Most Honourable Bear ©
By
Benny Thomas
Spirits watch over the Ainu people. These aborgines who inhabit parts of Hokkaido island in Japan know it has been so. Through years of drought and leanness. In the midst of famine those spirits had unleashed their power in such mysterious ways they have no other explanation. Kamui (spiritual beings) carefully see to their well-being. Naturally these people revere them by lighting inau or prayer sticks. Old Ainu( pronounced eye-noo) take special care to please two gods in particular: god of harmony and god of opposites.
Once the quarrel between these two gods became more sharper then ever before. “The sky has kissed the earth. Peace must follow. Most honourable Bear would make it so.”said god of harmony while the other saw nothing but trouble. One whole day they argued back and forth while the island of Hokkaido lay in ruins after a run of calamities, seven years in a row. More willow-trees were cut and more incense sticks were lit; and the smoke filled the nostrils of those who lived in the spirit world. They stepped in to make peace between the two.
Thus Most Honourable Bear was sent on the earth. After sending him well provided for, the spirits waited for things to happen.
Most Honourable Bear known by name Kayano had a change of pelts and he knew what he must do. While descending over the island he scanned the villages and the hunting grounds of the people whom he was required to watch over.
It was the month of October. He saw a girl among many and her beauty struck him. He wanted to hasten to her side. The god of opposites whispered into his ears,”She is a mortal,Kayano. She will lose all her beauty which affect you now so much.” God of harmony whispered quietly,”But she will make you complete. Love is the key!”
“Bah!”the other god snorted,”Misery is another name.”When god of opposites snorted the sound was covered by a splash, which startled the girl. She was called Katanto. She was busy gathering bunches of algae from Lake Akan, which were needed for the coming festival. Yes, she saw Kayano who had taken a human form and was rising from the waters.
The two gods watched on with interest. They were of course invisible to her.
Kayano seemed as if he were in danger. Katanto shrieked in horror at the sight of a young man who was going down for the third time. She swam and reached him first. She managed to bring him to safety. Other girls lit a fire and brought him some hot broth. When Kayano opened his eyes he thought he saw his rescuer was the most beautiful thing on earth. He smiled boldly and she blushed in return. “I know,”he said after he had revived,”you are by far the best thing in this world!””No those curls of smoke going up from the roof of a chisei,” she said with her head turned down,”it is far lovelier.” He was sure it was not since it had to be lit by some hand. “The hand that lights the stone stove and keeps the fire from going out is lovelier than any smoke.”He heard one god saying in his ear,”Must you be so quick as to declare your love?”The other whispered in his turn,”Must you break her heart so lightly?”
Kayano could not help and he pursued her and she finally agreed to marry him. She took him to her father who was the elder of the village. He explained how the village was cursed because of a famine. “A family in such lean time as this scrapes the barrel of misery.”he said stroking his flowing beard sadly, “Can you not wait till we all have had peace and prosperity?”
“But I love Katanto so much.”
“Such haste is becoming in the young. But with age comes that sad understanding as I have; So I must say, No.”
“Father!”his daughter shrieked unable to contain herself,” it will be the death of me!”
While her father tried to comfort the sobbing girl the two gods were counselling Kayano. Both gods had made it very plain. One ended,”Most Honourable Bear, you have sown love and must reap death!” He was torn with pain and asked god of harmony,”Isn’t there something which shall bind love and death into one?”
“Sorry, Most Honourable Bear,”both gods said slightly embarrassed,”the matter entirely rests with the girl.”
Kayano was allowed by both to meet the girl once for the last time. Before he spoke she surprised him by saying,”I am sure of my love for you. Nothing in this world shall separate me from you.”
“Nothing shall stop me from death which now awaits me, Farewell!” Before parting he gave a bearskin to her and said,”Think of me ever!”
After that Katanto was no more seen in that village. It seemed all so mysterious that all of a sudden two bears were spotted in the neighbourhood. Those hunters who had hung up their bows and arrows having nothing to hunt became so excited. One evening they went in formation to stalk a bear which one had seen at the Nibutani area. At last he was corned and one hurled a spear, which would have found its mark. To their amazement a female bear hurled herself and got the point right in her chest. When one hunter checked her, along came the other with a great howl and impaled himself in a shower of arrows. How it came all together was so uncanny. They didn’t know what but villagers knew they appeared in order to heal the land.
Since that time bears were always plentiful to them.
Only the gods knew the truth. Katanto had died in order to be one with her beloved. Of course they thought it all a waste. ‘Why die when you are a god?’ Most Honourable Bear was sent to make peace between the sky and earth. He needed not have died. In the end they had to agree the land of Hokkaido was in peace indeed. There were nightly singing there. Peace such as that comes after an agreeable feast; such peace that comes from certainty of abundance. In that knowledge old men could dream on while the youth hunted, and made their hearths once more a haven for their future.
God of Opposites had to agree: in their love Kayano and Katanto brought harmony into two opposites.
The End
Sunday 29 June 2008
Sunday 22 June 2008
Collateral Damage of Life
If so much as long life beyond
Mortal hour-glass may be burdened;
Each grain nudging an age thereof
Past its pursed mouth to eternity; enough
For hills to powder crumble
And the hollows levelled to brim
I shall still think: one brief hour was
All that needed for such a man as I:
An hour rounded off by happiness.
If so much as long life beyond
Pleasure of senses or of mind did last
Life would have lost its best part,
For a man such as I: Devoid of feel
A head though with facts be filled
Has come far too short on living;
Unsettled as I am, one perfect hour was
All that needed for such a man as I :
An hour rounded off by happiness.
Wrapped in tears and laughter of mankind
Either way a perfect fit I may never find.
benny
01-17-07
Mortal hour-glass may be burdened;
Each grain nudging an age thereof
Past its pursed mouth to eternity; enough
For hills to powder crumble
And the hollows levelled to brim
I shall still think: one brief hour was
All that needed for such a man as I:
An hour rounded off by happiness.
If so much as long life beyond
Pleasure of senses or of mind did last
Life would have lost its best part,
For a man such as I: Devoid of feel
A head though with facts be filled
Has come far too short on living;
Unsettled as I am, one perfect hour was
All that needed for such a man as I :
An hour rounded off by happiness.
Wrapped in tears and laughter of mankind
Either way a perfect fit I may never find.
benny
01-17-07
Friday 20 June 2008
Thursday 19 June 2008
Anecdotes
You Asked For It!
1.
Once at the Algonquin round table, Dorothy Parker reported sadly,”My old cat, that I’ve loved so dearly has grown so feeble and helpless that I’m going to have him put away.”She added she was wondering the most humane way to do it. It elicited this comment from Playwright George S. Kaufman: “Have you thought of curiosity?”
2.
“I understand your grandfather was a Negro, monsieur” a nobleman once asked Alexandre Dumas,”May I enquire what your great grandfather was?”
“An ape, sir,”replied Dumas,”My pedigree commences where your terminates.”
3.
WH Russel of the Times once approached Bismarck and reminded him,”Your Excellency, you’ll have to admit that I am one newspaperman who has respected yor confidence. You have conversed with me on all sorts of subjects and never once I repeated a word you said.”
Bismarck cried angrily: “The more fool you are! Do you suppose I’d ever say a word to a man in your profession that I didn’t want to see in print?”
4.
Noel Coward was once approached by a reporter for the London Star, who asked,” Mr. Coward, would you like to say something to the Star?”
“Certainly,”replied the playwright,”Twinkle.”
5.
The first US Presidential Press Conference was granted by John Quincy Adams, but unwillingly. The President was swimming in the Potomac river when a newspaper woman Anne Royall surprised him. She sat on his clothes and vowed that she wouldn’t budge until he gave her an interview.
The Potomac was chilly and Adams finally granted her request.
6.
As a rookie reporter for the New York World, young Heywood Brown was told to interview Utah senator Reed Smart.
“I have nothing to say,”Smart told him.
“I know,”replied Brown,”Now let’s get down to the interview.”
• Heywood Brown, one of the kindliest newspaperman ever, wasn’t much of an executive. While running a publication called The Connecticut Nutmeg, its managing board gave him discretionary powers to hire hands at $35 a week. He could go up to $50 maximum.
On the appointed day the job- seekers were called in and Brown queried,”Which would you prefer- $35 a week or $50?”
compiler:benny
1.
Once at the Algonquin round table, Dorothy Parker reported sadly,”My old cat, that I’ve loved so dearly has grown so feeble and helpless that I’m going to have him put away.”She added she was wondering the most humane way to do it. It elicited this comment from Playwright George S. Kaufman: “Have you thought of curiosity?”
2.
“I understand your grandfather was a Negro, monsieur” a nobleman once asked Alexandre Dumas,”May I enquire what your great grandfather was?”
“An ape, sir,”replied Dumas,”My pedigree commences where your terminates.”
3.
WH Russel of the Times once approached Bismarck and reminded him,”Your Excellency, you’ll have to admit that I am one newspaperman who has respected yor confidence. You have conversed with me on all sorts of subjects and never once I repeated a word you said.”
Bismarck cried angrily: “The more fool you are! Do you suppose I’d ever say a word to a man in your profession that I didn’t want to see in print?”
4.
Noel Coward was once approached by a reporter for the London Star, who asked,” Mr. Coward, would you like to say something to the Star?”
“Certainly,”replied the playwright,”Twinkle.”
5.
The first US Presidential Press Conference was granted by John Quincy Adams, but unwillingly. The President was swimming in the Potomac river when a newspaper woman Anne Royall surprised him. She sat on his clothes and vowed that she wouldn’t budge until he gave her an interview.
The Potomac was chilly and Adams finally granted her request.
6.
As a rookie reporter for the New York World, young Heywood Brown was told to interview Utah senator Reed Smart.
“I have nothing to say,”Smart told him.
“I know,”replied Brown,”Now let’s get down to the interview.”
• Heywood Brown, one of the kindliest newspaperman ever, wasn’t much of an executive. While running a publication called The Connecticut Nutmeg, its managing board gave him discretionary powers to hire hands at $35 a week. He could go up to $50 maximum.
On the appointed day the job- seekers were called in and Brown queried,”Which would you prefer- $35 a week or $50?”
compiler:benny
Tuesday 17 June 2008
Simple Pleasures of the Poor
A Cruel Joke
Nothing cheers up folks as Old Ichabod
Who has no fixed abode.
He doesn’t live here or there
But everywhere folks watch out
For a sight of Old Ichabod.
We have care and tear of living
On the edge without satisfaction;
Make us laugh, no matter what.
Sight of you is an unction.
Nothing cheers up folks as Old Ichabod
Who is set in ways very odd;
He is gaunt and in much want.
So much was plain, and death came
Without notice to Old Ichabod.
Old folks and infants passing
The pauper’s last resting place
Took that as a cruel joke:
‘There was none to take his place.’
benny
12-25-06
Nothing cheers up folks as Old Ichabod
Who has no fixed abode.
He doesn’t live here or there
But everywhere folks watch out
For a sight of Old Ichabod.
We have care and tear of living
On the edge without satisfaction;
Make us laugh, no matter what.
Sight of you is an unction.
Nothing cheers up folks as Old Ichabod
Who is set in ways very odd;
He is gaunt and in much want.
So much was plain, and death came
Without notice to Old Ichabod.
Old folks and infants passing
The pauper’s last resting place
Took that as a cruel joke:
‘There was none to take his place.’
benny
12-25-06
Monday 16 June 2008
What Price Honor?
