I had never seen The Maltese Falcon before last week, can you believe it? But I had some time to kill before heading to the East side on Thursday night, and my friend Tim who's the house manager for the UCLA Film Archive at the Hammer invited me to a screening of the film which Hugh Hefner would be presenting. The Hef donated some money to the archive for the preservation of some of his favorite Bogart films and they were showing his top five over the course of March and April.
I arrived as Hefner and his entourage were being herded to a sign in front of the theater for a photo session with the museum director and his young companion, Cricket. It was an odd scene to be part of, and I wasn't sure where to stand or where to look. Ay, celebrity, not my favorite environment. But interesting for sure. As we entered the theater and it filled up, I was looking around attempting to assess who was there and why, a common LA past-time. I quite enjoyed the show, was amused by the wavering honesty of Mary Astor's Brigid O'Shaughnessy, obsessed about Bogart's teeth throughout, and was aware every once in a while of Hefner sitting four rows in front of me enjoying the same film. As I looked over in the dark, he was just an old man watching a movie, stumbling to the bathroom (with the help of bodyguards) in the dark, proud of his accomplishments and accumulated wealth, living his life. America is so weird.
No comments:
Post a Comment