Movies Archives ~ Not Good At Normal

December 8, 2024December 8, 2024

Influencers…A New Thing?

Think influencers are as new as Social Media? Think again!

You think the Kardashians started the influencer crazy? Social media as the downfall of our young people? Fads of following the famous?

Long before Instagram and TikTok, the internet and social media, before filters and photoshop twisted our vision of ideal and unattainable beauty, there were real celebrities. Movie stars and before them, the drawings in newspapers of ‘the ideal women’.

Ideal Woman

Long before movie stars even had names and vaudeville had its favorites, there was the ‘Gibson Girl’, the Coca Cola Girl and the Biograph Girl and Vitagraph Girl.

The Gibson Girl, was the ideal woman, She was active, progressive, attractive and yet the ultimate feminine female. First appearing in magazines and newspapers such as Life and Harper’s Weekly in the 1890’s. The Gibson Girl is said to be based on Camille Clifford.

The Biograph Girl was Florence Lawrence, who was one of the first named motion picture stars. The other was Florence Turner, the Vitagraph Girl, who when making appearances would hand out personalized photos

The Best Foot Forward

Hollywood soon followed. The actress Joan Crawford never left her apartment without full makeup and glamor because as she said “People expect to see a movie star”!

The It Girl, Clara Bow, an early influencer

Known as the Femme Fatale, Veronica Lake

Mary Pickford was the girl with the curls. Everyone wanted to look like her. There was the waif or waifish, Lillian Gish, The It Girl, Clara Bow (also a flapper). In the 1940’s everyone wanted the Veronica Lake hair. Marilyn Monroe, Twiggy in the 60’s, Farrah Fawcett in the 70’s

Influencers are nothing new, most Hollywood stars would appear in advertisements for beauty products. These women embodied the idealized, perfect woman, what woman should strive to be.

The beauty industry has long been a major contributor of the decline of the mental health of women. Using our favorite stars to hawk beauty products, making women, younger and younger, feel worse and worse about ourselves. Even young girls are scared to get old. Anti-age this, and stop aging that. Why do we hate old(er) woman or getting old??

One of my personal favorites, Judy Garland

As Lucy Moore states in her book “Anything Goes, A Biography of the Roaring Twenties” it was during the 20’s when psychology and research was used. Cigarette ads like Lucky Strikes were linked to female emancipation. Smoking meant freedom. And dying your hair and wearing lipstick wasn’t just for “the fallen woman”.

It wasn’t until the 1980’s where girls began to form their own individuality. Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and Grace Slick. But even then, girls wanted to just like them!

Even today, in the “Everyone and everybody is beautiful, big is in, all bodies are beautiful age, we still see ‘use this face cream to stop wrinkles’ ‘look younger and more youthful’ use this hair dye.. Older women aren’t supposed to be sexy. Yet the messages are still be you, be authentic, just do it while using this product, everyone does! Its the standard of beauty you too can attain. Only you can’t.

This ad came out around the time the movie “How To Marry A Millionaire” was released.

Social Media

Influencers/Youtubers/ Creators/Tictokers and so called social media celebrities, what a load of crap. They are paid highly to get you to believe what they post is reality. Filters and photoshop so much, if you saw them in real life you wouldn’t even think it was the same person!

Snake Oil

Years ago they were called Snake Oil Salesmen. People who would travel from town to town selling their goods…’Look younger and attract a mate, look darker, look lighter. Make your skin glow.’ They would be run out of town for selling lies.

Lasting effects

The ads and media scrolling doesn’t just affect women and girls, men and boys see this and think that is what women should be. How they should act and dress. They have an unnatural idea that they will find a woman or girl like that and when they don’t, they wonder why or keep leaving to go find her.

This goes back far beyond the printed advertising, even ghost signs, telling woman they are not enough as is, be sexier if, whiten your teeth, erase your wrinkles, use this corset, wear this wig, this product,that product.. be the happy housewife…. and on and on. Only now ad fillers, botox, boob jobs, laser peels, ect.

A happy housewife! Both ads have the woman in heels and skirt!

Watch out!

Do you follow or buy something just because your fave star/celebrity or ‘influencer is using it?

Snake oil salesmen are still out there, they just use filters.

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January 1, 2023January 13, 2023

The Great Fire and Brick City

The Fire of St. Louis

Ever wonder why St. Louis is called Brick City? Read on, and find out.

Every great city has had a “great fire” in the 1800’s, and St. Louis is no exception. However, the Chicago fire in October 1871, began in a barn outside of the city and killed 300 people, lasting about 24 hours.

