How do I loathe thee, 'Life'? Let me count the ways

They had to hold me down on the couch for the drugstore scene, when 12-year-old George ("Kick Me") Bailey, having saved his baby brother from drowning and gotten an ear deafened for his pains, is on yet another self-sacrifice mission and is getting beaten about the head and shoulders by hi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inKnight Ridder Tribune News Service p. 1
Main Author Gilmore, Sue
Format Newsletter
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington Tribune Content Agency LLC 14.12.2005
Subjects
Potter, Henry
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Summary:They had to hold me down on the couch for the drugstore scene, when 12-year-old George ("Kick Me") Bailey, having saved his baby brother from drowning and gotten an ear deafened for his pains, is on yet another self-sacrifice mission and is getting beaten about the head and shoulders by his grief-crazed boss. Blood (we are supposed to believe) dribbling out the aforementioned ear, George piteously screeches -- not once, but twice -- "Don't hit my sore ear again! Don't hit my sore ear again!" so the sap flows, unstinted, for two more hours. Some other, er high, points, along the it-could-never-happen theme: Jealous smart-aleck at the dance party spills George and Mary into the drink by pulling back the floor over the hidden swimming pool. OK, I can buy all the other Charleston-swingin' young-uns tumbling gleefully in after them, but when the old geezer in the black suit shrugs his shoulders and jumps in, too? That's just plain stupid. Then there's the famous get-thee-behind-me-Satan moment where George, plied with unctuous flattery by the villainous Henry Potter (who is so awful he has a portrait of himself hanging over his desk), is going home to mull over an offer of employment. But Potter makes the mistake of proffering his paw, and after George shakes it, he stares at his own hand, agog. The palm (we guess) is oily, the light dawns and up jumps the devil! George does an instantaneous 180 and launches into an impassioned tirade, which he tops off by calling Potter a "scurvy little spider."