The Phenomenology of Guns

The debate over handguns centers on the question as to whether a given individual is better off owning, and perhaps carrying, a handgun than not; and whether we as a nation are better off allowing our citizens to own, and perhaps carry, such guns. To that end, arguments are advanced on both sides, supported with statistics of various sorts. And yet, the issue remains unsettled, each side remaining as firm in its convictions after the arguments and evidence have been presented as they were before. From this we must conclude that either the reasons given for or against these weapons are insufficient to the case, or we are not as rational as we would like to suppose.

By this point, readers less patient than yourself have already begun skipping down the page to see where I stand in this debate, in order that they may assume the appropriate posture, lest they be lulled into approving my early remarks only to discover later that they should have been despising them all along. It is not my purpose, however, to argue the point one way or the other, but rather to bring to light an element that often goes unnoticed. It is a delicate matter which, if not handled properly, may appear to be a veiled insult, instead of the objective analysis I intend.

The matter, understood in its broadest terms, is that of feeling. Merely possessing a gun will induce a feeling of power in a man, and if that same man wears the gun on his person when he leaves the house, he carries that feeling with him as well. I say “man” for two reasons. First, as a matter of grammar, I always use the masculine gender when the sex of the individual is either unknown or indeterminate; and second, as a matter of fact, far more men have guns than women. Nevertheless, women own and carry guns too, and I can only assume that what they feel in this matter is no different from that of the men. To return to the point, this feeling of power stems, obviously enough, from the fact that guns are dangerous. And it is that same dangerous quality that will often produce a feeling of dread as well. I do not wish to oversimplify the issue, but I suspect that whether one owns or carries a gun has more to do with the preponderance of one feeling over the other, of power or dread, than it does with the arguments or statistics alluded to above.

Feelings are much despised, except for recreational purposes. In serious matters, we are expected to eschew mere emotion and allow reason to prevail. And when it is a matter of life and death, as guns often are, it is unseemly to suggest that whether one carries a gun or not is based on something as frivolous as a mere passion. Nevertheless, let us consider two situations, in which feeling is allowed to prevail over reason, one for each side of the debate.

We shall begin by assuming that the gun enthusiasts are right, that the individual is safer if he has a gun to protect himself, and that we would be safer as a society if more law-abiding citizens carried a gun. What then should we say of the timid man, who, though reason urges him to carry a gun, yet his fear of guns keeps him from even owning one? Is there any doubt that, owing to his apprehension regarding handguns, he would be better off not having one? A certain amount of confidence and determination is needed to prevail in a gunfight, and lacking that, the timid man might only make things worse for himself if he tried to be something he is not. Complying with a robber by giving him your wallet is a strategy that often costs no more than a few dollars, plus the nuisance of canceling credit cards. If the object is to survive, it is often better to yield than to fight. So even in the face of the evidence, the timid man might be well-advised to go unarmed. Thus we see that at least in this case, it is proper that feeling should prevail over reason.

Suppose, now, that those who favor strict gun control laws are right, that the individual is far more likely to harm himself and his loved ones by owning a gun, and that we as a nation are not safer but less so, owing to the prevalence of guns in our society. What then shall we say of the man who, notwithstanding the evidence, persists in owning a gun and carrying it on his person? Clearly, such a man believes that the feeling he derives from owning a gun is worth the increased risk of carrying it. This man of honor, let us call him, is undeterred by statistics regarding his safety, because it is not his safety he cares about. He counts his life cheap and his honor dear. More than anything else, the man of honor dreads being a victim. The idea of suffering the humiliation of being robbed or assaulted fills him with horror, even if his monetary losses are small and his injuries slight. The idea of going out in a blaze of glory, on the other hand, taking a few punks with him in the process, fills him with a sense of peace. The woman who believes that rape is a fate worse than death is similarly motivated.

Dueling is no longer a custom in western society, but the human nature that gave rise to it has not changed. In those days, a man might purposely provoke a duel, if by so doing he could establish his worth as a man. Except in the military, where the expression “death before dishonor” is an attitude encouraged, honor is today thought of as something quaint, and thus is seldom admitted as a motive, though it often is one nevertheless.

So we say to ourselves, granted the assumption above, if a man is willing to put his own life at risk for the sake of honor, who are we to question his choice? But, per that same assumption, the man of honor also puts others at risk by carrying a gun, considering the numerous cases of accidental shootings we hear about. It is not my purpose to moralize, but only to understand. And it seems clear that if the man of honor is careless of his own life, we should not expect him to be especially concerned with the lives of others.

If this analysis is correct, it may help to decide the question whether the laws concerning the carrying of handguns should require concealment or allow for open-carry. The problem with allowing people to carry guns openly is not merely that it is disturbing, though it certainly is that, but rather that it leads to an unfortunate need to prove oneself. A man who goes around with a gun strapped to his hip may look as though he is playing dress-up, and may even invite snickers to that effect. In such cases, redemption can only come when the gun is fired in anger. In Roughing It, Mark Twain noted that in Virginia City, in order to have status, it was not enough merely to carry a gun. One had to have “killed his man.” Only then did one advance to the rank of desperado. And the man one killed could not be some unarmed store clerk, but rather had to be someone who also carried a gun. In the following chapter, Mark Twain casually noted that he quit wearing a gun. He obviously did not want to become someone else’s means of social advancement. From this we may conclude that if citizens are to be allowed to carry guns, the law should require their concealment, thereby avoiding the need of the man of honor to prove that he is not just a desperado wannabe.

In any event, it is not to be expected that many minds will be changed by all the arguments and evidence concerning guns, for it is more a matter of the heart than the head. When strong passions are at play, reason must quit the field. Less still must we expect of reason when she is a servant of two masters, lending her support first to one side and then to the other.

The Razor’s Edge (1946 and 1984)

The Razor’s Edge is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, written in 1944. It is about a man that is shocked by his experience during the Great War, which changes him forever and sets him off on a quest to try to understand whether life has any sense to it, or whether it is just a stupid blunder. It was made into a movie in 1946 and remade in 1984.

The 1946 Movie

The movie begins in Chicago just after the end of the war, with Maugham (Herbert Marshall) finding himself at a party for the upper class, where we meet most of the characters who will figure significantly in the rest of the movie. One in particular is Elliott Templeton (Clifton Webb), who is exasperated that his niece Isabel (Gene Tierney) is engaged to Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power), because “he hasn’t any money,” and “he doesn’t want a job.”

“That must shock a man like you who’s never earned a penny in his life,” Maugham notes with amusement.

“It may have escaped your notice, my dear fellow,” Elliott replies, “but I am not an ordinary man. For the run of mankind, industry is essential. I see no reason why this young man, who my niece has got herself engaged to, should not conform to the customs of his country.”

Elliott says “his” country, because he does not himself regard America as his home, preferring Europe instead, especially Paris. He says he is in “this benighted city” only to visit his sister, the hostess of the event, and his niece Isabel. In those days, Europe had snob appeal, what with its royalty and class consciousness, as opposed to America, where no one is born with a title or cares about having a coat of arms.

In fact, as we quickly find out, Larry has turned down a job selling bonds, offered to him by Gray Maturin (John Payne), who comes from a rich family. Isabel is perplexed by this. When she asks Larry what he wants to do, he answers, “I don’t know. Loaf, maybe.” This confirms Elliot’s characterization of him as “bone idle.”

Isabel makes the observation that many of us watching the movie have been thinking about for several minutes running, which is that you can’t live without money. Larry replies that he has a little, which gives him the opportunity to do what he wants. As we find out later, he has an income of $3,000 per year. The story begins in 1919, so, adjusted for inflation, that would be the equivalent of over $47,000 today. It was a peculiarity of a previous era that wealth was often expressed in terms of income rather than net worth. In the novel, after the passage of over ten years, Larry says he was not affected by the stock market crash of 1929 because all his money was in government bonds. During the years when this story was set, twenty-year Treasury bonds paid an average of 4%. So, in order to generate an income-equivalent of $47,000 today at this interest rate, Larry’s bonds would have to be worth over $1,175,000. That is what Larry apparently means when he says he has a “little” money.

In Larry’s situation, I would not have wanted a job either. The difference, however, is that whereas I really would have loved to spend my life loafing and being bone idle, Larry is bothered by the fact that during the war, a man gave up his life saving him, and he wants to know why, to understand what it all means.

I have no doubt that participating in a war would be a most disturbing experience. And to come very close to death, only to have another man give up his life saving yours—that would have a profound effect on you. But Larry’s perplexity seems to go beyond that, as if the event has challenged certain preconceptions he had. I shall take the liberty of speculating on what those preconceptions were.

There is an idea that shows up periodically in the history of philosophy that man is basically selfish, and any appearance to the contrary can be explained away as selfishness in a less obvious form, sometimes referred to as enlightened egoism. But a genuine sacrifice of one man’s life for that of another would be hard to explain in that way. From this it would follow that there must be a transcendent principle that allows man to rise above his animal selfishness, setting aside his self-interest for the benefit of others. That seems to be what underlies Larry’s need to understand that sacrifice, to find that transcendent principle.

Upon hearing about Larry’s intentions, Isabel decides to put their engagement on hold. In part, she does not want to try to live on Larry’s income, but she is also bothered by Larry’s lack of ambition, saying that he should get a job as a matter of “self-respect.” They agree to wait, and Larry goes to Paris, where he believes he will be better able to see things clearly. In general, the characters in this movie flow from America to Europe, and in Larry’s case, all the way to India, only to return to America as the story ends.

Isabel and her mother come to Paris a year later. She finds that Larry intends to persist in his existential quest, but he thinks there is no reason why they could not get married anyway. “Remember how we used to talk about traveling all over the world together?” he asks.

“Of course I want to travel,” she replies, “but not like that: cheap restaurants, third-rate hotels. Besides, I want to have babies, Larry.”

“All right, darling,” he says. “We’ll take them along with us.”

That is utterly unrealistic, and Isabel knows it. As she has no intention of living the bohemian life that would entail, even without babies, she breaks off the engagement. Just before she returns to America, Isabel and Larry go out for a multicultural night on the town, after which she intends to seduce him, get pregnant, and force him to return to America, where he will have to marry her, settle down, and get a respectable job. But she changes her mind. Elliott, who was wise to her game, asks her why she did not go through with it. She said she could not bring herself to play such a dirty trick on him, but Elliott says she was just being realistic, knowing the marriage would never have worked. We all act from mixed motives, and probably her decision not to go through with it was a combination of the two.

Isabel returns to America and eventually marries Gray, which is what Elliott wanted for her all along. Gray has been quite successful selling bonds, and is now worth $20,000,000. (Adjusted for inflation, that would be like $270,000,000 today.) Also at their wedding is Sophie (Anne Baxter), who has been Larry’s best friend since they were children, and her husband Bob. Sophie and Bob, a couple of modest means, were also at the earlier party with which the movie began. At that time, she declined a drink when offered, saying that Bob didn’t like her to drink because she was “too fond of it.” In other words, she is an alcoholic.

The scene shifts back to Europe, where Larry is working as a coal miner. Now, it was one thing for him to lie around, taking it easy, reflecting on the meaning of life, made possible by his income of $3,000 per year; but if he was going to work anyway, why not get himself a job selling bonds for Gray’s company? The reason, of course, is the supposedly purifying nature of manual labor. Working with your hands always seems to be more honest and conducive to a spiritual life than working with your mouth or with your mind, which some people regard as having a corruptive influence on the soul. That’s why it was important that Jesus had been a carpenter rather than a money lender, for example.

Larry has made friends with Kosti, a nihilistic, defrocked Polish priest, who says that Larry sounds like a religious man who does not believe in God. Larry says he doesn’t believe in anything. Kosti suggests that Larry go to India and meet a man that many have found inspirational. This Larry does, putting himself under the tutelage of the Indian guru. Whereas Western religions tend to see God as presiding over man and nature, the religious view to which Larry is now exposed thinks of God as one with these things. The holy man tells him, “There is in every one of us a spark of the infinite goodness which created us. And when we leave this earth, we are reunited with it as a raindrop falling from Heaven is at last reunited with the sea which gave it birth.” The movie reinforces this simile comparing God to the sea by beginning and ending with scenes of the ocean, not to mention the many times we see the ocean in the background throughout the movie. After studying for a while with the holy man, it becomes time for Larry to ascend the mountain and live in solitude. It is there, seeing the sun come up one morning, that he feels himself to be one with God. This is the transcendent principle Larry has been seeking, the one he believes is needed to overcome man’s basic selfishness: if we are all one with God, then altruism is just one part of God helping out another part of God.

Just as manual labor is presented as spiritually preferable to office work, so too is nature presented as more conducive to the experience of revelation than the artificial constructions of civilization. As it was important for Jesus to go into the wilderness, where he fasted for over a month, so too was it important for Larry to seek solitude on a mountain top, enduring the bitter cold. By way of contrast, Elliott says he detests the countryside, and Maugham observes at another point in the movie that Elliott looks upon “nature as an impediment to social intercourse.” In any event, having had this revelation on the mountain top, Larry is advised by the holy man that it is time for him to return to his world.

That world, it turns out, has not been doing so well. First, Sophie survives an automobile accident in which Bob and her baby are killed. Somewhat later comes the stock market crash of 1929, in which Gray’s firm is wiped out. (This was not on account of the bonds his firm had been selling. In the novel, Gray and his father got caught up in the stock market frenzy and started speculating in securities on the margin.) In a conversation with Maugham, Isabel notes with irony that she and Gray and their two children are living all right on her income, which is about the same as Larry had when she refused to marry him. Actually, they are doing better than that. It seems that Elliott not only got out of the stock market just before the crash, but actually sold short, making a killing. He has taken a place on the Riviera, where he can hobnob with royalty, while allowing Isabel’s family to live in his posh apartment in Paris, and also providing them with a maid and a governess for the children.

At least, they are all right financially. Gray, however, has not only been unable to find work, but has suffered a nervous breakdown as well, afflicting him with terrible headaches. Just as manual labor and communing with nature on a mountain top has given Larry peace of mind, so the fall from high society and the world of finance has given Gray a head full of pain.

When Kosti told Larry about the holy man, he said it was not so much the man’s teachings that affected people, but the man himself. This recalls what Maugham said at the beginning of the movie, that the man about whom he was writing was not famous, and that he may be entirely forgotten after he has died. That is, there is something about Larry himself that impresses Maugham, not in anything that he has done. In fact, Larry does remarkably little.

The first thing he does on his return to Paris, where he becomes reacquainted with Gray and Isabel, is to cure Gray’s headache through hypnosis or the power of suggestion, which he learned in India. This is not farfetched, for Gray’s headaches are clearly psychosomatic. As Larry puts it, there is nothing miraculous about what he did; he only put an idea in Gray’s head, and Gray did the rest himself. It was necessary that Larry explicitly deny that what he did was a miracle, for left unsaid, we might think him a fraud. (In the novel, Gray says, “It’s a miracle.” And later, Isabel says the same thing. But as in the movie, Larry denies it.) However, it functions as a miracle substitute. On the one hand, something like a miracle was required. Suppose Jesus had never performed any miracles. If all he had done was preach, no religion would have formed around him, no matter how wise and good he may have been. By the same token, in order for us to be convinced of Larry’s spirituality, he had to do something that at least bordered on the miraculous. On the other hand, this story is set in the twentieth century. Had Larry walked on water, we would have thought that to be ridiculous. And so, as a compromise, Larry does something marvelous, something neither Maugham, Isabel, nor Gray had ever seen before; while at the same time, what he does can be understood rationally, not requiring a supernatural explanation.

Once the headache is gone, they all decide to go out to a nightclub, where Isabel confides in Maugham that she still loves Larry and has never loved anyone else, including her husband, though she says she is too fond of Gray to ever hurt him. After they spend some time at a respectable nightclub, they decide to go slumming and end up at a dive, a place where people dance the tango, of course. It is in that seedy place that they run into Sophie. When I first watched the movie, I figured she worked there. But in the novel, her in-laws were so scandalized by her drunkenness and promiscuity after Bob and her baby died that they promised her an allowance if she left America. And now that she is in Paris, she has acquired a taste for opium as well. She also has a man who treats her rough, just the way she likes it.

It is only on the way home that Larry finds out about Sophie’s tragedy. He gets out of the car and heads back to that nightclub. Somewhat later, we hear that he has gotten Sophie to quit drinking, and they are going to be married. Upon receiving that news, Isabel becomes furious. She tries to get Maugham to tell Larry not to marry Sophie, saying that Sophie is no good. “The fool thinks he’s cured her,” she says. Maugham notes that Larry cured Gray, but Isabel replies, “Gray wanted to be cured. She doesn’t.” When asked how she knows that, she says, “Because I know women. Do you think she’ll stick to Larry? No. She’ll break out. It’s in her blood. It’s a brute she wants. That excites her. It’s a brute she’ll go after. She’ll lead Larry to Hell.” Maugham agrees with her, but he doesn’t think there is anything they can do about it.

“Do you think I’ve sacrificed myself,” she asks, “only to let Larry fall into the hands of a woman like that?” Isabel claims that she gave Larry up so as not to stand in his way. Maugham sneers at her characterization of what she did as a sacrifice, saying, “You gave him up for a square-cut diamond and a sable coat.”

Maugham gives the usual reasons for not interfering with Larry’s plans to marry Sophie, essentially saying that it is none of their business. But then he goes a step further. “There’s only one thing you can do,” he says. “Make the best of a bad job. Larry’s gripped by the most powerful emotion that can beset the breast of man: self-sacrifice. He’s got to save the soul of the wretched woman whom he had known as an innocent child. And there’s nothing you or I or anyone can do to prevent it.”

While Isabel’s self-serving talk of her sacrifice stands in contrast to the sort that Maugham attributes to Larry, Maugham has a low regard for self-sacrifice, even when it is genuine. In the novel, he makes it clear that it is a temptation to be avoided, even comparing it with the sacrifice Jesus made, for which he has contempt:

D’you remember how Jesus was led into the wilderness and fasted forty days? Then, when he was a-hungered, the devil came to him and said: If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But Jesus resisted the temptation. Then the devil set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down. For angels had charge of him and would bear him up. But again Jesus resisted. Then the devil took him into a high mountain and showed him the kingdoms of the world and said that he would give them to him if he would fall down and worship him. But Jesus said: Get thee hence, Satan. That’s the end of the story according to the good simple Matthew. But it wasn’t. The devil was sly and he came to Jesus once more and said: If thou wilt accept shame and disgrace, scourging, a crown of thorns and death on the cross thou shalt save the human race, for greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Jesus fell. The devil laughed till his sides ached, for he knew the evil men would commit in the name of their redeemer.

In any event, he advises Isabel to be nice to Sophie, and she seems to agree, but like Maugham, we are suspicious of her motives.

On the pretense of buying Sophie her wedding dress, Isabel connives to get Sophie alone with her. Isabel praises the vodka Elliott recommended, saying it must be tough giving up alcohol all at once. Sophie admits that it is a desperate struggle for her to not take a drink, especially when Larry is not around. Isabel then leaves Sophie alone with the bottle of vodka, saying she has to pick her daughter up at the dentist, knowing Sophie won’t be able to resist the temptation. Sure enough, Sophie drinks a glass and then another, leading her back to her old ways. Larry manages to track her down to an opium den, but she refuses to go with him, running away when a fight breaks out. No one knows anything about her until a year later, when her body is fished out of the harbor, her throat slit.

In the novel, Maugham runs into Sophie in Toulon between the time she ran out on Larry and when she was murdered. She seems to be much happier than previously. When the whole group met at lunch just before the wedding was to take place, Maugham described her as looking pitiful:

Sophie hardly spoke except when she was spoken to and then it seemed an effort to her. The spirit had gone out of her. You would have said that something had died in her and I asked myself if Larry wasn’t putting her to a strain greater than she could support.

But now she is in much better spirits. Not being sure if Maugham knew, Sophie tells him she didn’t marry Larry after all. Maugham says he knew that, and then asks her why not. “Darling,” she says, “when it came to the point I couldn’t see myself being Mary Magdalen to his Jesus Christ.” She tells Maugham about drinking the vodka at Isabel’s apartment, which made her feel “like a million dollars.” She says she plans to stay in Toulon, where she can get all the opium she wants from the sailors she sleeps with.

One sailor in particular shows up, her boyfriend, whom she says is a jealous Corsican, so Maugham had better leave after buying him a drink. After introducing them to each other, Sophie and Maugham exchange the following remarks in English:

“Dumb but beautiful,” she said to me.

“You like ’em tough, don’t you?”

“The tougher the better.”

“One of these days you’ll get your throat cut.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she grinned. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

Back to the movie: Though it was villainous of Isabel to tempt Sophie with the vodka, would it really have made any difference in the long run? If Sophie could not be left alone for five minutes without drinking down an entire bottle of vodka, and then heading for an opium den, she was doomed anyway. We all know how people make an extra effort to please the person they are soon to marry, but then revert to their old ways within months of the nuptials. Isabel was only making manifest before the wedding what was bound to happen after it.

Even if the marriage would have worked, it was essential that Sophie die instead. Consider the case of Jesus again. He was able to move from place to place, cleansing the leper, giving sight to a man that was blind, enabling a man that was lame to walk again; after which he would move on to the next town. In short, Jesus never got tied down to any one person or any one place. But let Jesus get married and have children, and no matter how wise and good a man he was, we would never have heard of him. He may have sacrificed himself taking care of a wife who contracted leprosy, while also caring for a son that was blind or a daughter that was lame, working long hours to support them, and yet there would be no religion based on his life. By the same token, had Larry and Sophie gotten married and made a go of it, it would not have been long before she started having babies. They would have returned to America, where Larry would have had to take that job selling bonds. There is nothing like getting married and having a couple of children to put the quietus on your wanderlust. Maugham would never have written a book about him.

