Who doesn’t love Jack Carson? A big galoot in the most lovable of ways, Carson towers over many a leading man or lady with a wisecrack in nearly 100 films, many of them all-time favorites.
Inherited Values, where you’ll run into my name a few times as a contributing writer, is running a contest giving away the 1940’s Jack Carson fan photo shown on this page. You’re not being pressed to a heck of lot to enter–in fact, a blog comment (there, not here) will suffice as entry–so I invite you head on over to the Contest page, have a look at the rules, spread a good word about Jack Carson because who doesn’t want to do that anyway, and stand a chance at winning a freebie for your collection.
Though there are weeks I’d swear that Jack Carson appears in every movie I watch I’ve somehow only covered one of his titles, Bright Leaf (1950), in any detail so far on Immortal Ephemera.
While my favorite Carson performance is that of Cagney tormentor Hugo Barnstead in The Strawberry Blonde (1941), and I’m sure we’ll talk about that one one of these years (Oh Hugo!), Bright Leaf gives a pretty nice showcase of the typical Carson types. He begins as loudmouth Dr. Monaco, the medicine man, delightfully hawking sugar water to very suspecting patrons who soon try to run him out of town. After a night behind bars with Gary Cooper we find out Dr. Monaco is just his stage name and as Chris Malley he goes to work for Coop and falls in love with another business partner played by Lauren Bacall. But as Jack is known as the guy who doesn’t get the girl it’s no wonder that Bacall is head over heels for Cooper. Throughout all of Bright Leaf Carson’s Monaco/Malley is pretty much the swellest guy on the scene.
Inherited Values was founded by Deanna Dahlsdad, who you’ll also bump into all over the web talking about vintage collectibles. Check her Google Profile for the long list of sites she writes for.
The Inherited Values site focuses on general antiques and collectibles and has recently done a splendid job in covering the vast number of new television shows about picking, pawning and other various forms of buying and selling. My own articles over there, and wow, am I overdue to post something new, typically aren’t specific to classic movies. It’s nice to know I have a warm home to visit when I’m in the mood to talk about some of my collecting interests which don’t quite fit here.
Deanna was recently featured in a post on Marty Weil’s ephemera site.
And, once more, here’s the link to the Jack Carson Contest at Inherited Values.
