Yes, it’s a Mongol pencil in the social worker’s hand. The above images are from “Golden Lads and Girls,” an episode of Naked City that aired May 22, 1963. It tells the stories of two married couples, one living at 715 Park Avenue, the other in a tenement a few blocks away. The two husbands are alcoholic and violent; each man’s wife is his target. The parallels between the couples’ lives are heightened when the story cuts back and forth during their interviews with social workers, with questions put to one husband or wife answered by the other.
“Golden Lads and Girls” is a Naked City episode with a tremendous variety of ingredients: trips to Manhattan’s Home Term Court (an institution created in 1946 to address non-felony domestic cases); Tom Bosley as a judge; a quick stop at Toots Shor’s Restaurant; a group meeting at “Alcoholics Clinic” (that is, Alcoholics Anonymous); marital counseling; a nightmare-tormented, pyromaniacal child; and, for comic relief, a scene in a delicatessen with Lieutenant Mike Parker (Horace McMahon), Detective Adam Flint (Paul Burke), and Adam’s girlfriend Libby Kingston (Nancy Malone). Adam has ordered pastrami on white. On white?
Libby: “With Adam it's a matter of principle — nonconformity.”
Mike: “On rye bread, yes. On a hard roll, yes. But never on white. Have you no respect for the cultural heritages?”
Adam: “I like it on white. . . . Mike, you have to believe that pastrami won’t always come on rye.”
Libby: “Oh, I take it you’re using cold cuts as a symbol.”
Adam: “On white. It’s a symbol of hope.”
Libby describes the Park Avenue couple as “rich and very fashionable,” “part of the success culture, the golden lads and girls.” (Note: she knows no details. Adam has maintained confidentiality.)
Adam: “That’s from something, isn’t it?”
Libby recites: “Golden lads and girls all must, / As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.”
Adam: “Shakespeare, Cymbeline.”
Mike: “You know, when I have lunch with you two, it’s like being with Bennett Cerf.”
That last line is the punchline,
Bennett Cerf being Mike Parker’s idea of an hifalutin intellectual.
Back to those screenshots. The pencil’s identity is obvious. But do you recognize the actress? First prize is an all-expenses-paid week in the Naked City. You are responsible though for furnishing the time machine. Leave your answer in a comment.
Related reading
Other Mongol posts:
Harry Truman with pencil :
Jimmy Hoffa’s Mongol :
Molly Dodd, Mongol user :
Mongol No. 2 3/8 :
“Sound-testing a MONGOL” :
Stolen Mongols
Other
Naked City posts:
GRamercy 7–9166 :
GRamercy again :
MUrray Hill 7-3933 :
Naked Bronx :
Nearly plotzing :
“Old Rabbit Ears” :
Poetry and Naked City :
Positively Naked City :
TW8-4044 :
“WE DELIVER”
[Orange Crate Art is a
Naked City-friendly zone.]
