Norma Desmond Strikes Again

As TNC regulars know, I often visit and write about Crete, where I was lucky/  foresighted enough to buy a tiny traditional village house over twenty years ago, for the (then) price of a new car.

Staying there for weeks at a time (EU permitting), I always digitally detox. Occasionally in the evenings, however, I crave a bit of light entertainment, so I have a miniature DVD player with a built-in screen and a large selection of DVDs – all second-hand ones taken out by my mother many years ago. Few inspire me to get the player out, except the brilliant Some Like It Hot and the children’s sci-fi adventure Flight of the Navigator.

This week, though, I had an idea. Why not assemble my own collection of films that I know I can watch over and over again (and return my mother’s eclectic collection to the charity shop where many truly belong)? As I travel with hand luggage only, I found an old zipped CD case with plastic pockets so that DVDs can be decanted from their bulky cases. This also dictated how many DVDs could form my new library – 25, since you ask. I don’t intend to produce a Volume Two, as watching films on holiday really isn’t my thing at all.

It was fun racking my brain thinking which 25 films to select. To help, I set the rule that all must be stand-alone original films without must-see prequels or sequels, and that modern remakes were definitely excluded. Surprisingly, this entertaining task took less than an hour, as did cheaply acquiring them all second-hand (from Music Magpie and eBay). Since you will be wondering, the total was circa £60 including p&p, with only two apparently somewhat rare and costing more than £5 each: Death Becomes Her and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Have you seen these comedy classics?

The point of this article is that, unless I’m an oddity (no comments required), my list was quite revealing – let me explain:

Out of 25 films, seven are black-and-white, dating from 1939 to 1959. The colour ones date from 1939 to the present day, but a mere two of these are from the current century. I found this quite an eye-opener on so many levels – perhaps what follows explains why.

First, I haven’t been a regular cinema-goer for over twenty years, so my exposure to ‘new’ films has been limited to reading reviews, browsing the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and chance finds in charity shops. Mostly the sight of their hundreds of randomly shelved DVDs deters browsing, and I gravitate instead towards the far fewer boxed TV series. I also cannot abide sitting in a cinema surrounded by people noisily stuffing their faces with food and drink, with mobile phones randomly going off. Back in the days when I still had terrestrial TV, it was already getting rarer for films to be broadcast – and these were often very late at night, frequently repeats. Even the promised ‘Christmas Blockbuster Film’ was typically some rubbish that I’d pay good money to avoid.

Secondly, pure entertainment/escapism via the medium of cinema has, in my opinion, been thoroughly downgraded into unsubtle woke preaching, inauthentic multicultural casting, pointless remakes, and poorly considered money-spinning prequels and sequels. It has also gone overboard with the superhero genre, which surely should appeal only to children and adult children. The late Barry Norman, I’m sure, would have put it better.

Cinema used to be all about escapism. We could do with double or triple helpings of that now, but will undoubtedly only get it by looking backwards. I make no apology that my personal ‘top 25’ are predominantly comedies with lashings of camp. Only a small handful might be considered ‘serious dramas’; a few are even children’s films, and a very small handful are musicals (but with good storylines).

Please do draw up your own ‘top 25’ list – I highly recommend it. I wonder how many TNC readers’ choices will mirror my own? Might I have overlooked a classic or two?

Black-and-White

1. The Cat and the Canary (1939) 
2. Casablanca (1942) 
3. Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) 
4. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) 
5. Passport to Pimlico (1949) 
6. The Third Man (1949) 
7. Some Like It Hot (1959)

Colour

8. The Wizard of Oz (1939) 
9. Blithe Spirit (1945) 
10. The Ladykillers (1955) 
11. Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) 
12. Cabaret (1972) 
13. The Man Who Would Be King (1975) 
14. Time Bandits (1981) 
15. Flight of the Navigator (1986) 
16. Withnail & I (1987) 
17. Overboard (1987) 
18. A Handful of Dust (1988) 
19. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988) 
20. Death Becomes Her (1992) 
21. Muriel’s Wedding (1994) 
22. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) 
23. Evita (1996) 
24. Stardust (2007) 
25. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Try not to judge me too unfairly!

Joe Gillis: Wait a minute, haven’t I seen you before? I know your face.

Norma Desmond: Get out! Or shall I call my servant?

Joe Gillis: You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.

Norma Desmond: I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.

NB Gloria Swanson played Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950). This isn’t on my list, but maybe it should be?

Martin Rispin has had a career in many different sectors, most lately in the fields of English Tourism and Heritage based Urban Regeneration. He now lives, retired, in Kingston upon Hull.

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