A Warner Brothers Saturday Morning

Scrolling through selections on TCM yesterday, I picked Crime School (1938.) Humphrey Bogart who sets out to improve conditions at a reform school where the Dead End Kids were sentenced to two years.

Crime School was the second film with the Dead End Kids after the iconic Dead End. It's also a somewhat milder remake of 1933's  The Mayor of Hell starring James Cagney. The following year brought yet another remake called Hell's Kitchen with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Lindsay as the reformers. One subplot in Crime School--a bad guy manipulates an inmate to discredit a reformer--is used another Bogart film, San Quentin.

I don't know if other studios remade as many films or recycled as many plots as Warner Brothers did. I remember turning on TCM once and hearing dialog I recognized from the Bette Davis film Dangerous. But it was Singapore Woman that was on TV: a remake of Dangerous set in a new locale using recycled sets from another Davis film The Letter. In They Drive by Night, Ida Lupino killed her husband using the same technique Bette Davis used in Bordertown. Both characters also went insane on the witness stand in the hero's murder trials. 

The Dead End Kids made 89 films under several names:

Dead End Kids 1934-1939

Little Tough Guys (later known as Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys 1938-1943 

East Side Kids 1940-1945

Bowery Boys 1946 - 1958  

I grew up watching the Bowery Boys--there are 48 films in that series.

When Crime School was released, the characters were still fresh and their environments gritty. As the various series continued, the plot lines became more and more comic.

The next film I watched was Marked Woman from 1937 starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. I've always loved this film a fictionalized version of Thomas Dewey's legal pursuit of Lucky Luciano. I can't say much more about the film than I said here. Well, there's one more thing. This could  be a good candidate for a modern remake without the Hays Code restrictions. Come on, the women are prostitutes, not clip joint hostesses. Martin Scorsese, where are you?

First Quarter Review

It looks like I never officially made a list of 2025 goals. I'll review this quarter based on 2024 goals. 

Dryuary Plus: I didn't drink from January 2 until Valentine's Day. It was only difficult on one stressful day.

150 Gym Visits: Through March 31, I've gone to the gym 34 times, just a bit off the pace to hit 150. I only made it to 150 once, but it's doable at a pace of three visits per week. It was April 2024 that my gym visits virtually stopped for several months. I can't let that happen again. 

Reading: Last year my goal was 40 books, but I only read 27. By the end of March last year, I read four books. This year, I read five. I also read a simplified version of Little Women, which I'm not officially counting. The five are: Five Points. Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII and his Court, Road of Bones, and Angel of Darkness. All of my books so far are good. 

Blogposts: My 2024 goal was to write 150 to 200: I wrote 132 and 35 through March 31. I wrote 38 by March 31 this year. on pace to write 152.

Writing: Once again, I didn't do specific writing goals, but I had been working with the plan of writing 500 words a day. I did it several days, but kind of lost my way. I averaged 334.6 words per day on the days I wrote (January 2 through February 8.) I started revising in late March. Have to get back into the daily habit. There's lots of time left in the year.  

A Discouraging Word

I've been in a weird pattern the last few weeks. Every good day, whether I was productive, wrote about Merwinsville, or the weather was nice, was followed by two days of being unproductive, not writing, or cold/raw/foggy/rainy weather. Even last Saturday's beautiful weather took a sudden change for the worse--it plunged by about 10 degrees in a few minutes and just kept getting colder. The Mets season start has been underwhelming. Overall, it's been disheartening, depressing, and frustrating. 

So, I've been trying to focus on the positive. I've seen many more beautiful daffodils since I saw my first spring blossom. That always makes me happy. The forsythia are turning yellow. The Mets had a promising home opener, winning 5-0, reaching a winning record of 4-3 for the season.

I still have more to-dos than I know what to do with. I knocked off a few items this week. It gives me a little boost to cross off to-dos. I just have to keep plugging away. 

Book Five: The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

I enjoyed reading The Alienist, and this follow-up is even better. A year following the events in The Alienist, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler and his team are working on a new case--the infant daughter of a Spanish diplomat has been kidnapped. The investigation leads to a woman suspected to be a serial killer of children. 

The Angel of Darkness is narrated by Stevie Taggert who was saved from the streets by Kreizler and worked as his carriage driver. Stevie is a great choice to show us the street life that he escaped. His habit of hinting of bad things to come at the end of chapters helped build suspense. 

I liked the interactions of the characters with historical figures Theodore Roosevelt, Clarence Darrow, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Darrow in the courtroom scenes was fascinating.

It's Opening Day: LGM!

It was great to see a real game again with the regular line-up except for injuries. It didn't end the way I wanted, but the Mets had their chances. Especially in the top of the ninth, bases loaded and nobody out. Well, it was exciting for a minute. I had been thinking about how I'd write here about their loss, then how their great their comeback was, and no, that didn't happen. 

Tune in tomorrow. 

First Daffodil in the Wild

I bought two bunches of daffodils last week and have seen several daffodil sprouts and buds around the neighborhood. Yesterday, I saw my first bloom on the walk with Jace in front of the hospital's old cancer care entrance on Stevens Street. 

I stopped to take two photos, but they were too blurry to post here. I blame Jace for pulling the leash and me. I actually argued with him about it. 

Luckily, I'll see more daffodils in the near future. 

TV Talk: What We're Watching

It's been a few months since I've posted about TV. So, here it is.

Outlander: Jeff got a special promotional price for a year of Starz, so we finished Season 7.  My main issue with the show is that I don't care much about some of the younger characters. I'm ambivalent about Brianna and Roger. I was intrigued by the Jem kidnapping, but that fizzled out. I like Ian, but his wife Rachel does nothing for me. I dislike William Ransom, Jamie's son. I have no interest in the sex scenes of Roger and Brianna and Ian and Rachel. 

Squid Game: I had trouble getting into Season 2 until they returned to the actual game. This time, a group of players tries to stop the games, but there's a traitor in their midst. 

Nobody Wants This: We've been fans of Kristen Bell since Veronica Mars. I also heard or read that this was a good show. We agree. Bell is a sex podcaster dating a rabbi (Adam Brody.) It's cute (though I hesitate to use that word) and funny.

Only Murders in the Building: Again, we heard or read that this was good, so we tried it. We just started the fourth season. 

Matlock: I like Kathy Bates, and we tried this on a whim. It has a similar structure to that of Veronica Mars: a season long mystery with cases of the week. I'm enjoying both the weekly and seasonal stories. 

I've been watching a few things on my own.

The White Queen: Another Starz series and a re-watch from 2013. I've always been into the Tudors, but the Plantagenets are fascinating on their own. 

Miscellaneous Tudor history series. These shows have historians discussing the various people and places with actors dramatizing some scenes. There tend to be three episodes per show. The first, The Private Life of the Tudors, focused on Henry VIII. 

Another Henry VIII series was called something like, Man, Monster, Myth .A third I just started was about the King's men--the men who influenced Henry VIII. One name (so far) surprised me--Anthony Plantaganet. He was Henry's mother half-brother. The historian made a point to mention twice that he was illegitimate. I also saw a program about Lady Jane Grey. (Why don't they call her Queen Jane, anyway?) 

in my viewing, I learned something about Jane Seymour. Male doctors were allowed in the confinement chamber when she gave birth to Edward. A historian believes Jane may have died because the doctors didn't have experience in delivering children. They should have listened to the mid-wives.