| Vintage Pulp | Sep 30 2021 |
Some guys just can't catch a break.
The Breaking Point is the second of three Hollywood adaptations of Ernest Hemingway's novel To Have and Have Not, and it's a very good one. You're already starting from an advantageous point when you have John Garfield in the starring role. He could act, and this part requires quite a bit from him. This was his next-to-last movie—he would be dead two years later, victim of a congenital heart problem, exacerbated by high stress, reportedly from his blacklisting that was the result efforts by commie hunters.
Casablanca director Michael Curtiz is on board here too, and he does a masterful job bringing the story to life. Curtiz, or Warner Brothers, or both, decided to transplant the novel's action from Cuba to Newport Beach, but the theme of a man caught in untenable economic circumstances remains. Those who wanted a reasonably faithful adaptation of Hemingway's story got it in this film. The first version, also called To Have and Have Not, was amazing but had little in common with the source material. The third adaptation, The Gun Runners, was also good but downplayed certain political themes. (There's also an Iranian version we haven't seen and which we'll leave aside for now.)
So, which of the three U.S. versions is best? Is it really a competition? They're all compulsively watchable, but this effort with Garfield is the grittiest by far, and the most affecting. It's strange—To Have and Have Not is supposed to be Hemingway's worst book, but with three good movies made from it, maybe it isn't that bad after all. Perhaps because it's a work from one of the most influential authors ever to write in English, the bar was just set too high. Maybe it really is Hemingway at his worst, but personally we think it's very good. The Breaking Point premiered in the U.S. today in 1950.
CaliforniaNewport BeachCatalinaThe Breaking PointTo Have and Have NotJohn GarfieldPatricia NealPhyllis ThaxterMichael CurtizErnest Hemingwayposter artcinema
| Femmes Fatales | Apr 3 2019 |
Rare new life form discovered in the Pacific.
This dazzling photo features Doris Day and was made when she was filming her romantic comedy The Glass Bottom Boat. Looking at her outfit you're thinking: What could this movie possibly be about? Well, surprisingly, the title is literal. A guy runs glass bottom boat tours off Santa Catalina Island and Day dresses as a mermaid and swims under the boat to entertain the clients. Romance rears its head when a fisherman accidentally snags her costume and reels her in. We haven't watched it, but we may, just to see Day in this crazy get-up. It was designed by Ray Aghayan, and though it doesn't exactly scream mermaid to us so much as it does Vegas showgirl or Rio samba dancer, it's still pretty sweet. The photo dates from 1966.
| Intl. Notebook | Dec 21 2017 |
Five iconic paintings depict the Ruelhs of aviation.
During the 1930s Wisconsin born artist Ruehl Heckman executed five aviation themed paintings for the Thomas D. Murphy Calendar Company illustrating the reach and romance of aerial machinery by juxtaposing it against far flung natural and urban U.S. vistas. There were five total, all collectible, and you see them above: “Dawn of a New Age,” featuring lower Manhattan and New York Harbor, “Racing the Sun,” featuring an unspecified area of the west, probably Arizona, “The Spirit of Progress,” showing San Francisco Bay and the Bay Bridge, “Flying over Avalon,” featuring Santa Catalina Island at twilight, and “Where Progress and Romance Meet,” showing pre-statehood Hawaii. These paintings are all iconic yet Heckman himself remains barely known. This could be because his career was cut short—he was killed in a car accident in 1942. As of right now he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. But we think these pieces are quite nice. Like the early Pan Am posters we shared a while back, they capture a romance in aerial transport that is deader than a doornail today.
| Femmes Fatales | Sep 4 2016 |
And life flows along with a smile and a sarong.
American actress Dorothy Lamour, who we shared a nice promo photo of back in 2011, changed onscreen fashion with a constant array of sarongs that caused her to be dubbed "The Sarong Queen.” She first wore one in 1936's The Jungle Princess, and from there donned the distinctive garment for Her Jungle Love, Road to Singapore, and a score of other movies. This shot was made while she was filming the John Ford adventure Hurricane. Parts of the production took place on Tutuila Island in American Samoa, which is why some sources say the photo was made there, but it was really shot on Santa Catalina, in the Channel Islands off California. It dates from from 1937.
American SamoaCaliforniaTutuilaSanta CatalinaHurricaneHer Jungle LoveRoad to SingaporeThe Jungle PrincessJohn FordDorothy Lamourcinema
| Mondo Bizarro | May 27 2009 |
Aliens are unimaginably advanced but haven’t figured out stealth technology.
Personally, we think if aliens were able to traverse the immense gulfs of space to visit Earth, by definition they’d be technologically advanced enough to prevent us from seeing them. But UFO believers are legion, and UFO websites continue to grow in popularity, particularly in France, where unidentified flying objects are known as Objets Volant Non-Identifié, or OVNIs. The images here are from the French website forum-ovni-ufologie.com. From top to bottom they were shot—or perhaps faked, depending on your beliefs—in Catalina, U.S.A. July 9, 1947, Bulawayo, Rhodesia 1953, Barra-da-Tijuca, Brazil 1952, Liege, Belgium 1990, Phoenix, U.S.A. 1997, Lac Chauvet, Puy de Dôme, France 1952, and above Lago di Cota, Costa Rica 1971.
