'Wait Until Dark' Was Classic Suspense

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Few of their mid–20th century contemporaries could match the appeal of Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly.

A large part of their appeal, I think, was the fact that they could be credible damsels in distress — but, when it became clear that no one was going to come to their rescue, they were able to rescue themselves ... plausibly.

There was steel beneath the facade.

Not an easy task, considering that both actresses, especially Hepburn, seemed rather frail. You wouldn't think from looking at them that either could stand up to a sudden gust of wind.

But, somehow, they did. It was largely because the characters they played were resourceful and independent — truly deserving of admiration.

My admiration for Kelly knows no bounds, but, frankly, Hepburn takes the prize for her performance in "Wait Until Dark," a movie that made its debut 45 years ago today.

Hepburn played a young blind woman who was believed to be in possession of a doll that had been used to smuggle heroin into the country.

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The doll had actually been given to Hepburn's husband by a woman he met on a flight. The doll's presence in the apartment was unknown to Hepburn.

But that was something that a trio of criminals — played by Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna and Jack Weston — who wanted the doll (or, rather, what was inside it) did not know. They assumed she knew things she did not.

And they tried to take advantage of her blindness, playing the roles of police officers who were investigating a suspicious death in the neighborhood. Through this ploy, they won her confidence, gained access to the apartment and searched unsuccessfully (and right under Hepburn's nose) for the doll.

With the help of a young girl named Gloria, Hepburn's character discovered what was really going on around her and fought back.

Modern audiences might not appreciate the way most of the action in the film takes place in a small apartment. But "Wait Until Dark" was a psychological thriller, and there are few scenes in movie history that are as gripping as the climactic struggle between Hepburn and her ruthless nemesis, played by Arkin.

Each time I have watched "Wait Until Dark" — and I have watched it many times — I have been struck by how effortlessly the movie leads the viewer to empathize with Hepburn's predicament.

That, it seems to me, is the essence of a truly suspenseful movie. The viewer can see the threats to Hepburn, but she cannot. It reminds me of what the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, used to say.

Hitchcock rejected the idea that suspense could be achieved merely by watching an explosion. True suspense, he said, came from letting the audience in on the presence of a threat — a ticking bomb, perhaps — of which none of the affected characters in the scene was aware.

Hepburn proved that he was right.

In Praise of Equus

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I knew nothing of the play "Equus" when it premiered in 1973.

In fact, I'm not sure I knew anything about it when a movie adaptation was made four years later. I guess I must have read about it, but I probably didn't comprehend much about the plot. I suppose I went to see it when it came to our town only because I knew Richard Burton was in it, and I was one of Burton's admirers.

So I went to see "Equus" sometime in 1978, even though it premiered on this day in 1977.

It was a haunting tale, inspired by a true story of a teenager who blinded six horses. When he wrote the play, Peter Shaffer knew few, if any, details of the case, and he tried to create a fictionalized explanation for what might have happened.

I was enthralled by the story — and, at the same time, repulsed by it. I have always admired horses — so, from that perspective, I suppose I can understand how the main character could regard horses (and their god figure, Equus) as deities. Swirling around them were the themes of ritual sacrifice and religion.

The main character (Peter Firth), as the audience discovered, had been the recipient of contradictory messages on religion from his devoutly Christian mother and atheist father. He also developed, from an early age, a sexual attraction for horses.

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I'm telling you, there's a lot going on here, and it was Burton, playing the role of the psychiatrist, who had to peel away the layers and find out the truth.

It was a meaty role for Burton, appearing in one of his final films (and, in the assessment of many, giving his last great film performance) — a worn out psychiatrist doubting himself and his life's work with troubled young people tries to unravel what may be the greatest challenge of his career. Why would a young boy blind several horses?

I often think of the first time Burton's character, already working with more patients than he can handle, and Firth's character meet in Burton's office. I've been in offices like that — musty and crowded with books. If we could smell it, I suspect it would be a mix of odors, mostly old papers, pipe tobacco and quiet desperation.

Burton's character kept trying to get basic information from Firth's character, who insisted upon singing commercial jingles and little ditties that revealed nothing.

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But Burton pressed on.

Jenny Agutter aided in this endeavor, playing a young woman who met Firth's character in the shop where he worked. Agutter's character had close contact with horses, which drew Firth's attention.

And she was drawn into the story, participating in a tryst at which (I presume) the stage play only hinted — but was on full display in the movie. For awhile, it appeared Firth's character might begin to understand the complicated nature of his twisted relationship with sex, religion and horses.

But then he heard horses making noises in the stable where Agutter had been seducing him, and he pulled away from her.

It was, as I say, a haunting story, a disturbing film.

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So many moments linger in my memory, even though it has been years since I have seen this movie.

It was a story of faith — and the loss of faith. In a tale full of symbolism, a typical example came when Burton told Firth a story about the "old gods ... before they died."

"Gods don't die," Firth replied.

"Oh, yes, they do," Burton said.

Burton received his seventh — and last — Academy Award nomination for his performance in "Equus."

Remembering the Death of John Denver

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Yesterday was a somber anniversary for me, so somber, in fact, that I could scarcely think about it, much less write about it.

It was the 15th anniversary of the private airplane crash that took the life of singer John Denver.

Denver was one of my favorite singers when I was in my early teens, and he was one of my mother's favorite singers, too. Mom died in a flood a couple of years before Denver died while piloting an experimental plane that he had recently purchased, crashing into the Pacific Ocean near Pacific Grove, Calif.

When I heard of Denver's death, I felt as if I had lost Mom all over again.

Denver had extensive flying experience. In fact, he purchased an airplane and flew himself to concerts around the time that I really started listening to his music. I actually did see him perform once, and, for all I know, he may have flown himself there.

About a year before his death, though, the Federal Aviation Administration became aware that he had not abstained from alcohol after his drunk driving arrests and revoked his medical certification. Consequently, at the time of his fatal crash, Denver was not authorized to fly.

But when his body underwent an autopsy, no signs of alcohol or drugs were found in his system.

The actual reason for the crash, the FAA determined, was that Denver was unable to switch fuel tanks in flight. The fuel in the tank that was in use had been almost entirely depleted when the plane was transferred to nearby Monterey and Denver did some practice maneuvers before taking off on his final flight.

The design of the plane made it impossible for the pilot to safely switch tanks while strapped in his seat.

Sadly, an offer to refuel the plane was made, but Denver declined, saying that he would only be flying for about an hour.

He was 53 at the time of his death.

Misfits in Paradise

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It has been said that, if you can remember the '60s, you weren't really there.

There is truth in that, I suppose, but perhaps it is really more applicable to the '70s.

When said in regard to the '60s, it's a joke based on the quantities of recreational drugs that were consumed.

But when it is applied to the '70s, the context changes. Novelist Tom Wolfe labeled it "the me decade," largely because Americans turned away from the emphasis on the group that was at the heart of the counter–culture communal lifestyle so many embraced in the 1960s and instead lived their lives in a kind of single–minded pursuit of individual satisfaction.

Whereas "free love" had been a concept primarily associated with the 1960s, there was really nothing free about sex in the 1970s. Many more unmarried couples were living together than ever before, but there were high prices to be paid for the more open sexuality.

The emphasis on self contributed to things like the Roe v. Wade judicial decision, giving women new authority over their bodies. It may have encouraged the gay movement as it gained momentum while the clouds of the AIDS crisis loomed in the horizon.

There was clearly a sexual revolution under way.

"Boogie Nights," which premiered 15 years ago today, tried to tell the story of that time.

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Set against the backdrop of the porn industry of the 1970s, Mark Wahlberg played Eddie Adams, a young and extraordinarily well–endowed porn star who went by the name Dirk Diggler. Julianne Moore was Amber Waves, another porn star who lost a custody battle to her ex–husband when the court concluded she was an unfit mother in part because of her line of work.

Denied the opportunity to be the custodial parent of her own child, Amber proceeded to mother her colleagues in the adult film industry.

That was the story of the cast of "Boogie Nights." All those characters toiled in an industry devoted to sex, happiness and pleasure, but they found themselves desperately unhappy, their fondest dreams strangled.

They reminded me, in a perverse sort of way, of the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys in the Christmas TV special "Rudolph the Red–Nosed Reindeer." They were broken, defective in some way and searching for something that was always just beyond their reach.

In fact, that is the thought that kept coming to my mind as I watched this movie. Sex had become routine for all the characters, the folks who ran the cameras, the ones who performed in front of the cameras.

