"Grandpa Munster" Al Lewis' last film "Goodbye, America"

[elvis4life]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1137458/

It's on Youtube [hopefully the Spanish subtitles won't be too much of a distraction]:



And for those interested via Google translation, here's what the description says in English:

"Some people don't age. Even if they look in the mirror and only see an old man. The reflection is wrong. And what is truly there is what cannot be seen, what has barely ever been seen. There is a man who wanted to be governor, a radio host who started a chain of favors so that prisoners to whom no one wrote would have correspondence, an airplane passenger who challenged Henry Kissinger on a Washington-New York flight. Then someone comes up with the idea of ​​showing what really happened.

Sometimes 80 minutes is enough. That's what cinema has. Al Lewis says goodbye and the rest of the world, through the screen, welcomes him after he is dead. Sergio Oksman, director of the film, has made him stay. Actually, it was almost by chance. The initial idea of ​​the documentary's producer, Elías Querejeta, was to make a feature film about "Pacifica Radio", a pacifist radio station in New York in which Al Lewis would appear simply because he worked there. But in his pretense, they met first the former grandfather of the Monster family and then Albert Meister (the actor's real name). And they had no choice but to tell another story; yours.

Goodbye, America is a film that contains some of the great themes of the history of cinema. So that later they say that the documentary is a minor genre, or that it is born with fewer pretensions. The protagonist is an actor, and the actor was also a film buff. The character is a vampire, that figure that, like cinema, dies with the light. And the first time the person (not the character) is put in front of the spotlight, he dies. There is also a trip, of course, by train.

Paul Robeson's song also plays a double role: it is a documentary reflection on part of the American History of the 20th century and at the same time an emotional testimony that defines Al Lewis and the somewhat nostalgic air that, to a certain extent, exudes the film .

It is the dichotomy that is maintained throughout the entire film. There is the historical testimony (archive images) and the personal testimony, both contained in the figure of Al Lewis, in his "gray matter." They converge, and, as a result, move, without needing to abuse the images they had (those of their last days) and that could have appealed more crudely to emotion. Oksman chose not to show everything, but he managed to tell everything.

And sometimes 80 minutes is enough. Some people look at themselves in the mirror again and laugh. The old man you see is just a caricature. And the wrinkles and trembling hands are part of the costume."