martes, 29 de noviembre de 2022
domingo, 27 de noviembre de 2022
sábado, 26 de noviembre de 2022
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 025: WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954)
It was twelve years before "White Christmas" that Bing Crosby was in a place and a film called "Holiday Inn," wherein he sang a little number tagged "White Christmas," written - as was all the music in that picture - by Irving Berlin. The occasion was happily historic, for a reason we scarcely need recall: "White Christmas" and Mr. Crosby became like "God Bless America" and Kate Smith - so much so, indeed, that the notion of starring Mr. Crosby in a film that would have the title "White Christmas" was broached as long as six years back. Various obstructions beset it, but the purpose was ultimately achieved. "White Christmas," with Mr. Crosby, became a reality in 1954.
What's more, it was filmed in Technicolor and VistaVision, which was Paramount's new wide-screen device, and it has Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen in addition to its focal star. A new batch of Irving Berlin numbers comprises its musical score. Paramount, to put it simply, has done "White Christmas" up brown. But, oddly enough, the confection is not so tasty as one might suppose. The flavoring is largely in the line-up and not in the output of the cooks. Everyone works hard at the business of singing, dancing and cracking jokes, but the stuff that they work with is minor. It doesn't have the old inspiration and spark. For one thing, the credited scriptwriters - Norman Krasna, Norman Panama and Melvin Frank - have shown very little imagination in putting together what is sometimes called the "book."
They have hacked out a way of getting two teams of entertainers - a pair of celebrated male hoofers and a singing sister act - to a ski lodge in New England (reminiscent of the "Holiday Inn") which happens to be run by the good old general of the outfit the fellows were in during the war. And to show their appreciation of the good old general and the difficult circumstances he appears to be in, they provide free entertainment and call in a big rally of comrades for the Christmas holidays. It is a routine accumulation of standard romance and sentiment, blessed by a few funny set-ups that are usually grabbed with most effect by Mr. Kaye.
And the music of Mr. Berlin is a good bit less than inspired outside of the old "White Christmas," which is sung at the beginning and the end. There are only a couple of numbers that have a measure of charm. One of these is "Count Your Blessings," a song of reassurance that Mr. Crosby and Miss Clooney chant, and another is "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing," which Mr. Kaye sings and to which he and Vera-Ellen cavort. Three numbers are given over to the admiration of generals and Army life, which seems not alone an extravagance but a reckless audacity.
In "White Christmas," the public will be buying the Crosby-Kaye team in the expectation of seeing comedy. Danny's genius for wild and zany specialties played against Crosby's monumental and hilarious nonchalance could have produced some history making screen fun. The opportunity was so obvious and so inviting that one wonders why it was overlooked. Producer Robert Emmett Dolan lets the two ablest farceurs in the business show what they can do in a female impersonation called "Sisters." Another time, it seems that Danny is going to get a chance to really let go in a ballet burlesque called "Choreography," but it switches to one more top routine for Vera-Ellen. So the general's appealing situation must compensate for disappointments in both romance and comedy. Mary Wickes, as his housekeeper, and Anne Whitfield, as his granddaugher, are excellent at building this up.
Even the sweetness of Dean Jagger as the old general does not justify the expense. Someone's nostalgia for the war years and the U.S.O. tours has taken the show awry. Fortunately, the use of VistaVision, which is another process of projecting on a wide, flat screen, has made it possible to endow "White Christmas" with a fine pictorial quality. The colors on the big screen are rich and luminous, the images are clear and sharp. Director Michael Curtiz has made his picture look good. It is too bad that it doesn't hit the eardrums and the funnybone with equal force.
But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy...
The Pre-Show:
Well, if pictures speak louder than words, what is there left for me to say after you've seen the three main attractions in today's Pre-show. I assure you, it's not all that you see which finally scores. There are more beauties lurked in the hefty folder dealing with the subject of christmas. I hope you enjoy every one of them!
The Main Feature:
On Your Way Out:
Title: White Christmas
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Bing Crosby / Danny Kaye / Rosemary Clooney / Vera-Ellen / Dean Jagger
Release Date: October 14th 1954
Country: United States
On Your Way Out:
If you're still undecided on when to set up the christmas tree, maybe today's viewing will put your spirit in the adequate mood. Allow me, to recomend you our sister programme: Shade's Vintage Radio Special: Christmas Comes But Once A Year (50s Spirit) to accompany you while you're at it. I'm sure you won't be deceived. Mind you, there are plenty of goodies today for alternate choices, both in the reading and music department. Once again, hopefully you'll enjoy the lot.
Cheers Shade.
