Memories make the Golden Age

As the film began, the camera focused on the famous feet of Fred Astaire as he strolled across the screen. Only one word seemed to summarize the experience of those watching these movies in their original versions.

“Memories,” Martinsville resident Jay McGill said.

The Buskirk-Chumley Theater wrapped up the Golden Age of Hollywood series with the 1957 film “Silk Stockings.” The series presented classic movies every second Sunday from the era known as the “Golden Age” of Hollywood.

“I went to lunch with my daughter and I just felt like seeing Fred Astaire, an old friend,” Bloomington resident Vera Estrada joked.

“Silk Stockings” stars Fred Astaire as Steve Canfield, a movie producer who is trying to keep a Russian composer from being deported to his communist native land by wining and dining a trio of Soviet Agents who have been assigned to retrieve him.

His co-star Cyd Charisse,who plays Ninotchka Yoschenko, is sent to complete the mission and bring the men back to Russia, but is wooed by Canfield.

“The (movies) we see are the best ones that were made, not the junk,” Estrada said. “But now you can see how well-made they were.”

Juniors Annie McLaren and Monica Trissler may have been the youngest in the crowd but appear to agree that the experience is timeless.

“We both like old movies,” McLaren said. “We like the dancing, and they have a lot of talent.”

The friends said that this interest sets them apart from their peers.

“We talk about how nerdy we are to like them,” Trissler said. “It’s just something about black-and-white movies that turn people off.”

Though their ages puts them in the minority of attendance, McLaren said there are some benefit of making classic movies available to younger audiences.

“I think it’s good because we were too young to see these movies the first time they were in theaters,” she said.

No matter the age, coming out for a $2 movie on a Sunday afternoon is reliving what made these classic films golden.

“I get a lot of nostalgia watching these kinds of movies,” Estrada said. “I guess a lot of people who come out are like me. They just want to remember.”