Mike McCarthy Captivates in “Blithe Spirit”

Charles comes to very harsh judgments about his mother and two dead wives in the 1941 Noel Coward play “Blithe Spirit” performed Sunday by the River Valley Theatre Company at Shakopee West Junior High School Auditorium.

Actor Mike McCarthy owns the title role of Charles and is cool on and off stage as we learned after the play discussion with the cast.  My theater buddy Gary made some thoughtful observations in the after play time and we enjoyed this Halloween ghost comedy.

Also commanding the stage is Daphne Siegert as Madame Arcati, the flamboyant soothsayer who projects to the back row of the spacious auditorium.

The production is noteworthy for its attention to detail in costumes and props as well as the ghost like effects.  Coward’s plays still attract an audience but have to be a hard sell.  Plan to see it.

www.rivervalleytheatrecompany.com

According to Sunday’s Pioneer Press, Mayor Chris Coleman is leading a tour of the downtown Palace Theater in hopes of getting state bonding money to renovate and reopen the abandoned vaudeville and movie house.  Coleman envisions the Palace as a contemporary music venue.  Will anyone over 30 be interested?  

Forget "Gravity," See "Phantom Planet"

With a the buzz over Sandy and George in space in “Gravity,” I decided to peruse the 1962 science shocker of the space age, “The Phantom Planet,” which I got for 25 cents.  The plot is similar to “Queen of Outer Space” where a macho space cowboy stumbles on the planet “Rheton” where the women are beautiful and the guys are 6 inches tall so our hero has a chance. 
A distraction from the Moon Maidens is the Anthony Dexter character who challenges the hero played by Dean Fredericks to a fight.  It ends well and they patch over their differences.
The real reason for seeing this is the introduction of newcomer Dolores Faith who I swear is a Liz Taylor look alike.  Folks will be buzzing over Dolores for years t o come.
Minnesota native Coleen Gray also headlines this mess.  She will be remembered for “Nightmare Alley” and “Kansas City Confidential” rather than “Phantom Planet.” 
Famous silent film star Francis X. Buschman makes his final appearance in this movie as the king of Rheton so this is another reason to watch.
Space travel is challenging and you never know what you will find when you get there whatever there is.

Living the Diamond Life With Liz in New Cable Movie

A boozy Liz Taylor played brilliantly by Helena Bonham Carter is reunited in 1983 with ex-husband Richard Burton (Dominic West) for the Noel Coward Broadway play “Private LIves” in the BBC TV movie “Burton and Taylor” shown Wednesday.  This is another installment in the saga of women who who lived large like Peggy Hopkins Joyce and Donattelle Versace.

Fans of “Virginia Wolfe” will recognize a Martha and George dynamic in B & T with Burton attempting a serious reading of “Private Lives” and the tipsy Liz clowning and mugging for an appreciative audience.  The play, an ill-advised train wreck and curious sideshow, was panned by the New York critics.  Yet theater arts professor Bill from Iowa probably enjoyed it when he saw it with Liz and Dick on Broadway.  Working at cross purposes, the venture is doomed from the get go with Taylor hoping to rekindle romance with the British actor and Burton trying to reestablish his theatrical credentials.

In a remarkable scene, Taylor makes a grand entrance following a gaggle of dogs on leashes, reminiscent of Mrs. Joyce in “International House.”  Bonham Carter is so much Liz with the walk and talk that we forget that it is an act. 

Unfortunately the version shown on cable last night was interrupted every 10 minutes with commercials and naughty words were bleeped out.  This is another reason to kiss Comcast goodbye.  Hopefully an unedited DVD will be available in the near future.

Versace, Black Sunday are both Italian Horror Movies

Drug crazed fashion designer Donatelle Versace struggled with a pesky family and  cutthroat high fashion competition in the Halloween Lifetime movie “The House of Versace” with Gina Gershin as DV.  The actor who was Veronica Mars' dad  appears briefly as Gianni Versace.

The Versaces lived large in the 90s when business was good with mansions in Miami Beach, Italy and elsewhere.  Keeping up appearances has got to be tough.  The roof came crashing in on the enterprise after Gianni was murdered by Mad Andy and DV took over the business, running it into the ground with unmarketable rags.  Driven by hatred for her deceased brother who basically cut her out of his will and other issues, she binged on cocaine and whatnot.

Finally the day of reckoning came with the family intervention and her trip to a drug rehabilitation facility.  Rather than some Minneapolis dump, she is comfortably housed in a tropical facility where she is deprived of her stiletto pumps. Such an ordeal!  Refreshed from  rehab and sober as a judge she is reinstated in the House of Versace where she apologies to the help for her bad behavior.  So the melodrama ends on a sweet note.

Much is made of the Versace  designed revealing dress that actress Elizabeth Hurley wore to an awards ceremony.  That dress brought a lot of positive buzz to the Versace brand but if Ms. Hurley had appeared in public in a gunny sack with her puppies popping out the results may have been the same.

Nightmare alert:  Lifetime followed the movie with a Behind the Story documentary on the Versaces and let me tell you the real life DV suffers by comparison with the actress Gershin.  Don’t let the kids watch.

Make a double feature of it with the Italian Gothic horror classic “Black Sunday” featuring Barbara Steele as Katia who is revisited by a presumably dead witch who was horribly executed.  Katia is treated badly but then she wasn’t tops at house keeping with her fog enshrined dungeon like mansion decorated with cobwebs.    Mario Bava directed “Black Sunday,” a horror masterpiece in black and white from the ‘60s.

Peggy Joyce Was Outrageous Roaring Twenties Icon

Peggy Hopkins Joyce was called “superficial, shallow and an unabashed slut.” The biography “Gold Digger” by Constance Rosenblum concludes that PHJ was “high spirited” and was the pioneer in the media driven rise of celebrities.  My interest in all matters Joyce was prompted by the 1933 all star comedy “International House” which was headlined by Joyce and W.C. Fields.  This is a fun filled double entendre romp comparable to Mae West’s “She Done Him Wrong.”  Some said she lacked any visible talent other than being glamorous.
In the 1920s when average Americans were struggling on $1,000 a year, Joyce went on a million dollar shopping spree in Manhattan.  She probably was the inspiration for many songs of the day.  In fact she “ala carted with barons and earls” and some said “The Lady is a Tramp.”
She was married six times and engaged to countless other men  Some of her lovers included King Gustav of Sweden, Charlie Chaplin and auto tycoon Walter P. Chrysler who was giddy enough to buy her two Isotta Fraschini cars and a $300,000 blue diamond, an 18th century bauble found in Brazil and now housed at the Smithsonian Institution.
Our fascination with people who  are famous for being famous and are today’s marketable commodities exploited by super market tabloids and TV shows like “Insider” and “Extra.”  Zsa Gabor and Liz Taylor certainly were adored for their diamonds and marriages and Kim Kardashian is another story.

Murder, Torture, Death Camp Told in Kovaly Memoir

A survivor of Aushwitz and the cruelty of Stalin’s communism and the widow of murdered Jewish deputy minister of foreign trade has written a devastating memoir, “Under A Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-68.”  This 1986 book by Heda Margolius Kovaly, was a must read for my Central European history class on the U of M Campus.  Kovaly's first husband was Rudolph Margouilis who was hung by the communist government in a show trial prompted by Stalin's anti semitism.
This is my great Central European fall where I was surprised to learn that the 1971 movie “Fiddler on the Roof” was filmed in Yugoslavia, a communist country ruled by the maverick Marshal Tito.

Nia and Toni Are Super in "Connie & Carla" drag queen comedy

“I loved you in “What’s the Matter With Helen” (a campy 70s AIP horror slasher flick with Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters) a drag queen says to Ms. Reynolds in the musical comedy “Connie and Carla.”  C&C is a redo of “Some Like it Hot” with straight women played by Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette escaping from the gangsters and doing very bad cabaret numbers.  I am mean but I love the reference to “Helen” and too bad no one asked if a redo of “Bundle of Joy” might be considered?  C&C has it’s moments and more worthwhile were the interviews with the director and stars on the DVD.  Ms. Collette is memorable in a whole bunch of films and the TV series “United States of Tara.”  Seen with “Girls will be Girls” (a men in drag comedy), C&C is a fun night at the movies.  The Debbie warbles a few notes as well.  Also  plan to see “Helen” on Halloween.

Rain Musical is Big Bloomington Hit

Kudos to Bloomington Civic Theater music director Anita Ruth and “Singin’ in the Rain” director Michael M. Ferrell on the sold out performances on going.  Not since “”42nd Street,” have local audiences appreciated the familiar tunes and the ‘30s nostalgia that is the big draw.  Enough with Sondheim!
Although the stage was free of rain, it worked for me.  Jeffrey Nelson is a standout as Cosmo, the Donald O’Connor role in the movie.  Some of the more memorable tunes are “You Are My Lucky Star,” “Good Morning,” “You Stepped Out of a Dream” and of course the title song.  Too bad you missed it.

