European Reading Challenge #10

I read this for the European Reading Challenge 2026.

The Railway Children – E. Nesbit

A nice story for hardcore readers like us and children, though hard-boiled American kids may be impatient with English niceness and period corniness The didactic intent is more apparent here than in Nesbit’s other stories such as The Phoenix and the Carpet or its prequel The Five Children and It.

First published in 1906 and set in 1905 in rural England, the novel tells the story of Roberta (Bobbie), Phyllis and Peter, three siblings, who suddenly find themselves forced to move out of a pretty London suburb after the mysterious departure of their father one terrible night.

This change from suburb to country is experienced by the siblings as a real adventure, because arriving at Three Chimneys, they find themselves for the first time very close to the train station. The Railway infrastructure - its bridges, carriages, tunnels and signal sheds  - fascinates the three children. Everything to do with trains comes to life in the minds and reality of the three protagonists, who are brought into contact with a varied collection of people – railway workers, passengers, doctors, porters, schoolboys and all sorts of people in trades.

The move means becoming poor, which their mother does her best to make neither the kids nor other people notice. They don’t become poor in the sense that they are precariously on the edge of the abyss: they always have enough to eat, even if they have to be very careful about “either butter or jam, never both butter and jam.” Like E. Nesbit herself, the brave noble mother of Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis has to write stories for weekly magazines and annuals to get food on the table and pay the cook and maid.

Edith Nesbit must have had a wonderful mind to write the way she wrote. Her style is vivid, spontaneous, fresh and extremely fluent. I especially appreciated the metaphors that enrich the descriptions.

    They all climbed on to the top of the fence, and then suddenly there was a rumbling sound that made them look along the line to the right, where the dark mouth of a tunnel opened itself in the face of a rocky cliff; next moment a train had rushed out of the tunnel with a shriek and a snort, and had slid noisily past them. They felt the rush of its passing, and the pebbles on the line jumped and rattled under it as it went by.

    “Oh!” said Roberta, drawing a long breath; “it was like a great dragon tearing by. Did you feel it fan us with its hot wings?”

    “I suppose a dragon’s lair might look very like that tunnel from the outside,” said Phyllis.

As in the other books, the author will digress to confide in the reader. She’ll bust through that fourth wall, asking us unsociable and end-gaining post-moderns to see where our heroes Roberta, Phillys and Peter are coming from, as they worry so deeply about not hurting those who are close, about doing everyone a loving-kindness, without keeping score and without becoming prigs about it.

The happy ending will make most readers misty but just as touching is the Edwardian optimism that the world really is getting better, richer, healthier. Kind of melancholy too, our knowing that born in 1895 Peter is just the age in 1915/16 to be one of thousands of officers and squaddies whose life expectancy was about a year and a half in the trenches.

Happy Halloween

Dead on Arrival: A Field Guide to Teenage Death Songs

Teen tragedy records were essentially ancient folk ballads dressed in the clothing of postwar youth culture. Where earlier ballads told of drowned maidens, dead soldiers, and ill-fated lovers, the records of the early 1960s substituted hot rods, railroad crossings, motorcycles, and high-school romance. They transformed traditional narratives of youthful death into a commercial pop genre aimed directly at teenagers.

Like ghost stories, urban legends, and cautionary tales, teenage death songs allowed young listeners to rehearse fears about love, separation, sex, and mortality within the safe confines of a three-minute pop record. Their melodrama often seems excessive today, but it reflected genuine anxieties surrounding a generation experiencing unprecedented freedom, mobility, and risk of automobile fatalities.

Here are the classics:

Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots – The Cheers (1955)

Lieber and Stoller play the genre for laughs before it was even a genre by telling the story of a motorcycle rebel who dies in a high-speed crash, to the dismay of his ignored GF inevitably named Mary Lou.

Endless Sleep – Jody Reynolds (1958)

This rockabilly song is about a girl who walks into the ocean after a lovers' quarrel. A deep Southern darkness hangs over it, drawn from the same abyss that Dock Boggs had the courage to gaze into and name.

Teen Angel – Mark Dinning (1960)

Goosebumps for sure as a love-struck girl runs back onto railroad tracks to retrieve a ring and learns, in the most dramatic way possible, that jewelry is replaceable. Once, I saw police photographs of a man struck by a train. It is an image that has haunted me ever since, one I would give much to unsee.

Tell Laura I Love Her – Ray Peterson (1960)

It doesn’t get more sentimental than this tale of a boy who enters a stock-car race to win money for an engagement ring and dies in a fiery crash. I seem to recall dimly this song was popular when The Twist was a hit, which was the song that got me interested in listening to the radio all the time, to my parents’ consternation.

Laurie (Strange Things Happen) – Dickey Lee (1965)
Patches – Dickey Lee (1962)

Lee took multiple stabs in the genre. In Laurie, the somewhat awkward lyrics get across a story in which a boy dates a girl who turns out to have died a year earlier. Patches is much more effective lyrically; I still get torn up by the lines “pretty Patches there watchin' the door” and “floating face down in that dirty old river.” This song should not be confused with the sad inspiring song Patches with the immortal lines “Then one day a strong rain came | And washed all the crops away.”

Ebony Eyes – The Everly Brothers (1961)

Count on the Irish to be restrained but devastating in their treatment of a plane crash that separates lovers. That this great song is much less remembered than the inferior Wake Up Little Suzy makes me despise popular taste. In case you've not noticed, I’ve eaten for breakfast disdain for popularity - my own or anybody else's - since I was about ten.

Leader of the Pack – The Shangri-Las (1964)

I was eight when one of the era's greatest records was released. My friends and I thought the motorcycle crash that followed the lovers' rebellion against her parents was a hoot. We laughed at the doomed devotion of "Look out! Look out! Look out!" as children often do, with the effortless cruelty of the innocent. Only later did I recognize the shadow moving beneath the story: youth rushing headlong toward fate, love colliding with death on a dark stretch of road. Lawsy, what little monsters we were.

Johnny Remember Me – John Leyton (1961)

A dead girl's ghost calls to her lover but the realistic singer - an phlegmatic Englishman probably - figures “Well some day I guess I'll find myself another little girl To take the place of my true love.” Corny and eerie at the same time, which doesn’t happen very often.

Last Kiss - J. Frank Wilson & the Cavaliers 1964

The record's plainspoken sincerity is exactly why it works. No ghosts, no stock-car races, no doomed motorcycle rebels. Just young love, bad luck, and one of pop music's most efficient emotional sucker punches. Even listeners who spend most of the song rolling their eyes may find themselves surprisingly misty-eyed by “… she smiled and said Hold me darling for a little while.”

These form My Best Of List of teen tragedy records. They're melodramatic, earnest, and often unintentionally funny in our 2026, but they're also strangely moving. It seems such a long time ago, heartless kids snickering at ridiculous teenagers sniffling over 45-rpm records about train wrecks, car crashes, and doomed romances.

Stoic Week 2026 #6

Note: This week is Stoic Week 2026, a free online program devoted to the radical proposition that not every irritation requires a passionate reaction. Since my teaching career was collateral damage in the pandemic era, D. H. Lawrence’s “passion of instruction” remains sadly unemployed. If left unchecked, it may force me into the quad where I’ll offer unsolicited lectures under a cardboard sign reading, “Ask me about the Royal Order of Adjectives.”

A life that suits someone else may not suit you. Know your nature before making choices that shape your future. If Bad Girl teaches that strength requires vulnerability, Flaming Gold that wisdom requires questioning first impressions, The Sins of the Children that tranquility requires letting go what is not up to you, and Parole Girl that character can be rebuilt through habit, then Undertow teaches that happiness depends on honest self-knowledge. Many short-lived marriages begin when people fall in love with an idealized version of themselves or the SO rather than the person they actually are.

Undertow (1930): A Stoic Reading

"Know thyself" is the lesson at the heart of Undertow , a Pre-Code melodrama that understands how badly a life can go wrong when people mistake fantasy for self-knowledge.

The film opens with lifeguard Paul (Johnny Mack Brown) rescuing a child and winning the admiration of Sally (Mary Nolan), a city woman who claims she longs for the simplicity of life in a remote lighthouse. Paul, raised on the Georgia coast, believes her. Sally believes herself. Both are mistaken.

Three years later, they are married with a daughter and living in isolation. Paul is content because the lighthouse suits his nature. Sally is miserable. The endless waves, wind, and solitude that once seemed romantic now feel like imprisonment. She craves stimulation, company, and city life. What she imagined she wanted and what she actually needed turn out to be very different things.

From a Stoic perspective, Sally's mistake is not marrying Paul but failing to understand herself beforehand. Epictetus repeatedly warned against pursuing an imagined good without examining whether it truly fits one's nature. Sally falls in love with an idea: the noble lighthouse keeper, the lonely coast, the escape from crowds. She never asks whether she is actually suited for such a life.

Paul has his own blind spot. Because solitude comforts him, he cannot understand why it torments his wife. His failure is not cruelty but a lack of perception. He assumes that what brings him peace should bring peace to everyone. Like many Stoic cautionary examples, both husband and wife suffer from false judgments about reality.

The film becomes a study of what happens when people resist reality rather than seeing it clearly. Sally grows resentful and restless. Paul remains bewildered. Meanwhile, her rejected former fiancé Jim Payne quietly nurtures a grudge and uses his influence to prolong their unhappiness. Everyone becomes trapped by emotions they seem unable to examine head on.

The melodrama eventually escalates into blindness, revenge, and romantic conflict, with the neglected three-year-old child forgotten by both the characters and the screenplay. Yet beneath the overheated plot lies an interesting psychological insight. Sally is not wicked. She is self-deceived.

Mary Nolan gives the film's strongest performance, portraying a woman slowly realizing that she has built her life around a profound misunderstanding of her own temperament. The lighthouse itself becomes a symbol of that error: what once looked like freedom becomes a prison because it was chosen without self-knowledge.

The Stoic lesson is simple but enduring. Happiness depends not on romantic dreams or dramatic escapes but on understanding one's nature and living in accordance with it. Had Sally known herself, she would never have chosen a life she was fundamentally incapable of enjoying.

The tragedy of Undertow is not that Sally married the wrong man. It's that she never truly knew herself before making one of the most important decisions of her life.

Stoic Week 2026 #5

Note: This week is Stoic Week 2026, an annual opportunity to spend seven days practicing equanimity while the world does everything in its power to make that difficult. It’s online, free, and lacks the unpleasant side effects associated with retail therapy. As I no longer teach, the instructional impulse has become a hungry ghost searching for a body. Without Stoic Week, I risk becoming one of those campus eccentrics who corners strangers and begins sentences with, “Trousers, tongs, bangs – tell me more nouns that exist only in the plural form.”

If Bad Girl teaches that courage requires vulnerability, Flaming Gold that wisdom requires examining impressions, and The Sins of the Children that peace of mind requires distinguishing what is up to us and what is not, then Parole Girl teaches that virtue is a skill. People become better not through wishes, reading, or atonement alone, but through the difficult daily work of making better choices until those choices become second nature. The Fight Club reference at the end actually fits the Stoic point nicely: real moral improvement is usually quiet, incremental, and unglamorous. The work happens internally, one choice at a time, long before anyone notices the result.

Parole Girl (1933): A Stoic Reading

This movie sounds like a crime melodrama but seen through a modern Stoic lens, Parole Girl is story about moral reform. Its central question is one that would have interested Epictetus: can someone whose habits have been shaped by bad choices become a better person through reasoned action and self-discipline?

Sylvia Day (Mae Clarke) begins as a participant in fraud, but Stoicism distinguishes between a person's mistakes and their character. Her wrongdoing stems from misplaced loyalty to Tony Grattan, a con man who once helped her family. Like many of Mae Clarke heroines, Sylvia's problem is not a lack of virtue but virtue misdirected. Loyalty without judgment becomes a vice.

Even her prison scheme to secure parole reveals this conflict. The deception is real, yet so is her desire for respectability. Likewise, her hostility toward insurance investigator Joe Smith grows from wounded pride and resentment at being permanently defined by past mistakes. She feels condemned by appearances rather than judged by who she might become.

As the story unfolds, the real struggle becomes internal. Sylvia enters Joe's life intending manipulation, but continual exposure to decency slowly alters her own conduct. The Stoics believed character is formed through repeated choices. We become honest by acting honestly, courageous by practicing courage, and just by making fair decisions. Ironically, Sylvia develops these habits while merely pretending to be an honest wife. What begins as performance gradually becomes reality.

This transformation elevates the film above its often implausible plotting. When Sylvia refuses to join Jeanie Vance's blackmail scheme, she demonstrates something she lacked at the outset: moral discernment. No longer choosing between self-interest and loyalty, she chooses between right and wrong. 

One of the film's strengths is its refusal to treat redemption as a sudden conversion. Sylvia does not become good because she falls in love. Rather, love becomes possible because she changes her character. The ending suggests not rescue through romance but the achievement of self-respect through better judgment.

Much of the film's success rests on Mae Clarke. With her severe haircut and tough demeanor, she projects both resilience and vulnerability. She never asks audiences to excuse Sylvia's conduct, but she encourages them to understand it. Clarke captures a deeply Stoic insight: people should not be reduced to their worst actions.

Director Edward F. Cline handles the material with surprising economy and toughness. Though the plot depends on coincidences, the emotional logic remains convincing because the focus stays on character rather than mechanics. Ralph Bellamy also benefits from a role more complex than the agreeable romantics he later specialized in.

Ultimately, Parole Girl understands a truth central to Stoicism: human beings are works in progress. Bad choices can damage character, but better choices can repair it. Redemption is neither automatic nor impossible. It is the gradual work of making actions consistent with principles until virtue becomes habit and self-respect follows. Like doing mindfulness meditation, however, this kind of inner work is not something you talk about unless your interlocutor also belongs to a fight club.

Stoic Week 2026 #4

Note: This week is Stoic Week 2026, the yearly invitation to test whether your troubles shrink when viewed from the perspective of eternity. It’s free, online, and costs substantially less than angrily refreshing the news every fifteen minutes. Since I no longer have students upon whom to inflict learning points, I need somewhere to redirect what D. H. Lawrence called “the passion of instruction” before campus security finds me conducting impromptu seminars on collective nouns.

The Stoics were Socratics so they urged “Moderation in all things.” Managing our unhelpful thoughts and feelings is crucial if we want to experience serenity and deal with the inevitable sufferings of life. This is also crucial because our unhelpful cognitive silliness and craziness will literally break our hearts.

The Influence of the Mind on the Body (1908)

Paul Dubois The Influence of the Mind on the Body is one of the earliest and most influential attempts to explain how thoughts, emotions, and beliefs affect physical health. Writing as a Swiss neurologist and psychiatrist in 1908, Dubois challenged the prevailing medical view that mind and body operated as separate realms. His central argument was simple but far-reaching: many physical symptoms are shaped, intensified, or sustained by patterns of thought, particularly fear, anxiety, and suggestion.

Viewed today, the book reads almost like a bridge between medicine and Stoicism.

Dubois observed that patients frequently worsen their suffering by dwelling on symptoms or interpreting ordinary bodily sensations as signs of catastrophe. Fear creates vigilance, vigilance creates anxiety, and anxiety amplifies physical discomfort. He argued that both external suggestion, from physicians, family, and society, and internal suggestion, from one's own worries and expectations, can have profound effects on health. As a result, treatment should address not only disease but also the patient's beliefs about disease.

His preferred method, sometimes called "moral therapy," relied less on drugs than on conversation, education, and the correction of harmful thought patterns. The physician's task was to help patients replace fear with understanding and uncertainty with rational judgment. In essence, Dubois sought to teach patients how to govern their own minds.

