Eddie Cantor in "Strike Me Pink"  Part One

In the January 1936 Musical Comedy, actor Eddie Cantor as Eddie Pink is joined by Ethel Merman who plays Joyce Lennox. Cantor does his own miraculous and death-defying stunts. The film was directed by Norman Taurog and produced by Samuel Goldwyn who had an especially good eye for discovering talent.  The movie, distributed by United Artists was shot in Long Beach, California at a park called, "The Pike." 

Cantor first appeared publicly in Vaudeville at New York's Clinton Music Hall in 1907. Ten years later he joined as a member of the Ziegfield Follies. With the advent of film, he acted in six movies for Goldwyn over seven years. Busy comic. "Pink" was the sixth and final appearance for him in Samuel Goldwyn Productions. This film was based on a novel and Saturday Evening Post story series, Dreamland, by Clarence Budington. Dreamland appeared on stage in 1933. Upon the release of the movie, a review in The Spectator, a popular magazine of the time, urged viewers to go to the theater to see this film as "one will have to wait a very long time for any film funnier that this one."

In the movie, Eddie, mild mannered and nervous, works at a college laundry, washing clothes, shining shoes and ironing trousers. He is bullied by a number of college boys except for one who takes him under his wing. He studies a book to become more assertive.

Eventually, Eddie finds himself inolved with cut throat, slot-machine swindlers. He gets himself into all kinds of trouble, including running from the hoodlums through the large crowd of park attendees and over and under a roller coaster. He finally is chased into a tethered hot-air balloon where he takes refuge. The orb is operated by a gentleman who oversees those who would like to ascend to see the sights. When Eddie scrambles in for safety, the ballon becomes untethered: 

 

And up and up and up it floats, higher and higher! 

 

Now what??? 

  

The gangsters, who stole uniforms right off the cops as it turns out, 

are waitng way down below to get their hands on Eddie!  

With a tilt of the balloon, Eddie finds himself on the outside of the thing, 

evenually dangling from the legs of the operator... 

 

 ....whose pants began to slip down and down. 

 

 

 Eddie slips from the suspendered pants and plummets to the ground, somehow landing on a trapese bar! 

He unwittingly becomes an integral part of the show. 

 

The trapese artists incorporate Eddie seemlessly into their act. In doing so, 

Eddie's coat is pulled off by the "flying" men in one of the exchanges.

 

Then they grab his legs but then Eddie is unceremonously stripped of his pants! 

The trapese men let go of this arms and legs....

 

Eddie and the crowd below are surprised to see him balancing high up on the support bar reduced to just his shirt and union suit...

 

 He soon loses his balance, falling back down, but thankfully he's caught by his escape hatch at the rear of his long underwear just as his shirt is pulled off his arms! 

 

Back and forth Eddie swings by the seat of his union suit...

 

...until, predictably, his flap gives way, plummeting him to the trampoline down below where he is quickly sought by the police. 

Will they get their hands on their "underwear fugitive?"  Is he hand cuffed and led away in his union suit? To find out watch for the continuation of Eddie Pink's exploits next week.

A special thanks to Samuel Goldwyn Productions and United Artists for making this most interesting and entertaining filme for us to enjoy ninety years later!  Streaming on several services.

Gordon Lightfoot, Union Suit Fan?  Part II

On the train ride to prison, Harry Tracy was permitted to go to the can where he rubbed soap on his hands to enable him to slip from the handcuffs he was wearing. 

When he was "encouraged" to finish his business and return to his seat, 

 

Tracy reentered the passenger area of the train car, overwhelmed the deputy, grabbed his rifle 

and held the marshall and three other guardsman hostage!

Tracy pulled an emergency cord making the train abruptly screech to a stop. The lawmen were soon made to drop their guns and peel out of their coats and clothes. They were then encouraged to descend the stairs of the train car into the bitter cold, clad only in their long underwear and boots, the marshall in his union suit. Brrr! 

With Tracy's gun trained on them, the lawmen had no choice but to begin the long, embarrassing walk back to town in their long johns. 

 

Tracy, in the meantime, led the marshall's horse down off the train. 

Having climbed up and into the saddle... 

he road in the same direction, soon galloping past the shivering men, slowly making their way back the way they had come.

Hundreds of lawmen of every sort chased Tracy hoping to finally apprehend the now famous thieving bank robber. 

Enjoy this good, old time movie to see if the union suited Gordon Lightfoot gets his gun and clothes back and if Bruce Dern is finally brought to justice. 

Harry Tracy was reshown in theaters, on television and now streaming having been twice retitled:  

In appreciation to Telefilm Canada, the actors and all those who brought this story first to the big screen and now into our homes. Thanks from Union Suit Fans in the Limelight!

Gordon Lightfoot, Union Suit Fan?  Part I

Perhaps, but I don't really know. This popular Canadian singer-song writer, who passed away May 1, 2023 in Toronto, has been called Canada's "national treasure" and the country's "most successful and loved contemporary folk singer." 

Born in 1938 he was no doubt very familiar with long underwear, being from the north country and all. Lightfoot began writing and performing music in 1958 and became famous and loved in the 1960's and 70's. My very favorite song of his was "If you could read my mind." To hear, copy and paste:  https://youtu.be/jiU2lrGnT7U?t=1

By the time I purchased his album featuring this popular song, I, myself, had been wearing union suits for a few years.

Lightfoot's first public wearing the one-piece, button up the front, rear escape hatch long underwear may have been in the film, Harry Tracy, first released by Telefilm Canada in 1975. He played  U.S. Marshall Morrie Nathan, starring along side Bruce Dern who played Tracy, the last of the old west, train-robbing, notorious gang members. All the other late 19th century thieves and murderers were with dead or in prison.

The first 15 minutes was of Tracy wearing only his boots and white long johns breaking out of a jail in freezing cold Aspen, Colorado 

 It was not revealed why escape artist Tracy was in jail unclothed, and how he happened to escape. 

He raced across town in the snow in his underwear until he found a horse to steal. Tracy high-tailed it out of town, bent on finding the woman (Helen Shaver as Catherine Tuttle), a judge's daughter whom he deeply loved and had traveled all the way to Portland in the far northwest to seek. 

Hot on his heels, was the Marshal and his native American tracker:

Tracy was finally chased down and apprehended, still in his long johns by the marshall... 

Get away from me with that damn camera! 

...and returned to jail where he was confined in only dripping wet underwear, 

until a train could take him to a more secure prison. 

He had made the front page of the local newspaper

 in his long johns being attended to by his true love: 

The marshall was wakened, pulled on his britches over this union suit 

to inform Harry it was time to head to the train station: 

To see what happens next on the train ride to prison, check back with Union Suit Fans in the Limelight for Part II of "Gordon Lightfoot, Union Suit Fan?" 

You'll see how Marshall Nathan ends up out in the snow in only his derby and union suit!