Quintessential Jack

by Scott Edwards

  Nicholson was seen on screen only 27 minutes in A Safe Place. But he became a real person, even though he had no story outside of an unseen wife named Rita, becoming fully established and fully formed. The actor was not filling a narrative or playing a character; he was a person. We just don’t know who he is or why he is there. In Jaglom’s world of emotional truth, that would never matter.

  The director defended critical opinion that the film made no sense by countering, “I was trying to play with conventional film structure … playing with daydream and fact, illusion and reality, and the emotions of past, present and future.” Nicholson played the role and got a color TV out of it.

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  On a Clear Day You Can See Forever was not Nicholson’s only musical. Ken Russell’s adaptation of the Who’s rock opera Tommy was more successful and much more fun, featuring Ann-Margret in an all-star cast that combines actors, Nicholson included, with musicians such as Tina Turner, Elton John and Eric Clapton.

  Russell presented the story like a moving comic strip crossed with an opera, a silent movie that dramatizes the trauma of World War II. A proto–Tim Burton, Russell emphasizes color and exaggerated action, with no fear of the cartoonish or grandiose. Ann-Margret called the film “as wild and exaggerated as a hallucination” and called Russell “wild, indulgent, kind and funny, always pushing for more.”15

  Nicholson plays “The Specialist,” a doctor who’s first seen examining Roger Daltrey’s title character from the Who singer’s point of view. Nicholson then sports a pince-nez and warbles the Pete Townshend composition “Go to the Mirror” in proper British-ish accent and with plenty of vibrato.

  The filmmakers had been worried about Nicholson’s singing, but Townshend wrote that Nicholson “sang beautifully” and was stunned “when he began to croon like a world-class Fifties club singer.”16 Nicholson appears more concerned with appearing to properly “sing,” though he does add a pleasant final look as Ann-Margret leaves him, a glance that is part knowing and emotionally touched, part academic and romantically deprived. The actor is at once sly, yet nerdy. And his whole sequence is only three and a half minutes, including off-screen cuts.

  Some small roles are smaller than others. Nicholson’s in Ensign Pulver was the smallest among the small. Title character Robert Walker Jr.’s love interest, Millie Perkins, felt that “he didn’t have much of a part in that movie and didn’t enjoy it at all, as far as I know … he just wanted to work.”17

  In his first speaking scene, he delivers a message that “maybe we got a liberty” with eyebrow-raised irony and suitable snottiness. Nicholson’s trim and serious as the radio operator, but not great at the comedy, pushing his admittedly weak jokes and telegraphing that he’s about to say something “funny.”

  The romance of the romantic comedy is between Walker’s title character and Millie Perkins, who is adorable and cute as a nurse—natural, relaxed and flirty in an understated way. Unfortunately, Walker plays the role earnestly without any relief, pushy and yelling, over-projecting so much that it wears you down. Walker yells even when delivering lines intended for just a little intensity. Nicholson, on the other hand, plays it charming and upbeat in a light and giggly scene when he gives a happy report that sailor “John X” (played by Tommy Sands) was “gonna have a baby!”

  Nicholson does not even show up in the end credits despite having a decent speaking part. It must have seemed a cruel joke to play a scene in which the crew objects to watching a Boris Karloff movie that the captain (an irritating Burl Ives) insists they view. After all, just a few years before, Nicholson had been Karloff’s co-star, but now was reduced to this uncredited role in a bad sequel. It’s no wonder that Gary Kent and Ed Nelson both reported to me that he was on the verge of quitting.18

  Ensign Pulver has no shortage of talent: It was written and directed by Joshua Logan and the cast included Ives, Walter Matthau, Perkins, Larry Hagman, Peter Marshall, Dick Gautier, James Farentino, James Coco and Kay Medford. Gautier said the film was enjoyable to make, but that the director wasn’t always as agreeable. “Josh Logan was a strange man. Very strange guy. I mean, I liked him, but you never knew where you were. One morning he’d say, ‘You got any good dirty jokes for me?’ And we’d say, ‘Yeah!’ The next morning I’d say, ‘Hello Josh,’ and he’d say, ‘Get over there and shut up!’ Hot and cold, you know. So we were always on tenterhooks.”19

  The promise of the many notable newcomers in the cast and the pedigree to Mister Roberts not only did not pay off for Nicholson, but it also resulted in a mostly painful waste of the viewers’ life. According to Perkins, “I don’t think he wanted to make that movie, but he needed the money.”20

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  Small roles taken for needed cash by young aspirants can be excused. Terrible roles by movie stars, even if done as favors or in appreciation, cannot. It says much about the person, but does not placate the moviegoers’ damage as inflicted by celluloid sewage such as Man Trouble and How Do You Know.

  In the one indispensible biography of Nicholson, Jack’s Life by Patrick McGilligan, the author noted that Nicholson had pledged to do any movie with Bob Rafelson without even seeing a script. A movie called Man Trouble is proof that this is true. The worst starring role in the actor’s career (after all, you can forgive The Cry Baby Killer as his first film, but this was 34 years and 45 films later, for the love of Pete!), this story of dog trainer Harry Bliss ended up delivering the opposite of the meaning of the character’s last name.

  Man Trouble was made by the same team responsible for Five Easy Pieces, the director Rafelson, the writer Carole Eastman, the star Nicholson, along with ever-reliable Jack regulars Veronica Cartwright and Harry Dean Stanton. Cartwright saved me the embarrassment of pointing out the weakness of the film by exclaiming, “That was a horrible movie! Horrible,” and also volunteering without further comment, “Well ... Bob Rafelson is a piece of work himself.”21

  Nicholson is all heels and eyebrows, sneers and teeth and wrinkled nose in the stock-and-trade tradition of the most elementary Jack impersonators. Meaning that he was playing the role of Nicholson impersonator in this movie.

  Nicholson has one nice and tender moment when offering to buy a drink for Ellen Barkin’s crying character. However, in a diner breakfast scene following her drunken Japanese restaurant display, Nicholson looks ashen and almost sick.

  The one, most true emotional moment in the film is Harry’s sad and regretful goodbye to Duke as his dog is being taken away by Paul Mazursky. The dog had it lucky.

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  Cineplex zombies were not so fortunate 18 years later when they became unsuspecting victims of a “film” known as How Do You Know. Inexplicably, this rom-com-by-the-numbers was directed, produced and written by the man who performed the same duties admirably on Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good as It Gets, James L. Brooks.

  The first sign of trouble was the lack of a question mark at the end of the title. It is a question, after all, as in “How do you know this movie is an loser?” Perhaps the studio omitted the punctuation as a cost-cutting measure to put more into marketing. We will never know.

  Every scene, every visual, every aspect is fake and “in a movie.” Absolutely nothing is realistic, let alone real. The idea of Owen Wilson as a professional baseball player works okay in a Saturday Night Live skit. Reese Witherspoon as an Olympic softball player is somewhat more believable. Then we get to the point where they happen to cross paths in a preposterous plot that is always hurt by Wilson’s egregious miscasting.

  Witherspoon’s softball team lacks authenticity and the father-son relationship between Nicholson and Paul Rudd carries no sense of truth.

  Nicholson plays a security company big shot who, supposedly ironically, is a crook who actually tries to set up his own son to take the fall. He plays it corporate and explosive, as the garrulous boss who clearly is pretending to be a warm father. He spends a lot of his acting time on the phone, which probably means someth
ing about the production and the limitation of the role. He does have one good scene in which he moves from exploding about working in the Middle East and paying off an Egyptian, from pushing and yelling to emotional and falsely crying on his own behalf rather than for his son, this in spite of having put his son in this precarious legal position instead of taking the consequences himself.

  There’s also a nice deleted sequence: In “The Office Scene,” he introduces some nice business with his reading glasses (shades of the road trip scene in As Good as It Gets) and some good fake corporate intimacy with a kiss. He does a lower quality Jacksplosion, as if he’s lost the power of his voice, but makes up for it with much better comedic balance between the real and the exaggerated.

  Nicholson’s best and biggest scene has been excised, though it was a sound filmic choice, because the company’s backstory would have added too much exposition and distracted from the main romantic comedy. Viewing the DVD extras reveals that many of the deletions involved Nicholson. They made sense, however, not in the sense of the actor’s strengths but in regards to the already threadbare plot. These cuts represented the right decisions yet proved that Nicholson’s involvement was ill-planned and that he was wasted on this project.

