dual personalities

So sayeth master musician B.B. King in his autobiography. It’s an old-fashioned notion of manhood, but it cuts to the chase, and I like it. This is not to suggest that any woman with gumption wouldn’t do the same, but it’s Father’s Day tomorrow, so I thought we’d concentrate on men. Naturally, as a cinephile, I started thinking about the “best movie fathers”. Knowing that other people have made such lists, I googled the phrase out of curiosity. Boy, was I in for a surprise.

Sure, some of the choices were obvious and reasonable. Who wouldn’t pick the fathers from To Kill a Mockingbird, Bicycle Thieves, and Life is Beautiful? I could even get behind Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire. Those are all good choices, but after those, the lists get crazy. For example, some bright spark at Rolling Stone preferred Don Corleone (The Godfather), Mustafa from The Lion King, Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Marlin in Finding Nemo, and Liam Neeson’s character in Taken. Really? Whoever put the list together either hadn’t seen many movies or tried to appeal to a readership that has only seen summer blockbusters. I stopped perusing lists.

After much deliberation, I decided that my ideal cinematic father would be Donald Crisp,

the epitome of kind, hard-working, steady, loving, wise goodness. Consider him in How Green was my Valley, the film for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube:

Donald Crisp would guard his family from wolves, but in a quietly authoritative, non-violent manner, at least to start with. He’d shoot from the hip if necessary. After all, he served in army intelligence in Britain during WWI and as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves during WWII (by which time he was in his mid-50s). He also played Ulysses S. Grant in D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.

Not a bad likeness!

My runner-up for best father-figure would be Edmund Gwenn, otherwise known as Kris Kringle — the real-life Santa Claus — from Miracle on 34th Street.

I suppose both of my choices might be considered more grandfatherly than fatherly, but in the end I don’t think the distinction is very important. Perhaps younger men have too much else going and have to grow into the role gradually. Or maybe my ideal fathers are getting older as I do.

Whatever your view of fathers, I hope you spend some quality time with the main man in your life this weekend! We’ll attend our Father’s Day brunch at church and then watch Germany play Mexico in the World Cup. England doesn’t play until Monday, and the U.S. didn’t make it into the competition. They shouldn’t feel too bad — Italy and the Netherlands didn’t make it either.

Happy Father’s Day!