Year: 2011

A don’t-miss classic from Blighty

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A scene from The Life and Death of Colonel BlimpIf you live in NYC or have plans to be here in the next two weeks, you owe it to yourself to pay a visit to Film Forum for a screening of the fully restored Technicolor marvel The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.

Blimp, which stars Deborah Kerr and Roger Livesey, ranks as one of the best pictures ever turned out by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and given the stellar lineup of movies they were responsible for—The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death, among many others—that’s saying something.

In fact, it’s one of the greatest pictures ever made in Great Britain. Film critic Andrew Sarris wrote of the picture, “When I first saw the badly butchered American release version of Colonel Blimp more than 40 years ago, I never imagined I’d live to see the day when I would have the effrontery to write that I preferred it to Citizen Kane.”

We’d hate to have to choose between Blimp and Kane, but you get the point. Blimp is a must-see.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

The (fine-)tooth, and nothing but the tooth

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Some folks visit flea markets, antique malls, and vintage stores with the primary goal of revisiting their youth; others seek to explore those years that preceded them, the decades they missed by being born too late.

We’re in the latter camp. The Sixties and Seventies hold little archeological interest for us. We were there (kids that we were). But take us further back, to the Fifties, yes, but preferably even further—the Forties, Thirties, and Twenties—and we’re in our element. And one of our favorite things to come across, as we sort through the flotsam and jetsam of decades gone by, are those esoteric items we never even knew existed.

Like this comb, for example, which we stumbled upon at the Garage, a weekend flea market on Manhattan’s west side. What caught our eye was the top of the comb, the tiers that give it a kind of Art Deco effect.

At first glance, we thought those tiers were merely decorative, but as the vendor who was offering the comb (and who was kind enough to allow us to shoot our blurry snapshot without making a purchase) pointed out, they’re actually functional. The dark areas aren’t painted, as we thought—they hold bobby pins.

How cool is that?

Well, not that cool, of course—it’s not as though it’s a product that changed anyone’s life. But given that we’d never seen a comb like it (have you? Tell the truth) and the fact that it was a promotional item for a business (we’re suckers for vintage promotional giveaways), we got a kick out of it, and so thought we’d share it with you, gentle readers.

Times Square Tintypes: Florenz Ziegfeld

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Sidney Skolsky was a former Broadway press agent turned columnist who made his living writing profiles he called “tintypes” of Broadway figures like Flo Ziegfeld (see below), Eddie Cantor, and Irving Berlin. In 1932, he moved west to Hollywood, where he continued as a columnist and became a movie producer as well (some claim it was Skolsky who first nicknamed the Academy Award “Oscar”).
But his book Times Square Tintypes, which was published in 1932, collected his Broadway columns, and like In Your Hat, the 1933 tell-all memoir by Sardi’s Hat Check Girl to the Stars, Renee Carroll, it’s a great time-capsule look at an exciting era in New York City cultural history.
The introduction that precedes the book’s first chapter below was written by Gilbert Wolf Gabriel, who worked with Skolsky at the Evening Sun. Gabriel went on to write for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and many other publications. He eventually became a drama critic of some note.

INTRODUCTION

I am not here to introduce Mr. Skolsky, the author of these subsequent sketches. Like all true biographers, Mr. Skolsky has a passion for self-effacement. He will hiss me for disclosing him in even the most general terms.
It is my theory that all good Broadway columnists—a race apart—are small of frame, soft of voice, racy with all the sophistication of the naïve-at-heart, with eyes that are incurably big with the wonder and glee of what they see in that fabulous district, the vicinity of Times Square. Mr. Skolsky is a favorite Broadway columnist, and he looks his likable part.
On The Sun, we used to leave Mr. Skolsky to his own sly devices. It would be better fun to wait and see what new personality he’d choose to lightning-sketch and pin up on the New York sky line each succeeding week. He was—still is, in his new-found quarters on The News—inexhaustible about that business. His world brims with possibilities for his peculiar sort of portraiture. His asylum of the great and the near-great will never run empty. He will always, I”m sure, greet every up-and-coming understudy with her literary tintype before she is six paces on her way to stardom.
The charcoal with which Mr. Skolsky draws is a native product. It can be made out of nothing else than Broadway’s compressed soot. And he wields it with a hand grown exceedingly quick and sure in the nervous racket of Broadway crowds. His wit has the telegraphic tempo which insures clean and telling strokes, and I have yet to see a single smudge of dirtiness in any of his shadows. More astounding still, he does without malice . . . in a territory where malice is both the coin and the curse of the realm.
I cannot remember that any of the ladies, proverbially famous for vanity, took exception to their Skolsky portraits. One, perhaps two, inordinately modest gentlemen did. Why, I can’t guess. He did them most merciful justice, and for his kindness was once imprisoned in a slowly descending elevator with a subject so indignant that Mr. Skolsky was momentarily expecting a shove to the bottom of the shaft. Broadway has its battlefields and its war crosses. Columnists must sign their ease and prepare to be first casualties.
But the larger, more constant embarrassment of this gallery of well-knowns must have been, not indignation, but, on the contrary, supplication. No sooner was Mr. Skolsky’s series a pronounced success—and it was such a success much sooner than it was a series—than the coy requests began to pour in. He was invited, advised, urged, begged to grow staccato concerning the semi-private lives of almost every semi-private person in New York.
He had me always wondering how he escaped wasting time and space on opaque and uninteresting third-raters. Until I saw that the fun lay all in Skolsky himself, and that he has his own happy way of turning kithen-maids into Columbines and dullest dogs into blue-ribbon wonders of the Broadway age.
GILBERT W. GABRIEL

