Bugsy and info on a new novel

 My father sparked my interest in science fiction. The first movie I saw in the theater was Forbidden Planet. Over time we watched The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits on TV, and The Andromeda Strain and Close Encounters of the Third Kind in the theaters. This interest led me to write a sci-fi novel:

Galloper’s Quests, based on Gulliver’s Travels, begins in 2079. Navy Captain Samuel Galloper is a scientist who continually seeks answers about the mysteries of the universe. The military only temporarily quieted his feverish mind through its regimented ways. Galloper invents a propulsion system that transforms matter into energy and can open wormholes. However, the military wants to steal his work and use it to wage war. So, Galloper decides to prevent the perversion of his invention by leaving Earth on a journey through the cosmos. He visits three planets whose inhabitants exhibit very different ways of dealing with life. He becomes involved in the armed conflict between two of the planets. Along the way he befriends aliens and a witty robot. He falls in love with an extraterrestrial who might know more about humanity than Galloper does. As Galloper nears the end of his quests, he must weigh the risks of returning to Earth. Will his invention fall into the wrong hands? Will anyone believe his story about his intergalactic travels? What fate awaits his new love if she goes with him?

https://www.amazon.com/Gallopers-Quests-Fall-Earth-Destiny/dp/B0DRTBVDM6/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_

 

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

As in other gangster movies, the hoodlum in Bugsy (1991) has a family life that he tries to keep separate from his unlawful activities. Bugsy Siegel (Warren Beatty) has a wife and two children, who appear in the first shot of the film. Later he has a birthday party for his daughter which Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) and his associates invade. As Sigel dashes back and forth between his family and his business associates, that scene shows how the private life and the gangster world can’t be kept apart. When he has a new home with Virginia Hill (Annette Bening), he again can’t segregate parts of his life as she insists on riding with him when he secretly plans to eliminate Harry Greenberg (Elliott Gould), his best friend, for testifying against Siegel’s partner Lucky Luciano (Bill Graham).

We discover immediately by Siegel’s interest in clothes, sun lamps, and facials that he is focused on appearance, which includes his name. He chastises a male shopper that “Bugsy” refers to a creature that crawls in the dirt. It’s lowly, which is not what he thinks of himself. His name is Benjamin, which he reminds others is in the Bible. He wants to be revered, but he is hardly compatible with anything biblical. He also uses women for sex and then discards them, which adds to his self-involved personality. Underneath that fashionable appearance is a man who has no trouble killing a worker who he believes has been stealing from him, and his partners, Luciano and Lansky. We have here the theme of how surface appearance differs from the truth beneath the façade. That Beatty is a handsome fellow adds to this point.

Siegel’s friend, George Raft, who played gangsters in the movies, and Siegel go to the studio where they are shooting a film called “Manpower,” which is appropriate for the crime genre. So, we have a gangster film within a gangster film, thus stressing the appeal for outlaws as independent rebels in the American society. Siegel’s affinity for movie making is evident when he quickly checks himself out in a mirror on the set, making sure that his appearance is pleasing and audience friendly. The headline in a local newspaper stresses the fantasy versus reality of criminal life when it asks in a headline if Siegel is a gangster or a movie star. He even films a scene of himself saying Raft’s lines in the movie “Manpower,” and then plays it back in his new house. So, we have an actor (Beatty) playing a gangster watching himself play an actor pretending to be a gangster. Quite a meshing of fiction and true life.

Siegel buys a home from an opera singer living in Hollywood on the spot with $60,000 he carries around with him in a leather bag. He does the same when he sees a car that he wants. That idea that you can get what you want without restriction is attractive to the American capitalist audience.

On the movie set he meets Virginia, who has a much stronger will than the females Siegel is used to meeting. He tries to put the moves on her and is frank about being married. She tells him he is a smooth talker, but “dialogue is cheap in Hollywood, Ben. Why don’t you run outside and jerk yourself a soda.” She wittily reverses the “soda jerk” phrase and cuts him down to size by saying he should choose that lowly profession.

In a meeting with LA crime boss Jack Dragna (Richard Sarafian), Siegel says either Dragna joins him and his gangster friends in the crime operation or Dragna must shoot him, and he hands Dragna his gun. The impression is that Siegel lives up to the name “Bugsy” because he acts crazily. Siegel wastes no time in getting what he wants. He explains his philosophy of grabbing what he desires when he says, “Time is vicious when you take it for granted.”

Siegel is a complex character. His desire to break American laws is offset by his patriotic enthusiasm. He tells Raft that Mussolini is “Hitler’s partner. He’s our mortal enemy,” and he does not tolerate anyone being in the United States who consorts with the country’s enemies. He actually hatches a pan to get close to the Italian fascist to kill him. When he finds out fellow Italians killed the dictator, Siegel is upset, because he wanted to commit the act, and now he can’t add that item to his list of ego-building accomplishments.

He wins Virginia over, but she knows that they will cause each other grief. That’s because, she says, they are both selfish. She says, “we both want whatever we want whenever we want it, and we both want everything.” Given that premise, they start a passionate love-hate relationship. There is jealousy about her sexual past, which is a double standard given his promiscuity.

Siegel’s sociopathic nature is evident as he confronts Dragna about stealing from him. He yells like a maniac, threatens to kill him, plays Russian roulette, and makes Dragna crawl like a pig. He then calmly eats his dinner, only to be seduced by the turned-on Virginia, who shows her own deviance by getting excited by Siegel acting like a lunatic.

Speaking of crazy people, Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel), the head of the LA mob scene, makes a deal with Siegel reluctantly. They go to Las Vegas to check out a rundown place that has a few slot machines that bring in some money. After getting into an argument with Virginia, he gets out of the car, walks into the desert, and gets his epiphany about turning Vegas into a gambling mecca. (IMDb notes that the original idea for turning Vegas into a casino town belonged to Billy Wilkerson, a gambler, Siegel became his partner and then took over the operation).

Despite his wacky personality, Siegel has vision. He explains to Lansky how Nevada allows gambling and if they make it hospitable with a large, luxurious hotel, and add all the elements that a city possesses, like schools and a church, then they will be able to control the city. His ambitions are grand, as he says that after controlling the city, they can control the state, and then have a big say in who is President. He even counters Lansky’s argument about concentrating on Cuba when Siegel says a foreign country can kick you out. That foreshadowing is realized in The Godfather, Part II. Lansky is the voice of reality, trying to reign in Siegel’s off-the-rails behavior, such as trying to assassinate Mussolini. Lansky also alerts Siegel to the fact that the alure of stardom, which feeds Siegel’s narcissism, conflicts with the gangster life, where one doesn’t want to draw attention to the illegal activities being perpetrated.

Siegel eventually wins over even the practical Lansky as he plans his oasis, his “Eden” in the desert, in the form of the Flamingo Hotel. His imagination is grandiose as he says about costs, “Did they ask Michelangelo what it would cost to paint the Sistine Chapel? Did they ask Shakespeare what it would cost to write MacBeth?” Of course comparing the building of a hotel-casino in Las Vegas to immortal works of art shows how egotistical Siegel is.

Siegel’s volatile nature is on display as he contemplates suicide after killing Greenberg. Virginia saves him by getting the gun and shooting it six times to empty the pistol of bullets. Because Virginia’s ex, Joey Adonis (Lewis Van Bergen) calls Virginia a whore, Siegel savagely beats the man, while still checking out how he looks in a window. It’s like Mr. Hyde wanting to keep up appearances as Dr. Jekyll. 

A taxi driver testifies that he dropped Greenburg at Siegel’s house the day Greenburg was killed. So, Siegel is arrested for the homicide. His accommodations in a private jail are plush, with gourmet food and telephone at his disposal which shows how much leverage he has even in prison. Siegel is more concerned about appearances again, saying a photo in the newspaper made him look pale, despite his tanning routines.

The cost of the Flamingo soars, and in his divorce settlement Siegel gave much of his wealth to his wife and children. He must cash in all his assets, including his Hollywood home, to finance the hotel. Virginia has been running the project while Siegel is incarcerated. Siegel gets out after Cohen prevents the taxi driver from testifying in the homicide trial. Siegel’s reckless spending alienates him from Lansky and Luciano.

Siegel tries to get Virginia to fly on separate occasions. She is brash and strong, but she has a deathly dear of flying. Her aversion to getting in a soaring plane may suggest that, despite her ambitiousness, she can’t join Siegel on his grandiose level of reckless daring. But back on earth, on solid ground, she is an aggressive schemer. Cohen tells Siegel that she stole two million from Siegel and put it in a Swiss bank account. Siegel mentions this information when she is jealous of his asking a possible female employee if she likes flying. She accuses Siegel of looking for a new girlfriend. The argument between them leads to Virginia leaving him.

Lansky sums up Siegel’s character when he tells Luciano, in exile in Cuba, and fellow gangsters that Siegel has no business ability because he doesn’t respect the cost of things. It isn’t money he is interested in but making something real from one of his ideas. Lansky says, “He is a dreamer.” These words make one think that if he was more stable emotionally and not a gangster, Siegel could have accomplished a great deal given his imagination and drive.

