Chinatown

 Chinatown is a 1974 mystery film written by Robert Towne, directed by Roman Polanski and which starred Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston and Joe Mantell.  

Chinatown was nominated for 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture (won by The Godfather, Part II), Best Director (won by Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather, Part II), Best Actor (Nicholson, won by Art Carney for Harry and Tonto) and Best Actress (Dunaway, won by Ellen Burstyn for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore).   Towne won the film's only Academy Award: for Best Original Screenplay.

In the film Chinatown, a woman in 1937 Los Angeles hires private investigator Jake Gittes (Nicholson) to follow her husband, the chief engineer for the local Water and Power, fearing he's having an affair.  Gittes takes photos of him with a young woman which appear in the next day's newspapers.

Turns out the woman who hired Gittes was an imposter.  The chief engineer's wife, Evelyn (Dunaway), threatens Gittes with a lawsuit.  

Gittes:  You don't have to get tough with me.

Evelyn:  I don't get tough with anyone, Mr. Gittes...my lawyer does.

Later, the chief engineer dies under mysterious circumstances.  Evelyn hires Gittes to investigate what happened to her husband.  He learns that Evelyn's father (Huston), a wealthy and dangerous man, was once a business partner of her husband's.  

Gittes and Evelyn enter into a sexual relationship.  Later, he follows her to a house where he sees Evelyn with the young woman Evelyn's husband was seen with at the beginning of the film.  Gittes demands answers.  

Evelyn: She's my daughter.  

Gittes (slapping her):  I said I want the truth.  

Evelyn:  She's my sister.  She's my daughter.  She's my sister and my daughter.

The police discover the chief engineer was murdered and believe Evelyn the murderer.  Gittes knows it was not her, but her father and tries to protect her from both her father and the police.

In the end, in the Chinatown section of LA, Evelyn attempts to escape with her sister/daughter, but the police kill her.  Gittes is angered, but one of his associates (Mantell) gives the finale a classic line:

Forget it, Jake.  It's Chinatown.

Nineteen years earlier, Mantell (Ang) delivered other memorable lines with Ernest Borgnine (Marty) in the film, Marty:

Ang:  What do you feel like doin' tonight?

Marty:  I don't know, Ang, what do you feel like doin'?

      

High School, Chapter 12

 It's just after Labor Day and the first day of high school has finally arrived.

I just woke up from a deep sleep.  

Wow!  

I had the greatest dream ever.

Can it come true?

In the past year, I was intimidated by girls.

I was afraid to initiate conversation with them.  

Why?

They might laugh at me.

I'd be humiliated.

Can I overcome that fear?

When you walk through a storm,

Hold your head up high,

And don't be afraid of the dark, 

At the end of a storm,

there's a golden sky,

and the sweet silver song of a lark,

walk on through the wind, 

walk on through the rain, 

though your dreams be tossed and blown,

walk on, walk on,

with hope in your heart and you'll...

The End.

  

Irvine Auditorium

Irvine Auditorium is located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia at the corner of 34th and Spruce Streets.  Construction was completed in 1932.  

I was there one memorable weekend evening in November 1963 for a concert with two performers.  The first was a Black stand-up comedian, Godfrey Cambridge.  The second, a Black vocalist, Dionne Warwick.  Were the choices a little unusual since the audience, 1,260 Penn students, was almost 100% white?  It was 57 years ago, but I remember.

Godfrey Cambridge at the time was thirty years old.  Two years later, Time Magazine described him as "one of the country's foremost celebrated Negro comedians."  Godfrey was indeed funny that night.

 Godfrey was born in New York City to parents who had emigrated from what is now known as Guyana.  After graduating from high school, he attended medical school for three years before deciding to become an actor.  In 1962, Godfrey received a Tony Award nomination for his performance in the play, Purlie Victorious.

"In addition to acting, Cambridge had major success as a stand-up comedian.  By 1965, he was earning as much as $4,000 a week...in all respects a headliner, working the best places.  His routines were imbued with biting sarcasm and topical humor.  

