The Parkland with Popcorn #1

 

Partners I Pick to Dine On and With

Is popcorn essential to the viewing experience? It never was for me at theatres. Wouldn’t touch it upon hearing of a boy who choked to death on errant kernels. That may have been urban legend, except where I grew up, there was no “urban.” Concession policy for most comes to salt vs. sweet. Mine was candy over corn, whatever supposed choke risk, Baby Ruth a lifelong confection of choice. My mother spoke of an airplane that once flew over her small town and dropped Baby Ruths. Hundreds of them. This she said was 1925 or 1926. I imagined myself exiting Kings Mountain’s Joy Theatre, having just seen Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera, Baby Ruths raining down against the setting sun, truly a vision of Heaven upon Earth. Current Ruth habit is their “Fun Size,” two bites in each, my limit four, taken after mouthfuls of corn. I pop from a 3.25-ounce bag, no need being hoggish, seldom eating entire content of the kettle in any case. The popcorn machine is a junior version of what they use in theatres and has served me faithful for over thirty years. Popcorn has long been the bastion of moviegoing. It is also sadly why films have not been accorded respect they deserve. Same for frivolous drinks, soda pop and such. My movie beverage is healthful Steaz Green Tea, in which I take pardonable pride for choosing over soda pop. I do not and never did gravitate to soft drinks. Glad in hindsight for that, for is it true that Coca-Cola is wont to rot one's teeth? Once a week is limit for my watch plus treats ritual. The elderly must after all limit sodium and sugar intake. I call my Fortress of Solitude the Parkland Theatre, imaginary venue for which I drew ads all through school (mostly during school). One must duck to enter the Parkland which is a former storage room seating but two. Years ago I showed a girlfriend White Heat there, after which she stopped being my girlfriend. One might call the Parkland a “mancave” if given to hackneyed terms. What plays at the Parkland with popcorn? Very often Region Two discs, for it is sole site with an accommodating DVD player. Also an only place I can watch true 4K. The Parkland which used to be an 8mm venue is now a flat-screen TV mounted to the wall, so streaming can be had. What gets watched is a mix of formats old and new, of which the following are recent and random samples.

THE ROCK HUDSON SCREEN LEGEND COLLECTION --- This is a Universal box set from 2006 containing five features, two of them (The Golden Blade and The Last Sunset) having been released since on Blu-Ray. I watched the other three, Has Anybody Seen My Gal, The Spiral Road, and A Very Special Favor. All looked fine. Seems to me people underestimate old DVD grab bags. eBay sellers want five dollars or barely more for the Rock Hudsons, a bargain for those partial to “physical media,” which by its name implies a thing obsolete. The Spiral Road doesn’t stream anywhere I could locate, HD or otherwise, so DVD remains an only way to see it. Same applies with Has Anybody Seen My Gal and A Very Special Favor. My being a Universal-International disciple makes them matter. Douglas Sirk directed Has Anybody Seen My Gal, a comedy by design, less so by execution. Tycoon Charles Coburn, bored by his accumulation, decides in late life to track down the family of a love he lost years before and make their humble lives better with a gift of $100,000. Gal is set in the twenties when such an amount was better than a million now. Has Anybody Seen My Gal uses such setting to forefront music, racoon coats, hip flasks, more of what was presumed to represent gone era as of 1952, even if but a quarter-century gone. Could we have such fun spoofing 1998? Story came from authoress who gave us Pollyanna. Has Anybody Seen My Gal proposes that the poor are often, if not generally, better off staying poor. Well, maybe not poor exactly, just a working middle class as natural and proper state for most … enough for a roof, groceries, and a couple trips per week to the movies, preferably Universal movies.

Coburn spreading his wealth does no favors, the family corrupted by influx of cash and lacking judgment to handle it responsibly. The older and wiser man realizes this and acknowledges error of having enriched them. What begins as bucolic small-town life takes a downward turn as modest folk social climb, gamble recklessly, and all but prostitute daughter Piper Laurie for the sake of placing her within a still richer household. A soda jerk boyfriend played by Rock Hudson is no longer good enough for Piper, while Mother (Lynn Bari) alters into someone distinctly unappealing. Comedy represents thin surface of Has Anybody Seen My Gal, our guided response to disapprove of whatever circumstance rains riches upon common clay. Money here is presented as something best done without, at least excess of it. For once, I’d like a wrap where overnight fortune-getters learn lessons, but still get to keep their windfall. Answer this: If one had resource to own mansions and yacht, travel anyplace at will, would he/she also attend dime and quarter theatres? I thought not, and maybe that’s mentality behind preachment like Has Anybody Seen My Gal. No sentiment was stronger than self-interest among studios, theirs not to begrudge the rich staying rich, for film tycoons presumably understood proper administration of wealth. Who is entitled to what has not been earned? Nobody, it would seem. The Coburn character got his pile via hard effort and in exchange for family life and personal happiness he might otherwise have had. Despite absorption into a newfound brood and satisfaction living among them, he knows there is no place for him here. For all of assets they suddenly found, then lost, Coburn's host family is better off staying at square one. We in the meantime are reconciled to outcome for all concerned, the visiting benefactor’s withdrawal from Eden eased by riches he'll keep, even if alone in doing so.

