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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for August 2019

Hear me talking to you (cont’d)

August 30, 2019 by Terry Teachout

Titus Techera, who hosts a podcast for the American Cinema Foundation on which he and his guests discuss important films of the past and present, invited me back last week for the latest in a series of conversations about film noir and “noir-adjacent” films.

In the latest episode, we discuss Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, written by Robert Towne, scored by Jerry Goldsmith, and starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston (yes, that John Huston). Our hour-long chat is now available on line.

Here’s Titus’ summary of our conversation:

Titus and Terry Teachout discuss Chinatown, a story about the origins of Los Angeles and the doomed attempt to learn the ugly truth about these origins. John Huston plays the grand, corrupt aristocrat, Jack Nicholson the petty, corrupt democrat, and they come to fight over the future of America.

To listen to or download this episode, go here.

Replay: Imogene Coca performs “The Modest Stripper”

August 30, 2019 by Terry Teachout

Imogene Coca performs her “Modest Stripper” routine on Admiral Broadway Revue. This episode was originally telecast simultaneously by NBC and DuMont on March 11, 1949:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Almanac: S.N. Behrman on reading in old age

August 30, 2019 by Terry Teachout

“There is no more painful human illusion than that you can catch up on lost reading in old age. Old age is the busiest of them all. Things you used to do effortlessly take you forever, provided you can do them at all.”

S.N. Behrman, People in a Diary: A Memoir

Almanac: S.N. Behrman on poverty

August 29, 2019 by Terry Teachout

“To be brought up in a poverty-stricken household, to know nothing but poverty in childhood and adolescence, is not so bad while you are enduring it; it is quite tolerable in fact, at least it was in my case. It is in later life that it takes its toll.”

S.N. Behrman, People in a Diary: A Memoir

Snapshot: Ethel Merman sings “There’s No Business Like Show Business”

August 28, 2019 by Terry Teachout

Ethel Merman sings Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (from Annie Get Your Gun) on Shower of Stars. She is introduced by Red Skelton. This episode was originally cast by CBS on January 20, 1955:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Almanac: Siegfried Sassoon on successful writers

August 28, 2019 by Terry Teachout

“‘Isn’t it sad,’ he said, ‘that writers who, in their youth, break their backs to escape the bourgeoisie, end up by imitating them—at least the wealthy ones.’”

Siegfried Sassoon (quoted in S.N. Behrman, People in a Diary: A Memoir)

Lookback: the films I wrote about between 1998 and 2005 that I liked best

August 27, 2019 by Terry Teachout

From 2009:

I wrote about film regularly between 1998 and 2005, and at the end of that time I drew up a double-barreled list of the movies I’d reviewed that I liked best. These were the top twenty….

Read the whole thing here.

Almanac: Rumer Godden on the trouble with frankness

August 27, 2019 by Terry Teachout

“‘It is right,’ said the abbess. ‘It isn’t kind.’”

Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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