"Happiness is good health and a bad memory"

"Happiness is good health and a bad memory," the great Ingrid Bergman has been quoted as saying. I wholeheartedly agree! Bergman, a Chekhov disciple herself, is great in the film Spellbound with the great Gregory Peck and of course Michael Chekhov himself as Dr. Burloff. It is a Hitchcock film and it is a wonderful thriller! I would recommend it to anyone interested in seeing classic film making and acting at it's best! I also was just watching the incredible classic film Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint the other night, which won an incredible eight academy awards including one for the great Brando himself and I believe Eva Marie Saint's performance as well as best picture. Anyway two other classic films to check out, another Kazan classic starring the always passionate and wonderfully talented James Dean as a young Cal Trask in the Steinbeck adapted novel East of Eden, "I don't know where he is, I'm not my brother's keeper," with a more lighthearted and fitting ending than in the novel and of course the bible itself. Dean's, Chekhov's, and Brando's performances are all brilliant, and I have to mention the great Montgomery Clift's performance in the gigantic silver screen classic, and a personal favorite of mine, now cemented in my brain, the film A Place in the Sun directed by the great George Stevens. Interestingly enough Brando said there was no way Clift wouldn't for his performance at the Oscars and while Brando actually voted for Clift for the award, Clift did the same for his friend Brando in another Kazan classic "A Streetcar Named Desire," in which Brando did end up winning for his ferocious performance as Stanley Kowlaski. So we go from "Stella!!!!!!!!!! to "I could of been a contender," to Montgomery Clift's scene stealing performance as George Eastman, In a Place in the Sun, where his character meets the wonderfully beautiful and fabulous Elizabeth Taylor's character for the first time, and the look and glance on his face will be cemented in silver screen history forever. Life imitated art in that moment, because even though Clift was gay in real life, and his character wasn't, he and and his character were mesmerized by Taylor's beauty and his face reflected himself being truly lost in the moment, and then found on the screen. Clift met the holy grail of acting in and at that moment: the truth. Clift and Taylor's screen presence are cemented as well in film history by being voted in and going down as the most physically beautiful power couple of all time to ever grace the silver screen. Anyway just wanted to share my message of hope for today in the best way I can!: through the art of film and through all of art meeting truth!

Thank you so much for listening,

Your ever faithful friend on this journey,

Brian Robert Gardner