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Monday, April 27, 2015

Traveling Monsters Vol. 2

Meet Juliana Lovebot. She hails from Nebraska, she had a stop in Wisconsin before coming here.  Upon arrival, Voodoo made sure she was comfortable.

We went to one of our favorite ice cream places, its locally famous.  Chocolate peanut butter (frappe) is my all time favorite, how they get the peanut butter (yeah its real peanut butter in there) to stay smooth while frozen, I dunno.

We stopped to see the animals.

She had a great time watching the goats and their antics.

And the beautiful peacock, though he was not inclined to strut his stuff and show off his feathers ...

And we met a new friend in the gift shop ... who consequently came home to live in my purple room ...

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Friday Felines 2015 Vol 11

Nikoh & Riley

Brothers from another mother (and father).

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Love your Blog Challenge #3 Ugly

A Playful Day

The topic this week is quite a stumper.  So I've decided to dissect the prompt piece by piece ... that's how you eat an elephant they say, right?!  No, I would not eat an elephant or any or its parts, ever, LOL!

Feeling negative about blogging.  I have often times felt negative about blogging ... crappy photos, bad lighting, I don't know what to write, who wants to read this, is anyone reading this, why do I do this?

Turning a negative into a positive.  Well photos ... I do try and pay attention to lighting, background, etc. when taking photos and I think they have definitely improved over time.

Sometimes I feel like my blogging is a grocery list, I see other bloggers that post fantastic little stories or insights, but I'm just not that type of person.  On my recent podcast episode I was talking about how sometimes I wonder if my job is a good idea or the "right" job for me (911 police dispatcher) - typically this questioning occurs on a VERY frustrating, crazy busy day :o)

When I step outside and think about it, it probably is the right job for me.

  1. send off to a destination or for a purpose.
  2.  deal with (a task, problem, or opponent) quickly and efficiently.
Its how I operate: Get it done and NOW.  So its how I blog.  Here's my story, here are the facts, here's a photo, click publish and off it goes.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

FO: Undersized Unicorn

Yarrn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes
Needles: US 5 (3.75mm)
Cast on: April 16, 2015
Finished: April 19, 2015

This one was a lot of fun.  The entire project was knit magic loop, which is my preferred method for in the round knitting.  The parts were all picked up, no sewing except for weaving in the ends (of which there were quite a few).

I find I finish stuffies quite quickly, I have a real issue with bodies without appendages ... it really bothers me.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

FO: Down the Rabbit Hole

Pattern: Down the Rabbit Hole by Purrlescent
Yarn: Beyond Basic Knits in Squirt
Needles: US 1 (2.25mm) Addi Sock Rockets
Cast On: February 9, 2015
Finish: April 15, 2015

“Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end!” –Alice in Wonderland

I used to listen to this on an audio book, the narrator had a wonderful voice, an old English  man.  I remember this line and the way he enunciated it, "Down, doownn, dooowwwnn."

This was a very fun knit, never boring.  I did finally get the hang of which sock I was working on and how to work the stitches after a while.

Friday, April 17, 2015

Friday Felines Vol. 10

Nikoh back when we first adopted him.  He was the cutest little thing (he's still cute, he just grew into his ears and kinda his legs).  I remember when we first got him, he was inquisitive, not skiddish, but not real friendly (we referred to him as a dumpster cat - he was out in the "wild" with other cats that a rescue picked up, he was young enough to not be really feral and he adapted quite well).

Remember I said not real friendly?!?!  He wouldn't sit with us or on us when we first got him, for some time.  Years later I can't get him off me :o)

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

The REAL indicator of Spring

So, what is the "REAL" indicator of Spring you wonder??? In New England, its the opening of the local seafood and ice cream "shacks" or um ... fine dining establishments. They are all over, every town has at least one. We were happy to find that when we moved here (though they don't have my favorite chocolate peanut butter ice cream ... we'll get to that later this year) they do have great fried seafood.

Hubby got a new camera, so he was trying it out.

I recently got new sunglasses with some bling, bling. Typically I am a tomboy, but there are some ooohhhh shinys that I like. I had my last pair of (regular black) sunglasses for must've been .. oh 8 years. I'm not good at change or letting things go. I wore these crooked with a too large screw holding the falling off ear piece for the last two years ... I bought another cheapo pair a few months ago, but still went back to the broken ones ... until I found these ...

Oh, I said seafood, right?!?!  Did I mention my all time favorite - RASPBERRY LIME RICKEY?!?!

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Love Your Blog Challenge #2 Beginnings

A Playful Day

The topic for this week is beginnings ... how did you get started blogging?  I went back ... way back to 2006 and checked out my old blog.  It appears I may have started because I was doing a lot of swaps and also I had just started knitting.  There were a lot of beginnings ... beginning a lot of projects - many of which I am sure I never quite finished.  Some I did ... many, many years later ...

One I started  in December of 2007 (or at least bought the yarn for) and finally completed it in December of 2011.

I used to actually list my "ridiculous sock yarn stash" that amounted to 18 skeins ... hahahahahaha!!!!!  How cute is that?!?!  Silly girl!!!

I also used to go places and take cool photos.  I haven't done that in a long time ... (I go places, I forget to take photos).

I used to write a lot more too ... it also appears I used to come up with much wittier blog titles, LOL!

While digging through the blog I found some yarn that may be perfect for a shawl I wanted to knit ... where it is though ... hhmmm.

I used to make cool collages at the end of the year.

HHmmm here's to more thoughtful blogging from me in the future :o)

So ... what do you LIKE about this blog (so I can keep doing it)???  And is there anything you used to see here that you would like to see again?!?!

How did you start blogging???

Friday, April 10, 2015

Friday Felines Vol. 9 2015

I have a mental illness called CAT OCD ... I count cats.  I count them when I get up, whenever I leave the house, when I get home or when its too quiet or something seems weird.

The other night I was getting ready for bed (oh that's another time I count cats) and I couldn't find Riley.  Now its late and quiet so I don't want to go around yelling his name, the other cats will think its treat time or something.

So I creeped around the living room checking all the usual places and still could not find him, so I went to the other usual places in the house, still no Riley.  Back to the living room ... really before bed they are either in the living room or already in the bed.  There were blankets piled haphazardly on the couch, so I started gently lifting them up ... out popped Riley's head!!

Monday, April 6, 2015

Love your Blog Challenge #1

A Playful Day

Community and Interaction

I'm joining with the Love your Blog Challenge from A Playful Day.  The first prompt is Community and Interaction in relation to blogging.  I'm not sure how I feel about this topic, my blog does not have a huge following (that I am aware of), unless there are a ton of lurkers here that do not post comments.  I myself am guilty of reading many blogs on a regular basis and not commenting.  I guess that is kind of the anti-interaction ...

So, here's is my question to you - do you read a lot of blogs on a regular basis, but do not comment?

There are several reasons why I sometimes do not comment ...  I start to and get stuck on what I want to say, I don't want to be another "yeah" comment, I don't have the platform to comment coherently (phone, tablet - no real keyboard), and will the blogger read and respond to my comment?

On the flip side, I certainly have "met" some really cool people through blogging, that I keep tabs on regularly and we share back and forth.  I am happy with that, I would rather have a few people who comment that I can share with then a ton of superficial "relationships".

Sometimes I look back at my blog and its a great journal or record of my crafting.  I rarely share personal stuff on my blog, its all about the knitting, spinning, crafting and of course ... some kitties.

So my last question is, why do you blog?

Sophie's Universe CAL Clue 3

I completed Clue 3 today.  Technically I completed it the other day, but 1) I learned that when the instructions say, if using the same color, chain 1 and sc in the same stitch does not mean in the same stitch you just made a stitch in, it means in the same stitch you just made ... there is a difference, LOL! 2) I had originally not done the optional crab stitch round and moved on to clue 4 because it said that this made the piece wonky, but blocking would fix that ... well this is 100% acrylic yarn, blocking is not going to fix that.  Then as I was perusing other projects on Ravelry someone else had made one in this very yarn and had done the optional round ... so when I went to fix #1, I did the optional round on the redo (and its not actually that wonky)

At this rate I am completing a clue a month and the rounds get bigger and bigger so I am not sure how long this is going to go.  I also am doing a clue a month because I tend to hurt my wrist crocheting and have to take frequent breaks.

I am amazed at how much I have learned, at this point I can count stitches, see when something went wrong or something was skipped and I'm actually remembering the different stitches now!

So far in this piece have done:
Single Crochet
Half Double Crochet
Double Crochet
Treble Crochet
Double Treble Crochet
Popcorn Stitch
Cluster Stitches
Front Post stitches
Crab Stitch

Next clue is back post stitches!

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Traveling Monsters Vol. 1

I said farewell to Irvina last week and off she went to her first stop on her tour of traveling ...

Pumpernickel arrived shortly before she left, so I have someone to keep me company while I distressed over her initial departure :o)

He's a cheesehead from Wisconsin, so he had no trouble adapting to the snowy conditions on his arrival.

It is warming up a bit here, but we still have snow around and its been rainy and windy, so we haven't gone to see any sights, he's been hanging around and helping me in the craft room.


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Decorative Concrete Contractors Rensselaer NY | Epoxy Coating for Garage Floors | Concrete Contractor Rensselaer NY | Denali Construction | Denali Construction Services

Decorative Concrete Contractor Rensselaer

A decorative overlay is a system designed for placement over existing concrete and subfloors. This product can be stamped or hand carved to create a unique and custom designed pattern. It can be applied to interior living spaces over existing kitchen, bathroom, and basement floors. It is ideal for resurfacing existing exterior concrete patios, pool decks, driveways, garage floors and walkways. This product is polymer based and therefore will not break down with the use of ice melt products.

