The Cepholopod Coffeehouse: October 2014

Welcome one and all to the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, a cozy gathering of book lovers, meeting to discuss their thoughts regarding the tomes they enjoyed most over the previous month.  Pull up a chair, order your cappuccino and join in the fun.  If you wish to add your own review to the conversation, please sign on to the link list at the end of my post.

Title: Embroideries
Writer and Artist: Marjane Satrapi

via Amazon

As I finished Embroideries and set it down in front of My Wife for her to read, she asked if I liked it.   "Well yes," I responded.  "It's Iranian women sitting around, talking about their sex lives.  What's not to like?"

Marjane Satrapi is best known for the groundbreaking Persepolis, a comic book and film about her experiences growing up in revolutionary Iran (my review here).  Embroideries is also about Satrapi's own family, this time exploring the intimacies of the bedroom.  The typical western image of the Iranian woman has her shrouded in a burka, completely disconnected from pleasures of the flesh.  Satrapi chucks that idea out the window as she and the other ladies in her circle hold forth.

Personalities run the gamut from Marjane's blunt, fearless grandmother to her more naive cousins.  Men, for the most part, don't come off well in the discussion - no surprise.  They're thoughtless, clueless and/or manipulative.  It's also clear they're not welcome to partake in the conversation.  I feel lucky to be offered the fly-on-the-wall perspective. 

The book's title could be taken to refer to the common threads that run through the women's stories.  However, it is also a specific reference to an operation to restore the hymen, thus preserving the illusion of a new wife's virginity - apparently a growing issue in modern, though still theocratic Iran.

As a graphic novel, Embroideries is a quick, engaging read.  The subject matter - handled frankly and humorously - is sure to keep the pages turning.  Those interested in Satrapi's work might also enjoy Chicken with Plums (review here).

Please join us and share your own review of your best read from the past month.  This month's link list is below.  I'll keep it open until the end of the day.  I'll post November's tomorrow.  Meetings are the last Friday of each month.  Next gathering is November 28th.

Star Trek: For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

Episode: "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 3, Episode 8
Original Air Date: November 8, 1968

via Wikipedia

This week's episode is a Dr. McCoy story.  There aren't too many of those.  Generally speaking, Bones gets the least attention of Trek's Big 3.  He's the George Harrison to Kirk and Spock's Lennon and McCartney (I guess Scotty is Ringo in this analogy).  While Trek wouldn't be Trek without him, McCoy rarely benefits from the scant character development on offer in the original series. 

In our story, the Enterprise is sent on a mission to stop an asteroid from careening into an inhabited planet.  One small snag: the asteroid has people inside of it! 10,000 years previously, just before their star went supernova, the Fabrini built an asteroid-shaped spaceship called Yonada and sent it off into space, hoping to find a new home.  Our heroes are faced with the dilemma of how to save both Yonada and the four billion inhabitants of Daran V.

Interesting story, yet it's not even the best narrative running through the episode.  McCoy has diagnosed himself with a rare, incurable illness, estimating he only has one year to live.  When he goes down to Yonada with Kirk and Spock as part of the landing party, the high priestess Natira falls in love with him and invites him to live out the rest of his days as her husband.  He accepts, understandably seeking companionship at the end.  "For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky" perhaps translates to "life is lonely but I have known love." 

Obviously, there's more to play out as we all know from future stories that McCoy survives his illness and returns to the Enterprise.  But there are a few memorable scenes along the way.  The love affair moves along quickly but manages to be quite touching at times.  The very best scene, though, is between Spock and Bones.  Spock's human side shines through when he learns of the doctor's illness.   Spock grasps McCoy's shoulder - the gesture begins as physical support but evolves into an expression of compassion.  It's a wonderful moment in the development of a relationship so crucial to the spirit of Trek. 

*****

via Find A Grave

Kate Woodville (Natira) was born December 4, 1938 in London.  She moved to the States in 1967, the year before her appearance on Trek.  Film credits include The Clue of the New Pin, The Wild and the Willing and The Informers.  She had numerous TV appearance in both Britain and the US.  British credits included The Avengers, The Saint and No Hiding Place.  Besides Star Trek, Woodville had American television gigs on Mission: Impossible, The Rockford Files and Eight Is Enough among others. 

Woodville was in the very first episode of The Avengers and later married the show's leading man, Patrick Macnee.  Her second husband, Edward Albert, was also an actor.  Woodville died of cancer in 2013.

Family Movie Night: E.T.

Title: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Director: Stephen Spielberg
Original Release: 1982
Choice: Mine
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

This week's choice was a controversial one at our house.  My Wife and I have very different feelings about E.T.  For me, it came into my world when escapist fantasy ruled my being.  The idea of an alien from outer space befriending a young boy was powerful indeed.  While I wouldn't say it's one of my favorite movies (in fact, I'm not entirely sure I'd watched it since its original theatrical run), I did feel it was an important film to share with our daughter while she is still, in fact, a child.

via Wikipedia

For My Wife, who first saw E.T. a little later in life than I did, it was the film that turned her off from Stephen Spielberg.  She was old enough to recognize and resent the overt emotional manipulation in the story's final act.  Watching as an adult, I can appreciate her objections.  As E.T. and his buddy Elliott were struggling to survive, I wanted to reassure my daughter that both would be okay.  I resisted, knowing that would compromise her sense of relief in the ending.  I still enjoy the magic of the story and I think my daughter did, too.

I'd forgotten about all of the Star Wars references.  I remembered E.T. running into Yoda on Halloween but I'd forgotten the snippet of "Yoda's Theme" used for that scene.  I had also forgotten the scene in which Elliott introduces E.T. to all of his Star Wars action figures, many of which I had myself.

John Williams won his fourth Oscar for the E.T. score.  The movie won four Oscars in total, also nabbing the top prize for Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects.  It was the highest grossing film of the 1980s and consistently finds its way onto various all-time bests lists.  For all of that critical and commercial success, E.T. never had a sequel - quite amazing considering the era, when nearly all successful movies had at least one.  Even Grease had one, for crying out loud.  One half-expected Gandhi II: Nehru's Revenge. Spielberg and screenwriter Melissa Mathison wrote a sequel but Spielberg decided against pursuing it, for fear of corrupting the purity of the original.  E.T.'s species, however, did have a memorable cameo as representatives to the Galactic Senate in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

Star Trek: Day of the Dove

Episode: "Day of the Dove"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 3, Episode 7
Original Air Date: November 1, 1968

via Wikipedia

Distress calls bring both the Enterprise and a Klingon ship to Beta XII-A.  The malevolent superior entity that lured them plays puppeteer with both parties, fueling tensions.  The Klingons are brought aboard the ship.  Unwilling to be docile prisoners, they take over engineering.  All the while, the entity allows neither side to gain a permanent upper hand.  In time, our heroes deduce that this evil spirit feeds off of conflict and they can only defeat it by making peace with the Klingons.

Symbolism is heavy-handed indeed.  A memorable exchange during the initial Federation/Klingon confrontation:

Kirk: Go to the devil.
Klingon Commander Kang: We have no devil, Kirk.  But we understand the habits of yours.

Later, Kirk accuses the entity of having meddled in the affairs of others before, a perpetual force of evil in the universe.  Apparently the original script had the Klingons and Enterprise crew singing songs in a peace march.  Thankfully, sensibility prevailed and laughter was used to drive the entity away.

The heavy-handedness aside, "Day of the Dove" is a good episode for the development of the Klingons.  As with the Romulans in "The Enterprise Incident," we have glimpses of better cultural understanding amid the tensions:

Kirk (to Mara, Kang's wife, after Kirk threatens to kill her as a bluff to Kang): The Federation doesn't kill or mistreat its prisoners.  You've been listening to propoganda... fables.

Mara (later, to Kirk): We have always fought.  We must.  We are hunters, Captain, tracking and taking what we need. 

The end, while not hopeful exactly, does offer a possible path to long-term peace.

*****

via Memory Alpha

Michael Ansara (Kang) was born April 15, 1922 in Syria.  His family emigrated to the United States when he was two years old.  He took acting classes as a way to overcome shyness, then fell in love with it.

His long career ranged from Biblical epics to westerns to science fiction.  He played Judas in 1953's The Robe.  He had the lead roles in two 1950s TV series: Broken Arrow and Law of the Plainsman.  He played Kane in the Buck Rogers TV series.  He reprised the role of Kang in Deep Space Nine and Voyager episodes.  Hardly needing to add more to his geek cred, he was also the voice of Dr. Freeze for Batman: The Animated Series and its spinoffs.

While making Broken Arrow, the publicity department set Ansara up on a date with Barbara Eden, later of I Dream of Jeannie fame.  The two were married for 16 years, divorcing in 1974.  Their only son, Matthew, died of a heroin overdose in 2001.  Michael Ansara died in 2013 after a long illness.

On the Coffee Table: Mark Kurlansky

Title: Salt: A World History
Author: Mark Kurlansky

via Amazon

I know salt is important for preserving food.  When I was young, I learned about the Romans using salt to pay their soldiers.  From this, we get the word salary.  I've also seen the movie Gandhi so I knew about his march to the sea to gather salt in defiance of the British Empire.  Before reading Salt, that was about the limit of my appreciation for the role salt has played in human history.  I had read Kurlansky before.  His book Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is outstanding and, if you should read it, will thoroughly convince you that the fishing industry has shaped the history of the North Atlantic for over 1,000 years.  I'd even given Salt a go before, about nine years ago.  Alas, that was a time when pleasure reading was not a big part of my life so I'd go months without picking up the book at all.  As a result, I didn't make it far.  With my new interest in food books, it seemed a good time to give it another try.

Salt is essential to life but it has not always been easily accessible so its trade has been a major part of economies from the beginning.  Salt covers a lot of ground.  Kurlansky's thorough account hits five continents over thousands of years.  He begins with the mining innovations of ancient China and finishes with the Morton Salt company.  In between, he spends most of the book in various corners of Europe but a few chapters are devoted to the impact on Asia and the New World, too.  Apart from food, salt has had numerous industrial applications over the centuries: making gunpowder, curing leather, mining silver, deicing roads, etc.  Salt use has diminished over the past century but remains essential today.

As with Cod, Salt leaves no doubt as to the importance of its subject matter.  Even so, the text is dense at times and some chapters were tougher to get through than others, slipping into that one-damn-thing-after-another feel that is the peril of any history text.  All I want is high intellectual stimulation with trashy-novel digestibility.  Is that really so much to ask?  I am glad to have finally finished the book.  I didn't enjoy it as much as I did Cod but it's certainly a worthwhile read.

Family Movie Night: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Title: The Nightmare Before Christmas
Director: Henry Selick
Original Release: 1993
Choice: Purple Penguin's
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

At its heart, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a very simple concept: what would happen if Halloween took over Christmas?  From that premise, a rich, textured universe was created in which each of seven different holidays inhabit a world all their own.  Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon, sung by Danny Elfman) is the superstar of Halloween Town.  Despite the worship-level appreciation he enjoys in his own realm, he longs for more.  He hatches a plan to kidnap Santa Claus and deliver Christmas presents in his place. 

This has long been one of our family favorites.  We own a DVD copy and there was a stretch a few years back when Purple Penguin was watching it daily.  As it was frequently on in the background, I know the sounds of the film better than I do the sights.  So there are a few details I had missed before this most recent viewing - particularly the door with the fire cracker!  There is a circle of trees in the woods, each with a door leading to a Holiday Town: a pumpkin for Halloween, a tree for Christmas, a heart for Valentine's Day, a shamrock for St. Patrick's Day, an egg for Easter and a turkey for Thanksgiving.  (Rather USA-centric, isn't it?)  I'd thought that was it.  Au contraire!  There's a door with a fire cracker for Independence Day.  Well, what do you know?

One has to appreciate the marketing genius of a movie suitable for both Halloween and Christmas, the two biggest consumer holidays on the calendar.  My favorite scene is at the very end of the trailer:

I can't help being curious about the other Holiday Towns but Tim Burton, the genius behind the whole concept, has always been very protective of this story and resistant to the idea of sequels.  If it ever does happen, I certainly hope Elfman will be brought along for the ride.  Danny Elfman, former front man for Oingo Boingo, has carved out quite a niche for himself in the worlds of film and television.  He has scored nearly all of Burton's films and has worked on many others as well.  He has been nominated for four Oscars.  For all of his success on the big screen, his strongest legacy may be The Simpsons theme song.

*****

My Rating System:

5 = The best of the best.  These are the films by which I judge other films.
4 = High quality films which I feel could hold up well in repeated viewings.
3 = The vast majority of films.  They're fine.  Once was enough.
2 = I wasn't even sure I wanted to finish it.  It's not a 1 because I'm not prepared to say it's a terrible film - just not my cup of tea.
1 = A terrible film.  An insult to the art form.

Star Trek: Spectre of the Gun

Episode: "Spectre of the Gun"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 3, Episode 6
Original Air Date: October 25, 1968

via Memory Alpha

Most of the American television audience wasn't quite ready for Star Trek in the late 1960s.   Westerns, on the other hand, were huge.  Two of the great small screen leviathans of that or any era were Bonanza, weighing in at 14 seasons, and Gunsmoke at 20 plus 9 on radio.  Only The Simpsons has been on prime-time television longer than Gunsmoke.  Therefore, it is no surprise that Trek - never shy about cheesy costume dramas - devoted one of its third season episodes to the Old West.

The Enterprise and her crew are sent to make contact with the Melkotians.  When their prospective friends shoo them away, Kirk orders our heroes to push onward.  Miffed, the Melkotians grab the landing party and punish them by placing them in an O.K. Corral dreamscape as the ill-fated Clantons.  Toss in the Earps and Doc Holliday and the outlook is not great for our favorite galactic travelers.

While several of the Trek's principal actors had western appearances on their resumes, none had better credentials than Deforest Kelley (Dr. McCoy).  He had, in fact, already appeared in two other versions of the O.K. Corral story.  In 1955, he played Ike Clanton in an episode of You Are There.  He was Morgan Earp in the 1957 film, Gunfight at the OK Corral.

The Western set has a surrealist feel, using only the facades of buildings.  The choice, however, was driven by an effort to keep costs down rather than by artistic inspiration.  The vermilion red sky however, must have been a deliberate choice and I found it delightfully unsettling.

*****

via Memory Alpha

Charles Maxwell (Virgil Earp) was a veteran of television westerns.  He was born December 28, 1913 in Long Island, New York.  He made ten total appearances on Bonanza, four on Gunsmoke and four on Rawhide among many others.  His was also the (uncredited) radio announcer voice on Gilligan's Island.  Maxwell died in 1993.

Family Movie Night: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Title: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Director: Ang Lee
Original Release: 2000
Choice: My Wife's
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, produced on a $17 million dollar budget, grossed $213 million worldwide in its theatrical release.  It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, won four and probably should have been Best Picture (Gladiator won instead).  The film inspired a wave of interest in Chinese film in the western world.  IMDb's synopsis: "Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically skilled, adolescent nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life."

The story is based on the fourth of a series of five novels known in China as the Crane Iron Pentalogy by Wang Dulu.  The books have never been translated to English but apparently the first book, Crane Frightens Kunlun, is currently in progress.  The narrative is strong but the magic of the film is in the visual presentation.  The film's scenery is stunning.  Peter Pau won an Oscar for Cinematography as did Timmy Yip for Art Direction.  Every fight scene is mesmerizing, often greatly enhanced by special effects.

It's a great Girl Power movie.  All of the women hold their own in both martial arts and fencing, especially Jen Yu, portrayed by Ziyi Zhang.  In one scene, she lays an entire restaurant to waste.  Her duel with Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-fat) atop a bamboo forest is particularly memorable.

Composer Tan Dun won an Oscar, a Grammy and a BAFTA for the film's score.  Cellist Yo-Yo Ma features prominently as a soloist.  More recently, Dun composed music for the medal ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

*****

My Rating System:

5 = The best of the best.  These are the films by which I judge other films.
4 = High quality films which I feel could hold up well in repeated viewings.
3 = The vast majority of films.  They're fine.  Once was enough.
2 = I wasn't even sure I wanted to finish it.  It's not a 1 because I'm not prepared to say it's a terrible film - just not my cup of tea.
1 = A terrible film.  An insult to the art form.

Mock Squid Soup: November Blog List

MOCK! and The Armchair Squid are proud to present Mock Squid Soup: A Film Society.  Each month, on the second Friday, we shall host a bloghop devoted to a particular movie.  We invite others to watch the same film and post their own reviews.

Our society shall convene next on November 14th with Space Battleship Yamato.

via Wikipedia

To clarify, we're watching the 2010 live action movie, not the animated one.  Having trouble finding it?  Well, aren't you in luck?  The full movie (Japanese with English subtitles) is on YouTube: http://youtu.be/pWbm75wl_vw.  (Not really for 18+.  This one's PG-13 at worst.)  The movie is based on Star Blazers, the anime TV series from the 1970s.  The film is Drama Guy's choice and he has promised a screening of Star Blazers episodes on the same evening.

We hope that you, too, will watch the movie and join in our discussion.  Please sign on to the list below:

Mock Squid Soup: Unbreakable

MOCK! and The Armchair Squid are proud to welcome you to Mock Squid Soup: A Film Society.  Each month, on the second Friday, we shall host a bloghop devoted to a particular movie.  We invite others to watch the same film and post their own reviews.  This month's movie is...

