movies you have to watch

One of my all-time favourite movies is The Great Escape. When it came on television I would watch it. Every time. It could be at the beginning, middle, near the end. It did not matter. I would watch it. I would do my homework to it, humming along to the music. I could be on my way to play outside, I would invite my friends over to "play" so I could watch the film.

I am huge fan of Steve McQueen (as an actor) and James Garner. McQueen was a fantastic actor: The Sand Pebbles, LeMans, The Magnificent Seven, The Blob, Papillon, The Hunter and many more. Garner too: The Rockford Files, Maverick, Decoration Day, Grand Prix, and many comedic roles. There are many other fantastic actors in The Great Escape as well: Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Donald Pleasence, Hannes Messemer, Angus Lennie, and many more.

garner as flight lieutenant robert hendley being stopped in his attempts to "scrounge" something (scrounged from tv-spoty.info)

I even cut up a sweatshirt to look like McQueen's character: Captain Virgil Hilts. I still have it. The characters in the film were influenced by real-life people. Some were compilations, some outright grafting of prisoners of Stalag Luft III. These people were inspirational in their desire to escape and return to the fight for freedom. I myself found it inspiring, rousing, exhilarating.

mcqueen and the sweatshirt (lifted from pinterest.com)

So, when VHS came along and we finally got a player, the first movie I ever bought was, you guessed it, The Great Escape. Then, when DVD came out, I got a DVD copy. Then a deluxe version came out years later, I got that too. I still have all three. I used to travel with the tape or disc to have something to watch, just in case if there was nothing else to do. 

A funny thing, even though I had a copy on tape, then DVD, I would still watch it when it came on television. It had a svengali-like hold on me. The wife would look at me and ask: "Don't you have a copy of this movie?" "Yes." "Why don't you put it on then and watch it from the beginning and skip the commercials?" "I don't know?!" She thought it was the weirdest thing. I guess it was kind of odd. For whatever reason, if I came across it on cable tv, I just sat down and watched it, running to the kitchen at commercial breaks for snacks, or the bathroom to pee, or what have you; yelling over my shoulder to tell me if it came back on while I was out of the room.

Now, the wife for all her bemusement with this curiosity, had a film with a similar effect her : The Cutting Edge. She was not so fanatical as myself, but she would watch it when it came on television. It is not a particularly stellar film and the wife knows that, but it still captivated her for some unknown magical reason. So, a familiar conversation would ensue as with my loyalty to The Great Escape: "Don't you have a copy of this movie?" "Yes." "Why don't you put it on then and watch it from the beginning and skip the commercials?" "I don't know?!"

Well, there you have it. I suspect everyone has a film or television show, that when an unexpected opportunity to view it arises, they will be taken in its hold and revel in it. For some, it may be a guilty pleasure; to others, like myself, some unexplainable devotion. The wife and I have not had cable television for many years, resulting from a boycott due to poor relations and customer service with the local cable company, but every now and again if we are somewhere where there is piped in programming and our "show" is on, forget it, we are lost. It is a fascinating phenomenon, is it not?

the wife's catnip (ultimately courtesy of mgm.com)