Money: How Far Does a Buck Go in Classic Film?

jdb1

Post by jdb1 »

I was just remembering a book I read when I was a girl - it was one of Beverly Cleary's books about teenagers, published in the early to mid-1950s. In it, the heroine wins a contest at her high school for making a poster for the varsity show, 'Pirates of Penzance,' that would be used to advertise the production. She won $5.00, and her father was very impressed with the sum.
cmvgor
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mousey

Post by cmvgor »

The Rat Race, filmed in 1960 and aired on TCM this evening.
Debbie Reynolds occupies a seedy room-with-sleeping alcove. Her landlady raises the rental to $2.50 a day, and Debbie throws a
hissy fit!

Another point I almost overlooked: Debbie borrows $200 from venomous
loan shark Don Rickles and purchases a full set of instruments so her saxophonist boyfriend (Tony Curtis) can take a gig with the orchastra on a cruse ship.
"Faint heart never filled inside straight"
--Bret & Bart's Pappy
cmvgor
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Talk about a cheap drunk!

Post by cmvgor »

The Slender Thread (1965, and contemporary to that period):

Anne Bancroft purchases a pint of brandy for $2.50! Would that purchase even a shot from a bartender now?
"Faint heart never filled inside straight"
--Bret & Bart's Pappy
klondike

Re: Talk about a cheap drunk!

Post by klondike »

cmvgor wrote:The Slender Thread (1965, and contemporary to that period):

Anne Bancroft purchases a pint of brandy for $2.50! Would that purchase even a shot from a bartender now?
Well, here in BF, a shot of most anything, at any of the village's five watering holes, runs between $3, & $3.75. :roll:
At PK's, where I "park my horse" several times per week, if I order a shot along with my Guinness, it bumps the price only $2. 8)
cmvgor
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$162. 39 a week.

Post by cmvgor »

I found it!

This question bothered me for a couple of weeks; then tonight TCM ran
1967's In The Heat Of The Night, and I got my answer.

Philidelphia Homicide Detective Sidney Poitier worked for a salary of
$162.39 a week, and small town Police Chief Rod Steiger was rabidly invious.
"Faint heart never filled inside straight"
--Bret & Bart's Pappy
cmvgor
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Times that many of our readers remember.

Post by cmvgor »

Ran across this one in a search for other information. The movie Quiz Show revealed that Instructors at Columbia U. in the late 1950s worked for $86.00 a week.

I was aware of the quiz show scandals at the time but paid scant attention;
wasn't a fan of those shows. I remember some inane reactions, such as announcements in the closing credits of comedies that "some of the laughter was mechanically induced." (Really!) Everyone was suddenly interested in openness and honesty. A stand-up comic (don't rember who)
quipped that "Jimmy Hoffa is pulling all the drivers off of Wagon Train until TV comes clean."
"Faint heart never filled inside straight"
--Bret & Bart's Pappy
cmvgor
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1970s Sports Star salaries.

Post by cmvgor »

Bang The Drum Slowly (1973) aired on TCM on Friday night, Oct 24.

A negotiation over the coming season's salaries for a Major League Baseball Club. Star pitcher Henry Wiggien (Michael Moriarty) is offered $60,000 for the coming year, with a hint that Management may go
as high as $70.000. Both sides know it could go even higher, because he's worth more. But Wiggen accepts the $70.000, because he wants another --non-money -- clause added to the contract. This added clause is the basis of the rest of the story's plot. And Wiggen is adament that there be no "understood but unwritten" features about the new arrangement: "No verbal words. Must be wrote in,"

But compare that $70,000 to the Sports salaries that have been doled out in the forty years since 1973!
Last edited by cmvgor on October 27th, 2008, 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Faint heart never filled inside straight"
--Bret & Bart's Pappy
jdb1

Post by jdb1 »

Yeah - and compare that with the $5,000 or $6,000 per annum, if that much, that Mantle and Maris started out with. Oh, don't get me started on the oligarchy that is the NY Yankees! Mere mortals like me have no hope of ever again being able to afford to see a game in person. :cry:
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