Umberto D. (1952)

Italy, 89 minutes

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Writer: Cesare Zavattini

Photography: G.R. Aldo

Music: Alessandro Cicognini

Editor: Eraldo Da Roma

Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari, Napoleone

Here at the fuzzy end of Italian neorealism director Vittorio De Sica is using much the same strategies as his greatly celebrated 1948 Bicycle Thieves, though postwar growth and wealth in Italy were slowly but surely on the rise by the early 1950s. The cast, including Carlo Battisti as Umberto Domenico Ferrari, is largely nonprofessional, the sets are the streets and some interiors mostly as found, the film stock is affordable, and the focus is on social injustice. In this case the issue is public pensioners and cost-of-living adjustments (now a built-in feature in many plans known as COLAs). Umberto D. put in 30 years as a government worker and now his pension does not even afford him the room where he has lived for 20 years, let alone food, medicine, and other necessities. It’s a complicated issue but the script makes it all more palpable by throwing in an adorable pet dog, Flike (Napoleone), and a cruel opera-singer landlady who wants to evict him because she wants to use his room to expand her living room.

Flike (rhymes with Mike) is basically the same idea as the son Bruno in Bicycle Thieves—the innocent our hero is trying to shield from the harsh realities, not to mention preserve his own dignity. It is arguably a shameless ploy. After all, there’s a whole website called Does the Dog Die? that is dedicated to judging and issuing warnings about the violence in movies. Personally, as a pet caretaker, I don’t have a problem with movies and TV that use dogs, cats, and other pets as emotional touchpoints. I have my limits but, as is probably the case with most people, they are indeterminate or possibly based on fluctuating mood. I love Courage of Lassie (it’s the best of the Lassie movies!), for just one example, but I suspect many could find it screechingly maudlin and manipulative. My sense with Umberto D. is that De Sica didn’t really know what to do with the dog—pull back dispassionately or milk it to death. This confusion and inconsistency of tone end up sadly undermining the picture overall.

Spiritualized, “Come Together” (1997)

[listen up!]

A third rockin’ plea to “come together” is on offer by Spiritualized, spinoff act from the original Spacemen 3. Note that all three of these exercises are separate and distinct songs, no covers here, with the Beatles relying on John Lennon’s wordplay and generally heavy sensibility and Primal Scream going for something more soulful, suitable for all-night dancing. Spiritualized is playing it the way they usually do, with a methodical stalking heavy groove that makes Lennon feel like a helium balloon. Google AI enthuses wantonly, as is its wont (sourced to the Sound on Sound website), calling the song a “landmark space rock epic” and a “driving, maximalist masterpiece,” noting that it “serves as one of the emotional anchors of their critically acclaimed third studio album, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.” Wow, I knew that album but didn’t remember this song—I tended to focus more on the 17-minute “Cop Shoot Cop ...” which feels to me more like the masterpiece. It’s true “Come Together” was released as the third single from the album, but like the others (“Electricity” and “I Think I’m in Love”) it didn’t do much. Sound on Sound’s piece from 2016 goes into great detail about the recording, so I give it its due. It’s also worth noting that the London Community Gospel Choir and its 40+ singers are also encrusted into the walloping wall of sound here. There’s some debate about the intentions and meaning of the lyrics, which I don’t see, not least because I can’t make them out well enough in the din. I can’t make much sense of the official video either, which seems to be some kind of “dead man walking” scene in inexplicable riotous conditions. Certainly I appreciate, as always, the throbbing caterwaul of fully mature Spiritualized with all its intricate textures, which seem to be coming from everywhere all at once when you turn it up and just submit to the grinding power.

Let’s Do It (2022)

Bob Stanley’s prequel to his ambitious, impressive Yeah Yeah Yeah is even more ambitious and impressive—and massive, weighing in at approximately 600 pages. Where Yeah Yeah Yeah covered developments of pop music in the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st, largely from a UK perspective, Let’s Do It covers the first half of the 20th century, from 1900 into the 1970s. It always keeps an eye on the UK, but this time most of the action is from the US. Stanley—whose day job is playing keyboards and writing songs for the band St. Etienne—also charts out developments in technology, from wax cylinders and sheet music to the 78s, 33s (LPs), and 45s (7-inch singles) that would bear the music to the populace. He also charts out the entertainment modes and developments of musical theater, from vaudeville to Broadway to Hollywood. He has given himself so much to cover that it may feel a little rushed and compressed. Yet, as with Yeah Yeah Yeah, I see already that I have approximately one metric ton of music to check out. Building playlists starts tomorrow, one chapter at a time. I know I come with a rockist type of resistance to much of this fare. Take Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Stanley adores them. I have grave lifelong reservations about both. Some Mel Torme and Gordon Jenkins pieces that Stanley endorses enthusiastically have already left me cold as too schmaltzy (note that my use of the term “schmaltz” is, as always, imprecise). So we’ll see. I loved an Irving Berlin playlist I tried, and am already inclined toward Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and many others he talks about, along with many more he mentions that I don’t know well. I’m looking forward to actually hearing more of the music and already feel reasonably confident of Let’s Do It as a guide, though my tastes may differ from Stanley’s. There’s also a history of jazz here, I should say. A thread I thought was intriguing but not developed enough was about pop music itself. What is “pop” and how does it work? He’s playing with the ideas but not entirely pulling them together. I almost think there needs to be a third volume in this series, explicitly exploring “pop” in more depth now that he has established such a useful architecture of the 20th century. I suspect I will be referring to this tome for weeks and months, if not years. Recommended.

