A High Old Time

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As a general rule, I don't usually care for Christmas episodes of TV series.

They tend to be too sugary for my taste.

But the holiday episodes of the Frasier series always fell into a different category for me, and the one that premiered 10 years ago tonight, in the final season of the Frasier series, is an excellent example.

The series was about midway through its final season, and, frankly, I thought many of the episodes that season were contrived. But, in many ways, the episode that aired 10 years ago tonight rang true for me.

It was about teenage rebellion.

The contemporary story was about Frasier's son, Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who arrived for the holidays sporting a new look — goth — which was disappointing for Frasier because he had been discouraged by his life recently and had been looking forward to spending time with his son. Then Freddy showed up wearing clothes inspired by a goth girlfriend, and Frasier concluded that it was characteristic of teenage rebellion.

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This, in turn, inspired a dialogue among the adults about teenage rebellion and what they had done to rebel as teenagers. During the conversation, Martin (John Mahoney) observed that mild–mannered and fussy Niles (David Hyde Pierce) never rebelled — which wasn't really true. Earlier in the series, it was mentioned that Niles once "mooned" President Nixon.

But that wasn't mentioned in this episode. Instead, it was accepted by everyone — including Niles — that he had never rebelled, and that set him on a mission to finally rebel. Better late than never.

Niles decided that the way to rebel was to consume some marijuana ("reefer," as he called it), and Roz (Peri Gilpin) set him up with a pot brownie made by her neighbor. When Niles told Frasier what he was going to do, that he had decided to throw caution to the wind and indulge in "one act of utter, devil–may–care, crotch–grabbing brazenness," he added this: "And, of course, I'll have a nurse on speed–dial in case things get too hairy."

Just as Roz was delivering the brownie to Niles at the cafe, his car alarm went off and neither he nor Frasier could stay. As they left, Martin arrived and Roz gave the brownie to him to give to Niles. Martin was trying to cut down on junk food, but the sight of the brownie was just too tempting so he ate it.

Martin didn't realize, of course, that the brownie was spiked with marijuana, but he did know he had to replace the brownie before Niles returned to the cafe so he got in line to buy an ordinary brownie, purchasing it just in time to slip it into the aluminum foil in which the original had been wrapped before Niles came back to the cafe.

Martin gave the normal brownie to an unsuspecting Niles, who left the cafe under the watchful (though equally unsuspecting) eyes of two police officers.

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Niles and Martin encountered each other later. Niles had consumed the normal brownie by that time and was imagining all kinds of psychological effects he was experiencing. (Earlier, he had spoken of the things he expected to experience. "I'm especially looking forward to something called the 'munchies' stage," Niles confided to Frasier. "It's where one enjoys bizarre food combinations. ... I'm thinking of pairing this Chilean sea bass with an aggressive Zinfandel!")

His father, meanwhile, was experiencing the real thing — but didn't realize it. He was having his own munchies and told Niles he would soon be thanking his father for "turning you on to the best thing you will ever eat: barbecue pudding chips!" When Niles declined, Martin said, "They looked at me funny in the store, too, but you taste that and tell me that's not better than a woman."

Niles was despondent when he learned the truth — that he had eaten a normal brownie and hadn't really rebelled — but he was cheered somewhat when Frasier said to him, "You're a good man, Niles. In a way, isn't that rebelling against rebellion?"

Niles smiled and said, "Nice try."

"All right, look at it this way," Frasier replied. "You did get our cop father stoned tonight."

Happy holidays.

One Shot

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In the late 1970s, America's involvement in Vietnam had been over for only a few years, but Americans already were coming to terms with the experience the way they always seem to — by way of the cinema.

Vietnam movies were plentiful in the late '70s, and they were frequently well done, but each was different. The movie that was released 35 years ago today, "The Deer Hunter," had its own, unique angle. In this case, it explored the effect of the war on a bunch of working–class buddies from western Pennsylvania — guys who believed .

It was presented, essentially, in three acts — and would have been a great theatrical production if not for the fact that it would require some really extensive sets.

In the first act, the buddies were home, participating in two coming–of–age rituals — marriage and military service. After the wedding of one and before the start of military service for some, the buddies went deer hunting. Robert De Niro's character had a philosophy — a deer had to be taken down with one shot — and that "one shot" theme was at the heart of the story.

De Niro was probably the most bankable star in the movie at that time. Audiences had seen him in, among other movies, "The Godfather Part II" and "Taxi Driver." Other folks in the cast — chiefly, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep — went on to greater things, but they were largely unknown in 1978, especially Streep.

