Friday, July 13, 2007

Oh What a Bagdad Had.


An addendum to my previous flogging on the deaths of Kerwin Matthews and Charles Lane:

First off, I keep reading how Charles Lane was "The oldest surviving member of SAG." Excuse me? May I remind everyone that I am some eight years older than Charlie, and I have been a member of SAG since back when it stood for Sophoclean Athenian Guys? Not only does my SAG card number have only a single digit, but they named the Guild "SAG" in my honor!

That's right! I am The Second Oldest Surviving Member of SAG! Charlie was Number Three; I am still Number Two. In fact, many fine critics have stated over the years that I have been Number Two for decades!

And who is Number One? I'm not allowed to tell you. Let's just say that this "Golden Girl" is still lying about her age. (And she didn't even play the oldest character on that show! She still refers to her never-ending, age-deception as a "White Lie." Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)

Now to another matter. In memory of dearly departed and forever gorgeous Kerwin Matthews, I re-watched The 7th Voyage of Sinbad last night for the first time in some years. I've already mentioned that it features some of the whitest Christian people this side of Ozzie & Harriet as Islamic, Iraqi Arabs.

Well, in the plot of the movie, Sinbad has to restore his princess girlfriend, Kathryn Crosby, to life-size, after she has shrunk down to where she's smaller than his penis, thus rendering their whole relationship pointless, before Bing Crosby finds out about it, or Bagdad will go to war!

Yes, everything Sinbad does in the entire movie is done to prevent war from breaking out in Bagdad! Sort of renders the entire movie moot. He defeats a dragon, a cyclops, and a skeleton, but Dick Cheney is more evil than even Sinbad can defeat.

Bagdad in the movie doesn't resemble the one on TV very much. For one thing, there aren't any real Arabs. And everyone is alive. The buildings are gorgeous, undamaged palaces (Actually shot at The Alhambra in Spain.). There are no bombed-out ruins. Instead of torn, dirty rags and bloody bandages, everyone wears brightly colored, silk brocade. (Kerwin wears two lovely turbans that I lent him for the shoot.) You never see John McCain at the bazaar. There are no ox-cart bombs. You never learn if Sinbad is a Shi'ite or a Sunni.

Oh, and Bagdad is a seaport in the movie! After watching the picture, I am now suing Rand & McNally, who always were a lousy comedy team anyway (I HATED Rand & McNally Meet Frankenstein!) because this lousy Atlas they sold me shows Bagdad as landlocked in the middle of the Iraqi desert. I saw the seaport of Bagdad in the movie with my own eyes. Which am I suposed to believe; some published "World Atlas," or my own eyes? Imagine reputable cartographers making an error like that!

They really should show this movie as an army recruiting film. They'll have scads of innocent, healthy, young men sign up to ship over to Bagdad at once as soon as they see how colorful and sexy it is, and that the worst dangers there are evil wizards, fire-breathing dragons, two-headed giant rocs (I LOVE giant rocs myself, especially real low-hangers!), swashbuckling skeletons, and horny cyclopes. (Cyclopses? Cyclopeses? Cyclopi? Uniopts!)

Maybe they could re-title it The 7th Tour of Duty of Sinbad. And maybe, now that Kerwin has left, we should bring our own army of Sinbads home. They've had well over a 1001 Arabian Nights. Time to end this fairy tale.

Cheers darlings.



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