The Shakiest Gun in the West

Pat Morita, the diminutive Asian-American actor who found lasting fame, and an Oscar® nomination, as Kesuke Miyagi, the janitor that teaches Ralph Macchio the fine art of karate in the hit film, The Karate Kid (1984), died on November 24 of natural causes in his Las Vegas home. He was 73. He was born Noriyuki Morita on June 28, 1932 in Isleton, California. The son of migrant fruit pickers, he contracted spinal tuberculosis when he was two and spent the next nine years in a sanitarium run by Catholic priests near Sacramento. He was renamed Pat, and after several spinal surgical procedures and learning how to walk, the 11-year-old Morita was sent to an internment camp at Gila River, Arizona, joining his family and thousands of other Japanese-Americans who were shamefully imprisoned by the U.S. government after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. His family was released after the war, and Morita graduated from high school in Fairfield, California in 1950. He worked in his family's Chinese restaurant in Sacramento until his father was killed in a hit-and-run accident. He eventually found work as a data processor for the Department of Motor Vehicles and then Aerojet General Corporation before he decided to try his hand at stand-up comedy. He relocated to San Francisco in 1962, where at first, there was some hesitation from clubs to book a Japanese-American comic, but Morita's enthusiasm soon warmed them over, and he was becoming something of a regional hit in all the Bay Area. His breakthrough came in 1964 when he was booked on ABC's The Hollywood Palace. The image of a small, unassuming Asian with the broad mannerisms and delivery of a modern American was something new in its day. He was a hit, and soon found more bookings on the show. And after he earned the nickname "the hip nip," he quickly began headlining clubs in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Morita's stage and television success eventually led him to films. He made his movie debut as "Oriental #2," the henchman to Beatrice Lilly in the Julie Andrew's musical Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Although his role, complete with thick coke-bottle glasses and gaping overbite, was a little hard to watch, it was the best he could do at the time. Subsequent parts, as in Don Knott's dreadful The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968); and Bob Hope's lamentable final film Cancel My Reservations (1972); were simply variations of the same stereotype. However, television was far kinder to Morita. After some popular guest appearances in the early '70s on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Morita landed some semi-regular work. First, as the wisecracking, cigar chomping Captain Sam Pack on M.A.S.H. and as Ah Chew, the deadpan neighbor of Fred and Lamont Sanford in Sanford & Son. His success in these roles led to his first regular gig, as Arnold Takahashi in Happy Days. His stint as the owner of the soda shop where Ritchie Cunningham and the Fonz hung out for endless hours may have been short lived (just two seasons 1974-76), but it was Morita's first successful stab at pop immortality. He left Happy Days to star in his own show, the critically savaged culture clash sitcom Mr. T and Tina that was canceled after just five episodes. Despite that setback, Morita rebounded that same year with his first dramatic performance, and a fine one at that, when he portrayed a Japanese-American internment camp survivor in the moving made for television drama Farewell to Manzanar (1976). After a few more guest appearances on hit shows (Magnum P.I., The Love Boat etc.), Morita found the goldmine and added new life to his career when he took the role of Miyagi in The Karate Kid (1984). Playing opposite Ralph Macchio, the young man who becomes his martial arts pupil, Morita was both touching and wise, and the warm bond he created with Macchio during the course of the film really proved that he had some serious acting chops. The flick was the surprise box-office hit of 1984, and Morita's career, if briefly, opened up to new possibilities. He scored two parts in television specials that were notable in that his race was never referenced: first as the horse in Alice in Wonderland (1985); and as the toymaster in Babes in Toyland (1986). He also landed a detective show (with of course, comic undertones) that ran for two seasons Ohara (1987-89); nailed some funny lines in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992); was the sole saving grace of Gus Van Zandt's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993); and starred in all of the sequels to The Karate Kid: The Karate Kid, Part II (1986), The Karate Kid, Part III (1989), and The Next Karate Kid (1994). Granted, it is arguable that Morita's career never truly blossomed out of the "wise old Asian man" caricature. But give the man his due, when it came to infusing such parts with sly wit and sheer charm, nobody did it better. Morita is survived by his wife, Evelyn; daughters, Erin, Aly and Tia; his brother, Harry, and two grandchildren. by Michael T. Toole

It's inevitable that somebody will make snide comments that DVD has really hit the bottom with a set like the four-film Don Knotts: Reluctant Hero Pack (Universal). But just take a peek at the Knotts films and see whether the snideness holds up. Sure they're not classics and the Knotts persona sometimes discourages repeat viewings but these are actually fairly amusing, pleasant films of a kind you don't see much any more. It's easy to take a gamble since the low-priced set is part of The Franchise Collection that also showcased well-done collections of Abbott & Costello, Francis the Talking Mule and Ma & Pa Kettle. Knotts was a World War II army veteran who made tentative moves into acting before finally hitting the big time as Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a role that earned him five Emmys. It didn't take too long before movie studios realized that the goofy, somewhat delusional Fife character could be easily shifted into a variety of inexpensive genre films. The first was The Incredible Mr. Limpet, a Warner Brothers film available elsewhere on DVD. However, Universal made Knotts such an offer that he gave up Fife and left TV for the movies. The initial film under that contract was The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) which features Knotts as a small-town typesetter (there's a job that will increasingly need explanation) who really wants to move up to journalist. He's also smitten with the local hottie Alma (Joan Staley, Playboy's Miss November 1958) while being tormented by the hotshot reporter (Skip Homeier, a veteran of Boetticher and Fuller films). Knotts ends up spending a night in a supposedly haunted house while trying to maintain his dignity. Though there are a few predictable double-takes, the film is also genuinely funny at times. In particular, Knotts' clumsy public speech is nearly a minor masterpiece and other bits are brought off with speed and energy. Overall The Ghost and Mr. Chicken may be Knotts' best work. The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), however, shows the limitations of the formula. Knotts plays a carnival employee who thinks he's chosen to be an astronaut but becomes instead--the mix-up never explained--a space center janitor. Though he tries to set the record straight, Knotts ends up pretending to be an astronaut to avoid disappointing his overbearing father and fawning small town neighbors. A few clever gags stick out (including a janitorial training session) but overall the film ends up intermittently amusing instead of humorous. Leslie Nielsen plays an upstanding but still warmly human astronaut and it's too bad he and Knotts didn't have more scenes exploiting their odd-couple contrast. There's better to be found in The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) where for once Knott's character isn't from a small town. Instead, he's a graduate of a Philadelphia dentist school who admittedly does head out West to bring proper oral hygiene to the denizens of, well, a small town. There he gets mixed up with a female bandit who's now secretly working for the government to track down gunrunners. Toss in saloons, a wagon train, Indians, gunfighters and you have a story just involved enough that it doesn't slip from attention but still gives scope to comic situations such as Knott's flustered dental exam and clumsy encounters with stock Western figures. 1969's The Love God? is a peculiar attempt to update Knotts to the anything-goes mood of the 60s. It's certainly the only film where a key plot point depends on whether his character is a virgin, which both sums up the modernization attempt and suggests that perhaps Knotts (or at least his typical film character) wasn't an entirely appropriate choice. He plays the editor of a bird-watching magazine who's used by a gangster as a front for a girlie magazine, only that gangster gets tangled with an even bigger Runyon-esque gangster who brings in a legitimate woman editor (Forbidden Planet's Anne Francis) for a bit of upscale, high falutin' class. Eventually Knotts ends up as a parodic Hugh Hefner figure, perhaps a few years too late and perhaps a bit redundantly given Hefner's own unwitting self-parody. With its topical satire and involved plot, The Love God? is in some ways the most substantial film of these four though it relies so much on the essential innocence of the Knotts character to make its point that it's hard not to feel the mix was a bit too spotty. (Just imagine what Frank Tashlin and Jerry Lewis could have done with it.) Perhaps either Knotts or Hollywood felt his character had run its course; it would be two years until his next film and since then he's mostly worked in TV and Disney supporting roles. Knotts may be the selling point in Don Knotts: Reluctant Hero Pack but the set is also something of a tribute to composer Vic Mizzy, whose work graces all four films. Though perhaps best known for the music for Green Acres and The Addams Family, Mizzy brought to the Knotts films a jaunty good nature that captures the intended effect perfectly. The mix of horns, xylophone and electric guitar was clever and distinctive enough to be memorable without overwhelming the films. Mizzy's reputation is still fairly cultish but he can count one fan in Sam Raimi who recently chose Mizzy to contribute special music to the Spider-Man 2 DVD. To order Don Knotts: Reluctant Hero Pack, go to TCM Shopping. by Lang Thompson