The Wolfman Cometh............

I felt twelve or thirteen again last night. I spotted and couldn’t resist buying a DVD called the WolfMan earlier on in the day. It was made in 1941 with a cast that included Lon Chaney Jnr and Claude Rains. I roared laughing watching it because the special effects and melodrama are now so dated and OTT. But it explains where my love of the dramatic comes from. I could never resist the old black and whites especially the horror and crime ones. It was hard not to laugh last night at the tears rolling down Lon Chany’s face as he sat in his vest and rolled up trousers to view with horror his increasingly hairy legs. The whole hoo-haw in the village after ‘the wolfman’ strikes and kills a second victim is more reminiscent now of the over amplification and exaggeration that is used by cartoon or panto characters for an increasingly tech savvy bunch of pre schoolers.

It didn’t scare me (well, not much). But by god it reminded me of baby-sitting in my uncle’s house in Swords aged about twelve. The kids would be long asleep and I sat on his couch – all lights off only the flicker of the telly for company munching through a bowl of rice krispies ( I thought they were so rich and sophisticated because they bought Rice Krispies!) and being absolutely scared shitless. When Tom and Margaret rambled in from wherever they had been I used to pretend that I fell asleep on the couch – the reality being I was too scared to go up the stairs. We lived in a bungalow ( another reason I thought they were rich!) and the shadows on the stairs were just too much to handle. Lon Chaney was a complete ham but I reckon Claude Rains was a great actor. Himself, Clark Gable and Charles Boyer. I was a sucker for those suave, intelligent and so-o-o-o- sophisticated - totally unattainable to a young wan from the Mun, which was great because if I had ever landed one like that I wouldn't have had the slightest idea how to behave. I am a complete romantic, love tales of people dying for love - of lovers being torn apart by circumstance and dying alone and lonely far apart from each other. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Old Curiousity Shop - I don't care what Oscar Wilde thinks I bawled me eyes out at the death of Little Nell. Precious Bane, David Copperfield I could go on all night. I wallow happily in the sentimental. Sure look at the title of me blog – still one of my favourite movies Bette Davis and Charles Boyer. ‘ Oh Gerry – why wish for the moon when we already have the stars – as he lights two fags and hands one to her.

How on earth did I end up with Jemser? Although he did record a song for me for one of my birthdays. 'I'm gonna love you forever, forever and ever amen. As long as old men sit and talk about the weather as long as old women sit and talk about old men.' Aaah! Mebbe he is a closet romantic.