Thursday, 14 April 2011

Mystery Passenger Revealed

That lady riding in the cab with John Abbott is....



...Bette Davis.  This is from "Deception" (1946), which we covered here.  Notice how in both this photo and the one on Monday, she's holding onto the ceiling strap in the car.  A lot of us remember the days of no seatbelts in cars, but occasionally in some of these old movies we catch a glimpse of this strap suspended from the  ceiling.  "Invitation" (1952) is another one I can think of off the top of my head that shows the strap.  I'm not sure how useful it was in restaining oneself in a collision, but at least it's something to fiddle with when you're trying to bribe John Abbott to give up his position as first cellist with the orchestra.