Paladin, Chapter 7

INT. WINDFALL HOTEL - DAY

PALADIN walks to reception desk.

RECEPTIONIST: Sir?

PALADIN: Room, please.

RECEPTIONIST: Certainly.  

PALADIN signs the guest register.

RECEPTIONIST: Room 4 at the top to the stairs.

PALADIN: I noticed the sheriff's office down the street.  Who's the sheriff?

RECEPTIONIST: That'd be SHERIFF ROGERS.

PALADIN: Thank you.  I'll be back in a while.

RECEPTIONIST: Yes, sir.

PALADIN leaves hotel and heads to Sheriff's Office.

EXT. STREET - DAY

PALADIN walks to Sheriff's Office and enters.

INT. SHERIFF'S OFFICE - DAY

PALADIN enters Sheriff's Office.  Sheriff, an older man, is sitting at his desk.

SHERIFF ROGERS: Howdy!

PALADIN: SHERIFF ROGERS?  My name's PALADIN.  Here's my card.

PALADIN hands Sheriff his card which he reads.

SHERIFF ROGERS: Gunfighter?

PALADIN: No.  I like to think I help people solve their problems.  I was hired by a woman from Windfall named POLLYANNA.  You know her?

SHERIFF ROGERS: Sure.

PALADIN: I believe she hired me under false pretenses.  To protect her boyfriend from a bully.  Turns out the boyfriend has a wife already and the bully is her husband.  Can you explain to me what's going on?

SHERIFF ROGERS laughs a little at what PALADIN said.

May 18

Elisha Cook, Jr., a character actor, appeared in more Film Noir (21) than any other actor or actress.  He died on May 18, 1995 at the age of ninety-one.

I think his most famous role was as Wilmer, a gunman working for the "Fat Man" in the 1941 classic, The Maltese Falcon.  He had many scenes opposite Humphrey Bogart's character.

In the 1952 psychological thriller, Don't Bother to Knock, Cook plays Eddie, an elevator operator who works in a hotel.  He introduces his niece Nell (played by Marilyn Monroe) to some hotel guests to be their child's babysitter.  

In the 1953 western film, Shane, Cook plays Torrey, a hot-tempered ex-Confederate homesteader.  He is taunted into drawing his gun by Wilson (a professional gunfighter played by Jack Palance), who then shoots Torrey dead.

Arthur O'Connell was another character actor.  He died on May 18, 1981 at the age of seventy-three.

In the 1955 romantic comedy-drama film, Picnic, he plays Howard the boyfriend of Rosemary (Rosalind Russell).  Howard also befriends Hal (William Holden).

Again in 1955, O'Connell portrays Gordon Walker, a Human Resources executive in the film The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.  He interviews the character played by Gregory Peck.

Anatomy of a Murder is a 1959 American legal drama film produced and directed by Otto Preminger.  O'Connell portrays Parnell, an assistant to the character portrayed by James Stewart.

Both Jim Brown and Ernie Davis, football stars at Syracuse University who wore the same number 44, died on May 18.  Brown died in 2023 at the age of eighty-seven, while Davis died in 1963 at the age of twenty-three.  I saw them both play football in person.     

  

Bowling

In the 1950s, the early days of television, bowling was a popular sport, both for participants and spectators.  I remember watching bowling on TV.

Don Carter was one several professional bowlers who competed in televised events.  Women bowlers were leaders in female sports in the post-WWII era.

One of the confusing aspects of bowling is its scoring.  One time as an adolescent, I asked my Uncle Sam Friedland (really a cousin by marriage) how it is scored.

He patiently explained: for a strike, ten points plus the pins on the next two balls; for a spare, ten points plus the pins on the next ball.  Today, scoring is automated.  No need for pencils.

When I was in Junior High School (Kingsford Park), I was the captain of a bowling team made up of Bob Thayer, Dick Cafelone, Bob Allison and one other whose name I cannot remember.  We were in first place going into the last week of competition.

The opponents of the second place team did not show up and forfeited their match.  Thus, the second place team would jump ahead of us pending the results of our final competition.

Before we bowled, I was offered a compromise: a playoff between the top two teams.  I accepted.  Turns out it was a bad choice.  We bowled so well that my team ended up in first place despite the forfeit. 

The playoff was on a Saturday morning.  Two games, total pins wins.  Our gym teacher, Mat Barkley (a classmate of my Aunt Frances), kept score.  We lost by one pin.  They got trophies, we got nothing.  

I walked home with Bob Thayer.  He cursed our bad luck all the way.

Years later my son Bret signed up to be on a bowling team in Mid-Queens Fresh Meadows.  As I recall, he was the smallest on his team, but he was the best.  I bought Bret his own bowling ball and we occasionally went to the lanes and bowled.

Crossing Delancey

 Crossing Delancey is a 1988 romantic comedy film starring Amy Irving (nominated for a Golden Globe), Peter Riegert, Reizl Bozyk, David Hyde-Pierce and Sylvia Miles.  The title uses Delancey Street in lower Manhattan as a symbol of a crossroads, both literally and figuratively, representing the protagonist's journey as she navigates between the Jewish world she was born into and the literary world she aspires to.

Crossing Delancey is a cinematic treat worth viewing, an enjoyable, crowd-pleasing romance involving Jewish characters. It contains a New York love triangle in which the heroine faces a choice between two very different men.  

Isabelle (Irving) works for a New York bookstore where she mingles with the city's literary elite, whom she idolizes. But outside of work she is lonely and unfulfilled. When Dutch-American author Anton (Hyde-Pierce) comes to the bookstore to give a reading, he shows an interest in Isabelle, who is charmed.

Isabelle pays frequent visits to her Yiddish-speaking Bubbe (grandmother), Ida (Bozyk - a Yiddish theater stage actress in her only movie role), who lives in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Anxious for her granddaughter to settle down with a decent Jewish man, Ida hires a marriage broker (Miles). 

Although enraged, Isabelle grudgingly allows the matchmaker to introduce her in Bubbe’s kitchen to Sam (Riegert).  At first Isabelle is dismissive of Sam, believing that the small business he owns, a street corner pickle stand, is too working class to provide the life she  wants. 

Instead, Isabelle sets her sights on Anton and the New York City intelligentsia.  She learns that Sam kept turning down the matchmaker because he was waiting for her to bring a photo of Isabelle.

Sam has quietly had a crush on Isabelle from afar for many years. "How do I talk to Isabelle?"  She is deeply touched.

One day at a store book reading, Sam shows up invited by Isabelle, as does Anton. Isabelle leaves with Sam, and later agrees to meet him the next day at her Bubbe’s apartment to go on a date.

After work the next day, however, she is sidelined by Anton and, believing that he is romantically interested in her, goes to his apartment. She discovers instead that the narcissistic Anton wants an assistant he can sleep with, not a real wife or girlfriend.

A disgusted Isabelle rejects him and races to her grandmother's apartment.  Will Sam still be there?  Will he give up waiting for her?  Or not?