Hammerlocks Will Never Hold Me

 

 

"Hammerlocks Will Never Hold Me!" gouache on paper 8.5" x 5" $30.

The Fresh Lobster 1928

Here is an odd little cinematic short from 1928, titled The Fresh Lobster. It's an insane little celluloid nightmare in the vein of Winsor McCay's absurd cartoon strip Dreams Of The Rarebit Fiend. Only in this novel little short, the trigger for the hallucinatory adventure isn't a dinner of melted cheese on bread, but the late night snack of a plate of lobster and a pickle.

The film was supposedly released in theaters in 1928, then re-released twenty years later in 1948, this time with sound. All sources seem to agree that there isn't much known about the production of this oddity, nor the impetus for its creation; perhaps it was McCay's popular newspaper strip. The cinematographer is listed as Harry Forbes, who has camera credits for a number of shorts between 1915 and 1931, and quickie b-westerns and adventure films in the 1930s, before his passing in 1939. The producers credited in the title card are Harvey Pergament and Max Alexander. Pergament seems to have had a limited career in the industry, if his IMDB credits are indicative of his involvement, as he's only listed with one other producer credit, and that's co-producer of a 1954 UK title about South Africa titled Flame Of Africa. Max Alexander has quite the list of production credits to his name, largely b-grade crime and western pictures throughout the 1930s and 40s. 

The star of this piece is Billie Bletcher, who started in vaudeville and worked his way steadily from 1914 through the early 1970s in silent films, shorts, voicing characters in Disney and Looney Tunes cartoons, 1960s television appearances in shows like Get Smart and Dennis The Menace, and even had a bit part in the 1940 Boris Karloff thriller The Ape.

Enjoy!

Kashchey The Immortal (1945)

Here's an interesting Russian fantasy film from 1945. The version uploaded to Youtube here has the native Russian language audio track, with kindly provided English subtitles. It's based on a Russian folktale about Koschei (which I've seen spelled a half dozen different ways in the same paragraph in some sources), an evil sorcerer who has attained immortality through black magic, and can only be killed when his soul is captured. The twist is that in the various tales about Koschei, he's hidden his soul in various things that are nearly impossible to reach or catch, such as in a needle lodged in the center of an egg held by a duck that flies away when approached, or, in the case of this film, his heart (maybe changed in the translation?) is in the center of a black apple that grows on a black tree, which stands on a black hill. If one approaches the black tree, a single leaf will grow out of the branch, and a flower will appear, which will in turn produce the apple. Of course anyone who splits the apple to get at the heart will be turned to stone and frozen forever.

Georgy Millyar as Kashchey, The Immortal

The film is glaringly nationalistic, almost to a comical degree near the end when the hero's faith and love of his Mother Russia produces a literal army out of thin air. Our protagonist carries a bandana full of his native soil that he kisses and asks to protect him. At the moment in question, he tosses it to the ground and a phalanx of troops appears. Visually stunning, dramatically captivating and definitely worth the 63 minute running time. Starring actor Georgy Millyar as the titular Kashchey, a character actor who seemed to make a living out of playing grotesque creatures, sometimes with a comic bent to them, as in the popularly MST3K'd film Jack Frost (Морозко, Morozko, 1964).