Kubik's Chameleon

The sheriff's Goddamn was a murmured curse
        Not for the dead but for the blinding dust
                                                           -- Allen Tate, The Swimmers


I sigh in disappointment, but no studied individual in filmography is assisting me, whether or not they care that Schneider and I sparred each other's bones, and I doubt they do, even in the likeness between Mr. ChickenFried and myself as ugly brunettes and the related caste resentment. Shame at the provocative trigger, and the feeling that I have an occlusion the size of a walnut thrombing in my armpit, waiting for the exact implosive stressor. A little worm made my mind flag slippery in my observation of Larry Gates as Sid Kubik. I should have placed him against Poitier as Endicott, or in the classic anti-communist polemic. Long term memory subtly alerting me, but not effectively until I linked him in this mild winter storm that technically prevented me from driving to the DVM. In actuality, a packed defecation made me fear a Presley simulation. Mildly faint, from leg to left temple, I am the daughter of my grandfather's terminal coronary, "Poppa Lilly," I called him, so you know my Roman grandmother ruled us with an iron fist. Her husband was soft as marshmallow, handing the eight year old in the armchair a copper penny, shiny with the magic of his broad smile, "What 'tis?" He bent over me like a jowl wagging hound, but it is Lillian whose absence pulls; she lived very long, but I miss her the most of all my family. She kept me fluent, beautiful woman, every inch the grand belle, silent strength, auburn hair coiffed perfectly, my body tells me I will be back in her warmth and homemade escarole soon. Mi dispiace nonna Lilly, ti prego perdonami.

Bow our heads. Whatever his ethnicity, for the purposes of the studio system, Gates was a blank check, and did not have any point of origin; he wasn't supposed to have those traits, unlike Ernest Borgnine. This does not mean he could not have been a mafia Don. Northern Italy has its Sweden spillover, fair skin, the type who could have kept a Rico like Eddie rolled in pork grease. Karlson condenses this with theatric artifice, as I mention. Real life does not suck you in to a methodical quarry hunt not minutes after you put a punk in the dungeon, warding off the potential fury of your wife  who will probably rip out your eyes if she doesn't get that baby, properly adorable, and a necessary retrograde: Dianne's Alice will not be deprived of the blessings of new life, a happiness given to a man as uncomplicated as a truck driver employed by her husband. Conte flies to New York, in an affluent cosmopolitan mobility, that might have been a stage set for a cabinet meeting with Ike. There is no question, that to all intents and purposes, Sid Kubik is the assimilated appearance of senior management at the country club, and Conte can be many things in the example of Sinatra, the rat pack play boy, the swarthy breeder whose seed is desirable, but make no mistake. Only Gates can aspire to WASP pretensions, whether or not he is merely a brilliant imitation.

They parry, the nervous avoidance of eye contact by Conte effective; he may not know that Gino has been caught, marked for death not ten feet away, but are we supposed to believe that Eddie buys Kubik's fancy footwork. Is pretty boy really that gullible?