Barbara Ann Day-Old Bakery

 It is not easy finding remnants of old buildings, buildings, structures of Los Angeles that I used to visit as a kid.  A case in point is the old Barbara Ann day-old bakery located just off the Pasadena Freeway.  I kept thinking that the bakery was located just off of Figueroa, but it was actually located on Pasadena Avenue at 3545 Pasadena Avenue.  It was such a familiar site for us since we passed the bakery any time we'd go into Downtown Los Angeles on our way to a Dodger game or to my dad's courthouse or the Police Academy.  

 

This site, AngelFire, lists businesses, restaurants, places that used to exist in Southern California, titled "Things Which Aren't Here Anymore."  Sad but great title.  

Hopscotch, 1980

The other night I watched this movie, Hopscotch, 1980, starring Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Ned Beatty, and Sam Waterston, but there are other recognizable characters in the film, like Herbert Lom, .  I loved it.  It opens in Munich in the heart of Oktoberfest.  The plot  

I initially linked to Wikipedia's summary of the plot, but after a brief search, I found Roger Ebert's review (of Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert's fame, "At the Movies"), which I think is much better.  

They, on the other hand, want to kill him. They are the CIA. Matthau plays a veteran field operative who breaks up a Soviet operation in Munich but fails to arrest the head of the KGB when he has him in the palm of his hand. Matthau's called back to Washington, where a new man (Ned Beatty) has taken over control of the department. Beatty is a veteran of the CIA's clandestine "dirty tricks" operation, and the movie hints that he was the guy behind sending the poisoned cigars to Castro, among other dumb stunts.

Anyway, Beatty yanks Matthau out of the field and assigns him to the filing department. Matthau doesn't like that. He destroys his own files, walks out of the agency, flies to Austria, and deliberately leads the CIA to believe that he has decided to cooperate with the Soviets. Then he has a rendezvous with an old love (Glenda Jackson), holes up in her chateau, and starts writing his memoirs. They include detailed revelations about CIA activities, and he mails each chapter to the world's leading spy agencies.

Gary Arnold of the Washington Post doesn't do a terrible job either.  

But what I loved about the movie was the luxurious pacing, colors, music, and settings for all the different scenes, starting with the Oktoberfest scene in Munich.  It was absolutely luxurious by today's standards.  I mean it would be a great film for anyone who has never been to Munich's Oktoberfest to actually see what one looks like and the kinds of activities done there besides consuming beer.  I loved it.   

 

From Mirage (1965) to Nanny and the Professor (1970)

Following the movie, Father Was A Fullback, 1949, starring Fred McMurray and Maureen O’Hara, the 1965 movie, Mirage, came on.  I’d never seen it before.  And what struck me were the number of stars from that era, starting with Gregory Peck, Diane Baker, with music by Qunicy Jones, Michael Jackson’s old producer.  I was delighted to see Walter Matthau.  God, I loved watching him on the screen growing up co-starring with Jack Lemon.  And there was George Kennedy, playing a hitman, maybe the best role I’d ever seen him in.  He’s a big boy.  

The editing of the film was interesting, the flashbacks that made up Peck's fragmented memory collecting in an effort to piece together a whole picture.  It was quite good.  Scenes from 1960s New York was also interesting for it still showed much of the midcentury architecture that made so many of the large cities of the U.S. interesting.   

At the 59:45 mark, Peck and Baker, running from a murder scene, find a child home alone waving the two of them into her apartment to abscond from the police.  That child actress is Eileen Baral, who co-starred in the 1970s sitcom, The Nanny and the Professor, which I watched and liked quite well as a kid and a show that I have completely forgotten about since until tonight after seeing her in Mirage with Gregory Peck. 

Wikipedia explains that 

The series starred Juliet Mills as Nanny Phoebe Figalilly, Richard Long as Professor Harold Everett, and in season 3 Elsa Lanchester in the recurring role of Aunt Henrietta. Figalilly was housekeeper for Professor Everett and nanny to his three children: Hal, the intellectual tinkerer, played by David Doremus; Butch, the middle child, played by Trent Lehman; and Prudence, the youngest, played by Kim Richards.^[2]

What I remember the most from that series was the little girl's name, Prudence.  But it looks like Eileen Baral played only a minor recurring role and not as a regular on the show.  Her character's name was Francine Fowler.