Tag Archives: Halloween

Casting Shadows, Part Two

1940s mystery, character development, Claude Rains, Film Actors, Film Noir, Gothic, Horror films, Murder, mystery, Shadows of a Dark Past, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, supernatural, suspense, Val Lewton, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Casting Shadows,  Part Two”

 

Philip Carlyle –  The master of the Carlyle Estate where the Wellstone Mystery Hour is making its remote broadcast, Philip Carlyle has opened his home and the secrets of its past to answer the mystery behind the disappearances of Felicia Blasko and his brother Bill Carlyle.  An engineer and businessman by profession, Philip still nurses the soul of a poet and musician, while holding secrets of his own concerning Felicia.  Embodying Philip requires a man of power, incisive wit and vision, as well as a sympathetic sense of artistry ‒ someone whose fascination with Jessica Minton rings more sad than creepy.  Claude Rains is my choice.  Think of the urbanity and authority of his Victor Grandison in The Unsuspected and the sly, mordant humor in Casablanca’s Inspector Renault.  Then there’s his incisive and forthright authority as Now Voyager’s Dr. Jaquith, tempered by his wry humor and genuine, though never soppy, compassion. Also think about the vulnerable passion of Paul Verin in The Man Who Reclaimed His Head, a quality that burns beneath the wall of authority in Job Skeffington of Mr. Skeffington. That’s the complexity of Philip Carlyle.

 

Jeanne Rivers and Madame Wanda are two ladies who may or may not be whom they seem.

 

Jeanne Rivers is the housekeeper for Philip Carlyle in the mansion that Felicia haunts.  She’s a top sergeant making the place run like clockwork, even managing to banish the indomitable Liz Minton from kitchen gossip fests with the help. Her wit can be acerbic, but she can show warmth and good humor when she’s helpful ‒ a woman of practical advice.  She also has ties to the mansion’s tragic past that could open up its secrets. ­A fine choice to inspire Jeanne is Jean Brooks, leading lady of the RKO B-division.  Brooks has demonstrated a dry and clever wit in such films as The Leopard Man, The Falcon in Hollywood, and The Falcon and the Co-eds. Falcon Tom Conway can’t get by without her popping up somewhere! Further our Ms. Brooks is no stranger to a cinematic world of shadows.  A veteran of Val Lewton’s dark tales, in addition to playing a smart-talking gal in The Leopard Man, Brooks also portrayed the haunted Jacqueline in The Seventh Victim.

 

Madame Wanda – Wanda Hendrix brings more than a first name to Shadows’ medium.  Apple-cheeked and merry-eyed, Hendrix played comedy deftly in films like Miss Tatlock’s Millions and The Admiral Was a Lady.  Thus, Madame Wanda shatters the stereotypes of film mediums as otherworldly, mysterious, and at times even sinister.  Our stylishly outfitted Madame Wanda is quick with a quip to challenge and defeat skepticism about her capabilities, especially from the suspicious Liz Minton and Gerry Davis.  Still, Wanda’s description of her powers and her conjuring of a voice from beyond the pale demonstrate her bona fides for connecting with the supernatural.  Preparing her for the darkness of Shadows, in My Own True Love and Ride the Pink Horse  Hendrix moves through a post-war world now darkened by bitterness, vengeance, and corruption.

Next entry, a look at more of Jessica’s colleagues from the Wellstone Mystery Hour.

Casting Shadows, Part One
Shadows of a Dark Past
Jessica Minton Mysteries
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Images

-Claude Rains  Photo from John Engstead. Star Shots: Fifty Years of  Pictures and Stories by One of Hollywood’s Greatest Photographers. New York:  EP Dutton, 1978. p. 185.

-Jean Brooks in white trenchcoat:  Wikipedia public domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Brooks#/media/File:Jean_Brooks_1940s_fan_photo.jpg

-Jean Brooks in plaid jacket public domain:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean_Brooks_in_The_Falcon_in_Danger_1943.png?uselang=en#Licensing

-Wanda Hendrix photo, Author’s collection

 

October Thrills and Chills with Shadows of a Dark Past!

1940s mystery, book signings and readings, Jean Grant, Jessica Minton, New England, Shadows of a Dark Past, Sisters in crime New England, , , , , , , , , , , ,

October Thrills and Chills with Shadows of a Dark Past!

I had quite the busy Halloween month meeting people and getting the word out about my latest Jessica Minton novel, Shadows of a Dark Past.  October kicked off  when I joined authors Jean M. Grant and Janet Raye Stevens at the Horseshed Fair in Lancaster, MA.  Some friends showed up expressly to get their copy of Shadows hot off the press.  I also sold copies to new readers as well. It was a beautiful sunny and warm day, setting Jessica and Company’s ghostly adventures off to an exciting start.  Here I am with one of my friends from the Shakespeare Club of Worcester, Becky Spanagel.  It was great of Becky and her husband David to drop by to say hello.  By the way, Yang made that purple blouse with the stars and moons that I’m wearing!

Next on the agenda was a Sisters in Crime New England Mystery Making Night at the West Boylston Library, also in Mass.  I had the privilege of working with two good buddies, Janet Raye Stevens and Carol Goodman Kaufman.  I joked to them that with me (Sharon Healy Yang) joining them, it looked as if it was a requirement to have three names to be on the panel .  We had a ball weaving the suggestions of our audience into a tale of murder on a cruise ship involving an ice pick, secret identities, and ice cream.  You had to be there.  I decided to combine the holiday ambience with my 1940s fashions to wear a black and white pin-striped suit, autumn gold blouse, and peaked chapeau that is two-parts wicked witch and two parts 1943 fashion!

I traveled south of the (Mass,) border to Connecticut to do another Sisters in Crime Mystery Making event, this time with Kate Flora.  It ended up just the two of us; however, you can see from the picture that our audience inspired us to a complex and exciting tale.

Later in the month, I joined Janet Raye Stevens and three other writers of the supernatural for “Tales Told in Darkness” in a Lowell Library sponsored event.  We had a good audience, including two of my best buddies from as far back as grammar school, Mary Lou and Kathy.  We all did a reading and I had the thrill of seeing people put down their phones and listen when I read of Jessica’s night time peregrination to a haunted room in the Carlyle manse. Did she dream or did she wake?

 

 

Probably my favorite event was the Book Launch and Reading I did at TidePool Books in Worcester.  It was the night I’d been waiting for!  Would you believe that people from all aspects of my life came?  My teaching years, my writing colleagues, my church, the Shakespeare Club, my old friend from years back!  I was so happy.  And I got to talk about the  films and books from the first half of the 20th century that influenced me with  imagery and atmosphere that was dreamy, eerie, haunting and their tales of obsession, vengeance, and sometimes forgiveness.  People were really interested in the three readings I did:  Jessica’s meeting in a cemetery with the husband of the alleged ghost; the reading I also did in Lowell; and a séance gone horribly wrong. My audience also had great questions about writing, about my characters and research, my writing process.  It was a dream.  One of my former students said that it was like being back in the classroom – and she meant it in a good way!  And it did feel like the good parts of teaching:  sharing ideas, getting people to think,  hearing what they thought.  You can see that I definitely dressed for the occasion.

 

So, this positive note is where I will wrap up.  On to November and December are a little less harried.  If you haven’t already dropped by to say hello and catch Jessica, Liz, and James’s latest adventures, you can come see me at the Narragansett Craft Festival at Narragansett Middle School, Baldwinville, MA on 11/9; the Auburn Holiday Craft Fair at Auburn High School, Auburn, MA (12/14); or Tatnuck Bookseller, Westborough, MA (12/15),  Check my web site here for deatils.  See you then!

Click here for the Shadows web page to see more details on the book and some fun bonuses!

Casting Shadows, as It Were

1940s mystery, Bela Lugosi, Dracula, Film Noir, Gail Russell, Gothic, Halloween, Horror films, Jessica Minton, Murder, mystery, New England, radio, radio drama, radio dramas, Shadows of a Dark Past, supernatiral films, supernatural, suspense, The Black Cat (1934), The Uninivted, Vitus Werdegast, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Casting Shadows, as It Were”

In the past, I’ve posted on how “casting” characters as if they were played by (mostly) classic era actors in my earlier Jessica Minton mysteries helped me  flesh out their characters.  Now  that Shadows of a Dark Past is out, I thought you might enjoy reading about the inspirations for the folks Jessica, Liz, and James encounter on the mysterious Birdsong Island.  So, let’s begin!
When you’re writing a ghost story à la Val Lewton/Edgar Ulmer/ Joseph Lewis, it only makes sense that some of your characters be inspired by star players from those films.  So, with whom to start?  Why not the inspiration for the haunted scientist/widower of Shadows, Vitus Blasko?
Who is a prime prospect to play a man whose obsession with his work cost him his wife and child many years ago?  My choice was one of the premiere players of 1930s/40s horror, especially at Universal:  Bela Lugosi.    “What?!” you exclaim.  “The guy who played those Machiavellian vampires in Dracula (1931) and Return of the Vampire (1945), as well a plethora of sinister scientists?” “You bet!” I reply.  Lugosi also played the tortured and highly sympathetic Dr. Vitus Werdegast in 1934’s The Black Cat.  Here, he’s a doctor who had been sent to a death camp at the end of WWI, costing him his wife and daughter, through the betrayal of Boris Karloff’s Hjalmar  Poelzig.  (Now those are names!)  His intellectual battles with Poelzig may seem sinisterly to threaten a young married couple caught in the middle at Hjalmar’s Frank-Lloyd-Wright-on-LSD designed mansion.  However, Werdegast’s grief over what he has lost and his protection of the couple reveal a sympathetic tenderness in Lugosi’s acting.  In honor of the sensitivity of Lugosi’s performance, I opted to select Vitus for the first name of my haunted scientist from Lugosi’s character in The Black Cat and the last name from Lugosi’s actual family name.

Jamie Blasko:  Jamie, Vitus and the ghostly Felicia’s daughter, has terribly suffered through her mother’s murder (or abandonment?), a broken engagement, and living in a shadow-shrouded manse looking after a father broken by the mistakes of his past.  With a cast member of The Wellstone Mystery Hour offering her the life saver of romance, Jamie has a chance for happiness.  Dare she take it?  The radio program will broadcast shows focusing on that most terrible time: the mystery of her mother’s disappearance.  Can Jamie bear a revival of that scandal and pain?  Will the program provide the answers she needs?  Will she and her father be able to bear those answers?
Soulful-eyed Gail Russell is the natural inspiration of my creation, Jamie Blasko.  In such roles as the haunted daughter determined to embrace the ghostly touch of her mother in The Uninvited or the young woman struggling against the psychic prediction of her death at a fast approaching appointed hour in The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Russell’s gentle demeanor threaded with flashes of piercing anguish embodies the spirit of the Blasko girl.

 

Gerry Davis:  A WWII vet who lost a leg at Anzio, Gerry is a true radio trouper on The Wellstone Mystery Hour, not only playing most of their romantic leads but a host of other parts as the need arises.  Handsome with wavy blondish brown hair and a twinkle in his eye, Gerry’s kind heart and impish wit may be just the ticket to save Jaime Blasko from the darkness shadowing her life.  However, Gerry must overcome the antipathy between Vitus Blasko and the Carlyle family sponsoring these broadcasts of a past tearing apart both families.  For Gerry, I’ve turned to a more modern player for inspiration: Geraint Wyn Davies.  The humor, passion, and intelligence Davies has brought to roles ranging from Shakespeare to the conscience-stricken vampire detective of Forever Knight makes him an ideal choice to inspire Gerry’s good nature and passion  to protect Jamie Blasko.
If you haven’t already, check out my blogs on casting characters in the first three novels of the Jessica Minton Mysteries
Bait and Switch
Letter from a Dead Man
Always Play the Dark Horse

Image Credits
Bela Lugosi images screen shots from The Black Cat (1934), © Universal Pictures.
First Gail Russell Image:  Screen Shot from The Uninvited (1944) © Paramount Pictures.
Second Gail Russell Image Public Domain from Wikkipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gail_Russell_postcard_photo_circa_1950s.jpg
Geraint Wynn Davies image a portion of Lady Vamp’s Forever Knight Site, http://www.foreverknight.org/LadyVampKnight1228/home.html

If any violation of copyright has been inadvertently committed by my posting or re-posting these images, let me know and I will remove them.
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Live! And on the Air!: Shadows of a Dark Past!

1940s mystery, Always Play the Dark Horse, Autumn, Bait and Switch, Fall, Film Actors, Film Noir, Gothic, Halloween, Jessica Minton, Joan Bennett, Letter from a Dead Man, mystery, New Hampshire, radio, radio drama, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, supernatural, suspense, The War of the Worlds, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
In my first novel, Bait and Switch, heroine Jessica Minton starts out as a moderately successful stage actress.  So why did I switch her from the stage to the radio as I continued the series with  Letter from a Dead Man?  Well, there are two reasons.  First of all, radio work gave Jessica more free time to join her sister Liz in unraveling mysteries.  However, the second reason is far more interesting.  I’ve always been fascinated by the imaginative entertainment radio provided Americans for almost five decades. The more I delved into how shows were written and produced; what made some actors excel and others bomb when playing to an audience over the airwaves; the way audiences were engaged, even enthralled, by the “theatre of the mind,” the more possibilities I could see this environment inspiring in a mystery.

My first awareness of radio entertainment of the classic 1920s-50s came from old movies of the ’30s through ’50s that I watched on TV as a child – a very young child.  I loved the excitement of actors and musicians, quiz contestants, and newscasters performing before live audiences.  I was so influenced by what I saw that I was close to six or seven before realizing that the music I heard on the radio was not being performed live at the local radio studio. Until that epiphany, I had been dearly puzzled by how the Beatles and Supremes could get from Lowell to Lawrence, MA in a matter if minutes! 

As I got older, read more, and watched movie and TV portrayals of radio with a deeper understanding, I learned more about the intricacies of production – including writing, directing, acting, and sound effects creation, which made me even more fascinated.  Books such as The Great American Radio Broadcast, Terror on the Air, Suspense, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, and The I Love a Mystery Companion  revealed to me the behind the scene creation of programs such as Inner Sanctum, Lux Radio Theatre, Suspense, and I Love a Mystery, to name a few – from initial inspiration and pitching of a show to sponsors, to the intense schedule for writing and rehearsing, to actors’ perspective on radio performing, to audience reactions.  I was especially intrigued by how special sound effects, combined with an audience’s willing imagination, were such a powerful force in creating reality:  coconut shells became pounding hooves, a stabbed melon was transformed into a fatally impaled human, a flushing toilet could be modified to become space invaders’ horrific weapons, or a heart beat might be created with a rubber sponge, a turn table, and a stylus (Maltin 108)!  Of course, there were also the ultra realists like Jack Webb whom Leonard Maltin reveals created the sounds of passing cars on Los Feliz Blvd. at 2:30 a.m. by having a sound man go out and record passing cars at 2:30 a.m. on Los Feliz Blvd. (Great American Radio Broadcast 100).

One source that especially galvanized my interest was Rupert Holmes’s Remember WENN (the real first original AMC series).  This delightful program traced the adventures of a Mid-West small-town girl who makes it to the big city (sort of), Pittsburgh, and starts as writer but soon finds the hectic demands of the station moving her swiftly into the roles of director; producer; business manager; and, occasionally, actress.  With humor that is sometimes whimsical, but always clever, Remember Wenn joyfully captures the seat-of-your-pants spirit at a radio station that characterized how this medium entertained and delighted audiences.

Whether in Remember Wenn or in the books I read, I especially loved learning how actors had the pleasure of playing an enormous catalogue of roles because we created their characters in our minds on the inspiration of their voices.  That’s how a short, chubby chap could become a strapping western marshal or a middle-aged man could mentally materialize as a kindly old grandmother in the theatre of our minds!  Or we got to “see” our favorite actors playing roles they never had a chance to have a crack at on the screen.  For example, as a Joan Bennett fan, I was delighted to catch her deftly cracking wise in Rosalind Russell’s part in Hired Wife or seductively manipulating Burt Lancaster in Barbara Stanwyck’s role in Double Indemnity. 

And short stories or novels were brought alive for us as well – especially Orson Welles’s infamous trick more that treat, War of the Worlds.  Both situations inspired me to think about what fun it would be to take some of my favorite horror or mystery stories or even movies and imagine them as venues for Jessica to strut her thespian stuff.  So, in Dead Man, Jess gets to talk about doing “A Rose for Emily” and “The Dunwich Horror”; in Dark Horse, we have reference to her playing in “The Horla.”

 

In Jessica’s most recent adventure, Shadows of a Dark Past, I’ve centered the story around her work on a remote broadcast in a haunted New Hampshire mansion (somewhat inspired by Charlie Chan in the Wax Museum). Attempting to drum up ratings, her director/producer Scott plans to reopen the tragedy of a woman’s tragic disappearance, and likely murder, in this mansion twenty years before.  The owner of the mansion, the husband of the woman reputed to be the ghost, her daughter, and others in the town who remember the event have dangerously mixed emotions about the broadcast.  And Jessica finds that she has a disturbing connection to the woman in question.  Then there’s the Hound of Hell. The topper is when things go horribly wrong in a séance recorded for later transmission.

In a book still in the outline stage, the plot revolves around Jessica’s work in the studio with some members of the writing team who are dangerously not what they seem. It’s Dusty who sets the plot in motion! So, don’t change that station!  I plan to bring you more exciting installments of the adventures of Jessica, Liz, James, and Dusty in and out of the studio!

 

If you’re looking for some films to give you a flavor of radio at its most exciting and mystery-inspiring, check out Charlie Chan in the Wax Museum (1940),  Abbott and Costello’s Who Done It? (1942), Danger on the Air (1938), The Hucksters (1949), That’s Right, You’re Wrong (1939), The Big Broadcast of 1938, Playmates (1941) The Frozen Ghost (1945), Radioland Murders (1994 – George Lucas directing, no less), and The Scarlet Clue (1945).  For a sardonic look at the effects of Orson Welles’s broadcast of War of the Worlds, have a chuckle at Hullabaloo (1940); and for a (mostly) more serious look, watch The Night That Panicked America (1975).

Image of Orson Welles directing:  Broadcasting play:  https://musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog/2022/10/07/the-night-that-panicked-america-1975-is-a-little-seen-tv-movie-about-the-greatest-halloween-prank-ever-played/

Screen shot of  soundman and toilet from The dvd The Night That Panicked America,CBS Studios, (c) 2014

Image of Melinda Mullins from AMC Movie Magazine.

Image of Joan Bennett, Dusty, and Jessica Minton, author’s collection

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Take That One Step Beyond

Autumn, Gothic, Halloween, horror television, horror tv, John Newland, One Step Beyond, supernatural, , , , , , , ,
Recently, I caught actor/director John Newland in a 1948 Bulldog Drummond movie, Thirteen Lead Soldiers.  That appearance piqued a craving to see more of Newland in a TV program that those of us growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s knew, One Step Beyond.  So, for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been re-watching the program on my Alpha Video editions.  A perfect treat to prime me for the Halloween holidays.

What is One Step Beyond?  Well, the half-hour (23-5 minutes sans commercial) was one of the early horror anthologies of the time period I mentioned above – right in there with The Twilight Zone, Thriller, and (just a little behind these) The Outer Limits (original version).  All filmed in glorious black and white.  Part of what made One Step Beyond stand out from the others was that its stories were all allegedly true, taken from “the records of human history.” So, the crippled woman calling out for help at the immanent impact of a tidal wave is rescued by and rescues the only one who hears her, a deaf man whose disability leaves him unaware of the blaring warning sirens.  A turn-of-the-century young wife is haunted by premonitions of deadly blazes set by a twin to whom she seems to be psychically attuned. A pilot radios back that he’s seeing something astonishing of the UFO variety, disappears for several days, then miraculously reappears hundreds of miles beyond the range of his prop plane before dying.  A bellhop repeatedly has visions of the rooms and buildings around him crumbling in an earthquake – in San Francisco, 1905.  No one believes him, and then it’s too late.  A German submarine sets out to sea as the Third Reich crumbles, with hammering and thumping in between hulls haunting it – only for a skeleton to be found between hulls holding a wrench twenty years later.  A night-school teacher receives a cameo as a gift from an awkward student, then finds whenever she writes on blackboard or paper that her hand is possessed to write in a foreign language she doesn’t know but is native to her gift-giver – all of which puts her at risk from him at what the writing reveals.

