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University Microfilms

A Xerox Education Company 72-27,101

SCHUTH, Howard Wayne, 1942- THE COLLEGE MILIEU IN THE AMERICAN FICTION FILM WITH EMPHASIS ON THE WORK OF MIKE NICHOLS: A STUDY IN BELIEF SYSTEMS.

The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1972 Speech

University Microfilms, A XERQK Company, Ann Arbor, Michigem

© 1972

HOWARD WAYNE SCHUTH

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TSTTM MTp-pnVTT.MVn VYAPTT.V AR PVPVTVPn THE COLLEGE MILIEU IN THE AMERICAN FICTION FlIM WITH EMPHASIS ON THE WORK OF MIKE NICHOLS: A STUDY IN BELIEF SYSTEMS

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Howard W. Schuth, B.S., M.A.

The Ohio State University 1972

Approved by

Department of Speech PLEASE NOTE:

Some pages may have

indistinct print.

Filmed as received.

University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank those who have made this study possible. Special thanks go to my adviser. Dr. Robert W. Wagner, and the members of my committee. Dr. Alfred C. Clarke and Dr. Franklin H. Knower. Their advice, help, and encourage­ ment have been invaluable. Many thanks go, too, to the numerous individuals and companies who provided access to films and other related materials for this study: Mike Clark of WBNS-TV, Columbus; Dave Hackle of Coaxial Cable Television, Columbus; Edwin Jahiel of the University of Illinois; Burt Shapiro of the American Film Institute; Audio-Brandon Films; Avco-Embassy; Columbia Pictures Corporation; Films, Inc.; Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer; Paramount Pictures; Twentieth-Century Fox; Tywman Films; United Artists; Warner Brothers. I wish to thank the many students at The Ohio State University who made my work during this study so enjoyable. Finally, my wife, Mary Schuth, deserves much credit for her understanding and patience, without which the task would have been much more difficult. May 23, 1942 Born - Oak Park, Illinois 1964 .... B.S., Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois 1966 . . . M.A. 5 Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois

1965-1969 Instructor of Film and Television, Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri 1969-1972 Instructor of Cinema, Department of Photography & Cinema, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

PUBLICATIONS

Report of the Work of the Film Committee of the Missouri Council on the Arts, I965-6 7. Monograph, l967. "An Introduction to Film Aesthetics." The Independent School Bulletin, October, 1968, pp. 77-79» "Techniques of Teaching Film Production." Journal of the University Film Association. Vol. 21, No. 3, l969^ pp. 85- B7Ï "High School." Audio-Visual Communications Review, Summer, 1970, pp. 212-21 3:

"85-," "Red Desert," and "Hiroshima, Mon Amour." Three thirty-minute audio-tape cassette lectures in the Classic Films Lecture Series; Published by Everett/Edwards, Inc., Deland, Florida, 1971. Seven motion pictures— Producer-Director. Twenty-five television programs— Producer-Director.

iii FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Film Studies in Film: Professor Robert W. Wagner and Professor Alfred C. Clarke Studies in Communication Behavior: Professor Franklin H. Knower Studies in Educational Communication: Professor 1, Keith Tyler

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... ii VITA ...... iii LIST OF P L A T E S ...... vil Chapter I. BELIEF SYSTEMS AND THE COLLEGE FILM ...... 1 Method ...... 4 Criteria...... 13 II. SIGNIFICANT PRE-NICHOLS FILMS ...... 15 The Adventure of the Absent- Minded Professor . 7~. 7~. 24 Tnose College cJTrls . . . 27 The Freshman...... 33 College T T ...... 40 Horse Feathers...... 51 The Duke of West Point . . 58 Blondie Goes to College . 64 The Male Animaf I . . . 68 Goodbye My F a n c y ...... ?4 Take Care of My Little G i r l ...... 77 Beach P a r t y ...... 80 Joy in the Morning .... 87 Conclusions I T T .... 93 III.' THE WORK OF MIKE NICHOLS . . 97 Who's Afraid of Virginia Wool f ? ...... 97 The Graduate...... I06 Catch-22 . T ...... 117 Carnal Knowledge ...... 122 Page IV. CURRENT TRENDS IN THE COLLEGE FILM ...... 133 Television: The Mass Medium 136 The Jimmy Stewart Show . , Call Her M o m ...... The College as Background . The Sterile Cuckoo .... 148i Love Story ...... 151 What»s Up Doc? ...... The College as Central Theme The Strawberry Statement . R . F. M. I Getting Straight ...... 165 172

Findings . . . 172 Validity . . . 180 Recommendations 182 APPENDIX A . . . . 184 B . . . . 190 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Vi LIST OF PLATES Plate Page I. The Adventure of the Absent-Minded Pr o f essor...... 23 II. The Freshman ...... 32 III. C o l l e g e ...... 39 IV. Horse Feathers ...... 50

V. Joy in the Morning ...... 86

VI. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? . . 96 VII. The Graduate...... 105 VIII. Catch-22 ...... II6 IX. Carnal Knowledge ...... 121 X. Sterile Cuckoo ...... l47

XI. Love Story...... I50

XII. What's UP3 D o c ? ...... 154 XIII. The Strawberry Statement ...... I58

XIV. R.P.M...... 161 XV. Getting Straight ...... l64 BELIEF SYSTEMS AND THE COLLEGE FILM

During a screening of Horse Feathers at The Ohio State University Film Society, I watched the Marx Brothers glee­ fully make fools of college deans, professors, and students. They attacked the traditional, institutionalized forms of college life, satirizing the highly-structured heirarchy involved in education, and pompousness and highly absurd rituals that seems to be a part of the college milieu. From the classroom to the football field, the Marxes did their best to ridicule the educational system. It struck me that Horse Feathers was a brilliant, inspired version of the image of college that has dominated practically all American films. To judge by the films I could remember, administrators were rigid, slightly absurd authoritarians; teachers were ineffectual pedants. I could remember few films in which students took their teachers or their studies very seriously. A number of critics and educators have expressed concern about the image of education in films. They claim that this image is distorted, unsympathetic, and unfavor­ able to the performance of education’s proper role in a 1 modern^ democratic society.^ They regret that so influ­ ential a mass medium does so little to show the vital role that education plays— or, at any rate, should play— in a democratic society. There has been no systematic attempt to study the image of education presented in American films or the exact nature of the implicit and explicit criticisms. The most ambitious study to date has been The Portrayal of Education in American Motion Pictures. 1911-1961. a University of Illinois doctoral dissertation by Jack SchwartzIn his study Mr. Schwartz analyzed some four hundred pictures dealing with education in general. As we would expect, he finds the treatment of education primarily negative. In most films, the school is presented as a highly conform­ ist environment, where deviant social and intellectual behavior is suppressed. Although some teachers are helpful and sympathetic, others are brutal and sadistic. Hiese

^Some examples of this type ,of criticism can be found in the following: Monika Kehoe, "Campus Confessions," School and Society, 48 (December 10, 1938), pp. 755-56; H.M. Lafferty, "Hollywood versus the School Teacher," School and Society, 62 (August 11, 1945)s PP. 92-94; Claude 6. Bowman, "The Professor in the Popular Magazines," The Journal of Higher Education, 9 (October, 1938), pp. 351-56; Gienn Dodds, ‘‘Does Fiction Libel the Teacher? The Nation's Schools, 42 (October, 1948), pp. 41-43; and E. Newbold Cooper, "College in the Movies," School and Society, 40 (November 17, 1934), pp. 664-65. 2jack Schwartz, The Portrayal of Education in American Motion Pictures, l931-l9ol (unpublished Ph.D. 3 films practically ignore scholastic achievement and con­ centrate, instead, on football games, proms, student pranks, romance, and the like. Mr. Schwartz's study is almost exclusively statistical. He tells us, for example, that of the teachers in American films have had at least one romantic relationship and that 10 ^ of these films include at least one school dance.3 His study is useful in indicating the general direction and emphasis of American films, but it provides no in depth analysis of important or typical films. It does not show us the philosophy and value systems of ad­ ministrators, teachers and students. It does not show, for example, what students in these films really believe in and why the formal curriculum of the school seems so irrelevant to them. It does not show how the school defines its own role and authority or what kind of attitude toward authority, tradition, and creativity the school tries to instill in its own students. Finally, it does not show whether the audience is being encouraged to react negatively or positively to a given ideal or custom. In this study I will a) examine several important American films dealing with the issues of higher educa­ tion; b) concentrate on the value systems of the students dissertation. Department of Communication, University of Illinois). 3lbid., pp. l66, 171. 4 as related to the value systems of college authorities and the institutions itself; and c) explore the relation be­ tween the individual and that large complex of pressures that may be loosely summarized as "authority": the respected thinkers of the past, those in authority today, all "normal" people, etc.

Method As a frame of reference to analyze coherently a man^s attitude toward authority, tradition, peer-pressure, originality, creativity, self-reliance, and the like, I will employ the four belief systems developed by O.J. Harvey.^ It is based on individual attitudes and values. Let us look briefly at the four systems and how they apply to individuals.5 A System-One individual has a simple cognitive struc­ ture in regard to domains of high involvement. He has a tendency toward more extreme, either-or, and good-bad judgements. There is a reliance upon status and power rather than upon information and expertise as guidelines to beliefs and judgments. There is an intolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty, expressed in higher scores on

^O.J. Harvey, "Belief Systems and Education: Some Implications for Change," The Affective Domain, National Special Media Institutes (Washington: Communication Services Corporation, 1970), pp. 67-96.

5a 11 material condensed from Harvey, pp. 70-72. 3 films practically ignore scholastic achievement and con­ centrate, instead, on football games, proms, student pranks, romance, and the like. Mr. Schvartz's study is almost exclusively statistical. He tells us, for example, that 54^ of the teachers in American films have had at least one romantic relationship and that 10$ at these films include at least one school dance.^ His study is useful in indicating the general direction and emgAasis of American films, but it provides no In depth analysis of isçortant or typical films. It does not show us the (Ailosophy and value systems of ad­ ministrators, teachers and students. It does not show, for exaiqsle, what students in these films really believe in and why the formal curriculum of the school seems so irrelevant to then. It does not show how the school defines its own role and authority or what kind of attitude toward authority, tradition, and creativity the school tries to instill in its own students. Finally, it does not show idiether the audience is being encouraged to react negatively or positively to a given ideal or custom. In this study I will a) examine several important American films dealing with the issues of higher educa­ tion; b) concentrate on the value systems of the students dissertation. Department of Communication, University of Illinois). 3lbid., pp. 1 6 6 , 171- 4 as related to the value systems of college authorities and the institutions itself; suid c) explore the relation be­ tween the individual and that large complex of pressures that may be loosely summarized as "authority": the respected thinkers of the past, those in authority today, all "normal" people, etc.

Method As a frame of reference to analyze coherently a man's attitude toward authoaggÉN^^S^icxi ^ peer-pressure, originality, the employ t h ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ v e l o p e d ud es Let us and they apply to i n d i v i ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ V A S y s t e pâ-On^^^^^^^^^^^^^imple cognitive struc­ ture in regard to d c ^ S S I H f ^ S ^ i involvement. He has a tendency toward more extreme, either-or, and good-bad judgements. There is a reliance upon status and power rather than upon information auid expertise as guidelines to beliefs and judgments. There is an intolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty, expressed in higher scores on

^O.J. Harvey, "Belief Systems and Education: Some Implicatioijis for Change," The Affective Domain, National Special Media Institutes (Washington: Gommunicaticxi Services Corporation, 1970), pp. 67-96.

5a i i >material condensed from Harvey, pp. 70-72. 5 measures of authoritarianism and dogmatism and in the ten­ dency to form judgments quickly of novel stimuli. There is a great need for cognitive consistency, together with a tendency toward negative arousal from the experience of inconsistency. While the System-One individual extols the virtues of being consistent in his beliefs, he is actually unknowingly more inconsistent than System-Two, Three, or Pour individuals, but at the same time experiences more discomfort when the inconsistency is made apparent to him. He has a greater inability to change set and hence greater rigidity in the solution of complex or changing problems. He has a greater insensitivity to subtle social cues in the environment and hence a greater susceptibility to obtrusive clues, even when they provide false leads. He has a poorer capacity to act in an "as-if" fashion— that is as if he were in the position of or held the beliefs of that person. He cannot act in terms of a make-believe or hypothetical situation. He holds opinions firmly and does not imagine that he might change them. He makes a higher score on the factor of dictatorialness as reflected in such behavior as high need for structure, low flexi­ bility, high rule orientation, high frequency of the use of unexplained rules, and low encouragement of individual responsibility and originality. He has a greater tendency toward trite and normative behavior and thus a lower tendency toward innovation ^ d creativity. He has a 6 greater tendency to form and generalize impressions of other people from highly incomplete information. Thus we see this individual as tradition-oriented, the follower of the "Right Way." The System-Two individual is only somewhat more differentiated and integrated than the System-One individual. There is a tendency on the part of the System-Two individuals to distrust, reject, and weigh negatively many of the cues, especially those relating to established custom and authority, which are used as posi­ tive guidelines and signs of validity by System-One indi­ viduals. He is the rebel who is anti-authority, who questions social values, but he is rigid and short-sighted and is often unable to envision the implications or effects of his revolt. He has a need for structure and authority, but resents and denies such need and rebels against it. Existing in a psychological void, he rebels against struc­ ture and authority while seeking it and wants to be close to others and dependent upon them while being rendered fearful and anxious by the potential control that might accompany such interpersonal closeness. Representatives of System-Three are less dogmatic, less pro-or-anti establishment, and less evaluative than individuals from either System-One or System-Two. At the same time, they are more concerned with interpersonal harmony, empathetic understanding, mutual dependencies. 7 and highly developed skills of interpersonal manipulation aimed at averting social isolation, aloneness, interper­ sonal rejection and failure when having to perform alone. They are very concerned with attitudes of peers, social acceptance, and standards of behavior prescribed by their particular reference group. They do not develop clearly delineated personal standards, so are in constant need of feedback from significant people in their environment in order to regulate their behavior to attain the acceptance and mutual dependency necessary to manipulate and control behavior of others. They need to be dependent upon others of "high status," and need to have others of "low status" dependent upon them. Low status people appear to be easier to manipulate under the guise of helpfulness. Fearful of facing a situation alone, where success would depend upon individual performance and/or personally derived criteria, System-Three individuals are extremely vulnerable to the threat of rejection, social isolation, and other social conditions that might prevent the existence or use of dependency relationships. System-Four people are characterized by high task orientation, information seeking, low dogmatism, creativity (in the sense of offering solutions to problems that are high in both novelty and appropriateness), openness to inputs from diverse sources, and have a high independence of judgment. They often work for intrinsic rather than 8 materialistic rewards, have a low need for structure, a high tolerance of ambiguity, have internal standards of conduct. They are independent but not negative, and have the capacity to act "as if". They have high self-esteem, can change set, and see ambiguity as trust and respect. Two instruments were developed specifically as measures of conceptual or belief systems by Harvey and his associates. The "This I Believe" Test, a semi-projective sentence completion test, has been used most extensively and successfully. The Conceptual Systems Test is an objective scale more recently developed and much less extensively used and validated.^ However, classifying individuals as representing one of the belief systems by use of the two tests provides results that parallel each other, and that are consistent for System-One, Two and Three, but not so closely for System-Four. The "This I Believe" Test is superior to the Conceptual Systems Test for identifying System-Four representatives because it is designed to be more sensitive to both novelty and inte­ gration of responses. Of course, we can't have a character on the screen sit down and take a "This I Believe" Test or the Conceptual Systems Test. However, we can examine how the character looks, what he does, and what he says— and apply qualitative judgments (very much like what

^ b i d ., pp. 72-73. 9 happens in real life) in order to understand his behavior. We can then isolate the behavioral aspects of the character and relate these aspects to one of Harvey*s systems. The same holds true with the image of a certain institution. Is it rigid, tradition bound, dependent on authority (System-One), or is it flexible, contemporary, and demo­ cratic (System-Four)? The belief systems provide a coherent set of criteria for classifying film characters and their relation to authority. We are also experimenting with this criteria in order to find, develop, and evaluate a method for applying a behavioral science approach to film analysis. Finally, after classifying institutions and charac­ ters according to belief systems, we can determine whether each is presented negatively or positively. We may see a System-One college in Horse Feathers where everything from academic tradition to football is ridiculed. On the other hand, in The Duke of Westpoint, the college is a System-One institution where everything from ivy-covered tradition to football is glorified. Likewise, a college may be thought of as a System-Four, with a very open, flexible, and creative environment. It may be treated either as positive, helping students achieve their full potential, or as negative, fostering Anti-American and radical beliefs. As I began to look at the wide range of college films from IS0 3 (the first known film dealing with college life) 10 to the present, three periods could be seen, each more deep and penetrating than the last. ïïiey roughly corres­ ponded to three periods of change in the film audience.

From 19035 The Professor of Drama, to 1942, The Male Animal, the majority of films were comedies. The themes of football successes, variety shows on campus, and student love problems made up the bulk of the films. An occa­ sional horror film included a mad professor who created monsters. During this period most of the audience had little direct experience with college. Film was the mass medium, and the primary audience was the working class and the uneducated. The elite of America attended college. This could explain why so many of the images of college life dealt with fantasy.

From 1 9 4 2, (The Male Animal), to 19 6 6, the comedies still occurred, but they dealt with problems on a more serious level. The themes of faculty-student relations, academic freedom, and desirability of the academic envir­ onment could be seen in such films as Take Care of My Little

Girl (19 5 1) and Good-by My Fancy (I9 5I), but the academic characters remained stereotypes and pat solutions were offered to the problems. The mad professor pictures and light hearted comedies continued as well. The audience of the forties, fifties, and early sixties had become some­ what more involved in college life. If not directly involved, most people had a son or daughter attending 11 college or planning to, and a college degree was sought as a union card and ideal for the successful American young person. So more serious concerns are mirrored in the college film. With Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, 1$66, Mike Nichols probed more deeply and more disturbingly into the real meaning of higher learning. All of his subsequent films. The Graduate (19 6 7), Catch-22 (1970), and Carnal Knowledge (1971)a deal with a sub-culture for whom college experiences have been a major factor, whether for good or ill. All but one. Catch-22, deal specifically with a college milieu. His protagonists are multi-dimensional characters, not academic stereotypes, and their lives raise problems for which there are no easy solutions. Television has taken over the role of the mass media in society, and today's films for the most part, are aimed at a fragmented, discriminating audience. The audience for films is primarily under thirty, and the majority of this audience is attending or has attended college. So Nichols' films are aimed at an audience that is knowledge­ able and sophisticated about college and the reflections from his pictures are most relevant to realistic higher education, and mark a major change in the college film. In this study, representative college films dealing with higher learning will be analyzed in terms of Harvey's four belief systems. The image of the institutions and 12 the characters in the films will be analyzed as to how each fits one of the belief systems. The new ground explored by Mike Nichols in the last few years will be analyzed fully in a detailed study of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Catch-22, and Carnal Knowledge. The belief systems in Nichols * films will then be compared and contrasted with those in the earlier films and those in the works of appropriate contemporary film makers. In order to analyze each film with some consistency, I have devised a chart for each film. On the vertical axis of the chart are listed the institutiœis, the student body, the faculty, the administration, the protagonist's family,7 the antagonist's family, and "other," for other characters. On the horizontal axis are the numbers from one to four, each representing one of the belief systems. Number one stands for System-One, etc. Each of the vertical items will then be assigned to a belief system based upon characteristics seen in the films. Notes will be made in boxes formed by the chart from which inferences and judgments may then be made. This study is basically qualitative analysis. As Berelson remarks:

7see Appendix II for all charts. 13 Qualitative analysis is usually quasi-quantitative, using looser counting techniques, less precisely de­ fined units of analysis, more flexible categories— in effect sacrificing rigidity of analysis to permit the encompassing of more complex issues.° We use the chart, then, as an empirical frame in which to see how meaningful patterns emerge. The material can be validated by screening the film. I have seen all the films several times, and have ccai- sulted reviews to confirm my percepticms. Finally, it must be emphasized that this is an empirically descriptive study in analyzing film through a behavioral science approach, which has not, to my knowl­ edge, been applied before to the study of this medium.

Criteria My criteria for selecting the pictures are as follows: 1. The film is a fictional, dramatic presentation. This excluded the genre of "educational" or documentary films. 2. The film was produced and released by the commer­ cial American motion picture or television industry during the period March 1, 1903 to March 1, 1972. Only films produced in the United States in English were considered. 3. One or both of the following types of characters

^Bernard Berelson, Content Analysis in Communication Research (Glencoe, Free Press, 1951), p. 187. 14 appeared in the a. A teacher, professor, or instructor at a college or university; or the dean or administrator who administered.such an institution or part of it. Included here are personnel at general, or specialized, educaticmal institutions (for example, professional, military, or religious schools). Persons temporarily separated from the educational institution, for example staff on vacation or military service, who presumably expected to return to their professional occupations, are also included. b. A student whose major activity in the film is directly connected with an institution of higher learning. This activity includes such things as sports, plays, shows, and other college-sponsored or college- associated entertainment activities, study, academic research, active membership or student groups, and teacher- student relationships. 4. The films are benchmarks in the history of the college film; that is, those films which started or were a major picture in films of type (college musicals, for example), or those films which had special significance because of dramatic changes that occurred in form, or cwtent, or both.

9with the exception of Catch-22. CHAPTER II

SIGNIFICANT PRE-NICHOLS FILMS

In 1895 (the date of the first public showing of a motion picture in a Paris cafe by the Lumiere Brothers)^, the first film makers were just learning how to use film. They took their cameras into the streets and photographed what was going on there. A film maker had few controls: he decided where to set the camera up and when to turn it off and on. There was little conscious use of shots, an­ gles, movement, and the like. The filmic conventions had to be developed. The film maker had to learn to tell a story on film. But even in early forms, there were foreshadowings of things to come. Photographing prominent figures, like the President, was a forerunner of the newsreel. Filming events on the street was a forerunner of the documentary. And filming vaudeville skits was a forerunner of the fiction film. All of these forms can be related to the college

^Arthur Knight, The Liveliest Art (New York: The New American Library, 1957), p. ij.

15 16 film. There were newsreels of a prince watching a college football game; a documentary of life on campus; a comedy about a pillow fight in a dormitory.^ According to Niver, between I895 and 1912, only five fiction films dealing with higher education were registered with the Library of Con­ gress. Four were comedies; one was a drama.3 The first was called The Professor of Drama, and was released on June 11, 1903. It was less than a minute long. It showed the attempted subtleties of a professor of drama, who, by the devious approach of instructing one of his young female pupils how to gesture, is caught in the act of embracing her. He is unceremoniously thrown out of the window by the head of the school. The film is a comedy. Even here, with the first known fiction film involving higher education as its setting, we find a conflict of belief systems. The professor is not doing his traditional System-One job; he is trying to seduce a student. From what little we know of his behavior, he fits most easily into System-Three, a manipulator. The head of the school and the pupils fit System-One. They are traditional. The Headmaster literally throws the non-conformist out of the school. The image of the professor in this film is negative. He is

%emp Niver, Motion Pictures from the Library of Congress Paper Print Collection, 1094-1912 (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: The University of California Press, I9 6 7). 3lbid. 17 not concerned with teaching the student, but satisfying his personal desires. The head of the school, however, reinforces the correct way of behavior, and the pupils seem unable to respond in any other way. November 1903^ The Professor was released. Again a comedy, a bit over a minute in length, it begins in a college hallway. A professor, wearing mortarboard and gown, stands in front of a door in a brick wall. A sign on the door reads, "Professor J. Ink Will Receive His Classes At . . . " The professor fills in "7 p.m." and leaves. Two male students appear, and with much laughing, remove the letter "c" from "classes," and then leave. Several young women arrive and seem to resent the sign. The last scene shows the professor returning. When he notices the sign, he rubs out the "1" and stamps off in high glee. In this film, we also have a conflict of belief systems. However, here the professor seems to be a tra­ ditional System-One type, and the male students, who are playing pranks, seem System-Four : clever in their thinking. The girls seem System-One, as they are offended by the sign. The professor has the last laugh, however, and is able to play the students* game. If it weren't for his mortarboard and gown, he might be a System-Four. The image of the educator seems to be a bit more positive here, and the image of the students a bit more 18 negative. They play tricks on their professor. The pro­ fessor is reduced to the status of the students, however, when he changes the sign himself, and plays their game. In the two films, we have the inuendo that professors are interested sexually in their women students, which is not the usual ethical morality associated with the proper academic environment. Here, as well, the System-Ones vs. the System-Pours. Fight in the Dormitory (1904), is a comedy about a minute in length. The picture begins in a girls' dormi­ tory, where four girls are asleep, two to a bed. One wakes, takes her pillow, and begins hitting her companion with it. As the film continues, all four girls become involved in the pillow fight until feathers are flying everywhere. A tall woman housemother in a nightcap and nightgown enters through the door and attempts to stop the fight. She is successful only in directing their enthusiasm at herself, and, as the film ends, the four girls are hitting the housemother with their pillows. Here, the scholarly approach to academic life is missing entirely. The spokeswoman for traditional System- One order, the housemother, is in conflict with the girls, who end up hitting her and reducing her pompous authority. They are definitely anti-authority, but we don't have enough information to place them in either System-Two or System-Four. In this film, too, we see a contrast between 19 belief systems, with education typified as authoritarian and negative. The educator must, according to correct behavior, stop the fun, and is trounced for it. In The Yale Laundry, a ten-minute comedy released in

1 9 0 7, a bunch of college boys play pranks on their profes­ sors by mixing up bundles of laundry. The traditional System-One professors are put down by the clever System- Four boys. The image of the educator is a bit negative here, as the professors act confused and are ineffective, and audience sympathy is directed to the boys. The first drama with a college setting was released in 1 9 0 8. Classmates is a ten-minute assemblage of pictures of a 1903 football game between two major universities, a 1902 welcoming address at another university, and a sequence of scenes of college life. The scenes show a cheering section outside a football dressing room, dancing after the game, and conversations in palm-lined rooms. There are no scenes showing serious study. One young man attempts to force his attentions upon a young lady who knocks him down the stairs. Another young man enters the scene and they fight. The film ends as the fight ends. Although the film does not have at the core of its conflict a difference in belief systems, the image of college is quite revealing. Football is introduced as the major pastime, along with dancing and romance. We see 20 the college as a setting not for learning, but for playing, and it functions only as a backdrop for the simple story.

