The Impossible Find

I'm gobsmacked that I tracked this down last night...because I had no idea it even existed.

For decades, the only video I ever saw of the original production of Man of La Mancha was Richard Kiley singing "The Impossible Dream" on the Tony Awards.  Well...here, from The Ed Sullivan Show, is...ELEVEN MINUTES of the cast performing a montage from the show!

It includes Richard Kiley, of course, as well as Joan Diener who played Aldonza/Dulcinea, along with Irving Jacobson as Sancha Panza.  There's also brief appearances by Robert Rounseville who played the priest, and Ray Middleton as the tavern owner.  (It's worth noting for historical purposes that Rounseville had starred as Candide in the musical of Candide, and Middleton was the original Frank Butler in the original production of Annie Get Your Gun.)

What's nice about this, too, is that includes a good bit of dialogue, most notably in the opening song when Cervantes is explaining to his fellow prisoners who Don Quixote is, while dressing up to portray the character for them.  The song it leads into ("I, Don Quixote") is a bit trimmed here, but they still have enough.  And the montage ends with the guards of the Inquisition coming into the prison for Cervantes's trial with his servant.

The quality of the video starts how horribly, but you figure it's worth it to see this -- and then seconds later it clears up, and the quality is actually impeccable, which is remarkable for it's age.