The day before Mother's Day

 

Recent reading: "The Mystery of the Blue Train"

The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie

I'm a couple months behind on #ReadChristie2024 - this one was supposed to be the March read. 

The Mystery of the Blue Train is a Poirot mystery about the murder of a rich American heiress aboard a French train. Ruth Kettering is murdered en route to the Riviera and the prime suspect is her estranged, cheating husband Derek. But there's an additional crime - the theft of Ruth's priceless rubies, and the prime suspect for that one is the Comte de la Roche, the lover she planned on meeting up with in France. Others caught up in the murder's orbit include Rufus Van Aldin (Ruth's millionaire father), Katherine Grey (a young Englishwoman making her first trip abroad), Mirelle (Derek's lover, a famous dancer), Richard Knighton (Van Aldin's secretary), Lady Tamplin and her daughter Lenox (relatives of Katherine's), Ada Mason (Ruth's maid), Papololous (a jewel dealer) and his daughter Zia, and the mysterious le Marquis. Was Ruth murdered by a husband about to be divorced and left broke, or was she killed for her rubies by jewel thieves? Fortunately for everyone involved, Hercule Poirot was also aboard the Blue Train at the time of Ruth's death and he's on the case.

 

This was a new one for me and made me eager to seek out the TV episode, but judging from the imdb description and reviews, it looks like not only did they take numerous liberties with the story but the results were less than impressive. I'll still check it out, but it doesn't sound good.

The Mystery of the Blue Train is the March selection for #ReadChristie2024. Each quarter features Christie novels from a specific decade(s). First quarter is the 1920's, second quarter is the 1930's, third quarter is the 1940's-1950's, and fourth quarter is the 1960's-1970's. The complete list is:

 

January: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Poirot)

February: The Secret Adversary (Tommy & Tuppence)

March: The Mystery of the Blue Train (Poirot)

April: The Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple)

May: The ABC Murders (Poirot)

June: And Then There Were None (stand alone)

July: Taken at the Flood (Poirot)

August: A Murder is Announced (Miss Marple)

September: Ordeal by Innocence (stand alone)

October: The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side (Miss Marple)

November: Third Girl (Poirot)

December: Elephants Can Remember (Poirot)

 

When California was the (fake) world

This turned up on Lost Angeles on FB, and it's so cool!

 

 

Look, I live in Venice, Italy!

It's just as weird in person

Spotted this Tesla Thing in the parking lot of a local shopping center (ignore my finger in the shot - I had my hands full):

 

 It doesn't even look like a real car. So weird.

"Verity" - The movie

I will go see this the day it's released in theaters: Colleen Hoover's Verity is headed to the big screen. I reviewed this book here and it's still one of the best things I've read in years. 

 

Casting will be interesting - I can't wait until they announce it, although it will probably be a while since it's only in the script writing phase. 

 

If you haven't read it, please do. It has a double-whammy twist ending that is just mind-boggling to the point where I'm amazed Hoover's publisher let her get away with it.

Your unoriginal screenplay sucks

Fascinating historic piece from page_awards in IG: 

 

 

Some of these are pretty brutal. Not interesting? Illegible? Weak plot? Not original? Yikes. It's said that you need a thick skin to work in Hollywood. Looks like that's always been the case.

I wonder what ever happened to the writer who got this. I would be fascinating to find out if he or she ever got a script sold or produced.

I love historic Hollywood.

April Words of Wisdom

No predictor of the future, not even Orwell, has ever been as right as Chayevsky was when he wrote "Network". --Aaron Sorkin

The shortest answer is doing the thing. --Ernest Hemingway

I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me. --Dylan Thomas

Happiness is the secret to all beauty. There is no beauty without happiness. --Christian Dior

Recent reading: "Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Alfred Hitchcock"

 

Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock

by Christina Lane

Christina Lane won an Edgar Award for this riveting biography of Joan Harrison, who began her film career as Alfred Hitchcock's secretary, moved on to be part of his creative team, and eventually became a film producer in her own right at a time when female producers were rare.

