Mark Twain, 1950's
Well, what do you know... pictures of the Mark Twain?! It's hard to believe, and yet, here they are. Undated, but from sometime in the 50's. This photographer took at least 10 pictures of the Twain, which seems excessive. I didn't even scan all of them.
Here it comes, with the added bonus of Vesey Walker and the Disneyland Band performing on the bow. This must be pretty early in Disneyland's history, the banks of Frontierland are barren and weedy. Which is OK with me! Somebody is standing on Tom Sawyer Island though, so it is at least from 1956.
The steamboat is almost at the dock, looks but the band won't stop! They're right in the middle of "Free Bird" so they're going to be there a while. That Keelboat looks so cute and tiny, but it is zipping right along.
This one is from the same batch, but with a new load of passengers. The seated girl who is waving at us is the daughter of the photographer. In spite of all my grousing about having too many photos of the Mark Twain, I do love this picture!
19 comments:
TokyoMagic! Are you going to the show today, to see the "movie" in honor of our favorite redhead's birthday? I may. (My apologies, Major, for going off topic. It won't happen again.)
Sue
Major-
"Free Bird" - you reckon-?? It sounds more like "Hey Jude" to me. But, then again I often get my 'classic tunes' all mixed-up. All those kids in the last image sure look delighted to be there.
@ Lou and Sue-
Undoubtedly, that's exactly where the Mark Twain is heading. 'Jamestown or bust-!'
Thanks, Major.
Nanook! You, too?!
Sue
@ Sue-
Any excuse to tease The Major...
OH! Nanook, you just reminded me - I promised the Major that I wouldn't go off topic, again . . .
Major, I love today's pictures of the Mark Twaizzzzzzzzz
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“Free bird”? “Hey Jude”?
All I hear is "ride of the valkyries"
I love the second pic with the front-on view. It makes the Twain look imposing... but all three of these are lovely!
Actually, they're playing the theme from "Jaws" in an effort to keep swimmers out of the river. However, since the movie wouldn't be released for a couple of decades, the results were poor. Many swimmers were eaten by Bruce the shark. So many that he was eventually relocated to Universal... Hey, I don't just make this stuff up!
Sue, what movie? Is there something special showing for today only?
TokyoMagic! Yes, today only, from what I read. They've colorized 5 of the most-popular I Love Lucy episodes and included the previously-cut footage. It sounds like there's also a short documentary to go with it. I really only want to go to see my favorite episode on the big screen - the one where they go to the Brown Derby and bump into Bill Holden. It's supposedly playing across the country - but the evening shows are already sold out, by me, so I'm heading over there in a couple minutes, for the morning showing, as I have today off of work anyway.
Major, I truly do love the Mark Twain pictures! Keep posting them and thank you for today's!
Sue
Lou and Sue, I have no idea what you are talking about, though it must have to do with Lucy…
Nanook, I actually do like “Free Bird” (and “Hey Jude”, which my brother hates), so I would be OK with either. I’m not sure how the Band would achieve that 8 minutes guitar solo from FB though!
Lou and Sue… ??
Nanook, ???
Lou and Sue, I’ve completely lost control of this blog!
Budblade, that would be good too! “I love the smell of churros in the morning”.
Penna. Andrew, I guess I’ve just seen too darn many photos (even good ones) of the Mark Twain at this point.
stu29573, I’ve never heard the Jaws theme from a marching band, but I’ve heard organists at baseball games play it! On a funny side note, when my nephew graduated from high school in June and the ceremonies ended, the high school band played the Imperial March from “Star Wars” as the graduates exited! I’m pretty sure I remember reading all about Bruce the shark being relocated to Universal, probably in a “Vacationland” magazine!
TokyoMagic!, I doubt Sue is talking about the latest Tarantino flick.
Lou and Sue, colorization is evil! I’ve never seen it done to the point where it is convincing. I still remember seeing a colorized version of “It’s a Wonderful Life” years ago; guess what color “Violet” was wearing? So dumb. It would be interesting if they could someday truly make a film look as if it was originally shot in glorious Technicolor, but that would be difficult because B&W films were lit so differently. I’d still have a issue about it from an artistic standpoint. Over 2 hours of “Lucy” would not kill me, but it sure wouldn’t be at the top of my list of things to do.
Everyone is forgiven for going off topic, if it involves Lucy, the greatest physical comedy star since Harpo Marx. Great shots of the Mark Twain today. I agree with Major, colorization is iffy at best. Unless you were there, no one knows what color someone was wearing, so they just guess. And now I am going to put in my Long Long Trailer DVD. Thanks Major.
I can't decide which Mark Twain ride would be most fun, to ride on the upper deck and hear the band down front, or sit down front and have the front row seat.
I guess I will have to do both, back-to-back, just to try it.
Ten pictures of the Mark Twain is a lot, Major, I agree. I wonder if there was a special interest of the photographer spurring that choice? Was he from St. Louis or Memphis? Did his grandparents meet on a river boat? Was his great uncle a gambler? Was his father-in-law a cotton broker? We may never know.
I'm on the fence about colorized movies, mostly seems like a waste of time to me. If the original was good, it doesn't need colorizing, and if the original was bad, why bother? There, I have solved that matter.
I've never been particularly a Lucille Ball fan, but have seen her recently on some Carol Burnett shows available on Amazon. She is entertaining enough there, and certainly easy on the eyes.
JG
I just finished another week of shows with the Opera Cowpokes, so I've been a-hankerin' for some Frontierland pictures. My favorite is the last one, with the little boys waving and the cute little girl holding onto the ropes. Kids can be adorable when they're not being little monsters.
I went to the theater the last time they showed colorized Lucy episodes; it was a lot of fun.
Melissa, it did turn out to be a lot of fun (even more-so than I expected) seeing I Love Lucy at the show today, with other Lucy fans. The laughter was contagious. I ended up sitting through all of it because my favorite episode was last . . . of course.
Melissa, I hope you don't mind me asking: Are you a performer or singer in the Opera Cowpokes? Please share more with us about it! (You may already have in the past, but I'm still rather new to GDB and haven't finished reading all the past posts and comments.) I googled Opera Cowpokes . . . is that you - "Melisse"?
Major and JG, I agree with you about colorization. The documentary, included with today's showing, covered some of your good points about colorization. I still love the old classic B/W movies and TV shows, just the way they are. But, today, I did enjoy seeing Lucy in beautifully colored outfits - though her hair was on fire!
Back to the Mark Twain pictures today: Can you imagine having lived around Disneyland's property, long before Disneyland was built -- and then, years later, seeing rivers and river boats pop up?! True magic!
I don't get tired of seeing the activity on ROA, it's very relaxing! We need a dose of it, once a week or so. An escape from all the busy-ness. Thank you, Major!
Sue
Colorization is a sticky subject, to say the least-! We (the collective 'we') do it because we can. Period. Moving images captured through some means other than the human eye aren't real - no matter how "real" some may say it is. It is an artistic expression, and as such, all bets are off.
I'm amused by the whole process, as I enjoy technology and how it can be used to improve our lives (although, that's often not the case). Colorization is a mess, as the "color" that's applied to the original B&W image is done using present-day aesthetics - something that would never have happened had the color been done at the time of the original image capture. In the case of these I Love Lucy. episodes, we'd be talking about using Eastman Color stock 5248 (possibly 5247 for "Pioneer Women". As 'beautiful' as chemically-based color film can look, it's full of variables, and anyone who "creates "color images out of 'whole cloth' is playing God, and is merely rationalizing the results as somehow "authentic". And in the case of three-camera, B&W television productions - with extremely flat lighting - it's really an uphill battle achieving anything close to what color images would have appeared back in 1952-1955, in these examples. (It's funny, how adding 3D to all of Hollywood's 2D output is rarely, if ever mentioned as an "improvement". Golly - I wonder why...)
The copyright holders may have the legal rights, and the creative folks may "know" the original color intent - so have the creative rights, but that hardly makes the results either welcome or any sort of 'improvement'.
Back in '89, a buddy of mine saw Gone With the Wind for the first time on TBS. He came over to my apartment the next day ranting about how they'd colorized it. I had to break it to him that it had been shot that way in the first place.
In subsequent viewings, I noticed that it does make use of a lot of lighting styles found in B&W films of the period, particularly with the use of shadows, so I understand his confusion, particularly since Ted Turner was colorizing everything back then.
Sue, totally forgot about the Lucy showing today. Glad you got a chance to see it.
JG, I think the photographer had just read the article on the Sultana disaster in the October, 1955 issue of American Heritage and was hoping to capture a photo of a boiler explosion.
@ Chuck-
Gone With the Wind came pretty early in the pantheon of [3-color] Technicolor films. It required tons of light to be poured on each scene. The unofficial film speed was somewhere around ASA 4 or 6-! In other words - it was a challenge to photograph in that system back then. Original prints from 1939, often 'read' as very yellow in many scenes - a look that was changed for the 1955-? re-release of the film. Again - color film is (was) a very tricky thing to "get" right and required experts with a lot of experience to achieve great results. And yet they did; for the wasn't any easier way at the time. As a friend of mine was so fond of saying: "Nothing was too much trouble". Indeed.
Sue, I had no idea that they were releasing colorized episodes of I.L.L. in the theaters. I know that years ago, they colorized two or three episodes, including the Christmas episode and showed them on TV in December. Then every year since then, they colorize another episode or two and show it with the Christmas one.
I'm not a fan of colorization. To me, that is like turning the Submarine Voyage into Finding Nemo Subs or the Swiss Family Treehouse into Tarzan's Treehouse. Or maybe I should use a better comparison, by saying it's like making the pink and blue colors on Sleeping Beauty Castle, ten times brighter and then throwing some gold on it, "just because." I believe in leaving most things in their original incarnations, because 99% of the time, the original artist's' work can't be improved upon by today's amateurs. At least, that's my personal opinion! ;-)
Sue, having said all of that, I'm glad to hear that you had a good time! The episode you mentioned is one of my favorites as well! Actually, I love all of the "Hollywood" episodes.
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