Sammy Stops The World starring Sammy Davis, Jr. & Marian Mercer

Sammy Davis, Jr. toured the country, played on Broadway and filmed for television a custom version of the Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse musical, Stop The World I Want To Get Off. This is the filmed production which also starred Marian Mercer.

Sammy Stops The World came after Davis had a chart hit with the musical's signature tune, What Kind Of Fool Am I?. Others included in this production's creative team include Newley, Bricusse, director Mel Shapiro, producer Hillard Elkins, and Sammy's ubiquitous musical director, George Rhodes. I've also uploaded a PDF of the original theater program to archive.org. Download the program here: https://archive.org/details/sammy-stops-the-world

And the Sammy rhythm doesn't stop there! Here's a special piece of Sammy ephemera. This concert program was bought by my Mom and Dad when they went to see Sammy (in Vegas, I believe) sometime around 1970/71. The program is a short biography of Sammy and his career with loads of pictures. Enjoy!

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The Great Victor Herbert starring Mary Martin & Allan Jones

The Great Victor Herbert was directed in 1939 by Andrew L. Stone and is one of the few Hollywood films starring Mary Martin. It's not a Herbert biography (as is made clear by the disclaimer displayed at the END of the film) but an account of the romance of his (fictional) star singers, Martin and Allan Jones. In the film, Walter Connolly (as Herbert) witnesses their life experiences as their friend and creator of their greatest theatrical triumphs.

The movie is a curio. By 1939, operettas had lost their luster to the more accessible musical comedies so audiences weren't clammering for Herbert music. (The composer died in 1924.) And, it seems, Paramount Pictures was trying to make Mary Martin into the next Jeanette McDonald. Martin is fine and the movie watchable but it's kind of a Show Boat knock-off without the latter's complex storyline and diverse musical styles. (Jones is aged to look exactly like Gaylord Ravenal in the later scenes.) Despite all this, I noticed The Great Victor Herbert was not online so now it is. I do not own the copyright to this and have 'placed it here in memory of something that has died'. Enjoy!

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Ladies of the Burlesque Dance

Sunny Knight, Mickey 'Ginger' Jones and Shirley Heart are not names that are remembered today but there are filmed records of these burly Q queens dances in the 1949 public domain film Midnight Frolics. Granted by the time this film was made, burlesque had already died and been buried but it is nice to have this record (albeit modified according to the film's title card). For this WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE, I've extracted Sunny's dance (the star spot at the end of the show), Mickey's dance (an act one closer) and Shirley's dance (strip opener starts like a lamb and ends like a lion). Check out these ladies and their energetic, gymnastic and naively salacious dances.

If you want a Burlesque or Bust vintage-style tee shirt I created for my crew d'tees tee shirt collection, check it out here.

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Julian Eltinge in Madame Behave

Eltinge as groom and bride

Julian Eltinge was internationally renown as a female impersonator in the aughts and teens of the 20th century. He made his name on vaudeville stages and in Broadway theatres - even as he christened the Julian Eltinge Theatre on Broadway, September 11, 1910. In the 1920s as Prohibition was changing the country and vaudeville was dying, Eltinge went to Hollywood and made several films. One of these films is called Madame Behave and I've just posted the film to YouTube with a score made of jazz tunes from the 1920s. (See song titles and artists at the bottom of this post.)

Madame Behave • 1925

I had never seen Eltinge perform on film and by the contemporaneous reviews I'd read of his live performances, I imagine he had a lovely singing voice and his female mimcry was legitimately spot on (and not what we would consider campy). In fact, Eltinge was so popular with the female population for his raiment and makeup that he started a cottage industry with Julian Eltinge's Magazine of Beauty Hints and Tips which promoted his own line of cosmetics, corsets and shoes. One ad has a picture of Eltinge as a woman with the copy "See What the Julian Eltinge Cold Cream Does for a Man. Imagine What It Will Do For a Woman".

No one pronounces Eltinge's name correctly.
Here are instructions from the horse's mouth.

My guess is that Madame Behave was made to capitalize on Eltinge's fame because it doesn't hold up to the imagination after reading reviews of Eltinge's live performances. We (obviously) don't hear a singing voice and we certainly don't see a high standard of female mimicry on screen so it does nothing to capture what Eltinge did on stage. In Madame Behave, Eltinge jokes around and gets in his gowns quickly and without care. There are some scenes in which he is well put together but by 1925 Eltinge was in his forties and more overweight than in his youth so it's difficult to compare the time periods in that respect. Madame Behave is also not funny despite its best attempts. The film co-stars Ann Pennington as Eltinge's girlfriend and there is a minute or so of Pennington dancing the Charleston; she was a very famous dancer of the day known for her Black Bottom and others so this is something of a see.

Cast of Madame Behave: Jack Duffy, Evelyn Francisco, Lionel Belmore
Ann Pennington kissing Eltinge (in drag) and David Jones

Other than Pennington and the fact that it is a surviving Eltinge film, Madame Behave is similar to movies like Charley's Aunt, Tootsie and Some Like It Hot in its use of drag is a pretext that a straight man must do to get out of whatever situation he finds himself. Unfortunately, it's just not as good as the aforementioned titles but it is 95 years old! Music used to score Madame Behave includes the following tracks in order of aural appearance.