Jay Gould who made millions in stock manipulations once had to flee New York from Law with six million dollars in cash. Undaunted the robber baron chortled to his friends,”Nothing is lost,boys save honor”.
compiler:benny
compiler:benny
Saturday 14 June 2008
Stagecoach-1939
In the beginning there were westerns, B-films and their variant, ‘bang,bang and drop- dead- you- fool!-kind of stuff but with John Ford's Stagecoach in 1939 the westerns got class and lot of respect. It made John Wayne a star. Since then a western film without him was like a Thanksgiving dinner without turkey. ‘Ford here introduced his signature Western setting of Monument Valley, lending Stagecoach a realism that set it apart from studio-bound films; and his deep focus interiors preceded Citizen Kane by two years. A critical and commercial hit, Stagecoach helped spearhead the revival of the Western as a viable A-feature… When he made Citizen Kane, Orson Welles claimed that he learned everything about directing movies from watching Stagecoach more than 40 times. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
What separated the film from other Westerns was the way Ford and screenwriter Dudley Nichols artfully balanced the genre's standard action with the character studies. Within 96 minutes of its running time Ford could round off action and development of the story on a telling metaphor: the stagecoach as a microcosm of the confrontation between "civilization" and "savagery." (Naturally the Native Americans will take strong exception to the bald statement.) The scenes where the coach journeys through hostile Apache territory are memorable and the irony of a honor-bound outlaw Ringo fighting valiantly for the very society that has shunned him makes the film singularly memorable.
Written by Dudley Nichols (The Informer (1935)), who based his screenplay on an Ernest Haycox story, the credited cast also includes (top billed) Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine, Thomas Mitchell who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar playing Doc Boone (a drunken doctor role remarkably similar to his only other Academy Award nominated performance in The Hurricane (1937)), Louise Platt, George Bancroft, Donald Meek, Berton Churchill, Tim Holt, and Tom Tyler. The film also received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, director Ford, Editing, Art Direction, and B&W Cinematography; its Score won an Oscar. It was added to the National Film Registry in 1995. #63 on AFI's 100 Greatest Movies list.
Dallas (Trevor), a fallen woman with a heart of gold and Doc Boone (Mitchell) are passengers. They are being run out of town by its more proper residents. The doctor for being hopelessly drunk on the job while Dallas, not for her good heart but for being a prostitute are not welcome there. ( Dallas reminded me of ‘Ball of Fat,’ a story by Guy de Maupassant.) Marshal Curly Wilcox (Bancroft) makes sure both make it onto that afternoon's stage, driven by the talkative (to the point of being obnoxious) Buck, played by Devine. Society's Lucy Mallory (Platt) insists on traveling to rendezvous with her husband, despite having to share the coach with the shunned Dallas. Gambler Hatfield (Carradine), smitten with Mrs. Mallory, decides to go along as well. Doc is thrilled to assist the reluctant liquor salesman Samuel Peacock (the apt named Meek) aboard with his (soon to be free) samples too. When cavalry Lieutenant Blanchard (Holt) arrives to tell of Apaches on the route, Marshal Wilcox decides to ride shotgun. On the way out of town, they pick up banker Henry Gatewood (Churchill) who, as it turns out in the end, has just embezzled some valuable assets. Along the way through Monument Valley, they encounter an escaped prisoner, The Ringo Kid (the camera zooms in, and then focuses on Wayne), who's wanted for avenging one who'd killed his brother and vows to get the rest, Luke Plummer (Tyler) and his two brothers, to finish the job. The marshal arrests him on the spot.
Dallas dreams the impossible dream of settling down Ringo's wife; upon joining the others, he was instantly taken with her and, without knowing her past, had insisted that the others treat her as a lady, like Mrs. Mallory. Lucy a prim and proper lady is in a hurry and she turns out to be pregnant. So naturally she is so intent on reaching her husband. Doc is quickly sobered up and called into action. Upon his success, he's suddenly respected by the others for the first time on the journey. Dallas earns Mrs. Mallory's appreciation by assisting with the delivery and caring for her child. Of course, the stagecoach makes it through Indian territory; initially they'd had to go it alone without an escort, but the cavalry arrives just in time (as they've run out of bullets and Hatfield was just about to use his last shot to save Mrs. Mallory the horror of falling under the savages control) to save the day. Upon arriving in town, Gatewood is arrested and Ringo has his showdown with the Plummers, with predictable results, while the supportive Marshal decides to look the other way. As the story ends, Dallas and Ringo ride off into the sunrise (presumably, he's to serve the rest of his time in prison while she waits at his ranch).
Memorable Quotes:
Henry, the Ringo Kid: Well, there are some things a man just can't run away from.
Dallas: Well, you gotta live no matter what happens.
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Come busting in here - you'd think we were being attacked! You can find another wife.
Chris: Sure I can find another wife. But she take my rifle and my horse. Oh, I'll never sell her. I love her so much. I beat her with a whip and she never get tired.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Your wife?
Chris: No, my horse. I can find another wife easy, yes, but not a horse like that!
Ringo Kid: Well, I guess you can't break out of prison and into society in the same week.
Ringo Kid: You may need me and this Winchester, Curly. Saw a ranch house burnin' last night.
[the telegraph breaks off in mid-message]
Capt. Sickel: Well? What's wrong?
Telegraph operator: The line went dead, sir.
Capt. Sickel: What have you got here?
Telegraph operator: Only the first word, sir.
Capt. Sickel: (reading) Geronimo.
[Lt. Blanchard has just informed the stagecoach occupants that the cavalry will not escort them to Lordsburg]
Marshal Curly Wilcox: This stage is going to Lordsburg. If you think it ain't safe to ride along with us, I figure we can get there without you soldier boys.
Henry Gatewood: So you're the notorious Ringo Kid.
The Ringo Kid: My friends just call me Ringo - nickname I had as a kid. Right name's Henry.
The Ringo Kid: That was my kid brother that broke his arm. You did a good job, Doc, even if you were drunk.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Thank you, son. Professional compliments are always pleasing.
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Now folks, if we push on we can be in Apache Wells by sundown. Soldiers there will give us an escort as far as the ferry. Then it's only a hoot and a holler into Lordsburg. We got four men who can handle firearms - five with you, Ringo. Doc can shoot if sober.
[the stagecoach occupants vote on whether to continue without a cavalry escort]
Marshal Curly Wilcox: You, Doc?
Dr. Josiah Boone: I'm not only a philosopher, sir, I'm a fatalist. Somewhere, sometime, there may be the right bullet or the wrong bottle waiting for Josiah Boone. Why worry when or where?
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Yes or no?
Dr. Josiah Boone: Having that philosophy, sir, I've always courted danger. During the late war - when I had the honor to serve the Union under our great president, Abraham Lincoln... and General Phil Sheridan - well, sir, I fought mid shot and shell and cannon roar...
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Do you wanna go back or not?
Dr. Josiah Boone: No! I want another drink.
[Mrs. Mallory, a passenger, has just given birth]
Buck: Hey, Curly, do you think I oughta charge Mrs. Mallory's baby half fare?
Dr. Josiah Boone: I'll take that shotgun, Luke.
Luke Plummer: You'll take it in the belly if you don't get out of my way.
Dr. Josiah Boone: I'll have you indicted for murder if you step outside with that shotgun.
Luke Plummer: [throws the shotgun on the bar] We'll attend to you later.
Dr. Josiah Boone: [to bartender after Plummer leaves] Don't ever let me do that again.
Ed (editor): McCoy! Billy, kill that story about the Republican Convention in Chicago and take this down: "The Ringo Kid was killed on Main Street in Lordsburg tonight. And among the additional dead were..." Leave that blank for a spell.
McCoy, typesetter: I didn't hear any shootin', Ed.
Ed (editor): You will, Billy, you will.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Jerry, I'll admit as one man to another that, economically, I haven't been of much value to you. But do you suppose you could put one on credit?
Jerry (bartender): If talk was money, Doc, you'd be the best customer I got.
Buck: If I was you, I'd let them shoot it out.
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Let who?
Buck: Luke Plummer and the Kid. There would be a lot more peace in this territory if that Luke Plummer was so full of lead he couldn't hold his liquor.
Henry, the Ringo Kid: Hold it!
Buck: If there's anything I don't like, it's driving a stagecoach through Apache country.
[first lines]
Cavalry scout: These hills here are full of Apaches. They've burnt every ranch building in sight.
[referring to Indian scout]
Cavalry scout: He had a brush with them last night. Says they're being stirred up by Geronimo.
Capt. Sickel: Geronimo? How do we know he isn't lying?
Cavalry scout: No, he's a Cheyenne. They hate Apaches worse than we do.
[last lines]
Dr. Josiah Boone: Well, they're saved from the blessings of civilization.
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Yeah.
[laughs]
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Doc, I'll buy you a drink.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Just one.
Dr. Josiah Boone: [drunkenly to his hideous landlady upon eviction] Is this the face that wrecked 1000 ships and burned the towerless tops of Illium? Farewell, fair Helen.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Seems to me I knew your family, Henry. Didn't I fix your arm once when you, oh, bumped off a horse?
Ringo Kid: Are you Doc Boone?
Dr. Josiah Boone: I certainly am. Ah, let's see... I'd just been honorably discharged from the Union Army after the War of the Rebellion.
Hatfield: You mean the War for the Southern Confederacy, sir.
Dr. Josiah Boone: I mean nothing of the kind, sir!
Ringo Kid: That was my kid brother broke his arm. You did a good job, Doc, even if you was drunk.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Thank you, son. Professional compliments are always pleasing. What happened to that boy whose arm I fixed?
Ringo Kid: He was murdered.
Hatfield: A gentleman doesn't smoke in the presence of a lady.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Three weeks ago I took a bullet out of a man who was shot by a gentleman. The bullet was in his back!
Hatfield: You mean to insinuate...
Ringo Kid: Sit down, mister. Doc don't mean no harm.
Ringo Kid: Look, Miss Dallas. You got no folks... neither have I. And, well, maybe I'm takin' a lot for granted, but... I watched you with that baby - that other woman's baby. You looked... well, well I still got a ranch across the border. There's a nice place - a real nice place... trees... grass... water. There's a cabin half built. A man could live there... and a woman. Will you go?
Dallas: But you don't know me - you don't know who I am.
Ringo Kid: I know all I wanna know. Will you go?
Dallas: Oh, don't talk like that!
[the stagecoach occupants are voting whether or not to continue without a cavalry escort]
Marshal Curly Wilcox: How 'bout you, Mr. Hancock?
Samuel Peacock: Peacock. I'd like to go on, brother. I want to reach the bosom of my dear family in Kansas City, Kansas as quickly as possible; but, I may never reach that bosom if we go on... so, under the circumstances - you understand, brother - I think it best we go back with the bosoms... I mean the soldiers.
Henry Gatewood: [clutching valise with embezzled funds] I can't get over the impertinence of that young lieutenant. I'll make it warm for that shake-tail! I'll report him to Washington - we pay taxes to the government and what do we get? Not even protection from the army! I don't know what the government is coming to. Instead of protecting businessmen, it pokes its nose into business! Why, they're even talking now about having *bank* examiners. As if we bankers don't know how to run our own banks! Why, at home I have a letter from a popinjay official saying they were going to inspect my books. I have a slogan that should be blazoned on every newspaper in this country: America for the Americans! The government must not interfere with business! Reduce taxes! Our national debt is something shocking. Over one billion dollars a year! What this country needs is a businessman for president!
On John Ford(ack: wikipedia)
John Ford (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973) was Academy Award-winning American film director of Irish heritage famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach and The Searchers and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath. His four Best Director Academy Awards (1935, 1940, 1941, 1952) is a record still unmatched, although only one of those films, How Green Was My Valley, won Best Picture.
His style of film-making has been tremendously influential, leading colleagues such as Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles to name him as one of the greatest directors of all time. In particular, Ford is a pioneer of location shooting and the extreme long shot, which frames his characters against a vast, harsh and rugged natural terrain. Ford has further influenced directors as diverse as Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Peter Bogdanovich, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Wim Wenders, Judd Apatow, David Lean, Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard.
