Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Elaine Stritch sings “It Amazes Me,” by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh, at a 2005 92nd Street Y tribute to Coleman. She is introduced by Robert Goulet:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“He had that ruthless side without which great affairs cannot be handled.”
Winston Churchill, Great Contemporaries
From 2009:
Read the whole thing here.As the house lights went down just before nine o’clock last night in preparation for the second performance of The Letter, lightning crackled in the distance and dark clouds scudded across the moon that shone down on Santa Fe. Paul Moravec pointed up and said, “Look—it’s just like the first scene of the movie!” And sure enough, it was….
“The Muse of History must not be fastidious. She must see everything, touch everything, and, if possible, smell everything. She need not be afraid that these intimate details will rob her of romance and hero-worship. Recorded trifles and tittle-tattle may—and indeed ought—to wipe out small people. The can have no permanent effect upon those who have held with honour the foremost stations in the greatest storms.”
Winston Churchill, Great Contemporaries
Alfred Hitchcock is interviewed by Huw Wheldon on Monitor. This episode was originally telecast by the BBC on July 5, 1964:
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“The temptation to tell a chief in a great position the things he most likes to hear is one of the commonest explanations of mistaken policy; the outlook of the leader on whose decisions fateful events depend is usually far more sanguine than the brutal facts admit.”
Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1914
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It was after seeing Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!” in 2001 that I decided his “Strictly Ballroom,” the 1992 film that first brought him to the attention of American viewers, had been a one-off fluke. Lovely though “Strictly Ballroom” was and is, nothing that Mr. Luhrmann has done since then has caused me to think otherwise, “Moulin Rouge!” in particular. A pop-music jukebox-musical rewrite of “La Bohème” shot in the style of an octillion-dollar music video, it’s the campiest movie I’ve ever seen—it may well be the campiest movie ever made—and the only thing that I now remember about it with any particular clarity was Jim Broadbent lip-synching “Like a Virgin” in drag. It was thus inevitable that someone would bring it to Broadway, where campy big-budget musicals usually draw a crowd, and that someone turns out to be Alex Timbers, who’s good at going big (the musical version of “Rocky” that he directed in 2014 ended with a total-immersion fight scene of the utmost spectacularity). That doesn’t mean the show itself is any good—it is, in fact, horrible—but it’s definitely big. Every cent of its $28 million budget is visible….
The fundamental problem with “Moulin Rouge!” is that the first act is wholly devoid of feeling. John Logan’s book plays like a college skit, a sneering parody of a 19th-century opera in which a penniless songwriter (Aaron Tveit) and a mustache-twirling malefactor of great wealth (Tam Mutu) compete for the favors of a consumptive courtesan-actress (Karen Olivo) who is the star of the floor show at a Paris nightclub run by a “Cabaret”-type MC (Danny Burstein) who can no longer pay the bills. Only after intermission does “Moulin Rouge!” get serious about the plight of its hero and heroine, and by then it’s too late to make the switch: You’re supposed to be crying, but you’re already used to laughing….
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Read the whole thing here.A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green, a 1979 TV version of their two-person stage revue, originally produced on Broadway in 1958 and revived there in 1977:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)