Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "The Glass Eye" (1957)

Good morning! I am S-W-A-M-P-E-D with schoolwork today but you know I didn't want to miss an opportunity to check in. It was a crazy weekend, and I hope I get a spare moment's time to tell you about it tomorrow, but for now, why not watch my very favorite episode of the Alfred Hitchcock show? And that's sayin' something, seeing as they're pretty much ALL my favorite episodes:

                                  

I've probably seen this a dozen times and the end of it STILL BOTHERS ME. Did I mention William Shatner (young, beautiful William Shatner?) is one of the characters in the frame narrative? The story begins in the 1920's with Shatner, going through the belongings of an old maid aunt who's passed away, finding a single glass eyeball in a jewlery box, and telling his young fiance/wife/ladyfriend the tale of how it came to be in his aunt's possession. Flashback to twenty years earlier, turn of the century, and his aunt, a prim, lonely spinster, played by an impossibly young Jessica Tandy (I can't wrap my head around her not being eighty years old! Or at least like 50 years old, circa The Birds) becomes infatuated with a ventriloquist act. Who wouldn't want to date a ventriloquist? But it's Alfred Hitchcock, so you know things don't end up all hunky dory by the credits roll. Check it out, if that sufficiently piques your interest!

Keep a good thought for me as I try to dig my way out from under these piles of educational theory articles and make sense of the notes I took last week, and I'll see you all tomorrow!

Photo Friday: Doris and Ray in Montgomery, ALA. (1972)

Good morning! It's Friday! How did we make it this far, this fast? :) This week's Photo Friday showcased Ray D--, the Ray of the Doris and Ray photo collection I keep peepin' at you about.

Ray was a lawyer (I think specializing in land titles? Does that make sense to any law people out there?) for the Chicago Title Insurance Company office in Nashville, TN. He was involved in civic life as a Shriner and married Doris in the mid fifties'. One thing Doris and Ray liked to do? They liked to take trips, and they liked to take pictures. Lucky for us! Even some of the mundane pictures are absolutely adorable to the outside viewer, and here we have a set of Kodak snaps taken in 1972 during a trip to that swingin' town, Montgomery, Alabama.

Though the caption that provided the location and the year was the only one written on any of these photos, the picture above seems to be Ray coming out of either a restaurant or his hotel. See his "vacation-ready" white Bermuda shorts, blue collar shirt, and matching mid-calf socks. Cigarette in one hand, camera bag in the other, this man is ready to r-e-l-a-x. His tiki companion isn't half bad either. WHY IS THE COMMERCIAL DECOR OF THESE MODERN TIMES SO DRAB, DRAB, DRAB?! I'd give anything to walk into a Holiday Inn or a Shoneys, even, and see a freaking knockoff Polynesian fertility idol, there before God and everyone. Am I right? 

I initially thought this photo might be from another batch, but the "72" marking on the side, and its geologic time scale positioning near the top of the box, mark it as from the same year and I think the same vacation. Poor Doris is in her nightgown with curlers in the back, keeping her priorities straight and pouring out some nice fresh coffee into an oversized mug. I would bet dollars to doughnuts she was probably shrieking five seconds after the flash went off with a "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TAKE PICTURES OF ME WHEN I'M NOT DRESSED?" as any well-turned-out-woman, present company included, would do when confronted with a camera lens in the horrible, pre-Folger's portion of vacation morning. Ray's holding some kind of silver object and smiling for the camera like he doesn't even know it's wrong!Where are they in this picture? The ceiling and curtained window suggest some kind of travel-trailer set up, but later we see them in a hotel, so I'm not sure what the deal is.

I think (think?) I remember this as being downtown Montgomery. We went once on a family vacation instigated by yours truly, the dyed-in-the-wool bibliophile, to visit homes of southern writers' within driving distance of Nashville. We saw the house Tennessee Williams was born in which is! Not! in! Tenneseee! ((surprise!!)), but in Columbus, MS. We saw Rowan Oaks in Oxford, MS, home of William Faulkner (who I'm still crazy about), but most importantly, we saw a house in Montgomery, Alabama that F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in with his town native wife, the mad, bad, and dangerous to know Zelda (alias, the very most glamorous couple in the world to me at the time). I just about died looking at real, belonging-to-them photos of each other and one beautiful, falling apart ostrich feather fan Scott bought for the princely sum of $20 and sent as a present to his not-yet wife sometime in the late teens'. So I've been the one time-- it was a weird, hot, smelly kind of day. This could be the place! Anyone know what kind of car that is?

Here, Doris makes a more glamorous appearance in an illusion lace dress and a perfectly coiffed helmet of her pretty blonde hair. The woman with them is in a lot of photos, but I can't for the life of me remember the connection from the first time I went through the boxes. I'll have to dig through another batch and figure her out at a later date, but imagine she's a really good friend or sister of one of the two of them. I wonder, based on the hats and blowers', if it's some kind of New Years' celebration. Wouldn't it be too cold for short sleeves/ too hot for what they're wearing later if it was December? I have to become a better photo detective!! Or figure out who the woman who gave these to me is so I can call her up and ask. The latter might be the easier option.

                               

Here are some waiters from the fancy early 70's nightclub the gang has assembled themselves in. They look like they could be brothers, but it's probably the bow tie lending credence to the air of fraternal resemblance. Or the sideburns.

At first, I was like...dang, look at all those angry, sullen looking people at that night club! And then I thought back to photos of taken of myself and friends when three sheets to the wind, and intoxication looks a lot like "super ticked off" as often as it doesn't. These people have had one too many proto-Alabama Slammers (they weren't invented until 1975, so says they) and are rarin' for the band to play "Auld Lange Syne", already!

 

This last quartet of photos is my favorite from the whole set, showing what looks like the after part of the post-bar portion of their night, back at the hotel. The family friend in pink is joined by her husband in a great pale green and patterned tie combo. Why you're flashin' that dough, Mr. Anon? Do you see the night table contains one super seventies' lamp, one travel clock, one empty glass of some type of scotch, no doubt, and one ashtray? Can I please time travel back into this happy room?

Ray's dressing loud and proud in his preferred blue color palette, joined by Doris and Mrs. Anon. Do you see the dress-in-cleaners' bag next to the fur stole hanging in the closet? You never know when you may need a fur stole on vacation back in the day! In this, as in 90% of the photos of the two of them together, I love how Ray is looking at Doris.

Watch out, assembled party! Those curtains might reach out and bite you! See the starburst clock hinted at towards the lefthand side of the frame? And the brushed aluminum light fixture? Mr. Anon has a bottle of some kind of liquor in each hand, and Ray has a glass. This can only lead to....

Uh oh, Ray's drunk! And cuddling. Or possibly just in love and cuddling. But how sweet is this picture of this man in his loud, loud suit, navy socks, and white buck leather loafers curled up to his wife of almost twenty years in a hotel room, maybe at New Year's, maybe in Alabama, with his friends, just having a grand old time?

We love it! We love Doris and Ray. Can you remember any outrageous-but-beloved clothing choices of your relatives as documented in hilarious family photos? Ever been anywhere suitably vintage for New Years'? Spill the beans already!

Hope you guys have a great weekend, find some great stuff at the sales, and report back here Monday for more vintage curios and curiosities.

Beltone Hearing Glasses (1956-1958)

 Good morning!

Again, the treasures you find flipping through Life magazine are vast and untold. I think it was in the same issue as those bunnies from yesterday that I first spotted this invention:

Don't! Look! Into! His! Eyes!

I don't know what it is about the two-tones and grayscales of these late fifties' Beltone ads for "hearing glasses" that puts me on my guard, but boyo, is whatever it is there! The disembodied head coming 'atcha is one thing. The term "hearing glasses" is another. A small transistor hearing aid, receiver, and microphone is implanted in the back of the thick framed glasses, voilà! Ears-like-new (you can see actual examples of the glasses her at the Online Hearing Aid Museum) . I really think Beltone came up with a clever way to hide hearing loss for vain senior citizens who also happen to have bad eyesight, but did the ads have to be SO grave and creepy? 

