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I remember reading more than once that various Mad writers would come across moments in movies that didn’t make any sense when they were forced to recreate the story for a satire, and they felt lucky to be able to share these with their readers.
Also, that gorgeous Mort Drucker artwork. What a master of caricature.
Not enough Mort Drucker love in the universe.
I consider “Strange Interlude with Hazey” from Mad #85 Drucker’s masterpiece. Stan Hart coming up with the idea of lampooning sitcom Hazel through the lens of Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude is bizarre enough, but it took a master artist/caricaturist to draw dead-on portraits of each character not only as their “masks” reacted, but as their real selves were reacting behind the masks as well.
I remember that — it’s brilliant!
Here’s a link to read the full MAD Issue #85.
Short clip from an interview I shot with the great Al Jaffee in 2018 when he was merely 97. https://youtu.be/pto1mfDI-Bo
One of my most prized possessions as a youth was Al’s Mad Book of Magic, and Other Dirty Tricks. I still have it.
I had it too, and suspect it still might be in my parents’ house. His influence on me can’t be overstated. To be in his studio, with not only his originals but those of Mort Drucker and Jack Davis on the walls, and the then-current fold-in half finished on his drafting table, was mindblowing.
“We all know you can’t get blood from a stone. But have you ever heard someone say you can’t get blood from a magician?” Wicked, nasty fun.
Growing up, I learned so much about American film history (as well as history in general) through back issues of Mad. I can’t count the number of satires I read before I saw the actual movies, but I’m sure it’s in the several dozens. Mort Drucker was such a talent.
Logic holes in Bullit. Say it ain’t so. A movie whose basic premise is that a defecting Mafioso finds a double of himself and persuades this double to impersonate him at a time when every hood in the country is trying to kill him. This made man must have been some salesman.
The poor double gets promptly shot. But just what did he think was going to happen? Was he supposed to simply shake the phalanx of cops surrounding him before they tumbled to his identity, link up with his wife and fly away without consequence? Maybe it’s just as well he died. He was too dumb to live.
PS The film is so loosey goosey with details that we are never even told what Robert Vaughn’s job is. Who is this guy who can make deals with big time gangsters, command the resources of the SFPD and get the U.S. Senate to hold subcommittee meetings in Cali? Hell if I know.
Hang on — isn’t Vaughn supposed to be the District Attorney? Granted, he does appear to wield outsized power for a guy in his position (coming off more like a mayor or even a governor than a law enforcement official) but I thought that’s what he was: An oily, ambitious DA.
As for the absurdity of the villain’s plan — I’m trying to justify it, but you’re right, it’s pretty ridiculous. Maaaaybe … if the gangster’s lookalike stand-in was a blood relative (hence the resemblance) who needed a shit ton of money (for gambling debts, let’s say) … and the real gangster had told him: “I’ll give you 200 grand to pretend to be me for a couple days, just until my hired guns hit the safe house where they’re keeping you, shoot any cops who happen to be there, and take you away in an apparent abduction. Everyone’ll think I was snatched by the guys I was gonna testify against and am now lying at the bottom of San Francisco Bay. I’ll be in the clear, you’ll be debt-free, and we both get to die of old age.”
This seems at least semi-plausible to me. Plus it accounts for the lookalike’s startled reaction when the gunman — after shooting the cop — suddenly turns the shotgun on him. “Wait a minute,” says the poor sap, wide-eyed. “He told me that—“ BLAM!
The sap could’ve been about to say: “He—“ (meaning Ross, the real mafioso) “—told me that you guys were gonna take me out of here!”
But once again, who the hell knows. You’re right: As it is, it’s a frustratingly opaque story redeemed by great style, great filmmaking, and a truly great star at its center.
Hang on — isn’t Vaughn supposed to be the District Attorney? Granted, he does appear to wield outsized power for a guy in his position (coming off more like a mayor or even a governor than a law enforcement official) but I thought that’s what he was: An oily, ambitious DA.
As for the absurdity of the villain’s plan — I’m trying to justify it, but you’re right, it’s pretty ridiculous. Maaaaybe … if the gangster’s lookalike stand-in was a blood relative (hence the resemblance) who needed a shit ton of money (for gambling debts, let’s say) … and the real gangster had told him: “I’ll give you 200 grand to pretend to be me for a couple days, just until my hired guns hit the safe house where they’re keeping you, shoot any cops who happen to be there, and take you away in an apparent abduction. Everyone’ll think I was snatched by the guys I was gonna testify against and am now lying at the bottom of San Francisco Bay. I’ll be in the clear, you’ll be debt-free, and we both get to die of old age.”
This seems at least semi-plausible to me. Plus it accounts for the lookalike’s startled reaction when the gunman — after shooting the cop — suddenly turns the shotgun on him. “Wait a minute,” says the poor sap, wide-eyed. “He told me that—“ BLAM!
The sap could’ve been about to say: “He—“ (meaning Ross, the real mafioso) “—told me that you guys were gonna take me out of here!”
But once again, who the hell knows. You’re right: As it is, it’s a frustratingly opaque story redeemed by great style, great filmmaking, and a truly great star at its center.
I caught the ending during TCM’s Jacquie Bisset day. I hadn’t seen it in years. I assume it was far-fetched even for the late 60s, but man, the difference in security, procedures, etc. Guy takes a gun on the plane, and when he’s cornered, jumps out of the plane and starts running across the tarmac. And this was in the days when “hijack to Cuba” almost became a cliché.
