On a Clear Day You Can See Bridey, or, How Were Things in Glocca Morra?
Created | Updated Oct 30, 2011
Awix fears my film reviews.
This is because he's nice and doesn't want to hurt my feelings by telling me how lousy they are.
But since it's Halloween, I have determined to scare everybody out of a year's growth, and will now write about a thrilling cinematic experience. Read it if you dare.
On a Clear Day You Can See Bridey, or, How Were Things in Glocca Morra?
Back in the mid-1960s, the book The Search for Bridey Murphy scared the living daylights out of me. It was way worse than Dracula, which I enjoyed immensely. You see, I've never really believed in vampires. The idea of reincarnation, on the other hand, was utterly terrifying. I'd stumbled across the evil tome in the library, where I was embarked (at 14) on a personal quest to find the perfect religion. To this end, I was reading every book on theology, philosophy, comparative religion, and anthropology that Glenshaw Public Library boasted (not, ahem, a lot, but still). I read this Fifties bestseller and was clinically depressed for at least two weeks.
The book, by amateur hypnotist and professional businessman Morey Bernstein, chronicles a parlour trick gone cosmically wrong. Under hypnosis, a family friend, called Ruth Simmons in the book, morphed from a sophisticated Colorado housewife into a naïve, but outspoken, peasant woman from County Cork. Bridey (=Bridget) Murphy was as real, apparently, as the faces of Eve. The thing was, she'd died in 1864. This bothered me. A lot.
I didn't have a problem then, and still do not, with Hindu philosophy. Krishna fascinates me1. I object to no religion that is seeking the truth, and practices peace and tolerance2. There are few things at which I draw the line – but reincarnation is one of them. It may be going on, but I don't approve of it. When I'm done with this life, I want to live in a better world. Which is not this one. It's the galaxy or bust for me.
Mr Bernstein was convinced of the existence of Bridey. So were many other people. The book started a craze which led to a Jungian psychiatrist's discovery of several dozen reincarnated Cathars among his clientele, and of course to Barbra Streisand's singing the flowers into budding early in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever – a sort of Buddhist Miracle-Gro, I guess.
US fascination with the subject of reincarnation continues today. You can make megabucks helping people with their past life regressions, in California, anyway. Everybody wants to find out they were somebody important, or at least interesting, in a previous life. Personally, I don't want to know. I was probably an indentured servant, or something. Or a Druidic sacrifice. Anyhow, the other night, I happened to find out that in 1956, the story had been filmed. It was available on Netflix, so we settled down to watch.
The film is absorbing – surprisingly so, when you consider that the main character spends most of it lying on the sofa and talking. The flashbacks are handled well, and there is a dearth of harp music and sopranos. Harp music and sopranos usually feature strongly in 'spiritual' films of the period, and they're a major turn-off, as far as I'm concerned. (For instance, they add to my general inability to take Ingrid Bergman seriously as Jeanne d'Arc.) The dialogue (a lot of which is taken from recordings of the actual hypnotic sessions) is pretty snappy. Apart from the inexplicable fact that a Coloradan named Morey Bernstein is being played by an actor with a faux British accent, the casting is solid. The hour-and-a-half sped by. And I didn't get depressed once.
Not, mind you, because I'm now convinced that Bridey was a fake. Quite the opposite. The debunkers do not pass my test for valid research. Some of the debunking 'facts' – for instance, that the real Ruth Simmons knew Bridey as a childhood neighbour – turn out to have been invented by desperate clergymen. The complaint that Cork was a city, not a village, merely means that these debunkers don't know that Cork is also a county. In other words, there's no definitive proof either way, unless you accept as 'proof' a statement such as, 'I don't believe in reincarnation. It's balderdash.' The subject herself didn't really believe it – just as Edgar Cayce, a Kentucky Protestant, wasn't too happy about the sort of stuff spouted by his sleeping alter ego. So it goes.
Elektra complained that the movie 'wasn't spooky at all'. To which I replied, 'For one thing, it's in black and white, which is spooky enough, in my book. For another, the idea of people living serial lifetimes is quite appalling.' Since Elektra doesn't believe in reincarnation, she finds the idea innocuous, and fairly boring. I think she preferred the movie where the man changed bodies with his dog, and both were happier.
Metempsychosis is more Elektra's style. I need to go back and search Netflix again.
How to Find It
The Search for Bridey Murphy is available for instant viewing if you live in the US and have a Netflix subscription. If not, you may want to browse the cheap bins at the video store. Alternatively, you can read the book.
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