No one… absolutely no one mangles the English Language more than good old working class Archie Bunker. It’s a fine art to be able to take an ordinary word, put it through the Bunker brain rinse cycle and see what comes out the other end… a faint reference to the actual word yet used in just the right place in the conversation!
A few wrecked words in the car crash that is Archie Bunker’s vocabulary! or Archie Bunkerisms!
SEASON ONE
1) Archie asks “what’s that smell” Gloria tells him that her friend Robin is burning incense. “It smells like a house of ill–refute.”
2)“They want people like your mother on the jury because they know she doesn’t have anypre-conscrewedideas”
3) “It’s a well known fact that capital punishment is adetergentto crime!”
4) Mike says, “It’s just pelvic construction women are built differently” Archie answers, “Oh please don’t draw me no diaphragms“
5) “There’s wide open sex all over the place, but that’s okay that’s just your submissive society!”
6) Talking about rioting in California. “Just look at that, bricks and bottles. It’s a regular insuruption.”
7) “Back in my day we learned to keep things in their proper suspective.”
8) “You and that bleeding heart Reverend Fletcher sittin’ up there in that ivory shower.”
9) “Dear Mr. President, your Honor, Sir. As one of your faithful constituionals.”
10) Mike and Archie argue, “It’s not irreverent to the conversation.” Mike corrects him ‘irrelevant” Archie says “What ever, it’s not German to the conversation.”
11) “Come on straighten this place up. Do you want people to think you live in a pig’s eye.”
12) “You have to admit that some of those foreign films are sheer porna-graphy”
13) ‘You two may have come from monkeys and bamboons...”
14) “You think I was Lazarus rising up from the bed.”
15) “… And I don’t need no change from the humdrum morning fare you just immunerated”
16) Talking to Gloria-“It ain’t enough that he’s a pinko and an Atheist, you’re gonna turn him from a man into a morphadite” She asks “what’s a Morphadite?” And Archie’s insight comes spilling forth… “A freak with a little bit of each… and not enough of neither!”
17) Gloria stirs things up in the house about Women’s Lib. Archie responds “Edith are you listening to this over here? A dreaded disease is infilterating our home, and your daughter’s bringing it in here!”
18) “I’ll tell you the basical problem with your drop outs today is that they aint got no gratitude. What they got here is the greatest country in the world, the highest standard of living and the grossest national product.”
19) “Gee Edith I haven’t had a dollar cigar…” Edith interrupts, “You never had a dollar cigar” “That’s right! Gee I don’t know who sent them, there’s no name on the card. I guess who ever sent them wants to remain “unanimous… These cigars are the nectarines of the gods!”
20) Mike is arguing with Gloria who has left the house. He says to Archie, “What do you want, I mean? aren’t we on the same side. Haven’t you told me that a man’s home is his castle, and he gets to be the king in it. Archie tells him, “And when you got a home of your own you’ll be king!… Meantime this is my house and I”m the king… and the princess in this story is upstairs. And you’re the lowly pheasant with the job of keeping her here!”
Joey at the Drive In here… thinking it would be such a nice treat to offer up a brief yet deliciously fun post from the snack bar. What better way to enjoy an intermission between my long winded writing than to just get to the point and tickle your vintage TV taste buds with a little amuse-bouche!
TEN TASTY TELEVISION TRIVIA TID BITS TO TANTALIZE!
1) Lt.Columbo (Peter Falk) loves loves loves chili and he's very fond of health cookies!
2) ChiefIronside (Raymond Burr) eats chili and they all like rum crunchy ice cream
3) The Fugitive’s Richard Kimble (David Janssen) only drinks black coffee… he's usually on the run
4) The Golden Girls Dorothy Blanche, Rose and Sophia eat cheesecake.
5) Carroll O’ Connor is the inimitableArchie Bunker who likes either chicken croquettes or a tuna sandwich with an orange on the side and a Twinkie for desert!… in his lunch box. And lovable Edith (Jean Stapleton) buys him Hhm hhm hhm ( Cling peaches) in heavy syrup when they’re on sale or serves up rice pudding with a drop of milk on top unless he doesn't ask for it. Dingbat!!!! And of course there's always beer…
6) Jim Rockford (James Garner) eats Tacos for breakfast… with no apologies!
7) Andy and Opie enjoy anything Aunt Bee cooks as long as it isn't those kerosene cucumber pickles. from The Andy Griffith Show
8) Beaver Cleaver will just not eat brussels sprouts but then again I think I'm the only one who loves them…
9) Harry Morgan as Officer Bill Gannon concocts the weirdest food combinations ever. Especially his recipe for BBQ sauce the secret ingredient is…- from Dragnet
10) The sublime chemistry of the Odd Couple’sOscar Madison (Jack Klugman) eats anything with ketchup on it, and Felix Unger (Tony Randall) doesn't like pits pits pits in his juice juice juice… uh oh!
"MeTV Remembers the M*A*S*H Finale" Exclusive Broadcast Event With Series Cast and Creators, Airing on Sunday, May 3
In honor of MeTV’s tribute to M*A*S*H here’s Hawkeye crying a river of liver!
And why say…. as long as we’re on the snacking subject if you’ve got any great additions to add, drop by The Last Drive In’s snack bar and let me know.
Your Everlovin’ Joey (MonsterGirl) saying hope you always enjoy the show!
I have to admit I came sort of late to the Star Trek fanaticism – quietly then ravenously I devoured every episode until the first and original series was done. I came away with a lot of feelings about Roddenberry’s vision and the incredible collection of actors who inhabited that ‘space’… But one thing became a constant for me. While I have always been a fan of Leonard Nimoy in general, his Mr Spock became one of my most beloved favorite characters of a television series. He possessed a certain sexy nerdiness, with integrity and courage that made him an iconic figure. That’s because Nimoy knew how to manifest that special spirit- part grace part intellect. We’ll miss you so much, but now it’s time for you to boldly go where no man’s gone before in a different realm and live long and prosper there. With Love -Joey
BARNEY IS AT IT AGAIN… TEACHING HIMSELF THE ANCIENT ART OF KARATE!
Barney–“You know where most of the karate moves come from?” Andy- “No” Barney- “From Animals"¦”{"¦} “Guess what animal this is, ready- What is it?” Andy- “I don't know” Barney-“Guess” Andy- “A worm?” Barney-“Andy” (Sighs) Andy-“Well it was wiggly” Barney-“Andy… this is a deadly animal, vicious"¦ a killer!” Andy-“A mad worm?”
Stay clear of wiggly mad worms now, ya hear! Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl
Miriam Hopkins has a luminous, quiet dreamy beauty.
Born in Savannah Georgia Oct. 18th, 1902 she died Oct 9, 1972-a chorus girl in New York City at the age of 20 she made her first motion picture after signing with Paramount Pictures called Fast and Loose (1930).
In 1931, she raised some eyebrows in 1931’s horror thriller Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde directed by Rouben Mamoulian.
InDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931),Miriam Hopkins portrayed the character Ivy Pearson, a prostitute who becomes mesmerized by Jekyll and Hyde a tale of sexuality in revolt. Though many of her scenes were cut from the film she still managed to get rave reviews for the mere 5 minutes she spent on the screen.
Frederick March walked away with the Oscar for Best Leading Man in that horror gem. Miriam Hopkins had been up for the part of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Windbeing that she was an authentic Southern lady, but the part… of course went to Vivien Leigh… “As God as my witness, they’re not going to lick me”
Miriam would make three pictures with Ernst Lubitsch,The Smiling Lieutenant 1931, Trouble in Paradise 1932, and Design for Living 1933.Design for Living is my favorite!
William Wylerrevising the film release of The Children’s Hour 1961, had been based on his original theatrical presentation with Hopkin’s in what was called These Three (1936). In the remake, she plays Aunt Lily Mortar to Shirley MacLaine’s troubled Martha, stepping into the role that Hopkins once portrayed.
IMDb trivia: William Wyler cut several scenes hinting at Martha’s homosexuality for fear of not receiving the seal of approval from the Motion Picture Production Code. At the time, any story about homosexuality was forbidden by the production code. Â
Directed by William Wyler, cinematography by Franz Planer(Criss Cross 1949, Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1961) working with Wyler they used effective mood changes with his lighting, creating an often provocative atmosphere. The film showcases some truly great performances by the entire cast, Audrey Hepburn,Shirley MacLaine, and James Garner (who sadly passed away on July 19th of this year.) Including Veronica Cartwright and Fay Bainter. Miriam Hopkins mixes a sad yet infuriating empathy toward her flighty judgmental and often elusive tie to the theatre she harkens back to. She is incapable of being there for her tormented niece.
The story concerns the struggle of two young and independent women trying to make a go of it by running a private boarding school for adolescent girls. The intrusion of a lie, ultimately founded on a malicious rumor concocted by the spoiled young niece Mary Tilford (Karen Balkin) begins to spread like deadly poison that Karen (Hepburn) and Martha (Maclean) are having a lesbian relationship. And the lie proceeds to ruin Karen’s engagement to Joe, worried parents flood to the school to pull out their children at risk of being exposed to that ‘love that dare not speak its name!’ and basically causes the ruination of Karen and Martha’s dream.
Whether the idea is true or not, the wake of the devastation of all the lives involved leads to poetic & unfortunate tragedy.
Martha and Karen's quite independent business relationship and personal friendship seemed to challenge very conventional standards of a woman's role, creating an uncomfortable pall over the town, the school, and the women involved in the scandal, and we sense this dis-ease on film. This all seems to feed the accessibility of suspicion when Mary makes her accusation, fueled by things she’s overheard Aunt Lily recklessly say about Martha.
Mrs. Lily Mortar–“Friendship between women, yes. But not this insane devotion! Why, it’s unnatural. Just as unnatural as can be.”
Mrs. Lily Mortar:Any day that he’s in the house is a bad day. You can’t stand them being together and you’re taking out on me. You’ve always had a jealous, possessive nature even as a child. If you had a friend, you’d be upset if she liked anybody else. And that’s what’s happening now. And it’s unnatural. It’s just as unnatural as it can be.
Miriam Hopkins is an added unpleasant moral eccentric and parasite who feeds off Karen and her niece Martha who have always had an apparently strained relationship because she’s money-grubbing, spineless, and a user right from the beginning.
Miriam Hopkin’s Aunt Lily glides through the film like narcissus’ secretary waiting for that great part that is never coming. Supposedly on tour with a drama company, or just avoiding the scandal, when she could have cleared the women’s reputations and saved the school from being shut down.
At times’s she histrionic, over-theatrical, melodramatic, and a relic of bygone days. Like an obsolete thespian Harpy who lingers around the house, tormenting poor Martha who is struggling with her own inner demons that Aunt Lily seems all too well to recognize.
Aunt Lily trying to stir up dramaturgical dust while teaching her pupil’s elocution, shows herself to be out of fashion, a bit of an outcast, and as dried up as the dead flowers, the young conniving and at times socio-pathic Mary steals from the garbage to give to Lily as a ruse for being late to class.
Aunt Lily is needful, maneuvering, and scheming as she insinuates herself into the lives of Karen (Audrey Hepburn) and her niece Martha (Shirley MacLaine) A nonstop know it all"¦ with a showy flare for dramatics.
At the school, Aunt Lily teaches the girl elocution lessons, music, and theatre which is perfect for her narcissistic compulsion to inflate her own ego while pushing her highfalutin ideas of breeding “Breeding is everything”. Lily is materialistic, money hungry, and will use Martha for whatever she can get out of her.
After Lily accuses Martha's relationship with Karen as being "˜unnatural' And how her mood changes whenever Joe, Karen’s fiance (James Garner) is in the house. Martha throws her out. Paying her off so she'll stay away. Hopkins does a truly perfect job of being the parasitic opportunist who offers nothing but grief.
I loved Miriam Hopkins as the gutsy Mrs. Shipton -‘ The Duchess’ in The Outcasts of Poker Flats 1952.
