"We've become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions. We are tired of pyrotechnics and special effects. While the world he inhabits is, in some respects, counterfeit, there's nothing fake about Truman himself. No scripts, no cue cards. It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine. It's a life."
Christof (Ed Harris)
Imagine, if you will, that your life is actually a television show — a hit show, at that — and everyone knows it except you.
At least at first.
But slowly it dawned on Truman (Jim Carrey) that he was denied the free will that others enjoyed, that everything about his life was being manipulated beyond his control. He couldn't marry the girl he wanted to marry (Natascha McElhone). Instead he was paired with Laura Linney, a cast member on the show who, like everyone but Truman, was in on the story.
The show was created by a fellow named Christof (Ed Harris), who also had to create the circumstances that inevitably kept Truman, an insurance sales executive, in a place called Seaside. It had millions of viewers, some of whom kept their televisions on all night to watch Truman as he slept.
"It's clever the way he's kept on his island by implanted traumas about travel and water," film critic Roger Ebert observed. That is certainly true, especially in the fact that Truman's true love was spirited away to Fiji — and he had been conditioned to fear water because Christof had manipulated the early scripts so Truman's father would drown in a storm.
In many ways, I believe no one but Carrey could plausibly portray Truman, especially since so many of us have become voyeurs in our viewing habits.
But the more one watches "The Truman Show," which premiered 20 years ago today, the less one can avoid the obvious question — how much of it is real?
The answer, I think, is all of it — but not in a way that viewers expect.
"The Truman Show" was an unassuming flick, thought provoking on many levels, well done and creative. Two decades later it is still worth seeing.
"I was an honored guest so they gave me a special treat: boiled dog. Now I will admit, dog is greasy, but you'd be surprised how downright delicate the flavor is — especially when you're starving."
Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman)
The last time I watched Arthur Penn's "Little Big Man" — which premiered on this day in 1970 — it occurred to me that Little Big Man (Dustin Hoffman) was the 19th–century version of Forrest Gump.
He was always where big things were happening in the West — just like Forrest Gump kept showing up at the White House ... after he showed up on the infamous occasion when George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door in an attempt to block the integration of the University of Alabama.
Forrest Gump was always rubbing elbows with the big names of 20th–century history, with presidents and would–be presidents, often in the news footage of the day. Little Big Man wasn't around too many big names. He was almost always around the practically anonymous Indians who tried without success to resist the invasion of the white Europeans.
The only big name I can think of who encountered Little Big Man was Gen. George Armstrong Custer (Richard Mulligan).
Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that "Little Big Man" was "an endlessly entertaining attempt to spin an epic in the form of a yarn." He was right.
"It mostly works," Ebert observed. "When it doesn't — when there's a failure of tone or an overdrawn caricature — it regroups cheerfully and plunges ahead. We're disposed to go along; all good storytellers tell stretchers once in a while, and circle back to be sure we got the good parts."
In "Little Big Man," they were all good parts.
"Hoffman, or Little Big Man, gets around pretty well," Ebert wrote. "He touches all the bases of the Western myth. He was brought West as a settler, raised as a Cheyenne, tried his hand at gunfighting and medicine shows, scouted for the cavalry, experimented with the hermit life, was married twice, survived Custer's Last Stand and sat at the foot of an old man named Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George), who instructed him in the Cheyenne view of creation."
And that, in a nutshell, was Little Big Man's character — except he answered to Jack Crabb when he came West as a settler or when he found himself among other whites.
The "yarn," as Ebert put it, was told by Hoffman's character at the age of 121. Yes, you read that right. And it worked quite well. Extremely well.
"The yarn is the most flexible of story forms," Ebert observed. "Its teller can pause to repeat a point; he can hurry ahead 10 years; he can forget an entire epoch in remembering the legend of a single man. He doesn't capture the history of a time, but its flavor. 'Little Big Man' gives us the flavor of the Cheyenne nation before white men brought uncivilization to the West."
It would be hard to pinpoint what kind of movie it was. It was a comedy, a drama, a satire, a tragedy. Sometimes it was just one; at other times, it was a mix of two or more.
One thing it was not was literal history.
And Ebert observed that the story was circular. "All the characters who appear in the early stages of the film come back in the later stages, fulfilled. The preacher's wife (Faye Dunaway) returns as a prostitute. The medicine–quack, already lacking an arm, loses a leg (physician, heal thyself). Wild Bill Hickok decays from a has–been to a freak show attraction. Custer fades from glory to madness. Only Old Lodge Skins makes it through to the end not merely intact but improved."
The really ridiculous thing about "Little Big Man" is how it was all but overlooked by the Oscars.
Chief Dan George was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (which he lost) — and that was it. Even the schmaltzy "Love Story" got seven nominations.
Well, it wasn't the first time that a more deserving movie got snubbed by the Oscars.
"Isn't she lovely? Aren't they all lovely? Isn't everyone lovely?"
Ted (Dick McGarvin)
When I first saw "Smile," which premiered on this day 40 years ago, I was a hot–blooded teenage boy. If I had been asked before going into the theater what the movie was about, I wouldn't have been able to say much. I knew it was about a beauty pageant, and I recognized the names of a couple of the young female stars — but, frankly, I was just hoping to see them in bikinis.
After all, pageant contestants wear swimsuits during part of the competition. "Smile" was a satire about a fictional beauty pageant, and I figured that the contestants wouldn't necessarily be wearing the one–piece bathing suits that beauty pageant contestants traditionally wear. Bikinis might be part of the satire.
Anyway, that was my logic on the Saturday afternoon that I saw it.
It was 1975, and I guess the Hays Code that had dictated how movies were made for 40 years was still in charge — but its grip was slipping. In the movies I had seen previously, nudity was never shown, merely suggested.
