Fifty Years Ago Today

Fifty Years Ago Today was Saturday, July 26, 1975…Pyotr Klimuk and Vitaly Sevastyanov return to Earth, having set a new Soviet space endurance record of 63 days (62 days 23 hours 20 minutes 8 seconds) and the mark for the most people in space simultaneously (seven) was tied during the mission. …The Hustle, by Van McCoy and celebrating the most popular new dance in America, became the #1 song in the United States...Born: Liz Truss (Mary Elizabeth Truss), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from September 6 to October 24, 2022 after being elected leader of the Conservative Party; in Oxford.  Ms. Truss’s short term in office is apparently only referenced in the UK these days as either a joke or as a supreme example of failure.

Van McCoy - The Hustle (Official Music Video) [HD]

There was absolutely no debate, no question about the big movie of the day. Summer of ‘75 was the summer of JAWS. It was a sensation along the lines of, and perhaps more so than GONE WITH THE WIND, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, and THE GODFATHER. It was, as everyone in the world has already noted, “The First Summer Blockbuster.” But that’s not the movie I saw this day. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t see the Spielberg masterpiece for another month. 

At such a remove (it’s been half a century, after all), I can’t confidently explain why I delayed so long in seeing such a big movie. But I’ve got a pretty good idea, I think. 

First, just like THE EXORCIST, there were all those news stories and images of people waiting in long, long lines. I was pretty sure that, like THE EXORCIST, the movie could wait till I could see it in a more comfortable, less crowded atmosphere.

Also, just like THE EXORCIST and THE GODFATHER, I was loath to jump on the popular bandwagon. If everybody else was het up about something, that was something I was likely to ignore, or, at least, delay. 

So that’s why this entry is not about JAWS. Maybe next month. 

Personally, I can’t be sure exactly what I was up to at the time. Sometime during the heat of summer, ‘75, I spent a couple of weeks rehearsing and performing a production of GYPSY. A friend of mine was directing it and found the actor playing “Herbie” to be insufficient. So he asked me to step in.

Buuuut…by this time I had joined Actors Equity, and this GYPSY was a non-Equity production, so I wasn’t supposed to do it.  But the theater arranged with Equity for me to perform on a Guest Artist contract. The problem was that the theater group had no money. I mean NO money. So I agreed, gladly, to accept pay for the job, then, semi-secretly--donate the bucks back to the theater so they could pay for rent, costumes, electricity…everything and anything. If anyone in the Equity offices reads this (doubtful), that’s okay. I figure the statute of limitations has dissolved that ancient sin.

So I played Herbie in that production, which was no better than okay. My performance, likewise. But I don’t know the dates of the gig, so who knows?  Maybe I was in the midst of performances at this time. Or maybe I wasn’t.

I at least know I didn’t have a performance this night because I was off to the Preston Drive-in, way out in distant, unexplored areas of Louisville. Not sure why I trekked all the way out yonder, when the movie was also playing at my drive-in, The Lakewood. Of course, at this time I was living in Louisville itself rather than, as usual, across the river in Jeffersonville. So, in actuality, the driving distance between The Lakewood and The Preston may not have been so much.

The movie, for which I was hopeful, but of which I was mostly ignorant was…

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE

Another question with no answer-- why had I not already seen PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE by this time? It had been around earlier. In this engagement, PHANTOM served as a second feature in support of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (which I had already seen). I don’t know. You’d think that I would have jumped on a bigtime Brian De Palma horror musical as soon as it showed up. But I didn’t and I don’t know why.

I do know that I absolutely loved the movie that night. Adored it. Still do.

I loved the music, the design, the performances. A totally immersive movie love. 

I became an instantaneous fan of Gerrit Graham. Let me make it plain-I freakin’ loved this movie.

I’ve watched it many times in the last 50 years, but I’m always ready to watch it again and, here, on this 50th anniversary of my first look at it, that’s what I’m a-gonna do.

Roll ‘em!

This movie references and pays homage to and, if you prefer, steals from a lot of sources, including of course PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, but also FAUST,  FRANKENSTEIN, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, PSYCHO, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, even Orson Welles’s TOUCH OF EVIL.

This opening narration is great, both in its writing and in Rod Serling's reading of it. But in this Shout Video Blu-ray it was so quiet that I had to turn the volume up to absolute maximum to even barely hear it. Then of course the musical number which follows is too loud, though not deafeningly so. I ended up watching the entire movie at about 80% volume.

I would eagerly buy a Juicy Fruits album.

Immediately after that great opening song, we get George Memmoli delivering a whole load of exposition. But he does it well.

Hey, I have a neat Death Records t-shirt and as soon as I lose 20 pounds I am going to wear that thing.

Hey there's Rainbeaux Smith! And, for the first time ever, she keeps her shirt on.

Ah, there’s a guy I worked with back in ‘82. Can’t remember his name….

