The Rack 1956
No, didn’t make this up. Or rather, I did. Why is Turner Classic Movies able to read my mind? How did they come up with a film that is truly so apropos to my present mental state — and one that would make it necessary for me to write this? Watching The Rack after They Were Expendable is surreal; this movie has no rhythm, no symphonic movements, in fact no music whatsoever. It’s a lesson in bad writing. Rod Serling — who invented The Twilight Zone TV show and wrote many of the most famous episodes (and was one of the pre-eminent teachers in that Trumpian scam institution ‘The Famous Writers School’) wrote this crap. Well of course we all love The Twilight Zone — mainly because it’s only a half hour long and its corny concepts were sometimes truly creepy. And this film is truly creepy because of a stark realism that is only fully realised through Paul Newman’s performance (and especially one speech only). When The Rack (his third movie) came out he was 31, and 2 years later he would star in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Shall we pause here and pay tribute to Paul Newman’s beauty? He has the noble profile of the drawing of a young man in an Arrow Shirt commercial — full straight lips, deeply set bedroom eyes, a perpetual pout, a lean strong body and big firm hands. Besides Newman there is Anne Francis —who I thought I had never seen before (she starred in Forbidden Planet the same year) — a very odd looking, overly earnest actress, with platinum blonde hair, big blue eyes and a frighteningly large forehead. There’s also Walter Pidgeon (who plays Newman’s father). I will get to him later. And then there’s the redoubtable Cloris Leachman (remember her from The Mary Tyler Moore Show?) in a tiny but incredibly juicy part as a harassed housewife whose husband is calling her to bed. The movie had a startling effect on me because of the subject matter (loneliness) and because of Newman’s performance which is so honest it puts the rest of the film to shame. But oh the theme, the stupid corny, pretentious theme that you can see coming at you like a mack truck and when it hits, you just want to sit down and cry. Literally the same theme as Rebel Without a Cause — and the same theme as most movies in the fifties: my father didn’t love me enough! You’d think this theme would affect me — because my father actually didn’t love me enough. But no, sorry. Newman’s big reveal on the witness stand “my father never kissed me” is followed by his defense attorney’s wrap up (Oh, I forgot to tell you, this is Newman’s court martial — he is accused of betraying his fellow soldiers under torture) “If there is guilt where does it lie? With that small number who defected as Captain Hall did…because he had not been given the warmth to support him along the way?” And then Dad — Walter Pidgeon — feels so guilty he must kiss his son (on the forehead of course) in a conversation in the car (there we go with kisses in cars again) — in a scene that most have been triply awkward because Walter Pidgeon was gay (Scotty Bowers says so, don’t argue with me, just google Scotty Bowers!). One can only wonder what it must have been like for a 61 year old Walter Pidgeon to hold a young Paul Newman in his arms and kiss him? But on this cold night when I’m afraid to look out my window and see the deserted streets and I wonder when I will see my friends again, and I have to endure you thinking — ‘gee what’s so bad about social isolation?’ What’s so bad about people not being able to see their friends? Well, The Rack knows. The worst kind of torture is that which “twists not the body but the mind.” Paul Newman’s torture was to be left alone: “They made me stay alone / In the dark / I started doing math problems in my head -- singing songs/ They gave me pen and paper / Told me to write but only about myself / I didn’t know what was happening to me / They said they’d leave me alone for the rest of my life / They’d ask me how I liked being alone / Nobody cared for me.” Newman's defense attorney Wendell Corey — who you will recognise as the actor who played every boring character you can’t remember in 50s films and tv shows — sums it all up this way: the torturers knew humans could “endure physical pain but not mental agony.” For all a torturer must do is “find the hidden key, and when they’ve found it, turn that hard.” You see, it isn’t just being locked up during Coronavirus — with your family or without (either way could feel like a prison) and I’m sure it’s not just losing your job (who needs a job, after all), and it’s not just about losing all your money daily in the stock market, or your Olympic career, or your scholarship at school, or your house or your car — not any of that, and it’s certainly not just about not being able to go out and be with people and hug them and laugh and all that stuff no — when they ‘turn the key’ —is when they somehow just can’t tell us how long this will last. When they refuse to give us any sort of plan. Why do they want it to turn it so badly for us? How did they learn to turn that ‘key’ so well? Do people just know sadism? Or do public servants just have a special talent for it? What compels them to say “We really don’t know? This could go on for months?” Why say that at all, even if it’s true? Doesn’t a dying dog at least deserve hope? Why does the girl at the mall in the security uniform she’s obviously so proud of (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) put up her hand and say ‘Can I help you sir?’ when I enter? Think about it for a moment lady, I’m trying to go into the goddamn mall! And then why does she seem to take such pleasure (and don’t tell me I’m imagining it, I’m friggin’ not) telling me that every store I want to visit is closed? Just give me an answer. Why? Really, it doesn’t have to be this hard, social distancing; and those who are in charge could have a little more compassion for us all, they really should, and they all know that, don’t they — so why? My father didn’t love me — or rather he thought he loved something about me, but I was really only the a manifestation of a dream about himself that he could never achieve — yet, I, unlike Rod Serling, do not blame him. No. I blame human evil.