Stamped Overlay

Denali Construction

Denali Construction Services
Saratoga Springs, NY

Ph: (518) 583-1960
Fx: (518) 583-4364

Contact Us

Contact Us:

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Saturday, 26 February 2011

The Global Warming Non Problem

Thanks to Fox News for alerting me to this one. You know that man-made global warming scare so-called "scientists" have been banging on about? Well latest is that the scientists have discovered a very simple fix

Don't forget to read the comments. The Fox News demographic are particularly clued into issues and we can learn a lot from them about climate change and how Muslims are apparently related to all this. Some favorites:

wontshutup tells it as it is: First... the term "Global Warming", is idiocy. Climate change is very real though, it has been going on since the beginning of time. As time goes on, the climate changes. (Example: The "Ice Age"/end of "Ice Age".). The only thing that won't change, is climate change. Now, nuclear fall out, nuclear winter, etc.... Ummmm?...(continues)...

hardbone manages to link everything together: Even exploring this madman's nightmare tells me that the socialist from NASA have gone over the bend into madness. First where is that ignoramus Gore and second did trying to integrate the Islamo Fascist into NASA fail? This is scarier then sh*t.

cwheeler introduces a new system of punctuation. He is also worried the antarctic polar bear population might disappear, and yes of course something about muslims again:hummmm????? 100 nukes, above ground,,, I see one safe (maybe) place for that,,, antartica,,,, no wait, we cant do that,, pengins polar bears, walrus's, seals...,,,, better make it ny, frisco, baltimore, boston, vermont, maine , new hamp, ,,,,, darn,,, those are libs,,,, I guess its the middle of the u.s. then. and cant be wi,,, they got all the mus/ims up there

Thursday, 3 February 2011

Why Leprechauns Can't Explain The Recent Warming

Tamino challenges Roy Spencer to rule out leprechauns as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record. Doesn't he realize you can't prove a negative?

Besides the most absurd thing about his post is that he even for a second entertains the preposterous idea that Leprechauns could have had a warming influence on climate. Everyone knows Leprechauns have had a cooling effect on climate in the last 60 years. In fact Leprechauns are the only cooling supernatural radiative forcing known to blog science.

Radiative Forcing Components. Click Image For Readable Version

How Do Leprechauns Influence Climate?

As far as modern science can ascertain, Leprechauns influence climate by modulating the effects of Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs). It seems that an increase in GCRs prompts an increase in clouds. In turn this leads to more rainbows, each of which according to legend prompts a Leprechaun to place an extra pot of gold at it's end. The albedo increase due to all these new shiny pots of gold being left around induces a small cooling effect on the planet.


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Sipping & Returns

Dental-Service Product Shipping / Return Policy:

In the event you wish to return a product please be advised of the following:

Return & Exchange Policy

Items purchased from Dental-Service are guaranteed with a 30 day return policy. When your order is received, please examine it carefully. If for any reason, you are not satisfied, please call 00 (39) 32 7560 9272 for a valid Returned Merchandise Authorization (RMA) number and have your invoice available for reference. Upon receipt of the returned product, Dental-Service will exchange, refund or credit the item, less adjustments for shipping and handling. All products must be returned unused, unmarked and in original packaging with seal unbroken. Claims must be reported within 30 days of invoice date. All returned merchandise is subject to inspection. Any merchandise returned to Dental-Service in an unsellable condition willNOT be eligible for credit.

Return for Refund: 30 Days
Return for exchange or replacement: 30 days

Return Address:

Via Brede 19, Bovezzo(BS), CAP-25073, Italy

  • Customer must request a return for refund within 30 days after invoice date. No refunds are issued after 30 days.
  • All returns should be shipped in a traceable manner such as Fed-ex, TNT or UPS. The shipment fee is non-refundable. Dental-Service will not be responsible for any shipping loss.
  • Customer agrees to pay for all shipping charges and accept risk of loss or damage for the product being returned.
  • Items returned must be returned new, unused, resalable condition without any markings and in original packaging with seal unbroken. Damaged merchandise will not be eligible for return.
  • All returns require a Return Materials Authorization (RMA) number. Dental-Service will not accept any return without a valid RMA number. The package will be returned at sender’s expense.
  • Returns must include a copy of the original invoice.
  • Please allow 5-7 business days to process your return.
  • Dental-Service reserves the right to refuse service that would void the return policy.
  • No credit on special orders or drop shipments from the supplier.

Return Materials Authorization Number (RMAs)

Returned Authorization Numbers will be valid for a period of 30 Days from the date of issuance. Returned merchandise received after the expiration date will NOT be accepted for credit. Customer is responsible for the care of the returned items and the insurance through the shipping carrier. Any product received without a valid RMA number will be returned to sender. All items may be subject to restocking fee.

Order Discrepancies or Damaged Shipments

Customers must inform Dental-Service of any missing, damaged or incorrect items from your order within 7 days of the delivery date. In case of damaged merchandise, please keep the original packaging and contact your delivery company (UPS) for a damage inspection report. Please contact our Customer Service Department at 00 (39) 32 7560 9272 to review the order and we will respond within 48 hours.

Price Adjustments

Prices are subject to change at any time.
For any other questions regarding returns and exchanges, please call us at 00 (39) 32 7560 9272 Monday through Friday.
We thank you for your loyalty and look forward to your business.

Cancelled Orders

If you wish to cancel your order for any reason please call customer service at 00 (39) 32 7560 9272 or email: Dental-Service will not accept order cancellation after the goods are delivered. Any refused packages or any returns to Dental-Service due to incorrect address, action, or absence of recipient, we will refund the credit card the full amount of the purchase, less any shipping charges.

Shipping Charges

International Orders: please be advised that all international orders will be charged accordingly to their location.


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to DeskProto home page
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to DeskProto Facebook page
to DeskProto Google Plus page
to DeskProto Youtube page

Delft Spline Systems to preview DeskProto V 4.1 at Euromold 2005.

For immediate release, Nov 2005.

Utrecht (the Netherlands) -- Nov 1, 2005 -- Delft Spline Systems announced that it will preview DeskProto Version 4.1 at the 2005 Euromold show. The Euromold will be held from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3 in Frankfurt (Germany). Delft Spline Systems and German DeskProto distributor Filou GmbH will be present in Hall 6.0, stand A105.

The new Version 4.1 of the DeskProto software for Subtractive Rapid Prototyping will be released begin 2006, and contains many improvements. Most asked for by users is a new feature called the Freeform segment. This feature allows users to select any freeform area for machining. Especially for detailing operations it can save much time to exactly specify where machining is needed. A complete list of improvements will be published on the DeskProto website.

deskproto screenshot showing the freeformed segment
DeskProto toolpaths for detailing a fish model, using the new Freeform segment to exactly define where to machine. Fish model used by courtesy of Sensable Technologies, Inc.

In addition, Delft Spline Systems will show hardware for Rapid Prototyping. Two desktop milling machines from competing manufacturers will be present: an Isel CPM from Germany and a Roland MDX-40 from Japan. Both machines combine very well with the DeskProto software.

"We are very proud that we can show both machines, as the stand is much larger than in previous years." says Lex Lennings, product manager for DeskProto. "Visitors now can compare the two machines that are most popular in Europe, and decide which machine will fit their application best."

The DeskProto CAM software is aimed at designers, not (as most other CAM software) at CAM specialists. Despite it's low-end price DeskProto includes high-end features, like automatic feedrate reduction at high chiploads, collet collision check, full rotation axis support, the Two-sided milling wizard, and much more. Current users range from one person design and models shops to multinational A-brand companies like Unilever, Lancôme, Sony-Ericsson and NASA.

About Euromold

Euromold is worldwide the leading trade fair for Modelmaking, Moldmaking, and Design. Presented are technologies and innovations for Design, Prototyping and Series Production. Euromold 2005 is the 12th Euromold, expecting over 50.000 visitors and over 1.600 exhibitors, from 45 countries. The Fair is held in Frankfurt (Germany), 30 November to 3 December 2005. For more information see

About DeskProto

DeskProto by Delft Spline Systems is the 3D CAM program that has made CNC milling a competing technology for Rapid Prototyping. The software can import STL files from any 3D CAD system, and can export NC program files suited for any 3-axis or 4-axis CNC milling machine. Key features are the ease of use (the software is aimed at designers, not at CAM specialists) and the low price.
For more information see or (in German)

The illustration is available for download in two resolutions: ( 250 x 200 pixels, 20 Kb). (1024 x 768 pixels, 160 Kb).
Caption for this illustration is : DeskProto toolpaths for detailing a fish model, using the new Freeform segment to exactly define where to machine. Fish model used by courtesy of Sensable Technologies, Inc."

For more information

For more information on this press release contact Lex Lennings of Delft Spline Systems
Tel +31 30 296 5957, Email

DeskProto is a registered trademark of Delft Spline Systems.


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  • Preventing Child Abuse

    This hour, we’ll talk about the possibility of using technology to predict when child abuses might happen with Dyann Daley, executive director of the Center for Prevention of Child Maltreatment, and David Sanders, chair of the Presidential Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities.


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ESPN mobile rises again

US operator Verizon Wireless relaunched the ESPN brand on the mobile on Wednesday morning for its V Cast subscribers.

ESPN VPN gives subscribers access to video highlights, alerts for scoring updates, breaking news and ESPN Gamecast, which has scoreboards and play-by-play detail, as well as news on players, teams and leagues.

ESPN bailed out of the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) space in September, after failing to get a strong enough foothold in the US market.

The service provider, which some analysts said was one of the most promising MVNO launches of the last year, targeted a specific market with unique sporting content. But the operator fell short of its targets.

“It’s more of a case of being overambitious than failing – it would have been very hard to succeed without a very low cost base,” said Julie Ask, an analyst with Jupiter Research. “It’s better to exit than stubbornly pour more money into an operation and business model with so many challenges,” she added.

Verizon Wireless customers with select phones can download ESPN MVP for free if they subscribe to the Verizon Wireless monthly VPak. For $15 per month access, the V CAST VPak includes unlimited basic V CAST Video clips, access to the mobile web and ESPN MVP.

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How to score the best deals at Best Buy for Apple products

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How to Save Money at Best Buy

Best Buy has stood the test of time in the world of electronics and has outlasted many competitors, including Circuit City and Radio Shack. Today, Best Buy is known for having a huge selection of all kinds of electronics and gadgets. Although the prices tend to be reasonable, they are often not as low as they could be, which makes it even more important to know how to shop smartly and save money. Use the following techniques to get great electronics for great prices at Best Buy.

