| Movie memorabilia comes in all shapes and forms, but I’ve never seen a pennant like this Theda Bara item before. A little research shows that a series of nearly 200 such pennants was issued about 1915. Ooh, is that a Hobart Bosworth? A lot of 192 of these movie pennants sold for $907.52 in 2008, about $4.72 each. Bidding starts at 24.99 GBP (the vendor is located in the UK). |
| “So I’ll Save the Wear and Tear on Your Tonsils, Mr. Ames.” |
A Hard Life
 If no one minds, I'd like to get literary for a moment. Whitney Balliett of the New Yorker magazine, in reviewing two current books, wrote:
"They deal with what has become, in the past decade, a new hero in American novels — the tired, kindly, fearful, foolish-wise, middle-aged urban white-collar worker who is presented with a suddenly accumulated myriad of complex and often overwhelming moral problems that must be resolved (often in 24 hours or less) without trampling others or compromising himself."
He refers to such character as "the newest Milquetoast."
I have just finished reading Irwin Shaw's novel, "Two Weeks in Another Town" and the leading character' John Andrus, seems to fit this description. He is a former movie actor who lives is Paris and works for NATO. He is married to a French girl and they have two children.
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Being a Celebrity Weighs So Heavily Since everyone else is hesitant to say it, I'll say it myself. I'm a celebrity.
It's been a long, hard, often discouraging fight to reach the top. But, really, I've been a brick through the whole thing.
I bore no grudge against Ralph Edwards even though "This Is Your Life" never once considered mine.
I continued to spend large chunks of my expense account at the Brown Derby even though Bob Cobb never beseeched me for an autographed picture to put up on the wall.
I will still admit, under pressure, that Ed Sullivan is a warm, glib personality kid despite the fact that he has never introduced me from the audience.
But now, I don't need them. Any of them.
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April 21, 1941: “Yvonne of the King Sisters and musician Buddy Cole are on the love list,” Jimmie Fidler says. |
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April 21, 1960: Elvis Presley’s return to Los Angeles to film “G.I. Blues” is put safely on Page 2. Instead, The Times leads the paper with the resignation of the South Korean cabinet. ps. Georg Solti is named music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
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April 21, 1910: The Times publishes an update in the curious death of Morgan Shiveley (or Shively), in which an examination of bloody fingerprints merely deepens the mystery.Charges against the Stones were eventually dismissed and the case was abandoned. |
| This Catalina tile table has been listed on EBay. According to the vendor, it was sold on Santa Catalina Island in 1950. Bidding starts at $1,150 with a Buy It Now price of $1,300. As with everything on EBay, items and vendors should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid. |
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Plane Bomb Jokers
Persons who go airplane riding had better get used to the idea that authorities don't think wisecracks about bombs are funny. A story from Chicago a few days ago stated that nine persons have been grabbed by FBI agents there this month for saying, in jest, that they had bombs in their bags. One is under sentence of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, the maximum penalty. Another paid a $100 fine, another $50. The charge is making a false bomb report concerning a public carrier in intestate commerce. When such bomb reports are made flights are delayed while baggage is taken off and inspected. If the plane is in the air the pilot is instructed to land at the nearest airport while a search is made. Airlines estimate the cost of this delay at $850 an hour.
A Long Beach youth named Brian is wiser as a result of an incident a few days ago at San Francisco's airport. He was departing from home and a schoolmate was heading from Boise. As the Boise boy checked in his stuff he told the clerk he would carry his briefcase.
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Census Takers' Woes Myriad in a Big Way Census takers take, among other things, oaths.
Before beginning their tours of duty, they solemnly swear that they are not Communists, fascists, blabbermouths or mixed up in payola. They also take a pledge that — no matter how distasteful or misrepresented they find working conditions — they won't unite against Uncle Sam and go on strike.
This last little clause, I can tell you now, is going to save the Bureau of Census and the United States government from chaos unequalled in our 184-year history.
Before the government began recruiting enumerators, it sent out advance propaganda agents to lull prospective applicants into thinking that they would earn approximately $12 a day, whether they were paid by the hour or were paid a bounty for the heads which they counted.
Which was, even in these inflated times, a reasonable enough wage.
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April 20, 1940: “Femme stars at Paramount are squawking about male execs hogging the studio's only sunbathing roof,” Jimmie Fidler says. |
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April 20, 1980: Linda Ronstadt tells Robert Hilburn, “A lot of musicians mistakenly think you're supposed to know everything about your craft at age 18 just because a couple of geniuses, like Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, seem to have it all together at that age. They don't accept the fact that most of us need time to develop our skills. “The result for me was that I always used to worry because I didn't think I could sing well enough. Looking back, I realize I just didn't know enough about singing to be satisfied. I've finally realized that this is what I do for a living and that I do it pretty well.” |
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| April 20, 1910: Samuel Clemens "has been perfectly conscious and in possession of all his faculties throughout his illness and, weak though he is, frequent flashes of the characteristic wit that made him a unique figure when in health, appear in his conversations with his physicians and nurses,” The Times says.