But De Niro was the name.

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Anyway, in the second "act," the scene shifted to Vietnam, and movie audiences were introduced to "the game," in which North Vietnamese soldiers forced prisoners to play Russian roulette and gambled on the results among themselves. De Niro, Walken and John Savage were among those forced to play the game; De Niro and Walken even had to play each other.

It should have come as no surprise to anyone that the characters were emotionally scarred by the experience. They managed to turn their guns on their captors and escape, but their physical survival was only part of the story.

It may have been the most intense scene I have ever witnessed in a movie theater, the no–longer–naive Americans forced to play a deadly game for the amusement of their sadistic captors.

Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett, who won awards for his coverage of the Vietnam War, insisted that the Russian roulette angle was not true. Most likely, it was not representative of the experiences of most American POWs, but, in the minds of many Americans who lived through both Korea and Vietnam and had been hearing stories of Asian wartime atrocities all their lives (if they were old enough to remember World War II) — and found Vietnam to be the more confusing and the more bizarre conflict by far — it probably seemed entirely plausible.

In fact, until I saw "Saving Private Ryan," "The Deer Hunter" was my gold standard for gritty depiction of war. Even more than "Apocalypse Now," which came out the following year.

I feel the need to add a disclaimer here. "The Deer Hunter" didn't re–create horrific battle scenes as "Saving Private Ryan" did. It depicted a lawless state of mind that seems to permeate nearly all wars.

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The third and final act saw the Americans back home and dealing with their issues. De Niro's character found Savage veterans hospital and learned that someone in Saigon had been sending him large amounts of money.

De Niro returned to Vietnam and tried to bring Walken back to the United States, but Walken's mind had snapped and he had no memory of his previous life. He only existed to play the game in the gambling dens of Saigon.

Again, this was probably a little extreme, but, given the conditions that many vets were in when they returned to the United States, perhaps it wasn't as extreme as it may have seemed 35 years ago.

De Niro's character, in an act that I thought of when I watched Tommy Lee Jones dragging Robert Duvall's corpse back to Texas in the final installment of "Lonesome Dove" more than a decade later, brought Walken's character's body back to the United States for burial after he actually did kill himself playing the game. That, too, was an intense scene, symbolic of the waste of Vietnam and the wreckage it made of the lives of those who lived to tell the tale — even if it wasn't true.

And, in the final scene of the movie, Walken's survivors sang "God Bless America" and raised a glass in his memory.

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Director Michael Cimino won an Oscar for his work on "The Deer Hunter," and Walken won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

"The Deer Hunter" also won Oscars for Best Picture, film editing and sound.

De Niro and Streep were both nominated but lost — De Niro to Jon Voight, star of another Vietnam movie, "Coming Home."

The Challenge of Portraying Richard Nixon

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Richard Nixon (Frank Langella): You know those parties of yours, the ones I read about in the newspapers. Do you actually enjoy those?

David Frost (Michael Sheen): Of course.

Richard Nixon: You have no idea how fortunate that makes you, liking people. Being liked. Having that facility. That lightness, that charm. I don't have it, I never did.

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I only saw "Frost/Nixon" recently. I didn't see it when it was showing in the theaters five years ago.

I wanted to see it. But my personal budget wouldn't allow it. (Still doesn't, for that matter.)

But, if I am to be honest with you as well as myself, I have to admit that I just couldn't see Frank Langella as Richard Nixon, and that was an obstacle for me.

That's one of the problems with movies about prominent people who have lived during one's lifetime, I guess. I was a child during the Nixon years, and I have a pretty vivid memory of what he looked like, what he sounded like. Of course, I only saw him on television. I never saw him in person, but that was probably the experience most Americans had as well. Nixon often spoke about life in "the arena," but the truth was that he wasn't very good at interacting with people. He never seemed to spend much time with them unless he felt compelled in some way to do so.

My gold standard for Nixon portrayals is Anthony Hopkins in the 1995 movie "Nixon." I will be the first to admit that Hopkins neither looked nor sounded like Nixon. But, as I have said many times, he captured Nixon's personality better than anyone I ever saw.

I still feel that way, but, after seeing "Frost/Nixon," I must concede that Langella looked and — not always but consistently — sounded a lot like Nixon.

Nixon was a complex man so I can understand why it would be damn near impossible for a single actor to adequately portray him. In a perfect world, I would combine Langella's external portrayal with Hopkins' internal one.

Perhaps then it would be possible to capture the essence of Nixon.

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In a way, though, Langella's portrayal demonstrated quite vividly that an actor with a gift for mimicry probably could duplicate Nixon's unique voice and mannerisms well enough to get by. The movie told the behind–the–scenes story of a disgraced former president who desperately sought to rehabilitate his public image and the up–and–coming British interviewer who saw interviewing Nixon as one more high–profile credit for his resume.

It turned out to be something different than either anticipated.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't what either man expected. Nixon certainly had his moments in those interviews, but so did Frost.

If it was necessary to say which man was more successful after the interviews, I would have to say Frost. His career was revived, and he went on to do many things, including interview eight British prime ministers and all of Nixon's successors except Barack Obama. (Frost died of a heart attack nearly four months ago.)

And that was essentially the moral of the story. Frost went on to greater things; Nixon sank deeper into his post–presidential funk. In spite of the audience that the interviews generated, Nixon was yesterday's news.

As one of the characters said near the end of the movie, Nixon's legacy in his own lifetime was that every public scandal became known with the suffix –gate attached to it.

I still say Nixon was too complicated to be reduced to a single, simplistic phrase like that. But if one must summarize the man's life and work in a single sentence, that isn't bad.

I Ne'er Saw True Beauty 'Til This Movie

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Did my heart love 'til now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty 'til this night.

Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet"

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Have you ever been watching the Academy Awards and you find yourself wondering, "What were they thinking?"

Of course, you have. We all have at one time or another.

When the Oscars were presented for 1998, I was certain that "Saving Private Ryan" would win Best Picture. I was so certain that I could have bet money on it — and I am not a betting man.

I could have lost my shirt, too.

Because "Shakespeare in Love," the movie that was released on this day in 1998, took home the Oscar. And I definitely wondered, "What were they thinking?" on that occasion.

Now, understand me. I like Gwyneth Paltrow (who won Best Actress) very much. I always enjoy her movies. I enjoyed "Shakespeare in Love," for that matter. But I didn't think it was a better movie than "Saving Private Ryan." No way.

But, in hindsight, I have to admit there was, in Shakespeare's words, "true beauty" in the story.

1998 was an unusual year for the Oscars in many ways.

Mainly, the Oscars went against the conventional wisdom that the director of the Best Picture wins Best Director. In 1998 Steven Spielberg won Best Director for "Saving Private Ryan," not John Madden (director of "Shakespeare in Love").

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Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow): You have never spoken so well of him before.

William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes): He was not dead before.

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It was an intriguing idea for a fantasy love story — William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes), struggling to make it as a writer but plagued by that old writer's bugaboo, writer's block, seeks inspiration from his muse whom he discovers in the person of Viola De Lesseps (Paltrow).

De Lesseps wants to act, but women are prohibited from appearing on the stage in the late 16th century so she disguises herself as a man.

Shakespeare learns who she really is, and the two embark on an affair that Shakespeare uses as the inspiration to transform his current play, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter," into the classic tragedy, "Romeo and Juliet."

En route to this transformation, you see, Viola is cast as Romeo.

Well, if you haven't seen the movie, you should. As much as I thought "Saving Private Ryan" deserved the Best Picture Oscar, that doesn't change the fact that "Shakespeare in Love" was an entertaining and imaginative tale.

I guess it was the kind of story that the viewer could take anything from. As a writer, it should come as no surprise that the enduring message for me was the reminder that a great story is about people. The best writers take realistic, human problems — often problems they themselves have faced — and make their characters resolve them.

Joseph Fiennes was a persuasively human Shakespeare — not the stiff Shakespeare whose life story you may have had to research or whose plays you may have had to read when you were in high school but a living, breathing Shakespeare with problems very much like the ones we have today.

Personally, I find a Shakespeare who has struggled to achieve success as a writer more appealing than a Shakespeare who never knows hard times. The former is more qualified to comment on the human condition than the latter.

Near the end, I thought the movie grew a bit predictable. As the relationship between Shakespeare and Viola hurtled toward its apparently inevitable conclusion, so did the evolution of the original Romeo and the pirates play into "Romeo and Juliet." You could see it coming.

Of course, it helped to have the benefit of 400 years' worth of hindsight.

Frasier's Obsession

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Obsessive personalities always seem to make the best comedic characters, and Frasier was one of the most obsessive characters TV has ever seen.

Twenty years ago tonight, in a first–season Frasier episode, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) obsessed about something that most of us probably have obsessed about at one time or another — death.

