More Movie Nostalgia, part #3, the 1960s/Leslie Nielson RIP

The Thanksgiving weekend is done, my weight this morning was back down to 187, where it began last week, so no disastrous weight gain over the holiday season...Round One is in the books.  The Buckeyes defeat Michigan..again, and my first regular season basketball games are completed, the legs and back are still attached and doing OK.

Movie Nostalgia, Part 3_____

First off, on a sad note, one of the more enjoyable actors of my time, Leslie Nielson passed away in Florida yesterday at the age of 84.  Nielson, who is best know for his lines from "Airplane"   "Don't Call me Shirley", as well as his naked gun movies from the 1990s, was a veteran actor who was doing drama long before "Airplane" came along.  From Debbie Reynolds love interest in "Tammy" to the Captain of the ill-fated SS Poseidon in the 1972 blockbuster "The Poseidon Adventure", Nielson had a career that spanned over 5 decades....R.I.P. Leslie Nielson 1926-2010:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40410087

The 1960s____

For me, the 1960s saw a vast array of movies viewed....from my days in Florida, walking to the Venice Theater, located next to the Venice-Nokomis Bank on West Venice Avenue.  Then on to the Celina Theater in Ohio, as well as various base movie houses in Dover, Delaware, and the outdoor Movie house at Nha Trang Air Base in South Vietnam.  I saw hundreds of movies...add that to the fact that Movies came to Television full circle in the 1960s, the number viewed is beyond counting.  Still a few stand out.

Early on in the 60s, most of the movies I viewed were of the Disney variety, along with some thrillers which pushed the envelope for someone in his early teens.  I remember Robert Mitchum in "Cape Fear", the superior original which came out in 1962.  After we moved to Ohio late that year, I was stuck watching the campy old horror shows with Vincent Price and Boris Karloff...until I neared graduation and got my wheels.

After getting my drivers license and the Ford Falcon, I would drive off to the movies whenever I choose...whether it was the young Clint Eastwood or the veteran John Wayne, the westerns were then, and still are favorites of mine.  The early Eastwood "spaghetti westerns" and the more upscale stuff of Wayne were all eventually shown at the Lake Drive In near Celina, or the Starlight near St. Henry.  On a rare date night, I would take a girl to the Celina Theater, which had only 1 screen, unlike today where it has 5.  Two movies I remember from my Senior year are still classics today.  Dusty Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in "The Graduate" and the scary "Wait Until Dark"...I cannot remember to this day, who jumped farthest out of their seat when Alan Arkin flew out of the dark at the blind housewife played by Audrey Hepburn...but we both jumped, that was for sure...here is the 8 minute segment that includes that climatic scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_SJVA7YN48&NR=1

After I headed off to the Air Force, my movie haunts included a drive in near Dover, as well as the base theater there.   In Vietnam the aforementioned open air move house at Nha Trang, shown on the right and our own private Security Police digs called "Baileys Speakeasy", where we would show the latest in movie releases as well as NFL Films and video delayed TV shows.  After heading down country from Nha Trang to Tan Son Nhut(Saigon), the decade changed from the 1960s to the 70s, and the three last movies I remember seeing at the base theater were John Wayne, along with Rock Hudson,  in "The Undefeated" and Wayne, in his Oscar winning role in "True Grit"....enter the 1970s where I saw the anti-war, making fun of the military, movie "MASH", being shown in a war zone, on a military base, no less....great movie and how ironic I thought that was.....

Some of my favorite movies came along in the 1970s...and I'll take a look at those next_____

back later>>>>

Photos-Leslie Nielson RIP, Robert Mitchum in "Cape Fear" 1962, Ross and Hoffman in 1967s "The Graduate", the thriller "Wait Until Dark" from the same year.  Our open air theater at Nha Trang AB in 1969, and John Wayne won an Oscar for playing Rooster Cogburn, in 1969s "True Grit".