Cult-TV Blogging: The Immortal: "Sylvia" (September 24, 1970)

In “Sylvia,” the first episode of the TV series, The Immortal (1970-1971), Ben Richards (Christopher George) -- a man with blood that serves as a kind of fountain of youth -- comes out of hiding to help his former fiancé, Sylvia (Carol Lynley), who is on the verge of her marriage to a man named David Hiller (Glen Corbett).

Ben is unaware, however, that he has a new enemy. A business tycoon named Arthur Maitland (David Brian), has picked up where Jordan Braddock left off, and is desperate to possess his unique, immortality-granting blood. 

To that end, Maitland has hired a cunning mercenary, Fletcher (Don Knight) to procure Richards for his personal use, and survival.

Knight’s first gambit is, not surprisingly, to use Richards’ attachment to Sylvia Cartwright against him. He plans to capture Richards at her engagement party, where Maitland is a guest. Richards walks into the trap, but receives unexpected help from Hiller, who turns out to be a decent and moral man.

After escaping Fletcher’s grasp, Richards must say a final goodbye to Sylvia, and the life they once shared.

The first hour-long episode of The Immortal opens with the following narration, voiced by Paul Frees:

“This man has a singular advantage over other men. Ben Richards is immune to every known disease, including old age. Periodic transfusions of his blood can give other men a second, third, lifetime…maybe more.”

After these words, we hear Richards notes: “I gotta live free.”

Welcome to The Fugitive 2.0, with a science fiction veneer. 

Ben Richards is our man-on-the-run (substituting for Richard Kimball), and Fletcher is the latest “hapless pursuer”-type, filling in for Lt. Gerard. Here, it is Paul Frees who narrates, not William Conrad, as was the case in The Fugitive. 

Finally, the quest in The Immortal is not to find the “One-Armed Man” who killed Kimball’s wife, but rather Ben Richard’s brother, who could possess the same, special type of blood as his sibling.

Of course, by locating his brother, Richards is actually leading his pursuers right to him, but that’s an argument for another day.

In terms of specifics, “Sylvia” is superior to some later episodes of the series because there are connection, even if tenuous, to the TV movie. 

For instance, Carol Lynley reprises her role as Richards’ one true love, Sylvia Cartwright. The teleplay also makes mention of Jordan Braddock, the first tycoon to seek to control Ben’s future (and his blood).

The episode also does a good job introducing Don Knight’s Fletcher, a real cut-throat character. 

Knight’s performances in the series are always delightful, and worthwhile, but the actor must continually struggle against an archetype that makes him seem incompetent. In other words, if Fletcher were to succeed in capturing Richards, the series would come to an end. Therefore, Fletcher must forever be outwitted, out-smarted, and outmaneuvered by his opponent. This fact means that, no matter the dignity of the performance, the character comes across as somewhat incompetent, even insipid. Knight does his best to overcome this structural/formula deficit.

David Brian's Maitland, by contrast, does not come off well here at all. He seems far less sinister and distinctive a nemesis than his predecessor, Braddock, was.  His heart doesn't seem to be in the pursuit.

Like the TV movie that preceded it, the emotions and intrigue of “Sylvia” all resolve in…a car chase. 

It’s just a sign of the times, and 1970's television, I suppose, but it is disappointing. “Sylvia” sets up an interesting love-triangle between Richards, Sylvia and Hiller, and then -- instead of following through -- takes to the road for crashes and high-speed pursuits. 

In the end, Richards voluntarily gives up Sylvia after she admits she can’t live on the run, as a fugitive. Richards leaves, alone, and Sylvia can find happiness with Hiller, instead. Convenient for her, no?

The episode culminates with Hiller wondering if Richards has a chance to outwit his enemies.  Sylvia replies that “he has a change, as long as he won’t quit.”  When a formula is applied so strenuously to a series, there is little chance of that.  

Richards, like Kimball before him, will always run because The Fugitive format requires him to do so.

Next week: “White Elephants Don’t Grow on Trees.”

Cult-TV Movie Review: Night Slaves (1970)

The TV movie Night Slaves (1970), by Jerry Sohl, is the story of a man named Clay Howard (James Franciscus) who has grown tired of 20^th century living, and its conspicuous consumption. “No more accumulations,” he insists to his business partner, Matt. “No more things.” 

Accordingly, Clay sells his business, and decides it is a time for a change in his marriage to Marjorie (Lee Grant), as well.

Before he can make any changes however, Clay is involved in a car accident and must undergo emergency surgery. The doctors implant a metal plate in his skull during the operation. Afterwards, Clay's surgeon recommends a vacation, one with "no pressure at all." 

So Clay and Marjorie head off together to the sleepy little burb of Eldrid, California, a dusty old town that advertises itself as "a bit of the Old West."

After he and his wife decide to stay in a local boarding house, Clay experiences a nightmare. When he awakes, however he finds he is living in one.

He sees his wife and other town people in a trance, being "herded like sheep" onto trucks and transported out of town to perform menial tasks for Noel (Andrew Prine), an alien life form who has possessed the human form of the local simpleton. Noel's space craft suffered "internal damage" while in flight and now Noel steals "four hours a night" from his human servants. He is a psychokinetic life form who means no harm, but also will stand for no interference.

Because of the metal plate lodged in his head, Clay is immune to Noel's mental control. Instead, he falls in love with the alien leader's only crew member; a naive technician named Nailil (Trish Sterling). Nailil shows Clay her damaged spaceship, as well as a selective invisible force field which she can pass through, but which Clay cannot. It blankets the town and prevents egress during the nightly work shift.

Clay and Nailil talk, and grow close. Both feel disenfranchised by their respective societies.

So when Noel's spacecraft plans to lift-off at 5:30 am one morning, Clay means to shed his Earthly form and be on board it...

Night Slaves is an unusually sedate and modest TV-movie of the 1970s, with no real special effects, and no real scares, either. Instead, it plays like a variation on It Came from Outer Space (1953), a classic science fiction film about aliens harnessing human workers in another quiet, out-of-the-way town.

What distinguishes Night Slaves -- and has made it memorable for those who saw it on its original broadcast -- is the underlying social commentary. 

Clay and Nailil both feel like outcasts in their respective societies. Clay no longer wants to be a “slave” to his possessions, or his profession, and seeks to break out of the “box” of 20^th century society. 

He finds himself in a situation, intriguingly, where can shed not only all his material wealth for love, but his actual body, too.  His very name, Clay, tells us that he is not rigid and locked in, but able to re-shape himself and his life in new ways.

Niailil is similarly a slave to her “over-one,” (meaning overlord), Noel. She lives just to be a “technician” but longs to be a mother, a spouse…to feel love. Her interactions with Clay open up the doorway to those possibilities.

And what about those night slaves? Well, that’s the point commentary, I suppose. Marjorie, the town sheriff (Leslie Nielsen) and everyone else goes about his or her business in a trance, not seeing who is pulling their strings, why they are doing what they are doing, or how empty the whole endeavor is. And then, the next night, they get up, put on their clothes, and repeat the same task. It's a mindless, repetitive life.

And itt’s a metaphor, of course, for people trapped in the rat race, people who don’t have the wherewithal to “get off the treadmill,” or be a “drop out,” like Clay.  They are slaves, and they don’t realize it.

I once wrote an unnecessarily cruel and snarky review of Night Slaves -- sorry, it was a (short) phase I went through -- and I enumerated some of the drawbacks of this telefilm. Some of those observations are still valid, but in my desire to be funny, or witty, I missed some of the underlying value of the film.  So I am glad to revisit it today and correct an old mistake.

This is a story of star-crossed lovers, “drop outs” from different worlds, who find each other.  On a very basic level, it’s a lovely tale.  Part of its charm is, indeed, its modesty; its simplicity.

But sometimes the execution here isn’t great, or is somehow clichéd. For instance, one of the final scenes of the film reveals Clay and Nialil running in a picturesque field in slow motion, towards one another. It is a clichéd visualization that feels more appropriate for a breath mint commercial. And yet I don’t question director Ted Post’s sincerity in visualizing it this way.

Similarly, it seems that there should have been at least one or two scenes here of Clay in recovery, with bandages on his head, following surgery. Instead, we go from the accident, basically, to scenes of him with a full-head of hair, and the steel plate in his head.  Between those two scenes, logically, there had to be weeks of recovery.

Also, I love the idea of an alien and human falling in love, but what kind of love can it truly be without physicality? I suppose the idea of leaving material things behind is the point, but I feel that Clay should know a little more fully what he is leaving corporeal existence for.  How do non corporeal beings understand the concept of family. How do they have children?

