I Ruin Everything

Last night we realized LOVE LETTERS was on TCM. But it had already been on for twelve minutes! Aw, that's not so bad, we reasoned. I had been meaning to record it, but I did not. All we knew was that it had Joseph Cotten ("One of my top five!" - Dr. Theresa) and Jennifer Jones in it, the same couple from PORTRAIT OF JENNIE, which Dr. Theresa loves so much that Megan Abbott sent her a lobby card from it. So we missed the first twelve minutes (maybe the first ten, accounting for Robert Osborne's introduction) and then I paused it numerous times because I was cooking dinner and had to go stir this or check that. So at some point I meant to pause it again, but accidentally hit the "2" button... which is just beneath the "pause" button... and our viewing changed to a withered grayish man in an infomerical about mortgages on channel 2! And by the time I got it back on TCM, the movie had advanced considerably - an unintended consequence of my constant pausing, now all undone! - and could not be rewound. We found ourselves suddenly smack dab in a flashback where answers to all the mysterious questions were coming to light! BONK! A shadow on the wall showed a heavy object bonking down on a man's head. In the movie, I mean.