It Happened on Fifth Avenue

A couple months ago, I was thinking about It Happened on Fifth Avenue and had a small realization about it.  Earlier this week, I watched it again (for the third time) to refresh my memory.

The movie starts with Aloysius T. McKeever secretly going to live in the New York mansion of Michael J. O'Connor ("the second richest man in the world") while O'Connor spends the winter in Virginia.  Meanwhile, Jim Bullock is thrown out of his apartment building, which O'Connor has just purchased and plans to tear down.  McKeever meets Bullock in the park and offers him a place to stay.  The two are soon joined by O'Connor's daughter Trudy, who has just run away from finishing school.  She keeps her true identity a secret from them (feigning that she broke in to borrow a fur coat in order to make a good impression and get a job), and she soon falls in love with Bullock.  After O'Connor tracks her down in New York, she explains the situation, and because she wants her father to meet Bullock but without revealing that he's the wealthy businessman whom Bullock dislikes, she disguises him as a homeless man whom the three then invite to stay in the O'Connor mansion.  For this ruse, Michael J. O'Connor becomes simply Mike.

The purpose of shortening his name is just to conceal who he really is, but this shortening also matches the temporary loss of wealth and status that O'Connor experiences while he's posing as a homeless guest and acting as something of a servant to the others.  It's as if he's become merely a fraction of himself.

Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

About a month ago, I had a small realization about one of C-3PO's comments in The Empire Strikes Back.  The Rebels become concerned when Luke Skywalker fails to return from placing sensors on Hoth, and in order to re-assure R2-D2, C-3PO says, "Of course, we'll see Master Luke again, and he'll be quite alright; you'll see!"  Then, to himself, he remarks, "Stupid little short circuit.  He'll be quite alright."  The second half of C-3PO's repeated copulative sentence exhibits assonance ("quite alright"), and this provides a sense of thoroughness or completeness, which matches the meaning in a way.

Back to the Future Part III

I recently re-watched the Back to the Future trilogy, and for the first time, I noticed a small element that may contribute to the change in Marty McFly's character near the end of Part III.

In Back to the Future Part II, Marty's intense reaction to being called chicken is introduced.  His mother Lorraine explains, "Your father's biggest problem, Marlene, is that he loses all self-control when someone calls him chicken," and this happens twice in the movie, once with Griff ("Nobody calls me chicken") and once with Needles ("Nobody calls me chicken, Needles, nobody!").

This trait also appears in Part III, just with the term slightly altered in order to fit the new time period.  Now, Marty's response to Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen's taunts is "Nobody calls me yellow."  The two agree to settle their differences in a duel on Monday, although Marty thinks that he and Doc Brown will have already gone back to the future by then.

Marty's ancestor Seamus tries to dissuade him from fighting Tannen:  "You could have just walked away, and nobody would have thought the less of you for it.  All it would have been was words, hot air from a buffoon.  Instead, you let him rile you, rile you into playing his game, his way, by his rules."  Seamus's wife Maggie comments that Marty (whom they know as "Clint Eastwood") reminds her of Seamus's brother Martin, and Seamus explains that "Martin used to let men provoke him into fighting.  He was concerned that people would think him a coward if he refused; that's how he got a Bowie knife shoved through his belly in a saloon in Virginia City."

Later, Doc Brown gives Marty advice in a similar vein:  "Marty, you can't go losing your judgement every time someone calls you a name.  That's exactly what causes you to get into that accident in the future."

When the time for the confrontation comes, Marty is too busy trying to revive Doc (out cold from drinking a single shot of whiskey) to deal with Tannen, and when he looks at the photograph of Doc's tombstone that he brought back from 1955, he sees that it now has his own name (or rather his alias "Clint Eastwood") and tries to forfeit.  Tannen renews his insults ("I think you ain't nothin' but a gutless yellow turd, and I'm givin' you to the count of ten to come out here and prove I'm wrong"), but this time Marty keeps his head and says to the crowd in the saloon, "I don't care what Tannen says, and I don't care what anybody else says, either."  He maintains this mindset when he returns to 1985, and he doesn't race his new truck against Needles, thereby avoiding a crash with a Rolls-Royce.

