My Six Convicts (1952)
What happens when a film does not engage me at all? I am angry and alone, resenting the almost-full moon (why can’t you wait ‘til Friday when I’m drunk and having fun?). This is my second Stanley Kramer Company Production. They called him ‘Hollywood’s conscience.’ But what I don’t need right now is a conscience, or films that are telegraphing their earnest goodwill. The poster says ‘Not Suitable for Children’ and the comments on Youtube say things like: ‘how nice to see a film dealing on this subject matter with no bad language’ — which gives you some idea what we’re dealing with here. Yes, it’s a story about a psychologist rehabilitating a bunch of hardened criminals through kindness and understanding, and it all claims to be based on someone’s memoir. But no, it just doesn’t doesn’t ring true. Gilbert Roland’s arms ring true, however, as does the hair on his chest (I can’t believe he was still so hot at 47) and Millard Mitchell looks and sounds exactly like Art Carney, and Charles Bronson has a very small role — (his acting name was — at that time — Charles Buchinsky). I don’t know what to say, and I may go off topic. Like: Ford has extended the lock down for another month and we are all in despair. It almost makes me wish I was an angry oppressed black American activist, and therefore had absolutely no excuse not to riot, and — most of all — get out of the house. But that’s just offensive, I know. Well perhaps I just want to be offensive to stop myself from dying of boredom. When I see a film like this I think of how different I am from everyone else in the world, and it just sends me spiralling into sadness. And I’m trying to get an online reading of one of my plays done, and people are being very nice — but too nice. They’re impressed I‘m so creative in these ‘trying times.’ What’s the mystery? I don’t know. But I do love Rachmaninoff, who —when he went into severe depression and could no longer compose — got a psychiatrist to chant over and over “You will compose a concerto / you will compose a concerto) etc., And it worked! Rachmaninoff use to say “Composing is as essential a part of my being as breathing.” But what comes out of me sometimes is just bilge, like this, tonight — when I’m gazing out of both the dark windows in my room, and the almost-full moon is gradually moving out of frame, and I’m thinking — I can’t stand mediocrity. I used to think it was boredom that I couldn’t stand, but now I think it’s mediocrity, or perhaps they are the same thing? Speaking of prison, someone who loves me very much has a habit of saying ‘you wouldn’t do well in prison’ and that’s true. (And of course I’ve gone on and on already about what a coward I am.) So yes, I am perhaps just a spoiled middle-class boy who needs to be constantly stimulated. Or maybe it’s an illness. I can think of no greater cardinal sin than to leave a movie thinking ‘What a relief, there were no swear words in it!’ Or worse yet ‘Thank God, this movie confirms my long held belief that convicted offenders are really nice people!’ Well I’m sure some of them are, and some of them definitely aren’t, and in this movie it’s Harry Morgan playing a psychopath (he’s usually a comic actor)— who I couldn’t help identifying with. Or maybe I was just hoping he’d do something violent and interesting and wake me up. That is what I pray for on a daily basis — to be woken up (no not in that way), by anything. I was standing in the backyard talking with my friend who I have visited four days a week — at the same time very day — for the last two and a half months, and we are now scraping our brains trying to find things to say to each other. Suddenly a man poked his head over the fence (he happened to be black, I’m just telling you because — I don’t know— well just because it's true — so friggin’ calm down) and he said ‘Who are you?’— which was reasonably shocking as I was in my friend’s yard, and you don’t expect a head to just appear and ask that. He was very nice and said something like: ‘You know, you've got to find something to do or else you get violent’ —which I thought was a very astute comment under the circumstances — and suddenly his friend appeared vaguely, behind the fence too, and said to him — “what are you now, a poet?’ — and after a mild apology or two they disappeared. Incidents like this keep happening, proof that everyone is a little bit at the end of their tether, but even watching them gnaw at a rope that is stretched to the limit is not really quite enough stimulation for me. Speaking of jail, it’s not the actual boredom of all this, it’s not being able to imagine anything else. Yes, that’s it. Somebody told me that when your ‘inside’ you have to not think of getting out. You just have to accept it. Like death. Then you can endure it. Well that’s what I’ve been doing, but tonight I’m having a full-on attack of the weird — a kerfuffle of krazies — because I’m daring to think (is it the almost-full moon?) that there might be something else. Boys that used to fall into my arms and pant breathlessly? Getting drunk with someone at a bar — who you are kind of in love with, but really you just created a play together — and then fantasizing about having sex with him as you stumble down the street? Did this really happen? Ever? Somewhere, someone else might be having fun (Sweden? Iceland?) This has been my problem from the start, my father wanted me to go into the insurance business, and my mother in her heart of hearts — and this is why I loved her — would look at him somewhat askance and think ‘you actually believe this insane attention-deficit-faggot is going to be an insurance salesman?’ (though she never would have actually expressed it in precisely that manner.) I happened to talk to a very nice Canada Council rep on the phone today and he congratulated me for being so creative. I wanted to say — and sort of did — that it’s a disease. But, unlike — or perhaps like — COVID-19, there is no vaccine, or cure. This blog is nothing, it is not even diverting to me, but — I must! I need to get away — anywhere — from this. There is something wrong with me that I can’t enjoy the mundane. Perhaps because I can’t be happy baking endless cakes, and have no children to oppress with my endless love and expectations. So there’s only this, and in a moment the almost-full moon will be gone. Well, almost all six of the convicts in this movie were lovable; I just don’t know why I had to turn out like Harry Morgan.