*   *   *   *   *

A GIRL SCOUT

Florenz Ziegfeld. That’s his real name. His father was Dr. Florenz Ziegfeld, founder of the Chicago Musical College. His mother, Rosalie de Hez, a French girl. He was born in Chicago, March 21, 1869.
His telephone bill is $10 a day.
Likes to munch sweets. Generally carries a small box of candy in his pocket.
Can’t sleep after six in the morning. Starts his day’s work in bed. With a masseur working on him, he dictates telegrams. Only one-third of the telegrams he writes are actually sent.
Talks with a nasal tone. Which is mimicked by some of his stars behind his back.
Whenever he goes on a long trip he takes along his own chef and his own food in a special car.
His theatrical fame and fortune really started on July 8, 1907. It was then he produced his first Follies. It was presented in the theatre now known as Loew’s New York Roof.
Knows more ways of escaping process servers than any other man in the world.
He can’t keep a secret.
Wears lavender-colored shirts, pointed perforated shoes, usually brown, and a hat that costs $40. In the winter he always wears a heavy beaver coat. He hates evening clothes and seldom wears them.

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A day of gratitude

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On a stroll up Fifth Avenue this morning, as the preparations were underway for today’s Veterans Day parade, we came across this beaut of a 1938 Packard. The kind gentleman who owns this beautiful car, a proud veteran of the Vietnam War, admired our vintage garb and insisted on taking a picture of us standing by his car.

After chatting a bit about the car (he’s had it 32 years and has done all the restoring of the car himself), we thanked him for his service and for sharing that lovely auto with us and continued on our way.

Here’s to all those who have served in our nation’s armed forces over the years; we truly appreciate your sacrifice and your service.

Pitch perfect: Vintage Political Slogans, pt. 2

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Willkie campaign posterOur long march through the Williams Sunners’ 1949 tome, American Slogans, ends with this installment, which comprises vintage political slogans beginning with the letters S through Y from the chapter entitled “Political, Historical, Patriotic, Military.”

This chapter’s an odd one, as so many of the entries are personal statements and not slogans at all, and many, unlike those found in the book’s other chapters, date much farther back than the first half of the 20th century.

Still, the completist in us wouldn’t let us consider not sharing this chapter with you.

The Cladrite Reading Room continues next Monday, so check this space. We think you’ll like what we have in store for you.

Labor is king (Republican Presidential campaign), 1880.
Labor omnia vincit (State of Oklahoma).
Labor conquers all things (State of Oklahoma).
Lafayette, we are here (General John J. Pershing), June 13, 1917, France.
Land divided, the world united, The (Governor’s seal, Panama Canal Zone).
Let arms yield to the gown (State of Wyoming).
Let it be short, sharp, and decisive (Northern slogan), 1861.
Let liberty be national, and slavery sectional (Republican Pres. camp. 1860).
Let no guilty man escape (U. S. Grant), 1875.
L’etoile du nord (State of Minnesota).
Let the people rule (Andrew Jackson), 1832.
Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law (State of Missouri).
Let there be light (Carnegie libraries).
Let there be light and there was light (Order of Free and Accepted Masons).
Let us alone (big business), 1905.
Let us have peace (Republican Presidential campaign), 1868, for Grant.
Let us keep this honest man (1920).
Libertas et fidelitate (on reverse of State seal of Virginia).
Liberty and independence (State of Delaware).
Liberty and independence or death (American Revolution slogan).
Liberty and prosperity (State of New Jersey).
Liberty and Union (Abraham Lincoln), 1861-1865.
Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable (Daniel Webster).
Liberty dearer than union (John C. Calhoun).
Liberty or death (Virginia Revolutionary regiments).
Liberty, prosperity and no stamps (anti-Stamp Act slogan), 1765.
Life of the land is preserved by righteousness (Hawaii).
Long live the President (George Washington’s adherents, 1791).
Look up, not down; look forward, not back; look out, not in and lend a hand (Edward Everett Hale).
Love thine enemy (Democratic National Convention), 1940.

FDR campaign posterMake American the arsenal and the larder of Democracy (F. D. Roosevelt, 1941).
Make the world safe for Democracy (Woodrow Wilson), 1917.
Manly deeds, womanly words (State of Maryland).
Mayest thou endure forever (State Idaho).
McKinley and the full dinner pail (Republican Presidential campaign), 1900.
Meliorem lapsa locavit (State of South Carolina).
Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute (C. C. Pinckney).
Montani semper liberi (State of West Virginia).
Mountaineers are always free men (State of West Virginia).
My country, right or wrong (Stephen Decatur).

National Guard is for the Union, The (New York National Guard).
New Hampshire has no slogan or motto.
New order of ages, A (translation of slogan, obverse side of U. S. Great Seal).
Nil sine numine (State of Colorado).
No compromise, no more slavery (Republican Presidential campaign), 1846.
No fourth term, either (Republican presidential campaign), 1940.
No free trade (Republican Presidential campaign), 1880.
No more ’76 (Democratic Presidential campaign), 1876.
No quarter for Tories (Francis Marion).
No taxation without representation (American Colonies), 1765.
No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted (U. S. Grant).
No third term (Republican Presidential campaign), 1940.
No union with slaveholders (W. L. Garrison).
Not worth a Continental (Money from American Revolutionary period).
Nothing without the Divinity (State of Colorado).
Novus ordo seclorum (Great Seal of the United States).
Now or never (pro-Annexationists), 1846.
N U T S! (General McAuliffe), World War II.
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