Lost? Here's Part One.
Alright: play. We find our hero deciding not to heed Mr. Zabladowski’s pointless warning.
Alright: play. We find our hero deciding not to heed Mr. Zabladowski’s pointless warning.
Bart:
“I can try!”
Mr. Z:
“I wouldn’t try.”
Bart:
“I know; all you’d ever try for is time and a half or overtime.”
Burn! Also I thought this man was your friend. I’m not sure where the sass comes from all of a sudden.
Bart saunters into headquarters, where he discovers his mother in the - ahem - No. 2 spot.
She’s essentially a secretary, running the day-to-day business of the Institute and preparing it for the grand concert on the bill for tomorrow. She speaks on the phone to the mother of one of the boys slated to show up and tells her that, no, her son may not bring his baseball since Dr. Terwilliker does not believe in them. Whatever that means. I’m not saying I like baseball, but I have at least some proof that baseballs exist. Apparently, Dr. T also does not believe in ‘golf balls, basketballs or tennis balls, ping pong balls, snow balls, croquet balls or hockey pucks. Dr. Terwilliker believes only in the piano."
That, and the subtle eroticism of the No. 2 Spot.
Bart tries to get his mother’s attention, but is forced back into hiding by the single best housecoat I’ve ever seen:
See the hand waggle? Note the hand waggle. That is going to be important later.
“Mrs. Collins! Why are you standing there with that null and void expression? No, don’t tell me…I know the workings of your mind, Mrs. Collins. You’ve been thinking of your son again! How many times must I tell you to burn that picture?! You’ve room in your life but for one picture, my picture, Mrs. Collins - your future husband! Have I not graciously condescended to take your hand in marriage tomorrow immediately following the official grand opening?”
Okay, so it's not exactly 'schtupping'. But it's close enough for 1953.
This wonderful bit of mugging for the camera is interrupted by…uh oh.
The guards have noticed that Bart is not in his cell. It took them long enough, didn’t it? He’s the only boy here so far. Dr. T gives Mrs. Collins even more hell:
“Your son - and you said he could be trusted! Tonight of all nights, Mrs. Collins, the very night before my institute opens, and your son dares to flaunt my authority!”
Interesting to note that the line is: “…your son dares to flaunt my authority!” The word should be ‘flout’, meaning to brazenly disregard something, as opposed to ‘flaunt’ which means to brazenly show something off. It’s a common mistake; I’m guilty of it myself, and it’s been made on our collective record since at least the 1940’s. I’m just curious as to whose mistake it was - was it a slip of the tongue, or was it in the script?
Either way, I like it, and I’m glad they kept it in. It’s the single flaw in this otherwise perfect Navajo blanket of a movie.
Dr. T sounds the alarm, ordering lackeys about from his tower window. The first time he orders Mrs. Collins to turn on the searchlights, he calls for searchlights ‘1-50 inclusive’. The second time he tells her to turn on searchlights ’50-90 inclusive’. So…turn on searchlight 50 twice, I guess? Look, I get it. They hire you to come in and say insane things, you just say insane things. I can’t blame Mr. Conried for focusing on the crazy rather than the content, not when he pulls off the crazy so well.
Flaunt those searchlights, you housecoated animal.
At long last, Judson and Whitney show up to aid in the search!
Yup, that was worth coming out of retirement.
And here, as they skate off to find Bart, we get to see a few brief scraps of their so cruelly discarded routine.
Please ignore Schrödinger's boy, who is hiding simultaneously
behind the toy piano and in the No. 2 Spot.
behind the toy piano and in the No. 2 Spot.
Also of note is the fact that the room they're in is not overlooked by the window from which Dr. T is supposedly watching. The first few times, I didn't notice this sudden change of scenery. Now that I'm aware of the cuts to this movie, it sticks out like a baton wielded by a mad piano teacher.