And, finally, why do incorporeal aliens fly in spaceships that can only be repaired by corporeal beings? That seems like a really bad idea.

There are some narrative and stylistic (and pacing) lapses in Night Slaves, but underneath all these problems is a kind of fierce urgency to leave behind a system that doesn’t create happiness, but instead the impression of unending servitude.

Cult-TV Movie Review: The Love War (1970)

Producer Aaron Spelling and director George McCowan presented this sci-fi "ABC Movie of the Week" on March 10, 1970, over forty years ago now. 

Since that time, The Love War has remained an affectionate favorite for some; a little-remembered oddity for others.

Penned by David Kidd and Guerdon Trueblood, The Love War follows a reserved, emotionless alien warrior from the distant planet Argon, a "man" named Kyle (Lloyd Bridges).

Kyle and his lieutenant (a very young, pre-Hill Street Blues Daniel J. Travanti...) have traveled to Earth to play a most serious sort of "game." The outcome of that game could spell salvation or destruction for all of us.

Some background: Our happy little green planet rests between the "overlap" of two cosmic Empires. Both Argon (Kyle's world) and hostile Zenon claim that our world belongs to them.

But, to avoid use of "the bomb," a weapon which has all-but destroyed both alien civilizations, the two empires have agreed on a new kind of warfare. Monitored by the impartial "War Arbitration Control," each side sends three of their best warriors to Earth.

There, in human form, these representatives will wage a war according to "rules." They must abide by a "schedule" -- "the clock by which our lives run," according to Kyle. And "any change in the schedule will be dealt with harshly," according to War Arbitration.

The aliens also battle in designated "Skirmish Zones," and make certain that their enemies, once destroyed, are disintegrated, leaving no trace of their presence. Throughout the film, we see several alien corpses glow green and then burn up in orange puffs of smoke.

Most importantly, the aliens choose to fight in a peculiar manner: in "the way man does on Earth." This description means one-on-one gunfights or shoot-outs, specifically.

The alien enemy combatants can detect each other only by two means, since they are hidden inside human bodies. 

The first way involves the use of a small hand-held scanner. It beeps white when enemies are near; red when they are within shooting range. 

And secondly -- and forecasting John Carpenter's They Live (1988) -- the aliens can only see each other for their true form when they adorn glasses. 

If Argon wins the war, Earth will become part of "The Federation." If Zenon wins, however, the human population will be destroyed and Zenon's people will be "substituted." In the event of a total draw, Earth will be "bypassed forever," according to Kyle.

Things don't go according to plan, for Kyle anyway, because this world-weary alien has begun -- for the first time in his 150 year lifespan -- to experience emotions. This development is anathema to him at first. Between "the effects of the bomb" and Argon's "relentless drive for intellectual superiority," all emotions, and all physical needs have been sublimated.

Until Kyle meets a beautiful fellow traveler named Sandy (Angie Dickinson), that is.

They meet, apparently by accident, on a bus bound for Fresno, where the next skirmish is scheduled to occur. Sandy is friendly, funny, sexy and a free spirit...all the things Kyle -- bearing the weight of two worlds -- can never be. She is also vulnerable, stoking his protective nature. "I ran out of destinations a long time ago," Sandy says cryptically at one point, like a little girl lost.

When Kyle informs Sandy he has had no "contact" with women for some time, Sandy then launches into an entertaining meditation on the various meanings of the word "contact," which is really an excuse to slip her hand over onto Kyle's leg.

In short order, Kyle and Sandy are hiding out at the Majestic Hotel in Fresno together. Kyle reveals his true alien identity to Sandy, and after some apparent difficulty, she accepts his story of interplanetary war and alien combatants. A love affair between Kyle and Sandy blossoms, even as the final battle between Argon and Zenon nears. "I've never felt this close to anything in my whole life," Kyle tells Sandy, as their bond seems to grow.

Unfortunately for Kyle, he has permitted his new-found emotions to blunt his warrior's instincts and in The Love War's shattering finale, he pays the price for his folly. The Argon makes a terrible - and pretty damn basic -- mistake. 

And it is here, in this surprising and effective coda, that The Love War truly becomes memorable (perhaps even a 1970s TV-movie classic).

