Tapping Into Some April Showers

After more than a dozen Aprils down here in The Underworld, options for featuring April showers aren't as prolific as they might have been in years gone by. But I did manage to scrape up a few to share with you. Didn't want the occasion to go by without a sprinkling of them. Ha ha! Our cover boy is one Elvis Presley (in the movie G.I. Blues, 1960.) This is from a magazine page, though they had it incorrectly flipped, which I've corrected. If you look carefully - I always do! - you can spot the waistband of some shorts he has on during filming... But it also looks as if he's sharing his cubicle with another gent! 

Sure enough, a closer look at the movie itself shows four men in two cubicles. I like those odds...! LOL "Two for non-smoking, please."

Presley's shower mate is the diminutive Robert Ivers.

On the subject of shorts being worn during filming, Presley's costar Arch Johnson absentmindedly hikes his up (out of camera range) even though they aren't supposed to exist in reality...!

The sequence ends with Johnson griping to Presley about his soap going missing (it had been resting on the divider and Elvis took it.) The guys apparently didn't feel like using the built-in soap dishes behind them!

This publicity still of Cary Grant is from That Touch of Mink (1962.) So many years had gone by since I'd viewed that movie, I decided to check it out again.

It's from the climax of the movie when Gig Young comes into a health club to alert Grant that he's about to lose the woman he's in love with, Doris Day. Note the signage over the door behind them. (I don't rightly know what a "Needle Shower" is, but it sounds like a good place to encounter pricks. Ha ha ha!!)

There are a LOT of controls on the wall (and a second tap down below as well.)

In fact, when Grant has to leave abruptly, he must turn two or three handles to make the shower stop!

Grant, who was getting close to 60 years old, was still in very good shape. He flies out of the shower room in a towel and puts nothing else on but a wristwatch as he runs down the front steps and into a cab.

Young is on hand with a change of clothes, which Grant puts on in the back seat (though I didn't see any underwear being applied...!) I include this last pic because of the driver of the cab, Ralph Manza. He figures into another sequence.

Manza is seen here in a 1972 installment of Night Gallery, directing his employer, a champion boxer, into the shower.

The boxer is portrayed by Gary Lockwood (of 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968) and many other things.

Lockwood shucks his trunks and heads into the shower as requested.

"Hey, don't look so disappointed..."

The enclosure fills with steam as Lockwood rinses off.

I really felt this was a decent amount of exposure for 1972 network television. Anyway, when he emerges from the stall, he's in for a surprise.

The room is completely different and there is a butler on hand to give him a towel and robe! Thus, the supernatural aspect of the program goes into full swing.

Seen here is Mr. Chad Everett (and son) in the 1979 miniseries The French-Atlantic Affair. If you haven't ever witnessed this project, it is a real scream. Everyone and his grandmother is in it. It's like an episode of The Love Boat only with terrorists.

Their first night aboard ship, Everett's son is dressed for dinner while Pop is in the shower.

It's quite a disappointment as all we get is a reflection in a mirror as Everett peeks out from behind the shower curtain.

He seems to be soaped-up plenty, though, judging from the stream of suds rolling off his forearm!

Even after coming out of the bathroom, he's unduly covered up by towels.

I include this as a bit of solace. He at least skips around the ship's deck in some clingy trousers.

Joseph Campanella is a familiar face to most viewers of vintage TV. He's shown here in an episode of Mannix as a doctor who is shot at one day at his home. He's strangely reticent to look into it much further, which is how the private eye Joe Mannix becomes involved.

Mike Connors (as Mannix) tracks him down in the locker room following a tennis game.

In all truth, I couldn't help my eye going to the blond extra in the background.

Anyway, we yet again have a scenario in which one character carries on a conversation while the other is stripping down to nothing...

Naturally, Campanella isn't truly nude during this. He has some pretty snug briefs on under the towel he applies, giving him "panty lines."

He may be on his way to the shower, but Connors is far from done with the interview.

Connors, in suit and tie, continues on.

Campanella takes a stab at a little bit of privacy by pulling the curtain (also designed to bring the conversation to a halt.)

But Connors isn't having it and pulls it open again.

And he can't resist a glance. (I was once told by a soldier that the way they could spot a gay man in their midst was that they DIDN'T look below eye level out of fear of being caught looking while most heterosexual men always looked just out of curiosity and/or comparison's sake.)

"Don't look so disappointed..."

I try not to discriminate when it comes to collections like this, but Campanella ain't no Bobby Ewing, ya know what I mean?

