Just go back. Pretend the whole thing never happened.

Seinfeld

2.12: The Revenge

The Premise

George tenders his resignation, hurling abuse at his boss. He thinks better of his decision and decides to show up for work on Monday morning, as if nothing has happened. Jerry believes the laundrette manager has stolen $1,500 he left in his laundry bag. George and Kramer plan respective revenges.

Observational

You might expect some of the more absurd elements here to come from Larry Charles (the Kramer plotline in particular) but this one’s from the other Larry, as anyone who has heard his Saturday Night Live story will know (half of the series’ more extreme ideas are rooted in David’s cantankerous experiences). Basically, he did what George does; resigned out of frustration, thought better of it, then returned to work.

Jason Alexander has told how he modified his initial Woody Allen-esque take on George after he realised that Costanza was David’s alter-ego. It would be next to impossible to imagine someone with the demeanour of Allen launching into George’s splenetic outburst. Wonderfully, it comes not out of some noble value system or sense of honour but because George has been barred from the executive bathroom (for one so bowel movement conscious it is a blow, but still). This bit did come from Charles; he would sneak a pee (or two) in David and Seinfield’s en suite toilet.

George’s self-programming (“You’re emotional!”) might have worked if not for a boss who reveals a particularly cruel streak. But then, Levitan (Fred Applegate) has to be mean enough that you’re at least half on board with George’s revenge.

Levitan: You can’t beat me. That’s why I am here and you are there. Because I’m a winner and I’ll always be a winner and you’ll always be a loser.

Patrika Darbo (who can be found in small roles in a couple of Joe Dante movies) makes an impression as the large, loud and abrasive Glenda ,whom George eventually persuades to do a runner by threatening to pull her wig off. His plan gets a fair-minded response from Jerry (“You’ve really gone mental!”) but is welcomed by Elaine. An unlikely team up between Elaine and George will often make for great chemistry going forward (both getting along and feuding); George’s “God, I’ve never felt so alive” marks him out as a much geeky version of David than David comes across as, though. The ensuing scene is a showcase for Louise-Dreyfus, and she and Applegate are a tour de force as she steams him up with a tall story about her passion for naturism (“I cook naked, I clean naked, I drive naked”). It’s a lovely twist too that Levitan is so upbeat he offers George his job back, yet is so insulting to him in the process (“our little shrimpy friend”) that George would rather face the unemployment line (“Drink up”).

Jerry and Kramer team up in what looks at first sight like a something-or-nothing plot. Jerry understandably doesn’t want his “guys” sharing a washing machine with Kramer’s (he pays to have them washed separately). Arguably, Jerry’s sudden remembrance that he left his money in the bag is a bit crowbarred. But it’s excused by the opportunity this gives Michael Richards (ever the perfectionist, using a real bag of cement) to give his most slapstick performance so far. Just the idea of filling one of Vic’s (John Capodice) machines with cement is lunatic enough, but Kramer’s acrobatic antics and Vic’s nonplussed response pay it off perfectly. That said, I don’t think it really needs them making amends when Jerry’s money shows up; it feels like a very “Network-friendly” moral ending (although I doubt Kramer would have been up for it on his own).

The Revenge is also notable for Newman’s off-screen suicide threats (voiced by Larry David but redubbed with Wayne Knight for repeats). This is very much pre-formed Newman, who has “no job, no women” (hasn’t he been a postman forever when we actually meet him?) and Kramer’s dismissiveness of his tendencies is pure David (Jerry: What did you say?, Kramer: I said, “jump!”)

Quotable

George: I’m done! I will not work for you again! You have no brains, no ability, no nothing. I quit!

George: “Just go back. Pretend the whole thing never happened.”

George: Do they pay people to watch movies? Movies, I like movies.

George: I’m going to slip him a Mickey.

Jerry: What, in his drink? Are you out of your mind? What are you, Peter Lorre?

Jerry: Maybe we should call this off?

Kramer: Come on, what’s the big deal? I’m just going to put a little concrete in the washing machine.

Elaine: So, I’m going to a nudist colony next week.

Levitan: Who are you?

Elaine: Oh, you don’t wanna know mister. I’m trouble.

Elaine: Would you close your eyes for a second? I want to tell you a secret about my bra.

George: I like horses. Maybe I could be a stable boy.

Verdict:

Comments

No matter how innocent you are, or how hard you try, they’ll find you guilty.

The Wrong Man (1956) (SPOILERS) I hate to say it, but old Truffaut called it right on this one. More often than not showing obeisance to the might of Hitchcock during his career-spanning interview, the French critic turned director was surprisingly blunt when it came to The Wrong Man . He told Hitch “ your style, which has found its perfection in the fiction area, happens to be in total conflict with the aesthetics of the documentary and that contradiction is apparent throughout the picture ”. There’s also another, connected issue with this, one Hitch acknowledged: too much fidelity to the true story upon which the film is based.

Another case of the screaming oopizootics.

Doctor Who Season 14 – Worst to Best The best Doctor Who season? In terms of general recognition and unadulterated celebration, there’s certainly a strong case to be made for Fourteen. The zenith of Robert Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe’s plans for the series finds it relinquishing the cosy rapport of the Doctor and Sarah in favour of the less-trodden terrain of a solo adventure and underlying conflict with new companion Leela. More especially, it finds the production team finally stretching themselves conceptually after thoroughly exploring their “gothic horror” template over the course of the previous two seasons (well, mostly the previous one).

He’s so persistent! He always gets his man.

Speed (1994) (SPOILERS) It must have been a couple of decades since I last viewed Speed all the way through, so it’s pleasing to confirm that it holds up. Sure, Jan de Bont’s debut as a director can’t compete with the work of John McTiernan, for whom he acted as cinematographer and who recommended de Bont when he passed on the picture, but he nevertheless does a more than competent work. Which makes his later turkeys all the more tragic. And Keanu and Sandra Bullock display the kind of effortless chemistry you can’t put a price tag on. And then there’s Dennis Hopper, having a great old sober-but-still-looning time.

He is a brigand and a lout. Pay him no serious mention.

The Wind and the Lion (1975) (SPOILERS) John Milius called his second feature a boy’s-own adventure, on the basis of the not-so-terrified responses of one of those kidnapped by Sean Connery’s Arab Raisuli. Really, he could have been referring to himself, in all his cigar-chomping, gun-toting reactionary glory, dreaming of the days of real heroes. The Wind and the Lion rather had its thunder stolen by Jaws on release, and it’s easy to see why. As polished as the picture is, and simultaneously broad-stroke and self-aware in its politics, it’s very definitely a throwback to the pictures of yesteryear. Only without the finger-on-the-pulse contemporaneity of execution that would make Spielberg and Lucas’ genre dives so memorable in a few short years’ time.

The game is rigged, and it does not reward people who play by the rules.

Hustlers (2019) (SPOILERS) Sold as a female Goodfellas – to the extent that the producers had Scorsese in mind – this strippers-and-crime tale is actually a big, glossy puff piece, closer to Todd Phillips as fashioned by Lorene Scarfia. There are some attractive performances in Hustlers, notably from Constance Wu, but for all its “progressive” women work male objectification to their advantage posturing, it’s incredibly traditional and conservative deep down.

But everything is wonderful. We are in Paris.

Cold War (2018) (SPOILERS) Pawel Pawlikowski’s elliptical tale – you can’t discuss Cold War without saying “elliptical” at least once – of frustrated love charts a course that almost seems to be a caricature of a certain brand of self-congratulatorily tragic European cinema. It was, it seems “ loosely inspired ” by his parents (I suspect I see where the looseness comes in), but there’s a sense of calculation to the progression of this love story against an inescapable political backdrop that rather diminishes it.

What do they do, sing madrigals?

The Singing Detective (2003) Icon’s remake of the 1986 BBC serial, from a screenplay by Dennis Potter himself. The Singing Detective fares less well than Icon’s later adaptation of Edge of Darkness , even though it’s probably more faithful to Potter’s original. Perhaps the fault lies in the compression of six episodes into a feature running a quarter of that time, but the noir fantasy and childhood flashbacks fail to engage, and if the hospital reality scans better, it too suffers eventually.

They literally call themselves “Decepticons”. That doesn’t set off any red flags?

Bumblebee (2018) (SPOILERS) Bumblebee is by some distance the best Transformers movie, simply by dint of having a smattering of heart (one might argue the first Shia LaBeouf one also does, and it’s certainly significantly better than the others, but it’s still a soulless Michael Bay “machine”). Laika VP and director Travis Knight brings personality to a series that has traditionally consisted of shamelessly selling product, by way of a nostalgia piece that nods to the likes of Herbie (the original), The Iron Giant and even Robocop .

How would Horatio Alger have handled this situation?

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) (SPOILERS) Gilliam’s last great movie – The Zero Theorem (2013) is definitely underrated, but I don’t think it’s that underrated – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas could easily have been too much. At times it is, but in such instances, intentionally so. The combination of a visual stylist and Hunter S Thompson’s embellished, propulsive turn of phrase turns out, for the most part, to be a cosmically aligned affair, embracing the anarchic abandon of Raoul Duke and Doctor Gonzo’s Las Vegas debauch while contriving to pull back at crucial junctures in order to engender a perspective on all this hedonism. Would Alex Cox, who exited stage left, making way for the Python, have produced something interesting? I suspect, ironically, he would have diluted Thompson in favour of whatever commentary preoccupied him at the time (indeed, Johnny Depp said as much: “ Cox had this great material to work with and he took it and he added his own stuff to it ”). Plus

You don’t know anything about this man, and he knows everything about you.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) (SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s two-decades-later remake of his British original. It’s undoubtedly the better-known version, but as I noted in my review of the 1934 film, it is very far from the “ far superior ” production Truffaut tried to sell the director on during their interviews. Hitchcock would only be drawn – in typically quotable style – that “ the first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional ”. For which, read a young, creatively fired director versus one clinically going through the motions, occasionally inspired by a shot or sequence but mostly lacking the will or drive that made the first The Man Who Knew Too Much such a pleasure from beginning to end.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog