Page 14 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • November 5, 2014 Hollywood revisited As outdoor living winds down due to the seasonal tem- perature shift, those of us who can pass up the vacations that promise “getaways” or “escapes” -- escapes from what? America? -- have TV to fall back on. My wife and I like nothing better than to put on eight layers of clothing and watch “Reel Thirteen” every Saturday night. The secret of enjoying the same movie more than once is this: The first time you watch for the plot and the char- acters and the next three times you enjoy the allusions, anachronisms, and absurdities. In “The Searchers” (1956), John Wayne tracks the Comanches to the same Indianist theme that Errol Flynn tracked the Sioux to in “They Died with Their Boots On” (1914). Max Steiner, whose family knew Johann Strauss in Austria-Hungary, produced such an evocative five- note theme -- BOM-BOM, bah-bah-BOM! -- that it came to have a life of its own. In an intentional allusion, “The Searchers” begins with an orchestral version of “Lorena,” a Civil War ballad in which the singer yearns to meet his beloved after they both die, which is intensely relevant to the plot. Steiner also wrote the music for “King Kong,” which is seething with allusions. Kong lives on Skull Island. The ape and skull motif was a symbol of Darwinism. Lenin kept one on his desk to remind himself to be ruthless. Kong’s death grapple with the snake-like lizard in his skull cave, which enables Fay Wray to escape with Bruce Cabot, is an obvious Freudian allusion. The scene in which the ship’s crew and the natives join forces to keep Kong from breaking into the village by barring the gate can be taken as an allusion to the defense of the West against commu- nism. In the sad little sequel, “Son of Kong,” the ship is taken over by a group of angry merchant seamen whose loud-mouthed leader is simply known as “Red.” When the island sinks, the hero, the heroine, and the Chinese cook take off in a sailboat and are rescued by what is obviously a Japanese ship. Bad “reds” and kindly Japanese disap- peared from Hollywood a few years later. This leads us to anachronisms. “The Searchers” begins circa 1867 as John Wayne rides up to his brother’s ranch in Texas. Later, when he rides out for vengeance, the revolver and lever-action rifle he uses are both weapon types that were not produced until 1873. For once, Wayne was ahead of his time. One of my best friends was a door gunner in Vietnam, winner of the Air Medal, and cannot stand Wayne -- yet admits that “The Searchers” was a truly great movie, and the only great movie Wayne ever made. I posit another one for my purposes: “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.” Wayne actually acts in this one, playing an old cavalry captain troubled by retirement -- a human anachronism since he had no immediate family. As a re-run special, you get it all. You get your anachronism: The year is 1876 but Pony Express riders are said to carry the news of Custer’s Last Stand. (The real Pony Express went out of business in 1861 when Western Union linked New York to San Francisco by telegraph.) You get your allusions: The German-American post blacksmith is named “Wagner” and the anvil theme from Richard Wagner’s “Ring” opera plays briefly as Blacksmith Wagner works at the forge. The crooked Indian agent and gunrunner, Isaac Rynders, is named for a New York City gang leader of the prior decade who once ordered African-American Abolitionist Frederick Douglass beaten up for seeing an Irish woman. You get your absurdities: Indian Agent Rynders, offering the hostile Indians rifles for looted gold, climbs up on the tailgate of his buckboard and makes an insulting speech. His interpreter tells the Indians “ Sicha, sicha, lelah sicha! Wasteh, wasteh, lelah wasteh!” The hostile Indians are supposed to be Southern Cheyenne, but this is the wrong language. What the interpreter says is “ Bad, bad, very bad. Good, Good, very good!” My wife and I both understand rudimentary Lakota and we burst out laughing when we heard this. The Cheyenne chief, played by Noble Johnson, a multi- faced and multi-faceted black man, suavely raises his bow and puts an arrow right into Rynders’ chest. Rynders looks surprised. His crooked agency staff goes into the campfire. Wayne digs it from a safe distance. Johnson also turned up, sometimes as the native chief in “King Kong,” and in a film version of “The Most Dan- gerous Game,” for which he used white-face to play a men- acing Cossack. Johnson was the hypnotized Nubian slave in “The Mummy” with Boris Karloff, and a stalwart and dignified Sikh sergeant in the Alexander Korda version of “The Jungle Book” with Sabu Dagastir. In his farewell performance, Johnson got to charge up on horseback and shoot an arrow at John Wayne’s feet, his eyes glowering a challenge. Wayne picked up the arrow, snapped it, spat on it, and threw in back at Johnson. “I’m an old man, leave me alone,” Wayne says. Then Wayne and John Big Tree, who played the friendly Indian Blue Back in “Drums along the Mohawk” when he was a decade younger, meet in peace and agree that war is no good and they should go off and get drunk together -- or perhaps watch old movies. Here’s a crash course in enjoyable movie details you may have missed, especially on “Reel 