The Howdygram recommends two movies with confused characters and atrocious accents.

Shalom, howdy and good afternoon, people! It’s another damn chilly day in Howdygramland, about 36° as I write this post, but I’m warmed by the anticipation of another nap as soon as I can drag my ass back into the family room. I only had TWO SHITTY HOURS OF SLEEP last night and I’m attempting to make up for lost time. Try to keep the noise down, okay? I am very, very unpleasant when I’m exhausted.

Incidentally, I’m also unpleasant when I’m COLD. My body temperature is 95.4° today and I’M FREEZING FROM THE INSIDE OUT. My fingers are icicles and my joints hurt. Thank you for giving a crap about me. Send Cheetos.

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Today’s Amazon order: MORTON’S POPCORN SALT, three containers for $9.60. I know I probably overpaid for this but my other options were even less compelling: 1) buy a box of 12 from Wal-Mart for about 18 bucks; or 2) send Sam on an “aisle safari” for popcorn salt next time he’s at the grocery store. However, if you’re a regular Howdygram reader you already know that Sam is NOT a fan of grocery stores, which is why I always keep my shopping lists short and dull for routine everyday crap a person can’t order online, like margarine, and health food products such as braunschweiger. PLEASE STOP LAUGHING.

When I come back after my nap I’ve got two movie reviews to share and HUGE NEWS about Thanksgiving. Thank you.

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First ... the huge news about Thanksgiving! Last night online I ordered our senior citizen Thanksgiving feast from the local Boston Market here in Mesquite. We’ve been ordering Thanksgiving from them for the last seven years but THIS time we decided to skip their package deal because Boston Market has weird stuffing and we also don’t want their mashed potatoes, gravy or rubber goyishe dinner rolls.

So I ordered à la carte instead ... a nice big three-pound roasted turkey breast, a pan of creamed spinach for me, and cranberry relish and an apple pie for Sam. I’ll make my own batch of Stove Top at home with a few quarts of McCormick instant poultry gravy ... both of which taste better than Boston Market’s. Pickup is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Thanksgiving. The map below indicates: A) Howdygram headquarters; B) Boston Market on Town East Boulevard; and C) my podiatrist’s office, which actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of this paragraph.

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Time for a couple of quickie movie reviews, okay? This morning Sam and I finished watching The Whip Hand, a confused science fiction/suspense/thriller thing from 1951 starring Elliott Reid as an aggressive young reporter with a head injury and Raymond Burr as a grubby blonde Communist spy who needs a shave. The movie itself had a Twilight Zone vibe to it with a little bit of Bad Day at Black Rock thrown in, as all the townspeople were being mysterious and weird until Elliott Reid rolls in on a fishing trip and tries to figure out what’s really going on in this small Minnesota town where the people are rude, everybody’s scared and all the fish are dead. Although the plot is supposed to be about Communist spies hiding out to develop evil viruses to use on Americans, all the bad guys in the film are World War II Nazis with German names. Apparently halfway into filming the producer (Howard Hughes) decided to switch gears due to Commies and the Cold War being our new boogie men, except he forgot to change the names and accents of the characters in the movie.

The best scene? The head Nazi’s secret laboratory is filled with sick “test subjects” on crutches walking aimlessly back and forth, apparently all infected (but not dead?) with a variety of scary plagues. (Nobody explains the crutches.) A small army of G-men eventually saves the day and Elliott Reid marries the drippy kid sister of a Nazi/Commie doctor who swears she didn’t know what her brother was doing. (Yeah, we’ve all heard THAT one before, right?)

Next up ... The Delightful Rogue (1929), another seriously confused movie starring Rod La Rocque, a fresh transplant from silent films, as a South Seas pirate named “Lastro” who’s dressed like a gay Spanish bullfigher with a frightening pot-luck accent from another planet. This is actually EVEN WORSE than Humphrey Bogart’s French/Mexican hybrid in Virginia City (1940), and I didn’t think anybody could ever beat that one!

But poor Rod isn’t the only confused character here. All the villagers on the South Seas island are either a few Japanese women in kimonos or little fat Mexican dudes straight from Tijuana. Unfortunately, the director obviously forgot this wasn’t a silent movie where nobody gives a shit if the actors can’t do accents and you can pass people off as the wrong ethnicity. The Delightful Rogue is a huge failure at every level but a total riot to watch. Special bonus at no extra charge: A song called “Gay Love” that eventually became a huge hit for Bing Crosby.

Thank you so much for reading this! I think I need a bag of popcorn now.