Is This Day Never Gonna End?

This is my entry in the Year After Year Blogathon hosted by Movie Movie Blog Blog

"Well, what if there is no tomorrow?  There wasn't one today!" -Phil Connors

What if tomorrow never came?  How would you cope with it? What if you woke up this morning, and you were reliving the same events, over and over and over and over again?

Sorry, you can't pick the best day of your life and just relive those events for eternity (otherwise I'd opt for Nov. 15, 1985 and just endlessly go to the Cowboys-Bears game that was played that day, and laugh uproariously as the Cowboys get shellacked by the Bears 44-0.  But even that would get boring after a year or two.)

No, it's just a random day in your life.  And to top it off, you are stuck in a town you don't particularly like.  And the people in the town are celebrating a holiday that you just can't stand.  What if you had to live on that day for the rest of eternity.  Not just the rest of your life, because you aren't going to grow older.  If you woke up the day before your 40th birthday this morning, tomorrow it would still be the day before your 40th birthday and on and on forever.

This is the concept that Danny Rubin came up with one day while trying to come up with a script idea that could get his foot in the door in Hollywood.  He first had the day established as just a day in late January, but then hit on the idea of establishing the event that transformed Phil Connors' life as February 2, Groundhog Day.  This idea had some appeal because if it actually did get filmed it would have it's own annual tradition already set in, much like Miracle on 34th Street or A Christmas Carol have become an annual tradition on another holiday


Several changes occurred from the first draft of the script to the final finished film.  First, in the original draft, we would have seen the beginning of the movie as Phil is already trapped in the endless time loop in the middle of the time loop with no indication of why he has been subjected to the time loop.  After studios balked at this idea (although director Harold Ramis liked the concept), Rubin added a scene where Phil broke up with his current girlfriend who cursed him with a spell.  But Rubin was never really satisfied with this.

Eventually we got the finished script that we can see today.  One notably trivia piece is that both Tom Hanks and Michael Keaton were  approached to play the role of Phil Connors.  Hanks didn't think he could pull off the asshole Phil convincingly enough because he thought his audience would expect him to be nice, and Keaton just didn't understand the concept.  (He has later admitted he regretted the decision).

By the way:  The movie was actually filmed in Illinois.  It turns out that the real Punxutawney didn't have the right feel for those involved in producing the movie and so the town of Woodstock, Illinois substitutes  for the legendary town.

So how long does Phil live in this endless loop?  Estimates have ranged from 10-10,000 years.  In order for Phil to go from being confused to desperate to complacent in his predicament, and in order for him to eventually become a consummate artist and musician (which he does by the end of the movie), a good estimate is somewhere around 34 years, according to a website I looked at.  

Groundhog Day (1993):

The movie establishes what a jerk Phil Connors (Bill Murray). a weatherman on a Pittsburgh TV station, is early on.  He is rude and sarcastic to just about everyone, including his news broadcast co-host, his cameraman Larry (Chris Elliot) and his new producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell).  Phil is scheduled to go on a remote to Punxutawney to cover the groundhog celebration and his distaste for it is evident.

Connors is set up in a bed and breakfast house because he refuses to stay in the local hotel and wakes up to the fading sound of the Sonny & Cher song "I Got You, Babe", and a pair of D.J.s telling him to put on his booties because "Its COLD out there!"  He goes down to the groundhog celebration, running into several recurring characters in the process, including the overly enthusiastic Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky), with whom Phil had gone to high school.

At the groundhog shindig, Connors continues his disgruntled demeanor, causing both Rita and Larry to confer that he is a "prima donna".  They leave Punxutawney to return to Pittsburgh, but the blizzard that Phil had confidently claimed would bypass Pittsburgh hits, forcing them to return to Punxutawney.  Connors reclaims his room at the B&B and goes off to sleep.

Upon awakening, the first indication that something is amiss is that the radio wakes him with the same fade out from "I Got You, Babe" and the same D.J.s telling him "It's COLD out there!"  Unfortunately for Phil this is the beginning of a nightmare, because he seems to be stuck in repeating the same day he had just lived through yesterday.

And it's not over yet.  Because the next day he wakes up again to the same radio and meeting the same people.  Phil doesn't really know how to react to this, but eventually he begins to try to explain to Rita what seems to be happening to him.   Of course, she thinks he's nuts or at least just overworked because neither she nor anyone else for that matter is aware of the time loop.

