Monday, June 23, 2014

Great

Monday blog droughts again.  Stream of consciousness, off the cuff, extemporize...

There was a double feature on Turner Classic Movies.  Bullitt, then Key Largo.  Not a bad way to spend a rainy Saturday.

Steve McQueen always, on some level, bugged me.  Like I would have hated his guts if I had known him in person.

San Francisco in 1968 seemed awful dark, and the hospitals seemed primitive. Even compared to Rampart General a few years later in Southern California.  And by "dark" I mean poorly lit.  Like they hadn't gotten all the street lights up.  Mercury vapor lights, too.  I miss those.  I hate the sickly pink/orange/yellow of the sodium lights we have now.  Good news!  They will eventually switch out all those for LEDs and some 20 something will lament the loss like I did for Mercury lights.

The Syndicate assassins in Bullitt used a Winchester pump 12 gauge to do the job.  Real pros.  They shot the cop in the leg and the protected target in the chest and had plenty of time, but didn't check to see if they killed him.  Pah!  Was everyone incompetent in the 60s?  So this failure required a return to the hospital to kill the target post surgery.  And the Syndicate assassin fails at this, too.  Unprofessional.

Old Style Swanson TV Dinners in the grocery store.  Aluminum tray.  A buck each.

Another sign of the times?  Bad guy got a 1911 on board a 707/DC8 Pan Am flight to London.  HA!

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In Key Largo?  Love that movie.  But I love all Florida hurricane movies.  And there is a Colt Pocket Hammerless in it.  And a text book tactic on how ambush a bad in a tight place you can't escape from easily.

Standard cop guns in both movies apart from that Colt Pocket Hammerless.

Whats not to like?  Lionel Barrymore, Bogey, Bacall, Edward G Robinson.  John Huston directs.  BAM!  Spice weasel!


3 comments:

Old NFO said...

Both oldies but goodies... And the classic car chase!!!

Anonymous said...

Both excellent!

McQueen was reportedly very paranoid about his fame. Kept to himself during The Great Escape, when everyone else was hanging together (except Bronson who was nursing McCallum's then wife!)

Bogart was a hard drinking, hard fighting, liberal alcoholic who owned guns! What's not to like?

gfa

Anonymous said...

Both excellent!

McQueen was reportedly very paranoid about his fame. Kept to himself during The Great Escape, when everyone else was hanging together (except Bronson who was nursing McCallum's then wife!)

Bogart was a hard drinking, hard fighting, liberal alcoholic who owned guns! What's not to like?

gfa