Adventures in European Filmmaking #40

Today's Adventure: Serge Gainsbourg shows Jane Birkin how to seduce Joe Dallesandro
on the set of Je t'aime moi non plus (1976)
An Ongoing Series of Cultural and Personal Observations;
by Tom Sutpen, Stephen Cooke, Richard Gibson, Kimberly Lindbergs and Greg Ferrara

Today's Adventure: Serge Gainsbourg shows Jane Birkin how to seduce Joe Dallesandro
on the set of Je t'aime moi non plus (1976)
This was posted by Kimberly Lindbergs
for the series:
Adventures in European Filmmaking

Today's Adventure: Busby Berkeley keeps Joan Blondell and Dick Powell in sharp
focus on the set of Gold Diggers of 1937 (1937)

Anna Neagle
No. 33 in a series of 50 from Player's Navy Cut Cigarettes
Anna Neagle was born in Forest Gale on October 20th, 1908, and christened Margorie Robertson. Educated at St. Albans High School, she began her career as a teacher of gymnastics and ballroom dancing, and after being a finalist in the World's Ballroom Championship, she turned to the stage and made her debut in Charlot's 1926 Revue. While she was still in the chorus, Jack Buchanan noticed her and she leapt to fame overnight as his leading lady in Stand Up and Sing, repeating her success with him on the screen in Goodnight Vienna. Bitter Sweet, The Queen's Affair and Nell Gwynn are her later pictures.

Charles Chaplin and Edna Purviance
This was posted by swac
for the series:
They Were an Item,
They Were Collaborators

Original Caption:
Wires Ready for Hauptmann Trial
Flemington, NJ -- The Press is ready for the Hauptmann murder trial. Here is a view of the press set up in the Flemington Court house where Bruno Hauptmann of the Bronx will be tried for the murder of baby Lindbergh. The grand jury indicted him for the crime on October 8th. (1934)

Bertolt Brecht
(massive thanks to John Walter for this Brechtian image)

In August of 1968, Chicago's WFMT-FM broadcast this edition of Studs Terkel's Wax Museum featuring composer, guitarist and full-time anarchist Frank Zappa. In between LP cuts by The Mothers of Invention (which have been edited out of this recording . . . not by me, I hasten to add), Zappa and Terkel discuss the psychology of audiences; Zappa's formative years in the California desert; the true meaning of such compositions as Who Are the Brain Police? and Brown Shoes Don't Make It; the genesis and hidden wonders of Zappa's first solo LP, Lumpy Gravy, as well as the uncertainties inherent to the life of an American composer with no commercial potential.
Frank Zappa sounds understandably depressed throughout.

Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey and Kenneth Anger; hanging out at the Abbey of Thelema

Today's Adventure: Director Cecil B. DeMille explains the dynamics of a romantic scene to Hedy Lamarr and Victor Mature on the set of Samson and Delilah (1949).
This was posted by Kimberly Lindbergs
for the series:
Adventures in American Filmmaking

Today's Adventure: New York Yankees Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto play a mean game of Cribbage (1950)

Carlo Gambino's coffin negotiates traffic on its way to a final resting place (1976)

Today's Adventure: The Bronx Bull, Jake LaMotta, receives a congratulatory smooch from his loving wife Vicki after his successful Middleweight title defense against Laurent Dauthille (1950)

Original Caption:
Brooklyn -- A teenage "gang-war" was averted Wednesday night when Brooklyn Police rounded up forty-six youths in the Borough Park area. Thirty two were held on charges of conspiracy to commit felonious assault and fourteen others were released in custody of parents on juvenile delinquency charges. Here the youths, backs to camera, are shown huddled together after the roundup. (1954)

Sonja Henie with Marcel Cerdan and Edith Piaf
This was posted by Tom Sutpen
for the series:
They Were an Item,
When Legends Gather
Before
After
(vast and all-conquering thanks to Tommie Hicks for these images)

Ollie Johnston gets into his work animating Johnny Appleseed in 1948.
The last of Walt Disney's Nine Old Men, animator Ollie Johnston, has passed away at the age of 95.
Often working with lifelong friend Frank Thomas, Johnston helped raise the art of character animation to new heights, first in shorts and soon after in features like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio and Fantasia. His personal stamp remained on Disney animation right up until The Fox and the Hound in 1981 (oddly enough, right around the same time that Disney animated films entered a severe creative drought).
Naturally, Jerry Beck's Cartoon Brew has access to all the details and tributes.

