Line #25 Film/TheRoadToWellville


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TheRoadToWellville_2691.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:You'll never look at cornflakes the same way again.]]
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4	A comedic 1994 film, directed by Creator/AlanParker and based on a novel by American author [[Creator/TCBoyle T. Coraghessan Boyle]], about some early twentieth-century visitors to a singular health sanitarium run by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the [[strike: crankish]] iconoclastic inventor of the corn flake.
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6	Kellogg is played by Creator/AnthonyHopkins, and in his own way is almost as scary as Hannibal Lecter. Also starring are Creator/MatthewBroderick, Creator/BridgetFonda, Creator/JohnCusack, and Creator/DanaCarvey.
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8	----
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10	!! This film provides examples of:
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12	* AcidRefluxNightmare Will Lightbody suffers from these in the early parts of the novel due to a bad ulcer and being a recovering opium addict.
13	* TheAlcoholic: George is almost always drunk. Will is a recovering one, and relapses during his stay at the San.
14	* AnimalWrongsGroup:
15	** Kind of. Doctor Kellogg thinks it's possible to make wolves to vegetarians. Then, he proudly presents a quite emaciated-looking wolf who doesn't want to eat meat anymore. ([[FridgeHorror Even scarier if you wonder what he may have done to make the wolf abhor from eating meat.]]) This may have inspired a similar scene in ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}''.
16	** In the novel, there's also a chimpanzee at the sanitarium that's been "conditioned" against eating meat in the same way, i.e. by offering it to them and then beating them until they cringe at the sight of it. During the climax, both of them escape and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard maul Dr. Kellogg.]]
17	* AssShove
18	-->'''Kellogg:''' Nurse Graves?\
19	'''Graves:''' Yes Doctor?\
20	'''Kellogg:''' Take Mister Lightbody immediately to the [[MaximumFunChamber yogurt room]] and give him fifteen gallons.\
21	'''Lightbody''': Oh no, no. I can't eat fifteen gallons of yogurt.\
22	'''Kellogg:''' Oh it's not going in that end, Mr. Lightbody.
23	%%* BabiesEverAfter
24	* BlatantLies:
25	-->'''Will:''' ''You,'' sir! You were ''masturbating!''\
26	'''Badger:''' I was not! I was massaging my colon!\
27	'''Will:''' ''"Massaging your colon?!"'' I ''know'' where the colon is, and it doesn't ''stick up in the air!''
28	* ChewToy: Poor Charles just can't catch a break.
29	* BlackComedy: The movie ''runs'' on this.
30	* BunnyEarsLawyer Dr. Kellogg himself, apparently.
31	* CannotSpitItOut: Kellogg's assistant tries to politely warn him that George is throwing 'projectiles' at the sanitarium's guests. When Kellogg presses him as to what the 'projectiles' are, he panics and blurts out, [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments "HE'S THROWING BOXES OF SHIT AT THE GUESTS!"]]
32	* CloudCuckooLander: George Kellogg.
33	* ConArtist: Bender, Bender, ''Bender.'' He spends all the Perfo company's seed money on his expensive hotel room, booze and fine dining, while convincing Charles that he needs to glad-hand to get support for the company. [[spoiler:In the end, he disappears, leaving Charles with an empty coffer and his enormous hotel bill, and wanted by the police.]]
34	* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler: Dr. Kellogg, dying of a heart attack while trying to prove how healthy he is (though only in the film-the real-life Kellogg lived into his 90s, as the book notes).]]
35	%%* TheEdwardianEra
36	* EvenTheRatsWontTouchIt: A group of somewhat shady businessmen try to produce a new brand of cornflakes, in competition with the very John Kellogg. Since their... products are anything but tasty, they feed them to some pigs. Who won't eat it either.
37	%%* FanDisservice
38	* {{Fanservice}}: There's some attractive female nudity, and the group masturbation scene looks like fun.
39	* FatSweatySouthernerInAWhiteSuit: Dr. Kellogg.
40	%%* FurAndLoathing
41	* HenpeckedHusband: Will Lightbody.
42	* HerrDoctor Dr. Spizvogel unt seins Handhabung Therapeutic!
43	* HospitalHottie: Will hallucinates seeing nurse Irene Graves nude. Soon after, she gives him an erection while administering an enema.
44	* INeedAFreakingDrink: Will after he watches [[spoiler: Homer Pratez/Mr. Unpronounceable die in the Sinusoidal Bath.]]
45	-->'''Will:''' A whiskey...make that a double! And a beer chaser!
46	* TheInsomniac: The novel and film both open with Will Lightbody suffering from severe insomnia due to his ulcer and opium withdrawal.
47	* KickTheDog:
48	** Kellogg does this in the climax of the novel when he [[spoiler: drowns his rebellious adopted son George in a vat of macadamia nut butter.]]
49	** Also in the film, when his associate dies of a heart attack in front of the sanitarium:
50	--->'''Kellogg:''' ...You're dead, sir. Could you have picked a better place to die, Poult? Instead of out here in the street in front of everybody? Some poster child for biological living you are! ''[kicks him]''
51	* LargeHam Dr. Kellogg.
52	* NiceJobBreakingItHero:
53	** Mrs. Lightbody made her husband take a medicine against his lack of appetite. Which contained mostly alcohol, so he became TheAlcoholic. Wanting to fix that problem, she found another medicine that promised to cure alcoholism. Which it did. Only problem: it contained opium.
54	** Also Dr. Kellogg's 'treatment' for Ida Muntz's 'greensickness' - radium enemas. She dies of radiation poisoning.
55	* NoSexAllowed: One of Dr. Kellogg's most vocal proscriptions. In the movie, and in RealLife, he condemned all forms of sexual intercourse, even for procreation, as being unhealthy.
56	* OffscreenKarma: Bender blows all of the Perfo company's seed money that Charles' aunt loaned him on booze and fine dining, then skips town and leaves Charles holding the bag. It seems he got away with everything, but we later find out he was arrested off-screen in another state.
57	%%* PoliticallyCorrectHistory
58	* RealityIsUnrealistic: While exaggerated for comedy, ultimately, pretty much everything about Dr. Kellogg and his sanitarium is based in ''fact''. While in some ways an innovative physician who was ahead of his time (he was one of the first doctors to speak out about smoking being unhealthy), he was ultimately a complete and utter '''crackpot'''.
59	** He really did make his patients undergo yogurt enemas. True, it was only half a pint of yogurt at a time rather than the 15 gallons in the movie. This was actually one of the ''less'' crazy things he did: yogurt bacteria is now known to be an essential component of gut flora and is used as a digestive aid to this very day (anything labeled "probiotic" probably contains it).
60	** He really did hate meat eating and noted it as one of the multitude of things that caused "intestinal corruption", with others being alcohol, coffee, smoking and spicy food.
61	** Dr. Kellogg sincerely believed 90% of all illnesses could be traced to "intestinal corruption", which could be treated with regular enemas (water and yogurt), eating bland foods and taking on plenty of fibre. The other 10% was caused by sex. Specifically, masturbation, though even procreational sex was bad for you. The result of this is that Dr. Kellogg advocated circumcising all boys or men he could get his hands on, as well as applying carbolic ''acid'' to the ''clitoris'' of any woman!
62	** It's been suggested that Dr. Kellogg in real life was a klismaphiliac; sexually obsessed with enemas.
63	** If eating bland, fiber-rich food and enemas failed to treat his patients, he would sometimes remove lengths of their small intestines!
64	** The film's gag about Dr. Kellogg being so annoyed with his assistant dying in the sanitarium is actually a reference to the fact that the real-life Dr. Kellogg would never, ''ever'' knowingly take a patient who was ''actually'' seriously ill -- the main reason most of his subjects actually improved was because they were generally suffering from only "the sicknesses of the rich"; obesity, overwork and boredom. Any seriously ill patients were quickly sent away once their condition was found out—one patient, famous African-American abolitionist Sojourner Truth, was sent home and died several months later, as Kellogg's treatment had done absolutely nothing to cure her sickness. Which was basically an infection from sores on her legs.
65	** The Red Onion was an actual restaurant in Battle Creek that catered to disgruntled sanitarium patients eager for a meat and booze fix.
66	** The Sanitarium's wacky-looking diagnosis and exercise machines [[http://www.oobject.com/category/15-dr-kellog-contraptions/ actually existed.]]
67	* SoundtrackDissonance: The movie is BlackComedy all the way through, with a peppy, upbeat soundtrack played on kazoos.
68	* SparedByTheAdaptation: In the novel, [[spoiler: Dr. Kellogg kills George]].
69	* SteamPunk The medical gadgetry, theories and practices seem far-fetched enough to count.
70	* TheUnpronounceable. That's Mr. Unpronouncable.
71	* UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist: Pretty much everyone. Let's run down the list, shall we? And keep in mind, these are just the ''main'' characters!
72	** Will Lightbody - Recovering alcoholic and opium addict, ''non''-recovering sex addict who lusts after his nurse and cheats on his wife with another patient.
73	** Eleanor Lightbody - Health-obsessed harpy. The one who got Will addicted to both alcohol and opium in the first place; pays Dr. Spitzvogel to finger her and gets indignant when her husband calls her out.
74	** Doctor Kellogg - Runs a sanitarium that kills people, but played for laughs. 'Nuff said.
75	** George Kellogg - The good doctor's adopted son, has zero sense of hygiene, and pretty much his greatest goal in life is to disappoint dear old Dad.
76	** Charles Ossining - Probably the most sympathetic, if only due to his ChewToy status. Gets swindled out of his company's seed money by Goodloe Bender, ConArtist extraordinaire.
77	* UpperClassTwit: Endymion Hart-Jones.

Context Film / TheRoadToWellville