Vacation

 My internet service provider can't.  It's gone down 3 times in the last week, including off and on service all morning today.  This is the second ISP I've had problems with since last spring.  It's just ridiculous.  I need a reliable ISP and it's not a given that there is one to be found.  I'm not doing any new posts until I can expect to have some place to post them.  I don't know if there will be anything on Sunday.

The Colorful Art of Gay Conversation

 

This week's bit is not a production of Ray Blackstone Enterprises, and is intended for consenting adults only...mainly, because they're the only ones who'll get the jokes!

play (3:48) 

Golden Gate Quartet- Stalin Wasn't Stallin' (1943)

 

Part of the national campaign to laugh the Axis off the map.

Stalin Wasn't Stallin' (3:12)

(The line is "And Adolf broke all records/ running backwards to Kharkov".) 

Don Wilson in Hell(o)

 

I've been listening to Old Time Radio (Internet Archive, natch) while doing jigsaw puzzles; Fibber McGee and Molly (ibid) and Jack Benny, formally known as "The JELLO Program, starring Jack Benny, with Mary Livingstone, Rochester, Dennis Day, Phil Harris and yours truly, Don Wilson."

Don was Jack's announcer basically the entire 100 or so years he was on the radio.  Many words passed between him and the microphone in that time, but the heaviest must have been the weekly Jello ad.  They even had him (comically) complaining about it.  Listening to the show, from October 1941 through the next summer, I can understand why.

When it comes to the Hard Sell, modern-day advertising has nothing on 1940's radio.  It was the heyday of the Jingle, for cryin' out loud.  (shudders)  

So, not only is Jello the most amazing dessert ever devised by man (Jello?), but their breakthrough- locked-in flavor!- is reported as if it's just been discovered this very week!  Week after week.  In the same words every time.  

Poor Mr Wilson.  Imagine the resolve it must have taken, not only to read the same hyped-up script every week, but to be wildly enthusiastic.  (Fortunately, I see they changed sponsors soon, back then in the past, so the poor announcer will finally get a break.)

So this is my reaction to that.  It's not intended to reflect support or disdain for Jello (c), a product of General Foods, or the US War Department.  

The title is from George Bernard Shaw's Don Juan in Hell.  (Kind of Jello Hell).  It refers to Mr Wilson's situation, not Jello in general.  Actually, many people find the "what the heck is it?" approach strangely appetizing.  

 Don Wilson in Hell(o) (0:58)

 

The Thin Man Neckties...in Color!

I usually don't watch "colorized" films, but some articles of clothing leave me curious about exactly what they were.  For example, is Cary Grant really wearing a silk blazer??

Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House

 And what are we to make of Charles Coburn's sumptuous bathrobe?

The Lady Eve

Could that be dark blue and turquoise?  Black and gold?  Purple and gold?  Forest green and burnt orange?  Velvet collar, and deeper pile on the dark parts?  What a gorgeous robe.  If only we could see it in the original colors.

Well, on a smaller scale but just as much style, there's the neckties in the Thin Man films, with William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles.  

Nick was a snappy dresser, and that includes his ties.  In an era of hats, the tie was a close second- but their glories are lost to black and white.  Until today.

There were 6 Thin Man films, from 1934 to 1947, covering a decade of unparalleled fashion: Zoot suits.  Reet pleats.  Not to say that Nick would ever drape his shape in that way- a simple, iridescent power-tie was good enough for the first film.

He was even more restrained in "After the Thin Man" (1936), dressed like a banker with sparkly pinstripes and a simple gold tie clasp.

This sort of choice led to him being challenged in "Another Thin Man" (1939) by one of his co-stars, Abner Biberman, who showed up in a gold-lame-on-velvet job that blew out a light meter:

  

 

He was given a stern talking-to by another co-star, Otto Kruger.

 But Nick was on guard after that, and apparently started reaching into his stash of classic neckwear.

There was his red satin "I had blueberry Jello for lunch" tie:

A purple paisley, which no wardrobe should be without:

And this one, from the Richard the Lion-Hearted collection. 

 

The challenges to him were few after that.  Keenan Wynn had a nice yellow orchids tie, like a kooky jazz musician might wear, in the final film, "Song of the Thin Man"-

 

but Nick donned this Cocktail Hour number that reflected his main hobby over the entire series.

 

Must have been a present from Nora.
 

Potentate Update 03/22/03

 

(1:51) From my own Old Time Radio days.  Guest commentator Mr Space on the Second Gulf War.

Potentate Update 

Robot Theater

 

A brief poem for three voices.

