There are a lot of films that scared us as kids, and still scare us. Many of the films today are far too graphic for my tastes. Heck, most of television is, too, for that matter. So, I should say right at the outset that I’m not a fan of gore, not in any way shape or form. I know some folks out there are big on the stuff, but not me. Sure, I’ve seen some, the classic Herschell Gordon Lewis, Romero and Savini works, but none of the modern multi-sequel films that grace our theaters with single word titles. I don’t mind being scared. As most would agree, we all need a good scare every now and then. It’s good for you. It’s thrilling. But gore isn’t thrilling for me. It’s sickening. I like to be thrilled, I don’t wish to be sick. Besides, I’ve seen enough of the footage and descriptions of films like “Saw” and “Hostel,” which I rebel against, regardless of how “intelligent” or “clever” they are reported to be.

So, as I began to write this essay, as the wind and rain hit my window, I started to think on things that scare me. Matt Damon came to mind. Not because he’s scary or anything, of course, but because I noticed just the other day that the popular actor announced, quite out of the blue, that he’s not interested in working on films that have gratuitous violence in them.

He said, “I always look at the violence (in a script). I don’t want it to be gratuitous because I do believe that has an effect on people’s behavior. I really do believe that and I have turned down movies because of that.”

Wow.

I had to stop for a second after I first saw that, since I associate him with films which contain explosive, deadly violence. Right now, there are very few characters more lethal than Bourne for their efficiency in killing people to death, at least in the main stream. Obviously I wasn’t the only one who noticed the incongruity between his words and his roles. Damon’s statement that aside from Bourne, he has turned down many-a-script that contained violence could very well be true. I have to take him at his word, since I’m sure he receives tons of scripts every day that have him climbing, kicking and wrenching the feathers out of very bad good guys from Finland to Fuji. So, I asked myself why would he take this suddenly public stand? This was the first time I had seen an A-list actor, a very liberal A-list actor, at that, confessing such a view in public and to a news outlet, no less. Stunning. No other word to describe it.

Two days later, I saw a small news piece where Nicole Kidman was basically saying the same thing, not that she turns down violent scripts, but that she believes media influences behavior:

“Asked if the movie industry has “played a bad role,” Kidman said “probably,” but quickly added that she herself doesn’t. “I can’t be responsible for all of Hollywood but I can certainly be responsible for my own career,” she said.

Wait a minute.

So here were two very big stars, stating in no uncertain terms that media influences behavior, and can do so in bad ways, two days apart. This, after years and years of denying it and ridiculing those who believe media plays a huge part in influencing behavior, our culture, they come out with this. Two days apart!  As long as I can remember remembering, I’ve read and heard from professors, media experts, authors, artists and filmmakers, from friends and foe alike that media doesn’t influence. Period. End of story. Get over it, etc.

To be fair to those two actors, they didn’t deny it or ridicule others, but their industry, Hollywood, has made that denial, that firm stance, the unmovable rampart against the charges that their product, their message is increasingly detrimental, that it’s screwing up our kids and us.

So, I had to wonder why would not one, but two big celebrities come out with very similar statements mere days apart. All I could think of was they want to be on the right side of the facts when some soon-to-be-released study by an organization embraced by Hollywood, such as Harvard, Yale, or Jon Stewart hits the net or news stands. Who knows? But, as I looked out through the glass at the dark foreboding skies, I suddenly remembered something. I remembered the recent news on severely declining box office receipts and DVD sales. I remembered John Nolte’s essay and all the others on the subject. And then it all clicked. “I know what’s going on here,” I said to my reflection in the window. Fear is what’s going on here.

Which leads me to something almost as scary as Hollywood actors making statements to the press. A movie that scared me with very little more than fear. No blood or violence or graphic anything. Just good old fashioned fear.

I’m not a huge fan of “The Blair Witch Project,” but I do give the filmmakers kudos for their idea, for their execution of it, and for their spunk. I hate spunk (No, just kidding, I love spunk, but I can’t hear that without thinking of Lou Grant’s famous reply to Mary). Anyway, the filmmakers of  “The Blair Witch Project” mentioned some of the things that inspired them in their “fresh approach” to producing their now famous hoax film. Among the lot was an overlooked little film of the 70s.  I had noticed the similarity of the film that they mentioned and their own hugely successful project right off the bat. I noticed it minutes into their wooded project. So, I was glad to see they acknowledged it at least.

The Legend of Boggy Creek

This little gem scared the dickens out of me as a kid.  For those who haven’t seen it, I won’t ruin it, if that’s even possible, with any spoilers. But I will give you a very brief rundown of it, just so you know where I’m coming from and why.  To a boy, it aroused tremendous fear; to an adult, I wonder about where that fear comes from.

The film starts out with a disclaimer that “This is a true story.” Right there, you got me. I’m already hooked. I’m not sure why that is – undoubtedly an expert psychologist can explain it with some long words that will take another expert psychologist to interpret. I’ll leave the business of that to them and just be satisfied with knowing it’s a swell gimmick with a set-up that can’t lose.

After a few dark, and yes, boggy images of a swamp, dead trees and scenes of late Autumn, a scene Andrew Wyatt or Charles Sheeler might paint on a depressing day, we get a young boy in denim overalls, the kind Opie would wear, and looking like a lot of kids looked in the 70s, running across a golden, sunlit field. He’s not goin’ fishin’ and he’s not havin’ fun. In fact, he looks terrified. We hear howls and hoots of various animals echoing off in the distance as he runs along. He makes it to a country store where the local gentry, the older men are sitting around chin wagging. Out of breath, he blurts out that his mama sent him to get help, because “there’s some kinda bayou man down by the woods and the creek.”

The men laugh it off and send the boy on his way, certain it’s just the overactive imaginations of mother and child. He runs back home across the same fields with the sun now setting and the spaces between the trees getting gloomier by the minute. Suddenly, he stops when he hears a sound echoing in the distance. We hear it too. It’s the angry howling of the beast.

In a narration reminiscent of Earl Hamner Jr., a comforting male voice-over describes his little town and how it was when he was a kid, that kid. The scenes are of pleasant fields, trees, and woods. It’s a picturesque though remote “neck of the woods.” Playful country music is used to make us feel at home, down home in this place known as Fouke, Arkansas, population 350. This, he tells us, is his recollection of what happened to that town back when he was seven years old. The comforting voice of the narrator goes on to welcome us in, in a neighborly way, describing the post office and the gas station, the school, garage, motel and a couple of cafes “where the men stop-by to discuss the fish they caught, or the duck, quail or deer they’ve hunted.”  He then introduces some of the good sturdy folk of Fouke and how most are “farmers or ranchers.” Not exactly the kind that scare easily. Again, a good set-up.

He sums it up with the killer line: “Fouke is a right, pleasant place to live… until the sun goes down.”

What happens after that isn’t so picturesque at all. We get a documentary style format showing a variety of the characters, real or imagined, that the story presents as true. All sorts of recollections of dead animals, mauled hogs, pet dogs and others that were either found scared to death, ripped apart like rag dolls or just plain disappeared. The characters whose names are displayed on screen all seem trustworthy and basic, simple folk, not the kind who want publicity. And it’s all shot as if it came off the same reel as that Paterson big foot footage we’ve all seen.

We are then treated to a variety of episodes where the creature, the Fouke Monster, as it came to be called, terrorizes the locals in various ways. These “reenactments” based on our trusted narrator’s words along with the very amateur quality of the production add to its realism. Descriptions by farmers of 200-pound hogs carried over barbed wire, dogs and cats slain wet our appetite setting us up for the real big hit, which doesn’t really strike us so much as it dampens, like wet socks or a soaked sleeping bag on a camping trip.

The narrator further sets the tone with his ominous, “I doubt if you could find a lonelier, spookier place in this country than down around Boggy Creek.”

Sure, there are some sudden shocking moments, some classic fright magic, but it’s all a consequence of the set-ups we were treated to. Without them, the frights would not last much longer than the frames they took to show, which are minimal. The film really doesn’t show much at all, actually. But the implication of what is “out there” and “running on two legs” is clear and never far from our minds. A monster is stalking the woods at night. Is it man or beast? What does it want? Is it going to hurt us?

There’s no teen angst, no sex scenes and no hot tubs. There are no rowdy bullies who get their just desserts after picking on the cute couple. No car chases or explosions. No special weaponry or resourcefulness to make any. There isn’t even a gruff and disbelieving sheriff who always finds out the hard way how wrong he was to dismiss the whole thing. Nope, none of that stuff. What there is are very average, simple, vulnerable people in cabins or mobile homes, far from telephones or neighbors who all alone, or in small groups, get the stuffing scared out of them by something outside. There’s also fierce hunting dogs whimpering and turning back at the first whiff of the monster, motorists narrowly missing the creature as he runs across the road and more vignettes adding to the overall feeling of fear. There’s also a very odd musical segment that might very well be the scariest thing in the movie! The entire film is really nothing more than a loosely connected string of “documented” incidents described in a fashion not unlike a darker episode of
“In Search of…” (which by no strange coincidence was another inspiration to the filmmakers of “The Blair Witch Project”).

I saw this film with my brother and sisters. I was a small boy, not unlike the lad depicted. And even though I exited the theater into a hot, hazy and bustling normal afternoon in the city, bereft of anything wooded or rustic, I was still very anxious to get home as fast as possible. I was certain that the Fouke Monster, that “huge hairy creature watching from the shadows” was somewhere out there, behind a parked car or hiding in a dark stairwell waiting to rip my neck out like he did those dogs, which we never actually saw him do. I really didn’t see much, did I? But, boy did it scare me. And perhaps, sometimes, when the sun goes down and the wind howls, like the now all grown-up little boy says in the film, “and it scares me now, too”

Names like Ray Harryhausen, George Pal, Bernard Herrmann and H.G. Wells come to mind. As do those of Ken Toby, Less Tremayne, Paul Frees and Whit Bissell. Each of these names, plus thousands and thousands of others, can immediately conjure up a favorite film, a scene or even just a great line or look that impressed us as kids and perhaps continues to do so.

When I think about those elements that I love in my favorite sci-fi monster movies, my mind can easily dwell for hours on the creatures themselves, the settings, the art direction, the machinery and technology and everything in between. I never grow tired of that stuff. But I also love, with equal passion the characters that people the story. They are really what it’s all about. So, indulge me as I invite you to take a little trip through my memory, recalling some character moments that stand out for me in the B genre of scifi monster movies.

The Thing from Another World

This is without a doubt one of my all-time favorite movies, of any genre. There is so much great about The Thing, that I feel it should be used as a template of what to do right in making movies.

Every character from Scotty the newsman to Tex the radioman to the scientists, including my own personal favorite Bob Cornthwaite’s unforgettable Dr. Carrington, is each wholly enjoyable and rich in believable detail, even if they lasted only seconds on screen.

My mind moves along as I recall this great film touching on some memorable moments. Some that come to mind are the constant problem solving by Dewey Martin joined with Captain Hendry’s humorous jabs on his subordinate’s expertise in all things resourceful. Newsman Scotty’s incessant, but enjoyable whining about getting his exclusive story out through the morass that is the military. Without Scotty, the viewer would have needed another in to the technical details of what happens. Scotty serves both as story chronicler and informer for the audience. When thermite is to be used to melt the ice, it’s Scotty who asks, for himself, but really for us,  “What will that thermite do?” And it’s Scotty who soon after chastises the men for botching the job. “That’s just dandy. Standard operating procedure.” Brilliant.

How about that great sound cue from the Tiomkin score when the men recreate the shape of what lies beneath in the ice? The overlapping, excited utterances, “It’s almost…” “Yeah, almost a perfect….” “It is.” “It’s round.” “We finally got one!”, “ We found a flying saucer!” is priceless.

Speaking of scoring cues, another that ranks right up there is that great cut to Gort suddenly appearing on the ramp after Klaatu is shot by a nervous soldier in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Still another that comes to mind is an accented William Conrad uttering the dreaded “Marabunta” in The Naked Jungle.  The cue itself practically brings Leinengen’s house down to the dirt. Yes, there really is nothing like a good sound cue to raise the blood pressure.

