FRIDAY FLICKS / IS THIS A GREAT PHOTO OR WHAT?

Sometimes a photograph says more about an era than a whole shelf of history books. 

This one certainly does. The image shows two young actors walking arm-in-arm across a cobbled studio street, laughing like a pair of college students who’ve just slipped away from class. The woman throws her hands up to adjust her hair, smiling her world class smile. The man beside her looks at her with amused affection, a pipe in his hand and one arm casually around her waist. 

The pair is Ingrid Bergman and Leslie Howard, photographed in the late 1930s when Bergman arrived in Hollywood to make the English-language version of Intermezzo. 

Howard, already an established star, was cast opposite the young 23-year-old Swedish actress who was just beginning what would become one of the most remarkable careers in film history. 

Nothing about the top image feels staged. Unlike the very posed shot at the end of this blog.  Most likely both images are the work of Selznick studio photographer Ernest Bachrach, one of the best Hollywood lensmen of his era. 

Howard wears high-waisted trousers and a striped shirt, looking every bit the relaxed European gentleman. Bergman, in wide-leg slacks and a belted blouse, radiates the natural warmth that made audiences fall for her almost immediately. Behind them are stacked barrels and rough paving stones that suggest a studio backlot dressed up to resemble an Old World street. 

But the setting hardly matters. 

What makes the photograph unforgettable is the sense that the camera caught something real. Not actors posing, but two people enjoying themselves. Howard’s amused glance and Bergman’s open laughter feel spontaneous, as though the photographer simply happened to be there when a small moment of joy passed by. 

Hollywood publicity stills of the 1930s were usually choreographed with precision. This one feels like a candid snapshot of youth, charm, and the easy chemistry that sometimes happens when the right actors meet at the right time. Nearly a century later, the picture still carries that lightness. 

And looking at it today, the only sensible reaction may be the simplest one: Is this a great photo, or what? 

THE PUBLIC HOUSE REVIEW / MAKING THE ROUNDS IN WASHINGTON DC

Inside the centuries old Willard Hotel, this circular bar has long served as one of Washington’s quiet centers of gravity. Its design is deceptively simple. The circle keeps everyone visible, equal in distance if not in influence, and that geometry has made it a natural meeting ground for people who prefer to talk without ceremony. It is a room built for continuity, not interruption. 

 The Willard itself has carried a cosmopolitan elan since the nineteenth century, when it stood as the capital’s most sophisticated address—part hotel, part salon, part waiting room for power. Abraham Lincoln arrived here before his inauguration, moving quietly through its corridors at a moment when the country was anything but calm. Ulysses S. Grant returned often enough that his presence became part of the hotel’s folklore, the bar serving as both refuge and magnet for those seeking his ear. 

Writers such as Mark Twain added a different register—wit and observation layered over politics and ambition. What distinguishes the Willard is not merely its history, but its ease with it. The place never hardened into a museum. It remained open to the passing moment—foreign diplomats, visiting financiers, campaign operatives between stops—each adding a current note to a long-running composition. The Round Robin bar reflects that sensibility. 

You can arrive from anywhere and feel, within minutes, that you are part of an ongoing conversation rather than a newcomer to it. That is the cosmopolitan quality the photograph captures without stating outright. The room is local in address, international in temperament. It belongs to Washington, but it is not confined by it. 

People come here because it works: the light is right, the service understands pace, and the setting allows for a kind of exchange that does not travel well into more formal spaces. Look again at the image and the appeal becomes clearer. The bar is not crowded, not empty, simply ready. It has been ready for nearly two centuries, and that readiness—steady, unadvertised, quietly assured—is what continues to draw people back. 

And, the young lady?  A model posing for one of the numerous press or publicity images taken over the years.