There's a time to play Monopoly and a time to kick over the board and throw the play money in the air like we're motherfuckin' Scarface (i.e. when we're losing). The Alec Baldwin-goes-nutzoid "Florida Noir" classic, Miami Blues (1990) is for that time. Those of us who've done that, we may be normally sane, but we have our moments, and we get how liberating it can be to kick back and watch your unrestrained id run amok. We can only really do that when we 'wake up' in a dream. But what is film if not a dream and yet how few are those characters who 'waken up.' That's why Junior (Baldwin) is so precious, the herald of the mid-90s id, the missing link between Harpo Marx and Mickey and Mallory Knox, Wendy Kroy, Hannibal Lecter, Tommy in Goodfellas, Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant, Lisa in Girl, Interrupted. Before they all popped up from our moldy floorboards to kick the cobwebs of moralistic 80s self-censorship from our sleepy heads, there be Junior. He spooked some critics at the time. I remember reading a savage condemnation of it in the Syracuse student newspaper (I guess the uptight journalism major was taking it on himself to nip an amoral/openly violent cinema in the bud) but for those of us who saw it, especially we of the drinking class of 1989, we loved it. We needed it. Tarantino needed it. Paul Thomas Anderson needed it. Abel Ferrara needed it. Blues was the herald of their brand of amoral, violence-positive cinema, the kind that trusted the audience not to riot in an orgy of bloodlust just because the lesbians got away with murder.
That manic early 90s phase is long gone now, but for awhile cinema was a bonfire full of toothsome, fanged chestnuts. And way up atop the flickering flames there was Junior... blazing extra white before cracking open and spattering nut bits all over the living room. Sure it makes a mess and doesn't really thrill you (since you're the one who has to clean up), but damn wasn't that a fine bang?!
Adapted from the Charles Willeford novel, and directed by that shaggy dog beachcomber director George Armitage, Miami Blues is a violent Marx Brothers opus writ large in the Miami pastels of the post-Miami Vice era. The book is one of a series chronicling the adventures of hangdog cop Hank Moseley (here played by a perfectly-cast Fred Ward), loping after Junior for a bullshit manslaughter charge after he breaks a Moonie's finger at the airport. Jennifer Jason Leigh co-stars as the dimwitted prostitute Junior plays house with, and the trail Junior leads Mosley on features random crimes of utmost ballsiness, especially after Junior breaks into Mosely's bedroom and steals his dentures, gun, and badge.
Thus begins Junior's deadpan adventures in cop impersonation. Even going so far as to stop crimes when he stumbles on them (there's nary a store not being held-up when Junior is not in earshot), Junior shows that in some cockeyed way he has ethics. He robs crack dealers with a miniature plastic Uzi; rolls pickpockets for the wallets they just stole; knocks over bookies by playing cop with Mosely's stolen badge, and so forth. There's no visible rhyme or reason to Junior's actions, but everything is logical because he acts on our expectations, based on what we see him see. If we see him in a convenience store during a robbery in progress, we naturally assume he'll try to stop it, as most heroes do in these kind of movies, so he does, even if all he has for a weapon is a jar of spaghetti sauce. If the security guard seems a little too cocky with his shotgun at the pawn shop, it's natural Junior will shoot him as soon as his back is turned, even if there's no real motive except to stay in the playful Joker/Marx-like fluidity of the moment, regardless of consequences.
There's no other way to contextualize the anarchy at work here--the only precedent is the Marx Brothers, which the author/s are well aware of, signaled by the in-joke of Junior's initial alias, Herman Gottlieb. i.e. Sig Ruman's ever-fuming, Mrs. Claypool-courting Baroni-signer in MGM's Night at the Opera (1935), a film I saw so many times as a kid that its textures and rhythms cloak me still in a kind of cinephile temple garment. And it's that very same garment that holds the secret to the madness of Baldwin's maniacal character, his crazy Marxian "life is but a dream so row-row yer way straight out the Truman Show" way of being. Forever caught in an old world (pre-WW2) bourgeois slow burn harrumph as Groucho dances verbal circles around him and Harpo sets his shoes on fire, it's only natural that old Mr. Gottlieb would eventually get his wallet lifted and identity stolen by a light-fingered Harpo out of Hell. How else might we measure the high crusting curves of the madness at work?
