sidwich

"Camelot" was always a troubled production, both onstage and screen. With the troubles it had out of town (Lerner, Loewe and Moss Hart all had heart attacks before the show hit Broadway), I don't think it has ever lived up to its potential, no matter who has been cast in it. I think what it actually needs is somebody to take a loving but judicious knife to it, and patch in another few scenes.

As far as Gueneveres, I'm don't think either Julie Andrews or Vanessa Redgrave were ideal casting. I do understand that Rachel York has been doing an outstanding job in the recent tour, though, and she is someone I can see capturing both the innocence and sensuality necessary in a great Guenevere besides being a excellent actress and vocalist.

sidwich, I hope you’ll tell us what you thought of the Sweeney Todd film when and if you see it.

I'll have a break next week, and should finally be able to squeeze it in. If nothing else I'm looking forward to hearing the music. I understand Jonathan Tunick has done all new orchestrations (expanded from the original 27 player pit orchestra to 70+ for the film) and they are supposed to be ravishing.

My sentiments exactly, but I'm sure you're at least more tolerant than I am, as this is my least favourite of all Sondheim's shows--I consider it the most overrated Broadway show in history.

Ah, papeetepatrick, you break my heart! "Sweeney Todd" is my favorite Sondheim piece. (As for overrated Broadway shows, I'd have to put "Pippin," "Evita" and "Les Miserables" as my top three.)

no longer am sorry for any strange casting, omissions of songs, because I think if one of my great favourites, Patti Lupone, cannot make me feel even an ounce of anything but more loathing with 'Nothing's Gonna Harm You', that it deserves all the Golden Globes and Oscars that Hollywood hierarchies, wire-pulling, and whatever else can get them for it.

I don't think LuPone is really an actress suited to Sondheim, as fun as it was to watch her play the tuba. I wasn't all that into her performance as Rose in the clips I've seen from her "Gypsy." I think she is much more successful in the Lloyd Webber canon.

And personally, I don't think the Doyle production was very good at all. "Not While I'm Around" was a distinct letdown when it's usually a moment of sheer terror.

Well, this worked (and thanks for the information, glebb, I didn't know about that), although if they wanted to make her sound more amateurish and as if she could not sing (like Glynis Johns and Elizabeth Taylor), they markedly failed, as she is a glory.

While Desiree is written for a non-singer (and is a comparably easy vocal part as opposed to the part of Anne in the same show), I doubt the point was for Sally Ann Howes to sound like a non-singer but to approach the performance from an acting perspective first and a vocal perspective second, which is a common approach for many musical theatre folk. Barbra Streisand espouses this philosophy repeatedly in describing her approach to performing songs.

As for "Sweeney Todd," the most powerful "A Little Priest" I've heard by far is the one performed by Cariou and Lansbury at Sondheim's birthday celebration at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of years ago. Although neither had much of a voice left at this stage in their lives (Cariou especially), it blew away all the other opera-trained Sweeneys and Lovetts I've witnessed.

I'm glad Sondheim got the movie to be exactly as he wished it to be, quite as he keeps being quoted as saying--insofar as I have any empathy for such things (I don't.)

These matters can be delicate. I’m sure that Sondheim is very happy that ST appears to have made a successful transition to the screen, even if his own contribution isn’t exactly being trumpeted to the skies, and it would be bad form (and possibly a contractual violation) for him to complain publicly about anything he didn’t happen to like.

I don't know that I've seen any Sondheim quotes saying that the movie is exactly as he wished it. I've generally seen him saying things about him being very pleased with the end-product, and acknowledging that film and theatre are two very different media, which they are.

And dirac is correct that film contracts usually include a non-disparagement clause.

Actually, dirac, it's completely excusable. For reasons unknown to me, the movie was for years completely unavailable. I'm not sure it was ever even on videocassette. Perhaps somebody here knows the story behind that. Anyway, it is now on DVD, and it is a delight. I especially love the dance numbers Donald O'Connor and Vera-Ellen have, just a joy to watch.

As Anthony_NYC noted, that's not unusual at all. The Berlin Estate kept a tight fist on the rights to the film musicals adapted from Berlin's Broadway work, and it was nearly impossible to see "Call Me Madam" outside of special screenings or museum showings until very recently (I think I originally saw the film of "Call Me Madam" at a showing at LACMA many years ago.) The same was true of the film adaptation of "Annie Get Your Gun," as well as "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and a couple of others.

I like the film a lot, and I like the choreography by Bob Alton for Donald O'Connor and Vera-Ellen quite a bit. I think Donald O'Connor always noted it as his personal favorite of all his films.

It's not a show that would do well in a revival, but the Encores! concert with Tyne Daly and Melissa Errico several years ago was quite charming.

Also have listened to the old 'Tree Grows in Brooklyn' original cast album, with main attraction Shirley Booth, even though she's in a supporting role. I'll put up the NYTimes review of the 2005 Encores! production which explains what some of the problems were--but the score, by Arthur Schwartz and Dorothy Fields, is top-notch, and I regret that I didn't know about that production.

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" is considered one of the loveliest scores not widely known. It was an excellent choice for Encores! a couple of years ago because it was a score that really deserved to be heard again.

I think it's a difficult show to pull off in a lot of ways. It really needs a strong actor and singer who can pull off the charming loserness of the father character, or else the show starts falling apart. (Jason Danieley wasn't really a strong enough actor to do it in the concert, although he gave a first-rate vocal performance as always).

