Many many years ago, my mother took me and my friend Susan to see the movie “The Way We Were.” Susan and I were young teenagers at the time and well, the movie starred Robert Redford. Robert Redford. Like today’s OMG!! I suspect my mother might have had her own thing going for the blond hunk because I really don’t remember going to many movies with mom. I remember her taking us or picking us up, but very few times do I remember her sitting beside me passing the popcorn.
So anyway, TCM recently ran “The Way We Were” and I boo-hooed. I cried a little because of the movie, a little at the memory (and loss) of my mother, and a lot at the memory of my ruined scene! Okay, those tears were from laughing myself silly because of what happened in that theatre during that stupid scene. 
Anyone who has ever seen the movie, or even just the trailer, knows what scene I’m talking about. It defined the movie (for me anyway). For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, here goes **SPOILER ALERT** (tee-hee, just had to add that). After several years of struggling to make their marriage work, Hubbel (Redford) and Katie (Barbra Streisand) call it quits and move on with their lives. Years later (one of the last scenes in the movie), they run into one another on a busy street in New York. They chat for a few minutes, pleasant, catching up type thing, but with a slight underlying edge of strain, hurt, what-could-have-been tension. And then…Streisand reaches up and oh so gently brushes Redford’s bangs aside just as the music swells, followed by the first hint of lyrics to the mega-hit sung by Streisand. Clutch your heart perfection! I lived to see that scene. My thirteen years on earth would have not been complete if I died without seeing that touch, that sweep of bangs.
Okay, Susan...you can stop laughing now. What happened? You guessed it. Just as Babs reaches up to touch that blond hair, a lady with a rear end the size of a barn stood up in front of me and blocked the whole screen. No stadium seating back then.
I was devastated. I felt cheated. A still shot of that scene was on every piece of promotional material published around that movie so I knew it well…I knew what I had just missed. I had missed the scene.
And yeah, you better believe when TCM recently showed the movie, I recorded it. I’ve watched the scene several times since, over and over again. Clutch your heart perfection.
So what’s your favorite scene?
