Tonight, we’ll be talking a set of films that almost form a genre of their own.  

These films were often, though not always, “respected” by critics and the general public at large, but all bore that dark, almost despairing claustrophobia and realistic feel of what I and others were living every day out on the streets locally, far from the dayglo nonsense of the 60’s reruns or the sunnier Hollywood based fare of the day.  

The streets were crowded, filthy, filled with the detritus of the post-hippie era – the junkies, the odd artsy types, the gangs, the whores.  The days where you were damn glad to see Curtis Sliwa’s Guardian Angels on a subway…if you were crazy enough to use them at all. Everything covered in graffiti, buildings collapsing into tenements, crack houses, illicit hookup spots for rough trade cruising types.  Garbage in the streets, and decay in every sense of the word.  

These are films that wallow in what in later years would be referred to as urban blight, but not so much “celebrating” as providing a window into all the palpable danger and decline of an impoverished post-blackout Manhattan in the days after the Watts and Newark riots, not long past Ford telling the mayor and city to go screw ourselves when asking for Federal relief.  

These were the days of Studio 54, CBGBs and the original Saturday Night Live – but filled with menace. Hard drug use was rampant.  Muggings were so commonplace as to be a shrug of the shoulders.  Nobody in their right mind stepped into Central Park after sunset.  Washington Square was known for decades as Needle Park.  And the East Village?  Forget about Alphabet City, the Bronx or Brooklyn.  

This was a special breed of film, that focused on crooked, flawed cops working outside a busted system…but not with the heroic vibe of Reaganite action heroes.  These guys paid for painting outside the lines.  The denouments were never triumphant, all victories were pyrrhic.  Vigilante justice and community action were about as fantastic as these films got, and as close to actual comeuppance as anyone got.  

This is the story, in a way, of our childhood and early youth to young adulthood, as told in some very memorable films.

So join us as we go dumpster diving in the back alleys of most dangerous of neighborhoods, only here on Weird Scenes!

Week 111 (11/30/23): Take a Bite of the Rotten Apple - NYC cop/crime films of the 70s

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Take a Bite of the Rotten Apple - NYC cop/crime films of the 70s

Archibald Alec Leach was born in Bristol, England at the turn of the century, January 18, 1904 to a tailor and a seamstress.

A theatrical tour of NYC led him to emigrate at the ripe old age of 16, where he became a vaudeville song and dance man on the same circuit as the likes of the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello and Ted Healy and his Stooges.

Moving to Hollywood at the height of the Depression, he wound up cast as handsome young men and rich playboys in a handful of Marlene Dietrich and Mae West films, the latter of which elevated him to leading man status.  

But it wasn't until the rise of the screwball comedy that he truly made his mark, starring in several of the best known entries thereof.  A long run of similar if, by the late forties, increasingly inferior efforts was salvaged by four well regarded films for the great Alfred Hitchcock, which subverted his image in favor of a darker, more realistic persona.

These quartet of roles almost led to his casting as the first James Bond in Doctor No, but he would only commit to one film in what was always intended as an ongoing series...and the rest is history.

After a handful of interesting if decidedly flawed oddities, he finally retired from film in the mid 60s, leaving behind more of a unique character and persona than there ever was a consistent body of work to be remembered by...those Hitchcock films aside.

So join us as we take on the inimitable Cary Grant, only here on Weird Scenes!

Week 110 (11/16/23): Cary Grant

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The French crime film is different from those of other countries for several reasons.  While some, certainly Jean Dellanoy's Soleil Des Voyeux (aka Action Man) draw elements from the German Krimi and the George Nader Jerry Cotton films and even the serial (particularly those of Feuillade, whose Fantomas and Les Vampires remain surprisingly gripping and modern in feel and approach), the overarching vibe is less that of contemporaneous American crime films or Italian poliziotteschi than it is, as you might expect from the nation that coined the term, the American film noir and gangster pictures of the late 30s and 1940s.

And as with the idiosyncratic and often groundbreaking critics turned directors of the Nouvelle Vague, the French crime film less pays strict homage to than integrates the driving elements and visual aesthetic of American noir in a more contemporary sense, improving and updating them to something more suited and appealing to a modern audience: think much venerated names like Jean Pierre Melville, Rene Clement, Georges Lautner, Jean Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon.

So join us as we discuss one of the most notable and influential genres of its type, the French Crime film, only here on Weird Scenes!

Week 109 (11/2/23): Crimenaux ala Francais - Crime The French Way

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Roy Harold Scherer Jr. was born smack dab in the middle of both the Roaring 20’s and the country in Illinois, Thanksgiving of 1925.

Of all the gay and bisexual actors and actresses we’ve covered, Hudson was easily the most elusive and convincing in his career long presentation as a very straight screen idol and leading man. While known to many in Hollywood circles, his private life only came to public light over three decades into his career, when he was one of the earliest celebrities to openly discuss his being stricken with AIDS.

