Colorized photo; Film in B & W

 

 

SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)

Directed by Billy Wilder

Paramount Pictures, 110 minutes, not-rated

★★★★★

 

Sunset Boulevard is a masterpiece. The Hollywood Establishment hated it when it first came out, but not because Billy Wilder directed a bad film; many thought Wilder had disgraced Hollywood. That was certainly the opinion of director/producer Louis B. Mayer. In other words, it rang too close to true. (When Mayer made an insensitive remark, Wilder told Mayer to commit an act which is physically impossible.) Time’s verdict is that Sunset Boulevard is among the greatest films Hollywood ever made.

 

Early cinema was silent until 1929, when The Jazz Singer added the term “talkie” to the lexicon. What happened to all of the actresses who never transitioned to sound? Think of such famous names as Clara Bow, Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, and Norma Shearer. Even the principal character’s name, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), was a mashup of silent stars Norma Talmadge and Florence Desmond. Swanson, of course, jumped at the part when offered as she was among the old stars put out to pasture. Was the picture a film noir, a searing drama, a black comedy, a period piece, or a faux biography? The best answer is to say Sunset Boulevard was all of those things.

 

The eponymous street was where oodles of silent stars built elaborate mansions. In the film, Desmond resides in a sprawling Neo-Renaissance/art deco estate occupied by just Norma, a pet chimpanzee, and her devoted butler Max von Mayerling (Max von Stroheim). Our first look at it is of murdered writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) lying face down in the swimming pool. Gillis is also the film’s narrator, though we don’t know from where, as he tells of the six-months before he became dead in Desmond’s pool! He suffered from writer’s block, took a drive, got a flat, and wandered into what he assumed was an abandoned property. He is stopped by Max, but Norma thought Joe was the underkeeper for her deceased chimp and is ushered into her presence. It takes Joe a moment, but recognition led to one of the most famous exchanges in movie history: “You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big!” She frostily replies, “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small!”

 

Joe hasn’t written a decent script in so long that his bank account is as dry as Death Valley. Before he knows what hit him, he’s in Norma’s employ, living in her home, trying to find time to write, and feeling creepy about the attention Norma sheds on him, not to mention that she thinks that Joe’s writing the part of Salome for her new film for Cecil B. DeMille. In private Joe calls her the “waxworks,” but he has no idea what’s next.

 

His eye is focused on Betty Schaefer, an aspirant screen writer dating his friend Artie Green (Jack Webb). Betty also thinks that Joe’s recent scripts are horrible, but with Artie traveling a lot, she needs a mentor to get her started, and she’s kind of falling for Joe. That too is bad news, as Norma has come to think of Joe as her late-in-life suitor. Though it revolts him, Joe becomes a de facto gigolo who shares Norma’s bed. When he tries to let her down easy, Norma slashes her wrists and becomes more and more delusional, even to the point of driving onto the Paramount lot to visit DeMille to discuss her role as Salome. (Paramount really only wanted to rent her 1929 Isotta Fraschini automobile.) Joe is trapped and returns to her boudoir.

 

Seldom has delusion and mental decay been so raw on the screen. Swanson’s performance is now recognized as a tour de force. The film garnered 11 Oscar nominations and won just three, but it truly a case of a movie that, despite its period-feel, has weathered better than it was received. Hedda Hopper’s customs were equally effective; she dressed Swanson in what might be called shabby elegance. Her garb was deliberately outdated, but just barely so. DeMille, Buster Keaton, Harry Warner, and gossip columnist Hedda Hooper played themselves, which lent the verisimilitude that so troubled Mayer. And check out the cinematography of John Seitz, who gave the film its noir gloss.

 

By the way, the butler did it, just not what you think he did. What more can one say about a film that concludes with another unforgettable line: “I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille.”

 

Rob Weir

A Tax on Dreams and a Very Unusual Movie

 

 

 

 

 

STRAWBERRY MANSION (2021)

Written and Directed by Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley

Music Box Film, 91 minutes, Not-rated

★★★

 

Strawberry Mansion is a film so bizarre that it makes Hundreds of Beavers seem like a documentary of the fur trade.  It is the brainchild of Albert Birney and Kentucker [sic] Audley and you can take your pick of what category into which to plug it: science fiction, comedy, surrealism, fantasy, or a warning shot across the bow. Unless you were at Sundance in 2021 or in one of the 27 theaters that screened in during its 11-week run, you’ve not seen it. It made just $54,762 during those 11 weeks and the only thing we can definitely say is that it is indeed an independent film. I can’t imagine taking any attempted synopsis of this film before a group of high-roller producers.

