Thursday, April 14, 2011

bumpy night

"Put on your seatbelt, it's going to be a bumpy ride"
was inscribed, in magic marker, on a locker where I work.
When I noticed this, several years back when I started, I was surprised, and sort of -- transported -- because it seemed to be an homage to a memorable scene in film "All About Eve" where Bette Davis answers the question
-- "The atmosphere in here is very Macbeth-ish; is whatever it is over, or just beginning?"
thusly:
(strides across to some stairs, up several steps, turns around)--
"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night!"

I brought in DVD of "All About" once, and showed that brief scene -- about a minute :10, to the people who use the work-shop where the locker is, so they could enjoy knowing where the phrase came from.
(I sat at home early on a Saturday morning, on floor in front of TV, with remotes, and clock, and paper & pen, intently forwarding, skipping, playing, timing -- so that I could show it to them and they could enjoy it for just a minute, during their break. I became really wrapped up in finding just exactly the right place to start it and stop it to maximize impact and -- well -- how Good it would be.

I think, if there was a Career doing that -- picking scenes from movies to show -- I would be Good At It.)

Their supervisor seemed bemused. Another day, I attempted to put him at ease by telling him, "You don't have to worry -- I would never bring a DVD to work and play a scene, or part that would be -- considered inappropriate by anybody."
"But -- those are the only parts we want to see!" he growled.
------------------------------------

The "Fasten your seatbelts" moment is very famous.
Less well-known but also delicious, I think, is an interchange which is part of the same cocktail-party Scene (or -- Sequence??) -- Marilyn Monroe played a small part -- it was beginning of her career, (1950) she was not yet a Big Star -- she is Miss Casswell, "a graduate of the Copacabana School of dramatic arts" [show-girl or what-have-you]...you can feel for her when she is introduced with the above phrase by her date for the evening, "Addison DeWitt" (played by George Sanders, handsome in a granite-rock sort of way, with impeccable upper-class English accent -- everything understated in almost a monotone).

Marilyn Monroe's "Miss Casswell" acknowledges the introduction saying, "Very happy to meet you" without moving her head at all. Trying to fit in and do things right.

Marilyn Monroe was better known for other assets, but her voice is very striking: airy and -- infused with spontaneity, wistfulness, and wonder.

A little later, end of party, DeWitt, Miss Caswell, and several other main characters are sitting on the stairs, conversing. (Sitting on stairs is very intimate. Makes a good thing to look at, in a movie) -- a butler passes with a tray of drinks; Miss Caswell calls, "Oh waiter!"
DeWitt corrects her, not sharply -- gently: "That's not a waiter, that's a butler."

(He thinks she comes from a background where people don't have butlers, and he is right.)
She turns around to look at him; the camera doesn't move, so the first part of her answer, you hear it while seeing the back of her head -- with an elaborate, twisty arrangement of platinum-blonde curls:
[back of her head] {The Voice}: "Well I can't yell 'oh butler' can I?"
[she turns & faces the camera, wide-eyed] "Maybe somebody's name is Butler."
"You have a point, my dear. An idiotic one -- but, a point."
{the breathy, intimate tone} -- "I don't want to make trouble. All I want is a drink."

-30-

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