Robot Theater_01 (01:11)

Building Code Under Fire

 Here's another one from The Last Hurrah (1958), 

decrying the problem in one of America's largest unnamed cities.  I blame the Skeffington administration!

Vietnam 1963

 

The Ngo brothers, Diem and Nhu

Another piece of the vast 1960's audio saga I might finish sometime. Based entirely on Fair Use, of course, being what I am.

The narrative track is from PBS Vietnam: A Television History.  Music by the Ventures and Ennio Morricone.

Vietnam 1963 (3:37)

Dee Green Hijacks the Post

 Old Time Radio on Film

 

RKO Pictures

Back in the 1940s, radio stars Jim and Marian Jordan were so popular as Fibber McGee and Molly, they made 3 movies.  (This was in an era that had 24-hour theaters for war workers; they ate up movies like popcorn.)  "Look Who's Laughing" 1941, "Here We Go Again" 1942, and "Heavenly Days" 1944.

All three are on the Internet Archive, and I'm slowly experiencing them now and then.  It's interesting to see Fib and Molly do their radio bits on film; their lines were written by their radio writer, Don Quinn, and it's so schtick-heavy, Fibber's Closet just gets a second or two.  In other words, good stuff for the fans.

 

 

RKO Pictures

Fibber bears an unexpected resemblance to Richard Milhous Nixon.  (That's Hal Peary on the left, standing aghast as Throckmorton P Gildersleeve.)  (Hehehehaugh.)

Molly assumes the Little Girl to flirt with Charlie McCarthy, 

RKO Pictures

and butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, I betcha...(Yes, it's a grown woman pretending to be a little girl, flirting with a ventriloquist's dummy.  That's show biz!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RKO Pictures

 

 

 

Bergen and McCarthy are in the first two.  Charlie was considered such a bon vivant, by the second film they had him dancing with chorus girls, and-- 

RKO

--wait a minute-- something about the ribbon holding back all that hair-- isn't that Miss Dinkelmeyer?

Columbia Pictures

 I think it is!  From The Three Stooges, "Brideless Groom".  Shemp's student.

"Your little dreamboat is sailing!  HOO!  HOO!"

 

 

 

 

 

Huh!  I gotta check this out...Miss Dinkelmeyer was played by a gal named Dee Green.  First credited appearance 1945, 3 years after this.  But her CV doesn't include this film.  And IMDB seems to make a point of listing every single chorus girl in the picture.

Let's have a closer look.

 

Similarities in the shape of her chin, her mouth, nose, cheek, her eyes, height and build, and that dense hair.  Interesting.  They say the ear is a defining feature, as individual as a fingerprint.. 

Pretty close there, too.  And we can again see similarities in the mouth, nose and brow.

You know, folks, I think it IS her.  If it isn't, they sure look alike.

Well, what are we to think.  This happens once in a while.  The info stream goes dry and all you're left with is a face and a guess.  For example, I'm fairly certain the THRUSH goon on the left is Milt Kogan

Man From Uncle, s03e02, 1966

- you know, that guy from the Desilu-Universal Galaxy.  Here he is in Columbo, 1978, getting an uncomfortable neck rub from Trish Van Devere (who's also still with us)-

Columbo: Make Me a Perfect Murder, 1978

 - again uncredited (although this is obviously him).  That's what makes this an interesting hobby.  If you can start accurately picking them out of anonymity, it adds to the body of the Art an infinitesimal glow. 

OJ Meltdown

 

Here's an oldie I found banging around in the back.  I was pretty impressed when American Journalism turned into a scene from Farenheit 451, with the talking newsheads transfixed by one person (a celebrity, OJ Simpson) on the run from the Law.  It seemed to go on for hours.  (90 minutes.)  So I made this bit.  

I don't really like doing topical commentary; it doesn't age as well as the artier stuff, and people have opinions.  So I never included this in anything.  It might have been posted here at one time.  Anyway, it is now.

OJ Meltdown (3:36) 

 PS- I guess this means we're going to do weekly audio, instead of skipping a weekend a month for written content.  Which will drop in during the week, as it occurs.  Stay tuned.

"Building Code" Sighted

 

The Last Hurrah (1958)

 

It's on the right, under Spencer Tracy's hand.  Other examples of this phenomenon can be found on our Building Code Under Fire page.

Tony Regan in Mr Lucky (1959)

I discussed Mr Regan in an earlier post; he's one of those actors who never speaks and is supposed to be completely in the background, a cut-and-paste character in a way, like the little people in architectural drawings.  He was a casting director who found his way into a lot of "bystander" work, and is pretty recognizable once you know him.  (On the right.)

 

Mr Lucky was a crime/mystery TV program that ran for one season. These two meatballs emerge and saunter through a scene, tailing a principal- and that's it for them, they're not even characters.  They're just "the Boys".

1959 seems pretty early for him.  The thing about actors like this, playing parts just above the horizon of obscurity, there's very little info.  Which makes them more interesting. 
 

Midway Barker, c 1940

 

It's summer carnival time.  Here's an authentic barker, working the crowd at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair.

Frozen Alive Barker (2:27) 

Paul Frees, June 22, 1920

 

Happy 105th to audio's greatest voice man.  

People of Earth, attention....

The Mort Drucker Dracula

Extremely Scary Trailers

The complete 3-part anthology (including these excerpts) can be found on our podcasts page.

 

  

 

Leftover pic of Isabel Randolph

 

This happened to be the frame I paused it at, the other night when I was fixing dinner, and since I'd mentioned her recently...seen here with the venerable Roy Roberts, who always came across like a distant relative visiting from Butte.  

It's from a Dick Van Dyke episode, "Sol and the Sponsor", and although Isabel did play Rob's mom in the series, she isn't here.  

Why are they doing this?

 

The Goons

The Goon Show was an audio comic strip featuring Spike Milligan (who basically wrote the series), Harry Seacombe (heroic Welsh tenor) and Peter Sellers (no mean shakes as a voice-man, himself).  Programs and scripts are available at the Internet Archive.

This bit is a pretty good mental picture of how the program sounded, and shows how some things can only be turned into what they already are.  

The Goons (2:49) 

Broken Record Sale 2014

Ad-block Cutup

 (16:35) Once upon a time, in a far off land with free radio, there was a small community called The Outside World.  Although it appeared only once a week, the residents were numerous, since they were linked by a golden net that was spread out over the sleeping countryside, at midnight every Friday.

Each year, the village elders (and anyone else they could encourage to join them) gathered together to announce an annual book and record sale.  They did this by playing and reading things that would be on sale.  As many and as much of it as they could.  All at the same time.  

These polyrhythmic sound streams, lasting several hours, would usually just burn off into the air.  But in 2014, a traveling anthropologist managed to capture some of the festivities.  Here, with minimal curating, is 16 or 17 minutes of same.

Broken Record Sale 2014 

 

Those (Radio) Gals

The overnight creation of the radio broadcasting biz in the second decade of the 20th Century led to an explosion of voice talent.  Excellent actors that would have got no further than teaching high school Drama were propelled to fame by a brand-new industry that staged hundreds of programs every week.  Some of them went on to film and television.  Today I'd like to remember a few of the ladies who followed this route from radio to recognition as That Gal.

CBS Radio

Agnes Moorehead 

Debuted as a singer at KMOX St Louis in 1920.  Her first film appearance was 1938- "The Mercury Theatre On The Air"- a result of her work with that program.  She had the only exclusive MGM contract that allowed outside radio work, and she performed on radio throughout her career.

 

 

 

 

CBS Radio

Bea Benedaret

TV's Betty Rubble started in radio when she was 12 years old.  Programs included Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, and Fibber McGee and Molly.  Her trip to the big and little screens started out through animated cartoons (not uncommon for radio folks).  

 

 

 

 

Look Who's Laughing

Isabel Randolph

Rob Petrie's mom on The Dick Van Dyke Show was famous as Abigail Uppington on Fibber McGee and Molly (five movies in that role.)  Before that, she was a regular on radio soap operas, and seems to have specialized in snooty, upper-crust types.  (Her hooting, melodious greeting to the McGees is one of the audio hallmarks of that show- like Fibber's closet.)  It was a character that was profitable for her, assuring regular appearances as dowagers and bluenoses through the 1960s.  

CBS Radio: Daws Butler, June Foray, Stan Freberg

June Foray

She started in radio at age 12, and was writing and performing in her own show when she was 15.  Hundreds of radio programs, cartoons, commercials, TV shows...I think I heard her in one of those Norman Corwin VE and VJ Day programs, as Young Housewife Now In Time Of Peace.  (Turns out, it was her, OTR Cat has it in a collection.  Not a plug.  They also have a good summary of her resume.)

The Sound of Pop

Alex Steinweiss

(3:28)  This is an interesting track, in that it features the actual Radio Moscow announcer, so ably imitated by Negativland in Time Zones. 

