Automat, archived

[Horn & Hardart Automat Cafeteria. From the NYC Municipal Archives Online Gallery. Click for a larger view.]

There it is, or was, at 1557 Broadway. Convicted Woman, playing next door, was released on January 31, 1940. The Diamond Horseshoe, Billy Rose’s nightclub, advertised on the barely readable sign, could be found in the basement of the Paramount Hotel, around the corner on West 46th.

The Automat appears in a handful of OCA posts. This one has a great photograph of a the Automat sign.

1940s NYC online

Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York reports that 1940s tax photographs are now part of the NYC Municipal Archives Online Gallery. Type in an address and see a building as it was — and perhaps still is. Jeremiah’s post has a number of well-known locations, including 154 West 10th Street, Manhattan, once a grocery store and delicatessen, now home to the bookstore Three Lives & Company.

In local news

It depends on what you mean by local. Our household’s favored candidates for the County Board, the Illinois House, and the House of Representatives all lost. Our friend running for the County Board in another district lost. A candidate in a neighboring congressional district lost a close election. To widen the idea of what’s local: Bruce Rauner, the worst governor our state has known, lost decisively to J.B. Pritzker, a candidate I’d call a billionaire for the rest of us. And the governor who provided the model for Rauner, Scott Walker, lost in Wisconsin. And less locally still, a friend in New Jersey worked mightily to flip a congressional district — and succeeded.

More and less locally, my dream of a Beto O’Rourke win turned out to be decidedly unprecognitive. But it’s our House.

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

I’ve seen him on television at least a hundred times. But on film — that was a surprise. Do you recognize him? Leave your best guess in the comment. I’ll drop a clue if needed.

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Here’s a hint: this actor is probably best known today for playing a dancer.

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Oh well. The answer is now in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect the entire set!)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

Old-timers

Carl Reiner:

In my ninety-six-and-a-half years, I’ve seen a lot of things. But the one thing I cannot bear to see is America being destroyed by racism, fear-mongering, and lies. Fortunately, there is something we can do about that. On November sixth, we can vote for elected officials who will hold this president accountable. And after we’ve done that, my personal goal will be to stick around until 2020 and vote to make sure we have have a decent, moral, law-abiding citizen in Washington who will make us all proud again to live in America.

And Roger Angell, who’s ninety-eight:

What we can all do at this moment is vote — get up, brush our teeth, go to the polling place, and get in line. I was never in combat as a soldier, but now I am. Those of you who haven’t quite been getting to your polling place lately, who want better candidates or a clearer system of making yourself heard, or who just aren’t in the habit, need to get it done this time around. If you stay home, count yourself among the hundreds of thousands now being disenfranchised by the relentless parade of restrictions that Republicans everywhere are imposing and enforcing. If you don’t vote, they have won, and you are a captive, one of their prizes.

When you do go to vote on Tuesday, take a friend, a nephew, a neighbor, or a partner, and be patient when in line. Just up ahead of you, the old guy in a sailing cap, leaning on his cane and accompanied by his wife, is me, again not minding the wait, and again enthralled by the moment and its meaning.

Related posts
Roger Angell on Donald Trump
David Foster Wallace on voting

Twelve movies

[As “Slip” Mahoney might say, “Routine Twelve!” Four sentences each. One to four stars. No spoilers.]

In a Lonely Place (dir. Nicholas Ray, 1950). Ostensibly a murder mystery, at least sort of. But it’s really a character study, because the question of whodunit is supremely unimportant. Humphrey Bogart as Dixon Steele, a screenwriter given to sudden violence, and Gloria Grahame as Laurel Gray, the woman next door, drawn to and then terrified of her neighbor. This film is Grahame’s finest hour: a cool, understated performance in which a single glance or hesitation speaks volumes. ★★★★

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Odds Against Tomorrow (dir. Robert Wise, 1959). An ex-cop (Ed Begley), an ex-con (Robert Ryan), and a compulsive gambler (Harry Belafonte) team up for a bank robbery that will leave each man set for life, but their perfect plan runs into unforeseen complications. With great location shots from New York City and upstate New York. What makes the story especially unusual is the element of racism complicating the work of the criminal trio — though it’s treated with some heavy-handed symbolism. Also with Gloria Grahame and Shelley Winters. ★★★★

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Winter Soldier (prod. Winterfilm Collection, 1972). A documentary presenting testimony, interviews, and informal conversations from the Winter Soldier Investigation, a 1971 gathering in Detroit, Michigan, at which Vietnam veterans described war crimes that they had committed or witnessed. For the purpose of this post I’ll leave it at that: war crimes. It's a journey into a true heart of darkness. There’s no healing (that I can see) in the sharing of these stories, only an effort to awaken a sleeping public, an effort by men who seem belatedly awakened to the reality of their own experience. ★★★★

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Patterns (dir. Fielder Cook, 1956). Life among executives, and great performances all around: Everett Sloane as a merciless second-generation boss, Ed Begley as a kindly old hand, Van Heflin as the new man who learns to his dismay that he is to replace the old hand. Will Heflin’s character play along? Screenplay by Rod Serling, adapted from his 1955 teleplay. This film would pair well with Executive Suite (dir. Robert Wise, 1954), right down to the tolling bells. ★★★★

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The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (dir. Fritz Lang, 1933). A vast criminal enterprise led by — by whom, or what? I’m not sure what to call Dr. Mabuse. The baffling beginning, quick cuts, and startling images make for an ultra-modern film. Mabuse’s criminal schemes, focused on sheer destruction and terror, also make for an ultra-modern film. ★★★★

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The Postman Always Rings Twice (dir. Tay Garnett, 1946). John Garfield and Lana Turner star as doomed lovers, smoldering and scheming in a roadside café. My favorite scene is the one I’d call the most disturbing: the jukebox, the dancers, the happy man with the guitar. There should be a name for this kind of film, the kind that turns off in a new direction midway. See, for instance, Vertigo. ★★★★

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Portrait of Jennie (dir. William Dieterle, 1948). Finally available at Netflix. Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones in a mystical romance of artist and subject, one living, one dead. I think the third star of this film is its cinematographer, Joseph H. August, who gives us beautiful dark interiors and a luminous Central Park. Portrait of Jennie would pair well with Miracle in the Rain (dir. Rudolph Maté, 1956). ★★★★

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Follow Me Quietly (dir. Richard O. Fleischer, 1949). William Lundigan as a police detective searching for a serial killer who calls himself the Judge, Dorothy Patrick as a true-crime writer pursuing the story and its detective. The title must mean that she’s supposed to follow behind, neither heard nor seen. Or is it that they both must follow the Judge quietly? Some good atmosphere (bookstores, diner) and some deeply creepy creepiness (missives from the Judge, and, especially, that faceless dummy). ★★★

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Loyalty cards

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (dir. Charles Lamont, 1955). “How stupid can you get?” “How stupid do you want me to be?” It’s Halloween season, and this movie was on TCM: that’s my explanation — that, and loyalty born of hours watching reruns of The Abbott and Costello Show in early youth (thank you, WPIX). Richard Deacon, Dan Seymour, and Marie Windsor are here, everyone making a living. ★★

Ghost Chasers (dir. William Beaudine, 1951). The Bowery Boys expose a séance racket. My friend Chris Sippel and I were Bowery Boys fanatics in middle school (or was it called junior high?), so I watched Ghost Chasers out of loyalty to the past. Doing so let me better appreciate the considerable comedic gifts of Huntz Hall (as Horace Debussy “Sach” Jones) and wonder what people ever saw in Leo Gorcey, whose Terence Aloysius “Slip” Mahoney is an insufferable mess of unfunny Dunning-Kruger self-confidence. With Lloyd Corrigan as a friendly ghost. ★★

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Island of Lost Souls (dir. Eric C. Kenton, 1932). Charles Laughton has a ball as the evil Dr. Moreau, a whip-cracking, vivisecting experimenter who rules over an island full of his animal-human creations. It’s Heart of Darkness meets Freaks. With Richard Arlen (Wings) and a startling turn by Bela Lugosi. Watch and you too will be able to say, “Oh, so that’s where ‘Are we not men?’ comes from.” ★★★★

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I,Tonya (dir. Craig Gillespie, 2017). Margot Robbie gives a great performance as Tonya Harding. The politics of class, the politics of gender, and the presentation of the self in figure-skating life, all in a highly inventive bio-pic. “America, you know? They want someone to love, but they want someone to hate.” ★★★★

Related reading
All OCA film posts (Pinboard)

For Massachusetts voters only

[As seen on Twitter. Click for a much larger view.]

My son Ben made a handy guide to voting rights in Massachusetts. You can shrink this poster-size image and print it as an 8 1/2 × 11 page.

The Washington Post has a guide to voting rights in every state, but it’s not nearly as Ben-like.

Barbed wire

It got a single sentence in the Associated Press coverage of the latest rallies. But it deserves greater attention. In Bozeman, Montana, November 3, an American president spoke of the beauty of barbed wire at the U.S.–Mexico border:

“And I noticed all that beautiful barbed wire going up today. Barbed wire, used properly, can be a beautiful sight.”

Sadism as entertainment. Go to The Washington Post and watch and listen for yourself. I’d say God help us, but God doesn’t vote. So vote.

So early-twenty-first century

“How are we going to get the word out?”

“Well, this is the twenty-first century . . . I think I’ll be blogging!”

[From a 2008 Hallmark movie, a lucky catch while flipping channels. Blogging is so early-twenty-first-century.]

iOS Safari search suggestions

[Huh?]

Try as I might, I cannot figure out how to remove search suggestions from Safari on an iPhone XR. Suggestions appear above the keyboard when I tap the address bar after reading a webpage. They appear regardless of my choice of search engine (DuckDuckGo or Google). They appear with some webpages, not all. The suggestions in the screenshot result from an article about a clock master. Side by side, the words pendulum and escapement make me think of the vocabulary work that might have accompanied a middle-school reading assigment.

In iOS Settings, I have disabled every search option for Safari and Siri that I can find, and still, these suggestions appear. They appear even with predictive text disabled. My iPhone 6, also running iOS 12.01, doesn’t show these suggestions, or any suggestions.

Does anyone know how to make these Safari suggestions go away?

[The Internets suggest that a handful of people have asked the same question. A discussion thread at Apple shows the problem, unresolved, since iOS 11. The solution, for now, would seem to be a different browser.]