A Walker in the Suburbs

I believe in cinema therapy. I know it works because upon occasion a film, a single work of art, has pulled me out of the doldrums. Whenever I try to explain this, I use “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” as an example.

That movie made me happy for months. I started wearing gaucho pants after wearing it, for goodness sake. Those and the boots I paired with them made me feel open and free, not exactly an outlaw but not my timid self, either. For months, I tromped around in this renegade costume, and I felt the darkness lifting.

Robert Redford was a big part of the reason I loved that film. The scene where he and Paul Newman jump off a high cliff into a raging river always entertained. It seemed the epitome of gutsiness, of braving danger for a desired end. Never mind that they just had robbed the Union Pacific Railroad and were jumping to avoid arrest. They were the heroes. I was pulling for them.

Redford died today at age 89. Another star from my youth is gone. I try to recognize and appreciate young actors, but it’s hard to forget the heartthrobs of my youth. Rest in peace, Robert Redford.

(The cliff-jumping scene was shot near this rugged area of Colorado, north of Durango. Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Yesterday I watched an old movie that’s haunted me since I was a child. “The Final Voyage” chronicles the last days of an aging ocean liner. When the boiler explodes it traps a woman (played by actress Dorothy Malone) under tons of steel and maroons her child in the corner of a room that no longer has a floor.

The little girl’s father (Robert Stack) must rescue her. He tries several methods before hitting on the only one that he thinks will work. The young girl must crawl across a flimsy board with a makeshift harness around her chest. If she falls it means certain death. The minute I saw this scene I knew it was the one I’d remembered. Apparently, a real ship was sunk to make the movie, which accounts for the immediacy of the drama.

I’m not sure how I ended up watching this film, nightmare material for sure. But viewing it again as an adult — the search for an acetylene torch to free Malone, the bravery exhibited by some of the characters, the cowardice of others — well, it wasn’t “Titanic” but it held my interest.

(Photo courtesy IMBd)