Sadly, Godfrey died of a heart attack at age 43 while filming a TV movie in which he was portraying the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

Dionne Warwick was not yet twenty-three years old that night in 1963, but seemed so mature, appearing before a large audience.  She had been discovered the previous year by the composer, Burt Bacharach, and the lyricist, Hal David.  

Dionne's first single, "Don't Make Me Over," was released in November 1962 and rose to number 21 on the Pop Chart.  I'm sure she sang it that night at Irvine Auditorium.  I've been a fan of Dionne's ever since.  

Dionne went on to become a big star.  Some of her other top songs over her long career are That's What Friends Are For, I Say a Little Prayer, Do You Know The Way To San Jose, I'll Never Love This Way Again, Walk On By, Alfie and How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye.

Dionne Warwick celebrated her eightieth birthday eight days ago on December 12th.     

      

Mary Todd

 Mary Todd was born December 13, 1818 (202 years ago today) in Lexington, Kentucky, the fourth of seven children.  Her father was a wealthy banker, who owned slaves who worked in their fourteen room house.

At school, Mary studied French, literature, dance, drama and music.  After graduating in 1839, she moved to Springfield, Illinois to live with her married sister, Elizabeth Edwards.

That same year, Mary met a tall, prominent, but poor lawyer named Abraham Lincoln.  After an on again, off again, on again relationship, they married November 4, 1842 at her sister's home.  The marriage lasted more than twenty-two years and produced four sons.  

My mother, Margaret (Karch) Lasky, also produced four sons: Joel, Paul, Ted and me.

Mary's eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln, born in 1843, was a lawyer, businessman, US Secretary of War in President James Garfield's Administration and an Ambassador to the Court of St. James, appointed by President Benjamin Harrison.  He died in his sleep in 1926 just shy of his 83rd birthday.

Mary's second son, Edward Baker Lincoln, was born in 1846, but died four years later of tuberculosis.

The third was William Wallace Lincoln.  He was born in 1850 and died 1862 of typhoid fever while living at the White House while his father was president.

Mary's youngest child was Thomas (Tad) Lincoln who was born in 1853.  He died at 18 years of age from an undetermined cause.

After Mary was widowed in 1865, she returned to live with her family in Illinois.  In 1875, Robert Todd Lincoln had his mother institutionalized because of her erratic behavior.  Mary was later released into the custody of her sister.  

Mary then moved to Pau, France for four years.  Afterwards, she moved back to her sister's home in Springfield, Illinois where she died of a stroke in 1882 at the age of 63.      

Charade

The dictionary defines charade as "an absurd pretense intended to create a pleasant or respectable appearance."

There is a connection between the above definition and the 1963 romantic mystery film Charade, produced and directed by Stanley Donen, written by Peter Stone and which starred Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn and George Kennedy.  

Henry Mancini's original song (Charade) was nominated for an Academy Award  (won by James Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn for Call Me Irresponsible in Papa's Delicate Condition).

What a cast!  Hepburn (Roman Holiday), Matthau (The Fortune Cookie), Coburn (Affliction) and Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke) are all Academy Award winners.  Grant (a two-time Academy Award nominee) received an honorary Academy Award "for his sheer brilliance in the acting business," according to his presenter, Frank Sinatra. 

Filmed on location in Paris, Charade tells the story of five former American soldiers who stole a quarter of a million dollars ($2,100,000 today) from the U.S. government during WWII and twenty years later try to retrieve it from a hiding place, each for themselves.  One of them, Charles, is found dead at the beginning of the film.  He had the money, but hid it from the others.  But where?  That is one of the film's mysteries.  

Three of the remaining four ex-G.I.s, Herman (Kennedy), Leopold (Ned Glass) and Tex (Coburn) are desperate to find the stolen loot, but are murdered, by whom?  A CIA administrator (Matthau) and a mystery man (Grant) are also looking for the money.  And they all believe Charles's widow (Hepburn) knows where it is, but she claims ignorance.

At the film's climax, the CIA administrator is really one of the original group of thieves (Dyle) who murdered the other four.  The mystery man is really an American government official (Brian) whose job it is to find stolen U.S. government property.  

Caught between the above two (Dyle and Brian), the widow doesn't know whom to believe.  Finally, she correctly trusts her romantic instincts to believe Brian, who saves her from the murderer (and later asks her to marry him).

And where is the money?  In plain sight.  On a plain ordinary envelope addressed by Charles to his wife are three rare postage stamps worth a quarter of a million dollars.  

   

     

High School, Chapter 11

 It's Saturday morning and I'm in a great mood.  Who wouldn't be after Ann's party last night?  And the kiss.  Maybe I should call her.

The phone rings.  Could it be Ann?  Unbelievable!

"Bennie?"

"Yeah."

"It's Beulah.  How are ya?"

I'm surprised.  I wasn't expecting this.  

"Fine.  What's goin' on?"

I hear giggling in the background.

"Look, Alexandra and Carla are here and we're gonna make some chocolate cakes for a bake sale at the church.  Wanna come and help?"

Wow!  Chocolate cakes and girls!  I can't miss this.

"Sure.  I'll be right over."

More giggling in the background.

After I arrive, they put an apron on me and I'm put to work.  Together we bake three big chocolate cakes with plenty of chocolate frosting.  We eat and lick some of the leftovers.  There's a lot of giggling goin' on.

I woke up this morning, 

I had to laugh 

  

Lucky

One of the old black-and-white movies I saw on TV in my youth was the 1943 Cary Grant romance, Mr. Lucky, in which he portrayed a professional gambler.  From early in my life, I have considered myself lucky as well.

Want some examples?  In December 1952, I had a very bad infection in my right knee and penicillin (see post) saved my life.  A mere eleven years earlier, penicillin wasn't available.  Nothing could have saved me.  I was lucky.

In 1954, I was a Polio Pioneer.  I was in the age group where the experimental Salk vaccine was injected into thousands of guinea pig children.  Not only did the vaccine work, but I was lucky I was not in the placebo group.

In the summer of 1955, my mother and I visited the New York State Fair in Syracuse.  At one exhibit I put my name on a paper for a chance to win a bust of Christopher Columbus.  I was lucky the first name drawn wasn't present.  Mine was second and I took home the bust.  Where is that bust?

In April 1963, I was one of three males participating in a dance contest at a night club at the Doral Beach Hotel in Miami Beach (The Greatest).  I did the twist and was lucky enough to be chosen the winner.  I still have the picture of me with the trophy, but not the trophy.  Where is it?

In October 1969, I was lucky to win a ticket to the third game of the World Series (see post) between the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles.  There were two tickets and three wanted one.  We drew straws and my luck came through again.  

But my biggest piece of luck came in 1978.  My ex-wife Bonita and I decided to buy a brand new Toyota Corolla station wagon.  

I financed the purchase of the car at a branch of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company across the street from my office at 375 Park Avenue in Manhattan.  The bank's loan officer told me I would receive a coupon book I would use when making the monthly payments.

Shortly thereafter, Bonita's mother died and she flew to Michigan with our daughter Rachel for the funeral.  Days later, I picked up our new car and drove by myself the 600 mile trip to join them.

Thirty days after taking out the car loan I had not yet received the coupon book.  I went to the bank to see the loan officer, ready to make my first payment.  She told me it was not possible to do it without a coupon.  I should be patient.

Sixty days after taking out the car loan I had not yet received the coupon book.  I went back to the bank.  The loan officer reiterated that I should patiently wait for the coupon book to arrive, which "it inevitably would."  She told me it was "not necessary to come back" to the bank until the coupon book arrived.  

The coupon book never arrived.  I never returned to the bank.  Years later, with the car I never paid for falling apart, I junked it.  In 1992, Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company was acquired by Chemical Bank (now known as JPMorgan Chase Bank), ceasing to exist.  Again, I was lucky, very lucky.  And I think, at 75 years of age, I still am.