I would imagine every person alive believes they grew up in the best era ever in the history of mankind. And why not? From age 2 until 18 there are so many aspects of life to learn and appreciate. To illustrate this I was teaching high school in the late 1980's and the kids in school thought rap music was the be all end all.
I recall having a conversation with my mother in law a few years back. She was, literally, a flapper the 1920's who frequented the speakeasies of Des Moines. Her eyes would light up when she spoke of the Roaring Twenties. My father in law played in a band with the famed jazz cornetist, Bix Biederbecke. He, too, talked often of those days. Such lucky people they were.
This morning I happened to turn on the FXX Channel and viewed a movie from 1942 titled 'My Gal Sal' starring the bombshell actress Rita Hayworth along with actor Victor Mature. I suspect most of the films in those days dealt with The War and musicals and many of these themes were intertwined.
In Boone Iowa the 1950's presented us kids with limited choices for activities which in looking back was a good thing; less time to get in trouble so we made our own fun. Our community of 12,000 citizens had two movie theaters. One was The Princess Theater and directly across the street was The Rialto. The latter one is still around today--I think. The Princess lasted until around 1954 or '55. I supposed the introduction of television had a good deal to do with its demise.
On Saturday mornings during winter months The Rialto would have a series of cartoons followed by 'shorts' which were fifteen minute films. These were usually The Three Stooges and after them a full feature movie. Cowboy films were normally the fare of the day.
Let me get back to the movie, 'My Gal Sal'. The Sunday movie fares offered back then were mostly musicals with singing and dancing and, yuck, kissing. My parents would shuttle my elder sister off to the Rialto and I was forced to tag along. I hated going there but even at the age of ten I recognized the beauties of the day. As I look back I miss that period of glamorous actresses. We don't have those kind of creatures on the movie screen today--------in my mind. Teenagers of today would differ in their answer. Why? It's because they're still in the learning process. I'm asking--who are the beauties on today's big screen? I'll be honest with you. I miss the musicals. I miss guys like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly dancing their way across the screen. In addition to Hayworth I also yearn for the likes of Betty Grable and Gene Tierney, the very cute Debbie Reynolds and the radiant and beautiful Grace Kelly. In those 'olden time days' there was a film called 'Seven Brides For Seven Brothers'. It was loaded with singing and dancing and love. My parents took us to the drive-in movie to watch. I pretended to hate it but inside I convinced myself that some day I was going to marry Jane Powell. There seemed to be an endless bevy of beauties in those days. I'm sitting at my coffee table trying to come up with a Hollywood startlet who rev's my engine and I can't think of one.
I'm a huge fan of the Hallmark Channel. Plots are simple in nature and the only sex that takes place is at the very end of the movie when the guy plants a kiss on the lips of his special lady. My favorite 'sweetie' from this channel is Lacey Chabert. She's just so sweet and cute and innocent. She's so special I've convinced myself she had to have grown up in Iowa. I've taped a TV movie she was in titled 'The Christmas Waltz'. I've watched it so often I can repeat the lines before the actors speak them. The very special reason I like this film is because it's reminiscent of the musicals of the 50's. It has it all; singing, dancing, laughter and at the very end, one-single-kiss.
And this is the way God meant movies to be.
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