"Smile" was rated PG, and nudity was still mostly implied in R–rated movies, let alone PG–rated ones, in 1975. It's fair to say I wasn't expecting to see any skin that afternoon that you couldn't normally see on any sidewalk or beach in the summer.
It's also fair to say that has changed considerably in the last 40 years. It is no big deal now if there are scenes of partial nudity in PG movies and full frontal nudity in R movies; in fact, it is almost routine. It was very different in 1975.
Anyway, I was watching the movie, still hoping to see some bikini shots, when there was a brief — ever so brief — scene in which a couple of the girls could be seen changing their clothes and for a second or two, parts of the female anatomy that were usually covered in the movies — and in public — were not.
To put it in the context of the story, the son of one of the pageant organizers (Bruce Dern) was going to use his Polaroid camera to take candid pictures of the girls in the dressing room, then he would sell the pictures. But his plans went awry when he was caught after snapping only a few pictures of Annette O'Toole and Melanie Griffith, who played two of the contestants.
Much of the movie, you see, was centered around the week of preparations for the pageant. In addition to their individual work, the girls all had to participate in a range of musical productions. The actual competition part took very little screen time.
One of the girls (I think it was O'Toole) wore panties with the day of the week embroidered on them. They punctuated the film, informing viewers which day of the pageant week they were about to see unfold, but only the words were visible on screen. The viewers never really knew — until the very end — that they had been looking at embroidered panties.
In his review, film critic Roger Ebert recalled the county fairs of his youth, which featured livestock judging and a beauty pageant (on different nights). "[E]ven in those days before women's liberation," he wrote, "it struck me that the two competitions had points in common. Even some of the judges were the same."
Ebert acknowledged that the cows "weren't expected to sing, dance or play musical instruments, nor did they change costumes. But both they and the girls in the beauty contest were essentially being sized up as meat on the hoof, and that depressed me. Here were girls I'd grown up with, and this dreary and demeaning ritual was forcing them to walk around in bathing suits on a stock–car track."
I gathered from the start of Ebert's review that he didn't go into the movie in the same frame of mind that I did. And I'm quite sure he did not. My state of mind reflected the sexist attitudes that dominated many areas of life when I was growing up. It is probably too easy, too simple to say I was the product of the times in which I was raised, and perhaps I am passing the buck when I say that. But it is true to a great extent.
Ebert's assessment was that the movie was "a sometimes funny, more often harrowing look at a teen–age beauty competition."
In many respects, I suppose, "Smile" must be viewed in an unflattering light.
The girls in the movie, Ebert observed, were "judged in all the categories such events pretend are important — talent, grades, personality, 'pep' — but everyone seem[ed] in tacit agreement that physical appearance is the crucial criterion."
In other words, it's what's on the outside that really matters.
And that really shouldn't come as a surprise, should it? I mean, after all, that is what those pageants really are all about, isn't it? Some of the girls were oblivious to it, but some were hip to what was going on, sharing their beauty secrets with their assigned roommates. In hindsight, cynical is probably the best word to describe the story.
Still, it is worth remembering something that Dern's character says when asked if anything ever gets him down.
"I get my apple cart upset sometimes," he says. "I just learned a long time ago to accept a little less from life, that's all."
"Ladies and gentleman, this is your stewardess speaking. We regret any inconvenience the sudden cabin movement might have caused. This is due to periodic air pockets we encountered. There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?"
Elaine (Julie Hagerty)
"Airplane!" has always been something of a guilty pleasure. For me, anyway.
Even in the far less politically correct climate of this day in 1980, when "Airplane!" was first shown on America's movie screens, much of its humor was of the National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live variety — irreverent. Mostly, though, it was silly, the kind of stuff you probably giggled at when you were in fourth grade.
Film critic Roger Ebert put it this way: "It is sophomoric, obvious, predictable, corny and quite often very funny. And the reason it's funny is frequently because it's sophomoric, predictable, corny, etc."
A good example: Robert Stack pulling off a pair of sunglasses, revealing another pair of sunglasses beneath it.
If "Airplane!" premiered today, it would probably draw the wrath of many groups who would claim to be offended by something — either on their own behalf or someone else's.
Even in the context of its 35–year–old form, it probably is not advisable to quote lines from it if you're in the company of people who belong to certain social, ethnic and/or religious groups. In fact, I am convinced that it would not be a success today. The times just aren't right for it.
"Airplane!" wasn't really discriminatory, though — at least, not in the traditional sense. It was an equal opportunity insulter.
The story was loosely based around Ted (Robert Hays) and Elaine (Julie Hagerty) and their rather dysfunctional relationship. Ted once flew planes in battle, but he suffered a traumatic experience and steadfastly refused to fly a plane again — until he was forced to do so by circumstances.
Ted (Robert Hays):Surely you can't be serious?
Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen):I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.
One thing I have discovered with movies that I really find humorous, like "Airplane!" is that I find things that are new to me each time I watch them — and I can only conclude that I must have missed them the first time because I was laughing at the joke before it.
That would probably be my only complaint about "Airplane!" — there are places where its pacing could be much more beneficial to the overall script.
But I can say that about many comedies that I have enjoyed over the years. It often takes two or three viewings to get the full benefit from such a movie.
All my old favorite moments are still my favories — like the scene where the former June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley) volunteered to translate the jive lingo of two black passengers for their white stewardess.
And I always laugh at the line that formed of people who wanted to calm an hysterical passenger. The first few people slapped her around; those standing in line had a crowbar, a lead pipe, a revolver ...
Randy (Lorna Patterson):Excuse me, sir, there's been a little problem in the cockpit …
Ted (Robert Hays):The cockpit … what is it?
Randy:It's the little room in the front of the plane where the pilots sit, but that's not important right now.
The last time I watched it, it occurred to me that "Airplane!" was written in the Mel Brooks style — not quite as clever as Neil Simon but easily capable of producing a belly laugh or two.
I will admit, though, that most of the movie's humor was related to things and people that would have been recognizable to audiences in 1980 — but not necessarily audiences in 2015.
There isn't much point in relating any more of the plot — such as it was — except that it is probably just as funny now as it was then for someone seeing it for the first time — even if that person isn't familiar with many of the references — although my guess is that, if you're seeing it for the first time and you don't know who June Cleaver was, you'd probably be wise to watch an episode or two of Leave It To Beaver before you watch "Airplane!" It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to watch the movie that is being parodied — 1970's "Airport." That's just my opinion, though.
Incidentally, "Airplane!" marked the debut — and probably the career high point — of actor David Leisure, who went on to star as Joe Isuzu in TV commercials in the late '80s and early '90s. He played one of the Hare Krishnas at the airport.
Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Sally Kellerman)
Forty–five years ago, it was fashionable to ridicule the armed services. Mostly in the movies. TV still had a certain reverence for the establishment in those days, but it was mostly in movies.
To be fair, the military was an easy target. The mismanaged Vietnam War had already forced a president to voluntarily withdraw from a campaign for re–election four years after winning the presidency by an historic margin. Things were going so badly for the United States in Southeast Asia that Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, "Uncle Walter" to millions, made a rare editorial comment during one of his newscasts that the war effort was a lost cause. I knew many people who were skeptical of their government and the media, but they trusted Cronkite. I couldn't tell you how many times I heard, when I was a child, someone say, "If Cronkite says it, you can take it to the bank."
At times, it was true that the military leadership resembled the Keystone Kops.
But I guess the military has frequently been an easy target. Forty–five years ago today, the movie "M*A*S*H," which was adapted from a best–selling novel by Richard Hooker, directed by Robert Altman and later inspired a long–running TV series, made its debut. Its target was the Korean War.
If all you know of "M*A*S*H" is the episodes of the TV series that you've seen, you may want to adjust your thinking a bit before watching the movie. You'll recognize the characters — Hawkeye, Hot Lips, Radar — but the actors who played them (except for Radar) were nowhere to be seen on the TV screen.
In that sense, I suppose, it will be like a new experience. And, in truth, I guess it is a new experience. A different one, anyway. The TV series was great in part because it didn't try to do the work of a movie in 30 minutes. And the movie was great in part because it didn't try to be like a TV episode.
That seems so simple, but if you try to pack too much into a half–hour sitcom or too little into a 90–minute movie, you're setting yourself up for failure.
Even so, film critic Roger Ebert wrote that "M*A*S*H" the movie worked because "it's so desperate. ... The surgeons work rapidly and with a gory detachment, sawing off legs and tying up arteries, and making their work possible by pretending they don't care. And when they are at last out of the operating tent, they devote their lives to remaining sane."
I never really thought of it that way, but I guess there is a lot of truth in that. There was more of a sense of desperation in the movie than there was in the TV series. The surgeons still had a flippant attitude, Hot Lips and Frank still embodied the military establishment, but both seemed more extreme in the movie than the TV series. Perhaps that was because the movie, having received an R rating, was shown to an audience that was assumed to be mature enough to handle the material. On TV, anyone of any age could be watching.
So things were toned down on TV. I suppose that was kind of problematic for the Frank–and–Hot–Lips affair.
As far as Hot Lips and Frank were concerned, their movie characters were similar to yet different from their TV characters. They were gung–ho in the TV series, but that really was mild compared to the movie. And their sexual relationship really had to be muted for the small screen — implied far more than it was actually shown.
They really were fighting a different war in the movie. And their holier–than–thou attitudes came through loud and clear.
"I wonder how such a degenerated person ever reached a position of authority in the Army Medical Corps," Hot Lips (Sally Kellerman) remarked at one point about Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland).
"He was drafted," replied Father Mulcahy (René Auberjonois).
For his part, Frank's religious zealotry was only hinted at in the TV series compared to his extremely overt religious behavior in the movie. The first time he was seen, Frank was teaching one of the mess hall boys how to read — using his Bible.
The next time he was seen, he was kneeling in front of his cot, reciting the Lord's Prayer, which he amended to include requests for God's blessing on the fighting men, the commanders in the field and the commander–in–chief.
"Frank, were you on this religious kick at home," Hawkeye asked, "or did you you crack up over here?"
I guess the TV series proceeded as if the movie never existed — or as if it was intended to function independently of the big–screen story. Otherwise, someone would have noticed that Frank Burns (Robert Duvall in the movie, Larry Linville in the TV series) was taken away in a straitjacket after punching Hawkeye in the movie, never to be seen again — until he showed up in the TV series. No one, not even Hot Lips, ever asked him about his time in custody.
You know, I guess Ebert wasn't far off the mark when he wrote of the frantic pace of the movie. In 1970, the makers of the movie most likely had no idea their movie would inspire a long–running TV series so the movie tried to tell viewers everything about those characters in a couple of hours — or, at least, everything that the original book told readers about them.
The makers of the hugely successful TV series expected that the bulk of their audience would know the inside jokes about everyone, even though the TV cast was almost entirely made up of people who did not appear in the movie.
A few of the characters in the TV series — notably Corporal Klinger — were nowhere to be found in the movie. He was created for the TV audience.
Ring Lardner, Jr. won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
"It's for sure a white man's world in America. Look here: I raised that boy since he was the size of a piss–ant. And I'll say right now, he never learned to read and write. No, sir. Had no brains at all. Was stuffed with rice pudding between th' ears. Shortchanged by the Lord and dumb as a jackass. Look at him now! Yes, sir, all you've gotta be is white in America to get whatever you want."
Louise (Ruth Attaway)
I think "Being There," which premiered on this day in 1979, was Peter Sellers' next–to–last movie before his death by heart attack in July 1980.
For awhile, I believed it was his last movie — that designation actually went to "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu" — and that thought appealed to my sense of order somehow, that he had died after giving what was arguably his finest performance as Chance the gardener.
I suppose, if I had been Peter Sellers, I would have wanted the public to remember me for "Being There," not "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu" — nor the somewhat bizarre posthumous performance he gave via archival footage in the last of the Pink Panther movies a couple of years later.
People do have a way of remembering the last thing a writer, an actor, a musician, an artist of any kind does before he/she dies — as if there is some kind of cosmic significance to it. Sometimes there is a touch of irony, given whatever happened shortly thereafter; other than that, though, I think people attach far too much to last words or last movies or last songs or whatever. And I am just as guilty as anyone else is, I guess. I try not to be, but I'm human and I do fall into that trap occasionally.
If it had been his last movie, though, "Being There" would have been a great way for Sellers to go out.
"Being There" was a comedy that equaled nearly every comedy Sellers ever made — and surpassed most. I say nearly because, frankly, it's darn near impossible to match what Sellers did in "Dr. Strangelove." I will go to my grave believing that.
Take that one out of the equation, though, and "Being There," with its subtle and understated symbolism, is, at the very least, equal to any other comedy Sellers ever made. Why do you suppose that was so?
On the occasion of Sellers' death, film critic Roger Ebert observed, "If Mr. Sellers was correct in saying that he had no personality of his own to portray, then perhaps his performance in 'Being There' was his most autobiographical."
I think Ebert was on to something there.
"It was a virtuoso performance," Ebert wrote, "made all the more difficult because Mr. Sellers had to sustain a single note throughout the movie."
That was pretty much what Ebert wrote when "Being There" hit the theaters.
"Being There,"Ebert wrote in his review about seven months before Sellers' death, "begins with a cockamamie notion, it's basically one joke told for two hours, and it requires Peter Sellers to maintain an excruciatingly narrow tone of behavior in a role that has him onscreen almost constantly. It's a movie based on an idea, and all the conventional wisdom agrees that emotions, not ideas, are the best to make movies from. But 'Being There' pulls off its long shot and is one of the most confoundingly provocative movies of the year."
That sums it up pretty well.
The story was simple, really. A mentally handicapped individual, Chance (Sellers), had been living in the Washington, D.C., home of an older man who died — Chance grew up there, actually, but I don't recall that his relationship with the old man was ever explained — and Chance had to find a new place to live so he found himself outside in the world, which created plenty of fish–out–of–water scenarios — perhaps the best of which came when Chance was approached by a group of young thugs, apparently intent on causing trouble for someone. Chance, who had a TV remote control with him (everything he had learned, other than how to tend a garden, he had learned from watching TV), repeatedly clicked the remote while aiming it at the leader of the gang.
Not surprisingly, neither the gang leader nor any of his associates disappeared when Chance did that.
Chance was rescued from the streets of Washington by the wife (Shirley MacLaine) of an elderly, wealthy and ailing industrialist (an Oscar–winning performance by Melvyn Douglas) who also happened to be a friend and confidant of the incumbent president (Jack Warden).
Ebert was spot on when he wrote that "Being There" was based on the premise that Chance didn't understand that the world wasn't like the comfortable and predictable existence he had led before the old man's death. As Ebert observed, "life isn't television," and the only thing that Chance knew, besides television, was gardening. Listening to him talk was an exercise in doublespeak — actually, that should be doubleperception. When he spoke, people heard what they wanted to hear. "[H]is simple truisms from the garden," wrote Ebert, "are taken as audaciously simple metaphors."
Presto! A movement to nominate him for president was under way — and he hadn't even had to lift a finger. (I thought of Chance and "Being There" a lot when Ross Perot's nascent presidential campaign was being launched in 1992.)
"There are wonderful comic moments," Ebert wrote, "but they're never pushed so far that they strain the story's premise."
A satire that poked fun at all sorts of things, it rose to an entirely different level near the end when, after viewers had seen the political kingmakers promoting his candidacy while serving as pallbearers for Douglas, Chance was elevated to an altogether different — but clearly recognizable — realm.
Sellers received a Best Actor nomination for his performance. He lost, in the "Kramer vs. Kramer" wave, to Dustin Hoffman.
Tulley Bascombe (Peter Sellers):Men of Fenwick, where you hear the name of Grand Fenwick do your hearts swell with pride?
Men of Fenwick:Yes!
Tulley Bascombe:And if your country calls, will you rush to enlist?
Men of Fenwick:No!
Tulley Bascombe:Oh.
When I was in high school, the dramatically inclined students put together a production of "The Mouse That Roared." It was good, but it really wasn't even close to the movie by the same name that premiered 55 years ago today.
Of course, when you have seen Peter Sellers playing multiple roles — five years before "Dr. Strangelove" — anything less will seem second rate. Nothing against my former schoolmates. Sellers was just the best.
It is the ultimate underdog story — or should that be undermouse?
See, the story was about a teensy–weensy country (fictional, of course) that faced an economic crisis when a cheap American knockoff of its lone export — wine — hit the market.
The prime minister (Sellers) had a plan — declare war on the United States. The grand duchess (also played by Sellers) who believed the president of the United States was Calvin Coolidge didn't think the country could win such a war.
But winning would not be the objective, the prime minister said. The weak little country (whose soldiers resembled characters in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail") would surrender, after which American foreign aid would refill the country's coffers.
At first, the country's general (also played by Sellers) appeared to be too inept to lead any kind of army across the street, let alone into battle (however faux it might be).
It was hard enough for them to cross the Atlantic.
No one knew they were coming, and the seasick general apparently spent most of the trip bent over the ship's railing. At one point, the ship encountered the Queen Elizabeth on its way to England. Its officers tried to tell the smaller ship that the United States' east coast was conducting an air raid drill, and city streets were deserted.
They got a shower of arrows for their trouble, and the soldiers continued on their mission to land in New York and promptly surrender to someone in authority.
They were baffled when they arrived in New York. There was no one to be seen.
All they wanted to do was surrender. They were all pumped up to give up.
But then they happened to find a newspaper that explained everything — the air raid drill and the work on a new nuclear weapon that would make the ones used against Japan look like blowtorches.
Sellers and his soldiers stumbled on to the science professor who created this new weapon and his daughter (Jean Seberg). The two were captured and taken back to the teeny–tiny country.
And, suddenly, the teeny–tiny country had the upper hand in the confrontation with America. It wasn't so teeny–tiny in the eyes of the world anymore.
The satire was a little harsh at times, but it had its memorable moments, too, as all good Peter Sellers movies did.
And, as most good Sellers movies also did, it made some insightful observations — about international relations, military policy, economic policy.
It's really a matter of perspective. The nice thing about satire as opposed to black comedy is that satire is usually positive even though it pokes fun, and even if it does drift into harsh territory at times — whereas black comedy is almost always negative.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!
President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers)
I am a fan of movie director Stanley Kubrick's work. I really like all of his films — can't think of one that I don't like — but my absolute favorite is probably the one that premiered 50 years ago today, "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."
Occasionally, it is "Lolita" or even "Eyes Wide Shut." Heck, as I say, I like 'em all.
But none of Kubrick's other movies match "Dr. Strangelove" in terms of producing lines that I love ...
Like when Peter Sellers, as President Merkin Muffley, tells an American military official (George C. Scott) and a Russian ambassador who have come to blows, "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" (The American Film Institute named that the #64 quote in movie history.)
But, really, there are so many wonderful lines in "Dr. Strangelove" that I can't narrow it down to a single favorite line. I discover new lines to enjoy and appreciate every time I see it.
There are some lines, of course, that have amused me from the start.
Just about every time that Slim Pickens opens his mouth is funny, whether he is preparing his crew for "noo–klear combat, toe to toe with the Rooskies" or whooping while he rides a bomb to his death.
Everything is built around a really simple premise — an Air Force officer, aptly named Jack Ripper, issues an order for bombers in the air to attack Russia, and the movie is about the attempts on the ground to stop that attack. A very similar movie, "Fail–Safe," was in the theaters that year as well, but, whereas Kubrick's movie was a black comedy, the other was definitely a drama.
I've always been an admirer of George C. Scott. His performance in "Patton" is one of the great portrayals of an historical figure in cinematic history, but I always enjoy watching him as Gen. Buck Turgidson, an adviser to the president. Scott was a complete actor, able to do comedy as well as drama.
The lines were great, but a big part of that was hearing them from the mouths of just the right people.
Peter Sellers has long been one of my family's favorites, but he was never funnier than he was in "Dr. Strangelove," in which he played three parts. Three times as many chances to be funny — and two were with foreign accents that he could exaggerate as he wished.
Still, some of my favorite scenes are when Sellers is playing the American president. At one point, for example, he asserts that Ripper (Sterling Hayden) is a psychotic.
"I'd like to hold off judgment on a thing like that," Scott's character replies, "until all the facts are in." (This is after Ripper has already sent the bombers on their mission.)
And, of course, it is always funny to watch Hayden rant that "I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
I also enjoy Ripper's description of his personal battle to protect those "precious bodily fluids."
"I first became aware of it," he tells Mandrake, his British attache, "during the physical act of love. A profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence."
Never fails to make me laugh.
As it is with every Peter Sellers movie I have ever seen, it gets better with each viewing, too. Perhaps that is because I know what is going to happen, and I can focus my attention on the lines that always make me laugh.
And that, in turn, permits me to "discover" other lines on subsequent viewings.
I thoroughly enjoy watching Sellers as Mandrake, timidly declining Ripper's order to help him fire his weapon at incoming troops. Sellers' gift for physical comedy was evident — even though he took no pratfalls.
But it is as the movie's title character, Dr. Strangelove, that Sellers is at his most entertaining.
He projects a very Nazi–esque demeanor when he rhapsodizes on the benefits of a Doomsday Machine, then chastises the Soviets for keeping their development of one to themselves.
"The whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost," he says, "if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world?"
In 50 years, it's never been a secret how funny "Dr. Strangelove" is. AFI ranks it #3 among the comedies (#39 overall).
Some of us might rank it higher than that. Much higher.
Tracy (Kirsten Dunst):What would they do to me if I did tell someone about this?
Conrad (Robert De Niro):They could come to your house in the middle of the night and kill you.
I thoroughly enjoyed "Wag the Dog," which debuted on this day in 1997, and to no small extent because I understood and appreciated the nature of the title. But it did require a little explanation.
When I first heard the title, I thought it was the name of a character — you know, like Bozo the Clown. Logically, I figured that it was a dog named Wag and, if the title character was a dog, it must be a cartoon — you know, kind of like Felix the Cat — although perhaps not (this was around the time that "Babe" was in the theaters).
But then I discovered it was a variation of the old saying that "the dog wags the tail, the tail doesn't wag the dog."
When applied to a political context — as it was in this movie — it meant to distract public attention from a matter of great importance to focus on a matter of lesser importance — or, in the case of this movie, a matter that didn't really exist.
In the movie, the president is facing the voters in his bid for re–election. Foolishly, he sexually assaults a member of some Firefly Girl group that is visiting the White House in the closing days of the campaign, and he needs the help of a spin doctor played by Robert De Niro to get him over the hump (as it were) to Election Day.
(In my own defense, the plotline encouraged some really bad puns.)
De Niro, in turn, recruits a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman), who is bitter over never receiving the recognition he craves for the work he has done, to help him create a phony war to distract attention from the abuse allegations.
And, thus, an elaborate deception was born.
Hoffman's character put together such an impressive visual depiction of a war that he himself observed it was "the best work I've ever done in my life, because it's so honest."
Well, honesty was relative.
Or, in the words of the movie's producers, "Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail were smarter, the tail would wag the dog."
Hoffman's undoing was in not being satisfied with the knowledge that it was his "best work." He wanted the credit that had been denied to him throughout his career.
"You're playing with your life," De Niro's character warned him, but he wouldn't listen — and he wound up dying shortly thereafter, officially of a heart attack while sunning himself by his pool.
Overseeing all of this was Anne Heche's character, Winifred the presidential adviser who acted as the buffer between the president and everything else. At times, she was severely tested, as when she was informed that the hand–picked "hero" of the fictional conflict — played by Woody Harrelson — was an unsavory sort who had been convicted of raping a nun.
"Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God," she kept muttering.
Hoffman assured her that, as long as the "hero" took his medication, "He's fine."
What if he doesn't take his medication, Heche's character wanted to know.
"He's not fine."
To be fair to Hoffman's character, he did design a credible war backdrop for the cover story, enlisting Kirsten Dunst to play a peasant girl running from assailants with a kitten in her arms (the kitten and the scenery and sound effects would be edited in later — Dunst was told to run through a sound stage carrying a bag of tortilla chips).
In a classic example of the misdirection used by the spin doctor and his associates, De Niro's character urges people like the press secretary to make up denials about non–existent rumors — such as the one about the B–3 bomber.
There is no such thing, of course, and no one had been talking about it, but De Niro's character still protests that he doesn't know how such rumors get started — and the direction of the conversation is changed.
Roger Ebert made an intriguing observation in his review of the movie in the Chicago Sun–Times: "It's creepy how this material is absurd and convincing at the same time. ... Even when a conflict is real and necessary ... the packaging ... is invariably shallow and unquestioning; like sportswriters, war correspondents abandon any pretense of objectivity and detachment, and cheerfully root for our side."
Coincidentally, the movie came out around the same time that Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky was in the news, and he was facing impeachment. The Clinton administration also engaged in some saber rattling against Iraq — which critics alleged was an attempt to shift the focus of the public conversation. It was, they said, a real–life "Wag the Dog."
"['Wag the Dog'] is a satire that contains just enough realistic ballast to be teasingly plausible," Ebert wrote, "like 'Dr. Strangelove,' it makes you laugh, and then it makes you wonder."
But most people forget that it languished at #46 in the TV ratings in its first season, which began on this day in 1972, and almost didn't make the cut.
Other shows have survived — some have even thrived — after sluggish starts, but M*A*S*H did so while writing its own rules and virtually ignoring conventional wisdom.
It often seemed to be searching for itself in that first season — not entirely content to play things for laughs, even though it was mostly billed as a sitcom.
And that apparent ambiguity almost led to its cancellation after that first season. No one really knew what it was, but the series was saved thanks to an impassioned plea from the wife of a CBS executive who liked the show — whatever it was.
M*A*S*H was always more than a comedy. It just didn't know how to achieve its mission.
Its first three seasons leaned toward slapstick, but, at the end of that third season, when Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson) left the series — permanently — when his character's airplane was shot down over the Sea of Japan, M*A*S*H truly began to blend comedy with drama and pathos to create some of the most imaginative half–hour episodes ever filmed.
Before Stevenson's departure, there were flashes of what was in store, even in the pilot episode, which largely introduced the cast to the audience.
That was when viewers first learned of Radar's strange ability to know what people were going to say before they said it.
They learned of Frank and Hot Lips and their torrid affair.
And they learned that Hawkeye and Trapper John were skirt–chasing, gin–swilling doctors, gifted in matters of medicine.
By the way, if you're a M*A*S*H fan, you probably think of actor William Christopher when you think of the character of Father Mulcahy, the unit's priest. And that is certainly as it should be. Christopher appeared in more than 80% of the series' episodes — only one appearance shy of matching Jamie Farr for third place in frequency of appearances.
And Christopher probably should have had that extra appearance — but someone else played Father Mulcahy in the pilot episode that aired 40 years ago tonight.
It really is a shame that Christopher wasn't in that pilot episode — since Father Mulcahy figured rather prominently in the story's conclusion.
You see, Hawkeye was trying to organize a raffle to raise money so his Korean houseboy, Ho–Jon, could go to the U.S. and enroll at Hawkeye's alma mater. The winner of the raffle would receive a weekend in Tokyo accompanied by a beautiful nurse, whose name (Lt. Dish) was mildly reminiscent of Pussy Galore from the James Bond series.
M*A*S*H could be irreverent and decidedly incorrect politically in those days before Saturday Night Live challenged so many television taboos.
For example, in the initial episodes of the series, Hawkeye and Trapper John (Wayne Rogers) and the smarmy Frank Burns (Larry Linville) had a black bunkmate, a doctor named Spearchucker Jones.
He disappeared a few months after the show's premiere — with no explanation given.
The natural assumption might have been that CBS received some complaints from viewers who were offended by the racist connotations of the name, but apparently, the character was a casualty of story accuracy.
The writers learned that there were no black doctors during the Korean War so the character was quietly removed.
Well, anyway ...
When the big moment for the raffle drawing arrived, Hawkeye had it all worked out for someone to win who would be sure to turn it down — Father Mulcahy.
A brigadier general, who had been summoned by a phone call from Hot Lips, arrived at precisely the moment that Mulcahy was revealed to be the raffle winner and bellowed, "Do I understand that the priest of this outfit has just won a weekend with a nurse in Tokyo?"
"It's a prayer come true," Hawkeye replied.
At that point, Hot Lips entered the tent, pulling Frank behind her. He had been wrapped in gauze and sedated to keep him from interfering with the raffle.
And Hot Lips delivered perhaps the finest line I have heard in a pilot episode.
"Those two," the exasperated Hot Lips sputtered, pointing at Hawkeye and Trapper, "they're ruining this war, for all of us!"
Fortunately for TV viewers in the 1970s, M*A*S*H kept "ruining" war for the next 11 years.
Alex (Malcolm McDowell):It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.
Here's a little–known fact about "A Clockwork Orange."
Malcolm McDowell was 27 when he made that movie, but his character was 15.
I knew he was older than the character he played — but I never realized he was nearly twice as old — until recently.
Well, anyway ...
Director Stanley Kubrick said "A Clockwork Orange," which premiered 40 years ago today, was a "social satire," and I suppose that is true. By definition, I guess, a satire is something that is obviously exaggerated, and "A Clockwork Orange" was grossly exaggerated in parts.
But it was also a very disturbing movie — disturbing precisely because there was just enough truth in it to make it plausible — in addition to the fact that it featured a lot of violence, including a rape, whether they were plausibly presented or not.
I guess it was no surprise it got mixed reviews. As much as modern folks are inclined to complain about violence in movies and on TV, I'm sure it would get negative reviews if it was released today.
And that is kind of ironic, considering that many of the people in today's audiences were brought up on films like "Natural Born Killers," "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill: Vols. 1 and 2."
"A Clockwork Orange" still inspires strong feelings from viewers, even after four decades. Earlier this month, NPR published a list of cult classics and asked its audience to "weigh in on what was there and what was missing."
It should have come as no real surprise that several readers pointed out that "A Clockwork Orange" was missing. In the words of one reader, "Without that, the list is illegitimate."
No doubt, many people — including myself — would agree.
I guess a lot of that has to do with the utterly repugnant nature of the depravity depicted in the movie — the rape scenes, the savage beatings, the generally brutish activity of Alex (McDowell) and his Droogs. It simply wasn't acceptable, no matter how one might try to excuse it.
You could try to rationalize the violence — as some people did — by saying it was the inevitable result of life in a socialist state, one that was clearly modeled after the Soviet Union or perhaps one of its satellites.
Or you could rationalize it in several other ways.
But, eventually, you had to come back to the realization that Alex and his Droogs deliberately inflicted pain and suffering on those who were weak and vulnerable.
And that is clearly contrary to (at the very least) the implied guidelines of a civilized society — which must have come as something of a shock to audiences of that day. Their most recent exposure to Kubrick had been a few years earlier, in "2001: A Space Odyssey," which had some violence but, in general, offered an uplifting vision of the future with its fantastic glimpses of technological advances and human nature.
Alex's incarceration — and the experimental effort at behavior modification — went awry almost from the start. In an effort to make violence and forced sex unpleasant, the doctors who sought to rehabilitate Alex inadvertently conditioned him to have the same response upon hearing the music of his beloved Ludwig van Beethoven.
Alex:No. No! NO! Stop it! Stop it, please! I beg you! This is sin! This is sin! This is sin! It's a sin, it's a sin, it's a sin!
Dr. Brodsky:Sin? What's all this about sin?
Alex:That! Using Ludwig van like that! He did no harm to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music!
Dr. Branom:Are you referring to the background score?
Alex:Yes.
Dr. Branom:You've heard Beethoven before?
Alex:Yes!
Dr. Brodsky:So, you're keen on music?
Alex:YES!
Dr. Brodsky:Can't be helped. Here's the punishment element perhaps.
Then, in what was a delicious twist of fate, the rehabilitated Alex, whose physical well being depended upon maintaining harmonious relationships with those around him, was released to the not–so–tender mercies of the outside world.
"A Clockwork Orange" was controversial at the time, and Kubrick voluntarily withdrew it from British theaters after learning that it was being blamed for copycat crimes.
Kubrick is often mentioned as a primary influence on film directors even though he only directed about a dozen films in his lifetime, and each was quite different from the rest, but there are some generalizations that can be made about his directorial career, the most significant of which (I believe) is this:
Before "A Clockwork Orange," it could fairly be said that most of his movies offered a more upbeat presentation of humanity; the general mood of his films (if not the themes themselves) grew much darker after "A Clockwork Orange."
But if one must find similarities between a film and its director's other works, then I would have to say this about "A Clockwork Orange." Of all the films Kubrick made, it probably had the most in common with "Dr. Strangelove," which was made nearly a decade earlier.
It's hard to pick a favorite from Kubrick's films. His body of work was diverse and included the first attempt to bring "Lolita" to the screen, "Dr. Strangelove," "2001," "The Shining," and "Full Metal Jacket."
Being asked to choose a favorite Kubrick film — as far as I am concerned — isn't even like being asked to pick between peaches and apples. It's more like being asked to pick between But I think I would choose "Dr. Strangelove" as my favorite, and "Clockwork." much like "Strangelove," was a fascinating tap dance between really terrifying violence and ethical ambiguity.
In fact, if he had been considerably younger when "Clockwork" was made, I could see Peter Sellers (a star of both "Strangelove" and "Lolita") in McDowell's role. But, by 1971, he was too old (45) to plausibly play a teenager.
One could argue, I guess, that "Clockwork" was the logical next step in Kubrick's departure from comedy. But I don't think he ever left comedy. His comedy just took on a darker edge that could be seen in his later films.
I guess there were times when you really had to look for it, but it was always there.
Vic (Dan Aykroyd):We might have had a wonderful relationship. But then, as Arthur Bremer once said, 'How many things go right in this crazy world?'
We've all had them, I guess — neighbors who thoughtlessly impose themselves on us, interrupting us at the most inopportune times with a lot of noise or, worse yet, burdening us with their actual physical presence and the up–close–and–personal of their lives.
