The Man In The Seventh Row (2 page)

3

A gasp issues from the lips of the man in the seventh row at the appearance of this impostor in the role made famous by Dustin Hoffman. It hits him with all the unexpected emotional force of a child's discovery that his boyhood hero has no hair. He thought he knew the character, and now this. This Ben Braddock is taller than Dustin Hoffman, his hair is golden blond and his eyes are a blue twinkle, hinting at mischief and menace in unequal measure. It is a thin, angular face, with a sharp, aquiline nose and not an ounce of spare flesh, suggestive of a high metabolism, or maybe high anxiety. The man in the seventh row has seen a lot of films and read a lot of books about the cinema and he remembers reading that Robert Redford had been lined up for the role of Benjamin Braddock.

But the newcomer looks more like Jim Carrey than Robert Redford. His smile more Riddler than Graduate. Redford was closer than Dustin Hoffman to the original concept of the outstanding college athlete. It is now impossible to imagine anyone other than shy, uncertain Hoffman in the role; impossible to imagine anyone else, but not, it seems, impossible to see someone else.

Computer technology was now making anything possible. It was only three or four years since Steven Spielberg asked George Lucas to see if he could create convincing dinosaurs on computer, without any great expectation of success. Lucas showed the dinosaur stampede to Spielberg and the man in the seventh row remembered reading what Lucas said: 'When the lights came up we were all crying. We knew that nothing would ever be the same.' Back in the Seventies, Lucas had filmed a scene for
Star Wars
with Harrison Ford and another actor who wore an unwieldy body-suit to represent the monstrous space slug Jabba the Hutt. Lucas was unhappy with the original scene and it never appeared in the finished film. Now he was working on another take, retaining Harrison Ford's original performance from 20 years earlier, while replacing the man in the funny outfit with a computer-generated image that was more to his liking. The end-result would look like a gigantic, talking dog turd. There is talk of computer-generated versions of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe in new roles opposite today's leading stars. Cinema is a place where illusion and make-believe are real.

Mrs Robinson persuades the blond, blue-eyed Ben Braddock to drive her home. He seems a little nervous. The man in the seventh row frowns. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Nervously he looks around to gauge the reaction of others to this unfamiliar version of the film. Eyes remain fixed to the screen as if nothing untoward has occurred. There is no sign of any representative of the cinema management coming to explain that it is all an unfortunate mistake, please accept your money back and complimentary tickets for another screening. The man had not expected that there would be.

Mrs Robinson, the wife of Ben's father's business partner, is a maelstrom of dark emotions, her hair piled up on top of her head, her eyes lined in black, beneath thick brows, a sensuous pale slash of mouth carrying a promise of passion and more than a hint of the bitter disappointment in her life. She wears a cocktail dress that is striped like a tiger, shiny like a snake and blackly transparent in its sleeves like the veils of Salome. She has been drinking. Ben drives her home and she persuades him to come in for a nightcap. He is reluctant. He says he wants to leave, but this Ben Braddock lacks the conviction of Hoffman's performance. She tells him her husband will not be back for hours.

'Mrs Robinson,' he says. He is shaking his head and smiling to himself. 'Oh, Mrs Robinson,' he says, shaking his head as he realises the implications of their situation.

'What is it Benjamin?'

'If you're trying to seduce me, let's just cut to the bedroom, before Mr Robinson gets home.'

Sometime later Ben is sitting at the bar downstairs when Mr Robinson arrives home. He is a loud, friendly, rather inattentive individual. He insists on getting Ben another drink. Ben asks for Bourbon. Mr Robinson gives him Scotch and seems not to notice that his wife is still in a state of disarray as she comes down the stairs. Mr Robinson says he has only one word of advice for Ben.

The man in the seventh row frowns again for he knows that that is someone else's speech and that Mr Robinson is supposed to tell Ben to take it easy and sow a few wild oats. But Ben has already sown them.

'Plastics,' says Mr Robinson. 'It's the future.'

