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This evening I was looking at one of the kitsch Virgin Mary candles we have on our dining room table. You know, the kind they’re talking about in the opening scene of Runaway Jury. You can also see them in the background of this photo.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the phrase “The Virgin Connie Swail” popped into my head. I took me a while to contextualize it, and at first I thought she was from Ghostbusters. Nope, it’s actually Dragnet, circa 1987:

Pep Streebeck: Hey partner. I tried to call you up till midnight. I didn’t know the Christian Science reading rooms stayed open so late.
Joe Friday: Not that it’s any of your business, but I spend the evening in the company of Connie Swail.
Pep Streebeck: Don’t you mean “the Virgin Connie Swail”?
[Friday looks at Streebeck as the Dragnet theme starts]
Pep Streebeck: Wait a minute!

I probably haven’t thought about that movie for twenty years. Or if I have, I wasn’t remembering the peculiar sobriquet for Alexandra Paul’s (still acting, I see) character. What else is stuck up there in the hoary attics of my gray matter? I shudder to think.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2007 at 10:02 am and is filed under Mixed Bag, Movies. Tag Testing Project: dan ackroyd, dragnet, memory, tom hanks, virgin connie swail. Photo by . You can skip to the end and leave a response, or trackback from your own site. If you don't see your comment within a day or so, drop me an email. Sometimes my comment spam filter gets overly zealous.