SUSAN SLADE

Here's another re-post from 2009...

Almost as if it was written today, SUSAN SLADE (1961, directed by Delmer Daves) is a glossy melodrama about the dangers of premarital sex and disgrace of being an unwed mother.

The story goes like this: family man Roger Slade (wooden cue-card reading Lloyd Nolan), his upstanding wife Leah (the lovely, but soft-focused Dorothy McGuire)

and sickeningly sweet daughter Susan (kittenish Connie Stevens) take a cruise on The Love Boat, which is traveling from South America to San Francisco.

Susan meets a fellow passenger “the handsomest man on the ship” Conn White (Grant Williams), a dashing mountain climber who wants to mount Susan's slade.

Conn romances (or cons) his way into Susan's heart (and lower) as the theme from Daves' other film A SUMMER PLACE (1959) plays, reminding us that Troy Donahue is about to enter our story.

After Susan sins with Conn in his cabin, he promises to marry her–but only after he returns from Alaska, where he is going to climb Mount McKinley. Right.

Meanwhile, the Slades hobnob with the snobby super rich Corbett family (Natalie Schafer aka Mrs. Howell is the mother) including their dashingly handsome son Wells (TATTELETALES host Bert Convy). The Corbetts gift the Slades with a gorgeous new Asian/modern house in Monterey.

Painfully good-looking Hoyt Bricker (Troy Donahue) is the son of a former Corbett employee, who blames his father's death on papa Corbett. Hoyt is now a stable boy, and Susan is quick to put him in his place, even after he saves her from a horse accident.

Susan has not heard from Conn, but begins to worry about him. While visiting a doctor in San Francisco, she learns she's knocked up! Hoyt begins to look more attractive to Susan after he tells her that he aspires to be a famous writer just like Robert Lewis Stevenson or John Steinbeck.

The Slades throw a snazzy cocktail party, and Susan still hasn't heard from Conn. Was he indeed a con man? During the party Conn's father calls to tell Susan that her groom-to-be was killed in a climbing accident. Oops. There goes the wedding plans.

This news causes Susan to furiously pull her dress off and want to miscarry her bastard child—so she saddles up a horse and rides out into the ocean in an attempt to drown herself and the baby. Unfortunately Hoyt rescues her.

After she confesses her "sin" (The film is based on a novel called The Sin of Susan Slade) to her parents, rather than get an abortion they concoct a plan to move to South America for two years and then return with the baby - and say it's Leah and Roger's child! So, without appearing pregnant at all, Susan soon gives birth to her baby “brother” Rogey (Ragi?), but has a hard time letting go of him. Mrs. Howell notices that Susan is more mature and oddly attached to her infant sibling. Then grandpa Roger suddenly drops dead.

Susan and her mother return to Monterey with baby Rogey and there is much tension between them, especially when absent-minded Leah leaves her cigarette lighter lying around. Now that Conn is long forgotten, Susan finds she now has two men to choose from: filthy rich Wells Corbett, who proposes to her and pathetic stableboy Hoyt Bricker, whose ass looks great in white jeans.

Susan decides she can't walk down the aisle in a soiled wedding gown because she's no longer pure. Soon afterwards, Susan is babysitting Rogey, when Hoyt comes by to tell her that his book is going to be published. Hmmm, maybe he's not a loser after all!

While they are celebrating, Rogey somehow climbs out of his crib gets hold of Granny's cigarette lighter and sets himself on fire!!!! This scene is totally over the top and must be seen to be believed.

At the hospital, Susan reveals that Rogey is her baby and Wells rejects her. Hoyt, it turns out, is okay with burned bastard babies. Then we learn that Rogey is going to be just fine–well, eventually...

What a ridiculous movie! I laughed out loud a bunch of times, but at 2 hours in length, the laughs didn't come as quickly as they should have. I give it a 6 outta ten. Connie was no Sandra Dee, Dorothy Maguire was no Constance Ford and SUSAN SLADE is no SUMMER PLACE.

DEGRASSI Anonymous, Part 2: SCHOOL'S OUT!

From 2009: My disappointment over the shit heap known as DEGRASSI GOES HOLLYWOOD led me back to my DEGRASSI HIGH box set to watch the 1992 TV-movie called SCHOOL'S OUT! I missed this 90-minute special when it first aired because the geniuses at WNET in New York chose to air it only once– on Gay Pride Day 1992 – at a time when attending such events was important to me, being a young gay and all.So now, 17 years later (in 2009), with the bad taste of DEGRASSI GOES HOLLYWOOD still in my mouth, I decided to give SCHOOL'S OUT a shot.It all starts out in true Degrassi fashion as class valedictorian Lucy Fernandez (Anais Granofsky) delivers a farewell address to the graduating class. Among the students is Caitlin Ryan (Stacie Mistysyn), who has skipped ahead one year to graduate before her boyfriend Joey Jeremiah (Pat Mastroianni), who has been left back. At Lucy's graduation party we learn that Lucy and Caitlin will be college roommates. At the party, we actually see Degrassi students drinking beer and smoking weed - with no judgements. Even some of the good students are getting high. Miss Goody Two Shoes Tessa Campanelli (Kirsten Bourne) thinks that her friends are "so boring" when they are stoned. Meanwhile, Joey presents Caitlin with a friendship ring that he's saved all his pennies for. He implies that it could also serve as an engagement ring, but Caitlin is not ready for that kind of commitment. She also isn't ready to have sex with him!Joey is crushed and runs out of the party and into Tessa, and he agrees to give her a "ride home". Before he drops her off, he plants a kiss on Tessa's lips. They later make a date and Joey gets to second base with her. Luckily he works in the pharmacy and has easy access to Shields brand condoms! So virginal Joey may finally get laid this summer, with our without Caitlin. Later Joey's pals gawky Snake (Stefan Brogren) and lesbian-lookalike Wheels (the late Neil Hope) discuss all matter of sexual hi jinks as they work on Wheel's crappy car. Snake is still a virgin too, but hopes his summer gig as a lifeguard will change all that.

So Joey and Tessa have sex...lots of it...so much for Tessa being Miss Goody Two Shoes! Weed=boring, sex=not so boring! While her and Joey continue to do the nasty, Caitlin goes back and forth on whether she wants to still go away to University with Lucy or stay local and be engaged to Joey. Lucy tries to convince to her choose college, but it looks like Caitlin might be giving it a second thought.Then Caitlin decides that she will give Joey what he wants for his 19th birthday, prompting Lucy shows her how to put a rubber on a banana (which she calls "Joey"). Then Caitlin puts her hair up and a condom in her purse and before you know it - they've had sex too. After the momentous event, Caitlin cries and Joey gets out of bed...
I'm sure my readers would like to see that again...(Click to enlarge even more!)
Anyways, after the sobbing and the amazing butt shot, Joey climbs into his grampa's boxers.
Meanwhile, Tessa pays a visit to the local Women's Health Clinic. Guess what? She's totally preggers - so she orders up one abortion - to go!!! Later, the whole gang is getting together one last time by the lake...and tensions are growing between Wheels and Snake. Snake is all pissy cause Wheels spent his whole summer drinking beer and working on his shitty car. Their argument includes some un-Degrassi-like words such as "shit" and "asshole." They actually come to blows, and Lucy takes Wheels outside for some air.
Things go from bad to worse when Snake accuses Joey of "fucking" Tessa while dating Caitlin...just as Caitlin walks in! What happens next is the best Degrassi line ever...

"Tessa Campanelli? You were fucking Tessa Campanelli?" CLASSIC!

Things continue to spiral outta control when Snake has to put his lifeguard training to the test to rescue Allison Hunter (Sarah Holmes) from drowning just as Wheels puts his drunk driving to the test - killing a small child and putting Lucy in critical condition! Holly shit!
Wheels winds up in prison for vehicular manslaughter and Lucy ends up blind in one eye and walking with a cane (as witnessed in the premiere episode of DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION). The whole story winds up months later at the wedding of Alexa Pappadopoulos (Irene Courakos) to Simon Dexter (Michael Carry). Not attending are Wheels, Lucy and a few others. Snake shows up at the wedding with his new girlfriend, Pam.

At the reception, Snake's future-wife Spike (Amando Steptoe) mentions to Caitlin that her daughter Emma is now in pre-kindergarden (setting the stage for Emma to become one of the central characters in DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION in 2001). The film ends with Joey asking Caitlin to dance. Awww... What a totally enjoyable and satisfying conclusion to the series and the perfect bridge to the next series. I cannot recommend this highly enough to Degrassi fans everywhere. And if I need to remind you why, there's always this...

The End.

Fucked Up Religious Pamphlets - 1st in a series

Okay, what exactly is going on here? Clearly "The Way to Heaven" is what you experience when you stand up barefoot on a rickety old swing set and loosely hold on to the rusted chains while your dad pushes you really, really, hard. Luckily there isn't a cement slab underneath the swing set...or is there? This is just plain creepy.