Ralph's dumb decisions


These aren't goofs as such, just some annoying things that happen in the movie that seem pointless, illogical or potentially dangerous.

Ralph steals the car. Needing a ride to get to New York City, Ralph enters a dealership, hot wires a convertible, then takes a tire from a display and tosses it through the plate glass window so he can drive the car out of the showroom.

Okay, several things. Car dealerships always have open lots with dozens of cars. They also have garages. Why does Ralph have to go into the office area to grab a car -- which means he not only has to go to the trouble of smashing the window, he has to drive out over broken glass, embedding shards of it into the tires and risking several flats, then or out on the road, when he really doesn't need any more problems?

Also, why didn't he take 30 seconds to look for the keys? They wouldn't be hidden away somewhere; they'd be on a key rack or the dealer's desk or someplace obvious. Why just hot wire the thing right off the bat? This means that every time he stops and starts he has to go to the time and trouble of manually getting the wires to spark. Since for all he knows he may need to make a quick getaway, having the keys would seem a lot more prudent, to say nothing of convenient. (I know, the filmmakers wanted to show us yet again that Ralph is a mechanical marvel, but we didn't need to see that he knows how to jack a car to get this.)

Ralph gets into Manhattan. Perhaps the most memorable shot of the film shows Ralph driving up to the George Washington Bridge and finding it impassable, completely jammed with abandoned vehicles heading out of the city. (Kind of like a typical 5 PM shot of the place, without the angry drivers.) Ralph then drives to the Lincoln Tunnel, finds a similar situation, and finally goes farther south to a decaying dock, where he grabs a small open boat, switches an outboard motor from an adjacent boat, and heads over to lower Manhattan.

Since he can't drive into Manhattan, why doesn't Ralph simply walk over the bridge (or through the tunnel) to get there? There are walkways across them and it would take less than an hour. It's not like he needs to carry anything over with him other than the Geiger counter. (Presumably he also checked the Holland Tunnel and found similar conditions, though there's no indication he drove north of the city to the Tappan Zee bridge to see if he could get across that way -- which, in 1959, he might have done.)

But it's the means he chose to get over that's ridiculous: a tiny, rickety-looking open boat that didn't even have its own outboard; Ralph has to take one off a nearby swamped boat, hoist it onto his own craft, attach it, grab the (hopefully full) gas tank out of the other boat, hook the whole rig up and putter across the choppy open waters of New York harbor, an area notorious for its tricky tides and currents, a place he could easily get swamped, have trouble battling the currents, or be swept away from his destination...not to mention the pickle he'd find himself in if the engine conked out, gas or no gas. And to top it all off, when he reaches Manhattan he simply steps out of the boat without tying it up, leaving it to drift away and be lost. Since it was his way of getting onto the island and he doesn't know what he'll find, you'd think he'd secure the boat to the dock to have it on hand just in case. Once again, Ralph doesn't appear to have stopped to think about the best and safest ways to reach his objective.

And by the way...why settle in Manhattan? While it seems a logical place to stay given its importance, it's also an area potentially fraught with hazards and unknowns, where Ralph would be trapped. I'd think he'd have been better off settling into a nearby northern suburb of the city, where he isn't hemmed in on an island, has access to the city but can quickly retreat to more secure areas outside it.

Ralph on the radio. When listening to his short-wave radio one day, Ralph hears a voice in French. There's a lot of static, but we know the other person hears him because he replies "No English", but Ralph keeps yakking away, talking over him, then quickly closes down, saying he'll be on at the same time tomorrow.

