RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP

This past weekend Run Silent, Run Deep was on TCM. I haven't seen the film in several years so I recorded it. There's something about submarine movies, and this one is great. Do like submarine movies. Das Boat is probably my favorite.

The book by Commander Edward L. Beach Jr. was published in 1955. The film, starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster was released in 1958 through Lancaster's production company. This movie tie-in paperback was published in 1958.

Beach's bestselling novel of submarine warfare begins soon before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The story is ostensibly the transcription of a Navy tape recording, as related by Commander Edward J. Richardson for use in a war bond drive, of events resulting in his award of the Medal of Honor.

The captain of an old submarine used for training at New London, Connecticut, Richardson and his crew are assigned to fit out and commission a new submarine, the USS Walrus, and take her to Pearl Harbor to destroy Japanese shipping in the Pacific Ocean. His executive officer and former best friend, Jim Bledsoe, is resentful because Richardson was forced to fail him during Bledsoe's qualification for comand after Bledsoe acted recklessly, nearly sinking their boat. Adding to the difficulties between them, Richardson is secretly enamoured of Bledsoe's fiancee, Laura Elwood, who despises him for ruining Bledsoe's chance. Laura and Jim wed just before Walrus departs New London.

During their first war patrol in the Walrus, they encounter the Japanese destroyer Akikaze, whose skipper, Captain Tateo Nakame (nicknamed "Bungo Pete"), is responsible for a series of sinkings of several American submarines in the Bungo Suido, including the USS Nerka, which had been commanded by a close friend. Richardson, wounded in a subsequent encounter with Bungo, remains at Pearl Harbor while Bledsoe commands the Walrus for three war patrols. Bledsoe establishes a reputation for himself as an aggressive skipper with a good rate of sinkings. Between patrols, Bledsoe has an extramarital affair at Pearl Harbor, causing Richardson anguish for Laura's sake. During its next patrol, however, Walrus becomes Bungo Pete's seventh victim.

During his stint ashore, Richardson works on solving reliability problems with American torpedoes. Richardson is given a new command, USS Eel, when her skipper comes down with tuberculosis. When the news of the loss of Bledsoe and the Walrus arrives, Richardson convinces his superiors to let him hunt Bungo Pete in the Eel. A great battle ensues in a raging storm between the Eel, fighting on the surface, and Bungo Pete's special anti-submarine warfare group, which consists of a Q-ship, a Japanese submarine, and the Akikaze. After sinking all three vessels, Richardson discovers three lifeboats in the vicinity and realizes that Bungo Pete and his skilled specialists will be rescued to resume their hunting. He intentionally rams the lifeboats.

Soon after the destruction of Bungo Pete, the Eel is detailed to lifeguard duty off Guam, where Richardson's actions saving three aviators earns him the Medal of Honor. After the war he returns home, expressing his hope to begin a relationship with Laura Bledsoe.

The novel was on The New York Times Book Review list for several months.

Beach served on submarines in the Pacific Ocean during the war, and this adds to the realism of the story. He composed two sequels to Run Silent, Run Deep: Dust on the Sea (1972), a third person narrative detailing later patrols of the Eel, and Cold is the Sea (1978), about Richardson's later career in nuclear submarines. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

To see the whole movie online click on the link shown below the video.

Watch Run Silent,Run Deep in Action & Adventure | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

As a kid my Brownie Troop was invited aboard a sub at Pearl Harbor. Let's just say it was really tight inside, even for little girls used to playhouses. This was a wondrous playhouse, especially the torpedos. The cook had prepared a cake for us so we all gathered around for a piece at the tiny table with a big cake on it. Good times. Good times. Somewhere I have a photo of my troop standing on deck dressed in our little brown uniforms. I'm in the back row, neck stretched trying to see over the heads of the others. I was a scrawny kid.

GYPSY ROSE LEE

Gypsy Rose Lee. Is she forgotten by most of society? A name only familiar by those who vividly remember the world before 1970? Or is Natalie Wood remembered as Gypsy? Shoot, I'm betting a lot of people don't even remember Natalie Wood.

My reason for posting about Gypsy today is because of the photos I'll be posting this week and beyond at my vernacular photography site; old photos of a woman who reminds me of the beautiful Gypsy.

This old tattered paperback was found on a communal book sharing table that used to exist at my post office. Like too many good things, the table no longer exists. The new postmaster came from outside the community and didn't understand small town life.

This edition was published in 1959. The book was originally published in 1957 and was the inspiration for the Broadway musical Gypsy created by Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents. This eventually became the movie starring Natalie Wood and Rosalind Russell.

I still remember on a horribly rainy night piling into the car with my folks to go see the movie. We were tired of being trapped in the house (remember there were three tv channels and when the weather was bad the antenna picked up very little). We got to the theater to see the marquee turned off. Because of the rain they were closed. So back home we went, never to see the movie on the big screen. I had to wait for several years to see it on tv.

Gypsy had a tv show out of San Francisco in the 1960s that I loved watching. A day home sick from school meant I Love Lucy between 9 and 10 with Gypsy soon to follow. Summer mornings were always spent with Gypsy before heading outside.

She was a classy and funny lady and never vulgar. I can think of a lot of woman these days who barely keep their clothes on and think that's all it takes to be famous. They have no intelligence, style, or humor. And too often if you got them near a hot flame they'd melt.

Gypsy Rose Lee was the real thing. A real lady.

Gypsy Rose Lee was born Rose Louise Hovick in Seattle, Washington in 1911, although her mother later shaved three years off both of her daughters' ages. She was initially known by her middle name, Louise. Her mother, Rose Hovick (née Rose Evangeline Thompson), was a teenage bride fresh from a convent school when she married Norwegian-American John Olaf Hovick, who was a newspaper advertising salesman and a reporter at The Seattle Times. Louise's sister, Ellen June Hovick (better known as actress June Havoc), was born in 1913.

After their parents divorced, the girls supported the family by appearing in Vaudevillewhere June's talent shone, while Louise remained in the background. At the age of 15 in December 1928, June eloped with Bobby Reed, a dancer in the act, much to her mother's displeasure, going on to a brief career in marathon dancing, which was more profitable than tap dancing at the time.

Career

Louise's singing and dancing talents were insufficient to sustain the act without June. Eventually, it became apparent that Louise could make money in burlesque, which earned her legendary status as a classy and witty strip tease artist. Initially, her act was propelled forward when a shoulder strap on one of her gowns gave way, causing her dress to fall to her feet despite her efforts to cover herself; encouraged by the audience response, she went on to make the trick the focus of her performance. Her innovations were an almost casual strip style, compared to the herky-jerky styles of most burlesque strippers (she emphasized the "tease" in "striptease") and she brought a sharp sense of humor into her act as well. She became as famous for her onstage wit as for her strip style, and—changing her stage name to Gypsy Rose Lee—she became one of the biggest stars of Minsky's Burlesque, where she performed for four years. She was frequently arrested in raids on the Minsky brothers' shows.

She eventually traveled to Hollywood, where she was billed as Louise Hovick. Her acting was generally panned, so she returned to New York City and invested in film producer Michael Todd. She eventually appeared as an actress in many of his films.

Trying to describe what Gypsy was (a "high-class" stripper), H. L. Mencken coined the term ecdysiast. Her style of intellectual recitation while stripping was spoofed in the number "Zip!" from Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey, a play in which her sister June appeared. Gypsy can be seen performing an abbreviated version of her act (intellectual recitation and all) in the 1943 film Stage Door Canteen.

In 1941, Gypsy Rose Lee authored a mystery thriller called The G-String Murders which was made into the 1943 film Lady of Burlesque starring Barbara Stanwyck. While some assert this was in fact ghost-written by Craig Rice, there are also those who suggest that there is more than sufficient written evidence in the form of manuscripts and Lee's own correspondence to prove she wrote a large part of the novel herself under the guidance of Rice and others, including her friend and mentor, the editor George Davis. Lee's second murder mystery, Mother Finds a Body, was published in 1942.

After the death of their mother, the sisters now felt free to write about her without risking a lawsuit. Gypsy's memoirs, titled Gypsy, were published in 1957 and were taken as inspirational material for the Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable. June Havoc did not like the way she was portrayed in the piece, but she was eventually persuaded (and paid) not to oppose it for her sister's sake. The play and the subsequent movie deal assured Gypsy a steady income. The sisters became estranged. June, in turn, wrote Early Havoc and More Havoc, relating her version of the story.

Gypsy Rose Lee went on to host a morning San Francisco KGO-TV television talk show, Gypsy. She was diagnosed in 1969 with metastatic lung cancer, which prompted her to reconcile with June before her death. "This is my present, you know," she reportedly told June, "my present from Mother".

The walls of her Los Angeles home were adorned with pictures by Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, and Dorothea Tanning, all of which were reportedly gifts to her by the artists themselves. Like Picasso, she was a supporter of the Popular Front movement in the Spanish Civil War and raised money for charity to alleviate the suffering of Spanish children during the conflict.

She also founded one of the first kennels dedicated to breeding Chinese Crested dogs in the U.S, "Lee", which was sold after her death to Mrs. Ida Garrett and Debora Wood. Gypsy Rose Lee died of lung cancer in Los Angeles in 1970. She is buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

Ensign O'Toole, meet THE UGLY AMERICAN

Continuing with the Naval theme from yesterday, today I give you Ensign O'Toole and Me written by William J. Lederer, printed in 1959:

Ensign O'Toole and Me is the title of a semi-autobiographical novel by William Lederer. The book was loosely adapted to television in the 1962—1963 NBC Four Star Television series Ensign O'Toole, starring Dean Jones in the title role and featuring Jack Mullaney, Jay C. Flippen, Harvey Lembeck, Beau Bridges, and Jack Albertson.

Early chapters are light-hearted and amusing. One early chapter describes how O'Toole, the hero, gives a clever explanation to his peers at Annapolis, why he chose, as his first assignment, the post of Executive Officer aboard an American River Gunboat in China.

Several light-hearted chapters follow, all set in South-East Asia, prior to World War II, where O'Toole learns oriental languages from beautiful, exotic oriental women, which enable him to bail his Captain out of jail after a drunken rampage.

Our hero and our narrator lose touch during World War II. When they reconnect our narrator has retired from the USN and become a journalist. O'Toole is in Military Intelligence. Our hero keeps running into O'Toole in improbable locations, returning from dangerous missions, behind enemy lines, where he pleads with our hero to make the US public pay more attention to the dangers of Communism. (SOURE: Wikipedia)

Not directly a movie tie-in paperback, but the inspiration for a now-you-see-it now-you-don't NBC show.

Now, what other book do you suppose Lederer wrote? The Ugly American.

So who was William J. Lederer?

William Julius Lederer, Jr. (March 31, 1912 – December 5, 2009) was an American author.

He was a US Naval Academy graduate in 1936. His first appointment was as the junior officer of a river gunboat on the Yangtze River.

His best selling work, 1958's The Ugly American, was one of several novels co-written with Eugene Burdick. Disillusioned with the style and substance of America's diplomatic efforts in Southeast Asia, Lederer and Burdick openly sought to demonstrate their belief that American officials and civilians could make a substantial difference in Southeast Asian politics if they were willing to learn local languages, follow local customs and employ regional military tactics. However, if American policy makers continued to ignore the logic behind these lessons, Southeast Asia would fall under Soviet or Chinese Communist influence.

In A Nation of Sheep, Lederer identified intelligence failures in Asia. In "Government by Misinformation" he investigates the sources he believes lead to American foreign policy:

• Trusted local officials.
• Local (foreign) newspapers, magazines, books, radio broadcasts, etc.
• Paid local informers.
• Personal observations by U.S. officials.
• American journalists.

Other works were intended to be light-hearted and humorous fantasies. His early work, Ensign O'Toole and Me is both. A children's book, Timothy's Song, with illustrations by Edward Ardizzone, appeared in 1965.

William Lederer rose to the rank of Navy Captain. The source for this is his own statement in Our Own Worst Enemy discussing being assigned as a Special Assistant to Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. (pg 54, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1968).

A piece of history related in Our Own Worst Enemy is the story of Lederer as a young Navy Lieutenant, Junior Grade, having a chance meeting in 1940 with a Jesuit priest, Father Pierre Cogny, and his Vietnamese assistant, "Mr. Nguyen", while waiting out a Japanese bombing raid in China. Father Pierre asked Lederer if he had a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence on his gunboat, and Lederer said that he did and provided them with a copy. "Mr. Nguyen" later became better known as Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese Communist revolutionary and statesman who served as prime minister (1946–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). The 1945 Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, written by Ho Chi Minh, begins by quoting from the American document.

Lederer died December 5, 2009, of respiratory failure at the age of 97. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

To read Lederer's obituary in the New York Times click here.

I don't think I've ever seen the original Marlon Brando version of The Ugly American, but I have seen the remake with Michael Cain many times. Great story. I know I have the book around here. Need to put it near the top of the stack.

James A. Michener's TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC

Let's see, which song comes to mind first? Some Enchanted Evening, I'm Going to Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair, Happy Talk, or You've Got to be Taught?

Two vintage paperbacks of the same book, James A. Michener's Tales of the South Pacific.

This first one I've had for probably over 40 years and was in a stack of books friends gave us when they sold their cabin. I just moved all the books over to my folks cabin. It was printed in 1950, 16th edition.

This second one, the actual movie tie-in book, I found at the post office on a book exchange table. You bet your sweet bippy I grabbed it. This copy was published in 1958.

What's really fascinating is what's on the first page of the oldest book:

This novel--which won the Pulitzer Prize "for distinguished fiction in book form"--was written by a man of 40 whose only previous books were scholarly research studies. The manuscript (submitted anonymously) was accepted by its original publishers without knowing that the author was one of their own staff editors.

What I don't understand is why haven't I ever read this? It's now on my stack of must read books.

From Wikipedia:

Tales of the South Pacific is a Pulitzer Prize winning collection of sequentially related short stories about World War II, written by James A. Michener in 1946 and published in 1947. The stories were based on observations and anecdotes he collected while stationed as a lieutenant commander in the US Navy on the island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands (now known as Vanuatu).

The stories take place in and surrounding the Coral Sea and the Solomons. Michener gives a first-person voice to several as an unnamed "Commander" performing duties similar to those he performed himself. The stories are interconnected by recurring characters and several loose plot lines (in particular, preparations and execution of a fictitious amphibious invasion code-named "Alligator") but focus on interactions between Americans and a variety of colonial, immigrant and indigenous characters. The chronology of the stories takes place from the building of an airfield on Norfolk Island before the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942 to the early 1944 invasion of the fictional island. Although primarily about the U.S. Navy, most of the action is shore-based, and none concerns ships larger than an LCI.

The musical play South Pacific (which opened on Broadway on April 7, 1949), by Rodgers and Hammerstein, was based on these stories. Characters from the stories are merged and simplified to serve the format of the musical. For example, while the coastwatcher in the musical was portrayed as an American Marine (Lt. Cable) assisted by an expatriate French plantation owner (Emile de Becque), in the original story ("The Remittance Man"), the coastwatcher was an English expatriate assisted by his native companions. This coastwatcher is a disembodied voice on a short-wave radio, and is never seen by the characters in the story until his head is found impaled on a stake by a search-and-rescue party. The character of de Becque in the short story has eight mixed-race illegitimate daughters by four different women, none of whom he married, when he meets the nurse Ensign Nellie Forbush. In the musical, he has two legitimate mixed-race children by a woman whom he had married and who had died.

Go ahead, tell me which South Pacific songs pops into your head first.