Miscellaneous: Knight’s Work If You Can Get It

Starting out the year on a high note: Sir Tom Jones.

Miscellaneous: Sentences I Never Thought I’d Type

The road to the Super Bowl goes through Seattle.

In other gridiron news, teams from every city I’ve lived in won their divisions. I hereby offer my services as a good luck charm to the San Francisco 49ers. The missus and I won’t require much, just a rambling manse in Pacific Heights. It’s a small price to pay for a return to glory.

Movie: Eye of the Devil, aka 13 (1967)

Wealthy French landowner David Niven receives a mysterious summons to return home because the vineyards are dying. I stumbled onto the second half of this horror movie when I was about 10, and what I saw I vividly remember. Stark black-and-white photography. Lots of fish-eyed shots of the locals. The eerily beautiful brother and sister who were a little too close (David Hemmings and Sharon Tate). People in black robes running around in the woods, like a high-toned version of ‘Coven’ from American Movie. And an ending that weirded me out but good.

I always wanted to see the film in its entirety, so I recorded it a few months ago. I only got to it recently. Not because I was scared, smart guy. I’ve been busy.

Alas, it didn’t hold up. Deborah Kerr should have figured out what was going on much earlier. Still creepy, though.

Even creepier was the short that Turner Classics ran after it, a promotional film called “All Eyes on Sharon Tate.” It was a bit of behind-the-scenes fluff on Tate’s first substantial screen appearance. There are shots of her dancing in swinging London discos with Hemmings, a quote from Niven in which he calls her a “bird,” and many predictions of a rosy future for the actress which sadly never happened. A fascinating artifact.