened to these songs on repeat the past two months.

#Buster Keaton #Fan fiction #Fan fic #RPF #Actor RPF #Silent film #Golden Age Hollywood #Bing Crosby

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365days365movies · 3 years

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April 2, 2021: The General (1926)

From one legendary early filmmaker onto another!

Joseph Frank Keaton was born in Piqua, Kansas, on October 4, 1895. His parents were vaudeville performers, which might be sounding familiar to you, based on Chaplin’s life history. But Keaton’s childhood was VERY different, I promise. When he was an infant, he fell down the stairs in front of a family friend, and stood up afterwards, seemingly fine. The actor said, “He’s a regular buster!” And the name stuck, as did Buster’s tendency to shake off what could be massive injury. And that proved useful, as he would soon lose the tip of his finger, hit his own eye with a rock, and was also SUCKED OUT OF A WINDOW BY A TORNADO AND DROPPED TWO CITY BLOCKS AWAY. FUCKING SERIOUSLY. And according to some accounts, al of that happened in the same fucking day. Allegedly, because that shit would be CRAZY if true.

Regardless, he was brought on to work with his parents on stage when he was three, and they became “The Three Keatons”. During the act, Buster would be thrown against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, or into the audience itself! He earned to take trick falls quickly, and was billed as “the little boy who can’t be damaged”. And kid was INDESTRUCTIBLE. Sure, he never got hurt because of surprisingly well-thought out stage trickery, but he also was VERY good at landing on his feet, describing himself once as “landing like a cat” on regular occasions. But eventually, the law banned child performers in vaudeville, putting an end to the act.

But that wouldn’t stop Buster Keaton, NO SIR. It did stop his father, though, who eventually succumbed to alcoholism and wrecked the family business. But Buster and his mother left for New York City, and Buster moved on to his lifelong passion: acting. While acting on stage, Keaton met a young man named Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, who would become one of the most prominent early film stars. But then, World War I happened, and Buster served in France, where he would become permanently deaf in one ear.

When he came back, he was a writer for Arbuckle’s films before breaking out on his own projects, being able to write, direct, and act in his own films. In the process, he developed his unique style of acting and filmmaking, which was extremely visual and full of slapstick. In acting, he became famous for his emotionless stony face, known as the “deadpan”. He also ALWAYS did his own stunts, which sometimes resulted in some major consequences.

Yeah. YEAH. Dude did a stunt that caused him to BREAK HIS NECK, and he DID NOT REALIZE THIS for YEARS AFTER THE INCIDENT! This man is the GREATEST BADASS THAT FILM HAS EVER KNOWN. That was on Sherlock, Jr. in 1924, and by this point, Keaton was a millionaire, and one of the biggest names in Hollywood, alongside Charlie Chaplin, of course. He was married to actress Natalie Talmadge (who was the SAME AGE as him, go figure), and they had three children together by 1924. And their marriage...also began to suffer. Just like Chaplin, except that Keaton wasn’t abusive to Natalie or the kids, thankfully. It was her spending habits, and the two of them growing apart.

And then, in 1925, inspired by history like Chaplin was with The Gold Rush, Keaton was inspired by a true story from the Civil War, known as the Great Locomotive Chase. See, Buster LOVED trains, and with the money and resources at his disposal, he had the ability to make his magnum opus, his favorite film, and one of the most expensive films ever made. Working with Chaplin’s United Artists, he made today’s film of focus: The General. And, uh...this would have mixed results, I’ll just say that much for now.

I’ll tell you what happens to Buster after this in the review, but for now, let’s jump into the movie! It’s a short one, but that’s OK! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

Y’know, I considered saving this one for Historical July or War November, but I think it’s better here for a few reasons. Plus, I’d rather those films not be comedic, if I can help it. Anyway: Marietta, Georgia, 1861!

The Western & Atlantic Railroad train known as The General is bring driven by its chief engineer Johnnie Gray (Buster Keaton). As a title screen tells us, Johnny loves two things: the majestic The General, and his equally majestic fiancée, Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack). Living in the decadent pre-Civil War South, the two are happy with each other, although Johnnie is somewhat awkward in his way. He provides Annabelle with a photo of him and The General.

Just then, though, Annabelle’s brother (Frank Barnes) comes in and tells her and their father (Charles Smith) that Fort Sumter’s been fired on. UH OH. It’s war. As Annabelle’s brother immediately goes to enlist alongside many other men, Johnnie follows suit. However, when he gets to the enlisting station, he’s refused the opportunity, as he will be needed to act as a railroad engineer. Which, to be fair, does make sense. Railroad engineers would be vital for the effort. However, they never tell him why he isn’t fit for the job, so he just goes back and tries to enlist under a false name. They catch him, though, and he’s again refused. Dejected, he goes back to the train.

However, as he leaves, Annabelle’s father and brother see him in line, and try to get him in to join them. He shakes his head, but instead of assuming that he’s been rejected, they assume that he’s too cowardly to join. They relay this message to Annabelle, who goes to him directly He tells him the truth, that he’s been rejected, but she IMMEDIATELY assumes he’s lying, and tells him not to speak to her again unless he’s in uniform. Dammit, Annabelle! And poor Johnnie doesn’t even know how important he is! Geez, guys, get your shit together.

A year passes, and the war continues in earnest. We go to a Union camp, where Captain Anderson (Glen Cavender) plots with General Thatcher (Jim Farley) to ambush a train and steal it, in an effort to debilitate the train and the South’s efforts as a whole. Meanwhile, Annabelle’s father is wounded, causing her to go and see him. This requires a trip on The General, and a brief and awkward reunion with Johnnie.

However, we now have a much bigger problem than lost love. Because the train is stopped for Johnnie and the passengers to get some food at a nearby stop. And this is when Captain Anderson takes the opportunity to steal The General right from under Johnnie’s nose. And Annabelle, who catches them in the act, is kidnapped in order to hide their scheme.

The men take off with The General and Annabelle, and now BOTH of Johnnie’s loves are taken away from him. He chases after the train, first running, then using a handcar, and THEN taking a man’s penny-farthing bicycle. By the way, fun fact about me: it is my life’s goal to be able to afford a penny-farthing bicycle and ride it around town while wearing a top hat and coat, like it’s completely fucking normal. I need this - I FUCKING NEED THIS, UNDERSTAND???

He rides that penny-farthing to another stop, where he encounters Confederate soldiers, who he tries to recruit to aid him in retrieving his train. However, he accidentally leaves them all behind, using a small engine, Texas to chase after his train and the robbers. Johnnie’s soon leading them in a hot pursuit, also managing to procure a cannon on the way.

However, the robbers have taken notice now, and the Captain is under the mistaken impression that the Texas carries reinforcements. Instead, they keep going. Meanwhile, Johnnie’s hooked the cannon up to the back of the Texas, and is trying (and failing) to fire it at the robbers. Instead, he accidentally unhooks it as it’s about to fire, and it’s aimed at the Texas instead. To avoid the shot, Johnnie...Johnnie does THIS.

...Damn, Buster Keaton, that’s awesome. That’s him doing this, FOR REAL, in this film. Holy shit. Tom Cruise, eat your heart out. Anyway, the cannon misses the Texas, but ends up firing pretty close to The General, spooking the men onboard. To stave him off, they first detach their last car, which falls off the tracks when Johnnie’s looking away, confusing him greatly. Then, they through railroad ties on the tracks, which Johnnie has to clear by getting off the train, riding it’s grill (again), and removing by hand! God, I love this dude.

The Union soldiers divert the tracks, driving Johnnie into a dead end, but he manages to reverse the Texas and switch back onto the right track. Meanwhile, the Union men are building fires in The General’s train cars, and leaving those cars on covered bridges in order to burn them down. They do this on one, and the Texas follows, driving into it, and pushing it OUT of the bridge. And goddamn, this movie is cool as shit.

As Johnnie deals with this latest situation, the train drives through Chattanooga, where the Confederate Army is in full retreat, chased away by the Union. And it’s at this point that I should point something out: I really, really should be rooting aginst Johnnie here, for obvious reasons. But, the movie is putting him in position as the protagonist, and it works, because I do like this guy, even if he’s inevitably on the wrong side of history.

It’s also at this point where Johnnie COMPLETELY loses any advantage, as the men on The General have now realized that he’s the only one on the train, and start fighting back, throwing things at him and the Texas from above. Now in danger, Johnnie takes off and runs into the forest, where he hides. This, mind you, is also as Annabelle is watching from The General.

That night, he happens upon a house in enemy territory, and goes there to hide. As he does, however, a group of officers come in, and discuss their plans to ambush the Confederate soldiers, and to secure one of their bridges for their own trains. Johnnie, all the while, is hidden under a table.

Annabelle is brought in, and the men decide to hold her for now, until the deed is done and they can make other plans. However, Johnnie also hears this, and waits until the officers clear out of the house, leaving him, Annabelle, and a couple of guards. Johnnie, being a badass, knocks out the guards, put on one of their uniforms, and rescues Annabelle. The pair of them escape back into the forest, as a thunderstorm rages. They also encounter a bear in the woods, because that’s basically par for the course with these movies, it would seem.

So is a beartrap, which Annabelle briefly gets caught in (yikes), until she’s freed by Johnnie...who also gets caught in it right afterwards. Nice. With all this trouble in the dark, the two decide to hunker down in the woods. Annabelle thanks Johnnie for coming after her, even in the country of their enemy. And they reconcile as they sleep for the night. Thatnext morning, Johnnie gets his bearings, and sees The General at an encampment down below. Wearing a Union uniform, he devises a plan to get to the train, and warn the South of the Union’s plan.

He convinces Annabelle to hide in a burlap sac, which he carries with him into the encampment. Dude’s a strong guy for being as scrawny as he appears to be. He carries her over his shoulder to the train, then puts her on one of the cabins. The makes his way to the front, and surprises the few men there, pushing them off of it, and stealing back The General! Badass!!!

He gets Annabelle out of the bag and the two attempt to outrun the Union together. They block the way with telephone poles, then grab some wood from recently constructed fences in order to fuel the engine (with some humorous difficulty). The Union catches up quickly, however, and the two are forced to flee again. They dump barrels and other items on board the train onto the tracks, then attempt to replenish the water reserves for the steam locomotive (again with some humorous difficulty) before moving on.

But precious little seems to impede the train’s pursuers. Meanwhile, Annabelle makes herself busy by sweeping the train? Oh ho ho, silly women, with their cleaning and uselessness in vital combat situations! Tee hee hee, why isn’t she pregnant in the kitchen right now? Silly baby receptacles, I mean, women!

OK, that mildly chauvinistic moment aside, the two continue speeding ahead, but then, at a moment when Johnnie gets off the train for manipulate the tracks, Annabelle winds up on The General by herself!. She reverses the train at almost EXACTLY the wrong moment, nearly causing an accident, but Johnnie’s trick with the track works, diverting the Union trains to another unfinished track. And the two gain a wider lead once again. And then...we reach the Rock River Bridge.

This is where the Union troops are meant to be meeting the trains for supplies, and a vital part of the Union’s plans in the area. Turning the tables on the Union, Johnnie sets a massive fire on the bridge, but gets trapped behind it, and is forced to jump into the river as The General moves off of it. However, he gets back up just in time, and they head out to the southern territories.

As they do, Johnnie changes uniform to a Confederate Grey, so as not to get shot at once they arrive. He warns the Confederate troops or the coming Northern invasion, and they quickly mobilize. He and Annabelle figuratively and literally dress down the commanding officer (nice), and they head out to engage the Northern Invaders! I’m sure it’ll go well for everybody involved. It’s also here that Annabelle reunites with her father, alive and healing. Johnnie, meanwhile, tries to go and help the army face the North.

Speaking of the Union, they’re STILL trying to repair the train track that Johnnie messed up. They finally succeed, and head off to the Rock River Bridge, with the Texas ahead of them. The other troops meet with them after all, and the commander insists that the bridge is in tact enough to cross the bridge. And that leads to...the most expensive scene ever shot, at least at the time.

That’s real. Are you listening to me, THAT IS 100% FUCKING REAL! BUSTER KEATON COLLAPSED A BRIDGE WITH A TRAIN ON IT FOR THIS MOVIE!!! That shit? That’s some next level shit. The Union forces, now basically fucked, try to ford the river, only for the Confederate forces to fend them off, with Johnnie’s help. The Captain, hidden on the bank, starts to pick off soldiers that Johnny’s talking to, only for Johnnie to accidentally kill him with a sword, which flies through the air to get him. Which, yeah, is funny in a macabre way. He also accidentally takes out a dam, flooding the river and fishing the Union soldiers out, forcing them into retreat! Their other supply train is disabled, and the South has won this battle! I mean, booo, but I’m happy for Johnnie, at least.

Hailed as a hero with the rest, they all return to the town, where Johnnie reunites with The General in peace. However, he’s nearly done for, as one of the soldiers, an officer that he knocked out a WHILE ago, has actually been on the train the entire time, and has only now regained consciousness. Johnnie takes him prisoner, and the general in charge of this unit is so impressed by his actions that he brings Johnnie into the army, and promotes him to lieutenant, giving him the Union officer’s sword in the process! Good for you, Johnnie! Proud of you, bud.

Now officially enlisted at last, he and Annabelle happily reunite in love, and makeout right next to The General. And then, Johnnie marches off to war for an army on the losing side of history that’s defending slavery, and in all likelihood dies in the deadliest war in American history. Probably. The movie actually ends on the kiss, but it’s the Civil War, we all know what the fuck went down.

And that’s The General! Wow. I get why Keaton was so excited about this movie; it’s a massive accomplishment in film history, and engaging and entertaining movie, and a cinematic masterpiece...that was directly responsible for eventually ending Keaton’s career.

...See you in the Review! I’ll explain the last part, I promise.

#the general #the general 1926 #clyde bruckman #buster keaton #marion mack #glen cavender #jim farley #comedy april #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #365days365movies

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updatesherwood · 4 years

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DOMINIC AT #DREAMITATHOME2 [PT. 1]

Q: Were you able to hang out with any of the cast from Penny Dreadful, who have you gotten to know, are any of them like Alberto or Matt? D: Yes, I’m pretty close to all of them, obviously I spend of my time with Thomas and Michael so I’m closest to them but I’m also relatively close to Daniel and Jonathan, we see each other at evensts and stuff.

Q: How was it moving out in the middle of quarantine and a global pandemic? D: It was annoying, moving out was a nightmare and I needed to move out because as you see Dan is 20 stone or something ridiculous now, he needed a yard and I didn’t have one, it was awful. The movers were terrible, they charged me too much money and didn’t do a very good job, they left a piece of my couch at my other place and they claimed it wasn’t so, it was a nightmare.

Q: If there was one thing you would change about yourself what would it be? / Are you still learning Spanish? D: Nothing, I’m perfect. Maybe humility. I would like to be better at languages. / Yeah, mostly because of the show I’m on now that is a lot about Latin culture and a lot of actors I’m working on are native speakers so it’s important to me to learn as much as I could to communicate with them in their first language.

Q: What are your next goals? D: Season 2 of Penny Dreadful - that would be amazing - but we don’t know yet and I can’t tell you because I don’t have any information. Then, career-wise, I’d love to do maybe some films but it’s not something I’m on now since the industry is closed down so there’s anything to look for to. Personally, my happiness and health and of whose around me.

Q: Are there any projects you would like to try now? D: There are a few yeah, the problem with projects not officially released in the production stages I’m not allowed to talk about but there are a few yes, there is a film a I know there’s a tv show that is similar to Penny Dreadful which is a continue of a very successful pre-existing series and that’s definitely something I wanna be part of but unfortunately there’s nothing I can really say about it because there’s no information released to the public yet and I’m not a part of them yet.

Q: How have you been doing with CoVid-19? D: Well, I don’t have it so that’s a positive thing, the issue I have with it is that the person we all refer to for anything in relations to crisis, medicines and whatever, and his recommendations was not to open until it drops but that’s not what happened and as a result we have massive spikes now and LA is the worst it has been since it started. So to keep everyone safe I’ve just been staying at home and it’s a nice thing for me because I get to interact with people.

Q: Which type of character would you like to play? D: Probably either a James Bond obviously or I want a cowboy. Playing in 1938 was pretty cool because you get to play with different cars, costumes, accents and how people talk, interact with each other.

Q: About Penny Dreadful, you were supposed to play a German one, you had to talk in German too? D: That’s funny, someone said “could you not do a German accent” and they never asked me to do that, it was always American. I’ve always knew it would have been an American who joined the gestapo and that was sent back to America. In a possible season 2, I know he speaks German but he haven’t seem him yet.

Q: Who is your favourite James Bond actor? D: I think it’s a generation thing, I’m a big fan of Sean Connery but if you go back to some old films they were quite misogynistic and now it’s not the case, and then I was raised with Pierce Brosnan and he was the first one I got to see and I’m a huge fan of Daniel Craig as well, so one of those three.

Q: How was learning to surf for Penny Dreadful? D: That was hard, I thought it was going to be really easy but it wasn’t and it’s really hard work. I did a few lessons on my own. It’s very important to me to understand those skills to understand my character. There were two issues. One: in the 30s sweatsuits didn’t exist yet so I was wearing the boxer shorts than they had in 30s, the second thing is that we filmed that in December so it was really cold. They had to move the day to a sunny one so that the water would be warm and it saved my life.

Q: Why did you become an actor? D: Honestly that’s all I wanted to do since I was a kid, like 5yo, performing and being in front of an audience in any shape or form and when I turned 18 and I left school I spent some time travelling the world and when I came back I joined this small agency and I got some commercial roles and bigger parts on my way up which lead me to tv films then I got a bigger agent which is still my agent now and it has been for 10 years now, I was one of the lucky people who knew from the young age what I wanted to do.

Q: How do you handle the constant rejection that comes from your job? D: You never know what they’re looking for and if you’re right for the role and then when you see it on screen you understand. It took me a really long time to get used to it but the only way is to think that there will be another job as good and as exciting because people are always gonna make film and tv. If you go into an audition and you know nothing about it, it’s fine. But if you get to the final two or five and you’re in the last round, that’s hard to take.

Q: Are there any movies from the past you would like to play in, with which actors? D: James Dean would be on the list for sure, I’d love to work with him. Elvis, Buster Keaton.

Q: What about a Dan and Dom show? D: No, cause he just takes all the attentions and nobody would watch me and that’s understandable.

#Dominic Sherwood #dom sherwood #penny dreadful #penny dreadful: city of angels #pdcoa #interview #convention #dreamitathome #shadowhunters #Jace Herondale #kurt

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szopenhauer · 4 years

Text

Does the number 18 have any significance to you? no

Did you kiss, hug, or hold hands with anyone today? hug my mom

Do you ever get “good morning” texts from anyone? yes

How far away are you from the person you like? over 230 km

Ever had sex under water? no way

Is it easy to annoy you? very

Can you name every single person you have kissed? I can

The last person you kissed on the lips said that you were the only one they wanted, would you believe them? sure

What if your girlfriend/boyfriend was flirting with another girl/boy? that’s cheating and I’m not ok with this

Have you ever kissed someone whose name starts with a J or a C? neither

Do you prefer the beach or the mountains? beach, I hate mountains

How do you usually feel when you wake up on a morning? bad

Would you rather take someone on a date, or be taken on a date? just go together on a date omg...

When was the last time you wore high heeled shoes? my sister’s wedding

Vodka or wine? none, gross

Do you wear socks to bed? when it’s a very cold winter

Where were you when you got your first period? visiting my (now ex) friend, I think we were also swimming that day but I didn’t get period in the water luckily

Can you change a car tire? I’ve never tried so doubt it

Do you sleep naked? nope

Cigarettes or alcohol? cigarettes do less harm to people around but both are still bad

Exercise or healthy eating? healthy eating

Favorite and least favorite accents? British is cool, not sure

Do you like 1980s fashion? some of it :D

What color is your favorite hoodie? grey/green Do you have a string of lights in your room? purple bats that I got in Pepco during Halloween season Do you know what you are going to do today? I’m taking care of my niece Does your heart hurt? not atm

Can you see the moon out your window right now? it’s too early for that

What makes you feel inspired? everything can at least in theory Can you see the sunrise from your window? from our kitchen If you were a writer, would you have a pen name or use your real name? I already published book under my real name What is your friend’s cat’s name? my gf’s cat’s name is Kot which means Cat in polish Do you celebrate your pet’s birthdays? not really As a kid, did you celebrate your dolls’ birthdays? doubt it Are you wearing a hoodie right now? it’s hot so I’m wearing a T-shirt Did you ignore the last facebook post that bothered you, or did you comment? hidden it Do you need to go to the pharmacy today? not this day If you were a famous singer, what would you want your hit song to be about? something personal that other people relate to

If you had to re-design an alien, instead of making them green with slanty-eyes and an egg-shaped head, what would you make it look like? I would make many different species but some would look exactly like humans

Would you want your first child to be a boy or a girl? I don’t want to have kids but if I had one then only a girl If you were to write an article for a magazine, what would it be about? interior design for example Do you think you are good at writing poetry? not the worst Have you ever had a teacher who looked like an alien? I had a teacher that looked exactly like Sid from Ice age If you could do research right now for an essay, what topic would you choose to write about? hmm... What are your strongest attributes? I don’t feel I have any?... Have you ever started writing a suicide letter? if you have still something to say that isn’t part of your last will then you’re probably not ready to die yet so whenever I wanted/tried to kill myself I didn’t leave any suicide letter behind Do you write letters to friends? had two pen pals - Justyna and Dorota Do you like to write letters? prefer to send trinkets Do you own a piece of jewelry with an owl on it? ring in a shape of an owl Does looking at the starry sky make you feel peaceful? meh Are you under 30? 2 years left... Do you paint rocks and hide them in your town? nobody would care but that’s a cute idea and who knows what I’ll do with it ;) Do you like parodies? rarely Are you a Taylor Swift fan? I don’t care Have you ever kissed a picture? I don’t recall Do you decorate for fall? tiny bit Has suicide crossed your mind a lot lately? this year - constantly Do you have supernatural abilities? couple of my night dreams came true and I happen to guess answers to some questions without knowledge but using my intuition Do you get enough hugs? I don’t need lots, I get plenty Have you asked yourself recently, Why am I here? 24/7 What family member did you get your hair color from? my mom If you designed a house, would you give it a secret room? I don’t think so Do you read horror stories? I do not Does stretching feel good? occasionally Do you have your wedding planned in your head already? mhm ^^” Would you ever adopt a child? if I ever had a child then only adopted one

Would you be mad if your mom showed your gf your baby pictures? I showed my gf my baby pics myself

Do you completely trust the person you’re dating? not completely but she’s one of few I trust the most

Has someone ever called you heartless before? surely

Have you ever completely given up on someone any time in life? more than one person

Would you rather give someone presents or receive them? give

How many chances do you normally give someone before giving up on them? it’s not about the amount

Do you hate it when people pronounce ‘potatoes’ as ‘taters?’ I don’t like it

When the holidays come around, do you watch holiday movies? like 1, as a kid I watched plenty

Would you say you’re a friendly person or not so much? what does friendly even mean?...

Have you ever / do you ever recycle? we recycle at home

Who is the nosiest person you know? my mom

When did you last talk to one of your teachers? last time I had a teacher

Would you say you’re a faster or slow learner? *shrug*

Are you one of those people who like The Nightmare Before Christmas? didn’t watch it

What’s your favorite oldest film? Buster Keaton ones Have you ever been in a relationship with someone 10+ years older? noooo

Do you think it’s weird to cut pizza with scissors? we were cutting apples with scissors in school so... Aliens or unicorns? aliens

How do you usually do your hair? I leave them be What is something you’re procrastinating? everything

Do you play any games on your phone? Choices

have you ever liked two brothers? have two brothers ever liked you at the same time? no and no, same when it comes to sisters

when was the last time your town was sunny? how about rainy? it’s sunny now, it was rainy day ago when was the last time your internet was down? this morning how often do you shave your legs in the winter? I don’t bother have you seen the movie 17 again (the zac efron one)? it was lil creepy

has your boyfriend/girlfriend ever had braces?: she had braces when we first dated

have you ever drawn a portrait of somebody? who?: family members and people on tumblr, OCs if they count

how many years apart are you and your boyfriend/girlfriend?: months

have you kissed more than two people of the same sex?: not even two

when are you getting a new phone?: when this one’s dead

what did you wear today?: I changed into my red leggings with white polka dot pattern to go for a walk

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fandomdancer · 4 years

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1, 7, 22, 30, 40, 46, 49

Original post below so you can see the list. I am answering these questions but if you are interested in hearing more, I can answer more!

1: What does your character’s name mean? Did you pick it for the symbolism, or did you just like the way it sounded?

I have two OCs right now I could answer this for, so I’ll actually answer for both.

My first OC is Talia Talbot. I was brainstorming names and just wanted something fun and carefree-sounding. The first thing that popped into my head was ‘Tabby’ with ‘Tabitha’ as the full name. My brain just decided it didn’t want the ‘kitty cat’ subtext and I started thinking of names with the same rhythm. ‘Tally’ came next, with ‘Talia’ as the full name, and I got stuck on it. As for ‘Talbot’ as the last name, I was literally just thinking of last names that felt right and and ‘Talbot’ just sort of popped out of my mouth. So really - ‘Tally’ was kind of a random name that had the right rhythm and it stuck. ‘Talia’ itself means ‘gentle dew from heaven/by the water’ which is a soft and beautiful meaning and kind of fits her personality. She is the steady person in her relationships, the listener, the supporter.

The second OC is Roslyn and to be honest I haven’t decided on her last name yet. My original idea for the character was a rich girl with an aristocratic name. I asked my girlfriend for help and she replied: “Roslyn” without hesitation. I don’t usually choose the first name that comes to mind but it sounded so absolutely perfect, the only thing I asked was: “Roslyn or Rosalyn?” She said: “Roslyn” and that was that. So...I don’t have her maiden name, but that is how I got Roslyn Thawne (yep...you read that right). The meaning of her name is ‘gentle horse/rose’ and while I know the story she is involved in, I’m not sure if the meaning of her name fits.

7: Is there a catchphrase or sound that they tend to make a lot (likely without being aware of it)?

Tally tries to keep her swearing down. How does she do it? Usually by muttering: “For the love of....” without actually finishing the sentence. Her frustration level can be determined by how loud, soft, fast, or slow she says it!

Roslyn is a big fan of asking questions without actually asking them. She’ll flatten the end of a sentence so she isn’t actually making a questioning sound, but usually the sound that comes out is pretty sarcastic. “Really...” is something she’ll say, usually to let someone know they’re going too far, or doing something completely ridiculous.

22: What kind of tattoos, piercings, birthmarks, freckles, and other such unique physical features do they have?

Tally and her best friend Ren (short for Renault...but only she can call him that ;) ) have matching tattoos. I know they have but honestly I don’t know what they are yet haha. (They’re both still in development)

Roslyn is even less developed so I’m not sure of any distinguishing characteristics. I know she has a smattering of freckles on her face and her significant other (Eobard) does like to kiss them when he feels affectionate.

30: When it comes to the arts (music, film, theater, etc), what does your character like?

