In 1911 Charles Looff delivered a new merry-go-round to the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, CA, complete with a working ring dispenser and a 342-pipe band organ built in 1894, now one of the last of its kind. This sort of carousel history is the kind that is now so desperately trying to be revived and preserved.
In all, the carousel is home to 73 hand-carved horses. Several of them display open smiles and garlands of flowers; others are more serious, with a gentle, well-bred demeanor. Real horsehair tails, muscular bodies and decorative, jeweled trappings also add to their magic. To preserve their beauty and to keep them available for guests to enjoy, the Boardwalk has restored many of the steeds and continues to do so.
In the Movie “Lost Boys”, produced by Joel Schumacher, the opening shot of the movie is with the vampires on the carousel. To understand the movie a little better allow me to elaborate on some of its details. The movie is about Lucy, a recent divorcee, that goes with her two sons, Michael and Sam, to Santa Carla to stay with her father. On a trip to an amusement park (the carousel is shown in a few scenes), Michael meets the mysterious girl names Star and falls in love with her. However, Star is the property of David, or in other words, the vampire, the leader of a vicious vampire gang. Star and Ladi, an orphan child she feels responsible for, are vampire initiates; this means that they have not made their first kill. In a macho challenge for Star, Michael drinks David’s blood and become an initiate too. The bloodlust is becoming harder to resist, and Sam with the help of the unlikely Frogg Brothers and Michael (almost a vampire), must seek out and destroy the head vampire before the initiates feed and are lost forever.
Next movie: "Sudden Impact" (1983) staring Clint Eastwood
The film starts with Harry leaving San Francisco at his superiors' insistence and going to a small seaside town for a little peace and quiet. There he becomes embroiled in a series of brutal murders committed by a young artist, Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke). She and her sister were raped under the boardwalk just outside a carnival ground (In the movie you can see scenes of the carousel) by a group of local men, including the police chief's son, a few years back. The experience left Jennifer's sister completely catatonic, and Jennifer herself is tormented by flashbacks. While Harry investigates the killings, he falls in love with Jennifer, not knowing that she is committing the murders.
My investigations into the world of carousels may seem short and under-researched, but due to the fact that carousels are an old tradition that have been long overlooked, the information on why people use them in movies is very limited. I wanted to do this project regardless of the lack of information because I believe that it is an important subject to be shared when discussing the history of carousels. The people who made the movies that I have discussed in this paper have made an important contribution to preserving the memories of carousels by depicting them in different tones in their movies, and hopefully we will see more of this in the future so that the history of these beautiful, mysterious, and often overlooked spinning fantasy worlds will rightfully be preserved in our history.
