The Owl

I strongly like movies. In my list of all-time favorites is a small group of flicks which amaze me with their imaginative creativity. Two of those happen to have been written and directed by the clever, wide-eyed Owl--as he often is depicted in cartoons--Woody Allen. Allen's "Zelig" and "The Purple Rose of Cairo" involve magic with the silver screen. In "Zelig," the main character by the same name is inserted into famous political, military, or cultural scenes at different periods in history. These scenes are taken from real-life film clips or photographs, so Zelig uncannily seems to be a proper part of each scene. In "Purple Rose," the characters on the movie screen in a certain theater suddenly begin speaking live to the patrons watching from their rows of seats, amazingly step live from the screen and into the theater itself, then step back into the action of the movie.

When I was a small boy, my brother and I would, like all kids in those days, frequent the local movie theater every Saturday afternoon. Our teenage cousin, Rita, was one of the workers in the refreshments stand, and in the confusion of the crowd crushed against the stand, she would slip us extra or free popcorn and candy. It was a relaxing and fun time to spend the afternoon--until the moment would come, as it would now and then--that brother and I had to change seats. That would entail my having to walk in front of the very first row of seats right under the screen. I would tremble and shiver transversing that giant canvas with its blinding light, moving character figures, and booming voices. I wonder if similar childhood experiences later inspired the "Zelig" and the "Purple Rose" in the mind of the Owl.

-Old Doc