To me, ballet is an art form that already requires such a degree of suspension of disbelief that if I can go with a woman in tulle and toe shoes representing a swan or the statuesque and blonde Michele Wiles playing an Indian princess, tattoos don't seem like much of an issue.

to especially the music they dance to. The Pasa Doble to En Voque's Free Your Mind, The Tango to Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus and this week the Viennese Waltz to Queen ! When you think of these song selections together with those particular dances you wonder how in the heck can anyone pull THAT off!

The pros have very limited input in the music that they dance to. The music is assigned by the producers each week (which makes sense when you think about the music rights that are involved). I am positive Maks did not think "Free You Mind" is a Paso, any more than Cheryl thinks "Thriller" is a Paso, or Louis think "Material Girl" is a cha-cha, although they all did a very good job with what they were given. (The Queen actually is a V. Waltz, and the producers tend to be reasonably good about the Waltz music choices since they do have to stick within the bounds of 3/4).

Actually, I think many of the pros do a very good job at making coherent dances to the music that they are assigned.

Without stopping to look it up, my recollection is that the Castle Walk is closely modeled on the original and adapted somewhat for Fred and Ginger. They also do a Turkey Trot and I think a foxtrot, which the Castles did much to popularize. I don’t know offhand if the waltz they do at the end was done by the Castles, although it has a period feel. The John Springer Astaire book and Arlene Croce’s book on Astaire-Rogers will have the relevant details. Sidwich?

I actually did a reconstruction of the Castle Walk in a performance in college as part of a vintage dance ensemble, and as I recall, what is in the film is accurate. I haven't seen the film in a while and I'm not as familiar with most of the other dances depicted so I can't speak to those.

Rodgers and Sondheim didn’t get on and neither one of them had much good to say about the show – I think Sondheim once called it a well formed dead baby.

Rodgers and Sondheim did not get along at all. Actually, from what I understand most of the creative team didn't get along with Rodgers and nicknamed him "Godzilla," although to be fair, he was quite ill from cancer (I think in his jaw?) at the time.

I would also give a listen to "Rex." It's pretty heavy, and Henry VIII is not really great musical inspiration, but Penny Fuller is wonderful and a some of the score is lovely. "Away From You" deserved to be in a better show.

I hadn't, at last posting heard the early 80's version as well, and although surely the biggest thrill of seeing the show must have been Makarova doing the Balanchine, the delight on the CD is Dina Merrill's Peggy Porterfield.

I saw the 1983 revival with Makarova, and she was smashing. I also saw a nice revival last year here in LA. The show does not hold up very well, but it is always a showcase for the songs and fine dancers. Even with the Balanchine choreography and Vera Zorina, the film suffers from casting the non-dancing Eddie Albert as the lead.

Edited to add: also listened to Bloomer Girl, which I found the least interesting of all major Harold Arlen scores I've yet heard. One song 'The Eagle and Me', which is reprised, has something of what you hear in the more earthy type of subject matter Arlen seems more comfortable with, but I much prefer St. Louis Woman, Jamaica (Lena Horne), and House of Flowers is one of the greatest of all musical scores, which was done by Encores! a few years ago, Joanne Woodward one of its big boosters and 'shakers'. Bloomer Girl was obviously following up the recent and continuing success of Oklahoma! and Arlen was not the same kind of musical-maker as Rodgers & Hammerstein, and it sounds as though he tried in this case; and of course, Celeste Holm follows up Ado Annie with Evalina. It was successful, but rarely revived.

I don't think Arlen was at his best in the theater. He seemed better to suited to writing for films, revues and Tin Pan Alley where his musical ideas could flow freely. He seems almost inhibited by the musical theater form and writing songs for specific characters. I've seen the Encores! productions of "St. Louis Woman" and "House of Flowers" and generally, I like the music in the scores much better than "Bloomer Girl" but the books are barely intelligible at all. They're very difficult to watch and make almost no sense.

I've seen "Bloomer Girl" a couple of times in revival as well as the TV telecast which had most of the original cast and choreography, and it does make some basic sense. The music's in and of itself does not soar to the heights of "St. Louis Woman" or "House of Flowers" or Harburg's great "Finnian's Rainbow" but it does work better as a theater piece, although Harburg's radical liberal leanings do make it ponderous at times. I think the Arlen/Harburg team's best work is "The Wizard of Oz," though.

By all rights, it was Marie's time to leave but, given the death of her father the previous week, I doubted the audience would vote her off and sure enough they didn't. That being the case, Cameron and Edyta were reasonable bootees. He was decent enough over the course of the competition but he had reached the limit of what progress he was going to make.

Although this year is interesting in that there's no clear frontrunner, I think Marie has an excellent shot at winning. Besides coming in with a good-sized fanbase, top-notch performing skills and a very popular and skilled pro, ballroom dancing is HUGE in the Mormon community and Utah. I think BYU is the only accredited college in the nation that offers a degree in ballroom dancing.

Although I think Mel is by far the best dancer left in the competition, I am concerned as to whether her fanbase is large enough to sustain her in a competition this tight. I've really been enjoying her dancing and loved that Maks choreographed their V. Waltz to start with the natural (right) turns, reverse (left) turns, and fleckerl which are the traditional figures that make up International Standard V. Waltz. Very classic.

I did not like Jennie and Derek's Mambo from a couple of weeks ago, mainly because as entertaining as it was there was hardly any Mambo or Mambo technique in it. I don't think either of the Houghs has much if any experience in American Rhythm, and it shows (Julianne's Mambos with Apolo and Helio had similar issues). I am curious what Mark Ballas may have done with the Mambo given the shared training and background.

While I generally like Julianne and Helio, I feel like Helio has plateaued in his development at this point (not uncommon with beginners), and Julianne has hit a wall as to what she can do with him. Her choreography is really starting to look like a series of "tricks" strung together with some choreography in-between and she's better than that.

From a pro-am teaching perspective, what I don't like about Julianne's choreography is that she will often insert an eye-popping trick that can be very high-risk. Last night, they were having visible problems with one of the spins and had to bail on it early, and a similar trick in her Mambo with Apolo last year was thisclose to wipeout. I really don't think some of these are worth the risk when something easier would be just as impressive to an uneducated audience.

Jane cut an elegant figure on the dancefloor but, unfortunately, I think that proved to be her undoing.

I'm not sure if her elegance was the problem, so much as a lack of technique and musicality. Although Tony is a very good dancer himself, he's never been good at teaching beginners. While Jane could hit the marks of his choreography accurately, there wasn't a whole lot going on otherwise.

Unfortunately, given the show's fondness for glamazon's, I don't think they'll ever let him go since he's one of the few available pros tall enough to partner many of the celebs.

I don't think it was time for Sabrina to leave the competition as I think she was a better dancer than several of the other remaining competitors. BUT (you knew that was coming) she had a number of things working against her that destroyed her the second the judges' scores drooped:

Sabrina's weak dance also occured Halloween week, which has never gone well for Disney's "tween" stars (Monique was eliminated the same week).

While Sabrina was one of the strongest celebrity amateurs technically (if not the strongest), I found her dancing hard and graceless. I've said it before (and I'm sorry to sound like a broken record on this score) -- the key to victory in this competition is to make the audience fall in love with you and your professional partner. Kelly/Alec, Drew/Cheryl, Emmitt/Cheryl and Apolo/Julianne all did this and they stormed to victory in the end.

I think Kelly, Drew and Emmitt also benefitted considerably from large and established fanbases. Apolo and Julianne were the couple I would say most benefitted from the "coupledom" effect.

I liked Sabrina. I think she was strong technically AND she was developing competent technique under Mark's instruction. Foxtrot is never going to be a good dance for her (she's too short for one, and it's not the best dance suited for her personality), but I think the foxtrot they performed was better than it's given credit for. To me, watching the foxtrot (generally considered the most difficult of the Ballroom dances) and comparing it to their earlier quickstep (generally considered the easiest), I can see how much she's improved in her frame, connection, head placement, etc. It's no comparison even though quickstep suits her much more.

I was more surprised that Cameron and Edyta were in the Bottom Two. I'm not quite sure what happened with these two as Cameron is showing mild improvement and they have good enough chemistry together.

I usually write Edyta's celeb off at the beginning of each season. She seems like one of the nicest of all the pros, but I don't think that she's that effective as a teacher or choreographer.

I have to give her credit this season, though. I don't think anyone considers Cameron all that talented as a dancer (least of all Cameron), but she really took him much farther than I ever thought she would and did a really good job with him. He actually became a pretty competent beginner with a real sense of use of body weight and lead, and that is much, much further than she's gotten any of her previous celebs and her choreography this year has actually been fairly decent. Although it got quite a few knocks, I though the Samba choreography was pretty good and pretty classic samba, bad costumes and all.

I'm assuming, since the pros choreograph the dances, that they also pick the music.

The pros are able to submit some preferences prior to the season, but the producers assign out the music which the couples only receive after the results from the week before. Hence, Edyta listening to "Superman" over and over and over trying to figure out how to choreograph a coherent Paso (I'm quite sure that all of the couples have been assigned some music that left the pros scratching their heads and worse.)

I think a number of things worked against Jane this week. She and Tony had to follow Marie and the fainting episode so I think the audience may have forgotten about her amidst all the chaos. More importantly, I think Jane and Tony were hurt by a certain "sameness" that has overtaken their performances. Week-in and week-out, they deliver competent performances. Unfortunately, the performances are starting to blend into one. Whether its the choreography or Jane herself, this team dances every dance as if it was the same dance. She will soon find herself evicted from the competition if she cannot vary her performances for the audience.

I think what's struck me about Jane's performances, and rhumba in particular is how very superficial they are. She's still not using her knees, ankles or feet to get into the floor, her partnering skills are non-existent so she and Tony aren't really using her momentum or weight to provide power or dynamic, and she really has no real sense of phrasing to the music. Everything occurs at this very monotone level, and that's a no-no in any dance, but especially rhumba where everything is stretch-stretch-stretch then... SNAP-SNAP-SNAP.... stretch-stretch-stretch. It's what creates the excitement in the dance.

While I'm not a fan of Tony's choreography at all, I think the rhumba choreography could have been okay (just okay, but better than it was) with a more advanced dancer who could have created more texture.

Marie has nowhere near the talent, training or body, but she is a very savvy performer and in Jonathan, she has one of the top pro-am coaches and choreographers in the country. I have to admit my fondness for trashy TV to say that watching her judging stint on "Celebrity Duets" I was pleasantly surprised at how intelligent and thoughtful her comments were to each of the contestant. Although she had some serious tendencies to chatty-Cathy, more often than not she could give very clear articulate thoughts on why a performance worked or didn't. I'm sure she knows exactly what kinds of things will work for her and will please and audience and what is blah.

More reviews from anyone?

My cable's been out for more than a week, so I don't really have reviews. If it's hard to get perspective on ballroom through a TV screen, it's really hard trying to do it through a micro-window on a laptop. I also can't really comment on Paso Doble since my real International Latin training ended many, many years ago after a few months when I was still living in England, and I never got to train Paso.