Title: Unbreakable
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Original Release: 2000
My Overall Rating: 3 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

Before this month, Mock and I had watched our Society movies separately, silly in light of the fact that we are good friends and see each other often.   This month, we decided to find an evening to watch together along with (as Mock calls him) our third musketeer: Drama Guy.  I was the only one of the three of us who hadn't seen Unbreakable before.  I admire The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan's breakthrough effort, tremendously - 5 stars, easy.  However, I'd never seen any of his other films, knowing all have been far less critically successful, a few considered downright terrible.  Nonetheless, I was curious.

David Dunn (Bruce Willis) believes himself to be an ordinary Philadelphia security guard with a troubled marriage.  He has failed to realize a strange pattern in his life: he has never been ill and he has never been injured.  But Elijah (Samuel L. Jackson), a comic book art collector and exhibitor, has been keeping an eye out for a man like David.  Elijah has a brittle bones condition and is therefore obsessed with the idea of an invincible man.  When David is the only survivor of a train accident, Elijah sets out to convince him of his superhuman powers.

I enjoyed the atmosphere of this movie: dark and, for the most part, surprisingly quiet.  As with Sixth Sense, there is a creepy, tingling around the edges but no ghosts.  The writing wasn't quite as good as in the earlier film but it does keep the story moving.  Just as with the earlier movie, I didn't see the twist at the end coming.  The twist is fun but I think the story would also have been fine without it.

I do have one gripe.  The movie ends with screen captions revealing the fallout from the big shocker ending.   I feel that works for a movie about real-life events - All the President's Men, for instance - but it's a strange choice for fiction.  If the end you filmed isn't really the end of the story, why did you film it that way?  Just seems sloppy.  In the final analysis, Unbreakable is a good movie but it's not as good as The Sixth Sense.

We hope that you, too, will watch Unbreakable and join in our discussion.  I'll post November's sign-up list tomorrow.  Our feature on Friday, November 14th shall be... something a little different: Space Battleship Yamato.

via Wikipedia

In the meantime, for the Unbreakable discussion, please sign on to the list below:

Star Trek: Is There in Truth No Beauty?

Episode: "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 3, Episode 5
Original Air Date: October 18, 1968

via Memory Beta

There's something about a story in which Spock smiles.  The Enterprise's half-Vulcan First Officer so rarely breaks his stoic demeanor that the episodes in which he does tend to be memorable, even if it is just because he's being possessed by an alien ambassador.

In this week's tale, our heroes are providing transport to Kollos, an intellectually superior being of the Medusan race.  Medusans are apparently so ugly as to drive a humanoid insane at sight.  There's no mention of serpentine hair but the allusion to Greek mythology is plain enough.  Most people cannot view Kollos at all so he is kept inside a box.  The Vulcan mental discipline protects Spock but even he must wear a protective visor.

In Kollos's entourage are Larry Mavrick (David Frankham), one of the designers of the Enterprise, and Dr. Miranda Jones (Diana Muldaur), Kollos's telepathic and, we eventually learn, blind assistant.  A love triangle quickly becomes apparent.  Mavrick is in love with Miranda but can't compete with the latter's devotion to Kollos.  Mavrick's jealousy drives him to murder Kollos but he is thwarted in the attempt when the Medusan senses him and emerges from the box, driving Mavrick mad.  Mavrick dies, but not before gaining control of the ship and sending it disastrously off course.

Kollos and Spock form a mind link in order to get the ship back to familiar space.  This is the magic moment when we get to see Spock smile as Kollos delights in the novelty of humanoid form.  A story that inspires more than its fair share of eye rolling saves itself as Spock/Kollos waxes poetic: "This thing you call language though, most remarkable.  You depend on it for so very much. But is any one of you really its master?"

*****

via Memory Alpha

David Frankham was born February 16, 1926 in Gillingham, Kent, England.  After serving in India and Malaya during World War II, he worked at the BBC in various capacities.  He moved to Hollywood in 1955 to pursue an acting career.

Much of Frankham's work was in television.  In addition to Trek, he had apprearances on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Beverly Hillbillies and The Waltons.  Big screen gigs included Return of the Fly, Ten Who Dared and Master of the World.  His most famous role is the voice of the cat in One Hundred and One Dalmations.

