A treasured gift

Sorry I haven't written for a couple of days. Haven't felt too well. Got the crappy spring crud.

Tonight, Jenn brought home a box that turned out to be a wedding present from a friend that is a nationally-known columnist and writer. Included in the box were a piece of pottery and a book inscribed to me entitled "Gatlinburg and The Great Smokies."

The book is a collection of columns originally filed by Ernie Pyle for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain (I work for its current incarnation, E.W. Scripps) in the fall of 1940, written during his visit to Gatlinburg and LeConte. It was collected in 1951 by The Mountain Press.

What a treasure. As you may know, Ernie is one of my heroes. My greatest source of pride about working for Scripps is being able to say I am employed by the same company for which Ernie Pyle once worked. Of course, I'm in the Rookie League and he was a major-league star. Jenn and I visited Ernie's grave at the Punchbowl in Honolulu when we were in Hawaii last October.

The book's forward says: "They (the columns) are good reading -- by one of the truly great writers of our time. They are about things close to the heart of all who love the Smokies. They are simple (as is all great writing) sincere and touched by a quaint and whimsical humor.

"I wish to thank Loye W. Miller, Editor of the Knoxville (Tennessee) News-Sentinel, and Bert Vincent, Strolling Reporter, for their help and cooperation in re-printing these columns."

It is signed C.C. Callaway, Gatlinburg, Tenn., 1951.

This thoughtful gift will be treasured as long as I roam this earth.

'A Walk in the Spring Rain'

Tonight I am watching a movie that was partially filmed in my hometown.

The picture is "A Walk in the Spring Rain." It was shot in Knoxville, Cades Cove and Gatlinburg, Tenn., in 1969 and stars Fritz Weaver, Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn. Aside from getting to see a beautiful Bergman in the twilight of her career, and glimpses of what several familiar locations looked like 40 years ago, there's not much to say.

This movie could have been something of a classic. According to the Turner Classic Movies website, Bergman was intrigued by the film because she liked the story, wanted to work with Quinn again (they'd starred together in "The Visit" five years earlier) and had complained that few film roles were then being written for women of her age (she was 54 at the time).

The film focuses on a professor (Weaver) and his wife (Bergman) who travel to the Great Smoky Mountains so the professor can write a book during a year-long sabbatical. Quinn plays the man who rents the couple a home. He also falls in love with Bergman.

"A Walk in the Spring Rain" is an old-fashioned film even for 1970. In an era of raging sexual revolution ("The Graduate," for example, looks like soft porn compared to this), the film treats the extra-marital affair rather conservatively. Bergman was radiant even in middle age and Weaver and Quinn do the best they can. But the movie suffers from a weak script and careless direction by Guy Green, best known as being the cameraman for David Lean on "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist." One neat cultural note is that actor and martial arts legend Bruce Lee choreographed the fight scene between Quinn and his "son" (Tom Fielding, aka Tom Holland).

Gatlinburg was already beginning to become cluttered with the touristy clap-trap for which it's famous (yes, the Old Smoky Candy Kitchen is still there) and Ayres Hall on the UT campus looks exactly the same! (I wonder if the heat and air actually worked back then.) The Smokies are beautiful in any decade.

"A Walk in the Spring Rain" premiered in Knoxville at the Tennessee Theatre on April 9, 1970. Bergman sat next to Rachel Maddux, the author of the novel on which the film is based. Bergman later remembered that Maddux kept saying things like "What is this?" during the screening and at one point went to the restroom and cried.

Bergman wrote in her memoirs: "I went after her and tried to comfort her...The film had been a good try. We'd started off with such high hopes. I thought maybe we could do a film with that elusive feeling which 'Brief Encounter' [1945] had. We'd worked hard. We'd done our best and at the end of it we'd made Rachel Maddux cry."

I have had a crush on Ingrid Bergman since I first saw "Casablanca" as a kid. This film could have been so much more, a touching tale of broken dreams and middle-age regret. But as it is, it's a wasted opportunity, a classic example of a director biting off less than he could chew.

With this cast, he should have had a goldmine. Instead, he fell down the shaft.