This being the first time this has happened since Hamfist moved in, he had some questions - can you imagine, he'd never seen the whole thing! You should have seen his face when I told him how long it is. Mostly, he wondered why this is the one I watch every time. Why not, say, "The Sound of Music"? Of course I'd never given that any conscious though before...
"Sound of Music" I'll still watch in its entirety IF the night it's showing happens to coincide with a night I'm wrapping Christmas gifts; those two things go together like chocolate and peppermint for some reason. Otherwise, meh; we had the record of the soundtrack when I was a kid, and between that and the frequent viewings I pretty much have the thing memorized, so there's not all that much point. "Wizard of Oz", similarly, I can pretty much recite verbatim, but I still might leave it on if I chance across it, depending on mood. "It's a Wonderful Life" - Jimmy Stewart is always adorable, but it doesn't hold my attention. So why this one?
Well, for starters, Yul Brynner was a stone fox in those days. And that resonant bass voice intoning "So let it be written, so let it be done" - not quite often enough to make for a really good drinking game, although maybe that's for the best considering the film's duration - woof. For another thing, Anne Baxter's Nefertiri is everything anyone ever needs to know about high camp. Every gesture, every word, just that leeetle bit exaggerated - I checked, sure enough she had an extensive stage background - delicious.
But mostly I think it's the sheer scale of the thing. I remember the first time I saw it; my parents found its broadcast important enough that we spent the evening with our friends who had a big color TV (yeah, we didn't get one ourselves until the late 70s. LAME). I was no more than 8, already going through my first obsession with ancient Egypt, and easily seduced by pageantry and tinsel, but too young to be hypercritical about the already-dated special effects. To this day, I see something new every time in the big exodus scene with everyone leaving Egypt, and I imagine how cool it must have been to be one of the extras. They'll never film another scene like that again, mark my words; too easy to make it look cool with 30 actors and some CGI, but I'm sorry, that does NOT pack the same punch.
Now that I'm really thinking about the thing, I had to sniff around a little, and learned something I hadn't known before: Yvonne deCarlo, who played Moses' wife Sephora, and the character with whom I've always most identified, also played Lilly in "The Munsters", which was a huge childhood fave of mine! Now THAT is range, people. It gives me an entirely new appreciation for her.
I've realized another thing I always loved about Sephora, and her sisters: Their hair. With my renewed dedication to "setting my hair free" as the Russians say, these days I see long hair everywhere, and now I know why the scene where all the sisters (except modest Sephora, who got the guy in the end - hah!) dance before Moses so he'll choose one of them to marry is my other favorite. All those waist-and-longer heads swirling around - glorious! And you know those were real, not extensions. It was the mid-50s after all, and the girls were rocking those long beatnik ponytails. Sometimes I wonder whether those parts were cast on the basis of hair length. I bet it was at least a consideration.
I've been saving the embarrassing admission for last: I was in my mid-30s before I put it together that this movie is not shown at Eastertime every year. Yes, it usually happens to fall around Easter, but that is not the holiday it commemorates, now is it?? I didn't have to admit that, you know.
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