Saturday, June 02, 2012
Kathryn Joosten (1939-2012)
After an 11-year battle against lung cancer, character actress Kathryn Joosten died Saturday at 72. Joosten became one of the most recognizable faces on television following her two-season role as the president's secretary, Mrs. Landingham, on The West Wing. Eventually, she won two of her three Emmy nominations as guest actress in a comedy for her recurring role on Desperate Housewives. The amount of work and identification she garnered truly was remarkable given that she didn't pursue acting until she was 42 and didn't arrive in Hollywood until 1983 and did so without an agent.
Joosten relocated to the West Coast from Illinois where she worked with the acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Her first television appearance came on the short-lived cop drama Lady Blue in 1985. The shows she landed small roles on in the early days of her career included Family Matters, Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, Grace Under Fire, 3rd Rock From the Sun, ER, Roseanne, Murphy Brown, Seinfeld, Frasier, NYPD Blue, Just Shoot Me, The Nanny, Tracey Takes On, Home Improvement, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Becker, Ally McBeal, Spin City, The X-Files and a recurring role on Dharma and Greg. Then she landed Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing and if her name wasn't immediately a household one, her face certainly was. Unfortunately, it was soon after Mrs. Landingham reached her untimely end in a car accident at 10th and Potommac, Joosten received her cancer diagnosis. If anything, that increased her workload instead of lightening it. She did a few episodes of General Hospital then she began popping up all over prime time in series such as Judging Amy, The Drew Carey Show, Charmed, The King of Queens, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Will & Grace, Gilmore Girls, Grey's Anatomy, Malcolm in the Middle, The Closer, Monk, The Mentalist and a recurring role on Joan of Arcardia as "Old Lady God."
Two of my favorite Joosten appearances came in NBC comedies. The first, in the first season Scrubs episode "My Old Lady" as Mrs. Tanner, J.D.'s patient with the failing kidneys who chooses death over dialysis and whom Dorian (Zach Braff) tries to talk out of her decision only she ends up having to comfort him. She even appeared two more times, once when J.D. envisioned patients who died and wondered if any of the deaths were his fault, and in the show's finale as one of the many past character and guest stars who appear in the hallway to bid farewell to J.D. as he leaves Sacred Heart for the last time. The other series was an episode of My Name Is Earl when Earl makes it up to a former friend who went to jail for a crime he committed. Earl thinks his list item has been completed but the friend's mother (Joosten) knocks Earl out, demanding the years with her son back that Earl stole from her. I never watched Desperate Housewives, so I can't attest to her work there, but given all the other examples I've seen, I'm certain she delivered stellar work. Be it comedy or drama, Joosten demonstrated a modern example of the kind of old-style pro that you could plug into any character situation and end up with a better result.
RIP Ms. Joosten.
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Labels: Awards, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Obituary, Seinfeld, Television, Theater
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
House No. 177: Everybody Dies
By Edward Copeland
When I first heard that House would end this season, I immediately told a friend that the only way the show could end would be with the prickly but brilliant doctor with a limp dying. I said, "He's been shot, practically killed himself several times attempting to solve a medical puzzle, committed himself to a mental hospital and been sent to jail — what else could they do but actually kill him?" Turns out I was right — sort of. I can't say that the finale overwhelmed me or that it falls onto the list with the worst series finales of all time. Except for its closing moments between Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard's Wilson, "Everyone Dies" played to me the same way most of the episodes in the past three seasons did — as if the show's creative team was stuck in idle and just spinning their wheels. My criticisms of Monday night's ending does contain several specifics, which I'll get to after the jump. In a post to come later, I'll talk about the series in general and an attempt to pick 10 favorite episodes of all time. Though I continue tinkering with that list, I can tell you I have decided that of the eight seasons, looking back at when all the best episodes were, the choice for best season hardly was a contest. That prize belongs to the second season.
The rumors circulated for a while that some former cast members such as Jennifer Morrison (Cameron) and Kal Penn (Kutner) would be making appearances and I saw a YouTube video with footage of the wrap party where Amber Tamblyn (that med student whose name I can't remember) mentioned that she'd pop up briefly in the last episode.
"Everybody Dies" lacked — until its very final moments — the key asset that attracted me to House in the first place: Its humor. (Though I give them points for waiting eight years before making a Dead Poets Society reference.) At least the final medical case involving guest patient James LeGros (looking physically more like the LeGros I'm familiar with than his beer-bellied Wally Burgan in HBO's Mildred Pierce miniseries) actually tied into the plot. House might have insisted on only taking "interesting" patients, but that part of the show stopped being interesting to me and most viewers I know a long time ago. I also had a couple of nitpicky things. Chase (Jesse Spencer) quits two weeks ago and now that House is "dead," he comes back and gets his job? Honestly, maybe I'm alone on this, but hasn't Taub demonstrated better diagnostic skills? I also find it funny that such a huge deal keeps being made about House driving his car into a living room and then breaking parole by causing a ceiling to collapse. Foreman (Omar Epps) refuses to commit perjury for him to get House off the hook about accidental ceiling collapse, but he's complicit in covering up the murder of Dibala (James Earl Jones), the dictator of an unnamed African country and just appointed the doctor who killed Dibala on purpose to head House's department. They call House a dangerous jerk? Also, while it's nice to see that Cameron already found a new guy and gave birth, I can't be the only one who wants to know if she defrosted dead husband No. 1's sperm to spawn or if the tot belongs to the man.
