I should be allowed to share my crushes, I should be allowed to crush...

"And I should be allowed to blurt the merest lusting if by random whim one occured to me..."

Happily this is the case. And I have a lovely forum in which to blurt it. Today's Crush of the Smoky Film-Noir Week came to me unexpectedly, like a Tarintino Romantic Comedy. I was at a flick. V for Vendetta. The masked hero punches a few buttons on a juke box and all of a sudden I was surrounded by a fog of sultry female vocals. At that point she was all smoky lyrics floating from the theater speakers, but I knew what she must look like. And she didn't dissapoint. Curves that would make Picasso reconsider his cubist period, and legs that seem to flirt independently of their owner. I could tell she was trouble. The kind you wake up as a speed bump for. Not to mention she had been dead for six years. But I digress...

The dame's details:

Name: Julie London

Her feminine wiles: She was married to the guy from Dragnet. The stiff one. Dark hair. How did a guy like that end up with a girl like her? Jazz music. Helping guys get laid since the early 20th century. She's also got a wide repertoire of songs that are delightful to listen to when you're drunk and in a smoke filled piano bar. One of these songs is the most blantly sexual, without true overt references I've ever heard in my life. Excerpt:

Go slow, oooooh honey, take it easy on the curves;
When love is slow, oooooh honey, what a tonic for my nerves.
Go slow, oooooh honey, we've got such a lot of time;
When love is slow, oooooh honey, how the mercury does climb.

My manly response: If it's a bit odd that I'm crushing on a woman who was born in the 20's so be it. It should be noted however, that I'm really after Julie London circa the late 1940's to early 50's. Its the kind of thing you wish Dr. Who was a close personal friend for. Still, it's nice that I can look at the entire arc of her life and see how long that beauty of hers lingered. It wasn't gone in a puff of Hollywood's demands for conformity (Hilary Duff... I'm looking at you...). And she was a good looking broad long into her middle age. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to drink some scotch and listen to Cry Me A River. The Julie London version. Once I'm sloshed I'll go run over that Justin Timberlake taint for naming a song the same thing.

- Scott