Walking in the Clouds

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"Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge — and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope."

Philippe Petit

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The news of Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center on Aug. 7, 1974, didn't pass without notice. The New York Times, for example, devoted a fair amount of space to the story the next day.

But it was overshadowed by bigger news. What could be bigger? Well, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency a couple of days later. The buildup to that really dwarfed everything else.

But enough photos and films were made that, when combined with interviews and re–enacted scenes, they formed a solid foundation for a documentary on the event, "Man On Wire," that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 10 years ago today.

Unless you're talking about Michael Moore's films, which are in a category of their own, most documentaries — no matter how well done or informative — don't tend to be financially successful. "Man On Wire" was no exception, earning less than $3 million at the box office in a year when the 10 highest–grossing movies raked in at least $419 million apiece.

In terms of revenue, "Man On Wire" was way down the list.

"Man On Wire" wasn't financially successful, but it did succeed at telling a compelling story by which film critic Roger Ebert admitted to being "helplessly engrossed."

Ebert also acknowledged having a fear of heights.

Not being a wirewalker, I appreciated the fact that the movie went over the extensive preparation that Petit and his team undertook. They constructed a rehearsal wire in a country field that Petit used frequently, then he practiced in real places — the bell towers of Notre Dame and the towers of Australia's Sydney Harbour Bridge.

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Those walks were harrowing enough to watch, but then Petit was ready to move on to the World Trade Center, which was still being built when he first decided to take his walk.

But, as Ebert observed, Petit "never just 'walked' on a wire. He lay down, knelt, juggled, ran." Things you wouldn't think a human could do on a wire at any height, much less dangling some 1,300 feet above the ground — especially someone with no formal training for that. He taught himself how to walk on a wire.

Petit was meticulous in his preparation, though. The practice wire in that field, while only a few feet above the ground, had been approximately the same distance he would later walk between the twin towers. To simulate the precarious winds that could pop up without warning and cause all kinds of movement, he had his colleagues tug at the wire during his rehearsals.

All the details of that walk were laid out for the viewers in the movie — including how the wire was strung between the buildings.

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Petit was taken into police custody after his walk was completed, and the title of the movie was taken from the police report.

"It may have been illegal," one of Petit's colleagues said, "but it wasn't wicked or mean."

As I watched the movie, especially the parts that showed the World Trade Center, I couldn't help thinking of the post–9/11 attack scenes I saw of the towers' facade, all twisted amid the smoldering wreckage.

But director James Marsh wisely chose not to so much as mention what would happen to the towers nearly three decades after Petit's walk. It was a separate story. A native New Yorker, Marsh said his movie was a gift to the city and that he believed it would be wrong to mix the wirewalker's triumphant tale with the one about the terrorists.

I couldn't control the direction my thoughts took when I watched the movie, and I was powerless to block memories of that awful day, but I have to agree that Marsh's decision was the right one.

"Man On Wire" won an Oscar for Best Documentary.

Completing 'The Godfather' Saga

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"There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: Keep your friends close but your enemies closer."

Michael Corleone (Al Pacino)

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"The Godfather Part II," which premiered on this day in 1974, was that rarest of all movies — a sequel that surpassed the original.

I thought the original movie was great, and there were even some things I liked about Part III, but Part II was a complete story, even though it actually told a couple of stories at once.

When you have seen it, though, you understand why it had to be that way. I assume that nearly everyone who saw it had seen the original movie, and those viewers needed to know how Don Corleone had come to America. They also needed to know what happened after the conclusion of the original "Godfather."

What happened in "Godfather Part III" was not so important for viewers to see. That, I believe, is what was really the problem with that movie. The Corleone family saga was complete with the sequel that premiered 40 years ago today.

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Since the advent of home video, I have believed it is best to watch the movies back to back. Only then can you truly see the evolution of Michael Corleone from the family golden boy, the college man and ex–Marine, to the cold, callous successor to Don Corleone's criminal empire. Only Michael lacked the common touch his father possessed, to quote film critic Roger Ebert. "And because he has misplaced his humanity," Ebert wrote, "he must suffer."

I have heard some people say that this was Robert De Niro's first movie. I even thought that myself for awhile. It wasn't, but it might as well have been. De Niro, who is certainly considered one of the finest actors of his generation, did not get off to an auspicious start. He appeared in a few noteworthy movies, but it was his role as young Vito Corleone that captured the attention of the movie–going public.

The more I have watched "The Godfather Part II," the more convinced I have become that Nino Rota's music deserves much of the credit for how it has been perceived. Anguished, rousing memories of the past and awakening strong emotions, the score stirs viewers to feel things that they normally would not feel when watching a crime drama. Viewers typically do not regret the end of a brutal empire that systematically seized its power through murder and bribery and all the things that usually go into the construction of a crime family.

But De Niro's contribution should not be underestimated — and Rota's music, manipulating the viewers in ways few scores have accomplished, played an important role in that. Rota's Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score was richly deserved. (I will never understand why he wasn't even nominated for his work in "The Godfather.")

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The success of "The Godfather Part II" was also due in part to the fact that so many of the original cast members returned. Not only Pacino but Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen, Diane Keaton as Pacino's increasingly alienated wife and so many others.

Nevertheless, the first two "Godfather" movies wouldn't have been what they were without director Francis Ford Coppola. It was Coppola's vision that united the stories, an impressive cinematic achievement.

On the Brink of Nuclear War

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I didn't see "The Missiles of October," the made–for–TV movie about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when it was first broadcast on ABC 40 years ago today.

I saw it years later when my American history teacher in high school showed it to my class on video tape. It was so long — more than two hours — that my memory is that she had to show it over three consecutive days.

It was also one of those historical dramatizations that made me wonder why it took so long for the project to become a reality. Yet, for a long time, it was the only dramatization (that I know of) of arguably the most significant event of the second half of the 20th century.

Now, having been a teacher myself, one of my first thoughts when I remember my teacher showing us that movie is that it was a great way to fill the class time without having to do too much prep work. I guess I really kind of felt that way at the time; as I have gotten older, and my perspective has changed, I see things differently. Few people really see how hard teachers work to prepare for classes, even ones in which a movie will fill the time. As a student, I didn't realize that — but, as the son and grandson of teachers, I should have known better.

At the time, though, I didn't dwell on that too much. I was absolutely mesmerized by the story, and I really think that is what my teacher was shooting for with as many of us as possible. Young people's fascination with video is not a new phenomenon. We were just as fascinated, and I like to think my classmates learned something from watching the movie. Many of them just weren't good at absorbing what they read. I've always felt bad for people like that. I have loved to read ever since I learned how.

I was already familiar with the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I had read a lot of contemporary history by the time I got to high school, and I had seen film clips of President Kennedy from that time. I knew what he sounded like. In fact, I knew what many of the Americans in the story sounded like, and I figured I could spot a false note without too much trouble. I have now seen "The Missiles of October" several times, and I have yet to spot a false note.

And if I could do it, people who could remember that time certainly could do it, too. This movie appeared on TV about 12 years after the crisis — so anyone who was at least 20 on this night in 1974 would have some kind of memory of it. Obviously, the older one was, the greater the chance that person could remember a lot more than a 20–year–old. And, of course, some kids are more mature than other kids so it is quite possible that people who were in high school in 1974 could remember things about the crisis.

