The Frisco Kid

We lost a pet cat when the boys were much younger. She had eaten a plant that poisoned her. We buried her in the backyard among the trees and wildflowers. Thankfully it wasn't winter time. Trying to bury a pet in Minnesota in the winter is a challenge. We lost a hamster a number of years ago in December. Explaining to young children about dead pets is hard. We wanted to provide a burial but the ground was too frozen for even a hamster-sized hole. So we did what everyone else does in Minnesota: We put him in a little box and put the box in the freezer. Of course, this meant that for the next four months, on a daily basis, one or the other of the boys would take out the box and try to revive little Hammie.

We had a favorite children's book when the boys were young (er), Blumpoe the Grumpoe Meets Arnold the Cat by Jean Davies Okimoto. Currently out-of-print (again, after being reissued several years ago, but available on ebay). Sweet and very funny story about a grumpy man who checks into a hotel which has cats that stay with the guests. Blumpoe gets Arnold for the night. By the morning, he isn't grumpy anymore.

Sadly, the hotel is real and so are the cats. It's the Anderson House in Wabasha, MN, and just a few hours drive from St. Paul. So, of course, we took the boys, 5 and 7, on a trip to Wabasha with the book in hand and cats in our hearts. We checked in happily. The next day the parents checked out grumpy. The boys were ecstatic. They didn't care that no one got any sleep. One room, two cats, two boys, two parents. You do the math. Linda and I looked at each other and said "never again." So, the next year the boys and I went back. Linda had to work. Also, she had better sense. One room again, two cats, two boys, one parent. Ok, they loved it. But this time I found that one feature that historic hotels have: A bathroom down the hallway with a big clawfoot tub. A pillow and a blanket and sleepy time.

Bart, it sounds awful for you.

Yes, but not as awful as what I recently found out about a favorite movie, The Frisco Kid with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford.

I saw it again last week, as it's on my life list of movies to see once a year and wanted to see it since I had brought up Gene Wilder with the Bonnie and Clyde connection.

Let's not go there again, Bart. It's a sore subject.
Ok, Bosley.

The Frisco Kid is a sweet and very funny movie (just like the Blumpoe the Grumpoe book). Gene Wilder plays the klutsy rabbi in what becomes, among other things, a buddy movie with Harrison Ford. The two actually have a romp on the beach with each other in their long underwear. Nice to see that two men can touch each other in the movies without it being a sex thing. Unlike Cagney and Lacey a few years later on TV who were never allowed to touch each other. The network even replaced an earlier actress for the Cagney role because she was seen as too "lesbian." Meg Foster, whose filmography shows that she played Hester Prynne in a TV series of Scarlet Letter. I wonder if she was too strong for the later movie role that Demi Moore got and totally ruined. What a disgusting movie! The book is amazing. The movie made Hester into a weak panderer, the opposite of what Hawthorne intended.

Bart, you're losing me again. What was so awful about The Frisco Kid?

Pauline Kael.

No, not her again.

Yes, Bosley.
Hold on.
She once said that the difference between casting for the stage and casting for the big screen is that we can imagine someone else playing a stage role. It is harder to imagine someone else in the role being played on screen. The awful thing about The Frisco Kid is that I read on the IMDb that the producers did imagine someone else playing Harrison Ford's role and while I don't mind that person in his own movies I don't want to imagine the possibility of him playing next to sweet, funny, innocent, pure Willy Wonka.

Bart, you don't mean . . .

Yes, I do. Sorry. The producers originally tried to get John Wayne.

Horrors! By the way, what's the big deal about typing a capital T for The Frisco Kid?

James Cagney already had a Frisco Kid movie and the The is like that New York State winery a number of years ago that tried to appear as classy as Champagne which is fermented a second time in the bottle it is sold in. The label on the New York wine said "fermented in the bottle" but what they did was to ferment it in a big bottle and then rebottle it into the bottle it got sold in. The Frisco Kid is playing a joke on us. Pretty tricky.

Horrors! But I think you're the only one who thinks it's a joke.