Sean Paul Murphy, Writer

Sean Paul Murphy, Writer
Sean Paul Murphy, Storyteller

Thursday, November 7, 2019

My 10 Favorite James Bond Films

Sean Connery, my favorite James Bond
Bond, James Bond.

No other film character sends the "woke" culture into such conniption fits.

Misogyny. Patriarchy. Racism. Imperialism. Rape Culture. You name it, Bond is guilty of it. And he even has a license to kill! Talk about toxic masculinity! James Bond defines it single-handedly.

Still, the PC crowd has had no more success canceling him than Dr. No, Auric Goldfinger, or Emilio Largo or even Blofield himself. James Bond seems to be forever. Why?

I think James Bond epitomized the male Id of the late-fifties and early-sixties. He was the embodiment of the manly virtues that the West imagined in itself. James Bond was tall, dark and handsome. He was also intelligent, erudite, loyal and quick-witted. He killed -- certainly-- but he wasn't a brute. Nor did it bother him. He did it for Queen and country. He never doubted the mission or the righteousness of the cause. And his way with the ladies was just icing on the cake. The Russians never had a chance against him.

What man wouldn't want to be James Bond in 1962? The Ian Fleming novels got a huge boost in the United States when President John F. Kennedy put one of them on his Top 10 reading list. And why wouldn't he? If JFK was a spy, he'd be James Bond.

Of course, James Bond evolved over the years to suit the changing taste of the audience. Sean Connery brought the original swagger. Roger Moore often downplayed the violence for laughs, especially as he aged in the role and action became a tad less convincing. Timothy Dalton swung the pendulum back toward a dour seriousness. Pierce Brosnan restored the sex appeal. Daniel Craig finally rounded out Bond as a three dimensional human being, displaying more doubt and angst than all the previous Bonds combined -- yet still managing to bed beauties, shoot bad guys and drive really cool cars just like the Bonds of old. (I didn't include George Lazenby, or Barry Nelson, who originated the role on a British TV show, because they didn't linger long enough to influence the series.)

I was actually a late-comer to Bond. When I was young, I didn't seek out the films. I saw Diamonds Are Forever and Live And Let Die at the Arcade, my beloved neighborhood theater. That automatically earns them each a place on the list. The next film I saw in the theaters was Moonraker. I was not impressed. I didn't catch another one of the films in a theater for many years. I didn't truly become a fan of the series until I started watching the periodic James Bond marathons on TNT. That's when I got hooked. Later I always scheduled the Bond films when I was running the The Baltimore Film Club. They were always well-attended screenings. They were events. Still are.

So, without further ado, here are my ten favorite Bond films:

(10). CASINO ROYALE, 1967
Directed by Val Guest, Kenneth Hughes,
Suggested by the novel by Ian Fleming

Aged James Bond, played by David Niven, is called out of retirement to deal with the evil organization SMERSH, which has been killing spies all around the world.

There are probably Bond fans reading this list who are groaning at the inclusion of this film. It is usually on the bottom of other people's lists. This is not even considered a canonical Bond film by the purists. The producers, who owned the rights to this single Ian Fleming James Bond novel, felt the world was ready for a spoof of the previous films. Of course, some would ask was a spoof necessary with Dean Martin's Matt Helm and James Coburn's Flint already mining that vein.

This unorthodox comedy features different segments by different directors. The film was panned upon its release as disjointed and unfunny. I will concede the first point, but I have always found this film very funny. Woody Allen as James Bond? Peter Sellers as James Bond? Count me in.

Plus, I always loved the Burt Bacharach soundtrack. Soundtracks and theme songs are always very important in this franchise.


(9). THUNDERBALL, 1965
Directed by Terence Young
Screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins and Jack Whittingham

James Bond takes on the eye-patched Number Two of S.P.E.C.T.R.E., Emile Largo, to recover two nuclear warheads the organization is using to blackmail the United States and Britain.

1964's Goldfinger, perfected the early Bond formula, and Thunderball rides it for all its worth with gadgets, one-liners, action, close calls and a bevy of beauties including France's Claudine Augur and Italy's Luciana Paluzzi. This film benefits from a number of underwater sequences, which were much rarer at the time. For me, it was a toss-up between this film and 1967's You Only Live Twice for this place on the list. I think I like the latter film better, but, if I included it, I would have to apologize for Bond's "yellowface" disguise. I didn't want to go there.

Plus, this film has a wonderfully overwrought theme song sung by Tom Jones. Can't go wrong with that.

Directed by Guy Hamilton
Written by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz

A diamond smuggling operation leads James Bond to Las Vegas where he uncovers an international plot led by his old nemesis Blofeld, who has stolen the identity of a reclusive Howard Hughes-style billionaire Willard Whyte.

Sean Connery handled over the keys to the Aston Martin after You Only Live Twice to George Lazenby for 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Because of various disputes, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman released Lazenby from his seven picture deal  and paid Sean Connery the then exorbitant sum of 1.25 million dollars to reprise the role.

This film doesn't generally rank very high in the official canon. The production possesses a certain threadbare feel. Most of the action takes place in the United States as opposed to the more exotic locations one expects in a Bond film. It does, however, offer some surprising comic relief with a gay hit team played by Putter Smith and Bruce Glover. (Making fun of gay people was considered enlightened at the time, I suppose.) And, of course, Bond must rescue Willard Whyte from a crew of bikini-clad beauties.... The things one must do for England.

BTW, I think Tom Mankiewicz was the first American screenwriter on the series.

Directed by Guy Hamilton
Written by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz

Bond must recover an experimental solar cell from Scaramanga, a triple-nippled assassin who gets a million dollars per hit.

Objectively speaking, I think this is probably the best of the Roger Moore films. However, there is one that I always enjoy watching moore. This film features all of the exotic locations and action sequences one would expect in a Bond picture, despite the somewhat dubious reappearance of Clifton James, the comic relief redneck Southern sheriff from the previous year's Live and Let Die, as a coincidental vacationer in Thailand. Christopher Lee gives an excellent performance as the evil Scaramanga with the diminutive Hervé Villechaize as his henchman. The two of them turn their exotic island lair into a diabolical Fantasy Island.

One of my favorites!


(6). TOMORROW NEVER DIES. 1997
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
Written by Bruce Feirstein

Bond must stop an evil media mogul who is trying to trigger a war between China and the West for ratings and profit.

I always thought Pierce Brosnan was an excellent James Bond. However, I don't think the films themselves rose to his potential. I found the plots overwrought and overly-complicated. Granted, the Connery films were equally absurd at times, but the Brosnan films lacked the slight wink at the audience that made the other films work. Although they were lighter than the Dalton films, they were still a little too serious for my taste.

I think this film, featuring Jonathan Pryce as a formidable villain, came closest to getting that shaken but not stirred Bondian mix right.

Directed by Terence Young
Screenplay by Richard Maibaum  Adaptation by Johanna Harwood
Based on the novel by Ian Fleming

S.P.E.C.T.R.E. hatches an elaborate plot to trick James Bond into stealing a Soviet encryption device for them with the help of a Russian beauty.

This film, the second one in the official canon, is perhaps the most straightforward spy thriller in the entire series. The plot is uncharacteristically realistic, with little of the exaggerated bombast associated with the series. The action sequences are also brutal and realistic, particularly the fight on the train between Connery and the cold-blooded S.P.E.C.T.R.E agent Robert Shaw. The series would not return to this degree of seriousness until Timothy Dalton took over the role in the 1980s.

Although James Bond would veer in a different direction with the next film Goldfinger, this film proves the series had potential on a different level.

  

(4). CASINO ROYALE, 2006
Directed by Martin Campbell
Written by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Paul Haggis
Based on the novel by Ian Fleming

James Bond takes on the banker of an underground network of terrorists in a game of high-stakes poker.

Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel finally becomes part of the official cinematic canon with this film, which features the introduction of Daniel Craig in the role. The announcement that Daniel Craig would take over the role resulted in surprise and outrage on the internet, but, after seeing 2004's crime film Layer Cake, I thought he would be terrific in the role.  I was right, of course.

I am surprised I enjoy Craig as much as I do in the films. He plays a deadly serious James Bond, and I tend to enjoy the -- how can I say -- more exaggerated incarnations. However, Craig brings a great deal of physicality and charisma to the role, and not to mention more than a little soul searching. He is the perfect James Bond for his generation.

Bravo.


(3). LIVE AND LET DIE, 1973
Directed by Guy Hamilton
Written by Tom Mankiewicz

James Bond must contend with the Voodoo-obsessed leader of a Caribbean island who plans to take over the heroin market in the United States.

This film was the first one to feature Roger Moore playing Bond. From the tone, you can tell the series is trying to find its footing in the more cynical 1970's. The filmmakers also seem to be making a deliberate attempt to cash in on the then current Blaxploitation craze in the New York sequences. Additionally, this is the first Bond script credited entirely to an American.

The film benefits from a strong villain played by Yaphet Koto, and some memorable henchmen played by Julius Harris and Geoffrey Holder. Jane Seymour plays the fetching yet virginal fortune teller. The comic relief is provided by Clifton James as a redneck Southern sheriff. That character would prove so popular that he would turn up in Thailand in the following year in The Man With The Golden Gun. The icing on the cake is the terrific title song by Paul McCartney.

This is my favorite Roger Moore film. That said, it features some of the comic goofiness which would undermine his later films.



(2). SKYFALL, 2012
Directed by Sam Mendes
Written by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and John Logan
Characters by Ian Fleming

An aging and disillusioned James Bond comes out of hiding to save MI6 when a villain targets M for revenge.

On the 50th Anniversary of the James Bond franchise, Daniel Craig returns in excellent form after his weakest outing Quantum of Solace. This film is somewhat unique thematically in the Bond canon. Regardless of the incarnation, James Bond has always appeared fully formed. This film, which ends at his childhood home, is perhaps the closest we will come to an origins story for the character. One of the things that annoys me about the current superhero genre is that every time they recast the lead character, they retell the origins story. Fortunately, the filmmakers never felt the need to do so with every James Bond.

This film serves a classic example of the Bondian philosophy of filmmaking: Spend a lot of money and put it all up on the screen. While CG shots have become ubiquitous in high budget films, you still see a lot of practical stunts and effects in the James Bond films and I appreciate it. Great writing and direction, matched with excellent performances, enhance this entry. Javier Bardem makes a memorable villain and Dame Judi Dench finally gets to stretch a bit as M. Then there's Albert Finney in his final performance....  What's not to love?

Bond films are known for their opening title sequences and theme songs. I think this one surpasses them all. It is a tour de force of art direction with a terrific song by Adele. When it was over, I felt I had gotten my money's worth even if the film ended there. Check it out here.

It is a magnificent film.  The best of the modern Bonds.


