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 Well… they think it was the gum. [Pause] No, Ma, gum. [Pause] G-U-M, Not G-U-N. Gum. [Pause]
Well, they’re telling me it contains uranium at about the same level… Ma, would you listen? [Pause]
Why would I make this up? There’s Uranium in the gum, and also radium. Radium. The stuff that makes the clock glow? [Pause] Yeah. [Pause] Yeah. [Pause]
What they’re… [Pause] Ma, wouldja let me finish? [Pause] Yeah. What they’re telling me is it’s about the same level where if they find it in the ground, they’d have to do a clean-up. [Pause] No. And Ma… do you happen to remember that… it was like a chemistry kit you gave me?
 Well, they’re saying that probably didn’t help either. [Pause] The guys dressed in… like the… like the Space doctors that break into the house when E.T. dies? [Pause] Yeah. Yeah. Like that. It’s a little hard to hear them. [Pause] No! I’m… I’m fine! [Pause] No. Fine. Mom, I gotta ask you these questions, OK? Just so I can get out of here. Open the cupboard and get out one of the red plates. [Pause] Just do it, mom.
 Does it say “Fiesta Ware” on the bottom? It does? Hang on a sec, mom.
[Off Phone a bit] Yeah, she says it’s the kind with the uranium. [Pause] You think she knew you could make atom bombs with it? She liked the color! Yeah. Yeah. Hang on.
[Back on Phone] Mom, did you put the plate down? [Pause] Never mind why, just put the plate down, is all. [Pause] OK, OK, Ma… Ma… I want you to go to the bathroom. No, no, no… just to look. Just to look is all. Are you on the cordless? [Pause] Well, just walk right in there. [Pause]
 OK, Ma, describe the tile to me. [Pause] Yeah, I know it’s clean. [Pause] They want to know if it’s a hexagon. [Pause] A hexagon. [Pause] I’ll ask them. [Pause] A six-sided regular polygon where all the angles add up to 720 degrees. [Pause] I can’t put him on, Ma, his head is inside this huge plastic thing. Hang on, what? [Pause] They want to know, is it green. [Pause] I said I thought yes. [Pause] Avocado? Avocado is green, right? [Pause] [Off phone a bit] Yeah, green heaxgons. [Back on phone] Mom, get out of the bathroom. [Pause] Just get out of the bathroom and close the door. Hang on, Ma.
[Off phone a bit] What? I… yeah, every so often, I guess… just for the articles, really. Why? Why do you ask? [Pause]
 Really. Really!
Glossy paper, huh? I never knew that.
Tooth marks? On the ma… [Pause] oh, on the… [Pause] Yeah, that’s my pencil. [Pause] Right. Right. Those? No, I just like the taste. [Pause] [Back on phone] Ma? [Pause] Yeah, gotta go. Don’t wait up… I may be a while.
MGM’s Publicity Department was doing something right in the late 50’s and early 60’s with their 8 by 10 color stills. These appear to have produced them using the same process responsible for true Technicolor… the gorgeous old Technicolor… dye transfer printing. That’s how they look to me, anyway – the color pops, and the consistently elegant tag lines also set the MGM stills from this period apart.
I post these examples for your consideration (and downloading – the files are huge, high-resolution images).
The stars are Julie Christie, Lee Remick, June Thorburn, and Yvette Mimieux. The fact that Alan Young and Rod Taylor, co-stars of The Time Machine, yet another of the hundred movies in my all-time top-ten, appear in the last two FOH (front of house) publicity stills is not a coincidence at all.
And that’s Paul Frees, of course, as the ring that talks.
No, that’s not The Fast Lady sitting on the bonnet. It’s Julie Christie as Claire Chingford in a movie titled The Fast Lady.
Below, Julie with the The Fast Lady – the 1927 Red Label Bentley that stars in Ken Annakin’s 1963 comedy.
The Fast Lady is a terrific British comedy with a raft of great stars in it, an absolutely charming film which is not terribly well known here in the U.S. and is currently available on DVD only in the UK. Stanley Baxter, the film’s star, is even less well known here, which would come as a shock to those in the UK, where he’s a legendary comedian. In The Fast Lady, Baxter plays Murdoch Troon, a bicyclist who needs to learn how to drive in a hurry, in order to get a date with the lovely Claire.
That’s Stanley Baxter on the left, and a familiar British face – Allen Cuthbertson – as the examiner testing to see if Baxter is deserving of a driving license. (Murdoch Troon is not doing so well on his driving test.)