War of the Worlds

“This is amazing!” Gene Barry exclaims at his first glimpses of how the aliens are able to move about. His excitement is that of a boy launching his very first model rocket from the backyard. This amazing film is a bounty of excellence in sci-fi monster movie making. As Stan Winston said, it has just about every special effect in it. He was more than right. The characters on display make the awesome visual spectacle a personal and lasting one.

There’s a throwaway moment in the opening at the ranger watch tower where one ranger while phoning in the ‘meteor’ is distracted while the other subtly takes a peek as his partner’s cards. Great stuff. Les Tremayne’s slow and deliberate sipping from the (empty?) coffee cup directly after uttering his ominous “once they begin to move, no more news comes out of that area” has never failed to stir in me that familiar excitement when watching a monster movie on a Saturday afternoon. Sure his drinking is a bit unnatural – his ‘business’ a bit clunky, but who cares? It’s a great movie moment.

After the kindly Pastor is unmercifully smote by the alien’s heat ray after doing nothing more than just trying to say ‘hello’, the Marine Colonel’s ‘LET ‘EM HAVE IT!” order to his men, unleashing the statement that no being, alien or native is going to get away with that kind of stuff. Our hearts join in as every man, religious or not, strikes back with all he’s got at that unprovoked act.

Most if not all of the actors in these films can be seen and enjoyed in scores of other films as well. This, the B movie, was their bread and butter. But their prolific on-screen work had not only a monetary benefit to their careers, but it also had an emotional one for the audience. Their formidable repertoire of recurring and usually similar roles created a growing bank of emotion within us each time we saw them anew. It grew and grew. Actors we’d seen in television series or other films retained the decency and integrity they evoked each time and that we came to rely on. We’d see their name in the opening credits, or see their face on screen when they walked in the door or answered the phone and think… “Hey, that’s the captain from The Thing. Now here he is in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Boy, am I glad to see him!” Or, “Isn’t this doctor in The Day the Earth Stood Still the same guy who played the reporter in Them! - the one who wants to interview the mother of the missing boys?” This linking of character and body of work helped forged a connection with the audience that is stronger than a block of KL 93.

Some people criticize B movies, calling them pure escapism. I say, so what? Isn’t all film pure escapism? Personally, I think that’s the highest compliment you could ever say about a film, that it’s pure escapism.  By the same token one of the worst things you could say is “that film is so much like real life!” Give me a break! Who wants that? As Ray Harryhausen said when remarking about the over reliance of CG in special effects, “you don’t want it to be too real.”

Another criticism of Bs often heard is that the performances are poor, cliched or just plain bad. Sure they are! Some of them, anyway. And that’s often why we love them. But some performances, some scenes, are not bad in the least, and I’d argue, are as moving, as powerful and as emotionally charged as anything else on screen or in print.

To this day, I cannot watch the scene in the sewer pipes at the end of Them! without pure emotion welling up inside me. When James Arness consoles a mortally wounded James Whitmore who in his last breathes lets him know that the boys he rescued got out and are in the tunnel, it’s just too much.

That moment and what leads up to it, chokes me up every time. Even writing about it now, I find I’m moved to the point where I have to take my fingers off the keyboard for a moment. That’s greatness. Aside from Greg Peck’s final stare at a departing Audrey, Montagu Love’s reading of Kipling to the three remaining and one gone,  or pretty much every darn thing that happens after Jimmy Stewart finds Zuzu’s petals, there aren’t many other film moments that can evoke such an immediate and powerful effect on me just from memory.

When James Arness continues on in the tunnels and is trapped behind fallen earth and timbers it doesn’t look good. With nothing more than the rounds left in his Thompson he is all alone to fight off the giant ants that are now attacking from all directions. But just as the creatures close in, beams of light and firepower from the other soldiers breaks through the splintered wood and fallen earth and saves him with dramatic punch. Powerful stuff, and I’m quite sure Steven Spielberg lifted it for a scene in Saving Private Ryan, of course without the ants.

It’s true. The Thing from Another World, War of the Worlds and Them! and so many others were meant as escapism, as ‘Drive-in fare, as they called it, when there were things like Drive-ins. But it’s undeniable to many of us that these films, that B movies contain moments that are special, very special for their genuine ability to move us and remain with us for a lifetime.

And that’s what movies are all about, Charlie Brown.

1. Science Fiction/Thriller/Horror Channel

A short form/short film channel showcasing those genres. Independent producers, writers, creators could submit work to be aired. It wouldn’t have to be, nor should it be at the Sundance level of professionalism delivered on DigiBeta and starring Cameron Diaz doing a favor for the filmmaker because it’s her friend’s cousin, either.

We don’t want that. There’s plenty of that kind of venue and they turn down 99% of the stuff submitted anyway, mainly because it’s not the work of someone’s friend’s cousin. So forget that right away. It has to be underground, guerilla, shoestring and, most important, good. Very good. Damn good. But not expensive. How can you do that, you say? 

With writing.  

THE WORLD TODAY: A News Summary

May 2009

BONN (EU News) – The current CSPEU administration has decided to increase productivity by lowering the age that children are required to enter the workforce from nine to eight years of age. The EU Vice Minister for the Interior states the lowering of the work age is due to an increased shortage of youthful workers. “It’s a reflection of the ongoing fighting between our peaceful union and the obstinate Russians.”

Citizens and subjects in the 18-25 age bracket have seldom been seen in recent years. The Vice Minister commented on this by stating, “This temporary downturn in our youthful population is insignificant compared to the tremendous loss of life on the Russian side. Though our rockets delivering Vemork V weapons obliterated St. Petersburg and most of Moscow years ago, the Russians, though scattered and ill equipped, still choose to resist to this very day. It staggers the mind why they wish to continue their own misery. “

The Vice Minister added, “England, on the other hand, fell very quickly after we dropped only a mere one quarter megaton of heavy water (D₂O) weaponry on their proud London back in 1946. Of course, we could continue to bombard the Russian outposts like we did London and where Paris once was, but it would contaminate any remaining soil. We’ve been trying to avoid this drastic measure. We are humanitarians, after all.”

The Vice Minister continued, “More to the point, it is vital to emphasize that the biological surrogate guardians of children reaching their seventh birthday are now required by law to enter their offspring’s identity number with a nearby STC (State Training Center) to begin the one year transition to the workforce. It is mandatory they comply with the new law. Penalties are harsh.”

EU News has faithfully reported in the past that administration policy is very clear on this issue. Biological surrogate guardians, bio-guardians, who refuse to surrender their unlawful offspring in a timely manner, will be sequestered by the administration’s Ministry of Adult Education for an indefinite period of time. Consequently, children found unattended will be conscripted into the workforce with any surviving surrogates losing visiting rights.

The Vice Minister added, “It’s in every bio-guardians’ interest to register the Fatherland’s children early. The earlier these children start their lives the easier it will be for them to make the transition from their surrogate households and purge those troubled lives from memory. It’s for their own good to cut those ties early. It’s natural and it’s the law.”

The governing Commanding Socialist Party of the European Union has announced that they have apprehended another 2500 political criminals across the nation. These individuals will be held temporarily in one of the New Spandau prison system facilities outside the EU Capital Center in Bonn until such time that more permanent facilities can be arranged, if needed.

In other news, the incoming Director of the Ministry of Allocations and Provisions has announced new shipments of household goods to be rationed out to the populace beginning next month as part of the new modernization plan.

“Citizens throughout the inner Fatherland nations of Deutschland, Austria and Switzerland in residential blocks A thru F can once again begin signing up for bread, water, salt, kerosene, and toilet paper as promised.”  The Director stated in an uplifting speech given earlier this week. ”Citizens in residential blocks G thru P can begin signing-up for potatoes, cloth, canvas, shoe leather, and slag metal. Citizens in blocks Q thru Z can sign-up for milk, cheese, and butter substitutes. These blocks will rotate. Everyone will eventually get a chance at all the household goods and items as required by law. Anyone found forging identity cards, ration coupons, altering their derma scancode, or cheating the system in any way will be dealt with harshly.”

The Director continued, “Subjects in outlying regions of old Europe, including territories referred to previously as Britain, Spain, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Italy, Malta, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Scandinavia, Poland, Turkey, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria will begin similar initiatives as soon as allocations within the inner Fatherland areas are completed and fully verified. The same waiting period applies to the new North and South Amerikan territories in accordance with the Colonial Affairs Ministry which has local jurisdiction for those continents.”

The Director concluded with these words of reassurance, “Subjects in frontier regions such as Afrika will begin an experimental allocation program. The details of which are not to be made public at this time. The difficulties in supplying the vast continent of Afrika are enormous, as many are aware. I urge our subjects in Afrika to be patient. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day and the pestilent Jews and gypsies weren’t purged from our streets in a week! These things take time, but as we know, they do get done. ”

In Asian news, the Empire of Japan stated there was a brief power outage at a Human Resources Productivity Center in former Ceylon. About 70,000 workers suffocated in one of the vast underground graphite mines when the air supply was interrupted for several hours due to the power outage. The mine was flooded with hydrofluoric acid to aid in the cleaning and speedy removal of remains. Relatives are reminded that religious services for the deceased are prohibited.

A high-ranking official with Human Resources stated (off-the-record), “It (power outage) was most likely due to attempted sabotage by rebels.” He added, “We get troublemakers stirring things up from time to time. They’re just pests. And we have experience dealing with pests. It will be dealt with.”

Within hours of that statement approximately four hundred suspects were taken into custody from the outlying region and are presently assisting HR with inquiries. Next of kin will be notified where appropriate.

In a related story, the highly decorated Imperial Swordsman Unit of the Empire’s Honor Guard, known for their much-prized ability to dispatch multiple opponents while on horseback, is no longer recruiting volunteers from the populace to assist the unit in training and practice.

In agricultural news, the expansive rice crop harvest in the region has shown high increases in yields due to the new extended work hours. A government source stated, ”We’ve seen an enormous growth potential in limiting the amount of sleep our workers receive. By modeling their sleep habits on other animals, such as dogs and livestock, and supplementing this with pharmaceutical conditioning we’ve been able to reduce the total sleep time per day to 2.5 hours per subject. It’s a tremendous achievement. We plan to implement our research into all other areas of the labor force. This is a very exciting time in the field of science.”

Other so-called outsider regions known previously as Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Burma, now generally referred to collectively as Gaidashu, have seen only moderate yields. GACPS has announced plans to implement more robust cultural and genetic reintegration of these outlying regions, stating, “Citizens of even the most outlying regions of the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere must remember that the official language is Japanese and use of other, outsider, mongrel tongues is not only forbidden but is a direct insult to their role as subject in the service of the Empire. We have a no tolerance policy.” Violators of this policy, EU News has been told, will be transported to one of the following: Re-Education and Conscription Centers, dojos for assisting martial training of the military and to National Health Centers for volunteer work on pathogenic and contagious diseases research.

In a related story, the Empire’s successful testing of chemical and biological agents inside Manchuko, formerly known as China and Manchuria has yielded another 20 million liters of Cyanogen and Cyclosarin material necessary to ensure continued peace. Volunteers are still being recruited from the still mainly Chinese population in the area, eager to do their part in helping the Empire to attain its goals.

A government official remarking on a recent news blackout in the area stated, ”When testing such huge amounts such as we are required to do, accidents can and will happen. It’s part of the risk. Furthermore, we are announcing that several cities in the Sechuan area are off limits until further notice. Subjects who have relatives in these areas in former Southern China are reminded to be patient. Inquiries, as per government policy, will not be accepted. Trust is required. We are certain each and every subject understands this and will comply with regulations.”  He warned, “Be advised. Causing any disruption over this issue, or any other, is bound to meet with the strictest and most severe disciplinary action.”

That’s the way it is, May 2009. Good night and good luck.

(The information ministries of the Commanding Socialist Party of the European Union and Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere contributed to this report. This news summary has been translated from German and Japanese into English for educational purposes only.)

Link: THE WORLD TODAY

Copyright © CSPEU/GACPS 2009.

What you have just read never happened. It is not the world we are living in today.

Thank you to all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who gave their youth, their health and their lives over sixty years ago to prevent the nightmare such as the one depicted above from becoming today’s reality.

Not only on Memorial Day, but other days as well, let us take time to reflect on all that we have gained from those who gave everything they had.

- Schizoid Mann

No kidding, professor.

No, really, they are. I don’t mean in all the right places, of course, but somewhere else, with movies, in enjoying the things we see in the movies. 

I remember seeing Gunga Din (1939) for the first time and knowing from the opening shot that this was my kind of film. This was a guy film. Not a wishy-washy movie filled up with dance numbers and kissing scenes, but a guy flick. Great guy stuff was in this movie, and I was sold on it from the first pounding of that thunderous mighty gong. When Alfred Newman’s score turned from playful to ominous faster than you can say, ‘trouble in Tantrapur’, I knew I was in for a good one. This was the kind of movie you watched on a Saturday afternoon with your dad or with your pals. This was adventure! 

There’s no way, I had always thought, that a girl can appreciate this kind of film, that she can ‘get into’ Gunga Din and get out of it what I got out of it. There’s just no way. Would she be able to feel the same way I did, the way other guys do, when watching Victor McLaglen face quickly turn from stone to fraudulent smile as he tries to trick his buddy? Can she feel the same rush of pride when hearing the trumpet scream the battle cry, or when seeing the Sikh Cavalry charge against the 400 horsemen of Kali? Does she get choked up along with Mac, Cutter and Bal when Montagu Love reads Kipling’s reflective poem in that final scene? Is modern woman capable of this? Or will she be more concerned with the sole female character in the story, trying, naturally, to relate to her instead? These things I wondered. Yet, I was as certain of the answers to these questions as I was of Sergeant Ballantine’s destiny. No woman could do these things, bridge that crevasse away from the familiar into pure guy territory, where it’s always double drill and no canteen. It just isn’t done. 

But guess what? I was wrong. Completely wrong. In fact, I’ll go out on an already shaky rope bridge here and state I’ve never met a woman who didn’t like Gunga Din. That’s right, not one.  Sure, it’s got funny and handsome Cary Grant – what woman doesn’t love Cary? For that matter, what man doesn’t want to be him, including? And it’s got the dashing Douglas Fairbanks Jr. with that infectious smile and shock of hair that falls down great when he lunges with either saber, pistol or right hook into an opponent.  I mean, let’s face it, what female doesn’t like to watch these two guys at rest or in motion? But that’s not it, that’s not the reason they like Gunga Din, well not completely, anyway. 

I believe it’s actually closer to what happens in the scene in the temple when our three British soldiers plus one, are caught and imprisoned in the confines of that locked dungeon, complete with pit of snakes. Comically, with torture and certain death if they don’t figure a way out soon, all the ‘proud ox’ MacChesney can think of is retrieving Sergeant Ballantine’s signed reenlistment form, securing his buddy’s companionship and saving him from what he believes is a death far worse than any pit of snakes could ever inflict: married life.  The means he goes about trying to get his hands on that paper is a joy to behold. His phony fear of snakes and being lashed again is, like so many other Victor McLaglen moments, lovable and priceless.  It really is, I believe, this kind of friendly sparring and not so much the looks and charm of the other two leading men, that is the key. The loyalty, friendship and devotion to one’s chums, the camaraderie replete with fun-loving jabs and good natured mocking is what wins the day for the viewer and makes these kinds of films work so well and on so many personally appealing levels.   

An equally shocking discovery I made about Gunga Din is that not only do the women I know love this movie, but that they dislike the love interest, the fiance, Emmy with equal passion. No, not for the cliched reasons like ‘she’s not a strong character’ and all that baloney. No, that’s not it. And anyway, it’s not true since, under the circumstances, she’s pretty darn strong. So what don’t they like about her? The same thing George Stevens, Ben Hecht and I don’t like about her. They hate what she’s trying to do. The women I know hate the fact that Sergeant Ballantine’s lover wants to take him away from his pals, from the adventure, from life itself, to go into the tea business, of all things. They, like Cutter and Mac, want that siren to fail.

In real life there are not many women who would give up a life of luxury, lucrative profits in a very promising business in order to let a husband run off and reenlist in the thankless job of Her Majesty’s service. Nor are there many women who want their men to go up against elephants on rope bridges or Kali worshiping stranglers as a line of work. Not many at all. Probably not even one. And that makes a lot of sense. So, why do women when watching Gunga Din want Bal to join Cutter and Mac (and Din) and do precisely that in the movie? Is the answer simply to be explained away as yet another unfathomable layer of the complex nature of woman, the incomprehensibility of the fairer sex to the brutish mind of man? 

Beats me. 

So, I asked myself, why do women want a fellow woman’s plans stopped, granted not in the same feverish way Eduardo Ciannelli’s high priest wants to stop the British Empire with his much copied crescendo-building “Kill for the Love of Killing” speech, but definitely stopped. Why do women want Cutter and Mac to succeed in their scheme to reenlist their friend and take him away from the woman in the story?  This question puzzled me. It nagged at my inner man. Then, one day, quite unexpectedly,  I had an epiphany, a stroke of genius. It was one of those ‘eureka moments’, the kind you hear about, the kind that make you jump out of the bath, covered in soapy suds and run out into the street yelling at the top of your lungs, “I’VE GOT IT!! I’VE GOT IT!!” 

For the record, I’d suggest not expressing yourself in that way, exactly. Unless, of course you have a very good lawyer or a burning desire to see the inside of a psychiatric ward.  I have neither, so it’s fortunate that I came to my senses before I cleared the door jam and therefore was not forced to scribe this article onto a thick stone wall with a dull spoon. 

What I figured out amongst the bubbles was this: Women want men. Again, no kidding. No, hold on. That’s not it, exactly. Women want other men. Wait a minute, that’s not quite right, either. Let’s try again. Women want what other women want and that includes men. Yeah, that’s what I mean, sort of. 

Or to put it another way, in the form of a question, I came up with this: What woman, besides Joan Fontaine’s Emmy, would desire a domesticated Douglas Fairbanks who does very little else aside from selling tea and reading the paper? None. What woman would want a Douglas Fairbanks riding a horse, crossing swords with bad guys, getting trapped, imprisoned, escaping “by sheer strategy alone” and saving not only his chums, but the whole bloomin’ regiment, king and country, with a little help from his friends? 

Every woman, that’s who! At least I think so. 

Because, that’s the figure of a man. A man acts. He doesn’t necessarily think. For good or bad, he just does. And then another revelation occurred to me, not at the same time, thankfully, and not involving suds, but still noteworthy. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I have a theory about men and women and it sort of ties in with all of this. I’ll restate part of it here briefly:

Men are simple. Women are complicated. 

Men live in the past. Women live in the future.  

(I have a sneaking suspicion children are the only ones who live in the present)

Here’s the big one: 

Women plan. Men dream.

When men become more like women – no not that way -  but when they stop dreaming as men dream, stop being reckless, stop living the adventure, stop thinking anything is possible (even if it clearly isn’t), stop acting, stop doing, when they cease to do these things, be these things, something has happened to them. 

They’ve grown old.

What I mean is, they’ve given up the ability to dream. They may not be old in years, but in spirit they are dusty cobwebs. They may not even know it happened to them until much later, well after the woman in their lives knows it. That’s something I’ll have to remind myself of from time to time, no doubt. 

When I think on other films that are called ‘guy flicks’ or ‘buddy movies’ there are so many that I love that I won’t even attempt to begin to list them. I will say, though, that along with Gunga Din (1939), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Sea Hawk (1940), The Thing from Another World (1951), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Sahara (1943), and Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) are some of my favorite guy movies of all time, which honor things like honor, duty and the undying capacity to dream large, even when all around them is a nightmare. These are films I never get tired of watching, nor ever will. There are others, lots more, and even some that are more recent, that have similar appeal. Braveheart comes to mind. But for the most part, these newer films are missing something that their predecessors have.  Maybe it’s the technicolor, or the monochrome for that matter, or just maybe, it’s the writing, the way in which dialogue plays such a dominant role in shaping the characters. I tend to think that’s the reason. Then again, maybe it’s just because I saw most of them as a kid. Who knows? Not me, and frankly, I don’t think I really want to know.  Because I’d rather dream. 

But, yes, these are some of my favorites, and it’s interesting that all of them, yes, all of them, are some of my female friends’ favorites as well. What does that say? That I hang around a bunch of butch chicks? No, I hope it doesn’t say that. It says that there are films about men, that don’t get all mushy, that women truly love for the same reasons men do. It says that women can sit and watch a film about men with no female character they can associate with, or even like in the story and come away thoroughly thrilled at the outcome. 

So, are these guy flicks, or not? I guess not. They’re more than that. They’re great flicks. They speak to both men and women as loud and clear as Din’s trumpeting. But how are they able to do that? What do they have in common? They were all written by people who could write. Sure they are genre, but they aren’t hackneyed, formulaic. And most of all, they weren’t supposed to appeal to just men, or just women, or just kids, or just adults. They were meant to be enjoyed by everyone. Their message however politically incorrect some may find it, is universal.  And that’s why they are hard to find nowadays. Because today, it’s all about pitching to a niche. Everything has to have a target audience, a market to aim for, a demographic to appease, please and all to often, pander to. 

Great films don’t do that. Not guy flicks, not chick flicks, not any flicks. Great is great. And great films charge ahead into the breech not caring what this or that group thinks is proper or offensive. We’re missing that kind of courage today.  And our culture is suffering because of it.  These days, we hear a lot about so-called controversial films. Yet no filmmaker seems daring enough to take a chance at being great, at dreaming large. Why should they when it’s so much easier to pander? 

There’s a scene in another great, though entirely different film that captures and defines the essence of what a man is, what he wishes he was, and what he wants other men to see him as. 

At the end of The Right Stuff, Chuck Yeager takes his Lockheed F-104 Starfighter up to where the sky ends and space itself begins. He’s so far up that there isn’t enough oxygen in the air to fully power the turbine anymore. His engine quits. He spins out of control amongst the vast stars and great heavens above, falling to earth like Icarus with melted wings. 

But unlike the Greek, there is no ocean to catch him. Only the brutally harsh and unforgiving desert of Edwards. 

With frantic eyes peering past hope at the funereal black smoke on the horizon, the ambulance driver suddenly spots a lone figure in the distance walking toward them, shimmering in the blurry heat like a mirage – or a god. We see he is burnt, bloody and limping. It’s Yeager, and he’s carrying his helmet and parachute. 

“Is that a man?”, the driver asks Ridley, fellow test pilot and Yeager’s best friend. 

Grinning ear to ear, Ridley replies, “You’re damn right it is!”

Something tells me Emmy would agree.

I’ll get to that somewhat nervy assertion in a bit, but first a little background.

Among the cinematic slew released during those years of cold, are two of my favorite films, Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe. Both dealt with strikingly similar themes, unintentional nuclear holocaust, yet in entirely different tones.  But cold war themes weren’t that varied by their very nature, since inevitably the worst case scenario was the best case plot device and nothing brings down the house like bringing down the house.

With that said, still, there’s so much similarity between the two stories that law suits were indeed filed and production schedules slowed. This worked out to Stanley Kubrick’s advantage as his Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was released almost a year ahead of Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe. In my opinion Kubrick’s is a better film than Lumet’s and not due to slowed schedules, either. But both are magnificent, and because of their approaches to the topic, very different  and essential part of the genre.

Based on Peter George’s novel Red Alert, Dr. Strangelove is, if there’s anyone alive out there who still hasn’t seen it yet, a comedy. The novel, however, is not satire and does not even contain a Strangelove at all, since Terry Southern who worked on the script with Kubrick and George, added that character during pre-production.

Fail-Safe, based on a novel by the same name, was written by two gents who do not have the same name, namely Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. When George Clooney re-enacted this story in LIVE television format, which I personally think was a marvelous idea, he enlisted the help of veteran broadcaster and news legend Walter Kronkite to introduce the landmark teleplay. Kronkite brought weight and nostalgia to the production, he also brought a big flub. As he concluded his up to then flawless introduction of ‘what you are about to see’, he awkwardly stumbled and stammered with the authors’ names. Well, that’s LIVE television, warts and all. Nobody’s perfect, least of all television icons. And it didn’t harm the presentation at all. It probably even made it more enjoyable, if one can use that term with a story about nuclear holocaust. Judging by Dr. Strangelove, that’s exactly what Kubrick wanted us to do.

