Myra-Breckinridge-Gore-Vidal

was wearing a bra. I was. "Mr. Loner," I began in a carefullow-pitched voice, modeled on that of the late Ann Sheridan(fifth reel of Dough girls-). "I will come straight to the point. Ineed your help." That was the wrong thing to say. To ask foranything is always the wrong way to begin a conversationbut I am not one to beat about a bush, even a bush asunappetizing as Buck Loner. He sat back in his steel andblack leather chair, a very expensive item selling for aboutfour hundred dollars at the best office supply stores. I know.I worked one entire year at Abercrornbie and Fitch, and sogot an idea of just how expensive nice things can be. Thatwas the year poor Myron was trying to complete his bookon Parker Tyler and the films of the Forties a book I intendto finish one day, with or without Mr. Tyler's assistance.Why? Because Tyler's vision (films are the unconsciousexpressions of age-old human myths) is perhaps the onlyimportant critical insight this century has produced. Also,Tyler's close scrutiny of the films of the Forties makes himour age's central thinker, if only because in the decadebetween /935 and /945, no irrelevant film was made in theUnited States. During those years, the entire range ofhuman (which is to say, American) legend was put on film,and any profound study of those extraordinary works isbound to make crystal-clear the human condition. Forinstance, to take an example at random, JohnnyWeissmuller, the zahftic Tarzan, still provides the last wordon the subject of soft man's relationship to hardenvironment... that glistening overweight body set against alimestone cliff at noon says the whole thing. Auden once