Hooray for Santy Claus!

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
Auteur/Perpetrator: Nicholas Webster
Star of Shame: Pia Zadora
Monster(s): Guy in polar bear costume, evil Martian with fake mustache

Robert and Kristin Romano contributed to this post.

One of the classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is one of the classic “bad movies” of all time, up (down?) there with Plan 9 From Outer Space, and the complete, unexpurgated (unfortunately) movie was included in the 50 Classic Sci-Fi Movies box. On a trip to Boston last weekend, I took the box set with me to inflict it upon those who had given it to me for Christmas, and, because misery loves company, we hunkered down and endured Santa Claus Conquers the Martians en masse.

I should point out that the movie was not digitally remastered for inclusion in this box set. If anything, it was burned to DVD from a tenth-generation VHS copy.

The movie dives right in with the cloying and truly irritating opening song “Hooray for Santa Claus” which after about 10 seconds will make you want to chew your own head off. The staggering low-budget animation sequence forms the background to the parade of shame (i.e., opening credits). We are promised “Martian furniture,”designed by Fritz Hansen. However, one harbinger is that “costume” is spelled wrong in the opening credits, the first indication that quality control was not present when making this thing.

We then start on a closeup of a TV set—KID TV is on the air! They are about to cut live to the North Pole, but before that, the camera pans slowly over and and are introduced to Bomar and Girmar, two Martian children, the latter played by Pia Zadora in her film debut. They are watching the Rip Taylor-esque reporter Andy Henderson almost certainly dressed inappropriately for 90 below 0 temperatures, although he does seem to have the world’s longest microphone cord. We then go inside Santa’s workshop and meet the big man himself, who has obviously either been drinking copious amounts of spiked eggnog or has something other than tobacco in his pipe, and makes reference to his reindeer “Vixen and Nixon.” Mrs. Claus steps in and is a shrieking harridan who gets far too excited by the prospect of being on television.

Santa then shows some of the new toys that he has been making. Winky the Elf—who bears a striking resemblance to former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop—is in charge of the “space division,” and has made the latest toy rocket which, Santa says, “runs on real rocket fuel.” Huh? Liquid oxygen? I guess Santa’s workshop is exempt from toy safety regulations. Henderson then finds an “action figure” (well, not in this movie) made by Winky, which is the elf’s conception of a Martian—which, as it turns out, is staggeringly accurate. “Wowy wow, I’d hate to meet a creature like that on a dark night.” I bet, especially seeing as it’s basically a guy in a cape. “I wonder if there really are people on Mars,” muses Henderson. “If they do, I hope they have someone like you, Santa.” Flattery will get him everywhere, I guess, but it also does spell out the premise of the movie. Santa then refers to Andy Henderson as “Mr. Anderson,” either, again, due to the fact that Santa is drunk off his jolly old butt, or the filmmakers just didn’t care.

We then go to Mars. Now, a note about Martian physiology. The Martians are basically humanoid, but with shoe polish smeared on their faces, upsettingly tight green leotards, a festive looking green cape, and helmets with a variety of pipes and antennae sticking out of them, made apparently out of random kitchen implements. It’s a rather elaborate headpiece, but serves absolutely no purpose. Despite the fact that the Martians are pretty much just humans in goofy costumes (or custumes, according to the opening credits), all the doors are thin and oval and are completely wheelchair inaccessible.

Kimar, the leader of Mars—a terrifying thought—enters, looking for “Dropo,” the “laziest man on Mars,” and cannot be find him anywhere, despite the fact that he is lying on the floor directly in front of him. He finds him, and activates what appears to be a touchless cattle prod, which jolts Dropo awake with fits of painful-sounding fake laughter. It’s described as a “tickle ray.” Huh? Dropo is to be the comic relief, which means you will want to kill yourself every time he appears on screen. Mars is apparently a joyless place of work and toil, with no allowance for leisure or pleasure. Why they have a tickle ray, then, is a mystery. Perhaps it’s best to not overanalyze this. After all, I think we’ve already established that the filmmakers just didn’t care. Dropo informs Kimar that Lady Momar has gone to the “Food Pill Center” to get some “food pills.” Now, is that all spacey and alien or what? Their children, apparently, have not been eating, and Kimar is distraught that they just sit in front of the videoset all day watching “those ridiculous Earth programs” (he has a point). Why they don’t just block the transmissions from Earth is anyone’s guess.

Kimar then confronts his children, who are staring raptly at the videoset. Bomar and Girmar ask each other poignant questions, such as “What’s a doll?” and “What’s tender loving care?” This hits Kimar where he lives. Kimar tries to get his children to go to sleep, and he has to resort to using the “sleep spray” on them. (What parent wouldn’t want a sleep spray?) Part of the problem could be that they have sleep on a flat plastic surface under a wire pyramid with a lucite cube in place of a pillow—oh, and with those silly helmets on. Heck, I’d need a sleep spray.

Lady Momar returns from the Food Pill Center with a bag full of vials of pills—hamburger, buttered asparagus (they look like those flavored jelly beans). It’s basically a Judy Garland fantasy. However, why Martian food is pill versions of Earth food is a mystery. But, why dwell on it (the filmmakers didn’t). Dropo says he has been vacuuming the room—I guess he’s their houseboy or something, which is more upsetting than you can imagine. Kimar says that he is worried about the children, and that he has met with the “Council Chiefs” and the problem is the same with children all over Mars. “Something is happening to the children of Mars,” intones Kimar portentously. “As the leader of Mars,” says his wife, “you must do something about it.” “I know,” he responds, “but what?” “Why don’t you go to the forest and seek Chochem, the Ancient One. He’ll know what to do. He’s never failed you.” There’s a first time for everything, I suppose. “You speak wisely,” says Kimar. “You speak goofily,” one would be tempted to respond. He then summons the Council Chiefs—Rigna, Hargo, and Voldar—to meet him at “Chochem’s chair in Thunder Forest.” We also get the first sense that Voldar is going to be a complete dickweed.

We then go to Chochem’s lair which, it should be pointed out, is a cave and nothing like a forest. Maybe a single tree would have helped allay the sense that the set designer really didn’t read the script. They were specifically ordered to meet at Chochem’s realm and yet Voldar expresses surprise that they are meeting with Chochem.

Voldar, who wears a really fake-looking Oil Can Harry-like mustache, is against the idea, and is kind of a Marcus Porcius Cato figure, a hardline conservative who dislikes change and wants to keep Mars warlike—or preserve the Republic and condemn Santa (or Julius Caesar, one or the other) as a traitor and an enemy. Ahem, but I digress....that’s what I get for watching this and an episode of Rome in the same sitting. We are then informed that Chochem is over 800 years old-and he looks it. Kimar then summons Chochem with the haunting chant “Chochem...Chochem...are you there?” There is a puff of smoke and the Ancient One appears. He is not dressed in green, or is he encumbered by the odd helmet. He does have a phenomenal amount of white hair and acts and talks like he is going to keel over at any moment. Come to think of it, he kind of looks like Gandalf after a weekend bender. Kimar puts the children problem to Chochem, and Chochem asks what time of year it is. (On Mars it is the month of “Septober.” Yeah.) Some wise sage—he’s going to solve all their problems but he doesn’t even know what time of year it is? Has anyone checked his credentials? Jeesh. Chochem delivers a lengthy monologue, stating that they have no children on Mars, that they are adults in children’s bodies (I'm sure there's a Paris Hilton joke to be made there). Chochem had seen this coming for centuries, but apparently didn’t want to give anyone a heads up or anything. Long story short: they need Santa Claus on Mars to teach children how to be children.

Chochem has an intense bout of gastric distress (it looks like), then vanishes abruptly in a puff of smoke to look for some Immodium.

Kimar then hatches an idea to fly to Mars and kidnap Santa Claus. Voldar is against the idea. So, with a roar that sounds like a toilet flushing and a cheesy spaceship, the Martians are off to Earth. They all sit around an octagonal control panel and occasionally release blasts of gas. They arrive in Earth orbit pretty quickly. Voldar has to pooh-pooh the Earth conception of a city. “We could destroy it with one blast of our Q ray.” Martian snob. At least Earth has better mustaches. They then begin looking for Santa Claus, a difficult task in a population of "millions of people" (off by an order of magnitude, but hey, they’re not from around here). Still, “It’s like looking for a speck of space dust in a comet’s tail.” I guess they don’t have needles, haystacks, or decent analogies on Mars. They do manage to find several Santa Clauses hanging outside Earth stores.

Meanwhile, Dick York-like newsreader breaks in with a news update about a UFO sighting. We then launch into a lengthy stream of stock footage as rockets and missiles (and paper towel rolls) are deployed.

The Martians detect Earth radar waves bouncing off the ship, and they turn on the radar shield (it probably would have been a good idea to have turned it on before they were spotted, but maybe the Martians don’t get out much). As it happens, the radar shield is malfunctioning, so Rigna checks the “radar box”--which obviously serves no other purpose than to have characters hide in it. And, indeed, they find Dropo hiding in it. Doh! Gilligan!

They get the radar shield working, even as the military launches stock footage of fighters and, inexplicably, bombers to chase down the UFO (why bombers? Are they going to get above the UFO and drop bombs on it?).