Until 1970 when like most great screen sirens, who seemed to inevitably get handed that part of Grande Dame Guignol caricature of the fading Hollywood star. Hopkin’s last film was the brutally disturbing Strange Intruder in 1970. She playing the recluse Katharine Parker, who is befriended by a psychopathic woman hater, then terrorized by him- John David Garfield (Yes son of the great John Garfield). Gale Sondergaard plays her companion Leslie who staunchly remains at her side to no avail.
WhileMiriam Hopkinswho played Martha in the original filmThese Three (1936) agreed to play the part of Martha’s Aunt Lily, Merle Oberon, who played Karen in the original film, turned down the part of Mrs. Tilford.
Mr. Happy… Bosley Crowther once again fangs the performances of The Children’s Hour with his serpentine wit. Published in The New York Times review March 15th, 1962.
“But here it is, fidgeting and fuming, like some dotty old doll in bombazine with her mouth sagging open in shocked amazement at the batedly whispered hint that a couple of female schoolteachers could be attached to each other by an “unnatural” love.
If you remember the stage play, that was its delicate point, and it was handled even then with a degree of reticence that was a little behind the sophistication of the times. (Of course, the film made from the stage play in 1936 and called “These Three” avoided that dark hint altogether; it went for scandal down a commoner avenue.)
But here in this new film version, directed and produced by the same William Wyler who directed the precautionary “These Three,” the hint is intruded with such astonishment and it is made to seem such a shattering thing (even without evidence to support it) that it becomes socially absurd. It is incredable that educated people living in an urban American community today would react as violently and cruelly to a questionable innuendo as they are made to do in this film.
And that is not the only incredible thing in it. More incredible is its assumption of human credulity. It asks us to believe that the parents of all twenty pupils in a private school for girls would yank them out in a matter of hours on the slanderously spread advice of the grandmother of one of the pupils that two young teachers in the school were “unnatural.”
It asks us to believe the grandmother would have been convinced of this by what she hears from her 12-year-old granddaughter, who is a dubious little darling at best. And, most provokingly, it asks us to imagine that an American court of law would not protect the innocent victims of such a slander when all the evidence it had to go upon was the word of two children and the failure of a key witness to appear.
In short, there are several glaring holes in the fabric of the plot, and obviously Miss Hellman, who did the adaptation, and John Michael Hayes, who wrote the script, knew they were there, for they have plainly sidestepped the biggest of them. They have not let us know what the youngster whispered to the grandmother that made her hoot with startled indignation and go rushing to the telephone. Was it something that a 12-year-old girl could have conceivably made up out of her imagination (which is what she was doing in this scene)?
And they have not let us into the courtroom where the critical suit for slander was tried. They have only reported the trial and the verdict in one quickly tossed off line.
So this drama that was supposed to be so novel and daring because of its muted theme is really quite unrealistic and scandalous in a prim and priggish way. What’s more, it is not too well acted, except by Audrey Hepburn in the role of the younger of the school teachers. She gives the impression of being sensitive and pure.
Shirley MacLaine as the older school teacher, the one who eventually admits in a final scene with her companion that she did have a yen for her, inclines to be too kittenish in some scenes and do too much vocal hand-wringing toward the end.
“I was born a character actor. I was never really a leading man type.” –Burgess Meredith
WHAT A CHARACTER! BLOGATHON 2014
It’s here again! The most fabulous blogathon honoring those unsung stars that add that certain singular glimmer to either the cinematic sphere or the small screen sky–The character actors we’ve grown to love and follow adoringly. Thanks so much to Aurora at Once Upon A Screen, Outspoken & Freckled, and Paula’s Cinema Club for hosting such a marvelous tribute once again!
This post’s title comes from the opening narrative for Rod Serling’s favorite Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough At Last.” ‘Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers’ From Season 1 episode 8 which aired on November 20th, 1959.
Directed by John Brahm, “Time Enough At Last” tells the story of a little bespectacled bibliophile bank teller named Henry Bemis, a bookworm, a slave to the iron-fisted hand of time and all its dreary inescapable obligatory scars and yearnings.
