Woody Allen Tonight: Can the Count get it all together? Part 2 of "Count Dracula" from "Getting Even"

"It's so rare to see [Count Dracula] around this early. In fact I can't ever remember seeing him around in the daytime."

-- the Mayor, in tonight's conclusion of "Count Dracula"

by Ken

Vampires are prepared for a lot of things, but not necessarily -- as we learned in last night's first installment of Woody Allen's "Count Dracula" -- for total eclipses of the sun. We'll have a recap of Part 1 in the click-through, before proceeding with Part 2, which concludes our current run of "Woody Allen Tonight." Not to worry, we'll be returning to Woody (on to Without Feathers!), but before we leave him, I wanted to be sure everyone saw this terrific comment left by UncommonSense in response to the "Woody Allen Tonight" post of "A Twenties Memory":

I discovered Woody Allen's writing when I was about 12, shortly after discovering his films. I found a paperback copy of Without Feathers in the bookstore at the mall and bought it because I had loved Take the Money and Run so much when I saw it on the CBS Late Movie.

I was hooked. I had never read anything like it. Here were stories written in language that was clearly above any experience I had ever had, but which I understood and found hilarious. After Without Feathers, I went back and bought Side Effects and Getting Even in short order. I still remember laughing out loud as I read some of the stories - "The Whore of Mensa," "The Kugelmass Episode, "and yes, "A Twenties Memory." I remember a girl at school asking me, "You mean they write books you can just sit there and laugh at?"

My wife and I saw Midnight in Paris last weekend at an old, independent movie house, and as we watched it, I thought constantly of "A Twenties Memory," which I have not read since I was a teenager. The story was my first exposure to The Lost Generation - the first time I had heard of Gertrude Stein, for example. To this day, my image of Hemingway is formed in part by Allen's humorous characterization in the story. When I read A Moveable Feast [Hemingway's memoir of his life in Paris in the '20s] as an adult, I felt like I had been there before. In fact, sometimes when I think of one story, I can't be sure I am not remembering details from the other.

I lost track of my Woody Allen volumes years ago. They're probably in the attic somewhere. I might have to go and hunt for them.

Well said, UncommonS! And thanks for sharing all that! Now back to tonight's regularly scheduled programming: the conclusion of "Count Dracula," one of the three pieces in Getting Even that had never appeared in print before the book was published.


WITH THE ECLIPSE DRAWING TO A CLOSE, CAN COUNT
DRACULA GET IT ALL TOGETHER? TO FIND OUT, CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"

from Getting Even (1971)
"A Look at Organized Crime"
"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2
"A Twenties Memory"
"Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 1 and Part 2
"The Schmeed Memoirs," Part 1 and Part 2
"Count Dracula," Part 1

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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A Woody Allen Tonight double bill: Hitler's barber remembers! -- Part 2 of "The Schmeed Memoirs," plus Part 1 of "Count Dracula" (from "Getting Even")

Generaloberst Heinz Guderian (1888-1954)
Chief of mobile forces for the Wehrmacht

"When General Guderian heard [that Hitler ("in part on the advice of Goebbels") was dealing with his "dry, unruly hair" by washing it every day], he immediately returned home from the Russian front and told the Führer he must shampoo his hair no more than three times weekly . . . the procedure followed with great success by the General Staff in two previous wars."

-- from tonight's conclusion of "The Schmeed Memoirs"

by Ken

Last night we met Friedrich Schmeed, "the best-known barber in wartime Germany," and read several excerpts from his memoirs, the account of his tonsorial mediation to much of the Nazi high command during World War II, beginning with the episode in the spring of 1940 when Hitler appeared at Schmeed's shop at 127 Koenigstrasse and tried to cut ahead of von Ribbentrop for a light trim, "but Ribbentrop insisted it would look bad for the Foreign Office if he were passed over" -- and wound up being transferred to the Afrika Korps. Tonight's excerpts spotlight the dispiriting final year of the Third Reich.

Tonight we also begin Woody's "Count Dracula," a harrowing tale in which the legendary Count lands himself in one heck of a pickle. Both "Count Dracula" and "The Schmeed Memoirs" seemed to me a bit too long for single-installment presentation but maybe not quite so long as to demand two full installments apiece, and besides, I really wanted to present both in the space of three nights. I realize that this middle installment wound up kind of large, but I think we've got good "break" points for both pieces. I guess we'll see how it works.


FOR PART 2 OF "THE SCHMEED MEMOIRS" AND
PART 1 OF "COUNT DRACULA," CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"

from Getting Even (1971)
"A Look at Organized Crime"
"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2
"A Twenties Memory"
"Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 1 and Part 2
"The Schmeed Memoirs," Part 1
Coming tomorrow: The harrowing conclusion of "Count Dracula"

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: Hitler's barber remembers! Part 1 of "The Schmeed Memoirs" from "Getting Even"

"I have been asked if I was aware of the moral implications of what I was doing. As I told the tribunal at Nuremberg, I did not know that Hitler was a Nazi. The truth was that for years I thought he worked for the phone company."

-- from the Memoirs of "the best-known barber
in wartime Germany," Friedrich Schmeed

Already I've done Schmeed a disservice by referring to him in the head as "Hitler's barber," when in fact he "provided tonsorial services for Hitler and many highly placed government and military officials." In the first excerpt from his memoirs, he chronicles the day in the spring of 1940 when Hitler arrived at his shop and tried to cut ahead of von Ribbentrop, which resulted in the transfer of Ribbentrop to the Afrika Korps. "This sort of rivalry went on all the time," Schmeed notes. -- Ken


TO BEGIN THE STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH
THE MASTER BARBER OF THE THIRD REICH, CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"

from Getting Even (1971)
"A Look at Organized Crime"
"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2
"A Twenties Memory"
"Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 1 and Part 2
Coming tomorrow: The conclusion of "The Schmeed Memoirs" PLUS (!) Part 1 of "Count Dracula"

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: Part 2 of "Hassidic Tales" (from "Getting Even")

"While [Rabbi Yisroel] was on his way to synagogue to celebrate the sacred Jewish holiday commemorating God's reneging on every promise, a woman stopped him and asked the following question: 'Rabbi, why are we not allowed to eat pork?'

"'We're not?' the Rev said incredulously. 'Uh-oh.'"

-- from tonight's first "Hassidic Tale"

by Ken

Pursuing the matter of Rabbi Yisroel and the question of eating pork, the noted scholar concludes his "guide to the tale's interpretation": "Why pork was proscribed by Hebraic law is still unclear, and some scholars believe that the Torah merely suggested not eating pork at certain restaurants."

Last night we had the first three of Woody's "Hassidic Tales," in which we met three learned rabbis including Rabbi Raditz of Poland, "who was said to have inspired many pogroms with his sense of humor" -- "a man who has never read the Bible and has been faking it." Tonight more inconvenient questions for the rabbis, and a rabbi, Rabbi Yekel of Zans ("who had the best diction in the world until a Gentile stole his resonant underwear"), who has problems you don't want to know from.


FOR OUR FINAL THREE "HASSIDIC TALES," CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"

from Getting Even (1971)
"A Look at Organized Crime"
"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2
"A Twenties Memory"
"Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 1
Coming tomorrow: Part 1 of "The Schmeed Memoirs"
And coming soon: "Count Dracula"

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: Part 1 of "Hassidic Tales" (from "Getting Even")

Perhaps Woody himself would approve of the idea of having this memorable scene from Take the Money and Run posted in Hungarian. In it the imprisoned aspiring career criminal Virgil Starkwell subjects himself to a drug test that has the unfortunate side effect of turning him into a rabbi.


