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June 18, 2007
Very deep dish and high fallutin'.
I am a rank sentimentalist. This is a simple observation, not a harsh self-assessment. I misted up while writing a sympathy card to our downstairs neighbor after Rudy, her canine companion, died two weeks ago. Also, I fervently believe George Bailey is the richest man in town, and I never let my eye linger too long on the "LOST CAT" flyers stuck to telephone poles.
One of the symptoms of my affliction is an abiding love for the films of Preston Sturges, a screenwriter whose knack for cynical satire was tempered by his sense of the romantic.
Before leaving it behind in a doctor's office last week, I finished the second script in a Sturges anthology -- "Christmas in July." The Depression-era premise would be entirely unacceptable to modern audiences: a clerk in a coffee company enters a slogan contest for a rival firm. His co-workers, put off by his confidence and bravado, send him a phony telegram indicating that he's the contest winner. Comedic results ensue.
At the end of the film, the hero and his girl are in the corner office his employer bestowed upon him as a result of his keen creative mind. He confesses to the gruff company president that the whole thing was a prank and prepares to return to his lonely desk in the Accounting department, but his girlfriend stands up for him. Given recent events, this scene truly resonated for me:
It'll be kinda hard to face that... gang, tomorrow morning from behind a desk.
It would be just as hard to face them from in here, if you didn't *belong* here - uneasy lies the head...
He *does* belong in here, Mr. Baxter.
Now what is the joke this time?
He belongs in here because he thinks he belongs in here, because he thinks he...
Oh, that's all very deep dish and high fallutin', but from a practical...
It is practical, Mr. Baxter. It's the most practical idea you ever had. He belongs in here because he thinks he has ideas. He belongs in here until he proves himself or fails and... then... someone else belongs in here until he prove himself or fails and somebody else after that and somebody else after him and so on and so on for always. Oh... I don't know how to... put it into words like Jimmy could, but... all he wanted, all any of them want is a - is a chance to show - to find out what got while they're still young and burning like a short cut or a stepping stone. Oh, I know they're not gonna succeed, at least most of them won't, they'll all be like Mr. Waterbury soon enough, most of them, anyway. But they won't mind it. They'll find something else, and they'll be happy, because they had their chance. Because it's one thing to muff a chance once you've had it... it's another thing never to have had a chance. His name's already on the door.
Well, if anything decided me. That would be it.
(smiling joyously)
Mr. Baxter!
Now you've talked enough. Desks have already been moved and the name is painted on as you so skillfully pointed out, so we'll try it for a *very* short time, you understand? At no advance in salary, you understand?
Yes, sir.
And for a *very* short time.
Yes, sir.
After all, this is a business institution, not a cultural... project.
You'll never be sorry, Mr. Baxter.
Yes, well, I'm a little bit sorry already, so just let it go at that. Good night and be on time in the morning.
Betty smothers him in kisses.
Oh, psshaw!
Posted by Your Protagonist at June 18, 2007 09:39 AM