By a strange coincidence both of these films were foolishly screened one after the other at Harvard Square’s famous Brattle Theater. I had seen them both before several times each, so I knew them backwards and forwards. I also knew one was a comedy and one was decidedly not, though the endings were not all that different, in fact, the comedy turned out a whole lot worse in the end.

The folks that work at the Brattle, probably still to this day, are a smug lot. Using the current vernacular, snarky might even be a way to describe them. Naturally, most are students at Harvard and quite confident in making profound statements they’ve overheard (that one I borrowed from Gene Kelly in An American in Paris, if anyone’s checking). When I saw the lineup with Dr. Strangelove scheduled first, I knew then what many of you who know these films are thinking now, that the staff at Brattle either hadn’t yet seen the films, or they had and were just smug and snarky enough to think it would be cool in this order. For either error, they deserved to be gingerly removed from their employment with the finesse of a General Ripper or a ‘Bat’ Guano, warts and all.

Now, there are very few times when I’ve felt the need to walk out of a movie before the credits finished. Much fewer times due to reasons other than the quality of the film. Well, one such occasion happened here in Japan. At approximately the same time that the quite serious staff of the Tokyo International Film Festival scheduled a screening of Lawrence of Arabia an earthquake was scheduled by the even more serious staff of mother nature. Colonel Lawrence, having just seen the horrors left by the Turks at Tafas was about to echo his famous “No prisoners!” yawp, when the screen went black, then white, then the chandeliers in the theater started swaying like we were on an ocean liner in the wrong part of town. All I could think of was The Poseidon Adventure.  I knew, prisoners or no, it was time to get out of that cavalcade of stars. The last person I would want to be was that guy hanging from an upside down dining room table who ended up in the stained glass. That was one time I left a screening early. The other was at the Brattle. It was during Fail-Safe after Dr. Stranglove had already played.  Their clever lineup. No, there was no earthquake and only one prisoner. Me.  I opted to stay and slog it out. Maybe the overly snarky crowd, I thought, which had laughed way too loudly in classic ‘look at me, I get it’ fashion with the subtle humor of Kubrick’s  would settle down a bit with Lumet. Well, so much for that idea. What followed was constant, again, much-too-loud snickering and feigned muffled laughter by the Ivy proud crowd. I couldn’t take it, so I left. The fools, the mad fools let the comic tone of Dr. Strangelove poison the same serious message that Fail-Safe emitted with fatal solemnity. The horror was negated by the association. I was pissed. And I’m pretty darn sure Henry Fonda – as the President – would’ve been, too.

Dr. Strangelove, enjoyable masterpiece that is it, was of course not intended to frighten. Well, not really. You could say it was intended to frighten about as much as 2001: A Space Odyssey, the most expensive movie about religion ever made, was intended to evoke prayer. The story goes that Kubrick was making Dr. Strangelove as a serious narrative when he felt that it was just so absurd and yet so very possible, that he had to make it a comedy, the irony of it was just too funny.

Fail-Safe was another matter, though. Not filled to the brim with over the top characters with clever names, it very clearly laid out the ease with which a nuclear war could be started, not by purposeful insanity, nor tampering with bodily fluids, but by accident, and even with the best intentions and correct safe guards in place. To human eyes, working flawlessly, by the numbers.

The U.S. Air Force had a disclaimer on the film stating that what you have seen could not happen.  Dr. Strangelove had a similar disclaimer that Kubrick was all too happy to include feeling it lent even more gallows humor to his already hilarious film. He was right. It did.

Well, let me stop for a second. I have a confession to make. I lied. There’s another cold war film that I was fully planning on mentioning and is of particular interest here. In fact, it’s the reason for the whole darn thing. So, I apologize with the sincerity of a Merkin Muffley. This film is not a comedy, nor a drama but rather a TV documentary. It’s called The War Game.  It was made by Peter Watkins and originally scheduled to be released in 1966 on the BBC. It’s what could be described as a docudrama or dramatization. But, we’ll call it a documentary because if [Ray Bradbury's Stolen Title] 9/11 is called a documentary, then this certainly is. And like all documentaries, it’s meant to sway.

For those who haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil it. But I will say, what happens to us, to England specifically, isn’t pretty.

In documentary fashion, and using an omnipresent “voice-of-God” narration the film shows what precautions and procedures are in place in the event of a nuclear emergency, in this case, an exchange of hostilities with tactical nuclear weapons between NATO and those forces of communist Soviet Union and China. It interweaves man-in-the-street bits, creating a very realistic portrayal of then contemporary English urban and suburban life as only a Richard Lester could appreciate. These go on to show what the average person was thinking in terms of perceived threat.  Experts are interviewed – civil defense and emergency services workers, politicians and theologians. Many of the ‘expert’ interviews, particularly the ones that keenly show the message of disparity between wishful thinking and reality, do not provide us with real names, but rather titles to match their out-of-place statements such as ‘the war of the just’  by ‘an Anglican Bishop’ or the American nuclear strategist’s belief that both sides in a war would refrain from destroying cities. These staid interviews are contrasted effectively with the fire, flying debris and screams as well as with the narration that shares information with us such as, ‘in this car a family is burning alive’ or ‘these men are dying’, as if we didn’t know already.

There’s a wide range of citizenry shown, rich and poor, educated and not. A lot of opinions are expressed, some sound, others not, and none of them are from experience. The film then goes on to graphically provide that.

The ensuing chaos and horror is remarkably realistic in its incoherence. When Kubrick made Dr. Strangelove, he wanted the defensive missile strike on Major Kong’s B-52 to be incomprehensible, chaotic, out of focus and over modulated. Going against conventional filmmaking, Kubrick didn’t want us to know what was happening. He wanted real.

With exception to the narration, much of The War Game mirrors Kubrick’s approach and philosophy as if he had been lobbing grenades at the cameraman himself.

The film was met with tremendous resistance from within BBC, a thoroughly more responsible outfit in those days, and from the British government itself, keen not to highlight the fact that nuclear war is not something that can be mopped up quickly and that no nation can adequately prepare for war, conventional or nuclear.

The director Watkins resigned over this resistance and the film was not shown on that network until 1985. It is noteworthy that it is during the Reagan and Thatcher years, not the liberal and labour party administrations of the 1960s and 1970s of Britain and the U.S., that the ban was lifted on this harshly critical-of -government, distinctly anti-nuclear film and finally allowed to be shown to the public. However, it did get limited private exposure during the banned years of Liberal party administrations by making the college circuit rounds and being shown to film critics by prints provided by Watkins himself. His work would go on to receive not only accolades but awards by these same critics, most likely enjoying the privilege of seeing something banned by the government and the BBC.

From the outset, the film, like all film, is designed to influence thinking. That it was scheduled for the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima makes this fact no secret at all.

The film’s fictional deadline of when the festivities were to occur if we didn’t disarm in 1966 came and went. So did ‘76, ‘86, ‘96 and 2006. A lot of years has passed since this warning of imminent extinction if we didn’t act immediately to disarm. 43 years in fact, have passed. So have a few other things like the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan had a lot to do with those. A very big heaping ‘a lot’, if you ask me.  But whether you want to debate that or not, like the end of the world, it’ll have to be postponed for another doomsday. What’s important, to paraphrase Reagan himself, is not who takes the credit for preventing nuclear holocaust, but that it was prevented. The super power nuclear exchange did not happen. The film’s message was a misfire. We all know, however, that the new threats we face today are just as possible and just as destructive as the previous ones that The War Game effectively addressed. I’m afraid, as horrible as The War Game suggests, in reality, it will be a whole lot worse.

There is a lot of emotion connected with any discussion of a war more nuclear than conventional. And that’s as it should be, I suppose. Because unlike any other weapon system, nuclear weapons have lingering effects that are unparalleled in our history.

As long as such arsenals exist, the horrors of Dr. Strangelove, Fail-Safe and The War Game could become reality. Will they? Who knows? No one certainly wants it to happen. No sane person anyway. But the sane aren’t always calling the shots, both government and freelance.

We’ve all seen what much smaller atom bombs were capable of. The fission bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are in essence the detonators for the awesome fission/fusion thermonuclear devices in most stockpiles now. We’ve all watched the grainy footage from New Mexico, Bikini atoll, and the incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We’ve watched with passing car wreck fascination the horrors of the children maimed, the shadows burned on the walls and the few remaining structures that withstood hell. It’s all unforgettable and very emotional.

But there are some points that get misplaced in all this emotion. Many people are aware of them, but many more are not, it seems. Anyway, let’s see if we can touch on a few right now.

1. The U.S. using atomic weapons targeted two Japanese civilian cities: Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Not entirely correct. Certainly the U.S. dropped atom bombs on those two cities, practically destroying them entirely and killing tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. But, a point often overlooked is that neither city was strictly ‘civilian’ as we know it. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were industrial, armament, military producing centers that contained both residential and industrial components, often side by side.

Japan was a cottage industry culture at that time. Businesses that you or I might think of as ‘war industry’ firms, such as Ford, GM, Boeing, etc, were unheard of in Japan. Small shops built everything. Well, almost everything. Some large conglomerates, powerful family samurai shogunate holdovers, called Zaibatsu, did exist, welding tremendous influence in shipping, construction, manufacture and practically all of the large scale design and development of war industry business. Mitsubishi, yes, the same one as the car maker, produced the A6M Zero-Sen , Zero or Zeke as it was referred to by many American fighting men who crossed swords with the formidable aircraft. Mitsubishi made many of their aircraft in Hiroshima. From the start of the war, the Mitsubishi shipyards in Nagasaki were heavily involved in contracts for the Imperial Navy. The Japanese military relied on Hiroshima for the supply of its aircraft and on Nagasaki for its ships. The region was used as a center for other industrial construction as well, by other smaller Zaibatsu and the aforementioned cottage industry houses. In other words, both cities could be considered military targets.

2. Only Japanese were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Wrong again. There were tens to hundreds of thousands of P.O.W.s and foreign slaves in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many of the slaves were Koreans and Chinese used as labor in these war industry factories. None of those who perished in the atomic bombings are mentioned in the casualty lists for that city, nor on any plaque within Hiroshima Peace Park where all other honored names are displayed. The city and governor consistently refused to permit it. Those killed are considered unmentionables. Like the ‘comfort women’, sex slaves conscripted from other nations such as Korea, China, Philippines, Singapore, to service Japanese military, they simply never existed. Not even in death. Recently, there has been acknowledgment and changes to this official stance, but it has come very slowly and with a long fight.

3. The United States was eager to test the atom bomb on a population.

Still wrong. The use of the then-new atomic bomb on a city, was an absolute last resort for the Americans. To have to use it on two cities was beyond last resort. There is no one living or dead who wished to use it on anything but a weathered steel tower if there was any chance in not having to. Unfortunately, the last resort became an option after the Battle of Okinawa demonstrated that the Japanese would not only fail to surrender, but would execute the civilian population as well, as they did with impunity on Okinawa. It’s worth considering that to this day, the only military the people of Okinawa despise more than the still occupying forces of the U.S. is the Japanese military, and that’s after several high profile rape incidents involving American military against local Okinawan children. Even with that, the Japanese of Okinawa still despise the Japanese military more.

The Battle of Okinawa displayed in stark relief what Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima had earlier hinted at. That it would take Operation Olympic, a total land invasion by Allied forces, planned and readied by hundreds of thousands to millions of veteran and new troops in staging areas across the Pacific, to stop the Asian nation. The astronomical amount of logistics and enormous cost, financial and human, in support and training alone would not have been expelled had the U.S. always intended to use the atomic bombs as many critics suggest.

