Sunday Bookends: Celebratory dinner, disturbing Rita Hayworth documentary, and the same books

On June 7, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon1 Comment

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing.

This weekend seemed hectic but it really wasn’t that bad.

I helped my parents a couple of days and then on Friday we had a family outing where Little Miss and I got our hair cut and we had lunch out to celebrate my husband’s promotion at work.

On Saturday the kids and The Husband went to a mall an hour away and I stayed home and watched movies and caught up on some shows I’ve been watching. It was nice to have a relaxing day.

This week Little Miss and I meet with our homeschool evaluator to close out our homeschool year. We are taking a month off and will start up with some school again in July to allow us some time off throughout the school year. She will continue her Outschool art classes throughout the summer, at her request.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I didn’t finish anything last week.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month.

I’m still reading The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis and Stolen Past by Tara Randle.

I’m enjoying them both, but didn’t seem able to focus on reading as much this week. My mind was busy I guess.

I also started The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie for the June Reading Christie 2026 Challenge.

And then, because I know I will probably finish The Silver Chair this week, I also started All The Broken Places by John Boyne. I don’t know anything about it so I’ll see how it goes.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are continuing Heidi.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

The Husband picked up a Terry Pratchett book for me at Barnes and Noble:

What I/We’ve Been Watching

I’ve been watching The Other Bennet Sister and yesterday I also finished the first season of Ludwig. I watched a Sherlock Holmes movie with Basil Rathbone that was a bit convoluted and treated Dr. Watson like a total moron.

I watched a documentary on Rita Hayworth that was disturbing, to say the least. That poor woman overcame a lot to become an actress but even then she was abused (by her own father), taken advantage of, and rebuilt (physically and otherwise) to become who we watched in the movies.

It was hard to watch You’ll Never Get Rich with her and Fred Astaire after seeing the documentary since one of the plot lines of the movie is a predatory married man trying to buy her gifts and hit on her and later involves her being tricked to marry Fred, who is a heck of a lot older than her.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

Little Miss and I are listening to Little House in the Big Woods before bed.

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Classic movie impressions: Spring of Bette Of Human Bondage (1934)

On June 5, 2026June 7, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings2 Comments

I’ve been watching Bette Davis movies for spring and I’m stretching a bit into summer.

So what can I say about this week’s Bette Davis movie for my Spring of Bette feature?

“I watched this movie so you can just watch the clips of Bette Davis’s better parts.”

I’m kidding. Sort of. Is this a bad movie? No. It’s just not as good as others I have watched and, for me, it really dragged, partially because Leslie Howard’s character was such a wimp with no self respect who spent the whole movie whining and mooning over a woman who was truly evil and psycho.

The movie, released in 1934, is called Of Human Bondage.

Bette did play her part well – so well I literally hated her character. Honestly, I hated both characters. They were pathetic and that was how they were supposed to be. Two pathetic people ruining their whole lives and the lives of those around them because they created visions of each other that weren’t reality.

Blah.

I felt like shaking them!

An easy description for this movie is that a man with a club foot who has no self-respect, has White Knight Syndrome and thinks he can save Bette Davis’s character, who is simply a horrible, horrible person, so he keeps going back to her or letting her come to him.

Critics called this movie Bette’s breakout role and I can see why it was. At first, I hated the movie and her and couldn’t see why critics thought it was so good, but then I realized I hated her so much because she was playing the role so well.

This was Bette’s first movie with Leslie Howard, who I found out this week died young at the age of 50 while working for the war effort during World War II. There is a whole crazy story to that which I need to write about at some point. Nazi plot to take out a beloved British actor? Maybe….or maybe it was the Winston Churchill look alike that was on the plane.

But, I digress…let’s get back to the movie.

Leslie portrays Philip Carey, a man who was told he wasn’t good enough to be an artist so he left Paris and came back to London to become a doctor.

He meets Bette’s character, Mildred Rogers, in a diner when his friend has a crush on her but can’t get anywhere with her. I will warn you up front that Bette attempts a Cockney accent and it’s pretty awful. Like Dick Van Dyke level.

Philip becomes obsessed with Mildred and I think it is because she keeps playing hard to get. It’s more than that, though. She’s simply a person who likes to toy with the hearts and feelings of others and she’s loving watching… spin in the wind.

Plus she looks at his club foot in disgust. She can’t be with someone with a deformed foot…right?

Who she can be with, though, are married men who leave her in very bad positions and every time she gets in a bad situation she runs to Philip who always bails her out, hoping against hope she will truly fall in love with him.

He rejects relationships with good, caring women, always going back to the slop that is a relationship with Mildred.

The movie is based on a book by W. Somerset Maugham and was remade two times — once in 1946 and once in 1964.

Critics loved the 1934 film, but didn’t care so much for the remakes.

TCM put it well about Bette and her desire to have the role: “Mildred was manipulative and sadistic, raw and fascinating, and Davis wanted to play her more than anything in the world.”

Davis was working for Warner Brothers at the time and Of Human Bondage was an RKO production, but Bette desperately wanted to be a part of it. Back then the actors and actresses had contracts with certain studios and weren’t supposed to work with other ones but Bette didn’t like the movies she was being put in by Warner Brothers. She felt they were inconsequential and begged Warner to let her be loaned out for the movie.

Warner refused because he said the role, an unglamorous one, would ruin her image. Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, and Ann Harding had already turned the roles down for that reason.

Maybe the role ruined Bette’s image as a stylized, glamorous star, but it opened her world to meatier roles.

“I begged, implored, cajoled,” Bette later recalled. “I haunted Jack Warner’s office. Every single day, I arrived at his door with the shoeshine boy. The part of Mildred was something I had to have. J.L. could not possibly understand any actress who would want to play such a part. I spent six months in supplication and drove Mr. Warner to the point of desperation – desperate enough to say ‘yes’ – anything to get rid of me… If my memory is correct, he said, ‘Go and hang yourself.'”

Maugham approved of Bette, which was a huge endorsement since he had poured so much of himself into the story, which was semi-autobiographical — mainly the part about being orphaned, relying on family, and having to struggle to get himself a career.

Leslie apparently was not too thrilled with an American playing Mildred’s part.

“When Davis shot her close-ups Howard would feed lines to her as he read a book off-camera, totally detached from the process,” Jeremy Arnold wrote for TCM.com. “But when he realized that she was giving a great performance and was on her way to stealing the picture, he shaped up instantly and committed himself fully to working with her. They would pair up twice more, notably in The Petrified Forest (1936).”

I’m watching The Petrified Forest, next, incidentally, but will be writing about Now, Voyageur first, which I watched a couple of weeks ago.

The lack of an Oscar nomination for Bette for this movie is what lead to a change in how nominations were made and voting was done for the Oscars.

Claudette Colbert won for Best Actress for It Happened One Night in 1934 and though she was great, some said fraud had occurred that left Bette even out of the nominations. Because of this brouhaha, write-in votes were no longer used and the accounting firm Price Waterhouse (now called Pricewaterehouse Coopers) took over the voting process and has done so ever since.

For those who are curious about what I have watched for the Spring of Bette so far, this is my list:

Of Human Bondage (June 2)

Now, Voyager (June 5)

The Petrified Forrest (June 11)

Sources:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/31567/of-human-bondage-1934

https://garbolaughs.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/of-human-bondage-1934/

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot June 5

On June 4, 2026June 4, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam6 Comments

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it. Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who link up to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot for taking part. I don’t usually get to every post and if I do get to most, I don’t always comment, sometimes because I get interrupted. I enjoy so many of your posts, though, and love the variety we have here.

Keep linking up. We all need some distractions, escapes, and reminders these days.

Now, let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!

Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.

We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: craftygardener

A little about Linda:

I love crafting and I love gardening … hence my name was created … Crafty Gardener, who in real life is Linda. Now I’m retired I have more time to do all the things I love to do, and I often wonder how I had time to go to work. I’ve been sharing my love of gardening and crafting since my site was established in 2004 with my own domain as a gift from my family.

Gardening is just one important part of my life. Family is the most important part. We have been married 50+ years, have 3 beautiful daughters and handsome son-in-laws and four wonderful and energetic grandchildren that keep us smiling and young!

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

Debbie is sharing some beautiful decorations with us

Nancy is telling us How to Keep Your Hair Looking Its Best Year-Round

Musings and Glimpses shows us how to make DIY Dollar Tree Mini Stand

These sourdough biscuits look amazing.

Doused in Pink is making jeans look summery

what a beautiful flower tree mosiac

Important things to know about the link-up:

This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.

Please link only blog posts you created yourself.

Please link directly to the URL of your post and not the main address of your blog.

Please do not add links to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos or Shorts, Instagram or Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, or any other “social media” based content.

But do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment.

Notice: By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that content and photos are your own property. And you give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.

We welcome unlimited, family friendly content! This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more! Thank you for joining us!

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook.

Book recommendations: The Labors of Hercules by Agatha Christie

On June 3, 2026June 2, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading5 Comments

I’ve been participating in the Read Christie 2026 Challenge, and for May, I read The Labors of Hercules.

It is a collection of short stories featuring Christie’s Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.

The stories all connect and follow the theme of Poirot sharing twelve cases to close his career as a private detective. Because he was named after Hercules (though his name does not have the “s”), he decides his final cases will be those that follow the Greek myth of the 12 Labors of Hercules.

I don’t really know a lot about Greek mythology, but I figured it out along the way.

Agatha wrote these as serialized stories in The Strand magazine from 1939 to 1940, with the last one being written for the collection in 1947.

I wasn’t too sure about this one when I started it, but the book, with each chapter focused on a short mystery, grew on me as I kept going. Some of the stories were more serious than the others.

I almost gave up after the second story, since the first couple were not written well to me, but I’m glad I didn’t give up because the stories got better – especially the final one where Poirot ran into a woman he used to have an attraction to – Countess Vera Rossakoff.

There was a lot of humor and just a good story in that one, which was entitled The Capture of Cerberus.

Here are a couple of quotes I enjoyed from that story:

“It is the misfortune of small precise men to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination the Countess held for him. Though I was something like twenty years since he had seen her last, the magic still held. Granted that her makeup now resembled a scene-painter’s sunset, with the woman under the makeup well hidden from sight, to Hercule Poirot she still represented the sumptuous and the alluring.”

When Poirot first sees her again after so many years, it is on an escalator and she shouts back at him to meet her in hell. He later learns from his secretary, Miss Lemon, that Hell is a nightclub, and he later learns the countess owns it.

At first, though, he is totally baffled.

“But what had she meant by it? Had she meant London’s Underground Railways? Or were her words to be taken in a religious sense? Surely, even if her own way of life made Hell the most plausible destination for her after this life, surely—surely her Russian Courtesy would not suggest that Hercule Poirot was necessarily bound for the same place?”

Then, when he finally does get to the club…

“The place was full and it had about it that unmistakable air of success which cannot be counterfeited. There were languid couples in full evening dress, Bohemians in corduroy trousers, stout gentlemen in business suits. The band, dressed as devils, dispensed hot music. No doubt about it, Hell had caught on.

“We have all kinds here,” said the Countess. “That is as it should be, is it not? The gates of Hell are open to all?”

“Except, possibly, to the poor?” Poirot suggested.

The Countess laughed. “Are we not told that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Naturally, then, he should have priority in Hell.”

I was surprised by how much Agatha wrote about cocaine use and its destruction in these stories. Sometimes I am very naïve and forget that cocaine and drug abuse was a very real thing even back then.

If I didn’t think it would bore both you and me, I would go through each story and tell you why I did or didn’t like it, and share some quotes. Instead, I will simply reiterate that there were good stories and not as good stories, in my opinion, but that I would read them all because what one person doesn’t like, another person might like.

My mom and I share a Kindle/Goodreads account and I noticed when I finished it that she gave it a three star. I bumped it up to a four, but without that last story I might have given it a three too (or 3.5), even though the idea behind it was very ingenious.

Have you read this collection yet?

Up next for me for the Read Christie 2026 challenge is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Ten Books I can’t believe I’ve never read

On June 2, 2026June 1, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday32 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

If you are new to my blog, I just wanted to share with you that I co-host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea (no, you don’t have to drink tea to participate) and you can find a link to it at the top of the page.

The link party is for all book-related posts from reviews and recommendations to …well, anything related to books at all. Including Top Ten Tuesday if you want to link your top ten there too!

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is: books I can’t believe I’ve never read

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

I’ve been interested but just haven’t got there. Hopefully one day.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Another one I just haven’t gotten to.

Or anything by Jane Austen. I got halfway through Mansfield Park at least. I will get there!

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas

Have you seen how big this thing is?!

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

I tried! I tried! *sobbing* It beat me!

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Whales. Sailing. Ocean. Didn’t think it would interest me and now I feel bad I haven’t read it yet.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scot Fitzgerald

Seems like it might be my thing but I’ve never read it.

The Diary of Anne Frank

Just couldn’t do it. Too emotional. Too sad thinking of the future she never had and should have had.

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

I am one step closer. I bought the book a couple of months ago. Similar to Anne Frank, though, it’s a difficult one to read. I know enough about it to know that.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

I don’t know why I haven’t read this one. Again, it sounds like my thing … I need to do it already.

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Like most, I’ve seen the Disney cartoon but never read the book.

Have you read any of these?

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month : https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (Monthly Bookish Blog Party) for June

On June 1, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Link Party, book reviews, books and reading9 Comments

Welcome to the A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (A Monthly Bookish Link Party)!! This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!).

Each link party will be open for a month.

My co-hosts for this event are Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and Cat from Cat’s Wire.

Here are a few of my favorite shares from the May link party:

The Intrepid Reader wrote about some classics and got me thinking about classics I still need to read.

Grace Filled Moments shared a review of a devotional written by someone related to someone I know, so that was cool to see.

Homemade On a Weeknight shared what they read in April.

Thistles and Kiwis shared what was on her bookshelf in April.

I really enjoyed Cat chatting about Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple. I have not watched a movie with her yet, but hope to soon!

You can link up with any of us!

Some guidelines.

1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. They can be older posts or newer posts. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to the bookstore, etc. You get the drift.

2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not just your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.

3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.

4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.

5. If you add a link you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).

Sunday Bookends: Old recordings from relatives found and watching an old Miss Marple and a new “Miss Bennet”

On May 31, 2026May 31, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon8 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing.

Last weekend my daughter and husband found a couple of cassette tapes in my late aunt’s old dresser. My aunt passed away in 2018 and I’m not sure how we didn’t see these tapes before but there they were — recordings that someone had made, we are not sure who, of my grandfather, great-grandmother and another relative on one cassette singing and, at least according to the label, my grandmother and grandfather on another cassette singing.

My grandfather played the harmonica and the Hawaiian steel guitar and had a band with his brothers at one time. I really didn’t know if my grandmother sang but apparently she did some with my grandfather, based on these recordings.

My mom is 81 (82 in August) and she said she wasn’t totally sure it was her parents, since it had been so long since she’d heard their voices. The more she listened, though, she thought it must be, but when they were much younger, which is why they didn’t sound as familiar.

I have not heard my grandmother’s voice since 2002 since she died in early 2003, but something about the laugh made me thin it was her.

I was only 9 when my grandfather died, so I can’t be sure it was him either.

My mom was certain the other woman on the other cassette was her grandmother. The first time we listened to it she was trying to hear the voices, be sure it was them. The second time we listened she cried, but didn’t say why, only saying it wasn’t about being sad. I think a lot of good memories of her grandmother came back hearing those songs.

I texted my great aunt and she confirmed that the voice on the one cassette tape were her brother (my grandfather) and her mother.

Grandpa played bluegrass-style music, or maybe it would be described as Apalachian-style.

The songs we heard on the cassettes were mainly hymns, with some instrumentals on either the Hawaiian steel guitar, the dobro, guitar, or harmonica.

I don’t know why, but I ended up with one of my grandfather’s harmonicas when he died.

I only saw my grandfather once a year since he lived in North Carolina and we lived in Pennsylvania, so I wasn’t very close to him. From what I hear, he wasn’t an easy man for anyone to get close to, but that’s another story for another day.