Maugham and Larry make arrangements for Sophie’s funeral, after which Maugham tells Larry that Elliott has had a relapse. Elliott has not gotten on well with Princess Novemali, an American widow who parleyed her fortune for a title by marrying a Roman prince, and who is now a major socialite in France. It seems that Elliott helped spread some rumor about Princess Novemali and her chauffeur, which happened to be true. She is throwing a party to which she has invited everyone of note on the Riviera, except Elliott. It is going to be the greatest party of the season, and Elliott, though he is on his death bed, yet is devastated that he has not been invited, a deliberate insult, which brings him to tears. It is the culmination of many such insults, as those who once ate his food and drank his liquor no longer have use for him. He says he wishes he had never left America.

The bishop that gives Elliott the last rites says, correctly, that he was a good man whose faults were on the surface. Larry, being good friends with Novemali’s secretary (Elsa Lanchester), manages to obtain an invitation card and fill it out himself, making it look as though Elliott has been invited to the party after all. His vanity satisfied, Elliott dies a happy man, after instructing Maugham to send his regrets about not being able to attend, and then cursing Princess Novemali with his dying breath. He leaves his fortune to Isabel, which will allow Gray to get his company out of receivership.

Let us review the deeds of Larry’s life since his return from India. First, he performed that trick of hypnosis that cured Gray’s headache. But that means that any psychiatrist skilled in the art of hypnosis might easily have done the same. Second, taking pity on the woman that was his best friend from childhood, Larry helps her with her alcoholism and decides to marry her. Marriage is indeed an undertaking not to be entered into lightly, but it is not beyond the pale that you or I, in the same situation, might do the same for a woman who has been our best friend since childhood. I’m not saying it would be a wise thing to do, mind you, for the reasons already given, but only that we might be foolish enough to try. Finally, given how easily Larry was able to obtain an invitation card and forge it to make a dying man happy, I dare say that most people would not hesitate to do the like as well. In the novel, however, it is not Larry that purloins the invitation and forges it, but Maugham. So Larry doesn’t even get credit for that. In fact, unlike in the movie, Larry is not present when Elliott dies.

In other words, Larry does not perform miracles, does not become the spiritual leader of a great religious movement, and does not dedicate his life to ministering to the suffering of mankind. In fact, there is no reason to think that Larry would not have done precisely the same things had he gone to work for Gray selling bonds instead of going to India, save for the fact that he might not have learned that hypnosis trick. Of course, as Larry reminds us in his final scene with Isabel, recalling what he told her at the beginning of the movie, the really great change in his life came when another man gave up his life saving him, and we never saw what he was like before the war. In any event, Maugham sums up what is special about Larry, saying to Isabel, “My dear, Larry has found what we all want and very few of us ever get. I don’t think anyone can fail to be better and nobler, kinder, for knowing him. You see, my dear, goodness is, after all, the greatest force in the world. And he’s got it.”

Just before the final scene with Larry, Isabel tells Maugham that she intends to see Larry as much as she wants when they all get back to America, saying, “All my life, I’ve done the things other people have wanted me to do. From now on, I intend to do the things I want to do.” However, it is too late, and in her final scene with Larry, she realizes she has lost him forever, especially when she realizes that he knows that she was responsible for getting Sophie to start drinking again, which ultimately led to Sophie’s death. This scene was not in the novel, where it is Maugham, not Larry, who knows the truth about what Isabel did to Sophie. It is just one of the ways in which the movie is more effective and satisfying than the novel.

In that last scene with Isabel, Larry tells her of his intention to work in a factory or a garage, because while working with his hands, his mind is free, and yet he is accomplishing something. He says he may eventually buy a taxicab, where he can always be on the go and meet lots of people. Once again, the point is that manual labor is the only occupation suitable for a man of his spiritual nature; and once again, the peripatetic life is the only one suitable for him as well. In the last scene, we see Larry working on a tramp steamer on his way back to America, thus combining the ennobling nature of physical work and movement from one place to another with the spiritual simile of the sea.

When I set out to review a movie that is based on a novel or short story, the question arises as to how much the original source should be taken into account. It is perfectly reasonable to evaluate a movie on its own terms, as if the novel or short story did not exist. In some cases, the two are so different that one must ignore the original source material completely. In other cases, as in this one, the novel and the movie are similar enough so that the former can help shed light on the latter. And so it is that I have referred to the one in reviewing the other.

But now I must add one more item that was left out of the movie that is of such nature that, had it been included in the movie, I suspect the audience would have lost their admiration of Larry and regarded him a fool, leaving the theater in disgust.

It is one thing, when reading the novel, to hear Larry go on about all that he learned in India, as well as the problems that still puzzle him: the existence of evil, the nature of God, the karma of reincarnation, and the meaning of life. And we are not terribly surprised when we read that Larry seldom eats meat, and that he has decided to abstain from sex from now on.

But then he gives away all his money! He does so because, though his income has made it possible for him to study philosophy and religion, yet he now believes that financial independence would be a burden to him going forward, because it would hinder his quest for the spirituality he seeks. And he gives away that money, even though it is his plan, upon returning to America, to save up his money until he can buy a taxicab. I need not tell you how appalled Maugham is when Larry tells him this, or what he says against such a decision, for it is the same reaction that most of us would have. A man may embrace any number of religious views and then drop them as the years go by when they no longer suit his fancy. He may become a vegetarian, only to give that up and have himself a thick steak. He may decide to be celibate, and then give in to his lust should the occasion warrant. But once he gives away all his money, it is gone for good.

In delving into philosophy, Larry should have read Aristotle, who said that while money cannot buy happiness, a certain minimum level of material wellbeing is necessary for it, for no one can be happy who is cold and hungry, which may be Larry’s fate someday, when poor health and old age eventually come upon him.

The 1984 Remake

The 1946 version of The Razor’s Edge is about as good as one could want, but it was remade in 1984 anyway. Some people do not like old movies, especially when they are in black and white, so that may have been the thinking behind the production of this second version. But there are differences far more significant than that.

One in particular is what Larry did during the war. In the novel, he was a fighter pilot. Before I had read the novel, I always assumed, when watching the 1946 movie, that Larry had been in the infantry. In the 1984 version, however, the story begins as Larry, played by Bill Murray, has volunteered to become an ambulance driver in Europe at a time when America had not yet entered the war. But if at this point in the story, Larry is willing to risk his life to save others, why should he be so shocked that someone lost his life saving him?

The scene in which Larry’s life is saved is perplexing. Larry says of the man who died saving his life:

He was a slob. Did you ever see him eat? Starving children could fill their bellies on the food that ended up in his beard and on his clothes. Dogs would gather to watch him eat. I’ve never understood gluttony, but I hate it. I hated that about you. He enjoyed disgusting people, being disgusting, the thrill of offending people and making them uncomfortable. It was despicable. You will not be missed.

Well, that’s quite a eulogy. I know we’re all supposed to understand that this is Larry’s way of expressing his gratitude and affection for the man that saved his life. But we know this only because it’s a movie, and because Gray and another man give each other knowing looks, indicating that they understand, so we are supposed to understand too. In real life, however, no one would ever say such things over a dead man unless he had contempt for him. I’m just glad he doesn’t say something like that when Sophie (Theresa Russell) dies.

So, what is the effect of having a man give his life to save Larry’s? Apparently, it turns him into a jerk, even to the point of his becoming rude and violent, yelling at Isabel and later at Elliott. The Larry of the novel and the 1946 version is good-natured and soft-spoken, but in the scene where Larry kicks an expensive piece of Elliott’s furniture, breaking it to pieces, it is Elliott who is calm and composed. At that point, I wanted to forget about Larry and stay with Elliott. And why does Larry yell and break furniture? Because he isn’t getting his way. He didn’t want to marry Isabel right after the war, as they had planned, and she was supposed to understand. But now that it pleases him that they should marry a year later, on his terms, she is the one that doesn’t want to. That makes him angry.

Whereas in the novel and the 1946 version, Isabel almost has sex with Larry in order to get pregnant and force him to make an honest woman out of her; in this version, because the movie was made in 1984, she has sex with Larry without getting pregnant. I suppose this was to make the story seem up to date. When she wakes up in the morning in Larry’s apartment, there is a disgusting bug on her pillow, and in the hallway, she sees rats. When she goes to use the communal bathroom, it is repulsive. But Larry’s place was not like that in the novel. It was decent, though modest, and had its own bathroom. But in this 1984 version, his room is a sty.

Years later, when Larry discovers Sophie in that dive and brings her to his apartment, it is a much nicer place. It’s clean and has its own bathroom. Maybe that’s what he learned in India.

This is just one of the ways in which this movie is over the top. Here’s another: In the novel, when the stock market crashes, Gray’s father dies of a heart attack. In this 1984 version, his father blows his brains out. And Gray becomes so upset that he cuts his hands smashing them through glass panels.

It is fine that this movie wants to extol the wisdom of India, but in so doing, it feels compelled to to take a cheap shot at Christianity. As Sophie lies in the hospital bed, distraught that Bob and her baby have both been killed, a nun tells her it is a time for rejoicing, for her husband and the baby are now both in Heaven. In real life, one may occasionally run into a nitwit like that, but in this movie, the nun is put forward as representative of Christianity. In other words, Eastern religion good, Western religion bad.

In the novel and in the 1946 version, we are supposed to regard Larry’s plan to marry Sophie as an act of self-sacrifice, evidence of his spiritual transformation. But at the end of this movie, when Larry is accusing Isabel of killing Sophie, he says, “I thought Sophie was my reward for trying to live a good life.” A reward, not a sacrifice. So, in this movie, he was just going to do what he wanted to do anyway, marry a woman he was in love with. Men do that every day, and they don’t have to go to India first either.

Speaking of Sophie, instead of her and Bob being a happily married couple, in this version, Bob got her pregnant and had to marry her, after which he appears to be unhappy to have lost his freedom. And there is no indication that Sophie is an alcoholic at this time. It was a lot easier to believe that Sophie would descend into drink and promiscuity in the novel and the 1946 movie after the accident. Sure, it could still happen, even so, but why make changes in the story that work against such an outcome?

Another difference between the two versions is that Maugham is not a character in the 1984 version and thus provides no narration. Because Larry never did anything miraculous or spectacular, we needed Maugham’s commentary to tell us that Larry’s spiritual nature was such as to inspire others to be better human beings. Without Maugham to guide our appreciation of this aspect of Larry’s personality, we are not likely to figure that out on our own. And even if there had been a Maugham in this version, I don’t think we would have believed him.

In the end, Larry’s wisdom concerning the meaning of life is that there is no reward for being good, but nothing matters anyway.

Murray cared a lot about this movie and was disappointed when it flopped. Little did he realize that the spiritual movie that he was perfectly suited for was a comedy, Groundhog Day (1993), which is every bit as much a classic now as the 1946 version of The Razor’s Edge.

On the Need for Society’s Approval in Matters of Love

A woman commits adultery, dies in the end. That is the plot of Anna Karenina, a novel by Leo Tolstoy. There is also this other story about a man named Levin, but nobody cares about him. To a certain extent, the novel is dated, or at least bound to the time and place of its setting, Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was a time when divorce was not allowed except for reasons of adultery, which for the guilty party would then preclude the possibility of remarriage and result in the loss of custody of one’s children. And everyone would be scandalized. Today, Anna would simply get a divorce and then move in with her lover Vronsky, whom she could marry if she wanted to, but she might not bother. Even if she committed adultery before getting divorced, she would probably get custody of her children, or at least visiting rights. And aside from her husband, no one would care. Thus, the story could never be set in twenty-first century America. Nevertheless, adultery always interests us, and the particular laws and mores of the time and place merely make for variations on an ancient theme of love, deceit, and betrayal.

