In aulden time, movie theaters showed double features. Plus a Pathé newsreel. Plus a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Plus episodes of a weekly ongoing “Perils of Pauline” cliffhanger serial. Plus, as a come-on, they gave away dishes.
That whole schmear ran shorter than any single film today.
Back then Clark Gable nuzzled Lana Turner, James Cagney shot up a whole town, Gary Cooper rode 30 horses into Dead Eye Gulch — all in 105 minutes.
All right already. Enough.
Life’s tempo was different then. Slower. Time needed to be filled in.
What was to rush home for? To do what? Turn on the radio to hear the Long Ranger bitch if Tonto fell off his horse? Jump into the Edsel’s rumble seat to catch the 40th episode of “Lassie” to learn if the nice Collie peed?
Today everything’s quick.
Fast-forward. Rapid transit. Jiffy Lube. Minute rice. Instant coffee. Robots clean houses. The train’s an Acela. The swimsuit’s a Speedo.
The airplane’s a jet. The coffee is instant. The job is temporary.
Only one thing hasn’t picked up. Only one thing’s gone the other direction.
Modern-day motion pictures.
Who can sit through eight-hour movies today? My patience won’t last that long. Neither will my bladder. Just when the killer is about to get apprehended, I’m in the can. Maybe the screenwriters don’t have to go — but the audience does.
Our whole world is faster. Cellphones. TV. iPads. Internet. TiVos. Beepers. Two-way radios. Computers. E-mails. Selfies. Instagrams. On tap 24 hours. Work around the clock. Everything has to be quicker. Even sex. Partners tell one another: “Hurry up, I have a Skype session in 10 minutes.”
Even theater’s getting savvy. Once it was heavy stage dramas. A Eugene O’Neill job had three acts. Two scenes in each.
Why not? What’s the hurry? Where’s anyone going?
Curtain was 8:30, and patrons staggered out a week later. Trust me, if Shakespeare were grinding out new stuff in 2014, he’d never even have made off-Broadway. I mean, shove Frank Langella. Willie would be stuck in some bus-and-truck operation in San Jose.
Broadway no longer prefers 3¹/₂-hour plays to take up an evening because we have nothing else to do. Today we have everything else to do. Plays nowadays are shorter. 90 minutes. A two-bag pop corner.
Although Scorsese of Nazareth is a divinity, I had to leave his “Wolf of Wall Street.”
I couldn’t stay longer than “Wolf of.” I never saw the part that went “Wall Street.” Too long. All he had to do was cut out 12 ‘F’s.
Before it was half over I needed a touch-up.
Not only was I hungry, but I was due for another AARP subscription.
Add to that the on-screen trailers.
Coming attractions, paid TV commercials for sodas, films that explain we can buy tickets online, other films that tells us to shut off our cellphones and shut up our mouths, except when we patronize the candy counters.
We realize Mr. Scorsese’s Academy Award nominee was adventurous. We got the “Wolf of Wall Street” plot — that each character slept with the whole shipping department. The scenario was not complicated. It didn’t have theorems and calculus. Martin Scorsese is brilliant. Talented. Fabulous. But maybe in school he didn’t learn the ABC’s. He only learned ‘F.’
Other movies are having the same problem. “American Hustle”? The longest word in it is the title.
Listen, fact is, and nobody’s denying it, although the “Wolf” movie lasted for days, it was exciting and creative.
Also instructional. Like we found out an orgy is a social gathering where they serve Doritos, Pringles and Carr’s Water Biscuits — and you’re the dip.
Also I stupidly thought autoeroticism was a man wanting sex in his Buick. Now I’ve learned it’s when he wants to have sex with his Buick. OK by me.
Everyone has a hobby. But can’t he do it with better language? And in shorter time?
Leonardo DiCaprio, wrenching moments out of gin mills and off of skinny models, will show up for an Oscar. Good. Excellent.
Close-ups, hookups, the guy can do it all. He’s a fine actor. Also nice to his mother. But Rudolph Valentino also won awards. Chaplin, too.
And their films lasted 17 minutes.
Listen, I love even movies that last so long I need to bring a tweezer. I always go — whether I need the sleep or not.