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[bk]

My question for ASKBK day - when you are/were rehearsing a show such as HAPPY DAYS if you come up with a funny line were you able to use it, or a funny bit of business, did the director/producer/writers encourage such things, or were you tied to the script?  I know during film, you wouldn't want to do such a thing - but during read thrus or rehearsals....and if so...what is the funniest "bit" you added to a show that we should look for?

My second question.....when you were working with her, did Miss Dinah Shore realize that she couldn't sing anymore?  And what happened to her voice?

I did Happy Days in its first or second season, just prior to them filming the show in front of an audience.  So, with that show there was no rehearsal at all, except maybe a quick go-through for blocking just before you shot.  That said, in the poker-playing episode I was given great freedom to come up with things, which I did constantly.  Stuff with the dog, kicking one of the compatriots under the table repeatedly - it was a great atmosphere.  Other shows weren't quite like that.  And on Laverne and Shirley it was total freedom and the girls and the rest of the cast (including the guests) always came up with stuff.  I can't remember specific things usually, but a lot of the blocking that was comedic was strictly Cindy and I on L&S.

I can't remember if Dinah actually ever sang on our show - I think she did, but with the rest of us.  At that point she simply couldn't stay on pitch.

[bk]

Question for BK and all others: You're at a hamburger joint, where all the fixings you could want on your hamburger have been laid out, buffet style.  What do you put on your burger.

My favorite way to dress a plain burger is with American or cheddar cheese, bacon, onion, and thousand island dressing.  If none of the latter is available, I'm fine with ketchup.

[bk]

Second question:

What films are you looking forward to seeing in the next couple of months?

The only film that is a must-see on my list, right now, is The Incredibles.

Jay now has my interest piqued about the Annette Bening thing, so I might see that.  I enjoy Pixar so I'll probably give The Incredibles a chance, and I'll probably see POTO.  Other than those, I really have no clew as to what is coming out.  The good news is that in November all screenings, whether private or regular ones in theaters will be free to DGA members (and our WGA members on this here site).

[bk]

BK Question:  What is the absolutely worst book (fiction or non) you've read, beginning to end?

I tend to stop if a book is really bad, but when I was in my real mystery phase, reading every book that came out, there was one in paticular, published by a major publisher, and which had excellent blurbs on the back (it was a first mystery for a new character that would continue) and which had a nice cover.  I read this thing and I could not believe how ineptly it was written or plotted.  The author showed no aptitude for writing whatsoever and it just limped its way to its conclusion which you could see coming from page ten.  I'd tell you what it was but I've wiped the author's name and the title of the book from my memory.  It did produce one more adventure for the detective, but that was it.  I still have it but it's in a box in the garage.

[Jrand73]

Thanks DRJAY for the ticket info.  Yes, they charge you another $2.50 for the privilege of using YOUR printer, I just didn't know if I needed special paper or anything.  And I haven't QUITE decided if I will do it.

[bk]

Dear Friend BK, I been thinking about this question since yesterday:  what do you consider the best adaptations of a book to stage or film?  Can you think of any improvement from book to film or stage?

I've said it before - to me the answer is simple: Rosemary's Baby is the single best book-to-film adaptation ever.  Why?  Because it IS the book - Mr. Polanski, whose first American film it was, and who was the adaptor, believed he couldn't change anything, including the dialogue.  So, basically every line of dialogue is from the book, and even the clothing descriptions are from the book, and even little Polanski-like things like the guy drilling a hole in a door when Guy and Rosemary first see the apartment at the Bramford are from the book.  Ira Levin told me that story, about Polanski thinking he couldn't change anything.  And the only character who really doesn't look like what Levin described is Minnie Castevet, the Ruth Gordon character.  

To Kill a Mockingbird is a wonderful adaptation, too.  And, of course, whoever is smart enough to bring Benjamin Kritzer to the screen will do a marvelous job.

[William E. Lurie]

I'm correcting myself.  This was a leap year, so the first year of the revised HHW is Friday, not tomorrow.

The original Japanese SHALL WE DANCE was a wonderful film.  I hardly think it can be topped by an American remake.  It has had no many "advance preview" showings --- at least in NYC --- that I'm sure much of its potential audience had seen it before the "official" opening.

[bk]

You see, sometimes you just block out what you don't want to talk about.  I had a big note here that today was October 20th, which, if memory serves, was Black Saturday three years ago - the day in which I learned how awful human beings could be.  But, that event led to this site being born, so from every evil thing is born good.  Does anyone have our early November premiere date?  We will definitely need to celebrate majorly.  Three years ago (on a Saturday), the world came crashing down.  Or so I thought.  That little bit of business, in one way or another, impacted my life until just recently.  Karma has worked its wonders and hopefully will continue to work its wonders on those who perpetrated the awfulness that was caused to a completely innocent victim.  No one should get away with that stuff.  And one of the parties responsible seems to have caused more problems for the main folks than they perceived I ever did (of course, I caused NO problems - I created a wonderful thing that could have lived and prospered had it been given a chance  - that wonderful thing I created has been copied by two other labels who simply "borrowed" our role model completely, and who both seem to be surviving just fine).  But out of that misery was born three Kritzer books, and writing those was the most fulfilling thing I've ever done - they got me through, as did this here site.  Here's to many more years right here at haineshisway.com.  And to the ones that caused the problems - skammen.  I know they'll probably be reading this and if they are, well, wouldn't you think that if someone was trying to sell its assets (whatever they may be) that they'd go to the one person who'd have reason to want to try to buy them and could probably get the money to do so?  Wouldn't you think, at some point, that the unbridled ego could be checked for a few minutes?  I would have thought so, but that's just me.

