OT>Oscars

Connie and Jennifer,

I get my Beta-Max tapes at the same place where I purchase all of my eight-track cassettes, the world famous "Uncle Steve's Electronics Store," located on Canal Street, just east of Sixth Avenue.

Perhaps you've seen Dan Ackroyd parody one of "Uncle" Steve's radio commercials, in that thick Hungarian (?) accent of his, on an old episode of "Saturday Night Live":  Panasonic Hi-Fi VCR -$79.99, Nakamichi High Density Cassette Recorder - $109.53, Sony 50 inch Trinitron Stereo Monitor - $189.67.  I love you!!!"

Bob the Bartender, who always "frugally" sets the VCR to the long-recording "EP" speed.

Regarding the incident with Polanski, the girl in question was a model who was posing for a photo shoot that Polanski was conducting.  Polanski did not know that the girl was underage, and the photographs of her in full make-up revealed that she did indeed appear to be 18 or older.  Furthermore, Polanski underwent a psychological evaluation, conducted by the authorities, and it was determined that he was NOT a pedophile.

As for his winning the Oscar, I was thrilled, although not as thrilled as if Almodovar had won.

Regards,

John

Thank you, John, for bringing this up. It certainly is in keeping with what I always thought had happened. I've tried to research it a little, but what I found was mostly vague.

Except for the part that he would NOT have been out of prison. The judge was LITERALLY going to put him away for life. He was willing to accept a more reasonable punishment and had no intention of running until he found out how extreme the sentence would be. Since then he has attempted to come to terms and has not been able to work things out reasonably. Drugs and alcohol definately were a factor in his poor judgement, but even for that, you have to remember the time period---they were certainly a factor in MY poor judgement then too!! Also, while we were familiar with the term statutory rape then, the concept of it being pedophilia was not an automatic assumption. My best friend of years ago, was THIRTEEN when she MARRIED a man in his early twenties (or late teens, I don't remember). I am 47 and she was two years older than me, so we are not talking exactly dark ages or even Loretta Lynn timing.

I'm really, really glad to have this brilliant and talented man's crime pretty much explained. Egad, I LOVE his movies.... (though Almodovar is wonderful too).