Meeting Miss Scarlet

My favorite movie of all-time is the 1985 classic Clue. I’ve seen it more times than I can count, and it’s been my favorite movie since I was a kid. Watching and re-watching it on VHS was a core childhood memory. When the opportunity came to see the movie and meet Lesley Ann Warren, aka Miss Scarlet, I jumped at the chance.  

My wife and I met Lesley Ann Warren before the show. With meet and greet things, I feel like you never quite know what it’s going to be like. Do I get 30 seconds with the person, or 3 minutes? But this turned out to be quite a lovely experience. Lesley Ann Warren was just delightful, very nice and sweet. She’s still gorgeous, as you can imagine, with sparkling green eyes, set off by her sparkly green jacket and pants. We each got one item signed by her: I found a very cute 8x10 on eBay of Warren from her terrific role in Victor/Victoria. As she was signing it, I realized that I needed to say something to her, so she knew what a fan of the movie I am. I said what a fan of hers we both are, and especially of her performance as Miss Scarlet. 

I brought along my copy of the 1985 book Clue: The Storybook, which was a large hardcover that was meant for younger readers. As I opened the book for Warren to sign it, she said “What is this?” She had never seen the storybook before! As a devoted Clue nerd, I was very proud of myself. I explained that it was a version of the movie for younger readers, but without most of the jokes. Instead of Mr. Green being gay, he’s having “a sort of an affair.” Warren flipped through it, looking at some of the photos. When she came across a photo of Martin Mull, she said “Oh, there’s my dear sweet Martin.” And on seeing one photo of herself she said, “There’s the dress that looks like it’s always about to fall down but never did.” When we shook hands she said, “Your hands are so warm!”  

Warren was interviewed on stage before the movie. She said she’s working on a one-woman show, which sounds like it would be amazing. Warren really got along well with Martin Mull, and they had a marvelous time cracking each other up on the set. Because her costume was so tight, and because she was wearing a period-appropriate corset, it was difficult if not impossible for Warren to sit down, so she spent a lot of her off-camera time on a leaning board so she could relax but still keep her dress pristine. The costume designer also made a second dress that had a hidden zipper, so Warren could run from room to room with the rest of the cast.  

At the time Clue was released, it was not a box-office smash, and it seemed like it would be just another project that would fade away. But the growing VHS and home rental market, as well as frequent airings on cable TV, gave Clue a remarkable afterlife. Clue was famously released with three different endings—newspaper ads would indicate which theater was showing which ending. It was a gutsy choice for Paramount, and while they were no doubt hoping that audiences would come back and see all three endings, it’s a lot to ask of people to sit through the same 85 minutes of a movie before the last 5 minutes are different. The different endings were a wonderful homage to the board game, as there are 324 possible solutions to the game. That’s 9 times 6 times 6. Or 6 times 6 times 9. But while the multiple endings might have confused audiences in the theaters, on VHS the 3 endings were combined, so we saw them one after the other. This was the perfect way to experience Clue. Warren told the audience that years after Clue had been released, she asked Martin Mull, “Are you getting, like a LOT of fan mail about Clue?” Mull replied, “You too?”  

When I was a little kid watching Clue, obviously a standout performance was Tim Curry as Wadsworth the butler. (“I buttle, sir.”) But watching the movie so many times over the years has given me reasons to appreciate the entire cast’s performances. As Warren said, “We were not comedians, we were all comic actors.” Bingo. And that’s why it worked so well. No one was trying to steal laughs, and they were all good enough actors to make their roles believable. (Well, except for Lee Ving, who is terrible as Mr. Boddy.)  

As a little kid, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Miss Scarlet. I knew we were supposed to find her attractive—she’s a beautiful woman in a stunning dress, after all. But I wasn’t sure what to make of her brash, bold personality. So, I shied away from Miss Scarlet and instead developed a crush on Mrs. White, so exquisitely played by the wonderful Madeline Kahn. The fact that Mrs. White had perhaps killed several of her husbands seemed to have escaped me. (“Husbands should be like Kleenex: soft, strong, and disposable.”)  

Watching Clue as an adult, I’m more drawn to Miss Scarlet. And a large part of that is Warren’s outstanding performance. Miss Scarlet is never scared by the events of the evening; she takes it all in stride and keeps making snappy wisecracks throughout the proceedings. (“It’s my defense mechanism.”) Miss Scarlet is probably the character I’d most want to hang out with. It’s a great performance that just grows with multiple viewings. 

Book Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, by Haruki Murakami (2013, English translation 2014)

Haruki Murakami’s novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage was first published in 2013, and in an English translation by Philip Gabriel in 2014. The novel tells the story of Tsukuru Tazaki, who has four close friends during high school, two male and two female. His friends all have names that include colors, but Tsukuru does not, leaving him “colorless.” Tsukuru is the only one of the five who leaves their city for college, and eventually during college the four friends break off all contact with Tsukuru, for reasons that Tsukuru does not understand.  

In the present time of the novel, Tsukuru is in his late 30’s and is prodded by his new girlfriend to seek some closure about why his friends cut him off. I’ll leave the plot summary there, especially since the plot is not always the main point in Murakami’s novels.  

Unlike some of Murakami’s fiction that I’ve read, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki is set quite firmly in the real world, and the surreal elements that often appear in his fiction are nowhere to be found in this novel.  

Music, often so important in Murakami’s work, is a key motif in the novel. A suite of piano pieces by Franz Liszt, “Years of Pilgrimage” is frequently referenced in the novel, in particular the eighth piece “Le mal du pays.” Murakami references the late 1970’s recording of “Years of Pilgrimage” by the Russian pianist Lazar Berman. Fortunately, thanks to Spotify and other streaming services, it’s easy to find Berman’s recording and you can listen along as you read the novel. And, true to Murakami’s universe, where bossa nova always seems to appear, at a Lexus dealership “in the background an Antonio Carlos Jobim tune played.” (p.133)  

Tsukuru is a curious character, as he has gone through his life without attaching himself to very many people. He has no close friends, and he has had very few romantic relationships. As he says about himself, “But I don’t have any confidence...Because I have no sense of self. I have no personality, no brilliant color. I have nothing to offer. That’s always been my problem. I feel like an empty vessel.” (p.273) The plight of Tsukuru Tazaki is a stirring reminder of how hard it can be to make and sustain connections in this world.  

If you’re a fan of Murakami, you’ll enjoy the journey he takes you on in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.  

Book Review: Clock Without Hands, a novel by Carson McCullers (1961)

Clock Without Hands, published in 1961, was Carson McCullers’ final novel. McCullers died in 1967, at the young age of 50. Rheumatic fever had weakened her heart, and it was clear from early in her life that she would most likely not live out her full “three score and ten” years. McCullers left behind a substantial bibliography. 

Clock Without Hands received excellent reviews when it was published. The New York Herald Tribune proclaimed, “It may be too strong, too frank for many. But not a word could be added or taken away from this marvel of a novel.” (Quoted on the back cover of the 1963 Bantam paperback.) The Atlantic Monthly said it was “The most impressive of her novels.”  

Gore Vidal wrote in a review: “McCullers is marvelous to read, and her genius for prose remains one of the few satisfying achievements of our second-rate culture.” As any Gore Vidal fan knows, this praise is all the more impressive because Vidal was not known to express his enthusiasm very often. As Frasier Crane said in an episode of Frasier, “Gore Vidal? He hates everything!” 

The novel begins with pharmacist J.T. Malone learning that he has leukemia and only has about a year and a half to live. Malone is a quiet, unobtrusive Everyman. He is friends with the Judge, who is 85 years old, a former member of the House of Representatives, and a leading citizen of the small Georgia town in which the novel takes place.  

The Judge is really the main character of the novel, as most of the action revolves around him, his 17-year-old grandson Jester, and Sherman Pew, a young Black man with blue eyes who becomes the Judge’s secretary.  

The Judge still has dreams of getting back into politics, and he tells Jester of his idea to have Confederate currency redeemed by the U.S. government, including adjustments for inflation. It’s a truly bizarre idea, like a reverse reparations. It’s also evidence of how the Judge is living in the past and still adhering to the myth of the “Lost Cause.”  

The Judge is a larger-than-life character, and he dominates the novel. He is a convincing character, and I can picture him clearly in my mind. Jester and Sherman, not so much. Although Jester became slightly clearer in my mind when I imagined him being played by a young Anthony Perkins.  

Jester and Sherman are intrigued by each other, and they carry on a lot of homoerotic hate flirting that never turns into anything more serious. 

Clock Without Hands is an example of a novel that tackles an Important Issue in society, but the points the novel wants to make are achieved through cardboard characters who are archetypes and not fully fledged people.  

There are no major female characters in Clock Without Hands, and I think that’s a weakness of the novel. I would like to know more about Malone’s wife, and her Coca-Cola stock she owns that’s mentioned so many times. What is she like? How is she negotiating life in this small town? She would like to be an entrepreneur, but her husband doesn’t like the idea of her working outside of the home. And I wonder what the point was of having Malone in the story at all? I feel as though he could easily be taken out of the novel, and it wouldn’t be affected very much.  

As realistic as I found the Judge to be, I was skeptical when the Judge says to Sherman, “No, I’m not a bit religious.” (p.173) The Judge is so conventional in all of his thoughts and actions that we see, and so conservative. Why wouldn’t he be a churchgoer?  This was a man who was a Judge, who was a member of the esteemed House of Representatives of the United States, and man who was born around the year of our Lord 1868, in a small town in Georgia, and he says he’s not religious? Well, I bet you as sure as anything that if he wasn’t religious, he was the only freethinker in that there whole town! No, I picture the Judge attending one of those fine old solid Baptist churches. I reckon that he could even give a fine sermon some Sunday if’n he’d put his mind to it.  

I found Clock Without Hands to be the weakest of Carson McCullers’ novels. That being said, it’s still full of fine writing, but it pales in comparison to her masterpieces The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding.