The Comedian Harmonists (music)

(1928-1934)
Harry Frommermann (tenor buffo), Ari Leschnikoff (first tenor), Erich Collins (second tenor), Roman Cycowski (baritone), Robert Biberti (bass), Erwin Bootz (piano)
Allmusic.com Entry

I’ve slowly been going through Spotify, listening to every artist listed in 1001 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Some of the albums, of course, I’ve heard.  Others, I’ve heard about.  But there are many who I’ve never heard before.  All are pretty good, and occasionally, there’s one that blows me away.  That was my reaction to the Comedian Harmonists.

The group was formed in 1927, by Harry Frommermann, a German who wanted to create a jazz/pop vocal group like those he had heard from American bands.  Frommermann held auditions and soon got together five others to start performing.

The group quickly became a success.  It has an unusual and pleasing sound, as the melody switched off among the men, as they sang with terrific close harmonies.  Here’s an exampe:  Wochenend Und Sonnenschein (“Weekend and Sunshine,” though the tune might be familiar to you).

 

“Happy Days are Here Again”

But as the 1930s rolled on, the Comedian Harmonists ran into a problem:  The Nazis came to power.  Three of the members were Jewish, and the pianist was married to a Jewish wife.  Something had to give, and it was the Comedian Harmonists.  They were forbidden to perform in public.  Fromerman, Cycowski, and Collin fled Germany and tried to establish themselves as a new group, but the politics of the time made it impossible.  Those that remained behind also took on new members and continued to perform for a time, but when the war broke up, the group was forgotten.

Luckily, though, some remembered.  A documentary on German TV in 1977 by Eberhard Fletcher revived interest and CD have gathered together their songs.  They still have the power to delight after all these years.

Condorman

(1981)
Directed by Charles Jarrott
Written by Marc Stirdivat, from a novel by Robert Sheckley
Starring Michael Crawford, Oliver Reed, Barbara Carrera, James Hampton
IMDB Entry

Back in the mid-80s, I was at a science fiction convention where Roger Elwood* was a guest.  He was working for Disney at the time, and was promoting things with a trivia contest.  I gave him a question about Condorman.

He had never heard of it.  Nor had most of the audience.

Condorman was  based (very roughly) on a novel by science fiction author Robert Sheckley.  Though primarily thought of a a writer of humorous SF, Sheckley wrote in various genres.**  The Game of X was his entry in the spy spoof genre.  It tells the story of a man who gets involved in a minor spy operation but who is mistaken for X, the world’s greatest spy and is forced to become what he is mistaken to be.***

Disney made some major changes.  In the film, Woody Wilkins (Michael Crawford) is a comic book creator who even designs a suit for his hero, Condorman.  His friend Harry (James Hampton) asks him to bring some papers when Woody is traveling to Istanbul.  He meets up with Natalia (Barbara Carrera), a KGB agent who wants the papers, Woody telling her he’s a spy with the code name “Condorman.”  Later, Natalia decides to defect – but will only do it if Condorman helps her.

The movie is definitely light entertainment, and ultimately very silly.  It was barely released into theaters; I saw it as a sneak preview with The Fox and the Hound, but I never noticed it being advertised after that.

This was the last movie in which Michael Crawford appeared.  Usually when I write that, it means it’s a sad comment.  However, those who follow the stage know that Crawford became a theater legend, playing the Phantom of the Opera in London and on Broadway.  Barbara Carrera continued her spy career in Never Say Never Again.

The movie isn’t a great one, but is an interesting curiosity.

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*Known primarily as a packager of anthologies; he did dozens of them, of varying quality and is often cited for killing the interest for paperback short story anthologies by flooding the market with time.

**At the time Condorman was released, he was near the top of 20th century sf authors who had their works adapted for film.  This was partly because adaptations of sf novels were rarely made (a situation that continues today).

***The situation is similar to North by Northwest and by The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe, though less serious than the first and less funny than the latter.

****Other than one animated film.

A Thousand Clowns

(1965)
Directed by Fred Coe
Written by Herb Gardner
Starring Jason Robards, Barry Gordon, Barbara Harris, Martin Balsam, William Daniels
IMDB Entry

Jason Robards has always been regarded as one of our best actors, both on stage* and in film and A Thousand Clowns is one of his most memorable film roles.

The movie follows the life of Murray Burns (Robards) who one day quits his job writing for a children's TV show to do what  he pleases.  Murray is the guardian of his nephew Nick** (Barry Gordon) as he gets away from the rat race and lives life fully.

But there are complications, in the form of two investigators from the Child Welfare Board, Sandra Markowitz (Barbara Harris) and Albert Amundson (William Daniels), who threaten to remove Nick from the Murray if he can't show he is capable of being a guardian.

The movie was a Broadway hit brought to film, with much of the original cast reprising their roles.  Thus the acting is smart an assured.  Robards is funny, very charming, mercurial, and a character you can't keep your eyes off, while Barry Gordon managed to be portray a smart kid in a way that's not too cute and not too artificial. It's something to watch him work with Robards; the two have a special rapport gained from doing the show on stage.

Barbara Harris, in her first film, is a charming love interest, while William Daniels portrays the strait-laced character that he's always known for.  Both are great, but Martin Balsam, as Murray's brother Arnold, who tries to talk sense into him, won a supporting Oscar for the role.  It could easily have gone to anyone else in the cast and, indeed, the film was nominated for Best Picture that year.

The movie did OK in the box office, and most of the cast made a real mark in films and Broadway.  Even Gene Saks, who played Murray's former boss, was a big success, though as a director.  And Herb Gardner, who wrote the play and screenplay, had several other Broadway successes, most notable, I'm Not Rappaport.**** Barry Gordon, while never a star, is still working pretty steadily, a major accomplishment for a child actor.  Oddly, Fred Coe only directed one more file, though he did work in TV.

The play is revived from time to time, but the movie seems to become obscure.  That's too bad, since it's an entertaining and funny film.

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*Where he's considered one of the greatest interpreters of Eugene O'Neill.

**His name during the movie.  Nick is allowed to choose his own name and has in the past used Wilbur Malcome Burns, Theodore Burns,  Raphael Sabatini, Dr. Morris Fishbein, Woodrow Burns, Chevrolet Burns, Big Sam Burns , and Lefty Burns

***It was first a Broadway hit, with many of the original cast making it to the movie.

****Gardner's name appeared regularly in the New York Magazine competition, where readers were asked to submit small, funny bits on a particular theme.  Gardner's entries seemed to show up just about every week, and someone once even used his name as one of the jokes.

Lillian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia (book)

(1969)
by Lillian Roxon

Rock music was always slightly disreputable, which is a major part of its popularity and charm.  And because of this, few critics took it seriously. One of the first was Lillian Roxon, and her Rock Encyclopedia was a critical landmark:  the first attempt to list the groups that made the genre.

Roxon was born Lillian Ropschitz in Italy.  He family, fleeing fascism in Europe,* migrated to Australia in 1937 and changed their name to Roxon.  Lillian became a journalist and moved to New York city in 1939 as an overseas correspondent.  By the mid-60s, she turned her attention to rock music.  She became part of the rock scene by being willing to take it seriously and she had a good eye for what groups might make it big.