Eventually Phil starts to be Phil and use the inconvenience to his own advantage.  At one point he takes advantage of a lapse of attention to steal a bag of money from an armored truck.  He finds an attractive woman and learns a few details about her so that during the next cycle he can seduce her.  But even this becomes boring after a while.  He then goes through a period where he just wants to end it all.  But even suicide is not an option, because the next morning he still finds himself waking up to those same fading strains of "I Got You, Babe".

Over and over again Phil tries to find ways to improve upon his lot.  His driving passion becomes one to get Rita in bed, and he spends several episodes gradually learning things about her in order to get her to fall in love with him.  But Phil is still learning how to be a decent human being and his lessons don't seem to be cracking through that thick skull.

Phil finally starts to get the idea that he can use the situation to improve himself and learns how to play the piano and become an expert at ice sculpture, among other things.  And finally, he learns to be a decent human being.  But will it be enough to get him out of the time loop?

The movie has some great comedic moments, but it works better as a sort of bizarre romantic comedy.  Phil's efforts to get into Rita's panties transform from just crude sexual desire to an honest effort to get her to love him for whom he is (or for whom he has become through the endless time loop).

Well folks, its time to fire up the old Plymouth again (Say, haven't I said that before...?)  Drive safely, folks.  (That, too...? Hmmm.)

Quiggy

Slogging Through the Snow

Christmas movies are a tradition on TV during the holidays.  The biggest question is which ones to watch.  You have your Miracle on 34th Street, (both the classic and the remake).  You have It's a Wonderful Life (which I watch on TV every Christmas Eve, whether anyone else wants to or not.  No, I don't impose my will; I just trek off to another room if nobody else is up for it.)  You have any number of a slew of versions of A Christmas Carol.  You have cheesy Hallmark movies out the wazoo.  And of course you have the ones that appeal to the rather twisted minds like me, such as Bad Santa, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, The Mistle-tones, and even Scrooged, the Bill Murray twist on the traditional Christmas Carol story.


And then there's the John Candy/Steve Martin comedy called Planes, Trains and Automobiles.  To tell the truth I really love this movie, but I completely don't get how it became a Christmas tradition. I mean after all, it's about two guys trying to get from New York to Chicago for Thanksgiving!  But be that as it may, you do get snow, which some folks do like to have for Christmas Day, so that's one point scored for it.


John Hughes, who gave the world such memorable classics as Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Breakfast Club, and wrote the screenplays for many others, gave us this classic love-fest, as an uptight advertising executive, Neal Page (Steve Martin) is ultimately saddled with a well-meaning buffoon, Del Griffith (John Candy), as Neal attempts to get back home to his family in Chicago for Thanksgiving.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles  (1987):

Neal Page (Steve Martin) is an ad executive, sitting in a boring conference in New York.  He is desperate for the conference to end so he can catch a plane to return to Chicago, his wife and kids, and a family Thanksgiving get together.  but fate is working overtime to make sure his plans are all for naught.  For one thing, the client is determined to mull over the layouts until the last minute (and then adjourns the meeting without making a decision...)

Trying to catch a cab during rush hour proves to be problematic, too. First he races another passenger (Kevin Bacon in a cameo), but trips over what turns out to be Del Griffith's steamer trunk.  Then while negotiating with another potential cab fare for an available cab, Del (John Candy) steals Neal's cab away from him.  But it won't be the last time that Del gets under Neal's skin, not even in the slightest.

On boarding the plane Neal finds that his first class ticket has been downgraded to a coach set.  And guess who is Neal's seat companion?  Del.  It turns out that Del is a crude, brash and annoying seat companion, the exact opposite of the uptight Neal.  And to make matters worse, the plane is rerouted from it's original destination of Chicago  to Wichita, KS.

When flights to Chicago are all cancelled, Neal ends up taking Del's offer to go to a low-rent motel, although upon arriving it turns out all the rooms are booked and Del and Neal are going to have to sharte the same hotel room.  Which wouldn't have been too bad if it were a double, but they have a single king bed instead.  And Del manages to make things worse in his own inimitable way.  Plus some malcontent breaks in to the hotel room and steals all the money from the pair.

