It is interesting to me the way that a movie can make you feel. That such a simple form of entertainment has the most profound effect on people. What is also fascinating is the way that movies can reflect the way life is at a certain moment in time, while also taking us out of our current reality. For me, movies were just that: an escape. Especially the movies of Old Hollywood.

The films of the Golden Age of cinema offer a voyeuristic look into the past. They act as a time machine to history's most iconic decades, decades that are written down in the great archives of time. We get to see how the film industry and storytelling were affected by things such as the Great Depression, World War II, and the threat of nuclear war.

Most important of all, it immortalized some of the world's greatest talents such as Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Gene Tierney, Kirk Douglas, and Gene Kelly (to name a few). They are the ones who built up Hollywood into the mecca of talent and innovation that we know today.

For me, Old Hollywood represented that wonderful escape that I mentioned earlier. I was severely bullied as a child, so much so that I didn't really have many friends. But, whenever I felt lonely or misunderstood, I could turn on TCM and live in a world of black and white for a night (or Technicolor depending on the film). In these celluloid dreams, I could leave the world behind and live completely immersed in a different time and place.

I conversed with great leading ladies like Ingrid Bergman and Rita Hayworth, while listening to the melodic voice of Judy Garland. I could partake in a chariot race with Charlton Heston in biblical times, or help him part the Red Sea. Old Hollywood films helped me feel more comfortable with myself, to love myself. They gave me companionship when no one else would.

I don't think I could ever live a life where I didn't love Old Hollywood. Most of my movie collection was made before 1969 and is either in black and white or Technicolor. I can recall random facts and figures about the era and the way that it shaped today's modern films. For me, Old Hollywood isn't just a moment in Hollywood's history, it is an art form. It is the comfort I seek when I feel like my world is crumbling all around me.

I don't know who I'd be if I didn't have Old Hollywood