In 19 1 4, two serious dramas dealing with college were released. The first was Classmates, the same title as the

1908 film, directed by James Kirkwood and supervised by D.W. Griffith. It starred Blanche Sweet, Henry B. Walthall, Lionel Barrymore, Marshall Neilan, Gertrude Robinson, and Thomas Jefferscxi. It ran aboiit forty-five minutes. The story is based on a triangle. A weak-charactered, but wealthy, young man and a poor-but-honest young man both love the same beautiful girl. The poor man wins an appoint­ ment to West Point, and a year later, the wealthy boy follows him. The wealthy boy attempts to discredit the poor boy’s father. A fight between the boys results in the dishonorable discharge of both. The picture ends with the exposure of the true character of the jealous, wealthy boy, while the poor boy is cleared of disgrace and weds the heroine. The image of the institution. West Point, is seen as good in this film. Possibly this positive image (like in the later 1936 film The Duke of Westpoint) is because of the university’s military or "patriotic" nature. At any rate, it is a System-One, traditional institution. The conflict does arise between differences between belief systems of the protagonist and antagonist. The protagonist 2 1 is seen as a good System-One boy, and the antagonist, a negative and sneaky System-Three manipulator. The System- Ones win out in the end. Strongheart (1914), also directed by James Kirkwood and supervised by D.W. Griffith, included many of the players from Classmates (Lionel Barrymore, Blanche Sweet, Henry B. Walthall, and Gertrude Robinson). It was about a half-hour in length. Most of the film was photographed around Columbia University in New York City. The story concerns a reservation Indian who is studying at Columbia so he can better help his tribe. There is intrigue when the star of the football team is suspected of stealing football plays and giving them to the opposition. The Indian takes the blame so that the star can play and win, knowing that the true criminal will be discovered after the game. After the game is won, the Indian sadly realizes that he cannot be part of this new life. He has proposed to a co-ed who accepts him, but his tribe refuses to have anything to do with her, and "white people" will not tolerate him. In this film, the Indian and his girl are System-Pours. They are abstract and flexible in their thinking. Columbia, the tribe, and the "white people" are all traditional System-Ones. Columbia is most tolerant in accepting an Indian for study. It upholds correct behavior, but what is important to the school is winning the football game. 2 2 The Indian is even caught up in this, and takes the blame for a while, letting Columbia win the game. The tribe and "white people" are very concrete in their thinking. They are bigoted, and can't accept people if they belong to different "races." The antagonist is the football star, a System-Three evil manipulator who is punished in the end. In this film there is clearly a conflict between belief systems. The System-Four people are in opposition to the System-Three antagonist and the bigoted System-One sub-cultures. Although the university is System-One, the System-Four people function within it and are not in direct opposition to it. It is a "good" System-One instead of an "evil" System-One, a condition of various institutions found in many of the later films of D.W. Griffith. Football is emphasized rather than study, however, continuing the popular notion that a university is more play than work. 24

The Adventure of the Absent-Minded Professor

The Adventure of the Absent-Minded Professor was released on July 20, 1914, by the Edison Company. It was directed by Charles M. Seay and was about ten minutes long.^ It was the seventh in a series of films about Octavius, an amateur detective. Octavius (Barry 0 ’Moore) receives a letter from Professor Harper (William West) asking him to come to the Professor’s country residence and find out who has been stealing from the Professor’s collection of antiques. Warning the Professor to say nothing, Octavius comes to the house and waits in the room with the antiques. While he is waiting, the Professor receives a telegram reminding him of an important speaking engagement in the city in the evening. In the excited hurry of departure, the Professor forgets that Octavius is present. Octavius sees a woman (Bliss Milford) in a kimona enter the room and steal some antiques. The butler (Richard Tucker) enters, with part of the household staff, and believing Octavius to be the thief, locks him in the cellar. The Professor arrives home the next morning and frees him. When Octavius asks who owns the kimona he describes, he is told by the Professor

^"The Adventure of the Absent-Minded Professor," The Edison Kinetogram, 10 (July, 1914), p. 26. 25 that his daughter does. However, it was not the daughter, but the second maid, who borrowed the kimona. When the staff is summoned before Octavius, he recognizes the maid, and thinking she is the Professor’s daughter, accuses her of the crime. The real daughter (Margaret McWade) enters at this moment and the confusion is over. The characters are necessarily very stereotyped in this short one-reeler, but still show belief systems. The Professor, although well-off financially, is none the less the educator. He wears a formal dark suit. He has lots of books, and collects antiques. He is absent- minded. He forgets his lecture in the city and also that Octavius is in the room with the antiques. And he is not very knowledgeable about practical matters. He must hire someone else to solve a relatively simple crime. Because of his traditional role, he can be classified as a System- One type individual. Octavius is a System-Four individual. He is creative and resourceful, and thinks before acting. The second maid is System-Two. Here she rebels against normal conventions and steals some antiques. She certainly doesn’t realize the consequences of her rebellion. She is bound to get caught if she keeps on stealing night after night. The rest of the players, including the butler (who acts before he thinks by throwing Octavius in the cellar without finding out more about him), are traditional System-One 26 types, and act according to convention. So, in this sketchy world we are presented with in this film, we see, first, that drama occurs between people of different belief systems, Octavius, the protagonist, is a System-Four individual getting along well in a System- One environment. The second maid, the antagonist, is a System-Two. Second, in this film, the professor is absent- minded and stupid in practical matters, creating a negative image of the educator. Octavius, on the other hand, is smart, not in terms of book learning, but in terms of common sense and abstract thinking. 27

Those College Girls

Those College Girls was released in late Spring, I9 1 5, by Mutual. It was produced by Keystone. Up until this time, most of Keystone's output had been one-reelers with some of these even "split reels," which had two subject units to a reel.5 But feature pictures had caught on (this was also the year that D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation was released), and the desire of the movie-going public for longer and more elaborate films was very evident. Those College Girls is a two-reeler characteristic of the changes that were beginning to come about at Keystone; larger and more important casts, better planned stories, and considerably improved production values. The film is typical of the image of the college milieu during the first decade of the Twentieth Century. The story takes place in a college dormitory for girls. The college janitor (Charlie Murray) and his "ever-working" wife (Polly Moran) live in the basement.6 The headmistress lives on the first floor; and the girls on the second floor. A young man working at the dormitory (Slim Summerville) loves Dina, one of the co-eds, and wants

5a reel is approximately ten minutes in length. Material in quotation marks taken from the titles of the films. 2 8 to marrÿ her. In the first scene we see the janitor snoozing and his wife working hard baking a pie. The janitor wakes up, goes to the bedroom and plays a flute. His wife forgets her pie in the oven. When the oven starts to smoke, the janitor takes a fire hose from the wall and squirts water on it. Slim and Dina are introduced. They and the girls decide to play a trick on the janitor. They call him through a speaker tube. When he answers, they pour water down the tube. Not to be outdone, the janitor squirts the hose up the tube, but this time it is the curious headmistress who gets doused. And so it goes. Slim gives Dina a note telling her to meet him by the win­ dow in the hall at 11:00 p.m. so they can run away and get married. The girls discover this and find Slim snoozing there waiting for Dina. They paint his face black. Dina doesn’t recognize him and thinks that he is a prowler. A chase ensues, involving all. Finally Slim is recognized and is sent from the house; the janitor and his wife (who were in the chase as part of a sub-plot: the wife trying to shoot the janitor for playing around with the girls) are sent back downstairs; and at the end of the film Dina is sent to her room. Let us examine now each aspect of the film in terms of Harvey’s belief systems. The institution itself is very traditional and can fit System-One. Men are not allowed. Girls must behave properly. There is a stern 29 headmistress to run the place. It is decked out as a typi­ cal college dorm with pennants on the wall. Books lie on the table but are not opened. The college girls themselves also fit System-One. They all dress alike, and act alike . . . young college girls who play pranks, but follow the system. For instance, when the Janitor enters their room they are dressed in pajamas, and they very modestly hide behind a screen so he will not see them. We don't see any faculty members except the stern headmistress. She is dressed in black, keeps order, and tucks the girls in at night. She orders Slim out of the house, and is, as the educational authority figure, the one who gets knocked around the most: hit with a broom, a pillow, a mop, a water spray, etc. She also conforms to System-One. Like the girls, she depends on authority, is tradition-bound, rigid and inflexible, and makes snap Judgments. A good example of her snap Judgment ship is when the Janitor, chasing the black-faced Slim, runs into the girls* bedroom. The headmistress thinks he is there for other reasons and doesn't stop to investigate before attacking him. The Janitor's wife is also System-One. She is hard working, has a sign on the wall saying "God Bless Our Home," and makes a snap Judgment about her husband carry­ ing on with Dina. Slim and Dina fit System-Four. Slim wants Dina and works out a way to have her. Dina agrees 30 with him. Both are high task-oriented, but not negative, as System-Two people usually are. He works within the system, as a bell-boy, and she, as a typical college girl. They both have internal standards of conduct, and are independent. The janitor is most like System-Three in terms of his manipulative orientation. He sneaks out and goes to a party, participates in pranks, and manipulates his wife, the headmistress, and the girls. He sneaks out on his wife, yet reassures her; he acts like a sober janitor, yet plays pranks ; and he pretends to be likeable and fun-loving with the girls to really satisfy his sexual interests. So what we see in this film is that the image of the institution, the administrator, and the students all conform to System-One. The hero and heroine are System- Four, and the "comic relief" (if one is needed in this film) is System-Three. The protagonists are Slim and his girl. But the antagonists are not so much the prank play­ ing System-One girls who paint Slim*s face black, but the products of the system of education itself, which requires that lovers, in order to be together, leave and get married. That is the crux of the conflict . . . between System- Ctoes and Systems-Three and Pour. In the main plot. Slim and Dina want to be together, but the system won*t let them unless they resort to elaborate (and creative) means. 3 1 In the sub-plot, the traditional concept of marriage (System-One), as personified by the janitor's wife, is set opposite a manipulative husband who likes the girls and wants to be liked by them (System-Three). So we see in this early film three important aspects. One, the image of the college and its surrounding milieu is basically System-One. Two, the conflict in the film (and much of the comedy) arises between System-One behavior versus System-Four behavior. We have a System-Four hero and heroine in a System-One environment. Three, educational authority, in the person of the headmistress, is ridiculed, although it wins out in the end. PLATE II The Freshman 33

The Freshman

The Freshman was produced by the Harold Lloyd Corporation and was released in 1925 by Pathe Pictures. It stars Harold Lloyd as Harold Lamb^ a freshman in college. The film was directed by Sam Taylor and Fred Newmeyer. The story revolves around Harold Lamb^ who wants to be a success at college. Success at college does not mean academic success. He has seen a film called The College Hero and has imitated everything about the hero in that film. Harold also wants to be like his real-life idol, Chet Trask (James Anderson), the most popular man on canç>us, Trask is captain of the football team. The film is a series of episodes about Harold trying to be popular: buying ice-cream for everyone, going out for the football team, being the host at the fall dance. It is a very amusing picture and reveals much about the popular image of college life in the middle Twenties. As seen in the film, the institution is primarily a place for fun and sports. We can see this from the opening credits. We see a pennant in the title, and then the credits are superimposed over scenes of a college football stadium. We see pennants waving from the top of the stadium and a clock in the background. The stadium is huge and imposing, and it dominates the scene. The first title of the picture asks, "Do you remember 34 those boyhood days when going to college was greater than going to Congress, and you’d rather be right tackle than President?” Tate College is later called, "A football stadium with a college attached,” We see a pleasant campus with buildings around a court. A cannon is in the middle of the court; there are luxuriant palm trees. However, there are no scenes of a class in progress or of students studying. They are either carrying their books, or the books lie closed on tables. The scenes take place pri­ marily in a campus auditorium, a boarding house, a party room, a stadium and the practice field. So the institution conforms to System-One. Likewise the student body is also System-One. They all dress alike, follow a leader, Chet Trask, and act "right.” They ridicule any deviation from the normal college behavior as represented in the film. The faculty and administration are also System-One. The football coach is a tough leader, who talks of fighting spirit. He is the stereotype of the hard-bitten coach. The dean is dignified and stuffy and dresses in black. The title about him reads, "He was so dignified he never married for fear his wife would call him by his first name." He wears a black hat and a black suit, and affects a lorgnette. Chet Trask, the college hero, is also System-One. He knows his way around and is the typical leader. The college belle (Hazel Keener) follows whoever the leader is. Likewise, 35 the parents of both our hero, Harold, and our heroine, Peggy (Jobyna Ralston) are System-One. Harold*s mother and father are middle-class, live in a conventional- traditional home, and listen to the radio a lot. They worry about their son's success at college. Peggy's mother runs a correct boarding house and is a hard worker. The film's antagonist, called in fact, "the college cad" (Bruce Benedict), is a peril to the freshman. He is a bully and makes fun of any differences he can find. He has a friend who follows his lead. The cad is very much System-One. Anyone who doesn't conform completely (and this means Harold) is at his mercy. Harold wants to be a System-One type person. And he tries everything possible to become one. But he is a System-Three, in terms of his manipulative qualities and his dependency on high status sources. He bases his decisions cxi their effects on others. He is very concerned with attitudes of peers, social acceptance, and standards of behavior prescribed by his reference group. He is extremely vulnerable to the threat of rejecti<%i. In fact, he is almost a prototype System-Three, meeting most of the criteria. He is high-task oriented, which is characteristic of System-Four, but this ambitiousness is related to his manipulative goals. Let's look at a few examples of this. Harold does a little dance before he shakes hands (he learned this 36 jig from The College Hero movie), He treats people con­ stantly to ice-cream. He spends money hosting the fall frolic dance. He goes out for the football team. He even manipulates Peggy into staying with him a little while longer in his room, by tearing off buttons on his sweater when she isn't looking so she will have to stay and sew them back on. Peggy is a System-Four. She is high task-oriented (works in the boarding house), seeks information about Harold Instead of ridiculing him, has internal standards of conduct, and sees Harold for what he really is. She, in fact, tells Harold to be himself, and not to try to conform to peer values. Harold doesn't listen. Although she works within the traditional environment and has echoes of System-One (a title says "She is the kind of girl your mother must have been"), she is clearly an independent thinker and doer, characteristic of System-Four. Harold's friend, a tailor (Joseph Harrington) also works within the traditional environment at a respected profession and has a wife and child. However, he is very creative in terms of helping Harold with some loosely-sewed clothes at the fall frolic dance. He is unconventional in these ideas and seems to be a System-Four individual. So Harold goes through the film dressing the way he thinks college students should dress and acting as he thinks they should act. .He does succeed in winning the 37 football game for the school at the end (through a series of mishaps) and afterwards the students at the college now imitate him. They are not a very independent thinking lot. Harold says, throughout the film, ”l*m just a regular fellow, step right up and call me Speedy.” Note here the emphasis on the word "regular." The idea reflected in the film is to conform to the status quo— a System-One ideal. As in Those College Girls, we have an environment which is System-One, and a hero, heroine, and hero's friend who are System-Three and Pour. The conflict and comedy arise from these differences, but Harold himself now has an antagonist, the college cad. The cad, a person­ ification of System-One in the worst sense, is out to get Harold because Harold is unlike everyone else. Also, like Those College Girls, the emphasis is not on the academic side of college, but on the parties and pranks. In The Freshman, we see sports emerging as the dominant college activity. No teachers are seen, and the dean and the football coach conform to popular stereotypes. They are one-dimensional (dean is stuffy, coach is tough). Unlike Those College Girls, however, the educational authorities are not ridiculed (although the Dean's hat is crushed and his car stolen). It is simply that everyone pokes fun at behavior that does not conform to the status-quo. The comedy, in fact, reinforces the existing System-One belief. 3 8 The audience is glad when Harold makes the football team, is imitated, and becomes the most popular man on campus. In this process he loses his System-Three identity and becomes a System-One. However, the film makers save us from this completely. After Harold wins the game and gets a note from Peggy saying she loves him, he leans on a shower handle and is doused with water. Thus, his original image is preserved. The audience of the Twenties could identify with Lloyd. They saw in him a champion of the middle class, striving to be the best and conform to the social system. They laughed at his weaknesses as they could laugh at their own. When I showed this film to a group of contemporary college students, they laughed a bit, but were stunned at what Lloyd considered important values. As we shall see, the values reflected in the Lloyd film on college life are radically different from the values reflected in contem­ porary films. PLATE III 39 College 4 0

College

Following in Lloyd*s footsteps, and in the footsteps of the American theatrical film industry (a successful film spawns a cycle of others like it), Buster Keaton made College in 1927. It was released by United Artists and was directed by James W. Horne. It tells the story of Ronald (Buster Keaton), a weak but brilliant high school student, who goes to college and tries to become an athlete for his girl Mary (Ann Cornwall), who said to him, "Anyone prefers an athlete to a weak-kneed teacher»s pet." The film revolves around his problems with becoming an athlete ■ and working his way through college. Because this is a complex film in terms of the belief systems, I am going to first describe it scene by scene. The first scene takes place at a high school gradu­ ation. The title sets the mood and expresses a feeling about college: "High school graduation day— where the next step is either go to college or go to work." This inçlies, of course, that college is not work, and the opposite of work is play. Mary Haines, unlike Peggy in The Freshman, is not "the kind of girl your mother must have been," but is instead, "winner of every popularity contest in which the boys were allowed to vote." Mary and Ronald are gradu­ ating, along with Jeff Brown (Harold Goodwin), a "star athlete," whom the principal of the high school says should 4 1 graduate since he's been in school for seven years. The principal says to Mary, "l know you're going to be as pop­ ular at college as you are here.” Ronald is introduced as the most brilliant scholar. He is given a medal and accepts a new suit too small for him. The other students laugh, but Mary claps. Ronald then makes a speech on the curse of athletics. He says, "The secret of getting a medal like mine is books, not sports. The student who wastes his time on athletics rather than study shows only ignorance. Future generations depend upon brains and not upon jumping the discus or throwing the javelin." All leave the auditorium but his mother. (Florence Turner) and the teachers. Mary tells him his speech is ridiculous. She says, "When you change your mind about athletics, then. I'll change my mind about you." Ronald decides to go to Claytcxi, the college Mary is attending, and work his way through. He packs books on how to play football, baseball, and other sports. He is bound and determined to win Mary. He shows up in a beanie and ski sweater, but is not as outrageously dressed as Lloyd was. Mary's comment is, "Well, if it isn't the student prince." The room that Ronald enters is decorated with highway signs on the walls and clever slogans, "What, no beans?" Dean Edwards (Snitz Edwards) enters. He is small in stature, dressed in a formal black suit and tie and has his hair parted in the middle. He tells Ronald 42 that the principal of Ronald's school wrote to him saying that he hopes, "A boy like you can make this athlete- infested college a seat of learning once more." As seme athletes enter the room, the Dean says to them, "You boys will do well to follow the example of this young scholar." Ronald goes to work at an ice-cream parlor and makes a mess of it trying to imitate a waiter who acts like a Juggler. He tries out for baseball, but doesn't do well. He then paints his face black and becomes a "colored" waiter at a restaurant.? After this, Ronald tries out for track and related sports, but makes a mess of these also. Jeff, watching this, calls Ronald a campus clown, but Mary defends him, "I admire his spirit, at least he is trying." The stadium where this takes place is gigantic. A title flashes on the screen, "A call to the Dean's office meant only one thing, grief." Ronald goes into a typical Dean's office. However, the Dean is so small that he is dwarfed by his desk and the huge room. The Dean tells Ronald that he has failed miserably in his studies, and that he knows the reason why. The Dean has seen Ronald trying out for sports, Ronald says, "I took up

?It is interesting to note the image of the black stereotype in this film concerning the reflections of a society's beliefs. Ronald shuffles, a black woman eyes him boldly, and he is chased by some blacks with a cleaver and and a knife when it is discovered that he is white. 43 athletics because the girl I love thinks I*m a weakling. I love her and would do anything to please her.” The Dean says, "l understand, my boy. The same thing happened to me, but I was stubborn. That's why I'm a bachelor." The Dean orders the coach (Carl Harbaugh) to make Ronald coxswain of the rowing crew. ”)(y request is final," he adds. After Ronald and the coach leave, the Dean takes out a picture of a large, although attractive, woman and begins to cry. The coach calls Ronald a mama's boy and Little Lord Pauntleroy, and has a crew member slip him a powder in a drink. But Ronald dunks a cracker in the wrong drink and it is the regular coxswain who drinks the fixed poticai and falls asleep. Ronald is coxswain and, led on by visions of Mary, guides the team to victory. During the race, the Dean jumps up and down and clasps his hands in an effeminate gesture. Meanwhile, Jeff, who has been expelled, traps Mary in her dorm room. When she tells him that she will be expelled if a boy is found in her room, he answers, "That's what I want, you to go with me. I'm going to stay here until we are discovered; then you might change your mind about marrying me." Mary's dorm room is decorated with pennants and dolls and under one of the dolls is a telephone. She calls the boat house and reaches Ronald. He dashes to her rescue. Motivated now, he leaps over hedges, and pole-vaults into her room with a clothes pole, very much the athlete. Jeff is chased out the window, and as Ronald holds Mary in his arms to comfort her, the Dean and the housemother enter. The housemother is a huge woman, dressed in black. The Dean says, "Young lady, do you know what this means?" "Yes," answers Mary, "It means we are going to get married." Ronald looks at her, takes her in his arms and carries her out the window. The Dean and Headmistress look at each other, shocked. Ronald takes Mary to church, there is a dissolve and we see them in their home with children. After another dissolve, we see them as old people, sitting in front of a fire. Another dissolve shows two graves side by side. The picture ends. The institution, Clayton College, is the traditional stereotyped image of a college. Like Tate College of The Freshman, it is "athlete-infested." Likewise the student body is traditional, as is the coach, the antagonist Jeff Brown, and Harold * s mother. However, the comparison stops there. Unlike Harold Lloyd, who is a System-Three type manip­ ulator who desires to be liked and accepted by the others, Ronald, at the beginning of the film, already has an identity and seems happy with it. He is a brilliant scholar (although ridiculed for this and his suit that doesn't fit), but he fits the System-One category. He is studious, as 45 the principal of the high school, the Dean, and the other teachers. However, the problem arises when Ronald changes his direction and tries to become an athlete. One problem, of course, is his willingness to do whatever his girl wants him to do. This places him partly in System-Three and partly in System-One. System-One people may be very ab­ stract in their behavior when high involvement is not present. However, Ronald is very involved with Mary, so then has a blind spot. Also he depends upon her authority, which is a System-Three characteristic. He has been called a mama»s boy, and we have seen in the film an overprotec- tive mother. She stays in the auditorium and applauds while most everyone else leaves and she guides Ronald home. This type of mother, according to Harvey, often produces a System-Three individual. But basically, except for following the wishes of his girl, he is a System-One turned System-Three. Note, at the end of the film, when he gets Mary, he again becomes System-One. The scenes are the most traditional stereotypes we can have. After their church wedding (no elopement here, which in the Twenties was a more negative way of getting married than in a church), we find Ronald and Mary in their living room at home. It is a conventional living room of the Twenties. Mary is sewing and Harold is reading the paper while smoking a pipe. There is a table with books on it. A baby is in a basket on the floor. And their two boys are reading the ccanic 4 6 strips.- When we see Ronald and Mary in old age, they are sitting in front of a fireplace. She is reading and he is smoking. He has an a smoking jacket, she a shawl and robe. Both have white hair. So Ronald could have avoided difficulty if he had re­ mained a studious System-One and had not become a System- Three manipulator. However, we note that if he had re­ mained System-One, he may have ended up like the Dean, an unhappy bachelor. So, the film tells the Twenties* audiences, it may be necessary to manipulate at times to achieve what you want. Mary*s character, of course, remains System-One throughout. She is popular, does the right things, and accepts Ronald only after his heroic (and athletic) deeds of winning the boat race and chasing away Jeff. She went so far as admiring Ronald *s spirit before, but the last shot we see of her before she is locked in her room is one where she looks at Ronald practicing the pole vault and shakes her head "no." Dean Edwards is the most interesting character in the film. He, like Ronald, appears as a System-One. But when he learns that Ronald has a problem with a woman similar to one he once had in his past, he also becomes a System- Three manipulator and orders Ronald onto the boat team. At the end of the film he has returned to his System-One status. He is stern when he finds Ronald in Mary's room. 47 and shocked that they leave together. So we basically have a System-One environment. The conflict and comedy in this film arise when System-One people become System-lhree and get out of line. The film ends reassuringly, however, for everyone gets back in line. It is interesting that one can be studious or athletic and still have a System-One orientation. The college milieu is indeed System-One. People conform to traditional, ex­ ternal standards of conduct, and the drama or comedy arises when a System-Three or System-Four individual tries to operate within the System-One setting. The image of education comes off as expected for the Twenties, Ronald and Mary must leave the school in order to get married. The Dean is small, unhappy, and effeminate. Scholarly activity is made fun of, and athletics honored. College is considered play and not work, and the images are of unopened books and cheering co-eds. When people work, they usually do it outside of the college campus in order to be able to afford to remain in school. This is the image one would expect since the mass media reflects the values and mores of the majority. Some occupations seen in films seem to have been pro­ tected through the years. The physician is a good example of this.® Doctors have always been “sacred cows,“ so to

