You should have been born in August.

Seinfeld

2.11: The Heart Attack

The Premise

Admitted to hospital with a suspected heart attack, George is semi-relieved to discover it’s just his tonsils acting up; they’ve grown back. Kramer’s suggestion of seeking relief through alternative medicine appeals to a budget-conscious George.

Observational

Larry Charles comes up trumps again. This starts out as a simple case of George being a hypochondriac but, with Charles’ anarchic sensibilities brought to bear, transforms into a poke at healthcare from all angles. Indeed, its great strength is how suited the main characters are to the different positions they are required to adopt on the subject.

Charles scripts are often distinctive for latiching onto Kramer to float non-mainstream thought. Charles isn’t necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with a topic; he’s simply recognising the comic mileage he can get out of it. So Kramer, whose often unreconsituted counterculture leanings maroon him two decades from home, can espouse what he sees as the dangers of modern medicine (“Get out right now! They’ll kill you in here!”), while the highly conservative Jerry is unremittingly dismissive of the quackery of alternative healer Tor Eckman (“And you’re not a doctor, but you play one in real life”; a rare example of the show accessing a character’s interior monologue).

It might seem that Jerry is proved right; George’s remedy resolutely fails (Tor turns George bluish purple, and fails to cure his tonsillitis) and he pays the price for being a cheapskate. But Jerry is as gullible as everyone else deep down (“You really think I’m eating too much dairy?” he responds to Tor’s diagnosis). And, while Jerry and George are suffering whiplash, Kramer has made full recovery (“Kramer went to see Eckman. He feels all better already”). Right in the middle is George. He is completely impartial with regard to alternative therapies, as long as they aren’t expensive; it’s another nice twist that the most materialist character buys into hippy remedies out of parsimoniousness.

George repeatedly gets short shrift from Jerry (“Why can’t I have a heart attack? I’m allowed”), culminating in the comedian’s mock smothering of his stricken friend (by this point he knows George has the all clear, but George is in the dark).

George: Just take the pillow and put it over my face.

Jerry: What, kind of like this?

(Elaine enters, startled.)

Elaine: Jerry!

Jerry: (Pretending to be caught in the act) Elaine… What are you doing here?

George’s reaction to the imminent diagnosis is priceless (“Oh, God. Mummy!”) but his relief on getting good news is predictably short-lived (“I completely skipped healthy adulthood”). Only George’s tonsils would grow back (and he didn’t even get some ice cream when he first had them out).

The big guest star of the episode is Stephen Tobolowsky. Except this was in his pre-Groundhog Dayera, when he was just beginning to get a foothold in movies with a succession of variable supporting turns (Bird on a Wire?) He’s great, but then it’s fair to say he has a gift of a part. When Kramer first mentions his herbalist friend (“He’s holistic”), Jerry expresses surprise that he’s out of prison, but presumably he knows him by hearsay rather than direct contact (“See, the medical establishment, they tried to frame him. He’s a rebel”). His stream of random advice is the highly eccentric, as he instructs George to wash only in cold water (“Can it be lukewarm?”)

Elaine’s date, or “Doctor Tongue” as she ends up calling him, is no less certifiable. Ever superficial, he catches her eye when he’s tending to George (Louise-Dreyfus’ giddy schoolgirl antics see them getting in each other’s way) but it soon turns sour on their date when he holds her tongue and holds forth on the organ’s wonders. By which time Elaine is thoroughly put-off (“A kiss? With the tongue? I don’t think so”).

The ambulance scene is possibly a bit too broad and indelicate a means of getting to the final scene. It’s amusing, but Seinfeld usually isn’t at its best when it does “action”.

The Heart Attackis also notable for the first mention of Kramer’s friend Bob Sacamano, who went in to hospital for routine surgery (a hernia operation) that was botched. Now he sits in the corner of a room intoning “My name is Bob!” Kramer is even more unhelpful than Jerry regarding George’s fears; completely oblivious, he brings a meal to George’s room and sits at the end of the bed like he’s watching him on TV.

