Hitch, Groucho, and Cavett
I spent yesterday evening at the Leanord Nimoy Thalia theater. Once an art house cinema, I spent many hours there watching all sorts of movies - timeless classics, B films, cult movies, and cartoon nights. Last night, my buddy Ben hosted a movie night screening two Hitchcock classics - The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. The evening also included a screening of that Wagnerian masterpiece, What's Opera Doc!
Now, this doesn't sound like a CS post and it isn't, but I said I'd expand my range of topics. Hope regular readers don't mind or maybe even enjoy it.
While I've seen a fair amount of Hitchcock, I hadn't seen either of these two before.
Besides enjoying the evening it got me thinking - does the upcoming generation even know Hitchcock.
This wasn't a new thought for me. A couple of weeks ago I was at a party and I was in a circle of younger people. Something came up and I mentioned that just the day before I was watching a special on PBS about Groucho Marx, specifically, his relationship with Dick Cavett, who interviewed him on television a number of times. Now, I figured these youngsters would have no idea as to who Dick Cavett was but they also had no clue about Groucho.
I was a little surprised. I mean the Marx Brothers, and Groucho in particular as well as Alfred Hitchcock were just ingrained into American culture. Even if you never saw a Marx Brothers movie you knew Groucho's walk, mannerisms, and some one liners and even now, I just searched "Groucho glasses" on line and of course, the iconic nose/glasses/moustache combo came up. Hitchcock as well. The "Goodevveenning," the iconic silhouette and of course him being the master of suspense. We all knew this before ever seeing a Hitchcock movie as well.
I mean, I get why entertainment icons prior to film and then television haven't left their mark. Sure, we have the works of the great composers and authors, but since there was no recorded media, we have no real knowledge of great singers, comedians, play directors and the like.
I remember a bunch of years ago learning about George Washington Lafayette Fox - a super popular, well, clown in the mid to late 1800s. There are some photographs but of course no film. I only learned about him by seeing Bill Irwin's amazing tribute, Mr. Fox a rumination. Of course, Bill Irwin's tribute, while a wonderful show was in some ways something of a research project.
Years ago I wondered if cultural influences of the film and TV generations and later would have more staying power. True, media today has so much of a greater reach than say in the 1950s or even when I grew up in the 70s and 80s but at least there's a visual record from the relatively early 20th century, lost films not withstanding and a visual and audible record since talkies.
The thing is, media consumption has also changed. When I grew up, we only a handful of channels on TV. Even when cable came in, the choices were limited. We also didn't have onscreen guides so unless we kept the NYTimes program guide around or got something like TV Guide magazine we'd have to flip through the channels. We also, for the most part didn't have remotes so changing the channel meant getting up, walking to the TV and clicking the dial - if you missed your channel you had to go all the way around again.
This meant we'd leave something on becuase it was easier, or we'd be flipping through the channels and land on something new and we'd just check it out.
That's how I discovered a lot of old movies - both good and bad and developed my tastes. From classics aired at random times to Kung Fu movies on weekends and Chiller theater.
Now, everything's on demand for shows and movies - no discovery, all active decisions and even worse (from my point of view) the short form stuff like TicTock and Reels.
So what does this mean for the future? I don't know. It would be a shame if classics and classic comedy were lost to the future. Sure, some is just of historic interest but the good stuff really holds up.
Here's a bit of classic Marx Brothers:
and part of one of Cavett's interviews with Hitch:
More of the interview can be found on Youtube. Actually, there are tons of Dick Cavett interviews on Youtube and I highly recommend all of them.
Okay, that's it for today. Probably back to CS and Tech next time out.