The Complete 'Tomie' in One Big Book

Tomie: Complete Deluxe Edition (2016, Viz Media)
Story and Art: Junji Ito
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

High school girl Tomie is found dismembered by an unknown killer. When she later shows up at school, alive and well and insisting she doesn't know anything about being murdered, it's the beginning of an ever-expanding web of madness, violence, and murder.

"Tomie" is the best known and most commercially successful work by Japanese horror comics writer and artist Juni Ito. It lasted for 20 installments in the magazines "Halloween Monthly" and "Namuki", running from 1987 to 2000, and has so far been adapted into seven live-action horror films (the first in 1999 and the most recent in 2011). It has been translated into English and published in collected volumes a number of times, most recently by Viz Media.

The series revolves around its title character, who, although she is mostly absent in a few of the stories, is always at the center of a maelstrom of lust and violent murders. Invariably, Tomie herself ends up murdered herself... but she never stays dead for long. (While I would normally consider that a spoiler that aspect of the series is given away on the cover of the collection this review is about.)

Whether she's a demon, the manifestation of an angry spirit, or some sort of evil parasitical creature that feeds off lust and homicidal violence, Tomie is both the beauty and the beast in this series. She uses her beauty to fill men and women with obsession and spur them onto committing murderous acts against each other and Tomie herself, all in an attempt to possess her, or to keep others from possessing her.

The latest English-language edition of "Tomie" collects all the stories that Junji Ito did with the character, in one big 700+-page book. They are a fascinating read, because you get to see how Ito's improved as an artist from his first professional work (which was also the first Tomie story) through to when he perfected his style. Reading all these stories also gives you a survey of the themes that are common in this writer/artist's tales--obsessions turning into madness, horrific bodily transformations, and mysterious terrible horrors that arrive unexpectedly and remain forever unexplained. This complete collection also lets readers see that the Tomie stories come full circle, in the sense that the series opened with a series of linked stories that mixed science and the supernatural, and it ends with a series of linked stories that mix science and the supernatural.

Sandwiched in between these are other multi-part stories, and many single episodes... all of which are deeply horrific. In some other reviews of I've done Ito's work ("Gyo" and "Uzumaki", the latter being his greatest work so far), I've stated that he is among the very few creators whose horror comics are actually scary on the level that a movie can be scary. That great talent is on display time and time again in this book. If you are a fan of well-made horror films, and you haven't experienced Junji Ito, you are missing out, big time. A few of the "Tomie" stories are the typical twist-ending, poetic justice type affairs that make up the bulk of horror comics, but the vast majority of them are far beyond that.

Some of the most chilling stories I've read from Ito are included in this volume, and my most favorite are "Revenge" (where a search-and-rescue team find a naked girl in a snow storm, and solve a mystery), ""Little Finger" and "Boy" (stories that show Tomie at her monstrous), "Gathering" (where Tomie tries to break a man who is immune to her powers), "Moromi" (where a pair of men try to dispose of a dismembered Tomie in a creative fashion... with disastrous results), and "Waterfall Basin" (where strange happenings in a village culminate in a bizarre nocturnal parade).

Another aspect that I've always liked to the Tomie stories, and which is front-and-center in a number of the ones in this book, is the way that pieces of Tomie will grow into a full-fledged Tomie who then goes out in the world to wreak havoc. She's almost like a virus that keeps spreading. ("Gathering" reveals that someone can resist the Tomie Virus... but that even those who fight it off will be impacted by it. It also shows that as long as there is vanity, lust, and greed in the world, Tomie will never be stopped.)

"Tomie" is a must-read for horror fans... and that includes those who otherwise might be put off by the art style that is usually associated with Japanese comics. Ito's visuals fall closer to what until the past decade or two was the standard story-telling techniques in American comics. The only drawback I see to the book is that it is presented to read from right-to-left and back-to-front--opposite with how Western books and comics read, but in keeping with the original Japanese version. I still don't care for such half-assed translations, but it's long since become the standard, and I'm willing to accept it when it gives me access to great works such as the stories in this collection.



One final note: Junji Ito's favorite Tomie story ("Painter") was one that I could take or leave. It contained almost all the elements that are found throughout the various tales--which is why it may be Ito's personal favorite--but I thought it was average for this book and way below average for Ito's output in geneal.

Hillbilly Comedy Double Bill!

Early in his career, during the Silent Film Days, Charley Chase made a comedy or two where he was a city slicker trying to get by in hillbilly country. He must have found something appealing and/or inherently funny about backwoods, rural culture, because he returned to that well at least twice more during his career. I cover those films today.

One interesting similarity between the two films I comment on in this post (in addition to the hillbilly settings) is that each features a dance number where Chase does a gag involving a disability. In both films, the cast performs a Virginia Reel, with Chase clowning around while dancing with his leading lady. Chase also performs a folk song in each film; in "The Real McCoy" he also plays half a dozen or so instruments--ranging from a fiddle to a mouth-harp--and in "One of the Smiths" he harmonizes with himself thanks to a drunken hallucination by one of the characters, and, of course special effects. (And on a complete side-note, a film where everything is set up for Chase to perform a song--without being roped into it like he is in both of these--is "Thundering Tenors", but he DOESN'T perform a song in that one.


The Real McCoy (1930)
Starring: Charley Chase, Thelma Todd, Edgar Kennedy, and Eddie Dunn
Director: Warren Doane
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Charley, a speed-loving driver from the big city (Chase), and a Highway Patrol Officer Cicero (Kennedy) are stuck in a remote mountain village after their chase leads them to a crash. They declare a tempoary truce, because Charley falls in love with a local girl, Thelma (Todd), and sets about pretending to be a mountain man so he can woo her.

I loved how tightly scripted this film was. Each gag is meticulously set up through something a character says or does, and often-times a gag is the set-up for an even bigger gag that follows. What's more, almost every joke and gag actively furthers the plot in some way. There is literally not a second of screen time that's wasted in this film. For example, a scene that developes the romantic relationship between Charley and Thelma also sets up the circumstances under which he is eventually unmasked as an interloper in the mountain community.

Not only is the script tight, but it gives each significant cast member something to do that plays to their strengths. This generally means that they are "straight-men" to Chase's antics, but their parts allow them to shine to the point where his main supporting players--Edgar Kennedy and Thelma Todd--feel like they are co-stars. Chase was the first filmmaker to fully use Todd's comedic abilities, and in every film they made together, she gets to do some schtick... and do it while looking pretty. Here, she takes part in a bit involving a skin cap and a skunk, and later in a sequence where the two of them must escape from angry townsfolk. She is mostly reacting to Chase in the scenes, but she hams it up in a most amusing fashion while doing it. Chase is the star of the film, but his best scenes are shared with Todd.

(Todd would be Chase's primary leading lady during 1930 and 1931, after which studio boss Hal Roach gave her a comedy series of her own. Todd headlined nearly 40 films in this series between 1931 and her untimely death in 1935, and she proved herself a master of every type of comedy, proving that Chase's eye for talent was a sharp one.)


One of the Smiths (1931)
Starring: Charley Chase, Peggy Howard, Leo Willis, Eddie Baker, and James Finlayson
Director: James Parrott
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An employee of a company that manufactures trumpets and other brass musician instruments (Chase) is dispatched to the remote mountain town of Beaver's Dam to locate and repossess dozens of instruments that have been delivered there and not paid for. Upon arriving in the town, he finds the citizens to be musically inclined, but none are playing the missing brass instruments. A local girl (Howard) warns him of the dangers of investigating this matter, but when he persists, she helps by vouching for him as being one of the Smith Boys from a neighboring town. Will the mystery of the missing instruments be solved... and will our hero escape from hillbilly country alive?

"One of the Smiths" breaks into two distinct parts--Charley's journey to the town of Beaver's Dam, followed by adventure in the town itself, with some bridging business in between. The first section is mostly made up of a hilarious bit where Chase tries to fit himself and his luggage (which includes a tuba, because his intended cover is as a traveling salesman of musical instruments) into a small upper berth in a train's sleeper car. It only gets funnier once he manages to get situated and falls asleep, inadvertently causing even more chaos. This part of the film is mostly prop humor, and it's very well done.

After a stunt involving the moving train (which I won't go into details about because it'll ruin some of the fun), and Charley's meeting with the cute country girl Sally (Peggy Howard), the rest of the action takes place in Beaver's Dam. The humor here is varied, and Chase gets to show that he's equally adept at verbal humor, prop humor, and physical gags. He also gets to showcase his talent as a singer when he has to prove his his identity by performing a song to the assembled townsfolk, since his assumed identity comes from a musical family. Eventually, his cover is blown, and he has to flee to stay alive... but not before finding out what happened to those musical instruments.

As mentioned above, this film was one of several trips that Charley Chase took to hillbilly country in the service of comedy. "One of the Smiths" has numerous similarities to the film he made just a year prior--folk music, folk dancing, clannish locals out the lookout for Revenuers, just to name a few--but unlike "The Real McCoy" which felt like an ensemble piece, this is very much Chase's film, with him standing as its single and clear star. The most surprising appearance is that by James Finlayson, who has perhaps the smallest role I've ever seen him in (he still plays it to the hilt and is very funny), but even Chase's leading lady in this picture does little more than look pretty.

Even though "One of the Smiths" is pretty much the Charley Chase Show, or maybe BECAUSE it's the Charley Chase Show, it's still a fast-moving, very funny, and well-constructed comedy. When I realized it was so severely divided into two halves, I was expecting to be irritated by dangling plot threads and unresolved character issues by the end, but I was instead pleasantly surprised. Chase had a reputation for his films being carefully plotted and precisely executed, and he lives up to that reputation even here, as the final scene brings both halves together neatly.


Trivia: Peggy Howard (who plays country girl Sally in "One of the Smiths") makes her final screen appearance in this movie. Her screen career was short--she only has three Hollywood credits listed at IMDB--and her role here was the most significant. Thelma Todd was in those other two films, so it's possible that Howard and Todd were friends, or that Todd thought she was the right actress to replace her as Charley Chase's leading lady and recommended her to him. However Howard came to appear in this film, it was the end of her Hollywood aspirations.

'Wings in the Dark' deserves to be spotlighted

Wings in the Dark (1935)
Starring: Myrna Loy, Cary Grant, Hobart Cavanaugh, Roscoe Kearns, and Dean Jagger
Director: James Flood
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Ken Gordon, a pilot and avionics innovator (Grant) is on the verge of perfecting improved autopilot and guidance systems that will allow pilots to fly and land planes in even the worst visibility conditions when he is blinded in an accident. Stunt pilot Sheila Mason (Loy) and Gordon's assistant and mechanic Mac (Cavanaugh) help him carry on his work, with Mason secretly providing the funding he needs and Mac facilitating the ruse. When the extremely proud Gordon realizes what they've been doing, will his anger kill both his long friendship with Mac, as well as the growing love he and Mason share?

"Wings in the Dark" is a fast-paced film that has a talented cast performing in a story that delivers a perfect mix of romance, humor, and suspense. While the subject matter lends itself to over to excessive sappiness and melodrama, this film mostly stays clear of those morasses, only briefly straying into the melodramatic... but with Myrna Loy doing the over-emoting, it's hard to dislike it.

Meanwhile, there's nothing to dislike about the on-screen pairing of Cary Grant and Loy. While the script sets up the eventual romance between the two characters, it's the onscreen charisma between the actors playing them that really sells it. Grant and Loy play so well off each other that it's it feels perfectly believable that they'd both, in turn, take extreme risks to save one another during the film's tense climax, because from very early in the film, they feel like the perfect couple.

"Wings in the Dark" was the first of three times Grant and Loy were paired on screen, and it is the least well known of them; Grant's star was still climbing and Loy was completing her transition from her vamp-ish roles to playing "the perfect wife". Both stars, however, give excellent performances, and they are buoyed by a fine supporting cast, with Hobart Cavanaugh (as Gordon's taciturn right-hand man), and Roscoe Kearns (as Mason's headline hungry agent and publicist) being particularly effective and fun in their parts. As for Kearn's character of Nick Williams, he is the source of most of the bad things that happen to the main characters, directly and indirectly, but he is played with such charm that you'll think as warmly of him as you do of all the other characters in the film as it unfolds. All-in-all, this is a film that deserves more attention that it's gotten over the years.

"Wings in the Dark" is one of five, relatively obscure films from early in Cary Grant career included in the Screen Legends Collection: Cary Grant. It's the first one of them that I've watched, and if the others in the set are even half as good, it was a bargain.

The Beauty and the Bomb: Linda Lawson

Early in her career, actress Linda Lawson worked as a showgirl at the Las Vegas Sands. On May 1, 1955, she was crowned Miss Cue, in honor of an upcoming atomic bomb test (which was code-named Operation Cue). In celebration of Lawson's 83rd birthday, here are pictures immortalizing that event!

Princesses of Mars, Part 28

Martian Princesses are known for their aggressive support of the Right to Bear Arms.

By Deacon Black

By Andre Pinheiro

By Robb Phibb

By Walter Geovanni

That strange sound? That's Nancy Reagan spinning in her grave!

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916)
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Bessie Love, Alan Sears, Alma Rubens, and Tom Wilson
Directors: John Emerson and Christy Cabbane
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Eccentric detective Coke Ennyday (Fairbanks) turns his drug-fueled genius toward stopping the predations of a fabulously wealthy criminal mastermind (Sears). Along the way, he and a beautiful young woman (Love) take turns saving each other's lives at the sea-shore and romance blossoms... but the villain has plans for Coke's new sweetheart.

As their stars were rising, Douglas Fairbanks and Bessie Love appeared together in a number of films, the wildest of which is almost certainly "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish". While I haven't watched any of the others, but I think I can safely make that assumption, because "wild" is joined with "weird" and "subversive" when one is looking for words to be describe this film.

"The Mystery of the Leaping Fish" is a cartoonish spoof of Sherlock Holmes with an extreme degree of attention paid to Holmes' drug habits. Some of the film's humor is lost through the passage of time, because the exaggerated degree to which Coke Ennyday uses drugs is, according to one commentator, mocking a stage adaptation of Holmes that was well-known and very popular at the time and which had left out all drug references. The vast majority of the drug humor is so over-the-top, however,  that it is as funny and ridiculous now as it was when this film was first released 100 years and will be 100 years from today. Coke Ennyday spends the entire movie buzzing around, high as a kite... and his solution to any obstacle is to inject, snort, or otherwise consume more and more drugs. And it works.

This is Douglas Fairbanks' movie. From the first moment until the end, everything is driven by his insane antics--which get even more insane once he breaks out the comedic Sherlock Holmes outfit. This, being a silent movie, the gags are almost entirely visual, although a few are augmented by intertiles or labels on items, as well as puns like the business that serves as the front for the villain's drug distribution network being named Sum Hop Laundry. While co-star Bessie Love and the lead villain, played by Alan Sears, get some funny scenes together or of their own--mostly revolving around poking fun at the melodramatic conventions of silent movies--and they show themselves to be talented and charismatic performers in these scenes, viewers will be counting the seconds for Fairbanks' unrestrained energy and craziness to return to the screen. (As tempting as it is for me to relay some of the greatest gags in the film by way of enticing people to watch it, doing so would spoil their impact... all I can say is that this is a film that has be experienced cold.)

Although it's over 100 years old, "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish" is wilder and "edgier" than many contemporary works. If anything, it's gotten even more risque, what with the "drugs are bad mmmmkay?" messaging of recent decades and several of the conventional plot devices and characters it mocks are the sort of thing that sends certain people running for the fainting couch while clutching their pearls, or for their keyboards to post angrily hysterical messages to social media and blog comment sections. I think those who appreciate absurdist, subversive humor will enjoy the heck out of this movie, even if they don't usually like silent films. The showdown between the drug-crazed, syringe wielding Coke Ennyday and the villains at the Sum Hop Laundry is something any lover of comedies needs to see at least once in their lives! (The sequence where Bessie Love's damsel in distress essentially rescues herself is also a silent movie satirical gold.)

There are several different versions of "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish" that can be viewed for free on YouTube and certain streaming services. You can even watch it right now, and I hope you'll let me know with a comment if I steered you right or wrong! (I chose this particular version because I like the music.)


Trivia: A not so funny coincidence/factoid is that Alma Ruben (who plays the villain's female sidekick) was, like Fairbanks and Love, a rising Hollywood star at the time this film was made. In fact, she was more famous than Love at the time... but by 1925, Ruben's life and career was ruined by drug abuse. She died in 1931 from ailments related to her addictions.

The Thelma Todd Quarterly

Ladies and Gentleman: We present to you the MAGIC OF THELMA TODD!

She'll be appearing weekly here at Shades of Gray for all of 2019. Thanks for coming and don't forget to tip your waiter!

Keaton and Todd are absolute greatness in 'Speak Easily'

Speak Easily (1932)
Starring: Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante, Thelma Todd, Ruth Selwyn, Sydney Toler, and Henry Arnetta
Director: Edward Sedgewick
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A bookish professor (Keaton) gets news that he has inherited $700,000, and he decides it's time to live his life to its fullest. While on his way to New York, he encounters a struggling theatre troupe with more heart than talent. He become smitten with Pansy, the lead dancer (Selwyn), and he decides to be their financial backer for a Broadway show.

"Speak Easily" is a very uneven comedy that is dragged down by long stretches of unfunny or repetitive gags separated by some excellent bits. It's got a solid and talented cast that deserved better than the material they have to work with.

For example, poor Buster Keaton is the star of the film, but he still has very little do. He is more frequently than not relegated to the role of straight man to Jimmy Durante, and most of the bits he has of his own are dragged out past the point of being funny. As for Durante, he, too has to struggle with routines that drag on; there's a bit involving luggage that starts out amusing and grows tiresome and annoying by the time the film finally moves on.

