Movies with Mom -- Mike N.

  As some wiser folk have observed, remembered family history often varies from the details others remember. If relating some things eventually brings me some corrective epiphany, so be it, but for the moment these are my memories, and that's good enough for this and now.
     My father was largely out of the picture by my 10th birthday.
     There had been considerable, simmering tension on the home front for many years, well before I came along, but a blend of wanting to maintain appearances for propriety's sake - both in the eyes of extended family and of my father's superior officers, as he was in the thick of what would become his first career, in the US Navy - my mother's self-cripplingly rigid adherence to elements of her Catholic faith, and the stretches of relative peace at home while he was at sea, on deployment, combined to keep them technically together for far longer than they likely should have. My older sisters, by far, caught the worst of it. The atmosphere drove me protectively inward, so I lost myself mostly in fiction, blotting many particulars of the home front from my mind.
     However, as the '60s gave way to the start of the '70s, the last couple times he was home saw tensions escalate and a clearer division form. I don't recall what specific thing took matters over the line, but there was a sudden incident, and I was there for it. A single act, but everyone there knew instantly that this marked an irrevocable crossing. Soon, very soon, he left. I can't say for sure what was in each person's mind at the time, not even my own, but oddly enough I don't think it was a certainty in anyone's mind that that was the last time he'd be there. It turned out to be, but that's another story.
    That this left us with (functionally) a single mother, two daughters in their late teens, one son who was only just into his double digits, and another son five years his junior.
    I recently, quietly, marked the still unbelievable 11th anniversary of my mother's sudden death. And as this column is supposed to be centered on movies and television, what I find at the intersection of mom and movies are the first R-rated movies I saw.
    As mentioned, I had two older sisters, but by the early '70s the common tensions between mothers and (late) teenage daughters were in play, and even if not, they were more focused on dating and activities with peers. They weren't likely to spending leisure time together. My younger brother was still too young, not even starting school yet. However, I was a reasonably precocious 10 year-old in 1971, and while I can't recall exactly how it first fell into place, my mom and I started getting out to see movies from time to time.
     Certainly, I'd been out to see more than a few movies by then, but generally those had been ones that were broadly age-appropriate, which I generally saw with my buddy Bob, and maybe his next youngest brother, Doug. Disney fare that, most of it the live action films that studio had gotten into for the bulk of the '60s. We'd be dropped off at the Towne Theater and a pick-up time set, this being something that went back to when I was 6. We'd seen Dean Jones get into buddy comedies with a pirate's ghost, then a year-ish later with a VW Beetle with a personality. That sort of thing, but nothing for the grown-up set.
    Mom was back to work by this point for the first point in my lifetime, in a position with the federal government, as the income was needed. So, the schedule was a more bound than free, but we must have found the time on weekends.

    I'm going to stick with the first three I recall, in order by release date. I won't begin to pretend to lock down any specific dates - we older folks remember how long many movies stalled in theaters at least through the '70s, hanging on the marquee for months in some cases. She plainly wanted to get out and, however oddly, plug back into some aspect of the broader world, and doing so via movies fit her generally introverted way. I was there and game for it, so it began.

    Inauspiciously, the first of the three was a thriller released in the summer of '71. Justifiably overlooked by most, and forgotten by probably as many again, it was What's the Matter With Helen? It landed in theaters at the end of June, so it was likely at least July before we saw it.
    Starring Debbie Reynolds and Shelly Winters, co-starring Dennis Weaver. The leads play a pair of Iowan mothers united by compounded tragedy. Their sons were convicted of the murder of a young woman in a regionally well-publicized trial. The media attention, Helen's hand cut by someone as they made their way through the mob outside the courtroom, and the anonymous, threatening phone call that followed, letting them know that he intended to make them pay for their sons' sins, made them allies as it made their lives unlivable where they were. They decided to pick up , change their names and move to Hollywood, CA, to open a dance studio and start life fresh where no one knew them.
    Helen (Winters) becomes increasingly neurotic, paranoid and clingy, retreating into her religious beliefs, while Adelle (Reynolds) was clearly rebounding more easily, even to the degree of a growing romantic interest with the wealthy parent (Weaver) of one of their dance students. Helen gets worse as Adelle's prospects brighten, and then there's a mysterious man who seems to be stalking them. Matters quickly go downhill from there.
   The lurid poster gives away far more than it likely should have, as did the theatrical trailer.
    However, for us, it was affecting. We both reflexively covered our eyes during a scene very late in the film, and it wasn't until many, many years later - within the past ten years - that I finally came back around to watch it all the way through, finding it on YouTube.
    That's the first R film I saw, and fortunately it was the least and lowest of the trio I'm writing about today. I don't mean to be completely disparaging, as it does hold the audience's attention, and the performances were generally good. Still, it's more of a slasher flick than I generally care for.

       Next would be off in October or so of the same year. This would be a much better film: The French Connection, which ended up winning the Academy Award for 1971. A much more engaging film, the topics of both the international drug trade and domestic narcotics use, along with police authority, it's use and borderline abuse, were all in the mix. The gritty, urban setting was all another world to thoroughly suburban me. Roy Scheider and Gene Hackman's performances largely made the film.
 It took a little while for me to process all the details in the aftermath, and I remember being confused at the time by the largely inconclusive conclusion. Hey, I was barely 11, almost from the ground up these were new topics for me, and the lack of clear resolutions was part of the message, though I didn't get that at the time.
    Summer of the following year, we ended up out to see what we had no idea at the time would be Alfred Hitchcock's penultimate film: Frenzy.
    A serial killer in modern London, raping, and then strangling his victims with neckties. The use of nudity was a new twist for Hitchcock if one doesn't count the tease of the Psycho shower scene, and he leaned into it as it was key to the killer's obsessions.

    The film was a triumphant return for Hitchcock to the crime thriller, after having spent at least his previous two films on arguably tepid political & espionage thrillers.
    It had classic Hitchcock elements, from the innocent man repeatedly damned by circumstantial and staged evidence, to touches of humor, to wonderful camera work that, among other things, ably demonstrated how horrible, life-ending acts could occur in the heart of a vibrant, bustling city, with no one being aware.
     The leads - the killer and the innocent man accused - ended up being played by relative newcomers. In what seems from modern perspectives a stunning move against expectations, Michael Caine, who was Hitchcock's first choice for the murderous Bob Rusk, turned the role down. He was reportedly disgusted by the part, and didn't want to be associated with the character. That was a revelation to me, as Caine's voluminous resume strongly suggests that he's seldom turned a role down.
   Anyway, we enjoyed it, even weathering the potentially off-putting mother and son time of watching as a brobdingnagian bodice was ripped open on the screen, revealing gargantuan tits, while the killer repeatedly rasped the word "lovely" with an increasing volume and animal fervor as he worked himself up to the kill.
   A complete thrill ride package, including a satisfactory ending as the steady and intelligent police inspector (scenes between him and his wife were part of the leavening comedy) works his way through to catch the killer and vindicate the accused (and convicted) innocent. Were it not for the women who were killed along the way it would be a wholly happy ending.
    Life changes, friends, schedules -- after this my movie-going tended to be with friends, and a bit later, dates.
    My mom and I did get out to see a few more films, though almost always with friends or other family in tow, as when we went with my Aunt Lorraine and (big mistake, as he was far too young for it to even begin to hold his attention) my younger brother to see The Sting. (That was PG, of course, and is just part of the postscript.)
   As best I can recall, the last drama we got out to see together was 1976's Family Plot (also PG), which turned out to be Hitchcock's last, when we at least had my buddy Bob along for that one, too. The days of it just being mom and me out to see something were apparently gone, and it bothers me now that I didn't realize that then.  As with most things in life, I didn't know it was the last time for anything while it was happening. And, as with most things in life, the experience wasn't fully appreciated at the time.
    So, what were the first R (or harder, for that matter) films you saw, and who did you see them with? Did any of you have a parent or sibling who was your go-to cinema companion for some slice of your life, marking some era you did or didn't really appreciate at the time?

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