A Hole in the Head

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🎙️ EPISODE 342: 03.19.2021 As the Golden Age of Hollywood wound to a screeching halt with the dawn of the 1960s, one of its OGs, Frank Capra, took to Miami Beach with the newest fangled technology available at the time to make his first ever 'in color' motion picture. The result being the Frank Sinatra comedic vehicle, A Hole in the Head, which twice makes reference to "a hole in the head" but only once in the way that you're thinking. I don't go deep in the Capraverse, but I will stan for It's a Wonderful Life till the day I die. This one certainly vibes on similar terrain (ya see, there's this guy, and wouldn't you know it, he's down on his luck, see). It's not nearly as good, but like a lot of old movies it works for what it is, as a kind of time machine or portal to the past.

It opens with the first ever aerial billboard style opening credits sequence. This is, after all, show biz...


(I don't actually know if this is the first time this has been done. It might be the only time it's ever been done. But let's just let sleeping dogs lie, OK?)

Anyway, that's just lovely, isn't it? It's, for the most part, a lovely-looking two hours of film, ripe with the blown-out, luscious colors that those first entries into the world of technicolor pictures are known for. Although, every scene in the motel living room where it seemed like all the actors were getting paid by the word.... not so much. But you have to know that going in. This era loved TALKING and WORDS and DIALOGUE. You also have to know that culturally, and societally, this is, umm, not a great look. But, other than child actor Eddie Hodges (who got out of the biz before the biz got him), nearly every single person involved in the creation of this thing, on every level, is dead now. It's funny (in that way outdated things are funny) when Frank Sinatra threatens to hit his kid for acting out. When he actually does the smack the kid in anger, yeah, that doesn't feel great. And the treatment of women and minorities... please.

But Frank Sinatra is great in this, and honestly this hyperreal world is too cool to hate...

But to transcend time and all the cultural stuff, which obviously doesn't age, and still resonate in such a way as it does on occassion–cutting straight to the heart of our collective plight–is really a stroke a genius. I went ahead and put together a lil 3-minute montage of some of my favorite parts/lines here. Enjoy....


And lastly, I call this gif "Frank Sinatra gets scared by bubbles shot out of a toy monkey" and will soon be minting it as an NFT on the blockchain (is that right; did I say that right?)

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 341 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 343A ⫸

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