Productivity
I was watching The Apartment, from 1960 starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. A classic Billy Wilder movie with Lemmon and MacLaine at their peak, career wise.
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| our hero |
But as a literalist, the thing that struck me was in the opening CC Baxter (the Jack Lemmon character) is talking about where he works on the 19th floor of Consolidated Life, an insurance company, desk 861.
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| an amazing capture of 1960 |
And that the shift ends at 5:20pm for his floor - the shift ending times are staggered so as not to overwhelm the elevators. Which are still run by humans like Miss Fran Kubelick (Shirley MacLaine's character).
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| first scene with Kubelik and Baxter |
So when Baxter stays late he looks really lonely.
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| hero alone |
But just imagine how those companies are today, almost all of those people are gone, replaced by machines. No desks needed, no lights, no adding machines. The elevators don't need operators anymore. And gotta figure that all those weasel supervisors and managers that Baxter loans his apartment to are also gone. Productivity strikes !
Also, an apartment 1/2 block from Central Park for $85/month in 1960 ? $848 in 2022 dollars. I'm sure a rent that low would be a dream today.
In the movie Baxter mentions that there are 8,042,783 people in NYC. The 2020 census says something like 8.8 million people in NYC. So there are 10% more people now, hopefully they are all making good money.
Another thing that struck me was the TV dinner, I remember those aluminum trays, now the dinners have trays made of some kind of paper, manufacturing equivalent to productivity in force there, too, cheapen the packaging, driving down the cost.
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| not sure of the brand but it is a TV dinner, chicken wise |
In the movie, Bullitt, Steve McQueen is shown buying a stack of TV dinners.
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| Steve isn't too particular which ones he gets |
But by 1968 maybe the Swanson people were paying the producers of Bullitt to make their TV dinners the ones Steve buys ?
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| they are clearly Swanson |
The movie equivalent of productivity: product placement.
Get the money, it's all about the money !
Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm