Cynical Cinema

When I was a kid, I loved The Smurfs.  I had smurf sheets, smurf curtains, little plastic smurfs and little stuffed smurfs.  My favourite smurf was one that ran across our lawn outside our kitchen window.  My mom, looking out the window, freaked out a little.  You know that moment in cartoons where someone sees something bizarre, and goes to their liquor cabinet and pours all their booze down the sink because they think they are going crazy?  It was like that.  Mom grabbed the can of frozen juice from the freezer and read the ingredients to see if it contained PCP or LSD or any other three-letter drug that could possibly have produced this amazing hallucination.  Because there was, really, a smurf hopping across the lawn.  It turns out it was a squirrel that had found a tiny little stuffed smurf, grabbed it in it’s mouth, and run across the lawn.  The sun reflecting off the squirrel made it virtually invisible, and lo and behold, there was a smurf.  Being a small child, I was worried because the appearance of a real, live, hopping smurf surely signalled the arrival of Gargamel hot on that smurf’s tail.  It was a frightening proposition for me.  I didn’t want to face Gargamel as a six year old, I preferred to wait until I was a little more mature and could perhaps find a way to defeat the evil wizard.

Well now, at the age of thirty, I decided to confront Gargamel once and for all, and I rented Season One, Volume Two of The Smurfs, more for nostalgia than because I thought it would still be good.  And through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, I still very much enjoyed The Smurfs.  Season One, Volume Two contains the best episode of The Smurfs ever, the one where Lazy Smurf gets bitten by the purple fly, and he turns purple and hops around and says “GNAP”, and bites other smurfs on the tail, turning them into GNAP smurfs as well.  Amazingly, I remembered the episode a lot differently than it actually is - the show does not actually show the smurfs biting each other on the butt.  I suppose that would have violated the family-friendly ethos of the smurfs.  It could have led to kids biting each other on the butt, and where would that have led society?

The one thing I was really hoping for was the option to watch the episodes in either English or French.  The DVD didn’t have that choice, but it’s a great idea for future issues of Smurf DVDs.  As I recall, most of the English smurf voices are high-pitched, little-kid voices.  So when Gargamel appears, they scream “It’s Gargamel!”  like a chorus of second-graders.  In French, they all have deep adult voices, which lends a certain gravitas to the phrase “Oh non!  C’est Gargamel!”  The smurfs have cooler names in French too.  “Jokey Smurf” is a silly name in English.  “Schtroumph Farceur” just sounds so much cooler.  Likewise “Schtroumph Bricoleur”, and many others.

I may well be giving this series more credit than it deserves, simply because of an innate bias that has existed since childhood.  But I do believe that it is smurfin’ well worth your smurf to smurf up this smurf before it’s too smurf and you have smurfed all about smurf.

Of course, you knew when the new Indiana Jones movie was about to hit theatres, there would be all kind of reissues coming out. Paramount released the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Volume 3 a few weeks ago, and now comes the original trilogy, in special-edition form, on May 13th from Paramount. The first movie in the series, Raiders of the Lost Ark, remains by far the best of the three. The opening scene in the film is still, to this day, incredible, with the giant boulder and the bag of sand and the darts shooting out of the walls and the whip and the chasm and the closing door and the double crosses and the float plane escape…all very exciting. One of the best opening scenes in a movie of all time. And best of all - no gunshots or explosions! Amazing!

Although the thing that set Raiders apart from other movies upon it’s release and made it an instant classic was that no one had ever seen a movie like this before, what makes it a classic now is that it is still better than any other movie like it. Imagine a movie made now that has something of historic, biblical importance as the central object. Now imagine it involves car chases, gun fights, lost treasure, exotic locales, face-melting guitar solos, and Nazis. And, archaeology! Were this movie to be made now, it would likely star Matthew McConnaughey and Kate Hudson, and it would be directed by Michael Bay and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and written by some Hollywood focus group-watching team of nincompoops. And it would probably be called “National Treasure 4: The One With Nazis”. And it would suck worse than “National Treasure 3: Search For the Necronomicon”.

It is a testament to the brilliance of both Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford that they did not allow this movie to become…that. Raiders of the Lost Ark is, in many ways, childish. And it is simplistic and cheerfully bonkers. And yes, it is standing on the shoulders of many movies that came before. But most of those movies were made in the 30s and 40s. And Raiders is set in the 30s. And it is both homage to the old John-Wayne-type serials of the early era of cinema, and also a completely new film going experience. It’s one of the only movies, ever, that is basically wall-to-wall action and yet could be considered classic. Harrison Ford did more than a good job as Indy, and he did more than create an iconic character in a movie. Much more.

This is what he did: He created an iconic persona in film in general. Not many actors have been able to do that. In the years following films like The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, you could tell in other films when people were playing John Wayne. The Duke created an all-new screen persona. Same goes for Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird, Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur, and Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. And now, when you watch certain movies, you can see other actors playing Indiana Jones. And that is a remarkable achievement in acting. Harrison Ford makes Raiders magical with humour, toughness, intelligence, good looks and stoicism. And Spielberg makes it magic with the set pieces, the camera work, and the ability to create wonderful moments in dialogue, scenery, and especially action.

Also terrific in Raiders was Karen Allen. Now, for a long time, I always thought that Margot Kidder starred opposite Ford in this film, simply because they look alike and the Superman series ran almost parallel to the Indiana Jones series. But Margot Kidder was NOT in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Or…was she? I did some checking.

And in so doing, I have uncovered a conspiracy! Yes, I saved it for the end of my review, because it is such a huge revelation I wanted to save it for last. And here it is: Margot Kidder was born October 17th, 1948 in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The daughter of an explosives expert, she rose to big-screen fame playing a bit part in the film Gaily, Gaily, and then scoring the starring role in the Brian DePalma film Sisters. Soon, she became a household name thanks to her portrayal of Lois Lane in the major blockbuster, Superman, in 1978. Superman II, II, IV, V, and eventually Superman XLII followed. After “Sisters”, she briefly dated DePalma, and was linked to Pierre Trudeau for a time. She was married and divorced four times, none of those marriages lasting more than a year, and now lives as a little bit of a recluse, saying she prefers the company of her dogs to that of men. In the early 90s, she came under fire from the press and the establishment in the U.S. for criticizing the press and the government over the Gulf War, saying that they did not realize the long-ranging ramifications of their actions. She had a well-publicized breakdown in 1996, when she was found wandering the streets naked and diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Karen Allen was born October 5th, 1951 in Carrollton, Illinois. The daughter of an FBI agent, she rose to big-screen fame playing bit parts in Animal House (1978) and Manhattan (1979). In 1981, she teamed up with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg in the massively successful blockbuster, Raiders of the Lost Ark. She didn’t marry until 1988, when she tied the knot with Kale Brown, some guy who was in “Challenger”. She had a son in 1990, and the couple divorced in 1998. Since then, she has become more reclusive, and has professed her love for knitting as an activity. In fact, she loves knitting so much that she started her own textile company in 2003. She teaches acting in Massachusetts, and has been coaxed back to the big screen this year to reprise her Raiders role in the new Indiana Jones flick.

Now for the big revelation - Margot Kidder and Karen Allen are the same person! First of all, here is some photographic evidence:

Here’s what I think happened. Margot Kidder, finding that her Canadian background closed certain doors to her in Hollywood, while opening others, decided to make the best of both worlds by creating an American alter-ego for herself. As Karen Allen, she decided to make herself three years younger, since certain roles always go to the younger actress. She made sure that the family background was similar. Their birth dates, for example, were only two weeks apart. While Kidder’s father was an explosives expert, she decided that Karen Allen’s father should be something a little more vague, and thereby easy to explain - and FBI agent. Possibly one with knowledge of explosives. When Kidder hit the big time with Superman in 1978, she was unprepared for the sudden fame, and the alter-ego, Karen Allen, took over. Working with people she admired (like John Belushi and Woody Allen), as Karen Allen, and working with people who wanted her simply for her name, as Margot Kidder.

Then, in 1981, disaster struck. Karen Allen was offered a part opposite a little-known actor named Harrison Ford, in a movie helmed by a fairly interesting, two-hit wonder director named Steven Spielberg. It seemed like a perfect role for the Karen Allen persona - that was the side of Kidder that made the indie movies, and took risks, after all. But when that movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, became a massive blockbuster, all of a sudden both personas were out in the open and in the consciousness of America. Kidder tried to deflect attention away from her movie work by marrying and divorcing several times, but when she met Kale Brown, she thought it would be forever. And so, having painted Margot as the oft-marrying type, she had to get Karen to actually marry this guy and settle down. Once she was married, as “Karen”, she stopped working as Karen.

This gave her the opportunity to truly live two lives. One was the quiet, suburban home life with her husband and son, out of the limelight. That was Karen. Margot, on the other hand, since she no longer really existed, was totally free. Free to express her opinions and sound off about anything she wanted. After all, she had an escape where she could return home and be Karen for the rest of the evening, and let the Margot stuff slide off her back. But after eight years of this, the double life finally took it’s toll, and she snapped. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to snap as “Margot”, since “Margot” had already portrayed herself as the left-wing nut, the outspoken eccentric, and it would stand to reason that it was she, and not “Karen”, who momentarily lost her mind. In fact, Margot now wanted to live AS “Karen”, and was planning to do away with Margot completely, a la Fight Club. But rather than succeeding in killing off one of the two personalities, she merely succeeded in making one of them crazy. After nursing her back to health, and explaining the two personalities away conveniently as “bipolar disorder”, her husband could take no more and divorced “Karen” two years later.

Shocking, eh? Not only that, I can go one better - I know where Kidder got her idea for the final transformation! In 1988, as “Margot Kidder”, she starred in a made-for-TV movie called “Vanishing Act” with Elliott Gould, where she plays a woman who insists she is the husband of a man whose wife has just disappeared on their honeymoon, even though the man has never seen her before. Vanishing Act was a re-working of a Robert Thomas stage play called “Trap For a Lonely Man”, and had previously been filmed as “One of My Wives is Missing”, and “Honeymoon With A Stranger”, starring Janet Leigh. That same year, she, as “Karen”, married her final husband. Now, “Margot Kidder” hangs out in a rural area with her dogs, and “Karen Allen” hangs out in a rural area with her knitting. You read it here first, folks!