Just heard a hilarious segment on “Talk of the Nation” about the movies that make men cry. One of the interviewees was the Trib’s John Kass, who wrote an article about the topic earlier this month. Kass gave some broad categories of movies that make men cry. Sports films. Movies in which a dog dies. Patriotic movies. He also discussed the sounds men make to cover up the fact that they’re crying at a movie. That discussion alone is worth downloading for.
Kass also gave young women a warning: If your date insists on renting a movie like “Fried Green Tomatoes”, get out of the situation immediately. It is dangerous and unnatural.
I agreed with a lot of the movies discussed during the segment. Field of Dreams. Old Yeller. It’s a Wonderful Life. The Sound of Music. Saving Private Ryan.
But the strongest reaction I’ve ever had to a movie involved one that I had seen as a kid, but watched again with my own kids (probably 5 and 2 at the time). The movie was “Mary Poppins.” One big larf from beginning to end, right? A jolly ‘oliday, as the song goes. What could break a man’s heart in that movie, aside from Dick Van Dyke’s attempt at a Cockney accent?
There’s a series of scenes that likely go over every child’s head: When Michael won’t give his tuppence to his father to invest in the Bank of England, and his screaming causes a riot and a run on the bank. The children run away, are taken home by Bert, have their dances with the chimney sweeps, and have a grand old time.
Later, when Mr. Banks gets home, he gets a call from the bank for him to come in and be fired. He waxes philosophic with Bert about dreams dashed and life collapsing, all because of that Poppins women.
As Mr. Banks is sitting in the parlor, considering his life a wreck, the brave Michael comes down in his bathrobe, along with his sister. He walks slowly up to the father who’s treated him like a drill sergeant through the entire picture. He reaches into his pocket and brings out the tuppence. “Here, father, you can have the tuppence.”
His sister asks, “Will that make everything all right?”
And the father just stares at the money and says very quietly, “Thank you.”
Even typing this up, I get a little watery-eyed. I don’t know if it’s because my own father was never given to showing emotion and worked in finance, and was raised by an English father to boot. Maybe it’s the gulf between what the children understand and the reality of the situation. Maybe the old man’s heart is finally melting a little. But I love it that instead of a maudlin, inauthentic, “well, don’t worry yourself over it,” Mr Banks only manages to spit out, “Thank you.” It’s a perfect scene, and I cry like a perfect idiot during it.
Men, have you got any movies you cry watching? Let us know. Let us unite in our wussiness and rejoice. And then make loud huffing sounds.
What about “Something for Joey”? I remember watching that in Home Ec in high school, and all of us guys were doing our best to hold it in– snort, huff, cough. That movie killed me.
I have to admit though, I cry every time Harry Bailey says, “A toast to my big brother George: The richest man in town.” (It’s a Wonderful Life). Odd for a cynic like me…
A cynic is usually an idealist who has been scalded by reality too often.
That’s a quote from Curly Howard.
Gets me every time: The last minutes of the movie “Apollo 13”, when ground control is waiting to hear from the spacecraft after a radio blackout expected to last three minutes stretches to four. The long string of the flight’s disasters, the flight controllers’ expressions as the blackout continues, the absolute quiet in the flight control center, the melancholy music…all conspiring to foretell doom.
And then out comes the voice of Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell: “Hello, Houston. This is Odyssey. It’s good to see ya again.” The controllers burst into raucous cheers, Ed Harris as steely-eyed flight director Gene Krantz sinks into a chair overcome with emotion, the music swells. Manipulative? Ron Howard? You betcha but it gets me. I’m snuffling all the way to the end of Hanks’s movie-ending soliloquy.
I almost forgot: The scene in “The Return of the King” when the hobbits bow to the newly crowned Aragorn, who says, “My friends, you bow to no one.” At which point he and every other real and F/X generated person there bow to the hobbits, who appear quite overwhelmed by the gesture. It’s more of a catch-in-the-throat moment than one that causes tears.
“Brian’s Song” always makes me cry…the music is so sentimental, the acting guaranteed to wrench every bit of life’s sadness from its well-secured lockbox and connect it to the sad death of poor Brian Picoolo.
Even more difficult than this, however, are the two most emotionally manipulative movies I’d ever seen: “Terms of Endearment” and “Field of Dreams.”
Now in terms of a good cry? I’d agree with the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Man, they don’t make ’em like that any more.