Cheapie Noir Czech Hugo Haas

Before the advent of cable TV, satellite TV and any other form of video entertainment the only way you could catch low-budget B-films and other cinematic obscurities was on The Late, Late Show, usually accessed on a local television channel every night after 2 am. It was a filmic No Man's Land of weird comedies, poorly dubbed foreign films (gladiators are standing by), and ultra-low budget noir movies. This is the universe that Actor-Producer-Director Hugo Haas inhabited.

Hugo Haas, Czech exile from the Nazi menace that destroyed Europe, came to the United States in 1940 playing Slavic Counts, Professors, Concert Pianists and even sidekicks in adventure films like "The Fighting Kentuckian" and "The Princess and The Pirate". By 1950 he turned to producing and directing a string of noir vehicles usually starring himself and boxy battleship blonde Cleo Moore.

While some people have quipped that "Once you've seen one Hugo Haas film, you've seen them all", I think they're being a little too harsh on the guy. I will say this, if you like James M. Cain's "Postman Always Rings Twice" you know the triad. Haas is the nice Slavic gas station/cafe owner/working stiff married to the conniving cheap blonde dying to bust out of her dreary surroundings (Cleo), and the hot young stud with the monkey wrench in his mitt aimed at the back of Haas' skull (a revolving cast of studs: John Agar, Vince Edwards, etc.). Haas riffs on "Postman Always Rings Twice" with enough clever variations so you don't mind the redundancy. Besides, in two films the wife is played by Beverly Michaels, no slouch in the golddigger department.

While I haven't seen every Haas movie ever made, the following is a list of the ones I have, most of them recommended:

Hit And Run (1957): Hugo runs a creepy auto-salvage yard symbolizing his ramshackle existence in a new country he's too unhip to fit into, meets cheap showgirl Cleo Moore who sizes up his assets and marries him. Vince Edwards recalls his role as the philandering hipster creep from "The Killing" by scheming with Haas' wife Cleo Moore in killing hubby (Hugo). They run him over on a darkened road, but to their horror receive a visit from Haas' twin brother...or is he??? Dolores Reed stops the show as a lusty lion tamer.

Strange Fascination (1952): Pretty dull affair where Haas plays a concert pianist who chases after a nightclub dancer (Cleo), one of the thickest I've seen since The Velvet Hammer in their heyday. The sets are over dressed and there isn't enough tension to make this a noir. It's more like a bad melodrama than anything.

One Girl's Confession (1953): The only Haas movie available on DVD and for good reason; it's the best Cleo performance I've seen. She plays a waterfront waitress who embezzles a big bundle from her father's ex-partner and hides the swag in the woods. Once she's freed from prison she gets a job working for hard-drinking and harder-gambling Hugo at his cafe. Sending him out to get her loot after losing his ass at cards, she assumes he ran off with her money and kills him. This movie has some dream-like images regarding redemption employing images of a Nun's Orphanage and the Pacific Ocean.

Bait (1954): This one is so Z-budget it looks like a Shemp-period Three Stooges short. Too bad it also has John Agar, Cedric Hardwicke(!) and Bruno Vesoto in it. There's a lot of hurly burly going on about gold mines, prospecting in the desert and Cleo being used as bait to exploit Agar. Slow and one-dimensional.

Pickup (1951): Haas is a station agent for the railroads and bags cheap Beverly Michaels who thinks he's got a fortune stashed away in the desert. Alan Nixon is his young assistant and Michaels races after him for some lust and larceny, plotting on the killing of Haas, discussing it out loud in front of him because he's lost his hearing with the most intense case of tinnitus in the history of the cinema. The movie also has a beatnik hobo buddy called The Professor. This is one of Hugo's best and reminded me a lot of pulpy Jim Thompson novels.

After his string of noir classics he made "Lizzie", a "Three Faces of Eve" type multiple-disorder movie, a detention girl film (1959) and three years later made his last film which starred Marie Windsor, Chester Conklin, Corrine Griffiths and a few other silent film stars.

While his movies weren't the kind to compete with Billy Wilder or Robert Siodmak noirs, there's an awesome dime-store crime novel vibe to all his films that makes them irresistable. Haas films are fun no matter how sleazy and its high time for a serious revival of these back door Late, Late, Late Show classics.

Fash Flash 2011

A lot has been happening on both the creative front and the retail front regarding fashion. Among the new creations is a terrific vintage silk charmeuse star shirt, which along with my striped tank top completes a great flag fetish look. Other creations have included a great pair of denim jeans with leather trim and belt loops, striped slacks with leather waistband and other inspired-cum-offbeat material combinations.

