Our Old Car

One of the shorts that showed up in the end of the time slot for one of the movies I recently watched was one of the shorts in the John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series: Our Old Car.

There's not a whole lot here, in many ways even less than in other entries in the series. John grew up with his family in one of the houses on the MGM back lot starting at the turn of the 20th century. Dad (Arthur Space) bought a series of cars, starting with a 1900-modely roadster that frightened his wife (Jacqueline White), she not having been close to a car before. As the decades go by, the family gets better and better cars, notably a Stanley Steamer, with John narrating how the technical specs on each car are better than the previous one.

But it's not all better cars. John grew up and went off to college, getting the sort of stereotypical jalopy that you'd see the young ones owning in movies of the era. The orther people who show up on their street also go through car ownership, and families grow and change. The short was released in June of 1946, so there's mention of one of the families being Gold Star parents, having lost a son in World War II.

This is in my opinion not the best of the Passing Parade shorts by any means although it's not exactly bad. But I mention it for a couple of reasons. One is that I've looked, and haven't been able to find that the Passing Parade shorts have ever gotten a DVD release the way some of the others have.

The other thing worth mentioning is the appearance of Jacqueline White as Mrs. Nesbitt. She's best remembered for her final film, The Narrow Margin, and is as of my writing this still alive. Sources differ on her age; some say she was born in November 1924 which would make her 99; others say 1922 which would put her at 101.