It began with a little misdirection. Frasier's father (John Mahoney) skipped his doctor's appointment because he didn't like his doctor, and Frasier found out about it so he insisted on taking his father to another doctor, and Niles recommended one in his building. After they got there, the doctor was a no–show, and they were about to leave when they found out that the doctor had dropped dead.

From that point, Frasier was obsessing. The doctor was roughly his age, and Frasier simply couldn't get that out of his mind. He did all kinds of research and generally made a nuisance of himself. He gathered the family together to go over things that would be important only in the event of his death — like the distribution of his possessions, his funeral and burial plans and the discovery of the body.

To ensure that there would be no unseemly quarrels over his belongings, Frasier wanted each member of the family to put their names on sticky notes and attach them to the objects they wanted.

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Martin (John Mahoney): This is crazy. I'm not going to start putting my name on your stuff.

Frasier (Kelsey Grammer): Dad, what happens if I die tomorrow, you and Niles end up in an argument about ... well, that African mask, for instance?

Martin: It'll never happen. Niles, you can have it.

Niles (David Hyde Pierce): I don't want it.

Daphne (Jane Leeves): Well, don't look at me. I throw a towel over that thing when you're not home.

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He had a heart–to–heart conversation about his fears with his father, who told him a story from his experience as a policeman, and Martin was helpful — up to a certain point.

Ultimately, though, Frasier found that he could only put his mind at rest by visiting the grieving widow and asking her certain questions. They might be painful questions to answer, but, damn it, he had to know!

What Frasier did not know before going to the widow's home was that the dead man had been Jewish, and his relatives were sitting shiva. In layman's terms, as one of the mourners explained it to Frasier, it was a Jewish wake.

And that set up one of my favorite dialogue exchanges in the entire run of the Frasier series.

Upon his arrival, Frasier remarked that he hadn't expected the widow to have so many guests. The mourner smile and said to Frasier, "You're not Jewish, are you? This is our version of a wake."

Frasier could understand that so he stood by the table and looked around, stopping to look under a cloth draped over a mirror. A woman approached him from behind and asked if she could help him.

Frasier told her he thought there was a painting underneath the cloth. He said he had speculated that there might be an unveiling later.

The woman smiled. "You're not Jewish, are you?"

Apparently, Frasier decided the straight–forward approach didn't work so well the first time so this time his reply was "No, no, my ex–wife is, though, and thus my son is, which makes me sort of, well, I guess you could say ... No, I'm not Jewish."

The woman smiled again. "We always cover mirrors at a shiva so those grieving don't have to be concerned with their own appearances."

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Frasier eventually made his way over to the widow, whom he hoped to ask questions about her late husband's health and lifestyle. But Frasier changed his mind when he realized that she was struggling with her own issues regarding her husband's death.

She asked Frasier what he would say to a caller who said he/she couldn't get over why someone died. Frasier said his only answer was that life is not fair.

"All we can do," he said, "is live for the little joys and surprises life affords us. You can't live your life obsessing about death."

The widow smiled. "You're not Jewish, are you?"

In these times of excessive political correctness, I feel compelled to say I am not anti–Semitic.

I am a writer. I appreciate good writing.

And that is good writing.

An Important Movie

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"Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Talmud

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In reality, there probably was no one who would have seemed less likely to be a hero before World War II than Oskar Schindler.

He was a German businessman and Nazi Party member, greedy, arrogant, a womanizer who lived an opulent life in Poland away from his wife in Germany. At first, he hired Jews to work in his factory because, with their wages set by the Nazis, they cost him less than Poles. That evolved, with the assistance of his accountant (Ben Kingsley), into Schindler's unrestricted use of his factory to protect an estimated 1,100 Jews from deportation and probable death.

It took nearly half a century for Schindler's story to be brought to the big screen. Appropriately, it was Steven Spielberg, perhaps the most popular filmmaker of his time, who told the story to a mostly ignorant world. Many people will tell you it is the greatest movie ever made. The American Film Institute didn't go quite that far. I'm not sure if I would go that far, but I would certainly rank it in the Top 10. It ranked "Schindler's List" eighth on its Top 100 list.

Schindler (played by Liam Neeson in the movie) was AFI's 13th–greatest movie hero — and Amon Goeth (played by Ralph Fiennes) was AFI's 14th–most villainous villain (the highest–ranking nonfiction villain on that list).

And, in the 20 years since its initial theatrical release on this day in 1993, "Schindler's List" has been used countless times as a classroom learning tool.

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When you look back at Spielberg's career, you can see certain patterns in his work, as you can with just about any great director, I suppose.

