Sunday Reads: Shadow Boxing 

Good Afternoon.

Like many of you, I try to find escape in things away from the daily…or should I say, hourly destruction of our Democracy.

out of the past (1947)

I can countless time looking at pictures on Pinterest. Which is what I was doing last night and early morning when I got the idea of working it into a thread.  So…take some time and enjoy the images, that comprise of movie stills, production shots, and publicity stills of various movies. I’ve picked images that create shadows, or are silhouettes of actors, some are the bright overexposed contrast of an actor’s face against the black back of the scene.

Simone Simon in a publicity still for “Cat People”

I used to remember what all the terms and phrases of these “shots” were called back in the day. The names have become out of my grasp. Yes, I know I could look them up…but that would mean having to do more research. You know what? My brain just can’t function like it used to. I would blame it on the pain pills, depression and all that but it must be something more.

Here are a few news items to pepper this thread.

Julie Harris as Eleanor in The Haunting, 1963

This was the highlights from SNL: I didn’t watch these yet. I bring myself to after this week’s actual press conference where Spicer pointed to the two stacks of papers as a “visual aid” for explaining the difference between the Obamacare bill and the Trumpcare bill.

SNL Mocks Ivanka Trump with ‘Complicit’ Fragrance Ad | Mediaite

SNL’s Trump Has Everything Under Control During an Alien Invasion | Mediaite

SNL Assures Us We’ll Be Screwed If Aliens Invade Under Trump

As you can see from the headlines, even SNL has to expand its storyline to a more unrealistic basis. I mean, everything else they have made fun of, in terms of the ludicrous connections and outrageous way tRump is getting away with everything…all that shit is true! And still nothing is happening. The traitor is still there.

Robert Ryan, Laraine Day– The Woman on Pier 13

Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1924)

Donald Trump Jr says he has ‘zero contact’ with father as he runs business | US news | The Guardian

Yeah, Right.

“M”

On to the next shit business.

The Seventh Seal

GOP Rep. Steve King: Millions could lose health insurance under TrumpCare, and that’s ok – AMERICAblog News

Hospitals worry about caring for newly uninsured in GOP plan | Tampa Bay Times

WaPo: “They are poor, sick and voted for Trump. What will happen to them without Obamacare?” – Balloon Juice

Now that headline reminds me of a movie:

Watch out all of you in the New England!

Rising numbers of great white sharks headed toward Cape Cod, scientists say | Environment | The Guardian

Figure rises for second consecutive year, says Massachusetts’ top shark expert, warning of ‘public safety issue’ despite no deaths in state’s waters since 1936

Oh oh…I see a pattern here.

Angel Heart

Can y’all believe it has been 6 years?

Six years after Fukushima, much of Japan has lost faith in nuclear power – Salon.com

Shadows in Window, 1949 (Siegfried Lauterwasser)

With all this going on, I think we may have found the answer to our problems.

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Sabotage”

We need to look back, if we are going backward in time…lets go backward in medicine.

The Fart Jars of 17th Century Europe | Mental Floss

When a mysterious illness is busy killing a significant percentage of the world’s population and medical knowledge is at a bit of a standstill, weird things can happen. Case in point: In the 1600s, some doctors recommended their patients fart in jars to help treat exposure to the bubonic plague.

Ivan The Terrible pt.1 (1945, Sergei Eisenstein)

Their very suspect logic went something like this: The Great Plague of London that devastated the city between 1665 and 1666 was believed to be a miasma, or a deadly air vapor spread through breathing in the atmosphere. Doctors felt that if a patient could somehow dilute the polluted air with something equally potent, it might reduce the chances of contracting the illness. So they advised their patients to have something foul-smelling at the ready.

Macbeth (1948, Orson Welles) / Cinematography by John L. Russell

To have some kind of putrid stench on standby, some homeowners retained a goat and let it stink up the place. Others took to the practice of farting into a jar and quickly sealing it, then would rush to inhale the stench when they suspected that they may have been exposed to the deadly germs.

Barbara Stanwyck & Brian Donlevy in The Great Man’s Lady (1942, dir. William A. Wellman)

While it’s unknown how many people were saved by such a method, it’s fair to assume that the likely answer is none. There is, however, no telling how those saved farts may have acted as a kind of methane placebo, calming the rattled nerves of those who were alarmed by the piles of dead bodies collecting in the streets.

Ricardo Cortez in production still from D.W. Griffith’s Faustian tale The Sorrows of Satan (1926)

The article ends with stating that of course this tip won’t save you from the bubonic plague…and that farts mean your digestive system is working. Perhaps we can start a campaign to send turds in a bottle to tRump?

Rebecca

Last two links.

Why Movies Now Look Like Colorless, Lifeless Crap

Ah..ha. I got a tie in there. Didn’t I! (Get it, turds and the headline “lifeless crap.”)

Harvey

And, finally…one of the movie stills I am featuring today:

The Big Combo

C&L’s Sat Nite Chiller Theater: The Big Combo (1955) | Crooks and Liars

So give that a looksee and see y’all later.

This is an open thread.

Lot’s more film images here:

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