Hang on — isn’t Vaughn supposed to be the District Attorney? Granted, he does appear to wield outsized power for a guy in his position (coming off more like a mayor or even a governor than a law enforcement official) but I thought that’s what he was: An oily, ambitious DA.
As for the absurdity of the villain’s plan — I’m trying to justify it, but you’re right, it’s pretty ridiculous. Maaaaybe … if the gangster’s lookalike stand-in was a blood relative (hence the resemblance) who needed a shit ton of money (for gambling debts, let’s say) … and the real gangster had told him: “I’ll give you 200 grand to pretend to be me for a couple days, just until my hired guns hit the safe house where they’re keeping you, shoot any cops who happen to be there, and take you away in an apparent abduction. Everyone’ll think I was snatched by the guys I was gonna testify against and am now lying at the bottom of San Francisco Bay. I’ll be in the clear, you’ll be debt-free, and we both get to die of old age.”
This seems at least semi-plausible to me. Plus it accounts for the lookalike’s startled reaction when the gunman — after shooting the cop — suddenly turns the shotgun on him. “Wait a minute,” says the poor sap, wide-eyed. “He told me that—“ BLAM!
The sap could’ve been about to say: “He—“ (meaning Ross, the real mafioso) “—told me that you guys were gonna take me out of here!”
But once again, who the hell knows. You’re right: As it is, it’s a frustratingly opaque story redeemed by great style, great filmmaking, and a truly great star at its center.
Are any of these questions cleared up in the movie’s source novel (MUTE WITNESS by Robert L. Fish)? And is the book any good? …Has anyone here read it?
I’d love to know how close my silly, improvised explanation for all the chaos comes to the one in the book. ‘Cause the more I think about it, the more I think: How else could it have gone down? Right?? I mean, what other explanation could reconcile all those details?
https://www.amazon.com/Mute-Witness-Robert-L-Fish/dp/1511316969/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=e6afe5c0-2092-4e9a-930a-e360d97203c0
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed06248e00843e0a35a7cfe78a56ef3f327f1b75f16a90b184d268b067e99a23.jpg
Your theory is the only one that seems to contain a shred of plausibility. Still…..
So you’re gonna make me an accomplice to one and maybe several police murders and I have to trust these unknown gunmen to get me and the Mrs. out of town before the dragnet closes in and I wind up spending the rest of my life in prison. OK……..
And Vaughn really has to be a kinda, sorta DA something or other. But IIRC all we’re told about him is that he’s got a lot of juice and is grooming himself for political office. We never see him in an office or a court room or with any other official except for obsequious, police sidekick Norman Fell. But, hey, it’s the sixties, so I guess he’s just ‘The Man.’
Oh, wait! Of COURSE Fake Ross thought he’d be skipping town. He didn’t even live in San Francisco!
Ha! Can’t fault you on the Vaughn thing. His character does seem to be some kind of weird, indefinable Brahman/influencer/something-or-other. Not really DA-like at all. Very strange.
As for the plot stuff — are you sure that the Fake Ross assumed he’d be skipping town? If my half-a**ed theory is correct, he wouldn’t have assumed that. If my half-a**ed theory is correct, Fake Ross would have assumed (because Real Ross would have told him) that after the phony abduction from the safe house — when the cops thought Real Ross was fish food at the bottom of San Francisco Bay — Fake Ross could simply return to his old life again, and pay off his bookie or his loan shark or whatever-the-hell.
But it’s been a while since I’ve seen the flick. Fake Ross thought he’d be skipping town, huh?
Crap. I can’t make heads or tails of that.
In other news: wasn’t Norman Fell a good actor? Like the equally-talented John Ritter, people mainly remember him from “Three’s Company” — one of the most insipid shows of the 1970s. But Fell was a good character actor. And Ritter was a good dramatic actor and a good light comedian.
That sort of thing happens a lot: A gifted performer who’s done terrific work in the past gets cast in something cheesy, the cheesy thing catches on and is seen by tens of millions of people, and it’s that thing the performer is ultimately remembered for (see Angela Lansbury).
But if fake Ross was returning to his old life why did he have those plane tickets to Rome and why did he stash Mr. fake Ross in a California motel and, and…..
You think Robert L Fish aka Robert L Pike gave it this much thought?
And yeah a lot of actors with long careers end up remembered for something minor. Buddy Ebsen’s career did not begin and end with Jed Clampett.
Even with noncheesy stuff. For years I assumed John Huston had done his father a favor by casting him in Treasure of The Sierra Madre; ignorant of what an immensely famous actor Walter Huston was at the time.
But if fake Ross was returning to his old life why did he have those plane tickets to Rome and why did he stash Mr. fake Ross in a California motel and, and…..
Uhh … a vacation?
Shit. My theory is shot. Shit, shot.
And in the tradition of Ebsen and Lansbury, I give you … Alec Guinness!
I’m not such a churl that I would deny the artistry of STAR WARS. It’s first-rate space opera — wildly imaginative, impeccably crafted, and a lot of fun — and Guinness is great as Obi-Wan Kenobi. But I know it drove him crazy that within just a few years, it became the only thing anybody really knew him for.
Ray Burr was a great character actor before he become rich and famous.
I think Guiness made peace with Obi Wan eventually. All that money helped.
I’ve read that Robert Vaughn originally turned down Bullit because he couldn’t follow the plot. But he said they kept adding zeroes to the fee he was being offered and every time they did it made more sense.
I think Guiness made peace with Obi Wan eventually. All that money helped.
I’ve read that Robert Vaughn originally turned down Bullit because he couldn’t follow the plot. But he said they kept adding zeroes to the fee he was being offered and every time they did it made more sense.