Woody Allen Tonight: Can the Count get it all together? Part 2 of "Count Dracula" from "Getting Even"

"It's so rare to see [Count Dracula] around this early. In fact I can't ever remember seeing him around in the daytime."

-- the Mayor, in tonight's conclusion of "Count Dracula"

by Ken



Vampires are prepared for a lot of things, but not necessarily -- as we learned in last night's first installment of Woody Allen's "Count Dracula" -- for total eclipses of the sun. We'll have a recap of Part 1 in the click-through, before proceeding with Part 2, which concludes our current run of "Woody Allen Tonight." Not to worry, we'll be returning to Woody (on to Without Feathers!), but before we leave him, I wanted to be sure everyone saw this terrific comment left by UncommonSense in response to the "Woody Allen Tonight" post of "A Twenties Memory":

I discovered Woody Allen's writing when I was about 12, shortly after discovering his films. I found a paperback copy of Without Feathers in the bookstore at the mall and bought it because I had loved Take the Money and Run so much when I saw it on the CBS Late Movie.



I was hooked. I had never read anything like it. Here were stories written in language that was clearly above any experience I had ever had, but which I understood and found hilarious. After Without Feathers, I went back and bought Side Effects and Getting Even in short order. I still remember laughing out loud as I read some of the stories - "The Whore of Mensa," "The Kugelmass Episode, "and yes, "A Twenties Memory." I remember a girl at school asking me, "You mean they write books you can just sit there and laugh at?"



My wife and I saw Midnight in Paris last weekend at an old, independent movie house, and as we watched it, I thought constantly of "A Twenties Memory," which I have not read since I was a teenager. The story was my first exposure to The Lost Generation - the first time I had heard of Gertrude Stein, for example. To this day, my image of Hemingway is formed in part by Allen's humorous characterization in the story. When I read A Moveable Feast [Hemingway's memoir of his life in Paris in the '20s] as an adult, I felt like I had been there before. In fact, sometimes when I think of one story, I can't be sure I am not remembering details from the other.



I lost track of my Woody Allen volumes years ago. They're probably in the attic somewhere. I might have to go and hunt for them.

Well said, UncommonS! And thanks for sharing all that! Now back to tonight's regularly scheduled programming: the conclusion of "Count Dracula," one of the three pieces in Getting Even that had never appeared in print before the book was published.





WITH THE ECLIPSE DRAWING TO A CLOSE, CAN COUNT

DRACULA GET IT ALL TOGETHER? TO FIND OUT, CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"



from Getting Even (1971)

"A Look at Organized Crime"

"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2

"A Twenties Memory"

"Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 1 and Part 2

"The Schmeed Memoirs," Part 1 and Part 2

"Count Dracula," Part 1

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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A Woody Allen Tonight double bill: Hitler's barber remembers! -- Part 2 of "The Schmeed Memoirs," plus Part 1 of "Count Dracula" (from "Getting Even")

Generaloberst Heinz Guderian (1888-1954)

Chief of mobile forces for the Wehrmacht

"When General Guderian heard [that Hitler ("in part on the advice of Goebbels") was dealing with his "dry, unruly hair" by washing it every day], he immediately returned home from the Russian front and told the Führer he must shampoo his hair no more than three times weekly . . . the procedure followed with great success by the General Staff in two previous wars."

-- from tonight's conclusion of "The Schmeed Memoirs"

by Ken



Last night we met Friedrich Schmeed, "the best-known barber in wartime Germany," and read several excerpts from his memoirs, the account of his tonsorial mediation to much of the Nazi high command during World War II, beginning with the episode in the spring of 1940 when Hitler appeared at Schmeed's shop at 127 Koenigstrasse and tried to cut ahead of von Ribbentrop for a light trim, "but Ribbentrop insisted it would look bad for the Foreign Office if he were passed over" -- and wound up being transferred to the Afrika Korps. Tonight's excerpts spotlight the dispiriting final year of the Third Reich.



Tonight we also begin Woody's "Count Dracula," a harrowing tale in which the legendary Count lands himself in one heck of a pickle. Both "Count Dracula" and "The Schmeed Memoirs" seemed to me a bit too long for single-installment presentation but maybe not quite so long as to demand two full installments apiece, and besides, I really wanted to present both in the space of three nights. I realize that this middle installment wound up kind of large, but I think we've got good "break" points for both pieces. I guess we'll see how it works.





FOR PART 2 OF "THE SCHMEED MEMOIRS" AND

PART 1 OF "COUNT DRACULA," CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"



from Getting Even (1971)

"A Look at Organized Crime"

"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2

"A Twenties Memory"

"Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 1 and Part 2

"The Schmeed Memoirs," Part 1

Coming tomorrow: The harrowing conclusion of "Count Dracula"

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: Hitler's barber remembers! Part 1 of "The Schmeed Memoirs" from "Getting Even"

"I have been asked if I was aware of the moral implications of what I was doing. As I told the tribunal at Nuremberg, I did not know that Hitler was a Nazi. The truth was that for years I thought he worked for the phone company."

-- from the Memoirs of "the best-known barber

in wartime Germany," Friedrich Schmeed

Already I've done Schmeed a disservice by referring to him in the head as "Hitler's barber," when in fact he "provided tonsorial services for Hitler and many highly placed government and military officials." In the first excerpt from his memoirs, he chronicles the day in the spring of 1940 when Hitler arrived at his shop and tried to cut ahead of von Ribbentrop, which resulted in the transfer of Ribbentrop to the Afrika Korps. "This sort of rivalry went on all the time," Schmeed notes. -- Ken





TO BEGIN THE STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH

THE MASTER BARBER OF THE THIRD REICH, CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"



from Getting Even (1971)

"A Look at Organized Crime"

"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2

"A Twenties Memory"

"Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 1 and Part 2

Coming tomorrow: The conclusion of "The Schmeed Memoirs" PLUS (!) Part 1 of "Count Dracula"

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: Part 2 of "Hassidic Tales" (from "Getting Even")

"While [Rabbi Yisroel] was on his way to synagogue to celebrate the sacred Jewish holiday commemorating God's reneging on every promise, a woman stopped him and asked the following question: 'Rabbi, why are we not allowed to eat pork?'



"'We're not?' the Rev said incredulously. 'Uh-oh.'"

-- from tonight's first "Hassidic Tale"

by Ken



Pursuing the matter of Rabbi Yisroel and the question of eating pork, the noted scholar concludes his "guide to the tale's interpretation": "Why pork was proscribed by Hebraic law is still unclear, and some scholars believe that the Torah merely suggested not eating pork at certain restaurants."



Last night we had the first three of Woody's "Hassidic Tales," in which we met three learned rabbis including Rabbi Raditz of Poland, "who was said to have inspired many pogroms with his sense of humor" -- "a man who has never read the Bible and has been faking it." Tonight more inconvenient questions for the rabbis, and a rabbi, Rabbi Yekel of Zans ("who had the best diction in the world until a Gentile stole his resonant underwear"), who has problems you don't want to know from.





FOR OUR FINAL THREE "HASSIDIC TALES," CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"



from Getting Even (1971)

"A Look at Organized Crime"

"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2

"A Twenties Memory"

"Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 1

Coming tomorrow: Part 1 of "The Schmeed Memoirs"

And coming soon: "Count Dracula"

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: Part 1 of "Hassidic Tales" (from "Getting Even")

Perhaps Woody himself would approve of the idea of having this memorable scene from Take the Money and Run posted in Hungarian. In it the imprisoned aspiring career criminal Virgil Starkwell subjects himself to a drug test that has the unfortunate side effect of turning him into a rabbi.





"Why is [the man who journeyed to Chelm to meet the rabbi described as "perhaps the greatest noodge of the medieval era"] bothering Rabbi Ben Kaddish -- the Rabbi doesn't have enough trouble? The truth is, the Rabbi's in over his head with gamblers, and he has also been named in a paternity case by a Mrs. Hecht."

-- from the interpretation of tonight's first "Hassidic Tale"

by Ken



Who can forget the scene from Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run, where we can see (if not quite hear) above confirmed criminal Virgil Starkwell is turned into a rabbi? The wisdom of the rabbanim has never been far from Woody's thoughts -- or the gullibility of the people who pay attention.



There are six "Hassidic Tales" in this 1970 piece, which we're going to split down the middle between tonight and tomorrow night.





FOR OUR FIRST THREE "HASSIDIC TALES," CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"



from Getting Even (1971)

"A Look at Organized Crime"

"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2

"A Twenties Memory"

Coming tomorrow: "Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Part 2

Coming soon: "The Schmeed Memoirs" and "Count Dracula"

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: "A Twenties Memory" (from "Getting Even")

Hemingway in the '20s: His 1923 passport photo

"I kidded Hemingway about his forthcoming novel and we laughed a lot and had fun and then we put on some boxing gloves and he broke my nose."

-- from "A Twenties Memory"

by Ken



What's so inspiring about this "memory" isn't just the famous names littered through it but the deep insights into them. The author hobnobs with famous writers including not just Hemingway and Gertrude Stein (who turn out to have something surprising in common) but Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald ("most of our friends believed that [Scott] based the protagonist of his latest novel on me and that I had based my life on his previous novel and I finally wound up getting sued by a fictional character"). Thanks to Hemingway the author even meets "that great, great artist" the bullfigher Manolete ("had he not become a bullfighter, his grace was such that he could have been a world-famous accountant").



And he pals around with artists like Picasso (who, because of having coffee with the author and Gertrude Stein, was delayed by ten minutes in starting "what was later to be known as his 'blue period'" -- though "it lasted four years, so the ten minutes did not really mean much") [that's a Picasso "blue period" self-portrait at right], Dali (he recalls the one-man show of Dali's that "was a huge success, as one man showed up"), and Gris ("Gertrude Stein used to say that only a true Spaniard could behave as he did; that is, he would speak Spanish and sometimes return to his family in Spain").



All somehow crammed into a single decade!





FOR THIS RIVETING "TWENTIES MEMORY," CLICK HERE

SO FAR IN "WOODY ALLEN TONIGHT"



from Getting Even (1971)

"A Look at Organized Crime"

"Death Knocks," Part 1 and Part 2



coming Sunday and Monday: "Hassidic Tales, and a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar," Parts 1 and 2

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: Part 2 of "Death Knocks" (from "Getting Even")

Tonight Nat Ackerman's drawing and discarding for his life.

NAT: You want to play a tenth of a cent a point to make it interesting?

DEATH: It's not interesting enough for you?

NAT: I play better when money's at stake.

DEATH: Whatever you say, Newt.

NAT: Nat. Nat Ackerman. You don't know my name?

DEATH: Newt, Nat -- I got such a headache.

-- from tonight's installment of "Death Knocks"

Last night, in our Part 1 of "Death Knocks," we met dress manufacturer Nat Ackerman near midnight in the bedroom of his two-story home in Kew Gardens, Queens, so absorbed reading his Daily News (headline: "NAB COEDS IN POT ORGY") that he fails to hear an intruder climbing up his drainpipe with a view toward making a dramatic entrance, which turns instead into a stumbling and gasping entrance. Death ("for it is no one else") lays out the situation for Nat: His time is up. When he insists, "It's the moment," Nat replies, "How can it be the moment? I just merged with Modiste Originals." Eventually Nat persuades Death -- who doesn't play chess but claims to be good at gin rummy -- to play a hand, bargaining for a chance to win a day's respite from his departure. Let the game begin! -- Ken





FOR PART 2 OF "DEATH KNOCKS," CLICK HERE





THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: Part 1 of "Death Knocks" (from "Getting Even")

[The sombre, caped figure huffs audibly and then trips over the window sill and falls into the room.]

DEATH [for it is no one else]: Jesus Christ. I nearly broke my neck.

NAT ACKERMAN [watching with bewilderment]: Who are you?

DEATH: Death.

NAT: Who?

DEATH: Death. Listen -- can I sit down? I nearly broke my neck. I'm shaking like a leaf.

NAT: Who are you?

DEATH: Death. You got a glass of water?

-- the opening of "Death Knocks"

Tonight we continue our Woody Allen sampling, begun Monday night with "A Look at Organized Crime," with a justly famous playlet from 1968, "Death Knocks." Woody's well-known admiration for, or perhaps awe of, Ingmar Bergman seems to me more productively expressed in this rollicking hommage to The Seventh Seal than in his later stiflingly pseudo-Bergmanesque films like Interiors and September. -- Ken





FOR PART 1 OF "DEATH KNOCKS," CLICK HERE





THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Woody Allen Tonight: "A Look at Organized Crime" (from "Getting Even")

"Vincent Columbraro, the Buttered Toast King, has such tight control over all buttered toast moving in and out of New Jersey that one word from him could ruin breakfast for two-thirds of the nation."

-- from "A Look at Organized Crime"

by Ken



Of the 17 pieces in Getting Even, Woody Allen's first book of humor pieces, published in 1971, 11 had first appeared in The New Yorker. (Three had appeared in other publications, and the remaining three had not been previously published.) The earliest of the New Yorker pieces dates from 1966, when Woody was still transitioning from stand-up comedy to movies -- the first film he directed, Take the Money and Run, came out in 1969; the second, Bananas, in 1971.



Woody has maintained a pretty steady production over the years; a quick search of The New Yorker index for him as author turned up 42 listings, the most recent from this past January ("Money Can Buy Happiness -- As If"). This week, in addition to tonight's "A Look at Organized Crime" (from 1970), we're going to have two longer pieces in two parts each: the playlet "Death Knocks" (from 1968) and "Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar" (from 1970).





FOR TONIGHT'S "LOOK AT ORGANIZED

CRIME," CLICK HERE





THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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