Chicago fire of 1871 Currier and Ives print

London

London’s great fire, during King Charles II’s reign, in 1666, started in a bakery when a spark from an oven lit the fuel in the kitchen. This truly was a great fire as it lasted 4 days and happened during a plague. Almost 13,000 of the mostly wood buildings and churches were leveled. The best part is only 6 people died during this fire, although some died jumping from windows.

San Francisco

Even the San Francisco fire, burning not only City Hall and killing nearly 3000 people, was started after an earthquake. It lasted three days and burned about 500 blocks. The photos are devastating. You can find more pictures and information here.

More than one

St. Louis has the distinction of having two ‘great fires’ and the first did not start on land, no, the first one started on the Mississippi River in 1849.

ships on fire on the St. Louis riverfront — The ships on fire at the St. Louis riverfront another Currier and Ives print

The quiet evening in May started as any other. Ships moving in and out of the busy port city to and from destinations all along the might river. Volunteer fireman, Captain Thomas Targee was at home settling in with his family, when word spread of a mattress on fire on the levee.

The steamboat White Cloud was moored at Cherry Street on the landing, when a mattress caught fire. The men on board tossed the mattress overboard while it was still smoking. It hit the large ropes holding the ship in place. The mooring ropes caught fire and quickly set the White Cloud a blaze. The White Cloud had then broke free and was setting adrift down the river. Eventually 22 more boats and barges were lit as well.

Captain Targee had alerted the volunteer firemen and had 9 hand cars and hose reel wagons enroute.

The flames were leaping high into the night sky and leaping onto the nearby wooden structures on the waterfront. Soon four blocks of buildings were engulfed. Main Street, Olive, 2nd and Market. 3 blocks away, a copper shop was burning down.

In defensive actions, 6 buildings were blown up to prevent further damage and stop the spread. The last of the six to be strategically used as a fire break, was the Philips Music Store.

Loss of life

It was during this last blast that Captain Targee lost his life. Thus giving the St. Louis Fire department the distinction of being the first city to have a firefighter lose his life during a fire. In the aftermath, boats and nearly buildings burned. Alarms were used to warn people and surprisingly only 3 people lost their lives.

New Codes

Building codes in the city were quickly put in place requiring new structures to be made of stone or brick. Multiple brick manufacturing companies sprang up throughout the city.

Most buildings and homes in the city of St. Louis are now made of bricks.

The St. Louis Fire Department is the second oldest paid department in the United States. It began in 1822 as a volunteer fire department and became a paid dept. in 1857.

Second large fire St. Louis 1976

127 years later, a fire broke out or was set, on automotive row on Locust Street in an abandoned building. It spread so quickly six surrounding buildings and a fire pump truck was destroyed. In all 200 firefighters and 51 trucks were called on the scene and 8 people were injured.

It was later determined scrap metal thieves were the cause of the igniting.

This area looked so bad that it was used as a backdrop for the movie Escape From New York with Kurt Russell in 1981. It remained seedy and run down for several years.

Several local engine companies worked together

Today, this area and buildings have been restored. Very few abandoned.

Filmed in St. Louis, Mo in the former Automotive row, now on the National Register of Historic Places

I may do another blog on the locations used for this 1981 film. I guess I should watch it first.

What areas of history or St. Louis do you want to learn about next? Leave a comment, like and share.

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October 26, 2021February 3, 2022

Vincent Price

The Ties to St. Louis History

By now, most people know Vincent Price was born in St. Louis, Mo in May, 1911. But what most don’t know is the full story of his family and the historic contribution they made.

Vincent Price the actor in the movie Shock

Vincent C. Price

Baking powder, extracts and flavorings. Items used everyday in every home around the world. Often taken for granted, but who invented them? A Dr. and chemist named Vincent Clarence Price. After moving back home with his parents after his family grew with two kids and a wife, he was watching his mother bake biscuits and wanted to help. With a background in pharmacy and chemistry he set out to find a better way to make the biscuits rise.

A silver embossed lid of Dr. Price’s baking powder.

He patented the invention and thus began Dr. Price’s Cream Baking Powder. Next he conducts more experiments and came up with fruit and herb flavorings and vegetable colorings and manufactured breakfast foods.

booklet — Booklet cookbook from Dr. Price

St. Louis and The National Candy Company

So, how do the Price family get to St. Louis and what is the candy connection? V.C. Price and his son, the first Vincent L. Price (father of the actor) started selling all the goods traveling the country. When they heard that St. Louis, Mo was to hold the Olympics and a World’s Fair, V.L Price decides to move his family to the big city and buy his father’s company. The National Candy Company was formed by merging several local and national companies and the headquarters was the STL location.

The former National Candy Company a ghost sign now, the building is currently in use
as a Uhaul facility.

The National Candy Company was incorporated in 1902 and is comprised of in part by: the O.H. Peckham Co., J. Waters Candy Co., F. D. Seward Confectionery Co. and others. It was, at one time, the largest manufacturer of candy in the United States

The National Candy Co. specialized in jaw breakers and jelly beans. Thousands of new kinds of candy bars appeared in the 1920’s and one of the best sellers for National was the Bobcat bar. The top seller sold for .5 cents.

New building

The nine story National Candy Company building in St. Louis, Mo as it is currently.

In 1927 a new building opened in south St. Louis with 9 floors and air conditioning. The A/C was a big deal at the time as it allowed certain candies to be made all year. The new building included a printing shop, a cooking area, a box facility and a shipping department. The building, on the National Registry of History places, is currently in use as a Uhaul facility.

The company was sold in 1948 to the Chase Candy Co. The building sat vacant for several decades before being bought by Uhaul.

Actor and art connoisseur

Vincent Price’s star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame

Vincent L. Price Jr., the Master of Horror, appeared in over 100 movies and hundreds of television shows. He went to Yale and attended an art institute in London. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and one on the St. Louis Walk.

Some of his most well known movies are The House on Haunted Hill, The Raven, House of Wax and Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. Two of my favorites are not of the campy horror genre, but one, a thriller called Shock, where he plays a Dr. who tries to get a witness to think she is going crazy. The other is The Last Man On Earth, where he thinks he is the last man alive after a plague/pandemic but there are a few others hiding and there are zombie type people trying to get to him. In the ’80’s he drew more fans from his famous ‘rap’ in Michael Jackson’s song Thriller. His last screen appearance was in Edward Scissorhands.

Movie advertisements for Shock, starring Vincent Price

Among the several books he authored are cookbooks and art books. He had an art museum named after him and a cooking program on British tele. On October 25, 1993, Vincent Price passed away. One of St. Louis’ most famous sons will live on in the hearts of his many fans.

This show is very entertaining!

Catahoula dog in car — 18 month old, Vincent

My Catahoula Leopard dog is named Vincent Price. He is not scary…most days.

What is your favorite Vincent Price movie? Did you know of the family/St. Louis connection?

Cooking and entertaining was one of Vincent’s passions.

Find more Hollywood here.

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December 8, 2020February 13, 2021

Hollywood by today’s standards

How Hedy Lamarr and the Metoo movement collide.

Hedy Lamarr was almost the most important inventor time forgot. Let’s remember a time, not so long ago when Hollywood and the world, i.e. men, didn’t give credit to women for being smart, or for anything for that matter.

Coming to America

image via MGM pictures: Hedy Lamarr in the MGM classic “Ziegfeld Girl” in the famous star costume.

In 1937 Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler came to America from Vienna, Austria, her birthplace. She had starred in a few films, one being the scandalous “Extase (Ecstasy)” when she was just 18 years old. Hedy was born in 1914 and was married and divorced before leaving her homeland for the lights of tinseltown.

The Glamor

By the 1930’s Hollywood’s glamor machine was in full swing. The ‘Studio system’ was churning out hundreds of movies every month and if you wanted to be a star, you played by their rules. The studio was not only where you worked but it was your life. They told you how to look, where to go to be seen and with whom. You were expected to appear in as many films per year as possible. You would have a seven year contract to which the studio owned you as their property and if they made you into a star, they would go to any length to keep you a star. This often meant being seen on arranged dates or they would give the stars strict diets to adhere to.

Hollywood was not for the faint at heart. You had to follow the studios every directive and that included the casting couch. Directors, producers and those in charge would make women sleep with them or give special favors in order to get a part. This practice remained a well known fact and was allowed to happen until very recently.

More Stars than there are in Heaven

MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) was one of the biggest and most successful of all the movie studios in Hollywood. It was a successful merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Studios and Louis B. Mayer studios. At its head in the early years were Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg as head of production. LB would proclaim to be the biggest studio and have the most stars. It was home to some of Hollywood’s biggest and brightest. In the 30’s it was where Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Mickey Rooney, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracy and Judy Garland gained fame. It was here, at MGM that Hedwig became Hedy Lamarr.

The Beauty that Changed the World

The world’s most beautiful woman, and one of the smartest!

She was billed as the most beautiful woman in the world. The world didn’t know it yet, but this woman was much more than that. With an IQ of 150+, she regularly invented items and took things apart to find out what made them work.