In case the library is closed due to AI assault, which is not happening.

“Hey, Look at Me!” (1962)

This ghost story by Jack Finney (author of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers novel) is another good one from the Playboy collection, which is worth chasing down. The story is set in the Bay Area, where rising costs, even in the early ‘60s, were driving people out of the cities and into cheaper exurban areas. Writers and other semi-supporting creatives could live well there with a working partner. Like most reasonable people, I’m leery of writers writing about writers and writing. The first-person narrator here, Peter, is one such, a book reviewer by trade. He befriends another writer, Max, a novelist, at their midafternoon breaks in the local coffeeshop, which is within walking distance. Sounds lovely! There’s some interesting tension between them as Max believes critics are not actually writers. He’s nice enough about it but it’s what he thinks. In some part this may be to compensate psychologically for his financial troubles. Peter gets by, not least because his wife works, whereas Max always seems to be struggling. Eventually, to help him, Max becomes a regular dinner guest. A year or two before they met, Peter reviewed Max’s first book and was lukewarm about it, though he did judge it “promising.” They never talk about that. Max is now hard at work on his second novel. But then he dies suddenly—an unexpected illness. Peter and his wife are on vacation at the time. Max is in the ground by the time they’re back and hear of it. Max was estranged from his family and left little behind. His grave is not even marked, as Peter discovers when he and his wife go to pay their respects. Then Peter starts seeing Max around, or a guy who looks like him. He wears uncharacteristically loud outfits, emblazoned with monograms in bright colors. His wife thinks Peter is nutty but then she sees him too. Max does little to acknowledge them when they see him, but Peter thinks he has an explanation. The short version is that manifesting this way uses up most of a ghost’s energy. There’s no time for distractions when there’s something to be done. And what is there to do? Well, that’s why we’re here. See title. It might sound a little silly in synopsis, but there’s a good insight at the center about writers and it’s all actually well done, never overdone, and the central themes hold together well. This is evidence there’s still a lot that could be done with a ghost story even in 1962.

The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural, ed. Ray Russell
Story not available online.

Primal Scream, “Come Together (7" Mix Andrew Weatherall)” (1990)

[listen up!]

Primal Scream’s third album, Screamadelica, threw out the band’s original alt-indie style in favor of house techno dance approaches. DJ Andrew Weatherall gets producer credit with Hugo Nicolson on much of the album, including “Come Together,” which appears in multiple variations on the original single and on later deluxe packages of the album, with production also handled by Terry Farley and Hypnotone. The album has a veritable rainbow of producers, including the Orb on arguably the best track, “Higher Than the Sun,” and the somewhat unexpected classic-rock man Jimmy Miller, who produced the Rolling Stones’ great run from Beggars Banquet to Goat’s Head Soup, as well as work for Blind Faith, Spencer Davis, and Traffic. He doesn’t seem to have a direct hand in “Come Together,” but his influence is felt there when you compare the tracks he did produce, “Movin’ On Up” and “Damaged.” “Come Together” is just a song, but what a song. The approach is all soul all the time, with heavenly chorus. On the album, it runs over 10 minutes, but most of the variations are closer in size to this 4:26 version. It’s the groove that appeals to me in all of them, with a phalanx of singers, a pure dance drive (see also the cavorting in the official video), and enough maracas-and-bongo-style percussion to fill the studio to the ceiling. Bobby Gillespie’s whisper-perfect vocals take it home. Somehow, back in the day, I wound up with the single—I might still have it around here somewhere—and I never had a problem letting it all play through. It’s just that kind of song. Once it has insinuated into your brain and lifestyle, you’re not likely to mind hearing it on repeat.