Join My Best Buy

Best Buy recently revamped and renamed its rewards program to attract more customers. The “My Best Buy” program is free to join at the basic level and provides a number of money-saving benefits.

You can join My Best Buy in store or by registering online at All you need to create an account is your full name, email address, and phone number. If you join in store, you can easily enter your member ID when you create an online account. My Best Buy comes with a number of benefits, including these three:

  • Rewards certificates: As a My Best Buy member, you’ll earn one point for every dollar you spend at Best Buy or (excluding taxes and fees). Once you hit 250 points, you’ll receive a $5 rewards certificate. Rewards certificates work similarly to coupons and can be used for nearly any purchase that is over the certificate amount, like an iPhone case or Apple TV. You can also choose to save your points until you hit 1,000 points and redeem them for a $20 rewards certificate. Although this is a better deal, it can take longer to reach and is the maximum amount you can reach before the points reset. Note that it can take 15 days after a purchase for the points to be applied to your account and the points expire after one year.
  • Member-only exclusives: My Best Buy customers are often the first to know about upcoming sales and are given early access to many promotions and store events. You will also sporadically receive exclusive special offers, which can vary from a coupon for 15% off a certain type of product or extra rewards points when you buy certain brands.
  • Free shipping on $35+: Many expensive items, like the iPad Air or MacBook Pro, come with expensive shipping costs, which makes this offer of free shipping on all order of $35 or more even more appealing. This offer excludes items with scheduled delivery, like refrigerators.

Elite and Elite Plus Memberships

Screen Shot 2015-08-13 at 5.11.39 PM

Although the basic free membership has its share of perks, you can also opt for the Elite and Elite Plus versions of My Best Buy if you are a very loyal customer. You must spend at least $1,500 at Best Buy in one calendar year to become an Elite member, and you must spend $3,500 in a single calendar year to become an Elite Plus member. The elevated reward status comes with bonuses, including:

  • Extended exchanges and returns: Instead of the typical 15 days to return an item, Elite members have 30 days after making a purchase and Elite Plus members have 45 days to return or exchange.
  • Point banking: While basic My Best Buy members have a cap of $1,000 points for a $20 reward certificate, Elite and Elite Plus members can accrue points with no limits. Unlike basic membership, the points never expire so you can save for a huge reward. Note that you have to maintain the Elite or Elite Plus annual spending levels to keep your points active—if you fail to spend the right amount of money in a year, you will be demoted to basic status and lose your points.
  • Bonus points: Instead of the basic one point per dollar spent, Elite members get 1.1 points for every dollar spent and Elite Plus members get 1.25 points for every dollar spent. That means basic members get $5 back for every $250 they spend, Elite members get $5 for ever $227.27 they spend, and Elite Plus members get $5 back for every $200 they spend.

If you are a frequent Best Buy customer and take great advantage of the My Best Buy program, a My Best Buy credit card could be a good option. Cardholders get 5% back in points on every purchase compared to 2% for basic members or they can choose interest-free 12-month financing on purchases of $399 or more. You can also use the My Best Buy credit card to get to Elite or Elite Plus status more quickly, as the $1,500 and $3,500 spending requirements can be met with any purchases made on the credit card, not just those at Best Buy and

Shop Deal of the Day

Aside from its regular clearance sales online and in store, Best Buy also runs a Deal of the Day section that is similar to Amazon’s Lightning Deals. The Deal of the Day section is easy to use. Best Buy releases a new deep discount on a specific item every day, but the deal only lasts for one day before it is replaced by a new product with a deep discount. Daily Deal discounts are almost always at least 25% off and frequently more than 50% off. There are also sporadically Bonus Deals of the Day with extra items with low prices for a single day.

Because Deal of the Day products come with such great discounts, many items sell out quickly. Stay on top of the best discounts by signing up for the Deal of the Day email newsletter so you can score a product as soon as it is released.

Shop Best Buy Outlet

Screen Shot 2015-08-13 at 5.17.40 PM

Best Buy was one of the first stores to create an online outlet shop, which is a great place for bargain hunters to get a great deal.

The outlet section of features clearance, open-box, refurbishes, and pre-owned items. This is a great place to pick up Apple products for less. Search by category, brand, or savings level to find the perfect item. Outlet items can be picked up for free at Best Buy stores and can even be returned or exchanged, which is rare for online outlets. Products fall into the following categories:

  • Clearance: Items that are discounted by the manufacturer or that are no longer in stock
  • Open box: Practically new items that have been returned
  • Refurbished: Items that have been repaired so they are as good as new
  • Pre-owned: Restored used items that have passed tests to make sure they are in like-new condition

Clearance and open-box items from the outlet still qualify for manufacturer warranties, but pre-owned and refurbished items may not have an applicable warranty, so be sure to ask customer service before making your purchase.

Use the Best Buy Price Match Guarantee

Screen Shot 2015-08-13 at 5.19.22 PM

Best Buy rewards loyal customers with an extensive price match guarantee that allows them to shop for everything at Best Buy while knowing they are getting the best possible price. Best Buy will match any local competitor’s in-store or online price and the price of identical items sold at online-exclusive stores like,,,,, and, as well as

The price match guarantee applies to identical products from other retailers, but it doesn’t apply to third-party marketplace sellers on,, or other similar sites. Clearance items, coupon offers, flash sales, mail-in rebates, open-box items, and refurbished and pre-owned outlet items are also disqualified from the price match guarantee. Best Buy doesn’t match any sale prices from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, so don’t plan on price matching during Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Buy Discounted Gift Cards at

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Save even more money at Best Buy by purchasing a discounted gift card from, a site that also sells discounted gift cards for many other stores. sells Best Buy gift cards at a great 5.5% discount, which can add up to great savings online or in store. Best Buy allows up to 10 gift cards to be used in a single transaction, which means you can buy two Best Buy gift cards from CardPool for $181.50 and save $11.59 instantly on a $200 purchase. In addition to selling the iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac and Apple TV, Best Buy now sells the Apple Watch (*hint* *hint*). When used with sale or clearance items, the savings can be even greater. The smallest amount for an electronic gift card is $20, but physical gift cards can be mailed with free shipping and come in amounts as small as $10.

This great Best Buy Store Guide was brought to you by ZipfWorks, which seeks to revolutionize the way you shop by making you a smarter and more empowered shopper. Check out their other great services, like StyleSpotter, which helps you find the lowest price on more than 12,000 clothing brands, and DealSpotr, which shows great deals with coupon codes for national companies.

Seven amazing tricks you didn’t know you could do on your iPhone

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The iPhone can be argued as one of the greatest inventions of mankind and rightfully so since there are millions of people around the world using one. We all have one and have been through every app imaginable on the iPhone. We have pressed every button, seen every feature and used every design, or have we? In our post, we will show you seven amazing tricks that you have never before seen on your iPhone.

1. Call on Hold

When you are on the phone with someone, pressing the Mute icon will silence yourself to the other person while pressing and holding the Mute icon will place the caller on hold.

The Mute icon turns into the Hold icon when the caller is placed on hold.

The Mute icon turns into the Hold icon when the caller is placed on hold.

2. View Multiple Email Drafts

If you are working with multiple email drafts, press the Compose icon (bottom right of your inbox) to view all of your saved drafts.

Previous drafts can also be deleted by swiping to delete.

3. Quick Add Bookmark

In Safari, tap and hold on the Bookmark icon (open book on the bottom) and select to add this page to your Bookmark, Reading List or Shared Links.

Bookmark It

4. Sharing Article Text Only

When viewing an article in Safari with Reader, tap the Share icon (square with arrow) and only the text will be shared with the link (instead of the entire webpage with ads and all).

When sharing content in from the Reader, only the text and images will be shared.

When sharing content in from the Reader, only the text and images will be shared.

5. Compared Edited Photo to Original

After editing a photo in Photos, but before saving it, tap and hold on the picture to see the unedited version. Release to see your edits.

6. Fall Asleep Listening to a Podcast

In the Music app, you can create a Timer that, when it ends, whatever is playing on your device will stop playing. Just select Stop Playing at the bottom of the list for When Timer Ends. This works for both content in the Music app and Podcasts app.

7. Stop Directions

When you’re using the Maps app to give you turn-by-turn directions, tell Siri to “stop navigating” or “stop directions” to stop the Maps app. You can also tap End inside the app or exit the app with the app switcher.

We have more amazing tricks, but we didn’t want to overload you. Stayed tuned for part 2, ahead of the iOS 9 release in the fall.

How to change your iPhone ringtone and text tone

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Right out of the box, every iPhone comes with the same default ringtone called “Opening” and text tone called “Note.” When iOS 7 was released in fall 2013, the default ringtone and text tone were changed to these and over twenty new tones were added.  In this guide, you’ll see how to change your ringtone and text tone. You can even change back to the pre-iOS 7 default tones.

How to change your iPhone’s ringtone

1. Open Settings app

2. Tap Sounds

Step 1

iPhone Basics: How to download apps on your iPhone

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The App Store, which is the place to download applications (or apps) on the iPhone, has over 1.2 million apps worldwide. These apps differentiate the cell phone from the smartphone. There are apps that can count calories, play movies, make stop motion films, help you to relax, get you organized, save you money, help you shop online, find out when your tax refund is coming back and more. To download a few apps, follow this guide:

1. Open the App Store

The App Store has over 1.2 million apps in it.

The App Store has over 1.2 million apps in it.

2. Select an app

Each square icon with rounded edges represents an app.

The square icons with rounded edges are apps.

The square icons with rounded edges are apps.

3. Tap the blue box

There are four different icons that blue box may look like.

The app is free to download.

The app is free to download.

The app costs $1.99 plus tax to download.

The app costs $1.99 plus tax to download.  Depending on where your location is, it may show a different currency.

This app has already been purchased/downloaded and can be downloaded again at no charge.

This app has already been purchased/downloaded and can be downloaded again at no charge.

This app is already installed on your device.

This app is already installed on your device.

4. Tap Install

The blue box will now turn green and either say “INSTALL” or “BUY” depending on if the app is free or not.

Tap "Install" to start downloading.

Tap “Install” to start downloading.

5. Put in your Apple ID password

Enter password

Your app will now begin to download.