The Martians then prepare to land—lowering the landing legs, which involves pulling a series of levers, which seems like a kludgy way to lower landing gear. Everything else is push-button—why not the landing gear? Jeesh. It does use up a few moments of film.

The ship lands, which is obviously just the film of the ship taking off reversed.

Meanwhile, our two young heroes, Billy and Betty Foster, are lying in the leaves, listening to the plot development on a radio newscast. The consensus is that the UFO was a meteor, but Professor Werner Von Breen is convinced that it was a Martian spacecraft (and since he is played by the same guy who was Chochem—sans the white hair and beard—he should know). Betty asks some pointed questions about what Martians look like, and right on cue, the Martians arrive. Betty legitimately asks “What are those funny things sticking out of your head?” To which Kimar responds, “Those are our antenna.” “Are you a television set?” asks Betty. Kimar is amused; Voldar is not. “Stupid question. Is this what you want to do to the children on Mars? Turn them into nincompoops like these?” He’s got a point. Kimar says that they are looking for Santa Claus, and Billy immediately rats out Santa. “There’s only one Santa, and he’s in his vorkshop at the North Pole.” Why Billy and Betty Foster have Germanic accents and pronounce “w”s as “v”s is a mystery. Anyway, the Martians kidnap Billy and Betty. Almost immediately, Dick York, the hardest working newscaster in show biz, reports on their disappearance.

The UFO hunt continues with stock footage of jets refueling, for some reason.

Against orders, Dropo brings the kids up to the bridge which, as it happens, is unoccupied. Everyone else must have gone out to get a paper or find an ATM or a Starbucks or something, but Dropo makes it a point to indicate the elevator light, which, he says, flashes when someone is coming up to the bridge. This serves no real purpose except as a plot device, and, sure enough, there is a beat as the three wait for it to start blinking. Which it does. Doh! This is where things get severely Sherwood Schwartzian. So Dropo hides the kids in the radar box. There is a moment of deep suspense as Voldar is about to open the radar box; he is stopped by their arrival at the North Pole. Voldar then points out that the kids have to come with them back to Mars. Without witnesses, the argument goes, “No one on Earth will ever know that Santa was kidnapped by Martians.” Kimar grudgingly agrees. The kids overhear this conversation and decide that freezing to death in the Arctic would be preferable.

Despite the fact that Kimar orders one of the others to keep the ship on standby for immediate blast off, everyone leaves the bridge, giving Billy and Betty the opportunity to sneak out of the radar box, but not before pulling out the wires and deactivating the radar shield. “If this ship ever leaves Earth, they’ll have the whole U.S. space force after them.” Ooh, that would be a threat. This is 1964. We haven’t even made it to the moon yet, we’re going to chase a ship all the way to Mars?

Somehow Billy and Betty sneak out of the ship, and they are so not dressed for the North Pole. The Martians then come out of the ship—very slowly. “This action must take place swiftly,” says Kimar, despite the fact that it took three people a half hour to climb down a ladder. Voldar is defiant, and says that the children have escaped. Rigna then points out the children’s footprints in the snow. By the way, the soundtrack has what sound like gale force winds blowing, but there is no flying snow, and the Martians’ capes are not even fluttering in the slightest. I guess the sound editor decided to make his own movie. Kimar calls to “Torg.”

But before we can find out who or what Torg is, we cut to Billy and Betty, getting tired and cold. Voldar is nearly on their trail, but they elude him only to get menaced by a polar bear. Well, I should say, a guy in a really lame polar bear costume. This is about where the wheels start to come off the wagon. The kids climb into a cave where they can be easily cornered, but the guy in the bear suit gives up pretty quickly. Guess the bear must be on a hunger or or something. Betty wants to find Santa’s “vorkshop.”

We then find out what Torg is: a guy in a box with a coffee urn on his head. That is, I mean, a robot. The robot captures the kids, and while Voldar tries to order Torg to kill the kids, Kimar had reprogrammed Torg to obey only him, and the kids are sent back to the ship. Kimar doesn’t want anyone hurt, and Voldar summons up the memories of the great warriors of Mars. I sense a civil war brewing. Or, at the very least, a really dull argument.

Torg breaks down the door of Santa’s vorkshop and the elves are no match for a guy in a box. But, “by the great Dog Star, he’s treating him like a toy!” exclaims Kimar, noticing that Santa is not frightened in the slightest. Inexplicably, the robot succumbs to the power of Santa. The Martians then charge into the workshop with hair dryers, which freeze the elves in their tracks. Mrs. Claus shows up and is not happy. She is frozen, too, and Santa thanks the Martians profusely (or at least he should).

They then take Santa back to the ship, leaving Torg there, for reasons passing understanding.

Meanwhile, newspapers around the world—and Dick York, of course—report on Santa’s kidnapping. The U.N. convenes, and Werner Von Breen is interviewed and explains that they are expediting astronaut training to “go after those Martian monkeys.” There is then more stock footage of rockets and bald men talking on phones.

Despite all of this, Rigna says, “Earth hasn’t reacted yet” and Kimar detects no radar beams bouncing off the ship. Hargo comes in and is a bit too amused by Santa. Voldar of course has no sense of humor, his mustache notwithstanding.

In the brig, Santa is boring the kids to death. Then Dropo comes in, and they all pledge a suicide pact. He brings in some food pills and the kids comment about how awful Mars must be. On the bridge, the Martians discover a ship chasing them, and that Billy ("Earth's secret weapon") had disabled the radar shield.

Voldar then defies Kimar and takes Santa and the kids on a tour of the ship, starting with the airlock which, due to another strictly plot-specific feature, has no door controls in the airlock itself, but only up on the bridge which, again, is suddenly deserted, even though they should be flying back to Mars. He attempts to have them sucked out into space, but somehow Santa saves them by magically escaping through a small air duct, which you would think would not have a direct, open path to the rest of the ship when the airlock is open (oops). Kimar and Voldar then come to blows, Santa and the kids reappear dramatically, and Voldar is thrown in the brig.

They arrive back at Mars, and Rigna again lowers the damn landing legs. “We’ve landed,” he says dramatically.

Meanwhile, Voldar has escaped, “which can only mean trouble.”

At Kimar’s house, Kimar returns, with Dropo, Billy and Betty, and Santa. On Mars, the customary greeting is a head butt, for some reason. They go in and say hi to Bomar and Girmar. It all goes very awkwardly and upsettingly, with everyone bursting into uncomfortable laughter for no reason. Bomar and Girmar have apparently never laughed before. Dropo then does a little dance which will forever haunt your dreams.

After the kids have gone to bed—without the sleep spray—Kimar tells Santa that he will set him up with his own toy workshop on Mars. Oh, and that he will never go back to Earth. That makes the old man a tad less jolly.

Meanwhile, in a cave, Voldar is hiding “like a speckled Mars worm.” Ah. I see exactly what he means. One of his henchmen—who looks like the love child of Soupy Sales and Jamie Farr—is with him, and overacts horribly. Another henchman approaches—Jim. “Jim?” Did a writer’s strike break out suddenly? Anyway, we discover that the cave is guarded by a “nuclear curtain.” Ah. I’ve seen those in the Home Decorators Collection. Jim enters, and, in a very Jimmy Durante-esque manner, describes Santa’s automated workshop. He then mugs for the camera as he describes a Slinky. Voldar will have none of it. “Soon all of Mars will be blithering idiots!” Soon? Voldar then hatches a cunning plan to discredit Santa and make him a laughing stock throughout Mars. Yeah. Despite the fact that the workshop runs round the clock, it closes at 10:00. Huh?

At Santa’s workshop, laundry baskets are coming off the assembly line by the dozen. Martian children must really love doing laundry. Santa runs the entire assembly line from what looks like the control room at Abbey Road Studios. Tired of pushing buttons, Santa makes a poignant commentary about automation. Well, its no elf-based manufacturing industry, but what can you do? Santa then explains to Dropo that Lady Momar made him a extra suit—I guess the old one was getting a bit ripe by now. Dropo asks if he can wear it, which is getting into a whole weird area. Santa then makes fun of the fact that Dropo is not obese.

Back at Kimar’s, Billy and Betty are now getting despondent. Doh! There’s no winning for Kimar, is there? It takes Momar to point out that the kids are homesick, and to suggest that he take them back to Earth. “Impossible.” But why?

Then, in a truly upsetting peek into Dropo’s private life, he is putting on Santa’s extra suit and wearing his extra beard (huh?!), stuffing pillows into the suit, and prancing around singing and dancing. Death would be sweet relief at this point. He hangs Santa’s extra hat from one of his antennae and his helmet is still visible. He goes to the workshop and, as Voldar, Jim, and the Jamie Farr/Soupy Sales guy start sabotaging the machinery, Dropo is mistaken for the real Santa, despite the fact that he looks nothing like the real Santa. Voldar and co. then shanghai him back to the cavern.

Momar is upset that she cannot find Dropo—why would anyone be upset about that? Santa says his extra suit is missing—and suggests that Dropo is at the toy shop. Santa is starting to get sarcastic and heaps shame on his hosts’ food pills.

Santa and the kids go to the workshop, cannot find Dropo, and then discover that the machinery is screwing up all the toys—a doll has a bear’s head and a teddy bear has a doll’s head. It’s kind of cool, actually. Something goes wrong with a toy train, though we can’t see what it is. Maybe it has human body parts mixed in with it. Who knows? Santa complains about the machinery not working; what do they say about a poor workman blaming his tools? What a whiner. Take away the guy’s elves and he’s lost.

Meanwhile, the Three Stooges hatch another plot to confront Kimar, thinking that they have Santa as a hostage. They leave Jim behind to guard Dropo/Santa.

Kimar suspects Voldar is behind Dropo’s disappearance and the sabotaged equipment. At that point, Voldar and Soupy Sales/Jamie Farr show up and laugh diabolically, the latter utter ridiculously. Kimar holds them at hair dryer-point and asks for their demands. Voldar wants the toy machine destroyed and the Earthlings sent back to Earth. Kimar then points out that Santa has escaped. Kimar calls for reinforcements, and attempts to hold Voldar and Stobo (ah, the Jamie Farr guy’s name is Stobo) in a storeroom. Kimar orders Lomas to search for Jim. In the storeroom, we find that the Martians do have fun, as there is a water ski in there, for some reason.

Dropo escapes from the cave by switching the lightbulbs on the nuclear curtain, flummoxing Jim who, himself, is not the brightest bulb (he makes reference to the “nucular curtain”—it could be George Bush).

In the storeroom, Voldar escapes by smacking Kimar with the water ski (ah, that’s why it was there). Santa and Billy have finished fixing the sabotaged machinery and, ever the perfectionist, Santa wants to touch up the sabotaged control panel with some red paint. (It’s Monk all of a sudden.) Naturally, this is solely to get Billy to the storeroom so he can overhear Voldar. Billy warns Santa, and the climactic battle for Mars begins: the kids unleash a barrage of toy weaponry on Voldar. In one classic moment, for which I am sure the film editor won an Oscar, Stobo is looking into the workshop, the film cuts abruptly, the soundtrack drops out, and Stobo suddenly has a red ball in his mouth. It’s so deftly handled, I really believed he had been hit in the mouth with a red ball. The music reinforces the slapstick with a “wah wah wah” trumpet noise. Fortunately, Kimar wakes up and puts a halt to the whole thing.

The battle for Mars being won and Voldar in custody, Santa and the Fosters are about to go back to Earth. “Thank you Santa for bringing happiness to the children of Mars,” says Momar. “And the Christmas spirit to everyone,” adds Kimar. Dropo comes prancing in in a Santa suit; yes, he is to be the Santa of Mars. I give it one more year before he is locked in a spaceship and fired into the Sun.

Santa yells “Merry Christmas!” and the cloying “Hooray for Santy Claus” song pipes in again as the end credits run, followed by the song lyrics. (See, you spell it “S-A-N-T-A C-L-AU-S” but you say “Santy Claus.” FYI.) The end!

Whew! This was a rough one. The thing is, the idea behind the movie really isn’t all that bad, and is certainly no cheesier than any other holiday movie. Even the script isn’t too bad in spots (“in spots,” I hasten to add), but the attempts at comedy rarely rise to sub-Sherwood Schwartzian levels, and the guy who played Dropo—the Gilligan character—makes Bob Denver’s performances seem subtle and nuanced. Shockingly, he (Bill McCutcheon) won a Tony award in 1988 for a Broadway revival of Anything Goes. The acting was pretty bad across the board, though, and not surprisingly only Vincent Beck (Voldar) had a career after it (according to IMDb, he was a character actor staple of 1960s and 1970s television).

Still, what kills this movie are the production values which are non-existent. It seems like the entire budget went to the Martian furniture and the Milton Delugg score. However, the song “Hooray for Santa Claus” did not turn out to be the holiday classic they apparently hoped it would be, although I do recall hearing a punk metal version of it (performed by a no-name band called the Swamp Zombies) in a record store in Manhattan once. The punk treatment did not improve it appreciably.

Still Even More Ghost

Here is Chapter 5 of the Living Ghost novel. Chapter 4 is here (from there you can find links to previous chapters). I should point out that, as is the case with all my fiction, none of this is even remotely autobiographical; it anything much to do with me personally nor with anyone I know. That said, Living Ghost does have some autobiographical elements (I did go to Syracuse University, I have lived near Redondo Beach, CA, and I am a market research analyst, solely out of laziness so that I could focus on the main plot elements and not get bogged down in researching comparatively minor background details), but that's about where the similarity ends, except insofar as there have been some meetings during which I fantasized about flipping out the way Tom Graves does in this chapter. The ultimate point of the novel up to this point (and maybe even beyond) is not so much to say anything specifically about what it is I do for a living, but rather to question, as the Everyone does (or should), that, given the scant 75 years or so we are allotted on this Earth, we choose to spend so much of that time dwelling on corporate bullshit and the like. I think this applies to all the utterly pointless "busywork" stuff we humans do to take our minds off the fact that we'll be worm food before too long.

And on that cheery note, I give you...

5.

“I’m completely amazed,” said Cliff, flipping through the binder-clipped sheaf of printed sheets Tom had plopped on the desk in front of him. “This is all of Section 3 and a preliminary run-through of Section 4. This is amazing. And your commentary is cogent and, dare I say, perceptive and insightful, the tables and charts well-presented. This is going to please The Larva to no end.”

Tom was half asleep in the chair in front of Cliff’s desk. He had indeed worked all though the night. He didn’t know which he was happier about—that he had stayed awake and was able to finish it or that he wasn’t whisked off to some other geographical location of his youth.

“Of course, you look like utter crap,” said Cliff.

Indeed, Tom was unshaven, his eyes were red and puffy, and his clothes weren’t exactly his Sunday best, but at least he had been able to jump in the shower for a minute.

Cliff flipped to the end and skimmed the last few pages. “You know, Tom, you are one great writer.”

“No,” said Tom groggily. “I’m not a writer. I’m a delivery system for words.”

“Isn’t that what a writer is?” Cliff set the sheaf of papers on his desk. “Anyway, great job. I mean that.”

“Conference room five minutes,” came a voice from the doorway.

“Dah!” said Cliff, startled. “Sally! Stop doing that!”

“I am the Stealth Queen!” Sally proclaimed loudly as she disappeared down the hall.

“She is one wacky chick,” said Cliff. “Anyway, I don’t expect this meeting will last more than half an hour. Then you can go home and get some sleep. And,” he added as an afterthought, “maybe you’ll still be in California when you wake up.”

“Mmmm,” Tom grunted.


Tom shambled into the conference room and sat down at the chair nearest the door—in case he had to flee the room in a hurry. He couldn’t think of any reason why he would have to, but he couldn’t say that he was thinking particularly clearly at the moment.

A long wooden table occupied the middle of the room, and in the center of the table was a teleconferencing set-up. This enabled Carol to listen in on the meeting—even though she never actually said anything. And, in fact, only the oldest veterans in the room—and, of course, Sally—knew that the teleconferencing unit was even on.

The rest of the meeting attendees quickly filed in. Sally led the charge and she sat at the head of the table. He was followed by Marv, then by Tony DiPietro, representative of one of the biggest sponsors of the camera research study. He was followed by a nondescript set of two of his own minions who were never spoken to nor did they speak. As Tom watched them, he suspected that was always the case.
Tom suddenly found a large cup of coffee placed in front of him. Cliff sat down next to him.

“That should get you through the meeting,” said Cliff.

“I’ve had so much coffee it feels like my cellphone has been vibrating for the past two hours. Either someone is really trying to reach me or I’m on the verge of some kind of neurological disorder.” He went to unclasp his phone from his belt suddenly remembered he had left it at home. “Yep, too much caffeine.”

“Is it just me or is the cellphone vibrate mode like a torture device or some kind of cattle prod,” said Cliff, taking a sip from his own cup of coffee. He choked. “All right! Who’s been putting cinnamon in the coffee again? I thought we settled that issue.”

“As pressing as the coffee issue is,” said Sally to the assembled group, “it is precisely 9 a.m. and I think we should get this meeting started.” She passed handed a stack of binder-clipped papers to the person to her right and the stack quickly moved around the room. “I’m passing out a draft of Section 3, hot off the laser printer. As you recall, this is the section that details the share of the market that each of the holocamera vendors have—at least according to our survey respondents.”

“I’m looking at page 21,” said Tony.

“Why did I know that you’d immediately go there?” said Cliff.

“Possibly because for me it’s the most crucial data in the whole damn study,” said Tony.

“It shouldn’t be,” said Marv. “Current market share is nice, but what you’ll want to pay attention to is Section 10, when we get to it. That’s going to have all the seven-year projections and our analysis of where the market is headed.”

“That’s not my problem right now. I need to tell my boss what our market share is right now. And I’m looking at Figure 3-5 and I tell you that can’t possibly be what out share of the market is. That contradicts every internal study we’ve ever done.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re getting objective data for once,” said Marv.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Guys, let’s start at the beginning, shall we,” said Sally.

“Yo, dude, is this really what you do for a living?”

Tom started. He glanced to his left. In place of one of the silent minions was Mark, the kid from Syracuse.

“Jesus, what are you doing here?” Tom whispered, hoping none of the other conference members would notice.

