The other night when Tom was home (I cannot imagine what night that must have been) I put in To Catch a Thief and started it right before the masquerade ball. Tom passed through the room on his way to get something he needed for whatever he was busy with in the office.
"I thought you didn't like that movie," he said.
"I just want to see the end."
We had watched all but that the night before when Tom had chosen it thinking I was going to fall asleep sooner. I am all for giving movies a second chance (except some, like Blood Diamond); I have come to appreciate so much more about movies, about everything, in my fully-formed adulthood. Tom probably has more than a little to do with that.
But by the time the credits were up, really by the time I had fallen asleep the night before, I had realized...
I really hate that movie.
I am not a "hater" in general. I don't blanket hate. Though TCaT and North by Northwest make me gag I'll raise a glass to Hitchcock anytime! And to Cary Grant, and even to Grace Kelly. Dial M for Murder is one I loved since childhood and will love forever. Rear Window I haven't seen in an age but I couldn't get enough of it as a kid.
And, thanks to Tom, we have or have seen about every movie Cary Grant has ever done. Though I recently discovered my love for Charade, and still laugh out loud when I watch Bringing Up Baby, I really prefer Grant in a serious role, or at least one in which he's more likely to slap a woman, serious or no. Give me Grant with some intensity! That's what I say. In which case the best of his best you'll ever find is Hitchcock's Notorious.
This is one my mom would watch when I was little and I wouldn't understand and so would be bored and so would go find something better to do ("better" is often relative). The first few minutes of that movie are so familiar to me. Recently, though, Tom bought it and we watched it together: all of it. Now it sits somewhere near the top of my favorite movies.
It doesn't hurt that shortly after that I watched Casablanca for the first time (I know!) and now my mind is full of love and excitement for the glorious Ingrid Bergman/Claude Rains fabulous movie extravaganza that was those few days.
Notorious is one of those movies that I couldn't wait to watch again immediately after being finished (I still remember seeing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in the theater with Lane and leaning over somewhere near the beginning of the movie to whisper, "We should see this again.")
Some movies just give you a great feeling and you want to make it happen as much as possible, though you fear more than anything overdoing it and ruining all chance of that feeling again. For example, I have been considering watching Moonstruck (which I have memorized) for months now but held off, held off, held off, for the sake of myself and the movie. Then night before last, when Tom had to stay the night in Poos Bay and I was staying over at Lane's for company, we watched it.
So happy was I about that wonderful movie and the wonderful way it makes me feel that that night, which could have been one of the worst, is now a sweet memory for me.
So, I haven't watched Notorious again, but I keep replaying Cary Grant (giving what I'm willing to claim is his best performance ever) pressing his face against Bergman's. Oh how I love that all the movie posters depict this! I'm not the only one who feels just how intoxicating that was.
I replay Grant's brooding; Bergman's pathetic expressions of helpless disappointment and shame; and I replay Rains slowly mounting those steps...
I love that movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment