There's a movie I've mentioned here a number of times called The Night They Raided Minsky's. It was made in 1968, produced by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin, and directed by William Friedkin. The releasing company, United Artists, declared it a disaster and Mr. Friedkin more or less disowned it. It was then heavily recut in the editing room, making it into quite a different and somewhat successful movie. I like it a lot despite some odd continuity and some hokey moments.
I saw it with some friends at the old Fox Venice Theater on Lincoln Boulevard out in Venice. Some time in the eighties, that theater went outta business and the building — shabby but still somewhat identifiable — is now an indoor swap meet.
Okay now, I hope you read the Trivia Warning above because you won't believe how insignificant this is…but when I saw the movie in early 1969, I noticed something that no one else on this planet would have noticed.
The movie is about the attempts of a local censor to shut down the Minsky's Burlesque house. At one point, the house comics (played wonderfully by Jason Robards and Norman Wisdom) work a ruse on the guy. There's a "naughty" book sold in and around the theater — one which, when held up to the light, shows some scandalous pictures about a harlot named Mademoiselle Fifi. Robards and Wisdom convince the censor guy played by Denholm Elliott that Fifi is soon to dance on the Minsky stage.
Here is a still from the scene in which they do this. That's (left to right) Robards, Elliott and Wisdom. As you can see, Mr. Elliott is holding the booklet up to the light…
It was at this moment in the Fox Venice Theater that young M.E. spotted this thing that no one else would have noticed or if they did, mentioned. I whispered to my friends, "That booklet was made out of a copy of MAD Magazine #115!"
My friends looked at me like I was crazy. How could I have known that? Well, I recognized the insides of the booklet which were visible for a few seconds on the screen. Here's a close-up of the booklet as seen in the above still…
And here's a two-page spread from MAD #115, which by the way was dated December of 1967. Obviously, the prop guy had a copy lying around and used it when it came time to construct the Mademoiselle Fifi book. This article was written for MAD by Stan Hart and illustrated by Bob Clarke…
That's really all there is to this. No one else has ever cared about this. You surely don't. But this is my blog and you were warned this was going to be ridiculously unimportant so you have no one to blame but yourself for the time you just wasted reading it.