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Earth> 49 Merc
Godzilla and the '49
Merc.
By Mike (Roadie) Marino
Published August 2003
The Fabulous '50's
weren't just about Cold War nuclear politics and
the fear of a Soviet takeover of America's heartland.
It was also about Brylcreem, ducktails, ponytails,
fuzzy dice, hula dashboard ornaments, rock 'n
roll, V-8 muscle and a Saturday night car culture
of testosterone on overdrive. We were Ben Hur
and Don Garlits, all rolled into one as we cruised
Woodward Avenue in our mighty Motor City mo-sheens,
and we owed it all to those magnificent Motown
dream machines that cranked out horsepower and
style. It was The Chrome-Magnon Decade of Harley
Earl's Jet Age designs that had just the right
amount of Liberace flair and panache in every
element. The fresh fins of Belairs; stylish, sexy
Dagmars big, full and firm, reaching out suggestively
and of course, those big chrome grins on giant
Oldsmobile grills, ready to eat you alive and
smiling all the time as they gained on you in
the rearview mirror.. Styling and design had met
in the backseat and in a heat of passion created
the era of pop culture and chrome meeting asphalt
and art.
Chopped, dropped,
custom Mercurys |
The Motor City motor culture
went from zero to 60 in no time flat, and created
a car cruising world on Saturday nights that included,
carhops and fast food along with the drive-in
movie and the promise of "Paradise By The
Dashboard Light". Drive-in's had been around
since the 1930's but their numbers exploded during
the cruisin' culture of the 50's. They popped
up like mushrooms across the country and while
most could hold 40, maybe 50 cars, some, as was
the case at the Ford-Wyoming in Detroit, could
hold thousands!!
We paid the price of admission,
beer and buddies stashed in the trunk, just one
more way to beat the system, and we entered the
world of big screen dreams and backseat reality.
One by one the cars snaked in, found just right
spot, and we were locked n' loaded and ready for
the main feature. The sun was setting beautifully
below the horizon and painting the sky with an
artists hand, and it was getting dark so it was
time for the speakers to crackle to life and soon
the giant screen would be filled with Giant Spiders
from Mars and The Atomic Lizards from Hell!! Flying
saucers, mutants, zombies, hot rod flicks and
hot rod chicks; just where did all these aliens,
atomic lizards, and juvenile delinquent hot-rodders
from hell come from anyway? The answer was in
a nitro fuel mixture of nuclear politics and The
Red Dread of the march of the Soviet Union. Little
green men with a Red philosophy goose-stepping
across Iowa, trying to conquer the red, white
and blue of Senator Joe McCarthy, while Kevin
McCarthy protected us from "The Invasion
of the Body Snatchers"!
Godzilla, or "Gojira"
as it was originally called, was a Japanese import
that was born in the aftermath of Hiroshima. The
nuclear nightmare that ended WWII would give birth
to a subtle anti-nuclear and anti-war reptile
called "Gojira". In the original, Gojira
rises from the cloud of atomic testing in the
Pacific Atolls, and the result was a radiation-belching
beast that would challenge an unsuspecting world.
Eventually, it was released as "GODZILLA:
THE KING OF THE MONSTERS" in the United States,
where they surgically inserted Raymond Burr as
the protagonist of the film. His "insertion"
and the two second delay dialogue is what makes
this film so damned enjoyable. Godzilla was an
immediate hit and as a result created it's own
economic Hiroshima at the American drive in movie
box office, not to mention fostering a whole new
cult genre of silver screen screamers.
Black leather and bad attitudes
also took their toll at the box office as piston
pumping hotrod flicks raced across the celluloid
landscape. Two of the earliest V-8 films of the
Holy Chrome-man Empire were "The Devil on
Wheels", released in 1947, and "Hot
Rod" in 1950. In "Hot Rod" the
lead character is actually a Motor City Mo-sheen..a
souped up '32 roadster, but also featured the
soon to be Dobie Gillis on TV, Dwayne Hickman.
The greatest casting however was to include Tommy
Bond who was "Butch" in the old Our
Gang comedies, yep, the same guy who used to beat
the snot out of Alfalfa. Then along came "Dragstrip
Girl", the all time cult classic released
in 1957 that grabbed the country by the throat
as the high octane version of "The Attack
of the 50 Foot Dragstrip Woman"!! It featured
Frank Gorshin, who later would gain fame as the
Riddler on the high camp "Batman" TV
series, and also starred real life dragster hero,
TV Tommy Ivo, who would go down in the books with
the likes of Mickey Thompson and Big Daddy Don
Garlits!!
There was, however, one
film above them all that grabbed us by the sensibilities
of the times, and it's impact was due to the performance
and persona of a young man who rocketed out of
the cornfields of Fairmont, Indiana ("Where
Cool Was Born") and would shortly lodge himself
firmly into the fabric of American pop culture
legend. James Byron Dean, the cool one, emerged
in his red jacket in the film "Rebel Without
A Cause" and his portrayal of youth in angst
struck a resonant chord with it's audience. The
new kid in school trying to fit in, and the adage
you can't please everybody certainly applies.
Brilliant portrayals by some of the finest actors
of the day, including Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo.
(Mineo would be stabbed to death in 1976 at the
age of 37, and Natalie Wood drowned under mysterious
circumstances in 1981 at the age of 43) The film
has many classic scenes but the fave rave involves
not just James Dean, but a classic, sexy '49 Merc.
The Merc stole the scene and not surprising for
any automotive lover of pure design as art. The
scene is a challenge to the Dean character, Jim
Stark, by his antagonist, Buzz. It's a go for
broke chicken run scene where Jim and Buzz rev
their engines, as they get ready to race towards
the Oceanside cliffs and Pacific oblivion. Buzz
gets his jacket caught on the door handle and
can't make his escape. He goes over the edge and
only Jim Stark remains. In the film our hero avoids
an untimely death, but it wouldn't be long and
in reality would Porsche out on a lonely stretch
of California asphalt at the age of 24. An icon
for the ages.
Godzilla has gone into semi
retirement and only a handful of drive-in movie's
remain. Most stand lonely, forlorn and forgotten.
Weeds taking the place of cars and speakers, the
sounds of radio's no longer audible and you don't
even have to pay anymore when you pass the empty
gate to visit the empty screen...quiet and silent.
Sometimes, though, if you listen carefully you
can hear the faint sound of a car approaching
in the distant, coming closer. It's a little hazy,
almost like witnessing a dream as you peer through
the fog of the Fifties. You stand quietly as the
car gets closer, and as it races by you in a ghost
fog, you'll swear that you saw a young man in
a red jacket, smiling, as he drives by in the
most beautiful car you had ever seen...a drop
dead gorgeous '49 Merc!!!
This
Dharmabum Roadhead writer's work has been described as DELIGHTFULLY WIERD and
WICKEDLY WONDERFUL!! Mike (Roadie) Marino is a publisher of an on line
magazine called ROAD TRIPPIN' USA. It's an asphalt kickin' journey of Roadside
Nostalgia and American Pop/Car Culture for the Chrome-Magnon in all of us. The
style is lock n load and deals with the realm of where Pop Culture and Chrome
meet Asphalt and Art!!
Mike
also writes a monthly feature column under the banner THE ROADHEAD for the award
winning Offbeat Travel zine. His column deals with bizzare ashpalt and roadside
oddities and locales from mechanical museums to Cadillac Ranch. Mike is also
a freelance writer of travel and history pieces that have been published in
magazines and ezines in the US and Europe.
Most
current project includes toiling endlessly on his first book about Pop and Car
Culture in America of the 50's, 60's and 70's. Although born in the rustbelt
of industrial Detroit, he's also been the definitive son-of-a-beach and has
lived in a treehouse in Honolulu, the tie dyed spare change neighborhood of
Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, as well as the North Beach district..where
the Beat Goes On!!
Today
Mike (Roadie) Marino lives in Missouri near the banks of the Missouri
River with his word processor. In addition, to writing and backpacking, Mike
has a penchant for Hawaiian shirts, Jimmy Buffett albums and Corona Beer. If
you would like to use any of Mike's articles some of which are included here,
contact him at the email address below or at dharmabumroadie@yahoo.com He also
accepts contract work and what the hell, a good agent wouldn't hurt either.
So contact him for rates and information. Now...Have Fun Reading...Grab A Cold
Corona..And Kick Asphalt!!!
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