The Devil's Pleasure Garden

The President’s Palm Reader—the movie

A confidence man takes charge of a failing president and overthrows a conspiracy to impeach him. Based on the novel:

"Hilarious, sarcastic, witty, incredibly smart"—Amazon review

Word Wallace can talk anyone into anything. He leaves America a step ahead of the feds and in India picks up the palmistry con, and he’s doing very well; but let’s face it, he’s small-time—

—until he’s picked up by ambitious Washington socialite Alberta Haines, on the lam from her husband Belton, whose political-hot-seat TV show she had promoted Belton into. Here’s her new ticket to the top.

Belton, something of a bully, humiliates Word on the show, but Word distracts him for just that instant with dark news in his fate line and, boom, Word is reading the Vice President’s wife’s palm, the First Lady’s palm, and he and Alberta are on the social circuit reading everybody’s palm, charging five C’s per and feeding it into the bill-counter.

Proposed cast: Brent Mendenhall (the President)

Then, the big one: the call comes in from the Oval Office and Word is giving Number One a reading—when the President comes apart in his hands. Bullied by Vice President Reb Rawlins and Secretary of State Wayne T. “White Trash” Tupper, bullied by his wife, the President is an impotent wretch at mid-nervous-breakdown, and so over-the-line that he likes to scramble the bombers on the transceiver and send them in to nuke the bad guys. Of course he calls them back every time. Fun!

Proposed cast: Louise Gallagher (the First Lady)

This sends Word into breakdown, but Alberta puts him back together and he gets in there and reassembles the President. By day they have a high old time running the world. By night they tour the back-street bars and the birds of paradise.

HOOKER
(peers past Word)
Hey, you know who that looks like?

WORD
Yup. Talks like him, too. Go ahead, ask him something.

Hands on her hips, she tuff-stuff struts to the cringing President.

HOOKER
(leans in close)
You wanna fuck a nigger?

PRESIDENT
(frightened)
Gee!
(checks with Word, who nods with his eyebrows)
Sure!

Suddenly Word and Alberta are arrested by the FBI for blackmailing the president with a tape of his breakdown (the palm-reading involves making a tape), and the President, back under the thumbs of Reb and W.T., regresses to obedience.

When they can't persuade the FBI they don't have the tape—Word's record doesn't inspire trust—he and Alberta set out to find it themselves. He searches Reb's Residence, witnesses his impotence with his wife and is taken by her to an embassy party where Alberta is on the arm of the Russian ambassador…

Proposed cast: John Goodman (Reb)

And as if they didn’t have enough trouble, they uncover a conspiracy to impeach the President and take over America—but the FBI won't touch that, that's "politics." It's up to Word and Alberta.

Pretentious Pictures presents a Washington comedy.

Steel Man: A Romance with a Robot

A woman, her robot (a perfect man), and her lover (an imperfect man).

On amazon

When workaholic Professor Jane Ramsay agrees to "try out" a state-of-the-art robot for the NASA-financed physics department, she's expecting a mechanical device to help with the house work—a sort of combination vacuum-cleaner / drinks trolley. That's how they described him!

Instead she gets the tender, suave and brilliant Steel Man, not to say model-handsome. The slight hesitations in his movements may just be perfect poise. "I do rugs," he assures her.

This is a total embarrassment. How does she explain him to the neighbors? How does she explain him to her colleagues? What will they think she's— What will they think he's— What does she do when he's off-duty, stand him in the closet?

But his creator Doctor Avery persuades her that Steel Man will pass as human. So she accepts the rather sinister presence of this thing—it cooks, does the dishes—but she keeps him out of the neighbors' sight and won't let him answer the phone. Then one night she has a drink too many, asks him to wash her hair and—well.

Deeply humiliated, she must now keep her colleagues from guessing the truth—but he charms them! He charms the president. He charms her estranged kids. He even charms Charles, the imperfect man who loves her.

When Charles is ejected from his lecture hall by his own students, the Dean asks Steel Man to give the last class of the term, so Steel Man gives the kids a talk on "What It Is to Be Human."

