Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with today’s installment of A Movie A Day.

[For those now joining us, A Movie A Day is my attempt at filling in gaps in my film knowledge. My DVD collection is thousands strong, many of them films I haven’t seen yet, but picked up as I scoured used DVD stores. Each day I’ll pull a previously unseen film from my collection or from my DVR and discuss it here. Each movie will have some sort of connection to the one before it, be it cast or crew member.]

I don’t have the desire to go back and count them, but I’m sure there’s quite a healthy amount of AMADs that start out with me talking about how I’ve intended to see the movie under discussion that day for a long, long time and it took this column to force me to finally just sit my fat ass down and watch it.

And that’s definitely the case with BEING THERE. I was a little late to the Hal Ashby party, only seeing HAROLD AND MAUDE maybe 4 or 5 years ago. Sure, I saw both SHAMPOO and COMING HOME in my childhood (weird that it’s those two, isn’t it?), but even those I don’t remember much of. HAROLD AND MAUDE I’ve seen probably half a dozen times since that first viewing. It’s an immensely rewatchable movie and I even got to see it this year at the Alamo with noneother than Bud Cort in attendance. He lead the audience in the pledge of allegiance and, to cap off the night, a full 200 part harmony of If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out.

I knew I’d love BEING THERE, it was just a matter of sitting down to watch the damned thing.

And I did love it. It’s actually a different movie than I was expecting, but I love it all the more for dashing my expectations. I was expecting a quirkier film, more in the HAROLD AND MAUDE mold, and what I got was a straightforward tale of a fascinating innocence… well, straight-forward until the last 30 seconds when something in your mind should pop when you see what happens.

Or maybe I’m just slow. I certainly see the hints throughout the movie, but I never considered that… well, you know… If you’ve seen it you know what I’m talking about, if you haven’t I’ll be goddamned if I’ll be the one to spoil it for you.

You could very easily see BEING THERE as a precursor to FORREST GUMP, but without the gimmick. The film opens with Peter Sellers looking very old, but somehow even younger than his hey day. It’s the innocence that he wears. There is no winking at the camera or showing off. He’s subdued, natural here.

What’s really odd is Sellers’ Chance watches the same shit I used to watch. I was born in 1981, but the children’s programming he watches in the late ‘70s is the same stuff I grew up with. That era Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, etc. So, immediately there was a nostalgic factor for me.

Turns out Chance since childhood has lived with an old man. He’s never had any formal educating, he can’t read or write, but he tends to the garden and is obsessed with TV. Chance was raised mostly by the maid, who comes down to tell him that the old man has passed away. Chance’s reaction isn’t sad or happy, but neutral. He takes it as point of fact and doesn’t have any strong emotions one way or the other.

The maid leaves and a skeazy lawyer type shows up to evaluate the property, finds this gardener, dressed up in nice, but old clothes. Chance inherits his entire wardrobe from the old man’s even older suits, so he always looks good.

The skeazy lawyer kicks the poor devil out and the fish out of water story really swings into high gear. Chance has never left the house, never been in a car, doesn’t know anybody and bases all his interactions on either what he knows from television or his personal relationships with the maid and the old man.

He also walks around with his remote control. That’s his reality. When he loses interest in people or places he changes the channel, but in the real world for some reason he’s finding his remote doesn’t work quite right.

Ashby keeps this stuff to a minimum, though. The meat of the movie is what happens to him after this brief foray into the world. He is injured by a car and is taken in by Shirley MacLaine, the young trophy wife of a rich, powerful and dying old man (Melvyn Douglas).

The Forrest Gump comparisons come into play here and only in the most surface ways. The two films are radically different, but you do have a simple, innocent lead who is suddenly thrust into a position where he has the ear and respect of the most powerful men in the world.

Douglas’ Benjamin Rand takes to Chance right away. I’m not exactly sure what it is… the humility, the childlike wonder at his surroundings, his innocence… maybe all them combined. Whatever the reason, Old Man Rand trusts him and brings him into his confidence, which also ends up getting him next to the President of the United States (Jack Warden).

Chance only knows gardening, so when asked his opinion on an economic crisis, he translates that into what he knows, describing a season for all things and as long as the roots aren’t severed there will be a bloom in the Spring. This alters the course of the whole country and the President’s policy, shooting Chance (“the Gardener” he says, which people take as his last name so he becomes Chance Gardener) into stardom within the political world.

Everybody’s trying to dig up information on him and that’s essentially the last half of the movie. You have some of the people around Rand worried this man is trying to take him for his money in the waning days of his life as well as the Government trying to figure out who this guy is. The press want info, entertainment shows on TV want him to be a guest, he’s invited to all the parties, etc.

