BLITHERING, BUMBLING, AND RAMBLING #20
IT’S SHOWTIME
1974- My home town of Nicolaus had the Bridge House bar which was the sight of a Hollywood movie setting starring Dale Robertson. The Bridge House itself was an old wooden two story that looked like it was built around 1900. A lot of folks turned out to watch the filming, which was taking place directly in front of, and inside, the Bridge House bar. I went down there with my brother, and watched as they filmed one of the shootout scenes.
It was memorable. It was a gangster movie based on the FBI chasing down Machine Gun Kelly in the 1930’s. Yeah, we realized that Nicolaus was being used for the scene because it looked like a 1930’s depression era Midwest town that gangsters would hide out in. Still, hey, Hollywood was in town!
We saw them try to film the same scene about 5 times. Everything was problematic as the cameras rolled.. Guns jammed, an actor stumbled, cars stalled , off-camera sounds- jets, modern day car horns, people talking off camera, etc. All just to get a scene filmed that was about 10 seconds long. They had to stop a couple times to let cars go through, after all, we were on the Main Street through the town. (I know, it’s only a city block long, but people needed to get to the barber shop and post office).
When the movie came out, I sat through most of it just to see that scene. It was a Tv Movie of the week, so it only played the one time, then faded into obscurity. By the time I went to college in the fall and told some of my classmates about how Hollywood had come to my home town, the most common responses were that they never saw it, and didn’t know where Nicolaus was anyway. To which I would quickly reply that this one had Dale Robertson in it and we got to watch the shootout scene in front of the bar. Which made most of them ask, what was that like?
Well, as I described all the things that went wrong and had to be redone, the response became more of a chuckling, giggling, and outright laughter at the comedy of errors. Maybe it was the way I was telling it.
But then, 11 years later -1985- Debbie and I are on vacation in Long Beach, and we decide to go take a look at the Queen Mary, docked in the harbor. It is a bright sunny day, and as we walk along the upper deck of the ship, we see a group of about twenty people blocking the way at midship. As we walk up a guy steps up and holds his hand up and puts a finger to his lips to indicate quiet. Ok, now we’re curious, and the guy points towards the camera guy up ahead who is filming a couple people walking along the deck. We had shown up as they were filming an episode of “Murder She Wrote” starring Angela Lansbury. Here we go again.
We stared, literally having walked into the middle of a TV show, and we recognized a couple of the actors. We watched as a scene was shot with Angela and a guest star strolling down the deck and a young actor with glasses stops, turns around, and takes off his glasses and speaks to Angela. “Cut!” yells the director, and there is a pause as they see a guy in a rowboat paddling by in the background (for a scene that was supposed to be in the middle of the ocean). We watch as they shoot the scene again.
A series of failures follow. A low flying plane goes by- “Cut”. Some people come walking up behind us talking loudly -“Cut!” Some piece of paper crap blows through the scene- “Cut!” We get within 10 feet of the scene, and realize the actors are wearing, like, a TON of makeup, and their faces look almost orange. (I know, Yuck, right?). Up close, in person, they looked icky with all that gunk on their faces. I thought the makeup crew must be on drugs. And again, this was for a scene that was maybe 10 seconds long. As Yogi Berra said, “It’s like Deja Vu all over again”.
When the episode came on TV months later we watched just to see that scene. Amazingly, on TV, the actors did not look orange or heavily made up. In fact, their skin seemed smooth, wrinkle free, and ten years younger than they actually were. Gotta love Hollywood, huh? I always heard that you look 10 pounds heavier on camera, but, younger? Wow. Maybe the makeup crew wasn’t on drugs after all.
So. When you watch a movie, what you see is the best cut of a scene that they may have repeated a dozen times to get done. God bless you film editor and makeup crew. For a few short moments in time, we were transformed into a wonderful scene, where what we saw was edited, made up, and colorized to fit our imagination. And it only took about an hour out of our day, and waiting for six months of post-filming work to finally get to see it. And the amazing part is, they made orange yucky people look pretty and ten years younger, and clumsy actors with crappy props look like they knew how to operate a machine gun and stroll casually on a cruise ship. Now THAT’S show biz!
EAGER BEAVERS
Headed up to Oregon and wondered what their state nickname is. Well, it’s the Beaver State. Yup. If you check out their state flag, it has their state seal in gold on the one side over a Navy blue background. On the reverse side, also in gold, is the beaver, all by itself. Kind of different, can’t remember ever seeing a state flag that had a separate logo on the back.
And as we all know, Oregon is bordered by California- the Golden State, Nevada- the Silver State, Idaho- The Gem State, and Washington- the Evergreen State. But hey!- They’ve got beavers! They have sculptures of them in downtown Portland, a statute of Benny the Beaver at Oregon State University(where Beaver Stadium is where their football team plays) and of course, it is their state animal.
Let’s not forget the Little Beaver Restaurant in Lyons, or the Angry Beaver Grill in Corvallis, which is not far from the Beaver Hut Dam Growlers Burger joint. (No, not making this up). So if you’re headed that way, well, as they say, “Leave it to Beaver”. Ok, naw, they don’t say that. Not in Beaverton, anyway - yes, it’s a city there!
SUPERMAN’S DRESSING ROOM
If you grew up before the 1990’s you remember your parents telling you, “If you run into trouble, get to a phone and call for help”. Sound advice in those days before cell phones and computers. But today, a pay phone is a rarity. If you see one, take a picture because it won’t be there much longer, and somebody in the future, much younger than you, will ask how that worked.
Ok, so my older brother was at the hospital with my mom and promised he would call and update us. Inside the hospital his cell phone wouldn’t work. He went outside and tried again. Still nothing. He went back to the hospital and asked one of the staff for………….the Pay Phone! Yeah, well, of course he still remembers them. The slightly amused staff member at the hospital patiently explained that those days were gone, and he could use the “guest phone”.
Last month, New York City removed the last phone booth it had. There is actually a google instruction page on how to find the last remaining phone booths in the country. So, though fewer and farther between, Clark Kent still has a few places to go. But if you are the one asking where the nearest phone booth or pay phone is, brace yourself for a confused look on the faces of anyone under 20. More than likely, they will pull out their cell phone and do a google search. While you stare real hard at the phone in their hand.
I SMELL SOMETHING BURNING
Back when I was kid, a friend of mine had an older brother who made his own fireworks. He was about 15 at the time. What could go wrong with this scenario huh? Well one time the one he tested fizzled out as the fuse burned down inside. After waiting a couple minutes, he walked over and stood next to it and peered into the opening. At that exact moment, it ignited. It scorched across the tip of his nose and burnt his eyebrows. He was the talk of the school for awhile with his red nose and burnt off eyebrows. Luckily, his eyebrows grew back, his nose went back to normal, and people around the neighborhood started to remember some of the safety rules about fireworks.
Then many years later, in 1982, a guy I worked with at the police department had been working an assignment as the department armorer. His assignment was to reload ammunition for the PD. Yeah, I had never heard of that happening at any other police department, but mine had a Chief that thought it was a good cost saving process and we had a guy in the PD that really wanted the job. I had never seen this done before, so when I walked in the first time he was doing it, it was educational.
It’s a simple process really, and doesn’t require much equipment. Basically, you start with a shell casing, put in a primer and gunpowder and a bullet on top. I’m way oversimplifying, but most of the rest is just about being VERY, V-E-R-Y specific in following each step. Again, what could go wrong, huh?
Well one night, as this guy was reloading bullets, on the briefing table, next to the dispatch center, he heard a funny sound just before the primer on his reload ignited. He, like my friend’s brother, had been peering over the top of the shell casing when it ignited. L-o-u-d-l-y. The blast went straight up and scorched his eyebrows and forehead and knocked him out of his chair. Not to mention how much it scared the crap out of the dispatcher in the next room, who, thinking quickly, dived to the floor. When the next shift arrived they couldn’t help but notice the SCORCH marks on the ceiling above the briefing room, and the place smelled like burnt gunpowder. Shortly after that we changed the rules on where reloading could take place, and not long after we decided to spend a couple extra bucks and buy our ammo at the store like every body else.
Fast forward to about 2003. A guy I worked with at the PD came to work looking a little ashen, and (yeah you see this coming…) his eyebrows were noticeably missing. Not totally, there were some scorched stubs sticking out from where they used to be. He explained that his water heater had gone out and at night, in the dark, he went into the crawl space to relight it, using his lighter as the light source to see things near the burner. Sure, why not, what could possibly go wrong? (yes #3). A flash of flame went straight at his face because, like the other two he was peering into the opening. A few of us still worked there who remembered the earlier reloaded-bullet-eyebrow-blast, and we offered sympathy and gratitude that at least this guy had his accidents in the privacy of his own home.
A friend of mine later told me, if I had invested heavily in face shields at the time, and told those three stories in a sales ad, I would be sitting pretty right now. Especially with a catchy slogan, like, “Safety First Face Shields- because we like your eyebrows just the way they are.”