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Tony Perkins' 1976 Saturday Night Live -- and Some Other SNL Nostalgia(Jill Clayburgh)

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
3 replies | jump to latest

I have obtained the streaming service "Hulu" and I spent a coupla days in a "deep dive" into the Saturday Night Live channel.

Its oddly set up. They have the first five seasons ...and then everything leaps a few decades to the last 20 years or so. Missing: the Eddie Murphy years, much of the great 90's years.

But oh boy...just those first five seasons. What a memory trip.

SNL debuted in the 1975-1976 TV season. There were some pretty hip movies out in those months: Jaws had just dominated the summer(hence the "land shark" gag on SNL); Cuckoo's Nest would dominate the fall(along with a personal favorite, Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor); movies as varied as Taxi Driver, All the President's Men and Family Plot would be on the nation's screens from February through April 1976 as SNL continued its first year.

And yet: even as all those movies were lush and plush and modern, SNL looked PRIMITIVE. It looked like 1955, not 1975. Old-style TV production, a purposely "cave dark" soundstage, absolute minimum sets and production values. By contrast, the SNL of the 2017-2018 season is HD-crystalline (the Weekend Update set is now Post Space Age) and digital and "perfect." Somehow the dark shagginess of the Chase-Belushi-Ackroyd-Radner era seemed quaint.

SNL got some "big wheels" to host that first season: George Carlin(first show), Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin. Chase and the rest were intended almost as "window dressing" to the REAL comic geniuses.

And yet, as the first season went on , the hosts became less starry(Robert Klein, Peter Boyle, the charming married couple Dick Benjamin and Paula Prentiss) and the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" made their marks...laid the groundwork for the New Hollywood movie stardom that was only a few years away for some of them.

Interesting: some of those first season episodes had two musical guests -- Billy Preston AND Janis Ian, for instance.

I found the Anthony Perkins episode(which, interestingly enough, played fairly close in time to the release of Family Plot) and its famous "Norman Bates School of Motel Management" spoof. That was a really BIG deal in 1976, I recall, because Tony Perkins hadn't been much willing to acknowledge Psycho back then (he felt it had overcome his career), Psycho II was still 7 years away, it was FUN and kinda thrilling to see him acknowledge Psycho.

And he did it a coupla more times in the episode. After "Norman Bates School," Perkins came on later to introduce "scenes from cheap horror movies I did after Psycho." Perkins introduction: "Everyone knows me best from Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic Psycho, but you may not know that I made a lot of cheap horror rip offs after it." (This is not true, BTW, Perkins expressly TURNED DOWN horror scripts for many years after Psycho.)

The three horror movies spoofs that followed -- "Terror Lunch," "Dressed to Kill"(yep) and "Driven to School" -- ranged from weirdly abstract to pretty bad as comedy. I had a college friend who LOVED these spoofs and LOVED Ackroyd's weird overdone narration: "Driven, driven, DRIVEN...to SCHOOL!" But me, ah, no, not too funny.

And in "Driven to School," Perkins keeps putting on a wig and speaking in an old lady voice as his mother and its....really a terrible acting job, several levels down from the classic presentation of Psycho.

Interesting: Perkins does the whole episode -- even Norman Bates School -- wearing eyeglasses, which rather ruins the "cute Tony Perkins effect." Indeed Norman Bates with eyeglasses is just plain wrong (though the chubby Bates of the novel wore them.)

Interesting: In 1976, Perkins was already speaking in that weird, sing-song robotic voice he uses in Psycho II and the other sequels. Its as if the truly great 1960 performance Perkins gave as Norman Bates is long gone, over...THAT great actor is GONE.

Interesting: In that first season of SNL, they had Muppets. Perkins does not one, but two sketches with Muppets. Its pretty weird. Norman Bates and Muppets.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Onward:

I have to "sell" this one memory that came roaring back.

It had been in my head for years -- something about Jill Clayburgh singing with incredible sexuality the old time rocker "Sea Cruise" as a Navy chorus of men backed her and footage of a ship at sea being swamped by waves was shown. It was a memory that I always kept of early SNL...and I found the routine.

Was it a bit less in the actual seeing than in memory...well, as the Psycho shrink says: yes...and no.

Yes, it was a bit less...the production was cheap and shabby and a brief bit where a miniature cannon goes off literally "blanked out the screen"(old time TV soundstage cameras couldn't handle light flashes.)

But it was still great fun and Jill Clayburgh WAS incredibly sexy. That part I didn't get wrong at all.

Oh, it was the Coast Guard Men's Chorus("The Singing Idlers") and not Navy men who backed Clayburgh(along with that rockin' SNL band), but the effect was the same: Clayburgh (in halter-top/midriff baring Navy denim and a sailor cap) sexually "fronted" the song as a willing lady offering all men a "sea cruise" ("C'mon, baby , you got nuthin to lose...wontcha lemme take ya on a...SEA CRUISE?") and the manly chorus of men lustily backed her play("Ooo-wee, ooe-wee baby, ooo-wee, ooo-wee, baby..."). I found it delightful. And "Sea Cruise" is a GREAT rocker.