There's no other way to contextualize the anarchy at work here--the only precedent is the Marx Brothers, which the author/s are well aware of, signaled by the in-joke of Junior's initial alias, Herman Gottlieb. i.e. Sig Ruman's ever-fuming, Mrs. Claypool-courting Baroni-signer in MGM's Night at the Opera (1935), a film I saw so many times as a kid that its textures and rhythms cloak me still in a kind of cinephile temple garment. And it's that very same garment that holds the secret to the madness of Baldwin's maniacal character, his crazy Marxian "life is but a dream so row-row yer way straight out the Truman Show" way of being. Forever caught in an old world (pre-WW2) bourgeois slow burn harrumph as Groucho dances verbal circles around him and Harpo sets his shoes on fire, it's only natural that old Mr. Gottlieb would eventually get his wallet lifted and identity stolen by a light-fingered Harpo out of Hell. How else might we measure the high crusting curves of the madness at work?
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| The real Herman Gottlieb (Sig Ruman) center, and driving the bus top right |
But Armitage doesn't rely on this id-fulfillment to the point his film ceases to be entertaining or to function successfully as Leonrard-esque (*) Florida noir comedic crime thriller. He knows that if Junior's unleashed id is too self-serving, or sadistic, the result will cease to be fun and become instead merely lurid and disturbing (Killer's Moon, Clockwork Orange); if too anarchic, the result would derail our narrative immersion (Daisies, Weekend). If it's juuuust right, then you got the Marx Brothers (in their first seven films), Bela Lugosi in The Raven, Timothy Carey (in everything)... then... who else is left?
Then the answer come a-back: Alec Baldwin. He's left. And now that Blues is on a crisp, gorgeous Shout Blu-ray it's not just a chance to remember how goddamned charismatic and hirsute old Alec used to be, it's a comforting sign that true anarchic Harpo Marx madness shall not perish from the screen... Baldwin--a classic film lover (and TCM regular commentator), he clearly gets it.
HERE'S TO DEAR OLD BALDWIN:Most guys as good looking as Alec are, let's face it, dull as chalk; they never had to develop a personality, so never did. Occupied with making sure their hair is perfect, their best angle facing the camera, their neck long and their eyes twinkly, they forget to accrue depth. No emotion registers on their face lest wrinkles appear. As a result, they come across often as drugged narcissist automatons drained of all wit and regular guy who-gives-a-fuckitude. They become empty aquariums, dusty with the kind of self-righteous petulance they're convinced is the height of butch charisma. The only time they come alive is when they see a mirror.
Not our Baldwin.
With his balanced Irish-American boxer stance, Baldwin comes off as real, a real guy, even when he's acting the part of a charming actor who knows he's fake. No easy feat, he makes Junior a true a cipher without being a bore about it; charming without being cocky, crazy without being aggravating, cool without being pretentious, beyond the need for phony sentiment but brave enough not to run from a real emotion should it ever breezes past. Best of all, he has the glint of real madness in his eyes, the kind you can't fake.
The SHOUT BLU-RAY:
A lot of us kids who grew up obsessively watching all the Marx Brothers and the Lugosi movies we could tape in the early 80s, naturally fell in love with Repo Man in 1984, but were left in the cold at the end of the 80s. In the pre-Tarantino-verse of 1990, Blues stood alone. We fans had a tracking-issue VHS dupe of it, taped off cable, and we had long grown used to the blurry pastel streaks of the decor and sky the fuzzy short hair cuts of both Junior and Susie reduced to a blurry halo. With the new Shout Blu-ray its all sharp and clear, with a nice lovely sparkle to the sea and sky and deep 3-D blacks to every sun-dappled shadow. The 80s pastels are darker, more textured, and the transfer is so sharp you can smell the salt of the sea. The extras include recent interviews with Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Leigh, who both admit really enjoying themselves with the project, the characters, and each other, and it shows then and now.
As I said earlier, the film had its detractors, some of whom declared it emblematic of a rise in nonsensical nihilism. Those critics were clearly pretentious twits, the type who mistakes bitterness for acumen, their minds hardened with dogmatic readings of western dialectical philosophy. Today they're probably going to see the flaccid remake of Far From the Maddening Crowd at some UWS theater with their embittered wives. Fuckin' A.
In other words, the average petit-bourgeois New York Times-perusing filmgoer will not approve of Miami Blues, which seems like an open invitation to the underclasses to rise up and boot them out of their condos. But it's the reverse, really: Junior lets us release our anger vicariously. Out it comes in gushing waves of joy, an air pocket of tyrannical childhood, that playing Godzilla rampaging the building block city catharsis, that which lies beyond good and evil now rising like an oil gusher, lifting us up off the surface of our becalmed flat stoned moviegoing consciousness.
One wild man performance is worth three movies worth of 'importance' or 'meaning.'
We see Junior's kind of kinetic free-form insanity so seldom, especially in today's nanny state clime, that when it comes along in the form of dear old Baldwin it's like a precious little match in the Hans Christian Anderson blizzard of sanctified sanity His is the flammable madness that takes that fluttery match and lights up the sky for just long enough to let us see the vastness of heaven. And then the match is out, the sky is dark, the house lights come back up, the veil of paralyzing self-consciousness descends once more like a clingy Psycho shower curtain, and not even Fred Ward can be held accountable for what we do to try and get that fire back. We wind up in rehab, or as deranged loners, buried deep in our bomb shelters, watching our Night of the Opera tape over and over 'til the tracking button can fix the worn streaks no more... and the last packet of powdered bourbon is long ago thrice soaked.
--
A lot of us kids who grew up obsessively watching all the Marx Brothers and the Lugosi movies we could tape in the early 80s, naturally fell in love with Repo Man in 1984, but were left in the cold at the end of the 80s. In the pre-Tarantino-verse of 1990, Blues stood alone. We fans had a tracking-issue VHS dupe of it, taped off cable, and we had long grown used to the blurry pastel streaks of the decor and sky the fuzzy short hair cuts of both Junior and Susie reduced to a blurry halo. With the new Shout Blu-ray its all sharp and clear, with a nice lovely sparkle to the sea and sky and deep 3-D blacks to every sun-dappled shadow. The 80s pastels are darker, more textured, and the transfer is so sharp you can smell the salt of the sea. The extras include recent interviews with Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Leigh, who both admit really enjoying themselves with the project, the characters, and each other, and it shows then and now.
In other words, the average petit-bourgeois New York Times-perusing filmgoer will not approve of Miami Blues, which seems like an open invitation to the underclasses to rise up and boot them out of their condos. But it's the reverse, really: Junior lets us release our anger vicariously. Out it comes in gushing waves of joy, an air pocket of tyrannical childhood, that playing Godzilla rampaging the building block city catharsis, that which lies beyond good and evil now rising like an oil gusher, lifting us up off the surface of our becalmed flat stoned moviegoing consciousness.
One wild man performance is worth three movies worth of 'importance' or 'meaning.'
We see Junior's kind of kinetic free-form insanity so seldom, especially in today's nanny state clime, that when it comes along in the form of dear old Baldwin it's like a precious little match in the Hans Christian Anderson blizzard of sanctified sanity His is the flammable madness that takes that fluttery match and lights up the sky for just long enough to let us see the vastness of heaven. And then the match is out, the sky is dark, the house lights come back up, the veil of paralyzing self-consciousness descends once more like a clingy Psycho shower curtain, and not even Fred Ward can be held accountable for what we do to try and get that fire back. We wind up in rehab, or as deranged loners, buried deep in our bomb shelters, watching our Night of the Opera tape over and over 'til the tracking button can fix the worn streaks no more... and the last packet of powdered bourbon is long ago thrice soaked.
--
* (I haven't read Willeford's work so I keep referencing Leonard, as the style seems similar, forgive me, Charles
ADDENDUM:
And if you know you're in a dream, that nothing is real, why wouldn't you do all the things you never had the nerve to do in reality? An old friend of mine (through another friend) from the Princeton Blues Traveler days, Fisher (not his real name), lived that way. He was living legend amongst the local mix of debauched upper dregs at the 80s hippie-music-Princeton Record Exchange / Hoagie Haven / searching the ground and trash outside the Princeton Reunion parties for admission badges to crash in and drain their kegs and dig their Dixieland bands / pre-fame Blues Traveler (next time you see them, say hello from "Boot in his Hair!" --the name they gave me the morning after Max's 1988 New Years party ( I don't remember anything about that night between around 11 PM and the next morning but I woke up with dried vomit in my hair, then drove them all home) / Althea gave me her last double purple barrel (call me, Althea! I love you xoxo)- contingent. Princeton!!
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| That 'Fisher' he a some boy all right. |
The party was kind of relaxing and dull but, at one point, suddenly Percheur fell to his knees and in an overhand pinwheel motion, his head down, facing down (looking in the opposite direction of his target), in a seamless falling motion as if the bottle was released accidentally--his half full Bud tall boy soared high into the air out of sight into the darkness.
If you've ever flung a half-full tall boy straight up in the air backwards you know it's not easy to get either distance or accuracy and this toss seemed like he just lost balance (no one but me was even watching him), upon releasing it he fell forwards, rolled and hid behind a car fender. The ca landed with pinpoint accuracy, face up, straight atop the guy's head, and-- with a thonk-- bounced off onto the ground, and landed face up. I don't even think a drop was spilled.
I pretended not to notice and refrained from looking directly at either Percheur or the guy on the other side of the fire once he got hit, but I clocked him as this huge motherfucker in a frat jersey, who looked right over in Percheur's direction, and walking angrily, almost through the fire, right towards where he hid. But when I turned to look, Percheur had disappeared; the guy ran past me, and took off after him into the dark surrounding forest. Fisher spent the rest of the party on the run, coming back to the keg periodically for a refill, suddenly glancing past me and running off; the guy entering frame a moment later in pursuit - not friendly pursuit, either, but seriously aching for a huge party-crashing bad vibe fight. Not sure if he ever caught him, but to this day it's the single most amazing throw I've ever seen.
But that story is nothing, Max shrugged it off as but lesser Percheur amidst the man's storied mythic annals. I asked about him recently (20 years or so later). and Max said last time he heard of him was when--inspired by Miami Blues, which by then had become a huge cult favorite down there--he stole a fireman's badge and was pulling over cars on the road to fuck with them and/or steal their drugs.
And from then on they called him 'Princeton Blues.'
---
Soon after of course the neighborhood was altered by Blues Traveller's success, and while they were on tour, the rest of the crowd would be smoking crack and watching pre-code WB gangster movies on TCM, which I respected. I still have the tape their manager Dave Martin they made me of Two Seconds, Picture Snatcher and Beast of the City. (TCM was rarity back then - my neighborhood didn't have it - few did - so he hooked me up). But where are any of them now? Who knows. My buddy got married. Drugs, fame, motorcycle accidents, and age took the rest. But hey, like they do in pre-code Warner's gangster films and like Junior does in Miami Blues, the free man alone may soar to the heights the burdened only dream of, until
Oops he fell.
As we all did.
But hey, you have to be high before you can splat --that's the arc of a gangster. It ends and it's time for teeth to be returned to the ground floor Mosleys. Walter Brennan in Red River asking for them back 'come grub' after losing them in a poker game to Chief Yowlachie, now called 2-Jaw Quo.
Detective Gummo, your teeth had never ground so free as they did in this man's hand; he carried them above the clouds, atop the spirit sky frog he could not refrain from biting.
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| "come chow, you get" |
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