Two bags of jelly beans, a ten-year old and a Tilt-A-Whirl.
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Turkey Day, Part Deus.
Ah, the home movies. This was a touch of strange. These were from my fraunt’s house in VA after we helped clean up her house from Hurricane Isabel. The projector and four reels of film quietly made it into the car after she told us to throw them out. The projector ended up dying on us, but a $30 rented one from the local camera store (who knew?) got us up and running again. Two films were spliced sets of family home movies, alternating between various vacation shots and some religious ceremonies (May Crowning, Confirmation, Easter, etc.). The problem was that these were people from my fruncle’s side of the family. He’s been dead several years now and no one has had much contact if any with his relatives since then. So the shots were neat to look at (the old cars and outfits being the popular points of discussion) but kind of had a peeping tom quality to it. For all we knew about the people in the shots, we could have fished them out of the trash from anywhere in America.
The third reel was cut from a much longer one. Obviously geared towards getting kids hooked on smoking, "Tobaccoland USA" was the story of the Whitehead family from Virginia and how they produced tobacco for Chesterfield cigarettes (an old cancer stick made by Liggett and Myers). It went through various types of tobacco, what states grew it (although the states were referred to as Tobaccoland USA so often you’d think they seceded), how it was grown and dried and everything about smokes except how to roll your own. The reel cuts out with Mrs. Whitehead and her African-American maid using the modern Kenmore stove to blanche fresh vegetables and then freeze them in their modern freezer. Better living through emphysema. No idea on a date it was made, but it had that 1950’s high school biology class feel to it. After the lights went up, I half expected a quiz on it.
The last reel might have been the worst (although the slick narration on Tobaccoland USA might win out in the popular vote). "The Night Before Christmas" made in 1946 by Castle Films. First, the box artwork makes it look like they got a nice shot of Santa after he downed a fifth of Johnny Walker. A pic here. A little too red in the cheeks and a little too much of a happy drunk’s smile, if you ask me. As it turns out, the box had the better of the two Santa’s. Black and white film with no sound and only subtitles (I’m kind of surprised at how much the original poem has changed over the years) it almost looked like Buster Keaton should show up somewhere in the shot. For shots of reindeer and dancing sugarplums, they resorted to crude animation with an obvious three cels per shot maximum. The sugarplums looked as if they should sing, "Let’s all go to the lob-BEE, and grab ourselves a snack!" Santa was live action, dressed in a Dollar Store costume with even cheaper beard and hair. His acting coach must have given him lessons along these lines: "Okay, now whatever crosses your field of vision, regardless of what it is, I want you to laugh like it’s the funniest thing you’ve seen in years!" He guffaws at his flying reindeer, he rocks his coin-operated drugstore sleigh with merry delight and when he pulls out a tin shovel for little Billy’s stocking, he just about laughs his foam pillow belly right out of his Salvation Army costume. I guess Billy’s been working double shifts in the coal mines lately.
Better acting than this flick can be found in any second grade play. Still, it was worth watching and left everyone laughing almost as much as the Jolly Fat Man (or at least the skinny nerd they had playing him).
posted by: Jiggsy at 12/02/03 12:37 |
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