Keeper Week 607: Behold The Anti Hamlet

It has been long believed (and I think correctly) that Hamlet is the acme of roles for actors (nowadays the ladies are giving the melancholy one a go themselves). Actually that doesn’t matter much, because the character is so complicated that gender is secondary, and the shape of the production can be re-configured easily enough. Of course this is not a status of acclimation, many feel that Conan-Doyle’s Sherlock is the top of the mountain (I like Will’s Falstaff best myself)–so, far be it from me to put up too much of a fight against that idea. Yet let us go with Hamlet because I have arrived at the character I consider to be as far away from Hamlet in gravitas as Kim Jong Un is from the Nobel Peace Prize. The Anti-Hamlet. Who is no one other than James Robert Walton–better known (or unknown) as “Jim Bob” of The Waltons.

From the ages of twelve to about fifteen I liked The Waltons. The first few years were pretty well done and they had an authentic look (I also liked the theme). Of course if I were older and we had more than three channels to look at I would have easily sought something else. If I remember correctly, Hawaii Five-O was on right after it, on Thursday night. I always liked Thursday night due to the next day being Friday. Anyway, I was exposed to the doings on Walton’s Mountain until it got too sweet and annoying.

Jim Bob Walton was played by actor David W Harper for nine seasons and a handful of TV movies. As far as I know Harper has absolutely no other acting credits–not even a turn on The Love Boat. I assume that he was hired to play one of the youngest children in a large brood because he looked like something his fictional parents might produce, plus he must have displayed the intelligence needed to recite his three or four lines of dialogue every year. The show had a large cast and I figured that every child younger than the second eldest, “Mary Ellen” (who stripped for either Playboy or Penthouse a few years down the line), was there to fill the room and little more–when you get down to it they were moving furniture.

What was good news for the show resulted in a strange sort of trouble down the line. It became a hit and for five years the cast remained intact and Jim Bob was up to three lines every other show and he did them without any trouble. Yet with people like “Ike and Cora Beth Godsey” and the innocently bootlegging “Baldwin Sisters” around, lil ol Jim Bob was something like fifteenth in line from the scepter (ahead only of the Dog and Family Cow). But that was the year “Grandma” (a fine actress named Ellen Corby, who was nominated for an Oscar earlier in her career) suffered a stroke, which she survived with her mind intact, and she lived another twenty-plus years–but it left her with speech aphasia. Then John Boy left the show at the end of year five. Richard Thomas has never found huge success, but he is a working actor you still see a lot on TV, including a prominent role in It. The following season “Grandpa” (another good actor, Will Geer) suffered a fatal heart attack. These events eliminated three of the show’s top five roles and most of the genuine acting talent. And although Jim Bob was second youngest, the youngest “Elizabeth” (Kami Colter) had some ability, so she moved past him and won several stories centered around her. Still, come season seven, Jim Bob was closing in on the top ten due to attrition.

I do not understand why they didn’t fold up the mountain and move on after Geer’s death, when season six wrapped. Maybe it was because he passed after the show had been renewed. Even so, that does not explain how it remained on the air for nine years, especially after Mama Walton (Michael Learned–nope not Michelle, but Michael) left during season seven. Somehow the show managed to keep going for three more full seasons with stories centered on the children who were not hired to be actual actors. To be fair, the girls were just fine, and the two fellas older than Jim Bob knew their lines and did not trip over the cables. But Jim Bob, well…

No, I refuse to say he sucked. I have lately examined my attitude and far be it to say when someone sucks. Besides I believe an effort should be made to not suck before somebody can be accused of it. Let us say that not a tremendous effort was put into the creation of Jim Bob Walton and let the gods of suck be evenly spread berween the actor, writer and director.

Still…

The kid displayed zero personality. Some call that underplay without a pulse. To borrow from Roger Ebert’s review of Patrick Swayze’s performance in Ghost, David W. Harper displayed the gamut of emotions from A to B. (Ebert got that line from someone else and I think it eventually traces back to someone like Dorothy Parker).

Now, this bit exists only to frame my conception of the world of Fictional Characters. It gives me the top and bottom. “To Be or Not to Be” is the zenith, “Shut up, Ben, or I’ll tell Mama” is the root cellar. In this crazy, mixed up world of uncertainty it is good to find one absolute a body can depend on.

The Awesome Majesty of the Week That Was

We had a tremendous Sunday rerun that I know none of you missed. The Footnotes by Christopher J. Ananias speaks of (maybe even for) the poor souls who brought monsters into the world. Not all parents of the Dahmers of the world are/were terrible people. Most are just like us, which should scare the hell out of every parent, for whom I already have sympathy. Great stuff.

