By Gert Thaler
SAN DIEGO–As time goes by.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Not just minutes, days. Years. And more years.
I have recovered nicely from a pneumonia bout which necessitated having full time semi-nursing household support and I was lucky enough to be blessed with a delightful 23 year old who cared for my every whim. The closeness allowed us to become more than patient/caretaker, employer/employee. Warm friendship seems a better expression.
We talk. She cooks. I eat. Born in New Delhi, India but educated in California, the daughter of a now retired New Delhi Policeman, she has matriculated and almost finished nursing school. We compare our cultures since I know very little of her people and their beliefs, their foods, their family lifestyle.
In comparison, she has never known a Jewish woman.
So we do not lack for conversation.
I spend a good deal of my recuperating snuggled into a large easy chair with my time divided between reading my favorite author, Daniel Silva, through my Kindle, plus newspapers and magazines and crossing my bedroom to my computer which has just been moved for easier access, plus a lot of time watching movies.
I have a tendency to favor older movies. And thus, today’s story.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy and, more importantly, Sidney Poitier, was the featured movie and a film I have watched several times.
My friend was serving me a cold drink as the picture opened and I casually asked her if she had seen the movie lately.
“Lately?” she answered. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Do you know who those three actors are on the screen?”
“No”.
“No!! Not even one of them?”
I restarted the conversation by explaining that this movie was an ice breaker for the theme of a love affair between a black man and a white woman, the black actor being a star and retaining that status for a long period of years and a man who commands great admiration.
Sitting down to join me she watched in fascination as the story unfolded until its ending.
I asked her what would happen if she should bring home someone other than a man of her own culture and she said it would be unacceptable. No discussion.
We talked about acceptance in a Jewish home and inter-religious dating and marriage. A Pandora’s box was opened.
We continued talking about the movie and its theme all of which filled the air with questions about who Hepburn and Tracy were and a review of their past work.
A couple of days later, I was feeling better so my friend Doreen Casuto took me out for a movie and dinner at which her 21 year old son, Simon, joined us. I asked if he had seen Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and in return I got a blank look. Only Spencer Tracy was no stranger to him, until I mentioned that Poitier was also the star of the “Mr. Tibbs” movies. He vaguely recalled the character.
I looked in my mirror. Has so much time gone by that such screen gems are like clouds floating out in space? Am I and others of my generation the only ones left as fans of the era of Gigi; Stella Dallas; Mr. Deeds Goes to Town; Auntie Mame; and Bus Stop?
Most major stars of those movies have gone to movie star heaven. Maurice Chevalier, Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Rosalind Russell, Clark Gable. Marilyn Monroe, too, except that with continuous publicity today’s youngsters are aware of her image.
There’s some wonderful, well produced and well acted work on our screens today. But yesterday’s features gave most everybody great pleasure. I know it will be hard for any 20 something person to believe but when I was 21 years old it cost 35 cents to see a movie, we brought our own candy bars, and popcorn had yet to make an appearance.
Last week’s night out cost $10.50 for a movie. I don’t eat popcorn but if I had it would have been an additional $4.00 plus more than $2 for a drink. The refreshment counter line is almost as long as the one at the box office.
My heart does flip flops when I read of the millions raked in at the box office these days for movies starring total strangers to me.
Maybe that is supposed to be the way things go.
Yesterday’s stars no longer light up the sky and the twinkle is left in the hands of newcomers, so if a 21-year-old asks me if I can name three of today’s hottest box office draws I may very well fail their test. Will I have missed much?
I doubt it. Other than Meryl Streep and a couple of others, there will never be another Hepburn, Stanwyck or Russell. For sure gone are the guys like Tracy, Brando and Cooper. And those who never got to know them on screen are for sure the losers.
Furthermore, please don’t get me started on Paul Newman or Steve McQueen.
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Thaler is a longtime columnist of San Diego’s Jewish community.