Orson Bean. It's very possible that this name will mean little to you if you're under 40. Cinephiles may remember him as dotty old Dr. Lester, the lecherous, carrot-juice-drinking boss from 1999's Being John Malkovich. ("My spunk is to you manna from heaven.") He was also the voice of Bilbo Baggins in the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit.
Connoisseurs of TV reruns may recall Orson from his appearances on The Twilight Zone, The Love Boat, or The Facts of Life. He did 146 episodes of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman back in the '90s, too, if that's what you're into. (Hey, there's no shame in it. My sister loved that show.)
If you watched Game Show Network back when they showed many of the old panel-style game shows from the 1960s and 1970s, Orson Bean should be a familiar face to you. He logged countless appearances on Match Game, To Tell the Truth, What's My Line, and more. In fact, I think of Orson Bean as a sterling example of a now-dying breed: the all-purpose professional celebrity with no particular specialty.
Bean was an actor of stage and screen as well as a comedian and author, but his real claim to fame was as a "personality." Need a familiar face for your talk or game show? Just call Orson! He possessed numerous traits that made him ideal for television: an impish sense of humor, a vast storehouse of jokes and stories, a winning smile, impeccable diction, and a flair for accents and dialects. The man was born to talk into a microphone.
The Orson Bean discography.
Like most stand-up comics of his generation, Orson Bean put his act down on wax a couple of times for posterity. He released At the Hungry I, recorded at the legendarily-hip San Francisco nightclub, in 1959. A decade later, however, Orson released the album that concerns us today: a collection of songs, poems, and "street jokes" entitled I Ate the Baloney. I first heard the title track, an irreverent religious-themed anecdote set to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel," on The Dr. Demento Show in the 1990s. Just this year, I found the entire LP had been uploaded to Archive.org.
For reasons I cannot adequately explain to you, I have listened to I Ate the Baloney in its entirety at least 20 times in the last few months, almost becoming able to lip sync the jokes as Bean tells them. I just like the sound of his practiced voice, especially when he slips into an Irish brogue. There's a vaudevillian old-fashionedness to the entire affair I find comforting and satisfying.
Since this LP comes to us from the 1960s, Bean can still openly acknowledge ethnicity in ways that would draw tremendous fire today. Take a conceptual bit called "The American Restaurant," in which Bean affects a broad, almost caroonish Chinese accent. One might be tempted to call the bit racist because of this, but in fact, Bean is poking fun at racism and stereotypes in a clever, insightful, and even subversive fashion. The Chinese characters in Bean's story talk about Americans in the bigoted, reductive way we Americans too often talk about the Chinese. It's a classic role reversal, as when the speaker ponders an infamous urban legend about sex. "Not look now," the man says to his giggling buddies. "American girl sit a-next table. Ooh, that's a nice lookin' girl! Built like a bamboo house! I don't know... American girl... I always wonder. I don't think so either. That's old Army story!"
But the track from I Ate the Baloney which has really captured my attention has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity. Instead, it's a brief bit of comedic doggerel about the plight of an urban commuter. The poem describes a man's experience aboard the IRT, which is what New Yorkers used to call the subway because it was run by a private operator called the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. I don't have much experience with the IRT, not being a New Yorker, but I do commute by train to and from work each day and can thus sympathize with the hero of Bean's poem. Some of the humor and pathos come from Bean's performance, but I think the words are worthy of study, too. In that spirit, the entire text of the poem is included below:
Last week, I'm ridin' in the IRT, And this poor slob is sittin' right across from me. So he's sittin' in the subway, kinda slumped in his seat, Like a tired old dog, so dead, so beat. His clothes, his face, everything looks sad, And I'm thinking what a rotten life he must've had. So I look in his face, and what do I see? He looks like he's feelin' sorry for me! But you don't know the IRT! The windows are filthy. The lights are dim. It was my own reflection, and I am him!
