Thank you, Ted Turner

Thank you for so much. For CNN. For Headline News. For Superstation TBS, which had all the cool reruns. For TNT and all the rest...and for Turner Classic Movies, which shows great old flicks 24 - 7 for FREE!

Take this picture that Peggy and I watched the other night. "The Two Mrs Carrolls," starring Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck and Alexis Smith. And of course, for extra British flavor, there was a guy named Nigel Bruce in the cast, along with Leyland Hodgson and Anita Sharp-Bolster.

And so do we all sometimes.

I won't give away the plot, but it had everything you want in a movie from 1947 set in England:

• hammy acting
• dramatic staccato music (da-da-da-DAAAAAAAAAAAA!)
• people expressing their fear or discontent by grabbing their head in their hands
• rainy nights in England, with people coming into a house dripping wet and shaking off the rain
• people driving on the wrong side of the road
• props that just happen to be there just when needed...
• black and white film
• a 10-year-old child who speaks as if she were 53 or something ("Oh you mustn't do that!," "Father, do tell me it's all true!")
• an alcoholic doctor who guzzles everyone's whiskey and then treats patients a minute later
• old-time phones that you didn't dial, but, rather, told the operator the number you want ("Fare-thee-well 459, please!")
• I think Bogart smoked while he ate. There is not a scene in which he isn't either smoking...or doing something else hazardous....
• A cranky maid who, apparently, worked 24 hours a day seven days a week..cooking, cleaning, answering the door. She never went home or anything.
• Thinly-veiled threats of intense bodily harm hissed from person to person, while these persons were all dressed to the nines!
• and a movie poster that had the stars' first names in regular size print and their last name all gigantic. You could do this at your office. Just order a name plaque for your door that says jimbo JONES and you can feel like a star!
  

I'm not going to tell you any more about this picture because you might want to watch it. Great fun. You might even want to wear a tuxedo or a formal gown, to fit in.