“I’m having trouble deciding what to major in. I’m here for, I don’t know, some career guidance.” He looked around and listened to some more of the argument between Tony and Marv. “OK, I don’t think this would be it. You majored in this?”

Tom scowled. “No, I was an English major.”

“Wow. So did that like fast-track your career? Because American business can’t get enough of people who can quote Chaucer in the original Middle English.”

“Would you keep it down. We’re trying to have a meeting.”

“Ah, they can’t hear me. Watch.” He jumped up on the table. “Yo, fuckwads! Is this any way to live a life? Fighting over who has what percentage of fucking what? Who gives a shit!” Everyone at the table went on with the meeting, oblivious. He sat back down. “See?”

“How did you…”

“Dude, do you like have no accumulated memory at all?”

“I think I see where this is going.” Tom smiled and nodded knowingly. “Right, you’re going to start singing Supertramp songs again. Or screeching, anyway”

Mark shook his head. “Nah. I’m over that now.”

“Thank god for that.”

Mark paused and he and Tom started at each other for a few moments. Then, in a high, mock-operatic voice, “‘Oh, dreamweaver…’”

“Christ…”

“Oh, Dennis Weaver…”

“How do you even know these songs? They’re at least 20 years older than you are.”

“Dude, I’m a figment of your subconscious. I only know what you know.”

“What do you want from me?”

“What do I want from you? Dude, again, you’re one who keeps hallucinating about me.”

“Do kids even use the word ‘dude’ anymore?”

“Damned if I know. Hey, Cliff wants you, so I gotta go. But I just want to congratulate you on finding the numerological clues last night. That was genius, man. I never would have thought of counting ‘h’s.”

“But what does it mean?”

“Don’t know. But think about this. You disappeared before 1:45, but Mel and Kyoko were in their room until Mel left at 8:00 for her 8:30 and Kyoko left at 9:30 to meet some friends at the student center. You don’t think they would have seen you if you had been sleeping there since 1:45—or 4:45 Syracuse time?”

“That’s true…”

“So the question is not how did you get to Syracuse, but where were you for eight hours? Right, Tom. Tom! Tom!”


“Tom!”

“Yes!” he said, waking up abruptly. “I’m listening. The market share. Right.”

“Tom,” Cliff said, “Tony asked you, what if Marv rebased the data in Table 3-12. Would that overwhelmingly change the conclusions section?”

“Well, it would depend on how Marv rebased it and if the numbers in all the cross-tabs changed dramatically. I think the way the data has been calculated now gives us the clearest picture of what’s going on. I mean, we can rebase and retab data all you want to come up with whatever specific conclusions you want. But wouldn’t just defeat the purpose of why we were hired?” Tom started sweating, and his voice started rising. “I mean, first you people say ‘We want to know where the market is going,’ but now it turns out you don’t really want to know where the market is going. You just want us to verify the incorrect data you’ve been presenting to your superiors for years.”

Cliff tried to calm him down. “Tom, buddy—”

“You don’t give a damn about the market. All you want to do is provide pleasing numbers to your own bosses to cover your own asses. Tell me this isn’t just a colossal waste of time.”

“Tom is under a lot of strain. He didn’t get any sleep last night, trying to get this section done.”

“And no one cares about it!” yelled Tom. “All the text, the analysis, the conclusions. All the writing. Meaningless. All you people are focusing on is one stupid chart. What a waste of fucking time.”

“Tom, why don’t you go home and get some sleep. I think we can get by without you for now,” said Cliff.

“Yeah, I would strongly recommend that,” said Tony, not even remotely amused.

“Be seeing you,” said Tom, getting up and leaving the room.

From the teleconferencing unit in the center of the table came a loud “click.”

“Uh, oh,” said Sally.

To be continued...

More Jewels

Herewith Chapter Three of Jewel Box (I hate that title). Chapter 1 is here. Chapter 2 is here.

Chapter Three: This Bird Has Flown

The Hammond organ swelled as the band abruptly changed time signature, leaving the bass player feeling the musical equivalent of whiplash. The guitarist unleashed a salvo of obscure power chords, half of which he had made up himself some years earlier, some of them requiring three hands to play, a sound that was difficult to replicate on stage (he tried a variety of prostheses but none seemed to work very well). The keyboardist pivoted around from the Hammond to a synth and ran through a stream of notes with a speed that would almost certainly lead to carpal-tunnel syndrome in a few more years. A brief drum fill sounded like someone upending a box of basketballs at the top of a spiral staircase.

The Broadway Lambs were halfway through their signature song, the 20-minute “Harvester of Tears,” and the lead singer was standing at the side of the stage, resting his vocal cords while the instrumentalists soloed, preparing for the lung-rending climax of the song. (Early in his career, he abandoned the idea of banging a tambourine during the instrumental passages, which seemed more a move of theatrical desperation than musical necessity.) If asked—which he never was—the singer would be at a loss to explain what the song was about, even though he had written its lyrics. Not that it was the result of some manner of chemical-induced inspiration; rather, his method of lyric writing was to stand at the far end of his kitchen and randomly pitch words from a magnetic poetry kit at his refrigerator. Whatever stuck, he wrote down and the rest of the band set to music. The more cryptic the results, the more the band’s hardcore fans assigned deep philosophical meaning to.

The band’s progressive rock recalled the glory days of Yes, Genesis, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and at times, inexplicably, Seals and Crofts.

On stage, bassist Nat Phillips was having a devil of a time seeing through the mask he and the other bandmembers had grudgingly agreed to wear. Their latest album, Walk the Plankton, was ostensibly a concept album about microorganisms (or at least that’s how the magnetic poetry word toss came out as the vocalist was writing his lyrics) and the band were dressed appropriately. Pete Crane, the drummer, was a paramecium; Roger Howe, the guitarist, was an amoeba; Keith Banks, the keyboardist, was a streptococcus; Peter Dennis Ogden Charles Anderson, the singer, was the titular plankton; Nat got stuck being the Ebola virus.

It was an elaborate stage show, in danger of being taken to Spinal Tap-ian proportions, but limited, thankfully, only by the band’s budget, which was virtually non-existent. The costumes had been made on a shoestring—and using shoestrings, actually—by Anderson’s girlfriend. The venue was also not the most accommodating, being a small dive bar called Westminster Shabbey in the Colden Damp neighborhood of London, located next door to the entrance to a London Underground station. The audience numbered less than 30, half of whom were the band’s core fan base, the other half of whom had wandered into the wrong door looking for the Tube and were too polite to walk out while the band was still playing.

It was shortly after 11 p.m. when the band wrapped up their set to a smattering of applause, and half the crowd darted out to look for the train. The other half stared enraptured as the band left the stage. Those who had brought their own chemical refreshment could still see the band on stage.

Backstage, in a cramped, foul-smelling room whose chief decor was graffiti (some of it dating from the 18th century and written in beautiful script, with illustrations not unlike 12th-century manuscript illuminations), the band removed their costumes and toweled off the gallons of sweat produced therefrom. A cooler was quickly raided for its cans of lager.

“I swear that was our biggest crowd yet,” said Nat. “I tell you, it was genius locating this place next door to the Tube station.”

“Yeah, and I’ll bet Pete’s saying ‘mind the gap’ between the songs probably kept a few of the stragglers from leaving, too,” said Keith.

At that point, the club’s owner poked his head in. “Guys, that was fantastic. We’ll see you tomorrow night, then.”

“Thanks, Clive, you’re a real mate,” said Nat.

Nat grew up, and still lived, in the Colden Damp neighborhood and the club’s owner was an old friend of his family and had been one of The Broadway Lambs’ most ardent supporters.

Nat grabbed a guitar case and walked back out onto the stage. The room was nearly empty, although he could make out a few stragglers propping up the bar at the back. As he began packing up his gear, he thought about the argument he had had with his parents earlier that day. He had made the mistake of stopping by around dinner time. His dad sat at the table looking surly, while his mum poured a small amount of brandy into the baby’s bottle and screwed the lid back on and set little Jacob to nursing. Nat had popped in only for a moment to grab some old guitar leads out of his old room. His one-room flat two streets over only had so much storage space.

“Son,” said his father with concern, “you’re not happy or anything, are you? You seem happy to me.”

Now, it should be pointed out that the Colden Damp neighborhood of London, due to a strange geographic and climatological anomaly, was literally the rainiest place in the entire United Kingdom. Even when the sun was shining elsewhere in London—even as near as two blocks away—it was raining in Colden Damp. As a result, residents of the neighborhood, many of whom were the descendents of families who had lived there for centuries, were among the most congenitally depressed in the world. While longtime residents considered it a badge of honor and were thus suspicious of the cheerful, even other Brits could be put off by the sheet dourness of the locals. Charles Dickens had lived for several months in Wetton Street in The Damp, as it is called, during which time he wrote his “lost” novel, The Tortured Orphan: Being an History of Edgar Mazzletov, His Abuse at the Hands of a Vicious Schoolmaster and the Divers Fluids which Poured from his Body on a Regular Basis, which, upon Dickens’ departing of that neighborhood, was destroyed and its author thus penned the far cheerier Oliver Twist. As Dickens wrote to his friend and future biographer John Forster in 1837, “Bloody hell, it’s good to get out of the Damp. I already feel my spirits returning and have renewed vigor with which to document the atrocities of Yorkshire schools and provincial workhouses.”

