Christmas in Connecticut

Dear Arnold Schwarzenegger, Director

I’m back. Yup, our Early Arnold series is over, but how could I resist this important oversight in your oeuvre? Christmas in Connecticut (1992) is not some embarrassing got-to-get-paid mistake from your pre-Conan the Barbarian days. You’re the muscle behind this made-for-TV mess that came out at the peak of your prime. The question is why? WHY? I’m guessing the answer begins and ends with your unparalleled ambition. That’s why imagining your stilted direction behind every scene gave me a perverse pleasure, like watching the Christmas equivalent of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room.

The first time I felt your hand was during the hilariously inept mountainside rescue by Jefferson Jones (Kris Kristofferson) that kicks off the story. He digs a kid up from the snow, drops him a few times, and stumbles through one of the fakest storms I’ve ever had the pleasure of laughing through.  “Dats great, yah! More esspresion! Show da snow you a man!,” I pictured you saying. From there, the world’s most clichéd producer (Tony Curtis) ropes Jeffereson into a Christmas special with fraudulent cooking show host Elizabeth Blane (Dyan Cannon). A mixture of zany antics and adultery follow, both of which you’re all too familiar with.

There’s no point in analyzing things too closely, though—you obviously didn’t.

As the biggest movie star in the world, failure must have seemed completely out of your reach. Or did it?  It’s no doubt a calculated choice to remake a 1940s semi-classic in the relatively safe confines of a Christmas TV special. But unlike the characters you play, who never miss a shot, shooting a scene as the director is not nearly so easy.  I’m sure you felt confident though, having worked with top talent from the time: James Cameron (twice!), Paul Verhoeven, John McTiernan, and even two comedies with Ivan Reitman. None of that seems to matter though, since your only inspiration seems to be that dorky film you made before breaking into the big-time, The Villain.

From the half-hearted humour to the wildly inconsistent performances, it’s no surprise this film isn’t part of the annual holiday season TV rotation.  It might, however, have a chance at being a midnight movie classic if we organize a call-and-response crowd participation version. Imagine: theaters full of people screaming out your presumed direction in Austrian accents. This could be the catalyst for the comeback you’re looking for. We can start with the Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa – what do you say?

See you there,

Christopher 

Status: Junk Mail (1/5)

The Villain

Dear Arnold Schwarzenegger, Handsome Stranger

I’m actually nervous writing this. During my most impressionable years, you were the hero that loomed largest in my imagination. A diligently glued together Terminator 2 poster-sized puzzle hung proudly on my wall for years. Arnold-themed action figures, trading cards, and books filled my room while I excitedly worked my way through your back-catalogue of R-rated adventures. I never understood how my parents seemed to give any VHS tape with your face on it a free pass, even though so few of your films were suitable for a child. Maybe they somehow only saw The Villain, and forever associated you with harmless, over-the-top slapstick humour, and misguided attempts at bringing cartoon sensibilities to real-life.

It’s very unlikely. Most people – and many fans – have never seen or even heard of this film. By the time your stardom hit my personal orbit, your authorized biographies gleefully started your career (and myth) with Conan the Barbarian. In fact, that’s what inspired the Early Arnold series on Dear Cast and Crew – my selfish desire to finally, truly, see all your films. I remember some early films being mentioned in those books without significant information or images, like Hercules in New York (which at least sounds macho and on-brand) and the documentary Pumping Iron. In the past weeks, I’ve learned why the first film is better remembered for its funny title, and why the latter is a cult classic and critical success. Stay Hungry was lost in the middle, even though it allowed you to play a laid-back version of yourself and co-starred both Jeff Bridges and Sally Fields.

Then came The Villain.

This film is the last time you could ever survive a huge flop or career misstep without any real consequence. After all, when Kirk Douglas – Spartacus himself! – is the lead, you had someone to hide behind. He plays Cactus Jack, a Wile E. Coyote-inspired villain trying to catch Charming Jones (Ann-Margaret). It’s a Western in look, but owes more to Looney Toons, where Jones’s tactics include dressing up as silly characters, pushing paper-mâché boulders down hills and painting a black hole in the side of a mountain (which Jones, of course, nonsensically rides right through). You play her companion on the journey, literally named Handsome Stranger. And at this point, you still were a stranger to most of America (not sure about the handsome part).

The reasons the film doesn’t work are probably also why you seemed so uncomfortable every time the camera was pointed at you – nothing seems to fit. The sets are large and impressive, but never exploited for their full potential (the opening shots are worthy of a John Ford film). You have Oscar-nominated actors going through the motions of a serious film while taking whiskey shots through their eye balls. In fact, nothing can save the film’s lazy commitment to genre. I kept mirroring that pained look you have on your face every time you needed to be “act” without dialogue or in reaction to someone.

