The Brain that Wouldn’t Die

(a crowd of creepy guys is taking photos of a model in a bikini)
Mike: What is this, Pottersville all of a sudden?

Another reference to It’s a Wonderful Life (I’ve got to start counting these things). Pottersville is the name of Bedford Falls in George Bailey’s little alternate reality. Because George was never born, the Bailey Building & Loan went under, and Potter took over everything. Because Mr. Potter is a greedy old fart, Bedford Falls (changed to Pottersville) turns totally commercial, with more strip clubs than Las Vegas can ever dream of building; and everything goes to, well excuse the pun, pot. George’s mom is a mean old broad who owns a boarding house, Uncle Billy lives in a mental institution, Bert’s wife and kid left him, Mary becomes a librarian spinster, Mary’s mom seems to have become some kind of gangster’s moll (!), Harry died from falling in the ice when he was eight, all the soldiers that Harry would have saved on that ship during WWII died because “Harry wasn’t there to save them because you weren’t there to save Harry”, Nick became a mean bartender (as opposed to being the nice bartender he is in reality), and we don’t even know what happened to Martini. Phew. He really did have a wonderful life (or, that is to say, everyone else did because of him; his life was really going down the crapper for a moment there. Oh well, I love it anyway.)


(the Assistant won’t stop dying)
Mike: Jeez, Edmund Kean had shorter death scenes!

While Edmund Kean never made a film, he was a big enough Shakespearean actor for me to give him his props. He supposedly read Shakespeare like “flashes of lightning”, and was generally known for his eccentricities on and off the stage. He performed Shakespeare throughout his life, before collapsing during a showing of Othello—his last words were, appropriately enough, “Oh God! I think I am dying!” Another great Shakespearean actor from the 19th century was Edwin Booth, brother of actor John Wilkes Booth, who’s known more for killing Abraham Lincoln than for his Shakespeare (yeah, it’s kind of hard getting around that.) If you want to see a good movie about Edwin Booth and his return to the stage shortly after his brother shot Lincoln, rent Prince of Players, starring Richard Burton as Edwin. Because you know you want to.


(the Model Woman shows the Creepy Villain her scar)
Mike: That’s the last time I ride in a car with Monty Clift, I’ll tell you that…

Montgomery Clift was a popular actor in the 50’s who reached cult status because of the more unfortunate events in his life. He was the very definition of a heart throb before he crashed his car after a leaving one of Elizabeth Taylor’s parties, and seriously destroyed his face. One of Elizabeth Taylor’s favorite stories is how she found him on the side of the road and dug his teeth out of his throat. After many facial reconstruction surgeries, Clift returned to film, although he could only be filmed from certain angles. His face did look different, but it didn’t look horrific—it actually gave him an edginess that helped him rise above the Hollywood Pretty Boy curse. This, combined with his bisexuality, drug use, and death from AIDS fairly early on in his life, has helped him gain a certain River Phoenix, James Dean-ish celebrity status. I actually like the guy, more or less—I recommend you watch The Search, where he plays an American GI who finds and takes in an orphan in post-World War II Germany. It’s a “heart warmer”, but not overtly so. The Czech kid who plays the orphan is actually very good (he even got a special Oscar for it); it’s too bad that he was ultimately sent to a Communist labor camp, and died in his thirties. I’m sure that made you feel really swell.