Tag Archives: Ray Bradbury Theater

Ray Bradbury Theater – The Handler (10/27/92)

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Ibradbury02‘m in the final stretch of RBT and I feel like Quint waiting in the water to board the rescue ship.  Viewing the series has often been torturous (but never tortuous; also, no tortoises); having the end in sight should be a relief but is causing some anxiety — like I’ll get to the last episode and someone will discover another season of lost episodes in their attic.

This episode does, at least, get off to a promising start as we see the always amusing but criminally under-used Michael J. Pollard.  He is the soul-proprietor [1] of a mortuary and small graveyard.  He is ringing the chapel-bell [2] and turns it up to 13 only to be busted by a kid outside who also has too much time on his hands.

Later that day, he shakes hands with a yokel who says he has a cold hand, must have just embalmed a frigid woman.  So he imagines the man dead.  A clerk in a store hassles him to speak up, so he imagines her dead.  Six minutes in, I’m imagining me dead.

rbthandler02Back at work, he puts on Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and starts talking to his clients. Pollard enjoys punking them before they are buried.  He bakes a gluttonous fat woman into a cake.  He injects black ink into the body of a racist.  He removes the head from a muscular man so he can have his head sewn onto it someday.  It’s not clear if that is intended to be a joke.

One of the stiffs turns out to have been merely pining for the fjords.  Because he heard Pollards confessions, he is killed.  That night — which is dark, as nights are wont to be, and stormy — shadowy figures come for Pollard.

The next morning, one of the yokels discovers blood on a tombstone and asks, “What kind of storm was that last night?”  Spoken without any humor or irony, it is just another example of why Bradbury should have outsourced the screenplays.  Pollard’s name is also scrawled on all of the tombstones in his cemetery.  One of the yokels makes the profoundly stupid statement, “He couldn’t possibly be buried under all these tombstones.”

rbthandler04“Couldn’t he?” says the kid.

I get that Bradbury was great stylist of the prose in a short story, but the man had a George Lucasian grasp of dialogue.  I keep telling myself that he was born in a different time, and wondering if maybe the small town America he grew up in was really accurately reflected in his stories.

 

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Ray Bradbury Theater – Some Live Like Lazarus (10/24/92)

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cover02aka The One So Bad It Took Me 2 Months to Post It (hereafter known as TOSBITM2MTPI).  I watched this episode late one night, and the idea of even fast-forwarding through it to refresh my memory and get some pictures was about as appealing as having my two front teeth knocked out.  Again.

We open up with an artsy feel, for no particular reason, with a handheld tracking shot approaching the porch of a small hotel.  We pass some lawn furniture, with one chair on its side.  Again, to no purpose that I can figure.

On the porch, the camera is addressed directly by Anna (60-year old, as the credits say), “Oh, there you are.  You want to hear about the murder, don’t you?”  It is never revealed who this person is.  Is it me, the viewer? Usually someone who rates a POV shot is actually somewhat important to the story.

As she continues talking, Roger (60-year old, as the credits say) pulls his car into the driveway.  At this point, she is in the present talking in the past tense about things that have not happened yet.  Which would have been OK — her voice-over carrying into the past — had they not cut back to her on the porch, mashing up the time periods.

She thinks back to when she first met Roger when they were 10 years old — 50 years ago.  We know this because the errant chair is now upright and ass-ready.  They are, however, the same chairs; so that was a damn fine investment.

Roger’s mother already has trouble walking and needs someone to steady her.  Either she was old before her time, or she lived to be 120 — no helpful age-labels for her character.  In fact, with an assist by some cagey camerwork, she is played by the same actress in every time period.  Actually, how does this old woman have a 10 year old son anyway?

We see them meeting again at 12, and again at 18 and so on.  Through the years, they grow older but never really change from their 10 year old selves.  Roger is consistently beaten down and dominated by his mother.  Year after year, Anna keeps hoping he’ll break free, and prays for the old woman to die.  This goes on, not just through few years, but for half a century.  Because women love wimpy men, and men love women who wish for their mother’s death.  This must be another Martian Chronicles adaptation because no earthlings I know think like that.

Finally, Roger attempts suicide at 22 to escape both of these crazy women.  Anna marries a co-worker.  38 years pass before they meet again.  Anna’s husband and Roger’s mother have both died.  He is finally free, but Anna tells him to go see the world before they hook up.

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis:  Lazarus.  I get it.  What I don’t get is is the “some live like” part.
  • Originally published in Playboy with the even more vague title “Very Late in the Evening” (1960).  Was this really what Playboy readers wanted?  The story of a momma’s boy and the 60-year old woman he finally almost hooks-up with?
  • Anna is a shuttlecocktease.
  • Bloody hell!  Is there anything that hasn’t already been thought of?

Ray Bradbury Theater – Downwind from Gettysburg (10/17/92)

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bradbury02We open with a small crew assembling the face and hair to a robot that is revealed to be a likeness of Abraham Lincoln.  This is quite an astounding feat of technology — no wait, it isn’t.  Disney had debuted their anamatronic Lincoln 30 years earlier at the 1964 World’s Fair.

The short story was first published in Playboy in 1969, so this was old technology even by that time.  Frankly, Playboy  would have been better advised devoting their robot stories to someone like Anita from Humans or Ava from Ex Machina.  Or Valerie 23.

Sitting in a huge chair similar to the uncomfortable one in the Lincoln Memorial, Lincoln begins reciting the Gettysburg address.  Disney’s earlier model could even stand up, but this marvel of technology just sits there like an animatronic FDR.  Apparently this is to be a huge media rbtdownwind06event in an auditorium, and covered live by the network; or at least the Weekly Shopper.

Chief Engineer Bayes has wisely embargoed any view of Abe.  In reality, this ought to be about as ground-breaking as someone unveiling the creation of  Windows 95 today.

Bayes tells his assistant Phipps that his great-grandfather was actually on the battlefield to hear the speech.  Phipps says, “He must have been a young boy.”  Bayes confirms that the boy was 9 years old.  OK, Bayes is 52, and the speech was given 129 years ago.  That means the average age at which the women in this family gave birth was about 28.  I was hoping for some embarrassing mathematical anomaly.  I guess 28 is slightly high for the times, but not crazy.  But I digress.

rbtdownwind16While the crowd is being seated for this extravaganza, a man rushes in the entrance, asks where the restroom is and heads straight for the head.  He changes into 19th century clothing and affixes a fake mustache, wisely, beneath his nose.

As the lights come up, Robo-Lincoln begins reciting the Gettysburg Address.  In the wings, the mustached man loads a Derringer.  In a repeat of history — as any public school graduate can tell you — Lincoln is once again assassinated during the Gettysburg Address.  He must have had a critical circuit hit as he slumps over and his words whir to a stop.

This time the assassin does not make a dramatic getaway.  Phipps and the security team hustle him back into the empty auditorium as Lincoln lies slumped to the side of his chair, oil dripping from his mouth.  The shooter says his name is Norman Llewellyn Booth, rbtdownwind13although the invitation does not say Booth.  Phipps brings in Booth’s forged invitation, saying that is how he got in.  Well, no, actually he got in be claiming he needed to go to the bathroom, but that wouldn’t look good in the history books.

Why did he do it?  We are given several options:  1) Booth wants the fame that will come from being arrested, 2) the permanence and perfection of machines which he can never achieve infuriates him, and 3) Booth / Lincoln . . . it was just destiny, too good to pass up.  He envisions the news scrolling across Times Square: “Booth Shoots Lincoln . . . again!”  or 20 years later, being posted to Salon.com:  “Tea Partier shoots Robot-American.”

When the police arrive, Bayes refuses to allow Booth the notoriety he craves — he will not press charges.  He tells Booth, “This assassination never happened.  You can tell your rbtdownwind23story, but we will deny it — you were never here.  No shot, no gun, no computer data processor assassination, no mob.”  Well, except for the shot, the gun and the assassination witnessed by the mob in the audience.

Bayes is quite happy at denying Booth his fame and infamy.  He grabs Booth by his snazzy vest and tells him that he ever dares tell anyone what occurred that night (presumably other than the audience, crew, security team and coupon clippers), he will do something to Booth “so terrible that he will wish he had never been born.”  Bayes throws him out a side exit where no one is waiting for him.

The anachronism of the robot sinks the entire production.  No one would care about this event — the robot or the shooting.  Also, the make-up is abysmal, sometimes looking like leftover scraps from Planet of the Apes. The beard — completely wrong.

rbtdownwind25Sadly some good points are lost among the carnage.  Howard Hesseman (Bayes) and Robert Joy (Booth) are both excellent.  This is probably one of the earliest shows to show fame-seeking as a motive.  The idea of throwing him out to an empty street is great, but the speech leading up to it was horribly cliched.

If Bayes wanted to make an effective threat, he should have threatened to break his leg, just as John Wilkes Booth had done.

Rating:  Stay upwind from Downwind from Gettysburg.

Post-Post:

  • Robert Joy (Booth) played another feckless assassin in the excellent but largely forgotten historical movie Ragtime.  Harry Thaw was famous only for shooting Stanford White.  White was famous for being shot by Harry Thaw.  OK, both had other accomplishments, but nobody cares now, and that’s not going to change as more time passes.
  • Sady, no references to Hot Rod Lincoln.

Ray Bradbury Theater – Silent Towns (10/10/92)

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We open on a rocky red landscape but we know this is Mars because there are blue skies and this is Ray Bradbury Theater.  The barren Martian desert gives way to a small frontier town.  It has been deserted, and we know this because a lone newspaper sheet is blowing down the street.

The camera stops at the Mars Irrigation Board.  Employee Walter Grip is calling in to complain that no one has come to relieve him in 2 weeks.  He tells the answering machine he’s coming in to town to rip somebody a new one.  We see him hustling through sewers and treatment plants and up ladders, finally exiting on the side of a red mountain.  Whether this is a real location or a model, it is one of the most impressive things seen in this series.

Image 021In a car that seems to be made from corrugated Quonset hut surplus metal, he tears through some rugged terrain to get to the town.  The art direction on this episode really is a step up.  Along the way, he notices that, like NASA, there is not a single rocket left at the base.

Seeing the town completely empty and with newspapers frequently blowing by, he pulls over to the curb. Getting out, he notices a sign that says MARS EVACUATION DEADLINE SET, and decides he needs a drink.  He has quite a few and begins a conversation with himself like Nicholson in The Shining, about how beautiful his girl Clara is.  Although, to be fair, Nicholson did not have such a conversation about Shelley Duvall.

Image 024After making himself a salami sandwich with meat that has been sitting out for God knows how long, he goes back out into the street, where the newspapers continue to blow by.  Wouldn’t they all eventually be on the other side of town?  They are not a renewable eyesore like tumbleweeds.

Trudging past some Mars tract housing, he hears a phone ringing.  By the time he gets to it, it is dead.  He hears another phone down the street, several houses down.  He breaks a window to get in, but again just misses the connection.  Apparently star-69 is not a thing on Mars; but phones that can be heard a quarter-mile away are huge.  A few more houses down, another call.  It is a recorded message about the last rocket leaving Mars.  I wonder if the politicians would have carved out an exemption for this in the Do Not Call Registry?  Sure, it would save lives, but there’s no real opportunity for graft.

Grip decides to be proactive and goes to some sort of station where he is able to scroll through the names and numbers of all of the rImage 037esidents.  It sounds much more daunting than it really is — the phone numbers on the screen appear to only have 3 digits.

He is desperate to find his beautiful girlfriend Clara, but strangely never seems to call her number.  He gives up before he is out of the A’s and thinks to himself, “Where would Clara go?  Where would she be?” Despite all his big talk about how beautiful she is, his bright idea is to begin calling beauty salons.

He gets several recorded messages — just to let patrons know the shop will be closed. You know, what with the planet being evacuated.  However, he does miraculously reach a live woman, the last one on Mars.

The other big face on Mars.

The woman is thrilled to hear him. He is happy to hear that she is named Genevieve because all Genevieves are hot.  Also Heathers — you could look it up.  Walter immediately forgets Clara and sets out on the 900 mile journey to meet Genevieve.

He leaps from the car and enters the Martian Mystery Beauty Salon.  He calls for Genevieve and . . . well, apparently the hot-Genevieve rule only applies on earth.  It is interesting that they didn’t make her grotesque or morbidly obese, but she would definitely be a disappointment to any blind date.

She leads him to a cafe where she has set up a little dinner for two, although I suspect she was having a dinner for 2 every night before she met him.  She asks him to wait, and she returns a few minutes later wearing a wedding gown.

Gripp, not one to settle, high-tails it back to his Quonset car and speeds back home leaving her standing in the street in her wedding gown.

Post-Post:

  • An unusually cruel story from Bradbury who is usually so naïve and goodhearted that it’s like he was born in another century.  I mean millennium.  I mean . . .aw crap.
  • Kudos for the local newspaper being called The Martian Chronicle.
  • Walter Gripp also gets a mention in short story The Long Years, but oddly, no connection is made to his actions here.

Ray Bradbury Theater – Sun and Shadow (10/03/92)

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a/k/a Sun and Shaddow, as the DVD menu spells it.

We open on a Mexican coastal town.  In a casa over-looking the village square, a woman says, “Breakfast, husband.  And son of the father who is my husband.” Is that the way Mexican women talk?  I had to play it three times to make sense of it.

Ricardo, the father of the son whose mother is his wife is looking from the balcony at the beautiful day.  Suddenly several vans and a Porsche roll into the square and a Hollywood film crew leaps from the vehicles, scattering to their positions.  There is the bumbling rbtsunandshadow03crew, the hot model, and the arrogant director.  So I guess, some stereotypes are alright.

Ricardo is happy with none of this as they have chosen his stairway for the location, and lured his son Tomas to the street to watch the excitement.  The director realizes what is happening and offers Ricardo a few Pesos to use his home.  Ricardo still insists that he move on.  The director, not used to a principled man says, “What?  Move my crew?  All this equipment?  Now?”  Mind you, this entire set-up occurred in the time it took Ricardo to walk down a flight of stairs.

So they move one street over as Ricardo continues to tell off the director for thinking of his people as cardboard cutouts, and his house as a prop.  Once they start filming, Tomas is in the way, so they give him a serape, a sombrero and tell him not to smile as the camera pans across him.  Ricardo shows up again, angry that his son his being used as a prop and orders him home.  Tomas takes off, but with the American dollars still in his pocket, and still wearing the serape and hat, I notice.

The crew starts filming again, this time at the home of Ricardo’s neighbor Jorge who seems to have no problem with it.  Like a classic American do-gooder, Ricardo feels he must explain to Jorge that he is too stupid to understand what is going on.

rbtsunandshadow06The producer of the commercial arrives.  Ricardo puts on a little show for everyone asking what he can do to look more Mexican for their clown show (which he isn’t in, anyway) — sweat a little more?  Grow his hair a little longer?  Tear a hole in his shirt?  He is indignant that his people are being exploited and is adamant in being a role-model for the dignity of his people in the face of these interlopers.

So he walks into the shot and drops his pants.

The production moves to the beach to get away from this nut, but he has already proclaimed the sky as his, so this seems unlikely to work.  The producer decides to “try harder” to buy him off.  Reflecting the low budget of the series, his open wallet briefly exposes a fan of singles.

A policeman finally arrives, and the director illustrates the problem.  As he starts shooting, Ricardo walks into the shot followed by a crowd of his neighbors, stands between the girls (a second has mysteriously become part of the commercial), and drops his pants again.

Again with the speeches, he says that as long as there is one man like him in ten thousand in every city, things will be good.  Without him, chaos.  Even Tomas gives back the money he was paid.  Once again, a single is prominent on top of the fold. They couldn’t have spared a Benjamin?   Just for the outer note?

rbtsunandshadow09There could have been something here, but it was all so simplistic.  The director did not ask permission to use the location — that was wrong.  Ricardo would not take money to allow the location to be use — entirely his decision.  But then he sabotages the production at his neighbor’s house, and on the beach.  What was his point?  They were just looking for a location, no one was being mocked.  Even dressing up Tomas was just throwing the kid a bone.

Ricardo is clearly an intelligent man, but he is reacting like an ancient tribesman who thinks a photograph is going to steal his soul.  Fine, he drove the production out of town instead of them working locally, spreading around a few dollars, bringing a little excitement to the village, probably throwing a kick-ass party that night, and everyone sharing a little weed.  Nice work.  Hey, Mexico, you have those fascistic, know-it-all, do-gooders, too?

rbtsunandshadow08Other than the misguided actions of Ricardo, there were some good points to the episode.  The director was suitably arrogant, British and pony-tailed.  The locations, ironically, were interesting.  And Gregory Sierra, despite his character’s baffling philosophy, was excellent.  He has nothing on IMDb this century — I hope it’s because he just retired on a pile of money, because he was always a great actor.

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Meh.