The Rutles: All You Need is Cash

The Rutles: All You Need is Cash

YouTube viewing

Ten years of this blog and I have yet to talk about Monty Python. For now, I’ll say what practically everyone else says about the British comedy troupe: they’re hilarious, I thoroughly enjoy their material, both on TV and in the movies (I own Holy Grail on DVD), and I could watch them all day. But this is not about Python as a group, just one of them: Eric Idle.

In the sixties, Idle appeared on the ITV children’s show Do Not Adjust Your Set with Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Terry Jones and met John Cleese and Graham Chapman as a guest on At Last the 1948 Show.

Idle and the others from Adjust were offered an adult, late-night show at around the same time Cleese and Chapman were offered a series by the BBC. In 1969, after a taping of Adjust, Cleese arranged a dinner meeting between the six of them to discuss a collaboration, and a legend was born.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus aired on the BBC from 1969-1974, and afterwards, Idle and the others pursued solo projects. In 1975 Idle created the sketch show Rutland Weekend Television, with music by Neil Innes. It was during this period that the two came up with characters that spawned a life of their own.

Harlem Rides the Range

Harlem Rides the Range
YouTube viewing

I really wanted to write about a black cowboy movie but thought I’d have to settle for one from the 70s or 80s. Then I came across this discovery: Herb Jeffries (AKA Herbert Jeffrey) was a singing cowboy from the 30s who starred in westerns with all-black casts.

He was very light-skinned (his mom was white) but identified as black. He started out as a singer in Detroit and moved to Chicago. In 1931 he joined Earl Hines’ band for a few years and then moved to LA in 1934. In time he became part of Duke Ellington’s band and lowered his vocal range to sound more like Bing Crosby.

While touring in the South with Hines, Jeffries experienced racism for the first time; the band could only play in tobacco warehouses and black-only theaters. When he saw black kids watching westerns, he decided they should have a black cowboy hero of their own.

He hooked up with producer Jed Buell, raised some money and wrote songs for the film. Jeffries had learned about horse riding on his grandfather’s farm, so he cast himself in the lead and used makeup to darken his skin.

Harlem on the Prairie was shot in five days in 1937 and though the critical reaction was mixed, it got a write-up in Time. “The Bronze Buckaroo” went on to make three more westerns, including the one I watched, Harlem Rides the Range, from 1939. I’m sorry to say it’s not very good; the acting is amateurish, the editing uninspired and there are only two songs in the hour-long movie.

That said, Jeffries was a good singer and the fact that his movies got made at all is an accomplishment in itself worth noting. He appeared in other non-western movies and television later in life, including an episode of The Virginian. A documentary short, A Colored Life, was made about him in 2008.

Gene Autry vs. Roy Rogers

Singing cowboys (and cowgirls) have been around almost as long as sound in motion pictures. I can’t say I have much experience with them. I remember some of the country records my father listened to by self-styled cowboys—Marty Robbins, Freddy Fender, Tex Ritter—but as a kid, I never associated singing cowboys with the movies. I suppose my father must have watched singing cowboy movies growing up and then later, as an adult, but I don’t recall seeing any on TV.

If you had asked me back then, I would’ve said Gene Autry was the owner of the California Angels and Roy Rogers was the fast food restaurant. Even when I discovered who they were beyond those roles, I can’t say I cared much; westerns were what my parents watched. Now, many years later, as I re-examine westerns, it occurs to me that my education would be incomplete without a foray into the sub-genre of the western musical, and the two guys who dominated the field like oil rigs on the plains of Texas.

Here’s a top ten list of singing cowboys and cowgirls featuring some names you may not know. Here’s a history of the sub-genre, with a heavy focus on Autry and Rogers. With this post, I’m mostly interested in seeing their movies (and a bit of their TV shows) and seeing which one of them I like better. I realize I’m working from a small test sample, given the breadth of their careers, but I’m guessing their movies followed a formula and rarely strayed from that formula. My small sample will probably be enough.

Sweeney Todd

The third annual Broadway Bound Blogathon is an event spotlighting film adaptations of Broadway shows, hosted by Taking Up Room. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the link at the host site.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Netflix viewing

Stephen Sondheim celebrated his 90th birthday back in March (his day falls four days after mine), and despite the quarantine, an all-star gala was still able to be held in April—online.

The Stephen Sondheim Theater in Manhattan, like the rest of Broadway, is currently shut down (the adaptation of the film Mrs. Doubtfire was playing). The original opened in 1918 under the name Henry Miller’s Theatre and went through different incarnations until the interior was demolished in 2004. It was rebuilt and reopened in 2007 and was re-christened for Sondheim in 2010. Among the productions that have played there include Our Town, Born Yesterday, Witness for the Prosecution, Cabaret, Bye Bye Birdie and Beautiful.

A giant of the American stage, Sondheim has composed songs and/or written lyrics for shows the whole world knows: West Side Story, Gypsy, Into the Woods, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, plus lyrics for songs from the movies Reds and Dick Tracy. He’s got eight Tonys—that’s more than any other composer, kids—plus eight Grammys, an Oscar and a Pulitzer, among many other awards and honors.

Awara

Awara (AKA Awaara)
YouTube viewing

Bollywood! I first explored the wild world of Indian cinema last year with my profile of contemporary superstar Amitabh Bachchan, but this time I thought I’d look at classic Bollywood, with a film all the way from 1951 called Awara.

I suppose I had assumed the tradition of Indian musicals was a more recent phenomenon; not sure why—but this film, too, is a song-and-dance joint, albeit a rather dramatic and serious (AND LONG) one. To someone in the West more familiar with the structure of shows featuring the music of the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Rogers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, the Sherman Brothers, etc., Bollywood music can sound pretty different.

And I’m not just talking about the melodies and rhythms, which were nice. I noticed within this movie lots of recurring refrains within individual songs and a predilection for metaphor and emotion over storytelling and characterization. The music in Awara communicates the story, but not to the same degree as a Western musical—and perhaps that’s not a big surprise, given how melodramatic the story is.

Those dancing feet of Ruby Keeler

The 2020 O Canada Blogathon is an event devoted to Canadian actors and films, hosted by Speakeasy and Silver Screenings. For a list of participating bloggers, visit the links at either site.


Ruby Keeler was an established Broadway dancer, the child bride of the legendary hoofer Al Jolson, when in 1933, film producer Darryl Zanuck, then with Warner Brothers, came to her with a role in a movie. It was a musical about Broadway called 42nd Street.

Keeler, born in Halifax, Nova Scotia and raised in New York City, had been a professional dancer since the age of 14, in shows produced by, among others, Florenz Ziegfeld—and other than a brief cameo in a talkie in 1930, had no film experience. As a member of Zanuck’s production, Keeler would meet a man who would prove influential to her career, both as an ingenue in film and an veteran many years later back on Broadway: choreographer Busby Berkeley.

New year’s links

This Chaplin GIF is submitted in an attempt
to lighten all our spirits.

It’s not too late to reboot 2020 so we can start over, is it?

The holiday season, at least, was a good one. Virginia took me to a Cirque du Soleil show at Madison Square Garden, and in turn, I took her to a performance of Messiah at Carnegie Hall. These were our Christmas gifts to each other. It was the first time I had seen either one. On Christmas night we had dinner with friends—I made a salad—and on New Year’s Eve she and Sandi were once again part of the annual free choral recital in midtown Manhattan. Ann was part of it too, for the first time. It was kinda funny how many people I knew in the chorus this year. Our after-party was a tad smaller than last year, but that was okay.

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Last month was a sad one for Trekkies. On the heels of the death of popular Deep Space Nine supporting player Aron Eisenberg, we lost more stars, from both sides of the camera. I’ve talked about DC Fontana here before; not too much more to add. As a woman writer, she was an inspiration to many who came after her, whether they were professionals in the industry or fans writing for SF zines. As for Rene Auberjonois, I remember feeling good about him joining the cast of DS9 because of his TV and film work elsewhere, and his was a tremendous contribution. His interpretation of Odo was as a multi-faceted character, loaded with contradictions, yet with a human touch underneath his brusque exterior. His relationships with Kira and Quark were fascinating to watch unfold and they brought so much depth to the overall story. Great artists who gave us much to be thankful for as fans.

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On a somewhat happier Trek-related note: I had made peace with the belief I would never get to see Star Trek: Discovery, but Ann acquired CBS All Access last month and she was kind enough to invite me to her house so we could binge-watch it. No, I did not expect to do that quite so soon after my little experiment, but life, y’know?

We watched the first twelve or so episodes of Season 1, over two nights. I won’t go into specific details here, but while some things were impressive—Michael Burnham is a unique character in Trek lore, with her own set of morals, and I like the premise of a disgraced Starfleet officer seeking redemption—there was a lot more I didn’t care for. The technology which clearly is superior to that of Kirk’s era; the profanity, which wasn’t Scorsese-level but served no purpose I could tell; the gee-whiz shots of outside the Discovery and then zooming inside; the stronger-than-usual emphasis on action; the unnecessary redesign of the Klingons; the de-emphasis on Starfleet values; the generic American crew; the lack of humor, THE CONSTANT GODDAMN CUTS.

If you wanna get into specifics, let’s talk in the comments. For now, I’ll just say: I understand this is set during a time of war, but even during the Dominion War, DS9 placed a greater emphasis on character and plots tailored around each character than what I’ve seen from Discovery so far. That may change, but I’m not convinced yet. Here’s hoping Picard will be better.