Ford's favorite location for his films was in southern Utah's Monument Valley… Ford's evocative use of the territory for his Westerns has defined the images of the American West so powerfully that Orson Welles once said that other film-makers refused to shoot in the region out of fears of plagiarism.
He tended only to shoot the footage he needed and in the right sequence, minimizing the job of his film editors.
compiler:benny
What separated the film from other Westerns was the way Ford and screenwriter Dudley Nichols artfully balanced the genre's standard action with the character studies. Within 96 minutes of its running time Ford could round off action and development of the story on a telling metaphor: the stagecoach as a microcosm of the confrontation between "civilization" and "savagery." (Naturally the Native Americans will take strong exception to the bald statement.) The scenes where the coach journeys through hostile Apache territory are memorable and the irony of a honor-bound outlaw Ringo fighting valiantly for the very society that has shunned him makes the film singularly memorable.
Written by Dudley Nichols (The Informer (1935)), who based his screenplay on an Ernest Haycox story, the credited cast also includes (top billed) Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine, Thomas Mitchell who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar playing Doc Boone (a drunken doctor role remarkably similar to his only other Academy Award nominated performance in The Hurricane (1937)), Louise Platt, George Bancroft, Donald Meek, Berton Churchill, Tim Holt, and Tom Tyler. The film also received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, director Ford, Editing, Art Direction, and B&W Cinematography; its Score won an Oscar. It was added to the National Film Registry in 1995. #63 on AFI's 100 Greatest Movies list.
Dallas (Trevor), a fallen woman with a heart of gold and Doc Boone (Mitchell) are passengers. They are being run out of town by its more proper residents. The doctor for being hopelessly drunk on the job while Dallas, not for her good heart but for being a prostitute are not welcome there. ( Dallas reminded me of ‘Ball of Fat,’ a story by Guy de Maupassant.) Marshal Curly Wilcox (Bancroft) makes sure both make it onto that afternoon's stage, driven by the talkative (to the point of being obnoxious) Buck, played by Devine. Society's Lucy Mallory (Platt) insists on traveling to rendezvous with her husband, despite having to share the coach with the shunned Dallas. Gambler Hatfield (Carradine), smitten with Mrs. Mallory, decides to go along as well. Doc is thrilled to assist the reluctant liquor salesman Samuel Peacock (the apt named Meek) aboard with his (soon to be free) samples too. When cavalry Lieutenant Blanchard (Holt) arrives to tell of Apaches on the route, Marshal Wilcox decides to ride shotgun. On the way out of town, they pick up banker Henry Gatewood (Churchill) who, as it turns out in the end, has just embezzled some valuable assets. Along the way through Monument Valley, they encounter an escaped prisoner, The Ringo Kid (the camera zooms in, and then focuses on Wayne), who's wanted for avenging one who'd killed his brother and vows to get the rest, Luke Plummer (Tyler) and his two brothers, to finish the job. The marshal arrests him on the spot.
Dallas dreams the impossible dream of settling down Ringo's wife; upon joining the others, he was instantly taken with her and, without knowing her past, had insisted that the others treat her as a lady, like Mrs. Mallory. Lucy a prim and proper lady is in a hurry and she turns out to be pregnant. So naturally she is so intent on reaching her husband. Doc is quickly sobered up and called into action. Upon his success, he's suddenly respected by the others for the first time on the journey. Dallas earns Mrs. Mallory's appreciation by assisting with the delivery and caring for her child. Of course, the stagecoach makes it through Indian territory; initially they'd had to go it alone without an escort, but the cavalry arrives just in time (as they've run out of bullets and Hatfield was just about to use his last shot to save Mrs. Mallory the horror of falling under the savages control) to save the day. Upon arriving in town, Gatewood is arrested and Ringo has his showdown with the Plummers, with predictable results, while the supportive Marshal decides to look the other way. As the story ends, Dallas and Ringo ride off into the sunrise (presumably, he's to serve the rest of his time in prison while she waits at his ranch).
Memorable Quotes:
Henry, the Ringo Kid: Well, there are some things a man just can't run away from.
Dallas: Well, you gotta live no matter what happens.
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Come busting in here - you'd think we were being attacked! You can find another wife.
Chris: Sure I can find another wife. But she take my rifle and my horse. Oh, I'll never sell her. I love her so much. I beat her with a whip and she never get tired.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Your wife?
Chris: No, my horse. I can find another wife easy, yes, but not a horse like that!
Ringo Kid: Well, I guess you can't break out of prison and into society in the same week.
Ringo Kid: You may need me and this Winchester, Curly. Saw a ranch house burnin' last night.
[the telegraph breaks off in mid-message]
Capt. Sickel: Well? What's wrong?
Telegraph operator: The line went dead, sir.
Capt. Sickel: What have you got here?
Telegraph operator: Only the first word, sir.
Capt. Sickel: (reading) Geronimo.
[Lt. Blanchard has just informed the stagecoach occupants that the cavalry will not escort them to Lordsburg]
Marshal Curly Wilcox: This stage is going to Lordsburg. If you think it ain't safe to ride along with us, I figure we can get there without you soldier boys.
Henry Gatewood: So you're the notorious Ringo Kid.
The Ringo Kid: My friends just call me Ringo - nickname I had as a kid. Right name's Henry.
The Ringo Kid: That was my kid brother that broke his arm. You did a good job, Doc, even if you were drunk.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Thank you, son. Professional compliments are always pleasing.
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Now folks, if we push on we can be in Apache Wells by sundown. Soldiers there will give us an escort as far as the ferry. Then it's only a hoot and a holler into Lordsburg. We got four men who can handle firearms - five with you, Ringo. Doc can shoot if sober.
[the stagecoach occupants vote on whether to continue without a cavalry escort]
Marshal Curly Wilcox: You, Doc?
Dr. Josiah Boone: I'm not only a philosopher, sir, I'm a fatalist. Somewhere, sometime, there may be the right bullet or the wrong bottle waiting for Josiah Boone. Why worry when or where?
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Yes or no?
Dr. Josiah Boone: Having that philosophy, sir, I've always courted danger. During the late war - when I had the honor to serve the Union under our great president, Abraham Lincoln... and General Phil Sheridan - well, sir, I fought mid shot and shell and cannon roar...
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Do you wanna go back or not?
Dr. Josiah Boone: No! I want another drink.
[Mrs. Mallory, a passenger, has just given birth]
Buck: Hey, Curly, do you think I oughta charge Mrs. Mallory's baby half fare?
Dr. Josiah Boone: I'll take that shotgun, Luke.
Luke Plummer: You'll take it in the belly if you don't get out of my way.
Dr. Josiah Boone: I'll have you indicted for murder if you step outside with that shotgun.
Luke Plummer: [throws the shotgun on the bar] We'll attend to you later.
Dr. Josiah Boone: [to bartender after Plummer leaves] Don't ever let me do that again.
Ed (editor): McCoy! Billy, kill that story about the Republican Convention in Chicago and take this down: "The Ringo Kid was killed on Main Street in Lordsburg tonight. And among the additional dead were..." Leave that blank for a spell.
McCoy, typesetter: I didn't hear any shootin', Ed.
Ed (editor): You will, Billy, you will.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Jerry, I'll admit as one man to another that, economically, I haven't been of much value to you. But do you suppose you could put one on credit?
Jerry (bartender): If talk was money, Doc, you'd be the best customer I got.
Buck: If I was you, I'd let them shoot it out.
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Let who?
Buck: Luke Plummer and the Kid. There would be a lot more peace in this territory if that Luke Plummer was so full of lead he couldn't hold his liquor.
Henry, the Ringo Kid: Hold it!
Buck: If there's anything I don't like, it's driving a stagecoach through Apache country.
[first lines]
Cavalry scout: These hills here are full of Apaches. They've burnt every ranch building in sight.
[referring to Indian scout]
Cavalry scout: He had a brush with them last night. Says they're being stirred up by Geronimo.
Capt. Sickel: Geronimo? How do we know he isn't lying?
Cavalry scout: No, he's a Cheyenne. They hate Apaches worse than we do.
[last lines]
Dr. Josiah Boone: Well, they're saved from the blessings of civilization.
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Yeah.
[laughs]
Marshal Curly Wilcox: Doc, I'll buy you a drink.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Just one.
Dr. Josiah Boone: [drunkenly to his hideous landlady upon eviction] Is this the face that wrecked 1000 ships and burned the towerless tops of Illium? Farewell, fair Helen.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Seems to me I knew your family, Henry. Didn't I fix your arm once when you, oh, bumped off a horse?
Ringo Kid: Are you Doc Boone?
Dr. Josiah Boone: I certainly am. Ah, let's see... I'd just been honorably discharged from the Union Army after the War of the Rebellion.
Hatfield: You mean the War for the Southern Confederacy, sir.
Dr. Josiah Boone: I mean nothing of the kind, sir!
Ringo Kid: That was my kid brother broke his arm. You did a good job, Doc, even if you was drunk.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Thank you, son. Professional compliments are always pleasing. What happened to that boy whose arm I fixed?
Ringo Kid: He was murdered.
Hatfield: A gentleman doesn't smoke in the presence of a lady.
Dr. Josiah Boone: Three weeks ago I took a bullet out of a man who was shot by a gentleman. The bullet was in his back!
Hatfield: You mean to insinuate...
Ringo Kid: Sit down, mister. Doc don't mean no harm.
Ringo Kid: Look, Miss Dallas. You got no folks... neither have I. And, well, maybe I'm takin' a lot for granted, but... I watched you with that baby - that other woman's baby. You looked... well, well I still got a ranch across the border. There's a nice place - a real nice place... trees... grass... water. There's a cabin half built. A man could live there... and a woman. Will you go?
Dallas: But you don't know me - you don't know who I am.
Ringo Kid: I know all I wanna know. Will you go?
Dallas: Oh, don't talk like that!
[the stagecoach occupants are voting whether or not to continue without a cavalry escort]
Marshal Curly Wilcox: How 'bout you, Mr. Hancock?
Samuel Peacock: Peacock. I'd like to go on, brother. I want to reach the bosom of my dear family in Kansas City, Kansas as quickly as possible; but, I may never reach that bosom if we go on... so, under the circumstances - you understand, brother - I think it best we go back with the bosoms... I mean the soldiers.
Henry Gatewood: [clutching valise with embezzled funds] I can't get over the impertinence of that young lieutenant. I'll make it warm for that shake-tail! I'll report him to Washington - we pay taxes to the government and what do we get? Not even protection from the army! I don't know what the government is coming to. Instead of protecting businessmen, it pokes its nose into business! Why, they're even talking now about having *bank* examiners. As if we bankers don't know how to run our own banks! Why, at home I have a letter from a popinjay official saying they were going to inspect my books. I have a slogan that should be blazoned on every newspaper in this country: America for the Americans! The government must not interfere with business! Reduce taxes! Our national debt is something shocking. Over one billion dollars a year! What this country needs is a businessman for president!
On John Ford(ack: wikipedia)
John Ford (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973) was Academy Award-winning American film director of Irish heritage famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach and The Searchers and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath. His four Best Director Academy Awards (1935, 1940, 1941, 1952) is a record still unmatched, although only one of those films, How Green Was My Valley, won Best Picture.
His style of film-making has been tremendously influential, leading colleagues such as Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles to name him as one of the greatest directors of all time. In particular, Ford is a pioneer of location shooting and the extreme long shot, which frames his characters against a vast, harsh and rugged natural terrain. Ford has further influenced directors as diverse as Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Peter Bogdanovich, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Wim Wenders, Judd Apatow, David Lean, Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard.