On the LP, this actually leads into entire bit about whiskey ads on the New York subways. But I will leave that one for you to discover on your own. Bean is so convincing in delivering this particular hard-luck story that he elicited actual sympathy from the audience. Periodically throughout the recording, you can hear a tender-hearted woman in the audience say, "Awwww." Incidentally, Orson Bean is still alive at the age of 86, thanks to all that carrot juice. He worked as recently as 2014 in a parody of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman entitled Dr. Quinn, Morphine Woman. More intriguingly, back in 2008, he recorded a delightful little 10-part series of YouTube videos called "The Art of Joke Telling." Here is possibly my favorite of the ten:
I heard this theory once that you should treat everyone you meet as if he or she were the Messiah. I don't believe in the Messiah, but it's an interesting idea anyway, even if it's hopelessly impractical. And, hey, I'm wrong about a lot of shit. I might be wrong on the "Messiah" thing, too. Maybe another one's just around the corner, waiting to fix everything that's wrong with the world. Think of all the people you encounter on a daily basis. Think, furthermore, of all the people you've ever encountered in your whole life. That fat kid in your third grade glass. The barista who served you coffee yesterday. The homeless guy you pretend not to see on your way to work. Any of these folks could be the Messiah. Imagine if one of them turned out to be the Savior of All Mankind, and you were shitty to them, as if they didn't even matter. Then wouldn't you feel like a dope?
Perfect example: In the train station parking lot today, there was this woman -- Caucasian, late middle-age, dark hair, sort of dressed up, if you're trying to picture her -- who walked in front of my car as I was leaving. Not directly in front, I should point out, but close enough that we could see each other's faces. I slowed down, of course, but the woman must have thought I was still going to run her over because she kept waving at me with a distressed look as if I didn't see her. A guy I'm presuming was her husband was with her, and I'm sure she complained about me to him immediately afterward. ("Harry, did you see that? That guy was a maniac! He almost killed me! Good thing I waved!") In truth, I was burned out at the end of another unsatisfying work week and just wanted this lady to get the fuck out of my way so I could get out of that goddamned parking lot and go home. She got to wherever she was going, and I left, cursing her under my breath because she delayed me getting back to my shitty apartment by five seconds. What if this woman were the Messiah? Maybe she is.
But, then again, maybe I'm the Messiah and just don't know it. Wouldn't that be wild? The real Joe Christ. (Much respect to the late filmmaker who went by that name.) I don't have any magic powers, though, and I haven't as yet been inclined toward any world-saving activities. If I'm the new Jesus, I'm a crappy one. Sorry about that.
"So... do you utilize public transportation around here often much?"
Can I tell you about my morning? Don't get your hopes up. The story I'm about to tell you would not even qualify as a story in most people's lives. It barely qualifies as one in mine, but it was something out of the ordinary which happened to me, and I wanted to write it down for posterity's sake. Okay? Here goes. Be forewarned: I'll probably tell you way more than you wanted to know... which I'll assume is nothing. You can skim the first few paragraphs if that helps.
Imagine running into this dude at 6:30 in the morning. Not fun, citizens. Not fun at all.
I hate people. Just flat-out hate 'em. Oh, sure, I can make exceptions for individuals. The person reading this article right now might be a great guy or gal. But a generalized, all-encompassing love for humanity? No way. People are just the worst. Why do I feel that way? Because I've gotten to know them through the miracle of public transportation.
Victor McLaglen (frequently cast by John Ford in such films as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache, and Rio Grande; Oscar-nominated for his role in Ford's The Quiet Man; Oscar winner for Ford's The Informer)
Dennis O'Keefe (The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, Scarface [1932 version], Top Hat, much more)
Patsy Kelly (comedienne whose openness about being a lesbian brought her career to a standstill in the 1940s; she came back as a TV actress in the '50s and '60s and went on to do Rosemary's Baby, Freaky Friday [1976 version], etc.)