I don’t mean to imply I didn’t like it; it’s more a case of not having the foggiest idea of how to explain it as I’m not sure what just happened on my screen. The year is 2035 and the government has figured out how to tax people’s dreams. The film blurs the line between dreaming and being awake. Early on we see James Preble in an entirely pink room: walls, furniture, cups, utensils…. An obsequious pink-suited man called Buddy (Linas Phillips) comes bearing a bucket of Cap’n Kelly’s Chicken and a tall cup of Red Rocket Cola. He tries to entice James to try a chicken and gravy milkshake and, heaven help him, James likes it. What in the name of Col. Sanders is going on? Buddy reappears from time to time, always with chicken and cola to make James believe that he is James’ only friend. Is he, or is a glad-handed Satan as ad man?

James is a dream auditor. By 2035, all our dreams are recorded on a small stick that can placed into a computer to determine how much tax is owed. James is dispatched to the home of an old woman named Arabella–call me “Bella –Isadora (Penny Fuller), who lives alone with her turtle “Sugar baby,” and has not submitted her dream stick or paid her dream tax in quite some time. She lives a quirky remote home, the movie’s titular Strawberry Mansion, and Bella immediately offers pie and a place to stay while James does his audit. James tells Bella that she is supposed to keep track of all her dreams and she smiles and says she has; it’s all stored on tapes: cassettes, VHS, Betamax, reel-to-reel…. Stacks and stacks of them. To make sense of them he has to don a cross between a diving helmet, the head of a 1950s robot, and Australian bandit Ned Kelly’s iron mask. But James keeps seeing things: a young version of Bella, human-like creatures covered by green foliage, and occasional scarier images.

James learns from Bella that she and her late husband discovered that advertisers figured out how to infiltrate our dreams. Imagine if you were in the middle of a very pleasant or terrifying dream that was interrupted by commercials! Bella also recounts that she and her husband built a device to shut off the commercials. What happens next is so weird you’ll need to remind yourself that it might be dream logic. James will spend what seems like years being on a desert island with Bella, losing her, and seeking her. They will dine in a restaurant with a frog waiter, run away from Buddy, and then lose each other for “years” when James appears as a ship’s commander whose crew consists of two life-sized talking rats named Richard and Marcus. From time-to-time James encounters the terrifying Blue Demon. The Demon, like the Rats and the Frog wear what appear to be papier-mache heads. Getting hit on the head with a bowling pin presage some of these… what? Dreams? Shifts of reality? When he finds Bella again, she has to remove all the greenery he has acquired as one of the grass/foliage figures that line her property.

Is James some sort of chosen one to save humankind from rampant commercialism? Just a nerd who got in the way? A figment of his own imagination? There is an explanation of sorts and a possible happy ending, but who’s to say whether it’s just another flight from reality? Don’t ask me! All I can say is that Strawberry Mansion is my new standard of a weird movie.

 

Rob Weir

 

Rob Weir

Fallen Angel (1945): A Blend of Good and Silly

 

FALLEN ANGEL (1945).

Directed by Otto Preminger

20^th Century Fox, 97 minutes, not rated.

★★ ½

 

There are at least three other movies titled Fallen Angel, but his one is from 1945, just as World War II was ending. In American mythology, the troops came home to a booming economy. That’s not so; it took several years for the economy to convert to peacetime use. Fallen Angel stars, Dana Andrews as Eric Stanton, a veteran but also a drifter. He jumps on a bus headed for San Francisco, but is booted out in the small town of Walton, California, as he can’t afford the entire fare.

 

Stanton decides to stay in Walton for a while, because he’s a grifter as well as a drifter. He enters Pop’s Eats and bums a meal from Pop (Percy Kilbride) and overhears him telling Mark Judd (Charles Bickford), an ex-New York City policeman now working in Walton, that he worries about where Stella (Linda Darnell) might be. Judd tells Pop and others in the greasy spoon diner not to fret because Stella is a free spirit who will appear when she feels like it. Sure enough, the lusty Stella comes waltzing in as if nothing is out of the ordinary. She’s quite a looker, but is not impressed by Eric’s pick-up banter. Eric nonetheless identifies Stella as flirtatious and licentious, so he is not deterred by her rejection.

