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steenyswank.bsky.social
yesandMissHavisham
@steenyswank.bsky.social
1.9K followers 3.3K following 8K posts
First known tree hug. Know zero about film but have collected for ~38 yrs. Pre-Code love. Dead--but I'm not dead yet--language familiarity. Demi-horticulturalist. Car-free commuting since 1977. Will write Alt Text for food.
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steenyswank.bsky.social
'Tis the Season to (re)watch this. Available on tubi in the US plus several subscription services. Put down the phone, or switch to whatever app, and get to it. Pinnacle of Hallmark shows when Robert Halmi Sr had a say.
A poster for the unmatched Hallmark Channel epic, The 10th Kingdom. As the show was released in 2000, the poster rather sadly depicts the twin World Trade Center towers in NYC. They are reflected in the nearby water as castle spires, hinting that all is perhaps not as it seems in lower Manhattan. Engaging for kids, meaty enough for grown-ups; a perfect encapsulation of the Brothers Grimm.
November 19, 2025 at 2:59 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Dude would like a word but can't.
Actor Boris Karloff's visage, decked out in moldering, high chiaroscuro newsprint for his role as Imhotep in the one-and-only Universal film The Mummy '32.
November 16, 2025 at 6:00 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
The Doll, 1962.
No ghosts, no gore. Just a tragically isolated guy who brings home a mannequin as a companion. Some of the finer cobwebs of the human mind on display here.
On tubi in the US.
Exqisite B&W still from the 1962 Swedish film, The Doll, starring Per Oscarsson as Mr Lundgren. Mr L is loneliness personified and he carts home a lady Skyltdockan (Swedish for mannequin) for someone to talk to. In this shot, he holds her long, waxy-smooth hand, mostly in shadow, up before is brightly lit face. One of Mr L's eyes glints with wonder between her fingers, incredulous that she's real, she's with him and that he's at last found a companion.
November 1, 2025 at 5:14 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Just another sunny day according to The WaPo.
A façade on the East Wing of the White House on a sunny day in Washington DC getting ripped to bits by a giant demolition excavator machine. A couple dudes in the foreground discuss how much fun they'll have dancing in the quarter billion dollar ballroom planned for the site, although neither of them know a foxtrot from a waltz.
October 20, 2025 at 7:41 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Still from the 1941 Alexander Korda production: That Hamilton Woman. Depicted in splendid-garish turn of the 18th-19thC attire, are Vivien Leigh as Emma Hamilton and Laurence Olivier as Horatio Nelson. While each were already married, Hamilton and Nelson had a torrid affair: perfect sauce for a sumptuous film. Streaming on HBO and Disney/hulu in the US. It also looks widespread on youtube. If drama of the melo sort is your thing, then Vivling and Larry certainly know how to deliver. And who doesn't love a sailor in his dress uniform?
September 29, 2025 at 3:13 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
H/T @dean.bsky.social
This guy's cruelty tended toward the theatrical.
1926 photo of Antonin Artaud by Man Ray. Glancing over his shoulder at the viewer, Artaud's expression say Piss Off. Some profound cliff-top hair and cheekbone action going on here.
August 28, 2025 at 10:52 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Photo by Thomas Tütken.
Hoo-boy, do we ever need more photos of gino-dino parts side-by-side with human bits to show the sheer horror of these mofos. This pic of an average, adult, human hand grasping a single, fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex tooth, including both the exposed tooth and its root, makes me want to grab my 15" adjustable wrench to do battle. Photo credit: Thomas Tütken. Tooth found in Alberta, Canada.
August 28, 2025 at 3:38 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Re-watching. The only word is prescient.
Formerly on Netflix, now on Prime in the US.
Series poster for the Norwegian thriller Occupied '15. A crowd of people have their backs to us. They're looking upward, but not at the heroic equestrian statue situated in front of the golden façade of a goverment building with its pretty Ionic columns. They're probably not even bothered by the gathering storm clouds. I think they're concentrating on the fact that the usual Norwegian flag is now a Russian flag. Tense, brilliant, and every year more plausible political thriller.
August 18, 2025 at 6:32 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
It really is a film from 1979.
But yeah.
Bold, expressionist-style, red, white and black movie poster for the film Le Pull-Over Rouge '79.
August 14, 2025 at 10:06 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Homer Simpson wears a classic nazi scientist lab coat get-up and gives a sig heil salute. Then he slowly disappears into tall green hedge, only to reappear in a NASA polo and a red usa dumb baseball cap.
July 27, 2025 at 8:14 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
If it's this one, then yes.
Red, yellow and blue movie poster for The Black Room '35, starring Boris Karloff and Marian Marsh. The tag line is: Kiss Him...and Die!
June 27, 2025 at 2:17 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Ruth Chatterton getting an eyeful of Anton Walbrook getting an eyeful of me. From the film The Rat '37.
June 25, 2025 at 10:33 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
By college, I was trying group therapy with Elaine.
The Caress (Of The Sphinx) 1896 by Belgian Symbolist painter Fernand Khnopff. Teenage Oedipus wants some answers but the cryptic sphinx just wants to mark him as territory.
June 23, 2025 at 3:27 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Poster in my room growing up.
The Lady Of Shalott 1888 by John William Waterhouse. Dumped by Lance, a ticked-off Elaine floats out in her mini viking longship onto a fetid pond. Her henna-red hair is long and tousled. She's thrown on a plain cream bathrobe but the fall temps are nippy and the landscape gloomy. Good thing she brought along some cozy tapestry-blankets and candles. Time to ponder revenge.
June 23, 2025 at 2:15 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Caspar David Friedrich gets all the attention. Anyway, I'm waiting for the boat.
Painting by Swiss Symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin from 1878. It's a straight on portrait of Medusa, one of the three Gorgons, who had snakes in the place of hair and whose face was so hideous yada yada. Medusa here is slack-mouthed and vapidly staring, and looks like she's stumped by some dumb question, and would much prefer a nap. The coloration overall is muted and washed out and Medusa looks like she needs a blood transfusion, especially if her head has been separated from her neck at this point. Can't tell if she's wearing white.
June 6, 2025 at 1:15 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Poster (in red, black and mostly white) for the 1961 Frank Capra-directed film Pocketful Of Miracles. Based on a Damon Runyon story, this is a remake of Capra's own Lady For A Day '33. It's a fairy-tale story about a rich, bookie-gambler guy and his gang who help a down-and-out woman gussy herself up to meet her long lost, and now well-to-do, daughter. Capra liked this remake better but I would hard, hard disagree. The OG approaches perfection in Pre-Code, deep Great Depression movie making. In the USA, Pocket is streaming on tubi and Lady is on Plex.
May 29, 2025 at 10:58 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
My former life. Photo by Kitty Malton in The Guardian.
A single wooden shelf across a wall filled with empty bottles of some very drinkable French wine. By the labels, mostly named vineyard or chateau red Burgundy and Bordeaux. The wall behind is papered in a William Morris design, of birds and flowers and filigree, mostly sage and olive greens, punctuated with cream, russet and dusty blue.
April 29, 2025 at 6:43 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Such innocence.
Black and white print advertisement, featuring a photo of the Liberty Bell and the Taco Bell Logo, by Taco Bell on April 1 1996. It ran in five newspapers, including the Philly Enquirer. The Times-New-Roman-looking text reads: In an effort to help the national debt, Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of the country's most historic treasures. It will now be called "The Taco Liberty Bell" and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing. While some may find this controversial, we hope our move will prompt other corporations to take similar action to do their part to reduce the country's debt.
April 1, 2025 at 9:26 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
PIc of the front cover of the 2021 non-fiction book "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity," by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The cover is the golden color of a butternut squash interior with the letters in a rich tomato red. There are some single-phrase blurb-quotes in creamy white.
March 4, 2025 at 4:44 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
This guy would like some soup.
Painting by Abbey Edwin Austin. The Quest For The Holy Grail. Several very tall golden-haloed, white-robed angels surround a kneeling Sir Galahad. Could be Percival but let's stick with Galahad for now. He's clad in a red robe with what looks like a very long train, easy to trip over. His face is turned up to the lead angel who holds the Holy Grail above their head. Oddly,on the ground between Galahad and that lead angel, there's not only a cast aside crown and lance or spear, but another, larger and glowing golden grail, from which gold vines emerge and twine in front of the attendant angels. The whole scene is rather hallucinatory and nonsensical, as you'd imagine, what with the subject matter. You know, a bunch of unemployed, half-crazed nit-wits jousting round for super mythical bowls and all.
February 9, 2025 at 7:26 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Asking my Hummel figurine collection if this is an okay get-up for NYE.
I give up; it's really my girl Kay Francis as my other girl Spot White in WB's classic Mandalay '34. Is this a #filmsky thing? Much more in Alt Text.
A B&W promo pic from Warner Bros/First National 1934 film Mandalay. This is star Kay Francis, as character Spot White, née Tanya Borodoff, later Marjorie Lang, glamorously posed and beaming, with hands on hips, on a staircase in, well, kind of a dump. This dump, ahem, Nick's Rangoon Nightclub, is a typical, half-baked WB set, where the decorators took a beat to go get high and the DOP just started filming anyway to keep on schedule. Kay is flaunting the winner of the Liquid-Metal-Dress contest of '34 (thanks, Orry-Kelly), in a barely-there, clingy style. "Like a wet seal," says a bit character in the film. Her widow's peak is out to get you and that raven hair sits shinily plastered to her skull. Yes, eyebrows for days. Under her upturned chin she sports a ginormous and floofy-white feather boa which clearly is dangerously flammable. Luckily some ice cold champers sits in a bucket stand ready to quench Spot's thirst and douse any flames--though not those of her heart (lookin' at you, Lyle Talbot). True to 30s film form, Ms White is definitely for sale but is nobody's fool. Boasting a Pre-Code trope, she does indeed get away with murder for the most part.
December 28, 2024 at 6:17 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
If coerced into imagining Mary, Theda Bara she is.
B&W photo of actress Theda Bara, who appropriated the term "vamp" and successfully held on to it. Here Bara is decked out as the famous Mary who wound up being forced to have her baby in a barn. A blinding klieg light forms a huge halo behind her head. Clothed in a rumpled robe, most of her figure is in the relative shadow of this light. The shading his high contrast. She's holding tight, in profile, a rather large-domed toddler/infant. Her expression seems fatigued and resigned but still placid.
December 25, 2024 at 5:48 PM
steenyswank.bsky.social
Many Happy Returns to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus💋
Actor Charles Laughton, in a B&W photo, as the Emperor Nero in the 1932 film The Sign Of The Cross. Nero sits rather hunched over on a cold stone throne and impishly fiddles a pint-sized, Hollywood-esque lyre, while something apparently glows or burns just off-screen. All subsequent depictions of loose-marbled head honchos such as Nero are based exclusively on granddaddy Charles Laughton.
December 18, 2024 at 11:16 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
That's about right.
Actor Ken Hutchison as Heathcliff in the 1978 BBC production of Wuthering Heights. Looking quite supple and surly, and glaring at the viewer, Heathcliff sports the required unruly mane of tangled ringlets. He's wearing a navy over coat with some peek-a-boo puffy sleeves and a creamy yellow waistcoat. His legs are cut off by the photo, bummer. The grass is green before a nice country manor, likely Thrushcross Grange. Yes, the costuming and makeup depts did a solid because he looks like someone you'd cross the street to avoid unless you really like bad boys.
December 8, 2024 at 7:48 AM
steenyswank.bsky.social
This looks like the right film. But most shots from it on imdb are dismal vhs rips. Only a few studio stills, so I proclaim it's hard to find!
A rather faded cream, grey-blue and brick-red film poster from WB's 1946 dramedy One More Tomorrow. Nice cast with a talented blend of A and B listers. Who is which does depend on whom you ask: Ann Sheridan, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Alexis Smith and the comedy genius Jane Wyman.
November 20, 2024 at 11:01 PM