Modern science has largely vindicated his intuition. While Dubois lacked the language of modern neuroscience, endocrinology, and immunology, contemporary research confirms that mental and physical processes are deeply interconnected. Chronic stress activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, elevating cortisol levels and contributing to inflammation, cardiovascular disease, digestive disorders, and metabolic dysfunction. What Dubois called worry and anxiety are now understood as physiological events that affect the entire body.

His insights regarding expectation have also been remarkably durable. The placebo effect demonstrates that belief can produce measurable changes in pain perception, brain chemistry, and physical functioning. Neuroimaging studies reveal that expectations alter activity in specific brain networks, lending scientific support to Dubois's claim that suggestion can create genuine bodily effects.

Perhaps the modern discipline most closely aligned with Dubois is cognitive behavioral therapy. Like CBT, his approach focused on identifying distorted beliefs, challenging unhelpful assumptions, and cultivating more balanced interpretations of experience. Although less systematic than contemporary psychotherapy, Dubois anticipated many of its central principles decades before the field formally emerged.

The connection to Stoicism is equally striking. Epictetus taught that people are disturbed not by events themselves but by their judgments about those events. Dubois repeatedly arrives at a similar conclusion. Patients often suffer not only from symptoms but from the fear, interpretations, and expectations attached to those symptoms. In both systems, the path toward relief begins with examining one's judgments.

Stoicism and Dubois share the conviction that tranquility depends upon distinguishing between what is and what we imagine. Both emphasize rational self-examination, disciplined attention to thought, and resistance to catastrophic thinking. A Stoic confronting illness seeks to judge symptoms accurately rather than emotionally. Dubois encouraged precisely the same habit. His efforts to teach patients calm interpretation, rather than fearful speculation, closely resemble Stoic exercises in cognitive reframing.

Not surprisingly, Dubois even prescribed reading Seneca* to some patients. He recognized that Stoic philosophy offered practical tools for reducing anxiety and restoring perspective. Practices such as monitoring internal dialogue, accepting uncertainty, and focusing on what lies within one's control complement his therapeutic methods almost perfectly.

There are differences. The Stoics pursued virtue and inner freedom as the highest goals of life, while Dubois was primarily interested in improving health and reducing suffering. Yet both arrive at a shared insight: the mind is an active participant in shaping experience and that shaping has an effect on health and well-being.

______

* Judgmentex® – Corrects errors in thinking before they become errors in living. Equanimitol® – Restores calm by lowering the body's exposure to needless alarm. Ask your philosopher whether Seneca is right for you. Do not read Seneca if you are allergic to personal responsibility. 

Stoic Week 2026 #3

Note: This week is Stoic Week 2026, a free online experiment in voluntary sanity. Participants spend seven days trying to respond to life like Marcus Aurelius instead of a raccoon trapped in a dumpster. Since I no longer teach, thanks to the pandemic’s efficient pruning of my former program, the urge to explain things must find an outlet or I’ll be stationed outside the Student Union answering questions about the subjunctive in English nobody asked.

Unlike Bad Girl (fear of vulnerability) or Flaming Gold (failure to examine judgments), The Sins of the Children is about the Stoic Archer. That is, you can control how you release the arrow, but you can’t control the wind or a moving target. Adolf spends his life doing what he believes a father should do: sacrificing comfort, money, and opportunity for his children. His suffering arises not from these sacrifices themselves but from his expectation that they will be repaid with gratitude and loyalty. The children’s choices remain outside his control. The film suggests that peace comes only when Adolf learns that virtue is its own reward. A parent's task is to act well, not to expect appreciation, success, or obedience from those he loves.

A Stoic Reading of The Sins of the Children (1930)

One of the curiosities of this early talkie is that it functions as an extended meditation on what is and is not within our control. Adolf Wagenkampf is offered the possibility of greater wealth, security, and social advancement. Then tuberculosis arrives. Faced with a choice between expanding his fortune and caring for a sick child, he chooses the child. He sends his son to a TB sanitarium, works steadily as a barber, and commits his resources not to accumulation but to the duties immediately before him: raising, educating, protecting, and rescuing his children.

From a Stoic perspective, Adolf's mistake is that he assumes that good actions entitle him to good outcomes. In fact, the Three Sisters of Fate sniff at entitlement. Nobody can will good outcomes into being.

Like many parents, he believes virtue compounds like interest. Invest enough love, attention, and self-denial and one can reasonably expect gratitude, loyalty, and sound judgment in return. Yet the Stoics would remind us that another person's character is never our possession. We govern our own choices, not the choices of others. Adolf can provide examples; he cannot provide virtue. He can nurture judgment; he cannot guarantee it.

The film patiently demonstrates this lesson. One son rises socially by distancing himself from the family that enabled his success. Another pursues impractical ambitions. His daughter, despite a solid moral upbringing, falls under the spell of Robert Montgomery's charming aristocrat. None of these outcomes are the direct product of Adolf's intentions, and that is precisely the point. Parents are responsible for their efforts, not their harvest.

What begins as family melodrama gradually reveals itself as a study in attachment. Adolf's suffering comes less from what his children do than from what he expects them to do. He wants acknowledgment. He wants recognition. He wants proof that his sacrifices mattered. The Stoics would classify all of these as preferred indifferents, but indifferents not up to us nonetheless. Once our peace of mind depends upon them, we place our tranquility in the hands of others.

This is why Adolf is simultaneously a failure by one standard and a success by another. He is a poor capitalist and model father because he repeatedly chooses relationships over profit, duty over opportunity, and conscience over advancement. Yet these are precisely the qualities that make him admirable. He acts according to what he judges to be right, regardless of the material return.

The movie The Sins of the Children belongs alongside Mildred Pierce, Imitation of Life, and Stella Dallas in the long cinematic tradition of parents discovering that devotion does not purchase gratitude. Modern psychology reaches a conclusion not far removed from Stoicism: children often come to experience parental sacrifice as a normal feature of life rather than a debt requiring repayment. The more successful they become, the easier it is to embrace the comforting fiction of self-sufficiency and the myth of the self-made that they did it their way.

Adolf's tragedy, then, is not that his children disappoint him. Lots of parents are disappointed sooner or later. His tragedy is that he bases his contentment on something that was never his to command. Only late in life does he approach the Stoic insight that our actions belong to us, but their reception does not. The value of sacrifice lies not in being thanked for it, but in having performed one's duty with integrity. Gratitude, if it arrives, is a bonus. Virtue was always its own reward.

Perry Mason 180: Gems from the Gritty Thirties

Note: In his early Perry Mason novels, Gardner’s experience as a lawyer shines through in clever courtroom twists and procedural detail. Many early tales - like TOCT Velvet Claws  - captivate with inventive plotting and dramatic revelations. These early Mason novels move rapidly, keeping readers engaged through a steady succession of legal dilemmas and high-stakes maneuvering.

Three Perry Mason Gems from the Gritty Thirties

The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)
Frequently cited as the strongest early Mason novel, its average reader rating (~4.06 Goodreads) is the highest of the 1930s titles. Praised for its clever mystery - centered on snappy plotting, it remains a standout in Gardner’s early run.

In Gardner’s fourth Perry Mason novel, the case starts not with murder but with a peculiar request. Arthur Cartright, a man suffering the fatigue, poor focus, and headaches of insomnia, wants to leave his estate to another man’s wife - and stop neighbor Clinton Foley’s dog from driving him mad with its nightly howls. Foley calls Cartright a lunatic and accuses him of spying on his household, including a Chinese cook who becomes a symbol of being seen but not understood.

Cartright sends Mason $10,000 to change his will. Soon, the dog is poisoned, Foley’s wife vanishes, and secrets pile up. Mason and Paul Drake dig in while police blunder - Detective Holcomb is arrogant, and DA investigator Pemberton spews racist slurs, claiming expertise on “Chinks.” Gardner gives the cook dialogue that reflects the pidgin speech he likely heard as a lawyer for Chinese and Mexican clients.

Mason plays his trademark no-limit game: planting stories, hiding witnesses, crafting fake confessions. He explains Americans crave drama, not dignity - so he turns the courtroom into theater. His justice isn’t blind; it’s pragmatic, empathetic, and fearless. He bends rules to protect the innocent, guided by lived wisdom, not academic theory.

The ending is open. Justice here is messy, the law a maze. Gardner offers more than a mystery - he meditates on identity, perception, and the fragile bridge of language. A man with binoculars, a poisoned dog, and a missing woman unravel a world - and remind us how hard it is to make sense of the noise.

The Case of the Perjured Parrot (1939)
One of the most highly rated early entries, earning an average Goodreads score of ~4.05. Critics and readers applaud its inventive premise - murder with a talking avian witness, highly sympathetic accused, and its tightly wound courtroom drama.

The fourteenth Perry Mason novel opens with Della ribbing Mason about paperwork - until Charles Sabin hires him to probe his father Fremont’s murder and block a greedy widow from grabbing the estate. Gardner adds backstory: Fremont, a rugged individualist, oddly obsessed with avoiding publicity, makes choices that lead to trouble.

Fremont is found shot in his mountain cabin, while his parrot shrieks, “Helen, put down that gun!” But which Helen - his wife Helen Watkins or librarian Helen Monteith? And why swap parrots? Gardner makes Helen Monteith’s Depression-era choices believable, hinting at the demoralization of long-term unemployment.

Mason muses on “fixed beliefs” and misread signs - a Stoic-style digression on calculation and judgment. Meanwhile, Gardner keeps the plot brisk, mixing will-law technicalities with sharp-elbowed characters like Mrs. Watkins Sabin. The finale swaps a courtroom for a coroner’s inquest, complete with bully Sgt. Holcomb and a satisfying twist.

The Case of the Counterfeit Eye (1935)
Strongly regarded, with a ~4.01 rating on Goodreads. Admired for its eerie atmosphere and sharp legal maneuvering over a stolen glass eye, it’s often singled out as one of Gardner’s more imaginative early mysteries.

Perry Mason’s day starts with Brunold barging in, claiming someone swiped his glass eye and swapped in a dime-store dud. He’s sure the real one will star in a crime scene -because in 1935, glass eyes are the new fingerprints.

Before Perry can finish his coffee, in waltz a young woman and her puffed-up brother. Said brother worked for Hartley Bassett, a businessman with all the charm of a tax audit, and got caught embezzling. Bassett wants his money yesterday; sis begs Mason for an installment plan. Mason agrees - because wrecking a life over youthful stupidity isn’t his style.

Bassett, however, is about as flexible as a brick. No deal. Then his wife corners Mason with a question straight out of pulp: “Can you run off with another man without committing bigamy?” Mason’s day is now officially sponsored by Chaos Inc. And then - surprise! -Bassett turns up dead, clutching a glass eye like it’s Exhibit A.

Fun fact: the 1960 TV version swapped the eye for a toupee. Apparently, mid-century America had a lower cringe threshold. Gardner keeps the energy high, tossing Mason into scrapes and letting him bend the law like a pretzel. Della nails it: “You’re half saint and half devil!”

Bonus milestone: this sixth Mason novel introduces Hamilton Burger, future courtroom nemesis - here still polite, before evolving into the guy who hates Mason’s guts.

The finale? A courtroom circus with Mason pulling stunts that look reckless until his logic lands like a mic drop. If you want psychological depth or social commentary, look elsewhere. If you want the Thirties tough as taxes and full of legal acrobatics, this one delivers.

Stoic Week 2026 #2

Note: This week is Stoic Week 2026, the annual event that encourages participants to “live like a Stoic for a week.” It’s online, completely free, and considerably less laborious than massaging insights from childhood torments into a memoir. Besides, now that I no longer teach (the pandemic having euthanized the program), D. H. Lawrence’s “passion of instruction” must be directed somewhere before I end up on campus wearing a sandwich board that reads: “FREE WISDOM. LIMITED WARRANTY.”

So this Pre-Code movie's basic lesson is wisdom begins when we stop reacting to appearances and start examining our judgments. The danger is being deceived by our own unexamined value judgements. If yesterday's Bad Girl argues that smooth human relations come from honest vulnerability, Flaming Gold argues that Stoic justice comes from intellectual humility: the willingness to say, "I may be wrong about this person," and then look again.

A Stoic Reading of Flaming Gold (1933)

The Pre-Code movie Flaming Gold looks like a routine oil-field melodrama, but beneath the adventure plot lies a surprisingly Stoic lesson about perception, emotional reactivity, and the discipline of fair judgment.

Dan Manton and Ben Lear are successful oil wildcatters whose friendship is tested not by external competitors but by their own judgments. A powerful corporate rival threatens their business, yet the greater danger comes from suspicion, wounded pride, and the stories they tell themselves about one another. As Epictetus might observe, people are disturbed less by people and events than by the opinions they form about them.

The film's moral center is Claire Gordon, played by Mae Clarke. Claire's past as an escort becomes the basis for nearly every judgment made against her. Ben treats rumor as fact and prejudice as knowledge. Claire, however, displays a form of practical wisdom. Having lived through hardship and scrutiny, she understands human nature better than thems that wear pants who presume to judge her. She neither wallows in self-pity nor desperately seeks approval. Instead, she meets suspicion with resilience and composure.

Clarke's performance works because she refuses to play Claire as either victim or fallen woman. She portrays someone who has learned that reputation is not entirely within one's control, but character is. When confronted by Ben's accusations, she often appears less wounded than amused, recognizing that his hostility says more about his own misconceptions than about her.

William Boyd and Pat O'Brien make an effective pair as partners whose friendship balances loyalty and rivalry. Boyd's Dan frequently allows passion to cloud judgment, while O'Brien's Ben initially mistakes cynicism for wisdom. Ben's character arc is the film's most satisfying achievement because it is essentially a journey toward Stoic self-correction.

At first he is ruled by prejudice, quick conclusions, and the desire to be right. Yet unlike many stubborn men in melodramas, he is capable of examining his own judgments. After his confrontation with Claire, he recognizes that fairness requires more than confidence in one's opinions. It requires the humility to admit error. His eventual support of Claire feels earned because it grows from justice rather than sentimentality.

Viewed through a Stoic lens, Flaming Gold is about learning to distinguish facts from impressions. Ben's growth comes when he stops reacting to appearances and begins evaluating his own character. Claire succeeds because she understands what lies within her control and what does not.

The ending resolves matters too quickly, but the film remains engaging because it presents a timeless lesson: mistrust, pride, and prejudice can destroy friendships far more effectively than any business disagreement. Wisdom begins when individuals examine their judgments and choose fairness over snap judgements. Mae Clarke's modern, self-possessed performance gives that lesson much of its force.

Stoic Week 2026 #1

Note: This week is Stoic Week 2026, the annual event that invites participants to “live like a Stoic for a week.” It’s online, completely free, and considerably cheaper than years of therapy. Besides, now that I no longer teach (the pandemic provided the excuse to can the program I taught in), what D. H. Lawrence called “the passion of instruction” has to find a host lest I take to sitting on a rock in the middle of campus behind a sign saying “Ask Me Anything.”

This Pre-Code movie echoes Stoicism with its advice to stop managing appearances and start facing reality. Fear, pride, and false beliefs create more misery than circumstances ever do. What director Borzage ultimately dramatizes is a Stoic paradox: true strength is not lofty self-containment a la Mr. Spock or John Wick but the willingness to meet reality honestly, together with others, without fear of appearing vulnerable.

