Sybil Bruncheon's "Hollywood's Hysterical History"...

THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932)... starring an intimate cast (by 1930s Hollywood standards!) of Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Gloria Stuart, Charles Laughton, Raymond Massey, and the always fascinating Ernest ("Gods and Monsters!") Thesiger!...and directed by James Whale… (as flamboyant as ever!)

The title just about says it all, doesn't it? A weird and weirdly funny movie from the pre-code era, that sets a black & white horror mood rather brilliantly. Merrily macabre in so many ways, I often wonder how many takes some scenes took just because the cast broke out laughing especially with the extraordinary James Whale larking about behind the camera with Thesiger flouncing around in front of it! A Must-See, if you haven’t already!! Enjoy!!...

 …oh!... and did I ever tell you about the sequel? YES!! James asked me to star in it along with the reassembled Dark House cast! It was to be called QUEERISH CASTLE (1933 or so). James was getting more and more defiant of Hollywood’s closeted attitude about LGBTQ issues, so he decided to rub the big studios’ noses in it! No longer satisfied with only calling the lead character “Horace Femm”, the residents of Queerish Castle were to be Humpmey Bogart, Beulah Bondage, Finger Rogers, Poosile Ball, Orson Smells, Spencer Lacey, Lesbie Ann Warren, Julie Man-Drews, Clit Walker, Vulvian Vance, and Peener Youstinoff. The castle, though terrifying and full of dead bodies, trap doors, and secret passages, was also to be a fabulous dance hall/speak-easy with Vaudeville acts, including drag performance-knife throwers, transvestite-trapeze artists, contortionist-fortune tellers of indeterminate gender, and dog-and-cat ventriloquism! I was going to play “The Insatiable & Inscrewtable Vaj-eena”, a gypsy fortune teller who uses tea leaves and oblong vegetables to determine the unsuspecting guests’ futures… Misfortune and Merriment ensues!... or so we hoped. The Hays Committee shut us down for “Gross Indecency!... and oblong vegetables!” JEEEESH!!!!

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "I'm A Fan of Fabulous Films"...

I love thrillers!... suspense films that make you completely forget you're sitting in a movie theatre with hundreds of strangers or tucked into a blanket shivering away on your sofa in the dark! And there are so many different variations on the thriller genre; science fiction, horror, serial killers, slasher films, who-dunnits... oh, the list goes on and on! Here are a few of my favorites, and I would have added another ten or twenty, but a photo collage is only so big!…

If you’re having trouble with the titles of these great suspense films, the answers are directly below!

[Top row: PSYCHO (1960), THE USUAL SUSPECTS (1995), REAR WINDOW (1954). Middle row: CHINATOWN (1974), L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997), SEVEN (1995), THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962). Bottom row: KLUTE (1971), JAWS (1975), THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991), THE SIXTH SENSE (1999)]

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "Who'z Dat?"... Happy Birthday to Jerry Goldsmith! (February 10, 1929 – July 21, 2004)

Jerry Goldsmith (born Jerrald King Goldsmith) was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring. He composed scores for such films as STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979) and four other films within the Star Trek franchise, THE SAND PEBBLES (1966), PLANET OF THE APES (1968), PATTON (1970), LOGAN'S RUN (1976), PAPILLON (1973), CHINATOWN (1974), THE WIND AND THE LION (1975), THE OMEN (1976), THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL (1978), CAPRICORN ONE (1978), ALIEN (1979), OUTLAND (1981), POLTERGEIST (1982), THE SECRET OF NIMH (1982), GREMLINS (1984), HOOSIERS (1986), TOTAL RECALL (1990), BASIC INSTINCT (1992), AIR FORCE ONE (1997), L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997), MULAN (1998), THE MUMMY (1999), and THREE RAMBO FILMS.

In May 1997, with the release of Steven Spielberg’s THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK, he gained more popularity with his fanfare of the 1997 Universal Studios opening logo, which would be among the most iconic studio logo music of all time. He worked on both dramas and for many lighter, comedic films such as the family comedy THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS (1966), and the James Bond parodies OUR MAN FLINT (1966) and its sequel IN LIKE FLINT (1967).
During his career, he composed both classical music for orchestra concerts and themes and background music for television shows. He collaborated with some of film history's most accomplished directors, including Robert Wise, Howard Hawks, Otto Preminger, Joe Dante, Richard Donner, Roman Polanski, Ridley Scott, Michael Winner, Steven Spielberg, Paul Verhoeven, and Franklin J. Schaffner. His work for Donner and Scott also involved a rejected score for TIMELINE (2003) and a controversially edited score for ALIEN, where music by Howard Hanson replaced Goldsmith's end titles and Goldsmith's own work on FREUD: THE SECRET PASSION was used without his approval in several scenes.

Goldsmith was nominated for six Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, and eighteen Academy Awards (he won only one, in 1976, for THE OMEN). He composed the Paramount Pictures Fanfare used from 1976 through 2011. Over the course of his career, Goldsmith received a total of 18 Academy Award nominations, making him one of the most nominated composers in Academy Awards history. Despite this, Goldsmith won only one Oscar, for his score to the 1976 film THE OMEN. This makes Goldsmith the most nominated composer to have won an Oscar only on one occasion.

Goldsmith died at his Beverly Hills home on July 21, 2004, from colon cancer at the age of 75. He was survived by his wife Carol and his children Aaron, Carrie, Ellen Edson, and Jennifer Grossman, and Joel (who also died of colon cancer on April 29, 2012).

This closing credits composition from THE MUMMY expresses just one beautiful example of his work; Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8d_gMWVujY

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

The George Sweet Doorway Mysteries - "THE WRONG DOOR BELL"....

... Elspeth Gramondely was cross. Yes, the snow had stopped falling, but she could smell that more was coming, perhaps within the hour, and a heavy one at that! Her grandmother always told all the family that Elspeth had the "gift"... like all the seafaring men in their extensive ancestry. "Elspeth has the nose", her grandmother would cackle when people quarreled about the predictions of rain, or cold, or fog... anything! Elspeth always seemed to know. Like her ancestors; the whalers and battleship captains. The family had an illustrious past on the open sea, although they had fallen on harder times by the 1920s. But here was Elspeth going door to door, collecting small donations for the Seafarers' Home in Carrington-on-Harrow, and pinning the sweet little blue paper cornflower on the donor's shirt or jacket with a curtsy and a "thank-you", delivered cheerfully, but a tad hurried.

Row after row of houses, up one street, and down the next, and always glancing resentfully at the sky between stops and curtsies, and "thank-yous"...She looked at the list of names and addresses which she had been checking off...carefully noting which ones didn't answer their doors and would have to be followed up on. And she would be expected to do that too... but then she had always been reliable. The oldest child of five...and a daughter too. Even at 6, she had been mature for her age, and oddly somber. Elspeth took everything seriously, especially her chores and responsibilities...and her promises. She helped her mother and grandmother, her aunts, and the nice ladies in the neighborhood with everything. Watching children, doing errands, helping when someone was ill and needed an extra pair of hands for cleaning, laundry, meal time....

Elspeth was thinking of all those years of helping and doing and being responsible when she suddenly stumbled on the walk and fell flat on her donation box and parcels. Her palms had scraped along the frigid cobbles, and the stones had torn the tender flesh sending flashes of bright pain up her arms and blinding her! Had she screamed? Her usual reserve made her bite her lip in shame, hoping that no one had heard or seen her fall...or cry. Her composure and bravery were all-important to her, even at 12 years of age... and she quickly gathered all the coins and the few pound notes that were scattered in the snow and threatening to blow away as an icy breeze began to stir. Thank goodness she hadn't broken the inlaid wooden box with its hinged lid and the handsome brass anchor nailed to its center. Captain Harkovy had entrusted her with it from his own collection... "For Good Luck", he'd winked at her! She brushed herself off carefully, making sure that she didn't get any of the slowly oozing blood onto her woolen coat or school pinafore. She glanced around quickly to make sure no one saw her lick the small cuts here and there on her tender hands, wincing at the sting ...and her clumsiness, and began walking again to the next house.... but... which house? She reached for her paper sheafs to check the addresses...but...oh... where were her papers?... Where! Wait..they must be right here..or behind her?... on the pavement… no… not there.. had they blown somewhere.. no, the breeze hadn't picked up THAT much.. "now wait!", she told herself! I must stay calm.. there's a perfect explanation.. I... I.... must have put them down! Yes..that's it. I put them down at one of the houses to put the money in the box and arrange the coins in the right pockets and the bills... maybe on a front stoop..or a landing near a front door... yes! That's where the list is. I just have to retrace my steps.... I don't want to bother anyone especially near dinner time...and it IS getting dark, but people will understand..even if I have to ring a bell...or two... or... but .....

And then Elspeth realized she didn't recognize the stoops or the doorways or even the bell knobs that she saw as she walked back down the street... or was it the other way that she had come?. It was all a blur... and she began to ...panic, because that's what happens to very, very organized people who, on those very, very rare occasions lose something..or lose their way... or lose all the composure that they have spent their lives ...composing. Elspeth looked down at her shoes, now wet and chilly from all the snow, and took a breath. I can fix this. The sweet, quiet, little voice that she trusted on those rare occasions when she worried about being good enough came to her. I can fix this. I always do. And she looked at the closest doorway and the snow beginning to dust its stoop. Three steps up past the pair of dark pink granite columns and the iron railings...I don't remember those!... and the door! So dark, the wood almost black and shiny..like ebony...with a sneering face, maybe of a goat or Pan... or both? And the doorbell knob!.. I've never seen that before. It's a hand, a brass hand! Little and polished... and held out towards the visitor... as if greeting you and offered in a handshake. But icy cold...and hard. So cold...and hard...and shiny bright. But Elspeth thought only of the snow beginning to fall...and then swirl, and the streetlights just coming on... and her list... and her responsibilities... and she took the hand, the shiny cold hand and...she held it in hers in an icy handshake…. And she pulled it to her…..she shivered.. She shivered as the tinkling bell announced her to.... anyone....

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]