Time Warp

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Added: Fri. Oct 24, 2008 11:12am
Posted in: Living

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Every so often I'm gripped by the urge to rent a "classic" movie to see what the fuss was all about.  In the past couple of years, this has led me to "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (splendid), "Rebel without a Cause" (a tad overdone) and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (I love the word mendacity!!)

This week the cop classic "Bullitt" started calling my name as I browsed the rack at Blockbuster, and with nothing else to do on that particular Wednesday night, settled in for the ride.  Oh lord, the things that have changed in movie making!  Dialogue for one, and pacing, and the famous car chase through the streets of San Francisco nearly put me to sleep.  But still...it was also like stepping into a time machine.  Cars had only crank windows (unintentional hilarity watching the bad guy struggle to roll down the window before aiming his shotgun at our hero); there were actual phone booths on the street into which people put coins to make phone calls and if you couldn't find a pay phone in a crisis, you were S.O.L.; cops didn't appear to carry walkie-talkies; and all the women wore hose with their heels.  For law enforcement to get a photocopy of a suspect's passport application required the use of a "telecopier" machine and a very long wait.

On the upside of things, Robert Vaughn (a.k.a. Napoleon Solo in "The Man from U.N.C.L.E") had well groomed superciliousness and Machiavellian political maneuvering down to an elevated art form, and Steve McQueen had the most amazing blue eyes.  Sigh...

I think I'll return to the present now.  I like my cell phone and microwave oven and keyless entry to my car and email with electronic attachments.  And if I need to revisit the past for a short trip down memory lane, I can just tune in to "Life on Mars" on ABC.

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