(1). GOLDFINGER, 1964
Directed by Guy Hamilton
Written by Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn

James Bond tries the foil the scheme of a gold smuggler to render the gold in Fort Knox unusable via radiation in order to increase the value of his own holdings.

This is the film where all of the elements finally came together. Dr. No was a perfunctory introduction. Nothing revolutionary. From Russia With Love was a definite improvement, but a tad too dry and serious. It wasn't until this film that the attitude and tropes we associate with James Bond came to the forefront. The self-confidence bordering on arrogance. The gadgets. The quips. The over-the-top sexism. (Pussy Galore, anyone?) The monologuing villains. The ridiculous traps and escapes. The Ken Adam production design. Plus, we are treated to an irresistible theme song by Shirley Bassey. Perfect!

If you love James Bond, it's because of this film.

If you hate James Bond, it's because of this film.

This film IS James Bond.

The only misstep is the anti-Beatles quip. Come on, James, you're hipper than that. But I forgive you.


Here are some other lists:


Follow me on Twitter: SeanPaulMurphy
Follow me on Facebook: Sean Paul Murphy
Follow me on Instagram: Sean Paul Murphy
Subscribe on YouTube: Sean Paul Murphy
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Jenny of Oldstones Video



Here's a cool bit of fan fiction set in the Games of Thrones universe called Jenny of Oldstones created by and starring some of my cousins in Italy. The film, which is essentially a music video, is built around the song Podrik sings in Episode  2, Season 8 of the HBO series. The film was directed by my cousin Stefano Silvestri and features my cousins Fabiana Protani, as Jenny, and Maria Carmen Falstaffi as Dama.  Maria Carmen, a trained opera singer who has performed around the world, also sings this version of the song.

The film was shot in my ancestral home of Arnara, which is located in the Frosinone province of Italy about fifty miles south of Rome. Arnara is a beautiful little village filled with warm and welcoming people. The majority of this film was shot at the medieval castle, dating back to 900AD, located atop the hill in the center of the town. During a visit to the town, I told my family and I would return one day in triumph and buy the castle. I haven't pulled that off yet, but my partner Jennifer Healy Gloeb and I used Arnara as a setting for our script Runaway Heart, which is currently being read by production companies. This film shows we should be able to find some local talent if that film goes into production.

Be sure to check out the video on Youtube and subscribe to their channel.

Here's a photo of the director, Stefano Silvestri, taken during a visit to Baltimore:

Denisa Protani, Stefano, Sean & Debbie
Here's a photo of Maria Carmen Falstaffi taken during a visit to Baltimore:

Emily, Marion, Maria Carmen and Natalie in
the dining room of 21 St. Helens Avenue

To learn more about my family, check out my memoir The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God. It is my true story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined.



Here are some sample chapters of The Promise:
Chapter 7 - Mission Accomplished
Chapter 15 - Quarter To Midnight

Follow me on Twitter: SeanPaulMurphy
Follow me on Facebook: Sean Paul Murphy
Follow me on Instagram: Sean Paul Murphy
Subscribe on YouTube: Sean Paul Murphy
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Monday, October 14, 2019

The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 5, Methodology

The Murphy Family, Christmas 1986*
My upcoming novel Chapel Street was inspired by my experiences growing up in a "haunted" house at 21 St. Helens Avenue** in the Northeast Baltimore neighborhood of Lauraville. This series of blogs will examine the actual haunting that inspired the book. My previous blogs dealt with the house and its occupants up to the time of our arrival. Now it is time to deal with our actual paranormal experiences within the house.

It was a hopeful gesture on my part to start writing these blogs. To realistically tell this story, I needed the cooperation of my mother, my siblings and my nieces. Considering our long reticence to talk about the haunting, there was no guarantee they would cooperate. Fortunately, my sister Jeanne broke the ice. After reading the rough draft of my book, she requested a meeting of the siblings to discuss the haunting. In that meeting we all learned things we never knew before. We all had our secrets, and we haven't revealed them all yet.

Over the next of couple of weeks and/or months, I will be interviewing people with first hand experience of the paranormal activity within the house. The question that plagued me was how to arrange the material.

I am a professional writer. If I had my choice, I would tell this story narratively in a chronological manner. Unfortunately, I really don't have that option here. As I have said repeatedly, this wasn't one haunting, it was a number of separate hauntings going on more or less concurrently. Aside from one brief period when the poltergeist activity was at its peak in the mid-1980s, we never discussed the phenomenon with each other in any detail. Also, no one took any contemporaneous notes. Not even me. Therefore, we are relying almost entirely on memory -- and forty-five years have passed since we first moved into that house. It would be a fool's errand to try to reconcile our individual memories in a single narrative timeline.

As a result, I plan to let my family members tell their stories separately. I will interview them, or let them write up their own experiences. This approach will also allow the reader to gauge the credibility of each individual separately. As I said earlier, the members of my family all came into this experience with wildly varying viewpoints regarding religion and the supernatural. When you're finished with all of the accounts, you will probably find someone with a similar worldview to your own. And that will probably be the person you find most credible. Considering the fact that I wrote a memoir called The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God, where I say I believe I have heard the voice of God, I doubt skeptics will find my story very credible. Hopefully, you will find someone else more to your liking.

Clara, 1974
I plan to interview my mother Clara first. She's the obvious person to start with. She was the owner of the house. So, technically speaking, it was her entity. She also had the most paranormal experience prior to our arrival at the house. Next I hope to interview my sister Jeanne. In the last blog, I credited my late sister Laura with the first paranormal experience at the house. However, I think Jeanne may have had her beat by a day or two. Jeanne had a rather harrowing experience that I didn't learn about until quite recently.

I'll tell my story next. You might find it surprising, but I was the skeptic of the group. I was completely dismissive of any talk of ghosts until things blew up in the mid-80s. Some rather harrowing events, that inspired a major plot point in my upcoming novel Chapel Street, made me a believer very quickly. I hope my brother John will be next. He is a unique case in the family. He grew up entirely at 21 St. Helens Avenue, and we pointedly never discussed the entity around him. Sadly, our desire not to frighten him left him alone and unprepared for some of the worst physical phenomenon that any of us experienced in the house.

The House auctioned in 2012
I am also attempting to locate the family that bought the house from my mother. I am very curious about their experiences. Sadly, they do not seem readily accessible online but I will keep looking. I will not reach out to the current residents. (They would, obviously, be easier to find!) As I said in an earlier blog, I suspect a "haunting" like this one is often partially transactional. Certain people seem more attuned to paranormal activity than others. Therefore, if the current residents are not experiencing anything, I have no desire to discuss the haunting with them and possibly trigger activity.

I will not be interviewing my older brother Doug for the blog. Doug left and moved in with my paternal grandparents after only a few short years at 21 St. Helens Avenue. He has absolutely no memory whatsoever of any paranormal activity. I am not surprised. I lived in the house for ten years before I experienced anything myself. If I left when he did, I'm sure my skepticism would remain intact today. (My father was also a skeptic, and I was very surprised to hear the effect the entity had on him -- but we'll get to that later. I consider him to be the third suicide.)

The question that remains, for me, is what to do next. I originally intended to deal with the suicides of my siblings next, and then go to the testimonies of my nieces, one of whom lived in the house for an extended period of time. That would make the most sense chronologically. However, now I am leaning toward telling all of our individual stories first before we deal with the deaths.

I teach writing at Towson University. I often warn students when I read an early draft of their work if I fear that their arguments don't justify their conclusions. I might be guilty of that sin too. I suspect I will never be able to prove to a skeptic that the entity was responsible, in part, for the suicide deaths of my siblings. However, I hope, after you read our stories, you'll understand why some of us suspect it.

Jeanne and Natalie, circa 2012.
Natalia is about to give birth to her first daughter.
That said, I am not writing these blogs to convince anyone about anything. These blogs represent a journey within our family to finally deal with the lingering legacy of our experiences at 21 St. Helens Avenue. In a sense, we all still live in its shadow. Yesterday, I interviewed my niece Natalie about her experiences at the house. She was glad to do it. She felt it was finally time to reveal all of our secrets.

I agree.

Give me a little time to do some research. Until then, enjoy a little glimpse of the Murphy family at 21 St. Helens Avenue. If our home movies are any indication, it seemed like it was always Christmas there....

Most of the footage was shot in the living room. Of course, after learning that the funeral of John Clayton Mayfort was held in there, now I like to call it The Coffin Room.




Notes:

*This photo was taken on Christmas day 1986 on the front porch of my grandmother's house on Evergreen Avenue. I believe this could be the last photo taken of all my siblings and my parents together. There might be another one, but I don't seem to have it....

**21 St. Helens Avenue was the original address of the house when it was built. The street name and number changed over time, but I use the original address to protect the privacy of the current owners.

Additional blogs about the haunting:
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 1, An Introduction
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 2, The House
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 3, This Is Us
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 4, Arrival
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 5, Methodology
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 6, Clara's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 7, Clara's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 8, My Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 9, My Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 10, My Tale, Pt. 3
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 11, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 12, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 13, John's Tale, Pt. 1 
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 14, John's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 15, Come Inside!
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 16, Marion's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 17, Marion's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 18, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 19, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 20, Lisa's Tale
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 21, Recap, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 22, Recap, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 23, Recap, Pt. 3

My novel Chapel Street was inspired by the haunting. You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.


Learn more about the book, click Here.

Follow me on Twitter: SeanPaulMurphy
Follow me on Facebook: Sean Paul Murphy
Follow me on Instagram: Sean Paul Murphy
Subscribe on YouTube: Sean Paul Murphy
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Sunday, October 6, 2019

The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 4, Arrival

The Baltimore Sun, 16 March 1974
My upcoming novel Chapel Street was inspired by my experiences growing up in a "haunted" house at 21 St. Helens Avenue* in the Northeast Baltimore neighborhood of Lauraville. This series of blogs will examine the actual haunting that inspired the book. My previous blogs dealt with the history of the house and its previous occupants and the history of my immediate family. Now, it's finally time for us to move in.

Things were definitely getting crowded at home at 5507 Hamlet Avenue. The house had three bedrooms -- well, more like two and a half. My parents occupied the big bedroom in the front of the house. My brother Dougie and I shared the adjacent bedroom. When my sister Laura was born, she was given the small bedroom at the back of the house. My brother Mark was the next born. He moved in with Dougie and me. Dougie and I shared bunk beds. Mark slept on a small single. Then my sister Jeanne was born. She was relegated to a bunk bed in the back room with Laura.

