Monday, October 30, 2017

what if?

Happy anniversary, America!

Seventy-nine years ago today - yes, 79 years - the incorrigible Orson Welles broadcast the infamous "The War of the Worlds" episode of his popular radio program, Mercury Theater on the Air. It was October 30th, 1938 and it was a Halloween episode aired by the CBS radio network.

Directed and narrated by the then-23-year-old Welles, who had yet to become Hollywood's wunderkind with "Citizen Kane" (1941), the episode, simulating an actual newscast, was an adaptation by Howard E. Koch of H.G. Wells' 1898 novel "The War of the Worlds" and it caused collective panic among the ever-fearful, ever-gullible citizens of the U.S. of A. with its sensational reportage of an attack by Martians (the original illegal aliens) who, for some bizarre reason, set their sights on a little farm in Gover's Mill, New Jersey, before hitting New York City.

Next year will be the 80th anniversary of the broadcast and I have this perverse fantasy that, between now and then, some brave, resourceful filmmaker/documentarian might pull the same kind of prank, given that Americans are more skittish than usual these days (understandable, considering how chaotic life has become). It would be a terrific, much-overdue wake-up call. And think of all the horrible current events ready-made for an irresponsible, "scare-the-bejesus-out-of-them!" broadcast.

Perhaps Errol Morris or Morgan Spurlock or Gabriela Cowperthwaite could pull it off. Or Steven Soderbergh or The Coen Brothers. Or Mr. Provocateur himself, Michael Moore. Wait! I'm not sure about Moore, now that he's been sucked into a pointless Twitter war-of-words with Trump.


It would be perfect. After all, Welles' broadcast was the original Fake News. How appropriate would it be if the viewing public (it would have to be on TV these days) was sucked into faux "breaking news" about Trump or white nationalists or out-of-control police - a story even more outrageous than the ones routinely aired by ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News?

"Our actual broadcasting time, from the first mention of the meteorites to the fall of New York City, was less than forty minutes," Welles' producer John Houseman later reminisced. "During that time, men traveled long distances, large bodies of troops were mobilized, cabinet meetings were held, savage battles fought on land and in the air. And millions of people accepted it - emotionally, if not logically." And, surprisingly, there were no real ramifications from a prank that unsettled the nation, other than Welles and company being subjected to relentless hounding by the media.

I don't recall reading anything of a serious reprimand by the government or about any charges brought against Welles and the Mercury Theater.

Of course, these days, there would be consequences, with the usual suspects - the assorted talking heads of TV - self-righteously scolding the filmmaker in question for being either "inappropriate" or "insensitive" or "irresponsible" or "politicially incorrect." Or all of the above.
 
Happy Halloween!
~images~

~ (from top) the scare headlines of The Boston Daily Globe, The New York Daily News and The New York Times © from October 31st, 1938

Thursday, October 26, 2017

cinema obscura: George Sidney's "Pepe" (1960)

It was a missed opportunity. But it was really no opportunity at all.

More than a decade ago, the truly die-hard among movie buffs were eagerly awaiting Turner Classic Movies' screening of the seemingly long-lost, full-length version of George Sidney's 1960 Cantinflas extravaganza, "Pepe" - all 195 minutes of it. Turner had scheduled it for February 19th, 2007, starting at 9:45 a.m. (est) and running until 1 p.m. Actually, the movie was listed originally on the Turner web site in a 10-to-1 slot. But when TCM revised that to 9:45 on its site, that pretty much assured everyone that "Pepe - The Uncut Version" would indeed be presented.

Matters, however, did not look hopeful when the film opened without an overture, which was par for the course for a 1960s roadshow movie.

No problem - Turner ocassionally screened "Oliver!" sans its overture.

But things grew even less promising when the intermission break, following a dance number to "Tequila," featuring Cantinflas and guest star Debbie Reynolds, was elminated. Uh-oh. This was not what was promised by TCM but the usual truncated 157-minute version of the Columbia film, albeit this time in wide screen, a television first for "Pepe" back in 2007.

It was a VCR-alert moment that never happened.

