Daft Steampunk by Steven Dwyer
Photos by Curious Josh
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Daft Steampunk by Steven Dwyer
Photos by Curious Josh

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The Blues Magoos
Donât forget your past...while you look to the future.
The newly re-mastered two-disc set featuring 25 rare & unreleased recordings and 1968 vintage radio interview
Packaged in a hardbound booklet with rare photos and sleeve notes featuring commentary from Valentino, Elliott, Waronker, and lyricist Bob Durand
After releasing the baroque-pop classic Triangle in 1967, The Beau Brummels shifted gears radically the following year when singer Sal Valentino, guitarist Ron Elliott and producer Lenny Waronker traveled to Nashville to explore the crossroads of country and rock. Working with some of Music City's hottest session players, the West Coast group recorded BRADLEY'S BARN, an album whose fusion of styles earned critical acclaim, but was too far ahead of the curve for the average rock fan to enjoy commercial success. Rhino Handmade rediscovers this unheralded gem of early country-rock and gives it its due as a two-disc set that comes in a hardbound booklet with rare photos and lengthy sleeve notes by Alec Palao that feature commentary from Valentino, Elliott, Waronker, and lyricist Bob Durand. The collection includes the original Warner Bros. album remastered by Dan Hersch and Andrew Sandoval, 25 rare and unreleased tracks, and a 1968 radio interview with Valentino and Elliott. Unlike the stripped down approach The Byrds employed on Sweetheart of the Rodeo (which was recorded around the same time), Waronker summoned a multilayered "guitar orchestra" for BRADLEY'S BARN, using it to explore Elliott's complex melodies, and create clean but intricate arrangements to showcase Valentino's velveteen voice. The band heard on most of BRADLEY'S BARN features Elliott, Valentino, keyboardist David Briggs, and bassist Norbert Putnam, plus guitarist Jerry Reed and drummer Kenny Buttrey, both of whom played with Bob Dylan during his Nashville years. The first disc contains the newly remastered original album supplemented by several bonus tracks, including three previously unreleased songs: the alternate version of "I Love You Mama"; the 1967 demo for "Just A Little Bit Of Lovin'" recorded in Hollywood; and the stereo mix of the demo for "Black Crow." Even more unissued recordings are revealed on the second disc, which features: alternate takes of "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" and "Lift Me"; an alternate mix of "Love Can Fall A Long Way Down"; an alternate demo of "Another"; the demo for "Confessions"; and a cover of the classic country weeper "Long Black Veil." The disc also contains several of Valentino's post-Brummels solo recordings including several singles from the era making their debut on CD as well as three more unreleased songs: an alternate version of "An Added Attraction (Come And See Me)" and the Johnny Cash covers "A Little At A Time" and "Home Of The Blues." Along with the trove of unreleased material, BRADLEY'S BARN also contains seven outtakes from the album's sessions that were originally compiled by Rhino Handmade on Magic Hollow, the now sold out retrospective spanning The Beau Brummels' entire career released in 2005. Valentino and Elliott get the last word, literally, on BRADLEY'S BARN, which concludes with an interview of the two that was originally broadcast on San Francisco's KMPX-FM in October 1968. The conversation, which occurred around the time of the album's release, has never been released.
The Beau Brummels -- Sal Valentino, Ron Meagher, John Peterson and Ron Elliott, from left -- got back together at Cafe du Nord to open Baypop 2000. Chronicle Photo by Michael Macor.Â
Decades in obscurity, Beau Brummels front man surfaces to remind us what the fuss was all about
Photo: Shelley Eades
Sal Valentino, right, lead vocalist for the British Invasion era SF rock group Beau Brummels, has finally released his first solo album after 45 years in the business along with the help of his longtime
Sal Valentino was washed up. "No one called in a long time," he says. "No one knew where I was."
There were even reports of his death. "My mother laughs every time she hears that," the 63-year-old rock singer says. "I didn't call her, either."