Harrison was born in 1907 in Surrey, England to a wealthy family, but had no taste for the privileged lifestyle this background would have provided. At the age of twenty-six, at somewhat loose ends as to what to do with her life, a friend tipped her off to a classified ad for a secretarial position to a film producer. The producer was Hitchcock, Joan got the job, and her adventure in the entertainment industry was off and running.

Although Joan turned out to be a less than ideal secretary, she was a gifted writer who understood what made a good story (especially female-centric ones) and she soon became a collaborator to Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville. She also became an unofficial member of the family, and when the Hitchcocks moved from England to Hollywood, Joan went with them.

A double Oscar-nominee in 1941 (for the original screenplay for Foreign Correspondent and adapted screenplay for Rebecca), Harrison eventually left Hitchcock to strike out on her own as a producer. Two of her more noteworthy films from this period were Phantom Lady and They Won't Believe Me. Eventually she returned to Hitch to produce his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. 

Lane does an outstanding job of covering Joan's background, career, and active, star-studded personal life. It was an amazing, adventurous journey and while Joan's career and contributions to film and TV seem to have been largely forgotten (I don't remember her name ever coming up during my Hitchcock film class last year), this book gives her the attention and credit she deserves.

From the book:

Foreign Correspondent and Rebecca were both released in 1940. This was the first year that the Academy divided the screenplay awards into two categories: Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay, which meant that Harrison had a script nominated in each one. On Thursday evening, February 2, 1941, at the Biltmore Bowl of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel, Joan was basking in the glow of her success. She had written two films that had garnered seventeen nominations between them. A newsreel camera panning across the Selznick table captured a luminous Joan, holding a cigarette in her white-gloved hand and throwing her head back in a carefree laugh. No matter that Best Original Screenplay went to The Great McGinty, or Best Adapted Screenplay to The Philadelphia Story. Or that Hitch went home without winning Best Direction for Rebecca, having lost to John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath. She was now a two-time Oscar nominee (the first screenwriter to be nominated twice in the same year), and she had made a name for herself in the industry. And, to cap off the evening, the epic suspense story that she considered "hers" - Rebecca - walked off with the award for Best Picture.

My FOB haul

Last weekend marked the first time I got back to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books since I don't know when (pre-COVID?) and I think I actually used some restraint in buying books, especially on Day 1 when the only book I bought was the Mike Farrell autobiography.

 

The haul:

 

• Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist by Mike Farrell
• Behind the Door: The Dark Truths and Untold Stories of the Cecil Hotel by Amy Price (she was on an L.A. based panel and worked at the Cecil Hotel for ten years, including during the Elisa Lam disappearance)
• The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels by Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans (also from the L.A. panel) 

And from the discount bookstore:

• The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard by John Birdsall
• Let Me Feed You: Everyday Recipes Offering the Comfort of Home by Rosie Daykin 
• Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits by Reese Witherspoon (I usually don't go for celebrity cooking/lifestyle books, but the aesthetics of this one snagged me)

 

I tried to get an autographed copy of David Mamet's Everywhere an Oink Oink after seeing him interviewed, but the bookstore sold out before I could grab one. Bummer.

 

It was really good to get back to the FOB. Next year's festival is April 26-27, 2025 at USC and is the 30th anniversary. Looking forward to it!

You learn something new every day

I had never heard this story until today:

No judgement/opinion one way or the other. Just interesting.

 

Both produced some legendary films. But yeah, Hitch was never going to make a family-friendly film. God knows how he would have presented Disneyland on film if he'd gotten the chance (the merry-go-round scene in Strangers on a Train, anyone?)

Recent reading: "Deliberate Cruelty"

Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, The Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century 

by Roseanne Montillo

I decided to read this after finishing Feud: Capote versus the Swans, and I'm glad I did. Between Feud and its inspiration (Capote's Women) this was my favorite covering the topic of Truman Capote and his "swans".

The book begins with the infamous exchange between Truman Capote and Ann Woodward at a restaurant in Saint Moritz in which Ann dismissed the writer as "a little fag" and he responded by addressing her as "Mrs. Bang Bang". Ann had shot her wealthy husband a few years earlier (accidentally or intentionally depended on who you asked) and as a result was exiled from the elite class that she hoped her advantageous marriage would make her a part of. Ironically (given his dismissive attitude toward Ann) Capote himself would be exiled from the same world years later when he betrayed his high-society swans by exposing secrets they had told him in confidence while thinly veiling them in a story called "Le Cote Basque 1965", published in Esquire Magazine in 1975. In addition to devastating his supposedly beloved swans, the story featured a murderous widow so clearly based on Ann Woodward that it drove her to suicide, while the other swans settled for ostracizing Capote from their ranks.

