Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968

There are few movies that can compare in the combination of craziness, zaniness, modness and madness as this one. Between the comedy of Dick Van Dyke, the beauty of Sally Anne Howes and the original story by Ian Flemming (of James Bond fame) it’s no surprise this flick has remained a favorite for over 40 years.

But let’s not try to fool anyone…the real star of this movie was, of course, the car. A true-bred race car, born to win until a fatal accident retired him to a peaceful life slowly withering away in a field, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang would be rediscovered, and reborn - by Caractacus Potts, a somewhat oddball inventor who seemed to be able to make mechanical wonders out of bits of junk. The ultimate in recycling and restoration came when he brought Chitty back to life, using spare parts from toasters, boilers, and even a boat. And what an amazing cat Caractacus was - a mechanic, machinist, welder, brass-wright, boat-wright, carpenter and inventor all in one!

Of course we’re led to believe he didn’t actually build it all by himself…especially the wings and flotation built into the car…there’s a little bit of magic in that car, just a little.

Depending on where you look, you’ll find that there were anywhere from four to six full-size models of this car built for the movie, with at least one being fully-operational. There’s been a lot of conjecture over the years as to what happened to them all…lost, hiding in barns has always been a favorite of mine. But they all seem to be accounted for…apparently one lives somewhere down here in Florida, so I may even get to see it in person one day.

For someone who has had a hand in restoring (or at least fixing up) old cars since I was a kid, this movie really hits home. More than the fact that it’s a kool little car that can fly, more than the fact that it’s magical. There’s another story here, one that most people don’t care much about…it’s a story about taking something that was once magnificent, and that has since fallen from grace; about taking that wondrous piece of machinery and bringing it back to life, giving it a new chance to delight and be adored. I’ve had the good fortune to do that with a couple of cars, some vintage toys, and even an antique clarinet. I’m doing it now with my 1953 Chevy Belair, although not nearly as quickly (or with as much talent) as Caractacus Potts.

Since this is really a kid’s movie, I’d have to go with some sweet snacks and drinks to go along with it. For drinks, I’m thinking along the lines of chocolate milk…maybe a Nutty Irishman, or Chocolate Martini. For snacks, break out the hard candies, chocolates and cakes. Some good old-fashioned Hershey’s chocolate bars and Brach’s hard candies should do the trick. Oh, and don’t for get the Maloxx.

-Tiki Chris Pinto, Live from The Tiki Blog

When I read Mike Hammer, it takes me back to that other time, that other place. That dark, rough time in the city, when the nights were full of alluring dames and cheap booze and the weight of my .45 kept dragging me down, reminding me that there were big, tough wiseguys that needed a lesson in respect, beat into them the right way, with a crowbar. That other time, long ago; that dark, evil time in the rain-soaked, soot-streaked city.

Phillip Marlow was tough. Sam Spade knew his way around a .38. Even Sonny Crocket could pull a trigger on an Uzi without blinking an eye. But in the tough guy department, none of them came close to Mike Hammer.

I’m not talking about the watered-down-for-TV Mike Hammer, played by Darrin McGavin in the ’50s and Stacey Keach in the ’80s. I’m talking about the real Mike Hammer, the borderline-psychopath detective dreamed up by Mickey Spillane in the late 1940’s through the ’50s, the .45 automatic-toting ex-army special forces operative who learned how to track and maim and kill in the jungles of World War II, the big tough street mug with a fist of ice cold steel and a soft spot in his heart for the dames. That Mike Hammer.

If you’ve read Spillane, you know what I’m getting at. If you haven’t, you should, on the double. Just the fact that you’ve read this far clues me in that you’re gonna like it something big.

Of all the great (and not so great but nevertheless popular) detective stories that came out of the last 80 or so years, from Marlow to Veronica Mars, from Ellery Queen to Tony Rome, from James Bond to Batman, only one really stands out as something darker, something almost horrifying…the original down and dirty streetwise gumshoe, the hardcore dime-store private eye who did things his own way and got away with it, his way. Many copied his style down the line, but they never hit on the real difference, the one thing that made Hammer stand a couple of blocks away from all the rest.

You see, Mike Hammer was a murderer.

Sure, he had a private dick’s ticket, a little card stamped by the State of New York that gave him the legal right to carry a heater and arrest bad guys. But to Hammer, it was nothing more than a ‘get out of jail free’ card. A convenience when it came to court time. A slip of paper that gave him the right clean up his beloved city, to wipe up the back alleys and dimly-lit tap rooms with the faces of the city’s scum, and then to go a step further…because he’d been around the block few times, and he knew the score…arresting the bad guys didn’t do nuts. They’d get off; sure as hell they’d get sent up for a short stretch and be back on the streets mugging and robbing and beating up dames and little guys for spending cash and kicks. Jail wasn’t enough for this filth. They needed to be punished.

The small-time hoods got off easy with a beating they’d remember for life. A couple of cracked ribs, a broken jaw and brain damage usually did the trick with Horse-pushers and lowlife pimps, two-bit gamblers and croocked politicians. But for the killers…well, that was another story. An eye for an eye. If they lived as killers they needed to die as killers, by an equally evil and screwed-up killer. Mike was the self-appointed jailer, judge, jury…and executioner. And he always found a way to make his story stick, make it legit…one way or another, he would kill, he would need to kill; he would justify it as ridding the world of evil and he’d get away clean.

Don’t believe me? Think I’ve gone off the deep end? Set your peepers on this little bit of insight, taken from the first few pages of One Lonely Night, the fourth book in the Mike Hammer series. Published in 1951, the story gives an inner view of Hammer’s mind, the way he thinks, and what he thinks about the world he’s been forced into. To me, these few paragraphs sum up his character, the whole series, and the darker side of life in “the good old days”. It’s what made me really appreciate Mike Hammer when I first read I, The Jury at age 12. It makes me appreciate all the Hammer novels for what they are: The real diary of a madman.

(talking about a judge who wanted to throw the book at him, but could not) “…I was a licensed investigator who knocked off somebody who needed knocking off bad and he couldn’t get to me. So I was a murderer by definition and all the law could do was shake its finger at definitions.”…”maybe he thought I should have stayed there and called the cops when the bastard had a rod in his hand and it was pointing at my gut…” “He had to take me back five years to a time he knew of only second hand and tell me how it took a war to show me the power of the gun and the obscene pleasure that was brutality and force, the spicy sweetness of murder sanctified by law. That was me.” “…There in the muck and slime of the jungle, there in the stink that hung over the beaches rising from the bodies of the dead, there in the half-light of too many dusks and dawns laced together with the crisscrossed patterns of bullets, I had gotten a taste of death and found it palatable to the extent I could never again eat the fruits of a normal civilization.”…”I was a killer. I was a murderer, legalized. I had no reason for living. Yeah, he said that!”*

Mix that insanity in a shaker with a Colt .45 Combat Commander and an insatiable appetite for serving justice. Throw in a couple of ice cubes and a busty brunette secretary named Velda. Pour it in a tall chilled glass, frosty with the blood of a hundred hoodlums and garnish it with a peel of the city at night, and you’ve got a Mike Hammer Manhattan.

There are 13 books in the Mike Hammer series, plus the TV scripts and screen plays. But with the passing of Spillane a few years ago flew any chance of ever hearing Mike’s voice say anything new again. Others may try, some may come close. But no one can dole out the imagery or lay down the style that Mickey gave to his fantastically flawed unsung hero, Mike Hammer.

(Read the books, start from the beginning with I, The Jury and follow Mike all the way through to Black Alley. If you dig reading about real mid-century American culture through the eyes of an author who was writing these books at the time, as the present, you’ll absolutely enjoy Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer.)

-Original Content by Christopher Pinto for Tiki Lounge Talk.
*Passages from “One Lonely Night” written by Mickey Spillane, ©1951, 1979, used for informational/educational purposes only.

The saying goes, “A picture says a thousand words’. In hipster talk that translates roughly into “A kool frame riffs millennium verbs,” or in some circles “A swingin’ snapshot lays down a kat’s score hipper and with more jazz than some ramblin’ gin-weary monologue spread around like a tome, ya dig?”

Case in point: The picture laid out before you kats is of my bookshelf, to my left as I type at this souped-up typewriter. I was just playing around with the interwebs when I shot my peepers over, and realized that everything on this part of the shelf, with very few exceptions, is 4o years old or older. Some of these gadgets I’ve had for years. Some of them I’ve had almost all my life.

What’s really crazy is everything you see in this photo has a story. Some stories I remember vividly, as if they happened yesterday. Some are a little fuzzy, getting lost in time. But every time I glance over, I get a memory…Memories of places I used to hit that are gone forever. Memories of that far off land of childhood. Memories of things I loved to do. And memories of people I loved who are no longer around.

I’m really digging this pic. I think what I’ll do, just for kicks, is give you kats and kittens a little story - from memory - that goes along with one of the items on the shelf. Every now and then I’ll re-post the photo and give you a new story.

Let’s start with the big red car.

What you see here is a 1933-1936 Cadillac LaSalle Sedan, made of pressed steel by the Wyandotte toy company. It measures around 13″ long, and originally came with solid rubber tires and a matching, teardrop-shaped camper trailer. The design was an idealized, Art Deco version of the real car, and was very modern for its time.

In the 1970’s, my parents were antique dealers. Often my father would get up at five or six AM to hit yard sales and flea markets, looking for some kool stuff to buy and sell. One spring Saturday morning when I was around seven, my dad went out early to the yard sales, and came back while I was still asleep. He woke me up and brought me into the kitchen, where this crazy-looking toy car, big as an elephant, was sitting on the table. It was painted black, and had all kinds of little smiling faces and sayings on it… Mostly Happy New Year, 1939 I think…and little painted balloons and confetti. The paint was in pretty sad shape, and the tires were missing. I immediately fell in love with the big car, and my Dad said if I wanted, he’d repaint it for me and put some wheels on it. Of course, I said, and he got to work.

He stripped the old paint off and painted it the original Fire Engine Red. Then he made some wheels (I think out of radio parts and rubber tubing) and put it all back together. Man, was it beautiful.

I loved that car, and took damned good care of it for the last 33+ years. It’s always had a place of honor on a shelf or table, and now resides where I spend a lot of my time when I’m not out at the Tiki Bar, so I can look at it a lot. My father passed on to the promise land in 2002, which makes little things like this even more special to me. It’s amazing I still remember that day, and how happy we both were over this piece of steel. It makes me happy all over again every time I see it. (a little side note: The palm tree sticking up behind the car…my father made that for me, and the car, when we moved down to Florida in 2000. he seemed to think the car needed a palm tree, now that it was parked in the tropics.)

- Tiki Chris, reporting live from The Tiki Blog

SNL has actually been doing some pretty groovy retro skits in the last couple of years. Bill Hader’s impression of Vincent Price is priceless, and January Jones’ skit where she played Grace Kelly in Rear Window was a riot. It’s nice to see these kids still know the value of the greats that came before them, long ago in the good old days.

-Zoot Jackson, playin’ it kool at the retro blog, baby!

When Sheraton announced plans to remodel the old Yankee Clipper (and give it the dumb, dull, corporate, generic name “Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Beach Hotel”) everyone thought that would be the end of the historic Wreck Bar. Well, from what I hear someone had enough brains to keep it intact.

The Wreck Bar at the Yankee Clipper

The Wreck Bar features windows that look out into the pool, giving patrons a view of the swimmers. Underwater dancing Mermaids have been a popular attraction for years, and our favorite Mermaid, Medusirena, will be headlining the swim tonight.