"Why is [the man who journeyed to Chelm to meet the rabbi described as "perhaps the greatest noodge of the medieval era"] bothering Rabbi Ben Kaddish -- the Rabbi doesn't have enough trouble? The truth is, the Rabbi's in over his head with gamblers, and he has also been named in a paternity case by a Mrs. Hecht."

-- from the interpretation of tonight's first "Hassidic Tale"

by Ken

Who can forget the scene from Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run, where we can see (if not quite hear) above confirmed criminal Virgil Starkwell is turned into a rabbi? The wisdom of the rabbanim has never been far from Woody's thoughts -- or the gullibility of the people who pay attention.

There are six "Hassidic Tales" in this 1970 piece, which we're going to split down the middle between tonight and tomorrow night.


FOR OUR FIRST THREE "HASSIDIC TALES," CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"

from Getting Even (1971)
"A Look at Organized Crime"
"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2
"A Twenties Memory"
Coming tomorrow: "Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 2
Coming soon: "The Schmeed Memoirs" and "Count Dracula"

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: "A Twenties Memory" (from "Getting Even")

Hemingway in the '20s: His 1923 passport photo

"I kidded Hemingway about his forthcoming novel and we laughed a lot and had fun and then we put on some boxing gloves and he broke my nose."

-- from "A Twenties Memory"

by Ken

What's so inspiring about this "memory" isn't just the famous names littered through it but the deep insights into them. The author hobnobs with famous writers including not just Hemingway and Gertrude Stein (who turn out to have something surprising in common) but Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald ("most of our friends believed that [Scott] based the protagonist of his latest novel on me and that I had based my life on his previous novel and I finally wound up getting sued by a fictional character"). Thanks to Hemingway the author even meets "that great, great artist" the bullfigher Manolete ("had he not become a bullfighter, his grace was such that he could have been a world-famous accountant").

And he pals around with artists like Picasso (who, because of having coffee with the author and Gertrude Stein, was delayed by ten minutes in starting "what was later to be known as his 'blue period'" -- though "it lasted four years, so the ten minutes did not really mean much") [that's a Picasso "blue period" self-portrait at right], Dali (he recalls the one-man show of Dali's that "was a huge success, as one man showed up"), and Gris ("Gertrude Stein used to say that only a true Spaniard could behave as he did; that is, he would speak Spanish and sometimes return to his family in Spain").

All somehow crammed into a single decade!


FOR THIS RIVETING "TWENTIES MEMORY," CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"

from Getting Even (1971)
"A Look at Organized Crime"
"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2

coming Sunday and Monday: "Hassidic Tales, and a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Parts 1 and 2

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: Part 2 of "Death Knocks" (from "Getting Even")

Tonight Nat Ackerman's drawing and discarding for his life.

NAT: You want to play a tenth of a cent a point to make it interesting?
DEATH: It's not interesting enough for you?
NAT: I play better when money's at stake.
DEATH: Whatever you say, Newt.
NAT: Nat. Nat Ackerman. You don't know my name?
DEATH: Newt, Nat -- I got such a headache.

-- from tonight's installment of "Death Knocks"

Last night, in our Part 1 of "Death Knocks," we met dress manufacturer Nat Ackerman near midnight in the bedroom of his two-story home in Kew Gardens, Queens, so absorbed reading his Daily News (headline: "NAB COEDS IN POT ORGY") that he fails to hear an intruder climbing up his drainpipe with a view toward making a dramatic entrance, which turns instead into a stumbling and gasping entrance. Death ("for it is no one else") lays out the situation for Nat: His time is up. When he insists, "It's the moment," Nat replies, "How can it be the moment? I just merged with Modiste Originals." Eventually Nat persuades Death -- who doesn't play chess but claims to be good at gin rummy -- to play a hand, bargaining for a chance to win a day's respite from his departure. Let the game begin! -- Ken


FOR PART 2 OF "DEATH KNOCKS," CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: Part 1 of "Death Knocks" (from "Getting Even")

[The sombre, caped figure huffs audibly and then trips over the window sill and falls into the room.]
DEATH [for it is no one else]: Jesus Christ. I nearly broke my neck.
NAT ACKERMAN [watching with bewilderment]: Who are you?
DEATH: Death.
NAT: Who?
DEATH: Death. Listen -- can I sit down? I nearly broke my neck. I'm shaking like a leaf.
NAT: Who are you?
DEATH: Death. You got a glass of water?

-- the opening of "Death Knocks"

Tonight we continue our Woody Allen sampling, begun Monday night with "A Look at Organized Crime," with a justly famous playlet from 1968, "Death Knocks." Woody's well-known admiration for, or perhaps awe of, Ingmar Bergman seems to me more productively expressed in this rollicking hommage to The Seventh Seal than in his later stiflingly pseudo-Bergmanesque films like Interiors and September. -- Ken


FOR PART 1 OF "DEATH KNOCKS," CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: "A Look at Organized Crime" (from "Getting Even")

"Vincent Columbraro, the Buttered Toast King, has such tight control over all buttered toast moving in and out of New Jersey that one word from him could ruin breakfast for two-thirds of the nation."

-- from "A Look at Organized Crime"

by Ken

Of the 17 pieces in Getting Even, Woody Allen's first book of humor pieces, published in 1971, 11 had first appeared in The New Yorker. (Three had appeared in other publications, and the remaining three had not been previously published.) The earliest of the New Yorker pieces dates from 1966, when Woody was still transitioning from stand-up comedy to movies -- the first film he directed, Take the Money and Run, came out in 1969; the second, Bananas, in 1971.

Woody has maintained a pretty steady production over the years; a quick search of The New Yorker index for him as author turned up 42 listings, the most recent from this past January ("Money Can Buy Happiness -- As If"). This week, in addition to tonight's "A Look at Organized Crime" (from 1970), we're going to have two longer pieces in two parts each: the playlet "Death Knocks" (from 1968) and "Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar" (from 1970).


FOR TONIGHT'S "LOOK AT ORGANIZED
CRIME," CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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[8/18/2011] Woody Allen Tonight: Can the Count get it all together? Part 2 of "Count Dracula" from "Getting Even" (continued)

"Now I really must buzz off. I just remembered, I left the lights on at my castle -- bills'll be enormous . . ."

-- from tonight's thrilling conclusion of "Count Dracula"

OUR STORY THUS FAR . . .

Last night we first encountered the Count waiting patiently in his coffin for "the precise moment of darkness before opening the lid and emerging," meanwhile contemplating his chosen victims for the impending evening: the baker and his wife, "succulent, available, and unsuspecting, . . . whose trust he has carefully cultivated." At that moment of darkness, he rose swiftly "like an angel of hell" and in bat form flew "pell-mell to the cottage of his tantalizing victims."

Unfortunately, on arrival at the baker's cottage the Count learned that he was seven hours early, his finely tuned light-sensing faculties having been short-circuited by a vampire's worst nightmare: a total solar eclipse. Oops! Or as the Count put it, "I'm in big trouble." He tried to beat a hasty retreat, but couldn't extract himself from the hospitality of his adoring, ever-trusting intended victims. "Going?" his hosts asked. "You just came." "Yes," he replied, "but -- I think I blew it very badly . . ."

"Count Dracula" was published for the first time in Getting Even (1971).

(from Getting Even)
Part 2

"Count Dracula, you're pale."

"Am I? I need a little fresh air. It was nice seeing you . . . "

"Come. Sit down. We'll have a drink."

"Drink? No, I must run. Er -- you're stepping on my cape."

"Sure. Relax. Some wine."

'Wine? Oh no, gave it up -- liver and all that, you know. And now I really must buzz off. I just remembered, I left the lights on at my castle -- bills'll be enormous . . ."

