Miss Moviehearts: Advice from the Movies

By Sanford Levine

Nobody tells Fred C. Dobbs what to do, except maybe Miss Moviehearts.

Advice From the Movies goes a long way in proving that most problems in life can be solved by a scene from a movie. A delightful book to be enjoyed by anyone who has ever referred to a movie to make a point.

Dear Miss Moviehearts,

My husband is more passionate about his Porsche than about me. What can I do?

Neglected

Dear Neglected,

Come back as his car. If Jimmy Smits could come back as Ellen Barkin in "Switch" and Patrick Swayze could come back as a ghost in "Ghost," then you can certainly come back as a 1965 Porsche.

Miss Moviehearts

Whatever the problem-money, marriage, love, work, parenting, etiquette, growing old or anything else-Miss Moviehearts can help.

Miss Moviehearts: Advice From The Movies

* * * Praise for Sanford Levine's The 247 Best Movie Scenes In Film History

"One of the most entertaining film books...Highly recommended."
-Classic Images

"Ingenious"
-American Cinematographer

"It's a hoot."
-Clive Hirschorn, Sunday Express

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 8, 2003
• ISBN: 9781469799568

Sanford Levine

Sanford Levine, a writer who lives in Brooklyn with his wife, three children, two dogs and a mother-in-law, has often benefited from Miss Moviehearts' advice. His conversation is often peppered with movie references. Levine is the author of The 247 Best Movie Scenes In Film History, most of which he wrote on the F Train.

Book preview

Miss Movie hearts: Advice From The Movies

Sanford Levine

iUniverse, Inc.

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Miss Moviehearts: Advice From The Movies

All Rights Reserved © 2003 by Sanford Levine

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

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ISBN: 0-595-28123-0

ISBN: 978-1-4697-9956-8 (ebook)

Contents

Introduction

What the movies have to say about…

What the movies have to say about. Marriage

What the movies have to say about… Parenting

What the movies have to say about… Love And Relationships

What the movies have to say about… Growing Old

What the movies have to say about… The Workplace

What the movies have to say about…. Etiquette

What the movies have to say about… Everything Else

The 17 Best Movie Recipes In Film History

Outtakes

Endnotes

For Harry, who would have enjoyed this one.

Introduction

I’m not sure when I first realized movies had a lot to say about how we live our lives. I must have known it in when I was a sophomore in high school and advised Toby Epstein to tell his mother, Nobody tells Fred C. Dobbs what to do, the next time she asked him to clean up his room.

The idea that I could actually make a living helping people solve problems with advice from the movies came much later. I was on a movie line. It was a small line, the kind on which confidences can easily be frayed. The woman behind me began telling the woman she was with of her affair with a former boy- friend. She was certain her husband didn’t suspect a thing.

He brings me coffee in bed every morning and stays to make sure I finish it.

It was when the woman said she felt terrible that a warning light began to flash. I overcame my impulse to ask if she meant physically but when it turned out that she and her husband lived with his mother in a mansion in South America and that one of her husband’s keenest pleasures was being told how much he looks like Claude Rains that I knew I had to do something fast. As we reached the ticket booth, I turned and told her that I thought her husband knew about the affair and was trying to poison her. I then advised her to leave the mansion at once and never have coffee with her husband or mother-in-law again.

Which movie? asked the ticket seller.

One for Notorious, I replied.

By then I already knew that people made movie references all the time to make a point or show how they felt, but I didn’t know how widespread this had become until I read in The New York Times that the impending impeachment vote of President Clinton reminded one of his top aides of Rosemary in the movie Rosemary’s Baby. The scene the aide was referring to was when she wakes up and says, This is no dream. This is really happening. It wasn’t long after that

The Boston Globe, when talking about Florida politics, quoted Edward G. Robinson in Key Largo: Let me tell you about Florida politicians. I make them. I make them out of whole cloth, just like a tailor makes a suit. I get their name in the newspaper. I get them some publicity and get them on the ballot. Then after the election, we count the votes. And if they don’t turn out right, we recount them. And recount them again. Until they do.

Pretty soon movie references started popping up in the boardrooms of For- tune 500 companies. The president of DaimlerChrysler was quoted as saying that he as a weak spot for trial movies and that one of his favorites is Twelve Angry Men. Why? Because at heart it’s a training film in persuasion.

What really told me that I was on to something with this was when Donald Rumsfeld compared the Iraqi Information minister’s statement that coalition troops were nowhere near Bagdad (when a split screen showed them actually in Bagdad) to Claude Raines saying I’m shocked. shocked there’s gambling here (referring to Rick’s Place in the film Casablanca). The Daily News headline Thief Of Bagdad, referring to the hunt for Saddam’s millions and its Incredible Shrinking Mike" headline about the New York Mayor’s shrinking popularity ratings were only icing on the cake.

