Things That Need To Come Back Soon:

Tail O' The Pup

Tail o' the Pup was a hot dog stand. That is of course like writing that Greta Garbo was pretty, Genghis Kahn was easily annoyed or Albert Einstein was mildly clever. Tail o' might have been slightly less well known that Pink's in Hollywood, but Pink's wasn't shaped like a hot dog on a mustard-smeared bun.

Tail o' started life in 1946 at the corner of La Cienega and Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles. It stood there for nearly 40 years before being threatened with demolition to make way for the wholly unnecessary Hotel Sofitel. Luckily, a space was found a block West, just south of Beverly on San Vicente. Another 20 years of happy customers ensued until a developer bought the land and evicted Tail o' to make way for a development that at the time was written of as a retirement home for elderly GLBT. Tail o's hot dog front was dismantled and stored. It was rumored that it would surface in Westwood and there was talk in Beverly Hills of trying to fit it in, but as of this date not only is there no Tail o', the original location is just a weed-choked chained-off parking lot.

Tail o' was the source of the single-best star sighting I've had in LA. I was hoping my BFF would arrive in time to see her, alas she missed seeing Ella Fitzgerald delicately munching away on an Extreme, her Mercedes Landaulette at the curb, complete with uniformed Chauffeur.

Dennis and Eddie Blake. who have owned the Pup since buying it from the original owners in the 70's are written of as looking for a location to re-open. Guys, look harder. I need an Olé with onions and a side of rings. It's been too darned long..

Photo: Wikipedia

"The Night Walker" is, well, nowhere.

It's not on DVD and it's not on YouTube.

Which is sad, since it's a fun William Castle shocker made in the years when he was transitioning from Schlockmeister to the producer of class fare like "Rosemary's Baby".

The redoubtable Barbara Stanwyck stars as a lady unhappily married to a blind scientist who dreams of a perfect, handsome lover, audibly. Husband, who is blind but not deaf, records his wife's dream affairs and sets his lawyer (Stanwyck's real-life ex-husband Robert Taylor) to find the cad before being blown to bits in his home lab. Craziness ensues.

Miss Stanwyck is great in this. Yes, her screams sound like an asthmatic Puma whorfing up a hairball. But she's required to emote against mannequins, an ex-husband and Lloyd Bochner (who are lit to look like mannequins), spinning chandeliers and at one point a flaming shishkebob the size of a Tiki Torch and she pulls it off.

Why is this not on DVD?

Trailer via YouTube

"Desperately Seeking Susan" is on Netflix Streaming..

It's hard for me to believe that this movie, which launched Madonna's short-lived career as an actress is now over 25 years old. Madonna plays the title character, a free spirit who becomes a fixation for New Jersey housewife Roberta (Roseanna Arquette). Roberta is bored with her life in Fort Lee: she walks out of her party in the middle of her husband Gary (Mark Blum) debuting his latest hot-tub commercial so stare longingly across the Hudson at the spires of New York City.

Having noted a personal ad in a local tabloid that Susan's boyfriend has arranged a meeting with her (we're told this is how they communicate in the days before e-mail) at Battery Park, Susan shows up to do a little stalking. What neither Susan nor Roberta know is that the earrings Susan pinched from the random guy she bedded at a New Jersey hotel are stolen, priceless, and wanted very badly by a very bad man (Will Patton) who is willing to kill to get them. A blow to Roberta's head ensures that Susan and Roberta's lives intertwine as both the killer and a handsome movie projectionist (Aidan Quinn) mistake amnesiac Roberta for Susan while Roberta's husband and sister (Laurie Metcalf) enlist Susan to help find the missing woman, who the police suspect of being an on-the-run hooker.

It's a fun movie that glosses over some of the gamier aspects of the story. Susan is a charming amoral thief who uses and discards men. Gary is having an affair behind Roberta's back and seems more concerned at how Roberta's disappearance will affect his status than for her welfare. But it's fun to see a flashback to the NYC of the 80's of my yoof. St. Marks Place, the East Village, Danceteria, even the scaffolding around the Statue of Liberty during it's renovation are showcased. The fashions were believe it or not fresh at the time; this is the Madonna that launched the craze for cropped tops and gloves and wearing tons of rubber bracelets.

I didn't even know this, but there was a short-lived musical version that played London's West End that closed in record time and lost £3.5 million. A YouTube news clip about the fiasco is below,

"Angel, Angel Down We Go" is on Netflix Streaming..

Many movies are referred to as "rarely seen" and this is one of them.

Deservedly.

