SOMEBODY wanted Joseph L. Mankiewicz's typewriter...BADLY

Last month, TCM and the Bonham auction house offered up a lot of crap...er...MEMORABILIA and some items that seem pretty worthless went for thousands of dollars.

You have to be quite a "movie buff" (now known as FILM SCHOLAR) to even remember the guy. The average person wouldn't have a clue. "Was he a producer? Director? He wrote a famous movie or two?"

What is somebody going to do with Joe's director's chair? Sniff the seat?

How about the typewriter? First off, where do you even buy ribbons for one anymore? You're going to sit down and assume that it was his typewriter that magically knocked out brilliant sentences, and he merely rode his fingertips on the keys?

A THOUSAND DOLLARS. We all could think of better uses for that money, whether spending it on ourselves or giving it away for charity.

Somebody has, what, placed this typewriter on a shelf, or on a marble stand, and has stood around staring at it for hours? "On that very typewriter..."

I'd like to think these items were bought by a museum but, really, WHAT museum would have people paying admission price to see this crap?