When May Irwin and John C. Rice electrified nickelodeon audiences with the screen's first flickering kiss--a prim 60-second buss which was the smash scandal of 1896--moving pictures became not only big business but also a magnifying mirror for the moral moods of their times. They still are; but times, happily, have changed. Keeping pace with moviegoers, the movies have since learned to dish up the facts of life with unblushing frankness. Licit and illicit, sex is today bigger box office than ever before; and never has its infinite variety been more openly explored--in everything from the cheapest nudie movies to the multimillion-dollar epics and avant-garde award winners. Whatever their genre, no variation on this evergreen theme is more time-honored than that of the cuckolded husband, the wayward wife and the philandering paramour whose triangular misadventures are invariably climaxed by the melodramatic moment when hubby returns home to find the little woman in flagrante delicto. This scene is such a classic cinematic cliché that we got to wondering how several of our favorite directors might attempt to breathe fresh life into this age-old confrontation. In the following photo spoof, we suggest the manner in which nine well-known moviemakers might proceed, each in his own distinctive cinematic style.
Strangelove:Gottenhimmel! Mein fershlugginer artificial arm vould pick zis moment to go on der fritz!Lolita:Act casual. My husband Humbert and that icky General Torpidson are coming into radar range.
Husband:Zounds, madam! Dost thou hold so cheap thy connubial vows that thou darest glut and gorge thyself with this whoreson bounder, and at thy husband's very table?Wife:Slurp!Husband:And what say thee, knave?Knave:Burp!
Wife:Who are you?Lover:Who am I?Dream Wife:Who are they?Dream Lover:Who are we?Fantasy Wife:Who is she?Fantasy Lover:Who is he?Husband:Who ha! And on the front lawn yet!
Lover:This humble servant senses that he has somehow offended honorable host.Husband:Regret necessity of pointed reminders that hospitality of humble home includes tea but no sugar.
Wife:Now, darling--you know he insists on appearing in one scene of every movie he directs.Voice from shower:Good evening.
Caesar:Et tu, Brutus, Claudius, Cassius, Casca, Mark Antony, et al.?
Husband (warmly): Antoine!Lover:Pierre!Wife:Pfuil!
Wife:I don't know what you're getting so upset about. It's all symbolic anyway.
Husband:Mamma mia! My wife and her bridge club in an orgy in our living room!Wife:Oh, oh, here's bigmouth! Now it'll be all over Rome!
