tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post6408637849207960453..comments2024-02-06T16:17:25.826+00:00Comments on THE GRØNMARK BLOG: 1930s’ screen sirens - don’t fancy yours much!Scott Gronmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-28626483177945073652011-10-16T15:12:07.573+01:002011-10-16T15:12:07.573+01:00I left Theda Barra off the list on the basis that ...I left Theda Barra off the list on the basis that she looked sweet, but “about as fatale as an after-dinner mint”, and that her eye make-up made it appear she’d been up late studying for her GCSEs. Are you sure that’s Marilyn Monroe? Wow! Looks incredibly modern. MM was a much better at modelling than acting – at which she was atrocious.<br /><br />Heddy Lamarr certainly belongs in the list of Forties’ corkers. How anyone this beautiful and super-intelligent ended up being arrested for shoplifting in LA in 1965 is a mystery. According to Wikipedia her autobiography begins like this: "On a recent evening, sitting home alone suffering and brooding about my treatment at the police station because of an incident in a department store, and being replaced by Zsa Zsa Gabor in a motion picture (imagine how that pleased the ego!) I figured out that I had made—and spent—some thirty million dollars. Yet earlier that day I had been unable to pay for a sandwich at Schwab's drug-store." It also informs us that the expression her arms manufacturer husband so objected to in her 1933 film, “Ecstasy” (in which she appeared in longshots running naked) was, she claimecd, achieved by the director poking her bottom with a safety pin. She is reputed to have escaped from her husband wearing all her jewels, having drugged him. In 2000, her son spread her ashes, at her request, in the Wienerwald Forest in Austria.Surprised there hasn’t been a screen biog!<br /><br />SDG, Madeleine Kahn also spoiled any chance of me taking Dietrich seriously – “Who can satisfy their lustful habit? I’m not a wabbit – I need some west” etc.<br /><br />I thought about including the great Gloria Grahame, but, while she was great in many pictures, she never carried a truly mainstream picture – only reason for her exclusion.<br /><br />As for poor old Berbatov, I doubt very much he’ll be at United next season, which seems a bit rough after enduing the season as their top goal-scorer. Personally, I blame the hair-do.<br />Monday, May 30, 2011 - 11:55 AMScott Gronmarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-91037276422595635832011-10-16T15:11:59.319+01:002011-10-16T15:11:59.319+01:00Fascinating post. Also, thanks DM for your informa...Fascinating post. Also, thanks DM for your information on Hedy Lamarr. [I knew that she had invented something important, but I have never discovered what. Ditto George Sanders. They appeared together in "Solomon and Sheba" I think I have already quoted her joke about Victor Mature].<br /><br />Marlene Dietrich. A difficult one. After Madeline Kahn's song "Tired. I am so fwigging tired" in Blazing Saddles I gave up on her, but the other day I saw "Shanghai Express" [1932] and am having a re-think [BS also featured the confusingly named "Hedley Lamarr"].<br /><br />Garbo. In Stockholm there is an excellent restaurant built on her birth-site and full of memorabilia. The house speciality is " Garbobollern" [Garboballs]. I had forgotten the "Not Only But Also" sketch. I had 4 Garbo titles lined up on my LoveFilm list which I have now ben forced to delete. So thank you. I had forgotten about John "Green" Gilbert in Queen Christina<br /><br />You do not mention the sexiest and most accomplished actress that Hollywood ever produced - Gloria Grahame. Bit of an odd-ball. She was the Demetar Berbatov of the Silver Screen. Highly underappreciated.<br />Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 07:49 AMSDGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-85057682154897640812011-10-16T15:11:31.435+01:002011-10-16T15:11:31.435+01:00Two suggested additions to the gallery, neither of...Two suggested additions to the gallery, neither of them relieving the 1930s drought:<br /><br />1. Back in the days of the lachrymose Jeremy Isaacs when watching Channel 4 was like attending one of the better universities, I forced myself to stay up late one night in the interests of fundamental research to watch a dissertation on the history of cinema pornography. Controversy raged in that dry way academics have as to whether Theda Barra was or was not the first woman to be filmed having an orgasm. It rages still and we owe it to ourselves to screen the footage more often if we want to uphold our claim genuinely to be children of the Enlightenment, avid always and only to establish the truth. A lot of clingy, diaphonous material, if I remember correctly, "gossamer" is probably the word I'm after, actually not a lot, just a very little bit, in fact, ...<br /><br />Here's Theda Barra, http://dematerialisedid.com/barra.jpg<br /><br />And here's Marylin Monroe as Theda Barra, http://dematerialisedid.com/Marilyn%20Monroe%20as%20Theda%20Bara%20in%20Cleopatra%20avedon.jpg Tiger!<br /><br />2. Have you ever wondered what the frequency hopping spread spectrum is? Of course you have and it's all Hedy Lamarr's fault, the most beautiful woman in the world, http://www.hedylamarr.org/<br /><br />Before going to the US, she was married to a Romanian arms dealer. Not dumb, she learned a lot about the arms industry in particular and business in general.<br /><br />Like most studio contractors, she took a keen interest during the war in radio-controlled torpedo guidance systems and particularly the obvious problem that will have occurred to you immediately, viz. if you can control the torpedo with radio waves, radio being what it is, so can the enemy -- bad news.<br /><br />What you need, she reasoned, is a way of encrypting the radio signal so that the enemy don't know what's going on. Hmmm ... but how?<br /><br />So she's sitting with her répétiteur one day, and he keeps changing the key of the song to suit her mood and her voice. Changing the key ... encryption ... changing the key ...<br /><br />You got it! Well, maybe not, but she did. What she suggested was that you should choose a particular bandwidth, and spread your control signals throughout that bit of the radio spectrum. Choose a dozen or so frequencies to broadcast at, and then, following a sequence known only to you (and the torpedo) hop between the frequencies, breaking your control instructions into little bits that only the torpedo can receive because it knows the sequence, the enemy don't know which frequencies to monitor, they will just hear the odd bit of noise.<br /><br />She patented the technology and then gave the patent to the US nation.<br /><br />The same technology is used today not only in the military but also in WiFi and mobile phone telecommunications. What a girl.<br />Thursday, May 26, 2011 - 01:36 PMDMnoreply@blogger.com