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Let’s go straight to the links:

Le uses All Quiet on the Western Front to address violence in war movies.

Jacqueline on Lionel Barrymore and Christmas.

Cats is gonna lose a ton of money.

Sam Mendes on how his grandfather inspired 1917.

The animation studio behind the Lion King remake shut down.

Could Adam Sandler win an Oscar? If he doesn’t, he’ll unleash a bomb of a movie on us.

Former DS9 star Nana Visitor on Rene Auberjonois.

CBS All Access is expanding Star Trek in many directions.

This post sums up my feelings about the whole CGI James Dean thing.

The struggle to preserve film backdrops.

Spotlight on former NBA star Kevin Garnett in Uncut Gems.

And then there was that time the US government thought Wakanda was a real country.

Cats link round-up

Because it’s not like I’m gonna come within a million miles of this abomination...

Highlights from the scathing reviews.

Tom Hooper on the online backlash.

He finished the film WHEN?!?!?

The estate of TS Eliot says he probably would’ve dug it.

 The Guardian’s poetic review.

THE BOOK WAS BETTER

...and you can hear Eliot read from it

Maybe a newer version with better FX will save this turkey.

That scene in Six Degrees of Separation (with Ian McKellen!) where they talk about a Cats movie

How does Cats stack up against movie musicals of the past?

...or the original stage musical, for that matter?

Audiences are turning the viewing experience into a camp-fest

A storyboard artist analyzes Hooper’s shot selection

Comparisons to cat people in other media

Xanadu

Xanadu
Showtime viewing

Olivia Newton-John was one of the first pop megastars I not only knew but genuinely dug. I may have been too young to have seen Grease, but the soundtrack was inescapable; you know the songs as well as I do—and of course, she had lots of other hits. Remember “Physical,” and the video that went with it, which took advantage of the aerobics craze at the time? That song was all over AM radio, and that video was one of the most representative of the 80s.

It was easy to grok why she was so huge: good-girl image combined with a heavenly voice. She was no Streisand, but she was pretty and exotic (if Australia counts as such) in a way reminiscent of older songbirds like Petula Clark and Lesley Gore.

To know that she’s on round three of her prizefight against breast cancer is pretty sad, but if interviews like this are any indication, she wouldn’t want me or anyone else to feel sorry for her. It could be this is the round she doesn’t get up off of the canvas, but if so, she’s gonna go out like a trooper, and even if you don’t care for her music, you have to respect her bravery.

Because she was a huge pop star, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood came calling. Grease has been written about to death by now—I think it’s terrific that she and John Travolta have remained so close through the years—but much less talked-about is her follow-up film, Xanadu, which did not exactly do as well.

The Wiz

The Wizard of Oz Blogathon is an event devoted to all things associated with the 1939 MGM film and the original novel by L. Frank Baum, hosted by Taking Up Room. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the link at the host site.

The Wiz

It’s hard to imagine which has been more influential to American pop culture: the original children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, or the 1939 MGM adaptation, The Wizard of Oz. Baum was a prolific author in his time; in addition to the Oz series of books (there are fourteen), he wrote 41 other novels and 83 short stories, plus his poems and even scripts.

Oz the book was released in 1900, with illustrations by WW Denslow. Its initial print run of 10,000 copies sold out quickly. A musical stage play was made two years later, the first adaptation into another media. The book hit one million copies printed in 1938. The first film adaptation was overseen by Baum himself, a multimedia production titled The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays.

The 1939 MGM version credits the director as Victor Fleming, though several different men sat in the  big chair, including Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe (both before Fleming) and King Vidor (after), plus George Cukor acted in an advisory capacity, though he didn’t shoot anything. The screenplay was credited to Noel Langley & Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf, though again, other hands worked on its development, including Fleming, Vidor, Cukor, Herman J. Mankiewicz, and the poet Ogden Nash. Herbert Stothart did the score and Harold Arlen & Yip Hamburg composed the songs. Oz was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, and won two: Original Score and Original Song for the all-timer “Over the Rainbow.”

Listing the many variations of the original Oz story over the years, in film alone, would take way too long—and anyway, I’m here to discuss one in particular, which recently celebrated its fortieth anniversary and is notable in its own right—especially if you’re a New Yorker.

Thank God It’s Friday

The Jeff Goldblum Blogathon is an event devoted to the life and career of the actor, hosted by RealWeegieMidget Reviews and Emma K. Wall Explains It All. For a list of participating bloggers, visit the links at the host sites.

Thank God It’s Friday

Disco! I’ve talked about it here before, and while I was way too young to have gotten involved in any disco-versus-rock flame wars civilized debates, if you had asked me in, oh, 1980, which side I was on, I would’ve put on my-my-my-my-my boogie shoes and did The Hustle to the music of Chic, or perhaps the Brothers Gibb—even if disco was dying by that point.

