Another Hitchcock Collection…

My comments to follow after work…

A DEFINITIVE ANTHOLOGY FROM
THE MASTER OF SUSPENSE

ALFRED HITCHCOCK
PREMIERE COLLECTION

Brilliantly Restored And Remastered, The Eight-Disc Set Includes All-New Commentaries, Featurettes, Screen Tests, Vintage Radio Interviews,
An AFI Tribute To The Director And More

Arriving On DVD October 14 From MGM Home Entertainment

LOS ANGELES, CA – One of the most influential filmmakers in all of cinema and voted the greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly, MGM Home Entertainment presents an extensive compilation featuring the works of a true Hollywood legend when the Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection arrives on DVD October 14. Nominated collectively for a total of 23 Academy Awards, these films are beautifully restored and remastered and feature titles out of print on DVD for several years. The eight-disc set is highlighted by Hitchcock’s Oscar winner for Best Picture Rebecca, starring Joan Fontaine (Suspicion) and Laurence Olivier (Hamlet) in a dark tale of love and obsession. Silver screen siren Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca) makes an appearance in two Hitchcock classics; first alongside Gregory Peck (To Kill a Mockingbird) in Spellbound, as a young doctor in pursuit of the truth and next alongside Cary Grant (North by Northwest) in Notorious, a tale of crime, passion and espionage. Rounding out the collection is Peck once again in The Paradine Case as a lawyer defending a beautiful woman accused of poisoning her husband, the spy thriller Sabotage, the romantic murder-mystery drama Young and Innocent, the suspenseful high seas thriller Lifeboat and one of Hitchcock’s earliest films, the terrifying whodunit The Lodger featuring an all-new anniversary score.

With hours of all-new special features including audio commentaries, featurettes, screen tests, still galleries, vintage radio interviews, an AFI Tribute to Hitchcock and more, the DVD collection also includes a 32-page notebook with trivia, production notes and more about the legendary director. Available for a suggested retail price of $119.98 U.S. / $159.98 Canada, Rebecca, Spellbound and Notorious will also be available as singe discs for a suggested retail price of $19.98. Prebook is September 17.

Rebecca Synopsis
A young woman marries a fascinating older widower only to discover that she must live in the shadows of his first wife, Rebecca, who died mysteriously several years before.

Special features:
· Commentary by film historian/author Richard Schickel
· Screen tests
· Making of Rebecca Featurette
· The Gothic World of Daphne Du Maurier Featurette
· Original 1938 Radio Play Starring Orson Welles
· 1941 Radio Play Presented by Cecil B. DeMille
· 1950 Radio Play with Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier
· Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
· Audio Interview: François Truffaut Interviews Hitchcock
· Four-page booklet

The Lodger Synopsis
During a rash of gruesome murders by a serial killer known only as “The Avenger,” a mysterious stranger arrives in London and rents a room with the Bunting family. Intriguing and reclusive, the Buntings’ new guest soon earns the interest of their beautiful daughter. But when the lodger’s strange habits and odd hours start to coincide with The Avenger’s killings, the Buntings suspect they may have let a murderer into their home…and given him the key to destroying their lives!

Special features:
· 1999 Score by Ashley Irwin presented in 5.1 Dolby Surround
· 1997 Score by Paul Zaza presented in Mono
· Commentary with film historian Patrick McGilligan
· The Sound of Silence: The Making of The Lodger Featurette
· Hitchcock 101 Featurette
· 1940 Radio Play Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
· Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
· Audio Interview: François Truffaut Interviews Hitchcock
· Restoration Comparison

The Paradine Case Synopsis
Beautiful Anna Paradine (Alida Valli) is accused of poisoning her older wealthy husband. Her barrister, the happily married Anthony Keane (Gregory Peck) takes the case but also lets his heart rule his head when he falls hard for his client.

Special features:
· Commentary with film historians Stephen Rebello & Bill Krohn
· Isolated Music and Effects Track
· 1949 Radio Play Starring Joseph Cotton
· Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
· Restoration Comparision
· Still Galleries

Spellbound Synopsis
When John Ballantine (Gregory Peck), the new director of a mental asylum arrives on the job, the staff is concerned. He seems too young for the position and his answers to their questions are vague and detached. Dr. Peterson (Ingrid Bergman), while knowing he is an imposter with emotional issues, nevertheless falls in love with him. Turning to her mentor, Dr. Alex Brulov (Michael Checkhov) and the use of psychoanalysis she tries to get to the root of Ballantine’s emotional problems.

Special features:
· Commentary with film historians Thomas Schatz & Charles Ramirez Berg
· Guilt by Association: Psychoanalyzing Spellbound Featurette
· A Cinderella Story: Rhonda Fleming Featurette
· Dreaming with Scissors: Hitchcock, Surrealism and Salvador Dali Featurette
· 1948 Radio Play Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
· Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
· Audio Interview: Film Historian Rudy Belhemer Interviews Composer Miklós Rózsa
· Still Gallery
· 4-Page Booklet

Notorious Synopsis
Daughter of an accused World War II traitor, Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is enlisted to entrap one of her father’s colleagues in Brazil, Alexander Sebastian (Claude Raines). Her American contact, secret agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) is openly contemptuous of Alicia and instructs her to wed Sebastian. It is only after she is wed that Devlin lets himself admit that he’s fallen in love with her.

Special features:
· Commentary with film historian Rick Jewell
· Commentary with film historian Drew Casper
· Isolated Music and Effects Track
· The Ultimate Romance: The Making of Notorious Featurette
· Alfred Hitchcock: The Ultimate Spymaster Featurette
· AFI Tribute to Hitchcock
· 1948 Radio Play Starring Joseph Cotton and Ingrid Bergman
· Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
· Audio Interview: François Truffaut Interviews Hitchcock
· Restoration Comparision
· Still Gallery
· 4-Page Booklet

Young and Innocent Synopsis
In this witty, suspense thriller a police chief’s daughter helps a fugitive accused of murder prove his innocence.

Special features:
· Commentary with film historians Stephen Rebello & Bill Krohn
· Isolated Music and Effects Track
· Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
· Audio Interview: François Truffaut Interviews Hitchcock
· Restoration Comparision
· Still Gallery

Sabotage Synopsis
A woman learns that her movie theater manager husband is actually a foreign agent when a bomb he has made kills her brother. Based on Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent.

Special features:
· Commentary with film historian Leonard Leff
· Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
· Restoration Comparision
· Still Gallery

Lifeboat Synopsis
Nominated for three Academy Awards®, Alfred Hitchcock’s World War II drama is a remarkable story of human survival. After their ship is sunk in the Atlantic by Germans, eight people are stranded in a lifeboat. Their problems are further compounded when they pick up a ninth passenger – the Nazi captain from the U-boat that torpedoed them. With powerful suspense and emotion, this legendary classic reveals the strengths and frailties of individuals under extraordinary duress.

Special features:
· Commentary by University of Southern California School of Cinema & Television Hitchcock professor and film critic, Drew Casper
· “The Making of Lifeboat” featurette
· The original theatrical trailer
· Still gallery featuring photographs from the set

Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection
DVD Price: $119.98 U.S. / $159.98 Canada
Order Due Date: September 17, 2008
Street Date: October 14, 2008
Catalog Number: M110985
Total Run Time: 594 minutes
Screen Format: 1.33:1 Full Screen
Audio Features: English Mono
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Closed Captioned: Yes

June is Bustin’ Out All Over – Leslie Uggams style!

I had hoped to post this on June 1st in honor of the month, but the video was nowhere to be found on youtube. Thanks to Marc Acito (who found it before me), here is the restored infamy that is Leslie Uggams crooning “June is Bustin’ Out All Over” (or something like it) at a Washington DC concert on the Capitol lawn. Well better late than never.

Stick around for the subtitles!

The Show Will Go On!

The official press release from the off-Broadway show Gazillion Bubble Show that found their key material stolen. Unbelievable what some people will do, isn’t it? Glad to hear that the setback isn’t interrupting the run of the show any. Apparently it takes six weeks to mix up the solution used for performance, hopefully when that time comes there’ll still be enough left for the audiences’ enjoyment.

BUBBLE TROUBLE
OFF-BROADWAY HIT SHOW
GAZILLION BUBBLE SHOW’S
WAREHOUSE LOOTED

Despite the recently reported news about the bubble break-in, the Off-Broadway hit Gazillion Bubble Show will continue to amaze audiences of all ages at New World Stages as planned. There is enough special bubble formula to get through the next several weeks and Fan Yang and members of his production staff are working overtime to ensure the continuation of the Gazillion Bubble Show NO SHOWS WILL BE CANCELED. Tickets are currently on sale through January 2009.

Previously reported: The NJ warehouse that housed all of the famed off-Broadway show the Gazillion Bubbles Show was looted. The bandits took off with over 6000 bubble toys, even more frustrating to the renowned bubble artist is the theft of his specialized bubble solution (3.4 tons to be exact) which takes two months to create and may put the famed Gazillion Bubble Show in a pinch as there is only one month worth of supplies left at the theatre.

Created by 16-time Guinness World Record holder and bubble scientist, Fan Yang’s Gazillion Bubble Show has been bringing the magic and beauty of simple soap bubbles to New York for the past 18 months at New World Stages. His wife Ana and brother Jano also perform with The Gazillion Bubble Show. Fan Yang and the GAZILLION BUBBLE SHOW has been featured on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The David Letterman Show,” “Live with Regis and Kelly,” “The Ellen Degeneres Show,” “The View,” “CBS Sunday Morning,” NBC, ABC, CBS, CW1, FOX, as well as and television stations around the world. In past months Yang has put over 100 people is a bubble as well as enclosing a 8,800lbs elephant in a single soapy sphere.

The GAZILLION BUBBLE SHOW…”It will BLOW you away!!!”

It is simply UNBUBBLELIEVABLE! You have to experience it to believe it.

Now on sale through January 2009

GAZILLION BUBBLE SHOW

Mon & Tues Dark; Wednesday 2pm, Thursday 2pm and 7pm, Friday 2pm and 5pm,

Saturday 11am, 2pm, 7pm, Sunday 12noon and 3pm

New World Stages Theatre located at 340 West 50th Street

Tickets are $41.50 -$86.50 (VIP package) and can be purchased at

Telecharge at 212.239.6200 or at www.telecharge.com

Visit www.gazillionbubbleshow.com for full performances schedule.

"I do not do anything ‘merely’…"

Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack took home Tony awards for their work in Peter Shaffer’s comedy Lettice & Lovage. The play, about the friendship between two unlikely ladies working for a historical society in England, was written specifically for Smith and proved a successful vehicle for her at the Globe Theatre in London in 1987 and the Ethel Barrymore in NY in 1990 (with direction by the esteemed Michael Blakemore). Smith was Lettice Duffet, an extravagantly and flamboyantly extroverted woman with an active imagination who, while giving tours of one of the dullest of British houses, starts making incredulous embellishments to amuse herself and her tourists. This leads to a conflict with Lotte, the representative of the trust who is a rather dour realist and is not at all pleased with Lettice’s antics. While the play itself received mixed reviews, there was nothing but raves for Smith’s bravura performance and also for Tyzack as her stern foil.

Here is a scene as performed on the 1990 Tony awards where the two ladies have it out. How I wish I could have been there to see this play. Enjoy.

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And here is Maggie Smith’s Tony acceptance speech:

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In Memoriam

“Picture it. Sicily…”

And thus would begun another hilarious story from the colorful life of Sophia Petrillo on the hit NBC sitcom The Golden Girls. For seven years, viewers tuned in for the amusing hijinks in the unlikely sitcom about four older women living together in Miami. The scene-stealer from seasoned veterans Bea Arthur, Betty White and Rue McClanahan would prove to be Estelle Getty’s performance as Sophia, the Sicilian mother of divorcee Dorothy Zbornak. Estelle became that “overnight sensation” late in life. It wasn’t until the late 70s she began to really get a foot hold in off and off-off Broadway theatre, supporting avant-garde artists and finding her way into show business after being a wife and mother for many years. It was Estelle who insisted Harvey Fierstein write the third act of Torch Song Trilogy for the Mother – and that she should play it. She would transfer with the play to Broadway, where it won several Tonys, though her name was conspicuously absent from the ballot. Shortly afterward, she would land The Golden Girls and would become a household name, winning the Emmy and Golden Globe along the way. (Estelle also reprised the role on Empty Nest, Nurses and The Golden Palace). Estelle’s health declined severely in recent years as she suffered Lewy Body Syndrome, a disease that resembles both Parkinson’s and Alzheimers. Today would have been her 85th birthday.

Harvey Fierstein pays tribute to his beloved co-star and friend in the NY Post.

But sadly it doesn’t stop there. This week, it feels that every time you turn around someone else has left us. Larry Haines, a noted stage (Promises, Promises & A Thousand Clowns) and TV (Another World) actor, died late last week at the age of 89. Tony nominee and star of Yiddish theatre, Bruce Adler, passed away this morning of liver cancer at the age of 63. Adler was Ali Hakim in the 1979 revival of Oklahoma! and was Bela Zangler in the original Broadway production of Crazy For You (a role he recreated on the Great Performances telecast of the PaperMill Playhouse production in 1999). Randy Pausch, the college professor dying of terminal pancreatic cancer who inspired the nation with The Last Lecture lost his battle with the disease this morning. He was 47.

In times of sorrow, it is best to find refuge in humor. Here is a collection of great moments from The Golden Girls; also a testament to Estelle Getty’s gift as an actress and comedienne.

Fratelli Metallo

It’s a bit off-topic but my heavy metal enthusiast brother sent me this clip and I found it too amusing not to share. What we have here is Brother Cesare Bonizzi, a Capucin monk in Italy who has gotten into heavy metal after seeing a Metallica concert some years ago.

Oh What Fresh Hell is This?

If you recall, back in February, I briefly posted about the flop musical Rockabye Hamlet. The show was a disastrous rock opera which reconceptualized the Bard’s classic at a concert (complete with Ophelia, played by the ever game Beverly d’Angelo strangling herself with a microphone cord). Well, the undead are virtually unstoppable. Much to my surprise and utter amazement I find that the disaster is receiving similar treatment to the other (and far more worthy) 7 performance bomb of 1976, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: a revised concert presentation complete with new title.

The show, now called Something’s Rockin’ in Denmark, (I’m not making this up, you know) will be playing the St. Lawrence Center for the Arts in Toronto this coming weekend for three performances, with composer Cliff Jones culling material from the various productions to create his definitive and final version.

Here is the press release:

One of Broadway’s legendary flops was the 1976 rock opera based on Hamlet.

Now this infamous musical by Cliff Jones will be presented as a staged concert for three exclusive performances in Toronto on July 25-26 at the Jane Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.

Originally commissioned for C.B.C. Radio, KRONBORG: 1582 played at the Charlottetown Festival (Prince Edward Island) to critical acclaim in the summers of 1974 and ’75, followed by a Canadian tour with Brent Carver as Hamlet and Beverly D’Angelo as Ophelia.

Renamed Rockabye Hamlet, and substantially revised under the direction of Gower Champion, it opened on Broadway at the Minskoff Theatre Feb 16, 1976, starring Larry Marshall, D’Angelo and Meat Loaf. It played a efw weeks of previews (which composer Jones says were ecstatically received by audeinces) then it opened to 7 out of 7 negative notices. ROCKABYE HAMLET closed a week later.

With new revisions by Jones and re-titled SOMETHING’S ROCKIN’ IN DENMARK, the show then enjoyed a 14-month run in Los Angeles. The musical won twelve Dramalogue Awards (L.A.) and has since been successfully produced many times.

For this new concert staging of SOMETHING’S ROCKIN’ IN DENMARK, Cliff Jones has adapted his script and score, taking the best of all previous productions. He will also direct the show, joined by Lona Davis as musical director and Mimi Woods Doherty as choreographer/assistant director. The cast of 18 features Ted Ambrose, Lisa Bell, Matthew A.C. Campbell, Trevor Covelli, Scott Freethy, Michael Harvey, Laura Higgs and Gerald Isaac.

SOMETHING’S ROCKIN’ IN DENMARK plays Friday, July 25 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, July 26 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. The Jane Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, is located in downtown Toronto at 27 Front Street East. Tickets are $40 (lower orchestra) and $30 (upper orchestra) and may be reserved by calling the box office at 416-366-7723 or 1-800-708-6754, go online to www.stlc.com

Witness the Toronto re-birth of this wondrous, eclectic musical!

"To This We’ve Come"

Gian-Carlo Menotti’s The Consul, one of the rare operas composed specifically for production on Broadway, was a statement by the composer about the state of revolutionary idealists and refugees, mainly those suffering under the dictatorship of Soviet control in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Menotti (with whom, incidentally, I share a birthday) is probably best known for his TV opera Amahl and the Night Visitor, the first opera ever written specifically for television and The Medium.

The Consul, his first attempt at a full opera, opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 15, 1950 ran for 269 performances and was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music as well as the New York Drama Critics Award as Best Musical and the long-defunct Tony award for Best Conductor (Lehman Engel). The score contains considerable stretches of recitative rather than aria, with a jauntiness and dissonance that reflects the uneasiness and danger of the political climate of the onstage environment. Soprano Patricia Neway, best known for her Tony-winning turn as the Mother Abbess in the original Broadway cast of The Sound of Music, played the tragic heroine Magda Sorel.

During the run of The Sound of Music, Neway reprised her role of Magda for a paying television audience (in an early unsuccessful attempt at pay-per-view programming in 1960). The television production was discovered and released on DVD a few years ago and provides us with the extraordinary opportunity to see a performer recreating the role of a lifetime. (While we have the DVD and its accompanying soundtrack, the Decca original cast album remains unavailable on CD).

The three-act opera follows the tragic story (it’s an opera about the horrors of dictatorship, this cannot possibly end well) of Magda, a young wife and mother in a deliberately unnamed totalitarian nation. Her husband is a rebel wanted by the secret police. After he is wounded, her husband makes a run to the border to hide while Magda is left to make arrangements to transport the family out of the country safely. Magda’s troubles multiply as her mother-in-law and child become seriously ill and she finds herself constantly followed and interrogated by the secret police. Much to her growing frustration she discovers that the bureaucracy at the consulate is unstoppable, leaving herself and many others stranded vis-a-vis a sea of red tape and paperwork. When her child dies, she makes another imploring visit to the consulate and when rejected once again by the callous secretary, her emotions and anger explode in the show-stopping aria “To This We’ve Come,” which brings the second act – and the opera itself – to a climax with one of the few moments of musical assonance heard in the score.

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