THE WHITE HEATHER (1919), directed by Maurice Tourneur. A silly plot about an annulled marriage and a race to get a secret document at the bottom of the ocean is the excuse for a series of lovely, atmospheric scenes, both underwater and underground.📽️

THE FATAL NIGHT (1948), adapted from Michael Arlen's "The Gentleman from America," a near-perfect spend-the-night-in-a-haunted-house film, only 49 minutes long but with two spooky stories told before it's over. Lots of atmosphere, lightning pacing and the film debut of Patrick Macnee. Recommended.📽️

#BOTD ENNIO MORRICONE (1928-2020) The best. He could do everything and did. His favorite instrument was the trumpet because his father played it. He regretted not composing scores for more horror films-- he "only" did 24. He made bad films good and great ones even better. Happy b'day, Maestro.📽️

What predates a first edition of THE GREAT GATSBY? A review copy, complete with a personal note and signature from its editor, Maxwell Perkins. It's for sale right now if you're interested, a steal at $9800 and I'm not being sarcastic.💙📚

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 20/20 - STREETS OF PARIS, STREETS OF MURDER by Tardi and Jean-Patrick Manchette

#BOTD William Alwyn, 1905 Besides his symphonies, piano compositions, and other works, Alwyn wrote the scores for dozens of films, British and American, from the '30s to the '60s, from ODD MAN OUT to SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. Also, unlike Malcolm Arnold, Alwyn never made an album with Deep Purple.

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 19/20 - REVELATIONS IN BLACK by Carl Jacobi

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 18/20 - TITUS GROAN by Mervyn Peake

The most famous version of Herman Bang's novella THE FOUR DEVILS was Murnau's which, unfortunately, is lost. Eight years earlier (1920), A.W. Sandberg directed the first, which still exists. Best of all: custom English subs!📽️💙📚

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 17/20 - THE WOMAN IN THE DUNES by Kobo Abe

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 16/20 - THE METAL MONSTER by A. Merritt

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 15/20 - COUNT MAGNUS AND OTHER GHOST STORIES by M. R. James

Happy Halloween.

Gaston Leroux's (THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) novels were so popular in Hungary they were made into films as soon as they came out. The only print of AFTER DEATH (1920) has been restored by the French, Hungarian and Belgian national film archives. No English subs yet but I'm patient.📽️💙📚

Orson Welles admitted he was lucky the NY D.A. didn't know radio shows were recorded or they would've had proof that "The War of the Worlds" broadcast ( #BOTD 10/20/38) was done "with malicious intent." At the end, he said it was "our way of saying 'Boo.'" Next day, no idea people were scared!📽️

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 14/20 - SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 13/20 - REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 12/20 - THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO by Horace Walpole

After Samuel Barber, my favorite American composer is Howard Hanson. His recordings as a conductor hold up well, especially "The Composer and His Orchestra" series, where he talked about his own works before playing them. So, happy birthday, Maestro Hanson. #BOTD

Nice opening page by Dan Barry for the first issue of BIG TOWN (1950). The writing in the caption under the art was as corny as the radio show it was based on, so I cropped it. #comicsky

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 11/20 - THE MEMORY POLICE by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 10/20 - THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA by Gaston Leroux

From the July 1930 issue of WEIRD TALES. Even though there's no credit given, it's obviously the basis of his later film CAT PEOPLE (1942).💙📚 #horror📽️

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 09/20 - BRUGES-LA-MORTE by Georges Rodenbach, translated by Will Stone

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 08/20 - THE TALE OF GENJI by Murasaki Shikibu, translated by Royall Tyler

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 07/20 - THE PALM-WINE DRINKARD by Amos Tutuola

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 06/20 - A FEAST OF BLOOD prepared by Charles M. Collins

SUPPORTING ACTOR SUNDAY #supportingactorsunday BELA LUGOSI (1882-1956) At first billed as Olt Arisztid and Albert Lugesi, Bela was in over two dozen German films in supporting roles. Many no longer exist at all and the ones that do look like this. Here's Lugosi in DAUGHTER OF THE NIGHT (1920). 📽️

