newcritics - Latest Comments in Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

HenryFTP — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:15:14 -0000

And the really cool thing is that the kids are now old enough for Victor, Victoria!

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

tomwatson — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:42:56 -0000

Henry, it really was Julie Andrews' greatest role, I think - Sound of Music be damned. And I add that the fact that my kids (the youngest born in 1992) are huge Julie Andrews fans because of Poppins just bolsters that claim - the thing holds up.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

tomwatson — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:36:15 -0000

Or his blustering soliloquy in song about English manhood as his household falls apart around him: "King Edward's on the throne and it's the age of men." Foreshadowing there of the disaster of war, the new century, too. Oh, it's a great role.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

HenryFTP — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:38:09 -0000

I think Mary Poppins isn't quite as unfaithful to the books as we remember it -- from childhood, I remember it as saccharine-sweet and Van Dyke godawful (why Disney thought they needed a token American when the film was already irretrievably British with Julie Andrews, David Tomlinson, and Glynis Johns, goodness knows). But screening it again as a parent I was really struck by how hard Andrews tried to darken the characterization -- somehow, I think many of us blend her Mary Poppins into her Maria von Trapp (I plead guilty to that anyway), and they're really very different. The other factor is the score by the Shermans, which buzzes through your head even when you wish it didn't, and also lightens up the shadows in the film -- particularly the "Every Day's a Holiday" number, where they make Andrews break character.

Somewhere later in life Rex Harrison acquired a more avuncular image, but there is little doubt from his best performances (Unfaithfully Yours, Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Higgins) that he wonderfully satirizes male narcissism, and it's not just acting. To dump Lilli Palmer and end up with Rachel Roberts, that's got to tell you something about the man.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

nycweboy — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:42:46 -0000

It struck me that although the movie flopped that kind of thinking about how to make a hit movie---pick any five recent hits, take an element from each, this star, that rising starlet, this plot element, that screenwriter---has triumphed to the point that it's become the way most movies are made today.

Well, yes and no - I think to that extent you hit on what's so bad about the big sixties studio pics: no one seems to actually know how to combine elements that actually should be combined (isn't that, really, what you get once Robert Evans and crew take over Paramount? People who actually seem to understand how to package big projects?). Things may be cookie cutter and assembly line these days... but it's not like you have a string of musicals that no one wants to see like they did then (and really, Dolly+Star+On A Clear Day + Dolittle+ Oliver=...no studio musicals for close to twenty years). Even if you argue that it's the comic book movies and the "tent poles" of summer... it seems to me there's a lot they're doing that's better.

And just to follow that point through... really, what did Harrison bring to the screen, ever? I mean yes, McConaghey has his problems, but he is drop dead gorgeous and he's at least charming (I'd point out that Failure To Launch is a better romantic comedy than people give him credit for, and he's really carrying the picture). His problem seems to be choosing bad scripts. Harrison and "appealing" and "box office"? Who ever put those together? I mean, the sixties is chock full of head-scratching choices - set aside the "camp treat" it's become and explain to me who thought that version of Valley of the Dolls was ever worth pursuing - and bizarre castings that are hard to find in modern parallel, when the big problem is casting 22 year olds to play 40. In the old days, after all, wouldn't Meg Ryan still be making romances in her forties, shot through linoleum, pretending to still be a dewy 25 (isn't that what makes her our Doris Day)? Instead she's practically playing grandmothers at 45 (i'm stepping away from the part where she has life threatening surgery to look especially youthful).

I'm leery of saying "everything's just gotten worse" when really, compared to the schizo sixties, we get a lot better, and better made, product these days. Which is proof, I suppose, that it actually could be worse.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

danleo — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:10:41 -0000

Picking up on one the the off-topic subjects, namely the magnificent Oliver Reed, I was remembering a notorious appearance of his on Johnny Carson, and damn if I didn't find it on Youtube:

Enjoy.

I love Youtube.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:02 -0000

And just how did this build on anything Harrison achieved in My Fair Lady

nycweboy, you've hit on something that bothered me throughout the parts of Harris' book on Doctor Dolittle. Why did they keep Harrison? What had them convinced that audiences were clamoring for more of his brand of frigid Englishman? It was as if they were building Doctor Dolittle from a kit and a Rex Harrison was something the instruction manual told them was essential. It struck me that although the movie flopped that kind of thinking about how to make a hit movie---pick any five recent hits, take an element from each, this star, that rising starlet, this plot element, that screenwriter---has triumphed to the point that it's become the way most movies are made today. Why else does Matthew McConnaghey have any sort of a career?

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

nycweboy — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:40:06 -0000

Well, I finally did my part to get to one of these... and everyone's gone to bed. :)

To the extent that I care about sixties films - and largely I don't - I find the dichotomies of the period fascinating. The "new realism", the bloated overlong establishment pictures (I mean, Dolittle's got nothing on the huge bloated hash of Hello Dolly, or Cleopatra... it's actually kind of small in that league)... the schizophrenic nature of the era still leaves me reeling.

