Well, dear readers, it is late and therefore I must write these here notes in a hurry, because I’ve got a date with Mr. Sandman, who will hopefully bring me a dream with peaches and cream and not a dream that will make me scream. So, here are some notes for your mental delectation. I was hoping to sleep in a bit but was up at nine-thirty after about seven hours of sleep. I stayed in bed for a while and then got up. The helpers (the interim and new helpers) came by and we caught up on invoices and other matters. Then I walked to the bank, where I did some banking, which is what I enjoy doing when I’m at the bank. Then I walked home. The past few days have been like summer.
Once home, I went over the commentary for tonight’s bash, made some fixes, and I believe it’s good to go. I’ll look at it one more time before printing it out. I ran the little number I’m doing – I’m actually whistling something. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched Around the World in Eighty Days on the Flix of Net. Yes, I have the DVD but the Flix of Net has the film in better quality in terms of sharpness – same transfer and all, but probably higher resolution than the DVD. It’s such a weird film, almost like a Cinerama travelogue with some story thrown in here and there. I would love to put this film in front of “now” screenwriters and say, tell me how all your rules apply to this film. No character has an arc, none really have backstories, nobody changes one whit, and one character has a singular goal that is money oriented. This is one I would love to have seen during its original run in real ToddAO at the Carthay Circle Theater. That must have been something else. I did see it the year after it played roadshow at my beloved Stadium Theater, but that was 35mm. I recall enjoying it back then, and thought Cantinflas was a hoot. These days it’s a bit of a slog to sit through. I enjoy the scenery but three hours of it is an hour too much. And talk about a film that would be so easy to shorten – you wouldn’t miss anything. Every scene goes on too long, shots hang forever, you could lose two or three minutes off of every travelogue scene and you certainly could lose the Edward R. Murrow introduction without harming a thing. I could take at least forty minutes out without the blink of an eye. But people wouldn’t stand for it – they need every frame.
The cast certainly is fun, but the script is simply not funny and the whole thing is directed with a heavy hand. The absolute best thing about it is the score by Victor Young, which is brilliant. The obstacles they put in front of David Niven grow more tiresome with each new scene and by the end I just started yelling at the TV, “Get on with it already!” The end credits by Saul Bass are swell. I have no doubt that the three-hour running time was what Michael Todd wanted – I’m sure he told them specifically that it had to be EPIC in length. The film won the Oscar for best editing, which is fairly hilarious. The editor was Gene Ruggiero, who, twenty years later, would be hired by the producer of The First Nudie Musical to edit our film. Yes, we had an Oscar-winning editor. However, at the time he was sixty-five and acted like he was eighty-five, and he simply did not understand the humor of the film. His first assemblage was two-and-half hours long and excruciating. Now, I will be the first to admit that I didn’t understand what an assemblage was, so that’s totally my fault and I’m sure he would have found the rhythm of the film as he fine cut it. But I was too green to know that, so he was let go and I ended up cutting the movie with his assistant, Jack Peluso. And I’m happy that happened because working on that aspect of the film was a master class in filmmaking – I learned everything – timing, rhythm, what shots we should have gotten but didn’t, and how to cut comedy.
There are several things in Around the World that our darling PC people would really rail against, but that’s today for you. Anyway, it’s worth it for the score alone and simply because they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
Then I relaxed for a bit, then moseyed on over to North Hollywood around six-thirty to get a good parking space, which I did. I then walked to a little Eyetalian jernt called Spumonte, where, to tide me over until after the show, I had a little Caesar salad and a shrimp cocktail, both very good and not too many calories. Then I walked over to the theater and saw a play entitled The Balcony Scene.
Cindy Dellinger was very good in it – the best I’ve seen her do in her little theater group’s shows. The play is a three-hander and I didn’t love it, as its tone is never really certain. It was in one act and ran a bit under ninety minutes, my kind of show.
Then we all convened at Little Toni’s for a meal. I had their chopped salad, which is huge – I didn’t eat all of it, though. So, my food intake for the day was basically all salad. I had one tiny piece of bread, too. At one point, I went to the bathroom. There were four yahoos sitting at the bar, noisily scarfing down a pepperoni pizza. Nothing odd there other than they were pigs. No, the odd part is there were drenching the pepperoni pizza in ranch dressing. I mean that’s sub-human. Then I came home.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep. Then I’ll do a jog but mostly I’ll relax until three, at which point I shall be on my way to the locale of the birthday bash. By the time I arrive, the mics and sound should all be set up and ready for me to hear. Then the singers will get there at 3:45 and we’ll run stuff and sound check. At five the guests arrive, hang out, then at six food is served (I won’t really eat anything until after the show, presuming anything is actually left). We’ll begin the show around seven and it hopefully will run under an hour.
This week is meetings and meals almost every day, then I’m attending a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and I’ve just been invited to a post-Thanksgiving partay the day after and I’ll probably go to that.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, relax, attend a birthday bash, and host the birthday concert. I will, of course, have a full report. 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 Mr. Sandman will bring me a dream filled with peaches and cream, but not heavy cream.