No. 12 Van Heflin

Posted in FILM with tags , on May 15, 2026 by dcairns

Found in a Portobello charity shop. Unpriced. I asked, and they said 50p, so I said yes.

Since I had to clear my 1000 postcards out of my office at work, I decided to decorate the Shadowplayhouse with them, along with various posters, fliers, book pages. A portrait of Van Heflin’s head will fit right in.

On flipping the card over I observed that Van Heflin’s head was being used to sell stockings. This forced conjunction of head and stocking feels like an incitement to commit bank robbery. Other heads available in the series, apparently, were James Craig, Walter Pidgeon, and Mario Lanza. The reasons behind the selection of these particular heads, and their numerical ordering, and their connection to Blue Bird Stockings, are completely opaque. No logical explanation suggests itself, which is how I used to feel about “thrilling star” Van Heflin, until I noticed what a fine actor he could be. We should overlook his parsnip-shaped head.

I’d very much enjoy hearing from anyone else who owns a Blue Bird Stockings movie star head icon. Collect ’em all!

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Sound on Paper

Posted in FILM with tags , on May 14, 2026 by dcairns

What is this? If you know, you know.

I can say that it is connected to Neil Brand’s Laurel & Hardy tour, which had its Edinburgh gig last night at the Queen’s Hall, and which we attended. Followed by a lunch today with the Great Man. I proposed a Thing. He liked it. We may try to make this thing happen.

The show was great — two complete shorts with Mr. B. at the Yamaha, plus numerous clips, also accompanied, and a history lecture on the Boys and a great critical appreciation of them. It was a blast — how could it not be?

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Funny AF

Posted in FILM with tags , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2026 by dcairns

AF = Aldo Fabrizi.

Well, I started fulfilling my promise to see more Mario Monicelli. VITA DA CANI (IT’S A DOG’S LIFE, 1950) was co-directed by MM and Steno, and I double-featured it with VARIETY LIGHTS, maybe a mistake as the two are very similar: Italian music-hall comedy-tragedies with two directors.

VDC is a sort of comedy sandwich with melodrama as the bread. We start with the break-up of Marcello Mastroianni and chiseled beauty Tamara Lees, lit noir-style by cinematographer Mario Bava, the Venetian blinds slashing bodies and faces much as the knife-wielding psychos of his later work would slice the supporting players.

But then MM drops out of the picture, Lees impulsively joins a music hall troupe, and Aldo Fabrizi as the struggling comedian-manager takes over the story, along with Gina Lollobrigida and others. Master of byplay and backchat, AF gets several scenes of fast-talking con-artistry, with the catchphrase “After all, we’re all Italians.” He’s so damn good. The IMDb can’t identify for me the hotel manager he cheats, but that guy deserves an award too, just for keeping up.

Part of the film’s ending shockingly prefigures Monicelli’s own demise, but Fabrizi’s last scene is perhaps even more poignant, standing in near-silhouette in front of a cinema screen showing an American western…

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