Drama in the Groove

Between
editions the other day reporters Roy Ringer and Jeff Davis invented a
game they call Trite Trite Again. The idea is to recall a key scene or
bit of dialogue in a movie or TV drama which tips off the entire plot.
Try these:

The spy story in which the sinister foreign smoothie
says to the atomic scientist, "Your government is in no position to
help you now, Dr. Conrad — the brief case, please!"

The heroic
tale of the U.S. Cavalry in which the handsome lieutenant says, "You'll
have to excuse my men, ma'am, they haven't seen a white woman since Ft.
Laramie."

The saga of the jungle or prairie in which the
assistant scout says, "Sure is quiet out there tonight." And the scout
says, "Too quiet."

The saloon scene in which the crooked sheriff
says, "Figure on staying in town long, stranger?" The stalwart hero
retorts, "Mebbe."

::

AS CIVIC CENTER habitues
know, the Stephen M. White statue was moved recently from the Hall of
Records to the new Courthouse, a brassie shot away. Now bearded,
frock-coated Steve (1853-1901) admonishes traffic with upraised arm at
1st and Hill instead of Temple and Broadway.

The other day Tom
Cameron saw a passerby studying the large pedestal base at the Hall of
Records on which Steve used to stand and which authorities haven't
gotten around to removing. From his furtive look Tom got the impression
the man clearly suspected the pigeons had carried off old Steve.

::

ONLY IN Beverly
Hills — A woman ordering a caviar sandwich in a Beverly Hills
delicatessen was overheard telling the waitress, "Be sure it's imported
because I don't know the difference!"

::

OLEFINITIS
Scientists ask, "Can man
    survive on planets
    filled with gas?"
The answer lies before them
    — in Los Angeles he
    has.
    — MAURICE RICHLIN

::

FOR THOSE WHO stayed home it was a week for contemplation. And that's what we get from Frank Friedrichsen.

In
the front door of his Santa Monica home, about [illegible]2 in. above
the floor level, there is a mail slot. Last week the postman slipped
through the slot POD Form 1507 with the penciled notation, "Box too
low."

Now, if the box has become too low in the years between
1942, when the house was built, and 1959, Frank can only assume that
the house is shrinking or mailmen are getting taller or Postmaster
General Arthur E. Summerfield is bent on cracking down indiscriminately
on whatever displeases him.

Suppose, Frank muses, someone should
send him an unidentifiable copy of D.H. Lawrence's novel, "Lady
Chatterley's Lover," which Summerfield has banned from the mails as
obscene. Would the postman stoop low enough to deliver it? Tune in some
other weekend for another thrilling chapter in this saga of nonsense.

::

A MISSING
persons report filed at the Norwalk sheriff's station described a
vanished and sought person as a "periodical drinker." Of course, some
of those luscious ads in the magazines aren't bad, once you put them
through the blender.

::

SC'S NEW
assistant dean, Dr. William H. McGrath, who competed in the two-man
bobsled championships recently at St. Moritz, said, "One can more
easily zero in on the problems of everyday living if he sharpens up now
and then by riding a cobbled ice-wall at 80 m.p.h. through a forest."

Sounds like more fun than the freeways.

::

AROUND TOWN — The
sign "Se Habla Espanol" is a familiar one in store windows. Now Leon
Levitan reports a similar notice in a house on E. 4th St. — "Se cuidan
ninos." Yep, baby sitting . . . June bugs are appearing for the first
time in years, apparently brought out by the hot, dry weather. OK, July
bugs, then . . . Harry Tatleman, TV producer, heard a man in the next
booth in an all-night coffee shop tell his lady companion, "Look, I
hate people who talk when I'm interrupting" . . . Tom Dixon got the
letters twisted in a KFAC newscast and APCD came out ACPD. And, you
know, it sounds better that way — Air Control Police Department.