On the jump, the police surgeon discusses the problems of jailing alcoholics. |
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A Lounge Lizard
A flagrant instance of heresy, one that cannot be unchallenged, occurred during the recent Sportsmen's Show. This is an attempt to erase it, lest such a mammoth slur cast a shadow on outdoor living in this glorious paradise dedicated to same. People who visited a certain booth were given the opportunity to enter a contest for a 14-foot boat worth around $750. They filled out entry blanks, dropped them in a box, kept the tabs with duplicate numbers.
The drawing was held and the winner announced. The sponsors had trouble locating him but finally did and broke the wonderful news. At first the winner was merely half-hearted, then something unpleasant seemed to occur to him and he said he didn't want the darn thing.
The sponsor was astounded. What did he mean he didn't want it? Everybody wanted a boat. Did he realize what he was saying? The boat was his, free. He didn't care, he didn't want it. He said it very emphatically.
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Let's Look at What Happened in London With the odd feeling of an outsider looking in, I read the news accounts of what happened in London yesterday. There was a parade, seven miles long. More than 100,000 people were either in it, or awaiting its culmination in Trafalgar Square.
And there were thousands more lining the curbs along its route. Cheering.
The biggest demonstration in London since V-E Day, one wire service dispatch called it.
Not much, admittedly, compared to what happens in Pasadena on New Year's Day.
But just the same, it was a remarkable parade.
Remarkable because there was no football game to go with it. No baton-spinning girls with goose pimples on their bare legs. No breath-taking floats artistically decorated with 30,000 chrysanthemums and 20,000 carnations.
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April 19, 1941: “Franchot Tone beaued Olivia de Havilland to the Mocambo the other night, took her home at 11 — and returned with another girl,” Jimmie Fidler says. |
| April 19, 1960: 1st and Broadway, just up the block from The Times, has changed drastically in the last 50 years. Ed Dudley’s newsstand vanished long ago and two corners are vacant eyesores. But he wasn’t wrong when he said: “People are nosy, always worried about somebody else’s troubles.” |
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April 19, 1910: The Times’ Albert Jean Taylor draws a cartoon to give East Coast expatriates a self-satisfied laugh … And Uncle Walt the Warbler takes a jaded look at the love poem: O come, my pet, and cook and scrub, More on the jump about Mason, the author of “Rippling Rhymes” and “Terse Verse,” who died Jan. 22, 1939, in La Jolla, at the age of 77. Notice that the 1914 and 1929 stories differ significantly, and in fact his obituary gives a third account of how he became a published writer. |
Oh William Castle, I love you so. I cannot resist your theatrical gimmicks, even when they hopelessly slow the pacing of your movie. I adore your lengthy and unnecessarily elaborate introductions. I cherish your perfect jump scares. I want to snuggle your great big chin. How I wish to go back in time and see one of your movies on opening night with a big crowd. But I will take what I can get.
“13 Ghosts” (in Illusion-O!) is one of the gimmicky films for which Castle is famous, coming right on the heels of “The House on Haunted Hill” — with Emergo, a skeleton that swung out over the audience during the acid-bath climax — and “The Tingler” — with Percepto, a vibrating device rigged into theater seats. The next year, Castle released “Homicidal,” which had a 45-second “fright break” before the climax, in case anyone was too scared to continue watching. I just love how he doesn’t mind if you’re distracted from the movie – to him moviegoing is an interactive experience. However you feel about him as a filmmaker, you have to admire his showmanship.
Illusion-O! (it takes an exclamation point, like Yahoo!) consisted of a paper viewer with strips of red and blue cellophane. If you believe in ghosts, Castle explains in his charmingly earnest introduction, look through the red strip; if you don’t, look through the blue. The ghost scenes are all layered with blue and the ghosts appear in red, so I guess if you looked through the blue you’d see nothing, which of course nobody wants to do. It’s a completely goofy gimmick – you don’t even need a viewer to see the ghosts (whew) – but it would’ve been so much fun in a theater full of people. I felt sort of lame watching the movie at home.
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Brave New World
When she drove past the spot 12 hours later the car was still parked there and Joan has mentally filled in the empty spots in the puzzle. The way she figures it the man, obviously an impatient tycoon, discarded the idea of fighting traffic to the airport and phoned for the 'copter. Obviously he is a man with more money than time. Or perhaps a lucky stiff with an unlimited credit card.
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