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,...
...Pursuing Al up the stairwell, followed by the nephew and yet another frustrated TV director, he has a heart attack and falls...
...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...
...Can't complain," says Al...
...Halfway through heir skit, Al starts poking Willie in the hest again and this time it is Willie'sblood that doesn't circulate...
...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...
...Classy dressers wear both colors—but not at the same time...
...But not Madison Avenue ad directors...
...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...
...I don't hate him," he says of his old partner...
...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...
...As a human being, no one wanted to touch him...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...Give my regards to Broadway...
...Al comes to visit...
...And amid the bubble and the splendor a man stood up, crying happily against the dying of the light...
...10 each postpaid...
...George Burns without his El Producto is like, well, like Groucho without his...
...There were Amos and Andy, Jay Gatsby, FDR, Black Thursday: hard times, but always there were the good times, the septuagenarians tell us...
...And ;o on...
...Arthur Shenfield Economist and Barrister Immediate Past-President, The Mont Pelerin Society Dr...
...They came for the joy...
...For such sympathetic camera work, Director Ross gets my vote of confidence...
...Richard F. Staar Associate Director, The Hoover Institution Stanford University For Contest Entry Forms Write: ESSAY CONTEST Intercollegiate Studies Institute 14 So...
...pleads the nephew "Artistic differences," says Willie...
...Bu mostly Willie hates Al because "the sot of a bitch walked out on me in the middle of my career...
...Benjamin carries off his role decently, but well this side o. Inspiration...
...20 the set...
...The Sunshine Boys is a great film for the tension it keeps between the burlesque and the poignant...
...19010 EN1 RY DEADLINF: JUNE, 15, 197b Sponsored by: The National Federation of Independent Business The Alternative: An American Spectator April 1976 33...
...You owe me forty bucks," he tells her...
...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...
...George C. Roche Ill President, Hillsdale College Hon...
...No one could time a joke like Al Lewis...
...He recovers, though, and lives on to make life difficult for his day nurse...
...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...
...It'd make me feel good," and- taking a seat in the hospital corridor to keep a vigil over his stricken partner...
...Rich people, )oor • people, big people, small people, trunks, dope addicts, murders, mug;ings,' fires, riots...
...Two colors fit all: Gold on Burgundy and Gold on Navy Blue...
...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...
...He shuffles along to his audition for a Frumpies potato chip commercial...
...The Adam Smith Bicentennial Essay Contest THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM The Market Economy vs...
...You...
...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...
...That George Burns, age 79, came out of retirement to make his first film in 39 'years is cause for celebration and applause...
...fge Burns recently sighed and 'slit-aged -to an .interviewer, You know„ this place used to have real class...
...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...
...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...
...Israel R. Kirzner Department of Economics, New York University Dr...
...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 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...
...The Sunshine Boys continues at this 'itch into the ABC studios where the pecial is being filmed...
...No one built a statue o: Willie Clark, but the pigeons are every...
...Andrew's, Scotland, for First Place Winners in both High School & College Divisions DISTINGUISHED JUDGES HIGH SCHOOL DIVISION Dr...
...I see life...
...Why shouldn't I get that much for watching you sleep...
...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...
...0 Adam Smith Neckties Worn by F.A...
...His nephew (Richard Benjamin) visits him on Wednesdays, bringing Variety and cigars, and tries to get him part-time work...
...Willie complains a lot...
...What artistic differences...
...I look out my window -and what do I ;ee...
...He is dutiful and works hart for Uncle Willie...
...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...
...For the Sunshine Boys the world has become .,an Ansonia Hotel, about which Geo...
...where...
...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...
...Bryn Mawr Avenue Bryn Mawr, Pa...
...Dad's a little slow," his daughter warns Willie's nephew, who has come to push the deal...
...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...
...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...
...Who else but George Burns...
...Ben, the nephew, is a zealous sort, the movie's straight man...
...in part it is due to Neil Simon's ingenious, tender screenplay...
...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...
...I can't stand him, but I don't hate him...
...thing...
...For Willie Clark, there are no tomorrows...
...So how are you...
...von Hayek, Milton Friedman, and William E. Simon...
...If you don't :Mind, I'd like to stay a while...
...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...
...Its flaws are forgiven...
...I sec all sorts of people...
...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, 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...
...Now the bubbles have popped and the splendor is being videotaped in the TV studios...
...Order from The Decatur Shop, Box 1776, North Adams, Michigan 49262 USA...
...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...
...William E. Simon Secretary of the Treasury COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY DIVISION Dr...
...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...
...Clay LaForce Chairman, Department of Economics University of California, Los Angeles Dr...
...Bundled up in his daughter's clean white house with the grandfather clock ticking, he naps as the camera steals in on him...
...Because he was the best," says Wil 32 The Alternative: An American Spectator April 197( lie, very seriously...
...To which he might have added, "The rest is silence...
...In part it is due to Herbert Ross' able direction...
...asks Willie...
...It's good to hear the voice again...
...The first minutes are tense as Willie tries to obtain an apology for his heart attack...
...hoid yer blood don't circulate...
...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...
...But The Sunshine Boys is the sum of many magical parts...
...he shouts, vaving a kitchen 'knife at Al...
...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...
...Finally he throws a week's worth of Variety...
...And gentler...
...Once you hear the old voice again, George Burns seems a lot younger...
...Bu why won't you do it...
...That was 11 years ago, and they haven't spoken since...
...For me, though, it was Walter Matthau—as Willie Clark—who did the most work and made the most magic...
...What lo yoy see...
...But if it was so bad," asks • thf nephew, "why did you stay with him fo 47 years...
...And so, in the end, are Willie's indulgences...
...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...
...You learn what makes audiences laugh...
...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...
...George Burns without Gracie is strange too, and kind of sad, like Groucho without Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo...
...Sure enough, Al Lewis seems a lot older than Willie...
...You get that much for watching me sleep...
...The inscription on the statue's pedestal bears the coda of those giddy, bygone days: "Give my regards to Broadway...
...One day he demands to know why he didn't arrange for a part in a new, all-black musical...
...I hate the son of a bitch...
...Willie': reaction falls short of enthusiasm...
...as Willie says, like no one...
...George Burns, age 79, wears thick glasses, and without his grey toupee looks like Picasso, age 92...
...But Ross And company have given us enough scenes which are destined for recognition, perhaps even for fame...
...did black in 1927," he puffs, "and when 1 did black, you understood the words...
...and in the age of Frumpie commercials the yesterdays look better and better every day...
Vol. 9 • April 1976 • No. 7
