The summer of ’68, my last summer living in Connecticut, I was glued to a particular show on the family’s 1-year-old 23″ RCA color console TV. It was exactly like the set, apparently broken, seen in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The show that captivated me was The Prisoner, a British 17-episode limited series that aired Saturday nights on CBS. I’m in the middle of reacquainting myself with the series, which is currently available for free on Amazon IMDB TV. The first episode is on YouTube.
For over two-and-a-half years, following a couple of hellish surgeries for a detached retina, I was essentially blind in my left eye. How essentially? I could read something only if it was literally touching my eyelashes.
I’ve always enjoyed listening to radio (heck, I used to work at a radio station) including old-time radio shows, and I did a lot of that during the worst few months of my recovery, while confined to my bedroom. That experience gave me a deeper sympathy for people who are permanently visually impaired.
Sci-Fi Old Time Radio is deserving of special recognition for their TV soundtracks with descriptive narration. The shows were originally available on the now-defunct BlindyTV service, and they include the original Star Trek series and Doctor Who.
Listening to these programs reminds me of when I was a kid, holding the mic of my little tape recorder near the TV speaker to capture bits of Trek. I’d listen to them after bedtime with an earphone (see two posts ago).
One thing I didn’t need was another streaming video service, but I got talked into giving HBOmax a try. Over the past three days I’ve watched the nine episodes of HBO’s Watchmen sequel.
The series pushes hard on culture war issues. The presentation owes a lot to the stylistic influence of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Some hardcore Watchmen fans have complained the series doesn’t remain true to Alan Moore’s original vision, but it carried me through from one episode to the next. HBO has made the soundtrack available on YouTube, and it’s worth scrolling through the playlist for tracks that may be of interest.
A trilogy of hours in conversation with Brian Sibley, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the BBC Radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
I recently began re-listening to my BBC/America CD box set of the series. The actors include Ian Holm and Bill Nighy.
A video chat with Frank Frazetta’s granddaughter.
I watched this free movie, that’s also commercial-free, in 10-minute chunks over the past couple of weeks. Note that the video can’t be embedded here, so you’ll have to follow the link. I suspect YouTube will eventually end embedding, just as monetizing is becoming standard, even for submissions from users who haven’t signed up for the program.
Mirage, with its overly contrived plot and a small sci-fi twist at the end, is a failed Hitchcock wannabe, but it’s an interesting curiosity. For Gregory Peck the role is a return to Hitchcock’s Spellbound, from 20 years earlier, with him again trying to remember a traumatic event. The movie’s hook for me is the gorgeous “brunette Grace Kelly,” Diane Baker, who was seven years old when Peck was in Spellbound. A year before Mirage, Baker appeared in Hitchcock’s Marnie.
The hard contrast of the photography, along with some cheap looking sets, give Mirage the appearance of a widescreen 60’s TV production. The New York locations are interesting, and Walter Matthau does his usual Walter Matthau thing. George Kennedy and Jack Weston are both menacing and goofy. Fun fact: I’m the same age as the little girl who plays Irene in the middle of the movie.