Longtime residents of The Damp were not inclined to think anything particularly unusual about their disposition.

Nat just glared at his father.

“I don’t want to hear that you’ve been a shrink or anything,” said his dad.

“Or are on drugs, like those awful antidepressants they have now,” said his mum. “Mrs. Harris’s son was on them and he just kept smiling all the time. How ‘orrible.”

“I promise you I am not seeing a shrink nor am I on drugs,” said Nat, eager to get out of the house as soon as possible. While it was true that he was what you might call “not appreciably miserable,” it was more due to a lot of the things in his life finally coming together: the band was starting to see some success, they were enjoying playing music together, and, of course, there was Shirley.

“Honey,” said his mum, “I do hope you’re drinking enough.”

Parents! “Yes, mum,” said Nat, “at least six pints a day.”

“And whiskey?” asked his dad.

“When it’s not too dear.”

“Good. If you need money, you just let me know.”

“Thanks, dad, but I’m doing OK.”

He supposed he should be happy that they cared as much as they did. Still, he could take care of himself. And so what if he only wanted to have four pints at a sitting? He was over 21.

As he finished packing up his equipment in the main room at Westminster Shabbey, a young woman approached him.

“Nat, you were great,” she said. Nat looked over and smiled.

“Shirley,” he said. “I’m glad you were able to make it. I was hoping you’d come.”

They kissed. They hadn’t been going out for very long, but he had to admit that he was smitten. She had been one of the band’s earliest fans. Extremely shy, despite being an American by birth, she had been buying tickets to the Broadway Lambs’ shows for three months before actually attending one, and attending the shows for six months before she was able to face the stage. But, she soon came out of her shell—and that’s not a metaphor. Watching her from the stage one night gave Peter Anderson the idea for one of their early songs, “Venus Emerges from Her Shell and Stands About Awkwardly” (it took weeks to get the magnetic poetry to come out right). Finally, she was able to come to the shows without her shell, and it wasn’t long before she caught the bass player’s eye (an unfortunate accident involving an errant fishing line). Nat and Shirley had been on one date, part of it even spent in the same room. Nat had high hopes for the future.

“I wouldn’t miss one of your shows for the world” she said.

“If only we could clone you about a million times we’d be on the road to platinum success, Ebola virus costume and all.”

“That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to be.”

He smiled. “Listen, I have a few more things to pack up here and then I want to run home and grab a shower, but if you want to get together later tonight, I’d like that very much.”

“Yes, I think I would, too,” she said.

“Great; Why not meet me at my flat, number 5 Clammie Court, right across Moistleigh Green. Say, about half 12?”

“You mean 6?” she asked.

“No, 12:30.”

“Oh, right, sorry.”

She started to leave. “Oh, wait,” she said. “I have something for you.”

“For me?”

“I was in this shop in Soho the other day and I saw these and thought of you.” She reached into her pocket and took out a small white box and handed it to him.

“You know,” he said sincerely, “I really have been looking for a box like this for quite some time.”

“That’s nice, but there’s actually something inside it.”

“Oh, right.” Yes, they were probably the most awkward couple that ever was. Anyway, he opened the box, and pulled out a set of earrings: each one a metal stud with a tiny Rickenbacker electric bass guitar dangling from it. “Bass guitar earrings,” he said. They’re quite lovely. Thank you, Shirley.” He kissed her again, and she blushed madly.

“I know it’s hard for you to wear earrings while you’re wearing your stage costume, but I figure there are going to be times when you are not dressed as the Ebola virus.”

“You know me so well.”

There then followed an awkward pause. “So, um, I’ll see you at half 12,” she said. “Which is not 6.”

“Right. Yes, see you then.”

She ambled backward unsteadily, unsure at what point she should turn around, the decision rather made for her when she backed into a pole. He had tried to warn her by waving, but she interpreted that as simply waving goodbye and, well, hit the pole. Unhurt, she took that opportunity to turn around and make for the door and the nearest pub.

“You and your wild groupies,” said Roger Howe, the guitar player, who had been watching them from a discreet distance.

“She does seem to be the wildest one yet,” said Nat. He wasn’t being ironic; they were a neo-progressive rock band. ‘Nuff said.

“We’re all going down to the Cheese and Grater after we’re done packing up. Wanna come along?”

“I’d love to but I’ll have to take a sun check. I’m meeting Shirley later on.”

Events in Colden Damp were often postponed on those few occasions when the sun was shining especially hard, as the fair complexions of the locals weren’t always up to severe solar rigor, or at least not until the recent introduction of SPF 1,000 sunblock.

Roger smiled. “It seems to be getting serious, does it?”

“With luck. At the moment, it’s all rather silly.” He help up the earrings. “She gave me these.”

Roger examined them. “Cute. I thought you gave up wearing earrings.”

“I had, but it would be rude to not wear these.”

He looked at them somewhat reluctantly, and put them on. As soon as he had secured them to his earlobes, he felt a strange but slight pulse of energy over his skin that ran from his ears down to his toes.

“Wow—I feel weird.”

“You look weird,” said Roger. “But no weirder than being dressed as the Ebola virus.”

“I’m not sure that’s the fashion statement I want to make, but I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“As well you should. Anyway, if you get the chance later on, stop on by the ‘Grater. We’ll be there till closing time.”

“No offense, but I rather hope I don’t get the chance.”

“Amen to that, brother.”

Nat finished packing up his equipment, grabbed his guitar case, and stepped out of the club. Outside, there was a driving rain, the kind that comes at you from all directions simultaneously. Whoever said “keep the wind at your back” has apparently never lived in Colden Damp, as the wind very rarely comes from any fewer than 50 directions at any given time. Nat buttoned up his mac, turned the collar up, and set off across the street. As he walked briskly across Moistleigh Green, he was lost in thought, thinking of...well, what do you think? Shirley, of course. Had he not been distracted, he probably would have felt the soft pulsing in his earlobes and noticed that not a single drop of rain had touched him.


By 12:15, he had shaved and showered and tidied up his flat. He remembered, almost at the last minute, to put the bass guitar earrings back in. He turned his laptop computer on, plugged in the stereo speakers, and launched iTunes and set it to “random” to play some romantic background music.

The doorbell rang at exactly 12:30. Shirley was at least known for her punctuality. He ran to the door, then stood behind it for several moment not wanting to seem as eager as he actually was. Behind him, he could hear his iTunes playing King Crimson’s “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part One.” Perfect, he thought.

He opened the door. “Hi, Nat,” said Shirley, who was dressed casually, but had obviously gone home and spruced up. Her hair and overcoat were, to his eyes, delightfully wind- and rain-tousled.

“Please, entrez-vous,” he said mock gallantly and led her into the living room. Well, actually, the only room. He gestured for her to sit on the couch.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” he asked.

She admitted to herself: she was always uncomfortable and awkward in dating situations, and was trying to think if it was appropriate to drink at this point. “Um, I’ll have a pink squirrel.”

He stopped on his way to the kitchen. “A what?”

“Oh, um...”

“I have no idea what that is. Unfortunately, the potent potables are a tad limited. I have beer, wine, and a bottle of Scotch whisky.”

“I’ll just have a glass of wine,” she said.

“One glass of wine coming right up.” He walked through the open doorway into the small kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of wine from atop the ancient refrigerator and busied himself opening it.

“So you liked the show tonight?” he called out to her.

“Oh, yes, very much so,” she said. “You guys are getting better with every show.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do.”

At that point, the music, which had started off very quietly, suddenly launched into a loud section. It startled Shirley.

“Who is this?” she asked, as Nat walked back into the living room carrying two glasses of red wine.

“King Crimson. One of the albums with John Wetton on bass. He’s always been one of my heroes.” He handed her a glass. “Cheers.”

The toasted each other silently. They sat silently and awkwardly for a moment. The music quieted down a bit, and a solo violin played. She looked over at him.

“You have the earrings on,” she said.

“Yes, I do rather like them. I’ll have to take them off when we’re performing; when I take off my Ebola mask, if I have earrings in they tend to get ripped out of my earlobe.”

“That’s understandable.”

She looked around the flat. It was a small room in a house that was built in the early 20th century. The front door opened directly into the living room. Immediately to the left, underneath a window, was the couch on which they sat. On the wall opposite was a small, ancient-looking TV (it still had antennae) and a larger somewhat more modern stereo set-up comprising a turntable, a CD player, a variety of tape recording equipment, and an amplifier. The set up was bookended by two bookshelf speakers. A computer and speakers—from whence the music—were nestled in another corner. Massive stacks of vinyl records and CDs occupied every available space. The walls were largely decked with concert posters and other music-related imagery. A bass guitar stood in a stand next to a small Fender Champ-esque amplifier.

Shirley took a sip of wine, just as the music surged loudly again, startling her. She did a slight spit take.

“Sorry,’ she said with an awkward laugh.

“It does ebb and surge, doesn’t it?”

The song ended, and the next one came on, also by King Crimson: “In the Wake of Poseidon.”

“Ah, this is the Greg Lake era of King Crimson.”

“It’s quite nice. It sounds like that one song you guys do. Um...” She thought for a moment. “’The Devil’s Eaten All the Chicken.’”

