The late-night/early-morning spot for Cubs fans asks how you would feel about the White Sox leaving Chicago
It’s another night here at BCB After Dark: the grooviest gathering for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. So glad you took the time to stop by. Your name is on the guest list. Let us check your coat, if you have one. We have a few tables available and the show will start shortly. Bring your own beverage.
BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
The Dodgers crushed the Mets 8-0 tonight to take a 2 games to 1 lead in the National League Championship Series. Kiké Hernandez, Shohei Ohtani and Max Muncy all homered for LA. This was a great game if you are a Dodgers fan. For a Mets fan or just a neutral looking for a good game, it was awful.
Last night, I asked you about the Cubs bringing back right-handed reliever Jorge López on a two-year deal. You seemed to think it would be worth it to bring back López, as 57 percent of you voted “Yay!”
Here’s the part where I talk about music and movies. You’re free to skip ahead to the baseball stuff at the end. You won’t hurt my feelings.
I guess it is that time of year to break out the Halloween jazz. I generally try to not play any video more than once, but there are certain Halloween (and Christmas) songs that I play every year and they’ve become kind of a tradition. So here’s the English vocal group The Puppini Sisters doing the Classics IV hit “Spooky.” This is from 2007.
As I’ve noted, I’ve been looking for horror films that won’t upset me too much. But I think I need to challenge myself more than Two on a Guillotine (1965). I figured that any horror film that starred Connie Stevens, Dean Jones and Cesar Romero and that was directed by William Conrad wouldn’t be too bad. I was right. However, despite the title, it is about as scary and predictable as a Halloween episode of a sixties television show. At least the leads have the kind of TV likeability that doesn’t make you too angry that you spent ninety minutes on this slop.
The film starts with Romero playing “Duke” Duquesne, a master illusionist who is planning his next great trick. His wife Melinda (Stevens) is his wife and cynical assistant. The two of them have a baby daughter Cassie, whom Duke dotes on and Melinda sees as a burden. Duke announces his next great trick, a Marie Antoinette guillotine trick that he will debut on his tour of France.
Twenty years later, Cassie (also played by Stevens) shows up for her father’s funeral. Her mother had disappeared shortly after the events of the first scene and Cassie was raised by an aunt. She hadn’t seen her father in all that time.
In the reading of Duke’s will, he leaves his considerable fortune to Cassie, provided that she spend seven nights in his creepy old mansion. (Because, of course.) And Duke also reiterates something that he had said while he was alive. That if it was possible to return from the dead, he would do so.
At the funeral, we meet Val Henderson (Jones), a reporter who wants to get a story about the great magician “Duke” Duquesne and his mysterious daughter. But because Cassie wants nothing to do with the press, Val pretends to be a real estate agent looking to sell her father’s house.
The house is full of magician tricks that are supposed to be scary but really aren’t. Skeletons descend from the ceiling, cardboard cutouts of Duke jump out of the closet. Val convinces Cassie that he should stay with her at this creepy mansion. He does this at first to gain her trust and get the story, but quickly a romance develops between the two.
Just from reading this summary, you can probably guess what happened to Melinda and Duke. The film likes to pretend this is some kind of mystery, but it’s the kind of mystery the folks over at Scooby Doo would say “Nah. Too obvious.”
The one saving feature of the film is the cast, which is a strong collection of B-list television celebrities for the sixties. While all of them had previously appeared in movies, they were best known at the time for their ubiquity on television. And television, especially in the sixties, placed a lot of emphasis on charm and likeability. I wouldn’t call Dean Jones a great actor, but he was perfect for those family-friendly Disney movies that he would make right after this (That Darn Cat! was the next movie he made after this one.) He had a certain charm that could disarm and audience. Stevens gets a little chance to act as she portrays Melinda very differently than Cassie, but Melinda isn’t on screen much and Cassie is that same charming and bubbly personality that she played on TV over the years. William Conrad is better known as an actor on radio and television, but he had been directing TV episodes for a decade before getting a chance to make a movie here. His time in TV is telling. He lets the actors do their thing and doesn’t get in the way.
Overally, Two on a Guillotine isn’t terrible, but the main reason to watch it is to see Connie Stevens and Dean Jones. (And Cesar Romero, I guess, but he’s gone for a huge chunk of the film.) And honestly, there are other much better vehicles to see those two in. Can That Darn Cat! be considered a horror film?
The trailer for Two on a Guillotine.
I did watch another Italian giallo film Torso (1973) that is considered to be a forerunner of the modern slasher flick. It certainly has the “final girl” trope in a character played by Suzy Kendall. I didn’t think it was as good as Deep Red (1975) that I reviewed earlier. It was about as predictable as Two on a Guillotine but a lot more gruesome. So I did challenge myself a bit there. I didn’t write about Torso here because I didn’t really have much to say about it. I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t have a lot to say about Two on a Guillotine.
Welcome back to those of you who skip the music and movies.
News broke this evening that Jerry Reinsdorf is exploring a sale of the White Sox. (The Athletic free reg. req.) Brittany Ghiroli also reports that Reinsdorf is in “active discussions” with a group led by former major league pitcher Dave Stewart.
If you’re a White Sox fan (and I assume you’re not), this news should fill you with hope and dread. Hope, because Reinsdorf has been a terrible owner over the years, especially over the past decade. The White Sox are coming off a modern record for losses in a season, of course.
But it should also fill you with dread because Stewart has been active for years with a group trying to bring a major league expansion franchise to Nashville. While I’m sure a group headed up by Stewart would announce that they’re leaving the team on the South Side, the White Sox have been demanding public money for a new stadium in Chicago. I’m sure Stewart would also want a new stadium. Would Stewart go back on his word? Let’s see what he’s had to say in the past:
Oops. Sorry. That’s the wrong Dave Stewart.
Reinsdorf has, in the past, used the threat of moving the White Sox out of Chicago to get public money to build a new stadium. The team said that they would move to what is now Tropicana Field (or maybe was as of this past week) in St. Petersburg if they didn’t get public money to build what is now Guaranteed Rate Field. And there have been rumors just this past year that Reinsdorf was exploring a move to Nashville amidst talks over a new South Side stadium.
So this could all be a elaborate ruse to put leverage on Illinois lawmakers to approve public subsidies for a new stadium for the Sox. After all, Reinsdorf has said that he would never sell the team, although he has told his kids to sell the White Sox and keep the Bulls after he dies.
But Reinsdorf is 88 years old. And if his heirs are just going to sell the team, it would make a lot more sense to just sell the team now while he’s still alive, rather than going through all the rigamarole that putting an entire baseball team into probate would involve.
So let’s assume there is a real possibility that the White Sox move to Nashville. How would you feel about that? It would certainly be good news for the Cubs. No, current White Sox fans would not shift their allegiance to the Cubs. They’d rather cut off their right arms. They’d probably either stop watching baseball, continue to cheer on the Pale Hose in Nashville or just become Brewers fans to spite the Cubs.
But as a new generation of baseball fans grow up in the Chicagoland area, they would naturally be attracted to the Cubs, no matter who their parents cheered for. And advertisers wanting to reach area consumers who watch baseball would have no choice but to buy time on Cubs games, or signage around Wrigley Field.
Still, losing a second team would be a blow to the city of Chicago. It would deprive the Cubs of a natural rival. You may have a friend or a loved one who is a White Sox fan, and as much as you despite the team, you love them and don’t want to see them hurt. Next season will be the White Sox’s 125th season in Chicago. It seems like a tradition worth keeping.
It also would mean two fewer local Cubs games to attend, assuming the schedule stays the same. So that might be a selfish reason to keep the White Sox around.
The White Sox have a lease at Guaranteed Rate Field through the 2029 season. So it seems like 2030 would be the earliest that they would move. But that’s a lot closer than you might think.
So if the White Sox leave the Chicagoland area, how would you feel about it? I’m not giving you a “meh” option. It strikes me as virtue signaling that you’re too cool as a Cubs fan to care one way or the other about the White Sox. So pick a side.
Thank you for coming by this week. We’ve enjoyed having you. A big thank you goes out to everyone who commented or voted. Please get home safely. Don’t forget anything you might have checked. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again next week for more BCB After Dark.