What?! After months of hearing nothing, Ralph suddenly gets a voice, and the best he can do is excitedly yell (to someone whom he already knows doesn't speak English) that he's signing off and to tune in tomorrow? Apparently Ralph, so schooled in so many things, doesn't even recognize the language he's hearing as French. That aside, any normal person would stay on as long as possible, try to bridge the language gap, and at least tell the guy where he was ("New York" is pretty universally understood) and find out where the other person is. Yet he makes absolutely no effort to stay on and communicate; he's over and out in 30 seconds. Moreover, Ralph doesn't tell Sarah this news until late that night, and her reaction is hardly overjoyed: enthusiastic, yes, but dampened quickly by Ralph's gloom about ever meeting up with these others. Besides, maybe Sarah speaks French; certainly she's educated and could be of use in helping speak to a person in another country. Even if they would never be able to meet up Ralph should have tried everything to learn as much as he could, however rudimentary, and had Sarah on hand to help out.

Later on, almost as an afterthought, Ralph tells Ben that he hasn't heard anyone since that one time. This is a bit hard to believe as you'd expect the other person to be trying the same wavelength over and over, but all the more reason Ralph should have tried to get as much information as possible, stayed on as long as he could, instead of babbling over the other guy and shutting down so fast. Not bringing Sarah (or even Ben) in to help him, or even mentioning to anyone that the other voice spoke in French, is another baffling oversight.

Obviously, all the decisions Ralph makes are for cinematic purposes, so we get some cool scenes or move the story along its predicted path, but when Ralph threw that tire through the dealer's window, his logic and common sense were tossed out with it. For all his supposed genius in so many things, Ralph makes some pretty illogical, ill-considered and downright stupid decisions that can only make things harder and more dangerous for him.

reply

I agree with all your points! Filmmakers should make their scenarios more plausible, detracts a lot from a movie when all these discrepancies are so apparent.

reply

Thank you! Glad someone else sees the same things.

There's an old movie saying I find very true: Audiences will accept the impossible; they will not accept the improbable.

We'll accept all Earth's population wiped out (without a trace of any bodies) and all the rest of the apocalyptic stuff, but we want the characters to act reasonably logically within the context of the situation. So much of what happens in this movie violates that maxim. I mostly enjoy the film, but it does get very frustrating at times!

reply

I felt the same way concerning the radio deal. Maybe Sarah took French in high school (as I did), and could remember enough of it to communicate on a limited basis. I'm sure that the French person would be doing the same on their end, if there were any other survivors; running to them to find out of any of them know English. I don't believe that they had to worry too much about someone in France hopping in an airplane and attempting to fly it to NYC just so they could have dinner together.

reply

Right you are. Even simply as a dramatic scene in the film, you'd think the writer or director would want to make his finally making contact with another person a high point in the narrative. Instead, it's handled in the stupidest way possible, reduced almost to insignificance, and then virtually forgotten.

reply

Saw the film for the first time on TCM.

Ralph steals the car

I had no problem with any of the issues you brought up. Psychologically, Ralph was still processing the events he had experienced recently. He had no training to prepare for the absolute aloneness.

A convertible may have been a youthful desire. This one caught his eyes. Plus the possibility a sedan now feels more confining than usual?

There may be many cars in the lot, with the dealership's particular method of identification of these cars. He had already decided to head for New York when he thought of getting a more reliable vehicle than the one he got 'out of Dodge' in. So there might have been a sense of urgency overriding the ludicrous idea of trying all the keys on this one convertible.

I agree "we didn't need to see that he knows how to jack a car to get this." It propagated negative stereotypes during an era of racial tension and violence.

Ralph gets into Manhattan.

He was just some bloke working at a Pennsylavanian mining town. What would he know about NYC navigation-wise? His map would not reveal all the intricate ways one can move about in the city.

By the time he got to the city's periphery, he had to be antsy from the anticipation that out of 8 million residents he would encounter one. Not exactly thinking straight, he would seize the first opportunity and means to get into the city.

Why not secure the boat? You decried the worthiness of the boat. Maybe he shared the evaluation after making the trip in it.

Why settle in Manhattan? At the time (1959), the city was prominent for Americans; later popularized by Frank Sinatra's "If I can make it there, I'm gonna make it anywhere," And it contained prefabricated resources he demonstrated he was capable of adapting to his needs. He would be so lucky in the suburbs back in those days.

