Old movies on my mind
Summer of "42
Recently I have been thinking about old movies I’ve seen that have left lasting impressions. Some were funny, like Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis in an almost unbelievable storyline with Curtis dressing as a woman to escape the mob…and falls for Marilyn; some were very moving and sad, like Romeo and Juliet. Not the  newer versions but the one with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey…with great Shakespearian dialogue and fabulous costumes and that feel that you were right there with them. Some movies were sweet, like Sixteen Candles, with a young and in love Molly Ringwald playing the girl who never gets the guy…who really gets the guy in the end (it gave me hope). I also enjoyed old black and white war movies like the Bridge Over River Kwai, with its intensity. And who can forget Errol Flynn as Captain Blood, I wanted to have my own pirate. And then there was Summer of ’42, a coming of age story set in the days just prior to World War II.
Some of these I still see televised and others have faded into the background as time goes by. I’d love to tune in again to see Captain Blood…even in its new colorized form. And Marilyn Monroe? I enjoy any of her movies, from the aforementioned Some Like It Hot to her more serious work like Misfits or Bus Stop.
Perhaps all these old movies bring out a sense of romance or adventure or loneliness or hilarity in me, but they also are a reminder of why writing is so important to me. We all soak in what is around us and I, for one, was not here for World War II or pre-World War II or the days when pirates roamed the seas. I was, however, a sixteen year old girl once who had an unrequited love…
Romeo and Juliet
Writers create or share these people and places and things in their books and screenplays and yes, in their movies. We have pirates and lovers and soldiers and all those other characters just dying to get themselves onto the pages of those books that are yet to be read, movies yet to be made and lives yet to be touched.
Happy Fourth of July,
KW
