Fountain Pens In Movies And Tv

[inkstainedruth]

Yeah, no specifics but I would expect that considering the context. I doubt we will find out.

 

And I'm betting that with all the adverse publicity the store where they were purchased won't be saying.... Especially given that they don't even list pens on their website -- just custom jewelry and really expensive watches (yes, I checked...).

There have been several threads discussing this; I'm kinda surprised none have them seem to have been locked yet....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[carlos.q]

During the 1948 movie "A Foreign Affair" the male lead actor John Lund, portraying Captain John Pringle, appears in this scene with a Morriset Model B inkwell and FP on his desk:

 

 

 

[Freddy]

In Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie B&W 1962

we see Nana writing a letter in a cafe using

a Stylomine 303D with gold cap.

 

Fred

Is it safe? Szell

Edited July 17, 2018 by Freddy

[Ink Stained Wretch]

I see that there are some references to a couple of episodes here about the British/PBS series Mr. Selfridge. Indeed, there are any number of fountain pens being used in that series. Harry Selfridge himself appears to be using a gold plated fountain pen, or maybe it's not just gold plated. I can't determine the make or model though.

 

I'm watching the series on DVD at this time and one thing that no one has mentioned is that in the opening for each episode of Season 3 there is a fast frame or two showing the Conway Stewart name above some bottles of ink, and then what I think is a Conway Stewart fountain pen, all products being sold at Selfridge's. These are among the other products that flash by on the screen as things that the store sold around 1919, 1920.

 

Nice to see that fountain pen and ink advertisement reference. Of course there are fountain pens, desk sets, some elaborate, and blotters, etc. all over the series.

[inkstainedruth]

A desk pen FP is featured in another episode of the old TV show The Avengers (which has been shown in reruns this summer on "Charge TV"). In "Mission: Highly Improbable" Steed is miniaturized! And when Mrs. Peel is captured, he attacks her guard by poking at the guy with the nib end of the pen (after using a letter opener to cut the ropes she's tied up with).

If you're interested, the station is Channel 471 on the dial on FIOS. They've just started Season 7 (yesterday, and presumably also the first episode aired today -- with the episode that introduces Tara King and says goodbye to Mrs. Peel. I may re-watch the episode, which is being recorded even as we speak, just because it was always one of the ones I really liked from when I first saw the reruns of the series in middle school -- one of the independent stations in NYC ran them every weeknight at 7 PM, and my brother and I would watch them after dinner. And yes, that included seeing "A Touch of Brimstone" -- the episode that was originally considered "too racy" to show in the US....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[inkstainedruth]

Well, another episode of The Avengers -- this time from the Tara King era (season 7). In "Split" a character has been somehow brainwashed to have a second personality -- that of a dangerous foreign agent. When he gets a phone call asking for "Boris" he changes hands and writing styles, (confusing a handwriting analyst to no end) but uses the same pen, which looks like a Parker 21 (same color as mine, as it happens...).

[No, I'm not ambidextrous, or answer phone calls when I don't know who's making them.... ]

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[pen_master]

Here is Jed Bartlet's father using a fountain pen in the highly rated episode "Two Cathedrals" from The West Wing. Have no idea what pen it is as the resolution was too low.

Edited August 1, 2018 by pen_master

[Freddy]

Film: Where The Sidewalk Ends 1950

 

At 1:04:16 Detective Mark Dixon sits at desk and writes a letter usin' a Sheaffer Balance.

Scene ends 1:06:04 ----as he addresses envelope 'To be opened in case of my death

Inspector Nicholas Foley'----1:06:34.

Fred

Service above self interest

[npweston]

In Paddington (2014), at the 56:42 mark, we get a glimpse of Mr. Brown's meticulously organised desk. Note the Pelikan (M200?) and three Diamine ink bottles.

 

[Uncial]

Probably been mentioned before, but recently watching a few seasons of Northern Exposure, Doc Joel uses a Pelikan fountain pen quite a lot.

[Anegar115]

As a fountain pen noob, wondering what all the fountain pens are in the Netflix adaptation of The Guernsey Literary & Potato Pie Society?

 

It irks me that in one scene Juliet throws her pen down, presumably without closing it!

Edited September 4, 2018 by Anegar115

[oob]

The peerless Dame Emma Thompson rocking a Montblanc Meisterstück at 18:10 in the 2017 film adaptation of Ian McEwan's 2014 novel 'The Children Act.'

A 142 or a 144 I think, suspecting the latter.

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by oob

[Carrau]

As a fountain pen noob, wondering what all the fountain pens are in the Netflix adaptation of The Guernsey Literary & Potato Pie Society?!

I’m not a Sheaffer expert, but I think in one of the scenes she is using a Sheaffer, as it appears there is a heart on the nib. You see the barrel and clip briefly, so others more familiar with vintage pens or Sheaffer may be able to tell you more.

[Bookman]

Popeye the Sailor and an unidentified clerk with an unidentified pen at the Matrimonial Agency where our hero goes to select a wife in "For Better or Worser" (1935). Like anyone writing with a nibbed pen, the clerk is in his own world, happily writing. Popeye summarily interrupts him.

[Uncial]

The priest in The Nun uses a yellow lacquered Cross Townsend fountain pen in 1952. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think the model went back that far.

[inkstainedruth]

May have found another one that hasn't been mentioned.

In "The Battle of the Cameras", an episode of the old spy series Danger Man (although listed on IMDB as Secret Agent) Patrick MacGoohan's character is pretending to be a playboy/gambler in Monte Carlo, while trying to infiltrate a ring stealing government secrets, and uses some pen at the casino bar -- which, while I didn't get a good look at the pen, he unscrewed what definitely looked like a pen cap with Parker clip on it....

Not sure what pens would have been available in the mid-1960s (I couldn't tell whether it was a fountain pen or a ballpoint, but it looked Parker 51-ish, although that doesn't doesn't have a cap that screws on and off; it didn't look to be the right shape to be a Parker 45 or 61 -- which also don't unscrew).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Carrau]

Recently I watched the movie Purple Noon, which is the original version of The Talented Mr Ripley from aabout 1960, based on the series of novels by Patricia Highsmith. Expat Philippe Greenleaf, and later his doppelgänger Tom Ripley, uses a MontBlanc throughout the movie writing notes, cheques, and signing letters/faked wills, etc. throughout the movie. Im sure someone knowledgeable in vintage MBs would be able to identify the model, given the year the movie was made and that it was contemporaneous, so the pen might have been a current model.

Its been awhile since Ive seen the most recent version with Matt Damon, and I cant recall if FPs were used in the film, the typewriter being the more central object in both films. The movie, by the way, is worth watching, and differs from the Jude Law and Matt Damon version in some significant ways, especially the latter half of the movie. I enjoyed both, although I think I liked the older version a bit more, I think because the two actors actually resembled each other, and because Alain Delon (Tom Ripley) seems much more natural, less studied, than Matt Damon. For that same reason, I think O really enjoyed Jude Law more in the modern version-he seemed completely natural in the character.

Edited October 4, 2018 by Herrjaeger

[Newjelan]

Yesterday I went to see "Ladies in Black". The film is set in Sydney in 1959-1960 and the title references the "ladies in black" working in a high-end Department store. The father (played by the hilarious Shane Jacobson) of the main character (a 17 year old girl working temporarily at the store) uses a Parker 51(?) to sign her application for a scholarship to University.

[Cdaig35]

Fountain pens are used by both Barney and Ted in the tv series "how I met your mother". Barney has a scene where he is writing in his "playbook" with a Mont Blanc 146 or 149. There is also another scene where Barney is writing something down in Ted's apartment with Ted's pen. Barney stops mid way through and says "This ink is cool" in a sort of giddy voice. Good luck finding those scenes in all of the episodes/seasons, but I know that they are there somewhere!

[inkstainedruth]

Another pen (something torpedo shaped, like a Sheaffer, maybe), in another episode of Danger Man [secret Agent. The policeman guiding Drake about some Caribbean Iand sprays ink on the wall, and then wipes it up (perhaps as a euphemism for sweeping things "under the rug...)

Ruth Morrisson aia inkstainedruth.