Musings from Brian J. Noggle

It’s our new-ish New Year’s Eve tradition with the boys to watch a movie and play a game to pad the hours until midnight, and this year we watched Rush Hour. Which, apparently has two sequels.

I don’t remember if I saw this film in the theatre–I can hardly imagine a time where we went to the theater and saw ten or more movies a year. I don’t know if I see that many at home these days. But that’s because all my books are calling in way the my accummulated videocassettes and DVDs are not. This film, though, was on a DVD, but it’s a little clearer now that we’re running it through a different receiver.

If you don’t remember the plot: Basically, Jackie Chan is a Hong Kong police inspector who breaks up a crime organization right as the British are handing Hong Kong over to the Chinese. The Chinese consul to Hong Kong ends up in Los Angeles with his wife and young daughter, who is close with Jackie Chan (come on, Jackie Chan is playing Jackie Chan, as he always does). The daughter is kidnapped for ransom by the very criminal mastermind whose organization was disrupted in Hong Kong, and the consul imports Jackie Chan to help the FBI. The FBI, though, wants nothing to do with the inspector, so they bring a loud, brash, unconventional LAPD detective, Chris Tucker, playing Chris Tucker, to entertain Chan. But they end up solving the crime after various set pieces and beginning to understand each other’s culture.

So it’s a funny movie. But twenty years on, the honeymoon for Hong Kong is over, and one cannot help but wonder how much the Chinese government influenced the film to put China in the best possible light. Even then. I didn’t sit through the credits, but I would not be surprised to see at the end a thank you to some Chinese agency or bureau. Twenty years on, we all look at things with a bit more of a gimlet eye.

But the film is my boys’ first exposure to Jackie Chan (and Chris Tucker). A virtual decision tree unfolds: What next? The Jackie Chan path? Rumble in the Bronx? That’s rated R. Perhaps Legend of the Drunken Master? Or the Chris Tucker path? Certainly not Friday, but they’re old enough for The Fifth Element by now. What about the Jackie Chan+1 fish out of water path? Shanghai Noon has Jackie Chan playing Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson playing Old West Owen Wilson. I haven’t actually seen that one yet. However, it would require buying the movie–and we own many of the others listed, and I’m saving my money for jazz and metal CDs.

Time will tell, and it could very well say, “You won’t decide this question until next New Year’s Eve.”

I’m a little late writing this one up–this is the film we watched on Thanksgiving, but I have had it sitting on my desk since then and a text file with the title in it (I do my drafts for these On… posts and the book reports in a text file editor before I copy and paste them onto the blog–clearly, I had one such post eaten by blogging software at some point in the past or I just wanted to template out the basics of each post–the title, the image, and back in the old timey days the Amazon affiliate link). So because I am very slow in reading these days–David Copperfield is like 750 pages, but I’m enjoying them–I have decided to tell you about what I watched two months ago.

You know, you kind of had to be there for the early Mel Brooks. I mean, stuff like Blazing Saddles remains funny and quotable unless you have a modern mindset where That’s not funny. Somehow, it’s crude but not crass. Or maybe I hold it in enough esteem that I overlook its crassinosity. Later comedies like Space Balls and Robin Hood: Men in Tights were hit or miss with me–they have a more modern speed and sensibility, unlike this film and Young Frankenstein (which I rewatched a couple years ago)–they move more slowly and require a little familiarity in the material that the film spoofs. In the middle 1970s, we saw those films on television on weekends. In the 21st century, not so much.

At any rate, this film spoofs sixties thrillers, especially Alfred Hitchcock movies. A noted psychologist is recruited to run an asylum where people have mysteriously died, including the most recent head. He discovers that some of the other staff are keeping rich inmates against their wills and after they’re cured–and the Mel Brooks character is dealing with his own Vertigo-like issues that come into play. I would say the name of the character, but, come on, as with Abbott and Costello in Africa Screams!, Mel Brooks, Harvery Korman, and Cloris Leachmann are playing their respective characters, the ones they tend to play in all these mid-Brooks movies.

So it was amusing to me in a I see what you did there fashion. Both of my boys watched it, which means the older one is growing in his cinema appreciation to be able to sit through something more slow-moving than a ten minute speed run YouTube video. They laughed at one bit, but the youngest proclaimed it a bit cringey. You remember RiffTrax, the thing where you can record your own commentary a la Mystery Science Theater 3000 on a movie? I think if you mashed up 21st century young people watching old movies, you would probably have pure comedy gold. Actually, someone has probably already done that as Kids Try To Figure Out and Reaction videos are all the rage. Or so I heard; I only use YouTube to watch Mizuho Lin sing and my accountant cast pods.

Also, whilst we’re on the subject of Mel Brooks’ usual suspects, I have recently discovered that Madeline Khan was all that.

I mean, my early exposure to her would probably have been Blazing Saddles, where the blonde look really didn’t work for her, and Oh, Madeline on television, which she did when she was forty-one, which was to then-me old but to now-me young. I didn’t really like her voice when I was eleven or twelve either, but it has grown on me since.

Also, she was older than my mother, so that would be a definite deal breaker for an eighties kid. I am not so sure how that would be now, as women might be looking better later in life, or maybe I’m just later and life and think so. It would make for an awkward conversation with my boys, one that I will avoid for the nonce. Boys, given that your mother is the most beautiful woman in the world, what about Elizabeth Hurley who is sixty?

Still, back to the film we’re talking about. Or more related topics. When researching this film, I discovered Silent Movie which I had not heard of. It sounds like Steve Martin’s Bowfinger. I’m going to have to look for that one at garage sales. And, probably, have to order it someday when I’m feeling profligate and think about the film again–perhaps whilst reading this post in the future.

While researching the preceding paragraph, I discovered that Heather Graham and I were born in the same hospital, albeit a couple years apart. Huh. I will be sure to mention that the next time we see something with Heather Graham in it, probably License to Drive since I have boys coming of that age. Of course, I will act as though I always knew it as I always know everything about Milwaukee.

The end, he said, before he fell more into the Wikipediaverse and didn’t get anything of value at all done today.

On Sunday evening, my beautiful wife and my oldest son were out of the house for a church youth group event, so the youngest and I had an opportunity to watch a film. So I picked this one because the youngest is a good sport and will watch black and white moviews with his father. Also, Big Brother Alphabet says I should watch some Abbott and Costello.

In the film, “Buzz”–Abbott–and Stanley Livingston–Costello–work in a book store in New York when people come in looking for an out-of-print book with a map of Africa in it. Although they do not have the book, the people offer Costello (come on, I’m not going to call them by their character names because they’re not playing different characters–they’re playing Abbott and Costello) large sums of money to draw the map. Abbott catches on that there’s bigger money involved and inveigles them onto a safari whose purpose is ostensibly to capture wild animals, but in reality seeks diamonds. So it sets up several set pieces with African animals, bad guys, and cannibals.

The film comes from 1949, which means I would have seen it as a kid when it was a relatively fresh 30 years old instead of (shudder) 70 years old. My son watched it silently for a while, but toward the end he found some of the bits amusing and laugh-out-loud funny. So some of it endures. I was amused, too, but I was steeped on Abbott and Costello bits and movies growing up–enough that I prefered them to Laurel and Hardy.

Researching the film led me to some interesting tidbits. First, by the deep-dive research of looking at the credit card, I see that Shemp Howard played a role in the film. I didn’t recognize him, but that means this film is Abbott and Costello and a Stooge. So it was like a bonus.

Also, two of the bits in the book come when Costello, who has been played up as a great African hunter, tells exploits to two men he meets. One is Clyde Beatty and the other is Frank Buck–both actual celebrity animal collectors who played themselves. I have to wonder who amongst the audience in 1949 would have recognized them and gotten the joke before the moment when they reveal their real identities to Abbott and Costello. I mean, this is before television. I would have had a tough time picking Marlin Perkins out in a movie in 1980. Of course, when Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom came on, I often changed the channel. Which is why I can hear Perkins saying the title of the program but not much else about it.

At any rate, an amusing little film that you probably won’t find streaming anywhere even though I’ll bet it was on television plenty back when we only had limited options.