The change in Marty's character seems to result from a combination of these factors (the knowledge of a dead relative with the same name and impulsive tendency, Doc's hint at a future accident, the tight time schedule available to Marty and Doc to meet the train they need to push the Delorean down the track so they can go back to the future, and the photograph of the tombstone that seems to foretell his death), but there may be an additional, more subtle cause.

Shortly after Marty first encounters Tannen, he's able to identify him because he overhears the bartender call him "Mr. Tannen."  He remembers him from a video playing in Biff's museum in Part II and says, "You're 'Mad Dog' Tannen."  To this, Tannen replies, "'Mad Dog.'  I hate that name.  I hate it, ya hear?  Nobody calls me 'Mad Dog'!" and then proceeds to shoot up the floor in front of Marty.  Tannen's response to being called "Mad Dog" ("Nobody calls me 'Mad Dog'" followed by a violent outburst) is basically the same as Marty's response to being called chicken ("Nobody calls me chicken" followed by a lack of good judgement).  Marty may recognize that he shares this trait with someone he dislikes and consequently re-evaluate and change himself.

---&---

It also occurred to me that McFly is an appropriate name in light of the movies' theme of family relationships, particularly between father and son, because the "Mc-" prefix comes from the Gaelic word mac, which means son.

E.T.

I recently ran across a reference to E.T.* and started wondering about some of the characters' names.  I rewatched the movie earlier this week in order to refamiliarize myself with it.

The movie is about an alien who accidentally gets left behind on earth and subsequently forms a close relationship with a boy named Elliott.  Elliott gives the alien the name E.T. (for "extra terrestrial").

Throughout the movie, there are many instances where their close relationship is illustrated.  Shortly after they meet, E.T. mimics Elliott's movements as they get to know each other.  In one scene (even called "A Psychic Link" on the chapter menu on the DVD), while Elliott is at school, he seems to experience what E.T. is doing at home.  Later, when Elliott's brother Michael comments that E.T. "doesn't look too good anymore," Elliott brushes this off with, "Don't say that; we're fine!" and Michael replies, "What's all this 'we' stuff?  You say, 'We' all the time now."  When government officials discover E.T. and invade the family's house, asking probing questions, Michael tries to explain that "Elliott feels his feelings," and one scientist comments, "EEG analysis shows complete coherence and synchronization of brain wave activity between both subjects."

I realized that, in a small way, their names point to this sort of symbiosis, too:  both start and end with the same letters.

I also noticed a couple small references.  First, the DVD cover, which is apparently one of the original posters for the movie, bears some resemblance to a detail in The Creation of Adam, part of Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Second, when E.T. sees a kid dressed up as Yoda for Halloween, there's a brief quotation in the soundtrack of Yoda's theme from The Empire Strikes Back.  Both soundtracks were composed by John Williams.

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*In I'm Told I Had a Good Time: The Micky Dolenz Archives, Volume One (page 429), Dolenz comments that Allen Daviau, who was the cameraman for the production company that he started in 1975, was later the cinematographer for E.T.  In the movie's credits, he's listed as "Director of Photography."

Star Wars: Rebels - S3E11 - "Visions and Voices"

Last week, I re-watched the Star Wars: Rebels episode "Visions and Voices" (S3E11) and noticed a trivial detail that matches a more significant element in the story.

About five minutes into the episode, after Ezra sees visions of Maul, Kanan has Sabine put a tracking device on Ezra's wrist comm:

Later, after Maul appears on Atollon, makes a deal with Ezra in which each will share the information he saw when they joined the holocrons in "The Holocrons of Fate," and then leaves with him, Kanan and Sabine are able to follow Ezra using this signal.

On Dathomir, Maul tells Ezra that "the only way to access the knowledge we seek is to merge our minds again."  He explains that "I have studied the ways of the Nightsisters and found a spell that suits our needs... to initiate the merge, we, we must each drink this potion."  When Maul drinks, his own wrist comm is plainly visible, and it has the same basic design as Ezra's:

Since they opened the holocrons together in "The Holocrons of Fate," Ezra's and Maul's minds have been linked to a certain degree, and in a small way, the similar design of their wrist comms visually indicates this connection between them.

Wonder Woman - S3E5 - "Disco Devil"

After a couple of delays because of some trouble with the DVDs, I resumed watching Wonder Woman earlier this year.  I watched "Disco Devil" (S3E5) recently and had a few small realizations about it.

The episode involves a scheme centered around a disco called the Styx.  It's well described in a conversation between Diana Prince and Steve Trevor:

Diana:  The Styx, its owner is a wealthy socialite named Angelique McKenna.  It's become a sort of watering hole for Washington bigwigs.

Steve:  Providing them access to government officials, from whom Nick Carbone rips off classified data [using his telepathic abilities].

Diana:  Perfect cover.  Who'd suspect a disco fronting for a black market information broker?

This process is shown early in the episode, where Nick steals information about a nuclear bomb from the mind of Anthony Borden, whom a colonel calls "the best nuclear engineer on the east coast."  When the prototype malfunctions, Borden can't remember the sequence to disarm it.  He explains, "The code, the numbers, everything that mattered, it- it's gone from my mind!  I can't remember anything."

Based on this context, I initially thought that the Styx was the river in Greek mythology that causes forgetfulness (which would correspond to the condition of those from whom Nick steals information), but some research revealed that forgetfulness is actually caused by the Lethe.  The Styx is the river by which the gods took their oaths.  Like the Lethe, though, it's a river that separates the underworld, and I think this holds significance in light of the events of the episode.  Similar to how the river Styx marks the underworld's border, the disco Styx represents an intersection between the (presumably law-abiding) government officials and the criminal underworld in which this classified information is stolen and sold.  The association between the Styx and the underworld is maintained, but now the underworld is a more metaphorical one.

---&---

I think there's also some significance to Angelique's intense reaction to Nick's shortening her name.  In a scene fairly early in the episode, he tells her, "You worry too much, Angie," at which she bristles and replies, "Don't you ever call me that name again."  This may seem to be just a matter of strong personal preference, but the contrast with a later scene suggests that Angelique views the shortening of her name in the same way as a limitation of her authority.  Near the end of the episode, after Nick has made moves to acquire greater power in their scheme and used his telepathic abilities against one of the Styx's henchmen, he calls her "Angie" twice in the same scene.  This time, though, since she's already lost control of her operation to him and she's powerless in his clutches, she offers no resistance.

The Addams Family

I've been watching The Addams Family lately (the original series from the 1960s), and a while ago, I realized that there's a characteristic in the theme song that mirrors the nature of the family itself.  When I lookt up the notation on the internet, I found wildly differing versions, but I think the vocal melody is something like this:

although the rhythm is much looser.  It's not straight eighth notes, but it's not pairs of a dotted eighth note and a sixteenth note either.  In the last verse, most of the note values in the last phrase are extended to quarter notes.

Here are the lyrics:

They're creepy, and they're kooky

Mysterious and spooky

They're altogether ooky

The Addams Family

Their house is a museum

When people come to see 'em

They really are a scream

The Addams Family

So get a witch's shawl on

A broomstick you can crawl on

We're gonna take a call on

The Addams Family

Except for the last phrase in each verse, all of the phrases both start and end on an upbeat instead of the more usual downbeat.  This uncommon feature in the music matches the family's "kooky" disposition.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Last week, I watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe again.  Here are some observations I had about it (not all from this viewing).

---&---

When the professor talks to Peter and Susan, one of his comments (referring to Lucy) has a sort of chiastic structure:

She's

your sister, isn't she?

You're

her family.

To some degree, this demonstrates the reciprocity that their familial relationship ought to have.

---&---

Shortly before the Pevensie children meet Mr. Beaver, when they're merely reacting to the noises they hear him making in the woods, three of them are huddled together, even touching each other, but Edmund is standing apart:

Visually, this illustrates that Edmund's loyalty is pledged elsewhere.  He's already met the White Witch and allied himself with her.

---&---

Later in the movie, Edmund's horse is named Philip.  This is an appropriate name for a horse because it comes from two Greek words that together mean "horse lover" (φίλος + ἵππος).

