Deborah Kerr – I whistle a happy tune

<An evening pause: From the 1956 Rodgers & Hammerstein Hollywood musical, The King and I. The song, actually sung by Marni Nixon, invokes a lesson I have learned works in almost every situation. Act like you belong and have the right to do what you are doing and people will accept this without question. This worked especially well when I was in the movie business.

The song’s lesson is also a good portrayal of the optimism and courage of the American culture in the mid-twentieth century. All good things were possible, if we showed courage and determination.

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

The math hidden in Van Gogh’s Starry Night

An evening pause: This pause is very apropos to some of Juno’s more recent Jupiter images.

Hat tip to Mike Nelson.

By the way, I am open to Evening Pause suggestions from all my readers. If you have seen something that you think might fit as an evening pause, make a comment here telling me you have a suggestion. Don’t provide the link to the suggestion. I will email you so that you can send it to me direct and I can then schedule it.

The life of Robert Mitchum

An evening pause: While a little long for an evening pause, this half-hour documentary does a nice job of telling the surprisingly normal story of actor Robert Mitchum. What struck me most about it was how ordinary Mitchum’s life was. I’ve also seen the same thing with almost every Apollo astronaut that I have interviewed. Like most very famous people from the mid-twentieth century, they do not see themselves as particularly special. In fact, they led life with a certain humbleness, something that is hard to find today, especially among modern actors.

Hat tip Willi Kusche.

Pan Am Boeing 707 – 1965 Emergency Landing

An evening pause: This television news report about a 1965 near disaster where a Pan American passenger jet’s engine and wing fall off and the captain brings everything down safely is fascinating to watch, partly because of the live action footage taken by one passenger, but also at how television news has evolved since then, for the worse. This 1965 report has no shots a newsperson standing in front of the camera telling us what happened, as is typical today. Instead, the filming focuses on the events and the witnesses themselves, and lets them tell the story in as straight-forward a manner as possible.

Hat tip Mike Nelson.

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