Another Saturday Night....

Watched "Scrooge" this afternoon. Wonderful musical, and the title cards are by Ronald Searle:








I highly recommend the film. Alec Guinness is Jacob Marley.
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Batman: Rudy Vallee and Glynis Johns gnawing the flats again. And Batgirl in peril.

NOW! Vincent Price and Anne Baxter as Egghead and Olga, Queen of the Bessarovian Cossacks.
Egghead loves Olga, who demands an enormous dowry to wed him. He plans a series of heists to raise the requisite rubles. Will true love win? They even steal a huge amount of caviar. Ghoti Ouefs anyone?




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Lost in Space - "Space Circus"

"The Space Family Robinson go through a food crisis when their plant purifier breaks down. Will and Dr Smith discover a travelling show of circus people, and Will is later tricked in to agreeing to join. It's a race against time for the Robinsons to save Will, and keep themselves alive. 

 James Westerfield, a Nashville boy, plays Marvello, the ring-master of the circus.

He was often seen in Westerns, from "The Rifleman" to "The Wild Wild West". His grizzled looks and Southron voice made him suited to playing kindly uncles as well!

Dawson Palmer plays the monster of the piece. He is ALWAYS the monster of the piece. He is Irwin Allen's Janos Prohaska.





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Star Trek - "Friday's Child"  Winner of the "Most Egregious Use of Faux Fur by Burly Men" award.



This is a D.C.Fontana written episode, which makes it sad, because she is usually so good. The costuming turns this into farce. Julie Newmar plays a pregnant wife of the Teer, leader of the Ten Capellan Tribes. If Mars needs women, then the Federation needs topaline, which the Capellans have in abundance. The Klingons are in need as well, and a Capellan is playing the two against each other.

Here is the Memory Alpha writeup. I'm not interested enough to keep writing, even with Julie Newmar and DeForest Kelley slapping each other.

The smooth-forehead Klingons are really weenies. No wonder the grater-heads won't talk about them.

Walker Edmiston sighting, as the voice of the SS Deirdre.

Oochie woochie cootchie coo.
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Svengoolie presents "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man". Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot. Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein's monster. Curt Siodmak wrote the screenplay which began as a semi-joke to get himself a job so he could buy a car.

During lunch at the Universal commissary, screenwriter Siodmak had joked to producer George Waggner that he had a great title for a new film in the series (half-heartedly — he needed a down payment for a new car): "Frankenstein Wolfs The Meatman". Waggner, not known for a casual sense of humor left to have his lunch; shortly thereafter, he called Siodmak to his office, telling him to "Change the title to Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman — and go ahead, buy the car." Dumbfounded but pleased, the writer went to work. Thus that next film was Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, which served as a sequel both to The Wolf Man and The Ghost of Frankenstein. - Wikipedia

Siodmak wrote lots of movie and radio scripts, most memorably "Donovan's Brain". He presents both Talbot and the Monster as pitiable creatures. Talbot, who was resurrected by a confluence of grave robbing and the full moon, now only wants to die, and seeks out Dr. Frankenstein's secrets of life and death. He finds the Monster, frozen in the basement of the burnt-out castle. He is blind, and much shorter, being played by Bela Lugosi. Poor Bela. He expected to speak in this role. Surprise!




Pathos abounds, and it can only end badly for all concerned, is my guess. Badly, and wetly.
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VTTBOTS - The Machines Strike Back

The international drone submarine deterrent force is getting hinky. Roger C. Carmel guest stars as an *ahem* Eastern (Bloc) admiral who has worked with Admiral Nelson to develop the drone fleet.

Autonomous unmanned nuclear missile subs. Over 200 of them. This should bode well.

Carmel does his Harry Mudd schtick as he begins to destabilise the system by sabotaging drones so that they fire on us!




Dirty commies.

Merit vs. Condition

Yesterday on Facebook, I posited the following:

"There is no such thing as 'unconditional love'.

Think, then discuss."

I actually did not want to bring God into it, so of course it was in the first and second comments made, rather like the riddles people put up for others to play with, and the first commenter ruins it by giving the answer (these are likely the same kids who kept their hand up constantly from the front row, buttressing their flailing appendage with their other hand. They generally got beaten up during recess.)

I do not even believe that God's love is unconditional. Love IS His condition. He MUST love, and it takes a lot to negate that love. As Christians, our agape love is conditional, because He commands us to love as He loves. Mileage may vary on this.

