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Hello there! In this week's bonus video, I break down a strange mystery involving a hit novel, a hastily un-gayed sitcom from the 1950s, and a secret German code book. Also, the saucy story behind the song "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," the first time Anne Rice ever saw a lesbian vampire, and an incredible sexy story that I'm pretty sure is not at all true.

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Bonus video! Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (Or Were They???)

Hello there! In this week's bonus video, I break down a strange mystery involving a hit novel, a hastily un-gayed sitcom from the 1950s, and a secret German...

Comments

Anonymous

I have never seen Dracula's Daughter, but I remember that clip from THE CELLULOID CLOSET, a film I've watched dozens of times since first renting the VHS in the late 90s. Also, interesting that you're able to take that stuff about Rice from the 1994 book. Super-Catholic Anne Rice today would probably distance herself from all the sex and queerness of her novels. LOL

Anonymous

The story about Freddie the Office Boy would make sense if Freddy were Black. I could easily see a bunch of White Movie execs using their racist notions of Blackness and using a Black Office "Boy" as a spectacle to impress investors.

Bryan Cybershaman(X) Logie

Didn't she distance herself from the (big C) Church a while ago? Or did she go back again? I don't know. I'm so confused! 😉😜🤪

Stanford M. Brown

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay was a 1942 memoir by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough of their tour of Europe in the 1920s after graduating from college. (The title comes from the 19th century song Old Black Joe--"Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay".) It was a light-hearted account of ingenues encountering the world. It became a bestseller and was adapted as a play and then a movie. I think the code would have been using the book to identify key words for ciphers--identifying page and word # would provide the key word to unlock the cipher. (Incidentally, Emily Kimbrough was the aunt of Charles Kimbrough who played Jim Dial on Murphy Brown.)

Anonymous

It looks like the OHWYAG code mystery is a mystery even to the person who wrote the article about it: "According to Crow’s blog, on a trip to England, she stopped by the British National Archives to look through Trevor-Roper’s wartime papers for some reference, but found nothing. Crow also tracked down the original author of the counter-espionage entry in “Spies, Wiretaps and Secret Operations.” He couldn’t remember, “let alone physically locate in his records, the origin of this information,” according to Crow. The two concluded that “the story had to be true, only because it was a very precise statement, about a specific person and a specific book” the author was unfamiliar with." (From https://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/local/2022/03/04/bygone-muncie-our-hearts-were-young-and-misused-nazis-emily-kimbrough/9366662002/)

Anonymous

Also, the Ernst Lubitsch reference at the end -- I highly recommend his pre-code comedy Design for Living (1933). I hadn't seen a ton of pre-code talkies, so the sexually bold nature of it really took my be surprise. "Gilda Farrell: George, dear George, when I let you make love to me yesterday, I didn't tell you something. I didn't tell you that the day before, Tom and I had - Did he tell you? George Curtis: No. Gilda Farrell: Thank you, Tommy. Tom Chambers: Very welcome."

Anonymous

While not about lesbianism, Lily Tomlin, in her comedy act in the 70's, did a skit called "Lud and Marie Meet Dracula's Daughter". It's about her parents, and they don't really meet Dracula's Daughter, although Lily (sarcastically) claims that's who she is. I just find it interesting that a lesbian comic would call herself the name of a (probably) lesbian vampire. Here is the "video" (the picture is just a photo of her album, "Lily Tomlin: On Stage." Jump to the 6 minute mark to hear the sketch. Hope you enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KeNEYv1Op0

Anonymous

She did back off from organized religion but still maintained a belief in Christ, presumably up until her passing in December of 2021. Even when she was into Catholicism she still held pro-choice & pro-LGBTQ views and never denounced her early works.

Anonymous

After doing a little more research into "Freddie The Office Boy" it's become very evident that it's just an old expression akin to a "Girl Friday" -- do a search for it on Newspapers and you'll see a ton of references.

Anonymous

Oh, wow, I did not even know she had passed! Or that she still maintained some of her progressive attitudes. Thanks for the updates.

Anonymous

Always enjoy your videos, Matt. The clip you showed from Dracula's Daughter has the name of the ingenue as Lily. Hearing it triggered something in my head to make me wonder if there is some decades long through line to the character Lily Munster. It's probaly simple coincidence, but maybe, just maybe some writer had the idea to call Mrs. Munster (likely a vampire's daughter herself) Lily.

Anonymous

He became Milton Berle.

Tyrant King

Freddy the Office Boy, if he were smart, moved on to an adult film career under the screenname 95 Cents.