Taki Taki

High life | 18 October 2012

issue 20 October 2012

New York

It’s a black-and-white 1939 oldie starring Barbara Stanwyck and William Holden, in his first film. She is thin, ballsy, bawdy and beautiful, and talks with a Brooklyn accent. He’s tall, very good-looking, a professional boxer whose real love is playing the violin. His name is Joe Bonaparte. Joe and Babs are on the roof of one of those art deco high risers that gave New York the glamour of no other place on earth. Gershwin’s syncopation can be heard in the distance while the two look down on the people going about their business. It’s night and the stars are out. Babs wants Joe to keep boxing and forget about the fiddle. ‘The little people never make it in this town,’ she tells him. ‘What a girl wants is a man who can buy a car and give her what she wants.’

Those were the days.

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