#Desmond tester

[randomrichards]

THE DRUM:

Maharaja killed

His son wanted British soldiers

Pro colonial

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Sabotage (The Woman Alone) (1936) Alfred Hitchcock

August 4th 2024

[byneddiedingo]

Sylvia Sidney, Desmond Tester, and Oscar Homolka in Sabotage (Alfred Hitchcock, 1936)

Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka, Desmond Tester, John Loder, Joyce Barbour, Matthew Boulton, S.J. Warmington, William Dewhurst. Screenplay: Charles Bennett, Ian Hay, Helen Simpson, based on a novel by Joseph Conrad. Cinematography: Bernard Knowles. Art direction: Oscar Friedrich Werndorff. Film editing: Charles Frend. Music: Hubert Bath, Jack Beaver, Louis Levy. In one of the coldest-hearted scenes ever put on film, a young boy plays with a puppy held by a woman seated next to him on a London bus, and then they are blown to bits by the bomb he has unwittingly been carrying. The scene would be less shocking if we hadn't spent a good part of the movie getting to know Stevie (Desmond Tester), the younger brother of Mrs. Verloc (Sylvia Sidney), whose husband (Oscar Homolka) belongs to a terrorist group. We have seen Stevie carrying his lethal package, which Verloc has commissioned him to leave at a specific location by a certain time, and we have grown fond of him when he is detained by a street hawker selling toothpaste and hair tonic and pauses to watch a parade. As the fatal time grows closer, we feel sure that something will happen to defuse the bomb, as usually happens in movies, so its detonation comes as a reversal of movie convention, one so radical that even Hitchcock will not attempt anything quite like it until he kills off the star of Psycho in mid-film 24 years later. Even then, he will not do anything so sadistic as add a puppy to the scene. Sabotage is not one of Hitchcock's more famous movies -- it's often confused with his Saboteur (1942). But it is, I think, one of his most characteristic because of his willingness to violate convention. The film is based on Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent -- a title he couldn't use because it was the title of his other 1936 release, an adaptation of a Somerset Maugham story that starred John Gielgud and Madeleine Carroll. But Sabotage is closer to Kafka than to Conrad, a film that verges on the surreal and dreamlike at times. The Verlocs own a movie theater and their home is separated from it by a passageway behind the screen, so that sometimes the sounds from the movies that are playing enter their daily lives. Stunned by Stevie's death, Mrs. Verloc goes out into the theater, where a Disney short, "Who Killed Cock Robin?", is playing, and suddenly begins laughing at the absurd cartoon action. Much else in the film is similarly askew: The bomb-maker, for example, keeps his explosives in ketchup bottles and condiments jars, and when he goes to get the bomb for Verloc, he finds his granddaughter's doll in the cabinet. (If, indeed, she's his granddaughter -- there's much coy mystery about that.) There's an oddball romance between Mrs. Verloc and Ted (John Loder), the Scotland Yard detective who works undercover at the greengrocers' next to the Verlocs' theater, keeping an eye on Verloc. And the ending is a mare's nest of ambiguities that don't lend themselves to summary. What keeps the movie from descending into incoherence is Hitchcock's sure sense of style and the occasionally expressionistic cinematography of Bernard Knowles. Later, Hitchcock would express regret over the way he handled Stevie's death, but it remains consistent with the haunting effect of the film as a whole.

[teecupangel]

Do you know about the game Slime Rancher? It's has a ton of really cute slimes and it's a very chill game. Just imagine if Desmond, being such a badass assassin, wakes up as a pile of cute sentient slime. XD Maybe alongside his ancestors and then Desmond sees Clay, who is the slime rancher, just scooping them all up to put them in a pen to collect and sell their poop. ^^

Well, at least they get fed everyday and don't have to worry about Tar slimes, so this is okay. Altaïr, stop trying to jump out the pen, please. Ezio! Stop hogging all the food! Ratonhnhaké:ton, stop laughing and help me!

I got a Slime Rancher Desmond ask before and I wasn’t that familiar with Slime Rancher before so it was more or less a setup where Desmond is an actual slime that can morph his appearance to his liking and it was set in the Third Crusades so, for this one, we’re going for full on Slime Rancher AU where Clay himself has been transmigrated to…

The last game he played!