Unlike Genevieve, there’s nothing subtle about The Fast Lady.
The only thing that’s “subtle,” to an American audience, are the motoring references. We don’t have L-plates here (the red “L” on the front of The Fast Lady in the color picture indicates that the driver is a “Learner.”) Over here, we call them “Student Drivers” and they’re only identified if they’re driving a car that belongs to a driving instruction program.
You might get a blank stare from an American if you asked about “overtaking a lorry,” because here, we “pass a truck.”
So maybe that’s part of the reason the film isn’t better known in the U.S.. But judge for yourself: someone has thoughtfully placed the film’s concluding chase scene on YouTube. I think seeing it wouldn’t necessarily spoil any of your fun if you ever get to see the complete film… and in seeing this 6 minute scene, you might decide that’s exactly what you’d like to do.
More to come on The Fast Lady. For now, put on your “L” plate and learn how they handle slapstick in a classic British film.
Link
 They’re saying that this past weekend’s London-to-Brighton run for veteran automobiles was the best ever.
Inspired by my favorite movie, Genevieve, I first did the run seven years ago, thanks to lots of good luck and the people you see pictured at right: Bill and Mary Ellam, in whose 1903 rear entrance Darracq tonneau I rode the 60 miles from London to Brighton in relative luxury.
The Ellam’s Darracq has two cylinders and 12 horsepower. That’s 12 horsepower to get you from London to Brighton… 12 horsepower to carry you up the difficult hills… 12 horsepower to create your acceleration from a dead stop in London traffic, where they do not close the roads for the veteran cars… just two cylinders to provide you with all the muscle you’re ever going to have.
My snow blower is actually more powerful than many of the cars in the Run. It should also be noted that people operating a snow blower during a blizzard are doubtless somewhat warmer and more comfortable than drivers and passengers motoring in the typical London-to-Brighton Run. I distinctly remember that my face was too frozen for speech at  the half-way point in Crawley.
At right: My snow blower, as it might appear on the London-To-Brighton Run. Built in 2000, this Sears Craftsman sadly misses London-to-Brighton eligibility by a full 96 years. (Photoshopped on a closed track; trick photo; do not attempt.)
My friend David Burgess-Wise wrote about my L-to-B exploits in The Automobile - to read the article, click here. If you’d like to listen to David talk about the history of the Darracq car, click here. [2021 note: This isn't necessarily the recording of "You Are the One I Love" originally shared by Don.]
 Not songs by Disney; songs about Disney. Carefully selected for your listening pleasure:
- Song 1 is about Walt Disney World and the lyrics contain “I got my annual pass”
- Song 2 is about Randy Newman, Elton John, Phil Collins and the lyrics contain “If you love LA, but the rent is late…/ Write yourself a Disney Song”
- Song 3 is about Times Square in New York City and the lyrics contain “Welcome to Disney World New York City zone”
- Song 4 is about shopping, and the lyrics contain “We will remove Starbucks and Disney”
- Song 5 is about McDonald’s, and the lyrics contain “Can’t you see they’re in cahoots with Walt Disney?”
- Song 6 – Contains the lyric “日本 迪士尼 “
- Tracks 7, 8, 9, are not songs and thus contain no lyrics
- Track 10 is Song 7 and includes the chilling lyric “When they thaw out Uncle Disney/ gonna be some changes made/ pointin’ fingers/ askin’ questions/ 40 years of decisions made.”
Link: Non-Disney Disney Songs.
No, really.
I’ve always been interested in taking 3-D pictures, and up until quite recently, the best way to do this was to shoot with a Stereo Realist 35mm camera. The Realist was introduced in the early 1950’s, when the entire country was going 3-D crazy.
The Stereo Realist takes two pictures at the same time with lenses separated about the same distance as your eyes are separated. One captures the left-eye view, the other captures the right eye view. Your brain can put these back together into a 3-D image all by itself.
I picked up a used Realist and dragged it many places, including NYU Film and TV School on the day that Marlo “That Girl” Thomas  came to our TV production class as a guest lecturer. “Lecturer In Hot Pants” was the excuse the Daily News gave for running their picture of Marlo in her abbreviated and quite shiny attire. I’ve always preferred my shot.
I had the Realist with me and used the available light in the NYU TV studio to grab a shot. Can you cross your eyes? Are you game to try?
