JackBurley

Film #2: It's Tales of Manhattan (another thread on this movie is floating around a few inches lower on this page), but that was no sportscoat; rather it's a set of tails. All the other details you had were spot on though.

This is Roberto Benigni's La Vita ? bella. He won the Best Actor Oscar for this and famously did gymnastics over the celebrities all the way to the dais.

Aida was an Ethiopian princess who'd been captured and enslaved to work as the maid to the Egyptian king's daughter [Amneris]. But alas, this ain't Aida -- not Verdi's anyway. Maybe it forshadows Elton John... Raymond Scott was born Harry Warnow. His older brother, Mark, was conductor of the CBS Radio Orchestra, and brought Harry in as piano player. Mark began promoting his brother's compositions, but didn't want it to look like nepotism, so they chose the name -- Raymond Scott -- out of the Manhattan telephone directory. He started the Raymond Scott Quintette in 1936. By the way, there were six people in the "Quintette"! He said that "quintette" had a "crisp" sound to it and "'sextette' might get your mind off music"... Some of the recordings that I have are dated as early as 1934 and 1935. Warners licensed Scott's tunes in 1941. By the way, check out the prologue (yes again)... doesn't "Whistler's Mother" look like a very young Dorothy Lamour? Is that possible? Oh, and Mr. McCrary has something in the similarity between the theme song (which is actually a snippet of "Shanghai Lil") and the intro to "San Francisco". Though the melody is an inversion of the other, it has the same melodic rhythm. They're quite similar. And has anyone mentioned that there's a later scene in Footlight Parade where Prologue Mata Hari and Evil Seductress, Claire Dodd lures Cagney away from Joan Blondell with the inspiration for a piece about African slave girls. Hepped up Cagney rushes to the piano and starts playing the Snake Charmer's song...

"The Florida house sounds great, but I can't imagine anyone leaving California to go east during the summer, unless you take your vacations at other times of the year." Ah, but you see, I'm a freak. I hate being cold, and San Francisco in the summer is often cold; that dreary fog gets me down. So like a heat-seeking missle, I jet off to hot locales. "Florida? In the summer?!" I know... everyone says it. But a pal owns a house on an island there that he'd rent to me; and being on the water, it really isn't that bad. Sea breezes and a swimming pool make it quite livable. From the terrace we would watch porpoises play. Dreamy. But best of all? The house had TCM. One summer TCM had an Esther Williams fest, which seemed very Florida. I was in heaven. "Anyway, I blab so much that I'll probably surpass you by my anniversary." Let's have a race, shall we?! "However, that leads me to ask how do you do it?" I'm not sure myself how this happened. I actually had the thought that perhaps everytime I make a correction, it counts as another post. But I just tested it and no... So I guess I really am nearing 3,000. It's especially astounding because I'm out almost every night. But my computer is always on (broadband) and TCM is always at the ready; so I check in every night when I get home. And I have it on while at work and check in every once in awhile. I also check in -- bleery eyed and yawning -- in the morning before starting my day. [i never felt quite awake until I'd read Mr. Mongo's birthday post.] Perhaps it's just that I type fast and I talk too much. And I'm passionate about movies...

"How many folks call your home just to hear the new outgoing message each day? My answering machine has developed somewhat of a following... before the days of caller ID, I often wondered who was calling and hanging up all the time. I felt like Barbara Stanwyck, except that my bed jackets wasn't as elaborate. Once I got caller ID I realized they weren't wrong numbers, but friends just checking the machine. One summer I had a "serial": each day there'd be a new 30 second installment of the brilliant Ruth Draper monologue The Italian Lesson. It took about three months to get through the entire monologue. I love Classic Arts Showcase! If weren't watching TCM I'd be watching CAS. Wouldn't it be a dreamy position to curate for that PBS feature? And of course you're right; I would have been thrilled to see the Anton Karas piece. I have the soundtrack on cd (doesn't everyone?). Listening to it evokes images from the movie with great clarity. And yes, I'm suffering -- in advance -- from the morning after your celebration concept!