Bart, still lurking undetected in the No. 2 Spot and nowhere else, realizes there are guards coming up behind him and makes a mad dash for the window. He escapes without being noticed by his mother or Dr. T, but the guards are in hot pursuit. He hides in a potted plant, but his dog betrays him and alerts the guards to his hiding spot. The guards carry him off in the pot, but he gets away by hoisting himself out by the dangling conjoined beard of the rollerskating twins.
What the fuck am I even writing anymore? Is this English? Have I had a stroke?
Having eluded capture, Bart comes across a ladder to nowhere, reminiscent of Mt. Crumpet.
None of the guards seem able to climb it after him.
Perhaps they too believe only in the piano, and not ladders.
With nowhere else to go, Bart leaps off the top of the ladder using his shirt as a parachute, in a wonderful combination of terrible animation and wire work, and gets away for good.
I’m not mentioning this because I want to make fun of technological limitations; on the contrary, I want to praise the use of dream logic in the context of something we all tried to do as kids, don’t you pretend you didn’t.
I once spent an afternoon leaping off the porch with an open umbrella in the hopes I
would float gently down like Mary Poppins, and I was the smart kid in my family.
would float gently down like Mary Poppins, and I was the smart kid in my family.
Bart finds his way through an air duct back to Mr. Zabladowski, who’s still trying for time and a half fucking around with sinks. The boy tells his friend / sass depository that he’s in trouble! To which Zabladowski responds:
“So? Everyone gets into trouble. Everyone in the world. The King of Persia sometimes even gets into trouble; but the King of Persia, does he come crawling out of my air vent? Not at all. The King of Persia, he stays in Persia.”
Like, I sort of get what he’s saying; at the same time, it's about as coherent as my racist HVAC-technician uncle’s unfocused rant about millenials.
Bart begs Mr. Zabladowski to help rescue his mother, but the plumber is simultaneously too busy and too apathetic to care about this kid’s problems. And so, naturally, Bart pretends to go fishing.
What? Is that not how you convince people to do things for you?
I was completely baffled by this the first time I saw it, for several reasons. Let’s go through it so you understand where my confusion comes from.
Bart pretends that he’s going fishing for big-mouth bass. Mr. Zabladowski is at first bemused, but then begins to criticize Bart’s casting technique in earnest. He sits down next to the boy and teaches him how to cast properly. They catch a ‘fish’ together, and Mr. Zabladowski ‘rows’ them back to ‘camp’. Then, they begin cuddling and sing a song.
I was completely baffled by this the first time I saw it, for several reasons. Let’s go through it so you understand where my confusion comes from.
Bart pretends that he’s going fishing for big-mouth bass. Mr. Zabladowski is at first bemused, but then begins to criticize Bart’s casting technique in earnest. He sits down next to the boy and teaches him how to cast properly. They catch a ‘fish’ together, and Mr. Zabladowski ‘rows’ them back to ‘camp’. Then, they begin cuddling and sing a song.
To normal people, this child roped his only father figure into bonding with him over a game of pretend. And that’s nice. That’s fine.
To me, this child suffered a bout of temporary insanity, which then spread to a nearby plumber. I am afflicted with an inability to understand how children work outside of being selfish gits, so I have trouble understanding or empathizing with them both in fiction and reality. Even when I was a child, I understood very little about how people my own age worked. I also grew up in a time when a father within a nuclear family was not assumed to be a requirement for a child, as it was in 1953.
To summarize: I didn’t understand what Bart was doing, I didn’t understand why it was important to him, and I forgot this was a dream anyway. But I had it explained to me, and I think I get it now. I’ve learned of the whimsy that lies in little hearts, or something.
To summarize: I didn’t understand what Bart was doing, I didn’t understand why it was important to him, and I forgot this was a dream anyway. But I had it explained to me, and I think I get it now. I’ve learned of the whimsy that lies in little hearts, or something.
And so, after the most uncomfortable eye contact I’ve been privy to since Lolita:
Some awkward, premature-for-this-relationship cuddling:
Mr. Zabladowski agrees to head upstairs and see if there’s any truth to Bart’s accusations.
Is there? Click here for Part Six.