On the other hand, while we assume that House and Wilson's honeymoon will be short, could the show end any other way? In many ways, House wasn't simply Sherlock Holmes recast as a doctor, it focused on living in and with pain. You could summarize the show's thesis with almost any of the classic jokes that Woody Allen's Alvy Singer delivers in Annie Hall. The final season of House even included an episode titled "We Need the Eggs." You could take any of them: "And such small portions." That's why the idea of House considering suicide just rang false. He might after Wilson lost his battle with cancer, but not before. His attitude echoes Alvy (coincidentally, the name of his hyper buddy from his time at the mental hospital, but spelled with an "ie" instead of a "y," played by Lin-Manuel Miranda). Life is "full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly." Actually, the closest Annie Hall line I believe has to be when Alvy says, "I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable." Now though, for at least five months, James Wilson and the late Gregory House ride off in the sunset together. That one woman in their apartment building "mistakenly" thought they were gay. Not counting why Wilson and Amber split up, something must keep breaking up Wilson's relationships — and some preceded Wilson meeting House. If the motorcycles break down and they end up on a bus as Wilson nears the end, I will have a hard time picturing him as Ratso Rizzo to House's Joe Buck though.
Laurie alone kept me hanging on to the end of House because I loved the character he created. Sadly, I believe he soon will join an exclusive club. Members include Ian McShane's Al Swearengen on Deadwood, Jeffrey Tambor as Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show, Jason Alexander as George Costanza on Seinfeld, John Goodman as Dan Conner on Roseanne and Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, to name a few of the actors who created some of the greatest characters in television history, none of whom ever received an Emmy Award. Hugh Laurie certainly belongs in this group because Dr. Gregory House was one of a kind. Still to come, saluting the series as a whole and unveiling that list.
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Labels: Awards, Braugher, Deadwood, Dunaway, HBO, House, J.E. Jones, John Goodman, Larry Sanders, Nicholson, Seinfeld, Tambor, Tim Burton, TV Recap, Woody
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Monday, May 21, 2012
"Tests take time. Treatment's quicker."
By Edward Copeland
Sigh…if only Gregory House were my doctor. I think we'd get along well. We're actually very much alike, minus the Vicodin addiction, but I am willing to learn. (In truth, most every pill and patch I've been prescribed over the years to deal with my various pains, anything that works on the excruciating torture my nonworking legs inflict on me I eventually build up a tolerance t0, so I've wondered why that hasn't happened to House at some point. As you all know, very shortly (about 90 minutes), we'll be getting our last new visit with him. First, an hour-long retrospective then the last episode titled "Everybody Dies," a play on one of his favorite truisms "Everybody lies." I haven't seen it. I've heard rumors that many former cast members will pop up somehow, perhaps even Kal Penn as the late Dr. Kutner.
I didn't watch House, M.D. from the beginning. (Does anyone really use the M.D. in the title? We know what show we're talking about.) In fact, I became addicted to the show, or more accurately Hugh Laurie's character, while stuck in two hospitals for a total of three-and-a-half-months in 2008 when USA seemed to show House marathons most days and at least one day of the weekend. I didn't get to see the show in order so it took a long time before I ever saw the episode that even explained what happened to his leg. Whenever anyone describes Gregory House as a jerk, I feel like Larry David does on Curb Your Enthusiasm whenever anyone tells him that the George character on Seinfeld was a loser and Larry gets all defensive. At least when it comes to how he treats the medical side of things, he's being a jerk for the right reasons. As I lay in my hospital bed watching him defy the Princeton-Plainsboro's evil new corporate owner Edward Vogler (Chi McBride) while I endured the cost-cutting tactics of real-life hospital administrators for whom patient care ranks low on their priority list, how could I not cheer House? If only more doctors valued their patients above their portfolios the way Gregory House does.
Admittedly, House the show hasn't lived up to the quality of its early seasons for quite some time, but I've stayed with it because of Laurie. He's created a character too great not to watch. It isn't the same as it was with Homicide: Life on the Street, a series I watched past its prime solely because of Andre Braugher's Frank Pembleton. However, when Braugher decided to leave the show, I followed him right out the door. If Laurie left House, no conceivable scenario would allow the show to carry on without him — especially since, as of a couple weeks ago, Omar Epps' Foreman and Robert Sean Leonard's Wilson serve as the only other original cast members standing.
I wanted to write a bigger advance piece before the finale aired but, as you can tell, I ran out of time. Hopefully, after I see how it ends I can comment on the ending itself as well as talking a bit more in detail about the show as a whole and picking my favorite episodes. Until then, a fun YouTube package I found that built a montage of some of the best House clinic moments.
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Labels: Braugher, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Homicide, House, Larry David, Seinfeld, Television
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Tuesday, March 20, 2012
You’re written in her book…
By Kevin J. Olson
Basic Instinct is one of those movies that deserve to be rediscovered. That may sound strange for a film that made more than $300 million worldwide upon its release, but there’s a lot more to the film than just the sex, the violence and the controversy that surrounded the film upon its initial release. Like all of Verhoeven’s films — with the exception of maybe Hollow Man — there’s something deeper, something more worthy of deconstruction lurking beneath the film’s familiar template. Verhoeven likes working within genre films so that he can distract one set of viewers with the sex and the ultra-violence that has become synonymous with his name, yet he also likes to use that familiar structure so that he can explicate deeper themes and tropes through his unique lens. Make no mistake: Verhoeven — despite his Dutch masterpiece The 4th Man — does not make art films. Sure, his films have a depth to them that may sneak up on people, but he flaunts his mainstream styling, and, for all intents and purposes, the man is an action filmmaker. However, in 1992, Verhoeven wanted to do something different with Basic Instinct and mine the familiar territory of the Hitchcockian thriller and the character type of the femme fatale.
