What's That Girl? The Bridge Is Out?

[rejectomorph]

So, I watched a Lassie movie. I might have seen it on a big screen when I was a little kid, but if so, I don't remember it. Our neighborhood movie theater used to show this sort of thing at Saturday matinees whenever the regular movie for that week seemed inappropriate for kids, so I saw a lot of movies that dated back as far as the mid-1930s. I know I saw at least one Lassie movie then, but I don't remember any details about it. In fact, the supposedly kid-friendly movies I remember best were the ones that scared the hell out of me- Disney movies, mostly. Oh, the horrifying things old uncle Walt put in his movies! Bambi's mom! The scary face in the witch's talking mirror! Pinocchio turning into a donkey! Ichabod Crane being chased by the headless horseman! The multiplying walking brooms trying to drown Mickey! I don't think I ever saw a Disney movie then that didn't give me nightmares. I don't think there was ever anything in a Lassie movie that would give a kid nightmares. That's probably why I don't remember them. Terror is more easily recalled than sentiment. It's unlikely I'll have bad dreams today.

Comments

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

You know what freaked me out? Other than abundant white peaches, obviously. Watership Down. I seem to recall it was about rabbits, and a bunch of them got killed. But it was a cartoon, and I suppose meant for kids. I was so beyond traumatized.

[rejectomorph]

Were you twice-traumatized? Fist, the rabbits are abundant, and then the property developers decimate them when destroying their warren.

I have only vague memories of that movie, though I later read the book. It has some very grim elements. Richard Adams is an odd man. I read two of his later books, Shardik, and Maia, and they had a lot of S&M-ish violence in them. Having then known Adams only as the author of the bucolic (if somewhat dark) environmentalist fantasy about the bunnies, I was a bit surprised when, just a few pages into Maia, the young peasant girl who is the title character is giving guys blow jobs. Not at all what I'd expected.