Early and Gray with No Chance of Enforcement

An evocative dream, the kind you have to shake off 'cause it feels so real, woke me up around 6:30 this morning and the first thing I noticed was the cloudy sky through my bedroom window. As much as I love summer, all that grayness felt like the most beautiful thing in the world to wake up to. It's mid-August and I guess sunshine is getting a little tiresome.

With barely five hours sleep, I should have just rolled over and gone back to sleep. Instead I decided to get up, put on a robe and go sit on my back porch to take in the clouds and the cool. It was such a treat of a morning, but I can't remember the last time I was up so early.

The problem with starting my day at that ungodly hour was that by mid-morning I was looking for something to do; I'd walked, I'd worked out, I'd read the Washington Post. That's how I ended up at the movies once more, this time to see 1961's The Hustler. It was by far the most male-dominated audience I'd seen at a Movies and Mimosas screening.

Color me oblivious yet again, but I was caught off guard by how handsome the young Jackie Gleason and George C. Scott had been. Paul Newman we all know was born gorgeous, but the others I knew only as older men and in this film, they were clearly in their prime. Jackie Gleason could have been a poster child for handsome fat men everywhere. And he definitely made drinking look sexy.

Most striking to me of everything about the movie was how little of it was scored. Huge lengths of the film were completely silent except for whatever dialog or action there was. Even the sound effects of doors closing and footsteps were muted; bustling pool halls were full of silent men. Music, when it was used, was all the more striking after so much hush. To me, it added a sense of expectancy to the story.

I should have anticipated that there would be a romantic subplot, but didn't. Piper Laurie's Method acting was a bit over the top for my taste, and her helmet hairdo was awful, but when it was important, she convincingly played a woman very much in love.

Sarah: I love you.
Fast Eddie: You need the words?
Sarah: Yes, I need them very much. If you ever say them, I'll never let you take them back.

Call me a hopeless romantic, but I have to wonder how she would have enforced that. Seriously.