Year's total...
Nikica Marinović from Dubrovnik was the first miss Yugoslavia, and really a beauty. The dalmatian girs are generally cute, but above all their walk is elegant and stature proud, because they have no water mains, at least they grew up without it, so they were bringing the water in vats they carried on their heads. For that you must walk straight or else it'll splash and spill. She was the second at the world level. That was the first time any socialist country took part in such a show.
The news was taken with lots of critique over here, because allegedly the žiri wouldn't allow a chick from a communist country be the first. The more important reason was that the official winner, a Hindu, flatly agreed to go to South Vietnam end entertain the american marines, which Nikica refused because „as a Yugoslav she does not approve of the vietnamese conflict“.
As of new year we don't require visas for foreign tourists.
Television... „Black snow“ was on, which was a series from the Đukić-Novak kitchen, with more or less the same paddock of actors, and this time it wasn't entirely humoristic (humorists are, guess, the proponents of humorism), it also included some people's life stories, falling in love and, there, funny stuff too. The plot happens in some house where a busload of travelers was stuck and forced to manage until help arrives, when the snow thaws sufficiently. They were probably inspired by the preceding two winters, when Šavnik, in Montenegro, would be cut off until march. I wasn't really impressed, but we kept watching it, because there wasn't anything else, we had that one channel.
In America they started wtih „Stari drek“ (Star trek, aka old dreck), which will run here a year or two later, and which I then never managed to watch, as it was broadcast on tuesdays or wensdays at half seven, and we'd be in the second shift, last bell was at five past seven. The daily news would begin at half eight, and „good night, children“ five minutes before that. This last thing began this year, featured Mića Tatić and his doll Aćim (Mića was a ventriloquist), with texts written by Duško Radović (mostly, possibly others too), who were already known from „Na slovo, na slovo...“ ([beginning] with letter...). It was good while it lasted, but then, around middle of the next year, the slot was assigned to Zagreb, and the studio as if lacked the ear for the children. Not that Slavica and Mendo were repulsive, it's that they had lousy texts, and then they too were replaced with something sillier. After that, when Sarajevo took over, it got hard to watch, specially with the staccato violin music which went with it, it was halfway between ugly and kitch. I guess I grew out of it meanwhile and acquired a critical stand aganist all of it and just stopped watching.
Of the films, „Eagles fly early“, to book of Branko Ćopić, I think we went with school to watch it. I knew the books by heart, Ćopić is the best children's writer of that whole war generation, and the movie is rather good and faithful to the book. Except that the field guard Lijan (foxie) was played by Čkalja. He may have contributed to the popularity of the film, Čkalja was on top of his own fame at the time, but he simply didn't look like the illustrations in the book, a total misfit for the role. Much later I understood what it was - he wasn't much of an actor, and his gags were just a decent imitation of the gags perfomed by that imbecile turd, Jerry Lewis...
6-X-2025 - 11-V-2026