By John Barbour
10-29-24

Casablanca came to a small theater in Toronto late in 1943 when I was only a boy of 10.
Even though it was the dead of winter, I bowed through the blizzards daily to see it again and again.

It hinted at war in Europe which didn't interest me, even though my father was there fighting the bad guys.
The actors, larger than Life, we're dwarfed by the joy I felt near real humans watching this film filled with love and spies!

Like every film I saw, over and over, in the next 7 years good or bad, I memorized nearly every line. I hated to see 'The End'
appear on the screen. I often imitated the actors. For weeks it was 'Play It again, Sam!’ My favorite was the closing because
I had none: 'Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.'

I went to the movies for a number of real reasons. First off. With a mother who was off often, and with a new uncle I didn't know, I was alone.
Not quite being strong enough to be in the basement shoveling coal in a furnace, in the theater, near people, I could be warm to the bone.
I was beginning to love reading books; but movies were much, much better. The walls were like arms that wrapped me.

As the years and films and books flew by faster than a hummingbird flaps its wings, I thought: when I grow up what will I be?
My local attempts at acting didn't work out. My dreams of hockey melted like August ice. With no family, Canada was not for me.

This quandary brought me back to even greater movies. 'The African Queen’ and 'All The King's Men’ … all Made In Hollywood!!

After endless great, meaningful films, I just sat in my seat and my dream grew and grew... Go to Hollywood! If only I could.

And I did. It was tough. And hard. But I felt I was living a movie of my life. Moving forward happily, not knowing what the fates had in store.

The ultimate irony. I ended up the first film critic on TV and 10 years at Los Angeles Magazine, criticizing movies which no one could Love More.
To paraphrase Brutus, ‘Do we set our goals or do the Stars?' Or, as Woody Allen claims…it’s all just luck. That is the only truth I find.

The greatest of happiness comes, as Joseph Campbell says, by following your bliss.
And you do that best if you have a totally open mind!! - John Barbour

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/TUB93EcR5qRvZs9V/