Faith Sense

I was twelve when Ben Hur came out, and I worked part time at the local theater. I knew when the chariot race would be on the screen, so every night I walked the two blocks to the theater to watch that scene. It was fabulous.  It won eleven Academy Awards.

I still love the movie and think it is one of the best ever made!

I just saw a promo for tomorrow night’s O’Reilly Factor show. Bill is going to reveal his top ten movie scenes of all time. I love movies and the ad prompted me to think about my favorite scenes. It might be hard to stop at ten, and the ones I list tonight might not be the ones I would list a month form now, but here are some of mine.

Number 1 for me is the chariot race scene from Ben Hur. I worked at the movie theater when it was released. On the nights I was off I went to the theater every night for three weeks to watch the race. It was spectacular!

There are several scenes from The Magnificent Seven that I love, but maybe the best is the first scene when Yul Brynner and the other six chased the forty bandits out of the little village.

In the Sons of Katie Elder, there is a scene when the bad guy, George Kennedy, is trying to find out some information from an associate of John Elder (John Wayne). He is holding the fella’s head under water in a tub. Wayne walks in on the scene and picks up an axe handle. He shouts to Kennedy, who turns to look and receives that axe handle across the bridge of his nose!

The scene in Marathon Man where the dentist, Lawrence Olivier, is trying to get information from the hero of the movie, Dustin Hoffman.

The scene in It’s A Wonderful Life where Jimmy Stewart & Donna Reed fall into the swimming pool at the dance.

The motorcycle scene in The Great Escape, featuring Steve McQueen, followed closely with his return to the cooler and bouncing his baseball off the wall.

In Old Yeller, when the older boy has to shoot the dog that he has grown to love.

In Shennandoah, when Jimmy Stewart’s youngest son walks into the church and is reunited with his dad, following having been mistakenly taken away as a prisoner of war.

The scene in Singin’ In The Rain where Donald O’Conner sings and dances “Make ‘Em Laugh”.

The scene in Field of Dreams when James Earl Jones’ character is in Iowa and gives his soliloquy. “They will come Ray. Baseball….”

What are some of your favorite scenes?

I just saw a story on the television about the new Steven Spielberg movie, a resurrection of Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford is still the hero, now sixty five on another life threatening quest! I have no doubt that the lines will be long to see it when it opens. In fact, I am sure I will be one of those in line!

Our family has loved the Chronicles of Narnia for more than thirty years. They were part of our family reading when the girls were little and all of us have read all seven books in the series multiple times. We loved the movie made of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe that came out a couple of years ago.

One of my grandsons asked me when the next book will be made into a movie. We went on line today and were delighted to find that the Prince Caspian trailer is already available! The movie is scheduled for release on May 16!

Aslan rules!

I read an article in the religion section of the newspaper this morning. The release of the new animated movie, The Ten Commandments, prompted some pollsters to do some research on the knowledge of the population about the Commandments. The results of the polling was that a bigger percentage of those asked know the elements that make up a Big Mac than know the the wording of the Commandments. Not a surprise, but a commentary on society.