Leonid Kinskey (by far, best known for Casablanca; also appeared in Duck Soup, The Man with the Golden Arm, Trouble in Paradise, and much more)
George E. Stone (Guys and Dolls, Some Like It Hot, Ocean's Eleven [1960 version])
George Lloyd (ubiquitous character actor with hundreds of TV and film appearances from the 1930s to the 1950s; played Al "Happy Chef" Frazier in the MST3K favorite I Accuse My Parents)
George E. Stone
The gist of it: High-strung movie director Ivan (Kinskey) thinks his leading lady April (Woodworth) should be photographed with an "adopted" baby when she makes her train trip aboard the Broadway Limited from Chicago to New York. Ivan's faithful assistant Patsy (Kelly) enlists her boyfriend, befuddled railroad engineer Mike (McLaglen), to procure an infant that April can borrow temporarily for her journey. Mike offers an oddly-eager stranger named Lefty (Stone) $500 for the temporary use of a kid and then boards the Broadway Limited himself -- as a passenger rather than an employee of the railroad (though he's pressed into service at one point). Ivan and Patsy accompany April, as does Myra (Pitts), a ditsy and bothersome representative from the Chicago chapter of April's fan club.
By pure chance, while walking around the train, April happens to run into her old boyfriend, struggling young physician Dr. Harvey North (O'Keefe), who still loves April and wants to marry her but is certain that the baby she's lugging around is her biological child. Harvey is also convinced Ivan is the father, which leads to a rivalry between the two men. Meanwhile, Mike begins to suspect that the baby he "rented" is the same kidnapped child whose picture is in every newspaper in the country. One by one, all the other characters -- April, Ivan, Patsy, Harvey, and Myra -- come to believe that the baby is "stolen" and being actively sought by the police. So the little bundle of joy becomes a hot potato that everyone is desperate to get rid of. But every time they think they've ditched him, the little stinker keeps coming back to them like a boomerang! And now there are cops searching the whole train! What to do? What do do?
The Great Hall in Chicago's Union Station
My take: Trains are a surprisingly important part of my life. Every weekday morning, I take a Metra commuter train into Chicago to go to work. And every weekday afternoon, I take another one back home to get away from work.
On holidays, I take an Eastbound passenger train, Amtrak's Capitol Limited, to visit relatives in another state. The Amtrak train departs from Chicago's historic Union Station, where one pivotal scene from this movie takes place. I'm pretty sure that this production just used some stock footage of Union Station and intercut that with footage of the actors saying their lines on a Hollywood soundstage, but it was still kind of neat to see a locale from my daily life depicted in a movie. The place is pretty neat in real life, too, so stop by the next time you're in the Windy City, even if you're not taking the train.
This is also another Hal Roach production, which generally has been a good sign in this project. After all, Niagara Falls was one of my highest-rated films in this Mill Creek set, and Broadway Limited has the same director and two of the same actresses as that one. (One character even mentions going to Niagara Falls for a honeymoon.) In terms of tone and structure, Niagara Falls and Broadway Limited are very much alike. At heart, they're both bedroom farces with plenty of misunderstandings, carefully-timed exits and entrances, and a lot of frantic running around by all concerned parties. And both take place in one confined location (in the former, a hotel; in the latter, a train), mostly over the course of one long, hectic evening.
Unfortunately, Broadway Limited is no Niagara Falls. There's nothing obviously "wrong" with it, per se -- other than the fact that it gets off to rather a slow start, belabors certain points at the expense of forward momentum, and presents a disagreeable, paranoid, chauvinist jerk (O'Keefe's handsome doctor character) as the romantic hero we're all supposed to be rooting for. Then there's the slight issue of a comedy being built around the kidnapping of an infant -- a child whose parents, we are told, are hysterical with grief. If Broadway Limited were a cynical, dark comedy, this might almost work. But instead, it's a bubbly, lighthearted, "feel-good" flick which repeatedly and shamelessly plays up the cuteness of the kid with its many, many cutaways to the young child actor gurgling delightedly at the bumbling antics of the grown-up characters.
