escape committe

[Mayerling]

[QUOTE=Archaic;314565]

Hi Jeff.

I think it's quite a witty remark really, and shows an admirable ability to laugh in the midst of hard times. After all, there was a war on.

Most of the men were off fighting, the civilian population including the women were working round the clock for the war effort, and then our glorious Yanks waltz in with their exotic Brooklyn accents, cash, cigarettes, stockings & Hershey's bars...

I'm actually surprised the remark was so humorous, restrained, and polite.

Perhaps there were been other popular sayings full of 4-letter words that simply have not come down to us?

Cheers,
Archaic

Actually, I think the bit about the Hershey bars was more universal than I imagined. In the Billy Wilder film, "A Foreign Affair" (1947) there are two G. I.s in post-war Berlin riding around at night on a tandem bike looking to pick up women. They give them candy bars. In fact they sing a version of the old song, "A Bicycle Built for Two" ("Daisy Bell"), with the mock German refrain "und der wunderbar candy bar!" in place of "of a bicycle built for two."

Jeff

[pinkmoon]

[QUOTE=Mayerling;314682]

I like to think that Americans got their sense of humor from the English, but the population here is so mixed now. More universal than it was in, say, 1800 or 1840.

I've been a Laurel & Hardy fan since I was a kid. Their shorts and films were constantly shown on television in the 1950s and 1960s. If they are not the greatest comics, they are in the top five or ten.

Jeff

I'm a fan we will never have a comedy duo as good ever again the twenty minute Hal roach shorts were just class the one when Oliver gets to keep the gorilla from from the circus in leu of wages and Stan the box containing the flea circus and then smuggle them into the lodging house pure class and then there's the one when they join the foriegn legion and Oliver ends up massaging stans foot by mistake after a long March hilarious is not the word.

[GUT]

Oliver and Stanley absolutely timeless.

[Mayerling]

Oliver and Stanley absolutely timeless.

Absolutely correct. In their feature, "The Flying Deuces" they are going to be shot at dawn. Looking for something to do Stan finds he can "play" the wires and coils of his bed's mattress support frame. He does a Harpo Marx type of act and plays the tune "All the World is Waiting for a Sunrise" much to Ollie's dismay (and the amazement of their jailer, Jimmy Finlayson)!

[barnflatwyngarde]

As a kid, every Saturday morning was spent at the Odeon Club, a marvelous 3 hour extravaganza of shorts ranging from The Three Stooges to Flash Gordon.

I remember my Dad insisting that my Mum take me to an unspecified cinema, showing an unexpected film, or films (there were 2 films on a bill in those days).

After a journey involving 4 or 5 buses we arrived at a cinema in Glasgow (I still don't know which cinema it was).

I remember the excitement I felt when I saw the double bill consisted of Bonnie Scotland and A Night at the Opera.
I was about 6 yrs old at the time.

Was there ever a better start to a life?

[Robert]

Barn, if you're Scottish then you'll like this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF08XACmCSc

[barnflatwyngarde]

Barn, if you're Scottish then you'll like this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF08XACmCSc

Robert,
Yes I am, and yes I did.

Thanks for this.
John Laurie's delivery is marvelous.

Great stuff!

[Mayerling]

I just watched the sequence from "Dad's Army" too. Very nicely done by Laurie. Most people who recall old films will remember his role as a sinister farmer (married to Peggy Ashcroft, I think) in Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps". He also did some recordings of the (ahem) poetry of Sir William Topaz McGonigal ("Oh beautiful bridge o'er the silvry Tay!").

[Cogidubnus]

I wasn't aware he was knighted...

Cheers

Dave

[Mayerling]

Hi Dave,

I should have put quotation marks around his "Sir" but there were too many already down on the comment I made. Some pranksters pulled a fast one on McGonigal that the King of Siam or some other Asian land wanted to give him a knighthood for his brilliant poetry. He accepted the knighthood (I take it there was a fake ceremony), and until his death in 1904 he was (in his own eyes) "Sir William.

Jeff

[GUT]

Ok men, just checking n about 1/2 way under the Indian Ocean.

You're a fine bunch of blokes and shielas just hang in there cobbers.

[Robert]

Hi Jeff

He appeared in this Will Hay film :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rC9lqITmzo

[Mayerling]

Hi Robert,

Great combination there of Mr. Laurie, talking of some dour Highland legend, and the great Mr. Hay. Now, who was Cadiz?

Jeff

[Steadmund Brand]

Cissie, Dolly and I are really looking forward to meeting you. Unfortunately we've no way we can leave the attic here in the Café Wilhelm without Jerry noticing us. We wondered if you are able to come here instead. We'd like to invite you to tea next Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. It's the best time as the krauts will be in barracks sleeping off Sunday lunch then and won't be coming here until about 8 p.m. for their usual tipple.

We do hope you can come. Cissie and Dolly say 'Don't forget the nylon stockings'!

Carol

Tea at 4 eh.... Well, lets see, I have to get out...pack up the stockings and other goodies.... steal a motorcycle.. get there...hmmm how about 4:15?

Steadmund "The Yankee" Brand--

[pinkmoon]

Still no sign of the Aussie