Le Vent du Nord a Mighty Force

 

 

 

Le Vent du Nord

Têtu

Borealis 236

 

There may not be a more joyful music anywhere in the world than that from Québec, even if you don’t understand a word of French. Le Vent du Nord translates as The North Wind, but I’ve felt it should Puissant Vent du Nord (Mighty North Wind*). I’ve seen Le Vent du Nord numerous times and I can attest that they leave it all on the stage. Têtu translates as stubborn, but in the case of this album it means something to the effect of defiant or persevering. Most of the 15 tracks on the album deal with precarious, tragic, or sad situations that might make non-Francophones glad they don’t know the words.  

 

The album opens with one such tragic song, “Noce tragique,” a sad tale of a newly married couple facing death. This live clip was filmed in Glasgow; Le Vent du Nord is actually a male ensemble and the woman playing penny whistle and singing is Scotland’s Julie Fowlis, ana amazing Gaelic vocalist. The male singer/bouzouki player is Simon Beaudry and if you don’t recognize the cranked instrument played by Nicholas Boulerice, it’s a hurdy-gurdy.

 

If you know that “Loup-garou” is a werewolf (seeking revenge on the Catholic Church), you can imagine it isn’t exactly a stroll in the park either. You will also no doubt notice that there is a lot of call-and-response singing in Quebecois music and that fiddles fly rather than sticking around for polite applause.  You’ll also hear percussive sounds from a type of clogging that developed in Quebec. You can see bits of it in the promo video for “La Marche des Iroquois.”

 

The other songs on Têtu deal with everything from a French take on Canadian Confederation, an orphan lad recalling his mother, and a man awaiting execution to  political events and a song about Louis-Joseph Papineau, an inspirational 19^th century defender of French heritage during the Patriots War against British domination thirty years before Canadian Confederation (1867). But surely the most unusual song is “Chaise ardente” in which a curious man decides to go to hell to check on his lover!

 

The greatest joy of all comes when the band decides to let loose on their instruments. The stage becomes a springboard for all manner of musical mayhem. Here’s a short clip of the band live with quality sound, and another from Glasgow of “Cardeuse-Riopel” (Leave it run and you’ll hear “Confédération.”) The man with the accordion is Réjean Brunet. His brother André, a fiddler, has recently rejoined to make Le Vent du Nord a quintet and trade licks with the fiery strings of Olivier Demers. My friends from Milton and the Champlain Islands might remember a small Québec town just across the border from Alburg, Vermont, called Lacolle. The Brunet brothers are from there and yours truly once interviewed them when they were starting out as a duo. Likewise, a music co-op to which I belonged used to book them at the Welcome Table in Burlington. If you can believe it, Réjean used to be a squirt!

 

Rob Weir

 

 

* For grammarians, puissant is one of many French adjectives that goes before the noun.

The Fisherman's Gift: Tragedy and Missed Connections in Early 20th C. Scotland

 

 

 

The Fisherman’s Gift (Coming March 2025)

By Julia R. Kelly

Simon & Schuster, 324 pages

★★★★

 

Scotland, 1900: A small fishing village in a land where strict Calvinist morals prevail, though they have eroded in cities like Edinburgh. That’s where Dorothy, a young teacher, was raised. Now she stands on the rocky, windswept shores of Skerry, where she is about to become the new school mistress in a wee fishing village far from “Auld Reekie.” From the start she is viewed with suspicion because she’s a city gal who knows nothing of the customs and rhythms of her new home. The fact that she is terrified is viewed by locals as being aloof and uppity.

 

The Fisherman’s Gift is the debut novel from Julia R. Kelly and it’s a good one, though she admits she was inspired in part by the 2016 film The Light Between Oceans and perhaps borrows too much from it. Nonetheless, Kelly gives us a portrait of an isolated Scottish village and a tale that is by turns hopeful, sad, and inspiring. Kelly uses a then/now structure that becomes a puzzle for readers to piece together. She also employs multiple points of view.

 

When Dorothy arrives her only true allies are the minister and Joseph, a fisherman, handyman, and handsome bachelor. In good Victorian style, though, Kelly veers away from any straightforward romance. Hers is a series of doomed romances and missed cues. Dorothy casts aside her hopes when she discovers that Joseph is a regular visitor to the family of two young sisters, Jeanie and Agnes, and that it seems to be a given that Agnes will marry Joseph. He, however, is either not the marrying kind or has placed his hopes elsewhere.  

 

In the “then” sections we learn that Dorothy marries William Gray, an unexciting but steady man, much to the chagrin of his sister Jane, who dislikes Dorothy. Agnes ends up with a very unreliable man. The novel’s crux is that Dorothy gives birth to Moses, who becomes her heart’s delight. Joseph always seems to be about to show Moses how to do things and even makes him toys, which infuriates Dorothy as she thinks it's inappropriate. ( I shan’t spoil why!) Alas, when he’s still a lad, Moses ventures out one night, makes his way to the beach, and drowns. Dorothy blames herself for the tragedy and disappears into herself to the point where she is estranged from William.

 

The ”gift” of the book’s title occurs in the “now” sections. A young boy washes ashore and is near death when Joseph carries him from the beach to the minister’s home. He is nursed back to health and is the spitting image of Moses. Could it be a miracle? He is sent into Dorothy’s care and she is torn between reason and faith, as well as intellectual and emotional truth. The child speaks what seems to be gibberish, but a bonding unfolds with Dorothy.

 

The boy’s origin is one of several mysteries embedded within The Fisherman’s Gift. On a more prosaic level, Kelly’s novel is a close look at village relationships in a place where the sleet blows sideways from the ocean and snowy winters are long. Imagine the loneliness in a hamlet in which outsiders tends to remain so in the minds of locals long after they’ve lived there. In Dorothy’s case, she wins over some of her neighbors, whilst others keep her at arm’s length. Norah Barclay, the village gossip, is always ready to dispense news, even if much of it skirts the line between reality and nonsense. Dorothy does gain an ally in Mrs. Brown, the widow who runs the store in Skerry, but her shop is also where women gather to dispense and hear gossip. (For men, it’s the local pub.)

 

The Fisherman’s Gift keeps you guessing until near the end. Even then, your book group can bat around exactly what the “gift” is. It’s too bad the book won’t release until March. Though there’s nothing particularly Christmas-themed in it, it feels like a novel for the holiday season. Perhaps late winter/early spring will have to do.

 

Rob Weir

 

#TheFishermansGift #NetGalley

 

 

 

Saltwater (releases March 2025)

By Katy Hays

Penguin Random House, 336 pages

★★★★

 

Booze, money, doppelgangers, paranoia, murder, and sun-blasted Capri… What else do you need? Saltwater, the new novel from Katy Hays (The Cloisters), will keep you off-guard. It contrasts old money with new, the latter of which scores low on the character and honesty scales.

 

The loaded Lingate family owes its wealth to a grandfather, an oil baron. As the old saying goes, you need money to make money. The parental generation swelled the coffers and sons Richard and Marcus have done well in Los Angeles, though Richard is mostly pomp and ego, and Marcus is all business.

 

Capri is where the Lingates summer. Those of us who’ve been there can attest it is stunningly beautiful, but also precarious. Unlike most islands in the Gulf of Naples it’s not volcanic, but its karstic landscape is filled with cliffs, caves, and rugged terrain. The Roman emperor Tiberius dispatched enemies by having them pushed into the sea from a high balcony of Villa Jovis. That method may have been the fate of Sarah Lingate, Richard’s wife, in 1992. Her body was identified after she “fell” from a cliffside wall in villa in which the family was staying. Local authorities suspected foul play, but evidence was scant and money buys attorneys and allies in high places.

 

Part I of Saltwater tells Sarah’s tale in her voice. She was a celebrated East Coast playwright before marrying Richard and moving to Los Angeles. After three years she is bored and angered by the controlling ways of the Lingates. They are reminiscent of movie mob families in their preoccupation with the “family,” which they interpret as a collective in which the will of individuals is secondary. That includes working wives, but Sarah is too intelligent, ambitious, and free-spirited. Not only does she want a divorce,  she has written an utterly brilliant play that could be seen as confessional. Bumbling Richard and forceful Marcus try to dissuade her from a reputation-damaging divorce, but she has a plan to  free herself–until she drowns after falling from a cliff. Hays tells her tale in the form of a sequential countdown of days and hours before she dies. Horrible accident or murder? A fancy necklace might hold the clue.

 

Part II jumps to 2022 and focuses on Helen, Sarah and Richard’s daughter who was three when her mother died. Capri is again the site of family drama and melodrama. This part of the novel involves a new investigation into Sarah’s death and throws the Lingates into a tizzy. Not only is family honor at stake, but it’s bad for pending business transactions. Marcus’ assistant Lorna Moreno plays a major role as well. The hours before her disappearance structures Part II.

 

Helen is pivotal, though as she’s the presumptive heir to the Lingate fortune. Marcus is married to Naomi, though they are childless. Naomi plays the part of an unreliable narrator, as we never know if she’s scheming, drunk, or too vacuous for anything except spending time and money in the boutiques along Capri’s Via Camerelle. Richard, Marcus, and Naomi all want to see Helen properly married, but she has her mother’s mind. She dallies with clueless Freddy but is also attracted to Ciro, whom she has known since both were children. The Lingates disapprove of Ciro, as he is the son of the villa’s caretaker Marina Piccola. (Marina has private thoughts on Sarah’s death.)

 

Lorna is an especially interesting character. It’s never entirely clear whose side she’s on, if any. She might be a con artist, Helen’s ally, or an innocent victim. All we know for sure is that millions of Euros change hands, but where they go  to is a mystery within the mystery. Will the Lingate castle crumble or will money prop up the foundations? You will not know until the end who is guilty of what. Hays intersperses newspaper clippings to build the drama.

 

Hays spins a riveting, page-turning yarn. One wonders, though, how readers will respond to the novel’s Deus ex machina resolutions. Some might find them very satisfying, others unconvincingly neat. I’m mostly in the second camp and was bothered by the contrivance of parallel plot lines. I had to remind myself that’s it fiction, not biography. It’s an exciting read no matter how you slice it–unless strict morality is your personal touchstone.