The two take a train, fortunately for Neal not seated together, but the train breaks down and fate casts the two together again.  In town, Del manages to acquire bus tickets for the pair, but they only go as far as St. Louis.  When Neal tries to get a rent a car, it is not there and, after a fruitless argument with the rental agent, attempts to hire a cab.  But Neal is obnoxious to the cab manager who punches him and he falls to the street, where, guess who just happens to come along in a rental car?

Del and Neal use the car to try to get to Chicago, but since Del is not the most attentive driver, the car ends up wrecked.  Whereupon Neal finds out that through an inadvertent switch, Del used Neal's credit card to rent the car.  And the car is not road worthy, as a police officer impounds it.

Will Neal ever make it home?  This being a feel good movie in it's basic form, you know what the answer is.  But the trip itself is well worth the watch.

Well, the old Plymouth may not be the best form of transportation, but its sure to get me home without any cops stopping me.  Drive home safely folks.  And have a great holiday season.


Quiggy

Fruitcakes and Nuts (and Bill Murray)

Ebenezer Scrooge.

Unless you've been living under a rock your whole life, you know the name.

And you know what he represents.  Goodness, kindness, philanthropy, human companionship, great employer, and fantastic all-round human being.

What's that?  I'm wrong?  Did you actually make it to the end of the story or did you just nod off midways through the scenes with the Ghost of Christmas Present?

OK, so Scrooge WAS a skinflint at the beginning of the story.   As his author so eloquently described him:

"...he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge. A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner."

When Ebenezer Scrooge first appeared on the literary landscape in December of 1843, he was just another character from the imagination of Charles Dickens.  But over the past almost 1 and 3/4 centuries, he has become synonymous with the greed and avarice of his pre-ghostly visitations.   Call someone a "Scrooge" and both you and he/she are likely to get the meaning outright.


Down through the years countless adaptations (and various pastiches and parodies on the theme) have been presented to the public. Countless stage productions, a variety of radio programs (when radio was what TV is today), numerous TV productions, a smattering of new, modernized takes on the old theme, and a good many TV comedy and drama shows down through the years have taken Dickens' theme and put it to good use.

Among versions of the original story is a made-for-TV version which starred, remarkably, George C. Scott as Scrooge.  Scott was, as near as I can tell, the only American actor in this otherwise British and British Commonwealth cast.  Yet Scott does an admirable job in his role.  The saving grace here is he doesn't try to affect a British accent, which definitely would have distracted me while I kept trying to catch anything that wasn't said in the "fake" accent.

Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge

In the role of Bob Cratchit was David Warner.  Edward Woodward, who was, at that time, the star of his own American TV show, The Equalizer, appeared as the Ghost of Christmas Present.  Susannah York appeared as Mrs. Cratchit.  Angela Pleasance (Donald Pleasance's daughter) was the Ghost of Christmas Past.  Other familiar names included Roger Rees, Joanne Whalley, Nigel Davenport, and Michael Gough.  (I noted many similarities in the way the movie was cast, how similar the actors were to their counterparts in the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol.)

Scrooge has been portrayed by Englishmen (of course), a Frenchman or two, a German and many other nationalities.  He has been portrayed by a duck (Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck's uncle, was named after Scrooge and in 1983 got his chance to play his namesake).  He has been played by a woman (among others, Susan Lucci, the Queen of Mean on the soap opera All My Children did a turn as Elizabeth "Ebbie" Scrooge).

"Ebbie" Scrooge

Scrooge has even been played by The Fonz.  Well, sort of.  In 1979 Henry Winkler, the actor best known at the time as  Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli  on the television show Happy Days, was  cast as Benedict Slade, a Depression era skinflint in the New England area of the United States.  Slade was a carbon copy of the Scrooge character, and the story, adapted for the film with some significant changes, still follows the same blueprint.  One significant change is that each of the three spirits looks exactly like someone from whom Slade had, the previous day, Christmas Eve, repossessed items, so he has trouble believing initially they are, in fact, spirits. The fun part of this film, at least at the time, was getting to see a familiar character (The Fonz) in makeup that did a real fine job of making Winkler look like a septuagenarian.

