The Spanish Main: The Black Swan

The Movie

  Come buckle the swash with Maureen O'Hara, Tyrone Power and a cast of hundreds in glorious Technicolor!  The Black Swan (1942, directed by Rafael Sabatini) is a completely enjoyable movie in the historical extravaganza mode and an Oscar-winner for best cinematography.
   Tyrone Power plays Jaime Waring, associate of the dread pirate Captain Henry Morgan, who is soon to be hanged in England.  The early film sees Henry Morgan's fortunes turn with a pardon, knighthood and a post as governor of Jamaica.  Peace has been drawn up between Spain and England, and Sir Henry returns to Jamaica to recruit supporters from amongst his former privateer cronies.  Waring and his buddy Tommy Blue (Thomas Mitchell) throw their lot in with Morgan, but many others including Captain Billy Leech (George Sanders) and his first mate, Wogan (Anthony Quinn) prefer the pirate's life.  With hotheaded Lady Margaret Denby (Maureen O'Hara), the governor's daughter, to chase, a pirate rebellion to quell and treachery in the new administration, Waring has his hands full...

Spanish Main

   The Spanish Empire began in 1492 with Christobal Colon's landing in the New World.  By the early1600s, the Empire extended in the New World from California to the Gulf Coast of the United States including Florida, down through Central America and the Caribbean into South America to the mid-point of modern-day Chile and Argentina and east to Brazil.  From these areas, the Spanish would export a great wealth of natural resources, primarily silver and gold, in yearly convoys known as the 'Treasure Fleet'.  The typical amount of each shipment was 25 million pesos, which was two times more revenue than accrued to the British crown in a single year.  The Spanish would guard their fleet with warships, but with such rich cargo, this was not enough to deter piracy.  Mainland Atlantic ports of the Empire were the ultimate departure points for the Treasure Fleet, but to reach the open Atlantic, the ships had to navigate their way through the Spanish Main, the area encompassing the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean islands south and east to the boundary of modern-day Brazil.  The many islands of the Caribbean provided shelter for ships seeking to attack the fleet.

Piracy on the Main

   Pirates of the Spanish Main were certainly out to make a profit for themselves at the expense of other vessels, but in many cases, they served another master as well.  Privateers, ships and crews commissioned by the leaders of other seafaring nations such as England, the Netherlands and Portugal, were sent in times of war to capture enemy vessels.  With a letter of marque and reprisal, ships captains could attack and capture enemy vessels.  Because the crew and captain would earn a slice of the take, it was in their best interest to choose the richest targets.  Actual pirates were commissioned by no nation and were in business strictly for themselves.  As noted in this BBC article, the conditions on board pirate ships were often much more egalitarian and democratic then on privateers.  Captains were elected by the crew and were selected for showing real skill, whereas the privateers were often commanded by members of the nation's upper-crust, whether or not they had real seafaring skill.

Hands off me, you brute!

   Some pirates and privateers even worked together enough to form a loose association known as the Brethren of the Coast; members were to abide by certain codes of conduct pertaining to treatment of prisoners and division of the spoils.  The Bretheren were based mainly in two locations:  Tortuga and Port Royal.  Hispanola, the island where the modern nations of Haiti and Dominican Republic are located, was a major pirate stronghold at the height of Spanish shipping.  Tortuga, which is often referred to in movies (including The Black Swan) as the pirate capital, is a small island off the northeast end of Hispanola.  Jamaica, with its capital city of Port Royal, was captured from the Spanish by the English in 1655, and became base of operations for English buccaneers and privateers in the Spanish Main.

Henry Morgan

Laird Creager as Morgan

   Henry Morgan, a Welshman, began his privateering career in the Caribbean in the late 1650s, working under other captains before securing his own command in 1657.  He is generally credited with leading the formation of the Brethren of the Coast, and was the captain in charge of several exploits in the Caribbean, including the storming of Portobello in Panama and an amazing escape from Maracaibo.  Similar to events laid out in The Black Swan, Morgan was sent to England to be tried after a raid in Panama violated a British-Spanish peace treaty.  Instead, Morgan was given a knighthood and made governor of Jamaica.

