Do I wake or sleep?

So I've been watching various Little House on the Prairie DVDs from different seasons. I didn't watch that show religiously or anything when I was a kid, but I did watch it, although since I never read the books as a kid, the whole prairie girl fad (including Holly Hobbie, although I did have some HH merchandise) missed me. (I did however read Caddie Woodlawn in the 7th grade and LOVED it--I loved her tomboyish ways and her sassy red hair.) Anyway so I remembered this one episode--something about Christmas and a blizzard and the kids getting caught in it--the image that stuck with me was that someone had dropped their Christmas presents on the snow as they trudged through the blizzard. I looked it up and got the DVD through Netflix and watched it this weekend. WOW. I think Little House has something of a rep for saccharine TV but that episodes on that disc are genuinely powerful. The first episode is called "The Bully Boys"--it's about this family of three brothers who move to Walnut Grove and they throw their weight around by threatening and swindling the townsfolk. The youngest brother is still in school--there are no older boys because it's still planting season, so he is able to get away with a lot. The most shocking moment was when, during a dodgeball game, he grabs the ball and nails this little kid. Mary steps up to reprove him and he hauls off and hits her. I mean, he really slugs her, right in the face. I can't even imagine a scene like that happening in a show today without it being considered abuse, whereas Mary deals with it on her own (she never tells her parents and seems more chagrined than terrified). And then later the two older brothers actually grab Mrs. Ingalls and maul her. Michael Landon has a terrific scene when he demands that she tell him what they did--"did they put their hands on you?" and then he storms off to beat the crap out of them. Go Charles, with your oh-so-'70s hair! The weirdest scene is when the kids finally stand up to the youngest boy--they all rush him, knock him down, and pile on, kicking and punching. It's staged at this rather light-hearted scene, with a pan back showing all the kids punching the bully, and Laura dancing around punching the air. Weird! Yeah, he's a shit and deserves it, but it's not a lark. It's kind of sad when kids are pushed to that kind of violence.

The "Blizzard" episode is even more powerful. Nobody, apparently, is aware that a blizzard is forecast and when it starts snowing flurries Miss Beadle dismisses all the kids early since it's Christmas Eve. The kids all get caught in this blizzard, the mothers all come to the schoolhouse expecting to find their kids--and then they wait with Doc Baker, hoping the kids will find their way back. Miss Beadle is horrified and guilt-stricken--there's an incredibly sweet moment when Willie Oleson (who reminds Bart and me SO MUCH of our cousin Skip, it's scary--they look so much alike) sees how terrible she feels and tells her "it wasn't your fault." The single best moment in the episode, though, is when one man, a father, comes in with a couple of kids. One of the mothers goes over to him and says quietly "where's my husband? They said he was with you." The guy looks at her and says exhaustedly "after we found Joey and Alicia he went off on his own, to look for Henry." She gives him a long look and finally says "but Henry's here." It is an amazingly powerful moment--you know the man is going to die. And then when they actually show him dying--he stumbling around calling for his son and he says "Henry!! My God, boy, where are you?" and his voice breaks. And they actually show him dying, on network TV. I had to turn away, it was so depressing. Very strong TV.

And then when Mr. Edwards comes in with his two kids--all the kids have been found and are recovering and everyone is hugging Mr. Edwards and it seems the people are all rejoicing--until the camera pulls back to show the afore-mentioned woman, now a widow, watching with her son. They are not part of the celebration.

With all that, and God love her but Melissa Sue Gilbert was not a terribly strong child actor (nor, it must be said, was Allson Arngrim, although they never gave her much to do but be a brat). Anyway MSG did the spunky thing fine but she could be a little shrill sometimes.

So I watched an oldie courtesy of Netflix the other night--The Towering Inferno. This is one of those iconic movies to my brother and me--Bart was very much into disaster movies when we were kids, and for some reason I had to see all of them with him, and was traumatized (or desensitized) as a result. I saw The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno and Earthquake--I'm not sure if it was in the theaters, since I was so young, but I knew the stories and the footage, and this was before VCRs. I remember watching TTI with Bart on network TV in the early 80s (?) and it seemed very familiar. I absolutely remember all those shots of that glowing building in the night, those shots from below.

Anyway, so this movie is imprinted on my imagination, and I watched it again. I have to say--beyond the whole disaster film craze, beyond the trendiness of having lots of stars in one movie--it is a damn good film. It is really well-done, and a lot of times these "knockoff" genre films aren't. (TTI was the first big disaster film after The Poseidon Adventure, which was the first and a huge success. Both were produced by Irwin Allen.) I think TTI even surpasses TPA in many ways--to start with the acting is, on the whole, muuuuch better. There was some rank acting in TPA, Gene Hackman and Shelley Winters notwithstanding. Ernest Borgine, Stella Stevens and Carol Lynley in particular make you sort of cringe. TTI has a weak link or two (OJ Simpson, aside from his many other sins, simply cannot act. WHY they gave him a featured part--he has several decent-sized scenes--is beyond me.) but on the whole everyone is terrific. Steve McQueen is just so solid and alpha male as the battalion chief O'Houlihan, Paul Newman rocks as the architect, Fred Astaire is terrific (and got an Oscar nod--can you believe, though, this was the ONLY Oscar nomination Fred Astaire ever got???) and Richard Chamberlain gets to play a bad guy! (He's a real asshole too, it's great.) The cinematography and editing (both of which won Oscars) are AMAZING--the way the movie ratchets up the tension is extremely effective. There's one scene where they handpick 12 people to go down the building in the scenic elevator (that is, the elevator *outside* the building, one of those glass elevators), after several other escape routes have been cut off. Power to the elevator has failed, so they're going to bring it down manually, and you see this elevator full of women, a few old women, and two children inching its way down the track, while explosions and fireflashes are occuring periodically throughout the building. They cut back to the scene a couple of times, and it's just great. I won't tell you if they get down to the ground safely or not--you'll just have to watch it yourself!

There's one very poignant scene near the beginning of the film, right after the fire has really started to grow, but a lot of people don't realize the danger yet. Robert Wagner is some kind of businessman who comes into his office (which is like on the 82nd floor--the fire starts on 81) and sends one of his secretaries home, saying to the other "I need to dictate a letter." He has the departing one cut off the phones, saying he doesn't want to be bothered. Of course he and the remaining secretary are really having an affair, and they fall into each other's arms. The next time we see them, they're enjoying the afterglow, and they're standing and he's caressing her--she's wearing just a shirt and some pantyhose. They banter, and then she says "do you smell cigarette smoke?" He stops and says "that's not a cigarette"--he opens the door and they see the fire. They're both in this weird kind of denial, and don't IMMEDIATELY run when they might have just made it. Instead he pretends to call the FD (the phones are off) and then confesses he was just trying to make her feel safe. And she of course knew he was lying, because she knew the phones were off. They both know they're going to die at this point but neither one admits it. And they don't say "I'll always love you" or even kiss--they just give each other these steady looks, and then he wets a towel and makes a break for it through the fire. Of course he dies--she sees this, and then sort of panics and eventually dies by falling through the window.

I can't stop thinking about the scene because that's just so weird--20 minutes ago this couple was making love, one of most life-affirming activities possible--and then they're dead. There was almost no buildup. The commentary track talks about how this movie, like the Titanic, deals with us facing our own mortality--how it can confront you unexpectedly, and how the object lesson is even more meaningful after 9/11. The commentary track was fascinating--the commentator (a film historian) describes how the two directors (Irwin Allen shot the action sequences, and some other guy the character scenes) compose their shots and their scenes, and about the color design and a lot of technical stuff. Very interesting.

I will say, the movie is loooong--almost three hours. But it's worth it--and the ending is awesome.

Last week I bought the Season 1 & 2 DVDs of The Facts of Life (the TV show)--they FINALLY released it. Yay! This show was one of my big favorites during my early adolescence (I lost interest a bit after they entered the "Over Our Heads" years--couldn't stand those nasty '80s mullets all of them seemed to have). My favorite season was the first, which was very different from the other--the show had seven main girls instead of four, and they lived in a dormitory where Mrs. Garret was the house mother. There were a LOT of blondes, including my favorite, Blair. She's remembered as the snobby rich girl, but her character was a lot wilder--she dated a LOT, and even had to fight off an older guy in a van on one date. She was in a clique where the girls--*gasp*--smoked pot. The best was when Blair ever so delicately hinted that Cindy, the tomboy who played baseball and ran track, might be gay. "You're really WEIRD with all that HUGGING and 'I love you'--you'd just better be CAREFUL." Even at the tender of age of 11, I knew what she meant--that was eye-opening stuff for that era! Especially coming from a Mousketeer (Lisa Whelchel and one of the other girls, Julie Piekarski, had both been on the '70s-era The New Mickey Mouse Club which I also watched religiously with my BF Beth. We even choreographed our own dances in the back yard. "Hurry, hurry grab a seat/This is to the rhythm of the Mouse-ka-beat/We're gonna sing/We're gonna shout/We're gonna show you what it's all about/It's Showtime...with the Mouseketeers." I ADORED all those disco-tastic color-coordinated jumpsuits they had on).

Molly Ringwald was also in the first season, and Julie Anne Haddock (who'd played the youngest daughter in The Great Santini) played Cindy, the afore-mentioned lesbionic athlete. And if anyone remembers that classic '80s cheese-fest, Zapped!, Felice Schachter was also a regular cast member. After the first season, though, the long knives came out and they fired four of the girls (Molly, Julie Piekarksi, Julie Anne Haddock and Felice) and then hired Nancy McKeon to play Jo, the tough-as-nails biker from the Bronx who fought with Blair at every opportunity. The show became different--and, I must admit, better-written. The smaller focus lent itself to better character development, and there were some genuinely sweet moments between the girls, as when Blair goes after a family friend--a teenage boy who attends the school down the road--who asked Jo to a dance but instead, took her out on the 9th green to pressure her for sex, saying later to Blair, "c'mon, she's that kind of girl..." I love it that her sense of sisterhood--and she and Jo were arch-rivals--was stronger than her desire to feel appreciated by the guy (and of course she also recognizes what he's saying is an insult to all women). Interestingly, after sacking all those girls, they still used them for featured guest roles and under 5s, which couldn't have been easy for the fired girls.

TNT is remaking The Goodbye Girl, one of my favorite movies. This movie is a touchstone for my family--we all loved the song, I totally identified with Quinn Cummings (and just found out through imdb that she's only a few months older than I am) and my mother and I still quote the "I got a lawyer acquaintance--" "Oh God. You're an actor" exchange. It's such a great, late '70s in New York City movie--why are they remaking it? There's no way they can improve that movie, and I have no idea how they're going to deal with the whole "Richard III as a flaming fag" schtick in the original. It's not the same joke that it was in 1977--that joke has been done to death by now (this was also a weakness when they musicalized the movie for Broadway a few years ago).

Quinn Cummings. Such a cutie in that movie, with her long brown ponytails and her big eyes.