A Crisis of Confidence...

The Pete Hegseth Story, Episode 241, 'A Crisis of Confidence':  

 

Happy Easter!

Devils From Space?

So, JD Vance thinks that aliens are actually demons, rather than beings from other worlds.  Really?  I mean, is that the best you've got, JD?  With all the shit going down in the world today, (most of it perpetrated by a US administration of which he is part), that's what he spends his time worrying about?  Now, at this point, I could go off into a diatribe about how terrifying it is that a nation in possession of the most advanced technology the world has ever seen (and which it uses, primarily, to wage war on poorer nations), is being run people with an essentially mediaeval world view, which still believes in the existence of angels and demons, but I'm sure that someone far 'cooler' than me (who is doubtless 'working on their book'), has already done that on Bluesky or wherever.  What intrigues me is what this means for the US's policies with regard to contacting alien life - after all, right now there are radio telescopes scanning the heavens for possible signals from aliens, those old Voyager probes heading out of the solar system with contact details for earth and schematics of humanity on them, not to mention signals being blasted out into space by us.  All of these assume that these hypotheticals aliens are intelligent and peaceful, but in view of Vance's belief that they are devils, will future contact attempts switch emphasis to trying to convert them to JD's brand of Christianity?  Will NASA be forced to send out into deep space broadcasts of those crazy American preachers who rant on about 'salvation', redemption' and the 'fires of Hell'?  Will future deep space probes be packed full of crucifixes and Holy water, just in case they encounter these 'space devils'?

Will there also be a change in the protocols for alien contact if and when they land on earth?  (Because, you can guarantee that most major nations have such protocols in place, no matter how much they might deny it - it is the nature of bureaucracies that they try to come up with plans for every possible contingency, no matter how unlikely they might seem - I speak as a former civil servant).  Right now, I suspect, they are all about containment, attempts at communication by teams of top civilian experts and intense observation, all backed up by overwhelming military strength held at a discreet distance.  I'm guessing, however, that JD would probably favour a first response of sending in hordes of priests waving crucifixes and quoting passages from the Bible via loud speakers.  Maybe followed by showers of Holy water dropped from those planes they use to fight forest fires by dousing them in water.  If that doesn't work then, no doubt, we'll see a full on exorcism carried out by specially trained cardinals, all clad in NBC suits (in the appropriate shade of crimson, obviously), designed to try and cast these demons back to Hell, (or Mars).  Of course, this also has a knock on effect with regard to space exploration in general.  I wouldn't be surprised if the current Artemis II moon mission didn't have crucifixes stitched into the crew's spacesuits, just in case they encounter any demons out there.  In future, can we expect every mission to include some fire-and-brimstone preacher and for a large wooden cross to be implanted in each newly visited planet's soil alongside the American flag?  This is the face of the future, folks - and you heard it here first!

After Hours: A Day in the Life of a Tribute Messiah

 

 

Another episode of 'After Hours', my new podcast.   I have to admit that it isn't as polished as I'd hoped, not to mention the fact that it should have seen the light of day at least a week ago, unfortunately, however, everything got delayed by events beyond my control culminating in a family bereavement.  I'm not going to go into further detail, but it all blew off course.  So, while most of the scripts for the various segments were already written, a couple had to be hurriedly knocked together in order for me to be able to record and edit the episode over the weekend.  Which meant that none of the scripts was edited as tightly as I would have liked, with one being a last minute replacement for a planned segment which was just too complex to edit in a short time and would have sent the running time way over length.  As it is, the episode runs just over half an hour - my intent was to try and keep these episodes down to under thirty minutes apiece.

 

Still, I'm reasonably happy with this episode.  I have to admit that putting it together proved to be pretty theraputic and helped take my mind off of other matters.   Lessons to take away from creating this episode are that the scripts need to be tighter and shorter and that I need to start the recording and editing process as they are written, not wait until I've got them all completed.  

 

Anyway, you can listen to it here:  After Hours: A Day in the Life of a Tribute Messiah. 

 

As ever, some credits for the technical side: After Hours was created using Google AI Studio, GPT Reader and TextSpeakPro.  Music and sound effects by Freesound Community, Crab Audio, Dragon Studios and Artificially Inspired - all via Pixababy.  

The World's Gone Mad

At first I put it down to the clocks having gone forward over the weekend, but no, it turned out that I wasn't sleep addled and misreading the breaking news I had woken up to - the world it seems really has gone mad.  I mean, this morning was already confusing enough as it was - being the start of the Easter break, it meant that the early morning sounds I woke up to didn't sound right.  The traffic was lighter and there were no juvenile voices gabbling away outside, as the school run wasn't taking place, (my house lies on the route to and from a number of schools, so I get the full effect of the herds of kids on foot and the stream of 'Chelsea Tractors' ferrying others to school every week day morning).  It was all too quiet.  Which I found disconcerting.  But at least it meant that I had no problems in turning over and going back to sleep.  When I finally re-emerged from the embrace of Morpheus, I made my usual perusal of the news  headlines online - and immediately thought that maybe I had overslept so badly that I'd skipped a couple  of days and it was now 1st April.  Scott Mills sacked by the BBC!  I mean, what the actual fuck!  While I'd lost touch with Mills' broadcasting when he moved to the Radio Two Breakfast Show, thanks to the various afternoon and weekend shows he'd done for various BBC Radio stations, for a long time he'd been the background to me driving around in my car, whether for work or for leisure.  He always came across as just about the most inoffensive, yet likeable, DJ on the BBC roster.  (He's also a relatively local boy to me, as he's originally from Eastleigh).  What could he have done that was so terrible it warranted his dismissal and erasure from BBC history, (I'm not joking there - try finding any mention of him on the BBC Radio websites)?  

As ever, it seems that it's that mysterious form of alleged misconduct which occurred over ten years ago and hitherto hadn't been a problem, but which suddenly becomes a sackable offence.  There was a time when you were allowed to make mistakes, have them forgiven and be able to carry on with your life and career without it ever being referred to again, (provided you weren't a repeat offender).  But we live in an age where, when it is expedient for them, employers will dredge up any and every misdemeanour from your prehistory in order to justify dispensing with your services.  Still, I'm sure that in Mills' case the facts will eventually come out and most people will simply shrug and say, 'So what?'.  (Disclaimer:  I could of course be proven completely wrong here, so don't hold me to this prediction).  Anyway, I'd not even got over the shock of the Scott Mills news, when I hit by second gut punch when I read that Spurs were in 'serious negotiations' with Roberto DeZerbi to take over as their manager.  DeZerbi has become a controversial figure for some sections of the Spurs fanbase, primarily because of his support for player Mason Greenwood when the latter joined Marseille (DeZerbi's most recent club).  Greenwood, you might recall, was once accused of rape and domestic violence by his partner, which resulted in his departure from Manchester United.  In the event, charges against him were dropped, (although other evidence has emerged which would seem to support the earlier allegations), and he and his partner are still together.  Now, whether we like it or not, under our system of justice, people are innocent until proven guilty.  So, as these allegations were never proven in court, in fact never got near a court, Greenwood remains innocent.  So, when DeZerbi was asked about him and the allegations, I'm not sure what else he could have said, other than that he could only judge Greenwood as a player and point out that the case had been dropped.  This doesn't make him a 'rape apologist' as some irate Spurs fans have alleged.

Now, that still doesn't mean that I think that he's the right, or even a desirable, manager for Spurs.  I remember when it looked as if the club were going to make a move for Genaro Gattuso to become manager, fan groups brought up various alleged sexist and homophobic statements he had made.  While that didn't endear him to me as a managerial prospect, the fundamental issue with Gattuso was his temperament - I recall that, as a player, he had a physical altercation with then Spurs assistant manager Joe Jordan during a Champions' League match, which alone should have ruled him out of contention for the Spurs job.  Not only that, but his managerial CV was - and remains - an absolute car crash.  What those fans currently opposing DeZerbi's potential appointment don't seem to grasp is that it was most probably the latter factors which led to the Spurs board deciding not to appoint Gattuso, rather than the former allegations.  Similarly, with DeZerbi, the whole emotive allegations of being a 'rape apologist', (which are based on pretty shaky ground) are less likely to sway the board than his temperament and footballing record.  Like Gattuso, DeZerbi also had an altercation with a Spurs manager - while managing Brighton, he verbally berated interim manager Stellini on the touchline,  Whilst not a violent confrontation, the level of anger over a trivial issue - he didn't like something Stellini had allegedly said about Brighton in an Italian newspaper interview - is evidence of an extremely short fuse and should stand as a warning flag.  While his teams do play attacking football, the reality is that his tenures at clubs are generally too short (around 18 months, usually), for his tactics to translate into long-term success or trophies.  Moreover, as these departures often seem to be triggered by his short fused temperament, the Spurs board should surely see that as another red flag.  

Look, at the end of the day, Spurs are currently in pretty dire straits and there are far worse managers than DeZerbi that they could appoint.  But there are so many red flags around him, even discounting the 'rape apologist' stuff, that he does represent a very real risk.  I mean, I sympathise with those fans playing the 'rape apologist' card, if for no other reason that I think that, the dropped charges notwithstanding, Greenwood is a pretty shady character who hasn't covered himself in glory regarding his conduct with women, I just think that their protests would be more effective if they focused on DeZerbi's footballing record, as this is tangible and more likely to sway the Spurs board.  Anyway, I still think that the world has gone mad and that I've overslept and it is realy April Fool's day - perhaps I'll wake up tomorrow to the sound of Scott Mills on Radio 2 and news that Spurs have appointed Ryan mason interim manager...

Old News

I'm afraid that, right now, I'm running on empty.  I have stuff going on in the real world I have to deal with, so I'm pretty much out of creative inspiration, even if I had time to develop any ideas.  So, rather than skip today's post entirely, I dug this out of an old memory stick - it was the script for what was, essentially, a precursor to my current podcasts, (I actually re-used part of it, heavily revised, in the most recent podcast).  Anyway, it shows its age with its political and pop culture references, but I still like it.  So here's some (very) old news: 

"Bill slapped my buttocks like a pair of bongo drums all night long," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, in answer to questions about her recent official visit to Africa.  She denied press allegations that the frenzied rhythm of the former President's buttock bashing had instigated a tribal uprising in Uganda, when it was mistaken for the sound of war drums.   

Meanwhile, back in the UK it has been categorically denied that former Prime Minister Tony Blair had ever held talks with President Bush to establish an international agency aimed at the early detection of lesbianism in famous women.  Alarmed by the number of favourite celebrity pin-ups who had turned gay in recent years - including Ellen De Generes, k d lang and Samantha Fox - Tony Blair had been said to have been considering using the combined intelligence resources of the West to monitor his other favourite actresses and entertainers for signs of impending lesbianism.  "At no time was it suggested that satellite imagery, communications intercepts or close surveillance be used to see if Jodie Foster or Callista Flockheart had taken to wearing comfortable shoes," said a spokesman for Mr Blair.

Finally, X-Factor judge and N Dubz singer Tulisa Contostavlos has apologised to fans for not looking as hot naked as they might have thought she would after an illicit sex video featuring her was released onto the web.  "I know my fans probably had higher expectations for my knockers," she told a press conference.  "And I am sorry to have shattered their masturbatory fantasies by having a disappointingly ordinary pair."  However, X-Factor producer Simon Cowell has said that the tape will not affect Tulisa's role in the show.  "Despite the criticism of them, I'm convinced that her gazonkas will put at least two million on the viewing figures for the next series," he declared.  "Everyone at home will want to compare her cleavage with what they've seen on their lap tops.  Hopefully they'll divert attention from the dire acts we feature every week."

You never know, having used part of it recently, I might be able to rework the rest of it sometime in the foreseeable future.  Hopefully, I'll be able to start getting back to something like a regular schedule next week.

Peaceful Hallucinations?

People worry about AI 'hallucinating' stuff and fabricating completely untrue information, yet we currently have a US president who is apparently hallucinating entire 'peace negotiations' with Iran.  Where are these negotiations taking place, through what channels and who is involved, (bearing in mind that the Trump administration keeps insisting that they've decimated Iran's leadership, it is fair to ask exactly who they are negotiating with)?   Nobody seems to know.  Iran, naturally, denies point blank that any such discussions have taken place.  So, is Trump simply imagining these 'negotiations'?  Is he in that stage of dementia where he's started having conversations with people who aren't there?  Now, there are those who will tell you that Trump's 'peace talk' is a calculated move to calm the markets sufficiently so that he and his cronies can manipulate and speculate upon oil prices.  But that would require him to be far more compos mentis than he actually is - he was never bright before, but is now in clear and rapid mental decline.  Could it be, though, that parties close to Trump are actually faking these negotiations, making the demented president think that he's involved in negotiations with Iran, in order for them to be able to manipulate the markets for their personal gain?  Maybe they just got a couple of random Iranian-sounding guys to speak to him on the phone, claiming that they were Ayatollahs, or something.  Because right now, as far as the US is concerned, nothing would surprise me.

But getting back to the AI, I've noted before the ridiculous levels of hysteria you'll find in some quarters with regard to it.  I still maintain that it is merely a tool which it is quite legitimate to use for doing some things, even in the 'creative' sphere.  Sure, there's plenty I wouldn't use it for: actually trying to create complete artistic works with it, taking medical advice, relationship advice, travel advice, in fact, advice of any kind.  The real problem with AI, in its current form, at least, is people.  Or rather the way in which people try to use it.  Rather than view it simply as a tool for achieving specific, very limited, tasks, they try to treat it as if it is actually, well, intelligent.  Which it isn't.  All it can do is, in essence, collate already existing information - it can offer no valid judgements on it, offer no real insights.  Yet people persist in trying to use it as if it does.  Lately, for instance, I've been reading about people who have used AI for legal advice, drafting legal letters, even.  Usually with predictably disastrous consequences.  Because the law is more than simply a set of rules - it is far more nuanced and open to interpretation.  Which is what lawyers are for, (well, decent ones, but this isn't the place for me to get into my opinions regarding many of those practicising in the legal profession).  Really, if you need legal advice, you are better off paying a competent lawyer for it that relying on an AI chatbot.  Likewise with reagard to medical advice - seek out a real live medical professional.  The fact is that people need to be educated as to how to use AI properly.  Because simply clutching your pearls or wringing your hands in despair at how it is allegedly stealing jobs etc, won't achieve anything.  Like climate change, denying it isn't an option - it exists, it is here and it isn't going away.  So, for God's sake, stop whining and learn how to use it properly.  

'Immigrants Ate my Granny!'

Cannibalism - is that going to be next racist trope peddled by extreme right and their enablers in the British press?  Obviously, they might have missed the boat on that, as cannibalism was always - wrongly - associated with 'darkest' Africa.  Well into the seventies: I well recall seeing as a child all those cartoons in newspapers and comedy sketches on TV involving hapless white missionaries being put into a large cooking pot by grass skirt clad African tribesmen.  Nowadays, though, the racists preferred targets are Muslims and illegal immigrants from North Africa, Albania and the like.  Black African immigrants still feature in their hate, but seem to have fallen down the pecking order somewhat.  But there's nothing the bigots like better than a racial or cultural stereotype with which to beat their targets.  Hence, all Muslims are crazy fundamentalist terrorists, all South Asian men are misogynists who like to sexually exploit women, especially white women and Eastern Europeans are all gypsies, werewolves and vampires who kill and eat swans when they aren't raping British women.  I suppose that the closest we've come to the Black African cannibalism trope were all those stories a few years back about African witches and witch doctors supposedly working in the UK, murdering children in their rituals.  Not to forget that in the States we had Trump claiming that Somali immigrants were eating people's pets in Cleveland, or wherever.  

