Fountain Pens In Movies And Tv

[rob-k]

"Les Enfants Terrible"

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville with screenplay by Jean Cocteau (based his own novel, from 1929) from 1950. Cocteau also narrates. The sloppy "camera work" is not Melville's, but rather my iPhone-based attempt nat providing a close-up of the pen. Would you leave an open bottle ink upon your bed while writing a letter? A brave soul. And why, exactly, does he dip the nib if the pen, presumably, is already filled with ink?

Edited May 10, 2017 by rob-k

[Ink Stained Wretch]

 

"Les Enfants Terrible"

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville with screenplay by Jean Cocteau (based his own novel, from 1929) from 1950. Cocteau also narrates. The sloppy "camera work" is not Melville's, but rather my iPhone-based attempt nat providing a close-up of the pen. Would you leave an open bottle ink upon your bed while writing a letter? A brave soul. And why, exactly, does he dip the nib if the pen, presumably, is already filled with ink?

 

 

Well, if it was a dry writer, and he wanted to get the pen going again to address the envelope, which appears to be all that he does with the fountain pen after he dips it, he might want to get it more inked up to make the addressing of the envelope, um, "meatier." Also, he just picks the fountain pen up, so the cap is already posted. Maybe he dips it so that he doesn't have a problem with getting it started after it's been open and unused for a little bit.

 

In my observation on the previous page of FDR dipping a pen early in the 20^th Century, in a documentary, I noted that the pen looked a lot like a fountain pen, not a dip pen. Maybe that was sort of like licking the tip of a pencil to get a darker line.

[Olya]

A stainless steel Waterman Hemisphere featured quite prominently in King Charles III.

[Carrau]

In HBO series Band of Brothers, episode "Crossroads", Capt. Winters is signing papers with FP-seen too briefly to identify the pen, but the audio captures the sound of the pen on the paper as he is signing.

[Ink Stained Wretch]

In an episode of the science fiction series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine one character, Jake Sisko who is the son of the guy in charge of the eponymous space station, wants to be a writer. A space alien who is a form of vampire starts helping him to write a great novel. In scenes where he is seen writing Jake is clearly using a fountain pen to write with. I can't identify it because they have, of course, hoked it up with some odd bit attached to the section, probably because the people producing the program don't want to show a character on a space station in the 24^th Century using something that a viewer might recognize as the writing instrument that his or her grandparents had used (harumph!). But you can clearly see the nib while Jake is writing.

 

It's season 4, episode 20 of the show, it's titled "The Muse."

 

On the Internet Movie Database they have a screen shot of the pen Jake uses to write with. You can see that page here.

 

Well, it was unexpected to see a fountain pen in a science fiction series set hundreds of years in the future. Hey, maybe people will be using fountain pens in the 24^th Century. That Hero 616 you're using today might be a valuable vintage pen in the distant future .

[frankb3]

TV show "Genius" "Einstein: Chapter 7" National Geographic Channel June 6th 2017.

Set during WWI, Albert Einstein is handed a petition to sign - and a black Jinhao x450 :-)

The pen appeared a couple more times in the episode.

 

http://efball.com/images/pens/albert1.png

 

http://efball.com/images/pens/albert2.png

http://efball.com/images/pens/albert3.png

[Charles Rice]

OMG - they used a Jinhao in Genius? Yes, I saw the pen, too, and it didn't look like anything from WWI. From what I have seen of the series, they are not too much into accuracy. The scenes which show the beginning of the war show snow on the ground. The war began in August.

[TheRealMikeDr]

^^ I guess you save where you can when it comes to the budget dollars!

[rwilsonedn]

TV show "Genius" "Einstein: Chapter 7" National Geographic Channel June 6th 2017.

Set during WWI, Albert Einstein is handed a petition to sign - and a black Jinhao x450 :-)

The pen appeared a couple more times in the episode.

 

 

We are only just beginning to understand how far ahead of his time Einstein was ...

ron

[rwilsonedn]

In an episode of the science fiction series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine one character, Jake Sisko who is the son of the guy in charge of the eponymous space station, wants to be a writer. A space alien who is a form of vampire starts helping him to write a great novel.[snip]

 

It's season 4, episode 20 of the show, it's titled "The Muse." [snip]

 

I think a lot of writers would relate to the idea of one's muse being a vampire ...

ron

[jameswatts]

The fourth and fifth seasons of the Netflix series "House of Cards" featured a number of Cross Townsend rollerball sightings.

[TheRealMikeDr]

The fourth and fifth seasons of the Netflix series "House of Cards" featured a number of Cross Townsend rollerball sightings.

 

Some of those seemed to be fountain pens too - by my eyes anyways.

[frankb3]

TV show "Mysteries at the Castle", Travel Channel. Episode "Irish Art Heist; Dickens Affair; Prince of Porcelain"

Charles Dickens is writing with a fountain pen, but it is upside down and has a very bent nib:

http://efball.com/images/pens/bent_nib.png

[NicolausPiscator]

Haha! Well done! This nib doesn't seem easy to master.

[NinthSphere]

Ooh, props dept fail. That feed looks full. Was he using it as a dip pen?

[Freddy]

Film: Twelve O'Clock High

Scene: Gen. Frank Savage dressing down Lt. Col. Gately

 

Starting at 0:00 - 0:05 close up of Sheaffer white dot lever fill desk set in front of desk lamp

0:06 - 0:13 {Col. Gatey is here} wide shot.........................

"I'm gonna make you wish you were never born." Savage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOGl_7a2nWU

 

 

Fred

"I withdraw my statement." Gately

Edited June 21, 2017 by Freddy

[frankb3]

Ooh, props dept fail. That feed looks full. Was he using it as a dip pen?

They didn't show how it got inked.

[MarcS]

i, too, enjoyed "Genius" on the NatGeo channel. A few different pens made cameo appearances, too fleeting for me to ID, but for certain there was a flat-top in addition to the cigar-shape noted above.

[inkstainedruth]

I've been watching reruns of the old 1960s TV series The Avengers, recently (some really old ones with Honor Blackman -- I'd only seen the later ones with Diana Ring or Linda Thorson).

So far, in one episode -- "Brief for Murder" -- the crooked solicitors Lakin & Lakin have their clients sign with a very flourish-y quill pen (from an inkwell). And while no actual appearance in another episode -- "The Gilded Cage", the criminal mastermind J.P. Spagge has his valet assess Steed (who is "hiring" him to plan a gold bullion heist) and you get this amusing exchange -- fortunately quoted on IMDB by someone else already ):

 

Fleming: The bowler? Custom made, Hemmings and Pauls, St James. Beautifully blocked, not a penny under 10 guineas. The umbrella, Bolton and Sons, '63 model, slightly weighted handle, perfect balance, just right for a man of his height. And the suit? It's a dream. Cut by an artist. Possibly Drift Brothers., definitely Saville Row. 65 guineas 75.

J.P. Spagge: Is he carrying a gun?

Fleming: A gun? Heh. In a suit like that, Sir, he couldn't have carried another fountain pen.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Edited July 5, 2017 by inkstainedruth

[praxim]

Diana Rigg

 

 

 

edit: mentions the teenager who watched it

Edited July 6, 2017 by praxim