Ford's favorite location for his films was in southern Utah's Monument Valley… Ford's evocative use of the territory for his Westerns has defined the images of the American West so powerfully that Orson Welles once said that other film-makers refused to shoot in the region out of fears of plagiarism.
He tended only to shoot the footage he needed and in the right sequence, minimizing the job of his film editors.
compiler:benny
Thursday 12 June 2008
The Maltese Falcon-1941
This film established the reputation of John Huston as a creditable director and it came to him against great many checks that any young filmmaker would face when he is moving from one field to another. Young Huston was one of Hollywood’s hottest screenwriters and he wanted to try his hand into directing. He was certain he had the right material in Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Maltese Falcon though two earlier adaptations of Hammett’s novel were failures.( In 1931, a lack-luster but faithful adaptation starred Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade. In 1936, it was reincarnated into a mystery-screwball comedy, called SATAN MET A LADY, starring Bette Davis.)
Warner studio boss Jack gave a reluctant go ahead, but advised that he would be working on a tight budget and on a short leash. Huston instructed his secretary to break down Hammett’s novel into scenes, leaving everything unchanged. By a curious twist of fate the studio mogul when Huston was away managed get his hands on what he thought was a script in progress. He was impressed. When Huston returned Jack Warner assured him that the production was ready to roll and the script was fine.
Huston had every reason to thank his lucky stars that such a mistake could pave the way for a thundering commercial success. What was more he won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for what was supposed to be a beginning outline. He never looked back with that kind of a success.
Even a runaway success on a fluke must have nuts and bolts to nail it to Cinema Hall of Fame. Apart from Huston’s solid knowledge derived from his screenplay days that gave him a nose for selecting stories that worked well on screen he had Humphrey Bogart in the role of San Francisco detective Sam Spade. Bogart had previously worked in High Sierra, which he wrote prior to his directing debut. In that film Bogart played a tough, no nonsense criminal Roy Earle.
In The Maltese Falcon Bogart as Sam Spade operated within the law. Huston as a writer tagged early on in the film the credo that struck a sympathetic chord in the viewers mind of the detective who was the protagonist: after his partner, someone he strongly dislikes, is waylaid and shot to death in the evening San Francisco fog Bogart lisps that when one’s partner is killed one is expected to do something about it.
Secondly he assembled a motley crew of offbeat criminals who stood out whether it was Sydney Greenstreet in girth or Pierre Lorre in his oily epicene crookedness. Then there was Elisha Cook Jr. who would appear in numerous films once again casting with Bogart in Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep.
Sydney Greenstreet at 61 made his film debut after appearing on Broadway for years playing butlers. (He again teams up with Bogart in Casablanca). Unlike most film-noir that feature criminals in unrelieved sinister cast (such as Neville Brand in D.O.A. or Mike Mazurki in Murder, My Sweet), the criminal trio pursuing the expensive and elusive Maltese Falcon are all too human: when Greenstreet attempts to be archly clever, putting one past street smart Bogart he shows he is only clever by half( In the hotel suite Spade Bogart playacting has Guttman bewildered; only when the detective storms out of the suite the close-up reveals him grinning with satisfaction and we realize the truth) ; the ilk of Cook or Cairo with his baby face are no match for Spade who takes particular delight in slapping the latter around.
Lastly the twist to the usual and predictable romance angle. Instead of the hero realizing his love or losing as often the case is, in this dark movie we have Bogart turning the woman for whom he was willing to fall like a load of bricks, over to the police. With that he resolves the conflict of interests: Mary Astor as Brigid O’Shaughnessy comes to Bogart as a client at the beginning. Like Rick Blain he may be earning a living in a murky world of man’s darkest passions and yet he has his own personal morality code; love plays no role in keeping its nose clean. He has fulfilled his promise to his partner whom he may not particularly care for. Yes when your partner is killed you are expected to do something about it.
The plot revolves around the Maltese Falcon a statuette. According to the legend In 1539, the Knight Templars of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels-----but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day. ‘Huston seized on the sheer fabulousness of the gilded bird of the title, a virtual throwaway in the book. He made its journeys through centuries and across continents a wild offscreen picaresque, a spider’s web of intrigue from out of the near as well as the distant past that always threatens to snare Spade just as it has snared the three demented conspirators. These three -- "Gutman" (Sidney Greenstreet) "Miss Wonderly/O’Shaughnessy" (Mary Astor) and "Joel Cairo" (Peter Lorre) became, in Huston’s hands, lovable gargoyles, creatures as improbable as the Falcon, and each as corroded with greed as the once-shimmering Falcon is coated with cheap enamel’(NY State writer’s Institute.)
Sam Spade is a gumshoe and he has his office complete with a partner and a girl Friday. When he and his partner Archer are hired to tail a rich eccentric by a woman who claims her sister is being unwittingly kept separated from her it seems like just another case. But when Archer is gunned down whilst tailing the eccentric the police are after him. The girl who asked him to follow the man turns out not to be who she says she is, and Spade is already well into a web of deception, in the middle of which stands 'the Maltese Falcon'.
Cast:
Humphrey Bogart ... Sam Spade
Mary Astor ... Brigid O'Shaughnessy
Gladys George ... Iva Archer
Peter Lorre ... Joel Cairo
Barton MacLane ... Det. Lt. Dundy
Lee Patrick ... Effie Perine
Sydney Greenstreet ... Kasper Gutman
Ward Bond ... Det. Tom Polhaus
Jerome Cowan ... Miles Archer
Elisha Cook Jr. ... Wilmer Cook
James Burke ... Luke
Murray Alper ... Frank Richman
John Hamilton ... District Attorney Bryan
Produced by
Henry Blanke .... associate producer
Hal B. Wallis .... executive producer
Directed by John Huston
Screenplay: John Huston
Novel: Dashiel Hammett
Original Music by
Adolph Deutsch
Cinematography by
Arthur Edeson (director of photography)
Memorable Quotes:
Sam Spade:If you kill me, how are you gonna get the bird? And if I know you can't afford to kill me, how are you gonna scare me into giving it to you?
Sam Spade: I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble.
Joel Cairo: Look what you did to my shirt.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.
Sam Spade: You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere.
Wilmer Cook: Keep on riding me and they're gonna be picking iron out of your liver.
Sam Spade: The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, eh?
Sam Spade: Ten thousand? We were talking about a lot more money than this.
Kasper Gutman: Yes, sir, we were, but this is genuine coin of the realm. With a dollar of this, you can buy ten dollars of talk.
Kasper Gutman: I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, its possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.
Sam Spade: Haven't you tried to buy my loyalty with money and nothing else?
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: What else is there I can buy you with?
Kasper Gutman: Here's to plain speaking and clear understanding.
Spade: When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's-it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.
Spade: We didn't exactly believe your story, Miss O'Shaughnessy, we believed your 200 dollars. I mean you paid us more than if you had been telling us the truth, and enough more to make it alright.
Bryan: Who killed Thursby?
Sam Spade: I don't know.
Bryan: Perhaps you don't, but you could make an excellent guess.
Sam Spade: My guess might be excellent or it might be crummy, but Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a district attorney, and an assistant district attorney and a stenographer.
Bryan: Why shouldn't you, if you have nothing to conceal?
Sam Spade: Everybody has something to conceal.
Bryan: I'm a sworn officer of the law, 24 hours a day, and neither formality nor informality justifies you withholding evidence of crime from me. Except, of course, on constitutional grounds.
Sam Spade: [ranting] Now, both you and the police have as much as accused me of being mixed up in the other night's murders. Well, I've had trouble with both of you before. And as far as I can see my best chance of clearing myself of the trouble you're trying to make for me, is by bringing in the murderers all tied up. And the only chance I've got of catching them, and tying them up, and bringing them in, is by staying as far away as possible from you and the police, because you'd only gum up the works.
[turns to stenographer]
Sam Spade: You getting this alright, son, or am i goin' too fast for ya?
Stenographer: No sir, I'm getting it alright.
Sam Spade: Good work.
Kasper Gutman: You're a close-mouthed man?
Sam Spade: Nah, I like to talk.
Kasper Gutman: Better and better. I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice.
[sits back]
Kasper Gutman: Now, sir. We'll talk, if you like. I'll tell you right out, I am a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk.
Sam Spade: Swell. Will we talk about the black bird?
Sam Spade: [impatiently] Now, let's *talk* about the black bird.
Kasper Gutman: Let's. Mr. Spade, have you any conception of how much money can be got for that black bird?
Sam Spade: No.
Kasper Gutman: Well, sir, if I told you... If I told you *half*... you'd call me a liar.
Sam Spade: No, not even if I thought so.
Sam Spade: If you kill me, how are you gonna get the bird? And if I know you can't afford to kill me, how are you gonna scare me into giving it to you?
Sam Spade: When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.
Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation...
Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?
Kasper Gutman: I distrust a man who says "when." If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does.
Sam Spade: You're good. You're very good.
Spade: I hope you're not letting yourself be influenced by the guns these pocket edition desperados are waving around, because I've practiced taking guns from these boys before so we'll have no trouble there.
Joel Cairo: You... you bungled it. You and your stupid attempt to buy it. Kemedov found out how valuable it was, no wonder we had such an easy time stealing it. You... you imbecile. You bloated idiot. You stupid fat-head you.
[cries]
Sam Spade: You killed Miles and you're going over for it.
[last lines]
Detective Tom Polhaus: [picks up the falcon] Heavy. What is it?
Sam Spade: The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.
Detective Tom Polhaus: Huh?
Kasper Gutman: The best goodbyes are short. Adieu.
Kasper Gutman: By Gad, sir, you are a character. There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing.
Sam Spade: I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you.
Kasper Gutman: These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history, not Mr. Well's history, but history nevertheless.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: He has a wife and three children in England.
Sam Spade: They usually do, though not always in England.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: Mr. Archer was so alive yesterday, so solid and hearty...
Sam Spade: Stop it. He knew what he was doing. Those are the chances we take.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: Was he married?
Sam Spade: Yeah, with ten thousand insurance, no children, and a wife that didn't like him.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: Help me.
Sam Spade: You won't need much of anybody's help. You're good. Chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like 'Be generous, Mr. Spade.'
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: I deserve that. But the lie was in the way I said it, not at all in what I said. It's my own fault if you can't believe me now.
Sam Spade: Ah, now you are dangerous.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: I do know he always went heavily armed, and that he never went to sleep without covering the floor around his bed with crumpled newspapers, so that nobody could come silently into his room.
Sam Spade: You picked a nice sort of a playmate.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: Only that sort could have helped me, if he'd been loyal.
Joel Cairo: I am prepared to pay five thousand dollars for the figure's return. Do you have it?
Sam Spade: No.
Joel Cairo: But if it isn't here, why did you risk serious injury to prevent my searching for it?
Sam Spade: Why should I sit around here and let people come in and stick me up?
Joel Cairo: But certainly it is only natural that I try to save the owner such a considerable expense if possible.
Sam Spade: People lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite.
Joel Cairo: I certainly wish you would have invented a more reasonable story. I felt distinctly like an idiot repeating it.
Sam Spade: Don't worry about the story's goofiness. A sensible one would have had us all in the cooler.
Sam Spade: All we've got is that maybe you love me and maybe I love you.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: You know whether you love me or not.
Sam Spade: Maybe I do. I'll have some rotten nights after I've sent you over, but that'll pass.
Joel Cairo: Might I remind you Mr. Spade that you may have the falcon, but we certainly have you.
Sam Spade: You're a good man, sister.
Sam Spade: Haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
Lt. Dundy: And gettin' a lot of lyin' answers!
Sam Spade: Take it easy.
