The Fifties

[poliphilo]

The Frankie and Benny's chain has a 1950s New York theme.

We ate our meal under the gaze of a gallery of entertainment and sports stars. I thought, "This'll be fun; bet I can identify them all..."

I couldn't. I got Sinatra, Durante, DiMaggio and Jackie Mason. Ailz added Rudy Vallee and Mario Lanza. And that was it.

Who were the big palooka with the broken nose and the tiny dame with the corkscrew curls? Looks like they were in love. Beauty and the Beast.

They'll both be dead by now.

I thought I was an expert on mid century pop culture. Seems not.

All those wiseguys with their shiny hair and shiny eyes and shiny teeth. Repellent.

And that got me thinking about Doris Day.

The way you do.

How that unmoving blonde helmet- later made infamous by Mrs T- has to be nastiest hairstyle ever.

Cute little actor, accomplished comedienne, utterly unsexy.

Though I love Que Sera, Sera.

This is the decade I was born into. It couldn't be more alien.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, in real life, Doris apparently was no virginal type, although she did pick on men that tended to either beat her up physically or financially.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

My favourite Doris movie is an early one in which she stars with Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan( a greasily handsome Irish tenor). It's called "It's a Great Feeling".

Doris is trying to break into movies, but her talents are so irritatingly awful and the inane way she flutters her eyelids so weird, that she makes a botch of it. Throughout the film she continually threatens to return to Mc Gurkey's Corners and marry the dull, unattractive boy next door. So complete is her failure that she does just that. He turns out to be Errol Flynn, and as she marries him, her eyelids flutter obscenely. I'ts a minor hoot.

I also like the one where Rock PRETENDS to be gay. What was it called?

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Well, you and I are the same age. And as for Doris Day, she became famous as a singer. And she isn't one of my favorites, but I feel you are very unkind - she didn't ALWAYS wear her hair in the blonde helmet. And she was in a Hitchcock movie, opposite Jimmy Stewart, and she wasn't so bad.

The big palooka with the broken nose - maybe Joe DiMaggio and his one and only true love? (Surely you know who that was.)

the 50's are remembered as a great deal of fun. Not so much, I think.