Where I've Lived

I have liked Google maps since I first saw them, and so thought I would start an occasional series of posts on places I've lived.

Let me begin with where I was born: San Antonio, TX. I don't know more specifics than this, I need to find my birth certificate to get the name of the hospital.

sanantonio
Originally uploaded by HadleyOil.

Valley Forge

Being a beautiful day, we took a quick trip to Valley Forge this morning and saw some deer and some of the cabins, we then took a walk along the stream. It was a great morning.

Sebastian Cabin.JPG

Covered Bridge.JPG

Deer.JPG
Originally uploaded by HadleyOil.

TCM for the week

Haven't done this in a while, but thought I would get back to recommending things from TCM for the week.

Monday would be Henry Fonda's 100th birthday, and so TCM is celebrating with a 12 movie salute. I don't have to remind you which one is my favorite, with Jezebel (1938) running a close second.

Tuesday morning sees some Maureen O'Sullivan films from the 1930s for her birthday. Not familiar with many of them apart from Tarzan: I will try and see Hide-Out (1934) with Robert Montgomery, directed by W. S. VanDyke. I love Montgomery and VanDyke is one of the more interesting directors of the period. In the evening is Howard Hawks' Tiger Shark (1932) which I have not seen but could be good.

I'll check in on the rest of the week later.

Written on the Wind

As noted last weekend, I went to see Sirk's Written on the Wind at The Colonial Theater last Sunday. Overall a wonderful experience.

This was my first visit to The Colonial and, though the interior is a bit run-down, it does still hold the charm that is missing from most modern megaplex cinemas. I like the openness of the theater and the decorations that go into these kinds of buildings. Being in the middle of a city makes it so much more attractive as well - there is nothing like coming out of a good film in the middle of the day onto a busy street with pedestrian and vehicle traffic - as opposed to a gigantic parking lot.

As for the film itself, as you can tell from the title of my blog, I must have enjoyed it. I had never seen the film on this size screen - only on TV and in projection in classrooms. The print, while not as good as the Criterion DVD enhanced print, was quite good with no noticeable splices or even scratches and the color, though not "popping," was sharp.

Here, then, are a few things about the film that caught my eye this time around.

• The credits - I had noticed them before and I think someone has written about them (need to look that up), but on the big screen the juxtaposition of the actor names with the characters was clearly inspired. So much is told about the characters through those brief moments - Kyle with the bottle, Mitch at the window, Lucy helpless in bed, and Mary Lee in the dark at the window. Great melodrama.
• The moment that has been growing on me in my last few screenings of the film and came out again this time is when Kyle learns from the Doctor in the soda shop that he has a "weakness." As he walks out, the kid riding the electric horse is wonderful Freudian camp. The look on Kyle's face is stupendous.
• Seeing the film on the large screen really heightened Mary Lee's "dance of death" and her father's fall down the stairs. I am always astounded by the camera work in that shot and on the big screen it looks even better.
  
• I felt that Mary Lee's "Down by the river" scene played better on the large screen. On TV or in a small screening room, it plays more like TV soap opera and thus a little more campy. On the large screen, the emoting of her face is more visible and the scene itself feels more cinematic - it shakes some of the conventions of the TV soap. Still over-the-top, but not quite as much so.
• Rock Hudson looks so much better on the big screen - helps me to see even more clearly why he was such a big star. The square jaw and good looks are much more impressionable in this format. Heck, they all looked better. That is really one thing that I think gets lost with older films now. The actors were chosen for how they looked, acted, and generally came across on the large screen - we see them now primarily on TV and wonder what the fuss is about.

I'm going to skip Imitation of Life this weekend and make sure to see A Time to Love and A Time to Die the next. It is one of the few Sirk films from the late 1950s that I haven't seen.

Scrabble Points

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Coming Up

Tomorrow at 2pm, The Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville will be screening Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind (1956). This is one of my all-time favorites films (certainly in my top 5) and one that first got me interested in studying film. It stars Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone and is a tour de force of high 50s melodrama. If you like day or nighttime soaps or enjoy camp entertainment, then this is the film for you. It's got an impotent alcoholic, two friends in love with the same woman, guns under pillows, a crazed nymphomaniac (that phrase is going to bring lots of disappointed people to this site), and phallic symbols galore. All that is presented in lush technicolor which (if it is a good print) will knock your socks off.

Beyond tomorrow, The Colonial is screening Douglas Sirk films on Sundays all through May. Written on the Wind is classic Sirk who, at the time, was considered to be only a standard studio director turning out lush adult melodramas that would never last. His work was revived in the 1970s by film theorists who began to see his films as careful critiques of 1950s American life. Most recently, Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven (2002) was a feature homage to Sirk following on his use of cinematography, color, plot, and themes.

Anyway, if you have time tomorrow, check it out.