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  1. Benzadmiral

    Scotch tape

    I'm revising a story for an online contest. It opens in August of 1941 in New Mexico, and concludes just after the war ends. I know what we call "Scotch" tape was invented around 1930. Did people call it that in the early Forties? I'd have thought "cellophane tape" would have been the common...
  2. Benzadmiral

    Did men use talc for shaving?

    I ask because in an early Ellery Queen short story from the Thirties, "The African Traveler," the issue comes up as a clue. A corpse is examined by Ellery and his students in an applied criminology course, and they note that the man is freshly shaved, with smooth, non-streaking talcum powder...
  3. Benzadmiral

    New Glycine Dress Watch (Rose gold & steel, black face)

    Bought this one this fall, and it just hasn't gotten the wrist time; so time to let it go to somebody who'll appreciate it. Glycine automatic dress watch, 38MM, black dial, steel with rose gold bezel and hands, quick-set date. Purchased new, so I still have the warranty card, hang tag, and box...
  4. Benzadmiral

    Hollywood partying, 50s-70s

    A lot of neat B & W shots here: https://worldwideinterweb.com/post/63468/scroll/page/2/ The annoying thing is that the site doesn't bother to ID all the celebrities in each shot. For instance, in the one with Judy Garland and Marlon Brando, that's clearly Edmond O'Brien . . . but I suppose...
  5. Benzadmiral

    Lost in History

    A twitter feed from someone who uses Audrey Hepburn as his/her avatar, and has lots of stuff of FL interest: https://twitter.com/HistoryToLearn "Dedicated to the wonderful fashion/makeup/people/culture of the 20th century."
  7. Benzadmiral

    Your TOP Cagney movie . . .?

    We have one for Bogart, as we should. Now how about James "Jimmy" Cagney? I expect a lot of people here would plump for White Heat -- -- not least because it is probably the greatest cops-'n'-robbers movie ever, and his astonishing performance makes it go. And then there's The Roaring...
  8. Benzadmiral

    Autism in the Golden Era

    Working on a new crime/fantasy story, and have settled on a sympathetic character who is what we call today "autistic," a la Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. To keep the story simple and suspenseful (no cell phones!), I've set it in October 1941. Did the U.S. medical profession recognize autism in...
  9. Benzadmiral

    Who first said "Intellectual agility of a small soap dish"?

    Insult: So-and-so has "the intellectual agility of a small soap dish." I've seen someone on the 'Net use the expression, and it's triggered a memory I can't trace down. The phrase seems familiar. Don't think it's a Dorothy Parker line, though it could be. Does anybody know who used it first?
  10. Benzadmiral

    A Day in the Life of the NY Times, 1942

    From Flashbak.com: http://flashbak.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-the-new-york-times-september-10-1942-379759/ A commenter says that the fashion photo being retouched in one shot looks like Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle. Fascinating, the clothes and the people smoking pipes at work. . . .
  11. Benzadmiral

    Skin salves or balms before the 1920s?

    This might be a little before the FL interest period, but what kind of skin salves or balms did people use before the Twenties? Specifically the 1870s, if anybody knows? Let's suppose somebody in 1873 gets a mild burn, or a sunburn. Did they slap chicken fat on it or some kind of grease, and...
  13. Benzadmiral

    Vintage BR denim jacket, leather collar

    An impulse buy, seeing as I'm not going to need a denim jacket until December (if then): 'Tis my size, I think, and was a reasonable price, so I kicked the mouse. I've read here that the vintage Banana Republic stuff was good, though this one is from a little later. (I still have a...
  14. Benzadmiral

    1943-44: Driving from NYC to LA?

    Just rereading the late Ellery Queen novel And On the Eighth Day (ghosted by SF writer and editor Avram Davidson, 1964). In it Ellery the character, a pro detective story writer, takes a job writing propaganda films for the war effort in 1943-44. The government tells him it makes more sense to...
  15. Benzadmiral

    "Feud": new FX series about Davis & Crawford

    http://ew.com/tv/2017/01/19/ryan-murphy-feud-bette-joan-cover/ Scroll down to the bottom to see the cover of Entertainment Weekly w/ Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis (she even has the same kind of mild pop-eyes) and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford. Good casting, I'd think. Also features Catherine...
  16. Benzadmiral

    Camel hair jacket & cowboy boots?

    Personally I think it could work, i.e., a camel hair blazer, dark boots without any obvious reptile configurations, dress jeans or slacks, a dress shirt, and perhaps a Stratoliner or OR lid to finish things off. The look of the guy that OWNS the ranch. After all, I've seen tweed jackets in...
  17. Benzadmiral

    Vintage toasters

    I did a search, but nothing specifically about this came up. This morning my modern toaster died. A search for "toasters made in the U.S.A." comes up with things that are $280 or more. The Famous Auction Site has loads of vintage 1950s Sunbeam, GE, and Toastmaster toasters, and many of them...
  19. Benzadmiral

    "Star Trek": 50 years ago today

    Who saw it when it premiered, or remembers the promos on TV or in TV Guide (you remember TV Guide, don't you, that indispensable roadmap to television viewing, rather than the gossip and fan mag it's become)? I did not see the early episodes until some years later. My family and I came across...
  20. Benzadmiral

    Akubra Kentucky Rancher

    Just ran across this on Everything Australian's site: http://everythingaustralian.com.au/akubra-kentucky-rancher.html Very intriguing. A 75 mm brim, just a hair under 3 inches, though with the curl it looks considerably shorter, and a 125 mm (4.9") crown. Akubra's site says it comes in Light...
  21. Benzadmiral

    1920s drama: "Genius" (Firth & Kidman)

    I had not heard of this film, but it looks intriguing: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703957/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_5 Firth plays famed editor Maxwell Perkins, who helped to bring Thomas Wolfe, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald to the world. The photos of 1920s style, especially Perkins's hats, are...
  22. Benzadmiral

    Your "perfect" films

    Now I know that any list of "perfect" movies is going to be highly subjective. My definition here is "a movie that I would change nothing in" -- not casting, scenes, dialog, even music. I'd bet, however, that some of my choices would intersect with those of other film buffs. Anyway, the list...
  23. Benzadmiral

    Richard III (1995)

    This morning I caught part of this modern-dress (well, sort of) version of Shakespeare's Richard III. It would be of interest to FL people, I think, because of its setting in an alternate-history 1930s Britain where an English civil war (the Wars of the Roses, I suppose) is going on, but there...

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