The Howdygram 2: The inside of our garage is an office chair graveyard.

Greetings and salutations from north Texas, where it’s dark, dreary, 42° and shrouded in fog. This is the kind of aggravating weather that makes housebound senior citizens such as yours truly want to beat their indoor plants to death with a cane. Or maybe I need to take an extra handful of anti-depressants.

Today I’m in agony, although it’s not joint pain from the damp weather that’s doing this to me. The issue today is burning skin pain on the back of both thighs, caused by sitting on an uncomfortable small bench swiped from the front foyer while I wait for a new desk chair to arrive from Amazon.

Before I begin my review I feel compelled to make the following opening statement: STEEL AGAINST THE SKY (1941) has been added to the Howdygram’s list of The Worst Movies Ever Made. Another Warner Brothers’ attempt at gritty blue-collar drama — this time, bridge-builders — we have a pair of brothers duking it out for the affections of the boss’ daughter. This could have been a decent drama if it hadn’t been murdered by atrocious casting and slapstick comedy reminiscent of the Three Stooges. Seriously.

So this is the story of the Evans brothers ... Lloyd Nolan as Rocky, Edward Brophy as Pete and Craig Stevens as Chuck. Rocky and Pete have good jobs working on the bridge. Rocky is the “big success” of the family … he’s supervisor of the construction site. Pete works there, too. Chuck is the lazy and shiftless “baby” of the family. In the first half of the movie we learn that Chuck has never held a real job and instead focuses his effort into futile get-rich-quick” schemes … usually funded by his father. All three “boys” live with dad (played by Edward Ellis), a retired bridge-builder who shleps around the house all day in a ridiculous fluffy apron while he vacuums, folds laundry and makes beef stew.

The casting errors here are painful: 1) the Evans “boys” are clearly old (especially Pete) and it looks like there’s a 15-year age difference between each of them; 2) there’s a ridiculous disparity in their heights, too, with Pete, the shortest, barely reaching 5'2" and Chuck towering over everybody at 6'3"; and 3) the boys all speak with different accents. Dad has an Irish brogue. Adding to this horseshit is an idiotic “professor” played by Walter Catlett, who lives in their basement trying to invent a secret formula. He’s constantly blowing up the house and emerges at least once a day with shredded clothes and smoking hair.

Midway through the movie Rocky finally brings his girlfriend Helen (played by Alexis Smith) home for dinner. Her father is the big-shot general manager of the bridge construction project. When Rocky gets called back to the bridge unexpectedly Chuck offers to drive Helen home and turns into a gropey octopus. She tells him to get lost because she’s already dating his brother, calls him a parasite and tells him to get a job. So Chuck gets a construction job on the bridge, too. Now he can compete for Helen!

There are a couple of decent suspense scenes. First, a “rotten apple” employee at the construction site who got fired for drinking on the job sneaks back in after hours to sabotage the bridge and kill Rocky. Oy. And second, during a wild late-night ice storm a rigging on the bridge breaks loose (more sabotage!), and Rocky and Pete have to climb to the top to do the repair. [SPOILER ALERT] Pete slips on an ice-covered beam and falls 300 feet into the river, survives with no injuries (WTF?), and appears in the next scene with different hair on his head than before the fall. (They must have switched toupées.)

Then … Chuck wins Helen’s heart, Rocky gets hysterical, Chuck and Rocky beat the crap out of each other, and all of a sudden Rocky is cool being best man at Chuck and Helen’s wedding. As the ceremony ends (it’s held in Helen’s living room) we hear an explosion ... and the professor emerges from Helen’s basement in a cloud of smoke.

We have awarded Steel Against the Sky with one star ★ because this is definitely not Lawrence of Arabia.

Here are my latest FREE FONTS for your possible interest and amusement. This is a pleasant assortment of unique and entertaining fonts, including fancy scripts, some hand-lettering and a few solid display fonts. I think my favorites today are “Bouncy” and “Wolby Family.” Download links will appear after the graphic.

Wastelands • Weathered Sweater • Bordeaux • Bouncy • Andrea

Kingfisher • Backtalk • Wolby Family

Guess what … MY NEW CHAIR IS HERE and it’s TERRIFIC! This time, though, I didn’t pick an adjustable office chair on wheels because chairs built for large women are ridiculously expensive, and even after you shell out extra money they still fall apart in six months. (The inside of our garage is an office chair graveyard.) So this is what I ordered from Amazon instead ...

Rather than wasting another $350 it cost only $65 and there are no breakable moving parts. Plus it’s very comfortable, the seat is nice and wide and the chair has a weight capacity of 1,000 pounds.

I think it’s time for my early afternoon nap. Therefore, thank you very much for reading this and please try your best to remember the Alamo.