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[Jrand73]

Page Two UNLOCKED WINDOW dance.

I encourage everyone who hasn't seen this episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour to find it stat!

[Laura]

Good morning.

[George]

Wordle 398 3/6

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[elmore3003]

Earlier this past week something got me revved up to pull out a movie I've loved the few times I'd seen it before -- TOPSY-TURVY, about Gilbert and Sullivan and the creation of The Mikado. It had been several years since my last look at it, and I had always intended to dive into director Mike Leigh's commentary.

So I watched it one evening and rewatched with the commentary the next evening, and that has cemented my love and admiration for this film for all time -- and for The Mikado itself, more than ever before, since being introduced to it in my early teens.

And that's my contribution to the TOD. I must run off and do some things, but I will try to expound on this later.

I saw Topsy-Turvy in its first run at the wonderful Paris Theatre, across from the Plaza Hotel. I went with a co-worker  from Barnes & Noble, who loved Gibert & Sullivan. She shortly after that, moved out of NYC, and I cannot believe I  have forgotten her name! When it was over, I felt thart if they'd added another two hours and given us all of The Mikado, I would have been really happy.

[Ron Pulliam]

Wordle 398 2/6

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[elmore3003]

I have something in my eye - maybe litter - and I cannot get it to drop out. I need eye drops.

[Ron Pulliam]

It is finally Friday here in Johnston SC.

It is mostly cloudy and 78 degrees. Expected high is 97.

Humidity is currently 91%.

[Ron Pulliam]

Porch man - aka Joey Walton - is busy at work replacing the faulty screening on my back porch.

He sent me a text last night telling me he would be here early and didn't want to wake me.

I was not awakened by him, but I got up at 8:30 a.m. and he had just arrived.

[Ron Pulliam]

Larry, I'm with you on the treason issue.

At the very least, citizenship should be stripped from those who perpetrated and partcipated.

[John G.]

Earlier this past week something got me revved up to pull out a movie I've loved the few times I'd seen it before -- TOPSY-TURVY, about Gilbert and Sullivan and the creation of The Mikado. It had been several years since my last look at it, and I had always intended to dive into director Mike Leigh's commentary.

So I watched it one evening and rewatched with the commentary the next evening, and that has cemented my love and admiration for this film for all time -- and for The Mikado itself, more than ever before, since being introduced to it in my early teens.

And that's my contribution to the TOD. I must run off and do some things, but I will try to expound on this later.

Great movie. Watching it last year for the first time since seeing it in the theater fully convinced me.

[John G.]

Wordle 398 2/6

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Phoodle in 3

[ChasSmith]

Topsy-Turvy is the only Mike Leigh film I've seen. I had long ago tried another of his (I think it was Naked), and just couldn't get into it. Well, those days are past, because after listening to him talk about G&S for well over three hours in total and how this film is actually consistent with his other works in certain crucial aspects, I'm ready.

(Vixmom:  this is the Criterion edition, which I VERY highly recommend.)

He is all about the working class - how it functions, the fact that it's made up of individuals as opposed to just an undefined mass of humanity, and its relation to the world around it. So, although Topsy-Turvy is, on the surface, a bio-pic about G&S and their operas and the Victorian theatre, he zeroes in on the nuts and bolts of each individual's function in that world. His close-ups of makeup, wig lines, perspiration are one thing. (In addition to the theatrical conditions, London happens to be experiencing a record breaking summer heat wave.) His devotion to gradually zeroing in on the chorus as an ensemble made up of a variety of individuals, and how that shapes events, are another.

I'm not done yet. Back later with more.

[ChasSmith]

Back for another minute:

Leigh is equally huge on the details of relationships, not least those of Mr. & Mrs. Gilbert, Mr. Sullivan and his mistress Fanny Ronalds, and Richard D'oyly Carte and his partner and future Missus, Helen Lenoir. All of these are beautifully depicted, and those moments centered on the Gilberts are subtle but hard hitting. Between the actors and Leigh, I wondered if I was slipping into a Bergman film for just a moment or two.

[ChasSmith]

Earlier this past week something got me revved up to pull out a movie I've loved the few times I'd seen it before -- TOPSY-TURVY, about Gilbert and Sullivan and the creation of The Mikado. It had been several years since my last look at it, and I had always intended to dive into director Mike Leigh's commentary.

So I watched it one evening and rewatched with the commentary the next evening, and that has cemented my love and admiration for this film for all time -- and for The Mikado itself, more than ever before, since being introduced to it in my early teens.

And that's my contribution to the TOD. I must run off and do some things, but I will try to expound on this later.

I saw Topsy-Turvy in its first run at the wonderful Paris Theatre, across from the Plaza Hotel. I went with a co-worker  from Barnes & Noble, who loved Gibert & Sullivan. She shortly after that, moved out of NYC, and I cannot believe I  have forgotten her name! When it was over, I felt thart if they'd added another two hours and given us all of The Mikado, I would have been really happy.

And you's get no argument from me, sir!

I simply can't get over how he cast the film with everyone -- every actor/singer and musician -- singing and playing exactly what you hear. It just might be the most honest film depicting music-in-performance ever. But there are a couple of musical things i would LOVE to ask him about, which I felt he didn't touch on in interviews or commentary:

1.  The actors playing Sullivan and his assistant conductor both studied some conducting with two different teachers in preparation for the movie. Sullivan's conducting is deliberately very stylized in the manner of older techniques and with regard to his actual character. The assistant is a younger man whose technique is more modern and less showy.  My question is whether, in a couple of places, a decision was made to deliberately take a tempo quite a bit slower than those I'm more used to over the years. My idea is that this could be in keeping with the works being new at the time and having not yet settled in with the opera company. It's not a criticism, just an observation and a question.

2.  Gilbert is completely dissatisfied with the Mikado's song and he cuts it the night before opening. But it, too, was brand new and bereft of the layers of tradition in comedic business later adopted by the company. And I think that adds to the fact that perhaps the song itself just wasn't "ready" for prime time. Well, it was, because when reinstated, the audience loves it. But it is fairly plain in its execution and would become a more colorful scene in later years.

3.  The fact that the musicians in the pit are really playing this music is incredible and thrilling. But you can tell that a larger orchestra is used on the actual soundtrack, and that's borne out in the end credits. No problem there, but I would give anything to hear the G&S operas played in a proper theater of that sort with the actual size of orchestra that would have fit in those pits. I don't think I ever got the feeling that we were ever hearing that band play un-enhanced.

4.  Damn it to HELL, what was 4?

[ChasSmith]

I probably have more (too much more) to say, but for now I'll jump back to DR Elmore's comment about wanting to see the whole damned opera. Well, I wanted to see the whole damned opera, too, so much so that I took out my:

-Criterion edition of the 1939 Kenny Baker & Martyn Green film which my family and I saw on TV in non-glorious black and white (it's a beautiful Technicolor film).

-DVD of the D'oyly Carte's filmed-on-stage Mikado of 1966, which I saw a few times the one week or so that it played in a theater in Fort Lauderdale. It is lacking in many ways, but it's an incredible document of the very production I saw a year or so later in Cleveland when the D'oyly Carte brought it around on tour. (Also saw Iolanthe, which I'll never forget.)

-DVD of the greatly truncated Groucho Marx TV version which we also saw when I was a kid. Actually, that would have been quite a bit earlier, and my first introduction to the piece and to G&S.

-DVD of the English National Opera re-imagining, which I saw live at the Wiltern in the late 1980s with Dudley Moore playing Koko.

I didn't watch every one of these all the way through, but it was a wonderful trip through that world and I'll return to each one of them individually.

[ChasSmith]

I yield the floor.

[Jane]

DR George, I have mixed feelings about Troppo.  I really like the star, Thomas Jane from The Expanse.  I am not sure about the rest of it.  We will finish watching the season to find out the mysteries involved.

[Jane]

George, the show you should be watching is The Orville.  It is now on Hulu and better than ever.

[singdaw]

Good morning, friends.

[Jane]

We think The Orville is the best Science Fiction show on the air, far superior to any of the Star Trek or Star Wars shows.

[singdaw]

Regarding last night's hearing:

[Jane]

If interested in The Orville or not, I wish everyone would please sign the petition to save this show.
https://www.change.org/p/hulu-renew-the-orville-season-4

[Jane]

Wordle 398 2/6

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Phoodle in 3

Congrats.

[Jane]

Wordle 398 2/6

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Congrats.

[elmore3003]

The Gilbert & Sullivan DVDs to avoid are the ones from the Stratford Festival with their prancy airy-fairy stagings, synthesized orchestra, and, in The Gondoliers, a man in drag playing the Duchess.

The early 1980s BBC series are pretty lousy as well - poor international casting and abridged texts - but the double bill of Trial By Jury and Cox & Box is fanrtastic.

[ChasSmith]

The Gilbert & Sullivan DVDs to avoid are the ones from the Stratford Festival with their prancy airy-fairy stagings, synthesized orchestra, and, in The Gondoliers, a man in drag playing the Duchess.

The early 1980s BBC series are pretty lousy as well - poor international casting and abridged texts - but the double bill of Trial By Jury and Cox & Box is fanrtastic.

Thank you! It's mostly by accident of omission that I've skipped over those all of these years. I did watch a couple of them on PBS back then and wasn't inspired. I'll keep an eye out for that double bill, though.

For recordings, I collected all the stereo era D'oyly Cartes, then later went back and picked up the earlier ones with Martyn Green, etc. I still have all of those. But for whatever reason, I never had the Sir Macolm Sargents.

[ChasSmith]

(Synthesized orchestra!!?)

[John G.]

I’m intrigued by Ethan Hawke’s series about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/ethan-hawke-interview-2022

[John G.]

The Gilbert & Sullivan DVDs to avoid are the ones from the Stratford Festival with their prancy airy-fairy stagings, synthesized orchestra, and, in The Gondoliers, a man in drag playing the Duchess.

The early 1980s BBC series are pretty lousy as well - poor international casting and abridged texts - but the double bill of Trial By Jury and Cox & Box is fanrtastic.

I’m not fond of the Australian versions from the Sydney Opera House. I find them sluggish and overstuffed.

[John G.]

I wish I had seen more Mike Leigh films than I have, but the ones I have are special. Life Is Sweet is my favorite. Naked is hard to watch. The performances in Secrets & Lies are devastating. Vera Drake has career-best work from Imelda Staunton.