That is the risk, I suppose, in trying to dramatize an actual event with which so many people are familiar. I guess it is comparable to the post–9/11 syndrome. Eventually, I imagine, there will be many movies made about that day — after it has faded from memory — but, by and large, most filmmakers have avoided the subject, presumably because their audiences would have vivid memories of the attacks and the public statements by prominent people like George W. Bush.

That may have been the reason why so few movies have been made about contemporary events; even so, it took another quarter–century or so for the next dramatization of the Cuban Missile Crisis to be made — and I felt 2000's "Thirteen Days" was inferior to "The Missiles of October."

I guess logic says contemporary events really should be the easiest to dramatize because of the availability of film of the actual events. All you gotta do is study the film, right? But that makes the assignment even more challenging — because people who remember events tend to be very critical of re–creations of those events, very demanding. And they can be very unforgiving of what they perceive as missteps.

So I have to applaud the courage of actors and directors who accept such a challenge. Seen in that light, Daniel Day–Lewis' Oscar–winning portrayal of Abraham Lincoln isn't quite as remarkable as most of us first thought, is it? After all, he didn't have to be compared to film clips of Lincoln delivering a speech — only portraits and a few primitive photographs.

Nor did he have to live up to 150–year–old memories. Lincoln's contemporaries are long gone.

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But William Devane had to be compared to not merely generic John F. Kennedy footage but the actual footage of his public statements during the crisis — and the memories of those who lived through the crisis.

(Just think what a challenge it will be someday when an actor faces the assignment of playing Barack Obama in a movie about the first black president.)

I have seen the footage of President Kennedy speaking to the nation during the crisis, an event that was duplicated in "The Missiles of October." Devane delivered a flawless version of Kennedy's New England accent and even captured Kennedy's mannerisms. Devane has always looked enough like a Kennedy to have had his own branch on the family tree, but he didn't just look the part. He was Kennedy.

I'm not as familiar with voices of many of those who participated in the real–life drama. I know what most of them looked like, and the actors playing them certainly looked the part. I can only assume that they sounded authentic as well.

I am old enough to remember Bobby Kennedy, and I can say that Martin Sheen did a superb job. He had Bobby's unique accent down. It was so good he probably could have pulled off posing as Bobby on the phone.

I had seen Martin Sheen in other movies by the time I saw "The Missiles of October" so I never associated him with that particular movie. But I did have — and still do have — a strong mental connection between the movie and Devane's portrayal of JFK.

(Of course, part of that may be his portrayal of a Teddy Kennedy–like character on a short–lived primetime soap opera in the mid–'90s.)

I don't remember seeing him in anything before I saw "The Missiles of October." I've seen him in many things since — including episodes of TV's The West Wing in which he and Sheen had a peculiar kind of role reversal, with Sheen playing the president and Devane playing a Cabinet member.

Nothing was embellished in "The Missiles of October." The dialogue (and the movie was almost entirely dialogue) came from historical sources. The audience was reminded of that from the beginning.

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There were no splashy special effects, no explosions (except for grainy, black–and–white archival footage of nuclear tests). Just a riveting story.

It probably wasn't exciting enough for modern audiences, but my high school history class got swept up in the story. Oh, sure, there were a few immature giggles in the classroom early on whenever someone on screen uttered the word damn — which happened from time to time and understandably so, given the circumstances — but once the students got over that juvenile response, they got into the story.

It's still hard to believe we came so close to nuclear war. Harder still to believe we actually managed to avoid it.

And that, I think, is the mark of how good "The Missiles of October" was. Even though I knew how the story ended, I was still on the edge of my seat, wondering how things would turn out.

Spoofing Scary Movies in 'Young Frankenstein'

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Inga (Teri Garr): Werewolf!

Dr. Frankenstein (Gene Wilder): Werewolf?

Igor (Marty Feldman): There.

Dr. Frankenstein: What?

Igor: There wolf. There castle.

Dr. Frankenstein: Why are you talking that way?

Igor: I thought you wanted to.

Dr. Frankenstein: No, I don't want to.

Igor: Suit yourself. I'm easy.

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I have often found myself in a familiar discussion with people: Which Mel Brooks movie was better, "Blazing Saddles" or "Young Frankenstein?"

Both came out in the same year. They featured many of the same actors — including Brooks himself.

Most of my friends have come down on the side of "Blazing Saddles," and that is a hard one for me to dispute. But I've been saying for a long time that my personal preference is "Young Frankenstein," which premiered 40 years ago today, and I'll stick with that.

Maybe I was never the fan of westerns that many people are. It isn't that I don't like westerns. It's just that so many of them seemed to follow a basic formula, right down to white hats for good guys and black hats for bad guys. That really relieved the viewer of the burden of thinking.

Now, call me crazy, but I've always liked westerns that made me think. They've really been few and far between, though.

I guess the same is true of horror movies, and Brooks' humor was as merciless in its jabs at the horror genre as it was in its jabs at the western genre.

When I get right down to it, I suppose I just enjoy the puns and double entendres that go along with a horror spoof a little bit more than I enjoy the ones in a western spoof.

With a Mel Brooks movie, there is a plot in only the loosest sense of the word, anyway. The plot exists to set up jokes. It helps, of course, if the viewer is familiar with the movie/scene that is being lampooned — but familiarity isn't really necessary.

Mel Brooks is the sixth–grader the rest of us outgrew.

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It isn't necessary to be familiar with the original "Frankenstein" to be amused when Teri Garr, in the back of a hay wagon that came to meet Gene Wilder at the Transylvania train station, invites him to take a roll in the hay. "It's fun!" she assures him before demonstrably rolling in the hay and singing "Roll, roll, roll in ze hay!"

Well, she was cute.

Marty Feldman was just silly as Igor (pronounced "EYE–gore," not "EEE–gore"), but he's one of those guilty pleasures, like laughing at the all–too–predictable antics of Laurel & Hardy or the Three Stooges — only with a little more wit.

In the scenes involving Peter Boyle, who did a first–rate job of lampooning Boris Karloff's 1931 performance as the monster, it was kind of important to be familiar with elements of the movie — but it wasn't that important.

He did a fine job of mimicking Karloff's jerky movements and grunting noises, but it really helped to know that the monster in the original "Frankenstein" actually did encounter a young girl and kill her. It also helped to know how the monster killed her in that original movie.

But it was still funny, even if you weren't familiar with the original.

I had seen "Frankenstein" several times by the time I saw "Young Frankenstein" so I got the jokes. You could probably get the jokes if you hadn't seen the Karloff movie.

But I'm sure it helped.

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The monster also encountered a blind man, who was lampooned by Gene Hackman. His scene where he tries to serve hot liquid to the monster always makes me laugh.

But when you talk about always making me laugh, there are two ladies in "Young Frankenstein" who always have me in stitches — Cloris Leachman and Madeline Kahn, two extraordinarily gifted and talented actresses.

Both had been nominated for Best Supporting Actress in recent years (Leachman won for "The Last Picture Show," Kahn was nominated for "Paper Moon" but lost to co–star Tatum O'Neal). Having both of them in the same movie was a real coup for Brooks, one he would not duplicate until he made "History of the World Part I."

