Joseph Cotten's Lincoln
The character played by Joseph Cotten drove a Lincoln convertible with taillights that looked like they belonged on a '56 Cadillac. Does anyone know if this was a standard model or was it customized?
shareI noticed that too. We only saw the car at night so it's harder to tell, but it doesn't look like any model of Lincoln from that year (1954) I ever saw. The best look at the tail lights came when Cotten parked in his garage (and was confronted by his brother). I paused the film at that point to get a better look. There is a pop-up shape which is remeniscent of the Cadillacs of that era, but not quite. They don't look like they came from any other kind of car (a common practice of customizers in those days), so I'm thinking this may have been some obscure styling exercise by Lincoln...but I don't remember seeing this one.
Speaking of non-stock cars...the door windows on Mercedes 300SLs do not open (I mean the main window not the vent window). The film makers obviously took it out so the lady could converse with Joseph Cotten when they met by the river early in the movie. And did you notice that the position of her arm on/off the steering wheel changed from one camera shot to the other?
Ciao, e buon auguri
I kind of doubt they'd go to the trouble of customizing a car for a few scenes in this film, to no real purpose. I'll have to look again when I next see the movie -- it's being repeated on FMC Tuesday, Dec. 2 '08, at 10:30 AM EST. But though I didn't pay it much attention, I assumed this was just a top-of-the-line brand new 1956 (or maybe '55) Lincoln.
My bigger automotive concern about this movie is having all those drunks loose and out driving around the valley -- and during the rainy season at that.
That Mercedes 300 was quite a showy job for a rancher's wife in southern Arizona in 1956. Paging Robert Delorean!
Happy Thanksgiving, jeffthinx!
Hey hob, how ya doin'? Nice to hear from you.
I would have thought that a movie made in 1956 would have had a lead actor driving a brand new car. That was pretty common in those days. But that looks to me like a 1954 model. Note the windshield doesn't have the wrap-around shape which Ford products had beginning in 1955. I agree, the studio would probably not customize a car and then give it so little screen time. I can only assume that it is a one-off factory prototype or something. And yes, a 300SL is pretty flashy for a rancher's wife...not to mention pretty impractical.
As for the drinking and driving...just another example of how times have changed.
Happy holidays to you and yours,
Ciao, e buon auguri
That was another reason I figured it for a '56 -- that the leads in a movie usually drove brand new cars in the 50s, regardless of their income bracket! But I'll check it out next week when it's on again. Too bad my uncle in AZ doesn't get FMC -- he'd identify the car in a nano-second. Complete car zealot, a la Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny.
When I saw the title of this thread, I at first thought it had something to do with Joseph Cotten playing Abraham Lincoln! (As in, "Carl Sandburg's Lincoln".) One of my denser days.
Thank you for your reciprocal holiday wishes! Hope to talk again soon.
Hey jeff --
I just watched the beginning of TBOTB again to catch that Lincoln, and I think you may be right -- it looks like a '54. I suppose it could be a '55, but by 1956 they'd begun putting incipient fins on the car and I wouldn't call P.M.'s car's tail an incipient fin look. Also, the front looks a lot like a 1954 Ford's and I doubt that they'd use a retro-front style from a mere Ford for a 1955 or '56 Lincoln!
One day I'll run it for my uncle the car expert and get his opinion. As I wrote he doesn't get FMC but I recorded the movie and can show it to him next time he's in NY -- which, unfortunately, likely won't be until late next summer. Well, we've waited since 1956, I suppose another eight months doesn't matter.
By the way, a little while after P.M. fords [sic] the swelling Santa Cruz river in his Lincoln, when he's talking to his brother in the kitchen and explains why he can't drive him into Mexico now, he says that the river must be 6 or 7 feet deep by now, and with a current strong enough to carry off a tank. Wow -- they sure built those Lincolns tough in those days. But driving across a flooding river...talk about the need for an automotive bail-out!
I can just imagine that when it came to the fording-the-river scene, the folks at Ford may have thought "Ah! a great chance to make our big Lincoln look good...maybe we could show a Chevy truck stuck in the middle or the river..."
Now that I think of it, I didn't pay attention to the brand of the pick-up stuck in the water.
The '56 Lincoln was actually a fairly nice looking car. Then in '57 they stapled on those ridiculous fins...a production variation of the Lincoln Futura show car which also spawned the Bat Mobile.
I have been a Lincoln lover and collector for many years (mostly '60s vintage with the suicide doors) and I subscribe to a number of collector car magazines which is why I'm a little surprised that I hadn't run across Joseph Cotten's Lincoln from that movie somewhere along the line. Well, someday I'll probably stumble on the story of that car. I'll get back to you...
My gosh, if you're that much of a Lincoln fan/expert, then I'd assume you're right and it's a '54. Remember how at the very beginning Cotten tells the border cop that he hopes it'll rain because the cattle need it (or something)? Maybe that explains why he isn't driving a spanking new '56 -- the drought has left him cash-strapped and he's been forced to hold onto his decrepit two-year-old model. If he indulged in a new car now, he'd have to give up on the booze...and as we see in the movie, God forbid anyone do that!
See you later...
Well, yeah...let's keep our priorities straight. I have a '79 town car which is less nice than the others...license plate says "RAIN CAR" cuz I don't take the others out in bad weather. I guess Cotten's plate could have said "FORD CAR"...(get it, ford car?)...if they'd had vanity plates in those days.
Ciao
True, true...of course, if old P.M. (Joseph C.) wanted to be really inconspicuous in that crowd, he could sport a vanity plate saying something like I2BOOZE, then stash his bro in the trunk and shove the Linc into the river. If it's built like a tank, "Eric" should have no problem. If the car sinks and he drowns, Joe not only gets a new '56 with the insurance but the "Dead or Alive" reward money as well.
Or...to help him escape, he could put his brother in the back of a van. It's just that the irony would be so irresistible.
Oh!...that would have been painful for me...to see that car sent to a watery grave. To hell with the bro in the trunk. I always cringe when they destroy old cars in films.
Well, I think we are having more fun at this film's expense than it's worth.
Ciao, e buon auguri
Yeah, I know what you mean -- about the fate of so many great cars (especially from the 50s), and that this film may not be worth all this discussion. (Perish the thought.) And just when I came up with a new abbreviation for it: BottBott. Can't imagine why I didn't think of that before. But I hope to see you here and elsewhere around the sites soon again, my friend. And we'll nail this model down!
hob
Thanx hob,
Always a pleasure to bump into you again. I'll let you know when I find out the story on this car.
Ciao,
Jeff