Their product was intended to arouse and titillate the audience, but the cast of "Boogie Nights" seemed almost bored with it — except for the character of Little Bill (William H. Macy), who finally, after being humiliated one too many times by his porn star wife's public and private sexual antics with other partners, shot her and her lover and then turned the gun on himself.

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Neither, for that matter, did Rollergirl (Heather Graham) seem to be terribly happy. Rollergirl was defective in many ways — apparently unsuccessful in school and craving a mother figure (once, she asked Amber Waves to "be my mom" — the very thing that would appeal to Moore's frustrated maternal instincts — when the two were getting high on cocaine).

She had her idiosyncrasies, like always wearing roller skates. When director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) auditioned Dirk, he watched him have sex with Rollergirl, who not only wore her skates throughout but also made sure that "Brand New Key" (aka "The Rollerskate Song") was playing in the background.

Nearly everyone in the ensemble had some sort of personal quirk. Buck (Don Cheadle) had a thing for cowboy stuff and wanted to run a stereo shop. Philip Seymour Hoffman (about a decade before he won an Oscar for his portrayal of Truman Capote) played a gay soundman who was infatuated with Dirk.

They were all caught up in the rapid rise and equally rapid fall of porn films, which was rather nicely summed up in the final scene.

After drugs and videotape had taken their toll on the adult film industry, Dirk, while preparing for a scene, pulled down his pants, exposing his enormous sexual organ, and repeated, mantra–like, the line, "I'm a star ..."

Once a misfit ...

Conversations With the Almighty

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"You can love each other, cherish and nurture each other or you can kill each other. Incidentally, 'kill' is the word. It's not 'waste.' If I had wanted 'waste,' I would have written 'thou shalt not waste.' You're doing some very funny things with words. You're also turning the sky into mud. I look down, I can't believe the filth. Using the rivers for toilets, poisoning my fishes. You want a miracle? You make a fish from scratch. You can't. You think only God can make a tree? Try coming up with a mackerel. And when the last one's gone, that'll be that. Eighty–six on the fish, goodbye sky, so long world, over and out."

God (George Burns)

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Considering that there were three colleges in my central Arkansas hometown, I really find it astonishing, as I look back on my childhood, when I remember that there was only one theater in town until I was in junior high — when a modest two–screen theater opened in a strip mall (well, it was mostly a Walmart store with some smaller stores sprinkled around it).

The original theater had been one of those old–fashioned places with a marquee out front, a real lobby and an actual balcony section that one climbed a carpeted stairway to reach. It was the kind of theater you might see in old movies or TV reruns today — but seldom, if ever, anywhere else.

When that two–screen theater came along, it really was the beginning of the end for that old–fashioned theater. In fact, it went out of business a few years later.

But the two–screen theater faced its share of competition, too. Even though the number of movie options available locally had doubled, the city of Little Rock offered far more so that is where the college kids — and the high school kids, too — went on the weekends.

I've been thinking about that because it was 35 years ago today that "Oh, God!" — an amusing and thought–provoking comedy starring John Denver and George Burns — premiered on American movie screens. And that, in turn, reminded me of the first time I saw that movie.

Even with two screens in my hometown, it generally took many months for new releases to get there. If you wanted to see the latest hits while they were still hot, you had to go to Little Rock.

(The duplication of screens did speed things up some, as I recall. When I was a child, it wasn't uncommon for it to take a year or more for a hit movie to come to my hometown. After the two–screen theater opened, the wait was cut to about six months.)

Anyway, I recall one weekend when Karen (my high school girlfriend — I've written about her here before) and I had been through a rather stressful period. I don't remember what the cause of the stress had been, only that it had been stressful.

Karen's father suggested that we go see a movie, and he specifically suggested that we go see "Oh, God!" I suppose that wasn't surprising. Karen's father was a philosophy professor (and son of a Lutheran minister) — not to mention something of an admirer of screen comedians of Burns' generation. "Oh, God!" was a hot topic at the time. It was getting good reviews, and he thought it would be just the thing to lift our spirits.

But the thing I remember is that he kept calling it "Oh My God!" at the dinner table that evening, producing some muffled snickering at his mistake from Karen, her brother and sister and me.

(I guess, with OMG being such a popular acronym today, he might be regarded now as being ahead of his time.)

During that meal, however, he persuaded Karen and me to take the 30–minute drive to Little Rock to see the movie that evening — and we did.

