My God but I love this new computer. Posting to my blog now takes seconds.Chchch-changing a word happens lickety-split; on the old computer it took several minutes. And all these new thingys! And, of course, figuring out how to get around all these new thingys to get it set up the way I want...

A couple of good birthdays to note:

First, Happy Birthday,  Mr. Fred Astaire!

And Happy Birthday to Mr. David O. Selznick, who produced some of my favorite movies. He also first hired director George Cukor, and brought Alfred Hitchcock to Hollywood. He was the kind of producer who built a fabulous jungle set at RKO for "Bird of Paradise", knowing he would use it for "The Most Dangerous Game" as well. And then he green lit one particular movie which also made use of the set before he headed off to MGM - "King Kong" (bless him). Then there was the time he burned down the last vestiges of the "Intolerance" set (used in Kong) as the opening scene in his magnum opus, "Gone With the Wind".

from the MGM "A Tale of Two Cities"

From "Dinner at Eight"

You don't really need me to identify this, do you?



I've got to get to work, so the last birthday I'll mention is:

And finally, the Found Pic of the Day:

Fed up with it already

This is going too far... The Wedding is over, damn it. Yet it's on the cover of almost every magazine this week, it's still showing up on tv, etc. It's over. Move on.

Photo find of the day

Okay, so I found this yesterday. ..

I've no idea what it's from.

I just like it.

So there.

Captions invited in comments area

Mothers

So every year, we get this Mother's Day thing. Great for selling flowers and cards. One of the reasons I like the Internet is that it took me all of a second (or two) to turn up the Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe. It does make interesting reading, you know. And it was responsible for what became "Mother's Day".


Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearnAll that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another countryTo allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.


Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.


In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

 Okay, you go girl!


The way I would prefer to spend the day would be with a showing of my 16mm IB Tech print of "Gorgo". Sailor boys, somewhere in the vicinity of the Irish coast,  find a giant creature. They capture it and hustle it off to Battersea Fun Fair where it's named Gorgo and is exhibited in a huge pit. What wasn't realised was that Gorgo is a baby. And Momma comes looking for him. It's great fun.



In my NYC days, I used to show it with "Now, Voyager".



Ah, such fond memories.
Happy Mother's Day, everybody.

Of OMG, WOW and frustration

Well, I finally did it. I got a new computer. HP desktop. It has Windows7 as its operating system. I love it. I am also frustrated by it. Everything is different. Sometimes the changes are simple ones. Others not so much. I spent much of yesterday setting up email accounts, only to have all of the work I did vanish when I updated to Internet Explorer 9. Suddenly, my only email option was my Hotmail account. I don't like Hotmail. It has taken what felt like an age and a half to find the Windows Live mail program (Stevil likes) but I did it. And made it my default email program. The work I'd already done was there. The spam filter is great. So far I haven't spent much time with Explorer9 - I only dloaded it about an hour ago. As for the rest of the computer, it's so nice to have a keyboard that works. Websites appear instantly. Videos stream properly now. So many changes - the only one I haven't figured my way around is to be able to see what is on my computer as a series of nested file folders. It's terribly old fashioned of me, but I like it - so there. Okay, back to exploring. I just wanted to see how posting to the blog was affected. And OMG but it's so easy now.

Here's today's graphics "just because".

Midgets for Coolidge 1924

And, I didn't post on May 5th as I bought the computer after work. So here's the graphic I had intended to use that day.

Ya gotta have Hart

Today, May 2nd, is the birthday of the man who wrote the lyrics to the above. His name was Lorenz Hart. With his songwriting partner, Richard Rodgers, he co-wrote some of the great standards of the American Songbook.



This personal fave is also beloved of someone who has gone missing from my life, Miss Magnolia Thunderpusy. Mags, honey, do show up soon, please.


Hart's lyrics often 'get' me. Or maybe I should say that I 'get' them.




