Friday Flashback: Rec. #97: Charade

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

What: Charade is one of my favorite "Audrey Hepburn runs around Paris" films (there are several). In this one, she's being pursued by some sinister men who are after a mysterious fortune that was supposedly stolen by her recently murdered husband. 

Cary Grant runs around Paris with her, and the two Movie Stars are so charming you can almost forget the 25-year age gap that makes their on-screen romance kind of ooky. The mystery/suspense portions hold up remarkably well, thanks in no small part to the deliciously written bad guys.

Representative quote: "Of course, you won't be able to lie on your back for a while, but then you can lie from any position, can't you?"

Bonus representative quote: "She batted them pretty little eyes at you, and you fell for it like an egg from a tall chicken!" 

[that's from Tex, one of the baddies]

You might not like it if: When it first came out in 1963, some critics hated the movie because of its drastic tonal shifts, from suspense to comedy to romance and back again.

How to get it: Due to a copyright omission in the released print, this film is actually in the public domain, so it's not hard to find. The fabulous score by Henry Mancini is under copyright, though.

Connection to previous Wreckage: Audrey Hepburn is also menaced in Wait Until Dark (Rec. #26). Poor Audrey.

See Audrey run around Paris some more in the aptly named List #41: Audrey Hepburn Runs Around Paris.

[Originally posted 4/6/11.]

Quote from a Fictional Character #91

"I had to wait 4 hours at emergency 'cause of someone queue hopping! Who cares if he was shot? He shot HIMSELF. Some people are so selfish."

--- Frank Gallagher,

Shameless (UK), 2004

(Rec. #14)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #324: Victory Over Japan

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

What: Ellen Gilchrist's collection of stories was the winner of the 1984 U.S. National Book Award. 

The 14 stories are grouped into 4 sections: "Rhoda"; "Crazy, Crazy, Now Showing Everywhere"; "Nora Jane"; and "Crystal." All very different characters and situations, but recognizably the same sardonic universe.

Representative quote from the "Rhoda" section:"Rhoda woke up dreaming. In the dream she was crushing the skulls of Jody's sheepdogs. Or else she was crushing the skulls of Jody's sisters. Or else she was crushing Jody's skull. Jody was the husband she was leaving."

Representative quote from the "Crazy, Crazy, Now Showing Everywhere" section:
"Lenny Weiss had been sweeping sand for an hour. Was that any way to treat asthma?"

Representative quote from the "Nora Jane" section:
"Freddy Harwood was the founder and owner of the biggest and least profitable bookstore in northern California."

Representative quote from the "Crystal" section:
"Now King's run off to a hippie commune because Mr. Alter shot himself and Miss Crystal's going crazy looking for him. It's the second time he's run off since the funeral."

Connections to previous Wreckage: Gilchrist also wrote The Cabal and Other Stories (Rec. #216), Light Can Be Both Wave and Particle (Rec. #159), and Nora Jane: A Life in Stories (Rec. #25).

[Originally posted 1/22/14.]

Friday Flashback #296: Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle

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

What: Sometimes it still feels like it could have been a dream. But no --- in the mid-'90s, we really did get a biopic about the wonderful, brittle, sharp-edged Dorothy Parker and her clever, clever friends of the Algonquin Round Table. Not only did the movie exist, it also seemed to include nearly every actor balancing at the mainstream / indie film fringe then.

A special note on the cast: I mean, really.

Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dorothy Parker
Campbell Scott as Robert Benchley

Plus
Martha Plimpton as Jane Grant
Matthew Broderick as Charles MacArthur
Lili Taylor as Edna Ferber
Chip Zien as Franklin Pierce Adams
Jane Adams as Ruth Hale
Keith Carradine as Will Rogers
Rebecca Miller as Neysa McMein
Jon Favreau as Elmer Rice
Jennifer Beals as Gertrude Benchley
Peter Gallagher as Alan Campbell
Heather Graham as Mary Kennedy Taylor
Andrew McCarthy as Edwin Pond Parker II
Gwyneth Paltrow as Paula Hunt
Wallace Shawn as Horatio Byrd

... to name a few

Representative quote: "You don't want to turn into the town drunk, Eddie. Not in Manhattan."

Bonus representative quote: "Tragedies don't kill us, Woodrow. Messes kill us."

Connections to previous Wreckage: Read about Parker in the biography What Fresh Hell Is This? (Rec. #237). Read Parker's own writings in The Portable Dorothy Parker (Personal Wreck #3).


Also, did you notice Rebecca Miller listed up there? That's the same Rebecca Miller who wrote Personal Velocity (Rec. #278).

[Originally posted 6/13/13.]

Friday Flashback: Rec. #276: The Heir

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

What: Peregrine Chase manages an insurance company, and he really, really seems like someone who would manage an insurance company. Then he inherits a Tudor house with a moat and some peacocks, and everything changes. (Except his name, which was already pretty great.)

Comparable to: Cold Comfort Farm without the acerbic bite.

Opening lines: "Miss Chase lay on her immense red silk four-poster that reached as high as the ceiling. Her face was covered over by a sheet, but as she had a high, aristocratic nose, it raised the sheet into a ridge, ending in a point. Her hands also could be distinguished beneath the sheet, folded across her chest like the hands of an effigy; and her feet, tight together like the feet of an effigy, raised the sheet into two further points at the bottom of the bed. She was eighty-four years old, and she had been dead for twenty-four hours."

Representative quote: "What on earth were panage hogs, to which apparently he was entitled?"

How to get it: Buy it or borrow it.

Connections to previous Wreckage: I previously mentioned Vita Sackville-West's The Heir during Personal Wreck Week (List #5). And all the smirking bite of Cold Comfort Farm was Rec. #34.

[Originally posted 2/19/13.]

Quote from a Fictional Character #90

"Smells fishy to me."

"Well, even fish smells good when you're starving to death."

--- George Lumley and Blanche Tyler,

Family Plot, 1976

(Rec. #120)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #10: Territory

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

What: With Territory, Emma Bull retells the story of Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers. In doing so, she also introduces a subtle thread of magic into the action. I know combining fantasy with Western/historical fiction sounds iffy, but believe me --- it works. (No horses actually emerge from trees.)

Comparable to: Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series follows similar logic.

Representative quote: "Do you know why one can't take the law into one's own hands? Because the law is too big to fit in one pair of hands. So if you feel you've got a comfortable grip on whatever you're holding, you can be pretty sure it's not the law."

You might not like it if: Sorry, folks. No Jeff Bridges here. (Or John Wayne. Or Kirk Douglas or Burt Lancaster or Kurt Russell or Val Kilmer, for that matter.)

How to get it: It's downloadable, buyable, and borrowable.



[Originally posted 1/9/11.]