Well, dear readers, it never ceases to amaze me. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, it never ceases to amaze me. It is always doing the most outrageous things, and I am always amazed at it’s outrageous behavior. Has anyone noticed how much time I spend talking about “it”? As Mr. Stephen Sondheim might put it, the pundits query whether “it” and “I” are having a moment, a thing, a little tete a tete? Are “it” and “I” an item, are we having a sordid affair, are we supping on steak tartar and potatoes with chives? Are “it” and “I” running around, dancing to the Latin rhythms of Lester Lanin and his dance band, eating chocolate-covered pretzels and naughty games, such as The Pediatrician and The Randy Vicar? Does anyone know what the hell I’m going on about? It doesn’t make any sense. There I go again, talking about “it”. I have to stop it, because “it” is taking over this entire blog or log or journal or daily dose of drivel. Stop “it”, stop “it”, stop “it”. There, that felt good to get “it” out of my system. Let’s just ignore “it” for the rest of these here notes, although I did thoroughly enjoy playing The Pediatrician and The Randy Vicar.
And just what does Bangers and Mash have to do with the price of tomatoes? Well, not much really, as the price of tomatoes has remained fairly constant for the last three months. The price of tomatoes has not wavered one iota. Isn’t “iota” a rather stupid word? I mean, just look at the damn thing. “Iota”. It just sits there like so much fish, looking like a totally useless bunch of letters strewn together. Of course, we won’t even talk about “strewn”, will we? And just what does all this have to do with the price of Bangers and Mash? And just what the hell does Bangers and Mash mean? We need answers, but of course we won’t be getting answers until we all click that Unseemly Button below. Let’s all click it now, and we shall be whisked away to Answerland.
As our UK dear readers already know, bangers and mash are sausage and potatoes all mooshed together into an exciting melange. And I feel that bangers and mash is a perfect way to describe these here notes. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I feel that these here notes are like sausage and potatoes all mooshed together into an exciting melange. MASH was also a novel, film and television program. Bangers was not a novel, film or television program, however. And therein lies a tale, or perhaps even a tail. In any case, MASH has come out on DVD and I got an advance copy yesterday, and I watched it yesterday. Oops, sorry, we’re ignoring “it”, so just pay “it” no mind. MASH is a very strange film indeed. It has no real structure at all, and one simply cannot imagine that it would get made today. They’d impose the three-act structure on it, and put lots of rock and roll songs in it, and it would be stupid. What makes the thing work is its freewheeling nature – it just rambles along from one vignette to another and at times is very funny. The cast is pretty amazing and a lot of good actors were “introduced” in this film. I’m not a huge Robert Altman fan, but his work at this particular point in time was quite refreshing and filled with filmmaking anarchy. There are a ton of extras, including a reunion of the cast thirty years later. Everyone looks just fine, although I might just have to ask, what has happened to my old pal Bud Cort? If the person calling himself Bud Cort is the same Bud Cort who I worked with at the Mark Taper Forum, or the same Bud Cort from Harold and Maude, I saw no evidence of it. Mr. Cort has aged in a very peculiar way indeed.
I also got the first season of MASH the television show. I bought it for a reason, which I’ll get to in a moment. I attempted to watch the pilot episode, but it was really lifeless, banal and bad, so I shut it off and went directly to one of the final episodes of the season, entitled Ceasefire. It wasn’t much better, frankly, but that’s not why I watched it. I watched it for selfish reasons, because there, lying in a hospital bed portraying a memorable character called “Soldier with shrapnel” was yours truly. A very young yours truly. A yours truly with lots of hair. It was a small role, but one I hadn’t seen since I shot it way back in 1973, before some of you were born. I remember it as if it were yesterday. Of course, how “it” can be “yesterday” I have no idea. Oops, we’re ignoring “it”, I forgot. I remember Loretta Swit coming right up to me and saying, “Welcome to MASH”, which I thought was very nice. And Mr. Alan Alda, with whom I played my scene, was also very nice.
Also on DVD, coming out on Tuesday, is a rather extraordinary film, one of my guilty guilty pleasures, Seconds, starring Rock Hudson and Salome Jens, and directed by John Frankenheimer. It’s quite mad and quite brilliant and quite ahead of its time. It was a huge flop and loudly derided by audiences of the time (1968). I remember seeing it at a “Sneak Preview” (in the days when Sneak Previews meant something – you really never knew what film you were going to see), and when Rock Hudson’s name came on the screen, the audience actually booed (same as when I saw a preview of Bonnie and Clyde and Warren Beatty’s name came up). The audience, rude buttcheeks that they were, then sat there in stony silence, because they were totally unprepared for what they were seeing. Not some Technicolor froth with Rock and Doris, Seconds was a stark black and white film (with brilliant James Wong Howe photography) about a middle-aged businessman who is offered the chance to be a “second” – to have a second life, via a corporation that provides people a second chance at life. They stage a “death” for the person, and then totally reconstruct him pysically (the character, played by the great John Randolph, in, I think, his film debut, is reconstructed into Rock Hudson, giving one of the finest and most detailed performances of his career). But, there are complications, emotional complications, and the final third of the film is truly harrowing and shocking. Lots of great character actors do their usual great work – including, Wesley Addy, Will Geer (especially creepy), Jeff Corey and Murray Hamilton. An absolutely brilliant score by Jerry Goldsmith, one of his greats. It was after the failure of this film, that Frankenheimer became a totally different director, one who is unrecognizable to his early work.
What am I, Siskel and Roeper? Well, I must go now and play The Pediatrician and the Randy Vicar again. Don’t forget the new Brodaway Radio Show will be up later tonight and it’s a great one – Donald’s picks for the best of 2001. And do leave your unseemly comments, it’s been awfully lonesome down there lately.