Today: a silent take on one of my favorite guilty pleasures (although I don't feel even remotely guilty about it), Tom Selleck's High Road To China, a romantic adventure about a guy, a girl and an airplane. Here, I've re-imagined it as William Wellman's follow-up to the first Oscar-winning picture Wings, with return performances by two of that film's biggest stars, Clara Bow and Gary Cooper. Frankly, I don't know why Cooper and Bow didn't make another movie together except that the head of the studio, B.P. Schulberg, was something of an idiot.
With Ernest Torrence as "Struts," Sessue Hayakawa as Suleman Khan, Anna May Wong as Alessa and Gustav von Seyferrtitz as Bentik.
Credit where credit is due: the painting of Clara Bow is by Paul Petro, the one of Gary Cooper is by Toby Thane, and the Sopwith Camels are by Steve Heyen.
As always, click on the picture to see full size.
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5 comments:
thank you, mister petro !
You can buy posters and prints at the link I've added. I'm thinking Clara Bow would make a striking addition to any office or media room ...
Serious question: is High Road any good? It looked like a fun adventure, but I've been dubious. Worth a Netflix rental?
Worth a Netflix rental?
(1) Great score from John Barry of James Bond fame -- so good that the woman who flew us up to a glacier in Alaska used it as a sort of soundtrack to the flight. I sometimes dial it up on YouTube and listen to it while I write.
(2) I like Tom Selleck and Bess Armstrong, and I like them together, in a romantic adventure sort of way. I wouldn't mind having dinner with these characters, which, given my non-social nature, is saying something.
(3) The story makes no sense at all, and even less when you get to the payoff at the end. It's just individual moments stitched together. Raiders of the Lost Ark it ain't. It's more something you might have read at age 12 and thought was a good yarn, then gone back and read as adult and thought, What the frak?
(4) Does have one quotable line: "The ox is slow, but the earth is patient." Good advice for anyone.
(5) Worth a Netflix rental? Yeah, probably. I'd watch it with a liberal dose of Aviation cocktails, the new drink of choice here at the Monkey House:
2 oz. dry gin
3/4 oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon Luxardo maraschino liqueur
2 or 3 teaspoons of Creme de Violette
shake vigorously with ice, serve in chilled cocktail glass.
Comes out pale blue like the sky in early morning. Sneaks up on you in a hurry. One, and you will feel giddy and buoyant. Three, and you will try to pull your pants off over your head. Cut yourself off at two.
By the way, Katie-Bar-The-Door reminds me that it was a fjord not a glacier the pilot took us to -- indeed, it's the flight where Katie lost her Teddy Roosevelt racing president pin from the Washington Nationals.
Just to set the record straight.
If anyone needs the pilot's name to plan your next trip to Alaska, just ask -- I'm sure I can track it down.
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