Quick update on the older cat: she’s doing much better but still not eating well. She is moving better, wants to cuddle more, and is on the mend, even though her left eye is still goopy. The other cats seem fully recovered and are actually back to being a bit annoying.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I just finished The Cat Who Brought the House Down by Lilian Jackson Braun.

It was a very, slow, light cozy mystery with a pretty dark ending (though not described in detail). I enjoyed it even though it was more like reading a gentle vintage fiction book than a mystery. And that ending…it was like a Christie ending. Not bad, actually good, but really out of place for the rest of the book.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month. I am also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, but had put it aside for a bit. I hope to pick it up again this week.

Stolen Past by Tara Randel, an Amish Inn Mystery, and The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.

Up Soon

I’ll be reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie soon for the 2026 Christie Reading Challenge.

What The Family is Reading

The Husband is on assignment for the paper so I didn’t get a chance to ask him what he’s been reading. Little Miss and I took a break from Heidi this week but are picking it back up this upcoming week during our last week of homeschool for a month.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

No new arrivals for now.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched The Other Bennett Sister, The Letter (a movie with Bette Davis that I wrote about), and A Caribbean Mystery – a Miss Marple Mystery with Joan Hickson.

A Caribbean Mystery was so well done and very close to the book. The people they cast for the characters were absolutely perfect — especially Mr. Rafiel. I am glad they got rid of a three of the characters from the book, though, because it was a little confusing at times and would have been even more confusing in a movie.

There were a few other changes from the novel, including a more prominent role of Island resident Inspector Weston in the movie/TV show. The actor was excellent and I actually enjoyed him being more involved.

The one woman’s American/Southern accent was atrocious though. I really wish the British productions would hire actual Americans for these roles or get someone who doesn’t butcher a Southern accent at least.

There were these horrid crickets or tree frogs or something sounding during many of the nighttime scenes and I wondered why they didn’t cut the sound out but toward the end I realized it created an unsettling feeling that added to the story/mystery.

What I’ve Been Writing

On the blog I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I am listening to Murder, She wrote: The Maine Mutiny by Donald Bain. It’s slow going because I usually only listen to audiobooks when I am driving and I have not been driving a lot lately. Or at least alone.

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Spring of Bette: The Letter (1940)

On May 29, 2026June 5, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, Movie Impresssions, Spring of Bette5 Comments

I’ve been watching Bette Davis movies for spring and I’m stretching a bit into summer because of some delays but … no one really cares because I think two people (including me) read these posts. Ha! But it’s still fun for me so I keep writing them.

This week I am writing about The Letter.

This one was very suspenseful and fascinating.

I wondered what the truth was and when I did know it, I wondered how everyone in the movie would figure it out.

And the ending…oof. I sort of knew it was coming and am not sure what I think about it, but I am going to not talk about it here. I’ll let some of you watch it and then you can come back and tell me what you thought.

Here is a brief description of the movie from TCM.com:

Based on a short story and play by British author W. Somerset Maugham, The Letter is the story of Leslie Crosbie, who has killed her lover and claims self-defense. But an incriminating letter exists…

I couldn’t write any better what Margarita Landazuri wrote on TCM.com about the opening sequence of this movie:

“It is a sultry, sweltering, moonlit night on a Malayan rubber plantation. The camera pans across the native workers sleeping fitfully in their hammocks, through the silent, menacing darkness. Suddenly, a shot rings out. A ghostly tropical bird, startled, flies off its perch. A man stumbles down the steps of the veranda, followed by a woman who pumps several more shots into him and drops the gun. In two wordless minutes, director William Wyler grabs the audience and sets the mood of The Letter (1940), with one of the most stunning opening sequences ever.”

This movie, released in 1940 is a remake of a 1929 movie starring Jeanne Eagels shortly before her death. It is one of the only, if not the only, surviving film she was ever in. There was a silent and a talking version with her in it released that year and it caused quite a stir with some towns in the U.S. banning it and calling it “too adult” for most audiences.

But we are talking about the 1940 version today.

This version was directed by William Wyler who Bette Davis had worked with in Jezebel and had a brief affair with (like who didn’t she have an affair with at this point?!). Davis said there was no other director who she would trust and listen to as much as Wyler.

