Saturday Serial: Jenna of the Jungle

Continuing Don Hudson's "Jenna of the Jungle" (and including a random bonus jungle girl afterwards). Click on any panel for a larger version, and come back next Saturday for Part Thirteen.


JENNA OF THE JUNGLE: PART TWELVE
By Don Hudson

To Be Continued...

Girls of the Jungle

By Bryan Baugh

Firearms Friday with Claudine Auger

Born in 1941, Claudine Auger is a French actress who came in international prominence when she played Domino, opposite Sean Connery in "Thunderball" (1966). Both before and after her turn as a Bond Girl, however, Auger appeared in top-notch thrillers and action films, mostly for the French and Spanish markets. 

Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, Auger was one of Europe's busiest actresses, logging screen and television roles while also appearing live in stage plays. In 1991, she gave birth to her daughter, and she eased back on her work schedule to focus on her family. She continued to accept at least one part every year until 1997 when she retired from the industry completely.

Claudine Auger passed away in December of 2019.

 

A man and his box of tricks...

The Famous Box Trick (1898)
Starring: Georges Méliès
Director: Georges Méliès
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

A magician performs his signature trick, involving a box, a bird, a boy, and a big axe.

"The Famous Box Trick" is, as the title should make clear, another one of trailblazing filmmaker and special effects artist Georges Méliès short films that presents and, using trick photography, enhances a fairly standard stage illusion. As I've mentioned in previous articles, these are among my least favorite of his films, but this one I absolutely adore. In fact, I am so fond of it that I watched it, and then came back a week later and watched it again, just make sure I wasn't in some strange mood when I first saw it.

In the final analysis, this is, by far, the most charming of Méliès' films I've seen, and I recommend it to everyone reading this--whether you want to watch something fun or something historic.

At just over a minute, this film is so brimming with joy and excitement that even the most surly of viewers can't help but have his or her spirits lifted. The creative energy of Méliès as he essentially creates not only the art of special effects but, arguably, filmed fiction in general, is also so evident here that it's impossible not to love this effort. Even better, despite being one of his earliest efforts, every bit of trick photography is executed with absolute perfection. 

Take a look at "The Famous Box Trick" for yourself. I hope I haven't raised expectations to high with my praise above, but I really to think it's a perfect little film. If I could time travel, I think I'd want to go back to see how the audience reacted in 1898 when Méliès screened this film for them, as an add-on to the live magic act he performed in his theatre.

The Incarnations of Perry Mason

Although long-time Perry Mason fans will probably always think of him as looking like Raymond Burr, Burr is actually one of six actors to have portrayed the character. With the triumphant return of Perry Mason to the screens of the world (via HBO's streaming service), we here at Shades of Gray bring you a look at all the actors who have brought him to life from 1934 to 2020--and beyond.

THE INCARNATIONS OF PERRY MASON

The first actor to portray Perry Mason on screen was Warren William. He played the character in four films--"The Case of the Howling Dog" (1934), "The Case of the Curious Bride" (1935), "The Case of the Lucky Legs" (1935), and "The Case of the Velvet Claw" (1936).

Warren William

Warren William

After William wrapped up his stint as Mason, Ricardo Cortez played the character in "The Case of the Black Cat" (1936).

Ricardo Cortez

Ricardo Cortez

Next up, there was another mustachioed Mason, in the form of Donald Woods for "The Case of the Stuttering Bishop" (1937).

Donald Woods

It would be 20 years before another actor lent his face and body to bringing Perry Mason to life. In 1957, Raymond Burr took on the role, and he eventually became, quite properly, the actor who is most closely associated with character. No one else has spent more time in Mason's shoes than Burr. Additionally, Earl Stanley Gardner--the creator of Perry Mason--thought Burr was the perfect in the role.

Raymond Burr, in the 1960s

Burr first portrayed Mason in a long-running television series (from 1957 to 1966), and returned to the role for 26 made-for-television movies (between the years of 1984 and until his death in 1993). The last of Burr's appearance as Perry Mason ("The Case of the Killer Kiss") aired two months after he passed away, and the film was dedicated to his memory.

Raymond Burr, in the 1980s

Between Raymond Burr's long stretches portraying Perry Mason, Monte Markham took on the role in 15 episodes of "The New Perry Mason" (1973-1974).

