Eve Arden Books

Each of the old time radio episodes came through quite clearly on the DVD. Miss Brooks is an English Teacher at a high school, with characters Walter Denton (student), principal Conklin, her landlady and the biology teacher.

The movie was just as good as I remembered it. The acting was superb. It was interesting to see how our idea of "proper" attire has changed.

Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1957)

To call Anatomy of a Murder the definitive courtroom film is, perhaps, not going quite far enough. Sure, there had been others, and there are certainly other classic courtroom dramas, but Anatomy of a Murder seems to be the basis for the outpouring of courtroom films and TV shows we have today; the bickering of the lawyers, the badgering of the witnesses, the bamboozling of the jury.

The plot is very straightforward, compared to Law and Order or CSI: a man (Ben Gazzara) kills his wife (Lee Remick)'s rapist. A down-on-his-luck lawyer, Paul Biegler (James Stewart) is handed the case soon after he lost the county prosecutor election to Claude Dancer (George C. Scott). Biegler takes the case, as much to get one up on Dancer as for the case itself, but while things, as Biegler believed, are not as open-and-shut as they seem, there's far more to the case than he originally thought, and none of it seems to be on his side.

It should go without saying that courtroom-drama-TV-show fans should consider this a must-see, but even if you never once watch Jerry Orbach flip a badge or William Petersen crack wise, this is a bang-up movie. The bast are phenomenal, every last one of them, and Wendell Mayes' script (adapted from Robert Traver's novel) is top-notch. Nowadays, the direction looks very familiar; that's because it's been done so much since. Despite that, however, the film still looks fresh and exciting. (My hypothesis is that this is because the film is in black and white, and we're used to seeing it in color with deodorant commercials interrupting it every fifteen minutes.) It's witty, it's intelligent, and it's got a cracking good mystery. Besides, how can you not like a film that was banned in Chicago? **** ½

This movie (and book) have set the bar for contemporary thrillers to follow. Enough superlatives have been rightly bestowed upon this movie by previous reviewers. I will not attempt to trump them. Just know that this movie is one of my favorites and is required viewing in my introduction to criminal justice survey courses. Very well done. Obviously, a five star rating without hesitation or reservation. Please see the inspirational novel as well: Anatomy of a Murder.


--JP
Ports and Happy Havens

"Anatomy of a Murder" is an example of director Otto Preminger at his finest. Everything about the production is superb, including the script, actors, pace, photography, editing, and casting. What was particularly impressive was giving the part of the presiding judge in the trial to real life attorney Joseph Welch, from the infamous HUAC trials.
James Stewart's acting talents are well displayed, along with some wonderful parts played by Ben Gazarra,
Lee Remick, Arthur O'Connell and Eve Arden. The film is a rare treat for the younger generations who did
not see this 1959 classic--a must-see film for all.

The original aspect ratio of this film is 1:85:1 (see IMDB).

The US DVD box from Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment contradicts this, saying:
"This film is presented in a FULL SCREEN VERSION which preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio, approximately 1:33:1."

In civil society, this may be called false advertising. The box does not contain what the box says it contains.

The DVD itself warns as it begins playing that the film "has been modified to fit your TV". In other words, it was re-edited in the 80s or 90s by another (anonymous) director/editor using the notorious 'pan and scan' technique, which cuts off the right and left edges of widescreen films, and adds new camera movements and re-scales some images to make certain that the action remains on screen in the new, square-ish ratio.

Amazon's Internet Movie Database correctly identifies the aspect ratio. Columbia distributes THAT version in Europe (which is why when you search for this film on Amazon, the European release comes up too). If you buy that version in the US, you'll pay a little more, and you'll have to use a region-free dvd player to view it. Here's the link for that version:

Anatomy of a Murder European DVD

Your second option is to buy this movie from Amazon Unbox, which presents it in its correct aspect ratio:

Anatomy Of A Murder from Amazon Unbox

Your third option is to wait on buying this until they release the original.

This is one of the greatest novels I've ever been forced to read in school. I recommend to all of my friends after having read it in my upper-level undergraduate Literature class. Read this book!

A decent "purgatorial" novel about the redemption of a soul and what it takes. I often found myself thinking of Lewis's space trilogy during the read especially the last volume. I'd put this on a reading list of books about the theology of purgation; The Divine Comedy, The Great Divorce, etc.
At times I found Williams writing style a bit thick but I suspect that was intentional. I particularly enjoyed what seemed to be a slam on logical positivism and literary post-modernism in the character of the clerk.
Some classify this as horror and perhaps it is but it wasn't really scary to me. In fact, the clerk just winds up looking like a boob. Maybe the scariest thing about it is the choice one of the characters makes for hell.

Although Williams was a member of the Inklings group, the work of C.S. Lewis and Tolkein are worlds apart from Williams' writing. Finding any Christian reference takes work, but the occult is quite abundant. An understanding of his cult group (Knights of the Rose?--akin to the Masons) would have helped us decipher some of his meanings.

