Many moons ago, probably when I was about 10-years-old, I discovered the beauty of the classic movie. Like a lot of people, I had seen the stereotypical holiday films of the 1940s – White Christmas and Shop around the Corner. They were a seasonal fixture which warranted some degree of sentimentality, but to my childish mind, they were nothing really special. Although sweet and dignified, I thought those films of simple plot lines and happy endings were somewhat shallow. Overall, I didn’t believe they were real.
I don’t even remember what time of year it was or in what circumstance I found myself experiencing this epiphany. I could assume it was a typical Saturday night of a fifth-grader. My dad would mention a film to my mother at dinner, she would zealously agree with the choice, and fifteen minutes later I would be sitting with my sister on the sofa in our basement, staring into the void of the black television screen.
When the MGM lion roared in the start of the film, the image of a flickering gas lamp and the wavering voice of an opera singer caught my attention. Not for the right reasons, however. I just thought it was too dramatic and rather silly. Adding to the comedy of the whole thing, an abrupt crescendo from the orchestra nearly scared me out of my wits. The brazen and theatrical music changed after that, revealing an undertone of apprehension that gradually began to alter my state of mind.
The film was Gaslight. Originally a successful play, the movie does have its share of melodrama; yet is expertly concocted with insightful discussion of music and love, a myriad of foreign locations, and a heaping helping of maliciously induced insanity. From the first scene of an adolescent Ingrid Bergman mysteriously fleeing her London flat, I was hooked. I was fascinated by Ingrid Bergman on the screen; she was poised and intense, yet never calculated. I was captivated by Charles Boyer, who played a moody pianist in the film. The first time I really saw him in the movie, he was standing with an air of omnipotence behind a Florentine iron gate. A cloaking shadow was cast on his already dark and handsome features. Then he spoke. From Boyer, exuded the deepest, most sonorous voice accented in his native French. I was thoroughly enthralled with him.
I was entranced by Gaslight and have since fallen in love with hundreds of other classic movies. Because of this film, I became addicted to 1940s thrillers. I devoured film noirs, anything with Alfred Hitchcock and even some Bela Lugosi. I soon branched out to different genres and discovered the film lover’s heaven, Turner Classic Movies. Not to say more modern films haven’t left an impression on me, but from all the films I have seen, I have to say some of the older ones are better. The acting is artful, the cinematography is original and the themes are more developed. And I love black and white photography. It is infused with feeling; darkness is blacker and the contrast is clearer. Black and white doesn’t make the movie dull and simple, it adds depth and emotion. These films are beautiful. They are truly art. They are real.
I know my adoration of classic film will continue for the rest of my life. Like Charles Boyer said in Gaslight, “The whole thing is alive with happiness…I don’t know how it ends, perhaps it never ends until I do.”
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