OK, I'm fully aware that "Pepe" is not even a remotely good movie. I'm not sure it could be called a movie at all. What it is in an amiable, shambling hodge-podge of cameo appearances - with co-star Dan Dailey bumping into a bunch of celebs, a lot of them the stars of Columbia's '60s TV shows, such as Donna Reed and Jay "Dennis the Menace" North.

The dialogue in such moments is strained, such as Dailey congratulating Reed on her family-oriented show and wishing her family his best.

"Which one?," she asks, coyly.

The ostensible star of the film is the remarkable Mexican clown Cantinflas who apparently had been encouraged by Sidney to (1) behave like child, (2) agree to be shunted aside and insulted by Dailey in scene after scene and (3) be generally condescended to by the array of guest stars, most of whom call him Poncho - as in Poncho Villa. All-American racist fun.

Sidney was pretty much a hit-or-miss filmmaker, just as capable of ruining "Bye, Bye Birdie" for the sake of showcasing the grotesquely miscast Ann-Margret as he was of making a perfect film version of Cole Porter's "Kiss Me, Kate" or a good melodrama like "The Eddie Duchin Story." Here, he squanders the talents of a star who he clearly wanted to celebrate.

That was the general feeling when the film premiered in its roadshow form in New York, Los Angeles and Miami during the Christmas 1960 holiday, as evidenced the The New York Times' scathing review by Bosley Crowther.

By the time it arrived in other cities in early 1961, "Pepe" had been trimmed from three-hours-and-fifteen-minutes to 157 minutes, which seemed to be the only version to survive.

Among the trimmed bits was a much-publicized animated "Don Quixote" fantasy sequence, prepared by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, in which the title character dreams that he is Quixote. Vicki Trickett, a popular Columbia contract starlet at the time, played Lupita, Pepe's girlfriend in the film. Even though her footage was entirely removed from the film, her name remains in the credits for the movie's general release.

"Pepe" is a likable bad film which may explain why so many film buffs have been obsessed with seeing the full version. Needless to say, when Turner aired the usual short version, the disappointment was palpable.

Turner apologized for the mix-up, running the following explanation: "We requested the longer version, and Sony originally told us they had it (in fact they said that was the only version they had). However, last week they told us that the longer version was in bad condition and hadn't yet been trasnferred to video. So we ended up with the shorter one."

This is probably true, although the long version of "Pepe" was part of a 4-track mag stereo festival, put together 15 years ago by film restorer/historian Jeff Joseph, for Los Angeles' Egyptian Theater in November and December of 2002. "Pepe" was screened at 5 p.m. on Sunday, December 8 of that year and was listed as: "'PEPE,' 1960, Columbia, 195 min. Dir. George Sidney. Uncut Technicolor print!"

So does the complete "Pepe" still exist and, if so, does its condition make it a candidate for future DVD/BluRay consideration?

Note in Passing: FYI. Turner's web site offers the following notes about that long version of "Pepe": "Although various reviews list the film's length as 190 or 195 minutes, studio records reveal that the actual running time was 180 minutes, 29 seconds. It is possible that the running time in the reviews included the film's intermission." And probably the overture, too.
* * * * *
 ~images~

~One of Columbia's newspaper display ads for "Pepe"

~Cantinflas in the animation sequence deleted from the film
 ~photography: Columbia Pictures 1960©

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

cinema obscura: Buzz Kulik's "To Find a Man" (1972)

Buzz Kulik, who died in 1999 at age 77, worked mostly in TV and is perhaps best known for his superior male weepie, "Brian's Song" (1971), about the friendship of NFLers Brian Piccolo (James Caan) and Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) and the eventual, tragic death of Piccolo.

He started his career on the tube and ended there. But for a brief period, Kulik - a selfless craftsman, if there ever was one - ventured onto the big screen with such titles as "Warning Shot" (1967), starring David Janssen; "Riot" (1969), with Jim Brown and Gene Hackman, and Burt Reynolds' "Shamus" (1973), co-starring a game Dyan Cannon.

And then there was "To Find a Man" (1972), a tiny gem-like feature, adapted from the S.J. Wilson novel by Arnold Schulman - an extremely well-cast piece about a young girl who, as they used to say, is in trouble and about the brave boy who steps up and shyly helps her out.

