So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[2jakes]

Summer of ’42 (1971)
The daily/boring routine of young guys growing up in a small town.

American Graffiti (1973)
The clothes, songs and first date.

The above two films are pretty close in parts to what I experienced growing up.

I recall '30s & ‘40s cars with running boards. But in my town, they were not so new or
shiny as depicted in films.
Not many folks had white wall tires on their jalopies.

 

[GHT]

Whitewalls were for the cinema, but no matter which version you choose, I loved The Great Gatsby, just for the Doozy.

 

[2jakes]

Whitewalls were for the cinema, but no matter which version you choose, I loved The Great Gatsby, just for the Doozy.

Mr. Cooper’s doozy!

 

[LizzieMaine]

My main gripe in latter-day period movies is that they aren't anywhere near grubby enough -- everything's so shiny and buffed and over-restored. Watch some of those old two-reelers filmed in the streets of Culver City and you'll get a look at how shabby and run-over the real world looked in those days. Dirty those cars up, fray those clothes, get some soot stains on those hats, and you'll have more of a sense of realism.

And those gleaming smiles full of perfect teeth will have to go, too -- orthodontia was not something adults of the Era had experienced in their youth. Crooked, yellowed nicotine-stained choppers were the smile of the times.

 

[2jakes]

What amazes me about old movies is how they can be intimate with one another when the whole place is full of nicotine smoke.

Unless they enjoyed the aroma of an ash tray with old cigarette butts!


Clark Gable loved to bite into raw onions!

 

[ChrisB]

My main gripe in latter-day period movies is that they aren't anywhere near grubby enough -- everything's so shiny and buffed and over-restored.

My fathers main gripe about depictions of combat soldiers in WW2 movies was that they were never filthy enough.

 

[Fading Fast]

Summer of ’42 (1971)
The daily/boring routine of young guys growing up in a small town.

American Graffiti (1973)
The clothes, songs and first date.

The above two films are pretty close in parts to what I experienced growing up.

I recall '30s & ‘40s cars with running boards. But in my town, they were not so new or
shiny as depicted in films.
Not many folks had white wall tires on their jalopies.

Not all the stories, but the culture, look and feel of my childhood neighborhood were well reflected in "The Wonder Years."

Whitewalls were for the cinema, but no matter which version you choose, I loved The Great Gatsby, just for the Doozy.

If memory serves, Nick - with the full-on sneer of his "upper-classness -" describe's Gatsby's car as a "circus wagon."

While Gatsby's home is over-the-top impressive and all that, if I could have one thing from that movie (the '74 version), it would be Nick's carriage house - elegantly simple and comfortable but also architecturally interesting.

Mr. Cooper’s doozy!
View attachment 111112

Would not want to have to parallel park that one to pass my driving test.

My main gripe in latter-day period movies is that they aren't anywhere near grubby enough -- everything's so shiny and buffed and over-restored. Watch some of those old two-reelers filmed in the streets of Culver City and you'll get a look at how shabby and run-over the real world looked in those days. Dirty those cars up, fray those clothes, get some soot stains on those hats, and you'll have more of a sense of realism.

And those gleaming smiles full of perfect teeth will have to go, too -- orthodontia was not something adults of the Era had experienced in their youth. Crooked, yellowed nicotine-stained choppers were the smile of the times.

My girlfriend and I make the same comments all the time. Today, especially for 20th-Century (but really all) period pieces, the norm is to make those worlds visual gorgeous - even the slums have a architectural and aesthetic appeal when depicted in period pieces ("Call the Midwife" is a good example of this). But as you note, if you visit the original "source material" of old pictures and film clips - away from the very wealthy and controlled areas - grubby and much worse describes most things well.

And - as you do - you hit the nail on the head regarding teeth as (again, away from the super wealthy / movie stars) they were all nasty. But heck, even 8th Century Vikings have perfect teeth now.

What amazes me about old movies is how they can be intimate with one another when the whole place is full of nicotine smoke.

Unless they enjoyed the aroma of an ash tray with old cigarette butts!


Clark Gable loved to bite into raw onions!

I think about this too and maybe it's like the "smell" of your own house - since everyone was doing it and it was everywhere - you become inured to it. As a kid, I caught the tail end of when smoking inside was still pretty common and thought it was disgusting, but there was already an anti-smoking camp and some restrictions. Perhaps, in the era, it's all anyone knew or smelt, so you didn't fully notice it. I'm just guessing as I think it's revolting, but there's plenty of evidence people were intimate back then (girl: "hey, want to have sex" / guy: "no, you've been smoking -" doubt that happened), so somehow they adjusted.

I've read in several places that Gable had full dentures and his breath stunk.

 

[2jakes]

Would not want to have to parallel park that one to pass my driving test.

From "wiki"....
"As the number of motor vehicles reached tens of thousands, state and local governments
assumed a new power: authorizing vehicles and drivers.
In 1901, New York became the first state to register automobiles;
by 1918 all states required license plates. States were slower to require licenses for drivers. Only 39 states issued them by 1935 and few required a test."


In the screw-ball comedy "Bringing Up Baby" Grant/Hepburn.
One of my favorite scenes involves a '30s woody wagon.
In once scene the parking is head on and not parallel.
I wonder if this was more common back then.

It's almost near noon. I wonder if it's ok to light up the
signal lights?
I don't want to disrupt her lunch!

 

[Fading Fast]

...In the screw-ball comedy "Bringing Up Baby" Grant/Hepburn. One of my favorite
scenes involves a '30s woody wagon.
In once scene the parking is head on
and not parallel.
I wonder if this was more common back then....

Love the movie, love the wagon and know the scene. Isn't there also a scene in the movie where Cary Grant is "driven" around standing on the running board of a different car or am I confusing that with a different movie?

 

[2jakes]

Love the movie, love the wagon and know the scene. Isn't there also a scene in the movie where Cary Grant is "driven" around standing on the running board of a different car or am I confusing that with a different movie?

That scene is in the beginning of the movie at the golf range where "la babe" is parked next to Grant!
I’m nuts about kate...I would kiss the ground she walked on!
Same with Audrey!

 

[Fading Fast]

That scene is in the beginning of the movie at the golf range where "la babe" is parked next to Grant!
I’m nuts about kate...I would kiss the ground she walked on!
Same with Audrey!

In the last week or two, I watched "Stage Door -" a Katharine Hepburn tour de force. Last week, I saw Audrey shine in "Love in the Afternoon."

Yup, hard not to marvel at the two of them.

 

[2jakes]

In the last week or two, I watched "Stage Door -" a Katharine Hepburn tour de force. Last week, I saw Audrey shine in "Love in the Afternoon."

Yup, hard not to marvel at the two of them.

Another Audrey that I would’ve love to have met.
Although it would’ve been very painful to watch her smoke so much!

 

[tonyb]

My main gripe in latter-day period movies is that they aren't anywhere near grubby enough -- everything's so shiny and buffed and over-restored. Watch some of those old two-reelers filmed in the streets of Culver City and you'll get a look at how shabby and run-over the real world looked in those days. Dirty those cars up, fray those clothes, get some soot stains on those hats, and you'll have more of a sense of realism.

And those gleaming smiles full of perfect teeth will have to go, too -- orthodontia was not something adults of the Era had experienced in their youth. Crooked, yellowed nicotine-stained choppers were the smile of the times.

You mean life isn't a beer commercial? Adolescence ain't an Archie comic?

On my block are houses needing paint and lawns full of weeds and driveways with spalling and major fissures and in those driveways are cars with readily noticeable body damage and cracked windshields. It's all fine by me, really. People get around to addressing these "issues" sooner or later, as budgets allow.

My impression of household finances during "the Era" is one of relative scarcity. First the Depression, then the war, so austerity imposed by a down economy and then by rationing for the war effort. Some things got put off 'til later.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the first things a time traveler back to 1932 would notice is how many unfinished buildings there were -- a lot of projects begun in the flush of twenties prosperity were just left there deteriorating with their naked beams showing, sometimes for many years. That and the unpainted houses and peeling, abandoned billboards would likely be quite perplexing to those accustomed to the shiny white-telephone image often taken as typical of the period.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As for parking, diagonal parking was very common, especially in small towns and small cities, as a way of accomodating more cars to the block. We still have diagonal parking in some communities around here where there are few other parking facilities.

 

[tonyb]

One of the first things a time traveler back to 1932 would notice is how many unfinished buildings there were -- a lot of projects begun in the flush of twenties prosperity were just left there deteriorating with their naked beams showing, sometimes for many years. That and the unpainted houses and peeling, abandoned billboards would likely be quite perplexing to those accustomed to the shiny white-telephone image often taken as typical of the period.

Similar to the real estate bust of '08. For a couple three or four years new subdivisions came to a screeching halt with foundations and roads mostly in. There were a few near where I was living at the time.

 

[Fading Fast]

One of the first things a time traveler back to 1932 would notice is how many unfinished buildings there were -- a lot of projects begun in the flush of twenties prosperity were just left there deteriorating with their naked beams showing, sometimes for many years. That and the unpainted houses and peeling, abandoned billboards would likely be quite perplexing to those accustomed to the shiny white-telephone image often taken as typical of the period.

From of-the-period pictures and film clips, NYC was chockablock with partially finished buildings from '30-'46. While there are a few notable (and common) exceptions, very few buildings went up in that period and those that were "mid-stream" when the depression hit, sat idle for over a decade.

When you look for an apartment in NYC, most realtors divide the landscape into two broad categories, pre-and-post-WWII, but in truth, it is really pre'-1930 and post-1945.

As a fan of architecture - with no ability, training or aspirations - the few buildings that were built in those 15 years are interesting "bridges" between the two eras as you can see features of both. Because there are so few examples, it doesn't feel like a gradual continuum - which is how architectural progress is usually made; instead, those few buildings seem like oddly and widely placed stepping stones from one side of a stream to the other. Old, new and experimental features abound - they seem like a bunch of random lab experiments.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When the Federal Housing Administration began its "Homes For Defense" program in 1941, one of their big selling points was that the FHA would back a loan for Mr and Mrs Homeowner to get the money they needed to take care of "long-delayed maintenance and repairs" if they agreed to carve up their house into small apartments for the use of defense workers. A great many of the Grand Olde Victorian houses around where I live owe their survival to this program -- even though they're still cut up into apartments, they're still standing.

The propaganda pitch for this program was pretty aggressive -- homeowners were shamed for thinking they needed both floors of a two story house for themselves, when they could just as easily get by on the lower floor and turn the upper floor into apartments. A lot of the duplexes here are still laid out on that plan.

 

[Fading Fast]

When the Federal Housing Administration began its "Homes For Defense" program in 1941, one of their big selling points was that the FHA would back a loan for Mr and Mrs Homeowner to get the money they needed to take care of "long-delayed maintenance and repairs" if they agreed to carve up their house into small apartments for the use of defense workers. A great many of the Grand Olde Victorian houses around where I live owe their survival to this program -- even though they're still cut up into apartments, they're still standing.

The propaganda pitch for this program was pretty aggressive -- homeowners were shamed for thinking they needed both floors of a two story house for themselves, when they could just as easily get by on the lower floor and turn the upper floor into apartments. A lot of the duplexes here are still laid out on that plan.

My dad and his mom had "prepared" ahead of time for WWII housing needs as they lost their single-family house early in the depression and moved into a four family tenement (they had half of the second floor), which my grandmother was still in, in the late '60s.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Above, Fading Fast mentions that these days even 8th century Vikings have perfect teeth. Well, they had them back then, too. Maybe not perfect but usually better than most 21st century people's. I've examined numerous ancient, Dark Ages and Medieval skulls and they usually have a full mouth of strong, white teeth. Remember they had no refined sugar in their diet. No coffee, tea or tobacco, the agents that stain modern peoples' teeth. The idea of the toothless Middle Ages is false. Few people lived long enough for their teeth to wear down. The decline set in in the 17th century, mainly because of exploitation of New World resources. Sugar, once extremely rare, became cheap and abundant. Tobacco, an exotic habit of the rich, became a universal passion with the establishment of plantations in Virginia. Drinking spirits had been rare and confined to festive occasions. Europeans had been wine and ale drinkers for many centuries. Suddenly Europe was awash in cheap rum, a side product of the sugar refining process. In the next century gin hit the English working class the way crack cocaine hit America's inner cities in the '90s. The Middle Ages weren't as filthy, unhygenic and unhealthy as we imagine. If people could just get enough to eat their diet was pretty healthy, if monotonous by our standards. Real squalor began when people left the comparatively healthful countryside and crowded into city slums with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. That was when Europeans became stunted, sickly and toothless.