My friend Palak in India took a recent trip to Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry), spotted this card, and apparently thought of me. When did I become a dirty old man? In any case, after celebrating my alleged lechery (or possibly making fun of it, I’m not sure), she finds time to lament the current state of Bollywood films:

…and send along some cool stamps, too. But she does have a point about the motion picture arts in India. I’ll let you be the judge.

Nancy Archer’s a rich gal with a cheating husband who flaunts his affair all over town.  Naturally, she gets irradiated by a spaceman, and exacts her revenge.  Hey, back in 1958, when Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman was released, radiation was all the rage, if you’ll pardon the pun.  Nancy’s wardrobe is also much improved.  What did they make her clothes out of, anyway?  And, for that matter, why?

Nancy doesn’t need that philanderer, anyway.  I plan to introduce her to Glenn Manning:

Glenn is an Army officer who, naturally, gets irradiated, Army life being what it is.  In The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), it’s a plutonium bomb rather than a spaceman and, coincidentally, he also grows to a height of 50 feet.  Unfortunately for Glenn, his circulatory system can’t keep up with his growth, and his brain becomes oxygen-starved: the bigger he gets, the dumber he gets.  However, he still knows how to get his point across:

Both of these postcards were published by The Museum of Modern Art.

You are out of your Vulcan mind if you miss the new Star Trek movie, which is just a week away!  Number One Grandson and I are looking forward to it.

Be sure to check out the Star Trek Movie Launch site for showtimes and tickets.

Here’s a still from the original Star Trek series (“The Menagerie”, 17 November 1966) featuring Susan Oliver as an Orion slave girl, and is one of 30 cards in the Star Trek Postcard Box by Chronicle Books.

Susan Oliver is my hero.  The fan site SusanOliver.info carries images of a letter and photo she sent to a fan back in 1966, an Air Force sergeant in Vietnam.  In the letter, she expresses pride in those who serve.  There are a number of entertainers today who would do the same, but it seems that it’s a small percentage overall. Sadly, Susan Oliver passed away in 1990.

Don’t forget: there’s only three weeks to the Star Trek Movie Launch, so click the link and get showtimes and tickets. Naturally, the new Star Trek movie features an Orion slave girl as well. Better than the original? You be the judge.

Although this is an apt description of Johnny Depp, it specifically refers to the Hughes Brothers film From Hell. Published by AvantCard Australia for foxmovies.com.au.

Ramona was an 1884 novel by Helen Hunt Jackson which described the travails endured by our young half-Scottish half-Native American heroine, mostly due to racial discrimination. It was immensely popular, not just for the storyline itself (sort of a Native American Uncle Tom’s Cabin), but for the romantic descriptions of 19th-century California, and the Spanish land aristocracy. It remained popular for decades thereafter, in part thanks to a 1910 D.W. Griffith film starring Mary Pickford, a 1928 version starring Delores del Rio, and a 1936 version starring Loretta Young and Don Ameche.

Consequently, many places in San Diego jumped on the bandwagon, claiming to be the places portrayed in the novel. Many of them had valid claims, as it was known that the author visited these places during her research. They were assisted by the fact that train travel to Southern California had recently become relatively easy and inexpensive, creating a tourist boom.

Ramona’s Marriage Place, previously (and once again) known as the Estudillo House, was unique in that there was no documented visit by the author, and that the location of Ramona’s marriage in the novel is not well described. Nevertheless, they marketed themselves as such and enjoyed a great deal of popularity.

This card is one among a group of six Ramona-based cards that I found in a shop as part of a lot of several California cards. Each of them has the “From Ramona’s Marriage Place” rubber stamp on the back, and were probably purchased at the Estudillo House, at the same time by the same tourist. None of the cards appears to be any newer than around 1915 at the very latest. This particular card was published by Edward H. Mitchell of San Francisco.

Ramona and its tourist consequences can probably be credited with keeping much of Old Town San Diego out from under the wrecking ball over the years, and can also be credited with (or blamed for, depending on your point of view) popularizing Mission Revival-style architecture.