Monthly Archives: January 2012

Debbie does a play

During my research of librarian films, I have come across two erotic films, Debbie Does Dallas (1978) and Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy (1976) that reportedly include librarian characters. I haven’t seen either film yet, and I don’t intend to include straight-to-video adult films that include librarians on this site — that’s a whole other subset of Naughty Librarians that I won’t get into. But these two films were both highly successful at the time and considered classics of their kind, produced during the so-called “Golden Age of Porn” where adult films became more mainstream. Just telling it as it is, folks.

The plot of Debbie Does Dallas is quite simple:  a group of cheerleaders try to earn enough money to send Debbie to try out for the “Texas Cowgirls” squad (obviously a riff off the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders). How do they earn that money? There’s a reason it’s called the oldest profession in the world, of course. ;)

As I detailed in a earlier post about how I find new titles to watch, I routinely check my Master List against various sources. And imagine my surprise when I found a copy of Debbie Does Dallas in my local community college consortium — not the film, alas, but the play! I had no idea that the film had been adapted for the stage, but indeed, Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical was created in 2001 by Susan L. Schwartz for the New York International Fringe Festival. It was adapted by Erica Schmidt, with original musical numbers by Andrew Sherman.

And indeed, there is a librarian in the play, a Mr. Biddle. Here’s how he’s described in the script notes:

Mr. Biddle works at the high-school library. He is repressed and reserved. Biddle is of a forgotten generation in his principles and etiquette. (He is a male character in a porno and he does not want sex.) He is smart, rash, quick to anger and passionate about poetry.

From that description, I immediately thought Anti-Social Male Librarian, the male equivalent of the Spinster Librarian. This type of reel librarian tends to hoard knowledge, exhibits poor social skills, dislikes people, and focuses on rules. Makes sense, right?

Mr. Biddle is definitely a minor character, turning up in only a few scenes. In Scene 8, “Girls Get Jobs,” the poet cheerleader Donna asks if she can work at the library. He is reluctant, but is convinced by Donna’s scintillating argument:  ”I could help by watching books and stamping and stuff.” (Sigh.) His response?  ”Oh, ok.” (Double sigh.)

Getting spanked in Debbie Does Dallas the Musical

His biggest and final scene comes in Scene 20, “The Library.” Mr. Biddle catches Donna and her boyfriend Tim fooling around. Angry, he shouts, “You know the rules here. How could you so wantonly break them?” Afraid he will tell her parents, she allows him to spank her (see right). And then he asks her to spank him:  ”I always wanted to be bent over and spanked by a cheerleader ’cause I’m a bad and nasty boy.” Donna readily agrees, calling him “Bad Biddle.” This sets him back $105.

And with that, he also serves as a Naughty Librarian — the males of this type, unlike the female Naughty Librarians, are generally unattractive (check) and interested in deviant or unusual sexual acts (check).

So is the play successful? The scenes are extremely short, with repeated occurrences of inane dialogue. I lost count of how many times I read, “Oh, ok” and “Ok, bye.” The sex acts are hinted at or simulated or played with bananas (not kidding, see below). In truth, I rolled my eyes at the self-described tone of the play, as set out in the introductory notes:

The style of this piece is: rodeo-porno-football-circus. Every performer must be willing to go over the top and yet NOT BE CAMPY. The performances are meant to be big in size but never winking at the audience.

Debbie Does Dallas on the stage

Does Mr. Biddle’s character in the play mimic his reel counterpart? Apparently so, as according to Frank Vigorito’s review from the 2001 New York International Fringe Festival, “Debbie’s plot and script are word-for-word faithful to the original 1978 film.” And the scenes feel so short because of the removal of the sex scenes, so scenes “seemingly occur about every 30 seconds.” I agree with Vigorito’s final verdict:

Essentially, the play moves from one pointless scene of dialogue to the next, with the audience left waiting for something to look forward to, but that moment never arrives, unless you consider the final curtain.

The play is available from Dramatists Play Service, where you can also listen to music samples.

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Oscar BONUS!

Best Actress Academy Award

Image by cliff1066™ via Flickr

It’s been a long, busy week, but I did not forget about the Oscar nominations that were announced this past Tuesday morning. Oscars! The films! The predictions! The fashion! Insert hand-clapping and excited squeals in the Snoek-Brown household. Or, at least, with half of the Snoek-Brown household. ;)

The most nominations this year go to Hugo with 11 — I’ll be posting something extra about that soon on my personal site — with 10 nods for The Artist.

