The Crazyladies of Pearl Street (62 page)

How does this Theory of Eight work? No idea. I am charmed by its philosophy of love and the purpose behind relationships. It's spookily insightful and could be of great help in understanding oneself, making critical decisions, or working out why you are having trouble with your boss, your lover, your children, so I pass it on.

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24. '...the Marx Brothers are the most over-rated.' (p. 189)

Most knowledgeable buffs consider Laurel and Hardy's Two Tars* to be the funniest film ever made. In fact, it's the funniest film and a half, the opening 'gum ball' sequence being a free-standing turn linked to the main 'car-destruction' sequence only by the girls that Stan and Ollie pick up in the city street and bring to the stalled line of traffic on the road. (Nothing in either story explained or necessitated their being sailors.)

* Follow this link to the official Laurel and Hardy web site where you can find out more about this silent classic: ? HYPERLINK “http://www.laurel-and-hardy.com/html/home2.html” ?click here?

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25. '...tons and tons of 'acting'. (p. 189)

The brightest jewels of 'Thirties filmmaking were the fast-talking Screw-ball Comedies with their cocktails, white telephones and snappy comebacks. But these were beyond the life experience of people from the slums, and so weren't adequately appreciated by us.

Because of my mother's taste for her 'drama films', I sat through more 'women's movies' than a boy ought to be obliged to. I felt particularly hard done by the night we walked all the way up Clinton Avenue to see Gone With the Wind when it finally got to the neighborhood Paramount Theater about a year after its release. My mother and sister loved the film, but for a boy of ten it was a dreary, butt-numbing experience. Not only was it full of fancy dresses and women tapping men's chests with their fans, but it reneged on its advertising posters' promise of a little action, because there were only a few scenes of interesting war, and those consisted mostly of actors riding around in a buggy while someone flashed red lights on their faces to make you think Atlanta was burning down around them, or scenes of the heroine walking through smoldering piles of stuff while soldiers with dirty rags tied around their heads staggered by. And worse was to come! I suffered through what felt like six hours of this stuff and I was beginning to get an idea of what purgatory would be like, when the word 'Intermission' appeared on the screen and the lights came up in the theater, and everyone stood up and moved around, waiting, I assumed, for the redeeming second feature. In time, the lights came down and the screen brightened, but the second feature turned out to be not a second feature at all, but just Part Two: Scarlet Staggers On, alternately sobbing and being brave for another nine or ten hours! Jeez! Give a guy a break!

Still, even if I found my mother's 'women's movies' stodgy and sloppy, this was Hollywood's golden age, when one season's output offered more memorable films than come onto our screens in a decade today. In case you suspect me of indulging in the tendency of the old to burnish the past, here is a menu of the 1939-40 season's filmic banquet, which you can compare with today's thin broth.

ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS (1940) D: John Cromwell, DP: James Wong Howe, C: Raymond Massey.

ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO (1940) D: Anatole Litvak, DP: Ernest Hallder, C: Charles Boyer, Bette Davis.

BABES IN ARMS (1939) D: Busby Berkeley, Camera: Ray June, C: Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney.

THE BANK DICK (1940) D: Mahatma Kane Jeeves, DP: Milton Krasner, C: W. C. Fields.

BEAU GESTE (1939) D: William Wellman, DP: Theodor Sparkuhl and Archie Stout: C: Gary Cooper, Ray Milland.

DARK VICTORY (1939) D: Edmund Goulding, DP: Ernest Haller, C: Bette Davis, George Brent.

DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939) D: George Marshall, DP: Hal Mohr, C: James Steward, Marlene Dietrich.

DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK (1939) D: John Ford, DP: Bert Glennon, C: Henry Fonda, Claudette Colbert.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940) D: Alfred Hitchcock, DP: Rudolph Mate, C: Joel McCrea.

GOLDEN BOY (1939) D: Ruben Mamoulian, DP: Nicholas Musuraca, Play by Clifford Odets, C: William Holden, Barbara Stanwick.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940) D: John Ford, DP: Gregg Toland, C: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine.

THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940) D: Charles Chaplin, DP: Karl Struss and Rollie Totheroh.

GUNGA DIN (1939) D: George Stevens, DP Joseph H. August, C: Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940) D: Howard Hawks, DP: Joseph Walker, C: Rosaloind Russell, Cary Grant.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1939) (First of the Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock Holmes Series.)

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1939) D: William Dieterle, DP: Joseph H. August, C: Charles Laughton.

IDIOT'S DELIGHT (1939) D: Clarence Brown, DP: William Daniels, W: Robert Sherwood (from his play), C: Clark Gable, Norma Sheare.

INTERMEZZO (1939) D: Gregory Ratoff, DP: Gregg Toland, P: David O. Selznick. C: Leslie Howard, Ingrid Bergman.

IT'S A WONDERFUL WORLD (1939) D: W. S. Van Dyke, DP: Oliver Marsh, C: James Stewart, Claudette Colbert.

JUAREZ (1939) D: John Huston, DP Tony Gaudio, C: Bette Davis, Brian Ahern, John Garfield.

KITTY FOYLE (1940) D: Sam Wood, DP: Robert De Grasse, C: Ginger Rogers.

LOVE AFFAIR (1939) D: Leo McCarey, DP: Rudolph Mate, Charles Boyer, Irene Dunne.

MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) D: Frank Capra, DP: Joseph Walker, C: James Stewart.

MY FAVORITE WIFE (1940) D: Frank Capra, DP: Joseph Walker, C: Cary Grant, Irene Dunne.

NINOTCHKA (1939) D: Ernst Lubisch, DP: William Daniels, C: Greta Garbo, Melvin Douglas.

NORTHWEST PASSAGE (1940) D: King Vidor, DP: Sidney Wagner and William V. Skall, C: Spencer Tracy.

OF MICE AND MEN (1939) D: Lewis Milestone, DP Norbert Brodine, C: Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney, Jr.

OUR TOWN (1940) D: Sam Wood, DP: William Cameron Menzies, C: Frank Craven, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter.

THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940) D: George Cukor, DP Joseph Ruttenberg, C: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart.

PINOCCHIO (140) Walt Disney.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1940) D: Robert Z. Leonard, Writer (under alias) Aldos Huxley, DP: Karl Freund, C: Laurence Oliver, Greer Garson.

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX (1939) D: Michael Curtiz, DP Sol Polito, C: Bette Davis, Errol Flynn.

THE RAINS CAME (1939) D: Clarence Brown, DP: Arthur Miller, C: Myrna Low, George Brent, Tyrone Power, Maria Ouspenskaya.

REBECCA (1940) D: Alfred Hitchcock, DP George Barnes, C: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontain, Judith Anderson.

THE ROARING TWENTIES (1939) D: Raoul Walsh, DP Ernest Haller, C: James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart.

SATURDAY'S CHILDREN (1940) D: Vi ncent Sherman, DP James Wong Howe, C: John Garfield, Claud Rains, George Tobias.

STAGE COACH (1939) D: John Ford, C: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Thomas Mitchell.

THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT (1940) D: Raoul Walsh, DP: Arthur Edeson, C: George Raft, Humphery Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino.

THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL (1939) D: Busby Berkeley, DP: James Wong Howe, C: John Garfield, Claude Rains.

UNION PACIFIC (1939) D: Cecil B. De Mille, DP: Victor Milner, C: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Akim Tamiroff.

THE WOMEN (1939) D: George Cukor, DP: Oliver T. Marsh, C: (An all woman cast) Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Ruth Hussey, Margaret Dumont, Marjorie Main, Hedda Hopper.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939) D: William Wyler, DP: Gregg Toland, C: Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, David Niven.

In addition to which, two from the same director...

GONE WITH THE WIND(1939) D: Victor Fleming (after Sam Wood and George Cukor) and special effects by Yakima Canute, DP: Ernest Haller and Ray Hennahan, C: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard, Hattie McDaniel, Butterfly McQueen.

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) D: Victor Fleming, DP: Harold Rosson, C: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, RayBolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Margaret Hamilton, Billie Burke.

(Save for the last two, I have listed these films alphabetically so as not to inflict my personal preferences on you.)

? HYPERLINK “http://www.trevanian.com/tdesk/ton_film.htm” ?see Trevanian's 100 best pre-1970 Films for English-Speaking audiences?