"Please," the baker says, his arm around the Count in firm friendship. "You're not intruding. Don't be so polite. So you're early."

"Really, I'd like to stay but there's a meeting of old Roumanian Counts across town and I'm responsible for the cold cuts."

"Rush, rush, rush. It's a wonder you don't get a heart attack."

"Yes, right -- and now -- "

"I'm making Chicken Pilaf tonight," the baker's wife chimes in. "I hope you like it."

"Wonderful, wonderful," the Count says, with a smile, as he pushes her aside into some laundry. Then, opening a closet door by mistake, he walks in. "Christ, where's the goddamn front door?"

"Ach," laughs the baker's wife, "such a funny man, the Count."

"I knew you'd like that," Dracula says, forcing a chuckle, "now get out of my way." At last he opens the front door but time has run out on him.

"Oh, look, mama," says the baker, "the eclipse must be over. The sun is coming out again."

"Right," says Dracula, slamming the front door. "I've decided to stay. Pull down the window shades quickly -- quickly! Let's move it!"

"What window shades?" asks the baker.

"There are none, right? Figures. You got a basement in this joint?"

"No," says the wife affably, "I'm always telling Jarslov to build one but he never listens. That's some Jarslov, my husband."

"I'm all choked up. Where's the closet?"

"You did that one already, Count Dracula. Unt mama and I laughed at it."

"Ach -- such a funny man, the Count."

"Look, I'll be in the closet. Knock at seven-thirty." And with that, the Count steps inside the closet and slams the door.

"Hee-hee -- he is so funny, Jarslov."

"Oh, Count. Come out of the closet. Stop being a big silly." From inside the closet comes the muffled voice of Dracula.

"Can't -- please -- take my word for it. Just let me stay here. I'm fine. Really."

"Count Dracula, stop the fooling. We're already helpless with laughter."

"Can I tell you, I love this closet."

"Yes, but . . ."

"I know, I know ... it seems strange, and yet here I am, having a ball. I was just saying to Mrs. Hess the other day, give me a good closet and I can stand in it for hours. Sweet woman, Mrs. Hess. Fat but sweet . . . Now, why don't you run along and check back with me at sunset. Oh, Ramona, la da da de da da de, Ramona . . ."

Now the Mayor and his wife, Katia, arrive. They are passing by and have decided to pay a call on their good friends, the baker and his wife.

"Hello, Jarslov. I hope Katia and I are not intruding?"

"Of course not, Mr. Mayor. Come out, Count Dracula! We have company!"

"Is the Count here?" asks the Mayor surprised.

"Yes, and you'll never guess where," says the baker's wife.

"It's so rare to see him around this early. In fact I can't ever remember seeing him around in the daytime."

"Well, he's here. Come out, Count Dracula!"

"Where is he?" Katia asks, not knowing whether to laugh or not.

"Come on out now! Let's go!" The baker's wife is getting impatient.

"He's in the closet," says the baker, apologetically.

"Really?" asks the Mayor.

"Let's go," says the baker with mock good humor as he knocks on the closet door. "Enough is enough. The Mayor's here."

"Come on out, Dracula," His Honor shouts, "let's have a drink."

"No, go ahead. I've got some business in here."

"In the closet?"

"Yes, don't let me spoil your day. I can hear what you're saying. I'll join in if I have anything to add."

Everyone looks at one another and shrugs. Wine is poured and they all drink.

"Some eclipse today," the Mayor says, sipping from his glass.

"Yes," the baker agrees. "Incredible."

"Yeah. Thrilling," says a voice from the closet.

"What, Dracula?"

"Nothing, nothing. Let it go."

And so the time passes, until the Mayor can stand it no longer and forcing open the door to the closet, he shouts, "Come on, Dracula. I always thought you were a mature man. Stop this craziness."

The daylight streams in, causing the evil monster to shriek and slowly dissolve to a skeleton and then to dust before the eyes of the four people present. Leaning down to the pile of white ash on the closet floor, the baker's wife shouts, "Does this mean dinner's off tonight?"

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IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS PREVIEW --

It's the beginning of the long-awaited third and final installment in our series on the French Revolutionary rage of Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier.


SUNDAY IT'S THE RETURN OF "BOB AND RAY TONIGHT"! Selections from Write If You Get Work: The Best of Bob & Ray, starting with the Foreword by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who remembers being interviewed for a job by the fellows

RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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[8/17/2011] A Woody Allen Tonight double bill: Part 2 of "The Schmeed Memoirs" PLUS Part 1 of "Count Dracula" (continued)

"As he lies there, fully awake now, in red-lined Inverness cape and tails, waiting to feel with uncanny perception the precise moment of darkness before opening the lid and emerging, he decides who this evening's victims will be. The baker and his wife, he thinks to himself. Succulent, available, and unsuspecting."

-- from tonight's installment of "Count Dracula"

I. HITLER: THE FINAL HAIRCUT

"The Schmeed Memoirs" appeared originally in The New Yorker of April 17, 1971.

(from Getting Even)
Part 2

After the Allied invasion, Hitler developed dry, unruly hair. This was due in part to the Allies' success and in part to the advice of Goebbels, who told him to wash it every day. When General Guderian heard this, he immediately returned home from the Russian front and told the Führer he must shampoo his hair no more than three times weekly. This was the procedure followed with great success by the General Staff in two previous wars. Hitler once again overruled his generals and continued washing daily. Bormann helped Hitler with the rinsing and always seemed to be there with a comb. Eventually, Hitler became dependent on Bormann, and before he looked in a mirror he would always have Bormann look in it first. As the Allied armies pushed east, Hitler's hair grew worse. Dry and unkempt, he often raged for hours about how he would get a nice haircut and a shave when Germany won the war, and maybe even a shine. I realize now he never had any intention of doing those things.

One day, Hess took the Führer's bottle of Vitalis and set out in a plane for England. The German high command was furious. They felt Hess planned to give it to the Allies in return for amnesty for himself. Hitler was particularly enraged when he heard the news, as he had just stepped out of the shower and was about to do his hair. (Hess later explained at Nuremberg that his plan was to give Churchill a scalp treatment in an effort to end the war. He had got as far as bending Churchill over a basin when he was apprehended.)

Late in 1944, Göring grew a mustache, causing talk that he was soon to replace Hitler. Hitler was furious and accused Göring of disloyalty. "There must be only one mustache among the leaders of the Reich, and it shall be mine!" he cried. Göring argued that two mustaches might give the German people a greater sense of hope about the war, which was going poorly, but Hitler thought not. Then, in January of 1945, a plot by several generals to shave Hitler's mustache in his sleep and proclaim Doenitz the new leader failed when von Stauffenberg, in the darkness of Hitler's bedroom, shaved off one of the Führer's eyebrows instead. A state of emergency was proclaimed, and suddenly Goebbels appeared at my shop. "An attempt was just made on the Führer's mustache; but it was unsuccessful," he said, trembling. Goebbels arranged for me to go on radio and address the German people, which I did, with a minimum of notes. "The Führer is all right," I assured them. "He still has his mustache. Repeat. The Führer still has his mustache. A plot to shave it has failed."

* * *

Near the end, I came to Hitler's bunker. The Allied armies were closing in on Berlin, and Hitler felt that if the Russians got there first he would need a full haircut but if the Americans did he could get by with a light trim. Everyone quarrelled. In the midst of all this, Bormann wanted a shave, and I promised him I would get to work on some blueprints. Hitler grew morose and remote. He talked of parting his hair from ear to ear and then claimed that the development of the electric razor would turn the war for Germany. "We will be able to shave in seconds, eh, Schmeed?" he muttered. He mentioned other wild schemes and said that someday he would have his hair not just cut but shaped. Obsessed as usual by sheer size, he vowed he would eventually have a huge pompadour -- "one that will make the world tremble and will require an honor guard to comb." Finally, we shook hands and I gave him a last trim. He tipped me one pfennig. "I wish it could be more," he said, "but ever since the Allies have overrun Europe I've been a little short."

