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Arise Rialto his evil, Nipponese bidding. Mind you,
we’re quite confident that by episode
25 or so Batman and Robin will have
by Phillip Adams
given him a taste of his own hair dryer.
It’s Friday night and the jingle
quivers the cloth inside the Gothic
fretwork on the wireless, just below the
small celluloid dial and the three
Bakelite knobs. Blatantly plagiarised
from The Man Who Broke the Bank at
Monte Carlo, it’s sung in barbershop
harmony.
Oh we can’t show all the pictures,
So we only show the best,
The others get the rest, Hoyts stuccoed foyer, watched over by
You can put it to the test; the imperious gent in his red usher’s
So call your girl friend right away, jacket, we queue for tickets and lollies,
When she hears the news she’ll shout for Donald Duck, for a couple of Sam
hooray; Katzman serials, for Johnny
Weissmuller in Tarzan and the Leopard
You’ll be happier in your Hoyts
Woman.
suburban thea-ate-ter.
Predictably, Kit Carson is okay. We
This reminds me - as if I need
submit a collective cry of derision and
reminding - that I simply have to get to
relief as producer Katzman re-runs the
the matinee tomorrow to see what’s
burning wagon sequence and we see
going to happen to Kit Carson who, in
Kit jump clear and grab a twig on the
last week’s exciting episode, was seen cliff edge. As the light from the bio-box
hurtling off a precipice to certain doom
flexes above our heads we’re in such a
in a blazing covered wagon.
state of heightened excitement that
So I start ingratiating myself with you’d swear Polly Waffles were
Nan by wiping the chipped willow-
hallucinogenic drugs.
pattern dishes. And in bed I’m careful
We’re convulsed by the cartoon in
not to fall asleep listening to my crystal
which a cat is force-fed a stick of
set because that makes her angry. She’s
dynamite, thus turning him into pate-
convinced I’ll strangle in the
de-fur-gras. Next he’s cooked in a
headphones.
waffle iron and pushed through a
Come Saturday morning I’m aglow
grating that carves him into slices. We
with the virtue of Florence Nightingale
delight in pussy’s mutilations and, as
and the innocence of Fauntleroy. with Carson, we accept his instant
Having emptied Grandpa’s chamber-
resurrections. And in the Western we
pot, I teeter through the sagging fly-
cheer the death of countless Apaches
wire door with the trayful of greenish
while issuing agonized moans as the
water from beneath the ice chest. I chop
horses topple on the trip wires.
the kindling and hang some torn
We’re a fascist, racist bunch with a
newspaper on the nail in our dunny
total contempt for foreigners. Any For we are living in an era of
with the Pisan tilt. I scrape the soot out swarthy-looking moustachioed elemental propositions, of goodies and
of the bottom of the wood stove and
character in a black hat is colt-fodder baddies, where the Hopalongs wear
give its cast-iron flanks a coat of silver
for the Aryan Hopalong, just as the eye- white hats and evil fights a losing
frost. And now I'm waiting anxiously
rolling Hottentots thrusting spears and battle. What would today’s kids make
for my just reward - a deener for the
chanting “Oobaloobalo” at Jane, Boy of these virtuous parables? They have
pitchers.
and Cheetah are fair game to the ape grown up in a world where all forms of
I’m teased until the last moment,
man who beats his pectorals and authority have successfully subverted
but finally Grandpa coughs up and it’s
yodels “Aaah-oooh-aah”. themselves, where the presidents are
over the side fence into Johnny
As these are the early post-war thieves and the cops are crooks.
Sinclair’s. We run for the No. 48, our years, our special hatred is reserved for We are fortunate to live in a time
streetcar of desire that takes us past the
the Japanese villain who is hiding out without moral equivocation or
shops in High Street, beyond the Harp
in the bowels of Coney Island’s ghost television, when our toys are limited to
of Erin Hotel and the woodmason’s
train, where he plucks unsuspecting Dinky cars, Hornby trains, Meccano
(mallee roots a speciality) and up the
Americans and stacks them into things sets and cap pistols. So the Rialto is
long hill by Kew Cemetery, with its
like hair dryers at the local beauticians. everything to us, the centre of our
eccelesiastic chess pieces. Finally it
From whence they emerge as stiff- social life and our fantasies. And it is
stops by the Rialto Cinema, opposite limbed, null-eyed zombies, ready to do my sad duty to report that nothing is
the Holy Trinity Church. There, in
16 2007 CINEMARECORD