Well, dear readers, we have finally had one guess in our Unseemly Trivia Contest – it wasn’t correct, but at least the guesser stepped up to the plate and took a chance. I feel all you dear readers should step up to the plate and take a chance. So, go directly to your cupboards, take out a plate (any size will do, although dinner plates are a fine size), step up to it, and take a chance and send us an unseemly trivia guess. After all, you must be part of the action, you mustn’t sit on the sidelines, you must march in the parade, you must be in the band, you must be part of the stew, you must be a member of the club, you must be… well, I’ve run out of metaphors, but you get the idea. You must send guesses, because frankly my bruce@haineshisway.com mailbox is pretty empty.
I do believe Mr. Donald Feltham has a brand spanking new The Broadway Radio Show up and running, with special guest, Sharon McNight. One dear reader reported there was trouble in paradise, that he couldn’t get the radio show to work. I, of course, forwarded his e-mail to Mr. Mark Bakalor, who apparently is too busy to answer his e-mails these days, because I’ve had no answer to any of my last few e-mails. I feel we will have have to bitch-slap Mr. Mark Bakalor because, after all, he is not being part of the action, he is sitting on the sidelines, he is not marching in the parade, he is not one of the boys in the band, he is not part of the stew, he is not a member of the club, he is not any of the other metaphors I’ve forgotten. Hopefully, everything is working fine and dandy. He had told me that there were some server problems and that we were getting a backup server so problems could be avoided like my e-mails.
I have received my fourth and last blurb for the book, this one from mystery novelist, Dick Lochte, who wrote one of the best first mysteries I’ve ever read, Sleeping Dog. He’s written three others in that series, plus another series which takes place in New Orleans and which includes the marvelous Blue Bayou and The Neon Smile. He also co-writes mysteries with Christopher Darden, has been the theater critic for Los Angeles Magazine and for years wrote the Book Notes section of the Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review. To see his blurb for my book, simply click on the Unseemly Button below and you will be whisked away to Blurbland.
Here is Mr. Dick Lochte’s blurb:
“Bruce Kimmel’s BENJAMIN KRITZER is an utterly charming, nostalgic, bittersweet tale of a young boy struggling to survive his dysfunctional Jewish family in mid-1950s Los Angeles. It’s got a winning hero, humor, Cinemascope, 45 RPM records, Commando Cody and Lucy on TV, and a beautifully rendered precocious but innocent love affair, a movies-and-ice-cream romance set to the tune of a Johnny Mathis ballad. What’s not to like?”
Isn’t that a lovely blurb from Mr. Dick Lochte? It may be too late to include it on the dust jacket, but it will definitely be in all the press materials and used wherever the book is sold. I don’t believe I could have asked for better blurbs had I written them myself (I didn’t, I swear), and I’m most grateful to Ira Levin, Gary Owens, Rupert Holmes and Dick Lochte for their kindess.
By the way, last evening I did put up two clues to the trivia contest question – if you missed them, just click on the Unseemly Archive Button and check out the posts to yesterday’s notes.
We had a lovely time shooting footage for our handy-dandy documentary for the DVD release of The First Nudie Musical. First of all, it was an absolutely glorious day and it was just heavenly to be out in such a glorious day. We actually replicated shots from the film – it was very peculiar being on those same locations almost twenty-seven years later. Two of the movie theaters glanced in the original film are no longer movie theaters – the Pix has become the Henry Fonda Theater, and the Hollywood has become some Ripley’s Believe It or Not wax thing. The Hollywood Masonic Temple is boarded up, but seems to be owned by Disney. Anyway, we took lots of fun footage. We do the interviews next week, and we’re actually managing to contact quite a few people from the cast and crew, so it should be a lovely reunion. You will, of course, hear about it here first, to which we say hear/here.
I think that tomorrow I shall talk about another of my favorite musicals. People keep using our handy-dandy search device – for all manner of things. Searching, hoping to find the references they’re looking for. Some find things, some don’t – I suppose it all depends on what one is looking for, eh? I do hope that there will come the day when people can find all the references they are looking for, and then some. Yes, I do believe that day will come, because, after all, we are a fountain of information here at haineshisway.com and we want people to be part of the action, to not sit on the sidelines, to march in the parade, to be in the band, to be part of the stew, a member of the club – in other words, to be a metaphor, haineshisway.com-wise.
I watched the DVD of A Touch of Class – my how times have changed and how smarmy it seems. It’s still got some very amusing bits, though, and Miss Glenda Jackson is terrific in the lead, as is George Segal opposite her. Miss Jackson won an Academy Award for her performance, rare for a comedy, I think. It was co-written and directed by Mr. Melvin Frank. Mr. Frank used to have a partner named Norman Panama, and together they created one of my favorite musicals, Li’l Abner and one of my favorite motion picture comedies, The Court Jester. I also watched the DVD transfer of a play I wrote in 1984 called The Good One. My how times have changed and how smarmy some of it seems. It’s still got some very amusing bits though. I’m in it as well, and I must say I’m quite annoying at times. Other times I’m quite okay. I’d forgotten how absolutely wonderful Gail Edwards is as a rubber/leather/SM freak named Tura. She gives a brilliant performance – laugh after laugh, all timed perfectly. I just had to sit there and react – my favorite kind of acting. Penny Peyser is also terrific as the girl my character ends up with, and Rick Waln was excellent as my best friend. It’s very old fashioned structurally, which I like, a real three-act comedy. They don’t seem to do that anymore, but I really like that style.
In fact, let’s make today’s posting discussion this: Name the handful of musicals that have used the three-act structure.
Remember, you have until midnight tonight to tender your trivia guesses, so do get the china out and step up to the plate.