Lileks of course, is an actual writer. Like: For a living.
And a daily read of course, for your humble scribe. I consider it a kind of voc-ed.
One of his magic tricks is to see the things we all see every day, without noticing. He calls our attention to them and we suddenly realize that, yes! There it was all along! And it’s funny or maddening or heart-warming or thought-provoking or whatever and we were just too busy getting to work, or getting work done, or coming home from work to stop and just: Look at it. For a second.
Whatever it is that it was. And then the light slowly dims and goes out and we are momentarily aware of the darkness and so wait until tomorrow (M-F) to see if he can repeat the trick: Do it again, Mr. Lileks! Show us the thing!
Today he ran a post about a 1933 film noir, a genre he explores from time to time. Don’t want to reproduce the whole thing – because that would be cheating – but did think this pic was kind of cool:
The guy on the left is a homeless guy apparently. What some people are now coming to call “outdoorsmen” and what they probably knew as “bums” back when the film was made – the language is always changing.
He’s just been rousted by the coppah for sleeping on the street when the lady in the middle – a hooker with a heart of gold? – intervenes to show the cop his war medals. Turns out the guy’s a vet. Who knew?
But you know what caught my eye? Maybe the same thing that caught yours -
Guy’s wearing a suit and a tie. And a hat, for crying out loud. Because he might be homeless – or a bum – but he’s still got his pride, doesn’t he? And a war vet didn’t go out to sleep in the street without a hat and a tie.
Idealized Hollywood? I don’t think so. America was four years into a grinding depression, with no end in sight, and they were used to the sight by then of homeless men. Maybe even homeless men with medals.
But not men without ties, or hats. We’d all have to wait for JFK to come along, before we were prepared for that.
Just like the language, the culture’s always changing. I wonder what they’d think of us, those 1933 people – keeping in mind, the other screen grabs Lileks puts up makes clear they weren’t angels.
And what are we wearing or doing now that my granddaughter will see in a photograph some seventy years hence that will make her stop and stare?
Let’s just hope it’s not, “Look mom! Grandma’s not wearing a veil!”
Not like I think that’s going to happen. But, you know: We were talking about film noir.
Guess I failed the quiz, the coat and tie was not the first thing I noticed. It was the actress’ cleavage………..
Born in 1947, I remember when going to a movie required a tie.
And up until about 1965, so did travel on an airplane. (And in those days, the A/C shut down totally when the engines did. Before everyone had egressed, it was like a sauna.)
Somehow, I always equated proper attire with a proper attitude toward country, neighbors and personal responsibility.
Not to pick nits, but I don’t think I’d call a Busby Berkely musical film noir. But I do take your main point: we all dress and act like slobs, pretty much all the time. The phrase “Sunday best” now refers to the NFL lineup.
I thought you were going to make the point that in the context of the times– the movie was made in 1933–that scene was pretty powerful. Just a year before, Hoover had sent MacArhur and the regular Army to roust at bayonet point a bunch of down and out WWI vets. A shameful episode.
I don’t care about almost any of the things Lileks finds fascinating–like old postcards from Fargo, North Dakota–yet I HAVE to read the bleat first thing every day.
Then I surf on over here, of course.
I was with Skippy on that one.
craig mclaughlin – The Nazi party was also formed by disgruntled veterans. It’s a fact that can’t be denied. The ‘down and out vets’ were 10,000 men strong. The government were scared stiff of insurrection and coup d’etat – events in Europe showed this was a distinct possibility.
But true – a gross overreaction.
Gosh, you mean I’m the only one that noticed that the fellow was also clean-shaven? And that his hair was well-kept? And he was obviously clean, since the cop and the “lady” weren’t afraid of a close up shot;)
“A gross overreaction.” Be careful.
The Bonus Army was very close to an armed revolution. The police had opened fire in a brief riot and killed one of the marchers in the events which led to the eviction. Only one death was attributed to the Army, and that was from smoke inhalation.
One could argue that it was not an overreaction at all, but, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Patton all in the same show! It was the Blind Faith of the inter-war era!
Whenever my husband and I go out for an evening of lovely dinner, conversation and theater events, whether it’s just us or we are with friends, we ALWAYS get nicely dressed. And I’m always shocked at the lack of respect my fellow revellers have for themselves, and others. We may not be in black tie and gown, but at least we are in our ‘Sunday best’ – which is more than I can say for the tattered jeans and sweatshirts I’ve seen. Sad really, that we’ve somehow forgotten the basic civilities that once graced everything we did.
I may not be in favor of white gloves and hats for women, and it is a small thing but I wish people paid more attention to their appearance. It’s not as superficial as you think.
And even in the workplace, it runs the gamut. Now that most of corporate america is into the “business casual” thing, standards have gone downhill very fast. I’ve seen more people dressed inappropriately – and I’m sorry to say that 99% of them are women – since business casual became the accepted standard.
We are so concerned about things that don’t matter, that somewhere along the line we’ve forgotten to just be civilized.
I know, it was just a movie still, but it got under my skin, obviously. OK, I’ll go back to my cinnamon scone and coffee now…
I like those old film noir movies too, especially of the 46-mid 50′s genre (although I think Mcglauglin is correct). I can honestly “tip my fedora” to Ted Turner for one thing- his TCM channel and his film noir segments and preservation work. The best stuff.
When I happen to see a “Leave it to Beaver” segment it validates pretty much how I remember the late 50′s. Except of course my Mom wasn’t wearing pearls to vacum, but she did wear a dress at a 20-1 ratio over ‘slacks’! I guess the kids of the 80′s will remember their Moms as wearing synthetic sweat suits all the time.
B2
Its one of the things I like about Japan. You don’t see so many T-shirts and hats worn backwards. They are here, but not as much……..