“That’s right; Roger wrote the music for that. He’s a big fan of this album.”

As he had a few more swigs of wine, he decided to nestle his way closer to her.

The music switched to the Yes’s “The Fish (Shindleria Praematurus),” and that always put him in an amorous mood. But then, it should be pointed out that both Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music” and John Cage’s “4’33”” have been known to put him in an amorous mood, so perhaps other forces were at work. He put his arm around her. She caught his movement out of the corner of her eye, and seconded the motion. Oddly, he found himself unable to physically touch her. His arm stuck about three inches from her torso. He could move it no closer. She looked at him strangely.

“You’re perfectly welcome to, um, put your arm around me.”

“I’m trying.”

He tried to force his arm closer to her. She, in turn, tried to nestle closer to him, but also could not come within three inches. Attempting to climb onto his lap, both of them were equally surprised to see her hovering several inches above him, until she fell over backward and fell to the floor.

“What the—” he said.

He stood up and attempted to help her to her feet, but as he went to grab her hand, again, flesh could not meet flesh and he grabbed empty air. He lost his balance and fell backward on the couch.

She looked up at him. “Nat, I admit I’ve always been clumsy and awkward in these, um, kinds of situations, but this is ridiculous.”

“I hear you.”

She stood up and then had an idea. She got as close to the TV and stereo and she could so as to get a good running start, then ran at him. She jumped onto his lap but, rather than landing on him, she somehow skidded over his body and went sailing over the back of the couch and through the window with a crash.

Shirley!” he called and pivoted to look out the window. They were only on the second floor, so with luck she was not seriously injured. He bolted out the front door, still not entirely certain what was happening. He also failed to notice the throbbing in his earlobes.

Amazon Women in the Mood

The second movie in the 50 Sci-Fi Classics box is:

Queen of the Amazons (1947)
Auteur/Perpetrator: Edward Finney, Robert Lippert
Star of Shame: None to speak of
Monster(s): Patronizing Colonel, Creepy Bug Professor, Man-Eating Lions

In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a nation of all-female warriors, supposedly located in what is now Turkey, near the Black Sea. They were an independent kingdom under the government of a queen, and some versions of the myth specify that no men were permitted to have, ahem, “encounters” with them, or even to live in Amazon country. However, no fools they, once a year the Amazon women visited the neighboring Gargareans to, um, shore up their numbers. (I’m sure the Gargareans had this day marked quite prominently on their calendars, or at the very least considered it a bank holiday. At any rate, I would expect that there was no mail delivery, so to speak.) Anyway, it should come as no surprise that the Amazons preferred female children, and the male children were either put to death or left in the wilderness to fend for themselves. It is also said that Amazons had their right breast cut off, so as to be able to use a bow and throw spears unobstructed (Marlon Brando has also supposedly had this problem); however, there is no indication of this practice in artistic depictions of the Amazons.

The Amazons have always captured the imaginations of fiction writers and especially filmmakers, for fairly obvious—if not sexist—reasons.

Which brings us to the 1947 movie Queen of the Amazons, which has little to do with the Amazon women of legend, and is actually one example of the “jungle picture” genre of the 1940s, which basically has lunk-headed white men going on safari amidst stock footage of exotic animals and natives and proving their superiority by indiscriminately killing anyone or anything they come across. In many of these movies, white women (the result of a plane crash or shipwreck) somehow end up as the benevolent and respected rulers of a tribe of natives, are perceived as “white she-devils” by party crashers from the so-called "civilized" world, and are taught to see the error of their ways and brought back to proper society. It would all be patronizing, sexist, and racist, if it weren’t all done in hilarious high camp.

Anyway, why Queen of the Amazons was included on a disc of science-fiction films is anyone’s guess, since there is nothing even remotely science-fictiony about it, but, there it is. Alas.

A globe (not the Universal logo, but a remarkable simulation) spins and we begin in India, complete with stock footage of elephants and other quintessentially Indian festoonery. It is apparently some kind of parade or celebration. Our heroes are introduced, and the first words out of their mouths are demeaning and patronizing: “It’s all very provincial, but things are like that in the Far East,” says Colonel Jones, as he, our heroine Jean (Patricia Morison), and a dithery old professor (of entomology—insects—complete with Coke-bottle glasses, who is along on this trip for no discernible reason) arrive at the airport. Apparently the natives are restless, and there is an undercurent of hatred for foreigners. (This was just as the British rule in India was ending, so it’s hard to imagine why....)

Wayne Monroe (who is played by an “actor” named Keith Richards—no, not that Keith Richards) meets them and says that “trouble is brewing.” Says the patronizing old Colonel, “Whenever the natives are nervous, they always hold a parade to take their minds off their troubles.” Any chance he could be trampled by a rogue elephant?

So why are they there anyway?

They are searching for Jean’s fiancé (and the Colonel’s son) Greg Jones, who disappeared while on safari a month earlier. He was last seen in India, and she will not rest until she has found him. Wayne, in classic understatement, points out that “The English and the Americans aren’t very welcome here right now.” Some people are so sensitive when it comes to imperial domination. But I digress...

They make it to the hotel where Greg was last known to have stayed, and they check in. They ask the hotel clerk if he had seen Greg, which sets in motion a chain of intrigue, Well, events, anyway. Wayne philosophically points out, “Searching for a man in a country of this size would like like looking for a needle in a haystack.” Maybe a rogue elephant could be rented...with volume discounts for multiple tramplings...

Meanwhile, a be-saried Indian woman watches them from behind a potted plant, and caches the eye of Colonel Jones. And, well, she’ll be sorry, all right... she also catches the corrective lensed eyes of Professor Dithers (he is unnamed, actually), but then she vanishes. Sari, wrong number?

The party go up to their rooms, and the desk clerk makes a phone call to a person only seen in shadow, and who looks rather like Lou Costello’s silhouette. Ironically, he is not the most poorly drawn of the characters in this movie! The desk clerk tells Mr. Shadow that a party is looking for Greg Jones. Mr. Shadow ominously tells him to “detain the party.” It’s not a very threatening line, and if the same ominous voice had said “Wash my car” or “Iron my slacks” it would have about the same effect.

Jean is visited in her room by the sari-clad Indian girl, who says her name is Tondra. Tondra asks Jean if she is looking for the lost safari. Tondra says, “Moya told me of lost safari and lone white man.” This gets Jean’s attention, as you could well imagine. Wait...who’s Moya? Ah Tondra’s husband, who leads many safaris. Tondra then sets up a clip which is a flashback to his last safari, which involved several men being eaten by a tiger, hopefully not one of his most successful ones. Jean is skeptical that that was Greg’s safari, for some reason, and asks Tondra to bring her husband over so she can grill him. Tondra declines, citing “Too much danger.” Apparently, the tiger told Moya to keep his mouth shut. Anyway, Jean makes it worth Tondra’s while by giving her what looks like 20 cents. Maybe that was a lot of money in 1947 India.

There is more stock footage of elephants and an elephant tug-of-war—and the Colonel narrates it all patronizingly. The Colonel chides Wayne for disappearing into the marketplace while there is so much unrest. Professor Dithers asks why Wayne went to the marketplace to rest. One longs for a whole heard of rogue elephants to go on a trampling spree.

Meanwhile, in Jean’s room, Tondra brings her husband over. Tondra asks if Jean has a picture of her fiancé and, instead of the wallet size snapshot would expect, she takes out a leather folder and presents an 8x10 publicity photo. Moya recognizes him, and says he wasn’t in the last (i.e., tiger-eating) safari, but the one before that, where they were hunting ivory. (Great theme safaris they've got. I would actually look for something along the lines of being mauled by a bear.) They were last seen going to Kybo, in Africa. At that point, a gun pokes out of the curtains, unseen by anyone, and shoots Moya. The gun then withdraws ve-e-e-ery slowly, though no one actually sees it. Mr. Shadow is then seen on the phone taking to the desk clerk, mentioning that a man has been killed and to call the police.

The Colonel, Wayne, and Professor Dithers run up to Jean’s room and the Colonel is of course worried that “It’s a good thing no one heard that shot. With all this unrest, if the police get wind of this, there will be trouble.” There already has been trouble. And would you knock it off with the unrest already! That they say this while standing over the body of the dead Moya is even creepier. But they're too late: the Colonel looks out the window and points out “The natives are rioting already.” I’m guessing that referring to Indian citizens as “natives” probably doesn’t do a lot to endear him to them either.

They agree to flee the country, and catch a clipper to Africa and then a riverboat to Kybo, and a whole new bunch of locals the Colonel can be patronizing and demeaning to. This provides as good an excuse as any to start the first of many in a long long long series of cutaway shots to stock footage of crocodiles, birds, and other African wildlife. Wayne, meanwhile, decides to be gloomy gus and tell Jean that she’s wasting her time filling herself with false hope. Why did they bring him again?

The ship’s bell rings and, in a very weird moment, Jean pantomimes the ringing of the bell. “Now, you know what that means!” she says. I actually have no idea but I’m suddenly really scared.

They arrive in Kybo. The Colonel tells Jean that he has spoken with the commissioner (who?) and the commissioner (who?) has forbidden them to go into the back country without a guide. The Colonel then says, with a completely straight face, “Unfortunately, the only man available is Gary Lambert—and he hates women.” Does he put that on his resume or in his advertisements?

