Going to bed with Redford

Oh! I love a man in uniform!

The cable channel Decades has been showing The Way We Were, off and on all day as a tribute to Redford on his (gulp!) 79th birthday. And so I will use my bedroom TV as a nightlight and watch TWWW yet again as I fall asleep.

This is the quintessential Redford/Sydney Pollack collaboration. He's the remote, WASP love object that he also played in his other films with Sydney -- This Property Is Condemned and Three Days of the Condor and Out of Africa -- and he's at his most gorgeous here. It's not my favorite Redford performance, but it is my favorite Redford movie.

And that's because, along with his yumminess, it's got Babs at her best. Noisy, dedicated, uncompromising, right (in her politics and commitment, if not her "style"). Streisand is a force of nature in The Way We Were.

But it's not her birthday, it's his. And so here's to ya, Redford. Happy birthday and thanks for all the dreams and fantasies.