"This time I really am shocked, shocked to learn you have only been here since April of last year, I never bothered to look at your initial date. I simply assumed you had been here forever. Do you mean you started receiving TCM (the channel) only in April, 2006?" Yes, it's true Mrs. L. This points out how embarrassingly verbose I've been on this board. I fear a gag order. I hope I won't pass 3,000 posts before the anniversary. Luckily (or not so), in the past few days, I've lost many posts. I wrote them, and lost them when I hit "Post Message". Foolishly, I didn't copy them first; and I was too heartbroken to rewrite them. Before April, 2006, I only had TCM while vacationing. Most summers I escape the San Francisco fog and rent a place elsewhere. Having TCM was a stipulation of my vacation apartment in Manhattan, and the Florida house. So each year I'd have TCM for one month. This is why I especially relish the posts of FilmLover, Mongo and the many other members of the Board who've watched TCM for so many years. Mr. K, your celebration would have me under the table! And it's difficult to watch TCM with linens before my eyes. Maybe I'll just sip a Shirley Temple or a Roy Rogers...

Thursday, July 20 Red Buttons Memorial Day on TCM: 6:00 AM Imitation General (1958) 8:00 AM A Ticklish Affair (1963) 9:30 AM Your Cheatin' Heart (1964) 11:30 AM Hatari! (1962) 2:30 PM The Longest Day (1962) 5:30 PM Sayonara (1957)

"And what prompted you to own a set of Raymond Scott recordings? I am so impressed." To really understand this, you must first realize that I'm a "freak". My collection of recordings is rather large and very electic. Though I often seem to forget that I'm a freak, I'm often reminded as people often ask, "how [or worse -- "why"] do you have that recording?!" upon realizing that I'm listening to "Mary Schneider Yodels the Classics" or "Marcel Marceau Speaks!". My first thought is always, "Doesn't everyone have this?" And then I realize that no, most people might not have a section of their cd collection devoted to the theremin... More's the pity. My home answering machine greets callers with recordings, and it changes every day depending on what's going on in my life. "The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish" was on last Thursday, in honor of TCM's screening of Garden of the Moon; if you called today, you'd hear Martin Luther King telling us about his dream. It's been pointed out to me that just having it change everyday is unusual enough, but callers often seem to be surprised by what they hear. Certainly tomorrow no one will be surprised to hear Jane Powell singing, "Goin' Courtin'" when they realize that it's my first day of jury duty? So Raymond Scott? Doesn't everyone have a Raymond Scott section? His famous work, "Powerhouse" never grows tiresome; and "The Toy Trumpet" brings fond memories of Shirley Temple dancing with Jack Haley and Alice Faye. I was pleased to see that Mr. K also has the Carl Stalling disks. Aren't they delightful? Oh Ms. Cutter, "The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish" was written for the movie Garden of the Moon. Oh! And thanks for bringing up the John Wayne movie. I wondered if anyone would know what this clip was from... Thanks to Mr. K for sharing the answer. I know that a recording of "The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish" does exist, because I own it (I assumed everyone had it! "Sheesh, what a freak."). It came out in a three-lp set of Warner Brothers Studio soundtracks. And actually there were two three-lp sets: Fifty Years in Film and Fifty Years in Film Music; one featuring music from non-musicals, the other obviously from musicals. And I repeat, one can write any melody using the Hungarian Minor Scale (or a similar mode) and create a piece similar to the theme we've been searching for. It was also known as the "Gypsy Minor Scale" [but I can't imagine musicologists still use this term). It's a form of the harmonic minor scale that contains two intervals of a step-and-a-half rather than the usual one. Tchaikovsky's March Slav used this device, if you want another example...

So there will be no Essentials in February? Ah, maybe it's preempted by the Oscar festival? I'm catching on... My one-year anniversary with TCM approaches. How shall I celebrate?

I felt so helpless, reading this thread at work and being unable to access my copy of Footlight Parade and my Raymond Scott discs (though I have some Scott numbers on my IPod at work). Now, home at last, I've listened to the Footlight Parade snippet; only a short phrase that's repeated, before being relegated to underscoring behind Jimmy Cagney... Since I hadn't listened to Mr. K's links [until now], I expected it to be the "Hootchy-Kootchy" number which you've already ascertained it is not. Often these passages are references to earlier "classical" numbers that trigger an association for the audience. Something from Rimsky-Korsakov's Scherazade, for instance, would have been appropriate here. But no... I checked "Yasmini" and "Rajah"; both were themes that were used in The Little Rascals series (along with the aforementioned "Hootchy-Kootchy" or "Snake Charmer's Song") in similar situations. Alak... I'm really wondering if it was just a theme quickly jotted down for this scene using the Hungarian Minor scale, to lend an air of exoticism. I also wonder if the original poster was thinking of the very-similar-yet-quite-different "Hootchy-Kootchy" number when he entered his query. Ah, sweet torture!

Gee, I thought she's been a swell host. She's intelligent and insightful. I don't always agree with her; but even when I don't, I still find her ideas interesting and thought provoking. We might not agree with her, but to imply that she doesn't know her stuff is specious. She personally knew/knows all of the directors of the Nouvelle Vague, and has been working intimately with film for forty years now. I wish I knew as much as she... So is The Essentials season March - March? Will Carrie Fisher be host for the entire 12 months as well? Will she co-host with Robert Osborn? Am I asking stupid questions? How does everyone know that Ms. Fisher will be on? Were there announcements on this site, or between movies on TCM? the last to know, JB

Madge Evans [from the french website L' ENCIN?MATH?QUE]:

I love those lists, Mr. K! I complete list would make another great [hoped for] "stickie" for the Board... Now does this mean that Carrie Fisher will host for the entire season, or just this one evening? Is Ms. Haskell but a now-distant memory of 2006?

"Nobody makes me watch anything I don?t want to watch, and I don?t feel deprived." I think I do feel a little deprived. It's my own call, of course, but I miss a lot of movies because I refuse to see the violence. I considered showing up for Saving Private Ryan 20 minutes late, but finally just skipped it. For the past month I've been struggling with The Departed, a movie which everyone seems to think is excellent (or at least features excellent performances) but is also very violent. So I sometimes end up missing good work because I won't give in to the violent aspect of the film. I was so looking forward to Black Dahlia, until I heard of the graphic depiction of Elizabeth Short's bisected torso. Having a character describe this would be horrifying enough to have an affect on me; I don't need to see it. When I was a kid, my parents forbade us from watching violence on television. The few times I did manage to sneak a peak at a violent movie -- I was scarred for years after seeing Joan Crawford's silhouette lopping off her husband's head in Straightjacket -- I would find it pretty disturbing. Because of this lack of exposure to screen violence, I've thought that my desensitization to it is decades behind the masses. I can handle violence up into the 1960's... I think Ms. Crawford's decapitating scene might seem darkly comical today. I did see The Killing Fields, Platoon and some others that have been difficult to watch. But it's fairly rare. One summer I made a pact with myself that I would not attend any movie that portrayed a murder. There are murders everyday, but how many people actually know someone who was murdered? I wonder the percentage is. I don't know anyone who was murdered; yet a huge number of movies feature a murder. The summer I made the pact was a huge financial saving to me as I bought few tickets; there were hardly any movies in which someone wasn't murdered!

In another episode of TCM synchronicity, I was just downloading some of his recordings into my IPod last night. And now I find this thread devoted to the liquid-gold tones of Mr. MacRae. The recordings that I was downloading featured some pretty dismal arrangements, but he was able to cut through the overproduction and schmaltz. He brings truth to the song. It's a shame that they had to toy with the storyline of Carousel, for the music in it is ultimate Rodgers and Hammerstein. It was gratifying to see the Broadway revival (must have been ten years ago), to see how the tale originally unfolded. But his Billy Bigelow was so beautifully wrought. His reprise of "If I Love You" is heartbreaking...

"...I hope that TCM shows this interesting antique again soon..." I echo that! I had mentioned this on my wish list, but wasn't aware TCM was playing it. I'm so sorry that I missed it. If Mr. Programmer is checking, I hope he'll heed our requests for an encore. Thanks for your reportage, Ms. Finnie!

"It is an excellent article, though the author is mistaken that Eileen Farrell received no credit for her dubbing of Eleanor Parker in Interrupted Melody. The album was one of the best selling LPs of the 1950s and Farrell's name was listed on the album as the vocalist. It was a major boost to her career." It was an enjoyable read, alright; but I noticed some misinformation too. For instance, the article discusses Betty Royce's dubbing for Debbie Reynolds in Singin' in the Rain, but it was Betty Noyes who did the work...

Well, it was just great to finally see the movie. The shenanigans were tiresome, but the musical numbers were very entertaining. I thought Pat O'Brien's character was the father of Meryl Streeps' Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, complete with his dismissive "That's all!" to excuse his underlings. Did everyone catch that whenever he broke his watch, the soundtrack would play "MOTHER" as the background music? It was interesting to see Margaret Lindsay, as previously I'd only really known her as the yankee that Pres marries in Jezebel. Once again, she got the man that was intended for Bette Davis [who turned down the role in Garden of the Moon. I was relieved that John Payne was the male lead, I thought he did a better job than Dick Powell would have. There was little Busby Berekely apparent in the movie. Few interesting camera angles, no kaleidescopes, and the only chorus girls were saved for the neon sign (advertising a band that would only play for two weeks?!). He did some light play with the close-ups in "The Lady on the Two Cent Stamp", a bizarre number that didn't disappoint. Wall-eyed Jerry Colonna is a trip! "The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish" was also unique and strange. I never dreamt that it would involve Colonna in drag as a harem girl! I'd like to have had an encore of both these numbers. It was interesting to see Penny Singleton ["Blondie"] as the brunette secretary; unrecognizable to the eye, but then there was that Singleton voice... Great to see a young Isabel Jean! Curt Bois seems to have been typecast; at least he was the pickpocket in Casablanca too! At any rate, I'm thankful to TCM for enabling me to finally see this rare curiosity.

Put me on the side of "loving it' too. I love the Nicholas Brothers, so it was gratifying to finally see them in an MGM musical and appalling that it the number was cut in some southern markets. These dapper geniuses of dance were so underused. I'm grateful that we have them on record in Orchestra Wives and the other few Twentieth Century Fox musicals in which they appeared. I love Minnelli's color palette. I'm always fascinated by "Be a Clown" and how Arthur Freed so boldly stole the number for "Make 'em Laugh" in Singin' in the Rain. Didn't anyone say anything at the time? "Uh, Mr. Freed, you can't do that..." Why didn't Cole Porter sue?

Bird of Paradise?

According to the Doris Day fansite, she was definitely interested: "Doris Day was thought to be the perfect choice for Nellie Forbush in this famous Broadway musical brought to the screen. However, it is reported from several sources (whether true or not) that Martin Melcher wanted too much money for Doris to play the part. The other rumor is that Doris was asked to do a little singing impromptu at a Hollywood party by Richard Rodgers. She refused since she did not like doing that sort of thing and that it cost her the role. What a difference her presence could have made in this Hollywood classic. From a gossip column came this release: '(Doris) is dying to do the Nellie Forbush role in 'South Pacific' and is willing to give a million for the screen rights.'"

Wow! Okay, now I miss New York and the Film Forum. That's a great roster of musicals, Ms. Ayres. Thanks for posting that!

Mr. Ful, you were a great help (which reminds me, I need to suggest Big City again...)! I also saw "hh" from West Palm Beach second my motion one summer day. We'll have to be sure to forewarn with *SPOILER* if we give anything away... Peaceful Ms. Pax said, "I have a recording of The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish by Martin Denny on the Ultralounge Exotica cd. I recognized the tune but I couldn't believe the title! It cracks me up. It must be hard to get cozy with a whirling dervish. You're in for a big surprise with this number. Though the melody is there, this rendition is nothing like Martin Denny's! I was thrilled to find the Denny version too (about 20 years after I bought the Warner Bros. collection).

Here's the link to the thread on this wonderful short: http://forums.tcm.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?messageID=7863113

Ms. S. is thinking of the scenes from Von Stroheim's then-unreleased silent film, Queen Kelly, which is shown in Sunset Boulevard. But though I was able to clarify that, I'm sorry I cannot confirm if Sunset Boulevard is seen in Trading places...