Huh. I saw Hoodwinked on the plane recently, and as I hadn't heard of it I didn't bother turning the sound on...so I probably missed the jokes, as it looked pretty much like an old Looney Tunes sequence. The weird combination of Bavaria and the Olde West made my head hurt (but that may have just been a factor of way too many plane trips).

And I had no idea who Anne Hathaway was (except Shakespeare's wife), so now when I see the clips from The Devil Wears Prada I keep trying to map the Little Red Riding Hood avatar onto her.

We watched The Unknown last night. It's a silent about an armless knifethrower (yes, you read that correctly) played by Lon Chaney who is in love with a sweet young thing played by Joan Crawford. Directed by Tod Browning of Freaks fame. It was disturbing and brilliant. Next up is another Chaney/Browning production called London After Midnight.

We watched The Unknown last night.

It is disturbing and brilliant isn't it? There's a great book about the Browning/Chaney collaborations (and other early, pre-code horror) called The Horror Show by David Skaal that I love a lot, and highly recommend. Browning was a fascinating character who worked the carnies before he got into film, including doing a Buried Alive act. Skaal goes into the weird psychosexual masochism of Chaney's performances, and what a huge box office star he was (equal to Fairbanks and Chaplin).

Chaney is a really great fucking actor. I'd seen Phantom of the Opera but his performance in that one is kind of over the top. Don't get me wrong - I love the movie. It's just that I got more of a sense of him as an actor in The Unknown. I'll have to check out that book. Chaney has definitely drawn me in.

Oop, it's actually called The Monster Show by David Skal

First sentence: "Tod Browning lay in his grave, eating malted milk balls."

Tod Browning is a hero to my people. I wonder what he would think of that.

I wonder what he would think of that.

He'd dig it. He was all Crip Power! before that was a notion.

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang=Oh, so fucking good.

Excellent. I'm going to be watching that sometime this week. (It came in from Netflix over the weekend.)

Okay, ow.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

I'm getting ready to head out for a bit, and S is watching Tammy and the Doctor, the third Tammy movie, starring Sandra Dee and Peter Fonda. It also features a young and dashing Adam West as a playboy doctor in the early 60's mode. I watched one scene with him in it, as he hits on Tammy, and it was actually kind of.... well, good. And very Bruce Wayne. Three years before he would actually take on the role for the first time.

And now I'm picturing him at that age in a better costume, with a modern Batman/Bruce Wayne role to inhabit, and good direction, and it's kind of working for me. I find myself pining for an Adam West Batman we never got and it's breaking my brain.

Ow.