Introducing: Hayley Mills

While every day is Hayley Mills Day at the HMCC, a new continuing feature of Lady, That's My Skull is Monday with Hayley, featuring Hayley Mills the star of stage, screens both big and small and the dreams of millions.

And what better way to start this feature by showcasing the screen debut of America's eternal sweetheart from the 1947 film So Well Remembered, the British class warfare story of a progressive newspaper man fighting the uncaring industrial and social system that exploited and ravaged his hometown. Actor John Mills, known for making his movies a family affair, brought along daughters Hayley and Juliet for parts in the film. Hayley Mills receives an uncredited appearance as an orphaned infant, adopted by Trevor Howard who plays the drunken town doctor who may have botched the delivery and caused the death of her mother.

If anyone watching the film is unsure which of the many infants in this classic movie is Hayley all doubt is removed in this scene shared by Trevor Howard and father John Mills. Her striking eyes are unmistakable and in her face you can clearly see the features that would soon light up the screen.

Adorable!

Volcanic!

Silver Screen Magazine (April 1951)

Often websites with content that consists mainly of a couple of cool daily pictures or two are thought of as being managed by the lazy. Sometimes that is true. More often than not though what is perceived as the hastily posted picture is actually the result of extended periods of research and editing.

Long hours wandering flea markets and swap meets for old magazines and then sitting in front of a keyboard or scanner are required to find nifty pictures for all those disposable posts. Also, many of the online resources for images are posted "as is" and the yellowed, torn or stained pages usually need cleaning up if you are the type who want to regurgitate a cool image and post a unique and interesting scan.

All that work and time spent results in a quick image post on a site or forum that is dismissed by readers during their hit and run newsreader browsing. The "placeholder" image posts are usually part of a cycle of diminishing returns for the blogger. The entries are swiftly forgotten and other than for the love of it, there is little to be gained by the single image post other than to let a reader know the owner of the site hasn't died or lost interest in blogging all together. There are exceptions, of course. Mike Sterling could make a career on posting nothing but images of Chalk Thing, Percy Trout is in a semi-NSFW league by himself, Bully laboriously researches his Ten of a Kind covers and the Fail Blog definition of failure is vague enough that their will always be enough content available for the site.

What was challenging about repairing the Bird of Paradise advertisement poster is that the duo-tone image contains artistic layers of mist that serve to aid a gradual transition through multiple scenes. Interestingly, some of the wear and tear of the ink and paper created effects that unintentionally added to the misty, tropical atmosphere of the poster.

I couldn't tell in a few places where the ink ended and the scuffing began when I cleaned up the image but I'm pleased with the results as the artifacts of damage and age of the the paper added to the overall artistic effects.

Fighting Tigress

Lana Turner

Thick As Thieves soundtrack

One of the unfortunate effects of a dismal box-office return is that a studio will decide not to create marketing tie-ins or produce an original soundtrack of the songs featured in the film. While a great soundtrack can get people in the theaters sometimes a studio will decide whatever marketing tie-ins there might be are not worth the financial risk. This has happened with several films over the years, particularly in the earlier-Internet era, when it wasn't so easy to sell items online or push physical items out of the brick-and-mortar stores.

One film that suffered from not having an OST issued was the 1998 Alec Baldwin vehicle Thick As Thieves. For years jazz aficionados have decried the lack of an official soundtrack from the film. The TAT OST is one of the few things I'd ever gladly purchase from the trunk of someone's car in the parking lot of a drugstore if they were selling them as copyright-violating burned compact discs. The music is that good.

The dark crime film, which is likable enough and reminiscent of the later Payback, did not exactly rake in the cash. The follow-up OST was never collected or produced and that oversight in awesomeness has been a sharp spike of agony in any jazz-fanatic's heart ever since. Even those who do not really care for jazz could do worse than have these songs in their collection. Several years ago a fan of the film's music, Brian Chernicky, took the trouble to gather as much information as he could about the soundtrack and put a list of the songs up on his website. Sadly, his site seems to be defunct and all links to his pages are dead.

But then that's where the Internet Archive comes in. The Internet Archive is a large database of films, music, websites, software mostly all royalty-free. I can spend hours going through the old movies and unintentionally hilarious Public Service Announcements. I recommend you support it in some way either through kind words or financially, either personally or by supporting those who would fund it.

When personalities like Rush Limbaugh, John Byrne or Sylvia Browne say something inaccurate, inflammatory or stupid and delete it from their sites so they can deny they ever made an insane statement, the Internet Archive and the usually helpful Wayback Machine is often there to help you recover the proof. Some sites can't back-pedal fast enough in their and try to erase their crazy claims from their websites once they realize their base is turning on them or the media, for once, doesn't play along and pour gasoline on the fire.

So stymied with being unable to get to the list I entered his URL into the Wayback Machine and was pleased to find that the page, last updated in 2007, has been recorded for prosperity. Since Mr. Chernicky did all the original hard work in and research I'm not going to copy his page verbatim. Instead, I'll supply a link to his page via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

Brian Chernicky's Thick As Thieves Soundtrack Listing via the Wayback Machine

If you want some great Martini-time jazz bad enough, and I believe it is worthwhile, many of the tunes can be purchased in various vinyl, CD or digital formats. One of these days someone is going to gather up all the songs featured in the film and make a mint.

Enjoy!

Update!

Brian's site is still up, just was down for a bit. Here's the link to his site, so stop in and say yo.

Brian Cherniky's Thick as Thieves soundtrack listing

The Freak from Suckweasel Mountain

Prosthetic creature by the often Gahan Wilson-inspired Ed French for the "film" Geek Maggot Bingo (1983).

Interestingly, I'm told this film featured actress Brenda Bergman as a young woman named Buffy, who fought vampires. I've never seen the film, so I have no idea if that is entirely accurate.

Ella and Rex admire their new Neutron Wave Reverser

The Lost Planet (Columbia Pictures, 1953).

Queen of the Super Females

Mapy Cortes as Reina Eva XLV, queen of a hidden island science utopia populated entirely by women.


From the 1946 Spanish film El Sexo Fuerte aka Super Females.

Eva Bartok

Eva Bartok. Hungarian. Concentration Camp survivor. Space Girl.

From the film Spaceways (1953).

Girl With An Itch

Her breast itches?

Sleestak's Review: The Love Guru

Ferrell, Murphy, Sanders and Meyers need to catch on that their films are better when they hand the reigns of control over to someone else.

Suspension

Here for your enjoyment is the little seen original opening sequence for the 1979 cinema release of what would be the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century television show. The title sequence is sexy and erotic even if the appropriately ethereal theme song doesn't quite mesh with the imagery as it seems more like an child's innocent lullaby than an ode to 500 years of continuous sex dreams.

Click to play in new window

Man, I hated that show.

The Wicker Mouse

The original version, not the crappy one with Nepotism Boy.