The girls' bedroom was tiny. More like a closet than a bedroom. In fact, the last time the house was on the market, I attended the open house. I was not surprised to see that the girls' room was being used as a closet. Needless to say, something had to change. Our growing family needed a bigger home. And my mother found it, via the advertisement in the Baltimore Sun shown above, in 1974.**

Despite the obvious need for change, I personally looked at the prospect of moving with dread. Not out of any fear of the supernatural. I just didn't want to move. I really liked the neighborhood. I knew everybody. I liked everybody. I also liked my school. I was currently in the seventh grade at St. Dominic Elementary School, and I didn't want to switch.

Find me, if you dare.
I didn't have to worry about it. I was relieved to hear that the new house was only about seven blocks away from our current home. I would remain at St. D., which was actually closer to our new house than our old one. Also, my friends in the old neighborhood were only a quick walk or bike ride away. I actually got excited about the move. I was soon quizzing my friends in school who lived by the new house about the street. I also found myself biking by it on occasion.

The sale of the house was conducted by Mariam Mayfort's cousin Gordon H. Witherspoon, Sr., a prominent lawyer and politician. My father Douglas had previously met him at the University of Baltimore Law School. I believe I am the first of the kids to actually step inside the new house. I went there with my mother one afternoon prior to the estate sale. Mr. Witherspoon was offering my mother first choice of any item that interested her. I only remember being on the first floor, and it left a strong impression. The Mayfort furniture seemed old and oversized and the house itself was very dark. Not in a spiritual sense. In a strictly physical manner. Although it was bright outside, thick curtains held back the light. However, I wasn't afraid. Nor was I overly excited. Looking back, you would have thought I would have taken that opportunity to stake out my bedroom, but I didn't. I don't even remember going upstairs.

Before we go any further I want to give you the physical layout of the house. The geography of the house is important to understand the haunting.***

On the first floor, the front door opened into an entrance hall. We would eventually put an upright piano in that room against the outer wall under one of the many stained glass windows. A stairs from the entrance hall led to the landing between the first and second floors where Miss Miriam was said to have tumbled to her death. (She may have indeed tumbled, but she ultimately died in the hospital.****) A set of stairs in the middle of the landing led to the second floor. Another set of stairs at the end of the landing led back down into the dining room.

Our piano teacher, who was also a talented expressionist
painter and WWI veteran, Alfred A Kirk with my late sister Laura.

Heading back from entrance hall, you walked past the door to the basement into the large dining room. I won't bother with the basement since I don't recall hearing of any phenomenon down there. (So much for radon, skeptics.)***** A tiny little kitchen extended from the southwest corner of the dining room. To the left of the dining room was the family room, which was diminished by the addition of the first floor half bath. Really cool pocket doors separated the living room from the family room on one side and the entrance hall on the other. Originally, my parents intended the living room for formal use only. However, that plan only survived a few months before we moved the television in from the smaller family room. Before long, my mother purchased an antique church pump organ and put it in the family room, first up against the wall of bathroom and later the inner wall that separated it from the dining room. (Hint: The organ would loom large in the haunting.)

My mother remembers hearing that Miss Mariam used the family room as her bedroom near the end of her life to avoid always walking up and down the stairs. (In retrospect, a very wise idea.) My mother also remembers a day bed in the room when she took her first tour.

My surviving sister Jeanne playing the organ
when it was located against the bathroom wall

When you walked up the stairs to the second floor, the first door on the left led to Bedroom A, Front West. (I will identify the bedrooms by letters since the occupants of the various rooms would shift over the long decades our family lived at the house.) This bedroom, which looked out onto St. Helens Avenue, was the smallest of the three on the second floor. However, it featured a nice bay window on the front and one side window and a closet. Directly across from the top of the stairs was Bedroom B, Front East. It was large and square, and had three windows but no closet. Bedroom C was adjacent to Bedroom B. It was the largest bedroom in the house. I'm sure it would be considered the master bedroom today. It had a bay window overlooking Harford Road. It also had the only door leading to the large, enclosed sunporch, which was added sometime after the original construction of the house. The room also featured a large closet. That closet would prove to be the most interesting feature on the second floor.

The full bathroom sat across the hall from Bedroom C. They shared adjacent closets, separated by a thin interior wall. There was also a connected linen closet between the two rooms that opened onto the second floor hallway. Strangely, however, there was a window at the end of the closet between the bedroom and the bathroom. The window was still functional, but now opened onto the sunporch. It was obvious that these three closets were once a single room prior to the addition of the sunporch. But what kind of room? It seemed too small to be an adult bedroom.

We speculate that it was once a nursery. If so, it was probably never used as intended. To our knowledge, my youngest brother John was the first infant to live in the house. The main reason I went to visit the Mayfort graves in Loudon Park Cemetery before I started writing these blogs was to make sure there were no infants in the family plot. The purpose of that discarded room, and who might have lived in it, grew in importance to us. Over the years, we came to believe that those closets were the cold, dark heart of the house. Whatever lived there with us, lived in those closets.******

There were also two bedrooms on the third floor. The back one, with a wonderful view of the city stretching from the Inner Harbor to Sparrow's Point, was the largest of the two. I'll just call that one my room, since I was the only member of my family who ever lived in it. The front room, which overlooked St. Helens Avenue, had many occupants over the years. We'll call that one The Hell Room. Although the entity seemed attached to the closets on the second floor, for a period during the mid-to-late-1980s, it made its presence felt very strongly in that room. Trust me, you don't earn the moniker of The Hell Room for nothing!

My lovely wife Deborah in the Hell Room
during the auction of the house in 2013.

I might have been the first one of the kids to step inside the house, but I missed the move entirely. I had always been very allergic to poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac, and I was suffering from the worst case ever in my life at the time. I had poison sumac all over my face. If I slept on my right side, the liquid under my skin would pool on the right and puff up that side of my face. The reverse was true if I slept on my left. I was pretty gross to look at. So, during the move, I was sent to stay at my grandmother's house on Evergreen Avenue, where I slept upright in a chair in the living room. I was disappointed to have missed out on the move, but, in retrospect, I can console myself that I managed to avoid a great deal of physical labor!

My sister Jeanne often said moving to the house at St. Helens Avenue was like moving to a castle. Not only was it larger than the old house on Hamlet Avenue, there were many nooks and crannies and cubby holes to explore. It was an adventure. My older brother Dougie and I thought, since the old owner had died without an heir, that there was probably money hidden somewhere around the house. We searched for it in vain. Fun.

Despite the fact that the house had five bedrooms, my parents maintained their old three bedroom mindset.******* They took bedroom A for themselves. They assigned us boys bedroom B where we had the same arrangement as we did on Hamlet Avenue. Dougie and I slept in bunk beds and Mark had his own bed. Dougie, however, did not tolerate the situation long. On his own initiative he claimed the front room in the attic -- The Hell Room. Not be outdone, I claimed the back bedroom in the attic. Now, Mark had bedroom B to himself until the arrival of our baby brother John.

Still, despite the fact that I had my own cool bedroom in the attic, I must admit I was a little envious of my sisters. Perhaps because they had been relegated so long to that crappy little room on Hamlet Avenue, my parents gave them the largest bedroom. I didn't necessarily envy them the bedroom. I envied them the sunporch, which I considered the coolest part of the house. It was essentially theirs. You could only access it through their bedroom.

But it was just as well.

A day or two after our family moved into house, my sister Laura was out in the backyard. She looked up at the sunporch to see a woman looking down at her.

So it began.

The sunporch
Notes:

*21 St. Helens Avenue was the original address of the house when it was built. The street name and number changed over time, but I use the original address to protect the privacy of the current owners.

**My mother actually heard about the house from a friend: Amelia Darrah.  I will not be correcting the text itself.

***My niece Marion is working on getting the original blueprints. I will include them when she finds them.

****Conversations with older neighbors after the posting of this blog confirmed that Miriam Mayfort died on the landing in the house. She must have only been "officially" declared dead at the hospital.

*****Since publishing this blog, I have learned there were incidents in the basement. I am not correcting the text because this is good example about how little we discussed the haunting among ourselves.

******After my family left, the next owner of 21 St. Helens Avenue started remodeled the house. However, right before he moved out, he tore out the walls in the master bedroom -- and the closets -- with a hammer.

******My father apparently had plans for the third floor. He originally wanted to turn my room into a library and turn the Hell Room into his study. Near the end of his life, he would walk up to the Hell Room late at night to talk to someone or something.....

Additional blogs about the haunting:
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 1, An Introduction
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 2, The House
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 3, This Is Us
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 4, Arrival
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 5, Methodology
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 6, Clara's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 7, Clara's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 8, My Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 9, My Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 10, My Tale, Pt. 3
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 11, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 12, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 13, John's Tale, Pt. 1 
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 14, John's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 15, Come Inside!
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 16, Marion's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 17, Marion's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 18, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 19, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 20, Lisa's Tale
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 21, Recap, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 22, Recap, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 23, Recap, Pt. 3

My novel Chapel Street was inspired by the haunting. You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.


Learn more about the book, click Here.

Follow me on Twitter: SeanPaulMurphy
Follow me on Facebook: Sean Paul Murphy
Follow me on Instagram: Sean Paul Murphy
Subscribe on YouTube: Sean Paul Murphy
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Churches Making Movies FIlm Festival -- October 11 - 13, 2019



The seventh annual Churches Making Movies Film Festival will be held on the weekend of October 11-13th at Fellowship Deaconry Christian Retreat Center in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. I have attended the festival nearly every year since its inception and I have always had a wonderful time.

This year I hope to provide a little inspiration myself. Co-founder LaVonne McIver James asked me to conduct a Screenwriter's Bootcamp on Saturday between 10am and 2pm. That's four hours, folks! My students at Towson University only have to tolerate me for three hours at a time!

The website says I will unlock your inner screenwriter and help turn your script dreams in reality. Seems like a laudable goal. During the bootcamp, I will discuss the basic structure and philosophy of screenwriting and the specific challenges and rewards of the faith-based marketplace. However, I intend to spend most of the time dealing with questions from the attendees, and advising them how to achieve their goals.

Yours truly at the festival with comedienne G.L, Douglas

I hope to see you there!

Check out the website:  Churches Making Movies

And also check out my memoir, The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God. It is my true story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined. (I have a feeling you might be able to get a signed copy at the Festival.)




Here are some sample chapters:
Chapter 7 - Mission Accomplished
Chapter 15 - Quarter To Midnight

Follow me on Twitter: SeanPaulMurphy
Follow me on Facebook: Sean Paul Murphy
Follow me on Instagram: Sean Paul Murphy
Subscribe on YouTube: Sean Paul Murphy
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Friday, September 27, 2019

The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 3, This Is Us

Family Portrait, circa 1977
My upcoming novel Chapel Street was inspired by my experiences growing up in a "haunted" house at 21 St. Helens Avenue* in the Northeast Baltimore neighborhood of Lauraville. This series of blogs will examine the actual haunting that inspired the book. My previous blog discussed the history of the house and its occupants, before we arrived in 1974. This blog will examine my family before we moved to the house.

I was born in December 1960. I was the second child of Douglas and Clara Murphy. Not only was I their second son. I was their second child born that year! My mother was seventeen when I was born. My father was nineteen.

Needless to say having that many children at that young age -- and others would quickly follow -- could lead to a great deal of stress. And it probably did. However, at least they had a roof over their heads. When I was born, my parents were living at 5507 Hamlet Avenue**, about a mile more or less from our eventual home at 21 St. Helens Avenue. The house belonged to my maternal grandmother Rita Rosenberger and her second husband Robert Pollock.


My grandmother had two children, my mother and my uncle Tony, with her first husband Kenny Protani. After Kenny left, Rita and her children were forced to move back home. Her parents, George Rosenberger and Maria Anna Kostohryz, had recently been stampeded from their downtown rowhouse on 2207 Biddle Street in East Baltimore as part of the notorious white flight from the city. They settled in a nice Cape Cod home on 3204 Evergreen Avenue in the leafy near suburban neighborhood of Hamilton. It was a very crowded house. In addition to Rita and her two children, and her parents, the house was also occupied by my adult great-uncles Norbert "Butch" Rosenberger and Anthony "Buzzy" Rosenberger.  My great-aunt Helen Rosenberger Ernst was the only one of George and Mary's surviving children who did not live with them on Evergreen. In this manner, the Rosenbergers very much resembled the Mayfort family of 21 St. Helens Avenue.***

One more thing about the Rosenbergers. If there is a history of depression in my family, it seems to come down their line. My brother John would later opine that "the depression on the Rosenberger side mixed with the substance abuse on the Murphy side created a perfect storm in our generation."

Perhaps. We'll weather those thoughts in due time.

The Rosenbergers
My grandmother met Robert Pollock and they married on 26 June 1959. Afterwards, they bought the house at 5507 Hamlet Avenue, which was located about six blocks west from the Rosenberger house on Evergreen. My parents married soon afterwards and moved in with them. Overcrowding looked like an imminent possibility, until my great-grandmother Maria Anna suffered a fatal heart attack in her living room while watching television on 23 April 1961. She suddenly exclaimed, "I can't breath, I can't breath." Then she collapsed. It was a Sunday night. (No one seems to remember what show she was watching, but she was a big fan of westerns so I am going to assume it was Bonanza.)

The fact that her father and two brothers were left in a house without a woman to look after them horrified my kind-hearted grandmother. She asked grandpop Bob if they could move back to Evergreen Avenue so she could look after them. Bob agreed, much to my grandmother's everlasting joy. So off they went, leaving the Hamlet Avenue house to my parents. I actually never knew that my parents didn't own the house, that it belonged to my grandparents, until many years later.

My parents didn't waste any time filling up the space vacated by my grandparents.  My two doomed siblings, Laura Lee Murphy Valenti, born 27 September 1962, and Mark Brendan Murphy, born 26 February 1964, quickly followed my brother and me. Trust me, there was no hint of self-destruction in their innocent faces. My sister Jeanne soon rounded out the original quintet. My kid brother John didn't arrive on the scene until ten years later, after the family had moved to St. Helens Avenue.

Doug, Jeanne, Sean, Laura, Mark
backyard of Hamlet Avenue, October 1965
If you'd like a more detailed look at my family and idyllic childhood in Hamilton, I would recommend Chapter 3 - Childhood from my memoir The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God. Or, better yet, just buy the book on Amazon. They're practically giving it away on Kindle. Here, however, I want to concentrate on other aspects of my youth that I do not deal with in that book.

We were not a particularly superstitious family that knocked on wood, never walked under ladders or avoided the paths of black cats. Our superstitions mainly revolved around traditional Catholicism, but we varied greatly even along those lines.

Clara & Doug. May 1968
My parents were both born Catholic. My mother was a reasonably avid churchgoer. My father, on the other hand, mainly devoted his Sundays to the Murphy Football League -- tag football games played on the field at Northern High School with his brothers and his work friends from Social Security. We kids were required to go to St. Dominic Church every Sunday. Usually my mother took us, but, thank God, she didn't make us wear matching outfits like some parents did. Sometimes we had to go alone. That's when my brother Dougie taught me the art of sneaking into the back of the church to grab a bulletin as proof of attendance, then taking off for some unsupervised fun. I didn’t feel particularly guilty about skipping church. I was too young to get anything out of the mass, especially when it was in Latin.

In addition to attending church, our parents also sent us to parochial school with mixed results. Dougie clashed with the Sisters of Charity and left St. Dominic Elementary School for the more freewheeling Baltimore City public schools. It was a decision that probably extended the lifespan of all involved. I made it through eight years at St. D., and followed through with four years at the boys only Archbishop Curley High School. Laura finished St. D., and started at the all-girl The Catholic High School. (Cattle High, as we Curley boys called it.) She only lasted a year under the thumb of the nuns before exiting stage right to Mervo. Mark successfully finished St. D., but he only spent a year at Curley before taking the public option. Jeanne was my only sibling who, like me, spent all twelve years in Catholic school system. My baby brother John would only survive a few years at St. D., before heading off to public school. (The parochial school system in Baltimore is only a shadow of itself now.)