As lead vocalist of the Beau Brummels, San Francisco's answer to the British Invasion, he sang the 1965 hit "Laugh Laugh." That record and the subsequent "Just a Little" were his high water marks on the charts, but the Brummels went on to record cult-classic albums such as "Triangle" and "Bradley's Barn," and Valentino's haunting vocals made him a famous talent in record industry circles. He sang the scratch vocals on the original recording of Randy Newman's self-titled premiere album in 1968, although Newman overdubbed his own vocals later.
More than just San Francisco's first rock star, Valentino could transform a song with the sound of his voice. That skill is evident on his new CD, the first solo album of his 45-year career. Valentino and his longtime collaborator John Blakeleystruggled for nine years to release "Dreamin' Man," a masterpiece shot through with the sort of artistic confidence and depth of character that takes a lifetime to accumulate.
"He's like a Van Morrison," says Blakeley, a producer and arranger who played with Morrison in the '70s. Valentino's "got a personal musical style I've never heard anybody even come close to."
Blakeley lives in the San Francisco basement record studio where the album was recorded. When health problems led to a 1997 heart transplant, he rented out the upstairs and moved downstairs when he couldn't work. The studio control room window now looks into his living room, which is decorated in acoustic tile. The former vocal isolation booth now serves as his bedroom.
"We talked about it before the transplant," says Blakeley, who first worked with Valentino in 1969. Blakeley had been contributing to an album by singer-songwriter Ron Nagle on which Valentino sang some backup vocals. Blakeley and Valentino then found themselves playing side by side in a hippie troupe being filmed for a Warner Bros. movie called "The Medicine Ball Caravan." Out of that dubious enterprise emerged a rock group called Stoneground with which Valentino and Blakeley made three albums before splitting to work local clubs in a band called Valentino. Blakeley quit that group to play guitar with Morrison.
Valentino moved back and forth between Los Angeles and San Francisco, finally resettling in town in the mid-'80s when his father grew ill with cancer. Valentino took over his father's job selling Racing Forms at Bay Meadows before moving south and taking a job as a parimutuel clerk for more than seven years. "I hated that job," he says. "You couldn't trust anybody on either side of the window or working alongside of you."
Born Salvatore Spampinato, Valentino grew up a prince of North Beach. His father, also raised in the neighborhood, played sandlot ball with the DiMaggio boys. Yellowed photos still hang in Gino and Carlo's on Green Street of the fighters Sal's father handled in the '50s. He gave Sal the Valentino name, in fact, from one of his favorite fighters.
As a young man he had matinee idol looks, and Valentino has managed to age gracefully. He carries himself with the stately elegance of an Italian count and still speaks with a soft, musical voice. He never had the warrior's zeal necessary to thrive in the music business and admits he lacked ambition. His big score after the Brummels was a $5,000 finder's fee for bringing Ricki Lee Jones to Warner Bros. Records.
When he met Catherine Kopinski almost 12 years ago, he was splitting his time between his mother's place in the Central Valley, staying in Reno with some musicians who formed a Beau Brummels tribute band and living in a tiny apartment in Sacramento above a restaurant. That's where he met the eighth-grade teacher from Detroit with two grown sons. They were married within months. Her medical insurance finally allowed him to replace his missing front teeth.
"I love her," he mutters happily to no one in particular, as he answers a cell phone call from his wife.
The material for "Dreamin' Man" goes back years. Valentino tried out some of the songs in Blakeley's studio almost 20 years ago. Valentino once offered the ebullient "Love Song" to Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers. "Phil loved it," Valentino says. "But I never could write a lyric for the chorus." On "Dreamin' Man," he simply hums where the chorus might go.
The record was pieced together in between hospital stays as Blakeley went through a nightmare recuperation from his transplant operation. He developed lymphoma so advanced his neck was swollen like a bullfrog. The drugs that cleaned out that cancer also wiped out his immune system. Three days after returning home, he turned around and went back to the hospital, staying for 58 days. The slightest infection could ravage him. He spent months suffering from a biblical infestation of warts that left him unable to play guitar. His dressing table is still filled with pill bottles.
Blakeley and Valentino, both climbing back from their respective abysses, would meet at Blakeley's Duncan Street Studios, work on the songs for a few days and then go back to their struggles, Blakeley battling for his health and Valentino, who hadn't been married since he was in his 20s, adjusting to married life in Sacramento. "I wasn't doing much," he says, "trying to get the lay of the land up there, not doing much good, getting used to being married again."
Valentino first put his toe back in the music scene on a 2003 record with 25-year-old Sacramento-based songwriter Jackie Greene, "Positively 12th and K," a live Bob Dylan tribute recorded at a Sacramento club. "I was part of the gigs before I even knew what a mentor was," Valentino says. "I had to ask my wife."
Greene, a hot young talent set to release his major label debut next week, first met Valentino when they were playing open-mike nights at Sacramento's Fox and the Goose, Sal's first tentative step back into performing in many years. Greene even worked producing a record with Valentino that fell to the wayside when his own career caught fire. Valentino and Blakeley recorded Greene's "Valley of Woe," and Valentino also performs the young songwriter's "Every Now and Then."
After not having recorded in more than a quarter-century, Valentino finds himself releasing two new CDs almost at the same time. On the heels of the brilliant "Dreamin' Man" comes an album recorded in Texas, "Come Out Tonight" on Fat Pete Records, on which Valentino not only cut more songs by Greene but also re-recorded two of the songs from "Dreamin' Man," "Catherine I Do" and "Looking for You," a track that has a practically mythic guitar sound on "Dreamin' Man."
"I walked in one day, plugged it in and there it was," says Blakeley, who played all the guitar parts on the album. "It was one of those days -- now we do all the solos."
The Brummels thing, of course, never goes away for Valentino. Of all the American garage bands to follow in the British footsteps, the Brummels maintain a loyal, dedicated following that counts among its numbers rock stars such as Tom Petty, Nils Lofgren and Bruce Springsteen. A limited edition four-CD box of rare and previously unissued Brummels recordings from the group's Warner Bros. years, "Magic Hollow," sold out on release last year.
The group's chart career only lasted 18 months. But Dylan visited the band backstage at Hollywood's Whisky A Go-Go and Otis Redding wanted to record a song with the group. The Brummels appeared in Hollywood teen drive-in fare ("Village of the Giants") and were portrayed in cartoon version on "The Flintstones." Chris Hillman of the group's Los Angeles counterparts, the Byrds, has says he studied the Brummels.
After recording a series of singles and two albums for the San Francisco label Autumn Records, where the group's records were produced by a young Sly Stewart -- later to become Sly Stone -- the Brummels moved to Warner Bros. Records, where the band continued to make records, although none of them sold. The group was a favorite of Warner Bros. president Lenny Waronker, who also commissioned solo projects for Brummels songwriter Ron Elliott and vocalist Valentino, although Valentino's Warner Bros. solo recordings never progressed far beyond a single 45 release, co-produced by Van Dyke Parks with a young, unknown Ry Cooder on guitar.
The group reunited in 1974 for a lackluster album, although the early rehearsals and out-of-town tryout at Sacramento's Shire Road Pub were promising. A live tape of the Shire Road Pub dates was released in 2000. Songwriter Elliott's "Singing Cowboy" from the reunion remains one of the great unheard songs of the era.
Blakeley has posted information about "Dreamin' Man" on the Beau Brummels' Web site and fills orders on his own (duncanst.com ). The pair recently tested the waters with a live performance at a coffeehouse in Folsom and Valentino will be making an appearance on behalf of the Fat Pete release next month at Austin's South by Southwest music festival.
All this hardly amounts to a major comeback. But from where Valentino sits, he is all the way back. He has been missing in action for 25 years, but "Dreamin' Man" makes everything clear. He is a master of his craft, a gifted songwriter and one of the great, unique vocal stylists of rock. If Morrison made an album as good, he would be blooming on magazine covers and radio station playlists.
To Valentino, the music he and Blakeley made says everything and delivers him from the fate awaiting him before he met his wife.
"I thought I was going to be living on tips," he says.
NEW Single âDevil In The Detailsâ by The Cynz
This band has been rocking the NYC area and abroad for six years now! Named one of the top ten bands to see in NYC in 2016 by the Aquarian and Overnight Charlie Crespo.
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Upcoming Shows Friday, September 23 BRIGHTON BAR Â âą Â Long Branch, NJ Â âą Â 7:00pm Get the Details Saturday, September 24 THE SIDEWALK CAFE Â âą Â New York, NY Â âą Â 7:00pm Get the Details
#NoirSummer Born To Kill 1947
A sociopath meets social climber what ensues in murder, lust, and mayhem! Born to Kill is a 1947 American film noir starring Lawrence Tierney and directed by Robert Wise. It was the first film noir to be directed by Wise, who later directed The Set-Up (1949), The Captive City (1952), and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). The film also features Claire Trevor, Walter Slezak, and Elisha Cook Jr. The film was released in the U.K. as Lady of Deceit and in Australia as Deadlier Than the Male
Drifter Sam Wilde (Lawrence Tierney) murders a Reno, Nev., boardinghouse owner and her boyfriend in a fit of jealousy. Tenant Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) discovers the bodies, but instead of reporting the crime, she leaves for San Francisco as planned to return to her wealthy fiancé. On the same train, Sam flirts with Helen, then tracks her to her half-sister's house, where he continues to pursue her. Although Helen suspects Sam is a murderer, she inexplicably protects him from an investigator.
Born to Kill 1947 Full Movie Click To WATCH in HD NOW :
#NoirSummer Next up on my never seen list âWoman on the Runâ 10:15pm TCM
Woman on the Run is a 1950 black-and-white film noir co-written and directed by Norman Foster and featuring Ann Sheridan, Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith and Ross Elliott. The film was based on the April 1948 short story Man on the Run by Sylvia Tate and filmed on location in San Francisco, California.
After witnessing a murder, Frank Johnson goes on the run to avoid being killed himself. His wife, Eleanor (Ann Sheridan), seems almost apathetic about finding him when questioned by Investigator Harris (Robert Keith), due to a marriage on the rocks. However, after learning that Frank has a grave heart condition, Eleanor recruits reporter Dan Leggett (Dennis O'Keefe) to help track down Frank. Discovering new love for her husband along the way, Eleanor must get to Frank before the killer does
Ann Sheridan as Eleanor Johnson Dennis O'Keefe as Daniel "Dannyboy" Leggett Robert Keith as Inspector Martin Ferris Ross Elliott as Frank Johnson Frank Jenks as Detective Homer Shaw John Qualen as Mr. Maibus Steven Geray as Dr. Arthur Hohler J. Farrell MacDonald as Sea Captain Thomas P. Dillon as Joe "Bug" Gordon William J. O'Brien as Waiter at William's Grotto Joan Shawlee as Blonde Jane Liddell as Messenger Girl Victor Sen Yung as Sammy Chung Mike Donovan as Irish cop

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#NoirSummer Next up on my never seen list âNora Prentissâ 8pm TCM
Nora Prentiss is a 1947 black-and-white drama film noir directed by Vincent Sherman, and starring Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, Bruce Bennett and Robert Alda. Sherman also directed leading lady Sheridan in another 1947 film noir, The Unfaithful. The cinematography is by cinematographer James Wong Howe, and the music was composed by Franz Waxman.
Ann Sheridan as Nora Prentiss Kent Smith as Dr. Richard Talbot Bruce Bennett as Dr. Joel Merriam Robert Alda as Phil Dinardo, Cafe Owner Rosemary DeCamp as Lucy Talbot John Ridgely as Walter Bailey, Heart Patient Robert Arthur as Gregory Talbot Wanda Hendrix as Bonita âBunnyâ Talbot
#NoirSummer Next up on my never seen list âJourney into Fearâ 4:15pm TCM
Journey into Fear is a 1943 American spy film based on the Eric Ambler novel of the same name. The film broadly follows the plot of the book, but the protagonist was changed to an American engineer.
In addition to acting in and producing the film, Orson Welles was to direct, but had to ostensibly leave that aspect to Norman Foster due to other commitments. However, the film looks nothing like any of Foster's other films, but is instead full of directorial touches found in films directed by Welles. Many of Welles' Mercury Theatre associates were cast, including Joseph Cotten, who played the lead role and also co-wrote the screenplay.
Bogie as Roy 'Mad Dog' Earleâ High Sierra 1941 #NoirSummer
Gives me fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes got to start taking chances
We are all Bogie now. Bogieâs voice becomes a star.
Voice of Humphrey Bogart as San Quentin escapee Vincent Parry
They'll catch the truck, question the driver, search the barrels.Inside five minutes, they'll be starting back this way, slow...combing the road, looking sharp.Take maybe 10 minutes.See that? Gives me 15 minutes.I've got to start taking chances.What I wouldn't give for some ice water or a smoke.I've got to get out of here.Hope I buried my shirt deep enough.It's a dead giveaway.Here comes something.I've got to take that chance now.
Dark Passage - 1947 Directed by Delmer Daves
Humphrey Bogart as Vincent Parry, Lauren Bacall as Irene Jansen, Bruce Bennett as Bob, Agnes Moorehead as Madge Rapf, character actor Tom D'Andrea as the cabbie, Houseley Stevenson as Dr. Walter Coley.
Vincent Parry is wrongfully accused of killing his wife and escapes prison and is lucky enough to have the fetching Bacall who just happens to be on the scene to help in his escape. We find out she's a court room groupie who was at the trial. He goes under the knife of a creepy back alley plastic surgeon Dr. Walter Coley played by Houseley Stevenson who is conveniently recommended by the most helpful cabbie in San Francisco. The dialog between them is a highlight. While trying to prove his innocence there are twists and turns, cops turn up at every inopportune moment and Madge becomes his nemesis and if she canât have him no one will.  While a tad campy and with a disjointed plot points at times, the camera work from POV of Vincent plus Bogie and Becall and all the fantastic close-ups we get of Bacall from Bogies POV make this one the great Films Noir. On TCM June 5th 11:45pm EST as part of Summer of Darkness
The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954)

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Frankenstein [1931]
Bette Davis and Herbert Marshall in The Letter, 1940.
TCM #NoirSummer Day 1 June 5
These are some Iâve rarely/never seen or forgotten, As for the others on the schedule, in my twilight years I can watch movies over and over and find something new due to in progress napping and cranium wanderings. Â Full Schedule at bottom of post.Â
6:00 AM M (1931)
M is a 1931 German drama-thriller film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre. It was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou and was the director's first sound-film.Â
Peter Lorre as Hans Beckert - Otto Wernicke as Inspector Karl Lohmann- Gustaf GrĂŒndgens as Der SchrĂ€nker ("The Safecracker")Â
8:00 AM LA BETE HUMAINE (1938)
La BĂȘte Humaine (English: The Human Beast and Judas Was a Woman) is a 1938 French film directed by Jean Renoir, with cinematography by Curt Courant. The picture features Jean Gabin, and is loosely-based on the novel of the same-name by Ămile Zola
The drama is partially set "on a train that may be thought of as one of the main characters in the filmÂ
Jean Gabin as Jacques Lantier Simone Simon as Séverine Roubaud Fernand Ledoux as Roubaud (as Ledoux Sociétaire de la Comédie Française) Blanchette Brunoy as Flore Gérard Landry as Le fils Dauvergne
11:30 AM STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1940)
Stranger on the Third Floor is a 1940 film noir, starring Peter Lorre and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film was directed by Boris Ingster and co-written by Nathaniel West.
Stranger on the Third Floor is often cited as the first "true" film noir of the classic period (1940â1959)
Peter Lorre as The Stranger John McGuire as Mike Ward Margaret Tallichet as Jane Charles Waldron as District Attorney Elisha Cook Jr. as Joe Briggs Charles Halton as Albert Meng Ethel Griffies as Mrs. Kane, Michael's landlady Cliff Clark as Martin Oscar O'Shea as The Judge Alec Craig as Briggs' Defense Attorney
8:00 PM NORA PRENTISS (1947)
Nora Prentiss is a 1947 black-and-white drama film noir directed by Vincent Sherman, and starring Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, Bruce Bennett and Robert Alda. Sherman also directed leading lady Sheridan in another 1947 film noir, The Unfaithful. The cinematography is by cinematographer James Wong Howe, and the music was composed by Franz Waxman.
