Sybil Bruncheon’s “Hollywood’s Hysterical Histories!”…

Seen here is a rare photo of Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe, secretly visiting the set of GODZILLA (1954) on the first day of shooting. She had been in private negotiations with the director Ishirō Honda about starring in the film, but he carefully explained to her through translators that the only American in it would be a male reporter to be played by Raymond Burr. Apparently, Monroe laughed merrily and said “NO, Silly!!” She wanted to play the title character… GODZILLA! She revealed she had been coached for months by her mentor Lee Strasberg and had stayed overnight at the Cuddly Critters Petting Zoo … in their iguana cage! The staff, again patiently, granted that although she was quite convincing at stepping on toy skyscrapers in slow motion and roar-honking loudly on cue, she was still too attractive to play a dinosaur… even if she DID stop using moisturizer. She was devastated and returned to America heartbroken. She immediately married baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. Who she claimed “looks a lot like Godzilla, especially when he just gets out of the shower!”…

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*Tour-ette from Wegmans in the fresh produce department with... um... God knows what!!!

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Sybil Bruncheon's Silly Cinema Sequels!!...

EARTH vs. THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956) starring Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor... the little known sequel to ALL ABOUT EVE (1950).

The story follows the tragic career of playwright Lloyd Richards, who, after the failure of his Broadway play "Tippy-Toes On The Back Staircase", loses his marriage to Karen, his friendship to Margo Channing, and any possible romantic involvement with Eve Harrington, Birdie Coonan, Miss Caswell, or Addison DeWitt. Unable to ever get another reservation at the Stork Club, he changes his name and goes out West posing as a scientist or a writer.. or... whatever. He remarries eventually and after a lackluster career with cacti and prairie dogs, he is attacked by aliens and flying saucers. Ray guns, brain-washing, and merriment ensue... along with some property damage. Interestingly, this is his second run-in with people from outer space... well, the third, if you include Max Fabian...

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Sybil Bruncheon's "My Brilliant Career!".....Chapter 36:

A British film studio sent me a proposal for a remake of the 1960s film GEORGY GIRL with me in the title role……. Here’s the opening sequence:

London. Music plays on an old broken juke box in a rundown pub…."HEY THERE, Georgy Girl! There's another Georgy deep inside...show off all the love you hide.....". etc., etc.... Georgy (Sybil) an overweight dumpy girl dressed in a forlorn “mod” costume dances around sad pub, upsetting chair and a table with mugs on it..... she jumps up on counter to do the “frug”, when counter collapses onto 6 patrons, killing one, and crippling 3 others for life!!!!!.....music stops as ambulance and local police are called......patrons run out of pub screaming in horror..... (dramatic monster music)…

Gorgo suddenly appears from behind a hillside attracted by screams. Interacts with electrical power lines and Big Ben. While upending a tramp steamer on the Thames, a street car heading for Piccadilly, and a fish-cart selling cockles, mussels, (alive-alive-o!), he notices a plump rubber snack on the ground. He doesn’t realize it’s actually Georgy and picks it up in his mouth, shaking it like a puppy playing with a sock, and swallows it in one gulp...... He rampages on to Glasgow for a night of drinking and carousing on a pub crawl with Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra who have flown in for the weekend!.... more mischief ensues involving more ship sinkings, planes pulled from midair, and fish-cart tragedies.. in the closing credits, Judith Durham and The Seekers are heard singing "Hey there GORGIE-boy, there's another GEORGY deep inside.....". Credit roll reveals cameo appearances by Honor Blackman, Ethel Griffies, O.P. Heggie, Ernest Thesiger, and an as-yet-unknown Sean Connnery as a fish-and-chips peddler in Brighton. As the credits finish, the Monkees are seen running around in a fast-motion chase with tambourines and Benny Hill carrying an ax! Black-out.

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Sybil Bruncheon's 31 Days of Halloween... Day 27: Snack time!

Ladies! When attending a nice Halloween party, it's always important to remember good manners at the buffet table!... Serve yourself sensible portions of your hostess' refreshments, taking into account all the other guests at the party. After all, you're an Earthling!!.... not a Quj-Kedzzi-thustran.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Fashion & Festivities in Faraway Places!"...

"Foolish and self-centered Earthlings! Why do you think life-forms from other planets have no sense of style, fashion, or even humor? We can be very festive and quite frivolous, especially on holidays... when we dine on delicacies that we collect... mostly orange things. But oh, how they struggle so... and scream. Give us your orange things, and we shall leave in peace. Now go! GO!"...

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A New Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... BRIGITTE HELM (March 17, 1906 - June 11, 1996)

Darlings! Mummie has made a decision! After reading dozens of posts and having hundreds of conversations with well-meaning folks who just don't know about the great CHARACTER actors who gave films the depth and genius that surrounded and supported the so-called "stars", I am going to post a regular, special entry called "SYBIL'S WHO'Z DAT?"....there'll be photos and a mini-bio, and the next time you see one of those familiar, fabulous faces that you just "can't quite place".......well, maybe these posts will help. Some of these actors worked more, had longer and broader careers, and ended up happier, more loved, and even wealthier than the "stars" that the public "worships". (I think there may be a metaphor in that! What do you think???). And speaking of “character” actors, Mummie is going to introduce everyone to the concept of a “character LEAD”!! ….and this person was one of the greatest stars overseas. She had the advantage of being both beautiful and very talented, and was unafraid of stretching herself to fully inhabit her roles. She’s Brigitte Helm (March 17th, 1906 – June 11th, 1996).

          Born Brigitte Eva Gisela Schittenhelm in Berlin, Germany, she was the daughter of a Prussian Army officer who died when she was a toddler. She grew to be a serious, idealistic boarding school student with plans to become an astronomer, but she appeared willingly enough in school plays to please her friends and mother. In fact, Helm regarded acting with Prussian disdain as an immoral occupation on its face and had no plans to pursue it as a career.

         Then her mother, who had no such notions, sent her daughter's photograph to the screenwriter, Thea von Harbou, the wife of Fritz Lang. Brigitte, who was just 17 when she was tricked into taking a screen test, was suddenly on her way to stardom. Lang cast her as the female lead in his early masterpiece, METROPOLIS (1924), then the most expensive German film ever made. She later became the most sought-after actress of the glory days of the German film industry, a tall blond beauty who starred in more than 35 movies and set directors against one another in the competition for her services. Ms. Helm was regarded as such a perfect embodiment of the era's ideal of cool sophistication that when she turned Josef von Sternberg down for the starring role in "Blue Angel," he had to settle for Marlene Dietrich. Yet for all the acclaim she received, Ms. Helm could never eclipse the role, or rather roles, in which the good Maria, an oppressed working girl, is transformed into an evil robotic doppelganger of herself in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis."

        Even today, 90 years after it was released, METROPOLIS is not only a cult classic, it is regularly listed among the half-dozen most important films ever made. This is a tribute, to be sure, to Lang's grotesque science-fiction vision, and the array of fabulous special effects he used to bring it to the screen. The film depicts the world of 2006, a time, Lang envisioned, when a ruling class lives in decadent luxury in the lofty heights of skyscrapers linked by aerial railways, while beneath the streets slave-like workers toil in unbearable conditions to sustain their masters.

        But for all the steam and special effects, for many who have seen the movie in its various incarnations, including a tinted version and one accompanied by music, the most compelling lingering image is neither the towers above nor the hellish factories below. It is the startling transformation of Ms. Helm from an idealistic young woman into a monstrous robot and then to a barely clad creature performing a lascivious dance in a brothel and corrupting every man who sets his eyes on her. While he may not have been the sadist many of his actors made him out to be, director Fritz Lang was such a hard-driving perfectionist that Ms. Helm, who worked virtually every day for 18 months, often hanging upside down or standing in water up to her waist for hours at a time, found the experience excruciating.

After one torturous ordeal, when she wondered why a double could not have taken her place during the nine days it took to shoot a scene in which she is encased in a metallic robot shell, her face obscured, Lang haughtily claimed an auteur's creative sensibility. "I have to feel that you are inside the robot," he said. "I was able to see you even when I didn't." After the movie made her an overnight star, Ms. Helm, who had her own artistic standards, refused to make another movie with Lang. Helm was one of those stars that made a successful transition to sound, but refused to abandon Germany for Hollywood. METROPOLIS financially ruined UFA (Berlin’s major film studio, the Universum Film-Aktien Gesellschaft), but it made Brigitte Helm an overnight success. UFA gave her a ten-year contract and wanted to typecast her as a man-eating vamp: she twice had to play ALRAUNE (1928- the silent version, and again in 1930-the sound version). A science fiction horror story, Alraune is the legendary woman born of the seed of a hanged murderer artificially placed in the womb of a whore, who drives men to their deaths. But by 1929 she had already attempted to refuse all vamp roles. She took UFA to court and lost; the trial cost her a fortune and after that she acted mostly in order to pay off her debts.

In addition to many mediocre and sometimes downright bad films, the director G.W. Pabst gave her some great acting opportunities. In THE LOVES OF JEANNE NEY (1927) she plays a helpless blind woman who is seduced by a rogue. In CRISIS (1928), she portrays a spoilt woman of the world who from sheer boredom almost destroys her own life. They included L’ARGENT (1928), GLORIA (1931), THE BLUE DANUBE (1932), L’ANTLANTIDE (1932), and GOLD (1934)

In her films of the early 1930s Brigitte Helm became the embodiment of the affluent, modern woman. With her slim figure and austere pre-Raphaelite profile, she seems unapproachable, a model fashion-conscious woman, under whose ice-cold outer appearance criminal energies flicker. Ms. Helm was regarded as such a perfect embodiment of the era's ideal of cool sophistication that when she turned Josef von Sternberg down for the starring role in BLUE ANGEL (1930), he had to settle for Marlene Dietrich. Later on, Helm was considered for the title role in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) before Elsa Lanchester was given the role.

Her role as the Hoschstaplerin ("The Deceiver") in DIE SCHONEN TAGE VON ARANJUEZ (The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez) (1933) was reprised in 1935 by Marlene Dietrich in the film DESIRE. In the G.W. Pabst film L’ATLANTIDE (1932), Helm plays an opaque, static goddess, the mere sight of whom makes men crazy. Her power is not of this world, but incomprehensible, magical. This was Helm's last really great role, a legendary mysterious sphinx of the German cinema. Helm acted in 29 German, French and English films.

But just as suddenly as she had emerged, she disappeared again. At the height of her success, she had told one critic that her whole film career was a matter of indifference to her and that she would much rather be a housewife: to cook, bring up her children and look after her husband. After a few bad press reviews of her later films and a car accident, for which she was sentenced to a brief jail sentence, she withdrew into her private life. In 1935, disgusted with the Nazi takeover of the film industry, she abruptly quit, marrying an industrialist, Hugo von Kunheim, himself a Nazi opponent, and Jewish. Helm incurred the wrath of Nazi Germany for "race defilement" by marrying him. She withdrew from the cinema, and she and her family fled to Switzerland. From then on she never appeared on stage, film or on television, and she refused all invitations and turned down almost all requests for interviews. She lived the rest of her life quietly there in Switzerland, and died on June 11, 1996. She was 90 years old. She was survived by her four sons.

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Sybil Bruncheon's History On This Day... “On OTHER WORLDS!"... January 25, 2713JqZ...

…on the Planet Gwurn in the Bavaic System:

Queen Patrice-Marie II flew into a fit of rage at the sight of a new court portrait done of her by the artist Jexubub Hoont. "My eyes still look crossed!… and my gown is wrinkled!", she shrieked before she ate two of her ladies-in-waiting and most of Hoont's brushes and the easel. And that's what happened on this day on other worlds...

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Sybil Bruncheon's "ADS THAT FAILED!"... That's Show Bzzzz....

Sybil Bruncheon's "ADS THAT FAILED!"... Boys and girls! Did you know that many of the products and services that we use and love every day almost went out of business because of poor advertising? Well, it's true! Here's one! The first commercial for the Lady Norelco Razor!

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Sybil Bruncheon’s "Manners Are Nice #34"… Penny Sanders - A Charming Tale at 30,000 feet...

Penny Sanders was voted “Most Eager Girl” in Whitmer High School on Toledo. She had joined so many clubs, had been first alto sax in both the school orchestra and the marching band, had been a cheerleader and on the student council every year, and was the head of the yearbook committee, the newspaper, and the prom decorating team. Cotillions, parade floats, holiday displays, and the school landscaping project all depended on Penny’s presence, opinions, and hands-on labor. She was so busy with all of her activities that there was never any time to really date boys… or even interact with them other than on committees over donuts and hot chocolate… and perhaps that had been convenient.

Though sweetly pretty in a wholesome way, she never could (nor would want to!) compete with her friend Giselle Pomerou. Giselle was tall, blonde, and extremely curvaceous, “like a movie star” Penny would always brag to her friends. When she entered a room, all eyes would go right to her; some with envy, some with admiration, and some with open desire, even lurid longing, poorly disguised. Giselle was the true meaning of “statuesque” and so stylish too; she could wear the simplest cocoa brown knit dress and again look “like a movie star”. Penny would study Giselle’s clothes carefully… was it the bias cut and the “hand” of the fabric, the scoop neckline and casually rolled up sleeves, the fit and flair silhouette, or the hemline, just low enough to brush her perfect knees but high enough to let them peek as she walked down the aisle at graduation. It was a simple brown dress (with a Peter Pan collar no-less!) and now here she was wearing that same dress again five years later as she walked down the aisle to first-class while she and Penny took a reunion flight to Paris. If anything, Giselle had grown into a breathtaking beauty over the interval since high school and then college, co-majoring in fashion design and journalism. And here she was with her old pal, Penny, who had co-majored in political science and journalism, and even fit a masters degree in the few years too. They had kept in touch, and decided that they should take a vacation together and splurge!…what better spot than Paris, and in the Spring. They both had “connections” and could see the new couture collections and even afford to go shopping… within reason.

When they met at the Idlewild airport with their luggage, Giselle from Chicago with her Louis Vuitton and Penny from Greenwich Village with her grandmother’s hand-me-down American Tourister, the joyous hugs and shrieks of delight echoed through the waiting area of gate 14 for Panam flight 108. Both girls had been to Paris before, but separately, and under different circumstances. And once Giselle had stepped back to give Penny a good look up and down, she shook her head sadly but smiling. “Oh, Penny! That dress! That collar! Darling, we have GOT to buy you some new clothes when we get to Paris! Good Heavens, you’re out of school now! You’ve got to dress for your success! And you ARE a success now!”

Penny blushed deeply, and was mortified, but when she looked at herself in the reflection of one of the windows, she saw as if for the first time how awkward she was… and how awkward she had probably always been. Her black dress was rendered ridiculous by that oversized collar, pointed white triangles accented by chrome yellow trim nearly as wide as her shoulders and framing her face like a clown. Even though the fit was perfect over her still petite figure, she looked like a clown! A CLOWN!..and all she could see was that ridiculous collar and her face floating in the middle of it like a circus poster. Giselle could see the hurt in her eyes and quickly took her back into her arms with a hearty laugh and a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t despair, Penny, my girl! We’ll come back to New York with you looking like a magazine cover!”, and somehow, Penny knew Giselle could do it too.

And now, here they were, sitting in luxurious first class; Giselle, stylish as a magazine cover in her five year old brown knit and Penny in her clown-dress that she had just bought two days before for this special occasion…ah well. The girls talked and talked, sharing stories that they had only hinted at in long distance phone conversations (too expensive and only on holidays!) or in letters (originally weekly, but increasingly inconvenient, and finally only sporadic!). They laughed and cried and laughed again while crying as they flew high over the Atlantic into the evening sky. Dinner was served, and, being first class on Panam, the food was delectable. As course after course was offered, they both chuckled at what all those calories might do to their girlish figures. But then there was another round of compliments; to Giselle on her stellar finesse and statuesque beauty, and to Penny on her petite figure, sharp and compact like a sparrow.

It was at that exact moment when the strange thing happened. Penny was holding up her hands noting how tiny they were. She could wear her grandmother’s rings with no problem at all… and she happened to look over at the stewardess as she served the coffee and French pastries. She was handling the cups and saucers, the plates and silverware so gracefully… but her hands! HER HANDS! They were… huge! And huge like a man’s hands! “Look at them”, she thought. “Giselle! LOOK AT THE STEWARDESS’ HANDS!”… she was almost frightened! NO! She WAS frightened. TERRIFIED! The hands were not only big and masculine. They were rough and weathered and… wrong. Bad hands. Hands that might do bad things. But Penny had been raised to have good manners. It would be so impolite to say anything…even to whisper it to Giselle when the stewardess had passed. Penny was never rude. Ever. But she raked her eyes up and down the stewardess’ perfect hair and make-up, her lovely smiling face, her perfectly tailored uniform and cap, and her gorgeous figure and those long glorious legs. But the hands! She couldn’t hear the words coming out of that smiling face offering her cream and sugar, the Napoleon or the éclair. All the words were rumbling echoes, and she thought she might faint… or be sick, or both. “My manners”, she thought. “My manners! Am I staring? I shouldn’t stare because that’s not polite!” Finally she smiled wanly and mumbled a thank-you for what ever the last choice she had been offered. Giselle looked over, puzzled but smiling, and chuckled a simple tossed-off apology to the stewardess saying that Penny wasn’t used to flying and was a little disoriented. Both of the women chatted and laughed, again undecipherable to Penny in the echoing roar and rumble, and, as Giselle reached for her own coffee… the hands! NO! THE HANDS!... huge and horrifying… even more terrifying than before!… And they were GISELLE’S HANDS! Giselle had man-hands too! Bad, man’s hands! That might do anything… and maybe HAD!... What was happening? What was happening?!?... “But it’s not polite to scream! I mustn’t scream!”…

…and it was at that point that Penny, poor sweet, sparrow-like Penny Sanders looked down the aisle of her Paris-bound Panam jet, and saw the handsome man, clean-cut and smoking his cigarette,  his perfect suit over his knife-slim figure, calmly talking about her, and the plane, and the fact that it wouldn’t be going to Paris after all. That it was never going to Paris to begin with… that it was going to a place… called… the Twilight Zone.

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