The Virtual Corkscrew Museum's Occasional Newspaper

Corkscrews in the Movies

Wirtz, Virginia - Last night we watched Big Fish starrring Billy Crudup and Albert Finney. Albert Finney plays the role of Edward Bloom, a traveling salesman. One of Edward's products is the Handi-Matic. The Handi-Matic is quite visible in a scene where Edward's son is sorting through Edward's belongings.

Bloom's Handi-Matic reminds us of Alf Erickson's 2002 Best Six:

Alf describes Number 1 with:

This is a controversial item. Sometime during the 19th century a Frenchman needed a left arm ... an arm that was to serve as the one that was never given to him at birth or the one that was raped from his body in some long forgotten way. But, of course, we are not concerned with whether the fellow lost his limb in an industrial accident, via a birth defect, in a duel or because of a fierce animal bite. The fact that his stump needed something is enough for our purposes. All this aside, the fitting-plate close to the artificial wrist is brokered with a 180 degree rotating non-swiveling tightening device that allows the user to affix useful attachments to the artificial arm. When delivered to me the 'package' came with a left hand powered by a spring loaded thumb, a hook, a fork and a corkscrew. Is the corkscrew real or was it added by some unscrupulous seller who felt that the value of the arm would be worth far more if he could market it as a 'one-of-a-kind' corkscrew. "Short of placing the bottle on the floor and pirouetting himself into the cork how did the man drive the auger into the bottle?" Fair question! "He held the bottle in his right hand and screwed the bottle up into the screw!"

News Index