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WILDONE


The 1953 movie, "The Wild Ones"
Stanley Kramer's great morality
play (you know, with Marlon Brando).

Tremendously heavy handed...     
   
The type of thing that                                    (Feb 3 2001)
convinces some people                                     
that art must be above                 Note that *despite*              
morality and must                      the heavy-handed                 
avoid the didactic.                    blathering about the             
                                       irresponsibility of the          
The police are all                     main Brando character,
incredibly nicey-nice,                 *despite* the                    
compared to these                      disasters that befall            
jackbooted,                            the Wild Ones, this              
"zero-tolerance"                       movie was one of the             
times.                                 great blows against              
                                       Western culture.                 
And the "bad guys" --                                                   
the bullies in suits                   Brando's leather-clad,           
who organize a lynch                   sullen swagger is what           
mob -- in retrospect,                  sticks in the mind,              
these guys show a                      his supreme *coolness*           
tremendous amount of                   is what carries the              
public spirt.  Can you                 movie, not the                   
imagine some suit                      finger-waggling cop              
doing *anything* like                  lectures at the end.             
this today?                                                             
                                       Go ahead, try         
  Now it's all: "Call the              and do Message.                  
  cops!  This is their job!"                                            
                                                  Just try it.          
  No one is going to recite                                             
  the old cliche: "I don't                        See where it gets you.
  want to get involved",                                                
  because that's taken as                                    
  a given.  Of course you  
  don't.  Why would you?   
                                          

       Oh for the days when
       it was occasionally                
       necessary to remind 
       people:             
                           
       "don't take the law 
       into your own hands"        (You know all too well
                                    where it's been.)

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