A naval veteran and strangely enough, a lifelong Republican and de facto Goldwater Girl (!) he pursued his dream of acting despite a pronounced and career long difficulty in remembering lines, being rejected from drama school and wasting no less than 38 takes to deliver a single line in his first onscreen role – a testament to his All American good looks and winning personality, to be sure.

After being signed to Universal, he was cast in several forgettable and forgotten cheesy period westerns, pirate and supposed adventure films before landing industry attention with his Oscar for the execrable James Dean/Elizabeth Taylor melodrama Giant.  But it was with his oddly fortuitous pairing with Doris Day and neurotic comic relief sideman Tony Randall in a series of fluffy and decidedly conservative romantic comedies at the end of the 1950s that he truly attained marquee leading man status.

Going on to star with Italian sex symbols Gina Lollobrigida and Claudia Cardinale, as well as other attempts to replicate the Hudson/Day formula with lesser lights like Leslie Caron and Paula Prentiss, Hudson began to tire of these sort of light comedy roles, moving to television for the highly enjoyable and well remembered McMillan and Wife alongside the equally loveable Susan Saint James and gay icon (and Rosie the paper towel lady!) Nancy Walker 

His latter roles tended towards the decidedly idiosyncratic: John 

So join us as we take on the All-American leading man who hid a surprising edge behind the surface veneer, the one and only Rock Hudson, only here on Weird Scenes!

Week 108 (10/19/23): Hide in Plain Sight: the Life and Career of Rock Hudson

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Hugh John Mungo Grant was born at the start of September, 1960, Live at Hammersmith, London to a Highlander turned carpet salesman and a music and multilingual language teacher.

A  1st XV division rugby player with a background in English literature who turned down an offer for a PhD in art history at London University, he instead took up drama at Oxford.  Kicking off his career in Merchant Ivory stinker Maurice, he got his first major role in Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm, followed by a headlining turn in Roman Polanski’s Bitter Moon before striking 

Splitting his career between twee faux-arthouse fare like Sirens, Sense and Sensibility and The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain and more populist roles in comedies like Notting Hill, Small Time Crooks, Love Actually and the Bridget Jones films, Grant would often strike gold with rom com fare like Two Weeks Notice and Music and Lyrics before a lengthy hiatus 

A noted curmudgeon and on-set perfectionist, Grant has a notedly embattled relationship with the tabloid press, and was a major player in stopping the detestable Rupert Murdoch and the practice of celebrity phone tapping.  And who can forget the whole Divine Brown affair?

Join us as we take on the loveable and eternally youthful in spirit Hugh Grant, only here on Weird Scenes!

Week 107 (10/5/23): Still a Bit of a Lad: The Bumpy Career of Hugh Grant

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Richard Walter Jenkins Jr. was born in November of 1925 in Wales to an hard drinking coal miner cum absentee father and a pub barmaid. 

Growing up in a rough steel mill town under the roof of his older sister and her husband, he left school to work in the mines after his sister’s husband (like both parents before him) fell ill, due to the unregulated, non-unionized working conditions, before joining the RAF, where he served as navigator.

His omnipresent sideline in theatrical productions led to adoption by acting tutor and schoolmaster Philip Burton, and he fell under the wing of none other than Sir John Gielgud.  As part of a Gielgud-led touring company, he came Stateside, winning both a World Theatre Award and a succession of Hollywood film roles. 

His leading role in The Robe both kicked off a proper filmic career and entangled him in a decades long, fiery on and off relationship with Elizabeth Taylor, who'd star with him in numerous films and tabloid headlines throughout the 60s and 70s.

Starring in everything from critical accolade-bedecked dreck like Look Back in Anger, Equus and Night of the Iguana and excellent films like The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, 1984 or Where Eagles Dare to cult absurdities Candy, The Medusa Touch and Exorcist II, Burton was arguably more famed for his offscreen 

Join us as we take on one of the most notorious thespians to walk the boards and chew the cinematic scenery, the late great Richard Burton, only here on Weird Scenes!

Week 106 (9/21/23): Who's Afraid of Liz and Dick?  The Tempestuous Career of Richard Burton

TheThirdEyeCinema @threads

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Jennifer Lynn Lopez was born in the Bronx's Castle Hill, in July 1969 to an Army guy turned computer tech and housewife turned gym teacher.  Her decision to take up dance led to a major falling out with her mother, leaving the aspiring terpsichore living at her dance studio for months thereafter.   

Kicking off her career as an In Living Color Fly Girl, her big break came when she costarred in the Wesley Snipes/Woody Harrelson reunion Money Train, followed by a starring role as the late Tex Mex icon Selena, the absurd Anaconda and a string of successful rom coms like The Wedding Planner, Marry Me and Shotgun Wedding. 

A third and simultaneous shift into dance music led to 9 albums and a long run of chart topping hits in conjunction with big names like Pitbull, Wisin Y Yandel, Big Pun, Fat Joe and Ja Rule (just to name a few!)  