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II. AN UNEXPECTED SITUATION FOR THE COUNT

"Count Dracula" was published for the first time in Getting Even (1971).

(from Getting Even)
Part 1

Somewhere in Transylvania, Dracula the monster lies sleeping in his coffin, waiting for night to fall. As exposure to the sun's rays would surely cause him to perish, he stays protected in the satin-lined chamber bearing his family name in silver. Then the moment of darkness comes, and through some miraculous instinct the fiend emerges from the safety of his hiding place and, assuming the hideous forms of the bat or the wolf, he prowls the countryside, drinking the blood of his victims. Finally, before the first rays of his archenemy, the sun, announce a new day, he hurries back to the safety of his hidden coffin and sleeps, as the cycle begins anew.

Now he starts to stir. The fluttering of his eyelids is a response to some age-old, unexplainable instinct that the sun is nearly down and his time is near. Tonight, he is particularly hungry and as he lies there, fully awake now, in red-lined Inverness cape and tails, waiting to feel with uncanny perception the precise moment of darkness before opening the lid and emerging, he decides who this evening's victims will be. The baker and his wife, he thinks to himself. Succulent, available, and unsuspecting. The thought of the unwary couple whose trust he has carefully cultivated excites his blood lust to a fever pitch, and he can barely hold back these last seconds before climbing out of the coffin to seek his prey.

Suddenly he knows the sun is down. Like an angel of hell, he rises swiftly, and changing into a bat, flies pell-mell to the cottage of his tantalizing victims.

"Why, Count Dracula, what a nice surprise," the baker's wife says, opening the door to admit him. (He has once again assumed human form, as he enters their home, charmingly concealing his rapacious goal.)

"What brings you here so early?" the baker asks.

"Our dinner date," the Count answers. "I hope I haven't made an error. You did invite me for tonight, didn't you?"

"Yes, tonight, but that's not for seven hours."

"Pardon me?" Dracula queries, looking around the room puzzled.

"Or did you come by to watch the eclipse with us?"

"Eclipse?"

"Yes. Today's the total eclipse.

"What?"

"A few moments of darkness from noon until two minutes after. Look out the window."

"Uh-oh -- I'm in big trouble."

"Eh?"

"And now if you'll excuse me . . ."

"What, Count Dracula?"

"Must be going -- aha -- oh, god . . ."

Frantically he fumbles for the door knob.

"Going? You just came."

"Yes -- but -- I think I blew it very badly . . ."

[TO BE CONTINUED]

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TOMORROW NIGHT IN PART 2 OF "COUNT DRACULA": Post-eclipse, can the Count get it all together?


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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[8/16/2011] Woody Allen Tonight: Hitler's barber remembers! -- Part 1 of "The Schmeed Memoirs" (from "Getting Even") (continued)

"Speer was, in fact, the only one with enough integrity to tell the Führer when he needed a haircut. 'Too flashy,' Speer said now. 'Sideburns are the kind of thing I'd associate with Churchill.' Hitler became incensed. Was Churchill contemplating sideburns, he wanted to know, and if so, how many and when?"

-- from "The Schmeed Memoirs"

"The Schmeed Memoirs" appeared originally in The New Yorker of April 17, 1971.

(from Getting Even)
Part 1

The seemingly inexhaustible spate of literature on the Third Reich continues unabated with the soon to be published Memoirs of Friedrich Schmeed. Schmeed, the best-known barber in wartime Germany, provided tonsorial services for Hitler and many highly placed government and military officials. As was noted during the Nuremberg Trials, Schmeed not only seemed to be always at the right place at the right time but possessed "more than total recall," and was thus uniquely qualified to write this incisive guide to innermost Nazi Germany. Following are a few brief excerpts:


In the spring of 1940, a large Mercedes pulled up in front of my barbershop at 127 Koenigstrasse, and Hitler walked in. "I just want a light trim," he said, "and don't take too much off the top." I explained to him there would be a brief wait because von Ribbentrop was ahead of him. Hitler said he was in a rush and asked Ribbentrop if he could be taken next, but Ribbentrop insisted it would look bad for the Foreign Office if he were passed over. Hitler thereupon made a quick phone call, and Ribbentrop was immediately transferred to the Afrika Korps, and Hitler got his haircut. This sort of rivalry went on all the time. Once, Göring had Heydrich detained by the police on false pretenses, so that he could get the chair by the window. Göring was a dissolute and often wanted to sit on the hobbyhorse to get his haircuts. The Nazi high command was embarrassed by this but could do nothing. One day, Hess challenged him. "I want the hobbyhorse today, Herr Field Marshal," he said.

"Impossible. I have it reserved," Göring shot back.

"I have orders directly from the Führer. They state that I am to be allowed to sit on the horse for my haircut." And Hess produced a letter from Hitler to that effect. Göring was livid. He never forgave Hess, and said that in the future he would have his wife cut his hair at home with a bowl. Hitler laughed when he heard this, but Göring was serious and would have carried it out had not the Minister of Arms turned down his requisition for a thinning shears.

I have been asked if I was aware of the moral implications of what I was doing. As I told the tribunal at Nuremberg, I did not know that Hitler was a Nazi. The truth was that for years I thought he worked for the phone company. When I finally did find out what a monster he was, it was too late to do anything, as I had made a down payment on some furniture. Once, toward the end of the war, I did contemplate loosening the Führer's neck-napkin and allowing some tiny hairs to get down his back, but at the last minute my nerve failed me.

* * *

At Berchtesgaden one day, Hitler turned to me and said, "How would I look in sideburns?" Speer laughed, and Hitler became affronted. "I'm quite serious, Herr Speer," he said. "I think I might look good in sideburns." Göring, that obsequious clown, concurred instantly, saying, "The Führer in sideburns -- what an excellent idea!" Speer still disagreed. He was, in fact, the only one with enough integrity to tell the Führer when he needed a haircut. "Too flashy," Speer said now. "Sideburns are the kind of thing I'd associate with Churchill." Hitler became incensed. Was Churchill contemplating sideburns, he wanted to know, and if so, how many and when? Himmler, supposedly in charge of Intelligence, was summoned immediately. Göring was annoyed by Speer's attitude and whispered to him, "Why are you making waves, eh? If he wants sideburns, let him have sideburns." Speer, usually tactful to a fault, called Göring a hypocrite and "an order of bean curd in a German uniform." Göring swore he would get even, and it was rumored later that he had special S.S. guards french Speer's bed.

Himmler arrived in a frenzy. He had been in the midst of a tap-dancing lesson when the phone rang, summoning him to Berchtesgaden. He was afraid it was about a misplaced carload of several thousand cone-shaped party hats that had been promised Rommel for his winter offensive. (Himmler was not accustomed to being invited to dinner at Berchtesgaden, because his eyesight was poor and Hitler could not bear to watch him bring the fork up to his face and then stick the food somewhere on his cheek.) Himmler knew something was wrong, because Hitler was calling him "Shorty," which he only did when annoyed. Suddenly the Führer turned on him, shouting, "Is Churchill going to grow sideburns?"

Himmler turned red.

"Well?"

Himmler said there had been word that Churchill contemplated sideburns but it was all unofficial. As to size and number, he explained, there would probably be two, of a medium length, but no one wanted to say before they could be sure. Hitler screamed and banged his fist on the table. (This was a triumph for Göring over Speer.) Hitler pulled out a map and showed us how he meant to cut off England's supply of hot towels. By blockading the Dardanelles, Doenitz could keep the towels from being brought ashore and laid across anxiously awaiting British faces. But the basic question remained: Could Hitler beat Churchill to sideburns? Himmler said Churchill had a head start and that it might be impossible to catch him. Göring, that vacuous optimist, said the Führer could probably grow sideburns quicker, particularly if we marshalled all of Germany's might in a concentrated effort. Von Rundstedt, at a meeting of the General Staff, said it was a mistake to try to grow sideburns on two fronts at once and advised that it would be wiser to concentrate all efforts on one good sideburn. Hitler said he could do it on both cheeks simultaneously. Rommel agreed with von Rundstedt. "They will never come out even, mein Führer," he said. "Not if you rush them." Hitler became enraged and said that it was a matter for him and his barber. Speer promised he could triple our output of shaving cream by the fall, and Hitler was euphoric. Then, in the winter of 1942, the Russians launched a counter-offensive and the sideburns came to a halt. Hitler grew despondent, fearing that soon Churchill would look wonderful while he still remained "ordinary," but shortly thereafter we received news that Churchill had abandoned the idea of sideburns as too costly. Once again the Führer had been proved right.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

* * *

TOMORROW IN WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT: In the concluding excerpts from his memoirs, Schmeed recalls the Führer's final tonsorial decline

PLUS (!): In Part 1 of "Count Dracula," the Count makes a grave miscalculation


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[8/15/2011] Woody Allen Tonight: Part 2 of "Hassidic Tales" (from "Getting Even") (continued)

"It was reasoning like this that led Rabbi Yitzhok Ben Levi, the great Jewish mystic, to hit the double at Aqueduct fifty-two days running and still wind up on relief."

-- from the interpretation of tonight's final "Hassidic Tale"

"Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar" appeared originally in The New Yorker of June 20, 1970.

(from Getting Even)
Part 2

Rabbi Zwi Chaim Yisroel, an Orthodox scholar of the Torah and a man who developed whining to an art unheard of in the West, was unanimously hailed as the wisest man of the Renaissance by his fellow-Hebrews, who totalled a sixteenth of one per cent of the population. Once, while he was on his way to synagogue to celebrate the sacred Jewish holiday commemorating God's reneging on every promise, a woman stopped him and asked the following question: "Rabbi, why are we not allowed to eat pork?"

"We're not?" the Rev said incredulously. "Uh-oh."

This is one of the few stories in all Hassidic literature that deals with Hebrew law. The Rabbi knows he shouldn't eat pork; he doesn't care, though, because he likes pork. Not only does he like pork; he gets a kick out of rolling Easter eggs. In short, he cares very little about traditional Orthodoxy and regards God's covenant with Abraham as "just so much chin music." Why pork was proscribed by Hebraic law is still unclear, and some scholars believe that the Torah merely suggested not eating pork at certain restaurants.

* * *

Rabbi Baumel, the scholar of Vitebsk, decided to embark on a fast to protest the unfair law prohibiting Russian Jews from wearing loafers outside the ghetto. For sixteen weeks, the holy man lay on a crude pallet, staring at the ceiling and refusing nourishment of any kind. His pupils feared for his life, and then one day a woman came to his bedside and, leaning down to the learned scholar, asked, "Rabbi, what color hair did Esther have?" The Rev turned weakly on his side and faced her. "Look what she picks to ask me!" he said. "You know what kind of a headache I got from sixteen weeks without a bite!" With that, the Rabbi's disciples escorted her personally into the sukkah, where she ate bounteously from the horn of plenty until she got the tab.

This is a subtle treatment of the problem of pride and vanity, and seems to imply that fasting is a big mistake. Particularly on an empty stomach. Man does not bring on his own unhappiness, and suffering is really God's will, although why He gets such a kick out of it is beyond me. Certain Orthodox tribes believe suffering is the only way to redeem oneself, and scholars write of a cult called the Essenes, who deliberately went around bumping into walls. God, according to the later books of Moses, is benevolent, although there are still a great many subjects he'd rather not go into.

* * *

Rabbi Yekel of Zans, who had the best diction in the world until a Gentile stole his resonant underwear, dreamed three nights running that if he would only journey to Vorki he would find a great treasure there. Bidding his wife and children goodbye, he set out on a trip, saying he would return in ten days. Two years later, he was found wandering the Urals and emotionally involved with a panda. Cold and starving, the Rev was taken back to his home, where he was revived with steaming soup and flanken. Following that, he was given something to eat. After dinner, he told this story: Three days out of Zans, he was set upon by wild nomads. When they learned he was a Jew, they forced him to alter all their sports jackets and take in their trousers. As if this were not humiliation enough, they put sour cream in his ears and sealed them with wax. Finally, the Rabbi escaped and headed for the nearest town, winding up in the Urals instead, because he was ashamed to ask directions.

After telling the story, the Rabbi rose and went into his bedroom to sleep, and, behold, under his pillow was the treasure that he originally sought. Ecstatic, he got down and thanked God. Three days later, he was back wandering in the Urals again, this time in a rabbit suit.

The above small masterpiece amply illustrates the absurdity of mysticism. The Rabbi dreams three straight nights. The Five Books of Moses subtracted from the Ten Commandments leaves five. Minus the brothers Jacob and Esau leaves three. It was reasoning like this that led Rabbi Yitzhok Ben Levi, the great Jewish mystic, to hit the double at Aqueduct fifty-two days running and still wind up on relief.

* * *

TOMORROW IN WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT: Part 1 of "The Schmeed Memoirs" (from Getting Even)


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[8/14/2011] Woody Allen Tonight: Part 1 of "Hassidic Tales" (from "Getting Even") (continued)

"Here the Rabbi is asked to make a value judgment between Moses and Abraham. This is not an easy matter, particularly for a man who has never read the Bible and has been faking it."

-- from the interpretation of tonight's second "Hassidic Tale"

"Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar" appeared originally in The New Yorker of June 20, 1970.

(from Getting Even)
Part 1

A man journeyed to Chelm in order to seek the advice of Rabbi Ben Kaddish, the holiest of all ninth-century rabbis and perhaps the greatest noodge of the medieval era.

"Rabbi," the man asked, "where can I find peace?"

The Hassid surveyed him and said, "Quick, look behind you!"

The man turned around, and Rabbi Ben Kaddish smashed him in the back of the head with a candlestick. "Is that peaceful enough for you?" he chuckled, adjusting his yarmulke.

In this tale, a meaningless question is asked. Not only is the question meaningless but so is the man who journeys to Chelm to ask it. Not that he was so far away from Chelm to begin with, but why shouldn't he stay where he is? Why is he bothering Rabbi Ben Kaddish -- the Rabbi doesn't have enough trouble? The truth is, the Rabbi's in over his head with gamblers, and he has also been named in a paternity case by a Mrs. Hecht. No, the point of this tale is that this man has nothing better to do with his time than journey around and get on people's nerves. For this, the Rabbi bashes his head in, which, according to the Torah, is one of the most subtle methods of showing concern. In a similar version of this tale, the Rabbi leaps on top of the man in a frenzy and carves the story of Ruth on his nose with a stylus.

* * *

Rabbi Raditz of Poland was a very short rabbi with a long beard, who was said to have inspired many pogroms with his sense of humor. One of his disciples asked, "Who did God like better -- Moses or Abraham?"

"Abraham," the Zaddik said.

"But Moses led the Israelites to the Promised Land," said the disciple.

"All right, so Moses," the Zaddik answered.

"I understand, Rabbi. It was a stupid question."

"Not only that, but you're stupid, your wife's a meeskeit, and if you don't get off my foot you're excommunicated."

