Cheap Thrill: Joan Crawford on The Sixth Sense
Here at Chez Scrubbles we’ve been getting a few jollies from a new channel that popped up on our DirecTV lineup earlier this year — Chiller. Chiller broadcasts lots of heavily edited ’80s vintage fright flicks, but constant repeats of Friday the 13th: The Series, Tales from the Crypt and shows of that ilk form the bread and butter of its programming. My favorites are the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Night Gallery, a show that I haven’t seen in ages. I didn’t realize until now that the Night Gallery repeats also include the full run of The Sixth Sense, a short lived paranormal series hosted by blow-dried future talk show host Gary Collins.
Which brings me to the episode we saw last night — Dear Joan: We’re Going to Scare You To Death. This one was originally broadcast on September 30, 1972 and wound up providing the final onscreen role for Joan Crawford. In it, she plays a lady who is haunted by images of her daughter’s drowning death. She gets lost and ends up stranded in a house run by Mansonesque hippies who want to use her as a guinea pig for a fatal psychic experiment! Poor Joan spends the whole time trying to escape her captors and having asthma attacks, tentatively breathing from an inhaler as if using a Binaca breath freshener (maybe she didn’t want to smear her lipstick or something). As if that weren’t enough, the whole thing has that migraine-inducing early ’70s look — lots of polyester ensembles, foo-foo furniture and grossly mismatched colors. Joan is a big hoot throughout, but actually she delivers a pretty good performance. There’s also the hilarious coda in which Miss Crawford, out of character, discusses with Gary Collins her own experience with psychic powers. I’m sure other Sixth Sense episodes don’t have the same impact, but what a doozy this one was. Watch out for it!
I’m Wishing
Reading through Eugene Robinson’s Washington Post editorial An Egghead for the Oval Office, I just kept nodding my head and saying “yes, yes” to myself. Is having a reasonably intelligent president too much to ask for? Unfortunately I’m not feeling Robinson’s optimism. Looking over our recent commanders-in-chief — Reagan, Clinton, even Bushes I and II — all have varying degrees of charisma and approachability, qualities that are far more important for average Joes and Janes than intelligence. (via TypeFiend)
Just Deserts
Rudy Adler sent along an email about the Border Film Project (which he helped orchestrate). From the website:
Border Film Project is a collaborative art project giving disposable cameras to two groups on different sides of the border: undocumented migrants crossing the desert into the United States, and American Minutemen trying to stop them. To date, we have received 73 cameras — 38 from migrants and 35 from Minutemen — with nearly 2,000 pictures in total. The pictures show the human face of immigration, and they challenge us to question our stereotypes and to see through new and personal lenses.
The resulting photos were collected in an art exhibit and book. No matter how you feel about the immigration debate, the similarities between the two groups’ output is striking. Despite often needing to be taught how to use a disposable camera, the migrants’ photos are suprisingly good. Miles better than the Minutemen’s, in fact.
Book Review: Charley Harper
About five or six years ago, me and my partner stumbled across some excellent framed prints of stylized birds in a dusty antique store. They looked to be from the ’50s, but the prints’ appealing freshness and simplicity had a timeless quality. The birds literally appeared to fly off the paper they were printed on. Naturally, we took them home. After some research, we discovered these serigraphs were handmade by a man named Charles Harper as mail-in premiums for a now-defunct magazine geared towards Ford auto owners. Amazingly, one could buy these gorgeous nature prints very cheaply back in the ’50s. Immediately we became fascinated with Harper and tried to find out everything we could about him.
It surprised me to find out that celebrity designer Todd Oldham shared a similar introduction to Harper’s work, a story that he tells in the foreword to his monograph Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life. In fact, just about everybody I know who’s come into contact with his art becomes an instant fan — he’s that special.
As for the book, it’s encyclopedic. Beautiful to look at, sure, but more importantly you get a tangible sense of the man behind the art. It includes just about eveything he’s done over the last half-century. Much of the classic Ford Times stuff is here, along with his eye-popping illustrations for the Betty Crocker Dinner for Two Cook Book (1958), The Giant Golden Book of Biology (1961), and The Animal Kingdom (1968). In addition, the book showcases the many poster and mural designs he’s done throughout the years. Although I haven’t yet seen the book proper (just an early online version), the tome is neatly organized and gorgeously designed with a streamlined look appropriate to the subject. It appears that they photographed the artwork directly from Harper’s original art and not a secondary printed source. Harper is still alive and active, although recently I’ve heard that he’s been having health problems. He couldn’t have asked for a more perfect tribute within these pages. This brick of a book sports a retail price of $200 (discounted to $126 at Amazon), but I just might have to skip a few lunches to nab a copy.
Ammo also has a nifty limited edition slipcovered version of the book with a signed print, produced in four different styles, for (cough) $400. For a cheaper C.H. experience, visit the flickr group devoted to him.
Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life will be available later this month from Ammo Books. Pre-order at Amazon here.