Note: Password for all files: Shade'sVintageRadio
viernes, 25 de noviembre de 2022
miércoles, 23 de noviembre de 2022
martes, 22 de noviembre de 2022
domingo, 20 de noviembre de 2022
sábado, 19 de noviembre de 2022
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 024: COUNTRY MUSIC (Episode 02) (2019)
Tell a lie long enough and it begins to smell like the truth. Tell it even longer and it becomes part of history. Throughout "Country Music," the omnibus genre documentary from Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, there are moments of tension between the stories Nashville likes to tell about itself - some true, some less so - and the way things actually were.
And while from a distance, this doggedly thorough eight-part, 16-hour series, hews to the genre's party line, viewed up close it reveals the ruptures laid out in plain sight. Anxiety about race has been a country music constant for decades. In positioning country music as, essentially, the music of the white rural working class, Nashville streamlined - make that steamrollered - the genre's roots, and the ways it has always been engaged in wide-ranging cultural dialogue.
But right at the beginning of "Country Music" is an acknowledgment that slave songs formed part of early country's raw material. And then a reminder that the banjo has its roots in West African stringed gourd instruments. The series covers how A.P. Carter, a founder of the Carter Family, traveled with Lesley Riddle, a black man, to find and write down songs throughout Appalachia. And it explores how Hank Williams's mentor was Rufus Payne, a black blues musician.
It goes on and on, tracing an inconvenient history for a genre that has generally been inhospitable to black performers, regardless of the successes of Charley Pride, Darius Rucker or DeFord Bailey, the first black performer on the Grand Ole Opry. Over and again, "Country Music" lays bare what is too often overlooked: that country music never evolved in isolation.
Each episode of this documentary tackles a different time period, from the first Fiddlin' John Carson recordings in the 1920s up through the pop ascent of Garth Brooks in the 1990s. Burns has used this multi-episode approach on other American institutions and turning-point historical events: "The Civil War," "The Vietnam War" and "Jazz." These are subjects that merit rigor and also patience - hence the films' length. But country music, especially, demands an approach that blends reverence and skepticism, because so often its story is one in which those in control try to squelch counternarratives while never breaking a warm smile.
"Country Music" rolls its eyes at the tension between the genre imagining itself as an unvarnished platform for America's rural storytelling and being an extremely marketable racket where people from all parts of the country, from all class levels, do a bit of cosplay. Minnie Pearl, from "Hee Haw," came from a wealthy family and lived in a stately home next to the governor's mansion. Nudie Cohn, the tailor whose vividly embroidered suits became country superstar must-haves in the 1960s and beyond, was born Nuta Kotlyarenko in Kiev, and worked out of a shop in Hollywood.
The only constant in this film is Nashville's repeated efforts to fend off new ideas like a body rejecting an organ transplant. Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Charley Pride, Hank Williams Jr. - they're all genre icons who first met resistance because of their desire to make music different from the norm of their day, then ended up establishing new norms.
Those moments pockmark an otherwise straightforward and oft-told story about country music's birth and growth : The 1927 Bristol Sessions, in which Ralph Peer first recorded the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and several others; the rapid climb and accelerated demise of Hank Williams; the feminist potency of Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton; the roller coaster life of Johnny Cash; the importance of bluegrass, countrypolitan, outlaw country, Sourthern rock and pop country.
It's a taut narrative, and by design incomplete - 16 hours is enough time to tell a long story, but not always a deep one. But given that this history is being painted with broad strokes, it's especially crucial that attention is drawn to the inventions and elisions that hover over each era of the music.
Throughout the film are reminders that in Nashville, institutional memory is almost comically short. Concern about the Olivia Newton-John invasion of country music in the mid-1970s discussed in the film felt eerily reminiscent of the anxiety induced by the almost yearlong run at the top of the Billboard hot country songs chart by the pop singer Bebe Rexha, for her collaboration with Florida Georgia Line. The current battle for women performers to be heard and promoted is echoed around once per decade in the documentary. And time and again, those who appear to be rebels - Waylon Jennings, Haggard, Buck Owens - are in fact the ones most interested in the genre's traditions, agitating against a company town that specializes in smoothing out rough edges.
"Country Music" moves with the signature even-keel tempo of other Burns documentaries, which makes the handful of disruptive moments - some lighthearted, some sad - all the more striking: Mel Tillis describing the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the 1960s by wisecracking, "You could churn butter on that damn thing"; anything that comes out of the mouth of the journalist and gadfly Hazel Smith, who, when she was the office manager for the Hillbilly Central studio where Jennings and others recorded, coined the phrase "outlaw music".
At one poignant moment, Dwight Yoakam attempts to sing Haggard's "Holding Things Together," about a father raising his children after his wife has left him. Yoakam makes it through the first line, then gathers himself for a full 12 seconds before managing to get out the next one.
