The Neighbors From Hell

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"Believe me, I know women — upside down and backwards, which is not a bad way to know 'em, huh?"

Vic (Dan Aykroyd)

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Whoever you are and wherever you live or have lived, you're sure to have your share of bad neighbor stories.

Unless, of course, you are a bad neighbor.

"Neighbors," which premiered on this day in 1981, was the story of the ultimate bad neighbors, I suppose, and one man's (John Belushi) response to their intrusion into his space.

"If there's one quality that middle–class Americans have in common," wrote Roger Ebert in his review of the movie, "it's a tendency to be rigidly polite in the face of absolutely unacceptable behavior. Confronted with obnoxious rudeness, we freeze up, we get a nervous little smile, we allow our eyes to focus on the middle distance, and we cannot believe this is happening to us. It's part of our desire to avoid a scene. We'd rather choke to death in a restaurant than break a plate to attract attention."

But everyone has a breaking point, and Belushi's character reached his when Dan Aykroyd and Cathy Moriarty moved into the neighborhood.

"They are everything we dread in neighbors," Ebert observed. "They are loud. They are blatant freeloaders. The man is gung–ho macho. The woman is oversexed and underloved. They park some kind of customized truck on their front lawn. They invite themselves to dinner."

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Given that nugget of information, it probably isn't hard to guess how the plot unfolded — especially since it included the team of Belushi and Aykroyd.

But what was intriguing about "Neighbors" was not the sometimes predictable dialogue. It was Belushi and Aykroyd's unexpected role reversal. In most of their work together, on the big or small screen, Belushi was the wild man and Aykroyd was the plain vanilla guy.

In "Neighbors," it was the precise opposite. Belushi played Earl, a routine kind of guy living a quiet life in his little corner of the world. Then Aykroyd and Moriarty invaded.

Sadly, Belushi died a few months after "Neighbors" made its theatrical debut.

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"Neighbors" was an indication of how much we lost when we lost Belushi. With Belushi and Aykroyd taking roles that were unexpected, we got a glimpse of their versatility. All their movies would not have been "Blues Brothers" retreads. Unfortunately, we never found out.

Belushi had many irons in the fire at the time of his death. One of his planned projects was to appear in "Ghostbusters" with Aykroyd.

Makes you wonder what might have been, doesn't it?

'Big City' Wasn't Your Garden-Variety Country Album

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I'm not a country music fan, but there are some country singers I like, and Merle Haggard is at the top of my list.

I have assembled a pretty good (but hardly comprehensive) collection of Haggard's albums and, in the digital age, I have been able to combine most of my favorite Haggard tracks on a single CD so when I am about to drive somewhere and I have a hankering for Haggard's music, I can just take that CD with me.

I can be sure that I like every song on it.

But if I do have to listen to an actual album, "Big City," which arrived in music stores 35 years ago this month, is OK by me. I like every song on that one, too.

Two of the songs on "Big City" went to No. 1 — the title track, "Big City," and "My Favorite Memory."

"Big City" was Haggard's 27th No. 1 song on Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart. It was released as a single in January 1982 and was inspired by Dean Holloway, a longtime friend and driver of Haggard's tour bus. The story goes that, after a marathon recording session in Los Angeles, Haggard went to the bus and asked Holloway how he was doing. Holloway replied, "I'm tired of this dirty old city."

And a song was born.

Actually, I guess, the concept of an album was born.

Lifelong country music fans probably have a different take on this than I have, but traditional country music — it always seemed to me, anyway, when I was growing up and heard it playing on radios in the hardware store, the doughnut shop and the barber shop around my hometown in Arkansas — really was about country. Country life. Country people. Country values.

"Big City" was the first country album in my memory that was more about the state of mind than the physical location — in fact, when I was growing up, the where in a country song was nearly always a small rural town or a lonely stretch of highway, seldom a big city — and the title track of "Big City" captured the yearning of an urban blue–collar worker for the freedom of wide open spaces.

Returning to the story of how the title track was inspired, Haggard clearly was refining the inspiration in his mind during his conversation with Holloway (something with which I am familiar from my days as a reporter — I often found myself composing the article in my head while I was finishing an interview for it) when, apparently sensing that the urban–dwelling narrator of the lyrics needed to identify where he would rather be, Haggard asked Holloway that question, and Holloway replied, "Somewhere in the middle of damn Montana."

And a chorus was born.

Haggard wrote the song, but he gave Holloway partial credit; the royalties wound up being worth about half a million dollars to Holloway.

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"My Favorite Memory" is the kind of country song that I remember hearing when I was a child. I couldn't have heard that song when I was a child, but I heard songs like it.

I can't say it evokes specific memories, mostly general ones of lying on a rug in the dining room or the kitchen, reveling in the warmth of the room on a chilly winter's day and hearing songs like it playing on the radio. It was a country love song, not the kind of song that speaks of drinkin' and cheatin' and carousin' but of caring and commitment.

"I guess everything does change except what you choose to recall," Haggard sang in one of my favorite lyrics on the album. "There's a million good daydreams to dream on, but, baby, you're my favorite memory of all."

Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com wrote that "My Favorite Memory" was "one of the most beautifully sung and arranged moments of [Haggard's] long career." Although I haven't heard all of Haggard's songs, I would have to say that is true of the songs I have heard.

It is one of the best, inspired by the best elements of country music.

My very favorite song on the album, though, is "Are the Good Times Really Over?"

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It didn't make it to No. 1, although I always thought it should have. It came close, just missing at No. 2. I liked a lot of things about it, but I guess one of the things I liked the most was that, although the title asked a negative question, the song itself provided a positive answer.

Haggard offered hope.

When I think of that, I think of another song on the album, "I Think I'm Gonna Live Forever." Sadly, Haggard didn't live forever, even though he claimed in the song that "Dyin' ain't on my list of things to do."

"Big City" was full of genuine Haggard classics — and others that should have been.

In its way, I guess, "Big City" was a harbinger of things to come. When I was growing up, most country music was kind of weepy sounding and mostly negative in its messages. "Big City" had a jazzier sound than most country albums — even today, when much of country music doesn't sound too different from rock 'n' roll.

"Big City" had horns and drums and piano that sounded like the barroom music of late 19th–century saloons.

Even the one song that, from its name, one might expect to be in that weepy tradition — "Texas Fiddle Song" — was more upbeat than most country songs.

What Was the Truth?

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"No ... wire ... hangers! What's wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you no wire hangers ever? I work and work 'til I'm half dead, and I hear people say, 'She's getting old.' And what do I get? A daughter ... who cares as much about the beautiful dresses I give her ... as she cares about me! What's wire hangers doing in this closet? Answer me! I buy you beautiful dresses, and you treat them like they were some dishrag! You do! Three hundred–dollar dress on a wire hanger? We'll see how many you've got, if they're hidden somewhere! We'll see! We'll see! Get out of that bed. All of this is coming out! Out ... out ... out ... out! You got any more? We're gonna see how many wire hangers you've got in your closet! A wi ... wire hanger! Why? Why? Christina, get out of that bed. Get out of that bed! You live in the most beautiful house in Brentwood ... and you don't care if your clothes get stretched out from wire hangers? And your room looks like some $2–a–week furnished room in some two–bit back street town in Oklahoma! Get up! Clean up this mess!"

