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