If you’re in the Fort Lauderdale area come on by and join us for a Mai Tai. Show starts at 6:30!

-Mermaids at the Wreck Bar, Tiki Chris @ Tiki Lounge Talk, the Tiki Blog for hip swingers and Tikiphiles.

So here’s what I did…Last night, with the parrots squwaking in the background and some Martin Denny on the hi-fi, I took his recipe (find it here at tikitender.com) and built it in a vintage glass at my Tiki Bar. (I still have the Christmas lights up on the bar so the whole thing was sort of surreal). The only ingredient I didn’t have was the garnish, but I did have a paper umbrella, so it was A-OK.

It’s the little things in life that can really make you smile. After a long couple of weeks at work, crazy money stuff, and dealing with a haunted Cadillac (long story), it was nice to sit down and relax with a kool Tiki Cocktail. After the second one, I didn’t have a care in the world!

Those who follow me on twitter can attest to the fact that these are pretty strong drinks, as can be seen from my twitter stream last night. Make sure you check out Mark’s site at tikitender.com, he’s got lots of fun stuff and great Tiki drink recipes!

Thanks again to all of you for tuning in to my little Tiki Blog. I really do dig writing about this stuff, and hope my goofy rants from the Tiki Bar give you a laugh, or at least a smile!

-Tiki Chris, AKA Mack, AKA Mr. Loving the Tiki Life!

Today’s flick is soaked in coke, cheap liquor, prostitution and the pursuit of getting out of the ghetto. It’s the modern-day (70s) Funk-tastic equivalent to  The Grapes of Wrath. It’s

Superfly, 1972

“Never a dude like this one! He’s got a plan to stick it to The Man!”
Now, let me lay this on you…If nothing else, watch this movie for the car.

This is, without doubt, one of the best movies ever to depict the conditions in the poor areas of NYC and the people who tried to survive there in the ’60s and ’70s. It was made to show how things really were, to ‘keep it real’. Now it’s a fantastic time capsule, giving us a glimpse into the bad side of the old days, the dilapidation of the crumbling city, the poverty, and the crime. Watch this film with the cellphone turned off and the computer in sleep mode, and try to put yourself back in that era of payphones and typewriters, 8-Track tapes and big American cars, when Deep Throat was playing at theaters in Times Square and Nixon was president. It’ll blow your mind.

All that aside, it’s got an incredibly kick-ass soundtrack by Funk master Curtis Mayfield, including the title track “Superfly” and the instrumental “Freddie’s Dead”. The story centers around a drug pusher-pimp who goes by the name of Priest Youngblood, a man who is sick of the crime life, sick of the streets and is looking for a way out. In the mean time, he does all that he can to try to live the good life, from having a color TV in every room, to driving a custom Cadillac convertible.
Ah, the Superfly Cadillac.

Now we come to my favorite part of this post. The car, a 1971 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado custom convertible,

Supefly Cadillac Eldorado from the movie

became as much a character in the movie as Priest. It was featured on the poster, and became the icon of this film ever since. The entire opening sequence and titles features the Caddy being driven through the streets of New York City, with the defining “Freddie’s Dead” theme song weaving through the background. This big black Cadillac was a real car, customized by a coachworks in north Jersey that operated under the name Dunham Coach. They specialized in customizing large American luxury cars, i.e. Cadillacs and Lincolns, and had a steady clientele of “underworld” figures through the 1970s. In fact, the car used in the film was owned by an actual pimp at the time who went by the name “KC”. He let them use the car in exchange for a cameo in the film.

My 1975 Superfly Eldorado, in 2000. I should have never sold it.

I had the good fortune to own one of these Superfly Caddy’s back in the 1990s. It was a 1975 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado Coupe with running boards, a Continental kit (spare tire on the trunk), Rolls-Royce Grille and Headlights, and a 1941 Cadillac hood ornament. Mine was blue and silver, not black.

Anyway, back to the flick…This is a gritty film, and as I said really puts you in the era. Maybe not the best writing, or acting. Maybe not the most original storyline. It was low budget, and sometimes it shows. But it’s sho-nuff fun to watch. Now…tune your ears into what I’m laying down on you kats, and dig it for real: This is a hard-edged, realistic depiction of ghetto life in New York City in the early 1970s. There’s violence, nudity, drugs, corruption, racism, sex, more drugs, gambling, and fine Cadillacs. The protagonist is a pimp and a drug pusher, and you’re rooting for him at the end. So I wouldn’t recommend this one for family night.

That said, here’s my riff: Dig this movie with the lights dimmed down low in your pad. Sip Merlot, and dine on a big, thick plank steak the way Priest would. And absolutely get the soundtrack, it’s Super Fly, baby. You dig?
Here’s a video of an interview with Les Dunham, creator of the Superfly Cadillac. Lots of shots of the car.

Superfly at Tiki Lounge Talk, by “Mack”

Not the least bit disappointed in my grub. A big old Cheeseburger with bacon and fries, rings, slaw and a cup’a Joe. A shake would have topped it off, but it would have broke the bank so I quit early.

Joints like this used to be my hang out, back in the days before I had my own little Tiki Bar, back before the Mai Kai was a short drive away. Diners, all kinds of diners when I swung back in Jersey. Jersey is, after all, the diner capital of the world. You couldn’t swing a bat without hitting a neon sign that said “open 24 hours”. Not so much down here in the land of Mai Tais and Palm trees. There’s one diner in 8 miles, and it shuts down at midnight. Thank God the Tiki bars are open late…

There were a few haunts I made my mark at. The Point Diner in Somers Point, NJ is where I spent many a night and many a paycheck. Coffee and a burger at 2 am? Why the hell not? All my gang hung out there too…in fact, I remember one particularly kool New Year’s Eve that we wound up there around 3 am…and who was there, but this really hot swingin’ chick that I went around with in high school. It was a very groovy meeting, that night. Never forget it.

Then there was the Blue Diamond Diner in Pomona, NJ. This was a 1950’s rail-car style stainless steel masterpiece, with the original guts still intact. They had the old 70’s style jukeboxes filled with stuff from Sinatra and Elvis. And one of my favorite songs to play at a diner, just before leaving, Sleepwalk by Santo and Johnny. Yeah, those were the days. 50¢ cup of strong Greek coffee and I was good for hours.

Back when I had my Dinner Theater Company, Stardust Productions, after every show I’d take the cast to a diner and buy them all dinner. We’d wind down and talk about the show, how much fun it was, how to make it better. It was around then I picked up the nickname Mack, after a gangster character I played in a show.

Me during a performance of "The Mysterious Presto" with StarDust Theater. The beautiful blonde is my wife, Colleen

I miss those old diners. I miss the smell of grilled onions in the middle of the night, the taste of good diner coffee and breakfast at 4 am. I miss the feel of those old places, the scratchy records in the jukebox, the neon lights. The diner we hit tonight was good but not quite right. There’s something unhip about a diner that has a 34″ plasma TV mounted on the wall, that plays nothing but commercials. There’s something un-groovy about a CD jukebox that’s filled with riffs by Jenny Lopez and Matchbox-20, but doesn’t have a single Elvis tune. Sure, the burger was good, the java was good, and the company was great…even motoring there in the old Cadillac was fun. But these new joints just don’t have the same feel, the same atmosphere, as those old stainless steel diners held together with apron strings and grease that I grew up with.

-Mack (aka Tiki Chris)

James Bond 007 in Casino Royal

This is a kinda-sorta real but not really part of the James Bond 007 series of movies…it was supposed to be the movie version of Ian Flemmings’ first James Bond novel, but Hollywood politics got in the way. Long story short, producer Charles K. Feldman decided to make it a spoof of the James Bond movies. Cut to Peter Sellers. Hilarity ensues.

Casino Royale, 1967

The Tiki-Time Scoop:

This is the only James Bond film to offer multiple Bonds…David Niven stars as the retired James Bond, a somewhat stodgy fellow who is rather annoyed by the sexual antics of the new 007s. Peter Sellers stars as Evelyn Tremble, who becomes James Bond. Woody Allen plays Jimmy Bond. The list goes on…

This spoof takes elements of the original story and twists them into an LSD-induced string of craziness that is fun to watch. The fact that Ursela Andress, Jaqueline Bisset and Deborah Kerr are in it don’t hurt. Throw in kats like William Holden, Orson Welles and George Raft, and you can’t miss.

1967 Computer...hi tech stuff

This truly “Mod” movie even includes original music by Burt Bacharach, much of it performed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. “The Look of Love” is performed by Dusty Springfield behind one of my favorite 60’s Movie Scenes of all time, which includes glowing goldfish and a sunken living room.

I won’t try to give you a synopsis of the story…that would just make things more complicated. Just watch the silly film. It may be a little hard to take if you’re not into the scene. It’s strange, it’s odd, it’s a product of the times. It had six-plus separate directors. Sellers and Welles couldn’t stand each other and the scenes they were in together were shot separately using stand-ins.

Sellers was so much trouble on the set he was fired before filming was over, and they re-arranged the ending of the movie around scenes he never shot. (There’s a lot of great trivia on the movie at IMDB, click here). It ran over budget and was one of the most expensive films produced up until that time. All in all, it managed to make it to the number 3 spot for 1967.

How To Watch:

I don’t dig drugs, but if I did, I’d want to be high on acid to watch this. Since that ain’t gonna happen, I’d suggest something a little far out there…for snacks, stuffed mushroom caps, escargot, assorted cheeses with pimentos and olives, you know, goofy 60’s stuff. For the booze, I think Martinis would be ok, but expand your mind for this groovy movie, try a Gin or Vodka Collins, a Harvey Wallbanger or maybe a nice Golden Cadillac.

Converstaions at the Tiki Bar

Tiki Time: This is just a shorty little post, something I had to throw far out there into the gaxlaxy. Ya see, my SEO guy says I’m not laying enough (tiki) keywords into my posts to get (retro) optimized search engine results. So I figured I’d (hot chicks) pepper  a few into a post to sort of make up for (tiki bar) lost time. Personally, I think it’s kind of annoying (cocktail) and very un-hip to constantly (boobs) throw keywords into a post just to get a search engine to pick you (LOLcats) up. But I guess if you want to stay in the search engine limelight, you’ve got to play the (drinking) game.

So here I am, Tiki Chris Pinto, aka Mack, aka ChrisPFlorida, writing my Tiki Blog at my Tiki Bar while sipping a Mai Tai on this sunny South Florida day. I’m wearing a cool retro fedora and have my Moai friend Tiki Mo sitting on the Tiki Bar to keep me company. I’m writing about the Tiki Lifestyle while sipping my Tiki Drink, and have a Tiki of Tiki next to my Tiki Tiki Tiki, with a Tiki doing the Tiki over her two big beautiful Tikis.

huh?

Ok, ya know what? All the Ess eee Oh stuff is a bit much for a kat set in the past like me. If you said ’search engine’ in 1955, everyone would think you were talking about a new rocket designed to seek out life on the moon. If you said anything about “optimization” it probably had to do with seating seven passengers comfortably in a new Buick. My, how these crazy (tiki) times have changed.

Well, I guess that’s enough Tiki Bar Talk for today. Maybe the search engines will motor down my way. Maybe I’ll get optimized with Simonize. Whatever…As long as I got a laugh from you, and a visit from them, I’m happy as a (retro tiki bar talk weblog for hip swingin’ kats and kittens) clam.

-”Tiki Chris” Pinto, live from the Pirate’s Cove Tiki Bar in Tiki-ville, Florida, land of the Tiki Lounge Talk Blog