---&---

[For what it's worth, here's a post I wrote about the book many years ago, mostly about its Biblical parallels.]

Star Wars: Rebels - S2E21 - "Twilight of the Apprentice - Part I"

Last week, I re-watched the Star Wars: Rebels episode "Twilight of the Apprentice - Part I" (S2E21), which gave me an opportunity to write about a detail I'd noticed a number of years ago but for some reason didn't write about at the time.

When Ezra first encounters Maul, he definitely doesn't trust him.  He draws his lightsaber on him and tells him to "Stay back!"  After Maul says, "You came for the same reason I did, years ago:  you seek knowledge" and explains that he knows how to get into the Sith temple, Ezra agrees to go with him but insists that Maul walk in front of him, apparently so that Ezra can keep an eye on him.

Ezra's feelings toward Maul begin to change after Maul says, "The Sith took everything from me, ripped me from my mother's arms, murdered my brother, used me as a weapon, and then cast me aside, abandoned me."  Ezra replies, "I know how you feel.  The Empire, it took away my home and my mother and my father."  As they approach the door to the temple, Maul claims that the knowledge inside is the key to destroying the Sith, and when he says that he'll share this knowledge with Ezra, Ezra starts walking up the steps in front of Maul:

Ezra keeps Maul at a distance when he first meets him, but after Maul entices him with the knowledge inside the Sith temple, Ezra goes before him.  This change visually indicates that there's a more or less definite point where Ezra starts to trust Maul.

Star Wars: Rebels - S2E19 - "The Forgotten Droid"

In re-watching Star Wars: Rebels again, I recently watched "The Forgotten Droid" (S2E19) and noticed some slight significance in the framing of a particular shot.

Instead of doing what Hera told him to and staying with The Ghost while the rest of the crew steals an Imperial shipment of fuel, Chopper goes to look at a leg that would replace his mismatched one.  Eventually, he steals it, and since The Ghost has already left without him, he escapes aboard an Imperial freighter.  Later, he contacts Hera, who's angry about his disobedience.  After she says, "Really?  So you didn't leave The Ghost to go after that leg?" he appears a bit ashamed (doing what is apparently the droid equivalent of scratching his head in an act of discomfort, unwilling to admit the truth).  In this shot, the leg is looming behind him, almost as if weighing on his shoulder in a picture of his guilt:

The Karate Kid Part III

Earlier this week, I watched The Karate Kid Part III for the first time in many years (and possibly only the second time ever), and I noticed a couple interesting features.

Much of the movie deals with an elaborate scheme concocted by Terry Silver, an old war buddy of John Kreese, the disgraced karate instructor from the first Karate Kid.  Silver and Kreese want to get revenge on Daniel Laruso for winning the All Valley Karate Championship, the event that led to Kreese's downward spiral.  First, Silver hires Mike Barnes, whom he finds advertised in a magazine as "karate's badboy," to antagonize Laruso and force him to enter the next All Valley competition.

Barnes's name suits his character.  His first and last names have only one syllable each, resulting in a sort of bluntness that matches his belligerent attitude.  In a word, his name is punchy.

Next, Silver offers to train Laruso, apparently just to inflict physical pain on him before the competition takes place.  When Laruso shows up at the old Cobra Kai dojo (which Silver claims he's trying to revive) in order to accept the offer, Silver suggests they start immediately and lends Laruso a gi with a cobra on the back.  Throughout the days of Silver's aggressive training, Laruso wears this cobra-adorned gi in the Cobra Kai dojo, visually highlighting a change in his character that he himself later realizes.  He tells Mr. Miyagi, "Everything you taught me, I did the opposite.  Everything.  I couldn't have been worse.  I did everything wrong."

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Earlier this week, I re-watched The Day the Earth Stood Still for the first time in many years, and I noticed some religious overtones.

When Klaatu arrives on Earth, he says, "We have come to visit you in peace and with goodwill," which echoes what the angels say in Luke 2:14 when they announce Jesus' birth to the shepherds:  "'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!'" [NKJV]

When Klaatu escapes from the military hospital, he disguises himself in clothing belonging to a Major L. M. Carpenter, and he takes on Carpenter's name as his own.  In the Bible, Jesus is referred to as "the carpenter" (Mark 6:3) and "the carpenter's son" (Matthew 13:55).

Klaatu also acknowledges a higher power.  After he is apparently revived from death by Gort, Helen asks him, "You mean, he has the power of life and death?" and he replies, "No, that power is reserved to the Almighty Spirit; this technique, in some cases, can restore life for a limited period."

American Graffiti

A couple times over the last two months, I had some vague thoughts about American Graffiti.  Last week, I watched it again in order to pay close attention to details and write this post.

The DJ Wolfman Jack holds great significance for the characters, and every radio is tuned to his station.  When Curt goes to the radio station to talk to him, "Crying in the Chapel" by Sonny Till & the Orioles is playing.  This is the only non-secular song in the entire soundtrack, and its subject matter and placement underscore the godlike status that the characters attribute to the Wolfman.  In this light, Curt's trip to see the Wolfman at the radio station takes on the same meaning as a pilgrimage to a deity's shrine.

The Wolfman's comment "that's just a dedication, man; what I can do is I relay it, it'll be on tomorrow or Tuesday" suggests that the current day is Sunday, which also figures into this quasi-religious aspect since Sunday is the usual day for church services.

---&---

Until the end of the movie, Bob Falfa is always wearing a hat, and he displays an arrogant confidence that he's faster than Milner.  The two features are connected:  Falfa's hat acts as a sort of victor's crown representing a status that he doesn't really deserve.  Falfa loses the race with Milner when he crashes, and it's in this crash that he's de-crowned.  After Milner helps him stumble away from his wrecked car, he's left merely holding his hat:

The Ray Bradbury Theater - "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone"

Last week, I watched "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone," an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater.  At the beginning of the episode, celebrated writer Dudley Stone is having a book signing, and he's approached by John Oatis Kendall, an aspiring author who feels hopelessly overshadowed by Stone.  Kendall passes a note to Stone that reads, "Dudley Stone, I have come here to kill you!" and shows him a gun concealed in his pocket.  Stone doesn't seem too perturbed by this and invites Kendall to his house the following day.  There, he explains that there are many things he wants to do with his life besides writing:  "All the books I promised myself to read but I've never read; all the symphonies yet to be heard; all the films as yet unseen; spices waiting to be snuffed; beef joints, ham hocks waiting to be devoured; tapestries yet to be woven; sculptures to be shaped; paintings waiting to be painted; sons and daughters to be advised; grandchildren to be raised; far countries to be flown over, to be walked through; hang gliding yet to be tried; tides yet unswum to be swum; all of it around me, free and vital, beckoning, waiting:  my reasons for letting you kill me."  He urges Kendall to kill him, but more metaphorically than literally.  Stone shows Kendall a multitude of his unpublished manuscripts, and Kendall kills Stone's writing career by throwing the manuscripts into the sea:

Freed from the burden of writing, Stone can now do what he wants with his life.

I'm not sure which level to take this on (whether it's Stone's design, Bradbury's allusion, or just a coincidence), but the same sort of event is described near the end of Shakespeare's The Tempest.  In Act Five, Prospero says,

I here abjure, and when I have required

Some heavenly music, which even now I do,

To work mine end upon their senses that

This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,

I'll drown my book.  [V.i.51-57]

Prospero is a magician, not a writer, but for him, as for Stone, throwing his book into the sea marks a definitive end.

Star Wars: Rebels - S2E1 - "The Siege of Lothal"

In re-watching Star Wars: Rebels, I recently started season two, and I noticed a detail in the first part of the first episode, "The Siege of Lothal."  After a successful rebel mission, there's a meeting on one of the command ships.  Significantly, Kanan is sitting apart from the others:

Shortly after this scene, he complains to Hera about joining a larger rebellion:  "When you and I started together, it was rob from the Empire, give to the needy:  a noble cause.  Now we're gettin' drawn into some kind of military thing, and I don't like it."  The distance between him and the others in this meeting visually indicates his misgivings.