Thursday, April 01, 2004
Trouble at the Ranch!
At the dinner table when I was little I’d hold forth and ramble, inventing any number of characters and shepherding them through any number of situations. My imagination was very active - but as I try to reconstruct those stories now, I wonder if all my efforts were really as strange and small as the one I do remember well: The Adventures of Senior Lopez.
The Lopez opus would be filmed in color, but the blotchy saturated color of an old movie with all the associated stutters, burbles and gargles of the poorly-preserved celluloid of the 50’s. It was and remains thus:
Fade in: on a bucolic pasture; the title “The Amazing Adventures of Senior Lopez” is superimposed in somewhat rustic, ranch-oriented typography. Pan left (left creates tension) to Sr. Lopez, out standing in his field. He’s wearing a small white sombrero, a discrete cabana shirt, dark tailored slacks. (His shoes are not in the shot.) He’s standing happily, arms akimbo, looking up and to his left, surveying a realm of peace and tranquility. His broad smile gleams serenely from beneath a thick but tidy moustache.
Suddenly little Pepe runs up and the shot cuts dramatically to: a close-up on the child’s face. He’s only 10 or 12, chubby but energetic, earnest and goodhearted. He’s upset, concerned; he’s run up to warn Sr. Lopez of bad news.
“Senior Lopez, Senior Lopez!,” he shouts as he rushes up to our hero. “Trouble at the ranch!” He speaks with breathless anxiety and a castillian lisp.
Cut to: Sr. Lopez - close-up on his face. His brow furrows. Perhaps he’s been chewing a blade of grass or stalk of hay - he throws it aside with a decisive gesture. Cut to: a mid-distance shot in which we can see Pepe and Sr. Lopez walking off to the right. The camera is stationary and holds for a moment on the empty sundrenched meadow.
The next shot is of another part of the meadow, with a big cow grazing alone in the foreground. Sr. Lopez walks up to the cow; Pepe stands to the side anxiously. Sr. Lopez speaks clearly and comfortingly to the cow as he leads her to the right, saying in his continental baritone: “Oh Bessie, let’s get you back where you belong.”
Cut to: a tidy cattle yard with a gate. Bessie stands alone behind the gate, which Sr. Lopez is just closing and latching. Cut to: a tight shot of Sr. Lopez’ face, first frowning with concentration and then smiling broadly again. Pull back to include Pepe in the shot, looking on with pride and adoration. Cut to: a tight shot of Pepe looking up to Sr. Lopez, the sunlight drenching his beaming face. “Gee, Senior Lopez,” he gushes, “you’re the greatest!” (Roll credits.)
This may have been the only adventure of Senior Lopez - an unoptioned pilot, you might say. Yet I retold the tale often, each time forcing my sister to fill her sinuses with milk a little earlier in the story. And now, looking back, I realize that I actually miss Senior Lopez. He was the greatest.
