OT: Mini-Series "Fosse/Verdon" on FX 2019 - Psycho (1960) Discussion

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

swanstep replies:

Fosse/Verdon seems to be the closest we are getting to "Feud"....
Fosse/Verdon has begun its broadcast run. I may report on it.

Yes, it *feels* like F/V is the sequel to Davis/Crawford. Maybe the leading idea of focussing on Feuds has proved too limiting? after all very few relationships are genuine feuds.

Anyhow, I've watched the first ep. of F/V and it was, for me, just OK. They're trying a lot of stuff but we'll need to watch to the end to see whether it works. E.g., we move around in time quite a bit and sequences are identified occasionally with time and place but mostly with back-dating from Fosse's death ("16 Years Left".'8 Days Left'). I found this device *very* irritating in the biography the show officially adapts, and it grates now too. But at least the biog. was called 'Fosse'. With the show's recentering on Verdon the countdown to Fosse's death threatens to rip the show apart. But we'll see.

Michele Williams is *amazing* as Verdon. She's one of the great, method-y, chameleonic actors out there and Hollywood hasn't known what to do with her. TV to the rescue: this is going to be a signature role for her. Whether giving Verdon so much credit for damn near everything reaches Alma in 'Hitchcock' levels of absurdity remains to be seen.

It's definitely a crowded cultural landscape right now but F/V is worth watching so far, even if, aside from Williams, nothing about it quite feels perfect.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Yes, it *feels* like F/V is the sequel to Davis/Crawford. Maybe the leading idea of focussing on Feuds has proved too limiting? after all very few relationships are genuine feuds.

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That's true. And "something" seemed to happen to the idea of creating a "Feud" series of mini-series. The Davis/Crawford feud, and the centrality of Baby Jane to it, was always going to be a hard act to follow. We may yet see those other "Feud" projects, but it looks like Fosse/Verdon(who hardly had a feud; just an impossible relationship that somehow worked) will have to suffice for eight weeks.

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Anyhow, I've watched the first ep. of F/V and it was, for me, just OK. They're trying a lot of stuff but we'll need to watch to the end to see whether it works. E.g., we move around in time quite a bit and sequences are identified occasionally with time and place but mostly with back-dating from Fosse's death ("16 Years Left".'8 Days Left'). I found this device *very* irritating in the biography the show officially adapts, and it grates now too. But at least the biog. was called 'Fosse'. With the show's recentering on Verdon the countdown to Fosse's death threatens to rip the show apart. But we'll see.

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I have not read the "Fosse" book and/or blog(?), but I was a bit impressed with the 16 years left motif. A slight but important correction: it is 8 MINUTES left on Fosse's life, and they put that title on his very ill appearance(in tuxedo) in the final scene of episode one. I haven't done any research reading on this story yet, but I think that Fosse DID die in Verdon's presence(in her arms?) even though they had been long divorced at the time. The "8 minutes left" scene(very brief) is probably a way of saying to us: "this relationship went all the way to Fosse's death."

Update: I've done a little research. Fosse and Verdon never divorced officially, but they lived apart and he took on new romantic partners. And yes, Fosse died in the company of Verdon....

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Also, I personally AM interested , when reading of people who have died, of how many years they had left in their lives, with fate, of course, never filling them in on the fact.

Take JFK. One reads of the work of his final year of life, as he began work on the 1964 re-election campaign and mapped out HIS strategy to take on Goldwater or Nixon or Rockefeller. All this planning and preparation would be...for nought. He had less than a year left on the clock.

Or take Hitchcock. He seemed pretty old and out of it when promoting Family Plot in 1976, and yet he kept saying he was going to make another film (various scripts were actually written for The Short Night.) But as it turned out, in 1976, he had four years left, and they would not include any more movie making. (They WOULD include that magnificent gathering of stars for the sad 1979 AFI Award show that was like a funeral with the victim still alive.)

As his own fictionalized autobio "All That Jazz" showed, Fosse was ill enough in his last years(how many heart attacks did he have before the big one?) that he himself knew he was on borrowed time at a certain late point in his life. I suppose that drives "Fosse/Verdon" too. Fosse's a pretty bad man, but the sense of doom surrounding him makes it poignant. "He's gonna get his," but he has a family that loves him irregardless.

This "countdown" aspect of Fosse's years of life reminds us -- a bit -- that some of us of a certain age have entered that countdown , too. Mercifully, we won't be told in advance.

I mention elsewhere Nick Nolte's autobio. Near the end, he says he is 77, and he figures "I have five or so years left." So intimations of mortality do arrive eventually.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And this: Psycho, of course (I like to bring it in where I can even on OT threads.) Every time I re-watch Psycho, I feel "countdown clocks" ticking on Marion and Arbogast when they enter the movie. Marion is first up, literally saying "when your time is up...." She is speaking to the hour rental hotel room she and Sam are in, but she is also predicting the imminent end of her life (less than 48 hours away.) The "mundane" scenes that follow -- however suspenseful -- the office, the cop, California Charlie -- add up to the final things that Marion Crane will do in her life, and also add up to a series of wrong decisions that lead to her early demise.

Its the same, but different, with Arbogast, too. He enters the movie in a profound manner -- that huge close-up -- and his investigatory skills and decisions make this Saturday the final day of HIS life.

Its not death, but Norman's killing of Marion leads to his "end": his capture, exposure and incarceration. Psycho's opening scene in Phoenix is starting a 72-hour clock on the End of Norman Bates as a killer.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Anyhow, I've watched the first ep. of F/V and it was, for me, just OK.

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I have my reservations about it, but I think I like it a bit better than you do. I find -- as with "Hitchcock" and "Feud," that they can't quite recapture what it was REALLY like on the sets of these movies, whether famous ("Cabaret") or semi-famous ("Sweet Charity.") Of course, "Hitchcock" was famously hamstrung by Hitchcock Estate lawsuits if they showed too much of the making of Psycho. Anyway, it is what it is. Episode One gave us reasonable facsimiles(in voice if not in face) for Shirley MacLaine and Liza Minnelli. I can't wait for Ray "Damn Yankees" Walston! (that movie should be coming up in Episode Two.)

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They're trying a lot of stuff but we'll need to watch to the end to see whether it works. E.g., we move around in time quite a bit

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I think with this first episode, they tried to do two things: First, was to bring in Fosse's most famous movie right at the top: Cabaret. As if to say, "even if you don't know who Bob Fosse was, you must know Cabaret." Second, the episode started ("ish") with his debut film work on Sweet Charity and covered how that movie bombed.

Its interesting when you think about it: Bob Fosse had a bomb in 1969 as his first movie(Sweet Charity), struggled for a coupla years, and then almost immediately recouped with his biggest hit, Cabaret, winning Best Director in the process(over Francis Coppola for The Godfather!)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

There are hidden things in this "biggest bomb/biggest hit" story. One is that Fosse made Sweet Charity for Universal, famously said to be (at the time) "where the best directors made their worst films"(starting with Hitchcock) and idea being that the TV-ish, cheapjack production values of a Universal movie give you a Sweet Charity, not a Cabaret. The other (covered in Fosse/Verdon) is that "big movie star" Shirley MacLaine replaced "Broadway star" Gwen Verdon in the role, and it is suggested that was a big mistake. (Sam Rockwell's Fosse gets a line to Verdon about it after reading a review complaining about the casting change: "You're the biggest star in this movie, and you're not even in it.")

I was intrigued by the set-up for the Cabaret sequence. Paul Reiser set up as adversarial producer Cy Feuer keeps nagging at Fosse to "stop making this movie so literally dark" as Fosse responds "its a nightclub, its supposed to be dark." In broad strokes, they are making the point taken most famously by Pauline Kael when Cabaret came out: that this was a "realistic" musical, where all the songs were on stage and "natural"(save one: Nazi youth singing "The Future Belongs to Me" in open air), and the mood was one of grim tragic drama rather than uplift.

I gotta tell you: I was only a teen at the time, but I felt that that was what was WRONG with Cabaret. After having grown up on everything from Singin' in the Rain to Damn Yankees to West Side Story to The Music Man to The Sound of Music to Hello Dolly(which I liked), here was this "70's movie" version of a musical: gritty, grim, threadbare and of course -- because of the subject matter -- a bit on the sleazy side too. Still, its direct look at the horrific anti-Semitism of the growing Nazi party was historic (how odd -- links it to Sound of Music) and profound at the time.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I didn't love Cabaret then and I don't much like it now. As with a few other botched predictions from Pauline Kael, Cabaret wasn't really the future of musicals. Musicals as we knew them would die and be fitfully replaced by Saturday Night Fever and Grease and then die again. Though Fosse himself returned to the Cabaret style with All That Jazz. And years after it was born on Broadway, Chicago went and won Best Picture in 2002(and was my favorite movie of that year, I might add.) I guess musicals are like Westerns. Few and far between, but notable when they show up. Cue Steven Spielberg's West Side Story.

Hey, speaking of Bob Fosse having a bomb movie(Sweet Charity) in 1969 and a comeback hit in 1972(Cabaret), Hitchcock did the same thing, yes? Topaz in 1969, Frenzy in 1972. Well, no -- Hitchcock's flop and hit were smaller ones. Fosse was New Wave. His two movies were big deals.

I expect Fosse/Verdon will soon show us how "Cabaret" paid off big for Bob Fosse(and made Reiser's Cy Feuer look like a fool.)

But Fosse didn't direct too many more movies after Cabaret, did he? I'll work from memory: Lenny(about Lenny Bruce, in b/w and not a musical.) All That Jazz(great movie, great self-attack), and Star 80(the movie about the death of the Playboy playmate that drove Peter Bogdanovich to hate Fosse.)

Funny thing about Fosse and Bogdanovich. Their stories are parallel in this way: a great wife "muse"(Gwen Verdon, Polly Platt) rampant cheating on that muse , ending in divorce, and then a trailing off of the man's career. Well, men in Hollywood who succeed are in a candy store of sexual temptation(forget "me too" - many ladies are very WILLING) and it would seem the idea of a successful and faithful marriage is simply not going to work in that town.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Still, I suppose one thing that Fosse/Verdon will show us is how, with THAT particular couple, they did manage to function in a different way after their marriage broke up. They remained professional colleagues and friends. I'm thinking that Fosse DID die in the company of Verdon. They had a daughter together, always important.

Which reminds me. Two other skirt-chasing musical male stars kept their first (and even second) wives around in their lives after divorcing them. Dean Martin was pals with his second wife Jeanne to the end of his life. Frank Sinatra kept his first wife, Nancy , in tow through three more wives(Nancy was the only one who had given him children), and kept his second wife, Ava Gardner on a pedestal until her death.

Fosse/Verdon plays Fosse pretty mean, though. To have Episode One almost conclude with Gwen being summoned by Fosse to his Munich hotel room even as he lay in bed with his latest mistress...cruel. Fosse/Verdon looks to be one of those stories about the Bad Man and the Good Woman(see: Ike and Tina Turner) and, well, that's show biz.

Which reminds me. We get two good scenes showing the ruthlessness of BOTH Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse "in the name of the show":

Verdon's: When Fosse can't hold all the dancers in a Sweet Charity shot for the proper composition, Verdon says: "Get rid of one of the dancers -- her, the one on the left." Done.

Fosse's: He summons up a room of REAL hookers to audition to play hookers in Cabaret. He then dismisses all the pretty ones. One of the pretty ones complains: "That's not fair." Fosse looks shocked and cynical. He tells his mistress/translator: "Tell her this is show business. There is no fair."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Michele Williams is *amazing* as Verdon. She's one of the great, method-y, chameleonic actors out there and Hollywood hasn't known what to do with her. TV to the rescue: this is going to be a signature role for her.

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Yes, I read some reviews that agreed with that. It probably doesn't hurt that Rockwell with his atrocious "two strands of hair combover" and looks doesn't really give us the sexy version of Fosse that the story needs(Roy Scheider was much closer in All That Jazz.)

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Whether giving Verdon so much credit for damn near everything reaches Alma in 'Hitchcock' levels of absurdity remains to be seen.

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Y'know, other than its inability to really show Psycho scenes being shot, "Hitchcock" will forever gall me for its almost arbitrary decision to say that "Alma did everything" on that film.

Certainly Pat Hitchcock informed us that Alma WAS a big part of the Hitchcock creative team in terms of giving advice to Hitch, but there is no record at all of Alma coming down on the set to direct the Arbogast murder(much less, to decide on the SPOT, to shoot Arbogast's fall in process -- that would take weeks of pre-planning.) "Hitchcock" also had Alma choosing Tony Perkins and Janet Leigh; pushing for Bernard Herrmann's screaming violins, and writing a final scene that saved Psycho(uh, which one -- the shrink scene, or the cell scene from the book.) It was an awful disservice to the memories of BOTH Alfred and Alma how "Hitchcock" skewed the tale. I don't think it is "feminism" to give credit where it isn't due. And oh, they moved a near-affair between Alma and Whitfield Cook from 1950 to 1960.

With "Hitchcock" as the Hall of Dishonor Fame example of how NOT to tell the husband/wife showbiz story, I hope that Fosse/ Verdon will not go overboard or skew the facts. Though I understand we will see a scene(clearly factual) in which Fosse picks up his Best Director Oscar for Cabaret while Verdon sits at home.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

On the basis of the first episode, Fosse/Verdon makes the case that Verdon had to decide either to put up with a philandering husband in the name of their art, or quit on him as a romantic partner while continuing in business (she chose the latter, or did he divorce her? We'll find out.)

That said, these powerful men oftimes keep attracting their women long after the break-up, no other man(however "nicer") can match them.

I think having used Cabaret to "hook the audience" in Episode One, they will go backwards in time next week(at least for part of Episode Two) and focus on Damn Yankees. This week's episode was titled "Life is a Cabaret." Next week's episode is titled "Who's Got the Pain?"(when they do the Mambo?) a weird, Calypso like number from Damn Yankees that stands(I think) as the only time Verdon and Fosse danced together on screen. We will also get "Whatever Lola Wants."

I guess there's no room for "Ya Gotta Have Heart." Verdon isn't in that number...

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"I didn't love Cabaret then and I don't much like it now. As with a few other botched predictions from Pauline Kael, Cabaret wasn't really the future of musicals. Musicals as we knew them would die and be fitfully replaced by Saturday Night Fever and Grease and then die again."
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Although I was bowled over by Cabaret (and went back to the Doheny Plaza to see it another half-dozen times during its initial release), it's easy to see why it wouldn't be to everyone's taste. There was a thread years back on the old site, "Cabaret killed the film musical" or something like that. Of course, the film musical never died, but its era (during which they were churned out by studios by the dozens each year) did, lasting from roughly '29 (The Broadway Melody - Hollywood Revue) to '58 (Gigi - Damn Yankees).

Every so often, a West Side Story or My Fair Lady or A Hard Day's Night or Mary Poppins or The Sound Of Music would come along and grab attention, business and accolades, but they seemed like standalone outliers (as did Cabaret) not of an extant genre, and for at least every one of those, there was an I Could Go On Singing, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Camelot, Finian's Rainbow, Star! or whatever that did little or nothing.

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

I'm always pleased when you mention your affection for Damn Yankees; it was the film musical that got me hooked on film musicals. And as one that was also a Broadway adaptation, it followed the time-honored burst-into-song-anywhere formula. While Cabaret's stage-bound "Greek chorus" musical punctuation, so stylistically at odds with the non-musical portions of the film, made it feel edgy and punchy, it wasn't altogether as new as Pauline Kael might have suspected.

Indeed, Judy Garland's two final musicals, A Star Is Born and the aforementioned I Could Go On Singing, put all of the numbers in believable dramatic contexts (stage or nightclub performances; a recording session; even singing along at home to a rehearsal record). The one ASIB exception takes place in a motel room, and Garland performs the verse acapella, but quiet orchestral accompaniment creeps in with the refrain, and by the finish, musical director Ray Heindorf has brought in the full Warner Bros orchestra.

That believable context - an outdoor biergarten singalong - is what allows "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" to work on both dramatic and thematic levels even while it sidesteps the construction of the other numbers, which comment cynically from the stage on national politics or plot developments. It's the one place in the film where musical performance and real life intertwine; I might even say collide (and chillingly so).

Conceptually, I think of Cabaret as akin to what Hitchcock claimed to do on adapting story sources: develop and accentuate what excited him creatively; sideline or jettison that which didn't. Cabaret is neither film adaptation of stage musical or play nor literary dramatization. Yet, with Fosse and Jay Presson Allen's pick-and-choose approach to the Kander-Ebb musical, the John Van Druten play I Am A Camera and Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories, it's all three, and becomes something unique as filtered through Fosse's visual and rhythmic sensibilities.

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

I've sounded off enough now. Not trying to talk you into or out of anything; just sharing some of the aspects of Cabaret that have always made it so appealing to me.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"I didn't love Cabaret then and I don't much like it now. As with a few other botched predictions from Pauline Kael, Cabaret wasn't really the future of musicals. Musicals as we knew them would die and be fitfully replaced by Saturday Night Fever and Grease and then die again."
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Although I was bowled over by Cabaret (and went back to the Doheny Plaza to see it another half-dozen times during its initial release), it's easy to see why it wouldn't be to everyone's taste.

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Ah...Doghouse...a pang of painful regret comes to me. I tell you, even though I come here (honestly) for "fun" and to relax , I will feel remorse for what I say that lingers with me. I felt remorse for writing "I didn't love Cabaret then and I don't much like it now" for about a day after I wrote it...and felt worse when I read of how much you like it and how often you saw it.

But...my words are out. I guess I can't take them back...but I can backpedal. Hah!

To properly put my feelings towards Cabaret in context, I have to go back to that year of its release -- 1972. And I have to ask myself now -- "Exactly how much sophistication did a TEENAGER (me then) really have about the quality of movies?"

I'd say ...a surprisingly fair amount. I mean if other teenagers already had the mathematical/science brilliance to become rocket scientists and computer engineers at that young and age, why might not a lesser brain(mine) have at least SOME sophistication about the value of 1972's The Godfather versus 1972's Ben(the sequel to Willard, a real cheapo that turned the rat into a sympathetic character?)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I remember this: I was a real Godfather fanboy in 1972, and hence during the 1973 TV Oscar ceremony, I sat there in stupification as Cabaret won Oscar after Oscar and The Godfather did not. It makes sense -- Cabaret as a musical was going to win in categories where The Godfather wasn't; but as Joel Grey beat Al Pacino, and as Bob Fosse beat Coppola, I had Big Fanboy Worry: was The Godfather NOT going to win Best Picture?

Well, it did. And Brando won which was fitting(and historic, with that maybe-fake Native American woman taking the stage to pick up Marlon's statue), and ...Adapted Screenplay? But still, only three.

