My father was a constant reader, a wicked prankster and something of a film buff. His film tastes were pretty eclectic--we went together to see The Pope of Greenwich Village, for example--but his real reverence was for the classics. I remember his description of a scene in The Gold Rush, to give his daughter a flavor of it in those pre-VCR days when anything silent was hard to come by: "...and then he looks up at the clock, and he realizes, she's not coming. And just like that, you go from slapstick to sad..."
For Dad one filmmaker towered above all others, however, and that was John Ford.
One spring Saturday when I was in my early teens, Dad spoke to his adult nephews on the phone. A film recommendation from him was something to be taken seriously, and that Sunday morning the Superstation's Academy Award Theater was showing How Green Was My Valley. Our main phone line was in the kitchen and I could hear Dad's end of the conversation. "You should see this one...John Ford, Wales...Maureen O'Hara too...gorgeous...You'll get a kick out of it." The conversation ended and I caught Dad's eye over whatever he was reading at the kitchen table.
"Get a kick out of it?" I repeated, incredulous.
"Sure," said Dad, affably. "Good movie, isn't it?" As he went back to his book, I swear I heard him chuckle.
Sometime after noon on Sunday our phone rang. It was Cousin R., and he sounded like he was coming down with a cold. "Put that father of yours on the phone," he snapped. I handed the phone to Dad, he put down the New York Times crossword puzzle, and as I leaned across the kitchen table my cousin's voice rose to a volume that carried it well beyond the receiver, especially when my father pulled the phone away from his ear to avoid hearing damage.
"...coal miners...strike...and then they go to America...falls in the water...gets sick...accident...the other two leave...won't even marry her...ANOTHER accident...goddamnit, I'm gonna get you for this one."
"But it was a good movie, right?" said my father, looking pleased with himself.
"...GREAT movie...I'm going to GET DRUNK."
The conversation ended. Dad returned to his crossword puzzle. "Where's he gonna get a drink?" asked my sister, who had heard the whole thing too. A shrug from Dad.
"He's in a dry county," I reminded Dad.
"It's SUNDAY," added my sister.
The phone rang again. It was another, older cousin, the football coach, who seemed to have caught his brother's cold. "Tell your father we're sending him the liquor tab," he barked.
I hung up and looked at Dad. "You totally tricked them into seeing that movie," I said.
His eyes didn't move from the crossword. "They'll thank me for it later."
Funny that this memory of my father should concern How Green Was My Valley, which has Donald Crisp, 180 degrees from his terrifying drunk in Broken Blossoms, playing one of the most lovable fathers in screen history. Not until Gregory Peck tucked Mary Badham into bed in To Kill a Mockingbird would there be an equally noble, and touching, portrait of fatherhood.
How Green Was My Valley ends with Crisp's death at the bottom of a mine shaft. Ford's camera focuses on the lift bringing other miners to safety. One platform of exhausted men passes us by, and then we see the one we are waiting for, Donald Crisp's head barely at the edge of the frame, cradled by his youngest son. That son, Roddy McDowall, stares past the camera, his beautiful face a bleak mask that reflects every child who ever faced a future without a parent. I've been facing that myself since 1991. Perhaps that's why I haven't watched the movie since.
But Ford wasn't by nature a pessimist, and How Green Was My Valley doesn't end on that shot. Its final montage includes McDowall and Crisp, going for another walk together. Memory isn't enough, but memory has its comforts, even if they are as simple as remembering how your father once lured an audience for one of his favorite films.
21 comments:
Beautiful. This is a scene I would've loved to have played out in my own childhood. Your father sounds like a fine man and yes, memory does have its comforts. Thanks for sharing this Father's day walk with your dad with us.
Everything Dennis said goes for me. I think I might be watching "How Green" this week. Thanks, Siren.
Damn, that's a fine post. So fine that it's kind of reductive to call it a "post," at least as far as an old ink-stained wretch like myself is concerned. So—damn, that's a fine piece of writing.
I'm moved and filled with admiration—and a little jealous, too.