But Jane's nightmares about discovery and disgrace poison her life with him. Steel Man, who till now has "felt" human, discovers that he is not alone with his thoughts, that Doctor Avery and his team are looking in, not only on him, but on what he does with Jane—

—and Steel Man confronts his creator, who is mad, and thinks he's God. But OK, he'll give Steel Man his independence, for as long as it lasts. And Jane realizes too late what she wants.

Originally Steel Man was a story in Descant. The stage version had a public reading at the Lincoln Square Studio Theatre in New York, then a full production at John Houseman’s Studio Theatre in New York, directed by Vicky Weidman:

Steel Man – Darryl Kurtin
Jane – Joannie Kaplan
Charles – Barry Pomerantz

Most recently it was at FirstStage in Hollywood. The director said, "The play was sensational. Everyone was eerily touched, much to my surprise. They took it as a romantic drama. I thought it was a comedy. But, of course, I immediately acknowledged the fact that I knew it was a touching drama of a human loving a machine. And people thought that Charles was slightly in love with both of them. Hey, I will never deny success. I did direct it and had a terrific cast. Talk to you as soon as I can open my eyes. Best, Dennis."

(Dennis Safren is the manager and dramaturge at FirstStage, whose Board has included Ed Asner, Julie Harris, Syd Field, Paul Newman and Lily Tomlin.)

Pretentious Pictures presents

STEEL MAN

a romance with a robot.

Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His recent The Light Touch is on Amazon Prime, Tubi and Scanbox, and his 7-minute comedy is an out-loud laugh. He is also a novelist, a playwright, a blogger, a YouTuber, a film reviewer, a literary critic, and a stand-up comic poet. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains, but an intellectual snob.

“I was beastly but never coarse. A high-class sort of heel.”

The Light Touch on Amazon Prime

The Natural Wish to Be Robert MacLean

The Devil's Pleasure Garden

O I much prefer Shelley to Keats!

Keats is so damnably neat!

He left his fond heart

For us pickled in Art

But his atmosphere's sick-room effete.

O I much prefer Shelley to Keats!

When he can't find the word, Shelley cheats!

I mean, scarcely mature,

Mais mon Dieu! Quelle hauteur!

Keats only measured five feet!

O don't give me Keats, give me Shelley!

I like him so well I can't tell'ee!

His fuck-you effulgence

Wins old men's indulgence—

Who cares? He indulged himself silly!

O I much prefer Shelley to Keats!

Put your scarf on, John! Isn't he sweet?

But Shelley is careless

Where Keats is so airless;

Shelley is attitude,

Keats runs to platitude;

Keats did write prettily,

I'm glad he saw Italy—

O if either had lived

Think what he might have gived!

No but let us leave Keats

At the Goddess's teats

For I much prefer, much prefer, much prefer, much prefer,

Much prefer Shelley to Keats!

And I much prefer Pinter to Beckett!

Beckett's a positive Hecate!

Just reading the dude

Puts a damp on my mood

And when I feel the impulse I check it.

I've been told Beckett's better than Pinter.

It's the grope in the dark Beckett's inter.

He can draw you a map

Specifying the trap

But he won't get your soul through the winter.

Yes I much prefer Pinter to Beckett.

Pinter's just that much more neckett.

He love/hates women

Where Sam love/hates Him and

So sparely you'd scarcely expeck it.

O I much prefer Pinter to Beckett!

And although you may say what the heck it

Just doesn't much matter,

The former, the latter,

Still one is a scheme

And the other is dream;

Beckett's reduceable,

Pinter's seduceable.

Sure, both are depressive

But Beckett's excessive—

Took Joyce's maximal,

Found it all axeable—

No I much prefer, much prefer, much prefer, much prefer,

Much prefer Pinter to Beckett.

On youtube

In print

gorgeousness

Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His The Light Touch is on Amazon Prime, Tubi and Scanbox, and his 7-minute comedy is an out-loud laugh. He is also a novelist, a playwright, a blogger, a YouTuber, a film reviewer, a literary critic, and a stand-up comic poet. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. Committed to making movies that don't matter. No brains but an intellectual snob.