Ann Sheridan as Nora Prentiss Kent Smith as Dr. Richard Talbot Bruce Bennett as Dr. Joel Merriam Robert Alda as Phil Dinardo, Cafe Owner Rosemary DeCamp as Lucy Talbot John Ridgely as Walter Bailey, Heart Patient Robert Arthur as Gregory Talbot Wanda Hendrix as Bonita 'Bunny' Talbot
10:15 PM WOMAN ON THE RUN (1950)
Woman on the Run is a 1950 black-and-white film noir co-written and directed by Norman Foster and featuring Ann Sheridan, Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith and Ross Elliott.[1] The film was based on the April 1948 short story Man on the Run by Sylvia Tate and filmed on location in San Francisco, California.
Ann Sheridan as Eleanor Johnson Dennis O'Keefe as Daniel "Dannyboy" Leggett Robert Keith as Inspector Martin Ferris Ross Elliott as Frank Johnson Frank Jenks as Detective Homer Shaw John Qualen as Mr. Maibus Steven Geray as Dr. Arthur Hohler
1:45 AM BORN TO KILL (1947)
Born to Kill is a 1947 American film noir starring Lawrence Tierney and directed by Robert Wise. It was the first film noir to be directed by Wise
Claire Trevor as Helen Brent Lawrence Tierney as Sam Wilde Walter Slezak as Albert Arnett Phillip Terry as Fred Grover Audrey Long as Georgia Staples Elisha Cook, Jr. as Marty Waterman Isabel Jewell as Laury Palmer Esther Howard as Mrs. Kraft Kathryn Card as Grace
TCM Into Darkness SCHEDULE All times EASTERN
FRIDAY, JUNE 5 6:00 AM M (1931) 8:00 AM LA BETE HUMAINE (1938) 9:45 AM THE LETTER (1940) 11:30 AM STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1940) 12:45 PM HIGH SIERRA (1941) 2:30 PM THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) 4:15 PM JOURNEY INTO FEAR (1942) 5:45 PM JOHNNY EAGER (1942) 8:00 PM NORA PRENTISS (1947) 10:15 PM WOMAN ON THE RUN (1950) 11:45 PM DARK PASSAGE (1947) 1:45 AM BORN TO KILL (1947) 3:30 AM L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997)
Guitar playing psychotic killer Johhny Cash in âFive Minutes to Liveâ
Johnny Cash is a guitar playing psychotic killer who spouts Tarantino-like tough talk with ease and bounces and prances around his hostage like an unhinged lunatic. He always carries his guitar with him and belts out the song "Five Minutes to live" a couple of times while terrorizing his hostage.
Watch for the guitar great Merle Travis in the role of Max.
Directed by Bill Karn. With Johnny Cash, Donald Woods, Cay Forester, Pamela Mason, Ron Howard
FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE opens with small time crook Fred Dorella (Vic Tayback) telling his story, revealed as one long flashback, to an offscreen observer. It begins with a shootout on the New Jersey waterfront docks between two cops and two criminals â Johnny Cabot (Cash) and his partner â fleeing the scene of a robbery. Johnny is the only survivor in the melee and Cashâs first few minutes are promising as he grabs a machine-gun and goes in for the kill, the camera closing in on twitching, mad dog face.
