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Norman Thayer, Junior! Where the hell are you!


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Posted (edited)

I saw this with my parents as a kid.  Got caught up with the fishing with grandpa scenes as a kid, but still appreciated the performances of Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn.  And the other four actors in the movie, who I think were famous too (I'm looking at you, Dabney Coleman.

 

Anyway, it doesn't get mentioned enough.  This scene stuck with me from the first time I saw it.

 

 

 

Edited by dcbc
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Posted

Always loved the scene where Dabney Coleman told Fonda to cut the shit.

“While you’re jerking me around and making me feel like an asshole… I know what you’re up to and I’ll only take so much of it.”

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Posted
14 hours ago, dcbc said:

I saw this with my parents as a kid.  Got caught up with the fishing with grandpa scenes as a kid, but still appreciated the performances of Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn.  And the other four actors in the movie, who I think were famous too (I'm looking at you, Dabney Coleman.

You're my Surly doppleganger. 

My dad brought this bootlegged VCR tape back from his deployment in Okinawa when I was in third or fourth grade, and I watched it all the time.  I've always thought it was weird that a kid who's only about 7 years old loved such a mature movie about aging and an estranged father-daughter relationship.  In my 20s when I got my first DVD and was subbing out all of my VCR movies, I bought On Golden Pond, which included an interview with the screenwriter. 

In addition to the four adult actors you reference, Doug McKeon delivered a solid performance as an abandoned child of divorce, who more then held up his own with Henry Fonda.  And Dave Grusin's score is fantastic, one of my favorites.  

And yeah, as a kid I also loved comedies, actions, and stuff like the Star Wars and Indiana Jones flicks, all the movies that a kid of the 1980s loved.  But at an early age I seemed to be drawn to more serious films, stuff like On Golden Pond.

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Posted (edited)
You're my Surly doppleganger. 
My dad brought this bootlegged VCR tape back from his deployment in Okinawa when I was in third or fourth grade, and I watched it all the time.  I've always thought it was weird that a kid who's only about 7 years old loved such a mature movie about aging and an estranged father-daughter relationship.  In my 20s when I got my first DVD and was subbing out all of my VCR movies, I bought On Golden Pond, which included an interview with the screenwriter. 
In addition to the four adult actors you reference, Doug McKeon delivered a solid performance as an abandoned child of divorce, who more then held up his own with Henry Fonda.  And Dave Grusin's score is fantastic, one of my favorites.  
And yeah, as a kid I also loved comedies, actions, and stuff like the Star Wars and Indiana Jones flicks, all the movies that a kid of the 1980s loved.  But at an early age I seemed to be drawn to more serious films, stuff like On Golden Pond.
I got taken along to quite a few more serious movies with my parents as a kid, and I ended up enjoying several of them.  Another that stands out is the movie, Four Seasons.  
 
It wasn't always a good match though.  My parents were very close friends with the parents of the guy my sister dated in high school and college.  They'd go on vacations together (see, e.g.Four Seasons) and go out to dinner together pretty regularly.  On my eighth birthday, our two families went out to dinner (not the place I would have chosen) and then to a movie.  That movie was Mommie Dearest.  I'm eight years old.  It's my birthday.  And they took me to see Mommie Fucking Dearest.  I remember feeling ill.  Maybe it was the Hungarian food we ate earlier.  Anyway, one year, AMC played Mommie Dearest on a loop for 24 hours on Mother's Day.  Now I find it funny in the worst sort of way because Faye Dunnaway is so over the top.
 
I also watched a bunch of not-age-appropriate stuff as a result of our getting cable in the late 70s.  Back then, TMC (the only movie channel we had) would play the movie of the month several times each day.  So at age 7, I'd seen the Shining 30 times.  The list goes on.  About twenty years ago, a friend and I wrote a parody of Life's Little Instruction book if all of your life lessons were learned watching cable in the 80s.  Somehow, I'd saved all the cable guides from back in the day and used them in a collage as the artwork for the rear dust jacket of the book.



ed0fd773a36eaa75e35de17a6be0b268.jpg Edited by dcbc
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