The Talkies
Buckley, Christopher
by Christopher Buckley It opens with an emblem. A pigeon squats on the bronze head of George M. Cohan in Herald Square. The inscription on the statue's pedestal bears the coda of those giddy,...
...Sure enough, Al Lewis seems a lot older than Willie...
...You...
...He is dutiful and works hart for Uncle Willie...
...With that Willie Clark is back on the sidewalk, reflecting that "I'm in The Sunshine Boys this business 47 years, I learn a few things...
...The pigeon coos as the camera passes over George's words, and there, in a way, you have it all—except for the old man in a black overcoat, hunching along with the noontime Herald Square crowds...
...He gets none, and the two realize, finally, that enough is enough, that time is running out, after all, and they fall quietly to arguing over another obit in Variety...
...The first minutes are tense as Willie tries to obtain an apology for his heart attack...
...Willie complains a lot...
...The Planned Economy in America's Third Century $7000 IN PRIZES Including a trip to the August, 1976, meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in St...
...Give my regards to Broadway...
...where...
...Arthur Shenfield Economist and Barrister Immediate Past-President, The Mont Pelerin Society Dr...
...He turns and casts a cold eye on 'the pigeon, the way a retired army captain might scowl at a bird besmirching a cast-iron Ike...
...I see life...
...and in the age of Frumpie commercials the yesterdays look better and better every day...
...Clay LaForce Chairman, Department of Economics University of California, Los Angeles Dr...
...That was 11 years ago, and they haven't spoken since...
...What artistic differences...
...His life is a dreary procession of marking time, playing gin rummy at the Friar's Club, reading obituaries of old friends it Variety, and singing along to the Liptor tea jingle on TV...
...Benjamin carries off his role decently, but well this side o. Inspiration...
...For such sympathetic camera work, Director Ross gets my vote of confidence...
...De lawn-mo-ab an' de milk-OWL': 'The scene ends in one of the >entrmoments in the history of comedy: Xtillit chasing ALarouad the sofa with the :nife...
...That George Burns, age 79, came out of retirement to make his first film in 39 'years is cause for celebration and applause...
...And so, in the end, are Willie's indulgences...
...Willie': reaction falls short of enthusiasm...
...Ben, the nephew, is a zealous sort, the movie's straight man...
...He seems only to have held back in one scene which might otherwise have been a classic: the spectacle of Al, tired and old, telling the nephew...
...William E. Simon Secretary of the Treasury COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY DIVISION Dr...
...If you don't :Mind, I'd like to stay a while...
...In that golden age it wasn't unusual for 45 plays to be running at the same time, to hear strains of "It's a Grand Old Flag" spilling out the stage doors into back alleys...
...20 the set...
...Dad's a little slow," his daughter warns Willie's nephew, who has come to push the deal...
...One day he demands to know why he didn't arrange for a part in a new, all-black musical...
...Willie lives alone in his suite at the Ansonia amid the squalor of an old man left to himself: heaps of medicine bottles, TV dinner packets, and whistling tea kettles...
...Willie expresses exquisite contempt for Yew Jersey ("I'm sorry they ever fin-shed the George Washington Bridge") ind delivers an inspired soliloquy on so:ial awareness and the real...
...The camera takes leave of the Sunshine Boys as gently as it entered, on Willie in Herald Square amid the pigeons and on Al in New Jersey amid the lawnmowers and milkmen...
...But Ross And company have given us enough scenes which are destined for recognition, perhaps even for fame...
...Two colors fit all: Gold on Burgundy and Gold on Navy Blue...
...Al comes to visit...
...threatening1/o cut off his finger if ie gels'poked agaitt,-)i's high -slapstick, ind there are nalwo..bettex practitioners d the art around..-Matthau provides the ,ound and fury...
...The Sunshine Boys continues at this 'itch into the ABC studios where the pecial is being filmed...
...For the Sunshine Boys the world has become .,an Ansonia Hotel, about which Geo...
...he shouts, vaving a kitchen 'knife at Al...
...10 each postpaid...
...Why shouldn't I get that much for watching you sleep...
...No one built a statue o: Willie Clark, but the pigeons are every...
...He arranges a deal wits ABC, which is doing a special on the His tory of Comedy and wants Lewis an( Clark to get together for a skit...
...It tells a story we would do well to listen to, of two old men who have only the Old Actors' Home to look forward to and who are only trying tcrtell the pigeons and the Frwmpie people that when one is tired of Vaudeville, one is tired of lite...
...I look out my window -and what do I ;ee...
...The Sunshine Boys is a great film for the tension it keeps between the burlesque and the poignant...
...There were Amos and Andy, Jay Gatsby, FDR, Black Thursday: hard times, but always there were the good times, the septuagenarians tell us...
...A woman screams, a tall man with a Carmen Miranda fruit cocktail hat brings a blanket, and other freaks of the TV age stand 'round the collapsed Vaudevillian, as Willie, his voice for once subdued, whimpers over and over the name of that elusive potato chip, Frumpies...
...Bundled up in his daughter's clean white house with the grandfather clock ticking, he naps as the camera steals in on him...
...The Adam Smith Bicentennial Essay Contest THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM The Market Economy vs...
...They were the days when a brand new Empire State Building rose like an art deco lighthouse over the greatest city in the world, when Busby Berkeley's gold-diggers danced on pianos at the Stork Club...
...His nephew (Richard Benjamin) visits him on Wednesdays, bringing Variety and cigars, and tries to get him part-time work...
...You owe me forty bucks," he tells her...
...Classy dressers wear both colors—but not at the same time...
...It'd make me feel good," and- taking a seat in the hospital corridor to keep a vigil over his stricken partner...
