Gustav Tenggren's Jack and the Beanstalk, 1953

This was probably my favorite picture book as a child. Without understanding why, I was fascinated by Tenngren's color palette. Looking at these illustrations as an adult, I'm in awe how daring he was in some of his color combinations -- placing ruddy reds directly on top of sickly greens and blues, for example, resulted in a darker vision of a story that is usually portrayed much more straightforward manner.

Notice Jack's mother's elegant hand gesture.

This menacing sky is achieved with three quick, simple sweeps of a broad brush.

In most Jack and the Beanstalk stories, the giant's kingdom that is simply nestled in the clouds somehow. This is a darker approach -- the landscape is strange and contrasts with the pleasant land below.

In Tenggren's version, the giant's wife is a compassionate, friendly character, who lives in fear of her husband.

The giant himself was truly menacing. If he said he was going to grind someone's bones to make his bread, he probably meant it.

This illustration also served as the cover for this Little Golden Book (original cost: 25 cents).

Here the giant's wife scolds Jack for making off with their gold -- but she was so kind and lonely for good company she forgave him and fed him an apple tart...

...and furthermore hid him from her husband.

Note the violet framing device subtly suggests three point perspective.

Jack and his mother enjoying the benefits of magic beans. I wonder where this left the poor suffering, widowed Mrs. Giant?

Los Feliz Drive-in, Los Angeles

Few people know that the Los Feliz/Silverlake area of Los Angeles (adjacent to Griffith Park) once had a drive-in theatre -- apparently a twin. From what I've been able to discover, it was built around 1950, which means it wasn't around for long. The Golden State Freeway was built on top of it. The entrance, as seen in the drawing, is the approximate location of the Glendale BLVD off-ramp. I would greatly appreciate photographs or any other information about it.

Kiddie Records Rediscovered

Long, long ago, before home computers, before DVDs, even before VHS tapes, only television, radio and records existed to entertain us at our whim. Many children today take for granted they can see an animated feature once or a thousand times, day or night, at home or in the car, while those of us who grew up in the middle of the twentieth century had to wait seven long years to see any of the Disney re-releases, and if you missed one (as I missed Sword in the Stone), the next time you were probably be too old to care. But we did have access to phonographs, and many of us had a reasonably large collection of audio entertainment to entertain ourselves on rainy days which they called 'records.' The spectrum was surprisingly wide and rich. There weren't just recorded stories, but albums designed to introduce the young listener to symphonic music, opera, jazz and poetry as well as the popular recording stars of the day. And just look at the cover art!

When I was growing up, 78s were on their way out, but they were still issuing the yellow, red and orange acetate Golden Records, which were about 29 cents. I also had quite a few 45s, some of which were extended play and sometimes even came in sets for those who had phonographs, an alternative in the 1950s to the emerging market for LPs.

But what has happened to the thousands of recordings made specifically for the children's market? Where are they? Why haven't they been reissued on CD? Everything else has. Kiddie Records Weekly has collected many of the more interesting recordings on their site, including Gerald Mc Boing-Boing which I detailed in the previous post.

Gerald McBoing-Boing: Rare Seuss artwork

Dr. Seuss did not illustrate the Gerald McBoing Boing picture book -- it was based on artwork done for the initial UPA short, adapted by Mel Crawford. It's a very charming book and has been reissued in recent years.

Dr. Seuss did, however, execute the artwork for the Capitol 45 RPM record. I had a subsequent 45, which was probably based on the short Gerald Mc Boing-Boing's Symphony (1953). I played it hundreds of times.

It would have been easy to simply issue a soundtrack of the short. Instead, Capitol chose to create new music and have it narrated by The Great Gildersleeve. It's difficult to explain just what that means because Gildersleeve was not a specific actor but a character in a popular radio and television show, initially played by Harold Peary and later by Willard Waterman. After listening to the record here, it's clearly Waterman. He's probably most memorable to today's audiences as Mr. Upson in Auntie Mame and Mr. Vanderhoff in The Apartment.

Unknown Moderns off Mulholland Drive, Hollywood Hills

I've not been able to discover the architect of this 1967 modern with the eye-catching roofline, which recalls Buff and Hensman's wonderful design done for Saul Bass' Altadena house. Perched on a cliff on Pyramid Place and overlooking the Valley, the pool actually sits at the front of the house, behind the fence. I toured this house when it was up for sale about six years ago. It had been sadly neglected and still had acres of 1970s deep pile shag. Even worse were the bathrooms, which had every available square inch recovered in awful 1980s mirror tiles. As the exterior is now as authentic as it was in 1967, I'm hoping the interior is now just as sensible.


Where Pyramid picks up again down the hill off Woodrow Wilson is this rather unusual mid-century nestled in a eucalyptus grove on a double lot. According to Zillow, the large (4,000 square foot) modern was designed by Carl Matsen in 1964.
It appears there is a very large covered patio in the back.

Assembly Line Board Game

This was manufactured by the venerable Selchow and Righter company in 1953. If the name doesn't ring a bell, their games will -- Parcheesi, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit were their top sellers, all licensed from other creators. The company was sold to Coleco in the 1980s which in turn was sold to Hasbro. Apparently Assembly Line isn't as rare as one might think. At this writing there is a later edition of the game for sale on ebay for about twenty dollars. I've actually never played it, but reading the instructions, it sounds rather tedious. There are four 'factories' -- Plymouth, Studebaker, Ford and Chevrolet, yet all the cars look the same. The moves are a bit complicated. Whomever gets his cars out of the factory first wins. To me the best part of the game is this box art, which looks more 1930s than 1950s as does the terminology. "Motor Czar" sounds like what Sinclair Lewis called Dodsworth.
The board itself isn't that fun to look at in a rather dull Parcheesi way, not nearly as ambitious as Milton Bradley's Test Driver game which came along a few years later.

GM's Solutions to City Traffic Congestion

There's loads of great shots of America's traffic jams circa 1955. While the parking theories herein make a lot of sense, GM was incidentally making a pitch for their city buses...and soon would be expanding their cars to extraordinary lengths!