Old Hollywood Fun
Last night Movies!, channel 5–2 on ota’s in NYC, ran another old flick I’d never seen, part of its Sunday Night Noir series. Invisible Stripes (1939) is the story of an ex-con trying to go straight. It stars George Raft, William Holden, Jane Bryan and Humphrey Bogart. It’s solid though predictable entertainment that has a valuable message but is not preachy. There was an unintentionally amusing moment when Raft’s character said he was 27. I guessed he was 40 at the time. He was 37 or 38. He passed away at 79 in 1980. Surprisingly, given how big a star he was, there are only 83 titles under his name. Always a smooth, low-key presence, he was the lead in a TV series as a police lieutenant, I’m the Law, which began its 27 episode run in 1953. Of course, he will be remembered most for his turn as Spats Colombo in Some Like It Hot (1959)… Invisible Stripes was directed by the prolific Lloyd Bacon, who has 130 credits as a director and 79 as an actor. His career spanned 1922-’53. He worked his way up from assistant to Charlie Chaplin, to shorts, to major motion pictures. Three of his films are in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress: the original 42nd Street (1933, not the one with Adolph Menjou), Footlight Parade (1933) and It Happens Every Spring (1949). He passed away at 65 in ‘55… Jane Bryan had a brief career, only 18 credits, before she married and devoted herself to family, charity and support of the Republican Party. She passed away at 90 in 2009… The flick is notable also because Leo Gorcey has a brief role outside his Bowery Boys/Dead End Kids persona, playing not a criminal but a department store manager. Married five times, father of four, he succumbed to liver failure at 51 in ‘69… Marc Lawrence plays a murderous hood, as he did so often. He had that look. His career spanned 1932–2003. He has extensive film and TV credits and also worked on Broadway. He directed 25 episodes of various, popular small screen fare and wrote and directed two films: Nightmare in the Sun (1965) and Pigs (1973). He passed at 95 in 2005. Here he is:
This is Bacon:
And Jane Bryan:
And Leo Gorcey in character giving Raft the run down on job requirements:
According to foxnews.com, CNN is no longer the Clinton News Network. It’s now the Cuomo News Network.
Finally! I landed the second best parking spot at my usual book nook. I hadn’t set up shop there in at least eight days. I’m locked in until Thursday afternoon. No back and forth this week. It was colder than I expected but so what? My thanks to Alice, who bought The Drifters by James A. Michener, and to the woman who purchased The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Digital Fortress by Dan Brown; and to the gentleman who selected The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve; and to the woman who chose a Nora Roberts translation in Russian; and to the couple who opted for two books in that language; and to Wolf, who took home two more of said; and to the gentleman who donated an awesome a mix of YA, novels, pictorials, coloring books and religious based fiction and non. Locked and loaded.
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