If you’ve been paying attention since I’ve been writing this blog, you know a lot about me. You know I’m married. I’m a published novelist (available on Amazon or B&N), a produced screenwriter and I taught screenwriting at the University of West Florida when I lived in Pensacola. You also know I’m a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and did two combat tours during Viet Nam. So, what’s you point, you ask? I’m getting to that. You also may recall from other blogs that I don’t sleep a lot at night which means I look at a lot of really bad…I mean REALLY bad television between midnight and six am.
My grandson once asked me if I was born during black and white days. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about or how to answer until I realized we were watching an old cowboy movie on television and it was in black and white. I’m just happy the movie had sound, so he didn’t ask if I was born during the silent era, but I digress.
I hadn’t thought about it much until lately. I love old movies and many of them are from the black and white era. I can’t imagine Casablanca or some of the early Hitchcock films in color. We know Rick wore a white dinner jacket in the film and we know the Maltese Falcon was black but do we need to know what color hat Ilsa wore? The blood was red on the knife in Psycho, but black did the trick when it scared us to death at the time. No need for color.
I started thinking the other night/early morning. How many black and white movies or television series are still available to be seen? A not so quick scan said I could watch an episode of The Lone Ranger from 1949. No, that’s not a mistake. I didn’t even know there was television in 1949. How about an episode of Dragnet from 1951? Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Andy Griffith? More episodes than you can watch in one night. Whatever your favorite show or the one you have heard your parents, or heaven forbid, your grandparents talk about…”they don’t make ‘em like that anymore”…is on some cable channel someplace.
And now the granddaddy or grandmother of them all: I Love Lucy. Every episode ever written, filmed or produced is playing someplace right now. To set the record straight. I am not a fan of Lucy. It gets even worse. I think people who commit treason or crimes against small children or ding my car door with theirs in the parking lot should be placed in a room with nothing but a straight back, wooden chair and be forced to watch reruns of old I Love Lucy programs 24/7.
I thought that was the worst punishment a person could undergo until last week. It was about 3 am and I was flipping channels in a half sleep/half wake mode when I hit stop on my remote. “This sounds interesting” I said to myself. I’ve seen a lot in my life, much of it not so good and I don’t like to talk about it, but this one trumped everything I had ever seen. Living color. Full sound. No beating around the bush. It was right out there for everyone to see and she was proud of it.
Doctor Pimple Popper has taken the lead over Lucy and I may never change channels again without being damn sure of what’s on the other side of the remote.
Do you need this
ReplyDeleteFun blog post. "Black and white days" could be metaphorical and quite profound. Many things were right or wrong, happy or sad, talked about or not, and the list goes on when remembering those days. In contrast, today we have fifty shades of gray, and I mean that as a metaphor, too. Thanks for a thought-provoking post, though I disagree about Lucy.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, I just heard of this show from my sister, who lost much sleep one night staying up late to watch it. But she's a nurse, so perhaps it can be explained as a professional interest. On second thought no, it can't.
ReplyDeleteI agree about I Love Lucy only because I dislike all sitcoms. They are invariably a half-hour of people yelling at each other about incredibly stupid 'problems' and I hate that. There are only three I can somewhat tolerate if someone else happens to turn them on: The Dick Van Dyke Show, Seinfeld, and The Big Bang Theory.
As a child I saw movies and newsreels in black and white, but I knew real life was in color. I inferred that life itself in those old days of Westerns, the Depression, and WWII was actually in black-and-white. June Trop
ReplyDeleteTWC is an interesting station that shows movies from silent films upwards. You learn a lot of history just by watching these black and white flicks.
ReplyDeleteI love old black and white movies - anything noir or Hitchcock. "All About Eve" is a favorite for the dialogue. I could watch "Out of the Past" over and over, but I bought a CD of it in color. That was a mistake. I didn't realize it until I played it. I hated it. The black and white is noir and perfect the way it is.
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