#postal inspector

[haunted-hideaway]

Guys... is being a postal inspector dangerous?

Why do they look like ICE? I am so confused right now.

[thehawkseyecn]

Former Postal Employee Arrested in Bastrop County $1.6 Million Check Fraud Scheme

Former Postal Employee Arrested in Bastrop County $1.6 Million Check Fraud Scheme

[musicandoldmovies]

Bela Lugosi, Patricia Ellis and William Hall in Postal Inspector

[musicandoldmovies]

Michael Loring and Patricia Ellis in Postal Inspector

[lamajaoscura]

Louis DeJoy: Changes made by Postmaster General before 2020 election harmed US Postal Service, judge rules | CNN Politics

Changes made by Postmaster General DeJoy before 2020 election harmed US Postal Service, judge rules | CNN Politics

A federal judge in Washington, DC, ruled Thursday that changes Postmaster General Louis DeJoy made to the US Postal Service before the 2020

[lamajaoscura]

Two D.C. men charged with impersonating feds, several Secret Service agents placed on leave

Authorities said the two men, who made their first court appearance Thursday, have pretended to be Homeland Security employees since February 2020.

[jeanne-crains]

Patricia Ellis in Postal Inspector (1936)

[lookingforbela]

Postal Inspector (1936), Shadow of Chinatown (1936), S.O.S. Coast Guard (1937), The Phantom Creeps (1939)

I swear, I mean to be writing these more often. (I am so tired.) Also, even though I’ve already watched Son of Frankenstein, The Gorilla, and Ninotchka, pushing them to the next post because I’ve got Things to Say.

Anyway! The 1930s are winding down. Three serials in a row, yikes. Even so, I’m still really, honestly, genuinely enjoying myself. More and more I’m feeling like this was the right decision for me. A good way to spend my time? Maybe not. The best thing I could be doing right now? Definitely not. Fun as hell? Absolutely.

We start this post with an oddity. Postal Inspector, a strangely charming, baffling film. I definitely didn’t expect to be so fond of it--a...musical? comedy/romance/mystery/I don’t know what. It was a jumble of genres, a real Frankenstein’s monster of a film, but...not as bad as it sounds? And, also, feat. Bela as a sleazy Mexican (?) nightclub owner who gets up to some supervillain shit. God damn, I love and hate his typecasting in equal measures.

Hey! So! Shadow of Chinatown! Was definitely a thing.

And SOS Coast Guard...shit, dude. Watching just one serial, no matter how good, just takes it out of me. Watching one after another--especially, well, these… Anyway, I don’t know if it was particularly good or particularly bad. All I know is that I could feel myself forgetting it even as I watched it. Ask me for a summary, go ahead--I could not, for the life of me, tell you what this serial was about. And trust me, I know I sat through the whole thing. Trust me.

And The Phantom Creeps also wormed its way into my heart. A note--I watched the MST3K version of the first three episodes. It’s not cheating. (I also watched the film version as opposed to the serial version of Shadow of Chinatown. That’s probably cheating. I also sat through both The Black Camel and Mysterious Mr Wong, so I don’t particularly care.) And it felt a little...strange? Like, a shift in perspective. Lemme try to explain.

I’ve been watching all of these films alone, or mostly alone--there’s a big difference between sitting on the couch next to someone and watching a film, and streaming it online with the barriers of keyboard and screen between you. And watching them alone, setting out on this endeavor alone, has made it all feel strangely...intimate. Alone in my room, in near-darkness, with just the soft haze of my laptop screen to keep me company. It makes you get swept up in things, get carried away, take things a little more seriously. Enter MST3K, and enter loud, joking company, enter jokes with not just an undercurrent but a riptide of sarcasm and insincerity. It’s fun, and it’s good--but suddenly I felt very self-conscious of what I’m doing.

Guys. These aren’t great movies. Some of them are (and most of those have Boris Karloff in them). For the most part, though, these are crummy movies with hackneyed plots, bad acting, and general B-movie blandness, and the only reason they still survive today (and the only reason I’m watching them) is because of the presence of Bela Lugosi.

You know what, though? I’m okay with that. I’m okay with enjoying (or not enjoying) these crummy movies. I’m okay with the fact that Bela is the best thing in most of them by miles and miles. I’m okay with the fact that these films are long since past the point of obscurity, that they’re now little more than faded memories imprinted on celluloid, that most people have never heard of them, don’t care if they have, and make fun of them if they care enough to watch.

Because, look--this isn’t about all that. It’s about Bela, and it’s about me, and it’s about exploring these memories--other peoples’ memories--in whatever quiet, stolen moments I can get. It’s about film projected on a screen 80-some years ago, about a theater full of people, living and loving and laughing and real--and it’s about today, about pixels on a screen and me, alone, curled up in bed.

Anyway, there’s a point to this, but I’ve long since lost it.

Onto the final act of the 1930s.