Well, dear readers, there are rabbit holes and there are rabbit holes, and I went down the mother of all rabbit holes last night and tonight. All I can say is, holey moley on rye. But before I tell you about it – and these here notes will have a LOT of images so get ready, let me just say this: I have been shocked – shocked, I tell you – shocked by the realization just how many people I know, people in the show business, rich people, all kinds of people, who do not own a Blu and Ray player. I am flabbergasted by it. I’ve tried to give a few of my show business people the Tonight’s the Night Blu-ray and they all don’t have players. Most of the cast of Revenge don’t have players. I mean, we are in the year 2021 and Blu-ray has now been around for quite a long time. And I found it interesting that Hugo’s restaurant can be used as a barometer for how people are now once again living in fear – two weeks ago it was pretty crowded on a Saturday for breakfast. Today, it was pretty empty. Anyway, on to the rabbit hole, said rabbit hole being newspapers.com. I’ve looked up so much stuff there and it’s always so interesting. When movies actually opened, since the imdb is completely wrong about any movie opening date pre-1970. Sometimes they’re a week off, sometimes a month, sometimes more. And it sometimes takes a really long time to find when things DID open. Well, guess what? They have a search function and I never realized I could just type in the title of a film, the year, and the city, and it would pretty much give me a bunch of hits from when whatever film I’m looking up was playing. So, last night, and I don’t know why this never occurred to me after all this time, I searched – ME. My name, with no specific dates or city. And it was soooo interesting what came up. Stuff dating back to when I was in high school and participating in drama festivals. Reviews in the L.A. Times of some LACC shows, including How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. But of course, things really kick in starting in the 1970s and very early on. TV listings in the Times, where I’m listed with the cast – I never looked at the TV section of the newspaper – only the TV Guide – so I never knew these listings existed and boy were there a lot of them. I’ll tell you in advance that there was something like eighty-seven pages of stuff. Not all of it was me – there were several other folks in other cities with my name. But most of it was ME. A lot of ME. It made me actually think that I had some kind of decent career. Of course, as you’d expect, lots of The First Nudie Musical stuff.
I saw reviews I’ve never seen, and some of them were so bad that I actually laughed out loud reading them, because these critics seemed to take it personally that they had to sit through such an awful movie. And, of course, I was the culprit – hard to look elsewhere. They had one thing in common in that they were very mean-spirited and personal, which is what made them funny. But so many wonderful reviews and ads. For all of Paramount trying to kill the film, it played in a LOT of theaters in a LOT of cities during its original run in 1976. I think they were not keen on opening it here, but we threatened them, and they ultimately came through and actually had a sneak preview of the film the week before it opened in a lot of theaters, and I mean really good theaters like the Village in Westwood. I went to that one because I just wanted to sit there and see it in a theater where I’d spent so much of my childhood. The only two I stopped at were that one and a quick trip to the Vogue in Hollywood. They took reasonable ads in all the cities, too, but they didn’t make it available to reviewers, which is why some of the really bad reviews happened – they were angry to begin with about having to pay to see it, and they usually saw it at the first matinee showing with no people in the audience. And they go in with an attitude because they know Paramount is trying to sneak it in and sneak it out. But in most cities, that worked in our favor, because many critics felt they’d discovered it and gave us rave reviews. The subsequent release I don’t have a lot on because the New York Times isn’t on newspapers.com. But when it went wide in New York and environs, then stuff was there. And in all these years, it has never once occurred to me to question why they didn’t bring it back all around the country, because after it went wide on the East Coast and we were the fourth highest-grossing film in the United States of America, wouldn’t you think they would? At least to major cities? In any case, I used to print stuff out from the site, then scan it, then save it, but that was a big pain in the ASS. But last night, I discovered you can also save things as jpegs and even focus in on a specific part of a page. So, the following are things about Nudie Musical, including my favorite review by Joseph Gelmis in Newsday. It’s a rave, but he’s also critical of things that are understandable, but he does it in a very smart way. So, let’s start with that.
Here are two ads from the Times – the first for our opening night with celebrities in attendance, and the second when we were held over for a second week, before the head of Paramount distribution personally called Ted Mann of Mann Theaters and asked him as a favor to pull the film, which was doing really well and would have warranted a subsequent wide release that never happened. But that phone call, which I found out about, is what enabled us to get the film back and with a distributor who actually cared.
Here’s a review I’d never seen.
And another review I’d never seen.
Here’s a typical ad during the original release, this from San Francisco. I flew up there and visited several theaters, which all had the same issue – sound way too low. I had to talk to each projectionist about it.
Another ad, this from Philadelphia – we’re actually about the biggest ad on the page.
This one’s from Camden, New Jersey. Apparently, Blazing Saddles was having a reissue.
So, that’s the Nudie stuff. Here’s some other random items. First, a TV listing for my final episode of The Partridge Family. It’s unusual because listings usually just say the plot and mention the guest star, but his one actually says something very kind about me.
In 1979, I did what would be my last pilot. I had no idea that this ran in the L.A. Times when it aired.
Soon after we finished editing The First Nudie Musical, I got a guest shot on a new series, its first episode. It was Doctors Hospital, starring George Peppard. I’ve never seen this hilariously bad review. Doing this episode precluded me from being at the sound mix of Nudie Musical, because we went over schedule because one of the actors got sick. In fact, our director, Leo Penn, had to move on to another show and I can’t remember who ended up directing the stuff we still had to do.
Finally, here’s the first thing I’ve ever found for a Bluth Brothers show – High Spirits – a listing and an ad.
Wasn’t that fun? It was for me, but it’s why I only got two-and-a-half hours of sleep. Otherwise, I did manage to stay awake and watch The Night of the Hunter – a motion picture masterpiece from Criterion on Blu-ray. I have loved this film since the day I saw it, which was on TV in the late 1960s. I owned a 16mm print, I went to see it several times in various revival houses, and I was thrilled when Criterion got their hands on it. I think it was the first time it was ever in its proper ratio – well, almost – it’s 1.66 but should be 1.85, which was how it was shown. Everyone who’d first seen it on TV swore that full frame was right, but if you look at any frame of that film, you’ll see an outrageous amount of head room that’s just a joke and that no cinematographer in his right mind would do. The transfer looks great. I watched a little making of, which had some fun information, including producer Paul Gregory ragging on United Artists for not supporting the film and releasing it on the bottom half of a double bill with another Robert Mitchum picture called Not as a Stranger. That sounded totally peculiar to me and guess what? He’s completely wrong. Not as a Stranger had a nice, long exclusive run and then a wide run but not with The Night of the Hunter. Nope, Mr. Gregory, The Night of the Hunter was not only not the bottom half of a double bill, it opened exclusively in one theater, the Ritz on Wilshire Boulevard, where it played for over four weeks. THEN it expanded to four other theaters for a couple of weeks, after which it completely disappeared. It lost money, of course, but facts are facts and here’s the damn living proof of THAT. Note that Not as a Stranger was still playing exclusively at the Stanley Warner Beverly Hills.
I also watched the first half of a motion picture entitled Too Late Blues, directed by John Cassavetes, and starring Bobby Darin and Stella Stevens, with a great score by David Raksin (available on Kritzerland). In truth, it’s not so hot as a film, but the performances are good, and I like the way it’s shot. Now, what’s interesting about Too Late Blues is that Paramount had zero faith in it, and it DID open on the bottom half of a double bill – and, as you’ll see in this ad, they were making sure no one would notice.
Yesterday, I only got two-and-a-half hours of sleep. She of the Evil Eye arrived and I moseyed on over to Hugo’s, where I had a bacon and cheddar and scallion omelet, no toast, and a small side Caesar. It was all excellent, save for the croutons, which tasted stale to me. After that, I picked up an important envelope from the mail place, but NOT the one that was sent yesterday, as that mail hadn’t arrived yet. I’ll check today and hope it’s there. Then I came home, got about half the songs chosen for the Group Rep cabaret – maybe a bit more than half – so, that was a lot of work, but it was good to get it done. I dozed off for an hour or so, then watched the movies. After that, I listened to some music – Goddard Lieberson’s studio cast album of The Boys from Syracuse with Jack Cassidy, Portia Nelson, and Bibi Osterwald. Fun. Could use a fresh mastering, but I enjoyed it. And the rest you know.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll try to choose the rest of the songs, then I’ll be on my way to Robert Yacko’s new residence and we’ll go to the Catalina Bar and Grill to sup and see Miss Linda Purl, which I’m very much looking forward to. I will, of course, have a full report.
This week is very busy – shipping CDs, meetings and meals, prepping the Group Rep cabaret, finishing the casting of the Kritzerland anniversary show, and lots o’ other stuff.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, choose the rest of the songs, go to Robert Yacko’s new residence, sup, see a club act, and then watch, listen, and relax. 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, happy to not be in the rabbit hole, at least for now.