Campaspa, thanks for shring such a touching memories.
This reminds me of my father re-telling us his favourite Tarzan movies, and particularly his enthisiasthic rendering of "Tarzan in New York" (I suppose that's why I have a soft spot for Johnny Weissmuller). I also recall how he enjoyed "The Crimson Pirate", because papa had sort of Burt Lancaster looks.
One of his favourite films was "Land of the Pharaohs" (he loved the clever engineering bits about the Pyramid construction). I always found and odd coincidence that this film was shown on TV the day he died.
Thanks guys. I had not thought about this incident in a while, though I sent the link to yet another cousin and he remembers it well (and claims R. really did have a cold, ha). While I haven't seen this movie in almost two decades I did see Bogdanovich's doc about Ford a couple of weeks ago, and two scenes from How Green Was My Valley were in it, including the final sequence. That brought it back, all right.
My father doesn't watch movies (he generally falls asleep in front of the TV, and he cannot stay awake in the dark so no theaters for him), but my mother made me sit down and watch this with her when it came on the 4:00 afternoon movie one summer day when I was probably about 10. She picqued my interest by pointing out that the little boy was Cornelius from Planet of the Apes, a movie I loved.
I think I sought out everything with Roddy McDowell in it after that.
Great story. Unfortunately, I don't have relatives as sensitive as all that. If I tried to recommend that film to them, they'd complain it was black-and-white.
I remember one film I recommended to my parents--Smash Palace. Afterwards, my mom ask me "Did you recommend it for the sex?" "No, because it was good." She looked as if she wanted to talk about it a bit more, but we didn't.
Thanks for posting, movies were a big part of my relationship as a kid with my dad. Something we liked to do together, especially cheesy horror movies.
Brooklyn is only about two hours from me, Im from NY. Nice to meet you!
Maurinsky, I like McDowall a lot too, and wish he had more roles of the caliber of How Green Was My Valley. In her memoirs Maureen O'Hara said his was arguably the best performance by a child actor either, though she noted that McDowall always modestly insisted Jackie Coogan deserved that accolade for The Champ.
Noel, I have spent the better part of my life avoiding watching sex scenes with my parents. Just ... can't.
Lynn, nice to meet you too. I am afraid if you scroll you will discover I am not much of a horror buff but I do have a few I need to see, to fill in the horror-classic gaps.
Great post. Lovely description of a lovely film.
Great post, Campaspe.
Now you got me remembering all the movies I used to watch with my late father. (Unfortunately, "How Green was My Valley" was not one of them.)
Were there commercials on the Superstation? I remember the ones that filled Million Dollar Movie, but at least the technicians usually inserted them with care, unlike today's AMC, TNT, WE, Bravo, TBS etc etc etc. Seems a shame if ads would mar such a lovely post.
My father would take us to see the movies outdoors at the camp where we lived in Puerta la Cruz, Venezuela when I was eight. Up on the big white wall was Sunset Boulevard, The Gunfighter, Panic in the Streets, Winchester 73 and somehow transplanted from the 1930s, The General Died At Dawn, among others. Sometimes I will see an old film and realize I saw it then, like The Black Rose.
I saw the Bogdanovich thing on Ford as well. Very nice. For some reason I gained a lot of respect for John Wayne after watching it (and Back to Bataan right after). I liked when Ford gave him the direction to be a blank and let the audience do the work. Ford sure made the interviewers work. Maybe his gruffness came from being sensitive about being a sensitive artist. The Wayne quote underscored what I've always liked about Ford who made pretty sentimental pictures really, he was a visual artist first and foremost. Anyway, the top shelf or our family's large DVD collection is for this Dad's favorites and on it sit The Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley.
Hallo, Siren. Namedropped Colorado Territory at girish's site, and it went over as spectacularly as a frog's fart. Have you seen it, and what did you think?
Jacqueline, thank you! I am checking out your site too, and enjoying it very much.
Tonio, it is making me realize that I have a duty to show my kids good movies, too. I do not think I will unleash the Ford on them just yet, though (the twins are 4 at the moment and still digging Winnie the Pooh).
Exiled, you mentioned that camp before and then and now I think it sounds like a really romantic way to see a movie. Reminds me of The Spirit of the Beehive, in which a traveling movie wagon shows Frankenstein in similarly rough circumstances in a Spanish village during the Civil War. The Academy Award Theater had lots of commercials and not only that, it had a bad habit, which TNT retains to this day, of ramping up the volume for the ads. But there was something just a bit special about having to wait to see a movie, and then pounce, even if it was cut and you had laundry detergent ads intruding.
Outofcontext, Ford was just plain difficult, according to everyone who ever encountered him. You never knew what you would get--this gruff anti-intellectual scoffing at the notion that there was anything more going on than "a cowboy picture," or the underlying artist who shot everything so precisely it was pretty much cut in the camera. I have Bogdanovich's book of Ford interviews and he seems a lot more forthcoming in that, but even so you can feel Bogdanovich straining to get a response at times.
Noel, LOL! I think that it may just be under-seen; I am afraid I have not seen it either. Your comment intrigued me enough to look up Walsh's interview in "Film Crazy," by Patrick McGilligan. Walsh says Jack Warner wanted another picture, but Walsh had none ready, so Walsh said we'll take High Sierra and put it out West. He goes on to say that he regretted Warner's having forced him to use Joel McCrea, since Walsh wanted Mitchum. The director said he thought McCrea wasn't believable as a guy facing a murder rap. Anyway, we both love The Strawberry Blonde. As I remember Exiled is fond of that one too. It seems to have this great semi-submerged reputation.
Siren, just telling you: Colorado Territory's Walsh's unsung masterpiece. You haven't done Walsh till you've done that picture.
It shows in TCM on occasion.
On Ford, I heard he gave Wayne a hard time.
Noel, Ford's mistreatment of Wayne is legendary, but depressingly well-documented. Some people trace it to Ford's disappointment that Wayne did not serve in World War II, but my reading seems to indicate that he was always contemptuous and harsh toward Wayne and WW II probably just gave it a different outlet or excuse. Maureen O'Hara says that on each picture Ford always had someone "in the bag"--i.e., chosen as whipping boy. More often than not it was Wayne. When you read about Ford you start to wonder how *anyone* put up with him, movie after movie, and yet they did,
while the (arguably) equally obnoxious and equally talented Fritz Lang had actors leave his set swearing they'd starve before they worked with him again.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
* * *
The summer before 4th grade, my pop suggested I watch Of Mice & Men...
...
I coulda used a drink after that...!
:>
That, and seeing "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" & later "The Shepherd of the Hills" in *technicolor* turned me into a sleepyhead & teevee-holic---sneaking out of bed for the "All Night Movie"
(Bay Area folk may remember Jay Brown of Spartan Dodge---"Home of the Price Slasher").
The hairiest part was turning on the set, then the changing to the channel, "C*L*I*C*K*!!"
Brown showed just about all the Warner Bros. flics---"The Strawberry Blonde," "They Drive By Night," "City for Conquest"...going back to the early thirties---for a couple of years it seemed like.
I remember seeing "Lord Love A Duck" & "The President's Analyst" very early on too somehow. :P
I like Colorado Territory as well. I thought Virginia Mayo was really good in it, and that ending!
I read the synopsis at IMDB to see if I can get my Deja Vu machine, or call it my 'Way Back' machine to work, but Colorado Territory does not ring a bell. What does is Copper Canyon with Ray Milland. Yes Ray Milland in a Western; almost as preposterous as Cagney and Bogart.
But to the eight year old sitting under the Tropic stars, it was seeing Gregory Peck being shot in the back that left its impression all these years.
What i remember from that part of the film is the miners searching for the trapped ones. And Roddy McDowell calling, "Da Da" over and over
Funny, you made me think of a half a dozen experiences in theaters with my father that make me smile now.
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