Movies Til Dawn

Above and below, in two parts, I've posted Edward R. Murrow's "Person To Person" show featuring Jerry and Patti Lewis (and four of their not-yet-six kids). If you're reading this blog, you probably know that the show sent cameras into celebrity homes for remote visits, with Murrow sitting in the New York studio smoking and asking not very in-depth questions. Basically the show was house-porn and, while very successful, something of a comedown for the distinguished journalist, who would be dead just a few years after this segment aired (from smoking). Nonetheless it remains compulsive viewing, largely because of the ability to see the houses these people lived in, in all their mid-century glory. (The Bogart/Bacall manse in Holmby Hills is a good one). The time is somewhere in early to mid 1958, as Jerry references his as yet unreleased late '58 movie "Geisha Boy." The Lewis's have recently moved into the house we see on this show, a Bel Air ...

Next up from the 1956 trainwreck 'Jerry Lewis Just Sings' is the abominable version of Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler's masterful mock-spiritual "Get Happy" (posted above). Jerry's performance is reminiscent of someone's uncle at the Bar Mitzvah after-party who normally doesn't drink but, after a glass of wine, decides to get up and perform with the band. Below I've 'eased the bite of it' with the ultimate "Get Happy" performance--Judy Garland's from "Summer Stock." This experiment in Jerry tolerance is almost over so, as Otto Preminger once screamed into the face of an actor, "RELAX!!!"   Subscribe in a reader

Next up from "Jerry Lewis Just Sings" (our subject of the week for some ungodly reason) is an old Al Jolson song, "Let Me Sing And I'm Happy" (posted above).  I believe the inspiration for doing this number was Jerry's father Danny Lewis, a fairly low-rent borscht belt comic whose specialty was, apparently, a Jolson imitation. Jerry gives it a shot here but doesn't really commit, save for a few trademark Jolsonisms tossed in at random spots. Indeed, one might consider this particular cut a kind of potpourri of singing styles, as Jerry sometimes sounds like Ethel Merman as well. Below is an exceedingly rare clip from one of Jerry's many aborted television series, on which he appears with Danny Lewis singing "Sonny Boy" (another Jolson hit). Both seem distinctly ill-at-ease with each other and the set-up (Jerry is sitting on a chair pretending to be a little kid while his father croons the tune to him) doesn't particularly click. Odd...

Continuing our examination of the 1956 long-playing (and I mean LONG playing) album "Jerry Lewis Just Sings", we come to Jerry's rendition of Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz's lovely "Shine On Your Shoes", immortalized by Fred Astaire in the film "The Bandwagon" (which I've posted below, for handy comparison). (The best recording of the song, for my money, is Mel Torme with George Shearing, done in the early 80s). Listening to this song once Jerry gets hold of it, however, is like listening to a completely different tune. Jerry attacks the lilting and whimsical music and lyrics with all the grace and suavity of a pastrami sandwich (extra fatty), managing to nail down to the floor a song that wants to float--and which almost always, in the hands of any half-decent singer, does. Pay special attention to the "deedle-di-dies" as they embody, in just a quick phrase, everything that he doesn't get about swinging. I wrote to a frien...

In 1956, fresh from his split from Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis recorded an album of standards (i.e. 'the songbook' as it's now cloyingly referred to). Titled "Jerry Lewis Just Sings", it featured arrangements by the eminently respectable Buddy Bregman conducting a big band of top-tier Hollywood studio musicians. Lewis financed the record himself, after all the other record companies passed on the opportunity. He sold the finished product to Decca who released before the end of the calendar year. The cover of "I'm Sitting on Top Of the World" was a surprise hit, climbing to number 12 on Billboards pop chart. All in all, the experiment appears to have been a successful one for Lewis, though he never repeated it. As readers of this blog may know, I've had a curious love/hate thing with Lewis since my childhood, when I initially learned to adore him (via 'The Bellboy', 'The Errand Boy', and 'The Telethon Boy'), then learned to...

Let's keep the color film-of-home-movies-of-cities theme but cross the ocean and change cities. Here's some astounding color footage of Berlin shot in--get this--the early 1900s. Just as with the color film of Manhattan that I posted the other day , the color makes the past come alive and seem awfully recent. People do what they always do--wander around, point at things, sit in audiences, smile, laugh, look bewildered. It was ever thus. Much as I love black and white, it separates us from the reality of the world it depicts. Color makes the past come shockingly alive. The person who posted this dates the footage from 1900 on the nose, but I wonder. While some of it seems retouched and colorized, it's not at all impossible that it was originally shot in color, as color film was first available in 1904. Indeed, the reason for the footages existence in the first place may well be that it was test footage designed to show off an early color process. You'll see early tin...

Continuing our theme of the week--which turns out to be documentary views of New York City in the 1940s--above I've posted two minutes of color footage of midtown shot in 1945 by one Edward Theiss. Mr. Theiss gave the footage to his family. It was his grandson who very nicely and considerately posted it on YouTube. Thank you, Mr. Theisss Jr. You'll see dizzying shots from the top of the RCA building, nice big views of Times Square in daylight and dark, and a sign on a theater advertising The Andrew Sisters and Ed Gardner's "Duffy's Tavern". Unless I'm mistaken, this must be a theater that's hosting live radio shows, as "Duffy's Tavern" was just that. (I'm not sure I ever thought about where those shows were done--I assumed they were all broadcast from studios in the building of whichever network did the show--but it makes sense that it might be in a legit theater. What the hell. Let's say it is.) I find it quite thrilling to s...

On October 13, 1948, Lieutenant Strickland (first name unknown) took his Eyemo camera and stationed himself on the east side of Manhattan, near 42nd street. He then proceeded to photograph various views of the neighborhood's mass transit stations for reasons that are something of a mystery (though I have my theories). The views are, for the most part, static and artless recordings of various public transit hubs and the people who use them. My guess is that Lt. Strickland was one of the many armed-services trained cameramen who, upon their return to civilian life, tried to find a way to put their very specific (but somewhat limited) craft to use. These were the people who shot the amazing footage that turns up on all those WW2 IN COLOR shows on History Channel and it was probably frustrating for them to have captured such historic events, made it back home, and not quite known what to do with themselves or their Eyemos. I have a feeling this footage was intended to ...

Didn't remember this one. Genius...   Subscribe in a reader

Above is a complete Spike Milligan 'Q' episode--there are a few other strays out there on Youtube but, shamefully, the series hasn't made it to DVD and most of the first few seasons were wiped out (apparently a policy at the BBC). For a mini-history of 'Q' click here.  Various reasons hve been suggested for the show's title. One possibility is that it was inspired by the project to construct the Cunard liner QE2, launched in September 1967 and dubbed Q4. Another is that Milligan was inspired by the BBC 6-point technical quality scale of the time, where "Q5" was severe degradation to picture of sound and "Q6" was complete loss of sound or vision. All of which sounds like rubbish. I think he called it 'Q' just to mess with everyone and cause crap like this to be written.   Subscribe in a reader

It's a quick hop from Spike Milligan's "Laugh At A Cretin" to the Pythons brilliant "Upper Class Twit Of The Year" sketch, posted above. Does anyone remember the Python LPs? I had three of them in the mid-seventies--think I discovered Python via 'Cynics Choice' on KFAC, Sunday AM's, which means I experienced them first as an audio-only experience. And yet they were the same routines, albeit limited to the verbally based ones, which were done on the TV show as well, sans the awful laugh-track. I'm not entirely clear as to the why of this, but many English comedy shows were produced both for TV and radio, and I'm quite certain many of them were separate performances of the same routines. Strangely, I knew Benny Hill first via radio broadcasts of his show--the TV show didn't come to US syndication until the late seventies. Thus I missed the real 'meat' of his show--the speeded up sketches depicting nude tennis games, sexy do...

Above is a short sketch from one of the later 'Q" shows that Spike Milligan created for the BBC. Titled "Laugh At A Cretin" this quite literally had me falling off my chair (like a cretin) with laughter. The comparisons with Python have already been made, but this also strikes me as very SCTV-esque (which I posted about recently) and even a bit SNL-ish (which I've never posted about and am not about to start posting about now...)   Subscribe in a reader

"Q" was a surreal TV comedy sketch show from Spike Milligan which ran from 1969 to 1982 on BBC2. There were six series in all, the first five numbered Q5-Q9 and a final series titled "THERES A LOT OF IT ABOUT". Though many found it to be more 'hit and miss' than Milligan's earlier work (especially The Goon Show), it is considered by many to be one of the landmarks in British comedy, with its surreal bent and almost stream-of-consciousness format clearly serving as a major inspiration for Monty Python. Indeed, the Pythons themselves remember that, after seeing Q5, they felt they needed a new hook for their as yet unaired show, as the format they had been intending to use had already been done to perfection by Milligan. Then, apparently, they decided that was a load of rubbish and proceeded to do their own version of 'Q'. 'Q' gave center stage to Milligan's freeform surreal wit. The sketches came thick and fast, running into one an...

At the end of last year, I posted about a wonderful Sunday morning local LA radio show called "Cynics Choice", a show that introduced me (and I'm sure many many others) to the joys of subversive English humor, particularly of the mid-twentieth century. Above I've posted a wonderful documentary about arguably the most influential of all British comedians, Spike Milligan . Though to be honest, calling Milligan a comedian is a bit reductive. He was a writer, humorist, memoirist, and above all an innovator--an "out of the box" (dreadful term) thinker who changed the way all comedians thought about the boundries of their craft. That the humor of Sir Harry Lauder and Milligan crossed each other by only twenty years or so is quite incredible. Each was English and each were considered at the apex of their craft. There, however, the comparisons end with Lauder seemingly belonging to another era, one presided over by Queen Victoria. Milligan created 'The Goon ...

Above is a scandalously offensive Derek and Clive take on Jesus, guaranteed to offend even the non-believers. As opposed to the previous two days postings, which were audio only, this shows Cook and Moore in the studio recording the bit. Somehow I find that seeing them do the act, though, lessens its impact. Derek and Clive exist in my mind in a very specific pub, dressed in very specific bad jackets, drinking very specific cheap ales. In actuality, Moore is 'Arthur' and Cook...well, he was Peter Cook. (And to look at the two of them is to be surprised at which one became the movie star.) Cook keeps cracking Moore up, which does nothing to help things as the Derek and Clive of it all is about the dead seriousness with which these two wankers take their conversations. Anyway, dig the routine and try it with and without the video...the difference is quite astonishing.   Subscribe in a reader

Above is the infamous Derek and Clive "worst job I ever 'ad" sketch, featuring Jayne Mansfield and her penchant for having lobsters removed from her ass.  For more Derek and Clive, go to yesterday's post . Strangely, the best line in the sketch is the very last one, having to do with another dead celebrity, Anthony Newley. And his bum isn't even mentioned...   Subscribe in a reader

2014 is over, a year of dopiness capped by a near cyber-war caused by a dumbshit comedy. It really was the ultimate manifestation of the 'Jackass' culture and, if you ask me, it ain't over yet. So what better way to get 2015 underway then with a listen to the wildly offensive, incredibly stupid 'Derek And Clive' routines recorded in the mid-70s by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Yes, yes, I know; all things British, a recent sub-theme of this blog, has taken a steep dive since my Anthony Burgess postings. But I think you'll find the ramblings of these supposed mens-room attendants poetically rich, awash as they are in meaningless obscenity and incoherent stories. The Derek and Clive performances were strictly bootleg stuff, circulated by those in the serious comedy know, and considered far too crude for mainstream audiences. They were captured in New York, while Cook and Moore were appearing in their two-man show "Good Evening", which I saw as a kid at...