Tag: Culture

December 31, 1920: Don’t Go Near the Indians

Posted on by Richard Daybell

rexallenIt was 1949 and executives at Republic Pictures had a brainstorm – let’s take that nice clean-cut guy hanging around the studio and make him a cowboy – maybe even a singing cowboy – he’ll be a God-fearing American hero of the Wild West, wearing a white Stetson hat; he’ll love his faithful horse (platonic, of course); and maybe he could have a loyal sidekick who shares his adventures. We’ll call him the Arizona Cowboy (Arizona isn’t already taken, is it?)

And so Rex Allen, born December 31, 1920, came to a silver screen near you,  joining such singing cowboys as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. His horse was Koko, and his comic relief sidekick was Buddy Ebsen (later Slim Pickens). He rode out of the West just as the West was losing interest for moviegoers. He did get a quick 19 movies in the can (and a comic book) before the genre played out. And in 1954, he starred in Hollywood’s last singing western. Then, like other cowboy stars, he rode into the sunset and onto TV in a series called Frontier Doctor.

Allen had written and recorded a number of the songs featured in his movies. He continued recording, and in 1961, had a hot country single with a song called “Don’t Go Near The Indians,” featuring the Merry Melody Singers. The song told the story of a young man who disobeys his father’s titular advice and develops a relationship (platonic, of course) with a beautiful Indian maiden named Nova Lee. The father reveals a deep dark secret out of the past: his biological son was killed by an Indian during one of those skirmishes between the white man and a nearby tribe. In retaliation, he kidnapped an Indian baby and raised him as his son who grew up to be you-know-who. And there’s another jaw-dropping secret: Nova Lee is the boy’s biological sister! (But poppa, it’s purely platonic; our kids won’t be imbeciles.) They don’t write them like that anymore.

Rex Allen turned in his spurs in 1999 at the age of 79.

 

 

December 29, 1852: Of Virile Toggery

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Although many folks in late 1852 were following the activities of Frederick Douglass or newly elected President Franklin Pierce, in Boston they were following the escapades of Emma Snodgrass. On December 29, Boston police arrested her again, another of many run-ins with the law beginning that Fall. This desperado was a tiny 17-year-old daughter of a New York policeman who had set Bostonian tongues awagging by appearing in public “donning the breeches.” Wearing pants, that is. She was arrested the first time in November and Emma-Snodgrass1promptly sent back to New York.

But didn’t she just come back again and set right in “visiting places of amusement around Boston.” She circulated among “all the drinking houses, made several violent attempts to talk ‘horse,’ and do other things for which “‘fast’ boys are noted” breathlessly reported one of the local papers.

Her notoriety spread.  She was ‘the wanderer in man’s apparel,’ the ‘foolish girl who goes around in virile toggery’ and ‘an eccentric female who roams about town.’ Back in New York, the Daily Times wondered: “what her motive may be for thus obstinately rejecting the habiliments of her own sex.”

She didn’t return to Boston. But during the next several months, there were Emma Snodgrass sightings practically everywhere else. She was reportedly sent home from Richmond, Virginia, sent before a judge in Albany, New York, spotted in Buffalo and Cleveland.

Emma Snodgrass, “the girl in pantaloons” was last seen in Louisville, on her way to California or Australia, reported the Fort Wayne Times and Peoples. But then a strange news report came out of Lancaster, Wisconsin: “Emma Snodgrass has repented, gone home, taken off her breeches, and sworn eternal attachment to petticoats and propriety.”

Could it be? We’ll never know, since it was the last news report. Emma Snodgrass had disappeared.

December 26, 1921: Hi, Ho, Stevarino

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Although Steve Allen, born December 26, 1921, was a musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer, he is best known for his career in television. He first gained national attention as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and then became the first host of The Tonight Show, initiating the format that television talk shows would follow from then on.

Moving from late night to prime time television, he hosted numerous game and variety shows, most notably The Steve Allen Show, going head to head with Ed Sullivan and Maverick on Sunday evenings. It was there he developed the man on the street interviews which featured Don Knotts, Tom Poston and Louis Nye among others.

Allen was a comedy writer and author of more than 50 books, both fiction and nonfiction, including Dumbth, a commentary on the American educational system, and Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality.

Allen was also a pianist and a prolific composer, writing over 14,000 songs, some of which were recorded by Perry Como, Margaret Whiting, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Les Brown, and Oscar Peterson. He won a Grammy in 1963 for best jazz composition, with his song The Gravy Waltz. He also wrote lyrics for the standards “Picnic” and “South Rampart Street Parade.” He once won a bet with Frankie Laine that he could write 50 songs a day for a week. His output of songs has never been equaled.

He died in 2000.

December 25, 1914: Over There

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Just after midnight on December 25, 1914, British, French and Russian troops at European battle fronts were stunned as German joyeauxtroops ceased firing and began to sing Christmas carols — in some cases, even backed up by oompah bands.

World War I had begun five months earlier and would continue for another devastating four years. This spontaneous Christmas truce continued through the night and into daylight when many of the German soldiers emerged from their trenches and called out “Merry Christmas” in their enemies’ native tongues. Finally, Allied soldiers, seeing that the Germans were unarmed, climbed out of their trenches as well. Men from both sides ventured through the so-called No Man’s Land to shake hands with the enemy. The men exchanged small presents and sang carols and songs. In one case, soldiers played an international soccer game.

It was, of course, short-lived as both sides went back to their business of killing each other.  (This true story is told in the 2005 French film Joyeux Noel.)

♥

On Christmas Day in 1941 Bing Crosby introduced a new Christmas song on his weekly NBC radio program. The song, written by Jewish composer and lyricist Irving Berlin, went on to become the gold standard of Christmas music — the top-selling Christmas single ever and the top-selling single of any kind for another 55 years.

The success of “White Christmas” came as no surprise to Berlin, who was already a musical legend. He modestly called it “the best song I ever wrote…the best song anybody ever wrote.” Although Berlin did not celebrate Christmas, it was a day that did hold special meaning to him: his infant son died on December 25, 1928. That perhaps explains some of the ambiguous emotional strength of the song.

 

December 21, 1946: Don’t You Know Me, Bert? Ernie?

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Frank Capra said that it was his favorite of the many movies he made throughout a phenomenal career. He screened it for his family every Christmas season. Yet it’s initial 1946 release at the Globe Theater in New York did not bring about yuletide euphoria and visions of sugar plums. It’s a Wonderful Life premiered to mixed and sometimes dismissive reviews, but it went on to become one of the most critically acclaimed films ever made, garnering a permanent spot in every list of the top films of the last century.

From its very beginning, it did not inspire great expectations. It was based on an original story “The Greatest Gift”written by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1939. After being unsuccessful in getting the story published, Stern made it into a Christmas card, and mailed 200 copies to family and friends in 1943.  In 1944, RKO Pictures ran across the story and bought the rights to it for $10,000, hoping to turn the story into a vehicle for Cary Grant. Grant made another Christmas movie, The Bishop’s Wife, instead, and the story languished on a shelf until RKO, anxious to unload the project, sold the rights to Capra in 1945.

Capra, along with several other writers, including Dorothy Parker, created the screenplay that Capra would rename It’s a Wonderful Life.

The town of Seneca Falls, New York claims that Capra modeled Bedford Falls after it. The town has an annual “It’s a Wonderful Life” Festival in December, a Hotel Clarence, and the “It’s a Wonderful Life” Museum. The town of Bedford Falls itself, however, was built in Culver City, California, on a 4-acre set originally designed for the western Cimarron. Capra added a working bank and a tree-lined center parkway, planted with 20 full grown oak trees. Pigeons, cats, and dogs roamed at will.

The dance scene where George and Mary end up in the swimming pool was filmed at the Beverly Hills High School. The pool still exists.

itsa-wonderfulll

December 20, 1880: Remember Me to Herald Square

Posted on by Richard Daybell

On December 20, 1880, the stretch of Broadway between Union Square and Madison Square in New York City was illuminated by electric lights for the first time, becoming one of the first streets in the country to be lit up.  It had been exactly one year since over in New Jersey, in broadwayMenlo Park, Thomas Edison had demonstrated his incandescent light.  By the 1890s, the section of Broadway from 23rd Street to 34th Street had become so brightly illuminated by electrical advertising signs, that it was dubbed “The Great White Way.”  Later, when the theater district moved uptown to the Times Square area, the name moved with it.

Broadway is the oldest north-south thoroughfare in New York City, dating back to the first New Amsterdam settlement.  The name Broadway is an English translation of the Dutch breede weg, which means something like “street of hot pretzel vendors.”  Although best known for the boulevard portion that runs through Manhattan, Broadway also runs through the Bronx and north for another 18 miles through Westchester County to Sleepy Hollow.  There are countless landmarks along the route, but the one that first springs to mind this time of year is Macy’s Herald Square department store, between 34th and 35th Streets, where Christmas begins with Macy’s annual parade,  and its windows spectacularly celebrate the season.

Talk About Holiday Spirit

On December 20, 1989, Vice President Dan Quayle mailed out 30,000 Christmas cards with the inscription “May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope.”

December 18, 1966: You’re a Mean One

Posted on by Richard Daybell

grinch-thumb-525x325-23201In 1957, the most infamous Christmas curmudgeon since Ebeneezer Scrooge made his debut in a picture book called How the Grinch Stole Christmas by the amazing Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel). It marked the first time an adult had been featured as the main character in a Seuss book and the first time a villain had starred. The book has remained a classic since then. Some conspiracy theorists suggest (and the doctor concurs) that the Grinch is Dr. Seuss himself. In the story, the Grinch complains that he has put up with the Whos’ Christmas celebrations for 53 years. Dr. Seuss was 53 when the book was written and published.

Several years later, on December 18, 1966, the furry misanthrope, now a sickly shade of green, was ready for prime time – television, that is. Chuck Jones of Warner Brothers cartoon fame brought the story to living room screens featuring Boris Karloff as narrator and Grinch. In addition to providing the story, Dr. Seuss created the lyrics for the songs featured in the animated special. (The songs were sung by Thurl Ravenscroft, who some will remember as the bass voice on Rosemary Clooney’s  “This Ole House” or Tony the Tiger – “They’re grrreat!”)