Links and Sources

Reefs, Wrecks and Rascals, Mel Fisher Maritime Museum
Pirates of the Spanish Main, BBC
Brethren of the Coast, Wikipedia
Henry Morgan, Wikipedia
Piracy in the Caribbean, Wikipedia
Spanish Empire, History World

Monkeypuzzle: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

 The Movie

   If this isn't the most misleading movie poster, I don't know what is - I wonder how many males it lured into seeing this sweet romantic film with the expectation of Gene Tierney in tight-fitting evening wear. Instead she spends the bulk of the film wrapped in turn-of-the-century widow's weeds and long gowns with her hair in a prim bun.
   This is just a great movie.  The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz) is a quiet romance, but all of the main characters have enough edge and willfulness that the story never turns saccharine, and the minor players are acted with humor. 
   The story opens with Lucy (Gene Tierney), widowed for a year, declaring to her in-laws that it's time for herself and her daughter to move out.  This doesn't go over well, but Lucy is determined.  She takes herself to the rental agent and, after seeing and admiring Gull Cottage, she determines on the spot to take it.  The agent is concerned, but rents it to her.  She, her daughter Anna (Natalie Wood) and their longtime housekeeper Martha Huggins (Edna Best) move in, but it isn't long before Lucy discovers that the cottage is haunted by its former owner, an adventuring sea captain (Rex Harrison)...

   A point of contention develops between Lucy and the Captain when she cuts down the monkey puzzle tree in the front yard of the cottage.  I have always wondered what a monkey puzzle tree was - was it imaginary - and is the Captain right about the name?

The Monkey Puzzle Tree

   There is such a thing as a monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana), and they are apparently very popular in botanical gardens and as decorative trees.  Originally from Chile and southern Argentina, the monkey puzzle is a type of evergreen or conifer with very persistent leaves that can last for 10-15 years.  In its native range, the monkey puzzle grows in the lower-middle elevations of the Andes in areas receiving high snowfall in winter, and it can grow up to 70 feet tall.  As mentioned previously, it's a popular choice for decorative gardens in other regions as long as the climate is temperate - such as coastal England, where The Ghost and Mrs Muir is set.
   The Captain was right - the 'Monkey puzzle' name comes from a specific anecdote, where an owner of one of the earliest examples of the species grown in England, in around 1850 in Cornwall, described the tree as something that would 'puzzle a monkey to climb'.  The species was first introduced to England in 1795 by the naval surgeon on Captain George Vancouver's ship, who had been served a meal of the seeds in Chile.

   The monkey puzzle is the national tree of Chile, and is currently listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN (International Union of Conservation of Nature) Red List because of logging for timber and for the creation of agricultural land in its native range.  Current conservation efforts include mapping the distribution of the plant and developing infrastructure for restoration.  In addition to being a popular decorative plant, the seeds of A. araucana have been used as food by the Chileans.  The seeds are easily harvested when the cones drop, but this has not been developed as an agricultural crop because it takes a monkey puzzle 30-40 years to mature enough to produce seeds - a real barrier to efforts to restore naturally-propagating forests.

Links and Sources

Monkey Puzzle Tree, UNEP
Araucaria araucana, Wikipedia
Monkey Puzzle Tree, Global Trees Campaign
Monkey Puzzle Silviculture, About.com
Monkey Puzzle Tree, IUCN

Self-Improvement: The Magnificent Dope

The Movie

  What is success?  Everyone defines it differently, and the conflict in The Magnificent Dope (1942, directed by Walter Lang) comes from people with very different philosophies of success.  Don Ameche is Dwight Dawson, the gung-ho proprietor of a failing success school and Lynn Bari is his business helper and fiancee.  Together with their business partner, (Edward Everett Horton), they hatch a publicity stunt to save their jobs:  they will conduct a nationwide search for the nation's biggest failure and put him through their course.  The man they get is 'boat-renter-outer' Tad Page (Henry Fonda), who wants nothing more than to take his prize money back to Vermont, hand it over to the fire engine fundraiser and then go back to watching trees bend in the breeze.  It's a bit of Mr. Deeds as Dawson and friends try to change the loser into a success, but instead find his philosophy rubbing off on them.  It's an interesting lesson on doing what works best for you (and on how that can be sold as well).

