The Ross Sisters – Solid Potato Salad
An evening pause: From the 1944 movie Broadway Rhythm. Makes me want to go to a potluck picnic this weekend.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
An evening pause: From the 1944 movie Broadway Rhythm. Makes me want to go to a potluck picnic this weekend.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Unbelievable.
They could show Cirque du Soleil a thing or two.
‘Broadway Rhythm’ was one of the most lushly photographed of the many Technicolor musicals of the 1940s and 50s as this clip makes evident.
The Ross Sisters were, indeed, borderline superhuman.
They were also uniformly gorgeous. In many sister acts there is one stand-out beauty with the others being less so. Not the Ross Sisters.
For all their obvious beauty and talent, this “specialty” number was their only screen appearance, though it was also excerpted a half-century later in ‘That’s Entertainment III.’
Impressive … um, physicality.
Here’s a challenge for the musically inclined among you. Where have you heard that melody before? Hint: It’s in a scene in a Best Picture winner I’m assuming you all know.
My back hurts
Phil Berardelli,
Yeah, “physicality” in all of its aspects. Three generous slabs of absolutely first-cabin 1940s-era cheesecake. Yowzah!
And me, at least, you’re going to have to tell the name of that Best Picture winner as I haven’t a clue. I’ve watched a lot of movies from that era of many genres, but my knowledge is far from encyclopedic. Quentin Tarantino I am not.
Phil–
No idea!
——————-
The sisters had a genetic disorder, “Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome,” “hyper-mobile variant.” A connective tissue disease which allowed for seemingly impossible flexibility.
Wayne–
Interesting. Wonder if many of the Cirque de Soleil performers have the same affliction.
Wayne and Dick–
That second tune in the Ross Sisters clip is called “Manhattan Serenade.” It was used in “The Godfather” (in a slower tempo — performed by Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra) when Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) visits Hollywood to pave the way for Johnny Fontaine (Al Martino) to get his part in the picture. Subtle irony, because it was Dorsey who, legend has it, was threatened by the mob to release Frank Sinatra from his contract.
I was wondering where I had seen these three before, because I can’t remember seeing Broadway Rhythm. I think that I have seen some of the not-so-flexible moves elsewhere by other acrobats in pre 1960 movies, such as the three-girl cartwheel that the girls use to exit the stage. Or maybe I am just remembering That’s Entertainment III.
Phil Berardelli,
Where have I heard that melody before? I’m going with a different movie, a non-Oscar winning movie: My Man Godfrey, over the titles. I enjoy that movie.
wayne,
Interesting medico-genetic info on the Ross Sisters. Checking Wikipedia, I find that Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is actually a number of distinct genetic conditions flying in loose formation under a common name. Some of these have fairly grim associated conditions such as spontaneous aortic dissection. The sisters apparently shared the hypermobility variant that doesn’t seem to have any such associated dire baggage. It’s precise genetic components are also said to be undetermined as of the present.
Unless there is some significant unstated downside to the hypermobility variant of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, I think it should be regarded as just a recessive trait and not an “affliction.” As I get older and creakier and my range of motion decreases I’m inclined to think that future revisions to the human genome probably ought to incorporate this genetic recessive – once its exact nature has been determined – as part of the standard homo sap package.
Phil Berardelli,
I would never have gotten that answer about the tune as I have never seen any of the Godfather movies and have no desire to do so. Other than a handful of James Cagney films and the works of Quentin Tarantino, I have always found gangster pictures tedious and perverse.
Cagney is watchable in such roles only because I regard him as the greatest film actor in American history. Tarantino, of course, is a sui generis genius.
I don’t even like Cagney’s otherwise very capable contemporaries, Edward G. Robinson and Paul Muni, in gangster roles. That distaste translates to all of the current-era gangster portrayals too – if movies like ‘The Godfather’ made over a half-century ago can still be regarded as “current-era.”
Phil–
Thanks. I was just watching both Godfather movies recently, but I rarely pay attention to the music score. I’ll have to give a listen.
Dick & Phil–
Any thoughts on the impact of the Hays Production Code as it concerned gangster movies?
Pre-Code Hollywood
“The Swimsuit Edition”
https://youtu.be/iBcmTHsH98s
4:22
This pushes my freak-out button.
wayne,
Cute link. Amazing how much to-do there was in those days about those “scandalous” tank suits. Ah well, the Mk1 Mod 0 female human leg was just as impressive back in the day as it is now.
The Hays Code certainly toned down the blood and gore in gangster pictures, though, by modern standards, there wasn’t all that much even pre-Code. ‘The Public Enemy’ – the film that elevated Cagney to first-rank stardom – was, supposedly, shocking to the sensibilities of the time (1931, early Depression era) but I’ve seen it and am unimpressed in terms of screen violence. It’s sure no ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ or ‘The Wild bunch.’ Cagney, of course, was superb and magnetic.
Greg,
Aieeee – weirdly flexible alien female acrobats from outer space! Run for your lives! What might they do to you with those legs if they catch you? Run!