Happy Retro Xmas!!

Here are some of my retro Xmas goodies. Ive got alot of knee-hugger elves and ceramic pieces, plus The Saint's grandmother's aluminum tree. Below are elves and reindeer.

 

 More elves, some santas and some religious Xmas figurines.

 This is a cool mobile that I got at the estate auction, someone bought it and left it behind since its missing one Santa. I pounced, knowing I'd give it a good home along with all of my other 1950s era things.

 The TREE!!!!!

 Cool felt mailbag. Although  we havent gotten many cards, people just dont send them anymore. I hate that! One of my friends told me he was moving with the times and wasnt doing cards. This did not go over well with me and I told him I had better receive a card or else! I got the card a few days later. Where have all the polite social conventions gone?? Oh how I would love a time machine for Christmas! That and an Edison crank phonograph so I can play my 78 rpm jazz records.

Vintage thrifting bonanza!! (now spelled correctly)

Today I had to take a carload of stuff to the thrift store, because even a maximalist like myself has to make an effort at minimalism. Sooooo, while I was unloading the car I decided to pop into the shop, although I did not have high hopes, based on 99 percent of my past local thrifting excursions. Well, the thrifting gods smiled upon me, because not only was the store empty of other shoppers, I got these awesome things:
KILLER VINTAGE BARKCLOTH TIKI DRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Open the window and you will hear me cheering!!  I have to wash it and iron it, and I cant wait to wear it!!

 

 

 

 

I also got these old Putz houses, yeah!!!! And some old glass made in the USA ornaments.

 

 

 

And, if the awesomeness of these finds wasnt enuf, I got these: Now an anvil will probably drop out of the sky......

 

The Money Trap 1966

Earlier this week I enjoyed The Money Trap, a 1966 noir starring Glenn Ford, Ricardo Montalban, Joseph Cotton, Rita Hayworth and Elke Sommer. This is one of the last noir pictures made, b/c by 1966 the genre was losing popularity. I thought this was a really good movie. I am a huge Glenn Ford fan.  Lots of suspense, cool camera angles, shadow, and a few good beatdowns are administered.   Awesome crime jazz soundtrack as well.  Ford plays a homicide detective who is married to the much younger and much wealthier Elke Sommer, and they live an extravagant lifestyle in a super cool pad. Actually Elke lives an extravagent lifestyle at home while  Glenn is always at work investigating lowlife who have committed murder in hell hole neighborhoods. Because Elke is so hot and all the men are after her, Glenn contemplates a life of crime so he can keep her in the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed. Perhaps this is not a good idea. It may be a very bad idea.

Great opening shots, 2 hardboiled dectectives in the car, off to see a murder scene in the rain. No murders on sunny days, people. Never.

Super amazing house where Glenn lives with Elke and dreads the bill collector.

 

Elke is working some sort of Zsa Zsa Gabor thing in this movie. Below, Glenn gazes adoringly as Elke  carries a little poodle and informs him that although her stock dividends are ceasing her woman  of leisure lifetstyle will not be, and he had better start earning some coin.

 

 

 

 

More fabulous parties at the pad, just hangin out poolside in suits and gowns. Glenn, meanwhile, is up to his eyeballs in unsolved murders down at the morgue and has to pound the pavement on the wrong side of the tracks to track the killer. No champagne for Glenn today.

 

 Investigating crime in seedy ginmills! Dig that gal in the sunglasses!

Rita Hayworth is in this and all I can say is What The Heck Happened????? She's a frump!!!

High Wall

I am a TCM channell junkie so the other nite I watched High Wall, starring Audrey Totter and Robert Total Babe Taylor. High Wall is a gritty noir where Taylor plays a WWII vet who is arrested and put in a mental hospital because he killed his wife upon his return from Burma. Or did someone else kill her? Audrey Totter is the doctor who decides to find out the truth. No gowns, no glamour, just tons of mystery and suspense, this movie is excellent! Many noir hallmarks such as shadows and low lighting, moral ambivilence, and murder!

The Unsuspected 1947

 

 The other nite I screened, as opposed to merely watched,  The Unsuspected, a 1947 film noir mystery starring Audrey Totter and Claude Rains. It was EXCELLENT! Lots of great camera angles, shadows, suspense, double crosses and, most importantly, murder murder murder. The plot can basically be summed up as "is Uncle Victor a killer? He's so sweet and kind, there is no way." The women in this movie wear the most amazing clothes! The whole atmosphere of the film is terrific and makes me want to jump right into the movie and live there. Without becoming one of the murder victims, of course.

Audrey Totter in a dress that only someone with zero body fat  can pull off. Please note she is at home, throwing a black tie party, Just another tedious evening for the idle rich, alas.

Meanwhile, accross town:  Desolate streets and the obligatory flophouse. 


An omen through the window of said flophouse.

Audrey Totter, in femme fatale mode with cigarette smoke and great bracelets, with a cute guy. Exuding glamour at home. As I write this I am in jeans and sneakers, sigh.