Ralph on the radio.

Ralph may have been a HANDYman, but there was nothing to indicate he was a learned man. Sure, he collected art works and books. Maybe he'll flip through a book and enjoy the moldy scent.

He probably freaked out hearing a foreign language. For all he knew, it could have been Chinese Mandarin. His grounding was his knowledge of how radios work. Thus, his reply to the gibberish was for the other to boost his transmission power; and not follow a Star Trek First Contact protocol.

Social tension experienced internally because of the implications externally kept him from sharing this contact. When he did share, the others weren't leaping over buildings to get to the radio to hear another voice. Maybe they also didn't like the added implication and complication.










________

Is it the Devil in the whiskey, or is it the Devil in him? -- ???

reply

To your comments (reprinted in italics):

The car. Several points:

***A convertible may have been a youthful desire. This one caught his eyes. Plus the possibility a sedan now feels more confining than usual? First, I never said anything about the kind of car Ralph took -- convertible, sedan, pick-up, it didn't matter. So that point is irrelevant. My criticism is the way in which Ralph set about getting the car.

***There may be many cars in the lot, with the dealership's particular method of identification of these cars. He had already decided to head for New York when he thought of getting a more reliable vehicle than the one he got 'out of Dodge' in. So there might have been a sense of urgency overriding the ludicrous idea of trying all the keys on this one convertible. You refer to how Ralph is unprepared for the situation (as opposed to anyone else?) and is so busy "processing" it that this makes his behavior natural or understandable. So, Ralph goes to the car dealership, hot-wires the car, throws a tire through the window and drives out over broken glass because he can't "process" being alone? Oh, come on. He's processed things well enough to have the presence of mind to get a Geiger counter, hardly something on the top of one's everyday list. In fact, the normal reaction for anyone in such a situation would be to stick as close to normal behavior as possible. In this case, that would be to at least look for the car keys, and hopefully take a car that he didn't have to smash a window and drive out over shards of tire-piercing glass to get. That hardly takes any "processing". Besides, the keys to each car would be marked, so it wouldn't require that he try every key in the one car; or, failing that, he could take the first set of keys he finds and take that car. If he wants to get going he wouldn't stop to worry over what kind of car he was taking. Also, what do you mean by "He had already decided to head for New York when he thought of getting a more reliable vehicle than the one he got 'out of Dodge' in"? He only had the one car, the convertible. That is the one he got out of Dodge in. Although I don't believe it was a Dodge. Might have been a Plymouth.

***I agree "we didn't need to see that he knows how to jack a car to get this." It propagated negative stereotypes during an era of racial tension and violence. I hadn't meant his hot-wiring the car to have any racial overtone to it, but you're correct, it might to some people -- as would his stealing the car in the first place (if by then this could even be considered "stealing"), and his selecting a "flashy" car instead of something more ordinary. Unfortunately such prejudice isn't something out of a long-ago past but is still with us today. However, evidently Harry Belafonte, then as now an activist for racial equality, had no problem with the scene, so presumably this wasn't intentional -- the bigotry being in the mind of any prejudiced beholder in the audience.

Getting into Manhattan. Again, you presume Ralph is "not exactly thinking straight", as a way of explaining away dumb behavior. To your points:

***What would he know about NYC navigation-wise? His map would not reveal all the intricate ways one can move about in the city. Nothing, granted. But that would go for anywhere he went, or whether he was in a car or on foot. In fact, his not knowing his way around such a huge city is another reason for him to avoid it, at least right off the bat, until he can better assess what the situation in it is. (Manhattan, incidentally, isn't for the most part all that intricate.)

***Not exactly thinking straight, he would seize the first opportunity and means to get into the city. Yeah, except he didn't. The first opportunity was to walk across the George Washington Bridge. He didn't take it -- or the second, going through the Lincoln Tunnel. Instead, he takes the most difficult and hazardous means he can think of. It's likely he intended to drive into the city until he found all accesses blocked. He was more than willing to abandon the car on the pier. Why not at the entrance to the bridge or tunnel? As with taking the car, Ralph chose the most complicated and dangerous means of accomplishing his goal. Yet he made other decisions without any apparent inability to think straight. Considering that, and how very basic were the decisions about the car and getting into Manhattan, the notion that he wasn't somehow in his right mind, at least to the extent of making very basic, obvious decisions, just doesn't hold up.

***You decried the worthiness of the boat. Maybe he shared the evaluation after making the trip in it. There's no indication of that; he just jumped out of the boat and started walking, and the boat looked fine. What if someone had suddenly leaped out at him with an ax, and the boat had drifted just out of reach? Now, in this one instance it might be that Ralph wasn't thinking deeply enough immediately after reaching his goal, but since he still had the Geiger counter he couldn't have been that absent-minded. Keeping his sole means of escape would be a fairly obvious thing to do.

***Why settle in Manhattan? At the time (1959), the city was prominent for Americans...And it contained prefabricated resources he demonstrated he was capable of adapting to his needs. He would be so lucky in the suburbs back in those days. First, the city is still as prominent today (2016). I have no idea what you're referring to by "prefabricated resources", but the same things would have been available on the city's outskirts, yes, even in 1959. There was nothing Ralph utilized that he couldn't have gotten as readily outside the city as in it. (I suspect you either don't know New York and its suburbs, or weren't around in 1959, or both; I do, and I was.) Now, it might make sense for Ralph to eventually establish a base in the city, since it's near the transmitting station and it would be a logical point for other survivors to contact or even head for. But he should have some secure area outside Manhattan -- near enough to be accessible, but to give him an area of retreat that would be unlikely to be discovered in case it became necessary for him to hide out. Being hemmed in on an island, even Manhattan, is not wise.

The radio. More issues:

***Ralph may have been a HANDYman, but there was nothing to indicate he was a learned man. Sure, he collected art works and books. Maybe he'll flip through a book and enjoy the moldy scent. I agree, Ralph is more of a mechanical guy than a book guy, but neither is he some vacant imbecile. He's obviously had some education, he speaks well and has some appreciation for art and learning (saving the books, which he's doing for more than the "moldy smell", which is pretty patronizing -- if not worse).

***He probably freaked out hearing a foreign language. For all he knew, it could have been Chinese Mandarin. His grounding was his knowledge of how radios work. Thus, his reply to the gibberish was for the other to boost his transmission power; and not follow a Star Trek First Contact protocol. Here again, get real. Clearly he was startled by hearing a human voice, but there's no indication that the fact it was in a foreign language "freaked him out". This has to be something even Ralph could have anticipated. Agreed that in the excitement of the moment Ralph may not have been thinking clearly, but this had nothing to do with hearing a foreign language and after all that time the logical thing for anyone to do would be to calm down, stay on the air as best he could and try to make oneself understood in some form, or just shut up an listen more, even if he didn't understand it. (Ralph was surely also smart enough to know French when he heard it, certainly as opposed to Chinese, but that's irrelevant.) By rights he should have long since had Sarah up there with him, or taking turns at the radio, in case they heard something; maybe she could have helped. In any case, signing off while the guy was still trying to get through is pretty stupid, and Ralph isn't stupid.

***Social tension experienced internally because of the implications externally kept him from sharing this contact. When he did share, the others weren't leaping over buildings to get to the radio to hear another voice. Maybe they also didn't like the added implication and complication. There were no "others" at that point; only Sarah, whom he told later that night. I agree that he was reluctant to tell her due to the social uncertainties, and Sarah may have had similar feelings. Nonetheless, they made no visible effort to contact the person afterward, although Ralph does later say he never heard the voice again. The point is the one contact was mishandled.