The Love War's finale, which I speak of here only in generalities, suggests something about the nature of men and women; about love; and even, in some fashion, about warring. These were timely topics during the original broadcast. In 1970, America was still bogged down in Vietnam (the My Lai Massacre occurred just seven days after The Love War aired...), while Second Wave Feminism and Écriture Féminine were also on blazing ascent.

The proverb "man proposes and God disposes" could have been re-purposed here to substitute "woman" for God, because of the role Sandy ultimately plays in the warfare. She serves as "the sum total of every woman who ever lived," according to her own dialogue.

Some viewers may argue that Sandy's final act is one of betrayal and treachery, or even callous. But one thing is definitive: she has ended a war run by -- and played exclusively by -- men. When she alone is left standing at the film's denouement, the result is deliberately ambiguous: are the Zenon attack craft now ready to launch? Or has Sandy -- by her rule-breaking appearance in the arena of combat -- rendered the final battle a draw, thus saving us all? 

Thus ending all wars, forever?

Food for thought in a strange, intimate-little TV movie, I suppose. Given a bit of deep interpretation, it's not difficult to detect how The Love War actually follows in the footsteps of such anti-war (and feminist) texts like Lysistrata. 

Here, the indictment of men, and men's warring nature is clear. At one point, Sandy comments on succinctly on men and their desires: "you want what you want when you want it." 

Kyle responds, emptily: "what's wrong with that?"

To be blunt, The Love War features no exceptional locations or incredible special effects. It boasts not even a single interesting action scene. The style of the film is rudimentary, to put the matter politely. Even the battle royale is shot in hackneyed fashion, from a cockeyed 45 degree angle. And director George McCowan turns the (over)use of the zoom into -- if not an art -- at least a bad habit.

And yet, some unexplored quality of The Love War resonates. The story feels...intimate. The focus is on what it means to be human, and Lloyd Bridges and Angie Dickinson are a pretty compelling couple. When the film revolves around these two secretive, emotionally-battered characters falling in love and looking for a way to survive, you can't help but like The Love War. All the other bells and whistles don't matter. It's almost like a stage play or something. If it's not quite Death in Venice, it's Death in Fresno. With aliens.

Otherwise, The Love War is relatively efficient the manner in which it co-opts the Frederic Brown "Arena"-story template (already recruited by The Outer Limits and Star Trek...) to make a case about the personal cost of war.

And I must say, I admired the setting of the film's last shoot-out far more than I did the execution of the scene. The duel is set in an abandoned ghost town. It is here that the future is decided; but that choice about all our tomorrows is rendered by the rules of man's violent yesterdays; in a historical, not futuristic venue. There's just something inherently meaningful about the presentation: two humanoid aliens with ray guns quick-drawing in an Old West street, deciding the fate of a planet.

The best gets saved for last, however. After the final duel, we're granted a quick, haunting glimpse of the only surviving alien. The mask of humanity is gone, and in its place is something glowing and gorgeous...something powerful and yet delicate. 

Not the monster we were led to expect.

The Love War's big surprise is likely telegraphed in the title, but if you do take a gander at this old TV-movie, try to forget that you know the destination, and simply enjoy the journey. 

By my reckoning, the best love stories are always tragic ones, and The Love War certainly fits the bill.

Memory Bank: Ding-a-Ling Robots (Topper; 1970)

"Stand back, world!" the advertisements blared. "You are witnessing the creation of an incredible new world," and the "most incredible new toy you've ever seen."

All this hyperbole concerned a toy competitor for Ideal's Zeroids. In this case, it referred to Topper's Ding-a-Ling Robots, a whole line of toys manufactured in the late 1960s and released in 1970.

Topper created several Ding-a-Ling robot characters with various jobs, including Fireman, Shoe Shine, Answer Man, Spy, Boxer, Rocky, Chef, gopher, Claw and Police Man. 

And then, those robots -- thanks to an innovative, interchangeable power pack -- could "defy all laws of gravity" and walk glide or race across "special skyways." They could also drive their own vehicles.

The greatest Ding-a-Ling, however, was "King Ding," a giant robot that dwarfed the rest.

No doubt this all sounds terrific, but the Ding-a-Lings never made a huge mark on the toy market of 1970.  

