Golden Age Friend Group

Today I installed a whimsical hanging shelf in my office crafted to represent a fire escape. Then I placed some action figures on it. These guys are members and friends of the Justice Society of America, the first super-hero team, its creation dating back to 1940. 
 

Heidi Reitsch

 

Flash Gordon Approaching on a Hawkman Rocketcyle

I painted this model inspired by colours used by Alex Raymond in the Flash Gordon comic strips of the 1930s and 1940s and by images seen in the 1980 film adaptation. 
 

Quick Takes: Angel and the Badman

There's a lot to love about Republic B-western Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1947). John Wayne delivers a pretty nuanced and more likeable than usual performance, and he's part of a sincere love story with the charming Gail Russell, part of a delightfully wholesome Quaker family Wayne's character takes refuge with after a gunfight. Their romance has real stakes and believable twists and turns, and their happy ending feels earned. Both the Quaker religion and atheism are treated as valuable and respectable viewpoints.

What impressed me most viscerally, though, was a third-act stunt that actually made me gasp in shock and feel genuine fear for the characters onscreen and the stunt people who performed the feat. Physical responses like that are rare for me; it was a real, if scary, pleasure to be surprised by a such a superbly-crafted, hair-raising stunt.

SPOILERS for the stunt:




Wayne and Russell are driving a horse-drawn wagon next to a canyon, trying to get away from some pursuing bad guys. Without warning, the horses break free of the wagon, and in one unbroken shot, the wagon goes out of control and plunges off a cliff, wagon and riders plummeting perhaps 70 or 80 feet into the river below. The stunt is executed so seamlessly that the director and editor made the wise decision to show the whole thing uncut the most crucial part of the stunt in just a couple of cuts to really show off the drama and excitement generated by what looks to have been a pretty dark risky stunt. Amazing stuff.

*Corrected after a second look prompted by Mike.  

Bogart's Oasis

Sahara (Zoltan Korda, 1943) is a taut, well-crafted war flick with a fiendishly simple but incredibly effective plot: a ragtag mixture of Allied tank crew and medics are nearly surrounded by Nazi forces in Libya, with only one way to escape: through the unforgiving sands of the Sahara desert. With water already in desperately short supply, they encounter a Sudanese soldier with an Italian prisoner and shoot down a Nazi pilot, further stretching their resources. Humphrey Bogart is the tough sergeant who has to make the even tougher decisions about their shared predicament, and in the end there's a very well-staged last stand at an old ruin with the only well for hundreds of miles around. The thrilling climax is a true surprise, but it's earned, and the good guys don't all pull through. Highly recommended.

Dad on the Left

Here are two recently rediscovered photos of Dad, on the left in both images. The boy on the right is George Wells. This would have been shot in Nipawin, Saskatchewan, sometime in the early 1940s; maybe 1944, assuming Dad is two years old in these images. 

Aldon Gray

Mom sent me some old pictures of her first cousin Aldon Gray (left), of whom she says: "He landed at Normandy and walked all the way to Germany with the South Saskatchewan Regiment. He was lucky to survive, as he was in the infantry and was under fire a lot. As he was single, he stayed in Germany to help with the displaced people until he came home in 1946. He was a quiet person, but very smart. He died in Deer Lodge (a military hospital) in Winnipeg at the age of 97. Your dad and I went to his funeral."

I appreciate Mom letting us know this slice of family history. I cleaned up the photograph she sent a little bit. I wonder what that piece of equipment is to Aldon's right; it looks like either a spotlight or one of those signal lights with the shutters. 

Father's Day 2019

It's our first Father's Day without Dad, and it's hard. Here's something Mom found online a few months ago: a photograph of the church and manse in Rocanville, Saskatchewan. Dad was born in that manse in 1942. Miss you, Dad. 

Portrait of a Pilot Poet as a Young Man

The Surreal Worlds of Maya Deren

Up until a few days ago, I had no idea Maya Deren existed; today, I'm a huge fan. Deren was an experimental creator of short films, primarily active during the 1940s and 50s. I've now seen all 10 of her films, most about 15 minutes in length, her earlier work perhaps more gripping (to my tastes) than her later work. "Meshes of the Afternoon," above, feels like it was made in the late 1960s or early 1970s, not the mid-1940s; that's how far ahead of her time Deren was with regard to cinematography and editing and directorial techniques.

"At Land" is even cooler. Deren, as well as directing, plays the lost central figure.

Deren returns again in "Ritual in Transfigured Time." If you're of a mind to, you could consider these three shorts as a connected trilogy following the strange adventures of Deren's character.

All three films are well worth the time invested in screening them, particularly anyone who loves horror, surrealism, and film noir, or anyone interested in the impact of women filmmakers.

Money Spent in 1941

While helping Dad with some stuff a couple of weekends ago, we came across this old record of the money his parents spent in 1941, a year before Dad was born. It looks like most of the spending supported their farm; they bought $55 worth of lumber, a $25 plough, a team of horses for $117, $23 for wages (a farm hand, perhaps?), two harnesses for $30, $15 in oats, $5 worth of nails, a $25 cow, and a $20 trip to Prince Albert, among other fascinating items. 

Grandma, Granddad and Dad

Here's a partially restored photo of Dad and Grandma and Grandad. It looks like this was a professional portrait shot in a studio of some kind. I'm terrible at guessing the age of toddlers, but I think Dad can't be more than one or two years old in this photo, which would mean it was taken in 1943 or 1944.

I scanned this using Google's PhotoScan app, since my proper scanner is broken. Once I have a new scanner, I'll be able to capture a cleaner image. Still, this isn't bad for a handheld scan! 

PhotoScan Test

Mom and Dad found some old photos at Grandma's house after she passed away, and I've been meaning to scan them for some time, but I'm missing the scanner component that allows me to scan prints. So tonight I decided to try Google's new PhotoScan app. The results aren't bad, even given my shaky hands. I don't think the scan is as sharp as it might have been had I used my Canon flatbed scanner, but it's much faster than a conventional scan, and easier to use.

I'm not sure if that's my Dad in the high chair, or if he's standing next to it. Either way, this photo would have been shot sometime during the 1940s. Note the Rice Krispies posters in the background. 

Gee Whiz, Superman

For some reason Batman has a reputation for scaring the daylights out of criminals, but as seen in this image from World's Finest Comics #2 (circa 1940), Superman wasn't above threatening bad guys with grievous bodily harm in the cause of justice, at least in the early years of his career. I would have talked, too.