 

Eric needs money. At this point of the film, we have a drifter pursuing a femme fatale, classic film noir material. Alas, Director Otto Preminger stuck too carefully to the forgettable novel from which the script devolved. A contrived set-up leads Eric to the Faye sisters. He encounters Joe (Olin Howard) the “drummer” for a mentalist/fortune teller, but he’s a poor salesman. Eric grabs some tickets and hands out some for free, gambling that word of mouth will swell the box office. He’s right, but he also has to convince “Professor” Madley (John Carradine) to jazz up his show. Madley’s performance is trite, but when channels the spirit of Abraham Mills, everyone is drawn to his instant séance, as Mills was a beloved mayor and the richest man in Walton.

 

Eric continues to see Stella, but so too do other men (single and married). The implication is that Stella is also a hooker, but Eric finds himself falling for her. Stella’s morals aside, she has a clear goal; she wants to marry a handsome man who can provide her with a home of her own. That’s not Eric! He’s making some money from the professor, but not enough to buy a house. Eric tries another scheme to make money. The séance attracted the attention of Clara Mills (Anne Revere), the eldest daughter of the late Abraham Mills. She doesn’t think much of Eric, but his goal is to marry Clara’s younger sister, the naïve June (Alice Faye), the heir to most of the Mills fortune. If he can marry June and gain access to some of her dough, he can divorce her and provide for Stella. Sure enough, June is swept off her feet by the smooth-talking Eric. Their honeymoon evening is not exactly poems and flowers. Eric waits until June is asleep and goes to Stella. Big mistake!

 

That very evening, Stella is murdered and nearly every man in Walton who dated Stella, including Eric, is a suspect. Judd tries to beat a confession out of Dave Atkins (Bruce Cabot but he’s not Judd’s real target, and Eric knows it. He convinces June to flee with him to a dingy hotel room in San Francisco until he can work out who killed Stella. You might think that June would give him the bum’s rush, but she actually loves Eric.

 

Again, Preminger waded into water so shallow that Eric’s revelation of the true killer would scarcely get your feet moist. Preminger had a hard time getting this film made. Andrews was not his choice for leading man, but Alice Faye had been a big musical star for 20^th century Fox and wanted him. She was also promised she could sing a torch song for the film, but it didn’t make the final cut. Nonetheless, Faye called the shots, which perhaps explains the film’s unevenness. Andrew is actually very good as Eric, but so many things were over the top that we think of the film that could’ve been rather than what was.

 

Rob Weir

 

The Man With the Golden Arm Highlights Sinatra's Acting Chops

 

Preminger wouldn't allow anyone to replace the above design

 

 

 

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM (1955)

Directed by Otto Preminger

United Artists, 119 minutes, Not-rated and Not-approved

★★★

 

Younger readers might not know that crooner Frank Sinatra was also a pretty good actor. He was the star of The Man with the Golden Arm, a 1955 movie directed by Otto Preminger. Perhaps only a director with the gravitas and moxie of Preminger could have made it. It was based upon a 1949 novel by Nelson Algren, and the first American film of the sound era to deal with heroin addiction.

 

The movie rights to Algren’s book were sold to John Garfield in 1949, who planned to star in it. The first script was rejected by the Movie Production Code Authority (MPCA) and the Catholic League of Decency (CLD). Garfield died in 1952, and when filming started as “An Otto Preminger Production,” Algren sued based his 1949 contract promising he’d get a large percentage of the royalties. (Algren ran out of money and dropped his suit.) Preminger began to shoot before the script got MCPA or CLD approval, which were not forthcoming. Preminger simply ignored them. Moreover, the script was sent to both Sinatra and Marlon Brando; Sinatra agreed almost immediately as he was still angry that Brando got the lead in On the Waterfront.

 

Sinatra played the role of Frankie Machine, an addict recently released from a federal narcotics farm in Kentucky. The old crowd welcomes him back to Chicago, including Sparrow (Arnold Stang), an oddball–perhaps mentally slow– who makes his living selling street dogs, even if he has to put shoe polish on canines for those who want a “black” dog. Sparrow, in turn, follows Frankie around like a puppy. In lockup, Frankie learned to play the drums and harbors dreams of landing a place in a big band jazz outfit. He also insists that he’s clean and wants no part of drugs, no matter how often street provider Zero Schwiefka (Robert Strauss) offers, or Frankie’s wheelchair-bound wife “Zosh” Sophia (Eleanor Parker) begs him to help her relieve her pain. She too clings to him like glue and, though he doesn’t love her, he feels beholden as she was injured in an auto accident when Frankie was driving while drunk.

