“ALRIGHT, MESSR. MERRIAM AND WEBSTER, I’M READY FOR MY CLOSEUP”

MOVIES GIVE RISE TO INTERESTING ETYMOLOGIES, as described May 12, 2023 at wordgenius.com. Here are tidbits about words originating “in Old Hollywood.”

Not Mr. DeMille This Time. First, the title quote is inspired by Norma Desmond’s utterance in the 1950 movie Sunset Boulevard. 

Portrayed by Gloria Swanson, Desmond is a faded movie star who mistakes a news crew for Cecil DeMille (who, by the way, has appeared here at SimanaitisSays in a decidedly different context). 

Gaslighting. Word Genius says, “This word has taken off in recent years to describe the relationship dynamic of ‘deliberately making a person believe that they are insane,’ usually by denying that certain events or conversations ever occurred. It comes from the 1944 film Gaslight, in which Ingrid Bergman (who won an Academy Award for the role) plays a woman who appears to be losing her mind, until it’s later revealed that her husband has been convincing her of her insanity to discredit her observations of his criminal activities.”

Film critic Emanuel Levy called this movie “a thriller soaked in paranoia.” The flick appears occasionally on Turner Classic Movies. 

Bombshell. Word Genius cites that, from 1859, the word could mean “ ‘a shattering or devastating thing or  event.’ But there’s also usage in reference to ‘a pretty woman of startling vitality or physique’ dating to the first half of the 20th century. This usage is believed to have originated with the 1933 film Bombshell, starring Jean Harlow, loosely based on the life of silent film star Clara Bow.”

The date 1933 is important, as it’s at the cusp of pre- and post-Code movies. By the time the Hays Code of highly detailed Don’ts and Be Carefuls gained strength, for awhile there we no longer saw the inside of a woman’s thigh, the bad guy getting away, or interracial romance.

My favorite image of Jean Harlow is with her “slant board,” designed so she could rest between takes without wrinkling her costume. 

Paparazzi. Today’s overly aggressive freelance photographers owe their moniker to Frederico Fellini. In La Dolce Vita, Italian actor/director Walter Santesso portrays Paparazzo. He has 26 other films to his credit, but no portrayals as lasting in character name. 

Paparazzo doesn’t appear until Episode 4, the 3rd Day Sequence (with 14 more Sequences to go, few with him cited explicitly).

A Moment of Discovery, Made Immortal. Roger Ebert’s comments about La Dolce Vita are exemplary of film review: “Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw ‘La Dolce Vita’ in 1960, I was an adolescent for whom ‘the sweet life’ represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamour, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello’s world; Chicago’s North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 a.m. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello’s age. When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a role model but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the University of Colorado, Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal.”

What fine writing. ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2023