I've recently watched a superb film noir called, "The Narrow Margin" from 1952 with Charles Mcgraw and my favourite of all time femme fatale, Marie Windsor. If you have not seen it, it involves a train trip from Chicago to Los Angeles. It sure gives me the impression of what it was like to travel by Pullman back in the day. My question is, there is a fight in the men's room that rivals the one in "From Russia With Love" and there is a cuspidor. My question is, when did cuspidors go away? Patoo!
Newbery Library Pullman documents collection has entries for 'cuspidor' only up to 1940, but other maintenance items well into the Fifties.
What I suspect is that the scenes were shot in an older Pullman set, which contained a cuspidor as built that was never removed.
Film companies had a somewhat nasty habit of ignoring 'railroad' continuity, one of the worst of which was two-shots where, clearly, trains are being passed one instant, gone the next, then present again a few seconds later.
I'd think any remaining spittoons would go during the war years, and never return, and that appears to jibe with the record dates.
That is a good movie. I saw it a while back on TCM, and I know it was on again recently. I originally watched because it was about a train ride, but it was a good mystery movie in its own right.
York1 John
Cuspidors? I'm going to stick my neck waaay out and assume they stayed on trains in parts of the country where chewing tobacco stayed popular, say south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Just a guess, mind you.
"Red Man," "Beech-Nut," "Days Work" were still pretty popular with the Southern boys when I was in the Marines back in the '70s. Tried it myself. Not bad.
Speaking on continuity, early exterior shots of the train show a streamlined locomotive, I think from the Pennsy. Later shots show an SP GS-4. Some other exterior shots show heavyweight equipment, others show stainless-steel coaches. Still a great film.
But what an awful job it must have been, cleaning the cuspidors. Gack!
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