Conference bookie::movies

184.0. "Lydia" by DSSDEV::RUST () Tue May 11 1993 18:32

    I saw this quirky little "romance" last night - that's how it was
    billed, but decide for yourself. It featured Merle Oberon as a woman in
    her 70's or so having a reunion with three of the four men who'd
    proposed to her over the years (she'd rejected them all). It starts out
    rather draggy and boring, but as the reminiscences commence it becomes
    clear that there's a lot of selective memory going on here; the things
    each person describes to the others don't always match what we're
    shown.
    
    The fourth man, who isn't present at the reunion, is the one Lydia
    claims to have loved - indeed, she winds up confessing to her other
    beaux that she actually <gasp!> lived with him for a time at her
    family's old house on the seacoast! But the man turned out to be a bit
    of a cad, it seems, and took off to pursue other interests while
    sending the occasional note to Lydia to keep her on the string. (She
    eventually figures this out and opts to forget the guy, but chooses not
    to marry anybody else - not because she likes living alone, mind, but
    because she thinks she's somehow paying off her crime this way. Oh,
    well.)
    
    There's a nice turn by Edna Mae Oliver [the horse-faced woman so often
    caricatured in Bugs Bunny cartoons] as the crusty old grandmother, and
    Oberon does pretty well shifting from giddy girl to dedicated teacher
    to whimsical old woman (though her habitual phrase "Blow me down" never
    did sound quite right coming from those fine features!).
    
    The film has a kicker - one that I might have seen coming if I'd been
    paying attention, but which seemed quite startling compared to the way
    most Hollywood productions of that era turned out. <Spoiler, in case
    anybody cares; the movie's going around on AMC right now.>:
    
    
    Joseph Cotten, as one of the ex-lovers, had set up the reunion, and had
    invited the fourth man, Lydia's "one true love of her life". He doesn't
    show up until quite late in the evening, and when he does, he utterly
    fails to recognize Lydia. And she, who has lived her life alone because
    she wanted "all or nothing," and this man was the "all" - she walks
    away from his blank gaze and laughs... ['course, she's still got good
    buddy Cotten, who appears to have set the whole thing up with a pretty
    clear idea that something like this would happen. But the movie fades
    to "The End" without him making any moves, which was nice. ;-)]
    
    -b

Did she have any tattoos?

Helen (whose brain is not up to work today)

    Not that they showed on screen, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised. ;-)
    
    -b