1971@50: THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS

In a year that boasts Harold and Maude as well as A New Leaf and Little Murders we could be forgiven for thinking that we'd exhausted the violent inversion of the rom com tally for the twelvemonth. Then comes They Might be Giants. Justin Fairplay has been struck so profoundly by the atrocities he has known as a judge and then the death of his wife that he has fled into another identity, presenting himself as Sherlock Holmes. His brother, after control of Justin's fortune, seeks to have him put into lifelong care. Cue the entrance of psychiatrist (a Dr Watson ... you knew that had to be it, didn't you?) and one of the funnier meet cutes you're likely to see if you're coursing through the history of romantic comedies: Justin draws a voice from a non speaking patient at the clinic through deduction. Watson is on the case and the rest could go into inspiration or slowly deflate into indulgent whackiness.

Happily, while neither quite happens, the best of this film sustains what lets down later imitators like Michael, Little Miss Sunshine, or Wes Anderson's entire output: the darkness in the depths. Justin's condition is the product of the stress from witnessing the worst of humanity and what would have felt like the unfairness of his wife's death. All the whimsy and quirk his Holmes expresses and enacts come from the futile wish to solve and repair the cruelty of the world around him. The suggestion that he is destined for a life of chemical stupor is as constant as the memento mori of Harold and Maude, the threat of homicide in A New Leaf and the social entropy of Little Murders: They Might be Giants is anchored. This is what allows the constant loopiness of Justin's pursuit to find its comedy rather than have it stamped clumsily on the surface, and it is why the scenes of painful, torpid self realisation do not feel like they come from nowhere.

But none of this would work if the fragility of the thread binding the two leads snapped or was too thin to hold. George C. Scott, fresh from his barnstorming turn as Patton plays Justin and his protean identity phasing with a real sense of danger, as though one admission or pretence too far and he really would slip into psychic perdition. In his character's approximation of a posh British accent (as distinct from the actor's) he demands that other characters stop indulging and patronising him as they play along and there the plummy tones crack and the stony demeanour falls, if only for a second at a time as though it were a slipping beret. Perhaps it's the vulnerability but Scott, here at fifty-one, looks younger than he did in Dr Strangelove, seven years before. Perhaps it was the actor's own sense of liberation in this once-only performance.

As his foil, a frankly aging Joanne Woodward plays resistance and a careful play at dominance over her patient before understanding that her journey is towards clarity, self-acceptance and potential. As composed as she begins, there is a palpable bitter relief when she tries the phrase, "I am adequate." As she is given example after example of this force of life drawing invigorating rebellion from switchboard operators, security guards, cops and anyone else they encounter, she gradually understands that for all her professionalism her own time is slated to be soon. By the time they are leading their army of quirky desperados to meet what must surely be a great void of disappointment, she is front and centre, still herself but given to a cause. Beside Scott's rampaging turn Woodward's is a thankless task of making us believe in his charisma and, in effect, be the Watson, but it bears close attention and rewards.

Neither as bleak nor as screamingly funny as the trio I've mentioned a few times here, They Might be Giants yet holds its own as a piece of cinematic civil disobedience. Its immediate ancestors like Barefoot in the Park leaned away from middle America. By 1971 this was a grinding rejection of the endless war and the cloud of Richard Nixon. A judge whose professional life breaks him into pastiche which, as strong as it gets, cannot withstand the grounding of reason against the world that must break through. Without the initial indulgence and then a grave and courageous nod of support by his Watson he would be the Don Quixote he invokes to give the film its title (windmills and giants) but he becomes the Holmes he needed to be.

PS - I struggled to find this film through various channels until I stumbled on it while making up an order for videos on an online shop. There is a decent blu-ray for under ten bux at JB.

PPS - This disc is missing a scene. Reading about the film I've found that most subsequent presentations of it have omitted a scene I thought crucial enough to remember vividly and anticipated seeing again when I pressed play. We only see the beginning of it when Justin and Mildred walk into the after hours supermarket with the surly checkout teen and tranced out announcer murmuring about the specials. From what I've read this is difficult to find so I'm going to spoil it. This is the second last scene and serves as the climax. The pursuers of Justin and Watson track him to the shop and make a move on the pair. Justin creates a diversion   by announcing specials that no one can pass up so the teams of heavies heads for the shelves as the mistfit army storms in, creating chaos. I remember it was hilarious when I saw it and the perfect cap on all the whimsy that could veer too close to cute. I worried that it might not match up to my memory. When I realised we were not going to get it I felt more upset than if it had disappointed. It meant that the big march in the third act really was for nothing, that all that anti-normal energy just blew away in the breeze. It also robs the eerie quiet of the final moment by the absence of its noise. The excision takes a few minutes off the running time but it wasn't exactly an overstayer to begin with at just ninety-eight minutes. I'll be on the look out for a restored version. Still, this was a refreshing revisit for something I'd only ever seen after midnight on an old black white tv from the Salvos. Anway....