My sister would’ve been the reason why. Disco and classic soul is close to Lynne’s heart, always has been, and she and her husband include plenty of it in their cover band. She had a shoebox full of 45s and I believe she even had some 8-tracks, in addition to her many LPs, and whenever she wasn’t around I’d idly go through them and play a few. I was a Top 40 nerd all through grade and junior high school before I discovered classic rock in high school, so my mixtapes had not only disco, but freestyle and even some new wave.

And dancing? I must have spent the entire sixth grade trying to moonwalk. Not easy in Reeboks. I think I mentioned the bar mitzvah I went to sometime in the mid-80s where I danced up a storm with my friend Howard’s sister Susan. I’m pretty sure there was some disco on the turntable that day, though I couldn’t tell you which moves I busted.

I also recall my junior high prom, but that was in 1986 and by then, though we had plenty of Madonna and Whitney Houston and the Pointer Sisters to groove to, we didn’t call it disco. I doubt anyone did. Freestyle was lumped in with general pop music and I never made a distinction.

Rocketman (2019)

Rocketman (2019)

seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens, NY

The “tortured artist/musician” biopic has become a sub-genre all its own. True, these lives are dysfunctional and make for poor role models, but they’re almost always more interesting to see dramatized than a “clean” life. I mean, there’s very little about my life as an artist and writer that would make for high drama without some heavy embellishment — but then, I’m not famous. I think, cliche though it may be, a troubled life might be the price one pays for artistic immortality.

As I write this, I’m reminded of what Jacqueline told me about her Ann Blyth biography: that the actress led a comparatively “clean” life, and that’s reflected in the book, but Jacqueline speculated such a life might be a difficult sell to major publishers — one reason among several why she chose to self-publish it.

We want torture in our artist biopics, torture and weirdness with a redemptive ending if possible, especially when it’s about a musician — and when Hollywood inevitably makes movies about people like Bowie, Prince, Michael, Cobain, Tupac, Amy, etc., they’ll get it in spades. Artists like these live these crazy lives so we don’t have to. It’s the Achilles dilemma: which is better, a long life lived in obscurity or a short life which will be remembered forever? Maybe there’s a third option.

Which brings us to Elton John. In the op-ed he wrote for The Guardian prior to the release of his biopic Rocketman, John said some studios wanted less sex and drugs and more rock and roll, so to speak, so it could play as a PG-13 film, but John told them his life wasn’t quite as neat as all that:

...I didn’t want a film packed with drugs and sex, but equally, everyone knows I had quite a lot of both during the 70s and 80s, so there didn’t seem to be much point in making a movie that implied that after every gig, I’d quietly gone back to my hotel room with only a glass of warm milk and the Gideon’s Bible for company.

Left unspoken is the implication of a lesson to be learned here: John led this life of debauchery that almost killed him, but it didn’t. He came out more than okay, in fact; he’s bigger than ever and more successful, with a husband and children to boot. One could say he was able to have his cake and eat it too — not that I would recommend treading this path to anyone. He didn’t become a cautionary tale.

Rocketman comes hot on the heels of another biopic about a gay rock musician who had issues, but unlike Bohemian Rhapsody (a PG-13 movie), it doesn’t shy away from the rougher bits. We see Taron Egerton, as John, have passionate sex with another man; we see him snort all manner of drugs, we see the Bacchanalian parties, and while it was all handled artfully, I wasn’t as shocked by any of it as perhaps the filmmakers had hoped. Maybe I’ve become jaded?

What impressed me more was how this was a musical in the traditional sense: the songs weren’t just for when John performs in concert; they’re also used to help tell the story. They’re recontextualized to fit John’s narrative: songs that were written at later times in his life, such as “Crocodile Rock” And “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” are used at earlier points in the movie because they fit the scene. Other songs are used similarly, sometimes as part of big, glitzy dance numbers.

It felt much like a Broadway show instead of a movie, which was probably intentional on director Dexter Fletcher’s part. John’s younger self reappears at key moments in the narrative. Flights of fancy occur, such as John levitating off the stage. John’s rehab group in the framing sequence accompanies him into the song-and-dance numbers. It’s all pretty bizarre, but you’re encouraged to just go along with it. And Egerton is outstanding, doing his own singing and coming across convincingly as John. It’s early days yet, but is it possible we could see back-to-back Best Actor Oscar winners for rock biopics? Basically Rocketman is what Rhapsody wasn’t, and should have been.

I saw this with Ann. She was more open to seeing a rock movie than I had thought. She said afterwards that the movie sustained her interest even though she wasn’t familiar with John or his music beyond knowing a few big hits of his.

Jersey Boys

The Broadway Bound Blogathon is an event spotlighting film adaptations of Broadway shows, hosted by Taking Up Room. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the host site.

Jersey Boys

Netflix viewing

Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Jersey Boys received mediocre reviews, but I didn’t think it was that bad. It certainly didn’t redefine the famous-musician biopic — it hits all the familiar beats chronicling the rise, fall and redemption of the 60s doo-wop group the Four Seasons, and maybe one shouldn’t expect more than that, particularly from a director as un-flashy and workmanlike as him. It certainly didn’t feel like a stage show, I’ll say that much — and I had no problem with him using the stage stars, including Tony-winner John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli.

I remember hearing the Four Seasons on AM radio as a kid. In fifth grade, in fact, I had a crush on a girl named Sherri (with an “i” not a “y”), but I’d feel awkward whenever I heard the song “Sherry,” like it was advertising to the world how I felt about her. I recall thinking the group’s high-pitched voices were very unusual for guys. They couldn’t be girls, could they?

The Four Seasons were not the kinda doo-wop group my father listened to. Growing up, I always heard him play the black groups: the Drifters, the Coasters, Little Anthony and the Imperials, all those pre-Motown acts from the 50s and early 60s. I discovered the white groups like the Four Seasons on my own. I know I heard Valli’s solo hit “Grease” on the radio. I had heard the R&B remake of “Working My Way Back to You” first and thought it was the original. And I remember liking the storytelling aspect of  “December 1963” and wanting to know more about that night. Even as a kid, I had a yen for songs that told stories.

One of Virginia’s friends sings barbershop music, and she was briefly part of his quartet for a time. Barbershop is in the same ballpark as doo-wop, though I associate doo-wop with the inner city. It’s the music of street corners and dance halls, on hot summer nights — and while I never heard anybody sing doo-wop on any corners in my neighborhood, that image is inherently urban. With barbershop, I think of state fairs. Totally different vibe.

Jersey Boys is still playing in Manhattan, at the New World Stages. It opened in 2005, with the book by Marshall Brickman & Rick Elise. Young was part of the original cast, as Valli, along with Daniel Reinhard as Bob Gaudio, Tony-winner Christian Hoff as Tommy DeVito and J. Robert Spencer as Nick Massi. It won the Best Musical Tony as well as the Grammy for Best Musical Show Album. The musical was Gaudio’s idea. Here’s an interview with him discussing the show. Brickman & Elise also wrote the screenplay for the film version.

Eastwood talks about the making of the film here. Recently there was a lawsuit involving Eastwood and Warner Brothers in which the matter of whether or not material from a DeVito autobiography was used without consent. The lawsuit originally applied to the stage show before the film version was included too. You can read about it in this THR article.

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Other adaptations of theatrical shows:
Little Shop of Horrors 
West Side Story 
Guys and Dolls 
The Music Man 
Cabaret 
Rent 
Bells Are Ringing
Hedwig and the Angry Inch 
Carmen Jones
Dreamgirls 
Brighton Beach Memoirs 
A Bronx Tale 
Watch on the Rhine 
A Raisin in the Sun

A Star is Born (2018)

A Star is Born (2018)
seen @ Cinema Village, New York, NY

Once upon a time, George Cukor directed a movie called What Price Hollywood? It was about the dream of fame and fortune: specifically, the kind that comes with being a movie star — and who among us hasn't had that fantasy at some point in our lives? The screenplay was nominated for an Oscar.

Five years later, this story was tweaked a bit and became A Star is Born, the universally familiar love story in which the principals traverse the ladder of success in both directions at once.

It's such a universal story that it's been told again and again, in various forms, over the years. It was never done better than in 1954, when in her version, Judy Garland gave one of the greatest performances by a woman in American film history.

It's been a tough act to follow.

Rawhide (1938)

The Made in 1938 Blogathon is exactly what it says on the tin, hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and Pop Culture Reverie. For a complete list of participating blogs visit the links at the host sites.

Rawhide (1938)
YouTube viewing

The numbers tell the story of Lou Gehrig, and what a tale they tell: 17 seasons, all with the New York Y-nk--s; lifetime batting average of .340; a seven-time all-star; two-time MVP winner; three-time league leader in home runs; five-time league leader in runs batted in; a Triple Crown winner and owner of six World Series rings.

Plus the most important number of all: 2,130. That's how many consecutive games he played, folks: the equivalent of almost six calendar years without a day off. Though it's no longer a record, it's still a monumental achievement.

His premature death at age 37 raised awareness of the rare condition that took his life, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, to the point where the disease now bears his name. And perhaps you've heard of the film they made about him.

But did you know he himself once co-starred in a Hollywood movie?

Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens, NY

I don't have any special memories associated with the music of Queen. They were part of my rock education, listening to classic rock radio in high school, and I dug them. I'm glad there's a movie about them in general and lead singer Freddie Mercury in particular, but that's about it. I didn't lose my virginity to a Queen song or anything like that.