  Nicholson appeared in this debacle because of his loyalty to Brooks and appreciation for the significant earlier award-winning roles. Brooks has directed six films and Nicholson has appeared in four of them. But he’s really only “Jack” once, when he uses his familiar vocal style to (perhaps self-referentially) point out that he needs to “work my voice until you get them,” referring to goosebumps.

  The one true revelation of How Do You Know is that Nicholson’s voice is gone! In singer’s parlance, his instrument is seemingly damaged. He was not able to propel, emote and overpower to the degree a character of this nature requires. His explosiveness was tamped, which perhaps explains why years later this stands as Nicholson’s last role. It would certainly be a pity if this remains the final film for an actor as exceptional as Jack Nicholson.

  Also unfortunate is the tarnished effect of Man Trouble and How Do You Know to Nicholson’s triumph as latter day rom-com wonder in films as emotionally beautiful and stirring as As Good as It Gets and Something’s Gotta Give.

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  Romance is alive and flourishing, more deeply and more meaningfully with the reflective and mature. Harry has to grow to love Erica. He grew beyond a life filled with pretty young things—such as Erica’s daughter. He had to experience the jealousy of Erica’s attention to a younger man; the hurt of public humiliation from her play; and he then had to resolve himself to “going for it” in Paris with all his hopes based on how entrancing the story of Harry and Erica had become.

  Melvin learned how to love (and to like other people and to like himself) when he came to love Carol. He grew from a self-centered and hateful loner, slowly understanding that he was lonely by choice. Melvin opened himself to others, to their feelings and needs, and bit by bit conquered his obsessive-compulsive disorder because it was worth it to be with Carol.

  Romance knows no age when Jack Nicholson grows for Diane Keaton and changes his life for Helen Hunt. They become human and breathe real air, in pursuit of a new life based on that love.

  The characters become real, and so is their love. Their stories feel true, and so does their romance. The emotions run deeply … and they become ours.

  13

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  Misfits and Misanthropes

  The fly is relentless, landing and re-landing on the wheat toast next to the plain omelet. Bobby Dupea waves and waves, but he’s already left one diner after waving much too hard while violently clearing everything off the table because he couldn’t get what he wanted. Now, he has exactly what he wants, except for the interference of the fly.

  Finally, it dances and flits, bounces and twirls, moving from Bobby to David Staebler. Now, the fly alternately buzzes off and then onto David’s microphone as the host tries to concentrate on his show. He’s live, on radio, so cannot react or attack. David timidly ducks and dodges while he deliberates a way to persuade the fly to at least temporarily grant him enough peace to work without distraction.

  Perhaps bored, the fly makes the mistake of approaching Jonathan, who will not take this interruption. He swears and jumps and swats and yells. Jonathan hates this fly. But, then again, Jonathan hates just about everything—especially himself.

  Francis Phelan doesn’t hate himself, but he wishes he wasn’t drunk that day so many years ago. Francis may be hallucinating the fly. Francis notices he’s being circled, but isn’t quite sure what to do. He freezes and retreats into himself, as the fly is reminded of Norman Bates and how that Mama’s boy put all of his remaining energy into a similar restraint. Norman would protect himself by pretending he didn’t see and wouldn’t harm the fly. Francis certainly wouldn’t harm anything, if he could help it.

  Warren Schmidt’s final minutes of his ineffectual career at his thankless job were only slightly sidetracked by the fly. Dr. Buddy Rydell viewed the fly as an intentional slight; Melvin Udall could not believe a fly could invade his masterfully controlled apartment. The Joker welcomed the fly as a way to further unnerve his targets; Alex Gates knew wine but couldn’t handle the unexpected; R.P. McMurphy and Daryl Van Horne viewed its intrusion as part of “the plan”; and Wilbur Force welcomed the foreplay of annoyance as playful prelude to the main event of pain.

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  I don’t know Jack Nicholson’s attitude toward flies, but I do know he’s specialized in portraying characters who might have a range of irrational reactions to common house insects. Often called an antihero, Nicholson more commonly plays a guy who just does not fit in with others—or even sees society and other people as objects of distrust and sources of distress.