 "No, my child. But thank you for asking."

Here, a grandmother and her grandchild sit on a fifties' couch, listening to a obviously added-later-by-the-art-department record player, as the child sweetly asks, "Did God give you new ears?" I'm no Don Draper, but I'm pretty sure the weirdness of this tagline would have put it in the Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price reject pile the moment it came out of a drunk intern's brainstorming session.

 I wonder, if like many assistive devices, you could send them your specs (no pun intended) and get the measurements of them tailor made to your head size. These are no doubt high ticket items! I'd hate for them to arrive at my doorstep, the very answer to my prayers, and hang off the edge of my nose or not fit my head at all. Looking at this ad, I was reminded of the many, many disappointing times I've put a pair of sunglasses on my gigantic face and momentarily forgotten that most sunglasses are made for people with normal sized heads. Between my skull size and Bab's skull, we're going to have the most pumpkinheaded kids this side of the Mississippi. So! With the where-your-ear-is-on-your-head question probably a pretty key point to fitting these glasses, do you send them your head measurements? How does one take head measurements? These questions haunt me.

Beltone hearing glasses are not just for men! I love this woman's mid fifties' Elizabeth Taylor style cosmetics look plus outta-this-world catseyes. HOW I MUCH DO I WANT A PAIR OF CATSEYE GLASSES. Let's just say a lot.

Regardnig the next picture: Can you tell?

Seen any weirdo, strange-o advertisements lately in your vintage perusings? Do tell!

See you guys tomorrow for Photo Friday!

Sealtest Ice Cream (late 1950's)

Good morning!

I was doing my routine run through mid century Life magazines, a particularly cute one with by beloved Kim Novak on the cover, when these OH MY GOODNESS adorable little guys caught my eye in an ad for Sealtest Ice Cream. We got 'cher mountain-like blob of sherbet, check! We got your pink and lime green color scheme, check! And best of all, little fifities' bunnies gallivanting arround the scene exhorting us to "Dig this crazy mixed up ice cream!" Yeah, man! YEAH! Let's take a look:



Hi, bunnies! What's that? You want me to eat raspberry/vanilla/orange-pineapple ice cream? How did you know that was my heart's fondest wish? Ice cream for breakfast? If it was good enough for Mabel Normand, it's good enough for me! I had dry toast and coffee and man am I regretting my decision. Bab, let's stock the freezer with these bad boys! The Polynesian exoticism of the flavor combination sold me even before Bunny #2 yelled "It's the greatest!" and Bunny #3 added, "Man, it's real cool!"

I can't lie, I was even more excited when I realized the bunnies seeam to be made of strawberry-flavored cake mix. Or possibly strawberry-flavored cookie dough mix? I hope such a thing exists, because I just got R-E-A-L-L-Y hungry for some. "Here it is again!" says the rabbit, and I'm reading a little resignedness into the heel-clicking he's doing.

Sealtest Ice Cream's company history was surprisingly hard to look up. From what I understand, it was owned by National Dairy Products Corporation (which later became KRAFT Foods), and it was delicious. And people miss it! Unilever (who also owns Breyers') bought the rights to the company in 1993, but based on the number of Google results that include the words "demolished in" and "does anyone remember", I don't think it survived into the millennium. What a shame...seeing as I am all kinds of Sealtest ice-cream craving right now.

Like a lot of novelty fifties' food advertisements, I was interested to see how many weird (and wonderful) flavor combinations there were at one time. Vanilla fudge royale, butter almond, cherry vanilla...check out this graphic for "sunkissed peach"!

"MWWWWWWAH!"

