Old Movies

Old Movies
Don’t go to many movies these days. Probably because I’m not a big fan of special effects. Really limits my choices. Guess I’m not in the right demographic group. Actually, I don’t think they even have a retired dude over 60 that prefers good acting over explosions, group. But they should.
I love old movies. Horror movies. They’re just hokey enough. Can’t believe that we were actually scared by that stuff. I mean, seriously, a grasshopper walking across a picture of an office building? Did we really believe it was supposed to be a mutant insect scaling a real building? Enough of us must have. Why else would there be so many of those movies around? Maybe we were scared of the unknown. The unknown effects of the atomic bomb. Silly us.
There’s hardly anything better on a lazy afternoon than an old horror movie. House On A Haunted Hill. Scared the heck out of me as a kid. Creature From the Black Lagoon. More hokey than scary, but with Julie Adams, whew. In a bathing suit. Double whew. Giant ants. Them. One of my all time favorites. Poor little girl. Alone in the desert. Utters the title word in sheer terror. Still elicits the desire to bring out the magnifying glass to extract some revenge.
Today’s slasher movies just don’t cut it. Or maybe that’s the problem. They cut too much. And are today’s youth really that dumb? Do they never get that they shouldn’t open door number three? Or go alone into the house? In the old movies the lead actors were smart. And were always with other smart people. You could tell because they wore glasses. The soldiers were always the dumb ones. Trying to kill the monster with mere rifles or tanks. Or flamethrowers. As if that would kill any giant mutant grasshopper. Good luck with that.
But back then we always had hope for the Army. Pre Viet Nam, Iraq and other winless wars. We could always count on them. If nothing else, for the sheer numbers they brought. Eventually the smart characters, the ones with glasses and sometimes pipes, won the day. Sometimes the smart ones had to call in the Air Force. To bomb the creature into submission or death. But usually the Air Force pilots weren’t smart enough. But how could they be? They didn’t wear glasses.
It’s been said by those who wear glasses today, that those movies had deeper meanings. Infamous pods turning people into mindless beings. People shrinking. People growing. Mutant animals. Creatures from outer space. All that actually representing Communism, reckless use of chemicals and other evil. Yikes. Don’t know about all that stuff. I still don’t see all the subplots and metaphors. It’s just entertainment. Please don’t explain them to me. I love those movies just the way they are. Hokey.
Those old movies had a notable lack of S.E.X. They did sometimes have flirting. Always between two unmarried characters. And sometimes the suggestive glimpse of an ankle. Or, gulp, a peek at a calf. The lower leg, not the baby animal. Oh my, time for a cold shower. There were no gory deaths. No excessive violence. Car chases hadn’t been invented. No nudity. Even the fifty foot woman somehow found adequate clothing. Everything was left to the imagination. As it should be. And for a young boy, that’s all that was needed.
Today’s movies with their gazillion dollar budgets don’t compare. Even big named stars succumb to the lure of the big payday. By taking horrible roles. Used to rush to see the latest Sean Connery movie. Then I saw The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Excruciating. Poor acting and lousy scripts can’t be improved by throwing money at them. Or by special effects. Take a hint from some foreign movies. Plots and characters we love. Or love to hate.
Of course, the only way to watch old movies is with a big bowl of freshly popped popcorn. I’m a gadget guy. Love my iPod, Satellite radio, iPhone and countless other goodies. But not when it comes to popcorn. No prepackaged microwave junk. No pouring the popcorn into a machine. Popcorn is sacred. Handed down to us by my ancestors, the Aztecs. Well, OK, maybe not. But I do take it serious. I use an old style hand cranked stove top popper. It’s primal. Man, fire, popcorn. Stand back.
You can’t eat popcorn without melted butter. Real butter. Lots of it. Poured carefully in sync as the bowl is slowly rotated. Then add just enough salt to unite the flavors. Mmmm. What to drink? Dr. Pepper of course. Cold. Anything less would be un-American. One last thing. Napkins. A handful. Time sit on the sofa and watch a hokey movie. And let my imagination go crazy.