As a kid growing up in the 1950s, my routine every Saturday was to be dropped off for a haircut and then move down the block to a movie theater to see a number of serials featuring cowboys and, my favorite, Superman!
So you may conclude that I’m a lifetime movie lover.
During our dating years, my wife and I discovered we shared a fascination with movies. So, a chance to see one being made a couple of years after we were married was an opportunity not to be missed.
At the time, we lived in the New Orleans suburban town of Slidell, Louisiana, where I was working for a mortgage company. That job would soon result in a chance, almost 60 years ago, to relocate to Arlington, open a new branch office, and make our home here.
We learned there was a movie being made 30 minutes away in the Mississippi coastal town of Bay St. Louis.
It was based on a Tennessee Williams play, written by Francis Ford Coppola, and directed by Sydney Pollack. It featured Natalie Wood and Robert Redford, both not yet 30 years old, as the lead actors.
Except for us, the film is unlikely to be on anyone’s top ten list. Or maybe on others who got to see it being made, like we did.
Titled This Property is Condemned, it was Redford’s seventh film, released in 1966. It was followed just three years later by the blockbuster, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which opened to rave reviews. Superstar Redford would go on to make about 70 more movies during his long career.
His passing last month brought back these memories of our chance to spend the evening watching a key scene in the story unfolding on the street where it took place.
Storyline excerpt promoting the movie: In a small Mississippi town during the Great Depression, the story centers on Alva Starr (Natalie Wood), a young woman trapped by her overbearing mother who exploits Alva’s beauty to secure their financial survival. When Owen Legate (Robert Redford), a pragmatic railroad official, arrives to lay off workers, he inadvertently disrupts the town’s fragile economy and sparks a passionate, doomed romance with Alva. Their love is challenged by external forces, including the town’s resentment, leaving them with little hope.
As we approached the nighttime action being filmed on the street, there were crowds of onlookers, like us, lined up along the sidewalks watching the scenes being set up, rehearsed, and multiple takes being captured.
Redford and Wood were leaving a theater (actually a church that had been dressed up to look like a movie house), walking together back to the boarding house where she lived, and he was staying until his work was finished.
I had kept wanting to get closer as I moved along the sidewalk and actually stumbled over some guy’s outstretched feet. I turned to apologize and came face to face with the burly co-star, Charles Bronson, a veteran of 95 movies. Immediately, I blurted out how sorry I was. His response was (I’ll never forget this), “It’s okay … I have a scene coming up soon and you can have this seat.”
That scene: As the couple passed the open door of a bar along the street, Bronson, displeased that Redford was stealing his girlfriend, swung through the door, attacked Redford, and a big fight broke out. Extras and stunt actors were brought in, and it got ugly.
My favorite Redford movie has to be The Natural – on almost everyone’s list of the best baseball films. As the recipient of an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement, he has left us with much to savor as a result of his extraordinary career.
Some of this may explain why my wife and I love movies. And the fact that our daughter’s career as a movie producer and stunt performer/coordinator makes it even more compelling to enjoy the art form. And she met Redford at the Sundance Film Festival during the premiere of one of her films about 10 years ago.
BTW, you can watch This Property is Condemned for free on YouTube.