The other actors all seem game to create a live-action Saturday morning cartoon, but Hal Needham’s direction is just too slow and lethargic (when he’s not speeding up the footage for ‘comedic’ effect). Even your own movements never feel natural in that super human body, constricted by a tight cowboy shirts and ten-gallon hat. You clearly do your best work in a Speedo or loincloth. Glad you figured that out sooner than later.

None of these early films we’ve reviewed fit the one-note character mold that would define your phenomenal success and pave the way for your two terms as the Governor of California. But they do reveal another, more vulnerable and mistake-prone side to you that has come out in other ways over the past year. But now that’s it, there are officially no films left – at least until January 2013 when you attempt a career comeback with The Last Stand. So will I still passionately pursue your film career? Let me put it this way:

When I was 8 years old and saw T-1000 stabbing a man through-a-milk-carton-through-the-mouth, I actually puked. But like a true Arnold-holic, I wiped my chin and came back for more. It only tested my resolve and pushed my personal limits. Seeing The Villain as a younger viewer might have helped me kick the habit of you but at this point, it’s too late. I’m in it for the long haul.

Forever yours,

Christopher

Status: Return to Sender (2/5)

Pumping Iron

Dear Arnold Schwarzenegger, as Himself

As someone who was eleven years old in 1991, I can tell you this: in 1991, every eleven year-old wanted to be Eddie Furlong. Sweet bangs, skateboard skills, a laptop that could hack a bank machine, and his own personal cyborg assassin—he had it all. By the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, when (spoiler alert) you sacrifice yourself to destroy the computer chip inside your head that will give rise to sentient digital overlord SkyNet, it’s clear that you’ve become a proxy for young John Connor’s absent father, who, (double spoiler alert) you killed in the first film. 

Throughout your career, that’s what you’ve been to me: a father figure. Even in movies like Predator, there’s a paternal spirit to the way you take control of your strike team when the flayed bodies begin to appear. In Commando, there’s not even a patriarchal analogy to untangle: you’re a father, maiming and murdering and cracking wise in search of your kidnapped daughter. 

But the big surprise of Pumping Iron – the 1977 documentary that chronicles the regimens and routines of a group of bodybuilders as they train in preparation of the Mr. Olympia contest in Pretoria, South Africa – isn’t your youthful exuberance or frightening steroidal girth. 

It’s that you’re the bad guy. More Thulsa Doom than you are Conan; more Bennett than John Matrix; more T-1000 than T-800. Like most films, Pumping Iron is fascinating to watch because it has a fascinating antagonist. 

You have an irrepressible charisma—I don’t think anyone would argue otherwise. What other unintelligible man-mountain could get away, throughout his career, playing characters named Alan Schaeffer, Ben Richards, or Howard Langston (Schaeffer, Richards, and Langston: a great name for a 70s prog-rock band). Pumping Iron is the genesis of all that; the film that introduced the world to your gap-toothed smile, ovoid Austrian accent, and the ridiculous wingspan of your lats. When the film was released in 1977, you were no stranger to the big screen. Following in the footsteps of your mentor Reg Park, you starred as Hercules in a low-budget sword-and-sandals flick, and just the previous year played a version of yourself in Bob Rafaelson’s Stay Hungry. So, what was it about Pumping Iron that gave birth to the living legend known today as “Arnie” (aka. The Governator)?

It’s simple, really. While the role of the hero might be more satisfying for the ego, the role of the villain is always more fun. The id, unleashed. And in Pumping Iron you seem to be having a lot of fun. 

You hit all the beats of a great bad guy: the megalomaniacal visions (“I was always dreaming about very powerful people, dictators and things like that. I was just always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years, or even, like Jesus, be for thousands of years remembered.”), the merciless psychological warfare (to your opponents before the Mr. Olympia finals: “You make too much noise! Has to be very quiet in here, like in a Church!”), the cold-blooded backstory (telling your mother that you wouldn’t attend your father’s funeral: “I’m sorry, I can’t come. And I didn’t explain to her really the reasons why…I didn’t bother with it.”)  You even give us an expository rundown of your nefarious plans (“Franco [Columbu] is pretty smart, but Franco’s a child, and when it comes to the day of the contest, I am his father. He comes to me for advices. So it’s not that hard for me to give him the wrong advices.”). 

But that’s not the only surprise in Pumping Iron. The hero of the film (and, yes, documentary films, by nature of the way they manipulate the truth through editing and music and every other filmic choice, have heroes and villains) is a young Brooklynite, born deaf, trained by his overbearing father in a dank local gym that looks like an abandoned Italian restaurant.

His name is Louis Ferrigno. At twenty-two years-old, he’s the sweet, innocent, charmingly awkward foil to your arrogant Adonis. It’s hard not to cheer for him as he makes it his mission to unseat you as champion. 

But it’s even harder not to cheer for you. Despite the profound hubris, the Machiavellian scheming, you’re the one we want to see onscreen. Whether as a golden god coasting through Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach or as a leather-jacketed cybernetic killing machine dedicated to protecting a foul-mouthed twelve year-old.  