[bk]

For us, onwards and upwards.  For people who cause grief: backwards and downwards.

[Charles Pogue]

Burger, cheese (optional), Ketchup, and a thick slice of bermuda onion.

Worst book read all the way through: there was a series of unauthorized Tarzan books that came out during the mid-sixties written by a writing team under the pseudonym Barton Werper.  They were terribly-written, sloppy books full of gaffes and bad prose, written to captalize on the mistaken notion that the books had fallen into public domain.  But only a couple of the 25-6 books had and the name Tarzan was trademarked.  Burroughs, Inc. shut them down after they had published five of these and all copies were destroyed.  So ironically these books have become valuable collectors items in the Burroughs' fan world.  The fifth one got particularly poor distribution and is extremely valuable.  I've got it!  They were 40 cent paperbacks; I seen them go as high as fifty-sixty dollars. No fan reads them,but they avidly collect them.  I read about two before I quit.

Best film adaptation of a book.  As much as I love  Rafael Sabatini's work, I think the Stewart Granger SCARAMOUCHE movie is actually one of those rare times the movie may be better than book...simply because they keep him in the theatre longer.  I have a poster of this movie signed by the recently deceased Janet Leigh.

[Panni]

Will catch up on the posts later. Off to a story meeting.

[Panni]

Just took a quick glance at bk's note. Life goes on. And you're still here (a Follies reference - sort of). Better than ever. Hooray! From now on you should think of this as WHITE WEDNESDAY.

[George]

I am looking forward to the POTO movie as well.  You can view the preview trailer online on the official site by going to IMDB and searching the title.  There is a link.  As DRJAY said, it is difficult to tell about anything from the fast cutting of the trailer - but it does look lavish.  I am only concerned about Miss Minnie Driver as Carlotta....oh well....

I am too and the fact that the girl playing Christine just turned 18 and Patrick Wilson (Raoul) is now 31!  Their "backstory" doesn't seem likely if they're that far apart in age!

[bk]

Whilst it is still very gray out, it is not actually raining right now.

[Emily]

I don't really like beefy burgers (something about looking at raw ground beef always makes me go ill... and this translates into not liking the stuff cooked either).  When I do eat them it's always with lettuce, salsa and mayonnaise and sometimes, but not always, some GRATED cheddar cheese.  Kraft singles make everything they touch gross.

Chickeny burgers on the other hand = yum.  I like them fast-food style (one very puny slice of lettuce, tomato and some mayonnaise on a sesame bun).

I also like veggie/soy burgers...  

[bk]

Emily and George are the only two people here.  What are we, Our Town all of a sudden?

[Emily]

I watched the PBS broadway thing.

I loved it but my parents and younger sister - all of whom stuck with it for a good amount of time - eventually gave up.  They all complained that it seemed more like "Intro. to Early 20th Century History" (which they claim to be aware of to a good degree) and less like "Intro. to Early 20th Century Musical Theatre".  In other words, more musicals and less "at the same time this or that was going on".

Meh... I enjoyed it all the same - and especially the stuff on Fanny Brice (who I know very little about!)

[Emily]

Emily and George are the only two people here.  What are we, Our Town all of a sudden?

My, isn't the moonlight terrible?

[Jrand73]

DREMILY I was just about to say the same thing!!!

[Jrand73]

Well said MR BK.  Who would have thought when I was listening to all those CD's, that someday I would be a member of a website with PERSONAL contact with the producer of said CD's?

Yes it is wonderful.  

[Ron Pulliam]

My, isn't the moonlight terrible?

Sorry!

Is this plum too ripe?  (ooh-ooh, a "Fantasticks" reference)

[DearReaderLaura]

In anticipation of the coming rain, I planted some wildflower seeds this morning.

[Ron Pulliam]

The fifth one got particularly poor distribution and is extremely valuable.  I've got it!  They were 40 cent paperbacks; I seen them go as high as fifty-sixty dollars. No fan reads them,but they avidly collect them.  I read about two before I quit.

In the "soundtrack collecting world," the holy grail is the soundtrack to "The Caine Mutiny".  It was pressed by RCA and ready for distribution when Herman Wouk threw a major hissy fit because the bulk of the album was dialogue excerpts from the film, and those excerpts violated the contract Wouk had with Warner Brothers.

The album never saw the light of day, commercially, but as many as 10 copies are alleged/believed to have been secreted out of the plant that pressed them.

Last time I saw anything on the value of one copy, it was at $10,000.  

Some enterprising soul invested in a copy 15 or 20 years ago when the going price was $2,000 or so, and then paid to replicate the album, including the color jacket.  Those originally sold for about $100 each, but now one of them can fetch several hundreds of dollars.

For soundtrack music "lovers," this album is a curiousity but not much more.  Max Steiner's original score wasn't one of his better ones.  It will likely be released in its entirety, sans dialogue, by the Brigham Young Library which is the repository for all Steiner papers, recordings, memorabilia.

[elmore3003]

I am too and the fact that the girl playing Christine just turned 18 and Patrick Wilson (Raoul) is now 31!  Their "backstory" doesn't seem likely if they're that far apart in age!

But, DRGeorge, don't you think Patrick Wilson looks about 18 as well?

[George]

But, DRGeorge, don't you think Patrick Wilson looks about 18 as well?

Well, yes, he does. BUT is Raoul supposed to be that young as well?  I don't think so.  And I don't think that the Christine is supposed to be much older than she really is.  From the tiny clips that I've seen, she doesn't look any older than that.

[George]

In anticipation of the coming rain, I planted some wildflower seeds this morning.

Soon it's gonna rain, I can feel it...

[bk]

The rain fell, and that abated.  I may try to go out and do some things before it starts up again.  Someone on another board (the filmscoremonthy board) was bashing Mr. Goddard Lieberson, based on his "bothching" of the cast album of Camelot.  He basically condemned Mr. Lieberson's entire career based on this and a couple of other perceived "botches".  I took this guy on and people think I'm a meanie, but I resent when some doofus trashes a guy's entire career and body of work based on a few albums and something he read in Ken Mandelbaum's book.  The fact was that Mr. Lieberson was a pioneer and a visionary, and while one may not agree with all the decisions he made, he was the producer of those albums and the fact is the majority of them sound brilliant, and would not exist if it weren't for him.  I mean, this is the man who recorded The Most Happy Fella in its entirety at a time when that was unheard of.  This is the man who recorded Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and other plays when no major label had done so for years and years.  This is a man who, with limited technology, made some of the best-sounding albums ever.  I've heard many recordings of Gypsy, many of which are much more complete than Mr. Lieberson's, but I can tell you that none of them, despite all the technology in the world, are a patch on the butt cheeks of the OBC, which may just be the best-sounding cast album ever recorded.  And then you add Bells Are Ringing, Li'l Abner, Bye Bye Birdie, Anyone Can Whistle (a score we've all come to know and love because Mr. Lieberson had the guts and the chutzpah to record what he knew was going to be a huge flop), and all those other marvelous albums he did and that, to my mind, adds up to a career that will never be equalled.  All I ever tried to do in producing cast albums was to "recreate" that brilliant sound using today's technology.  So, because Mr. Lieberson happened to leave off about ninety seconds of material that this guy wishes were on the album, he "botched" it.  Those "bits" were apparently on the original London album with Mr. Laurence Harvey.  My point was and is, it was a different time, and LPs could only be so long because of the technology of cutting them - forty-five minutes was pretty much it.  Camelot, the OBC runs forty-six.  The London album runs around the same.  So, what do we have?  In order to put the bits that this guy likes on the London album, they had to leave off other "bits".  So, I told him there's probably some guy in England complaining about the bits the London album left off that are on the OBC.  This kind of nitpicky stuff never ends with these Internet guys.  They can't shut up about it and they are amongst the most hard-headed people ever put on earth.  They turn it all around and the posting volleys become instead about me "attacking" such a nice poster.  Uh uh.  Sorry.  To him I'm a "condescending know-it-all".  Sorry.  Not condescending, and I'm only a know-it-all when I actually know things and have expertise in them.  

[elmore3003]

Well, yes, he does. BUT is Raoul supposed to be that young as well?  I don't think so.  And I don't think that the Christine is supposed to be much older than she really is.  From the tiny clips that I've seen, she doesn't look any older than that.

Well, the Lloyd Webber POTO is closer to the Leroux novel than any version since Lon Chaney's, but Christine in the novel isn't a ballet rat as she is in POTO; a stupid idea since most of the ballet girls in the 19th Century Paris Opera were aiming more to become prima ballerinas and mistresses of the rich Jockey Club members than learning vocal technique.  I suspect that Christine became a ballet girl to justify the presence ofMme Giry and the ballet rats, who are quite prominent in the novel, because I'd guess a lot of the audience seeing POTO didn't know a thing about French opera and the Paris Opera convention about a ballet being in every production.

It's clear in the novel that Christine and Raoul had an adolescent infatuation.  He ran into the ocean to retrieve a scarf for her, so there is some proximity in age in the book.

[Matt H.]

I have spent a lovely part of the afternoon watching the DVD of MY FAVORITE YEAR. Hadn't watched it in years and now won't have to take out another laserdisc ever again since the DVD is sharper and more colorful than the laser ever thought about being. What a charming film!

[MBarnum]

Hmmm...I will try this again.

My BK question is: As you are a fan of Ms. Astrud Gilberto, what are your favorite songs that she sings? I love her signature number THE  GIRL FROM IPANEMA, and I really love WHEN THE CRICKETS SING.