John Newland, himself, adds a unique touch.  Neither skeptical like Serling nor sinister like Karloff (Thriller), he talks to us calmly, almost warmly, all the while undercutting our “logical” explanations, raising questions with his knowledge of experts on “bilocation,” “psychometry,” “telepathy,” “precognition,” etc.  Then he ends with a warm smile, reassuring us – or maybe slyly enjoying having destabilized our certainties.

 

One Step Beyond may be less disturbing than its fellow horror shows for another reason.  Usually, the supernatural events occur to set right murder or injustice, give voice to the oppressed, reunite estranged spouses or families, rescue those in danger, or give comfort the suffering.  UXB guy William Shatner manages to see his wife one last time under unusual circumstances when she is pregnant. A wife leads her husband to their son trapped in a mine, only the rescuers also find her dead body trapped in that same mine. A psychic bond leads a wife to find her husband trapped under a car in rising waters, while the spirits of three neglected children reunite a child with her estranged father.  More unnerving but still equitable, ghosts mete out justice to their murderers who have left them on a mountain to die, sent them off to die on a patrol ambushed by Indians, poisoned them to marry a mistress, or disguised their killing as suicide.  Still, there are enough threatening, even unjust, experiences recounted to make us wonder just how reassuring John Newland’s smile is.  All her premonitions about being caught on a sinking boat doesn’t save a young bride’s husband from death on the Titanic.  The poor bellhop with premonitions of the San Francisco quake dies, even if his warnings do save that adorable old Italian couple.  How about the woman whose twin sister appeared to be setting fatal conflagrations – did she really merit for her fate? Did photographer Cloris Leachman ask to be chased around her apartment by the maniacal ghost of the guy who murdered his wife many years ago? No wonder she moved to Minneapolis and changed her name to Phyllis Lindstrom!

The program also has an intriguing roster of guest stars.  There are up-and-comers:  William Shatner, Louise Fletcher (!),Warren Beatty (!!!), Charles Bronson, Elizabeth Montgomery, Suzanne Pleshette, Patrick McNee, Robert Blake, Mike Conners, Werner Klemperer, Cloris Leachman, and Robert Lansing – to name a few.  Then there are some folks who were once big or relatively big names: Joan Fontaine, Anna Lee, Patty McCormick, Carl Esmond, Ron Randall, and Catherine McCleod.  Bob Newhart’s father-in-law, Bill Quinn, makes a few appearances, too – as well as lots of sixties stalwarts like William Schallert, Joanne Linville, Ed Platt, Johnny Seven, Warren Stevens, Scott Marlowe, and Jan Miner. Those of you who know your TV supporting players and later stars will have a blast identifying them.

Other folks I know who have seen One Step Beyond pretty much all agree on one point.  The really scary thing about the program wasn’t the stories, the acting, the visuals, even John Newland.  It was the damned music!  That darned theme, appropriately named “Weird” by composer Arthur Lubin, sent chills coursing through out bodies!  Then there was “Fear”:  once its bars snaked into hearing, you knew something creepy was afoot – but more powerful was that their sinuous, haunting snake up your spine.  I’ll tell you, when I was a little kid and my bedtime was 7:00, there were only two shows that I could see worth watching (long before cable!):  first One Step Beyond, then The Twilight Zone.  No wonder I slept with a night light until I was thirty-seven.

So, here, to set your October off in the right mood are  links to “Fear” and “Weird”.  Listen – if you dare!  But be sure to put on a sweater first – chills up the spine, you know!

 

Some Episodes that I highly recommend”

“The Promise”

“The Dark Room”

“Reunion”

“The Dead Part of the House”

“Ordeal on Locust Street”

“Deadringer”

“The Explorer”

“The Death Waltz”

“To Know the End”

John Newland Image:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/John_Newland_-_1959_%28One_Step_Beyond%29.jpg

Images from episodes are screen shots of public domain episodes and cover of Alpha Videos art work; author’s collection

Halloween at the Yang’s – BOO!

Autumn, black cat, Cemeteries, Gothic, Halloween, Hallpween Decorations, massachusetts, New England, , , , , ,
It wouldn’t be Halloween on my street without our yearly decorations for the holiday.  Some of you friends are far away and can’t enjoy the view.  So, If you’d like to pay a call on – the Yang fam-i-ly, make a virtual stop right here. Turn right up our driveway!  See the number and your official greeter?

 

 

 

Just keep driving right past the lamp post, where another welcoming spook will let you know that you’re in the right place.  Aren’t those white mums lovely?  They go perfectly with the ghost’s robes, don’t they?

 

 

 

 

Pull into your parking space and enjoy a greeting from these lovely ladies.  They just love the camera! I guess the redhead is a little shy.

