I wonder about the people behind those blurred faces where married couple’s faces should be. Like the couple in this video I just opened by mistake. I wouldn’t have watched it, I don’t think, except the faces were so carefully blurred out. Their anonymity intrigues. Who are these people? They are both wearing rings and seem to know each other. I suppose they could be co-workers, but they are a little too familiar. Co-workers get flirty familiar, but this is banal familiar. He is huffing and puffing and saying sexy things. Would a husband say something that inane with a coworker’s wife? Would a husband leave his socks on with a co-worker’s wife? And what about her? Would a wife make those grunting noises with a co-worker’s husband? I mean the sounds of romantic love they are not. That’s married love.

As is her underwear. If that was a co-worker’s husband and not her own she wouldn’t want the office to know about that underwear. Underthings like those, not to mention his mismatched socks, or that very large yet anatomically correct implement in her hand, are the intimate details that don’t come out till the divorce. Which might not be far off is he doesn’t do any better than he’s doing now. He’s petering out quickly, no pun intended. She is still grunting gamely. It it good? he keeps asking. She lies. They are married. Continue reading →

Finally saw Christopher Lee’s take on Rasputin. Rasputin the Mad Monk is a Hammer flick, a minor classic really, yet not as well known as their horror flicks. Rasputin was a historical character, after all, not supernatural. Yet Lee’s Rasputin is almost as creepy as his Dracula. Thoroughly over the top, sure, but a subtle, chatty French art film of a Rasputin would seem unbelievable. That’s the thing about Rasputin, nothing about him seems real. I can’t even think of another character in recent history as surreal as Rasputin. He’s thoroughly evil, sprung from a Russian fairy tale. You can put your finger on what makes Hitler or Charlie Manson so damn rotten. They are historically and scientifically explainable. But Rasputin? Really? You expect us to believe that? Well, yes. There are pictures, film, memoirs, witnesses. Rasputin existed in twentieth century reality and was documented thoroughly. He existed. Go figure.

Christopher Lee seemed made to order for the role. He certainly had Barbara Shelley’s number. As crazy and ridiculous the story is, it’s unnerving how much of the plot is based on reality. In fact, it stays clear of the really weird facts. You’d need an epic film for that, and David Lean was busy with Dr. Zhivago. A brilliant film, Dr. Zhivago, one of my favorites (I can hear the damn theme in my head as I type), but face it, it cries out for Rasputin. Rod Steiger could have done a great mad monk. A little chunky, maybe, but intense. Oh well. It wasn’t workable. You wouldn’t want a Rasputin pawing Julie Christie. It was unnerving enough with Barbara Shelley. She played a lady in waiting. She kept an eye out for little Alexei, the heir, famously hemophiliac. Those recessive genes kept popping up throughout the royal families of Europe, after fifty generations of cousins sleeping together. Alexei’s bleeding was Rasputin’s ticket into the Hermitage, the imperial residence. The Tsarina worshipped him. Did he bed her in real life? Probably not. There were plenty of others though. Duchesses and cabinet wives, ladies in waiting and silly rich girls. Rasputin got around. St. Petersburg was his paradise. The Great War put him right in center of power. As Russia’s armies were beaten on every front, the Tsarina would consult Rasputin, and she passed on his wisdom to the Tsar. A lot of prayer, a lot of spells. A lot of perks and feats and ambassador’s wives. A well hung man can go far in this world.

At last a couple princes figured with the Russian Empire on the verge of disintegration, it might be time to do in Rasputin. They made a sloppy job of it, poisoned him, shot him, beat him, tied him up and tossed him in the icy Neva River. He fought like a tiger to the end, and unnervingly took forever to die. They recreate much of this in the film, and Christopher Lee is fabulous as an outraged, dying, crazy violent Rasputin. The last we see of him is his corpse sprawled on the ice. The last we see of the real Rasputin is that corpse lying on a sledge, frozen solid, full of bullets, cyanide and legend. Word has it that part of him is in a jar in an erotic museum, but I find that too hard to believe.

Ahem.

Rasputin. Neva say die.

The Informant (1935) is on, with Victor McLaglen in the title spot. One of the all time great big guy on celluloid performances. This is one doomed, dark, depressing, taut film. John Ford was about as far from Monument Valley as you can be. I love these flicks about The Troubles, I was raised hearing these stories and loathing the black and tans before I remember loathing anybody. The British machined gunned the people in the streets they told me. Grandpa put money in the hat at the bar. The queen can kiss my Irish arse, he said after a few too many. No one talked much about the IRA, too many bombings. But you knew where the sympathies were. I remember how he smirked when Mountbatten was blown sky high. Up the Republic, my grandfather would say, and sing the Rose o’ Tralee. His voice cracked where the melody soared. I still stop what I’m doing when I hear the song. I did tonight, early in The Informant, when the lad in the street sings it sweetly, almost spooky. The night is foggy and full of black and tans. They pat him down and he never misses a note. Black and Tans. I taste bile saying the words. When Wallace Ford takes down four of them before they he, Una O’Connor screams, but I cheered. Good boy I said. Up the rebels. Then I trailed off into more memories. Back East. Ribbons of green on St Patrick’s Day. Drunken little jigs and a little bit of heaven. There was no wearing the orange in Grandpa Nelligan’s house. He made me promise. I promised. I still don’t. If you swear it once, you swear it forever. A man is only as good as his word, he told me. I nodded childlike, sagely. Up the Republic he said. Up the Republic.

Victor McLaglen as Gypo Nolan.