WORLD TOUR Day 17 - West Virginia
BEFORE: OK, I concede. I spent about two hours last night - early morning hours, that is - with a printed-out NFL schedule, trying to devise a path through 17 weeks of games that would move across the country in a more efficient manner than the one being used by the folks in the Tailgate 32 project. I failed to do so, but I was able to get a handle on the decision-making process they used. Only twice did San Francisco and Oakland play home games on successive days, and those stadiums are just 18 or so miles apart. They meant to take advantage of the weekends where two successive games would be held, so they could run from Dallas to Houston, Philadelphia to New York, and the rest was just getting across the country in a fashion that would link those weekends. Given enough time, I might be able to devise a trip that would be shorter, but it wouldn't necessarily be BETTER. At some point my head was swimming and I had to hit the sack. I suppose it's for the best, because when you devise a path like that, you almost have to go out and accomplish it, so more power to them. I'll stick with my virtual movie-trip around the world.
I could have gone with "Elmer Gantry" next, but a little research told me that the film takes place in a fictitious Southern U.S. state. I'm trying to stick with real geography if I can. I could also have gone with "Gone With the Wind" next, representing Atlanta, but that would mean I'd have to go buy a copy at the $5 DVD store, and I haven't done that yet. I'll get to that next year for sure. So instead I'm in West Virginia tonight, a state that got name-checked in "Biloxi Blues", and we're somewhere on the Ohio River, though a specific city is not mentioned. What's the obvious link between Gregory Peck from "To Kill a Mockingbird" and Robert Mitchum (last seen in the "Cape Fear" remake) in tonight's film? The original "Cape Fear", of course.
THE PLOT: A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
AFTER: If Atticus Finch is the shining example of Southern civility and honor, then the main character tonight is his polar opposite. Mitchum plays a preacher-type who's anything but holy, as he marries women along his travels, takes their money and leaves a string of bodies behind. But another connection to last night, as two of the main characters are children, an older brother and a younger sister.
Problem is, you can't really boss a kid around - as I saw last night in "To Kill a Mockingbird". If Jem and Scout's father tells them to leave the Radley house alone, you know that's just going to make them want to go over there more, right? In tonight's film, the more that phony preacher Harry Powell demands to know where the money is, the less the kids want to tell him. Which is bad news for any friends of the family who stand in his way, who don't know about the money.
The film devolves into an extended chase scene - the kids flee to the next town, the preacher shows up. On to the next town, the preacher shows up. It's really easy to see how a writer can paint himself into a corner, or just let a screenplay spiral out of control this way. How do you resolve something like this? To this film's credit, it pulls itself out of its own pattern by introducing a foil character, a new mother figure for the kids, an older woman who takes in lost or abandoned children and raises them like foster kids. It's a little bit of "Deus ex machina", Granny even quotes from the Bible herself to drive the point home.
But it does stress the important difference between quoting from the Bible and living its lessons. Anyone can quote scripture - a typical ride on the NYC subway will prove that - but it's another thing to live Biblically, to physically feed the hungry and clothe the needy, and protect the wayward travelers. Being Christian isn't nearly as important as acting Christian. Worshipping Jesus should take a back seat to living according to his lessons, since even if you don't believe in his magic powers, his lessons still have merit. Some people think Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes with his divine powers, but I prefer to think that maybe he preached such a good sermon about being charitable that most people in the crowd gave up their lunches, and they ended up with more food than they started with. That's sort of an everyday miracle, but it's still an accomplishment.
The films this week were all selected for their locations, but it looks like an unintended theme week is developing, a combination of legal cases and reporters/writers. The father in "Meet Me In St. Louis" was a lawyer, and then we had the impeachment hearings in "All the King's Men", along with a prominent reporter character. Then "Biloxi Blues" featured a Neil Simon-like writer, back to trials with the rape case in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (bonus - Scout's character was based on writer Harper Lee, and her friend Dill was the stand-in for Truman Capote) and then tonight we've got another trial (eventually). A peek at the schedule tells me that there will be reporters and/or lawyers in some fashion for the next 6 days - it's almost like my unconscious knows what it's doing when it sets the order.
Like last night's film, this was based on a novel that was in turn based on a real incident - in this case, a real 1932 murder case from Moundsville, West Virginia. That town is on the Ohio river, upriver from Parkersburg, which fits the story, so that's very useful in establishing an approximate location.
Also starring Shelley Winters (last seen in "Lolita"), Lillian Gish, Peter Graves (last seen in "Looney Tunes: Back in Action"), James Gleason, Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce.
DISTANCE TRAVELED TODAY: 687 miles / 1107 km (Monroeville, AL to Moundsville, WV)
DISTANCE TRAVELED SO FAR: 3,954 miles / 6,375 km
RATING: 5 out of 10 Christmas presents
No comments:
Post a Comment