Dothery

Hint #4: And he speaks with a Spanish accent, which is strange, considering the story.

Open thread, if someone else doesn't mind taking it ...

Hint #3: She gets kidnapped.

Not Between Two Worlds. (And you're right; they are married, so ineligible.)

Dothery, how about the old Anthony's Pier 4 , or The Union Oyster House ? Many years ago the Wayside Inn in Sudbury had great Prime Rib, and don't forget about the North End. There was a stand, I can't remember if it was in Revere or not, fantastic fried clams and lobster rolls. So fresh, it was right off the water. Fried clams were great on the Cape .Delish. My dad was a buddy of Anthony's when all he had was the one restaurant, the Hawthorne, in Lynn. Then he put it out on the cliff in Swampscott, across from St. John's Church, where it is now. Beautiful place. Best food ever. Then came Pier 4. For clams, Goodwin's was the place, out on the highway. I can still smell them.

Hint #3: The lady's mystery love has an affinity for birds.

Hint #2: There's another man in her life; not too pretty, but a nifty dresser.

It was. He had no connection to the movies that I know of, but I do believe he was somebody in the theater. Your go ...

Awesome food out here in New England. Oh yes!!! I was born 12 miles north of Boston and spoiled rotten by the food growing up. I've been around the world, and eaten everywhere there is, but I've never found food as good as in New England. It's sumptuous. My sister was telling me the other day about a family party they gave in my town at a local restaurant, and suddenly I could taste the ziti and meatballs I had when I was there last ... Lobster was normal for us growing up. We had fried clams to die for. We ate them like people do hot dogs now. My mother's Delmonico potatoes are still resonating on my taste buds. Her favorite restaurant was Durgin Park in Boston, the oilcloth-on-the-tables place where all the celebrities hang out, not that she cared about that. I can't stand this. I've got to go get something to eat.

Oh, you're most welcome ... I love passing on my memories to younger people who weren't around when the high old times were going on. I remember almost all of it ... my brother asked me the other day, "Don't you forget ANYTHING?" and I replied "It's a curse." And it is that, too. But I really like remembering the fun things. I particularly love remembering the things my kids said and did when they were little. When my daughter was in kindergarten, I asked her what they did in school that day. "We sang a song," she said. "It was about pants and birdies." I was a little mystified, but I said, "Pants and birdies? Cam you sing some of it?" and she sang, "Sing a song of six pants ..." I remember she was a little confused by it; she said there were four-and-twenty birds, but only six pairs of pants ... Life is tull of good things, but memories are the best of all. They're priceless.

Hint #1: The girl and her eventual lover see a lot of scenery together, but it's pretty barren.

Linda Blair as Regan in "The Exorcist?"

Yes it is! And the teenager was Lauren Bacall, though she didn't look as though she were only nineteen. Love that song, love Hoagy Carmichael. Your turn ...

I can't say I remember the dishes, but what I do remember when I was a very little girl, that little dolls would come in boxes of detergent, I think it was detergent. I remember being so excited when those little dolls would show up. Dothery, about what year did they stop those dishes in movie theaters? Probably around the end of the second world war. We had them through the war, I remember. This is from a site about dish night: "In one theater, a shipping debacle resulted in the successive repeat giveaway of gravy boats. On the fifth gravy boat giveaway, the women revolted! They threw gravy boats at the theater owner in protest." A lot of people are blogging their memories of those times and you can locate several places by googling "Dish Night," or "Dish Night at the Theaters." Too many to post here but they're really important reminiscences by the writers. Very sweet.

Hint #4: The composer made dozens of albums. His songs were recorded by virtually everyone in the record business. He wrote ballads and jump tunes and odd songs and they are standards in the musical world. And the teenager certainly doesn't look as though she is one, but she is.

I'm afraid what I contributed was the only first-hand thing I've heard about him, that Joyce Reynolds and Joan used to wait for him every day and would jump all over him. Joyce said Joan would actually throw her arms around him and wrap her legs around his waist (she sort of whispered it). At any rate I'm not in touch with her any longer ... we lost touch years ago. But I do remember Mia Farrow talking about how nice he was in a memoir she wrote. He was their neighbor growing up. Perhaps you could look that up and see if there was more about him. All I ever knew about him other than that was that his son committed suicide, and he did too, a couple of days after his wife's funeral. I think he just couldn't face being alone in the world, or at least without them. Sad. I say prayers for them all.

Hint #3: The composer also performed the song in the movie.

Not Martin and Lewis. This is not a comedy, but a romance which had been a novel by a famous woman writer.

Count not him among your friends who will retail your privacies to the world.

With films like this, it's no wonder everyone went to the movies in the old days. It was that, and the dishes. They kept you coming every week for a different dish that was given away that night. If you missed, you were out one sugar bowl or a plate or a cream pitcher. It was essential to get the set. When I married a widower late in life and moved to his place in Maine for the summers, I inherited a house full of dishes and everything else. We were starting it up as a B&B, and I was using a particularly adorable set of dishes as our breakfast china. One day a sister was visiting, and I showed her the dishes. She said, "Oh, I have that set!" and we went on to chat about the rest of the things. Then a few weeks later another sister came to visit, and said, "Oh, I have that set!" I said, "Does everybody in New England have that set?" She said, "Probably; they gave the pieces away with Rinso back in the old days." It turned out my husband and his wife and their seven children had used it as special china for Thanksgiving and Christmas ... I've seen the pictures ... and over at the Chicken Barn antique store they were selling it as antiques (which made ME feel swell) a piece at a time. The set consisted of one huge serving plate with a picture of a farmhouse kitchen, and a hearth, and an oaken bucket, and stuff like that. Each piece, like the cups and saucers and plates, had a picture of something from the serving plate and it was perfectly wonderful. I gave it back to the family when he died. It was special to them. And EVERYBODY had a Shirley Temple blue glass pitcher with her picture on it. That came in a box of soap powder. Right IN the box. By the time a few years had rolled on, they were still using things to lure customers, like encyclopedias and records, but now you had to pay something for them

Forty minutes into this crummy film and I still haven't seen the beast. I've got to be toddling off to work. Somebody let me know if there is a beast. You mean Guy Madison wasn't good enough for you?

Oh, yeah. That's Francis Lederer.

I love that scene because they already have their private jokes ... she telling him that's a beautiful suit, and he looks wonderful in it ... and the look he gives her. But principally I love it because I think it's one of the greatest comedy scenes ever filmed, and the timing is what makes it so. I've watched it a hundred times and still can't stop laughing at it. Rudy Vallee and the exchange with the guy at the next table is hilarious. But Veda Ann Borg and the remark to Myrna Loy, "I hate my sister," and the band striking up Happy Birthday To You makes me shriek. Anyway: Since it's my turn, and I missed my turn in another thread because I didn't remember I had answered something right, here's my contrbution: This scene has a beautiful young woman asking what's happened to her lover, and is told that he's dead. However, in a matter of moments she finds out he's only dead in one sense. Then she's happy because there he is again.

Might the actor be John Carradine? The reason I mention him is that he had terrible arthritis in his hands and couldn't unclaw them. Horrible thing to live with.

I'll come and make love to you at 5 o'clock. If I'm late start without me. That's Tallulah! La Bankhead, dahling.