Happy Birthday to James Stewart and Cher.
TCM had a day of films to celebrate James Stewart’s birth. I watched The Spirit of St. Louis. It is the story of Charles Lindbergh’s famous flight from New York to Paris. For about an hour it is just James Stewart. Sitting in his plane with his thoughts and his maps. It was riveting. There were a few times that he had flashbacks of his life and those stories would take over, but it is all about James Stewart. To hold an audience like that takes not only tremendous acting talent, but a great director like Billy Wilder. The scenes from the air were beautiful. The icebergs, the Irish country side and Paris at night when the plane landed. I think James Stewart was too old to play the role, but he played the man with such charismatic charm that it worked and eventually Stewart’s age didn’t matter. I have seen the plane at the Smithsonian. I remember thinking it was very small and flimsy and could not imagine how it actually made it all the way to Paris.
I probably first knew of James Stewart from It’s A Wonderful Life. But it was his appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson that I really enjoyed. When he read his poem about his dog, which if I remember right was named Blue, I cried along with James Stewart.
No comments:
Post a Comment