'Oh yes,' says Ben, with a mischievous smile and a twinkle in his blue eyes. 'I agree. I see a future in which plastic will replace money, people will pay restaurant bills with a small rectangle of plastic, have a bit of plastic with their picture on to prove who they are, and when they go to a hotel, to sow a few wild oats, they get a bit of plastic to open the door of their room instead of a metal key.'

Mr Robinson looks slightly disconcerted at the extent of Ben's enthusiasm. There is a murmur of laughter around the cinema.

'Plastic is the future, oh yes Mr Robinson, plastic is the future all right.' And as Ben rises to leave, he smiles and winks in the direction of Mrs Robinson.

The man in the seventh row rises unsteadily to his feet and makes his way along the row, banging into the legs of a man at the other end.

'Sorry, sorry, excuse me.'

He stumbles up the aisle and into the brightness of the hall. He finds the men's room, fills a basin with cold water, cups his hands and splashes it all over his face. Alarm shows in his blue eyes as he looks at himself in the mirror over the basin. The fringe of his blond hair has fallen forward and is plastered to his wet brow. A drop of water falls from his nose.

The man from the seventh row stares into the mirror at the features of the man who is playing Ben Braddock in the film down the hall.

There is no twinkle in his eyes, the whites of which are bloodshot with fatigue and worry. There is no mischievous grin, none of the confidence and arrogance of the revisionist interpretation of Ben Braddock. He seems no more than a washed-out remnant of the man on the screen, but there is no doubt that he is, or was, the man in the movie. He presses his hands to his face and lets out a sound that is part sigh and part sob.

He returns to the cinema hoping Dustin Hoffman too has returned. But it is his own image that stares down at him as he makes his way along the seventh row once more.

Ben is explaining to Mrs Robinson's daughter Elaine that ever since he graduated he feels this compulsion to be rude. She says she knows how he feels. They go to the Taft Hotel for a drink. The desk clerk greets Ben as Mr Gladstone and asks if he is there for an affair, a question that had originally thrown Hoffman and had resulted in him ending up by mistake in a private function.

But the inquiry does not disconcert the new Ben.

'Good idea,' he says, 'I'll just check that the young lady's up for it.'

'Any luggage or just the toothbrush, Mr Gladstone?' asks the clerk.

'Just the toothbrush,' says Ben, patting his jacket.

Elaine asks why the hotel staff call him Mr Gladstone. He explains about her mother wanting him to drive her home and asking him in. He admits they were lovers and had assignations at the Taft, where he used the name Gladstone.

Ben and Elaine are silent. Both are clearly thinking about their situation. Ben eventually breaks the silence.

'Ever done three in a bed?' he asks.

The man in the seventh row grimaces.

Elaine is shocked and goes off to college in Berkeley. Ben tells his parents he is going to marry her. They are delighted, until he admits that not only has he not told Mr and Mrs Robinson, but he has not discussed it with Elaine. He drives up to Berkeley and takes a room in a cheap rooming house. The other residents include a young Richard Dreyfuss who has enrolled on the Shark Studies course, and will himself come into conflict with Mr Robinson when the latter refuses to close Amity's beaches just because a great white shark is eating the holiday-makers. By this time Mr Robinson will have changed his name to Mr Vaughn but is clearly still a very bitter man after his treatment by Mrs Robinson.

Mrs Robinson has told Elaine that Ben raped her. She wants Elaine to marry a rich medical student, whose peers include a young Ryan O'Neal. He looks puzzled when Ben says that he hopes Ali gets better soon. Ben looks momentarily sombre and shakes his head sadly as he walks away. Elaine tells Ben she does not care if he raped her mother; she loves him and wants to marry him. But for some reason that is not entirely clear, Ben is late for the wedding. He does not know where they are getting married, his Alfa Romeo is out of petrol and when he starts to run the last few blocks he seems to be running without getting anywhere.

Ben is wearing a hooded jacket of the type that used to be called a windcheater. Underneath he is wearing a plain black shirt. There is a look of tremendous relief on Elaine's face as he arrives at the church. She is dressed in a traditional white wedding dress, including the usual crumpled-up net curtain on her head. He joins her at the altar and the priest begins the service.

