TCM played the 1940 movie version of ‘Our Town‘ this morning. I’d ‘heard’ of it of course, every high school in America at one time has done a production of it. It was written by one Thornton Wilder (1897-1975). I’d ‘heard’ of him too of course, but that was it. You could have held a gun to my head and I might have been able to tell you that Wilder was a writer. Turns out he wrote ‘The Bridge of San Luis Rey‘ and ‘Our Town’. Quite the playwright as I understand it.

All I saw of the movie was the last 15 or 20 minutes. That’s all it took for me. Wonderful story. I can’t repeat that enough: wonderful story. The movie as near as I can tell did a great job with it. It was obviously “stagey”, but in a good way. I just love good sets and well done paintings. Anyone with a normal upbringing is going to be shaking their head at my ignorance of such a well known play. That’s the way it is sometimes. There are many others like me.

I would have guessed that the playwright had “died before the war”, many moons ago. Not so. He lived until 1975, which is about the year our high school put it on. Several thoughts came to mind while watching the movie set in Grover’s Corners, NH (pop. 2,642). The first was when the happy couple runs up the aisle after the wedding in the church. You’re looking at the altar as the people in the pews would. It’s a blank wall. There’s no Cross. What church on this earth does not have a cross on the altar? Only a Hollywood church.

As the stage manager takes us through the cemetery, there’s not one gravestone with a cross on it. Go through any cemetery and not see crosses. I don’t get it. This play above all plays is capturing Americana, and they want to deny America’s religion? I don’t get it. The other thing that occurred to me as the credits rolled, how many movies over how many years have I watched on TCM?

How many times have I seen them put on the sick and twisted ‘Double Indemnity’? Or something equally as depraved from Bette Davis? Or Hollywood glamorizing gangster life with James Cagney? Edward G. Robinson? And a lot of overacting? Garbage in garbage out. There is nothing redeeming about the movies they usually show. Nothing good for the spirit. Nothing uplifting. Nothing that inspires the human soul. On a rare occasion they do.

We live in a sick and twisted world. How did it get that way? Was it partly because of the sewage Hollywood marinates our brain in? We don’t need that. Just read the headlines, it’s a nonstop diary of man’s inhumanity to man. We don’t need Taxi Driver. We don’t need Silence of the Lambs. Leastways not on a continuing non-stop basis. There’s nothing wrong with good. I like good. I love good.

Maybe balance is good. But the steady diet of filth that Hollywood regurgitates and by extension TCM, that’s not good. That’s not balance. I have never seen Our Town on TCM in 30 years. Does that mean they’ve never played it? No. But it does mean something fishy is going on when I’ve seen them schedule Double Indemnity over 30 times. Or ditto for Treasure of the Sierra Madres.

How much other really quality stuff is out there that I’ll never see? Because TCM is the garbage man? Let’s have a mix. How many times have they shown the entertaining but nonetheless drivel, My Fair Lady? Gazillions! But you know a musical no one showed until 40 years after its release? West Side Story. Why was that? It was easily on par with My Fair Lady. Yet one is shown hundreds of times and one not at all? (until at least 2003)

Both types of movies are just playacting. Pretend. But I really can’t believe they do not affect the human soul, one way or another.