Here are some of my initial, personal reactions to this year’s nominations:

  • Why only 9 nominations for Best Picture, instead of 10? This was a really, really good year for films, IMHO. There were 4 or 5 other films deserving of that 10th spot. My personal choice would have been Bridesmaids. Click here for Entertainment Weekly‘s thorough (6-step!) explanation of the Best Picture voting process.
  • Makes you go hmmm…. No love for this year’s Clint Eastwood film J. Edgar. Guess I’ll be waiting until that reel librarian flick comes out on DVD.
  • Jeers? The non-nominations for Michael Fassbender in Shame (seriously brilliant performance), Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia, Shailene Woodley in The Descendants, and Kristen Wiig in The Bridesmaids (although a total cheer for her nomination in the Original Screenplay category).
  • Total cheers? The love shown for The Artist, Midnight in Paris, The Descendants, and Moneyball.
  • And yay for the 3 nominations for reel librarian entry Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, including Gary Oldman’s FIRST! EVER! nomination for Best Actor.
  • And it’s only the SECOND! EVER! Oscar nomination in so many years for Christopher Plummer. Fingers crossed for him this year — he totally deserves it for Beginners.
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The Spirited Young Girl

Continuing our series of reel librarian character types…

The Spirited Young Girl is always young, attractive, and intelligent, and often outspoken and independent-minded. These fashionable, modern and physically attractive library workers view their work in the library as a temporary job. Their roles are often used in contrast to older, more conservative librarians (see The Blot, 1921; Racing with the Moon, 1984; Storm Center, 1956; Weird Woman, 1944, among others).

What's a Spirited Young Girl to do?

How do they differ from Liberated Librarians? The main difference is that Liberated Librarians undergo a change — personality-wise and/or physically — often comprising the film’s main plot. Spirited Young Girls don’t really change throughout the film. A good example of this is the young public librarian Amelia Griggs in The Blot – it is her steady, sweet personality that influences others, not the other way around.

The characters are usually main characters, but their links to libraries have little or no impact on the story. It makes sense that most of these character types find themselves in the Class II category. As the female leads, there are no unnamed Spirited Young Girls (at least so far that I can find) — they have names like Caddie, Lucy, Jenny, and Mary — but truthfully, the “Spirited Young Girl” moniker could stand in just as well for them on the cast list.

This plucky youngster usually meets the story’s leading man in the library, attracting him with her intelligence and often spunky personality and continuing to impress him outside the library. Three films that exemplify this storyline are Pump Up the Volume (1990), Love Story (1970), and Good News (1947).

In Good News (1947), Connie Lane (June Allyson) works as the assistant librarian to help pay for her schooling. She falls in love with the college football star (Peter Lawford), and they later sing and dance while she closes up the library.

Ali MacGraw as Jenny, the lovely and intense library assistant in the Radcliffe College Library in Love Story, is verbally rebellious, ’70s style — while also clad in so-chic-I-want-her-entire-wardrobe-for-my-own ’70s style. In the opening scene, she ridicules Oliver (Ryan O’Neal), who is charmed nonetheless and invites her out for coffee. As you do.

In Pump Up the Volume, Samantha Mathis plays Nora, a rebellious teen who works behind the counter at the high school library. She also sends letters with sexual content to a renegade DJ, under the alias of “The Eat Me, Beat Me Lady.” See her “meet cute” moment with Christian Slater, below.

Next week we take a look at the Male Librarian as a Failure.

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Identity crisis in Red Dragon

Red Dragon (2002) has been on my Master List for awhile, but I just hadn’t gotten around to watching it. Maybe it was my high regard for Manhunter (1986), which I found a far superior film to this version. Red Dragon seems to stuff in too many big-name actors, and the pace drags.

If you’re not familiar with either film, the story serves as a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs (1991). FBI Agent Will Graham goes into early retirement because of an encounter with “Hannibal the Cannibal” — sending Hannibal Lecter to prison — but then gets called back in to catch a brutal serial killer. Of course, Graham ends up consulting Hannibal on the case.

About 50 minutes in, Graham (Edward Norton) needs to look up a quotation. He’s shown looking up at a thin white female in her early 20′s (Azura Skye), who’s standing behind a wooden counter and holding a thick book of quotations.

“Ta da! Red breast in a cage!” she says, looking through the book’s index. She then finds the full quotation, “A robin red breast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage,” by poet William Blake. She confirms they have the book the quote’s from, and offers additional resources: “We have some books of Blake’s paintings, too. Wanna see ‘em?”

She seems quite friendly — very smiley and slightly flirty — and quite knowledgeable about resources. The film seems to be set the 1980s (I think), which explains her early-Maddona look:  crimped, dyed blond hair, plastic hair clip, skinny tie over a denim vest and black dress, piled-on makeup, and lots of silver and black jewelry.

The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun

Image via Wikipedia

We also spot her — or rather, her crimped hair — in the background a couple of minutes later, as Graham looks through the book of paintings by William Blake. He comes across a biblical watercolor, “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun” (right), which provides a clue to the killer’s identity crisis.

Martin Raish described the helpful young lady as “a gum cracking young blonde” on his Librarians in the Movies web site, and she seems to serve the same basic function as an Information Provider. Only problem is, she’s not technically a librarian. She’s working in a bookstore — remember those? — not a library.

What are the clues?

