Sitting in the darkness, popcorn on your knee… let’s go to the Opera House, wait & see

Friday morning at work, I got this brief email from my sister Shawn: 

"While you enjoyed ‘Tokyo Sonata’ and Disgrace, I finally got to see a movie too. Flipper, with Elijah Wood and Paul 'Crocodile Dundee' Hogan." 

I knew she had read my latest movie reviews and I figured where this was going, then I noted the subject line of Shawn’s message:  "But I love being a mom". 

I had a good chuckle over that, but sympathized for her too.  Ever since my 5 year old niece Sophia came along, Shawn's movie watching has pretty much been limited to those films with Tinkerbell welcoming you to the show. 

I can still remember our first Disney experience--the summer of 1966, when Grandma Morris carted my sister & I to the Opera House to see Mary Poppins.  Shawn, who was not quite 3, would not stop crying once the lights went down.  I was not quite 5 and just remember feeling bewildered at the giant screen and booming voices.

Of course we shared many happier movie experiences after that, and those memories could fill a book--or a very long blog, at least. 

The more I thought about this, and all the movies seen, the more I realized that my favorite movie memories always came from our hometown's small theater, the Opera House.

 

The Opera House, 1889.  For fifty years it hosted theatrical, vaudeville and opera troupes, as well as lectures from famed orators, including William Jennings Bryan, known for his involvement in the 1925 Scopes trial.  

In 1939, the Opera House was remodeled & movies became its main attraction

   

The Opera House closed its doors in 1986, but several years later was bought & reopened as the Waynesburg Theatre.  While it thankfully retains most of it's original charm, I'll always remember it best as it was in that photo at the top, with that tall red electronic sign (which was removed over 20 years ago, hard to believe.)  Unike today's cineplexes, it could only show one movie, but contained a wonderful art-deco interior, with Italian frescos that framed the screen and large velvet drapes that slowly parted as the lights dimmed. 

For a small-town kid growing up in the 1970s, it was always such a grand experience. 

This was the interior 'back in the day'; note the balcony, which for years had a sign at the stairwell, 'Restricted to Couples Only'! 

I had a variety of experiences there, depending on who I was with.  In 1971, Shawn & I were allowed to go by ourselves, for the first time to see Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and I can still remember our mutual gasps over the special effects. 

Around 1974, Gone With the Wind was re-released and my Grandma Morris invited me to see it with her.  I balked at the idea of going to "an old peoples movie" but later sat there enthralled as Atlanta burned in front of us. 

And thanks to my older brother Duke, I was treated to early 70’s cinematic masterpieces like Escape from the Planet of the Apes (where I burst out crying when Cornelius & Zira were shot), The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure & Soylent Green.

Children 50 Adults 75 cents--those days are long gone but the ticket booth remains

I'm sure everyone has special memories devoted to particular films, and I certainly have too many to list here.  If I had to pick my favorite ones though, they were always with family--and I loved it when my 10 year old sister Courtney dragged us to Back To The Future.    

Well, it seems fitting that my last movie there was my most memorable one.  It was November 2001 & I was staying with my mom for Thanksgiving.  The day before, we'd been shopping in town and were given free tickets to that night's movie. 

When we returned that night for the show, we noted with dismay that Harry Potter was playing.  We shrugged & went inside.  Halfway thru the film I turned to Mom and said "What do you think of this movie?"  Mom whispered "You first".  I said "Well..."  Mom said "Oh thank God, let's get out of here!"  We tiptoed out of there, laughing and shushing each other all the way.

My sister Shawn and niece Sophia

It’s another beautiful weekend & I’m alone again, naturally (but that’s okay)

 

This morning I got a call from a couple friends, asking if I had any plans today, and did I want to meet them on the Southside & hang out.  (Do fortysomethings still "hang out"?)  I passed on the offer and said I already had plans for today.  After having a cup of coffee on my balcony and doing some laundry, I planned to head to the local library (seen above) & donate some old books, then take my new sketch pad (a gift from my niece Sophie) and find a quiet park bench & do some people-watching while I "doodle".

Drawing has always relaxed me…  after that I supposed I'd walk to the drugstore and then to the Chinese restaurant for lunch.  Come home, take a nap and watch an old Joan Crawford movie I taped off TCM the other night.  

My friend Tom joked that it sounded nice for an old man.  (On the other hand, a special friend I later chatted with said it sounded like the perfect day.  I am very partial to that special friend, a little more on that later.)

 

Here's my favorite bench in the park up my street, a quiet spot to draw and be alone without being alone

 

Anyway, that's just what I did--the only difference is that I stopped at the bakery for a miniature lemon pie, and had lunch at the Bellevue Cafe instead.   I haven't watched that movie yet though.   Are you really reading all of this?  Anyway, it's been a good day, and other than a long phone call earlier this evening, I spent the entire day alone, doing a whole lot of nothing and that's okay.  

Actually, I wasn't supposed to be alone this weekend.  My sister Shawn and her husband Jim went on an overnight trip to attend a wedding, and my little niece was going to stay a couple days here with me, eating hot dogs and Oreos (and anything else she wanted); but work & other time constraints got in the way of things, so Sophie and Uncle Doug's adventures will have to wait. 