13.” In “Eye of the Needle” with Donald Sutherland and Kate Nelligan, the desperate German U-Boat crew members waiting to hear from their ace spy all speak German with crass English accents. Conversely, in “Run Silent, Run Deep” with Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster, the Japanese destroyer crew whose ship they blow up at the beginning of the movie all look and sound distinctly Korean, while the Japanese submarine that stalks the American submarine has a crew that looks Japanese and speaks Japanese perfectly. In “The Eagle Has Landed” with Michael Caine and Donald Suther- land, the sinister intelligence officer Robert Duvall’s black eye-patch is shown first on one eye, then on the other eye. “Braveheart,” not yet on Reel 13, is said to be the world record holder for anachronisms and inaccuracies. The Scottish national hero William Wallace circa 1300 fought the English in full plate armor, not in a kilt with woad (blue paint) on his face as Mel Gibson did. The droite de seigneur was part of the plot, but researchers say it was never practiced in Catholic countries, especially not in the British Isles. The depicted “gay” English King Edward II is believed in real life to have produced children with three different women. I call that plausible denial. The French Princess Isabelle whom William Wallace is shown to have seduced and impregnated with the future king Edward III of England was in fact three years old at the time of Wal- lace’s execution. I call that implausible precocity. However, if they ever show “Braveheart,” I will be there taking notes with a strange sense of delight. I too have a brave heart -- and a strong stomach. Ridgewood Police arrest two men who rescued straying child Two Paterson co-workers rescued a wandering four- year-old who slipped away from a Ridgewood home, but the men’s story ended with a twist when one was later arrested for theft and the other was arrested for DWI. The Ridgewood Police Department responded to an Oct. 25 alert that a young child was seen walking alone beside busy Maple Avenue. When the police arrived, they discovered that two employees of a sanitation company had spotted the child, a four-year-old boy, and stopped to make sure he was safe. The two men turned the boy over to the Ridgewood Police Department, and the police returned him to the caregiver at his home, who had not realized that he had wandered off. At 8:30 that night, the police received a call from the home where they had dropped off the four-year-old. One of the Paterson men had turned up at the child’s home asking for a reward and was in possession of the caregiv- er’s wallet. He returned it, but several items turned out to be missing and the 27-year-old man was arrested and charged with receiving stolen property. Meanwhile, Patrolman Christopher Mormino came in contact with a driver who reported that the other Paterson man was driving while impaired. The 32-year-old man was charged with DWI, driving with a suspended license, and having an open container in a motor vehicle. Both men face an appearance in Ridgewood Municipal Court and the matter is still under investigation. In an unrelated case on Oct. 23, police investigated the theft of a vehicle from Exxon on the Run on Route 17 South. The vehicle owner parked his car at the station at 5:43 a.m. and exited the vehicle, but left the engine running. A black Lincoln then entered the station lot with at least three pas- sengers inside and a man in a ski mask jumped out of the Lincoln, hopped into the idling 2012 BMW, and took off onto Route 17. The matter is under investigation. The day before, generator cables were reported stolen from a construction site on Route 17. On Oct. 24 at 8:02 p.m., Patrolman Darin Thomas, Patrolman Kyle Finch, Patrolman Christopher Mormino, and Patrolman Steve Karcher responded to Rite Aid Phar- macy on a shoplifting complaint and arrested a 34-year-old Ridgewood resident who faces an appearance for shoplift- ing in Ridgewood Municipal Court. On Oct. 26, an Oradell man reported that his wallet had been stolen while he was at the Ridgewood YMCA. The Ridgewood Detective Bureau is investigating. Alzheimer’s Awareness Week (continued from page 11) present common legal and financial considerations while caring for someone with dementia and information about benefits for veterans. This program will be held at the Ridgewood YM/YWCA located at 112 Oak Street. The series will conclude Thursday, Nov. 13, when Vivian Green Korner, MA, CDP, certified dementia prac- titioner and Toni Modak, R.N., BSN, PCC, director at Valley Home Care outline care options and the caregiv- er’s journey. Korner and Modak will outline the excellent resources are available for people caring for loved ones with dementia at home and a range of care options for people with dementia. This program will present infor- mation and resources to assist with the health, safety, and emotional needs of the caregiver and the loved one with dementia. Care Options and the Caregiver’s Journey will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Patrick Mancuso Room at Ridgewood Village Hall, 131 North Maple Avenue in Ridgewood. All programs are free and open to the public. Regis- tration is required and maybe made by calling 1-877-283- 2276 or visiting www.ValleyHealth.com/Events.