Sam Spade: Here.
[hands him Wilmer's guns]
Sam Spade: You shouldn't let him go around with these on him, he might get himself hurt.
Kasper Gutman: Well, well, what's this?
Sam Spade: A crippled newsie took 'em away from him. I made him give 'em back.
[to Spade]
Joel Cairo: No, no. Our private conversations have not been such that I am anxious to continue them. Forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but it is the truth.
Sam Spade: You gotta convince me that you know what this is all about, that you aren't just fiddling around hoping it'll all... come out right in the end!
Sam Spade: [after disarming Wilmer] This'll put you in solid with your boss.
Kasper Gutman: Well, sir, what do you suggest? We stand here and shed tears and call each other names... or shall we go to Istanbul?
Joel Cairo: Are you going?
Kasper Gutman: Seventeen years I've wanted that little item and I've been trying to get it. If we must spend another year on the quest... well, sir, it will be an additional expenditure in time of only... five and fifteen seventeenths percent.
Sam Spade: [to Brigid] Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be!
(ack:imdb,William Hare, NY State Writer’s Institute)
benny
Warner studio boss Jack gave a reluctant go ahead, but advised that he would be working on a tight budget and on a short leash. Huston instructed his secretary to break down Hammett’s novel into scenes, leaving everything unchanged. By a curious twist of fate the studio mogul when Huston was away managed get his hands on what he thought was a script in progress. He was impressed. When Huston returned Jack Warner assured him that the production was ready to roll and the script was fine.
Huston had every reason to thank his lucky stars that such a mistake could pave the way for a thundering commercial success. What was more he won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for what was supposed to be a beginning outline. He never looked back with that kind of a success.
Even a runaway success on a fluke must have nuts and bolts to nail it to Cinema Hall of Fame. Apart from Huston’s solid knowledge derived from his screenplay days that gave him a nose for selecting stories that worked well on screen he had Humphrey Bogart in the role of San Francisco detective Sam Spade. Bogart had previously worked in High Sierra, which he wrote prior to his directing debut. In that film Bogart played a tough, no nonsense criminal Roy Earle.
In The Maltese Falcon Bogart as Sam Spade operated within the law. Huston as a writer tagged early on in the film the credo that struck a sympathetic chord in the viewers mind of the detective who was the protagonist: after his partner, someone he strongly dislikes, is waylaid and shot to death in the evening San Francisco fog Bogart lisps that when one’s partner is killed one is expected to do something about it.
Secondly he assembled a motley crew of offbeat criminals who stood out whether it was Sydney Greenstreet in girth or Pierre Lorre in his oily epicene crookedness. Then there was Elisha Cook Jr. who would appear in numerous films once again casting with Bogart in Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep.
Sydney Greenstreet at 61 made his film debut after appearing on Broadway for years playing butlers. (He again teams up with Bogart in Casablanca). Unlike most film-noir that feature criminals in unrelieved sinister cast (such as Neville Brand in D.O.A. or Mike Mazurki in Murder, My Sweet), the criminal trio pursuing the expensive and elusive Maltese Falcon are all too human: when Greenstreet attempts to be archly clever, putting one past street smart Bogart he shows he is only clever by half( In the hotel suite Spade Bogart playacting has Guttman bewildered; only when the detective storms out of the suite the close-up reveals him grinning with satisfaction and we realize the truth) ; the ilk of Cook or Cairo with his baby face are no match for Spade who takes particular delight in slapping the latter around.
Lastly the twist to the usual and predictable romance angle. Instead of the hero realizing his love or losing as often the case is, in this dark movie we have Bogart turning the woman for whom he was willing to fall like a load of bricks, over to the police. With that he resolves the conflict of interests: Mary Astor as Brigid O’Shaughnessy comes to Bogart as a client at the beginning. Like Rick Blain he may be earning a living in a murky world of man’s darkest passions and yet he has his own personal morality code; love plays no role in keeping its nose clean. He has fulfilled his promise to his partner whom he may not particularly care for. Yes when your partner is killed you are expected to do something about it.
The plot revolves around the Maltese Falcon a statuette. According to the legend In 1539, the Knight Templars of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels-----but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day. ‘Huston seized on the sheer fabulousness of the gilded bird of the title, a virtual throwaway in the book. He made its journeys through centuries and across continents a wild offscreen picaresque, a spider’s web of intrigue from out of the near as well as the distant past that always threatens to snare Spade just as it has snared the three demented conspirators. These three -- "Gutman" (Sidney Greenstreet) "Miss Wonderly/O’Shaughnessy" (Mary Astor) and "Joel Cairo" (Peter Lorre) became, in Huston’s hands, lovable gargoyles, creatures as improbable as the Falcon, and each as corroded with greed as the once-shimmering Falcon is coated with cheap enamel’(NY State writer’s Institute.)
Sam Spade is a gumshoe and he has his office complete with a partner and a girl Friday. When he and his partner Archer are hired to tail a rich eccentric by a woman who claims her sister is being unwittingly kept separated from her it seems like just another case. But when Archer is gunned down whilst tailing the eccentric the police are after him. The girl who asked him to follow the man turns out not to be who she says she is, and Spade is already well into a web of deception, in the middle of which stands 'the Maltese Falcon'.
Cast:
Humphrey Bogart ... Sam Spade
Mary Astor ... Brigid O'Shaughnessy
Gladys George ... Iva Archer
Peter Lorre ... Joel Cairo
Barton MacLane ... Det. Lt. Dundy
Lee Patrick ... Effie Perine
Sydney Greenstreet ... Kasper Gutman
Ward Bond ... Det. Tom Polhaus
Jerome Cowan ... Miles Archer
Elisha Cook Jr. ... Wilmer Cook
James Burke ... Luke
Murray Alper ... Frank Richman
John Hamilton ... District Attorney Bryan
Produced by
Henry Blanke .... associate producer
Hal B. Wallis .... executive producer
Directed by John Huston
Screenplay: John Huston
Novel: Dashiel Hammett
Original Music by
Adolph Deutsch
Cinematography by
Arthur Edeson (director of photography)
Memorable Quotes:
Sam Spade:If you kill me, how are you gonna get the bird? And if I know you can't afford to kill me, how are you gonna scare me into giving it to you?
Sam Spade: I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble.
Joel Cairo: Look what you did to my shirt.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.
Sam Spade: You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere.
Wilmer Cook: Keep on riding me and they're gonna be picking iron out of your liver.
Sam Spade: The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, eh?
Sam Spade: Ten thousand? We were talking about a lot more money than this.
Kasper Gutman: Yes, sir, we were, but this is genuine coin of the realm. With a dollar of this, you can buy ten dollars of talk.
Kasper Gutman: I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, its possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.
Sam Spade: Haven't you tried to buy my loyalty with money and nothing else?
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: What else is there I can buy you with?
Kasper Gutman: Here's to plain speaking and clear understanding.
Spade: When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's-it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.
Spade: We didn't exactly believe your story, Miss O'Shaughnessy, we believed your 200 dollars. I mean you paid us more than if you had been telling us the truth, and enough more to make it alright.
Bryan: Who killed Thursby?
Sam Spade: I don't know.
Bryan: Perhaps you don't, but you could make an excellent guess.
Sam Spade: My guess might be excellent or it might be crummy, but Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a district attorney, and an assistant district attorney and a stenographer.
Bryan: Why shouldn't you, if you have nothing to conceal?
Sam Spade: Everybody has something to conceal.
Bryan: I'm a sworn officer of the law, 24 hours a day, and neither formality nor informality justifies you withholding evidence of crime from me. Except, of course, on constitutional grounds.
Sam Spade: [ranting] Now, both you and the police have as much as accused me of being mixed up in the other night's murders. Well, I've had trouble with both of you before. And as far as I can see my best chance of clearing myself of the trouble you're trying to make for me, is by bringing in the murderers all tied up. And the only chance I've got of catching them, and tying them up, and bringing them in, is by staying as far away as possible from you and the police, because you'd only gum up the works.
[turns to stenographer]
Sam Spade: You getting this alright, son, or am i goin' too fast for ya?
Stenographer: No sir, I'm getting it alright.
Sam Spade: Good work.
Kasper Gutman: You're a close-mouthed man?
Sam Spade: Nah, I like to talk.
Kasper Gutman: Better and better. I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice.
[sits back]
Kasper Gutman: Now, sir. We'll talk, if you like. I'll tell you right out, I am a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk.
Sam Spade: Swell. Will we talk about the black bird?
Sam Spade: [impatiently] Now, let's *talk* about the black bird.
Kasper Gutman: Let's. Mr. Spade, have you any conception of how much money can be got for that black bird?
Sam Spade: No.
Kasper Gutman: Well, sir, if I told you... If I told you *half*... you'd call me a liar.
Sam Spade: No, not even if I thought so.
Sam Spade: If you kill me, how are you gonna get the bird? And if I know you can't afford to kill me, how are you gonna scare me into giving it to you?
Sam Spade: When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.
Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation...
Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?
Kasper Gutman: I distrust a man who says "when." If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does.
Sam Spade: You're good. You're very good.
Spade: I hope you're not letting yourself be influenced by the guns these pocket edition desperados are waving around, because I've practiced taking guns from these boys before so we'll have no trouble there.
Joel Cairo: You... you bungled it. You and your stupid attempt to buy it. Kemedov found out how valuable it was, no wonder we had such an easy time stealing it. You... you imbecile. You bloated idiot. You stupid fat-head you.
[cries]
Sam Spade: You killed Miles and you're going over for it.
[last lines]
Detective Tom Polhaus: [picks up the falcon] Heavy. What is it?
Sam Spade: The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.
Detective Tom Polhaus: Huh?
Kasper Gutman: The best goodbyes are short. Adieu.
Kasper Gutman: By Gad, sir, you are a character. There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing.
Sam Spade: I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you.
Kasper Gutman: These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history, not Mr. Well's history, but history nevertheless.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: He has a wife and three children in England.
Sam Spade: They usually do, though not always in England.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: Mr. Archer was so alive yesterday, so solid and hearty...
Sam Spade: Stop it. He knew what he was doing. Those are the chances we take.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: Was he married?
Sam Spade: Yeah, with ten thousand insurance, no children, and a wife that didn't like him.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: Help me.
Sam Spade: You won't need much of anybody's help. You're good. Chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like 'Be generous, Mr. Spade.'
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: I deserve that. But the lie was in the way I said it, not at all in what I said. It's my own fault if you can't believe me now.
Sam Spade: Ah, now you are dangerous.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: I do know he always went heavily armed, and that he never went to sleep without covering the floor around his bed with crumpled newspapers, so that nobody could come silently into his room.
Sam Spade: You picked a nice sort of a playmate.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: Only that sort could have helped me, if he'd been loyal.
Joel Cairo: I am prepared to pay five thousand dollars for the figure's return. Do you have it?
Sam Spade: No.
Joel Cairo: But if it isn't here, why did you risk serious injury to prevent my searching for it?
Sam Spade: Why should I sit around here and let people come in and stick me up?
Joel Cairo: But certainly it is only natural that I try to save the owner such a considerable expense if possible.
Sam Spade: People lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite.
Joel Cairo: I certainly wish you would have invented a more reasonable story. I felt distinctly like an idiot repeating it.
Sam Spade: Don't worry about the story's goofiness. A sensible one would have had us all in the cooler.
Sam Spade: All we've got is that maybe you love me and maybe I love you.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: You know whether you love me or not.
Sam Spade: Maybe I do. I'll have some rotten nights after I've sent you over, but that'll pass.
Joel Cairo: Might I remind you Mr. Spade that you may have the falcon, but we certainly have you.
Sam Spade: You're a good man, sister.
