Pacific Vortex: Don Juan and more

pg 26

Pitt didn't kid himself: no movie studio would ever star him in a remake of Don Juan.

Don Juan (Spanish, or "Don Giovanni" in Italian) is a legendary, fictional libertine whose story has been told many times by many authors.

Don Juan is used synonymously for "womanizer."

Don Juan is a rogue and a libertine who takes great pleasure in seducing women (mainly virgins) and enjoys fighting their men. Later, in a graveyard, Don Juan encounters a statue of Don Gonzalo, the dead father of a girl he has seduced, Doña Ines de Ulloa, and impiously invites the father to dine with him; the statue gladly accepts. The father's ghost arrives for dinner at Don Juan's house and in turn invites Don Juan to dine with him in the graveyard. Don Juan accepts and goes to the father's grave, where the statue asks to shake Don Juan's hand. When he extends his arm, the statue grabs hold and drags him away to Hell

He wasn't about to wait for the posse to block the pass

A cliche from the silent Western, and indeed right up until the 1930s, is that the hero would be facing certain death at the end of the movie, until a possse, or more usually the cavalry, rode to the rescue.

He certainly didn't want to meet cruising policemen or a do-gooder vacationer who might conjure up the notion of playing Herbert Hero and rescuing Little Eva from the villainous Simon LePitt.

In the book Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1852. In the silent movie version, a young white girl named Eva (who had befriended the slave Uncle Tom) is kidnapped by the villainous Simon LeGree, and attempts to run to safety across an ice floe.

Since that time, over-the-top villains with designs on women have been called "Simon LeGree."

This time he recognized the scent as plumeria.

Plumeria is related to the Oleander, Nerium oleander, and both possess a irritating, milky sap, rather similar to that of Euphorbia. Contact with the sap may irritate eyes and skin.

Each of the separate species of Plumeria bears differently shaped alternate leaves, with distinct form and growth habits. The leaves of P. alba are quite narrow and corrugated, whereas leaves of P. pudica have an elongated shape and glossy, dark-green color. P. pudica is one of the everblooming types with non-deciduous, evergreen leaves. Another species that retains leaves and flowers in winter is P. obtusa; though its common name is "Singapore," it is originally from Colombia.

Plumeria flowers are most fragrant at night in order to lure sphinx moths to pollinate them. The flowers have no nectar, and simply dupe their pollinators. The moths inadvertently pollinate them by transferring pollen from flower to flower in their fruitless search for nectar.