It’s a Wonderful Life

 

Poster by Jason Moody

 

 

One of my all-time favorite movies is “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I’m sure I have seen it dozens of times on the television and I even have a DVD of it. It is a fitting backdrop for baking Christmas cookies or sitting in front of a crackling fire. “Hee haw”, “hot dog” and the notion of an angel getting his wings every time a bell rings are synonymous with the movie. George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, as the selfless, small town hero who discovers what it really means to have lived a life well led when he reaches despair is one of my favorite roles and his rescue by Clarence, an unlikely looking angel whose chance to finally get his wings comes one dark, wintry night is the story of every man and woman who come to feel they wish they had never been born. Who wouldn’t want to be saved by Clarence?

It is one thing to watch a favorite movie in the comfort of one’s home, quite another to see it on the big screen in a renovated theater. The scenes are funnier, the faces indeed larger than life, and the mood brighter or darker than on the family room couch.

We got to the Tivoli when the box office opened and went in to quickly claim our seats, having heard that the theater fills up quickly. (It was a sold out showing.) We sat down and discovered this in front of us. Fortunately, the reindeer ears were soon removed. They were just a prop used to help friends find each other.

I am not affiliated with, nor know about, the Sharing Connections Furniture Bank. It seems like such a wonderful organization, however, and the proceeds of the day were going to the organization. Imagine, a fine group of folks who work to raise funds and furniture so that those in need will have a table and chairs, or a crib for the baby to sleep in? Things we take for granted but that are real needs in our own communities. What better movie to tie into such an organization; of a man who selflessly helps his town of Bedford Falls all his life, and they, in turn, help him in his hour of need.

Foreclosures and greed, wickedness and, too, kindness to others are themes that repeat themselves throughout time, don’t they? Watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Sunday in such a lovely place on such a cold, cold day reminded me, once again, of how many are struggling this season to just pay the bills and make ends meet, or are homeless and alone in truth or in spirit. Maybe that is why I found tears in my eyes as the movie I know so well came to an end.

The Tivoli was opened in 1928. Just before the Great Crash and Depression. It, along with several other theaters in the area we live in, have been brought back to their original splendor in recent years and serve as hubs in their communities for movie enjoyment, as well as places for benefits. I think that this is a good thing; it brings people to town, provides entertainment, and sometimes a venue for charitable organizations.

We were entertained before the movie by a talented organist. Don’t you love theaters where the organ rises to the stage for some community singing before the feature begins?

So, that’s how it goes. It was a wonderful day with a lot of beauty around me, especially my indulgent family who are my own Clarences, and it is, is it not, really, a wonderful life? By-the-way, the poster above of the Tivoli is one of a series done by our very talented son-in-law, Jason.

The ornately refurbished interior.

 

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Screwball comedies

It is a screwball comedy. A movie of the 1930′s, with an underlying social commentary on the upper crust class of the era. The haves and have-nots. Mostly, however, it is a funny and fun movie and it always leaves me smiling.

I mentioned “My Man Godfrey” in a comment this morning and then found the movie slipping into my thoughts throughout the day. Godfrey, played by William Powell, is a disillusioned member of the upper class who finds friendship among the downtrodden who reside in a junkyard. It is 1936 and the darkest days of the Great Depression. Godfrey learns a few things about honor and caring and truly being out-and-out from the men in the dump and he befriends them.  There, disheveled and unshaven, Godfrey is discovered by Cornelia, who wants to take him back to the party like a roll of toilet paper or a box of bobby pins to claim as her token of a ”forgotten man” in a party scavenger hunt she is participating in. Angry at her insensitive nature, Godfrey verbally cuts her down a peg or two and off she stomps in a self-righteous huff. Enter her scatterbrained sister Irene, played by Carole Lombard, who decides to take Godfrey under her wings and give him a job as the butler in her family’s wacky, wealthy household.

It is, as I said, a screwball comedy with mistaken identities and secrets and subplots and wonderfully inane banter as Cornelia seeks revenge, Irene falls in love with Godfrey, and Godfrey quietly finds a way to put his newfound friends back to work while attempting, as Godrey the butler,  to keep Irene and her family out of jail and all sorts of other troubles. There are scenes with police at the door, looking for a horse (the horse, of course, that is in the library, or some such room) and missing jewels, for which the butler is blamed. A gigolo and a goat and getting one’s goat and Irene being tossed over Godfrey’s shoulder (when not being tossed in the shower). It is one of those charming old madcap movies with satin gowns and men donning top hats and white ties. Of bedclothes that are silky and fitted with flounce and feathers and butlers and kitchen maids who are low on the rung of financial success, but, who manage to keep it all together.

Of course, in the end, Godfrey’s true identify is revealed and the poor are rescued from their despair. The rich forgiven their insensitivity, or something like that, and there is an evening out of the of the social classes.

I was thinking of this screwball comedy and wondering how it would play with the financial themes and the attitudes and mores today, with 24 news cycles and Facebook and Twitter and social networking.

I’m supposing the maid would be offered a slot on HGTV and that  Godfrey would be discovered in less time than the length of the movie and making the am talk circuit or Oprah and a book signing by week’s end. Irene? I’m not sure about Irene. Maybe a shot at Dancing With the Stars?

What do you think?

Do you have a favorite “screwball” comedy?

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The Shoe books

About half way through the movie “You’ve Got Mail”, Kathleen Kelly (played by Meg Ryan) enters Fox Books, the big, bad bookstore that has forced her out of business. The Shop Around the Corner has closed and so has a big part of Kathleen’s life. She wanders into the children’s section of Fox (which is exactly where I tend to wander to when in a book store) and sits upon a child’s chair looking herself like a lost child. Overhead, at the top of the stairs, we see Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) Kathleen’s nemesis, watching her. Joe Fox is the culprit who has forced the closing of the doors to the bookshop.  Kathleen overhears a shopper asking a salesperson if they have the “Shoe” books. The salesperson has never heard of the books and Kathleen, an authority on children’s literature pipes up “Noel Streatfeild. Noel Streatfeild wrote Ballet Shoes and Skating Shoes, Theater Shoes and Movie Shoes. ” Of course, the salesperson doesn’t know how to spell the author’s name and Kathleen does for him.

S   T   R   E   A   T   F   E   I   L   D

The whole time, Joe is watching, rolling his eyes at the incompetence of his personnel, fascinated with Kathleen and I, too, watched, and cried with Kathleen and wondered why I had never read the “Shoe” books.

I’ve seen “You’ve Got Mail” more times than I care to confess. It is one of my favorites. Sad to say, it has taken me all this time to finally put on a pair of shoes. Well, one shoe. Ballet Shoe to be precise. How did I miss this as a child? I know I would have loved it as a young girl and I’m sure I  would have devoured the series of books.

Have you read any of the “Shoe” books. Do you have a favorite one?

Ballet Shoes is about three little girls, orphans, who end up being rescued as babies in one way or another by GUM (Great Uncle Matthew), an eccentric explorer who brings the baby girls home one at a time over a span of several years to his great niece, Sylvia, who is his ward and her nanny, appropriately called Nana. Sylvia and Nana end up raising the girls, who are not sisters at all, but who give themselves the surname of Fossil and vow to make the name famous because it isn’t the name of a grandfather. GUM’s travels take him away, far away to who-knows-where and the girls, Pauline, Petrova, and Posy end up taking lessons at the Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training so that they can one day, when they each turn 12, perform on stage and earn money.

It is such a wonderful, wonderful book and I found myself saying “just one more chapter” as I turned the pages and imagined myself in London in the 1930′s and would I be Pauline and take immediately to acting or Petrova, who was more bookish and wanted to fly. I know I couldn’t be Posy, up on my toes, but it is fun to imagine, isn’t it, and little boys and little girls need good books, do they not?

Well, I didn’t read the “Shoe” books as a little girl and did not read them to my own little girls, but, maybe one day in the not-so-distant future I can read to this little one – or at least share my “shoes” with her. I simply can’t wait! In-the-meantime, I think I’ll watch “You’ve Got Mail” just one more time and then see about getting another shoe to fit.

PS  Have you ever seen “The Shop Around the Corner”? It is as enchanting as “You’ve Got Mail” and one of two movies made earlier with the same theme. With Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as quarreling gift shop employees in Hungary (and pen pals, though they don’t know who each is), it is a really delightful 1940′s film and worth seeking out if you like old movies.

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Howards End . . .

I don’t know how many times I have seen the movie “Howards End”. If it is on and I come across it in my cable wanderings, I will watch it. I don’t care if it is midway through or almost done or just beginning, my eye is drawn to the wonderful scenery and trappings of the day, to the story and its characters, the acting and the mood of it all. I want to live at Howards End.

I also want to finish the book, Howards End, by E. M. Forster. I have been wanting to read for ever-so-long and I finally opened its pages. Like most books about the turn-of-the-century, it is a slow read, rich in description and the dialogue of the day. A contrast to the fast-paced novels of this century’s turn. I need to do this every once and again. I need to pick up a book, a classic perhaps, and bite into it and hold on as I chew on the words and I embark on a really rich read.

Howards End is the name of the book and the movie, of course,  but it is also the name of the country house, an inheritance of one of the main characters, Ruth Wilcox. Ruth dies suddenly and scribbles on a piece of paper that the house is to go to her friend, Margaret Schlegel. Her family burns the paper, ignores the request, and the rest is, of course, the rest of the story.

Howard’s End is, in many ways, a study of the class systems in England during the 1900′s; the upper and middle class tiers and the tenuous one at the end of the rung, hovering between lower and middle. It actually reminds me of our life today and the struggles so many are having holding on, but, this is a digression, a habit of mine I must break.

I’ll work on finishing the book this weekend and I will encourage you pick it up sometime to read. You must see the movie as well, especially if you enjoy the time period and lush scenery and houses. The picture below is from a really fun website I think I have mentioned before called hookedonhouses and there is a wonderful post with enticing photos of Howard’s End, its countryside and its rooms.

Now, I’ll warn you of the danger of visiting this site. You will want to and will click onto the link at the end for the Schlegel sisters’ London townhome and then you will want to see other movie and television houses available, which I encourage you to do. Just don’t blame me if you spend too much time there looking at your favorite movie house.

 

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Me,”The Queen”, the stag, and a strainer

Do you remember the scene in “The Queen” where Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) is out by herself at Balmoral in her land rover? She drives somewhat recklessly and damages the car, necessitating a call for help. While she is waiting, she sits on a rock where she is perched as stoically as the rock itself. We realize she is sobbing from movement of her back. She turns and there it is, a regal stag. They stare, she says “O Beauty”,  then hears gunshots and shoos it off. It is now commonly referred to as “the stag scene”.

I felt like the queen this evening toward dusk.

I did. Don’t laugh.

 

 

The Monarch of the Glen by Sir Edwin Landseer

 

Remember the spaghetti strainer that protected my head from windfall apples while checking on my moonflower? I employed it today for culinary purposes. It held the peeling of potatoes and the tips of zucchini, remnants of celery, onion peels and snappings of string beans. I decided to make a Greek vegetable stew, briami, from the produce I picked up at the farmers market. I’ve had a taste for this vegetable dish since I saw the string beans yesterday. Cooked in the oven with a tomato sauce, the usual seasonings and mint, it is one of the easiest ways to use up the late season bounty. A loaf of crispy bread for dipping – I come from a long line of dippers – brings back childhood memories and the dish will make me smile for several days.

I headed out back, through the arbor and toward the make-shift compost pile, shuffling along in the leaves, my thoughts on the week ahead and the contentment of food in my tummy, when I heard a snap. There he was, eight points, no less, staring at me, the Queen of the Cut Off.  I at him, the Monarch of the County Cook, not fifteen feet between us, and then he was off, head held high, his rack carrying him swiftly away in a confident stride one would expect from a kingly deer.

Me, a strainer for my crown, the compost pile my kingdom, and a royal buck who reigns in our little forest.

Think of it as the stag scene.

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The Birds

I love autumn. I love the changes that take place, some subtle and some not so, and the business at hand as all prepare for the long winter ahead. It is a settling in before the rush. A time to put summer away. It is, after all, September. The raking and mulching and trimming as the north winds start to blow will come soon enough. For now, it is enough to embrace the season that will become official tomorrow.

