I forgot to say something yesterday. Because, you'll remember, it wasn't Remembrance Day. It was two whole days away from the Day of Remembering so I forgot. I believe we should declare a Day of Forgetting. That's your day to really let it all go, all that stuff you've been hanging on to: the time your husband called your haircut "moribund" or the day your mother said "You're no son of mine!" It'll take more than a minute of silence but you can do it. I declare today National Forgetting Day.

Now, where was I?

O yes. Silence. Yesterday I was cogitating on movies with mute characters (not to be confused with silent films). I mentioned The Miracle Worker which belongs to what I call the Mute Genre. Other films in this genre include Johnny Belinda, Children of a Lesser God, Little Miss Sunshine, There Will Be Blood and any of the Marx Brothers movies. Mime Movies do not count: Blowup and the great Les Enfant du Paradis are not of the Mute Genre. They are of the Mime Genre.

Now, what was it that I wanted to say?

O yeah. So after Anne Bancroft starred in the mute movie she starred in its opposite, The Slender Thread, where only her voice is heard for most of the film. Only her voice on the telephone being broadcast over a speaker on the wall of the crisis call clinic where Sidney Poitier works frantically to keep her on the line.

Sydney Pollack cast well (it was his first movie)! AB's voice is like a dark velvet night when all the stars are twinkling and a cool breeze ruffles your hair. Sid also has a great voice.

The Slender Thread belongs in what I call the Telephone Genre as does Pillow Talk which features Doris Day in bed glowing like radioactive cotton candy, receiver to ear on a split screen with that cad in a cowboy hat, Rock Hudson; and Dial M for Murder; also Adaptation because Meryl Streep does dial tone. We should have known La Streep could do the various dialects of phone which collectively are known as Phone-ese (pronounced like phoneys).

I'm off to forget. Happy Forgetfulness Day!