Thanksgiving 101

For those of us in the U.S. about to celebrate Thanksgiving, we here at Another Old Movie Blog would like to help make your holiday preparations more successful. Last Thanksgiving was long time ago, and you’ve probably forgotten a lot about what to do.

Here is an informational film from our good friends at Instructional Films, Inc. to help you create the perfect feast and a most pleasant holiday. It was made in 1950. Take notes.

(Remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page and mute the music so you can hear the video.)

Now Playing - Shadow of the Thin Man

Before we leave the holiday of Thanksgiving entirely behind us, here is a look at an ad for “Shadow of the Thin Man”, which opened in many theaters on Thanksgiving Day, 1941. In the days before watching football on TV (or watching hours and hours of TCM), the movie theaters were packed on holidays, and Thanksgiving was an opportune release date for a new movie. Probably a lot of sleeping in the theater, with all that tryptophan.

Myrna Loy and William Powell take another turn at Nick and Nora Charles, stylish and witty detectives and social inebriates. Donna Reed plays a receptionist in this film, in what was her second movie.

In less than two weeks, we would be at war. Nick and Nora Charles would soon come to represent not so much modern glitz as nostalgia for the good old days when the modern world was less scary.

Roast Turkey Recipe

On this most American feast of feasts, there are inevitably questions, concerns, if not downright panic over how to properly prepare a Thanksgiving Dinner.

As an aid to our readers, I will elicit the help of two well-known chefs, Barbara Stanwyck, and Alan Hale, who, from “Stella Dallas” (1937), demonstrate for us the proper way to cook a turkey.

Pay attention. Take notes.

First: choose one extremely large turkey that has been hanging in the window of the butcher shop by its feet. Always buy a bird with the feet still on it. That’s how you know you have a good one. Never buy a bird that has been sealed in plastic. They don’t cook as well as an unwrapped turkey that you carry in your arms. This way, bits of fiber from your woolen coat sleeves stick to the skin of the turkey, and they taste good roasted.

Second: Wrestle with the turkey (minimum of two people needed for this step) for a few minutes to loosen the giblets inside.

Third: Shove it into an oven. Never mind stuffing it. Never mind putting it in a roasting pan. Those tactics are for amateurs. Real professional chefs never use roasting pans.

Fourth: Wrestle with the bird some more, taking it in and out of the oven several times before you finally close the oven door. This does nothing to affect the taste of the turkey, but you work up an appetite.

Finally: Close the oven door, leaving the feet exposed. As Mr. Hale remarks, “Of course, the feet don’t get very well done, but then I never cared for feet anyway.”

Try it today, and let me know how your Thanksgiving Dinner turns out.

Now, I’m off to wrestle with my turkey. Must fetch sports bra from the roasting pan.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Boris Karloff in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Boris Karloff, dressed as a pirate, rode down Broadway on a blustery cold November morning, on a float designed to look like pirate ship. In honor of Frankenstenia's Boris Karloff Blogathon, and in honor of Thanksgiving, we have a look today at Boris Karloff's participation in the 1950 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The New York Times reported the scene in its Friday, November 24th edition the following day. The giant balloons in the sky were nothing that would be familiar to today's cartoon-watching, video-game playing children. Sailing above them, were the un-merchandised and generic Dachshund, a Gnome, a Clown, and a Fish. The St. Bernadette Cadet Corps “blared the approach” of Boris Karloff, “the ‘bad man’ of the films, who, this time, was garbed as the swashbuckling Captain Hook, in command of his pirate ship and flanked by his buccaneers.”

Then the reporter notes that the cheers for Karloff erupted into a huge “din” for Hopalong Cassidy, played by William Boyd, “in full regalia.” We’ll discuss a film that parodied the “Hoppy” phenomenon of the early 1950s at a later time. For now, we have the image of the aging icon Karloff perhaps surpassed by a newer hero. But only temporarily, for Hopalong Cassidy is remembered now only by older Baby Boomers, and Karloff has achieved immortality, curiously not only for the body of his work, but also for the single role of Frankenstein’s Monster that shot him to stardom in middle age.

That was the early ‘30s, but by the late 1940s Mr. Karloff’s career was seemingly on the wane. His last film in the previous year of 1949 was “Abbot and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff.” Despite the honor of having one’s name actually in the title of the movie, Mr. Karloff’s monster image now was poked fun at, his eerie screen persona perhaps demystified, if not actually debunked. It wasn’t that hard to do, for Mr. Karloff, as many have noted, conveyed a gentleness that brought a depth of humanity to his roles. We discussed Boris Karloff’s humanity, despite his monster image, a few weeks ago in this post. He wasn’t just Frankenstein’s Monster, he was Pagliaccio, Cyrano, and Hamlet, playing Frankenstein’s Monster. If Pagliaccio, Cyrano, and Hamlet did not speak majestic passages but, rather, grunted and stumbled around a lot.

He could also convey, superbly, heartrending innocence.

Boris Karloff’s stint on the parade route as Captain Hook was a day off from his current gig, which was to play the dual role of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook in the Broadway musical “Peter Pan”, opposite fellow Hollywood escapee Jean Arthur in the title role. “Peter Pan” opened at the Imperial Theater on April 24, 1950. In early October, the play moved over to the St. James Theater, where it remained until January 27, 1951, for a total of 321 performances.

Author Beverly Bare Buehrer in her Boris Karloff: a Bio-bibliography (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1993) notes that the role was exhausting for a man of Karloff’s age (he would be 63 years old on November 23rd, Thanksgiving Day), with six costume changes, and three makeup changes. When the show closed in 1951, he then toured in the road production.

The opening night notices raved in delight at the turnabout for the old monster. The New York Journal American coyly noted, “Boris Karloff’s Captain Hook is no more scary than Boris Karloff’s Mr. Darling, who is no more scary than Tinker Bell.”

The New York Herald Tribune called Karloff “captivating.”

And the New York Times announced, “This is Mr. Karloff’s day of triumph.”

Did the kiddies waving at Captain Hook on the passing float know that? Or, were they just craning their heads, waiting for Hopalong Cassidy, who they knew from TV, a more intimate friendship because Hoppy was in their living rooms and not down at the neighborhood movie house (where he used to be the previous generation).

“He is at the top of his bent,” the Times crowed.

Did the parents of the kiddies pay special attention to the grand old thespian in the pirate costume, batting away the burst of snow flurries with his hook, and whisper to their children, “That’s him! That’s Frankenstein! That’s the Mummy!” while they disbelieved?

“Mr. Karloff is an actor of tenderness and humor, with an instinct for exact inflection,” so the New York Times lovingly paid the old monster tribute on his opening night on Broadway.

At the end of the parade route, Santa Claus, and parade marshal Jimmy Durante, and Hopalong Cassidy, and Boris Karloff extended their holiday greetings to the crowd in front of Macy’s. Perhaps that was the moment Karloff entered the pantheon of giants in the world of children, standing shoulder to shoulder with Hoppy and Santa, in front of a store with an enormous toy department.

He had entertained children before, on the screen, and privately in hospital wards, and on the Broadway stage. The recordings would follow, and his famous turn as the “Grinch”, which is still shown on television where Hoppy once ruled the roost but now no more. Boris’ magnificent “exact inflection” is heard every December by children sitting in front of…the television.

Perhaps in a way, that Thanksgiving Parade, rather than his opening night, was his “day of triumph”.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Grinch, and the same to Captain Hook.