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Prettiest Little Gas Station in the World!

posted 12 years ago by HarlowMGM
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How silly was that? Blacky's gas station out by the pumps looks like your typical little filler-er-up but then in longer shorts it actually looks like a lovely little house, apparently RKO didn't have a faux gas station set on the lot and just stuck these pumps outside of one of their house sets and thought nobody would care enough to notice it in the brief shots when the full building is shown!!

And then there's Blacky's home! He's supposed to be smalltime gas station owner with plans to move up but not financially secure enough to marry but he's got this quite beautiful little bungalow that is extraordinarily nice considering this is set in a small town during the depression! And it's so elegantly furnished (complete with a china hutch!) one almost has to wonder if perhaps he has other reasons for not wanting to get married although we do learn that Marge is largely responsible for the way the home looks even though she's little more than a guest there.

[–] WhoDo-YouDo 12 years ago

Those are great observations! You really know your films to be able to spot details like these.

I haven't seen "Chance at Heaven" for a long time but seem to recall its setting as eastern Massachusetts, the part which swings around the harbor to form that cape because Mrs. Franklin's servants need directions to the cape.

"Primrose Path," the other Joel and Ginger film was also supposedly set on the Massachusetts cape until RKO relocated it to the Hollywood area in order to film scenes there more readily and also to stock the cannery with Portuguese workers.

But now that you point out these details, I'll have to look again the next time that I see it because it does contain the flavor of a cute little country gasoline station and cute little country bungalow before Glory comes to town to derail Blacky and Margie's plans.

Is that sweet and charming Marge history's most loyal ex-fiancee? or what?

[–] jonkennedy 7 years ago

Actually that is how rural gas stations looked back then. And Blacky's station must have been around for quite a while because he has pre-1920s non-visible gas pumps that are powered by compressed air. They appear to be Bowsers and quite rare these days. Just do a Google image search for "early rural gas stations" and you'll see many such examples of the one like in this film.