Personally, I discovered them in the mid-1970s, as a kid, on the secondary market. Week after week, we would see the Ding-a-Lings at yard sales, selling for about a dollar a piece. 

I soon had in my possession Brain (the Ding-a-Ling driver of King Ding), the snap-handed Claw, and Fireman.  I loved these little, hand-held robots, and I remember my Dad customizing them with special paint and decals. This worked for me because in their original, mint state, the robots are a bit too bright and colorful.  My Dad -- a consummate modeler -- dirtied them up for me, so they looked like they had a history and a story.

These days, my son Joel is big into robots, and so I found for him on E-Bay a few Ding-A-Lings, and at least two of the special skyways.  In particular, I bought the "straight space skyway"  and the "Pyramid Set" you see pictured in this post.  

He wants the King Ding, more than anything, but those toys cost a fortune.  If I ever get my hands on one, I'll let you all know.

In the meantime, here's the original commercial laying out the details of this Toy Robot Empire

Movie Trailer: The Mind of Mr. Soames (1970)

Cult-Movie Review: No Blade of Grass (1970)

The relatively obscure 1970 science fiction film No Blade of Grass is a cutthroat post-apocalyptic vision which forecasts films such as The Road Warrior (1981), and which deals meaningfully with the idea that our modern civilization is fragile because it is based on an easily compromised premise: the satisfaction of a full stomach. 

When there is no food, there is no society, and no civilized behavior.

In this adaptation of John Christopher’s 1965 novel The Death of Grass a British man, John Custance (Nigel Davenport) witnesses the end of that social contract occur as one-hundred million people die of starvation worldwide.  A famine is destroying grass and wheat.

And without wheat, livestock dies. 

And without livestock, humanity’s very future is jeopardized. 

With anarchy spreading rapidly and some states like China resorting to mass-murder -- essentially killing many to save a few -- Custance attempts to preserve his family (symbolizing the future…) at any cost. 

Yet John’s quest can’t really be termed successful.  His wife and young daughter are savagely raped on the road by other travelers, and he murders an innocent family much like his own for food stocks, which amounts to no more than a loaf of bread.  Eventually, John even makes war against his own biological brother to gain a foothold in this strange and savage new world.

This nearly forty-five year-old film presents a caustic, blistering look at human nature, and the ungracious way our species may countenance its end. But No Blade of Grass is also one of my all-time favorite science fiction films of the 1970s, and a cinematic work of art that Paul Simpson (The Rough Guide to Cult Movies) accurately termed “a tense and provocative” picture.

Writing in The Montreal Gazette, film critic Jacob Siskind called No Blade of Grass one of the most terrifying motion pictures he had ever seen, “uncomfortable real,” and “something that should not be missed.”

Both of these reviews capture the tense, uneasy, disturbing nature of a film that more science fiction fans should acquaint themselves with.

An unidentified virus begins killing grass, white, rice and barley in Asia, and then rapidly spreads across the globe, causing a famine of vast proportions in the civilized world.

One family -- the Custances -- decides to abandon London when there is news that China has bombed its urban population in a last-ditch attempt to save “the Chinese nation.”  The Custances believe the English government could do the same thing.

John Custance (Davenport), his wife Ann (Jean Wallace) and their daughter Mary (Lynn Frederick) make a survival run through the English countryside for the distant farm of John’s brother.  The family is joined en route by a man named Pirrie (May) who is good with a gun but prone to instability and violence. 

On their way to hopeful sanctuary, the Custances face the total collapse of law and order in England, and fight rapists, motorcycle gangs, and other hazards.  Finally, when John meets up with his brother, he finds that even the bonds of family can’t overcome the fear and dread surrounding the famine and burgeoning apocalypse.

All along, No Blade of Grass forecasts just how bad things are going to get by flashing forward to -- in blood-red imagery -- upcoming violent confrontations.  Just when the family has overcome one life-or-death crisis, another one is signaled in shades of scarlet terror. 

Although I remain unconvinced, generally, of the efficacy of fast-forwards in a narrative structure, they are deployed well in No Blade of Grass.  The flash-cuts suggest the end of optimism and hope.  Future days will be no better than these days.  In fact, they may very well be worse. If the present seems bad, the movie promises, the future will be much, much worse.