As far as musical biopics go, Bohemian Rhapsody was pretty conventional: typical "rise and fall and rise again" story, with all the hit songs you know and love, all the conflict you expect, even a bit of romance.

The music was what kept me interested, that and the sensational portrayal of Mercury by Rami Malek — but it felt by-the-numbers. I'm not sure what Bryan Singer could have done to make this different, but I was aware, as I watched it, of its conventionality, and that kinda dimmed my appreciation.

There will be more rock biopics on the horizon: next year will bring the Elton John movie, and you can bet your bottom dollar someone, somewhere, will make a Bowie movie (I nominate Michel Gondry), and probably a Prince movie too.

Will any of it make rock relevant again?

Rhapsody ends with Queen at Live Aid, a benefit concert — the benefit concert — made when rock still seemed capable of changing the world. I can't recall the last time rock mattered to such a degree. Of course, if the "Rock and Roll" Hall of Fame is any indication, the very name has been diluted to include singers and groups as far removed from rock as you can get, but that's another issue.

I suspect the answer is no: Freddy Mercury the cultural icon will always be in, but the music he made with Queen will get a little juice while Rhapsody plays in theaters and then return to the classic rock radio ghetto for the old fogies like me, to be trotted out once in awhile for car commercials and the occasional American Idol contestant.

Link: impossible

Here's something I haven't talked about yet: the Disney/Fox deal. Last month it was approved by the shareholders, and now I gotta believe Disney won't be satisfied until they own all of Hollywood. This is kinda disturbing. Should one studio have this level of power? If it's not a monopoly yet, it's beginning to feel like one.

One wonders what Unca Walt himself would have made of all this. It's a cinch he wouldn't recognize the business he started so long ago. Maybe I'll do a post on him.

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It occurs to me I haven't been to any outdoor movies this summer. This is unusual; it's something I've indulged in for as long as WSW has been around, but not this year.

Meeting Virginia has meant doing different things with my spare time, so there's that. She's actually not a big moviegoer (I had to remind her who Tom Hanks is), and as you've read, we've been doing things like going to plays and concerts instead.

I don't mind; she's exposed me to new stuff I wouldn't have known of before, and being with her has been more than worth it, even if the play or concert bored me on occasion.

Perhaps going to outdoor movies was a way to occupy my time in the absence of someone like her in my life. Don't know — but I find I haven't missed them much. Hope you haven't either.

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So Spock is gonna appear in Discovery; this does not surprise me in the slightest. As soon as I saw in the first half of the pilot that Cmdr. Burnham was raised on Vulcan and conveniently knew Sarek, I knew it was only a matter of time before they figured out a way to work Spock into the series. That's not what I wanna talk about.

I read the news on a Star Trek Facebook group. I'm not part of the group; I was just lurking. Ever since I chose not to subscribe to CBS All Access to watch Discovery, I've shied away from the fan groups, blogs, and news sites because I knew Discovery would be a big part of their coverage. I looked at this group, though, because I missed being part of the fandom.

The Trek canon (not owned by Disney) is growing, and will continue to grow in the near future —maybe not in all the ways I want it to, but it is happening. Will it follow the Discovery model and be part of the streaming service? Unless someone says otherwise, I can only assume so, which means I may have to reassess my anti-streaming stance. I know I said Trek fandom no longer needs to rely on CBS or Paramount, but things have changed in a big way since then. Maybe I need to get with the times?

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Starting to pick up a little around here; we got some more blogathons scheduled for the coming months, and some good-looking movies are on deck. Hope you'll stick around.

Links after the jump.

La La Land

La La Land
seen @ AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13, New York NY

I love my classic film blogger friends. I consider myself fortunate to have gotten to know these people through their writings about Old Hollywood, to have learned about movies through them. In the year I spent as one of them, I discovered some fundamental differences in philosophy between what I do and what they do. That's okay. I respect that difference. Sometimes, though, I get the feeling some of them are pretty resistant to modern movies.


Most of the time, yes, I get it: many of today's Hollywood movies are not made with the same attention to characterization, plot, composition, light and shadow, and sheer star power as those of the studio era (though in all fairness, they made their share of stinkers back then, too). Once in a blue moon, though, a new movie comes along that's clearly made with a love and appreciation of Old Hollywood and the way they made films then. This year alone, between Hail Caesar!, Cafe Society and Allied, we've seen a fair amount of films either set in the studio era or made as if it was one.


La La Land is the best of them this year. It's certainly one of the best homages to Old Hollywood since The Artist. It's one I really hope the classic film bloggers will go see once it comes to their hometowns, maybe even write about if they're inclined.

They will find much in the movie for them. Not just the Old Movie Weirdo Easter eggs, of which there are lots, but the old-fashioned romance between Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (their third movie together - does that make them a modern day Tracy and Hepburn?), approached as a modern movie, but with the feel of another era. I read one review comparing it to the films of Jacques Demy. I can see that: the bright colors, the location shoots, the downbeat (though not depressing) ending. I think Stanley Donen could've made this too, or Robert Wise.


It didn't feel like an all-the-way musical. The songs were pleasant, and I'm sure at least one of them will get Oscar nominated, but there were also long stretches without song and dance routines. Compare this to an adaptation from the stage and you'll see the difference.

Traditionally, musicals have a better balance of moments with and without singing. I would've liked another large-scale show-stopper similar to the opening number on the freeway, for example; maybe some more songs from supporting cast members besides John Legend, too. It's not a big deal. Seeing Gosling and Stone sing and dance (and play piano in Gosling's case) was enchanting enough.

La La Land is also a love letter to Los Angeles. I've never been there, but seeing this film really makes me want to go one day. Writer-director Damien Chazelle shows off the City of Angels, not just in the day and night, but the twilight as well, with deep, warm, glowing colors that almost don't seem real. And did I mention the impressive cinematography?

I admit, there are times when I find the term "feel-good movie" suspect. It can have the ring of lowest-common-denominator pap, which Hollywood is all too familiar with. Not this time. La La Land is feel-good in the best sense. Even the downbeat ending doesn't leave you sad or depressed. You leave with the sense things will be okay, in spite of everything. That's one message I find extremely welcoming.

Roustabout

The At the Circus Blogathon is an event devoted to movies set at circuses, carnivals and freak shows, hosted by Critica Retro and Serendipitous Anachronisms. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the links at either site.

Roustabout
Netflix rental

Carnivals! Everyone loves them, right? I was no stranger to them as a kid. One came to the Shea Stadium parking lot every summer when the Mets were on a long road trip. I'd get my father to take me when I was little, and when I was older, I went by myself or with friends.

My favorite ride has many names, but it's basically a centrifuge: you get strapped into a great wheel that spins round and round. The pressure builds up and flattens you against the wall. I never had much of an interest in midway games unless they came with a joystick.

In New York, street fairs abound all over the five boroughs in the warm months. They tend to sell the same things no matter where you go: cheap jewelry and handbags, plus zeppoles and corn dogs to eat. I always look for used CDs and books.

Perhaps the most notable street fairs in New York are the San Genaro Festival in Manhattan and the Atlantic Antic in Brooklyn. The former is more like a real carnival, with midway-style games and the occasional ride or two, like a small ferris wheel or a motion simulator ride. Remind me to tell you one day about my San Genaro stories: one about my unfortunate encounter with two racist girls, the other about my attempt to win a pair of rollerblades.

In Columbus, I attended the State Fair. Being the city slicker I am, I had expected to see things like pie-eating contests and pig pageants (like in Charlotte's Web!). Truth was, it was much more like the carnivals I knew growing up, only much larger. I believe they offered helicopter rides! I was gobsmacked, however, at the array of things people are willing to fry, and sell, and eat. Fried Oreos? Fried Twinkies?! I'm here to tell you they exist.

It so happened that Melissa Etheridge was in town for a concert that night, and there was a contest for free tickets at a stage. I've been a fan since high school. Of course I had to enter. All I had to do was get up on the stage and, um, sing... for a minute or two. The audience judged the winner. I didn't decide just like that; I was alone and sober and didn't have anyone egging me on or talking me out of it, as it were. In the end, it came down to me wanting those tickets really bad.

I sang one of her songs; I forget which. I remember trying not to look at the audience too much. I basically closed my eyes and thought of England. I gave it everything I had, which wasn't much to begin with - my sister's the singer in the family, not me - and I lost. What the hell. YOLO, amirite?

Anyway. Wikipedia defines the word "roustabout" as "a traditional term used to describe a fairground or circus worker." These days, the word defines laborers on oil fields and rigs. The almighty Google oracle also tells me there's such a thing as a Roustabout Circus, in Alaska, but it doesn't look like it's a place for roustabouts to perform.

Further web exploration reveals within the context of a circus or carnival, a roustabout is usually a temp, unskilled or semi-skilled, that sets up and breaks down the tents and booths and rides, cleans, performs maintenance, stuff like that. It's not unlike being a roadie for a concert.

Okay... I've put it off long enough. Time to talk about Roustabout the movie. As a thespian, Elvis doesn't embarrass himself here, but the script doesn't exactly challenge him, either. He basically cashes in on his bad boy image once again which, by 1964, was beginning to grow a bit stale (he was 29 when he made this one). Still, the movie soundtrack went to number one in the year of Beatlemania, so 50 million Elvis fans... you know the rest.

He doesn't do much actual roustabout work (though we do see him help assemble a ferris wheel); he's too busy macking on the ladies, riding his motorcycle in an outfit he stole from Marlon Brando, and of course, singing songs. I am pleased to report he gets slapped no less than three times in the film. But enough about him...

...let's talk about the real reason I chose to watch this movie: BARBARA STANWYCK! Missy made this a year before The Big Valley debuted on TV. They originally wanted Mae West, if you can believe it, but allegedly, she wanted to be one of Elvis' love interests. That might not have been a bad idea... if she wasn't close to seventy years old at the time. (Then again, this is Mae West...!) The filmmakers said no.

No one watching Roustabout will forget Double Indemnity or The Lady Eve or Stella Dallas. Stany probably did this to pay the bills. That's okay. We love her anyway. Elvis holds his own in his scenes with her, though again, it's not a challenging role. It's more than a little surreal to watch the two of them share a screen. It's like, say, Helen Mirren acting a scene with Kanye West. Sadly, there's not a whole lot of Stany in this flick, either... but hey, the songs are decent. (Also, Richard "Jaws" Kiel as a strongman at the very end.)

John, Sue and I watched this on Netflix and we all got a kick out of it. There's one song with the lyric "popcorn, peanuts" and John thought Elvis said "penis" instead. He kept goofing on that for the rest of the movie.

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Related:
5 movies set at World's Fairs

Other circus, carnival or freakshow movies:
Freaks
Nightmare Alley
He Who Gets Slapped
Laugh Clown Laugh

Kismet

Kismet
TCM viewing

One of the great highlights from last year's extended foray into classic Hollywood for me was my conversation with Jacqueline about her Ann Blyth biography. It has gotten good reviews, and it must be selling decently for a self-published indie because Jacqueline's expanding into the realm of audio books. Ann Blyth: Actress Singer Star will soon be available in this format, complete with a legitimate Hollywood actress to do the reading!

Outside of her star-making turn in Mildred Pierce, I doubt if Blyth would be an actress I'd be aware of if not for Jacqueline, but then, this is hardly unprecedented. I've written before about how she got me interested in another little-known Golden Age actress, Alexis Smith, and that was just one blog post. Blyth required a whole year devoted to her! So I figured I should take the time to check out some of her other films.

I had started watching Kismet once before and was unable to finish, but this is one that TCM plays a lot, so I knew it was only a matter of time before they played it again. It's a musical, directed by Vincente Minnelli, set in old Baghdad. Howard Keel stars as a petty beggar and con man who gets caught up in a case of mistaken identity and is drawn into some palace intrigue in the court of the caliph. Blyth plays his daughter, who falls for a dude who is not what he seems.

The whole thing is as fluffy as you can imagine, and to be honest, I started losing interest halfway through, but the exquisite costumes and set design make for terrific eye candy, especially in CinemaScope, and some of the songs are decent. Keel had a powerful baritone voice and he gets many opportunities to show it off. Also, pre-MASH Jamie Farr in a bit part.

One of the things about Blyth's career I found interesting was how she was able to avoid being typecast as the bad girl, only to have the pendulum swing in the opposite direction. Jacqueline told me that the studio publicized her as a good girl to the point where it was difficult to imagine her in any other kind of role:

...she was praised for her work as Veda Pierce [in Mildred] at the age [of] sixteen when nobody knew anything about her. A decade later, she was mocked for wanting to play the alcoholic [singer] Helen Morgan (despite the fact of Morgan's being demure, soft-spoken, charitable, and a Catholic convert).... Even when she won the Helen Morgan role, she wasn't allowed to sing in the movie because by that time, she had done a few lightweight operetta-type musicals and the press smirked at the thought of her being a torch singer with that type of trained voice. The studio caved.

I can see how someone could make that mistake. Blyth's voice was in the tradition of cinematic sirens like Jeanette MacDonald, very well suited for Broadway or for an old-fashioned, European-style movie musical. It's great, but if I were a producer, I doubt she'd have been my first choice for Helen Morgan either.

Kismet is really more of a vehicle for Keel. Blyth's role isn't as big as I expected, but she gets her moments. In her post on the movie, Jacqueline does a nice analysis of the scene where Blyth performs "Stranger in Paradise" with Vic Damone, noting the color scheme and the staging. I was pleasantly surprised to realize I recognized the song; apparently it has become a standard. Jacqueline says "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" is a famous number also. I liked that one too.

Kismet isn't among the greatest musicals I've ever seen, but for what it was, it was a pleasant enough way to spend two hours. I can see why Blyth was a star. It couldn't have been easy to overcome the shadow of her great performance in Mildred, especially as a teenager, but she did it.

If I had to compare Blyth to a modern actress, I might go with Anne Hathaway: former teen starlet; breakthrough role in a dramatic film (Brokeback Mountain); alternates between heavy drama and light comedy; finally given a chance to sing and she shines (Les Miserables), although unlike Blyth, Hathaway hasn't had a lot of singing roles since. Then again, movie musicals these days are not as popular as they used to be.