In "Schindler's List," you can see a technique to which Spielberg would return a few years later when he made "Saving Private Ryan" — the vivid re–creation of a harrowing wartime event. In "Ryan," it was the re–creation of D–Day. In "Schindler," it was the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto.

Both scenes were lengthy — and painful to watch but necessary for the viewer to get a taste of what the participants must have experienced. Spielberg himself remarked that he felt more like a reporter than a filmmaker when he made "Schindler's List," as if he had been witnessing the actual events, not re–creating them for a movie.

By the time "Ryan" hit the theaters, you could see how much Spielberg's technique had matured. It was still in its infancy when he made "Schindler's List," but, even so, it packed a punch.

I don't think it is an exaggeration to say "Schindler's List" may well be the most important movie made in my lifetime. I guess it has almost become a cliche for someone to say that a movie project in which he or she was involved was important, but it really does fit "Schindler's List."

The interaction between Schindler and his accountant was one of the things I found especially remarkable.

Under far less extreme circumstances, it was the kind of partnership that usually succeeds in the business world. Schindler was the big–picture guy; Itzhak Stern was the nuts–and–bolts guy, the details guy. Both brought skills to the enterprise that were essential to its success.

But, in the intense atmosphere of the Holocaust, success and failure were entirely different.

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I already admired Ben Kingsley's work. A decade earlier, he starred in a movie that really was an important movie, "Gandhi."

Until "Schindler's List," though, I didn't have the same kind of admiration for Liam Neeson. He had been in several movies by this time — I even saw him in one or two — and I was favorably impressed, but I didn't think of him as an important actor until I saw "Schindler's List."

After I saw his scene late in the movie where he spoke of how many more lives he could have saved if he had sold his watch or his car, he became an important actor in my eyes.

I remember the first time I watched "Schindler's List" on TV. It was shown with no commercial interruptions — on NBC, I think, and sponsored by the Ford Motor Company. As I recall, Spielberg spoke at the start of the movie and at the end. In one of those segments, he said that he had been asked if he would permit his children to watch "Schindler's List." He said he wanted all of his children to watch it when they were ready.

That was the kind of thing, Spielberg admitted, that each parent had to decide because children mature at different rates, but he said that, as a general rule of thumb, he wouldn't let young children watch it. But a child in junior high or high school probably could understand the material and ask thoughtful questions after the movie was over. Young children might be traumatized.

I thought that was a reasonable — as well as responsible — thing for him to say.

Consequently, I was astonished the next day when a lawmaker from Oklahoma complained about the nudity in "Schindler's List," and accused Spielberg, NBC and Ford of acting irresponsibly. I wondered if the lawmaker even bothered to watch the telecast. If he had, I thought, he might have realized that the Nazis used nudity as a weapon against the Jews, not as a means of their own arousal. It was an example of the Nazis' cruelty.

Truly, some people can't see the forest for the trees.

There was another element of "Schindler's List" that is worth discussing. I speak of the little girl in the red coat. In real life, she must have stood out in the crowd just as she did in the movie — made almost entirely in black and white — if the little girl ever really existed.

My understanding is that the girl in the red coat was fictional, that she was symbolic of how high–ranking officials in democratic countries like the United States did nothing to prevent the Holocaust even though they were aware of it like "a little girl wearing a red coat, walking down the street."

In fact, though, there was a little girl in a red coat in the Kraków ghetto, and for a time it was thought that the girl in "Schindler's List" either was inspired by her or was a minor dramatization of her story. Her name was Roma Ligocka, and she was remembered by many who were there for that red coat she wore.

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In the movie, the girl in the red coat apparently died. I say "apparently" because the camera does not show her actual death, but it does show her limp body, identifiable only by that coat. It was a powerful moment in the movie, and it marked the beginning of Schindler's personal transformation.

But Ligocka did not die in the Holocaust. She survived and lives today in Munich. She is Roman Polanski's cousin.

A Secret Identity

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Mrs. Doubtfire (Robin Williams): [reading a letter] "Dear Mrs. Doubtfire, two months ago, my mom and dad decided to separate. Now they live in different houses. My brother Andrew says that we aren't to be a family anymore. Is this true? Did I lose my family? Is there anything I can do to get my parents back together? Sincerely, Katie McCormick." Oh, my dear Katie. You know, some parents, when they're angry, they get along much better when they don't live together. They don't fight all the time, and they can become better people, and much better mummies and daddies for you. And sometimes they get back together. And sometimes they don't, dear. And if they don't, don't blame yourself. Just because they don't love each other anymore doesn't mean that they don't love you. There are all sorts of different families, Katie. Some families have one mommy, some families have one daddy, or two families. And some children live with their uncle or aunt. Some live with their grandparents, and some children live with foster parents. And some live in separate homes, in separate neighborhoods, in different areas of the country — and they may not see each other for days, or weeks, months ... even years at a time. But if there's love, dear ... those are the ties that bind, and you'll have a family in your heart forever.

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Robin Williams has been a wild man ever since I first became aware of him. He was almost certainly a wild man before that.

The first time I remember seeing him was in the role of Mork — originally as a guest on Happy Days, then in a recurring role on the Mork and Mindy TV show, a Happy Days spinoff. Maybe he did some things before that. I don't know.

But I've seen most of his movies since then, and there's always that kind of frenzy about him. Well, almost always.

The exception, perhaps, was "Mrs. Doubtfire," the movie that was released 20 years ago today. There was still a lot of that hyper dialogue in his performance — some of it must have been the result of a good director (Chris Columbus) simply letting Williams go on one of his improvisational rants. That was, after all, what the moviegoing public paid money to see.

But "Mrs. Doubtfire" was different. Mrs. Doubtfire was a strict but sweet and caring Scottish nanny. In every life there should be a Mrs. Doubtfire.

Thing is, Mrs. Doubtfire was already in the lives of Sally Field and her three children — because Mrs. Doubtfire was really Williams, Field's ex–husband. Williams' character was an affectionate father, but he was not much for discipline nor did he set a particularly good example for his children so he was limited in the time he could spend with them.

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Daniel (Robin Willilams): Did you ever wish you could sometimes freeze frame a moment in your day, look at it and say, "This is not my life?"

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The only way he could spend more time with them was to assume another identity so he could get the job of housekeeper — and he had to stay in character.

He couldn't be discovered or he would lose the job for sure — and possibly the time he was allowed with his children in his true identity.

That could be pretty challenging, especially when he was with his ex–wife and her new beau (Pierce Brosnan) not as Daniel the ex but as Mrs. Doubtfire.

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Of course, there were several narrow escapes before his cover was finally blown, but that was a big part of the movie's charm. Anyway, by then, some really unexpected changes had occurred.

I felt the conclusion of the movie didn't compromise. Williams and Field did not get back together — in a happily–ever–after movie, they would, but not in "Mrs. Doubtfire." Field put a little of her pride on the shelf and allowed Williams to spend more time with his children. It was a good lesson, reinforced by Mrs. Doubtfire's closing monologue (with which I began this post) on love and family and distance, for children from divided families.

When I was growing up, I knew several children whose parents were divorced, and some spent their childhoods hoping their parents would get back together. None ever did. Sometimes they do, as Mrs. Doubtfire said, but quite often, they don't. "Mrs. Doubtfire" always kind of reminded me of "Tootsie."

The stories weren't the same, of course. The lead character in "Tootsie" was not motivated by the desire to spend more time with a family. He cross–dressed because he was an abrasive person who couldn't find work as an actor.

In the process, he learned things that made him a better person.

Something similar happened, I think, to Robin Williams' character in "Mrs. Doubtfire." He learned things that made him a better parent — and led to a different kind of love story.

Perhaps Satire of 'Beat the Devil' Eluded Audiences in '53

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Billy Dannreuther (Humphrey Bogart): The only thing standing between you and a watery grave is your wits, and that's not my idea of adequate protection.

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Satire isn't successful if the audience doesn't get it — and that, I have concluded, was the problem with "Beat the Devil."

I've heard that Humphrey Bogart loathed "Beat the Devil," which premiered on this day in 1953.

I'm not sure why that is so. Sadly, I can only conclude that it couldn't have been anything but the script — which, from the perspective of 60 years later, seems lively to me but may have been over the heads of moviegoers in 1953.

I've heard that Bogart hated it because he invested a lot of his own money in the project, and it didn't do too well at the box office. That's a more plausible reason than the others that come to mind, but it really only explains why Bogart didn't like it.

It couldn't be because of the director — John Huston. Bogart and Huston had worked together on at least three movies that are regarded as classics today. Clearly, Bogart didn't hate Huston, and neither did movie audiences.

It couldn't be the cast. Bogart worked with Peter Lorre on other projects. His history with Robert Morley wasn't as extensive so I don't know what kind of relationship they had, but they seemed to work well together in "The African Queen." And audiences seemed to like those stars.

He had no history at all — as far as I know — with Jennifer Jones or Gina Lollobrigida, but he seemed to have a pretty good personal chemistry with both of them. And moviegoers liked both of them, too.

Bogart successfully played parts in comedies, thrillers, film noir — all sorts of genres. Perhaps that was the problem with "Beat the Devil." It was many genres rolled into one. Film critic Roger Ebert observed that it was called "the first camp movie," and that is as good a description as any.

A "cult classic," Ebert had this to say about "Beat the Devil."

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"John Huston's 'Beat the Devil' (1953) shows how much Hollywood has lost by devaluing its character actors. In an age when a $20 million star must be on the screen every second, this picture could not be made. Huston has stars, too: Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, but his movie is so funny because he throws them into the pot with a seedy gang of charlatans."

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That seedy gang of characters included Lorre and Morley as half of a gang of four intent upon gaining access to uranium–rich deposits in Kenya. They find themselves stranded in Italy with Bogart and Lollobrigida while the steamer in which they are traveling is being repaired. They are joined by a British couple, played by Jones (in a blonde wig) and Edward Underdown.

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Gwendolyn Chelm (Jennifer Jones): Harry, we must beware of these men. They are desperate characters.

Harry Chelm (Edward Underdown): What makes you say that?

Gwendolyn Chelm: Not one of them looked at my legs!

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Actually, I don't really think of "Beat the Devil" as a Bogart movie. Sure, he was its primary star — and a recent Best Actor winner — but I think it was wrong for the people of that time to put so much stock in his role in it — if that is what they did — and what the critics of the time may have said about it.

It was really John Huston's film. He directed it, and he intended for it to be a parody of the film noir style that he pioneered. In that sense, it succeeded.

And Huston's fingerprints are all over it — his dry wit is evident from beginning to end. "Beat the Devil" is, basically, a comedy of errors. I can think of many similar movies but none that can be effectively compared to it. Huston's lively and socially aware script, which was co–written by Truman Capote, comments on a wide variety of subjects.

And, in the grand tradition of comedies of errors, "Beat the Devil" is a brilliant illustration of the old adage, "What a tangled web we weave ..."

This was the last time Bogart worked with Huston or Lorre.

(By the way, Philip Seymour Hoffman, in his Oscar–winning portrayal of Truman Capote, tells a story about the making of "Beat the Devil.")

Harpo's 125th Birthday

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In the realm of wordless comedy, no one may have been better at it than Harpo Marx, a clown/mime.

When I was a teenager, a group of young people from the Methodist church in my hometown went to Little Rock one night to see Marcel Marceau in a one–man show. My memory is that it was a bitterly cold night, and Marceau was good.

But Harpo was the best. Marceau was Harpo's spiritual descendant.

Harpo was so good that people actually believed he couldn't speak, which wasn't true, of course. In some Marx Brothers movies, Harpo's brothers mentioned the fact that he didn't speak — but not that he couldn't. They were careful to imply that it was a choice, not a condition.

On the other hand, there were times in some of those movies when Harpo tried to communicate something urgent to someone else, but he could only do so in his silent charades–like way. It isn't hard to see how that would convince people that he was mute.

Harpo's silent shtick was inspired early in his career when a reviewer of the brothers' stage performance wrote glowingly of his "beautiful pantomime" — "which was ruined whenever he spoke." So he almost never spoke.

His nickname was simply a reference to the fact that he played the harp.

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That was something he did in just about every Marx Brothers movie.

Harpo was a self–taught harp player, and the fact was that he tuned and played his harp incorrectly. Nevertheless, he played beautifully. I have heard that he spent a small fortune hiring music teachers to show him how to do it correctly, but they were more interested in watching him play his way than teaching him how to play correctly.

If he wasn't recognizable enough in his frilly wig that looked blond in black–and–white film (turned out it was really red), he was always dressed the same — in a trench coat with oversized pockets and a top hat.

I have often wondered if Harpo's usual dress inspired Blake Edwards or Peter Sellers to use it for Inspector Clouseau. Perhaps it was Harpo who was inspired — by the inspectors of his day.

Doesn't really matter, I guess. As a young journalist — and before, for that matter — I always regarded anything that wasn't original to be plagiarism. As I have gotten older, though, I have learned that isn't a hard and fast rule. It is plagiarism if one lifts, word for word, what someone else has written and claims it as his/her own.

But being inspired to use part of what someone else has utilized, like clothing, and adapting it to a new creation is another matter.

Besides, no one could duplicate Harpo.

A Hard Day's Write

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On this day in 1968, the Beatles released the only double album they would release while they were still together as a band.

