I watching this old movie over the weekend: “Algiers.” At one point, the debonair jewel thief played by Charles Boyer, looks into the eyes of the beautiful, sophisticated French damsel, played by Hedy Lamarr, and says: “You remind me of Paris. You remind me of the subway.”

Even my nine-year-old son Max expressed his surprise at that: “Does she reminds him of old gum stuck on the sidewalk, and dirty walls?”

Apparently Boyer’s character meant the comparison as a fully natural, unironic compliment. After the subway he listed several other beautiful things in Paris that Hedy Lamarr’s character’s beautiful visage and personage reminded him of.

In 1938, the subway in Paris (founded 1900), similar to New York’s (1904), would have been 38 years old, with some lines probably a lot newer. Perhaps Boyer’s character was thinking of the beautiful wrought-iron, art-nouveau subway entrances. Or maybe the trains and platforms had such a sheen of newness and beauty that they seemed a natural thing to compare a lovely woman to.

Either way, that would be a good place to return back to the future to. When subways are seen as things of beauty.