The stereotype of the crazed homicidal gay person is an old libel.

[SheilaT]

50. Yes, I am in to old films.

Among the things I find fascinating about them, is if they were "modern" films, meaning the story took place in the time the film was made, I find I can learn a lot about that specific time. Old novels are the same way. It can be utterly fascinating to read a novel written in the mid 1920's (although not anything by Hemingway or Fitzgerald, god love them) and learn a whole lot about life and expectations of that era. What I find especially interesting in novels from the late 20's is how the Great Depression simply is not foreshadowed.

The down side of novels written about an era but well after that era, is that the writer knows full well what will happen. The best example are novels set in or before the Civil War. If they were written after 1865, they know full well that slavery will end. What is so incredibly powerful about Uncle Tom's Cabin is that it was written by someone who clearly abhorred slavery, but could not imagine it ending. If you have not read that novel, I highly recommend it. I finally read it a while back when NPR's Talk of the Nation was doing its bookclub on the air. One month they selected Uncle Tom's Cabin and I decided I finally had a good reason to read it. I honestly thought, because the novel was more than a century and a half old already, that I would find it tedious and boring. Au contraire. The first fifty pages were slightly slow, and after that I literally could not put it down. I actually got to be one of the people who discussed it in the first half hour of the show. If you are fascinated enough, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1010297 will bring you to the NPR place where you could listen to the bookclub discussion. I'm Sheila from Overland Park, Kansas, in the first half hour.

And I just checked Netflix, and they do have Rope. I've added it to my list. Thank you for telling me about it.