Picture Vernon — A Gas Station And A Hollywood Classic

VERNON, CT — The latest installment of the Picture Vernon series leads us to a link between old school Talcotville and a classic America comedy with an all-star cast: A garage owned by an Irwin.

Featured in the book, "Looking Back II: North Central Connecticut In The 1950s, '60s and '70s" is an image of Stanley Irwin and his wife, Mabel, in front of the service station he owned an operated in Talcottville from 1926 to 1968.

One of the most hilarious scenes in the 1963 movie, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," takes place at Ray & Irwin's Garage, somewhere in the western U.S. desert. A moving van driver named Lennie Pike (played by Jonathan Winters) wrecks the station on its first day in business after the double-crossing Otto Meyer (played by Phil Silvers) poses as a phychiatrist and convinces the owners to tie Pike up, calling him a, "homicidal maniac."

They were all on a wacky quest to find hidden loot buried by a gangster under a "big w" at a coastline park in California.

Here's a YouTube clip from the movie:

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Picture Vernon is a periodic look at the town, past and present.