Why would I want to watch Outpost in Malaya (aka The Planter’s Wife)? Because I mentioned it 12 and 1/2 years ago, sight unseen, after finding a color photo of the old Leows’ State marquee while this 1952 Ken Annakin film was playing there. In the back of my mind I’ve always wanted to at least sample parts of it.

Posted on 12.6.07: “I accept that I’ll probably never see Outpost in Malaya, a Jack Hawkins-Claudette Colbert adventure flick with rubber plants, Communist insurgents, elephants, a cobra and a mongoose. It’s not on DVD, was never issued on VHS and hasn’t even aired on TCM or TNT. But if I hadn’t wandered across this shot of 1952 Times Square, I never would have even heard of this Ken Annakin film. And to think that people lined up to see it, bought popcorn and everything.”

That was then, this is now. A year or two ago a 480p version began streaming on Amazon, and about two weeks ago it appeared for free on YouTube. I watched the very beginning this morning and was shocked to discover it’s in black and white.

All this time I’d presumed it had been shot in glorious color. The exotic backdrop obviously required it. A year earlier John Huston‘s The African Queen had been location-filmed in Technicolor, and in ’52 John Ford‘s Mogambo (which opened on 10.9.53) was captured in Kenya the same way. Alas, the Outpost in Malaya producers (Pinnacle Productions) couldn’t manage the cost. Here’s Bosley Crowther’s 11.27.52 review.

By the way: Malaysia was subject to the British Empire from the 18th Century onward. Peninsular Malaysia was unified as the Malayan Union in 1946. Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948 and achieved independence on 8.31.57. Malaya united with North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia. In 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation.”

The trailer strongly suggests that Marjane Satrapi‘s Radioactive (Amazon Prime, 7.24) is an instructive sanctification thang, the subject being twice-Nobel Prize-winning radiation pioneer Marie Curie (Rosamund Pike). You can smell the determination to pay tribute to a great, independent-minded woman who wasn’t sufficiently respected by the male establishment, etc. And if that doesn’t scare you off, the fact that Radioactive was written by the guy who wrote the depressingly on-the-nose screenplay for The Aeronauts should at least give you pause.

Not to mention the 68% and 54% ratings from Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively.

Consider Charles Bramesco’s Guardian review:

“Radioactive gives the by-the-numbers biopic treatment to the great Marie Curie (Rosamund Pike). The film flits through the defining moments in her life: meeting her husband and lifelong research partner Pierre (Sam Riley), discovering the elements polonium and radium, two children and two Nobel prizes, the tragic loss of her spouse to a trampling horse, and her scandalous affair with her other colleague Paul Langevin (Aneurin Barnard)

“All the while, both Curie and the film remain firmly committed to the cause of scientific advancement, which we know because she says so several times over the course of the script. It’s as if a string hangs off of the back of Pike’s spine, and when a key grip offscreen pulls it, she recites one of a handful of inspirational catchphrases.

“Satrapi, a thrilling talent when she brought her graphic novel Persepolis to the screen, explicitly and aggressively champions the virtue of being smart, then treats her audience like they haven’t got two functioning brain cells to rub together.

“This is a film that, in Dewey Cox-ian fashion, believes the audience can’t identify a historical figure until somebody says their complete name out loud. This is a film that decides we must actually watch a random child create an atomic model to understand that Curie left a lasting legacy. This is a film that forces Curie to make hilariously foreboding statements about the possibility of her advances in radiation being co-opted for unsavory ends, then flashes forward to the atomic bomb melting the happy citizens of Hiroshima to make sure everyone gets the point.

“Is Satrapi worried that the viewer isn’t aware of the devastation in the Japanese theater, or just that they don’t realize that it was sad? Either way, the admiration for a woman who knew so much about so much clashes with the unspoken assumption that the audience knows absolutely nothing about anything.”

An experimental University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine (called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine) will reportedly immunize people from COVID-19 after two doses. The vaccine been given a passing grade in a 7.20 report by The Lancet. The word is that a million doses could be manufactured by next month, and that general distribution may happen by year’s end or certainly by early ’21.

…how about Peter Greenaway‘s The Draughtman’s Contract (’82) meets Ridley Scott‘s Legend (’85)?

Initially posted on 7.17 by Babylon Bee, re-posted here with equally satirical HE edits: Martin Luther King has been posthumously cancelled for stating 57 years ago that people of all races should be treated equally and judged “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

The feeling today, particularly among “1619 Project” advocates, is that MLK was unfortunately blinded by Christian humanitarian instincts, and was therefore unaware of (or in denial about) the fundamentally heinous nature of white Americans, not to mention the fact that the U.S of A. is and was a Nation of Evil that was built upon slavery and is currently maintained and administered by relentless racism.

The basic progressive view is that it’s pointless to encourage nobler, gentler behavior by whites due to their incorrigibly racist attitudes, which are baked in the bone.

It is therefore best to posthumously (if regretfully) cancel Dr. King, as the beliefs espoused during his “I Have A Dream” speech (8.28.63) do not reflect the truth of things as BLM progressives now understand them.

Respect must be paid to the Lincoln Project for the speed in which they assembled this spot last weekend. The first reports of the Department of Home Security goon squads in Portland, allegedly activated by Trump-Barr over frustration with what they regarded as half-measures by local law enforcement, surfaced late on Friday, 7.17. The spot was up and running by Sunday, 7.19. HE counter-opinion: I still say it’s tedious and mystifying for street demonstrations to continue day after day in Portland (and more recently in Seattle). Do Portland demonstrators feel that their point hasn’t been made after 54 days of non-stop street action?

“Per HE commenters The Band and JBM, Drago, Save Farris, Hardcore Henry and Arpin Lusene are really making your website toxic. You need to ban half a dozen of the worst asshats to restore some fresh air to the site. Time for them to go. This is important. Hardcore recently said he ‘wasn’t getting any pussy.’ Your female readers are losing their lunch. DO SOMETHING.” — Producer pally.