Summertime and A Dame's Mind Turns To........Sunglasses

Did you think I was going to say June weddings? Oh, dear reader, how little you know me. Sunglasses are occupying my mind today. Sunglasses.

Sunglasses can make you. Lack of sunglasses can break you. Case in point, from The Wild One:



Who looks like Sex On Wheels? Marlon Brando. Who looks like a doofus? Those other two dudes. Who is wearing sunglasses? Marlon Brando. Who isn't? Those two doofusses.


Need a more contemporary example. Behold:



Does anyone think sunglasses could save him now? No. But then? Black Ray-Bans saved him from his Suburban Tool destiny.

What is it about sunglasses that donning them can convey so much meaning? And that is so easily recognized that filmmakers can rely on the audience to get what is trying to be conveyed? Write that up in an essay and have turned in by Wednesday and no you can't use Wikipedia as a source.

The first time I saw Breakfast at Tiffany's, it wasn't Audrey Hepburn's little black dress I obsessed over, it was her fabulous big black glasses.



Without them, she's like any other girl doing the Walk of Shame. But with them? She is complex, hidden. Something is Up With Her.

I have passed my sunglasses love onto Young Lady, my teen-aged daughter. Check out her latest obsession:



Yes, the shades Lee Remmick wore in Anatomy of A Murder. Also, Lee Remmick's hair but that is another story for another post. Young Lady was so struck by them, she made me pause the movie and rewind so she could get a better look. Does this signal a new, darker turn for my fair lass? Is she going to take to playing pinball? We'll wait and see.


Of course, the magazines are telling me the vintage look is back in sunglasses. I ask did it ever go out of style? Ray-Ban Aviators were cool back when MacArthur was kicking WWII ass. They were cool twenty years later on Steve McQueen and they are still cool. Some things never ever go out of style. Classic.

What I'm Taping This Weekend

Yellow Sky
Hatari!
Track of the Cat
Fanny
The L-Shaped Room


I am lifting my usual embargo on movies from AMC, to catch two excellent movies, Yellow Sky and Hatari!. Yellow Sky is directed by William Wellman and stars Gregory Peck as The Bad Guy and is adapted from the work of the same novelist who wrote The Ox-Bow Incident. This, I must see. Hatari! is a Howard Hawks-directed action-adventure flick starring John Wayne. Normally, I would pass this by but the publicity poster for Hatari! makes a brief appearance in Goddard's Contempt (a good piece of trivia if you ever play Six Degrees of Movie trivia) and even if I don't like Goddard's films, he wouldn't hat tip a movie without a reason.

On Turner Classic Movies, they are running Track of The Cat, also directed by William Wellman, produced by John Wayne and starring Robert Mitchum. The movie wasn't a box office or critical success when it first ran but has gained a reputation over the years with certain critics. Also, on Saturday, TCM is running a little tribute to the French actress Leslie Caron. I'll be tuning in to the two I haven't see yet, Fanny and The L-Shaped Room. Both movies received several Oscar nominations so I expect I will enjoy them as much as I have her other films.

One True Story

A few weeks ago, I was watching a little musical from the 30's starring Eleanor Powell and Jimmy Stewart, Born To Dance. One of the subplots involves a sailor who left his newlywed bride after a whirlwind courtship to go to sea and hasn't been home for three years. His bride is telling the story on how they met and married. She says 'you know, one of those dance marathons...it was day 24 and they need somebody to get married'. It was a throwaway line and probably no one who saw the movie remembered it a day later. But I had to pause the movie for moment because the line instantly through me back to the first time I saw They Shoot Horses, Don't They?. Based on the 1935 pulp fiction novel by Horace McCoy, it is one of the best movies made in 1969. It took me five hours to watch it the first time around. The story felt so true, the desperation so real, that I had to look away, occupy myself with other things when the tension ran too high or the emotion too raw. I thought at the time, gah why won't the camera just look away for moment, give us some relief. But at the end I understood. The characters had no relief available to them, why should we?

It garnered nine Academy nominations and established Jane Fonda as a dramatic actress. It even lent its name to the title of an episode of "The Gilmore Girls", the cultural reference warehouse of the decade. The film was directed by Sydney Pollack. Yes, Sydney Pollack of Tootsie and Out of Africa and The Way We Were fame. Sydney was never a Great Director. But he was a good director and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? proves it. Without a gimmick to fall back on, he told one true story. And really, as an artist, what else can you ask for?

Pollack was versatile guy, with a list of credits for producing, directing and acting that include some of the biggest hits of the past forty years. TCM has done a quick change of their schedule and tonight is running a salute to Sydney, who passed away last week after a battle with cancer.

Long Weekend Come Down

A slightly different, more suburban, more office park-oriented Come Down than the one Kris sings about.

The only cure, it seems would be a little Cary. Here's one you may not have seen. Cary, co-starring with Shirley Temple and Myrna Loy in The Bachelor and The Bobby-Soxer:

Turner Classic Movies Memorial Day Salute

I wanted to bring special attention to the schedule TCM has put together for this weekend. Saturday, they have some great movies in their line-up, the best being Saturday night's The Essentials pick, Paths of Glory. Monday, they are featuring two of the films I featured earlier.

Crank up the grill and the Dolby Surround Sound and good viewing to all!