Musical satirist Tom Lehrer turned 80 years old last week, an event he presaged in this particular ditty (one of several recorded for European TV in the '60s, all available in links to the right).

Cecil B. DeMille is trapped between two cameras; a modern Technicolor unit and the more portable model used on his first feature, The Squaw Man.

Douglass Montgomery
No. 32 in a series of 50 from Players Navy Cut cigarettes
Born in Los Angeles on October 29th, 1907, Robert Douglass Montgomery was a prominent member of the Pasadena Community Playhouse while still at a High School. Before he was seventeen, he had won his way to Broadway, subsequently becoming a member of the famous New York Theatre Guild. In 1930 he made his film debut in Waterloo Bridge, under the name of Kent Douglass. After four pictures, he returned to Broadway, but is now back at Hollywood again. Recent successes include Little Women, Eight Girls in a Boat, Little Man, What Now? and Music in the Air.
This was posted by Richard Gibson
for the series:
Artists in Action,
They Were Collaborators

Original Caption:
Jimmy Cagney Gets "Atmosphere"
Los Angeles -- James Cagney, pugnacious -- although likeable -- screen star is developing a "nose for news." In search of atmosphere and authenticity for the part he is about to play in his next film, Picture Snatcher, a story of newspaper work, Jimmy was instructed in the fundamentals of newspaper work at a Los Angeles daily. Here he is shown in the Linotype room. (1933)

Ben Turpin, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, Harry Langdon and Billy Bevan in Mickey's Gala Premiere
(Burt Gillett; Walt Disney; 1932)

Today's Adventure: Boston Bees Manager Casey Stengel enters into debate with an indifferent Umpire (1938)

Original Caption:
Washington, D.C. -- This is the scene in the Senate Caucus Room today as Joseph Valachi testifies before the Senate Investigations Subcommittee. Valachi, who told investigators about his activities in the 'Cosa Nostra' crime syndicate, is also shown on the TV monitor at left. Members of the Committee are shown in background. (1963)

Original Caption:
Castaic -- No movie fan is 'Daisy Mae', who swishes her tail willy-nilly in the eyes of handsome actor Robert Mitchum as he begins his chores at the Sheriff's Honor Farm. Mitchum, serving 60 days on a Marijuana charge, was transferred to the Honor Farm after he became a 'Tank Trusty' at the Los Angeles County Jail (1949)

Light as we've been in the arena of content lo these past weeks, I thought I should break pattern for but a moment to note that Charlton Heston has passed away this evening at the age of 84.

Jules Dassin (1911-2008)
First Richard Widmark, now Jules Dassin. It's a sad week for noir fans. At least he got to outlive his HUAC accusers and was married to Melina Mercouri. Now if only I could find a copy of his remake of The Informer, 1968's Up Tight! with Ruby Dee...
Here's his obituary in the New York Times. And, a BBC piece.

On this day 51 years ago the BBC's Panorama programme broadcast a news item about the annual harvesting of spaghetti.
Rosie Blau of the Financial Times, explains for those unfamiliar; ‘The workers of Ticino, Switzerland, carefully plucked the pasta from the trees before laying it out in the sun to dry. [Richard] Dimbleby’s deadpan voice over explained that each individual strand of spaghetti grew to the same length after generations of cultivation; severe winter frost, however could harm the flavour.
At the time, pasta was rare in the UK – and the BBC was the stalwart source of information about the world. The programme, which we now identify so easily as a hoax, fooled millions when was broadcast…’, ‘An estimated 8 million people watched the programme.
When many phoned in the next day to ask how to grow their own tree, the BBC apparently told them to “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best”.’