Trifles of Importance

There are three mini-episodes in this edition of John Nesbitt's "The Passing Parade". The first one has to do with the number 7 and is about a secret group at the University of Virginia that manage to clear a man's name after he was accused of theft on the campus. The young man who was actually guilty kept receiving things with the number 7, although I'm not sure how anyone would be able to plant stuff in the student's notebook without his knowledge. There was also a pair of dice glued together, the number 7 removed from his door, and a large 7 glued to the front of a newspaper the guilty student opened up. That was enough for him to confess and the falsely accused student was able to return to college.

The next mini-episode was about doodling and it's use in psychology. There's examples of doodling by Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, and Mickey Rooney, plus doodles from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The final mini-episodes is about men's clothing. The reason for slits in the back of suit jackets is from horse riding. Lapels were said to be created when a military officer in battle opened up his jacket to give him room to breathe. The reason for men keeping the bottom button of a vest undone is because a portly king unbuttoned the last button on his vest to give him more space after having lunch. The reason for the buttons on sleeves is that Frederick of Prussia saw a guard wiping his nose with his sleeve and ordered buttons on the sleeves to prevent using a sleeve for a handkerchief.

This shows up occasionally on TCM and it's worth watching.

This episode of John Nesbitt's long-running MGM series, THE PASSING PARADE, considers three little stories: how the University of Virginia's secret Society of Seven exonerated a student expelled for stealing; some brief consideration of doodles, and some thoughts on the origins of of certain aspects of men's clothing.

It's called "Trifles of Importance" and was successful enough to earn a sequel, imaginatively titled "Trifles of Importance II". But aren't almost all of the episodes of this series about trifles of importance? They all seem to concern themselves with things we don't consider important, or have forgotten. Perhaps it was simply a chance to put three stories together, none of them long enough to make up a full eight minutes, or four. That, I suppose, makes them trifles, entertaining though they be.

Trifles of Importance (1940)

*** (out of 4)

Nice entry in John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series. This one here looks at small trifles and their larger than normal meanings. First up is how the number seven helps a student who was kicked out of college after his was falsely accused of theft. The second story talks about the doodling and how some psychiatrist look at it. The third and final story talks about men's clothing and why our outfits have certain looks to them. Overall this is another good entry in the series as the first and last stories are certainly the highlights. The middle one is mildly interesting as we get to see some doodles from the likes of Gable, Rooney and Turner. The first story works pretty good as a mystery, although you could ask yourself how certain things are really pulled off. The third story tells all sorts of history like why slits are on the back of coats, how buttons were put on sleeves and why the bottom button of a vest is left open. Fans of the series will certainly want to check this out as with those who have 9-minutes to kill.