an Eisenhower state of mind

 

If we want to get into a 1950s state of mind, Amazon Prime will help us -- their streaming site is currently bristling with cold-war-era musicals:

Pal Joey

Damn Yankees

Guys And Dolls

The Pajama Game

        (1957; 1958; 1955; 1957, respectively)

Pal Joey is being revived on Broadway soon.

        The 1957 film had Kim Novak in it.  (My main Kim Novak film reference is Hitchcock's Vertigo [1958].)

The Pajama Game has Reta Shaw in it:  in the 1960s, she appeared on "Bewitched" several times, as one of Samantha's relatives.

Guys And Dolls has Frank Sinatra in it and Marlon Brando.  The stage version of Guys and Dolls included a song called "A Bushel and a Peck" which is also in the 2009 film, Julie and Julia, where they cook their way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Guys And Dolls the film was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who directed two of my favorite classic movies, A Letter To Three Wives, and All About Eve.

        This version of Guys and Dolls is based on the 1950 Broadway musical, with a "book" (as they call it in the theater) by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows.

Abe Burrows is mentioned in Woody Allen's' autobiography:

--------------------------- [excerpt] ------------ I would do some gag writing for a while, perhaps, for Hope, perhaps for Berle or Jack Benny....  It was somewhere at that time that my relatives suggested I have a talk with a very distant relative by marriage, Abe Burrows....I asked the aunt, who said she couldn't help me except to say he lived at the Beresford, the stylish West Side co-op.  

"How can I contact him?" I asked shyly.  My mother, more aggressive than General Patton, said, "You don't have to contact him.  You know where he lives.  Just go over to his house." ---------------- [end, excerpt]

Abe Burrows' son James Burrows worked on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, and more.

In Damn Yankees, Ray Walston ("My Favorite Martian" 1963 - 1966) is Satan -- he appears to a frustrated baseball fan and promises him success at his goals, but then the devil will own his soul, that's the bargain.

        ...Like The Devil and Daniel Webster, etc.  I looked up on Wikipedia the theme of people selling their soul to the devil, in literature, film, etc. -- under the title, "Deals with the Devil in popular culture" -- the list is long!  This theme has even been used in games.

        OK -- here it is:  the New World Encyclopedia says,

------------------ [excerpt] ----------------- Faust, or Faustus (Latin for "auspicious" or "lucky") is the protagonist of a classic German legend who makes a pact with the Devil.

The archetypal tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works produced over several hundred years, by artists including Christopher Marlowe, Goethe, Thomas Mann, Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Oscar Wilde and Charles Gounod.  

        Each retelling of the Faust legend builds, in some way, off of the previous versions. --------------------- [end, excerpt] -------------

So this is what's behind the expression, "a Faustian bargain."

From the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame:

"Legend has it that Robert Johnson met the devil at a crossroads and gave him his soul in exchange for mastery of the guitar.  Steeped in mystery, killed mysteriously, his legend eclipsed only by his skill, Robert Johnson may be the first ever rock star."

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