Dreaming of the Field of Glory

Over the past week or so, my sleep patterns have been rather out of the ordinary. I've been falling asleep much earlier than I usually do--around 10 PM or midnight, rather than the usual 2 AM or later. Concurrently, I've been waking up uncharacteristically early, usually before dawn, and I've been unable to get back to sleep. I'm less interested, however, in the the physical matters of sleep than I am with what happens in my unconscious mind during those few hours wherein I am asleep.

The past few months have seen a rather strange recurring theme in my dreams--not only am I back in High School, but I'm also specifically in Phys Ed class. Sometimes I'm aware of the abnormality of the situation, while other times I simply go along with the scenario as if it were perfectly ordinary. The finer details are lost in the murk of my subconscious, but I can recall that the dream always seems to take place during the preparations for the daily exercises, while I'm emerging out of the locker room into the gymnasium itself.

Last night I had a more vivid, larger scale version of the dream. Not content with the mundaneness of simple Physical Education, my subconscious saw fit to cast me as a member of my High School football team (i.e. the Shawnee Mission North Indians, whose games I made a point of never attending). Rather than preparing to run laps around the basketball court, I was preparing to take the field (or at least the sideline).

I'm no athlete, and I'll readily admit that (I just did, in fact). Outside of an early Halloween, I've never worn a football uniform--a fact of which I seemed oddly aware in my dream. I also couldn't find a helmet or a decent pair of shoes (the equipment manager was clearly asleep at the wheel). I finally did manage to get all my equipment in order, but I woke up before we actually went out onto the field. Kind of shame, really; I would have liked to have seen how I did. I probably would have looked a lot like this guy:

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Free Associations, Ep. 3

Scruples? What are those?

Well, on the plus side...

...the old gang is finally back together again. No doubt they're tearing across the Elysian Fields in a 1930 Cadillac this very moment, blasting Judas Priest and getting into all manner of shenanigans. Like shooting old man Caesar's precious antique cans and covering Virgil's house with toilet paper. At least that's my conception of cosmic justice.

In Pace Requiescat, Anita Page

1910-2008

I was afraid I was going to have to make this post sooner or later. Anita Page, one of the very few living silent stars, has gone to the great gig in the sky. With her loss, we are even further removed from the golden age. This turn of events makes me much sadder than it perhaps ought to. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, Anita, et æternam habeas requiem.

Addendum: A quality obit at the Washington Post, and another from the New York Times (it took them long enough, didn't it?).

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Gunga Din (1939)

Based on the Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name,1939's Gunga Din is a by-the-book adventure film. Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Victor McLaglen star as a trio of British officers of the Royal Engineers stationed in India in the service of her majesty the Queen. Sam Jaffe plays the titular role of Gunga Din, the regimental water-bearer who dreams of becoming a proper soldier. When a small army of Thuggee (cf. the English "thug") marauders attack and eliminate a British outpost at Tandipur, the Engineers Regiment is sent to investigate and is subsequently ambushed by the Thugs. After surviving the ambush, the regiment returns to base, at which point an expedition is organized with the intent of putting down the Thuggee revolt. Sgt. Cutter (Cary Grant) and Din strike out for a hidden temple of gold, and adventure and misadventure ensues as the temple turns out to be the nexus of the Thuggee army.

Three things in particular stood out to me while watching. First of all, the bad British accents of Cary Grant and Doug 2.0 and the worse Indian accents by just about everyone else. Second, copious amounts of good, old-fashioned masculinism. Finally--and perhaps most importantly--the film manages to venture beyond the typical "noble savage" fair in its depiction of the Indians. The first bit is pretty self-explanatory, so I'll gloss over that in favor of more profound topics of discussion.

Sgt. Ballantine (Doug 2.0) is coming upon the end of his period of enlistment in the army, and is considering settling down with his sweetheart Emmy (Joan Fontaine) and getting into the tea business once he musters out. Mortified at the prospect of such a fate befalling their war buddy, Cutter and MacChesney (McLaglen) are determined to keep Ballantine in the service. Ballantine, of course, comes around and decides to put bros (not to mention Queen and Country) before hoes.

Aside from Gunga Din's noble self-sacrifice to prevent the ambush and annihilation of the British Army, Eduardo Cianelli turns in an admirable performance as the Guru (the leader of the Thuggee rebels, who looks rather like an evil version of Mohandas Gandhi). The Guru is the sort of villain who is clearly evil, but is quite dignified in his wickedness (of course, any villain who can work references to Hannibal, Caesar and Alexander into his rhetoric immediately gets points in my book). On the other hand, he and his followers do possess a strong penchant for violence and bloodshed--they are Thugs, after all.

In many ways, Gunga Din is the spiritual predecessor of the Indiana Jones movies, Temple of Doom in particular. From the Kali-worshipping Indian death cult to the protagonist's fear of snakes, one can easily see how the earlier film influenced the later ones (although nobody in Gunga Din tries to rip out Cary Grant's heart through his ribcage). Gunga Din also has a climactic, large-scale battle, which is quite well-done, especially considering the massive number of extras who appear. There's also a great cavalry charge, courtesy of a unit of Sikh lancers. I'm a sucker for a good cavalry charge, let me tell you.

Thought it might be a bit dated in its technology and its social mores, Gunga Din is a highly enjoyable bit of movie adventuring in the tradition of the first Douglas Fairbanks (in that respect, it's appropriate that Doug 2.0 gets in his fair share of derring-doery). Definitely a classic.

I only wish I had been able to work in a "Thug Life" pun somewhere...