"The Black Shield Of Falworth"

Sorry I haven't written for the past couple of nights. It's just been harder to come up with stuff to talk about since the SB went away. I used to really enjoy talking about her music and photos and responding to her posts on FB, but she has seemingly disappeared. I'll try putting out a call, just for the heck of it :

"Esss-Beeee! Where are you? Come back, Esss-Beee"!  I miss you and miss writing to you. :)

That just went out over the loudspeaker. Let's see if it does any good. Meanwhile, I hope my reader in Malaysia hasn't deserted me.

When I have a movie I can always write, and tonight's movie was called "The Black Shield Of Falworth" (1954). Now that's a great title, and you can almost guess from it that the movie is of the "Knights Of The Realm" genre that was popular in the early 50s. It was apparently the very first picture made in widescreen Cinemascope too, and it looks great even on a TV set today. The movie stars Tony Curtis as a peasant farmer living with his sister and an uncle. In a chance meeting (and brawl) with a local knight, he discovers that there is a secret about his family, and himself, which interests the King, and he is ultimately summoned to the King's Castle along with his sister, the beautiful Barbara Rush.

The intrigue builds from there, as I often say, in order to abridge my movie reviews. Otherwise I'd ramble on and we'd be here all night, and I have no idea what time it is in Malaysia, or even what day. But - back to the movie - not only does the intrigue build but so does the romance, a great combination in any film, and especially one in which chivalry, jousts, and swordfights share center stage with the romantic foundation of the script. This is why you were in the theater when you went to see this movie in 1954, because of chivalry and love. And as you know, I am a sucker for those two things.  :)

I was a little apprehensive about watching the film at first, because I wasn't sure about Tony Curtis as the star. That just goes to show you that I wasn't around in the 1950s, when he was a huge star, so big that Elvis said he copied his hairstyle after Tony's. If I had been around then, I'd have gone to these movies upon first release in the theater, and would have already known that, despite his Bronx accent, Tony Curtis more than holds his own against the staid cast of Elder American and British Character Actors That Are Required To Fill Out The Roles In Such A Medieval Movie. Curtis is great, and as a bonus, you get the gorgeous Janet Leigh (pre-Psycho by six years) as his Lady Fair. She was of course his Real Life Wife right around that time, which resulted in the birth of their daughter Jamie Lee Curtis, of "Halloween" fame. But "Black Shield" is all about them, and while it is perhaps just a rung lower than the greatest "Knight" movies like "Ivanhoe" and "Knights Of The Round Table" with Robert Freakin' Taylor, it is still way up high on the ladder, and still gets Five Stars simply for entertainment value and the look of Cinemascope.

You couldn't make these movies today, not even with Brad Pitt and Clooney, because the innocence is gone. Now that would be true acting - to try and recapture the innocence and honesty of a bygone era - the 1950s - and to pull it off. 

We need to go back to A Different Era, because this current one sucks.

And the thing is, that we are just People. We don't have to live the way we do. We have imagination, and we should use it, instead of relying on the news media (and what they promote) to create our reality for us.

I shant go on a tirade tonight, however. Tomorrow is Pearl's birthday and I need to get some sleep so that I can make it a fun day or at least try to. She will be 93, which is pretty amazing.

I hope to make it that far myself, and even further. I could live indefinitely, if my body could handle it, and if the world could backtrack - or shift ahead - to a place of good and steady values like we had in the 1950s, and of course with the inclusion that we have advanced toward today, we might have a steady society.

If I were President, I would pull it off, guaranteed.  :)