The total deaths at the Battle of Okinawa have never fully been studied. But estimates show that more died there than in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, including those who died after the initial blast from radiation related illnesses. The figures that are often associated with Hiroshima and Nagasaki are almost always those in the most upper range of the estimates. In any case, many, many people died in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and places like Okinawa. No one can deny that. Yet, do we cringe at the mention of the Battle of Okinawa? No, we do not. Why not? Because it’s conventional war and conventional death. But more importantly, I believe, the primary reason is because there are very few images to evoke our emotion. So, it becomes a mere statistic. Numbers not images. Math not art. Faces move us far more than figures.

4. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved Japanese lives.

It is a sad and strange truth that in the end the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually saved Japanese lives.  This is not an unsupportable claim. For if Operation Olympic was to proceed there is no denying that millions of Japanese would have died, along with millions of Allied soldiers all in the name of getting the Emperor to sign a piece of paper.

Number 4 is a hard pill to swallow. Because of the images of nuclear war, and the effects of it, we tend to regard such an event as the complete and utter end of the world.

But it did not end the world. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, leveled, incinerated. Yet, combined, they don’t add up to the casualties suffered in Okinawa. But many might argue that Okinawa was not leveled, it’s towns were not stamped flat. No, they were not. But this discussion is about life, not things. People, not buildings. Humanity not machinery. So, we must not veer off our humanitarian quest only to pick up broken shields and count structures razed. This is about loss of life, human life. It is the heart targeted message of The War Game and all other anti-nuclear statements that life is what we are fighting for.

In previous wars, whole populations were decimated, entire nations were removed from existence, wiped off the map. In relative terms of populations, it would be like the earth opening up and swallowing all of North America, or Africa, or Europe in one single messy gulp. We’re talking mind numbingly large scale destruction. But the difference is, there were no cameras to record such horrors, no witnesses to give any heart wrenching accounts. No screaming children, no frustrated doctors applying salves to blackened, shiny skin. None of that. Because nothing lived.

Years ago, I had the good fortune to meet one of the last remaining members of the First Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. Army Air Force and the American in charge of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey which went in days after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations to record and film what was left of those former cities. Any footage you have seen is most likely the footage that group and their Japanese counterparts took. He remarked that they had a few armed soldiers with them as they drove into the flattened city. He and his colleagues were scared to death about going in. Not because of the radiation. They were certain that they were going to be torn limb from limb by whatever survivors were remaining and with whatever strength those poor souls had left in them.

But they were not. They were saluted.

Those cities were sacrificed, perhaps we can look at it this way, to save the world from further and almost certain nuclear death. It is their example in the pictures and film which were taken, also with sacrifice, which can remind us what horrors are possible in our own time if we allow them. Images.

Thanks to those men who went in after the bombs, we have that visual legacy to consult. But think for a moment of those images of nuclear war, in footage and in films like The War Game and the power it commands. Certainly, the horror deters us, makes us think. So consider this. Isn’t it possible that we might have had another tragedy like the Nazi Holocaust, for example, if there were no pictures or film of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Buchenwald to shock us, to remind us what we as humans are capable of? Films like The War Game were made for just this purpose. To remind. To fill in what is missing in our visual library of real horrors. Yes, let them be reminders, but not propaganda.

The image is a remarkable thing. None of us would be sharing our thoughts here if images didn’t move us, didn’t sway us. Places like this site exist because images affect us. But we must remind ourselves that there are many horrors, different, but perhaps equally horrible and inconceivable to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the events depicted in The War Game, but which we have no image to relate to, to recoil from, to get sick looking upon.

If you have seen someone’s head explode from pressure applied into the ears, or an armless woman stumbling down the street with her forced-birth child dangling behind her legs, still attached by its umbilical chord and dragging on the road looking like a dirty, old shoe, except it’s screaming – or a naked man, standing in sub zero temperatures, having water poured on his arm, freezing it, and then having it intentionally smashed off like delicate glass with the blow of a hammer – or children hung on poles in the sun, being flayed alive, their skin peeled off them slowly as they try to scream but cannot because their vocal chords were cut out – or seen animal limbs sewn onto humans in place of the perfectly healthy ones that were chopped off – or the insertion of germs and disease into patients wide awake during operations – or the cannibalism of prisoners of war, the beheading for amusement, or any of the other myriad of tortures that went far beyond what the Nazis ever did, then you have seen war BEFORE the atom bomb, before the nuclear age. You have seen the Japanese in China.

War is horrible. All forms of it. Whether it is nuclear or non nuclear. It is horrible. Human beings can be the most – let me correct that – are the most horrible creatures on the planet. We have proven this time and again. We are the most dangerous creatures, because, as the Orson Welles’ Zaroff confesses in The Most Dangerous Game, we can reason.

If you ask an older Chinese, Indonesian, Southeast Asian, Singaporean or Filipino about whether or not the A-bomb was necessary to stop the Japanese, you will get a very different answer than the one usually given by most western college students. Very different, indeed. I’ve been to Hiroshima several times. On more than one occasion as a a teacher on a class trip. Visiting the Peace Park Memorial during one of these occasions,  I was accompanied not only by fellow Japanese teachers who were old enough to remember World War II, but by a survivor of the Hiroshima blast, an old Japanese gentleman, who was a small boy when that B-29 made its run, and who has seen things, horrors, none of us could dream up in our worst nightmares. Many of the people who come to visit the Hiroshima Peace Park and other places like it are Japanese school children taken there by their schools. This makes me wonder how many schools in America conduct similar visits to places where Americans perished in war. I can only hope that they do, because I think it would be more worthwhile for them than Disney Land or the Philadelphia Zoo. Foreigners, many of them from the United States, Canada, Europe also visit the memorial in great number. Many of them leave without understanding why the bombs were dropped, though. They see evidence of the horror and destruction, but very little in terms of explanation of what led up to that day. Images. Emotion. Ironically, it is the Japanese school children who are taught in school at least a small measure of the horrors of Nanking, about the gas and germ weapons tested on civilians, about the flaying in Burma and the beheading and torture at Bataan. Westerners are generally not taught this. And yet westerners are the biggest critics of the U.S. for the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, aside from those who lived through them of course. But even there, such as my elderly friend pointed out to me, ‘we Japanese brought it upon ourselves’.

Even a single warhead in today’s nuclear arsenal dwarfs the initial three detonations (including Trinity) as a Howitzer would a spitball made and spit by an ant. I think most people agree that total disarmament would be an ideal situation, but, like gun ownership, only if it was unilateral and guaranteed. But neither of those two conditions can be met with the degree of certainty needed for the stakes at hand. Today, it would only take one bullet, so to speak, to stop the world.

So, where does it leave us? Stuck in M.A.D. status until a clever person develops something that can disable nuclear warheads remotely, making them obsolete.

In The War Game man-in-the-street interviews it was quite clear that the filmmaker intended to show exactly how uninformed both the citizenry and experts were. The gap between what they thought they knew and what they actually knew was so great once the chaos started, like the absurdity of Dr. Strangelove, it would have been humorous if it wasn’t so tragic. Looking back on 1965 when The War Game was made, we think we are not uninformed as they were. We look at those people with skeptical eyes, marveling at their naivety. We think our parents and grandparents generations were so gullible, so foolish to think the way they did. Now, we’re certain we’re different. We think we have tons of data because of the internet, because we read this article or that book, follow this podcast or that blog, we think we have reams of inside information. We’re informed. We’re in the know. Like the Brattle audience, we’re savvy, sophisticated and knowledgeable. Nothing can harm us that we’re not prepared for, neither comedy nor horror.  We’ve smugly laughed the danger away. We’ve whistled past the graveyard and we’re fine.

But the reality is it won’t matter if we’re laughing or not. Because relatively speaking, we are those same people who were depicted in The War Game, those foolish folk, bumbling around in the dark, with simpleton plans and childish things. We distance ourselves from that lot.  We think we know as much as is knowable minus only a small fraction, a negligible amount. This is fantasy. It is the inverse that is true. We know very little compared with what can happen. And very few of us have experience beyond the images or emotion, neither of which can prepare us.

But what can happen? We’re making friends around the world, aren’t we? We’re beloved again, right? We’re on the right track, are we not? There’s no U.S.S.R. and no Berlin Wall. The missiles have been out of Cuba for a long time and all is well.

I sincerely hope so. But, in the warm and sometimes wet blanket of good relations we can also misplace other kinds of things, like the historical fact that we were friends, good friends with Japan in the years preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor, that we were allies with the Soviets, even war buddies just prior to the outset of the Cold war, and that we had agreements with China prior to the Korean war.

Only the foolish don’t hope for peace while remaining prepared for war. Even organisms in nature, from bacteria to orangutans, are linked to the concept that the defenseless perish. Period. Except those in captivity, that is.  But of course, as human beings, we believe we have evolved to a stage where ruthlessness and barbarity are no longer useful, no longer needed, and no longer effective. Yet, how many times has Captain Kirk had to confront that issue with powers greater than his Enterprise? Plenty.

In the magnificent film Ben Hur, Hugh Griffith’s character Ilderim disagrees with Balthasar’s plea for pacifism. He voices it to Judah Ben Hur, who will soon fight his nemesis in the arena of the chariots:

ILDERIM: Balthasar is a good man. But until all men are like him, we must keep our swords bright!

JUDAH BEN HUR: And our intentions true!

ILDERIM: One last thought… there is no law in the arena. Many are killed. I hope to see you again, Judah Ben-Hur.

Films like The War Game, Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe were made to sway us, to warn us, not of the Soviets nor the Chinese, but of ourselves, each of us. Of what we are capable of and what we can’t control. They may look antiquated and evoke surly chuckles in all the savvy places but each, in its own way, is no less real now than when they were made.

Though anachronistic, they are also timeless because they speak about our fears, and that never goes out of style. The dangers, now different, do exist and have always existed. Facing the different horrors of war, cold or hot, conventional or nuclear should be done equally and indiscriminately with the same even and steady hand that we choose to hold a candle by.

The atom and hydrogen bombs are not the most powerful weapons ever devised by man. The image is.

Aside from the many frustrating projects making demands on his time Schizoid Mann has begun work on a thriller about the cold war.

The War Game at Google Video.

Fail-Safe at Google Video.

Daniel A. McGovern at IMDB.

It’s also something our movies used to portray well. We don’t get to see too many of these kinds of movies anymore. Nope, they don’t make them like they used to. That can be said of both the men and women of Bush 41’s generation, as well as the films of that era. But sometimes, in more recent times, we’re graced with shining examples of tarnished excellence, of battered beauty in our citizens and in our favorite art, the movies.   

“In Harms Way” is such a movie. It’s a great film. Imperfect, but great. When I ask learned friends of mine about Preminger’s films, they usually omit this one in their list of Otto’s greats. I’ve seen it a few times now, and I’m not sure why they leave it out. I’ve speculated it’s because they haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet. Nope, they’ve seen it, they assure me. So, when I delved deeper as to why it gets left out, I was a bit surprised to see a full spectrum of opinions expressed in describing the film and its flaws, real and imagined. It’s a good sign, though. If a work of art – and this film is art – can evoke such divergent opinions and emotions in an audience, then it’s working. Boy is it ever! 

A couple of things seemed to surface far more than others in the criticisms of this flick. Even Kirk Douglas, one of the stars of “In Harms Way” was somewhat vocal at the time in his opinion on some of these same perceived shortcomings.

Basically, he didn’t like the boats. 

With all due respect to Kirk, I think he’s wrong on this one. Recent comments I’ve heard about this film miss the mark, too. So, don’t listen to the technologically-dependent reviewers who say that the “special effects are lame.” I’ve seen plenty of worse special effects in newer, bigger budget films. But that’s not important. Because if you look for flaws, you’ll find them. To those who so easily do, I ask the following question: Have you ever had the pleasure of watching Shakespeare performed by a talented acting company on stage? Would you walk out because the stage lighting was lame or a backdrop wasn’t a perfect rendering of a landscape or village street?  It has long been my opinion that the folks who complain about special effects being “lame,” “bad” or “cheap” are missing the point.

