After a day spent making ten turkey sandwiches and a turkey soup big enough to fill Levi’s Stadium—which is more than the 49ers did on Christmas—I went to the TeeVee Machine.

Luckily for me, I caught the last half of director Frank Capra’s of It Happened One Night, which was as charming as ever. And, since one of my 132 secret wishes would be a Hollywood fashion designer, Claude Colbert’s satin wedding dress, with the train that’s about a mile long floating behind her as she deserts her bleh! groom for yay! Clark Gable, is delightful. Then—thank you, Turner Classic Movies host Alicia Malone—the next film was Breakfast at Tiffany’s with the incredible opening: Audrey Hepburn in her Givenchy little black dress having a croissant and coffee outside Tiffany’s, the place that makes her feel safe.

And then, to borrow from Walt Whitman, I grew unaccountably sick and tired of the film, thanks to Mickey Rooney and the stupid party scene that’s meant to be clever. It isn’t anymore. It’s stupid. I’m not fond of either George Peppard or the ghastly woman, wearing ghastly hats, played by Patricia Neal. That narrows us down to Audrey Hepburn and Buddy Ebsen’s poignant cameo, both solids.

So I changed channels. I love Tom Hardy anyway, and Charlize Theron plays Strong Women in several films, so the last half of Mad Max: Fury Road was just what I needed. George MIller’s movie is one of the most stunning and inventive films I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I can watch it more than once a year or so, because it’s so over the top, and rightfully so, that it leaves me frazzled at the end.

But last night I realized that I’d seen scenes in Max before. That’s when I realized that Miller loves movies as much or more than I do, because he paid tribute to another favorite director—at least visually, because the man himself was what George W. Bush referred to as a “turd blossom”—John Ford. And I must add “John Ford without the Sons of the Pioneers” for further clarification.

Let me explain. It was a good night for fashion statements…

Postscript: Ford’s known for his stable of actors—Wayne, Ward Bond, Victor McLaglen, Ken Curtis, Ben Johnson, and so on—also had a stable of stuntmen. Among them were two believed to be Native Americans: Yakima Canutt and Iron Eyes Cody. 

They weren’t. Canutt’s ancestors were from the British Isles and Germany. Cody was Sicilian.

Darn.