HOME ALONE

by John M. Floyd

Recently my wife spent a week visiting her parents in Oklahoma City, and I was left to my own devices for a while. As always, this prompted a quick trip to Kroger and Blockbuster, where I acquired those items essential to my survival during her absence: a dozen or so frozen dinners and a dozen or so DVD rentals. (I’m already a Netflix subscriber, but in this case I knew my demands would exceed the supply.)

Thus fortified, I happily watched movies most of the week, some good (“Get Shorty,” “Young Frankenstein,” “The 39 Steps,” “The Hudsucker Proxy”), some so-so (“The Jacket,” “Surveillance,” “The International,” “In the Electric Mist”), and some bad (“Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” “Year One,” “Be Cool,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still”). One of the best was a 1992 adaptation of a Pulitzer-winning play by David Mamet called “Glengarry Glen Ross,” with Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, and Alec Baldwin. It was one I’d missed years ago and had always wanted to watch.

An American Tragedy

Those of you who’ve seen GGR know it isn’t really a mystery, even though a crime is central to the plot. It is instead a study of the human condition, and of the dark side of capitalism. In this film, there are no good guys — some are sympathetic at times because of the situation they’re in, but all of them are crooked, sleazy, and bitter. In hindsight, the movie probably did much to reinforce the dislike many folks seem to have for real estate salesmen. Or at least did nothing to improve their image.

The entire film is based on the idea that money and status are all-important, and that integrity is nowhere to be found in world of free enterprise. If there is a lesson to be learned, I suppose it’s that success should be defined not by what others think of you, but what you think of yourself.

Talking Business

As a writer, the thing I found fascinating was the dialogue. Like all effective stories, this one had suspense, conflict (a LOT of conflict), life-changing decisions, etc. — but all of this was conveyed through dialogue, and the screenplay was one of the best I could remember. It reminded me a bit of “Wall Street,” but the closest comparison I could think of was another Corporate America drama back in the eighties called “Broadcast News” — even though BN involved no central crime and at least featured some likable characters. Both “Glengarry” and BN had wonderful casts and settings, and each had a huge and unexpected twist near the end that exposed the “bad guy” (or at least the “worst guy”). All writers of fiction, both short and long, can learn from that kind of thing.

Much has been said about the differences between literary stories and genre stories. This one had characteristics of both, and I think that’s probably one of the reasons it’s so good.

Setting the Stage

One more point. The screen version of “Glengarry Glen Ross” featured something the play didn’t: a surprise visit early in the story by a hatchet man from headquarters (Baldwin), who made it extremely clear to the salesmen and to the audience exactly what was at stake here, and the consequences of failure. This outstanding scene even set up a “ticking clock” — a sales contest with a looming deadline — that added extra tension to all the events that followed.

The biggest surprise, though, was that I liked the story despite the fact that it wasn’t really “my kind of movie.” Films adapted from plays usually put me to sleep.

This one’s a winner.