"Madame X" is Hilariously Bad, Smaltzy Melodrama

I am screaming at the TV to Keir Dullea, “she’s your mother,” where Lana Turner is dying in the final scene of Universal-International’s 1966 schmaltzy melodrama “Madame X.”  Ms. Turner’s acting must have been inspired by Veda Ann Borg’s scenes in “Revenge of the Zombies,” but then Ms. Borg didn’t have any dialogue in that Monogram epic.  We are asked to believe that a 40-something Turner is the mother of a toddler.  Pleaz.  Somehow I think this would have been a better effort with Douglas Sirk directing and Dorothy Malone or Piper Laurie in the title role.  This was a Ross Hunter production and he scored successes with “Imitation of Life” and the Doris Day Rock Hudson comedies.  After MGM unraveled Ms. Turner found herself at U-I, which was definitely a different kettle of fish for her.  Poor thing.  She would have been great in “This Island Earth.”

Hedlund is Amazing in "On the Road" Movie

The iconic subversive ‘50s heroes Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy have finally made it to the big screen in the art house film, “On The Road.”  It took 61 years of breathless anticipation to reach this happy day.

For what it’s worth, Garret Hedlund is a knockout as the manic Neal Cassidy and Sam Riley isn’t bad as Kerouac.  Our erstwhile adventurers get wasted on drugs, booze and sex, but learn something about life if they could only remember what it was.  I felt like I was on the road to San Franciosco and Mexico with those amazing lads that were like a fantasy as I read the classic novel in the early 1980s. 

I am always late to the game and in my case I was watching “Father Knows Best” while Jack and Neal were boozing and debauching internationally.  Although Kerouac has been dismissed as a great or talented writer, “On the Road” and references to Jack and Neal are part of the lexicon we know. Women are relegated to submissive roles in both the movie and book and that is addressed in the documentary “New York in the ‘50s.”  You will also enjoy the “Ken Kessey’s Magic Tour” movie where Cassidy is the driver so get ready for adventure (in the ditch).  I watched both after seeing “On the Road.”

Late '60s Were Prime for British Comedies

The romantic comedy has been much maligned in recent years, but it wasn’t always a formalistic tired mess.  My all time favorite romcoms are from the late ‘60s and feature nebbish heroes, their flawed mentors and direction that reflects the free spirited sexual liberation underway then.
I saw all of theses at the Vista Theater in Boise and all are available on DVD or VHS.  They would be considered ‘art house by today’s standards.
British director Richard Lester led the way in 1965 with “The Knack” featuring Michael Crawford and Rita Tushingham, both kind of virgins lost in London, who navigate their way through a maze of crazy people to find each other.  Lester is best known for directing the Beattles in “A Hard Day’s Night.”
Was Frances F. Coppola influenced by the “Knack” when he made “You’re A Big Boy Now” in New York in 1967?  There are a lot of whimsical moments reminiscent of “The Knack” involving Peter Kastner and the bitchy go go dancer Barbara Darling played by Elizabeth Hartman, who is the object of his desire.  This is another poor soul lost in the big city who finds happiness with the girl next door type played by Karen Black.  Geraldine Page is memorable as the neurotic mom and Julie Harris is brilliant as the sexually repressed landlady.  The city is celebrated including the Bryant Park library and Central Park in Big Boy.
Another British gem is “Bedazzled” with nebbish Dudley Moore selling his soul to the devil played by Peter Cooke.  Moore, Cooke and British actress Elizabeth Braun lead us on a merry romp through unrequited love in contemporary London with a bit of social commentary on advertising and religion. Stanley Donen was the director who also directed two other British gems at that time, “Two for the Road” and “Charade,” and the later two had memorable Henry Mancini music

Wall Street Crime, Marriage Featured in Woody Film

News of a big New Jersey real estate stink involving Vikings owner Ziggi Wulf broke a day before the new Woody Allen movie, ‘Blue Jasmine,” also dealing with corporate shenanigans, opened here.
Good for Woody working today’s headlines into a drama about marriage infidelity and insanity in New York and San Francisco, a bi-coastal affair as it were.
Poor Woody must be in a dark mood theses days because although Blue Jasmine got four stars in the Tribune our small group found it disturbing and wished we had spent the $10 elsewhere.
The story is an eerie likeness to actual events in the 50s involving an aunt by marriage and the breakup of their marriage.
Cate Blanchett no doubt will be nominated for awards as well as Woody Allen, the director.  Alec Baldwin plays the corrupt capitalist/cheating husband.  Myself, I would have preferred Tina Fey as the wife with Tina and Alec exchanges GE and Comcast jibes.  I console myself with Netflix which has “Manhattan” at my fingertips.  Call me old fashioned.

