Streetcar to somewhere


While my mother often can't get a sentence out without fracturing her words as if she were biting down on them, she can reel off the names of character actors in movies long forgotten.

Just yesterday we were watching a very old black and white movie, the kind my niece once described as a film in which everyone is dead. Therefore, unwatchable. Actually the movie whose name I can't recall was merely background noise, except for one scene where leading lady Joan Bennett is joined by a rather handsome supporting player who didn't look familiar to me.

"Aldo Ray," mom announced as easily as if she were ordering a cup of coffee. Yet in the next breath, she told my nephew not to go in her refrigerator for Tic-Tacs. She meant purse. At dinner, she asked for a pen to cut her chicken. Don't have to tell you what she meant by that one.

She referred to the 5-year-old with us, Sophia, as Frieda. In describing a baby in our family named Avery, she came out with Aberdeel. (I don't believe there's a movie actor named that.)

Nothing stimulates my mother more than days spent with family, telling old stories and laughing until our stomachs hurt. That some of her lines evoke much of that laughter? Well, that's a bonus. 

As we left my sister's house, she said goodbye to everyone, including my cousin, Stephanie. Except she called her Stella.

That one's a cinch. "A Streetcar Named Desire": Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter. 

And the one-word line that encapsulates the whole movie? 

"Stephanie!" 

          
Internet Movie Database

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