Dan O'Hirlihy

            On Friday morning swelling had definitely gone down in my right cheek. During yoga I was able to put the right side of my face on the floor for the first time since the bone graft. There’s still a bruise on my cheek but supposedly that will go away. 

            I started looking for vintage images related to the idea of broken millionaires. I found a few images but I’ve got to change the wording of my search. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune almost half the time. 

            I painted the tops of my upper bathroom shelves with Blue Bliss. 

            I smudged the northern wall in a few places. I’ll touch that up on Tuesday and after that I might be finished with the ladder for the bathroom as I start painting the rest of the shelves. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Shaw and Bloor where the bike lane further east is still blocked with snow. I don’t think they are going to bother clearing that section. I went down Shaw to Harbord, west to Ossington, south to Queen and then west to home. 

            I weighed 90.3 kilos at 17:40, which is the most I’ve weighed in the evening since February 2. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:55. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of tape 1 of my fourth and last Slamnation poetry slam, hosted by Cad Lowlife. The tape ends about halfway through the readings by the finalists. 

            I deleted about 65 images from my Photos folder. 

            I boiled a potato and added it to the ground beef soup that I’d made with the pho broth a few days ago. Earlier at lunch I added a can of butter chicken soup and it was quite good. I ate supper while watching season 1, episode 19 of Combat. 

            Doc is caring for a very badly wounded Lieutenant Hanley, plus Braddock and Corporal Cording. Jackson is driving them to a hospital according to the directions he’s been given but they arrive at a French chateau. The owner Count de Gontran resents their presence because he wants to keep the war far from his home. He lets them take the wounded in his ballroom but tells them they only have two hours. 

            Jackson tries to speed away to get help but is killed by German soldiers led by Major Richter who then arrives at the chateau and impresses Gontran with his gentlemanly manner and cultured ways. He encourages his daughter Gabrielle to be nice to Richter. When the US soldiers are discovered Richter allows doc to continue to treat his wounded but reminds them they are now prisoners of war. Doc can leave the room for medical purposes but if the others leave they will be shot.

            Braddock and Corporal Cording plot for one of them to escape to get help. They do rock paper scissors and Cording loses. He strangles their guard and tries to make it out but gets caught in the foyer and Richter shoots him. 

            Meanwhile Gontran sees Richter’s soldiers removing the priceless paintings from the walls of his chateau and complains. Richter claims he is only protecting them because the chateau is now a military target. Gabrielle begs Richter to at least leave the most precious painting. Richter finds Gabrielle charming and desirable and when he makes a list of the paintings for Gontran to sign he leaves out the one that Gabrielle mentioned. 

            But Gabrielle finds her father beside the unsigned list and he has committed suicide. Gabrielle comes to Richter’s room and behaves seductively but she has a knife in the pocket of her dress and stabs him when he comes to kiss her. She takes Richter’s gun and puts it beside her father’s body, then she tells Richter’s secretary that Richter does not want to be disturbed but has asked him to allow the US medic to look at her father, who is not feeling well. When Doc comes she secretly passes him the gun to transfer to his med kit. Doc, Hanley and Braddock are taken to a cage vehicle to be transferred to a prison camp. 

            On the road Braddock shoots the driver and the lock and they escape. They notify Allied command of the occupied chateau and bombers are sent. Gabrielle sits there smiling while her home comes down on top of her. It’s a fucked up ending. Neither side has respect for history. 

            Richter was played magnificently by Irish actor Dan O’Hirlihy. He studied architecture and published political cartoons. Although he earned the architectural degree his interest shifted towards acting and he found work on the stage as both actor and set designer and on the radio as a voice actor. His first lead was in Red Roses for Me in 1944. His film debut was in Odd Man Out in 1947. He co-starred in Orson Welles’ Macbeth in 1948. He starred in the Luis Buñuel production of Robinson Crusoe in 1954 and was nominated for an Oscar for his performance. He co-starred in Kidnapped, Invasion USA, Sword of Venus, That Woman Opposite, Home Before Dark, A Terrible Beauty, The Young Land, Imitation of Life, One Foot in Hell, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Big Cube, The Carey Treatment, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Robocop, Robocop 2, The Dead, He co-starred in the TV series The Travels of Jamie McPheeters and The Long Hot Summer.