iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

“[Simon Raven] is known for his louche lifestyle as much as for his literary output.“ 😏 The bisexual Raven was far more uninhibited than his senior roman-fleuvists Anthony Powell and C.P. Snow, who are Victorian aunts by comparison. He should have more of a readership.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

I always liked Don Murray (BOTD 1929-2024) . He overacted opposite Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop, and somehow got an Oscar nomination for doing so; but he learned better fast, and was superb as the closeted gay Senator in Otto Preminger’s Advise & Consent.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Wild to see Mary Boland, the giddy Countess De Lave of The Women, as a sleazy old hotel-keeper.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Eddie Muller dissed Guilty Bystander in his most recent Ask Eddie video, but I have to disagree. It is definitely scuzzy, but among scuzz-noirs (such as Who Killed Teddy Bear?, which Eddie just showed on Noir Alley), it ranks high. I mean, you can practically smell the trash. [more]

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

A Life at Stake is not a great film noir by any means, but still, well worth seeing (7/10). Fun to see Angela Lansbury introduced in a swimsuit, and plenty of shirtless Keith Andes to balance that scale! [more]

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

The more you look at this crap, the more mind-boggling it becomes. One for the ages, really.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Something I learned from shows like Flipper and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo when I was growing up in the Sixties was that animals are persons, with their own dignity, intelligence, and feelings. This has remained a key principle for me.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Got one for you! The Mannin made me think of it. Jon Manchip White, A World Elsewhere: Life in the American Southwest (1975).

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Peter Boganovich’s 1971 book on Allan Dwan, including a lengthy interview with the director, is a gem, especially illuminating on the silent film era, although I do suspect that some of Dwan’s anecdotes got a little fictionalized over the years.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

I have always found it hard to imagine a young Casey Stengel, but here he is, and really a nice-looking chap.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

The Colin Davis Les Troyens was a recording that had a profound effect on my listening life as a teen!

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

“How about you? You still on Earth, or on the ship, with me? Well, it doesn’t make very much difference because sooner or later we’ll all of us be on the menu. All of us.”

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Cikker’s highly enjoyable opera Juro Jánošík, about the Slovak Robin Hood, was made into an excellent “opened out” 1987 film, viewable at YouTube.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Democracy in America remains the best book I have ever read about the United States, and I was an American Studies major. I recommend the complete George Lawrence translation (there is an abridgment, but don’t bother with it).

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Clara Bow and husband Rex Bell were as photogenic a couple as one can imagine, but their marriage was overshadowed by her increasing mental illness. They never divorced but eventually lived apart.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Bazille, who died at age 28 in the Franco-Prussian War, is one of the most promising young painters who ever died prematurely. I would hesitate to call him stylistically Impressionist – his lines are too sharp – but he was intimate with Monet, Manet, Sisley, Renoir, all of them.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Been reading about this in the excellent biography of Marine General Smedley Butler.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

This 1962 television special, A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy, which was broadcast on all three networks, was made to show off the restoration work she had supervised, but also shows off her considerable erudition and charm. It made a real impact.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I was reading a book the other day. Reading a book? Yes, it’s all about civilization or something. A nutty kind of a book. Do you know that the guy said that machinery is going to take the place of every profession? Oh my dear, that’s something you need never worry about.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Ginger & Pickles: Beatrix Potter at her oddest. Roger Sale offers an interesting interpretation in his book Fairy Tales and After.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Flooding the zone a bit with Ellen Glasgow these past 24 hours, because I appear to be her primary champion here on Bluesky, and why not? I am far from an expert, I have plenty of her novels yet to read, but the lack of attention to her work bugs me. I repeat, as good as Wharton and Cather!

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

The Ancient Law, about a man with a secret past who tries to establish a new life in a tobacco town, is an ideal introduction to Glasgow’s fictional world. I recently re-read this for the first time in more than 40 years, and enjoyed it more than I can say!