By 1968, she had developed enough of a reputation to put together the major project:  the world’s first encyclopedia of rock.   The book covered all the major acts, of course, but also many minor ones, and included what she saw as interesting new groups.** 

But what made the book special was Roxon’s writing.  This wasn’t a dry listing of groups and their history, but an entertaining and lively personal journey through the music.  Some of the entries were unforgettable, as this description of how B.B. King was introduced to rock fans at a concert where he was billed beneath Elvin Bishop and Eric Clapton:

“Well, for a start, old B. doesn’t even stand up. He doesn’t have to. He just sits back in his chair, still relaxin’, smilin’ a little and smokin’ his Tiparillo, and suddenly he lets go a little pure and ever-so-simple soul.  Like he’s been doin’ this for a long time.  No fancy playing now, just a couple of strokes, and – well, the whole room is wiped out.”

She could have a wonderfully dry sense of humor as in this entry about the Royal Guardsmen:

“Their song depicting Snoopy (the Peanuts dog) fighting the Red Baron became a million seller in three weeks. One month later, they did a sequel to it.  And one year later, `Snoopy’s Christmas.’  Some people question the Royal Guardsmen’s imagination.”

After the book, Roxon continued to write on rock and on feminist issues, but her health started failing as she developed asthma.  She died in 1973.

The Rock Encyclopedia is her legacy.  There was an attempt to revise in in 1978 with Ed Naha brought in to update the book, but Naha*** was not in Roxon’s league as a stylist, and the book was rewritten to eliminate some of the more obscure entries and adding new groups from the previous decade.  It was considered inferior to the original.

The book is a bit dated, and some of the groups have been forgotten.**** But the book was and still is the perfect snapshot of where rock was in 1969.

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*She was Jewish.

**The Rock Encyclopedia, for instance, had an article on Soft White Underbelly, a group from Stony Brook, Long Island that had not even put out an album yet.  You’ve probably never heard of them, but you have heard of the name they finally settled on:  Blue Oyster Cult.

***Whose most famous work was his screenplay for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

**** Acts such as the Brotherhood, the Candymen, Even Dozen Jug Band, Penny Whistlers, and Stone Country, and Jeremy Steig and the Satyrs, who had two entries in the Encyclopedia, under “Jeremy” and “Steig”.

Cotton Comes to Harlem

(1970)
Directed by Ossie Davis
Written by Ossie Davis and Arnold Perl, from the novel by Chester Himes.
Starring  Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, Calvin Lockhart, Redd Foxx.
IMDB Entry

Ossie Davis (along with this wife Ruby Dee) was a cultural icon, known for breaking into acting in 50s and 60s in roles in which he insisted on playing with dignity and gravity, in contrast to the way that Blacks were often portrayed in films.  But Davis wanted to do more and managed to turn in mind to writing and directing.  The result, Cotton Comes to Harlem, was instrumental in creating an entire movie genre.

The movie is based upon a novel by Chester Himes, a series of mysteries featuring his “Harlem Detectives”:  Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones, two NYC cops who use hard-nosed tactics to go after dangerous criminals. 

In the movie, Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) and Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) are brought in after a scamming preacher (Calvin Lockhart) is robbed of his money, which may be inside a bale of cotton.  Half of Harlem is out to track it down.

This is a film about character.  Johnson and Jones are cold blooded when it comes to solving a case, but also have a mordant sense of humor about life.  Indeed, the movie is as much a comedy as it is a detective film:  it never stops for laughs, but they come through wisecracks and a skewed view of life.

Godfey Cambridge is one of my favorite actors of the time, always willing to take chances or give a wisecrack, and his Gravedigger has a sly sense of humor throughout.  Raymond St. Jacques is also good as Johnson, and Redd Foxx is memorable as a junk dealer* who is instrumental in finding the cotton.  Also in the cast are Cleavon Little, Judi Pace, Eugene Roche,** and Lou Jacobi.

The movie was made for a moderately low budget for the time, and I suspect it was released to modest expectations.  But the film became a hit.  Black audiences wanted to go to a film where black characters made up most of the cast, and white audiences were attracted to the humor and action sequences.  With Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Shaft – both released the next year – a genre was born:  Blaxploitation films. 

While the genre may seem dated today, Cotton Comes to Harlem isn’t.  Davis, who always acted with dignity, directed a film with a dignified heart beneath the action, which makes it still hold up pretty well.

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*A couple of years before Sandford and Son; reports are that he got the TV role for his  performance here.

**Another actor who I love.

The Thief of Bagdad

(1940)
Directed by Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, and (uncredited) Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, and William Cameron Menzies
Screenplay by  Miles Malleson from a scenario by Lajos Biro
Starring Sabu, Conrad Veidt, John Justin, June Duprez, Rex Ingram
IMDB Entry

Hollywood was the place of dreams and fantasy, yet, up until relatively recently, fantasy films were rare, and usually with a mundane setting.  The idea of a completely realized fantasy world is a very recent one, probably due to the Just Imagine! effect.*  So it took UK producer Alexander Korda to make the greatest high fantasy until Lord of the Rings with The Thief of Baghdad.

It was a remake of a silent film by that name, but done in Technicolor and advanced effects for the time.  And it’s an Arabian Nights fantasy, using that setting to frame a magical tale.

The evil Grand Vizier Jaffar (Conrad Veidt) conspires to throw the king Ahmad (John Justin) into a dungeon and usurp his throne.  With the aid of the young thief Abu (Sabu), he escapes and leaves the city, only to fall in love with a princess (June Duprez).  But the Vizier also has designs on the princess and uses his magic ability to get his way.  All seems lost, until Abu discovers a magic lamp with a giant genie (Rex Ingram) who agrees to grant him three wishes.

The movie is filled with imaginative fantasy ideas, and the film was a major technical advance, the first to be done in a modern bluescreen process.  The characters were also memorable.  Sabu, who had come to notice in the film Elephant Boy three years before, is clever and a cheerleader for the King’s efforts to win the princess; it’s a charming role.  Conrad Veidt was a larger than life villain, even worse than the one in his most famous role of Major Strasser from Casablanca.

The production was troubled.  Producer Korda kept firing directors, and, since it was filmed during the Blitz, the Luftwaffe was dropping bombs around it.  It was finally moved to Hollywood to be completed, and many of Sabu’s scenes had to be reshot due to the delay (he was only 16 when the film was being made).

But the film was worth the effort, being both a critical and financial success.  It became the blueprint for Arabian Nights films for years to come.**

Alas, Sabu*** wasn’t quite as successful, suffering the fate of many non-western actors who went to Hollywood in the 40s.  He could only be cast in ethnic parts.  The Jungle Book was the obvious next step for him, and succeeded, but there are only a limited amount of roles for a teenager from India back then.  He became a US citizen and served as a turret gunner in World War II, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross.  But once he returned, good parts were hard to come by, and he died of a heart attack at age 39.

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*Just Imagine! was a science fiction musical comedy released in 1930 that was a notorious flop. The movie was terrible, and Hollywood decided not to do that sort of thing again.

**Note that the Vizier has the same name in Disney’s Aladdin, and the monkey in that film is Abu, both nods to the 40s version.

***Real name, Sabu Dastagir.

MilkShake (candy)

The Hollywood Candy Company was a minor but successful national candy chain for much of the 20th century.  Named after their home base in Hollywood, MN, they successfully introduced the first fluffy nougat bar, MilkShake.  It was so successful that the Mars Candy Company put out their own version:  Milky Way.*

I first discovered MilkShake in the late 50s.  By this time, Milky Way was one of the most  popular candy bars in the US, and MilkShake looked like a cheap knockoff.  I didn’t like it as much:  it didn’t have as good a flavor or texture.  But in the summer, MilkShake was more than just a candy bar:  it was a frozen treat.

Just about every place that sold ice cream novelties also sold frozen MilkShakes.  This was not like today, when a novelty is created from ice cream that tastes vaguely like its namesake.  No, they would put a bunch of MilkShake bars in the freezer and sell them (for a premium) as a treat in hot weather.

A frozen MilkShake came out of the freezer too hard to bite into.  But, with a little work and patience and, of course, thawing, it would slowly begin to warm up just enough to be eaten.  The combination of the chill and the candy rush made it a treat.

Around the mid-60s, the treat vanished.  Maybe the MilkShake was taken off the market,** but I remember asking for one and they had no idea what I was talking about.  Milky Way was a poor substitute, mostly because it was denser.  And while that made it better eaten straight, it meant it was ever harder to bite into.  The practice of freezing candy bars faded away.

Hollywood Candy remained around, but the company was bought by a series of different candy companies starting in 1967, about the time MilkShake vanished.  Their two most successful brands – Zero and Payday -- are still around and now owned by Hershey.

The MilkShake was not a great candy until frozen.  Then, they were at the top of my list.

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*Candy recipes are not patented, so if you can figure out how your competitor made theirs, you can easily make a knockoff.

**The history of trademark foods, especially forgotten brands, is not easy to piece together.  No one really keeps track or pays much attention.

Out of the Silent Planet (book)

(1938)
By C. S. Lewis
Wikipedia Entry

C. S. Lewis today is known for his epic fantasy Chronicles of Narnia, but before he started with the series, he tried his hand at science fiction, with spectacular success.  Out of the Silent Planet is one of the forgotten classics of the genre.

The first book in his “Space Trilogy,” the story features Elwin Ransom, a philologist who while on a walking tour of the UK, falls in with a mad scientist and is taken to the planet Malacandra – known to humans as Mars.  Thinking he’s to be sacrificed to the scary-looking humanoids, the Sorns, he runs off and falls in with a different race of Malacandrans, the Hrossa.  The Hrossa bring to mind otters and slowly integrate Ransom into their tribe.  But he eventually had to face meeting Oyarsa, the ruler of the world.

The portion with the hrossa is the book’s biggest strength.  There is no universal translator, so the book is one of the few that concentrates on the progress Ransom makes in learning the language, which Lewis did a conscientious job of constructing.  There are three races on Malacandra, the Hrossa, the humanoid Seroni (Sorns), and the Pfifltriggi (I seem to recall they are froglike).  It’s very unusual even today to populate a planet with more than one alien, and Lewis was also one of the first to show a well-thought-out alien society. I also love the fact that he keeps the Pfifltriggi offstage – because there’s no reason to show much of them.*

Lewis does use the novel to introduce Christian theology, of course, but it never cloys.  On the surface, it’s a great SF adventure novel, just like the Narnia books are great fantasy adventures.

Lewis followed his friend J. R. R. Tolkien by making this the basis for a trilogy.  The sequel, Perelandra, was set on Venus as a water world.  The plot, however, is a retelling of Eve being tempted in the Garden of Eden.  Even Lewis thought the plot was secondary to his description of the world and the book is a drop down from the first.  The final book in the trilogy, That Hideous Strength, I found unreadable. 

In any case, the weaknesses of the other two books is one reason why Out of the Silent Planet** is not as well known as it should be.  The books are still available, but they are footnotes compared to the success of Narnia, and very few people alive today are introduced to him through his space trilogy.

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*At the end, Ransom talks about being able to describe life among them, but that since he never went there in the course of his adventures.

**The title refers to Earth, known on Malacandra as Thulcandra, which means “The Silent Planet.”

Harry Warren & Al Dubin (music)

(1893-1981)
Wikipedia Entry for Harry Warren
Wikipedia Entry for Al Dubin
Harry Warren Tribute Page

In 1980, 42nd Street hit Broadway, using the same songs and story as the 1930s movie.  It was a major hit* and ran on Broadway for years, and is still popular with touring shows and local musical theater.  Yet, unusually for any Broadway show, there was never any mention in the advertising and posters of the songwriter involved.

That’s typical of Harry Warren.  Only those who pay attention to musical theater and especially movie musicals of the 30s, know their names.  Yet Warren’s list of songs is filled with tunes everyone knows.  “That’s Amore.”  “I Only Have Eyes for You” “42nd Street.”    “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”  “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.”  “We’re In the Money.”  “Lullaby of  Broadway.” “Jeepers Creepers.” For some reason, Warren always took the back seat.

Warren was born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna in 1893 in Brooklyn, NY, though his father changed their family name to Warren when he was a boy.  He dropped out of school at 16 to play in a band and by 1915 he was working as a staff pianist at Vitagraph pictures.  By 1918, he was writing his own music and had his first hit in 1922 with “Rose of the Rio Grande.”

With a handful of popular hits under his belt, he moved to Hollywood with the advent of sound, and started working for Warner Brothers in 1932, where he was teamed with Al Dubin. 

Dubin was born in Switzerland and moved to the US when he was two.  After a tumultuous academic career where he was kicked out of a couple of schools for his hard drinking and partying ways, he became a staff writer for Whitmark Music Publishing.   He had his first hit with “Twas Only an Irishman’s Dream” in 1916, and started to slowly build a career.  By the late 1920s, he had a string of hits, including “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” 

Warren and Dubin started hitting it big writing the songs for Busby Berkeley musicals.**  These films is probably the second most common way people discover him.

The most common?  Well, since they were staff writers for Warner Brothers, their songs could be used in other productions without additional payment, which meant that Warner Brothers’ cartoon unit – Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies – could use them all they wanted.  Many of the 30s cartoons used Warren/Dubin songs, either straight (“Shuffle Off to Buffalo”) or with parody lyrics.***

Dubin died in 1945, a victim of his own excesses.  He was a serious drinker and partier, using drugs and weighing over 300 pounds.  The high living caught up with him.

Warren continued to write hits with lyricists like Johnny Mercer, Leo Robin, Ira Gershwin, Alan Freed, and Alan Freed.  As TV shows came into existence, he even wrote a few theme songs, most notably “Legend of Wyatt Earp.”

Warren won three Oscars**** and was nominated for eight more.  He had 21 #1 hits from 1931-1045, and many more on the hit parade.  His songs are part of the Great American Songbook, and I would put him up with with the greatest songwriters of his era.

Yet somehow, he always seemed to be overshadowed by others, and forgotten by the general public (though not by musicians).  It may be that he never had a big Broadway show until 42nd Street, so when his hit parade days were over, he faded from memory.  In any case, he’s slowly gaining back recognition and he and Dubin are in the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame

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*With the added pathos of having its director die the same day it opened.

**As is typical for Warren, the best CD release of those songs mention Berkeley but not him.

***I can’t recall the cartoon, but it had a song based upon Warren’t “The Latin Quarter” with the lyrics “What is Your Order?”

