FredCDobbs

Politically Correct by who's judgement? Who are these "political" people who say what is "politically correct" and what is not "politically correct"?

I don't mind (too much) what they now call themselves or each other. I just don't want them to tell me what to call them because of some stupid "political" reason. If people keep doing that, and using only politically approved words, then there becomes a correct political-speech requirement in this country, and a standard political-speech dictionary that everyone must use, and the old dictionaries will be burned in rallies in the street at night. No thanks.

I posted part of the WC Fields earthquake film down below. Dick Cavett is narrating it It looks real to me. The scene lasts several seconds longer and the camera is running before the earthquake starts. I've seen slightly longer and better prints than this. The shock and fear among the actors looks real to me. All heading for the nearest exit looks real too, and nothing falling on anyone's head, but falling around them looks real. The camera moves in a real way, jerky, and it doesn't move in a typical vibrating earthquake "special effects" way. Fred

WC Fields, Earthquake scene:

Those are British troops at the beginning. Then the film takes us to France.

True, but it was not surprising to an American movie audience in 1946. This was probably the first time they had heard it. In speeches and interviews, back in the early 1920s, Einstein often said that if his theory turned out to be wrong, the German physicists would call him a Jew, but if it turned out to be right, they would call him a German. But that little joke of his never became widespread public knowledge.

Good for you.

Don't you realize that they know who all of us are? And they are working hard to force us to think, act, and talk like they do?

You are free, as far as I am concerned, to call Asta anything. I would call Asta a "dog", or a "trained dog".

I lived 70 years hearing female movie and stage performers called "actresses" by the actresses themselves, and I'm not going to change now just because someone in some big Eastern or West-Coast city or university says I should change. To see what I mean, see the "actor" and "actress" categories listed among the Academy Awards classifications. http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/86/nominees.html

Here is a GREAT opening sequence.....

Sorry. When he said, "but I don't know the film", I thought he was giving up.

Ok, I've got it now. Mr. Imperium (1951) Thanks for the clues.

Speaking of one or a group of females, I would always use the term ACTRESSES. Speaking of a mixed group of "actors", then that would include both males and females. Like "a convention of mailmen" (with women included, of course). Sometimes I use the term "his/her" when I don't know what "it" is. But an actress is an actress.

Don't jive me, James. I don't want to see a movie about "an average Joe" who acts and talks like "an average Joe". There is no need to watch such a movie, because I can walk down the street and talk to my average friend Joe if I want to hear an average Joe talk.

Generally speaking, Cagney never was an "average Joe" in a movie. He was different, special, worth watching.

Cagney is not "the average Joe". Cagney is Cagney and he is famous because of it. Roosevelt was Roosevelt, Truman was Truman, and Nixon was Nixon. These guys were all real and never mumbled like Brando.

I never plugged my phone line into the Directv box. What if the box has a microphone in it? What if the NSA owns and runs Directv? Sometimes I get a group of incoming calls, about half hour apart, about 5 times a day, for about a week. When I answer the phone I hear nothing. Nothing at all. I figure that is Directv calling and waiting for a "go" signal from my box. I just say "hello, hello" and then hang up.

I don't think it works with a dial system, since a dial system doesn't need an operator to make the connection. It worked with a phone that had no dial, because that system required an operator to monitor all of her phone lines and their connections. She got a buzz or a light on a board whenever someone picked up their phone to make a call, and she had to use a cable and plug to make the physical mechanical connection. An operator in a non-dial system would hear your clicking, but with a dial system, no operator hears any clicking unless you dial "0", and that requires 10 straight clicks to get to the operator. I don't think she hears the 10 clicks, but I think she gets a buzz when the last click takes place.

Can you hear me now??

Old time acting..... real ice, real snow, real cold, real pain.....

Somewhere I lived, I could "dial" a number by clicking the cradle switch the same number of times and the same speed to match telephone rotary dial clicks. In some towns, years ago, we might pick up our phone and hear other conversations, like in Stanwyck's SORRY WRONG NUMBER, and not any call from a "party line". Just some conversations and numbers at random.

Hey guys, thanks for the info. A few years ago I discovered when I got an incoming recorded advertising call, if I hung up and waited four or five seconds, and if I picked the receiver up to make an outgoing call, I would still hear the advertising recording. It wouldn’t let me hang up or get a dial tone. I finally tried clicking rapidly on the cradle switch, and then I got a dial tone. So that is what I do now whenever I receive an incoming recorded advertising call.

Such a thing doesn’t work today. But in old films, when someone loses a phone connection or is hung up on, sometimes he or she will click their cradle switch several times and say, “Hello.... hello..... hello”, and sometimes they will say “Operator.... operator.....I got cut off.... can you get that number back?” How did this work? In the old days, a lot of telephone line connections were done manually, with local switchboards (in hotels, apartment houses, and neighborhoods in cities and small towns). Operators worked at switchboards that had short cables with plugs on them, as many as 200 or more cables and plugs per switchboard. If a telephone didn’t have a dial on it, a person would pick it up and a friendly operator would say, “Number please?” Then the caller would give her the number and she would plug in the in-calling cable to the correct out-going numbered socket. After being hung-up on, a caller could click the cradle switch several times, and the operator could hear the clicking sound. She could respond to the caller, and if he said he got cut off, the operator could plug in the right connection again and re-ring the connection if necessary. I wondered about this for years until I finally saw it happen in a film, and the scene just happened to quickly cut to a hotel switchboard operator, while a guy in a hotel room was clicking his receiver switch. The operator heard the clicks and heard him say, “Hello..... hello....... hello”. The operator responded and plugged the same cable back into the same socket in the switchboard and rang the phone line that had just hung up, and the guy got connected again. This system worked for both in-coming and out-going calls, and in-coming or out-going hang-ups.

I was making a joke. Sort of like, "Some times a cigar is just a good smoke."