Return to Witch Mountain

Return to Witch Mountain is on the Hallmark channel and I can’t help but watch it. As a kid I loved this movie. I distinctly remember wishing that I had alien powers that could levitate me over gates and the alike. I even remember holding my own hands at Frank Zeek Elementary and flinging myself onto the cyclone fence only to scrape up my face. Looking at the movie now, I’m fascinated not so much by the terrible acting (Bette Davis does a pretty good job at being an old bitch, who’d a thunk?) but how San Francisco looked in the 1970’s. It was such a different place from the San Francisco of 2004. My earliest memories of San Francisco take place in the early ‘80’s and have to do with Chinatown, the Sutro Baths, Playland, Fisherman’s Warf, etc. I remember distinctly getting hamburgers at the Wendy’s on Market Street when I was 8 and my parents making us take them outside to eat. We weren’t allowed to sit down out side because according to my mother, “vagabonds pee everywhere.” This is where levitating powers would come in handy. I could have floated above the sidewalk, taking care not to pick up vagrant urine particles on my shoes. The movie keeps being interrupted with commercials (duh.) There basically all Hallmark commercials for mother’s day. The people on the screen are hawking Mother’s Day Locket Ornaments. It’s disgusting. Ugly. However after watching about six of these commercials I’m drawn to buy one.