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26. '...fleeing what?' (p. 195)

Standing alone on our stoop, looking back at those footprints already filling with snow, I was sure that this eloquent image full of mystical metaphor would be impressed on my consciousness forever. But it faded and slipped away, unremembered, unregretted. Until, some sixty years later, as I was writing about coming home that night from the movies through the snow, that moment returned to me, as fresh and as full of fraudulent significance as ever. Where do they hide, these forgotten moments? Why do they surface after sixty years of silent repose in the deepest folds of the brain, surface not only with the event intact to its most fragile detail, but with one's feelings about the moment as fresh and tender as ever? And how do they survive the total replacement of old brain cells by new that we are told occurs every few years?

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27. '...totally useless Maginot line' (p. 199)

At about this time a strange, oddly comforting urban factoid swept the country. This grassfire urban myth described how Hitler had been taken into 'the snowy woods' by three Frenchmen, tied to a tree, and shot. I first heard this from the nun who taught history at Our Lady of Angels, and I was so relieved! There would be no war after all, nothing to prevent our ship from coming in. But I was bewildered when no comment about this remarkable event was made on that evening's news broadcast, and I mentioned this to the history nun. She said the government was probably keeping it quiet to protect French citizens from Nazi reprisals, and that made sense... sort of. But it seemed to me that sooner or later the Nazis were likely to notice that Hitler wasn't showing up at his office any more, then what? A day passed, then a week, and still the radio was informing us that Hitler had done this, or had ordered that, and the rumor of his assassination in those snowy woods faded away, just sublimated into the mists of folk history. Over the years, I have met lingering ghosts of this tale here and there across the nation. When I mention it, people often recall it with something like: 'Oh yes, I remember that. Gosh, I had almost forgotten. I wonder what really happened?' In some versions the brave assassins were Finns or Norwegians, rather than Frenchmen, and sometimes Hitler had been tied to a tree and bayoneted, rather than shot, but the details of his being taken 'out into the snowy woods by three men' remained remarkably consistent. Perhaps this had something to do with the numerological heft of the number three, and there may have been lingering cultural memories of druidic rites; or maybe there is just something memorable and satisfying about the visual image of three men and their prisoner disappearing into 'the snowy woods'. I suspect that some of my older readers will remember the brief respite from anxiety this comforting urban myth brought to them on the eve of war.

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28. '...Vichy as its capitol' (p. 199)

I live in France, as you may know, and have for many years. And I can tell you that the issue of collaboration continues to trouble the Frenchman's self-esteem and haunt his self-image even today. Typically of the Gallic genius for defining uncomfortable truths out of existence, most establishment historians treat 'collaboration' and 'resistance' as relative positions on a continuum, suggesting that all the conquered countries resisted in some ways, and collaborated in others. This is not quite true. Of all the countries under Nazi domination, only one used its own national police and bureaucratic systems to identify, arrest, and transport Jews. Vichy France was that one. In contrast to Vichy France, Norway for example, managed to protect all their Jews. The Norwegian state police never found it possible to locate any Jews in their country in spite of the fury and threats of the German occupiers. (Isn't it always Norway? Norway and Canada... the international good guys. And at the opposite end of the continuum, there's Russia and the United States. I hate the company we're now keeping. I liked it better in the earlier days when we were the good guys. Sometimes politically immature and clumsy, often misunderstood, always envied... but down deep, the good guys. Now, like the Russians, we are the dangerous, grasping, bullying bad guys.)

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29. '...swarming in behind them' (p. 199)

1940 Brought us songs like: I'll Never Smile Again, Imagination, Only Forever (which Ben and my mother took as 'their song'... but you haven't met Ben yet), Maybe, We Three, Careless, When You Wish Upon a Star, Fools Rush In, Ferryboat Serenade, The Breeze and I, With the Wind and the Rain in Your Hair, When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano, In the Mood, Blueberry Hill, A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square, Where or When, How High the Moon, Bewitched, In an Old Dutch Garden, (...when it was June) On the Isle of May, Everything Happens to Me, I Could Write a Book. (? HYPERLINK “http://www.trevanian.com/songs/songs.htm” ?explore these here?)