Joe Eszterhas’ sleazy neo-noir script is perfectly suited for the subversively wry Dutch director. Eszterhas was famous for his ‘80s scripts Flashdance and Jagged Edge (which I really like), and wrote Basic Instinct prompting a bidding war at the time. It was around the late ‘80s when the film’s producers were hoping to get it made with a mainstream actress in the lead. When major stars such as Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathleen Turner, Kim Basinger and Meg Ryan turned down the role, Verhoeven and the producers gave the role to the relatively unknown Sharon Stone (who had a small role in Verhoeven’s own Total Recall). Her performance as Catherine Tramell would go on to define her career and be one of the most iconic and memorable female performances of the ‘90s.
The film’s basic plot structure comes right out of Hitchcock with its twisting narrative and male protagonist who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and who just can’t seem to avoid trouble. Michael Douglas was perfectly cast as the barely-hanging-on detective Nick Curran. Curran investigates the murder of a rock star who died via multiple stab wounds from an ice pick. One of the suspects is the women who matches a description of the suspect and was the last person to see the rock star alive. Crime author Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) wrote a novel titled Basic Instinct in which a character dies in the exact same way (white scarf stuffed in their mouth and killed by ice pick). Curran learns that she’s writing a new book about a cop and soon finds that she uses him, and others, for her material as dangerous real-life situations play out.
Curran serves as the prototypical noir protagonist who enjoys getting a little dirty and gets a little too drawn into the seedy underworld he’s investigating. I love the way that the film sets up the viewer with Nick’s past about being a little trigger happy and a little coked-up while accidentally shooting some tourists while undercover; it’s a nice bit of foreshadowing for the film’s ending which some feel unnecessarily removed the ambiguity surrounding the identity of the icepick killer; however, I like the little bit of punctuation at the end because it makes that final decision Nick makes have more impact. It leaves the viewer with a little bit of a sour taste in their mouth just like those old, hard-boiled noirs used to do. Also, you can’t tell me that Hitch didn’t have a wry smile on his face when he filmed some of his endings in similar vein that left the viewer in a state of, “what the hell was that?”
One thing that makes the film so memorable — and one of my top five choices whenever I get in a Verhoeven-y mood — is the energy the auteur brings to the film. Verhoeven and his d.p. Jan de Bont (who would later go on to make a name for himself in ‘90s action films with the tremendous Speed), are more than up to the task in making Basic Instinct a beautiful and efficient neo-noir that has the right look
And maybe that’s the word I’m looking for, “fun.” Verhoeven’s zeal often translates into a fun movie experience where you often find yourself laughing unexpectedly because you know the filmmakers aren’t taking themselves too seriously (RoboCop exemplifies this in its purposeful absurdity and seems Dada-esque in its satirical take on a violent dystopian future). Starship Troopers may be one of the most misunderstood of all of Verhoeven’s works because of its subtle satire — something definitely lacking in Basic Instinct. While I don’t see signs of satirism in Basic Instinct as Verhoeven approaches many of his other genre films, I do think that he’s using the overblown and melodramatic (much like he did to great effect in 2006’s Black Book) to sneak in the things he really wants to say underneath that all-too-familiar veneer of sex and violence. One only needs to look to Eszterhas’ other psychosexual thriller of the ‘90s, the aforementioned Jade, to see that these kinds of films aren’t always filmed with the kind of intensity Verhoeven brings to this script. William Friedkin helmed that Eszterhas script, and produced a complete and utter mess; an ugly film that wasted the talents of its leading actress and lacked any of the drama or Hitchcockian qualities found in Basic Instinct. That’s the impact of Verhoeven.
I think now that people can see Basic Instinct in a light removed from its controversy surrounding its portrayal of homosexual relationships (the film was protested so passionately that the filmmakers had to have extra security on hand during filming) and it being just “that movie where Sharon Stone shows Michael Douglas and Newman from Seinfeld her crotch,” they’ll see one of the best modern examples of the femme fatale archetype. Catherine is a character type that Verhoeven has studied before (Christine from The 4th Man kind of acts as a precursor to Basic Instinct), and it’s one of the most memorable characters of any of his films. Stone plays Catherine with such an icy confidence — she’s the perfect femme fatale: she’s confident sexually and ambiguously dangerous throughout the film’s mystery so that you know with certainty she’s the killer…but then again, you’re not really sure. It’s a fine balancing act by Stone who, after this film, wouldn’t really have another performance this juicy (although I thought she was pretty good in Scorsese’s Casino). I love the way in which she completely manipulates Douglas’ character throughout the entire film. Those who think that Stone’s performance, and her character, functions solely as a sex-crazed character couldn’t be more wrong. Sex may indeed be the most valuable weapon in Catherine’s arsenal, and she knows that she must use it in order to maneuver Nick, but it’s not because she’s extremely beautiful, it’s because Verhoeven understands that for the traditional male, there’s nothing scarier than a blatantly promiscuous woman, confident about sex and her sexual prowess. The femme fatale archetype hinges on flipping the preconceived notions about power and sex, and, often, how those two usually connect. No better modern femme fatale has been put on celluloid than Sharon Stone’s portrayal of Catherine Tramell (Kathleen Turner’s Matty Walker from Body Heat ranks up there, too).
Just look at the film’s most famous (or infamous) scene. Catherine being interrogated by a group of male police officers and people from the office of the district attorney — a kind of verbal gangbang as Verhoeven’s camera goes in and out of focus on the men throwing their
It’s interesting to compare Basic Instinct and the character of Catherine with another Michael Douglas film of the ‘90s, Disclosure. In that film, Demi Moore attempts to seduce Michael Douglas and then wrongfully accuse him of sexual harassment in order to ruin his life. It’s all very tame and banal because you don't believe Moore as a femme fatale. She lacks the assurance as an actress that Stone gives Catherine, and because of that, we don’t buy Douglas’ plight; the whole thing just feels lifeless, as if it’s going through the motions. Basic Instinct, on the other hand, is the opposite. Not because Douglas’ character has more definition than in Disclosure, but because we buy why Nick would follow Catherine down into that world of rough sex and violence. Moore brings the sex and tries to play scary…attempts to equal what a male would do in that performance. Stone’s performance, though, does the opposite. As I mentioned earlier, sex happens to be the best weapon in Catherine’s arsenal, and that makes her scary because she cannot be contained, controlled or manipulated like most women in thrillers such as these. Disclosure tries to invert this trope as Basic Instinct does but it comes off so artificially because the movie takes itself too seriously.
What I love about Catherine is that she lacks anything subversive about her character; she’s as blatant an archetype for a femme fatale as you’ll get. From the minute Douglas and his partner meet her, they understand they’re dealing with a woman who controls everything. The film's script makes her sexy and smart, sure, but that’s not the scariest thing about Catherine as a femme fatale — that would be her awareness of her ability to control others. She knows she can control Nick with her sexuality, and more importantly, she knows she can manipulate Nick because he’s willing to let her. Nick can't help himself around her, yet he feels as if he always controls his faculties. When he has a bit of rough sex with his on-again-off-again girlfriend (Jeanne Tripplehorn), it’s eerie and offsetting because it seems as if Catherine’s influence already has penetrated Nick’s daily life; he has succumbed to her power. It isn’t long after this scene that Nick begins his obsession with Catherine. The power games between the male and female leads — those kinds of gender war-type films popular in ‘90s dramas — lacked teeth in Disclosure; however, with Basic Instinct, thanks to Verhoeven’s direction and Stone’s performance, there’s an electricity to it that keeps the film’s over-the-top and headlong momentum rolling.
Paul Verhoeven could be as misunderstood an auteur in mainstream Hollywood system as exists. I admire the fact that Verhoeven goes all-in regarding his films; he just lays it all out there — realism be damned. He reminds me of my favorite Italian horror filmmakers that prove that style can be substance. I mean, sure, the film contains awkward moments of haughty aesthetic, but I like that about Verhoeven. He reminds me of Ken Russell a little bit in that regard: here’s a filmmaker who, if you’re willing to go along for the ride, does have something to say in his films; it’s there lurking beneath the surface of all of that ultra-violence and gratuitous sex and nudity. Twenty years later, people can take a fresh look at Basic Instinct as a film without all the outside distractions. Here’s a film where Verhoeven inverts the experience of the typical theatergoing male. The sex can't be labeled pornographic by any means (a male-dominated exercise, no doubt), but it’s explicit in its portrayal of sex, which I think scares some people more (and probably explains why the idiots in the MPAA initially gave the film an NC-17) in the audience it’s a film where the sex is primarily controlled, orchestrated and because the female lead dominates it. I think that’s Verhoeven being deliciously subversive, and I really admire that about Basic Instinct.
In Roger Ebert’s 1992 review, he wrote, "The film is like a crossword puzzle. It keeps your interest until you solve it, by the ending. Then it's just a worthless scrap with the spaces filled in." Narratively speaking, the same could be said for a number of Hitchcock films; It’s the style that keeps us coming back to those, and it’s the style, as well as the subtext, that keeps me coming back to Verhoeven’s film. I
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Labels: 90s, Demi, Ebert, Hitchcock, K. Turner, M. Douglas, Meg Ryan, Movie Tributes, Pfeiffer, Scorsese, Seinfeld, Sharon Stone
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Friday, January 27, 2012
Ian Abercrombie (1934-2012)
Why is this man eating a Snickers bar with a knife and fork? You'll have to ask Tom Gammill & Max Pross who wrote the 1994 episode of Seinfeld "The Pledge Drive" that had Elaine's mercurial boss Mr Pitt do such a thing. Mr. Pitt was just one of a multitude of TV and movie roles played by the British character actor Ian Abercrombie, who died Thursday at the age of 77.
Most of Abercrombie's early work was on the British stage. He made his American stage debut in a production of Stalag 17 with Jason Robards. He made his television debut on an episode of Burke's Law in 1965 and his uncredited film debut the same year in Von Ryan's Express. In fact, all his early film work went uncredited — including some big movies such as Star, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, The Molly Maguires and Young Frankenstein. His first credited film role didn't come until 1978's Sextette, Mae West's final film co-starring Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper, Regis Philbin and Keith Moon, among many others.
During those 13 years of uncredited film work, Abercrombie did get credit (most of the time) for his many television series on shows such as Dragnet, Get Smart, Columbo, Barnaby Jones, Cannon and The Six Million Dollar Man.
While Abercrombie did do film work, television became his focus. Of his post-1978 feature films, the most notable ones include The Prisoner of Zenda with Peter Sellers, The Ice Pirates, The Public Eye with Joe Pesci, Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness, Addams Family Values, Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park II, David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE and the voice of Ambrose in last year's Rango.
When it came to TV, you could see or hear Abercrombie almost anywhere. Highlights of his post-1978 work (not counting Mr. Pitt) included: The original Battlestar Galactica, Quincy, M.E., Knots Landing, Happy Days, Fantasy Island, Three's Company, the soap Santa Barbara, L.A. Law, Moonlighting, playing himself on the "Fate" episode of "It's Garry Shandling's Show.", Murder, She Wrote, Dynasty, Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nip/Tuck, Desperate Housewives and How I Met Your Mother.
Abercrombie still was working on his final two roles at the time of his death: Playing Professor Crumbs on Wizards of Waverly Place and providing the voice for Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious on the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
RIP Mr. Abercrombie.
