Ghosts and Other Characters

On Sunday Laureen joined me for a viewing of the 1963 classic The Haunting. (See Laureen above with 2 of her fans, as well as Claire Bloom and Julie Harris.)  In a good (or even great) ghost story, the ghost is not merely something that says "boo," but a real (dead) character with psychological connections to the other characters.
 The Haunting is one of my favorite spook-flicks.  Every time I watch it I notice little things I'd missed before.  Of course, I can't think of an example now.

I continue to probe the mysteries of old TV shows.  I just finished seeing several episodes of Biff Baker, U.S.A. featuring character actor Alan Hale (aka "The Skipper").  Though still in his early 30s, Hale's signature character had already jelled into a hearty, jolly, joking, unpolished regular guy.  In this case, he was a regular guy defending American interests all over the world accompanied by his equally jolly wife.  It isn't very good, but it's a source for American post-war psychology.

Of course, when dealing with Alan Hale, the question that always comes up is whether he is related to Barbara Hale (aka "Della Street").  IMDB.com mentions nothing, but nothing mentioned is not proof of nothing being there.  The fact that they both appeared in The Giant Spider Invasion suggests a blood connection: why else would they act in that turkey of a flick?

Speaking of character, recently a research assistant approached our ref desk with a strange request.  Her boss wanted to do some kind of scientific psychological measurement of people who had just read various kinds of literature, such as fiction with characters and fiction without characters.  She needed to find some examples of fiction without characters: no human characters, no animal characters, no alien characters, and no anthropomorphized objects.  No characters.  Not surprisingly, she couldn't find any examples.

For the benefit of Science, I wish to fill this literary lacuna...

The House

A piece of fiction

There's a house on Maple St. with white aluminum siding and a dark green pitched roof.  It has a front door in the front and a back door in the back.  It has a front yard in front and a back yard in back.


Furthermore, it looks just like every other house on Maple St.  This house has no character.

The All-Seeing Mechanical Eye

Today’s  topic is Mechanical Remote Viewing, (as distinct from ordinary Remote Viewing).  MRV devices allow an operator to view scenes live at a great distance without the intermediary of a spy satellite, helicopter, or surveillance camera.  Some MRV devices can even see through fog, walls, and mountains, and some can also pick up audio.  MRV turns up in science fiction and action shows with a hi-tech component. 

I was thinking about this recently as I watched the wonderful 1950 classic Radar Secret Service.  The cops in this movie had “tele-meters” which allowed them to watch their colleagues clash with bad guys out on the roads just as if they were watching a movie.  The miracle of radar made this possible.  (Did you know that radar started out as an acronym for radio detection and ranging?)

Of course, Captain Video was the king of MRV with his Opticon Scillometer.  Check out some of the episodes here, here, and here.

The Martian Spaceship of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians had a MRV screen that a clear view of various Santa Clauses on the city streets of Earth.

The scientists in Riding With Death manage, in the 2^nd half of the movie, to come up with a remote-viewing TV that allows the female lead to watch the male lead’s activities in a bar and parking lot.  The movie’s writers felt obligated to explain scientifically the male lead’s ability to become invisible at will (radiation accident), but the remote-viewing TV is pretty much taken for granted.

My Dad was visiting in mid-October, and we watched the new Hawaii Five-O.  At one point McGarret needed to know if there were any people in a boat on the deserted wharf, so he calls up a Navy friend who pushes a button and retrieves a thermal image of said boat showing one person inside.  She didn’t have to wait for a spy satellite or surveillance chopper.  It had to be Remote Thermal Viewing
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Perhaps the audiences of the 50s were prepared to accept MRV because of precision bombing during WWII. Paul Fussell explains that "precision bombing" was something of a misnomer: "The fact was that bombing proved so grossly inaccurate that the planes had to fly well within anti-aircraft range to hit anywhere near the target, and even then they very often missed it entirely.  As the war went on, 'precision bombing' became a comical oxymoron relished by bomber crews with a sense of black humor.  It became obvious to everyone except the home folks reading Life and The Saturday Evening Post that although you could destroy lots of things with bombs, they weren't necessarily the things you had in mind."*   But civilians believed that each dropped bomb landed exactly where it was meant to. If you could drop a bomb precisely from 7 miles up without worrying about wind, then why not MRV?

I found a precision bombing propaganda pamphlet that Fussell mentioned and  scanned it.  Here's one image from it:

 Please check out the pilot I have pointed the green arrow at.  Tell me what you think: "Dude looks like a lady," "Dude, that is a lady," "Other."

*Paul Fussell, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War, New York: Oxford UP, 1989, p 14.

Catching Up

Lately I've been watching old TV that I missed the first time around.  I was only 5 when the series Thriller started up; it's a good thing I discovered it on Netflix, because it had many good episodes.

The Host of Thriller

Most of the plots had supernatural elements.  I've just finished season 1, in which I saw a very young William Shatner in  two episodes; but the fun doesn't stop there!  In The Hungry Glass Shatner played opposite Russell Johnson (a.k.a. the Professor on Gilligan's Island).  In The Grim Reaper Shatner was joined by Natalie Schafer (a.k.a. Eunice 'Lovey' Wentworth Howell on Gilligan's Island).  Small world!  What are the chances of running across two people from the same island?

So my Thriller-watching inspired me to seek out Thriller-host Boris Karloff's lesser-known films.  First I saw The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936), which was a classic mad-scientist story with the familiar theme of mind transplant.  By working really, really hard, Dr. Laurence manages to construct a machine that switches minds into different bodies.  But the scientific world won't even give him a chance to demonstrate his machine; they just walked away scoffing.  Then Laurence thinks of a practical use for his machine when his backer threatens to take away his lab...  Another noteworthy aspect of this flick is its strong female character, the lovely Dr. Clare Wyatt, who ends up saving the day at the end.

Sources of Retro Style

People are nuts about Mad Men, and the search "Mad Men party" in Flickr gets almost 6000 results.  Obviously the fashion is a big draw, since people are partying dressed up like early 60s sophisticates.

I wonder if these maddicts are aware of Peter Gunn on RetroTV (check your local listings).  This is an excellent primary source of retro style and suavity.

Peter Gunn and Lt. Jacoby (Gunn's friend and foil) hunt trouble in a world of noir chiaroscuro.  Harsh neon light flashes on rain-slicked streets and through the windows of cheap hotels, where people are usually hiding from the Mob.  Gunn is impeccable in his charcoal-gray suit; Jacoby, much less so. (He's the foil, remember?)  And both of them stay poker-faced all the time.

Maddicts, don't blow your wad on one TV show!  There's a whole world of historical TV out there to explore and live vacariously through.

OK, That's Enough

In the name of nostalgia, I watched some old episodes of The Prisoner.  How could I have forgotten so much of this show?  I love it in the opening when number 6's disembodied head comes barreling out at you, as though it were going to smash into your face, but the jail doors slam closed, and you're safe.  Then there were the groovy interiors (number 6 has an orange lava lamp next to his bed) contrasted with the olde-time charm of the exteriors. 

I had forgotten that The Village was patrolled by a gigantic balloon and that the ladies had smashing striped capes.

However, pretty soon I tired of seeing number 6 triumph over number 2 again and again, so I dropped it.  Here's the only bit that had stuck with me before I renewed my acquaintence with The Prisoner:

The Discreet Charm of Old TV

I am now watching episodes of Secret Agent, which evolved from Danger Man. John Drake is sophisticated and poker-faced, but he has a heart. Unlike 007, he doesn't make jokes about hooligans he has dispatched. For Drake, death is never hilarious.




What's with this penchant of mine for old TV and movies? I don't believe they represent a golden age of innocence, nor do I merely sneer at the outmoded beliefs and think myself superior to all these people now dead or very old. Maybe it's some strange synergy of both, or neither.

Before Secret Aaaaygent Man..

...there was Danger Man starring the same Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, an agent for NATO.  (Secret Aaaaygent Man worked for MI9.)  I remember the Secret Aaaaygent Man song, but no details of the show.  Now, I'm filling in some of my childhood blanks by watching the original Danger Man.  The show had a mere half hour to present, complicate, then solve some problem of international import.  The first John Drake had few secret-agent type devices to help him; perhaps NATO had no Q-type person.  I can imagine early John Drake telling later John Drake how in the old days he had to depend on his fists, his gun, his charm, and his brain.  Nowadays, super secret agents are spoiled!  (Later John Drake rolls his eyes.)

It Was Captain Video, Of Course!

A New TV

Here Criswell predicts on my new TV. The old one still works, but nobody wants a 15-year-old set.

TV Executives Take Note

Remember 1900 House and Frontier House and all the other reality shows in which people learned how crappy it is to live in the past? When is some network going to make Future House, in which volunteers learn what it would be like to have robots do all the housework and commute to the job in a hovercraft? As Criswell said, "We are all interested in the future, for that is where we will spend the rest of our lives."*
*Prologue in Plan 9 From Outer Space

The Invaders (in Color), cont.

OK, last night I watched the episode "Summit Meeting" in which a couple of the aliens had tiny flashing walkie-talkie-like devices. So they weren't entirely dependent on Bell.

Revisitng a Classic

Do you remember The Invaders (in color) from 1967-8? Architect David Vincent witnesses a flying saucer landing and, learning that its occupants plan to rule the world, spends 2 seasons trying to convince other Earthlings that the invasion has begun. I have been watching episodes from the 2nd season, wherein a few people have been convinced, but there is still so much more to be done.

It's great to watch shows you haven't seen for 40 years and realize how many inconsistencies you missed the first time. For instance, how does architect David Vincent support himself while he drives around the country checking out flying saucer reports? He always has nice suits and new cars. Does he do quickie designs between his investigations? Perhaps this is why the narrator always say "Architect David Vincent"; to imply that he does something else between episodes.

The aliens's talents and powers are strangely limited. They travel between galaxies, they can take human form (for 3 days, after which they need regeneration, they have little palm-held devices that kill humans by cerebral hemorrhage, but when they need to get in touch with one another, they have to use the telephone. One poor alien is overheard calling for help from his (its?) superiors on a pay phone.

They also make bad choices: they aim to make the Earth their own, but they can't breath oxygen. What to do? They'll try to alter their own chemistry, and if that doesn't work, they'll suck all the oxygen out of the atmosphere. Wouldn't it be easier to find a planet with a suitable atmosphere? I mean, these people hop from galaxy to galaxy. You can't tell me that there aren't planets better suited. They remind me of some human organizations that insist on doing things in the most wasteful way possible.

Agent Phillip Broyles, Master of the Poker Face

If you watch the TV show Fringe (set in Boston), you've seen this amazing character. He always looks deadly serious, even when he's saying ridiculous things like, "A computer virus that liquefies your brain." This guy must have iron self control--or he uses botox.

Watch More TV...

...at hulu.com. I like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but you can also see Fantasy Island, Lost in Space, and a whole lot more for free on your computer. You always wanted to spend more time on your computer, didn't you?