Claws & Saucers

Where’s the C&S Facebook page?

The Claws & Saucers Facebook page was hacked in late June 2024 and is currently in limbo.  I’m still trying to recover the page and hope to one day regain it.  The page had more than 2500 followers.  From 2014-2024, I posted about three times a week.  I very much enjoyed that page, but the loss of the page spurred me to remake the Claws & Saucers website, something I’d been meaning but neglecting to do for years.  You’re at the remade website now.  I will post reviews or articles every couple of weeks on this website.

While I’m writing, I’d like to make some acknowledgements.

I’d like to thank John Allen, Brian Bankston, R.A. Bardy, Mike Bohatch, David Colton, Daniel Kraus, and Martin Unsworth, not to mention a few readers who posted on Amazon or elsewhere, for suggestions and correspondence that helped me revise the book between 2012 and 2015.  I’d like to thank Samantha Barbas (author of Movie Crazy and The First Lady of Hollywood) who first got me into silent films in the late 1990s.  And I’d like to thank Roland De La Rosa, proprietor of the Berkeley, California “Movie Image” video rental/retail store for more than 20 years, who went to great lengths to obtain rare and out-of-print videos for me.

I must also acknowledge the guidebooks that came before Claws & Saucers, guidebooks that still inspire me 20+ years after I started my book.  From Joe Kane (“the Phantom”), I learned to put variety into my entries so that the book would be readable start to finish.  From Mike Mayo, I learned to take everything seriously (at least at first).  From John Stanley, I learned to include as many movies as possible, and to put everything together in alphabetical order (not ordered by year, not ordered by genre).  From Bill Warren, I learned to offer references, connections, research, and personal anecdotes in my entries.  From Michael J. Weldon, I learned to keep my writing straightforward and clear.  I learned from others as well, but these five gentlemen are the best.

I must also thank my wife, Kit Soo, whom I met in 2003 right around the time I started the book and who, therefore, has been with me the entire way.