Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Inkspots performing I’ll Get By.
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
She, Francine Lorraine Leclerc, Franny she to everybody in Old Saco, that is up in Maine, thank you, ever since she could remember, was in no hurry, a conscious no hurry, to get down to the War Ration Office to get her monthly sugar, flour, butter (really oleomargarine), and this and that before it closed on this first day of June, year two of our war, 1943. And the reason that Miss Leclerc was in no hurry was that hurry, or no hurry, she would have to wait in that seemingly endless line for half the afternoon for her goods, such as they were.
So moseying down the street around closing time was just as good as that eternal, infernal waiting, listening to Mrs. La Croix talking about how her Jimmy was saving the world single-handedly from the Japs, or, ditto, Mrs. Lévesque on her Jimmy on the European front. Secretly she wished that either, or both Jimmies, could do that herculean task but she knew, knew from her own Jimmy, Jimmy LeBlanc, in his every other day letters that there was no end to the war in sight. Even with everything rationed, or supposed to be.
But let us back up just a bit because there is more to Franny’s peevishness than meets the eye. See Franny was lonesome as hell, and she used that word without blushing to describe her condition to her shocked Jimmy’s Mrs. LeBlanc. Ya, she had the Jimmy (LeBlanc, reason for the last name usage to follow) blues bad for the almost year and a half that he had been gone. Naturally, no saving of the world Jimmy like a ton of LeBlancs and others with French surnames in town had enlisted about two days after Pearl Harbor just to do his “bit” as he said.
Here was Franny’s dilemma though. How was a pretty girl, very pretty if you asked half the breathing boys, hell, grown married men (and maybe some that didn’t breathe so good until a fresh breeze nineteen year old woman looking like Betty Grable and smelling, well, smelling of promises and gardens, edenic or not, came sashaying came pass on Main Street or on the boardwalk over at Old Orchard Beach) to stay true blue when she didn’t know if her boy was coming back, or if he would be wanting her to be waiting when he got back. She had heard stories from Papa Leclerc (her grandfather) about the last war and what it did to guys, guys who asked their girls to wait and then just took off when they hit New York and were never heard from after that. She knew her Jimmy though and when such thoughts passed her day she just keep thinking of their song, If I Didn’t Care.
Funny, she really hated the song, hated it from the very beginning before Jimmy left for boot camp and they decided they just needed a “their song” to keep up morale. Her morale. Truth is she didn’t want him to go, he had a good job down at MacAdams Textile Mill and if he had wanted to he could have been deferred as a war industry guy. But not Jimmy, Jimmy LeBlanc, and his need to do his “bit.” And truth too that is what she found, well, attractive about him although she still hated the song, hated it from the first. But she had promised Jimmy that when she got lonely, or tired, that she would play it. She did, hating it every time. And there were times she had to play it more than a properly waiting for her Jimmy girl should have had to.
And that is where the other Jimmies, LaCroix and Lévesque, came in. Saving the Pacific Rim or European civilization may have been their forte but neither boy (hell, they were only twenty) had enlisted right after Pearl but waited until they were drafted. And while they were patiently waiting they tried to steal, each in turn and separately, Miss Frances Leclerc’s affections away from Jimmy LaCroix. And both lads, given the times and the possibilities, used the same route to carry out their dastardly work. The Friday night dance night at the Surfside Club in Old Orchard Beach.
See Franny and Jimmy (Leblanc, just in case you drifted off) had agreed, or Jimmy had surrendered on the point, that bound to be lonely Franny, after a hard week’s work down at the Portsmouth Naval Yard (doing her own “bit” for the war effort) was entitled to let some steam off dancing the night away. Dancing to the be-bop music of the cover band, Jimmy Jacques and His Band, who played the Dorseys (Tommy and Jimmy), Artie Shaw, Glen Miller, and the rest of the big band gangs. Of course dancing in those days was cheek to cheek or close to it so naturally guys were lining up (and mainly getting turned down) to have a spin with Miss Leclerc (and that maddening sway perfume).
One late fall Friday night up stepped one James LaCroix, all handsome, a little drunk, and a little fresh but just enough fresh to spark the interest of a lonely pining away girl. Franny let him get to first base, but no further. That night she spent about half the left-over of the night playing If I Didn’t Care up in her room. And then one Friday night a couple of months later another handsome, eager, if somewhat shy Jimmy Lévesque got under her skin and took her for a whirl in his car (father’s car, complete with rationed gas) down to the lovers’ lane at Olde Saco Beach (down by the jetty all quiet and isolated except for an early lobster boat making ready for the day’s run) and got to second base with her, no further. She stopped counting the number of times she played “their song” that night and the next day.
So you can see why one Francine Lorraine Leclerc was in no rush, no rush at all, to get to that War Ration Office much before closing.
Showing posts with label growing up absurd in the 1940s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growing up absurd in the 1940s. Show all posts
Friday, June 29, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
***I’ll Get By-Love and Lose In WWII- “Until We Meet Again”- A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Inkspots performing I’ll Get By.
CD Review
Until We Meet Again: The Love Songs of World War II, various artists, Smithsonian Institute, 1993
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
My late mother (Delores, nee LeBlanc) from the French-Canadian sections of Olde Saco up in Maine was an inveterate letter-writer and letter saver. After she passed on I went up into the attic of our old tumble-down working class house on Atlantic Avenue to start the long process of sorting out her “legacy.” What I discovered was that not only did she save her own received letters but those of her family, her brothers and sisters mostly. One written by her sister, Nina, from World War II three-cent stamped and all shook me up for days. Here it is and in it is the essence of what the CD mentioned above is all about.
********
December 13, 1942
Hi Jimmy,
I hope this letter gets to you okay and that you are in good health and good spirits. We haven’t heard much recently about Guadalcanal so we are taking that as a good sign that things have settled down and you can rest. Even my father, my straight arrow Army World War I father, says you guys are doing a hell of job mopping up the Japs out there. Sorry for the swear but, you know Dad, that’ how he speaks when he talks about stuff like that. I guess that means that you are okay and that he has gotten over the fact that you chose to go into the Marines instead of waiting, like a lot of guys, a lot of guys like Jimmy LaCroix, Delores’ beau, to be inducted into the Army. I am proud of you and hope your every waking thought (and dreams too) are of me. Well, except when you are shooting or doing Marine stuff.
Jimmy, every time I listen to the radio and hear I Don’t Want To Walk Without You I get a little teary and think of that last night we had together before you shipped out. Oh, I am not crying about what we did and why I let you go as far as you did. No that only brings me closer to you. What I am teary about is that you had to go away right away and I didn’t get a chance to tell you it was okay. That I was your girl forever now whatever happens. The same thing happens when I hear your old favorite song We’ll Meet Again. Remember when we fought half the night a couple of week s before you left about whether that song or I’ll Never Smile Again was the cat’s meow. And then I Don’t Want To Walk Without You won in the end. Funny, hah.
Say, I had been feeling a little funny lately, a little sick, not much nothing to worry about but I feel better today because I am writing you. Gee, I wish you were here and we could go somewhere and dance, and do you know what. I wouldn’t let you down. Well, that’s about it for tonight because my pen is running out of ink.
Always your girl- Nina
********
P.S. The envelope that contained this letter bore the makings- Return To Sender-Deceased stamped across the front. Jimmy Dubois had been killed under a hail of enemy fire while trying to rescue a buddy on hellhole Guadalcanal on December 10, 1942. RIP-Jimmy Dubois-JLB
CD Review
Until We Meet Again: The Love Songs of World War II, various artists, Smithsonian Institute, 1993
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
My late mother (Delores, nee LeBlanc) from the French-Canadian sections of Olde Saco up in Maine was an inveterate letter-writer and letter saver. After she passed on I went up into the attic of our old tumble-down working class house on Atlantic Avenue to start the long process of sorting out her “legacy.” What I discovered was that not only did she save her own received letters but those of her family, her brothers and sisters mostly. One written by her sister, Nina, from World War II three-cent stamped and all shook me up for days. Here it is and in it is the essence of what the CD mentioned above is all about.
********
December 13, 1942
Hi Jimmy,
I hope this letter gets to you okay and that you are in good health and good spirits. We haven’t heard much recently about Guadalcanal so we are taking that as a good sign that things have settled down and you can rest. Even my father, my straight arrow Army World War I father, says you guys are doing a hell of job mopping up the Japs out there. Sorry for the swear but, you know Dad, that’ how he speaks when he talks about stuff like that. I guess that means that you are okay and that he has gotten over the fact that you chose to go into the Marines instead of waiting, like a lot of guys, a lot of guys like Jimmy LaCroix, Delores’ beau, to be inducted into the Army. I am proud of you and hope your every waking thought (and dreams too) are of me. Well, except when you are shooting or doing Marine stuff.
Jimmy, every time I listen to the radio and hear I Don’t Want To Walk Without You I get a little teary and think of that last night we had together before you shipped out. Oh, I am not crying about what we did and why I let you go as far as you did. No that only brings me closer to you. What I am teary about is that you had to go away right away and I didn’t get a chance to tell you it was okay. That I was your girl forever now whatever happens. The same thing happens when I hear your old favorite song We’ll Meet Again. Remember when we fought half the night a couple of week s before you left about whether that song or I’ll Never Smile Again was the cat’s meow. And then I Don’t Want To Walk Without You won in the end. Funny, hah.
Say, I had been feeling a little funny lately, a little sick, not much nothing to worry about but I feel better today because I am writing you. Gee, I wish you were here and we could go somewhere and dance, and do you know what. I wouldn’t let you down. Well, that’s about it for tonight because my pen is running out of ink.
Always your girl- Nina
********
P.S. The envelope that contained this letter bore the makings- Return To Sender-Deceased stamped across the front. Jimmy Dubois had been killed under a hail of enemy fire while trying to rescue a buddy on hellhole Guadalcanal on December 10, 1942. RIP-Jimmy Dubois-JLB
Friday, October 7, 2011
***Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- Robert Mitchum Watch Out For Fetching Femmes Fatales, Will You- "His Kind Of Woman"- A Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the comedic crime noir,His Kind Of Woman.
DVD Review
His Kind Of Woman, starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Raymond Burr, Vincent Price, produced by Howard Hughes, RKO Pictures, 1951
Just when you think a guy, in this case a Robert Mitchum 1950s crime noir movie actor guy, hasn’t got enough sense to come in out of the rain when some vampish femme fatale displays her charms he finally gets some sense, a little anyway. Previously I had the following to say about Brother Mitchum in a review of Angel Face (co-starring young femme fatale Jean Simmons):
Some guys never learn, never learn to leave well enough alone, and stay away, far away from femme fatales that have that slightly mad look in their eyes and lust in their hearts, as here in the Otto Preminger-directed crime noir, Angel Face, with Robert Mitchum. See, it is not like Brother Robert hadn’t been down that road before and had all the trouble he could handle and then some with femme fatale Jane Greer in Out Of The Past. Ms. Greer “took him for a ride” six ways to Sunday in that one. But you know when a guy gets heated up by a dame, well, let’s just leave it at you know, okay. Needless to say Brother Robert is set to get “taken for a ride” six ways to Sunday here too, although the femme fatale here is a little younger, and maybe has better manners than Ms. Greer. Maybe. But that all goes for naught when the heat rises. Yes, we guys (and maybe gals too) know, we know, nature.”
And a summary of the plot in the comedic crime noir under review here, His Kind Of Woman, will tell the tale of why I qualified that wising up a little part. Mitchum plays a profession gambler a little off his game, about six aces up the sleeve worth, and so, as anybody is that situation might do, he listens to any proposition that will get him out from under. In this case a proposition about changing his identity for a wad of dough from a deported gangster (played by a non-lawyerly, a very non-lawyerly, Raymond Burr), looking to get back in the old U.S. of A. so he can get his usual infusion of illegal dough. Now this is something that Mitchum might have passed on in sunnier times. But times are hard and suckers are not as plentiful to rope in when you don’t have dough, or a way to get it.
Of course the action here, due to Burr’s, ah, immigration problems, has to take place in, well, sunny Mexico (this is stage-door Mexico before the ax fell down there and crime, and criminals got nastier, very much nastier than that of the criminal skills displayed here) at a tropical seaside resort (naturally). And here is where the dame comes in, also naturally. A sweet-singing down-on-her-heels night club singer (maybe) posing as an heiress, played by Jane Russell (producer Howard Hughes’ paramour at the time), is working her own angles for dough in the person of a vacationing ham, strictly B-movie actor, played by Vincent Price. But when broad-shouldered, bedroom eyes, world-wary Mitchum shows up she is, he is, well, they are smitten (after a little cat and mouse game, as expected). When Mitchum, after putting together some acute observations (putting two and two together, okay) about the set-up, fully realized that he is to be the fall guy and may not get to spend that promised wad of dough everything goes awry. But get this- when things get hairy Ms. Russell, instead of throwing him to the wolves like some of his past companions, actually tries to help him (trying to provide a gat in the bargain). A lot.