And all around us, it may seem, there is an ongoing conspiracy. It may be an accidental conspiracy, and we may be the only ones aware of its existence — but that doesn't mean it isn't legitimate.
That was Earl's dilemma, I suppose. At first, Earl (John Belushi) appeared to be a mild—mannered middle–class type, leading a fairly quiet middle–class life until Vic (Dan Aykroyd) and Ramona (Cathy Moriarty) moved in next door.
Then, suddenly, everything in Earl's comfortable, predictable life went haywire — but no one, other than Earl, seemed to realize it.
In "Neighbors," Belushi was certainly cast against type — or, at least, against image. In his Saturday Night Live days — and when he was making "National Lampoon's Animal House" — he had a reputation for being something of a party animal — while, if anything, Aykroyd was perceived as being more strait laced, more reserved.
In "Neighbors," the two really reversed roles. Based on existing public expectations, Belushi should have played the role of Vic and Aykroyd should have played the role of Earl.
But I always thought it was funnier the way it was done. Viewed from the perspective of 30 years later, when memories of Belushi are rather faded for most who are old enough to remember him, "Neighbors" is striking evidence of Belushi's diverse talent.
All one needs to do is watch "Animal House" or the original "Blues Brothers" — and then watch "Neighbors" — to see that Belushi was equally adept at playing both extremes.
It is often said of great actors that they lose themselves in a role, that they become the part they are playing. I don't know if Belushi was a great actor — a great talent, definitely — but that always seemed to be the case with Belushi's Earl. Sometime when I was watching "Neighbors" for the first time, I forgot that I was watching Belushi.
He was Earl.
His partnership with Aykroyd, on both the small and large screens, may have been the best since Martin and Lewis or the early days of Matthau and Lemmon. It was tragic that it was as brief as it was. Belushi died only a few months after "Neighbors" was released.
It was the last movie they made together.
Most people probably think only of "The Blues Brothers" when they think of the Belushi–Aykroyd film partnership — and that is a good one, to be sure. But there were two others — "Neighbors" and "1941," which, in hindsight, really should have done better than it did (but that is another story).
But it is "Neighbors" that I think of most when I think of Aykroyd and Belushi — unless I think of their work on Saturday Night Live.
And it was precisely because they veered so dramatically from type in "Neighbors" that it is the one that springs to my mind.
"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
Howard Beale (Peter Finch) Network (1976)
I guess everyone knows that speech — if folks don't know it by heart, at least they know the catch phrase — "I'm as made as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."
That speech by actor Peter Finch in the 1976 movie "Network" has achieved an iconic status in the annals of memorable movie lines — alongside Rhett Butler's "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" and Vito Corleone's "offer you can't refuse" and all the others that have become virtual cliches.
It isn't necessary to be old enough to remember when the movie was showing at the theaters for someone to be familiar with the line and the context in which it was said.
When Woody Allen quoted (or misquoted, actually) Humphrey Bogart in the title of a movie ("Play It Again, Sam"), it wasn't necessary to tell people that the line came from a movie that was made three decades earlier. Everyone already knew.
But there was really so much more to "Network" than Finch's rage — and some of it has taken years to emerge. Maybe you do need to be old enough to remember the movie to appreciate how much has changed.
When "Network" made its debut 35 years ago today, cable and internet may have existed, but they were technological toddlers. They are much larger, much more mature today, and those who have known no other probably cannot appreciate how prescient Paddy Chayefsky's story really was.When I watch it today — and I have probably watched it a dozen times or more since I first saw it on the big screen — I marvel at all the things he anticipated. Maybe you need to be able to remember a world that had no cell phones or personal computers/laptops — no instant information or communication — to comprehend just how on target Chayefsky was.
His story anticipated things like reality TV — albeit in a much more extreme form than anything we have seen in real life — and "news" anchors whose personalities are more important than the news.
His script warned us just how shallow our role models would be in the years to come, how many would resort to exploitation to raise their ratings, how they would be driven by little more than those ratings (which are designed to measure the quantity of the audience and not the quality of the programming).
It was all tongue in cheek, I'm sure. Chayefsky wrote his story to entertain. I don't think for a second that he believed he was being prophetic.
It just turned out that — in many unexpected ways — he was.
"There was only one catch and that was Catch–22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to."
Joseph Heller "Catch–22"
I have several favorite authors.
I don't like to categorize — or qualify — them by era or gender or nationality or genre or anything else. I've always been a writer. A well–written story is a well–written story, as far as I am concerned.
Oh, sure, I have my preferences. I like just about anything Mark Twain ever wrote. Ditto the works of Charles Dickens. While I didn't always agree with his politics, I admire the political novels of Allen Drury, and I love the rich detail of the books by James Michener.
I have loved the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien since I was in high school. And I have devoured most of Stephen King's novels.
But almost no one whose works I have enjoyed has seen the title of one of his books become accepted slang for a specific condition.
"Catch–22," though, has achieved precisely that. When someone says that something is a "catch–22," it is immediately understood that it is a lose–lose situation from which one cannot escape.
I suppose the modern equivalent — at least in the film world — would be "Groundhog Day."
And a movie that was based on "Catch–22" was made in 1970. It was good. It had some talented people in it. It was faithful to Heller's original work. But no movie could do complete justice to it.
In the literary world, "Catch–22" made its debut half a century ago today, and it received its share of praise. The Chicago Sun–Times said it was "the best American novel in years."
Others weren't quite as generous, and hardback sales were sluggish in the United States. But sales were more robust in Great Britain, and the paperback enjoyed enormous commercial popularity here, selling millions of copies during the Vietnam years.
It really is no wonder to me that it was so popular during the Vietnam eraIts influence continues to be felt.
That is because the concepts that were expressed in "Catch–22" are vividly seen in the world of 2011.
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!