• Chant of the Weed Don Redman and his Orchestra
• Four O’Clock Blues The Original Memphis Five
• The Minor Drag Fats Waller
• Viper’s Dream Django Reinhardt
• Bull Frog Blues Six Brown Brothers
• Do-Doodle-Om Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra
• Forgetful Blues The Original Memphis Five
• New Orleans Wiggle Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra
• Pianoflage Fate Marable’s Society Syncopators
• Red Man Blues Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra
• Red Onion Drag Louis Dumaine’s Jazzola Eight
• Sad New Blues The Original Memphis Five
• Pillow Fight SFX
• All Muggled Up Blue Steele And his Orchestra
• Astoria Strut Jones and Collins Astoria Hot Eight
• Dear Almanzoer Celestin’s Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra
• Henpecked Blues The Original Memphis Five
• Mobile Stomp Sam Morgan’s Jazz Band
• New Orleans Blues Johnny de Droit and His New Orleans Jazz Orchestra
• West Indies Blues Piron's New Orleans Orchestra

More pictures from (and an article or two regarding) Julian Eltinge's life and career are available on my Julian Eltinge Pinterest board.

Follow my board Julian Eltinge on Pinterest.

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Grease: A New ’50’s Rock ’N’ Roll Musical

In 1972, Pocket Books published Grease: A New ’50’s Rock ’N’ Roll Musical as a mass market paperback with the tag The Book of the Newest Broadway Hit. The tie-in contains the 1972 libretto of the musical, 12 black and white photographs from the production (Barry Bostwick, Adrienne Barbeau, etc.) and one color cover photo. You can download a PDF of this out-of-print paperback from here.

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Blithe Spirit 1956 TV Production

Blithe Spirit is a play by Noël Coward about novelist Charles Condomine who invites eccentric medium/clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his home to conduct a séance which brings to life the ghost of his annoying and temperamental first wife, Elvira. In 1956, Coward directed a LIVE ON AIR American television adaptation for Ford Star Jubilee.

Coward stars with Claudette Colbert as his second wife Ruth, Lauren Bacall as Elvira and Emmy nominee for Best Supporting Performance by an Actress, Mildred Natwick as Madame Arcati. The endlessly-rushing maid is played by Marion Ross who most viewers will remember as the mother on the television series Happy Days. Fred de Cordova, longtime producer of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, is listed as having staged the production for television. Based on the thumbnail image there seems to have been a tour and record associated with this production as well although a quick search garnered no other information. Originally broadcast in color, only black and white kinescopes survive. I believe this is also a WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE! Enjoy!

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Ellen Foley, Debbie Allen and Mimi Kennedy

In 1976 the BBC series Rock Follies, already a success in the United Kingdom, crossed the Atlantic and became a success on PBS stations in the United States. The scripted series of six episodes told the story of The Little Ladies, three women (played by Evita's Julie Covington, Alberto VO5's Rula Lenska and the Royal Shakespeare Company's Charlotte Cornwell) trying to hit it big in the rock music. It was a hit in the United States and there was (seemingly) an attempt to replicate that success with American talent when Kenny Solms and Gail Parent created a 4-episode variety show called 3 Girls 3.

3 Girls 3 starred three then-unknowns Debbie Allen, Ellen Foley and Mimi Kennedy whose overnight success as the stars was the show's premise. In the context of the show, the little ladies played themselves with Allen the dancer, Foley the singer and Kennedy the comic - although all three sang, danced and performed in sketches. The first episode aired in March, 1977 right after its broadcasting network, NBC, decided to cancel it. The three remaining episodes aired during the summer of 1977. All four episodes in their entirety can be found on Mimi Kennedy's YouTube Channel. There's also some interesting videos on Kenny Solms YouTube channel. I've posted some lovely performances by one of my favorite singers, Ellen Foley, and some other musical moments from the show.

Ellen Foley sings New Kid In Town

Debbie Allen, Ellen Foley and Mimi Kennedy sing Broadway Baby

Debbie Allen performs The Music and the Mirror

Ellen Foley sings This One's For You

Ellen Foley sings Dear Friend/Will He Love Me from She Loves Me

3 Girls 3 Theme Song

Celebrity Maids

Debbie Allen, Ellen Foley and Mimi Kennedy sing Sondheim's You Could Drive A Person Crazy with, of all people, Steve Martin, the wild and crazy guy

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Rachael Lily Rosenbloom Lives!

With all the Hello, Dolly-baloo last week, another small yet pivotal performance (in the annals of musical theatre history) took place on Monday March 13, 2017: the first performance in 44 years of Paul Jabara's self-proclaimed disco musical Rachael Lily Rosenbloom ... And Don't You Ever Forget It.

Written almost entirely by Jabara (with book help from Tom Eyen), Rachael... never made it to Broadway despite seven previews at the Broadhurst Theatre. Since the musical Carrie has been revamped and is now produced often, Rachael... captures the crown as the most notorious flop in Broadway history. Unfortunately, even with the tweaks afforded the show for this concert staging, one can see why. The book is a pastiche of musical theatre references and campy laughs that don't really gel as a compelling story. And the characterization of Rachael makes no sense within the context of, for example, the title - Rachael changes her name to Raquel halfway through the show. In other words, we've forgotten it.

The songs are fun but then Paul Jabara writes fun songs. Remember It's Raining Men, The Main Event, No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) and his Oscar-winning Last Dance? The latter was appended to this concert as a finale but none of Rachael...'s score is as memorable as the aforementioned pop hits although Dear Miss Streisand and Broadway Rhythm immediately come to mind as standouts. (Jabara did record a revision of the musical's Ocho Rios on his 1986 album De La Noche: The True Story (A Poperetta).)

Interestingly, on my very rare audience recording (puff, puff) of one of the 1973 previews (starring Ellen Greene and Anita Morris), the audience is quite receptive to the performance - as was the audience last week at Feinstein’s/54 Below. In my opinion, it had more to do with the performers and audience than the material being performed. Bonnie Milligan (as Rachael), Julia Mattison (as Stella Starfuckoff, the role originated by Morris) and Anastasia McClesky had the showiest roles but all the performers and the band made the hour and 15 minute concert quite enjoyable. My conclusion though is Rachael... will now be forgotten for another 44 years.

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Divine Hello, Dolly!

In the new revival of Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly!, Bette Midler doesn’t so much inhabit the character of Dolly Gallagher Levi as allow Dolly to inhabit her own divinity. With double takes and side eyes, Bette's Dolly breaks the fourth wall while mining all the laughs from Michael Stewart’s classic book. (Breaking the fourth wall is a typical conceit of original playwright Thornton Wilder.) Midler is ably aided by David Hyde Pierce, a perfect foil as Horace Vandergelder and someone who the producers felt worthy enough to add the previously cut Vandergelder solo, Penny In My Pocket, as the second act opener. The rest of the supporting cast sing and dance joyfully in the ageless musical: Gavin Creel as Cornelius Hackl is adorable, Kate Baldwin as Irene Molloy is resplendent, Taylor Trensch as Barnaby Tucker is a mensch and Beanie Feldstein as Minnie Fay is a revelation. The sets are darling, dances energetic throwbacks, costumes colorfully vintage and Herman’s songs tuneful as ever.

Undoubtedly though everyone in the house for this first (March 15) preview was there for Midler’s return to the musical theatre. Exhilaration was in the air as we braved the 20 degree weather for the 8:00 PM curtain. (No late seating EVER … for this engagement.) When Bette finally enters on a trolley, there’s a standing ovation. Bette lifts her skirts to dance at Irene Molloy’s, there’s a standing ovation. She sings the act one closer Before The Parade Passes By, there’s a standing ovation. And following the always entertaining Waiters’ Gallop, when the Harmonia Gardens curtains part and Bette descends the stairs to the strains of the classic title tune, the roar of approval is deafening. Bette’s Dolly is, at once, boisterous, reflective, quirky … and quite hungry. This role would be her star-making turn - if she hadn’t already been a star for almost fifty years! Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! is an event that comes along once in a lifetime and lucky me I have tickets for two more events. How lucky can you get!

(How lucky can you get! See what I did there?)

Click the link for a NSFW throwback on Bette called It's Not Porn. It's Bette Midler!.

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Spring Awakening and Pandora's Box

I just uploaded to archive.org the complete English text, in PDF, of four plays by German playwright Frank Wedekind!

• Spring Awakening
• The Lulu Plays is comprised of:
  • Earth Spirit
  • Pandora's Box
  • Death and the Devil

Spring Awakening is known today as the basis of the musical Spring Awakening with book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik. The musical opened on Broadway in 2006 and played for a little over two years. This original production won several Tony awards including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. It has been revived a number of times since then - most recently on Broadway in 2015.

Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, the first two in The Lulu Plays trilogy, are the basis of the 1929 silent film Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks and directed by G.W. Pabst.

Samuel A. Eliot, Jr. wrote the introduction to the collection in 1923, presumably the year it was published in the United Kingdom under the title Tragedies Of Sex. What a find!

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Elizabeth Taylor in The Little Foxes

On May 7, 1981, Elizabeth Taylor made her Broadway debut when she opened in Lillian Hellman's classic play The Little Foxes at the Martin Beck Theatre. The role of Regina Giddons, originally played on Broadway by Tallullah Bankhead and in the 1941 film by Bette Davis, was (again) perfectly cast and Taylor received nominations for both the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play.

Nearly $1 million worth of ticket sales were realized during the week after advertisements announced Taylor's theatrical run. The cast also included Tom Aldredge as her husband Horace, Dennis Christopher as Leo, Maureen Stapleton as Birdie, and Anthony Zerbe as Benjamin. Tony nominations also went to Austin Pendleton for Best Direction of a Play, Aldredge for Best Featured Actor in a Play, Stapleton for Best Featured Actress in a Play, and the play itself for Best Reproduction. I fortunately was enthralled by this production and this WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE is a scan of the program that was sold during the theatrical engagement. I don't remember what the program cost but I still have it so I think the money was well spent.

Here are some interesting links with more information on The Little Foxes and Regina, the opera created from the play by Marc Blitzstein.

• Tallulah Bankhead, Bette Davis, and Marc Blitzstein: Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes as Play, Film, and Opera by Bernard F. Dick
• The Roots Of Regina by Eric A. Gordon
• Bronx Opera To Revive Blitzstein's 'Regina' December, 2015 press release

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Gwen Verdon in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes

After the 1953 success of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell as showgirls Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, United Artists bought the rights to But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, the 1927 novel written as a sequel to the original 1925 book by author Anita Loos.

Jeanne Crain was signed to do the movie (retitled Gentlemen Marry Brunettes) with Richard Sale directing and Mary Loos (his wife and niece to the book's author) writing the screenplay. The novel's continuing adventures of storyline was dropped in favor of a completely new story about the Jones sisters rise to showgirl prominence in Paris. When Jane Russell's contract with Howard Hughes expired in 1954, she and her husband, Robert Waterfield, decided to form their own production company Russ-Field. The couple was courted by United Artists and offered a six picture deal - with the caveat that Jane star in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes.

Jane didn't like the idea of doing the sequel nor did she like the script but she agreed because United Artists allowed Russ-Field to join Sale and his company, Voyager, as producer although they had little say in the project. Among their concerns were the film's big Cinemascope and Technicolor budget (with Travilla gowns and location shoots) and how they were going to bring in the customers. Jane liked her co-star Jeanne Crain immensely but she was also aware that Crain was no Marilyn Monroe at the box-office; this left UA dependent on Russell to make the picture a financial success.

Ultimately Jane was greatly disappointed in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes and considered it a mess. And after viewing it, I can see she was right. Her pixie haircut makes Russell look old, the cannibal/blackface production number of Ain't Misbehavin' is just too weird for words and Crain is no foil for Russell. Inexplicably Russell plays the dumb showgirl and Crain the smart one; the film might've worked better had the parts been switched to more closely resemble the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes chemistry. Audiences of the day agreed with Russell's opinion and the (jukebox style) musical did poorly at the box-office when it was released in the fall of 1955.

Amidst all of this Gwen Verdon was hired to play a sexy French maid and had one scene in which her sexy moves were considered too obscene; the scene was cut and re-shot with a non-musical performer. This 25 seconds is the only glimpse left of Ms. Verdon's sexy moves in the 1955 film.

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From Tallulah Bankhead to Mary Martin

In 1953 MGM distributed the independently produced Main Street To Broadway which (fictionally) documents the behind-the-scenes process of producing a dramatic play on Broadway from origination to opening. Despite the barest plot (attributed to Pulitzer Prize winning playwright/screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood), the producer managed to gather a stellar cast of theatre luminaries. Some of the ensemble play themselves in small scenes that have nothing to do with the plot and some play parts in the screenplay by Samson Raphaelson (Ernst Lubitsch's screenwriter).

The story concerns playwright Tony Monaco writing a play in which he hopes Tallulah Bankhead will star. (Tom Morton plays Tony Monaco, a few years before he took the stage name Tony Monaco and toured in the national company of I Can Get It For You Wholesale.) He meets actress Mary Craig (Mary Murphy from The Wild One) who is ready to quit the New York theatrical scene and go back to South Terre Haute to marry. They fight, they kiss and they fall in love only to be separated by their different worlds.

If for no other reason, this film exists to allow Tallulah Bankhead to caricature herself - something she did often in real life but rarely on screen. Monaco is persuaded by his agent (played by Agnes Moorehead) to write a play that shows off Bankhead as a normal American housewife. (At one point, Bankhead opines "Aren't they writing plays for nice people like ME ANYMORE?!?!") He goes home with Mary - actually follows her in a stalky type thing - and literally dreams up Calico and Lust after watching Mary's parents (Rosemary DeCamp and Clinton Sundberg) living their life. In the dream, Tallulah is dressed in calico and an apron, sewing and welcoming neighbors to the door (although it ultimately turns into a camp version of a Bankhead-type melodrama).

All Tallulah's scenes in a badly digitized TV rip
See below if you want a good version

Another fascinating scenario concerns the evolution of the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II song There's Music In You. From Hammerstein's lyrical inspiration after seeing playwright Tony and Mary kissing on the street to Rodgers plunking out a tune while Hammerstein sings to the final incorporation of the finished song by Mary Martin in a new (fictional) musical, these scenes mark the only time the two musical geniuses appeared on screen. There's Music In You was written especially for Main Street To Broadway and was considered a trunk song (term for a songwriter's stash of unused material) until 1997 when it was interpolated into the new television production of Cinderella and sung by Whitney Houston. The song was also used in the 2013 Broadway production of Cinderella.

From Tallulah Bankhead to Mary Martin continues after the WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE
of the Mary Martin Sings There's Music In You video compilation.

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Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Mary Martin in
There's Music In You. Note the spelling of 'Rogers' name in the call board.

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Main Street To Broadway also has the following scenes and attributes.

• Helen Hayes instructs a young actress how to focus before introducing the film and discussing the soon-to-be-demolished Empire Theatre. She returns to narrate the play's opening and list the luminaries attending.

• Shirley Booth talks with, and signs autographs for, fans and demonstrates why she is so beloved. (See Hazel: The Maid With The Most and See Miss Shirley Booth for more information.

• Cornel Wilde acts in a workshop reading of the playwright's somewhat misogynistic first play with ingenue Mary.
• Rex Harrison and then-wife actress Lilli Palmer discuss what's in their refrigerator; Rex wants a bagel and salami.
• Radio and television's Molly Goldberg, Gertrude Berg, plays Tony's motherly landlady.
• Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Louis Calhern bail the despondent playwright out of jail and offer him hope after Bankhead rejects the new play.
• John Van Druten works with Constance Carpenter (as Anna) and the cast of the still running The King And I which he had directed the year before.
• Al Hirschfeld draws one of his trademark caricatures.

• New York Giants manager Leo Durocher gets a dugout scolding from Tallulah.
• After having testified for the House Un-American Activities Committee, Jack Gilford was hired to play behind the bars of the theatre box office as treasurer.
• Humorist Herb Shriner, father of director Wil (Frasier) and actor Kin (General Hospital), sympathetically plays Mary's hometown boyfriend.
• Academy Award winner James Wong Howe was cinematographer for Main Street To Broadway.

Main Street To Broadway has never been released on DVD. It was released on VHS tape - a used version of which you can buy on Amazon from a third party for $100. Or you can send me an email and I can send you link to download a nice rip of the VHS for free. Your choice.