Still, Liza Minnelli certainly deserved her win, and watching Fosse/Verdon, I'm reminded that compared to what Coppola and even Hitchcock did -- simply aim a creative camera at dramatic scenes or action scenes or murder scenes -- Fosse (perhaps more as a choreographer than as a director) had to devise all sorts of creative approaches to the dance and the songs within his musical. (I'm burying the lede here, but yes, I'm saying it: what Fosse did as a choreographer and hence as a film director in Cabaret and All That Jazz, was HARDER than what Hitchcock did as a director of thrillers. And thus harder than what Coppola did, too.)

I expect that my other antipathy towards Cabaret wasn't the film's fault(and hey, I love the title number -- it had been on easy listening radio and things like Ed Sullivan for YEARS)....but Pauline Kael's.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

For Kael(and others) couldn't just praise Cabaret -- they had to champion it as "rightfully rejecting" decades of more "square" musicals. As with too many of the seventies films, these movies were rather snobbishly put up to say "a new cinema is here and Old Hollywood is thankfully out the door." I think in truth, I DO like Cabaret. But I LOVE Damn Yankees. And Mary Poppins(not really a Hollywood musical, but with great songs), West Side Story(I watched the America number the other night and was transported by the sheer epic scale of the dance and the "North by Northwesty" fandango music that drives the song), and Singin' in the Rain. I love many Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals (I actually did a middle-school classroom report on them around time my Hitchcock jones kicked in because of NXNW and Psycho and The Birds on TV - I was a sucker for "brand names") with particular affection for the overture of Carousel and the songs in South Pacific and The King and I(which, again, were all over the car radio on easy listening channels my parents listened to in my youth...my ears were TRAINED on that music. Before Led Zepplin got them.)

And I feel that Kael "and her ilk"(hah) felt that, in praising Cabaret, they had to damn all that other stuff. It got me riled up at the time.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Every so often, a West Side Story or My Fair Lady or A Hard Day's Night or Mary Poppins or The Sound Of Music would come along and grab attention, business and accolades,

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And boy, did they. I always enjoyed going to a musical with my family -- I liked the songs and the parents always bought the soundtrack albums --- but in the years since, I've found My Fair Lady (the movie) to be a bit too "petrified and glossy" and The Sound of Music just too cute. West Side Story(an off-again, on-again tie with The Guns of Navarone for my favorite movie of 1961), Mary Poppins and, in a different way, A Hard Day's Night hold up strong in my memory.

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but they seemed like standalone outliers (as did Cabaret) not of an extant genre,

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Yes. However, The Sound of Music was, famously, a blockbustser that begat a slew of expensive musicals that failed -- and Kael like critics delighted in watching these ones you mention:

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I Could Go On Singing, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Camelot, Finian's Rainbow, Star! or whatever that did little or nothing.

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Now, I saw most of those you mention, and, again, I liked them. I liked "all the money on the screen"(particularly in Paint Your Wagon and Hello, Dolly), I liked the music in Finian's Rainbow(though not the overlong "book" -- I own the DVD and I just skip all the talk), I liked the slight-thriller edge to Thoroughly Modern Millie(which my family saw as a roadshow attraction on Hollywood Boulevard, a big outing for us.)

But there can be no doubt that just as suddenly as The Sound of Music became a winner, all those others became losers.

And Cabaret ostensibly "came to the rescue."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

But this: Paint Your Wagon uses its best singer(booming Harve Presnell) to belt out the heartfelt lost love number "They Call the Wind Mariah" and the rain is a pourin' and the skies are lightnin' and the male chorus is boomin' and the trees on the mountain are swayin' and compared to THAT, those cramped little numbers on the dark little stage with the (sometimes) tinny little band in Cabaret simply felt SMALL to me.

Of course, I'm on the wrong side of history with Cabaret. Subjectively, maybe I liked (parts) of Paint Your Wagon more, but objectively -- Cabaret won many Oscars, got many great reviews, made a lot of money, and has lasted on through history as a classic.

And this, stated carefully but clearly: the film took on Nazism with a bit more nastiness and brutality on view than in The Sound of Music. The issue of slowly creeping and murderous anti-Semitism made the film important, and yes, relevant to the voting of a film community that has a certain amount of Jewish membership and Jewish pride. The winning Oscar votes for Cabaret reflected that, too. (A film like Damn Yankees with a fanciful "Devil" as the villain, just can't compete...though perhaps its more on point than you would think, given the Devil's song number about loving all the great killers and political purges in history.)

And: The number(referenced in Fosse/Verdon) where Joel Grey dances with a gorilla on stage is kinda funny, not much of a toe tapper....but plays out its darkness at the very end with the lyric about the gorilla being...a Jew. That's 1972. In your face. Ugly.

Cabaret spoke to 1972 in another way that spoke to Oscar voters and couldn't have been done a decade earlier: the gay material, leading to the classic exchange where both Minnelli and her lover Michael York reveal to each other that each of them has slept with the same man. The early seventies movies were about "burying the Hays Code forever" and Cabaret did its part.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

All of this makes Cabaret an important film, and a classic, and -- as with a few movies that didn't "send me" when I saw them(let's put The Exorcist on the list too), I must say that I've come around to respecting these films and liking them MORE in my older years.

(Which is a joke on me. I recall pipsqueak laywer J. Noble Daggett's line to Big John Wayne in True Grit:

Pipsqueak lawyer: I didn't think much of you in the beginning, but now you have my admiration, and within limits, my respect.
Big John Wayne(with irony): How NICE.

Anyway, I didn't think much of Cabaret in the beginning, but now it has my admiration and, with NO limits, my respect.

How nice.

PS. But wait...Joel Grey's win. They say "the character wins, not the performance," but what a mysterious performance this was. There isn't really a character, he has no real human existence. And he BEAT Al Pacino as Michael Corleone. (Not to mention Eddie Albert in The Heartbreak Kid; I'd have given it to Albert over Grey; not to mention Barry Foster in Frenzy, who was better than Grey, but not even nominated.) And Joel Grey didn't do much else in movies, though I recall him as an unrecognizable Chinese Man of Kung Fu mystery in a great performance in the little known "Remo Williams; The Adventure Begins"(1985.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I'm always pleased when you mention your affection for Damn Yankees; it was the film musical that got me hooked on film musicals. And as one that was also a Broadway adaptation, it followed the time-honored burst-into-song-anywhere formula.

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Well, it was a big winner in my late childhood -- it was on The Million Dollar Movie in LA for the requisite nine airplays in one week. I didn't watch it every time, but it seemed my parents had it on all the time that week, I could walk in and out on the best songs: "Heart" is an anthem to inspire me(and so funny, too.) I recall my father liking Verdon's vamp number "An Emphasis on the Latter" -- much as he liked the male-sung song "The Sadder But Wiser Girl" sung by Robert Preston in The Music Man. Dad's take was that these were songs about sex sung by sexy people and he liked that in a "square" musical.

After that 1960s Million Dollar Movie run, Damn Yankees seemed to disappear all the way into the nineties -- DVD brought it back. Thus, it was far more "lost" a film to me than that other 1958 classic, Vertigo.

Looking at Damn Yankees today, I think I like it for the songs, for the "journey" taken by the middle-aged man(who looks 70) into his youth, for the sex(Gwen Verdon -- only in a movie this one time) and for Ray Walston's "Mr. Applegate" -- the Devil. When he sings of "The Good Old Days" and we see a shot of Jack the Ripper literally hammering a butcher knife into a victim well....Psycho Jr.
Walston plays the Devil as a suave Hitchcock villain -- Cary Grant almost played this part(word -- he was partners with co-director Stanley Donen.) I love when Gwen reports on her latest ruined male lover jumping off a building:

Verdon: And then he jumped off a building...20 floors.
The Devil: That's high enough.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

While Cabaret's stage-bound "Greek chorus" musical punctuation, so stylistically at odds with the non-musical portions of the film, made it feel edgy and punchy, it wasn't altogether as new as Pauline Kael might have suspected.

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Pauline Kael was a great writer on film...even if I didn't always agree with her opinions. Famously, the New Yorker let her write long, LONG reviews so she could get deep into all sorts of ideas.

But she was a bit of a punching bag too. Some of it was from her jealous critical rivals, THEY didn't get to write such long reviews. But some of it was because she would sometimes take extreme opinions that "begged for a fight" and were WRONG. Like..doghouse...you are correctly calling her out on Cabaret being perhaps less "new" than she thought.

I would also like to note that Kael had a real hatred of most Westerns. Just hated the whole genre. I guess she "won" there(so few Westerns are made today) but I feel she didn't really understand them. (And of Hitchcock, she once wrote, "if he is a master, he is a petit master," whatever that means. And perhaps with cause, she wrote of Topaz, "its the same damn spy movie he's been making since World War II.")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

That believable context - an outdoor biergarten singalong - is what allows "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" to work on both dramatic and thematic levels even while it sidesteps the construction of the other numbers, which comment cynically from the stage on national politics or plot developments. It's the one place in the film where musical performance and real life intertwine; I might even say collide (and chillingly so).

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Yes, I would say BECAUSE this is the only number away from the cramped dark stage, it has even more power. Again, it is "natural," -- the Nazi youth are singing an anthem -- but it shifts from the patriotic to the menacing to the horrific and again -- hey, maybe I gotta re-think Cabaret.

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Conceptually, I think of Cabaret as akin to what Hitchcock claimed to do on adapting story sources: develop and accentuate what excited him creatively; sideline or jettison that which didn't.

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Yes. And as long as we're talking 1972 here, that's exactly what Coppola did so perfectly with The Godfather. From the novel, Coppola removed pages of lurid bestseller novel sex scenes...and kept the great storylines of Mafia business and a family dynasty.

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Cabaret is neither film adaptation of stage musical or play nor literary dramatization. Yet, with Fosse and Jay Presson Allen's pick-and-choose approach to the Kander-Ebb musical, the John Van Druten play I Am A Camera and Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories, it's all three, and becomes something unique as filtered through Fosse's visual and rhythmic sensibilities.

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I'm not fully up on how Cabaret used these various sources, though in my "film readings" over the years, I learned of "I Am a Camera" and I watched Kander and Ebb manifest in their other "big ones" -- Chicago(my favorite movie of 2002, remember), and New York, New York.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I've sounded off enough now. Not trying to talk you into or out of anything; just sharing some of the aspects of Cabaret that have always made it so appealing to me.

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I'm glad you did, doghouse. I'm so heartened when you and others visit here that I almost have to face the fact that maybe only by my saying something "combative" could I lure you in. I didn't intend it that way, but...here we are. (And a side bow to swanstep, who has never shied from expressing dislike for things he doesn't like; I rather enjoy learning if I win or lose with him on liking or not liking the same thing.)

I WILL re-think Cabaret....and I've always loved the title song and the climactic staging of it in the movie with Minnelli.

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"Well, [Damn Yankees] was a big winner in my late childhood -- it was on The Million Dollar Movie in LA for the requisite nine airplays in one week. I didn't watch it every time, but it seemed my parents had it on all the time that week, I could walk in and out on the best songs: "Heart" is an anthem to inspire me(and so funny, too.)"
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That's where I first saw it. I'm not sure how many times I watched it, but I'd just gotten a new 3-speed reel-to-reel recorder, and taped all the numbers, listening to them often thereafter, learning every lyric, inflection and bit of orchestration in Ray Heindorf's arrangements of the big, brassy Warner Bros orchestra.

There must have been something about the WB scoring stage that imparted a signature sound. Whether it's a Busby Berkeley of the '30s, a Max Steiner or Erich Korngold of the '40s, a Rebel Without A Cause or The High and the Mighty of the' 50s or a Harper of the '60s, there's a distinctive and unmistakable presence and resonance to all the scores recorded in that space.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"Well, [Damn Yankees] was a big winner in my late childhood -- it was on The Million Dollar Movie in LA for the requisite nine airplays in one week. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
That's where I first saw it. I'm not sure how many times I watched it, but I'd just gotten a new 3-speed reel-to-reel recorder, and taped all the numbers, listening to them often thereafter, learning every lyric, inflection and bit of orchestration in Ray Heindorf's arrangements of the big, brassy Warner Bros orchestra.

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The Million Dollar Movie experience is, I guess, one of those "unique to an era" things that I take for granted and yet, which was very influential in my youth. Evidently, renting one single movie to show all week was more cost effective for KHJ-9(an "RKO General Station" then), than buying one per day, so these Million Dollar Movies gave "saturation." That's where I learned The Magnificent Seven by heart ("You get elected?" "No, but I got nominated real good" -- shot at) and enjoyed the giant ant movie Them once without knowing what "Them" was(whoah...its big ants!), then enjoying the ant attack sequences as the re-showings went on.

To my memory, only two Hitchcock films got on the Million Dollar Movie: one was Dial M for Murder, so I learned that one by heart...except it rather bored me at that age in many scenes. The other was interesting: Man Who Knew Too Much '56. Evidently Hitchcock and James Stewart saw that being shown on the Million Dollar Movie and sued Paramount for not maximizing the broadcast. Soon, Man '56 ended up on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies -- and the ABC Sunday Night Movie -- and the CBS Friday Night Movie. (Vertigo got the same treatment.)

Speaking of CBS, that network had, in the 70's, a "CBS Late Movie" which was often Columbos but sometimes showed real movies...and Damn Yankees got the nod. I watched it...and watched it disappear again for decades.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

There must have been something about the WB scoring stage that imparted a signature sound. Whether it's a Busby Berkeley of the '30s, a Max Steiner or Erich Korngold of the '40s, a Rebel Without A Cause or The High and the Mighty of the' 50s or a Harper of the '60s, there's a distinctive and unmistakable presence and resonance to all the scores recorded in that space.

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Ah, yes, the "Warner Brothers echo chamber sound" -- for dialogue as well as music. Rio Bravo has it. Strangers on a Train and Dial M have it. (So the Dimitri Timokin score to Rio Bravo sometimes sounds like Strangers and Dial M; Timokin scored all three.) I think it is there as late as Bonnie and Clyde.

Stray thought: if Psycho had been made at Warners, and it had had that "echo chamber sound track" -- would that have diminished Psycho? -- made it sound like every other "fanciful" Warners movie of the time? Just a thought.

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"All of this makes Cabaret an important film, and a classic, and -- as with a few movies that didn't "send me" when I saw them(let's put The Exorcist on the list too)"
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I had just gone to work for Lorimar shortly after they purchased the Allied Artists film library (of which Cabaret was the last major title) in 1980. By the end of the decade, Lorimar - and the rights to all its holdings - had been bought by Warners, and Cabaret, already a stepchild by way of its acquisition by Lorimar, was then a stepchild once removed, and became not only neglected, but almost as shabbily treated as Cinderella herself.

The first DVD release in the '90s was pressed from the same video masters that had been used for its last VHS one, not even optimized for 16:9 TVs and viewable only in shrunken "window box" form on those sets. And that was all that was available until it was remastered for HD and Blu-ray well into this century.
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"But wait...Joel Grey's win. They say "the character wins, not the performance," but what a mysterious performance this was. There isn't really a character, he has no real human existence. And he BEAT Al Pacino as Michael Corleone. (Not to mention Eddie Albert in The Heartbreak Kid; I'd have given it to Albert over Grey
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And what a mysterious character; as you say, not even a character. A device. I can honestly say that in 1973, I was rooting for Albert too, and had he won, I'd still call it well deserved. But Grey's performance really is that, and just that: pure performance, and has proven to be the more indelible of the two. Like Karloff's monster or Lugosi's Dracula, his "Emcee" is the iconic one against which all others have yet been measured.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I had just gone to work for Lorimar

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Ah, yes..a "ringer." Always good to know someone who worked in the biz...

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shortly after they purchased the Allied Artists film library (of which Cabaret was the last major title)

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Allied Artists is just plain weird to me. I believe The Magnificent Seven is an Allied Artists film. I mean, who WERE they? This in the time of the Big Seven or however many there were? (Warners, MGM, Paramount, Columbia, Universal, Fox, United Artists)

Wasn't 1973's Papillion Allied Artists?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

By the end of the decade, Lorimar - and the rights to all its holdings - had been bought by Warners, and Cabaret, already a stepchild by way of its acquisition by Lorimar, was then a stepchild once removed, and became not only neglected, but almost as shabbily treated as Cinderella herself.

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And I'll certainly say that's not a good thing for such a well-honored box office hit like Cabaret.

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The first DVD release in the '90s was pressed from the same video masters that had been used for its last VHS one, not even optimized for 16:9 TVs and viewable only in shrunken "window box" form on those sets. And that was all that was available until it was remastered for HD and Blu-ray well into this century.

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Hmm. I am reminded that while The Godfather was shown on cable TV here there and everywhere, I can't say that Cabaret was quite the staple on TV, perhaps another reason for its "fade" in my own memory.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"But wait...Joel Grey's win. They say "the character wins, not the performance," but what a mysterious performance this was. There isn't really a character, he has no real human existence. And he BEAT Al Pacino as Michael Corleone. (Not to mention Eddie Albert in The Heartbreak Kid; I'd have given it to Albert over Grey
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And what a mysterious character; as you say, not even a character. A device. I can honestly say that in 1973, I was rooting for Albert too, and had he won, I'd still call it well deserved. But Grey's performance really is that, and just that: pure performance, and has proven to be the more indelible of the two. Like Karloff's monster or Lugosi's Dracula, his "Emcee" is the iconic one against which all others have yet been measured.

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I must admit that -- rather like seeing The Joker in comic books-- the Cabaret MC was an "eminence" who I saw in newspaper photographs YEARS before the movie came out -- whenever the play toured, for instance. I do get how he was iconic; and how he was "paired" in photos and on posters with Minnelli so as to create a "dynamic duo of decadence."

Still, I just felt I didn't KNOW this character, and boy did I know Michael Corleone and Eddie Albert's character in Heartbreak Kid.

On the Corleone thing: it is said that because Pacino was nominated in Best Supporting along with Caan and Duvall from The Godfather, "they cancelled each other out" for votes. And yet, in the movie, Michael is really a lead role. It has been said that Brando and Pacino should have switched categories -- no , Pacino simply should have been nominated WITH Brando as Best Actor. And Brando still deserved the win. Talk about an iconic character!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

With three Supporting Actor slots to The Godfather, all that left was Joel Grey(a frontrunner, as I recall ) and...all by his lonesome, Eddie Albert. (This also shut out Barry Foster in Frenzy, who actually did win some acting award in 1972, from some critics' group. Of course, Foster is arguably the Perkins-like lead of Frenzy, too.)

Though the miracle of YouTube, I've been looking at clips from Cabaret the last few days. Minnelli's rock em , sock em, final version of the title tune(with a bit of tragedy lurking in her voice); some of Grey's work; and the stunning "Tomorrow Belongs to Me." I certainly don't think Cabaret is less than a great film "objectively," but something about it just didn't get me. In my teens. Maybe another viewing will help.

