comfy chair! a remodel & 2 essentials

no, your eyes are not playing tricks on you, nor have you wandered into the wrong place, nor been at the Speakeasy too long and had one too many…  this is indeed ye olde Speakeasy, just spiffed up a bit. In this economy we (the Royal WE) can not afford to waste space and so We’ve redesigned to maximize every square foot of real estate, while trying to keep things easy to read AND now pointing the way to various levels of festivities occurring in the other rooms (to your right, if you please, walk this way). Hopefully you find everything easy to navigate and still fun to read, and if not, sidle up to the bar and order something that will make you feel better about it. 

So, after the work this week I am parking myself in the comfy chair (a recent injury makes me extra grateful for it) to give you the site news first and show you around. Sidebar top link leads you to the Google+ page, where you can check out loads of links pretty much every day, followed by self-explanatory linkage to a featured post to be rotated weekly, and whatever else I wrote that’s currently making a cameo at other places. Then there’s a peek behind the curtain at the wild Speakeasy tumblr party– please go check it out by clicking the pic. Along with the list of most recent posts is my effort to add some suspense, a special and fun trap door that drops you to the alligators! no, it’s actually a mystery click! or is it? and where it takes you nobody knows! (well *I* know but I won’t tell anyone. Or will I?). You see? The suspense is already killing you. 

TCM this week: 

early (6am) Monday check out the noir THE LAS VEGAS STORY, where Vincent Price plays husband to Jane Russell, and the couple visit Vegas where Russell used to be a lounge singer. When Price gambles his way into big debt, he crosses paths with sheriff and Russell ex-boyfriend Victor Mature, and you can understand why he feels a little insecure. The plot had Price stumped; he was unhappy with the couple’s disintegration, and felt the story provided insufficient character development or explanation. Today we explain it thus; “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”

Two completely different picks on Thursday, two major personal favorites, two movies that were box office hits and Oscar nominated or won, both with fabulous casts and most importantly, two movies you really owe it to yourself to see, two essentials if ever any films deserve the title, and both prime examples of the oft-repeated “they don’t make ‘em like they used to”.

Early Thursday (4:30am) romantic classic THE VALLEY OF DECISION brings together maid Greer Garson and rich boy Gregory Peck. Though they fall in love, their families are on opposite sides of a dispute and divided by resentments arising from the operations at the Peck family steel mill. The warm and regal Greer Garson had by this time already made her mark as MRS. MINIVER and made some of my other favorites, RANDOM HARVEST  and GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS, while Gregory Peck was young and so handsome, just at the start of his career, and brings a lot to the movie. VALLEY OF DECISION’s cast also includes greats like Donald Crisp, Lionel Barrymore, Preston Foster and Jessica Tandy. 

Thursday night at 8 you should see THE PROFESSIONALS if you haven’t already, it’s simply one of the greatest westerns ever made. Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode in the Richard Brooks directed story of a millionaire, Ralph Bellamy, whose wife, Claudia Cardinale,  is kidnapped by Jack Palance; he then hires the aforementioned “Professionals” to get her back. Action, adventure and explosions ensue.

Feel free to leave your pick(s) for the week &  thanks for reading!