for part one…click here
Thorson sat enthralled by the movie. The protagonist, Jennifer, was everything that this thirteen and a half year old boy could imagine that he would want in his future girlfriend/eventual wife. She had long fiery red hair that blew in the wind (even when she was indoors – apparently the director of this film really liked to use fans), freckles (Thorson loved freckles) she was tall, slender, just the right amount of curvy, and…and this was the best bit…no acne! And when she spoke…What. A. Voice! It was like silk sliding on satin…like butter melting on toast…like, like, well, it was just wonderful. Thorson could have listened to that voice all day (his dad told him once that a voice you can listen to all day is a good quality to have in a wife, because more often than not, that’s exactly what a husband would have to do…).
Beside Jennifer, the rest of the actors and actresses seemed to be two-bit hacks. The basic plot of the movie was about how a volcano had devastated a small town, and how a young teenage girl whom nobody thought could do anything right (Jennifer) rallied the survivors and led them on a journey to find a new place to live. It was the typical “small town nobody saves the day” movie. The dialogue was stilted, the camera angles were rather weird – half of the scenes seemed to be shot with the camera tilted at about a 15 degree angle, the musical score sounded like it had been performed by a high school band that hadn’t practiced enough. In short, it was exactly the kind of cheesy that Thorson loved…but with Jennifer in the mix…he was absolutely smitten. As much as he was enjoying the fromage factor of this film, he couldn’t wait for the end credits to roll so that he could learn the name of this Aphrodite.
Finally the moment arrived. The actor credits came in alphabetical order of the characters’ names. Abel was played by Joseph Alphonse Roberts. Beth and been played by Sandra Edie, and so on and so on…finally…
JENNIFER………………………..played by Bertha Gertrude VonEngle.
REALLY??? the name of the love of his life was Bertha Gertrude? Could he really love someone named Bertha??? If it weren’t for the image of her face that was etched into his mind like lines on burnt toast, he would have associated a name like Bertha Gertrude as a gold medal winning weight lifter from a film about the Olympics set back in the day when the East German women were still around.
Oh well, perfection was perfection. All he had to do was learn a bit about where the film was made, and he could begin to track down the lovely…um…Bertha. Feeling a bit like Frodo Baggins, he knew that his quest was about to begin…
~~to be continued~~ (click here for part 4)
Quest for Whirled Peas 