 

Zero also wants Frankie to “deal” for him, by which is meant a card dealer for Schwiefka’s all-night, high-stakes poker games. Frank is also burning the midnight oil pursuing Molly Novotny, a stripper and escort. She was Frank’s flame before he married Zosh out of guilt. Band tryouts further exhaust Frankie and Schwiefka is only too happy to stick a needle in his arm to give him a boost or bail him out when he’s pinched in a suit stolen for him by Sparrow.

 

Preminger’s Chicago bears resemblance to the slums of Hoboken in Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront–gritty, filled with temptation, and easy-to-fall. As Zosh guilt-trips Frankie to the point where he’s smothered by her, he retreats to Molly’s first-floor flat and rekindles their romance. There’s a lot about Zosh that’s fishy, even as Frankie spirals downward into new addiction. Why, for example, has “Nifty Louie” Fomorowski (Darren McGavin) been hanging around with Zosh? Even as he becomes more and more dependent on a fix, Frank knows the wheels are about to fly off for him, though he’s on the eve of realizing his dream. When he tries to bum fix money from Molly, she proposes a different solution; she will help him if he agrees to go cold turkey. If not, she will never see him again.

 

The Man with the Golden Arm implies that the golden arm is Frankie’s drumming riffs, but we all know that the real reference is to injecting heroin and/or morphine. By today’s standard, the film is predictable and melodramatic, but Sinatra is terrific in it. His was one of the most extended and harrowing depictions of going cold turkey in cinematic history. Call it also a film with an A-level cast: Sinatra, Novak, McGavin, and Strauss were all big stars, even if the eccentric Stang stole a few scenes. The film didn’t do as well as On the Waterfront, but it did get three Oscar nominations and was added to the National Film Registry. The jazz soundtrack from Elmer Bernstein (not related to Leonard) was big hit, as was Saul Bass’s poster design.

 

Rob Weir

This July 4th Feels Wrong

What is July Fourth to a Progressive?

 

 

Americans are gearing up for the July 4^th holiday in various ways. For some it’s a way to express their patriotism; for others, a show of support for American troops or relatives in uniform. A hardy few want to revel in Donald Duck’s Trump’s warped view of American might and his lies about prosperity and global respect. I suspect, though, that most Americans simply see July 4^th as an opportunity to have a picnic, see fireworks, or–in that greatest of American spectacles–take advantage of retail sales.

My title is a riff off a famous 1852 speech delivered by Frederick Douglass titled “The Meaning of July Fourth to the Negro.” https://masshumanities.org/files/programs/douglass/speech_complete.pdf

Douglass reminded us that one’s standing in society is more important than bang-the-drum symbolism. I recognize that this July 4^th is the 250^th birthday of the United States. I recall driving to Boston to watch fireworks explode across the Charles and listen to the late Arthur Fiedler lead the Boston Pops in patriotic tunes. That was when Gerald Ford was president, and one year after the Vietnam War ended and Richard Nixon resigned as POTUS for his role in the Watergate coverup. (Let the last one sink in; even Nixon had more honor than the national embarrassment currently in the White House.) I was ready to celebrate after years of protest against the war. I was also glad to see the back of Nixon, though I felt a minor twinge of pity as he was clearly suffering from a combination of acute depression and alcohol abuse.

For the 250^th, I’m thinking of donning black mourning garb and lamenting America’s fall from grace. This year’s celebration will feature Kremlin-like military spectacles, White House bombast, and attacks on all I hold important and sacred. I’d not be surprised were molten gold to drip from Trump’s forked tongue. It’s this simple, I am a pacifist Quaker who believes truth matters, knows a conman when I see one, believe that starting wars to look strong is an evil act. Sending fishermen to their deaths and pretending they are drug smugglers is pathetic and immoral.

American might is a myth, as is Trump’s “leadership.” Some of what he says is risible; a lot of it is so dangerous that what Trump likes to call the “radical left” is not exaggerating in calling it fascism. During the Trump years I’ve made it a habit to vacation in New England, where sanity still reigns; Canada, where it never left; and Europe, which has an educated population that can detect BS. In New England, Trump is an annoyance in the way a carbuncle is an annoyance. We get grumpy because we can’t wait to have him excised. Canadians fear him because they think he’s after something and they are probably right; Canada has more than 20 percent of the world’s potable water. So does the U.S. but almost all of it is in the Great Lakes shared with Canada. Subtract the lakes, not coincidentally bordering blue states, and it drops to seven percent. Even deep aquifers are disproportionately concentrated in the Northeast, Middle Atlantic, and the Far West.