There is, of course, a double standard, which Tolstoy underscores by beginning his novel with an adulterous affair between Anna’s brother Stiva and the family’s governess. Anna convinces Dolly, her sister-in-law, that Stiva loves her, that the affair with the governess was just sex, that he is miserable and truly sorry for what he has done, and that the best thing to do is to forgive him. She does, and all is well. No need for a long Russian novel about a cheating husband.

Like so many unfaithful spouses, Anna does a terrible job of keeping her affection for Vronsky secret, both with respect to her husband Karenin and their acquaintances. Her husband warns her that her behavior is giving others the wrong impression. He avers that jealousy is a degrading and humiliating feeling, which he refuses to countenance. He emphasizes that he is not inquiring into her feelings, to which he says he has no right. He only asks that she comport herself with a modicum of decorum.

Whew! He’s a better man than I am. Whenever I have become jealous as a result of the way a girlfriend is behaving with another man, it is precisely her feelings that worry me. If I could be sure of those, she could stand in the rain with him and get wet for all I care. There was this one girlfriend I had who was getting a little too familiar with another man, and I was none too happy about it. She must have picked up on it, because as soon as we were alone, she began kissing me, and telling me how much she loved me. Ladies, if you want to reassure a jealous man, that is how it is done. Don’t argue with him. Don’t tell him he has an ego problem. Just start kissing him as though you really mean it. As simple as that might sound, it is something an unfaithful wife will find hard to do. And as a matter of fact, Anna does not kiss her husband, but merely says she does not know what he is talking about. And thus she gives herself away one more time.

Things really come to a head when Vronsky falls off his horse during a race, causing Anna to display an inordinate amount of emotion. On the way home, Karenin cautions her again about behaving in a way that is causing gossip. Fed up, she tells him she hates him and loves Vronsky. At that point, he becomes silent. When they get home, he tells her she still needs to keep up appearances until he can make arrangements to protect his honor, after which he gets out of the carriage, politely helps her out, and then gets back in the carriage to continue on to St. Petersburg. Whew! He’s a better man than I am. It’s enough to make me wish I were thirty years younger and married to an unfaithful wife, just to see if I could pull off a class act like that.

Karenin’s admonitions to Anna to behave appropriately are disregarded. She leaves him and begins living with Vronsky. The climax of their struggles of living in sin occurs the night they go to the theater. Anna is snubbed and insulted. She becomes so wretched that she eventually commits suicide by throwing herself under the wheels of a moving train.

One of the problems with reading Anna Karenina today was alluded to above. Unless we are personally involved, we no longer condemn people for committing adultery, getting divorced, or cohabitating. And so, when I first read this novel, my attitude was that Anna had every right to seek happiness with the man she loved, and that society was wrong for being so cruel to her, as if the question of right and wrong settled the issue. Years later, I saw a movie version of this novel, the one with Greta Garbo made in 1935. Perhaps owing to the much simplified narrative of that film, I realized that it did not matter that society was wrong to condemn Anna. What matters is that society’s disapproval can crush you like the wheels of a train.

When the norms of society stand between us and our happiness, we tend to underestimate the social forces we are going up against. When we are in love, we feel we have a right to be happy, and that makes us foolish. Sure, we might be happy if people would just leave us alone, but how much happiness can there be if they will not?

There are two types of social disapproval when it comes to sex, the aesthetic and the moral. In the aesthetic category, I include size, age, and class, though that is not an exhaustive list. When I was in high school, I briefly dated a girl who was taller than I by about two inches. We got along fine when it was just the two of us, but as soon as we went out in public, I became self-conscious. No one said anything to me, but they did not have to. I simply knew how we must have looked together, and what I might have thought had I seen a couple as mismatched as we were. Without our having to discuss it, we quit seeing each other, no hard feelings. Society won, we lost.

I ruefully reflected on the fact that had we discussed the matter, we might have agreed to keep our relationship a secret. But that almost never happens with an aesthetic deviation from what is acceptable. One person might be cynical enough to want to sneak around and keep it private, but the other is bound to be hurt by such a suggestion. In fact, aesthetically inappropriate lovers are more inclined to become defiant than clandestine: a couple in which the man is shorter is more likely to be seen holding hands than one that conforms to the norm.

In the case of an inappropriate age difference, especially where the woman is significantly older than the man, the real problem lies more in the future than the present. If they just have a fling, all will be well. But love is hard to control, and if instead they marry, their friends will shake their heads and calculate the cruel arithmetic of the years to come. (Of course, when I speak of inappropriate age differences, I confine my discussion in this matter, as well as to other sexual relationships that may meet with disapproval, to consenting adults.)

As for class, there is the well-known expression, spoken by women with a sense of dread, “She married beneath her station.” But it is also a problem when things are reversed. A man who wishes to get ahead in the world must make sure he has a wife of suitable status. There is an expression often heard regarding aspiring executives who have low-class wives: “As soon as she opened her mouth, he was dead.” Where the class difference between two lovers is significant, they would be wise to hide it from others, but such prudence is rare. Lady Chatterley was able to have a good relationship with the gamekeeper because the affair was adulterous, thus requiring secrecy for moral reasons. Had they both been single, they would have had no excuse for keeping their aesthetically inappropriate love private, and would likely have succumbed to the felt need to tell the world, possibly even to the point of getting married. Such a mésalliance would have opened them up to scorn and derision, and the whole thing would have been a disaster.

Where the disapproval of society is moral and rather than aesthetic, secrecy is more easily agreed to. But even here, living a lie is a strain, and likely to give way to defiance, as in the case of Anna, with her brutal confession to her husband. The way was open to her to continue having the affair, provided she was discreet. But that would have required a degree of sangfroid of which Anna was not capable. Unfaithful spouses often admit their infidelity more out of emotional exhaustion than honesty.

Many of the types of relationships for which there once was strong moral condemnation, such as fornication, homosexuality, and miscegenation, have become more accepted today. A measure of their acceptance lies in the fact that they are no longer illegal, and they do not disqualify one for public office. Even adultery is not a disqualifier in politics, provided the affair is not ongoing. To say that such relationships will today be met with no social resistance at all, however, would be going too far. Couples of different religion sometimes meet with disapproval, but mostly from their families, not from American society in general.

There is one remaining type of relationship between consenting adults for which there is still strong moral disapproval, even to the point of being illegal in some states, and that is incest. And wouldn’t you know it, it just so happens that I knew a woman once who had an incestuous affair. In telling this story, it is necessary for me to exercise maximum discretion, so suffice it to say she fell in love with a man to whom she was closely related.

What can we say about incest between consenting adults? There is the problem of inbreeding, of course, but she was no longer fertile, and in any event, what with the availability of birth control and abortion, that need not be a concern. And so, when I found out about their situation, I had a tendency to shrug and say, “Who cares?” But that was a silly question, because the answer is that lots of people care, and very much so. Interestingly enough, about three months before all this happened, she told me she had seen Anna Karenina on television, and she seemed quite fascinated by the story. Unfortunately, she must have missed the part where Anna was destroyed by the disapproval of society.

They could have kept their affair a secret, but I guess it is hard to say, “I love you, but I am ashamed of what we are doing, so let’s make sure no one finds out.” So they went with defiance and started living together. “I don’t care what people think,” I once heard him say, ostensibly about an unrelated matter. But people who really don’t care what others think feel no need to say so. In any event, when she told me what was going on, as if I had not already figured that out along with everyone else, she idealized their relationship as true love, the union of two soul mates. Of course, they had to think of it that way in order to justify what they were doing. And this meant that it would be difficult for them to break up, should things not work out, because that would mean admitting to themselves that instead of it being true love, it was just a sordid affair of forbidden lust. In other words, they were going to be stuck with each other for a long time.

They moved away, but a mutual friend visited her one weekend a couple of years later, after which she called me to tell me about it. She said they were miserable. How much of that misery was due to what happens to people when love dies, and how much was due to the shame of violating a taboo, I cannot say. But what I can say, what I learned from reading Anna Karenina, is that when it comes to sex, having the approval of society is one of the goods that can contribute to a happy life, and having its disapproval may preclude happiness altogether. This is a truth we are loath to acknowledge, for we feel that such matters are nobody’s business but our own. And yet, it is folly to pretend it isn’t so.

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

In a small town in Arkansas, Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) works for her uncle, the owner of a local radio station, as a roving reporter doing a program called “A Face in the Crowd,” where she interviews plain, ordinary folks. When the movie opens, she has decided to go to the county jail to see if there is anyone of interest there. Because Sheriff Big Jeff Bess is sweet on her, she has no trouble getting access. After several inmates turn away from her attempts to get them to tell a story or sing a song, the sheriff suggests the new guy with the guitar, arrested on drunk and disorderly. When the deputy goes over to wake him up, someone hollers out, “Better watch him. He’s mean.” Sure enough, when the deputy kicks him, the inmate, Larry Rhodes (Andy Griffith), turns around with a face full of hate. He softens up, however, when he sees Marcia. Still, he refuses to cooperate until he knows what he will get out of it. The sheriff promises to let him go in the morning. Suddenly, Rhodes becomes quite charming. As he picks up his guitar, Marcia, speaking into the tape recorder, talks about how she majored in music at Sarah Lawrence College, where she learned that the real American music comes from the bottom up. “When George Gershwin played in New York,” she says, “it was black tie, but the real beginning of it was by folks that never owned a tie.”

We might call this populist music, which comes from the lower classes and is somehow more authentic and genuine than the elitist music that comes from the scions of well-to-do families, who study at musical conservatories, learn to read sheet music, and acquire a theoretical understanding of the subject. Furthermore, Marcia limits this observation to American music, because part of the ideology of America is the belief that anyone with talent can make it, there being no class barriers to hold him back. Another part of that ideology is a faith in the common folk, those that never owned a tie, to determine through the democratic process what kind of government they will have and who shall preside over it. It is this ideology that underlies what follows.

Continuing with her introduction, she nicknames him “Lonesome Rhodes.” He tells her he needs to warm up first, and in doing so, puts on a great performance, which Marcia secretly tapes, and which turns out to be quite a hit when played on the radio. His ability to be great in an unscripted, unrehearsed, spontaneous manner dovetails nicely with Marcia’s populist theory of music.

Marcia is so fascinated with Lonesome’s performance that she has failed to ingest the crucial information provided to her and to us right at the beginning, that he is mean and selfish. But that is not the worst of it. People who are consistently mean and who always want to know what’s in it for them are easy to deal with. You simply avoid them. But the way Lonesome switches to a completely opposite personality (the one we usually associate with Andy Griffith) in an instant, becoming charming, friendly, and funny, is what makes such people unnerving. These are the kind of people we should really avoid, but often fail to do so because their affable side is so appealing.

