Back to TCM

 I commented the other day that "tv doesn't seem to do it for me" (as entertainment/accompaniment when I knit or crochet) and I think the problem is two fold: a lot of the shows I had watched (in many cases, cartoons) are just in reruns, seemingly forever, and something I've seen ten times before fails to hold my attention, but also, the commercials - the breaking of concentration. Which seems to affect me more now; I feel like the pandemic and all its related unpleasantness has made me much more distractable and less-able to focus.

And I realized: well, maybe the commercials can be dealt with by choosing a channel without them. Which, for what I get, means either PBS or TCM. (Well, they both have promotions and TCM does have some kind of commercials, but they don't INTERRUPT the movies for them). 

I decided to try TCM for tonight, having dragged out my big crocheted afghan (which I want to finish SOME DAY but there are a couple feet more to add to it to make it bed-sized). I got lucky tonight - two Peter Fonda movies, and two of them with Barbara Stanwyck, who is one of my favorite actresses. (And a young Peter Fonda is nothing to sneeze at). And they are both comedies, more or less screwball-type comedies, which are my favorites. 

The first was "The Mad Miss Manton," where Stanwyck's character (a "society girl") happens upon a body, isn't believed at first by the police and by Fonda's hard-bitten newspaperman character. (Until he falls for her). I didn't get to pay as much to this one as I was fixing and eating dinner for part of it but these kinds of movies (even with the parts that wouldn't work today, like Hattie McDaniel's maid character) are a pleasant diversion - yes, they are silly, and the situations are unrealistic, and perhaps in places they're a bit overacted. But that kind of slight unreality is a pleasant diversion compared to "real life." (I never liked too-realistic books or movies; I want something as an escape). 

Right now it's "The Lady Eve," where Fonda is a brewery-magnate's-wealthy-son-turned-herpetologist and Stanwyck is a con-woman, and they're on a ship going back (I guess) to the US from South America. And of course Fonda's and Stanwyck's characters are both falling for each other in entertaining ways - I admit I roll my eyes at modern rom-coms, but somehow, the screwball-comedy-romances work for me, I think partly because the actors seem more....distinctive? It seems to me most of the modern actors in "meet cute" movies are basically interchangeable, but Barbara Stanwyck is Barbara Stanwyck; she is definitely not Carole Lombard or Myrna Loy. 

Also, the older comedies, while they do have their dated or uncomfortable bits (Stanwyck's character and her female friends, in the first movie, basically tying Fonda's character up IN HER BED so he can't follow her when she goes out to investigate the murder), there are also the interesting matters of set design (interior decoration was different then) and clothes (wow, the dresses they put Stanwyck in!) 

And I realize: on some level I've kind of always watched old movies, and sadly, my idea of "romance" probably comes largely from them - and it's not like that, sadly, in real life. 

But at least I got a bit done on the afghan while I watched. (I probably won't make it through The Lady Eve; it's getting late and I'm tired). 

I'll have to remember TCM in the future - in past years, before the Oscars, they did a "festival" of past Oscar-winners; here's hoping they do it again this year.