Also through the miracle of YouTube, I've watched Eddie Albert's two best scenes in The Heartbreak Kid(one with his wife and Cybill Shepard as his daughter as Charles Grodin tries to explain how he's newly married to another woman but wants Cybill; the other a great confrontation in Albert's study) -- and I laughed hard and felt waves of personal nostalgia.

1972. A very good movie year. Not quite as bountiful as 1973 but yeah..those were the days.

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"But this: Paint Your Wagon uses its best singer(booming Harve Presnell) to belt out the heartfelt lost love number "They Call the Wind Mariah" and the rain is a pourin' and the skies are lightnin' and the male chorus is boomin' and the trees on the mountain are swayin' and compared to THAT, those cramped little numbers on the dark little stage with the (sometimes) tinny little band in Cabaret simply felt SMALL to me."
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Here's the irony of my experience: the Doheny Plaza was an intimate little house; under 500 seats, and felt even smaller. Just the right size to both contain Cabaret's drama and to amplify its explosive musical sequences, which seemed as though they could blow out the walls. Makes me think of Major Boothroyd's description of the compact Walther PPK he issues to Bond in Dr. No: "A delivery like a brick through a plate-glass window."

I saw Paint Your Wagon in a 16mm print on a 707 traveling from Honolulu to L.A. Not the ideal way to see any film, but especially constraining for one of its scope.

Ah, Harve Presnell. Assumed (or intended), I expect, to have been the next Howard Keel. Indeed, in the late '70s, he did the Keel film role in a revival of Annie Get Your Gun with his Molly Brown leading lady, Debbie Reynolds. But the age for that kind of leading man had passed. I wonder if he ever did Daddy Warbucks in Annie anywhere. He'd have been ideal. Nice that he had a '90s renaissance, kicked off by Fargo, and made a mark playing some coolly sinister characters, sans toupee.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Here's the irony of my experience: the Doheny Plaza was an intimate little house; under 500 seats, and felt even smaller. Just the right size to both contain Cabaret's drama and to amplify its explosive musical sequences, which seemed as though they could blow out the walls. Makes me think of Major Boothroyd's description of the compact Walther PPK he issues to Bond in Dr. No: "A delivery like a brick through a plate-glass window."

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I like those vintage Bond lines. Dr. No. How quaint and small it seems now. And I saw it on RELEASE in 1962. My parents took me. I was in single digits. Thanks, folks!

But indeed, the theater in which you see a movie can make a difference. I recall seeing Wayne's True Grit in a nearly defunct old theater(not a palace) and I thought the MOVIE was that cheap and tinny-sounded. It was only seeing it later on (on a double bill with Minelli in The Sterile Cuckoo, Paramount sent THOSE two out together!) that I really saw...and heard...True Grit.

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I saw Paint Your Wagon in a 16mm print on a 707 traveling from Honolulu to L.A. Not the ideal way to see any film, but especially constraining for one of its scope.

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Ha. I saw Paint Your Wagon in that old style "road show with reserved seats" manner in a big dome theater(not the Cinerama dome.) Same theater where I saw Hello, Dolly and Finian's Rainbow. I guess THAT's why I have great memories of those three. Eventually, that big ol' theater gave way to a long run of The Godfather -- but I think they dropped the reserved seat option. Great memories.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Ah, Harve Presnell. Assumed (or intended), I expect, to have been the next Howard Keel.

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I expect. Personally, I always got those two mixed up.

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Indeed, in the late '70s, he did the Keel film role in a revival of Annie Get Your Gun with his Molly Brown leading lady, Debbie Reynolds. But the age for that kind of leading man had passed.

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Yes, there were a few "new stars" -- let's include glamourous if limited Tippi Hedren too -- who were introduced too late for their best use -- Dustin and Mia and Jack and Diane were coming.

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I wonder if he ever did Daddy Warbucks in Annie anywhere.

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Especially when he went bald.

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He'd have been ideal. Nice that he had a '90s renaissance, kicked off by Fargo, and made a mark playing some coolly sinister characters, sans toupee.

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That was amazing how he showed up in Fargo, indeed sans toupee. It was like: who IS that? Harve Presnell? Where has he BEEN? He sure looks different.

And he got a few more roles -- as Travolta's FBI boss in Face/Off for one. And then he faded out again. Weird. Hollywood careers!

That said, Molly Brown and Paint Your Wagon are likely his claims to fame. And Mariah above all.

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"I remember this: I was a real Godfather fanboy in 1972, and hence during the 1973 TV Oscar ceremony, I sat there in stupification as Cabaret won Oscar after Oscar and The Godfather did not. It makes sense -- Cabaret as a musical was going to win in categories where The Godfather wasn't; but as Joel Grey beat Al Pacino, and as Bob Fosse beat Coppola, I had Big Fanboy Worry: was The Godfather NOT going to win Best Picture?"
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My 1973 Oscar experience was the flip side of yours: "Wha?! How could they recognize all those singular achievements in one film, and then conclude another was Best Picture?"

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

but as Joel Grey beat Al Pacino, and as Bob Fosse beat Coppola, I had Big Fanboy Worry: was The Godfather NOT going to win Best Picture?"
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My 1973 Oscar experience was the flip side of yours: "Wha?! How could they recognize all those singular achievements in one film, and then conclude another was Best Picture?"

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Ha. That makes eminent sense ...and Cabaret looked to be the winner as it cleaned up all night long. Only near the end -- with Screenplay, Brando(a great win and a crazy moment on stage; my teenage reaction was "that woman can't ACT") did the movie do SOMETHING to merit Best Picture. I recall at the time thinking it was rather a "pure" win: the blockbuster with all those nominated actors won as an ensemble event. Rather like Titanic(which won no acting Oscars.)

Two years later at the Oscars, Godfather II did better -- and Coppola beat Fosse that time(nominated for Lenny.)

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"Ah...Doghouse...a pang of painful regret comes to me."
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Oh my! Leave it to me to find a tender spot and press on it. But you know me: that was about as confrontational as I'll ever get.

At 19, I too felt fairly sophisticated about film; as much as I could be at that age, at least. Going out to 200 - 250 films a year, both new and old, was still the norm, and I was gobbling up everything in print - criticism, history, theory - that I could find.

The Cabaret/Godfather nexus is an apt citation. It was almost as though I and all my film-loving friends fell into one camp or the other at the time. I recognized and appreciated The Godfather's quality, but it didn't speak to me in the way Cabaret did, and I was never moved to return for additional viewings, as I was with Fosse's film. Among other things, he, DP Geoffrey Unsworth and editor David Bretherton were doing things with a camera that I still haven't figured out, and were employing cutting techniques I had never seen in any film, musical or otherwise.

A big part of those repeat viewings was simply a quest to understand and absorb it all.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"Ah...Doghouse...a pang of painful regret comes to me."
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Oh my! Leave it to me to find a tender spot and press on it. But you know me: that was about as confrontational as I'll ever get.

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Sure. I think it is much safer to extol movies that one loves(even if others don't -- and don't get why I do -- hello, North Dallas Forty, Used Cars) than to dump on movies that others love or like. Its cliché to say we all have different tastes but we do.

I'm almost certain that my reaction against Cabaret was likely because I LIKED those big ol' mastodons of the sixties , not to mention the good musicals that came before them of similar size. I suppose you could put Cabaret alongside Psycho(hoo boy) as a movie that "changed the template." And I do recall a few too many reviews of Cabaret that made it sound like the way ALL musicals SHOULD be made. Well, not necessarily...

The film's take on the ever-creeping stain of Nazism was its powerful center...after Liza's big final number, isn't the final shot of the film a theater filled with Nazis in uniform? -- and THAT was powerful. Cabaret is certainly as much a drama as a musical -- and Liza's character(whatever she may have been in the book) was fascinating in her refusal to confront the world around her.

OK, I'll watch the whole thing again. Soon. I can always be won back.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Which reminds me: "What's Up, Doc" -- also from 1972 -- has been on a lot on TCM and its really growing on me. Some of the humor remains as ...yes...stupid...as I found it in 1972, but much of it is breezy and unique and Streisand sure had it all going on as a young star...that Groucho Marx talking style, sexiness even without great beauty, etc. I can "re-train" myself on any movie. (Hell, the grim Frenzy only feels grimmer and less important as I see these other '72 films again -- maybe that one was all about the great reviews and little more. I dunno. Um, no...it had style, London, Covent Garden...and truly shocking shock.)

Another 1972 favorite: Steve McQueen in Sam Peckinpah's almost gentle rodeo drama "Junior Bonner." With Robert Preston as his saddle tramp daddy.

Another 1972 favorite of sorts: "Prime Cut." Lee Marvin versus newly Oscared Gene Hackman: gangsters in the wheatfields, Charley Varrick meets North by Northwest. Its kind of broad and clunky, but it has a gruesome daylight-horror Hitchcockian style. (The mob enforcer sent out BEFORE Marvin to collect a debt from Midwestern mob meat packer Hackman...is sent back to Chicago as hot dogs.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

At 19, I too felt fairly sophisticated about film; as much as I could be at that age, at least. Going out to 200 - 250 films a year, both new and old, was still the norm, and I was gobbling up everything in print - criticism, history, theory - that I could find.

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Well, though 19-year old people certainly look like kids to me NOW, I'm reminded that the Ingmar Bergman cults began in collleges, as did other Eurofilm cults, as did the Bogart cult. It IS a time of intellectual searching.

I didn't see as many movies as you did, but I read a lot of film reviews, got a heady sense of how all these new directors -- Altman, Ashby, Friedkin, Peckinpah(who'd been around but "hit"), Bogdanovich, Coppola, Fosse -- were being saluted even as guys like Hitchcock and Wilder were taking final bows. (Kubrick was sort of his own "thing," with 2001 looming over A Clockwork Orange, and that was it in the early 70's.) I was sophisticated ENOUGH, but not necessarily to really "get" a movie like Cabaret. And even with The Godfather, I "got" the murders, but it would take many years and more viewings to understand the business machinations and family conflicts of the film.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The Cabaret/Godfather nexus is an apt citation. It was almost as though I and all my film-loving friends fell into one camp or the other at the time. I recognized and appreciated The Godfather's quality, but it didn't speak to me in the way Cabaret did, and I was never moved to return for additional viewings, as I was with Fosse's film.

--- Its the great thing about "the movies." Diffferent movies speak to us in different ways. I do recall...being somewhat influenced by my movie-loving parents at that time, that they came back from seeing The Godfather(AFTER I had seen it with teenage friends) and my father saying "that was the best movie made from a novel I have ever seen." Parental guidance. Stuck with me. But hey, my mother could do Cabaret chapter and verse, and she was particularly moved by Tomorrow Belongs to Me. She conveyed the essence of that scene BEFORE I saw the movie.

These are nice memories, too.

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It is interesting how, in some years, the Best Picture race devolves down to two specific types of movie: Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump come to mind. When QT picked up his Screenplay Oscar he said "I'd better say a lot quickly, because I think this is the last time I'll be up here tonight." Hah. Yeah.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Bob Fosse had a bomb in 1969 as his first movie(Sweet Charity)

F/V repeated the famous figure that Sweet Charity cost $20 million but never explained how this was possible. I mean, that's an astonishing amount of money for the time:

Bullitt was made for 5.5 mill
Wild Bunch 6 mill
Funny Girl 8.8 mill
2001 10.5 mill
Patton 12 mill (about the highest I can find from around that time).

How does a novice director get twice the budget that should have been needed (for any movie)? I assume that the answers must be in Wasson's Fosse biography but I don't remember them.

Or consider the pressure that, famously, Spielberg was under on Jaws as a young (though not novice) director when it went over-schedule and over-budget. That ended up costing 9 million. (Compare too: American Graffiti cost .75 mill and Star Wars cost 11 mill, and Godfather cost 6 mill.)

The money for SC isn't exactly up on the screen (it's not a cast of thousands like Hello Dolly)... how could Universal have let this happen?

Note that I haven't watched SC in full since I first saw it in High School. It struck me as a bit of a mess and found it *really* dragged. Since then, like everyone else, I've just fast-forwarded to the 4-5 great musical numbers, i.e., we watch SC the way we watch Busby Berkeley films.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Bob Fosse had a bomb in 1969 as his first movie(Sweet Charity)
F/V repeated the famous figure that Sweet Charity cost $20 million but never explained how this was possible. I mean, that's an astonishing amount of money for the time:

Bullitt was made for 5.5 mill
Wild Bunch 6 mill
Funny Girl 8.8 mill
2001 10.5 mill
Patton 12 mill (about the highest I can find from around that time).

How does a novice director get twice the budget that should have been needed (for any movie)? I assume that the answers must be in Wasson's Fosse biography but I don't remember them.

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Here's my guess: the writers of Fosse/Verdon just pulled "20 million" out of thin air so as to have a number that sounded big enough for a major loss(in 1969 dollars.) If Fosse had said "its a historic bomb, it lost 8 million dollars," it wouldn't have had the same effect. (We can also maybe see the 20 million loss as "adjusted for inflation.")

My other guess: the writers of Fosse/Verdon never dreamed someone would watch the series with your knowledge of 1969 film budgets, swanstep. I mean "Hitchcock" was famously off the mark on so many things, as if the writers just made stuff up for effect. That's possibly going to happen with Fosse/Verdon. I've already read some "fact check" articles on Fosse/Verdon that demonstrate stuff has been moved around in time, or invented(exactly how Verdon and Fosse met on Damn Yankees -- the play - is in dispute, for instance.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Or consider the pressure that, famously, Spielberg was under on Jaws as a young (though not novice) director when it went over-schedule and over-budget. That ended up costing 9 million. (Compare too: American Graffiti cost .75 mill and Star Wars cost 11 mill, and Godfather cost 6 mill.)

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Yes, it sure is fascinating how movie budgets skyrocketed up to $100 million or so(for the big ones)over just a few decades. "Wo' hoppen?" I realize with international markets, movies can EARN a billion...maybe studios just raised the overhead to make more money...

I'm amusingly reminded that Hitchcock made Psycho for $800,000 in 1960 dollars(though he shaved off about $500,000 by having his stars take low pay, and by skipping his own fee), and that he made Frenzy for "under $3 million" because if he kept the movie budget that low, he retained certain greenlight rights on the material. Though Topaz is listed as his most expensive movie(over $4 million), I have to guess that North by Northwest cost the most adjusted for inflation. One superstar salary(Grant), two star salaries(Saint and Mason), all that location work, etc.

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The money for SC isn't exactly up on the screen (it's not a cast of thousands like Hello Dolly)... how could Universal have let this happen?

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I recall it looking like a Universal movie of that time. TV-ish. (It really took until American Graffiti, The Sting, and Jaws for Universal movies to look like "real movies." Though Hitchcock by going to England made sure that Frenzy looked like a real movie, too.)

There is this: TWO endings were shot for Sweet Charity. In one, MacLaine wins her love and a happy ending. In the other , MacLaine loses her love and gets an unhappy ending. The unhappy ending won overall, but the movie went out with the happy ending in some markets. Maybe that cost extra.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Note that I haven't watched SC in full since I first saw it in High School.

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Same here.

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It struck me as a bit of a mess and found it *really* dragged.

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Note that in "Fosse/Verdon," they have Fosse rage that he was "forced" to shoot Sweet Charity in a glossy, family friendly way and thus would seem to have rejected the film as his creation. I don't know if this is the case but -- certainly Cabaret is a much more artful product than Sweet Charity.

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Since then, like everyone else, I've just fast-forwarded to the 4-5 great musical numbers, i.e., we watch SC the way we watch Busby Berkeley films.

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That's how I watch my DVDs of Paint Your Wagon, Finian's Rainbow(which REALLY has too much talk, Coppola directed it and said so), and Hello, Dolly...though I will sometimes stop Hello, Dolly to watch the comedy-patter scenes between Matthau and Streisand, they were quite entertaining together.

I tend to watch West Side Story and Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music all the way through. I don't know why. The King and I was a childhood favorite on TV; I watch it all the way through in h honor of my family, I think.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

I tend to watch West Side Story and Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music all the way through. I don't know why.

Isn't it obvious why? They're just good all the way through: good stories, good dialogue, great acting, great production values. All the Donen, Kelly, Minnelli, & Demy musicals and most of the top Fred&Ginger films are *completely* (re)watchable in the same way.

SC's musical numbers *are* all-time-great, however: Hey Big Spender, Rich Man's Frug, If They Could See Me Now, Rhythm of Life together alone beat almost anything and have been massively influential. But see this blog for a very warm appreciation of SC as (almost) a *whole*:
https://lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2011/03/sweet-charity-1969.html

Note that the mind-bogglingly sexy lead dancer in RM's Frug, Suzanne Charney, began as a dancer on Hullabaloo. She's the second dancer featured in this clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sEArYFZAco
& the lead, central dancer in their (very RM's Frug-like!) interp. of the Batman theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7CVDxtJ_Zk
From there she jumped (while still only 16!) to be in the chorus and be lead frugster in Sweet Charity on B/way, repeating her role for the film. Strangely Charney never had another major role in film or on Broadway (she had a few minor tv parts).

One curious fact about the film is that it barely used the most famous piece of instrumental music from the show, the overture or 'Charity's Theme'. This theme was re-arranged by Paul Mauriat and released as a single in 1969:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdbDjExMhjA
The single was very successful around the world and was heard a *lot* throughout the '70s. Woebetide you, however, if you went to the film expecting to hear this.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I tend to watch West Side Story and Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music all the way through. I don't know why.
Isn't it obvious why? They're just good all the way through: good stories, good dialogue, great acting, great production values.

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Ha. Yes...I guess that's it. My triumvirate of Finian's Rainbow, Paint Your Wagon, and Hello, Dolly are NOT considered great musicals (though I would say they have some great songs).

Those other ones ARE great...and Oscar, for one, took notice.

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All the Donen, Kelly, Minnelli, & Demy musicals and most of the top Fred&Ginger films are *completely* (re)watchable in the same way.

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I'm reminded that Hollywood "once upon a time" was beating Broadway for the sheer array of musical geniuses who worked there and knew how to "put it all together" : song, dance, color. And they were slowly whittled down to nothing as the movies pretty much shifted to dramas and action(honestly, the movies really are Hitchcock's World now --from Us to Captain Marvel to the re-tooled action version of Dumbo -- thrillers rule.)

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

And they were slowly whittled down to nothing as the movies pretty much shifted to dramas and action(honestly, the movies really are Hitchcock's World now --from Us to Captain Marvel to the re-tooled action version of Dumbo -- thrillers rule.)