Kahn got the Best Supporting Actress nod over Leachman (who could resist that bride of Frankenstein look? — as opposed to Frau Blucher, the very mention of whose name made previously docile horses buck and whinny) but lost to Ingrid Bergman.

Bringing Agatha Christie to the Big Screen

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Bianchi (Martin Balsam): You mean you saw the man? You can identify the murderer?

Mrs. Hubbard (Lauren Bacall): I mean nothing of the kind. I mean there was a man in my compartment last night. It was pitch dark, of course, and my eyes were closed in terror ...

Bianchi: Then how did you know it was a man?

Mrs. Hubbard: Because I've enjoyed very warm relations with both my husbands.

Bianchi: With your eyes closed?

Mrs. Hubbard: That helped.

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I remember the night my father took our family from our central Arkansas hometown to Little Rock to see "Murder on the Orient Express," which premiered on this day in 1974. I have read many Agatha Christie books in my life, and I have read the one upon which the movie was based, but I had not read it before I saw the movie.

So I was completely fished in by the solution — which I won't give away, in case someone reading this would like to read the book (which I recommend) or see the movie (which I also recommend). In his review of the movie, Roger Ebert reminded readers that "nothing is as it seems (and you knew that already about a movie based on an Agatha Christie book)."

"Murder on the Orient Express" wasn't the first Agatha Christie book to be brought to the big screen, but, to my knowledge, it was the first to do so with such a heavyweight cast.

My parents were Agatha Christie fans. They read most, if not all, of her books — and my memory of that night is that they were almost giddy with anticipation. Looking back, I realize they must have read articles about the movie — reviews, features about the cast members, that sort of thing — but my brother and I had not, and we were bewildered; we knew some of the stars in the movie, but we had no idea what to expect from the plot.

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I had seen Ingrid Bergman in movies on TV, but she was young and beautiful in those movies. She was nearly 60 when she made "Murder on the Orient Express" — still beautiful, as I found out later, but the role she played required her to look even frumpier than many women look at that age.

Bergman actually chose the role she played, an old Swedish missionary, even though director Sidney Lumet wanted to give her a better role, a still older yet prettier and wittier character than the missionary, a more graceful role with which he felt she could win another Oscar. But Bergman was "sweetly stubborn" about the role she wanted to play, Lumet said, and he couldn't deny her. After all, she was Ingrid Bergman.

In the end, she won an Oscar, anyway. After all, she was Ingrid Bergman.

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Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney): Mr. Ratchett, I have made enough money to satisfy both my needs and my caprices. I take only such cases now as interest me, and to be frank, my interest in your case is ... dwindling.

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Really, it was an all–star cast, befitting a story that seemed to have randomly thrown together a dozen colorful characters — until a rather tenuous link between them all and the victim was established.

Personally, I found the story's solution to be a clever twist, the kind of thing that only Agatha Christie could conceive. She put all the characters on a train that had been stopped by a snowdrift. They were confined to the train, where Poirot interrogated them all and then revealed the two conclusions he had reached about how the victim had been killed.

Must have been a delight to be on the set with all those talented people.

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Hercule Poirot: You never smile, madame la princesse?

Princess Dragomiroff (Wendy Hiller): My doctor has advised against it.

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For the quality of its production, "Murder on the Orient Express" was rewarded with half a dozen Oscar nominations — and one victory, Bergman's Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

But Bergman, when she accepted the award, apologized to the actresses she had beaten, especially Valentina Cortese, who was nominated for her performance in a film that was made in 1973. Bergman thought Cortese's performance was better.

"She gave the most beautiful performance," Bergman said admiringly as applause erupted from the audience.

Granted, but Bergman was pretty good, too. After all, she was Ingrid Bergman.

Telling Lenny's Story

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"Did you know that Eleanor Roosevelt gave Lou Gehrig the clap?"

Lenny (Dustin Hoffman)

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Dustin Hoffman is probably one of the most prolific actors of his time.

He's been in so many movies in the last 45 years — and many of them were considered great when they were in the theaters and are still regarded as great today, like "The Graduate" and "Midnight Cowboy."

Hoffman has made so many great movies — I would be remiss if I didn't mention "Tootsie," and "Wag the Dog" is one of my favorite movies — that many equally deserving movies seem to get lost in the shuffle when the conversation turns to Hoffman's body of work.

The movie that premiered 40 years ago today, "Lenny," truly was one of his very best, yet I seldom hear it mentioned.

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As nearly as I can tell, it was pretty faithful to the story of the life of comedian Lenny Bruce.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the way critic Roger Ebert saw it. He felt Bruce was deified as a "liberating martyr." Maybe it's a matter of perspective. Maybe it is different if you are old enough to remember Bruce when he was alive.

I can't think of a great comedian of the last 50 years who wasn't influenced by Bruce. George Carlin is and always will be my favorite comedian, and he was quite open about the influence Bruce had on him. I've heard other comedians speak of Bruce as well, but I never saw him perform when he was alive. In fact, I did not see a documentary on his life until after I saw the movie starring Dustin Hoffman — and that was nearly a decade after Bruce died.

When I finally did see a documentary, I can say I felt two things: (1) that Hoffman did a great job of portraying Bruce — it really must be a considerable challenge to play someone whose memory is still fresh in the public's mind — and (2) Bruce really was a pioneer.

Ebert disagreed. "Lenny," he wrote, was guilty of "playing fast and loose with the facts."

I don't know to which facts Ebert referred. He isn't alive to ask; neither is Bruce, who could only speculate, anyway. So any points in the movie that don't seem clear are likely to remain that way.

To understand Lenny Bruce, I guess it is necessary to have a certain amount of understanding about the times in which he lived because Bruce's humor almost seems tame compared to the acts of some modern comedians I have seen. Quaint, even. It's like reading Walt Whitman was for me when I was studying journalism in college. It was nice, but it dealt with principles that seemed so basic. That was true, but it is the same way in any endeavor, I suppose. The basic principles have to start somewhere, and they have to be articulated by someone. Precedents must be established.

No story about Bruce would be complete if it focused only on his jokes because his life inspired his art. When he was arrested for violating obscenity laws, he read the transcripts of his trials to audiences who came to hear his jokes, not lectures on the criminal justice system — and "Lenny" pulled no punches in dealing with that part of his life.

Nor did it pull any punches when it came to re–creating his early struggles and his troubled relationship with Honey Harlow (Valerie Perrine in the movie), a stripper whom he married in 1951 and divorced in 1957.

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Through it all, Lenny had an interesting relationship with his mother (Jan Miner in the movie). She was responsible for giving him his start, but she was manipulative and controlling.

I thought Miner deserved a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but she didn't get one.

Interestingly, the movie never really explored the influence that Hugh Hefner of Playboy fame had on him. Hefner helped Bruce in the early days of his career and published his autobiography in a serialized form.

"Lenny" was nominated for six Oscars but didn't win any. It was the year of "The Godfather Part II," and, like its predecessor, it swept the Oscars in the spring of 1975. Still, no movie or director or actor wins an Oscar by default. There must be a loyal opposition of some sort. And "Lenny" played that role in six categories — Best Picture, Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography.