 

Rob Weir

https://off-centerviews.blogspot.com/

Hilma Fascinates in a Disjointed Telling

 

 

 

 

 

 

2019 Guggenheim Museum

Hilma (2023)

Directed by Lasse Hallström

Juno Films, 120 minutes, Not rated, In English

★★★

 

When was the above painted? Sometime in the 1960s? Who’s the artist? Perhaps a pop art painter like Andy Warhol, Yayoi Kusma, or Peter Max? Answer: Swedish artist, Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), two decades before anyone heard of pop art. She also did abstract nonrepresentational art well before Mondrian or Kandinsky took it up. Hilma was a non-conventional woman, but she wasn’t a hippie; she was a follower of Theosophy obsessed with spirits and all that went with them: Ouija boards, seances, meditation, communing with nature…. To further complicate matters, she was probably a lesbian at a time in which such an identity was shocking. The movie Hilma is a disjointed biographical picture from Lasse Hallström, the director of fare such as My Life as a Dog, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Cider House Rules, and ABBA videos. 

 

 

Hilma af Klint was very bright, though her parents seldom quite knew what to do with her. The death of younger sister Hermina exacerbated Hilma’s deep plunge into Theosophy and the search for the “High Masters,” once-human spiritually enlightened guides to the occult. She graduated with honors from Sweden’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts­, but because she was unorthodox and a woman, she struggled to find acceptance in the art world. Hilma gathered likeminded women around her in hope of setting up an atelier whose art would make others appreciate female painters and understand Theosophy.

 

Hilma was something of a Hallström home movie; his daughter Tora played young Hilma, and his wife (Lena Olin) took on the role of aging Hilma. Young Hilda was magnetic and headstrong. Her inner circle included Anna Cassel (Catharine Chalk), Mathilda, (Lily Cole), Cornelia (Rebecca Calder), and Sigrid (Maeve Dermody). The center of this part of the film is the relationship between Hilma and Anna, which Hallström presents as lesbian. (The historical record is suggestive, but not definitive.) Hilma depends upon Anna, who has money to burn and helps get various projects out of Hilma’s head and onto canvases–big ones. Hilma, though, is also fickle. Based on her youthful (mis)understanding, Hilma is convinced that Rudolph Steiner (Tom Wlaschiha) is her soulmate. Although a mystic, Steiner–an architect of Waldorf education­–thought Theosophy was bunk; his was a belief in anthroposophy, an objective explanation of the spiritual world. His dismissive remarks about Hilma’s art led her to quit painting for four years and ruined her relationship with Anna. Hallström suggests Hilma became interested in another woman, though that’s speculative. When Hilma picks up the brush again, she is again rebuffed by Steiner, and shifts her attention to building a “temple” that she and her associates create. She insisted all 196 cavasses be kept together and in an exact order.

 

Finding money for the temple is the obsessive quest of older Anna, whose own brother wants nothing to do with such a flight of fantasy. Only her nephew is kind to her, but he’s not wealthy. Thus, Hilma packed up her art and stipulated that it should not be displayed until 20 years after her death. In 2019, Hilma’s artwork finally got its day: a massive show at the Guggenheim. That was followed by a posthumous Stockholm temple.  

 

Hilma af Klint is hardly the first artist to die unrecognized but achieve renown in the future. Herein lies a problem with the film. It is as if Hallström could not make up his mind what the center of the tale should be. We know early on that Hilma was obsessive, as she throws herself in watching human dissections, studies botany, and announces her intention to make a map of “everything.” Is the film about obsession? Is it lesbianism? (Or, less charitably, the male gaze?) Is it an exploration of spiritualism and the thin walls between the objective and the realm of spirits? Hilma as an early inventor of modernism and nonrepresentational art? Hilma as stubborn to a fault?

 

All of these, of course, can be dimensions of a person’s personality, but the movie has no discernible takeaway message. Instead we get the equivalent of a stack of Polaroids, each image fascinating, but a life abstracted. The film is worth watching– Tora Hallström is both spunky and spiky and Catherine Chalk has commanding presence–but keep a roll of tape handy to fix the pieces in place.

 

Rob Weir

February 2025 Music: West of Rome, Yahtzee Brown, Chris Walz ,Trendafilka, Jason Carter, Deborah Holland, MahaMaya, Ethel/Moving Sound

 

Is rock and roll making a comeback? West of Rome gets labeled an “indie-rock/alt-country band,” but other than being from Texas, the “alt-country” side isn’t much in evidence on Keep It Fly in the Negative Zone. (The band’s name comes from a record from the late Vic Chestnut.) “Movement in Your Picture” is filled with gritty and grungy swagger. On “Keep it Fly,” vocalist Kevin Higginbotham channels a touch of Robert Plant as lead guitarist Charlie Roadman lets his solos fuzz and burn. The monster in “Face the Beast” is American violence and Old Nick himself is in the front seat of the nightmare hallucination “Take a Ride with the Evil One.” You don’t hear much music like this in Nashville.

 

 

 

 

Yahtzee Brown has a different vibe. He’s just 20 and Take it Back is his debut album. His father was a rock drummer and young Noah Siegel, his non-stage name, grew up hearing 60s and 70s rock and later took in a lot of indie rock. The title track lies in a in-between groove. His vocals and production are smooth, but Michael Lockwood’s bass is so solid it’s like a lead guitar. Echo effects push this song about relationships and troublemakers into a spacey psychedelia space. “I Guess I’m Sorry” shows he also picked up some outlaw country from his Waylon-Willie-Townes-loving parents. He brings buzz and noise to “Watching Over You” and some high-note electric and cacophony to counter his light tenor on “Halloween.” Brown’s split between classic and indie rock will challenge marketers to label him.   

 

---If you want a break from electric guitar, here are some radical changes of pace. 

 

 

 Bluegrass has gotten slick, but Chris Walz turns back the clock on All I Got and Gone, a throwback more in line with the bluegrass and old time songs of the early Folk Revival. Walz teaches at the Old School of Folk Music where he is considered folk music royalty. Listen to his clawhammer banjo on “Going Across the Sea,” playing resonator blues, doing his take on the traditional “Delia,” and grabbing a National steel guitar for a Mississippi John Hurt picking treatment to “See See Rider.” (It starts at 4:44.) To invoke Neil Young, this is a journey to the past (without the thorns).

 

 

 

Much of the music of Trendafilka comes from Georgia, the one whose capital is Tbilisi not Atlanta. Their new album For the Olives also features songs from the Balkans, Greece, Macedonia, and the Russian Steppes. That said, you’re not too far off if you thought Atlanta; the polyphonic singing of this 11-woman a cappella assemblage is based in New Orleans! The polyphonic vocals are Balkans style, meaning they feature 3, 4, and 5-part discrete melodies that blend into something as unfettered as the wild rose that is their namesake. Listen for strategic uses of dissonance, yips, yodels, complexity, and (were in Latin) songs that would be at home in a Romanesque cathedral. It’s a spectacular recording. Try any track from For the Olives and you’ll be hooked on Trendafilka. Start with “Mome Stojie Ju Livadi,” “Oi Na Dubori,” and a live clip of  “Mori Aida.”

 

 

Jason Carter once preferred classical music and nylon strings. On In and Out of Time Carter plays a Space Age-looking harp guitar and experimented with live looping techniques that might have made Bach barf. Carter has been something of a nomad who has visited over 100 countries and has recently lived in Finland, Singapore, and France. Not that he’s home all that often, what with his touring schedule and video projects. In and Out of Time has an international flair. “Finlandia” pays homage to living there, “One” was recorded in Singapore, “I Believe” In Kuwait, others with the Novosibirsk orchestra in Siberia, and so on. The harp guitar on the CD cover has 12 strings and he has apparently just gotten one with 23. That’s at least 17 more than I need!

 

 

 

American-Canadian Deborah Holland once fronted Animal Logic (which included Stewart Copeland of The Police) and has penned soundtracks for TV and movies. She also has an active solo career; I Made it This Far is her 7^th release. It has styling vaguely reminiscent of Carole King. This intriguing release includes “Wildfires,” a reference to ecological lowlights of 2023-24. They scorched over 13 million acres across Canada and turned skies yellow and sooty in the 48 provinces south of the border. (Sorry–couldn’t resist a poke at the wantwit in Washington DC.) In a serious vein, Holland’s dramatic piano, strong voice, accompanying video, and lyrics drive home the pathos of the “long black scars” left behind. The flip side of tragedy is her folky “Thankful,” which she wrote for Thanksgiving 2023, an enumeration of things she and sign-holding others count as blessings. These are the only two songs for which there are videos thus far as the LP drops on March 7. The rest of the album is mix of moving material (“A Long Time Ago”) the country-like (“Circling the Drain”), a celebration of beautiful days (“East Porpoise Bay”), nostalgia in a cheeky-yet-melancholy way (“50 Year Reunions”), and more. As Holland has aged, she has moved through several musical personae. I Made it This Far has more piano, a lush and dramatic counterpart to guitar-centric adult alternative music. She has also transitioned from American to Canadian, courtesy of a job at Langara College in Vancouver. Google her song “I Wanna Be a Canadian.”

 

 

 

My bad! At a very busy time I was sent A New Day  from the MahaMaya Band that got lost in the clutter. I’m really happy I found it. There is such much talk about “fusion” music, even if the final product has only a small burst of electric guitar or a hint of bluegrass. That’s not the case with the MahaMaya Band. At heart it’s a New Delhi-based duo of Mahalakshmi (keys, voice) and Emam (hand drums, guitar) but the “band” expands to wherever modern technology can connect musicians. A New Day spotlights help from other parts of India, Hungary, Poland, California, and New York to add bass, sitar, oud, sarod, and mandocello. The resultant music is ancient and modern, mystical and meditative. Try the title track and “Great Spirit.”

 

 

 

I’m afraid a joint project between the New York City string quartet Ethel and Taiwan’s A Moving Sound seems like a forced marriage because the vocals of Mia Hsieh in the later are too harsh for me. However, whether or not you’ll like it might depend on how much you like the wild lamentations, screams, and atonality of Yoko Ono’s sonic explorations. I realize that Ono is Japanese, not Taiwanese, so listen to “Dynasty Falls” and decide on your own. I love the instrumentals and admire Hsieu’s vocal dexterity and dramatic presentation skills, but I can’t relate to them. 

 

 

 

Coming in March: Mary Bue, Muriel Mwamba, Ron Pope, Michael Rudd, and ???

 

Rob Weir

Intermezzo an Intelligent Study in Five Voices

 

 

 

Intermezzo (2024)

By Sally Rooney

Faber & Faber, 336 pages

★★★★★

 

I admire Irish novelist Sally Rooney, though some critics find her writing antiseptic and claustrophobic. Rooney is not a fan of quotation marks and is generally more cerebral than her characters. In my mind, her intellectualism is a way of adding depth to characters lacking self-awareness. That is certainly true in Intermezzo.

 

In music and drama intermezzo is a short interlude within a larger movement or play. It is also an unexpected moment in a chess match that an opponent might not anticipate. Rooney’s Intermezzo has a chess subtheme, but it is indeed about the unexpected. Without breaks from the norm we’d have little more than a run-of-the-mill tale about a fractured family, bickering brothers, and age gaps. Rooney uses breaks from the norm to create crisis points.

 

The first involves the death of Peter and Ivan Koubek’s* father. Peter is a 32-year-old barrister trying to fight the good fight and often stumbling over his cynicism and bad habits. His brother Ivan is 22, a chess genius whose social skills are so underdeveloped that we suspect he’s on the autism spectrum. Peter has often looked after Ivan, but in a controlling fashion. Ivan was deeply attached to his father and the fact that Peter has handled their father’s death better is just one of many resentments Ivan holds against him. Peter, in turn, is annoyed by Ivan’s immaturity, tantrums, and what he sees as Ivan’s lack of responsibility. We can tell early on that Da’ was the family glue. In a clever intermezzo of her own, Rooney gives each major character a distinct voice; Peter is rational and authoritative, Ivan is boyish and humorous, and the female characters are also quite different.

 

The novel’s central relationship is between the two brothers, but it is the women who pull the strings. Ivan has just won a chess match in which he played nine opponents simultaneously and defeated them all–hardly surprising as he is playing an exhibition against those of far lesser skills. The big conquest is that Ivan meets arts and events manager Margaret Keane. She is separated from her alcoholic and sometimes violent husband Ricky and is estranged from her mother who makes excuses for him. To cut to the chase, Margaret and Ivan become secret lovers and Margaret serves as Ivan’s teacher for many things, including adult life. Ivan, though, is open, gentle, kind, and a terrific lover who couldn’t care less that she is nearly 14 years his senior. Ivan immerses himself in Margaret, tells Peter nothing of her existence, argues with Peter, and eventually cuts off contact his brother.

 

Peter assumes an older-and-wiser stand, but he carries loads of anguish. It doesn’t even begin to cut it to say that his love life is also complicated. He was (and is) deeply in love with Sylvia, a 32-year-old English professor who adored Ivan. They broke up because Sylvia was in an auto accident and suffered a spinal injury that left permanent damage and excruciating pain. She is unable to have sex, but they remain soulmates who spend a lot of time with each other. Through unusual circumstances Peter meets 23-year-old Naomi, who does porn modeling and casual prostitution. From time to time, Peter is also in love with her. Sylvia knows about this and encourages Peter to pursue Naomi. Sylvia is thus a voice of reality and Naomi that of possibility and Ivan-like joy, No wonder the two brothers battle; each is struggling against their own fears, socially awkward situations, and role reversals.  

 

I suspect most readers of this review (and the novel) will reflexively recoil at the unorthodox relationships of Intermezzo. The only remotely conventional one is that of Peter and Sylvia, but it would require Peter to become a secular monk. Rooney gives us three pairs whose viability is up for grabs: Peter and Ivan, Peter and Naomi, and Ivan and Naomi. How will all of this play out? Did I mention there’s a dog, a chess career, and two mothers involved? Or that the respective love affairs are largely closeted?

 

Intermezzo has been called a novel about grief, family, and love. That’s accurate, but we should also add that it was written by an intelligent stylist.

 

Rob Weir

 

* The brothers are Irish but the family ancestry is Slovak. Rooney uses the Koubek surname to emphasize outsider status.

Pitfall Filled with Potholes

 

 

 

Pitfall (1948)

Directed by André de Toth

United Artists, 88 minutes, Not-rated

★★

 

I really like old film noirs, but they’re not all great. Pitfall is a case in point. It has all the elements needed for a good movie minus one: a credible story. I’m not sure if it was the decision of the studio or director André de Toth, but the film’s short running time of 88 minutes served to make motives and character personality too shallow to make sense.

 

Johnny Forbes (Dick Powell) is an insurance investigator for the Olympic Mutual Insurance Company. He’s well-regarded for exposing insurance fraud, though we can tell he’s bored with his job. He is handed a case involving a jailed embezzler Bill Smiley (Byron Barr), who is suspected of channeling insurance money to his girlfriend. Forbes sends a freelance PI, ex-cop “Mac” MacDonald (Raymond Burr) to visit Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott). When he hears that she’s gorgeous, Johnny removes Mac from the case and personally investigates Stevens. Almost literally before you can say, “hot-ticket model,” Johnny has fallen for Mona, though he has a wife Sue (Jane Wyatt) and a gee-whiz son Tommy.

 

This touches off “I saw her first” animosity with Mac, who snoops on Johnny and stalks Mona. To emphasize his point, Mac beats the fedora off of Johnny. When Mac follows Johnny home and threatens to reveal his infidelity, Forbes promises to kill Mac if he ever threatens his family again. Meanwhile, Smiley gets paroled, wonders why Mona isn’t wearing the engagement ring he bought her and, thanks to Mac’s visits while he was in the tank, wants to know about both Johnny and Mac.

 

Pitfall was nearly nixed by the Hays Commission, the Hollywood censorship bureau, for not sufficiently following the code for upholding the virtues of family life. The last 15 minutes or so of Pitfall is a mess that makes me believe that whatever grit had been in the script was snipped in a hasty rewrite in which Smiley is killed, Mac’s attempt to force Mona to run away with him is melodramatically thwarted, Johnny becomes a suspect in Smiley’s demise, tells the police the real story, and gets off scot-free because Mona confirms his story. Johnny confesses his unfaithfulness to Sue, but she agrees to stay with him though she’s not sure she believes his tale of a one-off infatuation.

 

Oh yeah, there’s a backstory also about a briefcase and a boat, but you’d have to care enough to find out how they fit in. Trust me; it’s not worth watching to find out. Powell is okay as an all-American type in over his head and Burr makes for a creepy heavy, though Barr acts as if he swallowed a cliché dictionary on how to be a thug. Scott is indeed sultry, but her role is preposterous in Pitfall unless you really do believe in love at first sight. Even then, you’d have to swallow the further belief that she’d fall for a married man though her gangster boyfriend’s graft benefitted her. Who would be dumb enough to risk being fingered as part of part of the scheme?

 

From the field of architecture the phrase “less is more” has entered popular parlance as folk wisdom. That is certainly not true in Pitfall. This film needs a whole lot more getting- to-know-you character development to make sense of what we see on the screen. Sure, we see Johnny and Mona having a good time­–she’s a goodtime bad girl to his man in the gray flannel suit­–but the impression we get is that Johnny is bored in his job, not in his marriage. Likewise, if we are going to buy an ex-cop like Mac becoming a stalker and trying to abduct Mona, we need to know details of what has driven him to such desperation.

 

Jay Dratler wrote the novel upon which the movie was based. At 192 pages it’s not exactly a tome, but surely there was enough to flesh out the narrative. If I were retroactively to judge the movie version, I’d say that Karl Kamb’s screenplay is the namesake pitfall.

 

Rob Weir

More from the Stacks: Baragwanath, Cheng , Montague, Ware, McCann

 

 

From the Stacks III:  Baragwanath, Cheng , Montague, Ware, McCann

 

Time for more novels from my book cache. I’ve got so many new and old ones that it’s a tossup which will happen first, a collapse of my shelves or the need to buy more memory for my iPad Kindle reader. I’m thinking of changing my name to Stack-o-lee.

 

 

 

Tom Baragwanath is a New Zealand novelist whose debut novel Paper Cage (Knopf, 2024, 314 pp.) is set near the farming village of Masterton, NZ, where he grew up. Lorraine Henry is a records clerk for the local police. That’s not a post that gives her a lot of street cred, but when kids begin to disappear, she grows suspicious about the half-hearted police attempts to find them. That couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that  the kids are Māori, could it? When her Māori nephew Bradley Mākara disappears as well, Lorraine has her answer. Not that it gives her more influence, as Bradley’s father is a known drug runner and gang member. Lorraine’s effort to save disappeared children involves making inroads into a rough Māori community, working with a detective, and trusting people who she’s not sure she should trust. It’s a tense novel, even when it’s not as coherent or as logical as it should be. ★★★

 

 

 

Can a rabbit teach a family what really matters? It does in The Burrow (Tin House, 2024, 187 pp.), a short novel from Australian writer/doctor Melanie Cheng. Jin and Amy Lee are workaholic parents to 10-year-old Lucie in the waning days of Melbourne’s COVID restrictions. Lockdown, a first child who died, Amy’s stasis, and Jin juggling an affair don’t make for a happy household . Nor do stay-overs by Amy’s mother Pauline, who loves Lucie but is estranged from both Amy and Jin. So how does adopting a bunny help? Pauline reads Watership Down with Lucie, who promptly names her rabbit Fiver. Rabbits are not always a good pet; as several characters note, they are nervous because they are “prey animals.”  The Burrow is, at times, a charming novel, but it is not a children’s book. It’s about what it means to care for people and animals, how to cope with fear, and how to get centered. ★★★★

 

 

 

 How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund (Ecco, 2024, 241 pp.) might sound like a title from Fredrik Backman, but it’s a new novel from Anna Montague about a psychologist who happens to have Scandinavian ancestry. Magda is the oldest member of her practice, but has devoted colleagues who’d do anything for her. She suffers from anthropophobia (social anxiety) and lives an intellectual but insular life. She seldom ventures out for drinks with her office mates and been known to duck out of parties in her honor. Luckily she has Sara, the kind of friend who can finish her sentences, badger her to leave her New York apartment, and  convince Magda to agree to a secret plan to celebrate her upcoming 70^th birthday. When Sara suddenly dies, Magda’s mourning becomes depression and a burden to bear. She’s never been fond of Sara’s husband, who tasks her with dealing with Sara’s ashes. Plus, Magda discovers that Sara had a road trip planned for the two of them that Magda feels honor-bound to take. Along the way she discovers her true identity. It is often said that psychologists are among the most screwed up people in the world. I don’t agree and think it’s a cheap trick to make Magda so self-unaware, but the novel has keen insights into friendship and grieving. ★★★

 

 

 

Ruth Ware is considered a star among twisty mystery/thriller writers. The Death of Mrs. Westaway (Scout Press, 2018, 368 pp.) has a delightful old-fashioned feel to it. That’s by design; Ware admits her love of Agatha Christie and wrote Mrs. Westaway in Christie’s style. Harriet “Hal” Westaway works as a Tarot card reader on a Penzance pier, but has bills she can’t pay, including the rental on her booth. The owner of the latter sends a thug to break a few things and promises she’s next unless she coughs up the dough. Hal has no way to do that, but smells opportunity when a letter informs her that she has inherited money and an estate house from her grandmother. Hal knows she’s the wrong Westaway but cooks up a plan to go to the estate in Cornwall to bilk the rich and get out before she’s discovered. That’s the scheme, but what if she’s wrong? Do not think Cinderella tale. The Westaway family has issues, bickers like caged badgers, and divides into two camps over whether Hal is legit. Is money at the center of all? Too simple. This novel has it all: foul play, dark and stormy nights, long buried secrets, a threatening housekeeper, things that go bump in the night, and desperate flight. If you think an estate house sounds romantic, don’t! Ware’s book contains many unlikely Christie-like touches, but they are of the sort that make both writers enticing. ★★★★

 

 

 

If you’ve never read Let the Great World Spin (Random House, 2009, 350 pp.), you should. It’s a complex book that is poetic, non-linear, and told from the perspective of 11 separate characters, but it’s an extraordinary piece of literature for which author Colm McCann rightly won a National Book Award. The title comes from Tennyson. It’s next lines are, “We stumble on. It is enough.” McCann leverages those sentiments in a novel about vulnerability and the fragility of life. Interspersed within the narrative are metaphors posing as descriptions of Philippe Petit’s 1974 walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center. Two Irish brothers, Corrigan, a Jesuit street minister, and Ciaran are the novel’s fulcrum. Ciaran visits Corrigan in his Bronx apartment in the projects. Despite obvious dangers, Corrigan leaves his apartment unlocked when he’s at work at a nursing home so that the hookers can use the restroom or stay if they need rest or shelter. Ciaran is appalled by those “hanging on to (Corrigan) like he was some bright hallelujah in the shitbox of what the world really is.” McCann deftly intersects the lives of prostitutes, a judge, his wife, mothers who lost sons in Vietnam, an overweight African American woman, the blood disease TTP, and other voices and situations. The key secondary characters include street walkers Tillie and her daughter Jazzlyn, a mother of two. The fragility of life is reinforced in a hit-and-run accident that kills two key individuals and the affects upon survivors. In an epilogue, Ciaran revisits New York 32 years later (2006) that serves the great world spinning theme. A name change by Jazzlyn’s grown daughter is significant. Those who lived in or visited New York in the 1970s can attest to McCann’s observation of its Inferno-like decadence and how much it changed. I won’t tell you that this is an easy novel to digest, but I will say that you’ll know you’ve read a masterful work  that invites pondering good, evil, naiveté, pessimism, consequences, hope, race, and injustice.

 

Rob Weir

 

Green for Danger: See the Humor Audiences in 1946 Did Not

 

 

 

Green for Danger (1946)

Directed by Sidney Gilliat

General Film Distributors, 91 minutes, not rated

★★★★

 

It’s a comedy. It’s a thriller. It’s a mystery, a tale of power, jealousy, and indeterminate romance. It’s twisty, silly, and horrifying. Green for Danger was banned because British officials feared it would cause the general public to avoid hospitals. That’s how a film that is now well-regarded lost money in its day.

 

The film was released in 1946 but was based upon a 1941 novel by Christianna Brand that has an intriguing backstory. Brand was married to a military surgeon whose anesthesiologist jocularly told her of a clever way to commit murder. She based one of her Inspector Cockrill tales on it, director Sidney Gilliat read it while on a train journey, and adapted it for the cinema.

 

The date of Brand’s novel is significant. Great Britain went to war against Germany in September 1939 and the following May, Adolf Hitler’s Luftwaffe began its infamous Blitz bombings of London, which it extended across the British Isles. By the time the RAF (Royal Air Force) gained control of the skies in May 1941, 60% of London was destroyed, as many as 43,000 citizens were killed, over 100,000 were injured, two million homes were destroyed, and over 3,300 airmen lost their lives. One of the most dreaded Nazi weapons was the V-1, an early cruise missile, which also terrorized. One could hear bombers flying overhead but when things grew silent, seek cover as it was impossible to know where the missiles would strike.

 

It was gutsy of Brand to write a cheeky comedy during the Blitz and of Gilliat to make a film involving events fresh in people’s memory. Having said all of this, Green for Danger is not a war film in any sense other than taking place during one. It is set in a hospital somewhere in the English countryside that treats civilians as well as military personnel. Its nurses are called “sister” and its male medical staff flirted shamelessly and clashed egotistically. Dr. Eden (Leo Genn) is a combination of charm and smarm. He has his eye on Nurse Linley (Sally Gray), who seems to be wavering in her affection for Dr. Barnes (Trevor Howard). Poor Dr. White (Ronald Adam), the titular head of the unit, has his hands full trying to keep his staff in line.

 

Trouble begins with the local postman Joseph Higgins (Moore Marriott) is injured in a V-1 attack. His wounds are not serious but he needs an operation. He hears something that spooks him badly as he’s wheeled in for surgery and dies on the operating table. Barnes’ competence comes into question, as it was he who administered the anesthesia, though he insists he followed correct procedure. Enter Scotland Yard Inspector Cockrill (Alastair Sim). To call him unorthodox is an injustice for the umbrella carrying Cockrill, a seeming goofball eccentric with a sharp mind and sharper tongue.