Tally loves music. She listens to most kinds from all decades, from Billie Holiday and Kay Starr to Elvis Presley and The Runaways, to the Bangles and the Backstreet Boys. She does prefer songs with lyrics and doesn’t spend a lot of time in the classical or smooth jazz range. She does have a solid appreciation for movie scores. She has a tendency to annoy the Wells (EoWells and Harry both) by blasting classic rock when she’s burying herself in work, but Cisco will often drop by for an impromptu dance party. Film wise - she gets along like a house on fire with Cisco Ramon so the two of them share their love of classic - and not-so-classic - films. She’ll quote scenes from Die Hard with him over the course of a day, and then flop down with Buster Keaton and a bowl of popcorn in her off hours. She isn’t big on going to the theatre for plays but will sneak over if it’s a musical or a dance show (like Riverdance).

Roslyn received piano lessons at a young age (which she eventually traded for violin lessons), and is definitely quieter than Tally when it comes to musical tastes. She enjoys film scores, orchestral or symphonic music, and even band music when she can get to it. She considers opera to be an impressive vocal achievement but doesn’t listen to it on a regular basis (unless Eobard’s listening and letting it play in the house). Roslyn doesn’t quite enjoy sitting and watching many films or plays or television but will do it occasionally. She prefers to be outside, enjoying what nature she can.

40: Does your OC have any guilty pleasures they enjoy? Hobbies, past times, music, etc that they wouldn’t want known by others?

I actually can answer this for Ren, not Tally or Roslyn (because I just don’t know yet). Ren’s guilty pleasure is comedies. He was a more casual fellow before the catastrophe that ripped him and Tally apart, but later he comes off as very grumpy and dark. No one would suspect his favorite actor is Dan Aykroyd and he secretly loves to watch Addams Family and Get Smart and Max Headroom.

46: What is some random affectionate thing that your character always does to their lover?

Tally will blow kisses at Ren randomly. She doesn’t do it during serious moments like when they’re at work, but relaxing, or even at a dinner party, she’ll send one when she thinks no one is looking (however, someone often sees).

Roslyn knows Eobard isn’t huge on contact so she adapts the Vulcan affectionate gesture between Sarek and Amanda, and usually keeps two fingers in contact with a part of him when there is need for support or when her heart is full. Eobard will at times be more comfortable with contact, and instead of letting her rest her fingers on him he’ll take her hand or place his hand on her opposite waist. When the two of them are truly alone they are in much more prolonged contact with each other but in most situations it’s just the two fingers.

49: What is something that your character has nightmares about? Are these frequent? Do they heavily affect your character’s mood?

Tally consistently dreams about the final moments of her Earth - Earth-15. As she spends more time on Earth-1, the dreams are less frequent but they still happen. They heavily affect her mood at first but again, over time, the effect lessens. She never truly stops being affected by them and they never truly stop. Sometime she dreams about what actually happened, and sometimes her mind makes up alternate. She has woken with a start, woken normally but disturbed, woken screaming, woken crying. In a few short hours, she lost everyone and everything but the clothes on her back, and she is scarred from that for the rest of her life.

Roslyn doesn’t start to really have nightmares until she sees how far Eobard is falling into his obsession with The Flash. She dreams often of him turning on them, or leaving them. Little does she know their daughter Melody also dreams of him killing them. This is an additional strain on her marriage to him, particularly when he begins to say and do things she thought she had only dreamed. She is watching her husband and the love of her life descend into madness and she is helpless to stop it.

Original Post:

Get to know my character

Reblog this so your followers can spam your ask box. Have fun! ♥

01. What does your character’s name mean? Did you pick it for the symbolism, or did you just like the way it sounded? 02. What is one of your character’s biggest insecurities? Are they able to hide it easily or can others easily exploit this weakness? 03. What would be their favorite physical trait about themselves? 04. What are their favorite traits about their lover? (one psychological and one physical) 05. Are they sexually confident or more of the shy type? 06. Do they have any hobbies that their lover finds unusual, odd, or otherwise annoying? 07. Is there a catchphrase or sound that they tend to make a lot (likely without being aware of it)? 08. What is, perhaps, their biggest flaw? Are they aware of this or oblivious to it? 09. Do they have a favorite season? What about a favorite holiday? 10. Is your character more feminine or masculine? 11. What is something that would make your character fly into a rage? 12. Is there some particular talent, skill, or attribute that they simply could not give up? 13. What are your character’s sleeping habits? Heavy or light sleeper? Blanket stealer? One that always rolls onto the floor? Pushes their lover onto the floor? Sleep talker or walker? 14. Do they live alone or with family? How do they feel about their family/roommates? 15. Is there a certain person in this world that they cannot stand? The very mention of this person’s name makes them tremble with anger or fear. 16. Is your character the athletic type or more of a couch potato? What are some sports/games that they like? 17. Does your character have dreams of getting married and/or having children? 18. What kind of home would they want to live in? Where would they place this abode? 19. Would your character be the kind to get into fights? (physical or verbal) Would they be a good fighter or cave in rather easily? 20. Does your character like animals? What are some of their favorite animals? Would they want pets? What about mythological creatures? 21. What is one of your character’s biggest fears? How would they react when dealing with this fear? 22. What kind of tattoos, piercings, birthmarks, freckles, and other such unique physical features do they have? 23. What is your character like when it comes to school? What subjects are they good/bad at? Do they get in trouble a lot or are well behaved? 24. In their own words, how would your character describe what their lover is like? 25. Is there something traumatic from your character’s past that greatly affects them even to this day? 26. What is their lover like sexually? How do they feel about their lover’s quirks, needs, etc? 27. If your character was going to get arrested, what would be the most likely reason for it? 28. If your character became a celebrity, what would they be famous for? 29. What is one of the most courageous things your character has ever done for a loved one? 30. When it comes to the arts (music, film, theater, etc), what does your character like? 31. Would your character be the kind capable of killing? Would they enjoy killing or only use it when necessary or, perhaps, refuse to kill no matter what? 32. If your character’s lover offered to take them out on a dream date, what would they want to do? 33. If your character wanted to be alone, where would they go? 34. Does your character have favorite foods? (breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, snacks, etc) 35. Is your character afraid of death? If they got to choose how to die, how would they want to go? 36. Does your character have any medical conditions? Are they serious or minor? Do they affect their day to day life? 37. What are some of your character’s pet peeves? What are some things that annoy them or disgust them? 38. What kind of weather does your character like? Cloudy skies, rainy days, sunshine, etc? 39. When people look at your character, is there some assumption they might make about them just by appearance? Is that assumption correct? 40. Does your OC have any guilty pleasures they enjoy? Hobbies, past times, music, etc that they wouldn’t want known by others? 41. Does your character’s family affect your character in any way? 42. Is there anything in your character’s past that they regret, haunts them, or they wish they could change? 43. Does your character have a switch that changes aspects of their personality whether they are around friends, family, etc. Is there someone who gets to see their true self? 44. Is there a particular event that would emotionally devastate your character? 45. Is your character the kind to hide their true emotions or do they wear their heart on their sleeve?

46. What is some random affectionate thing that your character always does to their lover? 47. Is your character outgoing? Would they be the leader of the friend group, or the quiet one that gets dragged along? 48. Is there anything in particular that would ignite your character’s jealousy? Or does your character not get envious? 49. What is something that your character has nightmares about? Are these frequent? Do they heavily affect your character’s mood? 50. If your character confessed love to their crush, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc, what would they say?

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yellowpeach · 5 years

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For the film asks, all of them? (2010/Chris Evans/Brie Larson/Edgar Wright for the *insert here* questions)

ahh!!! thank you so much for asking anon! this will take a while so i will probs stick most of it under a cut :)

a movie you’ve seen most times in cinema.

i answered this one here!

your most rewatched movie.

that’d be between toy story, the lord of the rings trilogy, moulin rouge, to all the boys i’ve loved before and this weird animated film called tubby the tuba. my grandma owned it on vhs and i spent basically every school holiday at her house so i watched it more times than i can think of!

a movie you quote on a daily basis.

i quote dumb youtube videos more than films on a regular basis, but i do quote a lot of lord of the rings lines like “it comes in pints?!” or anything else that comes out of one of the hobbits mouths.

favorite movie soundtrack

probably moulin rouge? that or the first guardians of the galaxy. they’re the only two that i still own on CD..

top 5 films of your favorite actor and actress

okay so my initial thought for favourite actor is actually tom hanks, so in that case.

forrest gump

philadelphia

toy story

the green mile

larry crowne (not the most amazing film in the world but it’s so endearing to me!)

and for actress i would probably say toni colette? her or blake lively, but i don’t have a top five for either of them. for toni it’d be;

about a boy

muriel’s wedding

miss you already

and for blake it’d be;

a simple favor

the age of adeline

elvis and annabelle

top 5 performances of your favorite actor and actress.

see above, they’re one and the same to me.

a movie storyline you wish you had actually lived.

about time. might be biased since i’m watching it now, but it’d be nice to do things over if i could.

a movie that reminds you of your mum.

local hero. i’ve watched it with her many times and it’s one of her favourites.

a movie that reminds you of your dad.

any of the harry potter films. we went to all of them at the cinema together.

favorite movies from your childhood.

it’s gonna be toy story again. this will likely be a running theme, i fucking love this movie.

favourite quote(s).

too many to count from the lord of the rings. sam’s monologue at the end of the two towers, gandalf speaking to pippin in return of the king. also sam saying “i can’t carry it for you, but i can carry you!”. this is really just a love letter to sam now, isn’t it….

top 5 favorite female performances.

i would have to come back to this, i can’t brain right now.

top 5 favorite male performances.

see above.

favourite year for movies.

after googling, it looks like 1993 was a bloody good year.

your favorite movies from [insert year].

2010 is the year you mentioned and from looking on google, my faves are toy story 3, how to train your dragon, black swan, scott pilgrim vs the world, easy a, megamind, tangled, AHH DAYDREAM NATION CAME 2010!! MY FAVE!! man, 2010 was a good one :D

favorite [insert actor/actress/director] movies?

so you said chris evans, brie larson and edgar wright. so faves in order would be:

short term 12

captain america: the winter soldier

hot fuzz or the world’s end (can’t pick between the two soz)

list all you’ve seen from [insert actor/actress/director].

so many, my dude. so many.

an underrated actor.

brain is fried. i’m sure there’s some but i’m blanking hard.

an underrated actress.

see above.

an underrated director.

see above.

an overrated actor.

johnny fucking depp.

an overrated actress.

scarlett johansson soz lol

an overrated director.

QUENTIN FUCKING TARANTINO

a film you wish you had seen on the big screen.

like any of my favourite 80s movies or the original psycho. also the lord of the rings, for some reason my folks didn’t take me to those.

a movie you’ve seen that you think no one else’s here will have heard of?

i am yet to encounter someone who knows the previously mentioned tubby the tuba.

favorite movie characters.

steve rogers, rapunzel from tangled, leia skywalker, lara-jean song-covey

a film that was better than the book.

i love to all the boys i loved before, but the film captured me in a way that the book didn’t as much.

best remake.

i’d watch tom holland or andrew garfield over tobey maguire for spiderman any day fight me.

your first favorite actor.

probably orlando bloom? back when i was a wee bab, i watched anything of his that i could find at the video rental.

your first favorite actress.

hilary duff probably. child me watched all of lizzie mcguire and any movies of hers.

favorite animated film.

if you’ve read this far and can’t figure it out, i don’t know what to say. it’s toy story, obviously.

your most anticipated films.

endgame and basically any other superhero movie coming out, toy story 4, the sequel for to all the boys i’ve loved before, the richard curtis movie called yesterday that is coming out in june (???) i think, STAR WARS.

last movie that disappointed you.

sierra burgess is a loser. fuck, no one else wanted that movie to be good as much as i did.

last movie that surpassed your expectations

nothing will ever match how blown away i was by pacific rim when i saw it. i went with my cousin knowing literally NOTHING about it. also i guess 2017′s it. i’m not big on seeing horror at the cinema and i didn’t expect to find it as funny as i did because the kids in it were so great.

actor in need of new agent.

idk bruh, i can’t think of anything right now for this.

actress in need of new agent.

see above.

share an unpopular film opinion you have.

idk how unpopular this is because i’m pretty sure thanks to #metoo most people want these kind of people want out of hollywood, but i despise woody allen and roman polanski films. the fact that i had to study them while getting my degree is despicable, and the argument that they’ve done a lot for the film industry is trash. don’t make their work important, studying it so thoroughly gives it power and i want to never have to speak about their trash again.

favorite Oscar win/speech.

who couldn’t say olivia colman’s from this years oscars. that warmed my cold dead heart and i cried for her.

biggest Oscar snub(s).

arrival should have won/been nominated for more than it did.

who do you think is overdue for another nomination/win?

amy adams!!! she was so fucking amazing in arrival, i wanted her to win all of the things.

how many movies have you seen (rough estimation)?

must be hundreds (not that these answers are any indication since i’ve talked about approx four films) since i own hundreds of DVDs, i go to the cinema regularly, i am constantly watching stuff on netflix and any other streaming services.

a movie that made you go ‘wtf was that’.

un chien andalou, requiem for a dream and mothlight. the first two because they’re fucking disturbing, the last one because its just close ups of parts of moths and i had to watch it for a film paper. it’s a no from me.

a film that scarred you.

the mummy. the beetle under the skin gave me nightmares and i haven’t been able to watch it since.

most movies watched in a single day.

i havent’t taken notes, but i did watch all of the mcu movies with cap in them recently in a day?

a film that always makes you cry.

coco. i’ve yet to make it through without having a full on mental breakdown for the last third of that movie. also marley and me because doggos. and the last part of mamma mia: here we go again. and philadelphia. the take away from this answer is that i cry a lot in movies.

a film that always makes you laugh.

hot fuzz. in my first flat we watched it nearly everyday for like two weeks when we all moved in and watching it makes me think of how much we all laughed and quoted it to one another.

movies that you think everyone should watch (not necessarily your favorites).

get out, psycho, star wars, at least one classic film noir, arrival, the cornetto trilogy, back to the future. there’s more but i think this is a good starter for what i at least find to be important viewing.

a movie that took you a couple of viewings to appreciate.

honestly probably the lord of the rings. they didn’t really click with me until high school, and then they really really clicked. also fight club i guess; the second time around watching it, i got the toxic masculinity themes more. it sucks that men read that movie as the exact opposite.

a book you want to see adapted to the big screen.

i believe i already answered this here!

a book you really, really, really don’t want to see made into a film.

does jk rowling’s twitter count? i want to see nothing more from the harry potter universe that she has had anything to do with.

favorite child performance.

the kids in the goonies and it 2017 come to mind. let kids act like kids!!!

favorite pre-code.

mate, you are making the assumption that i remember enough of the old films i studied in my degree, and that i remember the pre-code dates. i’m sure i have one, but that is buried far too deep in my brain to actually remember.

Favorite silent film.

i really enjoyed the buster keaton stuff we watched when i did my history of film paper.

favorite coming of age film.

boyhood, love simon, the edge of seventeen, my girl (i’ll be honest, i just googled coming of age movies and picked my faves from the top results. doesn’t mean i don’t stand by these!!)

favorite superhero film.

captain america: the winter soldier, spiderman: into the spiderverse, black panther and the dark knight rises.

best cinematography.

i still really like her and wes anderson for their cinematography.

movies you know you should watch, but can’t bring yourself to do it?

so fucking many, my dude. the amount of movies i wrote essays about when i had watched maybe three scenes and read the synopsis is insane. after getting a degree in it, and with how burned out i got, i found it very hard to give a shit about classics that lecturers told me were important. the big one is the godfather; it’ll be a cold day in hell when i finally watch that one.

favorite genres.

i’m a sucker for anything romantic. also film noir, superheroes, animated, female-led, stuff set in the 80s, lgbt film (that isn’t gross and exploitative), comedy horrors. idk man, it’s hard to describe.

least favorite genres.

dull as fuck period pieces that say approximately nothing new and hash out the same old tired shit about treatment of poc and/or women. comedies in the same vein of austin powers, napoleon dynamite and sasha baron cohen stuff. white feminist narratives. anything that is shitty about fat women.

biggest movie pet peeve.

dark for no fucking reason!!! let films be bright and happy!!! ya girl hates having to strain her eyes to see what the heck is going on.

#answered #anonymous

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rachelbethhines · 6 years

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Quick thoughts on a 130 years in film Part 9

1925

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There’s probably a lot more notable films I could have gone with for this year; Phantom of the Opera, Ben Hur, Battleship Potemkin, just to name a few. However my love of Cinderella won out over all of these. I’ll probably cover at least one a decade. And indeed this is one of the more interesting takes on the story I’ve seen.

Written by J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, this charming tale is about a quirky young woman living in London during World War I. She’s obsessed with the story of Cinderella and desires nothing more than to bring the fairy tale to life. Her odd behavior catches the attention of a police officer who suspects her of being an enemy spy. What follows is a whimsical and yet also somewhat heartbreaking romance.

I’ll be honest this was a delight to watch. I actually enjoyed this more than any version of Peter Pan. It’s a shame Barrie never novelized this play as I’ve would’ve read the hell out of it.

1926

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The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the world’s oldest surviving full length animated film. I’ve seen it hundreds of times already but it didn’t seem right leaving it out of the marathon due to it’s historical importance.

The film is utterly memorizing, but it is very much a style over substance type film. A mish-mash of various Arabian Nights’ tales the story is simplistic and the characters little more than archetypes. Some, such as the Witch, can be quite charming despite this. Others however, like the two main leads and their very forced romance, leave a lot to be desired. However, the art is the true star of this film and it’s beautiful scenery and classical puppetry style will leave you breathless.

1927

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The Jazz Singer might just be the most important film ever made. The first movie to feature synchronized sound, it completely changed the industry and how films are made even to this day. Every time you sit down to watch anything on a screen, and you hear music, dialogue, and/or sound effects you owe it to this movie.

That said the film isn’t nearly watched or talked about enough. Though still a moving and effective film in it’s own right, it’s sadly ignored due to many of the films most important scenes being considered controversial today. The main character, who is white, dons makeup to make himself look black. Don’t mistake me, this is in no way a defense of “blackface”, a shameful practice that rightly belongs in the past, but the past does need to be viewed and discussed. And it needs to be viewed and discussed in both the context of when it was made and the implications it has upon us as a society today.

The story is about a Jewish man who wants to be a stage singer, against the wishes of his strict and very traditional father who wants him to become a Cantor like himself. Through out the film the main character, Jack, is torn between wanting to peruse his dream career and wanting to make his parents proud. The controversial “blaceface” scene is a very obvious metaphor of Jack hiding his true feelings and his true self beneath the falsities and fantasies of the pretend world of the stage. At the time this was lauded as being progressive, even by other black people, and indeed the actor who plays Jack was a well know civil rights activist, but over time as “blackface” became rightfully less respectable people ignored the movie altogether rather than study the changing attitudes of society and how such important movies both helped and hurt minorities. And indeed while representation of black people in film has grown in leaps and bounds over the decades, when’s the last time you saw a film about Jewish people, and their culture and religion, that was a top grossing film? One that doesn’t double as a world war 2 film or a biblical story.

Two steps forward and one step back. That’s why it’s so important to remember history, to discuss it, and continue to challenge, question, and promote proper representation on all fronts. If you’ve never seen this movie before I would encourage you to do so if nothing more than to expand you’re own knowledge of representation in film history.

1928

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1928 was a very strong year for silent film. The Wind, Jujiro, The Man Who Laughs are all considered must see classics by cinephiles and I would agree with them. The Wind is perhaps my favorite silent film ever. But as we draw to a close upon the silent era in film I realized I had failed to feature a Buster Keaton movie yet, and that simply won’t due. Therefore I give you the film that inspired Mickey Mouse.

Buster Keaton plays a simple but heartfelt teen fresh out of school. He wants desperately to prove himself to his estranged father, but complicates matters by falling in love with the daughter of his father’s business rival.

The story is a little slow going at first, the humor is kind of dated too, and the romance not very fleshed out and used as simply a plot device more than anything, but oooh the stunt work! Keaton was a master at physical humor and choreographing and staging fantastical acrobatic stunts. The climax with the main hero trying to survive a hurricane is a worth the price of admission alone. There’s more impressive effects, stunts, and dramatic tension in this film than there are in many modern day action blockbusters.

1929

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Well we’re officially out of the silent era. The Broadway Melody (1929) is the first full talkie musical. Unlike The Jazz Singer which still featured silent scenes in-between the songs, this movie is a fully voiced, scored, and sung. Such a technical feat earned it the second Academy Award for Best Picture.

And it’s rather weak. The songs are few and far between, the cinematography and editing primitive, the sound quality iffy, the acting very stagy and over the top, and it’s all hung together with a very thin story. If you hate love triangles then don’t bother with this one folks cause that’s all it’s got to offer.

I’ll give the story this though. As much as watching uncommunicative jackasses being idiots drives me up the wall, at least the story has the guts to end on a bittersweet note and not give everybody a happy ending. It’s a love triangle, someone’s going to get left out in the end. And to the films credit that someone is a likable character and not a one note villain. Kudos.

Also the choreography is nice. I was particularly impressed by a woman who taped danced in pointe shoes. That’s gotta hurt and is something not even most professional ballerinas can do. And “The Wedding of Painted Doll” while completely pointless to the story is easily the best number in the show.

#silent film #film history #movies #1920s

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ourdallasvideofestthings · 6 years

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BART CHAT 8/27/18

Hi all, We had a wonderful PawFest on Thursday night-powerful, funny, cute, crazy, but most of all entertaining and fun. Boy, we need that from time to time. As I was watching the reel on the big screen at The Texas Theater, I was thinking about how cat films are somewhat (note, I said somewhat) like silent films from the great comics, but not just like any ole silent film great—not Chaplin, not Lloyd, but Buster Keaton. Keaton’s films had an acrobatic brilliance to them similar to cat films. A strange thing is that Keaton set out to make these films while the cats just perform for whatever reason. While there is no story in a cat film, there is that look in Keaton’s eyes—that stone cold stare that looks like.... a cat. I know that this is a stretch and possibly sounds crazy, but hey, you’re still reading. If you aren’t familiar with Buster Keaton, here are some of his best bits. As best I know, there are no film festivals or special screenings this week. We do have Frame of Mind starting up soon. This season we have some amazing programs. Here is a trailer for the series. I will go into more detail next week, but I can tell you that I‘m doing more original shows than in years past and we have three retrospectives of great Dallas area filmmakers. You’ll see great works from high school and college students and works from all over the world. Set your box to record at 10:00 PM on Thursday nights. Take a trip out of the house and into the cool, dark cinemas. This week’s choices include the newly restored print of 2001 A Space Odyssey. This film was so revolutionary when it first came out. It’s funny the things I do and don’t remember. When it first came out, there was a great parody that seemed funny at the time in Mad Magazine and I swear I haven’t seen since it was published. I looked it up and found it here. Also at the Texas is Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev. I haven’t seen this film, but I have seen the trailer and it looks good. Any Tarkovsky experience is worth it, so this is a great opportunity. These are the kind of screenings that make The Texas Theater so valuable to the community. Elsewhere in town The Angelika and The Alamo are showing Pretty in Pink which is a nice diversion. The Angelika is also showing Laughing Under the Clouds: Gaiden Parts 1&2. Monday is National Dog Day, so go see Isle of Dogs at The Alamo and you can hear a conversation with Wes Anderson, which is only happening during one show at each location. That is it for this week. Stay cool, Bart Weiss, Artistic Director Dallas VideoFest

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sincerepositivethings · 5 years

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Issue Twenty-Six

A Tribute to the Incredible Neil Innes and Celebrating Public Domain Day 2020

Subscribe to Sincere, Positive Things here!

Neil Innes spent his lifetime making music that would make people happy. He died last week at the age of 75 after a half-century long career in which he worked closely with the members of Monty Python, the Beatles, and many others.

My favorite project of Innes’s was one he worked on with Monty Python’s Eric Idle: The Rutles. The Rutles were a fictional British band that was very similar to some other guys’ band. Their hour-long special, All You Need Is Cash (link above) is filled with celebrity cameos like Paul Simon, John Belushi, and George Harrison, but it’s the music that really makes it worth watching. Give a listen to “Cheese and Onions,” a song that is so Beatles-esque that it was frequently traded among fans as an unreleased John Lennon demo.

His Rutles songs, inspired by every era of the Beatles’ careers, served both bouncy pop, such as "Number One,” orchestrated melodies of youthful reflection, like “Doubleback Alley,” and just plain pretty love songs like “Let’s Be Natural.”

Neil was producing music right up until the end, with his last album Nearly Really released in October of 2019. Though there was some annoying complications that came with self-financing his own album including £23,000 in crowdfunded money being effectively stolen from him, but he persisted and produced one of the more introspective albums of his career that balanced the silliness with the authentic, a trait that dominated most of his work over the years.

I wrote a short tribute to Neil for Vulture last week, and I closed it with lyrics from “Mother Nature,” a song inspired by his grandchildren, off that new album. I include them again here, as I feel as though they serve as a beautiful coda to the life of a man who brought so much joy, but also as some solid advice from someone who lived a long life, surrounded by people who loved him: “Little children hard at play / Share your laughter while you may / All too soon there will come a day / Mother Nature will have her say.”

Thank you for sharing your laughter with the world, Neil.

Happy New Year! Hey! Let me be the first to ask you: how much do you know about copyright law and the public domain?

Here’s the short version. In America, if you write a book or a song or make a movie or whatever, you will have copyright over that for 70 years after your death. That’s a very long time. Once that time expires, your work enters the public domain, which allows anyone to remix your song, distribute your writing, reedit your film, or whatever creative thing they want to do. Who cares? You’re long dead and if it was popular, you’ve already made whatever money you’re going to make off of it, presumably.

On top of that rule, in 1998, Congress said that everything that was made from 1923 to 1977 gets a 95-year long term. (Some call this the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” because Disney supported this ruling very strongly, as it saved “Steamboat Willie” from entering the public domain.) It’s complicated, but here’s this if you want more.

Just as a small example, you’ve heard of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes? You know how those Holmes stories, while awesome, feel like they were written two, maybe three lifetimes ago? This year, 3 of his original stories entered the public domain, and there are still six more under his estate’s copyright.

Well, in 2020, all of the works from 1924 became free to everybody. That means a ton of great stuff can now be accessed by everyone in America and repurposed into something new, including A.A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young, Buster Keaton’s Sherlock, Jr., and perhaps most excitingly, George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” Ever wanted to rap over that song? Now you can, and nobody can stop ya!

As they do every year, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University does a great job celebrating and explaining Public Domain Day (their name for New Year’s Day). If you’d like to get a better look at what stuff you can get a better look at now, I can’t recommend them enough!

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movienotesbyzawmer · 5 years

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Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

December 8: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

Source: Blu-ray release, the box set with all six Lucas-era movies (2D)

Surely the most eagerly awaited movie ever, right? We were all absolutely bonkers in anticipation of this. I was a movie theater manager at the time, and although my theater didn't play the movie, we all got invitations to advance screenings. That was a fairly normal occurrence but it was a big deal to see this movie before it came out. I think I saw it about a week and a half before the big release. And although my initial reaction was actually largely positive, I did observe at the time that the best thing about it was that I got to see it before everyone else…

…but I also observed that the second best thing about it is that the visual effects were a monumental achievement. CGI had never been done to that level. It's normal for movies to look like this now, but it wasn't in 1999, and I’m sad that that fact is lost on modern audiences. Okay, pressing play now.

