7/15/08: Simon (1980)First, we should thank the forgotten commenter on a forgotten blog who brought up
Simon while discussing
this ditz. We hadn’t watched
Simon since opening night back in 1980. We’ve had a VHS copy for a while, but didn’t get around to it until the Unknown Typist mentioned that
Simon was a great goof on what happens when academics are indulged with plenty of time to fool around with their petty notions of enriching the world.
And it is.
The film begins at the Institute for Advanced Concepts. There’s a narrator explaining some fun facts about the place, and the five men walking into the building:
It is not generally known that many of the strange and alarming trends observed in this country in recent years were not random occurrences, coincidences, or so-called “acts of God”—but are, in fact, directly traceable to this group of men…living and working together, isolated, protected, and funded by a government contract so brilliantly incomprehensible that no one—even at the highest Washington levels—knows its real activities.Austin Pendleton plays Dr. Carl Becker, who’s the head of the facility. He explains that the Institute’s original mission was to address issues such as “the food shortage, ecology, energy—that kind of thing.” Then they just “got into more interesting material…a little of this, a little of that.”
We’re shown some examples of the Institute’s work—as handled by some fine character actors. Future
Alf star (and crackhead) Max Wright is Dr. Hundertwasser, whose specialty is media. He explains that the Institute jams Nielsen Ratings boxes, and is solely responsible for the success of
Donny & Marie. (This is a good time to note that
Simon is a very ’70s comedy.)
Dr. Barundi—played by Dr. Nikil Jayant in his only screen appearance—helped to create the false Nixon that returned from China. William Finley plays Dr. Fichandler, who oversees medical developments and recently invented a new strain of gonorrhea. There’s also Wallace Shawn as Dr. Van Dongen, who wants to breed a human/cockroach hybrid.
The plot starts with an article from
The New York Times about people believing in extraterrestrial life. The men of the Institute decide to create their own alien to see what happens. All they need is the right orphan. That ends up being Simon Mendelssohn—played by Alan Arkin. He’s an Assistant Professor of Psychology who wastes class time by ranting about how the Earth will one day have to be turned into a giant spaceship so it can replenish itself after we’ve used up all of the planet’s food and water. “You can change the world with an idea,” he proclaims.
Back at home, Simon’s trying to create his own sensory-deprivation tank with a coffin—much to the consternation of his long-suffering wife Lisa (played by Judy Graubart, formerly of
The Electric Company and worthy of much attention as an underrated ’70s sex symbol.) He’s thrilled when Dr. Becker shows up to invite him to join the men of the Institute.
The geniuses put up with Simon’s absurd work on his General Theory of Creativity (“You’ll forgive me if I throw 500 years of science out the window with this…”), while Madeline Kahn—in an extended cameo as “Dr.” Cynthia Malloy—collects his bodily fluids so the scientists can do some genetic enhancement on them. (Yes, we’ve seen
this story before.) Malloy is told to speak of death constantly to further seduce Simon. “He’s that type,” Becker explains.
The scientists finally lock Simon into a sensory-deprivation tank for 197 hours. The immediate result is a mimed evolution skit that’s the most overhyped aspect to the film’s reputation. Simon is then programmed to believe that his mother was an alien, and he was put on Earth to save the human race.
The next time we—and Lisa—see Simon, he’s on the news and wearing robes while chanting. Everybody’s buying into the Institution’s story. Talking heads are debating whether Simon is clear proof there is a God, or no God at all. Simon tells Becker, “You’ve given the world finally something to believe in…me.”
After some debate amongst the scientists, they finally hold a media event. Reporters examine Simon’s blood samples before he finally addresses them:
Good afternoon, everybody. I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking about who I am, and why I was sent here to live among you—and the answer is very simple. Things here are just not working out very well. Your jobs are boring, your food is bad, your water’s polluted, and your relationships aren’t working out. Am I right? And the question is—how did things come to such a sorry state of affairs? I will tell you: there is too much bad stuff around. Bad food, bad drink, and bad ideas. Everything’s all clogged up. So what we’re going to do is get rid of all the bad stuff, and that will be a good beginning. Now, I’ve got here a list of things which I’d like written into the Constitution immediately…Simon starts by wanting to ban Muzak, and children in commercials, and the House of Representatives, since the Romans only needed a Senate. Also, anyone who makes radioactive waste has to take it home at night. Simon basically does a George Carlin review. The film’s pretty low-budget, but we’re shown that everyone embraces Simon’s new laws.
This gets the men of the Institute very nervous. Simon then tells Becker that he wants an audience with the President, the Chinese Premier, the Pope, and Walter Cronkite. Becker decides that Simon has to be terminated.
Meanwhile, Simon’s wife shows up and tries to convince him that he’s not really an alien. “How does anyone know anything?” counters Simon. They run off together after a foiled plan by the Institute leads to the Army taking over the place—as Becker convinces military man Fred Gwynne (in a likable role) that Simon’s a deadly menace.
Simon and Lisa end up on a commune run by hippies who worship television. It turns out that Simon’s escape van has a TV studio built inside, and he jams “all three networks” to become a televangelist type. This leads to more laws, some of which are reasonable. For example, Simon wants to ban parents naming their kids things like “Free” or “Moonbeam.”
The New York Times keeps serving as Simon’s other main outlet. But then he’s disappointed to learn that people—and, seemingly, not just the cultists—are only following Simon’s dictates because he’s on television. He worries that the people of Earth actually like Muzak and fast-food hamburgers.
His wife tries to explain to him that Earth isn’t doomed. “I don’t think that it’s such a bad place,” Lisa explains. “We’ve produced some good things, too. Fred Astaire, penicillin, and air conditioning.”
As it turns out, Lisa will convince Simon to value both his humanity and his humility in a fairly pedestrian way. He’ll manage to reclaim his life. But what of Simon the Extraterrestrial, who lectured Americans about their selfish ways and reveled in imposing ludicrous laws? At the end of the film, we learn about how that Simon is being considered as the leading contender for the Nobel Peace Prize. There’s your science-fiction turned science-fact.
Make it your own: We didn’t know we had a collector’s item here.
VHS copies of
Simon are getting pricey. The film’s not out on DVD—and if Alan Arkin’s recent Oscar win didn’t change that, it’s hard to imagine that the
Get Smart remake will.
