This space was formerly occupied by Richard Harland Smith, who handled write-ups for TCM Underground on Wednesdays and retired from the Morlocks a couple of weeks ago. Since no one has yet taken this space over and since I had the Wednesday posts and Richard the Friday until we switched a while back, I figured this would be as good a space as any to write about my experiences with movie blogging and how so much of it was influenced by the very same Mr. Smith. It’s not the usual thing to send off a Morlock with a written tribute but Richard Harland Smith is important to me as a friend and a writer. I just want to say a few words to try and fill this empty space and talk about movie blogging through the years and how much my own sensibilities have been informed by Richard in that time and will continue to be as long as I write.
Back in 2006 I started blogging at a few different sites before settling in, in early 2007, to a blog I called Cinema Styles. It’s gone now, long deleted, but I met some people there in my early days that are still with me now. My fellow Morlock, Kimberly Lindbergs, was one of the first as she and I regularly visited each other’s blog to leave comments. Bill Ryan and Dennis Cozzalio were two more that engaged with me early on and if you don’t know their work you owe it to yourself to seek it out. And, of course, Richard Harland Smith. We met early on as well but in a more roundabout way.
I first got to know Richard under his pseudonym of Arbogast on Film back in 2007. We both took part in a blogathon hosted by Matt Zoller Seitz about closeups in the movies. I went to his blog and he to mine and we soon began a relationship built upon wisecracks, puns, and movie knowledge one-upsmanship. He beat me in all three, every time. I quickly figured out who he was (literally within a couple of months and then emailed him to let him know I knew he was Richard) and played along for the next several years, even occasionally dropping him a line letting him know he had written up the same childhood memory here as on Arbogast and if he wanted to keep the game going he should edit one or the other.
As here, at Arbogast he was the foremost expert on cinematic horror. In fact, I know of no one who has a better grasp of cinematic horror than Richard. It’s one thing to have a general knowledge of cinema but to have that and an obsessively encyclopedic knowledge of a specific genre and, on top of that, understand the genre intuitively (knowledge and understanding are not the same thing) is something decidedly different and something that I, as a more general cinematic obsessive, can never hope to possess. When Richard invited me to be a part of The Horror Dads, a group here at TCM, I was honored and terrified all at once. It was only a matter of time before he and the others (Dennis, Jeff, Nick, and Paul) realized I was a fraud who, compared to them, knew almost nothing about the genre. But Richard never made me feel that way. He even wrote once, on my defunct blog years ago, that it wasn’t how much I knew about horror that was impressive (because it wasn’t), it was the insight I brought to it in my posts. That’s probably the best damn writing compliment I ever got, in part because it was coming from one of the best writers I’ve ever known.
Richard can turn a phrase better than just about anyone currently writing and on par with some of the best wits and essayists who ever did write. There were many occasions when a simple one liner in a write-up of his had me in awe of how quickly and adeptly he could inject humor into any write-up, no matter how serious or gruesome or brutal the subject. And just when you thought he was all wit and no sentimentality, he’d pull off a post like this one, still one of the most moving posts about an actress, or anyone else, I’ve ever read. He surprised you like that with his writing all the time, no small feat for someone who has written as extensively about movies as Richard. That unique talent of his is the reason why whenever I find we have both written an article on the same subject, my insecurities rocket to the surface. In fact, I’ll bear it all right now. I’ve written up hundreds of movies here for TCM as has Richard. Inevitably, there’s overlap and when there is, I feel humbled every time. Take this one: The Corsican Brothers. Go ahead, click on the title and that will take you to the articles page. The first article is by Richard, the second by me. Richard’s is thoroughly researched, witty, insightful, and a damn good read. Mine is… well, mine isn’t like Richard’s. That’s why, until now, when I find a movie that we have both written up, I pretty much keep it to myself rather than let anyone read he and I side by side. You don’t write about the same subject as Richard Harland Smith and come out on top. If we were boxers, I’d be on the canvas inside of a minute every time.
Richard had his own personal reasons for retiring from the Morlocks and I wish I could have changed his mind but that’s not why I wrote this. I wrote this because I’ll miss him terribly in this space. I wrote this because he’s been an influence on my own writing as I have struggled to live up to his standards. I wrote this because he gave me the good reference, so to speak, that got me on board here in the first place. If it weren’t for Richard, my career as a writer probably would have stalled out years ago. Thanks for everything, friend. What music you made.