Compassionate Curmudgeon

There Is Nothing Like A Basso Profundo

Something I never realized about the movie South Pacific is that practically all the singing voices are dubbed except for Mitzi Gaynor and Ray Walston. Of course, Giorgio Tozzi is credited as the singing voice for Rossano Brazzi, but Muriel Smith (who played the role in London) sings Bloody Mary's songs for Juanita Hall (who created the role in the original Broadway production). And Bill Lee does the honors for John Kerr's Lt. Cable.

And then there is Stewpot. It's a relatively small role played by actor Ken Clark. He doesn't have much to sing, but what he does is very memorable indeed:

The singing was done by a fellow named Thurl Ravenscroft, who a few years later became the voice of a beloved cartoon pitchman, a role he maintained until his death last year. From just the sound of his voice, can you guess what character that was?

You can find out by doing a Google search for Thurl Ravenscroft.

Janus

Just got back from visiting my parents where my mother gave me an article from the Lebanon Daily News from 1967. Someday I have to write about my experience in the Lebanon Community Theatre, which was undoubtedly one of the happiest times in my short life. In the meantime, don't pay too much attention to the next to last paragraph in that article. Trust me, it's not what it sounds like!

The Movie That Changed My Life

I've spent a good part of the last couple days re-watching The Movie That Changed My Life, as it's now out in a double-DVD collector's edition containing not one but two copies of the movie: a wonderfully restored print of the general release version, and a patched-together restoration of the original Road Show.

On a summer evening when I was nine years old, my mother took me, along with our neighbor Joanne and her daughters Ellen and Kathleen, to the movies. I didn't particularly want to go because from the sound of the title, I assumed it must be about railroads and trains. You see, in Richland, where I grew up, the railroad went right through the heart of town, dividing our little borough in two at the junction of Main and Race Streets. Consequently, I spent a lot of time waiting for the trains to pass by, so to me railroads were just a nuisance, and I didn't particularly want to see a movie about them.

Why did I think the movie would be about railroads? Well, many of the boxcars on the freight trains carried the name Southern Pacific, so I just naturally assumed that anything named "South Pacific" would be about trains.

Boy was I wrong. It turned out to be about sex, sexual tension, racial prejudice, and did I mention sex? The story took place during World War II in a group of islands in the South Pacific, and it revolved around two parallel plot lines: one concerned a French planter with a mysterious past and a Navy nurse from Little Rock, Ark; the other involved a Marine Lieutenant from Philadelphia, PA, and a local Tonkinese girl. In both plot lines, racial prejudice played a key part.

But practically every song, and there were a bunch of them, was about sex. From the sexual tension of the Seabees ("There Is Nothing Like a Dame") to the Frenchman's main ballad ("Some Enchanted Evening"), from Lt. Cable's joyous "Younger Than Springtime" to nurse Nellie's proud declaration that she's in love with "A Wonderful Guy", nearly every major song was about sex. Of course, Oscar Hammerstein once said that any story that didn't have sex in it wasn't worth writing about. Oh, and I almost left out the most important song, the one that seduced me above all others, and "seduced" is the right word, because Bloody Mary used it as part of her careful plan to get Lt. Cable to marry her daughter. I'm talking, of course, about "Bali Ha'i". And need I mention "Happy Talk" in which mother and daughter team up to work their magic on Lt. Cable? Poor Joe Cable never stood a chance.

Of course, in 1958 I didn't understand any of this. In fact, I didn't understand the central point of the story, that irrational racial prejudice was what was keeping these couples apart.

What I did understand was the songs. This was the first time I was hearing them, and they were all glorious. I remember the ride home when we were discussing how much we all enjoyed the movie, the conversation went something like this.

Me: That was good.

Ellen: That was really good. There were a lot of songs though.

Kathleen: But they were all good!

Mom and Joanne: Well, it is a musical!

Oh, I thought. That was a musical? I guess I must like musicals.

To this day, "South Pacific" remains my favorite musical. The movie has come under a lot of harsh criticism, particularly over its overuse of colored filters, and while I understand the objections, they don't matter to me. This was The Movie That Changed My Life.

Seeing it again, and listening to the commentary, and especially seeing the restored Road Show version, which is the version that we saw on that special summer evening, is like meeting an old friend. Flaws and all, it's still my old friend.