Siren mentions the whole question of bloated sixties musicals, and mentions Star!, which I happen to own, mostly for that giant, strange number in which everything is like a circus of trapezes and tightropes and it's a Noel Coward song, I think, or a Gershwin one, and it's lovely, and Andrews, God love her, makes it work (which, along with having seen Darling Lili and the famous breast baring, leads right to SOB). I'm meandering, but it's the very idea of Dolittle as a musical that's so gobsmackingly obtuse... really, who thought a string of patter songs was a good idea? And just how did this build on anything Harrison achieved in My Fair Lady (which, by the way, is its own bloated mess... but never mind)? And Leslie Bricusse??? Seriously???

Yet, there it is, trundling along at a snail's pace, full of amazingly stupid, offensive (Geoffrey Holder! Jesus!) images, never ending... and there it sits, with multiple Oscar nods because... it's big, it's studio... and they have clout. One could, I suppose, generously argue that Fleischer's done as much as he could with the fantasy elements (though, God knows, this film actually has me reconsidering Eddie Murphy's version, CGI and "human talk" animals and all... it's genius compared to the original, I now see). for that period, but... that's about it.

And by the way, Newley is fabulously miscast - that drunken Irishman on the make thing he's got going is fabulously inappropriate from minute 1 (or is it minute 10, given the bloated credit sequence), and never gets any better. And as much as I can imagine what a cocktail party the set was (what intrigues me about the Rachel Roberts tale is not her crazy behavior but that she's alienating Tennessee Williams!), that's cold comfort for having that film inflicted on me. Ouch it smarts. :)

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:37:34 -0000

Here's the imdb link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073480/

Some intriguing pictures of Newley as Quilp.

Had a good cast. David Warner as Sampson Brass was a good choice. Michael Horden as Nell's grandfather also good. David Hemmings was a little too old for Dick Swiveller at that point though.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:31:18 -0000

What was fascinating to me as I read Harris' book was how it was clear Dolittle was going to be a disaster from the very beginning and fate kept handing the younger Zanuck chances to back out or shut down at every turn. I kept screaming in my head, Don't do it! Quit now! Let it go! But they kept at it, knowing they were headed off a cliff.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:27:39 -0000

Yep. Thank you once again, imdb. It was called Quilp! Anybody ever see it?

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

taoneill — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:26:35 -0000

1975 - it must have been awful.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:20:18 -0000

To combine the subjects of Newley and movie musicals based on Dickens, didn't Newley star in a musical version of The Old Curiosity Shop?

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

klg19 — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:18:51 -0000

Yes, I bought those editions for my nephews.

Of course, the story "Bad Tuesday," in the first book, was rewritten by Travers in the 1970s, replacing the racist stereotypes with animals. So the purist needs to buy the earlier editions.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:16:44 -0000

The Assassination Bureau's been rising in my netflix queue. I can't wait. I'll let you know when it's about to ship.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:14:56 -0000

All the Poppins books were reissued in very nice paperback editions about 10 years ago. They're still in print. So I guess American kids are still reading them.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:12:38 -0000

Goodnight C, thanks for trying.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:11:24 -0000

My world was calm, well ordered, exemplary
Then came this person, with chaos in her wake
And now my life's ambitions go with one fell blow
It's quite a bitter pill to take

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:10:47 -0000

A man has dreams of walking with giants
To carve his niche in the edifice of time
Before the mortar of his zeal
Has a chance to congeal
The cup is dashed from his lips
The flame is snuffed aborning
He's brought to rack and ruin in his prime

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:09:53 -0000

And that lonely walk he takes down Cherry Tree Lane when he knows he's heading out to get fired....breaks my heart.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Campaspe — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:08:13 -0000

Well, I did my best by the Doctor but now it's time to turn in. Night, all. Don't forget to feed the animals, if you've got 'em.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

klg19 — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:07:15 -0000

Not so much scary, as intimidating.

I don't know what the books are like if read for the first time as an adult. But I first read them when I was in the single digits, and they became sacred texts of escape for me. Clearly, no movie version would have made me happy, but making them sappy and cheerful was not likely to make me happy.

And they're very, very English.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Campaspe — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:06:35 -0000

I am about to turn in, but I have to applaud you for also knowing and loving The Assassination Bureau. Very sexy movie and a lot of fun.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

Mannion — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:06:30 -0000

I love his duet with Van Dyke after the sweeps leave.

Re: Squeaking and sqawking with the animals

klg19 — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:04:53 -0000

No, I don't think you could. Not for an American audience, anyway. "Nanny McPhee" came close, but still needed to make McPhee loveable by the end.