djpass

Even as a child I recognized a political element in the King Leonardo stories. Odie, ostensibly a loyal toady, was the power behind the throne in the constant conflict to maintain the status quo on one hand against the installation of a puppet of the scheming lower class Biggie. Neither of the lion brothers were really more than figureheads. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but then Jay Ward and Bill Scott were pretty subversive guys! I was fortunate enough to get on their mailing list (by claiming to be editor of a humour magazine) and the stuff they sent out free was even better than their cartoons. What stays with me after forty years is the stories were endlessly entertaining and the characters well defined. I can still hear the voices.

A remake of "The Ladykillers" with Tom Hanks--sounded promising, but ultimately this movie was rather boring. Hanks character, based closely on Alec Guiness's performance in the original, got pretty annoying by the end.

Marlon Wayans plays the young black man, a kind of contemporary Stepin Fetchit stereotype. There just isn't much here: how many times are we expected to laugh at a man swallowing a cigarette? Subsequently I watched the original movie and found it a lot more entertaining Are these the same Coen brothers???

Jean Rhys wrote this novel about her relationship with the then prominent writer Ford Madox Ford. While a young woman's husband is in prison, she is taken in by a writer and his wife, becoming the man's mistress. It was not a happy affair, but at least Rhys got her revenge with this story.