Mary Martin's studio version of There's Music In You

Whitney Houston's version of There's Music In You 1997

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Thanks For The Mammaries, Jim Bailey

According to Playbill, Jim Bailey

'...dreamed of playing Broadway, and in 2001 landed a commitment from the Shubert Organization to open his biographical revue, Judy Garland Live! at one of its theatres on Oct. 16 of that year--50 years to the day after the real Garland opened a legendary stand at the Palace Theatre. The production was far along, with Joey McKneely signed to direct and choreograph and Ann Hould-Ward (Beauty and the Beast) providing the costumes. But after repeated delays the production failed to complete its capitalization and was finally "indefinitely" postponed.'

Jim Bailey might not have 'played' Broadway (although in a 2009 interview he said he was in the chorus of several Broadway shows) but he certainly 'played' the dames that played Broadway. RIP.

Interesting to see how Carol Burnett sets Jim's performance up
for his first appearance on The Carol Burnett Show. First she
introduces Jim in a tuxedo, explains what he does with pictures,
and finally introduces his performance in full drag. Probably the
only way to get female impersonation on television back in 1972.
Kudos to Carol for introducing Jim to America.

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The Intimate Lives & Loves of Violet and Daisy Hilton³

Daisy and Violet Hilton are conjoined twins and talented musicians who became successful vaudevillians before going off to Hollywood where they made several films. In the tradition of Helen Morgan Cubed, the ladies' lives have been represented in an autobiography (a WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE* downloadable from this blog in PDF format), a movie and a musical.

• Movie: Chained For Life
• Book: The Intimate Lives and Loves of the Hilton Sisters
• Musical: Side Show
• Freaks and Facts
• Music Clips from Chained For Life

Film: Chained For Life

Chained For Life is a vanity project designed as film noir that was released in 1951. I hesitate to call it exploitation because people exploit themselves. (Isn't that what we do?) It's not a very easy movie to watch as the sisters are ... um ... exploited with many of the plot points fictionalized from experiences in their real lives including a sham marriage and private paeans for love.

The story revolves around the vaudevillian Hamilton Sisters and Vivian's (Violet) murder of Dorothy's (Daisy) husband. The husband/nuptials are a sham having been perpetrated by (and on) the sisters for promotional purposes - although Dorothy does fall in love with the fellow. In one particularly fascinating scene, Dorothy dreams of being separate from her sister, dancing and cavorting with her lover in a garden.

Aped 47 years later by the creators of Side Show

Chained For Life begins as a cautionary tale with the judge who presides over the movie's murder trial introducing the story; it then flashes back to the events that lead up to the murder. Along the way, the film captures the singing talents of the Hilton sisters in three sweet duets: Every Hour of Every Day, Never Ever Fall In Love, and Love Thief. (Music clips are below and on YouTube.)

Best public copy; Amazon Prime version is good too

Book: The Intimate Lives and Loves of the Hilton Sisters

The Intimate Lives and Loves of the Hilton Sisters is also a vanity project - a slight autobiography written by Daisy and Violet Hilton to coincide with the release of Chained for Life. The first seventeen pages of the $2 trade-sized paperback are devoted to the Hilton's story with both sisters taking the pen; the concluding 33 pages are a novelization of the tale told in Chained For Life. Takeaways from the autobiographical section include:

• The sisters were born in Brighton, England.* No birth year is mentioned but there is a sentence that reads In 1929 we became legally of age. If this means 21, they were born in 1908. The twins early years were also documented in a medical journal article published in 1911 called The Brighton United Twins (PDF will download.). It discusses the medical details of the infant twins (they shared an anus, separation would cause death). Again, no birth year is given but a photo of the toddlers captioned Present day confirms their birth year as 1908.

• At two weeks old, the sisters were given to Mary Williams (Auntie) who raised (and beat) them. They lived above the Queens Head Pub in Brighton before moving to San Antonio, Texas. Auntie had five husbands and daughter Edith.
• During their youth, Daisy and Violet were trained to read and play music, recite, dance, and sing. Auntie (and Edith when the former died) managed their performing career which took off internationally and in the United States. They were headliners and played vaudeville with luminaries of the day like Harry Houdini, Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante.

• In 1927, unbeknownst to the sisters, Edith and her husband enslaved them in a guardianship. The Hiltons went to court in 1930 to get their freedom and dissolve any business arrangements that had been (illegally) put into place. This is when they found out about their birth home in the UK.
• The case was decided in the sisters' favor. All existing contracts were dissolved and they were given $67,000 in bonds, $12,000 in cash and $20,000 in personal effects.
• They crafted a revue in which they played violin, piano, and saxophone, did ballet and adagio dancing, and performed in sketches.

• Violet married as a publicity stunt in Texas (after 21 other states denied request for a marriage license). They were still married (at the time of publication) although Violet acquiesced that the marriage had no meaning and Jim could have a divorce anytime he asked.
• Daisy married a few years later for love. The sisters awoke on the tenth day and found the groom was no longer there. Daisy initiated divorce proceedings and they never saw him again.

Their story trails off in a few paragraphs following the second marriage disclosure but the tome is illustrated with stills from Chained For Life and, as mentioned, a quite detailed and well-written novelization of the movie's plot. The film and book could arguably be called one of the first film and book tie-ins.

WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE: I found a copy of The Intimate Lives and Loves of the Hilton Sisters, bought it (for 60 times $2) and scanned it. You can download the PDF from the Hilton Sisters folder on 4Shared. (The folder also contains a PDF of the Brighton United Twins medical journal article.)

Musical: Side Show

In 1997, Side Show opened on Broadway with Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley starring as Daisy and Violet (respectively). This musical version of the sisters' story has book and lyrics by Bill Russell and music by Henry Krieger, played 91 performances, and was nominated for five Tony awards (Best Musical, Book, Score and actresses). The New York Library for the Performing Arts Theatre on Film Archives has an archival video recording of the show.

