Ours is Not to Reason Why...
"We have met the enemy and he is us." (from POGO
by Walt Kelly)
It's our own silly fault, really.
Americans are adventure junkies. Not that we're ignorant of history,
but why
settle for bland explanations, when a little conspiracy added for spice
will
serve up The X-Files? Yes, we know that on any given episode of
Miami
Vice, more people are iced in one shoot-out than die in all the
combined
criminal activity in Dade County Florida in a year. But we can't help
it. All
those pyrotechnics look so darned good on the screen...in glorious
Technicolor and in stereo.
That Hollywood
takes a few liberties with original story lines, history or other
mundane
details is legendary. In Jerry Lewis' movie Rock-a-bye Baby,
the joke is
recounted how one of the screenwriters of an upcoming epic, had actually
read the book and that only the last 200 pages or so had been
changed. What
do you expect, legitimate theater?
Miscasting is another sore spot. Box office potential
makes for strange casting decisions. I mean, Marlon Brando and Jean
Simmons as
leading characters in a major musical (i.e.--Guys and Dolls)?
Consider
the casting of either Vanessa Redgrave as Guinevere in Camelot or
Audrey
Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady over Julie Andrews,
who
starred in both roles on Broadway. At least, Ms. Andrews "got a bit o'
'er
own back," as Eliza might say, going head-to-head with them in Mary
Poppins and The Sound of Music. And speaking of Mary
Poppins,
just how believable was Dick Van Dyke's Cockney accent?
In one instance, at least, Hollywood
got it right. Imperialistic and politically incorrect
though they may be, Rudyard Kipling's adventure stories have captured
the
imaginations of boys ever since they first appeared in print. When time
came to
film such tales as Gunga Din and Wee Willie Winkie, a
brusque and
burly British soldier often appeared amidst the sea of pretty faces,
Cary
Grant, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Shirley Temple, etc... He was Victor
McLaglen,
best remembered, perhaps, for his cross-country brawl with John Wayne
in The
Quiet Man.
Unlike most character actors, McLaglen was the real
thing. He was a former British heavyweight fighter (decent preparation,
I
suppose, for his bout with "The Duke"), and while sometimes
cast as a rough-and-ready sergeant in the movies, during the first
World War,
McLaglen rose to the rank of captain in the Life Guardsmen, and Provost
Marshal
of Baghdad. Truly his was a life worthy of Mr. Kipling's pen.
Acknowledgments:
2, 32, 33
©
Russ Brown, 1997, 1999