TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES: SO GREAT!

You bet my Sunday night was not spent watching Fox New's debate: Fox News is outlawed in the Christian household except for the first half-hour on Fox News Sunday when Chris Wallace is presiding! After which there is a quick change at 9:30 AM to Bob Schieffer of CBS for Face the Nation, followed by George Stepanapolis on ABC. George, by the way has a St. Louis connection. When the Bear presided over Gravois Township, little George was an aide to the great Dick Gephardt, and often visited our meetings which were often held at the then Slays on Gravois!
How this young man has risen!

Sunday night, following the two NFL Playoff games, it came to my attention that one of the greatest actors of all time was appearing in two of his early day movies with the buxom, not so well known
Gail Russell. The bear is referring to: THE WAKE OF THE RED WITCH AND ANGEL AND THE BADMAN!

What makes Duke's movies special is the vast array of characters each movie attracts, people like Chill Wills, Andy Devine, Harry Carey and so many different bad guys. The Wake of the Red Witch is one of those movies, sad to say, where John Wayne bites the dust in the end. I can think of a few others but this one is about fury on the high seas and Wayne is so great. Remember all you USC guys. He was a great football player and when I visited the USC athletic complex during the 1990's the busts of the great ones in USC history greeted me in the great hall, stars like OJ Simpson (he didn't do it), Frank Gifford, and of course the Duke. What a tradition! During the Rose Bowl Game and Parade when the USC band played their fight song the Bear's TV volume was as high as it could be, guaranteed to bring out the wrath of you know who! If you really want to get them pissed, turn on NASCAR and when the segment for sounding off by the cars takes place or after "Gentlemen and Lady, Start Your Engines" takes place turn that volume up big time!
I challenge any Marriage Counselor to Analyze This!

Turner Classic Movies takes me back to the days when my mother (She's definitely in heaven and sitting at the right hand of the Big Guy) each Friday tidied me up and away we good go via streetcar and bus to downtown St. Louis either to the Loew's State, Loew's Orpheum or the Ambassador, all within two or three blocks from one another, and see the movie of the week!
Yep, she liked those love stories with Betty Davis, Olivia DeHavland, Frederic March, Melvin Douglas and my old girl friend Virginia Mayo from Benton School on St. Louis and Kingshiway!
But we did occasionally, once every three months, see an action packed movie.

But Turner Classic Movies brings them back each day, always with a new star of the month such as Jimmy Cagny, Ida Lupino, Gregory Peck, Duke, Kirk Douglas, Humphrey Bogart, the great Katherine Hepburn and of course Specer Tracy, Clark Gable, Dame May Whitty, Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Ava, Frank, Esther Williams, Jimmy Durante, so many greats!

What did the old bear do on New Year's Eve? Chase Hotel for merrymaking?
Casa Loma for Ballroom Dancing? St. Louis's non alcoholic Grand Avenue Festivities?
St. Louis Symphony? The Answer is a resounding: NO! Instead, it was down to the "War Room" and Turner Classic Movies, all night featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing their way thru comedy after comedy and never missing a step. Astaire could have been one great athlete and I'm sure with his swift hips, he was a super golfer. His genius is classy style! The bear particularly enjoys Astaire singing those magnificent Cole Porter songs like: "Lets Fall In Love",
"You Can't Take That Away From Me" and Ginger Rogers, well no one, just no one could follow Fred's deft movements and look sensational doing it! When my eyelids finally gave out about 4 AM, it was to "Dancing In the Dark." Yes, I love the modern movie and the new actors and good looking honies but give me a good 1930's 1940's bombastic musical with Busby Berkeley doing the choriography or a Bogie, Cagney murder mystery or the great and witty Thin Man flicks, with perfect naration by the brilliant Robert Osborne on Turner and "I'm In Heaven."

By the way followers of the bear will want to know that one of my top ten of all time: "Bridge Over the River Kwai" is coming in a week or two. Alec Guinness, one of the all time greats and I know I'll butcher this spelling Sessu Hiawaka are magnifico in this exciting WW2 masterpiece.

Thanks Duke for so many special moments, "High and the Mighty", "Hondo", "Rooster Cogburn"
"In Harm's Way", "True Grit", "Big Ed McClain", maybe the greatest "The Searchers." I'm the luckiest person alive for having had the opportunity to view this great All American on the silver screen! So says the Bear!