 

 

 

 

Don’t forget to wave to the dancing ghosts.  They adore the fall foliage colors. Maybe they’ll let you join in their little circle – for ETERNITY!
Of course, there are lots of other friends to see at the Yang House of Haunts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we mustn’t forget that sweet little front-yard cemetery, full of delightful souls to meet, eh?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder what witty little jest these two are sharing?

 

 

 

 

 

Then, as you leave after night falls, things get a bit shadier, as it were.

BOO!

 

 

 

 

Phasing in from another dimension, no doubt.  The Old Ones send their regards.

Here’s another ghostie making some interdimensional  night moves. That old devil moon glows ominously in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

Ready to join in the dance, yet?

 

 

 

 

 

Some other darkling friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Y’all come back now.

 

 

 

 

 

Remember, Natasha says that monsters need love, too.

 

Made for TV Horror 2: The Night That Panicked America

John Ritter, Orson Welles, radio dramas, The Night That Panicked America, The War of the Worlds, Uncategorized, Vic Morrow, , , , , , , , , , ,

The Night That Panicked America

October 30, 1938:  across the nation, Americans were sent into a frenzy of terror when they

mistook Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre broadcast of The War of the Worlds for the real thing.  Why did so many people run terrified, believing a radio program of a Martian invasion was actually happening?  One wag answered, “Because all the intelligent people were listening to Charlie McCarthy” (ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s dummy) on another station.  Historians and social psychologists see some far less funny causes at play:  American’s very real fears of invasion after the devouring of Europe and Asia by fascist powers as well as anxiety over economic and social tensions.  The radio play embodied and thus brought to the surface the very fears so many Americans were trying to suppress: our nation’s weakness instability in the face of invasion by alien German and Japanese.  The 1975 television film The Night That Panicked America effectively conveys this insight by interweaving storylines of the radio show’s production and broadcast with the reactions of Americans across the country.

Opening with a view of the earth from outer space, calmly tracking in to it, director Joseph Sargent evokes H.G. Wells’s opening to his novel War of the Worlds.  The film further establishes the links between a world on the verge of world war and a world about to suffer Martian invasion with a narrator intoning the state of earth’s conflicts in language similar to Wells’s novel.  The background of broadcasts of war news and Nazi rallies establishes radio’s power to show the impossibility of denying the fearsome inevitability of world war. 

Next comes a switch to the pre-production frenzy of putting on a radio program, following producer/director Paul Stewart into the broadcasting station and up the elevator to the studio with a network standards and practices rep hammering at him to keep things uncontroversial, then into the studio where he’s pulling together script changes and pressing the sound effects woman to create something ominous.  It’s an exciting vision of how live radio performances came together: actors, scripts, sound effects, orchestra, directing battling against time, censors, and technical limitations.  If you think about it, though, all this rush and pressure to make things perfect right up to the last minute also mirrors the sense of tension and uncertainty in the country itself.  A nice hint at the unspoken realization of the tinderbox of American fears is the S & P guy (Tom Bosley) insisting that they can’t have Roosevelt as part of the story; they have to go down all the way down to the Secretary of the Interior.  It’s never uttered, but, of course, having “Roosevelt” in their play about a devastating invasion lends it too much authenticity.  And isn’t it much less scary if you skip past vice presidents, speakers of the house, secretaries of state all the way down to Secretary of the Interior.  (Welles gets past this by agreeing to substitute Secretary of the Interior for the President, but he sounds like Roosevelt). Art liberates attempts to suppresses reality.

The stories interwoven with the broadcast are sometimes humorous, yet they also bring home that this radio play brought to the surface fears and uncertainties, not just about war but about belief in American exceptionalism.  John Ritter and Michael Constantine are son and father who are farmers at Grovers Mills, the site of the invasion according to the play.  Joining up with others to defend their country from invaders, the son sees his father and other farmers shoot up — a water tower.  This does not amuse the owner.  However, this son, who has been arguing he wants to go to Canada to join up and fight against Hitler before the war came to America, is the one who figures out this is only a radio program and tries to stop the others from acting hysterically.  The fellow who admits that half the world is in flames is clear-eyed enough to recognize a real danger, while those who try to live in denial find their fears breaking free of suppression to control them.

Other examples are especially interesting.  Two servants had been listening to the radio before their wealthy employer’s party.  So, they know that it’s only a play — which their general perspicuity would have told them anyway.  However, the snobby employer and  his equally snobby friends, frivolous, self-important, and even a little impressed with Hitler, buy into the program lock, stock, and Martian cylinder.  Their self-satisfied ignorance practically hits you over the head as the employer keeps refusing to listen when the butler tries to tell him it’s only a play.  Equally snobbish and obtuse, one of the guests decides the whole thing must be real because the professor reporting is touted as being from Yale — a fictional professor.  Eventually, the crowd of airhead snobs rushes off into the night, stealing their hosts valuables, while the servants chill, finishing off the hors d’oervres and champagne.

Not all the stories are amusing, however.  Will Geer is a Protestant minister who won’t let his daughter marry a Papist infidel, fearing a religious alien invasion.  His bigoted form of faith isno comfort when he believes aliens will destroy him and he loses his sanity for a time.  Perhaps the most poignant tale involves a middle-class family where the father (Vic Morrow) is leaving the wife (Eileen Brennan) and children to “go look for work,” but the suggestion is that he can’t handle supporting his family emotionally as well as financially any longer.  The American dream of family stability and work’s inherent dignity and security has fallen apart.  The fear of the family dying in the invasion pulls husband and wife together in an attempt to take their children to safety, until what they perceive as the approaching alien ship with its horrific heat rays draws them into the decision that mercy-killing the children is their only option.

Anyway, it’s an exciting film to watch that gives you something to think about.  I loved seeing all the clever improvisation and creativity of putting on a live broadcast.  Perhaps you have heard how the sound person created the menacing unscrewing of the Martian cylinders by having her assistant unscrew a pickle jar in a toilet in the men’s room to get just the right reverb?  Paul Shenar was dead on in his reading of Orson Welles’s sign off for the play, as the Mercury Theatre’s trick and treat. I especially liked that the writers (including Nicholas Mayer and Howard Koch, a writer on the original script) left me considering how suppressing rather than facing what unsettles us in this world actually leaves us prone to that that which we try to suppress.  If this can happen unintentionally by creative writers, actors, and technicians, what can deliberate manipulation through something like AI do, if we haven’t faced and come truly to understand the contentions of our world?

31 Oct 1938 — Actor Orson Welles explains the radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds to reporters after it caused widespread panic. — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

For an informative essay on the film, click here.

Images:

Broadcasting play:  https://musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog/2022/10/07/the-night-that-panicked-america-1975-is-a-little-seen-tv-movie-about-the-greatest-halloween-prank-ever-played/

Dvd cover Image CBS Studios (c) 2014

Orson Welled news conference:  Public Domain image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Orson_Welles_War_of_the_Worlds_1938.jpg

All screen shots are from The dvd The Night That Panicked America,CBS Studios, (c) 2014

 

Return to Riverside Cemetery: Autumn Leaves Bursting with Color

Autumn, Cemeteries, Connecticut, CT, Fall, Foliage, Gothic, Halloween, mausoleum, New England, tomb stones, Uncategorized, Waterbury, , , , , , , , , , , ,
This past October. we returned to the Riverside Cemetery in Waterbury with hopes of seeing the statuary complemented by gorgeous fall colors.  Yang and I were not disappointed!

The entrance was serene and gracious, with background colors hinting at the beauty we would find beyond.

The highlight that these fall colors brought t o the monuments was deliciously melancholy.  The leaves behind this woman leaning on a cross brought forth the saffron beauty of autumn.

 

 

 

 

 

Then there was the flame of orange encompassing this melancholy dame, flaring against the shadows of a of grey autumn day.

 

 

 

 

 

Or there was this lone, proud figure fronting a brilliant crimson of oak trees.

I loved this shot from behind of the woman gazing out over the rolling hills of autumn glory.

I think this deer must feel at home, encompassed by the gorgeous green morphing to yellow-gold of fall.

Likewise, this pensive young woman is lost in deep thought while greens turn to flame and yellow-green.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was especially enchanted by so many trees that combined various colors as their leaves slowly shut down the ports to chlorophyll and let their true hues burst froth in brilliant glory.

Green and Gold

 

 

 

 

 

Orange and Red, like a flame reaching heavenward.

And then, some trees seemed to  us gifted with four colors at once!

Well, maybe that’s a Japanese maple photo bombing the sugar maple.

Just gazing across the cemetery, you see slopes rolling with gorgeous fall glory:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trees were so gorgeous, Yang decided to stick one in his back pack to carry it home.

Just kidding:  optical illusion.

 

I particularly loved this sage woman’s pensive and imposing presence, her blue-green copper complementing the reds and greens of the trees behind her.

And that, my friends, is all she wrote.

 

 

An Autumn Walk in St. John’s Cemetery

Autumn, birds, catbirds, Cemeteries, chickadee, Don't Blink, Eastern Kingbird, Foliage, Gothic, hawks, massachusetts, Nature, New England, Redtail Hawk, St. John's Cemetery, Worcester, , , , , , , , ,
Between Halloween and fall foliage, October seems the perfect month to post blogs on my cemetery visits.  St. John’s Cemetery is one of my favorites, a beautiful rural setting that was just starting to put on display its lovely autumn colors.  Unlike the rolling hills of some Romantic-style cemeteries, the layout is fairly flat, but it has a plethora of  old trees providing shade in summer and wonderful colors in the fall.  A river runs alongside with all kinds of  brush that serves as home to many different birds.
There is plenty of beautiful statuary in this cemetery, as well.  Some of it shows magnificently against the backdrop of autumn’s leafy splendor.  Here we’ve got Jesus.
And here we have a sad woman shouldering the sacred cross, perhaps striving to lift the burden from Christ’s shoulders with repenting her sins.
There are so many beautiful statues here celebrating Catholic figures of holiness-many of which you won’t find in non-Catholic cemeteries.  We found many different versions of the Virgin Mary.  These are some  especially interesting ones.  This monument evokes the Infant of Prague motif.

