Didja Notice?
As the movie opens, Indy is travelling by train from
Chicago to
New York City for the summer break from college, where his
friend, Sidney Bechet, has told him he can easily get a summer
job as a waiter. The train Indy rides is actually the Savannah & Atlanta
#750 on the New Georgia Railroad. Sidney
Bechet (1897-1959), was an African-American jazz clarinetist,
saxophonist, and composer who went on to fame in the 1940s; he
previously appeared in "Mystery of
Jazz" and "Mystery of the
Blues".
At 1:17 on the DVD, Peggy is reading a copy of Motion
Picture magazine. This was a real world magazine published
1911-1977. The issue she's reading is #143, the January 1923
issue, about 2.5 years before it was published! |
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The song Peggy sings for Indy on the train is "Mary's a Grand
Old Name" from the 1906 play Forty-five Minutes from Broadway by
George M. Cohan.
The train brings Indy and Peggy to Grand Central Station
(actually called
Grand Central Terminal) in New York City. They appear to
actually be exiting from the Grand Central Station-named post
office on Lexington Avenue instead of the actual Grand Central
Terminal on 42nd Street (a cross street). The scene was actually
filmed at the North Carolina Court of Appeals building in
Raleigh, North Carolina.
Peggy tells Indy she is staying at the Victoria Hotel until she
can find a boarding house. Later, we see its full name is the
Victoria Hotel for Women. This appears to be a fictitious
hostel. The building was actually the Market Street Apartments,
420 Market Street, Wilmington, NC (now the Carolina Apartments).
The cab Peggy takes to her hotel at 6:31 on the DVD is a 1920
Ford Model T
sedan. The fancy blue car that is seen following after the cab
is a 1915 Paige 6-46 Touring Car (this car is also glimpsed
driving past Grand Central Station earlier at 5:36).
At 6:39 on the DVD, the Martino Funeral Home is seen in the
background. There is currently a
Martino Funeral Home in Queens, NY, but the one seen here is
probably meant to be fictitious.
The truck Indy catches a ride in the back of is a 1917 Ford
Model TT.
Indy learns that his friends, the Jacksons, who were supposed to
put him up during his summer stay in New York, have gone to
Europe instead without telling him. Some friends! His new friend
Kate Rivers lets him stay in her apartment instead.
Indy tells Kate that an ancient Egyptian papyrus in the British
Museum reads, "For the scribe there are no taxes. He payeth
tribute in his writings." I am unaware of this being a truth in
Ancient Egypt.
The British Museum was
established in 1753 and is one of the most prestigious museums
in the world. Kate remarks that she loves that idea about
scribes in Ancient Egypt and Indy says, "Yeah, tell it to the
Internal Revenue." He refers to the U.S. Internal
Revenue Service, the
tax collecting agency of the U.S. government.
Kate asks Indy if Ancient Egyptian religion was based on
fertility rituals and he responds that most religions are and he
begins to tell her about the Ancient Greek myth of Dionysus.
Although many religions have elements of fertility tradition
among them, it's a bit broad to say that most religions are
based on such rituals. In Greek mythology, Dionysus was the god
of ecstasy (as well as wine and intoxication).
At 9:30 on the DVD, a sleeping partygoer at Kate's apartment is
clutching a copy of the book Cheiro's Palmistry for All.
This is an actual book published in 1916 by Cheiro (Irish
astrologer and occultist William John Warner, a popular seer
among the celebrity class).
Indy tells Kate that his favorite poet is Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare, of course, was an English playwright and
poet of the late 16th and early 17th Centuries, usually
considered the greatest writer in the English language.
Indy tells Kate that he has a friend
from Chicago currently playing clarinet in a restaurant in
Harlem. He is referring to Bechet. Harlem is a neighborhood in
the Manhattan borough of New York City.
Besides being a poet, Kate also does literary reviews for the
Sentinel. As far as I can tell, this is a fictitious
periodical.
At 14:37 on the DVD, Bechet is seen to be playing at the
Horseshoe Lounge in Harlem. This appears to be a fictitious
establishment.
When Indy jams with Bechet's band at the Horseshoe, a fellow
named
George Gershwin joins in on piano. Gershwin (1898-1937) was an
American composer and pianist who became known for his Broadway
compositions. At this time (1920) he was working on the
aforementioned George White's Scandals, from 1920-1924.
The song Goldie sings for this jam is "Swanee", a 1919 song
composed by Gershwin with lyrics by Irving Caesar.
At 18:38 on the DVD, the restaurant Indy and Gershwin eat at is
called Dinty Moore's. This was an actual restaurant chain in New
York that Gershwin frequented. Also seen in this shot are the
Palace Hotel and Sebastian's (possibly a night club); these
appear to be fictitious establishments.
Gershwin tells Indy at Dinty Moore's that they are in Tin Pan
Alley.
Tin Pan Alley was the nickname name given to the area of West
28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan; this
is where a number of music publishers of the late 19th and early
20th centuries had found inexpensive offices for rent. In these
offices, piano players and songwriters would bang out new songs
for sheet music publication, the cacophonous din of the pianos
sounding like tin pans bashed together, according to some.
The lyrics Gershwin sings after Indy tells him about his
feelings for Peggy are from his and Lou Palye's song "Something
About Love", from the 1918 play Ladies First. After
this, Ted Lewis does an impromptu performance of "When My Baby
Smiles at Me" (1920) by Lewis, Bill Munro, and Andrew B. Sterling.
Then, Irving Berlin performs his 1919 song "A Pretty Girl is
Like a Melody".
Gershwin gives Indy an in to get a job (assistant stage manager) at the Globe Theatre,
where Scandals of 1920 is being put together, starring
Ann Pennington, with music by Gershwin. The Globe (now the
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre) opened in 1910 and was the actual
Broadway theatre on which
Scandals of 1920
opened.
Ann Pennington (1893-1971) was an American actress, dancer, and
singer known for her roles in both George White's
Scandals and the Ziegfeld Follies series of
revues.
The shot of the exterior steps of the
Globe Theatre at 23:20 on the DVD are actually the
Rudolfinum
concert hall in Prague. The interiors were shot at
Thalian Hall in Wilmington, NC (with some audience-point-of-views shot in the
National Theatre in Prague). The real Globe looked
little like the exterior seen here. |
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Globe Theatre in this episode |
Actual Globe Theatre in 1920 |
When Mack asks if Indy has any experience in working in theater,
Indy tells him he worked in Diaghilev's Russian Ballet in
Barcelona
as a eunuch. This was in
"Espionage Escapades".
George White (1891-1968) was an American Broadway and film
producer and director, actor, choreographer, composer, dancer,
dramatist, lyricist, and screenwriter. He produced his
Scandals revues from 1919-1939 in response to the success
of the similar Florenz Ziegfeld's Ziegfeld Follies that
ran original revues from 1907-1936. White even appeared as a
performer in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1911 and 1915.
Florenz Ziegfeld (1867-1932) was a Broadway producer and
financier.
Gershwin invites Indy to a Park Avenue party.
Park Avenue is a wide boulevard in New York City that is
partially merged with Broadway Street.
Kate goes to a poetry reading, looking forward to hearing Julian
Darcy read some of his latest poems. As far as I can tell, Darcy
is a fictitious persona.
The song Ann Pennington sings at 34:19 on the DVD is "The Man I
Love" by Gershwin and his brother Ira, but it wasn't written
until 1924. Pennington here rejects performing the song in
Scandals of 1920. In reality, the song was written for the
1924 musical Lady, Be Good but was cut from it and then
also cut from Strike Up the Band and Rosalie
before finally becoming a hit on its own when performed by music
stars of the late 1920s.
As Indy talks about his two wonderful girls (Gloria
and Kate) to Gershwin, the songwriter starts to play piano and
sing what seem to be improvised lyrics about Indy's problem.
Gloria's limousine is a 1920
Cadillac
Type 59.
At 37:12 on the DVD, a business front for Manhattan Theatrical
Company is seen, selling theatrical property supplies. This
appears to be a fictitious company for the time.
Gloria buys a picnic lunch for Indy and herself at Chez Maurice.
This appears to be a fictitious restaurant for the time. The
exterior was shot at the
Caprice
Bistro at in Wilmington, NC.
After his noon picnic with Gloria, Indy has a 1:00 lunch
appointment with Kate at the
Algonquin Hotel's restaurant where he sits in on the
Algonquin Round Table. The Algonquin Round
Table was a daily lunch meeting at the Algonquin Hotel from
1919-1929 of writers, critics, poets, humorists, etc. where they
took part in gossiping, wordplay, and often savage wit against
each other and all public figures and their works. They called
themselves the Vicious Circle, just as Kate remarks to Indy
here. The members they greet at this sit-down were all
historical artist figures. The exterior of the Algonquin seen here is
actually the
Sir Walter Apartments for Seniors in
Raleigh, NC
(it was once the Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel).
At the roundtable,
Alexander Woollcott hands out a first edition of one of his
books and Indy makes a joke about it. Woollcott had only
published two books at this point, from what I can tell.
Presumably, this one would have been his most recent for the
time, 1919's
The Command is Forward, a collection of his essays and
reports for the American armed forces newspaper Stars and
Stripes. In this episode, Dorothy Parker refers to the book
he's handed out as a "novel" ("This is not a novel to be tossed
aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."), but
Woolcott wrote any novels.
To thank him for getting her the job on Scandals of 1920,
Peggy tells Indy she's going to buy him dinner at a wonderful
diner at 47th Street and Broadway. This is an actual
intersection in the
Queens borough of New York. The "diner" turns out to be a
hot dog stand called Blake's Frankfurters; this appears to be a
fictitious business. At the stand, the pair are seen to have
used a bottle of Lundy catsup; this appears to be a fictitious
brand.
At 48:21 on the DVD, a Comet clock is seen in Kate's apartment.
This is/was a real brand, since at least the 1960s. I'm not sure
if it's still around or if it existed yet in 1920.
The song Gershwin sings to Indy at 59:37 on the DVD is his
"Somehow It Seldom Comes True" from the 1919 Broadway musical
La La Lucille.
The chimpanzee in the production is said to be named
Bonzo. This is probably a wink by the writer to the chimp
character of Bonzo in the 1951 comedy film Bedtime for Bonzo
starring Ronald Reagan.
At 1:10:50 on the DVD, a copy of the Da Vinci painting Mona
Lisa is seen backstage at the Globe in the background.
At 1:11:39 on the DVD, Mack has a bottle of Private Stock
Whiskey on his desk. Though many whiskey brands have had a
"Private Stock" label, this one appears to be fictitious.
We've been unable to identify whether the opening songs of the
revue as heard here are actual songs that were in the original
Scandals of 1920.
Here,
Scandals of 1920 opens on Indy's birthday, July 1,
1920, but in reality, it opened on July 7.
We have found no evidence that the production of the real
Scandals of 1920 suffered through a large number of setbacks as
seen in this episode.
Memorable Dialog
you big city masher.mp3
whose party is this?.mp3
tell it to the Internal Revenue.mp3
a soprano sax in a jazz band.mp3
any monkey can learn it.mp3
I
was a eunuch.mp3
open your idiot ears and follow me.mp3
you sure don't waste time.mp3
a symphony for car horns.mp3
she looks edible.mp3
the queen of shimmy.mp3
you're fired.mp3
she's wonderful too.mp3
the dullest state in the union.mp3
if you have to see a burlesque show.mp3
I hope you won't think the worse of us.mp3
it's not a novel to be tossed aside lightly.mp3
welcome to the round table, Indiana Jones.mp3
Broadway is paved with blood.mp3
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