The Deaf Seekers

Continuing adventures in the gutter of Hollywood’s Golden Era, Episode 17

The Blind Androids

Continuing adventures in the gutter of Hollywood’s Golden Era, Episode 16

Century of Sensuality

Continuing adventures in the gutter of Hollywood’s Golden Era, Episode 15

Beyond Gomorrah

Continuing adventures in the gutter of Hollywood’s Golden Era, Episode 14

Beast of Rage

Continuing adventures in the gutter of Hollywood’s Golden Era, Episode 13

The Impossible Legend of Ken

B-Movie #12

Hollywood 1953:

Sergei is going for a different approach. Eleven scripts in four years. Eleven rejected scripts. Maybe two hundred rejections. It’s getting hard to take. The boss at Harvey’s Wash-a-teria wants Sergei to concentrate on his career in laundry. He’s had the Schwinn company bicycle serviced. He’s bought new uniforms and staff badges. He wants Sergei to prepare himself for a promotion. He says: You gotta hunker down, boy. He says: Don’t get hung up on the wrong track. He says: Put in a good shift, and then put in another good shift. Laundromat is made for you. You are made for laundromat.

Lewis

I saw Lewis driving a bus today. In Shropshire. Lewis the detective: not cuddly, man-next-door-watering-his-lawn, slightly bewildered Lewis of Oxford, the down-trodden sidekick of Inspector Morse; the Lewis who manned-up and got a promotion and his own TV series after Morse sprang his mortal coil; the Lewis who now has his own sidekick, a more wooden version of Boris Karloff. Not that Lewis.

I’m talking about the Lewis from a much tougher place than leafy Oxford. A much tougher time than the pampered Occidental turn-of-the-millenium. I’m talking about Lewis from the future, from Detroit/Delta City. I’m talking about the cuddly, girl-next-door-hanging-her-smalls-on-the-line, slightly embattled sidekick to Robocop, the mechanised policeman from Paul Verhoeven’s classic dystopian future nightmare, circa 1987.

The Chemical Man

B-Movie #10

Hollywood, 1953:

Harvey’s Wash-a-teria in Fairfax is no bad place to work. You get a bicycle for delivery: a Schwinn, no less. The boss is a good man – tough but fair. Prospects are good too – there is talk of expansion, maybe a supervisor’s position. Sergei Matrossov can see the positives in a career in the laundromat business. He doesn’t need much. A cheap apartment, work, one or two friends. The community is close-knit and supportive. A young immigrant could do worse. At the next-door pharmacy there is a typewriting machine whenever he needs it. Belongs to the pharmacist’s nephew, a poet doing some self-discovery trip and his own kind of pharmacy in Tangier for an indefinite period of time.