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[Charles Pogue]

Regards the SLEUTH remake with Michael Caine and Jude Law, I agree with Woody.  The movie is ancient history to many now (older than, say, Casablanca and Citizen Kane were when I was in college) and unless the younger audience is a fan of mysteries or old movies, the reveal will not necessarily be known.  

Also the film, while wonderful in all aspects, follows the play very closely (in fact, it is almost a filmed play...the opening up is quite minimal...most, if not all, of the text stays intact).  And several actors made their mark in the play before Olivier and Caine essayed the roles.  Anthony Quayle and Keith Baxter were a huge hit in it on Broadway.  I saw George Rose acquit himself quite memorably in the older role on tour.

Unlike Alfie or Psycho, one-off films, even though I know the story, I'd go see the Caine and Law do this, because I think they'd both be great in the respective roles.  What I'd object to is if they attempted to substantially try to change the play or Anthony Shaffer's wonderful dialogue.

Remake of Psycho failed because it was an iconic film and merely repeated each scene shot-for-shot.  The recent Alfie failed because times have changed and they apparently made the mistake of trying to make Alfie too likeable and not the cad he is in the original film.

[DERBRUCER]

In fact, the only piece I can think of referred to a "Largo" in its orchestra guise is Handel's aria "Ombra mai fu" from XERXES.

How 'bout Dvorak's New World, Second Movement

der Brucer

[François de Paris]

Oh well! Let's them make all those stupid (to me!) remakes! We don't have to go and see them do we?! We're not the "young generation" anymore and that "young generation" has to have "their" version with "their actors" (Wonder why they still use Mr Caine! He's old! I guess he's "bankable"! Ah!)

They even do PREquels and SEquels to "old" movies! So why not!
We have to live with our times! And we do know that "our times" provide so much imagination in all forms!
Anyway, we still can get those "old" masterpieces at our supermarkets, along with the carrots and the food for the pets or.... the National Inquirer... (though not here, but we publish the same crap, do not worry!)
Ah, modern times.... and I am not talking (Talking!)about that vintage black and white film, bien sûr! BLACK & WHITE? Pooh!
Could I be "complaining"?!

[MusicGuy]

Dear Esteemed BK --

I just wanted to pop in for a minute and say good night to you and the assorted H/Ks that might be around.  I hope all is well in the Living Room, and that casting continues to go well.

May your latke never droop!

And by the way, I think you made a hell of a classy looking WAC !!

[DERBRUCER]

I'm just a lonely boy, lonely and blue
I'm all alone with nothin' to do
I've got nothing, not even the host
But all I want is someone to post

der Brucer

[François de Paris]

I'm just a lonely boy, lonely and blue
I'm all alone with nothin' to do
I've got nothing, not even the host
But all I want is someone to post

der Brucer

Go to the Post Office; it's usually full of people who want to post!

[François de Paris]

http://www.laughingplace.com/News-ID510700.asp

Friday May 12 will certainly go down as one of the most surreal days in the life of this writer. The morning began with a picturesque drive into Westchester County, NY to visit with an eight time Oscar winner (who has also received ten Grammys and seven Golden Globes) and concluded with a white knuckle race back into the City to the Peninsula to meet with a “drummer who can sing a bit” (in his own humble words) who has sold over 100 million records worldwide (and also happens to have eight Grammys and an Oscar).

There is an old London adage that you wait ages for a bus and then two come along at once. Over the past two years of writing for Tales I have not had an opportunity to interview an Oscar winner and therefore jumped at the chance to hear Alan Menken’s new music and interview the Disney Legend in his rural studio. I scheduled the interview for Friday morning at the end of what I knew was to be a very long week covering the new Tarzan musical in New York City.