One interesting bit of trivia about this. During the first season of Mannix, the lead character worked for a large agency and Campanella was his boss! He appeared in all of season one and a little bit of season two. But here, in season six, they must have figured no one recalled that any more as he's an all new character.

We're going backwards in time now to 1933 and The Life of Jimmy Dolan. This is one of several (obscure to me) Warner Brothers films that have been featured on TCM this month in honor of the studio's 100th birthday.

The title role of a lightweight boxing champ is essayed by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

It's been a treat to see some of his early work like this and Union Depot (1932), most of which I was utterly unfamiliar with. Here, he's getting a post-fight rubdown.

The masseur accidentally tugs his down down too far as he exits and Fairbanks has to swiftly pull it back up! (This was the time when it was considered daring to bare one's belly button.) 

Soon the towel is way up high where it belonged. In the course of the story, Fairbanks accidentally kills someone and has to go on the lam.

After quite an ordeal, he lands at a farm for sick children run by Loretta Young, who helps get him back on his feet again.

One of the children is portrayed by a very young (and toothsome) Mickey Rooney! (Later, there's even an early role for John Wayne of all people, too.)

Anyway, steering back to the topic at hand, Fairbanks begins to train for boxing again with the children's help. After one rigorous workout, it's time for him to take a refreshing shower.

In true cinema fashion, this is done in view of others, though there is a tarp up to protect some of his modesty.

Even here, we must obscure the belly button.

Here's the real hoot, though. This isn't actually a true or real shower. It's just a makeshift area with a blanket hung up. And the water?

It turns out that "Farina" Hoskins and Rooney are up on top of the water tower dipping buckets in and unleashing them on their fit friend!!! Nice work if you can get it.

Fairbanks' boxing match is in order to raise money to save the farm from back taxes. He undergoes this situation even at the risk of having his identity revealed. (If it sounds at all familiar, this was remade into They Made me a Criminal, 1939, with John Garfield and The Dead End Kids.)

In that version, there was also an outdoor shower (though Garfield and the kids swam in the water tank as well.)

Dead End Kid Huntz Hall is seen operating the shower, which is a double boiler with holes in the bottom.

It's still a group effort, though, with the other boys bringing buckets of (apparently chilly!) water to Hall.

Always an audience...

In one brief moment, we see that Garfield is wearing dark shorts or a swimsuit while taking his shower, which disturbs the illusion of nudity (and which also makes all the need for a sign and tarp for privacy quite needless...!)

Garfield was a cutie, though, in his day. (26 at the time, he would be dead of a heart attack at only 39 following a battle with the HUAC and the death of his young daughter of an allergic reaction.)

This is the opening sequence of the 1973 John Wayne movie The Train Robbers. Ben Johnson silently awaits the arrival of a locomotive until suddenly conversing with an unseen presence.

Out of the water tower pops the person in question!

It's singer-turned-actor Bobby Vinton, taking a bath!

We don't get to see a great deal of him.

The event did merit a publicity photo and announcement, however.

But this isn't a tub/bathing post after all. It's a shower one.

So when some dusty riders blow into town, led by Rod Taylor, it's time for a (fully-clothed) rinse-down.

I found it remarkable that the well-trained horse stayed put for this rushing onslaught of water.

Just a few moments later, you can see that they only gave Taylor a little surface spray for the following camera setup instead of really dousing him again. This was a remarkably entertaining western and I should think it a must-see for those who like Ann-Margret, the female lead.

As for Vinton, an acting career didn't really materialize. But here he is posing in just a towel in case you're interested.

I have covered this last one once before, but now have better quality pics from it. This is young Jimmy McNichol in Night Warning (1981) - aka Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker. The student basketball star is seen with classmate and antagonist, a young Bill Paxton.

McNichol lives with his unbalanced and rather predatory and possessive aunt, Susan Tyrell.

He isn't my own type at all, but I include him for those who do find him attractive (and he was undeniably a very popular teen star in his day.)

His girlfriend in the film is Julia Duffy (who, if you are interested, has a topless scene.)

The almost endlessly harassed McNichol is about to enter the shower (which is delightfully vintage!) when he's interrupted...

Tyrell has something to tell him.

He stays contorted and semi-covered by the shower curtain, but asks her to fetch him a towel.

This is one time I think the actor in question truly was naked under his towel.

With his long hair and the way the lighting hits his chest, he almost resembles a flat-chested female in thumbnails...! But the bumps in the towel say otherwise. And this brings us to...

The End!