Friday Flashback: Rec #205: How to Steal a Million

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some earlier posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: How to Steal a Million is my very, very favorite Audrey Hepburn film. Before you get all outraged on behalf of Roman Holiday or Breakfast at Tiffany's, hear me out. In this caper, Hepburn gets a chance to show off her underrated comedic timing as a woman protecting her father, an art collector-cum-forger. "Society burglar" Peter O'Toole is her reluctant accomplice, and the two rub against each other delightfully, with much sparky dialogue (see below).

Comparable to: It's directed by William Wyler, who had previously worked with Hepburn on The Children's Hour and, yes, Roman Holiday. He also directed The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben-Hur, and Funny Girl. Dude got around.

Representative quote: "Okay. You're the boss. Just do as I tell you."

Bonus representative quote: "I want you to take a long look at the trees, the blue sky, and the river, all of which I personally loathe, which is why a juicy stretch in a French prison doesn't bother me at all."

Bonus representative dialogue: "There's the bathroom; take off your clothes." "Are we planning the same sort of crime?"

You might not like it if: Your eyes burn from the dazzle of Hepburn's ridiculous Givenchy wardrobe. Or you don't like witty, urbane heist comedies from the mid-'60s. Or you have an irrational dislike of boomerangs, which play a pivotal role here.

How to get it: Watch it instantly on Amazon or rent it or borrow it. But if you borrow my copy, be forewarned that the loan period for this one is very short.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Get more Audrey with Wait Until Dark (Rec. #26) and Charade (Rec. #97).


[Note: How to Steal a Million is currently also available to watch instantly on Netflix.]


[Originally posted 11/3/11.]

First Sign of Murder #13: Octagon House

"The continued headlines, of course, were not due to the post office, or even the mural. But like the Octagon House and the Pickle Lime Lady, they continued to provide an important and bizarre background. They were what the press meant when it referred to the Incredible Background of These Startling Incidents."

--- Octagon House, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, 1937

Friday Flashback: List #13: 5 British Miniseries to Watch Instantly on Netflix

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some earlier posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

Here in the U.S., it is Thanksgiving weekend. One thing I am very thankful for right now is the selection of BBC miniseries literary adaptations that are available to watch instantly on Netflix over the long weekend. If you have a few days off, there are worse ways to spend your time.

My top five picks within the BBC-miniseries-literary-adaptations-Netflix-instant-viewing parameters:

1. Bleak House (Dickens) (2005): A powerhouse cast strides purposefully through this surprisingly suspenseful story about the remorseless machine that is the Court of Chancery. Plus lots of people die!

2. The Buccaneers (Wharton) (1995): The soapiest option here concerns four American heiresses who travel to England to find husbands. The resulting marriages are mainly ill-fated. Plus lots of people die!

3. North & South (Gaskell) (2004): This is about the industrial North and the pastoral South in England. Nothing to do with the U.S. Civil War. (Lots and lots and lots of people die, but not in battle.) Now please excuse me, I come over a bit faint around Richard Armitage.

4. The Way We Live Now (Trollope) (2001): It's all about money and swindles and guys basically being pricks and some very shady financial dealings. The way we live now, indeed! (A fair number of people die, but, frankly, not as many as one might expect.)

5. Wives and Daughters (Gaskell) (1999): This is the most domestic, least political selection. Tortuous family dynamics lead to many, many secrets and much, much subterfuge. Oh, and lots of people die.


Connections to previous Wreckage: Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton (Rec. #57) hasn't been adapted since the 1960s. It is time, BBC! Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend (Rec. #88) has a very good 1998 BBC adaptation, but it's not available instantly on Netflix right now.

I previously mentioned the adaptation of Wives and Daughters during Personal Wreck Week (List #3).

General warning: Be careful when choosing literary adaptations on Netflix! The DVD cover art on the site is not always for the right version. Proceed with caution.



[Originally posted 11/24/11.]

First Sign of Murder #12: Smilla's Sense of Snow

" . . . it's the sort of silence that is waiting for something to burst. From where I'm standing, two things happen.

First, Julianne falls to her knees and puts her face to the ground, and the other women leave her alone.

The second event is internal, inside of me, and what bursts through is an insight.

All along I must have had a comprehensive pact with Isaiah not to leave him in the lurch, never, not even now."

--- Smilla's Sense of Snow, Peter Høeg, 1992

See also: List #4: 7 Mysteries from Authors Who Are Still Alive, List #6: A Few Seasonally Inappropriate Options for the Northern Hemisphere, and Rec. #150.

Friday Flashback: Rec. #213 (abbrev.): The Partly Cloudy Patriot

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some earlier posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Sarah Vowell, essays, Thanksgiving, presidential libraries, walking tours in Paris, teen cinéaste, Al Gore at Concord High, Pop-a-Shot, maps of California, voting, road trip to inauguration, nerds vs. jocks, Buffy, Rosa Parks analogies, Sports Night shout-out, "Tom Cruise Makes Me Nervous," guidebooks, twins, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, citizenship as argument not sing-along, asthmatic hopes

Representative quote: "I guess Gettysburg is a pilgrimage. And, like all pilgrims, I'm a mess. You don't cross state lines to attend the 137th anniversary of anything unless something's missing in your life."

Also: Take the Cannoli (Rec. #32)



[Originally posted 11/22/11.]

First Sign of Murder #11: Love Lies Bleeding

"'Very well,' he said, and stumbled over the words. 'This--this is a most tragic business, Mrs. Love. I don't know what to say . . . my utmost sympathy . . . I'll get in touch with a doctor and with the police . . . Yes. . . Yes, of course . . . Good-bye.'

He rang off, controlling himself with difficulty, and turned to Galbraith.

'It's Love,' he said. 'Shot.'

Galbraith looked bewildered; his professional competence seemed incapable of coping with anything like this. 'Shot?' he echoed foolishly. 'You don't mean killed?'

'Yes. Killed.'

'Suicide?'

'I don't know. His wife was too upset to say very much. But in any case ---'

The telephone rang again. The headmaster took it up; listened, incredulous and appalled.

'All right,' he said at last. 'Stay there and don't touch anything. I'll make the necessary arrangements.' He replaced the receiver. 'That was Wells, speaking from Hubbard's Building. He's just found Somers in the common room . . .'

He put out one hand to brace himself against the back of a chair. His face for a moment was livid.

'Somers is dead, too,' he said. 'Shot through the eye.'"

---Love Lies Bleeding, Edmund Crispin, 1948

Friday* Flashback: Rec. #206: Get Away from Me

*Cleverly disguised as "Saturday."

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some earlier posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Singer Nellie McKay's 2004 debut album is a double-disc set because when you're a precocious genius you can do things like that. Also, it takes that much space to allow for McKay's full scope of self-penned chamber pop, jazz, reggae, cabaret, hip-hop, and torch songs.

Comparable to: Every drooling review of Get Away from Me got a lot of mileage out of gleefully comparing McKay to such disparate musicians as Rufus Wainwright, Ethel Merman, Van Dyke Parks, Ani DiFranco, Randy Newman, Missy Elliot, Bob Dylan, Peggy Lee, Eminem, Julie London, Flight of the Conchords, and Doris Day.

Representative lyrics:

When it says goodbye
You don't hear it sigh

Does that it mean
That it's gone far far away
Is this your day to
Buy a paper
Draw a mustache
Make the mayor a giraffe
Try and tempt fate
Get pneumonia
Recuperate with soy bologna

You might not like it if: If you don't like it, don't tell me. I don't want to know.



[Originally posted 11/6/11.]

First Sign of Murder #10: The Falcon at the Portal

"Reason told me he would not crash to the bottom, since the length of the rope had been carefully measured. Reason did not prevent me from letting out an involuntary cry. Emerson let out a flood of bad language and jumped for the spinning handle of the windlass. By sheer brute strength he managed to stop the rope unwinding; but by that time most of it was already in the shaft, and Ramses was at the bottom.

A light appeared below. It was the beam of the candle Ramses carried in his pocket, and it illumined the chair frame and a huddled, featureless shape beside it.

There could be no doubt that the shape was that of a human body, or the remains of one."

---The Falcon at the Portal, Elizabeth Peters, 1999

Friday Flashback: Rec. #180 (abbrev.): Ghostwritten

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some earlier posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: David Mitchell's first novel, interconnected, episodic, East Asia, doomsday cult, jazz, money laundering, diabetes, tea shack, ghost, Russia, art heist, Mongolian hit man, UK, drummer/ghostwriter, world destabilization, men in suits, chance and destiny, casino, quantum cognition, on the run, goat, USA, late night radio, the Zookeeper, possible nuclear annihilation

Representative quote: "Perhaps in a few years some widower pig farmer might be persuaded to take me in as a mistress and nurse for his old age. If I was lucky. I resolved then and there not to be lucky."

Also: Black Swan Green (Rec. #72) and Cloud Atlas (Rec. #140)



[Originally posted 9/17/11.]