Thursday, July 3, 2008

Living Dead Pipe

While watching one of my favorite old badfilms (Return of the Living Dead) last night, I noticed the mortuary guy smoking this unusual pipe.

Well, not actually smoking. As Joe Bob Briggs might say, "stunt smoking." Here's another angle.

Interesting pipe, and appropriate for someone who often works with his hands (such as embalming a corpse), because unlike most sitters that would require the pipe be put down with at least a small amount of care, this one could just be slapped down on any flat surface and it probably wouldn't fall over. The bowl was carved intact with a sort of "rocking horse" bottom and front. Put it down on the bottom, it sits. Put it down on the front, it still sits after rocking back to center the mass. An interesting pipe, although it seems to me that it would be quite heavy and uncomfortable to grip with the teeth for very long because of all that extra weight. There is a white mark of some sort on the stem, but it goes by too fast for me to see any detail. I've played it in slow motion and taken numerous screen caps, but just can't make it out. Can anyone identify it? Does this particular design have a specific name?

It seems a shame that such a nice pipe was relegated to being only a b-movie prop. Leave a comment if you have any information or even an educated guess.

2 comments:

  1. Hello,

    just a remark about the white mark on the pipe's stem: it seems to be longer in one of the pics than in the other, depending on the angle at which the pipe is held in relation to the lamp. So I'm pretty sure that the mark a reflection of the lamp on the stem, and not a brand name etc. that could be identified.

    Best wishes
    Markus (known in some pipe forums as Markus1970)

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  2. actor Don Calfa http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0129883/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t3

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