Xenon's Seventh Circle

Jeepers. I watched Arrow, because it was a Constantine crossover. (Everybody's crossing over lately. Sleepy Hollow just did it last week, with Bones (which, it turns out, is awful). And now Constantine with Arrow (which, it turns out, is awfuller). Don't even try to tell me that that isn't a word. It totally is). How does Arrow get to be on its fourth season, when Constantine didn't even make it to one full one?! It was like watching amateur hour. Still, it did show up nicely how great a character John Constantine is. I shall now procede to sulk in the corner over good TV that doesn't get what it deserves.

Actually no I won't, because there was another reason for posting. The Long, Long Trailer! This means absolutely nothing to anybody, I know, but it's a 1954 film starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and is basically I Love Lucy: The Movie. They don't play Lucy and Ricky, but they might as well do. It's about a married couple who buy a caravan instead of a house, and decide to see America before settling down. Of course it's an absurdly long one, and leads to much caravan-based hilarity. It's not as good as I Love Lucy, as the writing isn't so snappy; and also it's a movie, so Desi didn't have creative control. Retakes, for goodness sakes! It's far less fun when you can't see him giggling. Desi knew this; Hollywood apparently didn't. It's still good fun though. All the same, it's hampered by one particular failing. It's in colour. I've seen both Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in colour before, so I'm not hugely traumatised by the experience, but in Desi's case not until his guest appearance in Ironside in the seventies (I love that episode. More than it should probably be allowed to love an episode of Ironside). And seeing them both together, in colour, in the midst of the ILL era, just looks weird. Boy did they want to make the most of the colour, too:


Yikes. And that's a heck of a way to drive a car! Especially when you're towing a forty foot, three ton caravan. I know it's 1954, but they had traffic accidents then too. Although at one point they speak of 35mph like it's a terrifying turn of speed, so possibly they only had really slow accidents. Anyway, sorry. This was an entirely pointless post. But if anybody out there is in charge of television even a little bit, now that we've conclusively proved that Constantine is much better than Arrow, can we have it back please? I'll be very good.* Honest I will.**

Okay, now I shall procede to sulk in the corner over good TV that doesn't get what it deserves.

*whimper*






* This is a lie.

** So is this.

Partly because I just got season five on DVD, so sort of have this show on the brain at the moment, and partly because it's on YouTube, so I can't not - have an episode of I Love Lucy. This is "Hollywood At Last", generally known to fans as "The One With Bill Holden". One of the most infamous episodes of the show ever made, it first aired on February 7th 1955, during the fourth season. It's not my favourite, probably because it does sideline Desi rather, but it's still pretty high up the list. A real icon of television history. Besides, who doesn't need a black and white fifties sitcom in their lives?!



I Love Lucy holds up very well today, and the writers did a heck of a job producing some thirty episodes a year, for six years, whilst still maintaining quality. A hugely influential trendsetter, you can see the conventions beginning here which were to be the prototypes of almost every sitcom that followed for the next forty or so years. I love this show. And look at those fifties fashions!

True Blood has announced its return date, although I think they actually did that several weeks ago, and I've only just noticed. Also there's a trailer! Well, more of a glimpse, but they call it a trailer. It'll be nice to have True Blood back. I've given up on The Mentalist now, Hawaii 5-0 decided that we weren't going to be friends anymore, and Ringer has gone away. Probably forever, as I was the only person who watched it. So True Blood could be the only television that I watch until Steven Moffat decides to give me Doctor Who back. There are Worries, however. Seasons one, two and three of True Blood were awesome in every way, except for how there was altogether too much Sookie. Season four was rubbish, though. And this will be season five, and I am suspicious of season fives by their very nature. Should that be seasons five? No, I don't think so. Consider the evidence, anyway:

( The rather-too-involved Universal Theory Of Season Five. Also True Blood trailerage in screencappery. )

You know, life for a nobody in Hollywood is quite remarkable. Over in I Love Lucy, Ricky's been out in California five minutes, hasn't even made a film yet, and yet has already had lunch with Richard Widmark, tea with Bill Holden, cocktails with Cornell Wilde, and seems to be on very friendly, first names terms with Rock Hudson, Harpo Marx and Van Johnson. I know Hollywood was a different place in 1955, but that still seems just a trifle too rose-tinted. :D Everybody seems to be best friends with everybody else, and to hang out at each other's houses and apartments all the time. That is rather the way that David Niven portrayed it as being in the thirties, certainly, but he still had to work his way up to being invited out to lunch by the rich and famous. All Ricky's had to do is rent a hotel room in Hollywood. So there's your ticket to a life of hob-nobbing with the stars, then. Well, not those stars, obviously. Van Johnson and Richard Widmark, maybe. The others aren't there anymore.

I'm not really getting at the show, though. This is season four, so we're moving on through the fifties. It's all so quaint and dated. So innocent. Fifty-two years old, so I guess that's reason enough to be dated, but it's remarkable how much of a difference that time factor makes. The chintz levels, for starters... Jeepers. Did people really think that that was a good way to decorate their houses?! I can't believe that wallpaper like that was ever thought a good idea. And really, why did people think that hats were so great? And cigarettes. And cutting off animals' heads, and sticking them to the wall. And Harpo Marx. Well - all the Marx Brothers in general, really. It's a bit unfair to single one out as a particularly bad idea. Still, if you're looking for bad ideas, then wearing a red fright wig, and gurning at the camera a lot whilst pretending you're stuck in a silent movie, does rate quite highly on the list. I never did get the appeal of the Marx Brothers. Only good thing they ever did was provide the titles for a pair of Queen albums.

Been watching Martin & Lewis movies again, this time Scared Stiff from 1953. I know I've seen much the same film, but starring Bob Hope in the Dino role. It's based on a play, though, so there's probably been several adaptations. Lovely scene at the end, when the boys, thinking that they've seen all that the haunted house has to offer, see one last terrifying thing behind a secret panel - skeletons with the heads of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. What a lovely conceit. That sort of thing used to happen a lot more often in those days; and of course Dino and Jerry cropped up in one of the Road movies, too. Bali, was it? It's a shame that actors don't pop up in each other's films nowadays. It gave these things such a nice family atmosphere somehow.

( Further... )