Here We Go

Maybe it was the way Cagney and Robinson delivered their lines, as if they were spitting out words like machine gun bullets. Or maybe it was the cars. Or maybe the slinky dresses (and Harlow could slink with the best of 'em--come to think of it, she was the best of 'em). Okay, I was just a kid then so it was probably the cars.

But from my earliest days I've enjoyed the movies of the 1930s best. I began watching them on daytime television, and my first reaction to them was to believe they were made to be seen that way. They were so different from the 1950s product I could catch at the theater (usually on Saturday and early afternoon, and usually starring Randolph Scott) it didn't occur to me at first sight that they had been made originally for anything larger than a TV screen.

My first loves were Laurel & Hardy, and Charlie Chan. Rocky Sullivan and the rest of the Warner Bros. tough guys soon followed, then W.C. Fields, Nick and Nora Charles, Tarzan, and the Marx Bros. By the time Universal released its Shock! package of vintage horror movies to TV in 1957, I was as close to being an addict as I could get and still call my soul my own. Karloff got me permanently hooked. I blame Uncle Boris. (Actually, I thank Uncle Boris.)

It didn't take long before I went on to discover silent films as well. When I was in the second grade, one of the Houston television stations ran a kids' show before school every weekday, one of the features of which was a second or third tier silent one or two reeler. Early on I found pleasure in the antics of Lloyd Hamilton, Snub Pollard, Larry Semon, even KoKo the clown and a host of other silent zanies.

So what am I trying to say here, now that I have changed from cheeky barefoot boy to aging crock? In about two-and-a-half years I'll retire from the world of bosses and deadlines, except those I choose to honor, and I've been searching for a way to count down the weeks and months. Why not, says I to meself, says I, watch a few movies from the silent era and 1930s every week and write up my reactions to them? I haven't been a full-time reviewer all my working life, but I did spend the last 25 years or so as a part-time professional reviewer of books, theater, television and film, and moving away from jotting down my thoughts has been harder than I thought it would be.

As of right now there are around 900 days before I retire, so why don't I try to watch, oh say, as close to 300 movies made between 1900 and 1939 as I can manage and still have a life, then write a few words about each one, before the end of 2013?

Drop in every so often to check up on my progress.

And now if you'll excuse me I have to check under the sofa cushions for change. It's 1927 and popcorn costs a nickel, you know. dgb