Most Western Europeans act as if Trump is irrelevant. Neither they nor Canadians hate Americans. They feel sorry for us and say so in private conversations. They can see that their countries have more services, a stronger infrastructure, better schools and, yes, more freedom. Aside from a handful of Baltic states with a history of authoritarian rule, few Europeans see the U.S. as enviable. Their primary fear is that military power is under the control of an impulse-driven manchild who confuses missiles with the size he’d like his phallus to be. Can you say Armageddon?

As for me, I’m tired of trying to explain things to hardcore Trumpanzees. I don’t think all of his supporters are uneducated hillbillies. Some dislike taxes and have made out well, the white working class correctly feels left out by Democratic technocrats, and some vote out of party loyalty. Perhaps the majority feel lost in modern America and fear for their futures. It’s not wrong, though, to see a large swarm of Trumpanzees as militaristic rah-rah boys, racists, end-of-the-world evangelicals, isolationists, misogynists, and losers. The hardcore is immune to reason and would turn back progress. On July 4^th I will mourn the loss of democracy.

RW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 CLOSE TO DEATH (2024)

By Anthony Horowitz

Harper Penguin, 432 pages

★★★★★

 

Close to Death is subtitled “A Literary Whodunnit about a Murder in a Gated Community.” I’m sure every published author thinks their work is “literary;” Anthony Horowitz has the chops to say that without provoking an eye roll.

 

This is a continuation of the Hawthorne though in previous books, private investigator Daniel Hawthorne’s partner is John Dudley. Tony Horowitz’s role is akin to Dr. Watson’s in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels; he writes about how the cases were solved. Like Holmes, Hawthorne’s agency never takes credit for the solution; they allow local loan enforcement to wallow in kudos.

 

In Close to Death, Hawthorne and Dudley have parted ways and Horowitz has taken Dudley’s place. Is it literary to be a character, a guide, and the author of the same tale? If you can tell it like Horowitz, it does. The title is a pun. In England, a close as a small gated community, in this case, just six homes clustered around a half circle in Richmond Upon Thames.

 

Things have long been tranquil, but that changes when pushy social climbers Giles and Lynda Kenworthy buy the largest home in the Close. There is only one way around the half circle and the Kenworthys park so many cars there that it’s hard to get out. Their three kids are said to have ripped up flower beds, skateboarded underneath windows, and tossed a ball that smashed a chess set belonging into Adam Strauss. He is a ranked Chessmaster, who often wins matches in which he competes with more than 20 other opponents simultaneously. Adam insists the ball broke an invaluable set given to him by an Indian Raja, though the figures are from “Lord of the Rings” and appear to be plastic.

 

Others in the Close include Dr. Tom and Genna Beresford; Tom insists the Kenworthys are literally guilty of murder, as a patient died in his surgery because he couldn’t get out of the driveway blocked by the Kenworthys. Roderick Browne’s wife Felicity is an invalid, and the kids make noise that disturbs her rest. Mary Winslow and Phyllis Moore, two ex-nuns who also operate a mystery murder bookstore, think Giles threw their dog down a well, and even quiet Andrew Pennington, a retired attorney, thinks the new family is unfriendly.  

 

Adam calls a Close meeting and invites the Kentworthys to address the complaints. When they are no-shows, their thoughtfulness seems unbounded. When the family next announces plans to build a swimming pool that would uproot a beautiful magnolia tree, and the village council surprisingly approves the plan, Giles’s body is soon discovered outside his garage with a crossbow bolt in his throat.

 

Police Detective Tariq Khan comes to investigate the murder. The crossbow belonged to Roderick, but everyone in the Close–including Giles’ wife–had a murderous motive. Each also has an airtight alibi. So, who did it? Could it have been the gardener? Perhaps the Kenworthys’ Australian nanny? How about Lynda’s trainer who is probably her lover? Khan agrees to call in Hawthorne and Dudley to consult on the case. Dudley is unkempt and uncouth, and Hawthorne is a grating know-it-all. Khan is happy to dismiss them when Rodrick leaves a confession/suicide note ostensibly to spare Felicity more pain.

 

Five years later, Horwitz is Daniel’s new partner. He’s also a writer who owes his publisher a book but because Hawthorne has no new cases, Horwitz wants to write about the Close. He wonders why Daniel warns him not to touch the case. All of his reasons seem odd. Why can’t he ask Dudley about the case? Where is Dudley? Tony does some investigating of his own and lots of things don’t add up, including the number of meetings that were held. But things have changed and in the five years since the murder. Only Andrew and Lynda still live in the Close. Adam died a month after Giles by falling off a bridge, though no one saw him tumble. The more Tony ponders, the clearer it becomes that no one in the Close was who they appeared to be.