About Jill Clayburgh. She is a rather forgotten star of the 70's, when female stars were in short supply and it seemed that Faye Dunaway and Candice Bergen got all the roles. Clayburgh spent the front end of the 70's as "Al Pacino's girlfriend"(she's at the Godfather premiere) and as a stage actress, but came the late 70's, she broke through.

1976's "Silver Streak" did it -- she's Eva Marie Saint to Gene Wilder's Cary Grant in a "North by Northwest" spoof -- except Jill is even more direct than Eva Marie Saint was about what she's willing to do sexually RIGHT NOW to Gene.

1978's "An Unmarried Woman" sealed the deal -- Oscar-nominated, indie-film values, again with the sexuality.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But there are two less heralded movies from that period where Jill Clayburgh made an impact:

In 1976's "Gable and Lombard"(released by Universal in the same year's release package that saw "Family Plot"), Clayburgh dyes her mousy hair blonde and plays a lustful Carole Lombard to James Brolin's stolid Clark Gable. Its a rather forgettable biopic of that tragic love affair except -- the emphasis is on sex, sex, SEX. Clayburgh's Lombard is written and played as a woman who wants all sex, all the time, from Gable -- a scene where she gifts him with a sock for his member and puts it on him, is -- cringe-worthy. But: I always felt that Clayburgh's lustful daring in this role likely got her Silver Streak and the rest of her career. (I saw the movie on release, and I was shocked/impressed.)

In 1977's "Semi-Tough," Clayburgh played a rich heiress who has a sexual relationship with NFL player Kris Kristofferson and a friendly relationship with NFL player Burt Reynolds and...well, there are attempts at screwball comedy until Jill eventually picks the Right Man. What was daring here was that Clayburgh -- not really all THAT attractive of a woman -- pulled off being a woman who could get Burt OR Kris because...well, she's so damn sexy.

You see my theme , here. Gable and Lombard, Silver Streak, Semi-Tough, An Unmarried Woman. Jill Clayburgh's "secret weapon" was a direct, girlish, full-bodied sexuality that nobody really saw coming (and as she said at the time, "she looked good" in Silver Streak; it gave her glamour credentials.) She could also act.

Which brings me back to "Sea Cruise" on SNL, 1976: Clayburgh pulls out all the stops. The male chorus backing her up is at once "boyish" and manly. The song rocks. The deadpan clips of a Coast Guard vessel being knocked around in the waves is...funny.

Its a great memory.

Alas, Jill Clayburgh passed away not too long ago. Cancer. After having finished her career in "mother of adult children" roles. (Like "Bridesmaids" with SNL vet Kirsten Wiig.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Three more quick ones:

First season: Desi Arnaz SENIOR hosts SNL, with Desi Arnaz Jr along as his adoring sidekick. Best: a spoof of the old Untouchables show(which was produced by Desi Senior) with Dan Ackroyd doing a letter perfect Elliott Ness, rounding up his Untouchables: "Rico, Youngblood, Lee...come here!" Desi SENIOR is a crime boss; Gilda Radner is Lucy as the crime boss's wife -- and she's got some 'splainin to do.

First season: Peter Boyle hosts. He and John Belushi do "Duelling Brandos"(impressions) and both are damn good and one realizes the funny/serious acting power that Brando had ("Wasn't my night? Wasn't my NIGHT? I coulda been a contender...instead I got a one-way ticket to palooka-ville...")

Second season: Steve Martin makes his debut. The over-done voice ("Hey! We're having some fun now!"...People ask me, Steve, how can you BE so damn funny?" Except on the record, he doesn't say damn) The banjo. The arrow through the head. The catch-phrases ("EX--CUUSE ME.") I got a lump in my throat on this one. I recall watching it the first time having no idea who this guy was, and only being slightly impressed. Then he hit big. Then I saw the summer re-run of this episode -- at my grandparent's house in the Midwest with a bunch of young cousins -- and we all went nuts for Martin now.

Which reminds me. The real shockeroo of watching all these SNL episodes from decades ago was...the "total recall" of where I saw them: My grandparents house in the midwest. A dorm TV room. My parents house on Xmas break. A campus pizza restaurant. At some strangers apartment during a party - he turned it on FOR the party. My girlfriends apartment. A beach house, visiting some people...and on and on and on. Memories flooding back.

I've watched other things on Hulu. Modern shows like "Fargo." Had to. A teenager in my current orbit came into the TV room and said "How long you gonna spend back there in the 70's with those old SNL episodes , man?"

Oh, well, its further along than 1960...