Johnny accompanied by his East Coast girlfriend Doris (Midge Ware) holes up in some small town in California and bides his time while the police hunt for him. Then Max (Merle Travis), a sleazy businessman who runs the local bowling alley/bar hooks him up with two-bit hood Fred Dorella. Together the two men agree to a daring bank robbery timed to last exactly five minutes and involves one gunman entering the bank to collect $75,000 while the other one holds the bank executiveâs wife hostage at her home. If Ken Wilson (Donald Woods), the bank officer, doesnât follow directions to a tee, his wife will be killed. Â Â
The main reason to watch FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE though is Cash. With his slicked-back black hair and dark, intense features, heâs a compelling screen presence even when his line readings are awkward or self-conscious; itâs as if heâs winking at the audience saying âIâm just messing around up here for the hell of it.â Like Elvis Presley, Cash might have developed into an impressive actor with the right director or manager behind him but he probably didnât give a damn because music was always his career priority. He gets to sing the catchy title song here, played over the bucolic credits of a typical sunny day in small town America (kids playing baseball, walking along train tracks, etc.) and then later, in one of the more amusingly sicko moments, he sings the same song again to his terrified female captive, emphasizing the lyrics âFive Minutes to Live.â Throughout the narrative Cashâs character is portrayed as an unpredictable sociopath who has a particular disgust for the status quo and middle-class America. As Johnny sits in a parked car outside the Wilson home, waiting for the right moment to make his fateful house call, he looks around at the picture perfect neighborhood and sneers, âI never saw so much of nothinâ in my life.â When he spots Nancy in her curlers and housecoat come outside to retrieve the morning paper and milk, he takes an immediate dislike, saying to Dorella, âShe is a mess.â But Johnny is the bigger mess and we wait and pray for those scenes where he goes off his nut. First, he forces Nancy to put on a fluffy negligee he found while ransacking her closet and then decides she needs a beauty makeover â âIâm gonna fix you up.â In between the casual sadism, he plunks his guitar, prompting Nancy to ask, âAre you an entertainer,â to which comes the famous response, âNo, Mrs. Wilson, Iâm a killer.â He then pulls out a silencer and blasts a nearby flower pot, the bullet grazing Nancyâs face. He delivers another great line when he corners Nancy in her bedroom and she starts to make up the bed â âLeave it alone. I like a messy bedâ  - which leads to an attempted rape scene. In yet another scene, he jumps around like an amphetamine hophead (maybe it wasnât acting â he was already a speed freak at this point in his career), playing with his victim and tauting her with âI ainât  never had so much fun in a long time.
At the time of filming on FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE, Cash told reporters, âItâs gonna be a good âun. My leadinâ lady â I forget her name â and I, have some good scenes.â When the film proved to be a low impact bomb, he fired his manager and later admitted, âI shouldnât have done it. My leadinâ lady was the producerâs wife.â But weâre glad he made it because itâs a rare opportunity to see the young Johnny Cash in a dramatic vehicle, regardless of the quality.
Hereâs how the whole thing came together. Some time in 1959 Cashâs manager Bob Neal made a deal with Flower Film Productions to feature his client in a movie. Cash had recently moved to California and, typical of his open nature, was willing to try something new. Although the production was clearly a home grown exploitation film by some aspiring independent filmmakers, it did offer Cash a juicy role as a guitar-playing psychopath. Although some sources say the movie was listed as a production in progress as early as 1957, filming didnât begin until 1959. FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE eventually had its premiere in late 1960 and didnât go into general release until December of 1961. It quickly vanished from sight but then resurfaced in 1966 when American-International released it under the title DOOR TO DOOR MANIAC with new footage added by producer Robert L. Lippert of a rape scene (according to AFI notes) and a running time of 74 minutes.
 SOURCES:
 Johnny Cash: He Walked the Line, 1923-2003 by Garth Campbell
 Johnny Cash: The Biography by Michael Streissguth
 Movie Morlocks: JOHNNY CASH IS THE DOOR TO DOOR MANIAC  by Jeff Stafford
About five years ago, Miss Shevaughn & I made a big decision. We threw out or donated all of our non-essential belongings, quit our jobs, moved out of our cozy apartment in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago and built a bed in the back of our car. We lived in that car for almost an entire...

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Moto Madness on the beach of Wildwood
Bands, Musicians! The 5th Annual Couch By Couchwest March 15-21 2015
Musicians: Please upload your unique to CXCW 2015 video (think of this video as your performance for the Couch by Couchwest audience). Â Read moreÂ