I just got a 50 inch HDTV. Both my fiancee, what an odd word at my age, and my son, Jordan, 31, have urged me to make the purchase…so I have made merry. When Ben Hur makes his big move in the hippodrome, the chariot wheels brutally cross my bed. Films such as “Black Narcissus” (Michael Powell) come across vividly, and my childhood avatar, Sabu, plays a horny prince infatuated with the poor man’s Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Simmons. The psycho-sexual tones among the nuns is delicious as well as the repressed sexual hysteria. Remember Simmons in “The Big Country” and Lean’s “Great Expectations.” I am of a period and time some years before TV, the postwar years, in which movies ruled. I actually got in at a local theater for $.18 which we called the “Dumps.” Expensive movie going in Brighton Beach was at the Tuxedo or the Oceana, here paying $.25
In any case, I’d like to share some movie titles with you, whether 75 or 25. I turned my son on to the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix and he gave me Nirvana. So for you cineastes here is a selection for you to consider, some mild annotation, of course. “The Man in the White Suit, ” savage satire of capitalism with a delightful Alec Guinness; “Bitter Rice,” with Sylvano Mangano, with thighs to rub mustard on and devour; “The Red House,” a sleeper with Edward G. Robinson, loaded with Freudian sauce; the ending is an unreal performance by Emanuel; see his Wolf Larsen in “The Sea Wolfe,” amazing. Did you know he spoke 8 languages? “The Thing,” with James Arness as the monster; “The Song of the South,” which is difficult to come by in these politically correct times. The Zippity-doo-dah title song won an Oscar. I was delighted by that film as a child, but then I never knew Jackie Robinson was a “negro,” he was just Jackie. “The Search” directed by Zinneman and with an appealing Monty Clift, touched feelings of abandonment and loss in me as the young boy searched for his mother in postwar Europe. Lumet’s “The Pawnbroker,” in which Rod Steiger lost out for an Oscar to Lee Marvin in “Cat Ballou”, the assholes were in charge that year. Of course, “Citizen Kane,” which blew my neurons at the age of 8 or 9 in wonderful black and white. Did you know that “Rosebud” was Hearst’s name for Marion Davies’ clitoris?
Some more are just welling up in me. “The Thief of Bagdad,” probably the greatest screen fantasy ever, with June Duprez, John Justin and the greatest screen adolescent of all time, Sabu. I still have not recovered from that. Does anyone know if there is a good print of it? The thematic music is deliriously sinuous, Borodin on steroids.
I’ll stop here and say that I still feel that Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch,” is one of the greatest westerns ever made; that Roy Rogers made carnal love to Trigger; that Flash Gordon as portrayed by Buster Crabbe and Charles Middleton is forever fabulous, art deco action gone wild. And for those that appreciate great sets and great sci-fi, see “The Shape of Things to Come,” screenplay by H.G. Wells. Pay particular attention to the last exchange of dialogue at the end.
And this passionate spate is over.
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