'Something Happened,' But What Was It?

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A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend of mine about Joseph Heller's book, "Something Happened," which was published 40 years ago this month.

(By the way, that is about as close as I can come to pinpointing when it was published. I've tried, and I've tried, but the best I can find is September of 1974.)

I wanted to write about it, I told my friend, but I didn't know what to say. "Don't worry," he replied. "Something will come to you."

Well, September is nearly over. I'm not sure if something ever happened, as my friend said it would, but if I am going to write about it during its 40th anniversary month, I am running out of time.

"Something Happened" was Heller's long–awaited and highly anticipated followup to his critically acclaimed "Catch–22." In my opinion, he never matched "Catch–22," which was published 13 years earlier, but "Something Happened" was pretty darn good.

It wasn't a sequel by any stretch of the imagination. None of the characters from "Catch–22" was in "Something Happened," but they were similar books. The former satirized war; the latter poked fun at domestic life.

I read them in reverse order. I read "Something Happened" in paperback when I was in junior high school. I read "Catch–22" in college.

Since they didn't tell the same story, though, it wasn't necessary for me to read them in sequence.

"Something Happened" was the story of a fellow named Bob Slocum — told by Bob Slocum. He spoke of how everyone in his office was afraid of someone. It wasn't the same person in each case — although there was one person of whom nearly everyone was afraid. She was a typist who was "going crazy slowly" and everyone hoped that, when she finally snapped, as seemed inevitable, she would do so on a weekend.

Bob's home life wasn't much better. His wife, he said, was unhappy — mostly bored and lonely. She had turned to alcohol, he said, and believed she was older, heavier and less attractive than she used to be. He agreed with her but silently. She said he didn't love her anymore, and he agreed with her on that, too, again silently — although Bob did claim there were times when he was proud to have her on his arm when they went places.

His daughter was unhappy, too. In fact, both of his children were unhappy, but he tried not to think of his son, who was "having difficulties" in school. He was, Slocum observed in a less than paternal way, "starting to let me down."

Bob told his story in a stream of consciousness style. In one of my favorite sequences from the book, Bob reflected on a time early in his marriage and the lives of his children when their dwelling had a problem with mice, and he had to set traps for the mice each night and then check them each morning. Each morning, his wife and children huddled behind him while he checked places like behind the refrigerator and inside the pantry.

Although this is not word for word, Bob said something to the effect of, "Even then, I wasn't sure if I liked my family well enough to share such a personal and intimate experience with them."

Later in the book — in which, I should point out, Bob's anecdotes are only loosely connected to each other — the reader discovers that Bob is concerned about his sanity, and the reader starts to realize that Bob may be an unreliable narrator, not necessarily able to distinguish between what is real and what is not.

What it means to be an unreliable narrator is that the narrator's credibility is in doubt for some reason. Many people believe that an unreliable narrator is, by definition, a liar. Some are liars, but that is not always so. Some may be delusional, as Slocum apparently was, or they may be too young to perceive some things, such as Huck Finn or Forrest Gump.

So an unreliable narrator is not always deliberately deceptive. I suspected, as I read the book, that the title was a hint about that. Bob Slocum knew that something had happened to change the trajectory of his life. He just didn't know what it was.

Does that make him that different from the rest of us?

David Bowie's Apocalyptic Vision

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It's hard to say when I learned that critics were not infallible and that just because a critic didn't like something did not mean that I could not like it, either.

Seems like something everyone should know in a country that has always prided itself on freedom of speech, doesn't it? But even after a couple of centuries, the concept still is lost on some folks.

I guess there are those who apply the principle only to political discussion, but it applies to anything that can provoke more than one point of view.

In "Diamond Dogs," the album released by David Bowie 40 years ago today, Bowie fused the glam rock he helped to pioneer with apocalyptic visions from George Orwell's "1984."

It was a unique album with a unique album cover that, with Bowie portrayed as a man–dog creature, earned a spot on Billboard's list of 20 banned album covers. (The original cover showed the Bowie creature's genitalia; the revised cover had that part removed.)

Ken Emerson of Rolling Stone couldn't decide if the music was "masturbatory fantasies, guilt–ridden projections [or] terrified premonitions." He only seemed to know he didn't like it. It was, he wrote, "perhaps Bowie's worst album in six years."

In Bowie's earlier works, Emerson wrote that Bowie "challenged us and our music, both mired in a deathly complacency, to change."

"His best songs were deft, vivid constructions," Emerson wrote, "utilizing all the tricks of the Sixties trade and recharging them with the force of his personality and imagination, pushing them into the Seventies."

But Bowie's album sales in the U.S. had never been as strong as they were in the U.K. Consequently, Emerson wondered if "this may have prompted Bowie to hope that if America didn't eat him up when he was good, it might when he was bad."

I wasn't old enough at the time to grasp the issues surrounding the album. I just knew that I liked much of the music, particularly "Rebel, Rebel." Earlier, I liked "Space Oddity" and "Changes." Later on, I liked "Young Americans," "Fame" and "Golden Years."

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I can't claim that I liked every song on "Diamond Dogs," but I liked many.

"No sooner had he proclaimed a new age than he turned his back on it and retreated to nostalgia," Emerson wrote, dismissing "Rebel, Rebel" as "an attempt at a 1964 smash."

Diamond Dogs seems to have had a number of meanings over the years. It's been the name of wiki applications, a movie, even a dog kennel. These days, Mississippi State's baseball team is known as the Diamond 'Dogs, but it was exclusively (as nearly as I can tell) the name of Bowie's album 40 years ago.

I get the feeling, from Stephen Thomas Erlewine's review for Allmusic.com, that wasn't necessarily a good thing.

"Diamond Dogs isn't a total waste," Erlewine wrote, "but it is the first record since Space Oddity where Bowie's reach exceeds his grasp."

It was a good idea, using Orwell's book as the main theme, but, in Erlewine's words, it "evolved into another one of Bowie's paranoid future nightmares." Maybe he was right about that. I read Orwell's book some years later, expecting to see clear connections between the book and the songs on Bowie's album. Some did have such a connection, others obviously did not.

And what of the song "1984," which was so clearly inspired by Orwell's book (even if that was not so clearly the case with the other songs on the album)?

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When it made its debut on TV's The Midnight Special, it was "a powerful song," Emerson wrote.

But on the album, he said, it was "sickly, and a fluttery string arrangement cannot beef it up."

Be that as it may, I liked it. Maybe I was too young to know what good music was, but I knew what I liked.

After 40 years, I suppose it is anyone's guess whether the future that Bowie sang about has come to pass — or is still yet to come.

Art Imitates Life

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I have admired Goldie Hawn and Steven Spielberg for so long that I can't recall a time when I did not admire them.

My admiration for Spielberg probably began 40 years ago shortly after he released his first theatrical feature, "The Sugarland Express," which starred Hawn and was based on a true story. It made its theatrical debut on this day in 1974.

It was perhaps a year later when I saw it — not long before "Jaws" premiered.

As Roger Ebert wrote, though, "[L]ike so many things in Texas, it seems like a fantasy anyway."