The raw pulse of songs like that - blissfully, there is ample music in this documentary - is grounding, a nod to the triumph of a genre that often steps on its own foot on the path to clarity. But rather than simply celebrate those creative peaks, "Country Music" makes it plain that the story of the genre is merely a pocket version of the story of the American musical experiment writ large: Everyone trying on poses and costumes, borrowing wildly at every turn, pointing fingers at others trying similar things, and, as soon as things become complacent, agitating for something new.
But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy...
The Pre-Show:
Hoooowdyy!! as Minnie Pearl would exclaim. Hope you are enjoying this incredible documentary concerning country music. To continue our latest trend, which is to present a double feature. Today, we are generous enough to present a triple feature. We head off with a live show at the Grand Ole Opry celebrating 95 years of country music, hosted by Brad Paisley and Blake Shelton. Next up a documentary film that examines the iconic hillbilly image in media and culture. The film explores more than a hundred years of media representation of mountain and rural people and offers an urgent exploration of how we see and think about rural America. And we conclude the Pre-Show with a cartoon related to the topic.
The Main Feature:
Title: Country Music: Episode 02 - Hard Times
Director: Ken Burns
Cast: Documentary
Release Date: 2019
Country: United States Of America
On Your Way Out:
Hope you've enjoyed both the Pre-Show and The Main Feature. I suppose we all agree that it's a pleasure when learning and enjoying music is all part of one. Hopefully you'll find enough resources "on your way out" to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the roots of the music we love.
Cheers Shade.
Note: Password for all files: Shade'sVintageRadio
viernes, 18 de noviembre de 2022
.png)
miércoles, 16 de noviembre de 2022
martes, 15 de noviembre de 2022
domingo, 13 de noviembre de 2022
sábado, 12 de noviembre de 2022
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 023: LITTLE RICHARD (2000)
Which is exactly where we find him at the start of this biopic, belting out "Long Tall Sally" to his fans in Sydney, Australia. An unexpected "visitor" mid-song has "Little Richard" seeing the light (literally), and the next day he announces he is quitting rock and roll, throwing a $10,000 diamond encrusted ring into the harbour. Flashback to a less affluent time, when young Richard Penniman's father is trying to beat the sissy out of him. After embarrassing his family by singing the devil's music in church, teenage Richard leaves home and takes to the stage, performing with such groups as Sugarfoot Sam's Vaudeville show and the Tidy Jolly Steppers. Starting his own group, The Upsetters, Richard records a sanitised version of "Tutti Frutti" and is on his way.
This biopic's best moments come when "Little Richard" is behind the microphone, even when the focus is on shocked family members or an uptight Pat Boone. Having previously portrayed David Ruffin in "The Temptations" and Jackie Wilson in "Mr Rock 'n' Roll: The Alan Freed Story," Leon confidently recreates Little Richard's stage act despite being much taller that the singer. But like Keefe Brasselle in "The Eddie Cantor Story," he continues the eye-rolling and mugging off stage, providing only a superficial portrait of a man whose qualities ran deeper than the Pancake makeup he wore.
But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy...
The Pre-Show:
Title: Little Richard
Director: Robert Townsend
Cast: Leon / Jennifer Lewis / Carl Lumbly / Tamala Jones / Mel Jackson
Release Date: 20th February 2000
Country: United States
TMFLR001 TMFLR002 TMFLR
On Your Way Out:
Hoping you've enjoyed today's Pre-Show and The Main Feature, all what's left is for you to grab the goodies, which hopefully will allow you to enhance your knowledge and pleasure of Mr Little Richard himself.
Cheers Shade.
Note: Password for all files: Shade'sVintageRadio
viernes, 11 de noviembre de 2022
miércoles, 9 de noviembre de 2022
martes, 8 de noviembre de 2022
domingo, 6 de noviembre de 2022
sábado, 5 de noviembre de 2022
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 022: THE WANDERERS (1979)
Richard Price's first novel "The Wanderers" was published in 1974, when he was twenty-four years old. Price knew the territory having grown up in the housing projects of the Bronx. It was a period just before the Assassination of JFK, before Vietnam was on the front page of every newspaper and before the Beatles. The episodic novel focuses on an Italian-American gang, "The Wanderers" led by Richie Gennaro (Ken Wahl). Price's Bronx is overflowing with gangs, among them the Del Rays, the Fordham Baldies, the Wongs and the stunted Irish bat wielding wild men, the Ducky Boys. Phillip Kaufman's 1979 film version, while diverting from its source novel in many respects, similarly focus' on a series of descriptive scenes centering on Gennaro and his fellow Wanderers. Though they wear matching satin jackets, they are not so much a gang as they are a union of close friends hanging out on street corners, chasing girls and protecting themselves from the more dangerous gangs of the Bronx neighborhood they live in. This inner city coming of age film sparkles intermittently while managing to unfortunately derail itself at times with arty self-consciousness.
Statistically the sixties began in 1960 however, the mood, the essence, the spirit of the sixties began in 1963; the year it all began to change. At this point in time, the radio was still filled with American Rock and Roll; artists like Dion, The Contours, The Four Seasons, The Shirelles and the Isley Brothers ruled the Billboard charts. Guys hanging out on street corners singing doo-wop, watching the girls walk by, sizing them up, planning how to cop a feel by "accidentally" bumping into them.
The film's focus is on four of The Wanderers, Richie, Joey (John Friedrich), Perry (Tony Ganios) and Buddy (Jim Youngs). Though the screenplay, written by Philip and Rose Kaufman, is as episodic as Price's novel, the film never goes much beyond the boys' current life and does not reveal any dreams or aspirations they may have beyond their present existence. In his novel, Price ventures to suggest what the future could offer, what they as individuals, want out of life beyond hanging out on the Grand Concourse and Fordham Road. True, Joey and Perry drive off to San Francisco at the end. However, they do not seem to have any plans other than to get out of their current individual situations. The boys' families are dysfunctional, Joey, an artistic type, is brutalized by his over macho father, Emilio (William Andrews), and Perry (Tony Ganios), a new kid on the block, just moved from New Jersey, has an alcoholic mother who sleeps around. As for Richie, he seems destined to marry his recently knock-up girlfriend Despie (Toni Kalem) and live a life of eating pasta and wearing Hawaiian shirts, similar to his Mafia like future father-in-law.
The film is successful in spots, particularly the opening scenes where Kaufman's camera gloriously flows over the Bronx from above, fluidly moving down in front of Alexander's Department store to focus on the pug faces of the Fordham Baldies, all to the beat of The Four Seasons' "Walk Like A Man." Unfortunately, the film goes off course in other scenes, particularly when Kaufman films a bizarre atmospheric episode where Richie and his friends spot Nina walking down the street and follow her in Perry's car. They end up in an eerie fog filled, oddly lit world controlled by the bat swinging Ducky Boys. Outnumbered, the four are beaten up, though they eventually manage to escape the villainous Ducky Boys.
New York City, like many big cities, was inundated with youth gangs in the 1950s and early 1960s. Price, in his novel, and Kaufman likewise in the film, used the names of real gangs from those bygone days. The Fordham Baldies (the real gang did not shave their heads), The Ducky Boys, and The Wanderers were all real and violent gangs. Unlike "The Warriors", released earlier the same year, "The Wanderers" is not so much about gangs as it is about coming of age, in a more innocent time that was on the verge of extinction. We see the dawn of a new age in various scenes. The Vietnam War, though never mentioned, is symbolized by the foreboding Marine recruiter who suckers some of the Baldies into signing up. The assassination of John F. Kennedy is viewed by Richie as he passes by a department store window with a TV broadcasting the news on the President's death.
During his bachelor party in Little Italy, Richie spots Nina and follows her a few blocks to Folk City where a young Bob Dylan is performing "The Times They Are A-Changing." Nina enters the club meeting some friends while Richie, uncertain remains outside. He turns and leaves returning to his party and the familiar world he knows. These scenes may be a bit obvious and even heavy-handed but they do convey an emotion that our lives will no longer be as innocent and carefree as they once were.
What "The Wanderers" does is capture a moment in time, not always very successfully, but in spirit, a time when the innocence of a nation was about to end and we and The Wanderers were about to grow up.
But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy...
The Pre-Show:
The Pre-show today offers up to six documentaries, that go from: the film's locations to the then and now aspect of the main characters, without forgetting interviews, specially our Ducky Boy recollections, quotes, etc. To top it all, the complete "The Wanderers" soundtrack but, a visual soundtrack, in other words, every song (17 in total) belonging to the film's soundtrack viewed in one complete file (video after video)!
The Main Feature:
Title: The Wanderers
Director: Philip Kaufman
Cast: Ken Wahl / John Friedrich / Karen Allen / Toni Kalem / Toni Ganios
Release Date: 4th July 1979
Country: United States
On Your Way Out:
Remember... no cheating here, this section states it clear, only to obtain ... "On Your Way Out". In case you do not follow instructions I might have to send you Ducky Boy to exchange impressions ... (I'll let him pick the rectifying sanction). Seriously now, I hope you, once more, enjoy today's humble goodies to make your evening a little more enjoyable than a few hours ago.
Cheers Shade.
Note: Password for all files: Shade'sVintageRadio
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)