Terms Which Have Disappeared

[Stanley Doble]

Funny coincidence... just last night I watched a 1 hour Lucy - Desi Show episode from 1957, featuring guest star Fred MacMurray. It was the one where they went prospecting for uranium near Las Vegas. I haven't thought of him for years.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Fred MacMurray

was the visual template for
Captain Marvel

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

And Fred wasn't a bad singer either...
Gus Arnheim and his Orchestra -- All I Want Is Just One Girl (1930)

[video=youtube;V6fzy22mmjM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6fzy22mmjM[/video]

 

[Fading Fast]

Funny coincidence... just last night I watched a 1 hour Lucy - Desi Show episode from 1957, featuring guest star Fred MacMurray. It was the one where they went prospecting for uranium near Las Vegas. I haven't thought of him for years.

While I like him, he is always and only Steven Douglas as that is how I grew up watching him. Then, when I started to discover old movies, he popped up all over the place - in film noir, in Christmas movies, etc. - but while he did a very good job in these movies, I just saw Steven Douglas. He was type cast for me.

 

[HudsonHawk]

While I like him, he is always and only Steven Douglas as that is how I grew up watching him. Then, when I started to discover old movies, he popped up all over the place - in film noir, in Christmas movies, etc. - but while he did a very good job in these movies, I just saw Steven Douglas. He was type cast for me.

MacMurray was a true Hollywood star during the 30's and 40's, the highest paid actor for a while. While he often played the "nice guy" even then, he often said he felt his best roles were him as a more sinister character. His role as Steven Douglas started sort of a second career for him, but that's all that many people today remember of him.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Walter Neff, Pacific All-Risk Insurance salesman. One really great role and a terrific movie! I think I'll watch that one again tonight.

 

[F. J.]

Double Indemnity . . .

Walter Neff, Pacific All-Risk Insurance salesman. One really great role and a terrific movie! I think I'll watch that one again tonight.

I watched it last week I think.


I like how he always lights his matches on his thumbnail as he pulls them out of his pocket.

Keyes: "C'mon, I'll buy you a martini, Walter."
Neff: "No thanks, Keyes."
Keyes: "With two olives!"
Neff: "No, no; I've gotta get a shave and a shoe-shine. I've got a date."
Keyes: "Margie? . . . I still bet she drinks from the bottle." [Puts cigar to mouth and pats pockets as if looking for something. Neff pulls out a match, strikes it on his thumbnail and lights the cigar.]
Neff:"They give you matches when you buy cigars, you know, all you gotta do is ask for 'em."
Keyes:"Don't like 'em. They always explode in my pocket. So long, Walter."

 

[Stearmen]

MacMurray was a true Hollywood star during the 30's and 40's, the highest paid actor for a while. While he often played the "nice guy" even then, he often said he felt his best roles were him as a more sinister character. His role as Steven Douglas started sort of a second career for him, but that's all that many people today remember of him.

Actually he still had a thriving movie career into the 60s, with all his Disney movies. He was away making movies so much, that the boys all joked in latter years about how they did most of their dialog to a broom! Seems when Fred was gone, a stage hand would hold up a broom or mop, so the kids could get the right head angle while reciting their lines!

 

[LizzieMaine]

And you could still see him on TV into the 1980s, as pitchman for "Chisanbop!"

 

[ChiTownScion]

One of my friends and colleagues is his nephew. Said MacMurray was not such a nice guy in real life, and that every story you've ever hear about his frugality was true.

 

[Fading Fast]

One of my friends and colleagues is his nephew. Said MacMurray was not such a nice guy in real life, and that every story you've ever hear about his frugality was true.

I hate learning this stuff about actors I like as I've never been able to enjoy Bing Crosby movies the same way after all that stuff came out about him being a bad father.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I hate learning this stuff about actors I like as I've never been able to enjoy Bing Crosby movies the same way after all that stuff came out about him being a bad father.

I think it just goes to show that actors are just regular people too, and can behave just as normally (good or bad) as anyone else, despite the characters they portray. Many guys who played nice guy characters were not in real life, and there are those who play wild, scary characters who are very affable, devoted family guys in real life. Even today there are those who have a reputation of being real jerks off screen and those, like George Clooney and Hugh Jackman, who are widely regarded as genuinely warm and friendly. Of course, back in the day the studios kept much more control on an actor's off screen image, so it was harder for the public to tell who was really who, apart from the characters they saw on the screen.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

How about transportation terms my grandfathers would have known?