We then cut to our hero, Gary, shooting targets, with a festive bandanna tied around his neck, and bearing a raven on his shoulder. Seriously. It's Barnaby Rudge all of a sudden... The raven’s name is Jimmy (seriously), and is very smart. In fact, smarter than any of the human characters.

The commissioner (ah!) approaches Gary and tells him there is “another confounded party arriving.” Gary was under the impression that the commissioner wasn’t allowing any more expeditions while the natives were “so upset.” Wait—these natives are upset, too? In India, and in the remotest areas of Africa? Is there some kind of native network that natives from around the world access?

The commissioner fills Gary in on the plot of the movie thus far, and Gary is quick to stress, “You know how I feel about women on safaris.” And—I am not making this up—he consistently pronounces it “sa-fairies.” Hmm... That could explain rather a lot, now couldn’t it. The commissioner suggests Gary meet with Jean. “I don’t want to meet her. I haven’t met one once who wasn’t a blasted nuisance.” He then asks the commissioner if he wants to come with him and sing show tunes in a karaoke bar. (OK, not really, but you’d expect it at this point.) Jean then overhears the last parts of this conversation and shuts Gary up by drawing her gun and nailing all the bullesyes on his target. (With a tiny handgun that sounds like a cannon.) That oddly endears her to him.

There is then stock footage of natives dancing and playing music. “Did they know we were coming?” asks Professor Dithers. Why did they bring him?

Gary has warmed to Jean rather quickly. He says they are almost ready to set out, they just need a cook. “I’ve been trying to get Gabby, who’s the best cook in these parts.” Well, its the middle of nowhere, so he probably doesn’t have a lot of competition unless Bobby Flay lives in the next village.

We then meet “Gabby,” who looks like the love child of Peter Lorre and Lou Costello. He recites some poetry about women—“Men must work and women must weep”—as he peels potatoes. Upsettingly, his constant companion is a monkey. I can see why he's considered the best cook around; nothing makes the mouth water like seeing a monkey involved in the food preparation process. He meets up with Jean and Gary, and immediately launches into more misogynistic arias (what is it with these people?). The monkey’s amused, anyway.

The commissioner—whose suit is almost as ill-fitting as his accent—tells Gary that Greg Jones (the guy that they are looking for) was actually sent out into the jungle on a mission to find and stop a band of ivory poachers. Greg—I mean, Gary—then sends his bird to fetch the commissioner a match. "That's quite a smart bird you've got there!" Not that smart; he's in this movie.

They then set out on the safari with what looks like 90% of the population of Africa. The Colonel’s narration says that it will take them two days to load the boats for the safari. Huh? Two days?! How much crap are they taking?!

While waiting for the contents of a Newport mansion to be loaded onto their boats, they watch stock footage of native dancers. “That, my dear, is the origin of all modern dancing,” says the Colonel. Oh, good; it’s been a while since he said something demeaning and patronizing. He then describes the native children. “When they’re small children, long bamboo shoots are forced into their flesh. The more pain they can bear, the more respected they are.” Listening to the Colonel would have about the same effect.

“This is the end of the river, the great falls of Africa,” says the Colonel’s narration. “Yes,” adds Wayne, “but like all other beautiful things, it has its drawbacks.” I see, but-- wait! Why is Wayne responding to the voice-over? Is the narration voice-over narration or is the Colonel’s character speaking it? Wayne then adds, “This is as far as we can go by boat.” Jean then asks, “Oh, you mean this is the end of the line?” Didn’t she hear the Colonel say that this was the end of the river? Does the Colonel have a voice only Wayne can hear?

“Nothing serious had happened since Moya was killed, but we sensed that we were getting closer and closer to danger,” intones the Colonel’s narration—or intones the Colonel. I have no idea. But, either way, I suppose traveling into the very depth of the African jungle would have something to do with it.

Gary the Misogynist Bird Man leads them to a tribe of friendly natives, and asks them for help in procuring “40 boys and one good head man” (no comment). The chief says that he will send Tonga, the chief’s best head man. “But first we have welcome dancers for you.” Well, stock footage of them anyway.

In one of the most upsetting moments of the movie, Professor Dithers is getting down with his bad self while the music is playing, and he spies a vaguely androgynous native woman sitting under a tree and proceeds to leer at her. The Colonel says, “Remember, Professor, you’re supposed to be interested in insects,” to which the Professor responds, “But you find them in the strangest places.” I have no idea what that means, but as vaguely sexual innuendo, it is deeply upsetting.

The stock footage continues.

The Colonel says they went to the marketplace to buy the rest of their supplies. Wait—they took two days to load their boats and they still need more things? Jeez. I thought I took a lot of crap when I went travelled.

The stock footage continues.

Tonga tells Gary, “It’s mighty big job to get 40 boys for you.” (Yep, uh huh...dum dee dum...the ceiling needs painting...) It turns out the boys are afraid of “voodoo,” which is not African, but never mind. I suspect it’s a euphemism anyway....

“What’s the voodoo this time,” asks Gary. “What are they afraid of?”

“White woman,” says Tonga.

“I can’t say that I blame them.”

Would you cut that out!

To clarify, the “white woman” is the “queen of the she-devils.” A “white goddess.” They all seem amused by this idea, as, meanwhile, Gabby’s monkey and Gary’s raven have an altercation.

There is more stock footage of dancing.

That night, Jean visits Gary at his tent, eager to ask him about the “Amazons.” They then ask Tonga to tell them everything he knows about the white she-devils. “They know everything. They voodoo.” Ah, well, that was a help. Upon further pressing, Tonga explains, in fractured jungle-movie-native English, that long time ago boat in big storm, men try to get in boat, but captain wouldn’t let them. Only women saved. Women make camp in jungle, now she devils. Ah. Reason number one why “women and children first” may not be the best strategy.

There is then a lot of walking punctuated by stock footage of animals. Some deep deep padding, as Gary and Jean take turns looking through a telescope at the same spot and see wildly different animals.

This reverie is interrupted by Tonga running up and handing Gary a gold coin. “That’s Greg’s!” shouts Jean, who should get a job grading rare coins if she can tell that. She remembers that the year on it was 1921. I guess it's a good thing they only minted one coin in 1921.

The Colonel’s narration then gets all melodramatic. “It seemed as if an evil force were trying to impede our progress,” citing a series of “minor mishaps.” I guess it’s an underachieving evil force if the worst it can do is inflict some minor mishaps.

That night, Gary tells Jean that one of the native boys, Bombo (seriously), confirms the existence of the white she-devils, and that they are holding Greg captive. It is at this point that Gary is attacked by a lion. And not a female lion, it should be pointed out. Everyone has a gun, yet no one uses it, using instead a torch to drive the lion off. Wayne is the one who saves Gary, yet all Gary can say is, “Would that it had been anyone but you.” Jeez, what a dink. He should have just let the lion eat him. Wayne confides in the Colonel—in garbled, barely learned dialogue—that he suspects that someone in the safari is trying to keep them from reaching Greg.

Gary and Jean then share a moment. Gary points out that he is along on the sa-fairy to try to find the ivory poachers. Jean is upset that Gary didn’t come along because of her. Gary thought that she was engaged to Greg, and she is. He asks if she would be interested in him if she didn’t love Greg. He presses the point—and does he think he’s fooling anyone? “Now you’ve got me so mixed up,” she says. But she brought the whole thing up!

The next morning, one of the natives finds a bare footprint in the sand. Shortly thereafter, Wayne turns up dead. Yes! One down, four to go. Another footprint is found nearby. “That footprint was meant to look like a native’s, but it was made by a white man” says Gary. How can he tell? “Whoever made that print was accustomed to wearing shoes.” Huh? (It should be pointed out that all the natives in the sa-fairy are wearing some kind of footwear.) “As far as we know, the only white men in this area are in this camp. And one of them is a murderer.” And there the follows all the requisite staring back and forth at each other.

More stock footage, this time of kitties. (It’s lion country, apparently.) Oh, and swarms of locusts. This gets Professor Dithers’ attention, who is suddenly carrying a net. The Colonel is unsure if the locusts or the lions are the greater danger.

Bad luck continues to follow them as Bombo is run down and eaten by a lion. Gary thinks it was foul play. Was the lion acting alone?

There is a bit of a lull as the natives have a ritual revenge lion hunt, interspersed with ritual lion stock footage.

They move on and get nearer to the forbidden territory overseen by the white goddess.

We then cut to the she-devil realm, where the long-lost Greg is painting a gorilla while the white goddess, Ziti (sorry, Zita), is practicing her archery. She is dressed as one would expect a jungle goddess to be dressed, by sexist Hollywood filmmakers. She climbs on his lap (while he’s standing up), and it turns out that he is not a captive and, in fact, is in love with Rotini (I mean, Ziti—Zita), not having been quite as deferential to the memory of his fiancée as she has been to his. One of their pet kitties—Tawny, the lion that attacked Gary—comes back with a bullet wound, alerting Penne to the fact that outsiders are approaching.

