Month: January 2024
In Memoriam: Otto the Movie Cat (2011–2024)
For nearly 13 years, our sweet cat Otto shared our lives. He was very much a people cat. One of the ways in which he expressed this was by coming running to the living room nearly every time we started watching a movie, and though he seldom would actively view it, he’d doze in the …
Read the full post →“In Memoriam: Otto the Movie Cat (2011–2024)”
Funny Friday: Perspective
Monogram Monday: Murder by Invitation (1941)
Old Cassie Denham has invited her relatives, who had unsuccessfully tried to have committed, to come to her house, ostensibly so she can decide who will be her heir. Murder soon ensues. After the first killing, Reporter Bob White (Wallace Ford) arrives after the first killing, and he, together with his girlfriend and his photographer, …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: <em>Murder by Invitation</em> (1941)”
Funny Friday: Our Dog’s Dream
Pulp Centenary: Weird Tales, January 1924
Last year, I kicked off an effort to increase my reading of old pulp magazines, with a particular focus on those issues celebrating their centenary (i.e., issues from 1923). I started the focused project with Volume 1, Issue 1 of Weird Tales, as that famed magazine began publication in early 1923, and all issues from …
Read the full post →“Pulp Centenary: <em>Weird Tales</em>, January 1924”
Monogram Monday: Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944)
After a hiatus, star Sidney Toler brought Charlie Chan to Monogram Pictures in this wartime mystery. A inventor working on an advanced torpedo design is killed for the plans of his invention, though the exact means of the crime are unclear initially. Charlie is called upon to sift through a houseful of suspects, including a …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: <em>Charlie Chan in the Secret Service</em> (1944)”