Friday Night at the Movies (standard:non fiction, 1250 words)
Author: Lou Hill	Added: May 06 2002	Views/Reads: 3158/2096	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Remeber the days when watching a movie meant going out of your home.

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domineering mother if he has taken his vitamins that day and he answers 
"Yes mother, a whole pint of them". 

The other thing I remember about that movie is a very intense scene with
Robert Walker prowling around looking for his intended murder victim.  
There was no dialogue and no loud background music.  The theater was 
deathly quiet; everyone was sitting on the edge of his or her seat 
waiting for something to happen.  Suddenly Richard Bordo, who was 
sitting next to me, yelled "BANG" as loudly as he could.  Of course 
everyone in the theater jumped out of his or her skins, myself 
included, then dissolved into	nervous laughter.  Mrs. Vincent never did 
discover the culprit even though she patrolled the aisles for the rest 
of the film. 

Another movie that I remember vividly was a film starring Spencer Tracy
called "Mayflower Adventure" which was, of course, about the Pilgrims.  
Tracy in his role as Capt. Miles Standish was trying to teach the 
Pilgrims how to use weapons.  As he ran through a drill to load and 
fire a blunderbuss, he delivered the line "Pour gunpowder into the 
touchhole*".  Total bedlam in the theater! 

My favorite movies were and still are the musicals of the late 40s and
50s.  I remember that I had a tremendous crush on Marge Champion of the 
dancing team of Marge and Gower Champion. That lasted until I saw 
Natalie Wood in "The Searchers and fell in love.  It was a one-sided 
affair that continued until her unfortunate death.  Many of those old 
MGM musicals are considered classics today: Easter Parade, Meet Me in 
St. Louis, The Bandwagon, Showboat, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, 
Singing in the Rain etc.  They didn't have a "message" for the most 
part; all they did was entertain. 

In the last 20 years I have only seen two movies that approach the
quality and entertainment value of the old MGM musicals.  They are 
Flashdance and Dirty Dancing, both highly successful movies from a 
financial viewpoint.  There ought to be a message to Hollywood hidden 
there. 

The advent of inexpensive TV sets sounded the death knell for the
Playhouse and many other small town movie theaters like it.   In order 
to compete with TV, moviemakers have resorted to more sex, more 
violence and in my opinion, less entertainment value. 

On a recent Friday night as I waited for my wife to pick up a few items
at the IGA that now occupies the building that housed the Playhouse, my 
thoughts drifted back fifty years.  Were Charles Starett and Smiley 
Burnett going to beat the bad guys to the pass and stop them from 
stampeding the herd?  What new perils would face the hero of the 
current serial?  Most important, would a Tom & Jerry cartoon be shown? 

*Note to flatlanders: In Vermont only the sophisticated among us use the
word rectum in place of touchhole. Oh yes a flatlander is someone who 
was not born in Vermont. 

Enosburg Falls, Vermont July 1993 


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