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Labels: Animation, Lynch, Obituary, Pesci, Raimi, Robards, Seinfeld, Shandling, Spielberg, Star Wars, Theater, Tony Curtis, Twin Peaks
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Wednesday, November 16, 2011
It started out like a song… (An appreciation in two acts)
By Edward Copeland
…when Merrily We Roll Along opened on Broadway 30 years ago tonight at The Alvin Theatre — or at least it should have. Unfortunately, despite having one of Stephen Sondheim's most gorgeous scores, the musical closed 16 performances later on Nov. 28. The musical tallied 52 previews beginning Oct. 1, 1981, before its official opening at The Alvin (which would lose the name the theater had held since 1927 two years later when rechristened The Neil Simon Theatre). Merrily wasn't the shortest Broadway run of any Sondheim show (that title belongs to 1964's Anyone Can Whistle, which closed after 12 previews and nine performances) but Merrily marked the last collaboration
In Sondheim's great book Finishing the Hat (which is essential reading for both Sondheim fans and writers in general. I've never written a song in my life, but people who practice prose could learn just as much from Finishing the Hat as songwriters), the composer describes the "notion" of Merrily We Roll Along as follows:
Franklin Shepard, a successful songwriter and movie producer in his 40s, reviews his life, both professional and personal, especially his relationships with his best friends, Mary Flynn and Charley Kringas (his songwriting collaborator), and his two wives, Beth and Gussie. The action moves backward in time from 1981 to 1957.
Actually, for me to accurately tell the beginnings of Merrily We Roll Along, I have to go backward in time as well. Merrily's writing took place in 1980 when Sondheim and Prince conceived the idea of making a musical (with actor-writer
Obviously, neither Hal Prince nor Stephen Sondheim saw a production of the Kaufman/Hart play, let alone the original. Unlike the playwriting duo's other works, Merrily never received a Broadway revival and wasn't that well known. Prince and Sondheim were considering projects after the astounding success of their last production, Sweeney Todd. According to the biography Sondheim: A Life by Meryle Secrest, Prince's wife Judy suggested that their next show be about young people. Her husband tried to think of appropriate
As I mentioned earlier, the writing of Merrily We Roll Along was mostly complete in 1980 — or so they thought. Things had moved along enough that the casting process took place and, keeping with Prince's idea, they cast talented newcomers with little experience. One of those lucky newcomers who made her Broadway debut in Merrily We Roll Along was Liz Callaway (seen at left in photo below at 2002 reunion of original cast with Tonya Pinkins, middle, and Donna Marie Elio). "It was incredible making my debut in a Sondheim/Prince show because the first Broadway show I ever saw was Company. I think I was 9 or 10 years old," she told me. In fact, of the 27 performers listed in the opening night cast on the Internet Broadway Database, all but seven were making Broadway debuts and
The reviews tended not to be favorable. Some were downright harsh. Arguably the most powerful theater critic at the time, Frank Rich of The New York Times, had the perception of being an unabashed Sondheim admirer, but the lead of his review read, "As we all should probably have learned by now, to be a Stephen Sondheim fan is to have one's heart broken at regular intervals. Usually the heartbreak
So after the nine-month delay before starting rehearsals, the 52 previews with all those changes and 16 performances, Merrily We Roll Along closed. "It was very depressing to have the show close after we had worked so hard and waited so long to do the show," Liz Callaway
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Labels: 80s, Awards, Books, Christopher Nolan, H. Prince, Harold Pinter, Music, Musicals, Neil Simon, Seinfeld, Shakespeare, Sinatra, Sondheim, Theater Tribute
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Sunday, September 25, 2011
A 25% slice of something big is better than a 100% slice of nothing
By Kevin J. Olson
I'll always remember Robert Rossen's The Hustler for being one of the first examples of classic American film I was exposed to. I was a freshman in high school when I first saw it, and it's been one of those films I continue to return to ever since. I love happening upon The Hustler when it's on television because it's one of those handful of special movies where the minute I see it, I have to finish the film because it's so easy to get sucked into the story. It also takes me back to the first time I saw the film and how awed I was by Paul Newman's aura. That was one cool dude, and I wanted to look as cool playing pool as he did (not that it's hard to guess, but I failed miserably). Now, on the film's 50th anniversary, I can't help but dust off the old chestnut "They don't make 'em like they used to" because The Hustler is certainly one of the most iconic, lasting films of American cinema.
Here is a sports movie at its heart that is more concerned with the human element than "the big match." The image above says it all: This is Newman's film through and through. "Fast Eddie" Felson is one of the most memorable characters of Newman's storied career, and it's the depth of the character that makes The Hustler so much more memorable and lasting than your average sports film. Before we get there, I must talk about that opening 30 minutes and its impact on me as an impressionable 15-year-old.
What I love about the way Rossen and his editor Dede Allen (whose next film would be Bonnie and Clyde) open the film is the fact that they don't waste time trying to explain the nuances of the game of pool. Set to a jazzy score by Kenyon Hopkins, the opening credits play out over freeze-framed images of people playing pool. I remember when I was in high school just being struck by how cool the opening was. I mean, I was watching this in the '90s and thinking, "Yeah, this is a cool movie." And then sure enough, after really cool credits, there's Paul Newman (who we've already seen be pretty damn cool in the pre-credits sequence), shootin' pool in a suit and looking really cool doing it. I know I wasn't the coolest kid in school, and proclaiming to your friends that you would rather be more like Paul Newman from a film made in 1961 than whatever actor, athlete or musician was cool in 1996 isn't going to impress too many people, but damn, I wanted to be Paul Newman in The Hustler. I would quote lines from the movie all the time ("I gotta hunch, fat man, I can't lose" was my favorite). Newman even made broken thumbs look cool.