%)r. Alfred Clarke, in a seminar on the Photographic 4 8 speak. In general, nothing a doctor did in a film was bad (except in rare cases, like the sadistic doctor in Kings Row or the mad scientist in the horror films). Now no profession seems to be protected. Even doctors are now lampocxied in such recent films as Mash, Hospital, and Such Good Friends. Teachers in film have never been protected. One reason for this is perhaps a general distrust of any sort of unusual intelligence, reflected by the popular media as images designed to ridicule or trivialize it; and that, conversely, they have tended to stress the importance and social desirability of such adaptive techniques as are thought to be commonplace rather than unusual— "horse sense," for instance.^ Thus, those in education who are thought to be threatening because of intelligence are ridiculed in order to bring them down to the level of the common people. This ridicule of educators can clearly be seen in the college related films of the Teens and the Twenties. These films must have been reassuring to their audiences. They say, "stay in line, be a System-One." College was

Image and Society. The Ohio State University, 1972. ^Martin Maloney, "Mass Communications Research in Radio, Television, and Film," An Introduction to Graduate Study in Speech and Theatre, ed. Clyde W. Dow (East Lauising: Michigan state University Press, 196I), p. 326. 49 also an elitist activity in the Twenties, so the films spoke to the common people by saying, "You are right if you didn’t go to college. Scholarly education is stupid and all you missed was fun and games." Even Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton were reassuring. Like Mr. McGoo of the cartoons today, when they got out of line, they were usually protected by divine providence (Ronald was saved from drinking the spiked drink, Harold’s providential suc­ cess in winning the football game). The college world created on the screen reflected the popular notions about college in the Twenties and reassured the masses who were not usually directly involved with higher education by reinforcing widely-held stereotyped beliefs about academic life. PLATE IV Horse Feathers 51

Horse Feathers

In the Twenties there were indirect, negative re­ flections of higher education on the screen. Scholarly work was either not present or ridiculed. The college was a place for athletics and romance. In the Thirties, we suddenly find a direct attack on the popular notions of education in the Marx Brothers* film. Horse Feathers. The Marx Brothers satirized and burlesqued many aspects of society. Politics came under fire in Duck Soup (193^). The opera and high society were lampooned in A Night at the Opera (1935) a and even doctors were ridiculed in A Day at the Races (1937). The team are the heroes of everyone who has suffered from other people's pomposity, pendantism, and condescension.^® In fact, it has been said that while other comedians use satire and poke fun at certain sacred cows, the Marx Brothers made fun of absolutely everything.

In 1932, they took aim at college life and produced a film which is still popular with audiences today. Per­ haps its popularity is not only because of the Marx Brothers humor, but because audiences may feel that edu­ cation in reality has not changed that much from 1932 to

^®Allen Eyles, The Marx Brothers; Their World of Comedy (New York: Kinney, 19Y1), p. 7. ~ ^^Leonard Maltin, Movie Comedy Teams (New York: The New American Library, 1970), p. l0$. 52 the present day. I don’t know what they have to say It makes no difference anyway Whatever it is. I ’m against it It really doesn't matter who commenced it I ’m against it. Groucho Marx as Professor Quineey Adams Wagstaff Horse Feathers, a satire on the popular notion of higher education, was released by Paramount Pictures and was directed by Norman McLeod. The plot is sparse and serves only as a frame for the Marx Brothers to operate in. Groucho has become the new president of Huxley College, to help his son, Zeppo, graduate. In order for Huxley to stay solvent, it must win a football game with its arch rival, Darwin. Groucho hires Harpo and Chico as football players, and at the end of the film, Huxley has won the

The film is a series of episodes within this thin plot. The attack on traditional educaticxi fits in with the brothers’ philosophy as seen in most of their film. The Marxes believe in natural wisdom and practical skills, not the posturings of the well-bred (who buy themselves a good education) or the obscure knowledge of dull pedants. For instance, Harpo cannot even write his name, but he has no trouble getting along in the world. . As the new president of Huxley College, Groucho

^^Eyles, op. cit.. p. ?8. 53 quickly• shows what he thinks of higher educaticxi.lS He is to be introduced in an auditorium. The professors on the stage are all bearded and the retiring president (Reginald Barlow) has long side-whiskers. When Groucho is introduced, we find him in the corner of the auditorium, shaving. This emphasizes the difference between the tra­ ditional teachers and Groucho. The professors forbid smoking. Groucho smokes his cigar through the entire scene. The retiring president asks Groucho to tell the stu­ dents his future plans. "What?" asks Groucho. When the question is asked again, Groucho says, "You just said that. That's the trouble around here . . . talk, talk, talk." The reference here is that education is mostly talk, not action. Groucho sings the song, "I'm Against It." He tugs at the faculty's beards, and soon they are following him around the stage like sheep. Harpo arrives, enrolled for advanced instruction (in order to play football), and all he can do when signing a contract is make an "X" on the paper. This is another example of a farcical educational system. Groucho says that he is too cold, so Harpo goes to some book shelves and throws a few books into the fire

Inhere has been a new president every year since 18 8 8, a comment on the educated elite's ineffectiveness in holding a job. 54 in the fireplace. The camera is on a close-up of Groucho for a few minutes. When it dollies back, Harpo is shovel­ ing books into the fireplace like mad— a comment on what scholarly books are really good for. The most devestating satire comes when all three brothers participate in a biology class. The teacher (Robert Greig), in academic robes and mortar board, is a solemn lecturer with a big beard. Groucho enters with two new students, Chico and Harpo. He asks, "Have they started sawing a woman in half yet?" Chico and Harpo give the professor an apple as if they were in elementary school. The professor*s words are technical and don*t make sense. Groucho asks if he*s making it all up. The professor answers, "No, my students will bear me out," at which time Chico and Harpo pick up the professor and carry him out the door. Groucho, now in academic robes, but wearing the cloth cap of a common worker, resumes the lecture. Point­ ing to a chart of the human body, he says: Now the blood carriers are a hill dwelling tribe that live in the Alps. They feed on rice and old shoes. Then, behind the Alps there is more Alps and the Lord alps those who alp themselves. The blood rushes from the head to the feet, gets a look at those feet, and then rushes back up to the head again. The students somberly take notes . . . another negative comment on the unquestioning student. When Harpo substi­ tutes a pin-up girl in place of Groucho‘s chart, Groucho remarks, "My boy, as you grow older, you*11 find that you 55 can't burn the candle at both ends." And, of course, Harpo produces a candle lighted at both ends, proving his teacher wrong. The scene ends in chaos in a battle with pea­ shooters. Groucho first tries to ignore the peas, but then shoots back with his own pea-shooter. Traditional higher education has been abandcxied. We clearly have here a clash of belief systems. Huxley College as an institution is a traditional System- One, as are its students. The faculty, complete with beards, are dull pedants or yes-men. Groucho, Chico, and Harpo at first appear to be System-Two individuals, negative in their attitude and anti-authority. But in the long view, they turn out to be System-Four people operating in a System-One world. They certainly have internal standards of conduct, a high tolerance of ambiguity, high self-esteem, and can change set readily. Through their efforts, the college does win the football gsime. They operate within the establishment, and are not out to destroy it so much as to point out its weaknesses and get a job dcxie. Chico, for instance, works at a Speakeasy. He is very industrious: a System-Four characteristic. Harpo is a dog catcher, and has a mad passion for doing his job well (com­ plete with false fire-plugs as bait, a System-Four approach to catching dogs). The antagonist in the film is Jennings (David Landau), who is head of Huxley's rival, Darwin College, and who is 56 a crook (note the negative implications of a crook as head of a college). He uses Connie Bailey (Thelma Todd), the college widow, to seduce Groucho into giving her Huxley's football signals. Both Jennings and Connie are System- Three manipulators, but the Marx Brothers see through them. In the end, Jennings and Connie are ridiculed. Zeppo Marx, as Groucho *s son, Frank Wagstaff, is also a System-Four who is really the "fourth banana," lending a creative helping hand where he can. The System-Four people are not out to destory the status-quo, but operate within it in new and creative ways. Groucho joins the establishment as a college president; Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo are students. They defeat the forces of evil as seen in Jennings and Connie. So the comedy in this film is based on differences between belief systems. The Marx Brothers are System-Four, and operate creatively in a System-One environment (in fact, their effect depends on a System-One setting). Their antagonists are System-Three people over whom they eventually triiamph. The film portrays the popular concept of higher edu­ cation in the usual manner. Scholarly activity is mocked, athletics praised. But the Marxes do manage to work within education's framework, and change it for the better (classes are not boring, the team wins). The film reflects certain values to the movie going audience of the Depression. Work 57 within the system, it tells us, but be creative, flexible and open to change. Then you will survive. 58

The Duke of West Point

The Duke of West Point was released by United Artists

in 1936g and directed by Alfred E. Green. I include it because of the contrast in the image of higher education between a civilian college setting, like Tate, Clayton, or Huxley, and a military college. In the Teens, Twenties, and Thirties, college films normally dealt with fictitious institutions. It was less offensive to alumni to have the Marx Brothers cause mayhem at Huxley instead of Harvard. It also allowed producers more license with their charac­ ters and situations. West Point, however, is a real school, with a proud tradition. The image of education in this film comes off well, first, because the college is real, and second, because it is a federal military establishment. The story concerns Steven Early, an American who was reared in England and who graduated from Cambridge. Gen­ erations of Earlys have attended West Point and made bril­ liant successes both at school and later in the military. Early joins "2000 typical American boys" at West Point. The story revolves around his eventual acceptance from "Mr. Limey," a name the boys gave him, to a "regular" guy. Steve Early (Louis Hayward) has distinguished hipiself in sports at Cambridge, as well as being a top s>Cadent,. Here, both scholarly achievement and athletics are thought of as important in a college education. He comes to West 59 Point and rooms with John West (Richard Carlson) ^ an all- American hoy who has dreamed of going to West Point for years, and Robert Drew (Tom Brown) who starts out as a mama's boy but becomes "a man." Drew arrives, decked out in an outrageous military uniform (reminiscent of Lloyd's arrival at Tate). "There's a Sonny in every plebe class," remarks an upperclassman. The plebes (Early, West, and Drew) study hard, and Early goes out for sports and does well. A montage of books flashing on the screen indicates time passing. There is a rivalry between protagonist Early and antagonist Strong, an upperclassman whom the plebes call "bad news Strong," not because he is unfair, but because he is so tough in making the plebes adhere to the rules. The rivalry is over Ann Porter (Joan Bennett). Early is a good student ("Euclid comes easy to Early"), and he is also untraditional in his thinking. He pulls the main light switch at a dance so he can dance with Ann and take her to the garden. When it is found that West's mother is ill, and that he will have to drop school to support her unless he can have two thousand dollars for doctor bills. Early dons civilian clothes and sends a telegram to West's mother, along with $2,000.00 of his own money. (He is also very rich, but not spoiled. ) west will not taka charit;^, sc he csnds the telegram on the sly warning West's mother not to tell where the money came from. Unfortunately, in order to send the 60 telegram. Early had to violate the Honor Code of the Corps by being out after hours. Ann bumps into him in front of the telegraph office, and Strong, hearing that he is with a girl after hours, reports Early upon his return. Early is sent to a judicial board made up of students, who find him "socially unacceptable to the corps," and suggest he resign. Early does not tell about the deed for his friend, as he is loyal and doesn't want him to leave the Corps. Early's punishment, if he does not resign, is social isola­ tion. No one will speak, to him. West and Drew do speak with him, and Early, determined to stay in the Corps, be­ comes not only the student at the top of the class but wins a hockey game for the Corps. Still, no one speaks to him until West discovers the truth. He shows the telegram to Storm, viio makes amends, and at the end of the film. Early is embraced by corpsmen. The image of the institution is a positive one. West Point is fair and just, emphasizes both book learning and athletics. One may succeed in scholarly activities and not in sports with no stigma. Being West Point, the institu­ tion is clearly System-One. Kie students are also System- One. They obey the Honor Code and act alike. In mass, they refuse to talk to Early. The faculty, in the person of - be co&cl:. Doc, is kindly and sympathetic to the stu­ dents. He was once a West Point student, failed out, but remained to teach the boys. He also believes in West Point 6 l tradition. Bad-news Strong is also System-One, almost to the point of neurosis. If someone gets out of line, he is immediately stepped on by Strong, However, Strcxig is fair and willing to admit a mistake, Early's father, a military man who believes in tradition, warns Early of the life he, as a Cambridge graduate who has lived in England, may face at West Point, Although he says it may be unpleasant, he allows Early freedom of choice and action. This is a parent likely to produce a System-Four individual, according to Harvey, and Early is just that. He functions within the military environment, but has the majority of System-Four characteristics. He is high task-oriented, working for in­ trinsic rather than materialistic rewards, He seeks infor­ mation before acting and does not take unnecessary risks (he would have succeeded with his telegram ruse if he hadn't bumped into Ann), is independent but not negative (he stays with the Corps despite the social resentment he must face), He has a low need for structure, a high tolerance for am­ biguity, and high self-esteem. Although the boys don't speak to him, he feels they respect him for staying in the Corps and trying hard. His friends. West and Drew, begin as System-One, but support Early, and have a majority of System-Four characteristics by the end of the film, Ann, also .'=tarcing as System-One in rnaking fun of Early, even­ tually canes to accept and love him despite what the Corps 62 thinks: she changes from System-One to System-Four. So, in this film again, we see System-Four people are accepted by the System-One world. The image of education in this film is essentially good. It is fair, worthwhile, and produces good men. Doc says to Early, "Even your kind of yearling should make some concessicms to traditicxi." And Early works hard to be top in the class without ever losing his System-Four individuality. Toward the end of the film, there is a ritual in which the upperclassmen shake hands with the plebes. Early tells a friend that he feels as if the upperclassmates are saying, "Well done my good and faithful servant." And one comes away from the film feeling good about these men and the way they have not only served themselves and West Point, but the country, as well. The Duke of West Point was well directed and was good entertainment. It also reinforces the audiences* beliefs at this time in the value of military education and tra­ dition. Even to this day, the military college in American films has largely remained a sacred cow, as does the medi­ cal school. It is the general liberal arts college that is often presented negatively. So in the Teens, Twenties and Thirties, the typical liberal arts college was a place for sports, variety shows (often to get the college cut of financial difficulty) or 63 romances. These activities largely took place outside the classroom. Traditional education was portrayed negatively. Dramatic conflict or comedy occurred between people of differing belief systems. 64

Blondie Goes to College

Blondie Goes to College was released in 1942 by United Artists. This film was recently seen on Sunday morning television in March, 1972. Starring Arthur Lake as Dagwood Bumstead and Penny Singleton as Blondie Bumstead, the film was a part of a cycle of twenty-eight Blondie films which started in 1 9 3.^^ 8 It was directed by Prank R, Strayer. In the film, Blondie and Dagwood leave their young son. Baby Dumpling, at a military academy. They then enroll in Leighton College. In order to "have more fun," they pretend that they are not married. As Blondie Smith, Blondie attracts the football hero,Rusty Bryant. Dagwood attracts the college belle, Laura Wadsworth. Dagwood studies architectural engineering and goes out for football, baseball, track, and crew. Blondie studies social science and cooking. The film revolves around their misadventures. Dagwood is terrible at sports and ruins the crew race for the college. Blondie is sponsored by Rusty, so she will meet the right girls and get in the very best sorority. Blondie pledges the same sorority as Laura and is hounded by men. Mr. Dithers, who wants Dagwood to give up college and ccane back to work, sends Baby Dumpling to see Dagwood

^^Leonard Maltin, TV Movies (New York: The New American Library, I9 6 9) ^ P- 65 at his hoarding house, ^5 and tells him that he wants to leave the military academy. The housemother sees this, and thinks Dagwood and Mr. Dithers are kidnapping Baby Dumpling. The police are called and the mess is straightened out when it is revealed at a college dance that Dagwood and Blondie are married and have a son. The students accept this, and as Blondie and Dagwood leave for home, they proclaim them "loyal sons of Leighton" anyway. The image of the college is consistent with the images in other college comedy films. The school and the students are traditional System-One types. TOie college is neat in appearance and the students are well dressed and well behaved. Dagwood sees Leighton (note the prestigious name) as "tradition, romance and success." Those words also reinforce the System-One image of education which empha­ sizes things other than study. The English teacher is ridiculed. He is a double-talk artist, and as he lectures to the class on the word "sin­ cere" (which he obviously is not, in his unconcerned attitudes toward the students), he talks quickly and in­ comprehensibly, in a style reminiscent of the work of the late and great double-talk artist, A1 Kelly. He is small in stature, bearded, and wears formal black clothes. His huge desk has an apple on it and he sits behind it. The

15Note Blondie and Dagwood must not live together un­ married, a sign of the Forties* morality. 6 6 desk is on a raised platform which emphasizes his authori­ tarianism. Wien Dagwood asks him a question after class^ he gives him more unconcerned double talk, and is unable to communicate effectively. Playing the good student, Dagwood acts as if he understands. The whole sequence is very funny, with the class trying to take notes and pre­ tending they know what is going on. However, the stereo­ type of the incomprehensible ivory-towerish System-One professor is reinforced. Likewise the Dean, also small in stature and dressed in formal black, is ridiculed. Dagwood throws the Dean a football by mistake and the whole team lands on him. Dagwood and Blondie are System-One people who operate in the System-One environment according to their own code of behavior, which is extremely amusing. We never see them, or any other students, studying, but the main activ­ ity takes place during sports events, at dances, or at Moon Lake, a romantic spot. Rusty and Laura are both System-One types, which re­ inforces the popular notions of students at the time. He, the football champ; she, the sorority girl. Both are idolized by the students who follow them around and imitate them. Mr. Dithers, the coach, Laura's father, and the policeman are all System-One types who play their roles predictably and act according to the established norms. 6 7 Baby Dumpling, like his parents, is a System-One person, both at the military academy and at other times in the picture, although he says and does very mature and unbelievable things for his age. Thus, we see the typical image of college as play, with the academic side satirized. At the conclusion of the film, Dagwood, who goes back to work for Mr. Dithers, says, "College days have passed us by." The students wish them well, and the closing shot is of everyone singing the Leighton alma-mater. College is an accepted institution in the American society, according to this film, but for things other than scholarly achievement. 6 8

The Male Animal

During the Forties and Fifties, college films tended to raise more complex and penetrating questions about college education. The Male Animal, released in 1942 (the same year as Blondie Goes to College), is the most complex film to be analyzed so far and it is also more deeply concerned with the meaning of the educational envircaiment. It was based upon a play by Elliott Nugent and James Thurber, released by MGM, and directed by Mr. Nugent. Although a comedy, it brought out crucial educational issues that had only been lightly touched on or ignored in the past. The film is a stand for abstract, rather than ccxicrete thinking. It upholds the virtues of a System-Four indiv­ idual against a System-One environment. It lauds the concept of academic freedom. The protagonist is Professor Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda) of the English department. On the surface. Professor Turner fits many stereotypes of the typical pro­ fessor. He is absent-minded. He is known to wear brown shoes with a black suit, to lose things such as matches, and to forget to do important things. He wears glasses. He doesn*t fix the doorknob in his house because he is too preoccupied with abstract matters. Early in the film, he asks his wife incredulously, "You mean I did something 69 right?” Tommy doesn’t like football, which in this case turns out to be a System-Four institutional characteristic, as most everyone else in the university has it as a prime ccmcern. He can’t hold his liquor and gets sick to his stomach in stress situations. But basically. Tommy is brave, sincere and has common sense. He is idealistic and doesn’t approve of actions of the Board of Trustees. Tommy is determined to read, in class, a letter by Bartolomeo Vanzetti at a time when there is a political witch-hunt going on in the university, and two professors have been fired. Vanzetti is considered to be an anarchist, and the editor of the school paper, Michael (Herbert Ander­ son), a mirror-image of Tommy at a younger age, has printed that Tommy will read the letter, and calls this action, in his article, a stand for academic freedom. When the Trustees hear of this, they threaten to fire Tommy if he reads the letter. After an agonizing decision. Tommy goes to his class and reads the Vanzetti letter (which is eloquent, but far from anarchistic even by the standards of the early Forties). Tommy is embraced not only by his wife but by thrcxigs of students, faculty, and trustees as well. Tommy has two antagonists in the film. The first is Ed Keller (Eugene Pallette), a member of the Board of Trustees. Ed is a typical System-One. He sees things in black-and-white instead of in shades of gray. He is more concerned about a campus building program and football than 70 he is about more important issues. He is the direct threat to Tommy's career. Keller's wife. Myrtle (Regina Williams), is very much like him. The second antagonist is Joe Ferguson, an ex-Midwestem, System-One football hero, played by Jack Carson, returned to watch the big game. He is the former sweetheart of Tommy's wife, Ellen (Olivia DeHaviland). Tomnqr is the metaphor for the mind, the reasoning per­ son. Joe is the metaphor for the body, the concrete non­ reasoning fellow. Each has his mirror image. With Tommy, it is Michael. With Joe, it is Wally Meyers (Don Defoe), a football player wiio worships him. The faculty is represented by Dean Frederick Damon (Ivan Simpson), Chairman of the English Department, and his wife, Blanch (Minna Phillips). Unlike TomnQr, they are basically System-One people, although Dean Damon is sympathetic with Tommy's views. Coach Sprague (Frank Mayo) is System-One all the way and is a stereotype of the hard­ bitten college coach. The maid in the Turner household is a brilliant stereo­ type of the black maid, convincingly played by Hatti McDaniel. She is a bewildered though reliable System-One. The students, apart from Michael, are not well devel­ oped. We see them cheering at the football rally and again for Professor Turner at the end of the film. It is safe to assume that they are also System-One. "Hot Garters" 71 Gardner (Jean Ames), who is the co-ed with loose morals, has a traditional function in the academic environment and can be classed for these purposes as System-One. So System-Four Tommy and Michael fight against System- One Ferguson and Keller, and win. But a major development in the film ccxicerns the two female leads. Tommy’s wife, Ellen, and her younger sister, Patricia Stanley (Joan Leslie). Ellen starts out as a System-One. She likes football, and likes Joe Ferguson. When Tommy is going through his decision whether or not to read the letter, Joe,who is getting a divorce, romances Ellen. Ellen begins to ques­ tion her life with Tommy (a System-Four characteristic) and becomes very ambivalent. While drunk. Tommy vows to fight for her in a speech comparing animals to humans; he will himself become the male animal. He does fight, but finds that brawn is not the way to Ellen's heart. Having gone through her period of doubt, Ellen decides that Tommy is the man for her, and becomes a System-Four. Patricia likes Michael, but questions this along with Ellen. She is upset with him for publishing the article, being like Tommy, and spending some time with "Hot Garters," but eventually, she decides to accept him. She also moves from System-One behavior to System-Four behavior. So in this film. Tommy and Michael (the System-Fours) and Patricia and Ellen (who change from System-One to 72 System-Four), enter into conflict with the System-Ones, and they win the battle. The film has a lot to say about higher education. Dean Damon makes the comment that he has been "pouring education" into young heads for years with no appreciable results. The students seem to idolize the football team and support Tommy for reading the letter to the extent that its content was harmless. We wonder what the reactions of the crowds might have been if the letter was filled with headier stuff. The faculty is seen as powerless. Keller, in fact, calls them that. The Trustees are seen as all powerful, materialistic and a bit corrupt. The image of education in this picture is negative indeed. Even Tommy, who has a positive image as he stands up for academic freedom, contains all the negative charac­ teristics of the stereotype bungling educator. The problem with the film is that although it exposes some of the problems with higher education (lack of academ­ ic freedom, powerless faculties, materialistic Trustees), it doesn't explore them in any depth. The focus is on the battle between brains and brawn, courage and weakness, freedom and oppression. Although we applaud Tommy at the end of the film for standing for his rights and getting his wife safely back, we are left with the uneasy feeling that nothing has really been solved. The image of the 73 college in The Male Animal comes closer to the college in reality than any of the previous films we have mentioned here. Although a personal battle has been won, what about the battle for academic freedom and a more just and reasonable educational system? This larger problem is not solved. Ed Keller, although following the masses with a change of heart, is still a Trustee. The faculty is still powerless for the most part. It is interesting to note that The Male Animal prefigures the Communist witch­ hunt of the 1 9 5 0's and is presumably modeled after the re­ sponse at The Ohio State University, the "Midwestern Uni­ versity" on which this film is based and at which both Thurber and Nugent studied. The Male Animal exposed some problems, but it did not present a realistic way of dealing with them except that one must stand up, like Tommy, and read what he pleases no matter what the consequences. This is an ex­ tremely narrow solution. But perhaps that was all this film could do in the Forties. America was involved in World War II, and too preoccupied with that to bother with the traditional system of education. Solving education's ills was left to the pictures in the Fifties. 74

Goodbye My Fancy

Goodbye My Fancy is a strange and wonderful film that perfectly reflects the culture of the early Fifties. Re­ leased by Warner Brothers in 1951 and directed by Vincent Sherman, it is a film about disillusionment, not only with college, but with idealism; that is, the protagonist's "fancy." Although a comedy, it is rather a sad picture. The McCarthy era with its questioning of academic freedom emerges in the film, and the college becomes a haven for the weak-willed and the conformist. Congresswoman Agatha Reed (Joan Crawford) returns to her college to accept an honorary degree at the invitation of the President, Dr. J. Merrill (Robert Young). When Agatha was a student and Merrill an instructor, they had a torrid affair. When it was discovered that Agatha was seeing a man after hours, she left the university in order to protect Merrill's career, and never graduated. Now Merrill is a widower and has a daughter, Virginia (Janice Rule), in the college. In fact, Merrill has invited Agatha in order to resume their affair. Agatha brings with her a controversial film, "Command to the Future," which she wants to show to the students. Because of the controversial nature of the film, the faculty and trustees do not want it shown, and Merrill (again for the sake of his career) sides with them. Agatha, facing reality (the man she once loved 75 has changed for the worse), leaves the college to continue her life, sadder but wiser. Here is the most damning portrait of the System-One college. Ivy-covered and picturesque, we first see the college as Agatha remembers it, in her old dorm room and on lovely shaded walks. However, the President is concerned more with image than real education. He is interested in new buildings and making good impressions. He is now "too old for causes," and doesn't support Agatha, although he says he still loves her. Here is the weak man giving in under social pressure, a System-Four instructor turned System-One President. The timid System-One college teachers are as ridiculous as their names: Miss Shakleford, Miss Birdshaw, Dr. Pitt, and Professor Dingly. The System-One Trustee, whom Bosley Crowther calls "rock-ribbed," is E. Griswold.He is the heavy of the piece and a threat to those who get out of line. His wife is just as bad. The students, System-Ones, seem carefree and ineffectual. Agatha herself is a true System-Four. She has her own internal standards of conduct (having an affair with a professor, leaving school to save his career, bringing a controversial film to campus) and thinks before she acts. She is a woman member of Congress, works within the system, and gets things done in a creative and effective manner.

^%osely Crowther. "Goodbye My Fancy," The New York Times, (May 30, 1951) > P-' 14. 7 6 Her System-Four counterpart in the film is Merrill»s daughter, who has many of the traits that Agatha has and supports Agatha against her father. The System-Three characters both come from outside the academic environment. Matt Cole (Prank Lovejoy) plays a manipulating, wise­ cracking Life magazine photographer. Woody (Eve Arden) is the manipulative, hard-boiled secretary to Agatha. Both have "hearts of gold." What is so damaging to the college's image is that a System-Four person, by staying in the college environment, has become a System-One and a very ineffective, conventional individual. Is this what college does to you? This film suggests that you have to leave the college (like Agatha), or come from the outside (like Cole and Woody), to be at all abstract in thinking and effective in doing. The only hope is Merrill's daughter, who is just beginning college. Her father has produced a System-Four daughter, but we are left with the nagging thought that Virginia would be better off leaving college as well. The conflict in this film again occurs between people of different belief systems, and the college emerges hot as a playful envircximent, but as a dangerous one. 7 7

Take Care of My Little Girl

That college has threatening aspects can also be seen in Take Care of My Little Girl. This film belongs to two genres: a) the college picture which we have been discussing, and b) the problem picture which came into prominence after World War II. The problem picture was a mixture of fiction and fact, and often filmed with a semi-documentary a p p r o a c h . It dealt with a problem based on reality which was then explored fictionally. Anti-semitism was the theme of Gentlemen*s Agreement. Race relations were covered in Pinky. The "problem picture" we are going to discuss. Take Care of My Little Girl, was a comic presentation of serious issues, released in 1951 by Twentieth Century-Pox and directed by Jean Negulesco. Here we see nice, System-One type Liz (Jeanne Crain) get quite an education in the evils of sorority life and become a System-Four type. Her education stems partly from the contact with the System-One, traditional, authori­ tarian and pompous sorority girls and partly from associa- ticai with Joe Blake (Dale Robertson), a System-Four medical student who is down-to-earth, high task-oriented, and sees

17Gerald Mast, A Short History of the Movies (New York: Pegasus, 1971)j p. 32b. 78 through pretension. The antagonist in the picture is Liz's fraternity boyfriend, System-One Chad Carnes (Jeffery Hunter). His fraternity is just as bad as the sorority. He cheats cxi an exam and is praised for it by the fraternity and sorority members. The sorority attacks one of the pledges, Ruth (Lenka Peterson), who is "a legacy," that is, someone whan the sorority must accept. In order to get Ruth to quit the sorority before she must be made an active member, the girls torment her. She tries to win the acceptance of the girls, and when she can't, has a nervous breakdown. Liz eventually quits the sorority to live "her own way" at college. She admits at the end that "sororities do have their good points," but the movie shows us that the benefits are not enough to overcome the hurt they do to people. The film is a "problem picture" posing as a comedy, but is in reality an all-out attack on sorority life. The college is System-One. We doi't see much scholarly activity going on at the traditional, midwestem campus. The film focuses on the extra-curricular activities associ­ ated with college and sorority life. The System-One pro­ fessor is outwitted by pretty Liz as she talks with him in his office, getting his attention long enough so Chad can switch his poor exam for a good exam written after the tests are handed in. The professor is a traditional stereotype who can be fooled by the simplest of tricks. 79 The housemother and girls are System-One, with the excep- ti

Beach Party

By the 1 9 6 0's Hollywood was coming to terms with the fragmented audience. Most of the pictures at this time could be classified into three areas; the "block busters," the adult film, and the teenage exploitation picture.^® The "block buster" was the traditional approach to try and reach all members of the audience, from four year olds to grandmothers. The adult film was aimed at a more mature, discriminating audience. And the teenage exploitâticxi picture was intended for adolescents, who, as always, ccxi- tinued to be a major economic factor at the box office. Beach Party is an excellent example of the latter type.

It was released in 1963 by American International and directed by William Asher. The plot is as follows : A bearded university pro­ fessor (Robert Cummings) and his assistant (Dorothy Malone) fly to the coast of Southern California to observe what they call a "surfing society," or adolescents who descend on the beaches to have a good time. The professor intends to write a book about them comparing their mode of living to that of certain aborigines. Into this "society" drive two college students, Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and Dolores

^^Jack C. Ellis, in a course on "Modes of Film Communi­ cation," Northwestern University, 1 9 6 3. 81 (Annette Funicello), on a vacation from college. Frankie is taking Dolores to his parent's beach home for a quiet lovemaking, but Dolores invites the gang along. Infuriated and determined to hurt Dolores, Frankie dates a waitress from "Big Daddy's," the student hang out. Some juvenile delinquents, complete with leather jackets and motorcycles, arrive,led by Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck). The pro­ fessor rescues Dolores from them and makes friends with her. It seems to the "society" that the professor is having an affair with Dolores, and Frankie is hurt and jealous. Dolores and Frankie both pretend to be in love with others. They almost get back together, but a series of comical situations keeps them apart. Dolores persuades the profes­ sor to shave off his beard, and he finds that the life of the "society" isn't too bad. His real reasons for being at the beach are discovered. The "society" gets mad, but just then the juvenile delinquents, who have been plotting revenge throughout the picture, arrive. In the slap-stick, pie-throwing conclusion, the professor is found to be an "all right guy." Dolores and Frankie make up, and the delinquents are defeated and leave. The professor and his assistant leave also (to get married), and the surfing "society" continues to have fun. The film ends where it began. The "society" has survived all situations. The surfing "society" created in this film has un­ limited time and unlimited money. All day long, they 82 “live it and love it up." Nothing traditional can impose upon this “society" and the way it functions. For example, college, although seen as necessary, is tossed off lightly at the beginning of the film. Frankie says to Dolores, "I’ve only studied one subject this semester . . . you," Dolores answers, "You gonna flunk?" Frankie replys, "Oh well, there’s always summer school." And the professor, symbol of serious System-One academic dignity, appears in à ridiculous beard (reminis­ cent of the professors in Horse Feathers^, and is satirized until he becomes a member of the "society." He slowly progresses through rock-and-roll dancing and surfboarding until he eventually shaves off his beard. Then the group not only accepts him, but he also falls in love for the first time and decides to marry his assistant. He has be­ come a System-Four individual. The "society" itself is System-Four oriented. The people in it are very abstract in their way of thinking and acting. They are independent, have internal standards of conduct, and are living a good life (according to this film), functicxiing within the larger American society. The juvenile delinquents are System-Two types. They are negative, anti-authority, rigid and short-sighted, and don’t seem to be able to envision the effects (often dis- asterous) of their revolt. Since they are not part of the System-Four society, they are satirized and played as very 83 stupid. As the leader of the gang gets off his motorcycle, it chugs away and crashes into a wall. As he hits himself on the chest to prove how strong he is, the sunglasses in his pocket break. The proprietor of the student, hang out, "Big Daddy's," (Morey Amsterdam) has this to say: "All these kids need is a cause. That's why I hired Big Daddy. One day he will wake up and give us the word." Big Daddy (Vincent Price) sleeps through the film and in the midst of the pie-throwing conclusion, wakes up long enough to give the word, a bunch of meaningless gibberish. The proprietor is a System-One type. He doesn't understand the college students and can't provide them with a traditional cause. His only advice is "go to work and make a living;" naturally the students ig­ nore this. Big Daddy can't give a cause either. What is bothersome is the notion of all these students waiting around until Big Daddy gives the word. But is is reassuring that they are living their own System-Four lives, and don't really need Big Daddy who, in fact, may allude to the System- One authoritarian parent, whose advice to his teenage children may often seem meaningless to them. So we classify him System-One, although we don't know that much about him. The protagonists, Dolores and Frankie, are both System-Four individuals. They disagree about certain values (whether to sleep together before marriage), but go to creative and elaborate means to understand each other. 84 Basically, they have the abstract characteristics of System-Four. The professor's assistant is also System- Four, and in love with him. However, she must wait around until he changes from System-One to System-Four. The antagonists are the System-Two delinquents. The plot and its comedy and conflict hinges on dif­ ferences between belief systems. The System-Four protag­ onists oppose the System-One professor (they convert him) and the System-Two delinquents (they get rid of them). Education in its traditional sense is shown to be work, and in the "society's" terms, "a drag." In an exaggerated way, the film reflects the values of the American people at the time. The society consumes. The students use hundreds of products. They have transistor radios, cars, and surfboards. They change costumes in every scene, and their clothing is lavish and expensive. The beach houses and environs are upper-middle class. The juvenile delinquents are complete misfits, primarily be­ cause they destroy instead of consume. The professor is also portrayed in a negative way until he joins the society and begins consuming. America is a consuming society. The emphasis is off production and on consumption. This film reflects the larger American value system, the nation of consumers. This film is aimed at the teenage audience. Teenagers have their own sub-culture in the American scene. The 85 film appeals to their interests and beliefs. It reinforces the value of consumption while praising abstract thinking and acting, and being an individual with your own thoughts, actions and sets of beliefs. The traditional System-One college teacher is inferior to the untraditional System-Four college student in Beach Party. and other films that followed on its box office success. PLATE V Joy In the Morning 87

Joy in the Morning

Joy in the Morning, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by Alex Segal, is the last film we shall discuss before examining the work of Mike Nichols. Re­ leased in 1 9 6 5, it is very typical of the college film of the Sixties, before the influence of the work of Mike Nichols. Although it is set in the Twenties, it has some­ thing to say about contemporary college problems and life styles. We again see the institution. Mission College, as a very traditional System-One environment. Likewise, the college town, and the.larger world, all have the aspects of System-One. Tradition, authority, and the "right” way to do things, predominate. However, in this film, very much like Beach Party, the characters are either System-Four to begin with, or are System-Ones who become System-Fours. The main antagonist in the film is not a person. It is the situation in which the System-Four protagonists place themselves. Annie McGairy (Yvette Mimieux) marries law student Carl Brown (Richard Chamberlain), and the film traces the trials and tribulations of their survival. Survival is the right word, for in the environment, the pro- tagCTiists*marriage and Carl's career are at stake. Annie is a System-Four girl from a lower-class back­ ground. She comes from the big city to marry Carl, a 88 fellow of prominent means. The college frowns upon married students. The Dean of the College, Dean Darwin, announces to Carl that since he is married, he cannot borrow money from the college loan fund. In addition, his conduct will be watched, his work scrutinized more carefully, and if there is any "falling off" in his studies, he is out. Carl answers that he will do his best. The Dean replies, "Will your best be enough?" The Dean is neither understanding nor helpful and angry that Carl has gone against tradition and has gotten married while in school. Edward Hall, in The Silent Language, refers to behavior like Carl*s as breaking informal traditions.In other words, although there is no formal tradition, or law, forbidding a student to be married, the informal tradition, a taboo, exists against it. Thus, the Dean * s stern atti­ tude toward Carl at the beginning of the film stems not only from his concern with the quality of Carl’s work as a student, but also from his anger at the breaking of a taboo. Carl is a System-Four, who wants both to be married and to be a good student. His father, a System-One type, calls on the newly-married couple and tells Carl that unless he gets an annulment of the marriage, all funds from

ISEdward Hall, The Silent Language (New York: Premier Books, 1959)^ p. 6 7. 89 his parents will stop, and he must pay back all the money that his parents previously gave to him for his education, which Carl thought was a gift. His father opposes the marriage on social grounds: Annie is not of the same social class as Carl, another informal taboo. Carl refuses to leave Annie and takes three jobs, one in a cafeteria, one tending the field house, and one as a night watchman. Annie also takes a job baby-sitting for an unmarried woman who has a child and is the mistress of a married man. She also makes friends with a homosexual florist. The mistress, her lover, and the florist are all System-Four types. They go about their business and live successfully and creatively. However, the System-(kie college town is against them because they do not conform to traditional modes of behavior in their social and sexual relationships. Therefore, when Annie becomes friends with them, she, too, is attacked by the townspeople. Carl and Annie do remarkably well considering all the odds against them until Annie becomes pregnant. After a terrific fight with Carl, she goes back home to make sure Carl does not quit school over her, and to relieve seme of the pressure on him. However, Carl, who misses her, begins to fail in his studies. Before discussing the conclusion of the film, the images of the educators and the college must be examined. When Annie first arrives from the city, Carl gives a 90 mum and a college pennant to her. Annie says that she would like to be educated so that her husband won't be ashamed of her. The campus is traditional, with red-roofed buildings, trees, fountains, and a center court. Annie says that the "sky is so close" at the college. It is not like the big city, but open and peaceful. The house that Carl and Annie have (next to the field house which he cares for) is picturesque, romantic, and has a little stream outside. It is the ideal vine-covered cottage. The Dean, who smokes a pipe, has a beard, and wears a conservative gray suit, runs into Annie in the hall after his speech with Carl. She is sitting outside an English class and taking notes. He tells her she can't get an education without paying tuition. "We don't run a free university here," he says, and orders her out of the hall. The class on which she has been eavesdropping is one in English. The teacher. Professor Newcole, in a blue suit, walks up and down in the classroom while lecturing. The professor and the Dean and the walls of the college are done in cold gray and blue colors, giving the scene a drab look. In contrast, Annie wears warm colors, and looks like the only one who is vital and alive. So we see up to this point the traditional educational system in a negative light. No one seems to want to help the young couple because they have violated informal taboos. But then, there is almost a ccmplete reversal in the 91 System-One characters* behavior. The Dean calls Annie and Carl into his office and says that he is not disturbed about Annie, but about himself. He lets her sit in on the English class without paying tuition, thereby breaking his own rule, and the English Professor is happy with the sit­ uation. He calls Annie an "asset" to Carl. Annie, by her persistent System-Four outlook, has won the educator over. Likewise, Carl's father does a complete reversal and goes to Annie, when she is in New York, and tells her to return to Carl to have the baby. After Annie returns to Carl, he does well in school and graduates. The System-One char­ acters have been transformed, by Annie and Carl's abstract behavior, into more tolerant and abstract beings. Although we feel that the college it;elf and the town surrounding it remain System-One, the people involved with Annie and Carl have grown and become System-Fours. Thus the film tells us that even in an intolerable System-One environment, one can survive and live happily as a System-Four. This can apply to the environment of the Sixties as well as the Twenties. The environment it­ self is not directly attacked, as in later films as Getting Straight and The Strawberry Statement. How to operate successfully within the system is shown. The last scene shows Carl and Annie driving away, and in one of the worst moments in all motion picture history, Carl sings the film's title song to Annie, with full 92 orchestral accompaniment, thereby shattering any faith that the audience had in the credibility of the characters. The problem with the film is that the motivations of the System-One characters change too abruptly. It is hard to believe in their complete reversals to System-Four behavior after knowing Annie and Carl for only a little while. 93

Conclusions

The conclusions that can be drawn from the films dealing with the American college milieu from I9 0 3 to Mike Nichols are as follows: 1. The college institution is System-One. There are no deviations in this from the films analyzed. The faculty and administration are also primarily System-One, although we occasionally find a Dean who is a System-Three or a professor who is System-Four. For the most part, we can conclude that the institutions and their faculties are traditional and clearly exhibit the characteristics of O.J. Harvey*s System-One. 2. The student body as a whole, with a few excep­ tions, is also System-One.

3. The majority of the protagonists in the films viewed (10) have the characteristics of System-Four in­ dividuals. The minority have System-One characteristics (3). None is System-Two. One is System-Three. 4. The antagonists in the film vary, from System- One, Two, and Three. No antagonists are System-Four.

5. The basic conflict in the films arises between individuals of differing belief systems. A System-Four protagonist is placed in opposition to a System-One, Two, or Three antagonist (10). A System-Three protagonist is

placed in opposition to 9, System-One antagonist (1). 9 4 6. From 1903 to 1942 (The Male Animal^ « the image of the college institution was primarily as a pleasant, non-threatening place where students had fun. Extra­ curricular activities were more important than scholastic achievement. Faculty and administration were ridiculed or satirized. In only one film (The Duke of West Point) was there a balanced, realistic image of the college. Also, in these, only one set of acceptable behavior was offered to the student. Either he conformed to existing standards, or he would be considered an outsider. The Indian in Strongheart lies so the team can win. Harold Lloyd in The Freshman tries to be popular by imitation. The Duke of West Point is rejected when he doesn't follow the rules. Blondie pretends she is unmarried to "have more fun at col­ lege." 7 . From The Male Animal (1942) to the Sixties, the college was seen as rather dangerous, or at least threat­ ening. Careers were almost lost in The Male Animal and Goodbye My Fancy. Students were driven to desperation in Take Care of My Little Girl and Joy in the Morning. 8. The extra-curricular activities of the college were still emphasized from 1942 to the late Sixties, but alternate modes of behavior began to appear on the screen. In The Male Animal, one was finally praised for intellectual pursuits rather than sports activities. In Take Care of My Little Girl, one could live within a social sub-culture of 95 a sorority or be independent. In Beach Party, a professor could become a swinger and receive recognition for it. In Joy in the Morning, one could live his own life and survive. On the wholej then, with the exception of a few films, the image of the college fares poorly. To 19^2, we see it as a place for fun, where intellectual effort and the process of learning is of little consequence. From 1942 to the late Sixties, we see it as a rather oppressive, threatening environment, in which the characters deal with complex problems and must find equally complex solutions in order to survive. Mike Nichols now arrives on the scene. With Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, he uses the college setting as a frame, but also delves deeply into contemporary problems auid concerns of those involved in higher educaticxi. PLATE VI Who*8 Afraid-of Virginia Woolf? CHAPTER III

THE WORK OF MIKE NICHOLS

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was Mike Nichols' first film. He was scheduled to direct The Graduate» but the Burtons wanted him to direct them in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Larry Turman, producer of The Graduate, allowed Nichols to make Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? first. Nichols shot Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on a New England college campus, Amherst. He says, "It seemed to me that for the actors it would be useful to be at a real college, to smell it and walk around it The story, originally written as a play by Edward Albee and adapted for the screen by Ernest Lehmen and Nichols, concerns George, an Associate Professor of History (Richard Burton), and his college-educated wife, Martha (Elizabeth Taylor), both in their forties. Her father is President of the college. After one of her father's parties, îfeirtha invites a new faculty couple over for drinks. The newcomers are Nick (George Segal), a young

1Joseph Gelmis, The Film Director as Superstar (New York: Doubleday and Company, p. k/S). 97 member of the Biology Department, and his wif% Honey (Sandy Dennis). The four spend the night in what Albee calls "Pun and Games," "Walpurgisnacht," and "Exorcism. During the conversation and arguments, souls are stripped bare and each character comes to new insight and understanding. Nichols prepares us for the death and rebirth of the characters. At the beginning of the film, George and Martha are walking home from the party. As they walk across the campus, dead leaves are blowing in the wind. This autumn atmosphere suggests the end of a cycle, as one approaches the cold winter or death. Nichols also uses a full moon on this Saturday night. This equates with the Walpurgisnacht, or time of demons, before they are exorcised on All Saints Day. At the con­ clusion of the film, it is dawn on Sunday, after the exorcism. At the beginning of the film, each of the four char­ acters is a System-Three manipulator. George is the film’s pivotal character. It is actually his film. The camera stays with him most of the time, and we see things pri­ marily from his point of view. It is George who sees the car parked on the lawn, the shadows of Martha and Nick in the upstairs window, and who finally strikes the crucial blow against Martha. George, according to Martha, is

^Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (New York: Pocket Books, pp. 3, 8 9, IS3. " 99 "a bog in the History Department." He came to the college at a young age, and married the President’s daughter. However, her father saw more and more that he was not the one to become Chairman of the History Department or to eventually succeed him as President. George tried to publish a novel. The President forced him not to publish it. In the first scene of the film, George and Martha are walking through the campus to their home after the party. George tries to quiet Martha's loud laughter, and she calls him a "cluck." Later, she accuses him of never doing anything and harps at him. She reveals to Honey and Nick how disgusted she is by her husband and his lack of ambi­ tion. George retaliates verbally. They attack each other throughout the film, until George, finally driven to desperation, kills his and Martha's mythical son, an act which finally shatters Martha. The son is an interesting symbol; Nichols describes it as two things; "One, for what exists between people when they love each other and what they build between each other . . . Two, it appears to be connected with George and Martha's hangup, the need to attack what is good."3 So the son binds George and Martha together, and by "killing" their son, George has performed the ultimate act

^Gelmis, op. cit., p. 277. 1 0 0 of one-upmanship. He is a manipulator in the extreme. He bases his decisions on their effects on others, and is very control oriented, although we often feel that George is pushed into his retaliations. Martha is the same way. In a very revealing speech, she says, George who is good to me, and whom I revile . . . who keeps learning the games we play as quickly as I can change the rules; who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy, and yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha, sad, sad, sad . . . whom I will not forgive for having come to rest: for having seen me and having said: yes, this will do; who has made the hideous, hurting, the insulting mistake of loving me and must be punished for it... . Some day, some night, . . . some stupid, liquor ridden night . . . I'll either break the man's back, or push him off for good, which is what I deserve. Note here that Martha not only has love/hate feelings for George (a characteristic of many System-Three manipula­ tors in other Nichols* films, such as Jonathan in Carnal Knowledge, Aardvark in Catch-22 and Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate), but also points out in this speech that she ^ in fact a manipulator. She says, in effect, I either shall do this or I shall do that. Nick, the new member of the faculty, is also a System- Three manipulator. In a confession to George, he outlines his strategy for getting ahead. He will take over a few courses from the older teachers, have sex with the wives of a few influentials on the campus so they can influence their husbands in his favor, and become an historical 1 0 1 "inevitability” for the Presidency. When George pushes him a bit too far, he tells George that he will "get him," He has married Honey not only because she was supposed to be pregnant, but also because her father had money. "Other compensations," he calls it. So we see clearly that Nick is a System-Three. Honey, in her own way, is also a System-Three, perhaps unconsciously. She has rn hysterical pregnancy, which manipulates Nick into marrying her. She is constantly pushing her husband’s virtues at others. Each of these characters go through a purging of souls very much like a confession to a priest. In fact, during Martha’s revelation about the myth of the child, George is reciting the Requiem. George reveals his childhood to Nick. Nick e:q)oses the reasons for his marriage and strategy. Honey confesses that she does not really want to have children and is afraid of being hurt. There is perhaps hope for these characters. It seems they are moving to ideal System-Four behavior. While George is insisting that the son is dead, Nick says, "Jesus Christ, I understand this." Honey has said truthful things to Nick and to herself. And George and Martha may yet change. Nichols suggests this hope visually. At the conclusion of the film, George and Martha are sitting in a window seat. George says, "It will be better." Martha says, "I don’t know." George holds her hand, and with no 1 0 2 illusions between them, sings softly to her, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf," Martha replies, "I am, George." The camera dollies in to their hands and we see the sun rising through the window over a campus building. The whole film has taken place at night, with just patches of artificial light. Now the real sun is shining, and it is a visual symbol of hope. Two other characters who appear in the film are older folks who run a road-house where the four main characters go to dance. They are stereotype System-Ones, Likewise, what we see of the college campus also re­ minds us of System-One. It is orderly, and bells chime the hour. However, the President of the college is clearly a System-Three, He refuses to allow George to publish his book; he forces George into a boxing match at a party; and if the President says, "Be nice to someone," one had better comply. So the college looks orderly on the surface. But underneath, we see chaos, The house of George and Martha is decaying. It is old, run-down, and very messy. Clothes are strewn about, and there is endless bric-a-brac on the walls, Nichols says of the interior of this house, I had in mind a couple that I'd known at the University of Chicago all along when we built the set, when we picked the books, when we chose the bookshelves made of planks and bricks and so forth. And the cups, those green mugs this guy had at the University of 103 Chicago . . The house is decaying like the lives of George and Martha are decaying. The exterior set represents the in­ terior of the characters. All that clutter and bric-a- brac is also a nice symbol of repressed sexuality. George looks the part of the stereotyped college professor with a gray-tweed sport coat, baggy pants, a vest-like sweater, and glasses. But he uses phrases, as "bust a gut," and drinks too much. Mick also looks the clean-cut young professor, but is, in actuality, ruthless and concerned more with his own ambitions than with scholarly work. The President of the college is described by George as "a white mouse with red eyes." It is said that musical beds is the faculty sport (another example of System-Three behavior), and when asked why he wants to be a teacher, Nick never answers. So in the college, which is a symbol of intellectual order, we find chaos at the top level: teachers and admin­ istration. The college is a backdrop for Nichols to inves­ tigate the lives of these characters. Just as a college doesn’t help the characters in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, it doesn’t help the characters in other Nichols’ films. And we are given a reason why. If the teachers are themselves so System-Threes, so

^Gelmis, op. c i t ., p. 279- 104 ruthless, so confused, how can they provide a meaningful education for those who will follow in their footsteps? Will George and Martha, Nick and Honey, change from System-Three to System-Four behavior? Perhaps. But what is more important is what the college educated sub-culture in the audience learns from this film. They may agree with Nichols that the image of the college is right, but will they be better able to deal with truth and illusion in their own lives, after seeing Who*s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? PLATE VII The Graduate 106

The Graduate

The Graduate (1 9 6 7), the second film by Mike Nichols, is based on a novel by Charles Webb. The Graduate is not only one of the most popular films of the last few years, and one of the most money-makers, but is also one of the most written about. It has been praised by some, and damned by others. But our concern here is not how good or bad it is on a subjective scale, but rather with how the film works with contemporary audiences, and with what belief systems the characters exhibit. One of the clearest explanations of The Graduate * s theme is given by philosopher George Linden. In his bril­ liant book on film criticism. Reflections on the Screen. he says: The theme of the film, of course, is included in the title. Ben is a graduate from college, but this is only incidental. The theme is graduation from affec­ tive to effective being. Hence, the rhythm of the film is built around his thematic emergence from subjectivity into life via sex and an active rejection of parental values. If one insists that The Graduate must have a message, it has one for the young, whicn they ought not to misread: Grow up! — meaning "emerge from your cosmic paranoia and engage yourself in the world.“5 Nichols himself says of the theme: I think it was the story of a not particularly bright, not particularly remarkable but worthy kid

^George W. Linden, Reflections on the Screen (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 197Ü), pp. 254, 107 drowning among objects and things, committing moral suicide by allowing himself to be used finally like an object or a thing by Mrs. Robinson, because he doesn’t have the moral or intellectual resources to do what a large percentage of other kids like him do— to rebel, to march, to demonstrate, to turn on. Just drowning. Then finding himself to some extent, finding a part of himself that he hadn’t found, through connec­ tion with a girl. Finding passion because of impossi­ bility. Impossibility always leads to passion, and vice versa. Going from passion to a kind of insanity. Saving himself temporarily from being an object, through the passion and insanity. Getting what he thinks he wanted and beginning to subside back into the same , world in which he has to live, with not enough changed.® Nichols really has two things to say with his film. First, he attacks the materialistic sub-culture of objects, the plastic society. Second, he has some caustic things to say about youth, including fraternity men and Benjamin’s incredible ineptitude, incoherence, and subjectivity. The story concerns Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman), a whiz at college in both studies and athletics. He is not only captain of the debate team, but also a track star. He returns to California from his Eastern college and appears zombie-like in the face of his parents' friends and values. He is seduced by Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), the wife of his father’s business partner, and seems to go with her out of boredom. Her daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross) is also graduating from college. One kiss from Elaine changes Benjamin from passivity to action. He now pursues Elaine and, overcoming all odds, rescues her just as she is

%elmis, op. cit., p. 284. io8 marrying a medical student. Benjamin and Elaine, still in wedding gown, leave together on a bus. The society that Benjamin returns to, his "descent into Los Angeles" (which one graduate student described as a descent into hell), is System-One. Here is the materialistic generation with their swimming pools, color TV’s, and two cars. He is given a scuba outfit and a red sports car. In fact, in terms of objects, he is given everything. The rich sub­ culture of the middle-aged believes in the same ideals found in Beach Party consumption. They know the "right way" to live, even if it means unhappiness underneath. It has been described as the "plastic" society. And in fact, during the cocktail party at the beginning of the film, one of the older guests, again reminiscent of Big Daddy in Beach Party, takes Benjamin aside to give him the word, which turns out to be "plastics." It is interesting to note that Mr. Robinson and Benjamin’s father are tax law­ yers; the same occupation as the lost Jonathan Puerst of Carnal Knowledge. At any rate, these people live System- One lives. Likewise, the Robinsons are pushing their daughter, Elaine, into marriage with a medical student, who, as we shall see, is a typical fraternity boy. Elaine and Benjamin both begin as System-Ones. But what makes them different, and prepares the audience for their eventual emergence as System-Pours, is their honesty. They are looking for honest values in a corrupt, material­ 109 istic society. The antagonist in the film is Mrs. Robinson, who is System-Three manipulator. She is continually associated with animal skin clothing, which visually des­ cribes her character— ruthless, and at times, bestial. She "manipulates” Mr. Robinson, Benjamin and Elaine, but loses out in the end. Let us trace Benjamin’s change from System- One to System-Four. The film begins with Benjamin's return to Los Angeles, the cocktail party, and the attempted seduction by Mrs. Robinson. Ben spends most of his time in his room, with­ drawing from the party, his parents, and his parents' friends. He stares into his aquarium, which sets up a "water and glass" visual motif which carries throughout the rest of the film. Mrs. Robinson enters Ben's bedroom and asks him to drive her home. She tosses the keys to the car into the aquarium. This is a very nice symbolic touch on Nichols' part. Mrs. Robinson holds the symbolic key to Ben's emergence from System-One behavior. She makes Ben "get his feet wet"— or his hand, actually— by reaching for the key in the aquarium. At the Robinson's home, we have a nice Nichols-and-May type sketch, with Mrs. Robinson seducing Ben, saying exactly the opposite of what she is doing. Ben, a good System-One boy, flees the scene. Later, Ben is humiliated in a diving suit his parents had given him. To rebuild his ego, he calls Mrs. Robinson, half hoping she will turn him down. She does not, and in 1 1 0 the scene that follows, we have Ben, a rather passive lover, and Mrs. Robinson, an active one. He seems actually to do it out of boredom or lack of something better to do. At Mrs. Robinson*s insistence, Ben promises never to date Elaine. His parents, however, arrange a date with her. At this point Ben shows signs of System-Two behavior and deliberately humiliates Elaine. He takes her to a strip joint and compares her to the nude girl on the stage. Elaine runs away and begins to cry, upset by Ben's System- Two behavior. Ben has a change of heart and goes after her. They kiss, a very loving, tender kiss in comparison to his kisses with Mrs. Robinson; a scene which illuminates the way Nichols views love and sex, a point which will be discussed later. Ben makes three crucial decisions: 1) he will drop Mrs. Robinson; 2) he will tell all to Elainej 3) he will pursue Elaine and win her. When Elaine learns of the affair with her mother, she is crushed, and refuses to see Ben. Next is the Berkeley chase scene. Ben, who has become more like a System-Three manipulator in his efforts to get Elaine back, follows her to her college. It is a pleasant enough place, although he sits near a fountain which, significantly enough, is dried up. He sees her several times and finally gets on a bus (which prepares the audience for the ending of the film, which also takes place on a bus). He tries many manipulations in order to convince her Ill he is sincere and loves her. Elaine eventually weakens and comes to see Ben in his room. After a few kisses^ Elaine, like a nice girl, leaves. Again note the contrast between the sexual behavior of Elaine and Mrs. Robinson; love versus sex. However, Mr. Robinson arrives, announces he is divorcing Mrs. Robinson, and whisks Elaine away to marry Carl Smith, the System-One medical student reminiscent of Sandy's profession in Carnal Knowledge. At this critical stage, Ben is capable of System-Four behavior. He tracks Elaine down, rushes to the church, and calls her name. Ben is no longer System-One, where he wouldn't care about the marriage, or System-Two, where he would probably throw a rock through the church window and shout an obscenity. He is not System-Three, manipulating people with intricate stories; he is System-Four, knows what he wants, and communicates this directly to Elaine with his anguished cry and banging on the church window. Elaine, in a flash of understanding (and also after re­ peating the vows with Carl) rushes to Ben. Mrs. Robinson shouts, "it's too late." Elaine cries, "But not for me," and the audience in the theatre cheers. Ben blocks the door of the church with a huge crucifix, and Ben and Elaine get on a bus and leave together. The film ends. The ending has various interpretations, but one thing is clear. Elaine, a nice System-One girl, has also become a System-Four through her relationship with Ben. Both pro- 1 1 2 tagonists have emerged and changed belief systems. Some feel that Ben and Elaine will carve out an en­ tirely different life from that of their parents. Others feel that they will be like their parents in a few years. When asked about his interpretation, Nichols said, "In my mind, it's always been that in five miles she's going to say, 'My God, I haven't got any clothes.'"7 In spite of the ambiguous conclusion of the film, one feels that Ben and Elaine have at least a chance of escaping from the System-One life style of their parents. It is interesting that Nichols parallels Ben's emer­ gence with visual symbols on the screen. We have mentioned the water motif; but the bright red sports car is also a fine visual motif. Ben needs it for transportation, but symbolic of the System-One society, it runs out of gas. Ben, then, is on his own, and runs for the church. He and Elaine leave, not in a fancy car, but on the bus, a common mode of transportation. So this film is a stand for the System-Four way of acting and attacks the System-One situation found in the particular sub-culture that Nichols is dealing with. The college in this film has two images, one implicit and one explicit. The implicit image, for we don't actually see Ben's Eastern College, is that the college has

7lbid., p. 2 8 8 . 113 not prepared Ben for living. He may have been good at books and at athletics, but when we first see him, he is hopelessly confused. When we see Elaine*s college, it is nice enough on the outside, with pretty walks and flowers, but don't forget the fountain (of knowledge?) is dried up. The e:glicit image takes place in a fraternity house. Linden describes it as being peopled by young goats,^ The fraternity boys are slick and clean-cut, but discuss wcmien as objects (and, incidently, talk about Carl as the sex king of their house). We see that they have elevated the System-One values of the sub-culture to the supreme heights. They are shaving and combing their hair in front of mirrors, which is a nice comment on their narcissistic personalities. Clearly, this is more damning than the image of the fraternity and sorority in Take Care of My Little Girl. And, it was college that helped produce the parents of Elaine and Benjamin. So the college, in this film, perpetuates the existing values, and in fact, just exists. Our System-Four char­ acters must graduate before becoming truly human and finding real meaning in life. College does not produce System-Four behavior, according to Nichols, and System-Four behavior is thought of in this film to be good. There is an interesting dichotomy between sex and love

^Linden, op. cit., p. 2 5 6 . 114 in this film, as there is in all Nichols films. Mrs, Robinson is seen as wicked partly because she is so sexual and wants to cheat on her husband. Likewise, Ben is made all the more appealing for it looks as if he is really not participating in the affair because of its erotic nature, but because he is bored. Likewise, Elaine and Ben*s sex life is almost non-existant. They kiss a few times, but that is it. Ironically, she is going to marry Carl, the sex king of the fraternity. So Nichols, in the film, is saying, in effect, that sex is a destructive force, and pure love is constructive (although we anticipate that Ben and Elaine will have sex after they get off the bus: at least, we hope so). Perhaps, to make the issue of a lover for both mother and daughter less inflammatory, Nichols has steered away from equating the sex act with both. The film does take a stand against having to be married in order to have sex. As long as you have "true love," you can have sex without being married, according to Nichols. Note that Elaine leaves with Ben after she has said her vows with Carl, which is unlike the ending in the book, where she leaves before she has said her vows.^ In his pleas for System-Four behavior, Nichols shows us that the college is ineffectual in helping form that type of behavior. In fact, the college might as well not

^Charles Webb, The Graduate (New York; The New American Library, 19^3),"p. 1^9. 115 exist, for all the good it does. And this is the message, which we shall see recurring in Nichols* work, and is the most devastating on the college, which is, in effect, nothing. PLATE VIII Catch-22 117

Catch-22

Although Catch-22 is.far removed from the college milieu, it provides interesting insights into educated people and social institutions. The third film of Mike Nichols, based on a novel by Joseph Heller, deals with educated people, but instead of placing them in the System- One college institution, they are now placed in the System- One institution of the Army. Although most of the officers have probably been to college, their education doesn't seem to have helped them much. Except for Orr and Yossarian, they all behave insanely. The story is about men at an airfield near Italy during World War II. Nichols describes it not as a literal ren­ dering of what happened but "a dream." He says that the theme is "about when you get off. At what point do you draw the line beyond which you won't go.Captain Yossarian (Alan Arkin), the protagonist, sees the war and army life as mad. He begins as a System-Three manipulator, trying to survive and get out of flying combat missions. He finishes as a System-Four; one who realizes the total situation and who can then act upon his convictions. The film is a series of flashbacks, or dream sequences, through which Yossarian moves until he eventually gains insight.

lOOelmis, op. c it., p. 2 6 9 . 118 All of the other officers are System-Three manipu­ lators. They all consider Yossarian crazy; ironically enough, practically all of them have pushed System-Three behavior beyond the limits of sanity. Milo Minderbinder is an entrepreneur. He begins M and M Enterprises, which turns the Army into a giant corporation. He takes parachutes from the men and issues them shares in the corporation. He thinks nothing of a few men’s lives. His slogan is, "What’s good for M and M Enterprises is good for the world." He is clearly a manipulator, in terms of his fantastic trades, silk for statues, statues for potatoes, etc. Colonel Cathcart is also a manipulator. He constantly raises the number of missions the men have to fly in order to go home, and is instrumental in a trade with the Germans. He will bomb his own field if the Germans will take some of Milo’s goods off his hands. Colonel Korn is also a manipulator. He and Cathcart will send Yossarian home if he promises to say good things about them. General Dreedle is one of the biggest manipulators. He awards medals for nothing in order to look good back home. He also threatens to shoot anyone who gets out of line. Chaplain Tapman tries to help Yossarian, but must conform and play the game in rrder to save hio viCi îieek. 119 Major Major, appointed to this rank only because of his name, manipulates his situation so people can only see him in his office. He makes sure he is never in his office, and wears a disguise on the outside. Aardvark turns out to be a man with a love/hate re­ lationship to women. He takes a nice girl, rapes her and kills her so "she wouldn't say bad things about me." The two women Yossarian like both turn out to be System-Three. One,a nurse, has a love/hate attitude toward men. Just as Yossarian is about to make love to her, she kicks him in the groin, and talks of being one woman with all those men on the base . . . a look-but-don 't-touch teasing attitude, she manipulates men in a sadistic way. The second woman, an Italian girl Yossarian really likes, turns out to work for Milo’s M and M Enterprises as a head Madam. The most interesting System-Three character is Orr, who pretends to be System-One and does his job. He reads comic books and is a "good boy." However, he keeps crashing his planes into the ocean. He is actually practicing for the time when he will crash and get away to a neutral country and safety. So poor Yossarian goes through increasingly agonizing and insane experiences. At the conclusion of the film, he Is to go honie and compromise his ideals. He will be sent home only if he lies about how wonderful the officers 1 2 0 are. He doesn't want to accept and is in a quandary. Nichols has him lying on a bed in a similar position to that of a soldier in an earlier scene. The soldier was all bound up in bandages and a cast; all that was visible was his mouth. He was spread-eagled on a bed, totally incapacitated. And this is what Nichols wants the audience to know about Yossarian; that he is now totally incapaci­ tated. When Yossarian learns that Orr has made it to safety, and that his previous crashes were just a ploy, he makes a decision and finally acts on System-Four beliefs. “If he made it, so can I," shouts Yossarian. “You'll have to jump," shouts the Chaplain. And Yossarian jumps out the window, gets a life-raft, and paddles out to sea, toward safety. We see a similar ending to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. Yossarian may make it, but the odds are against him. But at least there is a grain of hope, just as there is for George and Martha and Benjamin and Elaine. So in this film, we have a System-One institution that doesn't serve those who are in it. It exists, and those who are in power, the System-Threes, are corrupt indeed. A System-Three character, by seeing the horror of his en­ vironment, becomes Sys -=.ri-5 1 s able to act positively Yossarian, in Nichols terms, "draws the line and will go no farther." PLATE IX Carnal Knowledge Carnal Knowledge

Carnal Knowledge was released by Avco-Embassy in 1971. It was produced and directed by Mike Nichols and written by Jules Peiffer. Unlike Nichols’ last three films. Carnal Knowledge was not based on other existing works, but was composed for the screen. The film traces the lives of two friends from their college days at Amherst in the mid- Forties to their adulthood in Manhattan in the early Seventies. Jonathan, the main protsigonist, is handsome and sexy; Sandy, the second protagonist, is less attractive. Both are intelligent; Jonathan becomes a tax lawyer, and Sandy becomes a doctor. Their attitudes toward life are most clearly embodied in their attitudes toward women. Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) is a classic System-Three. He cynically manipulates women, and watches his effects on them. He is very selfish. The first woman he chooses is Susan (Candice Bergen), a student at Smith. She is a System-Three manipulator as well. When he learns that she has masturbated Sandy on a date, he manipulates her into a date with him and eventually beds her. We can see his manipulatory techniques from this passage; Hello, is this Susan? Well, you don't know me. I ’m a friend of Sandy’s, his roommate. Yeah, Jonathan. He told you about me? Yeah, so I ’m just here at Smith for tonight, practically on campus. I was taking a drive, you know, and I found myself practically on campus. . i . 123 When Susan asks, "Do you always date your best friend’s girl?" Jonathan replies, "Sandy told me you were beauti­ ful." She proceeds to have an affair with both Jonathan and Sandy at the same time. When she refuses to give up Sandy and go with Jonathan, Jonathan stops the affair. Susan marries Sandy, but always harps at him. Even as they prepare to go on their honeymoon, she is condescending and domineering; she calls him "a city boy" and "a nut" and "a baby." She obviously has the upper hand. She is somewhat like Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. In describing the character of Martha, another System- Three woman, as he envisioned it, Nichols has said: The brilliant, over-educated, ball-cutting woman who has womanly feelings and alternates between them is a very specific type. It’s that very specific poet’s wife, or professor’s wife, whose hair escapes from the knot at the back of her head . . . who’s read every­ thing and laughs at Simone De Beauvior, and who says, what, in effect, Martha said in the play: "abtruse in the sense of recondite. Don’t you tell me words. This description sums up Susan. In his thirties, Jonathan becomes deeply involved with a second woman, Bobbie (Ann-Margaret). She is a beautiful, but rather shallow actress, who does television commercials. Her profession is appropriate for Jonathan, for what he is after is the image of a beautiful woman, not a real person. He describes her to Sandy as, "size thirty-eight, with a D cup." When Sandy objects that looks

llGelmis, op. cit., p. 279. 124 aren’t everything, Jonathan replies, "Believe me, looks are everything." Bobbie is a System-One type; she just wants to get married, have children, and make Jonathan the center of her life. He can't take this, however, and has little regard for her feelings. "You want an extra hundred dollars? Try making the bed," he shouts to her during a spectacular fight. He finds Sandy a mistress, Cindy (Cynthia O'Neal), and then tries to seduce her. Bobbie, who has taken enough of Jonathan's cruel treatment, tries to commit suicide. He screams at the unconscious Bobbie, "Very slick, very clever." He sees her suicide attempt as nothing but a gesture to manipulate him into marrying her. They do get married and have a daughter, Wendy. Then they get theeventual divorce. Jonathan sums it up: "My wife, the fastest tits in the West, but king of the ball-busters. She conned me into marrying her, and now she's killing me with alimony." Jonathan sees Bobbie only as an object, a pair of tits. She is called a ball-buster (which, in reality, she is not) and a con- artist. The most chilling visual revelation of Jonathan's character and his feelings about women comes as he is showing slides of all his girls to Sandy and Sandy's new girl friend, Jennifer (Carol Kane). The time is the present, and Jonathan is middle-aged. He runs through the images on the screen with derisive comments. And in fact, this 125 is all his women ever were to him— images, not real people. The final scene takes place in a prostitute's apart­ ment. The prostitute, Louise (brilliantly played by Rita Moreno), is also a System-Three individual. She manipu­ lates men for money. She has figured out Jonathan per­ fectly and plays upon his selfish attitudes toward women. You are a kind man . . . I don't mean weak-kind, the way so many men are. I mean the kindness that comes from enormous strength, from an inner power so strong that every act, no matter what, is more proof of that power. That's what all women resent. That's why they try to cut you down. Because your knowledge of yourself— and them— is so right, so true, that it exposes the lies which they, every scheming one of them, live by. It takes a true woman to understand that the purest form of love is to love a man who denies him­ self to her. A man who inspires worship because he has no need for any woman— because he has himself I And who is better? More beautiful, more powerful, more perfect— you're getting hard— more strong, more mas­ culine, more extraordinary, more robust— it's rising, it's rising!— more virile, more domineering, more irresistible— it's up! It's in the air! So Jonathan gravitates toward System-Three women (Susan, Louise, and others in his slide-show), and has the most problems with a System-One (Bobbie). Nichols visually shows us Jonathan's attitude toward women. The women all wear cold colors in the film (white, black, or blue). Susan begins wearing yellow (Jonathan's color) but changes quickly to black. And that's how Jonathan sees women, as people who are black-and-white, without shades of gray, or cold, as indicated by the blues. Nichols loves to have his women wear black to be played off against a white or a yellowish background. He owes a 126 great debt to Antonioni (especially to Antonioni's film. Red Desert), where tiie outward colors reflect the inner states and inner personalities of the characters. A .good example of this is Jonathan's apartment in the Seventies, which is completely black-and-white except for the mirror, which is appropriately enough surrounded by a bright red frame. Jonathan loves himself, and finds only his i m a g e warm and passionate, as indicated by the warm red color around the mirror. A transitional device is to have the screen go white, and then reveal a beautiful woman skater, dressed in white, skating on the white ice. This visual image sums up Jonathan's image of women: beautiful, aloof, unattainable, cold, and skating through his life. So Jonathan is com­ petitive with women and sees them as objects. In a sequence later cut from the film, perhaps because it made the theme too explicit, Jonathan says to a young woman: Remember when you were a kid and the boys didn't like the girls? Only sissies liked girls? What I am trying to tell you is that nothing has changed. You think boys grow out of not liking girls, but we don't grow out of it. We just grow horny. That's the prob­ lem. We mix up liking pussy with liking girls. Believe me, one couldn't have less to do with the o t h e r . ■'•2 So Jonathan doesn't like women as people. He manipulates them in a cynical, System-Three way. Sandy, on the other

ISLarry Dubois, "An Interview with Jules Peiffer," Playboy, Vol. l8. No. 9 (September, 1971), pp. 82-84. 127 hand, is a System-Four idealist, who at times is forced into System-Three behavior. He is sincere and exploratory; he seeks information and help from time to time. He is genuine, but still caught up in many of the values of the sub-culture. For instance, throughout the opening credits, we hear the off-screen voices of Jonathan and Sandy discussing women. Jonathan talks of sex, but Sandy balances him with thoughts on love. For example, Jonathan says, "I wouldn't mind if she was just a little ahead of me— with those big tits— and knows hundreds of different ways— " to which Sandy replies, "I want more of a companion. The other stuff I can get on the outside.” Jonathan says, "The first time I do it, I want it to be beautiful. I don't want to waste it on some beast." Sandy answers, "I feel the same way about getting laid as I feel about going to college. I'm getting pressured into it." When asked about this last line, Feiffer replied; It's a result of the society that the Jonathan's and Sandy's were born into, the mythology they were reared in from birth, which geared them to think about themselves as men . and about women as conveniences, receptacles, appendages . . . it had to do with rivalry and envy, with competition with the other fellows, more than it had to do with women.^3 So Sandy, despite his background from the "educated" sub-culture, marries Susan for love, and tries hard at making a marriage. He says to Jonathan:

13ibid. 128 Susan*s a very good homemaker. Very efficient. I go home, everything * s in its place. Which I like. Because it's tiring putting in a full day at the office, then Doctors * Hospital for a couple of hours. So it's nice to have everything in its place when I get home; a martini, dinner, the kids— we don't watch much tele­ vision— we like to read aloud to each other. We used to have more friends than we do but we don't have many any more, so on weekends we might entertain a little or go over to a friend's, or come into town to see a play or a good film. It's not glamorous or anything. Note that his life with Susan sounds like the typical Sys­ tem-One sub-culture life, which may be hard for a System- Four person to endure. He says later of his sex life with Susan, "Maybe it's not meant to be enjoyable with women you love." Jonathan asks, "Sandy, do you want to get laid?" Sandy replies, "Please." So Jonathan finds Sandy a mistress, Cindy. Although she is a bit authoritarian, she is a System-Four. She knows what she is about, is competitive, and is true to her beliefs. The System-Fours get along well together. Sandy's most recent girl of the Seventies is Jennifer, a hippie. When describing her, Sandy says, "She knows worlds I can't even begin to touch yet." As Sandy, Jennifer is a System-Four. Jonathan, of course, sees her only as, "a good piece of ass." One of the most revealing speeches about Sandy and his System-Four orientation is found near the conclusion of the film, when he says to Jonathan: You don't need these games, Jonathan. I know, I played more games than anybody. The obedient-son game, the bright-student game, the cocksman game. Games 129 don’t impress Jennifer; just life, just love. Sandy's present marital status is left unclear, but it is not necessary that we know it. Sandy, although appearing naive to Jonathan, is still the System-Four idealist. He indicates that he has truly found happiness with a woman, and a System-Four woman at that. All but the System-Four characters.seem to come out badly in the film. Jonathan becomes impotent. Susan has an unfaithful husband and a dull marriage. Bobbie suffers a divorce. But System-Four Cindy leaves the scene of her own free will, unhurt. Although System-Four Sandy is un­ happily married, he fares the best. He rejects games and accepts life and love. System-Four Sandy and his System- Four flower child may yet find the answers. Despite the college background of practically all the characters, the institution of college has no important effect on them. The colleges, Amherst and Smith, merely provide the stage on which the characters act. In fact, the characters have very little feeling about the colleges. Sandy feels he is being pressured into going to school. Sandy and Susan both hate college mixers for it is "such a phony way of meeting people." When asked by Susan how he likes Amherst, Sandy replies, "Sure, why shouldn't I? Hy parents worked hard to send me. I'd better like it." When asked about Smith, Susan says she "likes it all right." The scenes during the college part of the film take place 130 at a mixer, in a dormitory room, in a dormitory shower, in a sorority house, and on the campus. There are no scenes of studying, although we see some students carrying closed books on the campus. The characters never speak of college life. When Susan is asked by Jonathan if she likes Smith,, she asks, "What's your major?" He answers with, "Where did you go to high school?" The campus itself is a dreary place. The room where the mixer is being held is a dreary yellow (which begins a yellow motif on walls which follows Jonathan through his life, until his last apartment, which is a cold, antiseptic white). The yellow appears in the dorm room, which is sparsely furnished (more like a cell than a room) with beds that have bars on them. We never see the campus looking cheerful. The scenes are either at night or on the winter days with gray skys. The distressing thing about the college in Carnal Knowledge is that it is so insignificant. It doesn't help prepare these people for the problems they will eventually face in life. It may teach them to become doctors or tax lawyers, but it doesn't meet their real needs. Just as in The Graduate, Benjamin must begin learning what's impor­ tant after he leaves college. A System-Three going through college will remain a System-Three. The real education takes place after graduation or somewhere else. The college is a System-One in the film, but it might 131 as well not exist. How can one cope with a college that is meaningless, a backdrop? And this is the problem that emerges from all Nichols* films. The college is meaning­ less except to enable one to get a job in the world of "plastics." In Carnal Knowledge, Nichols is dealing with the same white, middle-class, college-educated, competitive sub­ culture we find in his other films. His themes are similar as well. The four characters in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? use each other, find genuine romantic love almost impossible, and become involved in complex love/hate rela­ tionships. Likewise, Jonathan and Sandy are like grown­ up Benjamins from The Graduate. They blunder about seeking ideal love. Similarities can be found in Catch-22 as well, as the System-One, and-Three characters use each other as objects instead of regarding other people as human beings. Nichols makes a positive statement for System-Four behavior. Like Benjamin in The Graduate, George and Martha at the end of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Yossarian at the end of Catch-22, Sandy may be able to come to terms with his life. They all may be able to break out of the existing situations which bind them, and come to understanding, peace, and in a larger sense, physical or spiritual freedom. We don't really know if George and Martha will change, or if Benjamin and Elaine will not be like their parents, or if Yossarian will make it to safe 132 territory, or if Sandy will find true happiness with Jenni­ fer. Nichols offers us hope that they will, tinged with pessimism that they won't. Nichols films are aimed at the sub-culture he portrays on the screen. If the audience can learn from the films, if they can change, then, Nichols will have achieved his purpose. CHAPTER IV

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE COLLEGE FILM

Thus far we have seen that there have been changes in the image of the college milieu from the early films to the present day. College in the early days, from the Teens to the Forties, was pictured as a mythical place where students enjoyed themselves. Emphasis was on sports, romance and activities unrelated to formal education. The administrators and teachers bungle around and scholarly activities were, for the most part, missing from the scene. Although irrelevant, the college was a pleasant kind of place. This world reflected the views of an audience who had little touch with college. The emphasis on sports (especially football) was the connecting link between the audience and the college. The masses could at least go to the football stadium even if they couldn’t go to class. From the Forties to the middle Sixties, the treatment of college life was often more serious and more disturbing. College was seen not as a happy escape, but as a difficult place. Often there were emotional casualties among students and teachers who could not survive in the system. Issues such as academic freedom and the evils of sorority life

133 1 3 4 were dealt with. Administrators and teachers were still presented in a negative way, and emphasis was not on scholarly activity. This change in image reflected the change in the audience, many of whom had a more direct connection with college than in the past. But despite the more serious themes, the films offered simple solutions. In Mike Nichols' films even more disturbing questions were raised and explored. The college and its educated elite were intelligently and artistically probed and dissected. Nichols raises the questions of the relevance of higher education, the value systems it promotes, and the nature of people who teach at college, and those who attend and graduate from college. Nichols himself, in referring to The Graduate, sums up the overall feeling that emerges from " his films: A lot of us have the fantasy of breaking out, of dropping everything,of disappearing with that one girl, and extending a feeling forever. . . . The fantasy of breaking through ; . . is a very powerful one. I think a lot of people, myself included, wish to God it could be done . . .I'm moved by somebody who wants to try to do it . . . and I'm pulling for them. But I don't know if they can make it.^ This theme, of breaking through, of moving to a new state, of escaping, can be found in all Nichols' films. His characters are primarily System-Three types operating in a System-One environment. At the end of each film, most

^Gelmis, op. cit., pp. 2 8 8 -8 9 . 135 of them break out, and become System-Four. George and Martha, Benjamin and Elaine, Yossarian, and Sandy, all move toward System-Four behavior at the end of the films. Nichols shows a college environment which really doesn't help these people cope with life or break through. The college is a backdrop which perpetuates value systems that don't work in contemporary society, and perhaps never worked. The college milieu is peopled with those who have trouble handling their lives and their relationships with others. Nichols raises the question of the value of higher education as we know it today, and aims his negative view of college directly at the college-educated sub­ culture. The fantastic success of the Nichols' films may indicate that the youthful audience is in general agree­ ment with his views. For instance, the audience cheers wildly at the end of The Graduate as Ben and Elaine reject their former value systems. Nichols' films are the high-water mark in pictures dealing with the college milieu. They probe more deeply, more coherently, and more artistically into the real meaning of higher education than others of the past or present. Are American films likely to continue asking the kinds of questions Nichols has asked or to raise equally important questions? Such a question, of course, is impossible to answer with certainty, but by looking at current films dealing with college life, we can see how film makers have 136 reacted to the popularity of Nichols’ films.

Television: The Mass Medium If we are looking for films still geared to mass audience, television would be the logical place to start, for it has replaced the film as the major mass medium. In the Thirties, Forties and early Fifties, many people used to go to movie theatres no matter what was playing. Today, this type of audience sits at home and watches television, no matter what is playing. Such viewers switch the dial around looking for something that will meet their needs. Erik Barnouw calls them "unfocused” viewers.^ The film audience today could be considered "focused" viewers. They are discriminating, and choose their films carefully. So with television, aimed at as wide an audience as possible, few controversial or disturbing issues will be raised. The treatment of college tends to be conventional and reassuring.

^Erik Barnouw, Mass Communication (New York: Rinehart and Company, 1956), pp. 92-95* 137

The Jimmy Stewart Show

The regular series. The Jimmy Stewart Show, is a perfect example of the old-fashioned presentation of college life. Stewart, as Professor James K. Howard, teaches at a small, isolated college in isolated Easy Valley. The college is named Josiah Kessel College after Stewart*s grandfather, who founded it. Stewart is a harm­ less System-One middle class family man who teaches anthro­ pology. He is the negative stereotype of the professor. He is absent-minded, leaves his briefcase everywhere, and even managed to burn down his son’s home by falling asleep smoking a cigar; and he is, for the most part, ineffectual. In one show he increduously asks his wife, "You mean I did something right?" He handles a female student who propositions him by running out of his office and down the hall. He even can’t control the use of the family bath­ room. In one episode, he ends up brushing his teeth in a filling station washroom. Nevertheless, he is very sweet and loveable, and his clean-cut family and clean-cut students adore him. One episode indicates his System- One character clearly. Having written an obscure book on monkeys and territorial space, Stewart is asked to appear on television. This appearance, where he tells down-to- earth stories of common sense on the farm, prompts the University of Southern California to offer him the position 138 of Chairman of the Anthropology Department. Stewart refuses the position after reading these words by his grandfather: And so friends, that dream of mine (the college) comes real. I figure this is our home, our town, our good place to live, if we can hold on to what we've got in these changing times. To do that, we've got to keep ou# young people here, instead of going off to those big cities back East or wherever. So this college is to keep 'em right here, so that they can grow up smarter than me, have young ones of their own to educate, and keep the town alive, because towns like this are what gives our country its real strength. The series supports System-One behavior, and does not deal with meaningful issues in education. 139

Call Her Mom

"Education is not that bad" — Josiah Beardsley, 1 8 8 3. Founder of Beardsley College in the television film Call Her Mom One feature film made for television. Call Her Mom, appears as if it might be relevant. It starts with riots on campus, but soon turns this issue into escapist comedy.

Call Her Mom was first aired on February I5, 1972, on the ABC network. It was made for television by Screen Gems, the television subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, and was directed by Jerry Paris. It is a comedy, set at Beardsley College, a small co-ed institution nestled in "an untouched part of these United States."3 The narrator tells us that "time has passed Beardsley by." Although it is called a "bastion of learning," we see very little studying going on. The film opens with scenes at universities other than Beardsley. We see rioting students, and the narrator says, "Students demand students* rights, change, and want their voices to be heard. The youth of America are looking toward tomorrow, but wanting it all today. They are anxious, im­ patient, excitable, uninhibited, bitter, and brazen. Thus is the American college scene." Then the narrator turns

SNote that this college is as isolated as Josiah Kessel College in The Jimmy Stewart Show. l 4 o to Beardsley, the quiet college peacefully removed from rioting. Here we see quite clearly that the image of college in general is negative. The narrator presents only the System-Two, anti-establishment side of college life, and then assures the audience that this film will be about a different kind of college that "time has passed by." The opening seems to be geared to the mass audience's response to college disturbances, but the audience is assured that this film will be a comedy which avoids serious issues. As the camera roams over Beardsley, we see a lovely small campus and hear "Love in Bloom" on the soundtrack.

"Beardsley was founded in I883 by Josiah Beardsley," according to the narrator. "His motto was, 'Education is not that bad.*" This immediately establishes the mood toward college. In effect, the narrator is saying that education is bad, but "not that bad." A sexual theme is introduced very quickly. The narrator says that the students are content, and "not that bad." As he says this, we see a sexy co-ed on the campus. In fact, the plot revolves around a sexual situation. Having lost several housemothers, the Alpha Rho Epsilon fraternity (whose Greek initials are APE, a negative comment on fraternity boys in general), will have to move to the multi-million-dollar Estelle Sharpe Dormitory. The Dean of the College wants to turn the fraternity house into a cam- Î4l pus bowling alley. The boys must come up with a house­ mother or move. They choose Connie Stevens, a high-school dropout, who is a waitress in a local pizza place. Connie is young and cute, and the plot revolves around this sexually attractive woman as a housemother for college boys. Beardsley College seems to pride itself on everything but education. The multi-million-dollar Estelle Sharpe Dormitory, "the finest one in the Western Hemisphere," has push-button draperies and matching everything. It also has "six tennis courts that haven’t even been used yet." It has been written up in House Beautiful, to which the Dean subscribes. Here we see the emphasis on buildings instead of the other aspects of education. In fact, the Dean, the President of the College, and the Trustees are upset about the young housemother because they are afraid the donations to build the Estelle Sharpe Library may not come in because the parents are irate over the situation. The College has not yet built its library, but the first donations have gone to build a model of a palatial building designed to house its books. The model is on the desk, and the President, in a fit of rage, smashes it accidently with his fist. We feel that the building will be more a showpiece than a place for learning. Let us analyze the major characters for their belief systems and their relation to the issues of contemporary 142 education. Dean Walden (Charles Nelson Reilley), was formerly at a System-One monestary. He is slightly effeminate (remember the subscription to House Beautiful). We first see him in a black suit with black gloves and gray hat. - He wears rimless glasses and carries an umbrella. He looks very much like the stereotype of Deans found in general in American films. He carries the plans for the Estelle Sharpe multi-million-dollar dorm under his arm. Note that the dorm is always referred to as the "multi-million-dollar dorm." It is how much it cost that is important. The Dean is not sympathetic with the boys wanting to keep their house, but is only interested in building another building; this time a bowling alley. So here is the System-One Dean who represents many things that contemporary college students hate about administrators like this. As one young Ohio State student put it recently, "They are interested in buildings, not people." President Hardgrove (Van Johnson), whose wife is a former chorus girl, is only interested in how Connie's presence in the house will effect the donation campaign and his image. If the parents like Connie, she stays. If the parents don't like her, she goes. If the students riot, she stays. If the Trustees don't like her, she goes. He is a classic System-Three manipulator. We see he is also very authoritarian. The band plays "Hail to the Chief" 143 wl'enever he appears in a vintage limousine from the Thirties. His office has a bust of Napoleon in it. He tells the Dean two things. One, "Get rid of the broad." Two, "Watch me on Hollywood Squares tomorrow. I have the center box." The President is very concerned with promoting himself, and not much else. The students riot. He has to cancel an appearance on the Merv Griffin Show to meet with the students. He powders his nose before facing the tele­ vision cameras that have come to cover the riot. During an interview with newsmen, he can only talk about his book. Touching Story, which he eventually sells to the movies. So here is a comic, although damning, portrait of a College President who is concerned only with his own imag^ and who manipulates people to promote it. He does not care about the students and education, but only his own career. Professor Jonathan Calder (Jim Hutton) is the typical absent-minded professor. He forgets who his advisees are and leaves his books and pens around. He is stupid in love; on a date with Connie he spends the entire evening talking about Robert Frost. As adviser to the fraternity, he has visited it only twice in one year. And he teaches a course on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Beardsley is the only college in the world which offers this course, and the President can put pressure on Calder by threatening to take the course away from him. Calder is a System-One and bungles his way through the film. 1 4 4 The students are not very bright, either. During a rally, one student giving instructions says, "All girls burn your bras . . . but don't forget to take them off first." The students in general are System-One. The stu­ dents in the fraternity are mixed; they are mostly System- One with a System-Three manipulating president, Piegel- baum, and a System-Four good guy. Woody. Connie, the young housemother about whom the plot revolves, is a very interesting character. She sees nothing wrong with being a housemother at her young age, for she raised four brothers. Although very attractive, she will not sleep with any of the boys and treats them formally. She says she loves all of them as a housemother should, and they all love her back as a housemother. All very Platonic. She is a System-Four, actually, filled with doubts at times, but in the end, holding her ground. She is finally convinced to stay on by the boys (who love her as a brother), by the parents (who say she is doing wonders for their sons), and by the President and Dean (who like the fat checks that the parents are donating because their sons are so happy) . Although Connie can stay at the fra­ ternity house, there is a hint that she will eventually marry Professor Calder (God knows why) and the problem will resolve itself. So we again see a conflict between belief systems. Connie, a System-Four protagonist, is in the System-One 145 environment of Beardsley. Her antagonist is a System-One Dean and a System-Three President. All in all, education again comes off badly. We see administrators who have no ethics, teachers who are not relevant, and students who are unconcerned with education. College is a place of riots, and multi-million-dollar build­ ings. It is interesting that for the mass media, the super­ charged sexual theme of the film was played down. It would be interesting to see what a director would do with that theme if the film was aimed for the theatres rather than a mass TV release. The film brings up to date the negative image of education. Not much has changed since the Marx Brothers. We are left with the image of President Hardgrove surrounded by his students and faculty. He says, "Read my book. Touching Story, soon to be a Columbia Picture starring Ali McGraw and Ryan O ’Neal." How very funny explicitly, but how very sad implicitly.

The College As Background Hollywood films made for the more selective or "focused" audience (whose members are often college- educated and share some of Nichols* questions and opinions) are of two types. The first use college as background. Although they reflect some of Nichols* disturbances and 146 concerns, they really don't picture serious issues. Films in the second type, which attempt to deal specifically with college problems, have been bad works of art and "cop-outs." We shall deal first with those films which use college as a backdrop. PLATE X The Sterile Cuckoo 1 4 8

The Sterile Cuckoo

The Sterile Cuckoo was released by Paramount in I96 9 and directed by Alan J. Pakula. It is the story of Pooky Adams (Liza Minnelli), a girl whose mother died during her birth. Her father is unsympathetic and cold, and is away for months at a time. Pooky is an outcast, a System-Three manipulator, and very neurotic. She sees the normal people, who are System-Ones in this film, as "creeps" and "weirdoes." She meets a rich System-One boy, Jerry (Wendell Burton), on a bus. He dates her, much because of her manipulations and pushiness, and she becomes very dependent on him. When he has had enough of her neurotic behavior and wants to join the other System-Ones for a normal life at college, she becomes very depressed and leaves school. A fine death-in-life image occurs when he finds Pooky, months later in a hotel room where they once had an affair. She is sitting, half-obscured by dark shadows, in a room, and her face looks like a death's skull. Being a nice System- One boy, he puts her on a bus for home. The films ends. The System-One life that Jerry finds himself in and wishes to join consists of beer drinking, driving around in cars, and orgiastic parties. The fun side of college is presented here, with study only entering as a threat. Jerry must study or flunk out. Pool^ doesn't abide by conven­ tional behavior, but seems to be doing all right in school. 149 There are no scenes of classrooms or even of teachers or administrators. What is so horrifying about this film is that no one seems to realize that Pooky is sick-^-neither her teachers (whom we don't see); her adviser (if she has one); nor her boyfriend (who because of his immaturity, can't really be e3q>ected to). We see a desperately neurotic person who could be helped with psychotherapy (her case is not that serious) leaving college to wander aimlessly in her fantasy world. That the college does not help, and is just a backdrop, reinforces the negative image of institutions of higher education found in contemporary films. PLATE XI Love. Story

5^

ERsm L 15 1

Love Story

"Love is never having to say you're sorry." — Ali MacGraw to Ryan O'Neal in Love Story Erich Segal's enormously successful Love Story was written simultaneously as a novel and as a film. The film was directed by Arthur Hiller and was released by Paramount in 1 9 7 1. The story concerns a rich boy, Oliver Barrett IV O'Neal), who goes to Harvard and meets a poor girl, Jennifer Cavilleri (Ali MacGraw), who goes to Radcliff on a scholar­ ship. They fall in love and get married. Barrett's wealthy father disowns him (for marrying below his station and for his general rebellion). Without parental help, the couple struggle in school and finally achieve success. Barrett graduates at the top of his class and immediately becomes a successful lawyer. He and Jenny live in a beautiful apartment in New York. However, Jenny develops an illness and dies. Barrett is reunited with his father because of this tragedy. Love Story is obviously designed to exploit lyric love scenes and a sentimental ending. But in passing, it reveals an interesting view of American higher education. Harvard and Radcliff are System-One: Harvard Law School is presented in a negative light through Dean Thompson (Russell 152 Nype), who refuses to give Barrett a scholarship because he is the son of a wealthy man. Barrett indicates that he must support himself, and the Dean says, finally, "Maybe at mid-year." It is clear that Barrett never received the scholarship. The Dean may be following the rules of Harvard, but visually his character is shown as nasty. He is sitting behind a big desk, slightly raised above Barrett. He wears horn-rimmed glasses. He is slightly effeminate, and very sarcastic. He is very much the System-One, and unsympa­ thetic to Barrett*s cause. Jenny and her father, Phil, are System-Pours. They are very abstract in their thinking and can tolerate many unnerving situations. Barrett’s father and mother are System-Ones and remain so throughout the film. Barrett starts out System-One, an athlete and a prep- school graduate. Through Jenny’s influence, he becomes a true System-Four. He learns about the "real" meaning of life and . . . "Love is never having to say you’re sorry," for example. Here is the same pattern we find in many of the films. A System-One becomes a System-Four. So in Love Story, the college is a place to be endured until one graduates and becomes successful. To be fair, it did provide a library for Jenny and Barrett to meet in, issue an award for five-hundred dollars to Barrett for the best essay, and provide him a diploma that allowed him to be a lawyer. But on the whole, it is shown as a difficult 1 5 3 place in which to bide one's time. PLATE XII What’s Up, Doc? 15 5

What*s Up, Doc?

"Love is never having to say you*re sorry." — Barbra Streisand to-Ryan 0*Neal. "That’s the stupidest thing I ’ve ever heard." — Ryan O ’Neal to Barbra Streisand from VJhat’s Up. Doc?

What’s Up5 Doc? is billed as a "screwball comedy." It was directed by Peter Bogdanovich and released in early

1 9 7 2. The title has many meanings. On one level, it refers to Bugs Bunny’s continual question to Elmer Fudd; an arche­ typal System-Four confronting an equally archetypal System- One. On another level, related to the plot of the film, it refers to Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand), a student, asking Dr. Howard Bannister (Ryan O ’Neal), a Ph.D. Professor, what is going on. Maxwell being System-Four and Bannister being System-One. On the third level, the meaning is obviously sexual. Professor Bannister has come from a Conservatory of Music in Ames, Iowa, to a convention called "The Congress of American Musicology." He is a musicologist and wants to get a grant to do research from the Larabee Foundatiœi. He comes with his System-One fiancee, Eunice. The film, through a series of comic incidents, shows Bannister’s emergence from System-One behavior to System-Four behavior through the help of a beautiful and sexy student, Judy. Judy is a true System-Four. She has been to nine 156 colleges.already and has been thrown out of most of them for unconventional behavior. Some she has left because they were boring. At the colleges she has "read a lot of good books, but went to a lot of movies mostly." So the colleges have not really provided for her System-Four needs. Howard Bannister wears horn-rimmed glasses and is the stereotype of the absent-minded System-One professor. He even must be told by his domineering System-One fiancee how to buy as­ pirin. Judy, hungry, pretends that she is Howard's fiancee at a banquet so she can get a meal. Of course, she cap­ tivates the grant-giving head of the Larabee Foundation, and Howard goes along with the gag to get the money. Eventually, he falls in love with her and her unconventional, but effective, antics. Educators in this film come out badly. The head of the Larabee Foundation looks like Jerry Lewis' version of The Nutty Professor. He is small in stature, has flying black hair, wears glasses, and acts a bit effeminate. However, he is lecherous and likes the ladies. Howard loses the grant to another professor who has plagiarized on the research that wins him the grant. In the end, with Howard's transition from System-One to System-Four behavior beautifully illustrated visually as he and Judy ride a bicycle with a Chinese dragon attached to it flying in the wind, he ends up with the 1 57 grant, and Judy, she goes back with him to Ames to school and eventually marries him. So the educators in this film are seen to be System- One, and traditional. Some are absurd, others are evil. The negative image of education prevails. It is the System-Four college dropout who can set things right and liberate the System-One. Her life style is the one that is praised in the film. She moved Howard frcan a closed, boring life to an open, meaningful one.

The College as Central Theme During 1970, when college riots became prominent in America, Hollywood released three movies siding with the revolutionary students. Although not very impressive as works of art or as flashes of insight, they nonetheless pretend to raise relevant questions about higher education. All of them either sidestep the issues or present simplistic solutions to complex problems. PLATE XIII The strawberry.statement 15 9

The Strawberry Statement

A film that tries to deal seriously with the issue of campus revolution is The Strawberry Statement, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by former Northwestern University film student, Stuart Hagmann. Unfortunately, he was the wrong choice. He used almost every fancy cine­ matic trick in the book on material of a realistic nature; even the riot scene is composed like a musical number by Busby Berkeley. However, the film is important here because it clearly shows a conflict of belief systems and a negative image of a university. The film, based on the book by James Kunen, is his diary of a revolution at Columbia University. The setting has been changed to a mythical university in the San Francisco area. The protagonist is Simon (Bruce Davidson). He is a simple System-One student athlete (he leaves the rebellion occasionally to go to crew practice), and first attends a sit-in in the administration building to find girls to date. He meets System-Two rebel, Linda (Kim Darby), a single-minded girl who believes whole-heartedly in “student power.” The film tells of Simon*s uneasy but eventual turn toward a System-Four orientation. He sees both the university*s side and the students* side, and eventually goes along with the rebellious student-®, not only because he believes in their cause, but also because 160 he loves.Linda. There is a frightening vision at the conclusion of the film as the administration calls in the National Guard to clear the building of the students sing­ ing "Give Peace a Chance." They are brutally beaten by the Guard and the film ends. So the film really presents no solution, except that if one gets out of line, no matter what his beliefs, he can't win. The System-One university is the antagonist and the System-Two students are the protagonists. One of the students, George (Murray McCleod), is a System-One type who first calls the revolutionaries "Pinko Spades and Mafia Acid Heads," and then joins their cause, becoming System-Two. What the rebellion is all about isn't clear either. It is obviously based on Columbia University's decision to build a gym in Morningside Park without consulting the community. But in the film, the re­ lations between the university and the community are not explained coherently. The students want a say in what the university does. Relevant education is not mentioned. So the film looks like a plea for compromise. If the university or the students would budge, trouble might be averted. By not giving in, both sides look stupid. The attempt "to tell it like it is" through dazzling cinematic technique turns c .t to be quite contrived, and it is quite obvious that no one wins in this filmic confrontaticm. PLATE XIV R.P.M, 1 6 2

R.P.M.* ♦Revolutions Per Minute

"Tell me, what did you do for sex before you were published?" — Graduate student Rhoda to Professor Perez in R.P.M. The ultimate disaster in the college revolution picture is R.P.M. It was contrived by Stanley Kramer, who is known for his social comment pictures (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, On the Beach, The Defiant Ones, Ship of Fools). Like much of Kramer *s work, it may look good on the outside, but may be rotten underneath. For example, in Guess Who*s Coming to Dinner?, black Sidney Poitier, who has all the credentials of a superman, must play "Uncle Tom" and ask permission of the white man to marry his white daughter. In The Defiant Ones, escaped criminal Sidney Poitier, who has been degraded by white Tony Curtis throughout the film, again plays "Uncle Tom" and gives himself up to help his "white brother." Kramer’s films try to be all things to all people, and such is the case with R.P.M. Professor Perez (Anthony Quinn) is a System-Four who is past fifty, drives a motorcycle, wears cords and turtle- necks, and has long hair. He is having an affair with System-Three sociology graduate student Rhoda (Ann-Margaret). He talks about contemporary issues and is liberal; the students love him, especially the System-Two rebel students. He is made Acting-President of the University. In the 1 6 3 climax of the film, rebel students have taken over the administration building. Although Perez is still sympa­ thetic with them, he is now President of the University. He orders them evicted by the police because "the University must be maintained.” The movie does not present a coherent conflict between the claim of revolution and the claim of order. The big question is, will manipulative Rhoda con­ tinue to sleep with Perez after his changeable behavior? So in this film, we again see a conflict between belief systems. Perez is a System-Four, but still can*t handle the problems of contemporary education very well (again, a professor who is ineffectual in a crisis), and his antagonists are at first the System-One university and finally the System-Two students. The university is presented in a negative light, and nothing is really resolved. PLATE XV Getting Straight 1 65

Getting Straight

Getting Straight, a comedy, was released by Warner Brothers and directed by Richard Rush. The film opens on shots of campus buildings which are huge, concrete affairs which dwarf the students. While the credits are shown, the students are throwing an apple to one another (the recurring symbol of knowledge and education). The apple has an obscenity written on it which clearly sets up the way the students feel about the school. We meet Harry Bailey (Elliott Gould), a System-Four individual who is a teaching assistant at the university working on his master*s degree. The film shows his adventures as he tries to "go straight," or join the System-One society. He can't do this, and at the end o f the f i^ abandons all hope of living a conventional System-One life. Harry is shown as a good teacher. He is superficially cyncial, but successful in making his course, "Dumbell English," relevant to the students. When asked why he is teaching, Harry answers, "Power and gay pretty girls to molest," but we find that, underneath, Harry is serious, and wants to be the kind of teacher that "teaches the truth.” Harry is also a good student. However, he finds his education irrelevant and depersonalized. His life as a student becomes more and more intolerable. For instance, Harry is taking a course taught by his main antagonist. 166 a System-rOne professor named Wilhunt. Dr. Wilhunt tells Harry to pay more attention in class or he may flunk and be sent to Vietnam. Harry has already served in Vietnam as a draftee, and when he tells Wilhunt this, Wilhunt sar­ castically sends Harry to his office.^ There, while running the grades for students on a giant computer (which inci­ dentally breaks and sends computer cards flying everywhere), Wilhunt talks about "staying in line." He has a chart on which green dots represent the "average" student. The chart reflects green on Wilhunt’s face, visually equating him with normal and average System-One behavior. Harry then meets a kind professor. Dr. Kasper, viho is also System-One. Kasper is generally sympathetic to Harry, but insists that Harry play according to the rules. Kasper warns Harry to be careful on his upcoming M.A. oral exam. "Watch out for Professor Lysander. He is out to get you," he tells Harry. So here we notice professors who are con­ cerned not so much with the student * s work (Wilhunt and Lysander) but their subjective feelings about the student's personal behavir'- Even the kind professor insists that Harry "look good on the outside. Howard Thompson calls the System-One professors a "cautious faculty."5

^arry was System-Four before Vietnam. He was active in causes and worked for black people's rights. ^Howard Thompson, "Getting Straight," The New York Times (May l4, 1970), p. 42. 167 As Harry walks with Kasper through the building, they are photographed against the concrete walls which have the letters "MACHINE"written on them. Harry later refers to the college as a "factory," and its faculty as "the ancient mariners." Harry is having an affair with a nice System-One graduate student Jan (Candice Bergen), who grades his exams for him. She has given too many A ‘s and B ’s, and Harry is angry with the college because he is forced to give a per­ centage of D*s and F's to his students. Harry questions many of the traditional values of the college and of the upper-middle-class society, and Jan, fed up with this, re­ jects Harry and goes with System-One medical student. Bill Greengrass (reminiscent of Carl Smith, the medical student in The Graduate). All Greengrass can talk about is how much money he will make, and this disgusts Harry. Many of the System-Two rebel students now have a meeting on the steps of the main building and demand more rights and a voice in running the school. The System-One police are called in and disperse the crowds with tear gas. The police hide their numbered badges in their pockets, bloody a few heads, and tear some blouses off girl students. Harry, who wants to stay out of the riot, finally stops a policeman from beating a girl senseless. In talking later with Jan, he tells her that the riot was not only ugly, but sexy. In his System-Four way, he sees many sides to the 168 situation. The System-One President of the University, President Wade, calls Harry in and wants him to talk to the students. "They trust you," he says. He is an older man in a huge office. He wears a dark black suit, narrow olack tie, and blue glasses. Standing by a high table, he tells Harry he has made a few concessions to the students. He won't let them have representation in running the school, but he will let them stay out an hour later at night. Harry answers, "You are twenty years too late. It's .too late for those kind of answers. Why didn't you learn anything?" Here we find the notion that the advanced degree does not prepare one for dealing with the real world of the present. "Suppression breeds violence," says Harry, summing up the theme of the film in a platitude. "The University must change. If you didn't want them to think, why give them library cards? Let go. Stop trying to hold back the hands of the clock." The President tells Harry to tell the students that the University's position is final, and he gives Harry the peace sign. In a later scene, a System-One faculty member, after looking at the riot on television, turns off the color set. His comment is, "Pretty good color, eh?" He is not con­ cerned with the plight of the students or of the university, it seems. Harry doesn't have time to take a final exam in an 1 6 9 Audio-Visual course that Harry calls, "Cellophane cutouts and toilet paper.” Harry has another student take the exam for him. Harry could have passed the exam easily, but had to meet with the English class he is teaching during the time of the exam. The student successfully passes the exam, but later tells Wilhunt of the switch. Wilhunt confronts Harry with the news that he has found out about the AV-exam. He says that Harry can take his M.A. exam, but must resign from teaching at the university. The scene takes place in the granite and stone library. Wilhunt towers above Harry on the stairs. The concrete pillars close in on Harry and we see him standing alone as Wilhunt turns off the library lights. A System-Four Harry says softly to Wilhunt, "You are not a monster. Just a fool." Wilhunt shouts, "You are dangerous, you don*t fit in." Harry goes for his M.A. examination. Surrounded by stoney faced examiners, he does well until the homosexual Professor Lysander keeps questioning him about P. Scott Fitzgerald. He tries to make Harry agree that Fitzgerald was a homosexual. Harry won't make this ridiculous compro­ mise and Jumps up, kisses Lysander, then leaps up on the table and denounces the university and irrelevant education. He is interrupted when a bomb e:Q)lodes outside the classroom. The students are rioting. The examiners, thoroughly upset, leave, and kindly Professor Kasper asks, "Why throw it all 1 7 0 away like that? What are you going to do?" Harry answers, "It's not what you do that counts. It's what you are." The students are destroying the university. Harry meets Jan outside. "I failed the Master's," he says. "How come?" asks Jan. "I don't belong there," replies Harry, indicating the university. "This may no longer be the land of the free and the brave." The last image of the film shows Jan, who can't go through with her marriage to Greengrass, kissing Harry behind a p 'liar while the students riot. Harry, a System-Four, tried to join the System-One society. He found it more and more intolerable, and at the end, consciously decided to not emulate System-One behavior. When he decides that the university life is ridiculous, he leaves, but does not act as a System-Two. He does not riot with the others. He simply walks out and is at peace following his own convictions. In a sub-plot, we see Jan's emergence from System-One behavior to System- Four behavior. She joins Harry at the conclusion of the film. Both are unable to "go straight." The three "revolution" films grossly oversimplify com­ plicated questicms. We see many students who are System- Two rebels, and many teachers and administrators who are System-One, and who do not function effectively in the real world of the present. The protagonists are System-Four, and conflict arises between those of differing belief systems. 171 In fact, these films constitute a direct appeal to the young audience of college students and young college graduates. The films side with students, not primarily because they are right— in fact, the issues are never pre­ sented clearly— but because they are young, vital, and compassionate. Teachers and administration are, of course, conservative, humorless, and conventional. So far, films about college revolution have presented conflicts of belief systems as a new version of good guys and bad guys. CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY

Findings In the wide view of the college milieu in the American film, Mike Nichols stands out as the one film maker who raised serious questions about the meaning of higher edu­ cation and dealt intelligently and artistically with them. Nichols seems to be saying that the earlier films were right. College is an irrelevant and somewhat dangerous place. Nichols' contemporaries seem to agree with him, for the same negative vision of college is found in other contemporary college films in varying degrees. In all the films, we find recurring symbols and stereo­ types. Athletics appear in the films up to the present day. Here is the link to the general audience. An apple (symbol of knowledge and going to school, i.e. "An apple for the teacher”) can be seen from the Marx Brothers to Getting Straight. In the latter film, an obscenity embellished the apple. The closed book recurs throughout the films. The students aren't involved with study, but with other, and to them, more meaningful things. Some "crack the book," such as Early, who is the good boy in The Duke of Westpoint, 172 173 or George, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (in order to torment Martha), or Oliver in Love Story (who wants to graduate to get a good job). But the majority leave the books alone. We see little of the library, the laboratory, or the classroom; most action takes place in the dorms, the ath­ letic fields, or in apartments and homes. Sex is a motif which occurs throughout the college film. The first college film, in 1903, deals with a pro­ fessor trying to seduce a co-ed. We find this theme con­ tinually in all the periods. Sex between students and other students is also a major theme from the early films to the present day, but the emphasis on teachers and students having sex perpetuates the negative image of the college. According to System-One behavior, teachers are supposed to keep "academic distance." It is also interesting to note that it is a male teacher who sleeps with a female student, never a female teacher who sleeps with a male student. We can make a general, composite sketch of the insti­ tution, the administration, the faculty, and the students in the college films. The institution is usually a place with huge stone buildings that often dwarf the people. Shots of the campus usually are filmed at the University of Southern California, the University of California at Los Angeles, Occidental College, and Pomona College. An 174 athletic stadium or field is often seen as part of the in­ stitution. The campus itself is generally portrayed as a physically attractive locale. It is always, without ex­ ception, a System-One environment. The administration, usually symbolized in the figure of a Dean, is also System- One. He is dressed in black or gray formal attire, and wears glasses. He is often short and effeminate. _ He is strict and follows the rules. The teachers are primarily System-One, although occasionally they are System-Four when they appear as pro­ tagonists. They also wear dark clothes and glasses and are tradition bound. They are absent-minded and, on the whole, ineffectual. The student body is usually System-One. Student protagonists appear as System-Fours, or, in the contemporary college films that deal with revolutions, System-Twos. The protagonists, be they teachers, students, or outsiders, manifest primarily System-Four behavior. The antagonists are primarily System-Ones or System-Threes. The conflict in the film occurs between the characters of differing belief systems. A pattern which can be seen es­ pecially in the later films is for characters to move from System-One behavior to System-Four behavior. We often find a protagonist moving from System-One behavior to System- Four behavior, but never from System-Four behavior to System-One behavior. A cha.nge from System-One behavior to 175 System-Four behavior takes place not because of the in­ stitution's effect, but because of the influence of another System-Four character. The audience is manipulated to identify with and applaud the System-Four protagonists who are typically at odds with the System-One antagonists (be they the instituticn or other characters). As presented in the films, the institutions condone System-One behavior and do not create or encourage System-Four behavior. Judged solely from American theatrical films, the American college milieu as a whole, has few, if any redeem­ ing features. If, in a thousand years, man had only these films left to show what the American college was like from

1903 to 1 9 7 2, he would find it an increasingly threatening place whose values and social effects are highly question­ able. He would, more than likely, recognize the diploma as necessary to get a "good job," but it would also, at the same time, be obvious that the formal system of education as presented in these films is highly irrelevant. It does not foster the creative and adaptable behavior necessary to get along in society, but, on the contrary, emphasizes traditional and rigid behavior. He probably would be pleased that college is only a temporary experience. Stu­ dents will not be in it forever; they graduate or drop out, or, to use Nichols* term, "break through into life." Yet, even a teacher or administrator who stays in the college milieu can have a meaningful life, according to 176 the films, if he is a System-Four. Our man of the future would conclude that System-Four behavior, as seen in the majority of the protagonists, is the most desirable kind of behavior, and that the college can finally accept that kind of behavior. It cannot accept, however, System-Two rebellious behavior. In the American film, college is presented as a nega­ tive place geared to produce System-One behavior and thought. Practically all intelligent teachers and students are System-Four and indifferent or hostile to the System- One orientation of these institutions. It is significant that some of the most respected educational philosophers express similar criticisms of higher learning. In his book. Educational Media, Theory into Practice, Wesley C. Meierhenry remarks: An examination of traditional educational practices discloses that throughout most of his school life, the student has found himself reacting to a rigid set of circumstances, physical facilities, and curricular materials. The era of education characterized by such practices is ending. . . . In order to secure effective learning, evidence indicates that it is necessary for environment to be a rich and exciting one from the standpoint of both physical and human resources. There­ fore, teachers, both present and future, will be con­ fronted with a situation where much more emphasis is placed on the student, on the manipulation of his en­ vironment, physical facilities, time schedule, and even on his cultural background. There is a current search for flexibility and adaptability in meeting individual learner needs. We are groping to personalize what happens to the leaimer and humanize him during the very time when technology assumes an ever increasing dimension in our lives.^

^Wesley C. Meierhenry, "A Look Ahead.” Educational 177 He indicates that there will be a change in the college from a more rigid institution to a more flexible one. Meierhenry is describing a System-Four environment for the college of the future. Alfred North Whitehead, in The Aims of Education, pro­ vides further description of such an environment. The faculty should be a band of scholars, stimu­ lating each other, and freely determining their various activities. You can secure certain formal requirements, that lectures are given at stated times and that in­ structors and students are in attendance . . . But the heart of the matter lies beyond all regulation . . . The modern university system in the great democratic countries will only be successful if the ultimate authorities exercise singular restraint so as to re­ member that universities cannot be dealt with according to the rules and policies which apply to the familiar business corporations. 2 Whitehead is not advocating anarchy here, but is cautioning against rigid rules and bureaucratic practices that we see mirrored not only in the present day educa­ tional system but reflected in the college films as well. Another image reflected in the films was the emphasis on social activities and athletics. This is certainly in a transition process. Jerome S. Bruner, in The Process of Education, comments:

Media, Theory into Practice. Edited by Raymond V. Wiman and Wesley c. Meierhenry (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co., 196 9), p. 270. ^Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education (New York: Mentor Books, I9 6 3), p. 99. 1 7 8 There is much discussion about how to give our schools a more serious intellectual tone, about -che relative en^hasis on athletics, popularity, and social life, on the one hand, and on scholarship application on the other. There is an effort afoot throughout the nation to redress what has clearly been an imbalance. Adm iration for and interest in scholarship is likely to increase faster than expected. There are even some amusing sidelights in which the old symbols are being poured into new bottles— as in certain high schools where the coveted athlete*s letter is being given as well to students who make distinguished grade averages.3 Change and transition are inevitable; but to change quickly, with a positive attitude towards change, is im­ perative, according to Relier and Corbally; The problem of encouraging initiative, of fostering innovation, of removing barriers to change, of avoiding the conformity which results from detailed controls or the fear of detailed control is... difficult. The field of higher education is such a vast, developing, and complex one that it is not likely to be properly developed or conducted unless there is a large oppor­ tunity for individual initiative and for experimentation. Not only must the opportunity for this exist, but active steps for encouraging and for facilitating such develop­ ments must be taken.^ So leading authorities in education recommend and predict a System-Four environment for the college of the future, with a balance between scholarship and social ex­ periences. Higher education today is in transition. It is some-

^Jerome Bruner, The Process of Education (New York: Vantage Books, 1963)> p. 75. Theodore C. Relier and John E. Corbally, "College and Universities and Their Relationships," Designing Educa­ tion for the Future, No. 2. Edited by Edgar C. Morphet and Charles o. Ryan (New York: Citation Press, 1 9 6 7), pp. l47- 148. 179 where between the traditional System-One college found in the films and the System-Four college that, according to informed opinions, is desirable. It would appear that from the beginning, American film makers have been implicitly critical of the college institution for the same reasons stated by educational philosophers. As these films reflect, the institutions of higher learning have always been System-One, and in most cases, this quality has been ridiculed or condemned from both creative and philosophical points of view. Practically all the protagonists have stood for flexible behavior and abstract, non-dogmatic thought. Both creative film makers and educations1 philosophers indicate the growing dissatisfaction with the present system of higher education. If educators and society re­ spond to this challenge, colleges will change for the better. The films will, predictably, reflect the changes. This study has discussed the image of college reflected in film and analyzed the way film makers have presented this image to influence our attitudes toward American higher education. Beyond the scope of this study is another very important area: namely, the objective validity of the films* images of the American college and the ethical implications and the judgments towards which the audiences are led. We have already discussed how the colleges are respond­ 180 ing to changing times. One also hopes that the new breed of film makers, as exemplified by Mike Nichols, will accur­ ately reflect the new realities they perceive and reject the stereotypes that no longer seem appropriate. One also hopes that a more discriminating audience can be developed; one who can recognize a stereotype, one who can recognize manipulation by image makers, and one who can sort out the real from the fantasy. This study, it is hoped, contributes to this end. This study should help illuminate American attitudes on a topic of importance to society. By comparing theatri­ cal films on the university theme using Harvey's belief systems as a coherent means of analysis, we hope to develop a starting point for further research into value systems and personality structures as reflected in American popular culture.

Validity This study, of course, is not meant to explore the real nature of American higher education. When Hollywood turned to the college theme, it dealt almost exclusively in stereotypes and over simplified issues. What this study has attempted to do is to discover the basic assumptions behind these stereotypes. Practically every college film set up conflicts that could be reduced to good guys versus bad guys. In almost every case, the good guys were System- 181 Pour. In the world of reality, intelligent, good men can no doubt be found in all four of Harvey*s systems. But in the colleges and universities of the American film, System-One behavior is almost always portrayed as foolish or dangerous; System-Four is almost always intelligent and socially productive. Harvey*s system has proved a useful method for analyzing the content and rhetoric of motion pictures. As to the overall validité of this approach, the following points can be made; a. Harvey's system has been validated in studies of real behavior, and is accepted by behavioral .scientists as a generally correct and useful way of analyzing human behavior. b. % experience with film made the utilization of the instrument a bit easier. I have been teaching film for seven years, and have been used to analyz­ ing the content and rhetoric of film. c. The perceptions of a class of seventy-five film students were analyzed using Harvey's method and the film. The Freshman. Although the sample was small, the students, in general, were able to categorize the behavior in the film into Harvey's systems in a way which matched the findings of the investigator. d. It must be emphasized that this has been an attempt 182 ■ to develop this method and e^^eriment with its usefulness. We found it useful, but there are certainly more possibilities for testing its application and validity.

Rec ommendat ions a. Harvey's systems, and the method developed in applying it,should be tried with larger popula­ tions. Other investigators may be able to use it successfully to analyze film content in a variety of modes. b. The instrument could be used with groups of varying social levels. Economically deprived people, for instance, might perceive behavior in films differently from those from other social strata. c. Comparative studies could be made, using the in­ strument to analyze characters in books, plays, novels, as well as films. If a film has been made from a book, one could use the instrument to note the changes that have been made in the transla­ tion of the work from one medium to another in terms of characters' values, attitudes and general behavior. d. Harvey's system could be used in combination with other instruments such as the Likert attitude 183 measurement scale, which could be used to compare the college milieu in the films and the college milieu in reality. We could discover points of agreement and disagreement, and have another means to gain insight into attitudes toward higher edu­ cation. In general, film study has not applied the kind of behavioral science methodologies mentioned in this study to analyze film content. New instruments should be developed and tested, and applied in experimental ways to film analysis. The behavioral science approach to film analysis can provide many new insights into film. APPENDIX A

A SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF MIKE NICHOLS

In November 1931> Mike Nichols was born Michael Igor Peschkowsky, of a Jewish family in Berlin.^ In 1939, his father, a doctor who studied in Germany and Russia, came to America, took his medical exam, set up practice in Manhattan, and sent for his family. As a youngster, Mike Nichols went through a series of progressive private schools (Dalton, Cherry Lawn, and Walden), with no apparent success.^ He didn't enjoy school and didn't feel that he learned much. Because he considers his handwriting as very poor, he seldom gives autographs. He was twelve when his father died, and had little money. He continued his education on scholar­ ships, was lonely and had few friends. At fourteen, he became stage-struck. The dramatics teacher at Cherry Lawn told him that he was intelligent, but not suited for the stage. He graduated from Walden and then registered at New York University in pre-med, but dropped out of the University after the first day. He then enrolled in the

^Joseph Gelmis, The Film Director as Superstar (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1970), p. 20^. ^Mel Gussow, ’’Mike Nichols, Director as Star,” Newsweek, November 11, 19 6 6, p. 95. 184 185 pre-med program at the University of Chicago^ and worked his way through at odd jobs. He couldn’t stand cadavers so he stopped attending his classes and became "a campus egghead and avid theatre person in the intense intellectual atmosphere of Robert Hutchins University."^ Here, he did his first bit of direction in a production of Yeats* "Purgatory." He went to New York and studied with Lee Strasberg, but could get no work. In 1 9 5 5 a he returned to Chicago auid, with Eladne May, Alan Arkin, and others, went to work at a restaurant called the Compass. Mike Nichols auid Elaine May began improvising and in 1958 they made their first appearance on television, where they were an instant success. They worked as a team until 19^1, when Miss May left to work on her own. Nichols acted but with little success. He was offered a chance to direct the play Barefoot in the Park, which became a success on Broadway. Prom there, he directed other plays, all successes, and was then given the oppor­ tunity to direct Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. Critics refer to his successful directing as "the Nichols' touch." Nichols himself, and most film makers, seem to fit most closely a System-Three orientation. They are manipu­ lators ; not only of financers (in order to make the pictures),

3lbid. 186 and of the cast and crew (another term for director might be manipulator), but also of the universe created by the film. What power a film maker has over his filmic world! He can make characters do anything he wants. He can play God. Nichols, although the final authority on the set, also sees the value in collaboration and he responds to peer- pressure. As Nichols describes his thought processes, he sounds very much like Harvey*s System-Three. ”I don*t think when I*m alone,” he says, "that's why I'm a director. I'm turned on by somebody else. A director works with other people."^ It is interesting to note that the majority of the protagonists and antagonists in his films are System- Thr ees . Nichols mentions that he can identify with many of them. There are consistent elements of style in all four of his films, but he modifies that style according to the material and his colleagues. Jan Dawson, writing on The Graduate in Sight and Sound, remarks, "Nichols' second feature inevitably reminds one of those brilliant gramo­ phone records on which he and Elaine May, in a series of four-or-five minute dialogues, worked their way through a succession of characterizations and situations— two Peifferish characters, never so distorted as to be unrecog-

^Gelmis, op. cit., p. 291. 187 nizable, each of them determined to have the last word."5 Dawson is exactly right, for Nichols is at his best when he has two characters talk with each other. This is largely the format of his first three films, and in Carnal Knowledge, Feiffer himself does the script.^ In referring to his style, Nichols comments, "What the director is saying to his audience is, 'This happened to me; did it happen to you, too, * " and, "The things about something that's made right, whether it's a novel, or an opera, or a film, has to do with being hung on a spine. The stronger the spine, the stronger the backbone of the thing that you're making. The more, openly or secretly, everything that happens is tied into that backbone, the more solid your work will be. So Nichols chooses the spine, or theme, or premise and has every element in his film hang onto that. Nothing is in his films by chance. All detail grows out of the situation. Finally, Nichols, like Antonioni, is more concerned with what is in the frame, than with fancy editing. He holds his shots a long time, which bothers many critics.

5Jan Dawson, "The Graduate," Sight and Sound, Summer, 1 9 6 8. Reprinted in Joy Bould Boyum and Adrienne Scott, Film as Film (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1971), p. 191- ^Jules Feiffer is best known for his satiric cartoons . which began appearing in New York's The Village Voice in 1 9 5 6, and are now widely syndicated, ^ ^Gelmis, op. cit., p. 282. 1 8 8 However, he is forcing the audience to become involved with what is happening in the shot, to read it, and participate in it. There is a conflict between critics as to whether Nichols is a personal film maker, where the image maker seeks to express a personal viewpoint, or vision about the human condition,®or a craftsman, who plays on the popular themes of the day, manipulating his audience with little real personal conviction.^ I doubt that it really matters, for the films speak for themselves most eloquently cxi aspects of contemporary life. However, we can find recurring themes in his films. He is concerned with the middle-class, white, college-graduate sub-culture. He is concerned with human relationships. He is concerned with values, and asks, "What makes the good life?" We see a dichotomy in his films between sex and love. Sex often exists without love in Nichols* films, and is a destructive, rather than a constructive force. Genuine love, in Nichols’ films, although highly desirable, is largely unattainable. Finally, Nichols is concerned with the effect of the past on the pres­ ent. Even in his earlier skits with Elaine May, his char­ acters would say things like, "I had a middle-class back-

®For example, Allen Kirschner and Linda Kirschner, Film; Readings in the Mass Media (New York: Odyssey Press, 1971), p. ^ 1 . % o r example, Stephen Farber and Estelle Changes, 189 ground.- No relating to my parents,"^® One of his most popular skits deals with a mama's boy.^^ It seems, then, that Nichols* style is consistent and that similar themes can be found in all his films. He is also in complete control of his films, although he used plays or novels for raw material in three of them. In this sense, he is characteristic of what the French call a film "auteur.” However, his films are so popular at the box office (The Graduate being one of the all-time money makers) that he is not only a fine artist, with his own personal vision, but a popular artist as well. His films reflect the feelings of a sub-culture, the college educated youth, and this group responds. As Alpert points out, the audience that sees The Graduate is primarily not the

to the college generation, and as we shall see, has impor­ tant things to say about them and to them.

"The Graduate," Film Quarterly, Vol. 21, No, 3» PP. 37-41. l^Mike Nichols and Elaine May, "Bach to Bach," Im- provisations to Music (Chicago: Mercury Records MG 20376, , Side Two, BandOne. ^^Mike Nichols and Elaine May, "Mother and Son," Retrospect (Chicago: Mercury Records SRM 2-628, 1971), Side Ë, Band two. Originally recorded in 1958. ^%ollis Alpert, "The Graduate Makes Out," Saturday Review, 1 9 6 8. Reprinted in Kirschner, op. cit., p. 273. APPENDIX B

CHARTS

190 191 Film Title The Professor of Drama Year Director______~ 1903 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution X

Student Body Pupils X

Faculty The Professor X

Administration The Headmaster X

Protagonist

2nd Protagonist

Antagonist

2nd Antagonist

Protagonist:s Family

Antagonist's Family

Other 192 Film Titl^jrü6_PZ0fe5S.0r. Year Direc’cor______1903 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution X

Student Body Male Students X Female Students X Faculty Prof. J. Ink X

Administration

Protagonist

2nd Protagonist

Antagonist

2nd Antagonist

Protagonist * s Family

Antagonist's Family

Other Film Title Fight in the Dormitory 193 Director______.______

Belief Systems 1 ? 1 if Institution

Student Body Girls ??

Faculty

Administration Housemother X

Protagonist

2nd Protagonist

Antagonist

2nd Antagonist

Protagonist * s Family

Antagonist's Family

Other 194 Film Title _ Yale Laundry Year Direc bvr______1907 Belief Systems 1 1 2 1 4 Institution

Student Body Boys X

Faculty Professors X

Administration

Protagonist

2nd Protagonist

Antagonist

2nd Antagonist

Protagonist * s Family

Antagonist * s Family

Other 195 Pila Title Classmates Director______

Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution

Student Body Students X

Faculty

Administration

Protagonist

2nd Protagonist

Antagonist

2nd Antagonist

Protagonist » s Family

Antagonist * s Family

Other 196 Film Title— ciassmatfis____ Year Director. James.KirkKOQd_ 1914 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution West Point X

Student Body West Point Cadets X

Faculty X

Administration X

ProtagCTiist Poor Boy X

2nd Protagonist Beautiful Girl X

Antagonist Wealthy Boy

2nd Antagonist

Protagonist » s Family Poor Boy's X Father Antagonist's Family

Other 197 Film Title_ strangheart Year Director___James-KlrtasoQd-. 1914 Belief Systems 1 3 4 institution Coliambia University X

Student Body X

Faculty X

Administration X

Protagonist Indian X

2nd Protagonist Co-ed X

Antagonist Football Star X

2nd Antagonist Tribe and "White People” X

Protagonist » s Family Tribe X Antagonist * s Family

Other "White People" X Pila Titl______Prof^^® Year DirgctorCharlès m T Seay EoTson Co7 1914 Belief Systems 1 2 1 4 Institution

Student Body

Faculty Professor Harper X Administration

Protagonist Octavius X

2nd Protagonist His Butler X

Antagonist The Second Maid X

2nd Antagonist

Protagonist•s Family

Antagonist’s Family

Other Harper’s Daugh­ ter and the Butler X 199 Pilm Title Those College Girls Year Director Keystone Co.______1915 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution Dormitory X

Student Body College Girls X

ï’aculty

Administration Headmistress X

Protagonist Slim X

2nd Protagonist Dina X

Antagonist College Girls X

2nd Antagonist Headmistress X

Protagonist's Family

Antagonist's Family

Other Janitor X Janitor's Wife X Film Title The Freshman______Year rec t or___ ^am_Taylo%:_anâ_ Er%LKgKmey6r_ 1925 Belief Systems 1 2 1 4 Institut icHi Tate College X

Student Body Tate Students X

Faculty Football Coach X

Administration Dean X

Protagonist Harold Lamb X

2nd Protagonist Peggy X

Antagonist The College Cad X

2nd Antagonist The Cad's Clique X Protagonist » s Family Harold's Mother and Father X Antagonist's Family

Ôther Tailor X Other Characters X Film Title College Year Directoi jIame&jL_aQZ&e_ 1927 Belief Systems 1 2 1 4 Institution Clayton College X

Student Body Clayton Students X

Faculty Crew Coach X

Administration System-One to System- Dean Edwards Three to System-One

Protagonist System-One to System- Ronald Three to System-One

2nd Protagonist Mary Haines X

Antagonist Jeff Brown X

2nd Antagonist Student Body X

Protagonist’s Family Harold * s Mother X Antagonist * s Family

Other 202 Film Title Horse Feathers Year Director Norman McLeod 1932 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution Huxley College X

Student Body Huxley Students X

Faculty with Traditional Beards X

Administration Yes-Men X

Protagonist Groucho X

2nd Protagonist Chico, Harpo X Zeppo Antagcxiist Jennings X

2nd Antagonist Connie Bailey X

Protagonist♦s Family

Antagonist * s Family

Other Biology Professor X 203 Pila Title__ The Duke of West Point Year Director___ Alfred E. Green______1936 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 institution West Point X

Student Body Cadets X

Faculty "Doc” Hockey and X Administration and Upper Classmen X

Protagonist Steve Early X

2nd Protagonist System-One to System- West and Drew Four X- -- X

Antagonist "Bad News" Strong X 2nd Antagonist Strong*s Friend X

Protagonist * s Family Early's Father X Antagonist's Family

Other Ann System-One to System- Four X- -- -X 204 Film Title Blondie Goes to College Year Director Frank R. Straver 1942 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 institution Leightai College X

Student Body Leighton Students X

Faculty English Professor X Administration Dean X

Protagonist Amusing Code of Behavior X Blondie

2nd Protagonist Amusing Code of Behavior X Dagwood

Antagonist Rusty Bryant X

2nd Antagonist Laura Wadsworth X

Protagonist * s Family Baby Dumpling Amusing Code of Behavior X Antagonist's Family J. J. Wadsworth X

Other Mr. Dithers X and Others X 205 Film Tltle__The_.Male AnimaL Year Director v.i i j ot-.-h wngpw-h 1 9 4 2 Belief Systems 1 ? 1 4 Institution X

Student Body X

Faculty X

Administration X

Protagonist Prof. Tommy Turner X

2nd Protagonist Michael X

Antagonist Ed Keller X

2nd Antagonist Joe Ferguson X

Protagonist » s Family System-One to System- Ellen Turner Four X- — -X

Antagonist*s Family Myrtle Keller X Other Patricia System-One to System- Four X------X 206 Filin Title Goodbye My Fancy Year Direc cor____Vincent Snermmn 1951 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution X

Student Body X

Faculty Miss BirdShaw and Others X Administration Dr. J. Merrill Moves from System-Four X- —X to System-One

Protagonist Agatha Reed X

2nd Protagonist Woody X

Antagonist Dr. J. Merrill Moves from System-Four to System-One X- — X 2nd Antagonist Matt Cole X

Protagonist’s Family

Antagonist•s Family Virginia X

Other 207 Pllîn Title Take Care of My Little Girl Year Director___ Jean Hegulesco______1 9 5 1 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution Midwestern University X

Student Body and Sorority Girls X

Faculty X

Administration X

Protagonist Liz System-One to System- Four X- __ -X 2nd Protagonist Joe Blake X

Antagonist Chad Games X

2nd Antagonist His Friends X

Protagonist's Family

Antagonist * s Family

Other Casey X 208 Film T i t l e B e ach Party Year Direct or William Asher 1963 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution

Student Body Surfing Society X

Faculty Professor System-One to System- X- -- X Four Administration

Protagonist Frankie X

2nd Protagonist Dolores X

Antagonist Eric Von Zipper X

2nd Antagonist Eric’s Gang X

Protagonist * s Family

Antagonist’s Family

Other Prof.’s Assistant X 209 Film Title Joy in the Morning Year Dlrcc tor Alex~Segal______1965 Belief Systems 1 2 4 Institution Mission University X

Student Body Missicxi Univ. Students X

Faculty Prof. Newcole System-One to System- X- -X Four

Administration Dean Darwin System-One to System- X- -- -X Four ProtagOTiist Annie X

2nd Protagonist Carl X

Antagonist Situation X

2nd Antagonist Carl*s Father System-One to System- X- -- -X Four Protagonist's Family Annie * s Mother System-One to System- X------X Four Antagonist’s Family Carl’s Father System-One to System- X- -X Four Other Annie and Carl’s Friends X 210 Filsî Title Who»s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Year Director,, Mike Nichols______1966 Belief Systems 1 2 if Institution X

Student Body

Faculty

Administration Martha»s Father X

Protagonist System-Three progresses George toward System-Four X- -X

2nd Protagonist Nick X -X

Antagonist Martha It X- -X

2nd Antagonist Honey X- -X

Protagonist»s Family

Antagonist's Family Martha's Father X Other Inn Keepers X Film Title The Graduate year l';lrec Belief Systems 1 2 1 4 Institution X

Student Body and Fraternity Boys X

Faculty

Administration

Protagonist Benjamin System-One through all X- -X stages to System-Four

2nd Protagonist Elaine System-One to System- Four X- -- -X

Antagonist Mrs. Robinson X

2nd Antagonist Carl Smith X

ProtagCTiist * s Family Ben's Parents X

Antagonist's Family Mr. Robinson is System- Elaine's Parents One

Other Film Title Catch-22____ Year Director MikLsichois- 1970 Belief Systems 1 ? 1 4 Institution Army X

Student Body The Men Basically System-Ones X X faculty

Administration Officers in Charge X

Protagonist Yossarian System-Three to System- Four X- X

2nd Protagonist Orr, A Friend of Yossarian X

Antagonist All Others X

2nd Antagonist

Protagonist's Family

Antagonist's Family

Other X 213 Film Title Carnal Knowledge- Year Director MihaJKisbGla_ 1971 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution Smith* Amherst X

Student Body 4o's Students X

Faculty

Administration

Protagonist; Jonathan X

2nd Protagonist Sandy System-Four* at times X forced into System-Three behavior Antagonist Susan X

2nd Antagonist Bobbie X

Protagonist*s Family

Antagonist'ë Family

Other Louise X Cindy X Jennifer X Film Title— The Jimmv Stewart Show year Director Various______1971-7? Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution Josiah Kessel College X

Student Body X

Faculty X

Administration X

Protagonist James K. Howard X

2nd Protagonist X

Antagonist Various Situa­ tions X 2nd Antagonist X

Protagcxiist » s Family His Family X Antagonist's Family X

Other 215 Film Tible__ Call Her Mom Year Director___ Jerry Paris 1972 Belief Systems 1 ? 3 4 Institution Beardsley College X

Student Body Beardsley Students X

Faculty Jonathan Calder X

Administration President Hardgrove X

Protagonist Connie X

2nd Protagonist APE Fraternity Mixed belief and value X Men systems, but primarily System-One Antagonist Dean Walden X

2nd Antagonist President Hardgrove X

Protagonist » s Family

Antagonist's Family

Other Fiegalbaum X Woody X 216 piim Title__nisL-StetlleJlysUsssL, Year Director____ Alan J. Pakula 1969 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution X

Student Body X faculty

Administration

Protagonist Pooky Adams X

2nd Protagonist Jerry X

Antagonist "Creeps and Weirdoes" X

2nd Antagonist

Protagonist's Family Pooky's Father X

Antagonist * s Family

Other Film Title Love Storv 217 Year Director, Ajü&üZ_aiilezL_ 1971 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 Institution Harvard/ Radcliff X

Student Body X faculty X

Administration Dean Thompson X

Protagonist Oliver Barrett, System-One to System- X- -- -- X IV Four 2nd Protagonist Jennifer Cavilleri X

Antagonist Situation X

2nd Antagonist Oliver » s Father X

Protagonist * s Family X Antagonist’s Family Barrett Tradition X Other Phil X 218 Fila Title What «s Up . Doc? Year Director Peter Bogdanovich 1972 Belief Systems 1 2 3 4 ïnstitutKxi Conservatory of Music X

Student Body

Faculty

Administration

Protagonist Prof. Howard System-One to System- X- -X Bannister Four 2nd Protagonist Judy Maxwell X

Antagonist Prof. who plagiarizes X 2nd Antagonist Eunice X

Protagonist»s Family

Antagonist's Family

Other Larabee X 219 Film Title The Strawberry Statement Year Director SfalSJjL-Hagnianri______1970 Belief Systems 1 2 1 4 Institution X

Student Body Mixed between System-One and System-Two X

Faculty X

Administration X

Protagonist Simon System-One to System- Four X- -X

2nd Protagonist Linda X

Antagonist University X

2nd Antagonist

Protagonist»s Family

Antage lst»s Family

Other George System-One to System-Two X- —X 220 Film Title r .p.m , Year Director Stanley Kramer Belief Systems 1 2 1 4 Institution

Student Body Mixed between System-One and System-Two X

Facility X

Administration X

Protagonist Prof. Perez X

2nd Protagonist Rhoda X

Antagonist System-One University X 2nd Antagonist System-Two Students X

Protagonist * s Family

Antagonist * s Family

Other 221 Film Title Getting Straight Year Director ___ 1970 Belief Systems 1 2 1 4 Institution X

Student Body Mixed between System-One and System-Two X

Faculty X

Administration President Wade X

Protagonist Harry Bailey X

2nd Protagonist Jan System-One to System- X- -X Four

Antagonist i)r. Wilhunt X

2nd Antagonist Dr. Lysander X

Protagonist * s Family

Antagonist's Family

Other Dr. Kasper X BIBLIOGRAEF

Books

Albee, Edward. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. New York; Pocket Books, 1^71. Barnouw, Eric. Mass Communication. New York: Rinehart and Company, Berelson, Bernard. Content Analysis in Communication Research. Glencoe; Free Press, 1 9 5 1. Boyum, Joy Bould and Fcott, Adrienne. Film as Film. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1971. Bruner, Jerome. The Process of Education. New York: Vantage Books, 1963. Evans, Richard I. Resistance to Innovation in Higher Educaticai. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publisher, Inc.7 T970. Eyles, Allen. The Marx Brothers: Their World of Comedy. New York: Kinney, 1 9 7 1. Gelmis, Joseph. The Film Director as Superstar. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1 9 7 0. Hall, Edward. The Silent Language. New York: Premier Books, 195F: --- Harvey, 0. J. "Belief Systems and Education: Some Impli­ cations for Change." The Affective Domain. Washing­ ton: Communication Services Corporation, 1970. Kirschner, Allen and Kirschner, Linda. Film: Readings in the Mass Media. New York: odyssey Press, 1 97IT Knight, Arthur. The Liveliest Art. New York: The New American Library, 1 9 5 7. Linden, George W. Reflections on the Screen. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1970. 223 Maloney, Martin. “Mass Communications Research in Radio, Television, and Film. “ An Introduction to Graduate Study in Speech and Theatre, kdited oy Clyde w. Dow. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1 9 6 1, Maltin, Leonard. TV Movies. New York: The New American Library, 1 9 6 9. Maltin, Leonard. Movie Comedy Teams. New York: The New American Library, 1970. Mast, Gerald. A Short History of the Movies. New York: Pegasus, 197X 1 Meierhenry, Wesley C. “A Look Ahead." Educational Media, Theory into Practice. Edited by Raymond V. Wiman and Wesley C. Meierhenry. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1 9 6 9. Niver, Kemp. Motion Pictures from the Library of Congress Paper Print Collection, 1894-I9I2. BêrSeTëÿ""SïîXTôs“ Angeles : The University of California Press, 1 9 6 7. Relier, Theodore C. and Corbally, John E. "College and Universities and Their Relationships." Designing Education for the Future, No. 2. Edited by Edgar C, Morphet and Charles 0. Ryan. New York: Citation Press, 1 9 6 7. Webb, Charles. The Graduate. New York: The New American Library, I9ÜJI Whitehead, Alfred North. The Aims of Education. New York: Mentor Books, I9 6 3.

Articles and Periodicals

Alpert, Hollis. "The Graduate Makes Out." Saturday Review, 1 9 6 8. Bowman, Claude G. "The Professor in the Popular Magazines." The Journal of Higher Education, 9 (October 1938), pp. 351-Sb. Dubois, Larry. "An Interview with Jules Feiffer." Playboy. Vol. 1 8, No. 9 (September, 19 7I), pp. 82-84. Cooper, E. Newbold. "College in the Movies." School and Society. 4o (November 17, 193^), PP. 664-65% 224 Crowther, Bosley. "Goodbye My Fancy." The New York Times (May 30, 1951)> p. 14. Dafferty, H. M. "Hollywood Versus the School Teacher." School and Society, 62 (August 11, 1945), pp. 92-94. Dawson, Jan. "The Graduate." Sight and Sound, Summer, 1 9 6 8. Dodds, Glenn. "Does Fiction Libel the Teacher?" The Nation's Schools, 42 (October, 1948), pp. 4l-4?T "The Adventure of the Absent-Minded Professor," The Edison Kinetogram, 10 (July, 1914), p. 26. Farber, Stephen and Changes, Estelle. "The Graduate." Film Quarterly, 21, No. 3» PP. 37-41. Gussow, Mel. "Mike Nichols, Director as Star." Newsweek (November 11, I9 6 6), p. 9 5. Kehoe, Monika. "Campus Confessions." School and Society, 48 (December 10, 1938), pp. 775-767 Thompson, Howard. "Getting Straight." The New York Times (May 14, 1 9 7 0), p. 42. .

Other Sources

Nichols, Mike and May, Elaine. "Bach to Bach." Improvi­ sations to Music (Chicago: Mercury Records MG ^0$76, 1 9 5 8), Side B, Band Two. Nichols, Mike and May, Elaine. "Mother and Son." Retro­ spect (Chicago: Mercury Records SRM 2-628, I9 7 1), Side B, Band Two.

Unpublished Material

Schwartz, Jack. The Portrayal of Education in American Motion Pictures, lyji-iyoi. unpublished Ph.D. disser­ tation, Department of Communication, University of Illinois, 1 9 6 3.

Films The Adventures of the Absent-Minded Professor— 1914 225

Beach Party— 1963 Blondie Goes to College— 1942 Call Her Mom— 1972

Carnal Knowledge— I971 Catch-22— 1970 Classmates— 1908 Classmates— igi4 College— 1927 The Duke of West Point— 1936 • Fight in the Dormitory— 1904

The Freshman— 1925 Getting Straight— I97O

Goodbye-My Fancy--I951 The Graduate— I967

Horse Feathers— 1932 Jimmy Stewart Show— 1971-72

Joy in the Morning— 1965 Love Story— 1971 The Male Animal— 1942

The Professor— I903

The Professor of Drama— 1903 R.P.M.— 1970 The Sterile Cuckoo— 1967

The Strawberry Statement- ^1970 Strongheart— 1914 Take Care of My Little Girl— 1951 226 Those College Girls— I915

What's Up, Doc? — 1972

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?— 1966

Yale Laundry— I907