 

The book bounces back and forth between the small towns and unstable home lives that both Ann and Truman experienced growing up, and the drive for better lives that brought them both to New York City. Ann and Truman had more in common than he probably wanted to admit. They both grew up disadvantaged, small towners who aspired to big city life. Ann, like Truman's mother, tried desperately to join the elite ranks of old money New York. What Ann, Truman, and his mother attained in that pursuit would eventually lead to their respective downfalls. 

Ann Woodward was born into abject poverty in the Midwest and although her mother fought hard to improve their situation, things never seemed to work out the way she hoped. As Ann grew, she became obsessed with the idea of becoming a famous Hollywood actress and in early adulthood that ambition and her beauty led her to New York City, where she modeled, auditioned, and ended up as a showgirl at a popular nightclub. It was the showgirl job where she met a wealthy older man, William Woodward, and apparently became his mistress for a time.

Woodward was the president of a bank and a successful breeder of thoroughbred race horses. However, he was also married with a family, and eventually broke with Ann. In order to keep her close, he suggested that she date his son, William Jr., known as Billy. Woodward had other reasons for encouraging the experienced Ann to get involved with his only son - Billy was showing little interest in women, concerning to his socially prominent family, who wanted him to marry an "appropriate" society girl.

Woodward Senior's plan worked a little too well. Ann not only stimulated Billy's interest in her and her worldliness, but with a newly discovered appetite to rebel against his staid family, he decided to marry the colorful Ann. Neither of his parents approved, but the couple married anyway. It would not be a happy marriage. Over the years, the couple fought (often physically) and as Ann tried to remake herself into an upper class wife, Billy lost interest in her and began having affairs. By the time of the ill-fated night when Ann shot Billy, supposedly mistaking him for a prowler, the couple was on the verge of what promised to be a messy divorce.

Two decades later Ann committed suicide as word of "Le Cote Basque" began to leak. She had never been able or allowed to move beyond the "murder of the century" and although she'd drifted through life since the shooting, the story was apparently the final straw for her.

 

Very little time is spent on the other swans, although CZ Guest was at the party for the Duchess of Windsor that the Woodwards attended hours before Ann shot Billy, and apparently Capote picked her brain about that night. Guest was one of the few Swans who stuck with Capote after "Le Cote Basque" was published. There's also a minimum of Capote's gossipy bitchiness, which became an annoying part of his personality, at least in Feud. The focus is more on him as a writer. More attention is paid to the background that helped make him who he became, along with his ascension in the literary world than to his sometimes difficult personality. It also details his deterioration after he'd stabbed his swans in the back with his poison pen.

 

The title of the book is taken from a line written by Capote himself, in his story "The Thanksgiving Visitor": "There is only one unpardonable sin - deliberate cruelty." Too bad Capote didn't take his own advice.

 

From the book:

As the days counted down before the magazine went on sale, Ann Woodward grew more and more frenzied. She took medications, read the papers, sought out information from the few people who had remained in her life, but overall, she dreaded waking in the morning. One day in late October, she donned her favorite dress, painted her face in a thick layer of base, mascara, and lipstick, ingested a fistful of pills, and climbed into bed. The pills Ann Woodward swallowed were Seconal, the same drug that had killed Truman Capote's mother. 

Jonathan Quick is the winningest U.S. born goalie in history, but not in a Kings uniform

Congratulations to Jonathan Quick, who has now won more NHL games than any other U.S. born goaltender.

 

He should have retired a King. I know he was having issues when they traded him, but then he goes on to be yet another in a long, LONG line of ex-Kings who had issues with this team, only to magically thrive on another team. I'm beginning to think maybe the problem is with the Kings, and not former Kings.

And yes, that was sarcasm.

Love you Quickie. But seeing him in another uniform is painful.

My view from the expensive seats: