Tuesday, February 2, 2010Whistlepigs see shadows, plus a movie review

Punxsutanie Phil, Wiarton Willie and Schubenacadie Sam have all been heard from: six more weeks of winter.  (No word as of this writing from Brandon Bob or Balzac Billy, but those oily western whistlepigs are unreliable, in my opinion.)  Nevertheless, happy Groundhog Day.  And remember: Marmota monax is the reason for the season!

(A few years ago Sharry mentioned Groundhog Day on one of the lists she subscribes to.  A German reader wrote back: "What the hell is Groundhog Day?"  Sharry sent off a lengthy explanation of our quaint and curious local customs, to which the German reader responded: "Okay . . . but what the hell is a groundhog?")

I believe it was also today that Stephen Harper popped out of his hole and predicted six more weeks of a prorogued Parliament. 

(U.S. readers: permission to be perplexed.)

Other news:  Everything I published last year, i.e. Julian Comstock and two short stories, has appeared on the annual Locus recommended reading list.  I mention this not just because I'm flattered, although I am, but because the list is a reliable guide to some of the most interesting science fiction currently in print.  If you're reading this you may have already sampled my own work; I urge you to check out all those other titles as well. 

It might be hard to buy some of them at Amazon.com, however, due to the ongoing dispute between Macmillan and that estimable online book vendor.  In the meantime, there are plenty of other sources willing to accept your money.   [Update, February 5: The buy buttons are back at Amazon.com, though I would recommend potential buyers avoid the botched Kindle edition of Julian Comstock.  If you want to know how that book was meant to be typeset and read, you need to have the physical edition.  If you bought a Kindle editon of Julian Comstock with typographical or layout problems, you need to complain.)

The movie I wanted to mention is My Son John (1952, directed by Leo McCarey and starring Robert Walker, Helen Hayes and Dean Jagger).  The last time I saw this rarely-screened film I was thirteen years old, and it scared the crap out of me -- I thought it was a horror story.  So when TCM showed it recently I was grateful for the opportunity to watch it as an adult.

It's still a bizarre and supremely creepy film.  My Son John is usually described as an anti-Communist propoganda film, but that's only sort-of true.  My Son John tells the story of an allegedly typical middle-aged American couple with three sons, two of whom are high-school football heroes going off to fight in Korea while the third son, John, is . . . different.  John was different even as a child.  John liked to read books.  He didn't enjoy sports.  He used big words.  Now he works in Washington, but he doesn't come home very often. 

And when he does, he seems even more peculiar.  He's unimpressed with his father's American Legion boosterism.  He doesn't want to go to church, and when he does attend he makes a mildly sarcastic remark to the priest.  He thinks the story of Jonah and the whale can't be literally true.  He's prone to making cryptic remarks about social justice.  His angry and bewildered father can't help but notice:  "John, don't get me wrong, but people are saying you sound like . . . one of those."

One of those?  One of those what exactly?  Watching this as a thirteen-year-old who read books, kept to himself, didn't enjoy sports, and harbored his own doubts about Jonah, the unavoidable question was: am I one of those?  And if I am, what am I?

John, of course, is a Communist.  Though, given Robert Walker's fey and slightly limp-wristed interpretation of the role, you could be forgiven for thinking he was gay.  Perhaps the screenwriters didn't make that distinction. 

There are countless writs of grievance to be brought against 20th-century communism (millions dead in violent oppression and unnecessary famines, just to begin with), but My Son John doesn't care about any of that.  Here the central sins of communism are atheism and liberalism, seasoned with a whiff of sexual irregularity.  How do we know for sure John's a commie?  Because he refuses to touch his mother's rosary beads.  Rosary beads are communist Kryptonite, apparently.  As the cross is to the pale vampire, so is the rosary to the effete American Marxist.

Communism in this movie is a contagion, something you're liable to pick up from university professors or second-hand books.  And it can only be cured by confession.  In a final monologue John recants his errors as cravenly as any errant comrade in a Red Guard struggle session. 

Making it even more bizarre, the actor Robert Walker died before the film was finished -- so the climactic speech is delivered by a tape recorder on a podium, under what appears to be a beam of heavenly light.

Disturbing and fascinating stuff.  The performances are actually pretty strong, given the peculiarities of the script.  Helen Hayes acts her heart out, likewise Dean Jagger, and Robert Walker's performance is in some ways remarkably good.  Which only makes it creepier.

This would be great on a double-bill with another obscure classic of American religious paranoia: The Next Voice You Hear (1950), in which God speaks to the world via nightly radio broadcasts.