Wednesday 28 August 2024

Arlene Martel


            On Tuesday morning my cold was in full force. I have a date to get together with Brian Haddon for lunch on Wednesday but I think I’m going to have to postpone it for a week. 
            I published on my Christian’s translations blog “Wha’d Ya Do Wha’d Ya Do Billie Boo?”, my translation of “D’où reviens-tu Billy Boy?” by Boris Vian. 
            I worked out the chords for the first two verses of “Amours des feintes” (Feinting Romance) by Serge Gainsbourg. Next I’ll figure out the chorus and then I think I will have the pattern of the rest of the song.
            I weighed 87.2 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since last Tuesday. 
            I put away most of my laundry. 
            I emailed Brian and postponed tomorrow’s lunch date until next Wednesday. 
            I weighed 87.75 kilos before lunch. That’s the most my weight has been at midday since August 19. 
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and stopped at Freshco on the way back. I bought five bags of green grapes, some bananas, and some toothpaste. I forgot to buy flour again to make gravy with. 
            I weighed 87.2 kilos at 18:00. 
            I got an email from Richard Olafson and found that he forgot to send me the publishing contract and had thought that he’d already sent it. I pointed out some typographical errors in the text of my book. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 19:30.
            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “The Next State of Grace” I needed a clip of my line “I’ll freeze here on Earth with a heart that can’t burn”. I harvested one from the video of me singing the song on the street a couple of months ago. When I inserted it into the main video it was perfectly synchronized with the studio audio. Then I synchronized the old concert video with the studio audio for the line “So I’m biding my time here as god’s welfare case”. After that I had to harvest another clip from the street video for the line, “while I line up and wait for the next state of grace”. But when I pasted it into the main video it was slightly ahead of the studio audio so I had to take a bit more of the street video from a second beforehand and insert it to push the video back. Then the studio audio was slightly ahead so I had to start cutting bits off the street video. They were almost synchronized when I quit for the night. 
            I had a potato with margarine and a big slice of roast beef while watching the first two episodes of the eighth and final season of Bewitched. The two episodes are part of one story. 
            In part one Samantha and Darrin are on vacation in England and while touring the Tower of London Samantha is called to by a warlock named Herbert in a painting. He says he’s been trapped in the painting for 400 years and she is the first witch who has taken the tour. He was cursed by a witch named Malvina for asking another witch to marry him. She resented it because he was already married to Malvina. Samantha decides he’s been punished long enough and releases him. But then Malvina appears and tells her to return Herbert to the painting and so she does. That however is not enough for Malvina and she punishes Samantha for not minding her business by sending her back to the court of Henry VIII without her memory or her powers. As she arrives a cannon goes off to signal the death by beheading of Henry’s fifth wife Catherine Howard. Samantha hooks up with a troupe of minstrels entering the court. She is given a lute and sings for the king (Elizabeth Montgomery is actually chording the lute, so that’s impressive). Henry is smitten with Samantha and asks her name. She says, “I know not”. He says, “That’s a strange name. It sounds Irish”. He begins to pursue Samantha. Meanwhile Darrin calls Endora to tell her that her daughter has disappeared. She sends him back in time and he appears on the road just as a knight is passing. He asks him how far it is to the court of Henry VIII and the knight tells him it’s a long way since this is the court of Henry I. Darrin summons Endora again and this time she sends him back to the right time. His task is to get Samantha to kiss him even though she won’t recognize him. 
            In the second story Darrin sneaks into the palace and finds Samantha but his efforts to get her to kiss him get him thrown in the dungeon. He summons Endora, who only has the power to arrive and leave during time travel. However she uses the power of hypnosis to subdue the guard and releases Darrin. They go to Samantha who Endora approaches and tells that she’s a close friend of her mother. She encourages her to give Darrin a kiss but then Henry VIII has him seized again and this time says he’ll be beheaded. Endora suggests to Henry that he have a wrestling match with Darrin since he’s going to be executed anyway. Henry easily defeats Darrin and as Darrin is lying on the floor Samantha goes to him. He asks for a kiss and she gives it, which brings her memory back and then Endora transports them to the present in front of the portrait of Sir Herbert Wellingford in the Tower of London. Sir Herbert calls to Endora from the painting so she releases him and takes him away with her. 
            Malvina was played by Arlene Martel, who was extremely poor as a child in the Bronx but her mother’s boss paid for her to attend an upper class private school. At 12 she auditioned for the High School of the Performing Arts in New York and later graduated with the top drama award. She made her Broadway debut in her teens as Esther in Uncle Willie. She moved to Hollywood and began making guest appearances on popular TV series. She played Spock’s fiancé T’Pring in the Star Trek episode Amok Time. She had a recurring role as the French Underground agent Tiger on Hogan’s Heroes. She was nicknamed The Chameleon because of her ability with accents and dialects. She guest starred in “Demon With a Glass Hand”, which is considered to be the best episode of The Outer Limits TV series. She starred in the movie The Glass Cage. She co-starred in the films Angels from Hell and Dracula’s Dog.













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