Anyone here remember Blue Chip Stamps? As the economy sinks deeper into the tar pits, I've been waiting for them or something of the sort to return...maybe S&H Green Stamps, which were the big deal for a time. I have a dim memory of my mother getting Green Stamps at some of the local merchants and pasting them into the little booklets. She was saving up for some item that cost eighty zillion stamps and she had acccumlated around thirty zillion of them.
Then one day, all the places she shopped were suddenly converting to Blue Chip Stamps! It was a crisis and a half, fueled by rumors that the Green Stamps empire was going under. Whatever was going to happen, it was obvious she was never going to get the eighty zillion Green Stamps so she hurriedly raced through the catalog, picked out a lower-value item and hurried in to get it. I think it was a pair of tweezers or something that valuable. The scene at the Redemption Center that day was like in It's a Wonderful Life when everyone is storming the bank, trying to get their money out before it fails.
Meanwhile, she began rebuilding the family nest egg, amassing Blue Chips and gluing them into their little booklets, saving up anew for whatever she hadn't been able to get with the Green Stamps. She finally got it, whatever it was, but it was a lot of work.
Then, around 1966, she used Blue Chip Stamps to get me my first typewriter — a blue Olivetti-Underwood Lettera 32. It looked a lot like this. In fact, it looked exactly like this...
I remember a brief moment of horror when we got it at the Blue Chip Redemption Center, which was located on Pico Boulevard near Westwood, right next to the Picwood Theater. The catalog just said "Underwood," which was an old, reliable brand of typewriter...and that's what my mother thought she was getting me. She turned in her books of Blue Chip Stamps, all of them pasted in so neatly. Then we waited for the instrument of my future career to come down the conveyor belt, out from the mysterious back room where all the Blue Chip goodies were kept.
We were unaware that Olivetti, an Italian company, had recently acquired the good old American name of Underwood...so when a box emblazoned "Olivetti" rolled down the belt, she felt baited-and-switched. And for a moment there, I feared that my new typewriter would only type in Italian, which would have meant I'd have to end every noun in a vowel. The clerk at the Redemption Center assured us that it was not an Olivetti. It was an Olivetti-Underwood...and sure enough, there was the name "Underwood" in teensy letters on the carton. We were both skeptical but I carried it home and the darn thing did indeed type. In English.
You couldn't touch-type on it. The keys required too much pressure to respond to anything but forceful thrusts of index fingers. But then I didn't touch-type back then, back before I learned the skill in high school. It's funny. Back then, Typing 101 was kind of a joke class...like a glorified Study Hall. It was something your counselor stuck you in because everything else in Period Three was full and he had to put you somewhere.
In fact, at University High, the Typing classes were even held in the same room where you'd sit if you had a period of Study Hall. Upon reflection though, of all the hours I spent in classrooms at Uni, the ones I spent learning to type have probably come in handier than any others. I almost never have to balance a Redox equation these days and I can't recall the last time I was asked to dissect a frog. It's been at least a year. On the other hand, I type every day of my life, sometimes for most of my waking hours. In fact, I'm typing right this minute, thanks (in part) to Blue Chip Stamps. If they ever make a comeback, I'm going to see if I can pick up another Lettera 32. Whenever my computer crashes, I yearn for that machine.
Each year, your Library of Congress names 25 movies to the National Film Registry that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant, to be preserved for all time. They've just announced this year's picks and once more, obviously because of dirty politicking and/or payoffs, they've overlooked Otto Preminger's Skidoo. But what they did select is a pretty decent roster that includes The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood, Flower Drum Song and even The Terminator. That's right: Future generations will be able to learn bad impressions of Arnold Schwarzenegger and repeat all those wonderful catch-phrases on which he's built his governorship.
One surprise on the roster is Disneyland Dreams, a 1956 home movie made by a Connecticut family that won a free trip to Mr. Disney's then-new tourist magnet. It runs a half-hour and offers a fascinating look at what the place looked like back then, as seen from the POV of your average attendee. This is not professionally-staged and shot Disney P.R. footage and as such, it's taken with a genuine sense of wonder and reality. The film also chronicles the other portions of the family's memorable trip (including side trips to Knott's Berry Farm and Hollywood) and has a certain folksy charm and air of innocence.
Never saw this homemade treasure? Well, you can. You can watch it online or even download your own copy of it on this page. I'm not sure I'd have thought of it for the National Film Registry but I can understand why it's there. Naturally, I'd have picked Skidoo but this isn't a bad choice.
I missed this a couple months ago and just saw it. Roger Ebert lists a whole bunch of guidelines to which he believes film critics should adhere. Some of them seem like deliberate swipes at specific colleagues, especially Ben Lyons, but that doesn't mean they aren't all (or nearly all) valid.
One that jumped out at me was...
Trailers. Have nothing to do with them. Gene Siskel hated them so much he would stand outside a theater until they were over. If he was already seated in the middle of a crowded theater, he would shout "fire!" plug his ears and stare at the floor. Trailers love to spoil all the best gags in a comedy, hint at plot twists in a thriller, and make every film, however dire, look upbeat...
I sometimes feel that way about trailers...but for all the same reasons, I sometimes felt that way about watching Siskel and Ebert review a film, spoil all the best gags in a comedy, describe plot twists and show us some of the same clips that were in the trailer.
Ed Asner, a past president of the Screen Actors Guild, comes out in favor of his union taking a stronger position. Apparently, he's decided that he now likes spunk.
Here's a quickie. In his retirement years, when health permitted, Stan Laurel was a busy correspondent, writing brief letters to anyone who wrote to him. One of his pen pals was Jerry Lewis. Laurel was personally fond of the comedian, though he reportedly told many friends that he really didn't understand much of what Lewis did on the screen. Jerry repeatedly offered Stan work — to appear in his projects or, at least, contribute gags. Laurel declined the offers but occasionally sent Lewis an idea which went unused.
This film clip was shot in 1960...in Miami where Jerry was making his movie, The Bellboy, at the Fontainebleau Hotel. I'm not sure if this was televised somehow or if, more likely, Jerry mailed a 16mm reel of film to Stan. (Stan owned a 16mm projector, which he'd received when he and Hardy were on that infamous episode of This Is Your Life.) Anyway, it's Jerry more or less dismissing an idea that Laurel had given him of a title for the movie.
Standing next to him is Bill Richmond, a pal of his who co-wrote a number of Lewis pix and who occasionally did his Stan Laurel impression in them. In fact, he did it in The Bellboy, which explains why he had the costume there. And I'd write more but it's already taken you longer to read this than it will for you to watch the clip...
December 29, 2008
