Naked Appreciation for the Arts

A crew from 20th Century Fox was at the NuWilshire Theater for a screening of “The Full Monty” the other night, filming the comments of moviegoers for a commercial. One ponytailed man told the crew he was truly inspired by the movie, which is about a group of unemployed steelworkers who bare all (“the full Monty”) to go to work as strippers.

How inspired was the young man? Well, he ripped off his shirt and pants and dashed out the door of the Santa Monica theater in the nude.

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THIS PAIR WAS STOLEN: “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” museum in Hollywood reports that a pair of Elvis Presley’s “custom-made black briefs” have been stolen. The briefs, “designed with extra-strength elasticity to endure [Presley’s] stage antics and pelvic gyrations” were valued at $1,200.

Museum officials said that the thief passed over a display “featuring a pair of Madonna’s panties . . . Believe it or not!”

Can we have some time to think it over?

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CREDIT WHERE CREDIT’S DUE: Reader M. Beck saw an ad for a home buyer’s seminar in Pasadena that caused her to comment: “People who have credit problems probably don’t need any help reestablishing them” (see excerpt).

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WIDOW’S TALE: After spotting an ad in a Ventura County weekly, Joy Lees commented, “Being an ‘old/new widow’ I found this rather amusing” (see excerpt). She added: “But I’d like to know who will be ‘hauling’ me away.”

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SACRE OCEAN BLEU! Leo Persselin of Rancho Palos Verdes points out that one urban folk tale that is often set in Southern California has made its way to France, according to Peter Mayle’s memoir, “A Year in Provence.’

“There had been a forest fire near Grasse, and the Canadair planes had been called out,” Mayle was told. “These operated like pelicans, flying out to sea and scooping up a cargo of water to drop on the flames inland.” Alas, one of the planes “scooped up a swimmer and dropped him into the fire, where he had been carbonise.”

A villager scoffs at the story, telling Mayle: “Every time there’s a fire, someone starts a rumor like that. Last year they said a water-skier had been picked up. Next year it could be a doorman at the Negresco in Nice. . . .”

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AND THAT IS HAY: Cliff Dektar passed along an excerpt from Grapevine magazine, an L.A. city firefighters’ publication that itemized the department’s expenses for 1904.

The firefighters’ means of transportation, you may notice, have changed somewhat since then. Some expenses:

* Salaries . . . $141,386.67

* Hay . . . $10,748.48

* Horses . . . $4,425.00

* Barley and bran . . . $1,587.59

* Horse shoeing . . . $1,515.50

* New appliances . . . $1,351.75

* Harness repairs . . . $1,163,00

* Hydrants . . . $511.95

* Veterinary services . . . $391.00

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GLENDALE FILM FESTIVAL (CONT).: On Day 2 of the extravaganza, here are more lines of movie dialogue mentioning the city from the collection of John Gloske.

* “You think I was happy in Glendale?” asks Joan Crawford’s spoiled daughter in “Mildred Pierce” (1945).

* “It’s the 10:15 [train] from Glendale. I’m driving him. It’s still the same dark street, isn’t it?” asks Barbara Stanwyck, going over plans with evil insurance salesman Fred MacMurray to bump off her husband in “Double Indemnity” (1944).

And, finally, there’s this nonsensical exchange in the original “Little Shop of Horrors” (1960):

Audrey, trying to comfort Seymour, who is having problems with his plants: “You’re going to be another Luther Glendale.”

Seymour: “Pasadena.”

Audrey: “Burbank. Good night, Seymour.”

miscelLAny:

A Rosemead resident was surprised by the warning on a prescription that said, “Do not take this drug if you become pregnant.” The prescription was for his prostate. “Fat chance of me becoming pregnant,” said Patrick Manfredi, age 83.

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at [email protected] and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.