There’s a reason Lou Ferrigno didn’t go on to star in high-concept Ivan Reitman comedies and James Cameron blockbusters. And the reason is clear in the final moments of Pumping Iron. As the winner of the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest is about to be announced, it’s not the earnest, hard-working underdog we’re pulling for. We’re hoping the bad guy wins. And, for the next three decades, he will.  

Sincerely, 

Jared Young

Status: Air Mail (4/5)

Stay Hungry

Dear Arnold Schwarzenegger, Actor,

So here we are, seven years after the release of Hercules in New York. It looks like the, shall we say, “interesting” way that film turned out forced you to rethink your Hollywood career trajectory. Instead of rushing headlong into leading roles, it seems you dialed it back and looked for roles that were not only a good fit, but also provided the opportunity to work with some big name directors. Roles that required more than just your Mr. Universe credentials.

First, and maybe due to your experience being overdubbed in Hercules, you took a very minor and speechless part in Robert Altman’s classic neo-noir The Long Goodbye. Sure, the uncredited role of “Hood in Augustine’s Office” probably didn’t turn any casting agent heads, but working with the hot, post-MASH, post-McCabe & Mrs. Miller Altman must have been its own reward. This was the 70s, after all, and directors were Hollywood’s new stars. If nothing else, it had to have been a master class on the new way to make films.

After that, we come to Stay Hungry.

Working with Bob Rafelson must have been a similar no-brainer. And you even got a speaking role to boot—the first in your own voice. Best known for the classic Five Easy Pieces, Rafelson was another director with a knack for showcasing actors in his decidedly character-driven stories. 

Indeed, Stay Hungry operates almost as a Five Easy Pieces in reverse. Where Jack Nicholson’s Robert Dupea returns to his family’s wealthy estate after abandoning it for the blue collar world, Stay Hungry’s Jeff Bridges flees his business and societal obligations to become part of a new culture. Gym culture, to be precise. Your culture.

Of course this is where you slide so naturally into the picture, and why it plays like such a smart career move on your part. No longer saddled with the terrible, ridiculous dialogue required of a Greek demi-god, you’re able to give a relaxed, and charismatic performance as Joe Santo — the Austrian-born, aspiring Mr. Universe (you still were at the career stage where your accent had to be explained). Along with the impressive body-building, though, Santo is also versed in literature, plays a mean fiddle, and is referred to as the curling champion of Austria. If you weren’t already aiming to be titled “Mr. Universe,” you would have had to settle for “Superman.”

If only the rest of Stay Hungry had the same easy charm you provide as Santo. While it does boast a number of acutely-observed scenes and performances—Bridge’s and Sally Fields’ relationship comes immediately to mind—the film suffers from a schizophrenia, as it can’t decide whether it’s a character study or an exploitation film about body-building. But really, any film that climaxes by intercutting between you, wearing only a speedo, running to the rescue, and another 15 similarly dressed bodybuilders storming the streets and then holding an impromptu pose-off, can’t be all bad, can it?

Just more bad than I wanted it to be.

Flexingly yours, 

Casey

Status: Standard Delivery (3/5)

Hercules in New York

Dear Arnold Strong (née Schwarzenegger), Actor

The fact that your voice is no longer dubbed on the DVD release of Hercules in New York shows how far Americans have come. The United States of 1969 could not accept (much less understand) the cardboard delivery coming out of a muscle-brained 22-year-old Austrian bodybuilder. It just shows us how much the world has changed­. In many ways, you have helped change it. Too bad there’s no going back to undo the disaster that is your first ever film role.

But change has to start somewhere. In this case, it starts somewhere awful. Just terrible. The entire plot is driven by your oft-repeated refrain: “Because I’m Hercules.” That mindless phrase takes you from Olympus to New York City. It takes you from a ship to a pretzel man on the docks, to some college athletes, to some gangsters, to… a television event? It makes no sense, and nobody probably cared. There are little moments where the dialogue raises above the muddle, and it makes me sympathize with the writer. But only a little bit.

I am not sure how you survived this film. The whole history of cinema is littered with the aborted careers of people who tried to break into film. Success is rarely about whether they got a chance; it’s what they did with it once they got it. The choice of each film in a fledgling career can make or break you. So if this was your first big shot, your agent should be shot. Or maybe you didn’t’ care. Maybe you were capitalizing on past success. It’s like you took the smooth, smiling psychopath you would eventually play in Pumping Iron and made him a demigod. That may be a historically accurate Hercules, but not a very interesting one.

Apparently the studio said that Hercules in New York “was not met with an overwhelming response from the public,” and tried to sell the rights on eBay years later. 

You should have bought them, Mr. “Strong”, to keep it out of circulation forever. Instead, maybe it will show some future Governator how one can rise from the ashes. Stinky, stinky, silly ashes.

Best,
Cory

Status: Junk Mail (1/5)