There's Sometimes a Buggy

Based on John Patrick’s popular 1945 play, The Hasty Heart became a smash screen hit four years later – taking an already-Cold-War-weary public back to the waning days of a marginally less cynical conflict. Our characters are convalescing British Empire conscripts at a MASH unit in Burma – along with one gruff, pragmatic “Yank” (Reagan, dusting off his Brother Rat roommate persona). All of the acting accolades went to Richard Todd, as a singularly standoffish Scot, who refuses to reveal what’s under his kilt, but shows his ass anytime anyone tries to speak to him.

Only one member of our panel found the film (which takes a pretty unique approach to the “days are numbered” drama) particularly affecting, but everyone had something to say about it. The Gipper once again offers top-notch support to a star who is doing more of the obvious heavy lifting, effortlessly embodying the audience’s changing perspective on the damaged young man at the heart of the tale.

The film displays the 1949 version of a “woke” attitude toward a Basuto soldier who is just part of the gang – but never gets a chance to speak (his lack of English becomes a key plot point toward the end). Nigerian actor Orlando Martins does what he can with the role, but the persistence of white supremacist attitudes in this undeniably “progressive” movie are agonizingly apparent.

On the other hand, the story absolutely leans into (and allows itself to depend upon) an insanely retrograde notion of Scottish national character as some unholy combination of the worst aspects of Scrooge McDuck, John Knox, and James Doohan’s Star Trek accent. It’s pretty close to miraculous that Todd was able to wring so much pathos out of such an inadequately conceived character. Of course, his jubilant post-conversion outburst against the world capitalist order went a long way with us.   

Recorded in September 2018, on the eve of another grotesque municipal election in Toronto.

Novel suggestion:

Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands

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We bid a bewildering farewell to Brother Blood and the Zandian knot this week - and then are bidden into the bewitching and bothering machinations of The Judas Contract.

This is the big one, as far as Elise is concerned - the high point of the Wolfman/Perez collaboration. Were you reading at the time? Or did you come to the story later (as Dave did), knowing how it all turned out? Was this Terra Incognita or Tarraconensis? Let us know!

Credits: Intro music:

Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

The Gipper’s fourth and final supporting appearance in a Dick Powell buffoon-and-crooner finds Reagan headed in the wrong direction down the cast list. To be fair, it’s quite an assemblage, with Ann Sheridan, Helen Broderick, Allen Jenkins, ZaSu Pitts, Gale Page, Granville Bates, William B. Davidson, “Slapsie Maxie” Rosenbloom, and Quarter-Million-Dollar-Moustache-Man Jerry Colonna hoovering up most of the comedic oxygen.

The film also benefits from a set of mildly diverting novelty tunes by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer (including the immortal “Hooray For Spinach”). Less of an asset is a Wald and Macaulay script afflicted by an excess of insistent tics. Every single character – with the possible exception of Reagan’s small-time music publisher – has some dementedly distinctive hitch in their palaver.

Fans of Gareth’s theory of Reagan-as-mediating figure will find a great deal of support for the contention in this one, wherein the actor practically evaporates into the ether. And the big plagiarism plot provides a fine pretext for some spirited intellectual property law anathematizing.

Novel suggestion:

Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands

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Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades

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Big life changes this week for Dick Grayson and Wally West – although their respective thunders are kind of stolen the next issue by our pal Brother Blood (points don’t come much more pivotal than rebirth in a caldera of molten blood). Also: newly-made editors Wolfman and Perez maneuver Terra further along her Titanic tightrope between psychopathy and salvageability; and Elise gives a lesson in how to play super team with your Barbies.

Credits: Intro music:

Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

The Gipper’s slow segue out of the Warner fold began with this tone-setting suburban sitcom for Universal-International. Part of his new sometime-studio’s “Big Push” at the dawn of  the television decade, Louisa shows how easily Reagan might have stepped into a Father Knows Best/My Three Sons-style second career. If only he had done so, American (and Canadian) marginal tax rates might still be at 70%.

As usual (and as per Gareth’s thesis), Reagan mainly holds down the stage for the benefit of his co-stars, occupying a crucially colorless space between the coming and the going generations. The latter group includes Spring Byington (in the title role), Edmund Gwenn and Charles Coburn - reworking their love-triangle dynamics from the immortal Devil and Miss Jones. At the other end of the scale, we find debuting Piper Laurie, tragic Scotty Beckett, and little Jimmy Hunt with his big radio.

The film runs a brilliant reverse-play on the viewer, feinting toward some kind of a send-up of senior citizen sexuality and then delivering those second-chance-at-life intensities surprisingly straight. It all starts on a sidewalk outside Gwenn’s gourmet grocery shop, with a conversation about the loneliness of twilight. Along the way, we get some pretty decent dissection of masculinity at every age and stage of that particular disease (speaking of which – get ready for some rough revelations about Dutch's post-divorce relapse into “Leading Lady-itis”).

Novel suggestion:

Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands

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We devote a good chunk of our program this week to an appreciation of artist George Perez, who announced his retirement very recently. As luck would have it, we’ve also arrived at one of Perez’s greatest contributions to the medium (NTT #38 – “Who is Donna Troy?”)! And, for the sake of narrative coherence, we assess some exogenous excitement in Batman and the Outsiders, with the Fearsome Five caught in the crossoverhairs.

Credits: Intro music:

Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

It’s the return of Brass Bancroft! (In Reagan’s own least favorite of his films.)

This episode was recorded on August 27th, 2018, with your humble panel suffering through the embarrassing Ballet McCainique that had a stranglehold on the American media that week.

After venting our collective spleens on that particular topic, we turn our attention to the film at hand – also kind of an embarrassment to Warner’s vaunted Foy unit. They fell down on the job here. In The Films of Ronald Reagan, Tony Thomas contends that both Foy and his star asked the studio not to release it. They compromised by releasing it everywhere except in Los Angeles. A better compromise might’ve been to rework it a little – but, hey, whaddya want? They made these movies in 7 days!

We nevertheless found much to discuss. Lacking anything like a compelling story to distract us, we zero in on the Reagan persona – a unique synthesis of sharpie and naïf. This American character type goes back to Mark Twain (at least), and several Hollywood stars (notably Gary Cooper) walked a tightrope between squint-eyed shrewdness and man-childishness; but can you think of any other actor so ideally fitted to playing a press agent or a scout leader? (He wound up playing both at the same time – for 8 miserable years during the 1980s).     

Other pleasures (or, at least, puzzlers) on offer include: Moroni Olsen as a singularly psychopathic counterfeit-monk/counterfeiter; sidekick Gabby’s bizarre strip poker antics with the Mexican police (for all you Foy Jr. fetishists); the luminous Rosella Towne in her second straight Bancroft film (playing an entirely different character); and an unexpected cameo from Paul Muni. Sadly, John Litel had moved on to playing Nancy Drew’s dad at this point, and his replacement makes a damned second-rate Saxby (fortunately, Litel will return for 1940’s Murder in the Air).     

Novel suggestion:

Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands

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Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades

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No George Perez this month, as he was dragooned into producing bonus material for Atari's Swordquest video game, but Elise discovers that she likes fill-in penciller Keith Pollard nearly as much! Too bad about the stories in these issues, though... First, we come to a turning point in the life of Sarah Simms, who almost dies in the crossfire between an ex-coworker's toxic sense of sexual entitlement and Vic Stone's subtler form of wounded masculinity. Then, the return of Thunder and Lightning, who have learned absolutely nothing about being part of a decent yarn during their absence. (Hint: hooking them up to the Hive doesn't help!)

As always, we are buoyed by the character moments and the knowledge that something really good is just around the corner.

Credits: Intro music:

Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

It's Ginger Rogers, Doris Day, and the Gipper himself against the all-corrupting power of the Klan! If you listen to one episode of Red Time For Bonzo in 2019, this is the one!

Also discussed: the then-impending death of John McCain (we recorded this in August 2018), the miserable life of actor Steve Cochran, the coal-fired crocodile tears of Michael Barbaro, and the ideological barrenness of anti-corruption politics. 

Novel suggestion:

Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands

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Follow Romy on Twitter at @rahrahtempleton

Follow Gareth on Twitter at @helenreddymades

Follow David on Twitter at @milescoverdale

Terra revealed! D.A. Chase concealed! Scarapelli congealed!

Also: who is "The Monitor" (apparently, the multiverse's most overqualified mob muscle recruiting agent) and the macabre menace of... Donna Omicidio!

Credits: Intro music:

Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"