WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935) test make-up

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At left, the first, unused test of Jack Pierce's werewolf makeup for WEREWOLF OF LONDON; at right, the final version (teeth definitely appear to be the same). According to the excellent UNIVERSAL HORRORS: THE STUDIO'S CLASSIC FILMS, 1931-1946, by Tom Weaver (no relation, at least that I’m aware of) and Michael and John Brunas:

"Rumor has it that Hull protested about the prolonged application sessions, so a more modified look was created. Cortland Hull put the lie to this story: 'Henry said his point was not vanity, but how the script was written... Valerie Hobson and Lester Matthews were to have recognized the werewolf as being Glendon... Jack Pierce's original design would have made this recognition impossible.'"

(The book then goes on to describe some rather delicious drama between Hull and Pierce involving pulling rank and werewolf life-casts. Do check out the book - fantastic stuff.)

Controversial opinion: while WEREWOLF OF LONDON is a lesser film than THE WOLF MAN and Glendon less endearing (to a fault) than Chaney's Larry Talbot, I far prefer Pierce's (well and truly resisted) Hull-werewolf makeup to his classic Chaney-werewolf 'do. There's something about it that I find far more haunting: perhaps it's how recognizable Glendon is inside the wolf. Makes the story that much more tragic?

THE GREAT SILENCE (Corbucci, 1968)

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(Watched: sat/20221008 via Blu-Ray. Directed by Sergio Corbucci from a screenplay by Vittoriano Petrill, Mario Amendola, Bruno Corbucci and Sergio Corbucci; starring Jean Louis Trintignant, Klaus Kinski, Vonetta McGee, Frank Wolff and Luigi Pistilli. Released November, 1968.)

While I knew that if Wallace Stroby said it was good (as he did in our March conversation about my favorite film of all time, Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) it would be, little did I expect to find myself engrossed in one of the most profound experiences of discovery I've had with a Western since, perhaps, OUATITW.

Snowbound, brutal, and utterly bleak: if Leone's works are singularly operatic love letters to the American Western signed by big kid with action figures, Corbucci's – especially here – are slices of neo-realist pulp (even in a movie about a guy with a gatling gun in a coffin) that dismantle all notions of convention and leave them thumbless across an unsparing landscape. Add Klaus Kinski as a sadistic bounty hunter and you've really got something to behold.

Side note: always a joy to see Frank Wolff (ill-fated in OUATITW as Brett McBain and in life, having committed suicide in 1971, at age 43) and Luigi Pistilli, familar – among other roles – to me as Tuco's monk brother in THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.

Adding both a rewatch of Corbucci's DJANGO (saw it years ago) and a first watch of THE SPECIALISTS (the finale of Corbucci's "Mud and Blood" trilogy, with SILENCE being the second film in the unofficial sequence) to the list. Definitely one of those "I wish I could see it again for the first time" experiences.

NL by weekend / WEREWOLF BY NIGHT

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Which is far less sexy-sounding than Vampire Weekend (whatever happened to them anyhow? loved their stuff) but is nonetheless essential: managed to scrounge out more words than I expected and, via writing about them, brought my two-fold plans for taking a creative gamble on myself (ComicsThing and Another Thing) into sharper focus. On track to arrive in subscribers’ inboxes tomorrow morning.

WEREWOLF BY NIGHT is the best thing Marvel has done in a long time (though SHE-HULK is brilliant, as was WANDAVISION) and I want more of it. Always great to see a composer direct (though I can't think of any off the top of my head – I'm not including myself in it; I'd rather include those possessed of talent in both): they bring such a unique sense of timing to things.

something i wrote while i was writing something else

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There's a story Tom Petty told that I'm fond of telling myself and anyone within earshot, of when he and the Heartbreakers were recording what, IMO, is their greatest and most underappreciated album (1999's ECHO; might write a thing about it), and in the middle of recording one song, Petty stopped them, and said "I wrote a better song" while they were recording so they moved on and recorded this new song which was, indeed, spectacular (Track five, "Swingin'").

Anyhow: how it relates: I had written a whole thing about career / life plateaus and how I couldn't figure my way out of it but ended up figuring at least something to help me through it so I stopped writing the former piece, wrote and sent the email, and am now writing this to tell you / myself that I did just that.

And also an excuse to write about Tom Petty which I need to do more of.

zilchery->something(s)else

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Reached the point where the totality of my creative zilchness this morning was something to behold, the suffocating fear that ComicsThing is all for naught – a typical manifestation, especially when I'm about to take a leap into something worthwhile –, the reminders of perpetual creative heartbreak, a general feeling of stagnation, of GROUNDHOG DAY-ness, of relentless blech.

Solution: switched to Something(s)Else for a couple of days (newsletter will take up the weekend) as I've learned (and remembered) that, as a general rule, my worklength capacity on a single project before needing to switch to something else is about four-five days. Spent about a week straight with ComicsThing, so I was clearly overdue. Both ComicsThing and I could feel it.

Writing PRESS (A) 02 and 03 at the same time (in addition to ComicsThing) and will determine which will move forward as January gets closer; whichever one doesn't make the cut / the deadline will move to 03 – though I'm starting to lean towards these Something(s)Else as 02 with MainFictionThing taking over all of 03: a good left turn, I think, maybe, IDK.

in wave

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Having more or less exorcised the fuckeries of my formative years, I'm in a weird stage of not having that emotional foil (even if I’m the only one of the two of us who knew she was a foil) not knowing what to do without one – like mother, like son, apparently: when her mother died, she made K into her sworn enemy; after she died, I made an attempt to turn K's dad into mine (he did and has made it all too easy) and, while I think I've managed to stop it – though those patterns do, indeed, run deep – or at least put a hard pause on it, I'm nonetheless making efforts at increased vigiliance over myself: "he keeps watch and guard on himself as his own enemy, lying in wait for him," as Epictetus says; we are, all, our own worst enemy.

Something of the start of a midlife crisis, perhaps, or at least a defining reorientation of things. Having well and truly fucked things up during my quarter-life iteration (and baring the scars of being at the center of both of my parents’), I'm operating with one primary rule: no drastic changes until I’m as certain as I can be that I’ve ridden the wave to shore or wherever it throws me off.