The Part-Time Voyeur Picks Ten Clips of the Month
1. VLADIMIR NABOKOV: IN THE FLESH (BUT CLOTHED)
My chum, creator of HUM: VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH, language czar. You have read him, maybe even heard his bold accent on a CAEDMON recording. But have you ever seen him on film?
Even the nonverbal moments convey: as when VLADDY literally squirms in his seat or shamelessly obeys some pre-arranged agreement by moving, abruptly and awkwardly, from one set to another set (in the middle of someone talking). (This moment occurs at 2:12 in part one.)
Another nonverbal highlight: when guest LIONEL TRILLING's avowal that "We can't trust a creative writer to say what he has done" causes stone-faced VLAD to crack a nearly imperceptible smile.
Of course, the interview has been set up precisely to get VLAD to speak about "what he has done." Good luck netting the elusive Echinargus!
So much here to savor. When the pedestrian interviewer asks Vlad if he despises American motels as much as the narrator of LOLITA, VLAD owns that, "I have stayed at some delightful motels where I have been very happy with HUMBERT HUMBERT, writing the book, but which I could not use because the book is slanted in a different way."
Interviewer: "So you wouldn't see a motel as something rather grotesque?"
Russian novelist: "Not necessarily. A motel can be anything."—A thought to unload the next time you're at check-in.
Throughout the awkward but sublime footage—from a forgotten 1950s TV show called CLOSE UP—NABOKOV's insights startle the viewer as much as his dramatic accent does.
Asked the inevitable question of whence derived the inspiration for LOLITA, NABOKOV says, "In a little afterpiece I wrote for the book, I talked of a certain ape who was taught to use a charcoal, and the first thing that the poor little animal did was to sketch the bars of its own cage."
Interview: "Is this an analogy?"
Russian novelist: "Well, yes."
Russian novelist continues: "I read that story in a newspaper, and if I tried to rationalize the impact of that image, I would say that my baboon, HUMBERT HUMBERT—because, after all, Humbert Humbert is a baboon—a baboon of genius perhaps—but a baboon—is doing exactly that, you see. He's drawing and shading and erasing and redrawing the bars of his cage, the bars between him and what he terms the human herd."
Instead of saying, "I would never marry a woman to get to her child. I would never molest or kidnap anyone. I would never murder anyone," to prove how he is different from LOLITA's genius baboon, NABOKOV instead points out that he would never confuse a hummingbird with a hawk moth, as his protagonist does. Apparently, there is little that is worse than being imprecise in the field of insects.
Okay, he's a kook—but a kook of genius.
2. DADDY'S ANGEL AND THE WORST DATE SHE'S EVER BEEN ON
What's worse than your common run of Reality TV? Reality TV on MTV! But here's an unbelievable exception to that truth, a series called DISASTER DATE, in which chumps are set up on fake blind dates. In this one, a boy must contend with a girl pretending to be a daddy's girl. Amazingly, no matter how atrociously the daddy's girl behaves, the boy maintains cucumber cool. In the future, don't be surprised to see this dude winning GOOD HOUSEKEEPING's "Husband of the Year" Award.
Probably the sweetest moment occurs when daddy's angel throws her food—the MARX BROTHERS would have been jealous of her instincts—but, in fact, many classic moments abound, as when the girl says, "Oh, so like a groupie?"
* and when she says, "What do you want to do in Ireland? Shop?"
* and when she says, "Okay, I'm bored—"
* and when she says, "I know what I want,"
* and when she snaps her fingers,
* and when she says, "Have you ever been on a date before?"
* and so on and so on.
THE PART-TIME VOYEUR doesn't understand the prejudice against daddy's girls, but acknowledges that the conceit, in this guise, provides seven minutes of comic perfection.
3. COWBOY KICKS BUTT
Every cowboy flick contains a scene in which our hero, lounging in a bar, is provoked to stand up to a bad guy who is mistreating a barmaid. Here is MARLON BRANDO's take on that perennial, from ONE-EYED JACKS, a movie that STANLEY KUBRICK began to direct only to be replaced by BRANDO himself (in the one time he directed a film).
BONUS 1: The ineffable TIM CARREY as the bad guy. (Who else could that be?)
BONUS 2: You gotta love how MARLON reads the line, "You get up, you big tub of guts."
4. BROTHERS, COMEDY, AND RHYTHM
At the Savannah Book Festival, we overheard ROY BLOUNT, JR. deliver a blockbuster talk about his new book, HAIL, HAIL, EUPHORIA! PRESENTING THE MARX BROTHERS IN DUCK SOUP, THE GREATEST WAR MOVIE EVER MADE. In an off-stage aside, ROY mentioned the RITZ BROTHERS. Who?
5. KICKING THE KEYS!
Speaking of brothers and rhythm, here's the fabulous, in-his-prime CAB CALLOWAY and the fabulous, in-their-prime NICHOLAS BROTHERS. Everything's perfect here: the hot-as-volcano music and the special effects—like dance and the agile camerawork (note the striking use of shadow). This clip is not obscure (over one-million hits), but it never gets tiresome:
6. NO BOSH!
But, come on, kids, let's not pretend that Americanos are the only ones who know how to capture music and dance on film:
BONUS QUESTION: Why hasn't anyone made JAMES BOND into a musical?
7. TWO STAGES OF JAKE THACKRAY
Through the cracks, THE VOYEUR kept hearing about this guy. Kinda suggests what DICK VAN DYKE would sound like if DICK were a folkie...and were trying to sound like JOHN JACOB NILES.
Here's footage from years later, 1981. JAKE still somehow impresses—just don't ask us how:
8. MAKE TIME FOR CREATIONISM
You heard this song on the perfect RUSHMORE soundtrack. Here's a fantastic live version:
9. GET YOUR TONSURES OUT!
Now we're in a garage-rock-in-Germany frame of mind, which leads us to the forefathers of punk rock, THE MONKS.
10. THE ROLLING STONES RICE KRISPIES COMMERCIAL
No kiddin':
To help that go down, a 2009 video of a vintage STONES song, "ROCKS OFF," using footage shot by ROBERT FRANK. You'll see the shop where FRANK took the cover shots for EXILE ON MAIN STREET.
