Allen’s comedy shines despite drawings I
Woody Allen, comic experi
menter in comic forms, has a new
book out, Non-Being and Some
thingness. It is a selection of strips
from his one and a half year old
newspaper comic strip "Inside
Woody Allen.”
Though solid, the strip falls
short of being all it could be.
The ideas, the jokes, are un
adulterated Allen, and so are as
jumpy and excellent as the rest of
his work in other media. But the
drawing of the strips, done by
Stuart Hample, is at best meant to
be ignored.
The figures are so lifeless and
their expressions change so little
that they sap energy from the
punch lines they fail to support.
One has to squint at small details
of line to make sure the first draw
ing of a strip is not just duplicated
for each subsequent frame.
Perhaps it is supposed to be the
ultimate in deadpan delivery, leav
ing the face blank to put the words
forward emphatically and on their
own. If so, Allen should have stuck
with prose pieces as the form for
his written words. In the flesh he
does not have a straight, deadpan
delivery.
It is more a satire of deadpan,
portunity to stop and savor any
thing that struck a chord. Allen’s
films are so stuffed with comedy,
By LANCE LODER
Non-Being and
Somethingness
bursts of nervous tension con
tinually breaking through. So a
drawing of him telling a joke
should include a little of that nerv
ousness, too. It wouldn’t be dif
ficult, and it would add so much.
Meaningful nervousness is, after
all, the major substratum of his
comedy.
But all this would not be more
than pointless quibbling if the
idea were not so good. Woody
Allen is a natural subject for a
comic strip. The comic strip is a
natural forum for his ideas.
The single most enjoyable ad
vantage of this book was the op
three viewings are often required
just to hear all the jokes. His
Inside Woody Allen ©1978 by IWA Enterprises Inc. Hackenbush Productions Inc.
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humorous essays are topical,
often stylistic, satires. But the
comic strip, with its enforced brev
ity, often brings out the soul of his
wit: the cosmic one-liner.
Vaguely Diane Keaton-looking
character to Woody: “There’s no
way you can prove there isn't a
God.”
Woody: “Right. You just have to
take it on faith.”
Improbably, and with a meas
ure of his own cosmic comedy,
Buckminster Fuller has written the
introduction for the book. Written
and drawn; this is Fuller’s comic
strip debut, too.
In the course of it Fuller has his
characters weigh the world and
find it heavy, call on the stars and
galaxies to give Woody a big
hand, and name him “the master
of ceremonies in what may be the
last act of humans on Planet Earth
or the first act of Humans in Uni
verse.”
Now, how can such an introduc
tion be anything but a big step for
ward in the Woody Allen Cam
paign to Take Comedy More Seri
ously and Take Seriousness More
Comically?
Nixon cast as part-time narrator, mu-time 1001
The Public Burning
by Robert Coover
1977, Viking Press
$12.95, hardback (534 pages)
Before the Watergate follies
and after, Richard Nixon has al
tiresome tradition of harassing
poor old Dick. With simpering
candor, Nixon plays part-time nar
rator and full-time fool in this
sprawling allegory of the Ameri
can Dream turned nightmare.
Based upon the June 14,1953
By BRUCE CAMPBELL
The Public Burning
Z-l_CL
ways been favorite fodder for
ridicule and caricature.
Comedians, writers, political
cartoonists have all derived vi
cious pleasure and steady incomes
from kicking around Nixon. His cri
tics, lusting for the blood of a moral
cripple, have hounded him for al
most 30 years. Naturally, Nixon
has always worked hard to earn
such hatred.
Robert Coover’s latest novel,
The Public Burning, continues the
J
execution of Ethel and Julius
Rosenberg (who allegedly sold
American A-bomb secrets to the
Russians), The Public Burning
mythologizes the disheartening
horrors of the Korean War, the
Berlin Wall, McCarthyism and
hysterical anti-Communism which
invested the 1950s with such
sinister energy. Mixing nostalgia
with sarcasm, Coover conceives
this history in comic book terms:
thick-witted patriots, stuffed with
What do
the Rockefellers do
on their nights off?
Consider the possibilities.
Monopoly, Go for Broke, Petropolis,
Billionaire, Finance, Masterpiece,
The Stock Market Game, Easy Money,
Acquire, Big Apple, Profit & Loss,
The Beat Inflation Strategy Game,
Shopping, Rat Race, Anti-Monopoly,
Venture, The Peter Principle Game,
San Francisco Scene, The Collector,
Jet World, Ulcers, Jurisprudence,
Careers, The Economy Game, Payday,
Game of Nations, New York Scene,
Pit, Cartel.Lie Cheat & Steal?
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Deluxe Games and Puzzles on the Mall
shrill sentiments and self-serving
altruism, add a cruel, cartoon qual
ity to the Rosenberg executions.
With real-life characters
populating the plot, the novel
reads like a history book.
Eisenhower, J. Edgar Hoover,
Bob Taft, Billy Graham, John Fos
ter Dulles, Alger Hiss, Dean
Acheson, William O. Douglas and
many others represent the Sons
of Light (the Free World) who do
battle with The Phantom (Com
munism).
But Nixon is the most constant
and interesting character. Other
than masturbating at executions,
he also is sodomized by Unde
Sam (“Sam Slick, star-spangled
Superhero and knuckle-rapping
Yankee Peddler”), a sadistic
braggart who symbolizes
America.
Perhaps the most scurrilous
scene occurs when Nixon’s
prudishness redeems itself with a
strong prurient interest. Before the
execution, Nixon sneaks a visit to
Ethel Rosenberg and attempts to
make her confess. What ensues is
a pseudo-pornographic love
scene between Nixon and Ethel.
As the Vice-President describes
it:
We broke at last, gasping,
groaning, sucking our battered
lips, clutching each other des
perately. She buried her head on
my shoulder, nibbling frantically
at my neck. "Oh, Richard!" she
moaned. "You're so strong, so
powerful!" She tangled her fin
gers in the matted hair on my
chest...
As they continue to fondle,
Nixon adds: "That she had called
me Richard and not Dick moved
me deeply."
The Rosenburgs are electro
cuted in Times Square while mill
ions watch. Prior to this spectacle,
comedians such as the Marx
Brothers, Jack Benny, Milton
Berle and Edgar Bergen warm up
the throngs with sick jokes about
the Rosenbergs’ impending
death. To compound this absurd
slapstick, Coover even has the
Supreme Court Justices sliding
around in elephant dung.
<
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This American Inquisition, with
its burning of heretics, feeds upon
a communal paranoia. The net re
sult is that Coover exposes a
parallel universe to our own which
reflects the grotesque ironies and
deceits inherent in our social
order.
Coover’s sense of allegory is
excellent. But his writing, too often
pretentious and highly-repetitive,
butchers a good idea. The same
story, with tighter organization,
with less superfluous satire, with
more rigorous editing, may have
had more sting and vitality.
Like so much of Coover’s writ
ing (best exemplified by the short
fiction in Pricksongs and De
scants he chokes the reader with
a glut of overly-rich prose. His im
agery is so intense, his style so
swift and supple, that one has no
time to digest the author’s ideas.
But the most disturbing quality
to The Public Burning is the crea
tive license of a fiction writer that
Coover wantonly misuses to
scourge public figures. Actual his
tory can be fitted to the fictional
mold, but such freedom doesn’t
imply a need to take murderous
shots at the facts. Nixon has
committed enough imbecilities
that new ones needn’t be invented
(Continued on Page 7B)
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