We all have that movie that gets us every time.
The one we can’t stop watching no matter how many times we’ve seen it.
The one we own on DVD or have in a streaming queue, but don’t think twice about watching it when it pops up on TV.
It’s so irresistible that we don’t even know how many times we’ve watched it. Ten times? Twenty? No, we’ll have to go with “umpteen” times. And the best part is that during every one of those umpteen times, we still laugh or cry or fall in love all over again. It’s something to be celebrated and that’s what we’re doing with the aptly titled “The Umpteenth Blogathon” hosted by Theresa Brown of “CineMaven’s Essays from the Couch.”
Like many of you, I have a few films that fit into this category. I melt at the music and romance of “Laura” and “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.” I revel in the ghostly poetry of “The Uninvited.” Even with my fear of spiders, I’m there for “Tarantula.” I watch each of those films every chance I get and yes, I own copies of them, too.
But there is one film above all that has the biggest pull on me – one with a train horn that might as well be a dog whistle since I come, sit and stay for another viewing of “Picnic.”
OK, that’s not why I keep watching “Picnic” of course – that would be for the sheer beauty of William Holden and Kim Novak (and to watch that romantic dance again and again). But I still remember that sound from the first time I saw the film as a kid.
It was time for the Sunday afternoon TV movie, a weekly ritual I watched whether I knew the “old” movie it was showing or not. I didn’t know anything about “Picnic,” but it had my attention as soon as the iconic Columbia Pictures logo appeared with the unexpected sound of the train whistle.
It signaled that we were going on a journey and as a kid living in a city neighborhood, trains brought romanticized thoughts of travel to faraway places. Then William Holden jumped out of a freight car and, despite his dirty face and bare feet, I was a goner.
By the end of “Picnic,” I had fallen in love with the film’s romance and nostalgia. (As well as Holden and Novak.) I yearned for that bygone era of 1955 Kansas that I had never experienced with its porch swings, picket fences and a community picnic where people wore their Sunday best. It was a place where there was a “prettiest girl in town” (that would be Madge, played by Novak) and the arrival of a handsome stranger was news.
And I learned that a dance could be truly life changing.
Shot in Technicolor and Cinemascope, it’s gorgeous to look at. And the score by George Duning – especially the main “Picnic” theme – is swoon worthy. (I’m hearing it in my head right now and I’m sighing.)
What I didn’t understand at the time – but have appreciated in the umpteen viewings since – is that the slice of heaven in small-town Kansas was filled with as much longing, broken hearts and disappointment as anywhere else. With each viewing, I am drawn deeper into the characters, who all live lives of quiet desperation.
Watching Forever 