With this film and Peter Hyams' also underrated "Our Time" (1974), the young Pamela Sue Martin positioned herself as a starlet to watch before becoming waylaid by the "Dallas" TV series. She's cast opposite Darren O'Connor (brother of Glynnis), seen here in his only feature film.

They make a naturalistic, affecting couple.

The ace supporting cast includes Lloyd Bridges and Phyllis Newman as Martin's parents; Tom Ewell, cast against type as a doctor who performs abortions and Tom Bosely who, as another doctor, has the film's most memorable line. When Martin asks him what the fetus of her unborn child looks like, Bosley deadpans, "a tadpole." Also on hand are veteran character actress Antonia Rey and the then-newcomer Miles Chapin who would appear together a few years later in Milos Foreman's "Hair" (1979).

Yes, "To Find a Man" is a matter-of-fact abortion film, made when people could talk about the topic without seething.  It could never been made today - never - given the hyper-hysterical sociopolitical climate surrounding the issue (pro or con). All reason has disappeared.

Kulik's small film brims with compassion and, in Martin, it has an unstoppable life force. The director's affection for his material and his characters (and this actress) has never been more fervent - something that's revealed in the fully-realized performances that dot "To Find a Man."
~image~

~Lloyd Bridges and Pamela Sue Martin in a scene from "To Find a Man"
 ~photography: Columbia Pictures 1972©

Saturday, October 14, 2017

small screen, big screen

There have been a lot of trends - some fleeting, some that have become fixed - during the course of movie history, but one that has never been recognized (to the best of my knowledge) is the transition of television personalities to feature-film directing that occurred during the 1980s.

While a handful of them had experience in producing and directing series, the most productive were actors who appeared in those series, mostly sitcoms. They directed some of the most popular and, in many cases, critically-acclaimed films of the 80s, but for reasons that I cannot exactly pinpoint, the directing careers of many of them were curiously short-lived.

With the exception of one (maybe two), they all faded out along with the '80s themselves. So, today, I intend to pay tribute these filmmakers who, based on their output, have every right to be called auteurs.

Ron Howard. Howard made his official directorial debut for Roger Corman  with 1977's "Grand Theft Auto," but his new career really kicked into gear with "Night Shift" (1982) and particularly Tom Hanks' "Splash" (1984). Working in tandem with producer Brian Grazer, he created a string of companionable hits ("Cocoon," "Parenthood," "Cinderella Man," "Frost/Nixon" and "Rush") and is in his 40th year (as difficult as that is to believe) as a director. Howard won an Oscar for directing "A Beautiful Mind" in 2001 and remains incredibly active compared to his TV peers. 

Rob Reiner. Reiner, of course, zoomed out of the gate with the seminal mockumentary, "This Is Spinal Tap," in 1984 and then, a year later, gave us John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga (remember her?) in the enchanting "The Sure Thing." This was followed by - now hold on - "Stand By Me," "The Princess Bride," "When Harry Met Sally...," "Misery," "A Few Good Men" and "The American President," all in a space of 10 years. Like Howard, his career as a filmmaker has lasted beyond the '80s. Reiner still makes films but his focus has clearly switched to politics and activism. Good move.
Frank Oz. Ok, he's known largely as the voice of Miss Piggy and as a Muppeteer, but he started a most satisfying directing career 1982. Here goes: "Little Shop of Horrors," "In & Out," "Bowfinger," "HouseSitter," "What About Bob?," "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "The Dark Crystal." Say no more. 

Garry Marshall. Marshall, who died in 2016 at age 91, directed his final film, "Mother's Day," that year - one of those all-star omnibus movies in which he came to specialize. He made his first film, "Young Doctors in Love," in 1982, and then did the pleasurable "The Flamingo Kid,"  "Beaches" and "Nothing in Common," with Jackie Gleason and Tom Hanks. There was "Frankie and Johnny" (based on a Terrence McNally play) and "The Princess Diaries," but he will forever be known for "Pretty Woman." Personally, in terms of a Roberts-Gere pairing, I prefer "Runaway Bride."