Random thoughts in no particular order:

Paso and V. Waltz are dances no coach in right mind would try to teach a beginner after only a couple of months, and while I can't comment on Paso, it was like a surreal reality watching the pros trying to teach their students something approaching V. Waltz, a dance that is all about velocity and rotation and partnering, when none of them have sufficient skill to handle anything approaching it. Two couples (Jane and Tony and Julianne and Helio) did not even attempt turns in both directions which is the basis of V. Waltz.

Shocked at how not suited Julianne's choreography was for Helio. His topline issues really became apparent with the V. Waltz, and he just does not have the sufficient sense of stretch or line to accomplish what she set out for the rhumba.

I thought Sabrina made some good progress with the rhumba (she's trying to stretch and snap, but it's not quite soup), but if there is a fairness question with the show, I seriously wondered about the fairness of her getting to work with Shirley Ballas, even if she is Mark's mother when none of the other contestants got the benefit of a coaching session with a world-renowned coach.

I thought 'All at Once You Love Her' was going to be something familiar, but I think I am confusing it with a Vegas favourite with lyrics something like 'When somebody loves you, it's no good unless they love you.....ALL THE WAY...' which I guess Steve Lawrence and Tony Bennett must have put in their sets. So it isn't. I didn't recognize any song on Pipe Dream, and wouldn't care to see any version of it; I read it's been revived somewhere in 2002.

I actually rather like the score to "Pipe Dream." It's not the best by Rodgers and Hammerstein, but I enjoy it for some reason. I've heard the original lead actress was quite charming in it as well, although R&H really weren't suited to the Steinbeck sensibility.

The song you're thinking of is "All the Way" by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy van Heusen, and was made famous by Frank Sinatra in one of his films.

Very beautiful score, whatever the shortcomings of the show, which is inspired by Wilder's 'Our Town'. Sad fate, especially since there was such anticipation of this show after 'Oklahoma!', 'Carousel' and 'State Fair.'

"Allegro" was probably ahead of its time, which is unfortunate since the relative failure (not a real failure, but only about 500 performances which was far short of the 2,000+ of "Oklahoma," the nearly 1,000 of "Carousel" and the Academy Award for "State Fair") seemed to put R&H off experimenting much further. They rather turned into the GM of theatre.

Goldwyn Follies tres necessaire for BTers because of divine Zorina doing Balanchine. Introduces 'Love Walked in' and 'Our Love is Here to Stay', and was Gershwin's last film musical.

"Goldwyn Follies" is quite a mish-mash, and it's funny how if you blink, you'll miss "Our Love is Here to Stay" which is used as a throwaway song that comes over the radio. It didn't really become a hit until Gene Kelly used it as the music for the pas de deux in "An American in Paris."

Many thanks to dirac and anthonynyc for 'The Sky's the Limit', which I watched last night. Anthony, Fred is indeed marvelous in the 'One for My Baby...' when he dances on the bar, perhaps some of his most dazzling work in film. I don't know if the song was introduced in this film, but 'my Shining Hour', which is heard and danced to several times and pretty nicely too, with Joan Leslie, was.

"One for my Baby..." was indeed written for the film. And fun fact... the glass that Astaire is dancing in is real glass. With WWII sugar rations, there wasn't enough sugar to go around to make sugar glass.

An unusual pairing, Sinatra and Day, and I hear she wasn't crazy about him, but it worked. I like that film.

I like Day and Sinatra, but I'm not crazy about them together which is the usual knock on "Young at Heart." I adore "My Love," though.

by accident, I discovered that he wrote 'True Love', which I'd never imagine as having been written by the composer of 'Just one of those Things' or 'Let's Do it'.

I don't think that Porter was ever that fond of "True Love." He was said to have been quite embarrased that it was nominated for an Academy Award.

But then, while I always knew 'Blue Room' was Rodgers & Hart, I would never have guessed without Ella Fitzgerald's R & Hart songbook that 'Blue Moon', which always sounds so syrupy, was also their handiwork.

I don't think that Rodgers & Hart were ever that fond of "Blue Moon," either. Actually, I think Hart hated it, and hated that it became one of their biggest hits. Legend has it that a film executive asked them why they kept writing all these weird intellectual pieces, and couldn't they just write a song about June and moons, and so they wrote a parody of such a song. If you watch the sequence that it comes from in the film that it was written for (I can't remember the name), it's supposed to be a stupid song and not supposed to be taken seriously at all.

Shearer, Garbo and Crawford all had figures that were far from perfect, and Adrian did a masterly job of disguising their bad points and highlighting their good ones. (In fact, I’d say that Powell had a better figure, technically, than any of the above ladies.) I think he dressed Powell a couple of times, I wonder how he did with her.

Adrian did the dresses in "Broadway Melody of 1940," among others. I don't think that the shoulder pads worked quite as well on Powell as they did on Crawford.

Maybe the pretty-doll-glamour style was somewhat already there, but 'Rosalie', at least, is 1937, and Lana Turner was not known yet.

Turner wasn't a star yet, but she was already on the MGM lot and in the infamous MGM schoolroom with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland doing things like the "Andy Hardy" movies by the late 1930s.

Random Notes:

Sabrina and Mark: Rough around the edges and not the best kicks and flicks of the night, but this was a totally packed dance from a technical perspective. I didn't mind "the worm" because I recognized about 85% of this dance as straight-up Jive syllabus, far, far more than any of the other competitors of the night, and I care less about what is not syllabus in a routine and far more about what is. Well-balanced routine. Curious to see how she's going to do with the slower-tempo dances like Waltz and Rhumba.

