Serpentine, You Lusty Old Goat!

The scriptwriters over here seem to be frantically working overtime. I thought the script was going one way, and well, there has been a late rewrite.  Funny. That is the way the story goes. Not sure if I am stuck in a rollicking comedy with tragic undertones, or a full-blown tragedy with comedic overtones. Or maybe something in between? A road-movie short on grand adventures, with no roads, no cars and lots of walking, talking, eating and kibitzing?

Two classic movie scenes resonate in my head this morning...

The first scene is from "The In-Laws" (1979), I see Peter Falk and Alan Arkin running thru a parking lot, seemingly evading an imagined sniper's bullets. I think it is Falk's CIA agent character who shouts: "Serpentine! Serpentine!"

Right. The crooked path. Sometimes it is the only way to survive.

The second scene is from "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948). One of the all time great movies. I see Walter Huston dancing around in the dust like a crazy, lusty, drunken old goat. He is laughing his ass off, because "the treasure," the gold that has been the deep obsession consuming the characters in the film for so long, thru greed, death and bad blood, has blown to the four winds. 

Sometimes the fragility and futility of the Human Thing is pretty damn funny.  Serpentine, you Lusty Old Goat! All that glitters is not gold.