Energy Politics

To do something different, I’m going to spend a week discussing movies that have dealt with the oil industry. Namely, the way the industry is potrayed, the types of people who populate the industry and other assorted political ramblings.

I thought I would kick off the week with 1975’s “The Drowning Pool.” This detective film staring Paul Newman is fairly routine, however, it does mark one of the first attempts by Hollywood to delve into the way the oil industry works. Or more importantly, how Hollywood likes to think the oil industry works.

In any case, Newman plays detective Lew Archer, who has been hired by an old flame to come to a small Louisiana town to investigate a blackmail. However, problems soon escalate and we soon have murder, Cajuns and Melanie Griffith to deal with.

The film’s real plot involves the mother-in-law of Newman’s love interest, Olivia Devereaux, an eccentric, kooky old lady in that weird Southern gothic sort of way. Her hang-up is that she likes birds, keeping an aviary of exotic species on her property (you know, the kind that is good for action scenes to be filmed in). In any case, the movie shows its real hand with the introduction of Murray Hamilton’s character, J.H. Killbourne. Mr. Killbourne, you see, is an oil company executive. He’s had his eye on a piece of swamp property held by Olivia that could hold a major field.

But wouldn’t you know it, that crazy ol’ Olivia wants to use the land to be a bird sanctuary, which means no-no to oil exploration. Well, Olivia ends up dead, and you can put and two together.

Now, while this isn’t a great film, it would be the first of many movies for Hollywood to start painting the oil industry in a negative light. Now, they use the setting of the film to make some then-topical statements about the need to extract oil from as many sources as possible and the reduction of dependency on foreign fuels. Topics which still effect us today, naturally, but the movie clearly wants us to get a squeamish feeling whenever Killbourne is around.

Take this exchange:

J.H. Kilbourne: Well now, look, I’m all for saving wildlife like the next fella, but we gotta think about America’s future. Energy sources just aren’t that easy to come by.
Lew Harper: Aha! Did you come to that conclusion out of patriotism or just greed?
J.H. Kilbourne: Little of both, Mr Harper, - like most men of wealth.

Okay, fair enough. At least the film has the fig leaf of reality to suggest energy business are motivated partly by patriotism. And since greed often times goes hand and hand with ambition, it’s not really a strange addition to the conversation either. However, this is the Hollywood version of greed, which means good people dying, evil men getting rich and the environment getting raped in the process.

So naturally Killbourne is the mastermind behind the plot, and since this is a movie, it means he has to use supervillain tactics to get what he wants.

Now, this is a fairly well-made movie, and in it’s defense, detective stories always need men of power to be the villains to play into the hero’s underdog status. And in fairness, it’s based on a novel from the 1950s, so at least all the anti-oil propaganda in the story isn’t a product of post-Watergate paranoia.

Still, “The Drowning Pool” would be the first Hollywood movie to really show the oil industry in a negative light, an industry that until that point has been depicted either favorably or at the worst, indifferently. But with the government’s dealings with oil-producing countries and the ever-present threat of oil shortages now commanding nationwide attention, Hollywood was able to create a new monster for plucky heroes to combat.

Stay seated folks, it’s not about to get any prettier.

Closing thoughts: Louisiana produces strange people. Also, I trust Paul Newman to solve a major case as much as a trust him when he tells me to jump off a cliff or to go hide out in Bolivia.

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com

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