Saturday, June 13, 2009

Buying Time

Boy, this little essay I started writing about Luis Buñuel and surrealism has turned into one of those grueling literary marathons that isn't going to get finished today. Hopefully, I'll have it for you tomorrow and it will be light, breezy and mildly informative.

Normally at this point, I'd publish another photograph of lovely Katie Award nominee Anita Page, you know, to fill out another entry and, well, because I can. But faithful reader "lupner" has been complaining (silently, in her head) that there hasn't been enough beefcake exhibited (Douglas Fairbanks notwithstanding).

Since she's already rejected Silent Era male pin-ups Rudolph Valentino and John Gilbert, I offer up for her viewing pleasure this photo of a young actor named Clark Gable who has been working as an uncredited extra since 1923. He's still a couple of years away from breakthrough performances in Dance, Fools, Dance (Joan Crawford) and A Free Soul (Norma Shearer), but he's working in Hollywood at this time so he qualifies for a mention.


Here he's paired with one of my favorite actresses, Mary Astor, in the classic 1932 film, Red Dust.