Lies
| Series | |
|---|---|
| WBAI And NPR Playhouse | |
| Original Broadcast Date | |
| 3/06/1982 | |
| Cast | |
| Mark Hammer, F. Murray Abraham, Barbara Sohmers, Christina Moore, Tim Jerome, Arthur Miller, Jane Hunt, Joe Frank | |
| Format | |
| 1 hour | |
| Preceded by: | Questions |
| Followed by: | A Tour Of The City (Part 1) |
"At some point when I was in high school I lost my draft card, and my folks changed houses, and I think there was a period of two years there, or three years, or four years, when the Army lost me. They couldn't find me."
Lies is the name of a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series WBAI And NPR Playhouse. It was originally broadcast in 1984.
Synopsis
- Joe is a social climbing night watchman, lists things he must do every night, discusses office people.
- Scenes from the office - a board room filled with terror, one with giggling idiots, a woman shouts colors against a background of machinery.
- Joe buries his boss and takes his place.
- A guy avoids the draft by pretending to take drugs.
- A military intelligence officer at a translation center in Vietnam during the war.
- A pair of radical women screw up a revolutionary bank robbery and go on the run.
- A man talks about having been politically active.
- A man meets a woman in a deli; "it had the cadence of witty repartee without the wit;" her roommate makes bagel and cream cheese paperweights, he goes to her place later. She tells him about a rape long ago, about a marriage to a man who shits in bed.
Miscellanea
The "Night Watchman" segment was broadcast without explanation as the conclusion of All Things Considered on Halloween, October 31, 1979.
The first 30 minutes of the 1985 Martin Scorcese comedy After Hours plagiarizes the plot setup and portions of woman-in-the-deli segment from "Lies". Joe recounts learning about this plagiarism in the extended version of No Show, and his decision to accept a settlement and remain uncredited on the film. Coincidentally, Larry Block appears as a taxi driver in the film, a role that originates with this episode.
The "fugitive radical women" segment appears to have been inspired by Susan Edith Saxe and Katherine Ann Power, who committed robberies in 1970.
Music
- "Ceres Motion" - Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co. (from Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co., 1973) | YouTube
- "T on a White Horse" - Eberhard Weber (from The Following Morning, 1977) | YouTube
- "Part One" - Philip Glass (from Music in Twelve Parts, 1976) | YouTube
- "Music For 18 Musicians" - Steve Reich (from Music For 18 Musicians, 1978) | YouTube
- "I Will Wait For You" - Mantovani (from To Lovers Everywhere, 1971) | YouTube
Commentary
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