For Robert Osborne fans only

Maybe you don't realize this, or you don't realize it YET, but you will soon, because I am about to tell you, I love love love Robert Osborne, the affable, infinitely knowledgeable host on Turner Classic Movies. TCM has revolutionized my life, in a way. Well, sort of. On TCM I discovered the movies of Harold Lloyd - they are great champions of Lloyd and have interviewed his granddaughter Suzanne (CEO of Harold Lloyd Entertainment) many times. The novel I'm so desperately trying to get someone to read (The Glass Character - catchy title, eh?) could not have been written without this comprehensive exposure and the background information provided by Osborne (and in fact, I often enjoy his commentary more than the movies themselves. I mean other people's movies, not Harold's. Never Harold's.)

But before his present incarnation as iconic TV host and movie afficionado, Robert Osborne had another life as Bob Osborne. He showed up in all sorts of movies and TV, but the best clip I could find was from the first episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, in which he plays Mr. Drysdale's assistant.

And a cute one. It's that blink. I don't know why it is, but it drives me crazy.

His closeups have an almost Alan Ladd quality, a leading-man thing, but really, he was born in the wrong decade. He has the movie star looks of someone out of the 1940s. You can see him playing Bette Davis' arm candy at some society soiree. Almost too good-looking, but not aware of it. A dynamite combination.

Blink.

BLINK.

Osborne does all sorts of interviews at film festivals with ancient stars who are about to kick off. The most alarming was the Mickey Rooney interview, in which Rooney reached so far out of his personal space bubble that he punctured it, and Osborne's too. He later said it was all he could to stay in his seat. 

It was so lovely to see Gene Wilder again. Old and frail, his face softened by age, he was still very much himself. Probably my first exposure to him was that old Alka-Seltzer commercial about "the blahs", with the animation of the guy whose head was floating around the room.

What I notice, while watching these gifs which have no sound, are the closeup shots where neither of them is saying anything. Can you guess why? THEY ARE LISTENING. I think these guys are of the last generation that was taught to do that, to assume the other person might have something important to say, or maybe just "something". The important thing WASN'T to impress people or get your own points in.

Alan Ladd

A horse is a horse is a. . .?

I don't know how many times I've seen this movie, but it always knocks me out. Almost brings me to tears with its beauty.

It's simple: a boy and a horse on an isolated beach, all wildness and sand and blistering sun. And a story, without words, of incredible bonding. The kid, Kelly Reno, was wonderful in this movie and looked as if he did much of his own riding. The horse, however, was the real star: a "superhorse" by the name of Cass Ole.

This horse, more of a dark chestnut than a true black stallion, could really act! He wheeled, and snorted, and raged on command, and burst forward with spurts of headreeling speed. He followed the boy around with the curiosity of a dog, his shining flanks reflecting the sun like black silk. He stepped and turned as delicately as a dancer. This was a horse among horses, and I don't remember ever seeing one more magnificent, not just because of his classic Arabian conformation but the way he moved, which was somehow mysteriously spiritual.

OK THEN: I have a beef! Why is it that when I see pics of Arabians now, some 30 years later, they look so weird? Something has happened to their heads, for sure, and the necks. . . long, skinny, high-crested, they're nothing like Cass Ole's powerful, almost Morgan-like neck. These are toy horses that look like bizarre china figurines, or, worse, My Little Pony.

This is what happens when breeders get carried away. You end up with a ridiculous-looking thing (with no acting ability either). I don't know what happens to temperament with this much inbreeding, but it can't be good.

I think these creech-ers must be bred specifically for the show ring, so that they can be draped in long fringey things while the owner tries to look like one-a-dem Arab guys. It's ridiculous.

I didn't have one of them, of course, but when I was a girl we all thought the Arabian (we called then Arabs then) was some kind of ultimate dream horse. I read King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry, a fictionalized story of the Godolphin Arabian, one of the main foundation sires of the racing Thoroughbred. Arabians were fiery yet gentle ("My beautiful! My beautiful! that standest meekly by," etc., etc.), not too tall so you could leap on to his back without stirrups, and all that girl-dreaming jazz. We didn't know that Arabs or Arabians or whatever they were farted and pooped and consumed prodigious amounts of food and had things go wrong with their feet and threw you off if they didn't like you. But they sure didn't look like this.

Myth has it that the Arabian should have a muzzle tiny enough to drink from a teacup. Nowadays it's more like a thimble. I feel a little sorry for these beasts, with their tubular noses and enormous round nostrils. They look weird.

I'm sorry, but they do. Come back, Cass Ole. We need you.