Sam Spade: Haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
Lt. Dundy: And gettin' a lot of lyin' answers!
Sam Spade: Take it easy.
Sam Spade: Here.
[hands him Wilmer's guns]
Sam Spade: You shouldn't let him go around with these on him, he might get himself hurt.
Kasper Gutman: Well, well, what's this?
Sam Spade: A crippled newsie took 'em away from him. I made him give 'em back.
[to Spade]
Joel Cairo: No, no. Our private conversations have not been such that I am anxious to continue them. Forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but it is the truth.
Sam Spade: You gotta convince me that you know what this is all about, that you aren't just fiddling around hoping it'll all... come out right in the end!
Sam Spade: [after disarming Wilmer] This'll put you in solid with your boss.
Kasper Gutman: Well, sir, what do you suggest? We stand here and shed tears and call each other names... or shall we go to Istanbul?
Joel Cairo: Are you going?
Kasper Gutman: Seventeen years I've wanted that little item and I've been trying to get it. If we must spend another year on the quest... well, sir, it will be an additional expenditure in time of only... five and fifteen seventeenths percent.
Sam Spade: [to Brigid] Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be!
(ack:imdb,William Hare, NY State Writer’s Institute)
benny
Monday 9 June 2008
Whistlers Mother etc.,
James McNeill Whistler(1834-1903) Painter, wit
His ability to liven up things was apparent even when he was young. His individuality like many of his singular gifts was not what what endeared him to the West Point culture.
During a history quiz the cadet Whistler was asked the date of the Battle of Buena Vista-an engagement in Mexico that redounded to the glory of West Point officers and he did not know.
“What?”,said the instructor,”suppose you were to go out to dinner and the company began to talk of the Mexican War and you a West Point man, were asked the date of the battle, what do you do?”
“Do?”Whistler asked astounded,”why I’d refuse to associate with people who could talk of such things at dinner.”
140.
As a cadet in the West Point one of his class assignments was to draw a bridge and his instructor going around the class, was struck by Whistler’s design: it was a romantic stone bridge, complete with grassy banks and two small children fishing from it. He ordered Whistler to get those children off the bridge. ”This is an engineering exercise.”he said.
Whistler did as he was told but had them fishing from the bank instead. His instructor cried,”I said remove those children! Get them entirely out of the picture!”
The artist in him was not to be curbed. In the third version which he submitted he had two small tombstones in the grass besides the stream.
141.
After his three years stint at the West Point, he was dismissed for having run up 218 demerits much more than the allowable limit.
However he had the reason for his expulsion changed as years went by. While chatting with some friends once he recalled the fateful event as follws.
At a Chemistry examination, he said , he was questioned of the properties of the carbon-like element silicon. Whistler asserted it was a gas. Upon which his examiner dismissed him saying, ”That’ll do Mr.Whistler.” Then with a sigh he added,”Had silicon been a gas, I would have been a major-general.”
142.
Leaving his native America for good in 1855, he plunged happily into the bohemian artistic life of Paris, sustained by a small allowance from home. In Latin Quarter, he was soon to make a name for himself. When he could not afford sketch paper he would stroll along the bookstalls along the Seine and quietly tear off the blank leaves;or when he lacked formal footwear for a party he would prowl his hotel hallway, where hotel guests would have left their shoes to be shined, outside their doors. He would borrow a pair that fitted him and have his night out.
He would have usually run through his allowance some ten days or so befor his next allowance was due and he managed hocking every item he could, including his washstand in his room. When his money arrived he wined and dined his friends blowing the money as best as he could.
143.
His story telling has never been bettered in his time with the exception of a few, certainly Wilde was one, and he told stories in his inimitable style as the Irish wit had his. Whistler had a favoutite one about a hungry Latin Quarter student which of course in his retelling had him take his place. According to his version his landlady has been serving him fish too often. So the artist baited a hook made from a bent pin, lowered it into the landlady’s fishbowl kept on the window cill. Having caught the fishes he fried them and returned to the bowl with the note,’Madame, you have cooked so many fish for me that I have ventured to cook some for you.’
At this point Whistler would add: ‘She was cured. She gave me no more fish.’Then while the company laughed he would add the punchline,’she gave me notice instead.’
144
His masterpiece was his portrait of his mother, which was at first rejected by the Royal Academy. The work was titled:’Arrangement in Grey and Black #1(The Artist’s Mother) The first part of the title puzzled the public. He defended himself thus:’To me it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought the public to care about the identity of the picture?’
He didn’t think it odd at all to think of his mother in terms of the language of art. When one of his friends jokingly wondered,”who would have thought of you having a mother, Jimmy?” the artist replied,”Yes indeed. I have a mother, and a very pretty bit of color she is, I can tell you.”
benny
His ability to liven up things was apparent even when he was young. His individuality like many of his singular gifts was not what what endeared him to the West Point culture.
During a history quiz the cadet Whistler was asked the date of the Battle of Buena Vista-an engagement in Mexico that redounded to the glory of West Point officers and he did not know.
“What?”,said the instructor,”suppose you were to go out to dinner and the company began to talk of the Mexican War and you a West Point man, were asked the date of the battle, what do you do?”
“Do?”Whistler asked astounded,”why I’d refuse to associate with people who could talk of such things at dinner.”
140.
As a cadet in the West Point one of his class assignments was to draw a bridge and his instructor going around the class, was struck by Whistler’s design: it was a romantic stone bridge, complete with grassy banks and two small children fishing from it. He ordered Whistler to get those children off the bridge. ”This is an engineering exercise.”he said.
Whistler did as he was told but had them fishing from the bank instead. His instructor cried,”I said remove those children! Get them entirely out of the picture!”
The artist in him was not to be curbed. In the third version which he submitted he had two small tombstones in the grass besides the stream.
141.
After his three years stint at the West Point, he was dismissed for having run up 218 demerits much more than the allowable limit.
However he had the reason for his expulsion changed as years went by. While chatting with some friends once he recalled the fateful event as follws.
At a Chemistry examination, he said , he was questioned of the properties of the carbon-like element silicon. Whistler asserted it was a gas. Upon which his examiner dismissed him saying, ”That’ll do Mr.Whistler.” Then with a sigh he added,”Had silicon been a gas, I would have been a major-general.”
142.
Leaving his native America for good in 1855, he plunged happily into the bohemian artistic life of Paris, sustained by a small allowance from home. In Latin Quarter, he was soon to make a name for himself. When he could not afford sketch paper he would stroll along the bookstalls along the Seine and quietly tear off the blank leaves;or when he lacked formal footwear for a party he would prowl his hotel hallway, where hotel guests would have left their shoes to be shined, outside their doors. He would borrow a pair that fitted him and have his night out.
He would have usually run through his allowance some ten days or so befor his next allowance was due and he managed hocking every item he could, including his washstand in his room. When his money arrived he wined and dined his friends blowing the money as best as he could.
143.
His story telling has never been bettered in his time with the exception of a few, certainly Wilde was one, and he told stories in his inimitable style as the Irish wit had his. Whistler had a favoutite one about a hungry Latin Quarter student which of course in his retelling had him take his place. According to his version his landlady has been serving him fish too often. So the artist baited a hook made from a bent pin, lowered it into the landlady’s fishbowl kept on the window cill. Having caught the fishes he fried them and returned to the bowl with the note,’Madame, you have cooked so many fish for me that I have ventured to cook some for you.’
At this point Whistler would add: ‘She was cured. She gave me no more fish.’Then while the company laughed he would add the punchline,’she gave me notice instead.’
144
His masterpiece was his portrait of his mother, which was at first rejected by the Royal Academy. The work was titled:’Arrangement in Grey and Black #1(The Artist’s Mother) The first part of the title puzzled the public. He defended himself thus:’To me it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought the public to care about the identity of the picture?’
He didn’t think it odd at all to think of his mother in terms of the language of art. When one of his friends jokingly wondered,”who would have thought of you having a mother, Jimmy?” the artist replied,”Yes indeed. I have a mother, and a very pretty bit of color she is, I can tell you.”
benny
Sunday 8 June 2008
Problem Of Comparison
1.
I had this stone in my kidney:
Even when stoned
None said ‘Look at Benny
I wish to God I had
A stone as large as his.
2.
My house sits on a goldmine
And my lawn is
fine; but still shame is mine,
See what the neighbor has:
The greenest you ever saw.
benny
I had this stone in my kidney:
Even when stoned
None said ‘Look at Benny
I wish to God I had
A stone as large as his.
2.
My house sits on a goldmine
And my lawn is
fine; but still shame is mine,
See what the neighbor has:
The greenest you ever saw.
benny
Wednesday 4 June 2008
Tuesday 3 June 2008
Movie Lists
Bonnie and Clyde-1967
Bonnie and Clyde is considered a landmark film in cinema history: it broke many taboos and was popular with the younger generation as was The Graduate released in the same year.
The line "We rob banks" ranks at #41 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest Movie Quotes.
Some critics cite Joseph H. Lewis's Gun Crazy, a film noir about a bank-robbing couple, as a major influence. Forty years after its premiere, Bonnie and Clyde has been cited as a major influence in such disparate films as The Wild Bunch, The Godfather, Reservoir Dogs and The Departed
The film's final scene, edited in slow motion, is obviously influenced by the European new wave films,[Originally, the film was intended to be directed by Jean-Luc Godard or Francois Truffaut, who opted out and made Fahrenheit 451 (1966) instead.] but that doesn’t detract from the position of the film as a turning point of the New Hollywood era.
This film is set during the Great Depression when great many lined before soup kitchens, a few took to robbing banks. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were robbers and they made quite a stir doing just that. The film was directed by Arthur Penn, and starred Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker. It was produced by Warner Bros. - the studio responsible for the gangster films of the 1930s, and it seems appropriate that the same studio should consider the crime/gangster genre in a new light: the film is violent, innovative and gives a four-ulcer job of robbing banks loads of glamour.
The film opens with a golden, old-style Warner Bros shield, grainy, unglamorous, blurry, sepia-toned snapshots of the Barrow and Parker families (at the time of Bonnie and Clyde's childhood) play on a black background accompanied by the loud clicking sound of a camera shutter. The credit titles are interspersed with flashes of more semi-documentary, brownish-tinged pictures. The text of the major credits fade from white to blood red on the dark background. 30's hand-cranked phonographic music (Rudy Vallee's popular love song of the period Deep Night) is faintly heard - a haunting omen from another era. The films doesn’t let you forget the period while the petty hoodlum and his drab and unglamorous gun moll become larger than life before our eyes. Look at the way they cavort in cartoon-style slapstick comedy [a tribute to Mack Sennett's silent films).
When they first met in Texas in the early 1930s the real Bonnie (19 years old) and Clyde (21 years old), weren't glamorous characters: she was already the wife of an imprisoned murderer, and he was a petty thief and vagrant with numerous misdemeanors. They were 'white trash' couple and described "the Southwest's most notorious bandit and his gun moll" in the local newspaper. Their brief, bloody crime spree (involving kidnapping and murders) ended on May 23, 1934 alongside state Highway 154 near Arcadia, Louisiana (the town nearest to the ambush site in north-central Louisiana), when the desperados were ambushed and killed by four Texas lawmen (led by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer), accompanied by Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan and his deputy Prentiss Oakley. Their bullet-ridden vehicle was hit with 187 shots. In actuality, the 25 year-old Barrow and 23-year old Parker were armed and ready for the ambush when they were killed. Currently, Louisiana's largest outdoor flea market (held one weekend a month) originated in 1990 in Arcadia as Bonnie and Clyde Trade Days.
