Where to Find Me on Social Media

I have been on various social media sites for over ten years now. In fact, some of the social media sites on which I had accounts closed down long ago. If you enjoy reading A Shroud of Thoughts, then, you might also enjoy following me on my various social media accounts. They are as follows:

mercurie80 on Twitter

Twitter is the social media site on which I am most active. Every single day I post classic film and television birthdays, as well as popular music history (primarily rock 'n' roll, although I do include some rhythm and blues and classic American pop as well). I am part of the TCM Party crowd, so occasionally I will be live tweeting to various movies on Turner Classic Movies! Of course, I also tweet links to posts on this blog and those of my friends as well.


Terence Towles Canote on Google+

Contrary to what many have believed over the years, Google+ has never been a ghost town. It still isn't, even after the change from the far superior Classic Google+ to the far inferior New Google+. I am not as active on Google+ since the change from Classic to New, but it is still the social media site on which I am most active besides Twitter. I post classic film and television birthdays, as well as a lot of music videos. And, like Twitter, I share links to posts on this blog there


mercurie80 on Instagram

Instagram is the social networking service on which I am probably most active besides Twitter and Google+. I post a few classic film, television, and rock 'n' roll birthdays there, as well as assorted classic film and television photos. That having been said, I have to warn you that there are a lot of pictures of my cats!


Terence Towles Canote, Author on Facebook

Yes, I have a Facebook page, although I don't post to it much. If you are a long time reader of A Shroud of Thoughts, then you know that I really don't like Facebook very much!


Terence Towles Canote on GoodReads

I am also on GoodReads. How often I post there depends on how many books I have read. Sadly, that has not been much lately!

Terence Towles Canote's Author Page on Amazon

Okay, this is not a social media site, but my author's page is a good way to keep up to date on my blog. Also, if you want to buy all of my books, you can do that too! 

Godspeed Margot Kidder

For a generation of Superman fans, Margot Kidder was Lois Lane. She played the role in four movies opposite Christopher Reeve, for many the definitive Superman. And while that may be the role for which she is forever best known, over the years she played many remarkable roles. She was Quackser Fortune's love interest in Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx (1970).  She played conjoined twins in Brian De Palma's cult classic Sisters (1973). She was the prostitute Margue in Terrence Malick's The Gravy Train (1974). Over the years Miss Kidder played a number of roles. She was arguably one of the great character actresses of our time.

Sadly, Margot Kidder died yesterday, May 13 2018, at the age of 69. No cause has yet been released.

Margot Kidder was born Margaret Ruth Kidder in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories on October 17 1948. Her father was an explosives expert whose job required the family to move often. Miss Kidder attended the boarding school Havergal College in Toronto. She later attended the the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

She made her television debut in an episode of Wojeck in 1968. She made her film debut in the short "The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar" in 1969. Her first feature film was Gaily, Gaily (1969). She appeared in Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx the following year. She guest starred on the TV shows Festival, Corwin, The Mod Squad, and Adventures in Rainbow County. She had a recurring role on the Canadian TV series McQueen.

The Seventies would be a very busy time for Margot Kidder. She had a regular role on the short lived TV show Nichols. In addition to Sisters, Superman (1978), and Superman II (1980), she appeared in the films A Quiet Day in Belfast (1974), The Gravy Train, Black Christmas (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), 92 in the Shade (1972), Shoot the Sun Down (1978), The Amityville Horror (1979), and Willie & Phil (1980).  She guest starred on the TV shows The Manipulators, Banacek, The Wide World of Mystery, Harry O, Barnaby Jones, Baretta, and Switch.

In the Eighties Miss Kidder appeared in the films Some Kind of Hero (1982), Miss Right (1982), Trenchcoat (1983), Superman III (1983), Little Treasure (1985), Keeping Track (1986), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), Mob Story (1989), and White Room (1990).  On television she had a regular role on the short lived show Shell Game. She appeared in several TV movies, including Bus Stop, Pygmalion, The Glitter Dome, and Body of Evidence. She guest starred on the show The Hitchhiker.