****For “Lullaby of Broadway” with Dubin, “You’ll Never Know” and “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”

All-Star Baseball (game)

(1941-1989)
Invented by Ethan Allen
Wikipedia Page
More Detailed History
If you love baseball, winter is hard, so the idea of a game based upon baseball to fill the time between games probably goes back to the 19th century.  Most early games used dice to come up with the play, but those who longed for greater realism were out of luck.  That is, until All-Star Baseball was introduced.
The game was the brain child of Ethan Allen,* a moderately successful major league player of the 20s and 30s.  After he retired, he became head baseball coach at Yale, and it is here where he developed the game and sold it to Cadaco, who made it for years.
Instead of using dice, All-Star Baseball used cards.  Only they weren’t standard baseball cards:  they were circular, with a big hole in the center.  You’d put the card on a spinner on the game board (there was a raised area that matched the hole) and spun the pointer.  The number showing when the spinner stopped determined the results: for example, if you spun a “1,” it was a home run (as everyone who ever played the game remembers).
But the perimeter of the cards were not uniform.  Each section containing a number was a different size.  The size of each option were designed to match the performance of the player.  Thus the home run area (1) for Mickey Mantle was considerably larger than that for Nellie Fox. Although crude, the setup did have the players hitting like they did in real life.  There was a second spinner for the defense, which had limited options (things like holding a runner to one base instead of two on a single), and was probably not bothered with.
The game was far from perfect.  In addition to the lack of defensive options,** there was no consideration for the pitching,*** so a batter would hit just the same no matter who was on the mound.  The design of the cards meant that there was a trick to put them on the spinner, and the game consisted of placing the card, spinning the pointer, then putting down a new card.  Your finger could get pretty sore with all the spinning, too.
On the plus side, the game used the names of real players, both active and historical.  The players were honored to be part of it and granted their permission for next to nothing.  The game also could easily be played in a solitaire version.
As time went by, things changed.  They started adding player photos to the cards, and eliminated the large hole in the center. 
Around 1993, though, they stopped making the game.  One factor was that the Players Association started asking for more money for using the players’ names, but the drawbacks of the game conspired against it.  There were more accurate simulations by that point, and spinning the spinner was hopelessly low tech.  New versions come out sporadically for the nostalgia market
There are still many who look fondly back on the game, but computer games have moved far beyond what you could do with cardboard.  It’s too bad – I actually liked sports games where realism was thrown out the window.
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*No, not the Revolutionary War hero.
**I don’t think many people bothered with it, and it seems to have been added to the game to give the defensive team something to do.
***Pitchers did have cards, but only for batting.  Pitcher cards rarely had a “1” on them.

The Temperance Seven (music)

(Founded 1955)
Members included Paul McDowell , Philip Harrison and Brian Innes (founders) and Clifford Bevan,  Colin Bowles, Alan Swainston Cooper,  John R.T. Davies, Martin Fry, John Gieves-Watson,  Cephas Howard, "Whispering" Paul McDowell, Mac White, Ray Whittam Ian Howarthm, Graham Collicott and a cast of thousands.
Wikipedia Page
Temperance Seven Home Page

I’ve talked about my love for the Bonzo Dog Band.  I’m also a fan of music from the 1930s, so when I discovered the Temperance Seven, it was clearly something I’d want to include here, since they included elements of both.

The Temperance Seven was part of the “trad jazz” musical movement in postwar Britain, where bands started playing dixieland and other songs that their grandfathers listened to.  It remained popular into the sixties (though not often on the singles charts).  But as the movement matured, some musicians began to treat the music in a more ironic mode.  The Temperance Seven was founded at the end of 1955 in order to play that music and to have a lot of fun with it.

Though not a “comedy” music group like the Bonzos, the Seven* did not take their music too seriously.  They wore period costumes when the played and gave themselves bizarre stage names as part of the show.  They revived old tunes like “Tea for Two,” “Charleston,” “Ukelele Lady,” and many other of the era, with a sense of fun and real regard fro the genre.

The group was very influential in the UK, getting a #1 hit with “You’re Driving Me Crazy” in 1961.**  But the trad jazz movement was exclusively a British phenomenon; they didn’t make any impact on the US charts.***

Despite this, the Temperance Seven continued on.  They still seem active today, playing music that is more and more old fashioned but just as delightful as ever.

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*The name of the band; there weren’t necessarily seven members at any given time; most album covers I can see show eight.

**The Bonzo Dog Band were influenced by them.

***About the only trad jazz that made an impact on the US was Mr. Acker Bilk, The New Vaudeville Band, and the Village Stompers and Al Hirt from the US.

Special Event: Futuredaze

As I mention to the left, I’m a science fiction writer.  And tomorrow, March 12, there will be a special, online chat to promote Futuredaze, a new YA anthology containing my story “Spirk Station.”  It also has fiction by authors like Gregory Frost, William John Watkins, Jack McDevitt, Gregory Frost, and many others.

The chat is being held by Bitten by Books  starting at noon, Central time, and will run 24 hours.  If you take part, you earn points; the the two people with the most win $20 Amazon gift certificates. RSVP in advance and get extra points toward them.  Follow this link to the chat:  http://bittenbybooks.com/?p=62201

Sugarfoot (TV)

(1957-61)
Based on a story by Michael Fessler and a screenplay by Frank Davis and Winston Miller.  Original TV screenplay by Devery Freeman
Starring Will Hutchens
IMDB Entry
Wikipedia Entry

In the late 50s, the major movie studios start to think that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em and made the jump into TV production.  Disney was first with Disneyland on ABC, but that was an aberration.* But Warner Brothers realized that there was money to be made in TV production and made a deal with ABC with a rotating group of three shows:  Cheyenne, King’s Row, and Casablanca. Cheyenne became a hit, so they spun it off and added two more westerns, Bronco and the subject of today’s lecture, Sugarfoot.

Tom Brewster (Will Hutchens) was a young would-be lawyer in the TV west, traveling from one job to another and, of course, always running into trouble.  What made him different from other TV cowboys was his deliberate lack of machismo.  He drank sarsaparilla, spoke softly, and didn’t usually carry a gun (though he was a crack shot when necessary).  Because of this, he was called “Sugarfoot” – one step below “Tenderfoot.”

It was a somewhat different sensibility from the other westerns of the time.**  Brewster was awkward and polite to everyone, and preferred to out think and out reason his foes rather than meet them in a showdown.  Occasionally, he’d meet up with his outlaw cousin, the Canary Kid (Hutchins again), and there’d be mistaken identity galore. The show had a light touch to it, playing off Brewster’s seeming naivety. As far as I know, he never got his law degree.

The show ran for four seasons. Afterwards, Hutchens moved on to the sitcom Hey Landlord and as a guest star. 

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*Disney actually wasn’t a major studio at the time.  Walt made the deal because he needed the money to build his theme park.

**Though similar in many ways to the later movie Support Your Local Sheriff, which costarred Jack Elam, who had a recurring role in Sugarfoot.  Small world.

Arthur Upfield (author)

(1890-1964)
Wikipedia Page

Mystery stories are about gimmicks:  the gimmick that makes the murder stand out, the one that leads the detective to the solution.  And, of course, the detective him- or herself.  And its these gimmicks that create great detectives.  Arthur Upfield used an off-beat detective and a talent for creating great mysteries to create a long career that is underappreciated in the US.

Upfield was English, but moved to Australia as a boy, where he spent most of his life.  After WWI, he worked on various stations in the outback and started writing.  His first novel, The House of Cain, was successful enough, but his second, The Barrakee Mystery, introduced his signature character:  Inspector Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte.

Bony* had an Aboriginal mother and white father (something that was extremely daring when the book came out in 1929), and leaned heavily on this Aboriginal background.  It wasn’t mystical mumbo jumbo, though, but rather the application of both keen observation and a knowledge of the natural world of the Australian bush.  Bony was sure of his own abilities and proud of never having let a case go unsolved.

The mysteries themselves were also clever and well constructed.  Upfield was always on the lookout for new twists (usually one that related to Australia). 

In one occasion, The Sands of Windee, he even did it too well,  The “Murchison Murders” were committed by an acquaintance of Upfield who used it to dispose of bodies of people he killed.  He didn’t follow the method perfectly, though, and Upfield testified against him at the trial.**

Upfield also wrote some other mysteries,*** but it was Bony who made his reputation.  He completed 29 novels with the character until his death in 1964.  His work is still well known in Australia, of course, and in the UK, but most American mystery fans have never heard of him.  His Bony books can be found, though, and are worth the effort to dig up.

In memory of the Wombat: jan howard finder (March 2, 1939 – February 26, 2013).

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*He insisted everyone use that name.

**He later wrote a nonfiction book about the case.

***The Beach of Atonement, which was next to impossible to find, was recently reprinted.  I designed the cover.

Schweppes Bitter Lemon (food)

1957-???

When I was a kid, I had oddball taste in food.  Among other things, I didn’t care for soda.  I didn’t like the carbonation – it stung – and was used to drinking milk, so the sweetness had no appeal.  But in my early teens, I discovered a soda I actually enjoyed drinking:  Schweppes Bitter Lemon.

Bitter lemon had a long history, first developed in the 1830s as a mixer.  It was a combination of lemon juice and tonic.  It’s name described it:  it had a slightly bitter taste and the tang of lemon juice. 

It was a change from the usual sugary sodas for me.  One difference was the presence of a little bit of lemon pulp. Even though I wasn’t concerned about “all-natural” in those days, the little bits of lemon floating made it seem more real to me, and the fact that it wasn’t cloyingly sweet made it very refreshing.

It was never a very popular brand in the US.  If you found it in a supermarket, it would be with the cocktail mixers with bloody mary mix and swizzle sticks.  You had better luck in a beverage store and, possibly, in liquor stores in states that allowed for its sale. For me, it was a real treat.

There was also a Bitter Orange, which was the same thing, only the orange juice was sweeter.  I haven’t seen it in years, and it seems that they stopped making it in the US in 2011.* 

There are some attempts to market the flavor in the US, though it’s limited to knockoffs of Bitter Orange.  Polar, for instance, has Orange Dry, which is a less-sweet orange soda, but with no tonic, and it was the taste of quinine that made Bitter Lemon so good.

I probably wouldn’t drink it enough now to support the brand if it came back, but I hope that someone might try.

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*It’s still available in the UK, Germany, and Canada.

Shel Silverstein (music)

(1930-1999)
Wikipedia Entry

Yes, everyone knows Shel Silverstein.  When the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree are classics of children’s literature, still in print after 50 years. But Silverstein was a complete talent.  In addition to writing and cartooning, he was a songwriter, with songs that often were far different from what you’d expect from a children’s book writer.*

Silverstein grew up in Chicago and started out as a cartoonist, with some of his work appearing in Army magazines while he was in Korea in the 50s.  He began appearing in major magazines and had a series of special articles for Playboy.  In 1963, after publishing several books of adult cartoons, he went into children’s books with Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back.

Silverstein took up music in college and starting to write successful songs in the 1950s.  By the mid-60s, his songs had been recorded by Peter Paul and Mary (“Boa Constrictor”), Johnny Cash (“25 Minutes to Go”), and the Irish Rovers (“The Unicorn”).  Cash then had one of the biggest hits of his long career with Silverstein’s “A Boy Named Sue.”

That was typical of Silverstein.  He was, after all, a cartoonist, so his songs were often funny, with a sardonic sense of humor that sometimes bordered on the macabre.**

Silverstein had one weakness.  While a great songwriter and top-notch accompanist, his voice was no great shakes.  In 1970, he was composing a musical score for Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? when a producer brought in a group that was working hard to break in, thinking they’d be perfect for Silverstein’s material.  Evidently they were, because Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show rose to prominence on the strength of his material.

Their first song from him, “Sylvia’s Mother,” was a massive hit.  It’s an over-the-top ballad about trying to talk to an ex-girlfriend and a parody of that sort of breakup song.***  The album was a big hit.

They followed it up with Sloppy Seconds, which was only Silverstein material.  “On the Cover of the Rolling Stone” was another hit, a funny and satirical look at being a rock and roll star. 

Other Silverstein songs for Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show include “Roland the Roadie and Gertrude the Groupie,” “Freaking at the Freaker’s Ball,” “Penicillin Penny,” and “I Got Stoned and I Missed It.” As the titles indicate, the songs were concerned with sex and drugs and were all sardonically amusing.  But Silverstein could also be serious:  “The Queen of the Silver Dollar” is a wonderfully joyous love song.

Dr. Hook started moving on to other songs and songwriters, with further hits, but without Silverstein.  He continued to write for other artists, including the delightful “One’s On the Way” for Loretta Lynn.  He did put out an album with many of the songs that were covered by Dr. Hook, but with little success.

Not that it really mattered to Silverstein’s career.  He already had several irons on the fire with the books and everything else.  And he is very well regarded in music circles (and in country music especially) for his songs. It is an aspect of a great artist that sometimes gets overlooked.

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*Though far more like what you’d expect from a major contributor to Playboy, which Silverstein was.  Like Roald Dahl, he’s best known for children’s works despite the fact he had a long list of very adult works.

**”25 Minutes to Go” is about a man on death row, who ends up hanging at the end.  Johnny Cash sang it in Folsom Prison – true gallows humor.  “Boa Constrictor” has the singer being eaten by a snake.

***At first, a lot of people hated it because they didn’t get the joke.  Even now, some people still think it’s meant seriously, but, really, how seriously can you take a song with the refrain, “And the operator says forty cents more for the next three minutes, please.”?

Mad Dog and Glory

(1993)
Directed by John McNaughton
Written by Richard Price
Starring  Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, Bill Murray, David Caruso, Mike Starr
IMDB Entry

I’ve always noticed that some actors are particularly good when they’re cast against type.  People who started doing a lot of villains, like Telly Savalas and Peter Falk, can play very good heroes when given the chance.  Some who are used to playing good guys, like Fred MacMurray, make really great villains (see The Apartment).  And when more than one actor is cast against type, the results can be surprisingly good.

Mad Dog and Glory is a case in point.

Wayne “Mad Dog” Dobie (Robert De Niro) is a cop.  Not one who pounds a beat, but a timid police photographer who’s never had to draw his gun.  One night, he stumbles on a convenience store holdup and scares off the crook just before he can kill Frank Milo (Bill Murray).  Milo is grateful.  He is also a crime boss and in his gratitude, he send Mad Dog a present:  Glory (Uma Thurman), a woman who is in hock to Milo and has to follow his orders.  She is Mad Dog’s for one week, to do whatever he wants.

It’s not the best start to a relationship.  But Mad Dog and Glory find an affinity and decide they want to be together once the week is over.  But Milo is not about to allow that:  the deal is for one week, and he’s not the type of person who lets others change the terms of things.

De Niro is quiet and very laid back as Mad Dog,* a nice guy who is a little embarrassed by the whole situation until he gets to know Glory.  Murray gets away from the wiseass persona he had adopted around this point in his career, playing Milo as a menacing bully – who also is seeing a shrink** and performing in a comedy club.

Uma Thurman is also a the top of her game.  Her Glory is a real person with problems in addition to Milo, and needs to move on to some stability.  David Caruso, just before NYPD Blue made him a star,*** is good as Mad Dog’s best friend, while Mike Starr was his usual down-to-Earth self as one of Milo’s henchmen.

The writer, Richard Price, had come to prominence with the script to The Color of Money, and director John McNaughton had made some waves with Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. 

But the film didn’t do well at the box office.  People found its mood confusing: it starts out with Mad Dog photographing a couple of bloody murders, the veers to comedy, and then romance, then back.  The climactic scene with Milo and Mad Dog is funny and also very serious.  This is by design – I think both McNaughton and Price knew what they were doing – but audiences weren’t really sure what sort of movie it was.

The film faded from memory as all the actors went on to other things.  It’s still a strange and charming comedy that is a mix of humor, romance, and deadly serious situations.
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*The nickname is ironic, and, of course, has nothing to do with Mad Dog.

**Shades of Analyize This!

***Actually, Caruso first came to my attention in Hill Street Blues, where he had a recurring role as a young gangleader.  Evidently Stephen Bochco had forgotten that when he cast Caruso in NYPD Blue

The Man on the Flying Trapeze

(1935)
Directed by Clyde Bruckman (and W. C. Fields)
Story by “Charles Bogle” (W. C. Fields), screenplay by Ray Harris and Sam Hardy
Starring W. C. Fields, Mary Brian, Kathleen Howard, Grady Sutton, Vera Lewis, Walter Brennan, Carlotta Monti
IMDB Entry

The image of W. C. Fields is that of the snarling con man, the man who kicked babies and thought “anyone who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad.”*  But, unlike the other great film comedians,** Fields didn’t always play the same character.  His characters are on a continuum, with some being what people think he’s like, but others being exceptionally meek and mild and willing to tolerate any indignity.  Some of his best films show that side of him, including The Man on the Flying Trapeze.

In the movie, Ambrose Woolfinger (Fields) is introduced sneaking a sip of whiskey under the nose of his wife Leona (Kathleen Howard). Ambrose is a “memory expert”; his job involves remembering people and events for his boss, and keeping track of important papers (on a giant pile on his desk, though he can find anything instantly).  Ambrose has to endure the jibes of his mother-in-law (Vera Lewis) as well as his lazy brother-in-law (Grady Sutton).  Ambrose is a fan of wrestling, and decides to take his first day off in years in order to go to the big match.  Naturally, things get complicated from there.

Fields portrays Ambrose as a henpecked husband, putting up with the insults and indignities of life (in one sequence, he gets one traffic ticket after another as he tries to comply with the requests of various cops) until he finally snaps.  Fields the writer and director*** may have sneered at the people around him, but Ambrose wouldn’t think to do it.  Fields goes a long way to be the sympathetic character.

Two minor casting notes.  Carlotta Monti, who plays Ambrose’s secretary, was Field’s mistress; she gives a speech where she defends Ambrose when he’s fired for taking the day off.  And Walter Brennan plays a bit part of a burglar who Fields finds in his house and drinking his applejack.

Like most of Field’s films, this was not a big success when it was released.  It made money, but Fields’s comedy was too bitter for the 30s.  His persona started getting wide notice after his death, as impersonators started showing the popular version of his characters. 

The Man on the Flying Trapeze remains relatively obscure Fields.  It has been overshadowed by films like It’s a Gift and The Bank Dick**** and My Little Chickadee.  It also seems to have taken its time to have a DVD, meaning contemporary audiences have overlooked it.  But it’s one of his comedy classics.

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*Which he never said.  The comment was made about him by Leo Rosten at a roast at the Masquer’s Club.

**My list would be Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fields, the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Jacques Tati, and Woody Allen.  They all were consistently funny, and also were in control of their onscreen images, usually by writing or directing the role.  Only Chaplin showed much variation, and in his case it was an evolution of the character to make him more sympathetic; Fields would switch personas from film to film as necessary.

***Fields took over direction from Clyde Bruckman when the latter fell ill.

****Both of which portrayed characters similar to that in The Man on the Flying Trapeze.

Ace in the Hole

(1951)
Directed by Billy Wilder
Written by Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels, and Walter Newman
Starring Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling
IMDB Entry

For a long time, the adjective used to describe Billy Wilder was “cynical.” And, indeed, the director of films like Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment, and The Fortune Cookie certainly shows a jaundanced view of humanity.  But there’s a problem being too cynical – at least there was in the 1950s* – so his movie Ace in the Hole was a flop. Still, it is among his best.

The movie follow Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas), a down and out newspaperman.  Tatum’s problems were all his own and he ends up taking a job at the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin, a small newspaper that’s his only chance.  After trying to keep his nose clean, Tatum stumbles upon a story:  a local artifact hunter, Leo Minosa, is trapped in a cave and needs to be rescued.

Tatum sees this as opportunity.  He convinces rescuers to take their time in order to keep the story going.  And he succeeds:  the country focuses on Leo and the attempts to save him.  The site becomes a media carnival (literally) as the news and curiosity seekers converge.

This is a movie with the courage of its cynical convictions.  Tatum never softens in his hustle and brash talk.  Douglas plays him as a pure heel, only out for himself and willing to climb over anyone to get his way and with a dark view of humanity.  Few others show anything but an eye for what’s in it for them; even Leo’s wife Lorraine (Jan Sterling) is out only for herself.

The movie flopped.  The audience just didn’t like to see such as bitter look at US society, one where decent people are few and far between.  The studio tried to rename it The Big Carnival to sucker people in, but to no avail.

The flop didn’t hurt Wilder’s career much** and was forgotten by all but fanatical film aficionados.  But it’s far more in tune with attitudes today.***

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* I’m reminded of the slogan, “No matter how cynical you get, it’s impossible to keep up.”

**The studio did some bookkeeping tricks, so that his cut of profits in his next film – Stalag 17 – was cut by the studio.

***See it on a double feature with The Well (from the same year), which deals with the same situation in a more upbeat way.

The Two of Us

(Le vieil homme et l'enfant) (1967)
Directed by Claude Berri
Written by  Claude Berri, Gerard Brach, and Michel Rivelin
Starring Michel Simon, Alain Cohen
IMDB Entry

One of the best things about going off to college for me was the ability to see many more movies.  I grew up in a small town, with only one theater (one screen, of course), so my choices were limited to what they showed as well as anything that was broadcast on the NYC stations (once we got cable).  Not only did I move to an area with a couple of dozen theaters, but our college had its own film programs.  My freshman year, they had a general policy – classics and well-known films on weekends, but art films on Tuesday and Friday.  Which is where I saw The Two of Us.

The movie is set in 1944 in France.  Claude (Alain Cohen) is a Jewish boy living with his parents in secret in Paris.  Afraid he might give them away, they quickly teach him some of the basics of Catholicism and send him to a farm in the French countryside, run by Grandpa (Michel Simon).  Grandpa is prickly, charming, and often very sweet. He is also an anti-Semite, believing the Jews are responsible for the war.

The movie, based upon director Claude Berri’s experiences as a boy, stays away from the usual Hollywood dramatics such a situation would normally bring up. Normally, you’d expect most of the film being made up of Claude fearing being exposed and with many incidents where he just manages to keep from being found out.  While Claude is aware he had to keep his origin secret,* the movie isn’t built around it, nor is it built around Grandpa discovering the errors of his ways.**  The movie is more about the relationship between the two and how it grows into a loving friendship.

Michel Simon had appeared in several landmark French films of the 30s and beyond.***  This film was an attempt at a comeback after an accident involving film makeup paralyzed part of his face, and helped him reclaim his stardom.  His Grandpa is richly pictured as having a strong fatherly love for the boy, while still showing a lot of complexity to the character.

Alain Cohen also turns in a terrific performance, one of the best by a child in the history of film.  He’s perfectly natural and extremely likeable.

This was Claude Berri’s first full-length film, financed after he won a best short subject Oscar.  He continued a successful career with more autobiographical films**** and in 1986 directed his masterpiece:  Jean de Florette/Manon of the Spring.  But even the first time out, Berri shows a overflowing talent.

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*For instance, if anyone discovers he’s circumcised, he’s in big trouble. 

**He doesn’t.

***His role in Boudu Saved from Drowning was played by Nick Nolte in a remake fifty years later, Down and Out in Beverly Hills.

****Starring Cohen, using him much like Truffault used Jean-Pierre Leaud for his semiautobiographical work.

Hoppity Hooper (TV)

(1964-56)
Produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott
Written by Bill Scott and Chris Hayward
Starring  Chris Allen, Hans Conreid, Bill Scott, Paul Frees
IMDB Entry

Jay Ward and Bill Scott were superstars of Saturday morning cartoons.  Ward helped produce the first TV show to feature original animation, Crusader Rabbit, and he and Scott were the creators of Rocky and Bullwinkle* and its spinoffs, plus also George of the Jungle.  But their most obscure work was the short-lived series Hoppity Hooper.

The show recounted the adventures of the title character (Chris Allen), a young, somewhat naïve frog from Foggy Bog, Wisconsin.  In the first episode, he runs into a couple small-time con animals, Waldo Wigglesworth (Hans Conreid), a fox, and Fillmore (Bill Scott), a bear.  Waldo manages to convince Hoppity that he’s his uncle, and the three go off on various misadventures.

The stories are reminiscent of those in Rocky and Bullwinkle, the adventures shown in multi-episode pieces filled with puns, wordplay, and silly satire.  Unlike Rocky and Bullwinkle, the adventures were short:  usually four parts.  The Hoppity Hooper cartoons were the first and last of each half hour show, with other Jay Ward cartoons like Fractured Fairy Tales rerun to fill out the time.

Hoppity was very much like Rocky – cheerful, friendly, but not quite as alert to what was going on.  Fillmore was a dumber version of Bullwinkle; his signature was to blow a loud, flat note on his bugle.  Paul Frees handled the narration and any stray characters who came along.

But it was Uncle Waldo who was the centerpiece.  Hans Conreid was at his best in the role, hamming outrageously and having a lot of fun. 

The show ran for two seasons, then was in syndication for some time.  Ward continued with Rocky and Bullwinkle for a few more years, until that sort of cartoon became passé. 

But if you love the Moose and Squirrel, you should see their Frog, Fox, and Bear counterparts.

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*People don’t realize how long a run Rocky and Bullwinkle had.  It lasted almost to 1980 on NBC’s schedule, though in the last few years it ran at 1:00 pm, when most local affiliates switched to other shows.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

(1962)
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Screenplay by Lukas Heller, based on the novel by Henry Farrell
Starring Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono
IMDB Entry

Hollywood is tough on aging actresses.  There seems to be a career path from sexy girlfriend, to wife, to “whatever happened to?”  But the glamour is still part of it, and it’s often difficult for an actress to admit to herself that she isn’t as attractive, and even more difficult for a star (especially an old Hollywood star) to play an unglamorous role. In Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, director Robert Aldrich managed to get Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in a movie about a pair of aging actresses.

Baby Jane Hudson is a very successful child star in vaudeville, much to the envy of her sister Blanche.*  And when movies come in, both go to Hollywood, but Blanche (Joan Crawford) is now the star, while Baby Jane (Bette Davis) is the flop.**  Jane turns to alcohol and, on one drunken evening, there is a car crash and Blanche is left permanently injured.

The film then moves to the 1960s.  The two sisters live together. Jane is a bitter woman, lost in the bottle, but spending her time caring for Blanche mostly out of guilt. And Jane is becoming more and more erratic, even planning a comeback, grotesquely singing the songs she did as a child star, despite the fact the are hideously inappropriate.  She hires Edwin Flagg (Victor Buono) to help, and begins to psychologically torture Blanche in a portrayal of classic controlling behavior. 

Director Robert Aldrich was even then best known for action films, and Baby Jane is more about psychological torture than action.  Jane’s erratic behavior terrifies Blanche, and he manages to make the use of a single set – the sisters’ house – in terrifying ways.***

Bette Davis may have been the best of the actresses of Golden Age Hollywood, and her Jane is terrific – childish, bitter, nasty, and walking around with tons of makeup that make her look grotesque.  And yet, at the end, she says one of the most pathetically sad lines in film history, completely changing your opinion of the character.

Crawford was also one of the greats of the time, and her Blanche is, by necessity, a far more subtler performance.  She is the one the audience identifies with, and is the focus of the terror.  She makes a good victim partly because you can sense her inner strength, but helplessness due to the accident.

This is the first time the two actresses worked together.  Often, big Hollywood names of the 40s didn’t have their paths crossing, usually because they worked for different studios.****  In this case, however, there was another reason:  the two women hated each other.  This predated the movie, and there was some wonder in Hollywood as to whether Aldrich could even finish it, given that it had a very low budget.  He knew of the issue, however, and kept them apart except for any scenes they were required to play together.  They two women also appreciated that they needed a good role to keep their careers alive, so swallowed their hatred and made the film.*****

The movie was a major hit, and gave a boost to Davis’s career and garnering her an Oscar nomination.  Aldrich was able to make more hits, including The Flight of the Phoenix and The Dirty Dozen. Crawford did less, devolving into movies like Trog, though she was memorable in an episode of Night Gallery, one of Stephen Spielberg's first TV assignments.

Despite its success, which made the title a catchphrase, the movie seems to have fallen off the radar.  Its type of horror – called Grand Guignol at the time, though it seems far from that today – seems tame, and audiences are more interested in younger actors and more bloody scares.  But Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? still stands as an important landmark in film.

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*The dynamic is similar to that in Gypsy, though with far more conflict between the sisters.

**Actual clips from some of their films of the time were used to show their careers.  Bette Davis suggested Parachute Jumper as the worst film she ever did, so footage from that was use.

***The movie was my first realization of the “gun on the table” principle of writing:  I noticed the door to Blanche’s bedroom opened outward, not into the room as is usual.  It turned out that became an important plot point later on. 

****Davis worked for Warner Brothers, while Crawford was as MGM.

*****After the success of Baby Jane, Aldrich wanted to get the two actresses together again for Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, but Crawford dropped out and was replaced by Olivia de Havilland (whose feud with her sister Joan Fontaine made the Davis-Crawford one seem like a playground spat).  Davis was photographed drinking Coca-Cola, a dig at Crawford, who was on the board of Pepsi and insisted on product placement for Pepsi in every film she was in.

What Time Are You? (music)

(1971)
by Steve Kaczorowski

What Time Are You? is a self-published album of ten songs that came out around 1971. Normally, something like this is handed out to a few friends and relatives and never heard from again.  But in the most recent eBay auction, the album sold for over $1100.  Rare, certainly, but why such a collector’s item?

The story is a long one, and a fascinating one.  I knew Steve.  He went to my high school, a year after me.  I never met him before I graduated, for the simple reason that he transferred in the next year. My brother Ron, who even now does concert gigs back home, introduced him to me; they met because of their interest in performing.

You see, Steve was a rock star.  Under his stage name of Steve Martin,* he was a member of the Left Banke, and wrote their hits Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina.  He clearly kept his contacts in the music business:  when I visited his house, he had promotional copies of dozens of albums.**  He was my age, but a year behind me because of the time he had spent touring. 

And he made his money by writing songs for established artists and then selling all rights to them.  When groups were short a song or two, he’d write something for them as work for hire.  These included “I Got a Line on You” by Spirit,*** “Signs” by the Five Man Electrical Band, and “I’d Love to Change the World” by Ten Years After.  He was also credited (as “Steve Martin”) on an album by the “Bosstown” rock group Orpheus.  He also did music production under the name of Steve Drake.

He used his contacts that spring, when he managed to get permission for what was the first North American production of Jesus Christ Superstar.  Steve alternated in the role of Jesus and word had it that some big names – including John Sebastian and Paul McCartney -- showed up.

And, at about this time, Steve recorded What Time Are You? I remember listening to it and was impressed.  The songs were melodic and catchy, with standouts like “I’d Love to Change the Word,” “Think I Better Find My Way Home,”  “Big Green Pearl,” and several others.  There were also some big names involved:  Robert Fripp, Don McLean, and Nicky Hopkins.  I remember how strange it was to hear one song and realize I knew the people it was talking about.  My father stocked it in his store.

Here’s “I’d Love to Change the World” (co-credited to Alvin Lee of Ten Years After):

I’d Love to Change the World

I then moved on until, a few years ago, I decided to track him down on the Internet.  That’s when I learned that Steve Kaczorowski was hoaxing us all.

It started out, like so many things, with a search on his name.  I found the transcript of an Internet radio that talked about him.  What Steve had done was take obscure album cuts, often by obscure British groups, remove the audio track (or mix it down so it sounded like a backing vocal) and sing the part himself. 

The more I looked into it, the more I discovered that just about everything Steve had told us was untrue.  A little while later, a web page was put up detailing the songs he used and the technical background of it all.  The only thing that is real is that he did, indeed, arrange for the school to do Jesus Christ Superstar, but not because of any contacts:  when Andrew Lloyd Webber found out, it was too close to opening night, so he agreed to allow it as long as no admission was charged.

Steve put out several other albums using the same trick:  taking existing songs, rerecording either the vocals or getting a band to play behind him, and releasing them, now as the “Steve Drake Band.”  These albums are all collectors items among those who know their history.

The funny thing is, no one who knew him begrudges him for this (including one guy who got caught up in a lawsuit when a band found out what was happening).  Steve was a nice guy, and came across as very modest about his “accomplishments.”  He never made any claims about his supposed past to me, for instance,**** and those who worked with him were impressed by his enthusiasm and creativity.

Steve died in 2009.

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*Not the comedian.

**He played Cold Spring Harbor,  the first solo album by Billy Joel.  I was used to seeing promotional albums, because I was working at my college radio station, and a copy of Cold Spring Harbor was waiting at college when I returned.

***He recorded this as a single; my brother did some backing vocals.

****I heard them from other people.

Olive the Other Reindeer (TV)

(1999)
Directed by Steve Moore
Written by Steve Young, from a book by J. Otto Siebold and Vivian Walsh
Starring Drew Barrymore, Dan Castellaneta, Joe Pantoliano, Edward Asner, Peter MacNicol, Tim Meadows, Jay Mohr, Michael Stipe
IMDB Entry

There are times when you realize a TV show or movie is a classic, even before you get to the end. I don’t get that feeling often, but halfway through Olive the Other Reindeer, I knew that this was one.

The story is about Olive (voice of Drew Barrymore), a dog.  Olive loves Christmas, but when Blitzen is injured and can’t fly, she is disconsolate. Her pet flea Fido (Peter MacNicol)* hears Santa saying “Olive the Other Reindeer, and convinces her it means he expects her to help out.  Olive is not like other dogs, as her owner Tim (Jay Mohr) points out, so she decides to go to the North Pole to help out.  Her plans are discovered by an evil mailman (Dan Castellaneta), who hates Christmas because of the burden of extra mail, plus the fact he’s been on Santa’s naughty list.  He tries to stop her.  So, with the help of Martini (Joe Pantoliano), a con man penguin, she goes out to save Christmas.

Now, the “Save Christmas” plot has been done many times. To make it work, you have to do something different and Olive has plenty of this. The story is filled with puns (especially the character names), callouts to other shows (Olive passes Frostbite Falls on her way to the North Pole), good and funny songs (written by producer Matt Groening , creator of The Simpsons), and general silliness (Olive gets out of a tight spot by opening an envelope from “Deus ex Machina”).  The humor throughout is very layered, and you notice more jokes the more often you view the show**.

The voice cast is wonderful.  Drew Barrymore captures the wide-eyed innocence of Olive perfectly and Dan (Homer Simpson) Castellaneta makes the mailman a terrific comic villain.  Joe Pantoliano’s Martini make him the comic highlight of every scene he’s in.

The show mimicked the style of the artist of the original book, J. Otto Siebold.  It looks like paper cutouts of the characters in the books.  It’s a big change from the usual style of animation, and nothing like any American or Japanese animation at all.*** People are used to the three-dimensional computer animation, or something like Anime, or even the Disney style; this may have been a little distracting.

That may have been why it seems to have vanished.  Only the Cartoon Network is showing it this year, and that’s in time slots a long way from prime time.  The show seems to have been a labor of love by Groening, Barrymore, and the rest of the cast.  It’s a shame it’s not better known.****

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*Who is hard of hearing (or, perhaps secretly evil).

**In one scene, Blitzen’s cousin Schnitzel (REM’s Michael Stipe) introduces himself as “flightless, unfortunately.”  Martini responds, “It happens.”

***It seems to me to be more European in style, like the works coming out of Czechoslovakia in the 60s.

****I purchased a copy of  it at the local supermarket; the cashier was confused, wondering why there was a dog on the cover.

In memory of Ed Cassidy (1923-2012)

Drummer and the face of Spirit.