Browbeaten by his wife, boss, and even the public at large who see him as an outcast because of his ravenous appetite to read books! Henry can’t even sneak away to read a newspaper during work hours. He’s forced to resort to studying the labels on condiment bottles. She won’t even let him read the ketchup. His harpy of a wife Helen ( Jacqueline deWit) even blackens in the lines of his books at home, calling it “doggerel“– One day as fate would have it, he steals away to the basement vault of the bank to catch up on his beloved preoccupation, when –as many Twilight Zone episodes had been infused with a dose of Rod Serling’s nihilism (as much as there is his hopeful message), the feared 50’s bomb annihilates our vision of the world that was swarming just a few moments before. Suddenly poor Henry seems to be the last man on earth. But wait… perhaps not poor Henry.
As he stumbles through the debris and carefully placed set pieces– the remnants of man’s destructive force, Henry comes upon the city’s public library filled with BOOKS!!! Glorious books…
While he must struggle against the approaching loneliness of the bleak future ahead, he begins to see the possibility of a new world where he could dream, and wander through so many scrawled worlds. Already an outsider he could finally live a life free to be as his boss rebuked him, a “reader.’
Henry starts to amass various piles of selected readings. There was time now. Time enough, at last, to read every word on the written page without interruption, interference, or judgment.
Yet…fate once again waves her fickle finger via The Twilight Zone and leaves bewildered Henry without his much-needed glasses, now they have fallen on the great stone steps, crushed by Henry’s own feet. As with every role Meredith brings to life the character of Henry Bemis with so much mirth and pathos.
He’s always just a bit peculiar, idiosyncratic, eccentric, lyrical, salty, sometimes irascible, but always captivating and distinctive, His voice, his persona, his look, his style… Burgess Meredith could always play the Henry Bemises of the world and grab our hearts because he has that rare quality of being so damn genuine.
Let’s face it even when the prolific Burgess Meredithis playing a cackling penguin– nemesis to the caped crusader Batman or the devil himself (alias the dapper and eccentric Charles Chazen with Mortimer the canary and his black and white cat Jezebel in tow) in The Sentinel 1977 based on the novel by Jeffrey Konvitz and directed by Michael Winner–he’s lovable!
He always manages to just light me up. Ebullient, mischievous, and intellectually charming, a little impish, a dash of irresolute cynicism wavering between lyrical sentimentalism. He’s got this way of reaching in and grabbing the thinking person’s heart by the head and spinning it around in dazzling circles with his marvelously characteristic voice. A mellifluous tone was used often to narrate throughout his career. (I smile even at the simplest nostalgic memory like his work on television commercials, as a kid growing up in the 60s and early 70s I fondly remember his voice for Skippy Peanut Butter. Meredith has a solicitous tone and a whimsical, mirthful manner. Here’s a clip from a precious vintage commercial showcasing Meredith’s delightfully fleecy voice.
And his puckish demeanor hasn’t been missed considering he’s actually played Old Nick at least three times as I have counted. In The Sentinel 1977, The Twilight Zone and Torture Garden! While in FreddieFrancis' production, he is the more carnivalesque Dr. Diabolo–a facsimile of the devil given the severely theatrical make-up, goatee, and surrounding flames"¦ he is far more menacing in Michael Winner's 70s gem as the spiffy Charles Chazin.
And while I resist even the notion of redoing Ira Levin/William Castle and Roman Polanski’s masterpiece Rosemary’s Baby if, and I’m only saying if… I could envision anyone else playing alongside Ruth Gordon as the quirky and roguish Roman Castevet it could only be Burgess Meredith who could pull that off!
Also being a HUGE fan of Peter Falk’s inimitableColumbo– I ask why why WHY?! Was Burgess Meredith never cast as a sympathetic murderer for that relentless and lovable detective in the rumpled raincoat to pursue? Could you imagine the chemistry between these two marvelous actors?
Burgess Meredith all of 5′ 5″ tall was born in Cleveland Ohio in 1907. His father was a doctor, and his mother a Methodist revivalist. We lost him in 1997 at the age of 89. That’s when he took his “dirt nap…”the line and that memorable scene from Grumpier Old Men 1993that still makes me burst out laughing from the outlandish joy of it all!… because as Grandpa Gustafson (Meredith) tells John Gustafson (Jack Lemmon) about how he’s managed to live so long eating bacon, smoking and drinking his dinner–what’s the point…? “I just like that story!”
Burgess Meredith said himself, that he wasn’t born to be a leading man, yet somehow he always managed to create a magnetic draw toward any performance of his. As if where ever his presence in the story was, it had the same effect as looking in a side view mirror of the car “Objects are closer than they appear”–What I mean by that is how I relate his contribution becoming larger than the part might have been, had it been a different actor. Like the illusion of the mirrored reflection, he always grew larger in significance within the story–because his charisma can’t help but consume the space.
He took over the landscape and planted himself there like a little metaphysical essence, animating the narrative to a higher level of reality.
Meredith started out working with the wonderful Eva Le Gallienne joining her stage company in New York City in 1933. His first film role was that of Mio Romagna in playwright Maxwell Anderson’sWinterset 1936 where Meredith plays the son of an immigrant wrongfully executed for a crime he did not commit. He also joined the ranks of those in Hollywood who were named as “unfriendly witnesses’ by the House Un-American Activities Committee finding no work, being blacklisted in the 1950s. Â
During the 1960s Meredith found his way back in various television roles that gave us all a chance to see and hear his incredible spectrum of performances. One of my personal favorites, dramatically potent and vigorously absorbing was his portrayal of Duncan Kleist in the Naked Citytelevision series episode directed by Walter Grauman (Lady in A Cage 1964)Â Hold For Gloria Christmas.
The groundbreaking crime and human interest series NAKED CITY– cast Meredith as a 60s beat poet & derelict Dunan Kleist who is literally dying to leave the legacy of his words to a kindred spirit.
A powerful performance told through flashback sequences that recollect his murder as he storms through the gritty streets and alleyways of New York City a volatile alcoholic Greenwich Village poet trying to get back his precious manuscript of poems that were stolen as he bartered them away bit by bit for booze -he has bequeathed his work to the anonymous Gloria Christmas. The chemistry between Burgess Meredith and Eileen Heckart who plays his estranged wife is magnificent exuding years of anguish and disappointment. Heckart is another character actor who deserves a spotlight.
Â
BURNT OFFERINGS 1976–Dan Curtis’ priceless treasure of creepy camp featuring Karen Black, Oliver Reed, and once again uniting the incredible Eileen Heckart with our beloved Burgess Meredith as the ominous Roz and Arnold Allardyce.
Another memorable role for me is his spirited performance as Charles Chazin alias The Devil in one of my all-time favorite horror classics The Sentinel. “Friendships often blossom into bliss.” – Charles Chazin. Ooh, that line still gives me chills…
Many people will probably love him for his iconic character study of a crusty cantankerous washed-up boxing trainer named Mickey in the Rocky series of films. Or perhaps, for his colorful cackling or should I say quacking villain in the television series Batman -his iconic malefactor — The Penguin!
IMDb fact-His character, the Penguin, was so popular as a villain on the television series Batman (1966), the producers always had a Penguin script ready in case Meredith wanted to appear as a guest star.
Burgess Meredith will always remain one of the greatest, most versatile & prolific actors, a character in fact… beloved and eternal…
“Like the seasons of the year, life changes frequently and drastically. You enjoy it or endure it as it comes and goes, as it ebbs and flows.”- Burgess Meredith
“I’ll just take amusement at being a paradox.”- Burgess Meredith
[on his childhood] “All my life, to this day, the memory of my childhood remains grim and incoherent. If I close my eyes and think back, I see little except violence and fear. In those early years, I somehow came to understand I would have to draw from within myself whatever emotional resources I needed to go wherever I was headed. As a result, for years, I became a boy who lived almost totally within himself.”- Burgess Meredith