This is an interesting idea... that a kind of Hitchcock/Frankenheimer/Spielberg/Lucas action-thriller story template with suspense values has now been standardized and every other genre is expected to kind of fit within it (Marvel movies are perfect examples of this - it's almost the same MacGuffin-heavy story every time and what creates variety is the additional genre material that's layered in: teen film, slapstick comedy, afro-futurist blaxpolitation, WW2 romance, buddy road comedy, '90s gen-x nostalgia, '70s cold war paranoia, psychedlic freak out...)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

This is an interesting idea... that a kind of Hitchcock/Frankenheimer/Spielberg/Lucas action-thriller story template with suspense values has now been standardized and every other genre is expected to kind of fit within it

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I rather think so...though "sometimes" musicals or Westerns or Biblicals or historical epics are made -- they are no longer the bread and butter of Hollywood. I'd say things break into drama, comedy(always a genre in demand), and....Hitchcock/Frankenheimer/Spielberg/Lucas tone.

At least of movies OTHER that the other big genre of today: Disney/Pixar animation(which certainly use death, villains, and conflict.)

I guess I won't put all of this at Hitchcock's feet. The Science Fiction roots of Star Wars aren't Hitchcock's, and Raider of the Lost Ark has some NXNW-ish cliffhanging but it is also an "adventure film." Still...Hitchcock made all that money and had all those hits because he dealt in suspense and excitement. And that has definitely survived and thrived.

(Marvel movies are perfect examples of this - it's almost the same MacGuffin-heavy story every time and what creates variety is the additional genre material that's layered in: teen film, slapstick comedy, afro-futurist blaxpolitation, WW2 romance, buddy road comedy, '90s gen-x nostalgia, '70s cold war paranoia, psychedlic freak out...)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

(Marvel movies are perfect examples of this - it's almost the same MacGuffin-heavy story every time and what creates variety is the additional genre material that's layered in: teen film, slapstick comedy, afro-futurist blaxpolitation, WW2 romance, buddy road comedy, '90s gen-x nostalgia, '70s cold war paranoia, psychedlic freak out...)

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Right now, these films are a genre unto themselves, and I'd say they trace back to Star Wars in the main(as a matter of cinematic type), with Superman (1978) and Batman(1989) setting the DC pace for where we are now.

Still, Hitchcock's sense of suspense and chase action factors in...along with all those other things you mention, swanstep. Marvel and DC are very "elastic" even as their stories are rather the same. And of course, now the stories are all interlocking into one big story. I still don't think these things qualify as stand alone movies, but they make money, people want them, I myself see most of them(usually for a quick fun fix, as I used to do with action crime movies, Westerns, and Hitchcock --- but also usually real question, movie-wise.

I was watching the first season of True Detective the other night -- the one with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaghey -- and in one tense scene, Woody's father in law complained about how terrible young people are today and Woody said something like "and some old man said the same thing 50 years ago, and another man 50 years before him, and its still OK, isn't it?"

Well, yeah. I won't be that old man. But I will say that the changes I have witnessed to the American theatrical film from the Hays Code(as watched on TV from the late 30's - early 70's), 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's...changes have occurred in what the movies are. I expect we don't get most of those types of movies back , ever again.

Except in my DVD collection....and on streaming....

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

SC's musical numbers *are* all-time-great, however: Hey Big Spender, Rich Man's Frug, If They Could See Me Now, Rhythm of Life together alone beat almost anything and have been massively influential.

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I also liked "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" -- just seems like a great "vision" song...even if the vision fails.

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But see this blog for a very warm appreciation of SC as (almost) a *whole*:
https://lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2011/03/sweet-charity-1969.html

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I enjoyed the collection of Sweet Charity-related info, swanstep. It seems like practically every movie has some sort of following now, some sort of archives worth exploring.

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Note that the mind-bogglingly sexy lead dancer in RM's Frug, Suzanne Charney, began as a dancer on Hullabaloo.

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I'm reminded that QT will have TV star Leo DiCaprio dancing on Hullaballo as a "period in joke" in his new movie...

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

I enjoyed the collection of Sweet Charity-related info, swanstep.

Glad you liked it. One thing that the 'true fan' of SC reminds us of is how special Shirley MacLaine was and is - you *are* entertained when she's on-screen period.

I wonder whether Fosse/Verdon is ever going to grapple with the reality that MacLaine enforces - that Verdon did *not* have the sort of star-magnetism or acting talent to compete with MacLaine for roles (outside dance numbers).

And on the other hand, in dance numbers, Fosse's choreography and god knows personal taste was always pushing him towards more extreme, tall, ultra-leggy, showgirl silhouettes (Suzanne Charney, Ann Reinking, etc.) which is away from Verdon.

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

" I've already read some "fact check" articles on Fosse/Verdon that demonstrate stuff has been moved around in time, or invented(exactly how Verdon and Fosse met on Damn Yankees -- the play - is in dispute, for instance.)"
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I tend to watch things like this with a compulsively nitpicky eye. The reference to Cabaret taking place in 1933, for instance. Well, yeah, that's when Hitler came to power, but right after Fosse's director credit, a title card states, "Berlin, 1931." Okay. Very minor nitpick, especially in view of the otherwise slavish attention to detail in sets, costume, makeup and choreography. Just an inconsequential slip.

The bit that really got me was Verdon supposedly asking about Liza Minnelli after being told she'd play Sally in Cabaret, "Can she act?"

Verdon would certainly have been well aware of Minnelli's bona fides at that time: off-Broadway in Best Foot Forward in 1963; Tony Award winner for Flora, the Red Menace ('65); three feature films, including The Sterile Cuckoo, for which she'd been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.

That was just clumsy writing; someone's idea of making a point, but one that was not only unnecessary but inapplicable.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I tend to watch things like this with a compulsively nitpicky eye. The reference to Cabaret taking place in 1933, for instance. Well, yeah, that's when Hitler came to power, but right after Fosse's director credit, a title card states, "Berlin, 1931." Okay. Very minor nitpick, especially in view of the otherwise slavish attention to detail in sets, costume, makeup and choreography. Just an inconsequential slip.

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Yes, well its probably quite the task for somebody to keep it all together.

Versus: there is SOME anecdotal proof that Alma Hitchcock had a friendship that may have edged towards an affair, with writer Whitfield Cook. But it happened around 1950 when Stage Fright and Strangers on a Train were being made or prepared. The movie "Hitchcock" just decided to move the whole thing -- conveniently -- to 1960 when Psycho was made, true facts cast away for drama's sake.

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The bit that really got me was Verdon supposedly asking about Liza Minnelli after being told she'd play Sally in Cabaret, "Can she act?"

Verdon would certainly have been well aware of Minnelli's bona fides at that time: off-Broadway in Best Foot Forward in 1963; Tony Award winner for Flora, the Red Menace ('65); three feature films, including The Sterile Cuckoo, for which she'd been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.

That was just clumsy writing; someone's idea of making a point, but one that was not only unnecessary but inapplicable.

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Yeah, I caught that too. The Sterile Cuckoo had been a big deal -- indeed sent out on a double-bill with True Grit and thus landing bigger audiences -- and Minnelli WAS a next big thing. (Her Cuckoo and Cabaret characters share a kind of flamboyant sexual desperation.) Perhaps this script was written by very young people who just don't remember that?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I dunno. It is concieveable that as popular as biopics are these days(they are an offshoot of "reality TV" I guess), they may never be very accurate or really capture what it was like. The makers really don't seem to feel like they OWE it to anyone to be accurate. Just create the dramatic situations that would be most juicy to dramatize.

I wonder what other biopics are in development. Tab and Tony may be made because the producers are big names. I think I've read in recent years about attempts to do biopics about the Making of the Godfather and the first season of SNL. Soon, there will be reason to make "historical" biopics about more recent times -- the making of Titanic, perhaps?

Related but Unrelated:

I've read that a new version of "All in the Family" is coming to TV. With Woody Harrelson as Archie Bunker. I thought he was a MOVIE star. Oh, well.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

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[–] snepts (11123) 6 years ago

In my opinion there are superficial similarities to the Davis / Crawford show but that's about it. I don't know if the same people are creating F/V but it reminds me more of Mad Men than Feud.
But I'm glad they are bringing attention to these performers. This was a colorful time in the entertainment industry and the period look is fun. If Fosse were around today he's shave all his hair off. Michelle looks like she has dental implants, she sort of has a horse mouth here. I thought she was lovely in The Station Agent and I don't mind her at all in any fashion, but it's almost like they don't want her to be pretty here. I liked how she took her hair extension out and combed and fluffed it and put it back on, very un-self consciously. Also interesting how Paddy Chayevsky, Neil Simon (?) and Fosse were all hanging out together. And Joan Simon died young? I didn't know any of this.
Then there's the movie Lenny. So different than the musicals Fosse is associated with. A real Renaissance Man.

It's a shame all of this isn't on the Fosse / Verdon thread. Never understood how this Psycho site got to be this way. I usually ignore it because it has nothing to do with the movie.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In my opinion there are superficial similarities to the Davis / Crawford show but that's about it.

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Well, same cable network, same number of episodes. I suppose one might say that both stories are about success out of conflict: Davis and Crawford managing to work together at all; Fosse and Verdon managing to work together after a marital break-up(but no divorce.) And these are showbiz stories about how certain movies came into being: Baby Jane, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte....Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz, Star 80(Fosse only directed 5 movies; they can do his whole canon in one mini-series.)

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I don't know if the same people are creating F/V but it reminds me more of Mad Men than Feud.

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I don't think it is the same production team. Interesting that Mad Men comes to mind, as it was a series about the 60s'(like Feud) and Fosse/Verdon is about the 70's. On the other hand, a central theme of Mad Men was "cheatin' Don Draper and his long suffering wives" -- and that kind of sexual roundelay continues in Fosse/Verdon. Interesting, though, as Episode 5 showed, Fosse could get a younger woman, but Verdon could get a younger man.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

But I'm glad they are bringing attention to these performers. This was a colorful time in the entertainment industry and the period look is fun.

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Yes, that's what these historic biopics are all about really -- "You are there." Nostalgic if you WERE alive then, a fanciful return if you were not (Mad Men was exactly the same way.)

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If Fosse were around today he's shave all his hair off.

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Yes, probably. I think he had more hair than Rockwell is showing, though.

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Michelle looks like she has dental implants, she sort of has a horse mouth here. I thought she was lovely in The Station Agent and I don't mind her at all in any fashion, but it's almost like they don't want her to be pretty here. I liked how she took her hair extension out and combed and fluffed it and put it back on, very un-self consciously.

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Its a bit overdone, makes Michelle's looks rather cartoonish. She's got Verdon's raspy voice down well. I suppose the idea is to show how quickly younger, sexier women would steal Fosse away -- even as Verdon kept his artistic allegiance.

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Also interesting how Paddy Chayevsky, Neil Simon (?) and Fosse were all hanging out together.

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Pals of a certain cachet. Every man EARNED his way into that friendship. And in this episode (5) at the beach house, Paddy hasn't even written Network yet. (Though he HAS won Oscars for Marty in 1955 and The Hospital in 1971.)

There's a funny story -- maybe it will be done on the show -- of Paddy coming in when Fosse had a heart attack. Fosse asked Paddy to witness a will signing. Paddy read the will and said "I'm not in this! LIVE, you bastard!"

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And Joan Simon died young? I didn't know any of this.

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I knew of Joan Simon's young death from a pretty bad Neil Simon play and movie of 1980: Chapter Two, in which Simon's REAL second wife(Marsha Mason) played herself under another name. James Caan played Simon under another name. And in a terribly(to me) embarrassing final act, Mason chews out Caan for worshiping his first wife and marrying Mason too soon. As I recall, Caan plays most of the scene from the back of his head only, never speaks, looks constipated in the close-ups as Mason rips him up and down and demands his love. Its a shameful vanity piece for Mason and Simon...rather at the expense of Joan. IMHO.

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Then there's the movie Lenny. So different than the musicals Fosse is associated with. A real Renaissance Man.

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As the series is showing us right now(its not over yet), Fosse wanted to prove himself a "serious director of drama." He did -- though he still cut through time and space. Interestingly, "All That Jazz" would show the fictional Fosse trying to cut Lenny while trying to direct Chicago(all under different names -- this went around.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

It's a shame all of this isn't on the Fosse / Verdon thread.

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Well, maybe we can move it there, too.

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Never understood how this Psycho site got to be this way. I usually ignore it because it has nothing to do with the movie.

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I'm sorry that you ignore it, I wish I could explain why it is. I'll offer these thoughts:

Here at moviechat, anytime I've posted on any other Hitchcock movie at any other Hitchcock board...nothing. Months go by, nobody answers(I know, it must be me but...those boards are inactive.)You can see. The boards seem to be dead. I think Moviechat caters to young people watching new movies...and Trump board nasty debate. That's it. This Psycho board is about as active as an old movie board gets...and that's not very active.

Also, I'm older and I find if I go to a board on a newer movie to comment....I don't belong. The fans there are very young and they want to flame each other and attack and...not my cup of tea. So I hide over here.

As for all the OT topics, that was allowed over at imdb and its allowed here. We don't hurt anybody. Plus: "all movie roads lead to Psycho." Read this entire FosseVerdon thread and you'll see all sorts of references to Psycho and Hitchcock.

And: I, for one, make sure to "match" any OT post with a post on Psycho. I know that movie pretty good and I'm always willing to talk it. But I don't think I'd be healthy if ALL I posted on was Psycho. Hence the OT stuff is downright necessary and required.

One thing I like about the Psycho board: swanstep is here. Hard to lure him to just any old board....

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[–] snepts (11123) 6 years ago

I just wish we had robust discussion on the actual F / V thread. That might push the needle.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

I don't know if the same people are creating F/V but it reminds me more of Mad Men than Feud.

Mad Men had myriad connections to Hitchcock & Psycho (and also to some of Psycho's immediate peer movies such as Chabrol's Les Bonnes Femmes (1960), see e.g. this post o' mine: http://plaguehouse.blogspot.com/2015/05/look-familiar.html).

We used to discuss MM a *lot* - episode by episode - at the old IMDb Psycho board. All those posts are now lost in time.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

swanstep:

I clicked to your Mad Men article speculating on a Les Bonnes Femmes-inspired series finale to Mad Men...that is your blog, yes? Very interesting, and I'm sorry the actual finale didn't measure up.

But then I clicked on your HITCHCOCK reference and in the vicinity of your comparison of Janet Leigh dead/Anne Heche dead close-ups...found a treasure trove!

Your piece about Psycho's long-awaited run in New Zealand(right?) a full YEAR after its June 1960 release...with a release in June of 1961, and any number of "teaser print ads" in May and early June("Its coming....be ready for a major announcement") and...best of all , a group of "Psycho-related" mail-in competitions with prizes of "passes to Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO."

They seem to have used just about every teaser ad and catch phrase extant to promote Psycho ("You must see Psycho from the beginning, most movies don't run well backwards") though I didn't see my favorite ("Please do not give away the ending of Psycho. Its the only one we have.")

And...with the letters chopped up and moved around in any number of combinations...and/or printed intact along with Hitchcock's photo and many catch phrases -- the greatest movie logo of all time -- PSYCHO . Provably so in all these NZ ads.

And..a different(to me) photograph of Anthony Perkins in the print ads. (Though Hitchcock's photo is the most prominent in ALL ads....followed by Janet Leigh and Vera Miles.)

And..in some of the ads, the co-stars make the grade: "Martin Balsam and John McIntire." Fame across the world for those two supporting pros. Mostly, just the top billed four stars, though.

And: in NZ at least, "Rated R -- No One Under 16 Admitted." In the US, they had kiddie matinees!

I also note the push for people to book Psycho tickets in advance, and the "apologies to the hundreds of people we had to turn away this Saturday..please book in advance."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Anyway, its a great, great series of ads that demonstrate the power of Psycho at that time in world history. Big hits like The Sound of Music were coming -- but that movie lacked the "fun" of the Psycho shocker promotion. It would take(IMHO) until the seventies and The Exorcist and Jaws to replicate the Psycho promotional, lines around the block experience(The Godfather was kind of like that, but sold more as a prestige picture, even with many more murders than Psycho.)

And here this is, buried in an "OT" post about Fosse/Verdon.

Swanstep, if you could link up to the "New Zealand Goes Psycho" article from your blog as a separate on-topic post, I think people might enjoy seeing and reading it as much as I did.

Maybe I can comment there, too...

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Fosse/Verdon Ep. 2.

Nothing too interesting. We progress the story of the breakdown of Fosse and Verdon's marriage over Fosse wanting/needing to be openly polyamorous, while spiralling back to how they met on Damn Yankees at the cost of their previous marriages to other people. Fosse's victimized wife at the time, Joan, explains how *their* original union had its own set of victims (especially on Fosse's side - so Gwen is his wife #3).

It was fun I suppose to see various bits of DY worked out but Fosse's later dancing of parts in the movie version was kept from us, so it all felt a little incomplete to me. I'm enjoying this a lot less than Feud:Bette&Joan.

Williams still impresses, and Fosse/Rockwell hasn't really come into his own. It's Fosse's women's story so far.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Fosse/Verdon Ep. 2.

Nothing too interesting. We progress the story of the breakdown of Fosse and Verdon's marriage over Fosse wanting/needing to be openly polyamorous,

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I was interested in that scene. Nothing's harder than having to choose between women (as The Lovin' Spoonful sang "Did you ever have to make up your mind?") Nothing's more aggravating than realizing you have to share a woman with the another man. (I am speaking from the hetero male side of the street, pick your permutations.) It would be nice to live communally, but people just can't DO that, I guess.

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while spiralling back to how they met on Damn Yankees at the cost of their previous marriages to other people. Fosse's victimized wife at the time, Joan, explains how *their* original union had its own set of victims (especially on Fosse's side - so Gwen is his wife #3).

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I'm watching Fosse/Verdon with a female companion who wants to give up on it. She basically just despises Fosse, even as I'm saying, "Hey, its show business." And its DANCING show business -- these are physical, sensual people.

I do feel like "we've been here before" with the "cheating bad boy" husband who, nonetheless has charms and talent enough to entice many women(though I guess we'll soon see Fosse sexually blackmail dancers into sleeping with him -- "forcibly by threat"). But of course, the series is showing us that Verdon was willing to cheat WITH Fosse on Wife Number 2. Again, "its show business."

I assume -- even with the time jumps -- that if Fosse/Verdon deals early on with their "romantic breakup"(they never divorced) it can go on to how this particular couple managed to "keep it platonic" for years, and work together right up to Fosse's death. That's the REAL story here. Peter Bogdanovich never worked with ex-wife Polly Platt again after Cybill Shepard entered(nor after Cybill left.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

It was fun I suppose to see various bits of DY worked out but Fosse's later dancing of parts in the movie version was kept from us, so it all felt a little incomplete to me.

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Yes..for "insiders," Fosse/Verdon rather rejected something very famous about "Who's Got the Pain?" In the movie, the then-unknown Fosse and Verdon dance the number, and it remains(to my knowledge) the only record of them on film dancing together(maybe they did some TV?) So here we get a LOT of the number..but its the stage version..and Fosse is in the audience.