There’s something called “free-viewing” a 3-D image that can allow you to see in three dimensions just by crossing your eyes. The picture of Marlo has the two images swapped: the one for your right eye is on the left, and the one for your left eye is on the right. If you have any skill at all in crossing your eyes, you will be able to resolve Marlo in the center of your field of view in glorious 3-D. For further instructions, look here. [2021 note: This isn't necessarily the recording of "You Are the One I Love" originally shared by Don.]
Click on the image to enlarge it, then cross your eyes… then try to ‘fuse’ the images. I picked up the knack years ago, and it’s great to have instant 3-D that doesn’t require glasses of any kind. If it works for you, you’ll find it a pretty compelling effect. Let me know if it did.
 Let’s say your always wanted your very own personal copy of Ray Harryhausen’s The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.
It’s 1968. What are your options?
Two, essentially. A 16mm print, if you happen to know someone with a lab connection that could get you a bootleg copy. Price? Again, depends on who you know, but color features back then went for about $500 on the black market. (I’ll be taking a few of my old 16mm color features out to the curb on Monday, because the film stock has faded horribly; the only color left is pink [or 'Eastman Rose,' as it's sometimes called]). The features were fun in their day, I got plenty of use out of them, but are valueless today.
But let’s say you’re an upstanding citizen. You want whatever the industry would offer you in an official, sanctioned release. Well, you’re in luck, because that very title, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, is available. Here’s the page from the 8mm Home Movies from the Famous Hollywood Studios of Columbia Pictures Corp. Catalog:
 A library of four “complete” home movies. Each one is an edited segment taken from the original feature film, which runs 88 minutes. But – what is “complete?”
 What indeed. The four “complete” films, together, run 40 minutes, “approximately.” The “short” releases took longer to thread up in the projector than they did to watch.
We’ll ignore the silent versions, which waste precious screen time on inserted titles, and we’ll ignore the black and white versions, because this is a color film. We’ll simply note that “approximately” means “under” and that “complete” fully deserves the quotation marks it is given in the catalog. We’ll also note in passing that the color on 8mm commercial releases was usually pretty awful and that the sound was often muffled.
 OK, so for forty minutes – half the feature, basically – four “complete” color and sound segments… $75.80 in 8mm. We will note, but not comment on the fact that the redundant “Extra Long Length” versions are a buck less than the “complete” versions, which puzzles us to this day.
Today, the special edition DVD, which contains an hour-long documentary on Harryhausen and other extra features, is $17.99 at Amazon.com. Less than the price of a “complete” ten minute excerpt in 1968.
In 2007 dollars, the Amazon DVD is… uh… $17.99
In 2007 dollars, the four 1968 Columbia “complete” color and sound films are: $442.19.
In supermarket pricing terms, that’s $11.05 per minute for 8mm and 20 cents per minute for DVD, unless you add in the supplemental features, which would make the “complete” cost “approximately” under 9.8 cents a minute for DVD.
So get out your old 8mm projector, turn it on, listen to the racket and smell the dust burning off the projection bulb while you watch the DVD if you want a good old-fashioned home movie night at home in extra long length.
Bizarre Books is a book that has been designed as a compendium of classic oddities – books that are either weird in and of their own right (How To Abandon Ship) or books that have become weird-seeming because their titles and/or authors evoke a response in the modern reader that would not have troubled their original audience (Scouts In Bondage). It was first published in the UK as Fish Who Answer The Telephone. It has a wonderfully colorful cover, but the interior is entirely black and white. Great quantity of titles, low quality of reproduction.
Above is another book that covers precisely the same territory: Scouts In Bondage and other Violations of Literary Propriety, which has a two-color cover, yet is in full color inside. Compounding the confusion, the cover of the original Scouts In Bondage appears on the cover of Bizarre Books. Scouts In Bondage and other Violations of Literary Propriety has great quality pictures of the tomes, but a relatively low number of books to peruse.
Bizarre Books lists many more qualifying books, including one of my favorites, Handbook for the Limbless:
But Scouts In Bondage has gorgeous color pictures for each of its selections, i.e.:
 They’re about fifteen bucks apiece, and if you like this kind of nonsense, you better go for them both.