Fonzie

Benedict Slade

The Scrooge story was even adapted as a musical.  Albert Finney and Alec Guinness starred in the 1970 film Scrooge, which featured the story told in the classic musical form.  I saw this once on TV as a young lad, and even today, some 45 years later, I can still vividly recall some of the grandeur and spectacle in some of the scenes, and even can hum one of the tunes ("Thank You Very Much"), despite it being the only time I saw the film.

Finney and cast

Many TV shows that had a crotchety, cranky older character has made use of the theme in it's own way.  One I remember fondly, in particular, was in an episode of Sanford and Son.  Lamont Sanford (Demond Wilson), playing all three ghosts in one fell swoop, led Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx) through his life in order to show him the error of his ways.  As usual, Fred was back to his old self on the next episode, but for one brief shining moment, the theme of Christmas even changed him.

Fred Sanford and friends

Among the many parodies and pastiches of the Scrooge theme, in 1988, Richard Donner, famous for having directed the first Christopher Reeve Superman, and fresh off of the first Mel Gibson/Danny Glover film  Lethal Weapon, teamed up with Bill Murray to turn the Scrooge theme on its ear with Scrooged.

Scrooged (1988)

Frank Cross (Bill Murray) is a self-obsessed, egomaniacal TV executive.  He belittles everyone below him, including his put-upon secretary, Grace Cooley (Alfre Woodard),  and is an obsequious twit to his boss,  Preston Rhinelander (Robert Mitchum).  At the beginning, a staff meeting watches a promo for a Christmas Eve schedule including a Lee Majors action show (in which Santa's workshop is invaded by terrorists), and a promo for a planned live-action television broadcast of A Christmas Carol.

Frank Cross

Frank objects to Carol promo created by his execs and proposes his own which terrorizes the execs.  (Bombs, terrorists etc, all of which "may happen" if you miss the live-action show...)  Eliot (Bobcat Goldthwait) expresses an objection to the violence and gets his ass canned (on Christmas Eve).  Frank is just about due for a visit from some ghosts, don't ya think?

Eliot Loudermilk

Franks' old boss, Lew Hayward (John Forsythe),  looking a little worse for wear, makes an appearance and tells him he will be haunted by three spirits.

Lew Hayward

Of course, instead of showing up in his apartment, these spirits have an uncanny knack for just showing up whenever and wherever they feel like it.  The Ghost of Christmas Past [GCPast] is played by David Johansen, whom you may recognize as either the lounge singer Buster "Hot, Hot, Hot" Poindexter, or if you are much older, as the leader of the 70's punk band the New York Dolls.

Frank and the GCPast

The GCPast in this case is a brash New York cabbie.  He drives like a bat out of Hell, scaring the bejesus out of Frank before showing him his childhood, and then a few brief glimpses into his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Claire (Karen Allen).  Of course Frank always was his egotistic self even back then, but he manages to hold on to Claire for a time.  Until, that is, his penchant for self-promotion and scmoozing to get to the top conflict with his private life.

Claire and Frank

Back in the present, Frank is still trying to get the horrendous Christmas special on the roll.  He seeks out Claire, who now works at a homeless shelter, and disses her by saying that her homeless people she helps are just leeches and she should just "scrape them off".  He also manages to insult Grace's mute son.  The kid hasn't spoken since the death of his father a few years previously... The Ghost of Christmas Present [GCPresent], in the persona of a flighty and, really, very annoying Carol Kane, makes her presence known.

Frank with the GCPresent

The GCPresent has one good quality, however; she realizes that Frank needs a conk on the head now and then to get his attention.  She shows Frank how nearly everyone around him has a normal life that is not governed by greed, and they are much happier without it.  Once again, back in the present, Frank is accosted by and threatened by a drunk and vengeance-seeking Eliot, who armed with a shotgun chases him around the control room.

Eliot on the rampage

Fortunately (or maybe not so fortunately), Frank is rescued by the Ghost of Christmas Future [GCFuture] who, although mute, shows Frank a future, which of course since this is a pastiche of the original story, includes his death.

Frank meets the GCFuture

How the story ends, typical of the theme, but atypical since Bill Murray is involved, is well worth the viewing.  And a pretty decent song to follow as the credits roll (the Jackie DeShannon song "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" sung in a duet by Annie Lennox and Al Green).

Love for his fellow man at last

Well folks, hope Santa brings you your dreams tonight.  Be back soon with the leftovers.

Quiggy