I was also amused by how they put much of "Heart" in there (on stage, not in the movie). The "visual point" is: Verdon's taking her curtain call bows on stage after "Heart"(which she isn't in), but Fosse is right at the edge of the stage applauding "his creations." Still...I think they just made sure to put the best Damn Yankees song in Fosse/Verdon, even if they had to shoehorn it in.

Remains to be seen: will they cover "Damn Yankees the movie" or not? I can't see them repeating "Heart" or "Whatever Lola Wants." But maybe they WILL show Fosse dance "Who's Got the Pain" with Verdon.

Episode 2 cut to the chase on why I wanted to see Fosse/Verdon in the first place. Here I've spent years considering Damn Yankees(the movie) my guilty little pleasure, a movie musical nobody remembers and...it gets detailed coverage in 2019 mini-series. Not to mention: if "Tab & Tony" is made(it is still in development) we will get Damn Yankees covered AGAIN(from the Tab Hunter side) along with, likely Psycho(from the Tony Perkins side.) So suddenly Damn Yankees is getting a LOT of coverage. Who'da thunk?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And once Fosse/Verdon leaves Damn Yankees behind? Well, Chicago(the stage version) will be a topic. And looming up over everything: All That Jazz.

One "user reviewer" on IMDb writes: "Why watch this? Why not just watch All That Jazz instead?" Point being, that one was made by an artist(Fosse) about an artist(Fosse) and with a bigger budget and more art than Fosse/Verdon. All true. And hence if/when Fosse/ Verdon reaches "All That Jazz," ...will that be a cheapjack comedown?

BTW: I've listed North Dallas Forty as my favorite of 1979, but again I have to say that the musical machinations of 1979's All That Jazz make for a much more difficult-to-make artistic accomplishment. Oh, well...I liked the story and characters and tough themes of North Dallas Forty. But All That Jazz is probably in my Number Two slot. (Alien is probably Number Three, because it is "Psycho" famous in its own way; except I think a lot of it is worse than Psycho.)

All that Jazz: The final fantasy concert where a dying Roy Scheider confronts everyone in his life (including a Gwen Verdon character) is very exciting, very sexy, and ultimately very moviing..and the opening dance is BIG. Its all the stuff in between that is hard for me to remember; hence North Dallas Forty still has my vote.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I'm enjoying this a lot less than Feud:Bette&Joan.

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Me, too. I'm afraid the cheating cad artist guy/long suffering unsung woman story feels a little familiar...and the jumping around in time is getting a little annoying.

Feud also dug deep into Jack Warner's last years as the main man at Warners and how he made things happen. We've gotten SOME of that with Fosse/Verdon(Paul Reiser as Cy Feuer has been a good foil) but not enough.

There remains this issue. The PROSPECT of Hitchcock excited me("Oh, boy a movie about the making of Psycho)The PROSPECT of Fosse/Verdon excited me("Oh, boy, a movie about the making of Damn Yankees...and Cabaret...and All That Jazz...and Lenny"), but the execution of these biopics(and others) can't help but be underwhelming. People who "play" Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and Shirley MacLaine and Liza Minnelli are NOT those famous stars. They are subsitutes.

It is different with Rockwell and Williams as Fosse and Verdon. The actors aren't playing massively famous people, they can "disappear" into the characters.

And restaged movie scenes never seem to be as good as the REAL movie scenes. Not to mention: the inevitable "fast and loose play with the facts."

All this said, I will probably watch future movie people biopics. I can't help myself. ("Tab and Tony" is, for obvious reasons, one I would like to see.)

And I STILL think that a "mini-series about Hitchcock's career" -- with segments like "the Robert Walker story," "the Grace Kelly story" "the Tony Perkins story" and "the Tippi Hedren story" would be a corker. In my mind at least.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Williams still impresses, and Fosse/Rockwell hasn't really come into his own. It's Fosse's women's story so far.

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I will say that I've gotten more accepting of Rockwell as a "sexy guy," and I like the grace notes where -- as with all bad boys -- he's suddenly compassionate with Verdon or nice to his daughter, etc.

Williams impresses and hey -- aren't they BOTH pretty good as dancers? Not Fosse/Verdon good, but we were worried about their prowess and: they're OK.

I'll stick out Fosse/Verdon to the end(my companion may not, she just HATES Fosse).

Side-bar: one nifty on-screen appearance by Bob Fosse is in Stanley Donen's weird 1974 musical "The Little Prince." Along with Gene Wilder as "The Fox" in one cameo number, Fosse plays "The Snake" in another musical cameo number, and wears his now trademark black outfit with black bowler hat. He sings seductively(hissing like the snake that he is) and dances with sinous grace. Its a great little number. I believe that Fosse did it for his daughter. Maybe it makes it into "Fosse/Verdon."

We shall see.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

A few additives having been given a day to think about it:

ONE: Damn Yankees was not the only movie appearance of Gwen Verdon. In the 80's, as an "older woman," Verdon appeared in supporting roles in two films, one major, one minor, that I know of:

The major one was Cocoon, Ron Howard's tale of old people discovering a fountain of youth(the idea of the men gaining potency at "blue steel" level and surprising their old lady mates, was something I didn't much think about when I saw the film 30 some years ago, but it seems more relevant today. Heh. The real-life cocoon is Viagra.)

The minor one was "Nadine," another of my guilty pleasures, a "small city crime story" by Robert Benton, who set this one in 1954 Texas and would in 2005 set a similar film called "The Ice Harvest" in modern-day Wichita, Kansas. Both films share(with Charley Varrick, not written by Benton), the idea of small nests of low-level organized crime "right there on main street," in your bars, your restaurants, and in Nadine, running a local civic auditorium where wrestling and rodeos are staged. In "Nadine," it is the sublime Rip Torn as the local Texas crime boss, with wrestlers as his henchmen and a near-divorced couple, Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger, as his local targets(booms the sonorous Torn, "You work all your life to make something of yourself, and it takes two nitwits ten minutes to bring it all down.") . Fun film. And Gwen Verdon is Basinger's beauty parlor boss and confidante.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

TWO: This about "Cabaret": it was very much an ADULT musical, not family friendly, not for kids. Finian's Rainbow had a leprechaun and a Pot o' Gold; The Sound of Music was family entertainment personified. But Cabaret had sex and brutality and bigotry and was "for mature audiences." It also played rather sleazy -- on purpose(the female mud wrestling scene kinda captured that.) Having said that, I will note that "Paint Your Wagon" had a 1969-ish sexual candor, what with hookers being brought to a gold mining town of 200 men and Jean Seberg electing to take BOTH Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood as husbands.

But Paint Your Wagon was "Disneyland sex" compared to Cabaret...

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Fosse/Verdon Ep. 3.

This ep. was again very Verdon-centric. Unfortunately neither the flashbacks to the start of her career nor her struggling with a skeptical director on a new play nor her swooping in to salvage the (Oscar-winning!) edit of Cabaret seemed especially well-turned to me. In some cases we simply weren't give us enough information to really understand what we were seeing (is Gwen out of her depth on the new play or not? her remark that acting is easy because you just subtract singing and dancing sounded delusional to me; but did the show sign off on it?) and in other cases the overall insistence on Super-Gwen-ness made me distrust the narrative.

Fosse himself in this ep. only got to score with a few chick, pick up Pippin almost by accident, and edit Cabaret ineffectually waiting for Gwen to show up and save the day. The show's doing a really good job of talking/doing *down* its official lead. Is the whole series arc from here going to be "she was robbed/unappreciated" etc.?

The show's a bit of an ugly, implausible grind right now.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Fosse/Verdon Ep. 3.

This ep. was again very Verdon-centric.

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Since I don't have the researched facts as I did with Alma and Alfred for Hitchcock, I can't really tell what's true or not about Gwen and Fosse here. The producers of this mini said that while they intended at first to make "Fosse"(from a book), they just felt that Verdon needed equal time.

There is some irony here. Along with Altman, Peckinpah, Bogdanovich, Rafelson, Freidkin, Coppola, et al...Bob Fosse was WORSHIPED in the 70's and Gwen Verdon was always just sort of "along for the ride." To undo the Fosse legend with this mini-series fits 2019, but it sure messes up the auteur worship that drove the 70's critics.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Unfortunately neither the flashbacks to the start of her career nor her struggling with a skeptical director on a new play nor her swooping in to salvage the (Oscar-winning!) edit of Cabaret seemed especially well-turned to me. In some cases we simply weren't give us enough information to really understand what we were seeing (is Gwen out of her depth on the new play or not? her remark that acting is easy because you just subtract singing and dancing sounded delusional to me; but did the show sign off on it?) and in other cases the overall insistence on Super-Gwen-ness made me distrust the narrative.

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Of all of the above, I was most intrigued by the business about the serious play. I felt a sense of "men undercutting Verdon" in two elements: (1) Her own agent made sure that she knows "You weren't the first choice of everyone" and (2) the director spends a lot of time deriding her ability, with little digs about "What Lola Wants" and choreography(is he saying: "You have no business in a dramatic play?") And then we have the scene where the daughter is brought in during rehearsal and the director is clearly angered by the intrusion of Verdon's motherhood into his "serious work." I found all of this segment interesting. The flashbacks to abuse by men(and the decision to give up her son to pursue her career) were a bit more "expected."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Fosse himself in this ep. only got to score with a few chick,

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His assistant editor -- did THIS really happen? Because it sure is convenient. He brings in Gwen to help save the day in the editing room, but ultimately, to the extent there is a younger, prettier woman in the editing room...she's his prey.

--

pick up Pippin almost by accident,

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Side-bar: I grew up with Time and Newsweek in my childhood/teen home, and I read all about movies(which I could see locally) and all about Broadway shows(which I could not -- and the NYC-based Time and Newsweek treated them like big deals.) So I grew up READING about Pippin and Godspell and Chicago and Company and all sorts of plays I never really got to see. I know I read about Pippin, I have no idea what it was about.

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and edit Cabaret ineffectually waiting for Gwen to show up and save the day.

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They put Alma in the editing room with Hitch in "Hitchcock," too. Maybe. That's a pretty dark, dank, room.

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The show's doing a really good job of talking/doing *down* its official lead.

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Well, he's a womanizer. And I'm not sure what to make of this. Peckinpah was a womanizer. Coppola was a womanizer. Rafelson was a womanizer. Bogdanovich was a womanizer. Freidkin was a womanizer. Oliver Stone is a womanizer. It was a "perk" ..and a lot of women went along with it. I'm not sure how tales about show biz couples can avoid the realities of their business. I suppose where Gwen Verdon "broke the mold" is that she remained around as creative partner to Fosse -- collaborated with his GIRLFRIEND(Ann Reinking)....just made it work without caring about the womanizing once Fosse was dumped by Verdon(they stayed married to the end, but that happens a lot.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Is the whole series arc from here going to be "she was robbed/unappreciated" etc.?

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Maybe. Although I think the series is also being tough about one key reality: Verdon's first 20 years were as a "sex star"(physical, dancing), even as her face wasn't really beautiful at any age. But then age caught up with her and her bankability started to fade. Fosse was mainly behind the camera, and got the perk of aging well, as many men do(even as he got sicker and sicker looking as death beckoned.)

Sam Rockwell's Bob Fosse has that charisma thing. In this episode, we saw how his daughter idolized his fatherly power, even when he wasn't much of a father. And scoring the assistant editor was easy for him.

Interesting scene: Fosse cajoles Paddy Chayefsky into baby sitting his daughter so he can bed the assistant editor. Verdon walks in on Paddy and the girl watching TV on bed. It IS perfectly innocent -- and Paddy is angry to have been recruited ("I thought we were gonna see The Omega Man," says Paddy to Fosse) -- but Verdon sees it as a memory of abuse, and when Fosse comes in(having gotten HIS sexual satisfaction), he's acting like "what's the big deal?" A good scene. And it pushed me to watch Paddy's "Network" right after. That's another problem with Fosse/Verdon: it reduces great artists to comic relief.

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The show's a bit of an ugly, implausible grind right now.

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Well, its no "Feud," that's for sure. I'm amused that "Damn Yankees" brought me to it, because this piece is rather "the anti-Damn Yankees." Damn Yankees is bright and brassy and upbeat and FUN. This is none of the above.

But I'll probably stick it out to the end. When they reach All That Jazz, things get interesting in real life -- Fosse makes a movie about his own death, and casts a "fake" Verdon and a real Reinking in it. (Or am I wrong about that -- is Reinking played by another actress, too?)

Meanwhile, certain lines on Verdon/Fosse are still good. This exchange between Fosse and Gwen, based on her taking on a serious (non-musical) acting role:

Fosse: How long has it been since you acted?
Gwen: About an hour ago, when you came through the door. How'd I do?

Sweet.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

A couple of sidebars on Episode 3:

ONE: Paddy Chayefsky, angered at being suckered into baby-sitting Fosse's daughter says "You said we were gonna go see The Omega Man!"

The Omega Man is a cult classic with Charlton Heston that came out at the end of the summer of 1971. I remember seeing it in a melancholy mood: summer was ending, back to school was next week. For its time(1971), it was an exciting action picture, but even THEN, we all noticed how cheap it was around the edges. These were the kind of movies that big studios were making in 1971 that WEREN'T Cabaret or The Godfather or Five Easy Pieces.

The Omega Man was based on the short story "I Am Legend," about the Last Man on Earth in a world of zombies. It had been made before with Vincent Price, and it would be made after with Will Smith, but it seems that Chuck Heston's is the winner, the one boomers remember.

And the idea that Paddy Chayefsky and Bob Fosse wanted to SEE The Omega Man....funny idea.

TWO: On this womanizing thing. Shirley MacLaine wrote that when she made The Trouble With Harry in Vermont(before going back to the studio), leading man John Forsythe took up with a local woman and lived in her home. It was, said MacLaine, a "usual location romance" and ended when the movie left town. But MacLaine matched all these womanizing Hollywood men. She married a man who promptly moved to Japan, she stayed married to him for decades -- but both husband and wife agreed that they could sleep with other people, Shirley in Hollywood, the husband in Japan. So...that's show biz. We cannot fathom it, but it is a way of life for those "blessed" to be the high-paid, good-looking purveyors of this sex-based trade. As MacLaine also noted: "Those of us who have made it in show business consider everyone else to be civilians."

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Well, he's a womanizer. And I'm not sure what to make of this. Peckinpah was a womanizer. Coppola was a womanizer....

The problem with F/V so far is not that it shows Fosse as a womanizer but that it *doesn't* show Fosse as having much originality or talent. So far he's seen as being essentially lost without and parasitic on Verdon, and I dare say that it's likely going to depict anything good in subsequent career stages for Fosse as properly credited to Reinking and Verdon jointly (contradicting what Verdon and Reinking said on many occasions - the showrunners think they had and still have Stockholm Syndrome!).

This is depressing (and almost certainly fanciful). I'm there till the end but I don't see a lot of neutrals sticking with F/V.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The problem with F/V so far is not that it shows Fosse as a womanizer but that it *doesn't* show Fosse as having much originality or talent.

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I'm commenting two episodes later so I do know that Fosse gets more of an episode in 4.

Still, I think the show does swerve dangerously into "Hitchcock" land in suggesting that Fosse had no talent. He had plenty of talent. He was also a womanizer.

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So far he's seen as being essentially lost without and parasitic on Verdon, and I dare say that it's likely going to depict anything good in subsequent career stages for Fosse as properly credited to Reinking and Verdon jointly (contradicting what Verdon and Reinking said on many occasions - the showrunners think they had and still have Stockholm Syndrome!).

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Interesting, Verdon and Reinking left behind a record that evidently Alma Hitchcock did not.

What's telling is that the showrunners bought a book called "Fosse" to adapt, but decided that it HAD to cover Verdon too, thus shifting the auteuristic emphasis. It is important, I think, that Verdon stayed in Fosse's orbit long past the marriage being over in spirit, they were MUTUALLY co-dependent on trying to help each other with "the work."

Keep in mind what a key scene in "Hitchcock" flat out lied about:

Hitchcock got sick the day they needed to film Arbogast's climb up the stairs.(TRUE)
Alma came down to direct the scene(FALSE -- Assistant Hilton Green filmed it.)
A Paramount exec came in with a worthless "substitute director" to cover the scene instead(FALSE.)
Alma throws out the exec and the substitute director(FALSE.)
Alma not only prepares to direct the Arbogast murder(though we don't see her do it)
...but recommends, on the spot, that Arbogast's fall be done "in process" (impossible to prepare.)

.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I don't think Fosse/Verdon has been that bad yet, but they have to confront the fact that Fosse WAS a talent(Oscar, Emmy, Tony in one year) even as he was a womanizer.

Poor Hitch. No recorded successful womanizing. One really bad incident with Tippi Hedren following him through time(though after Tippi, he successfully worked with Julie Andrews, Karin Dor, Dany Robin, Claude Jade, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Anna Massey, Barbara Harris, and Karen Black without incident. Oh, wait -- Black said Hitch stuck his tongue in her mouth during a friendly kiss. Oh,well.)

Meanwhile, back at Fosse/Verdon. I suppose we needed to see that Gwen had some "showbiz ruthlessness" to her as well, leaving the son behind and all. And also being on the receiving end of harassment. All believable.

But she did cheat with the married Fosse. And we DO see her cheating with one man(versus Fosse's scores of women.)

That's show biz.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

This is depressing (and almost certainly fanciful).

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I"ve come to believe that no biopic has been made that ISN'T fanciful. I remember from TV the old 40's movie, "Words and Music," where a sick Mickey Rooney as Hart of Rodgers and Hart, staggers through the rain from the hospital , crawls backstage on Broadway, and watches one of his musical numbers as he dies.

In real life, I think he died in a hospital bed.

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I'm there till the end but I don't see a lot of neutrals sticking with F/V

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Well, I'm no neutral, I guess. I'm sticking.

The series is way too fragmented to "lock in" on something, but movie-wise, three Fosse films are left: Lenny, All That Jazz, and the notorious Star 80. Interesting to think that even as he made so few films, he was making Broadway magic(Chicago,also on tap -- as Gwen's bit o' blackmail for HER career.)

I also wonder if they'll re-stage Fosse singing and dancing as the "Snake in the Grass" in The Little Prince(1974.) It would be nice -- the only extended footage of Fosse alone, in movies.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Fosse/Verdon Ep. 4.

Finally a Fosse-centered ep. and both the strengths and the limitations of F/V make themselves felt.

Strengths: we get to see how ugly Fosse's transactional sex-for-roles stuff undoubtedly was; there's quite a lot of both fun fantasy song and dance this ep. (including a gorgeously-framed solo song from daughter Nicole) and fun fast montages of ultra-close-ups of pills, faces-in-bed, parties, discos, etc.. It may be all warmed-over All That Jazz but it's still tasty; Fosse is shown operating independently of Verdon at a high level.

