Just watched BOY, DID I GET A WRONG NUMBER on TCM, thanks to a tip from Brian Z. Why does everybody hate it so much? My tattered Maltin assigns it one of its numerous pious "BOMB"s. I can imagine Godard loving this movie. For me, it's the kind of repressive desublimation we can all get behind: the harmlessly transparent and superficial kind. Like, Bob Hope refers to policemen as "fuzz," as in, "I've got more fuzz on my tail than a French poodle" (the line quoted to me by McNeil when he called - of course - to discuss the movie a few minutes ago). And Phyllis Diller, riding a motorcycle, squirts mustard into the faces of hapless "fuzz" through their driver's side windows, causing them to crash, which makes her cackle as she anarchically squirts more mustard onto the road. If I am recalling correctly, and I almost certainly am, my ex-boss Lisa once told me that Phyllis Diller on a motorcycle was one of the iconic images of her youth. Yet I searched the entire "internet" and couldn't find a still of it. So here's Elke Sommer holding an apple. See? Doesn't it remind you of CONTEMPT?