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Ellen Glasgow (1873-1945) is a superb novelist who doesn’t get the same love or attention as her contemporaries Willa Cather and Edith Wharton. All but one of her 19 novels are set in Virginia, and together form one of the great fictional explorations of a place. [more]

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Forgotten Soap: Never Too Young (1965-66) was one of the first teen-oriented soaps, ironically populated by actors aging out of adolescent roles (Tony Dow, Tommy Rettig). It featured frequent beach-movie-style visits from musical acts.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I loved this excellent children’s biography of Potter that I read as a kid, and have been an utter fanatic about her work since then.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

First I have heard of this! A great loss, although we may be grateful that she lived a full life to age 99. Saar was a political artist, certainly, but also demonstrated a personal style and visual force that could appeal to anyone, not just fellow travelers.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Anders and her frequent co-star Ron Foster made a very appealing couple in House of the Damned (1963). I have a real soft spot for these unsung little pictures.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Merry Anders retired from screen acting in her late 30s, which is too bad because she was a terrific presence in low-budget films of the 50s and 60s. Here she is with Robert Dix (yes, the son of Richard Dix) in the enjoyable Air Patrol (1962). [more]

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Shack Out on 101! Plus Nashville, Point Blank, and The Great Man, which also features his father Ed Wynn (in a riveting one-scene performance that was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA).

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Shack Out on 101! Plus Nashville, Point Blank, and The Great Man, which also features his father Ed Wynn (in a riveting one-scene performance that was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA).

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

That is great! A favorite of mine is State Department - File 649 (1949), an odd little Cold War number. An enticement for a menswear aficionado like me is that this Cinecolor production shows off Lundigan’s suits to good effect.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Among “lost” stars, William Lundigan is a peach, very much in the Dennis O’Keefe mold. They probably competed for the same roles sometimes.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

In 1976, Brenda Vaccaro starred in a Western series, Sara, about a frontier schoolteacher, and got an Emmy nomination for it even though the show was pulled after a few months. Not a single review at the IMDB, no footage that I can find on YouTube, but I enjoyed it at the time.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Douglas Scott Brookes, Up North: St. Louis’s Summer Colonies on Lake Huron in the Golden Age of Travel. Speaks to my interests in lakes, lake resorts, the Great Lakes, late 19th / early 20th Centuries, and local history! #histbookchat #michigan #greatlakes

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Does anyone remember the old A Common Reader catalogues? I really miss these.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

The BBC did a fine adaptation in 1968, with Lyndon Brook, below, first among equals in the ensemble. This was shown on Masterpiece Theatre in the US five years later. As far as I know, this has not re-surfaced lately, although I would love to take another look.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

On Aldous Huxley’s birthday, there is always plenty of mention of Brave New World, because that is the book that people have usually read. But his oeuvre is deep. Point Counter Point is one of the great “state of the nation” novels of the 20th Century. [more]

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

De Havilland is as good a screen actress as we have ever had. Her performance in The Snake Pit, for example, so brave, no holds barred.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

James Best had three excellent Twilight Zone episodes, memorably returning from the dead in The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank (below). Not to mention, the lead in The Killer Shrews!

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

McQueen’s wardrobe in this movie makes me want to spend the next week and umpteen thousand dollars at a high-end tailor.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel… Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

“Look out, Marshal Lucky! It’s High Prices!” One of the funniest scenes in film history.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

They say, share an underrated comedy. It would have been true for Used Cars at one point, but I think the world has caught up with it. Not only the funniest movie I have ever seen, but the two funniest individual SCENES - Marshal Lucky and Test Drive for Toby.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

The young Kyle Chandler rocking the double-breasted suit on Jay Leno more than 30 years ago. His hair is better fuller and wind-blown than short and slick and banker-ish, as here. But still, nice look.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Chester Morris super-fan here. I just love the guy. Boston Blackie!

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Her role in The Night of the Iguana fit Ava Gardner like a glove, and I think she brought everything she knew from acting and life to it. And it didn’t hurt that John Huston’s direction was inspired, and the Tennessee Williams material first-rate. A great film.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Virginia Leith was a fine actress who should have had more of a career. Check her out in Violent Saturday, where she easily takes the palm among a large and experienced cast.

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Patrick Murtha @patrickmurtha.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

There is also excellent Pearl Harbor footage in The Revolt of Mamie Stover, which was re-used in the Pearl Harbor episode of The Time Tunnel, BY FAR the best entry of that show.

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