WHAT WAS I THINKING? In Glorious Black and White

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Hello, NiteLife Exchange Readers!  Before you read on, please look at the logo of this website.  You’ll notice the slogan “It’s All About Entertainment,” not   “It’s All About Cabaret.”  On this site, you’ll find Penny Landau’s irreverent column “The TV Junkie,” as well as reviews and articles about current plays, CDs, web sites, etc. This is a smart policy.  If cabaret is to take its rightful place on the entertainment food chain, it needs to mix with the other items on the menu! 

So this week, I’m gonna talk about movies.  Classic movies.  Mostly black and white movies.  Where to start?  How about with a cabaret show!

Last month, Bistro and MAC Award winner Susan Winter brought back a revised version of her 2007 Million Dollar Matinee to Don’t Tell Mama, with musical direction by Rick Jensen, directed by Lina Koutrakos.  Inspired by the singer’s lifetime love affair with old movies and the music she discovered in them, the show included a wide range of cinematic standards from films as diverse as Yankee Doodle Dandy, To Have and Have Not, 42^nd Street, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Meet Me in St. Louis and many more.  In the interest of full disclosure, Ms. Winter added to her repertoire a new closing song about the Golden Age of Hollywood, written by yours truly with composer Matthew Ward from our musical The Lady in Penthouse B. Lynn DiMenna’s review of Million Dollar Matinee can be found on www.cabaretscenes.org.

Like Susan, as a child I was obsessed with, and addicted to old movies.  A major enabler was the series that inspired the title of Susan’s show, the local NYC Million Dollar Movie on WOR-TV, Channel 9.  Each week it would feature one picture a gazillion times, day and night.  Whether it was Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane or Abbott & Costello’s The Time of Their Lives, I’d memorize large portions of each film, then act them out with the other kids in the neighborhood.  Yes, they knew those movies, too.  There were only six channels (seven if you counted Channel 13, which in those days was called “the educational channel,” so no self-respecting kid would watch it!), and those stations depended on movies for a large share of their programming.  The older films were on late at night, during the day or on weekends.  The newer ones from the '50s and '60s, were prime-time events.

I vividly remember my entire family,  including my parents, brother, grandmother and a maiden aunt or two, gathered in the living room each week to watch NBC’s Saturday Night at the Movies, premiere showings of films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo or Marilyn Monroe in Niagara.  I treasure those memories: my very Italian mother yelling at Marilyn, “You’re a bad woman!  You’ll be a sorry!” my brother and I rolling on the floor laughing during Danny Kaye’s “vessel with the pestle” routine in The Court Jester, my even more Italian grandmother asking me to clarify the plot of Some Like It Hot, and, most precious to me, my father singing along with The Lollipop Guild during that most special televised movie event of all, the yearly broadcast of The Wizard of Oz.

Yes, it was shown only once a year.  That was your one chance to see it.  It wasn’t sitting on your shelf, available for viewing anytime and as often as you like.  It’s funny, when those movies weren’t so available, you were more likely to see them!   Only six channels increased the chances that, at one time or another, you’d be exposed to them.   Sure, on Sunday nights, most people were watching Channel 4 (NBC) and Bonanza.  But, during a commercial, with one switch of the dial, you were on Channel 5 and there was Bette Davis in Jezebel or Clark Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty or James Cagney in Public Enemy. You might go back to Bonanza, but they were there and you noticed them.

Things are different now.  We have greater access than ever before to our film heritage, which now includes classics from the '70s through the '90s, an entire century of stories and images at our fingertips. Yet, in my experience, a lot of well-educated, cultured people aren’t aware of them, beyond vague name recognition. Even the recognition is vanishing.  It’s funny, I mention Michael Feinstein to a barista I know at Starbucks, I get a blank stare. I mention Spencer Tracy or Barbara Stanwyck to a singer in her twenties, I get the same blank stare.  Mention On the Waterfront and she thinks I’m recommending a restaurant!

