The Nation's Pulse
Gold, Victor
"The Nation's Pulse" Quick, Steve, slip me a spyglass. A contact lens. Something. Because I can't believe my pollutionated eyeballs. Did you see who just walked in? I mean, Jill St. John I could understand. Or...
...I loved it...
...I rooted for the sadistic guards...
...Why...
...Trashy and dull, propaganda to the last oozed drop...
...Lots of philosophy, duly disguised...
...Or Barbara Howar...
...Do you know what John Foster Dulles did to relax, Steve...
...But today, so help me Pax Americana, Henry has outdone himself in keeping dumb company in public...
...Wrong, Steve, wrong...
...Less than two hours of mostly splendid photography...
...Of course, it's Henry's business, I guess...
...That's why Henry's boss' favorite coach, George Allen, took Duane Superstar aside to tell him that when someone has a social contract with the public, even if it's purely commercial, there are certain Middle American conventions best honored in the observance, not the breach...
...vulgar, cruel, cheeky, not for your Bambi and Dumbo crowd...
...This leaves you (or at least it left me) wondering what the "I Love Lucy" rerun was like, the one I missed to go see this...
...Or is he enlisting Henry into the counterespionage group he organized between drinks at his softbellied liberal chic birthday party not long ago...
...Like, when Duane Thomas, the Redskin halfback, wouldn't stand at attention for the pre-game national anthem a few weeks back, that was his business...
...Oh yes, there probably is a plot...
...He washed dishes with his wife...
...Something about espionage, diamonds, something like that...
...Moll thrown in for spice...
...You remember: the private network that's going to spy on the CIA, FBI, IRS, and so forth...
...Hanna Arendt's "banality of evil" theme comes alive...
...But Norman Mail....Oh, my God, look who's picking up the check...
...Schneider's everything...
...Scabrous...
...On taxpayer's time, yet...
...Reissued to coincide with the Watergate circus...
...After all, a single man---even if he's about to become Secretary of State---is entitled to his choice of female luncheon companions in a free, pluralistic society...
...9 I Escaped from Devil's Island: With Jim Brown...
...That falls in the category of art...
...Some Middle Americans might not like it...
...Because, said Norman, it sounds like Nixon...
...Yuck...
...I mean, Norman Mailer...
...9 Visions of Eight: Last year's Olympics, through eight directors' eyes...
...But Norman Mailer...
...It's his private life to lead...
...And all Henry owes us is an honest day's work that brings the country closer to that generation of peace his boss is always talking about...
...9 Hitler...
...It's just that he's been known to swing to the beat of a different drummer than the one who kept time for his predecessors...
...A documentary that works...
...9 O Lucky Man: O not so lucky film-goer, and oh my aching backside - - i t runs for days...
...G-mar Melvin Purvis, with gloves and a hat, versus snazzy John D, in bullets...
...True, Allen's fan in the Oval Office hasn't been inclined to put wraps on his foreign policy superstar's unconventional off-duty conduct...
...12 The Alternative November 1973...
...9 The Mackintosh Man: Paul Newman, Dominique Sanda, James Mason, respectively dreary, incomprehensible, and splendid...
...Brilliantly drawn, viciously objectionable...
...Could he, for example, this very noon be filling in America's foremost international expert on his theory of how the CIA and FBI might have done away with Marilyn Monroe to embarrass Robert Kennedy...
...All he owes the public is 100 percent performance between the sidelines...
...9 Heavy Traffic: Cartoon fulllength feature...
...Right, Steve...
...And the man was serious when he said it...
...Or if you want to lunch with an obscenity-using World War II writer, why not try James Jones...
...The Last Ten Days: Seems like a fortnight, but Alec Guiness is magnificent...
...Believe me, Steve, if they ever play this one in Peoria, George McGovern might get a recount yet...
...But in addition to choosing the female luncheon companions he likes, a Secretary of State to-be has a right to hobnob with artists of his choice, dirty words notwithstanding...
...Just dumb...
...Maybe he was an artist once...
...Or possibly he's discussing neither of these plots, but only imparting to our next Secretary of State his theory as to why Esso changed its name to Exxon last year...
...9 Jesus Christ Superstar: Story's familiar...
...Robert Welch, where are you now that we need you...
...But today he's only a little man in literary tennis shoes, padding around the country, talk show-to-talk show, peddling inane political stories for profit...
...9 Last Tango in Paris: Brando's rump...
...good God-pop rock, a majestic set (Israel's deserts), a wee bit of camp (Herod's Song: "So you're Jesus Christ, the Great Jesus Christ/ Prove to me that you're no fool/Walk upon my swimming pool...
...I was alone...
...Not immoral or fattening company...
...Though Henry's coach probably takes the permissive but pragmatic view that any foreign policy field runner who could get him together with Leonid Breznev and Mao Tse-tung in a single election season is entitled to some offduty privileges...
...They're wrong...
...Directors Arthur Penn, Milos Forman, Claude I_~louch, John Schlesinger, Kon Ichikawa, Juri Ozerov, Michael Pfleghar, Mai Zetterling...
...So you see how Jill and Barbara came as something of future shock to a lot of Middle Americans...
...More a rip-off...
...No, Steve, what's wrong with that luncheon scene across the room is that the man responsible for this country's foreign policy is leaning over the linen in order not to miss the conversational pearls of the purveyor of as much conspiratorial gibberish in any eight-hour period as Robert Welch the Birchite ever emitted in his most fecund workday...
...For that, son, is what Norman Mailer amounts to nowadays...
...Plot...
...9 Hail to the Chief: Last year it was Hail, maligning Our Chief Which Art in Washington, San Clemente, Key Biscayne, Camp David, and Peking...
...Right...
...Right, son...
...A breakthrough...
...Go to your room, Jim Brown, and take your macho with you...
...Not because Norman Mailer uses dirty words in books...
...Not that Henry doesn't stand at attention for all the important songs, like the anthem and "Hail to the Chief...
...9 State of Seige: For professional Amerika-haters with no limits in endurance...
...Please, Henry, have mercy...
...the fihn that gave Pauline Kael the giggly-bumps...
...athletic grace, commercial smoothness, a tad repetitive...
...Jill, Barbara, even Gloria, we can take...
...Brudnoy's Film Index _9 Dillinger: The flip side of Bonnie and Clydr enough spilled guts to sta~,c your own war...
Vol. 7 • November 1973 • No. 2