 

Yet his dilemma is the same as Hawthorne’s and Dudley’s: If everyone is a suspect, where do you turn? This novel has more red herrings than a large Dutch city! Horowitz’s multiple voices–in and separated by time–enhance the intrigue. Multiple people are fingered as the probable murderer, until they are not. This mystery will certainly engage your mind. It’s like a sophisticated game of Clue, except you can’t trust your gut, your logic, or any conclusion without reservation, even when Horowitz the writer offers one.

 

Rob Weir

 

The Keeper: Intrigue and Death in an Irish Village

 

 

 

THE KEEPER (2026)

By Tana French

Viking, 480 pages

★★★★

 

Author Tana French gets tabbed as one of Ireland’s greatest living novelists. She happens to live in Dublin, but she’s a Vermont-born lass who considers herself a homeless vagabond. Her father was an international development economist; Tana has lived in America, Italy, Malawi, Ireland, and several other places. If you’ve read the first two books of the Cal Hooper series, French is a bit like Cal. The Keeper is book three of a series whose very names tip readers of a major theme. The Hunter, The Seeker, and The Keeper are set in the fictional Western Ireland village of Ardnakelty. It’s in the heart of a farming region whose residents have a love/hate relationship to change. How do farmers keep up with Irish modernization without surrendering its historical and cultural identity? This delicate balancing act is at the heart of The Keeper.

 

For those who haven’t not read the previous two books, it’s preferable to do so, but not necessary. French gives plenty of detail about village life and characters that you can quickly catch on to who’s who in Ardnakelty. Cal was the seeker, a former Chicago police detective whose wife chucked him. He, in turn, quit his job and moved to Ireland for a slower, less stressful lifestyle. He got the first, but not always the second. He restored an old cottage away from Ardnakelty’s center, but that alone did not erase the reality of being an outsider to village customs and mores. As “seekers” know, small places often treat outsides with suspicion. Cal is, however, a talented woodworker who helps young vagabond “Trey” (Theresa) Reddy the trade and serves as a surrogate father to her. Cal also begins an affair with the fiercely independent widow Lena Dunne. 

 

The Keeper picks up Cal’s story at a time in which he is in his 50s and “engaged” to Lena Dunne, though it’s a bit of a ruse. Neither has a great desire to remarry, but it gives a respectable veneer to their long-standing romance. It helps that her sister Noreen runs the store where villagers buy essentials and consume another Ardnakelty staple: gossip. Cal’s neighbor is the cranky but amusing Mart(in), a lover of American music, TV, and films. He calls Cal “Sunny Jim” or “Columbo,” named one of his dogs “Kojak,” and is the voice for local farmers. Mart also helped Cal form a group of mates down at Séan Og’s pub. Trey is now an older teen who thinks of quitting school to become a woodworking apprentice, despite her mother Sheila and Cal pushing her to finish her final year before deciding. Telling Trey what to do isn’t a good way to go. She has enough confidence to assert her own will and has acquired mates who roam the woodlands and hills, engage in minor mischief, gang swarm bullies, and play soccer together.  

 

The first part of The Keeper is quite funny as it touches upon the foibles, superstitions, and shenanigans of village life. The locals find themselves deeply divided by the activities of Tommy Moynihan, a local mover, shaker, and (some say) crooked politician who has his finger in every pie. Much of the village is beholden to Tommy because he brought jobs into the area, but there are those who wonder why he has been buying up local land, especially adjacent farms. Rumors circulate that he is about to close a deal that would build a massive factory that would transform Ardnakelty. In true Ardnakelty style, no one takes a direct route to find out, nor would they trust Moynihan if he told them. When it appears that Tommy’s browbeaten son Eugene will stand for a controlling seat on the local council, tongues wag faster.

 

A crisis arises when Eugene’s about-to-be fiancée Rachel drowns in the river, and both the coroner and local Guarda rule it a suicide. Mart encourages those who think it’s a coverup. Lena does some investigating of her own, which leads Tommy to push back so hard that Lena fears she’ll be sent to an asylum. Vigilantism, barfights, and whispered words set villagers against each other. Was Tommy “riding” (having sex with) Eugene’s girlfriend? After the death of another local, does truth matter anymore?

 

French deftly moves from eccentricities to mystery to malleable conclusions. Can Ardnakelty can hold fast to the old ways, or must it change to survive?

 

Rob Weir