Sunday, August 13, 2006

Sick in the head


A few weeks ago, my children were sick with headcolds. The majority of symptoms cleared up, but the boys had nagging coughs that plagued them mostly at night. I was feeling kind of smug that I hadn't caught the virus when I heard that M, the children's father, had come down with it right before his beach vacation. But now, my body has finally given up fighting and I am consumed with the sore throat, stuffy head, coughing, sneezing and general malaise. The boys are having a relapse, I guess, since the coughing has worsened and they have had sporadic fevers. I'm sure it didn't help my recovery that I stayed up past midnight watching Alfred Hitchcock's Anatomy of a Murder with Jimmy Stewart. I must have had an "irresistble impulse" which caused this "insanity". It was two hours and forty minutes long, but very good all the way through. Hollywood has definitely lost it's touch, but then again, I'm partial to anything with Stewart or by Hitchcock. I was especailly surprised by the use of such words as "spermogenesis, panties" and "rape" in this film. You just don't hear that kind of mature language in those oldies very often. Oh and here's another reason to check out this old film, Duke Ellington does the entire soundtrack! (And there's a pretty good scene of swing dancers in action too.)

If you have seen Anatomy, I'd love to hear if you thought Manion was really guilty or not.There are still a lot of unanswered questions at the end.


**errata: Anatomy of a Murder is NOT an Alfred Hitchcock film, it was directed by Otto Preminger...I guess I assumed it was so because Netflix had it listed with all my favorite Hitchcock movies as a recommendation. My apologies for the misinformation.