Weaknesses: limited budget means no real coverage of Hollywood/Oscars or Liza With A Z; Intertitles overkill is used to cover a multitude of shortfalls; somehow we seemed to get a lot of Pippin coverage without ever seeing or feeling what was at stake - e.g. we heard about a couple of different endings for the show but didn't get to see any of them, or even understand which was finally chosen let alone whether the show's ultimate success was *despite* the ending chosen (because Cabaret acclaim sweeps away all doubts) or because of it. F/V never enables us to *understand* anything creatively whereas Feud - Bette & Joan got us in the trenches *and* made us feel where the crucial inputs and decisions lay. Very strange omission: F/V makes it sound as though Cabaret only got 1 Oscar when it got a whole bundle including for editing (which was esp. relevant given Ep. 3). Missed Opportunity: Fosse met Leland Palmer on Pippin who'd go on to play the Verdon-role in All That Jazz. Are they really going to have one of Fosse's nameless dancer-prey turn out to *be* Leland Palmer later?

In sum, this ep. remedied some but not all of the problems I had with previous eps..

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Finally a Fosse-centered ep. and both the strengths and the limitations of F/V make themselves felt.

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Yes.

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Strengths: we get to see how ugly Fosse's transactional sex-for-roles stuff undoubtedly was;

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Well, a sophisticated dark point is made, using his "Pippin" dancers as the rationale: some of the lady dancers jumped right into bed with him, but ONE resisted, and he retaliated: belitting her professional work(without actually firing her, interesting.) Next thing, she's offering to buy him a drink...succumbing for her career. This is sophisticated stuff -- some woman jump right in, some have to be bullied into submission...why do the latter, if you've got the former?

My companion who hates Bob Fosse for his womanizing ways enjoyed seeing him get kneed in the groin by a woman and powerfully punched by a man. SHE's sticking.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Well, a sophisticated dark point is made

Thoroughly enjoyable interview with Anjelica Huston makes a bunch of relevant dark observations. Recommended:
https://www.vulture.com/2019/05/anjelica-huston-in-conversation.html

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Hoo, boy...as good as...maybe better than...Peter Bogdanovich's tell all you gave us a few weeks ago.

Gossip? Sure I like it...these people live different lives than us. Its interesting...cautionary tales on the one hand, something you can only dream about on the other. (From the male point of view.)

Ms. Huston certainly gives us another healthy dose of womanizers(including the man, Jack Nicholson, with whom she stayed through years of it; its just the way it IS), and supports Polanski and Allen.

And talks of her dad(what no memories of Richard Boone on The Kremlin Letter? Hah.) And her brother Tony, who actually has the bigger career right now, but evidently they don't speak.

And here she is promoting...wait for it...John Wick 3...I do feel like at least some of my "personal picks of the decade" have staying power. Well, one. No Wolf of Wall Street 2 on the horizon.

Ryan O'Neal comes off -- for the umpteenth time -- as some sort of psychopath. Who, sadly, passed it on to many of his kids.

Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy...differing SNL movie superstars...no fun, evidently. But -- understandable. I think it is interesting that Ms. Huston notes the male stars "feel bigger than everybody else." Maybe so. "Liberal" Hollywood remains tied to all sorts of old-style entitlements for the men. More than other places...

Ah, well. Love to watch all their movies...doubt I would enjoy any of them up close and personal.

Nor them, me.

Though wait: my Bill Murray story: I watched him play at Pebble Beach one year. We were face to face across the rope line and he reached out to shake my hand. HE initated it. But a woman was sitting right beneath me and I feared he would pull me over her and I would trip and fall. . So I withdrew my hand. He gave me a helluva glare like "What's the matter with YOU? Fine, I WON"T shake your hand."

My embarrassment lives on .

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

here's quite a lot of both fun fantasy song and dance this ep. (including a gorgeously-framed solo song from daughter Nicole)

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Yes on the Nicole number and...that spooky dream suicidal dream sequence was something, too. Interesting how Michelle's Gwen Verdon looked positively Satanic under her hat -- I might add that Michelle's rather intense and lightly cartoonish features make her Gwen Verdon something unique -- neither Verdon nor MacLaine, somewhere in between.

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and fun fast montages of ultra-close-ups of pills, faces-in-bed, parties, discos, etc.. It may be all warmed-over All That Jazz but it's still tasty;

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Yeah...I felt the All that Jazz vibe so heavily it was like an homage..especially the pills, though Fosse hasn't yet said "Its showtime!" BUT: if it is All That Jazz, its on a lower budget and tighter schedule than the real one.

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Fosse is shown operating independently of Verdon at a high level.

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Well, the Oscar/Tony/Emmy thing IS historic. Same year. The suggestion is that this may have led to Fosse's downfall. Director William Friedkin sought therapy after just two wins(Oscar, Picture and Director; French Connection) because he felt he didn't deserve it(he was right.)

This episode "righted the ship" as to Fosse's talent, but laid the groundwork, I think, for how Verdon would use Fosse to get HER last day in the sun -- Chicago.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Weaknesses: limited budget means no real coverage of Hollywood/Oscars or Liza With A Z;

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Yeah, just Liza's face on a screen, over and over. And nothing of the "context" of the Oscar ceremony.

Note in passing: and maybe I mentioned this elsewhere, but Fosse/Verdon has convinced me that the directors of musicals indeed have to have a more complex set of skills than directors of dramas or thrillers. Fosse was a choreographer first, and he molds his dancers before molding his images. By comparison, Hitchcock(in Psycho) and Coppola(in The Godfather) really only had to direct actors and cameras. In short, maybe Fosse DID deserve to beat Coppola for Best Director that year.

And yet...some of us still like Psycho and The Godfather better than the more intricate and difficult-to-direct musicals out there...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

--- Intertitles overkill is used to cover a multitude of shortfalls;

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Its interesting that the "...years left" motif is gone for now, but we do get a roll call of the awards nominations and wins. Breathtaking for Fosse...literally.

--

(though we know where we ar somehow we seemed to get a lot of Pippin coverage without ever seeing or feeling what was at stake - e.g. we heard about a couple of different endings for the show but didn't get to see any of them, or even understand which was finally chosen let alone whether the show's ultimate success was *despite* the ending chosen (because Cabaret acclaim sweeps away all doubts) or because of it.

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Hey...I remember "Pippin" (from reading about it in Time and Newsweek), but I don't REMEMBER Pippin. I mean, give me South Pacific...I know all those songs. Hah.

--

F/V never enables us to *understand* anything creatively whereas Feud - Bette & Joan got us in the trenches *and* made us feel where the crucial inputs and decisions lay.

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Yes, it is pretty clear that in adapting a "jittery, jagged time-leaping narrative" Fosse/Verdon is true to iFosse's style, but false to involvement. We jump back and forth from Fosse making Cabaret, to winning its Oscars, to enjoying the release. Feud moved carefully from production step to production step and on to a successful preview and run of one movie(Baby Jane), and then got into the next(Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte).

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Very strange omission: F/V makes it sound as though Cabaret only got 1 Oscar when it got a whole bundle including for editing (which was esp. relevant given Ep. 3).

--

Yes, indeed. I suppose, again, this is why biopics just don't satisfy. We can imagine all sorts of "more" -- though Feud came very close to delivering.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Missed Opportunity: Fosse met Leland Palmer on Pippin who'd go on to play the Verdon-role in All That Jazz. Are they really going to have one of Fosse's nameless dancer-prey turn out to *be* Leland Palmer later?

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I dunno. I DIDN'T know that's where he met Leland Palmer. I DO remember thinking that Palmer missed the mark as the Verdon character -- right up to her final tear stained tongue-sticking out at Scheider. Bad note.

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In sum, this ep. remedied some but not all of the problems I had with previous eps..

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Well we are halfway through the series. Will one remaining episode hit it out of the park? The finale, maybe?

Certainly Fosse's last moments in Verdon's arms should move us. Unless they screw it up...

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"Though wait: my Bill Murray story: I watched him play at Pebble Beach one year. We were face to face across the rope line and he reached out to shake my hand. HE initated it. But a woman was sitting right beneath me and I feared he would pull me over her and I would trip and fall. . So I withdrew my hand. He gave me a helluva glare like "What's the matter with YOU? Fine, I WON"T shake your hand."

My embarrassment lives on ."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If it makes you feel any better, that story makes ME feel a bit better.

At a FILMEX event in the late '70s, Henry Fonda came to do an audience Q&A. I was sitting in an aisle seat and, as Fonda approached afterward, my companion said, "Shake his hand when he walks by." I said, "Naahh," but my friend persisted: "Oh go ahead, just extend your hand." So I did, and Fonda continued ambling up the aisle looking straight ahead, so I withdrew mine and just as I did, he extended his, and then he was past and it was too late. And I thought, "Oh, fine, now Henry Fonda thinks I'm some jerk who extends his hand and then yanks it back for a joke."

And whenever I see Fonda in anything now, I still cringe a little at the recollection.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

My embarrassment lives on ."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If it makes you feel any better, that story makes ME feel a bit better.

At a FILMEX event in the late '70s, Henry Fonda came to do an audience Q&A. I was sitting in an aisle seat and, as Fonda approached afterward, my companion said, "Shake his hand when he walks by." I said, "Naahh," but my friend persisted: "Oh go ahead, just extend your hand." So I did, and Fonda continued ambling up the aisle looking straight ahead, so I withdrew mine and just as I did, he extended his, and then he was past and it was too late. And I thought, "Oh, fine, now Henry Fonda thinks I'm some jerk who extends his hand and then yanks it back for a joke."

And whenever I see Fonda in anything now, I still cringe a little at the recollection...

--

As I do I with Bill Murray pictures.

We seem to have been victims of the same issue...a kind of slow motion, "should I? shouldn't I?" with the celebrity transfixing us and then...missed opportunity. I'm not completely goony about celebrities, but I will admit that when I'm a big fan of the celebrity(as I am of Murray)...the moment ends up disproportionately important.

I remember this: as Murray reached out to shake my hand, I felt the woman sitting in front of me on the grass, pressing against my knees as Murray gestured me to move foreward and I thought: "He's famous for clowning around with people here...is he going to pull me onto this woman and make me fall?" Hence, my withdrawn hand.

But...we did make significant eye contact. For a moment, Bill Murray was my friend.

And this: his celebrity partner in his foursome was actor Andy Garcia, who wasn't getting any attention with Bill getting all of it -- Bill made sure to yell out: "My partner, everyone, the great actor Andy Garcia!" And Andy got his fair share of applause.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Cue a few years later. I'm at ANOTHER celebrity golf tourney -- in Palm Springs. Murray isn't there, but Andy Garcia is. And at one point, Garcia hit into the rough ...two feet from my standing group. Garcia "joined us" and had to wait awhile for his turn to hit. So he makes conversation with us...and we nervously make it back.

I recall Garcia saying to us "You know, golf is a humbling game." And we just nodded and said "yes, yes it is," like boobs.

I did mention I had seen him play with Bill Murray in Pebble a few years back. He remembered.

Yes, great boring moments among celebrities and the civilians.

But hey: Andy Garcia is in my favorite movie of 1987 AND the 80's: The Untouchables. I told him none of that, but it made meeting him, meaningful.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

All these tales of awkwardness when meeting celebs suggest a real phenomenon that could be studied and largely explained from a neural perspective.

There was a good TV series a few years ago called 'The Brain w/ David Eagleman' that provides an outline of an explanation. It's watchable on youtube these days:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxyYxI-hs0bCOwQESuPENSoYhU1wsMMpa
The basic picture that's urged is that almost all brain processing happens unconsciously, quickly, and in separate streams that often conflict with one another. (Timing differences between the various streams are real and that we don't notice this - so our experience is audio- and video-synched - is itself an amazing achievement. Go 19 mins into ep. 1 for an amazing experiment showing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8k-lrJrldw.)

Social interactions are the focus of episode 5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa6S2uOEDWA
and the basic point there is that the ability to read and interpret others (fluently and in real time) that most of us take for granted is actually an incredible species achievement. On the one hand then, actors, comedians, celebs etc. are kind of virtuosos of this central social skill package. On the other hand, the truly famous in particular are people we end up having a full range of responses to without ever meeting them. If and when we finally meet them they elicit a whole range of responses from us *at the same time* as the brain circuits we use when we first meet *anyone* and try to interpret them are going into overdrive. In real time, then, with all these different cognitive processes launched at the same time, we're conflicted, stressed, clumsy, and so on.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Excellent. I gotta hand it to you, swanstep: you find these programs and know these programs and they do make a certain sense, don't they.

The whole concept of celebrities rather fascinates me. From liking their work, to joining a fan club or writing fan mail, to chasing them down, worshiping them...human beings must be obeying deep seated impulses of "hierarchy and pecking order."

Our stories of meetings with Bill Murray and Henry Fonda that went a little bit wrong no doubt stems from the "mental machinery overloading" in the moment of possible handshake. The extent to which one might "enter the celebrity's world" by shaking their hand is probably more powerful stuff than it would seem. Above all , we don't want to be embarrassed for doing the wrong thing with witnesses in the star's orbit.

By the way, a further "sting" to my withdrawn handshake to Bill Murray was I was with friends and one of them said, incredulously "He wanted to shake YOUR hand!Why'd you pull back?" Me: "It's complicated."

Turns out it really is!.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Fosse/Verdon Ep. 5.

Probably my favorite ep. so far: a 'bottle' ep. (except for a pre-credits mental hospital scene and a few brief memory flashes) set in a, to my eye, slightly too modern-looking Southampton, Long Island beachhouse as a storm rages keeping everyone trapped inside. All of the show's key players gather to mourn Joan Simon, celebrate Fosse's pulling himself back from collapse. Lots of good moments as information is pooled: Lenny's a go, Chicago is too, and medical advice is for rest and lifestyle change. Something will have to give and a late intertitle tells us what that is if we don't know: Fosse's heart attack is coming next ep..

Best triple-play scene: Fosse drops a bomb on Verdon saying he never wants to do Chicago & that he's through with musical comedy; Verdon goes ballistic (in front of Reinking); Verdon sings a show tune at the piano proving the value and depth of cheap songs better than any harangue could... and it's set that Fosse will do both Lenny & Chicago.

No complaints except (i) some overwrought edits of Verdon's flashbacks to Joan; and (ii) a bit of burying of the lede about Fosse losing his virginity to a couple of strippers at 13: It felt like a shot or two was missing that would convey that this experience messed up young Fosse. Maybe that shoe will drop in a later ep. that isn't constrained by a 'bottle'.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Probably my favorite ep. so far: a 'bottle' ep.

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Interesting phrase. Am I to guess that this phrase also applies to:

12 Angry Men
10 Little Indians
The Hateful Eight

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(except for a pre-credits mental hospital scene and a few brief memory flashes)

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That mental hospital scene was trippy....I am assuming that somehow Fosse scoring the triple-play of Oscar, Tony, Emmy in one year(1973) snapped him? But evidently not for two long....celebrities go in , celebrities get out.

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set in a, to my eye, slightly too modern-looking Southampton, Long Island beachhouse

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Yeah, I thought that too.

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as a storm rages keeping everyone trapped inside. All of the show's key players gather to mourn Joan Simon, celebrate Fosse's pulling himself back from collapse. Lots of good moments as information is pooled: Lenny's a go, Chicago is too, and medical advice is for rest and lifestyle change. Something will have to give and a late intertitle tells us what that is if we don't know: Fosse's heart attack is coming next ep..

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Among the many elements to this "bottle play" were a bit of a new angle on Gwen Verdon. Rather than casting her as "long suffering" or as "the brains of the operation"(ala Hitchcock the Movie), Gwen here comes on as rather self-interested and practically raging about it. To convince Fosse to do Chicago, she will at first try to tear down Lenny. And what with Fosse's newest young girlfriend RIGHT THERE, Gwen rather does a number on her non-ex-ex, pushes him to help her, almost out of guilt.

I'm not saying that Gwen Verdon suddenly becomes a villain here, but she becomes a calculating toughie -- matching her estranged husband.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

No complaints except (i) some overwrought edits of Verdon's flashbacks to Joan;

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Well, the loss of Joan at such a young age(41) is tragic and rather colors the entire "party episode." I think the emotion was well placed.

And here is what we know: Neil Simon very much mourned his wife, but soon took up with an actress -- Marsha Mason -- of some ambition , who ended up cast in almost nothing but Neil Simon movies through THEIR marriage(and stopped being in them once they divorced.) One of the Simon movies(from a play) was Marsha Mason, playing Marsha Mason(under another name) dealing with Neil Simon(James Caan, under another name) and how he can't shake HIS dead wife's memory.

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and (ii) a bit of burying of the lede about Fosse losing his virginity to a couple of strippers at 13: It felt like a shot or two was missing that would convey that this experience messed up young Fosse. Maybe that shoe will drop in a later ep. that isn't constrained by a 'bottle'.

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Well, didn't that end up in All That Jazz? I recall the two rather aging and lumpy strippers "sending Scheider/Fosse off" during his big final death musical. I just don't recall a scene about what HAPPENED. Evidently formative in Fosse's life -- as growing up in a cathouse was formative of the fictional Dick Whitman/Don Draper on Mad Men.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

My additional thoughts about this "bottle episode," Number Five:

ONE: Tricky dynamic number one: a "party" at which mourning for Mrs. Neil Simon hangs over the festivities like a shroud. But hey, they are show biz people.

TWO: Gwen brings her boy toy and Bob brings his girl toy and -- hey, anybody around here ever get away with THAT?. Yes, I've seen exes get along at their children's birthday parties, but this is while the affairs with others are still hot. But hey, they are show biz people.

THREE: Grim humor. Sitting around a couch and chairs "male bonding with each other" are:

Fosse: Cabaret.
Paddy: Marty/The Hospital(he'd won an Oscar for that by then; Network loomed in the future.
Simon: Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite

and

Gwen's guy: cast in an episode of Adam 12.

Ouch. Well, at least he can play the piano.

FOUR: Watching the three talented guys (Fosse, Paddy, Simon) sit around smoking cigars, drinking and b-sing looks terribly boring -- but I do it with a lot less talented (and rich) guys(including myself) and I'm here to tell you: that may LOOK boring, but its very relaxing and warm , done right.

FIVE: Reversibly: all that fame, all that fortune, all that glory -- and those three guys can't pull off a middle-aged guys house party with any more pizazz than one of mine.