Despite some soaring ballads, the lyrics often tread the same ground and the book has taken very great liberties with too many life points - including a puzzling swap of their side-by-side physical placement. (See Freaks and Facts below.) Their story is musicalized around love - something of which they didn't have (or get) so the story ultimately feels forced. The audience is asked to believe that not one but TWO men were capable of falling in love with the sisters prompting:

• A scene in which the musical Daisy dreams of being separated from her sister, dancing and cavorting with her lover in a garden. (Did they really just ape that scene from Chained For Life?)
  
  Norm Lewis played Porgy on Broadway in 2012
• A scene in which the phenomenally talented Norm Lewis electrifies (us and) the musical Violet with You Should Be Loved (soaring ballad), a juxtaposition which not too subtly equates the Hilton's struggle with the African-American struggle.

Who Will Love Me As I Am and I Will Never Leave You are two more soaring ballads, these sung by Skinner and Ripley as the Hilton sisters. They are both powerful songs and riveting performances. All of these songs were captured for an original cast recording which is still available. Last year director Bill Condon spearheaded a revival of the musical. This new version played in La Jolla, California and will be on the boards in Washington, D.C. in 2014.

Pretty fuckin' incredible

Freaks and Facts

Interestingly, the sisters' autobiography has only one sentence that refers to the performance for which they are most remembered. As Terry figured, the [marriage] stunt paid off. We went to Hollywood and made several films. One of those films was Tod Browning's film Freaks.

My assumption is that when the book was published and sold, Freaks had not yet taken its proper place in the cannon of American popular culture. The 1932 MGM film, based on the short story Spurs (available in PDF), concerns freaks in a circus side show and the normal circus entertainers who work with them. The sisters undoubtedly had no idea that Freaks would later (and further) cement their celebrity.

In Freaks, the ladies essentially play themselves. Daisy is on the right when watching the film (and looking at pictures of the sisters) and Violet is on the left. In most adult pictures, Daisy is blonde. This fact is altered in Side Show although I'm not sure what was gained by switching the placement of the twins in the minds of the audience. (Is it easier to remember which twin is which when their names are in alphabetical order?) Several times in the musical the girls sing the following patently false verse:

Daisy: I'm Daisy
Violet: I'm Violet
Daisy & Violet: We're nothing alike
Violet: I'm to your right as you watch our show
Daisy: She thinks she's always right. Not so. I'm Daisy
Violet: I'm Violet

According to The Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton: A True Story of Conjoined Twins by Dean Jensen, the Hiltons' last public appearance was in 1961 at a drive-in cinema in Charlotte, North Carolina where their tour manager abandoned them. With no means of transportation or income, they took a job in a grocery store as a bagger and a checker. On January 4, 1969, after they failed to report to work, the grocery store called the police. The twins were found dead in their home, victims of the Hong Kong flu. The autopsy reported that Daisy died first; Violet died between two and four days later. They were buried in Forest Lawn West Cemetery.

I've mentioned how uncomfortable it is to watch the sisters but that's not because they were conjoined. The exploitative (there's that word!) nature of the people around them is horrifying and uncomfortable to watch. Freaks is different because they are portrayed as normal - which is how Daisy and Violet Hilton might've liked to be remembered.

Music Clips from Chained For Life

Every Hour of Every Day

Never Fall In Love

Love Thief

POSTSCRIPT: More photos can be found at the Daisy and Violet Hilton Petit Photo Gallery. During research, I discovered that Leslie Zemeckis made a biographical documentary in 2012 called Bound By Flesh. I couldn't find that the film is available so I wasn't able to see it.

*In England, the sisters' home was above the Queens Head pub; their manager chose this location for its proximity to the Brighton Train Station. They were born in a house on Riley Road on the outskirts of Brighton.

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Anna Lucasta Redefines Race in Hollywood

This racial history started innocently enough when a still from the 1949 movie Anna Lucasta was posted to a Facebook thread about character actress Mary Wickes (who co-stars). Philip Yordan, a white playwright and screenwriter (Johnny Guitar), wrote Anna Lukaska in 1936. The story of this Anna (a Polish American prostitute seeking redemption from her family) takes important plot points and characterizations from a play about another literary Anna who turned to prostitution some twenty years before: Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill. Possibly because of its similarities, Anna Lukaska never made it to Broadway in the 30s but almost ten years later, it was discovered by Abram Hill, one of the founders of the American Negro Theatre Company.

Rumored to have hired an out-of-work black dramatist to provide
Negro dialect Philip Yordan is Anna Lucasta's sole author

In 1944, Hill reconceived the play to reflect African American life, renamed it Anna Lucasta and produced this new version in the basement of the New York Public Library on 135th Street. Its success in Harlem culminated in a quick move to Broadway where the play ran for over two years; a hugely successful American tour and engagements in Chicago and on London's West End followed. (Perennial Hollywood couple Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis met and fell in love while performing in the tour of Anna Lucasta.) Despite its sexual themes and an all-black cast, this theatrical success brought attention from Hollywood.

The Mansfield Theater was renamed The Brooks Atkinson
Click the pic to see the 1944 Playbill

Anna Lucasta was booted from studio to studio because the material was thoroughly and completely unacceptable. Yordan was desperate to see his play on the screen so he blamed Hill for the smut and cheap hokum and promised to eliminate these unwholesome elements from the screenplay. He fashioned a screenplay (with help from writer Arthur Laurents) in which the characters were (once again) white Polish Americans and the smut was implied. It was then that Anna Lucasta was filmed (via Security Pictures and producer Yordan) with (r-l) Paulette Goddard as Anna, William Bishop as Rudolf, Mary Wickes as Stella, Lisa Golm as Theresa and Broderick Crawford (not pictured) as Frank.

White Anna Lucasta is banal, stagebound and unrealistic. Goddard (a little long in the tooth) resembles Mildred Pierce and one thinks she had hoped for the same career resucitation from this film that Joan Crawford had gotten from the former. Unfortunately, her performance is more camp than credible with facial tics akimbo. Broderick Crawford as the villian acts every bit the sleazy Harry character soon to be immortalized in Born Yesterday and Mary Wickes is the perfect foil in an atypical role. Most interesting though was the casting of Dennie Moore as Blanche, Anna's compadre on the streets; I had previously seen Ms. Moore only in her rousing turn as the manicurist in the classic 1939 film The Women (also with Goddard although the two never appear on screen together). But the 1949 movie was only the first filmed version.

Watch Anna Lucasta with Paulette Goddard

In 1958, Anna Lucasta was filmed again - this time the racial switch was flipped back to African Americans. Again produced and written by Yordan, the film starred Eartha Kitt, Sammy Davis Jr., Rex Ingram and Claire Leyba. Black Anna Lucasta is a much more cohesive film despite the many similarities in the text, and the acting is much better so the characters feel more defined. Kitt especially brought tears to my eyes in any number of scenes and looked sensational while doing it. Leyba (in the great role of Blanche this go-round) proves a wonderful actress and screen personality while Davis, playing a cab driver in his first non-musical role, is still given a gratuitous hallucinatory dance sequence (with costume changes, MTV-style editing and a great Elmer Bernstein score that apes the beatnik jazz of the era).

Although Anna Lucasta has the reputation of having been inspired by (or copied structurally and plot-wise from) O'Neill's classic play, lesser known is the fact that Anna Lucasta inspired a classic play as well. Written by Alice Childress (who played Blanche on Broadway), Trouble in Mind is about a black actress appearing in an anti-lynching play directed by one white man and written by another. Seen as a dramatization of Childress' experiences in Anna Lucasta, the play was first produced Off-Broadway in 1955 and Childress became the first African American woman to be honored with an Obie Award when Trouble In Mind was selected as the Best Original Off-Broadway Production in 1956.

Alice Childress wrote A Hero Ain't Nothin' But A Sandwich
Trouble in Mind has been revived as recently as 2011

Anna Lucasta is still performed but does it, as one reviewer wrote last year, provide substantial evidence to support the notion that we’re all the same beneath the skin or is it just a broadly written play with little characterization and stereotypes? Although a (translated) Greek television movie was made in 1977, most recent productions (including this 2012 stage production in Los Angeles) retain the second generation African American cast. But might we see a revival with a white cast and the sexual themes toned down now again? Would that be racist? Or an attempt at capitalism - like the African-American version of Steel Magnolias? The Jewish Yordan has an Academy Award, and a reputation as a front during the Hollywood blacklists of the 50s. All of this belies an interesting little peccadillo.

Some quotes and data in this article have been taken from:

• AFI Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the Unted States Volume 1
• Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960
• The Regal Theater and Black Culture by Clovis E Semmes
• Backstory 2: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s edited by Patrick McGilligan
• The Merchant Prince of Poverty Row: Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures

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Dorothy McNulty IS Good News 1930 Style

Until Good News, the 1930 musical film version of the 1927 Broadway musical, is released on DVD (or available to download as an out-of-print movie), all we have are clips, advertisements and posters.

Our first clip has the lovely and lively brunette thriple threat Dorothy McNulty singing, and dancing a heavy-footed yet energetic Charleston in The Varsity Drag, arguably the most famous song from the musical. Ms. McNulty's cartwheels near the clip's end prove the lady's acrobatic.

The next clip is Good News, the title tune. Once again Ms. McNulty (eight years before she dyed her hair blonde and began ten years as comic strip heroine Blondie Bumstead in movies and TV) sings with abandon but this time she adds a split to her wonderful acrobatics. Al Rubber Legs Norman is also on hand to provide more eccentric dancing.

The final Musical Interludes clip includes I Feel Pessimistic played on a ukulele and sung by an adorable Cliff Edwards, If You're Not Kissing Me sung by a chorus and then Stanley Smith and Mary Lawlor (of the original 1927 Broadway production), The Varsity Drag, The Best Things In Life Are Free sung by Stanley Smith and finally Good News. The uploader was also kind enough to include the credits.

I witnessed the 1975 Broadway revival of Good News starring Alice Faye, Gene Nelson and Stubby Kaye on opening night. I loved the show but it posted closing notices the next day because of abysmally bad reviews. ¯\(ツ)/¯ This stagey 1930 version is the closest I will probably ever see to a theatrical production of Good News. I'll keep looking and let you know when I find it. I always do.

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*Dorothy McNulty photo attribution

Bootlegging Broadway

The links in this entry lead to a treasure trove of recordings that preserve Broadway performances for posterity. For example, a complete performance of Raisin, the 1973 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, is preserved on an audio recording taped by a member of the audience. How do I know? The person sitting next to the person recording the show had a persistent cough. I was listening to the recording on a particularly long drive and after a half hour I turned to the empty passenger seat in my car and said There's got to be a lozenge or cough syrup. Something..



The downloadable recordings (free via one-click hosting servers like Rapidshare) vary in quality. Some are theatrical soundboard recordings of excellent quality; some (as noted) are listenable with caveats. It is worth searching through the lists if you're a fan of Broadway and musicals.

• Huge Gift Dump
• Off The Market
• share lah~
• Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome! Bootleg
• The Rare Broadway Bootleg Megalist
• Broadway Soundboard Search
• Musical Sharing Goodness
• Broadway (Musicals/Plays) - must register to see links
• Unorganized List
• Carrie and More Fabulous Flops (radio show) and Carrie: The Musical Downloads
• Carrie the Musical
• Viva Les Bootlegs (rock band bootlegs)
  

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[title of show] @ Mountain View Center for Performing Arts

Watching [title of show], the musical by two guys about two guys writing a musical, can be compared to looking at reflections in a hall of mirrors. Because a hall of mirrors also contains panes of glass, you never know if you are seeing something that is real or something that is a reflection. This concept of reality versus reflection initially confuses the storyline but, as the 90 minute show (with no intermission) moves along, meatier themes and more memorable songs are introduced that ultimately make for a sweet but mostly benign evening.



The Mountain View Center for Performing Arts (MVCFPA) production opened on June 1, 2011, following (by years) its premiere at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2004, and subsequent runs off-Broadway and on. It is this journey that is performed by a first rate cast including New York based actors Jamison Stern, Laura Jordan and Farah Alvin and the Bay Area's Ian Leonard. The ladies, Jordan and Alvin, come off best - probably because there characters are written with more depth and they have the most memorable songs. What Kind Of Girl Is She? is a wonderfully funny duet placed in the middle of the show which on reflection (yea, pun intended) seems the turning point to real. Jordan's Die Vampire, Die!, even with its somewhat forced lyrical metaphors, is a clever number, universal in its theme of defeating the doubts in our own heads. Alvin's solo A Way Back To Then is a triumph of simplicity and power, arguably the best song in the show.



Stern and Leonard are good enough despite their characters seeming as cartoons rather then flesh and blood. They also get saddled with inferior songs like Untitled Opening Number, Two Nobodies In New York and An Original Musical - unfortunately, the first three songs in the show. All four actors perform the nicely staged Monkeys and Playbills (with its roll out of classic Playbill covers), the rhythmic Change It, Don't Change It/Awkward Photo Shoot, and Nine People's Favorite Things, the final song that closes out the evening on a high note. Also, worth his weight in gold is William Lieberatore, MVCFPA's Musical Director, who accompanies the cast on stage and actually has a few small yet pivotal lines!



The set, with its backdrop of brick and plaster emulating a New York studio apartment, is bare bones and fits the scenario. Each character is given their own chair (shades of Miss Marmelstein in I Can Get It For You Wholesale?) and most of the numbers are staged using them. (I thought seeing Jordan's character, the only one with a full time job, rolling around in her $800 Herman Miller desk chair a nice touch.) Director Meredith McDonough has managed to create the whole of New York in this small apartment.

[title of show] is not a musical in the grand Broadway tradition. It does not use a full orchestra, there is no dancing and it has references that only theatre queens would recognize (the program includes a glossary for the uninformed). And, as directly quoted from the script, it often seems like obvious pandering and too self-indulgent. Still though composer Jeff Bowen and writer Hunter Bell have managed to do something that many other artists have not - get their work seen; that, in itself, makes [title of show] a triumph.

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See CARRIE The Musical Online

On May 12, 1988, a friend called me a little before midnight apologizing that he hadn't telephoned earlier in the evening as planned.


Original Television Commercial

We got into Kennedy around 6 and had to grab a cab and run to the theater to see Carrie.

Carrie? The musical? It opened tonight.

Yea. I saw it.

You're kidding. What did you think?

It was electrifying. The standing O's were flying left and right. The show is intense and wonderful. I absolutely loved it. People were screaming and clamoring for more. It was incredible.

I guess I don't have to get my tickets just now. It'll run forever.

We all know how that turned out. The show closed opening night and turned into one of the most notorious flops in American theatrical history.


Opening number, In

But now you can watch CARRIE The Musical online in this version's entirety. (More info on that non sequitor in wikipedia.) Emerson College has staged and recorded an unlicensed production of the musical (for which amateur performing rights have never been released). They cut the video up into bite size pieces, uploaded the clips to YouTube, created a channel and, with a click on the full screen button, you are right there in the theater.


Open Your Heart/And Eve Was Weak

It's a good production too. There is no cast listing but the woman who played Margaret White is top-notch. Carrie - less so but she did grow on me. The gym teacher is very good as well. And the camera work is not imposing. Close-ups at the right time and zoom outs when called for. Excellent - only in the final scene of Act 2 is it a little out of view but I'm sure the photographer knew it as filming was proceeding and was pulling his (or her) hair out. Too bad.


Evening Prayers

The show itself is intense and emotional. Carrie The Musical is adapted from Stephen King's novel by Lawrence D. Cohen with lyrics by Dean Pitchford and music by Michael Gore (of Fame fame). And some of the music IS electrifying. I was getting all ferklempt watching this on YouTube. And since, I have found a treasure trove of clips from the original Broadway production. Betty Buckley as Margaret White is astonishing (play And Eve Was Weak) and I kick myself for not dropping the phone and going to see this show twenty years ago. Damn. Linzi Hateley (who is currently playing Donna in Mamma Mia on the West End) as Carrie is also excellent. Enjoy them now 'cause it was a moment in time. Although it's interesting to note that making a movie into a Broadway musical is a lot more common today than it was in 1988.


I Remember How Those Boys Could Dance


Wotta Night