AT THE MOVIES: "MAGIC TOWN"

I just finished a B&W movie with James Stewart and Jane Wyman called Magic Town. I have always been a Jimmy Stewart fan but have never watched this one in it's entirety. I decided to make myself finish it this time, and I am glad I did. Before I write my review I want to recommend you watch it, too. ALL OF IT! If you don’t wade through the slow stuff at the beginning you wont give yourself the opportunity to see the parallels to our society today. So before you read the rest of this blog, watch it. NOTE: It's available on Netflix or online at  http://youtu.be/lr-FbTLfOds (let me know how this link works)

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Stewart plays Rip smith a statistician who makes his living selling opinion polls. Finding this tedious and time consuming work he searches for, and finds, a town statistically identical to the USA as a whole. With the same percentages of groups i.e. ?0% women over 25, ?2% annual earnings under 15k a year, and so forth. This mathematically perfect town and Smith can save time and provide marketing research to high paying clients in a fraction of the time and expense of "scientific" polls. Smith dreams that he can accumulate his fortune and finally have what he has always wanted: security. Yeah right!

In contrast, Jane Wyman plays Mary Peterman the editor of the newspaper, who wants to carry on her father’s dream of bringing progress to Grandview by building new schools and making room for cultural pursuits. Smith knows this would attract new people changing the opinions and socioeconomic values of current residents ergo changing the statistical perfection he has bet on to sustain his future security.

When the truth comes out the town goes crazy thinking they are special. With swelled heads and greedy hearts they begin to change. Almost overnight they begin to make promises they cannot fulfill without the new citizens and economic growth, but as the town changes the first poll proves to be ridiculously off of the grid for the rest of the nation. After becoming laughing stock for radio and print nationally, the town becomes a ghost town and their humiliation leaves the original people withdrawn and isolated from one another. Smith then tries to get the town to come back together. (Here is a town hall meeting scene that is sappy but inspirational nonetheless.)

One of the boasts made in the throes of conceit was that a new high school would be built “with their own hands” in the event that the bond vote failed. Smith reminds the council of these words and the meeting eventually becomes what could be compared to a group of Amish discussing the barn they will build for the neighbor. The kind of teamwork upon which our great nation was built.

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Believing the US debt is built upon the same ridiculous pride found in fictional Grandview – I also believe humble sacrifice and hard work is the solution. I know there will be some challenging days ahead of us. We must overcome our addiction to products made in China, we must continue/begin growing our own food, thinking health first and medicine second, many of us may find ourselves in multi-generational housing, and this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Together we lighten the load. There is no easy fix, we have debts and debtors will need to be paid the sooner we roll up our sleeves and face it the better.

Watch Magic Town. Don’t shut it off before the ghost town scene. There are some great lessons to learn, some pretty good acting and a few familiar faces from another Stewart movie, “It’s a wonderful life”. If you don’t see what I saw, that’s okay, you won’t have wasted 2 hours of your time because it is a satisfying movie. (Even if you don’t feel inspired to Blog about it.)

I’d love to hear your points of view on this movie.

Thanks for reading, Geri