Waiting for the rain (again) and after a decent swim, am watching a re-run of the WWII film “The Longest Day.”

It is Memorial Day weekend, and for a variety of perfectly good reasons, I thought I would check in to the time machine that lives behind the flat screen in the living room. I went through a list of mlitary-themed candidate films- MASH to Sands of Iwo Jima, but settled on WWII era.

“The Longest Day” is about the invasion of Normandy. Everyone who was anyone in the world film community was in the cast when it was filmed back in the Sixties. I remember going to the walk-in theater to see it fifty years ago when it was new, and still knew a couple old codgers who had actually been at Normandy in 1944 to see it in Technicolor.

Visiting this film is time travel in a way that is quite remarkable. But let me circle back on that thought in a moment.

This holiday weekend I decided to take a break from my usual weekend PGA golf tournament (which in turn is a break from the non-stop and lamentable political circus here in DC) and when the third round was done, decided to not go back to what passes for news these days. Too depressing.

I was in desperate need to put all that partisan stuff aside, and still aching from the first swim of the new season, I thought I would commit the act of watching a movie. It took a few minutes before I realized there was nothing modern I either knew about or cared to see. That resulted in another one of those epiphanies in the arc of life.

After some fumbling around with multiple remotes, I wound up on one of the classic channels (Starz) that specialize in channels with genre-themed content. I briefly blanched at the idea of watching an ancient Western, but warmed to the idea of watching the third of Director John Ford’s ‘Cavalry Trilogy’ series. “Rio Grande,” featuring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, was their first screen appearance together. Real chemistry.

it seemed to fit my mood, since the film has everything: wild cavalry and equestrian scenes in John Ford’s Monument Valley, amazing characters, and stalwart reflections of values way out of favor with the fashion of the moment today.

It also appealed to me personally. Driving across country years ago on one of those Intra-coastal Navy Change of Station endurance exercises, I was solo in the spare car and struck off I-Whatever to drive as much of the old RT-66 as remained. It was America’s Highway, Chicago to SoCal. Cool stuff is there still, concrete tee-pees and dinosaur attractions that were shabby, but still very cool. If you like that milieu, of course.

Which I do.

I could see the rugged terrain John Ford liked. I was tired, having driven out of San Diego that morning, and on impulse, swerved off the old Mother Road and stayed at a Motor Hotel that the Hollywood studios had once kept stocked for the rotating casts of the motion picture productions that filmed westerns there.

Yeah, John and Maureen drank there….right there…and some old barflies still remembered the times when The Stars transferred their magic to motels on Americas’s highways.

Anyway, just a note about the film, in case, like me, politics is getting your goat. The screenplay of Rio Grande has everything (which today would cause riots if shown on campus). Here is a sample:

Duty, Honor, Country.
Hostile Apache’s to be captured or killed.
Vast sweeping angle shots of mounted horsemen thundering across the desert.
Kidnapping of US Cavalry dependents
The casual invasion of Mexico
Drunk Irish Master Sergeants and Indians
Phil Freaking Sheridan himself in his Indian Fighting uniform
Smoldering passion in Maureen’s eyes for The Duke
The whole Civil War culture that Hollywood thought remained in the Indian Fighting Army of the long-ago day
The Sons of the Pioneers quartette crooning with featured scenes throughout.
The closing credits with the strains of “Dixie” ringing out with the amazing hills and mesas all around.

In my analysis, there is not a politically correct moment in the entire 100 minutes of running time. Now I understand Mom and Dad a bit better and why they did the things they did.

Things like the Turner Classic Movie Channel, which Mom watched for hours as Dad dozed. It is no wonder that today we are suffering from profound cognitive dissonance. Half of us would seek safe places against this depiction of reality.

The other half would cheer.

“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” was next on STARZ- Jimmy Stewart and the Duke- (Paramount, another John Ford). I considered my options. Could it be Duke overload, I wondered? I watched it anyway.

Do you recall there was a time when Hollywood liked liked America? If so, it was long ago.

It was interesting for me to visit that time. For those who did not grow up with it, or maybe only for those who did, it is no surprise none of this makes sense.

Copyright 2018 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com