"sullivans-travels"

To understand the power of “the cinema” in our past, and the comfort and escape it offered our forebears, we need only think back to the Great Depression, when many people would skip a meal to be able to afford going to the movies.

“There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that's all some people have? It isn't much, but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.”

With warmer weather, our thoughts naturally turn to travel. We recall past excursions that helped form us and fantasize about adventures yet to come. Since Homer penned “The Odyssey” in the eighth century B.C., journeys have inspired a wealth of literature and art. Often a mission or quest is involved, though it may not be a conscious one. Quite often, voyages of discovery only reveal themselves after the fact.

“Dying is easy, comedy-that’s hard.”

Today the concept of someone writing and directing their own films is, if not commonplace, hardly unusual. A quick Google search yields many prominent names. So it’s hard to imagine that way back in the thirties, during Hollywood’s Golden Age, there was no such animal. Writers and directors were kept in different silos, and never the ‘twain met.

After the particularly painful song of ice and snow that was Winter 2013-14, I’m happy to say that the robin in yonder dell is finally chirping “Spring! Spring! Spring!” Yes, the world is puddle-wonderful again and that means that, like any other hibernating animal, I feel an urge to shake off the cold, stretch my legs, and participate in some old-fashioned migration. So windows are rolled down, sleeves are rolled up – it’s time for a good long drive to greener horizons, or most anywhere from here. I raise my face to the sun, and movie fanatic that I am, hear Groucho’s voice ringing in my ears: “Sing ho! For the open highway! Sing ho! For the open road!” (Anyone remember the movie?) Or maybe the strains of Bob Hope – “We’re off on the Road to Morocco!” (Bob – it’s better off-season.)

Joel McCrea was always clear-eyed about his place in the Hollywood firmament. He once said that he got offered the comedies that Cary Grant passed on, and the Westerns Gary Cooper rejected.

An opening scene of a movie is like a cinematic thermometer. You take a movie’s temperature by that first scene. It holds you, intrigues you, grabs you — or it doesn’t. Though it’s true that plenty of great movies take their time building up our involvement, obviously they can’t take too long. Then there are those others that start off with a bang. It’s this latter group we’re celebrating today. Here are fifteen of our favorite movie openers, covering seven decades of filmmaking: