Well, dear readers, this month is flying by, like a gazelle with a twitch. I’ve never really had a twitch. I’ve had an itch, which was a bitch but never made the switch to a twitch – isn’t that rich? I wonder if those who have a twitch want to ditch the twitch or pitch the twitch? Of course, those who may have more than one twitch always have to figure out which twitch it is. I knew someone named Mitch who had a twitch and he considered it kitsch, while I considered it a momentary glitch. Why do these notes suddenly feel like a Panama and Frank movie starring Danny Kaye? Don’t I have some notes to write? I do, and I shall now write them without a hitch.
Yesterday was a rather lovely day, the first day of December. I was awakened by the ringing of the doorbell by she of the Evil Eye. I left, did some banking, went and had some bacon and eggs and one piece of toast, did some errands, picked up no packages, and then came home and got ready for our stumble-through. The cast arrived and just as we began the doorbell rang and our guest star, who had told us from the beginning that he wouldn’t be able to be at our stumble-through, had indeed made it, which I just thought was wonderful of him. He is such a gentleman and the kind of pro that is all too rare in today’s business of show. The stumble-through went pretty wonderfully with only two tiny lyric flubs. Our stumble-throughs are almost my favorite part of doing these shows – just doing the show for us, for the singers – everyone is so supportive and it’s just a warm, fun experience for everyone. The show order worked great, and it’s just a terrific group. Afterwards, I gave only a couple of tiny notes and we ran three numbers a second time, and raised the key of one song.
After the stumble-through, a couple of us went to the Studio Café for a bite to eat. We shared wings, and I had their pretty moderate portion of mac and cheese. It was fun and relaxing. Then I came home, did some work on the computer, printed out my commentary, put everything I need for the show in the car (we’re giving out a special Kritzerland gift to all attendees – a copy of Sandy Bainum’s Christmas CD), and then came back in and relaxed. We’re not as full as I’d like to be for this show – about sixty so far, which is a nice, full room, but the last few shows we’ve had over ninety and I got used to that. But, then again we do get some last-minute reservations (last month we had fifteen of those) and some people who just show up, so here’s hoping for the best.
Oh, while I was having breakfast, I said hello to my friend Johnny Dark, a comic who used to be on the Donny and Marie show when I did it. So, I asked him if he wanted to do a cameo in one of this week’s Outside the Box episodes and he said of course – that will be really fun. After all that, I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Sundays and Cybele – dear reader ChasSmith had mentioned not receiving his copy yet from Amazon in the UK and that just made me want to watch it again. I’ve probably seen Sundays and Cybele close to eighty times, maybe even more. I never get tired of it, it’s always beautiful and surprising, and I always find new things to admire in it. I first saw it at a sneak preview and fell head over heels in love with the film itself and its twelve-year-old star, Patricia Gozzi, whose performance was simply one of the best things I’d ever seen on the screen and certainly the best child performance I’d ever seen (yes, even better than Miss Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker). And it remains the best child performance I’ve ever seen. When the film opened (interestingly, this French film had its world premiere not in France but in New York – go know), I then saw it many times in both the original French, and when the film had a wider neighborhood run, dubbed in English. I didn’t like the latter very much because I was so used to Miss Gozzi’s real voice – the film’s male star, Hardy Kruger, did his own dubbing into English, and he was fine, but the supporting cast’s English dubbers were just not so great. The film got some great reviews and was a huge hit for a foreign film, and as soon as it got nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film (and screenplay and score, too), then the predictable backlash began and some pretty idiotic critics weighed in with their negative crap. And it got worse when the film won Best Foreign Film. But that just meant more play dates in LA and I kept following the film and seeing it wherever it played – I saw it with That Man from Rio, I saw it with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and I saw it with other films like that. Watching the marvelous transfer on DVD just brought back my extreme love for the film. It’s really a one-off film – the director only made a handful of films after it, and considering how brilliant and unique his direction was and is, it’s more than a little shocking that none of his other films came anywhere near it. And that’s why the film is today almost virtually unknown – it’s not by an established auteur therefore how can it be any good or worthwhile. Well, it just is, in the same way that The Night of the Hunter is. Mr. Laughton never made another film as a director, but his film has lived on in a way that Sundays and Cybele hasn’t. Certainly you won’t see a more beautifully photographed black-and-white scope film – courtesy of the brilliant Henri Decae, and the score by Maurice Jarre is just perfect and completely unique. The story, about two wounded people – one a fighter pilot who thinks he may have killed a child when his plane plummeted to the ground in IndoChina and who has amnesia and who has difficulty existing in a world he doesn’t really know, and a twelve-year-old girl whose mother and grandmother have abandoned her and who, at the beginning of the film, is being brought to an orphanage by her uncaring father, who has no intention of ever coming back. These two broken people meet and become close – she’s more the adult than he is and he more childlike. Posing as her father, he takes her out every Sunday and they forge a strong love and bond. Today I’m sure audiences would have a field day getting all bent out of shape about certain aspects of the film, and they’d be stupid for doing so. This isn’t Lolita. This is pure and human, but of course there are people around the two characters who cannot understand what’s happening and who think that the girl could be in danger or that something weird is going on between the two of them. To find out what happens, watch the film.
Mr. Kruger gives an amazing performance as the psychologically scarred pilot, but the film truly belongs to Miss Gozzi, who is radiant, beautiful, simple, affecting, and, above all, real. Her final lines of dialogue are gut wrenching and I get all teary-eyed every time I watch the ending. The images are haunting and poetic and the film deserves a high place in cinema and perhaps someday it will get the praise it so richly deserves. For a film that won an Oscar and got great reviews initially it really should be much more on people’s radar. For me, a desert island movie and the DVD, which is available everywhere in the world EXCEPT the United States, is a gorgeous transfer. It’s a Columbia film and I’m hoping that our very own Nick Redman can somehow squeeze it out of Sony for Blu-ray. More than highly recommended by the likes of me.
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 relax until it’s time to go to The Federal for our sound check. I’m actually going in early to do a video check for the sneak preview of episode three of Outside the Box, Season Two. I started to get nervous about showing it, but I showed it to three people after the rehearsal, and they laughed in all the right places, so I guess I’m now comfortable doing it. And then it’s show time, and after I’m sure some of us will go over to Little Toni’s for some food. I will, of course, have a full report.
Tomorrow begins a very busy week. I can’t remember all of what I have to do, but it involves writing five sets of liner notes – no more procrastinating, I’m afraid – some other stuff I hope I remember, for I surely have not written it down, a rehearsal, and three shoot days, and then, of course, I have a big birthday this year.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, maybe do a jog if it isn’t drizzly, relax, do a video and sound check, and then do a show. 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 where I shall not feel twitchy and bitchy and manic.