Sean & Doug.  Catholic School Boys
Just as our length of time in Catholic school varied, so did our opinions on religious matters. We ranged from outright skepticism to genuine belief. We also varied on spiritual beliefs. I definitely don't think any of my siblings sought out paranormal experiences. I remember playing with kids who lived two doors down from my grandmother on Evergreen Avenue who said their house was haunted. The haunting of the Stallings house became quite famous. It was investigated by the author Hans Holzer and later even dramatized on television. My mother, who believed in ghosts, seemed very skeptical of that haunting. I remember her rolling her eyes once as she said, "The ghost does their laundry." The ghost did more than that. According to Nancy Stallings' book Show Me One Soul, one of the ghosts behaved like the star of a movie on Cinemax After Dark.

But I didn't give the haunting a second thought. I don't even remember being too curious about it. It made no impression on me at the time.

My mother, however, believed in another haunting on Evergreen Avenue. She said a house belonging to the mother of one of her friends near the corner of Evergreen and Hamlet was haunted by the angry spirit of a man who once lived there but later committed suicide in an apartment on Hamilton Avenue. She and her friend were afraid to enter the house. Nowadays, when I walk pass the house, I always keep an eye out for the current owner. I want to ask him/her if the house is still haunted. Sometimes I think hauntings are transactional. Entities seem to bother some people more than others. I think it sometimes depends on how spiritual attuned -- or vulnerable -- the occupants are.

Young Clara

My mother Clara seemed more attuned than the rest of us. She believes it is a result of "gifts" inherited down her family line. It might also be as because of a lightning strike. In my research, I have read that people gained psychic abilities after being struck by lightning. My mother was struck by lightning as a child at her home at 2413 Llewelyn Avenue. The house was hit by lighting and it came down through the electrical system and arced out and connected with a metal ring she was wearing. My mother was knocked unconscious and initially mistaken for dead. She wasn't.

Interestingly, my father Doug also met Thor -- as we call electrocution in the film business. As the news story below shows, he touched an electrical wire while climbing a tree. He was knocked to the ground and hospitalized, but showed no ill effects.

Douglas Murphy makes
the newspaper the hard way.

Speaking of electricity, I had an odd experience with the little seen phenomenon called ball lightning while living at Hamlet Avenue. It happened while I was sitting on the back porch on a metal chair early one evening. It was summer. I was about eight years old. A thunderstorm had just passed. It wasn't all clouds. I remember seeing some blue in the sky. Then I saw what seemed like a ball of fire, about the size of a basketball, falling from the sky. It initially fell at a steep angle, but, as it neared the tall bamboo that bordered the back of our yard, it leveled out and seemed to be headed straight toward me. I had been leaning back in the chair, and I remember letting go and the back of the chair hitting the house.  Then, when it was about ten yards from the porch, the ball just evaporated. I remember it very clearly, as if it happened yesterday.

Until recently ball lightning was considered a paranormal phenomenon. Now, although still unexplained, it is accepted as a rare but natural event. That's the only weird thing I experienced at Hamlet Avenue. I don't think anyone else experienced anything else either. I never heard anyone complaining about ghosts or entities at that house, despite the fact that we were younger and more impressionable at the time.

We were a normal, happy family on Hamlet Avenue.  Look at us:


And it isn't like people hadn't died at Hamlet Avenue. Remember how creeped out I was in the last blog when I found out that they held John Mayfort's funeral in our living room? Guess what? Thomas A. Morrow, the previous owner of Hamlet Avenue, had his funeral at the house after he died in 1957. Geez, what were the people in that neighborhood thinking? Spend the money! Remember, we're modern Americans. It's our job to keep death, and the things of death, as far out of sight as possible.

The Hamlet Avenue house is much smaller than the St. Helens Avenue house. The family definitely had to move some furniture around to squeeze a coffin into that living room. Plus, the front steps were steeper than the ones at St. Helens. The pallbearers definitely had a tougher job.

Thomas A. Morrow Death Notice

Before I wrote this blog, I discussed the fact that none of us experienced any paranormal phenomenon at Hamlet Avenue with some family members. They all agreed. We went to St. Helens Avenue devoid of biases and preconceived notions.

Lambs to the slaughter.

Yours truly with his siblings Mark and Laura.
Only one of us would eventually survive to talk about suicide.
Notes:

*21 St. Helens Avenue was the original address of the house when it was built. The street name and number changed over time, but I use the original address to protect the privacy of the current owners.

**5507 Hamlet Avenue is the actual address of my first home.

***Also like the Mayforts, many of the Rosenbergers died in their house. My great-grandmother died in the living room. My great-grandfather died in his sleep in the middle bedroom on the second floor (that's where I slept when I spent the night.) My great-uncle Anthony died of a heart attack in the living room after using an exercise bike in the basement.

Additional blogs about the haunting:
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 1, An Introduction
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 2, The House
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 3, This Is Us
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 4, Arrival
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 5, Methodology
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 6, Clara's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 7, Clara's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 8, My Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 9, My Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 10, My Tale, Pt. 3
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 11, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 12, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 13, John's Tale, Pt. 1 
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 14, John's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 15, Come Inside!
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 16, Marion's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 17, Marion's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 18, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 19, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 20, Lisa's Tale
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 21, Recap, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 22, Recap, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 23, Recap, Pt. 3

My novel Chapel Street was inspired by the haunting. You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.


Learn more about the book, click Here.

Follow me on Twitter: SeanPaulMurphy
Follow me on Facebook: Sean Paul Murphy
Follow me on Instagram: Sean Paul Murphy
Subscribe on YouTube: Sean Paul Murphy
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)