I liked the dynamics of the episode, the false camaraderie of it. Fosse and Paddy make a good pair; Simon, not so much with them.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Briefly on Lenny:

I lived in LA when it came out, and it was released only in LA (and probably NYC and Toronto) at Xmas of 1974. That was Oscar time back then, but it was also blockbuster time(Jaws hadn't yet pulled the summer switch) and I remember Lenny being just SWAMPED with other, bigger, spashier films:

The Towering Inferno(Jaws and Star Wars of the Old School; big bucks were made; McQueen and Newman WERE Gods here)
Godfather II(millions poured in to see it; significantly fewer went a second time.)
Young Frankenstein
Freebie and the Bean(my greatest night out at the movies with male friends of my entire life -- but this movie is un-PC. I cannot recommend it. Great car-chase gag in the middle of the movie, though.)
and, well...whole bunches of other movies.

But Lenny hung in there. And got Dustin a nom(not a win) and the movie got other noms.

I saw it and liked it...but I didn't see it til I got the ones up above out of the way. I recall Big Busty Valerie Perrine as Lenny's stipper girlfriend, too. She got an Oscar nom and was va-va-voom.

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[–] liscarkat (18393) 6 years ago

And the relevance to "Pscho" is?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And the relevance to "Psycho" is?

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Weelll...

Fosse/Verdon is about Bob Fosse (a choreographer/director) and Gwen Verdon(a dancer actress.) They were married separate, never divorced.

Gwen Verdon made her name in movies as the sexpot in only one movie: Damn Yankees.

Damn Yankees also starred Tab Hunter as a "magical" baseball player.

Tab Hunter around this time had a relationship with ..Anthony Perkins.

Two years after the movie Damn Yankees came out in 1958, Anthony Perkins did it as a musical play, in Boston. In the summer of 1960. The summer of Psycho. Perkins played the "magical" baseball player. He took the cast of Damn Yankees to see Psycho at a matinee in Boston. Then they put on the show of Damn Yankees that night -- but the show was "off"(bad timing, missed lines) because...it is said... Perkins' co-stars were now terrified of him and couldn't look him in the eye or get close to him.

So there IS some relevance but...

This is an "OT" thread(Off Topic), which has been allowed here at this board so as to discuss movies and careers that influenced, were influenced by, or intersected with...Psycho.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

(ii) a bit of burying of the lede about Fosse losing his virginity to a couple of strippers at 13: It felt like a shot or two was missing that would convey that this experience messed up young Fosse. Maybe that shoe will drop in a later ep. that isn't constrained by a 'bottle'.

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Wait and ye shall receive...the shoe dropped one episode later(Episode 6), with a bit more detail about the experience(though not a lot) but still...

Little Bob Fosse's first sexual experience with aging, out-of-shape strippers was used to inform Big Bob Fosse's continuing fascination with sex....we see him desperately seeking it from his young girlfiend Ann Reinking while in his hospital bed recuperating from a heart attack. And a montage sequence "pays off" that yet another comely editing room assistant does Fosse EVEN AS he now has the young Ann as his "steady girl"(and Gwen Verdon as his now non-sexual soulmate, though I can't vouch even for HER.)

Two episodes left after this one. As Fosse's FILM directing career goes, they reached him editing "Lenny" in this one. That leaves (with two episodes left), two more Fosse films: All That Jazz and Star 80.

I expect they will reach them both, but of course, All That Jazz will be redundant. Fosse/Verdon this week and much of last week was pretty much "All That Jazz" light . In All That Jazz, Fosse's substitute, Joe Gideon(Roy Scheider) is shown editing a Lenny-like movie while prepping a Chicago-like play. And there's the drugs and the smoking and the womanizing...and the heart attacks. "Fosse/Verdon" can't possibly mount the big opening and closing numbers of All That Jazz, but by the time it reaches that film "Fosse/Verdon" watchers will certainly get the connection.

Leaving Star 80 out there as a "cap." It came out in 1983, four years after All That Jazz. And, as per Fosse/Verdon's running clock , with "four years left" for Mr. Fosse.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

This episode showed Gwen's growing dominance over Ann Reinking, with the suggestion that even as the two women "bonded" over Bob, Gwen still saw the deal as "I'm the wife, you're the mistress." I might add that I think this series has severely miscast the Reinking character. Without checking photos from then, I recall Reinking as a more severe, tough looking kind of young athlete dancer. This Ann is waifish teenage girl next door almost(well, college age.)

We got the requisite look at Fosse's awful parents when he was a meal ticket boy dancer -- a sure predictor of the awful side of Bob Fosse (even as he seems to have a nicer side than either of his parents). We'd seen some of Gwen's tough(and hit upon) youth; you can see how these damaged but talented people might be a bit tempermental as adults.

Pretty amazing if true: Fosse having his heart attack right there in the emergency room with the doctor there. If you gotta have one of those things, that's the place to have it and the person to have it with.

And thus Fosse/Verdon establishes what Bob Fosse knew even back then: looming mortality. Somehow THIS heart attack (and the more to follow) must have told Fosse he had a short time on earth left (well, a decade plus at this point.) How interesting to be rich and famous enough not only to make your biopic(with assumed names) but to foresee your own death(All That Jazz.)

Funny vignette: Gwen Verdon using the power of the autograph(hers AND Fosse's) with a starstruck doctor to score Fosse a private room.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Anecdote -- will they use it? Somebody wrote that when Fosse was recovering from some other heart attack later, he watched a TV critic trash one of his final films(Jazz? Star?) on the TV in his room -- and had another heart attack.

We shall see if we get that in an upcoming episode.

I'm also wondering if Fosse/Rockwell will recreate some or all of Fosse's very interesting Michael Jacksonesque singing and dancing turn as "The Snake" in pal Stanley Donen's lovely misfire The Little Prince. 1974.

Two episodes left to find out...

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

I might add that I think this series has severely miscast the Reinking character. Without checking photos from then, I recall Reinking as a more severe, tough looking kind of young athlete dancer. This Ann is waifish teenage girl next door almost(well, college age.)

I'm not sure that it's just a casting problem. For some reason they've *written* Reinking as simpering and schoolgirl-ish (with no dancing at all since Pippen rehearsals). Reinking was a lead dancer and a strong singer and you don't usually get to be those things without being a bit of a ham and having a very healthy ego. Sidenote: this is related to a problem I had with Black Swan a few years ago: being plucked out of the chorus and made a prima ballerina at Lincoln Center just can't happen, especially not with someone who's in any way a nervous wreck or technically weak, etc.. If you get that call you've been understudying solos and 'on the Prima Ballerina Track' for years, not just hanging out in the chorus dancing simple stuff (albeit beautifully) a la Natalie Portman's character.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I'm not sure that it's just a casting problem. For some reason they've *written* Reinking as simpering and schoolgirl-ish (with no dancing at all since Pippen rehearsals).

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Yeah. I do wonder why. And this actress is Andie McDowall's daughter, right? She is certainly pretty, but it just feels wrong her being caught up with the dangerous Fosse.

And I have since looked at photos of the time of Reinking and she WAS more severe and tough looking. Powerful dancers legs, too(I don't recall seeing the legs of this version of Reinking.)

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Reinking was a lead dancer and a strong singer and you don't usually get to be those things without being a bit of a ham and having a very healthy ego.

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I would assume so.. You also don't land Bob Fosse for a long-term relationship without such toughness (see: Gwen Verdon.)

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Sidenote: this is related to a problem I had with Black Swan a few years ago: being plucked out of the chorus and made a prima ballerina at Lincoln Center just can't happen, especially not with someone who's in any way a nervous wreck or technically weak, etc.. If you get that call you've been understudying solos and 'on the Prima Ballerina Track' for years, not just hanging out in the chorus dancing simple stuff (albeit beautifully) a la Natalie Portman's character

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Well put. I can't say I much remember Black Swan now, but that "wrongness" sounds right to me.

Related to all of the above: I wanted to look at All That Jazz to compare it to Fosse/Verdon. I don't own ATJ on DVD, so I went to the streaming service I have. Netflix in the main, some others. I tried to order All That Jazz...but it is nowhere to be found. At least nowhere I could find it. I wonder if the Fosse/ Verdon producers have had it embargoed so as not to embarrass this "smaller scale TV version."

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[–] snepts (11123) 6 years ago

Perhaps this is a problem with knowing what AR looks like and her talent and the actress not fulfilling that preconception. I did like one line from Verdon, when Bob tells her she and the daughter are getting along fine, Gwen quips, "Well, they should. They're the same age." HAHA. Sometimes I think people will tweak a story for any number of reasons, but mostly to make it more entertaining or accessible. I do agree the young lady spends a lot of time looking like she's desperately confused, at least at the beach house, and she seems out of place with this crowd. I'm enjoying this mini-series but I'm thinking All That Jazz is a better creation. It's Showtime !

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Fosse/Verdon Ep. 7.

A good episode that mainly traces how Chicago came together, and its painful evolution past Verdon, whose baby it had been. F/V will probably cover this next week but Chicago is one of those rare shows that has grown as new casts (including Reinking), have come in, and really has become both more and more popular and more and more critically respected over time (climaxing with the movie and all its awards). A Chorus Line was the big popular and critical smash at the time, but Chicago had the last laugh, not that that helps if you're Verdon (except for taking care of her daughter).

The B-story was Fosse and Verd. in 1960 or so trying to get pregnant, which was handled inconclusively. We see Nicole without much dance talent (In All That Jazz the Nicole-surrogate has mucho talent!) and this is offered as a partial explanation of why her parent's neglect her - they're not just busy, they also just ruthlessly shun or ignore untalented 'civilians'.

The brutality of showbiz which Verdon gets to feel full strength in this ep. is well-captured. Everything's completely personal, everything hurts. Fosse preying on more low-on-the-totem-pole dancers for both kicks and drugs is horrific to watch post-Weinstein/'me too'.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

A good episode that mainly traces how Chicago came together,

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I came to realize that for as much as Fosse/Verdon needed to depend on "Cabaret" to establish who Fosse was at the beginning, "Chicago"(the movie at least) is perhaps even better known to a new generation.

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and its painful evolution past Verdon, whose baby it had been.

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Tough bit of business, but I think the miniseries actually played both sides pretty interestingly , here. We saw Verdon push and manipulate Fosse to do it -- she was one battle warrior getting it done. And then she watched as, indeed, it went past her.

The big scene (and with only one more episode left, it was time for a "penultimate climax") was Gwen raging at Fosse for taking away her solo at the end of Chicago and making it a duet(with Chita Rivera/Catherine Zeta Jones in the movie.) Fosse took the insults(which have been building for the entire series) calmly, and suggested it would be better as a duet, "I'd just like to see it."

And he was right. It WAS better as a duet. Says I. We're all going to see things differently...and Fosse/Verdon here, I think, made that point.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

F/V will probably cover this next week but Chicago is one of those rare shows that has grown as new casts (including Reinking), have come in, and really has become both more and more popular and more and more critically respected over time (climaxing with the movie and all its awards).

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Chicago seems to have been there forever. I recall the movie was going to star Goldie Hawn for awhile(I can't remember who else) but she got too old for the role. So Renee Zellwegger and Catherine Zeta-Jones got it. How hot they were then. How not hot, now. Show business IS tough. You gotta brace for the downhill run.

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A Chorus Line was the big popular and critical smash at the time, but Chicago had the last laugh

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Indeed, the movie (with Michael Douglas, Mr. Catherine Zeta-Jones) of A Chorus Line wasn't nearly as big as the movie of Chicago. I recall feeling that A Chorus Line was too close to All That Jazz(and Douglas, to Scheider, to Fosse.)

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, not that that helps if you're Verdon (except for taking care of her daughter).

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I do love these showbiz parents taking care of their heirs. Hitchcock said he withheld his five lost Hitchcocks (including Rear Window and Vertigo) to be released after his death "to provide income to my heirs." Yes, I suppose so...but also to stay famous AFTER his death.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The B-story was Fosse and Verd. in 1960 or so trying to get pregnant, which was handled inconclusively.

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Well, it seemed to be showing them -- as with all stories of this type -- when they were young and Fosse was on his best husbandly behavior(and also, indeed, far less a star than Verdon). Also how hard it was to conceive. The painful shots. Also: FOSSE being the problem with conception(cannot have helped his male ego.)

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We see Nicole without much dance talent (In All That Jazz the Nicole-surrogate has mucho talent!) and this is offered as a partial explanation of why her parent's neglect her - they're not just busy, they also just ruthlessly shun or ignore untalented 'civilians'.

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That's a great point. Shirley MacLaine used that "civilians" line and I've always figured with dancers -- you really DO have it or you don't. Actors can sneak things by, dancers have to show real talent.

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The brutality of showbiz which Verdon gets to feel full strength in this ep. is well-captured. Everything's completely personal, everything hurts.

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Yep. Work in all sectors can take its toll, but it has been demonstrably horrible for "stars" -- they can't bear the thought of returning to civilian-hood.

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Fosse preying on more low-on-the-totem-pole dancers for both kicks and drugs is horrific to watch post-Weinstein/'me too'.

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The drugs angle arose first with that young woman -- and I thought "Oh, this scene is just going to be about his need for her to buy drugs, he's not that other way anymore" and -- nope. He WAS that other way. And later, he just blew this young girl off.

I'm telling you, in my household, there is going to be some applause when he dies next week(but maybe they won't show it?)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Only one episode left. That's enough. Fosse/Verdon can only hold up so much of a story. With only one hour left, I figure that All That Jazz and Star 80 (let alone Fosse's turn in The Little Prince) will get short shrift, and one or two of those might not get mentioned at all (there's more to say about Chicago.)

They are building to what we saw in the very first hour: the final night together for Fosse and Verdon.

I will be there.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Somewhat relatedly, I got to see the 2016 HBO doc 'Becoming Mike Nichols' last night (if I saw it back then I don't remember it). It's a series of interviews with Nichols about his life up to and including the release and success of The Graduate at age 36. (Nichols would be dead a few weeks after taping.)

Nichols is very genial company and he has many great stories from his amazing rise. The best story for Psycho uber-fans is about Anthony Perkins. Nichols got his first film-directing job, Virginia Woolf, because he'd become friends with Burton on Broadway and then friends with Liz when visiting Burton in Rome while filming Cleopatra. Liz had her choice of director for VW & picked Nichols (who'd meanwhile racked up a string of directorial triumphs on Broadway). Only problem, Nichols didn't know anything about cameras and lenses (and he didn't want to rely completely on his DP). A couple of days before starting shooting, however, his friend Perkins gave him a 3 day tutorial on camera & lenses which is all he's ever needed. More proof if it were needed that Perkins was just a ridiculously smart guy: problem-solver for the cleverest people of his era.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Somewhat relatedly, I got to see the 2016 HBO doc 'Becoming Mike Nichols' last night (if I saw it back then I don't remember it).

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I think it IS "somewhat relatedly," because while Mike Nichols and Anthony Perkins were famous for their movies, they were famous for their stage work, too, and for living in NYC, and I expect that they both crossed paths with Fosse and Verdon and Paddy and Neil Simon in those days. The "Elaine's" crowd(I've never been there, myself, but I've read about that place for years.)

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It's a series of interviews with Nichols about his life up to and including the release and success of The Graduate at age 36. (Nichols would be dead a few weeks after taping.)

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I'm pretty sure I saw this, too -- but damned if I can remember it. It stops AT The Graduate? Well, I suppose the one-two punch of Viriginia Woolf and The Graduate were, toughly so, Nichols' peak. He kept making movies, but with the exception of Carnal Knowledge , they never quite made such a splash as his first two, and even Carnal Knowledge wasn't a very huge hit(too hard R and intellectual). Though I do love his last one -- Charlie Wilson's War, my favorite film of 2007.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Nichols is very genial company and he has many great stories from his amazing rise. The best story for Psycho uber-fans is about Anthony Perkins.

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Well, recall that I found this Mike Nichols quote somewhere: "The only truly intelligent actor I ever worked with , was Tony Perkins, though Richard Burton was...something."

I've never been able to find out WHEN Nichols made that comment, but since he worked with Perkins on "Catch 22"(1970), that would include these actors as before then or at the same time:

Liz Taylor, Richard Burton("something"), Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss..

And if Nichols made that statement in the years AFTER Catch 22, you could pick from:

Jack Nicholson, George C. Scott, Warren Beatty, Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher...

Uh oh. Honestly, I have to find the date of that statement.

Whether or not actors are "intelligent" or not, has always struck me as a bit besides the point. The late screenwriter William Goldman said the issue was simply that most of them skipped college to go directly to acting careers(often getting very rich very fast) and were "street smart." And I've found that a number of them -- after becoming stars -- got their education "late": they read all the great books, learn how to fly jets, drive race cars, etc.

But Tony Perkins -- never quite a star at the level of his peers Brando, Newman, or McQueen -- seems to have made up for that by being quite the intelligent wit "behind the scenes" and among friends. He and pal Stephen Sondheim created all sorts of difficult games for friends to play -- one of them became the mystery game in their script for "The Last of Sheila." .

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Nichols got his first film-directing job, Virginia Woolf, because he'd become friends with Burton on Broadway and then friends with Liz when visiting Burton in Rome while filming Cleopatra.

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Its not what you know...its who you know. But Nichols certainly was proving himself in the early sixties, first as part of the witty Nichols and May comedy team, and then directing plays. And the "Liz and Dick" thing was always a fascinating pairing -- you could make friends with the brooding theater man Burton and thus get access to the great big ol' Hollywood star Taylor.

(I''ll here insert a personal story I've told before; I was assigned, for a job, to accompany Liz Taylor in an elevator and down a hall to a hearing -- and we were chased through the building by a gathering crowd. We ducked into an office, locked the door, and sat together until REAL security could arrive. I braved the crowd outside to go buy Liz a Diet Coke. So you could say, I bought Liz Taylor a drink. To me, the funniest part was entering a strange office, locking the door and saying to the two secretaries within: "Hello, we have to hide in here. I believe you may recognize...Elizabeth Taylor.")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Liz had her choice of director for VW & picked Nichols (who'd meanwhile racked up a string of directorial triumphs on Broadway). Only problem, Nichols didn't know anything about cameras and lenses (and he didn't want to rely completely on his DP). A couple of days before starting shooting, however, his friend Perkins gave him a 3 day tutorial on camera & lenses which is all he's ever needed. More proof if it were needed that Perkins was just a ridiculously smart guy: problem-solver for the cleverest people of his era.

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More proof indeed. And think about this: by the time Perkins gave his tutorial to Nichols, he had worked with two of the greatest "lens directors" who ever lived: Hitchcock and Welles. Psycho and The Trial. Both black and white features, both with distinctive lens work.

In fact, when you come to think of it, the black-and-white Virginia Woolf rather DOES have the wild-eyed lens work of Welles, and the distinctive close-ups of Hitchcock in his Psycho mode(particularly in the Arbogast/Norman office interrogation.)

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Speaking of Welles and Perkins and Nichols, when Nichols was making Catch 22 in Mexico in 1969, Perkins(and Martin Arbogast Balsam) were part of the permanent cast, but Welles flew down for a few days for a cameo as a General. Welles and Perkins were evidently ecstatic to see each other again and hung out all the time. Meanwhile, Welles drove Nichols nuts with directorial advice....

