1956 Motorola 56CC2

My family likes to watch movies down in the basement after dinner when we are at the cottage. Although I like movies as much as the next guy, maybe even more, I don’t really like to watch movies with the family. In large part because they start way too late, take way too long to choose, end up choosing a movie I don’t want to see, and also - and I can’t stress this point too much - it’s way too cold down there. Anyway, to their credit, they always try to get me to watch a movie with them. And I always say no.

I had already gone to my room in the bunkie when Caroline, my sister in law, texted me to say, ‘Ron, we are going to watch the Elvis movie.’

Now I generally hate biopics and have really little or no interest in Elvis or his manager Colonel Parker. But I put on two sweatshirts and my warmest socks and hurried back to the basement.

I had been dying to see that movie. For one reason, and one reason only. My radio was in it.

Early that year, I had purchased a 1955 Zenith from eBay. The seller, ostensibly a prop shop, claimed that it had been used in the new Elvis movie which was shot in Australia.

A few weeks after I received the radio, I got a message from the seller saying it appeared for a few seconds at the thirty-minute mark.

Which I thought was very cool.

Apparently, I had spent a good amount of time over that summer telling people my radio was in the Elvis movie. If my friends and family are to be believed, there was no question I could be posed to which I didn’t answer, “my radio is going to be in the Elvis movie.”

Anyway, there was indeed a brief close-up at the 30-minute mark, and my nieces may have said something to the effect of, “wow, that’s cool Uncle Ron,” and that was about it. The radio didn’t work. It was just a prop in a movie. Now it was on my shelf.

A couple of weeks later, I was going through the listings on eBay when I came across a 1956 Motorola 56CC2 in pink. I actually already owned that radio so I didn’t bid on it or spend too much time looking at the listing. I was about to move on when I noted the seller was advertising it as the Goodfellas radio. Goodfellas is an iconic movie about the mafia and it is a favorite of many - including myself. I Googled it, trying different combinations of words and descriptions but came up empty. So, I messaged the seller and asked. He or she wrote back very quickly with but one line: ‘Go to YouTube and search Goodfellas shower scene.’

So I did.

And this is what I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqE66RltUaQ

Now, to be clear, I didn’t have the radio which was in the movie. I just had the exact same kind and color of radio which was in the movie.

Nonetheless.

Everybody thought this was super cool. From then on, a tour of my radios included a showing, and sometimes reshowing of the YouTube clip, then an in-person viewing of the radio.

“Wow. That is very cool! That is the exact same radio,” is what people would say.

I would do an ‘aw shucks’ and reply, “now, now, that’s not the actual radio that was in the movie. Just the exact same kind of radio.”

And people would wave me off and say, “no c’mon, that’s so cool.”

I would then say, “let me show you this very rare Emerson Catalin in mint condition,” and the person would say, “can I see that clip again?”

So, that went on for a while.

One night, Goodfellas was showing on TV. I had seen it many times but not in a while so I decided to watch it again. By the time the shower scene came around, I had already figured it out. The only solace I could take was that nobody else, not even my sometimes- cynical lawyer friend Steve, had also figured it out. I pressed pause and went online. I already knew what I would find. Goodfellas takes place in the 50s, when Henry Hill, played by the late Ray Liotta, is a teenager, and goes all the way to the late 70s. Hill is in the shower and cries out, “Jimmy,” upon learning, by way of the news broadcast on the pink 1956 Motorola, that there has been a heist at the Lufthansa terminal.

Which occurred in 1978.

1956 radio in 1978. Could happen.

But I didn’t think so.

Now I don’t want to be that guy. But seriously. That aint right.

What was Scorsese thinking?

So, when my cousin Jeff and his son Oliver came over about a week later to say hello and so that Oliver could see my transistor radios, I showed Jeff the clip, and he said, “you know that’s my favorite movie.”

And I said, “take the radio.”

And he said, “no I couldn’t.”

Then I said, “you’d be doing me a personal favor,” (like the pen which writes upside down).

So, he took the radio and I was happy to be rid of it because it only reminded me of how the prop guy had screwed up one of my favorite movies.

And that would have been the end of it if my neighbor, Gladys Horn, had not decided to rent out her house.

Gladys Horn was a very nice lady in her mid-fifties who inherited a brick bungalow from her parents. She and I had the only two remaining original 1950s bungalows left on the street. All the others had been torn down and replaced with behemoths. Both Gladys and I were constantly accosted by real estate agents wanting to buy our houses. I turned them down. Me, because I was too lazy, and Gladys, well Gladys, and I hate to say it, because she was too greedy.

Sorry Gladys.

So, when the guy from the production house knocked on my door asking if I wanted to rent out my house for a week or two for a movie shoot set in the 50s - and then he told me how much they were paying - I sent him to Gladys down the street. I don’t like strangers in my house. I don’t even like people I know in my house. When my family will be coming over for dinner, I encourage them to go to the bathroom at their house first.

Well Gladys Horn might have been greedy but she was not graceless. The next day she arrived with a box of chocolates to thank me for my reference. Then she told me how much she was getting.

It was more than what they had offered me. Good old Gladys.

Then Gladys told me who was going to be in the movie. It was the name of an actress you would know.

Not hugely famous. But pretty famous. I was actually a fan.

Not enough to let her use my bathroom. But a fan.

Gladys told me a little about what the movie was about, although she was sworn to secrecy, and it sounded all very nice and she had negotiated allowing three of her friends to watch the shoot, and I could come too because I had been so nice. But I had been on a movie shoot before and it was actually deathly boring, so I deferred.

As she was leaving, I said to her, “do you know the prop guy?”

And she said she did not know the prop guy.

She didn’t even know what a prop guy was. So, I explained it to her and she asked me what I wanted the prop guy for, and I said that since it was set in the 1950s they might want an age-appropriate radio for the set.

So, she said, “ah, you want to rent them a radio.” Then she put her finger to her nose which was like the sign the con men gave each other in The Sting.

So, I said yes, because I didn’t really want to explain the Goodfellas debacle to Gladys. She stood there for a second, and I was sure she was going to ask me for a cut, but I guess she was getting enough for the rental and maybe she wasn’t that greedy after all. So, she did that thing with her finger and her nose again and said she would take care of it.

And take care of it she did because damn if I didn’t get a knock on the door three hours later, and it was not the prop guy but a prop gal, and I’m not even sure if either is politically correct. Either way, I opened the door and she said, “I’ve come for the radio.”

I said, “ok.”

And then she said, “I can’t do more than $800.”

I said that was fine because I would have paid her to get one of my radios in the movie. I was going to give it to charity or maybe buy new golf clubs - I wasn’t sure yet.

The prop person, yeah, that sounds better, then told me the movie takes place in 1953 and the director was all about authenticity so I gave her a very thorough tour of all the radios I had in the 1949-1953 range and she took a bunch of pictures and said she would consult with the director and get back to me.

I was pretty excited about the whole thing especially after she told me that the radio would appear in a scene with the moderately famous actress.

On the way out, the prop person asked me about a radio sitting on my coffee table. I had just received it.

“Yeah,” I said, “aint she a beaut. 1963 Bulova. AM/FM. Plays like a champ.”

She said, “That’s the one we want.”

I said, “it was made 12 years after the year your movie is set in.”

And she said, “nobody is going to know. I like the color. Matches,” - and she said the name of the actress - her “eyes.”

“Don’t you have to ask the director?”

“For a radio? No. I make those decisions.”

“But what about authenticity?”

“Honey,” she said, “this is Hollywood. Is cash ok?”

I really liked my new golf clubs. The radio got cut from the movie. Probably for the best.

I’m back in the basement of the cottage watching another bad movie.

My sister-in-law says, “did you hear they are filming a movie in Huntsville next winter? It is set in the 1940s.”

Nice, I think to myself, I’ve got the perfect Emerson for that.

The End