‘The film considerably simplifies the real facts about Bonnie and Clyde, which included other gang members, repeated jailings, and other murders and assorted crimes. One of the film's major characters, "C.W. Moss", is a composite of two members of the Barrow Gang: William Daniel "W.D." Jones and Henry Methvin. In 1968, Jones outlined his period with the Barrows in a Playboy magazine article "Riding with Bonnie and Clyde."
The screenplay was written by David Newman and Robert Benton. (Robert Towne and Beatty have been listed as providing uncredited contributions to the script.)
Its producer, 28 year-old Warren Beatty, was also its title-role star Clyde Barrow, and his co-star Bonnie Parker, newcomer Faye Dunaway, became a major screen actress as a result of her breakthrough in this influential film. Likewise, unknown Gene Hackman was recognized as a solid actor and went on to star in many substantial roles (his next major role was in The French Connection (1971))-tim dirks.
Warner Bros-Seven Arts had so little faith in the film that, in a then-unprecedented move, they offered its first-time producer Warren Beatty 40% of the gross instead of a minimal fee. The movie then went on to gross over $70 million world-wide by 1973.
Music
The instrumental banjo piece "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" by Flatt and Scruggs was made famous to a worldwide audience as a result of its frequent use in the movie. Its use is entirely anachronistic, however; the bluegrass-style of music from which the piece stems dates from the mid-1940s’(wikipedia).
The film was given Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress and Best Cinematography.
Directed by Arthur Penn
Produced by Warren Beatty
Written by David Newman
& Robert Benton
Starring Warren Beatty
Faye Dunaway
Michael J. Pollard
Gene Hackman
Estelle Parsons
Music by Charles Strouse
Cinematography Burnett Guffey
Editing by Dede Allen
Distributed by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
Running time 111 min.
Language English
Budget $2,500,000 (estimated)
(wikipedia)
In a historical perspective
Earlier films that recounted similar adventures of infamous, doomed lovers-on-the-run who are free and accountable to no one include Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once (1937) with Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney, Joseph H. Lewis' cult classic Gun Crazy (1949) with John Dall and Peggy Cummins, Nicholas Ray's They Live By Night (1949) (remade by Robert Altman with its original title Thieves Like Us (1974) from Edward Anderson's source novel and starring Shelley Duvall and Keith Carradine), and The Bonnie Parker Story (1958) with Dorothy Provine and Jack Hogan. Later outlaw-couple films include B-movie Killers Three (1968) with Diane Varsi and Robert Walker, Jr., Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973), Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise (1991), Kalifornia (1993), and Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994).]
2.
Penn's masterpiece won two Oscars for Best Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons in an over-the-top performance) and Best Cinematography (Burnett Guffey) for its great evocation of period detail, with eight other nods for Best Picture and Best Actor (producer/actor Warren Beatty), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway), Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Supporting Actor (Michael J. Pollard), Best Director (Arthur Penn), Best Story and Screenplay (Newman and Benton), and Best Costume Design (Theadora Van Runkle, who later worked on The Godfather, Part II (1974)). (Although Robert Towne, who later wrote Chinatown (1974), worked on the final form of the screenplay and served as a special consultant.)
In retro:
In the late 1960s, the film's sympathetic, revolutionary characters and its social criticism appealed to anti-authority American youth who were part of the counter-cultural movement protesting the Vietnam War, the corrupt social order, and the U.S. government's role.
compiler:benny thomas
Bonnie and Clyde is considered a landmark film in cinema history: it broke many taboos and was popular with the younger generation as was The Graduate released in the same year.
The line "We rob banks" ranks at #41 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest Movie Quotes.
Some critics cite Joseph H. Lewis's Gun Crazy, a film noir about a bank-robbing couple, as a major influence. Forty years after its premiere, Bonnie and Clyde has been cited as a major influence in such disparate films as The Wild Bunch, The Godfather, Reservoir Dogs and The Departed
The film's final scene, edited in slow motion, is obviously influenced by the European new wave films,[Originally, the film was intended to be directed by Jean-Luc Godard or Francois Truffaut, who opted out and made Fahrenheit 451 (1966) instead.] but that doesn’t detract from the position of the film as a turning point of the New Hollywood era.
This film is set during the Great Depression when great many lined before soup kitchens, a few took to robbing banks. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were robbers and they made quite a stir doing just that. The film was directed by Arthur Penn, and starred Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker. It was produced by Warner Bros. - the studio responsible for the gangster films of the 1930s, and it seems appropriate that the same studio should consider the crime/gangster genre in a new light: the film is violent, innovative and gives a four-ulcer job of robbing banks loads of glamour.
The film opens with a golden, old-style Warner Bros shield, grainy, unglamorous, blurry, sepia-toned snapshots of the Barrow and Parker families (at the time of Bonnie and Clyde's childhood) play on a black background accompanied by the loud clicking sound of a camera shutter. The credit titles are interspersed with flashes of more semi-documentary, brownish-tinged pictures. The text of the major credits fade from white to blood red on the dark background. 30's hand-cranked phonographic music (Rudy Vallee's popular love song of the period Deep Night) is faintly heard - a haunting omen from another era. The films doesn’t let you forget the period while the petty hoodlum and his drab and unglamorous gun moll become larger than life before our eyes. Look at the way they cavort in cartoon-style slapstick comedy [a tribute to Mack Sennett's silent films).
When they first met in Texas in the early 1930s the real Bonnie (19 years old) and Clyde (21 years old), weren't glamorous characters: she was already the wife of an imprisoned murderer, and he was a petty thief and vagrant with numerous misdemeanors. They were 'white trash' couple and described "the Southwest's most notorious bandit and his gun moll" in the local newspaper. Their brief, bloody crime spree (involving kidnapping and murders) ended on May 23, 1934 alongside state Highway 154 near Arcadia, Louisiana (the town nearest to the ambush site in north-central Louisiana), when the desperados were ambushed and killed by four Texas lawmen (led by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer), accompanied by Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan and his deputy Prentiss Oakley. Their bullet-ridden vehicle was hit with 187 shots. In actuality, the 25 year-old Barrow and 23-year old Parker were armed and ready for the ambush when they were killed. Currently, Louisiana's largest outdoor flea market (held one weekend a month) originated in 1990 in Arcadia as Bonnie and Clyde Trade Days.
‘The film considerably simplifies the real facts about Bonnie and Clyde, which included other gang members, repeated jailings, and other murders and assorted crimes. One of the film's major characters, "C.W. Moss", is a composite of two members of the Barrow Gang: William Daniel "W.D." Jones and Henry Methvin. In 1968, Jones outlined his period with the Barrows in a Playboy magazine article "Riding with Bonnie and Clyde."
The screenplay was written by David Newman and Robert Benton. (Robert Towne and Beatty have been listed as providing uncredited contributions to the script.)
Its producer, 28 year-old Warren Beatty, was also its title-role star Clyde Barrow, and his co-star Bonnie Parker, newcomer Faye Dunaway, became a major screen actress as a result of her breakthrough in this influential film. Likewise, unknown Gene Hackman was recognized as a solid actor and went on to star in many substantial roles (his next major role was in The French Connection (1971))-tim dirks.
Warner Bros-Seven Arts had so little faith in the film that, in a then-unprecedented move, they offered its first-time producer Warren Beatty 40% of the gross instead of a minimal fee. The movie then went on to gross over $70 million world-wide by 1973.
Music
The instrumental banjo piece "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" by Flatt and Scruggs was made famous to a worldwide audience as a result of its frequent use in the movie. Its use is entirely anachronistic, however; the bluegrass-style of music from which the piece stems dates from the mid-1940s’(wikipedia).
The film was given Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress and Best Cinematography.
Directed by Arthur Penn
Produced by Warren Beatty
Written by David Newman
& Robert Benton
Starring Warren Beatty
Faye Dunaway
Michael J. Pollard
Gene Hackman
Estelle Parsons
Music by Charles Strouse
Cinematography Burnett Guffey
Editing by Dede Allen
Distributed by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
Running time 111 min.
Language English
Budget $2,500,000 (estimated)
(wikipedia)
In a historical perspective
Earlier films that recounted similar adventures of infamous, doomed lovers-on-the-run who are free and accountable to no one include Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once (1937) with Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney, Joseph H. Lewis' cult classic Gun Crazy (1949) with John Dall and Peggy Cummins, Nicholas Ray's They Live By Night (1949) (remade by Robert Altman with its original title Thieves Like Us (1974) from Edward Anderson's source novel and starring Shelley Duvall and Keith Carradine), and The Bonnie Parker Story (1958) with Dorothy Provine and Jack Hogan. Later outlaw-couple films include B-movie Killers Three (1968) with Diane Varsi and Robert Walker, Jr., Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973), Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise (1991), Kalifornia (1993), and Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994).]
2.
Penn's masterpiece won two Oscars for Best Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons in an over-the-top performance) and Best Cinematography (Burnett Guffey) for its great evocation of period detail, with eight other nods for Best Picture and Best Actor (producer/actor Warren Beatty), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway), Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Supporting Actor (Michael J. Pollard), Best Director (Arthur Penn), Best Story and Screenplay (Newman and Benton), and Best Costume Design (Theadora Van Runkle, who later worked on The Godfather, Part II (1974)). (Although Robert Towne, who later wrote Chinatown (1974), worked on the final form of the screenplay and served as a special consultant.)
In retro:
In the late 1960s, the film's sympathetic, revolutionary characters and its social criticism appealed to anti-authority American youth who were part of the counter-cultural movement protesting the Vietnam War, the corrupt social order, and the U.S. government's role.
compiler:benny thomas
Monday 2 June 2008
A Mother For All Seasons
A MOTHER FOR ALL SEASONS ©
God was very busy. But he heard the cry just the same. He knew a child was calling for attention. He turned to all those papers piled high before him. He said: “I cannot make it today. What shall I do?”
He bravely tried to finish as much as he could. But more papers came pouring in, all requests which brooked no delay. He cried: “I cannot make it tomorrow either. I cannot make for next week, either.”
The child went on crying, without let up. ”What shall I do?” His face told it all.
God looked weary, and bleary eyed too. I guess from reading so many requests, written in a scrawl made his eyes swim. He blinked; and stretched his hands. He would have liked to go for a walk in order to give his mind some ease. But the work on hand made it impossible. The number of letters came barging in an unbroken wave: like a herd of elephants holding to its rank and file. ‘Well, I must not let any request leave unanswered.’ God sighed and went on with his tasks.
The cry went on.
He merely took eyes from his reading and said sadly,”I cannot make it for ages. What shall I do?”
The child slightly turned up the volume.”Oho! hold your horses,”Cried God. He looked left and right and he threw up his hands.“I cannot be everywhere. But his cries harrow me!”
He sent for Mother and said,”Here is the name and the address.”
“Baby Martinez,” she read and queried,” So the child wants a mother. Well you want me to be a nanny?”
“Be kind and think of this much harried Father.” He told in a few words what was expected of her, ”Be mother to a child in need.”
Thus a mother came in a trice to the earth. “Where is that child which God gave me?”
But she heard something stirring and moaning low. She looked in the direction from which the cry came. This was not the cry of the child. Because God had told the child lived in such and such address in that city over there, by a bridge.
She had his address and she knew she had to move on.
In the night under a starry sky stood a farm, which was broken down. And a barn stood still smouldering. She heard the cry just as she heard earlier. It came low and so continuous as if some one was in pain. Such pain that cannot go by itself. She felt something strange within. “God made me a mother to some child in pain.” She would have liked to leave but that cry touched her heart. “I shall be quick about this. Then I will be gone on my errand.”
In that darkness she looked to her left and and to her right. The farm was completely bare. The cry did not come from the farm she decided. That cry went on. A plaintive cry it was and it came from the barn. She knew it. Quickly she went into the barn or whatever remained of it. A cow lay in shadows. In that cloudless night she saw her head and two large moist eyes. A few stars winked here and there. She knew from one look what hurt her. She bent down and checked her. “Yes she was giving birth to a calf and something stopped her.” She hesitated, ”Should I dirty myself in lending my hand to this beast? It is for her owner to worry about.” She remembered the burnt-down farm. She knew the cow would die if she did not relieve her distress. Also her calf. ‘What shall I do?’ She felt sorry. She remembered what she was there on the earth for. “I must attend to the child who cries still.” Yet she pitied that helpless calf . ‘I shall not waste time, no more than what is necessary.’
Down to her knees she went and in the cover of darkness she did all she could. It was sufficient. She pulled out the calf which was wet and slithery. Instantly the calf was being attended to by its mother. Nothing else mattered anymore. With grunts of pleasure the beast licked her calf dry. ‘Thlaak! Thlaak!” the cow went on with her fat tongue; and oh how she swatted with her tail every insect which came closer.
The mother silenly removed herself from there.
To her dismay she had arrived on the outskirts of El Kobe a town that was in turmoil. Soldiers had just combed the place thoroughly and took away all the able bodied men. Women were crying desolate and old hags huddled here and there like zombies. One woman seeing the stranger spat out,” Have you come down dressed to the nines for your fun? See our misery and be entertained.”
The mother felt it like stab to her vitals. She went to her disregarding her spite and indiscreet words.” Consider me as a sister. I am also a woman like you.”
“ Oh yes. But what do you know of loss or sorrow?” She wept. The mother quietly put her arms around her,” Shh.I shall try to make you feel good.” She sat there while the rest of the women slowly approached her and they knew she for all her well- fed looks and strange clothes was one of them. She heard them all and did her best to raise their spirits. “I know a war eats up her own children and leaves a rotten trail of misery.”
Suddenly she stood up to say,” It struck me. I am seeking a child in particular. I must be on the way.” But it was easier said than done. There were many such heartbreaking moments as she had witnessed in El Kobe. Much as she tried to bring peace and quietness to those in distress she could not. Time, cruel time was very strident in dinning into her ears,” Baby Martinez! Get up and go to him.” At last she wrenched herself free and walked away.
She could see the bridge ahead in shadows. She hastened to the address, which God had given her. But before she crossed the river that separated the new from the old part of the town, some soldiers came and arrested her.
“We have suspicions, woman.” They took her to the camp and before their commanding officer and said what the charge was. The captain in his splendid uniform heard what his men had to say. He nodded gravely and dismissed them. He turned to her and said,”You are a spy who has come in the stealth of night. You were sent by our enemies. Are you not?”
The mother took out a piece of paper on which stood the name of the child and his address. The captain jumped with a wild gleam in his eyes.
“ Rafael Martinez!” he cried with passion,” This very man we are after. We have been promised millions for catching him dead or alive!“ He laughed,”10 millions pesos in bounty!”
Suddenly he slumped with his laughter curdled; and blood was all over the floor. At that moment a horde of warriors stole into the courtyard through smoke and cries. They came where the captain lay dead. They came where only a woman stood in the middle surrounded by dead men. Their leader a wild desperado who saved her asked what on earth she was being held there for. She said all that she knew. While his soldiers cleared the dead bodies the chief looked at the slip of paper and said in a wonder.”I am Martinez. The address is also correct!”
“O son, I am sent. Don’t ask me from where. I am here.”
But the wild man in fatigues stained with blood and grime shrank from her reach. Having got over his shock he said with short laugh,” I cried my heart out, once, for a mother.”
“How strange?”he sighed.
The End
God was very busy. But he heard the cry just the same. He knew a child was calling for attention. He turned to all those papers piled high before him. He said: “I cannot make it today. What shall I do?”
He bravely tried to finish as much as he could. But more papers came pouring in, all requests which brooked no delay. He cried: “I cannot make it tomorrow either. I cannot make for next week, either.”
The child went on crying, without let up. ”What shall I do?” His face told it all.
God looked weary, and bleary eyed too. I guess from reading so many requests, written in a scrawl made his eyes swim. He blinked; and stretched his hands. He would have liked to go for a walk in order to give his mind some ease. But the work on hand made it impossible. The number of letters came barging in an unbroken wave: like a herd of elephants holding to its rank and file. ‘Well, I must not let any request leave unanswered.’ God sighed and went on with his tasks.
The cry went on.
He merely took eyes from his reading and said sadly,”I cannot make it for ages. What shall I do?”
The child slightly turned up the volume.”Oho! hold your horses,”Cried God. He looked left and right and he threw up his hands.“I cannot be everywhere. But his cries harrow me!”
He sent for Mother and said,”Here is the name and the address.”
“Baby Martinez,” she read and queried,” So the child wants a mother. Well you want me to be a nanny?”
“Be kind and think of this much harried Father.” He told in a few words what was expected of her, ”Be mother to a child in need.”
Thus a mother came in a trice to the earth. “Where is that child which God gave me?”
But she heard something stirring and moaning low. She looked in the direction from which the cry came. This was not the cry of the child. Because God had told the child lived in such and such address in that city over there, by a bridge.
She had his address and she knew she had to move on.
In the night under a starry sky stood a farm, which was broken down. And a barn stood still smouldering. She heard the cry just as she heard earlier. It came low and so continuous as if some one was in pain. Such pain that cannot go by itself. She felt something strange within. “God made me a mother to some child in pain.” She would have liked to leave but that cry touched her heart. “I shall be quick about this. Then I will be gone on my errand.”
In that darkness she looked to her left and and to her right. The farm was completely bare. The cry did not come from the farm she decided. That cry went on. A plaintive cry it was and it came from the barn. She knew it. Quickly she went into the barn or whatever remained of it. A cow lay in shadows. In that cloudless night she saw her head and two large moist eyes. A few stars winked here and there. She knew from one look what hurt her. She bent down and checked her. “Yes she was giving birth to a calf and something stopped her.” She hesitated, ”Should I dirty myself in lending my hand to this beast? It is for her owner to worry about.” She remembered the burnt-down farm. She knew the cow would die if she did not relieve her distress. Also her calf. ‘What shall I do?’ She felt sorry. She remembered what she was there on the earth for. “I must attend to the child who cries still.” Yet she pitied that helpless calf . ‘I shall not waste time, no more than what is necessary.’
Down to her knees she went and in the cover of darkness she did all she could. It was sufficient. She pulled out the calf which was wet and slithery. Instantly the calf was being attended to by its mother. Nothing else mattered anymore. With grunts of pleasure the beast licked her calf dry. ‘Thlaak! Thlaak!” the cow went on with her fat tongue; and oh how she swatted with her tail every insect which came closer.
The mother silenly removed herself from there.
To her dismay she had arrived on the outskirts of El Kobe a town that was in turmoil. Soldiers had just combed the place thoroughly and took away all the able bodied men. Women were crying desolate and old hags huddled here and there like zombies. One woman seeing the stranger spat out,” Have you come down dressed to the nines for your fun? See our misery and be entertained.”
The mother felt it like stab to her vitals. She went to her disregarding her spite and indiscreet words.” Consider me as a sister. I am also a woman like you.”
“ Oh yes. But what do you know of loss or sorrow?” She wept. The mother quietly put her arms around her,” Shh.I shall try to make you feel good.” She sat there while the rest of the women slowly approached her and they knew she for all her well- fed looks and strange clothes was one of them. She heard them all and did her best to raise their spirits. “I know a war eats up her own children and leaves a rotten trail of misery.”
Suddenly she stood up to say,” It struck me. I am seeking a child in particular. I must be on the way.” But it was easier said than done. There were many such heartbreaking moments as she had witnessed in El Kobe. Much as she tried to bring peace and quietness to those in distress she could not. Time, cruel time was very strident in dinning into her ears,” Baby Martinez! Get up and go to him.” At last she wrenched herself free and walked away.
She could see the bridge ahead in shadows. She hastened to the address, which God had given her. But before she crossed the river that separated the new from the old part of the town, some soldiers came and arrested her.
“We have suspicions, woman.” They took her to the camp and before their commanding officer and said what the charge was. The captain in his splendid uniform heard what his men had to say. He nodded gravely and dismissed them. He turned to her and said,”You are a spy who has come in the stealth of night. You were sent by our enemies. Are you not?”
The mother took out a piece of paper on which stood the name of the child and his address. The captain jumped with a wild gleam in his eyes.
“ Rafael Martinez!” he cried with passion,” This very man we are after. We have been promised millions for catching him dead or alive!“ He laughed,”10 millions pesos in bounty!”
Suddenly he slumped with his laughter curdled; and blood was all over the floor. At that moment a horde of warriors stole into the courtyard through smoke and cries. They came where the captain lay dead. They came where only a woman stood in the middle surrounded by dead men. Their leader a wild desperado who saved her asked what on earth she was being held there for. She said all that she knew. While his soldiers cleared the dead bodies the chief looked at the slip of paper and said in a wonder.”I am Martinez. The address is also correct!”
“O son, I am sent. Don’t ask me from where. I am here.”
But the wild man in fatigues stained with blood and grime shrank from her reach. Having got over his shock he said with short laugh,” I cried my heart out, once, for a mother.”
“How strange?”he sighed.
The End
Sunday 1 June 2008
Politics
“Expediency always shows its public face that is acceptable to the majority while you hold another, a private opinion. Politics is the sleight of hand by which what is private taken for the other.”
2.
“Oil that keeps nations moving or as a commodity, for which nations may go to war shouldn’t be left in a well”.
benny
2.
“Oil that keeps nations moving or as a commodity, for which nations may go to war shouldn’t be left in a well”.
benny
Practical Matters
Haroun al-Rashid once was moving through the poor Quarters of Baghdad. His trusted servant Ja’afar was with him as always and they were in disguise.
At one place the Caliph noticed the bread seller and his staff of life: Rings of breads had become larger while bread had become smaller. He sold them from the staff he carried around. The king called up the vendor and pointed out that the weight of the bread was lesser and asked why he had kept the price same as before. The man explained the price of wheat was high and he had to reduce the quantity of bread in order to stay in business.
The ruler later sat down in a coffee house. The owner saw they were strangers and put fancy prices on the fare. Ja’afar looked at his master meaningfully and the Caliph called the owner to his side and asked quietly if the prices were not rather high.
Bowing deeply the owner explained he had to charge extra because of the name. "People from all lands, even like you sirs, when they pass by they stop here. The Name sells. So I have been constrained to ask extra.”
Al-Rashid could understand. Later as they went back to the palace Ja’afar asked, “Master you are the king of kings. Who on earth can match you in glory?. Must you then go about in disguise?”
The Caliph of Baghdad sighed and explained, “ Let us be practical. In disguise I learn what is wrong with my kingdom.”
benny thomas
At one place the Caliph noticed the bread seller and his staff of life: Rings of breads had become larger while bread had become smaller. He sold them from the staff he carried around. The king called up the vendor and pointed out that the weight of the bread was lesser and asked why he had kept the price same as before. The man explained the price of wheat was high and he had to reduce the quantity of bread in order to stay in business.
The ruler later sat down in a coffee house. The owner saw they were strangers and put fancy prices on the fare. Ja’afar looked at his master meaningfully and the Caliph called the owner to his side and asked quietly if the prices were not rather high.
Bowing deeply the owner explained he had to charge extra because of the name. "People from all lands, even like you sirs, when they pass by they stop here. The Name sells. So I have been constrained to ask extra.”
Al-Rashid could understand. Later as they went back to the palace Ja’afar asked, “Master you are the king of kings. Who on earth can match you in glory?. Must you then go about in disguise?”
The Caliph of Baghdad sighed and explained, “ Let us be practical. In disguise I learn what is wrong with my kingdom.”
benny thomas
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)