"Impact" with Brian Donlevy, Charles Coburn and Ella Raines

I thought I had seen all the film noir there is to see, but somehow I missed this one. Charles Coburn, usually the guy who plays a beleagured father in law, or industrialist, is delightfully cast out of character in this film as Detective Quincy of the San Francisco Police Department. Brian Donlevy is the hapless and unlucky Walter Williams, a self-made businessman so in love with his wife that he cannot see what is about to happen to him.

When he leaves for a trip to Denver, where he has just purchased 3 new factories, his wife, Irene, played by Helen Walker, arranges to have her husband give a lift to a relative named Jim Torrance, played by Tony Barrett. Tony, who is not a relative, has been having an affair with Irene, and the plan is to have him kill Walter en route to Denver. Irene and Jim then plan to leave the country for Mexico. But it never comes to pass.

After nearly being killed by Jim, Walter Williams is left for dead on the side of the road. When Jim speeds away in Walter's car, he crashes into a gasoline tanker and dies in the inferno. His remains are beyond recognition, so the authorities assume that the dead man is Walter Williams. Meantime Irene is packing, getting ready to leave town with her lover. But, as the days tick by, she becomes increasingly concerned that Jim has double crossed her.

Walter, by this time, has recovered enough to realize just what has happened. Finding himself battered and alone on the road he ends up in a small town, where he lands a job at a service station, fixing cars. The owner of the station is a war widow and soon the two find themselves falling for one another.

As all this is happening, Detective Quincy is pursuing the case. As the circle tightens it begins to look as if Walter discovered the plot to kill him, and then murdered the would be murderer. Irene captilizes upon this twist, leaving the viewer in suspense as Detective Quincy tries to make sense of it all. When Irene is finally arrested for the plot to kill her husband, Walter still remains in the small town, following the case in the papers, relishing the irony of his wifes predicament. Will he remain undercover? Or will he come forward to see that justice is served, and to reclaim his life?

A very tightly written script by Jay Dratler and Dorothy Davenport, combined with the taut direction of Arthur Lubin, make this film a keeper. With wonderful vistas of San Francisco in the late 1940's, many of the scenes were shot on the streets of the city, this is a very entertaining film.

Shifting Borders In a Changing World

In a world of constantly shifting borders it is often difficult to trace family lineage back through the destruction of the two World Wars that marred the 20th Century, especially in Europe. Throw in Russia's 70 year foray into Communism, along with these shifting borders, and you can run into a real puzzle!

When William and Esther Marcus left Poland for America around 1911, they left Poland. When the Russian Revolution was over and the First World War had ended, the borders had shifted. The same thing happened in the Second World War and then again later, when the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 1980's.

So, over the years I have been descended from Poles/Russian/Poles. And that's just on that side of the family! My second cousin, Jana Marcus, has done a lot of research on this and come up with a new twist. We have another family member we were unaware of, who died in infancy back in Poland in 1902. Here is a part of the e-mail I received yesterday about this new discovery, with some other background info thrown in;

I wanted to share with you some new family history I have discovered.

As you know, William and Esther were from Kishinev (Chisinau), Moldava.

I did some extensive research in the Moldava marriage and birth
records through Jewishgen.org. I found three exciting things:

1. The name of the village they came from in Kishinev is Rashkov

2. William and Esther had a child we didn't know about! Rivka Marcus
was born in Kishinev in 1901, and died on June 8, 1902 of a cerebral
infection. She died a baby, but was born before Minnie and Sophie.

3. I found William and Esther's marriage record. Married in 1895 in
Kishinev, Esther's "old world" maiden name was Saganovskaya. Her
father was Yosef Saganovskaya. This led me to a search for
Saganovskaya, and I discovered the following:

Yosef Saganovskaya, son of Pinkos Saganovskaya, was born abt. 1848
in Gaysin, Vinnitsa, Ukraine. He had three children:

Avrum Saganovskaya
Jankel Saganovskaya
Esther Saganovskaya

Avrum Saganovskaya married Rakehl Edya and had the following children:

Pinkhos Saganovskaya ( b. 1894)
Yankel Saganovskaya (b. 1896)
Sura Sarah Saganovskaya ( b. 1899)
Sheyndlya Saganovskaya ( b.1904)
Yosef Saganovskaya (b. 1907)

Jankel Saganovskaya ( wife unnknown) had one child that I could find:

Shlioma Saganovskaya (b.1900)

Noticed how many children were named Pinkhos and Yankel or a variation of...interesting, uh? So, we have gone two more generations on Esther's side!

Happy trails to you all,
Jana
--
Jana Marcus Photography
www.janamarcus.com

With this new information, Jana has established my family tree as far back as the 1840's on the Marcus (maternal) side. The Henkin side of that tree is shrouded in mystery with no one left to tell the story. And anyway, I like the mystery better, as it probably trumps the reality.

On my paternal side, we have information and Census forms dating back to the 1850's for the Burke's (my Dad's maternal side), and on the Williams' side we can trace our roots to the mid 1800's in Wales and England.

I never get tired of this stuff. The past is where we all come from and a large piece of who we are and where we are headed. Eventually we are all going to come around to the realization that we are all related. That doesn't mean we are going to love one another in the blink of an eye. But it is the beginning of becoming aware that we are all truly connected in one way or another. So don't judge your neighbors too harshly - you just might be related...

"Bleed Red" by Ronnie Dunn

Ronnie Dunn, of Brooks and Dunn, one of Country Music's hottest duos of the last 20 years, released his first solo record this past week. The first track released was the stunningly appropriate "Bleed Red", which coming, as it does, amidst all the chaos unfolding in Egypt, and across the Middle East, renders an even deeper meaning to these already powerful lyrics.

"Bleed Red" by Ronnie Dunn

Let’s say we're sorry, before it’s too late, give forgiveness a chance
Turn the anger into water; let it slip through our hands.
We all bleed red, we all taste rain, all fall down, lose our way,
We all say words we regret, we all cry tears, we all bleed red.

If we’re fighting, we’re both losing; we’re just wasting our time
Because my scars, they are your scars and your world is mine.
You and I, we all bleed red, we all taste rain, all fall down, lose our way
We all say words, we regret, we all cry tears, we all bleed red.

Sometimes we’re strong, sometimes we’re weak, sometimes we’re hurt and it cuts deep.
We live this life, breath to breath, we’re all the same; we all bleed red.

Let’s say we’re sorry…. Before it’s too late….

We all bleed red, all taste rain, all fall down, lose our way,
We all say words we regret, all cry tears, we all bleed red.
Sometimes we’re strong, sometimes we’re weak; sometimes we’re hurt, it cuts deep;
We live this life breath to breath; we’re all the same; we all bleed red.

Rainy Day Things

It's a chilly, rainy day here today. Better than the snow and ice gripping most of the nation right now. But this is where I am parked for the day, at the scarred and badly in need of refinishing, Dining Room table. It's one of the first things Sue and I ever bought together after we were married. Maybe that's why we've left it in it's current and battered state. I don't really know why, I just sat down to write this thing, so don't ask me where it's going, or for that matter, where it's coming from. As I said, it's a chilly, rainy day.

I suppose the table, like a good marriage, bears it's share of scars over the years, and it seems kind of vain to cover them up. That table is a reflection of almost 25 years of eating, doing homework, reading the paper and just about everything else that goes along with raising a family.

But today, the table of scars is mine alone. I will be spending most of the afternoon sitting there. I just started reading "Harlem" by Jonathan Gill, and I'll also be listening to music on my MP3 and those little Sony speakers. I might even try to make some guttural sounds of my own while I'm at it. What the hell, most of the neighbors are at work...

"Hellhound On His Trail" by Hampton Sides

This is a gripping book, thoroughly researched and adamant in it's conclusion. Just one flaw. It doesn't wash clean. When all the assembled evidence is gathered and analyzed, the reader is still left with several glaring questions; where did an escaped convict get the money to buy a car, travel about using only cash for a year, seemingly stalking Dr. King, meticulously planning his murder using maps to mark his intended locations, only to leave those maps behind in an Atlanta rooming house, along with a $20 bill that would wind up being sequentially matched to the bills that James Earl Ray possessed?

Now, on with the review. If you have ever seen Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece "North by Northwest", then you will understand the way that the various Intelligence organizations operated in the 1950's and 60's. The setting up of identities for ficticious persons, while having non-descript real people carrying out seemingly unrelated "tasks" was the preferred way to accomplish anything of note, without fear of the entire "chain" of seemingly unrelated events being discovered. Moreover, if it were discovered, it would seem to make no sense. This was the rationale behind the Kennedy Assassination, and most probably, given the painstaking research of this book, the same thing that drove the plot to kill Martin Luther King.

What makes this book so remarkable is that even as it sets out to prove that one lone man killed Martin Luther King, it fails. Along the way there are so many glaring holes in the tale that one has to agree with the New York Times editorial of July 1968, which basically said that if you believe this you're nuts.

This is a very well written, and gripping read, even if you don't buy the conclusion. Mr. Sides has written an accounting of James Earl Ray's 21,000 plus mile journey that rivals any work of fiction. The FBI, headed by J. Edgar Hoover, a man known well for his distatse of the slain Dr. King, is tasked with heading the Investigation, against his will. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, along with New Scotland Yard, are prominently on display in their role to capture the assassin.

Some of the best portions of this book concern the American government and it's reaction to the assassination. Coming, as it did, within 5 years of President Kennedy's murder in Dallas, the country's leadership, under LBJ, was hard pressed to bring this case to a quick close. With many of the nation's cities already in flames, including Washington DC, and the Poor Peoples March set to begin in about 4 weeks, time was of the essence. It was also a Presidential election year.

Absent from this account is any mention of the deal that James Earl Ray made in accepting a 99 year prison sentence in lieu of a trial. This had to do with his father's escape from a mid-western prison some years earlier. James Earl Ray was offered a trial- but his father would be returned to prison. This is a rather important piece of the puzzle, that is left out of the book by the author.

Ask anyone about the trial of James Earl Ray - they'll tell you he was found guilty. In reality he accepted the sentence without trial. He then immediatley recanted his statement. So, there never was a trial, not until shortly before Mr. Ray's death in 1998, at which time he was attempting to prove his innocence. Even the King family asserts that James Earl Ray was not the killer. Here is a link to the letter that James Earl Ray wrote from prison concerning these facts;

http://www.catyoga.com/pages.htm

Whatever your view concerning the King assassination, this book is non-stop action and suspense. And that is a hard thing for an author to accomplish when the ending is already so well known.

Groundhog Day - A Brief Comment

With winter only 5 weeks old, we find ourselves once again engaged in the old tradition of waking up the groundhogs early from their winter's hibernation, in order to ask them when winter will end, as if they know. And, more to the point, would be the fact that, if they did know, they couldn't tell us. So, as with last year, and many years prior to that, I'm rooting for the groundhogs again. This year, I'm hoping they're going to do something dramatic, like take a healthy bite out of the hands that wake them up!

With blizzards raging across a 2,000 mile long swath of the country, the groundhog is the smartest guy in town. He's deep down in his hole, sleeping. To those who wish to trek out into 3 foot of snow, and dig him out - best of luck. My own prediction, based upon the calendar, and not my arthritis, is that it will be winter until it is over in about 6 weeks.

"Edge of Darkness" with Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone and Danny Huston

In spite of his otherworldly excursions into drunken madness and Anti-Semitism, this film proves one thing; Mel Gibson can still act. With all of the intensity of his earlier roles in such films as "The Bounty", and "The Patriot", Mr. Gibson shines in his first starring role in 8 years, as Detective Thomas Craven, in this white knuckle thriller set in Boston.

When Dectective Craven's daughter comes home to visit, she is clearly troubled. Employed by a shady international corporation, with political and military overtones, Emma clearly has something on her mind that she wishes to share with her Dad. But before she can clue him in on what it's all about, she begins bleeding from the nose and shows signs of having been poisoned, most likely by radiation. As her father hustles her out the door of his home to take her to the hospital, a man steps out of a car and yells the last name "Craven" as he pulls the trigger, ending Emma's life.

Now the traumatized detective mistakenly believes that he was the intended target of a hit gone wrong, even as he tries to find out what his daughter was trying to tell him. Was the intended target really Detective Craven? And if not, why was his daughter killed and who is responsible?

Using all of his skills as a detective pits him against an array of covert government organizations that are involved in the manufacture of weapons that cannot be traced back to this country, but will be used instead to instigate incidents that will then serve as excuses for waging wars. Proving this is harder than it sounds, especially when the agencies involved all claim National Security, and try to eliminate Detective Craven, who has become a big problem. To that end, they send a man named Jedburgh, played by Ray Winstone, to do the job. But something unexpected comes up, and as Craven gets closer to the truth, Jedburgh seems to back off.

Craven, meanwhile, has been poisoned, just as his daughter was, and now has nothing left to lose. Arriving at the home of his late daughter's boss, he settles the score by shooting the bodyguards and then forcing the man to drink the very poison which killed his daughter and now threatens his own life.

Meantime, while Craven lies dying in the hospital, he is visited by Emma's spirit, who has been watching and calling to her father throughout the whole film. In a very touching and poignant scene, the two are re-united. But that's not how the film ends. I'm no "spoiler" so you will have to see the film for yourself if you want to know the climax.

Although Mr. Gibson's antics of the last several years have undoubtedly cost him a fan or two, he is in fine form in this remarkable film by Director Martin Campbell, from a script by William Monahan and Andrew Bovell. A great film, not to be missed.