In grade school, we used to file into the auditorium once a week to watch a film. It was the mid-1980s, and we were in a poor, small-town Georgia public school, so they seem to have taken up a collection of whatever random shit people had laying around in their shag-carpeted basements and then showed them over and over again to us, until the celluloid disintegrated in the projector.
There was one particularly vivid film whose title I have never been able to remember involving a skinny blonde girl of about sixteen who slouched around in a baby blue wrap dress with a ruffled hem and played the trombone in an old folks’ home. I think some famous jazz musician was in it. He taught the girl some kind of Life Lesson about self-esteem, maybe, or respecting her elders. It was so strange, and I can’t imagine that a bunch of 8- and 9-year olds would have been interested in jazz or slouchy-blue-dress-girl or OLD PEOPLE, for God’s sake, in the slightest.
Another favorite, which they showed us MANY times, was “The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon.” This was the one in which a freckle-faced weenie named Duffy Moon was able to display Herculean strength by puffing out his cheeks like a blowfish and listening to a voice in his head that said, “You can do it Duffy MoonMoonMoonMoonMoon.” The plot somehow involved an old guy and a jumbled-up magic shop, or something? I don’t know. It was from the mid-70s, so the filmmakers were probably doing a lot of drugs when they made it.
What else? Ah, yes. “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.” You know, about the kids who stay overnight in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? The main thing I remember about this one was that it seemed very dark. Like physically dark – you could barely make out the action on the screen; it was just a series of shadows, and every once in a while you’d catch a flash of someone’s eyeball or a glint off one of the gilded Louis XIV chairs. It was as if the movie had been made cinema verite-style, the crew staying in the Met after closing just like the kids in the story, and then sneaking about with a hand-held camera using only the wan security lights to set up each shot. (Holy crap. INGRID BERGMAN was in this movie! Can you believe that? By 1973, she must have been damn hard up for a paycheck to accept the role of old Mrs. Frankweiler. Whose purpose in the plot I don’t even remember.)
And, of course, the requisite puberty film. For us, it was “Growing Up on Broadway”, in which the cast of “Annie” talked about growing breasts and starting their period. I suppose it was as good of a way to deliver the news as any, but does anyone else fail to see the connection between “Annie” and puberty? Yeah. Me too. (Hilariously, every girl in it is credited on IMDB as “Menstruating Girl.” So much for their dreams of the glamour of showbiz.)
In addition to the films, we used to have these book fairs periodically where some educational press would come in with their grotesquely melodramatic novels with cheap color photos on the cover and pawn them off on us at rock-bottom prices. The enduring literary offerings included such gems as “Kisses that Miss and Other Awkward Moments” by Antonia Van Der Meer, whose other works include “Why Can’t a Man Be More Like a Cat?” (oh, girl, I have been there! WTF?).
Other modern classics included the uplifting “Too Young To Die”, about a teenager with leukemia, by the inexhaustible Lurlene McDaniel. Apparently having set aside the logical career of being a country singer (come on, Lurlene!), Ms. McDaniel produced something like a hundred books with titles including “Please Don’t Die”, “Why Did She Have to Die?” (from the “One Last Wish” Series), “A Time to Die” and “Baby Alicia is Dying.” When she wasn’t busy conjuring ways to inspire teens to slit their wrists, she went with lighter themes, churning out “Horse for Mandy”, “Garden of Angels” and “How Do I Love Thee?” I am fairly certain that forcing someone to read the collected works of Lurlene McDaniel would be a form of torture violative of the Geneva Convention.
Finally, close to my own heart was “Will I Ever Dance Again?” about a ballet dancer who finds out she has diabetes. The cover featured a teen with a Flow-Bee haircut that would never have gone into a proper bun and with a lumpy body that did NOT belong in a leotard. She was clutching the ribbons of a pair of pointe shoes that had obviously never been worn. The whole thing offended my sensibilities as a serious dancer; but the story affected me enough to wonder, whenever I felt thirsty or had to pee, whether I might soon have to start jamming needles of insulin into my thigh. Sometimes, secretly, I still do. The Flow-Bee diabetes girl got to me, man!
HOW you remember this stuff is absolutely beyond me. Although I do remember a frightening scene in "mixed up files" involving the kids being stuck in a closet with a lot of scary fur coats.
Was "Duffy Moon" the one with the flying tricycle? And remember the one with the red balloon? Which, incidentally, I have a copy of for you that I got at the used book store a LONG time ago and forgot about. So maybe I remember more than I thought I did. Childhood. Good times.
Posted by: Allison | June 22, 2006 at 10:31 PM
we had something similar in small town utah. those movies were SO uplifting. i think we all learned a little something.....
one of my roommates actually had a flowbee. he actually used it to cut his hair. and he actually told people over dinner that he loved it. actually.
Posted by: leahpeah | June 23, 2006 at 12:41 AM
I only remember two films from my earlier years:
One, in 2nd grade, was something of a scientific film and showed how we have these tiny hair-like things in our esophagus. I have no idea.
The second, though, was more impacting: Gone With The Wind, in 5th grade, which we watched INSTEAD OF talking about "girl's issues," which was the entire purpose of all the girls in 5th grade getting out of class and going to the auditorium. And then they were all, oh, yeah, here is a booklet about having your period and we all hid our booklet under our mattress for the next three years. Or, maybe that was just me.
Posted by: chirky | June 23, 2006 at 03:49 PM
Allison - The one with the red balloon was "The Red Balloon." Hee. I remember it didn't have any dialogue in it. I am blanking on the flying tricycle!
Leah - My friend's dad used to cut his hair with a Flow-Bee. He was very proud of it as well. Actually.
Jes - I remember seeing a film in 2nd grade that showed how we have little hairs in our nose to catch dirt and crap when we breathe, and to illustrate this fact it showed a little elf inside someone's nostril, sweeping dirt away. Everyone yelled out, "EWWW! Boogers!"
And "Gone with the Wind"? The hell?
Posted by: lawyerish | June 23, 2006 at 03:58 PM
What were those book fairs ABOUT?
My grandpa took me to one, and generously gave me $20 to buy any books I wanted (a fortune!), but when I returned with many whose cover art looked like two teenagers about to kiss, he made me put them all back, and instead went and found The Yearling.
I still haven't read The Yearling because I was so mad AND y'know, because I hear it's all upsetting and stuff.
Posted by: Whinger | June 23, 2006 at 05:36 PM