Clay had been testing out an incomplete version of Slime Rancher as an alpha tester before he got the mission to infiltrate Abstergo so he didn’t know all of the ‘new’ and improved mechanics from the barebone game he had tested back then.

He does know that to live in this world, he would have to make use of slime poops (that they call plorts apparently).

So Clay sets up a pretty much adequate ranch and even manages to get enough slimes to give him plorts that would cover for his living expenses, the expenses of taking care of the slimes and have enough to save up for stuff he might need or might want.

Along the way, he finds out that there is no way out of this world.

Whether this was meant to be some kind of digital afterlife his digital self had gotten himself into or if this was some sort of strange reward for his ‘contributions’ to the Calculations, Clay has no idea.

He doesn’t mind though.

It was kinda relaxing and his slimes were doing all pretty docile as long as they get fed.

Clay makes sure they get fed and even gave them small houses… mostly because he had been bored.

His slime ranch was also growing and he has enough funds to expand the ranch itself, maybe include a separate enclosure for the next slimes he’d tame or maybe even get a new pond so he can get more puddle slime.

He should probably do something about those four troublemakers though.

Of course it had to be the three slimes named after Seventeen’s ancestors that would cause a bit of mischief in this peaceful ranch.

Altaïr the Quantum Slime was using one of his clones to jump out of the pen again and get to the Phase Lemons that Clay had planted for the damn thing.

Ezio the Crystal Slime was by the edge of the pen as well and Clay was sure that damn slime was going to make a break for Clay’s stash of Odd Onions the moment all hell breaks loose and Altaïr had managed to infiltrate the Phase Lemons.

And surrounding both of them are Connor the Hunter Slime (look, Clay tried but he can’t remember Connor’s real name, alright?) and Desmond the Gold Slime, looking like they were egging Altaïr on or trying to stop him.

Clay was betting on the first.

There was a reason why they were the only Slime of their kind.

Their food were hard to get and they were the troublemakers of the ranch.

But still…

Clay couldn’t hate them.

Why should he?

They were just slimes after all.

Altaïr the Quantum Slime:

Ezio the Crystal Slime:

Ratonhnhaké:ton (called Connor by Clay) the Hunter Slime:

and…

Desmond the Gold Slime:

[johndpg]

SPANKING ON TV #5

The Drum (1938) d. Zoltan Korda

We’re off to the British Raj this time. 14-year-old drummer boy Bill Holder gets into trouble when he’s caught smoking in the barracks. He’s been warned before, so the Sergeant Major bends him over the end of his bed, turns his kilt back and whacks his bare backside with one of his own drumsticks. Pretty hefty whacks too by the sounds of it!

Publicity stills:

The basic plot of the film is jingoism of the highest order, with the Brits trying to track down smuggled shipments of arms on the Northwest Frontier of India to head-off a full-scale rebellion. When the peace-loving ruler of Tokot, a key kingdom in the region, is assassinated, his son Prince Azim goes into hiding. Somewhere along the way he meets and befriends Bill who teaches him how to play the drums. Later Azim is therefore able to bang out a danger signal that saves the British forces from an ambush.

The film went down well with British audiences of the time, no doubt fondly remembering the days of Empire with a tear in their eye, but caused near riots when shown in Bombay and Madras (as they were then called).

It is unknown exactly when the practice of wearing no undergarments under the kilt began. The earliest reference to the tradition was during Waterloo in 1815, but underpants were certainly forbidden by the time of the Raj in India. Indeed, during the First World War, Scottish regiments were inspected by a senior officer who used a mirror to look under kilts; any soldier found wearing underpants was sent back to take them off! We can be confident, then, that the intention is that poor Bill gets his bare arse spanked by the Sergeant Major.

Prince Azim was played by Sabu, a teenage Indian actor who found success in Hollywood during the 1930s and 40s. He was 14 at the time.

Desmond Tester played Bill. He was 18 but had a reputation for playing younger. Previously he was cast by Alfred Hitchcock in Sabotage (1936) as a short-trousered schoolboy called Stevie even though he was 16. He doesn’t get spanked in that film but he is blown up on a bus after being tricked into carrying a bomb by an enemy agent planning a series of attacks on London. Although somewhat slow by today’s frenetic standards, the film was considered shocking at the time. If only they’d known what was coming.