They were both born in the 19th Century. When I read Sherlock Holmes stories and the protagonists are described as riding in various horse-drawn vehicles, I think that readers contemporary with Conan Doyle would immediately conjure an image of the "dog cart", "brougham", "barouche", "hansom cab", "phaeton", etc. of these, I only have a mental image of a hansom cab.

Along with the horse-drawn theme and the earlier bits on now-obsolete occupations, how about "farrier"?

 

[Stanley Doble]

When Elvis Presley appeared on the Milton Berle show, Berle took the opportunity at the end of the show to tell the world what a gentleman he was. Apparently his wild rock n roll reputation had preceded him to Hollywood and Berle was surprised to find what a quiet, cooperative and well spoken young man he was.

 

[LizzieMaine]

How about transportation terms my grandfathers would have known?

They were both born in the 19th Century. When I read Sherlock Holmes stories and the protagonists are described as riding in various horse-drawn vehicles, I think that readers contemporary with Conan Doyle would immediately conjure an image of the "dog cart", "brougham", "barouche", "hansom cab", "phaeton", etc. of these, I only have a mental image of a hansom cab.

Along with the horse-drawn theme and the earlier bits on now-obsolete occupations, how about "farrier"?

Some of those terms carried over into early automotive design. "Phaeton" became a fancy marketing term for a convertible touring car, and continued to be used as such into the thirties. And in the same period there were "broughams" -- fancy cars with a closed section for the passengers and an open seat for the driver.

 

[Stanley Doble]

When was the last time you heard someone called a cake-o? It was a favorite of my father's.

Derived from cake eater, a dude, a greenhorn accustomed to soft living, I suppose preppy or yuppie would be the modern equivalent.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A fine line separated cake-eaters from lounge-lizards. Cake eaters tended to be prissy and foppish, while lounge-lizards were oilier and sleazier, but they were brothers under the skin.

 

[Fading Fast]

I think it just goes to show that actors are just regular people too, and can behave just as normally (good or bad) as anyone else, despite the characters they portray. Many guys who played nice guy characters were not in real life, and there are those who play wild, scary characters who are very affable, devoted family guys in real life. Even today there are those who have a reputation of being real jerks off screen and those, like George Clooney and Hugh Jackman, who are widely regarded as genuinely warm and friendly. Of course, back in the day the studios kept much more control on an actor's off screen image, so it was harder for the public to tell who was really who, apart from the characters they saw on the screen.

I agree with everything you said and, for current actors, it is what it is (that said, I was jarred by Mel Gibson's and the guy who played Kramer on "Sienfeld" racist rants, but still, I expect nothing of any of today's actors as people). But for some of the classic actors, when - indirectly to your point - the studio carefully crafted an on- and off-stage persona (or, in the case of Cary Grant, he carefully crafted it himself) and if that is how you came to know them (for me, Bing Crosby was the Priest from "Going My Way"), it is jarring to later learn it was all acting. I grew up in the '60s and '70s and discovered old movies early and only later as an adult in the '80s and '90s started to learn about them as people (as many tell-all books came out in those decades).

I am not advocating anything - freedom brings with it responsibility and public lives bring with them transparency - all alternatives are worse, but it is still sad. Another favorite - Spencer Tracey - always seemed so quietly friendly, decent and easy going. It was a blow when I learned about his crippling insecurities, drinking and, sometimes, violent temper. Again, not advocating anything, just lamenting something I think many of us have experienced.

 

[rjb1]

Mention of the term "cake eaters" reminded me of a Felix the Cat cartoon from the mid-1920's when the Scopes Trial was going on and Darwin's Theory of Evolution was a hot topic.
In the cartoon Felix sends himself to Africa by way of the International cable to see what the monkeys think about it (Theory of Evolution). Felix shows them a picture of a "Modern Politician" and some "Modern cake eaters" (prissy and foppish). The monkeys are outraged that they are blamed as the origin of such creatures and chase Felix back through the cable and proceed to commit riot and mayhem on the people who are asserting that such modern creatures are descended from them.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Does anyone any longer tell the kiddies to get ready for bed by saying "Get into your Dr. Dentons?"