Brrrrrr but that’s not your problem. You’re probably basking somewhere, or you’re thinking “it keeps out the riff-raff.” This is our standard line up here. The cold weather provides an impermeable shield that repels riff and raff. You’re probably thinking “those are the same things. They are not severable qualities. If one is riff, one is also raff.” Yeah, well, I don’t know about that. Some people seem more riffy than raffy. At the State Fair - and here I am quoting previously used material, as I feel obligated to note - it was raining hard one day, and a fellow I talked to said it kept out . . . kept out what? I asked the audience.
THE RIFF-RAFF, they responded, like good Minnesotans. Right. But this meant we had riff-raff that had adapted to the cold and had taken up residence, only to be stymied by rain? Well, that won’t last. They’ll figure out umbrellas the way they figured out parkas, and then we’re screwed.
Yes, he is. “He leads an unnamed gang that often carry out various crime waves until they are stopped by Underdog. In "The Vacuum Gun," Riff Raff and his gang were among the criminals that were recruited by Simon Bar Sinister.”
Wikipedia also notes that Simon is only two feet tall.
I guess this is my way of saying Monday was notably lacking in anything of lasting significance.
Not a review, as I feel compelled to say. Just some observations on the ancillary aspects of video I have consumed. Note: I hate that word. Consumed. Watch, absorbed, experienced, considered, yes. Cosumed makes it sound like we sit around gumming a cud of media.
“Farewell, My Lovely” is a 1975 Marlowe movie, a product of the 70s nostalgia boom. The early 70s liked the 30s; then they moved on to the 40s, which were sorta-kinda that same, because Hats. TV would get interested in the 50s because of American Grafitti, which was set in the 60s, but nevermind. The movie avoids the clean, modern interpretation of the 40s for something shabby and inhabited, and it looks fantastic. Mitchum isn’t just a good Marlowe, he may be the Marlowe - older than the character was supposed to be, but man, he had everything that made Marlowe a hero: the rue, the reserve, the amusement, the quiet strength, the doggedness.
I wrote on Twitter (obligatory note because I’m repeating myself) that there are many Marlowes. Dick Powell’s version was too chicken-chested, and you can’t shake the fact that it’s Dick Powell, even if you’ve seen all of his noir reinventions. He was just too good at being smart and light, and I can’t imagine audiences at the time bought it completely. Gerald Mohr on the radio was breezy and tough, but it felt like a redefinition. The demands of radio didn’t give him a pause to think, and there was always something ruminative about Marlowe. There had to be. Marlowe was the sort of guy who’d spend an hour looking out the window, consulting with the office bottle, and there’s no room for that in radio. Elliot Gould was NEVER MIND. Bogart was Bogart, just as his Sam Spade was Bogart Marlowe Rick.
What I had to snap, of course, were the period details.
What I had to love, of course, was this: when Marlowe goes back to the newsstand a few days later, everything’s different.
Here's something I snipped for you folk, because of alllll the people on the internet, you're the ones who might have clicked on something I did about a particular artist.
You will earn your Eagle Scout Bleatnik Badge if you can tell me what the illustration on the upper right is selling.
Speaking of selling:
KREM
Imagine you’re an old man watching a movie about the 70s, and you see a big ad for Well Balsam.
You’d think: no, it was Wella Balsam. I swear it was. Was it?
I would insist that it was, because at the time it was something else. It smelled like no other shampoo, and was enforced by a hot sexpot every straight man in the country would have sawed off his leg to be with.
It’s Kreml. Mind you, I’ve never seen a bottle of the stuff. I just know it existed, from the ads.
Ghostly rattle from the crypt of the set dresser, yelling from the grave: WHO CARES
WE FIGURED LIKE MAYBE FIVE PEOPLE WOULD NOTICE
DAMMIT
One more thing. The obligatory femme fatale lives in the usual LA pile.
For some reason I paused and googled the locations, and, well, holy crow: it's Harold Lloyd's house.
IMDB: "This film spent several days shooting on location at the Harold Lloyd estate. When Mitchum goes to meet Rampling at her place, the two are actually relaxing in Harold Lloyd's opulent office/den. The estate was used in a number of films during that period, including Shampoo with Warren Beatty, and the Schwarzenegger vehicle Commando."
It had a name, you know. Greenacres. He lived there for over 40 years, and spent a lot of time perfecting 3D nude photography.
As Marlowe might have said: a man needs a hobby. A man needs purpose.
Bonus:
In October 1972, the Los Angeles Times visited the property and noted that it had "the feel of Sunset Boulevard," bringing to mind the line spoken by the young writer when he first visits Norma Desmond's home: "It was the kind of place that crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s."The house appeared to visitors in the 1970s to be frozen in time at 1929. One writer noted that nothing had been moved or replaced, changed, or modernized, from the books in the library to the appliances in the kitchen and the fixtures in the bathrooms.Noted columnist Jack Smith visited the estate in 1973 and wrote that "time stood still", as Lloyd's clothes still hung in his closet, and the master bedroom and living room "looked like a set for a movie of the 1930s."
It was sold in 1975 - the year this film was released. How much of Harold's life is in the scenes, I've no idea.
Great-uncle of Bentley Mitchum (Robert Mitchum's grandson).
It’s 1971.
The phrase that grew wings and flew away from its original intention:
At this point, I think they were trying to bring it home. If you have a famous cliche, use it to your advantage!
It’s that crappy faux-historical lantern that tells you how confused the era was; it’s not modern, it’s gimcracky, and it infested lawns across America, only to go dead at some point and stand there dark and broken for a decade.
Why, you could take over a hundred pictures!
Small, ordinary, unfiltered, boring tourist snaps the likes of which every tourist who ever went to Paris took!
It has the MagiCube, which flashed AND revolved, so didn’t have to change the bulb every time you used it! They weren’t as fun to crinkle, though.
Boomers of a certain age remember crinkling the old bulbs.
There’s something disconcerting about this, and it’s not the nuke. It’s the dead woman and the strange man in the water. Give it a few years and this could be an Alive With Pleasure ad.
The other part of the ad. No one ever thought of nuclear power as “odorless,” but I suppose it’s correct.
Two slogans. “We serve people” wasn’t particularly memorable, but understandable in the context of corporations’ bad PR. No, no, we weren’t in Nam! We serve people!
“You can be sure . . . if it’s Westinghouse” I remember, possibly from TV ad tag lines.
That’s a damned lot of copy:
“Our engines are so quiet you’ll think they’re purring.” Uh huh.
Founded in 1946. “BEA ceased to exist as a separate legal entity on 1 April 1974 when the merger with BOAC to form British Airways (BA) took effect.”
As for the “Super One Elevens” -
Following the UK government's refusal to grant BEA permission to order an all-American fleet of Boeing 727-200s and 737-200s, the Board of Trade (BOT) directed the airline to buy comparable British aircraft instead. This resulted in a BEA order for 18 firm BAC One-Eleven 500s plus six options in January 1967, for delivery from autumn 1968, to meet BEA's requirement to replace Vanguards/Viscounts on its Heathrow–Manchester and internal German routes.
The One-Eleven was one of the most successful British airliner designs, and served until a widespread retirement in the 1990s, which was partly due to introduction of aircraft noise restrictions in many European nations.
n 1971 the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad, successor to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, purchased the remainder of the L&N shares it did not already own, and the company became a subsidiary. During this period, in common with other lines, the L&N was cutting back passenger service. Amtrak, the government-formed passenger railway service, took over the few remaining L&N passenger trains in 1971. In 1979, amid great lamentations in the press, it ceased passenger service to its namesake cities when Amtrak discontinued The Floridian, which had connected Louisville with Nashville, and to Florida via Birmingham.
Next to Union Station in Louisville stands the L&N Building:
The industry produced some astonishing monuments.
It didn't have to. But it did.
GAWD YOU BRUTE
Note the letters up on top: “First Tuesday.” Any guesses?
Yes, of course. A TV show.. What type? Well, if you think the letters mean “whimsical,” no. The letters are intended to be serious and thought-provoking. That’s the Future Shock typeface.
This guy again!
Pretty sure it's Charles White III. He’s the best. Roger Rabbit should have been based entirely on his designs.
!
That'll do. You can conclude today's festival of free content (coff Visa Paypal button) with a look at Frank Reade, who's blowing up cattle today.
