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| Funny you should mention JUMBO… | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 05:10 pm EST 12/30/22 | |
| In reply to: re: Any chance to see JUMBO revived? - castro 12:21 pm EST 12/30/22 | |
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| I spent years doing 1930s research—especially Larry Hart material—for my time travel novel, BROADWAY REVIVAL. And I started putting some of that to use in a nonfiction survey of the 1935-36 season (plays and musicals)…except the JUMBO chapter ballooned to 20,000 words. So now I’m doing a JUMBO book, it’s currently at 40,000 words. As said above, the Durante material was specifically tailored for him, and might sound odd to modern audiences. The book by Hecht and MacArthur was thin to begin with, and got cut even further by Billy Rose in favor of more and more circus/vaudeville acts. I have been exhaustively delving into iron-jaw artists, the “wingless Pegasus” named Doheos; Josie DeMott, a Barnum legend (and suffragette!) returning to the ring at 67; Nagafy the fire-eater; Charles De Camo and his brilliant dog, Cora; Jim Mandy, the man with the iron skull…and so many more! Laura in LA, still stuck in the thirties |
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| The Jumbo Fire Chief Radio Show | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 05:31 pm EST 12/30/22 | |
| In reply to: Funny you should mention JUMBO… - showtunetrivia 05:10 pm EST 12/30/22 | |
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| If you want a genuine taste of what Durante’s character “Brainy” the press agent was like, JUMBO was the first musical to have a concurrent radio show, with pretty much the same plot used each week, kind of paralleling the plot of the show. The offspring of two rival circuses are in love; her dad’s circus is in dire financial straits; Brainy, his press agent, tries schemes to help, but generally makes things worse. But you do get a lot of the songs, and Durante doing Texaco commercials as Brainy. The movie, made nearly thirty years later, had Durante (now playing the dad-circus owner), an elephant named Jumbo, and only two lines from the original script: “Where are you going with that elephant?” “What elephant?” Laura in LA, who has listened to every single one of these episodes for her sins….twice |
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| Link | Jumbo Fire Chief Radio Show |
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