On Tuesday morning I memorized the chorus
for “Bourrée de complexes” (Buried in Complexes) by Boris Vian. I’ve been
trying for a couple of days to memorize the fourth verse of “Variations sur
Marilou” by Serge Gainsbourg but when I nail it I forget bits of the previous
verses.
I
shot the sixth video of my daily song practice and it felt like it went a lot
more smoothly this time. I screwed up my song “Calendar Girl” but some of the
other songs seemed like they might have come through without noticeable
mistakes.
The
morning got away from me while looking at photos online and so the only home
improvement task I managed was to saw the pine board that I’d bought so it’s
the right length to serve as a shelf in the bedroom. I didn’t have time to
insert the brackets in the wall so as to mount the shelf.
For
lunch I had black beans with salsa and chips.
In
the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this
story Andy goes to an art gallery and while he stands looking confused at a
piece of modern art called “Venus Descending a Staircase” the model that had
posed for the painting approaches him. She introduces herself as Constance
Lamarre and Andy recognizes her as a well-known pin-up model. He falls for her
and tries to win her over by having his friend Calhoun bring her roses and
candy every day. After several days Andy gets dressed up to go and ask
Constance out but then he sees her stepping out withy the very successful
painter, Salvador Jackson. Andy gets a poet to write some poems to him and to
say they are from Constance. He is on his way to show the poems to Jackson when
Calhoun tells Kingfish that Constance is married to Jackson and that he’s a
former football player with a jealous streak. Kingfish rushes into Jackson’s
studio wearing a white coat just as Andy is about to show him the poems. He
explains that Andy is an escaped mental patient up to his old tricks. He
escorts Andy away. Andy gives up on Constance but it turns out that Jackson is
her brother and Calhoun just said she was married so he could be with her
himself.
Constance and many
other of Andy’s girlfriends was played by Jean Vander Pyl, who is best known as
the voice of Wilma Flintstone.
I didn’t take a
bike ride because it had been raining.
I watched the
video that I’d shot in the morning and it was probably the best I’d shot so far
in that I made a lot fewer mistakes than usual and also because I was in a good
position in the frame. My living room looks pretty good as a background from
that angle as well. Sometimes I wonder if my efforts to smile make me look
friendlier or just more insane.
I
had a potato, some peas and a chicken leg with gravy while watching “Fraction
of a Second” starring Bette Davis. This was the twenty-eighth episode of the
Alfred Hitchcock produced TV series "Suspicion". This one had only
downloaded 12% and so I definitely had to find a video of it online.
Fortunately there were lots.
Bette
Davis plays Mrs Ellis and Davis would have been fifty years old at this time.
Mrs Ellis is a widow but she has a daughter named Susan who attends a private
school for girls. This story begins on a Monday morning after Susan has spent a
happy weekend at home and she is getting ready to leave to spend the week at
school. Also part of the family is Mrs Ellis’s maid Grace and everyone is
happy. Mrs Ellis takes Susan to catch her bus and then decides to take a walk
in the park, but when she reaches a street corner some heavy materials being
lifted by a crane swing out of control and it seems they hit Mrs Ellis.
Next
we see Mrs Ellis returning home but her house suddenly appears run down and her
key does not fit the door. She knocks and calls for Grace to let her in, but a
man in an undershirt appears at the window, asking in an annoyed voice what she
wants. She assumes this man is a workman that Grace has brought in to do some
repairs and she tells him to let her in. He opens the door and she walks in. he
still wants to know what she wants but is somewhat annoyed but indifferent when
she dismisses him and goes back to his room. She sees a man typing in her
living room. When he notices her he tells her that his wife is upstairs in the
studio. She ascends the stairs and from out of Susan’s room a large, gaudily
dressed middle aged woman emerges, smoking a cigarette and holding a cat. She
tells her loudly but friendly where the studio is and advises her to get the
special treatment. Mrs Ellis enters her own bedroom to find that it is a
photography studio and there is a young woman of about thirty sitting there who
resents this stranger barging in. Mrs Ellis goes to the phone and calls the
police. The photographer does not like Mrs Ellis using her phone without
permission and she seems uncomfortable with the police coming as if there is
something she doesn’t want them to know about. Everyone gathers downstairs and
Mrs Ellis says she doesn't know how they all got in or how they transformed her
house in a matter of five minutes but she is sure that the police will clear it
up. The cops arrive with a neighbourhood directory. They confirm that everyone
in the house is supposed to be there except for Mrs Ellis. They take her to the
police station and take down the names and addresses she gives them of people
that can corroborate her story but then they send her to a doctor to get some
“rest". The doctor is not
particularly calming, especially when he is fairly forceful in insisting that
all of those changes to her house could not have taken place in five minutes.
She becomes excited and is given an injection. Later she is brought back to the
police where they say that the address of her friend had been torn down twenty
years ago. They do however have the address of a Susan Ellis and so she is
taken there. She is expecting to meet a ten year old girl but instead meets a
single mother of about thirty with a young daughter. Neither Mrs Ellis or Susan
think that they could be related. Susan says that she did go to the school that
Mrs Ellis’s daughter attended and the headmistress helped her find a home when
her mother died in an accident twenty years ago. She says she remembers her
mother as being kind and sweet and tells Mrs Ellis that she reminds her or her.
Mrs Ellis meets Susan’s daughter, who she says is shy but takes to Mrs Ellis
right away. Susan leaves the room and the policewoman says it’s time to go. Mrs
Ellis picks up a scissors and says she is not leaving. The woman goes to the
car to get a male colleague to help her. Mrs Ellis hides in the closet and
Susan’s daughter diverts the police. They think she’s left out the back and go
looking. Mrs Ellis hugs the little girl goodbye and walks away towards her
home. At a street corner we either see a flashback to the accident or a déjà
vu, but the same materials on the crane come swinging and Mrs Ellis is lying on
the street in the final frame.
The
screenplay was based on the short story “A Split Second" by Daphne Du
Maurier. Alfred Hitchcock made at least three movies based on her novels,
including “The Birds".
Bette
Davis looked older than fifty in this teleplay, but she had a very elegant
walk.
If Jackie De Shannon
wrote about the woman with Bette Davis’s eyes in 1974 and Bette Davis died in
1989, that means she was blind for at least fifteen years. Did they ever find
the person who stole Bette’s peepers?
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