Mel and Maks: For me, the other technically impressive dance of the night. Kicks and flicks more impressive than Sabrina's, but the dance didn't strike me as quite as balanced and Mel and Maks don't seem quite as comfortable with each other (although they seem fine, and much better than Laila and Maks last year).

Cameron and Edyta: I finally figured out what bothered me about this dance, and I think that it's that Cameron's left arm is placed badly. He lets his arm go behind him which throws off both his balance and his frame. Edyta needs to work with him on his frame, and lifting his frame toward his partner. He needs to let it "breathe" into his partner. There's a lot of tension in his arm, and the frame doesn't come from the arms. It comes from the center (which is an advanced concept that he may not "get," but his arms look very painful to me.)

Jennie and Derek: I know what Derek was going for, which was for Jennie to get through his routine having fun and not having a breakdown, and clearly that was what was important this week. However, while this was a step forward from a performance perspective, I think the Tango was a step back technically. Her frame is much weaker, very unstable. It's moving all over the place throughout the dance. She's pulling on Derek like crazy, and her arm (like Cameron) is also going behind her.

Jane and Tony: Tony's a very fine dancer, but I don't think he teaches very well at all, at least not beginners. Jane just doesn't seem to be progressing very much. She's still not bending her knees or pushing into her steps, resulting in very small steps and hardly moving around the floor at all. I think she'd benefit hugely just from spending a few hours with a good Ballroom specialist who could just do some Ballroom 101 with her.

Marie and Jonathan: Conversely, Jonathan has a much weaker beginner in Marie, but I think he's making good progress with her. Her posture still isn't great, but her knees and feet are already working much better than Jane. Jonathan really has her moving around the floor. Also impressed that he's made significant improvement in her head position which is also probably helping her movement around the floor (use of head weight).

Wayne and Cheryl: I still think Cheryl needs to take a season or tour off, and just rest and work on her own technique again. She looks tired and uninspired, and her body has probably taken a beating dancing with beginners so much for the last three years. I hated the fan in this dance. I found it distracting, and I think it distracted Wayne from the dance itself.

Mark and Kym: I don't think Mark is terrible. He looks like a very typical beginner, and there's nothing wrong with that. I give Kym credit, because she's not a very good Latin dancer. However, she's a very able teacher, and she always seems able to get across the basic beginner concepts of a dance and keep building on them with her celeb students. I don't think Mark is ever going to be a great dancer, but he's on his way to becoming a capable social dancer with decent concepts of music, movement and lead/follow to work with.

Floyd and Karina: I like Floyd, and in a lot of ways, Floyd has more going for him than any of the other male celebs. I think if you gave him long enough, he could be superb. However, I don't know that Karina is going to be able to fix his posture issues in the relatively short time frame of the show, especially while he's training for a fight. I don't know if any one could, frankly. Posture is usually not an overnight fix.

Helio and Julianne: Part of what's appealing about Julianne is that she has a daredevil streak. She aims for the ooh-aahs, and when they pay off, it's huge. But I think she easily gets carried away. And what I didn't like about this dance is that there are a lot of high-risk tricks that really don't have a whole lot to do with Jive. While I think tricks are fun for a show like DWTS, I don't really like it when they're replacing substantive content or when you're talking injury-risk. Frankly, Helio is not an advanced enough student for some of these tricks and I really don't like the idea of putting a beginner in the position of hurting himself. What I liked about many of Julianne's routines with Apolo last year was how well grounded they were in basics. Unfortunately, she seems to be getting away from that.

Re: Funny Face, I think the Hepburn-as-mannequin factor plays an important role in its continuing popularity - there's also the Avedon factor, too.

I agree. I think for the general public, it's an excuse to indulge in as much "Hepburn as gamine with a trunkful of Givenchy" as you can before your stomach aches. (It's a bit precious for me, Astaire + Gershwin notwithstanding).

For film afficionadoes, it's also fondly remembered as the film Roger Edens helmed in his own name as producer after many years as Associate Producer and Musical Director at MGM under Arthur Freed.

As to Powell's being "butch," I don't see it. I do see that her line and her movements are not what we typically thinking of as "feminine." In the duet with Astaire, he seems cool; she seems tomboyish. In both clips she has no sexual allure whatsoever. She's not helped by a dress with wide, pointed shoulders; this contrasts unfavorably with Astaire's elegant and casual white suit. (In Rosalie, she's dressed even worse -- a short, wide, flounced tutu like a vaudeville cigarette girl's or cartoon French maid, with fluffy material around her wrists.)

I always rather chalked this up to MGM's general difficulty in dressing any woman who didn't fit into a Lana Turner-style glamour girl mold. Judy Garland seemed stuck in the most hideous costumes sometimes, and Eleanor Powells was even less conventionally "pretty" than Garland.

On another front, here's another name from the past who was big in her day but is virtually unknown today: Norma Shearer. Joan Crawford always complained that Shearer got the best parts when they were co-workers at M-G-M but Crawford ended up getting the better of Shearer in the long run. Crawford is talked about to this day but Shearer is all but forgotten.

I think at least some of that is due to the fact that so many of Shearer's films were silent or very early talkie, and so relatively unlikely to be screened casually today. Unlike Crawford or Davis, Shearer really retired from films by 1940.

Generally, I agree that she's a less memorable on-screen presence than either Crawford or Davis, though.

I don't know, I finally really thought she was impressive in 'Erin Brockovich', and the movie deserves credit even if it does nothing more than tell an important story well. That's the only one, though, and I was very surprised (only saw it recently.) I especially loathe things like 'My Best Friend's Wedding' and she also hasn't much of an ear--which her failed Irish accent in 'Michael Collins' proved.'

I actually think "My Best Friend's Wedding" is one of her better films. Hogan is a good director. Although I don't think she's picked a true classic, yet Roberts' taste is projects is not that bad. She's worked with a fairly impressive string of directors, Altman, Soderbergh, Jordan, Allen among them.

I agree, though that I don't think Roberts will be remembered as an actress or for her films, but for her historical place as the most bankable female star since Mary Pickford.

Meg Ryan seems to be in jeopardy of falling into the Tyrone Power class -- she waited too long to move away from the cutie-pie image.

I think if you look over Ryan's credits historically, she's split her projects between comedies and dramas pretty evenly. Among her projects around the same time as "When Harry Met Sally" and the years after, were "D.O.A.," "The Presidio," "The Doors," "Flesh and Bone," "When a Man Loves a Woman," "Restoration," and "Courage Under Fire." I think she's underrated as an actress, but audiences don't seem to like her in anything other than comedies.

Notes on Week 2: Quicksteps

Best routine of the night to me was Mel and Maks' Quickstep. After last year and the cha-cha, I was starting to think that Maks had lost his talent to coach and choreograph, but this was excellent. They have good frame and speed, and Mel maintains it through the routine. Her frame is actually good enough that Maks is able to give some shaping to this routine. I think Mel misses a heel lead or two and her shoulders creep up a bit at the end, but on the whole, excellent job for a beginner.

Next best of the Quicksteps for me was Sabrina and Mark. They also have good speed and frame, but I would put this a notch lower than Mel/Maks because Sabrina can't quite maintain the head position throughout this routine. She can't quite let go enough to not want to look in the direction she's going at times, and she has trouble hanging back in the work in promenade. Still on the whole, very good.

Jennie and Derek do a pretty respectable job. Jennie has a very common beginner problem in that she starts out in good position, and as the routine wears on, she starts losing it. The frame and connection with her partner start breaking down, and by the end it's out of control.

I'd put Floyd and Karina next. Floyd's problem as is very apparent, is his posture, but there's actually a lot of good in this routine. His footwork is actually very good, and out of all the celebs, he is the one that is actually moving from his center. That is, he is truly moving his center of gravity from foot to foot. He's not wavering when he takes steps. If Karina can actually fix his posture, I think they could be in business. (And personally, I think Karina is a much better coach and choreographer than she's given credit for sometimes).

Conversely, I don't think Anna is that great as either a coach or choreographer. I think she's a fantastic dancer (better than her husband actually), but I don't think there's a lot going for Albert's Quickstep. His posture is decent, but the frame isn't that great. The connection is weak, and his footwork is a mess. He's having trouble both with alternating left and right steps, and he's having trouble hearing the beats of the music. (Actually, I think if you put Albert's posture on Floyd, you'd have one pretty good Quickstep).

I fear a little bit for Julianne that she's going to be annointed the Golden Girl of DWTS in Cheryl's wake. Because it was trumpeted up and down that Cheryl can work magic with anyone, and while Cheryl is a very fine teacher and choreographer (like Julianne), learning to dance isn't magic. It's a combination of good teaching, hard work, and yes, some ability on the part of the student, especially when you're talking about teaching someone to dance in a short amount of time. (Given time, I think anyone can learn to dance). Cheryl can teach, and Wayne can work hard, but it's hard to find a lot of positives in their Quickstep.

Notes on Week 2: Mambos

None of the mambos was that good, and that may be because many of the pros probably aren't all that experienced with mambo themselves. Other than Tony, they're all Latin dancers and Kym's really more of a Standard dancer so perhaps it's not suprising that none of the celebs really got the Cuban motion. What Cuban motion there was seemed to range from virtually non-existent to reverse-Cuban motion to Elvis.

I really did not like Julianne's choreography for this dance. I don't think she's very strong in this dance, and I would doubt that she's had that much training in it. Much of the choreography was connecting the dots between tricks that had very little to do with either mambo or partnering skills.

That being said, I do think Helio and Julianne's mambo was probably the best based on performance value, but I don't think that that's by much. I think Helio does very well in the Mambo (what there is of it), but much of the partnering he's doing during the tricks is of the "balance bar" variety. He's planting in one place, and Julianne is bracing herself against his weight to accomplish the trick, for example the leaning walkaround, the leaning crossing steps, and even the flip. What he is not doing is directing her weight and momentum to give her added speed and power, helping her shape the movement, etc. which is what a skilled partner would do to make his partner look good.

I will say that I think Mark Cuban deserves some more credit that he got. Even though his posture and feet/ankles/knees were shaky (and Kym's the shakiest of the pros in this regard), I think there were some genuine glimmers of lead-follow in this routine, which is to his credit this early in the game.

As for Len's "raunchy" comment, I don't think that "raunchy" was quite the right word, but he was trying to get at a very valid comment which is that the character of mambo is "earthy" and Jane's was very ... not earthy. Which is both a performance issue and a technique issue. The cuban motion is a natural result of the use of the feet, the ankles and the hips, and Jane was (1) dancing on top of the floor instead of into the floor (use of feet and ankles), and (2) neither completely bending or completely straightening her knees/legs. The hip action is a result of the coordination. It does not occur independently. Sometimes what sometimes happens when an inarticulate instructor tells a student to "move their hips" is that the student will obligingly try to move their hips but it's contrived movement, disconnected to what is happening in the rest of the body. Sometimes it happens because the student hasn't developed the control necessary to coordinate all the movements. (Sometimes it results in Elvis.)