Here the Rabbi is asked to make a value judgment between Moses and Abraham. This is not an easy matter, particularly for a man who has never read the Bible and has been faking it. And what is meant by the hopelessly relative term "better"? What is "better" to the Rabbi is not necessarily "better" to his disciple. For instance, the Rabbi likes to sleep on his stomach. The disciple also likes to sleep on the Rabbi's stomach. The problem here is obvious. It should also be noted that to step on a rabbi's foot (as the disciple does in the tale) is a sin, according to the Torah, comparable to the fondling of matzos with any intent other than eating them.

* * *

A man who could not marry off his ugly daughter visited Rabbi Shimmel of Cracow. "My heart is heavy," he told the Rev, "because God has given me an ugly daughter."

"How ugly?" the Seer asked.

"If she were lying on a plate with a herring, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

The Seer of Cracow thought for a long time and finally asked, "What kind of herring?"

The man, taken aback by the query, thought quickly and said, "Er -- Bismarck."

"Too bad," the Rabbi said. "If it was Maatjes, she'd have a better chance."

Here is a tale that illustrates the tragedy of transient qualities such as beauty. Does the girl actually resemble a herring? Why not? Have you seen some of the things walking around these days, particularly at resort areas? And even if she does, are not all creatures beautiful in God's eyes? Perhaps, but if a girl looks more at home in a jar of wine sauce than in an evening gown, she's got big problems. Oddly enough, Rabbi Shimmel's own wife was said to resemble a squid, but this was only in the face, and she more than made up for it by her hacking cough -- the point of which escapes me.

* * *

TOMORROW IN WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT: Part 2 of "Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar"


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[8/12/2011] Woody Allen Tonight: "A Twenties Memory" (from "Getting Even") (continued)

Hey, that Gertrude Stein sure knew some strange dudes. There was Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso, and Walter Cronkite (above), and perhaps strangest of all, the author of this "memory."

"I remember once asking [Gertrude Stein] if she thought I should become a writer. In the typically cryptic way we were all so enchanted with, she said, 'No.'"

"Gertrude Stein was of the opinion that 'art, all art, is merely an expression of something.' Picasso disagreed and said, 'Leave me alone. I was eating.' My own feelings were that Picasso was right. He had been eating."

-- from "A Twenties Memory"

"A Twenties Memory" was originally published (according to the Getting Even copyright page) as "How I Became a Comedian" in the Panorama section of the Chicago Daily News -- sometime between 1966 and 1971.

A Twenties
Memory
(from Getting Even)

I first came to Chicago in the twenties, and that was to see a fight. Ernest Hemingway was with me and we both stayed at Jack Dempsey's training camp. Hemingway had just finished two short stories about prize fighting, and while Gertrude Stein and I both thought they were decent, we agreed they still needed much work. I kidded Hemingway about his forthcoming novel and we laughed a lot and had fun and then we put on some boxing gloves and he broke my nose.

That winter, Alice Toklas, Picasso, and myself took a villa in the south of France. I was then working on what I felt was a major American novel but the print was too small and I couldn't get through it.

In the afternoons, Gertrude Stein and I used to go antique hunting in the local shops, and I remember once asking her if she thought I should become a writer. In the typically cryptic way we were all so enchanted with, she said, "No." I took that to mean yes and sailed for Italy the next day. Italy reminded me a great deal of Chicago, particularly Venice, because both cities have canals and the streets abound with statues and cathedrals by the greatest sculptors of the Renaissance.

That month we went to Picasso's studio in Arles, which was then called Rouen or Zurich, until the French renamed it in 1589 under Louis the Vague. (Louis was a sixteenth-century bastard king who was just mean to everybody.) Picasso was then beginning on what was later to be known as his "blue period," but Gertrude Stein and I had coffee with him, and so he began it ten minutes later. It lasted four years, so the ten minutes did not really mean much.

Beautiful Arles -- aka Rouen and Zurich

Picasso was a short man who had a funny way of walking by putting one foot in front of the other until he would take what he called "steps." We laughed at his delightful notions, but toward the late 1930s, with fascism on the rise, there was very little to laugh about. Both Gertrude Stein and I examined Picasso's newest works very carefully, and Gertrude Stein was of the opinion that "art, all art, is merely an expression of something." Picasso disagreed and said, "Leave me alone. I was eating." My own feelings were that Picasso was right. He had been eating.

Picasso's studio was so unlike Matisse's, in that, while Picasso's was sloppy, Matisse kept everything in perfect order. Oddly enough, just the reverse was true. In September of that year, Matisse was commissioned to paint an allegory, but with his wife's illness, it remained unpainted and was finally wallpapered instead. I recall these events so perfectly because it was just before the winter that we all lived in that cheap flat in the north of Switzerland where it will occasionally rain and then just as suddenly stop. Juan Gris, the Spanish cubist, had convinced Alice Toklas to pose for a still life and, with his typical abstract conception of objects, began to break her face and body down to its basic geometrical forms until the police came and pulled him off. Gris was provincially Spanish, and Gertrude Stein used to say that only a true Spaniard could behave as he did; that is, he would speak Spanish and sometimes return to his family in Spain. It was really quite marvellous to see.

I remember one afternoon we were sitting at a gay bar in the south of France with our feet comfortably up on stools in the north of France, when Gertrude Stein said, "I'm nauseous." Picasso thought this to be very funny and Matisse and I took it as a cue to leave for Africa. Seven weeks later, in Kenya, we came upon Hemingway. Bronzed and bearded now, he was already beginning to develop that familiar flat prose style about the eyes and mouth. Here, in the unexplored dark continent, Hemingway had braved chapped lips a thousand times.

"What's doing, Ernest?" I asked him. He waxed eloquent on death and adventure as only he could, and when I awoke he had pitched camp and sat around a great fire fixing us all fine derma appetizers. I kidded him about his new beard and we laughed and sipped cognac and then we put on some boxing gloves and he broke my nose.

That year I went to Paris a second time to talk with a thin, nervous European composer with aquiline profile and remarkably quick eyes who would someday be Igor Stravinsky and then, later, his best friend. I stayed at the home of Man and Sting Ray and Salvador Dali joined us for dinner several times and Dali decided to have a one-man show which he did and it was a huge success, as one man showed up and it was a gay and fine French winter.

I remember one night Scott Fitzgerald and his wife returned home from their New Year's Eve party. It was April. They had consumed nothing but champagne for the past three months, and one previous week, in full evening dress, had driven their limousine off a ninety-foot cliff into the ocean on a dare. There was something real about the Fitzgeralds; their values were basic. They were such modest people, and when Grant Wood later convinced them to pose for his "American Gothic" I remember how flattered they were. All through their sittings, Zelda told me, Scott kept dropping the pitchfork.

The Fitzgeralds (not in their "American Gothic" getups)

I became increasingly friendly with Scott in the next few years, and most of our friends believed that he based the protagonist of his latest novel on me and that I had based my life on his previous novel and I finally wound up getting sued by a fictional character.

Scott was having a big discipline problem and, while we all adored Zelda, we agreed that she had an adverse affect on his work, reducing his output from one novel a year to an occasional seafood recipe and a series of commas.

Finally, in 1929, we all went to Spain together, where Hemingway introduced us to Manolete who was sensitive almost to the point of being effeminate. He wore tight toreador pants or sometimes pedal pushers. Manolete was a great, great artist. Had he not become a bullfighter, his grace was such that he could have been a world-famous accountant.

