Stats: July 2025

[scifirenegade]

(Internet has been spotty, but it's doing better now)

Films Watched

Flow (2024)

Persona (1966)

Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

The Saphead (1920)

Autumn Sonata (1978)

The Perfect Match (2025)

Sex in Chains (1928)

Rosinha e os Outros Bichos do Mato (2023)

Books finished (for leisure)

Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity by Robert Beachy

Continental Strangers: German Exile Cinema, 1933-1951 by Gerd Gemünden

Books being read (for leisure)

Terrarium by João Barreiros and Luís Filipe Silva

Anno Dracula by Kim Newman

(Help, two very complicated books)

Arts

1 scrapped piece (FP1)

1 finished "piece" (many Torstens)

Some of dumb doodles

Words Written

That One Oberaertz Thing: 188 words (total 5200 words)

Barbara's Great Wine Search: 0 words, ugh

Pre-canon AadA fic: 289 words (total 581 words)

Miscellaneous short fics: fourteen fics (total 1456 words)

Total: 1933 words

Comments

[senmut]

I tried Anno Dracula and could not. Don't remember why..

[scifirenegade]

I'm on chapter three and there's already too many characters and lots of references (Lulu from Pandora's Box is a vampire! Lestrade is a vampire! Some other characters I don't know are vampires!)

[liadt]

Hurrah for things being done!

Good luck with Kim Newman! He does have an OC who is an actor who had to leave Germany because of the Nazis and then plays all the Nazis even though they hate them. You'll have to read a few more books to get to him. You're doing better than me with books; I only managed one in July!

[scifirenegade]

First, Captain Hardt is a vampire (the "did you know Veidt could have played Dracula in an alternate universe" reference), now there's an even more blatant reference! (Is he in Dracula Cha Cha Cha?)

Ah, but I was reading Gay Berlin for a year! (Then again, that's one long boy.)

[liadt]

Aw, poor Hardt! I've only read two Newman books and neither of them have vampires! He does a lot of commentaries for the old b/w films I watch and he keeps going on about how the emigres must have felt getting stuck in roles playing the people they hate.

Berlin = massively gay then? XD

[scifirenegade]

And apparently he works for Count Orlok o_o

Which books?

he keeps going on about how the emigres must have felt getting stuck in roles playing the people they hate.

👀

Didn't Veidt say at some point during the making of Casablanca he was in it for the money? We do know he gave away chunk of his fortune to Britain (even helping the RAF get a plane).

1920s Berlin is hella gay. It seemed like a fun place to visit.

[liadt]

Yeah, can't see him working for a Count Orlok vampire!

"Night Mayor" which I read a hundred years ago and can't remember very much about. Peter Lorre makes an appearance. The other is "Something More than Night" the Boris Karloff teams up with Raymond Chandler one. Not enough Boris in it.

Probably! More cash for the British kids Xmas presents!

I'll book my ticket with the TARDIS XD

[scifirenegade]

In all fairness, I skimmed that bit, so I may have judged things too soon. But it's still so weird.

Not enough Karloff is a crime >:(

Probably! More cash for the British kids Xmas presents!

Yeeees!

While trying to find the origin of the "I'm in it for the money, Paul" tidbit, I got this

Conrad Veidt's [FBI] files manage to have their cake and eat it too. Veidt is accused of having pro-Axis leanings and of being associated with fervent anti-Fascists.
The day that Veidt finished work on Casablanca, July 20, 1942, he had plans for the evening. According to FBI file No. 100-3514, Veidt was to be a speaker at the Free Peoples' Dinner held at the Beverly Hills Hotel under the auspices of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee and the Council on African Affairs. Guests included the mayor of Los Angeles, the vice-consul of the USSR, Charles Laughton, Major William Wyler, and an FBI agent who detailed the pro-Russian sentiments of the guest of honor, Paul Robeson. Although Veidt's name was on the program, he never showed up. He may have gone out to celebrate the end of his role in Casablanca or simply gone home to bed. But the fact that he was expected to appear is on file forever.

- Round Up the Usual Suspects: the Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II

Those files are a mess. (Also I bet those also contain the blackmail thingie he was involved in. Apparently some woman wanted to marry him or else. Unclear what the "else" was.) Bet the "pro-Axis" shit is just because he was German. Bet he was also a very tired, tired man. He dodged a bullet, that's for sure.

Let's all go to 1920s Berlin!

[liadt]

Total crime! I think Newman found Boris too mysterious to get a handle on so left him out.

Yeah, it wouldn't have been a good idea to be hanging around Commies when it could have come back to bite him in the future.

All Germans are Nazis of course, even when they've been tortured by the Nazis (sleep deprivation counts as torture).

I wish you luck in finding juicy gossip in the FBI files!

[scifirenegade]

A disgrace!

it wouldn't have been a good idea to be hanging around Commies when it could have come back to bite him in the future.

It wasn't just that. If you expressed anti-fascist ideals before America thought it was cool, you were a commie in the government's eyes. Which is something a lot of German/Austrian exiles did...

Sleep deprivation is certainly torture and I'm impressed that man didn't break. How long was he incarcerated? Weeks?

[liadt]

It just gets better (worse):/

It must have been a week at least, they were quite frantic about him being detained so it had to be a "decent" amount of time.