Motivation, Success

   Motivational speakers and success brokers are prime movie fodder for comedy and pathos (think Little Miss Sunshine) because by definition they have to be excellent immediately; there's really no room for trying or for negatives if one is going to hold oneself up as a model of success.  However, there is a good deal of room for psychological coercion through guilt, peer pressure and outright manipulation, as Dawson's character shows.  This breed has been around for a very long time in many guises, but what surprised me most about The Magnificent Dope was how all the trappings for modern motivation were already in place in 1940:  the brochures, magazine articles, publicity, books, posters - all so similar to today, except for the art deco fonts.

The History...

   It's a bit of difficult thing, researching motivational speakers and success brokers - as stated above, the profession has been around in various versions for ages.  There is one case that stands out that may have provided a model for the Don Ameche character, or at least provided him with a profession.  One of the most famous influential self-improvers of the past century was Dale Carnegie.  He had originally worked as a successful salesman before entering acting school.  When success was not quick in coming on the acting front, he began to lecture on public speaking at local clubs.  He had originally wanted to lecture on the original self-improvement circuit, Chautauqua, but it was through the club lectures and experiences that he developed his principles for success.  Carnegie had been lecturing on public speaking and confidence-building since around 1910, and his most famous book, 'How To Win Friends and Influence People', was published in 1936, a few years before this movie came out.  At about the same time, his Carnegie Institute was churning out graduates of its school, guaranteeing success in business. 
  
Side Note:  Lynn Bari

   Lynn Bari, who co-stars as the love interest, is classy and fun to watch in this picture, and I wanted to find out more about her.  She was a B movie actress who appears to have had the talent, looks and impressive speaking voice to do more than second-rate pictures, but the prime roles never really came in.  She was known to many GIs through her pin-up pictures and was second only to Betty Grable as a favorite pin-up at Fox during the war.  This had to be a bit of a vindication for her, as only a few years earlier she had been traded to Fox by United Artists in return for expensive camera equipment.

Links and Sources
Motivational Speaking, Wikipedia
Dale Carnegie, Wikipedia
Dale Carnegie Corporate
Lynn Bari
Foxy Lady - Lynn Bari

Hair for Victory: Pin Up Girl

The Movie

   Pin Up Girl (1944, directed by H. Bruce Humberstone) has always been one of my favorite movies for spectacular '40s hairstyles - the rest is pure fluff. The voluminous hairdos that star in the film sit on top of the heads of Betty Grable, Martha Raye and numerous extras.  Betty Grable is a canteen worker in her home state, a big tomato in a little pond.  She gets restless and, telling everyone at home she's off on the nationwide USO tour as a special guest, heads off to her new job ...in Washington DC, as a stenographer. During a short stop in New York on the way, she meets a handsome war hero.  But work beckons, and finally she arrives at her destination, notebook in hand.  Who will be her new boss?

Wartime Hair
   The styles in this movie are the antithesis of those worn by the day-to-day Rosies, who went a-riveting and to war-time jobs in short hair and scarves (like Red's grandma on the swing shift or on the riveters shown below).  As one of the more popular hairstyles of the period that enabled a woman to go to work with out short hair or severe pin-backs, 'the victory cut' was about three inches long, permed, pinned down and combed into a halo of curls.  Think Norma Shearer in The Women.  However, no regular victory cut for our Betty; impracticality rules the day in Pin Up Girl.
   Hairstyling tools that were available around the time this movie was filmed were much more limited than they are today - no curling irons, hot sticks or hand-held blow-dryers - just a girl and her bobby pins, clips and rats (as could be used to get the 'bumper bang' above).

   ...and extra hair, lots of extra hair, especially if you wanted a Grable-like creation.  The look at the top of this post is from what is probably the most successful segment of the movie, where Betty - several months pregnant and made up as a New Orleans tramp in the opposite of her wholesome image - sings and dances with Hermes Pan.  The super-bouffant look is created with a hair accessory.  The front mass of bangs is held to the head with an elastic band, pinned in place, with the rest of the hair swept up over the band to hide it and curled to blend with the piece.  
   The more traditional 40s long styles in the movie are sported by Dorothea Kent as Betty's friend, by Martha Raye as the wicked witch of the picture, and sometimes even by Betty herself (at right).  The large rolls in the hair were called victory rolls, and were created by pinning wet hair into identical large pin-curls, letting it dry, then brushing the curls out into a large barrel roll and pinning it into place.  Styles with lots of height like this may have also been rolled around a 'rat', a roll of mesh that took bobby pins easily and was hidden within the roll of hair.  No hair stylist is credited on this picture.

Don't try this at home - please!

Links and Sources

Try it - victory rolls, Aubrey London
Try it - pin curls, Lisa Freemont Street
Many many other sites...

Great books out there on 1940s hair:
1940s Hairstyles by Daniela Turdich
Creative Hairstyling by Alfred Morris
Vintage Hairstyling by Lauren Rennells 

A Moment for Betty Garrett: Neptune's Daughter

Carne con frijoles...  You know, that's just the way I feel about you!

The Movie

   I am slow to post this - Betty Garrett, comedienne and musical actress extraordinaire, passed away in February of this year. Neptune's Daughter (directed by Edward Buzzell, 1949) may not be the most fitting tribute movie, but it is the film for which I remember her best.
   The set-up for Daughter revolves around Eve Barrett's swimwear design company, not a surprise when you know that Eve is played by Esther Williams -- a swimsuit just can't be far away.  Esther and Betty play sisters; Esther is the older sister with her life and business well under control, while Betty is the madcap, man-chasing younger sister.

   The plot turns on a case of mistaken identity between Jose O'Rourke, an Argentinian polo-playing lothario (Ricardo Montalban, apparently with Irish ancestry) and bumbling country-club masseuse Jack Spratt (Red Skelton).  Amidst the identity confusion, stay tuned for a swimwear fashion show, Xaviar Cugat production numbers, a love triangle involving Keenan Wynn, a swimming spectacular, an ensemble performance of a new Christmas carol in an un-Christmas-like setting and some hilarious bits involving a man trying to get on a horse.  I loved this movie when I was younger and still find it enjoyable; with so much going on, it's hard not to...

   And, yes, Neptune's Daughter is really an Oscar-winner.  Frank Loesser's tune 'Baby It's Cold Outside' won the Best Original Song Oscar in 1950, and is sung by all four of the main players:  Garrett, Williams, Skelton and Montalban.  In this film, Betty Garrett's talent for cheerful musical comedy is on full display in Loesser's tune and in an assist to Xavier Cugat.

Betty the Musical Star

  Betty had a somewhat peripatetic childhood, moving with her mother several times after her birth in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1919.  The family lived in Seattle several times, and while in her senior year of high school, a family friend connected Betty with Martha Graham who was touring with her dance troupe at the time.  On Ms Graham's recommendation, Betty received a scholarship to an acting academy in New York where Graham taught dance.  In between studying, she performed in summer-stock theaters in upstate New York.  After her schooling, Betty joined the last performance of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater company, performed in company at Carnegie Hall and sang at the Village Vanguard jazz club.

  Her Broadway debut was more of a series of short-lived roles, each leading to the next and sometimes to a touring show.  Her performance in Call Me Mister on Broadway led to awards and a one-year MGM contract in 1947.  Following her first MGM performance, the studio renewed her contract and she appeared in several musicals, including On The Town with Frank Sinatra, before taking some time to tour in England with her husband in a nightclub show.  When they returned, she was cast in another MGM musical, but the next 20 years would see Betty only occasionally working - on Broadway, TV and in film.
   Betty's career picked up again in the early 70s with the television show All in the Family, in which she played neighbor Irene Lorenzo, and on Laverne and Shirley, in which she played the neighbor Edna Babish (and won a Golden Globe).  She continued to guest on television shows until her death in 2011.

Betty Off-Stage
   Betty met her husband, Oscar-nominee Larry Parks, at an Actor's Studio workshop event in 1944 and immediately hit it off.  She proposed marriage to him after a few months dating, they were married, then did not live together again for two years while each worked in different places.
   In the early 1940s, both had joined the Communist party, and were later called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the mid-1950s.  Parks did testify that he had been a member of the party and was blacklisted.  Betty was not called to testify at the time, which she attributed to the late stage of her pregnancy, but she was 'grey-listed' and had difficulty working for some time.  Later, when they were performing in Vegas to avoid their notoriety in LA, former senator Joseph McCarthy showed up backstage one evening, and re-appeared the next day to attempt to teach their two boys to swim.  "They never understood why they had to take a bath right after getting out of the swimming pool," she said of her two sons that day.  Her husband's career was never to recover, and after some time as a housebuilder, he died at the age of 60 in 1975.  They had been married for 30 years.
  In her later years, Betty continued to perform, teach and to support Theater West in Los Angeles, which she had helped to start in the mid-1960s.

Sources and Links

Betty Garrett's 90th Birthday Bash edited by David Engel, YouTube (well worth watching!)
Betty Garrett, Wikipedia
Betty Garrett, Time Magazine
Betty Garrett, LA Times
Her Story is One of Luck..., LA Times 
Also, check out these great pics of the TCM screening of Neptune's Daughter with Betty Garrett and Esther Williams in 2010 over at Life

Bobby Soxers: Little Red Riding Rabbit

The Movie (or Short Cartoon, whatevs)
   If you're like me and have read a few animation books or are an animation dork, you'll know that a favorite pastime of most rabid, slavering fans of the Rabbit (e.g. me) is to recount cartoons blow-by-blow, crafting descriptions of every single gag and anvil drop with loving detail.  If you are in to this type of thing, one of the best places to find your cartoons recounted with good humor and an insight into animation history is in Joe Adamson's 50 Years and Only One Grey Hare - I have had this book since I was pretty young and still consider it to be the best Bugs reference out there.  Anyway, I will try to avoid this bad and surprisingly common habit, but make no guarantees! 

    Little Red Riding Rabbit (directed by Friz Freleng, 1944) is a trove of war-era references, beginning with the opening scene where Red, who is pretty obviously a soxer, is skipping through the forest singing a song about her father working in the munitions factory.  Bugs Bunny is in her basket, being brought to grandmother 'ta have' for dinner.  After a longish detour set by the Big Bad Wolf, Red finds herself at grandma's door, only to find the note shown above.  The Big Bad has gotten there before them and, after shooing out four other wolves already in the bed wearing granny's other nightgowns, he has the place to himself.  He has only to wait for the knock at the door to get a nice rabbit dinner...

What Is A 'Bobby-Soxer' Anyway?

Oh, Frankie!  "On the opening day of his engagement the crowd waiting for admission early in the morning got out of hand; shop windows were smashed, police and ambulances had to be summoned." - The Guardian. 1.10.1945

   A bobby-soxer was a young girl distinguished by her clothes, interests and, above all, socks.  The term was in general applied to young girls with a characteristic fashion sense: skirts, sweaters, saddle shoes or penny loafers and short socks known as bobby socks (so named because they were shorter versions of the original knee socks).  She was your typical 'teenybopper' of the post-war time period, and the stereotypical female youth sitting in the soda shop wearing a poodle skirt in the 1950s.   The bobby soxer was part of the culture from the early-to-mid forties through the fifties, often portrayed as vapid youth only interested in pursuing inappropriate or unattainable men.  Analogs to bobby soxers in recent pop culture would be fans of the Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block and the Bieb.  A 1945 reference in The Guardian applied the term to early to mid-teen girls who were fans of Frank Sinatra, while a Time magazine from late 1946 also referred to a 20-year-old female Iowan parson as a bobby soxer, so it's clear that the term had some elasticity.    
   Other bobby soxer notes:  The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer was made by RKO in 1947, starring Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple as Susan the soxer.  Chuck Berry recorded Go Bobby Soxer in 1964, a bit late to really catch the height of the craze.  This song has one of my new favorite song lines (see end of first verse):

Bobby band a-rockin'
And the bobby soxer's doing the twist
It's a bobby soxer beat
And you can rock it any way you wish
Work out, bobby soxer, you can
Wiggle like a whimsical fish

Go, go, bobby soxer  (x 4)
When the weekend comes
You'll be right back rockin' some more, etc.

Links and Sources:
Only my favorite animation book by Joe Adamson:  50 Years and Only One Grey Hare
Frank Sinatra and the 'Bobby Soxers', The Guardian
'Bobby-Soxer', The Word Detective
And for those with a vintage-style aesthetic:  How to be a Bobby-Soxer, Queens of Vintage

A Moment for Jane Russell: The Paleface

Here's to you, Calamity Jane

The Movie
Short post this evening in honor of Jane Russell, who died today.  Her two best movies were among my favorites growing up: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Paleface (directed by Norman McLeod, 1948).  The Paleface is (at least to someone who first saw it at age 12) a cornball movie with some really hysterical moments. It's the story of a yellow-bellied dentist with a mail-order degree (Bob Hope) and the gun-slinging toughie (Jane Russell) who uses him as cover to join a wagon train headed west in order to win freedom from a jail sentence by serving as a bounty hunter of sorts for the bandits also traveling in the train.  Add an Oscar-winning song ('Buttons and Bows'), some Wild West action and Bob Hope zingers and you have an overall enjoyable movie!

A publicity still from The Outlaw

Jane Russell
Ernestine Jane Russell was born in Bemiji, Minnesota in 1921.  Her family moved to California when Jane was still young, and it was there that she was discovered while working as a secretary in a doctor's office.  Howard Hughes signed her to a 7-year contract and initiated and nursed the controversy that resulted from her first controversial picture, The Outlaw.  The build-up was intense, but the movie's release was long delayed due to Hays Code-related controversy over the amount of skin on display.  Life magazine at the time even ran an article entitled 'Jane Russell Can Be Seen Anywhere But in a Movie', referring to her years waiting for the release of The Outlaw.  The article painted her as a good-natured, outdoorsy type (which many other interviews confirm) somewhat at the mercy of the publicity-man Russell Birdwell.  As a result of this publicity, Jane's pictures were popular WWII pin-ups, and in the Korean War it was reported that a hill was named after her (Jane Russell Hill).

Jane and Marilyn at Grauman's Chinese Theater (Life Magazine)

Following The Outlaw, Jane was in several forgettable pictures usually referred to as 'potboilers', eventually landing in The Paleface with Hope and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Marilyn Monroe.  After sequels to both pictures, film work eventually dried up and Jane turned to stage work, singing and commercial work, including serving as the spokeswoman for Playtex brand undergarments.  In her later life she became very religious, appearing on various talk shows, assisting with charitable programs and recording gospel music.

The Movie:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040679/

Links and Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Russell
Life Magazine  13 April, 1942
Life Magazine  27 October, 1952
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant.jsp?participantId=167425|79325

The WWII Housing Shortage: The More The Merrier

The Movie:

I love this movie (directed by George Stevens, 1943) and have watched it more times than I ought to lately. The plot of the movie starts with Jean Arthur's character advertising to take in a lodger in her small Washington, D.C., apartment to help with the war effort.  The lodger, a meddling (and hilarious) old gentleman perfectly played by Charles Coburn, proceeds to rent out half of his half of the apartment to a 'high-type, clean-cut, nice young fellow' (played by Joel McCrea) in order to play matchmaker.  Antics ensue, including a few steeplechases through the apartment that shouldn't be missed.  Coburn won a Best Supporting Actor for his work in this film and the movie was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.  In short, this movie is delightful.  However, I've always assumed that the major premise - housing in certain areas during WWII so scarce that strangers had to bunk in apartment lobbies - was exaggerated...

You Think You're Being Novel, But...
After some quick research, I found that apparently the situation was not much exaggerated, and I am pretty obviously not the first person to have thought the housing crisis (in Washington DC in particular) was of interest!  Journal articles and books have since been written on the topic, and it was a subject that was mined frequently at the time for comedy and conflict.  Take for example this Jack Benny sketch described by Frank Krutnik in his article on the subject for The Journal of American Culture:

"Benny and his sidekick spend several weeks tramping round Washington in a fruitless search for accommodation.  When they do finally find a hotel with a vacancy, the owner tells them:  'For 25 cents, you can sleep all night in the cloakroom.  For 50 cents you can sleep all night in the jukebox... And for one dollar you can ride in the revolving door and sleep like a top.'  The sketch ends with the manager selling Benny a brick for $10; he throws it through the window, and is then carted off by the police for a restful night in the cells."  -Critical Accommodations: Washington, Hollywood, and the World War II Housing Shortage, 19 November, 2007.

The needs of war put the population of the US in flux, with more people needed in certain areas than there was space to accommodate them.  Washington, as the central command, was hardest hit.  Other areas that were centers of munitions and war machinery fabrication, such as Seattle and Portland, also found themselves in the same condition.  New housing was built in many areas to accommodate the influx of people, but until that housing was made available, people had to make do.  Even when new housing was put up, the restrictions on war-related materials were so great that units were often made using less than half the usual amount of materials. Rural areas were also hard hit, with large factories being built in areas with only a small population base.  As would be expected in a situation with many demands and scarce resources, prices rose and the number of people per house rose as well.

Not Just Housing

Not just housing, but a lot of other general things changed for residents of Washington during the war.  Another running joke in The More The Merrier takes its cues from the sex ratio of Washington at the time, estimated as 'eight girls for every fellow'.

'Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!'

The Movie:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036172/

Links and Sources:
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/life_11.html
http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/exhibits/ww2/services/house.htm
David Brinkley of TV news fame was a teen in Washington when the war was on, and wrote a book 'Washington Goes to War' that details the changes brought to Washington by an all-consuming war, part of which was the housing shortage.  Again, I wish I could personally recommend it, but haven't read it yet.  This blog is turning in to a list of books I wish I had more time to read!  Amazon link:  http://www.amazon.com/Washington-Goes-War-David-Brinkley/dp/0517382113/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t

Hazel Scott, Hot Classicist: I Dood It

The Movie

I Dood It (directed by Vincente Minelli, 1943) features displays of exceptional comedic and musical talent wrapped in a paper-thin plot involving sabotage and skulduggery during a theater production.  The movie a is remake of the Buster Keaton comedy film 'Spite Marriage' with musical numbers thrown in (a few are even recycled from earlier films).  Multiple stars are along for the ride, including Eleanor Powell and Red Skelton as the main characters with support from Lena Horne, Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra, Sam Levene, John Hodiak, Butterfly McQueen, Helen O'Connell, Bob Eberly and Hazel Scott.  I was drawn to this movie by the phenomenal dance numbers of Eleanor Powell, but it was really Hazel Scott's piano and vocal performance that surprised me.  I had never heard of her and wanted to know more...

Young Hazel
Hazel Scott was born on the island of Trinidad in 1920. Her mother, Alma Long Scott, was part of a jazz band, and began to encourage Hazel's tinkering on the piano at the age of three.  She and her family moved to the city of New York in 1924 (I haven't yet figured out why).  So obvious was her talent that at a young age Hazel was given free piano lessons by a teacher at Juilliard. 

Hazel the Performer
Hazel became a public performer in her teen years on the Mutual Broadcasting System and live in clubs and theaters around New York, with at least one gig at the Roseland Ballroom with the Count Basie Orchestra.  In the 1930s and 40s she was a nightclub pianist and singer in high demand, performing classical music as well as club standards.  Labeled as the 'hot classicist' by Time magazine, her nightclub performances were described by this vibrant quote:

Hazel Scott at the Stage Door Canteen, NYC, 1942 (Life Magazine).

"But where others murder the classics, Hazel Scott merely commits arson. Classicists who wince at the idea of jiving Tchaikovsky feel no pain whatever as they watch her do it. She seems coolly determined to play legitimately, and for a brief while, triumphs. But gradually it becomes apparent that evil forces are struggling within her for expression. Strange notes and rhythms creep in, the melody is tortured with hints of boogie-woogie, until finally, happily, Hazel Scott surrenders to her worse nature and beats the keyboard into a rack of bones. The reverse is also true: into Tea for Two may creep a few bars of Debussy's Clair de Lune. Says wide-eyed Hazel: "I just can't help it." (Time Magazine, link below)

She was a mainstay at Cafe Society, a prominent jazz nightclub.  In 1941 and 1943, she performed at Carnegie Hall as part of the 'From Bach to Boogie-Woogie' concerts.  Possibly at the behest of her politician husband to force the issue first thrust into the limelight by Marion Anderson in 1939, in 1945 Hazel requested a performance at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall.  The request was declined by the DAR executive committee, who preferred to keep their venue for "white artists only".  President Truman and his wife were applied to to redress the injustice, but despite sending a single round of sympathetic correspondence, they did not interfere.

In the early 1940s, Hazel was also featured in the movies Rhapsody in Blue and Broadway Rhythm.  Her talents for entertainment were put to good use for the war effort, as evidenced by the photo above and this Army/Navy Screen Magazine clip below (incredible style! But be prepared for potentially offensive wartime lyrics):

In 1950, Hazel Scott became the first black woman to have a solo television show, The Hazel Scott Show, which ran for only a few months on the DuMont Television Network.

In later years, she moved to the more liberated environment of Paris, where she continued to sing on stage in clubs.  She moved back to the US in the 1970s, continuing to sing and appear on television, including landing an appearance on the soaper One Life to Live.

Personal Life

Scott and Powell on their wedding day (Life Magazine)

Various sources describe Hazel Scott as 'outspoken' and she was noted in the press as a 'favorite tabloid character'.  Prior to her first marriage, she lived in suburban White Plains, New York.  Hazel was married to Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a representative to Congress for New York's 18th district and pastor of the 10,000-strong Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, in 1945. At their wedding, a double-line of people waiting to meet the bride and groom stretched around a full city block.  Hazel had one child with Powell, a son, before the couple divorced in 1956.  Interestingly, Time magazine also lists a marriage that Scott's wikipedia page does not; this marriage to a Swiss comedian 15 years her junior took place "eight weeks after she divorced Democratic Representative Adam Clayton Powell and six weeks after Powell married his pert Puerto Rican secretary".

She was tried (but not convicted) in 1950 by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and it was speculated that this trial and her listing as a Communist in the anti-Communist pamphlet Red Channels cost her her television show.  The show had been well-received by critics and had decent ratings.

Hazel Scott died of cancer in 1981. 

The Movie:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036025/

Links and Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_Scott
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872082,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,778420,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,792296,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,773793,00.html
Life Magazine, 27 July, 1942.  Life's full archive here:  http://books.google.com/books?id=N0EEAAAAMBAJ#all_issues_anchor
There is also a new biography of Scott.  I haven't read it, so can make no comments (tho' it sounds great).  Here's a link to the Amazon site:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0472034472