For a fleabag flat in the forties I was surprised just how long that telephone cord went in their furnished rented apartment. Vera was able to take the phone from the end table in the living room, go past the dining area, into her bedroom and then half way across the room onto her bed with cord to spare. Pacific Bell back in the 1940's sure wanted their customers to be satisfied!
shareLol, I thought you were talking about the fancy car Haskell was driving! I do think it is a 1937 Cord 810.
shareNo, I'm wrong. It's a 1941 Lincoln Continental V-12 convertible.
shareThat's indeed one long and very strong extension cord!
shareI grew up with one of those old black, heavy 2-ton pac bell anvil telephones!
The kind you had to put your finger into the numbered hole and drag the dial
around, and wait for it to stop before you could dial the next digit, etc.,
until you dialed the whole seven numbers.
Oh...but wait! Before we even had seven numbers, you had to dial a prefix
and then 5 numbers. Example: PL-10710 (The PL stood for Pleasant).
The cord was so long on our phone, that my mother could take it from the dining room area, cross the living room, into her bedroom, cross through the bathroom, go through my room and back to the living room with plenty cord left over!
Gosh those were the days!!
"OOO...I'M GON' TELL MAMA!"
And before two letters and five numbers it was two letters and four numbers. Yeah, I'm sure showin' my age eh?
Ciao, e buon auguri
Ours was a wall mounted rotary dial phone, white. The handpiece alone weighed enough to be a lethal Film Noir weapon, but the victim would have had to been within 3 feet of the phone.
I think my parents did that super short cord on purpose. Neither I nor my sister could carry on with our teen age romances over the phone. Everybody would be casually hanging around RIGHT THERE listening for titillating tidbits , so no go.
>Pacific Bell back in the 1940's sure wanted their customers to be satisfied!
Satisfied or dead.
But as I recall, when he finds her with the cord around her neck, it's not really even tightly wound.
shareI would guess that when he let go of his end of the cord it would have loosened some. Maybe her body shifted when the pressure was released, too. (I can't believe I'm spending time thinking of an explanation for this.) It was all just so completely original!
shareFunny post, jtm2004! You sure notice details.
shareIf Roberts was trying to prevent Vera from calling the cops, wouldn't it have been a lot simpler (not to mention effective, though admittedly not nearly as dramatic) to simply yank the cord out of the wall in room where he was, rather than go through the tortured business of pulling on the cord leading into locked room? And what did he expect to accomplish anyway? Receiver would never have fit under door anyhow. Big logic lapse.
shareHe was trying to break the cord. If he just pulled the plug out of the jack she could just plug it back in. He was too weak to fight her.
George Carlin: It's all bullsh-t and it's bad for ya.
He was trying to break the cord. If he just pulled the plug out of the jack she could just plug it back in. He was too weak to fight her.
If Roberts was trying to prevent Vera from calling the cops, wouldn't it have been a lot simpler (not to mention effective, though admittedly not nearly as dramatic) to simply yank the cord out of the wall in room where he was
Phones & extension jacks were expensive. Wire was cheap. A long cord meant you could take the phone with you into any room, instead of the expense of a phone in every room.
share