Cubs BCB After Dark: Who’s going to close now?

It’s playoff week here at BCB After Dark: the hippest hangout for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. We’re all glad you decided to stop by. Everyone is getting ready for tomorrow afternoon. We still have a few tables available. 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.

Last week, I asked you if you thought that speedster Billy Hamilton should make the Cubs postseason roster. Fully 84 percent of you said “no.” Another 11 percent thought he would be a good idea for the Wild Card round and the Wild Card round only.

We’re all waiting with bated breath for the Wild Card Series to start.

Here’s the part with the music and the movies. You can skip that if you want. You won’t hurt my feelings.

Tonight we have a colorized video from Belgian television in 1964 with The Max Roach Quartet and Abbey Lincoln doing most of the “Freedom Now! Suite” from the classic 1960 We Insist! album. Joining Roach on drums and Lincoln on vocals are Clifford Jordan on tenor sax, Coleridge Perkinson on piano and Eddie Khan on drums.

I’m still open to hearing suggestions on our Science Fiction winter tournament, which will cover films up to the year 1999.

But that won’t start until after the playoffs are over.

Tonight I’m going to give you some brief thoughts on Sudden Fear, the 1952 noir directed by David Miller and starring Joan Crawford, Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame. But while Miller may have directed the movie, this film is all about Joan Crawford. She bought the rights to the film, she picked the director and the cast and she starred in the film. How much you like Sudden Fear is going to depend on how much you can stand Joan Crawford. Fortunately, I like Joan Crawford very much so I liked the movie very much.

Crawford was somewhere in her mid-forties when the calendar turned to 1951 (Crawford never revealed her real age and different sources have different dates) and like most actresses in Hollywood in their mid-forties, she was finding good parts harder to come by. Crawford had been one of the biggest stars in the world for MGM in the thirties, but she was dropped by the studio in 1943, as they had no more use for an aging and demanding star who was no longer the box office draw she had been.

Crawford famously went to Warner Brothers and staged a huge career comeback with Mildred Pierce, and if you haven’t seen Mildred Pierce you definitely should. But once again in 1951, Crawford’s box office appeal was dropping and Warner Brothers released her from her contract. Crawford was determined to prove that even somewhere in her mid-forties, she could still be one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. She bought the rights to this book, she hired director David Miller (with whom she would even have a fling with) and hired the cast. She was the producer of the film in all but name.

Sudden Fear is a film worthy of Crawford’s scene-stealing talents. Crawford plays Myra Hudson, a very rich and very successful Broadway playwright. One day in rehearsals, she fires the lead of her new play Lester Blaine (Jack Palance), saying he’s just not right for the role.

A few months later, the play is a hit without Lester and Myra decides to head home to San Francisco. By sheer coincidence (or is it?), Lester just happens to be getting on the same train on his way to Chicago. The two start up a railroad romance and Lester decides to go all the way to San Francisco with her. After a whirlwind courtship, Myra marries the much-younger Lester.

Things are going great for Myra until Irene (Gloria Grahame), an old flame of Lester’s, shows up. It then becomes clear that Lester only married Myra for her money and connections. He takes up with Irene behind Myra’s back and the two clearly have a past together as grifters. When Lester finds out (mistakenly, it turns out) that Myra is only leaving him a small allowance in her will, he and Irene hatch a plan to kill Myra and inherit all her money before Myra can finalize the legal documents.

Crawford found a very worthy partner in a relatively new star in Palance. This wasn’t his first film—it was his third—but he holds his own against the very formidable Crawford. This is the film that Palance made just before his star turn in Shane and he’s a much less-straightforward villain in this film. But a heavy he was and at this point in his career, it was what he was very good at. Palance got his first of his three Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor for Sudden Fear, with Shane and City Slickers being the other two. He famously won for City Slickers and then did one-armed pushups on the stage to show that he still had it.

Grahame is probably my favorite noir actress and here she’s a more traditional grifter rather than the wounded party girl she was in The Big Heat or the love interest she played in In a Lonely Place. She’s good, but she doesn’t really have a chance to show her range in Sudden Heat because then she might step into Crawford’s light.

And make no mistake, this film is about Joan Crawford telling the world she still has it. I laughed at the scene of her taking down the nylon to show her bare legs, which was obviously Crawford telling the world that she still had great legs in her mid-forties. (To be honest, it might have been a body double in that scene, but it looked like Joan’s own leg to me.) Crawford is just an indefinable force of nature on the screen that it’s hard to judge her performance in any conventional way. She ate scenery with a skill like no one before and no one since. (I suppose her arch-nemesis Bette Davis could hold her own with Joan in that sense.) With Joan Crawford, you either get it or you don’t. I get it.

Crawford wisely insisted that much of this film be shot on location in San Francisco and the film is very much the better for it. There’s a final action chase scene between Myra and Lester on the city streets and it is one of the better foot chase scenes that I can remember with a diabolical twist at the end.

Sudden Fear was a big hit. It earned Oscar nominations for Crawford and Palance and nominations for cinematography and costuming. It resurrected Crawford’s career for a second time and led to the even better Johnny Guitar starring Crawford in 1954. Even if you’re not a Joan Crawford fan, you can enjoy it for the noir-y goodness, the homme fatale of Palance and the gorgeous cinematography and scenes of San Francisco.

Here’s a trailer for the restored version of Sudden Fear.

Sudden Fear can be watched for free on Kanopy with a library card and there’s what appears to be a complete copy on YouTube.

Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.

We’re all wondering how the playoffs are going to play out and I’m sure that everyone here wants to see the Cubs win their first playoff series (heck, first playoff game) since 2017. And in order to do that, the Cubs may very well have to keep the Padres from scoring late.

The Padres bullpen is probably their biggest strength, but it’s not exactly a weakness for the Cubs either. But there is some uncertainty over which pitcher will take which role.

Daniel Palencia had been the Cubs closer since both Ryan Pressly and last year’s closer, Porter Hodge, failed to lock down the job. Palencia got his first save of the season on May 21 and kept the job until early September, recording 22 saves along the way.

But on September 8, Palencia went on the injured list with a shoulder strain. That forced Brad Keller and Andrew Kittredge to step in at various times to get the final three outs. Since Palencia went on the injured list, Kittredge is 3 for 3 in save opportunities and Keller is 2 for 2.

Palencia came off the injured list on September 24 and has made two appearances since then, neither in a closing situation. In the first he threw two-thirds of an inning, allowed no baserunners and struck out one. In the second one, he threw a full inning, allowed no baserunners and struck out one.

While Palencia looked good in those two appearances, neither one was a high-pressure situation. The Cubs had big leads in both games and ended up winning both of them in blowouts. Meanwhile, both Keller and Kittredge have continued to throw well, sometimes in high-pressure situations, although not always in save situations.

So tonight’s question is if you were Craig Counsell, which pitcher do you want on the mound in the ninth inning in a save situation? A month ago the answer was obvious—Kittredge pitches the seventh, Keller the eighth and Palencia the ninth. But now with Palencia having missed so much time and not having a tremendous amount of experience back on the mound, would you feel safer with Palencia pitching earlier and Kittredge or Keller pitching the ninth? While Keller has mostly been a starter in his career, Kittredge does have some experience as a closer, having served as the Rays closer for the final two months of the 2021 season after the trade deadline.

Thanks for stopping by tonight. We’re all a bit anxious about tomorrow, but we’ve got our fingers crossed. I see you do too. Please get home safely. Tell us if you need us to call you a ride. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again tomorrow night for what we hope is a happy edition of BCB After Dark.

Cubs BCB After Dark: Who’s going to close now?

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