Nonetheless, it is surely only a matter of time before that cannibalism meme gets another airing in the UK, particularly with the apparent rise of our own homegrown crypto-fascists like Nigel Fartage and 'Tommy Robinson'.   I have no doubt that they'd like to go back to the 'good old days' I still recall from my seventies childhood, of portraying black people as being savages, who were arriving in the UK straight from the jungle, still wearing their 'war paint', bones through their noses and waving spears.  I'm really not exaggerating, here - TV shows, in particular, seemed to be full of such caricatures.  So, I'm sure that, given half a chance, the right-wing press wouldn't be able to resist running headlines along the line of  'Cannibal immigrants ate my granny!', accompanied by mocked up pictures of OAPs being put into huge cooking pots suspended over fires, while groups of wild eyed black men in loincloths dance around them.  Or, they might try being subtler, with stories about unsuspecting diners at a Somali restaurant finding a human ear, or finger, in their meal and realising that they're being served up human meat.  Maybe, with Reform UK beginning to lose ground in the polls, we'll start seeing their MPs coming out with such stories - 'Only last week one of my constituents told me of how a black African immigrant tried to take a bite out of them on the bus - why isn't Keir Starmer personally tracking down this cannibal and bodily throwing him back into the Channel?'.  Before you know it, all those stories of Asian grooming gangs will be replaced by stories of black African immigrants kidnapping white children, keeping them in cages and fattening them up for their cannibal feasts.  Remember, you read it here first!

W C Fields and Me (1976)

Back in the US' bicentennial year, Universal Pictures decided to contribute to the celebrations with a pair of biopics of some of its best remembered stars.  Both Gable and Lombard (1976) and WC Fields and Me (1976) were critically panned and failed to find audiences.  Both have subsequently become very difficult to see.   The WC Fields movie for instance, I recall turning up only once on UK terrestrial TV, only a couple of years after its release, as part of BBC2's Christmas schedules.  I finally caught up with it again over the weekend and was able to confirm it as being a deeply problematic movie.  At the heart of its problems lies the question of exactly what the function of biographical films actually is?  Should they be faithful depictions of the subject's lives, a sort of moving waxwork museum whisking the audience through an entire lifetime compressed into two hours or less?  Or should they focus on some key event or relationship seen as a defining moment of the subject's life?  Or should they eschew strict historical accuracy in favour of creating a story that fictionalises some events and characters in order to try and gain some insight into the real character of the subject?  WC Fields and Me opts for the latter approach, but whether it actually offers any insights into the comic's character is questionable, despite a bravura central performance from Rod Steiger in the title role.  

The film is ostensibly based upon the memoir of the same name written by Fields' one time mistress, Carlotta Monti, (played by Valerie Perrine in the film), who was close to him during the last fourteen years of his life.  (In truth, the film uses virtually nothing from Monti's book).  The subjective nature of source material is the script's excuse for injecting so much fictional detail into the film - Perrine's opening narration telling us that all she knew of Fields' life before they met was what he told her - and Fields, notoriously, liked to fabricate his past, relating different versions of it at different times to different people.  The film, however, diverges from any of these accounts, coming up with a pre-Hollywood backstory for Fields which has him left destitute by a crooked accountant, travelling to California in a rickety second hand car with his midget sidekick, with whom he runs a wax museum before finally being offered movie roles.  In reality, while bad investments made by a financial advisor did cost Fields $50,000, he travelled to California in his own, brand new Lincoln, with $350,000 of his fortune intact, (he was already a top-billed comic in the Ziegfeld Follies in New York and had previously enjoyed international success with his original juggling act).  He certainly didn't run a wax museum and while he had at least one midget friend - a fellow performer from the Follies - he didn't go to California or go into business with him.  This entirely fictional version of the pre-Hollywood Fields is doubtless intended to provide an explanation for his subsequent miserliness and general insecurity regarding money and relationships - a more easily explained substitute for his much more complicated childhood relationship with his father.