The word grinch has found its way into dictionaries as a person whose lack of enthusiasm or bad temper spoils or dampens the pleasure of others. “Noise, noise, noise, noise.”

December 14, 1977: You Are the Dancing King

Posted on by Richard Daybell

He was just another juvenile delinquent in a television sit-com, before he became a superstar playing a nobody by day who blossoms at night on the dance floor.  John Travolta strutted his stuff as Tony Manero, a paint-store clerk who dons a dashing white suit to ride the disco craze out of his dead-end existence in Saturday Night Fever. The film premiered on December 14, 1977, already guaranteed success thanks to its soundtrack, released months before the movie.

The disco songs recorded by the Bee Gees (including “Stayin’ Alive”) were all over the pop charts, sparking intense interest in the film before its release, with the film then popularizing the entire soundtrack after its release – the first (but certainly not the last) use of cross-media marketing.

Travolta plays Tony Manero, a Brooklyn paint-store clerk who’d give anything to break out of his humdrum life. The movie follows his foray, along with his partner Stephanie, into the Manhattan world of flashing lights and sweaty bodies. Disco and the culture of the disco era also star in the movie – the symphonic orchestration over a steady beat and disciplined choreography, the high style in clothing, and the sexuality of it all.

“Travolta on the dance floor is like a peacock on amphetamines,” said movie critic Gene Siskel, who bought Travolta’s famous white suit at a charity auction. “He struts like crazy.”

The film had an R-rating when it was originally released in 1978. Several years later it was edited down to PG with naughty bits removed to make it more “family-friendly” and suitable for television.

Some critics complain that the film was regressive, refashioning disco, which began as an underground social scene for gays, blacks and Latinos, as a vehicle for white masculinity and the heterosexual hunt for a willing partner. Picky, picky, picky.

December 13, 1931: Which Side Are You On?

Posted on by Richard Daybell

“I do not understand why I was not broken like an eggshell or squashed like a gooseberry.”

So said the man who would become a larger than life British statesman, leading Britain through World War II and  remain a major player on the world stage into the 50s.  He very nearly didn’t make it there, thanks to the perils of New York City traffic.

It was 1931 and a low point in Churchill’s career.  At the age of 57, he had been pretty much banished by his own Conservative Party and had begun to devote himself to his writing.  He had sailed to the United States to give a series of lectures on “the Pathway of the English-Speaking Peoples.” On December 13, the night before one such lecture scheduled at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, he hailed a taxi and set out to visit a friend, financier Bernard Baruch.  He got out of the cab on Fifth Avenue between 76th and 77th Streets.  He walked a bit, then attempted to cross the street against the light (which no New Yorker would ever do).  He looked to the right, just as he would were he crossing King’s Road or Carnaby Street, saw no oncoming traffic and and kept walking.  An unemployed mechanic named Mario Cantasino was just as surprised as Churchill when the car he was driving slammed into the future Prime Minister and dragged him several yards, leaving him lying in a bruised and battered heap.  Churchill took full responsibility for the incident, and Contasino was held blameless.

After a little more than a week in the hospital and a few weeks of recuperation, Churchill finally gave his Brooklyn lecture on Jan. 28.  On one bright note: the United States being subjected to the agonies of Prohibition at this time, his American doctor wrote a note to “certify that the post-accident concussion of Hon. Winston S. Churchill necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits especially at meal times.”

Following his lecture, Churchill and his wife, seeking further rest and relaxation, traveled to Jamaica, a place where folks thankfully drove on the proper side of the street.

 

December 11, 1969: The Naked Cold War

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were generally confrontational through most of the second half of the last century.  In the United States, Communist plots were everywhere, and the Soviet Union blamed American capitalists for most of the ills of the world. On December 11, 1969, a noted Russian author lashed out against western decadence in one of the more unusual cold war recriminations.

On December 11, 1969, Sergei Mikhailkov, secretary of the Moscow writer’s union, known for his books for children, weighed in against the production of “Oh! Calcutta!” that was currently an off-Broadway hit. Performers in their “birthday suits,” he fumed, were proof of the decadence and “bourgeois” thinking in Western culture.  American nudity was an assault on Soviet innocence.

Oddly enough, those Americans throughout the Midwest who didn’t think the play was about India were convinced it was a Communist plot.

More disturbing, Mikhailkov raged on, was the fact that this American abomination was affecting Russian youth. These vulgar exhibitions were “a general striptease that is one of the slogans of modern bourgeois art.” Soviet teens were more familiar with “the theater of the absurd and the novel without a hero and all kinds of modern bourgeois reactionary tendencies in the literature and art of the West” than with “the past and present of the literature of their fatherland.”

Mikhailkov’s outburst came at the end of a conference of Russian intellectuals, who applauded his remarks without visible enthusiasm before returning to their clandestine copies of Fanny Hill.