 

 

These other two images of Mary are intriguing as well.  The first figure reminds me of Our Lady or Lourdes or of Fatima.  The second shows her crowned Queen of Earth and the Heavens, with the Christ child.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The images of angels were fascinating, too.  I love this relief that seems to show Saint Michael, sword in hand, ready for Someone Special.

 

 

 

 

 

However this exquisite carving of an angel struck me the deepest.  I’m including more than one shot, I’m so impressed with it.  Look at the deep contemplation in the features.  What is this angel thinking?  Brooding on the fall of some many angels and humans once bright with promise?  Or is there a trace of a smile in the subtle shaping of his cheeks and lips?  Take time to delight in how the material of his gown seems to drape gracefully as a part of his body.  What does he hold tucked behind?  A sword or a staff?  The features are so gracefully, believably carved that not a single Dr. Who fan would blink in his presence.

 

I’m just not sure who this saint is.  He’s in monk’s robes, so it can’t be Joseph-and no baby Jesus. There are no animals around, so it wouldn’t be Saint Francis.  No baby Jesus on his shoulder-not St. Christopher.  Maybe St. Anthony or St. Peter?  He is holding a cross, the way Peter was martyred, but what about the skull?

 

 

There are other wonderful statues that are not of Saints, much in line with what you’d expect in any cemetery.  Behold this piece that looks like a cathedral.

 

 

 

 

Then there are some lovely statues of women, like this one of a mother reading from a book to her daughter. The book is probably a Bible, but I like to think of it as something by C. Brontë.  Charlotte was actually pretty spiritual.
You can also find some impressive examples of Celtic Crosses in this cemetery, some with intricate relief designs carved on them.  Below are two examples I found captivating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The river that parallels one side of this cemetery hosts many wonderful critters.  We’ve seen ducks and a Great Blue Heron here.  Once we even saw a muskrat swim gaily upstream.  The brush and trees along the banks host flocks of Robins, Chickadees, Vireos, Phoebes, Catbirds,  and King Birds.  In the summer, we’ve seen Orioles and woodpeckers flying and perching on the imposing tress on the grounds.
Speaking of birds, one time we showed up in the cemetery too late to be allowed to continue our walk.  As we were driving slowly toward the main road to leave, Yang asked me, “What’s that on the tomb stone ahead?”  It was a great big red-tailed hawk!  The pictures aren’t perfect because it was night and we took them through the windshield of our car, but they are pretty darned neat.  I especially like the one where Mr. or Ms. Hawk does an almost 180 with the head and stares right at us.  Yikes!
Lastly, this gravestone raised  an important question for me.   If Curley’s here, where did they plant Moe and Larry?  Or Shemp?

 

Adventures of a Pumpkin Grower: Harvest Time

Claude Rains, gardening, gardens, Halloween, Hallpween Decorations, massachusetts, Nature, New England, pumpkins, Sharon Yang, Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,
My last post was about the denizens growing in my pumpkin patch.  Now, I can write you about the harvest.  I still have one large orange pumpkin on the vine, and two embryos actually got fertilized about a week ago-who knows if they’ll make it.  However, most of the others are now decorating my house!
Number One Son is here in the living room, decorated appropriately for Halloween.  He may not be the biggest of the family, but he’s the brave first to be fertilized and survive.  He’s right next to the television, so we can see him all the time.

 

 

 

Here is Number Two Son on the dining room table-another place that we spend a lot of time.  He’s a bit bigger than his elder brother, and he is strong and handsome.  You can also see he shares the table with a lovely striped gourd.  Each of these was the only survivor on its respective vine, but both do the mother plant proud.  They certainly fit nicely with the Halloween decorations, don’t they?

And speaking of handsome gourds in the dining room, here’s this gorgeous  melange of orange and green.  He’s a perfect fall color!  The first gourd on his vine grew for a while, but didn’t make it.  This chap grew up next, initially hanging from the fence where the vine had climbed.  His healthy form soon brought the vine down to earth.  Beautiful color and shape, wouldn’t you say?
I have already harvested three more orange pumpkins.  I suspect they are sugar pumpkins, but they are just too pretty to eat.  Two of them, I have put by the fireplace with a white pumpkin and a green striped one.  I think they make a neat combo.  How about you?

 

The white pumpkin was actually attacked by a grub and has a hole in it, but a little peroxide seems to have ended the invasion.  I put the side with no wounding out to face the world.  Good-sized guy, isn’t it?  When we harvested it, we found it also had a local root coming off the stem.  I guess that’s how it got enough nutrition to grow this big.

 

There’s also this good sized pumpkin or squash that’s green with stripes.  I don’t know what kind it is, but it sure is pretty.  Does anyone out there know?  I’d love to hear from you so I could find out what I have.  I wonder if there was some cross pollination that created a hybrid?

 

Remember the runaway/escapee?  That pumpkin grew into a real beauty.  There’s even an almost bluish cast to it’s white skin.  Is this a Lumina or  is it another breed of pumpkin?

 

Last but not least, remember I said I’d harvested three orange pumpkins?  Well, the third one is not on display at home. Instead, I brought it to the grave of my favorite actor, Claude Rains and left it as a token of esteem.  Presents you work to create yourself are usually the best!