Well, dear readers, it is late and I must write these here notes in a hurry so I can get some semblance of beauty sleep. There’s not a lot to write about anyway, not that that has ever stopped me before. No, I can write about nothing whatsoever with the best of them. This paragraph is testament to that in spades, don’t you think? This is, after all, a paragraph about there not being a lot to write about, and yet on and on this paragraph goes about absolutely nothing but the nothing there is to write about. This is known as the double nothing in Internet lingo and paragraph lingo. Did you know, for example, that lingo spelled backwards is ognil? Ognil is, of course, the word for the odds that I will ever be cast as the leprechaun in Finian’s Rainbow.
Finally, the second paragraph, which I can assure you will be about something, namely yesterday. Namely yesterday was a pleasant little nothing of a day. I was up at five-thirty in the morning, fell back asleep at seven-thirty and was up again at ten-thirty. I got up, did my morning ablutions, did a little bit of work on the computer, and read with some delight the delightfully delightful postings from you dear readers about our mighty anniversary. Mostly I was just lazy and sat on my couch like so much fish and I also sat in the Jacuzzi like so much fish, too.
I went to the Daily Grill for dinner. I had a wedge, I had their side of mac-and-cheese and I had a shrimp cocktail, all very good. Then I came home and once again sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Vertigo, from the Alfred Hitchcock box set. I’d only checked out the transfer before, so I wanted to actually watch the whole thing. I know Vertigo is not everyone’s cup of tea – it certainly was practically no one’s cup of tea when it came out in 1958. Despite the star power of Hitchcock, James Stewart and Kim Novack, audiences just weren’t having any of it. I saw it back then and while I can’t say I understood everything at ten years of age, I was mesmerized by the film, its style, and I was, of course, a big James Stewart and Hitchcock fan. I saw it several times, and caught it during its 1960s reissue and loved it without reservation then. By that time, the pundits were all over the film, declaring it a masterpiece. Where these pundits were when the film first came out is anyone’s guess. Then the film became impossible to see, due to the rights reverting back to Mr. Hitchcock. In the late 1970s through a complete fluke, I came into possession of a mint 35mm dye transfer Technicolor print, probably the best Tech print anywhere. We showed it several times and it was breathtaking. Eventually I sold it along with all my other 35mm prints, none of which I should ever have sold. Had I kept them, I would have made them available to studios as a reference for transfers.
Watching it again last night, I was reminded again just how brilliant it is, both visually and aurally. The sets are so beautiful and the location shooting is amazing (by Robert Burks) and Bernard Herrmann’s score is just one of the most perfect scores ever written. James Stewart’s performance is just proof of how great an actor he was – he is never afraid to go to the dark place with characters as neurotic and obsessed as Scotty Ferguson. The film was adapted from a French book by Boileau and Narcejac, who’d written the source material for Diabolique. It had a long gestation because getting a workable screenplay proved daunting. The first try called Darkling, I Listen, was a disaster, then came a series of drafts and finally what was shot. In the book, the big revelation happens in the last pages, a complete surprise. Hitchcock could have done that, but he chose a much more interesting way – he reveals everything twenty minutes before the end of the film, and then we, the audience, have information the lead character doesn’t have, and it becomes a much more interesting thing to watch because of that. The ending is one of the most nihilistic ever committed to film. The transfer is both glorious and extremely frustrating. 90% of it is gorgeous – breathtaking color, incredible detail. But the other 10% just isn’t good, and that includes the film’s final ten minutes or so, where everything is just a brown mess with no texture. From what I’ve been told, it was fixable, so maybe in the future they’ll get around to making it perfect. In the meantime, it looks great most of the time.
I then watched a motion picture on Netflix entitled Venus, starring Peter O’Toole. Part of me thinks I must have seen it back in 2006, but none of it seemed that familiar to me, so who knows? It’s about an old actor who becomes enamored of his friend’s niece’s daughter, a twenty-three year-old girl. It has very amusing things in it, as well as some very touching things and O’Toole and the girl are just great together. I really enjoyed it.
Today, I will begin getting ready for the trip to New York, New York on Thursday morning. I’ll make sure I have everything I need, I have to print out the two commentaries, send ahead Evan Harris’s Li’l Abner costume so it’s there when I arrive, and we have to keep plugging away relentlessly for our four shows to actually have audiences. I don’t really understand why this is such a struggle, but it is. Hopefully the New York cast members will be having people attend. At this point, I’d be happy if we had fifty people at each performance, but we’re not near that number yet and are really far from that number at the 9:00 shows. So, please start spreading the news to everyone in New York that you know. I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and I’ll book the transportation to the airport.
Tomorrow and Wednesday will be more of the same. I hope to see Teddy before I leave. The flight is very early Thursday morning and then that night I’m seeing Beautiful and supping, I’m sure, at Joe Allen. Friday is a crazy and hugely busy day, which begins at ten with rehearsals with everyone, each person scheduled for about thirty minutes. Then we have a short break and then we do two complete stumble-throughs back to back, I’ll give notes and we finish around seven, after which I’ll go see The Gentlemen’s Guide to Murder. Saturday I’ll relax during the day and then we sound check at four-thirty, then we have our 7:00 and 9:00 shows and I’m sure we’ll Joe Allen it after. Sunday it’s the same deal and then it’s home very early on Monday morning.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, get things organized and ready for the trip, eat, hopefully pick up packages, write one additional bit of patter for the holiday show, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite James Stewart and Kim Novack films? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to be done with the notes so I can get them posted and not have to write another paragraph about nothing whatsoever, or the double nothing.