Danny DeVito. My personal favorite of the TV-bred directors. DeVito made a sensational debut directing the very original Hitchcock takeoff, "Throw Momma from the Train," in 1987. Since then, he's directed only five features - all good.  "The War of the Roses" and "Hoffa" (with Jack Nicholson in the title role) are easily his most accomplished films, but I equally admire the misunderstood "Death to Smoochy" and the offbeat charmer, "Duplex," barely released by Miramax. Lately, DeVito has directed a string of shorts and seems to have gone back to acting, although he has a completed feature, "St. Sebastian" (with William Fitchner and Constance Zimmer), his first in 14 years.
Penny Marshall. Marshall, not surprisingly the only woman in the bunch, made her debut with the very entertaining Whoopi Goldberg comedy, "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1986). But then came something much bigger - "Big" (again with Hanks) in 1988. After that, she directed a movie every two years, with the excellent "Awakenings" and the feminist crossover hit, "A League of Their Own"  (Hanks!), being the standouts - followed by "Renaissance Man," "The Preacher's Wife" and her last (in 2001), "Riding in the Cars with Boys."

 Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy had a ten-year career directing feature films, starting (naturally) with two "Star Trek" titles - "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" in 1984 and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" in 1986. He had a huge hit with "Three Men and a Baby," Disney's 1987 remake of a French comedy, and challenged himself with the difficult Diane Keaton-Liam Neeson drama, "The Good Mother." There were only two more films after that - "Holy Matrimony" and the Gene Wilder comedy, "Funny about Love," from which Farrah Fawcett's entire performance was famously deleted. Nimoy died in 2015 at age 83.

Alan Alda. After writing the screenplay for Jerry Schatzberg's "The Seduction of Joe Tynan," Alda spent the '80s directing four films and then called it quits. They were "The Four Seasons" in 1981, followed by the very good "Sweet Liberty," "A New Life" and "Betsy's Wedding."

James L. Brooks. Brooks, the sitcom king, hit the big screen big time with that piece of Oscar bait, the irresistible "Terms of Endearment," in 1983. Three years later, there was the much-admired "Broadcast News" (also Oscar-worthy), followed by the notorious "I'll Do Anything," a film that started life as a musical but was released as a straight dramedy, and the enormously popular "As Good as It Gets." In 2004, he directed my personal favorite Brooks film, "Spanglish." His last film, in 2010, was Reese Witherspoon's badly-titled "How Do You Know?"
Worth noting are those TV hands who failed to make an impression on the big screen. James Burrows, who has helmed scores of sitcoms (mot notably "Friends"), directed only one film to date - 1982's "Partners," a cop comedy with Ryan O'Neal and John Hurt (as his gay partner). Also one-timers are Jay Sandrich and Terry Hughes who directed "Seems Like Old Times" (1980) and "The Butcher's Wife" (1991) respectively -  two very appealing comedies.

Sandrich was the chief director of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and Hughes, a British director, oversaw "Third Rock from the Sun," as well as two filmed-on-stage Sondheim pieces, "Sunday in the Park with George" and "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."

Finally, there's the estimable John Rich, who was behind "All in the Family" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Rich, who died at 86 in 2012, directed five features in the 1960s - the Tony Curtis-Jerry Lewis comedy, "Boeing, Boeing," "Wives and Lovers," "The New Interns" and two Elvis titles, "Roustabout" (with Barbara Stanwyck) and "Easy Come, Easy Go."
* * * * *
~images~
~auteurs from the small screen
(from top)

~Frank Oz directing Nicole Kidman in "The Stepford Wives"
 ~photography: Paramount/DreamWorks 2004©

and
~Ron Howard
~Rob Reiner
~Danny DeVito
~Penny Marshall
~Leonard Nimoy
~Alan Alda

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

harold & maude, donald & cary

It's odd, isn't is, that in a "free society," conformity is not merely expected but actually demanded, with persistent coercion soon to follow.

Two weeks or so ago, when Donald J. Trump first expressed his latest outrage - namely about the lack of patriotism indicated by those NFL players who kneel in protest during the National Anthem - Turner Classic Movies screened the 1952 Cary Grant comedy, "Room for One More."