On arrival in the city at the start of the week I was amazed that Phil Collins wanted to meet as he had enjoyed the Tom Schumacher interview in the spring issue of Tales. The discussion was initially scheduled for Thursday afternoon but was later bumped to Friday. My heart sank when this news was passed to me as thoughts began to race in my head as to whether I could get back to Midtown in time. To cut a long story short I was on schedule as I attempted to travel cross-town. Big mistake. A block every five minutes was going to make me late and I couldn’t risk that. Just ahead I saw an empty parking space perfectly bathed in bright sunlight like a beacon. Instinctively I pulled into the slot, grabbed some change, pumped the meter and ran five blocks to the hotel. By hook and by crook I had made it with literally seconds to spare. I tried to catch my breath as I ascended to the Presidential suite where Phil was wrapping up a television documentary interview in his spacious home-from-home.

Phil’s association with Disney pre-dates Tarzan by several years. “Chris Montan [Walt Disney Records boss] called me in about ’92 to ask if I would record a version of If I Can’t Love Her which was a new Beauty and the Beast song for the Broadway musical,” Phil reveals. “I agreed and Chris sent me a rough demo and the music. I listened to the music but there were so many chord changes and as I don’t read music I took the ones that I understood to help record a skeleton demo. I recorded the song as a moody In the Air Tonight sample and was pretty happy with it but when Chris heard it he called and said “You’ve cut all the good material out!” I told him that I couldn’t read that stuff! Ultimately the project never happened as my record company intervened for the first time in my career because they sensed Disney would be a soft move for me. It really annoyed me.”

Just two years later Chris Montan called again with a more substantial offer. Phil had grown up with Disney in his house due to his two siblings. “My sister was an ice skater in Wembley on Ice shows like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Phil recalls. “In fact we even had Kenny Baker [R2D2 in the Star Wars movies] staying with us for a while as he was playing Dopey in the same show. Also my older brother was a cartoonist and his idols were the legendary Disney animators like Marc Davis, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. I remember having posters of the classic Disney movies up in our bedrooms. However it felt strange to be asked to become a member of a club that you would never have thought possible as you know the importance of the music in Disney animated movies.”

At that time Phil had just come off of touring his Both Sides Now album for fourteen months, a marriage break-up and the move to Switzerland. The creative team of Tom Schumacher, Bonnie Arnold, Kevin Lima, Chris Buck and Chris Montan flew to Geneva to convince Phil to accept the Tarzan project. “My concern was that I couldn’t be Alan Menken or Howard Ashman. I didn’t think I had it in me to write comedy stuff,” Phil admits. “I also didn’t feel I was orchestral enough for Disney. However they told me that they didn’t want that otherwise they would have approached their usual musicians and lyricists. Tom said ‘We want you to be you’. I still wasn’t convinced that I could pull it off so Tom suggested this young new writer called David Zippel [Hercules] who could help me.”

[François de Paris]

Although still racked with reservations Phil invited Zippel to his home studio to work on the Tarzan songs. However the collaboration was not productive for Phil as he felt he was producing material that wasn’t typical of his work. “I still accepted the role and I was told to do nothing,” Phil says. “I spent two weeks working on my own in the studio spit-balling tunes as I wanted to be ahead of the game. I knew the ‘Greatest Hits’ of the story but had not read the book so the Studios sent me a copy which I read and annotated throughout thinking ‘they are bound to use this and that’. I then wrote and recorded some songs and I’d say about ninety percent of them have ended up in the movie or musical. It was a really productive two weeks for me.”

After receiving the tape Chris Montan flew back to Europe with the first treatment of the script to brain-storm ideas with Phil. “The treatment was only three or four pages but Chris pointed out where they were thinking of having a song,” Phil recollects. “I had nothing to look at so had to rely on instinct the whole time. I didn’t even use computers at the time so had to keep re-recording the whole song every time there was a revision as I couldn’t edit the piece at all. I finally got one for Brother Bear as Chris said the process would kill me if I had to do it again! However the Tarzan team really fell in love with the way I was writing the music.”

Tom Schumacher has insisted to me on several occasions that Walt Disney Feature Animation (WDFA) had always planned for Phil Collins to sing all of the songs in the movie but Phil says that this was never communicated to him: “I had assumed that I was writing for character like all of the movies since The Little Mermaid but it seems that the creative team had the strength to change the way they did things for Tarzan by adding a narrator. They didn’t like the idea of Tarzan singing anyhow.”

At the London premiere of Tarzan WDFA President Tom Schumacher pitched the idea of Brother Bear to Phil but weeks before Tom had begun to sound out another project to Phil. “Between Tarzan opening in the United States and Europe we automatically said that we should take the movie onto the stage,” Phil calls to mind. “The Lion King had recently opened on Broadway and proved that you could interpret animated movies in a three-dimensional way. However the bad news for us was the need to discover a way to represent the animal world in Tarzan differently as a musical. No-one had any idea so we put the suggestion on the backburner. Then out of the blue in ’02 Tom called me and asked me to fly to London to meet Bob Crowley and if he liked me and I liked him we had a show.”

For Phil it was a never a question of whether he had the credentials to write melody for musical theater. “I began my career as the Artful Dodger in Oliver! in ’64 and I always felt that theater ran parallel with everything I did despite the fact that, like everyone else, I was listening to The Beatles, John Coltrane and even Motown at the same time,” Phil says. “Broadway doesn’t feel alien to me and I feel well-versed in shows as I have the likes of West Side Story, My Fair Lady and even Wicked in my listening dictionary. I knew the kind of thing that works in theater by watching other shows. The only thing was that I didn’t know the psychology behind it.”

An example of the theatrical approach that Phil has learnt over the past four years is evident in the history of the ballad Everything That I Am that anchors the second act. “Tom said to me that ‘we need an 11 o’clock song’,” Phil remembers. “This is the pivotal moment when Tarzan decides that he is really a man and must leave his adopted family. I wrote down the words ‘need to decide’. I really felt the pressure of having to deliver that moment to the audience. You begin to question yourself and you need to lift your game. That song was originally called I Need to Decide.”

Tarzan directors Kevin Lima and Chris Buck hit many hurdles developing the lead characters for their movie over the course of production but none more than Kerchak the patriarch silverback of the troop. Supervising animator Bruce W. Smith saw his creation on the editing room floor with each new cut of the movie as every time he opened his mouth he became more despicable as a character. “Kerchak is so miserable throughout the movie that the audience starts questioning why Kala stays with him,” Phil acknowledges. “She is a good-looking gorilla she could find someone else! Joking aside it was going to be impossible to make Kerchak likeable as he is going to dump the kid [Tarzan]. As the male of the group he knows what is going to happen when Tarzan grows up and doesn’t want to risk the safety of his family. So we tried to get the audience to understand his motives so I took the music from a song I had written for Kala and altered it to explain why he had to do what he had to do. That became No Other Way in Act I.”

“However Kerchak still wasn’t likeable at all even with that song. You keep questioning why Kala sticks by him,” Phil concedes. “We needed another song to help us see beyond his actions. I had been told that other musicals had done similar things. Someone pointed out that Fiddler on the Roof has a number called Do You Love Me? which I’m told is about the old couple who have gone through life raising their family but never really looked at one another and questioned why they are still together. I have seen Hairspray though which had an excellent song where the two leads are just standing in front of the curtain with no staging at all and expressing their love for each other. I knew we needed that type of moment and in the last few months of the rehearsals I wrote Sure As Sun Turns to Moon. As I had written it in my hotel room it was unformed so it actually fell to the performers to do more. Shuler [Hensley, Kerchak] and Merle [Dandridge, Kala] really add an emotional interpretation to the song that is amazing.”

In fact it was the character of Terk that became the Kerchak of the musical production. “We had to work hard to avoid the Nathan Lane comparison as it seems the bigger the hit, the more cliched the side-kick becomes,” Phil recognizes. “Although Rosie [O’Donnell] said that her version of Terk was a different take on the side-kick by being female many people were not aware that the character wasn’t male because although she has a crush on Tarzan she is also a tomboy figure. We wanted to avoid all of that and so we tried to write Terk as a new character for the musical.”

[François de Paris]

Initially the crew used reference points from the movie to create a song for Terk. One incarnation was conceived as a drag number where all of the apes stole dresses from the human camp and performed a torch song. “However that song fell by the way side like so many others,” Phil answers. “Other songs that we eventually ditched included What Kind of Animal Does He Think We Are? that Terk sang about Tarzan and a fun number called I Rest My Case that was designed as a witness for the prosecution number where Terk sat all of the animals down with Tarzan in the witness box. I envisaged the scene to be a Charles Laughton-type performance with Terk in a flour wig like English court judges! The first song I wrote for the character was called I Don’t Think So and that got canned very early in the process.”

“We were in rehearsals and I was about to go home to Switzerland for my son’s birthday and during a reading Chris Montan said that he felt we needed some musical energy in the second act from Terk. At that time we had I Believe in You and a reprise and I was planning on just replacing the reprise as I thought that number was going to stick,” Phil continues. “It suddenly dawned on me that a Motown number would work as it always brings a smile to your face when you hear that rhythm. In fifteen minutes I came up with this chord sequence and played it to each of the production team individually. The consensus was that they liked it. So I got on the plane for Europe and thought about the piece some more. On the return leg I wrote the lyrics to the song. As I went to the rehearsal it almost felt as if I had slipped into some grainy black-and-white newsreel as I walked down the aisle, gave the music to the pianist Jim Abbott [who is also conductor of the Tarzan orchestra] with the instruction ‘You play it and I’ll sing it’. That is how I expected the whole process to unfold as if on Opening Night the director would hate a song, rip up the sheet music and you would have to write a new number then and there! It actually happened that time. The final song Who Better Than Me? was perfect for Chester [Gregory II] and the end result is that he sings the number in the first act with Young Tarzan and then reprises it with Josh [Strickland, Tarzan] in the second.”

In all five songs return from the original movie soundtrack although each had segments that were cut from the movie reinstated for the musical numbers. Compositions like Strangers Like Me were continually tweaked during the creative process fluctuating with additional lines and subsequent curtailments. In addition Phil Collins has provided nine new tunes although he personally tallies the count as ten: “If you include Jungle Funk there are ten new melodies. As a drummer I regard that percussion piece as a song but Tom said to me ‘that theater goers won’t think of it as a song!’” Phil jokes. “However it was a really tough number to compose as I had never created a harmony for dance. It was also difficult as choreographer Meryl Tankard lives in Sydney, I was in Geneva and the Disney folks were in New York! I needed an idea of what she was expecting for this scene and she couldn’t choreograph without music! So Meryl played me some numbers that she liked from other composers and we would constantly send material backwards and forwards as we tried to settle on a final arrangement. Trashin’ the Camp yielded a similar problem for me and it was actually the most complicated number to write in the movie. I had to ask the animators to tell me what the apes would be smashing! It seems so simple but I needed to know what objects they were drawing for the scene in order to create the rhythm that would become the groove. Jungle Funk became very fluid as Meryl would write back that she wanted the melody doubled in length and then Tom would say ‘In your dreams!’ and we would have to hone it down again. Meryl would come back saying can we have another four bars in this section and so on. It was an arduous process for me.”

Many of the creative talents I had met that week in New York had indicated that the lengthy rehearsal process had been emotionally and physically draining as they spent six days a week and sixteen hours a day stuck together in the Navy yards in Brooklyn. However for Phil the process came at an appropriate time in his life. “I was in another personal crisis in my life with my marriage collapsing,” Phil admits. “We began rehearsals on December 27 and on that first day as we gathered in Brooklyn Tom made everyone in the space stand up and explain who they were. I was the first chosen and just told the cast that if they didn’t like what I had written for them to come and talk to me about it. I was looking for friendship at the time and wanted to become part of the furniture so to be pushed so hard both creatively and emotionally was perfect for me. I never had time to think. It was a dark period for me but a lot of sunshine was provided by the cast and crew of Tarzan.”
 

[François de Paris]

So what are Phil’s plans for the future? Having worked tirelessly to prepare the show for the Great White Way the creative team of Tarzan is collaborating again on a production for Amsterdam for ’07 (and possibly a touring show for the same production company in Germany). It also seems that this internationally renowned pop star has been bitten by the theatrical bug. “I have bought a place in New York City now and I plan to split my time between here and a new home in Switzerland so I can be close to my young kids,” Phil concludes. “I want to do more of this although there are no other firm plans yet. I have been talking to Rick Ellice and Marshall Brickman [the writers of the hit musical Jersey Boys] about working together in the future and Susan Stroman [director of The Producers] has become a good friend. I’m hoping to catch just one ball and hope it lights on fire! My manager keeps trying to get Genesis back together but I keep trying to educate him that I’m happy creatively right now and content just doing this one thing.”

As the interview concluded there was a palpable sense of relief in the room as Phil’s hectic week promoting the musical came to an end. However the relief was not the result of freedom from the constant interviews and media requests that week but having devoted over a decade of his life to bringing Edgar Rice Burroughs’ creation to life musically Phil is ready for the next challenge in his life. This is the story of how a drummer returned to his theatrical roots.

[DERBRUCER]

Go to the Post Office; it's usually full of people who want to post!

Do youngsters in France play "Post Office"?

der Brucer

[François de Paris]

Do youngsters in France play "Post Office"?

der Brucer

I'm too old to know!

"Play "Post Office"?! Is that a crypted expression?!

http://www.leskerr.com/postoffice1.htm

They might "play Tarzan" though!

Had a lady guest from Oz the other day who introduced me to a friend at the hotel desk!

"This is Jane!"

"And I'm Tarzan" said I!

I know it's silly but they giggled!

[François de Paris]

http://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/World/Lets-Play-Post-Office-82568.html

[François de Paris]

Do they have a game called "Let's play White House"?!

[François de Paris]

http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/nttidb/lessons/nh/postnh.html

[DakotaCelt]

And Happy Anniversary to ME! Twenty-seven happy years.

Happy Anniversary DR Laura!!

[DakotaCelt]

Happy Birthday DR William Lurie!!

[DERBRUCER]

François, great article. Thanks!

der Brucer

[François de Paris]

The MountainEars Chapter of the National Fantasy Fan Club announces that in Seattle, in November, a display of Disney musical materials (the likes of which the public has never seen in one place) will be unveiled at Experience Musical Project (EMP). The exhibit – Disney: The Music Behind the Magic -- will run for a year, but a lightning rod of excitement is focused on the first weekend.

Marni Nixon, Tony Baxter, Leonard Maltin, Stacia Martin and scores of others are expected to be on hand to kick off this one-of-a-kind event. Such Disney music legends as Richard Sherman, Phil Collins and Alan Menken will appear in taped presentations. As many as 50 Disney representatives, to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of Disney Records, are due. More about that in a moment.

The centerpiece of all the excitement will be the exhibits, and the exhibits will be breathtaking. They are being supplied by the Disney Archives, present and former Imagineers, and collectors.

"As far as I know," said EMP archivist Jasen Emmons, this "is the first museum exhibit to explore how music has been the foundation of Disney's success in everything from animation, live-action film and television to Broadway and the Billboard charts."

In addition to numerous videos of interviews prepared just for this show by EMP's Emmons, here is a small sample of the exhibits:

    * Numerous items related to Annette Funicello's musical career, including the record jacket for her debut album, Annette, plus a record review of "Tall Paul" and the robe she wore in Babes in Toyland.
    * Similar treasures related to Davy Crockett, including Fess Parker's personal copy of the original song music, the 45-rpm single of "Ballad of Davy Crockett," and appropriate snapshots of kids in their Davy Crockett outfits.
    * The score and theater program for "Steamboat Willie," along with materials from "The Gallopin' Gaucho" and "Karnival Kid."
    * Original soundtrack, notebook and lobby card from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
    * Sound-effects items used in Snow White, Bambi, The Rescuers and to make the sound of Mickey's car. (The latter is four connected glass bottles.)
    * A bevy of goodies from the Broadway version of The Lion King, including costumes and headdresses.

Most of Disney's other epics and big stars will be represented. The list is a fraction of the artifacts included. As November approaches, more details may be available at EMP's Web site, http://www.emplive.org/ .