And it certainly did lift our spirits.

AllMovie.com's Brendon Hanley writes that "[t]he movie's surprising charm owes a lot to the understated comic timing and charisma of vaudeville legend George Burns in the title role."

There was much truth in that. Burns, with his curmudgeonly appeal, would have been my choice to play the Almighty. He had the kind of demeanor I would like to think God has.

Like in the scene in which, after being urged by Denver to perform a miracle to prove his identity, God makes it rain inside Denver's Pacer (if you aren't old enough to remember the Pacer, consider yourself lucky).

When Denver observes that it is raining only in his vehicle, Burns replies, "Why should I spoil everyone's day?"

The premise of the movie, in case you've never seen it, was that God needed a messenger to spread the word that he was alive and he had provided the people of the earth with everything they needed.

His choice to serve in this capacity was an assistant manager of a grocery store.

Like most people probably would, Denver's character asked, "Why me?"

"Why not?" Burns asked. "Life is a crap shoot, like the millionth customer that crosses the bridge gets to shake hands with the governor. You thought I picked you because you're better than everyone?"

"I'm not?" Denver asked.

"You're better than some but not as good as others," Burns answered, "but you crossed the bridge at the right time."

I also thoroughly liked watching Teri Garr in the role of Denver's long–suffering wife who has questions about her husband's stability but stays with him in spite of it all.

(I would have enjoyed watching Garr, anyway. I first saw her in "Young Frankenstein" a few years earlier, and I thought she was cute.)

Denver actually was a pleasant surprise for me. I had been a fan of his music for awhile. I even saw him perform in person once. But I had no idea he could give such a plausible performance in a movie.

Denver's music was featured in several movies, both before and after his death in 1997. He also made several guest appearances on TV shows. But it really is a shame that he never starred in another movie.

His performance in "Oh, God!" offers glimpses into what might have been in store for us if Denver had chosen to share his acting talent with us more frequently.

He had a look of boyish wonder on his face in the rain–in–the–Pacer scene that thoroughly enhanced his straight–man line: "It's just like Noah's ark!"

"Same thing," Burns replied. "Without the smell."

Earlier, when Burns appeared before Denver and told him that he wanted him to be his messenger, Denver protested as many people probably would, "I don't even go to any church."

"Neither do I," replied Burns.

"Oh, God!" was quite a hit — and, as hits often do, it inspired some dreadful sequels that should have served as cautionary tales — but clearly, in many cases, they have gone unheeded.

As did Burns' parting line to Denver.

"[N]ow and then," Denver says, "couldn't we just talk?"

"I'll tell you what," Burns says. "You talk, I'll listen."

'Love Me Do' Turns 50

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I'm an acknowledged Beatles fan.

Less charitable people might see it as an addiction. Perhaps they would say I am a "Beatles–a–holic." But I don't feel that way. To confess to being addicted to something is to admit to being powerless over a bad thing, something that is not healthy or desirable but over which you have no control.

I'll admit that I have no control over my affection for Beatles music. But it is not an addiction. True, there are days when I feel that I absolutely must hear a Beatles song — or a song that was released by John Lennon, Paul McCartney or George Harrison in their solo careers.

But I don't think that is a bad thing. It is something that has been a part of me all my life — and it has enriched my life.

Beatles songs have been enriching many lives for half a century.

The very first Beatles single, "Love Me Do," was released on this day in 1962.

Fifty years. Wow. As Tony Sclafani writes for NBC News, the Beatles "probably couldn't have imagined being age 50, much less anyone marking the single hitting the half–century mark."

Nevertheless, we are witnessing the first of many such milestones today. In the years ahead, all the other Beatles songs that you've been humming as you went about your daily business and singing in the shower all these years will be turning 50 as well.

But "Love Me Do" was — and is — the first. If you want to mark the date when the British invasion really began, it was on this day 50 years ago.

With a ditty that McCartney wrote in the late 1950s when he was about 16.

Actually, I guess, the invasion was more than a year away on Oct. 5, 1962. I suppose the invasion part occurred when the Beatles came to America and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show — and were greeted by wildly screaming Beatlemaniacs who had been watching the explosion of Beatlemania across the ocean.

After that, things would never be the same.

It all began on this day in 1962.

The Debut of the Beverly Hillbillies

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Jed: What do you think, Pearl? You think I oughta move?

