There are a number of nostalgia notables celebrating birthdays today: actress Peggy Cummins, star of such cult classics as Gun Crazy (1950) and Night of the Demon (1957), turns eighty-eight today…and December 18 also marks natal anniversaries for the likes of directors Jules Dassin and George Stevens as well as OTR scribes Abe Burrows and Hal Kanter and silver screen icon Betty Grable. (There are, of course, many more.) But the man who played an important role in my classic film education also celebrates another trip around the sun: film historian and critic Leonard Maltin is sixty-three today.
I could speculate that my passion for the “black-and-white,”
as sister Kat refers to my classic movie love, would have flourished
without my exposure to Maltin’s reference books at an early age…but then I
would have to dismiss that as crazy talk.
I’ve always loved cartoons, and when my parents gifted me with a copy of
Leonard’s Of Mice and Magic: A History
of American Animated Cartoons one Christmas I became almost as
dedicated a disciple to the animated arts as Brandie at True Classics.
My exposure to the Columbia comedy shorts in my youth, where I was first
introduced to funsters like Buster Keaton, Charley Chase and Harry Langdon,
fueled my desire to learn more about these precious two-reel comedies…and Leonard
Maltin’s The Great Movie Shorts
(also known as Selected Short
Subjects: From Spanky to The Three Stooges) was just the fix to satisfy that
jones. Movie Comedy Teams, The
Great Movie Comedians, The
Disney Films, The Great American
Broadcast and Our Gang: The
Life and Times of The Little Rascals (co-authored with historian
Richard Bann)—all of these books have occupied space on the movie bookshelf
here at Rancho Yesteryear one time or another, and I would recommend without
hesitation any one of them to the budding classic movie enthusiast.
Maltin’s best-known contribution to books on film remains
his yearly Movie Guide, first
published in 1969 as TV Movies
and renamed several times since that (Leonard
Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide, etc.) first appearance. The first copy that I can remember buying was
the 1979-80 edition (on your left), and I remember that updated editions were a necessary
purchase in the House of Yesteryear (when they were eventually published every year) and that the wait for
such was almost as bad as that for Christmas.
I didn’t always agree with many of Leonard’s ratings—I’ve seen more than
my share of movies that he’s overrated, and an equal amount that I believe he’s
given short shrift—but my preference in comedy films matches his more often
than not, as well as animated features (though again, he thinks a lot more of
the recent Disney releases than I).
Happy birthday, Mr. Maltin…from one classic movie fan to another.
*Lyric supplied by
Merle Haggard’s “Leonard”—an ode to his friend, singer-songwriter Tommy
Collins.
3 comments:
Many thanks for the shout-out! I'll echo your appreciation for Mr. Maltin. Of Mice and Magic has been an invaluable tome to my own "animated education."
The Maltin guide was an indispensable part of my prime video store years. We had a lot of corporate clients who relied on us for videos, and we would flip back and forth through the Maltin guide so many times that it would end up look older than it actually was.
we would flip back and forth through the Maltin guide so many times that it would end up look older than it actually was.
That first copy of mine eventually lost its front cover from overuse. I made it a point to be a little more "gentle," as we say to my nephew, after that.
Post a Comment