Filmy

[rejectomorph]

Another movie night, though unintentional. I watched Sweet Charity, for the first time, though it came out in 1969. It was from the 1966 Broadway musical with book by Neil Simon, which was in turn (loosely) based on Fellini's 1957 movie Nights of Cabiria, which I like very much. The first half of Sweet Charity is just OK, with some amusing bits and some interesting Bob Fosse dance routines, but the second half sinks into sappiness, and is marked by the inexplicable appearance of totally unconvincing Hollywood hippies in several scenes. I doubt that the hippies were in the original Broadway production. Though Shirley MacLaine was credible in the title role (as long as you don't think too much about Giulietta Masina's performance in Fellini's movie), the male lead- John McMartin, who I've never seen in anything else (I don't think his career went anywhere)- was seriously miscast. Jack Lemmon might have been able to redeem that dialogue, but probably not enough to fix this broken movie. See Nights of Cabiria instead.

Then there was the 1944 non-musical version of Kismet, with Ronald Coleman and Marlene Dietrich, which is one of those classic camp faux Arabian Nights movies in which Baghdad is a stylized Hollywood Art-Moderne fantasy as slick as Oz, and there are miles of oiled muscle, and acrobats in pantaloons, and women in improbably sheer and colorful burnooses (well, they probably aren't burnooses, but I like saying "burnooses.") The best thing is that it has that splendidly rich early Technicolor, of the sort that no film process since has ever equaled, and reality never did. Pure fluff, and just the thing to wash a washed-out 1960's musical out of one's head.

I don't know why I'm writing about movies so often these days, though. Maybe I'm getting sick of reality, even though the White House is leaking absurd ass-coverage for W, which ought to amuse me no end. We are not amused. Why can't he just be an outrageous, over-the-top villain like the Grand Vizier in Kismet? One can admire such an entertaining villain, even while reveling in his downfall. A weaselly villain's downfall is just pathetic.



Sunday Verse


School of Fine Arts

by Jacques Prevert


From a box of woven straw
The father chooses a little ball of paper
And throws it
Into a basin of water
It swells up
Many-colored
In front of the curious children
Into a big Japanese flower
Instant water-lily
The children are silent
Marveling
This flower will never fade
Lifelong
From their memories
This sudden flower
Made for them
All in a second
Right before their eyes

Comments

[marseille.livejournal.com]

Weaselly!! Perfect.

Hey, Kismet was probably marginally less embarrassing than The Road to Morocco, with Hope and Crosby! Probably not as funny, though.
How about bad Shakespeare adaptations? I remember the incredible hype for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Taming of the Shrew, but it was all guffaws and bad jokes, no subtlety. It didn't make sense to me until I saw John Cleese in a BBC production of it, which showed real feeling, and a reason for the girl's behavior.

[rejectomorph]

I've never seen a production of Shrew, but I've seen Kiss Me, Kate. I guess that doesn't count, except to my fellow Cole Porter fans.

I think the worst Shakespeare movie I've ever seen was the Orson Wells version of Macbeth. I wish they'd show it on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

[shane.livejournal.com]

The Rich Man's Frug scene in Sweet Charity is a Perfect Movie Moment.

[rejectomorph]

I don't think that Bob Fosse had any interest in movies themselves. They were just there to contain his dances. He probably would have done a musical about the Reichstag fire if somebody had given him the money to produce it.

Come to think of it, that might have made an interesting movie.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

john mcmartin was on lots of tv shows that i watched but have forgotten. in any case, his is a familiar face to me.

i haven't seen Nights of Cabiria either. another one for my queue.

that's a beautiful poem!

[rejectomorph]

I have almost no memory of actors who appeared in TV shows, unless they were recurring characters, and even then I frequently don't remember the names, only the faces.