That's true enough. I've lived in Texas for the last 18 years, nearly 22 years of the last 26, and I visited here for a long time before that. Both sets of grandparents lived here so my family spent many holidays here.

Even though I did not grow up here, I feel I have a pretty good understanding of how things are here. And there is a surreal quality to some things that happen here, like the case of the woman in Houston who was charged with trying to hire someone to kill the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival.

Or the time the Texas Seven escaped from prison and remained on the loose during the Christmas holidays.

Whenever something like that happens in Texas, you can't help but shake your head and wonder what they were thinking. How in the world did they think they could get away with what they were trying to do?

Many years ago, I recall, there was a television commercial that sought to boost Texas tourism. Its catchphrase was "The rules are different here."

Sometimes you've got to wonder if there are any rules.

I guess that is how it was for the original couple in the story.

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I've heard nothing that indicates the atmosphere in the police car occupied by the couple and the patrolman was genial. I don't know if everything in the movie was literally what happened — I do happen to know that some liberties were taken; more on that later — but I get the feeling that it wasn't all that far from the truth.

"The actual event took place in 1969," wrote Ebert, "and the young couple involved got a lot of sympathy from the folks along their route. Spielberg uses the story to comment on the ways Americans have of turning events into happenings."

That much certainly hasn't changed.

Remember when O.J. Simpson was the prime suspect in his wife's murder but had not been charged yet? Remember the low–speed car chase involving the Bronco in which Simpson was a passenger and perhaps two dozen police cars that were following it?

I thought of "The Sugarland Express" when I saw that — because "The Sugarland Express" has an ongoing chase that is very similar. As in the movie, folks lined the highway to see Simpson go by. I don't remember exactly, but there were probably some people who held up signs encouraging him — just like in the movie.

But I'm quite sure that the movie chase involved more than two dozen police cars.

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The chase wound through all sorts of small towns along the way, and the hijacked police car went through slowly, giving the couple a chance to bond with the locals and even get a few creature comforts.

At one point, the option of bypassing a community was discussed, but Hawn wouldn't hear of it. She wanted to see the people, and she wanted the people to see her.

(I mentioned earlier my admiration for Hawn. I must confess that I wasn't so much an admirer of her acting as I was an admirer of her anatomy. What can I say? I was a young boy when I first saw her on Laugh–In, and I've always had something of a crush on her, I suppose. I don't think she is a great actress, but her performance in "The Sugarland Express" was exceptionally good.)

The line of police cars was led by a captain played by Ben Johnson. His character claimed never to have killed anyone in 18 years of service, and he wanted to keep that record intact. He was a straight shooter in his dealings with the fugitive couple, and I can only hope the real–life couple had someone like him with whom to negotiate.

In the movie, Hawn's character helps her husband (William Atherton) break out of pre–release prison farm so they can go retrieve their 2–year–old son from the foster home where he has been placed. Her husband only had four months left on his sentence, but Hawn's sense of urgency and threat to leave him convinced him to go along with her plan.

They hijacked a police car (and the patrolman in it), and they were off on their trek across south Texas.

Before that, they also hijacked an elderly couple's car in one of the best scenes in the movie.

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But they ended up in that police car after they crashed the old folks' vehicle. I don't know if that really happened or not.

But back to the liberties that I know were taken ...

Probably the greatest one was the fact that the wife in the real story didn't spring her husband from jail the way Hawn did in the movie. He was already out.

But that part of the story wouldn't have made "The Sugarland Express" what it was.

Actually, "The Sugarland Express" wasn't very successful financially. It made a profit of less than $10 million over its budget. I'm guessing that came as a surprise to Spielberg, given the fact that movie audiences who flocked to see "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Easy Rider" only a few years earlier no longer seemed to have much of a taste for movies with sad endings.

Seldom has Spielberg been accused of misreading the popular mood, but, when he has, he usually comes back even stronger the next time out.

Perhaps that image got its start 40 years ago. Spielberg's next project (for the same producers) was "Jaws," which made more than $470 million.

Forty Years Since Stephen King's First Published Novel

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"People don't get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don't stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it."

Stephen King
"Carrie" (1974)

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My guess is that relatively few teenagers have not fantasized about doing something at least similar to what Carrie White did to her classmates in Stephen King's first published novel, "Carrie," which was published 40 years ago today.

The book was faithfully dramatized in the 1976 movie starring Sissy Spacek, although it left out quite a bit, as most movies do.

Anyway, Carrie (short for Carietta) was a very reserved high school girl who happened to have a special gift — telekinetic powers. That fact was unknown to her classmates, as was her struggle to control those powers. Actually, Carrie didn't know about them By her senior year, when the book opened, Carrie was losing that struggle.

In everyone's childhood, I suppose, there was the odd kid, the social outcast who was tormented by everyone else practically from the first day of first grade. Kids always seem to instinctively know who among them is the odd kid, and they gang up on him/her.

For many people, it is their first exposure to bullying. That must be why the book struck such a nerve. If you weren't the child who had been singled out — and I am sure most people were secretly thankful that they were not that singularly unfortunate child — the sight of the kind of cruelty of which nearly everyone is capable ushered in the end of innocence for nearly everyone long before the traditionally accepted innocence–taking events in one's life, like one's first beer or first cigarette.

(I have long wondered why those kinds of events, along with losing one's virginity, are always so important to adults who, on some sort of level, must wish their children would remain children forever — and who need shorter memories than their elders to recall the circumstances under which they lost their own innocence.

(If the truth is known, it must surely have been in the elementary school playground, not the family car, where just about everyone really lost their innocence. That probably was where they first saw how someone who differs from the rest of the group is treated. Shamefully, in most cases.

(I have also thought that, in a culture like this one that obsesses about bullying, "Carrie" might be a good cautionary tale for parents to share with their children. Unfortunately, most adults these days seem to prefer to watch a movie than read, which doesn't set much of an example for their youngsters.

(But I digress.)

Carrie was the odd kid in her school, always had been. As she became aware of her gift, she also became aware that she had less and less control of it. On prom night, when the tormenting went over the line, she permitted those powers to wreak havoc on her tormenters.

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"Late at night I keep thinking: if I had only reached to that girl, if only, if only."

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While it was King's first published novel, it was the fourth he had written. I became a fan the first time I read that book — yes, I have read it more than once. I haven't read all his books, but I have read many of them over the years.

King had no faith in "Carrie," I hear. In fact, he originally wanted to scrap the scene in the school shower where the overly protected Carrie first learned of menstruation. He threw those rough draft pages away, but his wife retrieved them and urged him to finish it.

He followed her advice — and popular fiction is better off for it.

Streaking the Oscars

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"Oh, yes, they call him the Streak
Look at that, look at that
He likes to show off his physique
Look at that, look at that
If there's an audience to be found
He'll be streakin' around
Invitin' public critique"

Ray Stevens ("The Streak" 1974)

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The '70s were loaded with ridiculous fads — pet rocks, mood rings, leisure suits, lava lamps. The list goes on and on.

Every generation, every decade has its fads, but the '70s seemed to specialize in fads to an extent that no other decade has. I always thought one of the strangest fads of that decade was streaking — the practice of shedding one's clothes (and inhibitions) and sprinting through some sort of public place.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I did streak once — as I recall, I was 13, and I did it on a dare.)

For whatever reason, streaking has lived on long after other fads from the decade faded. It isn't done as often as it once was. Sometimes the witnesses to a streak are few — in an out of the way park, for example — and other times there can be many witnesses — at a sporting event or a commencement ceremony — but it continues to be done.

Most of the time — in the '70s and today — streakers seem to be male. Heck, sometimes all you need is a frat house and a keg of beer and, before you know it, someone will take off his clothes and run down the street or something.

Of course, if he's inebriated, it might not be much of a run.

Occasionally, though, a woman does streak — and make headlines.

In the mid–1990s, for instance, a 23–year–old woman named Melissa Johnson streaked during a match at Wimbledon.

A few years later, a woman named Yvonne Robb was arrested for running on to the course and kissing Tiger Woods during the British Open. Robb wasn't naked, merely wearing a bikini, but the next year, another woman streaked fully nude onto the course that was hosting the British Open.

My memory of late 1973, at the dawn of the fad, is that there were occasions when groups of female students (probably sorority members) at one college or another would have an organized streak — at homecoming or whatever.

And it seems to me that I once heard of a kind of group streak that was done on bicycles. That was more of a coed thing — in the sense that there were both male and female streak cyclists.

Other than that, though, streakers have almost always been males.

There are no particular rules for streaking. Originally, as I recall, all streakers were naked — or wearing something that didn't cover one's "private parts," like shoes or a hat — but streaking has changed. These days, when you hear of someone streaking at some kind of event, it may not have been a classic streak.

That person is just as likely to have been wearing something private (like underwear) or otherwise revealing as to have been naked. Of course, that may be the difference between being charged with indecent exposure — and not being charged with indecent exposure.

Streaking isn't a competitive thing with some kind of scoring system. It's more of a free expression kind of thing. Whatever you can do to make your streak memorable — other than the fact that you happen to be running naked through some kind of public place — is encouraged.

Probably the most noteworthy streak took place 40 years ago tonight during the Academy Awards presentation. Robert Opel, a 34–year–old photographer and art gallery owner, made his way backstage posing as a journalist and ran naked past David Niven flashing a peace sign.

Niven, who was in the process of introducing Elizabeth Taylor (who was going to announce the Best Picture winner), was praised for his apparent calm during the disruption and his quip, "Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?"

Some years later, it turned out that Niven's quip may not have been as spontaneous as it appeared. Opel's streak may have been staged by producer Jack Haley Jr., and Niven's line may have been composed in advance.

I don't believe Opel or Niven ever confirmed that it was a setup, and neither can be asked about it now. Both were dead within a decade of Opel's streak. Niven fell ill and died in his 70s, and the 39–year–old Opel was murdered during a robbery at his studio in 1979.

Between the Spiritual World and the Material World

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"Yesterday I was on the edge
Hopin' everything was going to work itself out
A good honest man doing the work of God
Trying to make things better for him
A lover of life in a school for fools
Tryin' to find another way to survive"

Cat Stevens "Music"

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It was on this day in 1974 that Cat Stevens released his sixth album, "Buddha and the Chocolate Box."

It was one of the first cassette tapes I ever bought. I didn't buy it the day it came out, but I had heard of Cat Stevens, and I heard many of his popular songs before I ever bought "Buddha and the Chocolate Box." I don't think I had heard any of the songs on the album, but, as I say, I was familiar with Cat Stevens. I had a pretty good idea what I was getting.

It is safe to say that "Buddha" wasn't his most successful album. It was certified platinum about 27 years after it was released.

But the key to understanding it lies in an incident that occurred when Stevens was traveling to a concert location by plane. He had a buddha in one hand and a box of chocolates in the other. According to the story, Stevens pondered that, if the plane crashed, those would be the last two items he would hold — and he would be caught between the spiritual world and the material world.

The music on the album reflected that — and tended to lean toward the spiritual with titles like "Jesus," "King of Trees" and "Home in the Sky."

In the context of Stevens' other albums, it was a return to his roots. His previous album, "Foreigner," was criticized by many, largely for the 18–minute "Foreigner Suite" that filled Side 1. I didn't think it was a bad recording, but it was a stylistic departure for Stevens — and a nightmare for radio programmers who were accustomed to working with songs that were three or four minutes long at the most.

In those days, longer songs could be edited for playing on the radio, but what could you cut from "Foreigner Suite?"

"[T]he suite is full of compelling melodic sections and typically emotive singing," wrote William Ruhlmann for AllMusic.com, "that could have made for an album side's worth of terrific four–minute Cat Stevens songs, if only he had composed them that way."

The album title wasn't long and cumbersome, like Stevens' previous albums, and the music, as I say, was different. It was less acoustic and relied more on keyboard arrangements than Stevens' listeners expected from him. Listeners didn't exactly warm up to it.

"Buddha and the Chocolate Box" was more like it. Stevens found a more receptive audience — and found himself back in the Top Ten for the first time in a couple of years with "Oh Very Young."

It wasn't his most successful commercial effort. I suppose that particular title belongs to "Teaser and the Firecat," which came out three years earlier and produced three hit singles.

Actually, when most people think of "Buddha and the Chocolate Box" — if they ever do — they probably think of its only hit, "Oh Very Young," which was the second track on the album.

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In fact, that is probably the only song that most people know from the album. I don't recall any other track getting much, if any, air play.

If that's the case, they've really missed out. Well, not on Stevens' biggest hits, but on an album that I found very satisfying at the time — and, when I listen to it today, my mind goes back to those days and I remember people and things I haven't thought about in a long time.

So far, all those memories have been pleasant ones. One such memory is from that summer, when my father and I came to Dallas to help my paternal grandmother move out of her apartment and into an assisted living community. I'm not really sure why I am reminded of that when I listen to the album. I didn't even own it at that time. I may have heard "Oh Very Young" on the radio, but I heard no other song from the album until I bought it.

When Dad and I came to Dallas to help my grandmother move, one of the things we did was help her get rid of many of her possessions. At the assisted living facility, she would have her bedroom and the bathroom, but she had no need for living room or dining room furniture, just a few chairs for her personal living space.

She was still capable of doing many things for herself. She wasn't moving because she could no longer care for herself. She kept her car until she died a couple of years later, and she was able to continue driving it until the last months of her life.

But she didn't need a lot of her furniture anymore so Dad and I helped her sell some of it. She gave some of her possessions to relatives and friends and sold the rest. Grandmother had two television sets — a large one that she kept in her living room and a small portable that she kept in her bedroom. She only needed one at her new residence so she gave me the portable.

It changed my young life. I still did most of my TV watching with the family in our living room, but late on Friday nights, I remember watching Wolfman Jack on the Midnight Special or Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show on weeknights — or the early Saturday Night Live programs.

And it was at that time that I was listening to "Buddha and the Chocolate Box" on my portable cassette player/recorder.

So it must be a memory by association.

I like songs from other Cat Stevens albums better than most of the tracks on "Buddha and the Chocolate Box," but that album has special meaning for me.

I suppose some folks will conclude that means that "Oh Very Young" — or at least the title — has some sort of symbolic significance for me, but the truth is I never listen to that song when I listen to the album.

