Don't be a Schnookle!

Schnookle (adj.) - to be square, not hip, not in touch with today's youth. A slang word used in The Return of October, film made in 1948 starring Glen Ford.

Turner Classic Movies was created for late night channel surfing. Its perfect for that moment around 2 in the morning when you are flipping through amazed that you have seen that episode of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air 17 times or are going to buy one of those items that will one day be in the As Seen on TV stores, even though you know better. Yes, Turner Classic Movies is the solution to the poor programming of the twitching hours of the night because there is always something on that might be new to you at least.

It was on this such occasion that I stumbled upon the movie The Return of October. My channel surfing paused on TCM because the movie looked like it was National Velvet, one of the jockeys even looked like Mickey Rooney for a second. So after about five minutes I discovered it was in fact not some remake of National Velvet (which is what I suspected at first) but just another movie about a girl who thinks her uncle has come back as a horse? Ok, honestly at first I thought it was going to be a horse racing movie but as it moved on from that initial scene on the track the characters lead the story in a completely different direction. The main character, a girl in her late teens from a rich family buys a horse that she is convinced is her recently beloved yet deceased horse. Now, strange right? Why would I keep watching after discovering this absurd plot in a movie that has no big names and wasn't made by Disney? The hook wasn't in the main plot, I got hooked by what happened next. A young professor, psychologist to be exact, came onto the scene discovering the young girl talking to the horse as if he were a person and he was instantly intrigued. The professor decides to write a academic report on mental illnesses based off the young girl, presenting it to some kind of committee that gives him permission. From that moment the movie is only sort of about the girl and her horse, but so much more about the girl and the boy. He keeps pretending he is only using her to study (though classically this is unknown to her) but he is of course slowly smitten with her which is often pointed out by the comic relief best friend of the professor.

The twist in our love/ horse story comes when the girl's rich aunt dies leaving her everything. Here the audience was presented with the problems of the rest of the family. Problems being they are greedy and financially stupid. So the academic report was printed, and used by the family to prove our young heroine deserved none of the money left to her but instead should be thrown into a mental institute and never let out. Now this is the part I'm happy I keep watching for, because it was possibly the most ridiculous trail scene I have ever seen in anything. Up until this point I had always become convinced that 27 Dresses took a few pages out of this film from 1948. But the court scenes where the family is trying to prove how crazy this poor girl is, is climatic because of not the actual trial but because this is where young professor finally professes his love and as the psychologist wins the case. Old Hollywood could get away with the most unrealistic things and add in the name of Love and it will be timeless! Well not so timeless considering I am not sure how many people have heard of this movie, but I suspended my 2009 critics skills to enjoy the techno colors and social constraints of the 40s. Also I may from now on tell people not to be schnookles and watch their confused faces as they try to figure out what I mean.

Aside from that movie in love, I also came across a little thing called Web Site Story today. Its a four minute re-adaption made for the wed of West Side Story. I'm not sure if you haven't seen the original you could appreciate it as much as someone who has, but it was well done. The songs were re-written into modern vernacular from references to hulu, twitter, and eharomony that could be just as classic as the jets. Even more so for a four minute musical done for the web there was even choreograph dances.

So tonight I believe Thalia has come to visit me, muse of comedy because even though our theme was love it was laced in humor. I walked away from my two hours of 1948 and my 4 minutes of 2009 feeling the same thing about love, it makes you smile. Love is about heartache countless times a day, in that episode of Friends, in the coffee shop where the girl was crying over a break-up, to the subtle hints of a terrible divorce in Disney Pixar's Up. But with so much of our story telling focus on the heart break, on the conflict, on the struggle of being in love it's nice to know that there are still stories out there that are about the moments that love makes you smile.