Pearl: Jed, how can you even ask? Look around you. You're eight miles from your nearest neighbor. You're overrun with skunks, possums, coyotes, bobcats. You use kerosene lamps for light! You cook on a wood stove, summer and winter! You're drinkin' homemade moonshine, washin' with homemade lye soap! And your bathroom is 50 feet from the house, and you ask should you move?

Jed: Yeah, I reckon you're right. Man'd be a dang fool to leave all this.

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Fifty years ago tonight, America was introduced to the Clampetts — Jed, Granny, Jethro and Elly Mae — a backwoods family that struck it rich when oil was found on their land.

And, for the very first time, Americans heard a song by bluegrass performers Flatt and Scruggs that would become very familiar:

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"Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shootin' at some food,
And up through the ground came a bubblin' crude.
Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea."

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A lot of other things about the Clampetts would become familiar to Americans — Elly Mae's beauty (and total lack of cooking skills), Jethro's stupidity, Granny's inclination to make things, like lye soap and white lightning; and the whole family's general ignorance about life in the big city compared to their rustic roots.

But I'm inclined to think it was their fish–out–of–water existence in the elite world of Beverly Hills that made them so popular. Everything they said, every conclusion they reached made perfect sense to them in the context of their experiences.

It just didn't make sense to those around them.

Such misunderstandings were a frequent source of humor on the show. One of the show's highest–rated episodes dealt with Granny's assumption that a kangaroo at the Drysdales' home was really a "giant jackrabbit."

I guess everyone has certain favorite moments from the Hillbillies during their nine–season run.

Personally, my favorite is a series of episodes in which Granny believed that a movie re–recreation of the Civil War was the real thing — and that the actor playing Ulysses S. Grant was, in fact, Ulysses S. Grant (who would have been close to 150 years old at that time — if he had still been alive).

Granny and the Clampetts took up arms to lend aid to the Southern cause — and the Southerners didn't question her presence. They simply figured that she was a relative of the movie's producer — named Abe, of course.

Granny took Grant into custody and set about rehabilitating him in preparation for the new reality of a Confederate States of America. Part of his treatment involved sitting next to the swimming pool (known as the "cement pond" to the Hillbillies), where he ogled Elly Mae in what was then a very fashionable bikini. Granny came to the pool wearing a turn–of–the–century bathing suit, prompting Grant to urge her to "Put it on! Put it on!"

Later, during more filming of battle scenes, Granny shot some of Elly' Lady Fingers into Grant's backside, knocking him from the horse he was riding. "Tell me to 'put it on, put it on,' " she sniffed.

The Beverly Hillbillies was the first of a series of "rural" TV shows created by Paul Henning. It was followed by shows like Green Acres and Petticoat Junction, and all three shows enjoyed success in the 1960s.

But, as tastes changed in the early 1970s and the movement among TV sitcoms was increasingly toward more sophisticated fare, like All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, ratings for The Beverly Hillbillies declined, and the show was canceled along with Green Acres and some other rural sitcoms in what came to be known as the "Rural Purge."

(Incidentally, today is also the birthday of Donna Douglas, who played Elly Mae. She was 29 the day the program premiered.)

M*A*S*H Almost Didn't Make the Cut

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Hawkeye (Alan Alda): Henry, you have no idea what it's like to share a tent with a guy who thinks he's all 12 disciples.

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In the history of television, I don't think there has ever been another series like M*A*S*H.

When M*A*S*H went off the air in 1983, it was one of the top three shows in the United States.

But most people forget that it languished at #46 in the TV ratings in its first season, which began on this day in 1972, and almost didn't make the cut.

Other shows have survived — some have even thrived — after sluggish starts, but M*A*S*H did so while writing its own rules and virtually ignoring conventional wisdom.

It often seemed to be searching for itself in that first season — not entirely content to play things for laughs, even though it was mostly billed as a sitcom.

And that apparent ambiguity almost led to its cancellation after that first season. No one really knew what it was, but the series was saved thanks to an impassioned plea from the wife of a CBS executive who liked the show — whatever it was.

M*A*S*H was always more than a comedy. It just didn't know how to achieve its mission.

Its first three seasons leaned toward slapstick, but, at the end of that third season, when Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson) left the series — permanently — when his character's airplane was shot down over the Sea of Japan, M*A*S*H truly began to blend comedy with drama and pathos to create some of the most imaginative half–hour episodes ever filmed.