 

Sophie (bottom right) on a recent test run riding a real school bus, for when she starts kindergarten in the fall

 

That's pretty much it.  We're already into the second week of July and it's been a very quiet summer.  Well... quiet, but not boring.  I've recently become rather special friends with someone in the last couple months, it's just not something I'm ready to write about here just yet...

 

A surprise package in the mail from that special friend, filled with goodies

 

I have no vacation plans, but there is talk in the office of a few of us getting together and going to Las Vegas in the fall.  (Las Vegas?!)  Normally I'd pass on something like this without giving it a moment's thought, but I dunno.... the people who want to go are real friends, and I've never been further west than Ohio. 

I'm more comfortable with libraries and quiet parks than bright lights and gambling, but I almost feel like it's something I have to do.  (Not for them, for me.)  I told them I appreciated the invite & would like to go.

Well, I know I didn't really have anything worth sharing here, I just felt like I needed to write something.  It almost seems appropriate, given this time of year when everything seems more relaxed and slower than usual... I remember summers as a kid, after Bible school & the annual family vacation, having nothing better to do than lie in the yard and chew on grass and be bored out of my skull. 

I enjoyed every minute of it, and that's pretty much how this weekend has been.

There’s something about Marty (and a coupla other thoughts this Memorial Day Weekend)

 

Well, it's Memorial Day Weekend and I don't really have any plans.  A dozen years ago I would've been up to my eyeballs in things to do, five years ago I'd be happy just for the long weekend, and now I can only wonder what's going on & if things will always be this way. 

I don't mean to sound like I'm down... I suppose introspective would better describe it.  Earlier this week, I saw that TCM was airing the unedited version of "Marty", a favorite movie of mine. (I don't think I've ever seen the full version.  When MGM initially released this, for reasons unknown they edited out certain scenes.) 

I've just finished watching it, and I admit it--there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

For those unfortunate few who haven't seen it, Ernest Borgnine plays a lonely Bronx butcher who lives with his Italian mother, his brothers and sisters all married.  He's loved by family and friends, but has long accepted the fact that women just don't find him physically attractive, and he'll always be alone.

"Marty, please; you go to da Stardust Ballroom, it has plenty of the tomatoes!"

His mother worries that he'll die alone, and when she hears of the Stardust Ballroom (a popular gathering place for both couples and singles) from her younger newlywed son, she convinces Marty to go. 

And it is there that he meets Clara (Betsy Blair), a female counterpart to his own, plain and unassuming, who had come to the Ballroom on an arranged date, only to be rejected after arriving and is now alone.  Marty witnesses the rejection, and feeling sorry for her, asks Clara if she would like to dance.

"Clara, us dogs, we gotta stick together and look out for each other!"

They spend the rest of the evening in a small coffeeshop talking, comparing notes and offering advice to the other.  (Clara wants to take a teaching promotion but is afraid of moving far from home; Marty wants to buy his own butcher shop, but worries about a new supermarket moving into the neighborhood.)  

And in those quiet hours, a romantic interest evolves, and when he takes her home she asks him if he will call on her again.  He shyly answers yes & says goodnight, walks quietly for a bit, then runs to the bus stop.  He stands at the sign, happy and surprised; he can't believe his good fortune.

After Marty leaves, Clara enters her home & knocks on her parents bedroom door to see if they're awake.  She sits on the edge of their bed and quietly tells them she met a very nice man that night, and how they spent the night talking--just talking.  And he'll be calling on her tomorrow afternoon, and he is apt to be nervous as he is a butcher, and considers himself in a lower social class, but he is a good & kind man, and a very good butcher.  She is glowing.  Her parents lie there, not saying a word.  When she says goodnight & leaves the room, her father murmurs "I hope he calls."  

Without giving away the ending, the movie ends on a hopeful note & was masterfully done.  (It received the 1955 Academy Award for Best Picture, and Ernest Borgnine won for Best Actor.)  

But who really moved me was Clara (Betsy Blair), real life wife of the legendary Gene Kelly.  She somehow managed to portray 'the plain girl' yet was poised and radiant, all at the same time.







Betsy Blair with husband Gene Kelly, they were married from 1941-1957.  She left him and moved abroad.  She later remarried & became a speech therapist.

The film also serves as wonderful time capsule of the era, considered overrated for years, then vastly underrated & now hopefully not forgotten.  Written by the brilliant Paddy Chayefsky, it's an American treasure.

When I was reading about Betsy's marriage to Gene Kelly, I found this excerpt from a 2003 interview she did with The New Yorker.  When asked why she left Gene Kelly, she said this:  “How could I have left Gene, this wonderful man, after 16 years of marriage?  This perfect husband, father, friend, protector, provider, hard worker.  I loved and admired him as a brilliant actor and dancer as well as a good, good man! To this day, I can’t explain it.  I preferred freedom."

We always want most what we don't or can't have, I suppose.