Monthly Archives: October 2012

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The trees know . . .

 

Trees must know when a bad storm is coming.  That’s the only explanation I have for what hapened yesterday.

My apartment complex is a lovely place to live.  We have wide lawns, a lovely stream winding its way through the center of the complex, and a lot of trees.  Pines, hollies, willows, elms and maples — and towering, majestic oaks that line our parking lots and tower over the buildings.

The oaks are my favorites.  They herald spring by being the first trees to show buds, even though they tend to leaf out later than the other trees.  In summer, they provide shade to the buildings and the cars, lowering the temperatures of our humidity-prone region.  Once fall arives, their leaves turn a wonderful, deep red-brown that provides a background for the fiery orange of the maples.  And winter turns them into fairy trees, their branches glistening in the night when are draped with snow.

They also produce bumper crops of acorns, which attract pesky squirrels that eat my plants,  Their beauty is worth the inconvenience of the squirrels.

However, the oaks tend to be the last trees to drop their leaves, often burdened with dried, brown leaves well into December.

And so they were on Saturday.  The entrance to my building is flanked by two of the larger oaks, and at the start of the weekend, their branches were still covered with masses of leaves.

Sunday morning, as I walked out of the building, I saw that both trees were almost bare, and the grass and parking lot were filled with drifting piles of brown leaves.  That scene was repeated throughout the complex — overnight, all the oaks had lost most of their leaves.

One of the biggest concerns in my area with Hurricane Sandy is the strength of the winds.  With so many trees still full of leaves, the powerful winds of this storm are anticipated to knock major limbs off trees, dropping them onto buildings and electric lines, damaging homes and knocking out power.  And our oaks lean right over the buildings.

So did the trees know a hurricane was coming?  Maybe.  In all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen so many leaves fall in so short a time.  And hopefully, that will make a difference in how the trees, and our buildings, make it through the storm.

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Digitize The Glass Key!

The Glass Key is a wonderfully dark film that must be digitized – especially since it is not available as a US-format DVD or even a VHS tape.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in the process of bringing all my entertainment into digital form, to take with me when traveling and eliminate some of the clutter in my home.  Unfortunately, these three films, which include one of my Top Ten movies, are not available digitally.

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake starred in three classic gangster/noir films – This Gun for Hire and The Glass Key in 1942, and The Blue Dahlia in 1946.  (The pair also starred in Saigan in 1948, a ‘doomed romance’ film, and guest-starred in three other films.)

This Gun for Hire set the tone for the pair – while they would be romantically interested in one another, they never got together until the end of the film (if then).  Something, someone – or both – always stood between them.  In Gun, Ladd played a hired killer named Raven, a cold and heartless man.  By the movie’s end, he’d come to feel something for Lake’s character, enough to spare people and extract a confession from his bosses (rather than just kill them in revenge) – because she asked him to do so.  And in Dahlia, Ladd’s character returns home from war to find his wife is cheating on him, was responsible for the death of their son, and is mixed up in crime.  He meets Lake while leaving his wife – unaware that she’s the estranged wife of one of his friends.  When his wife is murdered, he becomes a suspect, and things play out from there.

Both of these movies are well worth viewing, but for a variety of reasons, Key remains my favorite of the trio.

The Glass Key, like so many other wonderful books and films (like The Thin Man) was written by Dashiell Hammett.  The Ladd-Lake version was its second filming – I’ve not, as yet, managed to see the original version from the mid-1930’s.

The plot revolves around an election (timely, yes?).  Paul, a political boss, falls in love with Janet, the daughter of an ‘honest’ man running for governor.  By a strange coincidence, his sister is also in love – with Janet’s brother Taylor, who is deep in debt to the criminal running the city.

For love, Paul decides to ensure her father wins the election – and to also ‘clean up’ the city, removing his protection from the criminal.  However, Ed, his lieutenant, suspects that Janet is simply making sure her father wins the election by playing along with Paul – and he’s proven right when Janet becomes interested in him.

Naturally, something happens – Taylor is murdered, and Paul is the prime suspect.  The criminal tortures Ed to get him to reveal information.  A possible witness to Taylor’s murder is himself murdered, there’s a suicide, the criminal is killed by his own hired gun.  In the end, the murderer is revealed – the ‘honest’ candidate for office killed his own son.

No one in this movie seems to be completely free of corruption – or without a redeeming quality.  Paul and Ed run the elections – and try to do the right thing for love and loyalty.  Janet lies to get her father elected – and yet cannot continue to do so because she loves Ed.  Paul’s baby sister, the criminals – they all have good, and bad, qualities.  Even the ‘honest’ politician, who could have kept silent, confesses to save his daughter, who was arrested for her brother’s murder.

There are so many twists to the plot that it’s a movie that requires close attention – and when you play that much attention to a movie, you spot something new on each viewing.  And so it is with this film – each time I watch it, I catch a look I hadn’t noticed before on an actor’s face, a slight change in camera angle that adds nervousness to a scene – even a subtle vocal inflection that changes the meaning of a throwaway phrase uttered by a character.

Of course, watching this film is difficult, if not nearly impossible for many.  It was released only for a limited time on VHS tape.  There is a DVD available from Amazon – but it’s an import with foreign language subtitles locked onto the screen, and according to the reviews I’ve read, those subtitles block some of the action in critical scenes.  If it ever was released as a US-format DVD, it’s certainly no longer being listed for sale anywhere that I’ve found.  Gun is available on DVD, while Dahlia appears to be in the same fix as Key.  And none of them are available by digital download.

I do have a copy of Key’s VHS tape, but, as we all know, tapes wear out.  I was able to burn a DVD of Gun and Dahlia when they were shown on Turner Classic Movies, but Key has not turned up on TV as yet (or if it did, I missed it!).

Meanwhile, I watch my tape sparingly, and continue to hope for the digital release of The Glass Key, as well as This Gun for Hire and The Blue Dahlia.  Movies I love, watch often — and want to keep instantly available.

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She’s baaack!

Having survived both the nasty bug and the joy that is corporate tax season (I do corporate taxes, among other things), I now resume the irregularly scheduled updating.  Actually, more regularly scheduled updating, as things have quieted down a bit.  That won’t last long.