I’ve seen a young  buck three times now, crossing our road at the very same spot just before the rise in the road. As the suns sets, it is a blind spot and I navigate it slowly these days. Unlike the does and fawns, who stop and often turn back if a car approaches, the bucks pay no attention to traffic. Their purpose in life is different, and this young buck, his first season of rut just beginning, has no sense of danger here on the cutoff.

Just before dinner last night, a large congregation of grackles were meeting out our front window. They were cawing and arguing, as grackles are wont to do, and they rimmed the bird bath, six and eight at a time. As many as that hung from the Harry Lauder Walking stick, bending its gnarled branches, as they impatiently awaited their turns. A few paced the ground and yet more hovered overhead in the upper branches of the mulberry tree.

Suddenly, a crowd of at least 60 flew up and darkened the sky before my very eyes and flew in a black cloud to the east just as Tom opened the back door and said “it is like the movie “The Birds” out here”. It seems another contingent was having a convention in the back bird bath as well. When Tom opened the back door, both parties took off in a mad flurry, only to return a few minutes later when danger had passed.

The Alfred Hitchcock thriller, “The Birds”, came to mind again as we wandered from front windows to back, watching in awe as this rowdy colony spent some more time drinking and creating a fuss. I like autumn and its changes, but, I think I’ll check the flue on the fireplace. Just in case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvDpuIdY5WU

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Shakespeare in Love

http://www.salon.com/Shakespeare in Love

“I know something of a woman in a man’s profession. Yes, by God, I do know about that.”

Queen Elizabeth I to Viola De Lesseps at the revelation that Viola, a woman, is acting on stage.

Do you have any favorite quotes or scenes from this movie?

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Synchronicity

I’ve been humming the song Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ from the musical “Oklahoma” since Monday, when Wayne Messmer serenaded the women of the Garden Clubs of Illinois with his rich baritone at a luncheon. It is such a rich song, filled with hope and anticipation and it has followed me around in the garden, the car, the shower . . .

It showed up again in Marilyn’s blog, My Magpie Collection, here, where she posted some lovely pictures of spring bursting forth now in New Zealand, as well as the opening lines of the song. I commented on it and Marilyn mentioned the synchronicity in our lives.

It’s been a hot, humid, and thunderously rainy week here in the midwest. Friday night and Saturday morning brought in excess of seven inches of rain to the area. Storm clouds and lightening and continuous claps of thunder that rolled about in the atmosphere for what seemed like hours on end. It rained again late last night, adding to the sodden earth around all of us. While we are fine here on the cutoff, neighboring areas are flooded; streets and basements and homes, expressways and bulging rivers. Towns and individuals will be spending weeks cleaning up, throwing out, sending in insurance claims and long remembering this terribly hot and rain sodden summer.

It’s early in the morning here as I tap out my thoughts and the sun is just starting to poke through the sky. The humidity is down, at least for a day or two, and a new week is dawning. I started humming “oh what a beautiful mornin’, oh what a beautiful day” as soon as light broke on the horizon, and I smiled.

Oklahoma. Our very dear, long-time friends, Jeri and Kyle, will be rolling in from the plains and drifting in from Oklahoma ’round about Thursday evening and spending some time with us and Vickie and Mike. The corn here is as high and elephant’s eye , we will eat and laugh and have fun, and we will all mostly enjoy being together again, and I have a wonderful feeling – yes, Oklaloma is coming our way.

Hugh Jackman in "Oklahoma" pbs.org

Gordon MacRea  www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oro7F154pA

Hugh Jackman www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFjxMGM36Hk

Here’s hoping the rain abates, those without power are relieved soon, and that plenty of help comes the way of those needing it in clean up efforts.

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So long, Annie . . .

Tribune Media Services Inc., Via Associated Press An early rendering of Little Orphan Annie and her canine companion, Sandy.

One of the first movies Jennifer saw as a little girl was Annie. Jennifer, my mom, and I took off on a Saturday afternoon, leaving baby Katy with her daddy, and headed to the Hillside Theater.

