Kiddie Lit-ter

Wise: Zzzzzzz...

Werth: Wake up, Wise.  It's time for Gab.
  

Wise: Sorry, work has been crazy and with the holiday season in full swing, I've been running myself ragged.  

Werth: You should relax.  Make yourself a hot chocolate and curl up with an old favorite book.  

Wise: I tried that. But I just nodded off.

Wise: Then maybe you should watch a favorite old book movie like The Hobbit which opens in theaters today. When I was a kid, Tolkien's book was all the rage and became a big screen cartoon starring the voices of John Huston, Otto Preminger, and Hans Conreid.

Wise: Popular childhood books always seem to make their way to the big screen. Published in 1952, Mary Norton's The Borrowers became an instant hit both in Great Britain and in the U.S.  The book features Arrietty, the adolescent daughter of Pod and Homily Clock, and her struggles as part of a tiny race of people known as Borrowers who live inside the walls of houses and make their living by "borrowing" from human "beans."  Their home is behind a hall clock inside an estate deep in the country, populated only by bedridden old Great Aunt Sophy and a cantankerous housekeeper and gardener.

Arrietty longs for companionship—the house is empty of little people except for her family—and she strikes up a tentative friendship with a human boy who has been sent to his great aunt in the country to recuperate from an illness.  Eventually, their friendship is discovered by her parents who insist she give it up and by Mrs. Driver, the cook, who enlists an exterminator to take care of what she thinks of as "vermin."  

Werth: I wish she would take care of my downstairs neighbor.
 
Wise: In the end, the Clocks must abandon their home and flee across the fields in hopes of finding other Borrowers who emigrated years before. It's something of a melancholy end to a book about loneliness, displacement and fear of the unknown.  The book's cliffhanger ending inspired four sequels and at least a half dozen film adaptations, each of which is more or less enjoyable, although none equal the original in emotional heft.  The book shares with a lot of other juvenile British classic a concern with the isolation of childhood and the fear of parental abandonment.  The films are mostly about special effects.  

Werth: Yeah, The Borrowers doesn't exactly lend itself to cinematic realism.


Wise: One of the earliest adaptations premiered in 1973 and starred Eddie Albert as Pod and Film Gab favorite Judith Anderson as a very tipsy Aunty Sophy.  Largely faithful to the book, the film suffers from an overly stately pace plus an expansion of the adult roles that leads to a lot of preening overacting by Albert that relegates Arrietty's longings to a subplot. 

Perhaps it's just as well because Canadian child actor Karen Pearson seems to have been cast more for her resemblance to Arrietty in Beth and Joe Krush's illustrations than for her acting ability.  Dennis Larson as the boy she befriends is even less compelling, although to be fair, both youngsters shared most of their scenes with a green screen instead of another actor.  

Werth: Judging from their IMDb movie resumes, I don't think we can blame the green screen. 

Wise: The 1997 Borrowers may be much less faithful, but it is filled with eye-popping special effects.  Exchanging Norton's late-Victorian setting for a storybook version of post-WWII England filled with late 20th century American product placements, the film is obviously attempting to capture the gross-out humor/kid revenge vibe of the Home Alone films.  John Goodman stars as Ocious P. Potter, a nasty lawyer invented for the film who is attempting to swindle away the house of the hapless Lender family.

Arrietty (Flora Newbigin) is joined by her screenwriter-invented younger brother Peagreen (a whiny Tom Felton before he went platinum and menaced a more famous Potter), and together they attempt to stop the villain with a lot of bathroom jokes and booby traps that tend to splatter.  Luckily, in this version Pod is played by Jim Broadbent who brings eager nobility and daft humor to help save the day.

Werth: Jim Broadbent's daft humor always saves the day.

Wise: There is also an adaptation written by animation genius Hayao Miyazaki for his Studio Ghibli that I haven't yet seen, although I've heard that it may come closest to capturing Norton's classic tale.   

Werth: While you're Netflixing that, some of my favorite books to read when I was a kid were about the ancient Greek myths. Like super-hero soap operas  from antiquity the stories of the Greek gods were a constant source of drama, lust and gore. And in 1981 director Desmond Davis brought all that fun to the big screen in Clash of the Titans. Clash tells the tale of Perseus, who starts off life being chucked in the ocean in a box with his mother because she had a baby out of wedlock.

Wise: Wow. I would think the ocean would have been full of boxes with babies and mamas.

Werth: Luckily for Perseus, the baby daddy is none other than king of the gods, Zeus (none other than king of the actors, Laurence Olivier). Zeus saves the boy and his mother and Perseus grows to be a strapping, bare-chested, pillow-lipped Harry Hamlin.

Wise: Pillow-lips seem to run in that family.

Werth: The plot of Clash, like the Greek myths it borrowed loosely from, becomes very complicated with Perseus' quest to save the beautiful Andromeda (Judi Bowker) taking him all over Greece. Perseus tracks down Stygian witches, battles Medusa, jousts with giant scorpions and faces off with the Kraken.

All this while a menagerie of gods bicker and vengeful ass-face Calibos (Neil McCarthy) does his best to kill the mighty hero. It's all great fun with a wonderfully campy crew playing Greeks and Olympians including Olivier, Maggie Smith, Ursula Andress (they gave her one line), Sian Phillips and Burgess Meredith playing the Greek version of Mickey Goldmill.


Wise: Better Mickey than the Penguin.

Werth: But the real star of this film is legendary special effects god, Ray Harryhausen. Using good, old-fashioned stop-motion puppetry, blue-screens, and matte painting, Harryhausen brought all the fantastical creatures from myth to life, and while none of them

look realistic by today's CGI-obsessed standards, Harryhausen's pets were good enough to strike terror into kids' hearts everywhere—especially a certain kid whose worst ophidiaphobe nightmare is a snake chick who has more snakes for hair.

Wise: I'm surprised you survived your initial viewing.

Werth: Harry Hamlin's gams kept my eyes off Medusa. Clash earned a bucketload for MGM and was even resurrected in 2010 for a more tech-savvy audience. It is one of those films that holds a revered place in my heart, because whenever I see it, I'll always be the myth-obsessed nine-year-old who wondered what it was like to be a hero... or a lady with snake hair.

Wise: Well Werth, I'm officially relaxed.

Werth: Good, but don't get too relaxed. You have to be ready next week for Film Gab's Christmas Spectacular! 

Gab in the Buff

Werth: Hello, Wise.  

Wise: Hi, Werth.  

Werth: What are you wearing?  

Wise: Excuse me?

Werth: It's National Nude Recreation Week and I was wondering if you were celebrating.  

Wise: If blasting my air conditioner and wearing a sweater counts as celebrating, then yes.  

Werth: Oh Wise, if ya' got it, flaunt it! And if you've got as much as the 1982 coming-of-age hit Porky's, flaunt it at theaters and drive-ins around the country.  

Wise: At least one of us has good taste in porcine titled film.

Werth: When I was a young boy at school, nothing would get a whispering campaign started faster than, "Have you seen Porky's?" None of us were old enough to have watched it, but those of us who had older siblings, binoculars or really permissive parents captivated each other with tales of this raunchy comedy. The plot is so basic, it's stupid. 

It's 1954. Some high school guys want to get laid so they go to the local watering hole run by rotund Porky Wallace (Chuck Mitchell) who, instead of getting the boys a hooker, embarrasses them by chasing them out of a shack stark naked into the Florida swamps.  

Wise: Sort of a teenage crudité for the alligators?  

Werth: The lads are none too pleased by this, so revenge is meted out in the form of structural vandalism to Porky's bar, sending it crashing into the swamp along with plates of hot wings, chili and beer. 

Wise: Revenge is a dish best served by high school delinquents.

Werth: I can't tell you how excited every red-blooded male was to see Porky's in the early 80's. The shower scene where one youth sticks his you-know-what in a peephole and the portly Coach Beulah Balbricker (Nancy Parsons) grabs a-hold and won't let go was puerile catnip to a whole generation of horned-up guys. And the nudity—oh the nudity. Female gym class showers, sex scenes and nude male sprinting—no fleshly expense was spared in showing off the bodies of both sexes.

Wise: I assume you were more partial to one than to the other.   

Werth: The character's name was Meat (Tony Ganios) and seeing him hightail it out of the swamp with his sausage was probably the best acting of his career. And speaking of acting, don't miss Kim Catrall in a very early role as Miss Lassie Honeywell. 

Wise: Because she always came home?   

Werth: Because she barked during sex. And even though critics like Siskel and Ebert growled about how awful this movie was, it is a testament to how sex and nudity can sell a film, and even make it memorable.  

Wise: Long before Helena Bonham Carter was memorable playing either witchy psychopaths, murderous chess pieces or dutiful queens, she was the porcelain-complected muse of Merchant and Ivory's most upper-crusty adaptations of British classics.  In A Room with a View (1985) she plays Lucy Honeychurch, a proper English girl who travels to turn of the century Italy with her dour cousin Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith) where she discovers that there is a life of passion outside the pages of her guidebooks.  

Once she returns to England, she must decide between the proper match her mother wants her to make with Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis) and the unconventional but rapturous life she could have with George Emerson (Julian Sands) who she met in Florence and with whom she shared an unexpected kiss. 

Werth: Get to the nudity.

Wise: A Room with a View is perhaps the prototypical Ismail Merchant and James Ivory collaboration, filled with A-list British talent, plummy accents, lush interiors and elaborate period costumes.  But for all the emphasis on production design, this movie throbs with pleasure.  Published in 1908, E. M. Forster's novel was a bit more circumspect in expressing exactly what Lucy Honeychurch is choosing over her staid British life, but the film makes her desire for luscious foods, ideas and love abundantly clear. 

Werth: Nudity!

Wise: When George Emerson and his father unexpectedly rent a neighboring house, Lucy's rambunctious younger brother Freddie (Rupert Graves) invites George and a very game Reverend Beebe (Simon Callow) to go for a swim in a nearby pond.  The three shed their clothes and begin horsing around only the be discovered by Lucy, her mother and a deeply perturbed Cecil who ushers Lucy to safety post-haste.  One glance has been enough, however—  

Werth: You can glance more than once thanks to the pause and rewind function on the DVD.  

Wise: —and Lucy recognizes in their schoolboy antics the kind of freedom she wants to experience in life.  

Werth: So the moral here is public nudity is the best shortcut to better living.  

Wise: Just bring plenty of sunblock and join us here next week when we strip down more movies on Film Gab.  

April Gab’s Day!

Werth: Hey, Wise!

Wise: Hey, Werth!

Werth: I just got a message from Olivia de Havilland’s agent and she is so impressed by our blog that she AND her sister, Joan Fontaine, want to do an interview with us!

Wise: Jiminy Crickets! That’s amazing! I can’t wait—

Werth: April Fool’s!

Wise: I hate you.

Werth: I can’t believe you fell for that. Everyone knows that Olivia and Joan don’t speak to each other.

Wise: Kind of like us after this blog?  

Werth: You’ll regain your sense of humor after I talk about my favorite fool-full flick, Murder by Death!

Wise: An appropriate title for what I’m thinking about right now.

Werth: Murder by Death is the 1976 comedy that spoofs all those crime-solving characters from literature and film. Famed TV and theater writer Neil Simon pokes fun at such mystery mainstays as Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Charlie Chan. The world’s greatest detectives have been invited to a mysterious manse to solve a murder that will  be committed at midnight. Or will it...?

Wise: I don’t know. Do I look like Jessica Fletcher?

Werth: A little around the mouth. Anyway, these silly sleuths attempt to find out who killed who in order to win a million dollars—and to survive the night.

Wise: Sounds like Clue.

Werth: There are definite similarities (including Eileen Brennan starring in both), but Murder by Death came first. Murder’s cast is a veritable who’s who of actors who excel at scenery chewing: Peter Falk, the aforementioned Eileen Brennan, James Coco, Nancy Walker, David Niven, Maggie Smith, Elsa Lanchester and in a piece of inspired Yunioshi casting, Peter Sellers as that Far East flat foot, Sidney Wang.

Wise: Do all your favorite movies have offensive Asian stereotypes?   

Werth: What’s even more amusing are the comic turns by normally dramatic Alec Guinness as befuddled, blind butler Bensonmum and author turned caricature 

Truman Capote as the evil mastermind Lionel Twain. Even young James Cromwell plays a Belgian smart-mouth chauffeur. With Simon’s characteristic joke and pun-laden dialogue, there’s no reason for Murder by Death to have a challenging mystery. Most viewers will just be happy with the octogenarian fart-jokes gleefully burbled by eternally aged Estelle Winwood as Nurse Withers.

Wise: A fool’s paradise.

Werth: Has your mood improved enough to tell us your favorite silly cinema?

Wise: Oh, you know how I love to suffer fools gladly.  Especially when they’re in a movie as hilarious as Wet Hot American Summer.  Directed by David Wain and featuring the alumni of the comedy troupe, The State, the film is bursting with an almost embarrassing amount of talent: Molly Shannon, David Hyde Pierce, Amy Poehler, Janeane Garofalo, Paul Rudd, Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, and Bradley Cooper.  

Werth: Before he served his time as Renee Zellweger’s arm candy?  

Wise: It also showcases a fully committed and fully absurd cameo from Law & Order’s Christopher Meloni as a Vietnam vet camp cook who speaks to a can of mixed vegetables and has romantic designs on a mustard-colored, side-by-side refrigerator.   

Werth: Do all your favorite movies have offensive Vietnam vet stereotypes?  

Wise: The movie barely made it to theaters when it was released in 2001, but it has since become a cult classic.  Ostensibly, it’s a parody of summer camp movies from the early 80’s, and while it does tinker with the likes of Meatballs and its ilk, there are moments inspired by The Bad News Bears, The Breakfast Club, and Serpico. 

Werth: Serpico’s Bad News Meatball Breakfast?

  

Wise: It’s definitely not a Noel Coward drawing room comedy, but the surreal humor and the enthusiastic cast make it a real gut buster.  Plus the finale includes a hilarious musical tribute to Joan Crawford’s most memorable work.  

Werth: What?! Don’t tell me they do some sort of disrespectful, drag-queen Mommie Dearest shenanigans! Cause I don’t think that’s funny!

Wise: April Fool!

Werth: God, that revenge dish was served cold!

Werth: We’ll warm it up next week with a fresh plate of Film Gab.