Love the street scenes of american cities in the forties.You get a glimpse of 1946 Los Angeles.The Brown Derby is shown,among other sites.The talk is hep,and the composers house,was a vision of the future.I liked Raft's mother and the blonde who uttered,"do I look like I like girls"was a riot,she had grit.
Me too, I love seeing street scenes from the 40s, especially Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Manhattan, but also mid-western cities and towns. What I'd give for a time machine!
As for Myrna Dell as Susan Flanders, she's an absolute riot. Her lines just crack me up, as do some of Raft's lines, e.g., where he suggests to Lynn Bari that she should try out for the Green Bay Packers after she does a perfect "block" on a guy who wanted to kiss her after taking her home.
I would also go back,I think about the forties often.Loved the way they talked,wooden phone booths,juke boxes,classy dames,men in hats,etc.....
share... stylish sedans and convertibles, no seatbelts or cell phones, men standing up when a lady arrives or departs, men tipping their hat, bustling department stores, classic drugstores and soda fountains, non-franchised family-owned diners, civilized airport formalities and simple wire fences between terminal and tarmac, Pullman trains, social outings at the bowling alley, ...
shareYeah, I collect these old movies on DVD. It's very nostalgic for me to see the scenery, even if the plot or writing aren't great. You're so right: shots of L.A., S.F. and NYC in the '40s (or even the '50s) are beautiful. And even the location shots of midwestern cities like Chicago, Detroit, etc., are wonderful.
I grew up in the Twin Cities (St. Paul, MN) in the '50s, and I remember my grandfather's taking my brother and me down to the switching yards where we could still see huge steam locomotives at work. My grandfather wore a grey felt fedora on Sunday. Double Popsicles cost a nickel, and gas was about 20 cents a gallon. When I was little, we rode around in a curvy, streamlined '49 Plymouth, and I can still remember the smell of the cloth upholstery.
We used to get treated every so often at an A&W root beer stand (drive-in) or a drug store soda fountain; and occasionally we would go to drive-in movies. Downtown there were still a lot of Art Deco buildings. Some of the elevators had beautiful wood inlay, and they were operated by a human elevator operator instead of automatic pushbuttons.
It was also cool to see the Pantages Theater at 6233 Hollywood Blvd. - with the same huge neon sign over the marquee as it has today. It was owned by RKO at the time, and, of course, was shown showing two RKO films on the marquee, and another one on a "coming attraction" poster in the lobby.
I also like that time in history - '30s to '50s - when if you were going anywhere outside the house you wore a jacket and tie, and a hat. You held open doors for women, opened their car doors, stood up when a woman arrived or left the table - all out of courtesy and not some sort of sexism. Cars were huge back then, too - the metal in one of those could make two or three cars today. All that stuff. Love it.