They withdraw to their hut which looks like it could very well be the sunroom in a vacation home on Key West. Where did they get elaborate rattan furniture, carpeting, and tapestries? Is Ernest Hemingway in the next room? They send a welcome detachment to bring Gary, Jean, and the Colonel to the camp to meet with Rotelle.

Meanwhile, Rigatoni’s personal valet, another scantily clad Amazonian named Sugi (really), and she are talking about how beautiful Ronzoni is. Greg comes in and seconds that motion. They all then laugh uncomfortably. Greg says that he is about to go to a council meeting (a council meeting? in the jungle? they are she-devils!) and that he would like her to hold the safari party there until he returns.

Linguine comes out and immediately accosts the safari threesome. “Why are you attempting to enter my territory? Everyone in the jungle knows that strangers are not welcome here.” Well, I guess that explains why there is no visitor’s center. Gary, looking as foppish as ever, confronts her, and Lasagna, in her bizarre jungle accent, makes reference to her “worriers” who are eager to kill potential invaders, perhaps by whining them to death. She also points out that Greg is not a prisoner, although he is at a council meeting (six of one, half dozen of another...).
They are led into the Key West vacation house, where she offers them food and refreshments (she does blow hot and cold, doesn’t she?). Gnocchi is surprised that the sole purpose of the safari is to find Greg.

Over dinner, Fettucine explains to the Colonel (who, you know, is dying to say something demeaning and patronizing) how she ended up as the white goddess. The ship she was traveling on sank, and she and her mother washed up on shore, Her mother was a great leader, and she was brought up to also be a great leader. Ah. That was thorough. The Colonel is quick to ask if there are any white men (I would have thought that would have been Gary’s first question). Greg is apparently the only one; and you think it's any shock that he doesn’t want to leave? Spaghetti says that she had always wanted to invite other white men to settle there, but hadn’t gotten around to it. But, now that some of their girls have reached, um, marrying age, they’re looking to, um, have some more men around. The Colonel takes out a cigar and asks if it’s OK if he stinks up the place.

Fusilli asks to speak to Jean alone. Farfale tells Jean that Greg is in love with her, and Jean’s jealousy takes full reign. Jean is upset, probably because they went through all the trouble to find him. Penette tells Jean that should could easily have her killed—she ads that, according to Greg, she is “half savage.” Ah, yes, but which half? I’m guessing it was the half that took acting lessons.

At that point, two women carry in Professor Dithers, who was chasing bugs when he was caught by the women. They unceremoniously dump him on the floor, and the only regret is that there wasn’t something large and sharp protruding upward.

Ricotta is obsessed with not having to conform to “conventional barriers of society” and, when confronted by Gary, she suggests that something has “passed” between him and Jean. “The lonely nights you spend in the jungle are somehow different than the nights you spend anywhere else.” Yes, being menaced by creatures. She points out that she knows everything that happens in the jungle. “Your safari wasn’t out two days before the jungle underground told me you were coming.” Jungle underground?

Gary confronts Mozzarella about the ivory poaching, and asks for the name of the operation’s leader. She asks for protection and it is at that moment that the real ringmaster of all the misfortune enters: it is Gabby, the Peter Lorre/Lou Costello monkey guy, who has a gun and a deeper less grating voice. In fact, it turns out (surprise) that he was Mr. Shadow in India. He was a partner with Parmesan and knew about Greg, but “I didn’t think you’d sell me out for him.” Monkey Guy was behind the lion attack on Greg, the killing of Wayne, and the killing of Bombo—but we saw Bombo being eaten by a lion. Was it monkey guy in disguise? He then orders everyone killed.

While being led out, Gary has Professor Dithers make his one contribution to the safari: falling on the ground, and he takes advantage of the distraction and overtakes the native guards. Riots break out, and the good natives battle the bad natives—they can only be told apart because the good natives appear to be wearing khaki shorts; the fight is kind of like shorts vs. skins. The village is set on fire, and the Colonel and Gary have a shoot out with the natives, while Professor Dithers is busy looking at bugs. At that point, Greg returns and has a strangely hostile reunion—in the middle of a gunfight—with his father The Colonel (forgot about that).

Meanwhile, inside the hut, Monkey Guy is holding Jean and Pesto hostage and reciting his poem about men working and women weeping (jeez, do we need that callback?). He is about to shoot them, but decides it would be more fun to hurl a spear at them instead. He grabs one and throws it at Risotto—but misses. Then he grabs a machete from the wall as Gary enters. He throws it at Gary, and also misses. Some bad guy; he couldn't hit the broad side of barn (or the barn side of a broad...). Gary then throws his gun at Monkey Guy (and misses), then jumps over a table and they have a long drawn out fist fight. It’s rather hard to follow, as Monkey Guy’s stunt double is six inches taller and 30 pounds lighter than he is and looks exactly like Gary’s stunt double. You have to wait for the closeups to figure out who is where.

Some race of warriors; the women just stand there watching until finally Sugi saves the day by entering and blowing a poison dart at Monkey Guy. He falls to the floor and dies just as he lived: clutching a monkey.
There is a cut to some time later and a double-wedding ceremony—Greg and Prosciutto and Gary and Jean—which, um, is a tad abrupt. The ivory poaching has been stopped, and Provolone says, “I’m leaving my wild jungle life behind me.” That was a trifle facile! And who gets in the upsetting last line of the movie? Yes, Professor Dithers: “Wild life! Ha ha! You should see one of our night clubs.” I wish they’d find a night club and beat him over the head with it.

They all laugh and...

Fade out.

So, why be the benevolent ruler of a race of jungle natives when you can join society and be a housewife! And isn’t it a bit creepy that Jean just gives up Greg after a day? Or that he had given her up the minute he found the white goddess in the jungle—all the while Jean was putting her life in great danger to try to find him? And why was Creepy the Bug Professor along anyway? It’s not like his expertise in entomology was any great help. All he did that was useful was fall down. And what about the other Amazon women? What’s going to happen to them? Was Sugi promoted to goddess? I also wonder if it was supposed to be a secret plot twist that the Monkey Guy was Mr. Evil all along. But then, since it's actually given away on the movie poster (see top of post), I guess it wasn't. The whole ending was kind of a “Captain Kirk enforces the Prime Directive to not interfere in other culture by interfering and destroying other cultures.” But at least it didn’t end with the Colonel saying something demeaning and patronizing.

Royalty-Free Soap Opera

In the 1990s, the advent of royalty-free stock photography--distributed first on CD, then over the Internet--was a great boon to cash-strapped publishers and designers (or, basically, publishers and designers), who needed editorial images of people, places, and things, but didn't have the budget to commission custom photo shoots. At Micro Publishing News magazine, we were no exception, and we had a vast collection of royalty-free stock image CDs. At the time, one of the 700 jobs I had there was to write a monthly humor column, and, pressed for time and topic, I had an idea, the brilliance of which, a decade later, remains questionable.

When I was a kid, one of the big things was photonovels of popular movies (like Star Wars). These were basically "live-action comic books," or a series of still images from a movie overlaid with speech bubbles and, as far I can recall, various transitional narrative. It was kind of a cool idea at at the time, and buying one or two was the closest I ever came to getting into comic books (which I never did).

Anyway, fast forward to 1998, where I had the idea of trying to create the equivalent of a photonovel using solely royalty-free stock images (with a little intro to vaguely justify the premise). And thus was born my "Royalty-Free Soap Opera." Now, I have to confess, I still like the idea, even if my execution left much to be desired.

I did three installments before my editor--always who hated the idea--gently suggested I never do another one.

So, we delve into the archive for this item from January 1998.

Royalty-Free Soap Opera

Entertainment companies and special effects houses have recently begun talking about using “virtual actors,” or computer-generated people, to appear in films. I thought I’d beat ’em all to the punch and make use of my own “stock company” to enact this little “soap opera” comprising only royalty-free images.

Our story The Bold and the Italic begins in the glamorous world of cheesemaking. At the corporate headquarters of In-a-Gouda-da-Vida, a deal is going down that could bring ruin to at least two people.

The head of In-a-Gouda-da-Vida’s overseas division is Edgar Gorp, who has just received a tragic phone call.
Chuckie was one of the company’s best salespeople, yet the loss of the Fujiyama account could only mean one thing: no squeak toy for Chuckie.

Meanwhile, down the hall, Gorp’s partner, Harold Tiddles, has made a significant discovery.
He shapeshifts into the form of company president Jennifer Snorfman, intending to embezzle $60 in various international currencies to pay a parking ticket.
Little does he know, however, another shapeshifter works for the company, and has spotted the deception.
Meanwhile, the real Jennifer Snorfman dreams about the love of her life, a construction worker whose job consists of rolling on dirt to flatten it out.
She dreams of him often.
This is well known to Gorp, Snorfman’s husband, who divulges a clandestine plot to an office temp.
In the meantime, Tiddles, his secret identity as a genetic mutant having been revealed in an office memo, flees the building.
Unfortunately for him, another office shapeshifter has disguised himself as Tiddles’ tie, and strangles him.
Police later found, on a Manhattan sidewalk, a single silk tie that, oddly, was moaning. Tiddles was nowhere to be found. The tie was rushed to the hospital.

What will become of Edgar Gorp and his plans for the water? Is Tiddles dead? If so, is he at Barney’s? And what of Snorfman and her love? What’s up with that? Tune in again someday.