Here’s to you, Mister Roberts

It’s Film Award season, one of the best times of the year for one reason,

‘31 Days of Oscar’ on TCM, one of my favorite stations if not institutions

(my interest for a job there still goes if anyone is reading).

I’m sitting between the TV and my computer with one eye on each screen,

watching Mister Roberts while searching my soul for the right words to get

someone or company whose profile I searched and studied online to notice and

acknowledge my existence…let’s not even worry about getting the job yet.

A funny thing happens when you have to peddle yourself to others… first you

search for yourself, then you find yourself, then you lose yourself… then

you….well that’s what I’m still trying to figure out. So I turn from my latest

attempt at a resume (let’s be honest I don’t like writing them as much as you

don’t like reading them ) and I watch Mister Roberts.

I remember why I love these films so much, why I’ve spent a better part of my life

watching them, absorbing every bit of them. How quickly you are someplace else,

living a life that matters. Whether you’re Mister Roberts, Ensign Pulver, Doc, or

even a Captain with a chip on his shoulder, that’s the gift of the movies, we get to

see ourselves in all those people.

When they got to the last speech, Mister Robert’s letter, and I heard the words I

thought… how serendipitous, I have to share this with the others, with the rest of

the crew stuck on this bucket. To remind us all that we’re not crazy, we’re not

worthless, and we each have a ship we dream of catching. We’re only defeated if

we give up chasing it.

Read this Quote from “Mister Roberts”

(screenplay by Frank Nugent & Joshua Logan / Warner Bros. 1955)

http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/m/mister-roberts-

script-transcript-lemmon.html

“l'm in the war at last, Doc! l've caught up with that task force that passed me by.” “l'm glad to be here. l had to be here, l guess.” “But l'm thinking now of you, Doc, and you, Frank. And Dolan, and Dowdy, and lnsigna and everyone else on that bucket.” “All the guys everywhere who sail from Tedium to Apathy and back again... with an occasional side trip to Monotony.” “This is a tough crew on here, and they have a wonderful battle record... “But l've discovered, Doc, that the unseen enemy of this war is the boredom, that eventually becomes a faith... and, therefore, a terrible sort of suicide.” “l know now that the ones who refuse to surrender to it... are the strongest of all.”

The next time you get another ‘thank you but you’re not what we’re looking for

at this time’, or you get no answer at all, when you know you deserved one,

don’t let it break your spirit.

Say to yourself “Now what's all this crud about no movie tonight”