While a good number of the film's jokes do work, especially as the story gets fully underway, I cannot help but feel that the chemistry is just a little "off" here. Instead of being a tasty cinematic dessert, it's more like a souffle which falls flat. As such, it rates only a tentative and conditional recommendation.
Renfrew: Zasu Pitt's ideal.
Is it funny: At first, not really. Eventually, though, some of the humorous elements of the film begin to percolate a bit. I liked, for instance, a running gag about a creepy, Eddie Munster-ish kid who repeatedly walks up to the beleaguered and overburdened Mike and just stares silently at him. Eventually the kid asks the poor guy a question: "Is that really your face?" Kinskey, McLaglen, and Kelly all play their roles to the hilt, which would be great if the script were a little funnier. As it is, their collective energy is kind of oppressive. I found myself wishing that they'd all stop shouting medium-funny jokes at me. When the bits are well-conceived, however, their performances are enjoyable. I laughed audibly when Kelly calms McLaglen down by saying she has a idea how to solve their problems, then reveals that her plan is to hand him the baby and then lock herself in her room until the trouble goes away.
Cheerful, oblivious Zasu Pitts is at the opposite end of the spectrum, as usual, and exists in her own little universe. She's always underfoot and in the way, getting on the nerves of the other characters without realizing it. In one scene, she blocks a narrow hallway so that other characters practically have to do gymnastics to get around her. In another, she shares a bed with Kelly and the baby, and Zasu's leaky hot water bottle causes Kelly to think that the infant has... well, you can guess.
The movie's best subplot, though, revolves around Zasu Pitts' undying devotion to a terrible-sounding radio show called Renfrew of the Mounted. My favorite scene in this film is the one in which Zasu's character, Myra, listens to Renfrew at full blast in a crowded club car and is clearly the only one enjoying the program. And when Myra isn't listening to Renfrew or dreaming about Renfrew, she's talking about Renfrew... even though no one else in the film gives a damn. The show obviously provides the kind of romantic escapism that many women now get from Twilight or 50 Shades. Myra's chief concern in life, in fact, seems to be whether or not Renfrew will "kiss her." We never find out who "her" is, but I assume it's the show's leading lady or love interest, i.e. the Bella Swan of her day.
Wonder if old Renfrew ever got around to it?
My grade: (barely) B-
P.S. - While it's not really a racist movie, Broadway Limited does (unwittingly) capture the racial dynamic of its era. The only black characters in the film are subservient porters and bartenders whose dialogue mainly consists of "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am." Like everyone else in this movie, these men are required to react with astonishment at the goings on, but there are no bug-eyed Mantan Moreland shenanigans here.
Hitchcock playfully reminds us that a mere letter separates "strangers" from "stranglers."
The very idea of a well-organized, efficient, and commonly-used mass transit system is, I am convinced, antithetical to the entire American way of life.
After all, this is the land of Rugged Individualism, John Wayne, and Not in My Backyard politics. We're Americans, dammit, and when we want to get from one place to another, we do so the way God intended: with each person in his or her own gas-guzzling vehicle. If we simply must gather with our fellow Americans for transportation purposes, we want to at least use a method which burns up as much fuel as possible, i.e. airplanes. While Europeans and Asians may be satisfied with their versatile and convenient railroad systems, we Americans believe that trains are best used for carrying coal, sheet metal, and hapless schmucks. That last group includes me, I'm sorry to report.
As the only one in my family living in Illinois, I am expected to travel to Indiana every time a major holiday rolls around. Since I despise driving and all but refuse to embark upon any car trip longer than 40 minutes, my only real option is to take an Amtrak train to a town somewhat near the one where my sister resides. I've been doing this several times a year for about ten years now, which gets me wondering how much of my life I've spent aboard trains. After all, my job requires me to take a commuter train to and from Chicago every morning, so at least 1-2 hours of every working day is spent on the rails.
But there's a vast difference, at least in my mind, between the Metra Union Pacific Northwest Line train which takes me to and from my job and the Amtrak Capital Limited which hauls me to Indiana a few times every year. Let me explain. Do you remember those "All Aboard America" Amtrak commercials from the 1980s?
Yeah, Amtrak is nothing like that.
While my daily commuter train runs according a strictly-timed schedule and is used mainly by quiet, well-behaved business people, thus allowing me ample opportunity to catch up on my reading, the typical Amtrak train operates according to a vague, mysterious itinerary and is used frequently by social outcasts and twitchy psychotics, thus allowing me ample opportunity to ponder the futility of existence.
Anyone who tells you that "life is short" has never ridden on one of these passenger trains, I assure you.
Amtrak is where time goes to die a horrible death. Delays, disruptions, and malfunctions are frequent, and you will frequently find yourself spending many hours in fairly cramped quarters with some bizarre, ornery, and unpleasant folks. (If you're lucky, this applies only to your fellow passengers and not the crew members.)
Bagge's bluntly-titled comic
Cartoonist Peter Bagge wrote a very funny and true comic about his railroad experience a few years ago, and I strongly encourage you to read it. For my part, though, I'd like to share some of my more... uh, colorful anecdotes from a decade of experience with Amtrak.
First and foremost, I have to tell you about Mitch, a burly and heavily intoxicated man in his mid-40s. If you're trying to picture him, imagine Popeye as a washed-up alcoholic. His real name was Michael, you see, but everyone called him "Mitch." I knew that because Mitch himself told me -- without being asked -- within the first 30 seconds of sitting down next to me. He also told me of his unheralded one-man heroics in the US invasion of Granada and informed me that, if you knew anything whatsoever about boxing, you could tell that the fight choreography in Rocky II was in no way realistic.
Mitch talked of these and many other topics during my trip, all without any prompting from me whatsoever, and was convinced that his inspirational life story would make a great book -- a book he thought I should write. I politely demurred and made my way toward the exit, suitcase in hand, well before the train reached my stop. The last I saw Mitch, he was trying to pick a fistfight with some Mennonite passengers who were seated behind us. They were debating whose carpentry skills were superior. Naturally, Mitch felt he could raise a barn better than any Mennonite and was willing to "prove" this assertion with his fists if need be.
"Hello, complete stranger!"
Oh, and then there's the Pilgrim, a rather bland-looking middle-aged man notable only for the fact that he travels in a homemade "pilgrim" costume complete with a lidless construction-paper "hat." I've seen the Pilgrim on a few Amtrak journeys, both coming and going, and I can report that he wears the costume for the entire round trip. His crude, improvised get-up resembles the kind a child might wear for a school pageant, only sized for an adult's frame.
What makes the Pilgrim especially notable is that he lectures his fellow passengers about the First Thanksgiving, reading from what appear to be printouts of Wikipedia entries. He limits these performances to the train's "observation car," which serves as a combination lounge and snack bar. His audiences, chosen at random, are usually bewildered into silence by his unique "act," but occasionally some nervy teenagers will applaud when he finishes.
With passengers like Mitch and the Pilgrim, there is an element of tragedy lurking beneath the surreal-yet-entertaining exterior. But with other passengers, the tragedy is front and center, impossible to ignore or avoid. Such is the case with an elderly gentleman I encountered on Amtrak several years ago. This particular train had already been delayed by several hours before it even left Chicago due to some nebulously-described "mechanical problems," and somewhere in the middle of an Indiana cornfield, the train came to a dead stop for quite a long while. The passengers speculated over this new delay, and eventually, the story began to take shape. We should have seen it coming. One particular passenger, a haggard and wild-eyed older fellow, had been creating a tense atmosphere since we'd boarded in Chicago by wandering around the waiting area, babbling to himself, and glaring with menace at the other passengers.
