Tonight TCM airs one of the all time classics by anyone’s yardstick, The Wizard of Oz. It’s a movie that occupied a great deal of my childhood imagination as its annual showing was a highlight of each passing year, long before the days of cable and VCRs and DVDs when making sure you were home in front of the tv on Good Friday was your only chance to take in the magic of Oz. And a magical movie it was, and is to this day. It’s also a movie that can easily lead off a list I’ve wanted to do for some time: The First Time I Ever… What does that mean? Let’s start off with The Wizard of Oz and it should be clear.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The first time I ever saw a realistic tornado depicted on film was in The Wizard of Oz. On the making of documentary that came with the DVD, they show how the effect was done using muslin wrapped around a twisting pole and beautifully constructed miniatures. And it’s still the best looking tornado I’ve ever seen. I remember seeing the tornado in Poltergeist in 1982, nothing more than a badly animated blur of black smoke, and I thought, “Over forty years later and that’s the best they can do?” When I saw Twister in the mid-nineties, complete with CGI tornadoes, the reaction wasn’t any different.
The first time I ever saw the fourth wall being broken in a movie was Alfie, 1966. Before Woody Allen did it in Annie Hall, which I think I saw within a couple of years of seeing Alfie on late night tv, Michael Caine was talking to the camera, i.e. the audience, as the title character. He even commented on the existence of the movie itself by reassuring the viewers, after his name appears on the screen, that they wouldn’t have to sit through a bunch of credits now.
The first time I ever saw Bela Lugosi in a non-horror movie role was as Commissar Razinin in Ninotchka. Admittedly, they really weren’t that many non-horror roles for Lugosi period, and when there were they usually made him Russian (his first non-horror Russian character was in the 1933 comedy International House (sorry, no pancakes at the end) as General Petronovich. Still, by the time I finally saw Ninotchka, I had already seen a host of Lugosi horror roles and the idea that he could do something else took me by surprise. Such is the power of typecasting.
The first time I ever saw a silent film was a showing of The Gold Rush on PBS when I was a kid, though it wasn’t quite silent. They were running the version that Chaplin had narrated later on. The first time I saw a silent film that was actually silent was The General, the Buster Keaton masterpiece. Again, it was on PBS. The first time I saw a silent film on the big screen was several years ago when I took in a magnificently restored The Crowd at the AFI in Silver Spring, MD. It was accompanied by an organist playing the original organ score composed for the film.
The first time I ever saw a disaster movie was when my parents took me to see The Poseidon Adventure in 1972. And there’s another first associated with this one too: It was the first grown up movie (well, you know what I mean) I ever saw in a theater. The first movie I ever saw in a theater, period, was apparently Fantasia during one of its many reshowings or perhaps just because the local theater kept a print and showed it from time to time. Anyway, I don’t remember that at all and was always told by my mom that I was terrified Mickey was going to be killed by the brooms.
The first time I ever saw a car chase in a movie, as far as I can recall at least, was the chase in Diamonds are Forever through Las Vegas. Not exactly Bullitt or The French Connection but as a kid I was really impressed that James Bond managed to drive a car on only two wheels.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The first time I ever saw a movie that takes place on a train was Silver Streak and I have loved movies on trains ever since. From The Lady Vanishes and Murder on the Orient Express to both versions of Narrow Margin, and almost any movie with a train in between, from North by Northwest to Continental Divide (though I have standards so let’s not go crazy here), I love the look and feel of a story on a train.
The first time I ever saw nudity on the big screen was in the 1979 Blake Edwards comedy drama 10. Yep, 1979. Up to then I had pretty much stuck with action adventure and sci-fi and comedies like the aforementioned Silver Streak. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it would be. Dudley Moore was far more entertaining. The first time I saw Dudley Moore, by the way, was two years earlier in Foul Play, which is what made me want to see 10 in the first place. 10 made me want to check out Bedazzled and then, after that, anything Moore and Peter Cook had ever done together.
The first time I ever saw an Errol Flynn movie, and it wasn’t in The Adventures of Robin Hood, was when I was sitting in the living room of my parents’ house late one night and flipping through the channels. Everyone had gone to bed and there was still one movie to go before the stations shut down and ran the National Anthem. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, all I can say is the nights will never be the same. Anyway, Captain Blood started and I was absolutely enthralled. There was no VCR in those days so I couldn’t immediately see other Flynn movies, like The Adventures of Robin Hood or The Sea Hawk, but I sure knew I wanted to. I also credit Captain Blood with jump starting a life long love of the adventure film.
The first time I ever saw a movie whose ending genuinely shocked me was I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. So there I am, as in so many of my other stories presented here, watching a classic movie on PBS and thinking from my, at the time, scant knowledge of classic cinema that surely this film would end with justice being served. I thought I knew how movies worked and I was sure that by the end, Paul Muni would be freed in the courts and no longer have to evade authorities after escaping from unjust imprisonment. Wow, was I wrong! If you don’t know the ending, I won’t give it away, but it remains one of the most powerful, and shocking, I’ve ever seen.
Finally, since I’ve mentioned PBS so much here so far, I may as well have it play a central role in my last (for now) “first time ever.” The first time I ever saw a foreign film was a PBS showing of Jean Cocteau’s 1946 Beauty and the Beast. I was captivated from the first moment to the last and once those VCRs did finally come into my life, I rented as many foreign films as I could since so few had ever been shown to me on television.
And this is the first time I’ve ever done a “first time ever” list but I assure you it won’t be the last. I’m always seeing a clip or a still or a movie on tv that makes me think about how it was the first time I ever saw something like it. I have a lot more but I’ll let these ten stand for now. I don’t want to go overboard. After all, it’s my first time.