  • First, she seems to be standing above him, like she would if she were behind a shop counter.
  • We see lots of wood shelving, but the books are crammed in everywhere, with little breathing space. Quite unlike a library (hopefully).
  • In the couple of shots, you can glimpse a book display in the lower left-hand corner (see below). Multiple copies of several titles are facing outward, like in displays at a bookstore’s front counter.
  • And finally… the actress is listed as “Bookseller” in the credits.

So why the choice of a bookseller, rather than a librarian? It might have simply been a visual opportunity to solidify the time period, and a librarian at that time might not be as believable if dressed as a Madonna wannabe. Most of the film seems to be set at nighttime (because it’s spookier?), so maybe the public library would have been closed already. But I’m probably overthinking it.

A few minutes after the quotations scene, my ears perked up when a fellow detective (Ken Leung) runs off for another clue and shouts for the others to meet him “at the library.” The resulting short scene shows him at the Library of Congress, but alas, no librarian in sight. There is yet another teaser, with a Museum Secretary (Hillary Straney) and an uncredited Museum Curator (Mary Beth Hurt), who both appear for a few seconds late in the film.

The bookseller in this film serves the same function as an Information Provider librarian, but, technically, this films joins others in the Class V category — films with no identifiable librarians.

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First impressions: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

In an earlier post, I had highlighted some librarian films about to be released, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and mused that “it might be fun to do some posts about my first impressions in the theater, and follow up with more in-depth analysis later on.” So here we are, with my first impressions of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, an adaptation of John le Carré’s 1974 novel and remake of the 1979 British miniseries.

Note:  I have not yet seen the 1979 miniseries, starring Alec Guinness, but I have it on order through my local public library.

I was super psyched to watch this film. It had entered my radar by way of Colin Higgins’s Libraries at the Movies blog, and I strongly suggest reading his reviews of the miniseries and recent adaptation. The trailers looked AWESOME and there was something hypnotic about the way Gary Oldman’s voice said the title, like a spine-tingling nursery rhyme (see below). And I do love spy thrillers, especially British ones, and especially especially ones that make you think.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy came this close to living up to my expectations. First off, Gary Oldman as George Smiley, the aging agent forced out of MI6 but called back in to investigate a mole, is fascinating to watch even when he doesn’t appear to be doing anything onscreen. And the director, Tomas Alfredson, is clearly talented at setting a mood — which was also evident in his Swedish child-vampire film Let the Right One In (remade in the U.S. as Let Me In). The film also features the excellent acting of Benedict Cumberbatch (he of Sherlock fame) as fellow agent Peter Guillam – and frankly, it’s always fun to write or say Cumberbatch’s name out loud.

However, I always felt like I was rushing to understand what was going on. And I kept getting names and faces confused. (Gotta admit, I was a little relieved that Roger Ebert expressed a similar feeling at the end of his review.) I’m looking forward to watching the miniseries, where there is scope to understand all the characters and what’s really at stake. Because at the end of this film, at the reveal of the all-important MacGuffin, I was left with a niggling “So what?” question of doubt.

And so what of the library and librarians? A shot of the library was included in the trailer, where you get a fleeting impression of multiple levels of bookshelves and lots of iron banisters. I remember liking how near the beginning of the film, the camera followed a woman’s hands placing a large book in a kind of dumbwaiter and then up the pulley into a level far above. In that first shot, with the closeup of the hands, you could spy rows of bookshelves behind her. I thought this was an effective way of using the library as an establishing shot of tone and location.

Later — about 2/3 through the film? — Smiley sends Guillam into “the lion’s den” to retrieve a smaller MacGuffin, some vital records that proved something or other (click to see scene above). Is it wrong that I smiled at comparing a library to a lion’s den? And we meet two reel librarians, a man and a woman. Or at least I think there were two librarians. The man had more screen time and more lines, I think, but I remember the woman. Probably because I noticed that she was the same actress, Laura Carmichael, who plays Edith, the scheming middle sister on Downton Abbey. Wearing a dark red turtleneck that contrasted with her red hair, she acted a bit nervous and breathy, like her character really fancied Guillam and wanted to impress him. And, of course, he probably knows that she fancies him but has no interest in her whatsoever. ANYWAY.

So armed with some complicated directions provided by the female librarian, off Guillam goes into the library archives. With NO supervision or guidance, I might add. I couldn’t help thinking how lax this was for a top-secret organization to send people off, alone, in the closed stacks. There’s a reason behind closed stacks, folks. Closed stacks are usually reserved for archives or other important records — you know, like for records used in an organization involving spies and super-secret info, perhaps? — and librarians get the items and therefore maintain order and organization and privacy. But whatever. Of course it was necessary for Guillam to be alone in the library stacks. He needed to be in order to succeed at swiping the records he needed and the plot to move forward. Chalk it up to suspension of disbelief.

Final verdict? Overall, I enjoyed the film — a solid B+ for me. And I look forward to watching Alec Guinness’s interpretation of George Smiley’s inscrutability in the 1979 British miniseries. Stay tuned…

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