In the original it had not been this way. Oh no, not like this at all. This is wrong, very wrong. Ben had an affair with Mrs Robinson, but there was no affair with Elaine. Ben followed her to Berkeley and discovered she was about to marry another student. He set out to track them down and ran out of petrol on the way to the wedding. By the time he reached the church the minister was concluding the ceremony. Elaine was married to someone else. He screamed her name. After a moment's hesitation, she responded with his name 'Ben'. Angry bitter faces crowded in on them. Mrs Robinson slapped her daughter's face. Mr Robinson tore a sleeve off Ben's windcheater. Ben grabbed a crucifix and swung it madly as he and Elaine retreated towards the church doors. They escaped together on a passing bus. That's the way it happened. That is the way it should be.

The man in the seventh row knows that in real life Anne Bancroft, who played Mrs Robinson, was only ten years older than Katherine Ross, who played her daughter. Anne Bancroft was 35, much the same as the man in the seventh row is now. Katherine Ross was never one of the favourite actresses of the man in Row 7. Pretty rather than sexy. She was a bowl of strawberries and cream to Anne Bancroft's bottle of rich red claret. Katherine Ross was the prim schoolteacher never able to lure Sundance away from the wise-cracking, kick-them-in-the-balls, let's-make-a-run-for-it Butch Cassidy. Butch was more fun. It was probably nothing sexual. That was the problem – nothing sexual. There was something missing between Ben and Elaine.

On screen, Ben turns to look at Mrs Robinson as the minister concludes the ceremony and the crash of the organ alerts Ben to what he has just done. He and Elaine are man and wife. He does not kiss the bride. For a moment he stands frozen. Then he shouts. The church echoes with his words, two words, loud and separate.

'Missis Robinson'.

She jumps to her feet and her response cuts through the shocked silence.

'Benjamin'.

Angry, bitter faces crowd in on them. Mr Robinson tears a sleeve off Ben's windcheater. Elaine slaps her mother's face. Ben grabs a crucifix and swings it madly as he and Mrs Robinson retreat towards the church doors. He uses the crucifix as a bar to hold the doors shut. Ben and his new mother-in-law dash towards a passing bus. They struggle onto it and make their way to the back seat. They collapse, exhausted, happy. Nothing is said. Ben's face is expressionless. A smile creeps across his face. It grows into a grin, a big mischievous grin, and then he winks.

***

The first time it happened, the first time Roy experienced this business of someone he knew being sucked into a movie, it was his father. He turned up in
The Magnificent Seven
. Or Roy thought he did. Roy wanted to join him, but he couldn't. He couldn't see himself up there on the screen, not at that time. It was just a fleeting appearance, one of the Mexican peasants, not one of Brynner's little band of gunfighters. His father was never really the sort of man who would ever have been so presumptuous as to take a starring part. He only really ever had a supporting role in life.

4

Woody Allen's
Manhattan
opens with the sound of Gershwin and a black and white shot of an urban skyline fills the screen. The film the man in the seventh row is watching also opens with the sound of Gershwin and a black and white shot of an urban skyline. Well almost urban, not countryside anyway.

'Chapter one,' declares the voice-over with authority. 'He adored North Berwick. He idolised it out of all proportion.' The skyline of slate roofs and chimney pots, the clock on the council chambers and the modest spire on St Andrew's Church is succeeded by a series of evocative, haunting monochrome images. The caravan park in Tantallon Road. The bowling greens in Clifford Road. The square utilitarian library block that looks like a public toilet in Forth Street.

'
Uh, no, make that: He ... romanticised it all out of proportion,
' says the voice. 'No matter what the season was, North Berwick always existed in summer, it always existed in the Sixties (at a push the Seventies) and it pulsated to the great tunes, not of Gershwin, but of Donovan, Marmalade and the Bay City Rollers.'

'Chapter One.' North Berwick is seen framed in the whale's jaw bone on top of Berwick Law, the hill behind the town. And Gershwin is replaced on the soundtrack by Donovan declaring that 'first there is a mountain'. The town's vernacular, individualistic buildings cling to the narrow strip of land between the hill and the grey waters of the Firth of Forth.