I posted earlier that Turner Classic Movies would be running My Son, the Vampire on October 8 and some of you were gullible enough to believe me. By now, you should know what a colossal liar I can be. The God's truth is that they're running it on October 5 and it's still a lousy movie.
Happy 85th birthday to The Amazing Carl Ballantine, one of the funniest human beings it has been my honor to know. Some of you know him from the TV series, McHale's Navy. Others know him as the master of the silliest magic act ever performed. I know him as a teller of great anecdotes over lunch along with those other things. And I wish him many more years of life, if only so I can hear more stories.
Daniel Sweet informs me that My Son, the Vampire — the topic of this morning's video link here — is on Turner Classic Movies on October 8 [CORRECTION: October 5]. This is really stretching the definition of the word "classic" 'til it breaks.
I like Netflix and I'd like it a lot more if I could rent a movie from them that's been out on DVD for more than two years and not have the disc arrive looking like it had been through a yak stampede. And not playing on any of my machines.
Any day now, George W. Bush will set the record for having taken more days of vacation than any other Oval Office Occupant in history.
Back in the Reagan era when that guy was setting the old record, I wrote an article I can no longer find for a local magazine. It said basically that Presidential Vacations were just plain a bad idea from all standpoints. I mean, if you think you have a great guy in office, you oughta be ticked off that he isn't working harder. Fewer days off might mean he could pass a couple more items on your agenda. He's going to end his term without doing a number of things you hoped he would accomplish. Maybe less vacation would have made one or two more come about.
On the other hand, if you think the current prez is inept, maybe working harder would make him a bit more ept. Or if you think he's dishonest, putting in more hours might mean fewer instances where he hides behind the claim that he didn't know what his aides were doing, hadn't addressed some vital problem yet, etc. Bad presidents tend to cower a lot behind the excuse that they're busy tending to more important matters...and then they go fishing.
This isn't a slam at Bush so much as it is a bewilderment that anyone in any career of choice needs that many days off. I always liked Jay Leno's old line about how if you keep needing vacations from your job, you picked the wrong job.
I loved almost everything Allan Sherman did, which is why I've devoted a section of this site to his work. Notice I said "almost." One of his less wonderful endeavors came about in 1964 when for God knows what reason, he got involved with a dreadful movie scam. It was an American release of an awful 1952 British monster comedy called Mother Riley Meets the Vampire. For the U.S., it was retitled My Son, the Vampire (to cash in on the fame of Mr. Sherman's My Son, the Folk Singer) and Allan recorded a terrible title tune for it. He also appeared in its trailer and filmed a little non sequitur scene which was spliced into the movie but spliced out for most TV airings.
The "Mother Riley" series was a popular, long-running British series. Mother Riley was an old vaudeville act featuring a gent named Arthur Lucan who was kind of the Dame Edna of his day. He went on to appear as the character in sixteen or seventeen movies made between 1937 and 1952. In fact, Mother Riley Meets the Vampire was the last of what had once been an extremely profitable series. (Lucan died in 1954.)
The vampire in question was played by Bela Lugosi during that portion of his career when he'd appear in just about anything for money. As the story is told, he appeared in England in 1951 in an acclaimed but unsuccessful production of the stage play of Dracula. Supposedly, when the play closed, Lugosi was left stranded and without cash, and he appeared in the Mother Riley movie to earn money to return home. It was not the worst movie in which he ever appeared — this was a man who worked for Ed Wood, after all — but it was sure close.
Eleven years after it was made, the movie got its first U.S. release with Lugosi unmentioned in either the advertising or even the film's credits. I'm guessing this was to mask the fact that it was an old movie since Bela had been dead for eight years by then. Allan Sherman was barely in it and the film was sold on the strength of his name, which must have led to some angry moviegoers.
Here's the trailer for the film which rather pointedly shows a little bit of Sherman and no scenes at all from the movie...
And now here's the opening minute and a half of the movie with Mr. Sherman's forgettable title tune. I hope he was well paid for this...
September 28, 2007