OK, let's get back on track. Because the film is something more than just a cool piece of cinema that left an impression on this 15-year-old. What we come to realize rather quickly with the opening 30 minutes of the film is that we're being thrown into this world of seedy pool halls, flim-flams, fast-talking characters, dames and a protagonist's obsession with bagging that big fish. Now, this description sounds like that of a noir; however, The Hustler is not a noir — even though it does employ some aesthetics of noir and has an existential premise at its heart — because of the way Rossen deals with Eddie's love interest, Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie). Rather than have her be a femme fatale where she leads Eddie down a slippery slope of self-doubt and disillusionment, she is the moment of clarity for Eddie; the one character in the film that tries her hardest to get Eddie to leave the "twisted, perverted and crippled" world he inhabits (one of the most devastating moments of the film is the appearance of those three words on a bathroom mirror) and to see that there is more to life than pool and Eddie's short-sighted obsession with defeating Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). Sure, these are flawed characters, but Sarah is someone who tries to save Eddie rather than burden him.
The film is influential in how future sport films and con films were made, but beyond that it's most memorable for its characters. I love the way that Newman portrays Eddie as someone in awe of his nemesis, Fats, and likens him to a dancer when he's watching him maneuver around the pool table. That opening 30 minutes of the film is so well observed and constructed that we feel just as exhausted as the characters. Part of that is thanks to the CinemaScope cinematography by Eugene Shuftan where we always feel cramped but not too cramped so that we always have a good enough view of the action; we become one of the onlookers in the pool hall (Shuftan also uses the edges of the frame well in the more contemplative, non-competitive scenes where Eddie needs his space to figure things out). It's amazing how those opening scenes of pool — the juxtaposition of Fats and Eddie — just melts away and part of that is because, like Eddie, we're in awe of what we're seeing. It's an interesting decision by Rossen not to try to educate the audience on pool; rather, he just enjoys shooting the scenes and letting the audience observe the action the way Eddie observes the action.
In addition to its influence and coolness, the performances are what I think makes the film so beloved and fondly remembered. Fifty years later, there still may not be a more recognizable character from a sports movie than "Fast Eddie" Felson; a character so beloved that he gets his own sequel The Color of Money. I can't think of too many sports films that spawn sequels because of the character rather than the content. If "Fast Eddie" arguably is the most recognizable character from a sports film, then his nemesis is surely second. Minnesota Fats (based on a real pool player who went by the nickname "New York Fatty") gives "Fast Eddie" a run for most recognizable and memorable character from a sports film. Gleason's portrayal as the portly pool shark remains ingrained in the minds of film lovers everywhere. Gleason makes the rare dramatic turn here in one of American cinema's most iconic roles that's been parodied on Seinfeld and The Simpsons. Whether you've seen The Hustler or you haven't, you've certainly heard of Minnesota Fats.
At its core, The Hustler is a film that plays with the conventions of the sports genre. "Fast Eddie" is told by Bert (George C. Scott) that he lacks character, and because of that lack of character, Eddie will never defeat Fats; Eddie is too weak according to Bert whose job it is by film's end to rein-in Eddie. In a normal sports film, the character finds redemption in the final showdown or the big game (that certainly happens here for a brief moment when Eddie looks at Bert and plays fast and loose, destroying Fats game after game), and how through victory in those circumstances our hero overcomes the antagonist; victory defines heroism. In Rossen's film, we see Eddie's maturation (via his tragic relationship with Sarah) come as a reflection on the events that have taken place outside of the pool hall. The Hustler cleverly steers away from the cliches and tired tropes of the sports genre (or just sports stories in general) and becomes a story about a man who realizes victory is meaningless if you've compromised your character.
Preachy, sure, but Newman's monologue to Bert at the end of the film is delivered so earnestly that it has no problem being just as memorable as the really cool pool elements of the film. Eddie isn't a guy who has it all figured out, and in 1961 audiences were becoming more and more tuned-in to characters on existential journeys such as "Fast Eddie" Felson. Newman was the perfect actor (and one of the best of his era) for pulling off the balancing act of showing a character who is simultaneously tough and contemplative; the kind of character that is obsessed with winning and wears their flaws on their sleeve. This was something relatively new in American cinema, and the final moments of the film when Newman delivers the verbal blows to Bert without looking at him is a brilliant and poignant moment because Eddie feels just as much to blame ("We turned the knife, Bert") for Sarah's death, and there's a real sense of epiphany in those in spite of his triumphant moment over Fats. The Hustler is really quite fascinating in that regard.
So, 50 years later (almost 15 since I first saw it), The Hustler remains one of the most entertaining films in American cinema with two iconic performances cementing its status as an American classic. I watched it twice this week in anticipation of this essay, and I'm still so in awe of Newman's aura (I still wish I was cool enough to play pool in a suit), and so absolutely and steadfastly behind Eddie — hoping and wishing that he succeeds and finds happiness beyond victory at pool — regardless of how many times I've seen the film that it's no shock to me how The Hustler is viewed by the majority as more than just a cool sports movie; we see it is as a brilliantly acted, timeless character study that is more interested in the people who play the sport than the sport itself.
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Labels: 60s, George C. Scott, Movie Tributes, Newman, Piper Laurie, Seinfeld, Sequels, The Simpsons
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Saturday, September 17, 2011
There’s a holdup in the Bronx
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
In the fall of 1960, the ABC crime drama Naked City — after a year’s hiatus, having been canceled officially after one season in 1959 — returned to TV screens Wednesday nights for an additional three-season stint as a gritty, realistic police procedural that also doubled as a dramatic anthology show, telling the stories of various disparate characters who came into contact with members of New York’s finest played by Paul Burke (as Detective Adam Flint), Horace McMahon (Lt. Mike Parker) and Harry Bellaver (Sgt. Frank Arcaro). The tagline to every episode of the critically-acclaimed drama — and a phrase that soon was adopted into the American vernacular — was that “there are eight million stories in the Naked City…this has been one of them.”
