Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 04:42 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
| In reply to: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). - Delvino 10:45 am EST 12/26/22 | |
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| One thing about the film is that the ending is not really all that hopeful. He is out of work, she is probably going to quit, and do they really have much of a future together? I'm not so sure, and looking at a Wilder bio the other day, I found that he wasn't so sure. It's a sad, sad movie, giving you a happy ending in which you may not quite believe, although there is relief (and it is believable) that Fran is over Sheldrake for good. I think Simon could write great female characters when he focused on them, although not in Lost in Yonkers, which I can't stand. But Karen in "Visitors from Mamaroneck," Evy in The Gingerbread Lady, whom you mention elsewhere, and most of all Kate in Broadway Bound. Arguably even the last lady, Jeanette, in Last of the Red Hot Lovers. I don't know all of Simon's plays, but Corey and Mrs. Banks also seem to me well-written characters, but they are of their time. Indeed, they are probably better-written than the two men opposite them. But I think Simon generally believed in "Write what you know," and he was a man. He knew and understood men. He loved Chekhov but would never have claimed to be on a level with Chekhov. Btw, I was sure I had seen The Apartment on television before I saw Promises, Promises in February 1970. So I searched for info and found it had it been on CBS as early as 1967. It was given two-and-a-half hours, starting at 9 p.m. There may have been a few trims given that the movie is 125 minutes. Also perhaps of interest is that Comden, Green and Styne owned the rights before Merrick did. |
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| re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 08:35 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 08:25 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). - AlanScott 04:42 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
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| Yeah, I’m now wondering if a cut version was originally licensed for television, common practice for both content and time slot with commercials, and, if the stage rights option(s) impacted subsequent showings. After Promises, I longed to see the film, besotted with that score and the show. And characters. Back in the day, my bigger point, we had no VHS, no video rentals, and for many of us, no cable for decades. So I had no way to rediscover the film at will - something we take for granted now! The Apartment is just a wonderful movie, and TCM’s commitment to it as holiday classic (it opened in June and July of 1960!) is fully earned. Lemmon and MacLaine are just superb. I wasn’t raising a body of work issue with Simon and his female characters, as some farther down in this thread are. I’m focusing on a single adaptation and the decision to explore Fran more in her songs than the script. But as I later note, it’s as much a Hal David issue as a Simon one. She’s curiously devoid of comic moments, which isn’t true of MacLaine via Diamond and Wilder. |
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| re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 03:03 am EST 12/27/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). - Delvino 08:25 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
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| I'm not sure that there were licensed versions of classic films shown on TV before cable arrived. I can remember seeing different cut versions of classic films on different networks. A film like the 1935 Captain Blood might be cut to 75 minutes on WGN-TV but then shown on WBBM-TV at 99 minutes. I can also recall seeing two or three distinctly different length versions of the 1937 Lost Horizon, depending on which network was showing it. When VHS tapes arrived, it was often the cut version of classic films like the 1939 Gunga Din that was released initially. Beginning in around 1980 or so when Cinemax debuted, we finally were able to see the uncut 117-minute version of Gunga Din, the 119-minute version of Captain Blood, the 124-minute version of the 1932 Sign of the Cross, and countless others. When I first saw Hitchcock's 1948 The Paradine Case on TV (probably WGN-TV), there were scenes with Charles Coburn and other scenes with Gregory Peck and Ethel Barrymore that are not in the standard 116-minute version shown on TCM and available on DVD and Blu-Ray. The recent Kino Lorber Blu-Ray release advertises itself as the 125-minute version, but in reality it's the same truncated 116-minute print that apparently is the only one in distribution today. |
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| re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 08:57 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). - Delvino 08:25 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
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| I think the ready accessibility of films may sometimes be a factor with stage adaptations not doing well. I need hardly mention the current example. Obviously, sometimes a stage adaptation does well precisely because of people's love for the movie, but perhaps by this point in time, there is no guarantee that a beloved older film, a film loved by boomers and older, will necessarily attract that audience, perhaps in part because some adaptations have been mediocre or worse. It's sometimes hard to remember what it was like when you had to wait for a television showing (unless on PBS, a showing interrupted by commercials, possibly cut, sometimes cut a lot, and sometimes panned-and-scanned), a reissue or a showing at a revival house (if you lived near one) to see a movie you love or to see a classic you had never seen. Was "Tick Tock Goes the Clock" still in the show when you saw it in D.C.? I can't help but suspect that the title "Tick Tock" in Company came from Jonathan Tunick. Changing the subject, even though Some Like It Hot the film was at 38 in the recent Sight and Sound poll, I find that a surprising number of my serious movie-loving friends don't like it a lot. A surprising number find it overrated. Re Simon: I was definitely responding in part to those who replied to you. This came up recently with Plaza Suite. I think Karen is a great character, but it was surprising to me that some critics and audience members liked "Visitor From Mamaroneck" least. If anything, she is so much more interestingly written than Sam that the man's role seems almost thankless (which reverses a bit in "Visitor From Forest Hills"). |
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| “Loyal, Resourceful” was in my program* | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 06:00 pm EST 12/27/22 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 05:44 pm EST 12/27/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). - AlanScott 08:57 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
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| I can’t honestly say if I heard “Our Little Secret” - they inserted slips back then - but I know “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” had just been added in Boston. “…Goes the Clock” was gone. I must try to dig out my Playbill to fully fact check. “Secret” is the only title change I recall when I got the OBC. But forgive my shaky memory - I was 17. *Wikipedia adds “Cooperative” to the title but I swear it was just the first two words. I need that Playbill. Wait, Alan! Ovrtur! UPDATE: “Loyal Resourceful” was the Boston title; no comma. |
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| re: “Loyal, Resourceful” was in my program* | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 09:08 pm EST 12/27/22 | |
| In reply to: “Loyal, Resourceful” was in my program* - Delvino 05:44 pm EST 12/27/22 | |
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| Hey, Delvino. I think ovrtur may be wrong about "Loyal, Resourceful" not having had a comma. I did not input that song list. The Variety song list for Boston opening night has it with a comma. I see that the ovrtur Boston song list must be from late in the Boston run. It's missing several songs in the Variety list. So they must have made cuts and changes very quickly (as used to be common). The Variety list includes two songs I've never heard and I wonder if they were even really in the show on opening night: "Hot Food" and "A Stroke of Luck," in addition to "Loyal, Resourceful" and "Tick Tock Goes the Clock." Interesting that, unlike on Broadway, "Christmas Day" was listed so it must have been a longer number (not a surprise). And a reprise of the title song for Fran at the end, which I suppose is why they recorded Jill O'Hara singing it, which we got on the Kritzerland release. If you find your playbill, let me know if there is a comma. |
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| re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 11:45 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). - AlanScott 08:57 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
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| Count me among those serious movie-lovers who find Some Like It Hot (movie) to be overrated. I think a lot of the comedies given high ranking status are. Tootsie is another, that and SLIH always end up in the top 10, usually at #1 and #2 "best comedy ever made", but I find it overrated. A very good movie, in the comedy category, but one I find more amusing than funny. And not all that exceptional as a movie when put against so many others. And then there's something like Sullivan's Travels which doesn't get nearly enough recognition as one of the great comedy films. |
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| re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 12:06 am EST 12/27/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). - Chazwaza 11:45 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
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| I like "Sullivan's Travels" a lot, and it's a great comedy-drama, but I love even more Preston Sturges" "The Palm Beach Story" and "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek". The first gets you immediately with its fast-paced, rather surreal opening during the titles, and they're off, basically. "Miracle of Morgan's Creek" still is hilarious and incredible how it got made during WWII and got past the censors. Brilliantly indeed. | |
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| Sidebar: before VHS, we relied on revival houses. | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 08:56 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 08:44 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Apartment vs Promises, Promises (longish). - Delvino 08:25 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
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| Seeking The Apartment back in the day, I waited for it to show up at The Circle, DC’s go-to for old movies bring revived. Always in double features. Before I moved to NYC, I recall waiting for The Apartment to surface, to see it with a high school friend also besotted with Promises, Promises. It did turn up once at a Rockville MD drive in, maybe with Some Like it Hot. I couldn’t get there. Now, source material is so readily accessible to study, we forget how dependent we were on older films being available for TV showings. You had to be home the night it was on! And revival houses, bless them. |
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| re: Sidebar: before VHS, we relied on revival houses. | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 09:02 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
| In reply to: Sidebar: before VHS, we relied on revival houses. - Delvino 08:44 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
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| Ah, I said some of the same things in my reply above, before I saw your post. Right, I remember having to try to get home in time to see certain things, not just movies, back in the day. Fortunately for me, I grew up in NYC with its several revival houses, to which I was going from 12 or 13 or so. And sometimes not even revival houses. I think it was in 1971 that the Beekman, generally a first-run theatre, showed a summer festival of the last 10 years of New York Times 10-best films. First time I saw several films. |
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| re: Sidebar: before VHS, we relied on revival houses. | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 12:17 am EST 12/27/22 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 12:15 am EST 12/27/22 | |
| In reply to: re: Sidebar: before VHS, we relied on revival houses. - AlanScott 09:02 pm EST 12/26/22 | |
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| There were network evening showing of some big films during prime time, but as Alan said before, there were possibly lots of cuts. Hell, I even remember there was in NYC a 4:30 p.m. movie that, with commercials, showed "Singin' in the Rain" in a 90 minute time slot -- they practically cut out all of Debbie Reynolds' role! I couldn't really have figured out why it was considered such a classic (other than the title number) until I saw it on the big screen at a revival house. Also, in the late show and late late shows, for the most part, most old movies were from the MGM catalogue, so Judy Garland, Gene Kelly et al. were shown. I don't recall seeing much from Fox, other than Shirley Temple movies, so no real Betty Grable/Alice Faye things (other than Faye co-starring opposite Temple in one) and none of the great Technicolor films. Universal only showed the monster films and Abbott and Costello, but no Deanna Durbin, no Irene Dunne "Show Boat" or Donald O'Connor pre-MGM films, etc. It was really a lot more limited things from various other studios until TCM started on cable. One had to go to revival houses or maybe your college film society would show it, like mine had some rarities I was chomping at the bit to see. |
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