Delectations

Baby, it’s cold outside. A driving mid-February ice storm lashes the building, and brrrh!, it’s cold inside too. Ronald Colman and party are staggering the last few windswept feet to the entrance of the magical valley they call Shangri-La. . . . It’s still cold, but tonight is clear, the roads plowed and sanded. Inside Mr. Micawber (W. C. Fields) comforts a forlorn Freddy Bartholomew. We can relax. The worst is over. Basil Rathbone will not beat David Copperfield again. . . . The lights have come on too fast. Judy Garland has just caught sight of Gene Kelly, the doughboy draft dodger returned a hero from the wars, in the audience. She rushes down. They embrace. “The Bells Are Ringing,” they sing. Firecrackers! Flag! Hurrah for the Red, White and Blue, and everybody weeps. . . . Into the night walk Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains as the plane that carries Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid from Casablanca to safety disappears into the distance to the background refrain of “As Time Goes By.”

Sing it again, Sam. Play it again, Sam and hey, someone, why can’t we see it all again—all of them, all those entrancing movies they were turning out in the Thirties and Forties—minus cuts, minus commercial breaks, at a more convenient hour than 11:30 P.M.?

PL

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Priscilla L. Buckley

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Baby, it’s cold outside. A driving mid-February ice storm lashes the building, and brrrh!, it’s cold inside too. Ronald Colman and party are staggering the last few windswept feet to the entrance of the magical valley they call Shangri-La. . . . It’s still cold, but tonight is clear, the roads plowed and sanded. Inside Mr. Micawber (W. C. Fields) comforts a forlorn Freddy Bartholomew. We can relax. The worst is over. Basil Rathbone will not beat David Copperfield again. . . . The lights have come on too fast. Judy Garland has just caught sight of Gene Kelly, the doughboy draft dodger returned a hero from the wars, in the audience. She rushes down. They embrace. “The Bells Are Ringing,” they sing. Firecrackers! Flag! Hurrah for the Red, White and Blue, and everybody weeps. . . . Into the night walk Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains as the plane that carries Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid from Casablanca to safety disappears into the distance to the background refrain of “As Time Goes By.”

Sing it again, Sam. Play it again, Sam and hey, someone, why can’t we see it all again—all of them, all those entrancing movies they were turning out in the Thirties and Forties—minus cuts, minus commercial breaks, at a more convenient hour than 11:30 P.M.?