  The title character in About Schmidt lacks emotional connections to his family or any meaningful relationships with co-workers or friends-in-title-only. In Anger Management, Dr. Rydell’s lucky to be in a position to guide others from a detached position of authority, as he has some serious issues of his own. It’s a good thing Melvin is a writer so he can get away with locking himself away from people because it wouldn’t otherwise get very good for him at all. The Joker is a villain exacting revenge and Van Horne is a devil seeking souls and young women. McMurphy has his own issues with women and with authority, while Little Shop of Horrors masochist Wilbur actually enjoys going to the dentist—making him perhaps the most perverted character in a Nicholson canon that also includes Jack Torrance (The Shining) and Frank Costello (The Departed).

  So many characters with such problems with people. They don’t trust others; they remove themselves from the human race as much as possible; they run from their past and avoid creating a future. Melvin and Jonathan hurt other people mentally and emotionally. Costello and the Joker hurt them physically. Phelan, McMurphy and Gates can’t seem but help to bring pain to others and themselves, while Schmidt, Dupea and Staebler can’t seem to or don’t want to feel. Force and Van Horne meet a cartoonish fate of being drilled and poked for the pleasure of pain and the pleasure of vengeance, respectively.

  Nearly half of Nicholson’s film roles can be viewed as being misfits or misanthropes, from juvenile delinquents (The Cry Baby Killer, The Wild Ride, Studs Lonigan) and amoral (Flight to Fury, The Shooting, How Do You Know) to maladjusted (Chinatown, The Passenger, Heartburn) and damaged (The Two Jakes, The Pledge, The Crossing Guard). He’s been lost, searching and antisocial (Hells Angels on Wheels, The Postman Always Rings Twice); fighting authority or conformity (The Last Detail, Easy Rider, Chinatown); and a downright criminal or outlaw (The Broken Land, Ride in the Whirlwind, The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, The Fortune, Goin’ South, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Prizzi’s Honor, Batman, Blood and Wine, The Departed, How Do You Know). Even his screenplays skew toward the “antisocial” elements of drugs (The Trip, Head), crime (Flight to Fury, Ride in the Whirlwind) and rebelliousness (Drive, He Said), while a
ll of his official directorial efforts deal with the oddballs and outsiders (Goin’ South, The Two Jakes and Drive, He Said).

  The man who eventually became the symbol of Hollywood stardom struggled for many years to come in from the outside, and now his many roles as the ultimate outsider endure most.

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  Bobby Dupea wants to become an outsider, seeking escape from his background, his family, his calling as pianist and, more than anything, from responsibility. He seems happy and relaxed in an environment most foreign to his own. On the rig, playing cards, going bowling, drinking beer, chasing local talent. With his family and their upper class, artistic trappings, he’s stiff and sarcastic and distant. Instead of fitting in with his family, he pursues his brother’s fiancée.

  The first sign of the real person is his look of ennui when left alone at a bowling alley. While preparing to leave Rayette behind to visit his dying father, he examines himself in the mirror with a look that’s similar to his self-study in The Shining.

  At the end of Five Easy Pieces, the character looks in another mirror to examine who he is and where he is going one more time before abandoning Rayette at the gas station. As he looks at himself, only his eyes move, again like in The Shining.

  Bobby Dupea has isolated himself from his family and his talent. He is trapped by his girlfriend and threatened by any kind of authority. Five Easy Pieces (1970) takes an unflattering look at a main character by no means a hero and too unmotivated to succeed as antihero. Also pictured is Billy “Green” Bush, who played Bobby’s pal Elton.

  Bobby is trapped by his family and he’s trapped by Rayette when she becomes pregnant. He can’t handle authority, whether his father, his boss or even a diner waitress—against whom he feels triumphant by battling a simple “no substitutions” ordering rule. Dupea is for nothing and against everything. He is only truly free when he rides away, first when he hops on a truck with an upright piano, in a sequence reminiscent of his Easy Rider bird flight on a motorcycle and his beach convertible race with Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment—and finally when he hitchhikes to Alaska with a trucker.