The Movies Rides Again
The past few years, on the day of the Oscars, I wrote the following, about a quest I've been on.
A long while back, I was on a mini-mission to get the Motion Picture Academy to open their Oscar broadcast with a particularly wonderful song that, though it had a bit of shelf-life in country music (reaching #10 on the country charts), I figured they wouldn't know. I actually came close -- not to accomplishing my task, but having access to making the suggestion -- when my former boss at Universal Studios, Bob Rehme, was year later made president of the Academy. Alas, I didn't have the contact information that would have helped and didn't make the effort -- which probably wouldn't have been too difficult, even it was before Google searches -- to track it down (hence never getting beyond being just a "mini-mission").
The idea time has long-since passed, since the group who sang the song, the Statler Brothers, have retired, and also some of the references in the song -- while many are still classic -- aren't all likely as impactful on today's audience. Still, it's a very fun song, and would make an thoroughly enjoyable number in the middle of the broadcast, sung by a cobbled-together group of movie stars singing. And classic movies are just that – classic.
(Hey, the Statlers themselves could even come out of retirement. They did briefly a few years back for an event when elected into a country music Hall of Fame.)
But no, it's not likely to happen. But that doesn't stop me from at least presenting the song on the day of the Oscar broadcast. So, here it is -- one of the most affectionate tributes and truly clever songs I've heard about movies. And it fits perfectly into the portfolio of "list" songs that the Statlers were so well-known for, over a career that began with “Flowers on the Wall, written by the group’s Lew DeWitt…who, as it happens, wrote this song, as well.
Indeed, the name of the song is "The Movies."
As a bonus, this below is my favorite version of the song, though it's performed a bit faster than the one above -- and unless you've heard the song as many times as I have, it may be hard to make out all the words. But the reason it's my favorite, and why I want to include it here, is because it performed by all the original Statlers, including Lew DeWitt who, as I mentioned, wrote the song and has a wonderful, unique voice. However, he had to retire from the group for health reasons and later passed away. He's the fellow on your far right, with the guitar and wearing tinted glasses.
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