Given the importance of educating the public about economics and related matters, it is easy to understand why popular films often become the subjects of detailed analysis along these lines; they are highly visible and reviewing them from an economic or political perspective serves to draw greater attention to important lessons. Still, I cannot help but feel a slight discomfort at the prospect of anyone rejecting a piece of entertainment or culture solely on the basis of its propagation of unsound economic or political doctrines, or accepting it solely for the soundness of the same. Casablanca may well be a heavy-handed bit of interventionist propaganda, but it is widely regarded as an example of the highest artistic achievements possible through the medium of film – I purchased a used VHS copy of it from the same place I purchased the film I shall discuss below. Similarly, I imagine there is no shortage of films or other works of fiction which exalt liberty and the free market, but which make for positively execrable art or entertainment. There is always a danger, however slight, of creating a kind of reverse political correctness, turning a healthy concern with educating the public into an unhealthy and fanatical obsession.
It is with slight trepidation, then, that I approach the task at hand: that of bringing to light the extraordinary economic, political, and cultural insight of the lighthearted 1963 romantic comedy The Wheeler Dealers, starring James Garner and Lee Remick. Before doing anything else, then, let me remind the reader that taste is largely subjective, and this is not primarily intended to be a review of the film's entertainment or artistic value (though I do personally give it high marks in both categories). The reader may find himself less amused by The Wheeler Dealers than I was; this is not a catastrophe.
What is not in dispute, however, is that The Wheeler Dealers hits the nail on the head concerning a wide range of economic and social issues. Though it is first and foremost meant to be an entertaining and funny film, and not a dense tract on economics or politics, The Wheeler Dealers gets such matters right several times (in a manner which this reviewer found wickedly funny).
The central character of the film is Henry Tyroon (James Garner), a New England-born Yale man who went to Texas to get rich and has since changed his clothes and accent to match his new lifestyle (this may sound rather familiar, but as far as I can ascertain, the resemblance is merely superficial). Since then, Tyroon has gained a reputation as a "Wheeler Dealer." What is a "Wheeler Dealer," the reader asks? The film provides an answer: "[A] wheeler dealer is somebody that loves to find places for money to go. It’s like hitchin’ on to a star. You may zoom up to the sky on a mighty pretty ride." If he doesn't happen to take off to the stars, it is hardly a problem; Tyroon just "find[s] a way for the government to take three-quarters of the loss."
This latter point is of significance, for one of the main activities in which Tyroon engages is that of tax evasion. This is one of the great charms of The Wheeler Dealers – the protagonist repeatedly finds clever and creative ways to cheat the taxman, with not one iota of hand wringing or sermonizing from any character in the film about how this practice shortchanges "honest American taxpayers," or undermines the government's attempts to provide "necessary services." No paragon of the American proletariat is thrown in to the narrative in order to scold Tyroon for his callousness toward the needs of the all-benevolent federal government. Indeed, a thoroughly working-class taxi driver is shown refusing to make a deal with Tyroon on which both men win (mutually beneficial exchange, what?), believing that it is too good to be true, until he is reassured that, in the end, "the taxman loses." As Charles Adams has demonstrated, Tyroon is really upholding one of the oldest and most deeply-rooted American traditions.
With "corporate scandals" so much in the news of late, LRC readers in particular may relish the film's depiction of Federal securities regulators (if memory serves, the film's thinly-veiled version of the SEC is called the "Federal Securities Commission"). John Astin delivers a wonderful performance as a bored Federal regulator, desperate for some juicy new victims whose names and faces he can plaster all over the newspapers. The lack of extant scandals strikes him not as a sign that all is well with the world, but as an aberrant dry spell for his agency: "I double checked the Consolidated Silicon stock transfer. It's all perfectly legal, boss, the company's in the clear!" he exclaims in frustration. To make the scene even more hilarious, Astin talks over his troubles with an older regulator, exasperatedly declaring, "We haven't had a really good victim since we smashed Zirkon Aviation Products!" His superior, in return, waxes nostalgic for the days after the 1929 crash, saying that it was "heaven." The film's fictional version of the SEC come off not so much like incorruptible defenders of the public welfare and the fairness of the marketplace, but at blood-hungry witch-hunters willing to ruin a man's life, thriving off the misery of the American people.1
The whole scene is, in essence, a comical illustration of Westley's Law and more generally of the very real operation of government bureaucracies. If there is no problem in its field, the agency seeks to simply manufacture one, either by neglect or by deliberate engineering, in order to justify its own continued existence and overlarge budget. The real world has seen many a "white-collar crime" case brought (and won) simply to gratify the ego and desire for publicity of the prosecutor involved. The Wheeler Dealers is an exception among a film industry that, for the past few decades, at least, generally seems to think that Federal regulatory agencies and bureaucracies are bold and unflappable defenders of the weak, without which American society and commerce would grind to a halt.
Finally, James Garner's Henry Tyroon is not a moustache-twirling capitalist seeking to exploit and oppress everyone he meets; he is depicted as a man who tries to find things the value of which other men have overlooked. In one of his dealings, he buys a pretentious New York City restaurant and improves its business by giving customers even more of what they wanted in the first place: "I figured if the bar is more profitable than the dining area, and people like being shoved around, well, then you double the size of the bar and shove 'em a little harder." In short, Tyroon is an entrepreneur – a man who takes on risk and seeks out new, untested opportunities for productive investment. The portrayal is predominately sympathetic. Tyroon is certainly not a saint – he uses some ethically questionable techniques to unload some old stock (though the final scene absolves him of having done any real or lasting harm), and he sometimes pulls Tom Sawyer-style maneuvers in which he gets a potential buyer to believe something is worth more than most other men would estimate – but despite all of this, Tyroon's code is not merely one of crass materialism, à la Gordon Gekko. "You don't do wheelin' and dealin' for money," Tyroon says, "You do it for fun. Money's just a way of keepin' score." This attitude toward wealth does not exactly rival the philosophical sophistication of Rerum Novarum or Quadragesimo Anno, but I suppose shall take what I can get from Hollywood.
A theme which receives some minor attention in the film, and also highlights a point made by Austrian economists throughout the twentieth century, is the American fear in the 1950s and '60s of being eclipsed by the Soviet Union in various fields. Henry Tyroon, seeking to sell stock in a company that once made "widgets" (evidently an obscure and little-known tool that fell out of use around the same time as the horse-drawn carriage) circulates calls for America to regain its supremacy over the U.S.S.R. in "widgetry." The public panics, fearing that the Soviet system has the edge over American capitalism when it comes to widgetry (the comparison with the field of rocketry is amusing here, though likely unintended by the filmmakers; like the film's version of widgets, space rockets in the '50s and '60s were largely useless from an economic standpoint, but the ability of the U.S.S.R. to outdo the Americans was paradoxically given as evidence that American capitalism might be inferior to Soviet communism). This bit of subterfuge on Tyroon's part is only a very small part of the film, but provides a window on the attitudes of the period. The fear of communist supremacy was quite widespread in the 1950s and '60s, but had men listened more closely to Ludwig von Mises, they would have known such fears were grossly misplaced. This little vignette in The Wheeler Dealers should shatter any impression modern viewers may have about America having been "zealously devoted to the supremacy of laissez-faire" during the dark and repressive '50s; American leaders sought to fight the Soviets not because they were absolutely certain that capitalism was superior to communism, but because they were very much afraid that it was not.
The Wheeler Dealers touches lightly on economics in ways that bring big laughs; it also tackles the culture in ways that might tickle the funny bones of libertarians, their sympathizers, and men of general good sense. Our modern era of open-container laws, mandatory seat belts, and growing restrictions on "cell phone driving" would no doubt be scandalized by Henry Tyroon's convertible with built-in Scotch dispenser, no apparent seat belts, and no less than two telephones, both of which he uses at the same time. No, he does not crash it into a tree or die a grisly death by the roadside.
One of my favorite scenes of the entire film was a satirical missile aimed straight at the heart of the absurd notion of "Art for art's sake," the strange and peculiar 20th century notion that holds that art can only truly be "art" if nobody actually wants to buy it (this has been the first and foremost excuse for forcing a city's taxpayers to pay for hideous eyesores that said taxpayers would ordinarily demand be hauled away by said city's sanitation workers). Henry Tyroon is invited to a fancy art exhibition, showcasing the work of a modern artist who paints "scratchy" abstract paintings (today such paintings would nearly be considered reactionary, if a quarter of what one hears about the art world is true). While the critics and the "art lovers" praise the merits of the artist's work, the artist speaks privately with Henry, scoffing at the words of his adoring critics while ironing out an elaborate business proposition with Henry that will ideally enable both of them to make boatloads of money off of credulous art lovers. Even the most "brilliant," avant-garde, rule-breaking artist, the movie seems to say, can still be a businessman at heart without ceasing to be a "genuine" artist.
In stark contrast to most movies, the sexual morality on display is… well, it is still pretty far beyond anything this Irish-American Catholic can quite endorse. Still, it was refreshing to watch a movie in which the protagonist and the leading lady did not jump into bed together within 48 hours of having met each other, which appears to be the general rule nowadays. It was pleasant to see a woman who insists that she is "hardly the pure-as-driven-snow type" simultaneously insist that a one-night-stand is completely out of the question; the juxtaposition of these two attitudes would scarcely be comprehensible to more than a small proportion of my peers. I was also amused by Molly Thatcher (Lee Remick) repeating an explanation she heard from a prospective beau on why sex actually prevents cavities; the absurd logic on display is a perfect match for some of the nonsense that comes out of the mouths of real scientists today, and what has come out of the mouths of real cads since long before "The Wheeler Dealers" was ever made. This was just one of a few little jabs the film took at the ridiculous notion that there are no meaningful differences between the male and the female of the human species; a hilariously ironic spectacle at a women's business club meeting was another such jab, the latter one satirizing both condescending male chauvinism and the feminist propensity for indignation.
I will not repeat the cliché that "such a film could not be made today." A film like The Wheeler Dealers could be made today, but it could only suffer one of two fates: a firestorm of indignation from all the usual suspects, or a virtual media blackout in which the film's existence would be barely acknowledged, and its run in theaters was over almost as soon as it began. I cannot say which is worse.
The Wheeler Dealers is not without flaws, of course. The protagonists are not saints, in their personal lives or in their business dealings. They are probably too reckless with money and a little too willing to bend the truth in order to make a buck, and let it simply be said that there is nobody in sight who seems willing to become a martyr for the preservation of chastity. Still, I found it to be an entertaining and funny film, and even if the reader does not, he may be interested to see the depiction of economics and culture in The Wheeler Dealers.
- I do not presume to insult those individuals who are employed by Federal agencies, most of whom are surely as honest as anybody else, both original sin and God's grace being as much present in government employees as Wall Street businessmen; the functioning of the institution as a whole, however, is generally beyond even the control of any "good eggs" whose motivations are genuine and honest.
August 21, 2008