However, these are hardened criminals only interested in the bottom line, like most big businessmen. Luciano knows about the money in the Swiss account and suggests Siegel is behind it. Siegel also has overspent and oversold investments in the hotel which will tank the whole enterprise if the Flamingo is unsuccessful. It seems fate is working against Siegel, since on opening day there is a powerful rainstorm, in the desert of all places, which means that although it is Christmas, Siegel’s stocking comes up empty. But he has faith and tells Lansky on the phone not to sell his shares in the Flamingo.

Lansky says Siegel must fly to LA that evening. Siegel suspects that he is in trouble but asks Lansky not to involve Virginia in his failures. He is willing to take all the responsibility to protect her. In a sort of ironic play on the last scene in Casablanca, Virginia shows up at the airport with the two million dollars, but Siegel tells her to save it for a rainy day, which is funny because it is raining, and he needs help now. She is even willing to join him on the flight in the dangerous weather, which shows her love for him. Her just offering to help him is enough for Siegel.

Lansky said he would “handle it” if the casino didn’t look like a success. The assumption is that he follows through. Bullets riddle Siegel’s house as he watches his bad screen test. He is killed as the Hollywood-like dream of his fails which is suggested by the shots destroying his video equipment.

The gangsters tell the devastated Virginia that Siegel is dead and they are taking over the Flamingo. Endnotes state that Virginia returned the money to Lansky. However, she couldn’t live without Siegel and committed suicide. Siegel’s advice to Lansky was right. Las Vegas has become a huge money-maker. The last shot of the film shows the Las Vegas strip lit up with an abundance of hotel-casinos. Siegel’s dream came true, but his dangerous life denied him the chance to see it.

Tootsie

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

I never liked Tootsie Roll candies. They weren't that tasty and they always became stuck between my teeth. But the film Tootsie is a delectable treat to watch. 1982 was an exceptional year for Oscar caliber films. Ghandi is a sweeping, intelligent epic, and the eventual Academy Award winner for best film, director, and actor, Ben Kingsley, in a totally believable performance as the title character. Another film, The Verdict, could also have won in any other year for its performance by Paul Newman and the enduring greatness of the script by David Mamet. And, of course, there was that creature who everyone hoped would phone home, ET. But, Tootsie was another terrific film that year, which, although a comedy, has many thought provoking insights into male/female relationships. It is also a movie that shows how the overwhelming majority of actors are unemployed and desperate to practice their craft. But, it transcends on the theme of identity, and poses questions about who we are.

Dustin Hoffman's character, Michael Dorsey, is a struggling New York actor. Because he needs money to produce the play by his roommate, played by an unbilled Bill Murray, and is perceived as too difficult to work with, he dresses up as a woman and lands a role as a strong-willed hospital administrator. The ironies pile up. As Dorothy Michaels, he is at first considered too genteel, too feminine to get the role until Dorothy asserts herself later in the audition. Dorothy becomes very popular on the show as a breakthrough “woman” who will not be dominated in a man's world. Her strength influences the woman Michael falls in love with, Julie Nichols, played by Jessica Lange in an Oscar-winning supporting actress role. She leaves her two-timing boyfriend, the soap director, Ron, played by Dabney Coleman. Michael starts to understand women in this new role, and says he knows what it's like to get rejected just because he doesn't have the right "look" for a part. Because he is an actor, he realizes what it's like to be a woman, waiting for the phone to ring. He tells his agent (played by director Sydney Pollack) that he has something to say to women like him, but Pollack points out that there are no women like him. 

We see Michael at the onset of the film on the make, just like most. He later lies to Teri Garr's character, Sandy, because he doesn't want to reveal that he has taken the part for which she auditioned. He goes to bed with her to cover up why he is caught half-undressed, ready to try on her clothes. He then stands her up so he can be with Julie. Thus, he is not unlike the director, because he uses women, too. As Dorothy, seeing how the director treats Julie, and calls women "Babe," "Hon," and "Tootsie," he tells Coleman that he understands him better than he thinks, because he realizes now that there is no excuse for how Michael has treated women. It is when he experiences the condescension that women must endure that he changes his outlook.

Early in the film, Murray's character, Ted, tells Michael, who is making money being a waiter, just one role he plays, to stop being Michael Dorsey the waiter, or the actor, just be yourself. At that point, he isn't sure who that really is. It is through the film’s narrative that he learns to become a better man by being a woman.

Julie's dad, Wes, played by Charles Durning, becomes interested in Dorothy romantically. When he later finds out that “she” is a he, Wes is able to admit that he found Michael good company, and they are on their way to becoming friends as they shoot a game of pool together at the end of the movie. So, Les actually likes the person under the costume. He connects to the essence of the other person based on what is below the surface appearance. 

There are some insightful scenes in the film. As Dorothy, Hoffman can't get a cab to stop, but when he uses his real male voice, the cab stops. In that small scene, volumes are spoken about how society will follow the commands of a male over a female. Dorothy, at Wes' farm with Julie, has to share the bed with her. He wears a fake hairnet and the wig gets stuck and looks backward when he turns his head around on the pillow, illustrating the reverse universe of the film. In another scene, Julie tells Dorothy that it would be refreshing if a man would just say I want to make love to you, showing her desire to want sex just like a man without game playing: however, when Michael as himself says those words to Julie at the party they attend, it comes off like just another pick-up line, and she throws a drink in his face – acting like a woman is supposed to act with a forward man. 

Michael also begins to realize how much money and time women spend on wardrobe and makeup since appearance is what is valued above all else in society's assessment of women. At one point, the older actor on the soap says, after Dorothy receives candy from Les, that giving chocolates to a woman is a thoughtless gift, implying that it just adds weight to the female form – another reference to the emphasis on looks when it comes to women. When Julie finds out that Michael is Dorothy, instead of slapping him, like a woman is supposed to do, she instead punches him hard in the stomach, showing a role reversal, and how she has been influenced by the strong Dorothy even in this moment of the unveiling of his deception.

The first scene of the film shows Michael, putting on make-up, (which is really Hoffman, an actor, pretending to be an actor preparing for an actor’s role) presenting an outward appearance that is part of a role, something that is different than who he is in real life. But, don't all people play roles, dress up as doctors, teachers, office workers, firemen, policemen, etc.  And, don't actors, as well as others, bring forth to the outer performance inward qualities? And sometimes, doesn't the role, the outward action, transform the inner person? What do you think about how much the inner person is like or unlike what appears on the outside?

Next week’s movie is Sweet Smell of Success.

Ordinary People

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

I know film critics went into rage mode when Ordinary People took the Academy Award for Best Picture for the year 1980 over Raging Bull. Where do you stand on this argument? In my opinion, it was a worthy winner. The acting and the directing, by first time helmer Robert Redford, hit artistic marks with Oscar caliber ammunition. The theme about the tension between the desire for control and limitations on behavior and thoughts and the conflicting need to break rules and boundaries has always been a subject of interest to me.

The very first scene lets you know where this film is heading. We see a placid lake with a hovering bird, both representing calm and peace. We then view reassuring vistas of autumnal trees and a safe, affluent suburban setting as the ordered, hypnotic sounds of Pachebel's Canon in D wash over us. We zoom in on the youthful choir singing words accompanying the music. Then, almost brutally, there is a cut to the main character, a sweat soaked Conrad (Timothy Hutton), waking up from nightmare. Thus, the conflict has been immediately presented to us between order on the surface and caged chaos raging beneath the controlled world above.

The water references above are intentional. Conrad survived, at least physically, a boating accident, in which the only other member of the crew was his older brother, Buck, who drowned. Conrad is psychologically underwater now, suffocating from guilt, not only for what happened to his brother, but because he attempted suicide by cutting his wrists in the bathroom, which, of course is associated with water. He is a member of the high school swim team, which symbolizes how he is unable to get out of the mental ocean threatening to swallow him up because of his "faults." When he finds out that a friend at the psychiatric hospital committed suicide, the first thing he does is throw water on his face, revealing his scarred wrists, implying that he feels guilty that he could not help her. Eventually his psychiatrist (Judd Hirsch) makes him realize that he has to let himself off the “hook” (fishing reference) about saving himself in the boating accident. And, that he has to forgive his mother for her limitations. He tells his patient that he is not big on "control" which stifles feeling. Conrad's independence is illustrated when he quits the swim team.

His control obsessed mother, Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), cannot cope with the upheavals in her family and deals with the problems by going on as if nothing has happened, submerging all attempts to openly deal with the pain suffered by her son and her husband, Cal (Donald Sutherland). Conrad states that his mother will not forgive him, that it was almost impossible to wash out the blood stains in the bathroom after his suicide attempt. Water is also used as a symbol showing the desire to clean up a mess similar to trying to wipe the memory clean of disturbing thoughts. Beth immediately shoves Conrad's breakfast down the garbage disposal when he says he is not hungry one morning. She tries to stifle her husband from mentioning that Conrad is seeing a psychiatrist, because this would acknowledge that a problem exists. She heatedly rebuffs Cal at lunch after he suggests that they all get things out in the open by seeing the psychiatrist. Then she quickly shuts up and puts on a happy face when the waitress approaches their table. Outward conforming appearances are what matter to her. If things look okay, then things must be okay. When they do a get-away to Texas, she and Cal argue over including Conrad in a future trip. He says that all her son wants is to let him know she doesn't hate him. She says, "Mothers don't hate their sons." She says it like it's a rule she is reciting from the Good Mother’s Handbook. She doesn't make it personal by saying that she cares for Conrad.

In the end, Cal gives a concise assessment of his wife. He says that everything would have been fine it there hadn't been any "mess." That she cannot deal with mess. This fact means that she is not really strong. This conclusion is the crux of why someone rigidly adheres to rules and accepted behaviors. They are crutches for the weak, who cannot face anything without supports to prop them up along life’s paths. People like Beth are not willing to let themselves test their inner strength by facing reality with an open, inviting mind.

There is so much layered in this movie, I think a thorough discussion can go on much longer. The performances by Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore and Judd Hirsch are pitched perfectly. And Timothy Hutton, in his Oscar-winning role, hits every note, except maybe when he tries to sing. And blame Redford for the overuse of the Pachebel Canon at so many weddings.

Next week's movie is Tootsie.

A Man for All Seasons

SPOILER ALERT! The plot of the movie will be discussed.

Even if you do not subscribe to any established religious faiths, the issues raised by religion are essential to human nature. And religion's impact on history has been immense. One might think that a story set during Henry VIII's time about a conflict between the King and the Chancellor of England over the Catholic prohibition concerning a divorce would not speak to us today. But, that's not what this intelligent film by director Fred Zinnemann is really about. Its focus is on honor, integrity, and the courage to adhere to one's convictions no matter what the consequences.

Henry the VIII, played by a larger than life Robert Shaw, appoints Sir Thomas More, a lawyer and magistrate, as Chancellor to make him beholden to him in his battle with the Catholic Church. Sound familiar? The same situation is depicted in the film Becket, which has similar themes, and which I will discuss in another entry. Henry was given approval by the Pope to marry his brother's widow (considered by many as incest). He then wants to divorce her, saying that he shouldn't have been allowed to marry her in the first place. He now wants to marry Anne Boleyn (a wordless Vanessa Redgrave). Although I do not agree with the positions of the main characters in Becket and this film, I still find myself admiring them because the kings they oppose are not arguing an opposing ideology, but instead are only interested in fulfilling their own desires.  

Shaw's loudness is offset by the quiet strength of Paul Scofield's Oscar winning performance as More. Thomas tries to walk a moral tightrope as he tries to not open himself up as a traitor to the crown and at the same time keep his allegiance to the Pope.  So his fate hinges on what he says and especially on what he does not say. Words are very important in this story, and More's brilliance shines as he plays this legal cat and mouse game. The King, in order to get what he wants, breaks with Rome, and establishes the Church of England, with himself as its head. Those who oppose him on this action are considered traitors. Thomas resigns as Chancellor when he sees he cannot openly support the King, who requires his followers to sign a loyalty oath, which More will not do. And so he is brought to the Tower of London. But, he is very careful not to ever say that he opposes the King, not even to his wife, played by Wendy Hiller. It is ironic that he tells her at one point that he does not consist of the stuff of which martyrs are made. It is Richard Rich (John Hurt) who betrays him, perjuring himself by saying that More told him that the King through Parliament could not undermine the Pope's authority.

More is a complicated character. He is a devout Catholic, believing in the Pope's authority handed down from Jesus to St. Peter and his successors. He refuses to have his daughter (Susannah York) marry Will Roper (Corin Redgrave) until he renounces support for Martin Luther and thus stops being a heretic. But, he believes in the laws of man, too. He tells Will that he would give the Devil himself benefit of the law for his (More's) own safety's sake, stating that for the law to be effective, it must be applied universally. What More objects to in Roper, and especially with Henry, is that they have no codes to live by, no core belief systems, and that they change the rules on a whim to suit themselves. More says to Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles) that when a man in office ignores his own morality, he leads his country to chaos.

The motifs in the film enhance its themes. There is a great deal of going back and forth by boat between the seat of government and Thomas' home. This fact comes to symbolize the ethical distance between the King and the affairs of state and More's religious morality. At one point, because he is now considered out of favor with the King, the water taxi boatmen will not shuttle Thomas, and he must find his own way home, which emphasizes the loneliness of the person taking a moral stand against those in power.

When the King visits Thomas, he jumps from his boat into the mud. He laughs and, following his example, his followers all jump into the mud. The mud symbolizes the moral muck in which the King and his followers now reside. Henry's filthy mind is seen in how he lusts after Thomas' daughter, but turns away from her when she exhibits the beauty of her mind with her fluent Latin. Ironically, the man of no morals seeks the approval of the man of truthfulness to legitimize his selfish, lustful ways. Rich is tempted by Cromwell (Leo McKern) to inform on More, and when Rich falls backward into the mud after he is offered a post for his collaboration, you know that he, too, now wallows in corruption. 