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[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Fosse/Verdon Ep. 8.

A pretty solid finale that covered a lot of ground. I gotta say, however, that Ann Reinking can feel hard-done-by this series. After introducing her character as a dancer in rehearsals for Pippen we never see her sing or dance again. Beyond that she's written as a completely passive victim (and as a mumbly wet-blanket if one wanted to be cruel), she's omitted from stuff she was big parts of (Chicago, the Sweet Charity Revivals) and she's completely absent from the outro titles (which, e.g., mention the show 'Fosse' but not that Reinking co-created and -directed it).

In sum, F/V was Team Verdon all the way, taking no prisoners (e.g., another suite of very young dancers were preyed upon by Fosse this week).

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

A pretty solid finale that covered a lot of ground.

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It certainly did. I mean the whole thing was moving to the cracked perfection of the fatal end of Fosse/Verdon relationship(pretty much all true, I understand): til death did them part. They were still man and wife(though Reinking was his main sexual soulmate, if hardly the only one); he died practically in her arms, and it was on the way to a revival of Sweet Charity "Staged and Directed by Bob Fosse." At the return to the title card, "Eight Minutes Left" I thought of the eight minutes left in lives of people I've lost(there are a few) and the eight minutes I will mercifully never know are here for myself...til its too late.

We got the very moving cliché of "seeing Fosse's life pass before our eyes" in that moment -- as he dies, we get clips from throughout the whole series of Bob and Gwen at various stages of life and love(and loss of love)...but always as partners. Team Verdon indeed.

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I gotta say, however, that Ann Reinking can feel hard-done-by this series. After introducing her character as a dancer in rehearsals for Pippen we never see her sing or dance again.

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Indeed.

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Beyond that she's written as a completely passive victim (and as a mumbly wet-blanket if one wanted to be cruel),

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Which I simply can't imagine Ann Reinking BEING. Fosse liked strong women for anything other than flings.

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she's omitted from stuff she was big parts of (Chicago, the Sweet Charity Revivals) and she's completely absent from the outro titles (which, e.g., mention the show 'Fosse' but not that Reinking co-created and -directed it).

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

In sum, F/V was Team Verdon all the way, taking no prisoners (e.g., another suite of very young dancers were preyed upon by Fosse this week).

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I suppose so. The show was produced(partially) by Nicole, the daughter. On the other hand, I expect her hand was on the scene in the final episode that showed papa Fosse so sweetly and expertly dancing with her(though when Lin Manuel-Miranda, oops, sorry, Roy Scheider recreated the scene with another young actress for "All That Jazz," we saw the pain in Nicole's eyes.)

That's right: Lin Manuel-Miranda (where's that hyphen go?)-- he of the very pleasant, sweet face(hey, how about HIM for Norman Bates) was a producer on this show and gave himself the Roy Scheider role, which meant that a pretty big star was there at the end to play a pretty big star of the time.

Re-creating the famous "Bye, Bye, Life" finale of All That Jazz so that Fosse himself could make those final goodbyes was touching, I thought.

Indeed, the whole final episode was touching in spite of Fosse's sexual treachery. Michelle Williams is getting the major reviews, but now that its over, I have to say that Sam Rockwell created a pretty damn sympathetic and sexy Fosse.

When Matthew Weiner created Don Draper for Mad Men, he noted: "the protagonist can be a rotten man, but as long as he is good at his job, we will respect him, maybe love him." For Bob Fosse, too. He clearly played a man with talent, good at his job, needed for his skills.

And he was COOL. Cigarettes kill -- but they sure look cool hanging off a lip. The hat, the beard, the constant cigs...Rockwell was cool (this a few months after giving us a fairly "lived in" George W. Bush in "Vice" -- and a year after winning the Oscar for playing ANOTHER baddie gone relatively good...in that Billboards movie.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

My liking of Rockwell as Fosse reminds me that as much as Chris Waltz was the big breakthrough star of "Inglorious Basterds" -- I always like the scenes with Brad Pitt better. Pitt had comedy charisma, and his scenes (albeit brutal), were funny and exciting. Waltz's scenes were not (unformly.) But thats just my take there -- critics were loving Waltz, dissing Pitt. Not me. And like my Pitt love in Basterds, I got Rockwell love for Fosse/Verdon, even though Williams is getting the notices. He's not BETTER than Michelle Williams, but he's a pretty good dance partner. I predict nominations for both of them; a win clearly for Williams, maybe a surprise for Rockwell.

Here's a little something: there's a bittersweet scene of a fairly aged Gwen Verdon on the charity event circuit, seeking to cadge donations from the crowd by doing "An Emphasis on the Latter" from Damn Yankees.

Damn good! "An Emphasis on the Latter" is my second favorite song in Damn Yankees, after "Heart." Its a Marilyn Monroe like vamp number in which Gwen lists all the ways she uses her wiles and her body(with an emphasis on the latter) to destroy men. So just as Fosse/Verdon(almost) began with Damn Yankees, so did it end.

"An Emphasis on the Latter" was my father's favorite song in Damn Yankees, so I was inspired -- but I like it too. Ditto(him, me) on "The Sadder But Wiser Girl" in "The Music Man" - a saucy male song(sung by robust Robert Preston) about liking loose women over prim ones. So dad grew up in that Hef generation, I guess. He mentored me on those two songs, but I just like the two songs. Hearing Gwen Verdon sing "Emphasis on the Latter"(albeit a bit too old for the tune; the point of the scene) was a great way to help Fosse/Verdon go out.

And now its done, and I'm glad I saw it.

Did it beat Feud? No, overall, no. But Feud was never gonna get that three-hankie death ending...for a bad man and the woman who loved him.

I wonder who they're gonna do next?

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[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Indeed, the whole final episode was touching in spite of Fosse's sexual treachery.

It was good....but it didn't *blow me away*. I'm perhaps handicapped here by my knowing the underlying material very well and so have to fight a tendency to write my own ending and hold *that* (entirely hypothetical thing!) against the actual show.

So, for example, as you can see up-thread, I was irked back in Ep. 2 that we never covered the *movie* version of Damn Yankees and especially we never got to see Fosse and Verdon dancing together in it with 'Who's Got The Pain?'. Well, I kinda made my peace with that thinking that it would have been near impossible (even given months of rehearsal) to get Williams & Rockwell up to that level, and in fact neither has quite the length in their bodies of their real-life counterparts to *do* the snaky movement that the number requires.

Well, in my head, the show's finale solves the problem by, after the concluding tinkly, piano-accompanied 'What became of everyone' titles, cutting directly to the weird, demonically high-energy number from the film (maybe credits run down the side of that screen). It's the sort wild, anti-mournful left turn that Fosse himself would have taken and it pains me that the showrunners didn't do it. Maybe they wanted to but the rights were unavailable or too expensive?

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[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

For another example, I know that Star 80 was too much of a mess to be worth covering in detail *but*, heck, if you want to get to the heart of Fosse as a weirdly autobiographical artist (like Woody Allen, Fellini - and how does Fosse's relation to Fellini never warrant so much as a mention?! -, Bergman) then some angles from Star 80 are invaluable. Eric Roberts has said in interviews that Fosse, unsatisfied with his performance, pulled Roberts aside and said 'Don't you get it? [Murderer, low-life] Paul Snider is me if I never became successful.' What Fosse had left to do after his film auto-biography, All That Jazz, was try to make *counterfactual* autobiographical films.

For me, this needed to be in there. Maybe some of Fosse's entanglements with Hefner and Bogdanovich needed to be there as well. Rebounding to doing Sweet Charity revivals with Verdon after that dark period must have felt very good indeed, but F/V didn't get into all that and so 'back to Verdon' had no special weight or meaning in F/V. Opportunity missed.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

For another example, I know that Star 80 was too much of a mess to be worth covering in detail

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It got a title card as "Fosse's worst reviewed movie, a disaster" or something like that, and that was it.

I'm reminded that, as a key to being able to make this mini-series, Fosse had perhaps one of the shortest list of movies made of any "name": Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz, Star 80. Done. That's less than Kubrick. And of those movies, he has one bona fide classic(Cabaret), one highly regarded near-classic(All That Jazz, pretty much all about HIM), and one at-the-time Oscar-respected film(Lenny) that I don't think has lasted. Irony: perhaps Fosse's OTHER classic hit big years after he died: the movie of Chicago (with its opening biggie, "All That Jazz." Confusing!)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

*but*, heck, if you want to get to the heart of Fosse as a weirdly autobiographical artist (like Woody Allen, Fellini - and how does Fosse's relation to Fellini never warrant so much as a mention?! -, Bergman)

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Hmmm..indeed , none of this was covered. Well, if people don't remember Hitchcock any more, I suppose Fellini and Bergman are "disappeared," too.

I saw footage of Hitchcock in the 60's talking about his being the only "American"(studio) director on a "current great directors list." Hitchcock said: "I'm on a list with a group of men whose names I can't pronounce." (Like Fellini, Antonioni, Kurosawa...)

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then some angles from Star 80 are invaluable. Eric Roberts has said in interviews that Fosse, unsatisfied with his performance, pulled Roberts aside and said 'Don't you get it? [Murderer, low-life] Paul Snider is me if I never became successful.'

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Its a great quote, and it linked the two men as connected to the sexuality of women as their "meal ticket." Directly with Snider managing his Super-Playmate wife; indirectly with Fosse making sure that his movies had sexy dancing, strippers, hookers, etc on screen.

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What Fosse had left to do after his film auto-biography, All That Jazz, was try to make *counterfactual* autobiographical films.

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Well, at the end of All That Jazz, he has Ben Vereen introduce his stand-in (Roy Scheider) as a terrible husband, lousy father, "and nobody's friend." Some real self-loathing there. Paul Snider would be the logical extension of that.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

For me, this needed to be in there. Maybe some of Fosse's entanglements with Hefner and Bogdanovich needed to be there as well.

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As we know, Bogdanovich is still alive and still furious about Star 80(in which he is re-cast with a different name); perhaps he was threatening lawsuits that FX didn't want to parry. And Hefner has heirs.

I recall the oddness of Fosse "coming back" with Star 80. Not a musical, and the story was a little stale by then -- a TV movie had been done with Jamie Lee Curtis(to my mind) a sexier Dorothy Stratten than Mariel Hemingway in Fosse's film. Some guy from Hill Street Blues played Snider and was fine, even as Eric Roberts was a bigger name at the time. The weird theme of "Star 80"(and the real story that anchored it), I think, was that big-time rich Hollywood(Hefner, Bogdo) was really the same woman-using sleaze as small-timer Snider's world(wet T-shirt concerts and the like). And Dorothy Stratten was at once a wide-eyed innocent AND ready to use her nude body to advance. But hundreds of stories like that play out in Hollywood every day, this one ended in horror.

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Rebounding to doing Sweet Charity revivals with Verdon after that dark period must have felt very good indeed, but F/V didn't get into all that and so 'back to Verdon' had no special weight or meaning in F/V. Opportunity missed.

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Oh, I liked it better than that. It was Fosse/Verdon, and it was only at the end that I realized that Fosse's death in Verdon's arms is likely what drove the whole project. You work backwards from that "perfect ending" and make an imperfect mini-series.

And I liked the use of the Paddy Chayefsky too...how odd(and evidently true) how Fosse WAS somebody's friend, and both men were driven and died young.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Indeed, the whole final episode was touching in spite of Fosse's sexual treachery.

It was good....but it didn't *blow me away*. I'm perhaps handicapped here by my knowing the underlying material very well and so have to fight a tendency to write my own ending and hold *that* (entirely hypothetical thing!) against the actual show.

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That's probably the danger with any biopic when one knows the back story. It pretty much killed off "Hitchcock" for me. The movie that COULD have been made about the making of Psycho was only 20% on the screen, and we learned (to MY horror) that the studio was forbidden to re-stage scenes (very much) or use dialogue from Psycho(we hear the first Sheriff Chambers talk in a screening room and he is saying different things than in the movie, like "well, your detective must have been in the cups....")

Fosse/Verdon was given a lot more latitude to re-state all sorts of Fosse film/stage scenes but...not enough, really.

Recall that I have a fantasy "Hitchcock mini-series" in my head that would have broken down his career chronologically into the big "mini-stories" within it: the British years, Rebecca and Selznick...the Robert Walker story, the Grace Kelly story, the Anthony Perkins story, the Tippi Hedren story. The tricky making of Lifeboat, Rope, Rear Window and The Birds...the blockbuster success of Psycho. Its all right up there in my head, and it will never be made...not least because(as we have learned) new generations have no idea who Hitchcock was, or what his movies were.

But I CAN see it...in my mind...anytime I want to.

Imagination almost beats movies...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

So, for example, as you can see up-thread, I was irked back in Ep. 2 that we never covered the *movie* version of Damn Yankees and especially we never got to see Fosse and Verdon dancing together in it with 'Who's Got The Pain?'.

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I agree. Indeed, the mini-series rather gave that a "twist ending" and showed Verdon dancing it with another guy, on Broadway.

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Well, I kinda made my peace with that thinking that it would have been near impossible (even given months of rehearsal) to get Williams & Rockwell up to that level, and in fact neither has quite the length in their bodies of their real-life counterparts to *do* the snaky movement that the number requires.

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That's probably it. Hard enough to try to mimic a famous actor's line readings -- how to mimic the great talent of great dancers?

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Well, in my head,

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A great place for creativity! Imagination!

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the show's finale solves the problem by, after the concluding tinkly, piano-accompanied 'What became of everyone' titles,

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Which most biopics seem to require. Its funny...its like sometimes those titles are required to actually give a story the necessary dramatic finale...they create their own emotion.

And there's a new deal --- seen in "true story" movies, and also in the new Elton John biopic "Rocketman"(which I have seen) of concluding the movie with photos of the actors side by side with the real people they are playing...

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cutting directly to the weird, demonically high-energy number from the film (maybe credits run down the side of that screen). It's the sort wild, anti-mournful left turn that Fosse himself would have taken and it pains me that the showrunners didn't do it. Maybe they wanted to but the rights were unavailable or too expensive?

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Well, lack of rights are what wounded "Hitchcock" mortally. (The family didn't want a movie made that showed Alfred as a drinker and Alma as tempted to an affair...)

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[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Changing topic (but sticking with TV): Netflix's When They See Us about the infamous 'Central Park Five' case is masterful and a triumph on almost every level. 5-6 hours of enraging injustice is hard to take but if you can muster the energy it's worth putting yourself through it. Ava DuVernay (Selma) writes and directs and does a Lumet/Scorsese-level job (her work here also reminds me of Audiard's A Prophet) getting incredible performances from top to bottom. It's *way* better than Spike Lee's BlackKklansman and *that* was one of the best movies last year! DuVernay stumbled last year with a big-budget fantasy bomb, A Wrinkle In Time, but WTSU is more than enough to get her out of movie jail. She's now comprehensively one of the best current writer-directors out there. Very highly recommended.

Contrarily, the latest season of Black Mirror is eminently skippable in my view: some nice performances & production values, etc. but writing (by creator Charlie Brooker) for all 3 eps is well below par, dopey even, which is fatal for a show built on being edgy & smart.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

BTW, WTSU is in some ways The Wrong Man (1956) x 5 and reframed as an on-going racial-political nightmare. I'm pretty sure there are a few explicit references but I need to rewatch TWM and maybe even WTSU again to be sure.

BTW2, if you are only interested in the facts of the case then Ken Burns' 2 hour 2012 documentary for PBS, The Central Park Five might be a good option. But DuVernay's drama opens up, e.g., whole new ways (perhaps especially for white people) to understand how confessions can be coerced out of people, how facially neutral policies about detecting and punishing crime will always in fact fall disproportionately and be enforced with unusual vigor on vulnerable, marginalized populations, and so on.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Changing topic (but sticking with TV):

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Good thread to do it on.

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Netflix's When They See Us about the infamous 'Central Park Five' case is masterful and a triumph on almost every level.

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Evidently got the prosector fired off some boards of directors, too.

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5-6 hours of enraging injustice is hard to take but if you can muster the energy it's worth putting yourself through it.

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I'm in an entertainment mode these days -- though hell, most series are grim and too suspenseful(The Americans for instance.)

Speaking of The Americans, I'm watching a series from the same showrunner called "Sneaky Pete." he did Justified and The Americans. Margo Martindale is back and the American forced-defector(what was her name?) gets to use her British(?) accent. Its good but -- as usual -- everybody is under the gun, facing terrible circumstances, having to work hard to escape, etc.

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Ava DuVernay (Selma) writes and directs and does a Lumet/Scorsese-level job (her work here also reminds me of Audiard's A Prophet) getting incredible performances from top to bottom. It's *way* better than Spike Lee's BlackKklansman and *that* was one of the best movies last year! DuVernay stumbled last year with a big-budget fantasy bomb, A Wrinkle In Time, but WTSU is more than enough to get her out of movie jail. She's now comprehensively one of the best current writer-directors out there. Very highly recommended.

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Out of movie jail. Hah. Well, she gets to host The Essentials on TCM now, too.

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Contrarily, the latest season of Black Mirror is eminently skippable in my view: some nice performances & production values, etc. but writing (by creator Charlie Brooker) for all 3 eps is well below par, dopey even, which is fatal for a show built on being edgy & smart.

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I'll take your recommendations on BOTH series.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

BTW, WTSU is in some ways The Wrong Man (1956) x 5 and reframed as an on-going racial-political nightmare. I'm pretty sure there are a few explicit references but I need to rewatch TWM and maybe even WTSU again to be sure.

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As you may know, The Wrong Man is right behind The Big Three as a favorite of mine. Robin Wood said that Hitchcock made an unbroken series of masterpieces from "Vertigo through Marnie," but I would back up one movie:

The Wrong Man
Vertigo
North by Northwest
Psycho
The Birds

Yeah...The Birds. I got problems with the script, but it is some kind of special effects/doomsday classic. Marnie? Not nearly as good as the Wrong Man.

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BTW2, if you are only interested in the facts of the case then Ken Burns' 2 hour 2012 documentary for PBS, The Central Park Five might be a good option. But DuVernay's drama opens up, e.g., whole new ways (perhaps especially for white people) to understand how confessions can be coerced out of people, how facially neutral policies about detecting and punishing crime will always in fact fall disproportionately and be enforced with unusual vigor on vulnerable, marginalized populations, and so on.

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I may give it a try. Hitchcock understood way back in the fifties what an unfair grinder the American justice system could be.

I suppose we must confront the fact that almost all Hitchcock's movies were about "white people"(less Lifeboat and Topaz having black characters), and the unfairness of The Wrong Man(against an Italian-American, a little "less than" in bigot eyes back then) when transferred to a racial context becomes even more hard to think about.

But I will. And I'll likely watch at least some of this.

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