dirac

Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea on ABC last weekend in a new high-def version of The Ten Commandments and it looked gorgeous, although unfortunately it wasn't shown in widescreen format.

I don't think most people who use the term in the contemporary sense intend consciously to minimize the plight of the original Luddites. As for Those Who Will Not Tweet, if the shoe fits, you know. Certainly I take the point that not everyone who objects to Bouder's tweets is a Luddite by today's definition, even if I don't understand why the occasional tweet is such an unpardonable form of backstage relaxation. Glamor may or may not be dying, but I doubt if Bouder's mild little tweets will make much difference either way.

That's very nice of you to say, bart, thanks. In retrospect, maybe, but in the context of the film the choreography is so striking and Haney and Fosse display such a sexy cool that everything around them looks rather fusty. They stop the show. (I once saw the movie in a repertory theater and the man behind me said as Haney and Fosse danced, "Wow. Who are they?") I guess since we've mentioned all the other dancers in the number, I might as well note that Bobby Van's partner is Jeanne Coyne, who was to marry Gene Kelly and die untimely, like Haney. And she's very responsive to him as a partner. They're a fine pair.

Vanity Fair cover story, by Laura Jacobs. Hmmm......

There's also the charming Blithe Spirit with Rex Harrison and Margaret Rutherford. Stage Door with Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn is a vast improvement on the Ferber-Kaufman original (in fact the play was more or less tossed out entirely, a great idea as it turned out).

Moore seems like a class act. Very nice gesture.

Thanks for posting, Sandy. Sounds as if it's worth a visit.

Sorry he's gone. Always liked him. Dynasty brought him to a new level of success, and no television veteran deserved it more, I'm sure. Item here. Yes, I remember that well. In September everyone got up. Very silly. Obituary. I also remember Forsythe in Kitten with a Whip, terrorized by juvenile delinquent Ann-Margret.

The dancing is wonderful. I'm not Ann Miller's biggest fan but she's very good in Kiss Me Kate. Normally I find her dancing uninspired and rather mechanical, but maybe the strong dancers around her made for something of a challenge (or somebody used a cattle prod) and she's great. Keel got a lot of Alfred Drake's old roles and although I like Keel a lot it's too bad Drake was never imported to recreate some his stage parts. Out of respect for the recently departed I'll add nothing else to what I said above about Grayson. The movie gets off to a great start and then gets bogged down with those ghastly cutesy gangsters and the guy from Texas (sorry, Quiggin, I find them unwatchable) and then picks up steam again for a fine finish. "From This Moment On" is a great number and it also contains a bit of dance history - the pairs come on in Hermes Pan's good but conventional choreography and then Carol Haney slithers on with Fosse, who was allowed to choreograph his own section, and suddenly the future is here. Especially Rall. Marvelous dancer. Thanks for reviving the thread, miliosr.

Hi, Quiggin, good to hear from you. I think you're right about the music.

Thanks for those photos, richard53dog, and your comments. That's really an amazing head of hair.

You're right about the Russell-Grant version of The Front Page, canbelto, although I have to confess I've never liked the movie, skilled as it is. (Too noisy. Too frantic. All on one note. Those terrible outfits on Rosalind Russell.)

The shower scene in Psycho is so famous that even people who’ve never seen the movie in its entirety have it, or the thought of it, embedded somewhere in their brains. I don’t find Hitchcock his more crudely sadistic mode very appealing or interesting, but there is no doubt of the lasting influence of this movie and Hitchcock’s daring in killing off his heroine so early in the picture, a choice that is shocking for the viewer in more ways than one. I do admire the scenes in which Leigh drives away from Phoenix, loot still in hand but determined to make a change. Even if you’re among the few who doesn’t know that Leigh is about to get killed off Hitchcock’s foreshadowing effects – the driving rain, the sound of the windshield wipers – let you know that all’s not well. I agree.

Kazan certainly made the right choice there, although I think Leigh gave a great if imperfect performance nor can I say that I find the movie particularly stagey; Kazan is able to move around a lot in those confined spaces without drawing too much attention to what he's doing. Of course, staginess can show up in different guises. The Big Revelation Scene with the nun and the pupil's mother in the recent movie version of Doubt wasn't overtly theatrical, but structurally it screamed its stage origins and I found it quite unconvincing. Thanks for that story, bart. I think if you had intervened it might have made for an interesting Living Theatre sort of situation.

And write carefully, as well. I think we are all agreed.

It's a fine line all the same, and I trust people are bearing that in mind as they comment on Bouder's tweets or those of any other dancer.

Mashinka writes: "Opening up" the play can be a tricky business. For some plays it works, for others not so much. Certain plays that depend on a feeling of claustrophobia, where the limitations in space are part of the drama, can suffer. The power of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" was somewhat diluted in the Burton-Taylor movie version by taking the characters away from the house and out and about. (And it becomes even harder to understand why the younger couple don't look at their watches and say, "Oh my, just look at the time! We really must be going!" Onstage you can feel, as they do, that they don't have any option. They're stuck in that house.) Alan Howard is a wonderful actor. I wish he made more movies.

Yes, exactly. Her tweets are just fine.

Possibly a little unrealistic, especially in the theater. Performers do all kinds of things backstage on their breaks and the occasional tweet or e-mail are among the more harmless, I expect. Nureyev was a venturesome fellow and I think he would have checked out the new stuff. I can imagine Nureyev trying to get up the nose of management with a few undiplomatic tweets, complaining about his awful wig for Laurencia, for example.

I think having an American cast did make a difference, mostly for the better, although I had some trouble accepting Swoosie Kurtz as an aristo and Malkovich's diction screams Chicago. One adaptation you don't hear too much about is a Mourning Becomes Electra from 1947, with Rosalind Russell and Michael Redgrave. It's an inert piece of filmmaking but you give them brownie points for trying. Worth checking out. MGM had a go at Strange Interlude with O'Neill's interminable internal monologues done in voice over. Basically this means Norma Shearer and Clark Gable standing around making faces and twitching their eyebrows and it's pretty awful. The fault lay not in the stars, however.

I think it’s good for ballet and ballet dancers to have a presence on Twitter. I don’t think it will bring in hordes of new people but it’s a nice idea all the same. As for tweeting between acts – I don’t see why this necessarily constitutes some sort of major distraction for the dancer. From what I read about Bouder it doesn’t seem to affect her focus at all. I don't see anything to get excited about, really.

I don't think a little candor about ballet life is the end of the world or the art form. Bouder's and Morgan's tweets seem quite harmless. If you don't want to read them you don't have to, and if they attract followers and inspire interest in ballet, that's fine by me. I haven't seen today's front page in print yet but I'm surprised this article made it, even on (I assume) the bottom half of the fold. Well, it is a Monday.

Much depends, of course, on what you mean by ugly. Dancers tend to be on the pretty side, so uggos trying to horn in on Juliet aren’t a major issue in my experience, but even dancers, male and female, who are downright tright plain (I won’t name names for obvious reasons) can make themselves beautiful through theatrical skill and and wonderful dancing. Quite so.

Thanks for posting, Ed. Haven't read much of Tanner since college with the exception of the occasional preface, but he was always a pleasure to read.

Any Italian titles you would recommend, Mashinka? I'm not too familiar with those.