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Page 1 of 2  As another evening washes away, a cherub of a man sits alone upon a set of dampened, cement stairs. Dim streetlight through the leftover mist, as the man, Max Tooney, dutifully polishes the aged trumpet in his lap. Life, it seems, even when witnessed only by dings and smudges upon brass, is not often easily revitalized. On this fortuitous night, Tooney finds himself slipping into a used instrument shoppe, trumpet clutched tightly to his chest, reluctant to add his treasure to a menagerie of horns dangling from rafters, the pricetagged graveyard of aspirations gone awry. When the elderly proprietor of the shop is roused from his register, a hope sparks to life for those of us watching – hoping the old man sees in Tooney, what we do… a man in need of just a meager dose of adrenaline.
 | But he doesn’t. Instead, he sees a man who will take whatever is given. The owner offers a paltry six pounds.
That Tooney -- six pounds more humble, now without even three buttons of hope in his hands – requested just a moment more with his trumpet might seem contrived. That the song he chose to play -- out of all the jazz and big band melodies that had wound out from that horn – happened to be the very same tune etched into the broken, master print record the old man found secreted in a piano, then pieced back together and played, that very morning… well, it might seem implausible. The best stories do.
The Legend of 1900 is a modern fable. Scenes aren’t run amok with anamorphic creatures, as 1900 is the name of a man. I’d say there aren’t fairy tale lands, either, but that isn’t true. Fairy tales exist in our world, but they aren’t secreted away in the foggy mountain tops of Gods, or beyond the arch of a rainbow; they’re merely nestled in on the other side of the fence.
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Orphaned upon a cruise liner named The Virginian shortly after his birth, a quiet, pale, baby boy in a T.D. Lemon crate was swept under the wings of Danny, the ship’s gentle giant of an engineer. Inspired that he was meant to find the boy, (T.D. surely equated to “Thanks, Danny”) he christened the child: Danny Boodmann T.D. Lemon Nineteen Hundred – 1900 for the year he was found. Reared in the belly of the ship, away from the legalities and numbering other humans are fitted with, 1900 became his own man. The 20th century was in its infancy, and The Virginian was doing a small part to connect the world. Is there any greater fairy tale of those days than the whispers of America?
The Virginian, for 1900, was more than a home – it was his world. He’d never set foot off it. Beyond the fence, the rails on deck, so often lie America. Posh travelers either returning or departing, while the immigrants below deck were embarking on imagined promise. A masterful weaving of cinematography and effects paints New York in various lights throughout the film: to the immigrants, it is a promised land, a vision from a dream, fog, like clouds, veiling the gutters, allowing only steel spires, concrete peaks like beacons in Heaven, to peek out. Other times, New York is a sordid Titan, teeming with beauty and ugliness, alike, hopes alongside failures – an endless Nothing, or inviting All. People eventually find their place, 1900 was no exception. He found his upon the bench before a piano. Fables might deal largely in the supernatural and feats beyond human capacity, but there’s no denying there are savants among us. 1900 sat down at the piano, and simply began playing. No lessons, no sheets, just a feeling in his chest, a song in his mind, and confidence at his fingertips.
When Max Tooney first ventured to board The Virginian, he had to blow his heart out to land a gig with the ship’s band. Later that night, green to the gills with his stomach praying to porcelin for a bit of solid land, 1900 strolled into his life. Up until this point, The Legend of 1900 is interesting, a great back story, but it is that first night alone in the ballroom with Tooney and 1900 when the story arrives. Every mobile object bolted down during a hellacious swirling of the sea, the ballroom is set a-sway, when 1900 chances a strange scheme to better acquaint Tooney with life above the water. He sets down at the piano, has Tooney join him… and then pulls up the brakes. Fingers strum over the keys, giving music to the sway, as the piano, with bench, whirls freely about.
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There’s a quixotic feel to the sets of the film; nothing gilded, or garish, rather the sort of forgiving, Gaussian blur that touches your memory of that clandestine, three am conversation over pancakes at IHOP, and replaces the grime on the table jukebox with a bit of shine. The warmth of the ballroom, the coziness of the ship’s quarters and pianos are nothing less than inviting. Considering The Virginian was intended only as a prolonged thoroughfare, it feels remarkably like home. If done well, stories of friendships settle into one’s very spine. Whether Tom and Huck or Terebithia, unlikely companions can slip into a groove so well, it resonates; 1900 and Tooney fit that mold. Tooney fills 1900’s ears with all the world could be, and 1900 counters with all that the world actually is. Thing about 1900, he isn’t exactly nutty, or cocky, or soft in the middle and yet, he’s all of them at once, a melted array of everything society would surely splinter apart and label, if given long enough a chance. His thoughts leave his tongue as precisely as music does his fingertips: “Fuck regulations,” he’d say… and who wouldn’t adore a friend like that.
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