Cinema Purgatorio CP12

Cinema Purgatorio #12 regular cover, art by Kevin O’Neill

Annotations for “It’s a Breakable Life” in Cinema Purgatorio #12

Writer: Alan Moore, Artist: Kevin O’Neill

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Note: Some of this is obvious, but you never know who’s reading and what their exposure is. If there’s anything we missed or got wrong, let us know in comments.

General:

• Moore and O’Neill’s film-within-a-comic is a takeoff on It’s A Wonderful Life, commenting on the abuse heaped on Hollywood stunt doubles.
• Commenter loopyjoe notes a Moore interview where he briefly mentions It’s A Wonderful Life:
  

  “This is my favourite horror film full stop, and also, er, helpfully it happens to be my favourite Christmas horror film, and that would be It’s A Wonderful Life … which I thought, I saw that as a child an’ it was terrifying … The, the central vision of that, what would’ve happened if you’d never been born … is so… really cold and frightening, seeing that as a child … it was like a terrifying dream.”

Cover

• On the right, the newspaper headline concerns “HUAC” – the McCarthyite House Un-American Activities Committee.

Page 1

panel 2

• “Retch for the Sky” is a takeoff on the 1956 British film Reach for the Sky.
• Lex Barker (1919-1973) was an American actor, known for playing Tarzan.
• “I hate chimps” sounds like a play on Barker’s Tarzan role, perhaps combined with Charles Atlas bodybuilding advertisements which sound like but don’t actually state “I hate wimps.” (For what it is worth, Moore parodied Atlas in Tomorrow Stories #7’s Splash Brannigan story.)
• The hypodermic in Barker’s torso may be meant to imply steroid use. There do not appear to be any rumors that he used drugs.

Metro Goldwyn Meyer lion logo via Pinterest

panel 5

• “Necro Golden Mane” is a play on Metro Goldwyn Meyer logo screen. The lion is decomposing, and the film is burning in this version.
  • Commenter Greenaum reminds us that the film may be burning because the material used to make film before about 1952 was highly flammable.

Page 2

panel 1

• 

  Title card for It’s a Wonderful Life

  “It’s A Breakable Life” references the title of the celebrated 1946 Christmas movie It’s A Wonderful Life.

  • Commenter Bruce Marsh points out that, while the film premiered in late 1946, it did not get general release until early 1947.

panel 2

• The characters are George Bailey, the protagonist of Wonderful Life, played by actor James Stewart, and his wife Mary Hatch Bailey, played by actress Donna Reed.
• “Aw, gee” is either a direct quote, or a typical statement made by the folksy-speeched Bailey. Throughout the story Bailey’s dialogue is peppered with “golly”, “well, I’ll be!”, etc.
• “Mr. Potter” is Henry Potter, the banker villain of Wonderful Life.

panels 4-6

• The man’s face and body are different as Bailey has been replaced by a shorter stuntman (as explained later.)

Page 3

panel 1

• “Everything would be swell if I’d never been born” echoes a plot point from Wonderful Life, where Bailey’s guardian angel shows him an alternate reality where he had never been born.

panel 2

• Again Bailey has been replaced by a stuntman.

panel 4

• Note that “Potters Gas Co.” has left a dangerously exposed gas main with inadequate safety features, no doubt to save money.

panels 5-6

• Again Bailey has been replaced by a stuntman.

Page 4

panels 1-2

• The river with icy blocks echoes a scene in Wonderful Life where Bailey contemplates committing suicide.
• The bridge is as depicted in Wonderful Life, though the camera angles are different.
• These form a fixed-camera sequence.

panel 3

• Again Bailey has been replaced by a stuntman.

panels 4-6

• In It’s a Wonderful Life, the angel Clarence jumps off the bridge and screams for help, prompting George to jump in and rescue him.

Page 5

panel 1

• “Dickens” is a reference to the author Charles Dickens, whose story A Christmas Carol informs the plot of Wonderful Life.
• “Clarence Brokebody” is a reference to Clarence Odbody, the guardian angel assigned to save Bailey in Wonderful Life.

panel 7

• “Frank Boggs” is Francis Boggs, one of the earliest Hollywood film directors. He directed the film The Count of Monte Cristo in 1908.

Page 6

panel 1

• Sergei Eisenstein was a famous early Russian film director. His film October: Ten Days That Shook the World recreated the storming of the winter palace, which took place during the Russian Revolution.

panel 2

• Mack Sennett was an early film director.
• The Sennett event described – suggest??

panel 3

• Yakima Canutt was an early stuntman.
• “To pull a Brodie” is slang for doing any kind of stunt. The word is apparently derived from Steve Brodie who alledgedly jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886.
• Charles Hutchison was an early Hollywood actor. He broke both wrists doing a stunt for a Pathé serial.
• 108 – Commenter loopyjoe points us to an article about Ben Turpin which mentions “Well into his 60s, he was a master of the perilous ‘108 fall’, involving kicking a leg up into the air, turning a somersault and landing on the floor.” The origin of the term is not mentioned.
• Yucca Nutty – Commenter loopyjoe points out an old newspaper reference which defines the term as “An actor who has been taking breakaways for a long time.” Breakaways, in turn,are defined as “Object, light and fragile, with which an actor can be hit without severe injury.” While such props do less damage than a real chair/bottle/etc. would, the accumulated blows definitely do a lot of damage. The derivation is not given, though it may be related to the name Yakima Canutt (see above).
• Scenes shown, left to right
  – tree??
  – rope ladder??
  – punched man ??
  – Roman soldier – from CP#2
  – running man with white hat?? (twice) (possibly a cowboy – from CP#7)
  – man being hit by a bottle and chair, typical of a western bar brawl.
  – broken teeth??
  – horse??
  – Police officer – from CP#1
  – Flame of Remorse – from CP#3

Page 7

panel 1

• 

  Potter and Assistant

  Mr. Potter is Henry Potter, the banker villain of Wonderful Life.

panels 2-3

• Again Bailey has been replaced by a stuntman.

panel 5

• “Willya lookit that!” is either a direct quote, or a typical statement made by the folksy-speeched Bailey in Wonderful Life.

panel 6

• “Rename the town Baileyville” is a play on Wonderful Life‘s alternate timeline shown where the villain Potter has renamed the town Pottersville.
• “Canoodle” is old-fashioned slang for showing affection, cuddling. Even after becoming a megalomaniacal murderer, Bailey’s language remains restrained.
• “Rota” means “rotating schedule of assignments”.

panel 7

• “Every time God heeds my prayer…” is a play on the conclusion of Wonderful Life where every time a bell rings it means that an angel has just earned his wings. Note that Bailey is ringing a bell.
• “It’s A Wonderful Life” is of course the full 1956 movie title being parodied.
• The list with “Mary” and “Violet” is apparently the women who Bailey will “canoodle.” Mary is Mary Hatch Bailey, Bailey’s wife in Wonderful Life. Violet is Violet Bick, a secondary character in Wonderful Life. Violet is Mary’s rival for George’s affections, and portrayed as a “loose” woman.
• Mr. Potter’s head now adorns the top of a memo spike. Presumably, Bailey is sitting at what was Potter’s desk, but doesn’t mind if Potter’s blood and spinal fluid drip onto paperwork that doesn’t concern him.

  

  Potter’s skull

• There is a small skull near Bailey’s feet. This was a trinket on Potter’s desk in It’s a Wonderful Life; it had a chain attached, and may have been a watch fob.

panel 8

• 

  The End

  The typography on “The End” mimics Wonderful Life.

• The narrator’s belief that this constitutes “a happy ending” is revealing of their own character.

Page 8

panels 1-2

• The exit sign is partially broken, reading merely “EX”. This is suggestive of “ex-husband”, and possibly many other compounds indicating a former status. Also of Sartre’s play “No Exit“, which depicts a bleak and inescapable afterlife (and is the source of the famous phrase “Hell is other people.”)

panel 4

• It seems that there is indeed “no exit” here.
• Cut-off sign reading “STAL” – Commenter Greenaum suggests “STALLS”, a somewhat old-fashioned name for the seating area of a theatre.

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