Mystery actors

[Men with hats.]

Do you recognize either actor? Both? A tweet about this image reveals the identity of the fellow on the right. But if you don’t peek, you have two mysteries to solve. I’ll drop hints if needed.

Daughter Number Three pointed me to the tweet with this movie shot. Thanks, Pat.

*

9:47 a.m.: That was fast. Both actors are now identified in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

Operator speaking

From the Naked City episode “To Dream Without Sleep” (May 24, 1961). Poor Fran Burney (Lois Nettleton) has lost her last dime to a pay phone. An operator speaks:

“If your coin was not returned, please send us a postcard with your name and address, and we will forward the proper amount in United States postage stamps.”

In 1961, that would have meant sending a three-cent postcard to get ten cents in stamps. It hardly seems worth the effort. Would an audience have heard this message as a joke about an offer that few, if any, callers took up? Or did seven cents matter?

There must be eight million pay phones in the Naked City.

Related reading
All OCA Naked City posts (Pinboard)

Side-by-side images in Blogger

Oh, the fun of figuring out how to have it your way in the new Blogger. Maybe everyone knows this trick already. But if not:

To get images to display side by side, remove display: block; from the code for each image.

Related posts
Clear images in the new Blogger : Images in the new Blogger

Recently updated

Words of the year Now with iso.

Cloudy gray skies

  [Sluggo and Mooch. Nancy and Mutts, November 17, 2020. Click for larger views.]

In Mutts, as in Nancy, the skies are gray. Cloudy gray skies are general all over comics, as Joyce might have put it.

Today’s xkcd

Caution: Today’s xkcd, “Ten Years,” is likely to bring tears.

Neat’s-foot madeleine

[Peanuts, November 19, 1973.]

Yesteryear’s Peanuts is this year’s Peanuts.

And now, fifty-plus years after my baseball boyhood, I finally know what neat’s-foot oil is. I’m glad I didn’t know back then.

Hidden Mongols

At Oddments of High Importance, Mike found a box of ten Mongols in a filing cabinet. Bonus: an Artgum eraser.

Staying put

I think John Gruber’s words deserve to be shared:

If you’re planning a “small” family get-together for Thanksgiving, it’s every bit as irresponsible as planning a “short” drunk drive.

Gruber’s post links to a cautionary tale: one “smallish” wedding, fifty-five guests, 176 infections, seven deaths. Of the seven people who died, not one attended the wedding.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

I don’t track a “best time” for doing the Newsday  Saturday Stumper. All I care about is whether I can do the puzzle. But I know that whatever my best time might be, it wasn’t for this Greg Johnson puzzle, one of the most difficult Stumpers I’ve done. Fifty minutes’ worth of difficult. Holy moly.

I had to travel all the way to the bottom right corner to find a way in, with 58-A, three letters, “Pilot’s paperwork,” and 59-D, three letters, “’50s USAF coinage.” Those two gave me 61-A, seven letters, “‘Pictures deface walls ___ than they decorate them’”: Frank Lloyd Wright.” That Frank Lloyd Wright. Sheesh, what a grouch.

I looked again at 11-D, three letters, “Letters often near ‘fax,’” and took a guess at 14-D, nine letters, “Sub-Saharan menace.” And that answer gave me 38-A, four letters, “Year-end number.” Ah, that answer again, which shows up more often in crosswords than in life. I’ll take it. I had a hunch at 35-A, four letters, “Spanish surname related to ‘Roderick.’” And things continued, hit and miss.

My final answer: 1-D, five letters, “Oxens’ humped cousins.” What?

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

4-D, six letters, “Glue-bound product.” The answer more often refers to something else these days.

8-A, seven letters, “Ready to crush the curve.” Nerdy me, I was thinking of someone all set for a final exam.

12-D, nine letters, “‘Colorful’ Federal Reserve report.” Never heard of it.

30-D, nine letters, “Lights used in navigation.” HIGHBEAMS? No.

53-A, four letters, “Name on many posters with McDormand and Buscemi.” I insist that this clue is an instance of misdirection, not a gimme.

60-A, seven letters, “Swell place.” I like the dowdy swell, as in “Gee, you’re swell,” even if it tricked me.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.