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March 30, 1955. "Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami Beach. Roof view of pool, cabanas and garden. Morris Lapidus, architect." The valet will be happy to park your Cadillac. Large-format acetate negative by Samuel H. Gottscho. View full size.
I see at least four hose sprinklers just like the couple I use in my lowly Baltimore yard. Either this joint was created before pop-up watering nozzles were invented or, judging by that puny, laughably underscale fountain, the budget had no room for such flambounciness. Say, what's with my "watering nozzles" becoming a hotlink to a commercial site? Same thing happens with my own photography site.
[Your computer has picked up some malware; those links appear only to you. -tterrace]
(tterrace, thank you for the note.)
I also shows that the original building, in the posted photo, was destined to expand and was really only about half finished in 1955. Haven't been there in a while, hope much of the original flambounce has remained. Lapidus always wanted his hotel designs to help you escape into a fantasy world, as far removed from your everyday life as possible.
[flambounce (flam' bounce), n., a spectacular dive from a swimming pool platform at a resort hotel, esp. in Florida. Origin: Shorpy, 2013. -tterrace]
HA! Fantasy worlds call for fantasy words.
Unfortunately for Sean Connery and Gert Frobe, neither of them got Fontainebleau vacations; all their scenes were filmed at Pinewood Studios in England. Those in which they appear to be at the hotel were accomplished by means of matching studio sets, rear-projection or traveling matte effects shots and, in one case, a body double for Frobe. Speaking of Frobe - or rather speaking for Frobe - English actor Michael Collins dubbed all of his dialog, as Frobe's accent proved incomprehensible. Frobe is heard in the German-language version, however, having re-dubbed himself.
Auric Goldfinger cheating at Canasta poolside, and I can imagine James Bond thwarting it all...
I never could figure it out. They built a fabulous hotel, gave it an elegant French name, then must have asked Jerry Lewis how to pronounce it.
[Exactly right. "FON-tin blow" if you're from France; "fountain-blew" if you're Jerry. - Dave]
the pool is for effect only !
Welcome to Miami Beach! One of the best sequences from the movie shows the Fontainebleau Hotel.
Wow.....now THAT's a platform.
As a kid we would have lived all day on that thing.
Parents would have to drag us off it at the end of the day.
LOVE.LOVE. the diving structure. Too bad they don't do many of these anymore due to liability. That would have been a ball! I am too old now probably but just the right age to remember them!!!
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