Tallulah, Gary, Cary & the Devil

Film poster

Source: Wikipedia

I've written several posts on this blog about actress Tallulah Bankhead [1902-1968], a Huntsville native. These pieces include her films Lifeboat and Faithless, her visits to Birmingham and then around Alabama, her appearances on Lucille Ball's TV shows and her final acting role in a two-part episode of the 1960s Batman TV show as the villain, Black Widow. Now it's time for a look at her 1932 film Devil and the Deep, made in the same year as Faithless. 

That film is what is known as a pre-Code movie, Hollywood movies made from the late 1920s until 1934, when the Hayes censorship code went into effect. These films included subject matter ranging from abortion, prostitution and infidelity to profanity, illegal drug use and sexual situations. All of that disappeared when the Hays code was adopted. Crime and sin had to have consequences and punishment. I've written a blog post on one such very strange film featuring two Alabama connections, Murder at the Vanities [1934]. 

So, what is Tallulah up to in Devil and the Deep?  

In this film she is Diana, wife of submarine commander Charles Sturm, played by Charles Laughton in one of his earliest Hollywood films. He is pathologically jealous of every man she meets, including Lieutenant Jaeckel [Cary Grant]. Jaeckel and Diana are just friends, but no matter. As the film opens, Sturm is having him transferred, and the pair must say their goodbyes. 

Much of the film's first half takes place at a restaurant, but then Diana decides to leave and privately asks Jaeckel to come see her later in the evening. Sturm discovers them together and his anger at the dinner rises to hysteria after Jaeckel leaves, and he strikes Diana. She leaves the house immediately and begins walking the city streets.

Well, who should she encounter but the handsome Lieutenant Sempter [Gary Cooper], who is actually Jaeckel's replacement. Diana won't find that out until the next day, however, just as he doesn't know who she is. They talk themselves into a one night stand. Imagine their surprise when Sempter shows up at the house the next morning to report for duty.

Sturm's suspicion transfers to Sempter, and the commander begins to plot revenge. On the night the sub is to get underway, Diana goes aboard to warn her lover Sempter about Sturm. The commander orders the vessel to leave port with Diana still on board. Sturm has the sub deliberately maneuver into an oncoming ship and several compartments are flooded.

As survivors gather in the control room, Sturm and Sempter each assert command after Diana reveals her husband's madness. Sempter eventually takes control. In a long, exciting and apparently pretty accurate sequence, we see the crew and Diana use the escape trunk and Momsen lungs to exit to the surface. Laughing maniacally, Sturm stays behind to drown.

A court martial later clears Sempter of the most serious charges. He and Diana meet again in a store and leave together in a cab.

Devil and the Deep is based on the novel Sirenes et Tritons [1927] by Maurice Larrouy (1882-1939), a French naval officer and author of numerous novels. Marion Gering (1901-1977) directed the film, one of many he did in the 1930s. The movie is the only one in which both Cary Grant and Gary Cooper appear, although they had no scenes together. 

She made some 20 films between 1918 and 1966, yet Bankhead was best known for her stage performances in London, on Broadway and around the United States. Her best known film is probably Lifeboat [1944], an Alfred Hitchcock film that also stars another Alabama native, Mary Anderson. That movie is wonderful, Bankhead is in fine form and Hitchcock's cameo on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean is well done.

I really enjoyed this film, just as I did another of Bankhead's films that year, Faithless. She does a good job playing the Commander's long-suffering wife, and wearing that slinky white dress through the first half of the film. The second half turns out to be an exciting series of scenes aboard the submarine and inside the escape trunk. Oh, and Laughton, Grant and Cooper are pretty good, too!

Some more comments below. 

A famous photo of Tallulah Bankhead is hanging in the Commander office. 

Early in the film Diana ponders her fate with the Commander.

Lieutenant Jaeckel and Diana converse after his transfer dinner. 

The Commander joins them at the bar.

Diana decides to leave and asks Jaeckel to come by the house later. 

And so he does. The Commander soon arrives and after Jaeckel leaves accuses Diana of infidelity and slaps her. She immediately leaves and begins a long walk. 

Well, who does she meet but Jaeckel's replacement, although neither of them reveal true identities. 

Kisses and more soon follow. 

The next morning the new lovers are in for a big surprise. 

After that the action moves quickly and the exciting submarine sequence begins. Sturm and Sempter jockey for command, and Sempter takes over. 

Let's learn how this Momsen lung thingie works. 

Sempter and Dianna have a final confab before using the escape trunk to reach the surface. 

We'll assume they lived happily ever after. 

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Source: Wikipedia

Alabama Bookstore: Anders in Auburn

I've done a lot of postings about bookstores on this blog, including a few I've never visited since they are no longer around. Many of the earlier ones are listed in this post. In 2024 I wrote pieces about Branch Books in Hartselle and Branch Books 2 in Cullman. I posted an item about a "bookstore tour" of Huntsville my brother Richard and I undertook one weekend in 2025. Just recently in December 2025 I wrote an item on Eve's Books which operated briefly in Helena. I've also written about two college bookstores in Auburn in 1950, Burton's and Hawkins. That year my parents married and then left Auburn when dad graduated at the end of the fall quarter. 

Now we come to another of those stores no longer open, Anders Book Store in Auburn. I recently came across this little pocket notebook in my vast collection of random Alabama stuff. Since I was in Auburn from 1970 until 1980, I guess I picked it up at the store. Basketball and football schedules are included as well as the calendars for 1976 and 1977, so it was designed for that school year. By then I had finished my undergraduate degree and was working at the university's Ralph Brown Draughon Library. Anders closed in March 2022. The store had been operating since 1966. 

So how did Auburn's football and basketball teams do that year? The football squad produced a 4-7 record [3-3 in the SEC] under coach Doug Barfield. Shug Jordan had retired the previous year after 25 years as head coach. Barfield remained at Auburn through the 1980 season. 

The basketball team did a bit better overall, 13-13, but 6-12 in the SEC under coach Bob Davis. Davis coached Auburn 1973-1978 and was SEC coach of the year in 1975. 

Source: Foursquare.com 

Source: AL.com

What's Coming to the Blog in 2026?

 Since 2015 I have started each year with a post outlining some of the pieces I'd like to write in the coming months. These posts have become a history of futility on this blog. I list some topics I'd like to cover, and over the year I might get one or two of them done. So many topics, so little time, so many new topics popping up all the time. If you have the inclination, you can read all about it: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025.  

This past year I did manage a post on a 1987 brochure of Birmingham's Five Points South area; I had been planning that one for some time. I also posted one about the Paul Bryant Museum in Tuscaloosa which my son Amos and I visited in January 2023. Among the other posts for the year were the usual pieces on Alabama-related photos, maps, postcards, movies and bookstores. Only 38 items were posted in 2025, the fewest ever, no doubt due to the move we made from Pelham to Saint Johns, Florida in May and June. 

So what might be coming in 2026? No doubt more of those photos, postcards and such. I also hope to finally get around to part 2 of "Alabama on the Hollywood Walk of Fame". I only managed the first half of the alphabet in part 1. I've already started work on "Tallulah, Gary, Cary & the Devil" about Bankhead's 1932 film Devil and the Deep. Her co-stars include Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, and Charles Laughton in his first film. There's lots of excitement involving Tallulah's gowns and a submarine voyage.

I thought about doing an inventory from all these "What's Coming" posts of ideas I listed but have yet to write about. That thought quickly gave me a headache. Well, I guess I'll be back in January 2026 to see how all this speculation for 2025 turned out.

Talking Pictures & TV Come to Shelby County

Well, not in the same year, of course.

Once upon an Internet time there was a marvelous genealogical complex known as RootsWeb that offered vast resources free of charge. I know, the stuff of fairy tales. The early Internet/WWW was like that. Then Ancestry.com bought it in 2000 and has since pretty much destroyed it. But I digress...

I once found on RootsWeb excerpts from the Shelby County Reporter of various dates. One described "Talking Pictures" in Columbiana in 1929; the other television in 1949. I did not find the actual 1929 newspaper online, but here's the text I found via RootsWeb: 

"Shelby County Reporter, February 28, 1929. Palace Theatre Offers Talking Pictures March 5. The Palace Theatre, Columbiana, offers an opportunity for the people of Columbiana and vicinity to hear and see Talking Pictures, Tuesday night March 5. The program will consist of six all talking vaudeville acts on the screen. A special representative from the factory will come to Columbiana to install the machinery and wire the house for the showing of the Talking Pictures."

Sound and films in the U.S. have a long history. Hollywood studios began making sound films in earnest in the wake of the 1927 success of The Jazz Singer in that year. However, as Wikipedia notes, "Yet most American movie theaters, especially outside of urban areas, were still not equipped for sound: while the number of sound cinemas grew from 100 to 800 between 1928 and 1929, they were still vastly outnumbered by silent theaters, which had actually grown in number as well, from 22,204 to 22,544." The article also notes that the studios, uncertain about the ultimate success of sound, were making dual versions of their films until mid-1930. 

I have been unable to find anything on the Palace Theatre in Columbiana in the way of photos or history. However, I did find the article below indicating the venue was operating and showing "the usual program of pictures" in April 1927. 

With one exception as noted, I found these articles and advertisements at Newspapers.com, which kindly offers you a paywall to access. 

And by the way, vast resources available free of charge are still out there at the Internet Archive, Wikipedia, Library of Congress and numerous other libraries and museums, and so forth. 

Found on the Shelby County Reporter 14 April 1927 front page

Source: Internet Archive

I did find the actual June 16, 1949 article related to TV sets in Columbiana. I also found various ads from issues of the Shelby County Reporter in June and July 1949. See below. At this time the paper was known as the Shelby County Reporter-Democrat. 

The first television broadcast in the United States occurred in May 1928. Programming and technical efforts continued with various stations through the 1930s. World War II halted TV developments although a few stations remained on the air. After the war the FCC received numerous applications for new stations. That process was halted in 1948 until interference concerns could be worked out. The freeze was lifted in 1952.

No TV stations were operating in Alabama in 1949, although two were on the air in Atlanta. You can read about TV developments in 1949 here. By 1950 some  3,880,000 American households had television, a 9% penetration. I wonder how many of those were in Shelby County. 

The U.S. Census in 1950 counted 1761 people in Columbiana and 30,362 in Shelby County. That's not a large population base, but these stores no doubt attracted shoppers from other rural counties to the south such as Chilton and Coosa. I imagine not many could afford the sets. The GE 12.5" "daylight television" advertised below cost a cool $379. You could also get a GE 10" for $249.50. 

The "Olen Jackson" mentioned died in 2000 and is buried in Columbiana. 

This ad and the one below, like the article, are from the Shelby County Reporter 16 June 1949

Note the "Television Radio" combination from Westinghouse. You could watch it demonstrated "free" from 112 to 2 every afternoon as you shopped for a stove or deep freezer. 

Shelby County Reporter 16 June 1949

Tenen's was a drug store in Columbiana. You could go and get a soda and watch TV all afternoon and night. Buy a novelty gift, too. 

From an ad for Cardwell Furniture in the Shelby County Reporter 23 June 1949

Birmingham's Five Points South in 1987

The historic Five Points South area of Birmingham's Southside has been in the news over the last year or so and not in positive ways, unfortunately. In September 2024 four people were killed and 17 injured in a shooting outside the Hush Lounge. This past Halloween a fire did extensive damage to the Cobb Lane block of structures including an historic home and buildings housing many cultural and eating establishments over the years. This fire echoed the 1986 blaze that heavily damaged the iconic Studio Arts building in 1986. A new reproduction of that structure opened in 1994.

Five Points South has seen waves of positive development and decline over the decades. This pamphlet reflects one of the former efforts. Fifty churches, businesses and historic houses are highlighted in this "Walking Tour". A history of the area and a map are included and then descriptions of the various locations. Thus we also have a snapshot of Five Points South in 1987, when the publication was apparently issued. I base that conclusion on the "SM 2-87" code on the last page.

Although I began working at UAB in 1983, in a building just down the hill, I didn't visit Five Points South much in those days. I do remember making the hike one lunch hour to visit a book store, sometime in the mid-eighties, but I forget the name. I do remember when Pickwick Plaza with its retail shops and hotel opened in 1987, and the 1992 controversy about the installation of Frank Fleming's sculptures at the Storyteller fountain, which happened after this pamphlet's publication. I did visit Charlemagne Records a couple of times and once ate at Highlands Bar and Grille. 

Visiting Charlemagne was a deja vu experience. During my decade in Auburn I visited Aboveground Records many, many times, a store up a steep flight of stairs in an old building just like Charlemagne. AR is one of many gone but not forgotten Alabama record stores included in the long list at the bottom of this article from 2018 by Matt Wake. In the October 13, 2011 issue of the Black & White ["Birmingham's City Paper"], Ed Reynolds published an article  about Jimmy Griffin who worked at Charlemagne for many years. 

I wonder how many businesses have come and gone since 1987. Five Points South has a long positive retail and cultural history, such as Gene Crutcher's bookstore that operated from 1962 until 1974. I hope that continues.

Of course, many places on this list still exist, such as Highlands United Methodist Church and Highlands Bar and Grille. In more recent years Dianne and I were regular patrons of such eateries as the Original Pancake House and Makarios. 

Stewart Post Office Closes in 1982

Since the United States Post Office Department was established in 1792, numerous post offices have opened and closed around the country. The current Postal Service maintains a state-by-state listing of open and closed facilities, but even there many discontinued offices are not listed. 

One post office that has come and gone in Alabama was in Stewart in Hale County. Below you can see the sign from my collection posted there ahead of its closing. Stewart was founded in 1844 as a stop on the Alabama Great Southern Railroad. Akron is also located on that railway. 

According to Virginia Foscue's Place Names in Alabama [1989] the community was first called Stewart's Station, in honor of an early settler of the area, Charlie Stewart. A post office operated under the name Stewart's Station from 1871 to 1903, and under the name Stewart from 1903 to 1982. That's a pretty long run for a small town post office, 1871 until 1982.

Also below I've included a list of the Stewart postmasters--or "officers-in-charge" as some are labelled-- from 1951-1981. Only two are male. Then there's a photo of Stewart in 1961, taken by our own William Christenberry. Finally, I've added a clip from a 1930 state road map showing Stewart and Akron. I checked the most recent official Alabama highway map and did not find Stewart. 

Stewart Postmasters 1951-1981

Source: U.S. Postal Service

Stewart in 1961

Photo by Alabama native William Christenberry

Source: High Museum of Art

A 1930 state highway map shows Stewart and Akron on the railroad line. Wedgeworth had its own post office 1895-1955. 

Source: University of Alabama historical maps collection

Eve's Books in Helena

I've done a lot of postings about bookstores on this blog, including a few I've never visited because they are no longer open. Many of the earlier ones are listed in this post. In 2024 I wrote pieces about Branch Books in Hartselle and Branch Books 2 in Cullman. Earlier this year I posted an item about a "bookstore tour" of Huntsville my brother Richard and I undertook one weekend. 

This post covers one of those shops requiring a Tardis; I never visited during its lifespan, unfortunately. I first ran across the store's existence on the Shelby County map shown below. Then I discovered the photo on Helena's Wikipedia page, which at least tells us the store was presumably in operation in January 2008.

This Shelby County map has nothing on it anywhere to indicate a date, issuing entity or creator of the map. The map is similar to one of Pelham from 1989 that I've written about and a 1985 Hoover one. I found Eve's Books on two business sites. One gave a different phone number but little else new or useful. The other noted that Eve's Books was founded in 2010, had one employee and an estimated annual revenue of $47,000. So perhaps the store existed in the 2008-2010 period. 

If you have any more information about Eve's Books, fee free to share it in the comments. 

Photo taken on January 19, 2008, during a central Alabama snowfall. 

Source: Wikipedia