Ashby also balances that out with MacLaine falling in love with him, something that is even encouraged by her husband who just wants he to be happy and with a good man when he’s gone.

Sellers never breaks character… well, that’s not exactly true… we see him crack up in a credits sequence gag-reel, but that doesn’t count. That’s after the story is told. What I’m trying to get at is that Sellers turns in the performance of his life. I love his turns in DR. STRANGELOVE and LOLITA, but his work here is so subtle, so controlled and out of character for him (or at least the image of him) that I have to give it to this film.

He was nominated, but lost to Dustin Hoffman in KRAMER VS. KRAMER. With all due respect to Mr. Hoffman, an actor I really admire who turned in a great performance in that film, Sellers was robbed. The only other person nominated that year that could have gotten it was Roy Scheider for ALL THAT JAZZ. Melvyn Douglas did win for Supporting Actor (beating out Robert Duvall in APOCALYPSE NOW, how about that?), so BEING THERE wasn’t completely ignored.

MacLaine also turns in quite a performance. Just like Sellers’ work, it’s understated (until her masturbation scene, that is). It’s a haunted and sad performance, but one full of hope.

Chance advertently or inadvertently saves these two people from the hell of self-pity and depression by his very presence. Seeing his influence on MacLaine especially underlines the happiness his character can spread.

Final Thoughts: This is quite an awesome movie, one that really does live up to its reputation and it’s guaranteed to make you sad that Sellers isn’t still kicking around today, having given us another two decades of work. It’s a sweet movie, a touching movie, a funny movie. If you’ve been like me and somehow avoided it until now make it a priority. You won’t regret it.

Here are the next seven in the line up:

THE PARTY (1968)

CASINO ROYALE (1967)

THE STRANGER (1946)

BROTHER ORCHID (1940)

THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1936)

MOONTIDE (1942)

NOTORIOUS (1946)

And another huge one, probably the biggest “What the fudge!?” title of the year. NOTORIOUS also marks the 200th film of the AMAD column.

On that note, I have to pause the column for this weekend. I tried really hard to get the next two days watched and reviewed. I got it half done, but my regular BNAT duties have prevented me from following through. On top of that, I’m leaving BNAT Sunday afternoon and going straight to the airport for over 18 hours of travel… I think I have a death wish, but that all adds up to me not being able to knock out the next installment until maybe Monday or Tuesday of next week.

Sorry to flake out, but I just couldn’t do it. I’m only human!

Keep an eye out Monday or Tuesday for the next Peter Sellers flick in the queue, his reteaming with Blake Edwards in THE PARTY!

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com

Previous Movies:

June 2nd: Harper
June 3rd: The Drowning Pool
June 4th: Papillon
June 5th: Gun Crazy
June 6th: Never So Few
June 7th: A Hole In The Head
June 8th: Some Came Running
June 9th: Rio Bravo
June 10th: Point Blank
June 11th: Pocket Money
June 12th: Cool Hand Luke
June 13th: The Asphalt Jungle
June 14th: Clash By Night
June 15th: Scarlet Street
June 16th: Killer Bait (aka Too Late For Tears)
June 17th: Robinson Crusoe On Mars
June 18th: City For Conquest
June 19th: San Quentin
June 20th: 42nd Street
June 21st: Dames
June 22nd: Gold Diggers of 1935
June 23rd: Murder, My Sweet
June 24th: Born To Kill
June 25th: The Sound of Music
June 26th: Torn Curtain
June 27th: The Left Handed Gun
June 28th: Caligula
June 29th: The Elephant Man
June 30th: The Good Father
July 1st: Shock Treatment
July 2nd: Flashback
July 3rd: Klute
July 4th: On Golden Pond
July 5th: The Cowboys
July 6th: The Alamo
July 7th: Sands of Iwo Jima
July 8th: Wake of the Red Witch
July 9th: D.O.A.
July 10th: Shadow of A Doubt
July 11th: The Matchmaker
July 12th: The Black Hole
July 13th: Vengeance Is Mine
July 14th: Strange Invaders
July 15th: Sleuth
July 16th: Frenzy
July 17th: Kingdom of Heaven: The Director’s Cut
July 18th: Cadillac Man
July 19th: The Sure Thing
July 20th: Moving Violations
July 21st: Meatballs
July 22nd: Cast a Giant Shadow
July 23rd: Out of the Past
July 24th: The Big Steal
July 25th: Where Danger Lives
July 26th: Crossfire
July 27th: Ricco, The Mean Machine
July 28th: In Harm’s Way
July 29th: Firecreek
July 30th: The Cheyenne Social Club
July 31st: The Man Who Knew Too Much
August 1st: The Spirit of St. Louis
August 2nd: Von Ryan’s Express
August 3rd: Can-Can
August 4th: Desperate Characters
August 5th: The Possession of Joel Delaney
August 6th: Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In The Bronx
August 7th: Start the Revolution Without Me
August 8th: Hell Is A City
August 9th: The Pied Piper
August 10th: Partners
August 11th: Barry Lyndon
August 12th: The Skull
August 13th: The Hellfire Club
August 14th: Blood of the Vampire
August 15th: Terror of the Tongs
August 16th: Pirates of Blood River
August 17th: The Devil-Ship Pirates
August 18th: Jess Franco’s Count Dracula
August 19th: Dracula A.D. 1972
August 20th: The Stranglers of Bombay
August 21st: Man, Woman & Child
August 22nd: The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane
August 23rd: The Young Philadelphians
August 24th: The Rack
August 25th: Until They Sail
August 26th: Somebody Up There Likes Me
August 27th: The Set-Up
August 28th: The Devil & Daniel Webster
August 29th: Cat People
August 30th: The Curse of the Cat People
August 31st: The 7th Victim
September 1st: The Ghost Ship
September 2nd: Isle of the Dead
September 3rd: Bedlam
September 4th: Black Sabbath
September 5th: Black Sunday
September 6th: Twitch of the Death Nerve
September 7th: Tragic Ceremony
September 8th: Lisa & The Devil
September 9th: Baron Blood
September 10th: A Shot In The Dark
September 11th: The Pink Panther
September 12th: The Return of the Pink Panther
September 13th: The Pink Panther Strikes Again
September 14th: Revenge of the Pink Panther
September 15th: Trail of the Pink Panther
September 16th: The Real Glory
September 17th: The Winning of Barbara Worth
September 18th: The Cowboy and the Lady
September 19th: Dakota
September 20th: Red River
September 21st: Terminal Station
September 22nd: The Search
September 23rd: Act of Violence
September 24th: Houdini
September 25th: Money From Home
September 26th: Papa’s Delicate Condition
September 27th: Dillinger
September 28th: Battle of the Bulge
September 29th: Daisy Kenyon
September 30th: Laura
October 1st: The Dunwich Horror
October 2nd: Experiment In Terror
October 3rd: The Devil’s Rain
October 4th: Race With The Devil
October 5th: Salo, Or The 120 Days of Sodom
October 6th: Bad Dreams
October 7th: The House Where Evil Dwells
October 8th: Memories of Murder
October 9th: The Hunger
October 10th: I Saw What You Did
October 11th: I Spit On Your Grave
October 12th: Naked You Die
October 13th: The Wraith
October 14th: Silent Night, Bloody Night
October 15th: I Bury The Living
October 16th: The Beast Must Die
October 17th: Hellgate
October 18th: He Knows You’re Alone
October 19th: The Thing From Another World
October 20th: The Fall of the House of Usher
October 21st: Audrey Rose
October 22nd: Who Slew Auntie Roo?
October 23rd: Wait Until Dark
October 24th: Dead & Buried
October 25th: A Bucket of Blood
October 26th: The Bloodstained Shadow
October 27th: I, Madman
October 28th: Return to Horror High
October 29th: Die, Monster, Die
October 30th: Epidemic
October 31st: Student Bodies
November 1st: Black Widow
November 2nd: The Ghost & Mrs. Muir
November 3rd: Flying Tigers
November 4th: Executive Action
November 5th: The Busy Body
November 6th: It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World
November 7th: Libeled Lady
November 8th: Up The River
November 9th: Doctor Bull
November 10th: Judge Priest
November 11th: Ten Little Indians
November 12th: Murder On The Orient Express
November 13th: Daniel
November 14th: El Dorado
November 15th: The Gambler
November 16th: Once Upon A Time In America
November 17th: Salvador
November 18th: Best Seller
November 19th: The Holcroft Covenant
November 20th: Birdman of Alcatraz
November 21st: The Train
November 22nd: Gunfight At The O.K. Corral
November 23rd: Mystery Street
November 24th: Border Incident
November 25th: The Tin Star
November 26th: On The Beach
November 27th: Twelve O’Clock High
November 28th: Gentleman’s Agreement
November 29th: Panic In The Streets
November 30th: The Hot Rock
December 1st: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
December 2nd: The Day of the Dolphin
December 3rd: Carnal Knowledge
December 4th: The Cincinnati Kid
December 5th: Pocketful of Miracles
December 6th: Mikey & Nicky
December 7th: Two-Minute Warning
December 8th: The Sentinel
December 9th: How To Steal A Million
December 10th: What’s New Pussycat?