This is a ghost story, but not a horror story. You may get chills reading it, but not always from "the creeps". On the other hand, you may finish it wondering just what the heck you just read. I submit to you All Hallows' Eve-- definitely not for everybody.

All Hallows' Eve is Charles Williams' last novel, written and set in WW2 England. It starts shortly after the tragic deaths of two women friends, Evalyn and Lester, in a bizarre collision, and neither is aware at first that they have died. They wander a weirdly deserted London separately for a brief time before meeting up, which gives the author an opportunity to focus on Lester's inner spiritual journey as she slowly confronts some unattractive truths about herself and her important relationships with her husband and her friends. In a separate but intersecting storyarc, Lester's surviving husband and his artist friend cross paths with a popular cult leader, Simon Le Clerc. This disturbing figure has a hidden past that is revealed only to us, the readers, as the plot unfolds. He is shaping up to be something not unlike an antichrist of sorts who is conducting covert, occultic experiments on the artist's love interest, Betty Wallingford, who is the daughter of one of Le Clerc's most devoted followers.

Williams makes use of Betty's nighttime passages to scratch the surface of an alternate universe which Evelyn, Lester and (presumably) other newly-deceased inhabit. It is simply described as the City, and although it bears a surface resemblance to London, it is more of an infrastructure to London, or perhaps the Platonic Ideal of London...possibly something more. Many things in this realm tantalize us with glimpses of hidden spiritual truths, and time itself seems to have no linear requirement; past, present and future flashbacks occur without regard to conventional order. I was left with the sense that I would have liked to discover more about this City, and as this is my first Williams novel, who knows..he may indeed refer to it in his other stories.

I'm not sure what sort of person would be best prepared to read this final Charles Williams novel. The author (an Anglican, or so I've read) clearly gives his audience much credit, as he allows us to draw our own conclusions about either the allegorical or the literal truths he dallies with along the storyline; he never force-feeds or "preaches". Somebody moderately educated in various religious history and/or theology would recognize a lot of the hints and references Williams makes along the way to telling his story. I wouldn't say that you must be a Christian to appreciate it, but it might help. On the other hand, I would only recommend this book to a mature Christian who has some direct study of the bible under his belt and yet a non-legalistic attitude toward their christian fiction. Certainly the reader would benefit from an ability to appreciate mysticism.

All Hallows' Eve was recommended to me by A Reader's Delight, which appeals to readers who crave rare literary treasures from various genres. Williams' writing style is rich and many-layered, so that I may have to read All Hallows' Eve several times to extract everything I should from it in time. Take that under advisement, and if the shoe fits, do try.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle

Creepiest book I've ever read. The occult, the dead, evil magicians, ordinary colourless people, and a conspiracy of a changing malevolent world order just beneath the surface of things.

The story arc is difficult to describe, but the two lead characters are dead girls operating in a depopulated limbo, with occasional glimpses of where they are heading (Hell and Heaven) and where they have been (the mortal world). Secondary characters include well-intentioned, but hapless young men, an evil grand dame, her suppressed daughter, and a monster of a necromancer intent on enslaving humanity and the dead alike.

Williams narrative style borrows much from philology, for the precise and poetic way in which he uses words lulls us into other worlds. This is in fact his thesis, that words are a link to another world, which is why spells and prayers are effective beyond their mere utterance. One wonders what Heidegger and Wittgenstein would have thought, for this is the novelisation and narrative explication of Heidegger's conceptions of being-there, and the refutation of the reductionism inherent in wordly precision that Wittgenstein refuted his own Tractatus and sought the rest of his life in the elusive and indefinable power of mytho-poetic language.

Soft souls avoid, for this is a challenging supernatural read.

I'm a fan of old movies, and like most old movie fans, Eve Arden is a favorite character actress -- the perpetual best friend. Her TV series, Our Miss Brooks was also a winner, although the thrust of the show was to catch a man and get him to marry her, not very PC today.

Although Ms. Arden's career was very important to her, it was her relationship with her husband and family that made her write the story of her life. Her two daughters were adopted, but other than that interesting tidbit, her family life was pretty ordinary. She glossed over her husband's alcoholism, and it didn't seem to affect either her or her children.

Ms. Arden seemed to enjoy the family and the travels abroad as the best parts of her life. Those things were certainly written about with the most feeling.

The reason i give this book 3 stars is because it gives a idea of what they might have thought about and the idea's he thinks they have had interest me. Especially the idea that someone stole the moon i liked that because they dont know anything so they are like little kids. I think thats funny. Grown people acting like kids. Mark really brings out there childness and i think thats cool. The author probably got sidetracked with his kids if he has any when he was writing this book.
One of the chapters that i really liked was the chapter on page 15 when she meats the tiger because i really like tigers and because she go so close and i thought that was very cool. I really think that eve should have been a little smarter in the beginning though. Adamn too because eve was smarter than him. How can you not tell distance? That just baffled me. Well i think the book was okay but could have been alot better and more interesting.
This book was short and is worth a look. I dont know why they are so dumb but it gave the book comedy so i give ir 3 stars out of 5.