HAPPENING NOW

Notes for September 17, 2026: I read a book and watched some movies.

I just re-read The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. He mentions a dozen movies in the book, of which I’d seen eight.

I just re-read The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. He mentions a dozen movies in the book, of which I’d seen eight. (A Letterboxd list by “Justin” of the twelve movies mentioned.) I’ve yet to see Holiday, Fort Dobbs, and All Quiet On The Western Front.

Dark Waters (USA 1944, dir. Lazlo de Toth (the one-eyed director of “House of Wax (in 3D)”) was one I hadn’t seen. Got it from Internet Archive. 480p but good quality.
Stars Merle Oberon (who I’d never seen in a movie). Her story is strange—— she was part Chinese, I think? But she hid it. Sometimes she looks Chinese, and other times not at all. I can’t explain it better than that.

Dark Waters poster with Merle Oberon, tagline "Have you ever been really afraid?"

Anyway, her (the character, Leslie Calvin’s) parents died in a shipwreck which she herself survived, but she has to go to a sanitarium in New Orleans. While there, she discovers her aunt and uncle, heretofore strangers, are living in a big plantation nearby. They invite her to come and stay…

Dark Waters poster with Merle Oberon, Thomas Mitchell, and Elisha Cook Jr.

The plantation is run by Mr. Sidney (Thomas Mitchell—Uncle Billy from It’s a Wonderful Life) and Mr. Cleve (Elisha Cook Jr.! From The Maltese Falcon and Blacula!) Mr Sidney has lots of rules. Mr. Cleve immediately starts sexually harassing Merle Oberon in the crudest, most obvious way, and never stops. Franchot Tone also stars as a kindly country doctor…but is he exactly what he seems.

Anyway, it’s a “B-picture”, but quite good. Exactly 90 minutes.

If you’d like to read a little more about the film, here’s a blog post by “Laura” that describes it well.

Dark Waters poster with Merle Oberon and Franchot Tone

I started The Young Philadelphians with Paul Newman, another movie mentioned in The Moviegoer. It is INSANE, the soapiest, most over-dramatic movie I think I’ve ever seen except maybe The Group. A little spoiler to illustrate this: The movie begins with the wedding of Kate Judson (Diane Brewster) and William Lawrence III (Adam West), the scion of a hoity-toity Main Line family. But at the honeymoon Adam West confesses he “CAN NEVER LOVE ANYONE!” (cause he’s probably a homosexual, it is implied) and a minute later in movie time, he is dead. He has five lines maybe but what a performance. He sounds exactly like Batman.

poster for The Young Philadelphians featuring Diane Brewster and Adam West