#paulene myers

[praenus]

[lboogie1906]

Paulene Elenora Myers (November 9, 1913 – December 8, 1996) was an actress. Variations in the spelling of her name include Pauline Myers and Pauline Meyers. She was a pioneer among African American actors who performed on the Broadway stage and appeared in many television series throughout her long career. Her career spanned over six decades.

She made her Broadway debut in 1933 in Growing Pains. She was featured in Broadway and national companies of major productions such as A Member of the Wedding, Anna Lucasta, and The Blacks.

She worked as a model for sculptors and painters.

Among the many roles she played, some of her most notable were Mrs. Ward on Days of Our Lives, Judge Pittman, the star of a TV special, “I’ll See You in Court;” Judge Morrisey on General Hospital, and a guest appearance as Judge Frances Mackenzie in an episode of All in the Family titled “Archie’s Civil Rights”, and Grandma Jane on The Tony Orlando & Dawn Show. She appeared as Grandpa Evans’s new ladyfriend, Lena, on Good Times, as well as roles on Sanford and Son, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Mannix, The San Pedro Beach Bums, The Cosby Show, The Jeffersons, and Gunsmoke.

She lived in both Southern California for 23 years, and in New York City for 12 years, and settled in Chester, Pennsylvania, for the final two years of her life. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[antiques-for-geeks]

Kolchak : The Night Stalker at 50 - The Zombie

This week, Carl will mostly be dealing with a zombie.

Eight weeks is all the BBC’s introduction to Kolchak amounted to. Although all 20 episodes were available, a decision had been taken to show them out of US broadcast order in their late night Mystery Train strand. Maybe, you’d assume, the BBC went for episodes more in the overall theme when bundled with that evening’s short and film, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.

Maybe the series curator just liked these episodes best.

Maybe the Director General just threw darts at a board and those were the episode numbers they chose to air. 

When the first Mystery Train appeared at a quarter past eleven on Friday October the 11th 1991, it kicked off eleven with the fifth episode of the Kolchak series, The Werewolf. Confusingly we’d have to wait until October the 25th for the series’ second episode, The Zombie, that US audiences had seen on the 20th of September 1974.

Presenter Richard O’Brien hammed up the episode introductions for the camera on a spookily deserted, low lit tube station where the titular train stood at the platform, shrouded in a generous cloak of smoke to aid the ambiance. Memory plays tricks, however. Watching a clip back today however, the station wasn’t quite deserted. It was full of statues of people doing what people do in stations every day of every week of every month of every year. Going about their business.

A welcoming character, wouldn't you agree?

It strikes you that the Mystery Train might have been conceived to exist in a slice of time behind ours. An empty space between seconds or the beat your heart skipped, A personal fiefdom where O’Brien’s character rules supreme, his subjects frozen in time. Viewers assume they are in on the game, that they are somehow apart from it all, but in reality were just as trapped as the statues littering the platform until the programme concluded.

Or perhaps it was just a TV  show and all this is just imagination running wild. Whichever, The Zombie to made its debut on British television, complete with knowing glance and a suitable quip from O’Brien about the improbability of their being a Haitian Community in Chicago in the 1970s.

Less improbable than the episode, mind.

Plot

There’s a series of brutal murders among those in the Chigaco criminal underworld, which all seem to be linked to the gangland killing of a Haitian man. A Haitian man whose corpse keeps turning up in the Police Department morgue despite being buried following his last visit.

Guests

Darren McGavin and Simon Oakland were joined by :

Charles Aidman - Captain Winwood

Joseph Sirola - Benjamin Sposato

Val Bisoglio - Victor Friese

J. Pat O’Malley - Caretaker

John Fielder - Gordon Spangler

Antonio Faragas - Sweetstick Weldon

Scat Man Corthers (sic) - Uncle Filemon

With

Paulene Myers - Mamalois Edmonds

Earl Faison - The Zombie

Carol Ann Susi - Monique Marmelstein

Ben Frommer - The Monk

Roland Bob Harris - Poppy

The Scoop

Pop : A garbled story about revenge enacted by the victim of a gangland slaying, brought back to life by the power of ...voodoo!

This episode does have some plus points. I enjoyed Carl trying to squirm his way out of a hospital trip when he's discovered snooping about by some Italian mobsters. He’s clearly made many enemies on both sides of the law by this point, and it’s a wonder how he hasn’t ended up encased in a concrete piling on a building site.

There’s also the usual selection of stunt-victims being thrown about - this time with a sound like snapping bread sticks as their spines are crushed.

I also think the zombie makeup itself, at least in the final scenes, is as good as could reasonably be expected for a 70's American TV show. 

And since this is a 70's American TV show and also features several prominent black characters we also get small roles for Scatman Crothers and Antonio Fargas (who plays a flash proto Huggy-Bear gang boss).

Despite this it's clearly a step down from the pilot, and seems a much more rushed affair, both in writing and production value.

It’s also worth mentioning that the presentation of the Haitian community (even if just the criminal community) as chicken sacrificing voodoo practitioners sounds like a rambling, semi-coherent bit of 'word weaving' from a Donald Trump rally.

If the story can't really be coherent, make it pretty.

Tim : This is one of the episodes I didn’t catch when it was broadcast, my only memory of the story being a vague outline from a discussion with Pop the Monday after.

The re-telling wasn’t compelling; "there’s a zombie and Kolchak has to fill its mouth with salt. Oh, and it’s really dark so you can’t make out what is going on."

I felt a sense of urgency to watch it from a completist point of view, but not enough to seek it out at all costs. Years later, I found  myself watching a low quality transfer of it online. And frankly I was confused.

Part of that came down to the crime, not being familiar with the concept of the numbers racket. Obviously, it wasn’t a problem for a late-night US audience in the 1970s.

The other part was that we learned a lot from exposition as opposed to seeing the action. Sure, this can work, but when you notice it’s happening, you know it’s not working. Where we do see action, it’s really empty and a massive step down from The Ripper. The Zombie himself barely appears on screen. Even the scenes he’s in, he feels strangely absent.

And this is where the episode falls down in many respects. If we barely see him, why does he need to be a zombie in particular? Replace him with any strongman and the end result would be the same. The whole voodoo thing feels tacked-on in an attempt  to turn a story without a supernatural slant into a Kolchak episode.

Antonio Fargas and Scatman Crothers, while good to see them, aren't used to the extent of the talents, however the inclusion of John Fiedler as morgue attendant Gordo the Ghoul stands out. Sure he’s corrupt, selling information about the bodies in his charge to reporters, but it’s kind of endearingly so. Fiedler Carol Ann Susi’s character of Monique Marmelstein is also a worthwhile addition, the character is played mainly for comic relief, which is a shame.

Yes, there is some decent world-building going on, which suggests better for the future, But this outing feels underdeveloped or even like the script was just in the wrong series. After the strong start with The Ripper, you can’t help but feel disappointed.

Highlight

Pop : Carl climbing into the back of a hearse in a junkyard at night so he can lay the zombie to rest with some salt and a needle and thread is actually one of the more memorable monster encounters from the series, and pretty well executed. The surprisingly decent zombie makeup and the helpless position Carl finds himself in really add to the tension.

Tim : The scenes with the Chicago mob definitely has the hand of David Chase on their shoulder, but it’s the one where Kolchak has to talk his way out of being killed by crime boss Benjamin Sposato and his trusted acolyte Victor Friese that hits best. The punchy, fast dialogue succeeds in being both amusing and menacing at the same time.

That's supposed to be a zombie under the sheet.

Lowlight

Pop : The Zombie returns to his nocturnal den in the junkyard by bus!

Nobody bats an eyelid, and from Carl's vantage point riding on the back bumper he looks like he could pass for a living person... yet when we next see his skin looks like melted cheese and he is clearly very dead. Inconsistencies like this kill any tension the episode was trying to build.

Tim : The criminal underworld’s characters do feel a little too stereotyped, but it’s not as much a deal breaker as the Zombie itself. While we barely see it, when we do it’s.. mixed. During the morgue scene, it’s represented by a healthy arm and feet painted with blue food colouring under a white linen sheet. The way it looks; it might be one of the Blue Man group under there. If they existed in the 1970s. Which they didn’t.

Updyke vs. Kolchak

Updyke doesn’t appear in this episode - so it’s still 1-0 to Kolchak on aggregate.

Score on the doors

Pop : It’s a bit half baked, but still has some Night Stalker magic 4/10.

Tim : An episode that was still working out what it wanted to be pretty much to the end. 3/10.

As the old adage goes; if you need a zombie taking care of, you're best off doing it yourself.

[scenesandscreens]

My Cousin Vinny (1992) Director - Jonathan Lynn, Cinematography - Peter Deming "Imagine you're a deer. You're prancing along, you get thirsty, you spot a little brook, you put your little deer lips down to the cool clear water... BAM! A fuckin bullet rips off part of your head! Your brains are laying on the ground in little bloody pieces! Now I ask ya. Would you give a fuck what kind of pants the son of a bitch who shot you was wearing?"

[the-firebird69]

Lolo in suicide squad starts now. Preston too MB. The watchmen. Outskirts take

Yes

Thor it's a go

[classicladiesofcolor]

Actress Paulene Myers

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