It took nearly a half-century of cinematic devotion, but it’s finally come to pass. “It” being the sight – in full color Cinemascope, mind you – of Walter Matthau sitting naked at a piano, banging out the liveliest Ragtime ditty you’re ever likely to hear. But that’s Pete. Pete Seltzer, if you must know. A man so devoted to avoiding heartbreak and pain that he’ll coast through life on a shoeshine and a smile. With practical jokes, sarcasm, and rampant adultery to round things out. His charm, unmistakable. His wit, second to none. His status as a much-desired dinner companion, assured. But as a father and a husband, there’s still room for improvement, even if I’m inclined to say his manner of doing things is much preferred to self-flagellating martyrdom. Leave that to Tillie.
When Pete first encounters Tillie (Carol Burnett), it’s the result of a set-up. Both seem disinterested in the whole arrangement. Tillie most of all, but she’s guarding against the expected doom. Pete, meanwhile, genuinely doesn’t care. If he’s going to win a woman – and with a mug like his, that’s never easy – he’ll have to live and breathe in the rarefied air of indifference. For as we know, acting like you have something better to do tops at least three dozen assorted “how to” lists in the game of getting broads into bed. Show you’re the least bit interested, and they’re poking around the bar in search of insults and humiliation. A slap if it’s near closing time. But Pete gets it. He’s not going to blow anyone away with sheer animal magnetism, so a permanent shrug will act as the arrow in his quiver.
All throughout the early stages of courtship (for him, less courtship than a wearing down process), Pete tosses rebukes and bon mots with laser-like precision, and we root for him because we’ve seen this all before. Being nasty not only works, it’s about the only key to the kingdom worth a damn. If you’re in doubt, I remind you that there isn’t an asshole alive who sleeps alone. Still, Pete’s putdowns are all in good fun, and the best way to distract anyone from the fact that he has no business hitting on anyone, least of all someone who can do better. He’s a survivor, adapting as needed to a cruel social world that has not for a moment prized substance.
So as Pete pushes things along, deciding at every turn when there will be intimacy, more intimacy, and even a child, we trust that even though he wears a suit of armor a mile thick, he’s made even family life appealing to the cheap seats. Frankly put, he’s not going to compromise. Ever. He’s Pete, and if you don’t like it a decade in, why’d you accept the terms on night one? Refreshingly, Tillie tolerates the endless affairs, not because she’s a doormat, or too poor to find an alternative, but because she knows Pete all too well. It’s a portrait of marriage so missing from the screen, certainly, and also life itself. He’s an insecure, overcompensating jerkoff who uses humor to escape every emotion not nailed down. And? Have you a better way of surviving this wreck of an existence? Tillie thinks she does, but she’s the one who ends up in a sanitarium.
Naturally, as this is the 1970’s, no one is getting out alive, least of all a nine-year-old child. Yes, Pete and Tillie’s precocious offspring, one of the few kids in movie history I didn’t want to strangle, dies in a hospital bed riddled with cancer. And while Tillie goes to pieces, Pete marches on, sans tears. Of course he’s stuffing it all inside, but I’ll be damned if his methods aren’t worthy of applause. If you’re not going to put a shotgun in your mouth, you’re going to have to figure something out. Why not business as usual? Living with unending grief isn’t living at all, and here’s to those who strive to carve out normalcy after reaching the brink. Tillie wants an explanation for all this, Pete knows it simply is. Tillie grasps at a newfound faith, Pete sees it as a mere substitute for drowning. And what is it Pete says near the end? “Love without irritation is just lust.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
In the end, love fades, children die, and everyone lets us down. We lose jobs, stay too long at parties, and always wish we were doing something else. But so long as you’re upright, do it the Pete way. Our too brief candle is always flickering, so let’s make it a laugh or two that finally puts it out for good.
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