Movies are in our blood. Before there were movies there was theatre.
Before there was theatre there were traveling troubadours.
And before that, there were hieroglyphs, cave carvings and various types of ritual celebrations.
Human beings have been telling tales and entertaining each other since the dawn of time.
Movies are as American as apple pie. Hollywood was the birth place of the movie industry which found global reach.
One could say, movies are part of our DNA. They’re in our blood.
***
I was born in the sixties.
I remember my mother telling me she used to spend 10 cents to get into the Saturday movie matinee.
That was when movies were captured on film strips.
They would have to rewind the huge metal wheel holding the movie so they could play it again for the next audience.
Instead of leaving after the movie ended, my mother would just sit in the theater waiting to watch the same movie play again.
No one ever bothered her, asked her to leave or pay again. Times were different then.
***
Mom was born in the early part of the 1930s.
She spent countless hours absorbing the auras of movie stars from The Golden Age.
These are just some of the stars and the kind of influence they had on my mom and her generation;
- the bold and strong Katherine Hepburn
- the multi-talented and dynamic Judy Garland
- the mysterious Veronica Lake
- the passion of Bogie and Bacall
- the elegant presence of Ingrid Bergman
- the charisma and energy of Cary Grant
- the debonaire charm of Clarke Gable
- the fiery beauty of Vivien Leigh
- the sensual fragility of Marilyn Monroe…
There were many, many more.
My point here is, we elevate the stars of our time by giving them our attention.
In return, they are to uplift us and reflect the best of ourselves and our culture.
Here’s a perfect example of what my mom grew up with…
She loved Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in It’s A Wonderful Life.
Every Christmas day, until the last year of her life, she watched that movie.
***
Things have changed dramatically since the early days of Hollywood and not always for the better.
What do the stars of today reflect in us and our culture?
Wouldn’t you say our increasingly superficial and distracted existence is reflected in the vapid and ordinary ‘insta-stars’ of today.
In the end…
I don’t know how we can swing the pendulum back to an arts and entertainment industry that is inspiring and intelligent.
I just know that reminding modern men and women of the names, faces and stories of Old Hollywood is a small step in the right direction.
So, I hope you’ll keep joining me as I continue to post.
Thank you for reading and I wish you a very sensual day.