The breathing we hear during the subjective camera sequence is interesting as it is not only pre-HALLOWEEN, it's even pre-Darth Vader. And if you would say, “well, that's coincidental,” which I'll admit it could be, I'll also note that other filmmakers definitely paid attention to Brian de Palma in those days. The most glaring example of that is the final shock in CARRIE which became de rigeur in all horror films after that. Did any horror film from 1976 to 1990 not have a final jump scare? It was a regular infection, I tells ya. 

The Phantom’s mask is perfection.

Almost exactly halfway through the movie, “Beef” appears. The magnificent- and I mean that- Gerrit Graham blesses us with a golden turn. He probably should have won an Oscar, and definitely deserved a massive career boost from this, which he sadly didn't get.

“I am a professional. I have been in this business a long time. Now if I don't want to do a show, it's not because I got stage fright. It's because some creature from beyond doesn't want me to do the show.”

The “Somebody Super”/”Life at Last” number is set on a delicious black and white Frankensteinian lab set. Got to love it.

The makeup on the singers in that “Somebody Super” scene is very Kiss-like. The movie was released in ‘74 and, according to Google, the band was formed in ‘73. I suppose it’s possible that one entity may have inspired the other. Somebody call Gene Simmons.

The movie is not just wildly cinematic. It is also at times highly theatrical. A beautiful mix.

In the end credits we learn that the set dresser was Sissy Spacek. Not too surprising, since her husband Jack Fisk was the film’s designer.

Well, what is this? The 15th time I’ve seen PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE? Maybe the 20th? And it’s still great. Hopefully I’ll live long enough to log another dozen viewings or so.

Just for gits and shingles, here’s the Movie Clock for that day 50 Years Ago. What have you seen?

My ongoing project of reading all of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books moves glacially along. I have just finished reading GOLDFINGER which is right in the middle of the series. The movie of GOLDFINGER has always been and remains my favorite individual entry in the franchise. The novel of GOLDFINGER does not hold nearly so high a position of regard. 

Frankly and honestly, it's kind of a loss. I'm not going to say that it's a terrible book because that's reaching too far. But it's not a good novel. The best that can be said for it is that it supplied the plot and the characters for the movie. But the movie has picked and plucked and contracted and expanded in all the right ways. I know a lot of people opine that Fleming's novels really should be adapted for the movies much more faithfully than they have been. But I don't know. Maybe that's true for some of them. But not for GOLDFINGER. Definitely not for GOLDFINGER. 

The plot of the book and the movie are essentially the same. Auric Goldfinger is plotting the big one--robbing Fort Knox--and Bond is assigned to stop him. Essentially that’s it. The rest is just details, which is where, you know, the devil lives.

The golf game is in both book and film. In the film it’s a fun, character-defining few minutes. In the book it fills maybe 10% or nearly of the book’s total page count. It’s too too clear that Fleming is simply describing a golf game. He liked golf, he probably enjoyed writing about it. Every now and then he reminds us that Goldfinger is a dangerous, mysterious man. But the golf episode is pretty much a stroke-by-stroke description of a round of golf. Yeah, okay, we got it, Ian, let’s move along.

The slow speed car “chase” across France is peppered with occasional fun incidents but, like the golf, it’s mostly just a pleasant driving episode.

Then, worst of all, for most of the book’s final third, superspy James Bond is simply Goldfinger’s secretary. And I’m not exaggerating. For a long, boring stretch, Bond takes notes at Goldfinger’s meetings, he types up those notes, he creates a schedule for the big criminal get-together, then he types up, copies, and distributes the schedule ‘cause we wouldn’t want a bad guy to not know what the day’s agenda might be.

The big finale is much deadlier, potentially, and much more vast in the book than in the movie. It’s also considerably more ridiculous and laughingly unlikely.

By the way, how does Bond, while a prisoner of Goldfinger, get word of the master plan to friendly eyes? Why he scribbles a note and hides it in an airplane toilet. He has to merely hope hope hope that someone finds it and that that someone is a nice guy who acts on the note rather than simply flushing it away. 

Here we have a book in which the author was not all that interested. So he interpolates a golf game, a driving weekend, and he’s happier. Who knows, maybe he delighted in turning James Bond into a secretarial lackey for his villain.

I do know that Ian Fleming should have kissed the feet of the folks who made the movie. It was the film of GOLDFINGER which turned a modestly successful book and movie series into an international sensation. A sensation which continues to this day (assuming Amazon actually gets something made.) And a sensation which derives from a book which is not…very…good.

 NAME THAT MOVIE!

#2

It's a modern-ish classic and the description of the plot is genuinely accurate, but it's couched in unfamiliar terms.

This movie's poster may...or may not...be included in this montage. If it isn't there, it probably ought to be.

He's tough and he's a loner and he likes it that way. He saves a garrulous ass from the military and finds himself with too much company. Meanwhile a bigwig plans to marry a very hot young lady. Our loner wins a contest and gets a job as a result. He escorts a lady and an unlikely romance blooms. The garrulous ass forges a relationship with a plus-size female. The lady is grabbed by thieves, and there is suspicion of cannibalism. Finally, the truth about about the lady's night life is revealed so that we can enjoy a happy ending.