soup-strainers

I don’t know about you, but I’ve wanted to be Robert Donat handcuffed to Madeleine Carroll in The 39 Steps for as long as I can remember. Meow! Except for the pencil-thin mustache: I’m glad those haven’t made much of a comeback outside of Baltimore. I went to BAM to catch this early best-of-Hitchcock film last night, and, considering that most movies I go to are only playing a day or two, this one’s around for a whole week, so you’ve got time to catch it.

It’s been a week of fierce mustaches, actually, with a double feature at the Film Forum, Goupi Mains Rouge and Casque d’Or, replete with walrus-whiskered gendarmes, hirsute poachers, prissy Parisian clerks, waxed Second Empire dragoons, sinister Apache dancers. The other day at my CSA, the woman checking me in had a little baby in her hands who started to coo when she saw me, and the mom said to her, “oh, you like men with facial hair, don’t you,” and I said. “that’s a wise child.” More wise men here.