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September 20, 2011:

THE TIFFANY’S OF TRANSFERS

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, it is very late and therefore I must write these here notes in a hurry and therefore I will save my rant about this disgusting current trend of turning current movies into musicals for tomorrow’s notes. Yes, there is no time to rant for I can barely keep my eyelids open and to rant with drooping eyelids is a lesson in futility. I got up early, did the four-mile jog, and immediately had to go to the Dena of Pasa to see a reading of a new musical version of – yes, a movie – Sleepless in Seattle. Since it’s obviously a work in progress, I shall not comment, other than to say work is needed in both book and score. The cast was fun and I was very happy to see Kritzerland at the Gardenia regular Jane Noseworthy, as well as our very own Mr. Barry Pearl, who, despite having almost nothing to do, got most of the laughs. The director is someone I’ve known for thirty-something years, Joel Zwick, with whom I worked on Laverne and Shirley. He’s very talented and very funny and was a very amiable host for the reading. I will say it’s one of the shortest musical ever, with a forty-minute first act and a thirty-five minute second act – I may be off a little but not much, since they started at around 12:20 and I was out by 2:00 and there was a ten or fifteen minute break in between acts.

After that, I went directly to the editing room, where we fine cut two episodes. We only made slight changes to one, but they were very helpful. We made a few more changes to the other and those were helpful, too. I’ll watch it fresh to see if I want to make any other lifts. Right now, this episode is running one minute longer than the others – I don’t mind that as long as it’s really playing. We’d already made on significant lift in the first of the three musical numbers by cutting its opening verse – and I’ll just have to see about cutting anything else. I felt both episodes were pretty funny, so that was good. Then we watched the first cut of the LA episode with Jason Graae, and I must say it was damn good. Very few changes to make – the set-up scene may lose a line or two, and we’ll swap out a couple of shots in the musical number, but it really looked and felt good.

After that, I went to musical director Scott Harlan’s house to rehearse a number that Guy Haines will be singing at an event honoring Michelle Nicastro – Guy, of course, was busy playing tennis. So, I sang When You Wish Upon A Star for him in the key of C.

After that, I went directly to Jerry’s Deli, as I hadn’t had anything to eat all day and it was already six-thirty. I had a bacon cheeseburger and no fries or onion rings, and I bought two small cookies and one chocolate rugelach because I needed a treat and I haven’t been doing hardly any sweets lately. Then I finally came home, answered a plethora of e-mails and then sat on my couch like so much exhausted fish.

Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Breakfast at Tiffany’s, starring Miss Audrey Hepburn and Mr. George Peppard, directed by Mr. Blake Edwards, with a screenplay by Mr. George Axelrod. I only intended to watch the first few minutes to check out the new transfer, but I got sucked right in and watched it all the way through to the end, at which point, as always with this film, I was a teary-eyed mess. For me, this is a perfect motion picture where everything is right and yes, and I don’t care what kind of flack I get, that includes Mickey Rooney. They simply do not know how to make movies like this anymore – everything looks so simple, but every shot is wonderfully artful, gorgeously composed, and brilliantly lit (hard to beat the cameraman – the great Franz Planer), every performance is great, and Miss Hepburn is incandescent. George Peppard’s performance is often overlooked, but he’s terrific. Buddy Ebsen, who should have won an Academy Award (he wasn’t even nominated), is heartbreaking as Doc Golightly. His scenes are amongst the film’s best. Patricia Neal is also terrific as the wealthy patron of Peppard. And then there’s the score by Henry Mancini, which is not only perfect, but elevates the entire film into a higher level. It won a well-deserved Oscar, as did the song Moon River. The latter has one of the most heartfelt and beautiful melodies ever and, for me, it is in the top five greatest themes ever written for film. But it’s Mancini’s dramatic scoring in a handful of scenes that is so brilliant – the film would be unthinkable without his music. And the final cue, where Hepburn and Peppard are in the rain looking for Cat is one of the finest cues ever written and a textbook example of great film scoring that hits every emotion flawlessly.

When the special edition DVD came out a few years ago, I snapped it up and watched it immediately. I couldn’t get ten minutes into it because the transfer was a shoddy joke – brown color and grainy image, maybe one of the worst transfers I’ve ever seen of a film whose color needs to be perfect. So, I’m happy to report that this new transfer is amazingly amazing – Paramount has become the poster child for great transfers of their older classics – with White Christmas, The Ten Commandments, and now Breakfast at Tiffany’s, they have a team that truly understands what color films of this era are supposed to look like. Kudos to them from the bottom of my heart. If you want to know what I complain about all the time in terms of flat, brown transfers, just compare the last DVD of Tiffany’s to this Blu and Ray and you will see it immediately.

Some of the usual Internet dopes on those usual sites have been complaining about heavy DNR use (noise reduction), so let me set the record straight for these baboons – there is NONE. Not a whit, not a jot, not an iota. And many of these people are basing what they say by looking at screencaps rather than the actual transfer. I have not seen one screencap for this film that even comes close to capturing what this transfer actually looks like. But what they think is DNR is, in fact, a soft-focus filter used on every close-up of Miss Hepburn, as well as close-ups of Miss Neal and even Mr. Peppard. That’s the style of photography – it’s glamour, something movies today know nothing about. Why do these rubes think that all the other shots are razor sharp with incredible detail? Oh, that’s right, they’d have to actually know something about film and how older films were shot – and they don’t, Blanche, they don’t. Do not hesitate to purchase this disc. It is an achievement of the highest order and highly recommended by the likes of me.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I have another long day tomorrow and must be up early to jog, so I’d best get some beauty sleep.

Today, I shall do the four-mile jog, I shall have a work session with Alet, after which I’ll go back to the editing room to finish our fine cutting. Then I have a big decision to make – the editor has been mixing the sound as best he can on the equipment he’s using and, for the most part, it’s okay, but because this is a musical some of the numbers don’t sound as crisp as I’d like them to, and I have to decide whether to let my engineer do a final smooth out of the mix, which we’d then have to lay back to picture. I’ll see what his schedule is like – I don’t think it would take very long – there aren’t that many tracks to deal with. If he feels we can do the three episodes in a few hours, then I think we should give that a shot. After the session, I’ll go eat something light but amusing and then catch up on things that I have to catch up on – writing liner notes, figuring out if I’m going to announce our new release a few days early, like tomorrow or Thursday.

The rest o’ the week is meetings, meals, rehearsals, and errands and whatnot. And the weekend is looking fairly busy, too, and there’s the Michelle Nicastro event on Sunday.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the four-mile jog, I must have a work session with Alet, I must go to the editing room, I must pick up a package or three, I must eat, and I must relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Henry Mancini scores and your favorite Audrey Hepburn films? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland – I wonder if I shall dream in glorious Technicolor of breakfast at Tiffany’s?

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