That’s like closing the barn door after the horses have eaten your children!
[Saturday the 14th; Severn Darden (1981)]
Alarmingly useful. “Saturday the 14th” was this terrible 1981 movie
(starring Richard Benjamin!) spoofing the late 70’s horror films. At
the time, the first wave of adolesence is about to break on my head, and
I am expressing this hormonal disturbance by watching TV as much as possible.
Back then (and maybe yet today? no cable over here) HBO would program two
or three exclusive Hollywood films per month, and then fill the balance
of the schedule with whatever movies they could get for super-cheap, and
then broadcast them over and over. “Saturday the 14th” was one
of these infinitely repeated films. In the film, towards the gripping denouement,
the (late) great Severn Darden, playing the Van Helsing-y character (mysterious
European doctor arriving to save innocent family from forces of evil) says
the line with shrill hysteria, while arguing with the Richard Benjamin.
It made no mark on me then, but years, let’s say fifteen years, later,
I’m at the dayjob arguing the finer point of entertainment law, and
the other side was recommending some course of action that was too little
and too late, and the Darden line just slips out of my mouth, complete with
the shrill hysteria. I don’t think it actually affected the conversation,
which makes me wonder if people expect me to say obtuse things randomly,
but it did remind me of that great line, which is really the finest way
to communicate to anyone that acting is better than reacting (as if anyone
cares).
– Brent Cox (May 20, 2002)
Tags: exclamation