"Carmine said, one boy"

The line occupies the air,

intact, I'm confident, and

needs no hyperlink. In one

of the endearingestly fun-

niestly fashioned films in

any organized escape route

from real life, the speech

introduces a character aud-

ibly indebted, if physical-

ly evolved from this most

unforgettable face of exam-

ination in the history of

the pleasure dome, Greene's

exact characterisation of 

the movies.

Carmine said [there would

be] one boy, and this is 

he, as I met him in my boy-

hood, with my father at the

movies. Again, no hyperlink

is needed.

Maximilian Schell died yes-

terday. In the happiness of

pure laughter I happened, by

complete coincidence yester-

day, to see him present that

line again, in the 31st min-

ute of a romp in which he 

and Brando and Matthew Brod-

erick prove, enchantedly, 

one boy would be a waste.

The reason, obviously, that

this line of dialogue works

so exactly to arouse dread

of the interrogator, in gay-

est comic displacement, is

that Schell's is the voice 

for a seductively simple for-

mula already cited more than 

once here, for precipitating

our greatest crimes. For my

life, I have owed an actor.

Dominik Sadoch

Matt Lambert 

  photography