There are bad movies we love, and there are just bad movies. Produced at the time when studios were trying to capture the youth market, this ham-handed "thriller" involves the plutocratic Steele family: former porn star turned Society Matron (Jennifer Jones, miles past that Oscar), her closet-case Industrialist husband and overweight (as we're told about every 10 minutes) daughter Tara Nicole. Into their lives comes messiah figure/pansexual nutjob Bogart Peter Stuyvesant, and bedlam ensues.

Not much about this is good. For instance, the director isn't content with referring to a character as a cow; he has to cut to a painting of the character's face pasted over a cow, while there are cowbells and mooing on the Soundtrack. This little trick he seems to find completely fascinating and repeats it endlessly. The musical numbers are Partridge Family good and the plot is so determined to shock, shock, shock you that it ends up being laughable.

As laughable as having a movie where Jordan Christopher sings, but Lou Rawls and Holly Near really don't.

Under "Cult of the Damned" on Netflix Streaming, if you dare.

Link: YouTube

Bette Davis in "Beyond the Forest"

Bette Davis was one of the best actresses working, responsible for such classic performances as Mildred in “Of Human Bondage”, Regina Giddens in “The Little Foxes” and Margo Channing in “All About Eve”.

Rosa Moline in “Beyond the Forest” was arguably her worst performance.

40-ish Bette stomps around picturesque Loyalton, “Wisconsin” snarling one liners, chain-smoking and shooting small animals (“They irritate me” she sneers). Young Rosa is unhappily married to the town Doctor (Joseph Cotton), a do-gooder whom she despises for his lack of desire to actually collect his fees. She’s hot for Chicago Industrialist Neil Latimer (David Brian) and the rich, big city life she feels is her due. Needless to say, she’s willing to do anything, anything to get it. And does, to unintentionally hilarious effect.

The movie is considered a camp classic: Bette is, as she said herself far too old for the role and cranks her personal acting switch up to 11, perhaps to try to make us not think about the plot, which has holes large enough to pilot that Chicago-bound train she’s always mooning over through. It doesn’t help that it’s directed by King “subtlety? never heard of it” Vidor who gives her free reign and matches her with directorial choices that redefine “over the top”.

But, if you’re a fan of these sort of eye-popping things you won’t be disappointed. I wasn’t.

Long unavailable except on overpriced VHS tape, someone posted it to YouTube in 10 minute increments. Click on above to watch, before someone makes them take it down.

Video Source: YouTube

1973 Cutlass Road Test

I love these old boats. New cars are better in every way, but the styling on these are sheer 70's corporate flamboyant...

source: YouTube

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is on Netflix Streaming. Just in case you need a memory refresher of how stunningly lovely, or what a wonderful actress Elizabeth Taylor was..

"Banksy is Coming to Dinner" is on Netflix streaming.

Joan Collins proves she's not only the most self-aware celeb on the planet, but one with the most self-deprecating sense of humor playing along with this "mocumentary" where a sometimes unpixelated actor (or is he? You judge the layers of meta..) plays infamous street artist Banksy who visits the Collins' "ancestral" home for a dinner party. This might be the reason that "Exit Through the Gift Shop" was so questioned as being real. It's great fun; you'll want an invitation to Joan's table.

Image: internets

Safari update:

New update, same old crashes. Every other visit to NYTimes.com crashes the browser. Report to Apple. Relaunch hangs, so Option/Command/esc to force quit. Report to Apple.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Better yet, use Firefox..

The Towering Inferno is on Netflix Streaming

If you haven't seen it since it came out in the 70's when, like me you were a teen, er baby, um thought in your parents head you should check out what is arguably the penultimate disaster movie. I'll reprint what I wrote in an Amazon review many years ago:

"Architect Paul Newman and owner William Holden have just completed their crowning acheivement; the 138 story Glass Tower. Unbeknownst to them, baddy builder Richard Chamberlain skimped on the building specs. He wired the building with tinsel or something; as soon as someone plugs in a hair dryer, the fuses go pop (why do the put the fuse boxes in the room used to store the oily rags and paint cans? Why do they need oily rags and paint cans on the 86th floor? Is there an oily rag and paint can room on every floor, or do people have to share?) and the all-star barbeque begins."

A little harsh. Yes, the cheese factor is high (the sets I referred to as "Frank Lloyd Wrong") and to modern audiences some of the plot holes are pretty evident. But there are shots in this that in this post 9/11 world where we are more aware of the issues facing first responders can't help but resonate. Oddly the building itself it prescient: we don't have 138 stories of mixed use, but the idea of a tower that combines residential on a narrow top and offices on a wider base was way ahead of its time in the 70's.

It's a perfect popcorn movie for a rainy night like this one in LA.

Image: Wikipedia