A year later, another TV series dealing with crime in the Big Apple premiered to TV audiences…and it demonstrated that of those eight million stories, some of them could be side-splittingly hilarious. The main characters of this show were simple uniformed patrolmen, but they served a purpose every bit as important as their Naked City brethren because as the lyrics in the show’s opening told us: “There’s a traffic jam in Harlem that’s backed up to Jackson Heights.” Fifty years ago on this very date, NBC presented us a different breed of cop in a situation comedy whose original run may have been brief but would soon to go on to be beloved by adoring fans as a genuine cult classic: Car 54, Where Are You?
Officer Gunther J. Toody (Joe E. Ross) was a short-and-squat chatterbox whose gravelly voice and constant exclamation of “Ooh! Ooh!” would get on the nerves of anyone after a fashion…with the exception of his best
Toody was the married one of the duo, happily-ever-after manacled to domineering Lucille (Beatrice Pons)…and though Lucille remained devoted to Gunther he constantly drove her to distraction with both his inattentiveness and idiocy, prompting her to frequently open the window of their apartment at various times and scream to the neighbors: “Listen up, America! My husband, Gunther Toody, is a nut!” Muldoon was a confirmed bachelor who lived with his mother (Ruth Masters) and two sisters (Nancy Donohue, Helene Parker)
The comic concoction known as Car 54, Where are You? was created by television legend Nat Hiken — a name that might be unfamiliar to many today, but in an era when the concept of a Hollywood “hyphenate” (writer-director-producer) is quite commonplace nowadays, Hiken was one of the first and best of the lot. Nat got his big break in show business (after working previously in radio on the West Coast) in a job that I personally would have given my left earlobe for — he was the head writer on Fred Allen’s radio show, a position that had to be fraught with frustration because it was generally believed by the public that Allen wrote all of his own material. After additional radio assignments working on Milton Berle’s show and an underrated sitcom entitled The Magnificent Montague, Hiken moved into the new medium of television as the head writer of TV’s All Star Revue. He experienced a momentary setback when his name turned up in the infamous Red Channels pamphlet (Hiken had to take out an ad in Variety denouncing any Communist beliefs) but rebounded to write and direct Martha Raye’s popular comedy-variety hour in 1954, a program on which Nat also toiled with one of his future collaborators, Billy Friedberg.
The fall of 1955 saw the debut of Hiken’s most popular and lasting contribution to television: The Phil Silvers Show (aka You’ll Never Get Rich or as it is often referred to by fans, Sgt. Bilko). Silvers starred in this uproarious sitcom as Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko, a U.S. Army lifer who had developed a reputation in the service as a smooth-talking con man with an eye out to make a fast buck. The Phil Silvers Show became a huge favorite with audiences and Nat’s industry peers, so much so that he, Silvers and the show’s writers carted home several Emmy Awards for their achievements throughout the four-year-run of the series. But working 18-hour days on Bilko to make it the best that it was began to take a physical toll on Hiken, and he left the series after its second season, limiting himself afterward to hour-long specials (he also attempted to revive the Montague series for TV in 1958, but CBS lost interest in the idea). By 1961, Nat was ready to tackle a second sitcom (that would be handled through his own production company), based on an idea that he had had for several years that would satirize the then popular slew of TV crime shows with a pair of New York City cops and comic situations focusing on their day-to-day work routine and their lives outside the precinct.
The two actors originally considered for the lead roles were Mickey Shaughnessy (as Toody) and Jack Warden (Muldoon) — but when Hiken couldn’t come to terms with the two men he decided to poach a pair of thespians with whom he’d worked with on the Silvers show in the past. Joe E. Ross had been a third-rate burlesque and nightclub comic when Nat, liking Ross’ sandpaper voice and less-than-Hollywood-handsome looks, used him to replace Harry Clark (who played mess sergeant Stanley Sowici on Bilko, and who had passed away after the first season), casting Joe as Fort Baxter’s new mess sergeant, Rupert Ritzik. Ross’ Ritzik would prove to be the perfect comic foil for Silvers’ Bilko, often cast as the patsy in Bilko’s latest get-rich-quick scheme…and on occasions when Rupert’s shrewish better-half Emma figured in the plots, Hiken sent for Beatrice Pons — Pons’ stock-in-trade was sloppy bathrobe-and-curlers housewife roles, which Nat remembered when casting her as Mrs. Toody in Car 54.
Hiken had also used Fred Gwynne on Bilko on two occasions, memorably assigning to the actor the part of a gaunt soldier who habitually went on eating binges when depressed and who is enlisted by Bilko to use that expertise in an eating contest in the classic episode “The Stomach.” Hiken’s creation of Car 54’s Francis Muldoon was actually not too far a departure from Gwynne in real life; Muldoon was a cerebral and erudite college graduate, and Gwynne had attended Harvard, where he performed in both its amateur theatrical productions and a cappella singing groups (he was even president of the Harvard Lampoon, on which he worked as a cartoonist). Other former Bilko performers who turned up on Car 54 included Jimmy Little (who was Sgt, Grover on Bilko…and amusingly enough, often played desk sergeants on Naked City while simultaneously manning the 53rd’s desk as Sgt. McBride), Jack Healy (Private Mullen on Bilko, Patrolman Rodriguez on 54), Billy Sands, Maurice Brenner, John Gibson and Charlotte Rae…who made a memorable appearance on Bilko as the woman constantly adjusting her wardrobe in the classic episode “The Twitch” but who enjoyed a more prominent showcase on Car 54 as the high-strung Sylvia Schnauzer, wife of patrolman Leo. (Rae was tabbed for the part of Sylvia after a previous one-shot 54 appearance as a shell-shocked bank teller; the combustible relationship between the Schnausers — he called her “pussycat,” her nickname for him was “Daddy bear” — were often the highlights in some of the most memorable outings in the series.)
Other actors who appeared on Car 54 included Albert Henderson (O’Hara), Jim Gormley (Nelson), Bruce Kirby (Kissel), Joe Warren (Steinmetz), Mickey Deems (Fleischer) and Patricia Bright (who played Mrs. Captain Block). The disparate ethnic makeup of the 53rd Precinct reflected the diversity of the neighborhood they patrolled, and like he had previously done on Bilko, Hiken cast black actors in pivotal
New York City, once the heart of television production, had acceded responsibility to Hollywood and the West Coast with each passing year so Car 54 was unusual in that it was one of the few TV series still being shot in the Big Apple (other series included The Defenders and Naked City) by the 1960s. The show was filmed at the Biograph Studios (where director D.W. Griffith got his start), and though some believe the show used canned laughter Hiken actually employed a technique from his days on Bilko in which he showed each finished episode of Car 54 to a live audience and recorded their laughter on the soundtrack. Whenever they had to shoot outside the studio in the Bronx, the patrol cars were painted red and black (which would go unnoticed when filmed in black-and-white) to distinguish them from the regulation green-and-white cars in use at the time (an apocryphal story goes that the switch was made after someone tried to flag down one of the faux patrol cars while filming, believing it to be the real deal). When the show premiered, Hiken was wearing many of the hats himself (writing, directing, and producing) but a number of outside factors gradually influenced him to start delegating those jobs to his collaborators (among the co-writers on Car 54 were Terry Ryan, Tony Webster, Gary Belkin, Art Baer and Ben Joelson).
Nat’s stormy relationship with actor Ross played a large role in his turning over the directorial reins of each episode to another former Bilko crony, Al De Caprio (and later Stanley Prager); while Ross’ participation on Car 54 had made him a household name, the actor started to develop delusions of grandeur, believing that he and he alone was responsible for the series’ success. He refused to learn his lines, squabbled with and belittled both crew members and his fellow actors and in short, became impossible to deal with — Ross’ unprofessional behavior finally reached its zenith where had the show been renewed for a third season Hiken would have fired Joe and re-focused the series on Gwynne and Lewis. The pressure of being Car 54’s “auteur” was simply too much for Hiken; he had a falling-out with Billy Friedman (and ended up firing him as a result) and NBC was also not doing Nat any favors by insisting the show both switch to color and ditch the live laughter track. Actor Hank Garrett says that what prevented Hiken from tackling a third season was NBC’s insistence that they own 50 percent of the show; other sources state that the man considered by many to be a “comic genius” had simply burned himself out.
Hiken, who created what I feel is one of the unsung situation comedies of all time (I really, really revere Car 54 for its deceptively simple plots that would explode without warning into Kafkaesque nightmares) busied himself with a few projects after pulling the plug on Car 54 (his last notable credit was as writer and director of the 1969 theatrical film The Love God, one of Don Knotts’ few box office flops) but years of trying to do it all finally did Nat in…he died at the age of 54 (there’s irony for you) in 1968 from a massive heart attack. The cast and crew of the series would of course go on to further triumphs: Fred Gwynne eventually did get the opportunity to collaborate with Al Lewis when the two actors starred in the CBS sitcom The Munsters (and Gwynne later distinguished himself with first-rate turns in such films as Simon, The Cotton Club and My Cousin Vinny). As for Joe E. Ross, whom one TV critic observed “has the air of an animal that has been stuffed into clothing and taught how to speak short bursts of dialogue,” his starring role as a prehistoric caveman in the short-lived It’s About Time was very appropriate; he later reprised the role of Toody in animated form in an episode of Hanna-Barbera’s Wait Till Your Father Gets Home (Ross had by that time started working for Bill and Joe, providing voices on such shows as Help!...It’s the Hair Bear Bunch and Hong Kong Phooey). For many years after its network run, Car 54 was kept alive through reruns and memories of its staunchly loyal fans; it experienced a brief reemergence in the late '80s when it was showcased on the once-proud Nick at Nite from 1987 to 1990 (it also turned up on Comedy Central for a short time afterward); the only cable outlet that I know of that’s showing it now is Me-TV, which runs an hour of repeats on Saturday nights. Fortunately for Car 54 aficionados, Shanachie Entertainment released the first season of the show to DVD in April 2011 and has promised the second season will follow soon.
I learned to my dismay sometime back that Car 54, Where are You? is for many people an acquired taste (some people will just sit through the show stone-faced — and I’ve observed that not coincidentally they are the same folks who never quite embraced the humor of Seinfeld)…and that only seems fitting because Hiken wrote for Fred Allen in his show business salad days, a humorist whose once bright star has lost its luster to a new generation who cannot grasp his topical humor. (I also attribute people’s dislike for the show with their associating it with the abysmal 1994 film based on the series…which despite having alums Nipsey Russell and Al Lewis in the cast should have been cut up and used for banjo picks.) But without realizing it, Hiken created out of a fitfully funny situation comedy an important social document of the 1960s; unlike the celebrated Mad Men, which more often than not plays more like a pastiche of that era, there’s an authenticity to Car 54 in its Bronx locations and people despite its tendency toward broad and often surrealistic burlesque. As TV critic Robert Lloyd comments: “…it comes out of the world it portrays, and though it favors the old ways — those early 20th-century ways of talking, walking, doing business — you can feel them giving way to new. There is a lot of small and careful detail dressing the laughs.” Ooh! Ooh! I couldn’t agree more.
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Labels: 60s, Animation, Hanna-Barbera, Jack Warden, Mad Men, Phil Silvers, Seinfeld, TV Tribute
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