Part of Lonesome’s appeal is his ability to speak to the cares and joys of ordinary people, especially working class, to whom he shows great affection. Eventually, he becomes so popular that he is offered a spot on the Grand Ole Opry by a theatrical agent who compares him to Will Rogers, saying that Lonesome is not merely someone who can sing catchy songs and tell funny stories, but someone with power. He accepts the offer, taking Marcia with him, as his “girl Friday.” As they board the train, he waves goodbye to his fans in that little town in Arkansas, turns around and says, “Boy, I’m glad to shake that dump.”

Now, a lot of us make an effort to get along with people, sometimes pretending to like them more than we actually do. But most of us keep our actual feelings to ourselves, perhaps revealing them only in quiet moments at night, while talking to a close friend. But there is something detestable about someone who smiles one minute and sneers the next, who feigns affection for someone, only to express utter contempt for him as soon as he is out of hearing.

Marcia is stunned by Lonesome’s remark. He assures her he was just joking, saying, “You ought to know better than to believe everything I say.” The irony is that he is actually giving her good advice, but only if she reverses its intended meaning. She smiles, thinking that she should not believe him when he says something that sounds mean, when, in fact, it is when he is being nice that she should not believe him.

His first night on the set, he brings out a poor black woman whom he found wandering the street late at night because her house burned down and she and her children had nowhere to go. He asks everyone to send in fifty cents to help out. The plea turns out to be wildly successful. This scene drives home the point that he could be a force for good, if he wanted to, but his real motive is manipulative, just a way of making himself popular. In fact, later in the movie, he calls an African American waiter a “black monkey.” But at least the woman got herself a new house.

The success of his show leads to businesses wanting him to advertise their products. His methods are unorthodox, but vastly more successful than the usual kind of commercial. As he becomes increasingly successful and popular, even having a ship and a mountain named after him, he starts having an affair with Marcia. She is in love with him, but he continues to fool around with other women, and a wife even turns up. He promises to get a quickie divorce in Mexico, but then comes back married to Betty Lou Fleckum (Lee Remick), a seventeen-year-old majorette.

During all this, we see that there are two kinds of people. On the one hand, there are the poorly educated, working-class people who are all taken in by Lonesome’s shtick; on the other hand, there are the well-educated, sophisticated members of the professional class who merely see him as someone that can be useful to them. Marcia is a bit of both, her mind clouded by having fallen in love with him. In other words, this is an elitist movie. While it primarily is telling the story of a man that is dangerous because of his powers of persuasion, its subliminal message is that it is the lower classes that are dangerous, because they are the ones who fall for Lonesome’s act, and they can vote in elections just like everyone else.

This danger becomes manifest when General Haynesworth gets Lonesome to consult with Senator Worthington Fuller on his presidential campaign. Along with a bunch of big shots, they watch a boring, platitudinous presentation on film. Fuller admits, “I know that’s not what the American people want to hear, but I think I know what’s best for them.”

Now, Fuller certainly has an elitist attitude, but it is not the same elitist stance as that of the movie, a stance that is represented by Mel Miller (Walter Matthau), a writer assigned to Lonesome, but who doesn’t have much to do, because Lonesome never works from a script. In other words, we normally associate elitism with liberalism and progressivism, with the Democratic Party. But it would be a very different movie if Senator Fuller were a Democrat. That is to say, it would be a very different movie if Fuller were hiring Lonesome to help him push a liberal agenda, say, advocating desegregation, universal health care, and more aid to education. And it would be different in a bad way, at least from the standpoint of the leftwing orientation of this movie, for it would put liberals in a bad light, showing them to be cynically employing a huckster like Lonesome Rhodes to manipulate the public for their own political ends. Therefore, it is essential that Fuller be a rightwing conservative.

Actually, the word “elitism” so strongly connotes liberalism that the term “conservative elitism” almost seems to be an oxymoron. There is such a thing as a conservative elitist, of course, but he is referred to by other names, Rockefeller Republican, Wall Street Republican, establishment Republican, or simply moderate Republican. A major difference is that liberals are more comfortable with the idea that educated professionals should run the government, whereas conservatives tend to have an anti-intellectual philosophy in which the ordinary man is best suited to run things. As a banner displaying one of Lonesome’s quotes says, “Nothing is as trustworthy as the ordinary mind of the ordinary man.”

When Fuller appears on Lonesome Rhodes Cracker Barrel Show, designed to showcase the senator in a way to make him acceptable to just plain folks, Lonesome asks him what his opinion is on the subject of “more and more and more social security,” understood in the broad, generic sense to include not only Social Security proper, but also welfare and unemployment insurance. Fuller answers that people worry too much about security, protection, coddling from the cradle to the grave, which weakens the moral fiber. He talks about how Daniel Boone never needed unemployment insurance or an old-age pension. All he needed was his axe and his gun. And so, Lonesome Rhodes is the means to getting the gullible yahoos in the audience to elect a man like Fuller, who promotes the rightwing agenda of dismantling the welfare state.

As noted above, Mel represents the movie’s elitist liberal standpoint, but in an understated way. We never hear Mel express a political opinion. We simply observe that he is not taken in by Lonesome, who is the subject of the exposé he is writing, Demagogue in Denim, and he does not like Fuller, saying, “He has the courage of his ignorance.” Since Mel’s positions are unstated, it is easy to identify with him, because we can just fill in the blanks with our own views. Marcia thinks that Mel is going too far, that Lonesome is still basically a decent country boy who is overwhelmed the powerful people that surround him. In addition to representing the liberal elite, Mel also plays the role of the nice guy whose frustration is that girls, even the nice ones, always seem to go for the scoundrels. In other words, he is in love with Marcia.

The threat of a Fuller presidency becomes even greater when Lonesome says Fuller will make him Secretary for National Morale, effectively making Lonesome the power behind the throne. Marcia finally realizes how dangerous Lonesome is. In the control room during a live broadcast of the Cracker Barrel, after Lonesome has been talking about guns, God, and family in connection with Senator Fuller, Marcia turns the stage microphone back on after the show is supposedly over, and people across the nation hear Lonesome refer to them as morons and idiots, saying they are so stupid that he can make them believe anything.

This is not the typical open-mic situation, in which a politician is caught making an injudicious remark when he did not realize the microphone was picking up what he was saying; and which the newspaper headline compares to “Uncle Don,” the host of a children’s radio show, who supposedly referred to his young listeners as “the little bastards” after he thought the show was over, although that story is now thought to be apocryphal. Unlike those situations, this is no accident. America is saved from Lonesome and a Fuller presidency by a deliberate act of will, by Marcia’s intervention. In other words, now that Marcia is of the same opinion as Mel, she too represents the movie’s political point of view, that it is the liberal elite that must save America from being taken in by rightwing populism.

Mel tells Lonesome that he will probably be on television again after a cooling-off period, because a lot of people have short memories, but it will never be the same. Soon there will be someone else that reminds them of Will Rogers. We even see a scene in which Joey DePalma (Anthony Franciosa), who helped Lonesome hustle his way to the top as his New York agent, has a new client ready to step in and take Lonesome’s place. Actually, this is the one weak spot of the movie. A man like Lonesome comes along once in a lifetime. And even if DePalma’s new client were just as talented as Lonesome, the public would not be ready for anyone even remotely like him for a long time.

At the end of the movie, Mel tells Marcia, who feels guilty for having been the one to create this Frankenstein monster, “We were all taken in. But we get wise to him. That’s our strength. We get wise to him.” In other words, liberal elites like Mel and Marcia get wise to him, but it is up to them to protect the gullible public from themselves by writing books like Demagogue in Denim or by turning the sound back on to reveal the real person behind the façade. Or by making movies like A Face in the Crowd.

Theoretically, there is no reason that Senator Fuller could not have been a Democrat. Lonesome did not believe in anything but himself, and so he would have been just as glad to ask Fuller, “What do you plan to do about poverty in this country?” to which Fuller would reply, addressing the sorts of issues appropriate for 1957, “We need to end racial discrimination, guarantee health care for the elderly, and provide federal aid for education.” And then, Marcia, being a far right conservative, horrified at the creeping socialism that this would entail, turns on the microphone while Lonesome is insulting his audience, thereby ruining Fuller’s chance of being president and all but guaranteeing the election of a Republican.

In general, Democrats would probably not have liked such a movie. First, it would have suggested something hypocritical and manipulative about elitist Democratic politicians. Second, there would have been nothing frightening to Democrats about the senator’s political agenda. Of course, that hypothetical agenda was eventually enacted, but we have to imagine ourselves as being in 1957 when the movie was made. And third, the hero (Marcia) would have been a conservative Republican.

But would not this version have been most pleasing to the people on the right? After all, Republicans go to the movies and buy tickets just like Democrats, so it would seem that money could be made catering to their attitudes and values. And just as liberals would not have cared for my imagined, right-wing version, I suspect conservatives didn’t care for the left-wing movie that actually exists.

One explanation is that Hollywood is predominantly liberal in its politics, something conservatives are always claiming. But movies with a conservative slant do get made from time to time. After all, Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead was made into a movie in 1949, which is actually quite good. And since that movie also starred Patricia Neal as a Rand heroine, espousing her own version of the will to power right along with the men, her persona would have been just right for the conservative version of A Face in the Crowd that my imagination has conjured up.

Perhaps the problem is that the left-wing agenda that I imagined for a liberal Senator Fuller just would not have been as scary to conservatives as the right-wing agenda of the senator in the actual movie. And it needs to be scary for dramatic purposes. So, let us imagine something a little scarier, something suitable for present-day politics. Fuller could come out and say that we need to repeal the Second Amendment, declare a second amnesty for illegal immigrants, and provide federal funds for abortions. I think that would present a more frightening specter of liberalism for the conservative audience, who would cheer when Marcia turned on the microphone and saved the day.

As there are enough conservatives in this country to elect a Republican president, control Congress, elect conservative governors and state legislators, there are enough conservatives to buy tickets to see a conservative version of A Face in the Crowd for it to make a profit. And a lot of us Democrats would be perverse enough to buy tickets too, for the sheer masochistic thrill of it all. And the way Hollywood is not shy about producing remakes, with alterations to suit the times, the movie is ripe for another treatment. I feel certain that we will never see a remake of this movie, at least not the conservative version that I am thinking of, but as to what this feeling of certainty is based on, I cannot say.

Perhaps we liberals really do control Hollywood after all.

Disease Etiquette

In July of 2014, it was reported that scientists had discovered that we would all be healthier if we started using the fist bump instead of the handshake to greet or say goodbye to one another. Such deadly diseases as MRSA and influenza would be much less likely to spread from one person to another, if the fist bump were employed as the standard means by which we physically express our affection or friendship for others. Actually, there is no need for any physical contact at all. Smiling and saying hello or goodbye should be adequate, and that would be even better than the fist bump as far as hygiene is concerned. But first things first. We cannot expect people to give up the primitive act of physically expressing their warm regard for their fellow man all at once. The fist bump would be a good first step. Later, we could eliminate that too, letting words and facial expressions do the job. At least, so it would be were it not for a countervailing consideration.

As a result of this scientific report, one might have expected doctors to take the lead with the fist bump, thereby setting the example for the rest of us. If so, those expectations were surely dashed when the very next month we saw pictures of Dr. Kent Brantly being hugged again and again by doctors and nurses alike after being released from Emory Hospital where he had been treated for Ebola. The scientific study in question did not measure the likelihood of disease transmission by hugging as opposed to shaking hands or fist bumping, but my layman’s intuition tells me that hugging would be worse.

The ostensive purpose of the hugging was to express a degree of warmth and affection that could not be captured by a mere handshake, let alone a fist bump. But the real purpose was to advertise the confidence the healthcare professionals had that Brantly was no longer contagious. It was not enough merely to announce it. They had to demonstrate it with an embrace. Never mind that someone in the group might have the flu, or, which is far more likely given the hospital setting, MRSA. At that moment, hygiene had to take a backseat to etiquette. It would have been quite ironic if, as a result of all the hugging, Brantly had immediately come down with MRSA and died from that after having beaten the odds against Ebola, but it had to be done.

Something similar occurred about thirty years ago. When AIDS was first discovered in the early 1980s, no one knew how contagious it was. For all we knew, it might have been transmitted by saliva or by mosquitoes. There was even a joke going around in which a doctor calls up his patient and tells him that he has AIDS. “As a result,” the doctor continues, “we are going to have to put you on a diet of pancakes and eggs over easy.” Puzzled, the patient asks, “Will that cure me?” “No,” says the doctor, “but it is the only thing that we can slide under the door.”

When it was determined a few years later that AIDS was primarily transmitted by blood and semen, and thus was not communicable through ordinary contact, it became de rigueur to hug people who had AIDS, mostly in front of television cameras, not so much in everyday life. Once again, the hugging served a twofold purpose: to express affection and to demonstrate physically that it was safe to be in a room with someone who had the disease.

The etiquette regarding AIDS was also important in overcoming the moral taint of the disease. At first, all that was known was that there were four groups of people who had AIDS: homosexuals, intravenous drug users, hemophiliacs, and Haitians. Because homosexuality turned out to be a major factor in contracting this disease, the stigma that was then associated with this sexual orientation made the disease shameful instead of just scary. There was a gay comedian who had AIDS at that time, and when asked what the hardest part about having the disease was, he answered, “Convincing your parents that you’re Haitian.” Therefore, the hugging served the additional purpose of showing that one did not morally condemn the person who had AIDS. In the movie Philadelphia (1993), which is a movie about a man who has AIDS, we see several instances of this obligatory hugging.

Of course, venereal diseases had had a moral dimension long before that, causing feelings of ambivalence. In Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940), the title character discovers a treatment for syphilis. On the one hand, he wishes to overcome to the stigma attached to this disease, and yet he belies this enlightened attitude when he emphasizes that it can be transmitted by touching an inanimate object, like a drinking cup. I guess the Production Code did not allow him to mention the old excuse of toilet seats. In any event, the drinking cup vector is obviously meant to provide a moral excuse for the person who has syphilis, and so he implies the shameful nature of the disease in the very act of apologizing for it.

When I joined a fraternity in 1964, the pledges were given a booklet describing what was expected of them. One of my fellow pledges was distressed by something he read. “This booklet says we are not supposed to associate with people who have syphilis or gonorrhea,” he said at the next meeting for pledges. “Now, you can’t tell whether somebody has a venereal disease just by looking. I mean, a guy can’t help it if some girl gives him a dose. Besides,” he continued, “a shot of penicillin will fix him right up, so what’s the big deal?” The sexual revolution had not quite started yet, but this guy was clearly ahead of his time.

The active member who was presiding over the meeting assured him that the purpose of the passage was to express disapproval of promiscuous behavior and the frequenting of prostitutes, activities which would be likely to communicate the diseases in question. Promiscuous behavior! If only that were my problem, I thought, for I was still a virgin, and that state of innocence so exasperated me that I was almost envious whenever I heard that someone had gotten the clap.

A few weeks later, another active member was explaining to me the proper behavior for a fraternity man, especially regarding other members of the fraternity. “For example,” he said, “I know that I can trust you with my sister.” That was news to me. There were plenty of other girls on campus, of course, but I just did not like the idea that any girl was off limits to me as a matter of principle. I mean, I had not known about this when I pledged. Besides, I thought, I’d be the one taking a chance. For all I knew, she might have syphilis, and they would throw me out of the fraternity. I decided not to express my feelings on the subject, and so I just nodded my head, knowing full well that if his sister were up for it, we’d figure it was none of his business.

The sexual revolution began soon after that, and by 1969, an entirely different attitude was being promoted, as evidenced by the notorious public service commercial, in which the song VD Is for Everyone is sung while we see pictures of the most wholesome, middle-class people you ever saw. At least, they looked a lot more wholesome than some of my fraternity brothers.

It is said that the sexual revolution was made possible, in large part, by the pill. A big advantage of the pill is that it precludes the need to use a condom to avoid pregnancy. But that is also one of its drawbacks. It definitely creates a problem for a guy when he is about to have sex with a woman for the first time, and when he whips out a condom, she says, “You don’t need that. I’m on the pill.” Now, as we all know, the pill provides no protection against sexually transmitted diseases. Prudence, therefore, dictates that he put the condom on anyway. But what can a man say at such a moment? Is he going to ruin the mood by saying, “But Honey, I don’t know where you’ve been”? He could be a gentleman by taking the odium on himself, saying, “Well, last month I had sex with a woman of ill repute, and if she gave me syphilis or something, I don’t want to give it to you.” Either way, such a breach of etiquette by bringing up the possibility of disease at that delicate moment will probably be the ultimate prophylactic, in that it will result in there not being any sex at all. As every man knows, once a woman says she is on the pill, bedroom etiquette requires that he put the condom away and heedlessly plunge right in.

In the movie Pretty Woman (1990), Julia Roberts is a prostitute. She has dinner with Richard Gere, after which she flosses her teeth. Clearly, the point of this absurd scene is to alleviate our fears about venereal disease. “Any woman who would floss on a date,” the movie is conveying, “could not possibly have an STD.” Otherwise, we would spend the rest of the movie wondering how long it would take Richard Gere to discover he had the crabs.

In the movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), Diane Keaton makes fun of a man who is about to put on a condom. “Is that for you or for me?” she laughs. Here the poor guy is trying to do the right thing, and he becomes an object of ridicule. And if he is anything like me, such ridicule will immediately bring about a state of flaccidity. This is not true for everybody, of course. I had friend in high school that joined the Navy after graduating. When he came back for a visit, he had a harder bark on him than when he left. He told about how one night when they had docked in some port on the west coast, he picked this woman up in a bar and they went to a hotel. “As soon I closed the door,” he said, “I just started taking off my clothes. When I took off my skivvies, she said, ‘Just who do you plan to satisfy with that?’ And I said, ‘Me, bitch, me.’”

And then they proceeded to have sex! Now, is that hardboiled or what? In any event, I would have been more like the hapless fellow in the movie who was devastated by Diane Keaton’s derision. I like to think that the reason she was murdered at the end of the movie was that it was punishment for her being mean to some poor guy trying to reach a reasonable compromise between carnal desire and fear of disease.

In general, it is rude to suggest that someone might have cooties. So don’t expect the fist bump to become a socially accepted means of avoiding disease any time soon. The rule of etiquette today is the same as it has always been: better to be polite and risk getting sick than to insult someone by indicating that you don’t want his germs.

Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940)

Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet is a movie with a paradoxical goal: the title character tries to convince people in the movie not to be ashamed of something that the movie itself is obviously ashamed of.

It begins with a prologue informing us of the fact that the movie is based on a true story, explaining that it was the goal of Dr. Paul Ehrlich (Edward G. Robinson) to develop chemicals, which he called “magic bullets,” to treat the diseases that are the “scourges” of mankind. No mention is made of the particular scourge that this movie is about, which is syphilis. Already, we get the first indication of reticence on the part of the movie to actually mention the word “syphilis.”

In the first scene, a young man enters Ehrlich’s office for a physical examination. As with the prologue, Ehrlich does not utter word “syphilis,” referring to it as a contagious disease, and then, incredibly enough, adding that it is “an infection just like any other.” Inasmuch as the unmentioned syphilis was, at that time, an often fatal, neurological degenerative disease, what are we to make of this inappropriately reassuring phrase, “an infection just like any other”? A clue to what he is getting at comes with the following remark, “I’ve seen cases where it was transmitted by an inanimate object.”

In other words, most people get syphilis through sexual intercourse, which makes the disease shameful. Therefore, to separate the disease from the shame, Ehrlich is making excuses for the patient’s condition, indicating that he might have contracted it in some manner other than sex. Hence the phrase, “an infection just like any other.” Of course, we all know that this young man probably had sex with a prostitute. So, in the very act of telling him (and us) that the disease whose name he won’t utter might have been contracted in a non-shameful manner, he is implicitly saying that the vast majority of cases of syphilis, which are contracted through sex, are not infections just like any other, but are in fact something to be ashamed of.

Several times the man asks if there is a cure, and each time Ehrlich avoids answering the question. However, when the man asks if he can get married, Ehrlich says that is out of the question. During this conversation, Ehrlich is putting some substance into a jar for the man to apply to his skin. He picks up a label, holding it between his thumb and fingers, licks the label, and applies it to the jar. Now, how’s that for an inanimate object? In the very act of licking something his hands just touched right after examining the patient, he makes it hard for us to take him seriously about alternate means of transmission.

He lies to his patient that some people are cured, but the man does not believe him, and while supposedly getting dressed, the patient commits suicide, apparently slitting his own throat with a scalpel. Needless to say, nothing like that ever actually happened, but exists solely for its melodramatic value. Later, Ehrlich tells his wife Hedwig (Ruth Gordon) that the man is better off dead, and the world is better off because he cannot infect anyone. He despairs that all the treatments he prescribes are useless, just something to give patients a false sense of hope.

From this point on, the movie follows Ehrlich through various medical discoveries. As is typical in movies about scientists, the role of accident is emphasized, “Eureka!” situations, as it were. For example, when Hedwig turns on the furnace to provide more heat in Ehrlich’s laboratory, it allows for a successful staining of a microbe that he had been struggling to produce without success. Such accidents do occur in science, of course, but they are given more significance in the movies than they really deserve, because they have more dramatic value than the norm of dull, plodding science that moves from one carefully controlled experiment to another.

To further add to the drama, the movie provides us with an Arrowsmith situation. During a diphtheria epidemic, there is a ward in which there are forty children suffering from this disease. Ehrlich is told that he must use his serum that he believes will cure the disease on only twenty of the children, the other twenty being the control group. Needless to say, Ehrlich gives the serum to all the children. Of course, in these Arrowsmith situations, there is always a de facto control group anyway, which is all the people that were dropping dead from the disease prior to the experiment.

In any event, about one hour in, the word “syphilis” finally makes its way into the movie. And now, what he once referred to as “an infection just like any other,” he calls “man’s most vicious disease.” However, shortly after he embarks on testing the effect of arsenic compounds on syphilis, the institution for which he works decides to cut off his funding. He turns to Franziska Speyer (Maria Ouspenskaya), a rich woman determined to dedicate much of her late husband’s fortune to some worthy project. She invites him to a dinner party, and when asked what he is working on, he shocks the guests by uttering the word “syphilis.” In this way, the audience is invited to regard itself as superior to those guests by not being shocked when it hears that word.

Anxious to reassure the guests, he returns to the earlier dodge of saying that this disease can be transmitted by an ordinary object like a drinking cup or eating utensil. When I was young, it was toilet seats that were the inanimate object of choice for transmitting syphilis by means other than sexual intercourse, but I suspect the people that produced this movie were almost as embarrassed by the word “toilet” as by the word “syphilis.” In any event, we see that Ehrlich is once again trying to remove the shame of syphilis with his reference to alternate forms of contracting the disease, which he refers to as “innocent ways.” In so doing, however, he implies that there are guilty ways of contracting syphilis, which are by far the most common, such as by whoring around.

Eventually, he develops Compound 606, later to be marketed as Salvarsan, a compound that allows arsenic to kill the spirochete bacterium without harming the test animals. We then get the trope of the scientist that experiments on himself, when one of Ehrlich’s staff injects himself with the compound to see if it is safe for humans. Following this, we get another Arrowsmith situation, in which Ehrlich allows Compound 606 to be made available to doctors before he is through testing it, sacrificing strict scientific procedure for the sake of the dying patients. As a result, a few patients die anyway, leading to accusations against Ehrlich, who in turn sues for libel. This is most fortunate, from a cinematic standpoint, because a trial is also a good way to dramatize science.

In the end, however, Dr. Ehrlich was more successful in his struggle to defeat syphilis than he was in defeating the shame that comes from contracting it. The movie itself is proof of that.

M (1931 and 1951)

In the original version of M made in 1931, as well as in the remake of 1951, a city is plagued by a man, played by Peter Lorre, who is killing children. The police become so relentless in their pursuit of the killer that the ordinary way of life of the criminal underclass becomes disrupted. As a result, the criminals take matters into their own hands, capture the child killer, and have a trial of sorts, during which he tells everyone that he is compulsively driven to do what he does. Before the mob can do anything to him, the police show up and take him away.

In the 1931 movie, it is never explicitly stated that the children are sexually molested, but it is implied, and in any event, we would automatically assume as much anyway. In the remake, however, the movie goes out of its way to make it clear that the children are not molested. While a crowd watches the chief of police on television warning parents about the child killer, played by David Wayne, someone in the crowd asks, “What’s he mean the children were neither violated nor outraged?” Someone else in the crowd responds, “What’s the difference? He killed them, didn’t he?”

Well, it may not make any difference to the people in the crowd, but I should think it would have been better for the children if they were simply murdered than if they first raped and then murdered. More importantly, it must have made a difference to the Production Code Administration. It was not sufficient merely to omit all reference to sexual molestation. It had to be explicitly denied. At the same time, all of the killer’s victims are little girls, which would indicate a sexual preference. Presumably, just in case the audience refused to believe sex was not involved, the producers went the extra step to avoid any hint of homosexuality. (In the original, on the other hand, one of Lorre’s victims is a little boy.) The killer takes the shoes of his victims, which suggests a fetish, which in turn suggests a sexual perversion. Furthermore, in one scene, a man and wife are informed that their child has been a victim. As they start to leave, the woman turns around in desperation and says that maybe it is a mistake, that the child is someone else’s. We can only conclude from this that there was no body in the morgue for them to identify, that the police were only going by the doll and the girl’s dress, which are on the chief’s desk. He holds up the dress for her to look at, which she recognizes as belonging to her daughter. From this we can only conclude one thing: the killer took off the girl’s clothes, and her naked body is yet to be found. Still, we are supposed to believe that sex is not the motive for these murders. Censorship can be confusing.

It goes without saying that the original was much better, and one way in which it was better is that the killer simply had an evil impulse that he did not understand. In the remake, owing to the popularity of psychoanalysis at the time, we are given an explanation for the killer’s behavior as resulting from something that happened when he was a child. As a harbinger of that explanation, we see him strangling a clay model of a child, with a picture of his elderly mother sitting right beside him, almost as if she were watching him do it. At the end, when the child killer is surrounded by the underworld figures that captured him, he gives a garbled explanation about how his father mistreated his mother, and how she raised him to believe that all men are evil. As a result, he reasons that since he is a man, then he is evil and deserves punishment. So, he has to kill little girls, partly to keep them from growing up and being mistreated by evil men, and partly so he will get caught and get the punishment he deserves. The explanation comes across as artificial, unsatisfying, and unbelievable. Fortunately, we are not told why he took the girls’ shoes, which would only have made the explanation even more tortured. The remake was destined to be inferior to the original, but it would still have been a lot better movie had all that psychobabble at the end been left out.

Soylent Green (1973)

From a 1973 perspective, when Soylent Green was made, this movie imagines the world in 2022, where the temperature is stifling owing to the greenhouse effect, eventually to be called global warming, and presently climate change. Overpopulation has reached critical proportions, there being forty million people in New York City alone, most of whom are in filthy rags, sleeping in the street. Only the very rich and well-connected eat what for us is ordinary food, while the vast majority must eat crackers of different colors indicating their quality, with green being the most desirable because it is the most nutritious. Even water is rationed. And electric power is unreliable.

Detective Thorn (Charlton Heston) shares an apartment with his assistant Sol (Edward G. Robinson), referred to as a “book,” on account of his ability to do research on old written material. We see Thorn having to struggle to use the steps to their apartment because there are so many people sleeping on the stairs. Later, when a riot starts because there is a shortage of Soylent Green wafers, we see dump trucks called “scoops” being used to remove people from the streets.

Sol helps Thorn investigate murders. One murder in particular is that of Simonson (Joseph Cotton), one of the privileged few referred to above, living as he does in a luxury apartment. We witness the murder, in which Simonson is resigned to his fate, even suggesting that he deserves it, that it is in accordance with the will of God.

Before the murder, we saw that Simonson lived with a woman named Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young), referred to as “furniture,” essentially a prostitute who comes with the apartment. Thorn checks Shirl for bruises, to see if Simonson used to knock her around. When he doesn’t find any bruises, he tells her she was a lucky girl. We see other women being beaten in this movie as well.

When Thorn investigates the crime scenes of rich victims, he typically loots the place, but this time he really scores, taking items of food like beef, vegetables, and liquor. He also helps himself to the “furniture,” having sex with Shirl without caring whether she wants to or not. Of course, it’s Charlton Heston, so naturally she likes it. However, we find that the new tenant that will soon be moving into that apartment is repulsive, telling Shirl that he will be having friends come over, and he expects her to be “fun.” Gulp.

Thorn figures out that Simonson was assassinated, and when he gets too close to the truth, political pressure is applied to get him to end the investigation. When that doesn’t work, he almost is assassinated himself.

Thorn brings some reference books from Simonson’s apartment for Sol to look into. From them he learns that Simonson was on the board of Soylent Corporation. He also learns a terrible secret, the one that led to Simonson’s murder, and he decides to end it all by going to an assisted-suicide center, where he gets to look at scenes of nature as it once was and listen to beautiful music for twenty minutes before dying from some concoction he imbibed. Just before he dies, he tells Thorn that the plankton used to make Soylent Green is disappearing from the oceans. As a substitute for the loss of plankton, people that die are secretly processed and turned into the Soylent Green wafers.

For the purpose of this movie, we need to set aside the fact that cannibalism can lead to the transmission of abnormal prions, causing serious neurological disease. The movie gives no indication of any awareness of this, and audiences watching this movie at the time were doubtless unaware of it as well. Within this movie, the entire of objection to Soylent Green wafers being made out of people is that the idea is icky.

If disease is not a consideration, then in a world that is overpopulated and in which there is a food shortage, turning people into food is rational. After all, we are not talking about the kind of cannibalism where we have a bunch of savages standing around a pot with a missionary in it. The people being turned into food either died naturally or, in the case of assisted suicide, voluntarily. So, the worst you can say about this form of cannibalism is that the idea of eating people makes us feel queasy.

Neither Simonson’s acquiescence in his own murder nor Sol’s suicide would seem to be warranted, if that’s all there is to it. However, I have heard of people dying of starvation, even though surrounded by food, when that food is regarded as unpalatable. For example, I guess one could survive on a cockroach diet, but it would not be easy to pick one up and stick it in your mouth. On the other hand, if the cockroaches were used to make wafers, then with the proper seasoning they might suffice, especially if the government lied and said they were made out of grasshoppers.

Therefore, in an apparent effort to make this form of cannibalism insidious instead of just repulsive, the scriptwriters have Thorn tell his supervisor, “They’re making our food out of people. Next thing, they’ll be breeding us like cattle.” Unfortunately, this line, which is supposed to make us even more horrified by what is going on, only makes us groan at its absurdity.

In a world where there are too many people, it makes no sense to breed more. You just eat the ones you have.

Furthermore, why breed people like cattle instead of just continuing to breed cattle? Thorn took some beef from Simonson’s apartment, and there is reference in the movie to farms, where cattle are raised. Why divert resources from cattle breeding in order to breed people instead?

Finally, you would have to feed people more protein to raise them than you would get out of them once you brought them to slaughter. To put it differently, any person being bred as food would have to be fed the equivalent of several other people over his lifetime.

Because this idea of breeding people is illogical, throwing it in at the last minute undermines this pessimistic vision of the future.

The Final Judgment of Atheism

The unacknowledged but implicit standard about the true and the good belongs to us atheists. All statements about physical reality and moral worth must meet with our approval. And that means we are also the ultimate arbiters as to what counts as acceptable in matters of religion.

Now, what would most meet with our approval would be if there were no religion at all, but being atheists, we are nothing if not realistic. Not everyone can live knowing that there is no God that watches over us and cares about us; knowing that there is no immortal soul, but that death is the end; knowing that there is no such thing as karma, but that the world is full of wicked men who live quite comfortably and will never be punished for the evil that they do; and knowing that suffering has no purpose, that there are countless innocent victims whose pain and misery is meaningless and serves no higher good. We wish that people did not need to believe in God, the immortal soul, karma, and a purpose for suffering, but they do, and allowances must be made for that.

And because of this almost universal need for religion, it follows that atheists must ever be held in low regard. We must be thought wrongheaded, if people are to believe in what we deny. Thus it is that our judgment, not only as to what is true and good, but also as to what counts as an acceptable religion, can never be admitted, however much it may be followed in practice.

A religion is acceptable as long as it never contradicts what atheists believe, apart from the supernatural fluff that may be appended. For this reason, Republican politicians would probably benefit from having an atheist as an adviser. Consider the case of Scott Walker, who decided to “punt” when asked about evolution. On the one hand, Walker knew that to do well in certain primaries, he needed the votes of fundamental Christians. On the other hand, there is no way that in 2016 this country will elect a president who believes in the literal truth of the Book of Genesis. Since it is better to risk losing a primary to Mike Huckabee than to guarantee a loss in the general election, he should have asked himself (or his atheist adviser), what kind of answer would satisfy the atheists? Then, without hesitation, he could have said that he believes in evolution, but that evolution is guided by the hand of God. As long as he was not specific about exactly what that hand of God did, he would have been fine.

In general, references to God’s interference with world affairs must be kept to a minimum if they are to pass muster with atheists. As long as it is not overdone, we do not insist that such claims make sense, for we realize that religion cannot be rationalized. Saying, “There but for the grace of God go I,” for example, is equivalent to saying, “Thank you, God, for not doing to me what you did to him,” but only an atheist would carry out that implication, and such is not to be expected from the religious person who utters that expression of humility. Also, saying it was a miracle that a baby survived a plane crash is permissible, even though an atheist would wonder what kind of grudge God had against all the other passengers, who died. With magnanimous self-restraint, we atheists tolerate the characterization of this kind of chance event as a miracle, provided it is about something good, in this case, the survival of a baby. Under no circumstances, however, must God’s interference with the world be punitive. We atheists do not approve of any remarks by religious leaders that such things as September 11 or hurricane Katrina were God’s punishment for America’s iniquity. And it is through atheist disapproval of such remarks that people of faith can be sure that these disasters were not the acts of a vindictive God.

Just as we atheists will allow for an occasional miracle, but not for acts of punishment on the part of the Deity, so too do we allow for belief in Heaven but not Hell. It is for that reason that in the typical movie about Jesus, we almost never hear the Son of God talking about people going to Hell for their sins, even though there are several passages in the Bible where he does just that. Sometimes the relatively harmless expression “gates of Hell” will be heard when Jesus is giving Peter the keys of the kingdom, but in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), even that part of the speech is omitted. (An exception to all this is The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), in which Jesus spends half the movie fulminating about all those who are damned to Hell.)

Regarding movies about Jesus, we atheists are always deeply moved when Jesus saves the adulteress by challenging those in the mob to let the one without sin cast the first stone. That is the atheist’s ideal conception of Jesus, a man of forgiveness. And so, no Jesus movie would be complete without that scene. But we do not like it at all when we read those parts in the Bible where Jesus says that it is a sin to get a divorce, and that to marry someone who was divorced is to commit adultery. That is why we never hear these words coming out of Jesus’s mouth in the movies (not even in the exceptional Gospel According to St. Matthew).

And that means that in the debate between Protestants and Catholics as to whether divorce is a sin, the Protestants are right and the Catholics are wrong. In like manner, because atheists believe in birth control, it follows that in this matter too, Protestants are right and Catholics are wrong. This is why the criterion of atheist sanction is so valuable. Protestants and Catholics, by themselves, can never solve these problems. The Protestant believes that God agrees with him just as surely as the Catholic believes that he and God are in agreement. And as God is not forthcoming on these issues in a way that is acceptable to both sides, they cannot be resolved by appealing to the will of God. But atheists are forthcoming in these matters, and that gives Christians an objective criterion for determining what God really thinks.

And this leads to the question as to whether ISIS represents true Islam or not. Appealing to the imams and other authoritative Muslims gets us nowhere, for they no more have direct access to the will of Allah than do the members of ISIS. Nor do we get anywhere by taking surveys of the Islamic countries, for such surveys reveal wide support for practices that people of other faiths, such as Christianity, find abhorrent. As with the disagreements between Protestants and Catholics, disagreements between Christians and Muslims cannot be resolved by appealing to either God or Allah without begging the question.

Fortunately, the issues can be settled by atheists. ISIS does not represent true Islam because we atheists disapprove of what they are doing. True Islam, just like true Christianity, must conform to the atheists’ final judgment as to what is right and what is wrong.

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)

Faith Domergue had a cold beauty that made her suitable as female scientist, Professor Leslie Joyce, in It Came from Beneath the Sea. It also helped that she was a brunette. The stereotype of the cold, hard scientist whose intellect does not allow itself to be swayed by mere sentiment and feeling was especially prevalent in the old science fiction movies, and thus a beautiful female scientist constituted a special challenge for a macho leading man, used to having his way with women.

In this movie, said macho leading man is Commander Pete Mathews, played by Kenneth Tobey. Tobey already had experience as Captain Patrick Hendry in The Thing from Another World (1951) breaking down the resistance of science assistant Nikki (Margaret Sheridan), who is referred to as a “pinup girl,” so you might think things would be a little easier for him in this film; but then, Faith Domergue also had experience playing the beautiful, cold scientist, Dr. Ruth Adams, resisting the charms of Rex Reason playing Dr. Cal Meacham in This Island Earth (1955), so I guess that made them even.

A lot of old movies are sexist by twenty-first century standards, but science fiction movies from the 1950s, with their inevitable beautiful female scientists, often have a feminist theme in them, pushing back against that sexism. As a result, the message tends to be mixed, with the movie expressing a sexist attitude one minute and a feminist attitude the next. For example, in Rocketship X-M (1950), Dr. Lisa Van Horn is a female scientist who is going to be part of a crew on the title spaceship. Much is made of her qualifications. But then, when it comes time for the astronauts to secure themselves for blastoff, we see that the men can easily strap themselves in, but one of the men has to strap Lisa in. This strange combination of sexism and feminism is especially flagrant in It Came from Beneath the Sea.

Joyce’s colleague is Dr. John Carter (Donald Curtis). Other than when first names are being used, he is always addressed as Dr. Carter, never as Mr. Carter, but while Joyce is frequently referred to as Professor Joyce, she is often addressed as Miss Joyce as well, presumably because her status as a nubile maiden takes precedence over her professional qualifications. They have both been called in to investigate a hunk of mysterious substance that got caught in the diving plane of Mathews’ submarine. After an initial inspection, however, Joyce is not willing to spend any more time studying the specimen, because she has more important matters needing her attention elsewhere. In other words, she is just as hard to get as a scientist as she is as a woman. However, her expertise in marine biology makes her indispensable, and she is forced to continue with the investigation.

Of course, once Mathews has seen what Joyce looks like without her protective radiation suit on, he is especially glad she will be forced to continue on, and he wastes little time making his moves on her. He wants to know if there is anything going on between her and Carter. “Oh, you mean romance,” she says, as she picks up a foot-long test tube. While gently holding this scientific prop with phallic significance, she teases him about the lack of women aboard a submarine, but she refuses to say whether there is anything between her and Carter. Later, when Joyce definitively determines the nature of the substance, Carter kisses her on the cheek, and then she nestles in his arms as Mathews calls Naval Intelligence. If they were actually involved romantically, this would not be so strange. But they are not. As a result, we once again get that strange mixture of feminism and sexism: on the one hand, she is the expert in her field and has found the solution; on the other hand, she is a pretty girl that men just naturally kiss and hold in their arms, even when that man is a colleague in a professional setting.

Anyway, the substance turns out to be a piece from a giant octopus. The octopus has been exposed to a lot of radiation owing to tests of the hydrogen bomb. Radiation did not make the octopus big as it did the title character in The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) or the ants in Them! (1954), because this octopus has always been big. However, the fish it was used to eating have natural Geiger counters in them that make them avoid the octopus, forcing it to leave its natural habitat and seek food elsewhere. It is amazing what lengths these 1950s movies would go to in order to make radiation the cause of whatever monster they had to deal with.

Joyce and Mathews are somewhat contemptuous of each other’s profession. She says to Mathews, “my mind just isn’t attuned to discuss things on your level, Commander.” Later, hearing that Joyce and Carter will be meeting in Cairo to investigate the sinking nature of the coast of the Red Sea, Mathews says to Carter, “Sounds ideal.” When Carter refers to it as mixing work with pleasure, Mathews responds, “Work? Oh yes, that is your work, isn’t it?”

On their last night in Pearl Harbor, they all decide to have dinner together at a restaurant. Mathews is bossy, practically pulling Joyce out of her chair while announcing they are going to dance and even telling Carter to order her a steak. She refuses to dance, says she does not want a steak, and sits back down. But she agrees to his suggestion of lobster and finally agrees to dance with him. While discussing the weather in Hawaii, which is always balmy, she says she likes the winter and the snow, which naturally suggest frigidity on her part. At first, we think that Mathews is going to try to kiss her, but she moves her head forward and kisses him instead, and then puts her arms around him. So, contrary to appearances, she is a sexually aggressive woman. Then they return to the table and have their meal. When Mathews realizes that Joyce still intends to go to Cairo, he is shocked. Presumably, he thought that since they kissed, she was going to give up all this foolishness about a career, marry him, and have babies. He leaves in a huff.

Their plans to go to Cairo, however, are foiled by the occurrence of another incident. It seems a tramp steamer has disappeared at sea, and Admiral Norman has rescinded their release so they can investigate to see if there is any connection to the previous one with Mathews’ submarine. Fortunately, they find a few survivors. In order to get the facts, a doctor examines them. After the first survivor tells his story, in which it is clear that the giant octopus attacked the ship, the doctor indicates that he does not believe him, starts humoring him, and tells him in an ominous manner that he is to be taken down the hall to talk to another doctor about what he thinks he has seen. The other three survivors are not fools. They realize the other doctor is a psychiatrist and that their mate is likely to be diagnosed as mentally ill and confined to an insane asylum. So, they deny having seen anything. They are given lie-detector tests, which show that they are lying when they deny having seen anything. And then the first survivor recants his story so that he can be released from the infirmary. Mathews and the other officers are exasperated and just don’t understand why they can’t get the truth out of these guys.

Professor Joyce rises to the occasion. Removing her coat so as to expose a little more of her soft, warm flesh, she tells the officers she will talk to the first survivor when he is released, and then contrives to be alone with him in a room. Using her womanly wiles—giving him sexy looks, touching his hand, showing a little leg—she gets the man to admit he saw the sea monster, which the officers hear through the intercom. So, you see, that’s why we need female scientists, because they have special ways of getting to the truth.

Mathews and Joyce decide to investigate reports of poor fishing along the northwest coast, because it may be that the octopus has been eating all the fish. They spot what might be called an octopus footprint on the beach and they send for Carter. Meanwhile, they decide to check out the fish population in the area, which they do by putting on the swim suits they just happened to have with them. No fish, so they do a little hot necking on the beach.

When Carter arrives with the deputy sheriff, Mathews asks Carter to help him persuade Joyce to leave and let the Navy take over the job. When Carter asks what Joyce has to say about that, Mathews responds, “What’s the difference what she says?” At that point, Carter proceeds to lecture Mathews about women: “There’s a whole new breed who feel they’re just as smart and just as courageous as men. And they are. They don’t like to be overprotected. They don’t like to have their initiative taken away from them.”

Joyce picks up the argument: “A, you’d want me to miss the opportunity to see this specimen, one that may never come again. B, you’d be making up my mind for me. And C, I not only don’t like being pushed around, but you underestimate my ability to help in a crisis.” Carter says that he is entirely on her side, as she nestles into the arm her puts around her. Mathews concedes to having lost the argument.

Suddenly, the octopus appears and kills the deputy, causing Joyce to scream like a girl.

The octopus starts wreaking havoc on San Francisco, Mathews and Carter take turns saving each other’s lives, during which Joyce screams again, finding solace first in Carter’s arms and then Mathews’, until at last the octopus is killed.

They have dinner again. Mathews, noting that women can change, says he wants Joyce to marry him and start a family. She says she hasn’t time for that, indicating that she is an independent, career-minded woman, who wants nothing to do with a life of domesticity. But then she offers to collaborate with him on a book, How to Catch a Sea Beast, a title that lends itself to more than one meaning, inasmuch as Mathews, as captain of a submarine, is something of a sea beast himself. From this we gather that her ultimate goal is to trap a man.

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