“Crying farewell, the Elves of Lórien with long grey poles thrust them out into the flowing stream, and the rippling waters bore them slowly away. The travellers sat still without moving or speaking. On the green bank near to the very point of the Tongue the Lady Galadriel stood alone and silent. As they passed her they turned and their eyes watched her slowly floating away from them. For so it seemed to them: Lórien was slipping backward, like a bright ship masted with enchanted trees, sailing on to forgotten shores, while they sat helpless upon the margin of the grey and leafless world” (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings).
Few are probably aware of it, but the world lost another star recently in the passing of Gloria DeHaven. She was another from the golden age of Hollywood who has slipped away from us.
I love watching Turner Classic Movies because I feel as though I’m stepping back into a simpler, less complicated world where it was easier to tell the good guys from the bad, where love was something worth fighting for, and where the cause of the just prevailed.
The world portrayed in these old movies is more and more a relic of the past with so many of the virtues and values seemingly going extinct in a world where more is better and where everything needs to happen NOW.
Seeing the old black-and-white does something good for my heart. The same goes for Technicolor. A lot of the newer movies may look and sound better, but they ain’t got the same soul (to appropriate a line from a Bob Seger song).
The old movies were about telling stories about real people who laughed and cried, loved and lost, lived and died. There weren’t any CGI effects– just witty dialogue and fleshed-out characters.
I’ll have to look up one of Gloria’s movies and watch it in her memory. RIP to another from a golden age gone forever.
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