SUMMERTIME and the living was easy

Raise your hand if you remember getting the Scholastic Magazine at school and pouring over the pages that advertised the books they had for sale. What I'm talking about are issues from the early 1960s. 

In the summer of 1963 my folks got me a subscription to Scholastic's SummerTime. I loved it! For 8 weeks I got real mail. Something to anxiously wait for each week. Something new to read. Pages of books being advertised to pour over. Stories, games, movie reviews. I'll deal with some of those books and the other content in a later post. For now I wanted to post the cover of the June 27, 1963 issue. Volume 10, No. 1. I believe the illustrator is Al Wenzel, but I'm not sure. He may be the same illustrator that did some work for D.C. Comics.

Yes, I kept every single issue I got that summer and whenever I find them they make me smile and I'm a kid again. This illustration is so very much summer. All the good things a kid imagines about summer. Well, maybe not today. Kids don't go outside to play as much. They're all tethered to technology and leave their imaginations I don't know where. I'm not sure they just get to really be kids anymore. This illustration shows you what summer should be for a kid. Enjoy. Another time ephemera takes me back in time.

THE "CANARY" MURDER CASE

In the past I've posted about a few of the movie tie-in books I have and how I started a collection without even realizing it. Well, this volume is the oldest of the bunch. 

This particular book has a copyright of 1927 and contains several photos from the 1929 Paramount movie The "Canary" Murder Case starring William Powell, Louise Brooks, and Jean Arthur. I've never seen the movie, nor have I read the book. The story is as follows according to IMDB:

A beautiful showgirl, name "the Canary" is a scheming nightclub singer. Blackmailing is her game and with that she ends up dead. But who killed "the Canary". All the suspects knew and were used by her and everyone had a motive to see her dead. The only witness to the crime has also been 'rubbed out'. Only one man, the keen, fascinating, debonair detective Philo Vance, would be able to figure out who is the killer. (Written by Tony Fontana)

This book was the second in a series of Philo Vance novels written by S. S. Van Dine. Van Dine, whose real name was Willard Huntington Wright, was born in 1888 in Charlottesville, Virginia and died in 1939. To read more about him click here. 

By the time the second of the series, The Canary Murder Case, appeared a year later, Van Dine had become a best-seller, Vance was a household word, and guessing the author's identity was a favorite pastime. When Van Dine wrote an article for a Chicago paper, he responded to the editor's malicious request for a photo with a caricature of himself (having been a painter) which was faithful in every detail, yet unfaithful in general impression. It had the prehensile ears, hair parted to the right, beard, mustache, and monocle. This drawing led to a comparison of the works of S. S. Van Dine with those of Willard Huntington Wright, and thus to a discovery of the author's closely-guarded identity thru certain similarities in those works. (Source: Louise Brooks Society)

Click on images to see them larger.

As far as the film is concerned, there is this interesting little tidbit at Wikipedia about the production:

The first film in the series of Philo Vance films adapted from the novels was The Canary Murder Case (1929), starring William Powell as Philo Vance and Louise Brooks as the Canary. This film became notorious as the film where Brooks -- having left for Europe to make two films for director G. W. Pabst -- refused to return to the U.S. to dub her dialogue for the sound version. Paramount Pictures then terminated Brooks, and hired actress Margaret Livingston to dub the dialogue for Brooks instead. (Source: Wikipedia)

It all looks a bit dry between the pages, no pun intended considering how yellowed they are, but the movie clip below makes it look interesting. I don't know that I'll ever get around to reading it with so many other books already stacked up on the floor awaiting my attention. But it's worth having just for the photos. I wish I knew which book was the first ever published with a studio tie-in. I've never found any information online. It's all just ephemera.

S. S. President Cleveland ON THE HIGH SEAS

To read an update to this post click here.

I can close my eyes and remember standing aboard ship and watching the sun set on the horizon as we sailed to Hawaii, each day feeling the sea breeze grow warmer. I wish I could experience it again. 

These lovely cards are of the S. S. President Cleveland which sailed from San Francisco to Asia and back again. I believe these date to the later 50s to early 60s. 

Click on images to see them larger.

The S. S. President Cleveland was part of the American President Lines. 

In 1938 the U.S. Government took over the management of the Dollar Steamship Co. which was in financial difficulties and transferred their assets to the newly formed American President Line. The company operated trans-Pacific and round-the-world services, but the war in Europe disrupted services and after the entry of the United States into the war, all the company's ships were taken over for war duties. After the war, only two ships were returned to the round-the-world service and two new ships were built 1947-48 for the trans-Pacific route. Further ships were later added to the fleet, but by 1972 only the PRESIDENT CLEVELAND (2) and PRESIDENT WILSON (2) were sailing as passenger ships and both were withdrawn from service the following year. The company still trades as a cargo company. (SOURCE: The Ships List)

To see photos of the interior click on this link to the site Cruising the Past. And to read a complete history of the lines click here for Wikipedia. Unfortunately I can't find any information about either illustrator.

I hope this bit of ephemera brings back memories to those who sailed the high seas in style and gives those who didn't a moment to pause and dream.

My ears NEVER CAME OUT OF STORAGE

I had a pair of Mouseketeer Ears. They were lovely. Very heavy ears, felt beanie. No name on it. Just the Mickey Mouse Club logo. They were bought at Disneyland not long after the park opened. Unfortunately when we moved to Hawaii they went into storage somewhere in Maryland and I never saw them again. The Navy changed storage companies while we were in the Islands and when we returned a lot of our stuff was missing. Many of my dolls, toys, and books were to never be seen again. I have always missed those ears and really do wonder why my folks didn't let me take them along. I could have simply worn them. I know we were quite limited on what all we could have shipped to Hawaii, but seriously...Mouseketeer Ears? Like I said, I could have worn them the whole way on the drive across country, on the Matsonia out of San Francisco, and then happily along the streets of Waikiki.

Click on image to see it larger.

This advertisement is from the back cover of the August 1958, Volume III, No. 5 issue of Walt Disney's Magazine. The magazine was first published in late 1955 as Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Club Magazine and was of course meant to publicize the show. To see all of the covers of each issue and see some of the internal pages click on this link to a blog called The Original Mickey Mouse Club Show. But back to the hats.

Who wouldn't want the Zorro hat with mask? What a gem. Zorro Billy indeed. I loved Zorro and unfortunately was caught telling a whopper about Zorro as a kid. I was visiting my grandparent's in Pennsylvania. My family had recently moved from Chula Vista, California to near Washington D.C. and I used to spend several weeks each summer at my grandparents home. I still recall telling the little girl down the street that while living in Chula Vista I had seen Zorro's grave. I said this to impress her. I was worldly, she wasn't. I was about 5 so you figure out exactly how worldly I really was. Indeed she was impressed as I elaborated on exactly what the grave looked like. She was so impressed that she told her dad I'd been to Zorro's grave. Ummmmm...her dad...not so impressed. Me? I imagine the blood drained from my face or the opposite and I turned bright red. Whatever I looked like I do know I felt hollow looking out through my eyes at that man's stare. He didn't say anything. He didn't contradict me. He just stared at me. One of those moments that still is buried deep inside that makes me squirm. My Zorro lie. And I allow this ephemera to drag it all back up to the surface. 

As to the Donald hat. Ummmmmm...I remember even at a young age feeling sorry for the kids running around Disneyland wearing those things. They were just somehow so undignified.

LET'S GET TECHNICAL, TECHNICAL, I want to get technical...

...let's get into technical. Suddenly from having the theme to Star Trek going through my brain after looking at this postcard I suddenly veered off into the dreadful "Let's Get Physical" of the 80s. So I need to divest myself of all information I've found about this little spaceship so I can go back to humming "Don't Fence Me In," my standby whenever a song starts looping in my head.

The Ryan Firebee Jet Drone, according to Wikipedia:

was a series of target drones or unmanned aerial vehicles developed by the Ryan Aeronautical Company beginning in 1951. It was one of the first jet-propelled drones, and one of the most widely-used target drones ever built.

I'm not sure which model this little drone is, but to read more about it at Wikipedia click here. There is also technical information available here and here. It is interesting to read:

The Peoples Republic of China is known to have recovered US AQM-34N Firebee units during the Vietnam War era, and reverse engineered it. The Chinese copy is known as Wu Zhen 5 (WZ-5), or Chang Hong 1 export name. The WZ-5 entered service in 1981 and is expected to be replaced by newer UAVs in the near future.

So I guess this means if you find an old one at a flea market you can tell if it's original or not by turning it upside down and checking for "Made in China" on the bottom.

Click on either image to see them larger.

By far the most interesting information I came across today was a piece of ephemera at the archives of Michigan State University. A newsletter called "Spartan Engineer" published in March 1958 makes mention of the Firebee, but the best thing about the newsletter are all the ads geared towards engineering students placed by large corporations hoping to entice them with future employment...or use of their products: 

Dow Chemical, General Motors, US Steel, Sylvania, Convair, Westinghouse, Standard Oil, Dupont, IBM, Douglas, Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon, Western Electric, Northrup, Sirkorsky, Allied Chemical, General Electric, and strangely enough Kodak and A.W. Faber-Castell and Eagle Pencil for drafting tools.

Now I always thought the card looked like something out at Area 51. I never actually paid attention to anything it said on the back. It looked like the 1950s and a spaceship. For that reason I liked it. It made me think of all the wonderfully silly spaceship scifi movies in the 50s and the "V" shaped spacesuits every astronaut seemed to wear. Okay, apparently even the astronauts from other planets used the same tailor as you'll see in these clips from "Teenagers from Outer Space," one of the all time great bad movies.

As with so many of my cards this was given to me by my best friend. I know she's out there right now saying "Yes, yes...I gave that to you!" And she's one of the only people on planet Earth that understands how my mind works.

Okay, I've droned on enough about this, never really saying anything of consequence, so to get all of it out of my head, and yours, I'll leave you with Roy singing "Don't Fence Me In". Take it Roy...

All information provided for entertainment purposes only. No animals were harmed during the writing of this blather.