Her much vaunted curvature actually led to an entire sociocultural shift in what American males find sexy in a woman, and her troubled love life has been top drawer fodder for tabloid coverage for decades, culminating in a surprising second time around reunion with the other half of Benifer (Mark I AND III), Ben Affleck just a year or so back.

Nominated for dozens of awards in both music and film over the years, she's been called one of the world's most influential people, and she continues to deliver light if entertaining product right to this very day.

Join us as we take on the "triple threat" queen of media, the one and only Jennifer Lopez, only here on Weird Scenes!

Week 105 (9/7/23): Ride the rollercoaster - the life and career of Jennifer Lopez

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Sandra Annette Bullock was born on July 26, 1964, in our nations capitol, Washington, D.C. to a German opera singer (and daughter of a rocket scientist!) and an Alabama career military man who, perhaps surprisingly, was also a voice coach. 

A military brat, she spent her youth in Nuremberg, Vienna and Salzburg, before returning to attend school in Virginia and North Carolina and a bid for stardom right here in New York City.

As lucky in her rise to prominence as she was unlucky in love, she broke into the bigtime with the one two punch of Keanu Reeves turn to action hero, Speed and the Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes sci fi action epic Demolition Man, before starting  her own production company and breaking both records and hearts with big hits like Miss Congeniality, While You Were Sleeping and the Hugh Grant starring Two Weeks Notice.

But problems in her personal life took her out of the spotlight and slowed her relentless run of box office smashes...until a surprise comeback with the Ryan Reynolds (and Betty White) opus The Proposal, pensive Keanu Reeves reunion The Lake House, the likeable all-female Ocean's 8 and the recent Channing Tatum/Brad Pitt comedy/adventure The Lost City.

Join us as we take on the queen of the rom com and Hollywood power player Sandra Bullock, only here on Weird Scenes!

Week 104 (8/24/23): Hail to the Queen: the rise, fall and resurrection of America's Sweetheart Sandra Bullock

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Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone was born in the heyday of Mussolini, Rome 1934 to an engineer turned railway worker who may or may not have been descended from a Viscount and a piano teacher/local actress who he never married, hence leaving Loren and her mother in poverty.  

Finalizing in local beauty contests under the assumed name Sofia Lazzaro brought her to the attention of film mogul Carlo Ponti, who changed her name and got her signed with Paramount for a string of big budget films that brought her to international prominence.

In an era defined by blowsy blondes like Monroe, Mansfield and Van Doren, Loren became one of the first and biggest of the far more naturalistic and earthy European competition, without question only surpassed by the even more existentially authentic Brigitte Bardot, who we quite deservedly devoted an entire show to.

Popular and prolific throughout the 1960s, she made a huge sensation with a handful of films she’d done with Vittorio de Sica, often in conjunction with male sex symbol of the era Marcello Mastrioanni, before marriage to Ponti and a conscious decision to more or less step away from cinema in the 1970s. 

Join us as we discuss one of the world's most beloved sex symbols, the one and only Sophia Loren, only here on Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine!

Week 103 (8/10/23): Sex Italian Style: The Life and Films of Sophia Loren

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Born to the trade right here in Manhattan, April of 1932, Tony Perkins was the son of theatrical actor Osgood (most notably appearing alongside Boris Karloff, George Raft and Paul Muni in Scarface the very same year.)

Raised almost entirely by his mother and a French nanny, he self-avowedly "became abnormally attached to" his mother, developing "an Oedipal Complex in a pronounced form", which became further complicated by misplaced guilt when his father died backstage only 5 years later. Continually conflicted in his orientation, he married photographer "Berry" Berenson (sister of Marisa), with whom he bore two children...despite being involved with any number of men since his teens.  

With his quirky, “sensitive” demeanor and strong hints of a darker undertone to his persona, he was, perhaps unusually, often cast as an off kilter romantic lead, the sort of oddball outsider character later essayed by the likes of Christian Slater or Crispin Glover.  But it was his shockingly convincing portrait of Norman Bates for the great subversive film technician Alfred Hitchcock that both defined and, for a large part of his career thereafter, typecast him domestically for a series of darker, more villainous if not psychotic roles thereafter.

Having starred with the likes of Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Orson Welles, Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Paul Newman, he moved from domestic churn ‘em out studio fare to a far more interesting sideline in the French cinema of the 60’s and early 70’s.  

Briefly settling into the more auteurist work of 70’s British and American film, he took a deep dive into cult cinema throughout the 80s, working for folks like Ken Russell and bringing his Bates character back for a better than average slasher series based on the 1960 original.

Cowriting the highly subtextual The Last of Sheila with then-partner and musical theater impresario, he further tried his hand at directing, first in two stage productions, and later a pair of films (one of which he starred in.)

He even had a short lived sideline in schmaltz, releasing four albums in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, which showed him (perhaps surprisingly) possessed of a pleasant, syrupy tone very much along the lines of Jack Jones.

Join us as we discuss one of the great character actors of our time, the multilayered Tony Perkins, only here on Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine!

Week 102 (7/27/23): A Man of Unusual Talent: The Life and Career of Tony Perkins

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