For those able to take a fall weekend off and get to Seattle Nov. 3-4-5, Emmons has scheduled at least nine separate events for the weekend. Lest anyone question Emmons' credentials, he has mounted EMP exhibits for Bob Dylan and The Beatles, among others.

At an April meeting of the MountainEars (Washington state's chapter in the National Fantasy Fan Club), Emmons created enormous excitement in discussing his plans. He showed part of an interview with legendary songwriter Richard Sherman that will be one of a score or more that will be included at EMP. In addition to interactive exhibits, visitors will get an audio-visual walk through Disney music history.

Weekend highlights:

    * Friday, Nov. 3, 7:30 p.m.: Emmons will share excerpts of great artists talking about how their Disney music came to life.
    * Saturday, Nov. 4, 3:15 p.m.: Disney music trivia contest; 4 p.m., being an  Imagineer, by Imagineer Joe Herrington; 5 p.m., sound-effects game; 5:30 p.m., Greg Ehrbar, author of the new and acclaimed book MouseTracks, moderates a panel featuring Disney Records producer Randy Thornton, Disney historian/artist Stacia Martin, and Disney voice artist Ginny Tyler; 7 p.m., live Disney songfest.
    * Sunday, Nov. 5, 11 a.m.: Emmons moderates a panel of producers Randy Thornton and Les Perkins, Disney historian Paula Sigman Lowery, and Jeff Kurtti, author and creative director of the Walt Disney Museum; 1 p.m., Marni Nixon (who was the singing voice for such stars as Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn) talks about her Disney recordings and autographs her new memoir, I Could Have Sung All Night.

The Seattle show will be a homecoming for some presenters. Marni Nixon, now a New York dweller, was raised in the Seattle area. Jeff Kurtti, a resident of the Los Angeles area, grew up in Seattle. Ginny Tyler, long-time Disney voice, resides in the Seattle area.

As spring turned into summer, Emmons was still working to enhance the exhibits and expand the weekend lineup. His hopes included filling a star-studded program with even more big names. Stay tuned.

[DakotaCelt]

TOTD:

Beverage: For thirst quencher I like water... I like tea, especially green tea and chocolate milk...

Sweet treat: CHOCOLATE!

[DERBRUCER]

Post Office- party game: a children's game in which one player gives another a pretend letter and is given a kiss in return.

der Brucer

[DakotaCelt]

Anybody know a decent Federal Defense Attorney:

Fargo Justice! DA's caseONE defense witness in a not-guilty capital case! Looks like any first-year law student will be able to write an appeal based on inadequate counsel!

der brucer

There is a lot more to that story than they are reporting... It is quite the heated story here in Fargo.

[DakotaCelt]

Chocolate...the Breakfast of Champions®!

No George, It is its very own food group!!

[DakotaCelt]

Break a leg Jrand!

[DERBRUCER]

TOD:

When in need, I can usually be satisfied with a milk shake made with chocolate ice cream and spiked with generous quantities of Brandy, Rum, and Creme de Cocoa.

der Brucer

[DakotaCelt]

Sometimes you don't have anyone to call as witnesses. It could be that they have more in store for the penalty phase of the trial. It's usually bifurcated.

Cilla, have you been following this case at all...

Despite the press gag we have heard some things..

It has been downright entertaining at times. The penalty phase has started.  The judge is allowing the jury to view some pictures of the scene and the body that were not allowed in the original trial.

[DERBRUCER]

Does jhvw have insomnia again?

der Brucer

[DakotaCelt]

The Illusionist is finally going to be here starting tomorrow and Hollywoodland is here as well. So I'm hoping to hit 2 movie matinees this weekend. Plus I have 2 art openings to go to.  So, I'll be out and about....

WE dont have either yet. With the luck we have here, it will probably only come out on DVD.

[DakotaCelt]

Just discovered one of the world's greatest invention.  They're called Dibs, and they're made by Edy's, and I just sampled the cookies and cream variety.  Only about 15 calories each, but then I ate about 20, but who's counting?

Those are good FJL!!

[George]

No George, It is its very own food group!!

Yes...you are quite correct!