PICKIN' COTTON

Blog number 429 **** 07 October 2010

I want to get to a dialog that I heard on a movie last night - something that delighted me, but first I want to go through a bit of a labyrinth before I get there. This word journey doesn't have much to do with the dialog that amused me, but there is a connection, however slight. This part is just an excuse to blather a bit.

Around 1950, the movie, "The Third Man" starring Joseph Cotton came out. I had just gotten out of the Air Force from my first hitch and my older brother was visiting. We were in a pool hall (kind of a bar) and I told him about this great new song, "Third Man Theme." He said he wanted to hear it, so we went down to the Maid Rite, sat in a booth, put a nickel in the music box, and we listened to "Third Man Theme."

Maybe twenty years later we were visiting again and he mentioned that he still thought about that song and it was still one of his very favorites. He saw the movie and loved it. I saw the movie twice, but I didn't like it at all, then last night my wife was watching it and she told me how much she liked it, so I thought I would give it another try. I found out that the two times I had watched it before, I hadn't really been watching it. I didn't know, for instance, that it was about diluting penicillin and selling it on the black market, or who or what this "third man" was.

It's a good movie though. Not great. But good.

A few hours later the same night, another movie - this one called, "The Hearse," was on. Again starring Joseph Cotton. And there's the connection. I told you it was slight.

And here's the punch line for this whole Blog entry. Joseph Cotton's character was talking to the heroine and he said to her, "You don't seem surprised at what I'm about to tell you."

Slipped in and out of character, is what Cotten did.