Bacharach Has Written His Autobiography

Rod McKuen wrote a song, “For Bert,”which honored band leader Bert Kaempfert who had some hits in the 50s so why hasn’t anyone done the same for the Burt who wrote the music of my life?  Based on his autobiography, “Anyone Who Had A Heart,” Burt Bacharach commands a biopic or a song.  Anyone up to the task?
Bacharach certainly had the Hollywood leading man looks to star in his own biopic.  There is a rich history of Hollywood music industry musicals with Republic Pictures leading the way in the late 30s -- “Rhythm in the Clouds,” “Sitting on the Moon,” “Manhattan Merry-go-round” and “The Hit Parade.”
Burt B. is definitely a “babe magnet” and much of the book chronicles his romantic life including Angie Dickinson (wife) and Slim Brandy (girl friend with a funny name.)
My eyes glazed over with much of the fine detail on recording studio personnel but his hit song for Jack Jones, “Wives and Lovers,” is my sentimental favorite from 1963 played on RKO’s KHJ-AM in 1963.  We love you Burt.
Incidentally, his father Bert B., was a syndicated columnists for Hearst and I would read him in the Seattle P-I.

Way Way Back, Can't Stop the Music, both amusing

Eighteen year old newcomer Liam James is what the movie “Way Way Back,” is about-- a 14 year old in a dysfunctional family with mom played by Toni Collette and her boyfriend, the jerk,  played by Steve Carrel.  James keeps your interest but it’s Allison Janey as a middle aged floozie who steals scenes. Yet Collette could have played that part as well.
If you enjoyed “Away We Go,” this is the movie for you where the teenager is the catalyst for change and an affable water park manager played by Sam Rockwell is his off center mentor.  WWB is an unexpected surprise during a spring and summer where I have had difficulty staying awake in the multiplexes.
I haven’t checked, but James has got to be on the cover of every preteen fanzine at Walgreens and CVS.
If you enjoyed Janey as the uptight mom in “Hairspray,” than WWB will given you a different slant on motherhood.

“Can’t Stop the Music,” a campy 1980 musical with the Village People, Bruce Jenner and Valerie Perrine, was a special request that I showed at a movie party today four of my friends.  It’s over the top fun with lots of glitter and bad acting.  The movie’s plot was lifted right out of  the 1935-37 Republic musicals about enterprising song writers and agents trying to make it big in the music business.   I found it quite diverting and thank you Instant Netflix.

Keyes Biography is Entertaining Look at 40s, 50s Hollywood

Evelyn Keyes writes eloquently about navigating the stormy seas of romance and matrimony in the 1940-50 period during quite paternalistic times.  Her poor choices in suitors included Charles Vidor, John Huston, Mike Todd and Artie Shaw, all sexists and in some cases racist.  There’s way too much in ‘Scarlett O’Hara’s Younger Sister” about John and Mike and not enough about her outstanding acting in “The Prowler,” a film noir released by United Artists  that is basic Movie 101 viewing. 
Apparently there is no ghost writer on this book which makes Ms. Keyes the author of one of the best written Hollywood biographies.
Those of us that watch the Sony movie channels are treated to many of her ‘40s movies including “Johnny O’Clock” and “The Jolson Story.”
Her recollections about Artie Shaw’s compulsive obsessive behavior confirms what I heard in 2005 from a cousin who was friends with the famed bandleader.

My Own Private Idaho, Revisited

BOISE -- I had much needed respite from Minnesota in Idaho this past week starting with "Sweeney Todd" at outdoor amphitheater and the performance exceeded my expectations.
Took friends Duane (from Mrs. Cook's boarding house) and his wife Nancy to the Stampede, a real red neck Christian conservative hootenanny.
Stayed at most exotic Idaho Heritage Inn, former mansion of the Falks (department store) and Gov. Chase Clark with special display of books and photos featuring Sen. Frank Church, husband of Bethene Clark.
Big music award event this weekend at the Egyptian Theater, lovingly restored with private money.
We ate at most wonderful Boise Stage Stop on Highway 20-30 and who can forget the story I wrote for The Statesman on the 20-30 Trots and food poisoning.  Food at Stage Stop was excellent.
Trip to Camp David (see photo) was most exotic mountain adventure with blue waters of Cascade Reservoir and smell of the forest.  Dave Frazier wants to cut down trees but I told him to resist that urge.  Dave and I were fishing buddies and coworkers at The Idaho Statesman in the 60s.  What a time to be a reporter.

Comcast Compared to Gilded Age Monopoly

Here’s a good summer read:  “Captive Audience:  The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age,” by Harvard University professor Susan Crawford.
This is about Comcast which has such a commanding presence in high speed internet, cable TV and now movies and TV shows with the NBC Universal merger.  Is this something I should worry about given that I severed ties with Comcast three years ago?  Probably not.
What I did learn is that customers who need something approaching high speed internet are captives of Comcast and the rest of us are settling for considerably less.  According to Prof. Crawford, customers are leaving DSL in favor of Comcast internet and WIFI is not the answer.  So whatever the unfortunate telco is charging for DSL is too much.  We should be able to negotiate lower DSL fees given their anemic presence in the high speed internet world.
Instant Netflix with its recent Emmy nominations may be a threat to Comcast, we can all hope.  With Comcast, a commanding presence in cable TV, now running NBC TV I would imagine that NBC affiliates are nervous about the future of this legacy news and entertainment enterprise.  As a former NBC employee of the RCA era, I too am concerned but not enough to watch most of the NBC shows.  -- dz

Singer Jack Jones Featured in Cheezy Horror Movie

Any illusions you had about romantic singer Jack Jones,  the Michael Buble of his day, are shattered in the inept 1978 British horror movie “The Comeback,” which features Jones in the lead role.
Incredibly ill-advised was this career ending move to make a low-budget thriller rip-off of “Psycho.”  It’s a slash-fest dripping with fake blood on plastic dummies.  The murderers seek revenge for Jones’ recordings that corrupted their teenage daughter years ago.  They must have been listening to some bootleg 8 tracks not readily available in the U.S.
The movie is made in the mansion of the director Peter Walker who may be some rich dilettante who fancies himself a movie director.  Poor Jack must have been at the end of his rope when he appeared in this mess shirtless with dyed light brown hair, a gold tooth and smoking. 
Jones does sing a couple of forgettable numbers that may be available on a RCA LP somewhere.
Masochists will want to visit Instant Netflix to muddle through “The Comeback” which should be called “The Setback.”

Lone Ranger May Be Summer's Box Office Turkey

Having grown up with the “Lone Ranger” on ABC and Mutual Radio and then early TV in Spokane, of course I was drawn to the new movie of the same name with Johnny Deppp as Tonto.  Since I own a DVD of three episodes of the 50s TV show, I was primed with all things LR before going to the movie Thursday.  So I was blown away that the movie uses the same bad guy characters, the Cavendish Gang, that appear in the old TV show.  What took 50 minutes in the 1950s now is 2.5 hours long.  Glenn Strange, the Frankenstein monster at Universal in the 40s, played Butch Cavendish in the 50s TV show
They could have shown this movie in the small Ritz Theater in Spokane for the handful of people who showed up yesterday.  Who remembers the LR and the William Tell Overture theme?  Army Hammer is well cast as the handsome hero as was Clayton Moore in the original.  Much overwhelming are the special effects action scenes involving trains and whatnot.  The surround sound will wake the dead.
Depp is heavily encased in weird makeup and some Halloween costume that would shock the bejezuz out of Jay Silverheels, the original Tonto.
Certainly the Disney Studios has become more generous with violence and suggested gore with the new Lone Ranger than I can remember in any of their offerings of yesteryear.  Also Miss Helena Carter Bonham plays a charming prostitute.
The saving grace for this mediocre movie is the characterization of the railroad capitalists as warmongers involved in evil schemes that result in wholesale carnage.

Subversive, Whimsical "Urinetown" Is Too Much Fun

The satirical whimsical musical “Urinetown” launches well deserved barbs at greedy capitalists, environmental polluters and overblown Broadway musicals including Les Miserables.  It’s the poor versus the rich melodrama set to music.
Directed by John Command, has assembled a talented cast for this over the top spirited romp at the Jungle Theater promises to be this summer’s must see entertainment.
Several clichés are employed here including the handsome hero Billy who battles the evil industrialist Cladwell who is in league with slimy politicians to raise fees at public restrooms.   Cladwell  is a caricature of the Monopoly game capitalist figure with top hat and mustache.
Of courses Billy falls for the blonde beauty, Cladwell’s daughter, another cliché.  Moreover, show stopping production numbers borrow heavily from overblown Hollywood musicals with the Charleston chorus line and the “Negro” spiritual.  All of this poking fun at bad musicals is most endearing.
Although I was most skeptical about this endeavor given the title “Urinetown,” I lost myself in the moment which has to be seen to be believed.