As I said, I don't think that any of the celebs really "got" the Cuban motion, but I don't think Jane's problem was so much her "Englishness" vs. "One Too Many Mojito"-dom as some fundamental technique issues.

He was not a great favorite of the Gershwins. But you are right, his musicality and taste were greatly appreciated; he sang the songs as written. (Jerome Kern, for example, used to have fits over what jazz musicians and singers did to his songs.)

Hmm, I thought the Gershwins were quite fond of the Astaires. The siblings were all quite close in age, and came up through the ranks together so to speak, bursting on the scene simultaneously with "Lady Be Good!" back in 1924/25. All told, I think the Gershwins wrote two musicals for the Astaires, and two movies for Fred before George passed.

A few years ago some recordings came out of Fred and Adele singing songs from "Lady Be Good!" and "Funny Face" with George playing the piano. They're some of the few recordings of Adele performing that still exist, I believe. The recording is very primitive, but the group seem to be having a marvelous jazz age time.

‘Night and Day’ was the only song kept from the Broadway ‘Gay Divorce’, which was Astaire’s last Broadway show with his sister Adele(1932).

I think Adele had already retired by then. Astaire's leading lady in "The Gay Divorce" was Clare Luce, I think.

Maybe RKO commissioned more scores than MGM did?

I think that's some of it.

RKO was pouring a lot of money into the Astaire-Rogers musicals. They were the cash cow of a relatively small studio, trying to ride out the Depression.

Somewhat similarly, Universal invested a lot of money into Deanna Durbin's musicals (relatively speaking), with costumes, sets, supporting casts. Durbin can't decide which costume she likes better? She'll wear them both! (If you watch "Can't Help Singing" for which Universal- a relatively poor studio- commissioned an entirely new Jerome Kern score for its star, during the finale the camera cuts away from Durbin wearing one costume to the actress wearing a completely different costume).

MGM was a relatively large studio, and Garland made quite a few Mickey-Judy musicals which had relatively modest budgets for which the producers would mine the already rich song catalog. So "Singing in the Rain" might have been written in the late 20s, but Garland would sing the song in a Mickey-Judy musical in about 1940 (I can't remember which one), and then it was most famously used in the Gene Kelly movie.

Some of it that Astaire just seemed to be a certain then-contemporary time, I think, though. Garland was cast in quite a few period pieces, and her performing style was versatile enough to accomodate different period styles. I think there's a part of Astaire that always seemed to be of the Jazz Age to Big Band Age. He did a few period pieces, but his persona, style and musical phrasing seem most at home from the Jazz Age on.

Random notes on the women:

I didn't find anything egregious about the hip-hop that Sabrina and Mark added to their cha-cha. After the B-roll, I expected long, extended phrases of hip-hop in their routine, but really all there was was the occasional hip-hop highlight. More importantly (to me, at least) was the fact that the routine on the whole, had plenty of traditional content and was well-balanced with a good mix of side-by-side work, partnering, footwork, etc. for both the pro (Mark) and the am(ateur) Sabrina.

I also mostly liked Jennie's cha-cha a la the Piano Man with Derek. She's not nearly as powerful and strong physically as Sabrina, but on the whole this was good and well performed, also with a surprising amount of substantive content and plenty of partnering work. Derek also has her connecting to her back already. When she did the New Yorkers, she really opens her back which most beginners can't do. Derek does really need to work with her on her feet. The big, conspicuous heel leads she took during the intro really took me out of this routine for the first few eights, and she has a turn-in (vs. turnout) at times. Her feet can also get away from her at times, which makes her unsteady. She needs to learn to stay over her feet. (On a purely superficial note, I think Derek is not an ideal physical match for her. He looks too young at times.)

Josie's a mess, and in Alec, she doesn't have a partner who will be able to pull a good performance out of her. She was clearly hanging onto him for dear life. This is an example of closed partnership not showing partnering skills, but rather life-preserver instincts.

I like Marie, and I think she's the first partner that Jonathan's looked genuinely relaxed with. She's very smart as well, immediately picking up that Jonathan is one of the best at making his partner look good no matter what her limitations. This was not a difficult routine, and Marie is not physically very strong, although she's better than Josie. She's taking tiny steps, and some are unsteady. She sells it like crazy, though, and she has good performing instincts. From the B-roll, it looks like Jonathan's already working on this with her, but her neck line is driving me crazy. She really needs to work on the position of her neck and head, both to extend the line, but also to help with her head weight.

Maks really got into reducing the partnering work in his routines with Laila last year when she was struggling with it, and it seems to have carried over into this season. Really, really light on substantive content to the point where I'm withholding an assessment of Mel B. until she's performed some more.

Jane, Jane, Jane... was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The ballet training shows in her posture, carriage, lines of her body, etc. The partnering concerns me, because this was light in partnering work, and Tony's past partner have all been very weak in this department. I don't think Tony is a very good coach or choreographer, and I think his coaching skills in this particular area are very good at all. The choreography was nearly as simple as Marie's, and I think Jane is capable of significantly more. Certainly, she's capable of more than Mark Cuban, and Kym's choreography for the dot com billionaire was actually more difficult.

Tony's also going to need to work with Jane on her feet. Other major first impression is that her steps are very small, almost as small as Marie's. She's not driving into forward her steps, and she's clipping her backward steps short. She's not peeling off of her feet to take a strong step back (in fact, it looks like she's pointing her forward foot before taking the step) and her resulting steps are relatively short. Tony's also got to get her to bend her knees more to lengthen her strides and get more rise and fall action. A lot of her dancing seemed to take place on one level.