My mother loved reading the Orphan Annie comic strip in the “funnies”  as a youngster and later listened to Annie’s adventures play out on the radio. She didn’t get to the movies often so jumped at the chance to see Annie with Jennifer and me. She and Jennifer were close. They were soul mates from the very beginning. Both quiet and comfortable just being with each other – no questions asked.

The Hillside Theater, though no longer in its prime, was still a good spot for seeing first run features. In its hey day, it was a premier movie house in the western suburbs. Just off of the Eisenhower Expressway,  it’s neon marquee lights glowed down the Ike and could be seen from our house, miles away, when growing up in Maywood. The first movie I saw there was It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Many more followed over the years. Tom and I had an early date there. I don’t remember what we saw. What I do remember was the sing-a-long before the feature started with the words on the screen and a bouncing ball indicating what to sing and the ushers all encouraging us, running up and down the aisles, waving their arms in the air. This wasn’t a nickelodeon – a silent movie –  it was the early 70′s and it was silly fun with coffee and cookies during the intermission.

By the time the three of us were seeing Annie, the Hillside Theater had seen better days and was starting to look a little worn. New theaters with multi features showing at the same time were taking over. It was still a good place to catch a movie, so, off we went, parked the car, and walked to the entrance with Jennifer holding hands between us. My mother loved it, but Jennifer, well, Jennifer wanted to be Annie; would I let her dye her hair red, could she have a locket, could she get a dog and name it Sandy?

She was Orphan Annie for Halloween that year, red wig and mary janes, and the soundtrack album was a Christmas gift. She memorized the words to “Tomorrow” and “It’s a Hard Knock Life” and begged to visit the Chrysler building. There were albums with stories of Annie and Sandy that were played over and over again. Jennifer has seen the stage play numerous times and I’m just guessing when it hits the stage again in a few years, we will be singing along with Annie and Daddy Warbucks.

All this to say, sadly, that “Annie ” will no longer be a syndicated comic strip. It is rather sad as Annie’s message of hope and optimism in the midst of “a hard knock life” should be a beacon of hope in the times we live in. Her spunky attitude and endearing spirit won the hearts of Americans 85 years ago when first she hit the funny pages. Technology and the internet, and 24 hour news coverage has changed the course of newspapers and animated cartoon features have replaced the daily comic strip. It makes me a little sad to see Annie/aka Orphan Annie put to rest. Leapin’ lizards, what’s this world coming to with no good comic strips?

We’ll see, there is always tomorrow . . .

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Christmas in Connecticut

Image from Hooked on Houses

There is a delightful blog called Hooked on Houses where there are a good many posts about houses on the market – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and a really fun feature the writer, Julia,  does about houses used and seen in movies and on television. When you have an hour or two with nothing to do, or if you have more self-control and can pace yourself, go to hookedonhouses.net , then click on the link to the tv and movie houses, pop some popcorn, and enjoy.

Here’s the thing.  I love to peruse the houses in movies. When we saw Must Love Dogs, I became fascinated with the several houses and fixated on the little nook with a couch at the top of the stairs. Did you see it? Am I the only one?

Here’s the other thing. Just as I was discovering the Gladys Taber books of yesterday’s blog, I discovered Hooked on Houses. I was, well, hooked, and not being selfish and wanting to spread the fun, I sent the site to many of my friends who didn’t talk to me for about a week. I don’t know if it was because they, too, were hooked, or they were mad at me for encouraging them to spend their time looking into the windows and through the doors of the big and little screened houses of fame.

But, wait, here’s the REAL thing. Christmas in Connecticut is one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies. I love the bantering and the silliness and I especially love the house where most of the action takes place in Connecticut. Just after I started reading Taber’s book, I read Julia’s piece on the movie Christmas in Connecticut, and there, at the very end of this fun post, was a line that stated that the movie was based on the columnist, Gladys Taber and her house in Connecticut. Now, Taber was not like the Barbara Stanwyck character in the movie, the house I am sure was not hers, and she was an accomplished writer,  a good cook, a breeder of dogs – but there was her name and it was such fun to discover at the same time I was reading Stillmeadow.

I keep telling you about those circles in life and how they keep going around and around.  Wait. Come back. Read my blog. You can look at those houses later.

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