If Eddie Felson from The Hustler (1961) was on Match.com

Fast_Eddie_Felson

I can't lose.

36-year old man
New York, NY

seeking women 25-35

within 10 miles of New York, NY

Relationship: Never Married

Have Kids: None
Want Kids: No Interest
Body Type: Fit

Height: 5' 10"
Smoke: Regularly. It helps me concentrate on my game.

Drink: Regularly. J.T.S Brown (Bourbon Whiskey)

In My Own Words:

My manager Charlie put me up to this. I'm not really looking for anyone but if someone with a similar life experience who understands a man with troubles comes around, I won't turn her away.

For Fun: Shooting Pool & Drinking J.T.S Brown
My Job: Shooting Pool
Favorite hot spots: Ames', Stan's and various other pool halls. Bus Station, Kentucky Derby, etc.

About Me
Best Feature: Blue Eyes
Sports and exercise: Shooting Pool & Fighting in Pool Halls
Education: Streets
Occupation: Sales Rep peddling Druggist Supplies/Shooting Pool

Income: Money comes and goes
Turn-ons: Hustling a sucker, making money, J.T.S. Brown, Blondes, Beating Minnesota Fats, etc.
Turn-offs: Losing to Minnesota Fats, Burt Young's greed, Having my thumbs broken, etc.


About My Date

Hair: Blonde, short
Eyes: Piercing yet sad
Height: 5' 0" - 5' 5"
Body type: Slender & Petite
Smoke: If she wants
Drink: Yes. I'll buy her a drink if she gets me breakfast.
Have kids: No
Want kids: No

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This is dedicated to Carlos, whom I met on Match.com. He used "Faster Eddie Felson" as his screen name and channeled Eddie Felson on our first date.

The First Auto (1927)

We are living in a time of rapid and overwhelming technological change. The technologies of 20 years ago pale in comparison to everything we have today. Our culture as we know it is necessarily changing and adapting to these advancements. It's gotten to the point that we've so wholeheartedly accepted these new technologies into our life, that we've become dependent on them and we don't understand how we ever lived without them. I've only had my iPhone a few months but now it's my treasure. I carry it around me like I was a little girl with her precious baby doll. What did I do before the iPhone? How will this effect my life?

While the changes are happening, we don't stop to analyze and study them, that comes years later when we look back on what has transpired. I think it's very important that cultural shifts be explored and sometimes it takes a few years to really realize their impact. New technology divides generations. What older generations learned from schooling and hard work over the years seems to be trumped by the new technology that is more difficult for them to grasp but is easily understood by younger generations.

Sometimes we need films and other outlets to help us understand the ramifications of the rapid change of modern technology . In 1927, a film came about that offered to analyze, discuss and reconcile the very important transition in transportation technology from horse-driven carriage to the automobile (the horse-less carriage).

The First Auto (1927) is a Warner Bros. silent which was written by Darryl F. Zanuck and directed by Roy Del Ruth. The story follows Hank Armstrong (Russell Simpson) a popular horse-racer with a prize mare called Sloe Eyes. His son Bob (Charles Emmett Mack) is highly enthusiastic about a new invention called the "horseless carriage". He shares his passion with his girlfriend Rose (Patsy Ruth Miller) who is amused by Bob but also admires him for his enthusiasm. We start at the turn of the century and progress a few years; from the invention of the automobile to the later advancement towards racing cars. Hank watches his world fall apart as the advent of automobiles threatens his business, while his son Bob sees new and exciting opportunities open up before him. Progress and change are inevitable in society and Hank has to learn to embrace this new technology whether he wants to or not.

This film is quite excellent on so many levels. It explores a major technological advancement and a change in American culture. It focuses on two characters with a specific story to paint a bigger picture. It's both sad and funny. We see the technology evolve as the autos get more and more advanced.

This film was recently made available in the Warner Archive collection and I'm so happy it was! It really is a treat to see and you should take advantage and buy a copy of this film (or rent it on Classicflix). The biggest irony of the film is that Charles Emmett Mack died during the making of this film. He was driving to the set in his auto when he was broadsided by a wagon. Mack had offered to give costar Patsy Ruth Miller a ride, but she had declined on the account of her maid insisting she got some rest. If she had gone with Mack, it's possible that both co-stars would have died that day. At the point of Mack's death, almost all of the film had been shot, give or take a few scenes. At the end, Mack's character is noticeably absent but spoken about by Hank to keep him in the story. There is also a point towards the middle of the film in which Mack's character is far away and writes letters to his girl (part of the story? a rewrite? who knows). *Spoiler Alert*: At the climax of the film, Bob is racing his car and gets into an accident. At that point it looks like he may be dead. This kind of creeped me out. I thought that this may have been his real death and they kept it in the film! But alas, it was not and his character survived, but sadly he did not.

Tuesday Weld ~ Lord Love a Duck (1966)

This is one bizarre film. There is no other way around it, this film is very weird. And if you hear Tuesday Weld stars as Barbara Ann, a high school teen that aspires to be a movie star. She was named after Barbara Stanwyck and Ann Sheridan. Her mother, Marie (Lola Albright) is a cocktail waitress who has a drunken penchant of taking her customers home with her. Barbara Ann meets Mollymauk (Roddy McDowell) another high school student who seems to know everything about Barbara before they even met. In the beginning of the film we learn that Mollymauk (Alan or the "duck" referred to in the title) is mentally insane. Great! Mollymauk/Alan/duck follows around Barbara Ann trying to make all her wishes come true. She wants 12 cashmere sweaters, he convinces her to put a guilt trip on her estranged father to get them. She wants to get married to a rich man, he works that out for her. But every step of the way, Mollymauk/Alan/duck makes sure that all her granted wishes turn awry. This is when the movie really gets dark with suicide and attempted murder.

From what I understand, this film is supposed to be a spoof but I didn't find it very funny. Especially the darker parts towards the end seemed disturbing, even if they were ridiculous. This film pokes fun at bikini movies, high school, teenage-parent relationships in the 1960s, the movie industry, American culture (drive-in church?!) etc. It's an interesting satire but I can't say that I enjoyed this film. It may be too late in the decade. I seem to gravitate more towards the earlier half of the 1960s when films are becoming more experimental but haven't reached the state of utter bizareness!

One reviewer said that Tuesday Weld was very Tuesday Weld-ish in this film. However, this is only my second Tuesday Weld film so I'm not very sure what Tuesday Weld-ish means. She is very cute, pixie-ish and vibrant in the film and these qualities are what draw me to her as an actress. Please enjoy some screenshots of the lovely Tuesday Weld.

Phantom of the Opera (1925) with the Alloy Orchestra

It seems like everyone on the blogosphere was doing some Halloween-type post or series on their blog. And I had absolutely nada, zilch, zip, nothing. It was a veritable Halloween FAIL. Then at the 11th hour came an opportunity so amazing that I just couldn't turn it down.

Yesterday afternoon I found out that Somerville's Arts at the Armory (MA) program was having a special event featuring the silent film Phantom of the Opera (1925) that very night. The film would be shown with live musical accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra. I couldn't believe my eyes. This was my chance to watch a silent film on the big screen with live music! I called Carlos and being the amazing boyfriend he is, he encouraged me to go ahead and buy the tickets so we could go (any other boyfriend would have shirked and mumbled some excuse about watching a sporting event on TV instead).



The even was held at this very cool building. It was an armory built in 1903 to house the Somerville Light Infrantry of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. Over the past century it's been used for many things and now the space is used for community arts programs.

The space was very open and they used really cool lighting. Red light pillars running alongside the wall, spotlights, and lots of blue and green lighting. It's hard to explain but you can get a feel for it from the picture. It was a very open space and quite suitable for a big production.

Carlos and I really just came for the screening of Phantom of the Opera (1925) with live music. However, if you go to a concert oftentimes you'll have to sit through the opening act. R/A and DJ Dzinga showed 3 short films with live techno-music accompaniment. This part of the event was really trippy. The first short we saw was the experiment German film The Fall of the House of Usher (1928). Woah. It was Art Deco & German Expressionism in a very hypnotic way. I didn't quite get it. Carlos was amused. The next two short films were very strange. Some trippy '60s/70's horror sequences that made me go all cross-eyed. The last short film has techno-music so loud that I thought I was going to go deaf. So when it was time for Phantom, I was more than ready.

The film was shown on a big elevated screen and the Alloy Orchestra played below. I was very impressed by their music and how they closely watched the movie to make sure their music suited what was going on in screen. It really enhanced the movie-watching experience. They used a wide variety of instruments including: drums, chimes, bells, horseshoes, cymbals, an accordion, a saw and some other metal with a violin bow (for the creepy sounds) and a multi-functional keyboard that happened to play organ music. Sometimes I would take my eyes off the screen just to see what instrument the orchestra would use next.

The film itself was spectacular. I had never seen it before so it was a real treat to watch it both on the big screen and with live music. The film we was an amalgamation of the 1925 and 1929 versions. Most notably, the 1929 version has a talking scene in which Carlotta sings a song in the opera. We didn't hear the sound but it was notably different visually than the others since it spent so much time focusing on her face and her mouth. In reading the Trivia section of this film's entry in IMDB, there are lots of differences between the two versions so it's interesting that what we saw was a fusion of the two.

The version we saw had what I consider extraordinary use of color. Many duo-tone scenes of green, blue, orange and red were found throughout the film. My favorite was with Lon Chaney as Erik the Phantom when he is perched on the statue at the top of the Paris Opera House. He's wearing a red suite with a red cape when he crashes theBal Masque as the red death. It's at night and the rest of the elements are blue. So it's great to see the contrast between the black and the blue of the night with the Phantom's bright red!

The sets in the film were so elaborate and beautiful. It seemed like a costly film to make. I think Phantom of the Opera (1925) is a great example of how sophisticated and beautiful silent films can be. Of course, the story looks at Erik the Phantom as a horrible monster who must be destroyed whereas notable late versions like Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, take a more sympathetic view of that character.

Interesting to note, Carla Laemmle, the niece of Phantom's producer Carl Laemmle, is in the film as one of the ballerinas. She was 15 when it was shot and she is the only surviving cast member of Phantom. And on that very same night, October 30th, 2009, Carla Laemmle was on the other side of the country celebrating her centennial birthday and signing books at the Larry Edmunds Bookshop in Los Angeles. Isn't that neat?

It was a really great night and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to see this and that Carlos was willing and excited to come with me. Now I leave you with some fun shots we took at the Armory. Perfect pictures for Halloween.

Have a safe and wonderful holiday!