At a coroner’s inquest, 29 year old John Crane, is recalling the first time he went away without his mother . . .
Mom, laughing: You call this packing? You really are hopeless.
John: Maybe it’s my artistic temperament. Remember how mad that expression used to make dad?
William Shatner is playing this somewhat effeminately. Are they trying to say something here? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
He laments that his sister’s sick kid will prevent his mother from joining him on a vacation to Vermont. He fixes a cocktail with the ice they have “left out from last night.” He assures her she is not old as he puts his arms around her, nuzzles and kisses her neck. Not that there’s . . . OK this is a little creepy. [1]
John puts on his big-boy pants and goes to Vermont where Mom will join him later. On his 3rd day there, he meets Lottie in the gift shop. He asks her for “3 or 4 rolls” of film. This is the flimsiest of nit-picks, but why would it be scripted for him to ask for 3 or 4 rolls of film? It’s not like asking the butcher for about a pound of turkey. Rolls of film are clearly discrete, easily countable items. Also, what is film?
She also shows him some slides of the area. [2] Shots of a near-by waterfall catch his eye. Lottie offers to take him to the location so he can take his own pictures. They take the long hike there and John mentions it was rough on his bad leg which was damaged by polio when he was a child. Lottie likes the spot because it is so beautiful; not like war-time Germany where she grew up.
John says he can’t wait for Lottie to meet his mother who will be coming soon. He describes her as “so young and gay and pretty” — his mother, not Lottie. They are having a great time, but John says he must get back to his room. His mother calls him every night at 9:00.
The next night, Lottie and John are in the hotel dining room. It has closed, but she is asking him to dance with her. He uses the old I-had-polio excuse which that buttinski Jonas Salk ruined for all guys. She convinces him to try, and it is a pretty nice moment. He quickly but effortlessly becomes more agile, and they smoothly move closer together as they dance. Then they even kiss.
They go back out to the waterfall and John begins talking about marriage. He says he has never been in love like this before. Things are heating up when suddenly he realizes he missed his mother’s nightly call 2 hours ago. He panics, “I’ve missed Claire’s call!” He wants to bolt back to his room, but Lottie’s lips convince him to stay.
He does end up returning to his room . . . alone. He grabs the phone, but is surprised when his mother walks into the room. He throws his arms around her. “Claire, darling! What a wonderful surprise!”
The next morning at breakfast, his mother says, “I’ll have to thank Miss Rank (Lottie) for keeping you amused until I got here.” While John goes to the train station to get the rest of his mother’s luggage, Mom goes to check out Lottie in the gift shop. Mom is an undercover shopper and says she is looking for a gift for a man. She dismisses Lottie’s first suggestion as gaudy. Then she nails her for not yet being a citizen, and hints she might try to trap a man to fast-track citizenship. “That’s the way most European girls manage it, isn’t it?” She comments on the lack of anything tasteful in the shop and leaves. [3]
Left to Right: Lottie, worlds biggest cash register, John
John and his mother are later waiting for Lottie in the dining room. There is tension when Lottie sees that the crabby old woman from the shop is John’s mother. Mom gives a non-apology and thanks Lottie for looking after John until she arrived. Mom says she won’t get in the way of the young couple. It seems misplayed that this what finally causes Lottie to leave. Even though it was passive-aggressive bullshit, it was actually the most decent thing Mom said since she arrived. Naturally, John stays with his mother rather than going after Lottie.
Lottie and John go back to the waterfall that evening. He accuses her, “You don’t like my mother, do you?” She neither hems nor haws, “No.” John is baffled how Lottie could not love his dear mother. She says, “How little you know about women, John.” She says she understands the situation now, and starts naming off the issues:
- The telephone calls every night.
- The number of times her name is used in conversation.
- The fact that she joined you here.
- That you still live with her.
- “When I saw you together, I knew there was no chance for me.”
She doesn’t mention the creepy idea of him calling his mother Claire (or darling). There is another little misstep when money is introduced in the conversation. Lottie learns that all the family assets are in Mom’s name. She says John will never be free until she dies and he inherits the loot. I get that this is to put the idea of killing Mom on the table, but bringing up money just undermines the the whole Buster Bluth dynamic.
A couple of nice scenes follow. John is literally sitting at his mother’s feet as she continues passively-aggressively chewing the scenery. It really is good, cringe-worthy stuff. She even gets to use Lottie’s same line to John, “How little you know of women!” He then meets Lottie later in the dining room. She insists that John tell Mom immediately of their marriage plans. She even suggests they do it together at the waterfall. John says in narration that he knew what Lottie had in mind, but it seems like a non-sequitur.
The three of them arrive at the waterfall. Lottie and Mom go to the edge to look at it. Seeing the two women leaning over the edge, John limps over and gives one of them a push (really more of a hammy punch in the back). The shot that follows is so brutally comic that it is surprising it made it onto TV. We see a lengthy shot of a body falling down the cliff, hitting every rock on the way down like Homer Simpson at Springfield Gorge. There is an effort at suspense as the two women were dressed in white, similar to each other. Not, however, similar to the dummy that went over the cliff wearing a darker top. But c’mon, this is AHP; who do you think it’s going to be?
We return to the coroner’s inquest where the death is ruled an accident. John seems a little dazed as he asks his mother, “Can we go home now?” He seems debilitated, and not just in the leg.
Jessie Royce Landis (Mom) was so perfect that you wonder if she was acting. The script and her delivery were just a feast of attitude and elbows. With Shatner, as you would expect, it is an affected performance. But is it due to his youth (6 years pre Star Trek)? Or playing a momma’s-boy? Or just his usual Shatnerisms? It felt a little over-played, especially in the first scene. Still, it worked for me.
More great stuff from AHP.
Other Stuff:
- [1] They made sure to maximize the CQ (Creepiness Quotient) by casting an actress who was 35 years older than Shatner. The usual mother-son spread in Hollywood is about 5-10 years. In North by Northwest, she played Cary Grant’s mother despite being only 7 years older.
- [2] I never got the appeal of slides. You need to buy equipment to view them. Instead of a small colorful photo, you get a washed-out blown-up version tainted by the color of whatever wall you point it at (unless you buy yet more equipment). They are a pain to load into the viewer each time (unless you buy much, much more equipment). Correction, I don’t get the appeal to the customer. That’s why this guy is the best.
- [3] John never tells his mother that Lottie works in the gift shop. But I guess not every conversation is on-screen.
- AHP Deathwatch: The Shat — still with us, baby! Sadly, Gia Scala (Lottie) OD’d at age 38.
- Title Analysis: No idea, so as always, I went to bare*bonez e-zine for their great source material and production details.
I
“It’s hard to believe that termites cost millions of dollars every year by their devastation of telephone and telegraph poles in the United States. This is the central research laboratory of the Continental Telephone Company. Scientists are employed by this firm to develop chemical preservatives for telephone poles in defense against woodpeckers, carpenter ants, and termites.”
Clausen tells him Pat’s father, Dr. Hastings, mans the termite research outpost in Peru. He had asked for an electronics expert to be sent down. The last “chemical shipment” that came from him was accompanied by moldy, unreadable notes. Pat ran an analysis on the solution, assuming it was a new insecticide.
They arrive at the outpost, which is a tent in the jungle. They immediately find the generator has been stripped for parts. Pat, quite the detective, notices that Dr. Hastings had not changed the calendar in 22 days; but maybe he just had the hots for Miss October. [4] Not only that, she knows her father had 3 pairs of glasses and all 3 are there in the tent.
They notice a tunnel that was not in Dr. Hastings’ notes and conclude that the termites swarmed the area to create it. Pat grimaces as she realizes her father was “eaten alive by termites.” Bill says, “It must have happened while he was asleep” (i.e. he was sleeping like a log). He further concludes the termites were attracted by the Doctor’s morning wood from dreaming about Bettie Page, but is too much of a gentleman to say so.