My original plan was to write a weekly Advice From The Movies column in The Joy Bearer, a privately circulated newsletter for people who relate strongly to movie scenes. I later scrapped that in favor of this book, and with the help of a few friends began seeking out people who could be helped by advice from the movies. I called myself Miss Moviehearts. The letters that follow do not even begin to describe the variety and depth of the problems that are out there. Answering the letters triggered a few movie-connected memories of my own. I have included those in these pages.

Sanford Levine

What the movies have to say about…

Dear Miss Moviehearts,

I just won $10 million in the lottery. I’m still young, so I figure I’ll invest half of the money in aggressive stock funds, a third in foreign securities of emerging countries and the rest in government bonds and money market funds. What’s your advice?

Lottery Winner

Dear Lottery Winner,

In financial matters I’ve always followed the advice of Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart). In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), when Curtin asked him what he’d do with his money if he struck it rich, Dobbs has the perfect answer: Diamonds and pearls on the fingers and necks of swell dames.

Confidential to Cheapskate:

No, an inner tube rolled in wet leaves is not an appropriate funeral wreath. In Mr. Hulot’s Holiday Jacques Tati was only trying to fix a flat tire when his inner tube accidentally rolled into that pile of wet leaves. The arriving funeral party mistook the leaf-covered inner tube for a funeral wreath and Tati was too polite to point out their mistake.

Dear Miss Moviehearts,

How can I pay off my holiday debts faster?

Worried

Dear Worried,

After a thorough check, I couldn’t find a single movie about debt consolidation or budgeting that would work for you. There is one movie, though, that might help. In Fun With Dick and Jane, when George Segal and Jane Fonda go over- board on credit card spending, and Segal loses his job, they turn to crime. If this type of solution to your money problems appeals to you, two jewel heist movies (Topkapi and Rififfi) and two bank robbery movies (Bonnie and Clyde and Dog Day Afternoon) should interest you.

Confidential To Bankruptcy Lawyer Who Loves Movies: No, you can’t equate every situation in your profession to a scene from The Producers, and yes, I think You’re Breaking The Heart Of My Bankrupt Lover works as the title of a Country Western.

Dear Miss Moviehearts,

Before I go off to my Final Audit, I’d like to see one movie that doesn’t treat accountants as if they’re wimps. Any suggestions?

Sensitive C.P.A.

Dear Sensitive,

That’s a tough one. You should definitely skip Force of Evil. The number’s bank bookkeeper in that one is always sweating and his jacket never touches the back of his neck. Midnight Run is only slightly better. Charles Grodin may be an embezzling accountant but he stole from the mob and he does give $100,000 to Robert De Niro, who saved his life. The Producers should also be skipped. Sure Gene Wilder is funny, but during an audit he forces Zero Mostel to admit he wears a cardboard belt. Your best bet is probably Ikiru. In this Japanese-made film, Takashi Shimura, an accountant for the city, helps to get a children’s play- ground built after he’s told that he doesn’t have much time left until his Final Audit.

Dear Miss Moviehearts,

Can the movies explain why, when you ask your bank’s ATM if your last mort- gage check cleared, it always asks you whether you want your last five debits or your last five credits? Since most people haven’t the foggiest idea whether a debit is a deposit or a withdrawal (and have the same questions and doubts about credits), why can’t the ATM just ask in plain English if you want to see your last five deposits or your last five withdrawals?

Mad As Hell

Dear Mad As Hell,

Ask Lionel Barrymore. You’ll find him in It’s a Wonderful Life disguised as Mr. Potter. On a more helpful note, let me add that in every accounting course I took at college, the debit column was always the one nearest the window.

Lionel Barrymore

We bought our house seven years ago. It’s a beautiful house, the best I’ve ever lived in. In those seven years I figure our monthly mortgage payments totaled about $200,000. This reduced what we owe on our mortgage by about $10,000. Are you listening, Mr. Potter?

To lower our monthly mortgage payment we did what Americans all across the country do when they want to lower their monthly mortgage payments. We tried refinancing to get a lower rate. The problem is that the bank didn’t think we

could handle a new mortgage with monthly payments less than what we’re paying now because we didn’t have enough money in the bank anymore.

Can you explain that, Mr. Potter?

George Bailey was right. What this town needed was a Bailey Savings and Loan if only so people didn’t have to go crawling to Mr. Potter every time they needed to refinance their mortgage. Bailey’s brother was wrong, though. He called his brother the richest man in town. Take it from me, when you’re trying to refinance, the richest man in town is Lionel Barrymore.

Postscript: We finally found a bank fool enough to lend us the money at a lower interest rate and we closed a few days before Christmas. I knew I wasn’t dreaming because I found my daughter Olivia’s Christmas list in my jacket pocket. Which started me thinking about It’s a Wonderful Life and gave me the smart-ass idea to ask the bank’s lawyer if the bank he worked for was the Bailey Savings and Loan or one that was owned by Mr. Potter.