Numerous multi–record collections were released after the group broke up, but the album that was released 45 years ago today — informally known as the White Album for its plain white cover — was the only exception to the single–record releases that characterized the Beatles' work.

Double albums were rare in the 1960s so that isn't really surprising. But it was the Beatles' first studio release in 18 months, and expectations were very high, being the Beatles' first album after the groundbreaking "Sgt. Pepper" album (well, technically, "Magical Mystery Tour" came out in November 1967, but it was not so much a Beatles album as a soundtrack for a British TV movie).

I suppose Apple wanted to make a big splash, and a double album was seen as a way to do that. Double albums were events in those days.

That seemed to promote misinterpretation of the significance of many of the songs. It is a bit disappointing for a Beatles fan like myself to realize that what the White Album largely is known for today, at least in the history books, is being the inspiration for Helter Skelter, the race war that the twisted Charles Manson and his easily manipulated followers envisioned.

The White Album was more than that. Rolling Stone named it the 10th greatest album of all time.

I'm sure any Beatles fan will tell you the music is what the White Album is about, even 45 years after its release. I can put that CD on today and still find songs that sound new and fresh and energetic.

And, while most of the songs were credited to the Lennon–McCartney team, there were a few songs by George Harrison and even one by Ringo Starr.

"Helter Skelter" was a song written by Paul McCartney and has been recognized as an early influence on the heavy metal musical genre. But the Manson family interpreted it as a description of an apocalyptic war — from which Manson would emerge to lead the survivors.

Manson, however, grew tired of waiting for "Helter Skelter" — as he had taken to calling this war — to happen on its own and decided he had to help it along. And thus the deadly sequence of events was put in motion, leading to a weekend of gruesome murders that were committed by Manson's followers in the summer of 1969.

That, at least, is what history remembers about the White Album. But there was so much more. Some of my favorite Beatles songs — like "Yer Blues" ...

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That was written by John Lennon — but, like all the compositions by Lennon and McCartney during their Beatles days, it was credited to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting team. It is often noted, however, that the Lennon–McCartney designation is deceptive because very few of those songs were equal parts Lennon and McCartney. One or the other usually contributed most if not all of the work — and that may never have been as true as it was on the White Album.

There were 30 songs on the White Album — including one ("Revolution 9") that wasn't a song at all, just an eight–minute–plus collection of unrelated sounds — and 25 were credited to Lennon–McCartney, but most of them really were solo efforts.

And Harrison was emerging as a songwriter in his own right, contributing in new ways all the time.

I like all four of Harrison's compositions that appeared on the White Album, but probably my favorite is "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," which was featured in Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh" a few years later.

On the White Album, Eric Clapton of the recently disbanded Cream made an uncredited appearance, playing lead guitar on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."

In an online poll last year, readers of Guitar World named it Harrison's best as a Beatle. While you will find Harrison devotees who prefer one of his songs or another over that one, most Harrison fans probably could be persuaded to go along with that choice.

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One song — "Don't Pass Me By" — was credited to Richard Sharkey, aka Ringo Starr (who also sang it on the album). It was his first solo composition.

During his Beatles days, Starr sang lead vocals on songs that were written by others (i.e., "Yellow Submarine," a McCartney composition, and "Act Naturally," which was written by Buck Owens) — and he sang his own compositions on his solo albums.

But "Don't Pass Me By" was Starr's first solo songwriting effort on an album.

Songwriting never seemed to be what motivated Starr. Lennon and McCartney, of course, were prodigious songwriters, and Harrison evolved from a somewhat hesitant songwriter to one who bubbled so with creativity that, after the Beatles broke up, he had to release a triple album to provide an outlet for the backlog of material that never found its way onto a Beatles album.

But Starr always seemed content merely to play the drums.

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Some critics thought the White Album lacked a theme, that it was a collection of unrelated songs. That probably was true — although you have to understand that, in 1968, theme albums were kind of rare. As innovative as the Beatles were, they weren't ahead of the curve on everything. Some of their albums did explore themes, but most did not. That kind of thing was more prominent after the Beatles broke up.

The White Album influenced me in ways that other albums did not. It was recorded at a turbulent point in the story of the Beatles — all four were starting to move in their own directions — as well as a turbulent time in the histories of America and the world. No wonder there was a sense of melancholy isolation in many of the songs.

It was just that simple. They were each moving on. It became official less than two years later when McCartney left the band and the breakup was formalized.

The White Album prepared the Beatles' fans for the next phase. I suppose it fulfills a similar function today, preparing the listener for the next phase of his/her life.