It was a Saturday - September 24th - and I remember thinking that, if there was a remote chance that Trump was also watching the film, we'd be exposed to yet another flag-waving tirade about American loyalty/pride.

Why? Because towards the end of this charming family movie, there's a Boy Scout sequence, during which the original Pledge of Allegiance is recited, a version that does not include the words "under God"!

I can envision the Tweet...
  • Cary Grant is, without question, the WORST EVER actor. A total joke. I predict he will never make another movie. And "Room for One More." VERY DISAPPOINTING. God is a really great guy. A VERY GOOD FRIEND. 


But, remember, the film in question, directed by Norman Taurog, is from 1952.  The words in question were added two years later in 1954.

For years, it was believed that those two words were included in response to the onset of the Cold War. Not true, even though the two coincided.

The original version of the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1887 by George Balch, a Rear Admiral devoted to teaching loyalty to the United States to children and immigrants.

It was revised in 1892 - in largely the form as we presently know it - by Francis Julius Bellamy, a Christian socialist minister who disapproved of Balch's version. In '54, George MacPherson Docherty, the Presbyterian minister of the church attended by President Eisenhower, suggested that something was missing and had the two words, "under God," incorporated into the Pledge. So much for the separation of church and state, right?

I had an image of Trump screaming at his TV screen - and tweeting - as the Turner movie aired. Then another movie - and another character - came to mind:  Dame Marjorie Chardin, aka Maude, who had some radical ideas on the subject of patriotism that could prompt yet another tweet.

In "Harold and Maude," Hal Ashby's terrific 1971 film, Maude (Ruth Gordon) talks about her lifelong activism, prompting her new best friend, Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) to ask, "What were you fighting for?"

"Oh, big issues," Maude explains. "Liberty. Rights. Justice. Kings died, kingdoms fell. I don't regret the kingdoms - what sense in borders and nations and patriotism? But I miss the kings." 

Colin Higgins, who wrote "Harold and Maude," was clearly ahead of his time. He knew that patriotism, ostensibly a good thing, could also be divisive, setting up unnecessary borders. And walls. And conformity.

As the NFL has regretably demonstrated.
* * * * *
~images~
(from top)
~Cary Grant (from left), George "Foghorn" Winslow, Betsy Drake (aka, Mrs. Grant), Iris Mann and Gay Gordon reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in "Room for One More"

~The Boy Scout ceremony in "Room for One More"
 ~photography: Warner Bros. 1952© 

~Hal Ashby directing Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon in "Harold and Maude"
 ~photography: Paramount Pictures 1971©

Friday, October 06, 2017

how to handle a woman, hollywood-style

The latest, way-too-familiar Hollywood story of a powerful man exploiting women who are powerless coincided with my renewed interest in movie dubbing. While your average modern moviegoer is transfixed by the miracles created by CGI, my fascination has long been with the curious art of dubbing, specifically the dubbing of singing in movie musicals.

So, while Harvey preoccupied everyone else, I wasted the good part of several days perusing You Tube for clips of who-dubbed-who in screen musicals, prompted by my previous essay, “whose voice is it anyway?”

Replacing one performer's voice with another's is unquestionably an odd bit of movie trickery, especially given that vocal delivery is central to an actor's achievement. But when the dubbing of singing in musicals is done right (which, admittedly, has been rare), it can be absolutely magical.

Anyway, I found a terrific two-parter - ”Dubbing Through the Decades, Part 1” (March 2nd, 2013) and ”Dubbing Through the Decades, Part 2,” (August 31st, 2016). This was pig heaven for me. Screening one clip after another, I picked up on something. While the singing for both men and women has been routinely dubbed in musicals for years, there has been more media interest when an actress is dubbed - more negative attention.

And the scrutiny has been more intensive when the actress in question is clearly a major player. There were three such situations in the 1960s when Natalie Wood, Rosalind Russell and Audrey Hepburn - all A-list actresses - were dubbed in film musicals. No one cared that Nancy Kwan was dubbed for "Flower Drum Song" in 1961 - I suppose she wasn't major enough - but the implied failings of Wood, Russell and Hepburn were gleefully reported.

Exacerbating matters, the actresses' respective studios made no attempts to protect them, even though each star was highly paid and important to the film in question. Someone cynical (like me) might see this as a form of control, using humiliation to keep a star - a female star - in place.

In each case, the actress signed on with the understanding that she would do her own singing and, also in each case, the studio reneged on its promise and brought in a ghost singer, reportedly behind  the star's back.

That singer was usually - you got it! - Marni Nixon, the bane of '60s movie musicals. Making no attempt to sound like the actress in question, Nixon dubbed Wood in "West Side Story" (1961) and Hepburn in "My Fair Lady" (1964), after both actresses trained, rehearsed and recorded their songs.

Wood and Hepburn were betrayed by their studios, despite being crucial to their respective films, ostensibly because their voices weren't "perfect." But there are times when perfection isn't necessary - or even important. You Tube clips of both stars doing their own singing underline this point.

Wood is surprisingly good, given her small voice and the demands of the "West Side Story" score, impressively mastering even high notes. She sings sincerely (as seen here), with much heart, and whatever tentative wobble there is totally fits the charming character she's playing.

It should be noted that just about everyone in "West Side Story" was dubbed (with the exception of George Chakiris, who does little singing in the film) - Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno and Russ Tamblyn, whose singing was dubbed by fellow cast member Tucker Smith. (It's disconcerting to watch Tamblyn and Smith sing and hear the same exact voice.)

But Natalie's dubbed voice got all the attention.

Dubbing Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady" was, arguably, the biggest mistake of all - largely because Hepburn had one of the most distinctive speaking voices, unexpectedly husky for so frail a woman. For me, nothing is worse than to see Hepburn open her mouth and then hear Nixon's perfect but soulless voice come out of it. Nixon's singing for Hepburn is the only flaw in an otherwise pristine movie musical. Again, Hepburn's singing (as seen here) is perfectly fine, particularly on "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?"

She sounds like ... Audrey Hepburn.

Hepburn was Jack Warner's first and only choice to play Eliza Doolittle and he pursued her until he wore her down. Warner reportedly kept offering her money and more money - and she kept saying no until the payoff was too large to ignore. She said yes, she played the role beautifully, she recorded her songs dutifully and then she was criticized by the press relentlessly when it was revealed that her singing was dubbed.

Rosalind Russell's adventures with "Gypsy" (1962) are interesting. She and her husband Frederick Brisson wanted to option Gypsy Rose Lee's memoir to make a straight drama, but the book was tied up with the stage musical which Warner Bros. had purchased. The two forces came together and Russell was signed to play Madam Rose. Given that she had already sung in the film "The Girl Rush" and in the stage and TV productions of "Wonderful Town," it was assumed that she could handle the Styne-Sondheim score, which she recorded with vocal coach Harper McKay. If she could sing on a Broadway stage night after night, why not on film?

But the "Gypsy" score was written specifically to fit the big, brassy voice of its original stage star, Ethel Merman, and Russell wasn't a belter. Still, she was a pro and sang them well (as seen here) - or well enough.

In the end, Warners brought in Lisa Kirk to do most of the singing and then did something creative, interpolating the two voices. Kirk, who does an uncanny vocal impersonation of Russell, does most of the heavy lifting, with Russell herself singing "Mr. Goldstone, I Love You" (live, no less), "Together, Wherever We Got" (subsequently deleted from the film), a lovely (live) reprise of "Small World" and the first part of "Rose's Turn."(Natalie Wood, also in "Gypsy," did her own singing this time out.)

In terms of vocal accuracy, Kirk's achievement on "Gypsy" remains one of the two best examples of movie-musical dubbing, the other being Nixon's work on "The King and I" (1956). When Twentieth Century-Fox was ready to film the musical, it cast Maureen O'Hara, a good actress who could actually sing, in the role of Anna. It was perfect casting, until composer Richard Rodgers balked. (He was turned off by the fact that O'Hara was then currently in what he considered an "inferior" pirate movie.)

Fox then opted for Deborah Kerr, who couldn't sing, and brought in Nixon who, on this one occasion, succeeded in approximating the sound and inflections of the star: The voice coming out of Kerr's mouth when she sings sounds like her own. A year later, Nixon also dubbed a song that Kerr sang in Fox's "An Affair to Remember" (1957) and she became the studios’ go-to person for voiceover work in the 1950s and '60s.

Wood, Russell and Hepburn were all disappointed and angry about the dubbing, particularly as all three worked hard to surmount intimidating scores. But there were other performers - some already known as singers - who were burned by the studios. Case in point: Juanita Hall.

Hall originated the role of Bloody Mary in "South Pacific" and played and sang it several hundred times during its Broadway run. One of the highlights of the show was her rendition of  "Bali Ha'i." She also appears in the 1958 film version, where she pre-recorded her two songs.

But Richard Rodgers (again) was unhappy and insisted that her vocals be dubbed by the more operatic Muriel Smith, who played the role in London. Rodgers thought that Hall's voice had become too harsh. Huh? She's playing a native. It makes no sense that she sound like a trained soprano.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Hall's reading of "Bali Ha'i" (as seen here) that's available on You Tube. I certainly prefer it to Smith's.

The dubbing of Hall was unnecessary and, in the case of Wood, Russell and Hepburn, I would have preferred to hear the actresses themselves.

Whether or not a performer is a great singer is of little importance to me. I would rather see a genuine Movie Star as the lead in a musical than a trained singer without much screen presence. It was a kick to see (and hear) Marlon Brando in "Guys and Dolls," Elizabeth Taylor in "A Little Night Music"," Clint Eastwood in "Paint Your Wagon," Julia Roberts in "Everyone Says I Love You" and Robert DeNiro in "New York, New York." To repeat myself, there are times when perfection isn't necessary - or important.

I'm a majority of one here, particularly among other musical enthusiasts - and the general moviegoing public. Audiences react weirdly when an actor who isn't known for singing actually has the audacity to sing on screen.

They tend to laugh, nervously.

And the Hollywood studio heads traditionally thought otherwise about non-singers, too. When they couldn't secure a Doris Day for a musical, someone who could sing and also had box-office clout, the inevitable option was to hire another Big Star, whether she could sing or not - so long as she was a draw - and then dub her, grudgingly, behind her back.

Just another way to control, humiliate and keep an actress in line.

Nothing new really.

Notes in Passing: Marni Nixon was no Hollywood outsider. She was married during her reign as voiceover specialist to legendary film-score composer Ernest Gold. A confidentiality clause was a given, to keep everything hush-hush, but the Nixon name became familiar when Kerr herself revealed "the secret." In interviews, Nixon came across as someone who saw herself as the victim of ungrateful actresses. She would snidely comment how Wood and Hepburn weren't "good enough" and about how angry they were about being dubbed, making no apparent attempt to empathize with them or consider their point of view.  On one occasion, she proclaims, "Audrey Hepburn was not a major singer!"

Poor form.

And, no, she did not dub Marilyn Monroe's voice in "Gerntlemen Prefer Blondes" (1953), as has been occasionally and erroneously reported. Nixon merely provided the operatic "No, no, no, no!" line that leads into "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." Marilyn took over from there.

Also, re the "South Pacific"/You Tube clip linked here, there's a brief bit of dialogue that was cut either before the film's release or after its roadshow engagements in which Ken Clark (as Stewpot) says to Ray Walston (Luther Billis), "Never mind, big dealer, I like you. Saxy!," while he strokes Walston's arm. The moment is brief and stands out because the quality is visually inferior (washed out) to the scene that contains it. Fairly randy.

Why are these kids singing?

Did you know that all the Von Trapp kids in "The Sound of Music" (1965) were dubbed? Crazy, right? I mean, why were these kids hired in the first place?  Maybe I have a double standard. I can understand why a studio would dub the singing voice of a major star for a musical but why seven kids actors who are interchangeable with at least 7.000 other kid actors?

I mean, those Von Trapp kids weren't that cute.
* * * * *
~images~
(from top) 

~Audrey Hepburn singing "Woudn't It Be Loverly?" in "My Fair Lady"
 ~photography: Warner Bros. 1964©

~Natalie Wood singing "Tonight" in "West Side Story"
 ~photography: United Artists 1961©

~Rosalind Russell singing "Small World" in "Gypsy"
 ~photography: Warner Bros. 1962©

~The Von Trapp children singing "So Long, Farewell" in "The Sound of Music"
 ~photography: Twenieth Century-Fox 1965©

Sunday, October 01, 2017

whose voice is it anyway?

Something that runs in tandem with moviegoing for most buffs is the curiosity about how films are made - how this or that was done, how an effect was achieved, etc. But, sometimes, it's best not to know - not to have too much information. It can kill the glorious mystery of movies.

A personal case in point:

Back on July 29th, during a post-screening discussion of Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot" for TCM's "The Essentials," Tina Fey commented to host Alec Baldwin that, in her opinion, the revelation in the film in Tony Curtis.

She echoed an opinion I've expressed for years, Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon notwithstanding. Monroe and Lemmon have the showier roles in the film and, reportedly, received more attention from Wilder - Monroe because she was disruptive (and because she was the star) and Lemmon because Wilder genuinely liked him. Tony was left to his own devices.

Or so it always seemed to me.

And it also seems that Curtis' work in "Some Like It Hot" has been generally overlooked by the critics and public as well - and for dacades. It's a terrific performance as the actor ping-pongs his way through the film as a randy musician (very much "a Tony Curtis type"), as a Cary Grant impersonator and as a very proper woman named Josephine who purses her lips like Eve Arden and speaks in a trilling voice through half the film.

But wait! I've belatedly discovered that the high-pitched voice that Curtis affects for Josephine may not have been his at all. He might have been dubbed for his cross-dressing scenes. That shrill may belong to Paul Frees.

Frees, a prolific voiceover artist in the 1950s and '60s known as "the man of a thousand voices," was brought in to dub several characters in "Some Like It Hot" and, apparently, one of his assignments on the film was to dub Curtis' falsetto dialogue. What? I learned this from Movie Dubbers, an exhaustive, alphabetical list of 711 movies in which a performer’s singing or speaking voice was dubbed. The list was compiled by Ray Hagen, Laura Wagner, Steven Tompkins et al. (and last updated on June 24th, 2015).

And while I can’t attest to its accuracy, it makes for incredible reading. In the case of "Some Like It Hot," Movie Dubbers additionally lists actor Tito Vuolo (who plays Mozzarella in the film) as someone who also did some dubbing for Curtis. What?! Fascinating stuff but also very disillusioning.

Having this information doesn't diminish my appreciation of Tony Curtis' performance in the film but I now wonder if I will be able to watch "Some Like It Hot" in the same way. The fact is, one can't erase knowledge.

The other "finds" on Movie Dubbers include Peter Sellers partially dubbing some of Humphrey Bogart's dialogue in "Beat the Devil"; Angela Lansbury for Ingrid Thulin in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"; Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Stockard Channing dubbing the actresses who played their characters as young girls in "The First Wives Club"; Richard Loo for Sessue Hayakawa in "The House of Bamboo"; Patricia Hitchcock for both Piero Giagnoni and Luisa Boni in "Land of the Pharoahs" and for Donna Corcoran in "Moonfleet"; Rich Little for David Niven in "Trail of the Pink Panther," and Ronnie McDowell who dubbed the singing of the actors who played Elvis (Kurt Russell, Dale Midkiff and Don Johnson) in TV movies. Needless to say, most of the list is devoted to the handful of ghost singers (apparently a cottage industry) used in movie musicals.

Fun reading. But did I really want to know all this? The answer: Probably.

Notes in Passing: Frankly, I'm surprised that some enterprising young documentarian hasn't devoted a film to Paul Frees; according to IMDb, the man has a whopping 356 credits, mainly in voiceover work, including narrations and cartoons. He passed in 1986, at age 66, from heart failure.

And finally, full disclosure: I came to Movie Dubbers rather circuitously - by way of the invaluable site, Vienna’s Classic Hollywood, which I check out regularly. Vienna devoted one of her posts to “Martha Mears: Queen of the Dubbers” (published October 22nd, 2016) and one of her readers, named Bob, provided the link to Movie Dubbers. Which piqued my interest.

Of course.
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~image~
~Tony Curtis, in character, in "Some Like It Hot"
 ~photography: United Artists 1959©