Before Stevenson's departure, there were flashes of what was in store, even in the pilot episode, which largely introduced the cast to the audience.

That was when viewers first learned of Radar's strange ability to know what people were going to say before they said it.

They learned of Frank and Hot Lips and their torrid affair.

And they learned that Hawkeye and Trapper John were skirt–chasing, gin–swilling doctors, gifted in matters of medicine.

By the way, if you're a M*A*S*H fan, you probably think of actor William Christopher when you think of the character of Father Mulcahy, the unit's priest. And that is certainly as it should be. Christopher appeared in more than 80% of the series' episodes — only one appearance shy of matching Jamie Farr for third place in frequency of appearances.

And Christopher probably should have had that extra appearance — but someone else played Father Mulcahy in the pilot episode that aired 40 years ago tonight.

It really is a shame that Christopher wasn't in that pilot episode — since Father Mulcahy figured rather prominently in the story's conclusion.

You see, Hawkeye was trying to organize a raffle to raise money so his Korean houseboy, Ho–Jon, could go to the U.S. and enroll at Hawkeye's alma mater. The winner of the raffle would receive a weekend in Tokyo accompanied by a beautiful nurse, whose name (Lt. Dish) was mildly reminiscent of Pussy Galore from the James Bond series.

M*A*S*H could be irreverent and decidedly incorrect politically in those days before Saturday Night Live challenged so many television taboos.

For example, in the initial episodes of the series, Hawkeye and Trapper John (Wayne Rogers) and the smarmy Frank Burns (Larry Linville) had a black bunkmate, a doctor named Spearchucker Jones.

He disappeared a few months after the show's premiere — with no explanation given.

The natural assumption might have been that CBS received some complaints from viewers who were offended by the racist connotations of the name, but apparently, the character was a casualty of story accuracy.

The writers learned that there were no black doctors during the Korean War so the character was quietly removed.

Well, anyway ...

When the big moment for the raffle drawing arrived, Hawkeye had it all worked out for someone to win who would be sure to turn it down — Father Mulcahy.

A brigadier general, who had been summoned by a phone call from Hot Lips, arrived at precisely the moment that Mulcahy was revealed to be the raffle winner and bellowed, "Do I understand that the priest of this outfit has just won a weekend with a nurse in Tokyo?"

"It's a prayer come true," Hawkeye replied.

At that point, Hot Lips entered the tent, pulling Frank behind her. He had been wrapped in gauze and sedated to keep him from interfering with the raffle.

And Hot Lips delivered perhaps the finest line I have heard in a pilot episode.

"Those two," the exasperated Hot Lips sputtered, pointing at Hawkeye and Trapper, "they're ruining this war, for all of us!"

Fortunately for TV viewers in the 1970s, M*A*S*H kept "ruining" war for the next 11 years.

The Tragedy of Grace Kelly

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Friday was an odd kind of day for me.

I spent much of it working with journalism students, which isn't the odd part because I usually do that on Fridays during the school year, but my thoughts kept returning to that mid–September day in 1982, when I heard that Grace Kelly had suffered a stroke while driving in Monaco and died after crashing the vehicle.

She was perhaps the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and, at 52, she was much too young to be dead — even though she had been away from Hollywood for more than 20 years.

She gave up the life of a movie star to become a real–life princess — although I suppose just about anyone who saw her as a young woman would say that she always had a somewhat regal bearing.

But she retained the common touch.

"I just love Grace Kelly," Jimmy Stewart, her co–star in "Rear Window," said at her funeral. "Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met."

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Everyone loved Grace Kelly. I never knew anyone who didn't.

I remember the first time I saw "Rear Window." It had been re–released to theaters to mark the 30th anniversary of its original theatrical release so I went to see it on one of my days off.

It was a glorious thing to behold on the big screen. I could see for myself what my parents had always told me — that Hitchcock was meant to be experienced on the really big screen. No TV screen, no matter how large, could really do justice to a Hitchcock movie.

The reviewer in the local paper had seen it in all its restored splendor, and he promised his readers that Grace Kelly was "as beautiful as you remember."

Since it was my first time to see the movie, of course, I had no memory of her in it, but I had seen other movies in which she appeared — "High Noon," "Dial M for Murder," "The Country Girl" — and I looked forward to seeing her in it.

I was not disappointed.

Kelly's role in that movie was much more complex than it may have seemed on the surface. For that matter, Kelly herself was more complex than she may have appeared to some.

There was a shyness to her that was often concealed by her smoldering beauty, and there was a mind–bending life–imitates–art quality (or should that be art imitates life?) to Grace Kelly. She played a princess on the screen, then became one in real life.

But she was always a princess in the hearts of her fans.

The Fischer Phenomenon

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My father was a college professor — and when your father is a college professor, it's almost a given that he will teach you how to play chess.

Well, that's how it was in my case, anyway. Perhaps the risk of that decreases, depending on the subject your father teaches — and my father taught religion and philosophy.

It was in the stars for me, I suppose.

Most of my other friends had fathers who taught them the finer points of hitting and throwing baseballs, shooting basketballs and kicking footballs. Mine taught me to play chess.

That's nothing against my father. He was — still is — a wonderful father in many respects.

But chess wasn't cool when I learned to play. It became a little cooler because of Bobby Fischer.

I already knew how to play chess when Fischer won the world chess championship on this day in 1972. I don't remember how old I was when Dad taught me to play, but it seems to me that I must have known how to play for a year, maybe two, by the time that Fischer took the world chess championship from Russian Boris Spassky.

I always heard that cameras were on hand, but perhaps they provided closed–circuit coverage (the predecessor to pay–per–view) or filmed sequences for a movie.

I don't have any recollection of commercial TV providing coverage of any of the chess games, and my guess is that wouldn't have bothered me. I do recall seeing news accounts, with brief clips of Fischer and Spassky walking to the venue where the games were played, but, at the time, I probably couldn't have imagined anything less interesting than watching two people play a board game.

(I'm much older now, but I still can't see the appeal in something like watching people play poker. Poker isn't a board game, of course, but I was no more interested in watching people play cards.)

But the media of 1972 followed the championship, which was played in Reykjavík, Iceland, and Fischer's triumph over the supposedly unbeatable Spassky virtually made him the Tiger Woods of his day.

True, being a chess player did not make one an athlete like Woods. But Fischer's victory set off a wave of chess hysteria in the United States — not unlike the mini–explosion of interest in golf after Tiger won his first Masters.

Chess probably was more accessible to most people than golf. To play golf, one needs special clothes and a set of clubs, but all chess required was a chess set, no matter how small. My father gave me a small chess set with magnetized pieces that I carried with me everywhere, always prepared for a game.

Until Fischer came along, I guess I sort of thought I was the only one in my grade at school — except, of course, for anyone else whose father was a college professor (and there were a few of those) — who played chess.

But, astonishingly, when Fischer beat Spassky, many of my friends in school suddenly learned how to play the game, even the ones whose fathers were not professors, and some began carrying around small sets like mine.

They may have already known how to play long before Fischer's showdown with Spassky, but, like me, they remained in the closet until Fischer made chess cool.

For much of the next year, we played chess during our lunch breaks and whenever the weather was too nasty for us to play in the schoolyard at recess.

One of the best–selling books of that time was a kind of a chess workbook called "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess."

Looking back on it, it was a kind of elementary book designed to teach beginners how to play chess and provide some rudimentary instruction in strategy. Fischer apparently allowed his name to be on the book, but, from what I have heard, he had very little to do with its authorship.

That wasn't known at the time, of course. I had a copy of that book, as did most of my friends, and I was proud of it. That book was one of my most prized possessions — until I learned a ghost writer had written most of it.

I really felt let down by that. I believed Fischer was sharing strategic secrets that helped him win the chess championship. Imagine!

Even so, his victory over Spassky really was a sincere — and unique — moment of great national pride.

I wouldn't necessarily rule out the influence of the Cold War — and the sometimes friendly but mostly deadly serious rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union — nor would I overlook the Russians' basketball victory over the Americans in the 1972 Summer Olympics, even though that actually happened after Fischer wrapped up the chess title.

The competition between the United States and the Soviet Union was constant in those days, and nationalism always played a role in it.

It was really unavoidable. But, somehow, it seemed there was more to it.

As Stephen Carter writes for Bloomberg, "the story of Fischer and Spassky ... captured our attention in a way that no struggle of intellect has since."