The one performer in the film who gets to appear in all the films best scenes is Thelma Todd, and it's in these scenes were Keaton gets to shine his brightest, too. Todd shows up in the second act, and she is the closest thing this genial story has to a villain. Her character, Elanor, is a burlesque dancer who is willing to do almost anything to get a part in a Broadway play, from stripping down to her underwear at the slightest suggestion--which immediately convinces Durante's character, James, that she has what it takes to be in the show--to setting up Keaton's Professor Post to be blackmailed for sexual indiscretions. Unfortunately, the good professor is simply too oblivious to even realize that Elanor is trying to seduce him, and her big scheme backfires when her efforts end up with both of them so blindingly drunk the couldn't be "indiscreet" if they wanted to.

This drunken scene, and its aftermath, with Keaton and Todd features a hilarious mix of spoken and physical humor and it is the highlight of the movie. In fact, the story-thread that starts with Elanor showing up in the Professor's office, through her attempts to seduce him and blackmail him, through the steps that James takes to extract him from any possibility of scandal, is so sharp and so well-done that it feels like it belongs in a much better movie. These scenes show that it wasn't that the famed silent movie star Keaton was getting old and had lost his edge (as some claimed at the time... and perhaps even today); it was that he didn't have anything good to work with. With quality material, and partner that can give as well as she got--which he had in Todd in these scenes they did together--Keaton could still deliver the physical humor that had made him famous, as well as deliver spoken jokes with perfect timing and the driest of dry wit.

While Keaton also has a few great moments toward the end of the film--during a Broadway opening  that's bound to be a disaster unless some miracle happens--the scenes he shares with Todd really are the film's high point. It's really a shame that the rest of the cast is stuck with mostly sub-par material,. because there are several instances where they show that they are all quite talented. Nowhere is this more clear that the scene where Professor Post decides to bring the troupe to Broadway. The performance they put on is such a wretched display of hammish acting, lousy singing, and bad choreography that leaves viewers in awe at how bad it is... which is proof that we are watching performers of the highest caliber. It takes a lot of skill, and even more practice and rehearsal, to be as bad as they are in that scene.

It's at once heart-breaking and touching that Professor Post is so smitten with the troupe's leading later that he can't see how bad Pansy and her fellow performers are... and it also gives Jimmy Durante's character a likable dimension to what otherwise comes across as a fairly wretched human being: James truly believes that he and his troupe could be the next big thing if only they could get a break. When the Professor offers to fund their show, James isn't motivated by greed, but rather by the excitement of making his (and his fellow actors) dreams come true and to get them the recognition he believes they so richly deserve. At no point does James's faith in his troupe waver, even when the experienced Broadway director that Professor Post hires (played by Sydney Toler, who is best known as Charlie Chan) accurately and truthfully describes the level of talent the performers have. As annoying as I find Durante as an actor, I really liked his character of James... and I really wished he'd been given  better material to work with.

(Of course, here I am laying blame on the scriptwriters and the director for the movie being  mostly weak when maybe I should be giving credit to Buster Keaton and Thelma Todd for making the scenes they have together so sparklingly brilliant. After all, they are the common denominator for the movie's best parts... and their hilarious scenes together are plenty reward for sticking around through the rest of the film.


One odd bit of trivia: When she appeared in this film, Thelma Todd was co-starring in her own series of comedy short films with ZaSu Pitts that was being produced by Hal Roach and released through MGM. One of these was titled "Sneak Easily", released in December of 1932 (and I actually posted a review of it last week). "Speak Easily" was released in August of that same year. That these titles are so similar can't be an accident--especially since the title of the short film makes little sense given its subject matter--but I can't figure out what the reason for it would be. Anyone out there have a thought about it?

Flash Gordon turns 85!

Today, January 7, 2019. it's exactly 85 years since Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond first graced the funny pages. Here's a gallery of photos and art celebrating Flash, his friends, and his enemies!


Jean Rogers and Buster Crabbe, the first live-action Dale & Flash

Dale (Jean Rogers), Ming the Merciless (Charles Middleton), Princess Aura (Pricilla Lawson),and Minions of Ming, in a scene from the 1936 serial "Flash Gordon".

Flash and Dale in Trouble (By Alex Raymond)

Flash Gordon, Prof. Zarkoff, Dale Arden and Pal.
(By Troy Burch)

Flash! He'll save everyone of us! (By Don Newton)

Flash and Dale: Ready for to the next 85 years of adventure
(By Gabriel Hardiman)

Musical Monday: Strangelove

Let's get the second week of 2019 started off right, with one of the greatest songs from Depeche Mode, orginally from the "Music of the Masses" album. (And be assured that there is nothing strange in loving Depeche Mode!)