Dr. Lao messes with some people's heads
The best part is the circus where Dr. Lao - actually a master illusionist - messes with the heads of a number of people that need it.
SCARIEST - As an adult I actually found the kindly blind fortune teller,
Apollonius the spookiest. First, I got a laugh at how he put down
the vain, old lady, telling her he too, knows her husband left her
years ago; that she would remain a spinster for the rest of her life
alone and never finding oil on her new land. It was fun to see her
running out of the tent boo-hooing, calling the fortune teller a
mean, ugly man.
But when you think about it, do you really want a fortune-teller
like Apollinous telling you the absolute truth about your future?
What if he told you that you're going to remain a loser for the rest
of your meaningless life? If someone told you that and you knew it
was going to come true, wouldn't you want to run out into the
Arizona desert and put a pistol barrel into your mouth and pull the
trigger? Then your body can feed the coyotes, finally making
yourself useful to something. No, sports fans, some things are best left unknown.
MEDUSA - I admit this segment was the scariest to me as a kid. The nasty, old
harridan gets her comeuppance turning to stone after looking at Medusa.
Didn't you love the way Medusa cackled and laughed in her shrieking
way? Somehow, after Merlin restores the mean lady back to life, she
seems nicer and more appreciative of her henpecked husband.
PAN - This is the most wonderful of the mind-bending scenes played out by
Dr. Lao, disguised as the mythological Greek pagan god, Pan, and then next
as Pan resembling newspaperman Ed Cunningham. Pan succeeds in melting the
self-imposed wall of ice around Angela's heart by re-awakening her libido
and lust. Ironic as it is, lust and desire play a strong role in human
attraction, love, and romance, and relationships. Yet in this strong
moralistic underlying of the movie, Angela simply becomes open to love
again in her life. She realizes the foolishness of her self-imposed
celibacy in refusing love to honor her deceased husband. Psychologists
will later understand that as an unconscious self-defense psychological
and emotional mechanism to shield the mind from emotional hurt and
trauma. It kind of resembles what the Vietnam veterans talked about when
they would show up as newbies at some firebase and the old-timers didn't
want to associate with them, initially. It was because losing buddies in
battle was too emotionally gut-wrenching so you shut yourself off to new
people you meet. In any event, Angela finally understands what her son's
paternal grandmother has been trying to get through to her. Angela has
been selfish all these years, not only to own emotional self, but worse,
to her own son who has desperately wanted a father. Angela had been
oblivious if not in self-denial, to the boy's clear hints, like asking his
mother to invite Ed Cunningham to their home for dinner. Angela's own
sexuality has re-awakened as if she was 16 years old again which was a
good thing for her and just in the nick of time.
CLINTON STARK - Perhaps Clinton Stark is the main moral tale of this story but
turns out to be the least interesting. Clinton Stark has
turned cynical and money-grubbing in his later middle age.
Yet it's clear to us and to Dr. Lao that Clinton Stark may
have turned cynical and avaristic but his once human,
compassionate heart was not dead. Stark had not turned into an
evil man, although on the outside it may have seemed so. As a
result, Dr. Lao's task was not as difficult as it might have
seemed. Dr. Lao only needed to push Stark into reaching back
into the true compassionate man that had lain dormant in his
personality for so many years. It was more like psychiatric
treatment performed on Stark.