| Chapter 8: | The Movies |
Flying” with Abbott and Costello. The unexpected surprise in that movie was Martha Raye. She played identical twin waitresses and drove Lou Costello bananas when one sister gave him the free pie and the other sister told him to pay ten cents for it. But what impressed the guys the most was her figure especially when she sang and danced to “Pig-foot Pete the Boogie-Woogie Man.” Louie Jap nudged me during the song and said, “Her face is for the birds but she’s some tomato. Look at that ass.”
Most of my impressions of the Second World War came from the movies I saw at the Rex. With my friend Louie, I saw John Wayne in “Flying Tigers,” “The Fighting Seabees,” and “Back to Bataan.” The battles appeared exciting and American soldiers appeared heroic. I was proud of an uncle of mine who served in the army and survived a head injury. He lived with a metal plate in his head for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, he became a battered husband.
Some of the films I saw must have had the financial backing of a wealthy Italian American banker, Attilio Henry Giannini, the brother of the legendary giant of American banking A. P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy and by 1928 owner of the Bank of America. After practicing medicine, Dr. Attilio Henry Giannini entered the banking profession with his brother. According to Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, Attilio Giannini was the first major banker to lend money to motion picture studios. By 1921 most of the major film distributing companies had accounts with the Bank of Italy. Attilio backed financially the production of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid.” He made the first one million dollar loan to Hollywood for Samuel Goldwyn’s production of “The Kid from Spain” in 1932. Seven years later, he financed the production