Everything else is yesterday's mashed potatoes...

It's been a couple of Rosalind Russell filled nights for me, since taping The Women, His Girl Friday, Auntie Mame, Gypsy, The Trouble with Angels and Mrs. Pollifax: Spy. Actually, I taped the first two quite some time ago, but refuse to erase them from my DVR.

ABZ says, "There's a LOT of yelling in old movies, how can you stand it?" I haven't really researched it myself, but I'm sure part of it is due to sound quality and another to projecting as if on stage. I will say, there is a definite difference in tone between 1939's The Women and 1971's Mrs. Pollifax.

One of the things I simply adore about TCM (besides all the free movie nights they sponsor here in Atlanta) is that they have all these themes around their movies. For example, they have Summer Under the Stars, which is very fancy-sounding, but what they do is pick an actor, then a group of movies they feel showcases the actors throughout his or her career, and will run them through with introductions, guest actors introducing the film, similar films by other actors, etc. Also they'll add in documentaries or taped appearances the actor (usually deceased by now) has made.

My only complaint with the Gregory Peck showcase is: No To Kill a Mockingbird? It just seems that Atticus Finch is how so many people see Peck. I know I do.

In fact, that film hasn't been shown in a while. I'll have to see what it going on with that. I think they should show it every summer.

Oh also, Robert Osbourne is a fantastic host, both before and after the film on television and before and after the film at the summer outdoor festivals.

And, since I like a bunch of links, here's some more material you may enjoy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_Classic_Movies

Wikipedia entry on the U.S. TCM (It's international, baby!) with lots of trivia

http://www.tcm.com/index.jsp

The official TCM page

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Rosalind+Russell

Amazon list for Rosalind Russell. May I suggest her autobiography, Life is a Banquet, which is listed further down the page? She herself said her life was too boring to write about in comparison to other actresses: No addictions, no scandals, no multiple divorces--which makes it all the more enjoyable to read. Not that I don't like scandalous literature, mind, but it is nice to read about someone who enjoyed their work and didn't have all the gossip and exposes other women in her field seem to go through.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Mrs.+Pollifax

The top book is what Mrs. Pollifax: Spy was based on. This is a very enjoyable series about a widow who joins the CIA. My grandmother had the Readers' Digest condensed version of these and I enjoyed them so much, I'd check out the fuller versions from the library (enjoyable, but unfortunately without the illustrations the RD has.

http://www.amazon.com/Auntie-Mame-Irreverent-Patrick-Dennis/dp/0767908198/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217494062&sr=8-8

Auntie Mame: An Irrevrent Escapade is more hilarious than the film, if you can imagine. Check out other books by Patrick Dennis. While Mame was his bread and butter, he penned quite a few satirical books. May I recommend Little Me? Truly a blueprint for the Paris Hiltons of today.

Silver Scream

Tonight Anna, Amanda and I went to the Plaza Theatre to see the once-a-month Silver Scream Spook Show. If you have never been to one of these, well, you are missing out my friend.

It's a very fun time; kind of a "ghouls, girls and gags" event with a cheesy old time movie at the end. The skits deal with the main characters Professor Morte, his assistant Retch, Professor Morte's lovely spokesmodel Pandora, her young protege Persephone, and a gang of male and female dancers from Blast-Off Burlesque. Their show is always interrupted by Dr. Wetham, who continuously fights a losing battle to get the Show shut down.

The skits usually have some reference to the movie: tonight, the film was "It Came from Beneath the Sea," and there were tentacles all over the stage at one point, dragging away Dr. Wertham.

After that, they then auctioned off some memorbilia, and it was time to settle down and watch the film.

"It Came from Beneath the Sea," is most notable for its' six-tentacled octopus, created by special-effects creator Ray Harryhausen (The budget only allowed for six, but you really wouldn't notice them missing). The plot is pretty standard; creature from the depths of the sea attacking through some radiation thing, blah blah blah. Like a lot of scripts written on the quick, there are a lot of lines that are (probably) unintentionally funny, and lots of things going boom.

Below are some links to the Silver Scream, Blast-Off Burlesque, and the Plaza theatre. Next month is "The Creeping Demon." You can bet I'll be in line for that.

http://www.plazaatlanta.com/

http://silverscreamspookshow.com/HOME.html

http://profile.myspace.com/silverscreamspookshow

http://www.myspace.com/blastoffburlesque

For All You Batman Fans...

This is possibly the best LICD comic that deals with superheroes EVER

www.leasticoulddo.com/

This is also good to tweak those Superman fans with too.