Total aside, but I missed Louis. Yes, he was rather intense, but he injected a well-needed dose of ballroom meat into a fluffy show. I like the fluff (I'm watching DWTS, after all), but I liked having the balance.

For DVDs, I would go with the two choices in your original post, innopac. I think "Sweeney Todd" and "Sunday..." are two of Sondheim's most interesting works, and the DVDs give a decent approximation of how Sondheim and the directors (Prince and Lapine, respectively) originally meant for them to be appreciated.

Neither are perfect, especially the "Sweeney Todd" recording, which has the look of a cheap bus-and-truck tour at times and Joslyn as Johanna has a distinct tendency to shrill. But the opportunity to see even the scale-down of the original set and staging more than make up for it, in my opinion. not to mention Angela Lansbury's monumental performance as a mad chihuahua.

My third and fourth choices would probably be "Into the Woods" and "Passion," which are more recent and less "primitive" recordings, both with the original casts.

Most lists, like this one, shy away from anything between Milton and Emma--i.e., Hobbes, Locke, Pope, Swift, Defoe, Sterne, Rousseau, Richardson, Fielding, Voltaire, Hume, etc. No "classics" there?

I think these lists are inevitably based on personal preferences, and mine is definitely away from 18th Century literature. You'll notice, mine is also very, very light on American literature as well, which is something that my advisor in college used to deplore. All those authors you listed are well worth reading (as well as Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence"), but not particularly what I personally would casually recommend to someone to get started on because they're not particularly works that I enjoy just to pick up and read.

Plato, The Republic

Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

Milton, Paradise Lost

Marlowe, Faust

Shakespeare, Othello, King Lear, MacBeth, As You Like It, the "Henry" tetralogy, (Richard II, Henry IV, Part I, Henry IV, Part II, Henry V, ...

Machiavelli, The Prince

Austen, Emma

Twain, Huckleberry Finn

Wharton, The House of Mirth

Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman

And I have to say that I absolutely abhorred "Great Expectations" in high school to the point where I flat out told my English teacher that I refused to read the second half of it (I still got an "A" in the class). However, I think that if you are going to read it, by all means, do yourself the favor of reading "David Copperfield" first. "Great Expectations" makes much more sense read in light of the previously-written "David Copperfield." By the same token, reading (or watching) Shakespeare's "Henry" plays together greatly, greatly enrichens the total experience.

The singers who took a masterclass conducted by Barbara Cook were told to come prepared with one of his songs because, Ms. Cook said, they were so simple and direct. What she does with these five youngsters is quite remarkable, and she herself is -- as always -- wonderful.

There's no place to hide with a song like "Always," no vocal pyrotechnics or clever wordplay to pull out of the hat, so to speak. Berlin really forces a singer to be honest and sincere, something which Cook really emphasizes in her master classes.

Berlin wrote a some musical shows, but he was one of the few writers who really had significant output on Broadway, in movies, and Tin Pan Alley. Most writers tended to specialize in one form or another, e.g. Rodgers on Broadway, Warren in movies, and Mercer on radio. Personally, I think Berlin's best media tended to be Tin Pan Alley and to a somewhat lesser extent movies. His gift was really having a great ear for turning out a hit song rather than trying to capture a character speaking in a given situation.

I don't know what 'Just one of Those Things' is originally from, though it's easy enough to find out, except that I do know that Frank Sinatra sang it wonderfully as a lounge singer in 'Young at Heart', a film with some original and some old songs.

"Just one of Those Things" was introduced by June Knight and Charles Walters in Cole Porter's "Jubilee." Charles Walters went on to become first a dance director (for films like the film version of "Girl Crazy" referenced above), and then film director for films such as "Good News," "Easter Parade," and "Lilli," but he was first spotted by Hollywood as a potential successor to Astaire.

But it took awhile to remember exactly what struck me in this song as identical (almost) to another: There's a song called 'Who' by Jerome Kern and sung in 'Till the Clouds Roll By' by Judy Garland, which has almost the same rhythmic figure and the melody is not that far off. However, I don't know whether Kern or Porter ran into almost the same thing first.

I'd never noticed that before! "Who?" is from one of the Kern musicals for Marilyn Miller, I think "Sunny." It's definitely the earlier composition. Hammerstein was quoted regarding the trickiness of developing a song around a single word that would be interesting enough to hold attention for such a musical phrase.

I can't believe no one has mentioned Gus van Sant's remake of "Psycho."

The creepiest thing for me about the remake of "Psycho" was that somebody actually thought it was a good idea of reshoot "Psycho" shot for identical shot. When Anne Heche had to hop over the gear shift because there was no bench-seating to slide across (as in the original), it was just far too bizarre.

I think musicals might lend themselves better to remakes because many of the Broadway adaptations were made in a time when dubbed voices and drastically censored musical numbers were the norm. See: Carousel.

I think remakes of musicals are as hit-or-miss as any. For example, I think for all the technological advances and Lana Turner's glamour, the remake of "The Merry Widow" is far, far weaker than the early sound version with Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier directed by Ernst Lubtisch. Lubitsch directed a classic, primitive sound and all.

"Carousel" will be interesting if Hugh Jackman can get it off the ground. It deserves a good film treatment. I liked the reconception that Nicholas Hytner did with the National in London in the 1990's, although it didn't translate well when mounted at Lincoln Center.