Now Robert this is a woman to hang onto, and she looks, well, fetching in a bathing suit in the bargain. Speaking of which, while he is trying to bring a little justice in this old wicked old world Mitchum shows plenty of beefcake for the ladies, the 1950s ladies I would guess. Plenty of comic moments here, some corny some clever but the main thing is that Brother Mitchum does not have to keep looking over his shoulder every time he kisses Ms. Russell like with some of that earlier female company he kept. Whee!
Note: Naturally with a hunky guy like Robert Mitchum, he of the broad shoulders to fend off the world’s troubles, or at least any women’s troubles, those smoldering eyes, and that glib world-wary cigarette and whiskey manner, the ladies will surely be flocking to his door. Sorry, in this one heart-of- gold faux gold-digger Russell has him slated as exclusive property. And Mitchum tries, tries like hell, for once to stay in that orbit, unlike in the past, where he let those maddened femme fatale eyes and ruby red lips that speak to some dark adventure get the best of him. Progress, definitely progress, Brother Mitchum.
DVD Review
His Kind Of Woman, starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Raymond Burr, Vincent Price, produced by Howard Hughes, RKO Pictures, 1951
Just when you think a guy, in this case a Robert Mitchum 1950s crime noir movie actor guy, hasn’t got enough sense to come in out of the rain when some vampish femme fatale displays her charms he finally gets some sense, a little anyway. Previously I had the following to say about Brother Mitchum in a review of Angel Face (co-starring young femme fatale Jean Simmons):
Some guys never learn, never learn to leave well enough alone, and stay away, far away from femme fatales that have that slightly mad look in their eyes and lust in their hearts, as here in the Otto Preminger-directed crime noir, Angel Face, with Robert Mitchum. See, it is not like Brother Robert hadn’t been down that road before and had all the trouble he could handle and then some with femme fatale Jane Greer in Out Of The Past. Ms. Greer “took him for a ride” six ways to Sunday in that one. But you know when a guy gets heated up by a dame, well, let’s just leave it at you know, okay. Needless to say Brother Robert is set to get “taken for a ride” six ways to Sunday here too, although the femme fatale here is a little younger, and maybe has better manners than Ms. Greer. Maybe. But that all goes for naught when the heat rises. Yes, we guys (and maybe gals too) know, we know, nature.”
And a summary of the plot in the comedic crime noir under review here, His Kind Of Woman, will tell the tale of why I qualified that wising up a little part. Mitchum plays a profession gambler a little off his game, about six aces up the sleeve worth, and so, as anybody is that situation might do, he listens to any proposition that will get him out from under. In this case a proposition about changing his identity for a wad of dough from a deported gangster (played by a non-lawyerly, a very non-lawyerly, Raymond Burr), looking to get back in the old U.S. of A. so he can get his usual infusion of illegal dough. Now this is something that Mitchum might have passed on in sunnier times. But times are hard and suckers are not as plentiful to rope in when you don’t have dough, or a way to get it.
Of course the action here, due to Burr’s, ah, immigration problems, has to take place in, well, sunny Mexico (this is stage-door Mexico before the ax fell down there and crime, and criminals got nastier, very much nastier than that of the criminal skills displayed here) at a tropical seaside resort (naturally). And here is where the dame comes in, also naturally. A sweet-singing down-on-her-heels night club singer (maybe) posing as an heiress, played by Jane Russell (producer Howard Hughes’ paramour at the time), is working her own angles for dough in the person of a vacationing ham, strictly B-movie actor, played by Vincent Price. But when broad-shouldered, bedroom eyes, world-wary Mitchum shows up she is, he is, well, they are smitten (after a little cat and mouse game, as expected). When Mitchum, after putting together some acute observations (putting two and two together, okay) about the set-up, fully realized that he is to be the fall guy and may not get to spend that promised wad of dough everything goes awry. But get this- when things get hairy Ms. Russell, instead of throwing him to the wolves like some of his past companions, actually tries to help him (trying to provide a gat in the bargain). A lot.
