A Mouthful of Banana Peels

To those of you phonies who shun the magical alchemy that is Hollywood’s ability to transform base studio mettle into philosophical gold, I say again, Shallow Hal is a great film! A keener insight into the romantic facility of the desiring machine that is a male human has not been offered for public scrutiny since Nabokov published Lolita.

The great charm of narrative film is knowing what one character is thinking that the other characters do not know, of which this film makes a kaleidoscope.

For now, I will mention one delicious encounter in a film full of gorgeous moments and emotional peaks (those phonies who deny the heartbreak in Hal-boy’s second visit to the hospital are Tin Men every one of them!).

Hal-boy enters an elevator with the helpful giant without, Anthony Robbins, and recognising him does a little starfucking, to the effect of marvelling aloud at Mr Robbins' impressive scale - to shake his hand is like grabbing a bunch of bananas. This lovely metaphor sets up a beautiful line later, delivered by Hal-boy with the freshness of an improvisation and recieved by Mr Robbins with a genuine chuckle, like papa laughing at the neighbour’s children.

Along the way, another beautiful line from this wonderful elevator encounter: Hal-boy's researches into sexual power and superficial beauty leads him to the conclusion that a man of Mr Robbins' scale and fame must do alright with the ladies, those bananas must shake their share of lady fingers, as it were. He checks his reasoning with the primary source, Mr Robbins, who replies only to say that there is one lady in his life. Hal-boy’s reaction: “She sounds hot”. This serves to pique the good natured Mr Robbins’ professional interest in curing the emfeebled deluded, and when the elevator gets stuck, as so many movie elevators are wont to do, he sets to work on Hal-boy.

In doing so he gives Hal-boy a little startle, to which Hal-boy overreacts and delivers a line rich with hard, angry American “a” sounds, that gets me laughing just to remember it: “Wha' the hell’re ya doin’, banana-hands!?”

How to Murder Your Mise en Scene

How to Murder your Wife is a quite ordinary but oh-what-might-have-been film from Richard Quine, if we want to believe in directors as auteurs. Richard Quine's career only ever got out of the ordinary in patches. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but every film is just lacking something, and I can’t help but wonder what might have been, in every film he made, if Billy Wilder had directed it.

(But of course auteur theory is a ridiculous concept. Film authorship is spread over many people involved in the film’s making, more like a band than an author. It is just as ridiculous to talk of “John Lennon’s Strawberry Fields Forever” as “Hitchcock’s Rear Window”.)

If How to Murder Your Wife works it is certainly not for the script or the auteur, or even its main star, Jack Lemmon, but the contributions of its supporting stars. Virna Lisi gives the film life, with way too much spark and presence for a character without a first name, besides offering textbook visual pleasure - what glamour shots! The camera crew certainly rise to the challenge of a beautiful starlet and in so doing undermine the script - what man would curse his luck on the very morning he wakes up married to such a gorgeous and "affectionate little thing" (as his lawyer urges, "at least try it"). Terry Thomas has some great Terry Thomas moments, but is generally disappointing due to the demands the script asks of him - narrating a film to camera is always problematic.

But the best of them is Eddie Mayehoff, who plays his cartoon character perfectly. Rolling his mouth around in his cheeks, laughing at his own jokes, adding information nobody wants, telling stories that go nowhere, and forever demonstrating his belly - the screen isn't big enough to contain his twitches, and a lot of time is courteously given to his pointless digressions. Even his background acting can be admired.

And of course the moment of the film, aside from Miss Lisi’s glamour shots, is a wonderful reversal by Eddie.

Throughout, Claire Trevor, his wife, pecks at him and puts him down, always in front of others, and he always gives a feeble excuse or obediently withdraws. Except for one beautiful moment in which Eddie comes as close as anyone to achieving the film's title, and proves that sometimes the best defence is an own goal.

Eddie’s had a few too many pre-dinner cocktails and is obviously drunk. In front of Virna, Claire puts Eddie down with something like, “What’s the point of Virna cooking all day if you’re too drunk to enjoy it?” To Virna's astonishment, Eddie, knowing he’s too drunk to argue, sways back and forth and replies, “Yeah she’s right”.