A Stoic Reading of Bad Girl (1931)

Frank Borzage's Bad Girl is often described as a Depression-era romance, but viewed through a modern Stoic lens it becomes a study of how fear, pride, and mistaken judgments can keep people from receiving the very things they most desire.

Dot Haley (Sally Eilers) and Eddie Collins (James Dunn) genuinely love one another. Their suffering arises from a failure of honest communication. Like many people who grew up among unsympathetic types, they mistake vulnerability for weakness. The Stoics would recognize this immediately as a problem of judgment rather than circumstance.

Both characters come from difficult backgrounds and have learned the same lesson: protect yourself by telling nobody nothing. They conceal worries, mute emotions, and avoid direct expressions of need. What appears to be strength is actually a defensive posture toward life. Epictetus warned that many people become prisoners of false beliefs. Dot and Eddie believe that revealing fear, love, or uncertainty will diminish them and lay them open to hurt. As a result, they create unnecessary isolation inside a marriage built on genuine devotion.

Eddie hides behind jokes and slang because humor feels safer than honesty. He dismisses affection as "mushy stuff" and mistakes emotional reserve for masculine strength when it is really fear in disguise.

Dot's pregnancy intensifies these fears. Haunted by her mother's death in childbirth, she suffers as much from imagined futures as present realities. As Marcus Aurelius observed, people often burden themselves more with anticipation than with the thing itself.

Eddie also ties his worth to his ability to provide, treating financial struggle as a personal failure rather than a circumstance to be faced honestly. The Stoics never condemned material success, but they insisted that it had better not become the foundation of self-respect. Eddie's refusal to discuss money openly stems from the belief that financial struggle reflects personal failure.

The film's most revealing irony is that both spouses think they are protecting each other. Dot hides her worries about pregnancy. Eddie conceals his anxieties about money and responsibility. Each assumes silence is an act of love. In reality, silence deprives them of true intimacy. Their suffering grows precisely because they attempt to carry burdens alone.

What makes Bad Girl endure is its understanding that people often fear emotional honesty more than hardship itself. Dot and Eddie's real obstacle is not poverty, pregnancy, or social pressure but the mistaken belief that strength means self-containment. Borzage's profoundly Stoic insight is that tranquility comes not from suppressing emotion but from confronting reality honestly. Nearly a century later, the film remains moving because its lesson is timeless: people suffer less from circumstances than from fear, pride, and false judgments. Happiness arrives when Dot and Eddie stop managing appearances and begin facing life together.

Perry Mason 179: TCOT Reluctant Model

Note: In the 66^th Mason novel from 1962, an anxious world finally learns Della Street’s address - the Crittmore Apartments on West Selig Avenue. The novel is dripping with mid-century cool: Drake records a phone call and casually kills the legal beep, credit cards are the new craze (though Mason’s client is strictly cash-only), and Drake name-drops the dye-transfer color photo process like a hipster snapper. Gardner even unveils a cutting-edge way to peg time of death - blood-cooling rates. The term “Lushbaugh method” is still used today because Gardner coined the name in this novel.

The Case of the Reluctant Model - Erle Stanley Gardner

It begins with something trivial, as these things often do: a question about a painting. Lattimer Rankin, an art expert, comes to Perry Mason with a grievance. Another expert, Collin Durant, has cast doubt on a canvas Rankin sold to Otto Olney. A model, Maxine Lindsay, claims it’s a fake. Rankin wants to sue. Mason advises restraint - better to secure Maxine’s sworn statement and let Olney handle the matter. Sensible, measured. But sense rarely prevails.

Maxine testifies. Olney makes a statement to the press, all bravado and polish. That evening, Durant appears at Mason’s office, demanding to be heard. Mason refuses. Then Maxine calls, her voice taut, saying she’s leaving town. No explanation. Mason sends Paul Drake to follow her. The next day, Durant is found dead - in Maxine’s apartment. She has vanished.

From here, the story coils tighter. Mason informs Tragg, but soon finds himself in another city, speaking to Maxine, only to be caught by Tragg again. Rankin’s lawsuit fades; Mason now defends Maxine, who is drowning in circumstantial evidence. Durant had leverage - knowledge of secrets surrounding Maxine’s sister and her husband - and he used it. He also commissioned fake portraits of Maxine, another grotesque example of punishing a woman for her beauty.

The preliminary hearing is a parade of damning fragments. A woman saw Maxine at a bus station phone booth; her gun was found in a locker there. That gun killed Durant. A neighbor glimpsed her near the apartment at the time of death. Canary has disappeared. The artist produces the disputed portrait. The judge listens, impassive, as witnesses file past. The case seems airtight. Is it? Who placed the gun in the locker? Who pocketed the $2,000 for the forgery? And why does every answer feel like a door opening onto another, darker room?

Gardner’s ending strains credulity. Coincidence piles upon coincidence: an unlocked door, a conveniently found gun, a victim oblivious to an intruder’s presence. The killer discards the weapon where Maxine had been, sealing her fate. It feels hurried, as if Gardner, weary of wandering in his own topiary labyrinth, chose escape with a trimmer shearing through the nearest hedge.

Still, the novel fascinates. It breaks Mason’s usual pattern, revealing his stoic philosophy and Tragg’s authoritarian fairness. And those antique Americanisms - “as dead as a mackerel,” “take a powder” - linger like ghosts of another age. These idioms seep into my vocabulary and make 50-something women at work say softly, wonderingly to me, “You sound like my dad.”

 

Perry Mason 178: Bachelors Get Lonely

Bachelors Get Lonely - A. A. Fair aka Erle Stanley Gardner

This 1961 effort serves up the usual Cool & Lam cocktail: Bertha’s penny-pinching optimism, Donald’s improvisational genius, and a murder that blows their plans sky-high.

Bertha is thrilled to land Montrose Carson, a respectable developer who looks like the kind of client that will help the firm dodge the messes into which clients usually drag them. Carson suspects someone in his office is leaking sensitive information to a rival who keeps beating his bids. Before Donald’s bunk detector even starts to flash yellow, Bertha has cooked up a plan to smoke out the mole and is her usual smug self over her brilliance.

Naturally, the case pops like the culture. A corpse appears, Donald is hip-deep in trouble, and Lt. Frank Sellers is measuring Lam’s neck for the noose. Bertha, buying into Sellers’ accusations, charges betrayal and accuses Donald of tanking the firm. The only suspense, as in past novels in the series, is whether this is the time Donald can’t find his way out.

The title nods to Lam’s bachelorhood and his role as a faux playboy heir in a sting operation to expose business espionage. Espionage leads to murder, murder to secrets, and secrets to rationalizations like: “How many people live the orthodox lives they’re supposed to?” Gardner was a sympathetic guy, ever ready to assure readers they weren’t nearly as weird as most people.

The novel is absurd fun: comic relief, snappy setups, and coincidences that glide rather than jar. Lam oscillates between out of control and cool as a cucumber, while Bertha clutches her purse like Mr. Krab in diamonds. Switchboards buzz, cafeterias hum, and motels come with separate units – Nostalgia City for readers born in the Fifties.

As always, every babe falls for Donald (including a stripper named Daffodil), though he’s mostly a gentleman - except when looking down Elsie Brand’s top and calling her “Sister.” Sellers, meanwhile, tramples constitutional rights, and Gardner slips in practical advice: “I refuse to talk to you… until I consult with an attorney.” Good to know if life plays dirty.

The wrap-up isn’t as baroque as a Perry Mason finale, but the dialogue crackles with antique slang and blessedly few ten-dollar words. Gardner, writing as A.A. Fair, keeps the tone light, the pace brisk, and the ethics flexible.

Bottom line: Bachelors Get Lonely delivers vintage Cool & Lam - industrial intrigue, murder, and morals as flexible as a yoga teacher’s spine - with enough charm to make you forgive the creaky coincidences. Not top-tier, but a solid slice of mid-century pulp entertainment.

 

Perry Mason 177: Great Day in the Morning

Note: Raymond Burr plays – surprise! – a heavy in this western. He brings to his performance as village potentate Jumbo Means his imposing physical presence (he looks close to 300 pounds) and his distinctive intensity. As the owner of palaces of vice and sin, his character has his shady side. He is an influential Northerner in a predominantly Unionist town in Colorado, so he is in the thick of pre-Civil War strains.

Great Day in the Morning
1956 / 1:37
Tagline: “I like walking alone - no ties.”

It’s a strange movie with an unlikely hero. Set just before the Civil War, it features Owen Pentecost, a character who keeps himself emotionally distant from everyone around him. Robert Stack, an actor with a range up there with Fred MacMurray and George Raft, was perfectly cast to play a loner who says “Sure, I'm loyal. I've got an undying loyalty to myself and no one else, nothing else.”

On the eve of the Civil War in 1861 Owen Pentecost of North Carolina arrives in Denver as a stranger. But he quickly achieves the American dream (money and influence) by winning a saloon cum hotel in a card game rigged in his favor by Ruth Roman, mama of the attached brothel. He is thus able to invest in gold digging start-ups, gathering in half their findings in exchange for his financing.

In the over-heated times before the Civil War, everybody has to choose a side. There’s no “let us all reason together” here, the times don’t allow for subtleties like conscience or brotherhood. Pentecost is from North Carolina but the other Southerners don’t like or trust him because they’ve not known him for years. The Union men in town don’t like him because he is a Tar Heel.

Pentecost's interactions with women highlight his strange solitude. Boston Grant (Ruth Roman) ardently pursues him and not just for his money and power. Though she wants to be his helpmeet in business, he evinces zero affection for her. His relationship with Ann Merry Alaine (Virginia Mayo) intermittently sparks up but romance sputters out. This triangle in the movie features good acting by the actresses.

But the triangle adds to a crowded movie. Pre-war stresses, amoral jerk as hero, two plucky women after the same grouchy jerk and more – the subplot of an orphan boy who is hoorawed by the local kids because they’ve not known him for years so they don’t trust him. The gorgeous Technicolor is the reason to watch this movie.

As for the connection with the classic Perry Mason TV series, hate-filled Yankee Leo Gordon appeared in TCOT Dangerous Dowager as an honest casino owner. Bar employee who has a great scene with Stack, Peter Whitney played an ill-tempered farmer in TCOT Pathetic Patient, an irascible gangster in TCOT Stand-In Sister and a venerable sea captain in TCOT Wrongful Writ. Ubiquitous character actor Regis Toomey, a priest in this movie, was in TCOT Loquacious Liar and TCOT 12th Wildcat.

The Ides of Exploitation: Mystic Circle Murder

Note: Everybody’s a critic. I’m informed that I’ve bestowed “almost Dostoevskian moral gravity” upon a cheap exposé picture. Guilty as charged. Give me a 68-minute Poverty Row programmer and before the second reel I’ve discovered alienation, sexual politics, class warfare, psychic trauma, and the collapse of Western civilization. Perhaps occasionally I should just let the guy in the turban be a crook. OTOH, just wait until you see posts for Stoic Week 2026.

Mystic Circle Murder aka Religious Racketeers  aka Madame Houdini Speaks
1938 / 1:08 minutes
Tagline: “Thrilling Chilling Exposé of the Fake Medium Racket!”

In the dim corridors of human grief, where memory clings like burrs to the soul, there are phonies who prey upon the broken. This exploitation film, brief and strange, does not seek entertainment for the masses. It is a warning, a document of moral decay, and a tribute to the lonely struggle of Beatrice Houdini, widow of the great illusionist, who devoted her life to exposing the lies of spiritualist charlatans.

She appears early in the film, not as a character, but as a conscience. Her voice is clear, her purpose unwavering: to protect the grieving from those who would exploit their sorrow.

The story centers on a wealthy steel heiress, Helene LeBerthron, whose guilt over her mother’s death makes her vulnerable. She is young, pale, blue-eyed, and fragile - an image of innocence that invites corruption. Her hope is not strength but weakness, and the audience, helpless, watches her drift toward deception. We movie-goers whisper, “Girl, listen to your skeptical boyfriend.”

The medium, La Gagge, is no mystic. He is a technician of illusion, a manipulator of grief. He explains to his accomplice - who smokes constantly, as if to remind us that death is always near - that belief must be coaxed, not forced. The machinery of deceit is literal: wires, soundboards, Orientalist props. But the machinery of psychological manipulation is more insidious. The medium isolates the mark, surrounds her with unfamiliar sights and sounds, and replaces her beliefs with ritual and mumbo-jumbo. He uses loneliness as a tool, and sexual attraction as bait.

This is not a tale of ghosts. It is a tale of how easily the human mind, weakened by loss guilt and shame, can be bent. The film shows how repetition, isolation, and suggestion can break down reason. It is not unlike the methods used in darker institutions - prisons, institutions, cults - where obedience is extracted not by force, but by erosion of the self.

The actors do what they can. They are not great, but they are honest. The dialogue is sometimes clumsy, serving exposition more than character. Yet the film moves quickly, and dignity is preserved. It is not art, but it is truth.

This film is for those who study belief, who ask why people cling to illusions, and how grief can become a weapon. It is not comforting. It is not popular. But it is necessary. In a world where deception is often rewarded, it reminds us that truth must be defended - even when it is unwelcome, even when it is ignored.

 

 

Perry Mason 176: Donkeys, District Attorneys, and the Price of Respectability

Note: Erle Stanley Gardner’s background gave him two ways of looking at small-town life. Because he grew up in mining towns, he saw how power often came from money, reputation, and social position rather than from official authority. Later, as a lawyer, he saw how these local power structures could affect the courts, especially when an outsider was accused of a crime. These ideas appear in several Perry Mason novels: powerful local groups protect themselves, outsiders are treated with suspicion, and justice often requires someone from outside the community to step in.

Donkeys, District Attorneys, and the Price of Respectability: Crime in the Small-Town Middle Class

In these three non-Mason novels, Gardner explores the connection between law, reputation, and money in small towns and rural communities. Everyone knows everyone else, and people are very aware of what their neighbors think of them. Most characters are neither rich nor poor. They belong to the lower middle or middle class, and their social position can easily be lost. Because of this, justice is affected by gossip, reputation, fear, and the desire to protect one’s place in the community. Gardner is especially interested in people whose small amount of money and social standing makes them determined to appear respectable.

In The Case of the Backward Mule (1946), Gardner sets the story in a farming community where property means more than simply owning something. The mule is somewhat comic, but the argument over it becomes very serious. Ownership represents independence, respectability, and a person’s standing in the community. The farmers and property owners are not wealthy, but they have enough to lose. A dispute that might seem unimportant to an outsider therefore becomes very important because it threatens both their livelihoods and their reputations.

The Doug Selby novels explore the same problem from another angle. In The D.A. Calls It Murder (1937), reputation is almost a form of money. Shopkeepers, clerks, secretaries, and other working people fear scandal because gossip can destroy a person’s standing even before the truth is known. Selby may be the district attorney, but even he has to deal with local pressures. Justice becomes difficult because people who claim to respect the law are also frightened of scandal and worried about protecting themselves.

The D.A. Breaks an Egg (1949) shows how fragile this social order can be. The Lennox family wants to appear decent and law-abiding, but their position is insecure. They are not wealthy enough to feel safe, and they fear falling into poverty or disgrace. This is an important Gardner theme: people sometimes break rules not because they are naturally dishonest, but because they are afraid of losing their family, income, or reputation. Their questionable choices are defensive rather than predatory. They bend the rules because they fear ruin, not because they want power over others.

Taken together, these novels suggest that small-town justice is not as simple or innocent as it may appear. It is shaped by property, money, gossip, reputation, and the fear of losing social status. Gardner is less interested in obvious villains than in the everyday compromises of ordinary people. Respectability protects them, but it also traps them. The truth matters, but so does the price people may have to pay for admitting it.

