Stream of Consciousness

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga

This morning I was sitting at a table in the Starbucks on 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens. I had a large Earl Grey tea and after gong through my phone for any hellish news or interesting updates on the cultural scene, I was reading Conversations with Pauline Kael. (Yesterday I went to the 100 Years of the New Yorker exhibit at the Public Library with the lions and there was not a mention of her, one of the magazine's most influential critics and perhaps the most influential film critic ever.) Two guys sat at the next table. They were in work clothes with hard hats and seemed to be killing time. One had his phone out and was listening at full volume to some reality true-crime show about a dog cleverly pretending to play dead and then springing to life in order to save its young mistress from a kidnapper.

The loud video didn't bother me. We were in a public space. Last week, I was furious over a similar but different situation while attending an Off-Broadway theater. The young woman diagonally in front of me was continually taking pictures with her phone of the show which was about Sumo wrestlers. She was snapping a series of pix during a climatic and colorful Sumo match. It was getting distracting. Finally, I leaned way over to my left, tapped her on the shoulder and fiercely whispered, "Would you please stop that?" She put the phone away and it did not appear for the rest of the show. I think that sort of thing is happening more and more. Younger people feel no compunction about whipping out their phones at a movie or play and taking photos. It may be the craze to broadcast that they've been somewhere and want to comment on it or preserve the experience.

After I finished my tea, I moved over to a counter because I wanted to finish one of the interviews with Kael and I didn't want to listen to any more about the brave and clever dog. The Musak was playing a duet between Tony Bennet and Lady Gaga. At least I think it was Lady Gaga. I can't tell who she is. Her voice could be anybody's and her personal style is gowns, make-up and hair in the mode of Hollywood's Golden Era. But it's all exterior. There is no her. Her name is a confection, her exterior is a cartoon. There is no one like Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Amy Winehouse. But Gaga is everyone and therefore she is no one. 

"Lose That Long Face" from A Star Is Born

That made me think about the various iterations of A Star Is Born. Except for the first actress to play the lead, Janet Gaynor, the role was been essayed by the leading musical star of her generation--Garland, Streisand, and Gaga. The Garland version is my favorite, but its original three-hour cut was butchered by Warners Brothers to fit in more screenings so the studio could make back its investment. Some of the cuts made sense and did not hurt the resultant released version. The scenes with James Mason losing track of Judy after he has promised her a job at his studio were ok to go. But the excised segment that kills me is the "Lose That Long Face" number. The point is to contrast an "up" elaborate song full of crowds of tap-dancing extras with Vicki Lester's heart-wrenching despair over her husband's (Mason's) alcoholism. It still works because we only see Judy as Vicki delivering an impassioned speech to the studio boss (Charles Bickford) and then turn on the pizzazz like a light switch for the finale. But the number itself is sheer joy. I love Harold Arlen's bouncy tune and Ira Gershwin's intricate lyrics. I've been watching the extended, restored version on YouTube over and over again. Something just goes through me when Judy gets to the climactic "Don't give in....to that frown/Turn that frown uuuuuupside down!" She and the two kids who tap dance with her are in red to stand out from the pale blue of the set and the costumes of the extras. Everything works.

I finished reading the chapter of Kael interviews and then went to Blink Fitness.

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 40: The Specials

Before, during and after her variety series, Carol headlined a series of specials available as bonus features on DVD collections or on YouTube.

Carol + 2

March 22, 1966: Lucille Ball, Zero Mostel

(Released on DVD on Carol +2: The Original Queens of Comedy, and as a Special Bonus Feature on The Carol Burnett Show: The Lost Episodes Box Set)

Lucy and Carol in the
Chutzpah musical number
in Carol + 2

This is sort of a pilot that CBS ran to see if Carol could carry a hour-long variety show but they insisted she have two top-tier guest stars to guarantee big ratings. Lucy was under contract to CBS to do at least a few specials in addition to her regular series The Lucy Show. Mostel had starred on Broadway and won Tonys for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Fiddler on the Roof, and the film of Forum was out this year. 

The hour begins with weird, mechanical music (it sounds like a 1960s idea of a computer spinning its tapes) and an announcer introducing the three principals as the camera zooms in on giant caricatures of each. Carol enters and lavishly praises her two guests. Like a bull or rhinoceros in a china shop, Zero breaks up the pleasantries by saying these self-congratulatory intros are ridiculous (Zero played a man who turns into a rhino in Ionesco's play). What if plumbers behaved the same way ("Oh, Irving what a lovely wrench. Is that a new plunger?") He suggests they shut up and get to work.

The first sketch features Carol and Zero as a bickering couple celebrating their tenth anniversary who rediscover their passion for each other when it seems they've never been legally married. The two master comics milk the physical and facial gestures for all they're worth. Zero's face changes from a blank stare to a devilish leer as he realizes his wife is now a single girl and the audience applauds. Carol is equally exaggerated in her horny reactions to Zero's offstage singing of love songs as she dons a revealing negligee. After the sketch, Carol sings in her character, "You're My Reason" written by MItzi Welch to a sleeping Zero. 

In "Goodbye Baby," Lucille and Carol are sisters quarreling over Carol's baby. Lucy urgently needs to catch a bus, but Carol strongly insists she not leave until the infant says goodbye. Zero then recreates his performance as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof with "If I Were a Rich Man." After a commercial break (you can see the commercials on YouTube), there's a brief sketch with Zero as a psychiatrist listening to Carol describe her brother who thinks he's a frog. Carol scratches her nose and Zero writes it down as a nervous tic. The central joke is Carol then spending the rest of the scene desperately trying not to scratch her nose, turning pratfalls and falling off the couch. Carol next sings a slow ballad version of "Wait Til the Sun Shines, Nelly." The set-up is she's a wardrobe mistress named Nelly in one of Hugh Hefner's Bunny Clubs, warbling of her thwarted attempts at romance with Zero as the club's bartender. Bunny clubs were exploitative nightclubs with women in skimpy outfits and rabbits ears serving drinks to sloshed tired businessmen.

The hour concludes with Carol and Lucy as cleaning ladies pretending to be show-biz big shots as they dust, mop and collect half-finished cigarettes at the William Morris Agency. When Carol doubts her illusions, Lucy peps her up with the specialty number "Chutzpah" by Ken Welch which sounds a lot like "Hey, Look Me Over" from Lucy's Broadway show Wildcat. The choreography is energetic and the two look like they're having fun. Before the end, Carol pitches sponsor American Motors' safety record. We get a second of Carol saying good night to the studio audience and asking them to watch the show when it's on the air to up the ratings.

The DVD Original Queens of Comedy also includes the 1972 version of Carol in Once Upon a Mattress, the 1959 musical fairy tale which made her a star on and Off-Broadway. I'll cover that show along with the other two televised versions in a later blog post.