Oh, joy. Christmas Eve. By this time tomorrow, millions of Americans, knee deep in tinsel and wrapping paper, will utter those heartfelt words, "Is this all I got?"
Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer)
On this night in 1987, Cheers! was in its sixth season — about midway through its run. The characters' quirks had been established even though some of the original characters were gone and some new ones were in the cast.
Rebecca (Kirstie Alley) had replaced Diane (Shelley Long), and Woody (Woody Harrelson) had replaced Coach (Nicholas Colasanto). Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) had been added.
On this night in 1987, it was Christmas Eve in the Cheers! universe — and everyone was distracted by things that were sure to exaggerate each character's quirk.
Cliff (John Ratzenberger) was obsessed with a postmen's canned food drive in which the winner would receive a trip to Disney World. He brought a big cardboard box to the bar and encouraged everyone to drop off cans.
Rebecca, the bar's manager for its new corporate owner, told the bar staffers that they had to work Christmas Eve. Carla (Rhea Perlman) had no problem with that. Neither did Woody, who had decided not to visit his family in Indiana during the holidays because he was participating in a Christmas play in Boston (even though he admitted missing his mother's "bone–dry" stuffing).
But Sam (Ted Danson) did. He considered a "holiday eve" a holiday.
Nevertheless all the Cheers! employees worked on Christmas Eve — and found themselves waiting to close the near–empty bar that night while one lone patron sat slowly nursing a drink. As they waited they decided to do their gift exchange — which was when Sam realized he had no gift for Rebecca, and he rushed out into the night hoping against hope he could find a store that was still open.
He couldn't — but he stumbled upon a lovely young lady carrying some shopping bags. When he explained his predicament to her, she offered to let him buy one of the items among her purchases. He picked a pair of earmuffs — and made a date with her for later when he learned that her shopping bags also contained intimate apparel.
Same old Sammy.
Norm was working a part–time gig as a department store Santa. On Christmas Eve he brought all his buddies from Santa School to the bar after the stores closed.
When the staffers exchanged gifts, it turned out that Sam had picked up the wrong package. Instead of earmuffs, he had given Rebecca diamond earrings.
After some initial resistance, Rebecca agreed to accept them, forcing Sam to spend much more than he had anticipated — but he thought it would pay off when Rebecca invited him to her place after work for a late dinner.
Then he learned that it would not be the one–on–one evening he expected. Everyone at Cheers! had been invited!
The episode ended on the same note with which it began — with everyone watching yet another airing of "It's a Wonderful Life" on a local TV station that was apparently showing it all month in the station's "It's a Wonderful Month" promotion.
Even Frasier (Kelsey Grammer), who had a decidedly Scrooge–like attitude, got choked up.
"Love don't make things nice — it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die."
Ronny (Nicolas Cage)
Love triangles are, by their nature, complicated.
They become more complicated when all the parties are friends — and even more complicated when some are related. Most of the time, I suppose some of the parties are related by marriage, but sometimes they are related by blood.
Norman Jewison's "Moonstruck," which premiered in New York on this day in 1987, had both — well, kinda. There were several romances going on, and sometimes they overlapped. And all that got complicated, too.
The primary love story in "Moonstruck" involved a widow named Loretta (Cher), her boneheaded fiancé Johnny (Danny Aiello) and Johnny's brother (Nicolas Cage).
I liked a description that film critic Roger Ebert wrote several years ago. The story, Ebert wrote, "exists in a Brooklyn that has never existed, a Brooklyn where the full moon makes the night like day and drives people crazy with amore, when the moon–a hits their eyes like a big–a pizza pie. The soundtrack is equal parts 'La Boheme' and Dean Martin, and Ronny Cammareri's feelings are like those of an operatic hero, larger than life and more dramatic, as when he tells Loretta why he hates his brother Johnny."
So there's that.
Johnny proposed to Loretta before departing for Sicily to be with his dying mother. Loretta accepted the proposal but said she wanted to be sure they followed tradition. It was her failure to do so the first time, she believed, that put the curse on her first marriage, leading to her first husband's death. Following tradition was OK with Johnny, and he told Loretta to be sure Ronny was invited to the wedding.
Loretta did not love Johnny; convinced that she was unlucky in love, Loretta was content to marry him even though she did not love him, but everything changed when she met Ronny.
Life can be funny that way, you know?
Further complicating things were a couple of extramarital affairs in Loretta's own family.
Her father (Vincent Gardenia) was having an affair and so was her mother (Olympia Dukakis).
Cher and Dukakis took home Oscars for their performances. Jewison was nominated for Best Director, and Gardenia was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. And the movie was nominated for Best Picture.
The Grandson (Fred Savage):Grandpa, maybe you could come over and read it again to me tomorrow.
Grandpa (Peter Falk):As you wish.
My mother loved "The Princess Bride," which premiered on this day in 1987.
That is what I most remember about the movie.
Mom saw it at a theater. I didn't see it with her. For years after that, she kept urging me to rent the video tape, but I never did. Finally, she gave me a copy of the video tape for Christmas — just a few months before she died in a flash flood.
At the time of her death, I still hadn't watched the tape. I still had it, but I hadn't watched it. So one night I decided I was going to do it for Mom.
I thought the movie was cute, and I could see why Mom liked it, why so many people liked it. Critics liked it, and it was a modest success at the box office, too.
I would have liked to talk with Mom about it. That was what we did almost every time we saw a movie together. Our discussions were brief sometimes, extensive other times, but they were almost always the best part of the movie watching experience for me.
I miss many things about my mother, but that exchange of thoughts and ideas may be what I miss the most. I have no doubt that our conversation about "The Princess Bride" would have been one of our best.
"'The Princess Bride' reveals itself as a sly parody of sword and sorcery movies, a film that somehow manages to exist on two levels at once," Ebert wrote. "While younger viewers will sit spellbound at the thrilling events on the screen, adults, I think, will be laughing a lot."
I wanted to know which parts Mom found funny — and why. I think I know the answer, but I never truly will.
Ebert elaborated on that point, and I couldn't disagree.
"In its own peculiar way, 'The Princess Bride' resembles 'This Is Spinal Tap,' an earlier film by the same director, Rob Reiner," he wrote. "Both films are funny not only because they contain comedy, but because Reiner does justice to the underlying form of his story. 'Spinal Tap' looked and felt like a rock documentary — and then it was funny. 'The Princess Bride' looks and feels like 'Legend' or any of those other quasi–heroic epic fantasies — and then it goes for the laughs."
Without going into too much detail, the movie was the telling of a story by a grandfather (Peter Falk) to his bedridden grandson (Fred Savage) — and if Mom could be here, I have no doubt she would say that I shouldn't spoil too much for anyone who hasn't seen it.
I don't think it would spoil too much, though, if I told you that, in the context of the story, it was established that the phrase "As you wish" really means "I love you."
When I discovered that, I understood the meaning of the note Mom had attached to that Christmas gift. "I think you'll like this," Mom wrote. "As you wish."
I remember being puzzled by that at the time, and I asked Mom about it. But all she did was smile. She knew what it meant, and she knew I would understand only if I watched the movie.
"These are great days we're living, bros. We are jolly green giants, walking the Earth with guns. These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we're gonna miss having anyone around that's worth shooting."
Crazy Earl (Kieron Jecchinis)
I've seen enough Stanley Kubrick movies that I am pretty sure I could identify one even if I stumbled onto one I had never seen before while I was channel surfing.
Some directors are like that. They use certain styles — for example, certain types of lighting or camera angles — in all their films.
If you've seen some of Kubrick's movies, you're bound to recognize things like shots that show as much of a room as possible, giving the shot unusual depth.
Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," which was first shown on this day in Beverly Hills in 1987, was like that. I first saw it on the big screen and knew who directed it long before I went to see it. But if my first exposure to it had been a few years later when it was showing on TV and I stumbled onto it when it was already half over, I'm sure I could still figure out rather quickly who had directed it.
I always thought one of the most telling signs that it was a Kubrick movie was the performance of Vincent D'Onofrio who played an overweight Marine recruit.
The character's weight was an important part of the story. The character was originally written as a "skinny ignorant redneck" but was rewritten as fat and clumsy instead. This required D'Onofrio to put on 70 pounds — the greatest weight gain for a movie role ever (eclipsing Robert De Niro's record of 60 pounds for "Raging Bull"). Physical transformations are big in Kubrick movies.
More telling than that, though, are facial expressions. And D'Onofrio, a weak–minded overweight recruit who was ridiculed mercilessly by his sergeant (R. Lee Ermey, a Marine–turned–actor whose name became a household word with this movie), finally snapped.