We had great fun in Spain that year and we travelled and wrote and Hemingway took me tuna fishing and I caught four cans and we laughed and Alice Toklas asked me if I was in love with Gertrude Stein because I had dedicated a book of poems to her even though they were T. S. Eliot's and I said, yes, I loved her, but it could never work because she was far too intelligent for me and Alice Toklas agreed and then we put on some boxing gloves and Gertrude Stein broke my nose.

* * *

IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S SUNDAY CLASSICS PREVIEW: It's Variations Week -- Do you know the famous song of which these variations are variations?


SUNDAY IN WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT: "Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 1


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[8/11/2011] Woody Allen Tonight: Part 2 of "Death Knocks" (from "Getting Even") (continued)

DEATH: Don't give me a sales talk. Get the cards and give me a Fresca and put out something. For God's sake, a stranger drops in, you don't have potato chips or pretzels.
NAT: There's M&Ms downstairs in a dish.
DEATH: M&Ms. What if the President came? He'd get M&Ms, too?
NAT: You're not the President.
DEATH: Deal.

-- the end of last night's installment of "Death Knocks"

"Death Knocks" appeared originally in The New Yorker of July 27, 1968.

(from Getting Even)
Part 2

DEATH: Deal.
[NAT deals, turns up a five.]
NAT: You want to play a tenth of a cent a point to make it interesting?
DEATH: It's not interesting enough for you?
NAT: I play better when money's at stake.
DEATH: Whatever you say, Newt.
NAT: Nat. Nat Ackerman. You don't know my name?
DEATH: Newt, Nat -- I got such a headache.
NAT: You want that five?
DEATH: No.
NAT: So pick.
DEATH [surveying his hand as he picks]: Jesus, I got nothing here.
NAT: What's it like?
DEATH: What's what like?
[Throughout the following, they pick and discard.]
NAT: Death.
DEATH: What should it be like? You lay there.
NAT: Is there anything after?
DEATH: Aha, you're saving twos.
NAT: I'm asking. Is there anything after?
DEATH [absently]: You'll see.
NAT: Oh, then I will actually see something?
DEATH: Well, maybe I shouldn't have put it that way. Throw.
NAT: To get an answer from you is a big deal.
DEATH: I'm playing cards.
NAT: All right, play, play.
DEATH: Meanwhile, I'm giving you one card after another.
NAT: Don't look through the discards.
DEATH: I'm not looking. I'm straightening them up. What was the knock card?
NAT: Four. You ready to knock already?
DEATH: Who said I'm ready to knock? All I asked was what was the knock card.
NAT: And all I asked was is there anything for me to look forward to.
DEATH: Play.
NAT: Can't you tell me anything? Where do we go?
DEATH: We? To tell you the truth, you fall in a crumpled heap on the floor.
NAT: Oh, I can't wait for that! Is it going to hurt?
DEATH: Be over in a second.
NAT: Terrific. [Sighs] I needed this. A man merges with Modiste Originals . . .
DEATH: How's four points?
NAT: You're knocking?
DEATH: Four points is good?
NAT: No, I got two.
DEATH: You're kidding.
NAT: No, you lose.
DEATH: Holy Christ, and I thought you were saving sixes.
NAT: No. Your deal. Twenty points and two boxes. Shoot. [DEATH deals.] I must fall on the floor, eh? I can't be standing over the sofa when it happens?
DEATH: No. Play.
NAT: Why not?
DEATH: Because you fall on the floor! Leave me alone. I'm trying to concentrate.
NAT: Why must it be on the floor? That's all I'm saying! Why can't the whole thing happen and I'll stand next to the sofa?
DEATH: I'll try my best. Now can we play?
NAT: That's all I'm saying. You remind me of Moe Lefkowitz. He's also stubborn.
DEATH: I remind him of Moe Lefkowitz. I'm one of the most terrifying figures you could possibly imagine, and him I remind of Moe Lefkowitz. What is he, a furrier?
NAT: You should be such a furrier. He's good for eighty thousand a year. Passementeries. He's got his own factory. Two points.
DEATH: What?
NAT: Two points. I'm knocking. What have you got?
DEATH: My hand is like a basketball score.
NAT: And it's spades.
DEATH: If you didn't talk so much.
[They redeal and play on.]
NAT: What'd you mean before when you said this was your first job?
DEATH: What does it sound like?
NAT: What are you telling me -- that nobody ever went before?
DEATH: Sure they went. But I didn't take them.
NAT: So who did?
DEATH: Others.
NAT: There's others?
DEATH: Sure. Each one has his own personal way of going.
NAT: I never knew that.
DEATH: Why should you know? Who are you?
NAT: What do you mean who am I? Why -- I'm nothing?
DEATH: Not nothing. You're a dress manufacturer. Where do you come to knowledge of the eternal mysteries?
NAT: What are you talking about? I make a beautiful dollar. I sent two kids through college. One is in advertising, the other's married. I got my own home. I drive a Chrysler. My wife has whatever she wants. Maids, mink coat, vacations. Right now she's at the Eden Roc. Fifty dollars a day because she wants to be near her sister. I'm supposed to join her next week, so what do you think I am -- some guy off the street?
DEATH: All right. Don't be so touchy.
NAT: Who's touchy?
DEATH: How would you like it if I got insulted quickly?
NAT: Did I insult you?
DEATH: You didn't say you were disappointed in me?
NAT: What do you expect? You want me to throw you a block party?
DEATH: I'm not talking about that. I mean me personally. I'm too short, I'm this, I'm that.
NAT: I said you looked like me. It's like a reflection.
DEATH: All right, deal, deal.
[They continue to play as music steals in and the lights dim until all is in total darkness. The lights slowly come up again, and now it is later and their game is over. Nat tallies.]
NAT: Sixty-eight . . . one-fifty . . . Well, you lose.
Death [dejectedly looking through the deck]: I knew I shouldn't have thrown that nine. Damn it.
NAT: So I'll see you tomorrow.
DEATH: What do you mean you'll see me tomorrow?
NAT: I won the extra day. Leave me alone.
DEATH: You were serious?
NAT: We made a deal.
DEATH: Yeah, but --
NAT: Don't "but" me. I won twenty-four hours. Come back tomorrow.
DEATH: I didn't know we were actually playing for time.
NAT: That's too bad about you. You should pay attention.
DEATH: Where am I going to go for twenty-four hours?
NAT: What's the difference? The main thing is I won an extra day.
DEATH: What do you want me to do -- walk the streets?
NAT: Check into a hotel and go to a movie. Take a schvitz. Don't make a federal case.
DEATH: Add the score again.
NAT: Plus you owe me twenty-eight dollars.
DEATH: What?
NAT: That's right, Buster. Here it is -- read it.
DEATH [going through pockets]: I have a few singles -- not twenty-eight dollars.
NAT: I'll take a check.
DEATH: From what account?
NAT: Look who I'm dealing with.
DEATH: Sue me. Where do I keep my checking account?
NAT: All right, gimme what you got and we'll call it square.
DEATH: Listen, I need that money.
NAT: Why should you need money?
DEATH: What are you talking about? You're going to the Beyond.
NAT: So?
DEATH: So -- you know how far that is?
NAT: So?
DEATH: So where's gas? Where's tolls?
NAT: We're going by car!
DEATH: You'll find out. [Agitatedly] Look -- I'll be back tomorrow, and you'll give me a chance to win the money back. Otherwise I'm in definite trouble.
NAT: Anything you want. Double or nothing we'll play. I'm liable to win an extra week or a month. The way you play, maybe years.
DEATH: Meantime I'm stranded.
NAT: See you tomorrow.
DEATH [being edged to the doorway]: Where's a good hotel? What am I talking about hotel, I got no money. I'll go sit in Bickford's. [He picks up the News.]
NAT: Out. Out. That's my paper. [He takes it back.]
DEATH [exiting]: I couldn't just take him and go. I had to get involved in rummy.
NAT [calling after him]: And be careful going downstairs. On one of the steps the rug is loose.
[And on cue we hear a terrific crash. NAT sighs, then crosses to the bedside table and makes a phone call.]
NAT: Hello, Moe? Me. Listen, I don't know if somebody's playing a joke, or what, but Death was just here. We played a little gin . . . No, Death. In person. Or somebody who claims to be Death. But, Moe, he's such a schlep!

CURTAIN

TOMORROW IN WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT: "A Twenties Memory"


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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[8/10/2011] Woody Allen Tonight: Part 1 of "Death Knocks" (from "Getting Even") (continued)

"The time is near midnight. Suddenly we hear a noise,
and Nat sits up and looks at the window."

"Organized crime is a blight on our nation. While many young Americans are lured into a career of crime by its promise of an easy life, most criminals actually must work long hours, frequently in buildings without air-conditioning."

-- from Monday night's "Woody Allen Tonight"
offering, "A Look at Organized Crime"

Okay, this has nothing to do with tonight's offering, "Death Knocks." It's just that I love this bit from "A Look at Organized Crime" and on Monday night, with two other pull-quotes slotted in, I didn't get a chance to pull it out.

"Death Knocks" appeared originally in The New Yorker of July 27, 1968.

(from Getting Even)
Part 1

The play takes place in the bedroom of the Nat Ackermans' two-story house, somewhere in Kew Gardens. The carpeting is wall-to-wall There is a big double bed and a large vanity. The room is elaborately furnished and curtained, and on the walls there are several paintings and a not really attractive barometer. Soft theme music as the curtain rises. Nat Ackerman, a bald, paunchy fifty-seven-year-old dress manufacturer, is lying on the bed finishing off tomorrow's Daily News. He wears a bathrobe and slippers, and reads by a bed light clipped to the white headboard of the bed. The time is near midnight. Suddenly we hear a noise, and Nat sits up and looks at the window.

NAT: What the hell is that?
[Climbing awkwardly through the window is a sombre, caped figure. The intruder wears a black hood and skintight black clothes. The hood covers his head but not his face, which is middle-aged and stark white. He is something like NAT in appearance. He huffs audibly and then trips over the window sill and falls into the room.]
DEATH [for it is no one else]: Jesus Christ. I nearly broke my neck.
NAT [watching with bewilderment]: Who are you?
DEATH: Death.
NAT: Who?
DEATH: Death. Listen -- can I sit down? I nearly broke my neck. I'm shaking like a leaf.
NAT: Who are you?
DEATH: Death. You got a glass of water?
NAT: Death? What do you mean, Death?
DEATH: What is wrong with you? You see the black costume and the whitened face?
NAT: Yeah.
DEATH: Is it Halloween?
NAT: No.
DEATH: Then I'm Death. Now can I get a glass of water -- or a Fresca?
NAT: If this is some joke --
DEATH: What kind of joke? You're fifty-seven? Nat Ackerman? One eighteen Pacific Street? Unless I blew it -- where's that call sheet? [He fumbles through pocket, finally producing a card with an address on it. It seems to check.]
NAT: What do you want with me?
DEATH: What do I want? What do you think I want?
NAT: You must be kidding. I'm in perfect health.
DEATH [unimpressed]: Uh-huh. [Looking around] This is a nice place. You do it yourself?
NAT: We had a decorator, but we worked with her.
DEATH [looking at picture on the wall]: I love those kids with the big eyes.
NAT: I don't want to go yet.
DEATH: You don't want to go? Please don't start in. As it is, I'm nauseous from the climb.
NAT: What climb?
DEATH: I climbed up the drainpipe. I was trying to make a dramatic entrance. I see the big windows and you're awake reading. I figure it's worth a shot. I'll climb up and enter with a little -- you know . . . [Snaps fingers] Meanwhile, I get my heel caught on some vines, the drainpipe breaks, and I'm hanging by a thread. Then my cape begins to tear. Look, let's just go. It's been a rough night.
NAT: You broke my drainpipe?
DEATH: Broke. It didn't break. It's a little bent. Didn't you hear anything? I slammed into the ground.
NAT: I was reading.
DEATH: You must have really been engrossed. [Lifting newspaper NAT was reading] "NAB COEDS IN POT ORGY." Can I borrow this?
NAT: I'm not finished.
DEATH: Er -- I don't know how to put this to you, pal . . .
NAT: Why didn't you just ring downstairs?
DEATH: I'm telling you, I could have, but how does it look? This way I get a little drama going. Something. Did you read Faust?
NAT: What?
DEATH: And what if you had company? You're sitting there with important people. I'm Death -- I should ring the bell and traipse right in the front? Where's your thinking?
NAT: Listen, Mister, it's very late.
DEATH: Yeah. Well, you want to go?
NAT: Go where?
DEATH: Death. It. The Thing. The Happy Hunting Grounds. [Looking at his own knee] Y'know, that's a pretty bad cut. My first job, I'm liable to get gangrene yet.
NAT: Now, wait a minute. I need time. I'm not ready to go.
DEATH: I'm sorry. I can't help you. I'd like to, but it's the moment.
NAT: How can it be the moment? I just merged with Modiste Originals.
DEATH: What's the difference, a couple of bucks more or less.
NAT: Sure, what do you care? You guys probably have all your expenses paid.
DEATH: You want to come along now?
NAT [studying him]: I'm sorry, but I cannot believe you're Death.
DEATH: Why? What'd you expect -- Rock Hudson?
NAT: No, it's not that.
DEATH: I'm sorry if I disappointed you.
NAT: Don't get upset. I don't know, I always thought you'd be . . . uh . . . taller.
DEATH: I'm five seven. It's average for my weight.
NAT: You look a little like me.
DEATH: Who should I look like? I'm your death.
NAT: Give me some time. Another day.
DEATH: I can't. What do you want me to say?
NAT: One more day. Twenty-four hours.
DEATH: What do you need it for? The radio said rain tomorrow.
NAT: Can't we work out something?
DEATH: Like what?
NAT: You play chess?
DEATH: No, I don't.
NAT: I once saw a picture of you playing chess.
DEATH: Couldn't be me, because I don't play chess. Gin rummy, maybe.
NAT: You play gin rummy?
DEATH: Do I play gin rummy? Is Paris a city?
NAT: You're good, huh?
DEATH: Very good.
NAT: I'll tell you what I'll do --
DEATH: Don't make any deals with me.
NAT: I'll play you gin rummy. If you win, I'll go immediately. If I win, give me some more time. A little bit -- one more day.
DEATH: Who's got time to play gin rummy?
NAT: Come on. If you're so good.
DEATH: Although I feel like a game . . .
NAT: Come on. Be a sport. We'll shoot for a half hour.
DEATH: I really shouldn't.
NAT: I got the cards right here. Don't make a production.
DEATH: All right, come on. We'll play a little. It'll relax me.
NAT [getting cards, pad, and pencil]: You won't regret this.
DEATH: Don't give me a sales talk. Get the cards and give me a Fresca and put out something. For God's sake, a stranger drops in, you don't have potato chips or pretzels.
NAT: There's M&Ms downstairs in a dish.
DEATH: M&Ms. What if the President came? He'd get M&Ms, too?
NAT: You're not the President.
DEATH: Deal.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

* * *

TOMORROW NIGHT IN PART 2 OF "DEATH KNOCKS": Nat deals, and the highest-stakes game of gin rummy begins


REVISED "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT" SCHEDULE

Here's the plan (subject to change, of course): Friday night we'll have "A Twenties Memory," and then Sunday and Monday we'll have "Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar."


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