Present Joys

On tuesday night, I watched the 1969 horror film What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, starring Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon. Page played a cruel, spoiled widow, in need of cash, who hired housekeepers only to murder them and steal their money. Ruth Gordon played a housekeeper of Page’s, who went undercover to find out about the murders. I hate a lot about 60s/70s movies—the costumes, the picture quality, the editing, the general vibe—it’s all pretty unappealing. But the acting in this movie was so fantastic I forgot about all the unappealing stuff. Ruth Gordon’s character, especially, was fantastic. She reminded me a lot of my neighbor Donna. The movie’s plot was seriously scary but tastefully done and really enjoyable.

On friday, I watched one of Hitchcock’s pre-Hollywood films, from 1932, Number Seventeen. Except for a train-chase scene at the end, the entire film was shot on one set. The editing was clumsy (lots of sloppy jump cuts), and the story itself had some continuity problems. Leon Lion played a funny old tramp, but characters like that always kinda creep me out. An altogether disappointing movie!

On saturday, I watched a 1933 film The Kennel Murder Case. This was glorious. Even if this movie hadn’t had any plot, it would’ve been worth watching solely for the suits. I could go on and on about men’s suits in the 30s. William Powell, who played the protagonist, Philo Vance, looked totally killer. Suits or not, this was a great little murder mystery. Really inventive camera work: sweeping crane shots of city blocks, split-screen phone call scenes, and peeking-through-the-keyhole shots. The cinematography made this film pleasant to watch. My only complaint is that I’d have liked to see more of Mary Astor. Oh, and the typography in the title sequence was awesome. You can watch the whole film on YouTube. I recommend it.

• Didn’t have school on monday, meaning I didn’t have figure drawing or electronic publishing (the worst class of the week). Instead I went thrifting and bought a half-naked Barbie doll for 90¢.
• Began the semester with a 9:30am tuesday morning class (which felt super-luxurious compared to my usual 8am start time).
• The aforementioned 9:30am class is readings in American literature. The teacher is nice but doesn’t seem to value good things. Also: she uses unnecessarily vulgar language while teaching. Lame.
• Kicked off my tuesday/thursday-lunchtime history of 19th-century art class with Ann Shifflet, my freshman art history teacher and one of my favorite people ever ever ever. A bunch of friendship lunch gang people are in the class with me! it’s going to be literally unbelievable and wonderful.
• Reunited with M-Tabs and all the other people in my team class. There are only 16 of us at this point and we’re as tightly-knit as I suppose an ad class could get.
• Got sorted onto a new team for a half-semester-long project. Not excited, but not upset.
• Stayed late tuesday afternoon for a three-hour history of fashion design class. The teacher is kinda boring but it should be a good experience. Lots of weird things on the horizon.
• Brought my half-naked Barbie to the fashion history class because the teacher told me to.
• Resumed my wednesday schedule with the 6-hour-long illustration methods class. There are a bunch of new people in this class that nobody knows.
• Wednesday friendship lunch! Got to see all my food-service friends.
• Drew animals! Ate chocolate cookies! Got reprimanded for speaking too loudly! (all the usual wednesday afternoon things.)
• Had to endure an utterly painful second American lit class on thursday morning, during which I realized none of my peers know anything about American history (“Christopher Columbus? he landed in Massachusetts, right?”).
• Listened to my American lit teacher misrepresent and criticize the Puritans—and argued with her about it.
• Gleefully resumed my thursday afternoon ad class (the best class of the week) and looked at a bunch of super-dated direct-mail things.
• In general: got a lot of knitting done.

I watched Robert Aldrich’s 1955 film The Big Knife last night. A stage play adapted for the screen—but only very slightly adapted—all the movie’s action took place on one set. The plot of the film followed a depressed, philandering Hollywood actor (Jack Palance) locked into a bad acting contract. Speaking of Palance: he had a very funny mid-50s movie-star wardrobe, including double-pleated trousers with a half-elasticized waistband he put on after exercising.

The film itself was pretty macabre, in a reserved, stage-play sort of way. Though this film was somewhat dull, it was pretty interesting A nice antidote to the Capra film from a few nights ago.