A couple notes: In the song "My Girl Back Home", Lt. Cable sings

How far away,
Philadelphia, PA.
Princeton, NJ.
How far are they?

But back then I heard it as "Princeton and Jay", and I assumed he was referring to two different colleges in the Philadelphia area. It wasn't until many years later that I learned the correct lyric. So I grew up thinking that one of the major ivy league schools was named Jay. It's funny, I don't hear too much about Jay any more.

Know what a Seabee is? I never did until I listened to the commentary. They are the Construction Battalions (CB, get it?) who specialized in building bases and airstrips starting in WWII.

This was my first encounter with Ray Walston, who played Luther Billis, but it certainly wouldn't be my last. He went on to play the Devil in "Damn Yankees" and a Martian in "My Favorite Martian", and many other things besides.

This was 19-year-old France Nuyen's first movie role; 30 years later she had a recurring role as Dr. Paulette Kiem on one of my all-time favorite television shows, St. Elsewhere.

There are a number of actors who had tiny roles in the movie, but who went on to become known in their own right. Tom Laughlin, who played a pilot, later became known for the Billy Jack films. Ron Ely played a Navigator and had maybe one line; he later portrayed Tarzan on a television series. And Doug McClure was one of the bandaged patients in the hospital; no lines but he's definitely recognizable. Finally, Joan Fontaine is supposed to be one of the French women in the crowd scene on Bali Ha'i; if you ever spot her, please let me know.

South Pacific Collector's Edition

Media Bully Sued for Wrongful Death

Why can the media bullies subject a powerless woman who just lost her child to a relentless cross-examination, but they can't ask the most basic skeptical questions of the president and Congress? Oh, that's right; because they are bullies. AKA, cowards.

With few exceptions, the overpaid millionaires who are impersonating journalists just make me want to wretch.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1121061grace1.html

Nancy Grace Sued For Wrongful Death
Claim: TV host drove Florida woman to suicide in missing tot case

NOVEMBER 21--The parents of a woman who committed suicide shortly after a grilling by Nancy Grace are filing a lawsuit against the TV host, claiming that their daughter was driven to her death by the hard-charging former prosecutor. In a wrongful death lawsuit to be filed today in Florida, the parents of Melinda Duckett charge that Grace duped their daughter into an interview about Duckett's missing two-year-old son, Trenton. That interview, which aired on Grace's CNN Headline News show after Duckett's death, was more of a cross-examination, with Grace peppering the 21-year-old woman with questions about her whereabouts at the time of her son's late-August disappearance. On September 8, a day after her interview with Grace, Duckett used a shotgun to kill herself. While police have described Duckett as the prime suspect in her son's disappearance, they have said they believe the boy may still be alive. A copy of the wrongful death lawsuit, to be filed by William and Beth Eubank, can be found below. The complaint, which also names Duckett's estranged husband as a defendant, seeks undisclosed damages. (9 pages)

Amores Perros

I have long had a concept for a motion picture that I would like to see. By concept, I mean that I never developed any characters or plot, just a basic idea. Here it is:

The movie opens with a classic chase sequence ending in a spectacular crash; then the balance of the movie is about the events that led up to the chase and crash and the various people whose lives are forever changed as a result. But the protagonists of the film are not the main players involved in the chase, but the other people, the ones who were the innocent bystanders. The ones whom you would ordinarily never think about because their involvement was just incidental to the main plot.

This concept has been rolling around in my head for several years now, so imagine my surprise to find that Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu had actually directed a movie with that concept back in 2000.

"Amores Perros", which freely translated means "Love's a Bitch", is about three sets of characters whose stories intersect at that climactic car crash; one group is wealthy, another is working class, and the third is homeless. After showing the crash, the film flashes back to the incident that triggered the chain of events: a dog runs away from home.

Apparently director Iñarritu has a propensity for stories that are triggered by seemingly innocuous events, because he's also the director of the new film "Babel" (starring Brad Pitt) whose plot is also set in motion by an apparently trivial occurrence.

I found the film, which runs about two and a half hours, to be utterly engrossing. But a couple words of warning. The movie was filmed in Spanish, so it has subtitles. That doesn't bother me, but I know some people find titles annoying.

Also, something you definitely need to know from the start: No animals were harmed during the making of this movie. Really.