#1952-53

[chicinsilk]

Simonetta-Visconti Haute Couture Collection Fall/Winter 1952-53. Dorian Leigh in evening dress.

Simonetta-Visconti Collection Haute Couture Automne/Hiver 1952-53. Dorian Leigh en tenue de soirée.

Photo Genevieve Naylor Rome 1952.

[featherstonevintage]

Hubert de Givenchy F/W 1952-53 haute couture rose needlepoint jacket

[lemuseum]

[federer7]

Marge's Little Lulu #53. November 1952

[project1939]

Day 54- Film: What Price Glory? 

Release date: August 22nd, 1952. 

Studio: 20th Century Fox 

Genre: War 

Director: John Ford 

Producer: Sol C. Siegel 

Actors: James Cagney, Corinne Calvet, Dan Dailey 

Plot Summary: During the later part of WWI, American Troops in France are getting younger and less experienced. Captain Flagg requests help training the green young men, but when that help arrives, it is his old nemesis, Sergeant Quirt. The rivalry between them heats up even more when they both fall for the same French girl. 

My Rating (out of five stars): ** ½ 

This may not have been the worst film on my list so far, but it was without question the hardest to sit though. It wasn’t fortuitous for this film to line up as the one to watch directly after The Quiet Man- both are John Ford comedy dramas with an excessive running time and lots of macho men bonding while drinking and fighting. I find all of that a bore, honestly. I didn’t really care about the characters, and the film seemed torn over whether or not to question war or glorify it. 

The Good: 

I liked the fact that there was a lot of French spoken in the film, and it wasn’t subtitled or cut down too much. 

There was some sentiment that popped up occasionally about the futility of war or the cost of sending very young men to fight, but it often got undercut by other parts of the film. This was not a film that glamorized war, however, which I appreciated.

The Bad: 

It’s ridiculous for a stunningly beautiful young French girl to be torn between a funny looking short pudgy guy of about 50, and a 40-ish guy who isn’t much more attractive. Looks and age are not everything, I know, but this just felt unbelievable. 

All the macho bullshit that I’ve discussed already today and yesterday. 

Like The Quiet Man, this was too long.  

Like The Quiet Man, the characters were not developed well at all. 

The French girl Charmaine could literally have been a mannequin. I can’t think of one single personality trait or interest she had, except for her love of soldiers. I guess she sang a couple of songs, so I’d infer she likes music? 

The other French girl character- she is supposed to be a schoolgirl of 17 who starts seeing a 22-year-old American soldier. They gave the actress pigtails and put minimal make up on her, and I swear she looked about 14 years old. It was creepy. 

Normally I like James Cagney a lot, but I didn’t like him in this. He just kind of swung from being blandly gruff to gratingly gruff. At times it gave the impression that he was just phoning it in. 

I didn’t really understand or get invested in the rivalry between Cagney and Dailey, even after they fell for the same woman.

Dailey is also an actor that can be very appealing, but I found him hard to like here. 

This was supposed to be a comedy/drama, but I did not find much funny in it at all.

[thunderstruck9]

Takako Yamaguchi (Japanese, 1952), Magnificat #3, 1984. Oil and bronze leaf on paper, 53 5⁄8 x 83 ¾ in.

[ur-cute-so-i]

MASH being syndicated creates a time loop:

It's October 1952, It's December 1951, It's January 1952, is it July'53 yet?

Nurse Able has 11 different faces and Nurse Baker has 5, Nurse Anderson has 4 different names. They've all slept with Hawkeye, but there's been no one for him since Carley.

Radar is a virgin, but then there was Nurse Simmons, but now Radar needs to be sent to Seoul to lose his virginity.

The same North Korean soldier has surrendered to Hawkeye twice, but he used to be a South Korean surgical aid, and later he'll be a North Korean Doctor.

Henry Blake had two children, then three, then two again

Colonel Potter son has a granddaughter, but then she's a boy and then Potter doesn't have a son, he has a daughter.

Round and round it goes, the Korean War never stops

[kafkasapartment]

The View from My Window at 53 W. 88th St., N.Y.C., c.1952. Ruth Orkin. Gelatin silver print.

[vintagelasvegas]

Sands Hotel & Casino '52-'96

Sands, December 1952

'46: Kit Carson Club opened by H. Bynum, D. Anderson, G. Frisbee on US Hwy 91 outside of Las Vegas, adjacent to Kit Carson Motel. The club will later become LaRue nightclub, then the Garden Room of the Sands Hotel.

'50: Kit Carson Club reopened as LaRue nightclub opened by Billy Wilkerson, Nola Hahn, 12/23/50.

'51: LaRue closed by summer. Mack Kufferman buys LaRue, and hires architect Wayne McAllister to build around the existing club. Kuffman and partners apply for gaming license. The project is called Sands by 12/51.

'52: Kufferman gaming license denied in Apr., sells to Jake Freedman (RG 4/9/52, RG 6/13/52). Partners running the Sands are B. Barron, E. Levinson (casino manager), S. Wyman, J. Entratter (showroom & restaurants). Hidden partners are believed to include J. Stacher, M. Lansky. Sands road sign designed by McAllister, built by YESCO. Sands opens 12/15/52 with 200 rooms in five buildings arranged in Y-shaped layout. The guest wings are named after race tracks: Arlington Park, Belmont Park, Haileah, Rockingham Park, Santa Anita. Three other wings of equal size were added circa ’53-54 (two were named Churchill Downs, Hollywood Park), another by ’58, and larger wing by ’60. The total room count in ’60 was 465.

'53: Frank Sinatra plays his first engagement at the Sands and becomes two percent owner in Oct; Carl Cohen joins the Sands as shareholder and casino manager in Oct.

'54: Sign modification: Second reader board added below the main board, Feb or earlier. Antonio Morelli joins the Sands as musical director for the Copa in Jul.

'55: Sands partners assume control of the Dunes in Sep. They sell the Dunes in four months later.

'58: Jake Freedman dies 1/19/58; Jack Entratter becomes Sands president.

'59: Sign modification: Attraction board attached to the sign, Feb or earlier. Baccarat begins at the Sands.

'60: Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop (the "Rat Pack") are first billed together in the Copa in Jan-Feb. during the filming of Ocean's 11. Senator John F. Kennedy visits during the Democratic primary campaign.

'63: Opening of Aqueduct hotel wing (83 rm) in Apr. Julius Gabrielle, architect (RJ 4/28/63). Sinatra surrenders ownership 10/7/63.

'64: Sands acquires the former Kit Carson Motel; Belmont and Arlington buildings (base of the Y) moved southward to accommodate construction of a hotel tower.

'65: Second sign in Aug; tower completed late in the year and officially opened Jan. ’66. Martin Stern Jr, architect.

'67: Howard Hughes buys the Sands, 7/23/67. Sinatra leaves his Sands residency after confrontation with Cohen, 9/11/67.

'69: Dean Martin leaves Sands to join Riviera.

'71: Entratter dies, 3/8/71.

'73: Cohen leaves the Sands, Jan. '73.

'80: Inns of America buys the Sands from Hughes heirs Summa Corp in Oct.

'82: Third sign, new porte-cochère, marking the completion of remodeling effort including new Copa room, 1/15/82.

'83: Summa Corp reassumes control of the Sands, 4/5/83.

'88: Kirk Kerkorian buys the Sands in Jan. Kerkorian sells to Interface Group led by Sheldon Addison in Apr.

'90: Sands Expo and Convention Center opens.

'94: Remodeling of the casino.

'96: Sands closes 6/30/96. Tower demolished 11/26/96.

Photos of the Sands

Sources include David G. Schwartz. At the Sands: The Casino That Shaped Classic Las Vegas, Brought the Rat Pack Together, and Went Out With a Bang. December 1952 photo courtesy of Slidetreasurehunt.

Construction of the sign, 1952. The pylon sign pedestal was 56’ high, 21’ wide, with the S at 34’ tall. Design by Wayne McAllister, fabricated and installed by Young Electric Sign Co. Photo: YESCO Corporate Records (MS-00403), UNLV Special Collections & Archives.

Opens Dec 15. Danny Thomas, Connie Rusell, Lou Wills Jr, Ray Sinatra Orchestra. Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas, 0007-0345.

Aerial view of Kit Carson Motel and the Sands, '62

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

1963 Chrysler Imperial Crown Convertible

Although Chrysler Corporation introduced a prestige model, the Imperial, in 1926, its third year of production, it was nearly three decades before it became a marquee in its own right. What had long been the most expensive Chrysler model became, for model year 1955, simply "Imperial," and offered three body styles in two series. This separate branding was a direct challenge to Lincoln and Cadillac.

For the next two years, Imperial was largely a long-wheelbase Chrysler with a bolder grille, the latter appropriated for Chrysler's performance model, the 300. In 1957, however, Imperial was reinvented with a new personality, its gun-sight taillights incorporated into growing tailfins and curved side glass foretelling an industry trend. This year also marked the appearance of a faux spare tire embellishment on the decklid, a device first seen on the Exner-designed and Ghia-built concept cars of 1952-53.

For 1961, Exner conceived another retro feature, free-standing headlamps, ensconced in alcoves beside the grille. Denigrated by some as "difficult to wash," they gave the car a unique cachet, a classic touch never emulated in any other automobile.

This 1963 Imperial Crown convertible, one of 531 built, is, except for the exclusive long-wheelbase limousine, the rarest of the breed.

Like all 1963 Imperials, it is powered by a 340bhp, single-quad version of Chysler's 413 cubic inch "wedge" engine. The transmission is the bulletproof Torqueflite three-speed automatic.

[ghelgheli]

To understand the full context of the American-led ‘53 coup against Mosaddegh in Iran it is imo critical to recognize anti-communism as a proximate cause. Write-up below:

It is commonly understood that the early decades of the 20th century in Iran are characterized by British colonial extortion of material resources (mostly oil) within the boundaries of “Persia” (pre-1935) / “Iran” (post). The penultimate monarchical dynasty, the Qajars, were ousted in 1925—but the exile of the last Qajar Ahmad Shah was the direct result of the 1921 military coup led by then-Reza Khan (later the first “Pahlavi”, Reza Shah) which was directed by Britain. And at this time, British anxieties heavily featured concerns about Bolshevik encroachment from the Caucuses (not just through the newly-formed Azerbaijan SSR, but also through domestic sympathizers that fueled such projects as large as the transient Persian SSR, put down by Reza Khan after Soviet withdrawal).

This is stage-setting. Of course, by the 50s, in tandem with Cold War thread-pulling, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company constituted a thirsty tentacle of British imperialism sucking Abadan dry and contributing pittances to the local economy. It was in the midst of decades of growing resentment against this presence that Mosaddegh became Prime Minister in 1951 as the leader of the broad National Front coalition, and we are familiar with how intensely he campaigned for nationalizing the country’s oil and how pissy this made the British (here’s one and another post on the subject if not).

Here’s the detour: you may know that it was the CIA, an American institution, that orchestrated the ‘53 coup to oust Mosaddegh. But we were just now discussing threats against British colonial power in Iran. How did things get from B to A, as it were? We can’t take this for granted.

The British in fact spent the intervening two years trying to get Mosaddegh out by mobilizing the Shah and various right-wing (often clerical and mercantile) interests in Iran (this point, and much of what follows, draws from bits of Darioush Bayandor’s Iran and the CIA and Mostafa Elm’s Oil, Power, and Principle). They spent the same two years desperately trying to get the Americans on board with their efforts. But—here it is—the Truman regime and American foreign policy was in general intensely hostile to this strain of British interventionism in Iran, going so far as to issue warnings against it.

Why? Well, as you would expect, the Americans were concerned about Soviet influence in the region. Then-U.S ambassador in Tehran Henry Grady claimed that “Mosaddegh’s National Front party is the closest thing to a moderate and stable element in the national parliament” (Wall Street Journal, June 9 1951). This summarizes the American position at the time: Mosaddegh’s nationalist movement constituted the bastion against communism, and the US was very interested in the survival of this bastion lest Iran align with the USSR. 

What happened between 1951 and 1953 is that British pressure, operating through the Shah and more conservative elements of the Iranian government, jeopardized moderate support for Mosaddegh. With the right and center-right against him an entire wing of National Front coalition was falling off, and Mosaddegh found himself leaning more and more on the strengthening Tudeh Party, which had grown in numbers to militaristic significance during Mosaddegh’s tenure (including a network of at least 600 officers in the state military). Tudeh, of course, was the pro-Soviet communist party in Iran. And now the threads come together.

It was in this context of Mosaddegh, backed into a corner with almost only the communists behind him, that the CIA released a memo on November 20th, 1952 singing a very different tune:

It is of critical importance to the United States that Iran remain an independent and sovereign nation, not dominated by the USSR...

Present trends in Iran are unfavorable to the maintenance of control by a non-communist regime for an extended period of time. In wresting the political initiative from the Shah, the landlords, and other traditional holders of power, the National Front politicians now in power have at least temporarily eliminated every alternative to their own rule except the Communist Tudeh Party...

It is clear that the United Kingdom no longer possesses the capability unilaterally to assure stability in the area. If present trends continue unchecked, Iran could be effectively lost to the free world in advance of an actual Communist takeover of the Iranian Government. Failure to arrest present trends in Iran involves a serious risk to the national security of the United States.

And (!!!)

In light of the present situation the United States should adopt and pursue the following policies:...

Be prepared to take the necessary measures to help Iran to start up her oil industry and to secure markets for her oil so that Iran may benefit from substantial oil reserves...

Recognize the strength of Iranian nationalist feeling; try to direct it into constructive channels and be ready to exploit any opportunity to do so

It took two tries for the CIA to bring about a coup that removed Mosaddegh from power, but the objective of this coup was not the preservation of British control over Iranian resources; it was the maintenance of the Western sphere of influence against communist revolution (this was further prioritized by the arrival of the Eisenhower administration). In fact, after the coup the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now renamed British Petroleum) had to make room for six other companies from the US, France, and the Netherlands as part of a consortium, and this consortium would split profits with Iran 50/50. This is, to be clear, still colonialist extraction! But it constitutes a huge blow to British economic interests, because they were never the CIA’s goal. This is part of why the post-coup government is characterized far more as a US puppet than a British one.

It does remain that this was a sequence of events very much set in motion because of actions taken by the British government; by the time they managed to get shit to hit the fan, though, it was very much no longer in their control where the shit was flying.

[chicinsilk]

Simonetta-Visconti Haute Couture Collection Fall/Winter 1952-53. Dorian Leigh in a formal dress.

Simonetta-Visconti Collection Haute Couture Automne/Hiver 1952-53. Dorian Leigh dans une robe formelle.

Photo Genevieve Naylor Rome 1952.

[romanaisalive]

F1 WDCs historical blanket - crochet project

I finished with the 1950s so figured I would start posting the updates on this project. :)

Format

Granny square blanket, 7x10 + 5 squares (last row filled out with extra background color)

Concept

Each square is corresponding to a F1 world champion, 1950-2024. Yarn color depends on what team they won with, pattern depends on the person. Yarn colors are based on either the car color or the logo / general association, whichever works best. Pattern assignment has a mix of High Concept, helmet design, Vibes and "this is a nice pattern and I'm running out of ideas".

Yarn used

Scheepjes Softfun, I mark the color used in parentheses with every square.

First update under the cut :)

1950s

Decade concept: first decade = foundations of the sport, so to speak, so I used combinations of the basic granny square.

Giuseppe Farina - 1950

Team: Alfa Romeo (Jade)

First winner ever so I used the basic granny square.

Juan Manuel Fangio - 1951, 1954-57

Teams: Alfa Romeo (Jade), Mercedes 2x (Cool Blue), Ferrari (Candy Apple), Maserati (Mahogany)

A defining figure of the 50s and F1 in general, I chose the most imposing basic square that came to mind - super solid.

Alberto Ascari, 1952-53

Team: Ferrari (Candy Apple)

C2C is a basic square I enjoy, and it looks nice with the Ferrari red. No deeper thoughts in this.

Mike Hawthorn, 1958

Team: Ferrari (Candy Apple)

Circle is one more variation on the basic square, no further thought process behind this one.

Jack Brabham, 1959

Team: Cooper (Sky)

The pattern for Brabham was an interesting question because he won both in the 50s and the 60s, so needed a pattern that worked for basic concept of the 50s and the more varied ones of the 60s as well. I decided on the Fancy Basic square by Cherished Memories Crochet on youtube, still a variation on the basic square but with a bit more interest. It makes for a nice transitional pattern between the decades.

[agelessphotography]

San Francisco from Twin Peaks, Ansel Adams, 1952-53

[chernobog13]

The Lone Ranger (Clayton Moore) astride his mighty steed, Silver, from The Lone Ranger television series (1949-1957).

Moore played the Ranger for 169 of the series' 221 episodes. For the 1952-53 season he was replaced by John Hart, reportedly due to a contract dispute. However, Hart was not accepted in the role, and his episodes were never rebroadcast (reruns) until sometime in the 1980s, when the show was in syndication.

Moore also portrayed the Masked Man in two color features, The Lone Ranger (1956) and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958).

[project1939]

Life magazine, August 4th, 1952. Wow, now here's a rarity- an ad that says, "It's so easy even a man can do it!" (Although, I would warn this guy against a Jello mold- unless it's just plain Jello, it takes a certain amount of practice and skill!)