Glory Days

Glory Days is best explicated by Metter’s Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield, and in turn serves as a key to Whorf’s Champagne for Caesar.

Einstein on chess (“not creative”) is the answer by deus ex machina to a game-show contestant in the latter film, still more by abstraction in Conrad’s. College brings back youth and war (on the playing-field) and quizzes (on the Œdipus plays) for an early retiree in all the stages of his condition, it exerts a siren call well-filmed in every respect. The hindsight of wisdom finds the game scarce worth the candle of a family man and donor over the years, only on the brink of collegiate success.