Thomas tells Rich that he cannot employ him at Court or recommend him for a job in public office because he knows he will accept bribes. Thomas asks him what he would do with the money from a bribe. Rich says he would buy proper clothes. As we see Rich become more involved with Cromwell in the conspiracy against More, Rich's wardrobe becomes more expensive and elaborate. His exterior increases in adornment as his soul declines in worth. 

At the end of the film we are told that Cromwell, like any henchman whose mission in life is doing the dirty work their superiors delegate to them, was executed at the end of his usefulness. Henry died, appropriately, of syphilis. Rich, however, became Chancellor of England, and died in his bed. In this world, alas, the bad are not always punished. Thomas, whose moral constancy made him a man for all seasons, says at his execution that he was "the King's good servant, but God's first."

Does this film make a good argument about the need for the separation between church and government? What do you think?

Next week's film is Ordinary People.

Vertigo

(A version of this post first appeared on the Bryn Mawr Film Institute Blog)

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

My father was a big Alfred Hitchcock fan because he was the “Master of Suspense.” But, there is so much more going on in his art. He addresses voyeurism often, which is fitting, since audiences live vicariously through the characters filmmakers present on the screen. However, Hitchcock goes further, making the audience, from the perspective of the camera lens, an unseen presence stepping into the stories themselves. We become a Peeping Tom, like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window; we observe Janet Leigh through the hole in the wall, in Psycho; we are accused directly in the diner scene of causing the coming apocalypse, in The Birds.

In Vertigo, Jimmy Stewart's weird obsession with Kim Novak takes this voyeurism to the point of obsession. The voyeur has no respect for the individual, who is only a means to satisfy the voyeur's fantasy. In the opening credits we see a woman's face and then her eye. We then look into that eye, and there is a spinning pinwheel. Right from the beginning, Hitchcock is saying that a man can become unbalanced with obsession over a woman.

Stewart's detective Scottie discovers that he has acrophobia while hanging from a gutter after chasing a criminal. He is then traumatized by witnessing a fellow policeman fall off the roof trying to save him. Falling becomes a motif in the film. The story takes place in hilly San Francisco, which symbolizes the precariousness of Scottie's predicament. (Scottie lives right near Coit Tower.)  Probably because he feels guilty about the dead police officer, he dives into the bay to save Novak's character. But the jump also shows how dangerous his obsession can become. Of course, there are the falling deaths from the tower, and Scottie has dreams of falling off the tower. After the death of his fantasy woman, he drops into a state of catatonia, unable to be in the real world. The falling theme also refers to the danger of falling in love with the wrong person, for both Scottie and Novak's Judy. One could push it and say, for Scottie, the towers are phallic symbols, and the fear of falling could symbolize the fear of impotence in real life, thus encouraging the escape into fantasy.

The acrophobia is not only a plot device so that Scottie can't witness Thomas Helmore's Gavin throwing his wife off the tower. It also symbolizes Stewart's inability to see the big picture from a height. He can only see as far as his version of a dream woman lets him. The first scene deals with beauty and sex, as Scottie’s ex-fiancée, Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) draws fashion pictures and discusses a newly designed bra. She is not the Hitchcock ice-goddess, since she just draws beauty and clinically describes the bra's engineering. When she draws a picture of Novak as Gavin's wife Madeleine and substitutes her own face, Scottie quickly departs the room, showing how she does not fit his sexual requirements. She is real and can't compete with a dream girl. Gavin is an old friend, who knows of Scottie's disability, and wants Stewart to find out where his wife is going on her mysterious trips. At first Scottie is the voyeur spying on her beauty at the restaurant. Hitchcock places the audience in the car seat, following Novak, joining the detective in his fantasy. When he follows her through a dark walkway and opens the door, the scene lights up with the beautiful colors of flowers which the equally beautiful Novak is buying. It reminds one of Dorothy opening the door to her drab house to witness the awe of Oz, which, of course is a fantasy land, and which can be dangerous, just like Scottie's obsession.

The husband says a dead woman is possessing his wife. She goes into spells, visits her grave, and looks at the dead woman's painting on the wall of the gallery. Scottie observes that the curl in Novak's hair mirrors the curl of the dead woman in the painting. We realize that the circular curls also echo the theme of spinning wheels, leading to actual and symbolic vertigo. The story of the ghost plays into the whole unreal, fantasy theme of the film. Scottie sees Madeleine check into a hotel, but the concierge says she was not there that day, and there is no evidence of her in the hotel room. After Scottie rescues Madeleine from the bay, the camera shows her clothes hung up and drying in his home, and Novak naked under the covers in his bed. This is kind of creepy, knowing that she has been undressed by a stranger. It is as if Stewart's character presumptuously has actually taken possession of her (in contrast to her pretending to have become possessed) as an object in his fantasy world. When they are in the sequoia forest, Madeleine seems to disappear for a while, like an unearthly spirit. After his release from the mental institution, Scottie looks for Madeleine wherever he goes, like a morbid ghost hunter. It is ironic that he becomes haunted by the ghost of a woman who pretended to be haunted by another dead woman. Of course, when Scottie accidently sees Judy, thinking she is only a Madeleine look-a-like and not part of the murder conspiracy, he wants to resurrect the dead Madeleine, forcing the now-in-love Judy to again play the same part. When Scottie finally recreates her with make-up, hair styling, and clothes, Hitchcock makes Novak look like she is a ghost, as she materializes out of the hotel room's wall in a neon sign induced mist.

Scottie's obsession is a kind of madness. Gavin says there is madness in Madeleine's family, which sets the stage for the belief that she would commit suicide (her name has the word "mad" in it).  And, Scottie's madness leads to a sort of personality suicide as he realizes at the end, as Roger Ebert says in his book, The Great Movies, that another man (Gavin) created the woman he wanted to forge. Thus, Scottie's dream was not even his own. First he lost the person he wrongly thought was his ideal woman incarnate, and then he loses the woman he thought he created to be his perfect reproduction of his ideal.  For Hitchcock, the desire to possess one's dream person is an impossible act and can only turn life into a nightmare.

Dr. Strangelove

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't seen the film, the plot will be discussed. I guess you have to be strange to love this movie, and I fit that requirement. Again, I have to thank my parents for taking their young child and respecting him to be able to appreciate this great film at such an early age. Even as a thirteen-year-old, I enjoyed the dark comedy in this flick.

Over the opening credits of Stanley Kubrick's film there is a plane fueling a bomber with a phallic-looking line connecting them, suggesting a symbolic sexual exchange of fluids. Right from the beginning of this perfect satire of the insanity of modern warfare the director shows the connection between the male desire for sexual power and making war.

There is General Jack D. (the "d" sounds like "the") Ripper's preoccupation with bodily fluids as he puffs on a cigar, another phallic symbol. He is compensating for sexual impotence (as he says he denies women his "essence"), by spewing forth his military machismo. He tries to place the blame of his own shortcomings onto an outside entity, the Communists, who, through fluoridation, have undermined his manhood. He lives up to his namesake, Jack the Ripper, by also substituting violence as the outlet for sexual aberration. George C. Scott's General Turgidson, (the name suggesting the swollen male member), is first seen with his half-naked secretary, and says he will return to her for "blast off," making the sexual/rocket analogy. He is intrigued at the end of the movie at the suggestion that there should be a ten to one female/male ratio in the brave new world that will follow the nuclear holocaust. When Peter Sellers' President Muffley (a name which suggests the female pubic region) first talks with the drunken Russian Premiere, it is stated that the latter is, first and foremost, a man, and the President is literally causing coitus interruptus.  Seller's ex-Nazi scientist, Dr. Strangelove, has a hand that wants to salute Hitler, and the spasmodic raising of the arm could be seen as the desire to achieve an erection. Slim Pickens' bomber pilot has a survival kit that contains lipstick, nylons, and prophylactics.  As he says, a guy could have a good time in Vegas with the items. He is seen looking at a Playboy magazine, and the safe that contains the bombing codes has half-naked pictures on it. His plane's primary target is "La Puta," which translated from Spanish is "The Whore."  In the end, he straddles the penis-shaped bomb, riding the weapon of mass destruction, waving his cowboy hat. The image of the American love of the violent, shoot-'em-up Wild West is hysterical and chilling. The film associates guns and bombs exploding with the male orgasm.

There are many inspired moments in this film. There is a deadpan Keenan Wynn saying that breaking the soda machine for change to call off the nuclear attack will result in the dire consequences of having to answer to the Coca Cola Company. The look on Scott's face as his General, in an elated depiction of how great his pilots are at carrying out their mission, turns to a realization of the horror of the situation, is great acting. He also hysterically says that General Ripper "may have exceeded his authority" in ordering a nuclear attack. Equally funny is when Turgidson says that the whole military decision making process should not be scrapped because of "one slipup." The Russian leader's name is "Premiere Kissoff," which is appropriate for what is happening to the human race. Pickens' Major Kong says that there will be citations and promotions for his crew after their mission, as if there will be any "after" following the explosion of the nuclear weapons. The plane's H-bombs outrageously have written on them "Nuclear Warheads - Handle with Care," as if they were only some dinner plates in a crate. The use of the music from the song "Try a Little Tenderness" at the beginning as bombers are depicted, is truly ironic, as are the signs at Ripper's air force base stating "Peace is our Profession," which is the actual the motto of SAC. Dr. Strangelove is in a wheelchair, suggesting that the fascist movement has been crippled.  But, at the end, when the bombs are exploding, he is able to walk again, showing that, ironically, we have resurrected the dark angel of death.

This film is my favorite satire, although Wag the Dog and Thank you for Smoking are up there, too. Do you have favorites under this category?

Next week’s film is Vertigo.

Forbidden Planet

I have enjoyed watching movies, discussing them, and just plain having fun thinking, quoting, and referencing them as long as I can remember. In recent years I have taken a number of film studies courses. My scholarly background is in literature, and those films which weave images and words, as do certain stories and poems, into fabrics of meaningful themes appeal to me. I think the relevance of movies is valued by many people, particularly Americans, since they are part of the backdrop of our existence.  Films bookmark our personal narratives.

I am exploring movies, one a week, after this post, usually on a Sunday, in depth.  SPOILER ALERT:  In order to deeply delve into its meaning, I will have to reference a movie's narrative. Most of what I say will be my own views on the subject matter. If I am borrowing from others, I will provide references. 

I was lucky to have a father who loved movies. He especially liked science fiction. I guess that’s why the first movie I saw in a theater was Forbidden Planet. I didn’t know anything about Shakespeare when I saw this film after it was released in 1956. And it was much later that I learned that it was a sci-fi version of The Tempest, with Walter Pidgeon playing an intergalactic scientist version of Prospero, the sorcerer. I do remember that seeing luscious Anne Francis in shiny skimpy outfits propelled me into an early puberty. The invisible monsters generated from the main character’s id accompanied by the film’s eerie soundtrack frightened me into the cringe position in my all-too-vulnerable theater seat.

The movie is an overachiever. It has special effects that rival and probably inspired some of the scenes in Star Wars. Picture Obie-Wan walking on the catwalk and compare the background scenes in FP showing the world of the Krel. Also, observe how the humor of CP30 and R2D2 owe a debt to Robbie the Robot. You can also find foreshadows of Captain Kirk in the form of Leslie Nielsen’s ship captain and “Bones” McCoy in Warren Stevens’ doctor. Its themes are mature:  Is it better to withdraw from society and its problems, as does Morbius, or participate in it and try to improve conditions; By isolating a child in an attempt at protection, does a parent not prepare an offspring for the tests of life? (His daughter moves from an innocent to obtaining knowledge about romantic love, Her almost being attacked by her pet tiger illustrates an allegorical reference to the falling out of the Garden of Eden); How do we protect ourselves from our own demons that lurk below our civilized surfaces? Morbius is an arrogant man who has delved into knowledge that the primitive part of his brain is not capable of dealing with. He accessed a Krel mechanism that boosts the power of the brain and then he is able to create three dimensional objects. However, his jealous desire to keep his daughter and his knowledge to himself produces monsters through the alien technology that destroys others. The characters can't look directly at the energy source of the Krel. Morbius likens it to the prohibition against looking at the face of God. In the end, Nielsen's Adams says that the experience shows us that we are "not God." There is a line from The Tempest noting "a brave new world." Aldous Huxley borrowed that phrase for the title of his cautionary science fiction novel. Since the Frankenstein movies up until the more recent artificial intelligence cautionary films, there are warnings about how humankind's hubris blinds people into thinking they can control whatever they create. But, sometimes those creations bring about monstrous results.

The film established high expectations that other science fiction and horror films of the time did not meet for me. I remember hearing someone on TV calling these films “Insect fear flicks of the Fifties” which reflected the worry about the threat of nuclear weapons. You would have needed tons of Raid to deal with all of the big bugs in those films. (I’d have to say that Them!, even with its hokey giant ants, was the best from that hive of entertainment). At the other end of the quality spectrum, although not vermin-infested, and released later, who could forget, as much as you might try, the schlock winner Monster Zero, staring Nick Adams and an all-Japanese cast?  The Japanese actors play alien clones. That’s right – these Asians really do all look alike! Do you have any favorite sci-fi films from the 1950’s?

I'll be talking about all types of movies, the good, the bad, and the ugly (yes, Clint Eastwood films, too), which have interesting ideas and ways of presenting themes. I invite you to participate in this quest for meaning in motion pictures.

Next week’s film is Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.