Here's the link to The Drum. Fast forward 9 mins to see the Sergeant Major going Phil Collins on Bill's backside.

And here's another link to Sabotage. It doesn't end well for Stevie at the 54 min mark.

And finally here's a bonus Black Watch soldier giving everybody an eyeful in Hong Kong in 1997.

[ao3feed-twiyor]

WISE (I need to think of a better one)

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/iU97MJX by CaffeinatedGengar This is the first chapter a tester of sorts. Might make it into a series. Follows the Forger Family Words: 1499, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: SPY x FAMILY (Manga), SPY x FAMILY (Anime) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: F/M, Multi, Other Characters: Yor Briar Forger | Thorn Princess, Loid Forger | Twilight, Anya Forger, Yuri Briar, Bond (SPY x FAMILY), Fiona Frost | Nightfall, Franky Franklin, Sylvia Sherwood | Handler, Damian Desmond, Becky Blackbell Relationships: Loid Forger | Twilight/Yor Briar Forger | Thorn Princess, Anya Forger & Loid Forger | Twilight & Yor Briar Forger | Thorn Princess, Bond & Anya Forger & Loid Forger | Twilight & Yor Briar Forger | Thorn Princess read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/iU97MJX

[ulkaralakbarova]

Karl Anton Verloc and his wife own a small cinema in a quiet London suburb where they live seemingly happily. But Mrs. Verloc does not know that her husband has a secret that will affect their relationship and threaten her teenage brother’s life. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Mrs. Verloc: Sylvia Sidney Karl Verloc – Her Husband: Oskar Homolka Stevie – Her Young Brother: Desmond Tester Ted: John Loder Renee: Joyce Barbour Superintendent Talbot: Matthew Boulton Hollingshead: S. J. Warmington The Professor: William Dewhurst Mrs. Jones (uncredited): Clare Greet Greengrocer (uncredited): Aubrey Mather Monocle Man (uncredited): Austin Trevor Studious Youngster (uncredited): Charles Hawtrey The Professor’s Daughter (uncredited): Martita Hunt Mr. Verloc’s Visitor (uncredited): Torin Thatcher Mr. Verloc’s Visitor (uncredited): Peter Bull Man Walking Past the Cinema as the Light Is Renewed: Alfred Hitchcock Film Crew: Screenplay: Charles Bennett Director of Photography: Bernard Knowles Editor: Charles Frend Novel: Joseph Conrad Director: Alfred Hitchcock Additional Dialogue: E. V. H. Emmett Art Direction: Oscar Friedrich Werndorff Wardrobe Designer: Marianne Thanks: Walt Disney Continuity: Alma Reville Music: Louis Levy Sound Recordist: Angelina Cameron Costume Designer: Joe Strassner Dialogue: Helen Simpson Dialogue: Ian Hay Associate Producer: Ivor Montagu Scenic Artist: Albert Whitlock Camera Operator: Stephen Dade Art Direction: Albert Jullion Producer: Michael Balcon Music: Jack Beaver Music: Hubert Bath Assistant Director: Pen Tennyson Movie Reviews: CinemaSerf: Perhaps not one of Hitchcock’s most prominent films, but it’s a tense crime thriller telling the tale of a family of recent émigrés to Britain who are struggling to run their small London cinema. Oskar Homolka (“Mr. Verloc”) falls foul of some criminals who offer to pay him for carrying out an act of sabotage. This doesn’t quite cause the mayhem they desire so he is unwittingly, this time, involved a much more deadly action. Unbeknown to him, Scotland Yard are on to them and have planted a detective (John Loder) in the greengrocers who befriends the family. The plot unfolds slowly and tensely. Loder and (“Mrs. Verloc”) a slightly dewy-eyed Sylvia Sidney fall for each other as we go along. That storyline slightly districts from the suspense and the ending comes along a bit too rapidly for me. Great to watch, though…

[wahwealth]

The Stars Look Down (1940) | Michael Redgrave | Margaret Lockwood |

he Stars Look Down movie is a British film released in 1940.  This classic film is based on A. J. Cronin's novel was written in 1935 with the same title.  The film is about injustices in a mining town in North East England. Coal miners,  who are led by Robert "Bob" Fenwick, vote to go on strike.  The miners are refusing to work in a particular section of the mine.  The reason is due to the great danger of flooding. Tensions rise as the strikers go hungry. Cast Michael Redgrave as David "Davey" Fenwick Margaret Lockwood as Jenny Sunley Emlyn Williams as Joe Gowlan Nancy Price as Martha Fenwick Allan Jeayes as Richard Barras Edward Rigby as Robert "Bob" Fenwick Linden Travers as Mrs. Laura Millington Cecil Parker as Stanley Millington Milton Rosmer as Harry Nugent, MP George Carney as Slogger Gowlan Ivor Barnard as Wept Olga Lindo as Mrs. Sunley Desmond Tester as Hughie Fenwick David Markham as Arthur Barras Aubrey Mallalieu as Hudspeth Kynaston Reeves as Strother Clive Baxter as Pat Reedy James Harcourt as Will Frederick Burtwell as Union Official Dorothy Hamilton as Mrs. Reedy Frank Atkinson as Miner David Horne as Mr. Wilkins Edmund Willard as Mr. Ramage Ben Williams as Harry Brace Scott Harrold as Schoolmaster Strother (as Scott Harold) You are invited to join the channel so that Mr. P can notify you when new videos are uploaded, https://www.youtube.com/@nrpsmovieclassics

[gatutor]

Sylvia Sidney-Desmond Tester "Sabotaje" (Sabotaje) 1936, de Alfred Hitchcock.

[clemsfilmdiary]

Sabotage (1936, Alfred Hitchcock)

Also known as: The Woman Alone

3/19/22

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Sabotage (The Woman Alone) (1936) Alfred Hitchcock

November 25th 2020

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Films watched in 2019.

#34: Sabotage (Alfred Hitchcock, 1936)

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

"I’m not going to be connected with anything that means loss of life."

[teecupangel]

You know what would be funny?

If Desmond didn’t get to Ravensthorpe by accident, he was invited there.

By who?

It would be easy for it to be Eivor but it would be funnier if it was Hytham.

So now Hytham has this sense of responsibility to support Desmond in this (covert) bake off.

He’s usually the one who gets Desmond the ingredients he sorta remembers (“It makes food red.” “A lot of things makes food red.” “But it doesn’t affect the taste!” “I don’t think that kind of thing exist?” “Well, I guess get me all the things that can make things red then?” “I… I’ll see what I can do…” - smashcut to Azar feeling things were going to get profitable very, very soon).

He helped Desmond get the lay in the land because Desmond, in his own words, believed his idea of what the land looks like isn’t correct… right now.

But the most important thing… he was Desmond’s taste tester. Or, as Desmond liked to call it, his guinea pig. Any experiment Desmond made, as long as it tastes edible and cooked, Hytham would more or less taste them to give Desmond his honest opinion. They never tasted bad since Desmond always tasted them before giving them to Hytham but ‘okay’ was a word that Desmond did not accept.

Not because it was bad to just be ‘okay’ but… Desmond surprisingly has a competitive side to him. It doesn’t appear all that much but baking?

Oh, yes, his competitive side shows up in that regard.

But he and Tarben are cordial with each other.

… like rivals respecting each other’s skills but doing everything they can to not lose.

Tarben’s style is to keep making the same bread over and over again, perfecting his skill to a frightening level.

Desmond’s style is to keep bombarding Ravensthorpe with every and any idea he had, making it a unique experience every single time.

What Desmond lacked in perfection, he makes up with the ‘novelty’ of his breads.

As Desmond says it “Tarben is a basic bitch and I’m the manic pixie dream girl.”

… Hytham has no idea what Desmond meant about that but Desmond tended to use a lot of phrases and words Hytham didn’t understand. If Hytham was to translate it, Desmond must meant that Tarben’s bread is a staple, something every person should have in their home, while Desmond’s bread is more of a luxury, something one eats as a treat.

But it was clear who some of the people of Ravensthorpe side with.

The most obvious ones were the parents sided with Tarben while their children sided with Desmond. It really helped that Desmond likes to ask the children for favors in exchange for bread. Just simple stuff like foraging the nearby forest for berries or fishing in the docks. The children love it because they get to do something and be rewarded for it. The parents hate it because their children always have so much energy after eating Desmond’s breads.

Desmond doesn’t care though because “children are the hope of our future” and Hytham was pretty sure he got that line from someone else.

Octavius also preferred Desmond’s breads because they, according to him, were the food of the Romans! Desmond doesn’t like that all that much because Octavius likes to request the same bread over and over again and Desmond’s setup is more of ‘today’s bread is whatever I felt like making!’.

Other than that, Randvi is in Tarben’s corner mainly because his bread always go well with the feasts (although a lot of people go and eat Desmond’s bread afterwards as dessert anyway) and his breads are also the ones being made into rations. Tarben is just better in making rations that can last for months.

Then again, Desmond doesn’t really like making rations in the first place because he preferred the ephemeral beauty of fresh bread.

At this point, Hytham was pretty sure Desmond was liberating using dramatic words just to mess with him. He doesn’t use any of these words or phrases around others.

A lot of the other people try to keep an open mind (and reap the rewards of both sides), especially Yanli who profited from both of them (and gave Hytham the stink eye when he helped Desmond find spices using another merchant) and Petra who do get requests for her hunts from both of them (although Desmond likes to request meat as well while Tarben only requests animal fat).

And then there was Basim.

The first time he visited Ravensthorpe, he beelined to Desmond’s bakery immediately where he and Hytham stared at each other while Hytham was eating bread. After that awkward silent “what are you doing here?” “what am I doing here, what are you doing here?” stareoff, Basim sat next to Hytham and ate bread as well.

Hytham wasn’t surprised.

For some reason, Desmond just… He has this bread that taste like home.

Not home as in the home Hytham had as a child but home…

As in the Hidden Ones.

To be more presence, it tastes so similar to the bread baked in Alamut that Hytham had to try and check if Desmond had ever been to Alamut.

Desmond just shrugged as he said that it was the first few breads he learned but it wasn’t from Alamut.

And he knew…

With this single bread…

Desmond definitely got Basim’s attention.

‘What if desmond time travels and has to deal with such and such, or turns into an animal, or gets hurt, or-’

What if Desmond time travels and learns how to bake bread!! Huh!!? What about that!! What if he opens a super successful bakery, and solves all the worlds problems with the best fresh baked bread every!!

(This is /j but like. 👏🏻 anons let Desmond have peace challenge👏🏻 (but also don’t cause I love reading all of them I’m just like ‘how did you even come up with this? Sometimes lmao))

Anyway, since we already have a Desmond is a baker in Renaissance Italy idea, here’s Desmond is a baker during the Third Crusades instead:

So in this setup, Desmond would say fuck it and just open a bakery in Acre.

Jerusalem was too much of a hotspot at the moment and Acre had ports which meant there would be new customers that Desmond could lure in with the smell of freshly baked bread. 

And it worked.

Maybe a bit too well because…

Kadar visited while he was out looking for information for his brother’s current target. 

They both stared at one another for a moment and then Desmond just did his usual ‘Welcome! Are you looking for anything specific or would you like to hear today’s recommendations?’ spiel while Kadar just stares at him.

When Kadar went “Altaïr?”, Desmond just gave him his best bartender ‘I’m being respectful but also distant so you’ll still tip me’ smile as he goes, “I’m sorry, we don’t have a bread called ‘Altaïr’.”

Then he showed Kadar the star-shaped pull apart sweet bread he’s just perfected and go “But maybe I can interest you in this pull apart start bread? It’s sweet and fluffy and freshly baked.”

And sweet poor Kadar leaves the bakery with a basket of breads instead because Desmond was good at using both Ezio’s charms and his bartending social skills to get customers to buy more than they should.

Hey.

A man needed to profit to keep the roof over his head while trying to experiment for the upcoming debut of his sugar-free pastries.

The next day, Malik entered the bakery but Desmond was ready.

Desmond had planned for this!

“Welcome!” Desmond greeted, giving Malik his sweetest smile that he knew would completely unnerve Malik.

Desmond weaponized the similarity between him and Altaïr to unnerve Malik to the point that he cannot focus on observing Desmond, distracted by such a sweet smile that looked so disturbing in his eyes because he’s imagining Altaïr doing such an expression and it was horror beyond Malik’s wildest imagination. 

Okay.

Desmond was exaggerating but that got Malik to not ask too many invasive questions and leave the bakery after purchasing two baskets worth of bread so Desmond was going to consider that a mission successful.

And then…

His greatest adversary entered his little quaint bakery.

And Desmond was ready for him.

“Welcome!” Desmond greeted happily, “Are you looking for anything specific or would you like to see today’s recommendations?”

Altaïr simply stared at him.

But that didn’t matter.

Desmond held all the cards.

Because he knew one of Altaïr’s greatest weakness…

Altaïr secretly loved sweets.

“Today’s a special day!” Desmond clapped his hands in practiced joy that wasn’t over the top, “Today’s the debut of our dessert line! Here.”

Desmond took out a tray of sweet deserts, glistening in either honey or fruit jams. 

“Would you like a taste?” Desmond asked with the sweetness of the snake that tempted Eve to take a bite.

And Altaïr…

Altaïr left the bakery with a basket filled with desserts and pastries, quietly sinking into the shadows before anyone could see him and ask for one of the forbidden sweets he had acquired.

[movie-titlecards]

Sabotage (1936)

My rating: 5/10

Yeah, this one didn't do much for me... I guess some of it was kind of suspenseful, but mostly it was just too dour and self serious, and I just didn't care very much about any of the characters.

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

Desmond Tester as Stevie Verloc in a scene from Sabotage (1936). Des was born in London and had 23 acting credits, from an uncredited bit in 1934 to a 1991 short. His other notable credit is The Stars Look Down.

[lifejustgotawkward]

365 Day Movie Challenge (2019) - #98: Sabotage (1936) - dir. Alfred Hitchcock

I’ve been slow to write reviews this summer, and now that so many drafts are piling up, I’ve got to just buckle down and get the work done. Luckily for me, Sabotage is one of the best recent entries in my log, displaying some of young auteur Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite themes in one of his most intriguing British films.

Bronx-born star Sylvia Sidney, operating as a freelancer after the expiration of her Paramount Pictures contract, is an improbable yet welcome headliner for this London-based tale, playing the American wife of a man named Karl Anton Verloc (Austrian actor Oskar Homolka in one of his greatest performances). Karl married his spouse seemingly out of benevolence and generosity rather than for love, giving her and her much younger brother Stevie (Desmond Tester) a better life than they had in their home country. (You may note that “Mrs. Verloc” is never identified by her first name, a precursor to Joan Fontaine as “the second Mrs. de Winter” in Hitchcock’s Rebecca four years later.) The Verlocs run a movie theater owned by Karl and fittingly he keeps them in the dark as to his secret side career: committing sabotage that endangers Londoners.

Karl’s complicity starts out as a means to pay the bills - he’s paid top dollar to carry out acts of terrorism - but it turns into something far more perilous and personal when he graduates from helping cause a citywide blackout to orchestrating the planting of a bomb in a public space. Undercover Scotland Yard agent Ted Spencer (John Loder) is sent to gather information on the Verlocs by posing as a clerk at the grocery store next door to their cinema, but matters become complicated as Ted develops a close relationship with Mrs. Verloc and Stevie. The layers of suspense in the plot intensify as Karl’s violent pursuits threaten to destroy his family and he begins to crumble under the weight of maintaining his deception.

Alfred Hitchcock uses the black-and-white cinematography by Bernard Knowles and the editing by Charles Frend to build wave after wave of tension, never more so than during an infamous scene set on a bus and in a climactic confrontation between Oskar Homolka and Sylvia Sidney that incorporates strikingly modern examples of close-ups. Although the ending is a bit rushed and confusing, overall the film is a smashing success. I owe a big thank you to the Criterion Channel app for making Sabotage available, granting me the chance to see a Hitchcock film that stands with The Lodger, Murder!, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes as the most impactful of his pre-Hollywood productions.