Seeing Double by Ross Dyter opened the work-a-day run of the week. This one from the land of What If? Chills the soul. What Ross creates comes off feasible and scary as hell. And it made me wonder–Is this sort of thing going on now? When there is enough money concerned and people concerned with the money, anything is possible.

Tuesday brought The Navvy’s Bargain by Matthew J. Richardson. As a writer Matthew displays great range with the works he has published with us. This time he takes a scenario ad twists it around for a bit, ending with a great surprise. Along with the plot this also ran deep into the ever menacing place called the human heart. Tremendous strength and truth.

Little Swimmers or Kleine Schwimmer by another return writer, SJ Butler graced the middle of the week. Here SJ skillfully matches the “ago” with the now. It is not easy to bring back the soul of a time and have it feel relevant today; moreover the complicated scenario is pulled off effortlessly, it displays the ongoing mental war in the MC. Truly first rate work.

Ernst Vom Rath is Dead by Chaya Friedman is a short piece that is an epiphany. A whole bunch of criminals, Nazis mainly, were able to avoid human justice after the war, but not the Vom Rath, who got his before. And yet he was used as a martyr to conduct a greater evil, perhaps the greatest evil since the digging of Hell. He deserved to live so he could be hanged later as a war criminal. But young people are keen to act now.

A Courier With Morals by D.S. Stewart closed the week. The world of crime, drugs and money has always been fertile ground for fiction. In fact, when you turn on the television everything that is a drama appears to be involved with such in some way (hell, even sitcoms will dabble). So, it takes a skilled hand to cut through the cliches and the over reliance on violence. D.S, did this and he even created meaningful characters as well, which is a rarity in this genre. Like all the works this week this tale does not deserve to be missed!

Other Curios

Bi-Word of the Week: Calque (n) People hired to applaud in theaters to help a (lame) production to get over; sycophants.

Bi-Word that gets misspelled: Holocaust as Holocost or Holocoust

Bi-Word Whose Use Should be Considered a Crime: Influencer

The List of the Bi-Week: Ten Under Appreciated Roles in Films

1.) Steve Buscemi (here for his brilliant opening of the Banderas film Desperado with a Shaggy Dog Story)

2.) Christopher Walken Pulp Fiction “Three years with this uncomfortable watch up my ass”

3.) Angela Jones as Death obsessed Cabbie Esmerelda, also Pulp Fiction

4.) Esai Morales La Bamba (brilliant performance as Richie Valens’ trouble brother)

5.) Isabel Jewell Counselor at Law (This film is over ninety years old, but Isabel steals every scene she is in)

6.) George the Animal Steel Ed Wood (George had four lines, but if you look at the man he played, the perennial Halloween mask, Tor Johnson, a staple in “Eddie” films, George is stunning)

7.) Boris Karloff Targets (This underloved film made by a young Peter Bogdonavich, starring a very near to the end of the line Karloff, is a cut above the usual exploitation stuff dominant at the time)

8.) Lock Martin as “Gort” in the original (and in my mind only) The Day the Earth Stood Still ( this is a shout for all the poor saps stuck inside contraptions, like Star Wars costumes and such. Martin was seven-feet six inches tall and the heat inside the costume might have melted him down a foot)

9.) Brigitte Helm for her dual roles as Maria and Maschinenmensch in Metropolis. The film will celebrate its centennial next year. And for suffering to the same degree, perhaps more, than Lock Martin, here’s schnapps for Frauline Helm.

10.) John Caradine as Jim Casey, The Grapes of Wrath. Caradine is mostly remembered for his turns in horror films and for producing future Carradines such as David and Robert. But his scenes with Fonda as Tom Joad were fantastic (as was the Oscar winning performance by Jane Darwell as Ma Joad). And his graveside eulogy for the departed grandfather is unforgettable.

Leila

Somehow it escaped me to learn that Warren Zevon was finally admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, something like thirty years after he was eligible and over twenty since his death. Quite often the wisdom at the r&r hof moves as speedily as a crippled glacier (yes, crippled not disabled). But it does not matter if he is in or not (and his inclusion is as an “influence” whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean, matters little, either). With all that considered what does matter was/is Mr. Z. The clip is of his last live performance, about ten months before his death from lung cancer, which he spoke candidly about the day this was taped on Dave Letterman’s great program.