Movie Heaven: Turner Classic Movies

Living in the heart of "movie heaven," only a few blocks from the former M-G-M studios (now home to Sony-Columbia-TriStar studios) in Culver City, Calif., I have a special appreciation for cable television channel Turner Classic Movies, or TCM as hosts Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz and everyone else call it.

Many of the films shown on TCM were made by M-G-M in the 1930s and 1940s. I remember my parents, who were married in 1935, telling me how good movies were "in their day." And I remember many movies I saw on Saturday afternoons in the late 1940s and early 1950s at the Roxy Theater near our home in Berwyn, Ill., a Chicago suburb. Thanks to TCM, I know how right my parents were. I regret they didn't live long enough to enjoy TCM. They would have loved it!

Sony-Columbia-TriStar seems as busy as ever. Nearby is Culver Studios, whose headquarters resemble Tara in Gone With the Wind. That's not a coincidence, because Tara in the movies was situated where the headquarters are located today. Its backlot extends for several blocks from that building. Across the side street on the east side of Culver Studios is a parking lot. That's where the Battle of Atlanta was filmed.

I've lived in this area for 15 years. When I first moved here, I was always thrilled whenever I saw a movie star in person. After awhile, you get used to it.

I attend St. Augustine's Catholic Church, which is right across the street from Sony-Columbia-TriStar. The church opened in the 1880s as a satellite to St. Monica's Catholic Church in nearby Santa Monica. St. Augustine was St. Monica's son. St. Augustine's Church reminds me that even here in "movie heaven" we should care as much about the City of God as we do about the City of Man.

There are many modest homes in Culver City that were built in the 1920s and 1930s to house those who worked at the studios. Hal Roach, for example, not only encouraged the building of these homes but even helped his employees obtain low-cost mortgages. Today, many studio workers still live in these homes, which have been kept up so nicely over the years.

Mind you, I'm not talking about Beverly Hills, four miles away. And I'm not talking about Hollywood, eight miles away. I'm talking about Culver City. Home ownership is as much a matter of pride here as it still is back in Berwyn. Ironically, some of the first people I met in Culver City 15 years ago once lived in Berwyn or have relatives lving there today!

One of these days, I'll take a tour of the studios. Like so many things, I keep putting it off. But in the meantime, I'll sit in my easy chair and watch TCM.

A League of Their Own

A League of Their Own has been airing on cable TV in recent weeks. I saw it when it came out in 1992, and I watched it again today. The film evokes so many fond memories for me.


The Rockford Peaches in A League of Their Own
Click photo to view an enlargement.
Growing up in Berwyn, Ill., only 10 miles southwest of downtown Chicago, baseball was an important part of my summers. We lived two short blocks from the field where amateur baseball teams played on weekend afternoons and early some evenings. My buddies and I played baseball during the day on that same field.

My father was a dedicated Chicago Cubs and Chicago Bears fan all of his life, but he loved to watch amateur baseball, too. He played semi-pro football in Chicago between 1928 and 1935, striking up a lifelong friendship with George Halas. Sometimes on summer evenings we would go to a stadium in nearby Forest Park to watch semi-pro baseball league teams, including women's baseball teams. I don't remember if we ever saw the Rockford, Ill., team portayed in A League of Their Own, but if they played in Forest Park, then we saw them.

These games were well-attended. They were played near our home, easy to get to, and not as expensive as the Cubs or Sox games. It was fun to watch these games, because the players showed so much spirit, the same spirit that comes through in A League of Their Own.

When we got our first TV set in 1949, my father would watch the Cubs on TV and listen to the White Sox on the radio, or vice-versa. In the autumn, he did the same thing when the Chicago Bears and Chicago Cardinals played. We sometimes went to Wrigley Field in late November or December to watch the Bears in person--and froze!

I've seen the TV show about "When Baseball Was Baseball" that has aired in recent years. Players salaries' were still in the ballpark in those days, and fans were as dedicated as ever. We often went to see a White Sox night game at Comiskey Park. "I don't know why the hell the Cubs don't play night games!" my dad often complained.

But we could see night games at that great field in Forest Park....

Order "A League of Their Own" (Special Edition DVD)

Post Script--I asked Bill Egan, a classmate of mine at Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Ill. in the mid-1950s, if he remembered the name of the baseball stadium in Forest Park. Bill sent me the following email:

"The stadium was Parichy Memorial Stadium, home of the Parichy Bloomer Girls of the National Girls Baseball League. I used to go to the games with my parents. Emory Parichy, a Forest Parker roofer, owned the team and built the Stadium designed roughly after Wrigley Field. I was put in touch with Emory Parichy in 1990 and helped him organize a Reunion of the Bloomer Girls. Their star was pitcher Wilda Mae Turner who was written up in LIFE Magazine in 1946 as the best woman softball pitcher in America. The pitching was fast pitch underhand and the league was a rival of the All American League made famous by the movie A League of Their Own. That league was made up of teams from Rockford, Kenosha, Racine and South Bend. The Bloomer Girls were big in Chicago from about 1946 to 1954 and all the teams in the National league were from Chicago. I realize you only asked for the name of the Stadium, but I have wonderful memories of that Stadium and the Bloomer Girls."


The 1946 Bloomer Girls at Parichy Memorial Stadium
Click photo to view an enlargement.