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WILDONE

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

Tremendously heavy-handed...

This is the type of                                       (Feb 3 2001)
thing that convinces
some people that art                   Note that despite
must be above morality                 the heavy-handed
and must avoid the                     blathering about the
didactic.                              irresponsibility of the
                                       main Brando character,
The police are all                     despite the
incredibly nicey-nice,                 disasters that befall
compared to these                      the Wild Ones, this
jackbooted,                            movie was one of the
"zero-tolerance"                       great blows against
times.                                 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              to 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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