Movies: Mad About the Boy

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One way to measure the times is to check the leading men in the movies. By that standard, modern man is in trouble. Take Morgan!, the British film hit with David Warner and Vanessa Redgrave. Morgan is the least attractive lead in movie history — or so it would seem. To emulate him, a man would need a physique like a scarecrow's and a mind that hovers between paranoia and delusions of grandeur. He would have to be neither handsome nor healthy, neither brilliant nor virile. He would need to be pock-marked and plaster-pale, incapable of handling himself — much less a woman. And he would wind up, after a score of mis adventures, in the loony bin. So who in the world would want Morgan? Almost every woman, apparently. Girls, mothers — and even great-grandmothers — think he is the coolest, cuddliest character they have had to coo over in years.

Why should such an oddball be so appealing to women? Karel Reisz's deftly daft direction has something to do with it; so have Warner and Red grave. Mostly, though, it is the character himself. Inept, incapable and inconsistent, Morgan is preposterously surrounded by a left-wing mother, a right-wing mother-in-law, and a middle-of-the-road wife who doesn't know which way to turn ("She married me to achieve insecurity," he brags). Is he a man or a baby? When he crawls up the side of a building, is he a swinger or a hanger-on? When he pretends he is Tarzan, or dresses up as King Kong, has he gone ape or merely made a monkey of himself? When he dynamites his mother-in-law and breaks up his ex-wife's wedding, is he doing it all because he's simply mad about her —or because he's simply mad?

The answer seems as simple as Morgan himself. For years women have been manhandled in the movies by Rhett Butlers, Stanley Kowalskis, and James Bonds. Now they have a man they can handle. Their orange-haired, loose-jointed Raggedy Andy doll has arrived; he is seductive but safe, screwy but pitiable, someone they can put to bed instead of take there. They identify strongly with Redgrave, who, when she does join Morgan in the percales —after their divorce—feels not passion or love but that most protective of all emotions, pity. In short—judging from the mounting popularity of the picture and the lyrical reviews—"Brilliant," "Hilarious" and "Poignant" —U.S. women at last have a man to whom they can feel superior.