There were a couple of major challenges to this insistence by Davis, but, overall, their close friendship did prove to be a plus for the movie.

In addition to Davis, the movie also stars:

James Stephenson (an unknown British actor at the time who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance but sadly died a year later from a heart attack), Herbert Marshall, and Victor Sen Yung as Ong Chi Seng.

Sen Yung was amazing and a pivotal part of the movie all the way through. His subtle expressions and slight raise of his voice just when needed as absolutely perfect. I’d like to find out more about him and the roles he was able to, and not to, play in Hollywood back then.

I did read that he played Hop Sing on Bonanza and I’ve never seen Bonanza but I’m guessing it was pretty stereotypical. Not sure though.

Gale Sondergaard plays an Asian woman, which was very odd, but also worked somehow. She was very intimidating and creepy but that was also enhanced with Wyler’s decision to cut the soundtrack in scenes with her, leaving only the sounds of wind or windchimes during her appearances.

Davis was extremely intense during much of the movie and her unflinching telling of the true story was chilling and unnerving. It had me gasping a couple of times but I gasped even more at her audacity at the end of the movie.

After watching all these movies with Bette, I don’t know that she is my favorite actress and sometimes I feel like she is the same person in a lot of movies, without much variety in her acting style (please, Bette fans, don’t throw things at me .. I wrote sometimes !) but she certainly commanded the screen with her presence. More so than what Bette says is how she looks in a scene. She has this subtle, and sometimes not subtle, way of cocking one eyebrow and lowering her eyelids at the same time that alerts you to an impending fit, temper tantrum, or epic take down.

This movie, much like Jezebel, showcases Bette’s ability to convey so much through just a few looks. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her and found myself saying, “Oh no you didn’t…” a lot to the screen when she was on.

This one is definitely on of hers I would recommend if you have never seen a Bette Davis movie, or one that was good at least.

Here is the opening sequence I was talking about above:

Here is an explanation on why this movie is considered noir by many film buffs

Up next I am watching Of Human Bondage, one of Bette’s most acclaimed early films.

My watch list for this feature:

The Letter

Of Human Bondage (June 2)

Now, Voyager (June 5)

The Petrified Forrest (June 11)

Sources:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/18603/the-letter

https://classicforareason.com/2017/07/04/the-letter-1940/

https://classiq.me/breaking-the-rules-of-a-leading-lady-bette-davis-in-the-letter

If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account (https://www.instagram.com/nostalgically_thinking/) or on my YouTube account Nostalgically and Bookishly Thinking here: https://www.youtube.com/@nostaglicandbookish

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot for May 29

On May 28, 2026May 28, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam7 Comments

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

I share old movie clips on Facebook and Instagram, and while the majority of the comments on them are positive and uplifting, sometimes mean and out of line ones slip through. It’s weird how we humans tend to focus on the negative, because I find myself getting down about those negative comments, even though most comments are positive. My latest strategy is simply to delete them and move on.

I really do enjoy the nicer comments where someone shares how they loved watching a movie with a loved one who has passed on or who just shares a happy memory in general.

Alas, not all people are pleasant so I just have to take the good with the bad. The best thing about the negative comments is that I am learning to let things go more and let the miserable people be miserable. It’s teaching me to protect my peace and take longer breaks or just delete the comments altogether if they are too horrible.

Now, let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: Linda from Bushel and a Pickle

A little about Linda:

I live in Central Pennsylvania in a very, very old farmhouse. Bushel & a Pickle is my blog. Sharing my life experiences that include home, food, travel, family and faith is a delight for me.

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

I love this post about cows from Life Captured

Joanne and her family enjoyed a lovely trip at a national park in Utah

Lisa is wondering about a man she sees on the beach

Honey Bears and Sydney Beans makes us aware of MS

Erin is having a frog and toad summer

Important things to know about the link-up:

This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.

Please link only blog posts you created yourself.

Please link directly to the URL of your post and not the main address of your blog.

Please do not add links to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos or Shorts, Instagram or Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, or any other “social media” based content.

But do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment.

Notice: By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that the content and photos are your own property. And you give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook.

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