Similarly, during moments of extreme violence -- such as a confrontation with a roving biker gang --director Cornel Wilde flips the imagery to its negative, so that the screen fills with blacks and grays.  Suddenly, those committing the violence, and even those defending themselves, resemble inhuman monsters.  The shades of gray not only de-humanize the characters at their most savage, they remind audiences that moral absolutes no longer exist in a world of famine.

Before No Blade of Grass is done, Custance and his family members have murdered soldiers, nations have bombed their populations to oblivion to keep a few handpicked survivors fed, and a brother has launched a war for resources against a biological brother. 

In tactless, brutal terms, the film depicts total, utter anarchy, and the collapse of decency.  We witness a live birth on camera (and you can see the baby’s head crowning…), and generally the film spares its audience no indignity, no terror, no hard truth. The scene involving the rape of Mrs. Custance and her daughter is especially difficult to watch.  The rapists hold the women down, rip off their under-clothes, commit their acts of brutality and the camera doesn’t flinch or cut-away.

Wilde’s point is plain. When anarchy arrives, no one will be spared. Not mothers. Not daughters.  Not families.  When civilization goes so will go modern medicine, electricity grocery stores, mass transit and every law but the law of the jungle.  The film suggests these taken-for-granted modern conveniences and constructs are all but fragile dominoes, falling one after the other after the other. 

“Everything’s different now, boys…we have to fight to survive,” one character states in the film, and indeed that’s true.  The “old law” evaporates and the law of the jungle reigns supreme.  Those who can’t adapt quickly to the New World Order die quickly instead.  

Accordingly, one of the most disturbing moments in the film finds Custance’s teenage daughter, Mary, leaving behind her former, civilized, and gentle boyfriend in favor of the sociopath-murderer, Pirrie.

Despite the fact that he killed his own wife in a fit of rage and is obviously unstable, Pirrie’s apparent physical “strength” and tough demeanor makes Mary feel safe.  She knows he will protect her. Ardent feminists will not appreciate this moment in the film, to be certain, but so many of today’s constructs including equality of the sexes simply would not survive all-out, universal anarchy.  Women like Mary, in the film’s blunt terminology, carry “a survival kit” between their legs.  Sex becomes one of the few tools they can use to assert power, or find protection. 

As the preceding description suggests, No Blade of Grass is caustic and sharply observed.  One early scene reveals an abandoned Rolls Royce scuttled on the side of the road, but a voice-over from an old TV commercial accompanies the imagery so that the moment suggests just how utterly meaningless the old conventions are in the New Order.  What role is there for luxury transportation when there is no food, anywhere?  No gasoline? No restaurants to drive to?

Another, equally brutal moment intercuts a report of children dying of starvation in the Third World with extreme close-up images of avaricious restaurant diners eating gourmet food in an upscale London restaurant.  The unmistakable point is forged in the sledge-hammer cutting, in the slamming contrast.

It is easy to observe other people’s children dying of famine and do nothing about it. Pass the salt…

The cause of the civilization-destroying virus in No Blade of Grass is, in true 1970s fashion, mankind himself.  A (dated) folk song opens the film and establishes how little mankind has done to “save the Earth.” 

This funereal composition is accompanied by a montage of images of real-life pollution.  We see documentary-like footage of spewing tail-pipes, traffic jams, smog hanging over cities, brown water, dead fish, crop dusters, nuclear reactors, factories spewing chemicals and other late 20^th century horrors that somehow we manage to put out of our minds, and imagine can’t harm the planet. 

But according to No Blade of Grass there was a secret revolution: “One day the polluted Earth couldn’t take it anymore.”

And Mother Nature struck back.

Chilling and in-your-face, No Blade of Grass is one of the most unforgettable science fiction films of the 1970s. It is made more so by the fact that its protagonists -- whom we are meant to closely identify with -- are ultimately no better or nobler than anyone they encounter on the road. 

The Custances prize their survival above all else, and take steps to assure it that we, as civilized people, should abhor.  They become murderers with relative ease and speed.

 But who could say that you or I would choose differently given such global, dangerous anarchy?

That folk song in the film that I mentioned earlier features a lyric that goes “It’s the end of love.”  In No Blade of Grass, that’s an understatement. In this film, mankind confronts his mortality and the results aren’t pretty.  I hope if something like this disaster ever does happen, we can face the end with more dignity and grace and far less bloodshed.

Movie Trailer: No Blade of Grass (1970)