“A Pantomime Pen Talk”

[Popular Electricity Magazine, January 1912. Click for a larger view.]

See also this stationery-store-window automaton.

EXchange names on screen

Prizefighter Jimmy Dolan (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) consults a telephone directory. There’s always one around when you need one, big enough to fill the screen.

[The Life of Jimmy Dolan (dir. Archie Mayo, 1933). Click for a larger view.]

A spot check of a 1940 Manhattan directory suggests that the page on the screen has some basis in reality. Look, there’s Mr. Mamakos:


More telephone EXchange names on screen
Act of Violence : The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse : Armored Car Robbery : Baby Face : Black Angel : Black Widow : Blast of Silence : The Blue Dahlia : Blue Gardenia : Boardwalk Empire : Born Yesterday : The Brasher Doubloon : The Brothers Rico : The Case Against Brooklyn : Chinatown : Craig’s Wife : Danger Zone : The Dark Corner : The Dark Corner (again) : Dark Passage : Deception : Deux hommes dans Manhattan : Dial Red 0 : Dick Tracy’s Deception : Down Three Dark Streets : Dream House : East Side, West Side : Escape in the Fog : Fallen Angel : Framed : Hollywood Story : Kiss of Death : The Little Giant : Loophole : The Man Who Cheated Himself : Mr. District Attorney : Modern Marvels : Murder by Contract : Murder, My Sweet : My Week with Marilyn : Naked City (1) : Naked City (2) : Naked City (3) : Naked City (4) : Naked City (5) : Naked City (6) : Naked City (7) : Naked City (8) : Naked City (9) : Nightfall : Nightmare Alley : Nocturne : Old Acquaintance : Out of the Past : Perry Mason : Pitfall : The Public Enemy : Railroaded! : Red Light : She Played with Fire : Shortcut to Hell : Side Street : The Slender Thread : Slightly Scarlet : Stage Fright : Sweet Smell of Success (1) : Sweet Smell of Success (2) : Tension : This Gun for Hire : Till the End of Time : This Gun for Hire : The Unfaithful : Vice Squad : Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Separated at birth

Donald Wolfit as General Auguste Mercier in Edge of Darkness (dir. Lewis Milestone, 1943) and Christopher Guest as Corky St. Clair in Waiting for Guffman (dir. Guest, 1996).

Also separated at birth
Claude Akins and Simon Oakland : Ernest Angley and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán : Nicholson Baker and Lawrence Ferlinghetti : William Barr and Edward Chapman : Bérénice Bejo and Paula Beer : Ted Berrigan and C. Everett Koop : David Bowie and Karl Held : Victor Buono and Dan Seymour : Ernie Bushmiller and Red Rodney : John Davis Chandler and Steve Buscemi : Ray Collins and Mississippi John Hurt : Broderick Crawford and Vladimir Nabokov : Ted Cruz and Joe McCarthy : Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Gough : Henry Daniell and Anthony Wiener : Jacques Derrida, Peter Falk, and William Hopper : Adam Driver and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska : Bonita Granville and Cyndi Lauper : Charles Grassley and Abraham Jebediah Simpson II : Elaine Hansen (of Davey and Goliath) and Blanche Lincoln : Barbara Hale and Vivien Leigh : Pat Harrington Jr. and Marcel Herrand : Harriet Sansom Harris and Phoebe Nicholls : Steven Isserlis and Pat Metheny : Colonel Wilhelm Klink and Rudy Giuliani : Ton Koopman and Oliver Sacks : Steve Lacy and Myron McCormick : Don Lake and Andrew Tombes : Markku Luolajan-Mikkola and John Malkovich : William H. Macy and Michael A. Monahan : Fredric March and Tobey Maguire : Chico Marx and Robert Walden : Elisabeth Moss and Alexis Smith : Jean Renoir and Steve Wozniak : Molly Ringwald and Victoria Zinny : Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Gene Wilder

“Dan Duryea is my executive producer!!”

“If only real life were as well-lit as a good film noir!”: today’s Zippy goes to the movies.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

A “conversation” with a chatbot

“I like movies that are realistic. I like movies that are romantic. I like movies that are about us”: from The New York Times, the transcript of a reporter’s two-hour “conversation” with Microsoft Bing’s A.I. chatbot. That's the bot talking about movies. It’s more than slightly unnerving.

As I said to my son this morning, I’ve had it with thinking about chatbots as part of the world I want to live in. A line from Ted Berrigan’s poem “Mi Casa, Su Casa” sums it up: “‘I want human to begin with.’” And thereafter.

Related posts
A 100-word blog post generated by ChatGPT : I’m sorry too, ChatGPT : Spot the bot : Teachers and chatbots : Imaginary lines from real poems : ChatGPT writes about Lillian Mountweazel : Rob Zseleczky on computer-generated poetry : ChatGPT’s twenty-line poems : Edwin Mullhouse fail

[In the poem, the line is in quotation marks: quoted speech?]

Gentleman ?

Rehema Ellis, talking on MSNBC earlier this afternoon about proceedings in a Buffalo courtroom: “The gentleman did apologize.”

Perhaps Ellis didn’t want to say his name. Neither do I. But gentleman has got to go. The gunman did apologize. The killer did apologize. Or said that he apologized.

Garner’s Modern English Usage on gentleman :

Gentleman should not be used indiscriminately as a genteelism for man , the generic term. Gentleman should be reserved for reference to a cultured, refined man.

Never for reference to a mass murderer.

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

Leave a guess — or something more certain — in the comments. I’ll drop a hint if one seems to be needed.

*

Here’s a hint before I head out on a walk: this actor is known for playing a character for whom the bell tolled. Ding. Ding. Ding.

More mystery actors
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

Recently updated

O.B. Rude Drug Co. Now with a 1922 ad for mail-order pharmaceuticals. Rude had quite a reach.

Valentine’s Day

[Peanuts, February 14, 1976. Click for a larger view.]

Today’s Peanuts is yesterday’s Peanuts.

[Today I am thinking about blog posts as respite from current events — another campus, another shooting. Another and another and another.]

Valentine’s Day

[Green glass heart amulet. From Egypt, 21st–25th Dynasty, ca. 1070–664 B.C. 2.2 × W. 1.6 cm (7/8 × 5/8 in.). Gift of Helen Miller Gould, 1910. Metropolitan Museum of Art. From the online collection. Click for a larger view.]

More about amulets and the heart, or ib, at this museum page.