6. Press the Home button to exit the App Store (or Tap Open to start the app)

Once downloaded, the app is ready to use from the Home Screen.

Thanks to this guide, I now have four new relaxation apps!

Thanks to this guide, I now have four new relaxation apps!

iOS 8.3 beta lets you download free content easier

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While going through my iPad mini, which has the first beta of iOS 8.3 installed on it, I found a new setting option that will make it easier and more enjoyable to download free content.

In iOS 8.3 beta, there's a new setting under your Apple ID called "Password Settings"

In iOS 8.3 beta, there’s a new setting under your Apple ID called “Password Settings”

In the iTunes & App Store settings in the Settings app, you now can switch off the requirement to input a password when downloading free items.  Once enabled, you can download free apps, books, movies, etc. without having to input your password. You can also turn on the password for every purchase made or let one password last for fifteen minutes before it asks you again.

You can switch off having to enter in your password for free downloads.

You can switch off having to enter in your password for free downloads.

If you have the developer’s beta of iOS 8.3 installed on your device, you can view this setting in iTunes & App Store –> Password Settings –> tap on Always Require or Require After 15 Minutes to enable the option to switch off “Require Password” for free downloads.

The public version of iOS 8.3 is expected to come out in April.

iPhone Basics: Customizing your iPhone's Home screen

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When you first turn on your new iPhone, iPad or iPod touch for the first time, you’ll see many applications are pre-installed on them, like Mail or Messages.  These apps cannot be removed; however, they can be moved around on the Home screen and placed into Folders. When you download other apps, you can move them around and/or place them in folders too. In this guide, we will show you how to move apps and how to create a folder.

The Home Screen

The Home screen is the place where are your apps are located. Home screens can span multiple pages and hold anywhere from one app to hundreds (with the use of folders). The bottom row of apps never change though and are limited to four spaces on the iPhone and six spaces on the iPad. A space can be one app or a folder with dozens of apps inside.

iPad mini Home Screen

iPad mini Home Screen

How to move apps

1. Tap and hold your finger on any app on any of the Home screens

2. The apps start to wiggle when they can be moved

3. Place the app wherever you want it

4. To advance to the next page, take the app to the side of the display and hold it there until the page moves

5. Once you are done, press the Home button (circular physical button on the below the device’s display)

How to create a folder

Folders are like mini Home screens that can hold up to nine apps per page and only the first nine will be previewed in the folder’s space.

1. When moving apps, place one app directly on top of another and hold it there

2. A folder will be created and will blink a couple of times before taking up the screen

3. You can rename the folder here, change the order of the apps, or separate the apps onto different pages. You cannot create a second folder in a folder.

4. Tap anywhere on the screen outside the folder’s area to return to the Home screen and tap the Home button when you’re finished.

Watch this video:

The following video will show you how to move apps and create folders.

How to delete contacts on your iPhone

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If used incorrectly, the Contacts app may be a complete disaster.  With Facebook, Twitter and your contacts all syncing together, you usually wind up with two or more contact names for the same person.  In an earlier post, I showed you how to fix this duplicate contacts problem. In this post, I’ll show you how to delete a contact for good.

There are a couple ways to delete contacts on your iPhone and it all comes down to how they were added:

Added by yourself:

1. Open Contacts app

Contacts app

How to find out basic details about your iOS device (storage capability, model, carrier, etc.)

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Time and time again I see iPhones put up for sale on eBay and Craigslist with the wrong details about the device. The sellers believe they have an iPhone 4S when really it’s an iPhone 4, they have no idea the storage capacity or they think their phone is on Verizon when it’s really AT&T. These minor errors may seem insignificant, but they can mean a lot for the person buying the phone. In today’s guide, we show you where you can find these details so if you ever decide to sell your phone, you are confident in what you say.

About iPhone

Most details about your iOS device can be found in the Settings app. Go to General then tap About. Here is what we see (going from top to bottom):

  • Name– your iPhone’s name. You can change it by tapping the right arrow next to it or through iTunes when your iOS device is plugged in. This name will appear on another’s device when using services like Personal Hotspot or when connecting with Bluetooth.
  • Songs– the number of songs stored on your device
  • Videos– the number of videos stored on your device (this includes movies, tv shows, music videos and videos taken with your camera)
  • Photos– the number of pictures stored on your device (every picture that is stored in the Photos app)
  • Applications– the number of applications stored on your device (not including the ones Apple automatically puts on your phone)
  • Capacity– the amount of gigabytes available on your phone AFTER the operating system has been installed (so my 32GB iPhone has a capacity of 27.4GB running iOS 8.1.2)
  • Available– the amount of gigabytes available AFTER the operating system and everything you have downloaded has been installed
  • Version– the iOS version you are running (example: 8.1.2)
  • Carrier– the cellular carrier of your device (example: Verizon, AT&T)
  • Model– the model number of your device tells you which device you have (example: model number ND144L/A belongs to the 32GB iPhone 5). A second model number is display on the back of the iPhone in tiny lettering and this is specific to the device version, like Verizon iPhone 5 or AT&T iPhone 5s.
  • Serial Number– the unique identifier of your device. If you go to Apple’s support page, you can determine what warranty your device has and it will also tell you the type of device you have (example: iPhone 5, iPad mini 3, etc.) This number is also found on the back of the original box your device came in.

The other information below this are unique identifiers like IMEI and MEID that are found on every cellular version of iPad and iPhone. They may be required by the carrier when setting up the device, but they don’t have much significance in daily life.

To identify which iPhone, iPad or iPod model you have, there’s a few things to try. First, Google the model number of your device from the Settings app. This will give you specific information about the storage capability and device you have. Second, Google the model number found on the rear of the device for general information about your device like the carrier and generation of iOS device. Finally, input the serial number into Apple’s support page for the generation of your device. If you are still unsure, Apple has set up a few pages that help you identify which device you have based on the model number found on the rear of the device for iPhone and iPad and the look of the device for iPod.

If you need any more help, please comment below and we will do our best to help you out!

How to change Personal Hotspot password on iPhone [How-To Guide]

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The iPhone 4 and later have the ability to allow other devices to connect to the Internet via their cellular connection. This feature, called “Personal Hotspot“, is something great to have. The feature is very easy to turn on, but it requires a password for others to use it. The default password is usually a mix of numbers and letters so it makes it difficult to remember. I change it to something easy like “starbucks” or “applestore” since only my iPad mini or my friends’ devices will be the only ones connecting and you can turn off the setting if someone else tries to access your cellular connection. Here is how to change your Wi-Fi hotspot password:

1. Open Settings app

Settings app

2. Tap Personal Hotspot

This feature will allow other devices to use your cellular connection to access the Internet when Wi-Fi is slow or not working. Data charges may apply especially if you have a limited data plan.

Step 1

How to access all your music on your devices [How-To Guides]

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If you live in an area where you constantly have access to the Internet via Wi-Fi or cellular and you paid through your music on iTunes, then storing your music in the cloud instead of on your device would be the best option. This would allow you to access to all your music without using any of your precious gigabytes (GB).

1. Open Settings app

Settings app


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Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Title: Warrior's Duty
Series: Nature's Destiny #4
Author: Justine Winter
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Release Date: February 17, 2016
Death. Destruction. Demons.
War was officially declared.
Blade’s rebirth into the world became something we truly weren’t prepared for. And I felt guilty. Blaming myself for not getting to Lara in time.
She was gone. Nature’s Destiny was grieving.
In the midst of our woes the battle was brewing. Incubi kept coming. Hell beasts were slaying. And the demon master was another step closer to winning.
With an army of supernatural beings in my arsenal I was optimistic that we were enough. We had the prophecy and my fortitudo on our side.
Whatever happened there was one thing I knew for certain.
The end had come.

He yanked me by my chains, my wrists bled with the cold, silver metal cutting into my skin. My bare feet dragged along the stony ground, covered with scrapes from the uneven surface. He pulled me to follow like a dog on a leash, tugging my manacles harder than was necessary.

I kept quiet despite wanting to scream the dark, dank dungeon down. He always found pleasure in my pain, so I’d learnt to conceal it. My lips were incredibly tender from biting into them to stifle my groans.

“Why hasn’t she come yet?” The woman yelled the second I entered her presence. She never came further than that, didn’t want to dirty her precious clothes. I was always to be brought to her.

“She’s deciding,” I answered.

“No, she’s clearly made her choice. You screwed this up for us!” The woman’s hand lashed out, marking my face as her slap connected with my cheek.

“I didn’t! I did everything you asked of me.” I was desperate for her to loosen my binds, to let me out of the dreary cell for good. There was no chance I was going to risk exposing myself. My freedom was all I wanted, what I hoped for during  the long hours of torture and loneliness.

“We won’t survive without them!” The woman paced, biting her perfectly manicured nails. “Take her back to her cell,” she  ordered my torturer. “I’ll have to force the pretty wolf’s hand into helping us.”

“NO!” I yelled, using all my strength to fend off my chain-holder. “No, don’t do this to me!”

I’ve always lived a life based on my imagination, from hopeless dreams of romance to concocting alternate realities involving supernaturals. I’m completely fascinated with anything hero-related, and often speculate which superpower I’d possess. I haven’t settled on one yet.
I was born in England, and currently reside in Wales, UK. I love to write, and most days you’ll find me happily tapping away at the computer whilst in my pyjama-clad bubble. I also spend my time reading, and if that isn’t enough I’m often in the kitchen baking up a treat.

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text:
If you are thinking of adding more tools to your dental practice, online can be a good place for you to shop. You will be surprised at the vast number of sites that can offer you the equipment that you are looking for. Still, not every seller of online dental suction units will be right for you much like how not every dental and medical store out there will get you what you need. So, we have listed some tips that should help make it easier for you to choose better.

A number of people actually prefer having to purchase the items that they need on the web due to the fact that it can be such a big time saver. Instead of having to prowl around to look for the items that they are looking for and get inside from one store to the next, they will have the convenience of viewing their choices for their very homes or their offices. Now, there will be no need for one to personally see dealers and suppliers in order to get the purchase done.

You will need to find a dental suction pump servicing company that you can trust, reputation is always key when you decide to make these purchases on the web. You want to look for names that have been equated to reliability and quality for the number of years that they have been operating in the business. Asking around and gathering word of mouth are just a few of the things that you can do to locate those that really have the right reputation from among your choices.

The reviews that the company has been getting all this time can say it all. If they have been getting mostly favorable reviews from people that have referred to them in the past, then you can trust that you are looking at those who will not be disappointing choices for you. It is instantly a red flag when majority of the comments about them seem to veer towards the negative and the unpleasant.

The inventory that they have should be checked. If you are a buyer, you would prefer referring to the service of providers that can offer you a wide array of choices. You would expect them to carry several names and brands and makers of dental instruments and suction units so you will have an easier time making your choice. Use this opportunity to compare shop to pinpoint which tool you think is going to be most useful when added to your practice.

Their price should be considered too. Remember that when it comes to these tools, what you pay is often what you get in return. Naturally, you would not want to spend a small amount just for the sake of going cheap. Make it a point to actually spend the right figures so you are at least assured that you are getting high quality equipment as a result.

Do not forget to check for warranties too. only buy these equipment when they come attached with the necessary warranty certifications, see if there is servicing available too for those cases where they might malfunction or get damaged along the way.


text:
DFC Woodworks Inc.
Picnic Table 60" with 6 Royal Chairs

Free* shipping in Canada and Continental US

Unstained Reg. price: $3,145.00 USD Now only $1,995.00 USD
Treated ** Reg. price: $4,455.00 USD Now only $2,645.00 USD
** See our Product care page for more information about our unique treating process.

Full money back guarantee

Finish Color Qty Regular
Web Price

Unstained   $3,145.00

Treated $4,455.00

All prices listed in US dollars.

* Free shipping on all furniture products except swings and playstructures

Picnic Table 60" WITH 6 Royal Chairs Best Set Ever! Limited Special Price!

This beautiful hand crafted 60" table and 6 Royal Chair combination is made of full 1 inch clear (no knots) western red cedar . Every piece is carefully hand sanded to a smooth finish.

We take great care in carefully choosing every piece to match color and grain to give you the very best product we can make for you.

Our custom design 5 ' table is made with a hollow centre post that can be filled with sand to give the table stability and allow it to accept a large umbrela .

All our hardware is stainless steel so no rust stains. The Western red cedar we use is naturally impervious to rot and insects so it is a natural choice for outdoor furniture.

This great set can make the ultimate gift for that special someone.

The table is 5' round and 28 " tall and the Royal chairs take up 28" x 33 "

Our chairs are ergonomically designed for greater comfort than other Adirondack chairs.

They have a curved back to gently cradle your spine.

- a curved seat to fit your body without hard edges.

- level armrests so beverages don't tip over.

- front of seat is curved down so feet don't fall asleep from pressure points behind the knees.

- Seats sit a bit more upright so you can actually get out of them with ease, yet leans back just enough for relaxing anywhere.

- FOLDS for easier storage & transporting as you can take it anywhere.

This set can be ordered unstained or treated* in your choice of dark Mahogany or Light Golden.

We use only the very best stain , Cetol 1 by Sikkens, and we have used it for over 30 years with exhalent results.

See our Treatment page to learn more about our unique treating process


text:
Saturday, December 29, 2012

Stark Fear (1962)

Stark Fear1Stark Fear is an odd little movie, but then I like odd little movies. Something Weird have released this one in a Weird Noir boxed set, and weird noir is probably a good description of it. Weird noir with a touch of rural horror and psychological horror.

This low-budget independent production was made in 1962, and it could also be described as sleaze noir.

Ellen Winslow (Beverly Garland) has just taken a job with successful businessman Cliff Kane (Kenneth Tobey). This sends her husband Gerry (Skip Homeier) into a rage. There are several reasons for this rage, as we will later discover. Gerry is a failure at business and Ellen has taken the job because it’s the only way to pay the bills. Gerry not only reacts with complete excessive and psychotic anger, he also demands a divorce.

Ellen ends up taking the job and it’s soon obvious that there is an attraction between her and Cliff. But Ellen can’t get over the dutiful wife thing ad when she finds out that Gerry has disappeared and is about to be fired she sets out to find him and save him. She makes several surprising discoveries. Gerry has some very disreputable friends she knew nothing about. And he didn’t come from Pennsylvania after all. He came from some two-horse town in the south somewhere.

Ellen’s visit to Gerry’s home town proves to be a big mistake (one of many big mistakes she will make in the course of this movie). She meets Gerry’s best friend, who promptly rapes her. Before doing this he tells her about Gerry’s Mom. Gerry clearly has very big Mom issues.

She does find Gerry, and he begins a campaign to wreck her life and to psychologically torture her. It turns out that there’s a long-standing enmity between Gerry and Cliff Kane, which is yet another factor driving Gerry’s hatred.

As if Ellen didn’t have enough problems, her best friend Ruth is a social worker. As you’d expect, Ruth’s advice is contradictory and confused. Ruth herself is bitter over an old love affair that didn’t work out.

Even though Cliff Kane is obviously a pretty nice guy and even though he obviously loves her, Ellen keeps pushing him away and keeps wanting to patch things up with Gerry. Ellen may be the dumbest noir protagonist ever. She just can’t see that Gerry is bad news. He’s not just an embittered loser - there is clearly some bad craziness going on in Gerry’s head. And Gerry’s hatred for women is so blindingly obvious that you can’t help wondering why Ellen can’t see it. Ellen just gets herself deeper and deeper into trouble.

Beverly Garland was a pretty successful actress in the 50s, in both movies and television, and although the role is a rather thankless one (Ellen being the perennial victim) her performance is very good and she manages to keep us interested in Ellen’s fate. Skip Homeier makes a very creepy psycho indeed.

There are some very effective scenes in the Juke Museum in Gerry’s home town, scenes that give the movie a decidedly weird and even surreal ambience. All of the scenes in Gerry’s home town are genuinely terrifying. It’s a nightmare experience to rival that of the hapless school teacher in the Australian classic Wake in Fright.

This movie is one of six in Something Weird’s weird noir DVD set. The transfer is not great, with a lot of print damage. Sound quality is generally atrocious with all kinds of extraneous noise, although the dialogue is still understandable.

Stark Fear is a combination of what might be called women’s noir but with hints of other genres including the psycho genre (it’s no coincidence that it came out two years after Hitchcock’s Psycho). It also belongs to the “when city folk find themselves in the sticks bad bad things happen to them” sub-genre. Despite its faults it’s undeniably fascinating and perversely entertaining. This one is worth a look.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

I Married a Witch (1942)

I Married a Witch2In 17th century England a witch and her father, a notorious sorcerer, are burnt at the stake. The witch vows revenge on the family of the man whose evidence led to her condemnation. It sounds like the set-up for a classic horror movie, but in fact I Married a Witch is a light-hearted romantic comedy. And it’s a delight from start to finish.

The witch is named Jennifer and is played by Veronica Lake. Her curse is than the men of the Wooley family will never be happy in marriage. And so it proves through the ages. Meanwhile the witch and her father are imprisoned inside an oak tree that was planted on their grave for that purpose. Then in 1941 lightning hits the oak tree and they are released. They are disembodied spirits, taking the shape of puffs of smoke. The father (played with gusto by Cecil Kellaway) casts a spell to allow her to take human form again, so she can wreak her vengeance on the latest descendant of the Wooley family, aspiring politician Wallace Wooley (Fredric March).

Wallace Wooley is running for governor. He is about to be married to Estelle Masterson (Susan Hayward). Jennifer is delighted to hear this since Estelle seems like the sort of woman who would make any man’s life a nightmare. But Jennifer wants to make sure of torturing Wallace Wooley, so she gets her father to whip up a love potion so he’ll fall in love with her. Unfortunately in all the excitement of escaping from the burning building (fire being necessary to allow her to take human shape) she drinks the love potion by mistake.

So now Jennifer is madly in love with Wallace Wooley. Only she doesn’t want to make his life a misery; she wants to be a good wife and to make him happy. Her father is disgusted by this and plans to throw a spanner in the works, if only he can stay sober long enough to remember the words of the spells he needs to effect his purpose. But he can’t stay sober long enough to do anything.

Wallace gets lots of good publicity from apparently rescuing Jennifer from the burning hotel, but Estelle is not very pleased about the sudden appearance of this blonde bombshell. Even before the wedding she’s starting to make Wallace miserable. The wedding was mostly a pre-election publicity stunt and Wallace doesn’t seem all that much in love with her. Making Wallace love her shouldn’t be difficult for Jennifer but she doesn’t have much time, the wedding being scheduled for the next day.

There are various complications along the way but it’s obvious that Wallace is starting to fall for Jennifer. The resulting scandal will doom his election hopes, but Jennifer assures him that she can use witchcraft to make him win the election. She’s told him that she’s a witch, but of course he doesn’t believe it. Not yet. He will soon however have ample proof.

This is essentially screwball comedy with a supernatural flavour and the combination works perfectly. I’ve never been a fan of Fredric March in comic roles (or in any roles for that matter) but I have to admit he’s not bad in this movie. Veronica Lake shows a natural flair for comedy and has plenty of fun as the lovestruck witch. March and Lake develop a pretty good romantic chemistry.

Cecil Kellaway hams it up as her father. Susan Hayward has a thankless role with which she can do little.

In the director’s chair is René Clair and he handles proceedings with skill. The movie powers through its short 77-minute running at a frantic pace and there’s never time to be bored. He has a light touch and makes the most of an amusing screenplay by Robert Pirosh and Marc Connelly.

Blackhorse Entertainment’s Region 2 lacks extras but it looks reasonably good if not spectacular.

I Married a Witch is delightful lightweight entertainment and can be highly recommended. It’s a particular treat for fans of Veronica Lake, offering her one of her best comedic roles.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

season's greetings

clara bow christmas

Clara Bow looks like she has lots of Christmas presents, and I hope all my regular readers have just as many. Season’s greetings!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Heat Wave (1954)

Heat Wave1

Heat Wave (the original British title was The House Across the Lake), released in 1954, was another of the early 1950s co-productions between Hammer Films and Lippert Films. All were low-budget crime movies with a hint of film noir.

Of all Hammer’s film noir output Heat Wave has perhaps the strongest claim to being pure film noir rather than a noirish crime thriller. It has flashbacks and voiceover narration, it has light filtered through venetian blinds, it has hardboiled dialogue (the hero wants to escape from “fast women and slow gin”), it has a femme fatale, it has an air of sleaze and desperation.

Mark Kendrick (Alex Nicol) is an American novelist living in England. He’s not a hugely successful writer but he makes a decent enough living. He’s writing his latest novel in a house by a lake. It’s not a fabulous life but it’s all he has ever known and he’s used to it. Until he meets Carol.

Carol Forrest (Hillary Brooke) rings him one night. She needs somebody with a boat to bring some guests to a party. And that’s how he first comes to High Wray. High Wray is owned by Carol’s husband, Beverly (Sid James). Mark doesn’t take long to figure out how it is at High Wray. Carol is the trophy wife of a rich man and she’s easily bored. When she gets bored she needs amusement. Her favoured form of amusement is men.

Beverly knows all about it. He’s not happy about it, but he doesn’t see that there’s very much he can do about it. His daughter Andrea (Susan Stephen), Carol’s step-daughter, is even less happy about the situation, but there’s not much she can do about it either.

Carol’s latest amusement is pianist Vince. Their affair is very open, much to Mark’s disgust. Adding to his disgust is that he can’t help admitting to himself that he’s attracted to Carol. Women are his weakness. Especially blondes like Carol.

Beverly and Mark get along very well. Mark can sense Beverly’s loneliness and he likes him. He has no desire to betray his new friend, but he knows in his own mind that he will anyway. Mark has a high tolerance for self-disgust and he is helpless when faced by women like Carol.

While Beverly is prepared to overlook Carol’s affairs and to finance her extravagant tastes while he is alive, he’s not prepared to do so after he’s dead. He intends to cut Carol out of his will almost entirely. His thoughts have turned to such matters because he knows he doesn’t have much time left. He has a heart condition and the doctors have given him a year to live if he keeps away from the booze and the cigarettes which of course he has no intention of doing.

You can see where this is leading and the plot is not exactly an original one. But film noir doesn’t requite originality; what it requires is atmosphere, and style. And this movie has enough atmosphere and enough style to get by.

Alex Nicol does the noir hero thing quite well. Like any good noir hero he is tempted by the femme fatale and he succumbs to the temptation, and like any good noir hero his personality is a mixture of weakness, self-pity and self-loathing. Hillary Brooke plays the femme fatale role like a pro. Both Nicol and Brooke were American, giving this movie even more of a transatlantic flavour than most Hammer noirs.

Sid James, as so often in his early movies, plays the supporting role and steals the picture. This is a good meaty role for him and he relishes it, demonstrating that his talents extended well beyond comedy. He makes it impossible not to like Beverly and he carefully avoids self-pity. Despite the betrayals of his wife and his friend we can’t being ourselves to despise Beverly. He’s a decent man and he faces life’s sick little jokes with stoicism. And with whisky.

Ken Hughes wrote the screenplay based on his own novel and also directed. Walter J. Harvey was responsible for the cinematography and both he and Hughes were clearly influenced by the style of American crime movie that we now refer to as film noir. The movie has the accepted noir look and the accepted noir feel. The whole thing has a very American feel to it.

VCI’s DVD is typical of all their Hammer Film Noir releases - not much in the way of extras but you get two films both presented in fairly good transfers. VCI certainly deliver value for money with this series. They’re absurdly cheap and they offer the opportunity of a quick introduction to the very interesting world of British 1950s crime B-movies.

If you’re prepared to accept Heat Wave as an unpretentious B-movie that isn’t trying to be anything else then there’s plenty to enjoy here.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Swing High, Swing Low (1937)

Swing High Swing LowI’ve enjoyed all the Carole Lombard-Fred MacMurray screwball comedies that I’ve seen (and I've seen most of them) but I must confess that Swing High, Swing Low came as something of a surprise. This is not a standard screwball comedy but an odd mix of genres. It’s not a complete success but it’s certainly not without interest.

Released by Paramount in 1937 the movie certainly starts out in screwball comedy territory. Maggie King (Carole Lombard) is on a ship passing through the Panama Canal, on her way to meet her future husband. She meets Skid Johnson, a soldier and part-time trumpet player. In true romantic comedy fashion she dislikes him at first. And she hates the trumpet. The trumpet can never be romantic. Skid takes this as a challenge and proceeds to prove to her that the trumpet can indeed by romantic, and in the process he wins her heart. Unfortunately he also gets her mixed up in a bar-room brawl and as a result she misses her ship. She’s now stranded in Panama.

Skid’s pal Harry (Charles Butterworth) assures that that there’s no problem. She can move in with them. She can have the bedroom; they’ll bed down in the living room. Their living quarters betray the fact that this is the abode of two bachelors. Maggie sets about cleaning up the place. She also sets about changing Skid’s life. She persuades him to get a job (he’s now left the army) playing trumpet in Murphy’s Bar. They turn out to be a very successful double act. She’s not the world’s greatest singer but Skid is a dynamite trumpet player.

The only fly in the ointment is an old girlfriend of Skid’s, Anita Alvarez (Dorothy Lamour). Nonetheless Skid and Maggie are soon married and everything is going great. That is until Skid’s success throws a spanner into the works. He is offered a job playing at the prestigious El Greco club in New York. His new agent tells her that they only want Skid, but not to worry, he’ll go to New York alone and send for her later.

Up till now it’s been classic screwball comedy all the way, with Lombard and MacMurray delightful as always and getting some fine support from Charles Butterworth (one of those wonderful character actors who enlivens any film he appears in). But now the movie changes gears abruptly and dramatically.

From this point on there will be no more laughs as the movie heads into romantic melodrama territory. Skid is a big success in New York but he achieves his success as part of a double act with Anita Alvarez. Alvarez’s scheming is intended to break up Skid’s marriage and it doesn’t take long for her efforts to succeed. Maggie is forgotten as Skid and Anita live the high life in the Big Apple. Finally Maggie can stand it no longer and she heads off for New York.

What she finds will shatter her dreams. She rings Anita’s hotel room in the middle of the night and Skid answers the phone. She draws the obvious conclusion and files for divorce.

Skid hadn’t really meant to abandon Maggie, but he’s a rather weak character and having a wife just sort of slipped his mind.

Maggie’s filing for divorce hits Skid hard and he turns to the bottle. He goes from the top of the pile to the bottom. Soon he’s a hopeless alcoholic, broke and out of work and wishing only for oblivion. He has one last chance, a radio broadcast that had been arranged weeks earlier. No-one believes that this down-and-out drunk will even be able to stand up much less play the trumpet. Only one thing can save him, and that’s Maggie. But will she give him another chance?

The switch from light-hearted romantic comedy to tragic romantic melodrama is very abrupt, perhaps too abrupt. Lombard and MacMurray excelled at comedy but neither was known for their abilities as dramatic performers (although MacMurray would of course go on to play dramatic roles with considerable success in the 40s). They handle the change of pace surprisingly well, in fact well enough to save the movie from disaster. The movie’s biggest asset proves to be the excellent cast.

Lombard did her own singing in this movie and she proves herself to be reasonably capable. The duet she does with MacMurray on trumpet, I Hear a Call To Arms, is in many ways the core of the movie expressing as it does their love in good times and in bad. As well as being a comedy and a drama this is also a musical and the musical numbers are pretty good, Dorothy Lamour’s spirited rendition of Panamania being a highlight. The musical content should come as no great surprise since the screenplay was co-written by none other than Oscar Hammerstein II.

Mitchell Leisen directs with his customary assurance.

Swing High, Swing Low has fallen into the public domain and although it’s easy enough to find copies finding a decent print is virtually impossible. This is an odd but interesting little movie and it really deserves to be rescued from this neglect and given a good DVD release. Despite its schizophrenic nature this movie is definitely worth a look.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Scarface Mob (1959)

In 1959 Desilu launched its new TV series The Untouchables with a two-part episode The Scarface Mob. The two parts were later combined for a theatrical release so it’s an appropriate subject for a classic movie blog. It can in fact be judged, and judged quite favourably, as film noir. The episode was directed by Phil Karlson, a man who needs no introduction to film noir fans, being responsible for noir classics like Kansas City Confidential.

The Scarface Mob deals with Eliot Ness’s battle to destroy the criminal empire of Al Capone. It was based on the book by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley and it appears that  while Ness’s contribution was accurate enough Fraley fictionalised the final book quite a bit. Nonetheless it’s a gripping documentary-style account of crime-fighting in the days of Prohibition. Eliot Ness was a Prohibition agent who assembled a small team of honest Federal agents who could be relied upon to to be immune from bribery. The Federal government pursued a double campaign against Capone. While they collected evidence to convict the famed mobster on income tax evasion charges Ness and his men would conduct a campaign of harassment, raiding Capone’s breweries and distilleries and cutting deep into his revenues.

This production has a rather dark tone with the Federal agents facing many setbacks and often paying a high price for their successes. Even the ending is slightly downbeat, emphasising that the battle against organised crime was far from won. In fact it has very much the feel of film noir, with its emphasis on corruption and with a major character (and a very likeable one) being killed off (a risk you certainly don’t expect to see taken in a 1950s American TV program). Both writer Paul Monash and director Phil Karlson approach the material in a manner that seems much closer to 1940s and 1950s crime movies than to television.

It’s also rather violent for a TV production with many shootouts filmed in a fairly brutal style. It’s interesting to compare this production with earlier gangster movies that had dealt with Capone. Capone here is a vicious thug and there’s no attempt at all to humanise him.

Eliot Ness would have been an ideal subject for a film noir. He was scrupulously honest but he managed to make a tragic mess of his life, ironically (given that he’d been a Prohibition agent) due to his fondness for the booze. That weakness is not touched on here but Ness does come across as a surprisingly vulnerable hero and he’s certainly no superman - he loses as many battles against Capone as he wins. Robert Stack’s performance became rather iconic as the series progressed and established itself as a television classic and in this opening episode he makes an effective hero with a fair degree of complexity. He’s obsessed and when he loses it hurts.

