"WHAT A DUMP!"--
AND OTHER CANDID COMMENTS OF HOLLYWOOD SELF APPRAISAL, FROM A TO Z
by
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The French Have a Word for It As a long-term, inveterate moviegoer, you know as well as I do that every picture--and especially every really, really bad picture (and I don’t mean just "bad", but B-A-D) has a Moment of Truth, that single line of dialogue which epitomizes the entire experience for actor and audience, which is what the French--that discerning audience which made Jerry Lewis a cultural icon, call a cri de coeur--that is, a cry from the heart. Naturally, this is not something arrived at consciously, by the writer who struggles alone in his office, by the director who imposes his own interpretation on the pages in front of him, or by the actor who swelters on some distant location in the summer and freezes in the winter. No, it goes unnoticed in the euphoria surrounding the daily rushes, then springs spontaneously to life when the film is finally seen in its assembled state, and its unmistakable imprimateur haunts the film forever after. (My DGA mentor, Wally Worsley, said that in a half-century in Hollywood he had never found anyone who didn’t think the rushes looked great--and if that was the case, where did all of those bad pictures he’d worked on come from?) Not every line is bad, of course; there are equally memorable cri de coeur in good pictures too--simple statements which telegraph a character or a plot in a heartbeat. (That, of course, is a different book--and probably a much shorter one.) Two of my favorites date from 1952, the year I first began to listen to the dialogue, and to collect the clinkers which set me on the path to this volume: In "THE AFRICAN QUEEN", KATHARINE HEPBURN defines her character, the missionary Rose Sayer, when she says to HUMPHREY BOGART: "Nature, Mr Allnut, is what we are put into this world to rise above. And in "THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL", bit player ELAINE STEWART encapsules the principal character, Producer JONATHAN SHIELDS, in this exchange with Movie Star GILBERT ROLAND: GR: Jonathan is a great man! ES: There are no great men, Buster--there’s just men! But here, from A to Z, are some of the magic moments of mediocrity which have brought a smile to my lips, and the occasional hoot of derision in a darkened theatre. Even if you haven’t seen the pictures I‘ve quoted from, I think they’ll make their point--but if you have, you’ll know exactly what I mean. And, no doubt, they’ll prompt you to recall some (in)famous lines you’ll remember, too. Please send them to me--I haven’t heard everything yet! Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952) About Last Night (1986) Above Suspicion (1943) The Abyss (1989) Affair in Trinidad (1952) Airport 1975 (1974)
CHARLES LAUGHTON: I hate fat men.
HILLARY BROOKE: You’re fat.
LAUGHTON: I hate myself.
JAMES BELUSHI to ROB LOWE:
You’re as much fun as a stick.
ELIZABETH PERKINS to JAMES BELUSHI:
Sometimes you’re funny; sometimes you’re just slime.
FRED MacMURRAY, introducing JOAN CRAWFORD to a prominent Nazi:
Her conception of foreign affairs stems straight from Hollywood.
TODD GRAFF:
I have to tell you, I give this whole thing a sphincter factor of 9.5!
RITA HAYWORTH, returning to the screen after 4 years as Mrs. Aly Khan:
This party is turning into a wake. Let’s have some entertainment!
Choreographer VALARIE BETTIS to GLENN FORD:
Oh, you are dull!
NORMAN FELL, sizing up his "all-star" cohorts:
It’s gonna be a lot of laughs, I can see that right now.
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About the Book
The French have a term for it: "cri de coeur" –A cry from the heart. Who has not sat in crowds (or empty) movie theater and heard that larger than life star on the screen utter in one speech the anguished realization that sums up the picture as a whole? The late, great Bette Davis captured the trivia palm d’or when she said, ‘What a dump!’ in –and of –her last picture at Warner Brothers, and saw it immortalized a dozen years later by Edward Albee –and Elizibeth Taylor –‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ Not every great/awful line got that exposure, however. Here, from A to Z is a cornucopia of new classics.
About the Author
Who is the mysterious Charlie Z? He might be that guy in the next row who lets out an inexplicable hoot of derision at a line of dialogue to which you had given no attention, or someone you barely notice on your way into the theatre who’s hunched in the back row with a notebook and a pencil flashlight, or even the nerd with the popcorn who chuckles at an inappropriate moment. He is, in fact, a veteran of a quarter-century of Hollywood theatrical and television film production, now (involuntarily) retired in the heart of what’s left of Hollywood. He is not a member of the Writers Guild of America, Inc.