Since we were on the subject of movies, and I can't fall asleep yet...

They were my passion. And from my 8th year... I was allowed to go to the movies on Saturday afternoons, and those were double features. Only 35 cents! But I had to earn the money myself if I wanted to go.

My parents didn't have anything to spare, and it was a lesson in learning about the world. 'You may go, but I'm afraid you will have to earn the admission price for yourself.'

And that was fine.... it was good for me, long term.

So I found ways to earn money. Our block had a lot of elderly people, and I would run errands for them, and it was easy to get my movie money. It worked quite well, until... well will save that for now.

I got nightmares after seeing the original 'Invasion from Mars', and got grounded, no movies for two weeks. (Tee-vee never interested me.)

But ONE day, I got into the double-feature to beat all double features: 'The Devil at Four O'Clock' with Spencer Tracy, Frank Sinatra, and gawwd knows who else.. Everything a ten year old would love completely. An impending vulcano explosion, an orphan village that needed to be evacuated, it was heroic, tragic, and ultimately satisfying, and I would have paid fifty cents to see it. And it had to be about two and a half hours long, because there was a luminous clock in the theater, and I knew I had to be home by five p.m. But I friggin' earned my double feature, and remained inside. To see 'Town Without Pity'. With Kirk Douglas, and Christine Kaufmann, and a mess of stellar people.

It began with scenes of a town in Germany. And during the occupation. And a young girl gets raped by a G.I. And the town basically support the occupiers, and make the girl the culprit. That was the beginning, mind you.

Whereupon it was after five p.m, and the Venerable virtually dragged me out of the movie theater, and I weakly only had the alibi that I hadn't been watching the clock inside. (I had, but it was 'oh, what is going to happen NEXT films, you know?? Just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes...)

And all I could do was say, 'Hey, they were very looonnnng movies...'. Till I betrayed myself. Inadvertantly, because I was trying to understand that in my tiny mind???

And blurted out, 'Well, at least now I understand what rape is about....'

The Venerable choked on whatever it was we were eating and was speechless.

And Mom gave me two week's house arrest. No more movies. It was torture. For me, at least...

But they didn't lecture me. And they certainly didn't tell me about 'the birds and the bees'. They were speechless. They probably decided then and there that I was a changeling.

Back then, there were things that they wouldn't tell a 12 year old. Although they should have.

It took me thirty years to finally see how that film ended. It held up, and was very interesting, and well-acted.

It also took me over thirty years to catch up with 'The Snake Pit', which my step-mom also saw on a date with my father before she married him, and she really freaked out over it. It wasn't very good, but Olivia de Havilland made me laugh.

Movies can be a sort of telling thing in your life, and affect you, or just so superficial you forget most of them.

Thanks for taking interest in my odd fixations, and have to get sleep. Have a bus to catch tomorrow, and am not interested in flipping out right now... So I went mind-surfing, and I don't know why that stuff turned up.

Gene Pitney for a re-fresher. It was in the film score.