I kinda get chills at the intro. So classic. This music. Before it actually opened we weren't even sure the same music would be in it.

Opening crawl is like "well there is a dispute about trade route taxation so they send some Jedi to sort it out". The idea is kinda like, "at the beginning of this story things were not as dramatic as they would eventually get". Okay fine.

Very quick "I have a bad feeling about this" fan service in the first couple of minutes.

The Asian-talking bad guy aliens on the blockade ship are all CGI and by modern standards they look a teeny bit dated. BUSTED!!

0:05:45 - quickly we get to the first action scene. No dawdling. But the robot chatter is a little childish-seeming.

The rolling droids! Those are a cool idea.

The first establishing shot of Naboo - very beautiful! Give 'em some credit, yo.

So we've seen holo-calls of Darth Sidious and of Senator Palpatine, and of course it's the same guy. Were we not supposed to figure that out? Seems like it would be super obvious to everyone.

Battle droid army rollout on Naboo, more impressive visuals, but some of it doesn't hold up to modern standards. And yet, so what.

Ugh. Jar Jar. He says "exqueeze me". Neat CGI effect for 1999, and probably not as awful as people say, but it feels like a forced character. "We gotta have a comic relief character that will be kid friendly and will make for a cool toy."

Then they go underwater with neat breather devices, and the underwater city looks plenty neat.

"Yoosa in big doo-doo dis time". I feel like I'm not the intended audience for this dialogue.

The quirks of the boss leader dude in the underwater city always struck me as more creative than some of the other character design dealios. That mouth thing he does.

The planet core is all underwater ocean world. Neat idea, though I suspect physics wouldn't work in the way we're seeing. If you care so much, maybe just go read about physics instead of watching a space adventure.

Less than 20 minutes in and there's another exciting action sequence with the underwater monsters. I suspect George Lucas was pretty proud of getting down to business like that.

Modern day CGI sea monsters would look better than this, but try comparing 2019 CGI to this, and then compare this to 1979 effects. Yeah. Uh huh. See? That's what I'M saying.

The queen and her minions… I don't remember exactly what the deal is. They're all, or mostly, played by Natalie Portman… is there a switcheroo happening?

Whatever the case, there's a missed opportunity here to get us to like the Queen. At this point in Star Wars, we had been effectively seduced by multiple charming characters. But instead this Queen has all the soul of a neatly folded napkin.

"how wude", ugh. GL was very pleased with this "catchphrase". The rest of us not so much.

0:27:45 - Darth Maul emerges onto the holo-call! Good bad-guy reveal.

So "Padme" is a different character, the story is clear on that. Just saying.

The salvage shop dude with wings, he just hovers, I like that.

And then we are introduced to Anakin Skywalker. It is very, very wooden acting. I know it's hard to get good kid acting, but it SUPER SUPER SUPER drags this movie down. Most of his lines sound like he's parroting a grownup who said "say this line just like this…"

The big city planet, Coruscant! Quick look at it, but it's impressive.

Buncha story development about "well we need a plan to get off the planet, blah blah blah flimsy excuse for everything to hinge on a pod race". Fine, but feels like corporate storytelling.

"There was no father". Kid is totally Jesus. Wait, do Christians hate this movie for being kind of flip about immaculate conceptions?

Actually, Anakin's mother is managing to convey some emotion. A shot of her face as she realizes her kid is going to do the dangerous race does a lot with some subtlety.

0:55:35 - Pod race sequence starts. The arena looks very cool, a lot of cool alien and ship designs too. The two-headed announcer effect looks a little poorly integrated.

This pod race sequence… there is seriously TONS to like about it! Hard to take notes during it because it is so fun to watch.

And some of the humor edited in that breaks up the intense racing action… actually works! The whole thing, with its super energetic editing, cool ship design stuff, and even the overt references to Ben-Hur, it's all plenty satisfying.

Ewan McGregor is all "why do I sense we've picked up another pathetic life form?" It feels like a super-uninspired, unsuccessful attempt to give a little personality to at least one character. EG tries to grin a teeny tiny bit and just can't even quite manage it.

1:16:55 - Whoa, just like that Darth Maul shows up and it's a light saber duel! Doesn't last long but it's fun that that happened.

Sometimes Jake Lloyd's performance kind of works when he doesn't have to talk. Like when he looks flummoxed by not being on a hot desert planet any more.

The shot with Terrence Stamp at a strange angle, with the sky traffic of Coruscant in the background, I like it. Just all the shots of Coruscant, totally lovely and you gotta appreciate how advanced this was for 1999.

1:24:40 - First scene of the Jedi Council, so first appearances of Yoda and Samuel L. Jackson. Was Yoda still a muppet when this was first released, and then made CGI in this Blu-ray release? Looks like solid CGI at least.

The Senate. Super neat design for how that chamber looks & works.

I should note that during this viewing I'm starting to suspect for the first time that Amidala, or whoever is in Amidala garb, is played by Keira Knightley but with Natalie Portman's voice dubbed over. The makeup job is disguising who it is. Am I right about this? Did everyone else know that all this time? I've always thought NP just played both parts. But the deeper I get into the movie, the less "Amidala" looks like NP.

Anyway, we're now at the part where "Padme" steps forward and is like, actually I AM QUEEN AMIDALA, doesn't that BLOW your MIND, I am in PLAIN ROBES and my DECOY is in NICE CLOTHES AND MAKEUP, HOW you LIKE me NOW. If the decoy was pretending to be Amidala this whole time, it's worth noting that she seems to have Queen skills down. She should apply for Queen jobs.

1:45:45 - Imagery now recalling Spartacus. I've always liked how the setup for this Naboo land battle looks.

What's happening now is suddenly lots and lots of battles. The Jamaican-talking Naboo water city people fighting the robots (which just unfurled rather elegantly from the big nose ships), the protagonists fighting in the palace/city, and the space fighter battle stuff. Still the droid army stuff is the most fun to watch.

Oh! Scratch that, Darth Maul is here and now we are about to get this super excellent light saber fight! It is awesome, and it's accompanied by the only memorable musical theme that originated in this movie. It's got a choral part!

But there's all this dumb, infantile comic relief shit with Jar Jar accidentally bumbling into being helpful and Anakin accidentally bumbling into being an awesome fighter pilot. The mixed tones in the pod race sequence worked… but it's too dumb for this ending sequence. Lucas was clearly like "cutting between four different fights will be so intense that I can diffuse it with some really shitty humor and the audience will be like ‘oh thank you I needed that’".

1:56:40 - I love this tense break in the light saber fight while they're separated by energy field things.

Jar Jar running from bomb sphere things, that's a reference to Buster Keaton in The General, right? If so… Cocky, GL. Real cocky.

Obi-Wan can't catch up because of the energy barriers, so he just has to watch Qui-Gon get stabbed to death, that's all very nicely done.

2:01:00 - Okay now they're saying the decoy wasn't a decoy, except no that was just a trick, oh mercy this movie is just too smart for me

The light saber fight continues minus Mister Dead, and it's still exciting and intense.

In the course of just screwing around, Anakin blew up that bad guy ship which made the droid army stop working. Okay fine… but wait, was that the actual climax of the movie? Because dude, that does not compare well to the destruction of the Death Star.

But then Darth Maul gets bisected so there's that.

Ends with that funeral, followed by an obligatory parade. Pretty to look at, but doesn't feel as merited as the throne room stuff after the death star blowing up. It's totally trying to be that.

You know what it feels like? A PILOT EPISODE. It's got those qualities that are like, "here are the basic elements that we're making really obvious so you'll decide to produce more episodes, just trust us we'll elaborate on some of it and it will be better, come on just give us the money".

(next: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones)

#star wars episode 1

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busterkeatonfanfic · 4 years

Photo

Chapter 7

When Nelly opened her eyes, she couldn’t remember what day it was, what time it was, or most of all where she was. The bed sheets smelled like a man. Buster. She sat straight up, hardly noticing the clanging in her head.

She scrambled to the edge of the bed and tried to tear off the sheets that were twisted around her middle. She saw as she swung her legs over the side of the bed that her dress and girdle had ridden up around her waist, but she was still wearing her cami knickers. Whatever had occurred last night had not apparently involved their disposal.

A wave of nausea and dizziness seized her before she was able to stand up. Her head ached so badly that she ran her hands over it, suspecting that she’d fallen and hit it. The exterior was intact, but the interior … It was in agony. Her very brains felt hot and swollen.

“Hello?” she said. The suite seemed empty, but she couldn’t be sure. “Hello?”

When no answer came, she reached for the half-full glass of water on the nightstand and drained it. She had a raging thirst and scanned for the bathroom so she could fill the glass again and relieve herself. She had to pee like a racehorse. She got up and was forced to hobble on her way to the en-suite. Her misadventures had led to one thing at least: a twisted ankle. She remembered a phonograph and a rolicking jazz tune that made her feel the lightest and gayest and youngest she’d ever felt in her life. She remembered Tommy now, how good-looking he’d been. She remembered dancing for what seemed like hours. She was in such a good mood that she’d even danced with the men who weren’t handsome. She groaned at the memory of the other men as she relieved herself.

There was water in the round basin at the bottom of the skeletal shower and the bathroom felt slightly humid. A towel hanging on the bar confirmed that Buster had come and gone.

At least she thought it was Buster. That part she remembered too. Vomiting her guts out and Buster Keaton squatting opposite her in his white undergarments … doing what? It was fuzzy. She vaguely recalled a desire for a pillow, but he must not have given one to her because she woke up in the bed. She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten from the blind tiger to the hotel room. She tried and failed. It was a big black spot, a blight on a reel of film. Buster had not been at the blind tiger as far as she remembered.

At the sink, she drank four glasses of water total, then rinsed her sour mouth. Her face was pale and haggard in the mirror. She looked about twenty years older. Suddenly, her heart hammered at an alarming thought. It wasn’t Sunday, it was Saturday. What had made her think it was Sunday? They were filming today! She was hours late.

Her eyes scanned around the bedroom for a clock. She spotted one on the mantel and rushed to it. A quarter to noon.

“Damn!”

She ran into the adjoining salon, hoping to at least find her handbag. She did, half-spilled on one of the seemingly dozens of ornate chairs that dotted the room. The handbag held no powder or rouge, but at least it had lipstick and her tin of mascara. She dashed back to the bathroom to apply it. Her hair was another story. There was no hairbrush in the handbag, just a small backcomb that was impotent against the rat’s nest of tangles confronting her. She was out of bobby pins. Her dress was wrinkled and covered in lint, not to mention that she stank of sweat and stale booze. She would have to go back to 22nd Street unless she wanted to get fired on the spot for improper dress. Also, her stockings were nowhere to be found. She looked on the chairs in the salon, underneath the bed, on the mantel, and in the sheets and bedspread. Nothing. She even peeked, blushing, in Buster’s closet and his bureau drawers. She did find a sterling silver men’s hairbrush on the bureau. She also discovered a bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet and washed down four capsules without a second thought.

As she considered the sterling silver hairbrush, she felt guilty. It was expensive and she didn’t want to get it clotted up with her long hair. Promising herself she’d use her own comb to clean it afterwards, she sat on the bed trying to get the tangles out. The hairbrush smelled like Brilliantine. It seemed important not to be seen wandering the halls of the prestigious Hotel Senator with the unbrushed hair of one of Macbeth’s witches. Maybe she could call and have some bobby pins brought up—but that would alert hotel staff to the fact that there was a Girl in Buster’s Room. From her first encounter with him in his dressing room, it was clear that he had dalliances, but she wasn’t sure how discreet they were. For all she knew, an enterprising maid might sell a story to the papers for some extra money at the first opportunity. She brushed her hair and tried not to think of how terrible her head felt.

Her situation went from bad to worse when a doorknob rattled in the salon. Of course. The staff tidied the suite every day. She considered hiding under the bed, but it was too late. From her position, she watched an arm come through the door, shortly followed by a leg, shortly followed by Buster himself.

Of all the things she might have expected to come out of his mouth when he saw her, it wasn’t, “You’re awake.”

Before she had a chance to do much other than stammer a response, he was in the bedroom. He took off his jacket and hung it in the wardrobe, saying, “How do you feel? Feel like eating?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling rather weak and desperate.

“I’ll order sandwiches and coffee. You look like you could use some coffee.”

As soon as he’d exited the room, she frantically pulled the strands of her hair out of his brush and padded to the bureau to return it. Job accomplished, she sat on the sofa rather than the bed, noticing for the first time that there was a rumpled sheet draped over the back and a pillow lying on one end. From them, she deduced that she had run Buster out of his own bed.

“Relax,” said Buster, appearing in the doorway and startling her.

“Am I fired?” she said, looking over at him.

He looked surprised. “Fired?” A half-smile played on his lips as he realized what she was driving at. “Oh, for being young and silly and frivolous? No.”

“I am terribly sorry for last night,” she said soberly. “I kicked you out of your bed and you—when I threw up, you—”

He waved her off. “Don’t worry about it.” As if he’d peered into her mind that very second, he added, “Nothing happened between us, don’t worry about that either. Why’s your hair look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Brushed on only the one side.”

“I don’t have a hairbrush in my bag.”

He squinted, clearly confused. “How’d you get half of it brushed then?”

She flushed what she could only assume was a violent red. “I borrowed your hairbrush.”

“But you only brushed half?”

She was going to die of mortification right here in Buster Keaton’s hotel room. That’s how she was going to go, rest in peace Nelly Foster. “I didn’t want you to know I’d used it, when you came in just now. I hadn’t asked permission.”

He cocked an eyebrow. He strode over to the bureau, then to her, and dropped the hairbrush in her lap. “All yours,” he said.

“Thank you. Do you think,” she said, not meeting his eyes, “you could have some bobby pins brought up?”

“Sure. Need anything else?”

She shook her head. “I’m just going to go back to my room to change before I head over to the set.”

He sat on the foot of the bed. “You’re not going to the set today, you’re going to rest. How far away is your room?”

She thought. “A mile, a mile-and-a-half? 1911 22nd Street. I didn’t mention it last night?”

Buster grinned. Nelly had seen him smile, but never up close and never with full teeth. His teeth were very straight on top and he had a dimple in his right cheek. She was keenly aware in that moment of how extraordinary it was that she had ended up in the bedroom of Buster Keaton’s hotel suite, never mind that her methods were nothing short of disgraceful.

“You mentioned a lot last night, but I couldn’t get that address out of you to save my life.”

“Oh no,” she said, her stomach sinking. She shielded her face with her hand.

“You’re a lot of fun.” He stood up and squeezed her shoulder on his way out of the room. “I’m going to call for those bobby pins.”

As he used the telephone, she hastily brushed out the rest of the tangles, swiped her hair from the bristles, and set the brush on the nightstand next to the bottle of aspirin. Pretty soon there was a knock at the hotel door and she ducked into the bathroom, partly to relieve herself again, mostly to hide from whoever was delivering lunch. She looked in the mirror, tried for a moment to make her hair and her face more presentable, but gave up. The lipstick and mascara would have to do. She also gave her teeth a hasty brush with a finger and Buster’s toothpaste.

Feeling shy, she stepped into the salon where a silver tray sat on a cart. “Sit down,” said Buster. He handed her a small plate that held a chicken sandwich. “There’s soup here too. Something asparagus, I think.”

Nelly took a bite of the sandwich and found that she was ravenous. The sandwich gave her an excuse not to talk. As she ate, she considered how she would politely remove herself from Buster’s company and sneak away before he changed his mind about not canning her. Her bare legs made her self-conscious and she tucked them under her on the chair as she ate. The silence didn’t seem to bother Buster. He dipped his sandwich in his soup and ate, glancing at her once and awhile.

“I can’t find my stockings,” she said, after she’d finished her sandwich. “Do you know where I put them?”

“You threw them out the window.”

“I what?” she said, not sure she’d heard right.

“Of my car.” Buster blinked without expression, the famous frozen face she knew so well from pictures.

She was bewildered. “I don’t remember that.”

“You were hot,” he said, with a small shrug. “By the way, I noticed the ankle.” He gestured. “You should ice it when you get back to your room.”

“I don’t remember turning it,” she confessed.

“What do you remember?” he said, his eyes probing hers.

She told him about drinking and dancing in the blind tiger. She also told him about the gap in her memory between dancing and winding up on his bathroom floor. “I am really, terribly sorry about that,” she said again. More of the incident had come back to her and she remembered how he’d dragged her into the bathroom and held her hair back as she vomited.

He waved her off. “I’ve seen worse. I want to talk to you about something serious for a moment, though.”

A hot-cold rush of dread ran through her insides at his words, but she kept her hands steady on her cup of coffee and tried to make her face cool and calm.

Buster finished the rest of a second sandwich, dabbed at his lips with a napkin, and put the plate on the bottom of the cart. “You know that tall man, the one with the blonde hair?” He paused, looking at her.

“Tommy,” she said. Why she should feel so guilty about Tommy, she didn’t know, but under Buster’s gaze she somehow learned that consorting with him was a horrible mistake.

“Is that his name? Well anyway, I’ve fired him. If he ever comes around again to bother you, come straight to me.”

She must have looked as puzzled as she felt, because he went on.

“When I walked into that speak-easy last night, they were trying to get you into a room with them. A whole gang of them, and he was the ringleader.”

She was horrified beyond words. Tears filmed her eyes, but she blinked them back. On top of the spectacle she’d made of herself the previous night, she was not going to cry in front of him. “I don’t remember that at all,” she said, her voice feeling weak.

“I know you don’t.” He reached over and laid a hand on her knee for a moment. “They got you as drunk as possible for that very reason. Just be careful from now on, okay? Take a few girlfriends when you go out.” He withdrew his hand. “Here.” He took a red box out of his pocket and handed it to her. It was decorated in violets and labeled INVISIBLE HAIR PINS. “Do your hair up and I’ll drop you by your room before I go back to the set.”

Back in the bathroom with Buster’s brush, she saw she no longer needed rouge. Her cheeks were in a high flush now, partly from the effects of last night’s imbibing, partly from their conversation. There was no crimping iron to be found, so she made do with a hasty chignon, patting down the flyaways with Buster’s Brilliantine afterwards.

“Ready?” he said, when she returned to the salon.

She felt hot and ashamed walking through the halls of the Senator and down the stairs next to him, but he didn’t seem to care if they were spotted together. She kept her eyes on her feet as much as possible. Even though they hadn’t slept together, no one in the hotel knew that. No one in the hotel knew either that she’d almost been raped by a gang of men last night, but all the same it felt like she was wearing a scarlet letter.

They waited in silence outside the grand hotel doors for the valet to bring Buster’s car around. He didn’t seem to have anything to say and she was too mortified to make small talk. When the green Duesenberge rolled up and the valet exited, Buster held open the passenger door for her. She assumed it must have been the car she’d ridden in last night, but her only memory of it was from the parking lot in River Junction. She sat beside Buster in silence as he took a right on J Street. When they had come to Joe and Maggie’s house, he went around to the door and helped her down from the car.

“Don't look so glum,” he said, before he let go of her hand. “Everything’s okay. And ice that ankle as soon as you get in, hear?”

#Buster Keaton #Silent film #silent movie stars #Golden Age Hollywood #Fan fiction #fan fic #Actor RPF #rpf

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justanothercinemaniac · 7 years

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Epic Movie (Re)Watch #140 - Singin’ in the Rain

Spoilers below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

This post is dedicated to @hyla-brook, as I can no longer watch this movie without thinking of my friend.

1) This film is not only one of the best movie musicals of all time, but one of the best movies of all time period. More on that coming up.

2) The opening credits include the line, “Suggested by the song...” In fact, the entire film was written AFTER the songs with only two exceptions (“Moses” and “Make ‘Em Laugh”), with all the other songs already being released and known to the world at the time. This effectively makes Singin’ in the Rain one of the earliest karaoke musicals (alá Rock of Ages), but today the songs are known largely if not exclusively because of the long lasting popularity of this film.

3) The backstory given by Don (Gene Kelly) is a wonderful opening to the film for almost countless reasons.

youtube

For one, we get a strong establishment of the friendship and loyalty which exists between Don and Cosmo (Donald O’Connor) as relationship as important to the film as Don’s love with Kathy. We also get a clear establishment of the film’s sense of humor, giving us a nice juxtaposition of expectations vs reality (“Dignity, always dignity.”) and incredible slapstick moments. It is also one of the most accurate portrayals of how someone finds success in Hollywood: through an endless stream of shit jobs in the hopes that you’ll be noticed. Kelly’s and O’Connor’s comedic brilliance are on full display, and we also get our fist inkling of the tumultuous relationships between Don and Lina.

Don [after he gets a lead in a movie, to Lina who was a jerk before]: “Are you doing anything tonight, Ms. Lamont? [She shakes her head no.] That’s funny...I’m busy.”

4) In case you ever think Hollywood making normal people feel self conscious about themselves is a modern invention:

Female Movie Patron [while Lina is onscreen]: “She’s so refined. I think I’ll kill myself.”

(GIF originally posted by @casey-jones)

5) Lina Lamont.

Lina’s character is established immediately from the second she opens her mouth: drunk on power, more than a bit of a moron, and a selfish jerk. She’s hysterical and Jean Hagen totally loses herself in the character. No, that’s not Hagen’s normal speaking voice, but you thought it didn’t you? That’s how incredible she is in the role, and it is easy to forget how much brilliance she shows off when compared to the trio of Kelly, O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds. This film wouldn’t be nearly the classic it is without Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont.

6) In case there was any question: I am Cosmo.

Studio Rep [about Lina]: “The studio has to keep their stars from looking ridiculous at any cost.”

Don: “No one’s got that much money.”

7) There are going to be so many Cosmo quotes in this recap, I’m just warning you. Because, you know, I’m Cosmo basically.

Don [being swarmed by fans]: “Hey Cos, do something! Call me a cab!”

Cosmo: “Okay, you’re a cab!”

8) Debbie Reynolds as Kathy Seldon.

What on earth can I say about one of the greatest actresses of all time in only her fourth credited screen real knocking it out of the park? I honestly don’t know but I’ll try to figure it out as I type. Reynolds is...perfection. In a trio of incredible performances I think she may give the strongest. Her chemistry with Kelly is great, subtle, trusting, and she does just such a wonderful job of making Kathy an amazing character. She’s not some manic pixie dream girl. She has her own desires, her own dreams, her own sacrifices she’s willing to make. Reynolds is able to portray Kathy as honestly good while still remaining interesting, honestly optimistic without being too naive or annoying, and honesty is just the word to apply to Reynolds’ whole work in the film. I love it.

9) One of the things I LOVE about this film is that Don and Kathy are not a “love at first sight” type of relationship. Don’s hitting on her is obviously because he’s a cad, she shuts him down, and then they’re able to have this unique conflict with each other where they both sort of act like jerks. Yet later they develop an honest connection with and affection for each other in such little time, it speaks greatly to the chemistry of the performers. One of my favorite love stories from this era of cinema.

10) The advent of the talkies are captured pretty accurately in this film. Everyone is skeptical about it, thinks it’ll be a fad, but the few likes Cosmo and studio head RF Simpson see how it could (and probably will be) the future.

11) I don’t think there is a better showcase for Donald O’Connor’s skills as a physical comedian than in “Make ‘Em Laugh”.

According to IMDb:

Donald O'Connor recalled, "I was smoking four packs of cigarettes a day then, and getting up those walls was murder. They had to bank one wall so I could make it up and then through another wall. We filmed that whole sequence in one day. We did it on a concrete floor. My body just had to absorb this tremendous shock. Things were building to such a crescendo that I thought I'd have to commit suicide for the ending. I came back on the set three days later. All the grips applauded. [Gene Kelly] applauded, told me what a great number it was. Then Gene said, "Do you think you could do that number again?" I said, "Sure, any time". He said, "Well, we're going to have to do it again tomorrow". No one had checked the aperture of the camera and they fogged out all the film. So the next day I did it again! By the end my feet and ankles were a mass of bruises."

The entire number is just packed full of classic Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton style gags all done to a fast pace number and it gets to the reason this old school movie musical has lasted the test of time where others have failed:

Most old school movie musicals have songs which don’t serve the film AT ALL they could be totally skipped and nothing would change. In some respects this film is the same. HOWEVER: the numbers are just so wildly and fantastically fun and entertaining that you are never bored by watching them. You are just so focused on what is going on and enjoying it so damn much you wouldn’t dream of skipping it (for the most part). THAT is why this film is such a classic. THAT is why it stands the test of time.

12)

RF [after pitching a talkie to Don]: “Lockwood and Lamont! They talk!”

Lina: “Of course we talk! Don’t everybody?”

Man RF, you did NOT think that through.

13) For me, “Beautiful Girls” is always the number I want to skip. It just is not nearly as entertaining as some of the other ones. It does nothing for me.

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

14) Be still my beating heart.

Don: “Kathy I’m trying to say something to you but I’m such a ham. I guess I’m unable to without the proper setting.”

My heart doesn’t get mushy romantic for much, but "You Were Meant For Me”...It is just so beautifully staged, the lighting and setting is incredible, and Kelly is able to portray such honest emotion in the song that...I LOVE IT!

15) “Moses” is another example of a number which really doesn’t serve the plot in anyway but is just so damn entertaining I don’t really care! Donald O’Connor is great again, and we get some nice bromantic fun!

16) We get like a solid ten minutes of this film’s excellent comedy in two back to back scenes: when the filmmakers are trying to deal with the sound equipment, and when they see just how poorly it worked in the final film. It’s accurate really to today too: audiences will forgive crappy visuals but if your sound is shit then your film is shit. I know this because I’ve directed a number of films with shit sound (most of them back in high school).

17) Don’s conflict is perfectly summed up in one line:

Don: “The picture’s a museum piece. I’m a museum piece.”

The film’s mostly a musical comedy so it’s easy to forget about Don’s conflict, but he’s an actor in a changing industry and his first encounter with Kathy had him questioning his skills. Everything he does for the movies in this film is driven by that issue.

18) “Good Morning”.

Another song which is totally superfluous and serves the plot in no real way, I totally love it. It shows the trio at their best together in a wildly fun and entertaining number. But it was a pain to shoot!

After they finished the "Good Morning" number, Debbie Reynolds had to be carried to her dressing room because she had burst some blood vessels in her feet. Despite her hard work on the "Good Morning" number, Gene Kelly decided that someone should dub her tap sounds, so he went into a dubbing room to dub the sound of her feet as well as his own.

During a TV interview Debbie Reynolds shared while filming "Good Morning" one of her feet was bleeding, requiring flesh-colored bandages beneath her hose. As the trio collapsed on the overturned sofa, she turned her head to Donald O'Connor and said, "Thank God that's over." Watch closely and you can see her say it during the dubbed jolly laughter.

Their effort yielded one of the best numbers in the film!

19) The iconic titular song/number: “Singin’ in the Rain”.

Pretty much everything you need to know about Kelly’s devotion and hardwork in the film can be summed up by this fact:

The "Singing in the Rain" number took all day to set up--and Gene Kelly was very ill (some say with a fever over 101). When it was all set up, Kelly insisted on doing a take--even though the blocking was only rudimentary (starting and ending positions only), and the director was ready to send him home. He ad-libbed most of it and it only took one take, which is what you see on film.

Kelly’s sheer joy and the memorable/simple imagery is what makes the number so iconic. It is truly relatable, and its existence makes walking in the rain just a bit less melancholy.

20) Hey, remember how I’m Cosmo?

RF: “Cosmo, remind me to give you a raise!”

Cosmo: “Oh RF!”

RF: “Yes?”

Cosmo: “Give me a raise.”

21) Okay, “Broadway Melody”...

“Broadway Melody” is THE most superfluous number in the film and honestly the one which could probably be cut. It is very entertaining - and much more engrossing than its equivalent in Kelly’s An American in Paris in my opinion - but it’s just so damn long! It works as it’s own short film. However the visuals are incredibly strong and Kelly is in top form, so it obviously doesn’t ruin the film. But honestly it is the song you are most easy to skip and keep watching.

22) Aww, these two...

Don [to Kathy]: “From now on there’s only one fan I’m worried about.”

23) So far Lina has been a funny antagonistic dunce in the film, but damn if at the end she doesn’t turn into a manipulative evil jerk. I LOVE IT! She shows off she’s smarter than she’s shown [at least a little], boosts her own public image, almost sabotages Kathy’s career, and tries to extort RF into giving her more power. It is the fact she flies so close to the sun which causes her downfall, but damn if she ain’t just EVIL!!!!!

24) According to IMDb:

In the "Would You" number, Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) is dubbing the voice of Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) because Lina's voice is shrill and screechy. However, it's not Reynolds who is really speaking, it's Jean Hagen herself, who actually had a beautiful deep, rich voice. So you have Jean Hagen dubbing Debbie Reynolds dubbing Jean Hagen. And when Debbie is supposedly dubbing Jean's singing of "Would You", the voice you hear singing actually belongs to Betty Noyes, who had a much richer singing voice than Debbie.

25) These three are just so happy to embarrass Lina.

26) Kathy’s teary eyed look at Don when she realizes he WASN’T being a total jerk by having her sing for Lina and in fact letting the whole world know who she is just...be still my heart.

I miss Debbie Reynolds.

Singin’ in the Rain is a classic of cinema. Even though it falls into the trope of songs which don’t advance the plot, the songs are just SO fun to watch! This film is pure entertainment, with great acting on all parts (especially from the trio of Kelly, O’Connor, and Reynolds) and just honest character writing. It’s SO good! Go watch it if you haven’t!

#Singin' in the Rain #Debbie Reynolds #Gene Kelly #Donald O'Connor #Singin in the Rain #Jean Hagen #Epic Movie (Re)Watch #Movie #Film #GIF

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aleesblog · 7 years

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Remembrance hump of Garrincha published in The Blizzard

Bird of Passage

A personal quest into the life-story of Garrincha, Brazil’s unrefined legend

By Andrew Lees

1st June 2017

Money talks but it don't sing and dance, and it don't walk

Neil Diamond

Under an unremarkable sky there were four of us out on the backstreet making our rings fly. I thrust my ring away then pulled it in, creating ellipses in the summer air. If it dared to slip I coaxed it back up, bending my knees and bracing my shoulders as I tried to circle the sun. Jill Clapham and Karen Pullen were streets ahead, looping their hoops in a swaying 2/4 rhythm and creating double flirts with their ductile hips. That morning as the larks rose into the sky above Little Switzerland I twirled my first ton.

At two o’clock we all ran in to watch Sweden play Brazil. My father was already crouched in front of our Bush console. I sat beside him on the hearthrug and my mother brought in a jug of Kia-Ora orange squash. On the other side of the bulbous screen a thickset man in a raincoat was triumphantly brandishing a large Swedish flag. The magic mirror then moved its focus to show the opposing teams jogging up and down uncomfortably in the silent rain. At last the referee blew his whistle and the final was afoot. A quarter of an hour into the game the commentator informed us that the effervescent Brazilian fans were singing, “Samba, Samba” even though they were losing 1-0. Garrincha, their right-winger attacked from the fringes. Twice in succession in the first half, he beat three players and his inch-perfect goalmouth crosses resulted in Vavá goals. As the game went on my eyes were drawn more and more to this hunched man who never passed the ball. On 29 June 1958 I was transported to a field of dreams somewhere on another planet.

That winter I gave up hula-hooping and started to kick a rubber ball against our coal house door. I learned to keep the pill on the ground, tame its wicked bounce and make it run. I gained a rhythm that allowed me to twist and dart past imaginary opponents. I found that with the slightest of taps from my left foot I was able to alter the ball’s speed and trajectory. I kept my feet apart, flexed my body and imagined I was Garrincha. My ball slept with me under the sheets as I listened to Bobby Vee on my portable radio.

I set unregistered record after record with that small rubber ball and became a star of the school playground. It was also the last time the skylarks darted out of the turf and diminished to dark specks in the porcelain sky, the last time they would sing their hearts out, momentarily disembodied as they summoned the sun.

It was now 1959 and I had started to go to football matches with my father. I loved the communal walk to the ground, the baying wit of the tribe and the surging swell of bodies tumbling down the terraces. But what I watched on the pitch was a war in which tough men battled it out for a paltry win bonus. The game was prosaic, forbidding and merciless and bore no resemblance to the fluidity of the Brazilian champions.

In the summer of 1966 I got to watch Brazil play for a second time. Garrincha emerged from the Goodison Park tunnel wearing the number 16 shirt. His unstoppable swerving banana kick that had hit the top right hand corner of the Park End net three days earlier had led me to anticipate a repeat performance of the mesmeric sequence of steps I had watched as an 11 year old with my father. After the band had played the national anthems Brazil’s bandy-legged outside-right ambled over to position himself next to two policemen patrolling the far touchline.

Under the floodlights and with the Liverpool crowd’s chants of “Hungary, Hungary” and “ee ay adio ” echoing in their ears Flórián Albert and Ferenc Bene set about putting the ageing world champions to the sword with fast incisive counter-attacks. Just before half-time Kenneth Wolstenholme, the BBC sportscaster, lamented, “Ah, Garrincha seems to have gone now. He has lost all the feistiness and fire and that devastating burst of speed.”

In the second half I noticed that Garrincha sometimes came inside looking for help and on the rare occasions when he tried to get round the outside of the Hungarian defence he was easily cut off and forced to pass. At the final whistle a delirium of appreciation burst forth, as toilet rolls rained onto the pitch. A stray balloon blew up from the Gwladys Street terrace, drifting forlornly in the direction of Stanley Park.

It is 2006 and I am sitting in the Bar Vesuvio in the old cocoa port of Ilhéus watching Botafogo play Vasco da Gama. The ball rarely leaves the ground and always seems to be angled perfectly through the narrowest of channels. Periodically it shoots out to the flanks and is then rifled back across the box. In this game corners and throw-ins are irrelevant. The ball dips and bends as it fires towards goal. Then out of the blue a Botafogo player goes round his opponent on the outside and I blurt out the words, “Alma de Garrincha.” An old man sitting beside me smiled kindly and said, “Garrincha jogou futebol do mesmo modo que viveu sua vida, divertindo-se e irresponsalvelmente!” [Garrincha played football the same way he lived his life, pleasing himself and running wild!]

Back in England football was now an acceptable topic of conversation in the hospital canteen. In fact there were many similarities between the modus operandi of university teaching hospitals and Premier League football clubs. One Tuesday lunchtime after rounds I explained that ‘Garrincha’ was a drab little Brazilian bird with a buzzing flight and a bubbly song that could not survive in a cage. Nobody had heard of Garrincha.

I then got out my laptop and showed them extracts from the 1963 Cinema Novo film Alegria do Povo [The Happiness of the People]. The film begins with black and white photographs of Garrincha to a soundtrack of samba. I fast-forwarded so they could see the Lone Star of Botafogo mesmerising his opponents in the Maracanã stadium.

One of the house officers, a Manchester United supporter reflected, “He plays a bit like George Best.” I replied caustically that Garrincha was Best, Stanley Matthews and John Barnes and a snake charmer rolled into one. “What’s more you don’t need slow motion/3D/surround sound from 23 angles to prove he has more tricks than Messi and more grace than Ronaldo.” I knew that my fuzzy evidence had not convinced them. They smiled benignly but knew their chief was basking in the emotional overglow of an unhealthy reminiscence bump.

Undeterred I continued to watch web compilations of the Little Bird’s sillage, much of which had been posthumously embellished by music. To Moacyr Franco’s song Balada no.7 (Mané Garrincha) I watch him double back before arrowing away to the right. A magnet seemed to be always attracting him to the margin of the pitch. His style was casual, irreverent and highly improbable but never disrespectful. He tormented and teased but never mocked. He was wordless and indefinable. For Garrincha, football was no more than a series of duels against instantly forgettable defenders and foreplay was far more enjoyable than scoring. The more joyous he made the crowd, the sterner became his facial expression. He was football’s Buster Keaton cracking jokes with his bandy legs and dancing to the gaps in the music. In one game playing for Botafogo he was even admonished by the official for flirtatious play. He was a one-man carnival who could turn life upside down with his antics. ‘Seu Mané’ expunged the prison of cause and effect from the game of football.

By the second half of the 19th century Lancashire cotton goods had become almost worthless in Brazil. Even the turbines coming in on the Liverpool boats from Manchester were in far less demand. As a consequence the 1000 or so English expatriates began to invest more in local textile production. John Sherrington, a man who had strong commercial links with Manchester, purchased a stretch of verdant land that nestled below the forested Serra dos Órgãos in the centre of the sate of Rio de Janeiro. Here in 1878 in the grounds of the old fazenda he and his two Brazilian partners constructed a textile mill. The project got off to an ill-omened start when the ancient tree said to have been more than 50m tall and with a trunk circumference greater than 30 human arm spans came down during the construction of a road, but within a few years the factory was functional, converting natural fibres into yarn and then fabric.

The municipality of Pau Grande in the district of Vila Inhomirim 50km outside Rio de Janeiro already had a small railway line. It had been constructed by the English engineer William Bragge in 1853 and connected Raiz da Serra and the Imperial City of Petrópolis with the wharf in the small port of Mauá at the mouth of the Rio Inhomirim. This railway provided a reliable form of transport from the mill to the coast.

The Francisco dos Santos family were descendants of the Fulni-ô Indians, who after being ousted from their coastal homeland by the Portuguese had settled in Águas Belas, a municipality close to the Rio Ipanema. Although they had finally been hounded down near Quebrangulo and forced to take the surname of their oppressor these ‘people of the river and stones’ refused to bow to outside discipline. As their traditional lifestyle was eroded some of their number assimilated with renegade black slaves in the quilombo hideouts of the Brazilian outback.

Manuel Francisco dos Santos was the first to travel the 2000km from the tribal homelands to the boomtown dominated by the mill owned by the América Fabril company. Although the landscape bore similarities with the countryside on the borders of the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco from where he had travelled, Pau Grande itself more closely resembled Delph or Saddleworth on the Pennine ridge.

The several hundred labourers had come from all over Brazil but the mill managers were exclusively English. In return for the privileges of secure employment and accommodation the predominantly illiterate mill workers were obliged to comply with the strict discipline and moral code of the British Empire. Mr Hall, the manager, would sometimes deal with misdemeanours that had occurred outside the factory by administering a caning to the miscreant. Mr Smith, the director, emphasised the virtues of hard work and self discipline and encouraged football on the premise of ‘healthy body, healthy mind’.

On 28 October 1933 Manuel’s brother Amaro dos Santos, who worked at América Fabril as a security guard, became a father for the fifth time. The midwife was the first to notice that the baby boy’s left leg bent out and the right turned in. Manuel Francisco dos Santos had to grow up fast and his love of trapping and caging birds led his older sister Rosa to nickname him Garrincha. In his school reports he was described as quiet but mischievous and impulsive and his teachers considered him uneducable. For the young Mané by far the best thing about Pau Grande was a secluded potholed stretch of grass 60m by 40m high on a bluff that overlooked the factory. There were days when he would return two or three times for peladas [kickabouts]. Barefooted and dressed only in shorts Garrincha and a couple of mates would regularly thrash older opponents. His hunting spear was the ball and his prey lay nestled in the back of the net guarded by a goalkeeper. When he was not running with the ball he would be fishing or hunting with his friends Pincel and Swing, two brothers from the neighbouring Raiz de Serra.

His first job, at 14, was in the cotton room of the mill with its blistering heat, lung-damaging dust and deafening machines. The air had to be kept hot and humid in this the most unpleasant working environment of the factory to prevent the thread from breaking. He was always going absent, often to drink cachaça in a local bar or have sex with the mill girls at the back of the small football stadium belonging to SC Pau Grande, which had been founded in 1908 by workers from the factory. His employers soon gave up any hope of getting a decent day’s work out of him and it was only his footballing deftness that saved him from the sack. With Garrincha in SC Pau Grande’s side the factory team went two years without a defeat.

The coach likened Garrincha to Saci, the pipe-smoking mulatto imp whose spellbinding one-legged footwork created whirlwinds of chaos wherever he went. It was impossible to outrun Saci, who could make himself disappear at will. Sometimes he would transform into Matita Pereira, an elusive bird whose melancholic song seemed to come from nowhere. The only way to placate this legendary trickster was to leave him a bottle of cachaça.

Eventually Garrincha’s dazzling dribbles came to the attention of scouts from Rio de Janeiro and he was offered trials for the big clubs. He arrived at Vasco da Gama’s São Januário ground without boots, turned up late for a trial with São Cristóvão and when asked to stay overnight by Fluminense feared for his job and returned on the last train home. His insouciance counted heavily against him. Eventually a supporter and scout from Botafogo, a modest football and regatta club, but one that had a strong journalistic and intellectual following, dragged SC Pau Grande’s number 7 back to the capital.

On clapping eyes on Garrincha, the Botafogo coach Gentil Cardoso is said to have muttered, “Now they’re bringing cripples to me.” He then asked the young bumpkin, “How do you play, son?” to which Garrincha replied, “With boots!” After watching him kick a ball around Cardoso had seen enough to throw Garrincha into the first-team squad’s practice match. After the game the Brazil left-back Nílton Santos, who had been nutmegged for the first time in his career by the upstart, is said to have told Cardoso that the boy was a monster and should be signed on the spot if only to prevent him being snapped up by one of their rivals. The Rio press enthusiastically heralded Garrincha’s signing as a professional footballer in 1953. Their only criticism was “the boy dribbles too much.”

In Sweden in 1958, Garrincha was the best in the world in his position. Four years later in Chile he was the finest player in the world. After he had been officially announced as the player of the tournament, the poet Vinicius de Moraes composed the sonnet 'O Anjo das Pernas Tortas' [The Angel with Twisted Legs]:

'Didi passes and Garrincha advances

Observing intently the leather glued to his foot

He dribbles once, then again, then rests

Measuring the moment to attack

Then by second nature he launches forward

Faster than the speed of thought.'

In his June 1962 article “O Escrete de Loucos” [The Squad of Madmen] published in Fatos & Fotos, Nelson Rodrigues, the great Brazilian cronista reported that the European squads had been working on strategies to stop Garrincha but had not taken into account that the Brazilian team was a phenomenon made up of pranksters who played the game from the soul. In the last minutes of the final against Czechoslovakia, Garrincha had turned the opposition to stone. One defender even put his hands on his hips in total capitulation. Regarding the earlier 3-1 victory against England in the quarter-final, Rodrigues wrote, “The Englishman plays football whereas the Brazilian lives and suffers every move.”

Garrincha fathered fourteen children by five different women. One of them, Ulf, was born after the 1958 World Cup final and grew up in Sweden1. Garrincha had a lengthy and tempestuous relationship with the samba diva Elza Soares. He drank heavily and was responsible for the death of his mother-in-law in a car accident where he was drunk behind the wheel. When he finally hung up his boots, after a brief comeback with the small Rio club Olaria in 1972, he faded into oblivion. One of his last public appearances was at the carnival in Rio de Janeiro. The shots of his hunched bloated figure sitting alone on the front of the Mangueira samba school float saddened the nation.

Following Garrincha’s death from the complications of alcoholism on 20 January 1983, Hamilton Pereira da Silva, a poet and a politician from Tocantins, composed Requiem for an Angel:

They stood in the cortege

And offered him wings

Multicoloured wings

Vermilion, white

Chocolate

Grey

Hang gliding on the wing

For you who lived as an angel for so many years

These wings would have been meaningless

Before the eyes of the people

In the magical glow

Of those Sunday afternoons…

Two days after the announcement of Garrincha’s death, the poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade published an article entitled “Mané and the Dream” in the Jornal do Brasil in which he declared that football had become a panacea for Brazil’s sickness. Garrincha had been a reluctant hero who had temporarily banished the nation’s inferiority complex and inspired the have-nots to greater things, He pleaded for another Garrincha to rekindle the nation’s dreams: “The god that rules football is sardonic and insincere. Garrincha was one of his envoys, delegated to make a mockery of everything and everyone in his stadiums. The god of football is also cruel because he concealed from Garrincha the faculty to realise his mission as a divine agent.”

In his imagined chronicle Diario do Tarde Paulo Mendes Campos wrote that the rules of Association Football did not apply when Garrincha was on the pitch. The pushes, trips and shoves against him went unpunished and it was only when the embarrassed defender fearful of ridicule by the crowd pulled at his shirt that the complicit referee would be reluctantly forced to award a foul.

Despite these chansons de geste by Brazil’s greatest living writers and poets, the truth of the matter was that Seu Mané’s trickery defied literary description. Football was not an art. Garrincha had held a mirror up to the nation.

His body was taken from the clinic in Botafogo to the Maracanã stadium. Nílton Santos insisted that his teammate be buried in Pau Grande and not in the new mausoleum for professional footballers in the Jardim da Saudade. Traffic came to a halt on the Avenida Brasil as the cortège passed by with mourners crowding the sides of the road and others throwing flowers from the overhead bridges. “Garrincha you made the world smile and now you make it cry” had been daubed on a tree. As the mayhem of cars finally approached Pau Grande the bottleneck became so great that people were forced to abandon their vehicles and walk to the little church.

Seu Mané had played the game for its own sake. His fancy footwork, element of surprise and capacity for improvisation had nourished the nation’s soul. A memorial stone was placed in the cemetery. Its inscription read, “He was a sweet child. He spoke with the birds.” Tostão, his teammate, would write on the 20th anniversary of Mané’s death, “Garrincha was much more than a dribbler, a ballet dancer and a showman, he was a star.”

My sentimental quest begins at the Botafogo Sports and Regatta Club on Avenida Venceslau Brás. It’s now used mainly by the young socios (members) to play volleyball and basketball. A picture of Nílton Santos in the entrance reminds the club of its glory years. His black and white striped shirt with its lone star hangs in a display case next to the trophy cabinet.

When Garrincha played for Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas it was a deeply superstitious club. The day before the game a mass communion with eggnog, milk and biscuits would took place and on match day the club’s silk curtains were tied up to symbolise the ensnarement of the opponents’ legs. An hour before the game each player was compelled to take a mud bath and eat three apples. An ex-Fluminense player had to be included in every team. Before each game a stray mongrel called Biriba would piss on the leg of a player. When things were going badly for the team the Botafogo president would release the little dog from the stand to run onto the pitch and distract the opposition. Biriba became so important at the club that he was included in one of Botafogo’s championship winning team photographs.

I set off past the Aterro do Flamengo with its fenced playgrounds full of youths playing football, I look over at the Marina da Glória with the mist-topped Sugar Loaf in the background, heading for Praça Quinze where the boats come in from Niterói. Out in the bay the Ilha das Cobras is surrounded by frigates. I drive fast on the Linha Vermelha heading north in the direction of Galeão. To my left is the vast sprawl of the Complexo do Alemão favela, the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz and the toy-town church of Nossa Senhora da Penha perched on its sacred mount. I reach the artificial brine lake designed to deter the favelados from hanging around the beaches of the Zona Sur and then drive north towards the Federal University Hospital block where I had lectured the day before. A nauseating smell of sewage fills the air. I head north-east through the teeming run-down districts of Baixada Fluminense, which are full of old trucks, new schools and stray dogs.

In Casa-Grande & Senzala [The Master and the Slaves], Gilberto Freyre uses the term bagaceira – the shed where the dry pulpy residue left after the extraction of sugar is stored – as a metonym for the exploitative plantation culture. Freyre wrote that “Brazil is sugar and sugar is the Black” and both were linked in the collective unconscious with sensuality and sexuality. Bagaceira was later used to refer generically to marginalised riff-raff. Football had provided Garrincha with an escape route from enslavement but when all the fibre had been squeezed out of him cachaça left him as bagaceira.

The municipality of Magé with its farming communities guarded by the Dedo de Deus mountain marks the official leaving of Rio de Janeiro. We turn right along a bumpy narrow road filled with buses and motorcyclists, cross the single lane railway track, go past a man on a horse and open roadside kiosks selling tyres. The people seem gentler and more approachable than in Grande Rio. At a birosca that sells buns and cachaça I stop to ask the way to Pau Grande. Chortling, the bar owner points to his groin and says, “Aqui está.” “Pau grande”, I later learned, was slang in Brazilian Portuguese for “big cock”.

After another 15 minutes drive the Estadio Mané Garrincha, the home of SC Pau Grande, comes into view, its rustic white walls and small arched entrance resemble an Andalusian village bullring. The grass is lush and samba drifts from the television in the clubhouse. The president, plump, with a Zapata moustache and dressed only in fading khaki shorts, greets me effusively. In one corner of the clubhouse are three cases of memorabilia, one filled with small trophies, the other two with crumpled newspaper cuttings and posters defining the ascent of the Little Bird. One of the pictures shows an 11-year-old Garrincha sticking out in a team of men and another his father Amaro, looking down affectionately on his young son from a small wooden veranda. In some of the group photographs there are boys who resembled my own teammates from school, pale solemn faces, straight brown hair and small chins.

The president tells me that Garrincha used to love to return to Pau Grande for a pelada with his old friends after playing at the Maracanã. Over a glass of cachaça he tells me the club are hoping to raise money to create a small museum. He also reminds me that the black and white striped SC Pau Grande strip is identical to that of Botafogo except for the star. I offer him money to buy a ball, but he refuses and we settle for just another photograph. I then walk down the cobbled road to the centre of the village where a small bust of Garrincha greets the few visitors. To its right are a series of murals illustrating how Pau Grande used to look in its prime.

América Fabril closed in 1971 and its buildings now operate as a distribution centre for mineral water but the Neo-Gothic grey and white Capela de Sant’Ana that had been overwhelmed by Botafogo supporters at Garrincha’s funeral is unchanged. A car blasting out propaganda for Sandra Garrincha, a candidate in the Magé prefectural elections, drives by, followed by a group of young girls waving flags in support of her campaign.

I ask one of the security guards at the gate of the old factory if I can have a look around. The factory looks much the same as it did in the days when it produced cloth. The chimneystack is still standing but there are now vast empty spaces giving parts of it the appearance of a vacant exhibition space. In some of the rooms machines rumble away bottling water from the mountain springs. I thank my guide and walk back into the village in the direction of the lemon bungalow which the Brazilian football federation had bought Garrincha for his part in the World Cup victory in Chile in 1962. Two of Garrincha’s friendly grandnieces are standing on the veranda talking to a young man astride his bicycle. Grilles guard the windows of the house even though I am told there is still next to no crime in Pau Grande. There is a mural of Garrincha’s head in his playing days at the front door and on the wall of the house looking onto the street is written the legendary number 7 he carried on his back and the words “jogando certo com as pernas tortas” [playing straight with twisted legs]. One of the girls invites me to enter a small shrine at the side of the house. Among the photographs and medallions is a framed tribute fastened on one of the walls:

'Garrinchando

'Garrincha pretends that he despises the ball, but she knew he would always come back to pick her up.

The dribble was his courtship.

Garrincha, you passed through life, overcoming all obstacles that were put before you. But in the end that relentless adversary Death defeated your dribble.

From that moment on the ball and the football universe became orphans of the most blessed contorted legs football has ever known.'

Pau Grande is still full of gente boa. Doors do not need to be locked at night. Round the corner from Garrincha’s old house an elderly man tells me that the former mill town is still full of Garrincha’s ancestors. He then leads me up a path behind the houses that reminds me of the Brackenwood edgeland of my childhood, full of weeds, plastic bottles and butterflies. After a short walk up a steep incline we reach an empty white outhouse with two palomino horses tied up outside. 20 metres below the high bank is a clearing strewn with twigs and leaves. At either end are goal posts without nets. I climb down and start to run close to the right edge where patches of grass grow sheltered by overhanging trees. I pause. I then sidestep to the right and accelerate. I twist round with my back to the goal, shimmy and shoot. I feel free. When I can fly no more I sit on a bench behind the far goalposts. Once I have gained my breath I rise and walk to the edge of the ridge and look down on the mill, the little chapel and the orderly rows of houses.

An hour later I drive on up to the cemetery at Raiz da Serra. As I am parking the car, a skeletal drunk in shorts, sandals and a fading orange shirt staggers out of the Encontro dos Amigos bar offering to guide me to Garrincha’s grave. He tells me that the previous Friday three Vasco da Gama players had made the pilgrimage from Rio to pray for inspiration before their game against Flamengo. Tucked away in the middle of a row of closely packed tombstones I am shown a faded inscription, which says “Here lies the man who was the happiness of the people Mané Garrincha.” On the worn headstone his date of death is recorded incorrectly as 20 January 1985. There are no flowers or graffiti. A singer and friend Agnaldo Timóteo had paid for the funeral, the tombstone had been paid for by his captain Nílton Santos and a local family called Rogonisky had allowed Garrincha’s remains to be buried in the same grave as their 10-year-old son who had been killed in a road traffic accident.

I then climb up to look at the newer but equally stark and neglected obelisk. Written on a memorial tablet are the words:

'Garrincha

The Happiness of Pau Grande

The Happiness of Magé

The Happiness of Brazil

The Happiness of the World.'

As I sit in silence in this deserted cemetery I think that it could only have been my great-grandfathers’ deep loyalty to street, neighbourhood and even mill that prevented them packing their bags during the slump. It was in towns like Oldham that association football first changed from a game played by gentlemen into a profitable attractive Saturday afternoon spectator sport. As I sit by Garrincha’s grave I see their familiar faces under their flat caps, their trunks bent over by the damp and onerous labour, hurrying past the smokestacks and rows of terraced houses to Boundary Park. The Latics were yet another stabilising devotion that stopped them sailing down to Rio on a Lamport and Holt steamer.

Football has been hijacked by television money and sponsorship deals. It was now much more of a spectacle but had fewer magic moments. Running fast with the ball glued to your toes was high risk and was decried by millionaire coaches. Wingers like Garrincha (outside rights and lefts) had been replaced by a new breed of wing-backs that could attack and defend. Power and victory were what counted these days.

A small brown wren-like bird with a large cocked-up tail, sharp beak and shiny black cap flits under a neighbouring headstone and interrupts my litany of regrets. Dusk is falling and with a heavy heart I leave through the dark forests on the steep ascent to Petrópolis. I am now certain that when I have started to dribble my lines, when I can no longer remember my date of birth or the names of my children the alchemist will still be around beckoning me to come and join him for a pedala in the clearing above the cotton mill.

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