Well, dear readers, today I begin cleaning up the clutter that has amassed in various and sundried rooms in the home environment. I cannot stomach clutter, nor can I chest clutter. Clutter makes me want to vomit on the ground, and yet, everywhere I look, clutter, clutter, clutter (that is three clutters). There are papers everywhere, and it’s getting really deep. For example, in the dining room all four chairs around the dining table have papers on them. Then there is the book I’m proofing. Then there’s a couple of things that I’ll be shipping Monday morning, and then there are other things I have no clew about. Then, on my antique whatever-it-is in the dining room, there’s a complete Brain piano/vocal score, a copy of the book manuscript, the new Kritzerland CD master for our next release, the Susan Egan CD master, and again, a lot of stuff I don’t have a clew about. And that’s just the dining room. On two kitchen counters there are piles of mail, papers, bills, delivery confirmation slips, catalogs, DVDs that haven’t been moved to the other room and CDs waiting to be filed. In the living room, the piano is piled high with work papers, the floor next to the piano is littered with sheet music, and on it goes. The book room is a deesaster right now – books on the floor, the couch filled with ephemera, the coffee table filled with ephemera and other odd junk lying about like so much fish. In the bedroom, the dresser (where the TV and a bedroom stereo is) is littered with DVDs and CDs that have to be put away – otherwise the bedroom is probably the neatest room in the house. In the den, DVDs are everywhere, there are all sorts of CDs that need to be filed away, and back in the kitchen on the table where I have my laptop, the papers are everywhere, including my working printout of the new book (which I can now file away, papers stacked in the printer, on top of the printer, next to the laptop (I can file away almost all those, since they’re my working notes not only on the new book, but last year’s short story collection. On the chair next to me is yet another huge pile of papers – I don’t even have a clew as to what they might be. So, you get the idea, but in case you don’t – clutter, baby, clutter. My head feels like it’s going to explode, frankly.
Speaking of frankly, yesterday was a day of some sort – I was never sure just what sort of day it was. I woke up very late, in fact just five minutes before a rehearsal with Miss Ryan and Mr. Boswell, which was, thankfully, at my house. We ran the show, but stopped and started, especially running the patter over and over again. I tell you, when she says it as written it all works beautifully, and when she paraphrases and leaves out set-up lines, it makes no sense whatsoever. After the rehearsal, I went over to the Hollywood Collector’s Show at the Burbank Marriott. I got a great parking space, which should have told me what I’d be in for. The July show is the one I usually do, but am I glad I didn’t this time. Yes, there were people there, but it was really not very crowded, and it looked to me like half the celebrities hadn’t showed up. The big attraction seemed to be Miss Patricia Neal, who had a small line. The Incredible Hulk was there with no people at his table the entire time I was there. I spied Miss Anne Jeffreys, Mr. Adrian Zmed (who left), Clint Howard, Warren Berlinger, Daryl Hickman, Danny Goldman (with whom I had a fun chat), Ken Berry, Michael Callan, Tommy Sands, Karen Black, Linda Blair, Barry Williams, Charlotte Rae, and others. The dealers I know told me it was the worst Hollywood Collector’s Show ever in terms of sales. I did a little trading with a couple of dealers and got an original year of release Japanese poster for The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg – I have never seen decent poster art on this film. The original French poster (which I had) is ugly and colorless, the American poster was monotone, and the other style Japanese poster, while nice, isn’t nearly as good as the one I traded for. I’ll photograph it and post it – it’s clearly the best art on the film, and it’s quite beautiful. After that, I met up with our alumni board and we had an early dinner meeting. After that, I finally came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I finally managed to watch a motion picture on DVD and what a motion picture it was – Billy Wilder’s Ace In The Hole, heretofore never available on home video. Ace In The Hole was Mr. Wilder’s first bona fide flop and it was pretty much hated by critics and audiences back in 1951. And no wonder – it’s a scathing portrait of a driven journalist with no scruples (he’s the hero), the media, and the public’s insatiable appetite for a big, juicy news story. Mr. Kirk Douglas does what no actor back then would probably have dared to do – he gives an unflinchingly unsympathetic performance, and it’s one of his best. He’s helped, of course, by the brilliant dialogue of Wilder, Lesser Samuels, and Walter Newman. It’s one of the most cynical movies ever made and it’s as powerful today (and as accurate in its portrayal of a press and media that will do anything to make a story more dramatic) as it was then. Jan Sterling gives a sterling performance as the wife of a man buried in a cave – she, too, doesn’t shy away from how awful and unsavory her character is, and she has one of my favorite lines of dialogue in all of cinema – “I don’t go to church – kneeling bags my nylons.” Mr. Wilder has always gotten his due as a writer, but has rarely gotten his due as a filmmaker – for me, he’s one of the greats, not just because of his screenplays, but because he is a very visual storyteller. He doesn’t show off, but everything in his films is visually right, and Ace In The Hole is filled with wonderful visual touches. The film is blessed with a searing score by the great Hugo Friedhofer. Criterion has done right by the film and the transfer is fantastic. There’s a second disc of extras, which I’ll get to right after writing these here notes.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because this section is starting to feel like clutter and I think we all know by now we’ve got enough clutter to choke a horse – or is it a cat? Or is it a giraffe?
Today, I have a run-through of Joan’s act, and prior to that I have a few errands to attend to. After the run-through, I’ll pay another brief visit to the Hollywood Collector’s Show, and then I’ll take the rest of the afternoon to clean up the clutter (or begin the process), package up a few items for shipping on Monday, and, most importantly, finish proofing the book. Then I’ll watch at least two count them two DVDs.
Tomorrow, of course, I will relax and clean clutter in the morning, then Mr. Boswell will arrive about noon, as will the town car that’s driving us to Newport. I’m afraid the town car was a last-minute demand by me, because I just couldn’t drive down to Newport Beach and then drive back. I didn’t really “demand” but I did ask nicely and said given that amount of time I’ve devoted to this act, I felt it would be appropriate to have this little perk, and that John would appreciate it, too.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do errands, have a run-through, visit the Hollywood Collector’s Show, proof a book, and above all clean up the clutter. Today’s topic of discussion: Kirk Douglas has had a long and varied career – what are your all-time favorite Kirk Douglas performances. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I dream of no clutter.