From the Archives - Calgary in the Sixties

 

Science Fair Entry

  

Science Fair Winners

  

 The Family Bomb Shelter

  Learning to Drive

Framed by a Tire

 

Arko the Police Dog

 

Long-Distance Phone Call

400,000th Visitor to the Zoo

Images courtesy the Glenbow Museum's Calgary in the Sixties series (via Flickr Commons).   

Shopping from the movies: Shoot the Moon (Parker 1982)

Some films are better watched on fast forward or reproduced as film stills. Shoot the Moon (Parker 1982) is just such a movie -- playing out like an Ingmar Bergman domestic drama populated by Woody Allen characters. While we're asked to focus on the dissolving marriage of Albert Finney and Diane Keaton, one's eye cannot help but wander to the the family's shared taste in classic clothing: wonderful cotton plaids, knits, woolens and jackets sourced (perhaps) from venerable brands like Barbour, Woolrich and Pendleton.

I've reproduced a few stills for reference:

Rugby stripes and heritage garb for kids

Knit cardigans

Plaids (and pencil sharpeners)

Barbour Solway Zipper jackets (and a fetching duffle)

Woolrich jac-shirts

Down vests

Pendleton blanket robes

Cotton knit caps

And a few a household accessories:

Rotary phones

Backyard tennis courts

Family station wagons

Shopping From the Movies: Telephones

Watching Freaky Friday (1977), I remembered how much I miss the corded telephone as dramatic device (and artifact of tasteful home decor). As Sara notes, a traditional telephone creates a restrictive perimeter from which the user cannot roam. All sorts of great comedic/dramatic material--especially in Seventies teen flic films--is generated when the user overrides this perimeter, typically in a kitchen/domestic space (ovens smoke, washers overflow, blenders erupt, etc). What would film history even look like without the home or pay telephone (think: Klute, All the Presidents Men, The Bells are Ringing, Pillow Talk)?! Most likely, everything would be a bland variation on films like the Bourne Identity or The Departed wherein cellular phones simply double as explosive or tracking devices (whole new action film genres are being built upon the untethered, disposable, multi-tasking properties of the modern cordless phone).