Ten years after joining Gal’s ensemble, Rock Hudson was lead noise for The Spiral Road (1962), occasion for him to enact drama with D capital. Based on a 1957 novel, adaptation was by three writers of Universal employ. Assuming U still owned the property, and I were given carte blanche there, Spiral would seem a cinch to take up anew for 2023, provided there was such thing as a male film star under the age of sixty, which from all evidence, is not the case. Rock was thirty-seven for The Spiral Road, and at summit of his starring career. He acquits fine as a doctor with ambition to be a famed doctor, getting there with help of crusty medico Burl Ives. Central crisis is one of faith lost as result of stern religious upbringing that alienated him from the church. Much dialogue is expended on that issue. It is in fact the central conflict between Hudson and Ives, Hudson and wife Gena Rowlands, Rock and himself, latter entering his own heart of darkness to survive amidst natives almost supernatural in their ability to be everywhere and nowhere. The Spiral Road was said to be shot in South America, but some of it smacks of Universal's own Amazon, so what if unseen threat was Gill-Men that Carlson, Agar, or Jeff Morrow forgot to load up and carry home? I wonder how viable a Spiral Road redux could be. Evidence of a recent hit called Sound of Freedom suggests such an idea might float, Freedom labeled a “Christian movie,” but so far outgrossing (in the US) Mission: Impossible --- Part 7 and the latest Indiana Jones, latter which Freedom overtook this past weekend. I should like to do what producer Frank Ross did with The Robe and earn millions with a remade Spiral Road. Something tells me it would be a major clicko. Watch the '62 original if you can locate a disc. By the by, did any interviewer ever ask Gena Rowlands what it was like working with Rock Hudson? They have intense scenes together, a meet of acting styles opposite if not opposed, yet both are excellent, and I hope they shared a mutual respect.

About A Very Special Favor I’ll say less. This was 1965 and Rock’s run of sex comedies was low on steam. Still a capable farceur, his were situations familiar for having been reprised since ball rolled first with Pillow Talk. Co-writer of the latter Stanley Shapiro made cottage industry of these till his well ran dry, but consider how in demand he must have been as Pillow Talk reimagined adult comedy for late 50’s viewership ready for something (many things) saucy. Did Stanley imagine such party would ever end? I noticed A Very Special Favor at the Liberty and not for a moment considered going, but came the dawn of following year’s Seconds and curiosity to see what that oddity would say or do, surely nothing Rock Hudson had said or done before. He sensed thinning ice and was ready to chance a total departure. One can read Rock's Special Favor mind and feel the discontent. Comedy had come easier with Doris Day as opposed to Leslie Caron who seemed severe to me, as though she did not enjoy involvement here. A recent book by her aired complaints re the Hollywood star sojourn. Favor comics in support come off best, lean and hungry Dick Shawn, Nita Talbot, and Larry Storch, trio of which would have viewed A Very Special Favor as opportunity to earn plenty of TV jobs at least, whereas for Rock it was more of by now dispiriting same. Still good from clinical standpoint and there are spots to amuse, Charles Boyer in for cheerful father part to Caron. Now it remains for me to watch Kino’s Blu-Ray of Strange Bedfellows. How painful can that be?

Tom Cruise is among few assets left to a dwindling industry. He bades us enjoy our popcorn and offers movies as once they were, pleasurable and no regret for having watched. He did a trailer for his new Mission: Impossible while hanging off a plane in flight. Thus appears a man born to showmanship. He is also sixty-one years old, rather far along to hang off planes. Imagine if Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, or Errol Flynn had lived long enough to attempt stuff like that. I mention these for Cruise being very much an old-style sort of film star, in all ways a good thing. I am lately catching up with his Missions: Impossible. There are seven including the recent one, my so-far menu Four, Five, and Six, in reverse order. It doesn’t matter if you see the Missions backward. For all of outward sameness, they are remarkably polished, and plenty entertaining as each sets out to be. I enter understanding what goes on, but by a second act invariably lose the thread, my simple mind requiring spoon-feed where topic is espionage or spies swapping nuclear detonators. Such things confused me even before Thunderball came out. What pleases most about Missions is overlay of humor and relax of need that we fully grasp what these people are chasing and why. I know CGI covers multitude of sinning, Cruise stunts beyond human capacity, but sources swear it's him. Various You Tube videos convince me that Artificial Intelligence will soon take over the entertainment business in any event. Has it already? What are we really seeing in movies now, actual people or not? Missions Impossible make James Bond superfluous claim some, 007 too morose, a joyless doer of things hardly worth doing. Worse is suspicion that “rebooting” him would make conditions worse. I suppose this goes under heading of nothing lasting forever. For a meantime however there are Missions Impossible which we may assume will be as precious to latter-day generations as Bond was for mine, provided Tom Cruise does not drive his motorcycle off a thousand foot ravine and never come back.