Faye Dunaway (Joan Crawford)

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Faye Dunaway has had many memorable roles in her career, but her performance in "Mommie Dearest," which premiered on this date in 1981, may have been her most memorable.

By the time she made "Mommie Dearest," Dunaway was no stranger to controversy, but the movie was controversial in a way that was unique in Dunaway's experience. Dunaway was portraying not a fictional character but a real–life actress, Joan Crawford, who had died less than four years earlier and was still well remembered by many of her fans — and Crawford had an image that many of her friends in Hollywood wished to protect.

"Mommie Dearest" was based on a book by Christina Crawford, Joan Crawford's adopted daughter, who had been specifically mentioned in the actress' will as not being a recipient of any portion of her mother's estate. Christina alleged that Crawford had been abusive to her and her brother Christopher — and some folks in Hollywood were willing to back her up on that. Essentially, Christina accused her adopted mother of caring more about fame than being a parent and used the children as props to further her career.

Some people believed — and continue to believe — that Christina was motivated by a desire to get even with her mother. If that was indeed the objective, she seemed to accomplish it. My feeling at the time — and still is — that both the book, which sold well, and the movie, which did pretty well at the box office, were probably guilty pleasures for a voyeuristic public. Was Christina Crawford telling the truth? Did Joan Crawford abuse her children behind closed doors then parade them in public as examples of what a fine mother she was?

And certainly there was curiosity about how this conflict between Joan Crawford (Dunaway) and Christina (played as an adult by Diana Scarwid, as a child by Mara Hobel) would come across on the big screen.

The dispute lives on nearly 40 years after the book's publication.

I don't know what the truth is; I suspect that this story is a combination of truths with no single version being the whole truth. Having been a child when these alleged abuses occurred, it is possible Christina's version of events is completely accurate — from a child's perspective.

Events in a child's life can be magnified and exaggerated out of proportion, though. Adults don't tend to give them much credibility until they have had enough time to mature.

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It is equally possible that, from an adult's perspective, the abuse could be seen as parental discipline that was not nearly as frequent as Christina perceived it to be — just as it is also possible that other adults witnessed almost nothing but abuse in their interactions with Joan and her children.

Especially the part where Dunaway went ballistic upon discovering one of her daughter's dresses hanging from a wire hanger in the closet. That scene spawned the somewhat iconic line in which an obsessive Crawford ranted about wire hangers — "No wire hangers!" The American Film Institute ranked it #72 on its list of the top 100 movie lines of all time.

(Whenever I have watched this movie in recent years, the wire hangers scene always reminds me of an evening when I worked on the sports copy desk at the Arkansas Gazette. On that particular occasion, I was in charge of putting out the next morning's sports section. One of the copy editors asked me how we were doing — since we had three deadlines each night, it was important to stay on schedule. I replied that we were still waiting for color art from the wire services covering whichever sports event was in the spotlight that day — I think it was one of the golf majors, but I don't remember which one. The copy editor wrinkled up his face like Dunaway in this movie and snarled, "No ... wire ... color!" I couldn't help laughing.)

Undoubtedly it was the very absence of collaborating accounts that encouraged the mixed reviews the movie received. In the three–plus decades that have passed, "Mommie Dearest" has become something of an underground favorite, a cult classic — but it was not particularly well received when it made the rounds of the nation's movie theaters 35 years ago.

Despite its problems with the critics, the movie was, as I mentioned earlier, reasonably successful at the box office, earning $39 million. That wasn't enough to land the movie in the Top 10 moneymakers for the year, but it was only a few million off the pace.

The Sudden Transformation of a Friendly Pet

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"It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his MAN and his WOMAN, and most of all his BOY, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor."

Stephen King, Cujo (1981)

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When I was a child, I grew up in the country on a manmade lake surrounded by hills that may have existed before the lake did but if they did, they were certainly enhanced by the lake's creation.

Homes were scattered in lots along the hillside and for me to visit my friends — usually by bike because it took too long to walk — I had to pass by a house where dwelled a Doberman pinscher. You had to move slowly when you went past that house because if you didn't and that dog happened to be loose on the property, it would come barreling down the hill barking viciously.

I found myself in that position one day. I thought the dog was going to kill me, and I screamed. Fortunately for me the dog's owner came outside and called the dog back, but the experience left its mark on me. I still remembered it years later when I read Stephen King's novel "Cujo," which was published on this day in 1981.

And it sent a chill down my spine.

"Cujo," you see, was about an amiable St. Bernard named Cujo who was bitten by a rabid bat when he was chasing a rabbit one day and, in due course, went mad, attacking and killing people whenever they happened to cross his path. King's descriptions of what Cujo was feeling as the disease gnawed at his brain were incredibly insightful, much like James Michener's descriptions of the thoughts of the dinosaurs and wildlife that lived in the area of Colorado of which he wrote in "Centennial" a few years earlier. Really fascinating stuff that cries out to be told on the big screen.

But, as it has been with so many of King's masterfully written books, it proved extremely challenging to put that on film.

That didn't keep an attempt from being made a couple of years later. Technology has never really been adequate to tell one of King's scary stories in movie form, but a story like "Cujo" — which has no supernatural element at all — requires a director with a cutting–edge vision. The director of that movie didn't possess such a vision, and while the movie was a modest success at the box office, it received mixed reviews from critics.

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Actually, it isn't exactly true that there was no supernatural element in the story (I guess it wouldn't be a Stephen King novel without at least a whisper of the supernatural). There was one, but it was implied and indirect. It was strongly suggested early in the book that what happened to Cujo was due to some supernatural force that made an appearance in that small Maine town every few years or so, but from a broader perspective, animals — and humans — can get rabies in many — frequently unexpected — ways. That's what made the story so scary — the sense that this could easily happen.

And, as King observed, free will would not be a factor.

Most of us realize the chances of the kind of stuff that usually takes place in a Stephen King novel occurring in real life are virtually nil — but "Cujo" was about the kind of thing that really could happen. Many of my friends have dogs. I had one at one time. We always had dogs around our house when I was growing up — and, as I say, I grew up in the country. We allowed our dogs to run loose there all the time.

In hindsight, they could have been bitten by a rabid creature at any time. Or some other unfortunate incident could have occurred.

Most of the dogs in my life have been friendly, but how quickly they could have been changed by a chance encounter with a diseased animal.

Isn't that what makes a story truly scary — the belief that it really could happen to you — and without warning? The truly great writers, and I believe King is one of the great writers of this or any era, can make it seem as if something like the topic of a story could happen in real life — even if the topic was as unlikely as they come — but if it is a plausible story to the reader, that makes all the difference.

I liked the book, and apparently so did King, who confessed he could hardly remember writing it, having done so during a time when he was drinking heavily.

Like many of King's stories, this one took place in Maine and centered on two families, one a longtime resident of the town, the other a newcomer. The family with the local roots was the one that owned Cujo. The newcomers frequented the home auto repair business run by the first family. The mother and child from the newcomers were trapped in their car when they took it in for some work, not knowing that a now–mad Cujo had killed the man of the house and was all alone on the property.

A novel can be made more dramatic by the introduction of angles that might not be present in a real–life scenario like the one I have described, and so it was with "Cujo." There were several examples of unsavory adult behavior that certainly exacerbated the conditions.

But the fact remained that being trapped by a rabid dog — or rabid animal of any kind — would be a terrifying experience — and hardly one that anybody, regardless of behavior, deserved.

The Last Great Rolling Stones Album

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I have friends who would say that 1978's "Some Girls" was the Rolling Stones' last great album.

And it was a good one for sure.

But I would disagree that it was the band's last great album. "Tattoo You," which was released on this day in 1981, was the Stones' last great album. It just didn't have as much of a radio presence as "Some Girls" did.

Oh, sure, it had a huge hit in "Start Me Up" — which, in hindsight, seems to have been written to be played on sports arena loud speakers. It's a song that pumps up its listeners, which is what you want to do with a home crowd at a sports event. I saw the Stones in concert a couple of months after they released "Tattoo You," and probably no other song on their play list got such a raucous response.

Not even the classics.

It was still new, then, of course, and it had that fresh appeal that goes along with being something new. But it also had something that "Some Girls" and all the albums that came before it did not have — MTV.

MTV was new then and still finding itself. Playing a role in the promotion of new music was essential to its success, and "Start Me Up" was an enormous hit, rising to #2 on Billboard's Hot 100.

Like "Emotional Rescue" the year before, "Tattoo You" was mostly outtakes from the sessions that spawned "Some Girls" — filler, for lack of a better term. But there is filler and there is filler.

"Start Me Up" was the first single released from the album. In fact, it was in the stores 10 days before the album.

The second single, "Waiting on a Friend," was released as a single about three months after the album hit the stores and rose to #13 on the U.S. singles chart. The song had existed for nearly a decade, going back to the "Goats Head Soup" sessions in the early '70s. Well, it was a tune with no lyrics, but it became the Stones' first song to be packaged specifically with an MTV video in mind.

And the video became enormously popular, no doubt contributing to the song's success.

I liked the melody better than the lyrics.

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By the way, if the setting of the video seems familiar, it should. It was featured on the cover of Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti" album.

The album's third single, "Hang Fire," was released in the spring of 1982. I didn't think much of it, frankly. To my great surprise, it managed to get to #20 on the charts.

Most Americans probably didn't realize that the lyrics represented one of the few times when the Stones have been political in their music. Their largely satirical lyrics skewered the British economic decline of the '70s.

Most listeners on this side of the Atlantic probably thought the music was kind of light and airy and the lyrics had no relevance to life in North America, which they didn't. As I say, the lyrics referred to the British economy and marrying one's way up the British economic and social ladders.

One song I always liked — but was never released as a single — was "Slave," the longest song on the album at 6:33.

Rolling Stone called it "a standard Stones blues jam," which is probably what attracted me to it.

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It came into existence during the sessions for "Black and Blue" when Ronnie Wood was filling the vacancy left by the departure of Mick Taylor.

Presumably "Slave" was more filler — but no one could pull off filler like the Stones. I kept hoping to hear it when I saw the Stones in concert.

But I don't think the Stones have ever performed "Slave" in a concert.

A New Direction for ZZ Top

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ZZ Top's "El Loco," which hit music stores this month in 1981, marked a departure from the ZZ Top the band's fans knew and the emergence of a different ZZ Top, a new wave ZZ Top that, starting with this album, used synthesizers on many of its tracks.

That was a rather startling development for fans who had been listening to that little ol' band from Texas for a decade or so.

The most noteworthy difference in the album's production from the ones that preceded it, according to guitarist Billy Gibbons, the band's lead vocalist, was that, for the first time, the three members of the band recorded their parts separately instead of recording together.

By itself, I didn't detect a huge difference in the music because of that tactic. More likely, the synthesizers were responsible for that.

"Tube Snake Boogie" was the biggest hit on the album, climbing to #4 on Billboard's "Mainstream Rock" chart. It was a satirical sort of song, almost like the band was making fun of itself. Still it had more of a traditional ZZ Top sound to it than the first single to be released from the album, "Leila."

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"Leila" was a good example of the direction a lot of music would take in the 1980s. It was just never a very good example of ZZ Top music, either before or after.

When I first heard it, I had to look at the album a couple of times to be sure I was listening to ZZ Top. In fact, the first time I heard it I thought it was Christopher Cross. I kid you not.

I didn't have that problem with "Pearl Necklace," which had a decidedly more ZZ Top feel to it.

The double entendres in "Tube Snake Boogie" and "Pearl Necklace" were impossible to miss, even if you didn't know for sure what the lyrics were saying.

And "Pearl Necklace" clearly showed listeners where ZZ Top would be heading with its next album.

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Perhaps no other song on the album better exemplified the direction ZZ Top would be taking in future albums than the synthesizer–heavy track "Groovy Little Hippie Pad."

This wasn't your big brother's ZZ Top.

The Affluenza of Arthur

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Arthur (Dudley Moore): Have you ever been on a yacht?

Linda (Liza Minnelli): No. Is it wonderful?

Arthur: It doesn't suck.

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I enjoyed "Arthur," the Dudley Moore–Liza Minnelli–Sir John Gielgud comedy that premiered on this day in 1981 — even though my favorite journalism professor, in his own words, "didn't like it worth a damn." That was a bit of a disappointment to me — but not enough to make me change my mind. I still liked the movie.

I've seen it several times since that first time, and I still like it.

It was an unusual tale — yet familiar in its way. Moore played Arthur, a not–so–young heir to his family's fortune, a playboy who got drunk every day, enabled (in a fashion) by Gielgud, who played Arthur's valet Hobson. Minnelli played Arthur's working–class love interest.

Arthur's family wanted him to marry the daughter of one of his father's business associates. When the family learned that Arthur had been seeing this working–class girl and might want to marry her, a campaign against their marriage began. Arthur was told he would lose his inheritance if he married her. His family wanted him to grow up and assume his rightful place in the world. But the childlike Arthur resisted.

Now, at some point in most of our lives, we have been around people who had had too much to drink. Some of us, at some times in our lives, have been that person who had had too much to drink. Whether you are that person or you are in the company of that person, it seems that person truly believes he/she is the wittiest and sexiest person in the room. Anyone who is reasonably sober will be able to tell you that the person is far from being the wittiest or sexiest person in the room.

But somehow, even though he had probably been drinking for decades, Arthur was. I guess it helps when you have a lot of money — and a professional writer creating your dialogue. And, as I say, he was enabled by Hobson, who served him martinis in the bathtub.

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I guess that was part of Hobson's job description, but it almost certainly wasn't part of his job description to be sarcastic about nearly every aspect of Arthur's life. Still one suspected that Hobson was fond of Arthur and vice versa. Arthur's family was more interested in wealth and status than Arthur — and Hobson was clearly something of a surrogate father to Arthur.

"Only someone with a heart of stone could fail to love a drunk like Arthur," critic Roger Ebert wrote, and he was right. You had to appreciate Arthur's directness — and he had a profound sense of things.

"Everyone who drinks is not a poet," he said at one point. "Maybe some of us drink because we're not poets."

Arthur's family, as I say, wanted him to marry the daughter of his father's business associate, but Arthur didn't love her. His grandmother advised him to go ahead with the marriage and see his working–class girlfriend on the side. But most evidence to the contrary, Arthur had his principles, one of which was to wed only for love.

And he didn't love Susan (Jill Eikenberry). He loved Linda (Minnelli).

Hobson apparently knew that Arthur would need someone who truly cared for him to look after him. Hobson was dying. I don't think the audience ever knew what was killing him. I don't think the audience ever knew — definitely — that he was dying until he was hospitalized late in the movie. But he had a conversation with Linda in which the fact was more or less confirmed.

Hobson coughed, and Linda said to him, "That sounds bad. Have you seen a doctor?"

"Yes," Hobson replied in his understated that hinted that he knew so much more and added, "and he has seen me."

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Later, as I say, Hobson went to the hospital, and Arthur came to visit him. He wanted to cheer Hobson up, but he wanted to do more than that.

He wanted to care for Hobson, the man who had cared for him all his life. It was a craving the audience learned about from what he told Linda at one point.

"I've never taken care of anybody," Arthur told Linda. "Everybody's always taken care of me. But if you got sick, or anything, I'd take care of you."

That was one of Arthur's genuinely introspective moments, and Linda seemed to realize it.

"Then I'll get sick," she told him.

Lately I have been wondering if Arthur was an early victim of affluenza. Perhaps his character drank not because he wasn't a poet but because he didn't know how to care for people as he had been cared for — and it was something he desperately desired.

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In hindsight it seems odd to me how relatively unknown Moore was at the time. He had been making movies for 15 years when he made "Arthur," but it had only been his fairly recent parts in "Foul Play" and "10" that made him into something of a household name. In "Foul Play," he played second fiddle to Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. In "10," the star was the voluptuous Bo Derek.

Moore was the star of "Arthur" and received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor (he lost to Henry Fonda in "On Golden Pond"). Steve Gordon was nominated for Best Original Screenplay but lost to "Chariots of Fire." There were a lot of good movies in 1981.

Gielgud was nominated for — and won — Best Supporting Actor. And "Arthur's Theme" won Best Original Song.

Two out of four isn't bad.

Sadly, Gordon, who directed the movie, died of a heart attack the following year. My guess is that the sequel to "Arthur," which was made in 1988, would have benefited from having Gordon around to direct and write. As it was the sequel was such a washout that Moore disowned the franchise, and no other sequels were made — thankfully.

Taking a Roller-Coaster Ride With Indiana Jones

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Marion (Karen Allen): You're not the man I knew 10 years ago.

Indiana (Harrison Ford): It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage.

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When George Lucas co–wrote "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which premiered on this date in 1981, his intention was to re–create the movie serials of the 1930s and 1940s.

That was before my time, but my parents used to watch the movie serials when they were children, and I gathered from their reaction to the movie that Lucas succeeded in his objective.

Film critic Roger Ebert apparently agreed with them, even though he was born in 1942. Movie serials continued to be made into the early 1950s so he was probably old enough to witness the end of that era — but certainly not its heyday. Nevertheless, his homage to the serials was as entertaining as it could be. I watched it again recently, and I probably enjoyed it as much as I did the first time I saw it.

Ebert wrote nearly 20 years after its debut that the movie "plays like an anthology of the best parts from all the Saturday matinee serials ever made," but he added that "I haven't seen much discussion of the movie's other driving theme, (director Steven) Spielberg's feelings about the Nazis."

Ebert went on to observe that Spielberg gave us his adult treatment of the Holocaust in movies like "Schindler's List," but it was Spielberg's inner teenager who made "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

It was full of edge–of–your–seat adventures from Nepal to Cairo with snakes, spiders, explosions, Nazis — and Karen Allen, who played Ford's sidekick, his best of the series, in my opinion. And it had moments that one remembers years after seeing them — like the iconic scene at the beginning of the movie in which Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) outran the big ball.

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That was in the first seven minutes. After that, no one should have had any doubt about what to expect in the next hour and a half. And what followed was most of the stuff that tends to appeal to teenage boys — primarily action and pretty girls.

It was a roller–coaster ride, from one adventure to the next, each one loosely connected to the central theme of the race between the Nazis and the good guys to find the Ark of the Covenant.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about it was that it worked.

I have seen only a few original serial episodes, but that was probably enough to get a good idea what the serials were like, and my impression was that they were, in a word, preposterous.

I suppose they had to be. The plot, as it were, existed solely to get the hero into some kind of predicament so, no matter how unlikely the premise might be, the viewer would accept it — it was the price that had to be paid to see the hero hanging from a cliff by his fingernails or something like that.

(It is much like the strategy my journalism professors encouraged for prodding a reader to read one's story all the way through. Newspaper readers, we were told then, give — on average — less than half an hour to the daily newspaper, and with so many news sources available today I am sure the average is much lower now. Most newspaper readers, our professors told us, skim the headlines and read the first paragraph or two of stories with headlines that intrigue them.

(My professors told us never to reveal everything we knew about a story in the first paragraph — or the second or the third ... Instead, we should give just enough information for the reader to want to be hungry for more and continue to the next paragraph — and the next and the next. Before they knew it, the readers had read the entire story — even if that had not been their original intention. Well, that was how it was supposed to work. And sometimes I guess it did — or does.)

And, too, I suppose that the serials seem more preposterous to me in 2016 than they did to someone in 1946 because moviemaking technology is so much better now with computer–generated graphics and all that stuff that didn't exist during the serials' heyday. It can make even the most preposterous plot seem plausible.

And yet ...

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Was it so implausible to think that the Nazis would devote all those resources to locating a biblical artifact that may or may not have existed outside of the pages of the Bible?

After all, it is pretty well known that the Nazis sought supernatural support and justification for their cause — and, according to legend, any army that possessed the Ark was invincible. Could the Nazis have resisted such a concept?

It is beyond doubt that the Nazis actively sought any advantage they could get in World War II. The prophecies of Nostradamus, for example, were used as propaganda tools, and we know the Nazis were in a race with the West to develop a nuclear weapon.

Is it so far–fetched to think they might have been looking for the Ark, just as Spielberg and Lucas suggested?

I guess that is a matter of opinion. But the truth of the story was mostly irrelevant because, as Ebert noted, it was "just plain fun" — whether you were a teenage boy or not.

The Quest for What's Next

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"When I was very young, my little brother died. I couldn't fully comprehend it at the time. But for months after the ... accident, I was unable to pass his room without this ... nameless fear. I would get this, uh, tingling sensation in my chest and my arms. And then yesterday, when I found out that I indeed had come close, very close, to death myself, that sensation returned."

Charles (David Ogden Stiers)

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I am reasonably certain that just about everyone, at some time in his or her life, wonders what happens when we die. The more spiritual among us probably muse about it more often than the rest of us — and more intensely when they do.

I always suspected that M*A*S*H's Charles Emerson Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) was a spiritual person. He was pompous, to be sure, but I always sensed that his character was very spiritual as well. His predecessor at the 4077th, Frank Burns, wore his faith on his sleeve; he always seemed phony to me, and that was almost certainly intentional. But Winchester, while the same as Burns in some ways, was quite different in others.

And that is the way life is, isn't it? Whenever there is an opening at your workplace, it is never filled with a clone of the person who worked there before, is it? The replacement may have some things in common with the person he/she replaces, but the new person is a unique individual. That's the way it always was on M*A*S*H whenever a character had to be replaced — and I can think of at least four of the original cast members who left the show.

Winchester's personal quest for the truths of life always seemed genuine — and I thought that was clear to see in the episode of M*A*S*H that aired on this night in 1981, "The Life You Save."

Charles had a near–death experience when a sniper's bullet pierced the cap he was wearing, apparently missing his skull by centimeters at best. It prompted him to embark on an earnest but painful — and, ultimately, futile — journey to find out what really waits for us after death. There have been few scenes on TV as gripping as the one in which Charles badgered a patient who had been clinically dead for a few minutes to tell him what he had seen, what he had felt.

That proved to be unsatisfying, and Charles continued on his quest, which took him in some unexpected directions.

For example, while in charge of the motor pool, Charles instructed Rizzo (G.W. Bailey), the smarmy sergeant from Louisiana, to take a vehicle apart.

"Major, I don't understand; why am I taking this Jeep apart?" Rizzo asked. "It was working just fine!"

"Don't you understand the power you have here?" Charles asked. "You can take a Jeep apart and reduce it to an inert pile of junk, and whenever you want — at a whim — you can fit it together again, and it will roar back to life. If only we could do that with human beings. They wouldn't die."

None of Charles' efforts paid off, though, so he went to Battalion Aid to witness — and participate in — the treatment of the freshly wounded. No doubt he would encounter some soldiers who were mortally wounded, and he could ask them what they were experiencing.

Once he was at Battalion Aid, Charles had a telephone conversation with Col. Potter (Harry Morgan), who asked him, "Are you aware that you could get killed up there?"

"Actually no, that thought hadn't occurred to me," Charles replied. "That would be interesting, wouldn't it?" At that point, he went off in search of a dying soldier.

And, indeed, he did encounter a dying soldier, and he tried to find out what the soldier was feeling, seeing, experiencing — but, although the soldier was aware of the fact that he was dying, he could not feel Charles holding his hand, and the only thing he could say to Charles was "I smell bread."

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That, of course, gave Charles no insight, and he left Battalion Aid after the soldier died.

He also left his cap with the bullet hole at Battalion Aid — apparently concluding that, whatever waits for us after death, if anything does, he would find out what it was soon enough.

As I mentioned, Charles was temporarily in charge of the motor pool during this episode. That was Col. Potter's doing. Potter decided to rotate the additional duty assignments among his officers, and Hawkeye (Alan Alda) was put in charge of the mess tent. Upon taking his assignment, Hawkeye found himself responsible for dozens of missing trays — apparent cogs in Army bureaucracy.

It was an interesting side plot, and it probably had some relevance to the main story, but I have never been able to figure out what it was.

An interesting piece of trivia for you here. M*A*S*H ran for 11 seasons, Charles appeared in a little more than half of those seasons, and this was the only time Charles ever mentioned a sibling other than his sister Honoria. His younger brother was never mentioned again.

This episode was originally scheduled to air the day that Ronald Reagan was shot. Network executives figured — probably correctly — that the nation was in no mood to watch an episode about death hours after the president narrowly avoided death in an assassination attempt.

So it was delayed five weeks — and served as the season finale for M*A*S*H's ninth season, a season whose start was delayed by a three–month strike against TV and movie studios.

A Midsummer Night at M*A*S*H 4077th

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"As of last Tuesday, our C.P.A. is a certified public enemy — having been incarcerated on five counts of fraud, two counts of embezzlement and countless counts concerning accounts for which he cannot ... account."

Charles (David Ogden Stiers)

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I don't think it is necessary to have seen very many episodes of M*A*S*H before it occurs to you that the South Korea of the M*A*S*H universe was always either bitterly cold or brutally hot.

That is probably a bit of an exaggeration — but only a bit. The Korean weather was frequently the subject of jokes on the series, occasionally running for entire episodes, like the one that first aired on this night in 1981, "No Sweat."

Now, I have never been to Asia, but I understand that winters can be quite cold and summers can be hot and humid so that part is accurate. I also gather that the spring and fall months can have their pleasant moments, just as they do in this part of the world.

In other words, South Korea has its extreme moments weatherwise — but, really, doesn't every place? South Korea may have more of those moments than many places, but, come on. I live in Texas. As Gen. Phil Sheridan reportedly said, "If I owned Texas and hell, I would rent Texas and live in hell." We know all about heat here.

And folks in Canada know all about the cold and snow. I guess there are a couple of thousand miles between Texas and Canada, but we do have our bitterly cold snaps here during the winter, and Canadians have their brutally hot snaps in the summer. No place is immune, but few places go careening from one extreme to the other all year long.

In this particular episode, the folks at M*A*S*H were experiencing a severe heat wave, the kind that keeps you awake at night. Now, I'm the kind of person who can't sleep when I am hot and sweaty, anyway, so I could sympathize with the M*A*S*H folks, who were perspiring a lot in this heat wave — especially Margaret (Loretta Swit), who had developed a bad case of prickly heat on her derriere. She needed a certain kind of lotion to ease her suffering, but there had been so many cases of prickly heat that the camp was out of the lotion.

Everyone was affected by the heat, though, and the whole camp was up in the wee hours of the morning, looking for ways to fill the time. I have had my issues with insomnia from time to time as well, and I know how it feels to be up because it is so hot. As I said, I find it difficult to sleep when I am hot and sweaty, and it wasn't hard for me to project myself into their situation. I sure have been there. Been there, done that, don't want to do it again — but, as I say, I live in Texas. It is inevitable that I will be overwhelmed by the heat at some point.

(I have been so desperate to find a way to fill the time when I have been up with insomnia that once I mopped the floors in the kitchen and bathroom at about 2 or 3 in the morning. I guess I was hoping it would make me tired enough to fall asleep. Didn't work. I worked up a good sweat, but never fell asleep.)

Corporal Klinger (Jamie Farr) was up tinkering with the camp's P.A. system. He aspired to be a TV repairman when he went home, and he was getting in some electronics repair practice. Col. Potter (Harry Morgan) came into the office to fetch a sleeping pill. He was sure it would work because it always put him under, but he didn't want to grow dependent on them, which is why he kept them in his office, not his quarters.

Across the camp Major Charles Emerson Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) was trying to sort through his family's financial affairs. The family accountant had been convicted of fraud, embezzlement and, as Winchester put it, "countless counts concerning accounts for which he cannot ... account." Thus, his family had sent all its financial paperwork to him to sort through. He was in the mess tent, using the tables to spread out all that paperwork. Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) found him there and offered to make some lemonade.

More than the weather had B.J. (Mike Farrell) stewing. He was stressing out over a letter from his wife. Their house's gutters were clogged, and she was going to have to resolve the issue. His imagination was running wild. He had himself believing that these clogged gutters inevitably would drive his wife into the arms of a muscular handyman in their neighborhood.

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A wounded soldier was brought in, and that took precedence over everything else. A helicopter was needed to take the soldier to a hospital after the surgery was done, but only Col. Potter could authorize that so Klinger was dispatched to rouse the colonel and have him order the helicopter. The pill had, as Potter predicted, really put his lights out. When Klinger finally got him to the office, he prodded the colonel to place the order for the morning. The colonel began placing an order as if he were staying in a hotel and ordering room service — asking for poached eggs and prunes.

"Order a helicopter," Klinger whispered.

"No, thanks," the out–of–it colonel replied. "I'm not that hungry."

Well, Klinger got Potter to place the order and took him back to bed.

But that was just the beginning. It seemed everyone in camp suddenly needed Potter for some purpose, and every time he was summoned, he had managed to catch up to the previous interruption of his sleep. I guess it was one of those situations where real–world interruptions simply weave their way into a person's dreams.

Winchester was the first to call upon Potter after Klinger got him back to his quarters. Winchester needed carbon paper for his financial paperwork, and the carbon paper was kept in a safe. Only Potter knew the combination.

In Potter's condition, I always wondered how he managed to provide the right safe combination, but somehow he did, and Winchester got him back to his quarters.

Then Hot Lips, upon learning of the helicopter, decided to order it to bring the lotion that would ease her painful itching. Once again, that was a job for Colonel Potter, whose overburdened mind had to balance the two previous visits to his tent and Hot Lips' account of her need for the lotion.

"Medicine? Who's sick?" Potter inquired.

Hot Lips replied that no one was sick, but she had a severe inflammation on her buttocks. In his condition, Potter began reminiscing about a time when he got what he called "rump rots" during World War I when he was pinned down all night in a wet foxhole. Comparing his experience to Hot Lips, he observed, "That cute little caboose of yours must be red as a beet."

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As it turned out Klinger had just finished putting the P.A. system together again, and the conversation had been broadcast all over camp.

Now everyone knew Hot Lips' little secret — except Potter, who would have no recall of that interruption — or any other interruption — of his pill–induced slumber the next day.

Natalie Wood's 75th Birthday

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Hollywood has boasted many beautiful actresses over the years, but only a handful have made my personal list of truly great beauties.

That list doesn't actually exist, of course — well, outside my mind, I suppose. But my mental list includes the likes of Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie Wood. I'm sure there are others that you readers will think of, but those are the top five on my list.

If she had not died in 1981 under circumstances that are still labeled, at best, mysterious — and if we further presume that nothing else would have killed her in the last 32 years — today would have been Natalie Wood's 75th birthday. If she was alive, she'd be a grandmother. Hard to imagine, isn't it?

It's always hard for me to picture people who died young as they might have been at advanced ages, whether they were famous or not. Whenever the subject of prominent people who died young comes up, it never fails to include the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi, Elvis, Princess Diana, and it is always difficult for me to picture them being 30 or 40 or even 50 years older than they were when last we saw them.

I had a friend who died of cancer before his 30th birthday. If he was still living, he would be in his 50s today. I find that very hard to picture. I remember him as he was, and it is hard for me to imagine what he would be like if he had not been dead for nearly 22 years — primarily, I suppose, because I can't really imagine what might have happened in his life in the last couple of decades and how those events might have shaped him.

In a way, I guess, it is the same with Natalie Wood, whether you think of her as a young girl in the original "Miracle on 34th Street" or as a young adult in "West Side Story" or as a more mature woman in "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice." She was 43 when she died. How can we know what might have happened in her life that would have shaped her into the 75–year–old we will never know?

I guess the hardest part of imagining Natalie Wood at 75 is remembering her when she was 8 in "Miracle on 34th Street."

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I don't remember how old I was when I saw that movie for the first time. I may have been no older than Wood had been when she made it, and I remember having a huge crush on her. I guess she was my first.

Anyway, that is the image of Natalie Wood that always comes to my mind first when her name is mentioned — and, I suppose, always will, no matter how many times I see "Splendor in the Grass" or "Rebel Without a Cause" — or the movie she was making when she died, "Brainstorm."

When Wood drowned while on a yachting trip with her husband Robert Wagner and her "Brainstorm" co–star Christopher Walken, her death was ruled an accident, but many of the details surrounding her death were unknown then and are mostly unknown today.

I remember that rumors were rampant at the time. I always dismissed most of it as idle gossip. Nevertheless, there were parts of the story, however incomplete it may have been, that were disturbing.

It was known that Wood had been drinking that evening and that she and Wagner had argued. But no one could be found who could say definitively how Wood — who was known to have a fear of the water and drowning — wound up in the waters of Santa Catalina Island.

But the case was reopened last year when the captain of the yacht reportedly told authorities that an argument between Wood and Wagner had caused her death. To date, no one has been charged in connection with Wood's death.

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After all these years, I'm not really sure if I want to know the truth about what happened to Natalie Wood.

At the time, it was enough for me simply to know that she was dead. I suppose there was a time when I wanted to know if someone had caused her death, but after 32 years, I really don't know what useful purpose could be served. If Wagner really was the cause of her death, would there be anything to gain by putting him on trial now and perhaps imprisoning him? The man is 83 years old.

Wood's family may be seeking some kind of closure. If they are still seeking it after 32 years, I hope they find it — even if it doesn't come in the form they may be hoping for. Thirty–two years is a long time to wait for anything.

Trading Places

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"Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."

Edmund Gwenn

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Most TV series don't last for a decade, and the few that do usually start to run out of gas long before their 10th seasons.

M*A*S*H was always the exception to the rule.

In its 1981–82 season, the series' 10th, it did have its share of weak episodes, but it also enjoyed some high moments. M*A*S*H probably didn't air any episodes that season that are remembered as being among the series' Top 10, but that would have been hard to do. More than 200 episodes had already been aired — including many that are regarded as classics today.

Nevertheless, M*A*S*H reached its usual level of impeccable quality on this night 30 years ago, and it did so in what may be the most challenging of circumstances for a TV series — a holiday season episode.

The inspiration for the episode came from the traditional practice, in most European countries, of observing Boxing Day on the day after Christmas.

Boxing Day is sort of a second Christmas holiday. There is no consensus on the origin of the name — except that everyone agrees it has nothing to do with the sport of boxing. Based on my understanding of it, Boxing Day was intended to be a legal holiday for workers and to encourage charitable activity.

In the M*A*S*H story, it was explained that the tradition on Boxing Day is for the employer to trade places with the employee for a day — kind of an intriguing twist to ponder in an age rife with allegations of class warfare — and it was decided that medical unit would have its own Boxing Day.

The officers would trade places with the enlisted men — which made for some interesting role reversals:

• Klinger traded places with his boss, Col. Potter. For one day, Klinger — who earned his reputation in the series for constantly trying to get out of the Army — was one of the brass.


• As one of his first executive decisions, Klinger decided that allowing Hawkeye and B.J. to be together was just begging for trouble so he decided to split them up.
  
  Hawkeye was assigned to be an orderly with Father Mulcahy. B.J. was put to work on KP duty with Hot Lips — who protested that she "didn't go into a kitchen when I was married!"


• The actual cooking would be done by the aristocratic Charles, who opposed the Boxing Day idea from the start. Nevertheless, Charles welcomed the opportunity to cook for Sgt. Pernelli (Val Bisoglio) "if only to teach you that soup is not a solid object."

Well, the underlings were enjoying their 24–hour promotions, getting lots of chuckles at the expense of the temporarily deposed officers, when things turned serious.

A patient had to be evacuated, but a blizzard was interfering with everything, including a shipment of much–needed fuel. A temporary reversal of the role reversal was necessary.

The episode wrapped up nicely — with everyone, the enlisted as well as the officers, coming away with a new appreciation for what their colleagues did every day to keep the unit functioning.

Not a bad Christmas lesson.

Neighborly Gestures

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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?'

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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.

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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.

Makes me regret there wasn't more.

Rebels With a Cause

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Chicago Sun–Times film critic Roger Ebert compared "Taps" to "Lord of the Flies," and I always felt that was a pretty good comparison.

William Golding's book about a group of boys trying — and failing — to govern themselves on a deserted island also was the story of "Taps," in which a group of boys from a military school — metaphorically stranded in the deserted island of the extensively walled campus — tried to function while under siege from outside influences.

Without giving away too much of the story, the school's commander (authoritatively played by George C. Scott) announced during an end–of–year parade/review that the school would be closed at the end of the next academic year. A real estate company had other plans for the property.

For awhile, hope that the school could be saved prevailed, but conflict soon reared its ugly head.

During a post–commencement dance at the school, a fight broke out between the cadets and some local boys. Scott's character tried to break up the fight, and his handgun was grabbed by one of the locals. It discharged, killing another local boy, and Scott's character was taken into custody under suspicion of manslaughter.

It was announced that the school would be shut down immediately, and the cadets closed ranks.

Conditions weren't quite as primitive for the cadets as they were for Golding's boys — at least, not at first. But, as the siege wore on, things got worse. The cadets ran short of food, then the water and the electricity were shut off.

The resourceful cadets, under the leadership of Timothy Hutton, attempted to restore electricity with an old generator, but the gas they were using ignited and one of the cadets was seriously injured. That led to a temporary truce so the cadet could be taken to the local hospital.

Hutton's character offered to end the standoff if asked to do so by Scott's character, but then he learned that Scott, who had suffered a heart attack after being arrested, had died.

The death of Scott's character seemed to break the resolve of many of the cadets; several had already chosen to leave when given the opportunity, and most of the ones who remained seemed to be too young to be dealing with combat–related issues.

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Eventually, Hutton decided to end the occupation, but some diehards remained — including Tom Cruise (appearing in only his second movie), who opened fire on the National Guardsmen assembled outside the gate. Hutton and Sean Penn tried to stop him, but Hutton (along with Cruise) died when the Guardsmen returned the fire.

The movie came to an end with a flashback, but, as I recall, there was a clear sense that the surviving cadets would surrender, and the conflict would come to a peaceful conclusion.

To be honest, I was never really sure what the lesson of the story was. I gathered that it was some kind of cautionary or morality tale, but, whereas "Lord of the Flies" had some valuable things to say about topics like human nature, "Taps" never really seemed to make any statements or useful observations.

It seemed more inclined to criticize the military culture than praise it, which wasn't unusual at that time. The Vietnam experience was still fresh in the public's mind, and returning soldiers were greeted with derision and ridicule — a far cry from today.

The fact that the soldiers' reception after returning home has changed for the better is certainly a good thing, but it is important to remember that it had not changed that much when "Taps" was made. Ronald Reagan, after all, had just been elected president in a campaign in which his assertion that the mission in Vietnam had been a "noble cause" came under heavy fire.

In the late '70s and early '80s, the military was viewed with considerable suspicion by many — even though the draft no longer existed (registration did, however), and the nation was being defended by an all–volunteer Army.

If "Taps" was being remade today, three decades later, I believe the story would have to be drastically rewritten. I'm not entirely sure that would be possible, either.

"Taps" may only have been possible at the time it was made.

And that makes it a unique story.

Golden Performances

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"Sometimes you have to look hard at a person and remember he's doing the best he can. He's just trying to find his way, just like you."

Ethel Thayer (Katharine Hepburn)

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I always admired Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn.

And it was a treat to see the two of them together, finally.

You know, when you consider their lengthy Hollywood careers and their many mutual acquaintances, it really is astonishing that they had never made a film together until "On Golden Pond."

When they did, though, they made movie magic.

I thought of this recently when I was watching "On Golden Pond" for what may be the 10th time in the last 30 years. I saw it when it was at the theaters, and I have seen it several times on TV. And I realized, as I watched it, that it is the kind of film that still speaks to people in all phases of life — even 30 years after it was released.

It even mirrored the relationship between Fonda and his own children.

I guess I was a little older than the actor who played Billy, the young boy whose character was left with Hepburn and Fonda for the summer while Fonda's real–life daughter Jane and her boyfriend in the movie (played by Dabney Coleman) went to Europe together. Consequently, I guess, I related more to his responses to things.

But, during more recent viewings, I have related more to Jane Fonda, who was probably in her 40s at the time, and her relationship with her father. And, I presume, if I live long enough, there will come a time when I will watch it and relate more to Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn than to the others.

I don't know if "On Golden Pond" was the best film either Hepburn or the elder Fonda ever made. They both won Oscars for it. That was not a new experience for Hepburn. She had been nominated 11 times before, and she had gone home with the statuette on three of those occasions. But it was the only time Fonda won, even though he had been nominated once before.

Really, Fonda should have been nominated more often. I don't think anyone could look at the body of his work and not conclude that he got short–changed by the Academy on several occasions.

That other nomination was in recognition of his work in "The Grapes of Wrath," which was a great movie, but what about "12 Angry Men?" Or "The Lady Eve?" Or "The Ox–Bow Incident?" Or "Mister Roberts?" Or "Fail–Safe?"

Or any of more than 100 brilliant performances over the years?

Perhaps the folks who voted for the Oscars in the early 1980s realized that Fonda had been overlooked, taken for granted. He had been a steady, reliable actor for decades — and he was dying. His health had been failing, and "On Golden Pond" seemed likely to be his final film — which it was.

Consequently, when he received the Oscar for his performance in the spring of 1982, it was seen by many as the Academy's way of rewarding him for a lifetime of brilliant performances — although some saw it as recognition for a singularly great performance.

Either way, it was well deserved. Unfortunately, Fonda was too ill to attend the ceremony, but Jane accepted his award for him — and later acknowledged that "it came just in the nick [of time]." Her father died a few months later.

But on that spring evening in 1982, I remember watching her accept that award and feeling deeply moved in a way that I have seldom felt.

Clearly astonished, Jane Fonda made her way to the stage, where Sissy Spacek gave her the statuette for her father, and Fonda looked directly into the camera and said, "Oh, Dad, I'm so happy and proud for you."

Fonda went on to say that she was sure her father's first reaction, upon hearing the news, had been " 'Ain't I lucky?' As if luck had anything to do with it. ... He has tremendous respect for the other actors who were nominated and has always felt a little strange about these things, these competitions, because it's like comparing apples and oranges. He feels very proud to have been among such a wonderful group."

As anyone who ever saw even one of his performances knows, Fonda was pretty special himself.

Roger Ebert said the experience of watching "On Golden Pond" was "something rare and valuable," and he attributed much of that to the acting. I can't argue with that.

What made the acting as great as it was? Its realistic portrayal of the stages of life.

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Hepburn, of course, was her great self. Her character was the glue that held her family together, and that was something to which just about everyone could relate — because there is one of those in darn near every family.

Likewise, Henry Fonda's character tended to be a bit distant, a bit standoffish, perhaps a little rough, but you always suspected it was more a defense mechanism, intended to keep others from discovering the truth — which, in Fonda's case, was the realization that he was gradually losing his grip on his mental and physical health. Many families have at least one of those, too.

Jane Fonda played their adult daughter who had to confront issues that went back to her childhood. Those issues were complicated by the fact that Billy, in the space of a month, had forged the kind of relationship with her father that had eluded her for decades.

"Don't you think everyone looks back on their childhood with a certain amount of bitterness and regret about something?" Hepburn asked her at one point. "It doesn't have to ruin your life."

That's good, honest writing — but it takes good, honest acting to bring it to life and make it meaningful for the audience.

"On Golden Pond" had an abundance of talented actors, right down to young Doug McKeon, whose character felt abandoned by his father when he was left in the care of Hepburn and the elder Fonda and frequently spoke of "bullshit" — perhaps for the shock value, perhaps because it really expressed what he felt. I never felt the audience could be sure, and I wasn't really sure it mattered.

But I enjoyed an exchange he had with Henry Fonda after saying that fishing was "bullshit."

"You like that word, don't you?" Fonda asked. "Bullshit."

"Yeah," McKeon replied, almost defiantly.

Fonda nodded. "It's a good word."

Henry Fonda and McKeon bonded on the screen and may have had the best dialogue exchanges.

When they first met, McKeon observed that Fonda's character was marking his 80th birthday. "Man, that's really old," the teenager said.

"You should meet my father," Fonda said.

"Your father is still alive?" McKeon asked incredulously.

"No," Fonda said, "but you should meet him."

Ironically, Fonda didn't live to see his 80th birthday, but just about everyone who saw him in "On Golden Pond" must have felt that they knew him.

When Fact and Fiction Merge ...

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Based on E.L. Doctorow's book by the same name, "Ragtime," which was released 30 years ago today, was an entertaining — if, at times, flawed — look at people (some real, some fictional) caught in the turbulence of turn–of–the–century America — New York, in particular.

It was directed by Milos Forman, the director of one of my favorite movies, "Amadeus," a few years later — as well as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" a few years earlier. "Ragtime" wasn't his best effort, but it was, as I say, entertaining.

It was also, to an extent, educational, introducing the moviegoing public to some real (and, ultimately, fascinating) historical characters most had probably never heard of before.

Among them were characters like showgirl Evelyn Nesbit (Elizabeth McGovern), who found herself at the apex of a lover's triangle in which her husband, coal/railroad heir Harry K. Thaw, killed one of Nesbit's lovers, architect Stanford White, at Madison Square Garden, leading to one of the 20th century's first trials of the century.

Nesbit didn't testify at Thaw's first trial, which ended in a deadlock. She was persuaded to testify at the second trial by Thaw's mother, who promised her $1 million and a divorce if she would testify that White abused her and Thaw tried to protect her — which Nesbit did — but her mother–in–law only made good on the promise of a divorce.

In the movie, Nesbit was given $25,000. I don't know if her mother–in–law was that generous in real life.

That testimony was a real bargain, though, even if Mother Thaw felt obliged, however minimally, to part with some cash in exchange for it.

The historical record suggests that it saved her son. Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent some time in a hospital for the criminally insane. Eventually, he was judged to be sane and was released.

McGovern's performance earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The movie received seven other Oscar nominations, but it did not win any of them.

In the movie, as in Doctorow's novel, Nesbit was kind of the common link between the real–life characters and the fictional ones. After her husband was charged with murder, she met a fictional young man who was living with his sister and her family.

The young man was smitten with her and, after a somewhat awkward first meeting, became virtually inseparable from her.

Quite a few historical characters appeared in the novel, and some found their way onto the big screen — although none quite so prominently as Nesbit.

I don't know if McGovern's portrayal of Nesbit was accurate, but I liked her kind of scatter–brained character, and I found McGovern to be unexpectedly charming.

Perhaps the only actress who might have been better was Goldie Hawn — who made a career of being ditzy in 1970s and 1980s movies — after being the very definition of ditzy on Laugh–In in the late 1960s.

I guess it was expected of her. It wasn't expected of McGovern, whose brief movie career had included the role of Timothy Hutton's girlfriend in the Oscar–winning drama, "Ordinary People." That transition from type was decidedly unexpected — and, as a result, quite effective.

It was fitting, I suppose, that such a turn–of–the–century story was a transitional movie for several stars.

"Ragtime" was the last big–screen appearance for James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, who made nine movies together.

While it marked the end for those two actors, "Ragtime" was the beginning for Jeff Daniels, who made his debut.

Other members of the cast were Mary Steenburgen, Samuel L. Jackson, Howard Rollins, Fran Drescher and Norman Mailer.