What do you do in the Grand Hotel? Eat. Sleep. Loaf around. Flirt a little, dance a little. A hundred doors leading to one hall. No one knows anything about the person next to them. And when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed⊠that's the end.
References to contemporary films & actors in
MASTERS OF THE AIR (2024)
HISTORICAL CONTEXT/SOURCES â
Test Pilot is a 1938 drama film starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, and Spencer Tracy. The film is about a daredevil test pilot, his wife, and his best friend (Wikipedia).
Rita Hayworth was an American actress and dancer. She is one of the most renowned actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and was the second top pin-up girl for GIs during World War II, after Betty Grable (Wikipedia). These are the photos Brady has of Hayworth:
Bing Crosby was an American singer and actor. One of the first multimedia stars, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide (Wikipedia). During World War II, Crosby made live appearances before American troops who had been fighting in the European Theater. He learned how to pronounce German from written scripts and read propaganda broadcasts intended for German forces. The nickname "Der Bingle" was common among Crosby's German listeners and came to be used by his English-speaking fans. In a poll of U.S. troops at the close of World War II, Crosby topped the list as the person who had done the most for G.I. morale, ahead of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Dwight Eisenhower, and comedian Bob Hope (Wikipedia, USO).
Hit the Ice is a 1943 comedy film starring comedy duo Abbott and Costello. The film is about two cameramen chased by gangsters who get jobs as waiters in small-town Idaho (Wikipedia).
Lena Horne was an American singer, actress, dancer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years and covered film, television, and theater (Wikipedia). Horne became a fixture at the Tuskegee airbase in Alabama during World War II. There, she did everything from taking flying lessons to eating lunch with cadets to adhering to their early rising schedule. She returned to Tuskegee numerous times to boost morale, and in 1944, she served as a guest of honor at one of their graduation ceremonies (Ms. In the Biz). She also performed with the United Service Organization during the war, but eventually became disenchanted because the Army segregated her audiences and, in one instance, seated German POWs in front of Black soldiers. Horne left the USO in 1944 and financed tours of military bases herself for the remainder of the war (Wikipedia).
(You can watch a newsreel from the event pictured in the bottom left photo here [via Hearst Metrotone].)
The photo Macon has on his bunk wall of Lena Horne with a group of Tuskegee Airmen is one taken in 1945 during one of her many trips to the airbase.
The quote Crosby recites is a line spoken by Spencer Tracy in the film Test Pilot, which also starred Clark Gable.
Side note: Clark Gable enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and reportedly flew five combat missions, including one in Germany, as an observer-gunner in B-17 Flying Fortresses with the 351st Bomb Group between May and September of 1943, earning the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts. After a mission in which his fort was heavily attacked, MGM studio executives urged the USAAF to reassign Gable to desk duty. Many of the men he served with said Gable actually unofficially joined other missions, and the aforementioned five were only a fraction of the total. He was discharged in 1947 as a major (Wikipedia, Defense Media Network).
I think if I heard I Gotta Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas in the correct circumstances it could move me to tears. It's like the promise of a brighter future that never came to pass
Why should I be Angel? Why should I be so foolish? Don't I have a lovely home, a celebrated husband, the best servants? Every comfort, social position? Is there anything more a woman could ask? Why should I be Angel? What reason could I have? Perhaps you can think of one.
Jane Yolen was a Jewish-American childrenâs author, poet, and young adult novelist. Yolen wrote more than 400 books for children and adults,
If you didnât become acquainted with the work of Jane Yolen as a student being assigned her famous, award-winning Holocaust time travel nove
If you didnât become acquainted with the work of Jane Yolen as a student being assigned her famous, award-winning Holocaust time travel novella âThe Devilâs Arithmetic,â itâs likely you will once you become a parent, reading one of her many, many, many books for kids. My young boys are especially partial to her âHow Do Dinosaurs?â series with its captivating, realistic dinosaur illustrations and snappy, funny text (and yes, thereâs a Hanukkah âHow Do Dinosaursâ book).
The prolific childrenâs book author, who was the recipient of multiple childrenâs book awards and six honorary doctorates, passed away this week at age 87. She was just about to release her 450th book. âMonsters of Fife: Terror Birdsâ will come out posthumously on July 14.
Yolen wasnât raised particularly Jewish, and her exposure to religion was mostly at relativesâ homes, she recounted in a piece for the Jewish Book Council. As a teen, she did become fascinated with Jewish texts and traditions, getting confirmed at her local Reform synagogue; she was one of the first girls to read from the Torah on the bimah at that temple. And she minored in religious studies at Smith College.
But it took a while for Judaism to become part of her childrenâs book-writing career. In fact, she was two decades into her career when she got ânoodgedâ into writing Jewish tales.
It all happened in the 1980s, she wrote in her essay for the Jewish Book Council: âOne of my ediÂtors, who hapÂpened to be a rabbiâs wife, asked me why I had nevÂer writÂten a JewÂish book. And I had to think long and hard about that. And she noodged. Boy! Was she an expert noodge. The result was âThe Devilâs ArithÂmetic.â And then the JewÂish stoÂries began to tumÂble out.â
The books that came tumbling out were as gripping and wonderful and magical as the rest of her oeuvre.
There came magical stories about Jews and dragons and golems (co-written with her son, Adam Stemple).
She published illustrated books about Miriam and other biblical women (and even the childrenâs book adaptation of the famous âPrince of Egyptâ).
She came up with her own twist on the tales of the Wise Men of Chelm.
She perhaps became most known for her three young adult tomes that tackle the Holocaust in novel ways. She wrote the âSleeping Beautyâ inspired âBriar Roseâ and the âHansel and Gretelâ-esque âMapping the Bones.â And of course, she penned the Nebula Prize Winning âThe Devilâs Arithmetic,â about a Jewish teen who finds herself transported to 1942 Poland, which continues to be taught in schools to this very day, even as one Texas school district pulled it out of the curriculum for AI-detected âDEI content.â The book was famously turned into a 1999 film starring Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy, Paul Freeman and Mimi Rogers.
Yolen also wrote books about Jewish holidays: âMilk and Honey,â and the lovely âJewish Tale Feastsâ (with her daughter, author Heidi Stemple), a book that my Jewish food-loving family adores.
Heidi, Adam and their brother Jason were all by their motherâs side when she âpassed gently with no pain or stress,â Heidi shared on Instagram. Adam was playing his music while Heidi read from her motherâs book âOwl Moon.â
âAs you all probably know, she had one of the most brilliant creative minds of our time,â Heidi wrote of her mother. âShe has mentored, inspired and nurtured so many authors and illustrators through her words both on the page and off. But, beyond that, she was our mother and grandmother.â
May Jane Yolenâs memory be for a blessing; her books will certainly remain part of our lives for a long, long time.
Okay, but now I've realized The Gilded Age intro sounds too much like the "Overture" from Camelot as it transitions into "I Wonder What the King is Doing Tonight," and this somehow makes those abominable CGI credits even worse.
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