Keenan Wynn provides fine support as an ex-con turned crime-fighter who becomes Ness’s only really close friend. Barbara Nichols goes delightfully over-the-top as stripper Brandy LaFrance (and some of the scenes of her act are remarkably risque for 1959).

This is no glamourised view of the Jazz Age. This is a world of corruption and violence. It’s very much a film noir world and the style is gritty, violent and sleazy. Tragedy and death stalk this world and even Ness’s famous Untouchables can’t always protect you from this world. It’s a world in which crime often does pay handsomely and in which there is no guarantee that justice will prevail.

The sets and costumes look great and the production looks far more expensive than you’d expect from a television series. Desilu obviously had high hopes for this series and they pulled out all the stops to make it look impressive.

This opening episode is included on the first disc of the Region 4 Untouchables boxed set and includes introductions to the two parts of the episode by Walter Winchell and Desi Arnaz (head honcho of Desilu). Picture and sound quality are both very good.

Don’t expect historical accuracy but with that minor caveat this is really a must-see for film noir fans as well as fans of classic American television at its best. Highly recommended.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Silk Stockings (1957)

Silk Stockings2

Silk Stockings marks the end of an era. It is one of the very last of the great MGM musicals, made in 1957 at a time when the studio system as it had existed since the silent era was already collapsing. It was one of the last productions of the famed Arthur Freed musical unit at MGM (Freed’s last production would be Gigi in 1958), and marks the swan song of the great musical star of them all, Fred Astaire (Astaire would make many more pictures, but no more musicals).

And it is a great musical. Re-uniting the very successful team of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse and with music by Cole Porter it would prove to be both a critical and a commercial hit.

It is of course a musical version of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1939 hit Ninotchka, and the basic plot and the characters are very much the same, although reworked somewhat to give it a more contemporary feel. The saddest thing of all is that the brutal regime satirised in Ninotchka eighteen years earlier was still around even if it was trying to brush up its image (these desperate efforts to make the regime look good are very successfully satirised in Silk Stockings).

A Russian composer, Peter Boroff (Win Sonneveld) has been performing in Paris but it is now time for him to return to Moscow. Only he’s not too keen to return to the Worker’s Paradise. He likes Paris and he’s developed a dangerous taste for freedom, and he’s also been offered big money to write the music for a Hollywood movie to be shot in Paris by producer Steve Canfield (Fred Astaire). Three commissars have been despatched to bring him back to the Soviet Union.

The three commissars are soon seduced by the delights of the decadent capitalist west, and they’re even more reluctant than he is to return to the Soviet Union. Canfield has been treating them to the high life in Paris and they like it. They like it a lot. It’s time to bring out the big guns. A particularly zealous and politically reliable special envoy named Nina Yoschenko is sent to Paris with orders to bring back both Boroff and the three errant commissars.

Nina (Ninotchka to her friends) is very serious-minded indeed. Her idea of a good time in Paris is to inspect the municipal works, the Renault car factory and the sewerage system. Canfield determines to show her that Paris has a little more than that to offer. It takes a while but eventually Ninotchka discovers that life has more to offer - things like having fun, dancing, drinking champagne, saying whatever you want to say and falling in love. But Steve and Ninotchka’s love will face quite a few obstacles yet.

There’s little one can say about Astaire that hasn’t already been said. At 57 he was too old to be playing romantic leads but he still has the Astaire class and that minor problem is (mostly) soon forgotten. Cyd Charisse faced a formidable challenge - playing a part that had been played by Garbo. As an actress she’s not in the same league and she’s not as funny as Garbo but she gives it her best shot and she’s pretty good.

In a rather bold piece of casting Peter Lorre plays one of the three errant commissars. There aren’t many movies where you’ll see Peter Lorre singing and dancing but in this movie that’s what he does. He was of course immensely gifted at comedy so that part of the role presents no problems and he has a great time. Jules Munshin and Joseph Buloff as the other commissars are almost as good.

Janis Paige goes close to stealing the picture as Peggy Dayton, the star of the movie that Steve Canfield is producing. She also gets some of the best musical numbers, including the wonderful Satin and Silk.

The movie ran into major problems with the Production Code Authority over Cyd Charisse’s very sexy dance in her underwear which MGM was determined to keep.

This is a true 50s MGM musical - it looks spectacular and no expense has been spared. It all looks like it was shot in the studio, and that’s the way it should be. The one major weakness is the Cinemascope aspect ratio which was entirely wrong for a dance musical. Director Rouben Mamoulian detested Cinemascope (he thought it was the ugliest shape ever devised for motion pictures) and it seems he wasn’t alone - Cole Porter even contributed a song to the movie sending up Cinemascope and the other silly gimmicks that the studios had turned to in desperation in the early 50s. The screen is just too wide and it doesn’t work, leaving the dancers looking like they’re isolated in a huge empty room. It’s a tribute to the creative personnel involved that the movie itself does work despite this limitation.

Mamoulian’s previous attempt at an MGM musical had been a costly failure but he repaid Arthur Freed’s faith in him, bringing the picture in on time and under budget (it still cost $1.85 million but it turned a handsome profit). Mamoulian in general does a fine job even if he does at times seem at a loss as to how to fill that absurdly wide screen.

The screenplay satirises communism very successfully and with style and subtlety. It’s consistently amusing and there are some wickedly funny lines.

As enjoyable as this movie is one can’t help feeling a certain sadness about it. Everything that the movie encapsulates, and celebrates, is now gone forever. The MGM musical, the magic of Astaire, the studio system, indeed the whole world (a vibrant, colourful, confident and civilised world) that it celebrates - all gone.

The Warner Home Video DVD presents the movie in a superb 16x9 enhanced print that looks fabulous and includes a host of extras. Both the movie and the DVD are highly recommended.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Shockproof (1949)

Shockproof was directed by Douglas Sirk from a screenplay by Samuel Fuller. The studio didn’t like the ending and got producer Helen Deutsch to rewrite. In Sirk’s opinion the changes ruined the film and it’s impossible not to agree with him. Nonetheless the movie is still not without interest.

Made by Columbia in 1949, it’s a movie that would certainly have qualified as a film noir had the ending not been changed.

Cornel Wilde is Griff Marat, a parole officer who’s about to get assigned to a case that will drag him down into the noir nightmare world. The case involves paroled murderess Jenny Marsh (Patricia Knight). Jenny killed a man for the sake of her lover, the incredibly slimy Harry Wesson (John Baragrey). Jenny spins Griff the usual sob story about her terrible childhood  and tells him that Harry is the only man who’s ever cared for her. To Griff it’s obvious that Harry is responsible for all Jenny’s problems and he warns her that if she ever sees him again she will be breaking the terms of her parle and will go straight back to prison.

But of course Jenny will see Harry again. Jenny is stubborn, has a bad case of self-pity and very poor judgment where men are concerned. Griff’s judgment is also pretty questionable, especially where attractive blonde parolees are concerned. He convinces himself that Jenny is basically good and that if he can only keep her away from Harry she’ll go straight. Griff lives with his blind mother and his kid brother and now decides to employ Jenny as a live-in housekeeper/nurse for his mother. This is obviously a spectacularly bad idea, not to mention that it’s almost certainly against the rules for a parole officer to be living under the same roof as one of his parolees, especially when the parolee is an attractive member of the opposite sex.

The inevitable happens and Griff falls in love with Jenny. But is Jenny in love with him? Or is she still in love with the worthless Harry Wesson? And even if she is in love with Griff is she strong enough to keep Harry our of her life?

Predictably Griff soon finds himself in an unholy mess as the second half of Shockproof becomes a couple-on-the-run movie after Harry appears on the scene again.

Despite being somewhat implausible it’s basically a good story, at least until we reach the hopelessly contrived ending.

Sirk does his usual stylish job. The movie looks more like a Sirk melodrama than a film noir and there are some good visual set-pieces, especially in the mining village in the latter part of the movie. Sirk and his director of photography Charles Lawton Jr also make Patricia Knight look very glamorous, which works well for the story.

Cornel Wilde plays Griff as a nice guy who wants to do the right thing but who can’t help himself where women are concerned. Griff admits he’d never been in love before, a fact which is painfully apparent. It’s a good performance although Griff is perhaps not quite tough enough to be a convincing parole officer.

Patricia Knight is very good indeed. She makes Jenny a very ambiguous character. We’re never sure to what extent Griff can trust her or what her exact motivations are. She makes Jenny sympathetic, but not too sympathetic. The audience has to doubt her. She’s a mixture of innocence and calculation.

John Baragrey is extraordinarily creepy as Harry Wesson, a classic crime movie bad guy. He’s not a heavy. He relies on his oily charm rather than on his fists.

This movie is part of the Samuel Fuller Collection DVD boxed set, an interesting set since it includes not just movies that Fuller directed but also quite a few for which he wrote the screenplay before turning to directing, and even includes a movie with which he had no direct involvement but which was based on one of his novels. All the movies in the set were Columbia productions. The transfer of Shockproof is exceptionally good.

Despite the contrived ending this movie is worth seeing. It features an interesting and complex femme fatale and was made with the style we expect from Douglas Sirk. Recommended.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

The Letter (1929)

The 1940 William Wyler version of W. Somerset Maugham’s The Letter is so well-known (and so good) that one can’t help approaching the 1929 version with some trepidation. In fact it’s very much inferior to the 1940 version but it’s not without interest, both for its pre-code treatment of the same story and for the bizarre performance of its star.

Jeanne Eagels was a Broadway legend who made a handful of films, few of which survive.   She died of a drug overdose (possibly of heroin or more likely a combination of drugs plus alcohol) a few months after completing The Letter. The rarity of her movies (The Letter was unavailable to audiences for many decades) and the squalid tragedy of her private life made her a legend.

Unfortunately in this movie she looks like a junkie and she acts like a junkie. Even worse, she gives a very stagey performance that suggests that she was quite unable to adapt her acting style (which was probably very effective on stage) to the demands of the movies. While it’s not a good performance it does undeniably have a certain raw power and it’s so over-the-top that you can’t help but be fascinated. She makes Bette Davis seem positively restrained.

Eagels plays Leslie Crosbie, the wife of a rubber planter in Malaya. Her husband Robert (Reginald Owen) is kind but dull and Leslie is bored. She has tried to keep the boredom at bay by having an affair with Geoffrey Hammond (played by Herbert Marshall who went on to play the role of the husband in the 1940 film). Now Geoffrey is tired of her and has taken a Chinese mistress named Li-Ti, and this double insult is too much for Leslie who empties the contents of a revolver into him.

In the courtroom she spins a convincing story of attempted rape and seems certain to be acquitted until Geoffrey’s Chinese mistress reveals that she has in her possession a letter from Leslie to Geoffrey that would be more than sufficient to hang Leslie. She now wants $10,000 dollars for the letter. Actually what she really wants is revenge; she wants to humiliate Leslie by forcing her to beg for the letter.

The story is basically the same as the 1940 movie apart from the ending which marks this unmistakably as a pre-code movie.

The other obvious difference in the film itself compared to the 1940 version is that the famous shooting seen that opens the 1940 picture does not take place until we’re a quarter of the way through the 1929 version.

Reginald Owen is dull as the husband. His performance compares very unfavourably with Herbert Marshall’s in the 1940 version; Marshall makes Robert a more complex and more sympathetic character. In this movie Marshall is superb as the lover, a man who copes with life in the tropics by devoting himself to pleasure and all-round dissipation. It’s a delightfully decadent performance.

Eagels’ performance is all over the place. It’s very good in parts but clearly she was hanging on by a thread by this time and her acting is as out of control as her life.

This movie has many of the faults of early sound films - the technical problems caused by the introduction of sound technology lead to very static camera setups and director Jean de Limur lacks the skill necessary to compensate for these deficiencies.

The only surviving print lacks sound in many of the non-dialogue scenes which unfortunately makes the movie seem more stilted than it really was.

The racial tensions in the story are crucial and this 1929 version is in some ways more honest about such matters than Wyler’s film. The racism of the British characters is obvious, but so too is the racism of the Chinese characters. Li-Ti’s humiliation of Leslie is clearly motivated not just by her anger at her lover’s murder but also by her contempt for white people. Li-Ti’s arrogance is breath-taking. The Chinese lawyer assisting Leslie’s attorney displays the same kind of contempt. Wyler tried to make his film more culturally sensitive by making the Chinese characters more sympathetic but like all such attempts it ends up feeling rather dishonest. The mutual incomprehension with which the two races viewed each other is nicely captured.

There’s plenty of pre-code sex and sin here, with Hammond openly keeping a mistress and with Li-Ti running a brothel. The nature of the relationship between Leslie and Hammond is also crystal clear.

The print screened on TCM is less than pristine but that’s hardly their fault as it appears that this somewhat damaged print is all that survives of this movie. It’s still quite watchable and the sound quality (apart from those sections of the film where the sound is missing) is good enough to make the dialogue easily understandable.

Not a great movie, not even a particularly good movie, but Eagels’ performance is so bizarre that one can’t help being compelled to watch. Whatever her true stature as an actress might have been Eagels is enough of a legend to make it worth taking a look at this one.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Paid (1930)

Paid1Paid looks and feels like a Warner Brothers socially conscious hardboiled picture but this 1930 production was actually made by MGM.

Joan Crawford is Mary Turner, and as the movie opens she is about to start a three-year prison sentence for grand larceny. She was accused of stealing from the department store where she worked but she is innocent and department store owner Edward Gilder (Purnell Pratt) knows she’s innocent but doesn’t care. Before she is led from the court she vows to get her revenge.

Three years later she’s out of prison and is introduced to Joe Garson (Robert Armstrong) by her cellmate Agnes Lynch (Marie Prevost). Joe is a crook and he thinks Mary has potential but she springs a surprise on him. In prison she’d studied law and now she has big plans for making money dishonestly but quite legally.

Joe and Agnes are running a blackmailing racket but Mary’s idea is that instead of setting up elderly gentlemen for blackmail as they’d been doing they should set them up for a breach of promise suit. That way they can shake them down for money while still staying technically within the law.

This proves to be a surefire money spinner and Mary soon has other rackets going as well, all of them technically legal. Mary and the other members of Joe’s gang are prospering, much to the disgust of Detective-Sergeant Cassidy (Robert Emmett O’Connor) and his boss, Inspector Burke (John Miljan). Burke is determined to send Mary back to prison but she always seems to stay one step ahead of him, and she knows how to use the law to her advantage. Every time he thinks he’s close to nailing her he gets hit with a restraining order.

Meanwhile Mary hasn’t forgotten the man who sent her to prison. She hits on a particularly devious method of taking her revenge - she romances and marries Gilder’s son Bob (Douglass Montgomery). This turns out to be more complicated than she expected. Bob really is in love with her and she ends up regretting that she’s hurt him. She loves Joe Garson but she’s fond of Bob as well. Then things start to get really complicated for her when Joe is tempted back into real crime and it ends in murder.

The role of Mary Turner is perfectly suited to Joan Crawford’s talents. Mary is a bad girl but she’s not all bad. Life has given her some tough breaks and she never intended to become a criminal, but since that’s the way the cards fell she’s playing her hand as well as she can. She’s ferociously loyal to people who have helped her. She knows Joe is really a liability, being too hot-headed to be a reliable partner, but he helped her out when she needed it and she’s not going to forget that. She’s blinded by her desire for revenge but when she realises how badly she’s hurt Bob she is genuinely remorseful. It’s a complex and demanding role and Crawford gives one of her most powerful performances from this stage of her career.

Marie Prevost is very amusing, and the humour she adds is necessary in a movie that is otherwise rather serious and even bleak for a pre-code film. Robert Armstrong and Douglass Montgomery (billed as Kent Douglass in this his film debut) provide good support as the two men in Mary’s life.

Stylistically this is an unusual MGM film, with director Sam Wood and cinematographer going for a look that would later be more typical of film noir. In fact this movie can be seen as a kind of forerunner of American noir, with a morally ambiguous heroine and with an ambivalent attitude towards its criminal characters. The screenplay by Lucien Hubbard and Charles MacArthur was based on a successful play that had already been filmed twice during the silent era. The script is uncharacteristically hardboiled for an MGM picture, while also managing to be literate and convincing.

Paid has been released as a single-movie made-on-demand DVD in the Warner Archive series. There’s some print damage but mostly both sound and picture quality are reasonably good and certainly more than acceptable.

This is a fine crime melodrama that should appeal to both pre-code fans and film noir fans and will certainly please admirers of Joan Crawford. A movie that deserves to get more attention that it’s received up to date. Highly recommended.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

The Office Wife (1930)

Office Wife1Romantic triangles that pit a successful man’s secretary against his wife were not exactly new even in 1930 but The Office Wife gives the story a very pre-code twist and it works.

Made by Warner Brothers and directed by Lloyd Bacon, the picture stars Dorothy Mackaill as the secretary and the focus is very much on her. All the characters are cheerfully amoral and all are sympathetically portrayed.

Big-time publisher Lawrence Fellowes has just lost his private secretary, Miss Andrews. He had told Miss Andrews the good news that he was about to get married and she promptly fainted and had to be sent home. She’d been in love with him and now she can’t go on being his secretary knowing that her love can never be returned.

Anne Murdock (Dorothy Mackaill) steps into Miss Andrews’ shoes but she’s determined not to make the same mistake. Not that she intends to avoid romantic entanglements with the boss - not at all. She’s a hardheaded gold digger and she intends to get what she wants without getting hurt.

Her sister Katherine (Joan Blondell) encourages her. Katherine has a similarly hardheaded attitude towards men. She thinks Anne is a sap for going around with newspaperman Ted (Walter Merrill). He’s never going to be rich, so what sort of future does that offer a girl?

Unfortunately Anne’s resolution not to let her heart get broken is doomed to failure. She falls in love with Lawrence Fellowes. And he falls in love with her. And now Anne realises that she is not cut out to be a gold digger. She will resign her position so as not to come between Fellowes and his wife. What she doesn’t know is that Fellowes’ marriage is on the rocks and his wife has been playing around with other men.

Dorothy Mackaill was one of a number of actresses whose career went belly-up when the Code started to be enforced in 1934. She’d specialised in racy parts in racy pictures and couldn’t make the transition to the new squeaky clean Hollywood. But in 1930 she was still a major name and she was one of the quintessential pre-code stars. Entirely forgotten for many decades, her movies are now being rediscovered and her reputation is on the upswing in quite a big way. She gives a fine performance. She’s careful not to play the role too brazenly or to appear too brassy and she is able to hold and keep the audience’s sympathy. Her acting style was ideal for these types of movies that combined comedy with melodrama.

Joan Blondell was only just starting to make a name for herself but her pre-code persona was already in place. She’s not a bit worried about her performance being too brazen. And of course she takes her clothes off, and she nearly always did in her pre-code pictures. This time she’s not only running about in her underwear, she’s also doing a bathtub nude scene. It’s a pre-code nude scene - you don’t see anything and it’s all tease but even for the pre-code era it’s fairly risque. Blondell is, as always, a delight.

Lewis Stone plays Lawrence Fellowes. Stone made the transition into the post-Code era very successfully, playing sympathetic father figures, but he has fun here as an ageing Lothario.

An additional pre-code touch here is that there’s a sort of framing story, with Fellowes hiring a woman writer to do a serial on wives vs secretaries, the exact situation he will soon find himself in. The writer in question, Miss Halsey (Blanche Friderici), is very mannish, wears men’s suits and smokes cigars. She’s basically a lesbian stereotype and it’s done so blatantly that even in 1930 nobody could miss the implication.

This is typical pre-code cinema, a movie cranked out quickly and cheaply without worrying too much about style. Director Lloyd Bacon was reliable and efficient and he handles things here more than competently.

This picture is paired with Party Husband (which I haven’t yet watched and which also stars Mackaill) in one of Warner’s excellent pre-code made-on-demand double-headers. The print might not be restored but it is in pretty good shape and generally looks very good.

The Office Wife is good pre-code naughty fun and is recommended.