Weird, huh?

Archie's Brush With Food Poisoning

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Food poisoning was the topic of the All in the Family episode that aired 40 years ago tonight.

Gloria (Sally Struthers) was sick with the flu and didn't feel like eating the beef and mushroom stew that Edith (Jean Stapleton) had prepared. When Archie (Carroll O'Connor) got home, he was hungry and wouldn't wait for Mike (Rob Reiner) so Archie wolfed down a helping of the stew. Edith said she had had a big lunch at a women's meeting at the church so Archie ate alone.

When Mike arrived, however, he bore the distressing news that a brand of canned mushrooms had been recalled because it caused food poisoning. Mike and Edith thought that no one in the Bunker household should eat any more of the stew until they could be sure of the brand; Edith had thrown out the empty cans and didn't remember what the brand was.

"Oh, my, I hope I ain't poisoned you, Archie," Edith said when she heard about the recall.

Since no one knew the brand of the mushrooms Edith had used in the stew, they couldn't be certain. So, to be on the safe side, the Bunkers made a mad dash for the emergency room.

All except Gloria.

It's one of my favorite moments in the series' history. After all four Bunkers had exited the house, Mike brought Gloria back in a few seconds later and admonished her: "You can't go to the hospital. You're sick!"

At the hospital, Archie got frustrated with the admitting nurse's questions, something with which just about anyone who has ever been hospitalized will sympathize. The nurse asked Archie his mother's maiden name.

"She's dead!" he replied. "What do you gotta know that for?"

Edith gave the nurse the information she had requested, then Archie told her, "I'll tell her you asked for her when I see her in a few minutes."

When the doctor saw Archie, he couldn't be sure if Archie had food poisoning. The symptoms might take awhile to show up. To be on the safe side, Archie wound up getting a shot. Always looking to make a quick buck, Archie began plotting a lawsuit against the company that canned the mushrooms, and he instructed Gloria to contact the Jewish law firm that had represented him previously.

Then Edith came in, having stopped at the market on the way home to pick up some ice cream for Archie. She had more than ice cream with her. She had news. She hadn't use the tainted mushrooms in her stew after all. She had remembered a pink–and–yellow label, just like the product that had been recalled, but the label on the mushrooms Edith purchased was actually pink with a yellow sticker that identified it as a sale item.

Obviously, the lawsuit fell through.

That left Archie with, in his own words, "a lot of that anti–toxin dope cruising through my system looking for some disease to attack!"

A sympathetic Mike gave Archie a pat on his arm — bad move, considering that was the arm that got the inoculation.

When Ted Baxter Met Walter Cronkite

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Mary (Mary Tyler Moore): [meeting Walter Cronkite] So nice to meet you. Really. Nice. Nice. Really.

Murray (Gavin MacLeod): [meeting Walter Cronkite] So nice to meet you. Really. Nice. Really.

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It probably isn't most people's favorite Mary Tyler Moore Show episode.

Most people would probably say the "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode is their favorite — and that would be hard to dispute.

And I do like that one.

But I also like the one that aired 40 years ago tonight, "Ted Baxter Meets Walter Cronkite."

When I was a kid, Cronkite was trusted by just about everyone — so much so that some people actually called him "Uncle Walter"

I don't remember how the writers for the Mary Tyler Moore Show established that Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) was an admirer of Cronkite. Maybe it was never really established — except for the presumption that viewers knew that the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Cronkite's evening news program were on the same network — CBS.

But Ted definitely was an admirer of Cronkite.

He also openly coveted a Teddy Award, the fictional (at least, I think it is) award for broadcasting excellence in the Minneapolis–St. Paul market, but he had never won one.

He had his acceptance speech all ready, and he launched into it on several occasions, often when he failed to win the award.

But this time he got to recite it for real — largely because he had campaigned for it. Uncharacteristically for Ted, he had invested a lot of money in it. I don't remember if the writers made him the only WJM staffer to win an award that night or not. I just remember that Ted won a Teddy, and the others resented the way he had won it.

The fact that Ted won a Teddy was enough to irritate his co–workers even if one or more also won a Teddy — but then came the coup de grâce — Cronkite was in town to see Lou (Ed Asner) and he happened to come by the TV station.

Lou had no choice but to introduce them. After introducing Cronkite to Mary and Murray, neither of whom distinguished themselves in the presence of such an important journalist, Lou introduced the legendary newsman to Ted — who had the idea that, somehow, Cronkite's visit was an unannounced audition for him. If he did well enough, Ted reasoned, he would be invited to be Cronkite's partner on the evening news.

So Ted took over, putting his arm around Cronkite's shoulder and delivering one of my all–time favorite lines: "Well, Walt, let's talk shop. Which words do you have trouble pronouncing?"

As they walked out the door of the newsroom, Ted was reciting that evening's newscast to Cronkite, who glanced back at Lou and said, "I'm going to get you for this."

When Folks Weren't Afraid to Go in the Water

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I remember when "Jaws" was the hottest bestseller I had ever seen — in the spring of 1974.

Everywhere one looked, a copy of the book could be seen — even in my small Arkansas hometown. I know there were bestsellers that swept over the landscape before, but I had never noticed one. Of course, I was a boy at the time. I didn't have much firsthand knowledge stored away in my mental files.

I have seen similar phenomena since, but I still don't think I have seen anything truly comparable to "Jaws."

It was first published in February of 1974; the movie rights were purchased before that happened so there was a lot of anticipation long before the book hit the shelves. It was on the hardback bestseller list for nearly a year.

The next year, everyone in my school seemed to be reading the paperback. Teachers tried for awhile to conceal their fascination with the book, but their cover was blown. Too many copies of "Jaws" had been spotted clumsily hidden in desks and purses, under jackets, even in the teachers' cars in the parking lot.

Students carried copies with their textbooks, and I was no exception. It was a real page turner, and I raced through it. I looked forward to the movie, which was scheduled to be released that summer. The movie is remembered now as the original summer blockbuster — although I never understood why savvy marketers never figured out before that summer was a great time to tap into the youth market.

There were several differences between the book and the movie. Most of those differences were minor, I suppose, although I thought there was one aspect of the novel — an affair between Sheriff Brody's wife and the young shark enthusiast, Matt Hooper — that was significant. There was no such affair in the movie, which changed a lot of other things about the story.

In the book, the sheriff suspected the affair and the thought gnawed at him even though he could not prove it. He bickered with Hooper when they were on the boat that went out in search of the shark. Frankly, when I read the book, I felt more empathy for the shark than I felt for the humans in the story.

The shark in the book finally died of injuries it had sustained in its battles with Brody, Hooper and the captain of the boat, Quint. It wasn't blown up in the Hollywoodesque way that Roy Scheider accomplished it in the movie.

In the novel, Hooper didn't survive his underwater encounter with the shark the way he did in the movie. It was Brody who made his way back to shore alone.

I don't remember people being hesitant to go in the water at the beach in the summer of '74. I remember when my family went to the beach in the summer of '74 and we all went in the water, but I do remember that anxiety in '75. Maybe I just imagined it based on media reports I read or saw. Isn't it funny how the visual influences us?

Mel Brooks' Masterpiece?

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"If you shoot him, you'll just make him mad."

Jim (Gene Wilder)

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A friend of mine recently observed, after watching it again, that "Blazing Saddles" is still good after 40 years. "Why is that?" she asked.

I guess the answer to that is different for everyone. In my case, it's just always funny, no matter how many times I see it. Some movies (or sitcom episodes or comedy CDs) are like that. They always make me laugh, even though I know what is coming.

Others have much shorter shelf lives.

But "Blazing Saddles," which premiered on this day in 1974, always makes me laugh. It's one of those movies that you can just say the punchline and usually make the people around you laugh.

Such as ... "Mongo like candy." (I suppose that is my personal favorite.)

"Blazing Saddles" was like anything else Mel Brooks did. It was simply silly fun, usually offensive to someone, in some respects a guilty pleasure, I guess.

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It might have been his masterpiece, though.

Whatever you might say about any other Mel Brooks movie — that, for example, it was not politically correct — went double for "Blazing Saddles."

In many ways, Brooks seemed to save his most objectionable stuff for "Blazing Saddles."

Like this line (delivered by Slim Pickens) on testing for quicksand: "Horses? We cain't afford t' lose no horses, you dummy! Send in a couple–a niggers."

The "N–word," as it is called now, was abundant in "Blazing Saddles." I can only wonder what kind of response this movie would get if it was making its debut today. Would people appreciate the satire? Or would they focus only on the use of an offensive word?

The head of Warner Bros. objected to the word at the time — but he also objected to the campfire scene and the scene in which Mongo punched a horse, two of the scenes I hear mentioned the most. He wanted those scenes and every use of that word cut from the final product, but Brooks had complete control and ignored the complaints.

A few years ago, in an interview that served as the basis for an article in the Directors Guild of America's magazine, the DGA Quarterly, Brooks said he probably would have to leave out the N–words if he made the movie today.

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Interestingly, both actor Cleavon Little and writer Richard Pryor encouraged the word's use 40 years ago.

Frankly, it would be wrong for anyone to take offense at anything Brooks said or did in his movies. He was impartial about that, an equal–opportunity offender. He made fun of blacks, but he made fun of whites, too. He made fun of Jews, but he also made fun of Christians. He made fun of women, but he also made fun of men. He spared no one.

I have always thought his humor was — mostly — just plain silly. If I had a complaint about Brooks' humor, it was that I often thought it lacked sophistication. Sometimes I thought his humor was a little, well, obvious. I like wit that catches you by surprise. But that's just me. There have certainly been times over the years when I have felt that the humor on Saturday Night Live was just plain silly, lacking sophistication, a little obvious. But I still watch it. (OK, I don't watch it as often as I did, but I do watch it.)

I guess it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it seems to appeal to most people in a guilty pleasure kind of way. I always liked what Roger Ebert said about it: "It's a crazed grabbag of a movie that does everything to keep us laughing except hit us over the head with a rubber chicken."

Ebert conceded that the movie's goal wasn't lofty — merely to make people laugh.

"It's an audience picture," Ebert wrote, "it doesn't have a lot of classy polish and its structure is a total mess."

And, yet, Brooks always makes me laugh. Saturday Night Live does that, too. Not as much as it once did, but still ...

Did you know that Brooks wanted John Wayne to make a cameo appearance? Wayne declined. He loved the script and assured Brooks he would be "the first in line" to see the movie, but he thought the risqué material wasn't right for his image.

Others have been more willing to publicly embrace the movie. The American Film Institute ranked it #6 on AFI's list of the Top 100 comedies. And the Academy Awards recognized it with three nominations.

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Madeline Kahn received one of those nominations — for Best Supporting Actress, which she lost to Ingrid Bergman. It was Kahn's second straight Best Supporting Actress nomination. She was nominated for her work in "Paper Moon" but lost to co–star Tatum O'Neal.

For my money, Harvey Korman could have received a nomination. At one point in the movie, his character actually does say, "You men are only risking your lives while I am risking an almost certain Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor."

But Korman was not nominated. The movie received its two other nominations for film editing and best original song.

He could have been nominated. It was one of the best things he ever did. Likewise for Kahn, who was nominated.

And it is one of the best things Wilder has done. (Wilder wasn't nominated for "Blazing Saddles," but he has been nominated for Oscars twice, both times for Brooks projects.)

All the folks who worked on "Blazing Saddles" deserve to have it mentioned in the lead paragraphs of their obituaries when they die — as it was when Kahn's death was reported in the New York Times in 1999 and when Korman's death was reported in the Los Angeles Times in 2008.

Learning From Others

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Archie (Carroll O'Connor): Let me ask you something there, about George. I mean, how did that happen to him? When he was a baby, did somebody throw him up in the air and forget to catch him?

Mr. Bushmill (Joseph Mascolo): It's a common birth defect. The doctors call it anoxia. It means he didn't get enough oxygen when he was born. Now that's what happened to George. What's your excuse?

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In these days of excessive political correctness, it seems to be all too easy to lose sight of the people P.C. supposedly is intended to protect.

I often think it would be beneficial for the people who are quick to judge others by an arbitrary yardstick of morality (which is frequently designed, I suspect, to elevate the judge, not lift the oppressed) to watch a few TV episodes that dealt with the physically/mentally challenged a few decades ago. Seems to me they offer some common sense tips for understanding people.

Such a TV episode aired 40 years ago tonight on All in the Family.

Gloria (Sally Struthers) came home from a trip to the market with a mentally handicapped box boy named George (Richard Masur) helping her with her groceries.

"You don't say things to me," George told Gloria. "You talk to me."

Archie (Carroll O'Connor), in his typically insensitive way, treated George like a child and told him he was entitled to take an extended break from work. Then George got fired from his job for being late and disappeared.

George's father (Joseph Mascolo) came to the Bunker house looking for George. After being told that George's last words to the Bunkers were "I'll show you," he concluded that George would be back to show them something and decided to wait for awhile.

While he waited, George's father spoke of the difficulty George faced in finding a job. He asked Archie if he would hire George where he worked — at the loading dock.

"No," Archie replied. "Where I work, you gotta to be on your toes. And to be on your toes, you gotta know where your toes are."

In fact, George did return to the Bunker home. He had a quotation that he kept at the store that he wanted to share. It was one of my favorite quotes from 19th–century writer and educator Thomas Carlyle: "Every man is my superior in that I may learn from him."

Archie, of course, didn't get it. "It means everyone is smarter than you, Arch," said Mike (Rob Reiner).

"Oh, no, Mike," protested George. "It means that anyone can learn from anyone — even from me!"

Then George announced that he had found a new job, and he was asked for details about his new job. Turned out it was on a loading dock — same as Archie.

I have admired Masur's work for a long time, and I remember seeing him in this episode, but I didn't realize until recently that it was his professional broadcasting debut. He had been acting on Broadway for awhile, but, since this episode aired, most of his work has been on TV — with a few big–screen performances thrown in the mix.

People often erect the barriers that keep them from learning from others, whether they are mentally challenged or not. On this night 40 years ago, All in the Family reminded us that there are all kinds of things to learn from other people — and that disabilities are not always disabling.