dual personalities

A new month, a new calendar page and the end of summer in sight. For those of us in this flyover state it has not been a bad summer weather-wise. Indeed, we have had lovely long stretches of Michigan-esque weather. By this time, usually, we are counting the days ’til fall, but not this year. I am in no hurry for school to be back in session full throttle. I plan to enjoy the dog days that are left of summer 2013.

The August TCM star of the month is old Humphrey Bogart, film idol and Episcopalian.

As I’ve mentioned before, my mother had a preference for Warner Brothers stars, such as Bogart and Errol Flynn, because she went to see all those movies at the Lewis J. Warner ’28 Memorial Theater at Worcester Academy (which I blogged about here). Like my mother, I feel that same thrill when the Warner Brothers logo appears and their rousing theme is played at the beginning of all their movies. TCM is not showing anything that I haven’t seen a million times and my favorite Bogart film, The Petrified Forest, is not on the line-up, but oh well. They are all still better than anything you’ll see on network television–reruns and commercials!

Tonight, however, they are showing my second-favorite Bogart film Key Largo, which is also one of my all-time favorite movies. I just saw it again recently and it really is fabulous. John Huston and Bogart were a good team and the star is at his best, ably supported by Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor and Lauren Bacall. So be sure to tune in or (at the very least) set your DVR.

August 1 is also the birthday of Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891), American writer and author, of course, of Moby-Dick.

This would be a great month to read the great book! You know you’ve been meaning to. Here’s a little something to get you in the mood.

“There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:– through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’s doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.”

August 1 is the birthday as well of Jerome Moross (August 1, 1913 – July 25, 1983) who composed works for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, soloists, musical theatre, and movies. He also orchestrated motion picture scores for other composers. His best known film score is that for the 1958 movie The Big Country, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Original Music Score.

The winner that year in that category was The Old Man and the Sea, scored by Dimitri Tiomkin. Hold the phone! Are you kidding me? Jerome Moross was robbed! But why am I never surprised? Anyway, you might want to watch that movie–it’s a good one. It misses being a great western because of the annoying plot and the super annoying character played by Carol Baker. Nevertheless, it has some great people in it: Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Jean Simmons, and Burl Ives (who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor). And the score is probably the best ever.

So here’s to a good August filled with great movies and great books! Let’s all have a good one.