Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo

Between 1945 and 1948, Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo starred together in four Goldwyn films: Wonder Man (1945)-The Kid from Brooklyn(1946)-The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (1947) and A Song Is Born(1948). I recently viewed the four films at ok.ru .

In the first film, Danny Kaye plays the dual roles of estranged "super-identical twins", the loud and zany Buster Dingle (AKA Buzzy Bellew), and the quiet, studious Edwin Dingle. Buster is witness to a murder by mob boss "Ten Grand" Jackson (played by Steve Cochran) and is in turn murdered by two killers hired by Jackson - Chimp and Torso.

Buster, who is now a ghost, supernaturally contacts brother Edwin and convinces him to pose as the deceased twin in order to bring his murderers to justice.

Mayo plays the love interest of Edwin, while Buster's girlfriend is played by Vera-Ellen. It seemed a bit odd to me to see Virginia Mayo receive billing over Vera-Ellen as the latter was, to my mind, the superior actress and entertainer.

In their second film, Kaye and Mayo are again joined by Vera-Ellen and Steve Cochran. The Kid from Brooklyn was a remake of a 1936 film starring Harold Lloyd - The Milky Way. Other than having musical numbers, Kaye's remake isn't very different than Lloyd's film. Lionel Stander plays the role of "Spider" Schultz in both versions of the movie.
 In my opinion, The Milky Way is the funnier of the two.

The third film, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty is the best of the four films. It is,coincidentally the only one of the four to not co-star Steve Cochran. We also see a return of Fay Bainter who played socialite Mrs. E. Winthrop LeMoyne in The Kid from Brooklyn .

A Song Is Born was the least successful of the four. This was probably due to the fact that Danny Kaye did not perform a single musical number. This was odd, considering that "music" played such a central part of the film.
A Song Is Born was a remake of a film starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, Ball of Fire.  Both versions feature Mary Field in the role of Miss Totten, the financial backer of the encyclopedia. The film is another example of the remake not living up to the original.

In a strange bit of Hollywood coincidences, Benny Goodman and a member of his quartet, Lionel Hampton played significant parts in A Song Is Born while drummer for the quartet, Gene Krupa was conspicuous by his absence from the movie. Krupa, however had been featured prominently in the Cooper/Stanwyck film.

Top Three Items Expats Need While in Philippines

In a recent Youtube video, friend and fellow compatriot, Vern Dahnke gave a list of three items he felt were "must have" for expats living in Philippines. At the end of the video, he asked for his viewers to leave their own lists in the comment section.

Naturally, I couldn't resist the opportunity to put in my 2 pesos' worth, but I felt the space available in a Youtube section wasn't big enough for what I wanted to say. Hence, this blog post was born.

This is actually my second attempt at writing this post. The first attempt was nearly finished, when it was lost, due to a split second brown-out.

Starting over, I decided to approach the post differently this time around. First time, I critiqued Vern's list before putting forth my own list. With this post, I'll only give my own list without any editorial comment on Vern's list. This decision came about in part due to my present physical condition brought upon by my recent stroke.

Typing has never been my strong suit, and though my stroke was very mild, I have noticed a slight decline in hand coordination. Let's just say my typing certainly hasn't improved and I was disinclined to retype a post as long as the first one. Even in its condensed version, this second post looks to be quite lengthy. Right now, less typing the better.

So, without further ado, here comes my list of the three items an expat needs in Philippines.

There is one item on our respective lists in which Vern and I are in agreement - the need for top notch Internet service. Having different lifestyles, our reasons for putting this on the list are different. Vern relies on reliable, high speed Internet to do his online classes and to upload videos to Youtube. These are not priorities for me. I simply believe that quality Internet is a must for everyone, regardless of who you are or where you live. I may be downloading books from Project Gutenberg, chatting with friends on Facebook, or streaming videos on Netflix, but I never the less see good Internet as a must have.

Also, like Vern I see the pocket Wi Fi as a complete waste of time and money. It's true that some brands work better in some spots than others, but overall, a pocket WiFi is most definitely not the way to go.

When my family and I lived in an apartment in Sibulan we used Globe DSL. At the time, it was our only option. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but I wouldn't say the service was absolutely horrible. It wasn't the best, but we could live with it.

When we finally moved into our house in Magatas, we had two options regarding fiber optic Internet service - PLDT and Fil Products. By Philippine standards, both companies provide top notch fiber optics. In the end, we choose Fil Products over PLDT. A friend of mine has PLDT, and while he enjoys the Internet, he is dissatisfied with the television packages coming with PLDT. It was the television service that won me over.

My second item on the list actually comes as a surprise, even to myself. I wouldn't have thought so at one time, but I now view an automobile as a "must have" item here. The are negatives to driving a car here. The traffic in Dumaguete can be horrendous and most of the time locating a parking spot in the city can be a royal pain. However, when one takes safety into account, a car wins as transportation of choice. I would say that 50% of the expats I know have been involved in an accident while driving a motorcycle - one accident was especially serious.

It's quite common for motorcyclists to hit a dog ( or some other object ) on the road,and far too many motorcyclists pay no attention while driving or will completely ignore common sense rules. Usually, when an accident involves a car and a motorcycle, the car has the advantage.

In addition to the safety factor, the government has made driving a motorcycle more of a hassle. The practice of backriding on a motorcycle is almost illegal now. Unless you're a single person without wife or girlfriend, riding a motorcycle is becoming less of an option.

My third item on my list of "must have" items for the expat living here is a permanent resident card. Without the card, tourist visas must be renewed on a regular basis. This in itself can become a nuisance. Never having had a tourist visa, I don't know all the ins and outs of the renewal process, but I do know that one requirement of being a tourist is that one is required to go outside the Philippines, I believe, once every three years. This may not seem like a big deal, but during these times of the covid 19 pandemic, going in or out of Philippines has become dicey. If one is required to leave, finding a flight out of the country is extremely difficult and ones being allowed back in may not even be possible at the present time.

Of course, permanent resident cards aren't given to everyone. I suppose, in theory, you can get one if you aren't married to a Filipina, but I don't think that it's easily done. It may seem like a lot to ask, but frankly, I don't believe I'd want to stay here permanently if I didn't have wife and family here.

So, there you have it - my list of the three items an expat must have in Philippines. For Vern's list, click on this link to his Youtube video.

The Absolute at Large

Immediately after finishing War with the Newts I started reading another of Karel Čapek's novels,The Absolute at Large.

Written in 1922, the story begins at what was a future date at the time of writing, New Year's Day 1943. An engineer and inventor, Rudy Marek has created a type of reactor which can produce cheap and abundant energy. After placing an ad in a newspaper, Marek is approached by tycoon, G.H.Bondy, head of the Metallo-Electrical Company.

Marek explains to Bondy that one of the main by-products of the production of the energy is the release of the absolute into the environment. The absolute is described as the spiritual essence that permeates all matter and those people exposed to the absolute undergo an over powering religious experience.

According to the wikipedia article on the novel, R. D. Mullen called the novel "one of the genuine masterpieces of SF" and I'm inclined to agree with that assessment. I highly recommend the novel to Sci Fi enthusiasts.

As a side note, a tycoon named G.H.Bondy is also prominent in War with the Newts yet events in the two stories preclude the two G.H.Bondy's from being the same character.

My copy of The Absolute at Large comes from fadedpage.com. A newer translation by David Wyllie can be purchased from amazon.com.

War With The Newts

A few days ago, I discovered the work of Czech writer Karel Čapek. It was Čapek's play R.U.R. that first introduced the word "robot".

I had been able to locate a copy of the play at Project Gutenberg. I felt that it was important to read the play, as it had been the first work on "robots", though I must say, I was a little disappoint in the play.

In spite of this disappointment I began to look further into Karel Čapek's life and work. In the wikipedia article on R.U.R., mention was made of one of Čapek's novels, War with the Newts. At the time, I had misinterpreted a sentence in the wikipedia article ("Čapek later took a different approach to the same theme in War with the Newts, in which non-humans become a servant class in human society.") and wrongly assumed that the novel dealt with robots.

After locating and downloading a copy of the novel from Project Gutenberg of Australia I learned otherwise. The "non-humans" in the novel are newts or salamanders.

(The copy of the novel at Project Gutenberg of Australia is in html format which I had to print as a pdf and convert to mobi in order to read on my Kindle. It can also be purchased at amazon.com.)

The novel has been described as a dark satirical science fiction novel and acclaimed as the first dystopian novel.

Personally, I can't speak more highly of the novel. It is, at times, quite funny. And yes, dark.

Written in 1936, Čapek's work is highly critical of Germany's fascism; he doesn't spare the segregated United States, and none of the European countries of that era do well in Čapek's view.

I'm quite sure that had Čapek written in English, his work would be compared today to the likes of H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell. He had been nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. It's thought that he was never awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature because his work was offensive to the Nazis, and the Swedish board did not want to risk Hitler's displeasure.

We all know the Nobel can be political.