Author: Kim du Toit

Classic Beauty: Olympe Bradna

Classic Beauty

This is quite a resume.  As a professional dancer, she danced all over Europe and at the Folies Bergère  in her hometown of Paris, acted in a couple of French movies… and then Olympe Bradna emigrated to the U.S., getting a seven-year contract at Paramour Pictures — at age 16.  She starred in a few musicals, then graduated to more dramatic roles and proved to be a really good actress.

Then, at age 21 — no doubt to the consternation of studio executives — she got married and quit the movie business forever, preferring to raise her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in California (back when it was still possible to do so).

Almost all the pictures featured below, therefore, are of Olympe while she was still a teenager.  Remarkable.

She passed away at age 92.

Unexpected Pleasure

Entertainment, Literature

While New Wife was off doing girl-shopping the other day, I decided that instead of hanging around the department store looking bored (a.k.a. the Husband Exile), I’d go over to a nearby bookstore and browse some second-hand books because I’ve run out of fiction to read.

I have written several times before how much I enjoyed the wonderful Stieg Larsson “Millenium” TV series — The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest — and I’ve watched the series several times.

Anyway, I decided to read Larsson’s original novels, just to see for myself how bad they are — yes, he’s a filthy socialist but then again #Swedish so that’s not entirely surprising — and I discovered something quite rare:  the TV series is actually better than the novel series, but not by much.

What the TV show of Dragon Tattoo  did was to cut out, for example, the relationship between Lisbeth Salander and her boss, as well as Mikke Blomkvist’s affair with one of the murder suspects — both of which were quite extraneous to the plot.

More importantly, the sexual encounters between Blomkvist and Salander, which were numerous in the novel, were pared back to a only a couple in the TV episode — making their relationship much more fragile as a result.

I’ve only read the first novel so far (Dragon Tattoo) because I didn’t want to buy all three in case they sucked terribly and I would be stuck with two unread books.  But now that I’ve read that one, I think I’ll go back and get the other two because once I’d learned to ignore the rampant socialism, I rather liked Larsson’s writing style.

If you’re really stuck for some reading material (as I was), you could do a lot worse.

Better still, though:  buy the Extended Cut DVD version of the TV series*.

And do not repeat NOT buy the non-Swedish version with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, because Noomi Rapace (Salander) and Michael Nyqvist (Blomqvist) are both beyond-words brilliant while the other two aren’t.  We won’t even talk about the stunning Swede MILF Lena Endre…

 

*Be warned that the current version of Millennium available through Netfux has been severely edited, and it’s terrible:  whole scenes have been deleted and even some characters erased, making the show almost incomprehensible, not to say less enjoyable.  (Netflix delenda est)

Verification

Gratuitous Gun Pics, Gun/Ammo Tests

Ask me again why I love the Swedish M96 Mauser in 6.5x55mm… in the hands of Henry Chan.

…or the model (M/41B) actually used in the video:

Of all the rifles I’ve let go in my life, this one ranks near or if not actually at the top.

And Henry’s post-range commentary parallels my own thoughts on the subject, precisely.

Incidentally, viz. his earlier comments on the Lee-Enfield counterpart, Henry shooting the the No.4 MkI (T) can be seen here.

New York Story

Punks

You may want to watch this video first, for context…

Back in the mid-90s, I was living in North Joizee, and one Sunday we decided to to take the family over to Manhattan for some window-shopping, food and just breathe in the atmosphere of the City.  I’d been there many times before, and Connie had actually lived in Chinatown for a while, several years earlier.

Anyway, we were walking through Greenwich Village after lunch at some diner or other, when I spotted from some distance away a young guy walking towards us, showing the same kind of attitude as The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft in the video, bumping carelessly into people and in general acting like a total asshole.

So I quietly told Connie to get behind me and shepherd the kids towards the shop window and away from the street.  She could tell from my attitude that something was about to happen, but as a one-time New Yorker she had street smarts and didn’t argue the point.

I watched this guy getting closer, and adjusted my position slightly towards the middle of the sidewalk, more or less in line with his approach.  Then about two steps before he got close, I looked to my right as though window-shopping, and braced myself.  Actually, I didn’t just brace myself:  I leaned forward and hardened my stance.  I might even have pushed forward a little.

So we collided.  But instead of Mr. Attitude carrying on like nothing had happened, he bounced off me and flew off the sidewalk, smashing into a parked car and falling heavily to the ground.

I didn’t even look round, just carried on walking, but I heard Connie giggle, “Whoa… well, he had that coming.”

I fucking hate antisocial self-centered punks.  My only regret after all these years is that I wasn’t in that video to dole out the same treatment to Richard Ashcroft.

Always loved the song, though.