Uncle Scoopy's Fun House

Nathanael West wrote the novel version of The Day of the Locust in 1939. It is a biting satire on the nature of Los Angeles and the people who moved there to be part of the film industry. It's not the funny kind of satire, but the funhouse mirror kind of satire that plays out like one of those Venetian balls with exaggerated masks and costumes. It's not the subtle kind of satire that is richly nuanced, but a cynical and somewhat adolescent kind of mockery. It's filled with movie fans and fanatics, eager tourists, hopefuls, hangers-on, would-bes, and never-weres, all of whom are basically brain-dead grotesques. It also reaches beyond the studio walls to satirize the other schemers and charlatans (from cockfighters to revivalist preachers) who exploited the city's newfound popularity. The Day of the Locust is a cold, harsh and ugly book filled with universally unsympathetic characters.

That was the Great Depression, and the war in Europe had just begun. Nihilism was the wrong ingredient to add to that recipe. People wanted to believe that the movie industry included something more than sideshow freaks, and they turned to movies primarily for vicarious escapist fun. A dark, frightening world wasn't looking to find out that the movie world was even darker and more frightening than reality. West's book sold fewer than 2000 copies. The reviews were abysmal. West wrote, in a letter to Scott Fitzgerald, "The box score stands: Good reviews— fifteen per cent, bad reviews—twenty five per cent, brutal personal attacks—sixty percent."

The "wrong time" ended, of course, and The Day of the Locust became the right book for the next era. The actual measurement may have been a mere 11 years, but the cultural and historical distance between 1939 and 1950 was about as great as any eleven years have ever been in mankind's history. After the war ended, and the Depression had been replaced by post-war prosperity, society in general moved up to a higher level in Maslow's hierarchy, and the formerly universal craving for more wealth and fame at all costs was steadily eroded by an ever-growing awareness of the impact of the new consumerism on America's values, which in turn led to criticism of the cultural and spiritual effects of that new wealth. In the course of this modernist trend, somewhere around 1950, West's nihilist novel was rediscovered, and he was acclaimed a genius for having seen, years before the rest of us, how hollow was America's core.

Mr.West didn't get to enjoy his upgraded reputation. He died in an auto accident in 1940, about a year after The Day of the Locust was published. He was virtually unknown to the general public and frankly, his death didn't even attract much attention among the literati. His obit was lost in the shuffle since he had the bad timing to die the very next day after his friend and far more famous colleague, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

West's book really remained in relative obscurity, as it has to this day, but it developed a strong cult following, and it seemed like a perfect anti-establishment project for a film in the early 70s, when the "rejection of materialism" crowd had become such a large sub-culture it was virtually the mainstream culture.

A lot of talent went into this movie. The director was John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy), and he was reunited with his Midnight Cowboy screenwriter, Waldo Salt, a three time Oscar nominee who now has a screenwriting award named after him. The cinematographer was Conrad Hall who is arguably the most accomplished cinematographer in history with ten Oscar nominations, the first in 1966, the last in 2003.

Formidable talent, indeed, and I suppose those gentlemen did a good job of filming West's unfilmable book. They managed to hold onto the basic themes while they transformed the caricatures into characters and made them more or less credible, making it possible for the audience to believe it is watching real events transpire. (Well, at least most of the time). West's book had been surreal, and the characters in it literary concepts rather than people, but the filmmaking team kept that kind of aloofness to a minimum, perhaps knowing full well that surrealism is instant box office death.

I have to confess, however, that I never really would have understood the point of the movie, except that I already knew it from the narrative sections of West's novel. West was explicit about explaining that the movie world, that California in general for that matter, was creating a seething sea of discontent by luring people in search of their dreams, and then crushing those dreams. West viewed the sum total of that disillusionment as a festering malaise which might turn at any moment to rage, and eventually does shape itself into a riot, some kind of frenzied Gotterdammerung where the common people rise up against the movie moguls, the pretense, and the city itself, eventually tearing it all down. Without West around to explain that to me, however, I couldn't really pull it all out of the images and incidents in this film. The film does give off a feeling of falsehood turned chaotic, which may be the closest a film could come to West's apocalyptic vision.

I got the impression that, in trying to remain faithful to West's book, the director and screenwriter basically decided that they needed to include everything. The book includes an Aimee Semple McPherson type of Holy Roller who does the whole "preaching for dollars" routine, as well as a re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo which results in a major catastrophe. The film retains these scenes, but neither of them seems to be smoothly integrated into the storyline.

You'll probably watch this film with the feeling that a bit more focus would have gone a long way.

1975 audiences reacted to the film about the same way that 1939 audiences reacted to the book. It came out, got mixed reviews, generated no box office to speak of, and disappeared without a trace. In fact, the movie and the book have retained certain eerie parallels. In the years since the film came out, it has attained a lot of the cult status that the book attained many years after its own release. I don't think you will find that the movie has much appeal now, either, despite that cult status. It's old hat. Yesterday's papers. The themes that were so fresh in 1939 were already starting to be hackneyed in 1975. In 2004 you're likely to say "been there, seen that, and it was done better".

If you're a major film buff, there is a lot to see along the way. The art design is superior, the look consistently reminiscent of an old sepia-hued art deco postcard. There is an Oscar-nominated performance by Burgess Meredith. Lots of plusses. I admired a lot of things as I watched, but I was ready for it to end long before the 144 minutes had run their full course.

On the other hand, you do have to love a movie with Homer Simpson as a major character.

Thanks for the heads up on the Dream Lover DVD. I just read what you had on the site, that it is the "R" version. I have one more question about those "Unrated" DVD versions sold through Amazon Canada and UK respectively.

Can you ask on the site, or maybe you know some folks in those countries who can report whether those versions are truly unrated? If the Canadian version is unrated, I'll get that one since it is Region 1, but if it isn't and the UK version is, I'll get the UK version since it is Region 0, so it will play on my DVD player.

Anyway, I would appreciate it if you could help me look into this just a bit more and if you know a soul or two that maybe they can help us figure out if there is the best version of the film available in the best format in this day and age.

Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the ones above, since it's sorta in real time.