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The Sidney Sheldon/French New Wave Connection
February 7, 2007

Sidney Sheldon died last week at the age of 89. Looking at his credits—he’s the oh-so-American author of the best-sellers The Other Side of Midnight and Rage of Angels, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Bachelor and The Bobby-Soxer, a Tony Award-winning scribe for his work on the musical Redhead and the creator of such televised flights of whimsey as The Patty Duke Show and Hart to Hart—it’s hard to believe that he is the man who initially sparked my interest in foreign films. How did it happen? Look no further than another of his most memorable TV creations: I Dream of Jeannie.

It was a Season Four installment to be precise—Major Nelson (Larry Hagman) has to cancel an anniverary celebration with Jeannie (Barbara Eden) so that he can escort a Sgt. Marion (Joseph Perry) to

Washington. Upon hearing this, Jeannie goes ballistic, suspecting that “Marion” is a woman. Just the utterance of “her” name—Marion—sends Jeannie into a rage. Not knowing this, Major Healy arrives on anniversary night to fill in for Tony and with plans to take Jeannie out to a foreign film. “I thought we could see Last Year at Marienbad,” he cheerfully announces, setting Jeannie off once again.

Watching this as a 10-year-old, I thought it was quite cute joke and I remember asked my parent about “the movie with the Marion name”—Last Year at Marienbad, by legendary French New Waver Alain Resnais. They had seen it in the late Fifties and told me that I probably wouldn’t like it, but that I could make up my own mind if I ever had a chance to see it. (Such chances were slim for a suburban adolescent in the pre-video days.) Well, I caught up with the film about a decade later in college film class

and while it’s beautiful and makes an impression, I gotta tell you, it still doesn’t hold up as well as Jeannie, which prompted my curiosity about this whole foreign film thing.

So, thank you and rest in peace Mr. Sheldon (who passed away on Jan. 30, the street date for Sony’s I Dream of Jeannie: Season Three).

Posted by Laurence Lerman on February 7, 2007 | Comments (3)