Obsession (2025)

You’ve got to hand it to Obsession for being so arguably unoriginal, borrowing familiar ideas from all over the place and simply making them work. All credit to director and writer Curry Barker for fashioning a masterful piece of horror that is entertaining as often as it shocks (including, for example, one of the best calculated jump scare cuts I’ve ever seen). Much of what makes Obsession so great is the performance by Inde Navarrette, which is brilliant. She plays a young woman named Nikki on whom Bear (Michael Johnston) has a crush. But he is too stammeringly shy to do anything about it. One day he wanders into a mysterious antique shop. It’s not run by Keye Luke like the one in Gremlins, but it does sell a mysterious novelty product called One Wish Willow. The One Wish Willow is packaged up with warnings. They even have a phone number to call, though we learn later (in a chilling scene that ends deliciously over the top) the person answering only says nothing can be done. The One Wish Willow looks like something you would buy from Archie McPhee or Spencer Gifts. The idea is that you get one wish. If you’re thinking about the classic horror story by W.W. Jacobs now, “The Monkey’s Paw,” you are on the right track. These wishes come true, and they can’t be reversed, but they don’t come true the way they were intended. Bear, of course, impulsively makes the wish we’re all expecting: “I wish Nikki Freeman loved me more than anyone in the fucking world.” The wish comes true. Nikki and Bear have a brief honeymoon period before a nightmare of rom-comic proportions descends. Nikki, who only ever had feelings for Bear “in the friend zone,” soon becomes an even more psychotic version of Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) from Fatal Attraction. She wails about Bear leaving her even if he’s just going to the bathroom. She plasters the inside of his apartment door with duct tape attempting to keep him trapped in there. She pitches screaming fits constantly. Her ambition has always been to be a writer and she’s prone to going off on poetic soliloquies that scare everyone around her, such as an incestual version of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. You have to see this movie to believe how good it is. The ending is amazing. Put this Obsession up there with “The Monkey’s Paw,” Gremlins, and Fatal Attraction too. Nice to see a horror show that knows how to do it. It’s funny too.

A Bend in the River (1979)

V.S. Naipaul’s novel of postcolonial Africa is a portrait of a shifting mosaic of chaos alternating with brief periods of peace. Salim is the main character and first-person narrator. Much of the action and characters are abstracted, though it’s possible to speculate on real-life sources. As the novel begins, Salim has purchased “a shop” and moved from an eastern coastal region to a small town in the interior located, yes, at a bend in a river. We don’t learn what town, what river, or even what Salim peddles in the shop. I think the intent is to make this a generic postcolonial tale. The current president of the unnamed country is referred to only as “the President.” He is a pervasive, distant presence, attempting to work the politics and economy to the greater good of the country and its populace. But his administration is also riddled with corruption, of course. Salim is a smart survivor, able for the most part to avoid the troubles all around him even as they threaten to bring him down with others in his circle of friends and acquaintances. The novel takes place over many years, during which the government’s approach to improvements changes constantly. Salim has a number of contacts, including a servant, who all get their time in this story. Some readers have taken A Bend in the River as a defense of European colonialism but I don’t really see that. In many ways this colonialism introduced terrible political ideas to Africans even as it destroyed practically everything that could contribute to stability. It seems to me Naipaul is pretty clear about that. Colonialism provided some stability, arguably, but changed life in Africa much for the worse. The chaos that followed independence, in about the 1950s and 1960s, is artifact of the failure of colonialism. Naipaul is scrupulous about not raising emotions of outrage, though he easily could have with some of the things going on here. Some of the worst, toward the end, did reach me and I could feel the rage. Naipaul seems more intent on keeping the temperature cool, even slightly comic, which ultimately made this novel feel more credible to me. I don’t think there’s any question he is addressing the problems colonialism brought to Africa. It was still trying to recover in 1979. It’s still trying to recover now. Read this with exercises by Joseph Conrad and J.M. Coetzee.

In case the library is closed due to AI assault, which is not happening.

The Thing (1982)

USA, 109 minutes

Director: John Carpenter

Writers: Bill Lancaster, John W. Campbell Jr.

Photography: Dean Cundey

Music: Ennio Morricone

Editor: Todd C. Ramsay

Cast: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, T.K. Carter, David Clennon, Richard Dysart, Richard Masur, Keith David, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, Donald Moffat, Adrienne Barbeau

I see my Halliwell’s film guide falls decidedly on the side of the 1951 original of this picture, which gets two stars to John Carpenter’s 1982 remake’s none: “filled with revolting detail which alienated most audiences,” it tut-tuts. That’s funny because most audiences I know are united on preferring the Carpenter version (billed fore and aft in the titles as John Carpenter’s The Thing so file under J). That includes me, both thumbs wildly up, Howard Hawks or no. I’m not always on the side of, well, let’s call them modernists. I think, for example, many of them might also prefer Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the 1956 original directed by Don Siegel. I definitely prefer the original in that case.

My problems with The Thing as a franchise may start with the original 1938 story by John W. Campbell, Jr., “Who Goes There?” I found it deeply pulpy and dull but a reread may be in order at some point. There is no denying its place as a pioneering landmark of horror SF, with aliens from outer space that have an unusual ability to mimic other species biologically. Even Halliwell’s noticed that the 1951 movie, widely rumored to have been directed by Howard Hawks, dropped the conceit, noting it contains “the first space monster on film, and is quite nimbly made, though it fails to use the central gimmick from the original story.” It is actually exactly that central gimmick that makes Carpenter’s version superior in my mind, along with a bigger budget, a few decades of special effects technology improvements, and a commitment to the visceral. Some other time for nimble direction.

“The Thing in the Weeds” (1913)

William Hope Hodgson’s story of troubles at sea on a dark night of the soul appears in his Sargasso Sea Stories collection, which unfortunately seems to be hard to find at the moment. Not even Project Gutenberg has it online. There are some cheapie kindle products that carry this story, a Delphi kindle collection for Hodgson which includes practically everything he wrote, and a “megapack” that is not as ambitious. In “The Thing in the Weeds” a ship at sea plies relatively uncharted sectors of the northern Atlantic Ocean. It has been pushed there by unusual conditions of the winds and currents. The troubles start with a bad smell after dark one night, as heavy, impenetrable fog creeps in. Then the attacks by ... something ... begin. The second section of the story, the following day, is more where the impulse for rational explanations is indulged, as it turns out to be a giant squid. This story could still fall within realms of the fantastic and/or weird—maybe squids don’t get this big or this aggressive. I don’t know. Maybe they don’t smell this bad. It feels plausible enough, maybe, for people to believe it in 1913. Still, in this case, just to be a second-guessing bitch, I think I’d have preferred less explanation and more ongoing bad news. When attacks occur at night at sea, and a dark monster of some kind is referred to as a “thing”—well, then, you know you’ve got real trouble. Monsters and other horrible stuff at sea was one of Hodgson’s specialties, as the original collection would suggest. The best of his seagoing stories at large is likely “The Voice in the Night”—the “thing” in that one is an inevitably encroaching fungus that tastes good when you’re starving at sea but has unfortunate effects. “You don’t want to know what happens to them,” as cartoon characters often warn one another. I would classify “The Thing in the Weeds” as reasonably good “night of terror” stuff as well as a perfectly competent seagoing tale. But ultimately it is too concerned for me with explanation, which renders it more of an adventure story. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—and Hodgson was always good at whatever he applied himself to—but adventure, lost world, and mostly or entirely invisible monster stories are not really what I’m looking for.

Listen to story online.

Beatles, “Come Together” (1969)

[listen up!]

This song was paired on the first single from Abbey Road with Frank Sinatra’s favorite Beatles song, the George Harrison-penned “Something.” For what it’s worth, my Billboard book says “Come Together” peaked at #1 for a week whereas “Something” stalled at #3 for two weeks. Not sure how that works, now or in 1969. I’m just reporting the facts. “Come Together” is credited to Lennon / McCartney according to their longstanding tradition, but it’s obviously a John Lennon song. In 1969, “Come Together” and Abbey Road more generally—and certainly the nearly eight minutes of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” when I finally got to it—represented a ne plus ultra to me of rock music. I was listening to “Come Together” on AM but they were also playing it on FM. But I don’t hear it that way so much anymore. Beatles forays into rock, as such and as found for example all over the White Album, seem more peculiar, insular, and separate. No one did rock quite like the Beatles. I would look now more to, say, Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys, recorded January 1, 1970, as a standard of rock at that time, for better or worse. But the appeal of “Come Together” is enduring, among other things capable of evoking acute memories of the time for me. The words are heavy but nonsensical, insinuating ineffable, slightly menacing vapors the way Lennon could (see also “I Am the Walrus” or “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”). The Beatles’ “Come Together” is a stone classic and even it it’s possible I’ve heard it too much in my life it can still reach me unexpectedly. I also like the 2015 video on youtube, swirling in urgent shades of yellow, red, and orange, with the familiar kooky psychedelic animated style the Beatles adopted, as in Yellow Submarine, but wearing the costumes featured on the Abbey Road album cover, John all in white, Paul barefoot with dark jacket, etc. Good stuff.