Word: melvins
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Demme's eye and ear for synthetic America make the film more than just the story of Melvin's life. Melvin is constantly overwhelmed by the cacaphony of horns blaring, toilets flushing and cars trying to start. He is always shouting to be heard, usually above something like a game-show audience. "Pick door number one! Number one!" That he never seems to be heard is sad; but though it may bother us that no one listens, Melvin doesn't seem to care. He perseveres...
...MELVIN PICKS UP in the desert doesn't. With a wild mane of white hair and a beard to match, he has obviously given up on society, checked out. Yet in their conversation in Melvin's truck--the first scene of the movie--the bum emerges as more than a derelict. Melvin wants to sing Christmas carols; his guest doesn't. He is ungracious, cold and strangely snide for a man of such decrepit circumstance...
...their drive together, each takes turns looking at the other as if he were crazy. Goldman, who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, keeps Howard poised on the precipice of sanity. One moment he is bleeding. The next he takes on an odd dignity, refusing to sing Melvin's Christmas carol (Melvin sent in the lyrics to one of those companies that writes music to your words.) Eventually Howard relents; upon threat of eviction from the truck, he sings "Santa's Souped-Up Christmas Sleigh...
After Howard leaves and until his will mysteriously arrives, the movie becomes a series of vignettes about Melvin's life. His two wives, daughter and stepchildren develop as characters, but serve more as foils for Melvin's idiosyncracies. Some of the family adventures work well--the Dummar victory on a game show gives a wonderful picture of the event's manic nonsense as well as the Dummars' genuine exultation. Some do not--Melvin and his wife's service as professional witnesses in a Las Vegas marriage factory falls flat. Michael J. Pollard, the diminutive actor who played the sidekick...
...Melvin and Howard concerns a polyester-age noble savage fighting to survive in an unfriendly world. Melvin battles for the title "Milkman of the Month," not so much for the first prize, a color television, but for the recognition. When confronted with a last-minute obstacle to his victory in the contest, he says in protest, "I'm a darn good driver." The moment has a peculiar poignancy; Melvin's hurt is genuine...