Chess, Cinema, History and other Nonsense
Good Girls don’t Smoke!
Lovely photo of Clara Faulk, which appeared in the popular girly magazine OUI in January 1974. The magazine tried to compete for audience share with Playboy. The content was pretty similar, but in 2000 it became explicitly pornographic and , not surprisingly, soon went out of business.
Salamanca, Yes! But what year?
Perhaps one of my readers will be able to solve this ‘mystery’. The above photo of a living chess game at the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca is credited — according to reliable sources — to have taken place in 1956, 1968 or 1974! I would like to know which year is correct. Please contact me if you know for certain!
Elegant Chess Scene
The above scene is my favourite chess scene from the 1967 spy film ‘Deadlier than the male”, directed by Ralph Thomas. Chess plays a big role in this ‘James Bond’ clone.
In this scene we see Richard Johnson trying to seduce Justine Lord over a game of chess…the flirtatious dialogue is really well done.
Meanwhile, it is election year in the USA!
While politicians — regardless of what country they are from — are expected to tell lies , US president Donald Trump has raised the game to an entirely new level and uses telling lies as a deliberate strategy. A winning strategy by all accounts…
This year’s presidential election will likely see both Democrats and Republicans make use of this strategy. What works for the goose might also work for the gander!
Did Bergman get it right?
Daniel Mecca, culture editor for very respected Argentine newspaper Clarin, wrote this article earlier in the week describing the ‘incredible’ error of Ingmar Bergman setting up the chess board with the wrong color in the corner in his famous Seventh Seal.
But did he really get it wrong? This same question has been asked numerous times over the years. It is true that today the convention is to place the board in such a way that the lower right corner is white, but at the time of the Black Death (the period that Bergman’s film is set in) this was not yet established, and many paintings from this period do show this.
So I think the jury is out on Mr. Mecca’s claim. Bergman might have actually done it on purpose! For more history about the convention of having white in the corner, read HERE.
