New Regent St

New Regent St, Christchurch

 

What's on at the Regal Cinema, Karori: 80 years ago today

Returning to theme of my 2020 post about the cinematic offerings of the Regal Cinema in the Wellington suburb of Karori, here's a glimpse at their offerings for 80 years ago today, Friday 27 August 1943, plus the following day too, because the cinema listing advertisement in the Evening Post covered both.

7.30pm: The Affairs of Martha 

(MGM, dir. Jules Dassin, 1942, Marsha Hunt, Richard Carlson, 68 mins)

"The memorial of a personal maid who sees all - knows all - tells all" - in which a Long Island maid Martha is secretly writing a tell-all book about her employers, while at the same time pining for their adventurous son Jeff, who is shortly to return from an expedition studying the Eskimos. To complicate matters, Jeff got drunk before he departed on his expedition and married Martha, only to repent the next day (presumably with the marriage having been unconsummated due to drunken stupor). Despite giving Martha the money for an annulment, Martha refrains from carrying it out because she secretly loves Jeff. Despite unsurprising complications, cupid rules once Jeff sees the error of his ways and chases Martha down, declaring his undying love. 

Director Jules Dassin was later blacklisted in Hollywood and mainly worked in Europe - chiefly France and Greece. He died in Athens in 2008. Marsha Hunt was also blacklisted, and spent more of her time as a humanitarian worker, raising awareness about world hunger and homelessness. She died in Los Angeles last year, aged 104. Richard Carlson worked in film and television, including appearing in the successful King Solomon's Mines (1950) and later specialised in horror and science fiction. He died in Los Angeles in 1977, aged 65. 

Also showing: Flight Lieutenant

(Columbia, dir. Sidney Salkow, 1942, Pat O'Brien, Glenn Ford, 80 mins)

In which a WW1 pilot Doyle (O'Brien) with a drinking problem accidentally causes the death of his co-pilot, thereby earning the enmity of the dead pilot's brother (Warren Ashe), who later becomes Doyle's commanding officer. Coincidences abound, because not only do the men not recognise each other, but Doyle falls in love with his commanding officer's niece. In another unlikely coincidence, Doyle's son (Glenn Ford), whom he fostered out in his post-war doldrums, is now grown up and a pilot himself, and is about to test a frightfully dangerous prototype fighter. Luckily dear old dad steps in at the last minute to fly the beast, sacrificing his life for that of his son, and presumably disappointing the C.O.'s niece. The New York Times was definitely not impressed with Flight Lieutenant, reporting in its 31 July 1942 edition that 'Occasionally Pat O'Brien and Glenn Ford get off the ground for a spin in the clouds, but most of the time they are wallowing in a lot of mawkish sentimentality, which appears to be the chief ingredient in this dreary father-and-son tale'.

Film and later TV director Sidney Salkow was prolific, and later retired aged 59 to teach film courses. He died in Los Angeles in 2000, aged 89. 'Professional Irishman' Pat O'Brien (who was actually born in Milwaukee) had a long career including multiple films with James Cagney. He appeared in classics including Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Knute Rockne, All American (1940), and Some Like It Hot (1959), and was a friend of Ronald Reagan, who issued a White House statement on his death in 1983, aged 83. Quebec-born actor Glenn Ford appeared in a range of well-known movies, including Gilda (1946), The Big Heat (1953), Blackboard Jungle (1955), 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and Superman (1978). He received a Golden Globe for his role in Pocketful of Miracles (1961). He died in Beverly Hills in 2006, aged 90.

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Tomorrow (Saturday) 2.15pm - Children's Matinee - "a wonderful children's programme"

Don't Lie (Our Gang comedy short, 11 mins - 'Buckwheat's accurate report of a wandering monkey is ignored because of his past fibs, with resulting confusion')

Dog Trouble (Colour Tom & Jerry cartoon, 8 mins - 'Tom and Jerry put their adversarial relationship on hold after their cat-and-mouse shenanigans awaken a sleeping bulldog')

Self Defense (Pete Smith Specialty short - 'Humorous demonstration for women in defending themselves')

Men in Fright (Our Gang comedy short from 1938, 11 mins - Hospital capers as the gang visit a pal in for a tonsillectomy and start mucking about with laughing gas, generally get into and out of scrapes)

Episode 1 of a new serial: Overland Mail (Universal, 1942, Lon Chaney Jr, Noah Beery Sr. & Jr.)

Plus: Laurel & Hardy in The Flying Deuces

(RKO, dir. A. Edward Sutherland, 1939, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jean Parker, 69 mins)

One of Laurel and Hardy's most beloved buddy comedies, in which they joint the French Foreign Legion. Wronged in love whilst visiting Paris from their home in Des Moines, the duo join the Legion to forget a thwarted amour, only to be tasked with the most menial of labour - mountains and mountains of army laundry. The boys manage to set this alight, through incompetence rather than malevolence, and are charged with desertion and sentenced to death by firing squad. Through the auspices of a secret tunnel they escape and make off in a very-badly-flown plane, which they promptly crash. And I won't spoil the genuinely excellent joke that concludes the film!

Moi j'ai plus d'un tour dans mon sac

Thursday music corner: New York-based faux-French indie rockers Non Non Plus formed from the similarly-themed Les Sans Culottes after a bust-up with the latter group's leader. They released their first, self-titled album on Aeronaut Records in 2005, and followed it with two more on the same label: Menagerie in 2009 and Freudian Slip in 2011. They switched to the Terrible Kids Music label for their fourth and final album, La Sexe et La Politique, in 2012.

Fille Atomique appears in its original form on the band's 2005 debut album, and is sung by Céline Dijon (a.k.a. Verena Wiesendanger). This live acoustic performance was recorded for Canadian TV. 

Nous Non Plus - Fille Atomique (live, 2007)

See also:

Music: Nouvelle Vague - Guns of Brixton (2004)

Music: Plastic Bertrand - Ça Plane Pour Moi (1977)

Music: Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot - Bonnie & Clyde (1968)

If Norway can operate a good long-distance railway network, so can New Zealand

There is ample proof that New Zealand's demography and topography do not preclude good passenger rail. It is not uncommon for New Zealanders to return from Europe or East Asia, enthusiastic for the railway technology they encountered there to be introduced here, only to be told that other countries make for unsuitable comparisons. This can be true, but one country is eminently suited to comparison: Norway. It has similar, and indeed more difficult, topography; its population is less than half a million greater than New Zealand's; and its land area, likewise, is only modestly larger (especially when counting only Norway proper, not Svalbard or other possessions). Its largest city, Oslo, has roughly half Auckland's population; second-place Bergen is smaller than Christchurch or Wellington; Stavanger and Trondheim are comparable in size to Hamilton or Tauranga; and no other city has more than 100,000 people.

Norway's railway network is remarkably similar in length to New Zealand's, and also had an investment backlog in the 1980s. Today, Norwegians enjoy regular trains between all the major cities. In early 2020 Oslo had seven departures daily to Stavanger, four to Bergen and four to Trondheim, from where two daily connections ran to Bodø. Many more suburban and regional services exist, and almost none depend on tourism. All this, despite the fact that Norway's only high-speed railway links Oslo with its airport; none of the main intercity trips take under 6.5 hours and Trondheim-Bodø is approximately 10 hours. Inadequate roads or air services cannot explain the superior railway timetable: Norwegian roads are better than New Zealand's and intercity flights are frequent. Like New Zealand, Norway generates much hydroelectric power; unlike New Zealand, however, Norway has electrified many of its railways and is transitioning all non-electrified lines to zero-emission operation with battery trains. If Norway can operate a good long-distance railway network despite great obstacles, so can New Zealand.

- Andre Brett, Can't Get There From Here: NZ Passenger Rail Since 1920, Dunedin, 2021, p.277-8.

See also:
Blog: Norway's greatest resistance hero, 7 September 2013
Blog: The early settlement of Iceland, 16 May 2011
Blog: Norway, 6 August 2008

A destroyer captain remembers Arctic convoy PQ 17

With regard to leaving the convoy, I simply said that I thought the Admiralty had made a complete balzup. They knew the Tirpitz, Hipper and heavy destroyers were at sea, had lost them by reconnaissance, assumed they were about to fall upon the convoy and had ordered 'Scatter'.