The entire phenomenon of drama, of film is an “effect,” a cheat, an illusion, pulling the wool over our eyes twenty four times a second. The sum total of cheats and tricks are intended to transport the mind to another place, the setting of the film. The acting, scenery, effects are there to help us imagine, to aid our mind on its journey. So, when I hear one complain that the acting in a film is great, but that the effects stink, it simply tells me that the viewer’s mind is too weak to make the jump, to connect the dots, because, perhaps, some of the dots are not as boldly written as others. Either that or they just came out of a Roger Corman flick. 

As an alternative, would those critics of cheaper effects prefer to have Otto Preminger go out sink actual cruisers, torpedo boats and the real battleship Yamato for his film?  I almost expect the answer to be ‘yes’, judging from some of the commentary I’ve read on this subject and others like it. Let’s get serious, folks. Without a doubt, there seems to be a trend, more prevalent as the tooth gets long and the days go by, to confuse narrative drama with documentary. Even the Italian Neo Realists knew where to draw the line. Maybe it’s because documentaries of late have been produced like narratives, manipulative and with a clear and present intent on affecting the heart and mind of the viewer, politically and ideologically. Or maybe it’s because audiences are more sophisticated now and demand more technical prowess for their buck. Forget it. Give me a break. If the folks coming out of American Pie II are to be described as more sophisticated as compared with those exiting a screening of Bicycle Thief, then I’m in the wrong business and I need a new dictionary.  

When an old war film like this is shown on television or released on DVD, the usual suspects come out and take their hackneyed pot shots over the bow, criticizing the film for being too tame in the graphic violence department, or for using “cheap models” and other “not realistic” effects. These misguided critiques are often accompanied by the ubiquitous phraseology that goes hand in hand with such complaints, such as, “if you can get past the bad effects….”. This kind of unimaginative discourse is about as useful as Facebook in a knife fight. Often these criticisms rally together an alliance to hit the easy and much targeted Hays Code and Hollywood’s era of so called ‘censorship’, which just so happened to result in the best darn moviemaking ever seen in human history. Nope, that’s coincidence, they say. Mere chance that the obstacles, such as not having a fleet to sink, nor being allowed to show the fact that sailors when hit by the explosive force of artillery are turned into nothing more than steaming stains, actually produced better cinema.

Obstacles help.

They force the filmmaker to go around them, to be resourceful and creative with what they are able to show. Obstacles force the the creators of film art to use the power of their imaginations, and thus spark the viewer’s imagination of what they thought they just saw on the screen, but actually didn’t. By using the effects of association, montage and the art of lighting in creating a desired sensation, whether for suspense, doom or elation, great filmmaker can make us believe what we were seeing, and not seeing. And during that golden age of Hollywood, by not showing, they showed us far more than we can see now in the unbridled Hollywood of CG and anything goes. Take a modern pre CG visual masterpiece such as Blade Runner, for example. If made for the first time, in the near tomorrow of Los Angeles, 2010, Roy Batty’s “I’ve seen things” speech would be omitted in favor of simply showing computer generated attack ships burning off the shoulder of Orion. Cool, though it may be. Roy’s description sparked a fuse that still burns so very, very brightly to this day. Unwavering. The same cannot and would not be said if, the production began tomorrow, and we did see what he saw with Chew’s eyes. It would not be timeless, masterpiece of moviemaking history, but a dated and forgotten one faster than you can say, “you’re talking about memories.”  Because, over time, all effects become lame, outdated and clunky. Bar none. No exceptions. The only thing that never becomes outdated is our imagination. What we think we see. 

Others, not in favor of the CG answer, and though still not keen on how the battle action was portrayed in “In Harm’s Way” might prefer that grainy newsreel footage be used, as seen in the Pearl Harbor sequence at the outset of the film. No one can argue that such material is not real enough. The process of using stock footage can be convincing if done sparingly, for only seconds on screen, such as in the cold war classic, “Fail Safe”. Personally, I love to see war footage. But not in a feature film.  I’d rather see imperfect models than mismatched newsreel footage, which, for obvious reasons, all too often substitutes different vessels and aircraft type for those depicted in the story, usually in mid-scene! Some experts out there familiar with the cold war classic might fire back at me here and state that a movie like “Fail Safe” fails in this regard, as well, and by this very same sin. True, but the insert of stock footage happens so quickly that its somewhat inaccurate characteristics (I won’t say more) goes unnoticed by most viewers not versed in war machinery, leaving us safely undistracted and in the story. 

Also, it must be noted that though there is battle action, “In Harms Way” is not a war film, as such. It is a film that uses the war as its setting. Other critics who are able to “get past” the so-called lame effects, charge that there isn’t enough action in the film. This is a valid point. It’s based on a novel. Characterization is of prime importance. But, like From Here to Eternity and Farewell to Arms (both film versions from novels), the setting of the war is only a setting, a backdrop, a time and place to situate the activity of our characters and what kinds of messes they get themselves into. Sure, cinema by definition is about visuality and what happens next, what we see happening next, not about the written word. But there can be a very nice blend of literary greatness, storytelling and visuality that all movie classics from Hollywood’s golden era share. You show me a timeless classic film from the 30s, 40s, 50s and I’ll show you a dense script.  

Preminger deserves more credit for doing a fine job in transforming the story from the written word to the big screen. He doesn’t do it alone, of course. To help him are John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, and Patricia Neal with many fine smaller roles filled by Burgess Meredith, Dana Andrews, Franchot Tone and Henry Fonda as well as some other familiar faces I’ll let you enjoy noticing on your own. 

I won’t comment on each of the actor’s performances here either; you can see for yourself how fine or poor their acting is by your own standards after watching this admirable film. It’s my opinion, though, that you won’t be disappointed. You’ll find in at least one of them, something you can relate to, in another something you can empathize with, one you can love and maybe one you can honestly hate. 

I will add one point about the actors, though, and that is that John Wayne did a tremendous job in this film. Some say his understated performance was due to his having been diagnosed with cancer at the time. I’m in no position to say if that’s true or not. There are probably only a handful of people who still alive who are. But I can say this: if that’s the case, if his suffering from cancer was a reason why his performance was the way it was, then, rather than discredit, it says even more about the man’s strength and character and his ability to perform under such conditions than anything I can even begin to think of.

Another thing about Duke. It’s been my experience that the critics of John Wayne, of his acting, are similarly cynical concerning the topic of U.S. foreign policy and America’s role in the world. Such people, it’s been my experience to note, who resent his “John Wayneness” are often unreceptive to him as a figure of tough, no nonsense America, much more than his skills in acting. They despise what he represents, and therefore, anything he does or stars-in regardless of quality. This is a behavior we’ve all seen in the last several years with regards to George W. Bush. Those eager to mock the decisions he’s made ignore the fact that those same or similar decisions were made by other politicians which the critics themselves celebrated with nothing less than high regard and glee. 

Here’s an experiment: next time you hear someone making jokes about John Wayne’s acting, particularly if they aren’t good-natured jokes, or impressions – who doesn’t do a John Wayne impression? – discreetly inquire about their stance on U.S. foreign policy. Don’t be obvious, just see if you can wrangle it out of them delicately. I don’t think you’ll be surprised to find an overly negative and similarly cynical attitude in this area as well.

Watch the film. Ignore the shortcomings. A strong mind can do this easily. A weak mind will dwell on them. It’s your choice. Like Bush ‘41 and his generation depicted in the film,  ”In Harm’s Way” is an example of imperfect greatness that perhaps only history can appreciate completely.

I got more and I didn’t want it. 

Why don’t sequels do well? Obviously, I’m not alone in feeling the way I do about Raiders or Star Wars or Jaws or any other great character-rich, dynamically set film that pulls you in and doesn’t fully let go even after the end titles trail up and we see that film certification symbol fade out. So, why is it that more of what we love, we hate? Well, maybe not hate, but not love quite so much. What’s going on here? 

Perhaps like many of you, I get excited when I hear shooting has started on a new installment of a film series I enjoy. Back when I saw the first leaked images of Jones on horseback going up against a German tank in the employ of the Afrika Corps, I was “giddy as a schoolboy.” I couldn’t wait to for that thing to be in the can and out in the theaters. I was thrilled, anxious and ready for the journey. But then another feeling took hold. Again, like many of you, when mention of a sequel or prequel leaks out, a small fear creeps up the back of one’s neck that somehow curiosity will lead to a deep regret, rivaling that of John Hurt’s as he poked his nose over that egg in Alien. And, like John, our feelings are often very well justified. Because many times, almost always, if anyone’s counting, sequels fail to capture the magic of the first film. “You just can’t repeat it,” many repeat.  Well, I’m not so sure about that. I don’t think it’s that the filmmakers are not trying hard enough, I think it’s more that they’re trying too hard. 

People change, and so should characters, right? Well, not quite. I have been wondering for a long time now, why it is I can’t fully enjoy Return of the Jedi, Aliens,  Alien 3,  Alien Resurrection,  any Rambo emptying a SAW past First Blood, or any Rocky beyond the bell where an out-of-breath voice gasped wisely, “No rematch!” And where an equally wise one gurgled out, “Don’t want one.” Well, a little voice, similarly exhausted, tells me this could be said of Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John, Radar, Burns and Hot Lips Houlihan. Of the cast and crew of the Minnow, and that other ship, where some rogue muttered, “Look, I’m not in this for your revolution, sister. I’m in it for the money.” 

What am I talking about here? It’s what has been defined as Character Development. Somewhere along the way character development, the arc or course a character’s actions, words, and behavior take along a story line has been replaced with something different, something not-so-natural, not-so-healthy, something very formulaic. The increase in depth of a character’s personality, is, we are told, a sure sign of good writing, good acting, and lot’s of other good stuff. It signals to us that the characters are being fleshed-out, are growing, just like us. Changing, just like us. And doing the things we normally do, like becoming superhuman, multi-dimensional, and, best of all, not at all in it for the money.

I’m here to say that it isn’t working. Not for me, anyway. Using Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces as a tuning fork, Lucas played the characters of Star Wars with perfect pitch and tone. He hit every note right. Yes, I happen to like Luke Skywalker as an innocent, awkward, and yes, sometimes dopey farm boy, a kid out of his element fighting a huge empire. I don’t know many farm boys who have much experience fighting huge empires (though that’s no reason to deny them the job). I also happen to like Han Solo looking out for number one, and of course, also watching his trusty sidekick Chewie’s back. Sure I want Han to come to the rescue every now and then, saving everybody and maybe the universe, too.  But not as a full-time job! And I want him complaining about his predicament with every discharge of his blaster all the way down the celestial pike. What I don’t want to see is his transformation into a benevolent, altruistic, selfless stick figure, volunteering for the toughest assignment without so much as a quip, an insult or at least a good joke. In Return of the Jedi, his character became flat and blocky, more inert than when he was frozen in carbonite. 

I have an idea. It might even pass for a theory. It goes something like this:

In Ridley Scott’s Alien, Ripley made a interesting heroine because we didn’t expect her to be the heroine. Let’s face it, Tom Skerritt had higher billing and thus, a greater chance of coming out of that pickle with a heck of a lot more than a highly lubricated pile driver alien jaw through his head, or worse. So did John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, and Ian Holm. Sure, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, by rising to the occasion and becoming the hero achieved the unexpected, it’s true. Yet her actions were not out of character. Why not? Because we had already been shown hints of her strength. No, not in any oiled-muscle, gearing-up scene – as in Aliens,  and now almost every other film which has a David on the way to slay a Goliath – but in her behavior toward Ian Holm’s Science Officer Ash. When Ash makes the rash decision to violate quarantine protocol and let the landing party re-enter the ship and mind of Conrad’s Nostromo, she’s pissed. He blatantly disregards her authority. Soon after, she confronts him and lays down the rules. That’s all that was needed.  Hints are what we like. Not HITS, as in ‘…over the head.’

Aliens changed things. Don’t get me wrong, I loved this film, as I do many of James Cameron’s. But it’s another good example of writing going past the point of believability that is more distracting to me, and maybe others, than an audio pop, a jump cut, or violating the 180 rule. With this sequel the filmmakers decided to develop her character into a somewhat neurotic and unstable fusspot, suffering from insomnia, and having to still feed the same moody cat after 57 years. This is fine and understandable, and, very much in keeping with her character and what she’s been through, but it doesn’t really explain the superhuman strength and Delta Operator focus we see in her later on in the same film. Where did her fear go? And where did those skill sets mysteriously come from? Hicks? Spunkmeyer?  

Surrounded by goo-oozing aliens, pulsating eggs, and god knows what else, she charges back into the breech and certain death to find that darn cat again. Well, no, not really. But it might as well have been the cat. Instead, it’s the little girl, Newt, perhaps the most obvious in a long list of Cameron tributes to Gordon Douglas’ original “bug hunt” flick Them!  Ripley crawls into the growling belly of the beast with little more than a souped-up pulse rifle and spare magazines. And all through this mission, which would make John Rambo pause, she’s not even breathing heavy. While in the first movie, Alien, just one of those creatures hiding somewhere on a ship the size of Greenland made her hyperventilate into something resembling sheer panic. Justifiably so. But here, she calmly, and very professionally goes about her new task of rescuing a small girl from amongst several hundreds or maybe thousands of “Ripley’s bad guys”. Let’s not forget, this is within the dark, dank depths of a burning nuclear power plant that is about to do an impression of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst. Sure, the mother instinct is a crucial element of the theme here, mother vs. mother and all that. But, still, her behaviour takes on a super hero quality that transforms the story into more science fantasy than fiction. Where the original rules set down by the writers are being violated by who else, but the writers, in situations where anything, even the absurd is possible and to be expected. This is not to be confused with a suspension of disbelief. Rather, this is an expelling of belief that the setting and situation the writers have created for us is being transformed into a veritable Westworld run by renegade deus ex machina. 

Alien Resurrection displays more character development with our hero Ripley going gothic with touches of  arcade Street Fighter and left-over marine grunt mixed-in. Granted, to be fair she is merely a shadow of her former self, quite literally. She’s a clone. This time, an off-the-rack Ripley with a shelf life much longer apparently, than a synthetic Bishop, Ash and, while we’re at it, a Zhora, Priss or even Rachel could ever hope to get from the original manufacturer. But this unreasonable facsimile is just that, unreasonable. She’s not a whole lot of fun, either. Because we can guess rather confidently from the opening shots of her determination, that here sits our hero. This isn’t character development. This isn’t even a character. Unless you happen to be considering the cartoon variety.

Which brings me back to Luke, Leia, and Han (sorry Chewie). Principle players in the original Star Wars, they had their respective characters fleshed-out in fine form by the third act, the battle. We loved it, as did most of planet Earth. Which doesn’t really explain why the creators of the third installment, Return of the Jedi, would want to change that. Of course, we want change, but not at the expense of the things we have loved which connected us to it in the first place. I don’t want to see new facets of a character if I feel the filmmakers are showing me these new facets, these changes, these twists because they’ve exhausted all their original ideas in earlier installments and are now resorting to drastic means to keep the gravy train rolling, with add-ons that are more a product of meetings with merchandisers than anything else. If that’s the case, if in fact the characters are out of ammo, fleshed-out as far as their flesh will go – inevitable no matter how rich the character is written initially – then give us a new character or another adventure. For example, look what was done with the exceptional Leigh Brackett and Larry Kasdan penned Empire Strikes Back,  a rare winning sequel. It had taken the original idea, expanded on it and led us to places undreamed. Yet, all the while, retaining the character traits of all in attendance and firmly anchoring us to the original franchise without so much as a hiccup in believability or anything that a healthy smack on a cockpit control panel couldn’t fix.  That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how you do it. You don’t pervert the characteristics of each member of a story, transforming them beyond believability, simply to get more mileage out of them or to justify a production, an episode or a sequel. Lovers of the original film, the fans, will rebel against that. They want to see more of what they love. They don’t want to see entirely new characters masquerading as the old ones for no other reason than to reel-in a duped loyal fan base at the box office. Not a good idea. 

Which leads us to Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  Certainly, it was no Raiders, no Last Crusade nor my and many others’ least favorite, Temple of Doom. Simply, it just didn’t measure up. But, with that said, I did enjoy it and was happy to see the settings and the characters, well, some of them, again. I missed Sallah, and Marcus. Who didn’t? I wasn’t crazy about the time period, though I’m a big fan of cold war anything. But for me, Indy belongs in a pre-atomic age, when leather satchels, whips and dusty bomber jackets were worn by men other than those without a cause to rebel against. That’s a change that didn’t need to be. “Yeah but it’s twenty years since they made Last Crusade!”, they cried. So? Harrison Ford is an actor, so are the other people in the film who call themselves actors. Hollywood makes magic, doesn’t it?  Now, more than ever, we’re constantly told. There is no reason why we couldn’t have had this fourth Indiana Jones installment, and most likely the last, set in the mid-forties. In an attempt to make the story more ‘real to life’ they made it too real, and lifeless.  Was this another mistake by Spielberg? Judging not by the reviews, which I never judge anything on anyway, but by the fans and of course, my own feelings, that humorously understated line by Last Crusade’s last Templar knight comes to mind:  “He chose poorly.”  

Before I forget, I want to mention one other thing about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that bothered me. Something on the poster, something about Indy was missing. His smile. Indy wasn’t really smiling. They continued the poster style, keeping it consistent with the serial nature of the cliffhangers that Raiders re-pioneered, if I can say that in mixed company. And I applaud that with gusto. But they changed the illustrated Indy too much by leaving out that cockiness, even after 20 years. If he’s not going to smile, not going to be displaying that adventurous grin, not going to display that false bravado, that winning lovable mixture of Joel McCray, Bob Hope, and yes, Han Solo that made Indiana Jones come alive for us, making even the most harrowing situation and death defying stunt seem fun and something we’d like to try at home, then why bother? They missed it with the poster. So, right out of the gate, they went in the wrong direction, with the wrong approach. Sure, he’s 20 years older, so what? Ever hear of people like John Glenn, Malcolm Forbes or Michael Korda? There are plenty of examples of men and women in their middle and senior years pursuing endeavors that healthy college kids would run from. So, for a character like Indiana Jones to run out of steam, it’s disappointing to say the least, and certainly not a topic for a sequel. Frankly, I think they played on the age element far too much in order to introduce a new angle to Indy. A big mistake. They didn’t need a new angle. I think even a poor story – and this one was not up to par with the previous three by any stretch of the imagination – could have been a heck of a lot more fun and much better cinema if they retained the Indy that we knew and loved in Raiders, felt a bit distanced from in Temple of Doom and re-united with in Last Crusade.  That’s my feeling. But heck, I’m making this up as I go along.   

Here’s a plea to budding writers out there: 

If you want to write such huge character changes, don’t experiment with an existing, beloved creation, adding-on simple shock value and steroids or fatigue and a lack of collagen. You may hit on a winner, and you may not. In the meantime, though, you’ll be changing irrevocably the things from the original that we grew with and held close to our hearts. Don’t do it. 

Start with a new, original story. There, you can experiment with a clean slate and see for certain why the lines are forming, along the story arc and around the block. In the meantime you may find quite unexpectedly that the big screen isn’t the only place where your character is being developed.

“It would be a very, very terrible thing for the United States in many, many ways,” he said. Adding that Mr. Obama, “represents a huge step upward from (the) incompetence and misjudgment” of the Bush administration.”

You know, it’s a hard thing to watch your heroes fall. To see them as they really are, not as you thought they were, not as you wish they were.

I grew up loving Woody Allen movies, ranking “Annie Hall,” “Manhattan” and “Hannah and Her Sisters” as three of my favorite all-time films. With “Radio Days” and “Sleeper” not too far behind. 

I also grew up watching the evening news. I felt it was good, it was right when breaking news events came by way of the distinguished anchor, the courageous reporter in the field or by intrepid foreign correspondent, trench coat and all, reporting from overseas. I thought we were being looked after, our interests as Americans were safe with the names I could recite, everyone could recite, without skipping a beat, names synonymous with reporting, with news, with professionalism. I watched Dan Rather,  Peter Jennings, MacNeil/Lehrer, Bill Moyers and even a little of Walter Cronkite without a thought to any reason why I shouldn’t.  These were the voices I heard. These were the faces I believed. The people on TV that I looked up to. That’s the way it was.

Since then, I have learned that I was fooled. I was tricked, tricked by professionals at illusion: entertainers and journalists.

I don’t blame them.  I just feel sad. I feel sad that those fixed stars of my childhood have all but vanished, disappeared into a bleakness and a darkness that is bias, that is a pandemic misguidedness all in the name of power, power for one side, their side, their choices, with little regard for the big picture, the country, our culture.

Like myself, Woody Allen is a New Yorker. He, too, experienced the reality of 9/11 up close and personal. It hit home like nothing else before it. Yet, if we are to judge him by his statements to the press — the international press – he is ignoring the fact that our country has been untouched, completely and absolutely for the seven plus years since that horrible day. No matter how many arguments you have over oil, Halliburton, missing Bin Laden, etc, there has been no repeat of 9/11. None. It’s a fact that seems to go unnoticed by so many in the media, so many like Woody Allen, so many otherwise intelligent people. We have not been hit again.

Mr. Allen completely ignores the reality that this feat was and has been due in large part to the steadfastness of one man, one man who faced obstacles in our media, in our press, in our entertainment fields of movies, music, news, print and video. Every possible avenue of information dispersal in the English language and beyond has been hellbent on bringing down this one man, removing him – trying to do to him, to President Bush, with slow bullets what befell President Kennedy with fast ones.

They failed. No, they didn’t miss. They hit him most certainly. Yes, they wounded him and us.  They wounded and killed many in the field, many innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many of our finest citizens who volunteered to protect our nation by joining the armed forces. They, that our friends in the press and entertainment call rubes, morons and uneducated, those honored souls that Hollywood defiles at every opportunity are our best. Yeah, those guys. How many of them were wounded or killed because our irresponsible media and shameless entertainment industry heaped scorn on our country’s Commander in Chief at the worst possible time, when all the world’s eyes were upon us, when everyone waited to see what the United States was going to do when attacked on its shores. Eyes strained to see what would happen when the entertainment capital of the world, Woody Allen’s beloved New York City was struck a lethal blow and when the political capital was likewise attacked.  What enemy would not want to see and examine what this so-called omnipotent super power was going to do next?

When the burned steel and flesh was still smoldering at Pearl Harbor, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto allegedly stated, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Whether or not he actually uttered those words, or only included them in his diary later, is unknown. But what is undeniable is that he believed them.

This phrase was repeated, in various versions all over the place after 9/11. So many people believed that we could not let 9/11 go unpunished. So many people felt we could not just wait for the UN to bungle it. So many people were certain we’d come together as a country, just like after Pearl Harbor. So many people were positive it was finally time to send the message that America was not going to allow its citizens to perish at the hands of madmen.

So many people… forgot.

Sleeping, indeed. Well, Yamamoto was half right. While most of the country forgot their words, their resolve, they went back to work, never really feeling a blip in their daily lives, since they didn’t live in Woody Allen’s New York or work in the Pentagon, and let’s face it, continuing to think about 9/11 was like going to watch “The Sorrow and the Pity” one more time. It was depressing. So, we went back to our lives already in progress. We fell back asleep again.

But our Commander in Chief didn’t. Our airmen didn’t. Our sailors didn’t. Our soldiers didn’t. Our Marines didn’t. They are our giants. And it is their shoulders we now stand upon. How many have lost eyes, limbs, years from their lives because callous individuals which make up our celebrity class are quoted in the domestic and overseas media constantly spewing their hate for this one man, for his stubborn efforts to keep us safe and prevent another 9/11?  How many suffered, who are not Americans, because terrorists, and that’s what they are, were emboldened by a fraud documentary or a movie star-of-the-week’s public mockery of our president to anyone and everyone who would listen. And brother, did the world’s press love to listen.

This reminds me of something I’ve thought about a lot since 9/11. In the movie “The Godfather,” there are so many great scenes it’s really hard to pick a favorite. But there is one very small but profound one that stands out for me.  It’s a keystone to what happens to the Corleone family from that moment on. Nothing for that family, other families and for the entire business – since the Corleone’s strength is what keeps the peace amongst them –  is the same after that scene.  Can you start to see why this scene comes to mind? No, it’s not a shootout at a toll booth in New Jersey.  No, it’s not a montage of execution and baptism, nor is it a very nice veal dinner ruined by a .38 caliber tracheotomy. No, it’s a very quiet scene. And many might not even remember it. But it’s the stepping stone to all that follows. And it applies exactly to what I have  witnessed my country doing to itself since 9/11, and maybe before, if I had taken the time to notice.

The scene takes place in the building of the Genco Olive Oil Company. The Godfather is there with his sons. He is visited by an ambitious outsider making the rounds to all the families who run New York’s underworld. When Sonny, for a brief moment, shows that he might be interested in a new line of business being pitched by this outsider, but which his father had already concluded was not in keeping with their line of work or morality, all is lost. Sonny blew it. That one moment, that one action of Sonny’s was to be the undoing of all that they knew.

How can that be, you ask?  Just by showing interest? Or was it greed? The Godfather, the father to his sons, had wisdom enough to realize that to show even the slightest bit of division of purpose within the family was to show the enemy how to attack and defeat them. His displeasure at his son’s carelessness is obvious, but he attempts to diminish its importance by writing it off to youth and a few too many amorous expeditions. But the damage is done. And the Godfather knows it. He shows it in his eyes. Brando is marvelous here. Coppola was very clever not to overplay this scene. He knew to keep it simple and subtle. Because it was subtlety, nuance, and yes, greed that gives away the shop, that exposes the weakness.

Division. You would think no celebrity, no movie star, no director, and especially no director from New York would ever miss something that poignant.

It’s known worldwide that President Bush was a man who did not always do well in front of the camera. But it’s not an easy thing for anyone in even the best conditions. It’s particularly difficult, if not impossible, when the camera has, so to speak, a limited focus and narrow depth of field. Thanks to those cameras, Bush’s every flub, every misstep, every awkward moment that we’ve all been prone to, was highlighted for all the world to see, and for our enemies to learn from, to learn of our lack of unity. Thanks to those cameras President Bush took the heat and became the figurehead for every error, perceived and real, made in America or abroad dating back to the Magna Carta. And for those small, insignificant gains, such as not being attacked since 9/11, for that actual accomplishment and so many others of which we never hear of, he is given none of the credit. Nor does he seek it. What does he do, instead? He thanks the troops.

Filmmaker Woody Allen knows all too well the manipulation possible with the camera,  microphone, and editing room. He knows all too well how easy it is to make things appear the way you want them to. The way you need them to.

He knows.

Yet, he seems to have been hoodwinked into thinking Mr. Obama was going to bring change, real change, positive change to the Oval Office. Why did he think this? What evidence was there? Mr. Allen had stated quite clearly that our country would suffer home and abroad if we as a nation did not elect Mr. Obama. Of what evidence or expertise did he consult or review to make such a claim, other than the promises made by a smooth candidate unknown to him and most of the world a mere one year earlier?  All we could judge this candidate on were his words and his appearance in front of the camera on the campaign trail. That, and promises of change, loosely dangled in front of self-inflicted weary eyes, hoping for something, anything to bring joy to them after the eight years of misery, of not being attacked again.

Make no mistake.  Mr. Allen is not to be grouped in the same category as the Matt Afflecks, the Ben Damons or the Maggie Cho Garofalos. No, he is not an outspoken and overpaid semi-talented celebrity smitten with the limelight and adored by fans hanging on and hooting at his every shameless, treasonous word. No, that is not Woody Allen. He is a talented director and a gifted writer with a vast reservoir of experiences that trump anything a pretty face and high friends in higher places could ever hope to muster. Unlike the celebrity actor, a good director is a manager, a contemplator of bigger pictures than the scene at hand, constantly dealing in the reality of imaginary ‘what if’s. With all due respect to great actors everywhere, and there are many, the director has a bit more to be concerned about than lines to be memorized, a mark to hit and a good side to show to the cameras. He must be a multi-level chess player aware of always changing contingencies on what to do if this fails, if that goes wrong, if so-and-so doesn’t show up. He is tasked with a never-ending list of scenarios of what ideally should be done, what can be done, and what will probably have to be done for each and every set-up, with more levels of uncertainty than a fictional “Buck” Turgidson or Walter Groteschele could ever dream of. He does this all the while inspiring confidence among his crew and never losing sight of the goal: to create something entertaining for others. Maybe even something fun.

In the James L. Brooks film “As Good as it Gets,” Jack Nicholson’s character, Melvin, is approached by a fan who adores his very successful novels.

Young Woman: How do you write women so well?

Melvin: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.

Jack could just as easily be talking about our favorite liberal celebrities there. Too many on the left, while our nation is at war and lives are at stake, have failed to apply reason or bother to take responsibility for their words or any accountability of their behavior and actions, aside from that connected with their box office appeal.

Directors, traditionally, must be able to reason and are always accountable. That’s why, when a director makes statements such as Woody, it means more, it hurts more. While in the past, Mr. Allen had shown himself to be an astute thinker and poignant commentator on the comic tragedy called life and with all his abilities, all his experience, all his wit and humor on the fraud that is power, that is politics, he fully accepted Mr. Obama’s campaign promises on face value alone. He did so for no other reason than that such otherwise written blandness was performed well in front of the camera. With all his background why would Woody Allen fall for that?

Why did Dan Rather throw away a distinguished career on the eve of his retirement, to push a story he simply had to know was false, or at the very least stemmed from a single, highly questionable source? Again. Why?

What has happened to critical thinking?

Mr. Allen is not naive.  I won’t get into his personal life and criticize him for his judgement there. That would be unfair, and far too easy. Besides, who among us, including our former president, has not made decisions in their lives, absolutely certain of their correctness at the time, that to others, not in-the-know would seem misguided, wrong or downright evil? Mr. Allen seems unaware that the same description he used of what would have happened to us in America if Obama had lost, “a disgrace” and “humiliation,” are the very words most would apply today to our media, our entertainment industry and of course Mr. Allen’s own personal family life choices.

How can a man who brought us such great visions in his films suddenly be so blind?

Are we in good hands now? Today’s news says otherwise. Woody must feel we are at least not “a disgrace and a humiliation” to the rest of the world. So, that’s something, I guess. Are we safe? Time will tell. But watching the news as I used to do no longer leaves me with any comfort or feeling that the news system itself is in good hands, that they’ll get to the bottom of it, whatever ‘it’ is. Gone is the feeling reporters will leave no stone unturned while the anchor, fulfilling his namesake, will steady the nerves of the nation and remind us of our safety and our security as the president quietly but effectively ensures it.  Is that happening anymore for anyone? Is anyone out there feeling reassured by the news, that all may not be well, but that we can handle it because we’re Americans, after all?

I’m not getting that anymore.  And I don’t believe that those in the news really care anymore if we do. I think they did, at one time. I really think they tried. But that isn’t what is happening today in all newsrooms great and small. This is a sad conclusion that many, like me, have come reluctantly to meet, and that others are turning their eyes away from. I will confess, though, that what I miss more than most things about those days are the anchors themselves. It may sound shallow, but there aren’t any real anchormen or women in the news business anymore, are there?  Like the great actors and directors of Hollywood, they’re replaced by a  washed-out bland parade of interchangeable names and faces, all equally untrustworthy and lacking.

To my own questions I have no answers, it is true. Only a kind of sadness and a yearning. A yearning to go back to those days before I knew any better, before the stars began to fade, before they ceased to shine so brightly above, blinding me with their visual eloquence and to a reality that I can now see all too clearly.

Lest we forget, we are at war. 

Men and women at this very moment are fighting for their lives and for the lives of those they took an oath to protect and defend. 

There have been some recent films about war and what it means for the “average Joe” to be at war. A few of these are receiving deserving accolades for their realism. No, not the realism of blood and guts spilled, which is what war is, of course, but the realism of human behavior in adverse conditions, or as Hemingway put it, grace under pressure. This is the human condition that we all face, in one form or another, each and every day of our lives. Of course, most of us can face our pressures, make our decisions, get through our daily angst without wondering if a shell is going to go off five feet away, having the vehicle we’re riding in targeted for destruction or being exposed to combinations of chemicals not even named yet. No, we don’t have that extra worry. But some out there do. 

One classic Hollywood film which articulates the stress of war with keen insight and wry humor, as well as pathos, is the often overlooked “Battleground,” directed by William Wellman and released by MGM in 1949.  

“Battleground” is not just a great war film. It’s a great film by any standard, in any genre. Depicting the struggles of the 101st Airborne division at the historic Battle of the Bulge, director Wellman wisely puts the emphasis on characters not tanks, on people rather than explosions.

The title “Battleground” implies not only the physical place where these soldiers battle with enemies in different uniforms, but moreover, the mental terrain they must also traverse in order to survive the horrors, the fear, and yes, the inescapable boredom of war.

Disregard the critics who say there is “too much talk” in this film, as clumsy misfires coming from those who do not, nor ever had to understand the sublime contrasts of war. Theirs is the voice of the textbook mentality, too many classes and not enough life. They should be thankful that their experience on this subject is lacking.

Talk to any veteran of war, however, particularly WWII, and you will hear stories paralleling exactly those depicted in Wellman’s “Battleground”: moments of sheer terror interspersed with eternities of boredom and the dread of not knowing what’s going on. Such feelings of helplessness were cut down to size only by the chit-chat and banter of those brave souls in attendance who feared for their lives just like you or I would. Also disregard the cynics who say such scenes are unrealistic or worse yet, propaganda, as soldiers could not possibly be so introspective, so self deprecating, so insightful while under fire. These criticisms couldn’t be farther from the truth, or the historical record, for that matter. It is exactly these moments, in battle, between explosions when “foxhole chatter”  turns to the insignificant topic just as easily and as often as it does to the crucial themes of life and death. 

Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. 

There are many great scenes in this movie, but when actor Leon Ames as the chaplain explains why they are there, freezing, hungry and dying, and not back home,  and what could this fight possibly have to do with them in America, and as individuals, are words and sentiment that are as applicable today as they were in that far away, now non-existent world of Nazi occupied Europe. 

Another part of the film often cited as deserving of ridicule, of committing that worst of crimes for the so-called sophisticated viewer, is the ending. “It’s corny,” is often heard.  This segment, the “sound off scene,” as it’s sometimes called, is arguably one of the finest moments in the entire movie.  Wellman knew enough, as did Edward Zwick who might very well have been inspired by this scene for his marvelous “Glory,” to show the importance of duty. Wellman illustrates this in heart-wrenching poignancy as the barely surviving men pass their fresh replacements on the road. If you are a man, and this scene doesn’t move you, I’m afraid you have no soul. That, or you’ve been watching too much parody. 

“Battleground“ is not what is mistakenly called an anti-war film. That is a misnomer. Nonsense. All well made war films are, in essence, anti-war films. Just like all soldiers are against war, policemen against crime, doctors against illness. These soldiers don’t want to die. Neither do soldiers in other battles, other wars. To call any film ‘anti-war’ is to misunderstand the philosophy at the core of every fighting man and woman. Current fashion would have us believe that soldiers want to kill, maim, and loot. Current fashion would have us believe that all wars are evil, unnecessary, or exercises in national arrogance, or the newly revived terms, “colonialism” and “imperialism” (both particularly fashionable in descriptions of the previous administration’s actions and most likely banned from use or utterance by the major media outlets in describing the present one).  Current fashion would have us believe that if soldiers complain, it can only mean that they don’t agree with the need to fight, the need to stop that opposing force, or defend one’s way of life: the need to do what needs to be done.

Those who follow current fashion will not be able to accept such paradoxes, nor be able to understand this film and its main themes of humanity, duty, perseverance, and doing a dirty, dangerous job in the face of overwhelming odds. Many will scoff at the notion that man is capable of this and can do so with moments of introspection, poignancy and humor. Unsurprisingly, many of our greatest novelists, filmmakers and artists spent time in settings very similar to the characters in this story. Current fashion would prefer that we didn’t remember that part.

Thank goodness that the men who fought in battles like those depicted in this film are, for the most part, mercifully spared the current fashion.