Turning to the Bard

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I like comedy.

Given a choice, I would prefer to watch a sitcom on TV than any other kind of show. Being a writer myself, I appreciate the well–crafted dialogue that is the hallmark of truly great comedy. But if the show is not a sitcom and it tries to do a crossover, it usually falls flat.

That was the problem for Twilight Zone on a few occasions. It was designed to be a dramatic program, and its comedy episodes generally did not work. A case in point is "The Bard," which first aired 55 years ago tomorrow night.

It was written by series creator Rod Serling and served as the finale for the fourth season. It was also Twilight Zone's final one–hour episode; the fifth season marked a return to the half–hour format. As I have mentioned on this blog, there were some excellent episodes in the one–hour format. "The Bard" was not one of them.

Jack Weston, whose work I usually enjoy, was a streetcar conductor–turned–aspiring TV screenwriter whose efforts kept getting rejected by TV executives. He was a shameless — and talentless — self–promoter who jumped at a chance to write a screenplay about black magic — even though he had no knowledge of black magic.

To make up for this deficiency he went to a bookstore in search of a book about black magic — and one literally flew off the shelves. It was loaded with spells, and Weston took it home with him. With the help of the book, Weston conjured up William Shakespeare (John Williams), who offered his services, and Weston took him up on it, intending to pass off Shakespeare's work as his own.

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Well, that was the plot in a nutshell.

Weston's play was accepted for production on a weekly TV playhouse program, and he was invited to appear on a program that featured all the hottest names in the industry.

But there were problems afoot, chiefly with Shakespeare, who resented not receiving credit for his considerable contributions. He agreed to stay until he had had a chance to assess the performances of the cast in a rehearsal the next day.

One of those cast members was Burt Reynolds.

Reynolds is known today as a movie actor, but in 1963 his experience was exclusively in television. His was not a new face — but it was a somewhat familiar face, having appeared in nearly two dozen TV series, almost always as a guest star.

He was a guest star in "The Bard," playing — fittingly — an actor named Rocky Rhodes, and he kept making noises about his "motivation."

It was all too much for Shakespeare, who decked Rhodes with a right cross and walked out on the rehearsal.

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That was a bit awkward for Weston, who had already been given his next assignment — an extensive program on American history. To meet it he conjured up several figures from American history — folks like Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Pocahontas and others.

Misfits in Paradise

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It has been said that, if you can remember the '60s, you weren't really there.

There is truth in that, I suppose, but perhaps it is really more applicable to the '70s.

When said in regard to the '60s, it's a joke based on the quantities of recreational drugs that were consumed.

But when it is applied to the '70s, the context changes. Novelist Tom Wolfe labeled it "the me decade," largely because Americans turned away from the emphasis on the group that was at the heart of the counter–culture communal lifestyle so many embraced in the 1960s and instead lived their lives in a kind of single–minded pursuit of individual satisfaction.

Whereas "free love" had been a concept primarily associated with the 1960s, there was really nothing free about sex in the 1970s. Many more unmarried couples were living together than ever before, but there were high prices to be paid for the more open sexuality.

The emphasis on self contributed to things like the Roe v. Wade judicial decision, giving women new authority over their bodies. It may have encouraged the gay movement as it gained momentum while the clouds of the AIDS crisis loomed in the horizon.

There was clearly a sexual revolution under way.

"Boogie Nights," which premiered 15 years ago today, tried to tell the story of that time.

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Set against the backdrop of the porn industry of the 1970s, Mark Wahlberg played Eddie Adams, a young and extraordinarily well–endowed porn star who went by the name Dirk Diggler. Julianne Moore was Amber Waves, another porn star who lost a custody battle to her ex–husband when the court concluded she was an unfit mother in part because of her line of work.

Denied the opportunity to be the custodial parent of her own child, Amber proceeded to mother her colleagues in the adult film industry.

That was the story of the cast of "Boogie Nights." All those characters toiled in an industry devoted to sex, happiness and pleasure, but they found themselves desperately unhappy, their fondest dreams strangled.

They reminded me, in a perverse sort of way, of the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys in the Christmas TV special "Rudolph the Red–Nosed Reindeer." They were broken, defective in some way and searching for something that was always just beyond their reach.

In fact, that is the thought that kept coming to my mind as I watched this movie. Sex had become routine for all the characters, the folks who ran the cameras, the ones who performed in front of the cameras.

Their product was intended to arouse and titillate the audience, but the cast of "Boogie Nights" seemed almost bored with it — except for the character of Little Bill (William H. Macy), who finally, after being humiliated one too many times by his porn star wife's public and private sexual antics with other partners, shot her and her lover and then turned the gun on himself.

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Neither, for that matter, did Rollergirl (Heather Graham) seem to be terribly happy. Rollergirl was defective in many ways — apparently unsuccessful in school and craving a mother figure (once, she asked Amber Waves to "be my mom" — the very thing that would appeal to Moore's frustrated maternal instincts — when the two were getting high on cocaine).

She had her idiosyncrasies, like always wearing roller skates. When director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) auditioned Dirk, he watched him have sex with Rollergirl, who not only wore her skates throughout but also made sure that "Brand New Key" (aka "The Rollerskate Song") was playing in the background.

Nearly everyone in the ensemble had some sort of personal quirk. Buck (Don Cheadle) had a thing for cowboy stuff and wanted to run a stereo shop. Philip Seymour Hoffman (about a decade before he won an Oscar for his portrayal of Truman Capote) played a gay soundman who was infatuated with Dirk.

They were all caught up in the rapid rise and equally rapid fall of porn films, which was rather nicely summed up in the final scene.

After drugs and videotape had taken their toll on the adult film industry, Dirk, while preparing for a scene, pulled down his pants, exposing his enormous sexual organ, and repeated, mantra–like, the line, "I'm a star ..."

Once a misfit ...

'Deliverance' From Evil

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I didn't see "Deliverance" when it was making its rounds of the theaters in the second half of 1972.

"Deliverance" was rated R, and I was too young to go into an R–rated movie without my parents.

It was several years before I saw it. That's ironic, I suppose, because it probably would be rated PG today.

It's a suspenseful movie with some disturbing scenes, but there is no nudity that I can recall so it would probably get a milder rating to help boost the box office revenue. Especially since it had no splashy special effects.

That doesn't mean that I think it should have been rated PG.

And, frankly, there really was nothing wrong with the box office for "Deliverance." It was made for a budget of $2 million and earned more than $46 million.

"Deliverance" premiered 40 years ago today. Initially, the story was a pleasant one — about a group of friends getting away from their big–city lives to do some canoeing in the wilderness. While at the launch point, Ronny Cox jammed with one of the hillbilly locals in a tune that became a huge hit, "Dueling Banjos."

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But the outing quickly turned horrific.

Most people who went to see the movie when it made its theatrical run were probably drawn by the star power of Burt Reynolds, possibly Jon Voight as well, but most who have seen "Deliverance" probably will speak of the powerful scenes they saw, not the stars.

They will tell you that the "Dueling Banjos" scene is one of two scenes in the movie that stuck in their memories.

The other was a very disturbing scene about a male rape by apparently inbred hillbillies. It was not graphic (mostly implied), but it was nevertheless terrifying.

Ned Beatty, appearing in his first feature film, was the victim who was told by his assailants to "squeal like a pig."

I only recall asking my parents once if I could see "Deliverance," and I don't know how much they knew about it, but I'm sure my mother's thoughts, at least, must have been influenced by the memory of the time, just a handful of years earlier, when I first saw "The Wizard of Oz" on TV.

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The flying monkeys gave me nightmares for weeks — shoot, I got upset when I saw "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on TV. I can only imagine the trauma I would have experienced after seeing even that relatively sanitized — by modern standards — scene in "Deliverance."

While I don't want to give away anything if you haven't seen "Deliverance" — and, if that is the case, I urge you to see it — I will say that the ending has always reminded me of the ending of "Carrie."

And I would be inclined to say the ending of "Deliverance" was inspired by "Carrie" — except that "Carrie" was made four years after "Deliverance."

Remember earlier when I wrote of the irony of ratings? Well, there's another irony to this anniversary.

"Deliverance" told a story of rather ordinary people engaged in an ordinary recreational activity who found themselves in an extraordinary situation.

Not unlike the moviegoers in Colorado who recently found themselves at the mercy of a madman, the canoeists of "Deliverance" unexpectedly faced a life–and–death situation.

One can only wonder how he/she would respond when faced with something like that.