Unlike airports, Amtrak stations have very few security checks for its passengers, so this obviously-deranged man was allowed to board. Once the train got underway, he stalked the aisles, mumbling and jabbering as the rest of us avoided his gaze. The crew members tried without apparent success to subdue him and convince him to return to his seat. When we looked out the window of the now-stopped train, we saw a whole assortment of emergency vehicles: police cruisers, a fire truck, and an ambulance. They were physically restraining this man and transporting him to the nearest hospital. (Judging by the terrain, there could not have been a hospital within an hour's drive of that locale.)
Later, once the train was again underway, a few of the conductors were all-too-willing to share the man's eerie history: he'd been a psychologist once and was under the mistaken, deluded impression that he was on his way to visit a newly-opened clinic on the East Coast. Amtrak managed to contact a relative, the man's brother, who said that the man had retired decades ago and that there was no such clinic. Apparently, this man had purchased a train ticket and boarded the Capital Limited without informing anyone. In case you're wondering, I got to my stop at four in the morning -- six hours late for what should have been a three-hour ride. That was one of the longest nights of my life.
"Vare iss ze food?"
Not all the bad/bizarre behavior I've seen aboard Amtrak trains (both by passengers and by crew members) is as severe as what I've just described. Most of it would best be described as "eccentric rudeness" by people who have no perspective whatsoever on themselves. And I mean none. Perhaps these people don't realize that they can be seen and heard by others. Maybe they don't care.
Take the case of a passenger I encountered on my most recent trip, just a few days ago. Clad in all black and totally bald, this 50-ish man was a blustery German tourist who curiously reminded me of Donald Pleasence as Blofeld in You Only Live Twice, except with a Teutonic accent and the temper of Yosemite Sam. It was like you took an old-school James Bond villain and put him through the indignities of waiting in line at a grungy train station and being cooped up with a bunch of common tourists. A guy like this really belongs in a secret fortress inside a volcano, with an army of jumpsuit-wearing henchmen at his disposal.
I knew he was going to be trouble even before the train left the station. Instead of taking a crew member aside and quietly asking a question, the way a normal person might do, he stood in the middle of the aisle, blocking traffic in both directions, and loudly said to a conductor (and here I make an attempt to convey his pronunciation): "My schtop iss at four in zee morning. Venn ve get dare and I am shleeping, you vill vake me, yes?" After the conductor assured him that, yes, he would be properly woken for his 4:00am stop ("That's our job!"), he returned grandly to his seat.
A while later, I made my usual journey over to the observation/cafe car to pick up an overpriced bag of Skittles and a can of room-temperature ginger ale and consume them while I stared at the burned-out factories, past-their-prime strip malls, and empty fields which constitute the typical "view" along this particular line.
Just as I was about to paythe crew member on duty, our German friend burst into the room and demanded to know, "Vare iss ze food?" When the crew member limply pointed to the choices on offer -- prepackaged snacks and a few microwaveable items in a freezer case -- the would-be Bond nemesis blew a gasket.
"All ziss is frozen! Ziss is SHIT! Vare is food?!"
The crew member tried to explain that there was also a dining car aboard the train where he could purchase some fancier entrees (which ranged from $16 to $25), but this answer did not satisfy him.
"I pay! I pay!" he demanded. "Vare iss ze food?! Not ziss shit! I pay!"
A hippie-looking dude with a baby strapped to his chest said at this point, "Hey, bro, there are kids here, man. You can't cuss like that." This, I'm afraid, provoked only a further torrent of obscenity from the German traveler (even though the man's English might have been shaky, he was well-schooled in profanity), but he eventually did abandon the cafe car in a huff.
I saw him a few minutes later being forcibly but politely ejected from the dining car as he explained his gastronomic grievances to a new set of crew members, who were trying to convince him to return to the cafe car from whence he'd just come."You go first! You go first!" he told them, as they stared at him in total confusion. Eventually, the psuedo-Blofeld realized that he was not going to get his way, but before he returned to his seat, he turned and gave the crew members an ominous-sounding order: "You vill vake me!"
That's Amtrak, people. You can't make this stuff up. All aboard!
