For the Holiday Music Fest tonight, we have a lovely song that most definitely is largely unknown for a very good reason. It was cut from the film and has been lost for over 20 years. The song is "When Love is Gone," for The Muppet Christmas Carol. It was sung by Meredith Braun, who was appearing in Les Miserables in London at the time, and... Michael Caine. Yes, Michael Caine. She plays Scrooge's lost love Belle, and Caine as Scrooge comes upon her with the Ghost of Christmas Past. Director Brian Henson loved the song, as did the songwriters Paul Goodman and Miles Goodman -- as well as Caine. The issue was that executive Jeffrey Katzenberg thought that test screenings were showing that kids in the audience were getting antsy by the mature ballad. He didn't require Henson to cut it, but made a strong case, and so Henson reluctantly agreed. And so, the song was dropped from the 1992 film. Because of his love of the song, director Henson put it back in for the 2002 VHS release. But it's that pesky "VHS" that caused the next problem. Because when DVDs came along, the negative for the song was lost, and so it couldn't be added into the new DVD release. And so hasn't been seen since. Every six months or so, Henson said that he'd ask about the footage and even put together a task force of sorts to find it, but with no luck. The film was recently being remastered for re-release in 4K. And Henson showed up for a screening. It turns out that the technicians hid something from him. As he told BBC News, "I went down and they said, ‘But before we show it to you, we’ve got something else we want to show you.’ And they put up reel four of Christmas Carol with ‘When Love Is Gone,’” I was like, ‘No, you did not!’ and they said, ‘Yes we did! We found it!’ I was so happy, I was so happy.” The scene is also included in the "full extended cut" option in the Extras section for the movie on Disney Plus. And so finally, after 21 years since the VHS release -- and 31 years since the feature film was show in theaters -- "When Love is Gone" will be back in the movie. Here is the scene and song.
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No, that's not just a holiday greeting, but something else entirely. Let me explain... My Holiday Music Fest postings have made me think of one of my favorite, little-known holiday movies which I figured I should mention, giving folks time to perhaps get it from Netflix or whatever online service you subscribe to before the season is out. Though it's great any time of the year. It's a foreign language film, Joyeux Noel, which was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2005. Honestly, I thought it should have won, but the Oscar that year went to a South African movie, Tsotsi. That was quite good, but for my own taste Joyeux Noel stood hand-over-fist better. Tsotsi told an important story, in an important country at an important time in its history. And it told it well. But Joyeux Noel was just...joyous. And wonderful. It tells a fictionalized version of a story you may have heard -- how in World War I, four armies faced each other on Christmas Eve, ready for battle, but among themselves decided to call a truce for that one night. The movie isn't just "feel good," there's a great deal of drama and intense tension, and it's all told superbly. It was also the first movie I'd seen Diane Kruger in, though I didn't realize it at the time, since she wasn't a well-known star in the U.S. then. She plays an opera singer, and interestingly he singing is dubbed by someone who was one of my folks very favorite, Natalie Dessay. (I should note for those wary of foreign language films that one of the armies at a crossroads is British, so a good part of the movie is in English.) Here's the trailer. It doesn't give a sense of the rich, tense drama at stake and tends more to focus on the warmth. But you should get a sense of it all, most especially how extremely well-crafted it is. By the way, here's a link to it on Amazon Prime, by clicking here. You'll note that it has four stars -- and a 7.8 rating on iMDB. On Rotten Tomatoes, the critic rating is a high 74%...but the audience rating is 89%. So I'm not alone on this... We have a longer version of the Fest today. Bear with me a bit and let me explain. I've posted this all before and I find it a fun story of sorts to repeat. When the movie musical Scrooge was released in 1970, I remember reading an article about the film's composer-lyricist-screenwriter (and executive producer) Leslie Bricusse (who earlier had teamed with Anthony Newley to write the stage musicals Stop the World - I Want to Get Off and The Roar of the Greasepaint - the Smell of the Crowd, and the next year would write the score to the movie musical Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory). In the piece, Bricusse said that they'd done research and discovered that among all the Christmas carols written, there had never been one actually titled, "A Christmas Carol." So, he wrote one, which begins the film over the wonderful opening credits by the great artist, Ronald Searle (who also did the credits for, among other films, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.) I mention all this, though, for a specific reason. Bear with me. Here's that song first, however, and those wonderful opening credits. As I said, I mentioned all of that above for another reason entirely. It's that as good a film as Scrooge is, Bricusse's research staff was lousy. Because 14 years before, in 1956, there was a live TV musical version of A Christmas Carol that was called The Stingiest Man in Town and starred the legendary film actor, best known as playing Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone as Scrooge. And the very first song in the show was called -- yes, you guessed it -- "A Christmas Carol." The music for the show was written by Fred Spielman, with lyrics by Janice Torre. It's not remotely distinguished or memorable, but has quite a few very nice things in it. And there, right at the top, first thing, is a song, "A Christmas Carol." A live musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol on American television doesn't seem like a terribly challenging thing to track down for a research staff working on a movie musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol. So, continuing our holiday theme of unknown Christmas songs from musicals, here is the earlier song, "A Christmas Carol," sung by The Four Lads. It's short, less than a minute, but whatever its length the name of the song is "A Christmas Carol." That the researchers couldn't find. But we think you fine folks deserve better... Which is why this also isn't the end of the post here. Because there's another one coming. And it's a joy. But here's that other song first -- Note: Though the person posting this put up a screen shot that say's "A Christmas Carol," it is from The Stingiest Man in Town. And yes, there's more... In 1959, which is only 11 years before the movie musical Scrooge was made (and three years after the TV musical above), the wonderful Tom Lehrer released his classic comedy album, An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer -- which included a song titled...yes, you guessed it -- "A Christmas Carol." And again, Tom Lehrer was not remotely an unknown entertainer and songwriter. It fact, as popular as An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer was when it was released, he was probably around the height of his popularity in 1970 when the film Scrooge hit the theaters. His huge hit album, That Was the Year That Was had been released in 1965, only five years before Scrooge. So, how on earth those researchers missed these two songs -- and for all I know there are more, and even high-profile ones -- I have no idea. Happily, we have this song to enjoy, as well... On this week’s Naked Lunch podcast, hosts Phil Rosenthal and David Wild take a slight detour. As they write, “Phil & David reveal their favorite movies ever with you and with each other. Who's still in love with Mary Poppins and hyperventilated when they actually met Julie Andrews? Who secretly dreams of Local Hero -- the ultimate movie about the romance of travel? Who was so profoundly scared of Jaws that he was afraid not just to go to the beach, but also go to the bathroom? How did The Graduate seduce both Phil & David? And who's a bigger believer in Pulp Fiction -- Phil or David? Find out all these answers and more right here --- and get ready for the inevitable sequel coming soon!”
There's a point to this. Not a significant point, mind you, but a point, nonetheless. So, bear with me. I've always liked the TV series Mission: Impossible. Since a kid and even now, when reruns are shown on cable. (I’m selective – there are some episodes I didn’t care for, so I pass those by. The ones I like the most are when they do a "simulation" to trick their target. My favorite is an episode where they make a guy think he’s on a submarine in order to get him to give up key information, when in fact they’ve just recreated it all in a warehouse.) That said, I hate the movies. In fairness, I’ve only seen the first one, but I hated it so much, ripping the guts out of the point and core of the TV series, out of pure hubris, that I was so offended I haven’t had wanted to watch the others. But the TV series was and remains a joy. My love for the show even helped on a PR job I had. I was the unit publicist on an awful, violent movie, The Hitcher, in which Jennifer Jason Leigh was the female lead. We got along well, but she was very shy and quiet. When I was interviewing her for her bio in the presskit, she mentioned her step-father being Reza Badiyi. “Oh,” I said, “Didn’t he direct a lot of episodes of Mission: Impossible?” Jennifer stopped and just stared at me – “How did you know that????” she almost sputtered. Well, I’d watched the show all the time as a kid, I explained, and he directed a lot of episodes (18, it turned out) and he had a name that caught the attention of a kid and was hard to forget. I think she may have said that I was the first person she’d met on a movie who actually knew of him. (Their loss, by the way -- Reza Badiyi had a long, 40-year career directing, up to 2006 when he directed the feature film, The Way Back Home with Julie Harris and Ruby Dee.) Anyway, it was a nice, added movie-set connection to make, which is particularly important for a unit publicist, since they’re usually very low on a movie’s totem pole of stature. All thanks to loving the Mission: Impossible series. (Side Note: I tell some other tales about working on The Hitcher, including a couple of nice, amusing ones about Jennifer in this article here. But I digress… All of this aside, the point here is about one thing that has always struck me as weird and totally unbelievable about Mission: Impossible. And that’s saying a ton, given the premise of the show and that each week they pull off a mission that is…impossible. However, viewers always accepted those weekly, monumentally-convoluted tricks that often stretched credibility (to the point, every once in a while, that brought about eye-rolling), but because they were pulled off with clever writing and great Impossible Mission Force skill, they landed on the good side of acceptable. But not this one thing. At the beginning of every show – at least in the earlier years – the team leader (first Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill who later was the first D.A. on Law & Order, and then Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves) would go through his IMF portfolio, decided which agents he wanted to join him on that week’s specific mission. And the ones he wanted, he’d toss their photo in a pile. There was character actor Rollin Hand (“Man of a Million Faces,” his 8x10 actor’s glossy photo said, “World’s Greatest Impersonator”), electronics whiz Barney Collier and strong man Willy Armitage. (I’m guessing not many people know Barney and Willy’s last name. But them up there alongside Reza Badiyi.) And then also, there was Cinnamon Carter, played by Barbara Bain. Her photo was a magazine cover for a glamour magazine that said “Model of the Year.” And that’s where I always got stumped. Here was this attractive woman – who not only was a cover model, and not only a famous cover model, but one so famous that she was the Model of the Year!!! And…and…and No One in the Entire World Ever Recognized Her!!! (The team often had missions in Europe and South America.) Forget that no one ever knew her name, the Model of the Year – forget even that on that “Model of the Year” cover it had her name -- but no one in the series ever stopped her and said, “Hey, you look familiar. How do I know you?? Are you famous?” No one – and I don’t even mean the targets that she was thrown into close confines to trick each week, but I mean even people on the street or in restaurants or store who would regularly pass by her and say, “Wait, I know you!! You’re that lady on the magazines!” No one even ever did a double-take when seeing the Model of the Year right in front of them. It's like, for that era, being the target of a spy mission, and the woman trying to con you is Twiggy or Cheryl Tiegs or Lauren Hutton or Jean Shrimpton or Grace Jones. Or today, Christie Brinkley, Cindy Crawford, Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks, Gigi Hadid or Gisele Bündchen -- and no one in the entire world for four years even recognizes that she might look familiar...!!! I’m sorry, that was just a bridge too far for me. I never have been able to believe it that Cinnamon Carter, Model of the Year was never recognized. On occasion, sure, I could accept it like when on a mission in a small far-Eastern European country or a South American country that generally had a name like San Cristobal, or when she was made up to look like an old woman, but not recognized over the 78 episodes she was in – not once. I almost, sort of have the same issue with Martin Landau as Rollin Hand, who was an actor and apparently a successful one. But because he was a character actor who could sublimate himself into secondary roles – and of course because often he’d create a perfect mask so that he could look like someone else, generally played by someone else -- that, at least, had an aspect of the "willing suspension of disbelief,” where you could accept, “Okay, his career is looking like other people, he’s the Man of a Million Faces, after all. The World’s Greatest Impersonator.” But not the Model of the Year the point of whose career was the exact opposite – making herself as attractive as possible and ensuring that you see her, stare at her, are enthralled by her jammed in your face on magazine covers. Okay, yes, it’s a small thing in the great scheme of things. But in the world of famous TV series that one loves and has watched for decades, it’s worthy of being bugged by. And for all the absolutely unbelievable things on a show about “the impossible,” it’s the one thing I just don’t and have never bought. Last week, I saw a surprisingly very good movie that (finally) began streaming on Hulu. (I’d been waiting for it since it was released over a year ago.) It’s called Somewhere in Queens – and the reason it’s surprising is because it’s directed and co-written by Ray Romano, who also stars in it. I’d heard praise for it over a year ago, because (as readers here well-know...) I listen to the wonderful Naked Lunch podcast that Phil Rosenthal co-hosts -- and who co-created with Ray Romano the series Everybody Loves Raymond -- and he’s talked about it with great pride and admiration, and also had Romano on as a guest, as well as the TV series' co-star Brad Garrett who is so humorously snarky about everything, but was raving about the movie – so, I’ve been waiting and waiting for it to stream. And finally it has. There’s a lot that’s funny in the movie, but mainly it’s actually a drama, at times even serious and even a bit edgy, but not uncomfortably so, in that it always has a good heart. He’s very good in it, too, and Laurie Metcalf as his wife is wonderful, in a very tough role. It's a role that could be played so many different ways, and almost all of them wrong. But she dove deep into it and got it all spot on. In fact, everyone is wonderful in it, each of them having edges to who they are. As a director, Romano he got excellent performances from everyone. (A nice, small performance by Tony LoBianco stands out, as does an important role by a young actress Sadie Stanley.) And it’s very well-written and quite nicely directed, filled with nuance. It’s about a large, multi-generational, slightly-dysfunctional Italian-American family, and the put-upon father in the middle who wants a better life for his son. And it’s got a hilarious last line of which I want to say so much more, but I won't. For what it’s worth, It has a 91% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 92% audience rating, so it’s not just me who liked it. In fact, I recommended it to a friend in the Academy who I wasn’t sure would like it, it didn't seem like it was necessarily his kind of movie, though I thought it possible he might. So, I risked telling him about it. He watched the movie the next day...and wrote back -- “Thanks for recommending Somewhere in Queens. I loved it. A true surprise. Romano has far more range and nuance as a filmmaker than I expected. I watched it on Hulu, but I now see it's on the Academy site, too, so I'm glad the distributor is supporting it. Yes, Lori Metcalfe was astounding. They all shined, but she made that character so distinctive. And yes, you’re right -- the perfect fadeout line.” Here's the trailer. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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