Even when the film gets into Fields' Hollywood career and relationship with Monti, it still insists upon fabricating incidents and characters and completely loses track of the chronology of the latter phase  of Fields' life and career.  His reconciliation with his son, for instance, happened in 1938 not, as the film depicts, shortly before his death in 1946.  Of course, the film's version of events plays more conveniently into the script's determination to portray Fields as the stereotypical movie depiction of comedians as being essential unhappy and troubled individuals, their characters shaped by bitterness at past failed relationships.  But the reality was that Fields, on a personal level, spent the last few years of his life in a much more peaceful place, reconciled both with his estranged son and the estranged wife he never divorced (which was why he could never marry Monti).  Most bizarrely, the film fails to properly get to grips with the collapse, revival and collapse again of his movie career.  It completely fumbles the key part of his film career when, becoming ever more erratic as a result of his drinking, Fields was dropped by Paramount, then revived his popularity on radio to the extent that Universal gave him a contract which allowed him greater creative control over his projects.  But the old problems raised their heads again and he found himself dropped by Universal, subsequently being confined to cameo roles in a handful of films, rehashing old routines, and radio appearances.  This omission is particularly mystifying bearing in mind that not only did Universal produce WC Fields and Me, but two of Fields' best remembered and icon movies  - My Little Chickadee and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break - were made for the studio.

Yet, despite the ramshackle and inauthentic script and the distracting false nose he wears throughout, Rod Steiger still contrives to put together a dominant and compelling performance as Fields, eliciting, particularly toward the end of the movie, a great deal of poignancy for the character.  Whether this performance actually represents the real WC Fields, however, whether it truly gives any insight into character, is highly questionable.  The whole film seems based upon the notion that Fields' onstage persona was simply an extension of his real character, that in real life he was also a curmudgeonly, tight fisted, con-artist.  While he certainly liked to play up to his screen character and was, undoubtedly, an alcoholic, there is also plenty of anecdotal evidence of the real Fields being a far more complicated character, often generous, sensitive and kindly.  But little of this is in evidence in the film version of WC Fields and Me.  Steiger tries hard to go beyond simply providing an impersonation of Fields, but the script, ultimately, simply doesn't give him enough to work with and you come way from the film feeling that you've not really learned anything about the real Fields.  Worse still, as several critics at the time of the movie's release noted, it fails to capture the essence of his comic genius - anyone who watched it not knowing who Fields was would be hard pressed to grasp just why he was funny and considered one of his era's greatest screen comedians.

Making Excuses for Nigel

When, oh when, are large sections of Britain's media going to stop making excuses for Nigel Fartage?  Remember when all those people he went to school with came forward with their stories of how he had racially abused them and taunted others with anti-Semitic taunts?  What was the response of  the likes of the Daily Hate?  'Oh well, he was young and didn't know what he was doing', or 'It was a long time ago and he's changed now', or even ''They were just harmless jokes that were misconstrued'.  None of them actually condemned him for having been a racist bastard - not even when he couldn't categorically deny that he had ever made any of the remarks ascribed to him.  Indeed, his non-denial denials were, to those of us not in thrall to the extreme right, the surest sign that he was guilty as sin.  Yet the right-wing press remained silent. Or, worse, tried to give the impression that he was the victim, being smeared with outrageous allegations.  Fast forward to this week and we have more revelations about Fartage, namely that he's been endorsing fascists and repeating fascist and racist slogans in messages vai his Cameo account.  Again, the reaction of too much of the media has been to try and paint him as a victim, exploited by these right wing extremists into unwittingly repeating their slogans - which they then edit into their own videos - and endorsing thugs with convictions for violence.  Oh, poor Nigel!  None of them seem to want to address the elephant in the room here - that surely if someone who aspires to lead their country can be so easily duped, then doesn't that call into questions his credentials to be considered a serious politician?

Obviously, we shouldn't be surprised by any of this, the right-wing press in the UK have always loved a right wing politician advocating a tough line of immigrants and foreigners.  Let's not forget that back in the thirties the Daily Mail had Hitler as their 'Man of the Year'.  But, to be fair, it isn't just the right wing media who are guilty of giving Fartage an easy ride.  Large swathes of the media seem quite unwilling to address the wider issues that both the schoolboy racism allegations and the Cameo business raise.  In the case of the former, it is conveniently dismissed as 'unfounded' allegations (although, as noted, Fartage hasn't actually denied them), with the rider that many people do and say things as youths they wouldn't espouse as adults.  Except that most people guilty of youthful racism don't go on to found and lead a series of political parties based on extremist anti-immigration platforms.  As for the Cameo stuff, not only does it - if we accept at face value the explanation that he is an innocent victim of nasty neo-Nazis duping him - call into question Fartage's judgement, but also his motivations.  Again, we have someone who aspires to lead the country filming videos for fans, for money, when he should be conducting his duties as an MP.  Let's face it, if this was Keir Starmer or Kemi Badenoch doing this, then they would, rightly, be pilloried and their commitment to their positions called into question.  But, like Boris Johnson, Fartage seems to get a free pass.  We've gone from 'Oh, it's just Boris!' as a response to every outrage committed by Johnson, to 'Oh, it's only Nigel!' as a response to every piece of evidence that points to Fartage's links to extremist politics.

Of course, what these two have in common, apart from carefully curated buffoonery, is their utter venality, their willingness to do pretty much anything for money.   Just why people cannot seem to see that Fartage is nothing but a grifter is beyond me.  What more evidence do they need?  Not only is he happily debasing himself and his office by basically recording any message for absolutely anybody on Cameo, just so long as they pay him, but let's not forget that Reform UK isn't really a political party:  it is a limited company owned by Fartage!  Think on that before you give Reform financial contributions or membership fees.  The fact that Fartage so assiduously crawls and fawns to Trump should be another red flag - grifters of a feather flock together, after all.  

The Black Sleep (1956)

Despite being made as late as 1956, when nuclear bombs, mutants created by radiation and flying saucers were all the rage for B-movie topics, The Black Sleep is very traditional horror film, harking back to the Universal, or even Monogram, features of the forties.  Which shouldn't be surprising, as it is effectively a vehicle for a number of horror stars from that era and is directed by Reginald LeBorg, who had toiled away in Universal's B-unit, mostly working on horror movies (despite being a specialist in musicals), during the forties.  Set in nineteenth century England, the plot involves mad scientist Dr Cadman (Basil Rathbone) using his drug (derived from the Orient), 'The Black Sleep', which can make a subject appear dead, rescue a former colleague, wrongly convicted of murder, from the gallows.  Back at Cadman's creepy old remote ancestral home, the revived medic is expected to assist Cadman in his brain surgery experiments.  Obviously, these haven't been going well, resulting in a cellar full of failed subjects, including another former doctor (Lon Chaney), transformed into a violent brute and assorted other lunatics including John Carradine and Tor Johnson.  Bela Lugosi turns up as Cadman's mute butler.

Cadman's experiments are all part of his attempts to revive his wife from a comatose state and inevitably end in disaster, as the inmates of the cellar escape and eventually kill him.  Along the way it is revealed that it was Cadman and his gypsy henchman (Akim Tamaroff), who were behind the condemned medic's framing for murder.  To be fair, this independently made film is actually not at all badly put together, easily on a par, production-wise, with the better forties Universal B horrors.  Unfortunately, though, it offers nothing new in terms of ideas and provides only meagre scares.  That said, it is fun to see the likes of Rathbone, Lugosi, Chaney and Carradine together in a horror film again, although, in reality, Carradine's role is little more than a cameo, Chaney is reduced to playing an imbecile and poor Bela has no dialogue whatsoever, (due largely to the state of his health - this was his last completed film role before his death that same year).  Rathbone, however, pulls out all the stops in a suitably hammy performance as Cadman.  LeBorg's direction does its best to inject some style into proceedings, but the film is all too often bogged down by a talky script, full of too much exposition.  Still, for completists, we do get to see two titans of low budget exploitation, Lon Chaney and Tor Johnson, fight to the death.