Today is election day! Completely unrelated, it's also time for annual health care insurance enrollment. News reports warned year-over-year premium increases of up to 29% were coming, and mine will indeed be 28.3%. I'm sure that in no way influences who I'm likely to vote for.*

*Actually, I already voted several weeks ago, long before I knew the exact prices in the Georgia Access health insurance marketplace, which Georgia intentionally hid until this past Sunday. Why did they do that? I'm sure it wasn't to prevent us from being influenced who to vote for.**

**I recognize that most people aren't buying subsidized health insurance from the marketplace. Only about 8% of Georgia citizens do, in fact. That translates to about 900,000 people, which isn't the biggest number but is still three times the margin of victory in the last gubernatorial election.***

***Plenty of marketplace users must not vote. There are somewhat more than 7 million voters in Georgia, and only about 60% participated in 2022, which helps explain how the guy who refused to do anything about fixing our state's broken health insurance system kept his job. Of course, back then we were paying about half as much for premiums. Maybe there's a reason the current guy isn't running again.****

****That reason is term limits. Recent polls say 70% of Georgians would vote for him again if they could. Sigh. I guess they all get insurance through their jobs. I wonder if Home Depot is hiring?

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I don't have any rhythm (I even have to get Google to help me spell the word), so maybe that's why I like strong percussion that can tell me what I'm missing.

Maps

(I can't hold a tune, either. But that's a song for a different day.)

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114/2684. The Yellow Canary (1963)
Pat Boone plays an asshole performer who mistreats everyone in his life, including his wife, and is then surprised when someone close to him kidnaps the baby he never really cared for. I'm sure this has nothing to do with Boone's real life.

115/2685. Jeopardy (1953)
This is a slow boil full of people behaving stupidly until it gets to its point: Barbara Stanwyck agreeing to sleep with a murderer to save her husband. Stanwyck is great, of course (as is Ralph Meeker as the murderer). Wish I could say the same about the script.

116/2686. Garage Sale Mysteries: Murder Takes the Stage (2026)
Mom said she hadn't watched one of these in a while, and after about fifteen minutes, she remembered why. So far as these Hallmark cozy mysteries go, it's fine, just keep expectations low.

117/2687. Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces (2000)
Though the title of this documentary on Chaney makes it seem that the focus would be on his legendary stage makeup skills (and they are covered), the takeaway is that the makeup wouldn't have meant much without his acting skills. I agree; Chaney is usually worth a watch.

More to come.

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I just rewatched Myrna Loy in The Barbarian (1933). On my first watch back in 2017, I wrote ‘"Stockholm Syndrome" wouldn't be named for another forty years, but it could have been called "Barbarian Syndrome." Myrna Loy is beautiful, but this is not her best work.’ I stand by that opinion.

This time, to see if others saw it the same way I did, I sought out online reviews of the film. Most of them are not complementary. One sample featured review at IMDB sums it up "Loy should not have been in this movie, regardless of the prevailing attitudes of the times...how things have changed." That echoes my sentiments, but it also made me curious. Have times really changed in the past hundred years?

Fortunately, IMDB has an external link to the Internet Archive where curious minds can find contemporary reviews of the movie in the May 2, 1933 issue of Variety.

In her "Going Places" column on page 11, Ceclila Ager writes

When Races Clash: Myrna Loy's metamorphosis from impulsive exotic to restrained Nordic encounters a stone wall in "The Barbarian," a set-back which, it is hoped, is only temporary. In order to make her ultimate surrender to the Egyptian respectable, she explains now and then, although nobody's asked her, that her mother was an Egyptian herself.

Now comes a battle between her Caucasian and Egyptian heredities, which makes Miss Loy proud and haughty one moment, swooning with elemental emotions the next. Her blood calls to Egypt and the particular sheik assigned her, but the Anglo-Saxon environment in which she was brought up won't let her be. She's in a pretty pickle, all the tougher for her to illustrate because it's such a phony pickle.

On page 17, male reviewer Joe Bigelow expands

It's all well and good as Novarro remains a fresh but agreeable young dragoman (Egyptian guide) who seeks to win the tourist lady from her white man fiance. That's because Novarro plays it so well, and Miss Loy helps him so much. Then the boy reveals his true station—he's a prince—and a lot of desert pash stuff, including beatings, draggings, and kidnappings, arrives. That the girl finally succumbs is a slap at the character rather than a vindication for the script. Novarro has always had a flare for light comedy. But Metro has generally succeeded in keeping it a secret.

And anonymous's "The Woman's Angle" column adds

Ramon Navarro changes, to suit the rambling, indecisive yarn, from charming rogue to routine caveman sheik. Not the type for the latter phase, so the ladies will remain quite calm.

Spread throughout the issue are theater revenue estimates from across the country indicating that in addition to critical scorn, The Barbarian also generally underperformed at the box office.

Disappointing, notices bad, and Novarro fans not liking it.

Novarro is another who is not up to previous draws....

Novarro's "The Barbarian" was coldly received and except for loyal Novarro following won't attract much attention....

Stage goes Egyptian this week in sympathy with the feature, Ramon Novarro's "The Barbarian" (Metro). Both are not so good, and from Friday night's business it looked like the populace guessed it ahead of time.

Feature picture was weak, and not exactly what the natives were looking for after the swell build-up for Novarro by the house.

Barbarian $7,800 (New Low)

All together that sounds like both critics and audiences of 1933 rejected a film in which the rape victim abruptly decides she loves her rapist. So although some things are certainly culturally different in 2026 (for example, the most recent episode of CBS Sunday Morning showcased a band called Mannequin Pussy), rather than criticize the mores of Great Depression-era Americans, we should probably be condemning the misogynistic kinks of producers at Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Bad producers. Bad!

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Henry is starting to get suspicious that I secretly film him with my phone camera.

Please don't show him this.

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