Pardon My Absence...

After a little summer R&R, I’m back and ready to catch up and move forward. I have some reviews for you, as well as some information on future events. Please scroll down to see all my latest offerings.
One amazing thing I’d like to share with my readers first.
There are at least two reasons why I ended up reviewing movies and other forms of entertainment. One is that my father worked in the motion picture business his entire 50+ year career. He retired as a branch manager in Kansas City, Mo. As a result of his job, I had movie passes to some theaters, so I saw a lot of movies. When I was 16, I spent my summer working as a cashier at a local neighborhood movie theater. That’s one reason.
The other reason is that I grew up two doors down from Helen and B.C. Altman. So? Helen and B.C. were the parents of movie director Bob Altman. His daughter Christine was my age and spent the school year at her grandparents’ house. We spent an enormous amount of time together. She was cute and funny and a little glamorous when she began spending summers with her father in California, returning with all kinds of fantastic stories. Bob Altman was just beginning his amazing career. He shot his first (to my knowledge) feature length film in Kansas City, in and around our neighborhood, and in his parents’ house. Christine had a part in that film, titled “The Delinquents.” It is a dreadful film. But there are two redeeming features of it: Christine is in it, and is pretty good, and the star of the movie is the then pretty much unknown actor Tom Laughlin, who went on to become famous for “Billy Jack.” He played a teenager in Bob’s movie, although he was then 24 years old. (Released in 1957, it was shot in 1955.) He showed talent even in this film. (Digging a little, I found that Bob’s then-wife, Lotus Corelli, played Mrs. Wilson in the film.)
So, I was too young then to be allowed to see the movie. Through the years, I always wanted to see it, but before the Internet and video tapes and DVDs, it was pretty hopeless. A couple of years ago, my husband found a listing in “The Big Reel” a now defunct publication that sold all kinds of films. There it was! He ordered it for me for Christmas. The print was event worse than the movie itself – a bootleg copy shot from a car in a drive-in theater! But I finally got to see it.
So, fast forward to Wednesday night. Flipping through the TV channels, I saw “The Delinquents” was just starting. It couldn’t be, I thought. But, it was! At least the print was a little better.
A postscript: Christine’s son, Dana (who adopted his grandfather’s last name) lives here in Omaha and owns a film production company. He is the producer of “Lovely Still,” the well-received indie film from two years ago that starred Ellen Burstyn and Martin Landau and was filmed right here in Omaha!
Just thought you’d like to know.
See my other new postings for much more.