Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/07/15

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Subject: RE: 1984 (was [Leica] New Leica Stuff...Elvis camera
From: Gaifana@aol.com
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 07:31:04 EDT

Hey - the last Elvis movie I saw was the one where he was with the hillbilly band - and the "city-slicker" love-interest promoter woman coming through town used a bright and shiny CONTAX II!  Once again, Leica rewriting history... :)

But more seriously (and not to start a flame war), the rewriting in the Leica literature is getting a bit obnoxious.  The Leica was not the first 35mm-film camera, not the first high-speed-lens-focal-plane-shutter-in-available light camera (that was the Ermanox), the inventor of the Elmar (that was actually Zeiss), the historic leader in camera optics (until about 1960, that was Zeiss, too), and the preferred camera of photojournalists (as far as I know, that was Contax until the M3 was well-established - even Cartier-Bresson has been pictured with Canon LTM rangefinder bodies like the IV-SB).  

Sure, Leitz perfected a lot (if not all) of these things, but this idea that they were the originators (like Solms' mythification of the Ur-Leica) is not quite accurate.  It's kind of Stalinist.

In a message dated Sat, 15 Jul 2000  5:15:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Jem Kime <jem.kime@cwcom.net> writes:

<< Bill,
The Elvis commemorative will probably have a talking 'chip in it which 
retells the old gag, 'What would Elvis be saying if he was alive today?'
"Help! Let me out! Let me out!" (he was buried if you recall...)
I guess it would have to have a blue suede covering as well ;-)
Jem
- ----------
From:   Bill[SMTP:m6rf@yahoo.com]

OK men, here is almost the last word on what Leica is going to be
introducing within the next 60 days at Photokina.

Fourth, Leica will introduce no less than 37 new commerative
collectable models including: A Lady Di collectable, an Elvis
collectable, a Bill Clinton collectable, and a Monica collectable.

Bill
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