In spite of the sun-on-peach lip lock, I love that most of the ads in the fifties' are bright, colorful bids at grabbing children's attention. Because, really, as much as we love ice cream as adults, do you remember what it was like to love ice cream as kid? Before you quite understood what calories were? Here are some buttons from a 1956 Sealtest-sponsored TV show "Big Top" advertisement. The copy invites you to head for the Sealtest "Cone-vention" at the Sealtest fountain. So I think there were soda fountains that were exclusively Sealtest-stocked? There was one at Disney World in the sixties', but that's as far as I could get with that one, too. My Google research skills are really failing me today.

Which one do you want? I'll take the seal and the chimpanzee.

In 1957, Sealtest held a contest in which one lucky winner would end up with a year's supply of ice cream (can you even imagine!) for re-naming the accurately yet awkwardly named "Banana-Strawberry" combination. I'm not a fan of banana practically at all (except maybe in oatmeal or by itself), but I was intrigued by their little mascot at the bottom left hand corner:

Banana Strawberry man! You remind me so much of Art Clokey's style. I love you. I hope they found a name for you, because I sure couldn't find the results of the contest online. Folks, I am batting zero.

 

"Gay 90's Toffee Fudge" is another already-combined-ice-cream-combination I wish was still around. See the beautiful milk glass dishes these revelled little ice cream concoctions are being served in. How am I even going to make it to lunch looking at all this goodness? I love the pink gingham of the box and the little 1890's soda shop men. Why wouldn't I?

I just want a huge print of this hanging over my sofa:

I like the idea of a "try-pack" in which you could give each of these ice cream flavors a shot without committing to a full carton. Not a huge fan of orange, but maybe with the pineapple? And raspberry, a thousand times raspberry! My grandaddy used to call Neapolitan ice cream "Napoleon" ice cream or, even better, would holler out the door before my grandma and I departed for Kroger's "HAZEL! GET ME SOMMA THAT THREE-WAY ICE CREAM!" I wish I'd written down half of what he used to say, he really had the most endearingly insane way of talking. I miss hearin' him.

 

Last but not least, the craziest thing I've ever heard of:

"Plum Nuts" is the flavor here. You take plums, you add nuts, and you get this completely ill-advised ice cream flavor. Has anyone ever had something like this? Because if I'm wrong, I'm wrong...but somehow I doubt it. I applaud the adorable wire figure man with almonds for eyes and plum nose, but I just can't get behind this aberration of wholesome taste.

Had any good ice cream lately? Do YOU remember Sealtest brand? Is it still around? Wanna go get some? :)

I've got to go find somewhere in the downtown area that serves ice cream ((hangs head guiltily)) . I'll see you tomorrow!

Jinx Falkenburg

Good morning! I think I've told you on several occasions about the wild abandon with which I gorge myself on library materials. It's not my fault! Working in a library for me is a little like a chocoholic getting a gig at Godiva, but I do have my moments of responsible book-loan-ership from time to time. Case in point, yesterday, returning to work after my first day back from vacation, I realized I had not one, not two, but THREE books due back to Interlibrary Loan! Sadly, I never got a chance to read Harper's Bazaar Beauty Book (1959) or Here's to You, Miss Teen (1960), but I was bound and determined to read the third of the three right then, right there,  to justify all the trouble the good people in the ILL department spent on my behalf, borrowing the book from the University of Georgia's library collection. And thanks to a slo-o-o-o-ow shift at the telephone reference desk, I was able to start and finish Jinx, by Jinx Falkenburg, all at one go!

Could she be cuter?

Jinx Falkenburg was a cover girl and USO tour favorite from the late thirties' through the end of WWII. Born in Barcelona in 1919 to a pair of American expats, Eugenia "Jinx" Lincoln Falkenburg spent a peripatetic youth in several Spanish speaking countries, winning championship level titles in youth swimming and tennis in Chile, before her family set down roots in Southern California in the early 1930's. Through her continued interest in tennis, she and her family became friends with the movie star likes of a recently-arrived and completely-unknown Errol Flynn and Paulette Goddard (of Chaplin movie fame). With her athletic, 5'8'' figure and flashing blue eyes, it wasn't long before she was discovered by photographer Paul Hesse while lunching with a friend at the MGM commissary. Almost accidentally, by her own account, Jinx became a top cover girl overnight (you can see an example of the forties' magazine cover style I'm talking, complete with Jinx and a red white and blue color scheme, here). She was named the first "Miss Rheingold" for the brewery company in 1940 and appeared on billboards all over America. But don't think it was all champagne and caviar...on one of her first big modeling shoots, she fell thirty-two feet through a roof and landed in the hospital for a month! Good Lord! The whole of this is told in such a whirlwind of conversational prose that I'm still not sure of the chronology, but you get the idea. All this happens in the period in the book you could call "B.T.": "before Tex".

(Source)

Just as she was starting work in her first Broadway play, an Al Jolson production in which she had a few walk-on lines as a cowgirl, Jinx met newspaperman Tex McCrary, and against alllllll the advice of friends, fell head over heels in love. And Lord can you tell it by the way she writes it! For fifty pages, there's little mention of anything besides the back and forth struggle of love's labour lost. They spent the next year or so trying to decide whether or not they would get married before McCrary joined the service. Still noncommital, Tex went off to fight in the war and insisted they should see other people. Jinx pulled her pretty hair and despaired for two years, had a part in the Rita Hayworth movie Cover Girl, then decided to support the troops in a USO tour that included actor Pat O'Brien.

Jinx getting off the plane in the Chinese leg of the journey. LOOK. AT. HER NAME. ON THE DRESS.

Jinx and Tex eventually met up in Cairo in the last year of the war ("The sequined dress, ermine coat, and embroidered Indian mules were absolutely the best I coudl salvage from my war-torn CBI wardrobe. For every sequin there was supposed to be on the dress, three were missing," she begins the chapter) The newly rekindled couple decided "the very next day we see each other, we'll be married", and six months later to the day, Jinx became Mrs. John Reagan McCrary. How sweet! The moon over Cairo! The sequined dress! The romantic semi-engagement!

Tex and the airplane from which he did all kind of crazy parachute missions (Source)

Jinx, in one of her habitual crop-top and skirt ensembles, re-enacts the moment Tex called to tell her he was home and they were getting married for Life magazine.

The happy couple-- she's got flowers in her hair, he's got an eyepatch. From Life magazine.

Tex and Jinx went on to a civilian life that included pioneering work in helping create the talk-show-with-interviews genre. In 1946, they started on radio with the waggishly titled "Hi, Jinx!". By the early fifties', their husband-and-wife team could be heard on two radio shows, a television show, and a weekly newspaper column. Ain't that success? Here's an ad featuring the first of their two sons (Paddy is pictured below, while Kevin would come along a year or two later) and a wide array of gorgeous early 1950's ties. Can you see the print on Jinx's dress is made up of tiny sailing flags? She always dresses LOUD but it's adorable on her:

 

The autobiography stops in 1951 with the line "To be Continued (that's how we feel about everything we do" and information I could find online about the McCrarys later lives was sparse. They seem to have separated sometime in the 80's but did not divorce, passing away almost exactly a month apart from each other in 2003. All in all, I can't say I was disappointed with the book, but I sure wish there was a companion volume so I could see what happened in the next couple decades of their lives. Jinx herself is just too magnetic of a personality to have faded into the kind of obscurity. I'll have to do some magazine digging here in the Periodicals department and tell you what I can dig up.

A brooch Jinx wore for her 1941 Life cover story

Do you have any way-too-unfairly-obscure forties' celebrities you wish were more well known? You know I do!! See you tomorrow.

PS: Man alive! After writing two thirds of this post, I found out that the youngest McCrary son, Kevin, was recently featured on an episode of Hoarders! As in last year! How sad. Has anybody seen this episode? Some screen captures here.

