Certainly, movie star tribute sites are a dime a dozen on the wild and wonderful worldwide web, but I love them anyway for their inspired amateurism, dedication, and plain old obsessiveness. The Meeker Museum is a tribute site of sorts, looking on the surface like a digital salute to Ralph Meeker (star of Kiss Me Deadly , my all time favorite noir, and the most singularly unique film to come out of Hollywood in the '50s). Nothing truly odd about that; it has pictures, a brief bio, a filmography, synopses of important films -- everything you would expect (including the crawling marquee text). Dig a little deeper and you will find pages devoted to stars (or demi-stars?) you've either never heard of or at least haven't thought of in years. Diane Varsi, anyone? Old Sinbad Kerwin Mathews? As Jack Stalnaker, the site's proprietor, puts it:"Some were extraordinarily gifted and some are still working, still displaying their abundant gifts for generally unappreciative audiences. However, we don't preoccupy ourselves too heavily with questionable concepts like 'talent.' Maybe some of these people just looked good in the photographs, which is all that really matters anyway."
It's old school camp, the likes we haven't seen since (maybe) the days of glam, and a sort of sensibility that had its apotheosis in the mid-60s Factory days in New York. There's a lot of cool stuff here, including a then and now pictorial between scenes of Peyton Place and modern day Camden, Maine (not much has changed). A personal aside: my great-grandfather appeared in one of the last shots of Peyton Place (he's the old guy giving the Yankee staredown to Hope Lange as she descends the courthouse steps). My dad's family was from nearby Rockland (home of the Maine Lobster Festival). My dad used to tell me, "Hope Lange swam naked in our drinking water!" A point of obvious civic pride.
No comments:
Post a Comment