Well, dear readers, I went to a paper show. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I, BK, went to a paper show. No, it wasn’t a show with all kinds of stationary or typing paper, it was a collectible paper show. For example, a lot of it was postcards. There were postcards everywhere, of every kind of location, state and city. I don’t really collect postcards, although I do have some nice Hollywood, LA and POP postcards in my curio cabinet. There were a lot of magazines. Many many magazines. I don’t really collect magazines, although I do have almost a complete set of early MAD magazines as well as most issues from 50 to about 300. I do have a bunch of film magazines, and I have bound volumes of several years of the great Theatre Arts magazines as well as bound volumes of Video Watchdog, G-Fan, Scarlet Street and others. I attended with our very own Mr. Grant Geissman. We were surprised that there were very few people in attendance. I hadn’t intended to get anything and neither had he, but in the end we both got something. He got an original Dave Berg (from MAD) sketch, while I got two pretty amazing things. The first amazing thing was a huge Bradshaw Crandall pin-up thing with a calendar thing at the bottom. I’m a fan of Mr. Crandall but that’s not why I bought it – I bought it because of the calendar thing at the bottom. What are the odds of this: I walk into a paper show and see this thing and the calendar thing at the bottom just happens to be from December of 1947, which just happens to be my birth month and year (I was born on a Monday morning – who knew). So, I had to have that. Here are two photographs of it – first the top half and then the calendar thing.
The second amazing thing I got was a huge batch of one-page movie sections from the Hollywood Citizen News, obviously file copies from once a week. The first of them is from the end of 1961 and they run almost complete to the end of 1964. That, of course, was my most fertile movie going period, where I learned to not only love Hollywood movies but foreign films as well.
When I got them home, I organized them and it was like taking a time machine back to when I was mostly fourteen and fifteen. The very first page from the end of 1961 astonished me – playing at my local Picfair Theater was Pocketful of Miracles, which is exactly where I saw it. I do remember where I saw mostly everything and when, but there were a few surprises. West Side Story was still at the Chinese for many of the pages, the Egyptian was playing King of Kings and Mutiny on the Bounty, but something I never knew was that Spartacus ended up there after it played the Pantages. There was The Birds at the Picwood, and Irma La Douce at the Chinese and Love With the Proper Stranger at the Village. There were my first art films – Sundays and Cybele and The Trial at the Lido, the short run of Ladybug, Ladybug there, too. David and Lisa at the Fine Arts. Lord of the Flies also played there, but that wasn’t my memory at all, but that’s because I saw it at a sneak preview first at the Lido. So many great films in these pages, one after another. The classic Ride the High Country, which played as a second feature. The entire run of The Music Man at the Paramount, all thirteen weeks of it. And Gypsy at the Pantages and Dr. Strangelove at the Beverly and Lawrence of Arabia at the Stanley Warner Beverly Hills. Weird stuff I’ve never forgotten like Days of Thrills and Laughter at the Vogue and all the play dates of Sundays and Cybele, which I followed from theater to theater. But that’s not all – then there were the live theater adverts. I’d always assumed I’d seen a marvelous production of Charley’s Aunt at the Coronet starring Steve Franken in 1961 or thereabouts, but it was, in fact, in 1963, which really surprised me. The LA production of A Family Affair, which I saw, is there. And both premiere seasons of Valley Music Theatre and Melodyland, two of our theater in the rounds. And also the theater in the round at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium – Nanette Fabray in The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which I saw there. Virginia Woolf at the Biltmore as well as Oh Dad, Poor Dad at that same theater, both of which I saw. In fact, there’s also an ad for the original tour of Molly Brown at the Biltmore – my very first Broadway musical tour. At the Hartford, wonderful ads for Stop the World and Beyond the Fringe, both of which I saw there. And Under the Yum Yum Tree with Del Moore and Bill Bixby at the Ivar, which I saw, and three Billy Barnes revues, all of which I saw. Birdman of Alcatraz and To Kill a Mockingbird at the Wilshire, The Prize at the Stanley Warner Beverly Hills (that surprised me until I remembered I saw it at a sneak preview at the Paramount in Hollywood) – and that was only a quick perusal. I’ll scan some of them soon and put them in the notes.
After the paper show, I gave Grant his very first Dino’s Pizza experience and he absolutely loved it. Otherwise, once I was back home that’s where I stayed. I was really tired for most of the day, so I basically sat on my couch like so much fish until about nine o’clock, watching motion pictures and occasionally dozing off.
Yesterday, I watched a motion picture entitled The Killer Elite, directed by Sam Peckinpah, starring James Caan and Robert Duvall, along with Bo Hopkins, Gig Young and Arthur Hill. It’s kind of an incoherent mess of a movie, with lots of obvious and not so hot improving by the actors. Even the Peckinpah set pieces seem old in this, especially at the end, where the editing is so peculiar you don’t really ever get involved the way you should. But, anything by Mr. Peckinpah is worth a view and the transfer is terrific, with excellent color and contrast, and the score by Peckinpah regular Jerry Fielding is quite good. Although I haven’t watched it yet, this disc is great value for money as it includes the very rare Peckinpah ABC Stage 67 film, Noon Wine.
After that, I watched a motion picture musical comedy entitled The Gang’s All Here, on a region B Blu-ray from the United Kingdom. I’ve seen a few of the Fox musicals, but I hadn’t seen this one save for a couple of the numbers, even though I owned it on DVD. It’s a crazy, dizzy, surreal and kind of wildly entertaining movie – I’m sure Salvador Dali must have loved it. Busby Berkeley must have been certifiably insane. His direction and numbers are so wacky, with the giant bananas and glowing halo rings and long takes, but it’s exhilarating to watch. I’m fascinated by Carmen Miranda and she’s pretty terrific in this, as is Alice Faye, who manages to be real and touching, no mean feat with what’s going on around her. Edward Everett Horton is really funny and Charlotte Greenwood, who I really only know as Aunt Eller, is brilliant, especially in a dance routine where she does some incredibly high kicking. And there’s an anonymous chorus girl who does some gymnastic dancing that is absolutely jaw dropping. All that and Benny Goodman singing and playing his clarinet. The transfer is kind of spectacular, color-wise, that vivid, garish Technicolor of our dreams. If you have a multi-region player I cannot recommend this highly enough.
After that, I played with the order of the Sandy CD. I wasn’t quite happy with my first attempt at the first third of the album, and tried it four or five different ways, finally coming up with something that seemed fine, although I’ll now take a day off and then hear it in that new configuration and see if I still like it.
Today, I will hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep, which I really need. Once up, I may try a jog (or I’ll try to do one in the early evening), I’ll eat something light to tide me over, and then we have our first Kritzerland rehearsal, which I’m looking forward to.
Tomorrow, if I can only remember who, I think I’m supposed to be having a lunch meeting – hopefully whoever it is will remind me. Then we’re taping a radio show for And the World Goes Round with our very own Donald Feltham. Wednesday I definitely have a lunch meeting (that one I wrote down), Thursday is our second Kritzerland rehearsal, Saturday is our stumble-through, and Sunday is sound check and show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, eat, have a rehearsal, write more liner notes, and perhaps sup with some of our cast after rehearsal. Today’s topic of discussion: If you could have a find like I had with those newspaper movie sections, what three years would you like it to cover? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have taken a little time machine back into my movie past.