Monte Markham

Most recently, Michael Rhys has played the character of Mason in a series for HBO that chronicles his journey to becoming the greatest criminal defense attorney on the West Coast. The first eight episodes aired in July and August of 2020, and a second batch will be coming in 2021.

Michael Rhys

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If you enjoyed this article, click here to take a look at the many faces of Della Street.

Musical Monday with Martika

This week's selection is a pop song with decidedly religious overtones. It was a hit in the U.S. in 1991, and it was penned by the late, great Prince (who was reportedly a devoted Christian) and performed by Martika, a child actress turned singer. 

Martika's star faded quickly, and she essentially retired from public life in 1992, at the age of 22. "Love... Thy Will Be Done" being her last hit (of three).

Enjoy the striking visuals of the video, and the beautiful music of Martika and Prince, and have a great week!

Love... Thy Will Be Done (1991)
Starring: Martika
Director: Michael Haussman
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Happy National Watermelon Day!

I made a joke about Taco Tuesday to someone I know from Australia. Her response was, "Americans and their weird holidays..."

The fact there is such a thing as National Watermelon Day, and no one seems to know who first declared August 3rd to be that day, nor when it was first named so--the earliest reference I could find to it was in 2015, but my Google-Fu is weak--seems to prove her point.

National Watermelon Day is celebrated every year on August 3rd by... well, eating watermelon. That's it.

Weird holiday or not, we here at Shades of Gray encourage everyone to enjoy some tasty watermelon to mark this very special day. We will be--whille Bebe Daniels will be performing the traditional Watermelon song. (And we all hope you will have more fun than Harold Lloyd... he doesn't like watermelon, the freak!)

Bessie Love & the Silver Key

Film historians and lovers of silent movies remember Bessie Love as a petite and radiant star who lit up the screen every time she appeared. However, she led a secret life that few ever knew about, and even fewer could ever imagine. 

For 25 years, from 1925 until 1950, Bessie Love traveled throughout the world, battling all manner of supernatural evil, from worshipers of the Elder Gods through vampire cults and even a few demon-possessed would-be arch mages. She performed her heroics under the code-name Love Bug, and she typically wore a set of artifacts that gave her an edge in her battles, but sometimes she relied on her charm, wit, and unfailing courage to carry her through... and a pair of large sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat to hid her identity. (Click here to read about how Bessie Love became the Love Bug.)

In this post, we unveil Bessie's involvement with strange happenings that were famously fictionalized in short stories by H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price. (As always, we translate this material for use in d20 System games, our own way of fictionalizing the fantastic.)

BESSIE LOVE AND THE SILVER KEY

By late 1932, Bessie Love had all but abandoned her acting career and had thrown herself completely into the battle against supernatural evils. She spent a few weeks in March of 1933 doing nothing but pouring through notes and a diary that had belonged to an evil sorcerer she had defeated, and she found repeated references to a house on the outskirts of Boston, Mass. that was either haunted or the location of magical gateways to other worlds. 

   The papers chronicled Archmage Alain Cartier, who fled from France to America during the 1690s and changed their name to Carter. Over the past two hundred years, the sprawling Carter family home and estate had been the sight of many strange events, which the sorcerer attributed to residual effects from summoning performed by the Carters, or to full-fledged gateways to other dimensions and the realms of Elder Gods. Within the past ten years, the most recent heir to the family fortune, Randolph Carter, had mysteriously vanished in 1922; people residing in the house had likewise vanished or suffered mental breakdowns, including associates of the sorcerer who had gone to investigate the house; and a reading of Randolph Carter's will in 1927 had been violently interrupted by some thing.

   After reaching out to the lawyers managing Carter's estate under an alias, Bessie traveled to Boston, spent a few nights in the house, and searched it using Dimond's Compass, an artifact she had acquired during a previous adventure that points toward the most powerful magical item or source nearby. When she first started using it in the structure, she thought either the entire manse was magical or the device was not working properly. She soon realized that several of the home's doors were enchanted, and with that awareness, she was able to locate a powerful magical artifact in the master bedroom--a key that had fallen behind a set of dresser drawers in the master bedroom.