Larry David also makes an appearance; he’s in some sci-fi cheapie on TV dressed in silver foil, going on about the end of the world (“flaming globes!”). Jerry awakes laughing in the middle of the night and jots down an idea he then finds illegible; when he discovers it was “Flaming globes of Sigmund” he is very disappointed. “That’s not funny”; except that it is. Very.

Quotable

Larry David: The planet’s on fire! It is just as you prophesised! The planets of our solar system are incinerating, Sigmund, like flaming globes!

George: Why can’t I have a heart attack? I’m allowed.

George: There’s nothing wrong with me?

Doctor: Well, I wouldn’t go that far.

George: Lupus? Is it lupus?

Doctor: And when you wake up, you can have some ice cream.

George: Yeah, that’s what they told me the last time.

Kramer: Get out right now! They’ll kill you in here!

Kramer: The next thing you know, you’ve got a hose coming out of your chest attached to a piece of luggage!

George: Oh, yeah. Holisitc. That’s what I need. That’s the answer.

Tor: You should have been born in August.

Elaine: I’m sorry, I can’t stay long. I don’t want to run into Doctor Tongue.

Verdict:

Comments

Who’s got the Figgy Port?

Loki (2021) (SPOILERS) Can something be of redeemable value and shot through with woke (the answer is: Mad Max: Fury Road )? The two attributes certainly sound essentially irreconcilable, and Loki ’s tendencies – obviously, with new improved super-progressive Kevin Feige touting Disney’s uber-agenda – undeniably get in the way of what might have been a top-tier MCU entry from realising its full potential. But there are nevertheless solid bursts of highly engaging storytelling in the mix here, for all its less cherishable motivations. It also boasts an effortlessly commanding lead performance from Tom Hiddleston; that alone puts Loki head and shoulders above the other limited series thus far.

Here’s Bloody Justice for you.

Laughter in Paradise (1951) (SPOILERS) The beginning of a comedic run for director-producer Mario Zampa that spanned much of the 1950s, invariably aided by writers Michael Pertwee and Jack Davies (the latter went on to pen a spate of Norman Wisdom pictures including The Early Bird , and also comedy rally classic Monte Carlo or Bust! ) As usual with these Pertwee jaunts, Laughter in Paradise boasts a sparky premise – renowned practical joker bequeaths a fortune to four relatives, on condition they complete selected tasks that tickle him – and more than enough resultant situational humour.

You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012) The final finale of the Twilight saga, in which pig-boy Jacob tells Bella that, “No, it's not like that at all!” after she accuses him of being a paedo. But then she comes around to his viewpoint, doubtless displaying the kind of denial many parents did who let their kids spend time with Jimmy Savile or Gary Glitter during the ‘70s. It's lucky little Renesmee will be an adult by the age of seven, right? Right... Jacob even jokes that he should start calling Edward, “Dad”. And all the while they smile and smile.

As in the hokey kids’ show guy?

A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood (2019) (SPOILERS) I don’t think Mr Rogers could have been any creepier had Kevin Spacey played him. It isn’t just the baggage Tom Hanks brings, and whether or not he’s the adrenochrome lord to the stars and/or in Guantanamo and/or dead and/or going to make a perfectly dreadful Colonel Tom Parker and an equally awful Geppetto; it’s that his performance is so constipated and mannered an imitation of Mr Rogers’ genuineness that this “biopic” takes on a fundamentally sinister turn. His every scene with a youngster isn’t so much exuding benevolent empathy as suggestive of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ’s Child Catcher let loose in a TV studio (and again, this bodes well for Geppetto). Extend that to A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood ’s conceit, that Mr Rogers’ life is one of a sociopathic shrink milking angst from his victims/patients in order to get some kind of satiating high – a bit like a rejuvenating drug, on that score – and you have a deeply unsettli

It’ll be like living in the top drawer of a glass box.

Someone’s Watching Me! (1978) (SPOILERS) The first of a pair of TV movies John Carpenter directed in the 1970s, but Someone’s Watching Me! is more affiliated, in genre terms, to his breakout hit ( Halloween ) and reasonably successful writing job ( The Eyes of Laura Mars ) of the same year than the also-small-screen Elvis . Carpenter wrote a slew of gun-for-hire scripts during this period – some of which went on to see the twilight of day during the 1990s – so directing Someone’s Watching Me! was not a given. It’s well-enough made and has its moments of suspense, but you sorely miss a signature Carpenter theme – it was by Harry Sukman, his penultimate work, the final being Salem’s Lot – and it really does feel very TV movie-ish.

What's a movie star need a rocket for anyway?

The Rocketeer (1991) (SPOILERS) The Rocketeer has a fantastic poster. One of the best of the last thirty years (and while that may seem like faint praise, what with poster design being a dying art – I’m looking at you Marvel, or Amazon and the recent The Tomorrow War – it isn’t meant to be). The movie itself, however, tends towards stodge. Unremarkable pictures with a wide/cult fanbase, conditioned by childhood nostalgia, are ten-a-penny – Willow for example – and in this case, there was also a reasonably warm critical reception. But such an embrace can’t alter that Joe Johnston makes an inveterately bland, tepid movie director. His “feel” for period here got him The First Avenger: Captain America gig, a bland, tepid movie tending towards stodge. So at least he’s consistent.

I'm offering you a half-share in the universe.

Doctor Who Season 8 – Worst to Best I’m not sure I’d watched Season Eight chronologically before. While I have no hesitation in placing it as the second-best Pertwee season, based on its stories, I’m not sure it pays the same dividends watched as a unit. Simply, there’s too much Master, even as Roger Delgado never gets boring to watch and the stories themselves offer sufficient variety. His presence, turning up like clockwork, is inevitably repetitive. There were no particular revelatory reassessments resulting from this visit, then, except that, taken together – and as The Directing Route extra on the Blu-ray set highlights – it’s often much more visually inventive than what would follow. And that Michael Ferguson should probably have been on permanent attachment throughout this era.

Somewhere out there is a lady who I think will never be a nun.

The Sound of Music (1965) (SPOILERS) One of the most successful movies ever made – and the most successful musical – The Sound of Music has earned probably quite enough unfiltered adulation over the years to drown out the dissenting voices, those that denounce it as an inveterately saccharine, hollow confection warranting no truck. It’s certainly true that there are impossibly nice and wholesome elements here, from Julie Andrews’ career-dooming stereotype governess to the seven sonorous children more than willing to dress up in old curtains and join her gallivanting troupe. Whether the consequence is something insidious in its infectious spirit is debatable, but I’ll admit that it manages to ensnare me. I don’t think I’d seen the movie in its entirety since I was a kid, and maybe that formativeness is a key brainwashing facet of its appeal, but it retains its essential lustre just the same.

I’m just glad Will Smith isn’t alive to see this.

The Tomorrow War (2021) (SPOILERS). Not so much tomorrow as yesterday. There’s a strong sense of déjà vu watching The Tomorrow War , so doggedly derivative is it of every time-travel/alien war/apocalyptic sci-fi movie of the past forty years. Not helping it stand out from the pack are doughy lead Chris Pratt, damned to look forever on the beefy side no matter how ripped he is and lacking the chops or gravitas for straight roles, and debut live-action director Chris McKay, who manages to deliver the goods in a serviceably anonymous fashion.

Damn prairie dog burrow!

Tremors (1990) (SPOILERS) I suspect the reason the horror comedy – or the sci-fi comedy, come to that – doesn’t tend to be the slam-dunk goldmine many assume it must be, is because it takes a certain sensibility to do it right. Everyone isn’t a Joe Dante or Sam Raimi, or a John Landis, John Carpenter, Edgar Wright, Christopher Landon or even a Peter Jackson or Tim Burton, and the genre is littered with financial failures, some of them very good failures (and a good number of them from the names mentioned). Tremors was one, only proving a hit on video (hence six sequels at last count). It also failed to make Ron Underwood a directing legend.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog