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Sheer Madness (original title: Heller Wahn, 1983), directed by Margarethe von Trotta, features one of the most egregiously controlling husbands I've ever seen on film. To be sure, Franz would consider himself to be the hero of this movie. He would say that everything he does is to protect and care for his emotionally fragile wife, Ruth. Early in the film, he encourages Olga, a feminist professor of literature, to spend time with Ruth, who has trouble making friends. But Franz feels increasingly threatened by their friendship (as does the husband Olga is separated from). Olga finagles a gallery show for Ruth's paintings, and the two women dance together to celebrate the news, Ruth full of joy. Then Franz goes behind Ruth's back and pays the gallery not to show her work, ostensibly because of his fear for her mental health. He tells Ruth the show was canceled because of some administrative snafu. It was around this point in the film that I actively wanted Franz dead.

For much of the movie I expected Ruth and Olga to get together romantically, but this doesn't seem to occur to either of them. For all Franz's awfulness, Ruth seems to love him. Olga is on good terms with her ex (who is also pretty awful) and seems genuinely into Alexaj, the pianist who lives with her and her teenage son. But Ruth and Olga certainly love each other. In a gorgeous scene, Olga sings a Dietrich-esque rendition of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" at a new year's party, while Ruth stands glowing by her side (and Franz becomes increasingly twitchy). It's Franz's sabotage of their friendship that causes Ruth's mental health to crash and burn.

( fifty-year-old spoilers )

My favorite von Trotta film has long been Marianne and Juliane (1981), which blew my mind when I first saw it on British TV in 1990, and which was an inspiration for my novel Can't Find My Way Home. But I haven't been able to stop thinking about this one since I watched it last night.

At Aqueduct Press's blog, I talk about some of my favorite reads of the year.

One book that didn't make it onto my list is Robert Nathan's novel The Bishop's Wife (1928), which I finished reading (well, listening to on audiobook) this morning. The 1947 film is a favorite of mine, and it was one of the inspirations for my novel Thank You for Sending Me an Angel (which I'm nearly done revising!), but I had never read the novel before. In many ways it is a more sophisticated and philosophical story than the film, though neither version has what I would call a satisfying ending.

The novel makes it clear that the bishop is sexually repressed and that his wife Julia has been disappointed about this since their wedding night, though she enjoys being a mother to their daughter. The marriage between the bishop and Julia is one of mutual respect but, unlike in the movie, there doesn't seem to be much love there. The angel (Michael in the novel) is more earnest and less suave than Cary Grant's Dudley. (He's also fair-haired, and I understood for the first time why they originally thought to cast David Niven as the angel instead of the bishop.) Unlike Dudley, Michael actually kisses and embraces Julia and declares himself to be in love with her. For awhile, I was starting to wonder if Michael and Julia might actually hit the sheets. (Alas, they don't. Julia won't commit adultery, and apparently angels can't actually get carnal, even though Michael is clearly a great kisser.)

The novel is much more explicitly critical of organized religion than the film, and it also brings up antisemitism and racism. I got a little uneasy when the book introduced the wealthy Mr. Cohen, until Cohen told Michael about his grandparents who were killed in a Ukraine pogrom. Wait, I thought, was Robert Nathan Jewish? Sure enough, he was Sephardic. (Side note: he was also the husband of Anna Lee, of Val Lewton and General Hospital fame!)

As much as I like the movie, I can't help but wonder what a Pre-Code adaptation would have done with the book. The novel ends with Julia resigning herself to her unsatisfying marriage, though she has chosen to get pregnant again by the bishop. (At least in the novel, no one gets their memories angelically erased at the end.)

Today, between my WisCon reading and a panel on Problematic Magical Matriarchies, I saw part of Beneath the Planet of the Apes on TV. It's always been my least favorite of the original series of films, partly because Roddy McDowall isn't in it, but also because it's a chaotic mess.

Charlton Heston: [briefly shows up, then vanishes]

James Franciscus: Where'd he go?

Charlton Heston: I didn't want to be in this movie, but I'll be back towards the end!

James Franciscus: Hey, that means I'm the star of this movie! Yay?

Kim Hunter: Where's Cornelius?

David Watson: I'm right here.

Kim Hunter: You're not Roddy McDowall.

Maurice Evans: Hey, I managed to show up again in spite of my recurring role on Bewitched.

Roddy McDowall: I'll be back in the next movie.

Kim Hunter: Okay, I'm getting out of here.

Movie: Here, have some bomb-worshipping mutants.

Charlton Heston: The hell with this. [blows up the earth]

THE END

Last night Little Women (1949) was on TCM, and I started thinking about which actors I liked best in the roles.

Jo: Saoirse Ronan
Meg: Janet Leigh
Beth: a tie between Claire Danes and Margaret O'Brien
Amy: Florence Pugh
Laurie: Timothée Chalamet (runner up: Peter Lawford)
Professor Bhaer: Gabriel Byrne (runner up: Paul Lukas)
Marmee: Mary Astor
Aunt March: they're pretty much all great (it's a hard role to mess up)

I love Little Women all year round, but watching it is definitely a holiday tradition for me.

The other day I watched the Frank Langella movie of Dracula for the first time since it came out, and it got me thinking about how I wished Langella could have starred in the 1977 BBC Count Dracula instead of Louis Jourdan (though Jourdan wasn't bad). Which got me thinking about my favorite actors in filmed versions of Dracula. (The less familiar names are either from the 1977 BBC Count Dracula or the Spanish-language 1931 Dracula.)

Dracula: Christopher Lee (runners up: Bela Lugosi, Frank Langella)
Van Helsing: Peter Cushing forever (runner up: Edward Van Sloan)
Renfield: a tie between Dwight Frye and Jack Shepherd (runner up: Pablo Alvarez Rubio)
Mina: Judi Bowker (runner up: Lupita Tovar)
Lucy: Susan Penhaligon

Horror Movie I Hate: Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000). I'm a fan of The Blair Witch Project (1999), and wow the sequel is terrible.

Horror Movie I Think Is Overrated: I'm having a hard time thinking of one in particular, but in general I find the slasher genre overrated (or maybe just not to my taste).

Horror Movie I Think Is Underrated: Son of Dracula (1943). Lon Chaney Jr. does not make a convincing vampire, but I love this story of a woman who actively seeks out getting turned. (Possibly the first example of this in film?)

Horror Movie I Love: Carnival of Souls (1962)

Horror Movie I Could Watch on Repeat: Rosemary's Baby (1968), though I could easily say Carnival of Souls for this as well.

Horror Movie That Made Me Fall in Love with Horror Movies: Young Frankenstein (1974), which I saw new in the theater before I saw any of the source material it was spoofing.

Horror Movie That Changed My Life: Frankenstein (1931), which I must've seen not long after Young Frankenstein.

Guilty Pleasure: Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970). I first saw this on TV as a kid. It is very silly yet gorgeous and compelling.

My story "Sinking, Singing," featuring Sirens and the Silver Lake Reservoir, will appear in a future issue of Not One of Us.

Yesterday was Joan Crawford day on TCM, and I watched a couple of films I hadn't seen before. Sudden Fear (1952) is an excellent thriller, also starring Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame. I had expected Goodbye, My Fancy (1951) to be a light romantic comedy; it's about a congresswoman who gets an honorary degree at the college where, as a student, she'd had a romance with a history teacher (Robert Young) who is now president of the school. I hadn't expected the film to be such a trenchant examination of campus politics and the forces of post-war American reaction. I was not surprised to learn that Fay Kanin, who wrote the play the film was based on, was later blacklisted.

I am hennaing my hair on a cool, sunny Los Angeles afternoon. We've had a couple of weeks of colder weather than we're used to (highs in the fifties), though it's supposed to warm up this week.

I am rooting for Get Out at the Oscars tonight. I had thought it a long shot, but it won Best Feature at the Indie Spirit Awards last night, which is apparently a good predictor for the Oscars...

I finally got my hair cut yesterday. Accordingly, today is the first Henna Day of 2018, on a mild LA winter afternoon. While most of the country deals with intense cold and snow, we've been having a pretty easy winter thus far, though we're supposed to get our first real rain of the season this week. We need it, but I'm hoping my windows won't leak (and that the recent fire areas won't get hit by mudslides).

I am about halfway through volume one of the newly issued Letters of Sylvia Plath. Also I'm rereading The Valley of Fear, which I first read as a preteen at the height of my Sherlock Holmes fanaticism. Over the holidays I watched The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935) and discovered 1) that Arthur Wontner is as excellent a Holmes as I remembered (second only to Basil Rathbone in my estimation) and 2) that, although the film is based on The Valley of Fear, I could recall almost nothing about it (to the point that I'd forgotten it was a novel and not a short story). I should reread more Holmes.

I am hennaing my hair and trying to adjust to the time change on a lovely autumnal LA afternoon. I'm sort of sad it's no longer October, month of horror movies and celebration of spookiness, but at least I managed to see two pre-Code horror films in a theater in October: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and The Old Dark House (1932).

This week I have been binging on The Good Place, which is every bit as good as everyone said. I have two episodes left to watch, and then I look forward to reading the commentary about the show I'd been avoiding so I wouldn't get spoiled.

Also, I have been breaking my brain trying to write a damn novel synopsis.