Open Culture–Great Site for Free Film Noir

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One of my favorite films is “Out of the Past,” the 1947 classic with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, and Rhonda Fleming. I’ve watched it many times, and enjoy it so much that when I re-view it now the scenes seem to unfold like movements in a symphony. Because I love it do much, I’m always on the lookout for other noir-ish standouts. If you don’t know “Out of the Past,” please see the visuals below, the box on my old VHS copy of the movie, and the jacket of the pseudonymous Geoffrey Homes’ book, Build My Gallows High, which he adapted in to the screenplay, under his real name Daniel Mainwaring. Given my fondness for film noir, and crime and detective fiction, I was recently delighted to discover that OpenCulture.com, which describes itself as “The best free cultural and educational media on the web,” has assembled a site with access and links to 475 movies, many noir flicks, all free of charge to watch.

As indicated in the tweet above, Kyle and I saw a good one last night, chosen almost at random from among Open Culture’s offerings. Set in San Francisco, Brian Donlevy plays a husband who survives a murderous attack on him by his adulterous wife’s lover. Minutes later, the attacker is himself killed, and Donlevy, who had first been assumed dead, later surfaces alive, only to be accused of murder. It’s filled with surprises and twists, and excellent performances–from the avuncular Charles Coburn as a police detective with an Irish brogue and Ella Raines, a beauty we had never seen on screen before, as Donlevy’s love interest, counterpoint to his vindictive wife. The sound and picture quality were excellent. It’s clear we’re going to be working our way through Open Culture’s vast collection.
* If, like me, you’re big fan of Robert Mitchum, I must also recommend Lee Server’s galvanic biography, Robert Mitchum: “Baby, I Don’t Care” (the subtitle is a line from “Out of the Past”).
Out of the PastOut of the Past back coverBuild My Gallows High

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#FridayReads, March 15–“The Big Book of Daring Swashbucklers” edited by Lawrence Ellsworth

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#FridayReads, March 15–The Big Book of Daring Swashbucklers an anthology assembled by writer Lawrence Ellsworth. Delightedly making my way through this terrific manuscript which I’m going to soon be presenting to publishers. It’s a spirited anthology of historical and adventure fiction that features generous selections from the work of such writers as Rafael Sabatini (best known for Scaramouche), Anthony Hope (of Prisoner of Zenda renown, Johnston McCulley (creator of Zorro), Conan Doyle (he favored his adventure yarns more than Sherlock Holmes), Pierce Egan (known for Robin Hood), Alexandre Dumas (there’s so much more than the Three Musketeers), and Baroness Orczy (creator of the Scarlet Pimpernel)–in all a total of 20 writers from what could be fairly be called the golden age of adventure fiction.

Evidence of continuing interest in the genre? Tom Reiss’s recent book Black Count: Glory, Reovlution, Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, on Alexandre Dumas’ father, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle annual award in biography. Here’s Reiss’s website, where you can learn more about his book. He read brilliantly at the NBCC awards a few weeks ago. His rediscovery of the elder Dumas affirmed for me my inclination toward this exciting new anthology. Delighted to be representing the supremely well-read Mr. Ellsworth.

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Excited with a New Assignment–Helping Protect the Freedom to Read/Part II

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As I reported on The Great Gray Bridge last month, I have a new consulting client, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), a non-profit organization that acts as the voice independent booksellers and the book community raise in opposition to censorship and book banning.

Today, the daily book biz outlet Shelf Awareness reported on the new arrangement, with the additional news of another hire for ABFFE–Kristen Gilligan Vlahos, who will be working as ABFFE’s auction manager–which I’m happy to link to here along with screenshots of the Shelf’s item.

The funds Kristen and I are helping ABFFE raise support the Foundation’s programs promoting free expression and freedom to read, like their signature initiative, Banned Books Week. ABFFE also advocates for bookstore customer privacy, which has become a flashpoint several times over the past couple decades. If you want to learn more about ABFFE and help support their initiatives, there’s more background at this blog post of mine, and at ABFFE’s own website. You can also ‘like’ their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter, @freadom, an apt handle.
Shelf ABFFE itemShelf masthead

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Update on Alamo Drafthouse Cinema–They’re Really Coming to Manhattan!

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Alamo MetroIn the past year I’ve blogged twice about the announcement and expectation that Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is really going to renovate the Metro theater in my Manhattan neighborhood and show movies there. However, despite press releases from Alamo that I’ve cited in my coverage, there’d been no sign of progress, leaving myself and others in the area unsure if it’s really going to happen. Finally, a banner on the old marquee I spotted the other day (pictured at the left) seems to make their plans clear at last: They’ll be opening in 2014. Here’s what I wrote about Alamo last summer:

[They’ve] begun seeking the city permits required to begin gutting the interior and renovating the space to accommodate the five screens and viewing spaces they envision for the theater which first opened to the public in 1933. For readers unfamiliar with the site, the classic Art Deco marquee–[seen below] in a photograph and below in a painting by my wife Kyle Gallup–has landmark status and will be preserved as is, though the interior has no similar exemption. I’m very pleased with this news, and look forward to having them in the neighborhood, perhaps in 2013, or the next year.
Metro-Theater-marquee-Kyle-GallupMetro-Theater-Alamo-fb-page

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Live Music from SXSW–Courtesy of TuneIn Radio App

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I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where nearby Lake Erie, and all the Great Lakes, ensured terrific radio reception. Especially after dark, terrestrial radio waves along the AM band would hitch a ride with the assistance of all that inland freshwater. I routinely pulled in signals from great distances, listening to stations to the east (from Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City) and west (from Detroit, Windsor, Ontario, Chicago, St. Louis, and Milwaukee). I got that sort of reception even from small transistor radios I would listen to in my bedroom at night.

Even when I lived in the White Mountains while attending Franconia College I was able to listen to Cleveland stations, listening to Cleveland Cavaliers basketball games, including when they won a playoff series against the Washington Bullets in 1976, with a buzzer-beater in the clinching game. In those days, I listened on a sturdy table radio with a good speaker.

When I moved to NYC in 1985, I lost contact with the stations to the west of Cleveland, though I could still listen to my old sports teams, especially Indians baseball games. On September 11, 2001, I had my AM-FM radio headset with me, and the confusion and fear of that tragic day was eased somewhat by being able to listen to local radio reports. In short, I’ve been a radio listener all my life.

In more recent years, with the advent of Apple devices such as the IPod Touch and the IPad, and apps that pull in stations via the Internet or a cellular data line, without any need to seek and find radio signals of old, I listen to radio stations from around the world, from New Zealand, South Africa, Cajun Country, the whole assortment of BBC stations, and the CBC from many different Canadian cities. There are many such apps, though I find one best of all. That is TuneIn Radio, a stable and reliable free service that offers easy browsing, favorite-tagging, and a sleep timer.

For music and stand-up comedy from the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival later this week and next, TuneIn Radio is making it very easy to stream live performances from Austin, via a Web page, Live from Austin. Here’s a screenshot of that page, as well.
TuneIn screenshot

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White-suited Mark Twain in Only Known Film Clip

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As shared on the website Open Culture, which describes itself as offering “the best free cultural and educational media on the web,” here is the only known piece of moving picture film that includes Mark Twain. This was recorded in 1909, by Thomas Edison, a year before Twain’s death at age 74.

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Zerlina Maxwell, Bravely Refusing to Let Haters & Rape Talk Ruin Her Day

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Zerlina MaxwellYesterday I noticed an alarming retweet of a message from a woman named Zerlina Maxwell. She was determinedly reporting on verbal abuse and threatened violence flung at her by some offensive people online, and letting them and everyone else know she’d reported them. Seeing the screenshot of the vile Facebook message from a Jordan Mayer denouncing her and expressing hope she’d be raped, I quickly sent a supportive response to her, one that my tweeps would see, and thereby also learn about the situation. Screen shot 2013-03-10 at 9.29.05 PMI learned that the invective had been directed at her after an interview with Sean Hannity when she turned around the suggestion that women should arm themselves to be free of worries for their personal safety. Maxwell said, in effect, “No, let men learn not to rape!” Much of the background is given in this TPM story along with video from the interview, including the fact that she is herself a rape survivor. TPM’s article, like my tweet, was meant to heighten awareness of the incident, and shine a bright light on the haters. After I had sent her my supportive message. I looked at some of the messages on her Twitter feed and see that she’s enduring more abuse, but lots of people are also sticking up for her, as she tweets below.

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#FridayReads, March 8–“The Heretics” by Will Storr

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Heretics#FridayReads, March 8–The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science by Will Storr, a reporter’s journey through the nether regions of pseudo-science, religious fundamentalism, Holocaust deniers, climate change skeptics, and their ilk. I first heard of Storr’s book when I read his account of traveling with the odious David Irving to former concentration camps where the disgraced historian preached his so-called gospel to true believers that masses of Jews and other minorities were not annihilated during WWII.

Like Jon Ronson, author of  The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, and Them: Adventures With Extremists, whose books I made #FridayReads in December 2011 and again in January 2012, Storr is an affable traveler who is able to ingratiate himself with fringe characters, hang out with them, plumb the depths of their irrationality, and deliver a compelling story to readers. I highly recommend his book, and those by Jon Ronson. Them

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