Early last month I took a trip down to Greenville for a Mensa event thrown by the local group. TYG and I went every year until the pandemic; it’s a great group and a fun weekend. This year though, no TYG. After Plushie threw his back out again in January (lhasa apsos do that a lot), she’s too worried that if one of us isn’t here, the dog-sitter or boarding facility won’t care for him the way she would. I can’t say she’s wrong which means we won’t be traveling anywhere for (hopefully) two or three years.
But don’t worry, Plushie’s fine now, though he wasn’t happy being caged to rest his back.
The thing is, I was frequently in my hotel room alone in between events and socializing. Which truth to tell felt good, as the pets rarely give me the chance to be alone at home. When I discovered the cable selection included Turner Classic Movies I couldn’t resist tuning in, even knowing I wouldn’t be in the room long enough to finish anything.
We don’t have cable — TYG cut the cord long before I moved up to join her in Durham — but back in Florida I loved TCM. Even though I have plenty of films available by streaming or my own DVDs, it was oddly cool to watch a film simply because it was on at that exact minute. Which is not to say the watching was always fun …
Case in point: I came in on the first film to find a family in a log cabin confronting a crisis. I had no idea what crisis at first but it turned out I’d tuned in The Yearling (1946) right before the boy protagonist has to shoot the injured deer he’s adopted as a pet. Aaaagh! I hate films and books where pet death, let alone killing your pet, becomes some kind of life lesson for children. But that’s the case here: at the end of the film, a relieved Gregory Peck tells his wife that their boy has grown — he’s no longer a yearling! 
FATHER OF THE BRIDE (1950) was a lot more palatable, as witness I checked it out from the library after returning home. This stars Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett as the parents who realize daughter Elizabeth Taylor is all grown up and in love; what follows is a low-key comedy of manners tackling such questions as whether Taylor’s in-laws will offend if they offer her parents a drink when they meet. Tracy shines as a guy struggling to adjust to the inconvenience of the wedding planning and to his shifting role in his daughter’s world. Some parts show their age — this was an era when marrying at 20 seemed perfectly normal — and Don Taylor as the bridegroom is too bland to match the rest of the cast.
Next up, 1936’s THE GREAT ZIEGFELD starring William Powell as the legendary showman and Broadway producer. I came in just as he’d resorted to some possibly illegal tricks to bring in a quartet of critics who think he’s lost his producing mojo. See any of his four current shows, he tells them, and they’ll change their minds.
After they leave he tells a friend it doesn’t matter what they think: he’s invested all his money in stocks bought on margin! When he cashes in, he’ll be so rich he’ll be on easy street! Why yes, the Black Friday crash of 1929 ruins him and he dies broken and penniless, little realizing how much joy his shows have brought to thousands. I might watch all of this sometimes, if only to see 1920s comedienne Fanny Brice (I’ve listened to some of Brice’s “Baby Snooks” radio routines and they’re hilarious).
After that I couldn’t bring myself to rewatch the 1931 tearjerker THE CHAMP with Wallace Beery as a drunken boxer struggling to take care of his kid. In case you’re wondering, this was 31 Days of Oscar month from TCM so naturally that includes a lot of tearjerking, tragedy and death.
Trying to find an alternative to The Champ reminded me not being bound by network schedules has its upside. While I knew the networks were no longer airing cartoons on Saturday morning, I didn’t realize it’s all news — specifically chatter about the Oscars. When I tried Cartoon Network, the channel glitched; SyFy was airing an infomercial.
Cimarron (1931) did something none of the others did, push me to go online to read TCM’s schedule. I came in on a scene set apparently in an antebellum residence (judging by the faithful black servants) so I assumed it was some drama about the wonderful, nostalgic days of the old South when white men were men and the sheep were nervous. Nope, it turned out the home was just a launching pad for Richard Dix and Irene Dunne to head out west and homestead, accompanied by a goofy black kid servant providing not-aged-well comic relief.
All I knew about Cimarron before catching the piece of it that I did was that it was by Edna Ferber who also wrote Showboat (the online synopsis indicates it has some of the same marital tropes). Oh, and film historian Peter Stanfield cites it as the kind of serious Western like Stagecoach that critics love but did less box office and hit theaters much less frequently than the oft-disdained singing cowboy films of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.
In any case, I won’t be catching the rest of it. I’m not much of a Western fan and Dix’ Southern accent falls into what for me is the nails-on-a-chalkboard range.
Overall the weekend didn’t leave me missing TCM as much as I’d have expected. But it was still fun. #SFWApro
Father of the Bride is terrific and much better than the later remake, with Steve Martin. Martin might have been funnier than Spencer Tracy, but there was more heart and better acting here. Plus, how can you not fall in love with young Elizabeth Taylor?
The Yearling is an old YA literary classic, so blame it for the trauma. Still anyone who has grown up around farm country welcomes a lesson like the one in the film. You are a caretaker for animals and it is your responsibility to see to their welfare, even if that means ending their suffering. My dad, who grew up on a farm and hunted and fished his entire life, had to carry out that lesson. We had a beloved family dog, who grew to the age of 20 or so. I was at sea, at the time, but the dog had become nearly crippled and in pain, from arthritis, was mostly blind and deaf. My parents decided to have him put to sleep by the vet; but, my mom was late getting home to take the dog to the appointment. When she got there, she said to hurry and they could still make it; but, my dad told her not to worry about it. She didn’t understand what he was saying and he then told her that he took care of it and buried the dog. Right up to his death, he never spoke about it. I once saw him finish off a wounded rabbit, when we were hunting. I have a pretty good idea of what he did and I know it broke his heart; but, to him, it was his responsibility to end the dog’s suffering.
Except for height and the deep voice, my dad had a lot in common with the type of characters Gregory Peck played, including that film
I get your point about animals. I’m still with the Y/A book “No Dead Dogs” on the merits of such things.
One thing I wonder about with the Tracy film is that the wedding planning takes three months. TYG was planning ours a year ahead. Given Taylor’s getting a big elaborate wedding I wonder if they simply took an unrealistic timeline to speed things up or if that was the norm and TYG’s unusually methodical (long-term planning is part of her professional skill-set). As I’ve only had the one wedding I have a small sample size.
TCM was my go to Channel for movies.
Unfortunately they scrapped it late last year here in the UK. Now we have Great! Movies, Great! Action channels but they are nowhere near as good as TCM.
Sad times!
I feel for you. At least I had some choice in the matter.