I was just watching (not paying totally full attention) the PBS production of Oklahoma with Hugh Jackman, and I have two questions:
(1) Judd Frye got ahold of a trick kaleidoscope with a pop-out-knife which he seemed to try to use to kill Curly.
(a) do such items actually exist?
(b) what was Judd’s plan there? Just murder a guy in full view of everyone at the party?
(2) Curly sold his saddle, horse and gun to buy his beau’s picnic basket. Did he suffer any consequences from this? It seemed like he was going to, but then I don’t remember it being mentioned again.
I believe Jud’s “plan” was to feign ignorance of the lethal nature of the device. Certainly Will, (who had bought the Little Wonder as a gift for Andrew) didn’t know about it. Ali Hakim’s suspicions had been aroused earlier, when Jud told him what he was shopping for, and he passed along his concern to Aunt Eller, who, in turn, prevented Curly from skewering his eyeball with it.
That said, I have no idea if The Little Wonder was ever a real thing.
As to the other thing, the very evening that Curly sells his cowboy kit, he proposes to Laurie and resolves to become a farmer. Presumably on Laurie and Eller’s farm, where all the equipment he needs is already on hand.
Not to exonerate Jud completely, but Curly wasn’t guiltless. He had just tried to showtune him into committing suicide.
My guess with the future: oil is found on Aunt Eller’s farm and Curly takes Ado Annie (and Will’s?) teenaged daughter as his mistress. When he is shot by an unknown assailant, there’s a musical murder trial in, for reasons to be explained, Kansas City, where if convicted the defendant will get the Kaleidoscope.
Things are not going to be looking good for Ali Hakim, Junior (the defendant), considering that the actual murderer is Miss Parker’s grandfather, Judge Andrew Carnes, the presiding judge at the trial!!!
If that strains credulity too much, the murderess could be a pregnant Miss Parker herself, soon to meet her fate as the girl with kaleidoscoped eye…
Curly is one nasty character; almost the first thing he says when he visits Jud is to tell him to kill himself. Jud’s cruelty is explained – people have treated him badly for years, and Laurie coldly manipulates his feelings just to make Curly jealous. There’s no justification for Curly’s cruelty, though.
Neither he nor Laurie are particularly bright, either.
Have just noticed this thread. I’ve never seen “Oklahoma”, or particularly wanted to – have been vaguely aware of its existence, and of the names of a handful of the dramatis personae – the thread’s content, mostly new to me, strikes me as quite surreally weird. A whole great slew of characters, some of them most oddly named; and strange stuff all round. A lethal kaleidoscope, for heaven’s sake? Perhaps I’ve been missing out on some interesting stuff, for all these decades…