I accept full responsibility for last week’s goof. My fault. I did it. I’m the one who hit a wrong key and made a very common washday ingredient come out in a whole bunch of different ways. DUX, Dis, Diz, etc., etc., etc.
The word is DUZ. Got it? DUZ. It rhymes with “does,” which makes a catchy little slogan, don’t you see, “DUZ does everything.”
I knew you’d be wondering … what’s wrong with that guy? It’s DUZ.
OK, let’s move on.
I discover more and more fellow movie lovers out there. We get to talking about our favorite movies, and everybody has a favorite or two that most people haven’t noticed yet. Or don’t know why they should see them.
In today’s lesson, I want to discuss two kinds of movies. Some that you watch just because they’re good, and others you need to watch just for one or two special scenes or songs that make the rest of the show worth sitting through.
Let me give you just a few examples of really below ordinary movies that have those special scenes or songs:
Off the top of my head, “The Fleet’s In,” for Jimmy Dorsey’s orchestra with Helen O’Connell and Bob Eberly, and two great songs, “I Remember You” and “Tangerine.”
“Iceland,” for Joan Merrill’s singing of “There Will Never Be Another You.”
Billy Rose’s “Diamond Horseshoe,” for two great, great songs, sung by Dick Haymes, “The More I See You,” and “I Wish I Knew.”
“The Time, the Place, and the Girl.” It stars Dennis Morgan, which is reason enough to run, screaming, to the exit. But hold on. It contains two songs that are worth waiting for: “A Gal in Calico” and “A Rainy Night in Rio.”
“Remember Pearl Harbor.” Republic, the studio that gave us those Saturday afternoon Westerns, rushed this out about two weeks after the event. It starred Don (Red) Barry, who had been Red Ryder in a serial only recently at the Lamar Theater. The story was obviously inspired by the Colin Kelley legend (not factual). He was a hero, but not because he crashed his plane into a Japanese ship. I want to see it again, just to see if it could possibly be as bad as I thought it was. Even my 10-year old brain spotted it as really bad, and I liked nearly everything on the screen.
Tell me if you see it’s going to be on.
Then there are those really good movies that you don’t want to miss, even if you saw them last week.
We have kind of a code. First thing I ask when I walk in is not, “How are you, Honey bucket?” but “Have you checked for any ‘Movies That Must Not be Missed?’”
People tell me about some channel where you can call up or dial up any movie that’s ever been made.
No, no, no. Where’s the sportsmanship? The challenge? The thrill of the hunt? No, we get three or four channels that feature movies, and I can watch over and over again the heroics and tragedies of World War I and other wars. They’re a little short on the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway’s war. Come on, American Heroes Channel. Don’t let me down.
Then there are the great movies that you’ll watch over and over and over. If I run across them, I’m hooked: “The Green Mile,” “Shawshank Redemption,” “Out of the Past,” “State Fair,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Wild Bunch,” “The Cross of Iron,” “The Best Years of Our Lives.”
By the time this is sent in, I’ll have thought of a dozen more that should have been on the list, dozens more.
But let’s stop for now.
Bob Sanders is a veteran local radio personality, columnist, author and raconteur of note. He can be reached at bobbypsanders@netscape.com