When the audience caught up with him in the barracks lavatory late one night, the expression on his face was one Kubrick's audiences had seen before — most notably on the faces of Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" and Malcom McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange."
But I've got to tell you. I thought D'Onofrio did Kubrick crazy best. Even better than Nicholson.
D'Onofrio shot his sergeant, then shot himself so he wasn't a factor in what happened in the rest of the movie.
But there was plenty of Kubrick crazy in the second half of the movie.
The rest of the movie was about one of D'Onofrio's fellow recruits (Matthew Modine) and his participation in some of the atrocities of the Vietnam War at the time of the Tet offensive that essentially doomed the American war effort.
From what I have heard, just about everyone who served in 'Nam was at least a little Kubrick crazy — some more than others. And the experiences of the platoon with which Modine found himself in the city of Huế during the Tet offensive certainly seemed to bear that out.
In case you aren't up on your Vietnam War history, Huế was the site of one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the conflict. Fighting there lasted nearly a month. Thousands were killed or wounded on both sides.
It is always striking to me how violent the movie is — but, of course, you can't really make a movie about war that isn't violent, can you? And while it is tempting to criticize Kubrick for making an excessively violent movie, the nonfiction account of that war is filled with even worse.
It also occurs to me when I watch this movie that it must take a special mentality to fight a war. I suppose it has always been that way, even when the weapons in use were not as sophisticated as they are today (although the automatic weapons of today are certainly more efficient than the weapons that were used in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War). So many people are shot (graphically) in full view of the audience and the other characters in the movie.
I tend to put myself in the position of those other characters. Would I be able to carry on with an offensive after watching one of my best friends get killed in front of me? I feel like I would at least need some time to grieve before channeling my energies in another direction — so maybe it is a good thing that I was never called upon to fight in a war.
But in "Full Metal Jacket" — and probably in reality — there was no time to grieve, not even for Modine when a buddy from his boot camp days (Arliss Howard) was shot by a sniper and died in Modine's arms.
They found the sniper — turned out to be a young girl, probably in her teens. One of the guys in the platoon shot her and as she lay dying she begged for someone to end her life and her misery, repeatedly saying just two words — "Shoot me." Modine finally performed the mercy killing.
"Full Metal Jacket" was nominated for one Oscar — Best Adapted Screenplay — but lost to the big winner on Oscar night that year, "The Last Emperor."
"Nancy, I'm not a doctor, but it's got no pulse, it's not breathing, and it's cold as a Popsicle. Believe me, honey, whatever he is, he's definitely dead!"
George (John Lithgow)
As I have mentioned here before, I usually like to look for the lesson or moral of a movie or TV show I write about.
But sometimes you don't want to watch something with a lesson or a moral. Sometimes you just want to escape. Know what I mean?
And if anyone in the movie industry knows about escapism, it's Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg didn't direct "Harry and the Hendersons," which made its debut on this date in 1987, but the production company he founded — Amblin Entertainment — produced it. And, unless you happen to believe in Bigfoot, it was pure escapism — reminiscent of "E.T." in many ways.
(In fact, I know people who think "Harry and the Hendersons" was better than "E.T." Personally, I don't, but that's just me.)
Actually, there was a lesson or two — kinda — at the end, but I'll get back to that.
When the movie began, the Henderson family (John Lithgow, Melinda Dillon and their children, played by Margaret Langrick and Joshua Rudoy) had been on a hunting/camping trip in the Pacific Northwest and were on their way to their home in Seattle when their car struck a large figure whose details were obscured by glare.
At first it appeared to be a bear but, upon closer inspection, the Hendersons concluded it must be Bigfoot. They also concluded it was dead and decided to bring it back with them, figuring it would be worth a lot of money to them.
But the creature (played by 7–foot actor Kevin Peter Hall) was not dead and, after learning rather belatedly that the world at large was not ready to accept the notion of Bigfoot's existence, they decided to make him a member of the family.
That was quite a challenge by itself. "Harry" (in the movie, it was suggested that his name originated from his appearance — but, in fact, it was an homage to Harry Nilsson. Bill Martin, who wrote the screenplay for the movie, also wrote some songs for Nilsson's "Harry" album) was not exactly domesticated and caused considerable damage to the house and the car.
And he was shocked to see Lithgow's hunting trophies on the wall. After all, some of them could have been Harry's friends.
