‘AYAR’ Line Continued: Don’t Trash the Script Just Yet

My readers are about equally divided on the validity of the movie cliche “Are you all right?”

You know, this is the question inevitably asked of someone who has been shot on a balcony and fallen two stories through a canopy and off a car top and is lying in a bloody heap on the sidewalk.

I saw it just the other day in an old James Bond movie in which 007 is hanging by one hand over a whirring machine of steel blades that will chop him to pieces and his girlfriend runs up and asks--honest--”Are you all right?”

Louise Hauter of La Canada defends the question on humanitarian grounds. She says our society still suffers from the Kitty Genovese syndrome. Nobody wants to get involved. “Look, when you ask someone, ‘Are you all right?’ you are offering to get involved.”

Jerome Simons of Glendale notes that the American Red Cross first-aid course instructs anyone trying to help an injured person to touch him carefully and ask “Are you OK?” If he answers, you know he is alive and breathing, and you can begin first aid.

Betty Trankley of Dana Point says the Red Cross booklet “CPR: Race for Life” instructs: “If someone collapses, find out if he or she is conscious right away. Tap the victim’s shoulder firmly or shake the victim gently and shout, ‘Are you OK?’ A person who is conscious will respond and will not have stopped breathing.”

Those are formidable arguments, indeed.

George Yanok of Palm Springs, a TV writer, grants that “Are you all right?” is a “writer’s crutch,” but he says it sometimes works.

He recalls that in the miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” Robert Duvall as Gus rides ahead to reconnoiter, only to reappear at full gallop, “chased by what looks to be every Indian in the Screen Actors Guild.” Two arrows protrude from his leg. His sidekick, Pea, asks him, “Are you all right?” and Gus responds, “Hell no , I’m not all right,” and off they gallop.

In Larry McMurtry’s novel, Yanok notes, there is no such dialogue. Pea sees that Gus is in a lot of trouble and wastes no time in joining his flight.

“In this instance,” Yanok says, “the AYAR? moment works beautifully.”

I don’t recall, however, that I’ve ever before heard the question answered with “Hell no, I’m not all right!”

Barry Shipman of San Bernardino, a writer of “B Westerns, cliffhangers and action detective movies,” writes to defend AYAR? and all movie improbabilities.

“In a movie dedicated to suspense and action, pretend that I come upon Jack Smith’s mangled, bullet-ridden torso lying at the foot of a cliff. What should I say?

“ ‘Are you dead, Jack?’

“ ‘Geez! What a mess?’

“ ‘Describe your symptoms, Jack, old boy.’

“Perhaps a simple ‘Tell me where it hurts, Jack,’ might do.”

Shipman points out that improbabilities are often used in movies to make them faster-moving and to please the audience. “A ticket at the box office buys a couple of hours in a synthetic, prefabricated parallel universe where things are almost the same but not so realistically commonplace.

“Here Good triumphs over Evil and the hero always gets the girl and ‘reality’ is checked at the door in exchange for some exciting ‘what-ifs.’ ”

Shipman recalls that Eddie White, producer of the Roy Rogers Westerns for Republic, was aware of the overuse of “Are you all right?” and is alleged to have said, “What we need here is a brand new cliche.”

Shipman says alternatives for “Are you all right?” are almost non-existent.

What about “Can you talk?” Or “Speak to me.” Or “Say something!” Or “Give me your name, rank and serial number.”

Meanwhile, Barry Krause of Santa Monica notes some other improbable oddities commonplace in movies. “Nobody ever wears a seat belt in a car. Nobody uses birth control. Nobody ever dials Information to get a phone number.”

All quite true. However, I can see that each of those diversions would delay the action and make the audience impatient.

With virtually no censorship today, there’s no reason why we couldn’t see an amorous couple using a contraceptive. But of course, like asking information for a number, it would just get in the way of the action.

Back in the days of the Hays code there were other cliches. If they wanted to show that the hero and heroine were going to sin, they merely showed a door closing or curtains blowing in a window.

As for “Are you all right?” it may be justified also by the fact that it is common in real life.

Recently when I fell on my face and my steel-rimmed glasses gouged the bridge of my nose, my wife, if I’m not mistaken, said, “Are you all right?”

I don’t remember what I said.