Seven Women on the Verge

A masterpiece, long thought a turkey
Ford's last sports a Mongol Mazurki
You'll explode with unease
Woody Strode plays Chinese
Two nasties gone wrong run berserki.

David Cairns



John Ford's final film is Seven Women (1966). Ann Bancroft helps missionary Sue Lyon (top) resist the advances of barbarian warlord Mike Mazurki and his cut-throat gang of warriors, one of whom is Woody Strode (above). The Late Show: The Late Films Blogathon runs all week at David Cairns' Shadowplay, celebrating late films by great filmmakers.

The Moose Tightens

He's the son of one Mrs.Malloy
Weighs a ton, and to him you're a toy
With that pair of huge mitts
Moose could tear you to bits
Don't make fun of ma's big little boy.


Mighty Mike Mazurki tosses around Otto Kruger and Dick Powell in Murder My Sweet (1944), an adaptation of Farewell My Lovely.

Lunk-onscious

Through this door there's no prayer of escape
Tongue on floor, I just stare, mouth agape
As I try to make sense
Of the why and the whence
I'll ignore what's a very big ape.


Drugged-up Dick Powell is threatened by a ghostly Mike Mazurki in Murder My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk, 1944). Titled by dreamy doorman David Cairns.

Duck, Duck, Moose

My health with this brute has no chance
Though the fella's acute as most plants
When I got in a tussle
With the knot-headed muscle,
He said Velma "was cute as lace pants".



Jules Amthor sics Moose Malloy on Philip Marlowe: Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki and Dick Powell in Murder My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk, 1944).

Nightmare Alley Cats

Calliopes blow in the dark
A carnival barker yells, "Hark!"
"Come shriek at the geek
and peek at the freak
conducting electrical arc!"



Joan Blondell, Mike Mazurki, Colleen Grey and Tyrone Power in Nightmare Alley (Edmund Goulding, 1947). Photo source: The Movie Title Stills Collection; thenighteditor.blogspot.com; moviemail-online.co.uk; cinemaisdope.com

Schwing! The Body Electric

Attracted like moths to a spark
a barker lures rubes to the park
To sideshows they barge
receiving a charge
from cuties that glow in the dark




Tyrone Power, Colleen Grey and Mike Mazurki illuminate the darkness in Nightmare Alley (Edmund Goulding, 1947). Photo source: selfstyledsiren.blogspot.com; filmsnoir.net; filmfanatic.org.

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.