One other thing, about being in Manhattan. When he arrives on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, Ralph finds he can't drive into Manhattan because of all the abandoned cars, so takes his boat over. Yet later on, when he has that pick-up truck and is tooling around Manhattan in it, Ralph disappears for three days (about which Sarah chastises him when he gets back); he tells her he drove as far north as Albany looking for signs of life. Now, Manhattan is, to state the obvious, an island, accessible to cars only by bridge or tunnel. So, if all those accesses were jammed with abandoned vehicles, how did Ralph leave the city in his truck? Go to one of the bridges and back each car off one at a time? That would only take about a month.

Assuming that wasn't the case, it proves that there was at least one open bridge into Manhattan, and that all Ralph had to do was look for it. Much easier (and safer) than setting out on a tiny boat to go over, and he showed enough knowledge of the area to figure that much out. (In reality, this is certainly just another plot hole in the screenplay.)

reply

Ralph took -- convertible, sedan, pick-up, it didn't matter. So that point is irrelevant. My criticism is the way in which Ralph set about getting the car.

But, if you accept the convertible's relevance, his actions made sense.

Also, what do you mean by "He had already decided to head for New York when he thought of getting a more reliable vehicle than the one he got 'out of Dodge' in"? He only had the one car, the convertible. That is the one he got out of Dodge in. Although I don't believe it was a Dodge. Might have been a Plymouth.

Mining site >> adjacent mining town where he took a sedan >> en route came across a large car dealership with a convertible on display inside.

'Out of Dodge' you should already know is a quaint expression. The mining town held only a few answers for him. Thus, he got out of there to look for more answers.

(Manhattan, incidentally, isn't for the most part all that intricate.)

Yes, but getting in and out of Manhattan is. The very fact he went south from the GWB tells us where his head was at. Otherwise, as you suggested, he could have headed north to go through The Bronx to get to Manhattan. Or from The Bronx he headed east to go through Queens to get into Manhatan. Or from Queens south to Brooklyn to get into Manhattan.

But there he is at the Lincoln Tunnel, staring across at the Manhattan landscape. Would he really go look at the map to figure out the northern route? He might even have fully considered, with two examples, all such bridges and tunnels will be similarly blocked. By water seemed a logical alternative, and he was just a hop and a skip away from the water.

Being hemmed in on an island, even Manhattan, is not wise.

Yet, he turned on the lights at night to attract attention. Would being lit up in the suburbs serve him well?

Because Manhattan is the center of major urban activities, its resources have already been fabricated and made powerful to accomplish those activities. Ralph didn't have to reinvent the wheel. Would the suburbs really have comparable resources? Could he have the resources to truly amp up a transmission tower sitting in some suburb? Not to mention the height of the antenna to receive signals would be advantageous on top of a highrise building.

(saving the books, which he's doing for more than the "moldy smell", which is pretty patronizing -- if not worse).

He was never seen reading a book. He read the newspaper and the leaflets. That's it!

While it was my attempt at levity, there may be some truth to his being 'street smart' versus being 'book smart'. Thus, he can sound intelligent and is intelligent. But he might not have gotten a high school or college education. So he excels at what he can excel at.

(Ralph was surely also smart enough to know French when he heard it, certainly as opposed to Chinese, but that's irrelevant.)

That's a big assumption. If he didn't have any formal education above a certain level, he wouldn't know.

So, if all those accesses were jammed with abandoned vehicles, how did Ralph leave the city in his truck?

My guess is, now that he had settled in to a life with a woman he can't touch, he drove to the entrance of a bridge or tunnel, walked across to find at the other end a vehicle with key still in it. All he had to make sure was if the gas tank was empty. Voila!








________

Is it the Devil in the whiskey, or is it the Devil in him? -- ???

reply

Assuming that the GWB is crammed with cars, what would have prevnted him from walking over on it?

reply