Booze News: R.I.P. Joey Bishop

The man Frank Sinatra liked to call "The Hub of the Wheel" is dead at 89. Although Frank, Dean, and Sammy were the best known and best loved of the Rat Pack, the act would have been nothing without Joey Bishop. He wrote most of the "ad libs" that the boys repeated night after night, and played ringmaster--directing traffic and keeping the show on track. The Sixties wouldn't have been nearly as swingin' without him.

Although Joey was not a drinker (he famously liked to joke that Frank spilled more than he drank), I don't think he'd mind if we hoisted a few in his honor. Rest in peace.

Here is a link to Joey's obituary on CNN.com: Comedian Joey Bishop Dies


Mouse In The Rat Pack: The Joey Bishop Story

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Booze News: More W.C. Fields on DVD (but Region 2)

John Hodgson's blog, From the Cheap Seats on Filmjournal.net posted the following intriguing item regarding a W.C. Fields DVD box set being released in the UK. The announced set contains five films that are currently unavailable in the U.S. (Million Dollar Legs, If I Had a Million, Tillie and Gus, Mississippi, and Follow the Boys). Hopefully, Universal will put together a third Region 1 box set containing those titles. However, if that never comes to pass, you can still enjoy the UK box set if you pick up a region-free DVD player (a fairly inexpensive purchase).


Here's the post from John's Blog:

Universal has unveiled details of it’s W.C. Fields; The Movie Collection, featuring 17 titles on 10 discs and coming at last on December 10. The full press release as found at Zeta Minor, tells us that, unlike the R1 sets there are no extras to be found. However, those extras are frankly pretty underwhelming, they are relatively expensive sets, and the U.K. box has the advantage of, I think I’m right in saying, all but two of Fields Universal titles in a single collection that can currently be found online at just over £50. Not bad.

Those titles are, I’ll remind you: Million Dollar Legs, My Little Chickadee, If I Had A Million, Tillie and Gus, Mississippi, The Bank Dick, Follow The Boys, Six of a Kind, International House, You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man, The Old Fashioned Way, You’re Telling Me, It’s A Gift, The Man on the Flying Trapeze, The Big Broadcast of 1938, Poppy and Never Give a Sucker An Even Break.

The set now includes Follow The Boys but there’s no sign of Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch or Alice In Wonderland, both listed in previous specs and possibly the cause of this box being shunted around the schedules.

W.C. Fields Comedy Collection (The Bank Dick / My Little Chickadee / You Can't Cheat an Honest Man / It's a Gift / International House)

W.C. Fields Comedy Collection, Vol. 2 (The Man on the Flying Trapeze / Never Give A Sucker An Even Break / You're Telling Me! / The Old Fashioned Way / Poppy)

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Review: Rio Bravo (1959)

USA/C-141m./Dir: Howard Hawks/Wr: Jules Furthman & Leigh Brackett/Cast: John Wayne (Sheriff John T. Chance), Dean Martin (Dude), Ricky Nelson (Colorado Ryan), Angie Dickinson (Feathers), Walter Brennan (Stumpy), Ward Bond (Pat Wheeler)

There are Westerns that are better written, more artfully directed, and more important than Rio Bravo, but none are quite so much fun. This Western classic originated as a rebuttal to multiple Academy Award-winner High Noon (1952), a film that director Howard Hawks and star John Wayne absolutely loathed. They despised the idea of a sheriff begging regular citizens for help, so for their movie they reversed the situation. In Rio Bravo, several nonprofessionals offer to assist Sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne) during his time of need, but the lawman refuses their aid, knowing that the townsfolk would only get themselves killed or get in the way. In fact, the plot of Rio Bravo gets rolling when an unarmed citizen is murdered while stepping in to help Dude (Dean Martin), Chance’s drunken deputy. With the murderer in custody, John T. must hold his prisoner against an army of paid killers. True to form, he only accepts the help of a couple of professionals--Stumpy (Walter Brennan), an elderly cripple who can handle a shotgun, and town drunk Dude, who is still lightning with a pistol.

