Perlita Neilson

On Friday morning I ran through “Ah! Si j'avais un franc cinquante” (Oh If I Had A Dollar Fifty) by Boris Vian once in French and English and then started posting it on Christian’s Translations. I finished posting my translation of “La petite rose" by Serge Gainsbourg and memorized the first verse of his  “Joujou a la casse" (Dolly to the Trash).

The morning got away from me and so by the time I’d washed myself and shaved the dishes it was almost time for lunch.

I had a bag of those chickpea snacks that I got from the food bank and they were horrible.

In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to another recycled Amos and Andy episode. Kingfish and his mother in law have a competition to see who can get a job the fastest. They both take the aptitude test to work for a new department store. Kingfish switches his test with Ramona’s but outsmarts himself because he’d actually gotten the best score. Ramona ends up as Kingfish’s boss in the delivery department and she is a mean taskmaster. Kingfish convinces the boss that Ramona has left twelve children destitute and spent her money at the racetrack and so she is fired. There is a new test to see who will replace Ramona. Kingfish sees “Stevens” at the top and thinks he’s gotten the job but it turns out to be his wife Sapphire.

I took a bike ride along Bloor to Yonge, south to Queen and then west. An SUV gave me a scare when it suddenly squeezed very close to me to get by.

I listened to the recordings that I made of my song “Calendar Girl” this summer and decided on preparing the one from July 1 for uploading to YouTube. It’s the best of my performances despite or because of the fact that I bit my tongue while I was singing. I uploaded the camera video and the Voice Recorder file to Movie Maker and started a new project.

            I made a new batch of gravy and had some with a potato, sautéed onion and orange pepper and two drumsticks while watching two episodes of “The Adventures of William Tell”.

            The first story begins with Gessler buying a chest of flawless gems as a birthday present for the emperor. He threatens the jeweller with being charged of treason if he doesn’t sell the jewels at half price. The jeweller is forced to agree but even then Gessler says that he will owe him the money. But while the jewels are being transported to Austria Gessler robbed by the resistance leader Rinaldo. Rinaldo comes up behind Gessler while he is eating a roasted bird, puts a knife to his throat, grabs the fowl, takes a big bite out of it and then takes the jewels. Tell sends Fritz to get the jewels from Rinaldo so they can trade them for weapons for the resistance but Fritz is a week late returning. His wife is worried and so Tell goes looking for him. In a tavern near the Italian border Tell sees a barmaid wearing Fritz's amulet. She says she found it in the mountains and takes him to the spot. Nearby Tell finds Fritz's body. Tell sends her back and goes on into the mountains where he trips over a rope and is captured by Rinaldo’s men. He tells Rinaldo that his name is William Schwartz and that he has come to join him. After an archery test that Tell shows skill in but deliberately holds back from winning, he is accepted into the band. That night he sneaks into Rinaldo’s treasure cave where he finds the knife that he had leant to Fritz. Tell is caught in the cave and reveals whom he really is. Rinaldo assures him that Fritz left his camp with the jewels but Tell says that one of them followed Fritz afterwards and killed him. Rinaldo says Tell has insulted his men and challenges him to the fight of the single knife. A knife is thrown into the ground and Tell and Rinaldo stand back to back on either side of it, take three paces and when the referee shout “now" they turn and go for the knife. Rinaldo is quicker and gets the knife. After a while of fighting Tell grabs a cloak and uses it to blind Rinaldo and to get the knife. Tell does not kill Rinaldo and gives him back his knife. Rinaldo says he will find out which of his men murdered Fritz and kill. They search the camp for the jewels and finally find them. Tell leaves with the jewels but notes that he’s being followed. That night he is attacked by a cloaked figure at his campsite. After Tell beats him he pulls back the cloak to find it’s Rinaldo. Tell takes Rinaldo back to the band and they prepare to hang him. Rinaldo runs, gets a knife in the back and falls off the mountain.

            Eva the barmaid was played by Simone Lovell, the daughter of Canadian actor Raymond Lovell. She was married to prolific British actor Peter Halliday. She guest appeared on several British TV series of the 50s and 60s.

            In the second story Gessler’s daughter Anna is being brought to Switzerland for a rare visit with her father but on the way her caravan of soldiers is attacked by Swiss rebels. At first Jakob Muller the leader tells Anna to stay in her litter and no harm will come to her but when she announces that her father is Landburgher Gessler it changes everything. Because his own daughter was beaten to death on the streets of Altdorf by drunken Austrian soldiers, Jakob considers Anna a means of exacting justice. He forces Anna to come home with him and when his wife learns who Anna is she also believes that fate has smiled on them. They force Anna to wear peasant’s clothing and make her their slave on the farm to perform the hardest of chores. Jakob puts out word that he will exchange Anna for a ransom of 10,000 duckets. A soldier is brought blindfolded to pay the money but when the soldier tells Jakob that when Anna describes him to them they will track him down, Jakob decides to keep her and the money and so the soldier is sent away. Gessler decides that there is only one person that can help him and so he arranges for a one on one unarmed meeting with William Tell. Tell at first doesn't believe that Swiss patriots would kidnap his daughter since they don't make war on women, but he agrees to Help him. Tell visits various homes in the territory and when he meets Jakob and introduces himself, Jacob is unimpressed. He accuses Tell of taking all the credit for the blows the partisans strike. Jakob says the only women on his property are his wife and a servant but he is welcome to look around. When Tell sees Anna struggling with what would be ordinary work for a peasant he offers to help her. He takes Anna’s hand and realizes they are too smooth for a servant and tells her he will return her to her father. But Jakob attacks Tell with his pitchfork. They struggle and when Jakob is down his wife tries to hit Tell with a shovel, but Anna screams and Tell moves just in time. Jakob and his wife let Tell take Anna and she reunites with her father. Tell takes Anna and Gessler to a neutral hut to wait for Gessler’s soldiers but the soldiers capture Tell. At first Gessler orders them to release him but then he thinks that since Tell is a rebel and not a soldier he doesn’t have to honour agreements with him. Anna is angry and says she is going back to Austria. Tell is tied to a tree for the night but later while the soldiers are sleeping Anna sneaks out and cuts Tell free. The next day Gessler lies that he let Tell go and so Anna decides to stay. Gessler advises his soldiers to always turn defeat into victory.

            Anna was played by Perlita Neilson, who started out in theatre, most notably in 1957 as Anne Frank. She later guest starred in various television series and television movies. She starred in the 1957 telefilm “The Boy David".

            Frau Muller was played by Catherine Finn, who starred in the 1967 film “The Deadly Bees" which became a cult classic.

            Anna’s nurse was played by Patsy Smart, who played a lot of motherly servants in various films and TV shows. She played Miss Roberts in the TV series “Upstairs, Downstairs”.