“We say hip, hooray, Hip, hip hooray, For fat!”

– Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, The Fat Song

The main character is an entrepreneur: National Entrepreneur's Day (USA)

 

In my book, entrepreneur is just a fancy talk for conman. A famous one, the one who may've tried to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, was George C. Parker. He'd peddle the famous landmark to any hapless rube, immigrant, or sucker who then would promptly erect a little tollbooth to make a fast buck from any hapless rube, immigrant, or sucker.

“Selling the Brooklyn Bridge again, huh?”

– Police captain Jim McCarey

Like Parker, Mae West's Peaches O'Day bamboozles it her way. And boy, does she have a bridge to sell you!

A beautiful day for Beautiful Day (USA??).

 

Two hopelessly lonely hearts meet each other at Coney Island, spending the most wonderful day in each other's company. Pál Fejős' joyful Lonesome was made just when motion pictures became talkies, and new and more modern novelties were expected by the audience. Fejős delivers, with sound and musical inserts, and the occasional – almost shocking – burst of colour.

– Nice day, isn't it? – Yes, isn't it! – It's swell. It's perfect.

With light touches of Murnau's groundbreaking Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and Jean Vigo's more experimental À propos de Nice (1930), Lonesome depicts the exuberance of youth with an optimism soon to be lost to the vices of history.

Everyone assumed that Ellen Arden, swept away during a yacht race, was gone. But there she is, years later, and very much alive.

“Fame will go by, and so long, I've had you, fame.”

– Marilyn Monroe, 1962

The story ends on August 4, 1962, almost two months after she was fired from the shoot. Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her home. She was 36 years old.

“Any resemblance between HELLZAPOPPIN’ and a motion picture is purely coincidental”

– tagline

One day, a large blimp shows up over a small Bulgarian village. The townspeople, seeing the prosperity in all that beautiful silk and then some, go after it.

“It was fear that created the first gods.”

– Stratius

“It doesn't hurt to fall off the moon.”

– Julie

Mr R. (Kurt Raab), his full name is irrelevant, is a hardworking, almost invisible man. He laughs along when his coworkers make stale jokes to shorten the long days. He neatly completes his draftman's assignments and politely nods when the boss berates him. He smokes too much, 80 a day, and at the yearly checkup is told to cut the habit down. His son fails at school and Mrs R. wishes for nicer furniture and a skiing holiday, when Mr R. is promoted.

“No, no, geh' nicht vorbei, als wär' nichts gescheh'n, Es ist zu spät, um zu lügen, Komm und verzeih, ich werd' mit dir geh'n, Wohin dein Weg auch führt, Und die Welt, sie wird schön.”

– Christian Anders, Geh nicht vorbei (1969)

So why does Herr R run amok?