The Dread Dormomoo her own self and I discussed this at length, and have come to the conclusion that 
1) People don't know what they are talking about.
2) People really need a good dictionary (I resort to Merriam-Webster)

One thing that was apparent is a conflating of Condition with Merit. To bring God into it, here is the thing: God places conditions on things. He is a covenant-making God, it's what He does! In Acts 2, when the Jews learned that they had crucified the Son of God, the Messiah for whom they had waited for centuries, they cried "What can we DO??!" The apostle Peter said: "Repent, be baptised for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.". God placed a condition upon the proffered salvation. However, fulfilling the condition is not the same as earning or meriting that favor. And therein lies the confusion, which has turned the Faith Once Delivered into a hodge-podge of conflicting modes and incantations.

"I, Yi, Yi, Yi, Yi"

One of my favorite animated movies is "The Chipmunk Adventure". Ross Bagdasarian mined a media gold nugget back in 1958 with "The Chipmunk Song", made with a V-M variable-speed tape recorder. It was not limited to large increments, and allowed a more understandable  sped-up voice, than say, "Purple People Eater" or the work of "Shirley and Squirrelly". Hear what Wikipedia saith:

Most consumer tape recorders of the day had changeable speeds, but usually only in simple binary multiples, doubling or halving the speed, creating sounds an octave apart. Changing speeds of voices in these limited multiples creates extremely high or low pitches that sound too extreme for most purposes.

Bagdasarian (or David Seville, his stage name) was capable of far more subtlety in his Chipmunks records than the quick and dirty "record it at half-speed and press it" novelty hacks. This analog method carried over to Ross Jr.'s movie.  Ross Jr. did the Chipmunk's voices, and his wife Janice Karman did the Chipettes.

Here is a comparison of sound:







Ahhhh, Sascha Burland....

"Adventure" was of course all about the music, which is on my MP3 player. VERY listenable, though the wisdom of a song like "Get Lucky" in a kids movie escapes me. Here is a track list:

<sup>Side One

    "The Chipmunk Adventure Theme Song" - 1:48
    "I, Yi, Yi, Yi, Yi/Cuanto le Gusta" (The Chipmunks) - 2:35
    "Off to See the World" * (The Chipmunks & The Chipettes) - 2:56
    "Weekend In France, Italy, England, Amsterdam, Greece..." * (The Chipmunks feat. Dave) - 1:45
    "My Mother" * (The Chipettes) - 2:34
    "Wooly Bully" (The Chipmunks) - 2:21

Side Two

    "The Girls and Boys of Rock and Roll" (The Chipmunks & The Chipettes) - 3:19
    "Flying With the Eagles" * (The Chipmunks & The Chipettes) - 3:23
    "Getting Lucky" * (The Chipettes) - 2:25
    "Mexican Holiday" * (The Chipmunks) - 1:43
    "Diamond Dolls" * (The Chipettes) - 3:15</sup>
Great stuff! If you get the chance, re-live 1980's animation history! ("Cow and Chicken's" creator Dave Feiss is an animator on this, BTW.)

(I am apparently the only person who notices a PC bit of censoring...when Jeanette and Eleanor try to dissuade the Sheikh from marrying Brittany, they go through a number of her character flaws, including "She spends money like a drunken sailor!" In the DVD release I have, they "dead air" that line while showing the young Sheikh's bored reaction.)

Saturday Screwdriver Blog

Enjoying home-made French Onion Soup and a screwdiver. Or more.

Hmmm...these are more potent than port.


BATMAN:

The villains are played by Rudy Vallee and Glynis Johns. MERCY!  Londinium LArceny is afoot!

Vallee is such a cheese, and Glynis Johns...whoof! She was the mum in "Mary Poppins', y'know!

Let it be remembered that Lorenzo Semple, Jr. was the executive story/script consultant! He wrote the script for the "Flash Gordon" movie. 'Nuff said.

Venerable Ireland Yard. Amazing!
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"Lost In Space" FORBIDDEN WORLD 

Johnny Williams music is perfect. Unless it is the re-used Bernard Hermann music from "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Then, THAT is perfect!

Wally Cox for the win!  The voice of "Underdog" as the alien menace. Thanks, Mr. Peepers!

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Star Trek- "Journey to Babel". This episode is one of the strongest in the pantheon, and proves that furriners make better aliens. A cosmic UN meeting requires the Enterprise to ferry Federation diplomats to the event. Intrigue ensues. Also, it points out the biggest weakness of the retconning fanwankery that comprises Trek "history". Mr. Wolff. utilising subtle sub rosa channels, has expressed unease with my Saturday silence. There is a hint concerning the reason above.Anyway, Mr. Wolff:

 I was hoping to see some comment from you on one of my favorite Star Trek episodes if only to comment on the point that, if I were captain of a ship of the line (Starfleet, wet navy, etc.), I would've made a point to study the backgrounds of my senior officers.  Cannot believe Kirk would've been so ignorant of Spock's parentage.

(And not only does he flub that, he takes every other opportunity afterwards to chew on his foot.  If he couldn't read some Very Obvious Tension between Spock and Sarek then maybe he ought to find another line of work.)

Meanwhile the episode also gives us Reggie Nalder as the Andorian ambassador Shras.  Along with Celia Lovsky in "Amok Time", Nalder provides one of the more genuinely alien performances in the series.  His dialogue to Spock about "motivation based on passion" still sends chills down my spine, and he makes me believe the Andorians are a potentially creepy race (unlike the watered-down version we were given in "Enterprise").

*AHEM* blaspheme not the cerulean Shran. Jeffrey Combs. JEFFREY COMBS!!

Star Trek, as I have grumped before, was an episodic sci-fi series that kept Roddenberry, a large crew and cast in groceries. It was, as Roddenberry said, "Wagon Train  to the stars", and he should know. He wrote radio and TV Western scripts. What Michael points out also pinpoints the problem.

There is no overarching theme or story arc to Star Trek. It is '60s episode TV. period. Beyond a series "bible" that attempted to keep script writers on the same page, there was no apparent unifying plot. It was a more polished "Lost in Space", complete with "monster of the week".(Sometimes the monster was actually an allegorical alien race rather than a refugee from the commissary salad bar. Sometimes it was a salt vampire.) The gaffe of Kirk's apparent ignorance of Spock's pedigree is the smoking phaser of the piece. Kirk moves through the episode as things happen. Michael is correct. He should be cognizant of the situation and tensions, unless Kirk is a 23rd JFK, pumped full of methamphetamines and steroids by Doctor Leonard "Dr. Feelgood" McCoy.

Reggie Nalder

Yessir, that Austro-Hungary accent does the trick!

*fanwank alert*
*lateral lisp ON*

"But 'Enterprise' is ~200 years before "Star Trek". The Andorian societal norms could have changed by then.

*Lateral lisp OFF*

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Svengoolie had "The Mummy's Ghost". UNIVERSAL monster derivatives begin to pall, John Carradine notwithstanding.

Or Ramsay Ames




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VTTBOTS Episode: "The X Factor" has no salad bar revenants this week. Instead it has John McGiver as a foreign agent who runs a spy network from his toy company.



He immobilises US agents and scientists, disguises them as full-size toys, and ships them to his handlers. McGiver presents a personable persona, but can project bone-chilling menace with a mild stare.

However shall Admiral Nelson escape his clutches?
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(I fell profoundly asleep during Lost in Space, and awoke during Trek!)

The culture. It's fallen and it can't get up.

 This is the picture that started it:



 
For fifty years, the US has culturally sought to abandon anything resembling Christian ethics or behavior. Now, in our shiny post-Christian world, where J.C.Penney is no longer "The Golden Rule Store", people get upset when companies like McDonald's do not pay what would ostensibly be an ethical "living" wage to entry-level jobs.

The culture has self-consciously removed Biblical behavioral guidelines from personal and business life. Businessmen feel no need to "do to others as you want others to do to you".

Enjoy the world you have made.

*You...in the back; what? "What about the management of coal mines and Chicago stockyards in the '30s, way before my putative fifty-year line?" *

Certainly there have been shady dealings since the serpent bartered continuing adult education for the title deed to Terra. Coal mines and Cannery Row (I know...fish), again, granted.Welcome to Calvin 101. Total depravity of humankind. But Christ's teaching in the broader society made for a largely better society (again, "do unto others..."). The mess we see now is a lovely combo of man's innate rebellion and a proof of the Pauline Theorem, "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil". How shall we combat this, with the real Golden Rule, or by eschewing such ethical teaching and keeping Wall Street and the international banking cartels in the hands of sociopaths?

The morals are already fallen, You In The Back. By deleting even reference to God, Christ's teaching and redemption from the marketplace, we remove the wherewithal for the culture to get up again.

That said, some church people's incessant need to play the "JUDGE" card does not help. Not in our pay grade. We are to speak as far as God's Word allows...no farther. I can warn someone of peril, but I have no authority to punch anyone's ticket. The aberrant "make converts" vs. Jesus' "Make disciples" practice is another problem. One changes what seat you inhabit on Sunday morning, the other changes your life and equips you to help change the culture...by making disciples.

Has anyone taken seriously the call to take Christ into the Boardroom, as well as to the Soup Kitchen?