Well, dear readers, I have just come home from a private screening of an IB Technicolor print of Sweet Charity. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I, BK, have just come home from a private screening of an IB Technicolor print of Sweet Charity. The caveat here is that today’s projectors do not use the same sort of lamps as projectors in 1969 did, i.e. carbon arcs, which provided a pure bluish-white light. Prints were timed knowing how they would look with the carbon arc lamp. Today’s lamps seem to have more of a yellow bent to them and so viewing IB Technicolor at this fellow’s screening room isn’t quite like seeing it the way it originally looked – his lamp gives off a decidedly yellow bias. Still, if you can see past that, the colors are saturated and lovely. First of all, I believe there were three versions of this film – the roadshow length was a few minutes longer than the first general release version – it contained more of I Love To Cry At Weddings and an additional telephone call from Shirley MacLaine to Paula Kelly and Chita Rivera (there are several in the film) during Where Am I Going? Then there was the much shorter version that omitted Where Am I Going, the boxing section of Rich Man’s Frug and a few other things. This was the first general release version we saw tonight, the slightly shorter version.
I’ve always liked the film – I know some have problems with it, but Mr. Fosse was learning how film works and he’s clearly playing with his new toy, sometimes in annoying ways. Still, a lot of it is very pleasing visually, with terrific camera work by Robert Surtees. The choreography is, of course, classic Fosse. I know some have a problem with MacLaine’s Charity and I’ve never understood why – she’s wonderful, she embodies Charity and she is completely lovable, and acquits herself nicely in the singing and dancing department. The rest of the cast is wonderful, including Ricardo Montalban, Sammy Davis, Jr., Chita, Paula, and the dancers are incredible. Watching Suzanne Charney do what she does in the Rich Man’s Frug reminds you just how far we haven’t come since the great director/choreographers died. She is completely unique and what Fosse does with and for her is brilliant. That kind of choreography and dancer seem to have gone the way of the dodo bird.
But the most amusing and interesting thing about watching this was trying to imagine what the Internet wags would be pontificating about while watching it. No, they wouldn’t be able to frame grab and put it in their computer and blow it up as if it were under a microscope to reveal all manner of things they would blabber about incorrectly. But here’s what they’d say: Universal has scrubbed the grain! The faces look waxy! I see haloes! Because guess what? There’s very little grain, even in the opticals. Oops. The faces have makeup on them and do look smoothed out because of it and the way they are lit. Oops. And there are occasional “haloes” because there is occasional backlighting that hits the actors in certain ways and if you wanted to be a dope you could call them haloes. The beloved “grain structure” of these people simply doesn’t exist. Yes, there is grain but it is barely perceptible from a reasonable viewing distance. If you do sit with your nose pressed up against the screen nothing looks good – not even a 70mm film. But therein lies the problem. The wags haven’t actually seen these films in the theater so they have this prescribed way grain is supposed to look – for EVERY film, but it doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid. The great cameramen of old didn’t want grain and they knew how to light. So, of course film has grain, especially release prints, but in the case of Sweet Charity it is VERY fine grain that you do NOT notice from a reasonable viewing distance (in a movie theater I would have been in about row twelve). So, it was fun and illuminating to sit there trying to imagine what these wags would be thinking. Of course, when you point any of this out to the wags, you are called arrogant and told you have no more knowledge than they, even though someone who has been around film and has collected film and sees prints of classic films all the time, clearly does have more knowledge. But the wags don’t want to know about it. They’ve read things on the Internet and that makes them experts on everything. Prior to the Internet, of course, they knew absolutely zero about the look of classics on film. In any case, I had a wonderful time.
Prior to that, I’d had to get up early because she of the Evil Eye arrived before nine. I did an early four-mile jog, then went and had some matzo brei, which is a surprisingly calorie friendly thing to have, only about 300 calories in all. Then I did some errands and whatnot and picked up an important envelope. I got some potential good news that we may have found our camera and sound person for the New York shoot, but I haven’t spoken to him yet so cannot say for sure, oh, no, I cannot say for sure. Then it was time to mosey on over to the retirement home for Melody’s rehearsal.
The run-through went very well and very smoothly. She’s gotten to the point where if she forgets something or makes a mistake in a lyric or patter you never know it – she covers like a true pro. There were a few forgotten things, but she was mostly on her game and sounded great. After the run, I gave my notes, and then I restaged a few things that had been bothering me – two buttons of songs and a couple of steps here and there. If she doesn’t remember for the performance today it really doesn’t matter, but she’ll have it down for the real performance. I also changed a couple of lines to make the point clearer and cleaner.
After that, I went to Paty’s coffee shop and had an excellent turkey salad sandwich – the good news is that Paty’s uses very little mayo in its turkey salad and it was a pretty small sandwich. I had two helpings of their yummilicous potato salad. So, not a bad day at all, calorie-wise, when one factors in the 400 calories burned.
When I got home from the screening I listened to a few more tracks from our Monday release – the rest will probably arrive this morning. As noted in the press release and the booklet, a few tracks really were not in good condition – most of them sound fine now – still hear the acetate noise – nothing to be done about that – but those handful of tracks still sound pretty sketchy – he’s done about as much as he can do, I think, but we’re investigating this new plug-in I’ve been told about to see if it can take those few tracks and smooth them out further. I’ve sent the worst of them to a guy who has the plug-in and I think he an do a little test and send it back to me. We shall see.
Then I heard a really loud POP – it sounded like a body hitting the floor. I went to see what it was and I heard dripping coming from the cabinet above the washer/dryer unit. I was petrified that some pipe had burst, but the minute I opened the cabinet I saw what it was. I’ve had a case of weird Coke in there for six years – I can’t remember where I got it, but it was Coke cans sort of shaped like bottles. One of them simply exploded. I got the case outside and into the trash, then cleaned up the mess, which wasn’t too bad, thankfully.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, I shall hopefully sleep in. After that, I’ll be lazy for a bit, then do the four-mile jog. Then we’ll meet at the retirement home at three and set up for the show, which is at four. After the show, we’ll go out for a meal and have our postmortem.
Tomorrow, I have quite a lot to do, and hopefully I’ll have good news about the camera and sound person. Then I’m having a meal with Alet. Tuesday is our stumble-through rehearsal, Wednesday we have sound check and the show, Thursday we have a rehearsal at Vitello’s for Melody, and also there are meetings and meals and prepping our next Kritzerland release.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep in, do the four-mile jog, do a show, eat, and have a postmortem on the performance. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland singing the songs of Sweet Charity.