"Son of Sinbad": Why Howard Hughes Made Movies
Posted by Lou Brooks at 8:41 pm on July 7th
I've been waiting over a year for Turner Classic Movies to re-run "Son of Sinbad" (1955) so that I could hand it over to all of you... it's in a bizarre class all its own. A cult movie waiting for its cult (which could be YOU!). So, set your Tivos for tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 8:15 AM sharp on TCM.
In 1948, Howard Hughes bought RKO Pictures for the same reason that Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992... to meet girls. Come to think of it, why does any guy in Hollywood want to be a producer? At least for Howard, it worked out pretty good... he had that thing going with Jane Russell. And he got to achieve a level of creativity that most of us can only imagine, like designing that special bra for Jane to wear in "The Outlaw." Stuff like that.
Although Ted Tetzlaff is credited as director, "Son of Sinbad" has the Hughes touch all over it. He wasn't exactly a Fritz Lang. Imagine smashing Ed Wood together with Hugh Hefner and you got it.
He must have promised a part in the picture to every stripper from Hollywood to Vegas, because they're all in it... all 127 of them (!!). Look fast, and you'll see Kim Novak in possibly her first bit part as "harem girl". And Howard's "bevy of beauties" is headlined by none other than Vegas's own Lili St. Cyr. Why did Howard do this? Because he can.
But the jaw-dropping uniqueness of "Son of Sinbad" is not limited merely to Howard making a casting call to every strip joint in the West (even though he makes an historically accurate statement that the women of ancient Persia used the same bump-and-grind dance style that 20th Century strippers used). No, there's much much more: the casting of TV Western star Dale Robertson as an Oklahoma-drawling Sinbad; an over-lisping Vincent Price as his wisecracking sidekick Omar Khayyam (!!); and the fact that Hughes insisted on spending a fortune cashing in on the 3D craze, not realizing that it had been over for two years. As a result, the film was never released in 3D, although there is a 3D version of the trailer available online. Nonetheless, the 3d "effects" are wacko and many (don't miss the big flaming-trash-can-lids finale). Then there's the blinding garish color. And dialog that's right up there with "Manos: The Hands of Fate."
And keep the Tivo smokin'. After "Son of Sinbad," and all through the day, TCM will be running Disney's greatest non-animated film, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", followed by a couple of great Italian sword & sandal movies: "Hercules, Samson & Ulysses" and "Terror of Rome Against the Son of Hercules". Ray Harryhausen's "Jason and the Argonauts" completes the list. A whole day of strippers AND greased-up guys from the Lido!
Sorry to have posted this so last minute... I just found out about it. If you're unfortunate enough to miss "Son of Sinbad," you can get a taste over at YouTube.
Art Supply Museum Tops '100' Mark!
Posted by Lou Brooks at 8:35 pm on June 26th
Forgotten Art Supply #102: The Cello-Tak Shading Film Sample Kit. Prior to Letraset coming to the fore, Cello-Tak and several similar rub-down texture and color films were du jour. Trouble was, Cello-Tak relied on its wax-coated backing which eventually dried out, leaving it useless. The pastel end of its color spectrum was lovely, though.
As of today, our modest little Museum proudly boasts a permanent collection of over 100 studio bullpen artifacts... 102, to be exact, and counting! Seems like yesterday that we opened our Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies doors with a mere handful of proportion wheels and ellipse templates. The latest relics come from long-time terrific friend and pop culture aficionado David Burd.
The 100th Forgotten Art Supply: The Speedball Steel Brush. David Burd claims that "they didn't work as well as one might think. To this day, brushes are still made from hair rather than steel." My experience with the nitwit contraption was the same. Anyone else have better luck?
Below are a few of my favorite exhibits along with original comments from each contributor. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to post so many gems on here. Like rust, obsolescence never sleeps, so I'm looking forward to many more!
The Omicron Ellipsograph, courtesy of Robert Hunt. "A tool which allows the user to draw a perfect ellipse of any length and radius. Essential when working on Star Wars material."
The Apple Macintosh 1, submitted by Heidi Schmidt. "1985 purchase price around $2000. No hard drive, a blazing 128k of memory, 8mhz processor and a 9" screen. WYSIWYG goodness."
Grapho-Scope Box Lid, submitted by Leah Palmer Preiss. "I found this at the flea market one day. I thought all my artistic anguish would soon be over. Alas, it was not to be."
Ruling Pen, submitted by Randy Enos. "This ruling pen with the beautiful wooden handle belonged to my mother-in-law who was a terrific artist...and certainly didn't need this to draw a straight line."
Kneaded Eraser, submitted by Nancy Stahl. "You need a kneaded eraser. Even if it isn't for drawing anymore, it can make a great stress-reducing toy."
Linex Adjustable Triangle, submitted by Scott Bakal. "An example of the deflation of the adjustable triangle market."
You and Your Turntable
Posted by Lou Brooks at 1:58 am on May 30th
Usually, when someone calls with a dry-tech assignment for an article entitled "You and Your Turntable," I start thinking about whether I should have lunch at the diner or bust open a bag of instant ramen again. But at Sound & Vision Magazine, the editors and AD Jose Trujillo were more than willing to let me change the title into something a lot more jazzy. While traveling the often rain-swept road of our careers, some of us may have noticed that not a lot of editors are keen on the illustrator trashing their ho-hum title for a snappy one. It's like you were caught doodling on the Dead Sea Scrolls. So, I was impressed with Jose and the guys.
I'm not saying I do this every time... but once in a blue moon -- if I think the client can take it -- I'll ask them to turn their souls over to me for a better and happier tomorrow. Mother knows best.
"Moods for Moderns" LA Opening
Posted by Lou Brooks at 9:59 pm on April 28th
Gallery entrance, featuring a trio of Judy Ragagli's Barbie oil paintings.
Hard to believe that "Sideshow: Moods for Moderns" at LA's Robert Berman Gallery has ended already. A whole month has gone by! Here are some images of opening night and some faces you may recognize. Some say I was there and some say I wasn't, and most don't seem to give a frog's ass whether I was or not.
Seattle's Bagpainter, Chris Crites, (left) with grand guru painter and founder of Juxtapoz Magazine, Robert Williams. (photo courtesy of Chris Crites)
Cutting edge art publisher Benedikt Taschen (left) and Taschen editor/author Jim Heimann chat it up with illustrator Laura Smith while LA artist Brian Zick (right) tries to take in the almost 200 works of art exhibited.
Drawger's own Chris Buzelli and happy fam showed up in force.
Colin Christian's fast sportscar-like erotic sculpture looks out across the opening night crowd. (photo by PortugePunk)
Sculptor and Dangerous Man with a Blow Torch David Buckingham points out aspects of his own work. He salvages all of the metal from places like the Southern California desert, then cuts and reshapes it into mind-blowing art. All material is left in its original condition with original paint left intact. (photo courtesy of Hi Fructose Magazine)
Artist/illustrator Ryan Heshka. In the background are paintings by Everett Peck.
Painters Cassandra Szekely and Andrew Foster join in the evening's art gab. Paintings by Yours Lou-ly shimmer in the background.
Artist and show impresario Brad Benedict, flanked by Chris Crites and Brian Zick. (photo courtesy of Chris Crites)
Death Draws the Line
Posted by Lou Brooks at 9:45 pm on April 23rd
Every reader of this book must have been thinking, "Now she bends over him in that red cashmere?? A little late for that, isn't it, lady?" Peter Hoey recently turned me on to this exquisite 1949 paperback, which I then promptly ordered from a used book site. When I get around to reading it, I'll let you know who or what killed the poor cluck. An unreasonable editor, probably.
The back cover blurb reads: "Death mysteriously strikes down a top flight cartoonist -- twelve unpublished comic strips disappear -- a nude woman holds a supernatural rendezvous in a dead man's studio... purpose: death for two -- and murder strikes again and again in this exciting mystery which reveals some unusual trade secrets of the men who create newspaper comic strips."
Well, I'd sure like to know about those trade secrets, wouldn't you, Drawgerers? Especially the one about how to get a nude woman to hold a supernatural rendezvous in your studio!
The cover of "Death Draws the Line" was illustrated by paperback artist Harry Barton, but the inside "comic strips" were ghosted by none other than a young Roy Crane, perhaps the most overlooked of all comic strip artists from the Golden Age. Many of the adventure comic and strip artists from back then have pointed to Crane as one of their biggest influences, if not the biggest. Crane created "Wash Tubbs" and "Captain Easy," but was probably best known in the '50s for "Buz Sawyer." For a warm and wonderful tribute to Crane, visit Canadian cartoonist Michael Cho's blog at Michael Cho's Sketchbook.
Jack Iams was a novelist, magazine editor, and TV critic who wrote 13 books, including this one, "Do Not Murder Before Christmas," and "Girl Meets Body." They just don't think up titles like that anymore.
A portion of a Buz Sawyer Sunday strip, masterfully written and drawn by Roy Crane.
A beautiful Roy Crane panel, showing his unique use of diagonally-lined Ben Day tones. I suppose we can overlook that he spelled BURGERS with an "E."
Lawrence Welk Does Sonny Bono
Posted by Lou Brooks at 1:25 am on April 18th
My parents missed a lot of thing, but I don't think they ever missed The Lawrence Welk Show. They were torn between Welk and Mitch Miller Sing-Alongs. The sing-Alongs happened consistently at cocktail parties, and I remember falling asleep in my little room many times to the strains of thirty or so suburbanites belting out "Sheee's the sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knewww, Her eyes are bright as diamonds, that sparkle like the dewww...!"
But this isn't about Mitch. This is about Lawrence Welk. Excuse me, I mean, Mister Welk!
A Genius Ahead of His Time
Posted by Lou Brooks at 5:16 pm on April 7th
I've been a nut about Django Reinhardt for quite a while, but I've just recently discovered the amazing Oscar Aleman, shown above in a screen capture from Oscar's video that I've posted here. His talent and ideas preceded the likes of all the Little Richards and Bill Haleys and Elvises of the world by at least 25 years. If you don't believe me, just watch the video below -- but turn the sound up first, and rock it, baby!!
Josephine Baker, toast of Paris. During the Jazz Age, Paris was the place to be if you were a musician. The city came to a standstill on the day of Baker's funeral, as 20,000 filled the streets to watch her procession go by.
Originally from Northern Argentina, he was an orphaned street performer by age ten after his mother died and his father committed suicide. By the '30s, having discovered American Jazz, he found himself in Paris as bandleader for Josephine Baker and The Baker Boys. Eventually, he formed his own nine-piece band which played nightly at Le Chantilly, across town from where Django played at Le Hot Club de France. He and Reinhardt became good friends, but never got to record together.
Oscar, where have ya been all my life, you beautiful little mind-blowing genius?? If you snoop around the web, you'll find less than a small handful of CDs of this man's incredible guitar playing. He seems to me to be pretty much forgotten.
Oscar and the boys back in the days when there was a thing called style.
"Hollywood Art Attack" Alert: Sh! The Octopus
Posted by Lou Brooks at 8:06 pm on March 27th
Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins in "Sh! The Octopus."
I love haunted house movies. "Sh! The Octopus" (1937), one of the truly strangest films to ever come out of Hollywood, airs Friday night, March 28, 1 am ET on Turner Classic Movies. Even though it's sort of about an artist (played by John Eldredge, co-star of "I Married a Monster from Outer Space") who buys a haunted lighthouse with the intention of turning it into his studio, the real "art" here lies more in the actual making of this surreal indescribable one-hour gem.
"Sh! The Octopus" stars Warner Bros. second-bananas Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins. It's unclear as to why producers thought this movie would make them into the next Abbott & Costello. But everything in this movie is unclear. Plots get abandoned as quickly as they're introduced. Even though we're not sure who they are, characters come and go while reciting information that has nothing to do with the movie. Villains have no motives. The "monster" is a rubber octopus running around on "all eights," opening and closing and locking doors. A sea captain with a "hook" for a hand goes criminally berserk whenever he hears a ticking clock. Why? No particular reason. When the same actor carries a swooning woman over to a chair, his rubber hook obviously gets caught between the chair seat and her ass, and the actor has to stay in that position until he can get the hook back on. When the artist asks a logical question about it all (nobody never tells us nuthin', huh?), someone says, "Why don't you just stick to your palette!"
But if you're still reading this, chances are that you're with me... I love this movie! It's so incompetent, yet it moves so fast in its dreamlike stream-of-consciousness absurdity that it becomes irresistible entertainment. Right up there with anything Wood and Fellini have ever done. And Jeezus, that title!!
Hugh Herbert's fairly long career at Warner's, usually as a rich dim-witted skirt-chaser, included his trademark "Woo! Woo!" after every line, and it was eventually the inspiration for the voice of Daffy Duck. Allen Jenkins played a zillion gangsters, taxi drivers and cops, usually supporting the likes of guys like Bogart and Cagney. Later in his career, he was the voice of Officer Dibble on "Top Cat" for Hanna-Barbera.
Being parodied in an animated theater cartoon was a tremendous testimonial to an actor's celebrity back then. Hugh Herbert's likeness appeared in many Warner Bros. cartoons, as well as in those by others. Shown here is a cel pencil drawing of Herbert from Disney's "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" (1938); The photo on the right catches Allen Jenkins, Claire Trevor and Humphrey Bogart in a grim moment in "Dead End" (1937). It was the film that was to introduce The Dead End Kids who were later to become The Bowery Boys.
"Moods for Moderns" at Robert Berman Gallery in LA
Posted by Lou Brooks at 5:00 pm on March 24th
Acrylic on canvas 30" x 30"
"Brad Benedict's Sideshow: Moods for Moderns" opens Saturday, April 5th, at The Robert Berman Gallery in LA. The show features 35 artists, including myself and fellow Drawgerers Chris Buzelli and Nate Williams. Here are a few of the paintings I've done for the show. As Ralph Kramden once said, "I am humbled!" that I've been included with such artists as Robert Williams, Colin Christian, Sam Gambino, David Buckingham, and all the rest.
That's Brad on the left, next to my ol' studio partner, Todd Schorr. To tell you everything I'd like to tell you about Brad would take up a few computer monitors. But here, I'll just say that he's often reminded me of a Henry Geldzahler for newer generations. If you picture Geldzahler taking it way beyond art, you have Brad. Never stopping to consider what's art and what isn't, Brad has spent his life thinking nothing of throwing the Mona Lisa together with Russ Meyer.
You can catch a sneak preview of the show at The Robert Berman Gallery web site. The site also features an article about the show in the current issue of Juxtapoz.
Avoiding the "Dry-Tech" Assignment Blues
Posted by Lou Brooks at 7:40 pm on March 6th
Now and then, I get a call for what I call a "dry-tech" assignment... one that's so technologically dry and boring, the editors scream, "God won't help us... maybe Lou will!" Such was the case when I was recently contacted by AD Jose Trujillo at Sound & Vision Magazine. After a lengthy pleasant chat about the project, Jose was comfortable with letting me at one of my favorite indulgences... The "Ads-in-the-Back-of-Popular-Science" Technique! I just can't seem to get enough of that stuff, and I enjoyed every minute of the project, including my involvement in the design aspects.
The moral of the story, maybe?... When everybody remembers we're supposed to be having F-U-N, the consumer/reader will probably take at least a gander at all those paragraphs concerning the thrill of 4K technology and how it's applied to home entertainment systems.
The full-page feature opener is shown above, and several of the smaller illos. follow.