I kind of admire that, I mean you'd have to work in a radio station during the 70s/80s, when Radio Moscow was sending out programs that turned out to be a great source of free reel-to-reel tape, to appreciate how well they got the quasi-inebriated quality of this man.

And yes, that is Ken Nordine, kicking it off.  Other material is from Colossus: The Forbin Project, Wonderwall, and some demented 78 LP.

The Sound of Pop

 

Scrambled Program Announcement

 

(1:12)  Digging (into) Old Time Radio.  This might be the masthead for 2 hours of late-nite radio in a couple weeks.

Scrambled Program Annct

WROW 1957

 

(0:41) Short bit this week, kind of like a weekly one-panel cartoon.  Think of me as the Gary Larsen of audio!  (Would you believe Smokey Stover?)

My plan is to distill audio art from the vast galaxy-clogging emanations sent out from planet Earth over the last 80 or so years.  This one was made from a 1957 aircheck of CBS affiliate station WROW.

Instead of working toward a Sunday deadline, I'm just going to stand here at the cutting board, and toss these things into a box, and spill it out once a week for your enjoyment/edification.  For the time being.

WROW 1957

The Curious Architecture of "The Apartment" 1960

(Updated) The classic film The Apartment (1960) depicts the middle-class Manhattan apartment of one CC Baxter, aka "Buddy-boy", in a style that can be described as Post-Linear.  After watching this film many times, I will finally attempt to answer the question: did Buddy-boy's apartment exist in our space-time dimension or what?

It seems normal enough from the hallway. (All photos are screencaps from The Apartment.)

 But once you get inside...

 ...This is inside the apartment, looking back toward next door.  It must go back 20 or 30 feet.   Look at the bedroom way back there, and compare it with the distance between their front doors.  Isn't that supposed to be the other apartment?

Here he is, inside the front door on the right, and the kitchen on the left.  This end of the outside wall is in the middle.  Is it actually farther back than the other side of the wall, outside?  

 

Here's a view in the opposite direction, from the kitchen.  Buddy-boy's front door is out in the living room (on the left), and the space from here to there is supposed to be less than the space between their front doors. 

So, looking over these pictures and keeping in mind it is a SMALL APARTMENT, where we're constrained to put estimates on the low side, I get:

- about a foot from the front-door-wall to the kitchen (as seen in the picture of him with the tray), 

- then it looks like a kind of hallway cupboard, (in the kitchen photo, the knobs are just above his back) 

and...a glass door?  
With a towel hanging over it.  

The left side of the kitchen doorway has a couple sets of shelves, with some other apparatus tucked away there (looks like my old DAT).  

I think we're looking at (at least)
    1 foot from the front-door-wall to the kitchen,
    6 feet from the kitchen doorway to the sink (2 ft per shelf section)
    4 feet for the stove and the sink,
    AND at least a foot, in front of that back wall.  (There's another stove tucked in against the wall).

= 12 feet from the front door to the back wall of the kitchen. 

How do we estimate the distance outside, between the two front doors (with all this architecture on the other side of that wall)?

With a door:

(It's the door, here.  A 36"-inch wide apartment door, c 1959.)

3 more doors between them = 9 feet.  Counting from the right side of his doorway to the left side of her doorway.  9 feet.  In a space that's 12 feet on the other side.

Well, using doors to measure, maybe it's still barely possible that the kitchen is stuck in that teeny space between the doors...wait a minute, it's Mrs Dreyfuss-

Hmm, they ARE close apartments.  But what's with those windows on the shared wall?  What's on the other side?  In his kitchen?

I don't see any windows!

Let's look at that bedroom again.

Obviously, too far back to give the other apartment much room behind their own front door.  Maybe Mrs Dreyfuss is standing in front of a little entryway, just inside the door?  A vestibule, perhaps?  The lovely windows that don't exist on the other side lending an air of open welcome?

Well, except for Buddy-boy's bathroom.  It's inside the bedroom, to the right, and goes back at least another 5 feet, behind the kitchen.

Mrs Dreyfuss would be standing next to the shaving mirror.  With no napkins!

But the final rabbited lintel between the lallies (thx, Mr Blandings) has to be the view from the bedroom, itself:

That's the wall they supposedly share with the apartment next door.  The bathroom (aka The Dreyfuss's entryway) even has a window.  There is no way these apartments exist, next door to each other, in linear space.

Billy Wilder was a very careful director.  I suggest that he was aware that the architecture of the set didn't work.  Because, it DOES work, if you understand the layout is reversed.

Look at how much more space he's got if you turn it around, like a mirror.  
And to Wilder's point: the story may not be factual.  But it is a reflection.