Sokath, His Eyes Uncovered

Hmm. My ear isn't much better today. I'm pretty sure if I miniaturized Raquel Welch and Stephen Boyd, they'd be able to cure me in a trice, but my ear-hole is too swollen to even get a Q-tip in...so I'm afraid I have no home remedy options at this point. Oh well.

So...let's talk about Ray Milland. Yes, he's the fellow that answers yesterday's first question. An interesting actor, who quite possibly holds Hollywood's record for the widest quality gap between his best and worst movies. (I mean, other then Ben Affleck, who even comes close? Hmm--that gives me an idea for a future discussion...after all, Howard the Duck was produced by the same guy who did Star Wars.)



On the left, we have a poster for the movie "It Happens Every Spring". This is a forgotten gem, and I'd highly recommend you see it if you get the chance. The title is ambiguous -- it might be referring to the baseball season...or it might be referring to love. Yes, that's right; it's a romantic comedy about baseball, and you can't go wrong with that concept (unless you put Susan Sarandon in it, of course).

Milland plays a nerdish professor (as opposed to the normal Hollywood stereotype of the suave and sophisticated professor) who invents a goo that repels wood. If you rub the stuff on a baseball, a wooden bat can't hit it. So naturally, he becomes a major-league pitcher and instantly becomes a superstar. As you'd expect, he has formulaic problems along the way, including his monumental ignorance about women and a late-season loss of the wood-repellent fluid. Good fun all around, and well worth your time.

The second frame is from "X -- the Man with the X-Ray Eyes". In this rather creepy sci-fi flick, Milland gains the ability to see through stuff. At first it's cool...he's like Superman without having to deal with Lois and Jimmy. Life is good. But then as the ability grows, well, let's just say it causes complications. The movie ends in biblical style, with the standard 50's warnings that there are things that man was not meant to mess with. If you're into sci-fi at all, I'd recommend this one, too.

And yes, I also recommend "Frogs". Not because it's a good movie. It isn't. At all. But every now and then, I think it's healthy to watch a horrid flick about rampaging amphibians who eat crusty old rich guys in wheelchairs. And besides, it has Sam Elliott in it, who has the 2nd best voice on the planet behind James Earl Jones.

And to the right is the monstrosity called "The Thing with Two Heads". It has been parodied by the Simpsons, which means that it is considered part of American cultural literacy. It has bad acting, positively horrible special effects (the second head actually switches sides at one point), and a heavy-handed message about bigotry that seemed inelegant even at the time the movie was made. It's also notable in that the black head is played by Rosie Grier, who was famous for being a star NFL player, for being a prominent spokesman for the art of knitting, and for having the same name as the Jetson's robot. I don't expect you to sit all the way through this piece of junk, but you should at least check it out so you can laugh at the idea that the director thought the audience would buy the concept of two-headedness by having one guy stand behind the other one with his chin on his shoulder.

Anyway, suffice it to say that this is NOT the film that Mr. Milland won his Oscar for.

So...what about these guys?



Obviously, the common element here is the versatile actor Paul Winfield.

In the leftmost photo, Mr. Winfield is just to the right of the frame. It's a scene from "The Wrath of Khan", and the fellow whose wrath we're talking about is played by the incredible Ricardo Montalban. (Ricardo was another of the world's great voices, and he was uniformly excellent across the span of his illustrious career. My respect for him would be untarnished if it weren't for the fact that he hired that stupid French midget on Fantasy Island. I hate Tattoo. There are so many fantastic "little people" actors out there; why did they have to use one who couldn't talk worth a hoot and constantly ate boogers? Geez.) In this frame, Khan is about to insert the mind-altering Ceti-Alpha-Five body bug into Mr. Winfield's ear, thus gaining control over him and a short-lived advantage over Captain Kirk.

What a great movie! But everybody knows that. When the American Film Academy created the list of the 100 greatest movies lines ever, they unanimously chose number one to be when Shatner looks up and shouts "KHHAAAANNNN!" Anyway, the ear bug thingy is the connection to my blog topic...because my swimmer's ear makes me feel like I have an alien parasite inside my head. Too bad I don't have Dr. McCoy to help me out. Sigh.

Anyway, the second picture shows Drederick Tatum, and the character Lucious Sweet, for whom Mr. Winfield provides the voice. In the scene shown in the third picture, it's hard to notice anything other than the heroic Sarah Connor...but Paul Winfield is again sitting just off to the right of the frame. He plays the cop who mistakenly thinks that being in the station house is enough to protect Ms. Connor from Ah-nolt. (Yeah, right.) And in the final frame, Winfield plays Captain Dathon on an episode of TNG. He's got completely different ears in that role, and probably didn't have to worry about Khan's bugs at that point.

So that's it for today--thanks for playing. If nothing else, you've learned about a couple of classic movies you might want to see, right? If you'd like an additional challenge, how about coming up with a "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" connection between Ray Milland and Paul Winfield? Can you do it?

And if you have any advice for me regarding ear infections, please let me know. Otherwise, please keep your own ears dry, and have a great day!