Now Robert this is a woman to hang onto, and she looks, well, fetching in a bathing suit in the bargain. Speaking of which, while he is trying to bring a little justice in this old wicked old world Mitchum shows plenty of beefcake for the ladies, the 1950s ladies I would guess. Plenty of comic moments here, some corny some clever but the main thing is that Brother Mitchum does not have to keep looking over his shoulder every time he kisses Ms. Russell like with some of that earlier female company he kept. Whee!
Note: Naturally with a hunky guy like Robert Mitchum, he of the broad shoulders to fend off the world’s troubles, or at least any women’s troubles, those smoldering eyes, and that glib world-wary cigarette and whiskey manner, the ladies will surely be flocking to his door. Sorry, in this one heart-of- gold faux gold-digger Russell has him slated as exclusive property. And Mitchum tries, tries like hell, for once to stay in that orbit, unlike in the past, where he let those maddened femme fatale eyes and ruby red lips that speak to some dark adventure get the best of him. Progress, definitely progress, Brother Mitchum.
Monday, August 29, 2011
***Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake’s “This Gun For Hire”-A Film Review
***Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake’s “This Gun For Hire”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for This Gun For Hire.
DVD Review
This Gun For Hire, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, based on a novel by Graham Greene, Paramount Pictures, 1942
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1942, This Gun For Hire, offers parts of both. The plot line maybe less so, although because it is set in World War II America and indirectly part of the fight to defeat the nefarious (in this case Japanese) enemy it has a certain intrigue factor. As for femme fatale energy, or rather quasi-femme fatale energy, although I have always considered Veronica Lake (and her classic air over her eye look) fetching here she is a cross between that type and the girl next door.
As for the plot. Alan Ladd, a gun for hire to the highest bidder does his job as expected and is paid off for doing so. Unfortunately those that hired Ladd to silence an employee of a chemical company whose president was ready to sell poison gas to the highest bidder (Japan)were not on the level. They tried, might and main, to set Brother Ladd up as the fall guy. But one does not get to be, or rather one does not survive in the hired gun business, by being a chump for some nefarious scheme. Needless to say the plot is partially driven by his well-earned revenge.
However, a second plot line is brought in by Ms. Lake. America was at war and selling poison gas to the highest bidder, Japan, was, well, not right so she is “hired” to get the goods on the chemical operation through a weak-link, one of the company executives. Naturally in the course of these two plots unwinding the Ladd-Lake combination is brought to a boil, well, almost a boil. Through twists and turns the pair get the bad guys, although Ladd as a bad guy himself, or maybe just misunderstood, has to take a bullet for the cause because as we all know- “crime, especially murder, does not pay.” Not as good a pairing of Ladd and Lake as in The Glass Key but okay. But you can see what I mean about this one being sort of a semi-classic noir, right?
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for This Gun For Hire.
DVD Review
This Gun For Hire, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, based on a novel by Graham Greene, Paramount Pictures, 1942
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1942, This Gun For Hire, offers parts of both. The plot line maybe less so, although because it is set in World War II America and indirectly part of the fight to defeat the nefarious (in this case Japanese) enemy it has a certain intrigue factor. As for femme fatale energy, or rather quasi-femme fatale energy, although I have always considered Veronica Lake (and her classic air over her eye look) fetching here she is a cross between that type and the girl next door.
As for the plot. Alan Ladd, a gun for hire to the highest bidder does his job as expected and is paid off for doing so. Unfortunately those that hired Ladd to silence an employee of a chemical company whose president was ready to sell poison gas to the highest bidder (Japan)were not on the level. They tried, might and main, to set Brother Ladd up as the fall guy. But one does not get to be, or rather one does not survive in the hired gun business, by being a chump for some nefarious scheme. Needless to say the plot is partially driven by his well-earned revenge.
However, a second plot line is brought in by Ms. Lake. America was at war and selling poison gas to the highest bidder, Japan, was, well, not right so she is “hired” to get the goods on the chemical operation through a weak-link, one of the company executives. Naturally in the course of these two plots unwinding the Ladd-Lake combination is brought to a boil, well, almost a boil. Through twists and turns the pair get the bad guys, although Ladd as a bad guy himself, or maybe just misunderstood, has to take a bullet for the cause because as we all know- “crime, especially murder, does not pay.” Not as good a pairing of Ladd and Lake as in The Glass Key but okay. But you can see what I mean about this one being sort of a semi-classic noir, right?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)