But he was a gentle giant. His destructive behavior wasn't deliberate. It was mostly a matter of not knowing how his bulk and strength could affect his new environment — but you sure didn't want to make him mad.
He was remarkably intelligent. After only a short time with the Hendersons, he seemed to understand what they said to him. He even managed to speak one word of English before the end of the movie. Even in a situation in which observers really had to suspend their disbelief, that was tough to swallow.
It is safe to say that everyone had adjustments to make.
And while they were making those adjustments, there were other characters from outside the family circle who became involved in the story — notably a Bigfoot researcher (Don Ameche) and a Bigfoot–obsessed hunter (David Suchet).
Their contributions to the plausibility of the story were significant, and I'll leave it to you to discover how — if you're so inclined.
But as for the lessons of the story, which I mentioned briefly earlier ...
"Harry and the Hendersons" essentially told viewers not to judge a book by its cover. In this story some humans could — and did — behave in more beastly manners than the beast. Harry's compassion was genuine, but you had to look past his intimidating exterior to see it.
For those with more saintly dispositions, there was a lesson in the story that went like this: Forgiveness is a powerful thing. Do it whenever you can.
And another theme that was a little ahead of its time — but would be embraced by many today — is the suggestion that we should play an active role in protecting our environment.
It was more entertaining than I expected, and it was definitely a family friendly movie in the sense that objectionable language was kept to a minimum.
"Goooooooood morning, Vietnam! Hey, this is not a test! This is rock and roll! Time to rock it from the Delta to the D.M.Z.!"
I've been following Robin Williams since his "Mork and Mindy" days.
Few people have been as manic in public as Williams, and there have been few professional opportunities for him to let his wild side take over completely.
(I suppose one could argue that Williams only has one side, he is just judicious with its wildness.)
But I'm inclined to think that Williams' portrayal of disc jockey Adrian Cronauer had to be one of those opportunities. And he took advantage of it.
I've heard that most of Williams' radio broadcasts in the movie were improvised, and that would make sense.
Who else, after all, would think to say this while imitating Walter Cronkite?
"I just want to begin by saying to Roosevelt E. Roosevelt, what it is, what it shall be, what it was. The weather out there today is hot and shitty with continued hot and shitty in the afternoon. Tomorrow a chance of continued crappy with a pissy weather front coming down from the north. Basically, it's hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut."
How about this?
"What's the demilitarized zone? It sounds like something from the Wizard of Oz. 'Oh no don't go in there!' 'Ohhh wee ohh. Ho Chi Minh.' 'Oh look you've landed in Saigon. You're amongst the little people now.' 'We represent the ARVN army, the ARVN army. Oh no! Follow the Ho Chi Minh trail! Follow the Ho Chi Minh trail!' "
Who else would be irreverent enough to say this?
"Here are the headlines. Here they come right now. Pope actually found to be Jewish. Liberace is Anastasia and Ethel Merman jams Russian radar. The East Germans today claimed the Berlin Wall was a fraternity prank. Also the pope decided today to release Vatican–related bath products. An incredible thing, yes, it's the new Pope On A Rope. That's right. Pope On A Rope. Wash with it, go straight to heaven."
Certainly not the real Adrian Cronauer, who reportedly was nowhere near as hyperactive as Williams' character. I've heard he used no comedy in his broadcasts and simply left Vietnam when his tour of duty ended.
(Williams' Cronauer was taken off the air and given an honorable discharge provided he left quietly under shadowy circumstances.)
The real Cronauer story transferred to film wouldn't have made enough money to cover the producers' bus fare anywhere.
But the Williams treatment resulted in an Academy Award nomination.
He didn't win the Oscar (he lost to Michael Douglas). He deserved the nomination, though — it was, after all, his show, and his performance was dazzling — but he might not have been nominated if he hadn't been surrounded by a top–notch supporting cast.
Of all the noteworthy acting talent that provided that support, I think my favorite was Forest Whitaker as Eddie Garlick. Whitaker had been around for awhile — I first remember seeing him in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" — but I had never seen him like he was in "Good Morning, Vietnam."
For lack of a better term, Whitaker was Williams' sidekick, his straight man.
"No," Whitaker said at one point, "he's not all right. A man does not refer to Pat Boone as a beautiful genius if things are all right."
