How I get through life

My last reality check bounced, but I'm going to pretend that it didn't happen.

It ain't exactly 'Remember the Alamo'

From The Associated Press:

"Libyan rebels raced into Tripoli Sunday and met little resistance as Moammar Gadhafi's defenders melted away and his 42-year rule rapidly crumbled....

"'It's over, frizz-head,' chanted hundreds of jubilant men and women massed in Green Square, using a mocking nickname of the curly-haired Gadhafi."

A friend and former newsroom colleague has remarked that as a rallying cry, this lacks a certain something.

My guess is that they tried to come up with something better but couldn't agree on how to spell the guy's last name.

I liked her, didn't love her (Let me splain)

A lot of fuss is being made about the 100th anniversary of Lucille Ball’s birth.

And I certainly can’t argue with that.

But I must confess – and please give me a second to duck after I say this:

I’ve never been a huge fan of hers.

But I also would never dispute that she deserved a lot of respect and still does.

I did enjoy watching “I Love Lucy” when I was a kid – especially the Hollywood episodes. Haven’t seen them in years, but I suspect they still hold up. After all, they were made when it was extremely rare to see movie stars appearing as themselves on TV. And doing a TV sitcom? Whoa!

Then, too, Ball had worked with a number of these people before in movies before she hit it big as Lucy Ricardo – people such as William Holden (“Miss Grant Takes Richmond”) and Harpo Marx (“Room Service”). And it's always a pleasure and a privilege to watch old show-biz pros work.

I'll also readily admit to shedding a tear whenever I see that nightclub scene where Lucy Ricardo tells Ricky she's pregnant. And I can laugh with everyone else at the Vitameatavegamin bit, and one or two of the other classic scenes.

But I somehow can't bring myself to rush to the TV set whenever an "I Love Lucy" repeat is airing.

Yet I respect the amount of work and dedication it took for Lucille Ball to get where she did.

She did have a substantial movie career before Lucy Ricardo came along, even getting top billing, but it took many years for lightning to strike, and when it did, she was ready.

And let’s not forget that she was no slouch as a dramatic actress. Her role as a callous showgirl in “The Big Street” seems to be the example most often cited, but in some ways I prefer her coolly understated work as the faithful secretary to Bradford Galt, the detective played by Mark Stevens in “The Dark Corner,” a movie that doesn’t seem to be much remembered today because Mark Stevens himself isn’t much remembered, but if you see it around give it a try – it also includes William Bendix and Clifton Webb, both of whom are usually worth watching.

When I was a kid I also enjoyed watching the “Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” on summer nights. It’s a tribute to the professionalism of Ball and Desi Arnaz that I had no way of suspecting that while they were making the “Comedy Hour” episodes their marriage was not only on the rocks but practically out to sea.

In later years, my family watched “The Lucy Show.” Arnaz and William Frawley were gone, but Vivian Vance stayed around for a while, and then came the great Gale Gordon as Mr. Mooney. Yet the “Lucy Show” I remember most is one I remember not because of Lucy but because of the guest star – Phil Harris, playing a once-great songwriter who is down on his luck. If you see the episode, you won’t be surprised to know that Lucy Carmichael helps him find his way again and reunites him with an old flame who still loves him. But you might be surprised by Harris’ humorous, understated performance – Ball lets him pretty much steal the episode.

Or at least that’s how I remember it.

Somehow I could never watch “Here’s Lucy.” In later years I think I watched the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton episode, but that’s it. (I was happy to read recently that Richard Burton was openly in awe of Gale Gordon, which says a lot about both of them.)

See, the problem I got into with Lucille Ball was the same problem I had with Bob Hope.

No one can ever dispute their brilliance or their work ethic.

But they both gained fame playing characters that didn’t age well – Ball as the ditzy schemer, Hope as the quick-witted coward who always tries to get the girl.

It was painful to watch them both in later years – Hope in his execrable TV specials and, even more painfully, Ball – and Gordon – trying to do slapstick in “Life With Lucy.” Very few older comics can get away with doing physical humor; it’s hard to laugh when you’re afraid that the folks you’re watching might actually injure themselves. (I think only Buster Keaton could get away with that sort of thing when he got older because he’d been doing acrobatic stuff since he was a kid and audiences somehow sensed that and knew he could take care of himself.)

Anyway, when all is said and done, I’m not a Lucille Ball fanatic and never will be. But she certainly deserves to be celebrated.

In the meantime I’ve been thinking about another performer who would have been 100 years old this year – born just six months before Ball.

And I hope to write about her soon.

That old doppleganger of mine

So I’m walking down the street today, on my way to the local shopping center, when a sheriff’s department car, heading in the opposite direction, slows and turns in my direction.

Uh oh, I think.

But then again, I think (more than a little stupidly) that the young deputy driving the car is going to ask me for directions. After all, drivers do stop and ask me for directions every once in a while, and I am glad to oblige, though I sometimes worry that I haven’t give them the right directions and even now they’re still hopelessly wandering around somewhere.

The deputy says, “Louie?”

I tell him I’m not Louie.

He asks me to show him a photo ID.

I comply.

He thanks me and acknowledges that I am not Louie.

I tell him that my father’s name was Louie.

He smiles. A nice, polite kid. (And yes, I’ve reached the age where practically everyone in any kind of uniform is a kid.)

So I go to the shopping center, have some lunch, and am walking down to one of the stores when, out of the corner of my eye, I see another sheriff’s department car heading my way.

A woman’s voice says, “Louie?”

I turn.

The deputy again says, “Louie?”

I put on my very best polite smile and tell her that I am not Louie and that this is the second time I have been mistaken for him.

She doesn’t ask me for photo ID but instead laughs and tells me that I look a lot like Louie.

Too bad for Louie, I tell her, friendly smile still firmly in place.

I go to a store and buy some stuff. Then I decide I need to make a phone call and that I need to find a quiet place where I can make the call.

So I duck into a fairly quiet drugstore and make the call.

Then I leave the drugstore and head down to the shopping center’s bus stop.

As I’m heading there, a third sheriff’s car pulls up alongside me.

A guy says, “Louie?”

I turn and see another smiling young sheriff’s deputy.

Back goes the friendly, polite smile as I tell him that I am not Louie and that this is the third time I’ve been mistaken for him.

As I’m explaining this, a sheriff’s car pulls up alongside this car, driven by the first deputy, who, I presume, was going to tell this guy that I am definitely not Louie.

We all have a laugh over this, and I head to the bus stop.

I don’t know whether they found Louie. Given how relatively laid back they seemed about the matter, my guess is that Louie is some poor soul with a mental illness or some other disability who had wandered away from his home, and his relatives were worried.

If this is so, I really hope they’ve found him.

But then again, there’s always the possibility that Louie is a maniacal criminal mastermind and genius and that the deputies are only pretending to be laid back because they have been warned to be very circumspect because Louie is such a genius that he knows how to make miniature but very potent hand grenades and hide them in his armpits for use at a nanosecond’s notice.

If this is so, I really really hope they’ve found him.

Because as much as I might enjoy travel, I was planning on a quiet weekend.

I have no real desire to spend part of my weekend visiting Mount Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty, much less hanging off either of them while someone is trying to kill me.

And I find myself wishing that I could call up Cary Grant, Robert Cummings, Robert Donat and Henry Fonda so we could all get together and form a Mistaken Identity Support Group.

Thank you for letting me share.

Peter Falk

My first substantial memory of Peter Falk – aside from TV guest spots or secondary movie roles – is from a series he did in the 1960s, “Trials of O’Brien,” in which he played a lawyer who got involved in criminal cases and was always behind on his alimony payments.

