08 | August | 2022 | dual personalities

Gotta serve somebody

by chuckofish

Lord, grant us grace, to make Thy goodness our trust: shutting our hearts against pride, our mouths against evil words, our ears against foul knowledge, and using Thy gifts to the promotion of Thy glory and of man’s salvation; for His blessed sake, in Whom we have all and are full and abound, Jesus Christ.
-Christina Rosetti

Many things these dark days are an outright affront to God, such as a drag queen parading down the aisle at Grace Episcopal Church in New York City. I could go on, such examples are everywhere, but what’s the point? They are all trying to provoke us and mock God.

But God will not be mocked and I try not to be provoked.

This past weekend I stayed in my lane by watching movies directed by the great Cecil B. DeMille. First I watched Samson and Delilah (1949) which was a huge box office smash when it came out, the #1 highest grossing film of the year. I have to say, I enjoyed it. Beautiful Hedy Lamarr, as Delilah, stole the show from Victor Mature, who doesn’t have the personality to match her…

…but they are well supported by George Sanders, Henry Wilcoxon, Angela Lansbury et al. The screenplay sticks to the biblical story fairly closely until the end when they soften up Delilah quite a bit. The real Delilah never had a second thought for Samson or a moment of guilt. (I will add that a drag queen would have gone unnoticed in this film and maybe there’s a point to be made there.)

Next I watched Reap the Wild Wind (1942), a technicolor historical romance directed by DeMille and starring John Wayne, Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, and a giant squid.

It is a good movie featuring all the bells and whistles–sets, costumes, music, a great cast, and lots of action–but it suffers somewhat because, I’m sorry, the audience is rooting for John Wayne, but he isn’t the hero! He does a bad thing and has to die, doing a good thing, killed by that giant squid. Paulette Goddard has to settle for Ray Milland. Sigh.

Both these movies have very strong female characters at the center and both are appealingly played. Points to Mr. DeMille.

My plan was to watch The Buccaneer (1938) which I have never seen. It stars Frederic March as Jean Lafitte…

…who one imagines is very different from Yul Brynner who played Lafitte in the 1958 remake. But I haven’t gotten to watch it yet since I was sidetracked on Sunday night when we went to see the boy play in his Men’s Lacrosse League championship playoff.