 

You no doubt suspect he will solve how poor Joe Higgins died, but part of Cockrill’s charm is that his instincts are not always correct. Heaven knows his directness doesn’t do much to calm the spurned Sister Bates (Judy Campbell), nervous Nurse Woods (Megs Jenkins), the normally unflappable Nurse Sanson (Rosamund John), or any of the other women at the hospital. Things get really tense after another murder and the shocking news that a gas attack will probably kill the popular Linley.

 

The comic relief in Green for Danger comes from the pretentious battles between the doctors and from Cockrill. Well-known actor Robert Morley was originally offered the role, but it was a pure stroke of genius to replace him with Alastair Sim. Not only was he letter perfect in the role, but he was also the sort of actor who makes you laugh just by looking at him. His mannerisms, not his appearance, put me in min d of Jacques Tati’s bumbling Monsieur Hulot. Sim gets the last word in the film and it’s delicious.

 

Things were hazy when the film was released, but only partly because World War II was barely over. Green for Danger was perhaps too clever for its day, with audiences and several important reviewers missing the fact that it’s actually a sendup of detective stories, especially those of the omniscient variety. It’s a rare movie that is easier to understand 79 years later!

 

Rob Weir

The Manchurian Candidate is Still Powerful

 

 

 

 

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Produced and directed by John Frankenheimer

United Artists, 126 minutes, PG-13

In black and white

★★★★★

 

Most psychiatrists either do not believe in brainwashing or have declared it unproven. Yet, when heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped (1974) and subsequently helped her captors rob banks, her counsel insisted she was a victim of Stockholm syndrome, in which an abused person comes to identify with her captors/abusers. You can make up your own mind about such things, but when The Manchurian Candidate came out (1962) mind control was indeed considered a real thing. The Cold War between the United States and the communist bloc was at a fever pitch. (The Berlin Wall was less than a year old.)

 

The Manchurian Candidate is a classic Cold War film from when President John F. Kennedy was in office, though George Axelrod’s script was based upon a 1959 novel from Richard Condon. Note that I said “novel.” Yet to audiences of its day it felt like a documentary, a belief enhanced by the use of melodramatic narration from Paul Frees. The movie’s depiction of North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet uses of brainwashing was taken so seriously that the CIA launched what is now a discredited program: MKUltra, the use of psychedelics (including LSD) to interrogate enemy captives.

 

The Manchurian Candidate is considered a film of such importance that it is preserved in the Library of Congress. If that doesn’t sway you, know that it’s considered an American classic and is indeed a very fine film. Stay with it, as the opening is bold and odd. A bunch of American GIs sit intently listening to a lecture on gardening. Huh? We only catch on when the women’s faces dissolve into those of Korean, Chinese, and Russian military personnel. We are actually witnessing a show trial of a different sort. An American platoon captured during the Korean War was brainwashed in China. As a demonstration of how effective it has been, Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is shown a Queen of Diamonds and ordered to kill two of his men as victims and their peers sit passively.

 

As the film moves back to the United States, Shaw is hailed as a hero. Shaw is vaguely unsettled, but more by the fact that thinks his mother Eleanor (Angela Lansbury) and her fungible second husband, Senator John Iselin (James Gregory) are creeps. (The novel involved mother/son forced incest, a big no-no for a 1962 movie.) Also troubled is recently promoted Major Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra) who has reoccurring dreams that Shaw was a hated squad leader who killed two of his own men. Another soldier has the same dreams and Marco is assigned to intelligence to investigate.

 

Shaw’s handlers prove to his American contacts that he is a controllable sleeper agent assassin by ordering Shaw to murder a newspaper editor critical of Senator Iselin, a rabid right-winger browbeaten by his wife Eleanor. She advises him, for instance, to claim that the Defense Department is riddled with communists. If that rings a bell, Iselin is clearly based upon infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy’s during the early 1950s. In the film, Shaw keeps tabs on Iselin’s liberal foe, Senator Thomas Jordan (John McGiver) and ingratiates himself to Jordan’s daughter Jocelyn (Leslie Parrish). While we’re at it, let’s assign a love interest for Major Marco, “Rosie” Cheyney (Janet Leigh). They first meet on a train and låater bails Marco out of jail for assaulting a Korean (Henry Silva!) he recognizes as an agent.

 

The Manchurian Candidate is terrifically acted, which more than compensates for situations we today might find overdone or implausible. Perhaps some of the names of the actors are unfamiliar to younger readers. In 1962, though, this was an all-star cast. Harvey was perhaps better known in Britain than in North America, but he was well cast for his icy, withdrawn demeanor. Lansbury was a veteran of stage, screen, and television–think Tony awards, Oscar nominations, Golden Globes, and Emmys–and Leigh had a distinguished movie career. She was the gal in the shower in Psycho and the mother of Jamie Lee Curtis. Could Sinatra act? He sure could. Even his mistakes were praised. (Watch for an out-of-focus scene in Manchurian Candidate used to show disorientation.)

 

Will Marco be able to stop Shaw? The Manchurian Candidate is a beat-the-clock thriller with sneaky motives, oily villains, and a shocking ending. Beware the Queen of Diamonds!

 

Rob Weir