The effect of this signal had been universal. There was no doubt in anyone's mind, from Admiral Hamilton downward, but that Tirpitz was just below the horizon. I finished by saying that in future we would do what we, on the spot, considered correct and now we were off to Rosyth to boiler clean and give five days' leave. 

This is a personal story of what happened to me, and I have said nothing as to what happened to the convoy after the disastrous signal to scatter. In brief 23 of the 34 merchantmen were sunk by U-boats and aircraft.

There has been much criticism of this operation, particularly from America. It is to be hoped therefore that my description of what it was like to be one of the six destroyers will at least help to clarify the facts.

It is an extraordinary thing that this catastrophic error of judgement was made personally by the First Sea Lord, the Head of the Navy, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound. My personal opinion is that, if someone like Admiral Cunningham had been at the Admiralty, he would have left the people on the spot to run the operation. If not, he would have waited until the Tirpitz was reported and if she was obviously heading for and near the convoy, he would have signalled something like, 'It is at your discretion to scatter should you be attacked by enemy surface ships.'

In the event an Allied submarine trap East of Bear Island was effective only in that two of the submarines reported the German squadron. The German Admiralty however, thought Tirpitz would be attacked by our aircraft carrier and ordered her to return to Norway. But, by this time, they knew the convoy had scattered, so whether Tirpitz would have attacked if the convoy had not scattered remains the big question of the tragic story of PQ 17. I also felt that as the merchant ships were going to almost certain destruction then we should have gone back and taken the same chance and we would have got some more merchant ships to Archangel, although we would probably merely have lost the destroyers as well once the oiler was sunk. Still we would have tried.

I can never forget how they cheered us as we moved out at full speed to the attack and it has haunted me ever since that we left them to be destroyed.

I had little faith ever after in the shore staff who directed operations at sea.

- Roger Hill, Destroyer Captain, London, 1975, p.50-51.

The above narrative is from the commander of HMS Ledbury, which was part of the ill-fated Arctic convoy PQ 17 in 1942, in which 24 merchant ships were sunk and 153 merchant mariners lost their lives. In the book's foreword, Lt Cdr Roger Hill writes that he had meant to write up his commands of HMS Ledbury, Grenville and Jervis after the war but lacked the spare time, but 'In 1965 my health cracked up, and deciding the children would have a happier life in New Zealand, we emigrated. I got a job as a "seagull" which is casual labour on the wharf, loading and discharging the rather few ships which call here at Nelson'. Later after this book was published he taught navigation at Nelson Technical College, farmed outside Nelson, and served on the Nelson Harbour Board. He died in Arrowtown in 2001. 

He's a solid gold cat but really a mellow hip fat

Thursday music corner: Oklahoma-born American R&B singer and pianist Joe Liggins (1916-87) was one of the early pioneers of American rhythm and blues music. Having moved to San Diego in 1932 and on to Los Angeles in 1939, Liggins was playing with Sammy Franklin's California Rhythm Rascals when Franklin declined to record a song Liggins had written, The Honeydripper. Liggins decided to form his own band to record it, and the number topped the R&B chart, then known as the "race" chart, for a mammoth 18 weeks in 1945. The Honeydripper was the first of many R&B hits for Liggins in the 1940s and 1950s.

Author Barney Hoskyns in his book Waiting for the Sun: A Rock 'N' Roll History of Los Angeles, recounts how Liggins' song dominated the Los Angeles music scene of the day:

Early in 1945, [composer and producer] Leon Rene got wind of a song -- a fifteen-minute brag-a-thon known as 'The Honeydripper' -- which Joe Liggins and his band were performing nightly at the Samba Club on 5th Street. Evolving out of a dance called the Texas Hop, and based around Liggins' insistent boogie piano riff, 'The Honeydripper' was tearing the house down every night, epitomizing the 'squashed-down' combo style described by Johnny Otis. By the late summer, on Exclusive, it was blaring out of every black record store in America. Liggins stayed at No. 1 on the black chart for eighteen straight weeks.

Joe Liggins & His Honeydrippers - The Honeydripper (1945)

See also:

Music: Jimmy Liggins - I Ain't Drunk (1954)

Music: Pvt. Cecil Gant - I Wonder (1944)

Music: Roy Milton - RM Blues (1947)