Once upon a time, I wandered into Just Kids, one of the greatest stores in the whole wide world. My buddy Ken always has an excellent selection of stuff… including a bunch of LP’s that would interest virtually no one. These are the records guaranteed to be in every thrift store or nostalgia store: Mitch Miller, those freebie Firestone Tire Christmas albums, and anything on the Buddah label. Ken’s selection of unsellable records was, and remains, the finest in the world. The record I found and purchased for a buck was in a generic brown sleeve which had a piece of paper pasted to it. It looked very strange and somewhat amateurish. It was created by a kid named Judson Fountain. For a buck, why not?
Let me warn you that people either love the records of Judson Fountain or hate them, and the haters are probably in the majority.
When I listened to “The Old Woman of Haunted House,” I loved it. I loved the enthusiasm of the performers and their desire to create an old-time “turn out the lights” radio show. I loved the cheesy Elektra Records sound effects – I had the same LP’s. I loved the dialog; I loved the dialects; I loved the confusion of it all. Oh, and one other thing.
It really, really was scary. It has the non-linear qualities of a bad dream. It creates vivid pictures. If pressed, I could describe every location and every character. Give Judson a chance to work on your brain through your ears, and your brain will never be the same. And I mean that in a good way.
So, just in time for Halloween, here is Judson’s The Old Woman of Haunted House. (16m)
 About seventy Carl Barks fans would be surprised to know that the letters they sent to Unca Carl are up for bids on eBay.
What else might they experience? Pleasure that Carl kept them? Outrage that they’re now for sale to the highest bidder?
A bigger question: who might possibly be interested in buying these? A marketer eager to get 70 name and address leads? No, too old.
 A blackmailer might be able to create some sort of return on them, however, by selling individual letters back to the people who wrote them. Why they might want them back is also a question; but if I were the guy who sent Mr. Barks a picture of myself dumping coins on my head ala’ Uncle Scrooge’s ‘Money Baths’ (tiny, blurry detail at right) – and I’m not – I might think about a better-safe-than-sorry buyback.
 The implication of this estate auction is clear: put everything up for sale. Would it give you a warm glow to know that those ugly Hummels now despoiling the artistic sensibility of your home once did the same thing at the Barks residence? How about a ripped and dirty artist’s smock that pre-dates the invention of the zip code? Hey, forget that, how about some used paint brushes? Would you like a roll of original Barks toilet paper? Since the ‘dust bunnies’ that collected in the corners of the Barks Studio are not listed here, I’m guessing they were sold to a private collector prior to the public auction.
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Isn’t Life Terrible? "Isn't Life Terrible" is a Charley Chase short from 1925. The title was derived from a 1924 D.W. Griffith film, "Isn't Life Wonderful?" Other Charley Chase film titles that ask questions are "What Price Goofy?" (1925), "Are Brunettes Safe?" (1927), and "Is Everybody Happy?" (1928). Chase abandoned his titles with question marks for titles with exclamation points during the sound era.
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Isn't Life Terrible moved from Blogger to WordPress in May of 2010. As a result, some links in older posts were broken. If you encounter one, let us know by leaving a comment on the post with the broken link, and we'll move it to the top of our "to-fix" list.
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Well… they think it was the gum. [Pause] No, Ma, gum. [Pause] G-U-M, Not G-U-N. Gum. [Pause]
Well, they’re saying that probably didn’t help either. [Pause] The guys dressed in… like the… like the Space doctors that break into the house when E.T. dies? [Pause] Yeah. Yeah. Like that. It’s a little hard to hear them. [Pause] No! I’m… I’m fine! [Pause] No. Fine. Mom, I gotta ask you these questions, OK? Just so I can get out of here. Open the cupboard and get out one of the red plates. [Pause] Just do it, mom.
Does it say “Fiesta Ware” on the bottom? It does? Hang on a sec, mom.
OK, Ma, describe the tile to me. [Pause] Yeah, I know it’s clean. [Pause] They want to know if it’s a hexagon. [Pause] A hexagon. [Pause] I’ll ask them. [Pause] A six-sided regular polygon where all the angles add up to 720 degrees. [Pause] I can’t put him on, Ma, his head is inside this huge plastic thing. Hang on, what? [Pause] They want to know, is it green. [Pause] I said I thought yes. [Pause] Avocado? Avocado is green, right? [Pause] [Off phone a bit] Yeah, green heaxgons. [Back on phone] Mom, get out of the bathroom. [Pause] Just get out of the bathroom and close the door. Hang on, Ma.
Really. Really!
Those? No, I just like the taste. [Pause] [Back on phone] Ma? [Pause] Yeah, gotta go. Don’t wait up… I may be a while.
