110 minute running time so 10 minutes too long, but this is a wonderfully weird movie. I thought it was a Sirk film given the “blazing Technicolor,” but the director was John M. Stahl (born Jacob Morris Strelitsky).

That beautiful blue sky above the “lake cabin in Maine” was actually shot in northern California. The movie stars Gene Tierney, her overbite, and her face-in-a-trance. She’s beautiful, she’s rich, she’s politically- and socially-connected, she has impeccable manners, she is beautifully dressed (for the 40s), and she is a complete psychopath. It’s a lot of fun. Weird fun.

She marries a Harvard man (editor of the Lampoon) named Dick, after unceremoniously dumping Vincent Price, the District Attorney. Dick is close to his younger brother Danny, whom she calls a “cripple” in a moment of indiscretion (maybe he has polio?). Spoilers ahead: she doesn’t like Danny around so she drowns him. See what I mean about this movie being fun?

She gets pregnant with Dick’s baby, but ends up hating the “little beast” inside her, so she throws herself down the stairs to induce a miscarriage. Let me remind you that this movie was made in 1945, the height of American myth-making in Hollywood, the opposite of the dark truths put on display here.

Dick loses interest in her after this, and spends more time with her “sister” Ruth (actually a cousin), and he even ends up dedicating his latest novel to Ruth, which leads Gene Tierney and her overbite (spoilers ahead) to kill herself while attempting to frame Ruth for “murder.” High comedy!

There’s some really great writing in this movie, great lines and dialogue. I loved everything about it. What’s weird is that it is not on ANY must-see movie list, including John Farr’s, which is a real surprise. But I strongly recommend seeing this movie, it’s wonderful, green-go!

(How could Fox’s largest-grossing movie of the ENTIRE 1940s be so unknown today?!? I think it’s because the movie is so dark, so perverse, that normal people don’t want anything to do with it… similar to Angel Face or Nightmare Alley … crazy hot people committing suicide or going mad is not something the public anxious to see.)

Top 50 City Clubs

Added on April 5, 2026 by C. Maoxian.

Listed By State:

Jonathan Club, Los Angeles, Calif.

The California Club, Los Angeles, Calif.

The Athenaeum, Pasadena, Calif.

The Sutter Club, Sacramento, Calif.

Bohemian Club, San Francisco, Calif.

Pacific-Union Club, San Francisco, Calif.

Santa Barbara Club, Santa Barbara, Calif.

The Beach Club, Palm Beach, Fla.

The Mar-a-Lago Club, Palm Beach, Fla.

The University Club of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.

Union League Club of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.

The Chicago Club, Chicago, Ill.

The Columbia Club, Indianapolis, Ind.

City Club at River Ranch, Lafayette, La.

The Shreveport Club, Shreveport, La.

The Center Club, Baltimore, Md.

Harvard Club of Boston, Boston, Mass.

The University Club of Boston, Boston, Mass.

The Minneapolis Club, Minneapolis, Minn.

Saint Louis Club, St. Louis, Mo.

The Buffalo Club, Buffalo, N.Y.

The University Club of New York, New York, N.Y.

The Penn Club of New York, New York, N.Y.

The Yale Club of New York City, New York, N.Y.

The Union League Club, New York, N.Y.

Metropolitan Club, New York, N.Y.

Union Club of the City of New York, New York, N.Y.

The Cornell Club - New York, New York, N.Y.

The Knickerbocker Club, New York, N.Y.

Cosmopolitan Club, New York, N.Y.

The Harmonie Club, New York, N.Y.

Harvard Club of New York City, New York, N.Y.

The Lotos Club, New York, N.Y.

The Princeton Club, New York, N.Y.

Genesee Valley Club, Rochester, N.Y.

Charlotte City Club, Charlotte, N.C.

The Union Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio

The Summit, Tulsa, Okla.

Arlington Club, Portland, Ore.

Hamilton Club of Lancaster, Lancaster, Pa.

The Union League of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pa.

Duquesne Club, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Westmoreland Club, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Poinsett Club, Greenville, S.C.

The Piedmont Club, Spartanburg, S.C.

Dallas Petroleum Club, Dallas, Tex.

The Fort Worth Club, Fort Worth, Tex.

The Coronado Club, Houston, Tex.

Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.

The University Club of Washington DC, Washington, D.C.

The Metropolitan Club of the City of Washington, Washington, D.C.

The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D.C.

Sulgrave Club, Washington, D.C.

The University Club of Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wis.

Movies Watched in March 2026

Added on April 3, 2026 by C. Maoxian.

I now think the goal of watching 50 movies a month is a little crazy so I’m dropping it to a more manageable 30 a month. Check out the January 2026 and February 2026 lists.

Here is what I watched in March, listed alphabetically:

A Shot in the Dark, 1964
Basic Training, 1971
Blade Runner, 1982
Bonjour Tristesse, 1958
Diary of a Mad Housewife, 1970
Earth, 1930
El Bruto, 1953
Harper, 1966
Johnny Guitar, 1954
Kuroneko, 1968
La Bete Humaine, 1938
My Life As a Dog, 1985
Petite Maman, 2021
Pina, 2011
Rashomon, 1950
Rebel Without a Cause, 1955
Sleuth, 1972
Summertime, 1955
The 400 Blows, 1959
The Exterminating Angel, 1962
The Merchant of Four Seasons, 1971
The Milky Way, 1936
The Servant, 1963
The Swimmer, 1968
The Thin Blue Line, 1988
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964
Three Colours: White, 1994
Titicut Follies, 1967
To Be Or Not To Be, 1942
Un Chien Andalou, 1962
Watership Down, 1978
Where Is the Friend's House, 1983
Wild Strawberries, 1957
Woman in the Dunes, 1964
Young Mr. Lincoln, 1939

The movies that I consider must-see among these are listed below:

Blade Runner, 1982 (director: Ridley Scott)
The Merchant of Four Seasons, 1971 (director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
To Be Or Not To Be, 1932 (director: Ernst Lubitsch)
Woman in the Dunes, 1964 (director: Hiroshi Teshigahara)

States With Two Republican Senators

Added on April 2, 2026 by C. Maoxian.

Names in bold are senators whose terms expire in 2027.

Alabama, Tommy Tuberville, Katie Britt
Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, Dan Sullivan
Arkansas, John Boozman, Tom Cotton
Florida, Rick Scott, Ashley Moody
Idaho, Mike Crapo, Jim Risch
Indiana, Todd Young, Jim Banks
Iowa, Chuck Grassley, Joni Ernst
Kansas, Jerry Moran, Roger Marshall
Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul
Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, John Kennedy
Mississippi, Roger Wicker, Cindy Hyde-Smith
Missouri, Josh Hawley, Eric Schmitt
Montana, Steve Daines, Tim Sheehy
Nebraska, Deb Fischer, Pete Ricketts
North Carolina, Thom Tillis, Ted Budd
North Dakota, John Hoeven, Kevin Cramer
Ohio, Bernie Moreno, Jon Husted
Oklahoma, James Lankford, Alan Armstrong
South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, Tim Scott
South Dakota, John Thune, Mike Rounds
Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn, Bill Haggerty
Texas, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz
Utah, Mike Lee, John Curtis
West Virginia, Shelley Moore Capito, Jim Justice
Wyoming, John Barrasso, Cynthia Lummis

Susan Collins, from split-state Maine, is the 20th Republican senator whose term expires in 2027. It’s vital that all of these Republican senators are voted out of office in November.

Check out this post from 2021: U.S. Senate has fewest split delegations since direct elections began

Worst Adverse Excursions in March 2026

Added on April 1, 2026 by C. Maoxian.

March was an amazing month for the blind shorts, with next to no outlier losses and hundreds and hundreds of winning trades.

Don’t forget to look at the outlier moves in October 2025 (23), November 2025 (5), December 2025 (6), January 2026 (10), and February 2026 (9)

ARTL, 3/27:

CIIT (Hong Kong), 3/9:

EEIQ, 3/26:

MOBX, 3/3:

SWMR, 3/17:

TMDE, 3/2:

UCAR (China), 3/17:

UGRO, 3/25:

VCIG (Malaysia), 3/4:

WNW (China), 3/16:

Maoxian's One a Day Playlist for March 2026

Added on April 1, 2026 by C. Maoxian.

Here is the One a Day playlist for March 2026. Check out the One a Day playlists for both February and January.

My musical taste is as eclectic as it is superlative so you should listen closely to the selections. The songs are ordered chronologically from latest to earliest:

Melissa Leveaux, do as I say
Mitski, Charon's Obol
Momoko Gill, Heavy
Tyler Ballgame, I Believe In Love
Black Sea Dahu, Ruth
Cat Clyde, Wild One
Yael Naim, La fille pas cool
Bad Bunny, Lo Que Le Paso a Hawaii
Maribou State, Bloom
Turnstile, I Care
OMA, Do For Love
Sinj Clarke, Yves
Ruthee, Ailleurs
Ours Samplus, Sleepy
Meskerem Mees, Joe
Gregory Alan Isakov, Saint Valentine
Ali Farka Toure Sabu, Yerkoy
Phoebe Killdeer, The Fade Out Line
Ray LaMontagne, This Love Is Over
Oxmo Puccino, 365 Jours
Omara Portuondo, Maria Bethania, Tal Vez
Scarface, On My Block
Broadcast, Come On Let's Go
Nas, Memory Lane
Joe Jackson, It's Different for Girls
Johnny Paycheck, She's All I've Got
Carpenters, Mr. Guder
Iron Butterfly, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Dorothy Ashby, Afro-Harping
The Left Banke, Walk Away Renee
Los Zafiros, Un Nombre de Mujer