In addition to buying more Fluevog shoes I've gotten into a great shomeaker from England called H By Hudson. Some of their shoes can be purchased through Urban Outfitters online, among others, and they have their own site. Beware, some of their styles won't be sold to the United States, though, so hit up that cool Canadian friend if you can. :)

There has never been a better time to buy great mens fashions online at terrific prices, and I'll be happy to share some of these great sites with you. The two most popular at the present time are both exports from England, ASOS and Topman. I've bought a great cowl neck top ($65) and a beautiful pair of red metallic skinny pants ($37) from ASOS, and they design their own stuff as well as sell other designers. Topman is totally on the cutting edge of mens fashions, cost a wee bit more, but still dead cheap. I like their suit and coat selections, not as wild as Burbery Prorsum but definitely getting there.

Other great fashions sites for men:
Shopstyle - Not a designer per se, but a great shopping resource for men.

YOOX - Same as Shopstyle, a little pricey but no stone's left unturned in mens selections.

Everyguyed - More help than GQ at giving out good fashion advice in all things mens style, from formal clothes to grooming to what the proper cologne to wear morning, noon or night.

There's also sites like Polyvore which is more geared towards the ladies (there are ladies sections at ASOS and Yoox, too), but if you dig deep into the site you'll find a few cool mens items there, too.

The three best mens style magazines to follow are Essential Homme, VMan and W Menswear Magazine, all published quarterly. They keep you up to date on all the best designers like Simon Spurr, Paul Smith, Rick Owens, Andrew Buckler, John Varvatos, and the larger houses (Hugo Boss, Burberry, Calvin Klein, etc).

On the shopping front now is a good time to check out H&M since Lanvin's top mens designer is designing great things there. The quality of the pieces are surprisingly better than usual. I also recommend getting a few sunglasses from Oliver Peoples, who I think is the best eyewear designer for men. His frames and colored lenses are always exciting and fresh!

New designs in the works: more multi-material pants and way-out shirting. I'll post a progress report in the months to come. I leave you with my favorite pair of Fluevog boots:

Rock & Roll Confidential Part 5

Diamanda Galas 1981 promo from Club Lingerie, she played to maybe 30 people in the club but still sounded awesome, singing through five mikes, all set at different frequencies. A lot of sound from such a tiny lady!

The Runaways at The Whiskey A Go-Go when they were a power trio consisting of Joan Jett on guitar (brown hair), the late Sandy West and Micki (aka Michael) Steele on bass and vocals, ten years away from starring in The Bangles. They were good back then, much better than headliners The Hollywood Stars.

Promo postcard for the 1972 Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band show in Long Beach reported in my blog "There Ain't No Santa Claus On The Evenin' Stage".

Promo postcard for the same concert series, this time for Commander Cody & The Lost Planet Airmen, a fun band that played a great cover of "Beat Me Daddy Eight To The Bar" and Phil Harris' classic "Smoke That Cigarette".

Ze Records promo postcard for Lydia Lunch's "Queen of Siam" album (1980). She wore that black dress to death, and I'm sure she never dry cleaned the damn thing (bleh). I like the toy store concept.

Neon Park: Grandaddy of Lowbrow

If anyone painted lowbrow art before there was a name for it then it was the late, great Neon Park aka Martin Muller, a former poster artist for The Family Dog. As early as 1970 he was producing some of the most memorable images in rock music. Here's just a small sampling of his great work, indelibly scarred into my subconscious:

Yeah, I hate Little Feat, too, but who can forget that awesome album cover. Constance Bennett with an accordion? Insane! The great thing about his work is that it's right at home with the current lowbrow art scene even though the majority of these great works were produced in the 1970's. Check out this rare film festival postcard:

The image that sent him over the top, of course, was the brilliant cover of The Mothers of Invention album, "Weasels Ripped My Flesh", which Frank Zappa allegedly fought Warner Brothers Records to put out. So much for Warners and their artistic freedom they're always crowing about. Huh!

Neon Park recalls a day when Southern California artists didn't get much attention in the art scene but produced all sorts of radical work, guys like Robert Blue, who inspired the movie "Heartbreakers". Yeah, L.A. used to be a really weird art town, weirder than you can imagine.

Somehow the superkitsch schmaltz that passes for art at places like Gallery 1988 don't get it, art should be new, really new, as in original, shocking, and not so eager to tickle people's bungholes. Just look to guys like Neon Park and Robert Blue for inspiration.

Christopher Milk

If there was ever a footnote in music history that was as large as an elephant it would probably be Christopher Milk. A band that never really attained stardom, much less major attention, they were still deep in the pocket of the glam scene in Los Angeles in the early Seventies.

Christopher Milk was largely the invention of John Mendelssohn, notorious critic for Rolling Stone Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Creem Magazine. He gained a good deal of his notoriety by panning bad hippie bands like Led Zeppelin at a time these bombastic, over-indulgent monsters were at the peak of their popularity. Regardless of whether these bands sold out arenas or not, Mendelssohn, representing L.A.’s largest newspaper, would tell us these bands were bunk. You could call it punk journalism before there was a name for it. It was debatable as to who garnered more hate mail, him or Lester Bangs.

John Mendelssohn’s love of all things mod and freakbeat wasn’t a solitary passion. If anything, there was a quiet explosion of people and bands from the West Los Angeles area at the time who were rabid followers. In 1971-1972 there was the Mael Brothers, who formed Halfnelson, eventually Sparks, rock critic Harold Bronson, co-founder of Rhino Records located down the street from the UCLA campus and other mod misfits in addition to the Christopher Milk project.

All these maniacs embraced bands like The Move, The Yardbirds, pre-“Tommy” era The Who, The Kinks, Bonzo Dog Band, Small Faces, Hollies, Procol Harum, pre-Ziggy David Bowie, solo Syd Barrett and a host of others. It was an exciting antidote to the Jethro Tull-Blood Sweat & Tears mind rot that was happening at the time.

Mendelssohn often wrote in Phonograph Record Magazine about his band Christopher Milk, announcing a 7” EP release on United Artists Records, with a gatefold cover and lyric sheet, no less. It was available only through mail order. I think the whole thing cost $1.00, so I jumped at the opportunity to score this puppy.

When I got the record I was pleasantly surprised. The songs were cool and the band played pretty well, especially on songs like “Basket Case”, “Just A Cop”, a sort of gay “X-Offender” (“…to you he’s just a cop but to me he’s Mister Right”), the sublime “Hey Heavyweight”, and one of my favorite titles ever, “There’s A Broken Heart For Every Rock & Roll Star On Laurel Canyon Boulevard”.

A few months later I was watching my favorite teen beat cable access show (KDOC-TV Anaheim) and who should be lip-syncing to their new record but Christopher Milk! Surly Ralph Oswald the guitarist played piano and sang “There’s A Broken Heart” and John handled vocals on “Hey Heavyweight”. I was thrilled to see them on TV right after The Little Rascals (hosted by Stymie Beard!).

John kept writing reviews and not much was heard from the band for awhile until the Fall of 1972, when a new album was released on Reprise Records titled “Some People Will Drink Anything”. The cover looked cheaper than the UA release and the songs were more eclectic, including a Bonzo Dog-influenced cover of “The Locomotion”, a Procol Harum sounding tune called “In Search of R. Crumb” among others.

The album wasn’t really bad but it was so derivative it was almost a game of “Play The Influences”. It seemed kind of disappointing especially since bands like Halfnelson, Roxy Music and Lou Reed’s “Transformer” were all coming out at the same time. It sounded aimless pitted against everyone else. Too bad.

The album, like the band, faded into the ozone. My next run-in with the band in some form was 4 years later when I bought a microphone advertised in The Recycler and the man selling it was C. Milk drummer G. Whiz. He was living in some communal hippie house right by The Hollywood Bowl. When I mentioned Christopher Milk he seemed polite but uncomfortable. The impresssion I got was that the band just sort of fizzled out. But John sure as hell didn't.

A year later (1977) my friend Rich D'Andrea told me he was playing bass in a band called The Pits fronted by John Mendelssohn. I said, "WHAT???? He's got a new band? When are you guys playing?"
Well, they were doing a show at The Starwood and I got on the guest list and John was back to crooning great songs, no Christopher Milk stuff but new tunes like "Hollywood Can Be Cruel" and "You're The Pits".

The Pits maintained a C. Milk-type mod sound but with an aggressive metallic approach, very much like another new band that had just played The Starwood, Cheap Trick. They even opened with the ultra-heavy "Hello Susie" by The Move. I thought The Pits were terrific.

The Pits didn't really last long after a handful of shows - Rich left to play with Gary Valentine & The Know, etc. Wherever John may be I hope he knows that he produced some fun records and bands that may not have been genius but were at the very most solid entertainment. That counts for a lot in my book, and it would be great to see the complete Christopher Milk recordings re-released on CD sometime soon.