  The key was a silver skeleton key that was six inches long, with a bow nearly the size of Bessie's palm that was shaped like an oddly tangled arabesque design. Resolving to start researching how this key might connect to the magic in the house, Bessie intended to spend one more night in the Carter House. As she slept, she had a strangely vivid dream. In it, she was on a windswept cliff, gazing down upon a sprawling city of domed palaces and twisting spires. Overhead was a sky that swirled with ever-changing, vibrant colors. A robed and hooded figure stood next to her, nothing but inky shadows within the hood where his face should be, and he held the silver key she had found in his gloved left hand. He handed her the key, stating that it would unlock portals that opened to other times and dimensions, and warned her that just as she could pass through to those other places, so could the beings dwelling there come through to our realm.

   When she woke up that morning, Bessie felt certain that her dream had been caused by her finding the silver key. She took it to one of the magical doors in the house and saw the key's ward and bits reshape itself to fit the keyhole. She inserted the key, picturing in her mind the landscape she had seen while sleeping, unlocked the door, and...

   Bessie found herself looking out onto a barren plain under the colorful sky from her dream. The door she unlocked should have led to an interior room deep within the house, yet here she was, looking at an alien landscape--and the wind blowing from it drove a chill through her body.

   She closed door, certain that she now understood the workings of the silver key and the enchanted doors throughout the house: Whoever turned the key decided where the door went--or maybe caused the door to lead to one of several possible locations, and beings could come and go from that location. She felt she now had an explanation for both the "hauntings" and the mysterious disappearances that had taken place in the house.

   To test her theory, she took the key to an immense, ornately carved set of double doors at the back of the house's study. They sported detailed images of medieval peoples and a village in a forest. She turned the key, expecting to see another landscape, but instead a crowd of angry, torch-carrying men, led by an armored, axe-wielding man, burst through the door even before she had fully opened it. 

   "Tis another witch," the armored man bellowed, pursing her as she scrambled backwards and away from the door. "We have found the path to their lair of deviltry!"

   Fighting off the torch-wielding mob, and dodging wild swings of the armored man's axe, she made it back to the bedroom she was staying in--and the pistol she kept there. She shot the armored man in the chest as he lunged at her one final time--and he dissolved into a spray of colorful sparks and blinked from existence. The torch-wielding mob behind him panicked and fled back the way they came, setting drapes and bookshelves ablaze as they went. Bessie, meanwhile, gathered her things, barely escaping the Carter home as it was consumed by flames.

   Several days later, Bessie returned to the ashy wreckage that had once been a grand house, together with the attorneys for the estate. To her surprise, the ornate wooden doubles door still stood, stained with soot but otherwise untouched by fire, now tightly shut with the silver key still inserted in the lock. She bought it from the lawyers on the spot, and they were happy to not only put the troubles of the cursed house behind them, but to have some additional funds to distribute to the heirs.

   Bessie had the door and the silver key shipped to California where she teamed with psychic Dane Rudhyar to predict where the Silver Key might cause the door to open to. They identified and visited six different locations--both in the past and in the present. Bessie, however, found herself haunted by increasingly disturbing dreams, so she put the Silver Key inside a bag that made magical items inert. (Nicknamed Murphy's Pouch, it was another treasure she picked up during her adventures.) 

   When Bessie permanently relocated to England in 1935, she had the door from the Carter House installed in her home there, seemingly as just an object of art that went from the drawing room to nowhere but onto a solid wall... but if opened with the Silver Key, it was a portal to so much more.

Bessie Love in 1937, posing by the door saved from the ruined Carter House

*-*-*

The rest of the text in this post is released under the Open Game License, and it may be reproduced in accordance with its terms. Copyright 2020 Steve Miller. 

MURPHY'S POUCH

The history of this item is unknown mostly unknown. Bessie Love recovered it Murphy's Pouch from the disintegrating body of a vampire she'd just defeated, and she named the item after him.

   Murphy's Pouch is to be a small purple felt pouch with gold-colored draw strings. It radiates faint Conjuration magic. If the pouch is opened, the magic radiation become stronger. When someone looks inside the pouch, it appears to be empty. If someone reaches into the pouch, they discover it is much larger than it appears--and the person's and arm can reach deep into an inky darkness that seems to writhe and pulsate at the pouch's bottom. Once the person pulls back, the pouch once again appears normal and empty.

   If a person is brave enough to feel around in the darkness, they will quickly grab one of the items it contains, and if the person knows what they are reach for, that particular item is found just about immediately. While the pouch was in Bessie's possession, she kept the following items in it: A folding knife with a silver blade, a fully loaded Baby Browning pistol, a vail of holy water, a vail of dried wolfsbane, a small gold cruxifix and the Silver Key.

   Using Murphy's Pouch: This item functions like a bag of holding, except it can only contain up to 12 individual items that each are no more than 5 inches in length, take up no more than 5 cubic inches of space, and which each weigh no more 5 pounds. Also, if a sharp object, or some other item, that could damage the integrity of the pouch's extra-dimension space, it vanishes without any effect. Similarly, any items beyond the maximum number of 12 that are inserted into the pouch vanish and cannot be retrieved.
   To retrieve an item from the pouch, the user must visualize it. Otherwise, a random item will be grabbed and retrieved from within the pouch.

   If player characters come into possession of Murphy's Pouch, the GM must make a list with 12 slots, numbered 2 through 12. Each item placed within it is assigned a number, and the GM should roll d26 against the table to see what object is found within if a character isn't seeking something specific. If a number is rolled to which no item is assigned, the next lowest numbered object is retrieved. When items are placed in the bag, the GM can either roll randomly to see where they are placed on the list, or he can merely fill the table in order from lowest to highest. If one item is removed and another is put into the pouch before it is returned, the most recent item takes its number on the table.

   Drawbacks: There are no drawbacks to using Murphy's Pouch, but magic items and artifacts placed within the pouch are treated as if they have ceased to exist. Any ongoing effects the items or artifacts may have been powering end. Once removed from the pouch, the items return to their normal functions.

THE SILVER KEY

The Silver Key was in the possession of a family of wizards who claimed to trace their linage back to ancient Atlantis. They have gone by many names over the millennia, but most recently, they had gone by Carter. Family legends are unclear as to whether the Key was created by a member of the family, or if it had been wrested from the grasp of an Elder God, but it had been a cornerstone of their magical efforts. For a thousand years, the skilled spellcasters and artisans of the family were famed for their explorations of other realities and their ability to build permanent doorways between this universe and others: No dimension was too remote or too alien for them to access. Although many of the extra-dimensional doorways they created could be opened through a variety of means, the Silver Key could also unlock them all.

   The last member of the Carter family to have attempted to understand and master his family's ancient practices, Randolph Carter, vanished without a trace in 1922. According to an elderly servant, he last saw him studying a large silver key, but no trace of it could be found either--until Bessie Love located it in 1933. Randolph Carter's fate remains a mystery.

   The Silver Key is, in truth, an artifact that is as old as the multiverse. It was created by the Outer God Nyarlathotep, as the dimensions were forming, so that he could travel through them easily. The Elder Gods wrested it from him and gave it to a group of their mortal servants, so that they, too, could travel between realities.

   Although the Key occasionally morphs into other shapes, depending on what being is holding it, it usually appears to be a brightly polished, silver skeleton key. It is six inches long and sports a bow roughly the size of a woman's palm, shaped like an odd tangle of arabesque characters. The key wards and bit are sharp and can be used to saw through rope or leather, or inflict shallow cuts on a person that are painful but not life threatening. It radiates a strong aura of Transmutation magic.

   Using the Silver Key: The Silver Key attunes itself to whoever holds it or keeps it on their person for longer than one round. The Silver Key allows its user to unlock gateways to other dimensions, planes of existence, and even other points in time. Such gateways are usually constructed to appear like normal doors, window shutters, or even manhole covers. When the Silver Key is used to open one of these, it instead gives access to far more remote places. (See "Enchanted Doors", below, for details.)

   A person who has been attuned to the Silver Key for six days or more can recognize an enchanted door by sight: The door will appear to glow as if it had been subjected to a detect magic spell. The further away the door takes those who pass through it, the brighter the glow. (An enchanted door that takes someone to the Council Chamber of the Ancient Immortals on Mount Fuji will not glow as bright as the one that can take characters to the City of Ulthar in the Dreamlands.)

   A character's ability to see enchanted doors is lost as soon as his or her attunement to the Silver Key ends. To become unattuned to the Silver Key, the character must either allow another person to hold it for more than a round, or place it in an extra-dimensional container like a bag of holding. The character's attunement to the Key is also lost if he travels to a different plane or dimension than where the key is.

   The Silver Key also opens any door that is secured through magical means, such as wizard lock, or with some form enchanted mechanism. It reshapes itself so that it can be inserted into any lock, and, once turned, the door opens. If the door has no lock, or is locked in a manner that does not feature a traditional keyhole, knocking on it with the Key will cause it to open. The Key has no effect if there is no enchantments securing it.

   The Key may also lets the person who is attuned to it for six days or more know where an Enchanted Door leads before opening it. The GM rolls a secret Wisdom attribute check for the character; if it is successful, the character may gain some insight about the door. 

   If the door leads to a single time and/or place, the character receives a mental flash of what lies beyond. If the door leads to. The player should roll a successful Wisdom attribute check to clearly understand the image. A failed roll results in a general sense of unease if some hellish place lurks on the other side.

   If the door leads to several possible places and/or times, the character sees a jumble of images in the mental flash. A Wisdom attribute check with a -2

   Drawbacks: For as long as the character is attuned to the Silver Key, he or she will have strange dreams. The first dream is always of a hooded figure who hands the character the Silver Key while issuing the following warning: "This key unlocks doors that may go to many places. The person who turns the key may determine where the doors lead. But beware. Once a door is opened, it becomes a portal that can be entered or exited. And do not pass through a door you have unlocked with the key, lest you are certain that you intend to cross the threshold with your complete body and soul--or you may lose one or both. And be aware: No mortal can pass through the Ultimate Gate intact."

   The dreams of the hooded figure occur every night. Some nights, the dreamer and the figure watch some of the worst moments of the dreamer's life unfold, with the figure saying that the Key could allow the dreamer to go back and change that moment. Other times, they witness horrible events that have yet occurred, with the figure likewise declaring that the Key could let the character stop the event from happening--if it used on the right door. On other nights, the dreams involve strange and nightmarish places and worlds that the dreamer can barely comprehend. As time wears on, the dreams even seem to start to bleed through to the person's waking hours, as he or she will sometimes seem to catch sight of the hooded figure out of the corner of his or her eye, or in distorted reflections on various surfaces, looming over his or shoulder--but the figure isn't there when the character turns to look.

   Every night the character has the Key, the GM should roll on the following table to see what dreams the character has and if his or sleep is restless enough to have an impact on the following day.

1d6      Dream/Effect

1.          A pleasing scene from the past. No effect.

2.          Visit to a strange place. No effect.

3.          Visit from a dead friend or relative with a dire message. 

             -1 to all saving throws and skill checks.

4.          Relive a horrible event from the past. -2 to all
             saving throws and skill checks.

5.          Visit to a strange, horrific realm. The hooded

            offers dire predictions about the future. -4 to all 

            saving throws and skill checks.

6.         Visions of monsters and monstrous people

            committing horrible acts. -4 to all saving throws 

            and skill checks.

For every four days the character owns the Key, +1 is added to the result of the d6 roll. A modified result of 6 or more is treated as a "6". The majority of the dreams should turn out to either be revelations of events that have happened--evil deeds that someone wants to keep hidden--or foretellings to brutality and tragedies that are coming. (The character can either learn of this through direct adventures, or through the news media. Eventually, the character will hopefully understand the he or she can act on the dreams, if he or she can tolerate them.)

   After 24 days of owning the Key, and being sent dreams, the character gains Foresight as a bonus feat.

FORESIGHT [Minor Power]
You have the ability to see a fraction of a second into the future.
   Benefit: You gain a permanent +2 adjustment to all initiative rolls.

ENCHANTED DOORS

Scattered throughout the world are enchanted doors that can be unlocked and passed through by using artifacts like the Silver Key. Some have existed since the time of Atlantis and the gods walked the Earth, others are more recent creations, such as the bulk of the ones in the Carter House.

   Enchanted doors are usually found at the end of blind alleys, corridors in buildings that serve no purpose, or on exterior or interior walls. In such cases, if the doors are opened without the Silver Key (or with whatever means the creator established for accessing the door's enchantment), the door opens onto a solid wall, or, at best, a shallow space or shelves just a few inches deep. If opened with the Key (which can open any enchanted door, always), the space behind the door instead becomes a dimensional portal that can take characters who step through it to other places, times, and even dimensions. Some enchanted doors lead to a single fixed locations, others take those who step through them to a random place.
   Although referred to as "enchanted doors", the enchantments that makes them can be placed on any item that covers an opening that allows beings to enter or exit a location, such as doors, window shutters, or drapes. The only requirement is that they must conceal what is on the other side when they are closed.

   When a character passes through an enchanted door, unless he or she is entering into another structure, there appears to be a free-standing door (or window, or whatever the door's physical component is) that more often than not appears to be surrounded by faintly glowing mist. The door remains open for 1d6+1 minutes, then the magic cuts off. Unless someone who passed through possesses the Silver Key or knows the ritual to open the door, characters are now stranded on the far side of the magical passageway. (Although the door is not visible to regular mortals if there is no physical part to it at a destination point, the bearer of the Silver Key, or a character using the true sight spell or similar abilities, can see a faintly glowing outline of the enchanted door. The Silver Key, or appropriate ritual, can still open it.)

   The physical manifestation of an enchanted door can be destroyed using whatever means destroys a non-enchanted version of the door's physical manifestation. The magic gateway, however, remains, even if it now invisible and mostly inaccessible. A person bearing the Silver Key will be able to see these now formless dimensional apertures as magic auras hovering in the air, or overlaid on walls or floors if a new structure has been built where something else once stood.  He or she can cause these to open with the Silver Key, but otherwise such dislocated magic portals typically remain inaccessible to anyone but gods. (On the days of the Summer Solstice, Winter Solstice, All Hallow's Eve there is a 1% chance every hour of these portals opening at random and letting being pass back and forth for 1d6 minutes. At the exact moment of a total lunar or solar eclipses, there is also a 1% chance a gateway will open for 1d6 minutes.

   When open, such magical conduits from one place to another can be seen by all beings within a 5-foot radius of it, even those who cannot normally see. A frameless enchanted door appears like a brightly glowing streak of light on the same plane and of roughly the same size as the mundane portal it was once tied to. There is no way of telling where a disconnected enchanted door leads for anyone but a god or the owner of the Silver Key. Those stranded on the far side of a randomly opening enchanted doorway are stuck there until it opens randomly again, they find another way back to where they started from, or the Silver Key is used.

Using Enchanted Doors
We recommend that the GM should always have an adventure purpose and a destination for where an enchanted door can take characters. Nonetheless, for those who like to run adventures off-the-cuff, or who might need a little help in deciding the nature of an enchanted door, we offer this random table to determine where one might lead.

2d6     Nature of Enchanted Door

2         Passage to a demonic plane

3         Passage to an alien planet

4         Passage to the Dreamlands

5         Passage to a Home of an Elder God

6         Passage to the Past, same location

7         Passage to the Past, different location

8         Passage to the Future, same location

9         Passage to the Future, different location

10       Passage to the Home of a Great Old One

11       Passage to the Past, on an alien planet

12       Passage to 4d6 different places and times

--

If you feel like this post is ending suddenly, you're right. It's not so much that this idea is fully explored, so much as this post is getting really long. Maybe what we need to do is create an actual product... perhaps it could be called "Bessie Love and the House of Doors"? Is that something anyone would liked to see?

Meanwhile, you can click here to read more about The Secret Life of Bessie Love, as well as get more ideas and magic items for use in your d20 System games!

Saturday Serial: Jenna of the Jungle

Continuing Don Hudson's "Jenna of the Jungle" (and including a random bonus jungle girl afterwards). Click on any panel for a larger version, and come back next Saturday for Part Twelve.


JENNA OF THE JUNGLE: PART ELEVEN
By Don Hudson

To Be Continued...

Girls of the Jungle

By Mitch Foust

It's the final bow for Tom and Jerry

The Phantom Rocket (1933)

Starring: Anonymous Voice Actors and Singers

Directors: Frank Sherman and George Rufle

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An escaped convict hijacks Tom and Jerry's experimental space ship and turns their maiden voyage into his getaway... with disastrous results.

"The Phantom Rocket" is a kinda-sorta sequel to "Rocketeers" where Tom and Jerry are also heroic test pilots about to travel into space on a rocket ship. While this one covers some of the same ground as its predecessor--a space rocket that misfires and ends up in the ocean, for example--it's a much more capably executed space launch, as if the cartoon characters learned lessons from their previous attempt at space exploration. The production team at Van Beuren in the Real World also learned lessons from the previous adventure it is more focused in its story and humor, and the pacing is fit for a cartoon about a rocket with the action and gags coming at the viewer non-stop from beginning to end. Unlike entirely too many of the installments in this series, the jokes don't get repetitive and there is very little in the way of looped animation.  

Another strength of "The Phantom Rocket" is the music, which more often than not is the case with the installments in this series. Here, the action opens with a cute and catchy song performed by all the engineers and scientists and mechanics and technicians who made the space flight possible, as well as the press covering it... and, of course, the "two chumps" who will be undertaking the dangerous flight--Tom and Jerry. The music continues to be top-notch throughout this piece--both underscoring and helping to drive the action, as Tom and Jerry and the thug who has taken them hostage careen about in the out-of-control rocket ship, leaving all manner to surreal chaos in their wake. Eventually, they come crashing back to earth, with get a closing song that declares "Hurray for Tom and Jerry", and the film closes on a joyous high note.

In the Real World, however, Van Beuren was not cheering and celebrating the duo. As July 1933 came to an end, so did the adventures of Tom and Jerry. After 26 episodes released over a two year span (from August 1931 through July 1933), Van Beuren closed the book on them. Whether it was the inconsistent quality and tone of the series, the, quite frankly, better cartoons being produced by Walt Disney and the Fleischer Brothers, or factors that are not obvious to surface-skimmers like yours truly, Tom and Jerry never gained any market traction nor popularity. At least they went out on a high note.

As usual, you can check out the subject of this review, right here by clicking on the embedded video below. (And while this was the last cartoon to be produced, I still have 12 more "Tom and Jerry" installments to review. Watch this space for more!

It's a great-looking package... but it's empty

Darling (2015)

Starring: Lauren Ashley Carter, Brian Morvant, and Sean Young

Director: Mickey Keating

Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Darling (Carter) is hired to be the caretaker of a townhouse while its owner (Young) is away. The house as a reputation as being haunted, and the previous caretaker killed herself, but that's just superstitious gossip and coincidence, right?

"Darling" is a stylish, beautifully shot movie that puts you in mind of the psychological horror films from the period in which it appears to be set--the late 1960s or early 1970s. The technical crew and director takes full advantage of the black-and-white medium and each shot is expertly framed and beautifully balanced. The use of sound (and its absence) is also used with great effect throughout the film.

Unfortunately, for all the technical excellence on display here, the film is ultimately unsatisfying because not enough attention was paid to character and story when the script was written. I have no fundamental issue with the fact that everything is left vague and there is lots of that here. For example:

Is Darling unbalanced as the film starts, or is she driven mad by evil entities in the house? Is the man Darling meets who she thinks he is, or is she just a lunatic? Is the homeowner aware of the evil in the house, and is she sacrificing young women to it? 

I could go on, but I'd be venturing into spoiler territoriy if I did. Still, the even the open questions I listed are important questions to the story. If the situations are handled correctly, they don't necessarily need to have a clear answer... but in  the case of "Darling", they aren't. In fact, as the end credits start to scroll to hard rock music, I wondered if writer/director Keating had even given any thought to those questions whatsoever, or whether he was just so set on showing off his talent for creating striking visuals and framing scenes that the fact his movie needed some semblance of a story, and that the main character needed to be more than just another part of the sets.

Actually, having seen Lauren Ashley Carter in a couple other films (the comedic horror short "Once Bitten" springs immediately to mind), I wonder if Keating wasn't directing her as if she was part of the scenery. Carter is capable of more than just the three modes we see in this film--emotionless, hysterical, and murderously flipped-out--and I think "Darling" could have benefitted greatly if she had shown some of that range. For example, if we had seen Darling having a semi-normal reaction to something, or even engaging in some activity that didn't seem like she going through a set of stage directions while wandering through the house--like listening to the radio while reading a book, or watching television while eating lunch. Instead, she is behaving strangely from the get-go. I have no idea if this is the case, but I wonder if Keating is a George Lucas-style director in the sense that characters are secondary to visual spectacle... and the actors are only there to make scene compositions look better.

In the end, I find myself unable to recommend "Darling" (and these days, I am trying hard to only watch and review films that I can recommend, because I am trying to be an oasis of positivity in a world's that's going to Hell). I love the moodiness of the picture, and it's spectacularly filmed... but it's ultimately hollow. Maybe that's exactly what the writer/director was going for? If so, perhaps I am just missing the point of it all--and I certainly missed the point of the "big reveal" at the end when Darling finally breaks into the mysterious locked room she was told by the home owner to never enter. I couldn't decide to whether this was a 4 or a 5 on my 0-10 ratings scale, but I eventually settled on the higher of the two. There's no denying that this is a visually impressive and atmospheric film.

"Darling" is included as one of the free streaming movies for Amazon Prime subscribers, so if you want to check it out--for the visuals, or to double-check my take on it--it might not cost you anything but time.