Jack Tulloss: Play It Again, Sam

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Published: 03-30-2025 12:44 PM

Woody Allen’s contribution to cinema is the lovable nebbish — a hopelessly hopeful Don Juan wannabe who never will be. In the 1972 film “Play It Again, Sam,” Mr. Allen portrays Allan Felix, a recent divorcé who feels like a stranger in a strange land when it comes to meeting women.

Urged by his loyal sidekick, played by Diane Keaton, Allan approaches an attractive young woman in an art gallery who is contemplating a Jackson Pollock painting. When Mr. Felix asks what the painting says to her, she responds, “It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous, lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless, bleak straitjacket in a black, absurd cosmos.”

Does this dialogue resonate? It should, as it accurately depicts the current national mood.

Recalling a late 18-century admonition, “The government you elect is the government you deserve,” it is now evident that the 2024 election has become little more than a self-inflicted, ignominious, and unremitting catastrophe, reducing the nation to a punch line. Despite overwhelming evidence that Donald Trump is immature, selfish, and genetically indifferent to the suffering of others, his supporters handed him the keys to the kingdom. Not the Russians, not the Chinese, and not aliens.

The irony? Many of Trump’s devotees are now employment-free, with their families at risk because of their champion. The end of Emma Lazarus’ Statue of Liberty poem reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

It’s an even-money bet that Ms. Lazarus never thought her words would serve to console U.S. citizens. Well done, Donnie. Let us pray that, within four years, the orange rodomont will be gone, much like an unpleasant odor dissipating in the night. The country has endured worse calamities than the current administration’s perpetual unmitigated and unhinged buffoonery.

Will the performer-cum-president cause harm before his time is up? Yes. But as the saying goes, it’s only broken if you can’t fix it. Take heart. It will be fixed.

Jack Tulloss

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