Hi. It’s me again but I wish I was still in bed. I woke up about 40 minutes ago for my routine middle-of-the-night senior citizen bathroom adventure and decided to hang out in the study for a while for the following shitty reasons: 1) I’ve got a clogged nose, watery eyes and a raspy cough; 2) my back is itchy; and 3) I can’t think of anything else.
Before I forget (again) here’s that movie review I’ve been promising:
Downstairs (1932) starring Paul Lukas, Virginia Bruce and John Gilbert. I hope someday you’ll have a chance to see this amazing pre-Code drama with raw scenes and dialog you don’t even see in films TODAY.
Gilbert is fantastic in the role of Karl, the conniving and evil chauffeur with zero redeeming qualities, who spies on and seduces every woman in the house — the Baroness, her lady friends, the maid, the cook — looking for ways to get them into the sack, frighten them, bully them, blackmail them and steal their money. The head butler Albert (played by Paul Lukas) is recently married to Anna (Virginia Bruce), the Baroness’ young and naive personal maid, and Karl pursues Anna, too, every time her husband’s back is turned. In one of the best performances of the entire film, after Anna is seduced by Karl — she apparently enjoyed it! — she has a jaw-dropping scene with Albert where she defends herself by blasting him for being a shitty lover and boring in bed. (Wow.)
Others in the cast include Reginald Owen as the Baron, Olga Baclanova as the Baroness (and one of Karl’s blackmail victims), and Bodil Rosing as the overweight, middle-aged cook, Sophie, who has a crush on Karl and winds up humiliated, robbed, abused and rejected. Holy crap,
right?
This is definitely NOT A COMEDY and the ending is shocking pre-Code perfection. Karl is finally “found out” by Albert, gets beaten to a pulp and fired, after which Karl simply moves on to another household and another fresh crop of victims.
You should check out the pre-Code “Forbidden Hollywood” DVD collections on
Amazon as soon as possible. Thank you.
Yep, I’ve got another one for you:
THE SENIOR CITIZEN HACKNEYBURGER. This time I tried to satisfy a craving for one of my hometown’s most iconic sandwiches, which is basically a gigantic slab of meat on dark rye with melty cheddar cheese and a brick of Hackney’s world-famous onion rings on the side. Here’s the original:
For my easy senior citizen knockoff the ingredients include low-carb dark rye, a teeny jar of Kraft Old English cheddar cheese spread, one frozen Ball Park hamburger patty and a wad of French’s French-fried onion rings that come in a plastic tub. Full-color pictures appear below in case you need visual aids.
So here’s what you do. Nuke the burger on a plate according to the directions on the bag and then make a nice hamburger sandwich with some Old English cheese shmeared on each slice of bread. Don’t forget the ketchup and mustard. (I love ketchup and mustard.) Add a respectable mountain of onion rings on the side and
voilá ... YOU’VE GOT A SENIOR CITIZEN HACKNEYBURGER! From start to finish the entire meal takes about three minutes to throw together and involves no physical activity whatsoever, making it ideal for creaky old ladies with canes, such as yours truly.
And finally, here’s a beyond-adorable video of a baby elephant at the Zurich Zoo falling down on his tiny baby elephant butt and getting rescued by all the big elephants that love him. This is 100% guaranteed to turn your eyes into gigantic red hearts.
Thank you and have a really pleasant Friday. What’s for lunch today?
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