Well, dear readers, today is a very exciting day, because today one of my favorite guilty pleasures, film-wise, comes out on DVD. That motion picture is entitled The Young Girls of Rochefort (Les Demoiselles de Rochfort, for our French amis), and it’s directed by Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – Les Parapluis de Cherbourg, for our French amis) and it stars Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, Gene Kelly, George Chakiris, Grover Dale, Michel Piccoli and lots of dancers in color coordinated outfits. The music is by the great Michel Legrand (Michel Legrand, for our French amis). It’s a very strange movie, practically “through-sung” as they like to call it these days. It’s gorgeously photographed in widescreen. I went to the theater for its “restored” showing a couple of years ago – the audience just didn’t know what to make of it, frankly. I once had a 16mm scope print of it in I.B. Technicolor, that was breathtaking, and the “restoration”, while good, didn’t quite capture the luster of dye transfer Technicolor printing. For those who were wise enough to purchase the Guy Haines CD, you know that Mr. Haines also loves this film and he sings a song from it, You Must Believe In Spring, one of Mr. Legrand’s most haunting melodies. In any case, I recommend at least a viewing of it – Deneuve and her real-life sister Dorleac are stunningly beautiful (Dorleac would tragically die in an auto accident soon after making this film), Kelly is fun, and the dancing and numbers are sprightly, and the whole melodramatic affair is quite addictive if you give yourself over to it.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? The one thing that concerns me is the quality of the DVD – I’ll report on that tomorrow. But I did pick up three other releases from the same company, all touting themselves as “restored”, and none of them were enhanced for widescreen tvs (no excuse for that shoddy treatment, in my opinion), and the prints used were less than stellar. I’m hoping that Rochefort is the one they got right.
Well, dear readers, I have received my third blurb, which I will tell you about shortly. And, we don’t have an official winner in the trivia contest – but I can’t get to that stuff until we do our dreary clicking of that damnable Unseemly Button below.
So, yesterday I received my third blurb. This one came from Rupert Holmes, the author of the Broadway musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood (for which he won multiple Tony awards), and creator of AMC’s Emmy-award winning Remember WENN, not to mention a fabulous songwriter with many albums to his credit. I was pretty much blown away by his blurb – it obviously made me very happy, and it even embarrassed me a little. But he assures me it’s what he thought and therefore I guess I’ll use it in its entirety. Here it is:
“An instant classic, a masterpiece of evocation, a road map of preadolescence and a sharp Polaroid of your heart’s fondest memories. Benjamin Kritzer recreates the mysterious, bewildering, heart-pounding world of an American boy with images so vivid, pungent and specific it will not be as if you’ve gone back in time… it will be as if you never left. If J.D. Salinger, Jean Shepard, John Knowles and Woody Allen were locked in an elevator for a month with nothing but a thirty-day supply of Nehi Orange Sodas, Oscar Meyer cold-cuts, a gaint box of JuJubes and a typewriter, they could not emerge with better than Benjamin Kritzer.” Rupert Holmes
Is it too much? Should I delete the last part, the author references? I’m so touched by what he wrote and I thank Rupe, Ira Levin and Gary Owens with all my heart.
The Weissler’s called me to see if I could get them contact information for Hinky Meltz and Ernest Ernest, so taken were they with what I’ve printed from Psycho! The Musical. I had no idea the Weissler’s were readers of these notes. In any case, today I offer you one of their finest achievements, the title song, Psycho!
PSYCHO! Music by Hinky Meltz Lyrics by Ernest Ernest
EVERYBODY GOES A LITTLE CRAZY SOMETIMES
EVERYBODY GOES A LITTLE BATS.
EVERYBODY’S DRIVEN ROUND THE BEND, MY FRIEND,
FOR EXAMPLE – HAVE YOU EVER SAT THROUGH CATS?
EVERYBODY’S GOT A TOUCH OF MADNESS IN THEM,
LET IT OUT AND PEOPLE START TO DIE
THEY CALL YOU A PSYCHO!
THEY TELL YOU YOU’RE PSYCHO!
THEY TELL YOU YOU’RE SICK – THEY TELL YOU YOU’RE NUTS
THEY CALL YOU A LOON – NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS
THEY WILL LOCK YOU UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEY
IF YOU’RE A PSYCHO – LIKE ME!
IF YOU DON’T HAVE ALL YOUR MARBLES
IF YOUR DECK’S A LITTLE SHORT
IF YOUR FAVORITE GAME IS CRAZY EIGHTS
I’M SORRY TO REPORT
YOU’LL BE SHUNNED AND YOU’LL BE FEARED
THEY WILL TELL YOU THAT YOU’RE WEIRD
THEY WILL TELL YOU YOU’RE NOT FIT FOR COMPANY
WHEN YOU’RE A PSYCHO – LIKE ME…
EVERYBODY GOES A LITTLE BONKERS SOMETIMES
IF YOU DO THEN PEOPLE STAY AWAY
THEY CALL YOU A PSYCHO!
THEY TELL YOU YOU’RE PSYCHO!
THEY TELL YOU YOU’RE STRANGE – THEY CALL YOU INSANE
THEY PUT YOU AWAY – AND WORK ON YOUR BRAIN
THEY WILL SEND YOU INTO ENDLESS THERAPY
IF YOU’RE A PSYCHO – LIKE ME!
IF YOU’RE A PSYCHO!
LIKE
ME!
Apparently, that is sung by Norman Bates, and is a huge production number, with dancing therapists, straight-jacketed loons, and the big finish has everyone doing amazing choreography with butcher knives. Oh, how I wish I could have seen the choreography and direction of Jorge Rabinowitz, which by all accounts was “something else”.
As I said earlier, we didn’t have a winner in our Unseemly Trivia contest. The question was: Name the two books written by Anna Leonowens. One of our contest players, Robert Armin, pointed out that there are, in fact, three books. In any case, we had several correct answers to that question. The books are: “The English Governess” “The Romance of the Harem” and “Travels in India”.
However, no one guessed part two of the trivia question or the bonus point question. The second question was, what Tony award-winning actress (between 1970 and 1995) started her career by dubbing the singing voice of another actress in a film (non-animated). I’m shocked and surprised no one knew the answer to this question. The actress was Debbie Shapiro (Gravitte) and the film was my very own The First Nudie Musical (she dubbed several people actually, including the Lesbian and the Whore). The bonus point question was what musical theater actor did the English dubbing for the voice of Jean Paul Belmondo in Philippe de Broca’s delightful That Man From Rio. The answer is Hal Linden. In any case, here are the people who got half the answer right: Rebecca Mertz, Jed, Craig Brockman and Robert Armin.
Well, dear readers, I must be on my merry way. If you missed this weekend’s notes, be sure to use the handy-dandy Unseemly Archive Button, because you missed some pithy things and you must be in the loop, pith-wise. Also, check out the radio show if you haven’t. Lots of fun.