Well, dear readers, when we played our charade, we were like children posing. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, when we played our charade, we were like children posing, or so Johnny Mercer would have you believe since it’s his lyric to the brilliant tune of Henry Mancini. I mention it because after the horrid remake of Charade, The Trouble with Charlie, in which literally nothing works, including the charmless performances of its two leads and hipster and embarrassing direction by its director and a horrid score by its composer, along with a screenplay that strips the original of everything that was original and fun. So, to get that bad taste out of my mouth, I gargled with not mouthwash but with the one and only genuine original Charade, screenplay by one Peter Stone from a story and screenplay by Stone and Marc Behm called The Unsuspecting Wife, which they tried to sell with no takers – they turned it into a short story published in Redbook and suddenly there were takers, notably director Stanley Donen. With stars like Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn and a supporting cast including Walter Matthau, George Kennedy, James Coburn, and Ned Glass how could you fail. Well, you could, and many have, including Mr. Grant and Ms. Hepburn, Mr. Stone, and Mr. Donen, all of whom had their share of misfires. Fortunately for all of them, everything about Charade worked and seeing it again after over fourteen years of not seeing it, is like greeting an old friend. The dialogue is great, the plotting, veering cleverly between mystery, suspense, comedy, and romance, is fantastic, Mr. Donen’s direction is perfect, and it’s all topped off with gorgeous photography by Charles Lang and a brilliant score by Henry Mancini. It was, needless to say, a huge hit, just as Preview Harvey predicted it would be. It’s been in the public domain ever since its release and would you like to know why? It’s fascinating – Universal had a copyright notice on the film but neglected to put the word copyright of the symbol for it before the date. That loophole was later closed. Everyone and their mother has released PD versions of the film, most of which black out the Universal logo. Thankfully, Universal restored the film for DVD and Blu-ray and put out a nice transfer and Criterion also put it out. No one can use those new transfers because they ARE under copyright. Anyway, like North by Northwest, Charade is a delightful film filled with sparkle and wit, genuine suspense, some violence, and the kind of star power that simply doesn’t exist anymore. There’s one very silly scene of Grant showering in his clothes that seems like it’s out of some other film, but otherwise there’s nary a misstep. It comes highly recommended by the likes of me.
Yesterday, I did get eight hours of sleep (almost), got up, answered e-mails, had a couple of telephonic conversations, relaxed, then shaved and showered. I put some gas in the motor car and then stopped at the mail place and picked up two envelopes of no consequence or interest. From there, I drove to Dino’s Pizza and met up with the Pearls. We each got a small pepperoni because Barry likes thin crust, like a cracker, and I like the regular crust, which certainly isn’t thick by any means – in fact, it’s pretty thin. They got a chopped antipasto salad, and I got a kind of garden salad with avocado and their very light Eyetalian dressing. Salad came first and I ate a bit of it, then pizza came. Their small is six slices, but very small slices, just like Marco’s. I ate it all up and it really is the best pizza in LA. We were there almost two hours, and the conversation was lively and fun and it’s always a delight to see Cindy.
After that, I stopped at a convenience store to get a couple of Diet Cokes, since I’m completely out. I came home, finished off the salad, and then sat on my couch like so much fish and watched Charade. Now I have to find the CD and load it into Music. And like most Mancini tunes, it’s been swimming around in my head all during the writing of these here notes.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, it will be a ME day, I’ll have one short conversation with David Wechter, I’ll figure out food, I’ll eat the food I’ve figured out, I’ll figure out the food I’ve eaten, and mostly I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
This week is very busy and, of course, on Wednesday it’s already a whole new month, if you can believe it. I have meetings and meals, I have to cast the final two folks for Kritzerland, and there’s much doing what needs to be done.
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, have a ME day, one brief conversation, eat, and 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 have played our Charade.