Family Movie Night: King Kong

Title: King Kong
Directors: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack
Original Release: 1933
Choice: Mine
My Overall Rating: 3 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

Obviously, the original King Kong feels awfully dated 81 years after it was released.  The special effects have been outmoded several times over.  To say the portrayal of women and Africans is problematic is putting it mildly.  Even so, it's a must-see for any fan of science fiction.  King Kong is cinema's Frankenstein, the film that spawned entire genres in both story and presentation.  The movie has been remade twice - in 1976 and 2005 - and that doesn't include the Godzilla, Jurassic Park and numerous other monster franchises that were created in imitation.

Filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) has hired a ship to take his crew to the tropics for yet another exotic adventure film.  All he lacks is a leading lady.  He hits the streets, confident of finding a down-on-her-luck beauty for his picture.  Thankfully, he finds Ann Darrow (Fay Wray: best movie star name ever).  Ann jumps at the chance.  Life was so much simpler in the 1930s...

On Skull Island, they meet King Kong, an enormous, terrifying gorilla who takes an immediate shine to Ann.  He steals her away to his cave, fending off numerous hungry dinosaurs by essentially wrenching their heads open at the jaw - yick!   Eventually, the giant ape is subdued and dragged onto the ship, to be a centerpiece of a live show in New York.

I had seen this movie before, yet somehow I'd forgotten all about the dinosaurs.  The iconic image of the story is Kong atop the Empire State Building swatting at biplanes but the final New York portion of the movie only lasts about 20 minutes.  Most of the action takes place on the island and the lizards are just as spectacular as the ape.  My pal Maurice Mitchell recently featured the movie's beautiful concept art on his blog, Film Sketcher.

In addition to the stunning visuals, Kong is also famous for its classic musical score, composed by Max Steiner, previously featured here for his work on Gone with the Wind.  Kong put Steiner on the Hollywood map.  He would eventually compose over 300 film scores, garnering 3 Oscars and 24 nominations.  Actor/musician Oscar Levant went so far as to call Kong "a symphony accompanied by a movie."  Originally, RKO didn't even want to pay for a new score, simply wanting Steiner to cobble together music from other films.  But Cooper paid Steiner for an original work out of his own pocket (later reimbursed).

*****

My Rating System:

5 = The best of the best.  These are the films by which I judge other films.
4 = High quality films which I feel could hold up well in repeated viewings.
3 = The vast majority of films.  They're fine.  Once was enough.
2 = I wasn't even sure I wanted to finish it.  It's not a 1 because I'm not prepared to say it's a terrible film - just not my cup of tea.
1 = A terrible film.  An insult to the art form.

Star Trek: And the Children Shall Lead

Episode: "And the Children Shall Lead"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 3, Episode 4
Original Air Date: October 11, 1968

via Memory Alpha

As I have written previously, I feel one of Star Trek's greatest weaknesses is stories about children.  In this week's episode, "And the Children Shall Lead," our heroes respond to a distress call on planet Triacus.  All of the adult members of the scientific expedition there are either dead or nearly so.  The surviving children, however, are downright giddy, playing merrily, completely indifferent to their lost parents.  When the kids come aboard the Enterprise, we learn of their mysterious powers.  They are under the control of an apparition called Gorgan.  In time, it is revealed that Gorgan manipulated them first into destroying their own parents and now into hijacking the ship to a larger settlement.

From the beginning, the relationship between the crew and the children is awkward.  To a point, this is appropriate to the story but the acting suffers, too.  The episode has other narrative flaws.  Gorgan advises the children to win the ship by exerting their influence over the crew whereas to me, it would have made a lot more sense to get to the captain first, before he realized what was happening.  Faulty strategic thinking often stifles the bad guys in these stories.

*****

via Memory Alpha

Melvin Belli (Gorgan) had easily the most unusual career path of any actor I've featured in my Star Trek series.  Born July 29, 1907 in Sonora, California, Belli was not a professional actor at all.  He was a trial lawyer and an extremely successful one at that.  Early in his career, he built his reputation as a personal injury and consumer rights attorney.  But fame and fortune came from representing celebrities such as Erroll Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammed Ali and the Rolling Stones among many others.  In his highest profile case of all, he served as Jack Ruby's defense attorney for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Belli was quite a colorful character in his own right.  When he'd win a court case, he'd raise a Jolly Roger flag and fire a cannon atop his office building in San Francisco.  Married six times in total, his fifth divorce was especially bizarre.  He accused his ex-wife of having an affair with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and of throwing one of Belli's dogs off the Golden Gate Bridge.  Belli died in 1996 of pancreatic cancer.