(At least that’s how I remember it – I was too young and unsophisticated to “get” the series, though I somehow knew it was good. I also suspect the show marked the first time I’d ever heard the word “alimony.”)

The only specific episode I recall was called “Dead End on Flugel Street” and featured Milton Berle.

According to the Internet Movie Database, only 22 episodes were shot. I don’t know who owns the rights, but I do know that if the show ever comes out on DVD, I’ll snap it up.

A few years after “O’Brien,” I became one of the millions of fans of “Columbo.” It was hands-down the best of the rotating “NBC Mystery Movie” series, though “McMillan and Wife” had its moments. (And remember that neat “Mystery Movie” opening, with the Henry Mancini music?)

I think all the “Columbo” episodes are available on DVD, including the later ones that aired on ABC, but the only ones I own are those from the first season. This isn’t to say that the other seasons’ episodes are bad, but the first season was produced by the series’ creators, Richard Levinson and William Link (somehow I feel whenever I type those two names, I should genuflect), Steven Bochco was one of the writers, and one of the directors was an up-and-comer by the name of Spielberg.

Levinson (now deceased) and Link were, for my money, the best TV writing team ever. Some of the occasional TV movies they wrote – “My Sweet Charlie,” “A Certain Summer” and “The Execution of Private Slovak” – tackled social issues with scripts that were dramatic and literate but never ponderous.

But even as kids, Levinson and Link had always loved the mystery genre, and their mystery scripts were as literate and intelligent as their more serious efforts. It was almost physically impossible for them to write down to an audience.

In addition to “Columbo,” I recommend their stand-alone TV mystery movies, including “Rehearsal for Murder” and “Murder by Natural Causes.” (Another “Mystery Movie” series they came up with, “Tenafly,” starring James McEachin as a detective who balanced his work with his duties as a family man, should have caught on but didn’t.)

Their Emmy-winning first-season “Columbo” script, “Death Lends a Hand,” is required viewing for any student of fiction writing. And like the other first-season shows, it’s 90 minutes long.

After the first season, some of the “Columbo” episodes (with Levinson and Link staying on as executive producers) were two hours long. Eventually, I think, almost all of them were. I think I read that this was at the network’s request, but most of the time the extended length hurt the show because the padding – no matter how well written – was evident.

But even when an episode was too long and sometimes tedious to the point where I, as the viewer, was almost tempted to confess just to get it over with, Falk was still interesting to watch. Even given the talents of Levinson and Link, I doubt the series and the character would have lasted as long if it hadn’t been for Falk.

(And I also think it’s about time that I bought the DVD of the original version of “The In-Laws,” starring Falk and Alan Arkin. Can anyone who saw it ever forget Falk yelling “Serpentine! Serpentine!” as he and Arkin flee gunfire?)

I remember being saddened a few years ago by the news that Falk had Alzheimer’s disease – a particularly tragic twist, I thought, for someone whose most famous character was known for being (apparently) forgetful.

Although he is gone, I’m happy to say his character lives on in book form. “The Columbo Collection,” a collection of 12 stories by William Link, is available. If you’re a Columbo fan, you’ll want to get it – but don’t read it too quickly; these stories are to be savored. Me, I have three more to go. I hope that by the time I finish them Mr. Link will have come out with a second collection.

When dialogue is way too ahead of its time

About 10 years ago I was watching a new "major motion picture" that featured well-known actors and was set overseas in the 1950s.

At one point, one of the characters said, "Sounds like a plan."

Huh?

Now, mind you, it wasn't as jarring as it could have been if the guy had whipped out a cell phone, called his girlfriend and asked her to TiVo something for him.

And I suspect that the actor may have been ad-libbing.

But still.

Yesterday I was reading a short story set during the late 1930s in Hollywood and featuring some celebrities of the time along with other characters.

As an old-movie buff I know a lot about this era.

At one point, a character said, "Who's the Marx Brother wannabe?"

Wannabe?

A word whose first recorded use, according to Merriam-Webster, was in 1981?

Now it is true that the story was narrated by an anonymous character who wasn't there, who says this was the way he (or she, for all I know) heard it.

So maybe the author could argue that the narrator has a faulty memory or a tin ear.

But still.

I'm not trying to nitpick. But anachronisms like these "take me out" of the story, make me aware that I'm reading something, or watching a movie or TV show, instead of experiencing it.

And that's not where I wannabe.

At the (old) movies: 'Charley's Aunt'

Some notes from a gathering of the local cinephile society….

“Charley’s Aunt” (Fox, 1941) is one of several movie versions of the Brendan Thomas farce that was first performed in England in 1892. Back then the star was W.S. Penley, portraying Lord Fancourt Babberly, an Oxford student whose friends Jack and Charley persuade him (with at least a dash of coercion) to pose as the title character, a rich widow from Brazil, “where the nuts come from.” (That line must have been a hoot back in 1892, and it still plays well with a receptive audience.)

Penley (that’s a drawing of him in character at left) was unavailable for the movie, having died in 1912, so Fox obtained the services of Jack Benny, who does his best to pose as a British undergrad. Since this kind of material requires audiences to cheerfully check their common sense at the door anyway, what’s another implausibility among friends? (And Benny’s best is, as usual, very very good.)

Director Archie Mayo expertly guides the actors through the plot’s permutations. (Even if you’ve never seen this or any other farce in your life, you just know somehow – it’s probably in our DNA – that these complications will include the appearance of Charley’s real aunt, here played by Kay Francis.)

I suppose you can give the cast extra points (or extra marks, considering that this is a British play) for being able to pull off such a carefree, lightweight piece of material during a particularly heavy time in the world’s history. It helps a lot to have Edmund Gwenn around; he practically came out of the womb performing stuff like this.

A few casting notes of interest:

Charley is played by Richard Haydn in his first feature film. Haydn made a career out of playing eccentric characters who talk through their noses. (In Haydn’s case, it sounded as if he had several noses.) It’s always nice to see him in this character, but it’s particularly interesting to see him in this film, where he drops that character (which perhaps he hadn’t really established in the U.S. anyway) to play something closer to a real human being, or as real as one can get in a farce.

Anne Baxter is around – very young, very pretty, very underused.

Laird Cregar plays Jack’s father, Sir Francis Chesney. Because Chesney’s title is about all he has left to his name, he is especially eager to meet Charley’s rich aunt. Cregar was noted for playing villains, but it’s always nice to see that he can do stuff like this (and Lubitsch’s “Heaven Can Wait”).

Perhaps the most shocking moment of the movie (and the one that got the biggest laugh from our crowd) comes as Cregar, brandishing a big walking stick, swaggers in to meet the aunt (who is really Benny). The fake aunt is hiding his/her face with a fan. When Benny removes the fan and reveals the “aunt’s” face, Cregar’s walking stick instantly shrinks.

Never mind the elephant in Captain Spaulding’s pajamas – how that gag got past the censors, I’ll truly never know....

Before the movie: “The Antique Shop,” a 1931 short featuring George Burns and Gracie Allen.

Burns sometimes said that the secret to Gracie’s success was that she wasn’t a comedian – she was an actress. I used to think this was a pretentious thing to say, but I eventually realized that Burns, whose self-deprecating gags hid the fact that he was one of the smartest folks in show business, was, as usual, right.

Gracie didn’t just say dumb and silly things. For one thing, they were usually dumb and silly and very funny – the duo generally had top-drawer material. More to the point, Gracie was playing someone who fervently believed she was right – and felt sorry for you because you just couldn’t understand. If that isn’t brilliance, I don’t know what is.

I’ve sometimes wondered how Gracie Allen would have fared in a serious part – no gags. Kind of a reverse of what Leslie Nielsen did late in his career.

I guess we’ll never really know the answer.

But somehow I think I do anyway.