It was during WWII, at a party one evening with an equally intelligent composer, George Antheil, she set out to form a way to jam frequencies so that torpedo locations could not be found by the enemies. They invented frequency hopping communication and had a patent placed on the invention. This later formed the bases for wireless technology used today in bluetooth and WiFi. She grew tired of the Hollywood scene, playing the exotic femme fatale and having everyone think she was window dressing. She would say anyone can stand and look pretty, even stupid people.

Admired as the most beautiful woman in the world,
not for her intellect.

No one believed she was the inventor of such magnitude. Some claimed she stole the idea. Some said she was too pretty to be smart. Still others said she was a spy.

My #metoo story that I’ve never shared with anyone before!

Hollywood isn’t the only industry that uses or takes advantage of women or thinks a woman can’t think for herself. So many stories of how women are treated when they walk into an auto part store. Or when a woman owns a show car and enters it into shows, most of the guys ask her where her husband or boyfriend is so they can talk to him about it. Or when a customer asks for the manager and they are talking to her, a young lady. My Aunt was told she couldn’t be hired because she was of the age where she would be starting a family!

Me Too

Take Kim, she was in the only female student enrolled in a fire academy. One of the recruits pinned her on the ground and tried to kiss her as the others watched. She was able to knee him and get away, earning the respect of the other students. I have to say that should never happen. Ever. Being the only woman in a male dominated work environment, like Amber and Jamie and Tory. The girls were told to only do certain jobs and leave the hard or heavy work to the men. Talked about behind your back because you are a woman. Double standards.

My own story was as an 18 year old working at my first radio station and working closely with an older man who was showing me the ropes. He kissed me without provocation or wanting from my part.

Hedy Lamarr was paid less then her male counterparts. She wasn’t given the proper credit for her invention until decades later, and she died at 85, in 2000, without much money. It was only recently that people and Hollywood are taking notice of the beauty with the high IQ. Hedy Lamarr was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame posthumously in 2014.

Your turn

What are some of the ways you have experienced or seen a situation that you were treated different because of your sex or you were taken advantage of and told you need to do or act or wear something in order to get a job or keep one? Tell your story in the comments.

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October 7, 2020December 21, 2020

The Emerald City, Wizard or Man?

“You’ve always had the power, my dear”

Remember how excited the four traveling companions were when they first set eyes on the beautiful, shiny Emerald City? Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow all thought it must be the most wonderful, magical place. They couldn’t wait to run to see all it beheld behind the beautiful facade. It was magical from afar. Would it be just as magical up close?

Things are not always what they appear to be

The man behind the curtain in the Emerald city

At first glance, beauty and newness can be overwhelming. Remember a time when you were so excited you could hardly wait? The anticipation grew as the day approached. You get what you were waiting for or you finally meet that person who seemed so genuine. And then, it’s kind of a let down.

Like the visitors to Oz, all is not as it seems. The Emerald City was indeed beautiful, but was it magical? Dorothy needed guidance and wisdom. She was after all far from home, she needed to find her way back. What she received instead was a man pretending to have the answers, hiding behind not only a literal curtain, but of what others thought him to be. A great and powerful wizard. Dorothy thought seeing the wizard would solve her problem and she would be sent home. Then she and her traveling companions were given a nearly impossible task.

Treasures

Though the Emerald City did hold treasures, they were the kind you take with you in a different way.
That horse of a different color? Unique and unusual? An everyday occurance in Oz. That you can be anyone you want: The doorman, taxidriver, wizard and Professor Marvel, all the same person. You don’t have to limit yourself or pretend to be someone you’re not. That true friends stick together, and that we all have inner strength.

Strength

Like our friends from Oz found out, it won’t always be easy. You will most likely run into obstacles or people who don’t want you to succeed. They may even go out of their way to cause you to think you can’t do something. Dorothy was almost stopped by fear, by thinking she wasn’t smart enough or too young, to figure it out.
Because Dorothy found strength, courage and flexibility to see beyond what is at face value that enabled her to fight the witch and carry on to push past her comfort zone.

You’ve heard the saying, It’s not the destination, it’s the journey along the way. The road to get there should be just as thrilling. Take time to see all that is around you. Stop and smell the roses, only maybe skip smelling the poppies. Life is about the people you meet and lessons you learn. In trying times, try to remember you are growing through it.

Home

As Dorothy watched her new friends receive a heart, a brain and courage, she realized there wasn’t anything in the wizard’s bag for her. It was at that, she knew these people here in her dream, represented the strength she already possessed. She had to help herself. She knew the real strength and power lie within believing in herself.

As Glinda the Good Witch told her, “You’ve always had the power, my dear”! Drop a comment below of what you learned from this most classic MGM movie or what ways you have found your courage to really be you! How many times have you watched The Wizard of Oz? Was the Emerald City as spectacular as you thought?

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