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 05/20 - A PRINCESS OF MARS by Edgar Rice Burroughs

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 04/20 - ORDINARY MEN by Christopher R. Browning

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 03/20 - THE PARASITE AND OTHER TALES OF TERROR by Arthur Conan Doyle

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 02/20 - NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS by Victor Hugo

20-day TBR book challenge. Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. #20TBRbookchallenge 💙📚 01/20 - DIABELLI by Hermann Burger translated by Adrian Nathan West

Re-read Jean Ray's MALPERTUIS and am still impressed by the originality and magnitude of its horror. "Corpses! Corpses the size of mountains!" The cover of the Wakefield Press edition (from the Turconi collection of 35mm nitrate slides) is good but nothing close to French editions.💙📚 #horror

It's not every day that the first face you see in a film belongs to a personal friend of Smetana and Dvorak, but PISEN ZIVOTA (Czech 1924) begins with an old beggar played by Adolf Krossing, a singer so talented and funny both composer wrote parts just for him. Imdb has no photo of him!📽️

This reminds me of W.C. Fields' "Pharmacist" bit when a customer asked him, "Do you have Dildo-Dildok Dyspepsia Tablets for Dogs?"

Was he played by the ghost of Milton Seltzer? 💙📚📽️ #horror

Roy Krenkel cover for late '60s comics fanzine GUTS #5. This is the issue that featured the essay "Violence, the Phoney Issue" by none other than Steve Ditko. Don't remember for sure if I was in this one but I wrote letters to the editor in practically every issue after the first. #comicsky

One of cinema's most historic moments: The opening of THE EXIT FROM THE LUMIERE FACTORY (1895), the first film ever to be projected to a paying audience. "Only 33 out of 100 tickets are sold to the first ever demonstration of the Lumiere Cinematograph." The audience was "dumbstruck." #cinema

Another favorite Vidal quote.

“Reality is something the human race doesn't handle very well.” -Gore Vidal #BOTD Vidal and Fellini, Rome 1971

#BOTD GORE VIDAL 1925💙📚 A personal favorite moment from the 1968 ABC Presidential debates between Vidal and Wm F Buckley: "Now, Bill, don't you point that tongue at me, you put it back in your cheek where it belongs."

#BOTD GORE VIDAL 1925💙📚 In my opinion, his greatest book. "Remembering Orson Welles" is my favorite piece about my favorite filmmaker but every single essay is a pleasure to read and re-read.

#BOTD GORE VIDAL 1925💙📚 One of my prize possessions is a tape that came from the original 1968 ABC masters of the debates between Vidal and Buckley. Clips in the documentary about them were cut and cleaned-up. The unedited tapes are more fun. Vidal looks great, Buckley not so much.

GORE VIDAL #BOTD 1925 100 years ago, my favorite writer was born. A century later, I miss and feel the need for his insights more than ever. He predicted too much of what's happening and even tho he thought "the 4 sweetest in the English language are 'I told you so," I doubt he'd feel like it now.

Good movie, cool guys.

A couple more of my favorite translations. 💙📚

Just learned that it's International Translation Day. The last few years I've spent reading fiction in translation has been one of my main pleasures in life and I'm grateful to all the writers and translators I've found. LibraryThing's montage is a great one. Here are a couple of my favorites.💙📚

OSVOBOZHDENIE aka LIBERATION, a five part Russian film (1969-1970), with each episode a battle, ending with Berlin. Hitler's scenes are in B&W, complete with his last minutes. In this version, Hitler poisons Ava and is then too cowardly to shoot himself, even tho Russian history proved otherwise.📽️

"The Man of 1955." Koppy McFad, aka The Boy with the Most Comic Books in America," aka the immortal Supersnipe by the great George Marcoux, from the first issue of his Street & Smith comic from 1942. A wonderful, one-of-a-kind character that I love as much as John Stanley's Little Lulu. #comicsky