on Netflix now:
Airport
On Wikipedia it says this movie came out in 1970, on Netflix it says 1969. Either way, same film -- it has Burt Lancaster (Sweet Smell of Success) and Dean Martin in it.
Dean Martin was born in Steubenville, Ohio. (pronounced stoob-en-ville) He would show up in our television, on variety shows -- his own and others -- and my dad said, a couple of different times: "That's not his real name."
Dino Paul Crocetti is the name "The King of Cool" was born with. Today, performers are more likely to keep their own name, though some might still change it, for easier recognizability. Back in their generation, though, it was more a trend of people in show business being advised, by their agents sometimes, to go by a name that sounded more Anglo Saxon -- for assimilation, I guess. Everyone was going to be Smith, Jones, Bennett, or Martin.
Steubenville is a town that I don't think I've ever been to, although I lived in Ohio. But the towns where I lived were like 90 miles away from Steubenville. I would hear the name of that town on TV -- one of the local stations was there -- the announcer's voice would say the letters and then boom, "in -- Steubenville!" with that firm, repetitive confidence.
Later on in life when I heard of Steuben glass, I thought of Steubenville. But it's unrelated, Steuben glass came from Corning, New York....
on Amazon Prime now:
Witness (1985, Harrison Ford)
The Graduate (1967, Dustin Hoffman)
The Graduate is woven around fantastic songs by Simon & Garfunkel.
Witness is a beautiful film -- extremely visual, and the tense suspense toward the end gets me worried and freaked out every time I watch it, even though I've seen it before and know what's going to happen!
Woody Allen spoke of having that feeling every time he watches Hitchcock's Notorious -- that last scene when Cary Grant is trying to escape with Ingrid Bergman makes him nervous, even though he's seen it many times before and knows the ending.
Steubenville
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