Celestial Bodies...of Water?

Though myth of canals has run dry
did Mars once have water supply?
Give presses the brakes--
there might have been lakes!
In dreams, life on Mars will not die

This illustration of reconstructed Mars landscape shows the
presumed Shalbatana lake on Mars as it might have looked
roughly 3.4 billion years ago. Image credit: G. Di Achille,
University of Colorado. Read the article at Space.com

Fantasy Baseballed

Chicago has one of those clubs
whose claim to the records is flubs
But what if the past
in fiction, recast
made reigning World Champs of the Cubs?!?

(sample page, click to enlarge)

"If They Did It", by cartoonist Jim Siergey and humorist
Greg Simetza, is a 156 page paperback book of humor,
fantasy, absurdity and cartoons that includes the subtitle,
"A Hypothetical Account of How the Chicago Cubs Might
Have Won Every World Series Since 1908"

"If They Did It" is the ultimate in fantasy baseball.
"...a clever slice of revisionist sports history"
---Time Out Chicago
It's available at www.jimsiergey.com.

The Sig Chill

Let's hope all the dead were freeze-dried
'cause freezer burn ruins the hide
From out of the freezers
come thawed, Nazi geezers
Like ice-cubes from trays they were pried



The Frozen Dead (Herbert J. Leder, 1966) starred the great
Dana Andrews, who probably wished he were somewhere warmer.

Rise and (Monkey) Shine

It's bedtime, but Bonzo's not sleeping
Instead, at a book he is peeping
All day in the labs
he kvetches and crabs
It must be the hours he's keeping

Departure on Arrival

A classic of noir, D.O.A
directed by Rudy Maté
Guy poisoned and dying
is frantic'lly trying
to put his own killer away


Tag Noir Week at Limerwrecks 'dead on arrival'.

Michael Jackson, R.I.P.

The passing of star Michael Jackson
provokes a divided reaction
He's pop Peter Pan
or boy-loving man
who moonwalked around legal action

Surly Hack

Black Hole in One

He's trapped in a tunnel that caved
and time's running out to be saved
His Mrs.is teaming
with ace who is scheming
Their cynical plans are depraved


Ace in the Hole (1951) is director Billy Wilder's
cynically searing indictment of tabloid sensationalism.

Departing Shot

He turned in the dark on the stair
Below, her gun sparked like a flare
"I'll see you in hell."
He crumpled and fell
his last words, "It still beats the chair..."

Bedtime For Bogie

Doctor Macro

The slumber they call The Big Sleep
is long and unusually deep
Before lying down
you might fool around
Count nymphos--forget about sheep


martinsfilmnoir.com

The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946) is bursting with gorgeous women, all
available to private eye Phillip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart). One is nymphomaniac
Carmen Sternwood (Martha Vickers), who literally
fell into Marlowe's arms (below).

Alibiology

Your alibi says you weren't there
But what does your alibi wear?
Some lingerie, sheer?
Just lipstick, a sneer?
Turns out that your alibi's bare


The Naked Alibi (Jerry Hopper, 1954)

Rhyme Wave

Crime Wave (Andre de Toth, 1954)

Dark room with a bloody decor
designed by a thug at the door
When hearing a knock
at past three o'clock

surviving a noir's quite a chore

Step back in the shadows, it's Noir Week at Limerwrecks.

Nina Foch, R.I.P.

At home in a penthouse that's posh
this actress had smarts and panache
A Holland born lass
with plenty of class
the beautifully cool, Nina Foch



Actress Nina Foch died December 5, 2008.

Foch's notable credits include the films noir Escape in the Fog (Oscar [Bud] Boetticher, 1945), My Name is Julia Ross (Joseph H. Lewis, 45), Johnny O'Clock (Robert Rossen, 48), Undercover Man (Lewis, 49), The Dark Past (Rudy Maté, 48) and Illegal (Lewis Allen, 55), as well as An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli, 51) The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 56) and Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 60). Foch received an Oscar nomination for Executive Suite (Robert Wise, 54). Update (2/2011): The pronunciation of "Foch" used above was found on a film website (you know, the always reliable internet); I've since heard the actress introduced in an episode of Combat, with her name rhyming with "gauche". By the way, Foch was quite good as a Frenchwoman.


Thanks to Film Noir Photos!

Bob's a Big Boy

A hunk with half-mast bedroom eyes
Pure beefcake, side order of sighs
The ladies all drool
'cause Mitchum was cool
and acting just one of his highs

We hope you've enjoyed Big and Tall week
at Limerwrecks. We know the ladies did.

Victor's Maturity

John Ford's My Darling Clementine

Have pity on Victor Mature
Most critics resist his allure
His best work by farfor Ford and in noir
are credits in films that endure



H. Bruce Humberstone's I wake Up Screaming

Laird, Bared

In forties he went on a tear
and thundered through Hangover Square
Psychotic'lly scheming
in I Wake Up Screaming
As The Lodger he killed on a prayer

Laird Cregar would fill up the screen
as villains both oily and mean
He'd whine and he'd sulk
and throw 'round his bulk
Too bad that he tried to go lean

Actor Laird Cregar had a tragically short life and career.
In the 1940s he created a series of vivid and memorable
characters at 20th Century Fox, equally adept at comedy
and drama. Cast as the demented pianist in Hangover
Square, Cregar wanted to look the romantic lead: he lost
100 pounds on a crash diet which included using ampheta-
mines, leading to severe abdominal problems. Several days
after undergoing stomach surgery the actor died of a heart
attack. He was just 28 years old.

Step Up to the Mike

Consider the hunk, Mike Mazurki
A chunk of the beefiest jerky
Big lumbering lug
"type" cast as a thug
or lunkhead whose thinking was murky.



Mazurki is featured in the great drug induced
nightmare sequence from Murder, My Sweet(44), which you can watch on TCM, here


Top: Mazurki as the Dick Tracy villain, 'Splitface'; Bottom:
As Moose Malloy, in Murder My Sweet, with Dick Powell.

Rondo ala Quirk

By weapons of warfare, new-fangled
my features were horribly mangled
Condition acute,
they call me a brute
No wonder so many I've strangled


Known as "The Creeper," actor Rondo Hatton spent
his short career playing monstrous villains. He suffered
from acromegaly, which studio publicity falsely attributed
to his exposure to German mustard gas during World War 1.

Raymond, Burly

As sleaze-ball or sadist or cur
no baddie was better than Burr
This heaviest heavy
was built like a Chevy
A monster who's engine would purr

Well before stardom as Perry Mason, Raymond Burr
had portrayed an array of distinctive and memorable
villains, culminating in Rear Window. In noirs such as
Desperate, Raw Deal, Pitfall, Blue Gardenia and
His Kind of Woman, Burr was brilliantly sleazy.

It's Big and Tall week at Limerwrecks.

Not Hirsute in Her Suit

Brazilian-waxed girl struts her stuff

She might as well be in the buff

Her suit made of string

hides barely a thing
Too bad it hides more than enough

Norm Knott

A Mole Is To Dig

Spelunking in tunnels and holes
you'll bump into people called Moles
Down deep in their caves
these mole men are slaves
Albinos are at the controls



No, really. In The Mole People (Jack Arnold, 56), archaeologists stumble upon a subterranean race of albino Sumerians and their mutant slaves, the Mole People. Believe me, you can't make this stuff up--wait, someone did.