Suzanne Pleshette at Disneyland

She was one of those people who lit up the screen; one of those people you felt as if you knew; one of those people that could make a mediocre film worth watching simply because she was in it. She could be sexy and funny at the same time; her dramatic roles were effortlessly natural and believable.

Sad to say, I wasn't shocked when I read that Suzanne Pleshette had died. Supermarket checkout lines put all those ratty scandal-and-sensation newspapers at eye-level, and sometimes it's pretty hard to avoid noticing a headline. The one I happened to catch a few weeks ago was "Suzanne Pleshette Planning Her Funeral." I hoped it wasn't true, but I've seen those kinds of "soon to die" headlines before, and unfortunately, they're often correct.

It's no secret that Walt Disney himself had a major crush on Pleshette. Suzanne flirted with Disney when she was on the lot, something Disney seemed to enjoy. I guess the empire would have crumbled if Disney ended his less-than-fulfilling marriage, but it's interesting to speculate about the ways in which history might have changed...


She made three pictures at Disney's: The Ugly Dachshund, which one might reasonably expect to be a major Disney dud, but is delightful and funny; Blackbeard's Ghost, which I've never seen; and The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, which is far from a great movie, but a wonderful showcase for Pleshette.

Suzanne Pleshette appeared in two films released in 1963.

• One, of course, was Hitchcock's The Birds, where her Annie Hayworth had ten times the life and appeal of Tippi Hedrin's Melanie Daniels.
  

• The other '63 film, Wall of Noise, is a hoot. Suzanne gets to play the (very) bad girl in a horse racing saga. ('Wall of noise,' for those who may not know, is the expression for the roar of the crowd as the horses make the turn into the home stretch. The 'wall of noise' sometimes spooks even experienced horses).
  

Wall of Noise is not out on DVD; I'm not even sure if it was ever out on VHS.

It's one of those mid-sixties Warner Brothers black and white programmers where they'd grab a few of their TV stars (in this case, Suzanne, Ty Hardin, and Dorothy Provine) and make a quick picture and a quick buck. If you see Wall Of Sound pop up on TCM, set the Tivo. I have an old 16mm print of the film, and it's a huge hit with friends whenever I run it.

But Suzanne Pleshette's major - and often overlooked - claim to Disney fame is that she appeared in the first feature film ever to be shot in Disneyland: 40 Pounds of Trouble. Who would have thought that Disney would allow Universal to use Disneyland as a background for a chase scene? But he did, and the footage of Disneyland seen in 40 Pounds is like a time capsule from the park circa 1961-2, featuring many scenes of many now-extinct attractions... as well as fabulous footage of nearly the entire park. It's terrific.

Suzanne looks lovely, as always. Walt Disney wasn't the only guy who had a crush on her. We miss you already, Suzanne.

Part 1





Part 2

A couple of questions about the clip:

• Did they really think that they could get away with re-arranging Disneyland geography? Did they think no one would notice that they have the monorail drop Tony Curtis, Suzanne Pleshette, and Claire Wilcox off at the Main Street U.S.A. train station?
  

• Did they ever sell masks of JFK, Castro and Krushchev at somewhere near Hook's Pirate Ship in Fantasyland?

Scenes Of The Disney Studio Circa 1938

eBay Seller "tiqu" consistently puts excellent original Disney photos up for auction. Here are the current pictures up for bid:

A Letter Transposition Just Waiting To Happen

Article title from Discover magazine. Wait... it's already happened.

On Sale: Get $15,140 For Only $3.48 Plus $5.97 Shipping

Here.

Celery Stalk Queen With Crown Wanted

Over at YouTube, under the quickly-thought-up sobriquet SandySoup, I've posted quite a few videos (some of them with Sandy Becker and others with Soupy Sales). Some have appeared here on ILT, others have not.

This email arrived via YouTube today:

Before 1964, my twin brother and I clearly remember seeing this weird sci-fi puppet show (no, not "Thunderbirds" Or "Fireball XL 5." It was supposed to take place on Venus and its queen was this howingingly funny "queen" who looked like a stalk of celery with a crown on. Does that spark any memories for you? Also, can you find any of the old "Space Angels? Dig those real human mouths superimposed over barely moving animated figures!

The celery-stalk Venusian Queen... funny, you'd think you'd remember something like that. Sounds familiar, but offhand, I can't think of what it might be. Anybody around here know?

In Jerry Beck's "Cartoon Dump" show in NYC (see below), one cartoon selected for presentation was Captain Fathom, one of those Cambria Productions "live lips supered onto drawings" shows. Jerry also mentioned something I never knew - that ALL the lips - ALL of them - belonged to Margaret Kerry, who was married to the producer. She lip-synched recordings of the male voices and did a few of her own. And she was, and many of you know, the model for Disney's Tinkerbell.

Here's some trivia: Conan O'Brien's writing staff calls their comedy bits where superimposed lips are placed over pictures of politicians their "Clutch Cargo" segments, a reference to another of the Cambria "lips-only" animation titles.

The Curse of the Broken Lever

Think of [your blog's] readers as laboratory animals in an experimental cage that's equipped with a bunch of levers. If the lever you control dispenses a tasty morsel each time it's pushed, the animals will keep coming back for more. If you forget to provide a treat for the animals' effort, the animals will stop pressing your lever and look for a more reliable source of nutrition. That's why it's good to post at least one blog entry a day, because people will get used to the idea that your blog will deliver a treat each time they visit.

- Tip Number 4 for running a popular blog, from Rule The Web, Mark Frauenfelder's guide on 'How to do anything and everything on the internet - better, faster, and easier.'

Long ago, I recommended Mark's book to anyone and everyone who uses the internet, giving it the highest possible praise by suggesting its title could have been, and should have been, The Junior Woodchuck's Guide to the Internet. It was nice to read that this pleased Mark.

Mark's very first blogging tip says that:

...I'm surprised at the number of people who post things just because they think they will attract more readers to their site... if you aren't passionate about the things you're writing about, readers will quickly become bored and never return.

And there, fellow lab animals, lies the problem. I think Mark Frauenfelder is exactly correct, and up until quite recently, I've tried to provide a morsel per day.

Future morsels will be just as tasty, but new ones will probably appear on a less-than-daily schedule. I expect that the ones that do find their way here will be all the more tasty, given the added prep time.

Please come and press the lever every so often, even though I admit defeat in balancing Mark's first and fourth tips on a daily basis.

Spencer Tracy characterized Katherine Hepburn once by saying "There ain't much meat on her, but what's there is cherce [sic]." Less posts here, but what goes up will be cherce, and that's a promise.

Cartoon Dump!

Cartoon Dump is presented exclusively on the West Coast. Usually, it's the West Coast of the country, but last night, it was the West Coast of Manhattan, and it further infuriated the New Yorkers who read about Dump (and other upcoming animation-related events) on Cartoon Brew by confirming our worst fears: we've been missing out on great entertainment because we insist on living in this backwater town.

Oh, sure, you can go over to the Cartoon Dump section of YouTube and see snippets of the show, and the hysterically awful semi-animated cartoons Jerry Beck has selected to showcase. But this is live theater we're talking about here, with very talented, deeply funny performers. I'm telling you, I've seen Young Frankenstein on Broadway, and it's strictly for tourists and chumps. Rent the DVD. Cartoon Dump packs twice the laughs into half the time.

Erica Doering is a relentlessly chipper comedic powerhouse; her cartoony voice and condescending showmanship suggest Hillary Clinton on helium. Frank Conniff gives a great deadpan performance (and had some great ad libs) as Moodsy, the Clinically Depressed Owl. This guy could just look at the audience and get a laugh. Kathleen Roll reminds me of Paula Prentiss (and that's high praise); her Buff Badger not only provides angry historical context for the cartoons, but also fully explains the furry phenomenon for those who don't quite get it. And of course, there's animation legend Jerry Beck. (There is not a single animation legend anywhere in the 2 1/2 hours of Young Frankenstein, by the way).

I'm just hoping there was a Saturday Night Live scout somewhere among us who decides to sign the whole team up and keep Cartoon Dump in New York, where they belong.

Name These Disney Artists/ FX Artists!

EBay seller Tiqu has these photos are up for auction - but none of those pictured are identified. I can't put my hands on my copy of Illustrated Field Guide to Disney Personnel, so - can anybody make a positive ID?


"Disney artists earn while they learn the profession of animation. To them are entrusted the inconsequential bits of action. They are directly supervised by one of the regular animators."

"Comparable to a set designer in a live-action studio is this man - a layout artist in Disney terminology. He is one of the artists who design the watercolor backgrounds used in the animated productions."

"A corner of the sound effect department. Thousands of sounds, from frog croaks to train wheels, are filed away in little drawers."

"The sound effects boys are on the verge of giving the pictured crates a tumble. The result will probably be a sound effect of Donald Duck taking a spill."

The Dionnes, Part 3

Sorry for the delay; I need to get some decent video editing software. (The first two video clips are silent, the third has sound.)

Dr. Dafoe quarantined the Dionne Quintuplets "to keep the germs away." That meant keeping people away, too - like the Quints' parents and the rest of their family. The first clip shows the result: Jean Hersholt, who played a version of Dr. Dafoe in the three 20th Century Fox features, presents a puppy to the sisters. They've never seen a puppy before (dogs have germs, except when Hollywood needs a puppy scene), so the sisters are frightened and back away. It was supposed to be a cute scene. You'll see that they stopped the camera, probably had a talk with the girls, then started again. It clearly demonstrates their isolated existence - yet it was used in the feature as you see it here. (36s)

The next clip contains scenes of Quintland, the world's first theme park. It's estimated that three million people made the trip to see the Quints in person. Often, over two miles of stop-and-go traffic "clued everyone in" that they were getting close.

The Dafoe Hospital had an outdoor playground. Surrounding it on three sides was an enclosed, horseshoe-shaped viewing area. Supposedly, the darkness inside the viewing area, coupled with screens of some sort, would make it impossible for the Quints to know that they were being observed. But the quints caught on quickly - they might not have been able to see the tourists, but they certainly could hear them. (1m42s)

What's missing in the story of the Dionne Quintuplets... is a hero. Someone who rides to the rescue. Someone who says "This is wrong and it has to stop."

• It wasn't Dr. Dafoe, who commandeered the quints, was celebrated by the press as a savior, and made a lot of money.
  
• It wasn't Oliva Dionne, whose initial reaction to the birth was to "sell the Quints," in order to make a lot of money.
  
• It wasn't Father Daniel Routhier, from whom Oliva Dionne sought guidance and who suggested that, since the children were a miracle from God, 7% of the money should be given to the church.
  
• It wasn't Elzire Dionne, who had married at 16 and was the embarrassed mother of 10 at age 25.
  
• It wasn't Dr. W.E. Blatz, who headed the team from St. George's School for Child Study at the University of Toronto, who cataloged every move the Quints made but either did not see, or did not want to see, the big picture.
  
• It wasn't Mitchell Hepburn, the premier of Ontario, who arranged for the Quints to be taken from their parents legally, via a "guardianship" act that officially gave the government and Dafoe full charge.

Yvonne, Marie, Emilie, Annette and Cecile had to become their own heroes.

They didn't all make it through... but as this 'behind the scenes' production video for the TV movie "Million Dollar Babies" shows, Yvonne, Cecile, and Annette Dionne lived to tell the tale. (8m21s)

Quints Digitization Project
Quintland Site
Second Birthday Party (Audio)
Picture Album

Dionnes, Part 2

The picture above is titled "First Dates." There probably had been no "first dates" for any of the Dionne Quintuplets at the time it was painted. The artist has taken certain small liberties in his rendition, one of which was the decision to ignore reality, not only in what the sisters were doing, but also what they looked like.


Search the web, search the collectible market, and you'll find baby pictures galore, adolescent pictures a-plenty, but very few photos of the sisters when they were in their teens. It's a shame, in both senses of that word.

I'm in the process of pulling together Dionne video clips, and with any luck at all, I'll post them tomorrow.

Meantime, lest you think that the Dionne Quintuplets were exploited exclusively by Dr. Dafoe, the Canadian government and the general public (hundreds of whom appear in the clip tape; an estimated 3 million people traveled to "Quintland" in Ontario to see the Quints in person at one of the daily showings) let me point out that the medical community turned their childhoods into one long observation period. An adoring public wanted to know everything about "their quints;" the medical community did, in fact, know everything about them. A few exhibits will suffice. The only two-year-olds who need a Dayplanner:
Those watching even watched what each quint watched:

Click Here for Part 3 - some truly astounding clips, including footage of three of the sisters coming back to look over the "hospital" where they were incarcerated for nearly ten years.

Dormant Dionne Virus Flares

Oh, I should know better.

I'm listening to an audiobook: The Immortal Game by David Shenk. A history of chess.

At the beginning of the book, the author suggests that the best way to understand chess is to think of it as a virus that infects the brain, pushing all other thoughts aside.

I have a virus like that. Nothing to do with chess; I'm Mr. Patzer.

This other "brain virus" - the one I seem to suffer from - began with a localized outbreak in Ontario, Canada, in May of 1934. It spread quickly, infecting tens of millions of people, and didn't disappear until well into the 1940's. Truth be told, in the depths of the great depression, most people were only too willing to let their other thoughts get pushed aside.

It is no longer a threat, although it's still possible to catch this virus via direct brain-to-brain transmission. The internet may have spawned one or two isolated cases.

I've been in remission for years, but yesterday, I was archiving an old VHS tape onto DVD and made a terrible mistake. I started watching the program. I couldn't stop and subsequently suffered a severe flare-up.

A bit of that program appears below.

WARNING: It is very likely that you already have full immunity to this virus, and it is highly improbable that exposure to the short video will result in infection. If, however, you feel yourself becoming transfixed, stop watching immediately and call a doctor. With that warning, meet Annette, Cécile, Emelie, Marie and Yvonne Dionne.

Doctor Dafoe. The "modest little country doctor" whose ability to take advantage of his patients wasn't equaled until Brian Wilson's therapist started taking co-writing credit and put himself into the will.

It is the proud Doctor Dafoe who presents the sisters.

Doctor Dafoe who "permits the parents to see their babies occasionally."

Did he invent the lies, or just go along with them? Dafoe only delivered two of the sisters (two midwives handled the first three), and while his efforts may indeed have saved some lives in the Quintuplets' first few days of life, no one today could deny that Dafoe's lasting legacy and enduring achievement was the total destruction of the Dionne family. Dafoe, in collusion with the government, built a "hospital" across the street from the Dionne home, kidnapped the babies, and displayed them to the public as a tourist attraction.

If there was something beneath Doctor Dafoe's dignity, it was never discovered. Eventually, Oliva Dionne (the sisters' father) went public with his displeasure, and eventually, he won them back. But by then it was too late. Here's a study in contrasts: first the dad, then the doc.

It seems incredible today, even unimaginable, but the Dionne Quintuplets were a source of continuing fascination and infatuation in the months and years following their birth. People kept scrapbooks of magazine pictures, went to see Dionne newsreels and feature movies, devoured articles by the dozen, and bought Quintuplet calendars, spoons, dolls, books, postcards and whatever the Quints endorsed: dental cream, syrup, candy bars, soap, disinfectant and breakfast food, to name just a few. The quints even endorsed "Body By Fisher"for General Motors.

Today, it is not uncommon for sets of quintuplets and even sextuplets to occur (fertility drugs) and survive (sophisticated neonatal care).

Yet the survival of the Dionnes - identical quintuplets - remains unique. Twice before their birth (in 1786 and 1849) and four times since (in 1936, 1959, 2004, and 2007) identical quintuplets have been born, but the Dionne Quintuplets still represent the only instance where all five infants survived.

The word "miracle" is tossed about the Dionnes almost as frequently as the word "magic" is brought into play for Disney. But if their birth and survival were, as many believed, the result of divine intervention, it's difficult to understand why a subsequent miracle never materialized to save the girls from a life of confusion, exploitation, misery, and poverty. Two of the five are still alive today.

This is how the virus has mutated: the original strain was cultivated in those willing to believe the "fairy-tale" existence myth propagated by the media. The current strain has to do with truth and tragedy. Click here for Part Two of this post.

Some New Year's Resolutions

Sweet and Lovely and First Generation

A few days ago, iTunes was featuring old time radio broadcasts as free podcasts from Humphrey/Camardella Productions. In fact, they still are; I just wandered over to the iTunes store and sure enough, the huge old-time-radio button is still on the podcast page.

Humphrey/Camardella Productions are the people who bring you Boxcars 711 old time radio (it's also free) and they can be found in my list of "great listening sites" in the sidebar at right. I've loved the free programs I've listened to at the Radio 711 site, so I subscribed but the podcasts through iTunes were of disappointing quality - muffled, indistinct... you know that sound, like listening through a wet sponge. I unsubscribed quickly. Don't know what the issue is - theoretically the exact same feed - but I'm going to stick to the Radio 711 site.

The problem, of course, is that as listeners, we wind up hearing somebody's copy of some other person's copy of another person's copy of the copy of a copy that was originally made from... well, who knows? It might have been recorded off the radio by a home enthusiast, and if that's all that's available, we should consider ourselves lucky to have anything.

However - Radio Archives is an outfit that deserves your attention and patronage. Yes, it's on CDs, and yes, it costs, but even in this day and age of free old time radio on the internet, these CDs are worth every penny.

For their Premier Collection, they only will work directly from original transcription discs, and their release from last month, The Coconut Grove Ambassadors, sounds stunning. I don't have it yet, but plan on ordering it, based on previous purchases from these folks, and based on the clip you can hear on the page linked above, which has to be the most incredible sounding band remote from this era I've ever heard, even in its internet sample.

They have other great first generation recordings and are definitely worth a visit.