My bubblegum world

I loved bubblegum music in the late 60s--I was the perfect age for it, at the beginning of my adolescence (I was what would now be called a "tween")--and largely because of the memories I have, I still love to listen to much of the music of that era by the Ohio Express, 1910 Fruitgum Company, Boyce & Hart, The Cowsills, Tommy Roe, etc. To my mind, the first bubblegum music I heard was by the Monkees, but there is some controversy among true bubblegum believers as to whether or not The Monkees count as a true "bubblegum" act.

One of the first bubblegum records I bought was the single of "Chewy, Chewy" by the Ohio Express. Today, this song seems impossibly dirty ("Do it to me, Chewy/Chew me out of my mind") but at the age of 12, it was just catchy as hell and fun to sing along to. It might as well have actually been about chewing bubblegum for all I was concerned.

But what cemented my love of bubblegum was "Bang-Shang-A-Lang" by the Archies. I bought the single in the fall of '68, when I only owned a handful of records, and wore out the grooves. I loved Archie comics, and, though I watched the Archies Saturday morning cartoon show, even then I knew it was a pale version of the comic books (Archie's voice was all wrong, among other things). But the music was, excuse the expression, right on. Unlike "Chewy Chewy," for example, these songs sounded like they could have been written and performed by (very talented) teenagers. I even played the B-side, "Truck Driver," which for a while displaced the A-side as my favorite current song.

Then at Christmas of 1968, I got one of my favorite gifts ever, the Archies album! I don't even remember if I had asked for it, but my mom knew I'd like it, and I did. It was one of the first non-Beatles albums I owned. I can't make a rational case for it as a timeless masterpiece, but it's certainly a high point of bubblegum music. After all these years, it still holds up for me, and Ron Dante will always be the perfect voice of bubblegum, having sung lead on with another big bubblegum hit, "Tracy" by the Cuff Links.

Not the worst Best Picture winner

Any online review or commentary about the 1931 western Cimarron will note that it is the lowest-rated Best Picture winner on IMDb, among those who bother to rate movies on the site by a 10-star ranking (as of today, it has an average of 6 stars). Its critical reputation as a long, slow-moving, poorly acted family saga of the old West is what had kept me from watching it, but on a snowbound afternoon recently, I broke down and gave it a shot. And guess what? It's not nearly as bad or boring as I was fearing. It may not be great, and it may tax the viewing habits of today's movie fans, but classic movie fans should not avoid it.

The above poster, from its premiere run in New York City in January of 1931, makes it look like Gone With the Wind, with Richard Dix starring as Superman, or a Greek god. It couldn't possibly live up to that image, but as a sprawling family story goes, it moves along nicely and has some well done action sequences. Dix's stolid acting style is dated, but Irene Dunne is better, and at just a smidge over 2 hours, it's much less difficult to sit through than today's average superhero flick. (For my money, there are many worse Best Pictures, or at least pictures that did not deserve to win: Oliver!, An American in Paris, Midnight Cowboy, Forrest Gump, Birdman.)

Rare! Classic! Rated X!

The ad below from the October 10, 1969 Columbus Citizen-Journal features three movies I'd never heard of. 1) Uncle Tom's Cabin was apparently a cut-down English dub of a German movie from 1965 with Herbert Lom as Simon Legree. Kroger Babb, listed in the ad as "presenter," was a producer of exploitation films in the 40s and 50s, his most famous being a sex-ed film called Mom and Dad (he also did a Reefer Madness-type film called Wild Weed).

2) Indian Paint was a 1965 Western with Jay Silverheels (Tonto on TVs The Lone Ranger) and Johnny Crawford who played Chuck Connor's son on The Rifleman, and was also an original Mouseketeer;  3) Best House in London was a British sex farce with a bit of boob and bottom, but rated X mostly, I guess, for the subject matter, prostitution, in particular, the setting-up by the government of a brothel in Victorian England. I love finding these movies that have left little to no pop culture footprint.

Cthulhu and I

I discovered H.P. Lovecraft in college, as an undergraduate at Ohio State in the mid-70s. The first one I bought was Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Volume 1, in the Ballantine edition pictured below to the far left, the book with the skull with eyes. It contained stories by Lovecraft (and other authors like August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith who picked up the thread of the stories after Lovecraft died) that were centered on the dark god Cthulhu and other of the eldritch Great Old Ones who live in space somewhere and are worshiped by cults who hope to conjure them to return to Earth.

 

I have a vivid memory of reading the first story, 'The Call of Cthulhu," in the main library, in a comfortable chair, on a gloomy October afternoon; I was facing a big plate glass window with a nice view of the clouds and the trees blowing in the chilly autumn winds. I couldn't have asked for a better setting for an introduction to the chilling horrors of Lovecraft. Every October, I remember the feeling I had back then, and I break out a few Lovecraft stories. Above are the first 6 Lovecraft books I bought, all from Ballantine, with the white covers being earlier editions I probably bought as used books. I have owned many more over the years, by Lovecraft and others, but these are the ones I tend to go back to, as long as they remain in readable shape.

Norman Bates meets the Girl Next Door

50 years ago this week, Pretty Poison was playing a first-run engagement in Columbus, Ohio. Anthony Perkins plays a guy with some mental problems (not quite as badly off as his Norman Bates from Psycho but he has spent some time in an institution) who meets the lovely young Tuesday Weld, who seems sweet and innocent but who ends up giving Perkins a run for his money in the sociopath department. Not a hit on release, but now a cult classic. Maybe a Valentine's Day date movie for the unconventional.  

The Christmas that blockbusters went ka-blooey!

These three films, which all played in Columbus, Ohio in December 1968, are tied together in my mind as big expensive movies intended to be blockbusters that, for the most part, met with critical derision and failed at the box-office. As low-budget films aimed at adults, like Bonnie & Clyde and Easy Rider, were raking in dough, big-budget family films were losing their appeal, looking awfully old-fashioned. Christmas 1968 was the beginning of the end of the Hollywood roadshow attraction, films that would be put into limited release in just a few theaters, often in reserved-seats engagements during which tickets would have to be purchased in advance--notice the list of prices and the mail-in coupons that accompany some of these ads.
 

After two world-class hits with Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, Star!, a musical biopic about actress Gertrude Lawrence, seemed like it had a sure shot at success. But, though Andrews gives it her all, the film was too long, too unimaginative, and movie audiences had forgotten poor Gertrude Lawrence, who was a big Broadway star in the 30s and 40s but made very few movies. It's not a bad movie by any means, but it lacked the magic and easy sparkle of Andrews' earlier hits.

Finian's Rainbow had been a hit on Broadway in 1947, and its race relations theme was certainly relevant in 1968, but Fred Astaire, despite being a supremely talented dance genius, was no longer a leading man, and the two young folks featured (Petula Clark and Tommy Steele) weren't exactly on the hip tip at the time. Maybe Jane Fonda and Michael Caine would have sparked more interest. The movie drew an OK audience and was nominated for awards, but like Star! felt dated right away.

With Dick Van Dyke (from Mary Poppins) starring and the Sherman Brothers (from Mary Poppins) writing the songs, this was expected to be a Disney-sized hit. But it was leaden and overlong, and though it was among the top 10 hits of the year, it actually lost money on its initial release, and its reputation is not exactly sterling. The problems these films had may have had more to do with unrealistic expectations than the quality of movies themselves, and roadshow movies kept being made for a few more years (Fiddler on the Roof, Hello Dolly, Tora Tora Tora), but this Christmas season was the beginning of the end.

The pale pink panther

I'd completely forgotten that they had made a Clouseau movie without Peter Sellers or director Blake Edwards until I ran across this ad from its initial Columbus run in August of 1968. It seems to be largely forgotten (though it is available on Blu-Ray) and, as it stars Alan Arkin and is directed by Bud Yorkin--known more for TV work--it's usually considered to be outside the Pink Panther canon. (Imagine a Harry Potter movie with, I dunno, Michael Cera instead of Daniel Radcliffe!)

Dick Miller, 1928-2019

When character actor Dick Miller died last week, most of the obituary headlines mentioned his roles in Gremlins or The Terminator. But out of his 100+ parts, I'll remember him for his work in Roger Corman's early B-films. He usually showed up in supporting parts (Little Shop of Horrors, The Terror) but I'll remember him best in two starring roles for Corman. In A Bucket of Blood, he plays simpering loser Walter Paisley (above), so desperate to make friends in an arty beatnik crowd that he resorts to murder. With Paisley, Miller created the most well-rounded (and sympathetic) character in any Corman movie I've seen. Miller was also able to play it completely straight in his top-billed role in the Corman SF flick War of the Satellites (below). He actually has less screen time than the villain, Richard Devon, but he is memorable and got to play the hero like he rarely had the chance to. He was always a welcome presence in any film.
  

Teenage Frankenstein

I believe that this double feature was the first time I was allowed to go to the movies by myself. I saw this in Grove City, Ohio, probably in 1964 when I was 7 or 8. and it was Teenage Frankenstein that made the bigger impression for a few reasons: the monster was scarier looking than the werewolf; the black & white film switches to color for the last minute when the creature is electrocuted; Gary Conway was a good-looking, well-built guy whom I would have been familiar with from the TV show Burke's Law. Though I don't recall having any sexual feelings at that age, Conway's appearance in a snug t-shirt (and even shirtless in one brief scene) stuck in my head for years. The movie itself is just OK, and the real star is the adequate but uninspiring villain played the fairly colorless Whit Bissell.