I think my favorite of Hart's work just might be the following song. I couldn't find a version on You Tube that I really wanted to post. This is, or should be, a memory, a wisp of hope, a moment of longing, an admittance of loneliness. Sinatra comes closest to nailing it in this version, but is betrayed by one of those wow socko finishes that Nelson Riddle would arrange. Even still, it is the kind of song you know in your heart. It's for people who have been there. Maybe that's all of us?



Happy Birthday, Larry. We miss you.

Mayday! Mayday!

It's truly beautiful now - on my 6am walk to work the forsythias are blooming, both the star magnolias and

the cup and saucer magnolias are in bloom, as  daffodils, jonquils, and tulips perfume the paths I trudge; delicate birdsong twitter tweets are joined by the less prosaic musings of geese wafting thru the air. Trees have light green cotton candy tufts swaying ever so lightly in the morning breeze. Spring is here.

It's May the first. In much of the world, its a day given to celebrations to honor workers and men who were framed and killed in Chicago for trying to unionize to demand a 40 hour work week. And it's Beltane, the new season of growth, the veil is thin, magic can...... WAIT. WHAT? men killed in Chicago?

See, May 1st, 1886 had been set as a day for a general strike and protests all across the U.S. in favor of a 40 hour work week. The average work week at the time was 60 hours, while many worked 12 to 15 hours a day, 6 days a week. Child Labor was common. Thousand upon thousand marched. The bosses tended to feign surprise at the numbers of workers who gathered. In Chicago, 80,000 took part in the main protest.  On May 3rd, as one rally ended, hundreds went to Haymarket Square to protest the strike breaking "scab" workers who had been brought in at the McCormick plant. The police were brought in, they opened fire on the crowd of workers. Some say four were killed. Others reported hundreds. A rally was held the next day to protest the violence. Someone threw a bomb. The police said it was the workers. The workers said it was thrown by a Pinkerton paid tough. It exploded, sending shrapnel into the crowd of workers. The police backed up, aimed their weapons and opened fire - according newspaper accounts for a full two minutes and more. The number of dead workers was not mentioned in the press.

Eight men, labor leaders and organizers of the May 1st march and subsequent protests were rounded up on false charges, and put on trial for being anarchists who incited the mob to violence. They were condemned to die by hanging. One man killed himself first. Five men were hung. The world took note. May 1st, Labor Day was born. But not in the United States. Here, after the murder of workers of the Pullman Union, President Grover Cleveland, to pacify workers and get their votes, created and set Labor Day at the beginning of September. He did not want to place the day in aassociation with May 1st, International Labor Day, so that no one could stir unrest in memory of the Haymarket martyrs.

As the trials and executions ended, a new labor organization was started, the AFL or American Federation of Labor. In the early 1914, Henry Ford gave his workers a 5 day/40 hour workweek. The eight-hour day was realized for many more workers in the U.S. in 1938, when the Fair Labor Standards Act (under the New Deal) made it a legal day's work throughout the nation.




May Day, Los Angeles 1933

 

Lost in the rain and it's Easter Time too

This time of year was always a favorite of mine. The earth awakens, trees and flowers bloom. And, in my day, new Hollywood Spectaculars would be released, and the old ones would be shown on tv, free but for the price of a television set.  Now, you have to pay for cable, and then pay extra, to see those movies. At least in this case, we sold that part of our heritage to an American. Wonderful movies - the silent "King of Kings' in which Christ is first seen through the healing eyes of a blind man, and in which scenes of the resurrection turned from black and white to early Technicolor. Hmmmm. The 1934 Cleopatra. Or "The Sign of the Cross", a DeMille pic about which one critic wrote, "Preposterous, but the laughter dies upon the lips". Or, towards the end of the swords and sandals roadshows, an extravaganza called "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Tons of movie stars in bit parts. My favorite was John Wayne as the centurion who gets to say "Truly, this was the Son of God."



It's still the same old story...

When I was 10, "The King of Kings" was released. Directed by Nicholas Ray, its rebel with a cause was portrayed by young and handsome Jeffrey Hunter, who would later grow up to be better known as Captain Christopher Pike. Hunter was so young and beautiful that wags referred to the movie as "I was a teen age Jesus".

In this version, Barabbas and Judas were freedom fighters - the Jews were revolting. Against the Empire. The adult Jesus is first seen as He is baptised and a heavenly choir hums Miklos Roza's score, some of the best Holy music ever written.

This has been an awful Holy week. On Palm Sunday, as I was writing my blog entry, the Brooks House here in Brattleboro was petty much destroyed by fire and water. Everyone is safe. The facade is safe. But the lives the building's residents had created are gone. Also gone is the Community Radio station, whose studio was in the Brooks. I can't listen to most radio anymore, it's full of jingles, bleeps, buzzes, adverts and inanity. A cacophony of noise. Babel. And people who babble on.

Where I work, there is an ever present drone (audio not video). Kids screaming, cash registers ringing, distorted audio announcements, the sound of a hundred carpenters hammering. Do you know any carpenters? No, not them. Real folks. If they're any good at all, they're bringing in 30 some dollars an hour and oh, say, $70,000.00 per year. The average carpenter brought in $ 42,000.00 per year in 2008. Not exactly poor. A number of carpenters around here are woodworking artistes. Can you imagine having the time to carve even something simple, like a duck? Ever wonder how much Joseph, Jesus' human daddy made? Let's face it, a lot of things start to make sense if you think of Jesus as a trust fund baby. Just remember, the wise men who came to Bethlehem were from the East. The oil rich countries.

Jesus healed the sick, the blind, the lame, the crazy. At times, He was just a healing fool. And the medical and insurance industries got really bent out of shape about it. (Ominous music) He was changing the paradigm, he was dangerous. Something would have to be done. And what does this all wise holy man do? He heads right into his enemies city stronghold! Jes-us Christ! And along the way he made a stop to raise Lazarus from the dead. Beatitudeiful.

Have you ever noticed that Christ's preaching about giving is addressed to the rich and middle classes? He tells the poor to believe and they shall inherit the earth. i.e. dust, dirt. The poor will also inherit the kingdom of Heaven. Where exactly is that? It's in your heart. In other words, He isn't providing help to the poor, but is all for giving them something to believe in. Uh, huh. To keep them quiet. He is going off to His Daddy's house, the poor will remain. Always. Umm hummph. The rich are poor in Spirit, but are certainly getting everything else. The poor are strong in heart - they have to be. Otherwise, they wouldn't get thru lives of bleak emptiness. By working hard, and giving unto Caesar, they get pie in the sky.

 And if it's like everything else, the rich get lemon meringue while the poor get pot pie and 40 hours a week if they have a good union and can find a job that, being part time, hasn't already been taken by a trust funder. And those who don't work hard? They get damned to hell and eternal suffering. You don't get to die and find peace. 
 
Lazarus doesn't get a chance to die either. He'd already done that. He's out there somewhere, wandering around. Waiting.

I have heard that he started the Templars, who in turn started the Masons. And when the Templars were hunted down and killed, neither Lazarus nor the Templar fortune were to be found. Last I heard he got a job as an Easter Bunny at a mall, still plotting to take back and reestablish the Templar glory, a new world ordering of things. But beyond that I haven't heard much. Happy Easter, folks.

Maundy Maunday

First we had Palm Sunday. Now, after lying low for a couple of days, Holy Week kicks back into action with Maundy Thursday, a fairly good show if staged properly. Last Supper time supper time.

Maundy: from Middle English and Old French mande derived from the Latin mandatum, the first word of "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" ("A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you") which is said or sung (call and response) while getting all kinky with somebodies' feet.

There is also  maundsor which was a little basket or purse used by Kings to give alms to the poor. Maundsor is related to other words derived from a Latin term meaning "to beg".

Part of the disinformation campaign

Aha! It's about the poor, about giving money to the poor, about helping the poor. But the show then reveals that everything, and I mean everything, is going to be taken away from poorfolk. Literally. The altar is stripped bare. Oh, by the way, if you pick the right church, you'll get guys in drag with big hair hats waving censors of burning incense in a phony little "ceremony'  in which they make you watch them take away everything they see.

Anyway, the thievery of the rich isn't really obvious to the poor peasant working class. Smoke and mirrors, lack of education. The reality is always censored. They keep the truth from us! If you keep up with the story, the central character gets all involved with rich folk and landowners. And then they have him killed because he doesn't own anything else they can take, and he probably couldn't pay the bill for that big supper. They have to get rid of him lest he tell everyone the truth. That'll end their lucrative little scheme. And upset the rabble.

Coming Next : Good Friday.

The Palms

Ah, Palm Sunday. Even though I live across the street from St. Michael's Episcopal, I didn't see a single palm anywhere. And no kids at all. Just older folks. If I lived a couple of blocks south, over by St. Michael's RC, maybe there would be a few kids with palms. When I was young, the Methodist Church once passed them out to both the Adult and the Youth choir before the start of the service. We got to make an entrance in robes, waving palm leaves around. (Hey, that was pretty heady stuff for Methodists.) At least I think that was real and not an edited memory.



Bethesda Methodist Youth Choir, Easter time 1958.
(Click to enlarge)



In case you're curious - there I am! I was 7 years old.

Back to St Michael for a minute. Why does Brattleboro have two churches named for Saint Michael? I don't know. I wonder if they do, or which came first. It's kinda the story of Brattleboro in a way. One shop moves in and is successful. Another shop with a similar theme moves in. The area is able to sustain one, but two simply split the business between them. Eventually, they both cease to attract customers and go out of business. So far, the balance here seems okay, except that at some point around the 1920s or 30s, the Episcopal church moved a few blocks north out to the edge of what was then town. I've been to both churches' websites and neither mentions their history, nor is their comment about St. Mikey. Hmm, I wonder if that was blasphemy? I should tread carefully here - Saint Michael is the biggie in the Archangel biz, after all.

Saint Michael, Archangel.

St. Mike shows up in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Ya know how there is a Prince of Darkness? Well, Michael is the Prince of Light. Captain of the Host of the Lord. On at least one occasion, Michael stood in for the Big Guy. Michael is the angel of forbearance and mercy. He taught Adam the skill of farming. He passed the tablets of Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai.. He rescued Abraham from the fiery furnace he'd been thrown into by Nimrod. It was Michael who led Lot and his family out of Sodom. Michael is in charge of the souls of the just, and it is he who will kill the Antichrist. He's protector of this that and the other thing, and if that's not enough to show you how seriously important he is, well, he's the head of The Watchers. (The Watchers were fallen angels who numbered about 200 and were known as the Grigori.)



My cousin Patricia with palm, and Easter Eggs
waiting to be hard boiled and colored, 1962.

So. Palm Sunday. Weeks, months, have been spent in preparations. Dad had already taken my brother and myself to Spinozi's in Woodstown to get new Sunday's best suits. Oh, God, fitted clothes (heavy sigh).Why 'Sunday's Best"? I mean, it's not like we had extras hanging around. 

Anyway, the full Church choir, adults and youth, entered in procession singing Jean-Baptiste Faure's 'The Palms'. The Esty pipe organ's sound would swell with each step we took down the aisle; "O'er all the way green  palms and blossoms gay (no comment), are strewn this day in festive preparation. When Jesus comes to take our sins away, ev'n now the throng to welcome Him prepare! Join All and sing His name Devine, let ev'ry voice resound with united acclimation, Hosanna! Praise be the Lord! Bless Him who cometh to bring us salvation!" Geez. I can still recall it all. Our church had an all wood interior. Parishioners would join in singing from a balcony as well as the church floor. The sound would reverberate leaving an almost a constant tone hanging in the air. To hear it was to be it, a level of universal consciousness. And may the Force be with you, too.

Palm Sunday, 1962. Cousin Patricia was 3. I was 11.

It's a Do Me Do Day!

In yesterday's post, I didn't get around to describing my Kafkaesque encounters with The Prudential Insurance Company, the Post Office and their tax on the poor, nor my (lack of) interaction with whatever they're calling Food Stamps these days. And I'm not going to do it now. Today is Hans Conreid's birthday. He was a fixture of my youth, playing Uncle Tonoose on The Danny Thomas Show, the Slave in the Magic Mirror on tv's Disneyland show (and probably the inspiration for Jombi but if you don't know, don't ask), Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan, the host of Fractured Flickers (and the voices of Sidney Whiplash and Dudley Do-Right), a constant guest on the Ernie Kovacs show, English tutor Percy Livermore on I Love Lucy, and often showed up on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show as the psychiatrist. As if he wasn't already a Stevil favorite, he definitely entered that pantheon with his performance as Dr. Terwilliker, the music teacher in The 5,000 fingers of Dr. T. He also taught me how to get dressed on a Happy Day.
Thanks, Mr. Conried, and Happy Birthday!

As the World Turns...

A couple of days ago, I was watching the evening news when there was a promo for the news magazine that follows. As footage of a young man and a young woman in a car chase was shown, an announcer intoned "The Real Life Bonny and Clyde, next!"

Wait - what? Yup. He said "The", not "A". I know this for sure because they repeated it again. It was as though the writers had no idea that there really was a Bonnie and Clyde. They were movie characters, after all.  

This came to mind because I read in the news this morning, that Rick Santorum has created a Presidential Exploratory Committee (i.e. fund raising, money grabbing). It's okay, don't hyperventilate, I tell myself. He's just a tv actor in the news shows.

Meanwhile, back in Steven land, things took a turn for the worse. I keep a mailbox at the Post Office. I used to take a nice walk through town and end up there to get my mail. In the tsunami of September 2001, barricades were erected, blocking off that part of the street and sidewalk..

You weren't allowed to even park there. I stopped my pleasant walks. Too much stress and hassle. It's been years now since I've gone to the Post Office everyday. I generally get there about once a week or so. This past Tuesday, there were two envelopes whose appearance troubled me. One was from my landlord and contained a copy of the letter he handed me at 8:30pm March 31st. April Fool! Now what the hell did this mean? Was this sent recently to end his willingness to reconsider? No, as it urned out, it was mailed at the end of March as backup. Whew! The second envelope was from my Storage unit's provider. Unless I came up with a rather significant amount of money by April 25th, they would auction off my possessions.

Ooh, joy! Another fire to put out. Aside from family kind of stuff, there's over half of my Laser Disc collection, many many Cd's, books and kitchen equipment - and some of the choicest titles in my 16mm collection. Snow White, a museum quality Pinocchio, Rocky Horror, Fantasia (with the nude nymphs), Dumbo, Bambi, the 1939 Hunchback of Notre Dame, the beautiful prints of Stormy Weather and Casablanca. And the really, really, and I do mean really Real Imbition Technicolor reels from Singing in the Rain. ETC. By the time I got home, I was close to a full scale panic attack and had to take one of my lorazapams, even though it didn't help much. Well, a telephone call and a couple of days later, I had stopped the threat against my belongings and had negotiated a surprising low "settlement". I guess I've sold enough soap by now that things will be quiet for a week or so. I hope. Maybe. Sorta-kinda. No,. that's not negative thinking on my part, just stuff to keep my ratings up.

Decreasing the surplus population

"The poor would no longer, under federal law, have a right to health care." (AP)

That quote kind-a stands out doesn't it? It's from a just published news story. The House Budget Committee has passed its version of a 2012 Federal Budget. The biggest cuts are to Medicare and Medicaid. Those cuts were probably deepened by the proposed Republican Income Tax cuts from 35% to 25% for individulas and businesses. The Obama health care law would be repealed. Medicare eligibility would (allegedly in the future) be raised to 67, giving those who are ill a chance to die and not be a burden to their country.

To quote the Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis); "We don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls people to lives of complacencies and dependencies, into a permanent condition where they never get on their feet," he said.

It's all a nasty piece of business which just gets worse with each proposal that gets press coversage. Isn't it great to live in the richest nation on the face of the earth, where money can be found to fund three wars, where giant corporations pay no taxes and still get tax breaks, where members of Congres have the best health care in America? I could go one with lots of boring facts and figures, but I think my point can be better interpreted by Billie Holiday, whose birthday is today.



Happy Birthday, Lady.

Today, April 7, is the 97th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 625 days remaining until the end of time.

The little glimmers of light

About a month back, one of the medications I take to deal with depression needed to have its prescription renewed. As usual, I left a message for my doctor. When I picked it up, I noticed that one particular med had changed, was a lower dose, and was to be taken only once a day. What I didn't know was that my doctor was out on vacation at the time, and someone in his office made the change. This particular change was more than the dosage, it seems that it enters and reacts with the blood stream differently than the one it should have been. Last Friday was a doctor visit and the script was corrected. I picked it up on Monday, and am now feeling incredibly better. No more pity parties like that last post.

With the morning off before I have to go to work, I called my landlord and we had a talk. The big news is that he is willing to try to work things out so I can renew my lease. It was a well timed call. He is having lunch today with someone who is a big time benefits type from Montpelier. He asked for permission to talk about my situation - I didn't even take a second to say yes. We went over my income, my problems getting food stamps, the times I've been told there are no more Section 8s (housing help) available, etc.

The gods and curses that damn me please forgive my reaction, but things may be looking up.

Glimmers of hope.

And so it goes

My world is crumbling again. It feels kind of like the Old Met production of Samson et Delilah, where parts of the crashing temple are slowly flown into the rafters. It's very familiar. I know this feeling, I've been here before. And God, but I am tired of it. Ever since my rewarding career position as a cashier at a local supermarket cut my hours back last spring, it has been impossible to keep up with my bills. After three and a half years there, I still don't make even $10.00 per hour. My rent has been in arrears since last October. Everything gets paid late. And now my landlord has given me the required 60 days notice that he will not be renewing my lease when it expires at the end of May. I have no money. I have no car. And all too soon, it looks like I shall have no home.

My prescribing therapist asked me an interesting question at my Friday appointment. If I could get another part time job, would I be able to physically and mentally handle it? The fact is that I wouldn't. But then again, it's impossible. I never know my work schedule much in advance. Our hours are supposed to be posted on Thursdays for the week starting Sunday. Sometimes the hours don't get posted until Friday and it is not unknown to have them posted on Saturday. There is no set schedule. This coming week, I will be working two nights until 8:30pm. Last week, my schedule was all daytime shifts - then again, someone different did the schedule that week so I wasn't being punished by the bitch who makes up the schedule.  If you ask for a special day off, which is permitted as long as it is two weeks in advance, you get a bad schedule the following week. If they have to do paperwork because you were late getting back from your unpaid lunch break, I'll find myself bagging groceries for an hour or more - even though they know that this will kill my back and I might have to call out the next day. They'd love that - I could then be fired. They claim they don't punish people this way, but everyone knows that they do - but there is nothing that can be done about it. If you complain, it gets worse. I asked my department's manager what would happen if I changed my hours of availability (so I could fit in another part time job). I was told that I would be moved down into a different part time position which would, of course, end my medical benefits. (There are three levels of part time employment - I am part time flex, which means that I can get up to 38.7 hours a week. The next level down would restrict me to 20 hours a week.)

It all gets messier. There are meds that I need that I no longer take because I just can't afford doctor visits and the cost of the meds themselves. This affects my energy, ability to sleep, breather properly, & etc. My skin condition is starting up with the little boils again. I have no real life outside of work - the rest of my day is spent on the computer, watching mind numbing tv shows, being warehoused in my one room apartment that I am about to lose.

I don't know how much more I can take.

I've begun to admire people who find the courage to commit suicide.

sic transit gloria mundi

A few days ago, I spent at least 8 hours over 2 days trying to find one particular photo I know I have, or at least I think I have. And which seems to be lost in some file folder somewhere, spread over 3 hard drives and a few hundred gigabytes of storage space.

The picture I can't find may not really exist. I have a memory of bumping into it and saving it, but after that everything grows dim. The picture was proof that an old Hollywood Myth type of story was true. The story went that when the 1963 Fox Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton "Cleopatra" opened on Broadway in New York City, there had been so much publicity due to scandals, cost overruns, nearly causing Twentieth Century Fox to go out of business, and etc. that the theatre didn't even bother putting anything on the marquee. They just put up a really huge billboard of Taylor and Burton - and that was all that was needed.

I did find a pic in my files that could be used to help describe what I mean when I say the sign was "huge". See, the exhibition and selling of movies was done very differently then.

Back then, there were "Event" movies. They were big budget extravaganzas which opened in only one theatre. Tickets were mostly purchased in advance, and were for reserved seats. Going to one was a special occasion that called for one's Sunday best, meaning ya got dressed up like the day your picture was gonna be taken at school. When the extravaganza's ticket growth slowed, the film would move on to second run houses, and then out into the "neighborhood"  (read - "small town") theaters. The big city theatres where these 'roadshow' pictures opened were usually movie palaces where there were "an acre of seats in a garden of dreams"

The long gone Paramount in Times Square. If this is what a movie palace looked like from the outside, you can imagine what one looked like inside.

An example of a movie palace lobby. It's a bit stripped down - there should be paintings, sculpture and palms. The design above was copied from a Boston movie palace which had a theme based on the Paris Opera House. There should be someone selling souvenir booklets on the stand at the left. A staff of ushers should be flitting about, assisting patrons to their seats, etc.


The 1963 "Cleopatra" opened at the Rivoli Theatre on Broadway and ran for over 60 weeks. The Rivoli may have been a smaller capacity movie palace at a little over 2,200 seats (4,000 to 6,000 was the norm) but it had the largest indoor screen ever built. In the 1950's, the theater was outfitted for the new Todd-AO 70mm wide screen process. The 'Todd' was Mike Todd - Taylor's husband. Her contract for "Cleopatra" stipulated that it be filmed in Todd-AO. It seems that after his untimely death, Taylor owned Todd-AO.

The Rivoli's Broadway entrance was meant to invoke a Grecian Temple.

 

Postcard view of the Rivoli's interior when it opened in 1917.



The Rivoli newly fitted for Todd-AO. The screen was deeply curved to give viewers the perception of peripheral vision.



Just to convey the size of the screen, the above is from the Todd-AO introduction in Los Angeles. The Rivoli screen was larger.

 Okay, getting back to the giant billboard story. It did exist, sort of. The Rivoli's entrance was on Broadway. The back of the theater was on 7th Avenue. That's where the billboard was. And it was just Taylor and Burton, and no title or credits.


Now, as it happened, Rex Harrison's contract stipulated that every time Burton's image was used in promotional materials, his own image must be included. After Cleopatra opened, Harrison went to court over the billboard and won. At first, they added a temporary portrait on the upper right hand corner.

For an idea of the size of this billboard, look just a bit above the Rex Harrison portrait. That's one of the sign painters.

The original artist, Howard Terpning, was called back and the painting was revised.

As for the Rivoli, it was eventually sold to the United Artists chain and was converted into a twin screen in the mid 1980's. The sculpted figures in the pediment were chipped away, the columns were cemented over, and the theatre did not get an historic site designation.  In June 1987, after two weeks of "Munchies" and "Creepshow 2", the theater closed. A week later, it was torn down to make way for a gray glass skyscraper.

The other day, as I was writing much of this, there was a post on ibrattleboro which noted that the Kipling, a local multi-screen house that would have been at home in any mall of the mid 1990's, had closed. It started life as a Jerry Lewis Twin. Getting from there to here is a longish but very interesting story. I'll try to remember to get back to it some day. It involves all sorts of colorful characters, right up to and including a Very Important Vice President of a major movie studio.

In fact , most of what I've mentioned, from Todd-AO to the days when movie theatres were the stuff that dreams were made of, deserves and will hopefully get other posts.

Cleopatra even had special tickets.