Imaginary time capsule

I'd decided my life was lacking in cute Anthony Perkins comedies, so after a great deal of trouble I tracked down The Matchmaker. It was fun (turns out Hello Dolly! is just The Matchmaker with some songs added, no really, the scripts are identical, the jokes are word-by-word the same) and Anthony Perkins was adorable (I was amazed at seeing him in drag before I realized that's basically the premise of Psycho). My second favourite thing was the Barnaby Tucker to Perkins' Cornelius Hackl, played by Robert Morse.

I'm fairly certain I've come across Morse before, but I always wrote him off as "that guy who reminds me of Mickey Rooney" (I don't like Mickey Rooney) because he's short, impish and gap-toothed. But I liked him in The Matchmaker, and then tonight I watched How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

I don't understand why I've heard so little about that musical. Sure it's got a washed-out beige colour scheme and some pretty sexist punchlines, but Morse is so charming as the lead you forget he plays a character who lies and manipulates his way to the top. All the while Morse got this infectious larger-than-life way of performing, very theatrical. The highlight of the movie is when he sings 'I Believe in You' to himself in the mirror. It starts off as a comedy number but gradually this great sense of earnestness and defiance creeps in; "I believe in you!"



Also yes I know Morse has been a big deal in Mad Men. I'm still not gonna watch Mad Men.

Found a new home, thank God. That last place may have had nice cupboards, but I've hated just about everything else about it. I refer to it as "that hole". Could hardly even get cell phone reception in there, and the landlord and lady were driving me up the wall.

So, my new digs: A groovy apartment from the sixties (Not a bedsit, a real apartment with two rooms!) that's newly had a lick of paint. Lovely, worn hardwood floor (none of that cold stone floor in my last home). Nice view of the (surprisingly large) garden. And the whole thing is not too far away from the train and bus station, which is really what sold me on it. I'm so utterly in love with it I don't even mind having the refrigerator in the living room (on account of the tiny kitchen).

I'm still mostly living out of boxes and bags, but more second-hand furniture should be arriving this weekend. I've got the TV in place anyway, and officially broke in my new apartment watching a musical last night: Call Me Madam - an Ethel Merman vehicle (blah) featuring Vera-Ellen (double blah) but with Donald O'Conner (who got the best number of the film), and George Sanders (dreamy sigh) in his one and only musical film performance. Whoa whoa whoa, did he have some pipes on him!

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Excuse me, got more unpacking to do!

I've heard that all copies of the 1959 Porgy and Bess filmatization were destroyed long ago, but considering I've just seen it I've got an inkling that's not entirely true (though it's true that it's not available for commercial release - but gee, isn't the internet a wonderful thing?)

And yeah, that is pretty much the most nonsensical attempt at filming an opera I've ever seen. Watching it and then reading about the production shows some pretty interesting thinking going on at MGM:

- "Hey, let's make an opera movie, and it'll starr Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge and Sammy Davis Jr. What, only one of those can sing? Then we'll dub everybody else."
- "Hey, let's fire the director known for making good musicals and hire this other guy who's so paranoid anybody will hijack the editing he insists on filming the entire movie in extremely long takes and without a single close-up, essentially making it the most visually boring movie ever."
- "Hey, let's have Hermes Pan choreograph it. You know, the guy who was essentially the choreographing guru of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly? Oh yeah, and let's not have a single dance sequence in this movie."

I MEAN WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH THIS MOVIE. The only thing that comes close to being memorable is Sammy Davis Jr.'s performance (which makes sense, according to what I've read Davis was the only starring actor who wasn't pressured to be in the movie against his will). You can tell he's just having a ball portraying Sportin' Life, and does some killer renditions of 'It ain't necessarily so' and 'There's a boat dat's leavin' soon'.

One good thing to come out of watching this thing was that it reminded me of my quest to one day see Stormy Weather from 1943. I mean, Cab Calloway (and The Cotton Club Orchestra), Fats Waller and The Nicholas Brothers in the same movie? It must be mindblowing.

Watched that 1983 Pirates of Penzance studio movie. As much as I love Gilbert and Sullivan I've somehow never seen Pirates before. ...You know, I think Gilbert and Sullivan is pretty unknown in Norway? I've never ever heard of a Norwegian production of a G&S opera. Then again a lot of it is pretty untranslatable - in the case of Pirates I was having a lot of fun watching the subtitler nearly having a fit trying to make the orphan/often joke work.

Well the movie felt pretty tainted by its eighty-ness (get that synth out of my comedic opera!) but... you remember last year when I admitted that in my childhood I totally had a thing for Jeff Goldblum? As a follow-up I can now tell you that about the age of ten or so I had the most passionate infatuation with Kevin Kline... for about two weeks. A secret that I'd pretty much forgotten about until today when I saw him in the role of the Pirate King.

I really am all too predictable.

The movie did an odd bit of cut-and-pasting by including the song 'My eyes are fully open' (popularly known as 'It really doesn't matter') from the opera Ruddigore, but adding more of both tongue-twisters and Angela Lansbury - it's all forgiven.

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Speaking of tongue-twisters, I've made the greatest discovery ever: An album simply titled Gilbert and Sullivan and Danny Kaye! The undisputed king of tongue-twisters doing G&S, I'm astonished I hadn't heard of it. He even sings my favourite G&S song of all time, 'When first my old old love I knew' from Trial by Jury (it is, sad to say, not a great rendition of it, but the point still stands!). Ah, joy. His 'If you're anxious for to shine' is a beauty.

Okay, there. I think I have no more to say about Gilbert and Sullivan for today. God this fever does weird things to my brain.

Again back from the film club, and after watching The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) I've come to realize a couple of things:

You know that creepy guy who was the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? That was Robert Helpmann, a celebrated Australian ballet dancer! Also he was kinda hot. And Wikipedia tells me his obituary in The Times described him as "a homosexual of the proselytizing kind" which I find all kinds of hardcore. And a little humorous.

Second, that this haunting song right here:

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- is, in fact, from The Tales of Hoffmann. I've loved it for years, and I had no idea. (And oh my God, it's the music from the Evergood coffee commercials! I had 'Barcarolle' on CD, and just now I realized it's used in those commercials!)

So I figured it had been ages since I last watched a Bing Crosby movie. Tonight my choice landed on We're not dressing (1934), mostly because I'd heard of it. Oh and Bing is young and pretty and wears eyeliner.



For the first hour it's a refreshing musical with a song every five minutes and a lot of groanworthy jokes. I try not to be too upset by that poor harassed bear cub. There's the typical romantic plot of a man and a woman hating each other before they realize they love eachother, Bing croons 'Once in a blue moon', then the typical misunderstanding comes up, he gets mad and

HOLY SHIT HE'S GOING TO RAPE HER.

WHAT

THE

FUCK

This is not a squint-and-you-might-see-a-bit-of-subtext case. This is... not what I signed up for.

But the movie tells me it's okay! After he's tied her up and told her that this is what comes from leading him on, he decides she's "not worth it" and walks away. So he's totally sympathetic still right? And the next day she goes up to him and APOLOGISES. AND SAYS FROM NOW ON SHE'LL ALWAYS DO AS HE TELLS HER. They embrace, smiles all around, and he sings about how wonderful love is. End of movie.

I'M NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THIS. I went to IMDB to see what other people had to say, and the verdict was that the movie was "charming" and "clever" and "romantically satisfying". I can't be the only one who isn't okay with this! I can watch movies involving violence and rape, but I can't accept it as a plot point in an otherwise unremarkable romantic comedy.

ROMANTICALLY SATISFYING MY ASS. *Cuddles up with Top hat*.

There are certain things that I really should have thought of sooner.

Such as how I have had a lifelong love for Oliver Twist AND musicals, and yet it never occured to me to watch Oliver! (1968) until today.

( Some thoughts )

I read somewhere Dickens was slightly horrified when he realized people thought that the life of Fagin and his boys sounded fun and colourful and exciting. Ah, reading the book when I was ten or so I wanted to join a pickpocket gang like that...

Of the things that have succeeded in keeping me sane this last month (support from my family going without saying), I'd definitely place Cab Calloway among them.

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There's not a thing that isn't amazing about this clip.

Meanwhile, there's a lot of noise out in my hall and I hear men's voices. I've no idea what's going on but as long as they don't bother me I'll let them go about their business, which appears to be in the attic judging from the sounds.

I know he did you wrong and I'm here to give ya
What you wanted all along

If Tiny and I lived in a bad family comedy I know exactly how last night would have been edited:

TINY AND TILLY ARE CHATTING ON SKYPE SOMETIME IN THE EVENING.
TINY: I don't think we'll do another one of those sessions of chatting all night about sexy guys. Honestly.
TILLY: (Laughs) Oh goodness no.
FADE TO:
A CLOCK SHOWING 2 A.M. TINY AND TILLY ARE BOTH BROWSING YOUTUBE.
TINY: I tell you dude, Jackman's hand brushes against that guy's crotch just before he strokes his thigh.
TILLY: What? Rewind, rewind!
COMEDY TROMBONE.

The result is that I now have a message alert sound that'll be more than a little embarassing if it goes off during a lecture.

Well, it's Sunday again and that mountain is not going to climb itself.

But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations
He remains an Englishman

I have now seen my first Gilbert and Sullivan operetta! I discovered the library had a DVD performance of HMS Pinafore on its opera shelf. Opera Australia, in case anyone is keeping track of these thing.

Well, that was endearingly silly. It's no secret I'm a sucker for those kind of love-hindered-by-class stories, and it just kept going on for miles in HMS Pinafore. Complete with Importance of Earnest-twist at the end and cheerfully implied incest.

Captein Corcoran was the best thing about it though. Sure, David Hobson as Ralph had a voice to die for, but the Captain stole my heart. It might have been the moustache.

And dude, living in a city by the sea means it's not unusual for me to spot men in sailor suits about town (in the summer at least), but I kept thinking how it should be mandatory for them to wear as much eyeliner as the sailors in this production. It would look brilliant.

Tomorrow I intend to watch Trial by Jury with the same cast. If Anthony Warlow isn't sporting that same moustache my heart will break.