inside the glass house

Terminator 4: The rise of the muscle man
NEW YORK - When Cecil B de Mille's "Samson and Delilah" was released in the United States in 1951, it turned out to be a surprisingly successful box office hit.

The biblical tale was a Hollywood "first" for a movie about a bare-chested hero that drew women into theatres in droves -- and kept cash registers ringing.

Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr -- the Samson and the Delilah of the movie -- skyrocketed to popularity with what was then a mega hit by modest Hollywood standards of the 1950s.

But still there were sceptics like Groucho Marx, one of the great comedians of his generation, who was buttonholed by a reporter for comments on the movie.

Marx confessed he hadn't seen "Samson and Delilah" despite its tremendous box office appeal.

Asked why, he responded with a classic rejoinder characteristic of the man: "No movie will hold by interest," Marx said, "where the leading man's bust is larger than the leading lady's."

Marx, of course, did not live to see the movie shenanigans of one of the world's best known physical culturists, the barrel-chested Arnold Schwarzenegger, better known as the "Terminator" and "Conan the Barbarian."

Last week, Schwarzenegger declared himself a candidate for Governor of California in an upcoming "recall" election which is turning out to be a running joke and providing fodder for late night comedians and stand-up comics.

Some of the voters in California are trying to "recall" their present Governor, Gray Davis, for running the state's finances to the ground and piling up a $38 billion budget deficit (never mind the $350 billion US budget deficit piled up by the Bush administration).

Coincidentally, one of Schwarzenegger's box office hits was a futuristic movie called "Total Recall" -- which was more a state of mind than a state of power play.

The vote in California is scheduled to take place on October 7, with dozens of candidates vying for the job, including a smut peddler, a porn star and a punk rocker.

But the most famous of all the candidates is the former Austrian body builder-- facetiously called the Viennese weightlifter -- who held the title of "Mr Olympia" seven times and was an icon in the world of bodybuilding.

Announcing his candidature, Schwarzenegger said: "When I moved to California in 1968 it was the greatest state in the greatest nation in the world. Now, it is totally the opposite. The atmosphere is disastrous. There is total disconnect of the people in California."

Since several of his movies have made zillions of dollars at the box office, the German-speaking Schwarzenegger claims he has "plenty of money" and that "no one can buy me."

Well, there have been politicians in history (not excluding Sri Lankan history) who have been corrupt despite their wealth or their inherited fortunes. But the 56-year-old actor has vowed to break that tradition.

Comedian Bill Maher, who is no fan of Schwarzenegger, says that what 35 million Californians don't need is a Governor who explains President Bush's tax policies -- in German -- to a State inhabited by millions of Spanish speaking Mexican immigrants.

Schwarzenegger's claim to fame is also the fact that he is married into the Kennedy family, the next best thing to royalty in the US.

But some writers have already denounced him as a "muscle head", an ex-alcoholic, an anabolic-steroid user and a womanizer.

The zany antics of the race for Governor of California have provided a much-needed relief for American politicians who have been tearing each other over the US misadventure in Iraq.

Since the Senate and the House of Representative are in recess -- and President Bush is vacationing in Crawford, Texas -- the politicians have all retreated to their home towns for summer.

So the spotlight has temporarily shifted to a battleground in California while American soldiers are dying every day in the streets of Iraq.

In the long held tradition of the late Bob Hope, Schwarzenegger himself visited US troops in Baghdad -- as much to boost their morale as to bolster the box office ratings for his new movie "Terminator 3: the Rise of the Machines."

As a card-carrying member of the ruling Republican Party, Schwarzenegger now heads President George Bush's Council on Physical Fitness.

Schwarzenegger has a role model in former President Ronald Reagan -- a "B" movie star who became Governor of California and was later elected US President.

But even if Schwarzenegger is voted as Governor of California, his political ambitions cannot go as far as the White House because the US constitution demands that a president should be born in the US, not in a small town in Austria.

Still comedian Bill Maher says: "If George (Bush) becomes an even greater liability to the Republican Party than he already is, or (God willing) gets impeached, they're going to need a fallback. And they know if enough Californians want Schwarzenegger as a Governor, there'll be enough Americans nationwide stupid enough to vote him in as president."

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