Day: February 11, 2020

New Hampshire results

UncleScoopy

As in Iowa, Pete and Bernie finished neck-and-neck. This time it was Bernie with the slight edge. They will each get nine delegates of New Hampshire’s 24.

The big surprise of the evening was Amy Klobuchar. The momentum showed by the polls was totally real. A week ago she was polling at 6% in NH and she finished around 20%, thus making a good run at a win and claiming the Granite State’s six remaining delegates.

Warren and Biden finished in single figures and earned no delegates at all. Biden’s fifth-place finish has erased the frontrunner facade and has left him gasping for breath, hopeful of moving south for better health, like any other crotchety old geezer.

The Nudity of Early Hollywood. Part 5: The Dry Years

UncleScoopy

All captures, collages and comments in this post are by Brainscan. He also created the accompanying film clips in the members’ area.

The first four parts of the series are found as follows:

Part 1: 1932. Peak Pre-Code Talkies.

Part 2: 1929-1934. The Other Pre-Code Talkies,

Part 3: 1927. The Swan Song of the Silents

Part 4: 1900-1926. The Silent Era

The Dry Years

1935-1951

From July 1934 through the early 1960s, enforcement of the Hays Code kept American movie screens safe from the tyranny of nude scenes, or just about anything even mildly risqué.  Well, not entirely safe.  Left was an occasional scene,

such as Jean Harlow’s

and Lillian Bond’s

in China Seas, when for a frame or two, something no one intended made it onto the screen.

(Lillian also did some modeling)

There was scene of what is supposed to be Jane Wyatt from Lost Horizon (1937) swimming nude in a Himalayan paradise, but it was shot with a camera so far  away it might as well have been in the Alps.

And Rita Hayworth, in Gilda, wears a wonderfully thin blouse (something she would duplicate in still photographs).

(She was also a famous “pin-up” who adorned the locker of many a lonely GI)

But the rest of what might be seen in the late ’30’s and throughout the 40’s were foreign productions.  Lucrezia Borgia in 1935 was the best of its time.  Edwige Feuillere played the infamous Ms. Borgia, complete with what has to be the first full-frontal scene by someone who was or would become a true star.

A second actress goes topless when mauled by Cesar Borgia (played as though he were nothing more than troglodyte).  I think she is Jeannine Fromentin, but I cannot be sure.

German cinema contributed Margit Symo, topless in Der Postmaster (1940),
while Italian producers gave us Vittoria Carpi in La corona di ferro
(1941, reputed to be Italian cinema’s first topless scene),

Clara Calamai in La cena delle beffe (1942)

and Elli Parvo in Desire (1946).

The Danes got into the act, with Tove Maes in Ditte Menneskebarn (1946).

From there until the early1950’s, French cinema keeps alive our hopes and dreams with

Anouk Aimee in Amants Verone (1949)

and Martine Carol, also in Amants

AND in Dear Caroline (1951).

RIP Orson Bean

UncleScoopy

There are two things about this that amazed me.

1. I never dreamed he might still be alive. He seemed to be on every game and panel show in the 50s, but I probably haven’t thought about him in 60 years, so he seemed like something from the ancient past. Actually, that’s wrong. I do give a passing thought to him every Christmas when I hear a certain famous song, and remember how my little sister used to mis-hear the lyrics as:

In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Orson Bean

2. He was not claimed by disease or old age. He died doing a crazy stunt with those “Jackass” guys. OK, I’m kidding about that, but he did die in an auto accident. I’m going to guess that wasn’t the favored betting line.

Doctor Loveless finally kills Jim West

UncleScoopy

Robert Conrad, Star of TV’s ‘The Wild Wild West,’ Dies at 84

Best opening/closing credit sequences of its era:

Two minor things I remember about that show (which I found very entertaining):

1. Jim West’s wardrobe got me interested in wearing fancy vests that complemented but did not exactly match my suits, and that became my own signature “look” until I retired.

2. Ross Martin’s disguises always looked exactly like Ross Martin wearing cheap stage make-up, and the voice was always instantly recognizable. He was truly the master of deception! The name of his character was Artemis Gordon, and when he showed up in his cheap Halloween disguises, I always expected the villains to say “Oh, hi Arty!” (But apparently Dr. Loveless wasn’t the genius he claimed to be, because he never could see through that transparent artifice.) My theater friends and I used this as an insult. “Do I really look like a realistic old man?” “Hell, no. It looks like Ross Martin did your make-up.”

Trump praises MAGA hat scene from Larry David’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’

UncleScoopy

Trump obviously didn’t watch the show

Larry finds that a MAGA hat is the most useful prop in his life.

Here are some examples:

  • Suppose you don’t really want to have lunch with someone, even though you agreed to, and you’ve completely run out of excuses. Show up at the restaurant wearing a MAGA hat, and they will find an excuse to leave.
  • Are you in a situation where you want a little more room? Put on the MAGA hat and nobody will sit or stand next to you.
  • Is an obvious idiot about to attack you out of road rage? Put on the MAGA hat and they’ll give you a thumbs up.

Larry recently told an interviewer that he wasn’t worried about offending the president or his backers by wearing the hat as what he called “a people repellent.”