Sunday, we go to the movies!
Or the movies come to us.
This delightful little movie is called Sophie’s Fortune – The Treasure of Quetzalcoatl.
It was produced in the UK for 2000£ (!!!) and it is marvelous.
Enjoy!
Category Archives: Media
Waiting for The Deep
My friend Lucy just published her first novel, a story called My Little Moray Eel* – a fun and unexpectedly moving romp full of monsters and undersea action.
As part of the launch, she’s doing a series of posts on her blog about her novel’s book and movie influences, and she mentioned The Deep.
And this is good, because I feel like undersea adventures right now.
The Deep is a 1977 movie based on a Peter Benchley novel.
After the success of Jaws, everybody wanted a piece of Benchley’s trademark underwater adventure.
The Deep is not as strong as jaws, but it’s a lot pulpier – it features not one but two underwater treasures, sharks, a giant moray heel, lost tribes, and, yes, Jacqueline Bisset in a wet T-shirt.
I think I’ll do a post on the movie soon, but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with the trailer from 1977.
Enjoy!
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* Despite the English title, it’s in Italian.
Back on the (Silk) Road
The great news is, a suitably pulp-ish project is taking shape right as I’m writing this, that promises to bring me back to the Silk Road as a setting for a new story (alas, I’ll be on the Silk Road in spirit, not in person).
So here’s some music to set the mood.
The Silk Road Ensemble featuring Yo-Yo Ma, live.
Enjoy.
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A baroque, pulp Ulysses
Now here’s something… unusual.
An operatic version of Homer’s Odyssey, set to music in 1765 by Gluck*, and represented in 1940s costumes and setting.
The opera is Telemaco, ossia L’isola di Circe (Telemachus, or Circe’s Island).
I like the setting quite a lot.
The idea of Ulysses as a lost flyer is quite interesting.
And when Circe the sorceress as an Oriental Dragon Lady gets into play, the whole thing assumes a curious pulp tone.
Here’s a first excerpt – you can find the rest on the Tube.
Enjoy!
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*The libretto for the opera was written by a guy called Marco Coltellini – which of course means Mark Small Knives, in Italian.
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Postmodern Jukebox
Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox has been the best find of the month, and I need to share it.
So here’s a sample.
But be sure to check out this gentleman’s whole catalog.
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My poor elephants have nowhere to go
Forgotten wonders from the past.
Let’s say you’re a film-maker and you’ve got a great story – about a bunch of eccentrics that decide that working for a living’s a waste of time, it’s much better to live for unspecified kicks, trying to improvise a living.
Good idea for a comedy caper movie.
But there’s a catch – it’s 1944, and there’s a war going on – and the Censorship commission would never approve a movie about people unwilling to be valuable members of society.
What do you do?
Simple – you set your movie in the future, after the war is over.
A bona-fide science fiction film (hey, it’s set in the future, right?) Give us the Moon is a strange movie, with machine-gun witty dialogues and a strange prophetic value – the “White Elephants Society” is an uncanny parody of the existentialist and beat crowds that were, at the time of filming, at least 5 years in the future.
The sparkling lady is gorgeous Margaret Lockwood, the twittering girl is future superstar Jean Simmons.
The movie was directed by legendary director Val Guest, based on a novel by Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon, called The Elephant is White.
For interested parties, getting the movie is a little easier than finding a good copy of the book.
Sunday with Madam Satan
Today’s media clip comes from a movie by Cecil B. DeMille in which a masked ball takes place during a party on an airship.
And then the airship crashes.
It’s a DeMille musical extravaganza, so it’s spectacular and features great set-pieces.
The movie is called Madam Satan, was produced in 1930 and apparently caused no end of trouble with the censors – lots of exposed female flesh, and after all, the plot revolves around a woman re-inventing herself as a masked femme-fatale to seduce back her unfaithful husband.
Racy stuff.
Especially in the 1930s.
Here’s a few samples from that strange movie…
Karavansara 