Dean Martin gives his finest performance on film as Dude, a washed up alky trying to dry out. Dino was rarely given an opportunity to play a role outside of his familiar, drunken playboy persona, but on the few occasions he was allowed to stretch, he proved himself an excellent actor. He’s completely believable dealing with nausea, the shakes, and an all-abiding thirst; even if his method of quitting the bottle is questionable. Dude manages to kill his cravings for whiskey by drinking beer. Apparently, he was only addicted to hard liquor.

The rest of the performances are equally good, including surprisingly competent work from teen idol Ricky Nelson, who handles both a six-gun and a guitar (in a memorable duet with Dino). It should also be mentioned that Rat Pack beauty Angie Dickinson makes a great, tough-talking love interest for Wayne, and her legs look amazing in stockings. Rio Bravo might be a little long at a leisurely-paced 141 minutes, but it’s hard not to smile all the way through it.

Drinks Consumed--Whiskey and beer

Intoxicating Effects--Hangover, the shakes, soused sentimentality, and physical violence

Potent Quotables--CHANCE: Don’t set yourself up as being so special. Think you invented the hangover.
DUDE: I could sure take out a patent for this one.

Video Availability--Rio Bravo DVD and Rio Bravo [Blu-ray] (Warner Brothers)

Similarly Sauced Cinema--Howard Hawks and John Wayne virtually remade Rio Bravo in 1966 as El Dorado, with Robert Mitchum as the drunk that time around.

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Review: Pardon My Scotch (1935)

USA/B&W-19m./Dir: Del Lord/Wr: Andrew Bennison/Cast: Moe Howard (Moe/McSnuff), Larry Fine (Larry/McSniff), Curly Howard (Curly/McSnort), Nat Carr (Mr. Martin), James C. Morton (J.T. Walton), Billy Gilbert (Signor Louis Balero Cantino), Al Thompson (Jones, the druggist)

In their first booze-centric short, Moe, Larry, and Curly portray carpenters who are asked to watch over a drug store when the owner leaves in a frantic search for liquor to sell in his pharmacy before the impending end of Prohibition. Of course, the Stooges are mistaken for the owners of the establishment when Mr. Martin, the local bootlegger, stops in to apologize for being unable to fill the pharmacist’s order. Stressed out, Martin asks the boys to fix him a drink, which they do by pouring everything they can find into an old boot, shaking it up, and straining the cocktail through a wicker chair. When Martin tastes the potent concoction, he’s convinced it’s Scotch; and he suggests a business partnership in which the boys produce the whiskey and he distributes it. The story ends with Moe, Larry, and Curly attending a dinner party, masquerading as Scottish distillers (McSniff, McSnuff, and McSnort) in an attempt to sell their “Breath of Heather” to the rich attendees. Naturally, the barrel of whiskey they brought along explodes, and the party is doused in foam.

Pardon My Scotch is one of the most memorable of the early Stooge comedies. Not only does it contain the first of many cocktail mixing scenes involving an old boot; it also contains some classic exchanges during the opening carpentry scenes--

MOE: Get the tools.
LARRY: What tools?
MOE: The tools we’ve been using for the last ten years!
LARRY: Ohhh, those tools.

The short is also notable for containing the sequence in which Curly saws through a table while Moe stands on top of it. Moe actually cracked a few ribs during the fall, but ever the trouper, he finished the scene before collapsing in pain.

As for the alky content of the short, there is very little actual drinking, but the whole film centers around obtaining liquor and making a quick buck off it before the repeal of Prohibition. This comedy was filmed just four months after the 21st Amendment put an end to the temperance movement for good, and although the material was very contemporary upon its release, this comic cocktail has held up remarkably well.

Drinks Consumed--Homemade Scotch

Intoxicating Effects--Hats flying off heads and insensibility

Potent Quotables--MARTIN (toasting the homemade cocktail): Toodle-loo.
MOE: Over the river.
CURLY: Skip the gutter.
LARRY: Ver g’harget. (Yiddish for “drop dead”)
MARTIN (recovering from the drink): Oh, boy! Where’d ya get this Scotch?!
MOE: We made it.
CURLY: All of us.

Video Availability--On DVD as part of The Three Stooges Collection, Vol. 1: 1934-1936 (Sony)

Similarly Sauced Cinema--The Stooges also mixed a cocktail in a worn out boot in the shorts Three Sappy People (1939), Out West (1947), All Gummed Up (1947), Bubble Trouble (1953), and Pals and Gals (1954).

The Three Stooges Scrapbook (Paperback)

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Review: Mudhoney (1965)

USA/B&W/92m./Dir: Russ Meyer/Wr: Raymond Friday Locke & W.E. Sprague/Cast: John Furlong (Calif McKinney), Hal Hopper (Sidney Brenshaw), Antoinette Christiani (Hannah Brenshaw), Stuart Lancaster (Lute Wade), Rena Horten (Eula), Princess Livingston (Maggie Marie), Lorna Maitland (Clara Belle)

Sidney Brenshaw is the kind of drunk that gives drunks a bad name. He’s an ill-tempered, razor-totin’, wife-beatin’, crazy-ass bastard--the kind of drunk you try to avoid on the street--the kind of drunk that ruins everyone else’s good time. This disagreeable character is at the center of Mudhoney, a low-budget exploitation flick from sleaze auteur Russ Meyer.

The film is the story of Calif McKinney (I can’t decide whether I like or loathe that name), a drifter who finds temporary work on a farm in a small, Southern town. The place is run by a kindly guy with a bum ticker and his beautiful niece, Hannah. The situation would be more or less ideal if it weren’t for Hannah’s lay-about, abusive husband, Sidney. Sidney spends most of his time at the home of local bootlegger, Maggie Marie, drinkin’ her moonshine and diddling her two scantily clad daughters (this is a Russ Meyer film after all). Still, Sidney finds time to welcome his new hired hand by holding a razor to his throat, and relations only worsen between employer and employee when Calif begins to take a shine to Sidney’s wife.

Honestly, Mudhoney doesn’t add up to much. The story is simply an excuse to paint the drive-in screen with black and white images of boobs, violence, more boobs, bizarro behavior, a few more boobs, heavy-handed social commentary… and did I mention boobs? Much of the acting is amateurish, the dialogue is often insipid, there is no sense of period (although the film is supposed to take place during the Depression), and the musical score ranges from irritating to obnoxious.

As an exploitation film, however, Mudhoney is a rousing success. It’s fast-moving, never boring, full shock and sleaze, and fairly artfully directed. Some sequences actually reminded me of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958), in their odd staging and effective camerawork. Mudhoney may not be a subtle cocktail, but it packs a memorable punch.

Drinks Consumed--Corn Liquor (moonshine)

Intoxicating Effects--Staggering, slurred speech, drunk driving, swearing, brawling, physical violence, jail time, the giggles, harmonizing, belching, and passing out

Potent Quotables--MAGGIE MARIE: You look kinda dried out. How ‘bout a nice drink of fresh well water? Hope you don’t object to plain drinkin’ water. We had us a little socializin’ last night and the home brew’s all gone. Got a new batch workin’ though. I make the best home brew and corn liquor around here.
CALIF: Isn’t that kinda against the law?
MAGGIE MARIE: You mean the Prohibition? Fawgh! Folks around here don’t pay no mind to that foolishness. Besides, it’s about to be repealed anyhow.

Video Availability--Released on DVD as Russ Meyer's Mudhoney (RM Films International), but hard to find

Similarly Sauced Cinema--For more countrified moonshine-soaked action, check out Thunder Road (1958) and White Lightning (1973).

Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film

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Review: Johnny Eager (1942)

USA/B&W-107m./Dir: Mervyn LeRoy/Wr: John Lee Mahin & James Edward Grant/Cast: Robert Taylor (Johnny Eager), Lana Turner (Lisbeth Bard), Van Heflin (Jeff Hartnett), Edward Arnold (John Benson Farrell), Paul Stewart (Julio)

Johnny Eager is often categorized in movie references as an early film noir--likely due to its gangland setting and dark ending--but in truth, it is simply a fast-moving MGM melodrama, and a pretty forgettable one at that. Still, it has become a personal favorite, and I almost always go out of my way to catch this flick whenever it is broadcast.

Robert Taylor stars (which probably means that Clark Gable wasn’t available) as Johnny Eager, an ex-con pretending to be a cabbie in order to satisfy his parole board. In reality, gangster Eager is up to old tricks, bankrolling a dog track and jockeying for the top spot in the local underworld. Into this scheme steps Lisabeth Bard (Lana Turner), a socialite sociologist who takes too strong an interest in Eager. Eager takes advantage of those affections and tricks Lisabeth into believing she has killed a man in order to blackmail her father (Edward Arnold), the district attorney standing between Eager and the opening of his dog track. Of course, Eager’s plans unravel with tragic results when he actually falls for the girl.

Although Johnny Eager is no classic, it has plenty to recommend it. It is a slick, breezy entertainment, peppered with colorful performances by some of the best character actors in the business. In addition, Turner has the opportunity to prove that she is more than just delicious eye-candy, turning in some of the best acting of her career in the scenes in which Lisabeth’s psyche shatters under the stress and guilt of having killed a man.

However, the main reason I keep revisiting this film is the astonishing, scene-stealing performance from Van Heflin as Jeff Hartnett, Johnny Eager’s self-hating, alcoholic lawyer. Although nearly forgotten today, Heflin was one of the best actors Hollywood ever produced, and he was never better than he was here--walking through every scene in a believable alky haze and spouting complex, erudite dialog between slugs of booze. Whether tearing up or quietly brooding, the character’s inward struggle between pangs of conscience and his affection for the gangster (which borders on homosexuality) is always evident. It’s an A+ performance in a B- picture, one for which Heflin deservedly won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and one of the best in soused cinema history.

Drinks Consumed--Brandy, whiskey, and various unnamed liquors and cocktails

Intoxicating Effects--Slurred speech, staggering, soused sentimentality, and hangover

Potent Quotables--JEFF: I seem to have offended your light of love by using a polysyllabic word.
EAGER: You’re drunk.
JEFF: Now, Eager, that’s… obvious. Very obvious. Don’t be obvious. You’re out of character when you’re obvious. Adroitness is your racket. Hard, clever, and adroit--that’s your description.

Video Availability--Johnny Eager is available as a manufacture-on-demand DVD-R through The Warner Archive.

Similarly Sauced Cinema--It was Lana Turner’s turn to hit the booze as an alky actress in the flashback-filled Hollywood melodrama The Bad and the Beautiful (1952).

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Booze News: Miss Charming's Silver Screen Cocktails

Fans of liquor-centric cinema should check out Miss Charming's Silver Screen Cocktails page. It is a very nice overview of films in which characters order specific cocktails. Miss Charming was also kind enough to link to Booze Movies at the top of her page.

Cheryl Charming is a bartender, author (with several cocktail-related books to her credit), and graphic artist. She also hosted a movie night at the most recent Tales of the Cocktail event in New Orleans, and she will be returning to host the first-annual Cocktail Film Fest in January. I'll post more more info on the Film Fest as it becomes available.

By the way, if you visit Silver Screen Cocktails, take some time to explore the rest of her Website. She has a lot of material that is sure to be of interest to tipplers. For future reference, I've linked to her front door under my "drink links."

Cheers,
garv

Miss Charmings Guide for Hip Bartenders and Wayout Wannabes

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