Selling My Books on the Streets of Brooklyn 10/18 - Eyes

French film noir crime thrillers are usually first rate. The French are not, however, known for producing horror. I added Eyes Without a Face (1959) to my list at Netflix months ago. By the time it arrived I was baffled. I assumed I’d been attracted because of an association with the Billy Idol song of the same title. They have nothing to do with each other. I perused the lyrics and watched the video, and found no correlation, although I suspect the movie's title inspired it. The meaning of the phrase, which the background singers sing in French, has always eluded me. My best guess is that it is the dominant feature of the subject’s face. The tune reached #4 on the Billboard charts. As for the film, the meaning is clear: a young woman mutilated in a car accident that is not depicted. Her father is a doctor who tries to transplant the face of other women onto her. Although the plot sounds similar to a Vincent Price-type film, it is differentiated by its deadly serious, sci-fi-like tone. The main character does not have the lurid madness one expects of such films. It was directed by George Franjou, whose work I was heretofore unfamiliar with. He is revered in his country as the co-founder of its film archive. Only one actor was familiar to me -- Alida Valli, who at one time was expected to be the next Garbo. Hollywood billed her simply by her last name. Although she has 133 titles listed at IMDb, only two others are noteworthy: the highly-regarded Italian thriller Suspiria (1977), directed by horror master Dario Argento, and, of course, The Third Man (1949), directed by Carol Reed. The final scene, as she walks a long cemetery path among falling leaves, ignoring the smitten Joseph Cotton, who is partly responsible for the death of her lover, played by Orson Welles, is only one of the many memorable moments in that classic. Eyes Without a Face is far from great, but it is creepy and effective. Shot in black and white, its appeal would probably be to those who enjoy horror the way it was made before violence became explicit. On a scale of five, three. It is rated an impressive 7.7 of ten at IMDb. Here is a pic of the alluring Miss Valli, who was born in a part of Italy that is now part of Croatia:

I’ve been adding a green tea extract to my bottled seltzer for more than a year. Has it improved my memory? There are instances where I’d swear it has, then I neglect something like retrieving the mail and wonder if I’m deceiving myself. I’ll keep using it in the hope that it is working in that regard and that it works in cancer prevention.

A friend sent me a link to a site that calculates how many days one has lived. I’m 23,161. If you’re interested in such nonsense, go here: http://www.korn19.ch/coding/days.php

I picked up my niece Tanya at JFK this morning. Her flight left Denver at one AM mountain time. She is in town for the 100th anniversary celebration of the parish of St Mary Mother of Jesus. All four of my nieces attended the school, as did I. I have much more fondness for it and respect for the nuns in retrospect than I did while living through it.

My thanks to the folks who bought books on yet another glorious day that even a stiff breeze was unable to mar.
Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
Vic’s Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx