Well, dear readers, it was bound to happen. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, it was bound to happen – the folly of the horrid Black Friday now begins on Beige Thursday. Insane people line up and storm certain stores on Thursday evening now. Apparently it has made the Friday insanity a little more tolerable, but let me tell you that I have never partaken in the insanity and never will. I understand that some people live for Black Friday, but I would rather have someone put raspberries up my nose than go anywhere near such shenanigans. And so I spent Black Friday sleeping late (got nine hours of sleep), and then relaxing and doing absolutely nothing other than printing the odd invoice that came in. I will say that The Day the Earth Stood Still would be sold out if we’d just done the 1000, and it’s already in the top five best sellers on the Kritzerland site itself.
I had a Cobb salad and some tap tap tapioca pudding for my meal o’ the day. I decided early on not to do the long drive and attend another Thanksgiving feast – I just am not comfortable with parties where I only know one person. After lunch, I picked up a few packages and then came home.
I did have a couple of telephonic conversations, and then I rewrote a lyric for Be a Santa – when Michelle Nicastro and I recorded it, Lanny Meyers wrote the fast patter lyric for me to sing in counterpoint, and each time we’ve done the song for our holiday show, Dan Callaway has done that part. But for this show we’re having Sami and Brennley Brown do it, and the fast lyric is just too male-centric to work for Sami, so I completely changed it and it should work fine now. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched two motion pictures on those MOD DVD-R things. The first motion picture was entitled The Great Impostor, a 1961 film starring Tony Curtis and directed by Robert Mulligan. I saw it on its opening day at the Wiltern Theater and fell in love with it, seeing it several more times during its first run engagement and several times when it hit the neighborhood theaters. It’s never had a proper DVD release, and finally Universal is now taking part on the made on demand DVD market. All the studios are doing it now because it usually means they can just slap any old piece of trash ancient transfer onto a disc and charge a good price for it and people don’t seem to care. It’s not that this transfer isn’t decent, it is, but it’s full frame and it looks horrible like that, with huge head room in every shot. What a pity. But in the end, I still love this movie so much. I bought the movie tie-in paperback the same day I saw it. I could quote you lines and bits from the movie all day long because they just stayed with me. Watching it again, it has lost not one ounce of its magic. The screenplay works wonderfully and the direction by Robert Mulligan (pre To Kill a Mockingbird) is perfect. He really walks the tightrope between comic sequences and heavily dramatic sequences and in that regard he is abetted mightily with one of Henry Mancini’s best scores. It’s Tony Curtis’s show all the way – I don’t think he’s ever off the screen for more than a minute. It’s one of his best performances and he, too, walks the tightrope between comedy and serious perfectly. But it’s the supporting cast that boggles the mind, filled with one great character actor after another. Character actors are basically a thing of the past – such people simply do not exist today in the way they did then. Today everyone looks, acts and sounds the same. But in this film you get Karl Malden, Raymond Massey, Arthur O’Connell, Edmund O’Brien, Gary Merrill, Robert Middleton, Larry Gates, Jeanette Nolan, Doodles Weaver, Philip Ahn, Jerry Paris, Harry Carey, Jr., David White and more, each and every one turning in stellar and unique work. And wonderful turns by Mike Kellin, Joan Blackman, Sue Ane Langdon, Dick Sargent and Frank Gorshin. Despite the stupid full frame problem, I cannot recommend this highly enough.
Then I watched the 1935 film Dante’s Inferno, starring Spencer Tracy and Claire Trevor. I first watched Dante’s Inferno on our little black-and-white television in the mid-1950s. It was on quite often back then and I never missed it. I was kind of obsessed with it, which was odd for an six or seven year old. I was intrigued by the long sequence in hell (a sequence that was talked about in Arthur Knight’s book The Movies, which I was given one year and which I was also obsessed with) – it was quite something, what with its nudity (uncensored even on TV), mostly male behinds, and weird imagery (the director, Henry Lachman, was also a painter and modeled the sequence after Gustave Dore). But I also liked the story of a brash young man stepping on people and lying and cheating to get what he wants, so much so that his wife finally leaves him. He finally gets what he deserves and learns his lesson. I used to think the film was really long, but it must have been the commercial breaks – it runs just under ninety minutes. Now, I have not seen the film since – I don’t think it ever had a home video release, and other than maybe seeing a clip or two somewhere, it has just eluded me. So, I can only tell you that watching it some almost sixty years later, I could tell you in advance every scene that was coming up. As it played out, there was not a single moment I didn’t remember from all those years ago. It was pretty amazing. And the hell scene was just as wacky and weird as ever. Tracy, who hated the film, is very good, and Claire Trevor is just wonderful in it. If you’ve a taste for older films and like something off the beaten path, I would really recommend getting this. The transfer is okay for a 1935 film – contrast is really good and while it’s an older transfer, it gets the job done.
After that, I went to Gelson’s and got a little thing of crab bisque and a tiny thing of stuffing (they have really good stuffing, and they have it every day of the year) for my snack. I came home and ate it all up, then the helper, who’s now back in town, came by and picked up invoices – she has quite a bit to ship tomorrow, including something that should have gone out a week ago. Then I just relaxed away the rest of the evening.
Today, I’ll be up by eight forty-five, for she of the Evil Eye will be here. I really am going to do some sort of jog, and then I’ll have an early lunch after. I’ll hopefully pick up some packages and then it’s just more relaxing, and looking over the commentary for the holiday show.
Tomorrow is more of the same, then Monday it’s back to a really busy week. We have our Kritzerland rehearsals on Monday and Thursday evenings, I have several meetings and meals, and then we have our stumble-through on Saturday and our sound check and show on Sunday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, eat, hopefully pick up packages and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films of Tony Curtis and Spencer Tracy? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have not taken part in Beige Thursday or Black Friday.