In the Nineties Miss Kidder was a regular voice on the animated TV shows Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Phantom 2040. She had a regular role on the show Boston Common. She guest starred on such TV shows as Tales from the Crypt; Street Legal; Murder, She Wrote; The Adventures of the Black Stallion; Burke's Law; The Hunger; La Femme Nikita; Made in Canada; and The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. She appeared in the films Aaron Sent Me (1992), La Florida (1993), Maverick (1994), Windrunner (1994),  The Pornographer (1994), Beanstalk (1994), Henry & Verlin (1996), The Planet of Junior Brown (1997), Shadow Zone: My Teacher Ate My Homework (1997), Silent Cradle (1997), The Hi-Line (1999), The Clown at Midnight (1999), The Annihilation of Fish (1999), Nightmare Man (1999), and Tribulation (2000).

In the Naughts Margot Kidder appeared on such TV shows as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Earth: Final Conflict, Smallville, Robson Arms, The L Word, and Brothers & Sisters. She appeared in such films as Crime and Punishment (2002), The Last Sign (2005), The Box Collector (2008), A Single Woman (2008), Universal Signs (2008), and Halloween II (2009).

In the Teens Miss Kidder guest starred on the TV show R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children's or Pre-School Children's Series. She appeared in such films as Servitude (2011), 3 Of a Kind (2012), Real Gangsters (2013), Pride of Lions (2014), The Red Maple Leaf (2016), and The Neighbourhood (2017).

Margot Kidder was not necessarily my favourite Lois Lane (that would be Noel Neill), but I have to say that she was incredible in the role. Her Lois was feisty, tough, quick witted, and intelligent, but at the same time kind hearted and caring. Of the actresses who played Lois, it was Miss Kidder who really brought home the point that Lois actually does care for Clark Kent. Of course, as identified as Miss Kidder was with the role of Lois Lane, she played many other remarkable roles in her career beyond those I mentioned above. While the movie Black Christmas is of debatable quality, Margot Kidder delivered a great performance as sorority sister Barb. She also gave a remarkable performance as the free-spirited Rita in Heartaches. She was delightful as Ruth, the love interest of the protagonist of the title the short-lived show Nichols Margot Kidder consistently gave good performances throughout her career, whether she was in a major motion picture, a B-movie, an independent film, or an episode of a TV show. She was an enormously talented actress with a good deal of versatility.

5 Movies You DON'T Want to Watch for Mother's Day

Many movie buffs enjoy watching movies with their mothers. As a result, watching films is an activity many engage on Mother's Day. For every A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945), I Remember Mama (1948), or Sounder (1972), however, there are those films that just aren't suited to viewing with Mom on what is supposed to be her day. Here are five movies you probably don't want to watch with your mother on Mother's Day.

Mildred Pierce (1945): Don't get me wrong. Mildred Pierce (played by Joan Crawford) is not a bad mother. About the worst thing that can be said about her is that she perhaps spoils her children. In fact, she may have spoiled Veda (played by Anne Blyth) too much. Veda is every parent's worst nightmare: a daughter who resents and hates her mother and appreciates nothing she does for her. Given the mother-daughter dynamic in the film, one might not want to watch this with Mom (at least not on Mother's Day).

Notorious (1946): Madame Sebastian (Leopoldine Konstantin) is not mentioned often on lists of bad mothers in movies, but there is every reason she should be. As if being a dedicated Nazi wasn't enough, she insists on dominating her son's life and resents his relationship with Alicia (played by Ingrid Bergman) even before the truth is revealed. Of course, once Madame Sebastian knows the truth about Alicia, she suggests poisoning her. One thing is certain. Madame Sebastian probably never won the Mother of the Year award!

Psycho (1960): From the movie Psycho we learn surprisingly little about Norma Bates, but it is perhaps enough that she raised Norman Bates (played by Anthony Perkins) to qualify as a bad mom. In fact, from Norman's behaviour it would appear their relationship was Oedipal in the exreme. Of course, while we learn very little about Norma Bates in Psycho, from the various sequels and prequels that have followed we learn that, in fact, she was a very bad mother.... Regardless of any explanations, those who have seen Psycho know all too well one reason it wouldn't be suitable for Mother's Day viewing...

The Manchurian Candidate (1962):  If it were up to me, Eleanor Iselin (played by Dame Angela Lansbury) would top the list of every "Worst Mothers on Film". "Domineering and "manipulative" don't even begin to describe Eleanor. "Power mad" doesn't even seem enough to describe her. In fact, what can one say about a woman who wilfully uses her own son for her own ends and those of her cause? Dame Angela Lansbury gives a bravura performance in the role, made all the more remarkable by the fact that she was only three years older than the man playing her son (Laurence Harvey).

Rosemary's Baby (1968): Like Mildred Pierce, this is a movie where the problem isn't so much the mother as it is the offspring. Unless you happen to literally be the spawn of Satan, I don't think one necessarily wants to watch Rosemary's Baby for Mother's Day....

"All I Have to Do is Dream" by The Everly Brothers

It was sixty years ago today, on May 12 1958, that "All I Have to Do is Dream" by The Everly Brothers hit number one on the Billboard Best Selling Pop Singles in Stores chart. It would be a week later that it would hit no. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 chart (the forerunner of today's Hot 100). Ultimately it would become the only song ever to top every one of Billboard's charts.

"All I Have to Do is Dream" was written by legendary songwriter Boudleaux Bryant, who had also written such songs as "Bye Bye, Love", "Wake Up, Little Susie", "Love Hurts", and many others. According to Billboard, it only took Mr. Bryant 15 minutes to write the song. The Everly Brothers recorded "All I Have to Dream" live in only two takes on March 6 1958.

Without further ado, here is "All I Have to Do is Dream" by The Everly Brothers.

Dick Williams R.I.P.

Dick Williams, best known as one of the singing group the Williams Brothers, died on May 5 2018 at the age of 91. The Williams Brothers consisted of Bob, Don, Dick, and Andy Williams. Of course, Andy would go onto fame as a solo singer.

Dick Williams was born in Wall Lake, Iowa on June 7 1926. It was in late 1938 that he and his brothers formed the singing quartet known as the Williams Brothers. They performed on radio, first on WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, then on WLS in Chicago, and finally on WLW in Cincinnati. The brothers eventually moved to Los Angeles. They were under contract to MGM and appeared in the films Janie (1944), Kansas City Kitty (1944), Ladies Man (1947), and Something in the Wind (1947). They also sang as part of the studio choir for such movies as Anchors Aweigh(1945),Ziegfeld Follies(1945), The Harvey Girls;(1946), and Good News(1947).

During World War II Dick Williams served in the United States Merchant Marine. They appeared on Bing Crosby's hit single "Swinging on a Star". From 1947 to 1951 they had their own nighclub act with Kay Thompson. The group broke up in 1951, although they would reunite on some of Andy Williams's Christmas television specials. Dick Williams went onto sing with the Harry James's orchestra. He appeared on Broadway in 1957 in the production Copper and Brass. He later sang on hundreds of television commercials. He also served as a choral arranger for his brother Andy Williams, as well as for Steve Lawrence & Edye Gorme and Julie Andrews.

No More Klout

Chances are good that if you have heard of Klout, you thought it closed down long ago. Chances are also good that if you had a Klout account you either deleted it or simply stopped going there. This might come as a surprise to many of you, but Klout is still up and running, at least for now. It has been announced that Klout is going to close on May 25 2018.

For those of you who might never have heard of Klout, Klout is a website that measures the influence of users across several social media platforms. This is done primarily through the Klout score, a numerical value from 1 to 100. To arrive at the Klout score Klout relies upon one's activities across such social media sites as Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Instagram, and so on. For a time Klout offered free services or products, known as Perks, to its users. Essentially, companies would pay Klout to do so. There can be little doubt that this was the primary reason many people had Klout accounts.

Klout was founded in 2009 by Joe Fernandez. For a time at least, Klout was doing very well. By 2011 it had around 100 million users. Klout was regularly mentioned in the news. There were those who thought that one's Klout score could eventually be key to landing a job. That is not to say that Klout did not have more than its share of critics. As hard as it might be to believe given recent revelations about Facebook, there were privacy concerns about Klout. Science fiction author John Scalzi called it "socially evil." While many were not as severe in their criticism of Klout as Mr. Scalzi was, they at least expressed doubts that one's influence on social media could be reduced to a numerical score. Even many of Klout's users regarded it as not being a very accurate measure of one's influence on social media at all.

Over time the buzz about Klout would fade. Over time Klout would also change. It made changes to its algorithm, including one in August 2012 that caused an uproar among its users. In February 2014 Klout moved into the arena of recommending content for individuals to share on their various social media platforms. It was not very long afterwards that Klout was acquired by Lithium Technologies. for $100 million. It was in the autumn of 2015 that Klout stopped awarding Perks. I have to wonder if this was not the nail in the coffin for Klout. I suspect many users had already deserted Klout by that time. A good number of those who remained probably did so because of the Perks. With no more Perks, they had little reason to maintain their Klout accounts, or at least to check them regularly.

That having been said, Klout was probably in decline by the time they decided to do away with Perks. The very title of the article "The 4 Types of People Who Still Use Klout" from the The Daily Dot from April 2015 shows that Klout was not what it had once been. Indeed, a quote from the article shows just how far it had fallen in a scant four years, "Klout is still around, but you're forgiven if you've forgotten it.'

Curiously, it would appear that the fact that Klout's precipitous decline in popularity is not the reason Lithium Technologies is closing it down. It would appear that the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) due to go into effect later this month played a role. A spokesman from Lithium told TechCrunch, "...the upcoming deadline for GDPR implementation simply expedited our plans to sunset Klout." While there are those of us who never particularly worried about privacy, it would seem in the end concerns over privacy are what killed Klout in part.

For all the controversy that Klout caused, in the end it would seem that Klout was little more than a passing fad. In the end it would seem that it was no different than Hot or Not, Candy Crush, or Gangam Style. It may have caused more of a stir and it may have been popular for a little bit longer, but in the end Klout would appear to have been little more than a craze that came and went.

Godspeed Anne V. Coates

Anne V. Coates, the editor on such films as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Becket (1964), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and The Elephant Man (1980) died on May 8 2018 at the age of 92.

Anne V. Coates was born on December 12 1925 in Reigate, Surrey. As a little girl she loved horses and she thought that she might want to be a horse trainer when she grew up. Her goal in life changed when she saw Wuthering Heights (1939) and fell in love with the cinema. For a time she worked as a nurse at Sir Archibald McIndoe's plastic surgery hospital in East Grinstead. Afterwards she got a job with her uncle J. Arthur Rank's Religious Films division, which made short films to be sent out to churches. Miss Coates did projection, sound, and editing work on the shorts.

Anne V. Coates then got a job as an assistant film editor at Pinewood Studios. She did uncredited work in this capacity on such films as The End of the River (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), The Chiltern Hundreds (1949), and The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952). Her first credit as an editor was on The Pickwick Papers in 1952. In the Fifties she edited the films Grand National Night (1953), Forbidden Cargo (1954), To Paris with Love (1955), Lost (1956), The Truth About Women (1957), The Horse's Mouth (1958), and Tunes of Glory (1960).

In the Sixties Miss Coates edited the films Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Becket (1964), Young Cassidy (1965), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes (1965), Hotel Paridisio (1966), Great Catherine (1968), and The Adventurers (1970). She won the Oscar for Best Film Editing for Lawrence of Arabia and was nominated for the same award for Becket.

In the Seventies she edited the films Friends (1971), Follow Me! (1972), Bequest to the Nation (1973), Conflict (1973), 11 Harrowhouse (1974), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Man Friday (1975), Aces High (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), The Legacy (1978), and The Elephant Man (1980). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for The Elephant Man. Anne V. Coates also did editing for television in the Seventies, editing the TV movie A War of Children and the episode "Catholics" of ITV Saturday Night Theatre.

In the Eighties she edited the films The Pirates of Penzance (1983), Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), Lady Jane (1986), Raw Deal (1986), Master of the Universe (1987), Farewell to the King (1989), Listen to Me (1989). and I Love You to Death (1990).

In the Nineties Anne V. Coates edited the films What About Bob? (1991), Chaplin (1992), In the Line of Fire (1993), Pontiac Moon (1994), Congo (1995), Striptease (1995), Out to Sea (1997), Out of Sight (1998), Passion of Mind (2000), and Erin Brockovich (2000). She was nominated for Oscars for Best Film Editing for In the Line of Fire and Out of Sight.

From the Naughts into the Teens she was the editor on the films Sweet November (2001), Unfaithful (2002), Taking Lives (2004), Catch and Release (2006), The Golden Compass (2007), Extraordinary Measures (2010), and Fifty Shades of Grey (2015).

Anne V. Coates was truly a pioneer. In an interview she said that at the time she entered the film industry there were not that many jobs available to women in which she was interested. She chose editing because it was one of the few jobs that women were allowed to do. Even then, there was not a large number of female editors in the business, nor is there now. Anne V. Coates then truly paved the way for women in the movie industry.

What is more, she was a truly remarkable film editor. With Lawrence of Arabia she dealt with a huge amount of footage shot by Sir David Lean. This would be a daunting tasks for most editors, but Anne V. Coates produced some of the most impressive edits in film history on the movie. Even in her films of lesser note (such as Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes) she could create some very impressive cuts. Anne V. Coates was both a pioneer and a great editor, and for those things she will always be remembered.