At another point, speaking of the stuffed shirt character (Bruno Kirby) who took over on–air duty when Cronauer was ushered out, Whitaker said, "We got one letter from a man who thought that Hauk's comedy was 'visionary and interesting.' The other 1100 calls say that the man can't do comedy to save his dick! That's a direct quote, sir."
And, boy, could he deliver a straight line.
But he could deliver punch lines, too. Like when he was asked why Bob Hope wouldn't come to Vietnam.
"He doesn't play police actions, just wars. Bob likes a big room, sir."
Aaron (Albert Brooks):Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If needy were a turn–on?
It was 25 years ago today that "Broadcast News" premiered.
As a journalism professor with many years of newsroom experience under my belt, I feel there ought to be something profound I should say about that. But I'll be darned if I know what it is.
Of course, my experience is exclusively in print, not broadcast, and there is a world of difference between the two. Within that difference, perhaps, is the insight that is needed to discover whatever lesson "Broadcast News" was intended to teach.
But I lacked that insight at the time, and I am afraid I still do.
Of course, I've seen newsroom romances, so the relationship between Holly Hunter and William Hurt was not, ahem, virgin territory for me. In my experience, it was a bit exaggerated at times — but, hey, can you name a romantic comedy that wasn't exaggerated?
It's the exaggeration that makes it funny. That's important in a romantic comedy.
But I kind of felt "Broadcast News" was more than a romantic comedy. It was also something of a spoof on broadcasting — not as biting as, say, "Network," but, in its way, just as prophetic.
And I guess there were no moments in "Broadcast News" that were as memorable as Peter Finch's "I'm as mad as hell" rant in "Network," but they were often just as clever — and every bit as telling.
One of my favorite lines was when Brooks was feeding information to William Hurt by phone via Hunter. He said something to her and, a few seconds later, the same thing, practically word for word, came out of Hurt's mouth.
"I say it here, it comes out there," Brooks remarked.
Hurt's presence created a romantic triangle that William Shakespeare might have envied. Brooks, naturally, was in love with Hunter, but, while she was Brooks' friend, it could never be more than that for her.
However, she was strongly attracted to Hurt, an aspiring anchorman who excelled at reading what was put in front of him and the nuances of visual appeal on camera, but he was not a reporter. He read others' prose flawlessly but often could not comprehend what the stories really meant.
Hurt's character didn't pretend that wasn't an issue for him, either. "It's not that I'm down on myself," he said. "Trust me. I stink."
And yet he was on an upward professional trajectory.
It was hard, really, to argue with Brooks' reasoning for why Hurt's character was the devil.
What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? ... He will be attractive! He'll be nice and helpful. He'll get a job where he influences a great God–fearing nation. He'll never do an evil thing! He'll never deliberately hurt a living thing ... he will just bit by little bit lower our standards where they are important. Just a tiny little bit. Just coax along flash over substance. Just a tiny little bit. And he'll talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women.
In many ways, that sums up my feeling about modern journalism.
Or, at least, broadcast journalism.
When I was growing up, journalists were dedicated to one thing — pursuit of the truth, regardless of who might be hurt by its revelation.
But most modern journalists — primarily on the broadcast side although there are some in print, too — give their allegiance to their political agenda, whatever that may be. For most, I guess, it is a progressive agenda, but there are some whose agenda is conservative.
Either way, a political agenda has no place in news reporting — in fact, I can remember a time when anything with the slightest whiff of partisanship was clearly labeled opinion. But a place is being made for it in news coverage by reporters who, more and more frequently, insert themselves into their stories.
There is a shallowness to that that I find disturbing. And I shouldn't be surprised when my students seek to emulate it — although it really is surprising just how often I am surprised by that.
"Let's never forget," Brooks told his colleagues at one point, "we're the real story, not them."
This is more relevant to me today than it was when I saw it on the big screen.
As a journalism professor, I am constantly dealing with students who insert themselves into the story, and I am reminded of what Brooks said to his co–workers. When journalists are on the scene, we are the real story, not them.
I have had students who would have felt entitled to be given a comment by the relative of a victim of some horrific event — and would have felt ripped off to be denied one.
When journalists are covering great tragedies, like Friday's shootings at a Connecticut elementary school, it isn't about getting the facts right. It's about having something to say first, whether it is factual or not.
And it's about looking good when we say it.
But there's more to it than that.
In my newsroom days, there was always a distinct line between editorial and advertising. There were times, I'll grant you, when the relationship could be adversarial, and that was understandable, considering that it was really a territorial squabble. Editorial always wanted to have as much space as possible, and advertising looked upon space as a commodity to be bought and sold. Something had to give.
I never worked in broadcasting, but I assume a similar dynamic was — and still is — at work in that arena, in which time was/is the commodity, not space.
Hurt's character may not have comprehended the stories he read to his audience, but he understood the concept of selling:
"Just remember that you're not just reading the news, you're narrating it," he advised Brooks. "Everybody has to sell a little. You're selling them this idea of you, you know, you're sort of saying, trust me, I'm credible. So when you feel yourself just reading, stop! Start selling a little."
For anyone who has worked in journalism, be it broadcast or print, it is a familiar tug–o–war.
And, as far as I was concerned, the greatest flaw of "Broadcast News" was its failure to address that dynamic. It got off to a great start — when Hunter's character was seen lecturing a drowsy conference audience about the declining standards of broadcast journalism.
The audience was revived when she ran a video clip of an event that had been carried by every network news program on a particular night — a clip of an extended domino run that produced exactly the opposite reaction from the one for which Hunter's character had hoped. No indignation, but plenty of appreciative "oooohs" and "aaaahs" and applause.
The point had been made, and I believed the movie's message would be the triumph of style over substance. I thought it would be a lot more like "Network."
But it quickly became a romantic comedy with broadcast journalism as the backdrop.
In that respect, it probably succeeded in entertaining the audience, like the domino clip — but, like Hunter, I felt disappointed and let down, and I continued to feel that way as the movie frequently flirted with the possibility of exploring the issues it raised but always pulled back at the last moment, going for the kind of gags you've laughed at in every romantic comedy.
The cast did a great job with what it was given, and I admit that there was a very human quality to the characters. That's important for a romantic comedy. It can't succeed if the audience doesn't care about the characters.
Still, though, I was disappointed. I really expected more of an indictment of broadcast journalism than I got, and perhaps that was unfair.
I cared — and still do care — more about my profession.
Today is the last day of the four–day Thanksgiving weekend. While I did not have to travel far, I know many people did, and, for some, the act of just getting from one place to another could be harrowing.
I was thankful that I did not have to deal with anything like that.
It was, therefore, something of a bittersweet revelation for me when I realized that today is also the 25th anniversary of the theatrical release of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles."
It was an exception to the rule for a John Hughes film, I guess. Hughes was known for coming–of–age flicks like "The Breakfast Club,""Pretty in Pink,""Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and the "Home Alone" series.
But he didn't have to have children or teenagers as the stars to make entertaining movies, and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" is a perfect example.
The fact that it was set against a holiday backdrop may have been something of a sign of things to come, but the children in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" almost qualified as extras. They certainly weren't stars. They weren't even co–stars.
Actually, they were little more than props. Given that the movie was a story about a traveling advertising executive (Steve Martin) who was desperate to be home with his family for Thanksgiving, they were necessary props. But they weren't essential to most of the story.
When I think of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," it reminds me of how often John Candy appeared in John Hughes' films. Hughes must have been one of Candy's favorite directors — he made eight appearances in all in Hughes' movies.
And Candy had some of his best lines as Del Griffith.
For example ...
When the two woke up in a motel room, Martin was in Candy's embrace.
"Del," he said, "why did you kiss my ear?"
"Why are you holding my hand?" Candy asked.
Frowning, Martin said, "Where's your other hand?"
"Between two pillows," Candy answered.
"Those aren't pillows!" Martin responded.
And the two leaped out of bed and engaged in some macho talk about football.
OK, nearly everyone remembers that scene ...
But when I think of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," I think of the character Candy played — Del Griffith, the gregarious traveling shower ring salesman, always ready with a joke — and hiding the fact that he was a lonely man in a world where couples are the norm.
I remember a scene in which Candy and Martin were talking, and Candy observed, "When I'm dead and buried, all I'll leave behind are some shower curtain rings that didn't fall down."
Martin replied, "At the very least, the absolute minimum, you'll have a woman you love to grow old with. You love her, don't you?"
Wistfully, Candy answered, "Love is not a big enough word for how I feel about my wife."
And the two toasted their spouses — "To the wives!" — even though Martin's character did not know Candy's wife had been dead for several years.
Neither did the audience. But the secret was revealed near the end of the movie.
And it taught everyone an unexpected Thanksgiving lesson on being truly thankful.
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
