Movies and books

A fifties nostalgia double-feature!
MY FAVORITE YEAR (1982) is, of course, the film that answers the question What If Errol Flynn Had Been a Guest Star on Sid Caesar’s Show. Peter O’Toole plays the drunken, over-the-hill swashbuckler still getting by on charm, while then-newcomer Mark Linn-Baker is the junior writer assigned to make sure he shows up for rehearsals and performance, while getting lessons in the process on how to win over Jessica Harper. A loving tribute to both Flynn and the age of live television, with O’Toole pitch-perfect as “Alan Swan”; Joseph Bologna, Bill Macy and Lainie Kazan fill out the cast. Though since Baker’s narration emphasizes this was his “favorite year,” it would have been nice to know what happened afterwards (did he and Harper tie the knot, for instance?).“I don’t trust watches—one hand’s always shorter than the other.”
CRY-BABY (1990) was Jon Waters’ musical re-imagining of the Baltimore of his teen years, as sensitive bad boy Johnny Depp (“I gotta do one dirty thing every day—and then I cry for what I have to do!”) woos square girl Amy Locane despite the tut-tutting of the Respectable People such as Polly Bergen (it’s worth listening to Water’s commentary to see how much of 1950s Baltimore he drew on). Typically for Waters, the cast is an oddball mix that includes Joey Heatherton, Traci Lords), Rikki Lake, Patty Hears and Iggy Pop. To my surprise, it fits American Film Musical‘s analysis of the “folk musical” perfectly—a musical set in the nostalgic past where music helps to heal the divisions in the community. Well worth catching. “I’m tired of making license plates, trapped in this rotten hole/I’ve got to reach the outside, before I lose control!’

The title story in HELLBOY: The Crooked Man and Others by Mike Mignola (and several different artists), contains one of the all-time best Hellboy stories, a 1950s adventure in the Appalachians where Hellboy helps a worried young man against Satan’s local soul-collector. Strongly influenced by Manly Wade Wellman’s Silver John stories, it’s eerie and atmospheric; “The Chapel of Moloch,” another story in the book, is good even though a lot more formulaic.