At the Ragle's

Last night was our monthly movie night with Tom and Nancy Ragle. It proved to be really interesting. We had suggested Zorba the Greek as a film, but it was unavailable. Tom and Nancy suggested Resurrection, which we were unacquainted with but said, "sure," but they could not find it - it wasn't in the case where it should have been. They gave us a stack of possibles to choose from, and I chose a 1942 film, Random Harvest, starring Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson. I knew nothing about it, but it proved to be really very gripping and unusual. The plot centered on a man who became an amnesiac in the war, and his origins could not be traced, so he starts a new life, and eventually falls in love and gets married. He exists in this life for three years, has a child, and then he is in an auto accident which involves a blow to the head and he becomes his former self, with no memory whatever of the three years. In his "new" former life, he becomes a titan of industry and his picture in the newspaper comes to the attention of his wife from the three-year period as an amnesiac. She tracks him down and becomes his secretary - hoping to restore his memory of her. I won't reveal the ultimate ending. It strained credulity a bit, but it was well acted - Greer Garson was especially good as the wife. I learned later that the Resurrection storyline is about a woman named Edna Mae Macaulay "who experiences the afterlife for a brief time after a car accident that kills her husband. Then as she begins her long process of physical healing, she discovers that she has the ability to heal physical infirmities. While most people simply accept her gift, her lover (Sam Shepard) becomes mentally unbalanced and dangerous because she does not place the healings within a religious context." That sounds intriguing too - though perhaps controversial. Maybe we'll see that next time (if the Ragles can find it!). Random Harvest had an unexpected side-story. One of the minor actors was Bramwell Fletcher. When I saw his name in the credits, it brought back memories. In the 1970's, Bramwell Fletcher came to Windham College with his portrayal of George Bernard Shaw (like Hal Holbrook used to "do" Mark Twain). Through him I became aware of his wife, Lael Wertenbaker, author of Death of a Man, in which she talks intimately about what was then a very controversial subject - assisting the death of her husband, Charles Wertenbaker, who was dying of cancer. Not long after reading her book, I taught a course at Windham titled Death and Dying. Lael Wertenbaker lived in Nelson, NH, and I contacted her and asked if I could bring my class to her home to meet her and discuss her book. (Sort of a gutsy thing to do!). She said "Yes," and we did. It was a very moving experience for all of us, I think. While we were at the Ragle's, we enjoyed some Christmas artifacts they hed found in Germany - a Nativity Tower that rotates from the heat of candles that rises and turns a fan, and a wonderful little skating pond where the skaters are moved by magnets from underneath. Delightful!

Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman

Poster for Resurrection

Lael Wertenbaker

Bramwell Fletcher

The skating pond

The Nativity tower