Well, dear readers, it is Friday and this crazy week is finally at end – almost. And what a week it’s been, what with rehearsing and then performing a reading of a new musical for three nights running, and also getting The Party Animals back up on its feet and ready for this Sunday’s two performances, as well as going back to work directing Miss Joan Ryan’s show, which is now a mere five weeks away, as well as having several meetings about various things and continuing to figure out who I want in our fundraiser show come November. The next few weeks will be consumed with Miss Ryan and getting her show staged and her completely comfortable with everything. I’m also thinking about trying to do the Ray Courts Hollywood Collector’s Show in a few weeks, although I might need help getting some screen captures to finally have some photos done from The Partridge Family and Happy Days, and maybe even Tabitha. If anyone is reading this and they have the DVDs and know how to do really good screen captures, please contact me as soon as possible (asap, in Internet lingo). Speaking of asap, yesterday was supposed to be a day off for me and yet it didn’t turn out to be a day off at all. I got a good night’s sleep, then jogged, then had to toddle off to rehearse with Joan. We began at the top of the show. She sang song one, then I had her read the little patter she’d written to get us to the second song. The idea was there, but it wasn’t focused, so I told her what it needed to be and she wrote it down, we set it (I’ll smooth all the patter out when we’re done with this part of the process), and then she sang the second song. We did that for almost the whole first act – fleshed out the patter, focused it, and made sure it had the right point and that it clearly and succinctly set up the upcoming song. As I’ve said, this act is completely different for her – she’s only doing two songs from her old show and they’re now being set up in completely different ways. She’s finally starting to see the method to the madness and she’s being a lot less worried and understands what the show is going to be and what its purpose is and how she’s going to have to play it. After the rehearsal, I had to go to West LA to check some stuff out, and then, horror of horrors, I had to head home in awful, terrible rush hour traffic. What should have been a fifteen-minute ride took about fifty minutes. Once back, I went to Gelson’s, got some various and sundried foodstuffs, and came home, sat on my couch like so much fish, and ate them.
Last night, my goal was to watch two count them two motion pictures on DVD and I did, in fact, watch two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled Some Came Running, a film directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Mr. Frank Sinatra, Mr. Dean Martin, Miss Shirley MacLaine, and that cold lump of fish, Miss Martha Hyer (one of my all-time least favorite actors). Some Came Running is wonderful melodrama and it’s one of Mr. Minnelli’s finest films. Sinatra is natural and very good, Martin really came into his own in this film, and Shirley MacLaine is adorable, endearing, and ultimately heartbreaking as Ginny, the loose girl with a heart of gold. Miss Hyer is Miss Hyer, but she’s playing a repressed, cold woman, so she’s good in the role. The last twelve minutes of the film are a textbook in great film direction – lighting, camerawork, music, sound – just perfectly realized. And what a score by Mr. Elmer Bernstein. Naturally, Warners can’t be bothered to put out this DVD in the United States of America, but Warners in France has and it’s quite a lovely transfer (I suspect when it finally comes out here it will be drained of color, in the usual Warners way of transferring films from the 50s and 60s). It could be a hair sharper, I suppose, and it could be a hair brighter, I suppose, but the colors are excellent and accurate and I was very happy to get it. I then watched the second motion picture on DVD, which was entitled A Little Night Music. I’ve read several comments about this DVD from Hen’s Tooth Video, most of which are saying how great it is to have the film looking so much better than the VHS tape, as if that’s some sort of endorsement. The DVD is not so hot – it’s obviously taken from an older pre-digital video master, so it has that video look to it, the colors are a little too golden for their own good (although this was one of the worst-looking films ever even in its original theatrical release – cheap film stock, bad lab work, and mediocre prints), but worst of all, this transfer is a slightly zoomed in full-frame transfer that Hen’s Tooth has slapped letterbox bars on at an incorrect ratio (1:66 – actually less than 1:66 – the film was projected at 1:85). They couldn’t letterbox it properly at 1:85 because the full-frame transfer had been zoomed in on (you can see it immediately, as several letters of people’s names are cut off on the sides of the screen during the main titles). And, of course, it’s non-anamorphic. Given what they had to work with, there was no way for them to do it anamorphic without losing even more quality and because what they were working with was a zoomed-in full-frame transfer, the framing would have been too tight at 1:85, whereas if they’d been given a proper open matte transfer they could have matted it properly to 1:85. And then there’s the film. Harold Prince has always been one of the most “cinematic” of stage directors, so it’s a little shocking how inept he is once behind the camera. There’s no grace to the film, every shot and every cut is awkward or just downright bad, the photography is incredibly ugly, and the film has not one iota of style. It’s a real shame, too, because there is an elegant and wonderful film that could have been made from the show. In fact, Mr. Sondheim, who does love film, and who seems to understand what film does, creates a wonderful new opening number for the film, the Frederika version of The Glamorous Life, which is one of his best songs and which is cinematic in its very conception. But, Mr. Prince completely mangles it. It starts with Frederika singing it, but then the next three minutes she’s off the screen while we see badly done montages of Miss Taylor which don’t even go with the lyrics most of the time. It could have been a marvelous cinematic, joyous number filled with cross-cutting between Frederika and Desiree, and instead it’s just awful. The rest of the film goes downhill, save for the scenes with Miss Diana Rigg, who is a wonderful Charlotte. Mr. Cariou, of whom I’m a big fan, has no screen charisma, and Miss Taylor is completely out of her element and looks bad to boot (not her fault – she’s photographed hideously). Miss Hermoine Gingold is her usual wonderful self, even though she’s deprived of Liasons. What a horrid film it is, and even if the transfer were better it would be little consolation.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below, because today is not a day off either, I’m afraid.
My goodness, today’s notes are a little dry, aren’t they? We need wet notes, baby, not dry notes. Let’s hose the notes, shall we?
Today, I must have a run-through of The Party Animals, which hopefully won’t take more than a couple of hours. Then I’ll try to ship out several packages, but they may have to wait until tomorrow morning. Then I’ll be meeting with Mr. Kevin Spirtas, then I’ll be going out to dinner.
Tomorrow, however, really will be a day off. No plans, no work, no nothing. And I mean it. Sunday, of course, we have two count them two performances of The Party Animals, and then it’s home for our annual Tony Awards Do, which is the finest Tony Awards do anywhere. If you’re a lurker reading these here notes, let me tell you that this is THE place to be.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog, rehearse, meet, eat, and watch DVDs. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player, and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – CD, the next Kritzerland release, which I’ll announce next week. DVD, the Boulting Brothers’ production, Twisted Nerve, starring Mr. Hywell Bennett and Miss Hayley Mills. I’ve never seen it, so I’m really looking forward to it – I have the LP of its score by Mr. Bernard Herrmann, and it’s not a well-known score at all, but one I really like. Its whistling theme is now known thanks to the “borrower” Mr. Quentin Tarantino, who used it in Kill Bill. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and don’t make them dry – we must have nothing but wet postings.