Perry Mason 175: TCOT Worried Waitress

Note: Although this 1966 entry lacks the fireworks of Mason’s most celebrated cases, it fascinates for its subtext. Gardner probes enduring issues - the ethics of witness coaching and the clash of poverty and pride - while reminding us that justice is not a flawless machine but a fragile human process, vulnerable to error and manipulation.  

The Case of the Worried Waitress - Erle Stanley Gardner

Rules were rules, and in the restaurant business they were ironclad: servers were forbidden to solicit professional advice from customers. But Katherine Ellis - Kit to her friends - was desperate. She had no one else to turn to. So when Perry Mason and Della Street finished lunch, Mason left his card beneath the plate with a message that was pure Perry: “My usual fee is ten dollars. Under the plate there’s a tip of eleven.” It was a gesture that broke the monotony of routine and set in motion a chain of events that would test human frailty and the criminal justice system.

Kit’s story was simple - and complicated. An orphan, penniless, living with an aunt who pinched pennies until they screamed. The woman hoarded cash in hatboxes, skimped on food, and even posed as blind to sell pencils outside a factory. Mason’s instincts flared. “Get out,” he told Kit. “If that money disappears, you’ll take the fall.” But the warning came too late. The aunt was assaulted, robbed, and left for dead. Kit was arrested.

The case should have been straightforward. It wasn’t. There was Mildred Aldie, a blind woman who seemed to impersonate Kit’s aunt for reasons no one could explain. There was Stuart Baxley, a family friend with too much interest in the aunt’s fortune - and a willingness to plant evidence. And there were two subplots colliding like runaway trains: two wives battling over a dead man’s estate and rival factions fighting for control of a corporation.

Gardner wove these threads into a tapestry of greed, deception, and human frailty.

Yet for all the complexity, something was missing: urgency. Even Lieutenant Tragg, who made the arrest, seemed unconvinced of Kit’s guilt. He looked the other way when Mason bent the rules - technically legal maneuvers that skirted the edge of propriety. The trial, usually Gardner’s crescendo, felt muted. Hamilton Burger prosecuted with the resignation of a man who knew he was destined to lose - again.

The real drama lies not only in the verdict but in the social and legal systems, and the human beings – a.k.a. imperfect thinkers - who keep them running. In that sense, the novel offers something rarer than courtroom theatrics: a glimpse into the machinery of law and the secrets that shape its outcomes.

The Nones of Exploitation: Marihuana

Marihuana
1936 / 0:50
Tagline: “See the Truth about the Smoke from Hell!”
[internet archive]

It is a curious thing - one might say a melancholy one - that in the detritus of antique amusement, amidst the refuse heaps of what passes for cinema, there should glimmer, now and again, a spark of something nearly noble. I speak here not of a work wrought with care or conscience, but of a base and tawdry spectacle - an exploitation film, vulgar in its intentions, slipshod in its execution, and yet, by some accident of human truth, not wholly devoid of merit.

Observe, if you will, the young woman - her foot turning idly, joyously, upon the running board of a battered motorcar, her face alight with the unselfconscious radiance of youth and affection. It is a gesture so slight, so unstudied, and yet it speaks with the eloquence of a Turner sky: of vitality, of freedom, of the fleeting grace of being alive and beloved. Such a moment, though framed by the crude machinery of commerce, is not unworthy of art.

Elsewhere, the drama descends - nay, collapses - into the grotesque. A quarrel between mother and daughter, rendered with the subtlety of a cudgel, culminates in the girl’s flight from home. But even here, amid the shrillness, there is a gesture of pathos: she pauses, embraces her lapdog with a tenderness that betrays the ache of her decision. It is the last act of a soul not yet hardened by the world’s indifference.

Later still, as she descends into what the moderns call “degradation” - a word too often used without understanding - she casts a glance, guilt-ridden and persuasive, upon her sister. It is not the look of a villainess, but of a soul in torment, aware of its fall and yet unable to arrest it. That such a moment should arise in a film otherwise so bereft of moral imagination is, I declare, astonishing.

But alas, these are but fragments - pearls cast into a mire of incoherence. The film, taken as a whole, is a shambles. Its narrative is as a house built upon sand; its characters, mere shadows of intention; its climax, a thing so mishandled that it leaves the viewer neither stirred nor satisfied. The acting is passable, the direction perfunctory, and the moral vision - if such a term may be applied - entirely absent.

And yet, even in this mire, there is revelation. For it is only by witnessing the debasement of form that we come to appreciate its true expression. Just as the sight of a polluted stream makes us long for the mountain spring, so too does this film, in its failure, remind us of what cinema might be when guided by truth, beauty, and reverence for the human soul.

As for the final descent - four young women, stripped of both clothing and dignity, frolicking in the Pacific surf - it is not merely a violation of the Hays Code, but of decency itself. That such imagery should be offered as entertainment is a sign, not of liberation, but of cultural exhaustion.

Let us then take from this experience not pleasure, but instruction. Let us remember that art, even when sullied, may still reflect the divine spark - and that the worst of pictures may yet contain a moment worth saving.

 

Perry Mason 174: Mason & DBT

Note: Raymond Burr’s Perry Mason was the still point in a world spinning with agitation and half-truths. Great actors truly listen, and Burr gave us a lawyer who listened - not perfunctorily, but with an attentive calm that made silence feel electric. Fans remember the courtroom fireworks, but I’d argue the most remarkable moments were often in the jail cell interviews, where Burr revealed that Mason’s real power lay in restraint. Burr gave fellow actors space to sustain a scene, as Mason absorbed his client’s story like a sponge - intently, mindfully. Burr’s Mason didn’t interrupt; he inhaled. And when he exhaled, it was with the quiet authority of a man who had glimpsed the light and stillness he could bring to a client’s crisis, even as the police misconstrued evidence and assumed guilt.

Perry Mason Through the Lens of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

Perry Mason, the iconic defense attorney from Erle Stanley Gardner’s novels and the subsequent TV adaptation, exemplifies traits that can be examined through the framework of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). DBT emphasizes four core skill sets: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness - all of which resonate with Mason’s approach to law and life.

Mindfulness is central to Mason’s investigative style. He remains fully present during client interviews and witness’ testimony in the courtroom. This ability to listen and discern while suspending judgment allows him to identify inconsistencies and details others overlook and craft compelling defenses. His mindful attention to nuance mirrors DBT’s principle of “wise mind,” balancing logic and emotion - a hallmark of Mason’s success. Staying present, being here, now, also reinforces courage:

Make up your mind to one thing, Mrs. Warren. After water has run downstream and over the dam, you can't find any way on earth of getting it back upstream and over the dam a second time. Take things as they come. Concentrate on the present, forget the past. (TCOT Phantom Fortune)

Distress & Frustration Tolerance emerges in Mason’s composure under pressure. Clients charged with Murder-One are playing for life-or-death stakes, yet Mason never succumbs to aggravation or alarm or frustration. Instead, he employs problem-solving strategies akin to DBT’s “radical acceptance,” acknowledging the stern reality of high-risk situations while focusing on actionable steps. For instance, when evidence seems damning, level-headed Mason reframes the challenge as an opportunity to uncover the truth that is truth and refute the DA’s truth that just seems like the truth.

“A man can nearly always think his way out of any situation in which he finds himself. It’s merely a paraphrase of the old saying that where there’s a will there’s a way.” (TCOT Sulky Girl)

Emotion Regulation is evident in Mason’s controlled demeanor. While passionate about justice, he tempers his emotions to maintain clarity. DBT teaches skills like “checking the facts,” which Mason intuitively applies - choosing calm deliberation over flailing. His ability to regulate emotions not only maintains his credibility but also reassures anxious clients, reinforcing trust.

My experience has always been that these things look much worse than they actually are. In fact, I tell my clients that nine times out of ten they can say to themselves, 'Things are never as bad as they seem.' I admit things look black, but we're going to keep fighting, and don't you get discouraged. (TCOT Beautiful Beggar)

“Things look bad and we are still capable of fighting back” is a solid DBT “both/and” statement that encourages holding two seemingly opposing truths at the same time, moving away from rigid “either/or” thinking. It calls to mind Marine General Puller saying at the Chosin Reservoir, “We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies things.”

Finally, Interpersonal Effectiveness defines Mason’s relationships with clients, colleagues, witnesses, persons of interest, and even adversaries like Lt. Tragg. He navigates complex social dynamics – such as asking complete strangers nosey questions - with assertiveness and empathy, embodying DBT’s goal of showing respect for people while achieving his own objectives – milking them for information before the cops do.

“What right have I got to sit back with that ‘holier than thou’ attitude and expect [clients] to come clean with a total stranger? They come here when they’re in trouble. They’re worried and frightened. They come to me for consultations. I’m a total stranger to them. They need help. Poor fools, you can’t blame them for resorting to subterfuges." (TCOT Curious Bride)

Like some DBT therapists advise their clients today, Mason knows that people-watching can be a mindful activity that fosters empathy.

“I like to watch people around a depot. It’s fascinating. You can see so much of human nature that way. People aren’t on their guard when they’re dead-weary or when they’re completely removed from their usual environment. A person who lives here in the city feels he’s on his own home ground, no matter what part of the city he’s in, unless it’s the depot. But the minute he walks into the depot he’s started, so to speak, on a complete change of environment and he lets his guard down.” (TCOT Lonely Heiress)

Viewed through DBT, Perry Mason exemplifies psychological flexibility and effective people skills. His success stems not merely from legal acumen but from behaviors aligned with DBT principles: mindful observation, tolerance of uncertainty, emotional balance, and effective interaction. These qualities position Mason as more than a fictional lawyer; he becomes a role model of adaptive functioning under constant challenges - a testament to the enduring relevance of DBT skills in helping  people navigate problems from addictions and cutting to pushing people away and overthinking unto paralysis.

Matinee Musings: Get Her Talkin' 'n Listen

Note: The pandemic effectively furloughed my teaching career, leaving D. H. Lawrence's "passion of instruction" with nowhere productive to go. Naturally, it has redirected itself into dating advice, a space in which I possess the impeccable credentials of someone who has not been single since Generation X were wearing three-cornered pants. So if you've need date questions inspired by Pre-Code movies, I'm here to help. What could go wrong, apart from everything?

Matinee Musings: Dating Advice for Fans of Pre-Code

The best women like a guy who can talk. But they like even better a guy who can listen.

That's where the amateurs get into trouble. They think a date is an audition. They arrive armed with stories, opinions, and enough self-promotion to launch a congressional campaign. Then they wonder why there isn't a second date.

The smart man asks questions.

Not because some dating guru said so. Not because he wants to control the conversation. He asks questions because he wants to find out who is sitting across the table from him. Let the lady talk. Listen closely. Listen for what excites her, what frightens her, what she admires, and what she cannot stand. Before long you'll know more about her values than any profile could ever tell you. Then you can decide whether your match was made in heaven or in one of those charmingly furnished circles of hell found in Pre-Code movies.

Take The Cheat (1931). Tallulah Bankhead plays a woman who loves excitement so much that she mistakes the rush of poker for happiness. That's a useful thing to know about a person. So ask your date: "Do you think Elsa was really in love with anybody, or was she mostly in love with excitement?"

Now listen.

If she says life is for taking chances and risks, you'll learn something. If she says Elsa's recklessness hurt everybody around her, you'll learn something else.

Try another: "What did you think of Elsa keeping her big financial problem to herself?"

Because how a person answers tells you how they think about trust.

Or: "What do you think was up with Livingstone, how he treated people?"

You'll discover a great deal about what she considers healthy behavior in relationships.

The beauty of movie questions is that nobody feels examined. You're discussing Tallulah Bankhead, not your date. But somehow, your date ends up revealing herself anyway.

And for Pete's sake, don't do that phony listening routine. You know the one. Lean forward. Furrow the brow. Nod solemnly. Say "uh-huh," "interesting," and "wow." Then immediately launch into the story you were planning to tell all along.

That's not listening. That's waiting for your turn.

If she says Elsa's gambling wasn't really about money, ask why she thinks that. If she says Livingstone is obviously a creep, ask what gave him away. If she thinks Elsa's husband is partly to blame, ask her to make the case.

Real listening requires a follow-up question.

Anybody can talk. Plenty of men can pretend to listen. Very few can hear an answer, think about it, and respond to what was actually said. Practice improves quick-wittedness in conversation. 

So practice.

Do that, and whether the relationship goes anywhere or not, you'll leave the evening knowing far more than the poor devils in most Pre-Code pictures ever managed to learn about one another before disaster struck.

The Kalends of Exploitation: Sing Sinner Sing

Note: This is the kind of movie that ought to be a mess, and maybe it is a little, though it looks better than many Poverty Row productions. But Leila Hyams keeps the whole thing on the rails. She's likable, believable, and never acts like she's above the material. The movie may be a minor Pre-Code oddity of interest only to Pre-Code fans like us Thirties buffs, but Hyams makes it feel like something worth sticking around for.

Sing Sinner Sing
1933 / 1:04
Tagline: “Would You Plead Guilty to a Crime You Did Not Commit---To Save Some One You Love?”
[youtube]

In this tale of modern Babylon, we are introduced to a floating casino moored off the coast of Los Angeles - a vessel not of commerce, but of pleasure, where jazz music and bathtub gin flow in equal measure. Here sings a lady of torch and torment, whose voice, though sweet, is steeped in sorrow. She is bound, not by love, but by a tempestuous entanglement with the ship’s proprietor - a man of volcanic temperament and dubious fidelity.

Upon discovering his dalliance with a chorus girl of questionable virtue, our heroine, in a fit of wounded pride and reckless ambition, resolves to marry a millionaire playboy. This gentleman, though possessed of wealth and charm, is pursued by a specter more fearsome than poverty: the hereditary madness that haunts his bloodline. He drinks not for pleasure, but to silence the howling of ancestral banshees. His descent into hopeless drunkenness is portrayed with a frankness that startles us post-modern movie-goers in 2026, accustomed as we are to the innocuous buffoonery of the comic relief drunks of Code-era Hollywood.

Paul Lukas, a gentleman of Hungarian extraction, imbues his role with a fiery Magyar nobility, though the lines he is given are as wooden as a church pew. Leila Hyams, the torch singer, is a vision of loveliness and restraint, her performance elevated by the presence of Ruth Donnelly, who plays the worldly-wise companion with a wit as dry as vermouth. Don Dillaway, as the doomed heir, astonishes with a moment of clarity and rebellion, denouncing the snobbery of his wealthy guardians with a fervor worthy of a Dickensian hero.

The sets, borrowed from a more prosperous studio, are sumptuous, and the costumes - particularly Miss Hyams’ beaded gowns - are of such elegance that My Bride, a fiber artist of exacting taste, insists they be mentioned in tribute. The music, a curious blend of fox-trot jazz and early swing, is delightful, though the musicians remain anonymous, as if swallowed by the very fog of the era.

The plot, it must be said, is melodrama of the highest order, but the film’s true distinction lies in its origin: the Pre-Code era, that brief interregnum between the advent of sound and the iron rule of censorship. Here, the moral atmosphere is low and thick, like the air in a gambling hell. Women are brazen, men are debauched, and virtue is a thing to be mocked. The film does not flinch from showing the consequences of folly, nor does it pretend that wealth can purchase peace of mind.

In conclusion, this picture is not a moral beacon, but a lantern held up to the darker corners of human desire. It is a cautionary tale, wrapped in sequins and shadow, and though I am a man of puritanical leanings, I confess: it held me fast.