Further reading:
See an exhaustive timeline of events in Jinx's life here
See a Miss Rheingold ad featuring Jinx here
See a joint obit written by their old "fact checker" who now works for Time magazine here

Vintage Baby Alligator Handbags (1940's- 1950's)

Good morning! My trip to Louisiana had me really thinking about an alligator handbag I saw once in the sadly no-longer-in-business Flashback Vintage. Not THIS kind of alligator (though, if someone wants to give me an early birthday present, let it be known I am totally cool with this):

 1940s Elegant Alligator Handbag (Genuine) 

But THIS kind:

Rare Antique Alligator Hornback Leather Edwardian Handbag

Is it wrong? The schema of the purse I had in mind, from way back around 1998, was sitting in a place of pride at the aforementioned shop, and was oriented like those bags shaped like stuffed poodle dogs, except it was a real baby alligator which opened and closed like a clutch purse. I learned from this appraisal article that alligator bags that actually used the bodies of the baby alligators as part of the design were sold as souvenirs in Florida and Cuba in the forties' and fifties'. What do you think? Much less macabre in my mind than the fox stoles with the poor baby's feet and heads still attached, yet I still get a little goosey Jeffrey Dahmer vibe from some of the bags. At the same time as I want one. What does it mean, this conflict of feeling?!

Vintage 1920s purse authentic alligator with skull

VINTAGE-ALLIGATOR-PURSE-HAND-BAG-RARE

I learned from the hilariously titled "Alligatorfur.com", online home of the Louisiana Fur Advisory Council and Alligator Advisory Council, that there are actually three different things you may/may not be getting when you try to get a "genuine alligator" purse (even these, which are definitely from SOME kind of reptile, 'cause you can see his dad-durned head!). One is an alligator, which is the highest quality of the three, and thus probably the most expensive. The next down from that is a crocodile, and one down from that is a caiman. Gharials, native to India, are another type of reptile from the family "crocodilian" (add that to my stage name list) which look like a cross between a swordfish, an alligator, and my nightmares. Who knew I would get all pumped up about learning to tell an alligator from a crocodile? You can't say the seed that a childhood subscription to RANGER RICK planted in my imagination has not come to some fruition. More about the differences at the San Diego Zoo website here. Most of these may be the lesser quality, smaller caimans, but it could be a gator!

Vintage 1940s alligator with baby alligator purse handbag

Like the alligator head I actually ended up taking home as a souvenir (I love you, Snappy!), there's a weird attraction to both the kitsch and the Museum of Natural History-ness of the whole thing. However, like my crab-encased-in-Lucite earrings, is it simply too gross to carry around in our ultra-sensitive modern day? I'd hate for someone to get all PETA up in my face. While I really don't see the need for creating more fur/animal cruelty based products in this, our twenty-first century when faux is so finished and refined you can't tell the difference, I really ALSO can't see the harm in purchasing a less-than-humanely-produced leather handbag or ermine coat when the unfortunate in question shook free his earthly bonds forty years before I was born. Just sayin'.

Alligator Purse with Full Body Alligator

The ones that are in poor condition due to age and alligator battery are REALLY spooky, but even some of the well done and well preserved ones still have that "used to be a living thing" stigma. It gives you a chill! And, again, being the secretly semi-thrilled at ghoulish things gal that I am, I can't decide if I like it enough to get one, or if I like it enough to appreciate that such things exist and leave it at that.

Classic 1940's Genuine Alligator Purse

Vintage Genuine Alligator Ladies' Box Purse
 (this may be the creepiest one)

Vintage Alligator with Claws and Feet Handbag 
(j/k, this is the creepiest one. WHAT IS WITH THE HANDS?!)

What do you think? Would you bite the bullet in the name of letting your weirdo flag fly? Or are sicked out? Cos, admittedly, some of these are too far off the taste-o-meter for even me. Most of these are in the sky-high-insane-o-Etsy price range, but if I ever see one under the fifty dollar mark...you never know. I need your opinion!                         

Here are some less controversial alligator themed vintage items. Maybe I can fill the gatorless hole in my collection with one of these!

Raffia Embroidered Alligator Purse

Homeward Bound, Florida postcard

Feeding Time Alligator Farm Los Angeles

Woman sitting on Alligator Photo

Vintage Children's Book on Alligators and Crocodiles