What great films teach marketers

The cable TV went out and so I was forced to find entertainment from my selection of videos.  Mostly old musicals and of course the Audrey Hepburn collection – but I wasn’t in the mood for Sabrina for the 10th time and under a dusty pile I discovered The Best Years of Our lives with Myrna Loy and Fredric March. It features stories of the men returning to the US from WWll and trying to adjust to being home. (Best Picture in 1946)  The most significant moment for me was the scene where the Fredric March arrives home unannounced.  He hushes the children and from the kitchen Myrna Loy calls “Peggy who is at the door?”  Suddenly she knows that it is him.  She stands in the hall, he stands in the hall and then -- they rush to embrace.  There is tension and a full gamut of emotions expressed in that very short scene.  Marketers wanting to create an emotional response from their target audience should learn from this – the message can be in the pause.