ell, I been plannin' plottin' all sortser incendiary whatnot ter be typin' in here since my last post, but I figger acknowledgin' Blake Edwards prolly takes precedence. I know the man 'sposedly had a speckled sorta success with his movie makin', an' 'sposedly in the end got corralled inter just makin' questionable extensions of the Pink Panther, but I gotter admit I ain't never seen a Blake Edwards film I didn't like. I ain't seen 'em all, but I can certainly attribute some big effects on my life ter such gems as Breakfast at Tiffany's an' Experiment in Terror. But the one film that stands out in my kind more'n anythin' as impressin' on me as a youth would be none other than The Great Race.Now, it wouldn't be a lie ter say that it's a family thing. As far back as I can 'member my family have had that there movie on a pedestal. Fact, I have vivid (er not so vivid, as it may be) recollections of crowdin' round the lil black an' white televison set in my brother's room as a lil kid with my elder siblings an' my pappy ter watch that movie in one of its sawed-up network broadcasts. But, without ramblin' too much, I just wanna note that I clearly acknowledge the effect on myself personally I done carried away from a Blake Edwards film like The Great Race. The automobilia, the vaudeville, the high adventure, the gritty nature of a western American culture unwilling to relent its stranglehold on the heartland, a climactic sword duel. All wrapped up in the distinct Edwardsian style of being able to find the off beat humor in even the most heart-wrending of situations.
Mebbe that’s what Edwards’ Great Race wuz all about ter my family. That twisted streak of humour tied up in the tragedy of the human condition. My cousin once showed up on my parents’ doorstep after a long haul from his home in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Northern of Michigan with his sorta-fiance an’ moved inter the spare addition in the back of the house while he tried his fortunes in Southern California. I don’t ‘member her name, rightly, but she didn’t last but a few months ‘fore she stormed off in a hail of shoutin’ and cigarette smoke declarin’ that she could’t handle his family cuz we wuz all “sick and demented”. Haw haw.
But it’s true. My family has a sorter tweaked ability ter see the humour on the most bleak of situations. An’ that’s kinder what Edwards summed up in his films… most aggressively perhaps in Days of Wine and Roses, most cautiously perhaps in The Great Race… the wretched humour tied up in the frustrations of being a powerless creature tied to the marionette strings of a vast, and perhaps careless, universe.
I remember laughin’ uncontrollably at the sequence in The Great Race where’s Peter Faulk done calls out all the calamities that is gonner befall all the automobiles that he has wickedly sabotaged. All four of them tires poppin’ off the overturned racer used ter elicit the heartiest of joyous spasms. But it were the wicked comedy entailed in the misfortunes of others… the relief that it ain’t you… the acknowledgement that perhaps the reverence reserved fer the tragedy of bein’ human is a lil overrated. As my sis-in-law used ter tell her kids when they wuz fightin’ over some meaningless possession, “It’s all gonner burn anyways.”
Speakin’ of the sis-in-law, appreciation of The Great Race is kinder a determinant of all sortser things where my familial relations is concerned, includin’ pickin’ of potential mates. My sis-in-law done never thought The Great Race were as funny as any of us twisted an’ demented folks did an’ all of us raised our eyebrows at my brother’s choice. As of currently ain’t nuthin’ questionable happened, but I will note that my sis’ ex-husband done though we wuz all a buncher loonies fer appreciatin’ it so much. And come ter think of it, no lady I done been involved with finds it all that entetainin’, either… hmmm.
Anyways, I guess I is just tryin’ ter communicate how much of a bondin’ experience fer my familial components Blake Edwards’ The Great Race wuz. I think that even today, years after we’s all sorter separated an’ our common link is AT&T, the Great Race is sumthin’ we can still all come together over. It’s a cornerstone in our family construct.
Thank you, Mr. Blake Edwards, fer creatin’ somethin’ of such bondin’ an’ identifyin’ strength fer my family… an’ fer all the good memories of watchin’ it with my family as well.
Adios.