...The nephew jockeys back and forth be:ween New Jersey and the Ansonia, play,ng diplomat to the two, and the task is no less demanding than the Dainascus-J eruialem shuttle...
...George Burns without Gracie is strange too, and kind of sad, like Groucho without Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo...
...thing...
...fge Burns recently sighed and 'slit-aged -to an .interviewer, You know„ this place used to have real class...
...So how are you...
...To hear Willie tell it, the team of Lewis and Clark was as hot as ever when Al Lewis (Burns) decided one night that 11,000 shows were enough and retired...
...To which he might have added, "The rest is silence...
...Andrew's, Scotland, for First Place Winners in both High School & College Divisions DISTINGUISHED JUDGES HIGH SCHOOL DIVISION Dr...
...Bryn Mawr Avenue Bryn Mawr, Pa...
...And ;o on...
...Can't complain," says Al...
...did black in 1927," he puffs, "and when 1 did black, you understood the words...
...The Sunshine Boys, which according to an ad in the Times, has broken "every record" in Radio City Music Hall's 43-year history, is a great film...
...What lo yoy see...
...For me, though, it was Walter Matthau—as Willie Clark—who did the most work and made the most magic...
...He gets a shaky agreement and after 11 years Willie Clark and Al ....evvis come together once again to rewarse their doctor skit for ABC in Wilk's apartment.*Their meeting is predic:ably genial...
...In one scene the nurse snores in a chair with an open box of chocolates on her lap while Willie hurls wads of cotton from his bed...
...Burns lets himself get hased around sofas, abused and batered, always holding back, always waitng for the precise moment, just like the u-o he's always been...
...Pursuing Al up the stairwell, followed by the nephew and yet another frustrated TV director, he has a heart attack and falls...
...in part it is due to Neil Simon's ingenious, tender screenplay...
...Halfway through heir skit, Al starts poking Willie in the hest again and this time it is Willie'sblood that doesn't circulate...
...The remark about Lewis' perfect timing is curious and probably deliberate, a tribute to the man who played straight man to his wife for 17 years on television and timed jokes...
...von Hayek, Milton Friedman, and William E. Simon...
...In part it is due to Herbert Ross' able direction...
...His reasons for hating Al Lewis cente around Lewis' 47-year-old habit of pokini Willie in the chest, saying words with t': in them, and spitting in his face a lot...
...George Burns without his El Producto is like, well, like Groucho without his...
...I can't stand him, but I don't hate him...
...asks Willie...
...Order from The Decatur Shop, Box 1776, North Adams, Michigan 49262 USA...
...pleads the nephew "Artistic differences," says Willie...
...And amid the bubble and the splendor a man stood up, crying happily against the dying of the light...
...George Burns, age 79, wears thick glasses, and without his grey toupee looks like Picasso, age 92...
...He recovers, though, and lives on to make life difficult for his day nurse...
...As a human being, no one wanted to touch him...
...For Willie Clark, there are no tomorrows...
...You learn what makes audiences laugh...
...Who else but George Burns...
...I don't hate him," he says of his old partner...
...It's good to hear the voice again...
...His nephew, who is also his agent, promises to get him an audition with the Alka-Seltzer people and Willie jaywalks off toward the Ansonia Hotel, a dilapidated archipelago of old folks who, like Willie, have seen happier times...
...You get that much for watching me sleep...
...Finally he throws a week's worth of Variety...
...0 Adam Smith Neckties Worn by F.A...
...Bu why won't you do it...
...Israel R. Kirzner Department of Economics, New York University Dr...
...Richard F. Staar Associate Director, The Hoover Institution Stanford University For Contest Entry Forms Write: ESSAY CONTEST Intercollegiate Studies Institute 14 So...
...19010 EN1 RY DEADLINF: JUNE, 15, 197b Sponsored by: The National Federation of Independent Business The Alternative: An American Spectator April 1976 33...
...Bu mostly Willie hates Al because "the sot of a bitch walked out on me in the middle of my career...
...He turns and walks up the stairs at the Friar's Club, leaving the frustrated agent with the thought, "As an actor, no one could touch him...
...And a lot of joy went into this story about two aged Jewish Vaudevillians who worked together as a team for 47 years and can't stand each other...
...Rich people, )oor • people, big people, small people, trunks, dope addicts, murders, mug;ings,' fires, riots...
...George C. Roche Ill President, Hillsdale College Hon...
...Its flaws are forgiven...
...And gentler...
...Once you hear the old voice again, George Burns seems a lot younger...
...But not Madison Avenue ad directors...
...I sec all sorts of people...
...I hate the son of a bitch...
...The inscription on the statue's pedestal bears the coda of those giddy, bygone days: "Give my regards to Broadway...
...He shuffles along to his audition for a Frumpies potato chip commercial...
...But if it was so bad," asks • thf nephew, "why did you stay with him fo 47 years...
...No one could time a joke like Al Lewis...
...as Willie says, like no one...
...But The Sunshine Boys is the sum of many magical parts...
...Now the bubbles have popped and the splendor is being videotaped in the TV studios...
...hoid yer blood don't circulate...
...Because he was the best," says Wil 32 The Alternative: An American Spectator April 197( lie, very seriously...
...It is a sad story—we all have our rendezvous to make with the Conqueror Pigeon—but the Stouffer's, set at Radio City did not come for pathos alone...
...They came for the joy...
...He arrives an hour late, fumbles his lines, and• enrages the director, who has no patience with an old fool who can't get the word Frumpie straight, no matter if he was one of the biggest names in Vaudeville...
Vol. 9 • April 1976 • No. 7