My main concern in writing this column was that I would sound like some fuddy-duddy, out of touch schoolmarm, obtusely lecturing her students about the beauty of Beethoven while boring them back to their Lady Gaga-loaded I-pods.  Of course, there are some great current movies out there, but they’re promoted by mega-million marketing budgets. They don’t need me to get noticed. That being said, in a busy, media-mad world where one barely has time to see new movies, why watch the classics?

Because the good ones are wonderfully entertaining, with well-structured stories that hold you from the studio logo to the end title, with characters you care about embodied by legendary performers, with black and white cinematography that can stun you with its beauty or vivid, drop-dead gorgeous Technicolor that made audiences gasp in its day – and still does.

They’re also a vital part of American history and culture.  They tell us who we were: where we lived, what we wore, what songs we sang, what we thought about sex, money, war, race, religion.  They show human beings struggling with the same issues we grasp with today, providing a point of reference, a context that tells us, hey, we’re not alone.  Other people in other times had to deal with the same things.  Here are the stories they needed to tell.  Some may seem silly now.  But some may surprise you with their relevance and their daring.

For the uninitiated, they take a little getting used to.  They’re different from today’s movies.  At first glance, they seem to move slower (given the relentless pace of most movies in recent years, I’m surprised we’re not all on Ritalin!), but actually, in terms of how they tell their stories, they’re faster.  Miss the first ten minutes of All About Eve and you’ll miss a masterly introduction of all the major characters and themes the film will develop in the next 128 sublime minutes.  I sat through all of Avatar and I’m still trying to figure it out!  Classic romantic comedies like The Awful Truth or The Lady Eve possess qualities today’s Hollywood considers passé, like wit, sophistication and charm.  Classic thrillers and “film noirs” depend on character, atmosphere and imagination for their effects instead of bloodbaths, pounding soundtracks and Angelina Jolie naked.  (Ya want sexy?  Check out Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice.)  Classic musicals allow their brilliant singers and dancers to perform their numbers without frenetic editing or strange camera angles.  When Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse dance in The Band Wagon, their entire bodies are there on the screen with next to no cuts during each routine.  Their magic is real.

So, if you haven’t seen them, why not try renting a few of the 35 movies mentioned though out this article?  They span all genres and, while not all masterpieces, they’re all worth watching, most of them much more than that.

If you’d rather not rent them, there’s Turner Classic Movies.  The cable channel is a movie mecca, running them uncut and uninterrupted, with fun promos and vintage trailers in between.    Every Saturday night at 8pm, TCM runs a series called The Essentials, aimed at the classic movie newbie. Hosted by the channel’s resident host/expert Robert Osborne with a guest co-host (currently Alec Baldwin), the selections offer something for everyone, including the upcoming Bad Day at Black Rock, The Sea Hawk, Leave Her to Heaven and The Sting.

Ideally, these films should be seen in a movie theatre with a live audience, hard to do these days since there are hardly any revival houses left in New York.  I often go to Film Forum, which is currently running a Charlie Chaplin festival.  If you’ve never seen City Lights, The Gold Rush or Modern Times, maybe it’s time to think about it!  Future Forum festivals include an August salute to vintage 3-D movies from the 1950s, including Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder and the MGM musical Kiss Me, Kate!  Yes, believe it or not, both of those films were originally released in 3-D and those rare versions can be seen next month at Film Forum.

For those who persist in resisting classic movies, that’s ok and understandable.  Hey, there are people I like and respect who resist going to a cabaret show!  But if you haven’t yet experienced Now, Voyager, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Double Indemnity, High Noon or The Shop Around the Corner, and are willing to give one or all of them a try, I truly envy you.  You’ve got a lot of fun in store.  So, happy watching and, by the way, don’t forget the kids and grandma!

Information about Susan Winter, her upcoming shows and her current CD, Love Rolls On… Live! can be found on her website, www.susanwintersings.com.  Turner Classic Movies can be found on Time Warner Cable Channel 82 and its website is www.tcm.com.  Film Forum is located at 209 West Houston St. and its website is www.filmforum.org.

Thanks for reading my column!  And thanks to Hector Coris for the cartoon masthead.  If you have a comment, question, correction or suggestion, please email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .