cinememoir | The X-Factor List: What Entices Us to Watch a Movie?

By Laura Younkin

“If you listen to me, you sucker, you’re going to be doing all right.”
— Spencer Tracy as Daniel J. “Bugs” Raymond from Quick Millions, 1931

When Rocket Man was in theaters last year, a good friend and I went to see it. We had different opinions. She was expecting more of a biopic and wasn’t really comfortable with the almost magic realism of the movie. I, on the other hand, loved that people broke into song and dance and flew through the air and I don’t even really like Elton John’s music.

Ellen sees movies to get something from them. I see them to escape.

Two young girls who were in the same aisle with us were dreamy-eyed about how great the ‘70s must have been. Ellen and I did agree on our response to them. We told them they didn’t miss much.

The mid '70s were a pretty tedious time to be a middle schooler. But I suspect anytime is a pretty tedious time to be a middle schooler.

I wanted a glamorous, black and white movie from the 1930s life. I couldn’t believe girls were mooning over boys in our class who still made noises with their armpits. I wanted a Clark Gable. I didn’t want to get high in the bushes along the football field. I wanted champagne in a New York City nightclub. I was bored by the academic competitions that fueled so many of my fellow students. I wanted to be a madcap heiress chasing leopards with Cary Grant.

I slogged through my tweens and life truly did get better. By the end of college two other friends who felt the same about films of Hollywood’s Golden Era as I did had created a tight friendship that holds strong to this day. Debbie, Brenda and I still love movies. In the past year we added a younger friend, Kristen, to our movie-loving crew. She has a 1-year-old daughter named Audrey – after Audrey Hepburn, of course.

Recently Debbie started a text chain. The premise was “I would watch any movie that has X in it.” What would our Xes equal? Here’s the ongoing list:

• International jewel thieves

• Busby Berkley musical numbers

• Gowns by Adrian

• Nicholas Brothers dance numbers (although Hollywood’s racism is often cringe-inducing)

• Music by Henry Mancini

• Cary Grant’s accent

• The word “swingin’” in the title

• A “falling in love” montage, especially if it’s set in New York City

• Seasons changing in the background as a calendar flips through dates in the foreground

• Champagne bottles popping and pouring into short vintage glasses

• Night clubs with tables that have crisp linen tablecloths and little lamps on them, and a big band with a girl singer

• An obviously fake NYC skyline penthouse set

• A madcap heiress

• Barbara Stanwyck’s sass

• A gothic English manor house and a storm

• Elvis

• Costumes by Edith Head

• Robert Redford

• 1960s movies where people dance on the beach

• Glamorous cocktail parties

• Awards show scenes

• Fashion shows and/or fashion shoots

• Makeovers

• Understudies

• Maureen O’Hara’s spunk

• Trains with elegant dining cars, especially the Orient Express

• Costumes by Orry-Kelly

• Men in fedoras, white tuxedos, and opera scarves worn with overcoats

• Opera glasses

• Silk dressing gowns

• Studies with walls of books, libraries with ladders, and brandy always available

• Audrey Hepburn’s poise

• Cigarette holders, brooches, winter capes with matching muffs

• Women taking off their hats by removing big hat pins

• Coats that are perfectly coordinated with dresses or suits

• Doris Day and her naivete with Rock Hudson

• Sunglasses and head scarves worn in convertibles with their tops down

• Grace Kelly’s class

• Boudoirs with fainting couches, fireplaces. and insanely puffy bed coverlets

• Comedic double takes

• Jimmy Stewart’s big heart

• Big city music orchestration

• James Cagney’s dancing

• An overture or intermission

• Opening credits that have... connecting the actor’s name with the character’s name

• The Arthur Freed unit

• Technicolor animated opening credits

• People who are “impoverished,” but who live in country cottages with servants

• Mistaken identities

• Amnesia stories, like Random Harvest

• Katherine Hepburn’s wit

• “The End” spelled out in cursive letters

Laura Younkin’s family is from the Midwest, practical to the core. I grew up in the South, a florid land. I’m a blunt instrument who can make a killer mint julep. When I love something, I tend to love it to excess. Why have one rescue dog when you can have a dozen? Why watch a great movie just once? Last summer I spent almost a whole day watching Bull Durham over and over. Why settle for mundane when you can immerse yourself in a world of black and white, a Golden Age of Hollywood?