by Jill McWhinnie

One thing my mother and I always agreed on was James Garner – the tall, dark, handsome star of the old western series, Maverick. As the wily, witty, gun-shy Bret Maverick, Garner was, in both our estimations, simply the most appealing character on TV in the 1950s and 60s.

My mother was something of an expert in these matters, having been a movie fan since her teenage years in the 1920s, when silent films cast their spell in small town theatres on Saturday afternoons, creating magical worlds full of handsome heroes and beautiful heroines. My star-struck mother would write  fan letters  to those paragons of the silent screen, and would receive large brown envelopes containing autographed photos of the stars and gracious, personal notes thanking her for her  interest in their films. 

I still have the envelopes, and the pictures. My  mother has been dead  for 30 years but whenever I look at the old photographs,  I can  imagine her  teenage excitement, coming home from school to find the envelopes from Hollywood waiting. 

Long-forgotten names; Rod La Rocque, Richard Dix, Charles Farrell (my mother was president of his Canadian fan club),  Mary Pickford, Vilma Banky, Louise Fazenda; smile out  from black and white photos 80 years old.  The male stars often pose holding pipes, the women look strangely alike with pencilled brows, marcelled hair and tiny, cupid bow lips. 

Lois Wilson includes a note that The Great Gatsby is to be her first film with her “bobbed head appearance” which she hopes her fans will like. She confides that she is not a bit sorry that she had her hair cut. Vilma Banky writes that she has just completed The Night of Love with Mr. Ronald Colman and she and Mr. Colman are now making The Magic Flame.

While The Night of Love and other  classics of their day no doubt  disintegrated  in their canisters long ago,  the magic they created  for my mother  led to a life-long fascination with Hollywood,  “the movies” and “the stars”,  which  in turn, she  imparted to me. 

Some of my earliest  memories  were of  watching the films of Hollywood’s “Golden Era” – the 1930s and 1940s – on  black and white TV, and no matter how many times we saw the movie, it was always worth watching again.

Then came the Golden Age of Television – the late 50s and  1960s: the  westerns – Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Maverick, the British history adventure shows like Robin Hood and The Buccaneers, World War II action shows – Combat and Rat Patrol,  the suspenseful  Twilight Zone, the scary  Outer Limits and  the wonderful,  original,  Star Trek. 

Over the years  I’d tried to recall  details of the episodes and characters, wishing I could see the old shows again. Enter DVD box sets which made a whole television series available on a few attractively packaged metal discs.

Rat Patrol - the first and second season!  I was in grade 9 when it was first shown. Kung Fu – the complete series!  It had been 30 yeas since I’d heard David Carradine called Grasshopper.  Alias Smith and Jones – the delightful, Maverick-style western of the early 1970s – the charm and humour of the young stars, Pete Duel and Ben Murphy, was as fresh as ever.

I began to wonder why it was so much fun re-discovering these old shows. Sure they were great entertainment, but was there something else going on as well?

“It’s like visiting old friends when we watch classic movies and television,” said John Barthel, proprietor of Vintage Video on Markham Street in Toronto, which stocks classic, rare and hard to find movies from the 1930s-1960s, as well as classic  television shows and original movie memorabilia.

“Our clientele ranges in age from 30 to 80,” said John, who has operated the shop for 22 years. “Watching old movies and television shows makes people remember days gone by. In some sense they can return to the past.  Mature viewers  are fed up with the garbage on TV now – reality shows,  rudeness, the desensitizing violence of crime shows. Classic movies, especially musicals,  return us to a gentler time of life- they make us feel good .” 

I asked  John about some of the shop’s best sellers.  “Jimmy Stewart and Humphrey Bogart are always popular, High Noon is one of the best selling westerns, The Three Stooges are still in demand in comedy. The Munsters is one of the most popular TV titles. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the British Hammer Horror Collection are also big sellers.”

Hammer Horror Films were one thing that my mother and I did not agree on. Every Friday at 11:30 p.m., channel 7 would show a Hammer film – Curse of Frankenstein, Brides of Dracula, Horror of Frankenstein etc. I still  recall being glued to the set as my mother  walked  through the living room with her evening tea, casting a withering glance at the flickering television, saying “How can you watch this?” 

I asked John what accounted for his  22-year fascination with the classic movie business. “I grew up watching movies. My fondest memories are of movies. There’s something so magical about watching movies!” On that point, John, my mother and I would all agree.

Categories: Features
Tags: