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...
...Right, son...
...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...
...Right, Steve...
...But Norman Mail....Oh, my God, look who's picking up the check...
...Or Barbara Howar...
...9 Visions of Eight: Last year's Olympics, through eight directors' eyes...
...Lots of philosophy, duly disguised...
...I loved it...
...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...
...That falls in the category of art...
...Jill, Barbara, even Gloria, we can take...
...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...
...Of course, it's Henry's business, I guess...
...Or is he enlisting Henry into the counterespionage group he organized between drinks at his softbellied liberal chic birthday party not long ago...
...Oh yes, there probably is a plot...
...Just dumb...
...On taxpayer's time, yet...
...You remember: the private network that's going to spy on the CIA, FBI, IRS, and so forth...
...They're wrong...
...I mean, Norman Mailer...
...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...
...12 The Alternative November 1973...
...The Last Ten Days: Seems like a fortnight, but Alec Guiness is magnificent...
...But Norman Mailer...
...But today, so help me Pax Americana, Henry has outdone himself in keeping dumb company in public...
...Believe me, Steve, if they ever play this one in Peoria, George McGovern might get a recount yet...
...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...
...Some Middle Americans might not like it...
...And the man was serious when he said it...
...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...
...Why...
...Scabrous...
...9 Jesus Christ Superstar: Story's familiar...
...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...
...Directors Arthur Penn, Milos Forman, Claude I_~louch, John Schlesinger, Kon Ichikawa, Juri Ozerov, Michael Pfleghar, Mai Zetterling...
...Something about espionage, diamonds, something like that...
...Hanna Arendt's "banality of evil" theme comes alive...
...Right...
...G-mar Melvin Purvis, with gloves and a hat, versus snazzy John D, in bullets...
...9 Hitler...
...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...
...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...
...Reissued to coincide with the Watergate circus...
...Brudnoy's Film Index _9 Dillinger: The flip side of Bonnie and Clydr enough spilled guts to sta~,c your own war...
...He washed dishes with his wife...
...I rooted for the sadistic guards...
...Not because Norman Mailer uses dirty words in books...
...9 O Lucky Man: O not so lucky film-goer, and oh my aching backside - - i t runs for days...
...For that, son, is what Norman Mailer amounts to nowadays...
...Moll thrown in for spice...
...9 Last Tango in Paris: Brando's rump...
...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...
...Less than two hours of mostly splendid photography...
...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...
...Not that Henry doesn't stand at attention for all the important songs, like the anthem and "Hail to the Chief...
...Yuck...
...9 State of Seige: For professional Amerika-haters with no limits in endurance...
...Not immoral or fattening company...
...Robert Welch, where are you now that we need you...
...9 Heavy Traffic: Cartoon fulllength feature...
...It's his private life to lead...
...Because, said Norman, it sounds like Nixon...
...All he owes the public is 100 percent performance between the sidelines...
...So you see how Jill and Barbara came as something of future shock to a lot of Middle Americans...
...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...
...athletic grace, commercial smoothness, a tad repetitive...
...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...
...Go to your room, Jim Brown, and take your macho with you...
...vulgar, cruel, cheeky, not for your Bambi and Dumbo crowd...
...Or if you want to lunch with an obscenity-using World War II writer, why not try James Jones...
...Please, Henry, have mercy...
...the fihn that gave Pauline Kael the giggly-bumps...
...Plot...
...A breakthrough...
...More a rip-off...
...I was alone...
...Trashy and dull, propaganda to the last oozed drop...
...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...
...A documentary that works...
...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...
...Maybe he was an artist once...
...9 The Mackintosh Man: Paul Newman, Dominique Sanda, James Mason, respectively dreary, incomprehensible, and splendid...
...Schneider's everything...
...9 I Escaped from Devil's Island: With Jim Brown...
...Wrong, Steve, wrong...
...Do you know what John Foster Dulles did to relax, Steve...
...Brilliantly drawn, viciously objectionable...
Vol. 7 • November 1973 • No. 2
