dual personalities

I was sad to hear about James Caan passing away. He was one of my first movie star crushes. When I saw El Dorado (1966) when I was ten or eleven years old, I thought he was the coolest. I still do.

Yes, most people will remember him for starring in The Godfather (1972) but he had a long career and was a working actor right up to the end. I’m sure he knew he was pretty lucky to have gotten the chance to appear in a western with the Duke and Robert Mitchum, directed by Howard Hawks. For a few years he even took time off to ride in the rodeo circuit. Like Dean Martin, he loved being a cowboy.

I just watched El Dorado very recently so I will have to watch something else in memory of James Caan. Maybe this Civil War classic, which you will be happy to know is available to watch in its entirety on Youtube:

Besides Caan (in a wig)…

…Journey to Shiloh boasts some other soon-to-be-famous actors (including Harrison Ford) and a lot of old reliables, but even as a twelve-year-old, I knew it was pretty bad. My brother and his friend Randy went with my sister and me to see Journey to Shiloh at the Tivoli Theater and fifteen or so minutes into it Randy was so disgusted with the film that he wanted to leave. No one else wanted to go, so he marched out the side exit door in a huff. We did not hear him banging on the door and yelling to let him back in (he was just kidding) so he had to walk home to our house, where he talked to our mother until we returned when the movie was over. It was a real Eddy Haskell moment and we thought it was hilarious.

In other entertainment news, last week the OM and I watched all eight episodes of the new Amazon series The Terminal List starring Chris Pratt, because the OM is obsessed with Jack Carr (who wrote the books on which the series is based) and had been waiting with baited breath for months for the series to be released.

I wanted to like it, but I just couldn’t. (He enjoyed it.) The story is about a former Navy SEAL officer investigating why his entire platoon was ambushed during a high-stakes covert mission and then methodically wreaking vengeance on all the bad guys involved. There is no moral to this story and (spoiler alert) the hero does not pay for his crimes. Call me old-fashioned, but I have a problem with that. Regarding vengeance, let’s remember what the Bible says–leave room for God’s wrath (Romans 12:19).

I also started watching season two of Only Murders in the Building starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez. It is much more “me” and it is off to a good start.

My only old movie recommendation is Westward the Women (1951) which I watched on TCM. I had seen it 50 years ago on television, but not since. Directed by William Wellman, it tells the story of a trail guide (Robert Taylor) who escorts a group of women from Chicago to California in 1851 so that they can marry men that have recently begun settling there.

It was not nearly as melodramatic or sex-filled as the poster suggests (of course). Indeed, the story by Frank Capra and the screenplay by Charles Schnee focuses on the hardships endured and the determination needed by the women in order to go West for a better life. I was actually moved to tears several times. Really. I thought it was excellent–quelle surprise.

What have you been watching?