Laura, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

It's on University Avenue in Palo Alto - right downtown, in other words. University Ave has your standard wall-to-wall commercial storefront buildings, and the Stanford is right in the middle of the block. When we go, Subrata usually drives us from Apple. Sometimes we find parking on a surface lot a block or two away; often we end up parking in an underground garage, again only a couple of blocks away. (The garage, by the way, has these amazingly teenie spaces for "small cars". Subrata somehow wedges his Camry into them.)

Since we often go for the evening show, we usually have dinner on University beforehand. For weeks we've been going to World Wrapps, a multiethnic (but, make no mistake, commercial-grade) burrito place that Ceej introduced me to, and which Subrata seems to like fine. They have the distinct advantage of being pretty fast. Tonight, though, we went to Pluto's, which is more a meat-and-potatoes sort of joint, albeit with a yuppie atmosphere. (Everything on University has a yuppie atmosphere.)

The Stanford has an old-style marquee above the door, and even a little box office in front, which you can walk around to either side to get in the doors. In other words, it's an old-style theater, well-maintained. It has a food stand which serves decent popcorn and a good variety of candy, at prices below your typical megaplex prices.

It has a balcony. Many people love the balcony. Me, I'm becoming more of a front-and-center person at the movies, just far back enough that I don't hurt my neck.

The theater has a pipe organ built into it, with terrific sound quality. Someone plays it before and after the 7:30 pm show, usually performing tunes from that evening's and recently-shown movies. One evening they did the old Ellington Orchestra piece, "Take the 'A' Train" - not something you usually hear on an organ.

Unlike the two old theaters back in Madison, the Stanford is in fine repair. I guess it only opened under its current management ten years ago, so I presume it was extensively renovated back then. Even the bathroom plumbing is modern, not vintage equipment being held together for authenticity.

Double features are $6.00 (less for kids, students and seniors). For the most part, there's plenty of seating. People enjoy the films; everyone laughs, and people applaud at the end of the film, and sometimes at really good moments in the middle. The theater owner sometimes has a little speech before the film, usually about the history of the film, or a point about the quality of the print they're showing. He said that they sometimes get prints from a film preservation society, and other times from the studio. Sometimes they get prints from multiple sources and use the best one, but other times (as with An Affair to Remember) the best print is just not very good.

(NPR had a piece a few months ago about film preservation. Some films no longer exist in their original form, because old films don't have much market value. Apparently this includes the original print of Star Wars - unless George Lucas has one secreted away somewhere. That print did not have the subtitle "Episode IV - A New Hope".) The current schedule is about to run out. It's been the 50 most popular films the Stanford has shown since it re-opened a decade ago. I guess the next schedule will be out the beginning of next month.

The first film tonight was Laura (1944), part of the Gene Tierney double feature. In it, a woman is murdered in an apartment, and a police detective (Dana Andrews) investigates, interviewing many of her friends and lovers, including famous columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) and her fiance Shelby Carpenter (a very young-looking Vincent Price, who towers over everyone else in the film!). Tierney plays the title character, and the mystery takes a sudden turn in the middle of the film.

The plot twist was probably a bit of a shock in 1944, but seemed rather obvious to me. Watching Andrews in action is rather amusing, as he plays the deadpan detective quite well. The resolution of the story is a little melodramatic and unbelievable (if you're a policeman who finds the murder weapon - which is pretty much all you need to tie up the case - would you (1) leave it right where it is, or (2) take it down to headquarters immediately?). It's an okay film, but I wasn't bowled over.

The other film was The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, with Mrs. Lucy Muir being played by Tierney, and the Ghost - Captain Gregg - played by the irrepressable Rex Harrison. (An interesting supporting role is Natalie Wood playing Anna Muir - Lucy's daughter - as a child.)

After the death of her husband, Englishwoman Lucy Muir takes her daughter and housekeeper to the seaside where she rents a house overlooking the sea. The house is haunted by the gost of Captain Gregg, who died in an accident and has been watching over the house and has scared off previous tenants. The two of them come to a truce and an agreement early on, and eventually become friends, with the Captain helping Lucy overcome some basic difficulties in being a widow around 1900.

One thing he can't help her with, though, is when she falls in love with author Miles Fairley (played by the amazingly stuffy George Sanders, who had similar roles in Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent), and the Captain decides to go away to leave her in peace.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is actually love story (and must have seemed pretty daring in its day, being as one of the principals is dead), and a highly bittersweet one, as at the end we see the decades pass as Mrs. Muir lives without her friend Captain Gregg, who seemed to be the only one to really understand and accept her. The film does trowel the symbolism and speeches on a bit thick at times, though a lot of this is counterbalanced by the earthy and human outbursts of Tierney and Gregg most of the rest of the time.

I was particularly affected by the passage-of-time sequences (heavy-handedness and all). After the film, Subrata and I talked about this. Unlike him, I lived most of my childhood in one house (and my Mom still lives in that house), and I go back regularly and see how things have changed in my hometown. So I think things like, "Gee, I remember when that travel agency was a Brigham's Ice Cream store, and I loved that place..." And since I don't actually live there, things leaving is much more apparent to me than new things arriving. So a melancholy time-lapse sequence can really twist the knife for me.

This is a pretty melancholy film. It has a happy ending of sorts, but you can't help thinking, "They should have handled their circumstances better than this." I felt a great sense of loss at how things turn out, and I'm not entirely sure that that's the intent of the film.

Tierney and Harrison both do fine jobs in the film; a blustery sea captain, of course, is a fine role for the often-over-the-top Harrison, who scowls and snorts his way through several hilarious scenes.

On another note, I remember watching the TV series based on this story when I was a kid. I recall it as being rather charming, and am kind of interested in seeing it again. I'll have to check TV Grid to see if it's airing around here. I'm pretty sure it was largely a comedy.