Ava Gardner and housekeeping

Honestly, I just intended to write a review of The Barefoot Contessa (1954). I did, but it led to some housekeeping — on Piddleville, to the neglect of my actual house.

I felt the need to clean up the appearance of a movie I reviewed back in 2001, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951). And that led me to …

I ended up thinking about Ava Gardner and why it was so difficult to  put her in a decent movie and let her act. One of the things both those movies have in common is using Gardner essentially as scenery. Even as a symbol. But not as a character, although she appears to do her damnedest to be one and, to the degree it was possible, successfully.

I haven’t seen every movie Gardner was in; in fact, I’ve seen relatively few though those I’ve seen appear to be her better known films. There is one big exception. Unbelievably, I haven’t seen The Killers (1946). Don’t ask why; I’ve no idea.

Here is what I have seen and written about:

And then there is this review of Lee Server’s biography of Gardner:

Of the movies, my two least favourites are Pandora and Contessa. It’s probably Night of the Iguana I like best, partly due to the story, partly due to Gardner’s performance. The other is Mogambo — which surprised me. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one great movie that starred Ava Gardner. In some ways, she reminds me of the singer Eva Cassidy who the music industry could never figure out how to box and package.

Gardner’s problem with the movie business was different. Movies don’t appear to have gotten past the idea that she was a beautiful woman.

Other matters — what’s with the ads, pal?

You’ve probably noticed I have a lot of Amazon links and ads. I even put up a Barnes & Noble ad. Even a Google ad. They’re cluttering up my sidebar and appearing here and there in some of my reviews. The reason is simple: I’m experimenting. So they will likely clutter things up for a bit longer till I see what works, what doesn’t, what is unobtrusive but helpful and what isn’t.

As for the “what works” business, it may well be that nothing works. But I figure if something I’ve written gets someone interested in a film or book, I can make it easy to buy it, assuming someone would want to.

And there is, of course, the matter of paying for what it costs to run the site. Piddleville has been kicking around since about 2000 and I’ve never made any money from it but I have forked out quite a bit in registration, hosting and other costs. So if I can create a small revenue stream, at least enough to pay for the site, that would be a good thing.

I’m not much of a huckster; I’ve never wanted to be. But if I can generate some revenue without being an annoyance, I think that’s okay. For the moment, I’m just testing a few things and once I figure out what, if anything, works and isn’t a pain in a visitor’s behind, I’ll strip things back.

For the moment, however, please be patient! :)

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